Comments on: Dan Durda on Universe

By: David Vanderschel

David Vanderschel — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:58:31 +0000

fred edison, who himself worries about such nits as the presence or not of the definite article, suggests that I forgive the show’s producers for a “bad choice of wording”. Sorry. The statement to which I referred suffers from far more than a bad choice of wording. It is just plain wrong! There is no way to put a correct interpretation on it. (I even replayed it multiple times to make sure I was hearing it correctly.) Any of their experts would have caught the error immediately had they been given a chance. It could conceivably have been a typo or a misreading of the script; but neither would excuse leaving it in the finished show.

By: fred edison

fred edison — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 08:08:54 +0000

Phil, unless I’m mistaken the program you’re talking about is titled ‘The Universe.’ You wrote, ‘Universe.’ Dan was on the ‘It Fell From Space’ episode.

#12 David
Forgive them for the bad choice of wording. It’s edutainment, not college science course material.

I love The Universe’ on THC. It’s excellent. I own season 1 & 2 and am waiting for a good deal to buy season 3 and season 4 when it’s available (season 4 available for pre-order now). In fact, 4 has just started so be sure to TiVo a season pass or catch up on reruns of older programs they air. Dan and the other astronomers do a fantastic job enticing and exciting us with the wonders of our universe. I highly recommend it.

By: David Vanderschel

David Vanderschel — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 17:48:59 +0000

Like Taf (#2), I am annoyed by a lot of those documentaries that purport to be about science. I watched this one because the BA was touting it. IMO, it was actually better than average for this sort of thing; but that is not saying much. I want to mention one really glaring error:

Very near the end of the show, after mentioning that there is a lot of space junk up there that will stay up there for a long time because of the lack of air resistance, comes the following grossly wrong statement: “But they will eventually undergo orbital decay. They will lose energy because there’s very little atmospheric drag, and the earth’s gravity will drag them back down into its atmosphere.” (Sounds like early Star Trek logic to me.)

Immediately after the narrator’s gaff comes the talking head of Bill Ailor who explains it correctly. They had a lot of experts on the show. You’d think they could have passed the final script to one of them for proof reading. What I find especially distressing is that it appears that they allow the narration script to be written by folks who do not even understand the basics of what is supposed to be presented.

(One of my pet peeves about the low quality science documentaries is that they will often use stock footage to illustrate words that are being used as metaphors. Such words are not effective unless the hearer has already developed the appropriate semantic reaction. If he does not know the word, illustrating the concept is still not going to help the metaphor work in the new context. But someone who fails to appreciate the metaphorical usage may type the word into a stock footage database to come with some irrelevant pictures.)

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 13:01:42 +0000

Venus and distant clouds put on a neat UFO impersonation a couple of years ago. First a tiny light in the sky quickly flew at me growing larger and brighter. Then it receded rapidly till it faded out. Then it came forward again as the nearly invisible distant clouds drifted away leaving me with a clear view of Venus. It appeared to be coming at me so fast, that I stopped my car and got out to see what it was. Distant clouds in a dark sky are almost invisible as they cover and uncover Venus with various increases and decreases in size and brightness.” The UFO was moving in and out at a fantastic rate of speed.”……until the clouds moved away.

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:53:27 +0000

I drive to work at night and drive home before dawn. Hence the chance to see light shows in the sky.

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:50:39 +0000

Once I saw an explosion in the sky. I expected it to be a bombed airliner. It turned out there was an early morning launch from a new location off the east coast. I saw the separation and flame out from Ohio. I thought the other fireballs were space junk.

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:45:53 +0000

I have seen three fireballs in my 62 years and all seem to have burned up moving across the sky. All looked to be as large as a street light. One broke into three pieces which seemed to rain down towards Canada. The other two just burned out moving across the sky.

By: Charles J. Slavis, Jr.

Charles J. Slavis, Jr. — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:42:10 +0000

Phil, was that your car that got hit with the meteor in the trunk?

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:55:02 +0000

@Davros,

And then it could be put on Amazon, and some notable person, like maybe Adam Savage, could make pithy pull quotes on it!

How strange would that be?

By: Davros

Davros — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:30:56 +0000

Phil Why don’t you write a book about things that can cause Death from the skies!….

some one had to say it

By: Dean Baird

Dean Baird — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:17:48 +0000

Dan Durda Rocks! And think of it this way, HC Haters (and I include myself in that crowd): Dan’s RealDealness displaces such HC staples as Nostrodumbass or Knights Templar.

Tune in and then tune back out. No one’s gonna steal your clicker while Dan is on.

By: Cory

Cory — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:05:02 +0000

@2: I can’t watch much of the History Channel, period. It’s cheesy and inaccurate/misleading by turns.

By: Taf

Taf — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:45:35 +0000

I admit I can’t watch HC’s Universe. It’s one of those science programs that tries to pimp it using lots of virtual (not so accurate) scenes and every shot lasts less than 2 seconds. It gives me seizures.

By: Chip

Chip — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:56:36 +0000

With a cool plane like that Dan should be driving a Maserati to the airport.