Hey me droogs! I am beyond busy here at TAM 7, so this is just a quick post to let you know that we are streaming the video of TAM 7 LIVE right now. You can see it on the Randi.org website, or go directly to Ustream.tv.
I’ll be giving a talk today around 3:45 p.m. Pacific time (10:45 GMT), so you can watch it live, too!
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
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
July 11th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Hey, there you are!
*waves uselessly*
July 11th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
I am watching you present the Citizen Skeptic Award right now. It’s great for everyone who couldn’t make it to TAM! to be able to watch it. Thank you for the opportunity to attend by proxy.
July 11th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Yes, thank you so much for allowing us skeptics who couldn’t make it out there attend by proxy. I’m spending my whole weekend watching this. Thanks, Phil!
(Also, Randi’s rant was awesome. “Geller is f***ed!”)
July 11th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
What does ‘droogs’ mean?
July 11th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Already watching
Sadly, it’s lunch break now. Please extend our congrats to Robert Lancaster, if you can.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I got an Psychic readings ad when I opened the stream. Pretty misdirected I must say
July 11th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
I’ve had it on almost constantly since finding out about it last night.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
droogs == friends.
Check out ‘A Clockwork Orange’ if you haven’t seen/read it.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Pardon the hyperbole, but streaming TAM online is one of the most evil things the JREF has ever done… I’ve had to cancel my plans for the entire weekend so I can sit in front of the computer!
July 11th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
I’d watch it if it wasn’t for the annoying psychic ads that keep popping up all the time.
July 11th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
*watching the live broadcasting*
Many yanks use dirty words to much! Or are those ones just a bad example?
July 11th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Phil, your talk was supposed to start 5 min ago. You’re late!
July 11th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
I can’t watch it
I’m out in the boonies with crappy antenna based internet.
On the plus side I’ve actually been able to see stuff in the sky I haven’t seen before in my life
A mag -7 flare last night. Freakin’ awesome!
July 11th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Viddy well, I guess
July 11th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Daniel @ #5,
I got an Psychic readings ad when I opened the stream. Pretty misdirected I must say.
Yes, I wanted to comment about a similar incident last week. On that particular day, when I opened Phil’s Discover Bad Astronomy page, the leaderboard banner was advertising something about horoscopes.
I also vaguely remember seeing an ad about “Jesus loves you” many weeks ago. Yes, here at BA.
Hmmm, ironic indeed.
July 11th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Is it a sign?
July 11th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
@ Daniel, and @ Stone Age Scientist,
Are you guys using Firefox as your Internet browser?
Then download and install Adblock Plus — no more bloody annoying adverts!
July 11th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
Adblock plus doesn’t stop those annoying flash ads that pop up from the bottom of the video (Unless someone is able to show me how)
July 11th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Ivan3Man, it works! The banner ad is gone. Thanks!!
July 11th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Ads? What are those?
July 11th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Live? What’s that?
Is this archived somewhere? Not all of us want to sit in front of a PC on a nice evening.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Ah, you were talking about the banner ads. My bad.
July 12th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Yikes, Rebecca Watson from Skepchick.org got married at the meeting! A bit like surprise birthday, except it was a wedding. Kind of bizarre, but really cool. ^_^
July 12th, 2009 at 5:24 am
Porky Pine, if you want to get rid of the other ads, you can use firefox and noscript. If you let it enable ustream.tv but not the ad server, no more ads. Between noscript and adblock plus, you’ve pretty much got full control over your browsing.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:21 am
I have both but I still get those. How do you find the ad server?
July 12th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I use adblock on most sites but I disable it on the sites that I visit regularly, since I want to see them continue to exist.
I virtually never click on banners, except to see what stupidity lies behind the occasional one, so I don’t know if I’m benefiting Phil by not blocking the ads but it’s a noble effort at least.
On YouTube yesterday I saw ads beside an atheist video for some creationist book that put Carl Sagan on their cover. I wonder how they got away with that.
July 12th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I don’t know how else to send this to you, but Google news has the following article on the Moon landing hoax “debate”:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/jul/12/apollo-11-debate-is-renewed/
From the Columbia, MO Daily Tribune. At least the article was pro-fact, even if the comments were not. Teh stoopid – it burns!
IMO, if we faked the moon landing, and the Eeeeviilll US Government somehow kept the thousands of people involved all quiet, why didn’t the Soviets call us on it? I would have been a tremendous propaganda coup! And don’t tell me we would have nuked them – we didn’t nuke them over China, Berlin, Korea, Czechoslovakia, Cuba, Hungary, or any number of far more serious crises.
July 12th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I missed it!
Anyone have a torrent or maybe a downloadable podcast?
July 12th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Watching the paranormal challenge right now. It would be nice if they had a overhead cam showing the table.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Watching “Meteor”. Seriously, what can be better than watching an earth killing movie with the Rev. Jim (Taxi) Christopher Lloyd, who was also the mad scientist in Back to the Future! Oh, God, this should be good!
Oh For God sake! Not ‘Seinfeld’s’ George! OMG, Jason Alexander is in this movie, and has gained quite a bit of weight. That’s more disturbing than an earth killing ‘Meteor’.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Hey, Phil, don’t forget us your droogs when you hit the Big Jackpot.
July 13th, 2009 at 12:00 am
I’m sooooo embarrassed, but I will watch the next part of Meteor next week!
July 13th, 2009 at 12:20 am
Hey Droogs. Cue the Ludwig Van…
OT, but my Galileoscopes have finally arrived.
w00t!!111!
Let see if I can’t see the damned lunar lander from down here in Oz.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:06 am
D’oh. Only one of my Galileoscopes have arrived. Oh well, I can only use them one at a time anyway… and nobody said they’d need to be assembled. Double d’oh.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:54 am
I missed it. Will this be made available on youtube?
July 13th, 2009 at 7:46 am
#31 Shane
Just checked out their site. It looks like a good deal. Let us know how they work!
July 13th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Had to cancel my TAM7 plans due to conflicting business travel. This helped relieve the sting. Thanks!
July 13th, 2009 at 11:27 am
PHIL: I don’t know how long this TAM7 thingie is supposed to last, but with any luck it kept you and your fellow attendees away from the TV long enough to avoid ANY exposure to NBC utterly execrable disaster mini-series, “Meteor,” the first part of which aired Sunday night.
Last Friday USA Today gave “Meteor” a pretty scathing 1-star review. So I thought to myself, “How bad could it possibly be?” Well, as it turns out, GLARINGLY bad. EMBARRASSINGLY bad. SO bad, in fact, that it made me downright ANGRY that one of the venerable “Big Three” broadcast networks would actually air it … and in this era of Reality TV, that’s really saying something.
There was absolutely nothing remotely redeeming about “Meteor.” The acting and direction were both about as awful as it gets. The special effects were cheap, and there was absolutely no attempt made at scientific accuracy. Bad enough for you? Well, how about that SCRIPT? According to USA Today, the screenwriter for “Meteor” was one Alex Greenfield, whose last major writing credit was for “WWF Smackdown,” if you can believe that. And BOY, did it show. The script for this film was so laughably, eye-rollingly BAD that for the first time in my life I felt geniunely ashamed of myself for tuning in to watch a TV program.
What could NBC possibly have been thinking in airing this? My guess is the only thing that mattered was the advertising revenue. Some corporate suit probably said, “It doesn’t matter if the program is bad. What only matters is that we make more money off it than we invested.” Are these the depths to which network television has sunk? If so, I see absolutely NO hope for human civilization.
July 13th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
@35. Don’t know if know if anyone will put up anything on youtube. But eventually you will be able to buy a DVD set of all of TAM7 and help support the JREF. DVDs of past TAMs are available. Check out the randi.org web site.
George
July 13th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I enjoyed what I was able watch because of things in the real world. Phil seems to busy doing something maybe he is counting the bribes from NWO/freemasons/illuminatti for pulling the wool over so many skeptics eyes again.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:59 am
More skepchicks!
Enough with the streaming video already. I want to see the steaming video!