Comments on: Slash the Bad Astronomer!

By: Samuil

Samuil — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:18:34 +0000

Bravo Laurent! Je suis fier! Les trois jours d’insomnie en ont valu la peine!

By: bob

bob — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:26:19 +0000

@Blargh Yeah, yeah, yeah, you liked it ages ago when it was better. Hipster.

The javascript is rubbish though.

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 05:07:17 +0000

Wayne- actually, you’re correct. I was talking asteroids, not comets, but at 30 km or so Hale-Bopp would’ve been far worse than than the dinosaur killer. Hale-Bopp was discovered 19 months before closest approach. Yikes.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 01:22:43 +0000

Hi Phil,

You wrote “We know no dinosaur killer is on its way here for at least a century or three, so that’s cool”

Phil: I would love to hear your thinking behind that statement?

For your consideration, I offer comet Hale-Bop, which of course did not impact the earth. But imagine if Hale-Bop had impacted: at 35KM, the impact would likely be an extinction level event for humanity.

The real Hale-Bop was discovered in 1995, and if my imaginary Hale-Bop existed, it would have impacted on the earth in 1997/8, so we would have had what, maybe 2-3 years maximum warning?

What don’t I know?

Thanks,
W

By: John

John — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:46:45 +0000

Phil gave thanks to the Lord…awesome.

By: Treczoks

Treczoks — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:38:10 +0000

Hi, Phil,

Good selection of questions, and good answers. But: You wrote about cold fusion:

“Has anything emerged since the debunking of Pons/Fleischmann that gives any credence to cold fusion?”

Have you heard about e-Cat by Mr. Rossi and Prof. Focardi of Bologna, Italy? I was sceptical, but the story is sounding and looking un-hoaxier from test to test. I’ve set this topic to “at least worth keeping an eye on it”. Too bad he’s still applying for patents, and won’t share too much details until then, but what he has shown is hard to debunk. And having sold a 1MW plant to a customer is a bit more than having just measurable (or not…) lab results like Pons/Fleischmann.

By: tracer

tracer — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:16:56 +0000

Dammit, Sili, you beat me to it!

By: Blargh

Blargh — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:00:08 +0000

@byron: Slashdot was great. There was a time when half the Internet’s tech intelligentsia had an active account there, and a slashdotting was almost guaranteed to bring down a server. But under a series of more and more apathetic editors, it fell into a slow decline. Articles dropped in quality, and more and more users simply stopped bothering to visit the site (which in turned brought down the quality of the comments).
And then, early this year, contrary to anyone’s wishes, they decided to “web 2.0″ it. In other words, riddle it with unnecessary “AJAX” and other javascript, while ignoring the actual niggles people had had with the site for years. The usability was shot straight to hell. And the mass exodus began…

/Slashdotter from the late ’90s up until the redesign

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 06:55:21 +0000

From the “threats from Space” Q & A :

So, a GRB can sterilize the Earth in ten seconds flat, but the odds of one happening in your lifetime are millions to one against (and we don’t have any good GRB candidates close enough to do the trick anyway).

Hmm… But what about WR-104? :

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2008/03/03/wr-104-a-nearby-gamma-ray-burst/

Did you just forget about Wolf-Rayet 104 BA or has the slight concern over that diminished to zero concern in light of news I haven’t heard?

Then there’s the faint chance of Eta Carinae going supernovae and producing a deadly GRB – which is the example you used in ‘Death from the Skies’ (page 103, Phil Plait, Viking,2008) – did you forget that one too?

By: byron

byron — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 02:37:47 +0000

Meh, you should do a Reddit AMA, Neil deGrasse Tyson just did one and it was a huge success.. Slashdot is so “meh”.. its where you want to go to let the world pass you buy..

By: Robin Byron

Robin Byron — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:38:57 +0000

I’ll continue believing the Milky Way is as big as M31 (I’m not subject to peers looking down their noses at me)? Galaxy envy, I suppose.

Seriously though, your answers were great reading sprinkled with good humor. Thanks again for doing this, Phil.

By: Dean

Dean — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 23:12:36 +0000

Your thanks to everyone at Slashcomma?

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:57:52 +0000

Looked like you were thanking Time Lord there for a minute. Best. Name. Ever.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:30:09 +0000

Actually I’d be interested in seeing the weirdest questions you got asked. I’m sure there were quite a few doozies.

By: Sili

Sili — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 22:11:18 +0000

You mean you don’t want to read my deGrass/Plait fanfic?