You folks all take yourselves – and this blog stuff – far too seriously. Get a life. Oh well. Poking sticks at the animals in the cage is no longer entertaining….

AKA “childish whining”.

I feel bad for Lurker, who is forced by some bizarre compulsion to read all material in a publication. The rest of us don’t understand that sort of pain because we are capable of reading headlines and skipping articles that don’t sound interesting.

Ok, everyone remove their pocket protectors, dental retainers, and other sharp geek appendages and lets all have a group hug in support of Phil and celebrate our geekiness. Contrarian opinions are hereby forbidden.

Epic fail.

Contrapuntal, however, is a real possibility.

Gary 7(aka a jazz percussionist)

To eat and live spiritually (allow me this apt christian image) plain astronomy can do. It’s Doctor Who, Torchwood, StarTrek, Firefly… that makes life *spiritual* in a way true astronomers know how to appreciate.

Phil, like no other, is a master chef, and in the image of Celtic_Evolution above, a master decorator of his house, where we are guests who love or leave.

This is a serious blog with some non-serious posts. It IS Phil’s blog (please don’t anyone call him “Dr. Phil”!), and it’s not really about astronomy, per se. It’s about science, truth, and science fiction, as well as Phil’s opinions on whatever he wants to write about. And those of us who have been around him for a while (~48 years, in my case) know that Phil can’t be totally serious for more than a few minutes at a time. He deals with people who are a bit loony (sorry about the name calling) or have their own agendas that are hazardous, even toxic. If you take those people too seriously, your head will explode.

I understand that you are looking for more science content, but DM knew what they were buying, and who the audience was/is. Don’t rile the animals just because you are unhappy. You aren’t going to change the blog content, no matter what you say.

If you aren’t happy with this blog, just ignore it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p36YMOB8wq0

Oh, yeah, and you don’t have to look unless you want to. It looks like you do read the rest of the articles, and spend time whining about it. I don’t understand why people whine so much. I don’t watch Doctor Who, I can tell in about one second if an article is about that, so I move on to something I like (which is just about everything else because Phil is so awesome).

@Amos Kenigsberg ~
Seriously, SMART MOVE!!! It’s actually really bad for me because I already read all of Phil’s stuff, but now I end up on the rest of the site and can’t seem to stop reading! This is a good thing, I’m sure a good deal of the people who read Phil’s blog have been dong the same thing. Science is awesome!!

Phil Plait has been writing about stuff from super nova events to the Mars projects to debunking the “moon landing was a hoax” people to T.V. and movie reviews( that includes the pointing out of both good and bad science), and much more for a long time. And even tho I’m not a fan of Dr. Who, I do enjoy Mr. Plaits enthusiasm(sp?) for it and reading his comments. It’s nice to see that A big shot professional astronomer enjoys some of the same stuff little ol’ me does.

for Lurker, if you haven’t read the BAblog before that’s fine. It just means you don’t know what you are talking about in the context of this blog. If you have read his blog before then you know what he writes about and should have left the site a long time ago if you didn’t enjoy it.

Um… I didn’t get it either. Was there something to get?

You are right though: there are other websites that take the science much more seriously – as this magazine once did. Oh well, it is their website to throw away.

As for the Comic con joke about trolls – everyone got it – except (apparently) you

I get asked from time to time, why I write certain article on my own blog. Whether someone’s blog is big like Phil’s or small like mine, that quote above really sums up what any blog is all about. Anyone who doesn’t understand that really doesn’t understand blogs.

I’ll be happy to mock your religious beliefs if you like.

Here’s a thought. If a post is off-topic to your own definitions of what *my* blog should be, then don’t read those posts. I don’t think it’s that big a drain on your time to look over the categories a post is listed under.

I will continue to write what I feel like writing. Since the very day I started it 15 years ago, my site has been about critical thinking as well as astronomy. The other posts (Doctor Who et al) are a fraction of the science/skepticism posts.

As far as worrying about offending people who attend Comic Con… nope. If you are offended, that’s not my problem. It’s yours. Don’t go to my panel. Don’t read my blog. Find some other blog that is all astronomy all the time. You have dozens to choose from.

I cannot please everyone, so I don’t try. I write to please myself, and I have found over the years that a whole lot of other folks like it that way. Those who don’t tend to go away. That way, everyone is happy.

I’m not considering replying to you as “feeding the trolls” because I don’t consider you on the same plane at this point with Lurker #1, based on your commentary. Nor do I care to argue a trivial point with you beyond this point… all I will point out, in my defense, is that I took your comment: “that’s not enough for me to spend my limited blog-reading time for content I value less and less”, and interpreted it in a shortened form as “that’s not enough for me to waste my time here”. I think it was reasonable to infer my interpretation from your comment… however if that was not your meaning, I apologize and retract my characterization of your post.

You misinterpreted by claiming I posted comments that stated I felt I was wasting time here, when I never expressed such a sentiment. The fact that I respond to your line of questioning, and take other people’s comments into consideration shows that I do not “fail to understand the purpose of a ‘Blog’”. I am a “lurker” because by the time I read most of the articles and comments, there isn’t much to add. I have no need to see my name in print, or get into yet another Internet flamewar. This case was different. I saw the original “Lurker” comment, and I chose to express support for an idea that apparently doesn’t have much popularity here, if it had any influence at all to Phil and his editorial decisions.