Feeling a little skeptical? Then head over to Action Skeptics to read this week’s Skeptics Circle, a collection of doubtful blog posts. You really should if only because they posted this picture which makes me laugh a LOT.
 |
And hmmm… it’s the 111th skeptics circle, and there were 111 screws the astronauts had to remove to fix STIS on Hubble. I’m a skeptic and I worked on Hubble! COINCIDENCE?
Well, yeah, actually, it is.
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
|
| Bad Astronomy is a Wikio Top Blog! Clearly, Wikio has excellent taste. | |
 | ||
 | Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. |
 |
"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
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
May 21st, 2009 at 6:48 pm
ZOMG, that picture is PROOF that human heads can be swapped with folded towels, and yet the head and body will still continue to function!
May 21st, 2009 at 6:57 pm
…only if you’re a ‘pitchman’
J/=?
May 21st, 2009 at 7:26 pm
Wow!
May 21st, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I could be wrong, but I suspect there is some sort of photographic trickery at work here. Hmm.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:37 pm
I’ll consider visiting that site– but I’m not so sure.
May 21st, 2009 at 8:46 pm
@tracer
You’re assuming that the head was functioning before the swapping. I’ve seen no such evidence.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Thanks so much for the plug, Phil! I and the rest of the bloggers in the carnival really appreciate it. Glad you got a good laugh out of that picture; when I found it, I knew I had to work it in somewhere. It was just too frackin’ funny.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:16 am
SkepticWow! You’ll say WOW every time!*
*note: wow not included
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 am
Kind of reminds me of Miracle Mike (aka Mike the Headless Chicken). Wasn’t he from your neck of the woods, Phil?
http://www.life.com/image/50866530/in-gallery/26932/mike-the-headless-chicken
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:48 am
Hi, Can you please point the Hubble at the Apollo landing sites on the moon and take pictures to prove the missions really occurred? Thanks.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:02 am
Totally Photoshopped.
I can tell by the pixels, and having seen a lot of ’shops in my time.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:18 am
AND… it’s an unlucky score in cricket
http://www.sportscomet.com/Cricket/55053.htm
The umpires have been known to do a superstitious little dance when the score is 111.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:06 am
@Leonardo – Oh come on, man! Everybody knows Hubble is a hoax….
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Leonardo@10:
Phil has explained — multiple times — why Hubble can’t do that, most recently as #5 in his post Ten Things You Don’t Know About Hubble.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:23 am
Sham! Wow!
There. Fix’t.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:51 am
ROFL. Thank you, thank you, thank you for that link!
WTF, has our resident troll changed nick?
Just in case it isn’t Quasar: no, we can’t. (Not nearly enough resolution, see the BAs posts on that.)
Incidentally, I don’t know why you would like to, since we have plenty of observations that test that. Eye witnesses, movies, et cetera. But it will happen soon anyway, as the LRO mission to the Moon, launching next month, will do that during the primary one year mission, perhaps early on as a reference part of their mission to return to the Moon:
Now that should put a stopper in the more whining parts of the intertoobs. Just two more months. [Grumble, grumble....]
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:49 pm
It’s definitely faked. I can’t see any stars in the background. Also, the shadows are all wrong. And notice how the towel is wearing the boom mike, but the head is wearing the earbud. This is impossible since the mike is attached to the earbud and NASA doesn’t have the technology to separate them.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I am truly amazed by the “ShamWOW!” commercials.
It takes real guts to market a product on a late-night infomercial with “Sham” in its name.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:29 pm
Hey! Stop dissin’ the Shah-Wow! guy! Living on the Wet West Coast of Canada has led me to create a line of clothing using the Sham Wow material… I have Sham coats, sham pants, and for all your diapering needs, the Sham Nappy! (Now available in Baby, Adult, and Crazy Astronaut sizes ! Ask about our discount on bulk orders of 10 or more!)
May 23rd, 2009 at 6:50 pm
@Michael L:
Would the Sham Nappy be full of Sham Poo?
J/P=?
editing
JUST BECAUSE I CAN!
May 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 pm
That picture keeps creeping me out every time I page back to earlier postings! gah!