Hey folks-
I just got back from a talk in Arkansas, so I haven’t been able to work on the blog. I know the font is weird; I’ll work with DM to get that fixed ASAP. Also, I know about the horoscope ads (and now that I’ve used that word, they’ll appear on this entry as well no doubt). Again, I’ll get this fixed. Sorry about any woes. I have a long list of tweaks that I want to get done this week, so please be patient. This was a major move and will take a while to iron out the problems.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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July 8th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Horoscope ads? Not with an Ad-blocker in Firefox.
BTW, Richard Saunders was on The One last night. Poor Richard. Lots of shots of Richard looking bemused and incredulous with not much chance to explain or question anything. Especially during the cold-reading segment which pretty much went through without negative comment. The big test for the evening was hiding a kid in the bush, give the psychics a map and and item belonging to the kid and then the psychic had to find the kid in 15 minutes.
SPOILER ALERT….
2 found the kid, 4 went reasonably close to where the kid was and 1 was right off. Funny that the kid seemed to be hidden by a large rocky outcrop that all the psychics seemed to have been drawn to…
The psychitards did look hilarious running through the bush though.
July 8th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
Hey! The font may be a little off but the ads are hilarious and give us even more targets to fire our skeptic wrath at. These are all minor niggles and easily ignored. As long as you keep blogging with your usual style, humour and intelligence, we will keep reading
July 8th, 2008 at 10:57 pm
I’m getting Doctor Who ringtone ads… no complaints here, ha.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
DM : Dungeon Master?
i don’t know you ARE going to comic-con after all…
July 8th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Looks like more spam getting through on older posts too. Unless Navada Gaming and Nude Beyonce really do think that your last comment had merit and this is a nice site…
July 9th, 2008 at 12:11 am
What ads? [AdBlock Plus rocks!]
July 9th, 2008 at 12:23 am
Don’t get any adds here, except the lead-off expected ones. Ie, no pop-ups or crap that’s in the main focus area of conversation. That’s the point or I would think should be. Are others not dealing with major crap? Firefox is fine for me. I’m rambling.. BTW Phil, what’s your sign (since you brought it up)?
July 9th, 2008 at 12:25 am
“What’s your sign?” = kidding, BTW.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:29 am
don’t worry about it! just keep on doin’ whatcha doin’ and we’ll be ok
July 9th, 2008 at 12:32 am
Crap, not to appear as if I just returned from the local or anything like that, I meant “ads” rather than adds, of course.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Like Jarrad, I still see ‘DM’ and think ‘Dungeon Master’ . Burned into the brain by all those late night D&D sessions.
July 9th, 2008 at 1:58 am
Also, another bug: reddit was having loading issues briefly about 8 hours ago. During that time, the “Submit to reddit” link above each blog entry had gone into a meta refresh loop, and was trying to refresh several times a second. Just FYI. Love the site.
July 9th, 2008 at 2:19 am
now that I’ve used that word, they’ll appear on this entry as well no doubt
Does this apply to comments, too? If so, I think we have a challenge: let’s see just how wacky we can make the ads by our choice of words.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:46 am
Phil, the new site is growing on me (I fear change, you know). If only the font could be a bit bigger, and possibly numbered comments, I would be very happy.
BTW, I can’t believe there are still people who do not use Firefox with Adblock.
July 9th, 2008 at 4:49 am
“I just got back from a talk in Arkansas, so I haven’t been able to work on the blog.”
I imagine you can barely focus! Ar ar.
BigBob
July 9th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Really horrible lettering, Phil. Doesn’t stop me from reading your posts, but it’s a really annoying font. But keep doing your best. We can wait.
July 9th, 2008 at 6:45 am
Ads? Just ix-nay on the oroscope-hay if you’re worried.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:51 am
Hello Phil.
Just writing to ask if in this new form you’re also going to post the allegations presented earlier?
Quote: “Does NASA hide anything? No.” End of quote.
Please let me congratulate you to your omniscience. Could I reserve a seat on your next trip to Mars? You must have been there countless times.
Had I not read your blog I would have continued to think that the skulls scattered in the Mars Rover images were real, helmets, bullet holes and all. Thanks to you I discarded the notion as silly, the skull-looking rocks with the teeth-looking pebbles in them are about three feet from the rover’s camera so one cannot be sure anyway. Please proceed to enlighten us as to what NASA allows us to see in their solar system, Master.
As to your desperate endeavors to “debunk” Richard C. Hoagland let me tell you that it is not enough to apply what you learned at NASA’s Disinfo Crash Course, i.e. to play stupid, use country-bumpkin vernacular and pretend not to understand math. There are lots of similar trolls on ATS. If you don’t understand math have it explained to you, but, seemingly, this undertaking would be a waste of bandwidth when applied to someone who simply may not understand such things ’cause NASA says so.
Before getting up the nerve to, again, call Richard a disinfo agent, you’d better think about it twice. To assert that NASA images are not tampered with may perhaps sit well in the visually impaired community but, hey, take a look yourself for a change. Rocks hovering two inches above the ground, mismatched shadows, missing shadows, lousy paint jobs, virtual sand dunes, rocks, shadows, black splotches, white splotches …. . You do not need to be a graphics expert to see these effects of NASA’s obfuscating software.
Just look how many disinfo operatives they pay with your taxes, which in your opinion is perhaps an acceptable way to get some of your money back.
In a community where people are simply searching for the truth behind all the lies put out by the government, you do not fit in. But since you already know everything you can still be a scientist. You know, scientists at one time used to be people interested in learning new things. This no longer applies, today your brand of scientist helps the government in the war against its own people.
I feel sorry for you. But as long as you are alive, there is hope.
Sincerely, Karl
PS: Lets not forget to get some groceries and a couple of six-packs with your NASA paycheck before going to Mars.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:03 am
It takes time to get things set just the way you want them.
The ads are a bit disconcerting, though. Not the fact that there are ads. We all understand the economics of the internet. If everyone used Adblock eventually there would be little or know free-to-me content on the web – someone has to pay for the bandwidth so it’s either you or me. But whenever I see the GoogleSense ads appear on the sidebar I can be sure that there will be some sort of pseudoscience or antiscience link displayed there. I’m not sure when or how GoogleSense ads decide to appear but I know you are not personnaly responsible for selecting these ads. It is a bit disconcerting nonetheless considering the content of your Blog.
Keep up the fine work.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Hey, guess what? Hoagland is a disinfo agent.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:10 am
No, Hoagland is not a disinfo agent. He is a predator, plain and simple.
His prey is money and fame, and he gets it by using tools such as disinformation to win over the minds of people who cannot or will not look any farther into an issue than what they get told by someone with some fancy sounding letters after his name and a spot on national TV.
He’s not even innovative in his approach. Christianity has been using the same approach for years. Hoagland just borrows some of their methods for personal gain. To some degree, you have to respect the cojones he must have. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to believe his own crap, but spewing the crap is lucrative, and he knows which side his bread is buttered.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Folks-
Please feel free to read outrageousfortune’s comments above, and remember why we must never rest when fighting antiscience.
I love how these guys seem to think I am some sort of NASA agent. Do they actually read what I say about NASA? Or are they so paranoid they think my railing against NASA is some sort of confusion ploy?
Anyway, this is all off topic. If you have any specific comments on the blog, please leave them here. Thanks.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I have a hard time taking any of outrageousfortune’s comments seriously… they are so far out of left field, so completely OT, and so gloriuosly goofy that they really don’t warrant serious response.
Anyhow, as I said in a prior post, I’m not gonna complain much about the new site layout as I know you’re still tweaking it, but things I’d like to see: change the font… it’s tough to read… I liked the alternating background greyscale for every other post on your old site. I like the green border around your posts… I think we often like to be able, when someone addresses you with a question, to scan down quickly for your response and pick it out. Also makes sure that we know the name isn’t being spoofed by some loser. I’d like to see the return of the blog-roll… lots of good sites there that I don’t have links to. And lastly, as always, either an edit, preview, or spellcheck function or some combination of them, cuz some of us (ahem) can’t spell worth a lick, especially when we are “angry typing”…
Even minus any of these things… still love the place, Phil.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Oh… where the ads are concerned… I can see how people might look sideways at some of the ads that pop up here, so anything you can do to limit some of the more… ummm… counter-intelligent ads would be great… but for me personally, I really never even notice the ads unless they’re pointed out to me. Must have my own built in mental “adblocker”.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Call me crazy, but I’m all in favor of astrology, horoscope, etc. ads showing up here where intelligent, informed, skeptical people *will completely ignore them* because that means one less ad in the inventory to show up on another site where the gullible or less-informed might get caught by it. With some well-chosen keywords maybe we can sidetrack the advertising budget for the Disco Institute, star registry scams, water-powered cars, …
So the next time you see an astrology ad here, pat yourself on the back for “taking one for the team” and protecting more innocent eyes.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Phil, ditto something that Celtic_Evolution just said. I also like that your own responses were framed so that I could scroll down find them quickly.
Larissa
July 9th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Phil – Please do not confirm my fears that being absorbed into the Discovery
Magazine Empire was a mistake.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:08 am
ARp1234, specifics would help. If you have problems, let’s hear them!
July 9th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I saw an ad on the blog for Doctor Who ringtones. I don’t mind that ad.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Hang in there Phil! Looks like the move has opened the doors to an invasion of trolls, but never fear, we your loyal and devoted BAbloggees will continue to support you and learn from you and, carrying our skeptic banners high, will rally to fight on in the mental and verbal battle against the doublethink onslaught of the minions of woo!
July 9th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Blog looks back to normal for me. I’ve paged back through a few months of archives, and things seem fine there too.
As for general recommendations, I’d second the following: numbered comments, a time-stamp for your original posts, & a “Blogs” link in the row of orange links just below the Discover logo at the top.
I like the color scheme fine, and the font size doesn’t much bother me either. My favorite new thing are the Doctor Who ringtone ads, since there’s more David Tennant in my day that way.
July 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
I liked having a line to separate all the comments from each other, it was a little easier to look at. I also liked being able to look at old posts by subject (I need to catch up from all the time I didn’t know about your blog!) I don’t like the light brown links, I think they are too light and harder to pick out from the rest of the text. You might have already planned on changing some of this, but just in case!
Happy blogging!!!
July 9th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Wait a second… where at in Arkansas? If I found out you were around me, and I missed the talk, I’m going to have to get the angry eyes out…
July 10th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Hey, Phil. I put up my take on your time at Hendrix College on my blog. http://infinitewell.wordpress.com/
)
Drop in and have a read in your copious amounts of free time.