Blogs / Bad Astronomy

Going through my YouTube subscriptions today I stumbled on a video that’s pretty interesting: a guy rapping about astrobiology.

I am not an aficionado of rap — I don’t think ABBA ever did it, did they? — but I kinda like this one despite the sometimes awkward lyrics (his accent is cool, too). His use of the sounds of moving across the radio dial is clever, and how many rap songs do you know that reference Frank Drake and Carl Sagan?

My book, Death from the Skies!, comes out in less than two weeks.

Woohoo!

Death from the Skies!, coming very soon.

I’ve added a countdown clock in the sidebar of the blog (go ahead, take a peek), as well as links to order it, and a couple of blurbs (one’s from my Close Personal Friend ™ Adam Savage). The clock assumes it goes on sale midnight October 20, but that’s close enough. Assume a bin size of one day.

I have some things I’m doing to promote the book. I’ll be writing some blog posts geared toward it over the next two weeks; so expect a wee bit more doom-and-gloom (but in a fun way!): more gamma-ray bursts, meteorites, solar events, and exponentially expanding collapses of the false quantum vacuum.

Also, I’m doing some press events. Here’s the list so far:

1. October 21: I’m doing a live interview at Denver’s KUSA (Channel 9) at 12:20 or so p.m.
2. October 21: I drive back home, and then I’ll be at the Boulder Bookstore that night at 7:30 to give a short presentation with a dramatic reading from the book. I’ll have a meteorite to show people, too.
3. October 21: I drive home again, and then I’ll be on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory that evening from 2-5 a.m. Eastern time — check your listing. Lots of radio stations broadcast the show (it has 10 million listeners) and many stream it live as well.
4. December 11: I’ll be giving a talk at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, time TBD.

I’m sure there will be more as time goes on. I’ll update this list as it changes, and report it here on the blog.

I’m hoping to be able to quote some of the reviews coming in; they’ve been very positive, and so I’m getting pretty excited! So tell a friend… it’ll make for appropriate Halloween reading.

I get email…

CONTRACT RELEASE: 23-08

NASA AWARDS LANDSCAPING MAINTENANCE, PEST CONTROL CONTRACT

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA has selected S.C. Jones Services, Inc., of Dillwyn, Va., to provide grounds maintenance and pest control services at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Fla.

The new firm-fixed price contract begins on Oct. 1, 2008. It has a one-year base period and four, one-year option periods. The maximum value of the contract is approximately $13.5 million.

S.C. Jones Services will provide grounds maintenance and pest control services in support of all areas of Kennedy.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Pest control and lawn maintenance are important. Seriously — have you experienced the bugs in Florida? The ants there are amazingly invasive. I suspect alligators may be considered a pest, too…^* But somehow a press release on those contracts seems a little weird. Maybe there is some contractual thing going on here, or a government law saying they must announce all contracts over some value.

Well, whatever. I for one welcome our new ant-control overlords.

^*Hmmm, tourists may be included in this category as well.

In just a few short hours I’ll be on a plane winging my way to Dragon*Con 2008 in Atlanta. Woohoo! D*C is a huge con, with 40,000+ fans of scifi, comics, fantasy, and other flights of fancy. I’m going as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, but I’m also participating in the Skeptic Track (talks and panels about critical thinking) as well as Space and some science fiction. Kevin Grazier and I will be rehashing our Science of Science Fiction panel we did at Comic Con, for example.

If you’re in the Atlanta area and want to go, check out the Skeptic track schedule, or the more complete schedule listed in the pocket guide. Skepchick has more, and there’s a Star Trek track I’d like to see, too.

Loads of stars will be there, too, including Nathan Fillion, Jewel Staite, Morena Baccarin, James Hong (indeed!), and a gazillion others. Skeptics attending include Michael Shermer, Richard Saunders, Randi, and a bunch more too. My friends astronomers Bill Keel and Pamela Gay will be in attendance too.

This will rawk. Oh baby.

I went to D*C back in 2006 and had a great time. Here is the proof. I hope the wireless is up to the task of my blogging and Twittering!

I hope to see some BABloggees there. If you’re around, drop by my talks and panels. Let’s spread the love.

Folks–

Thanks for being patient. As far as I can tell, the move to the new server has worked, and it was only marginally painful (though I still have some behind-the-scenes work to do).

It is possible that some people may still see the blog from the old server, until their network catches up with the new location . That usually happens in a few hours, so I’m hoping it’s over. But if you post a comment, and the next day it’s gone, that may be the culprit.

And now, back to the regularly posted astronomy/critical thinking/humor ranting. Well, in a coupla hours.

Loyal readers (and if you’re new, or not loyal, you can read this too):

Big changes are afoot at Bad Astronomy. I have some plans that will improve the website and blog considerably over the next few weeks, and by improve I don’t mean "make crappy like the ‘improved’ Coke, or the way the cereal manufacturer have ‘improved’ Cocoa Puffs by making them whole grain, which removes any hint of flavor".

No, things will get better. The first step in this process is to move Bad Astronomy to a new server that gives me more disk space, more bandwidth, and more freedom in general. That move is happening in the next few minutes after I post this. Because for a while the site will exist in two places (until the domain name servers catch up), I am shutting off commenting to the blog. This is temporary; it’ll be back on by Thursday evening Pacific time if all goes well. I hope no one minds.

In the end, you shouldn’t notice any difference at all. The blog and main site will always work, but you won’t be able to post comments for a few hours.

So bear with me please! And if you see any problems, please email me.

So, it’s come to this.

Perhaps it’s been too long coming. If you’ve read the site, you know I have a lot to say, maybe too much. There’s a boatload of astronomy out there, Bad and Good, and not enough time to write up whole pages about it. Plus, sometimes I just think of stuff (the bane of the thinker), and I might want to make a short, pithy comment for the Curious Masses out there.

So here you go. The BABlog. I may have a contest later on how to pronounce that. In my head, it kinda comes out “blah blog”. Anyway, it was either this or do a podcast, and a podcasting friend of mine told me how much effort a ‘cast would be. So now I’m blogging, because I’m nothing if not least effort.

The next entry will have actual content. I promise. Until then, welcome, and take an hour or two to poke around the main Bad Astronomy site.