Comments on: Hive Overmind… of DEATH!

By: Interview with the Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, about Death from the Skies | Mike Brotherton: SF Writer

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:00:45 +0000

[...] within a factor of ten or so (a table of the risks was published online by Discover Magazine here: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/10/28/hive-overmind-of-death/). Good enough for [...]

By: Mad Hussein LOLscientist, FCD

Mad Hussein LOLscientist, FCD — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:20:02 +0000

@ tobiasthecommie: Someone sold you some bad dope there. You should get your money back.

By: Paul A.

Paul A. — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:56:33 +0000

Does the book explain how you calculated these odds. I understand intuitively that some of these events are less likely than others, I just wonder where the numbers come from.

By: shane

shane — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:37:04 +0000

There are indeed pictures. Not a pop-out book though unfortunately.

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:31:44 +0000

Hey there!!
I haven’t seen the book yet but, I intend to buy it. So far, I’ve only seen the cover of the book. I was wondering if there was lots of pictures in it (I love pictures). I’d like to see pictures of a big comet coming toward the Earth or maybe, evil aliens attacking us.

By: Nathan Goldbaum

Nathan Goldbaum — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:39:45 +0000

Hey, Phil-

As a fellow Boulderite, I thought you might like to know that I saw a fireball tonight from the Pearl Street Mall facing west in front of Old Chicago’s. The fireball appeared near Altair and headed west at an incredibly fast pace, visibly broke apart, and faded away after arcing out a trail that must have been at least 10 or 20 degrees long. Do you know anywhere I could find more information on this event – I assume others or cameras pointed at the mountains across the state should have seen it.

By: «bønez_brigade»

«bønez_brigade» — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:23:48 +0000

It’s “bwahahahahaa!”, Phil, “bwahahahahaa!”.

DftS is next in the queue (after ‘Ancestor’s Tale’, though, sorry)…

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:21:25 +0000

Jennifer, don’t you let Jen-Luc blog for you? Talk about nepotism!

[but I have a big crush on J-L so it's OK]

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:20:45 +0000

Chris A, excellent! I’m curious about what you think of the show. Feel free to email if you have comments.

By: Evan

Evan — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:13:26 +0000

It was also featured at theawesomer.com, which only makes sense. They list all things that are awesome.

By: José

José — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:48:59 +0000

Speaking of Discover, I’ve been receiving “this is your last issue” warnings from Scientific American for about a year now, whereas Discover cut me off after about two months. Cheapos.

By: Davidlpf

Davidlpf — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:21:20 +0000

Now on Phils nex post will be “Want Kindle”.

By: Bigfoot

Bigfoot — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:33:42 +0000

What, Phil’s new book already reduced to Kindling?

By: Whomever1

Whomever1 — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:23:55 +0000

I just bought your book for my Kindle–how does that affect your cut, vs a paper book?

By: Hugo

Hugo — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:20:57 +0000

Phil, isn’t this a little, “But my mum says I’m cool!”

Just joshing you, mate. Great to see the book doing so well.

By: llewelly

llewelly — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:24:53 +0000

From the table:

Earth cooked to a crisp 0 † Not preventable, but we have a long time to go yet

Funny, in both your interviews with Pamela Gay and the Skeptics Guide to the Universe, you described a mitigation method – using a gravity tug to adjust Earth’s orbit.

By: Jennifer Ouellette

Jennifer Ouellette — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:48:33 +0000

I smell nepotism.

By: Tman

Tman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:21:24 +0000

Thanks Phil. I look forward to reading it!

By: Chris A.

Chris A. — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:16:25 +0000

Phil:
Speaking of the BA Shameless Commerce Division (to borrow a page from Click and Clack, the Tappet brothers), we (the Faulkner Planetarium) just got our kit for the “Bad Astronomy” planetarium show, and noticed that the visual showing the BA blog web page on screen was the old (pre-Discover) version. So I updated it to the new version which, for the sharp-eyed, includes most of the cover of DFtS. Subliminal advertising (woot)!

By: tobiasthecommie

tobiasthecommie — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 23:06:20 +0000

I just read that as the Discover Institute, and i was rather confused…

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:59:42 +0000

oops! Fixed the link.

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:58:18 +0000

Iman, in fact I was worried about that, but after reading Neil’s book I can tell you they are totally different. He has one very fun essay about black holes that covers the high points, but I have a lot more details in my chapter. That’s not surprising; his essays were magazine articles, so he had to keep a lot of the details out. So I think you’ll find they’re very different books.

By: Colin J

Colin J — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:56:51 +0000

Dead link Phil!! Or has the world ended I didn’t notice?

By: Jewel

Jewel — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:55:39 +0000

Sweet! I’m thoroughly enjoying the book, by the way. Excellent stuff!

By: Tman

Tman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:54:16 +0000

Phil,

I have a question about the book. Currently I’m reading Neil Tyson’s “Death By Black Hole” which is fantastic. I’ve been saving the chapter about black holes like the last piece of chocolate cake on the plate because I love the ways in which Tyson describes such cosmic quandaries.

My question about “Death From the Skies” is this: is your book similar to Tysons in terms of subject material (beyond the obvious title and chapters) and do you both take different approaches to describing these certain cosmic quandaries?

I plan on buying your book regardless of your answer but I’m cursious what are the differences and similarities between both “Death” books.

Yes, pleasant. I know.

Thanks in advance.