After last week’s rant about Pluto, Sarah kindly pointed me in the direction of The Pluto Files, a PBS special hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The website has all sorts of great info about our favourite planet, including an mp3 (with transcript) of Alan Stern, head of NASA’s new mission to Pluto, defending the “little guy”, as they put it.
There’s an interactive bit where scientists give a thirty second promo for their favourite planets, and then readers are invited to cast their votes for the best planet in our solar system. Currently Earth is in the lead, but Saturn’s a close second. Poor little Pluto ranks fifth – surely we can do better than that?
The best part of the whole site, however, is the hate mail from third graders outraged over Pluto’s demotion. Hells, yes.
There’s lots of other great stuff on the site, too. Check it out.
Now on to your signal: Continue reading »
Ok, so once upon a time some jerks decided to demote Pluto to a “dwarf planet”, then they tried to amend it to a “plutoid”, because they thought it was smaller than the new thing they discovered – Eris.
Turns out they were wrong and Pluto is actually larger than Eris, though it has less mass. Take that, International Astronomical Union of Jerks. I’m lookin’ at you Mike Brown – aka plutokiller.
In light of the controversy Space.com has a poll asking if Pluto’s planet status be revisited. The answer is obviously YES. Cast your votes now, people. This is serious business.
It’s been a while since we’ve done a Saturday Signal, so a lot of linkage has been piling up. For your reading pleasure I present the following signal: Continue reading »
Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.
It’s been a weird week for news from beyond our atmosphere.
NASA bombed the moon, Guy Laliberté is the first clown in space, and only fat American children know the truth: Pluto is still a planet.
It’s a strange world we live in when what’s happening at McDonalds makes more sense than with NASA.
- Eimear O’Hagan decides that Pagans, or “new witches” are “Kooky, sexy, cool” in an article for News of the World, and provides three attractive young women as examples. Though, at one point O’Hagan does call one of them bonkers. Aren’t these affectionately deranged portrayals of modern Pagans a little early? Usually they sprout like mushrooms around Hallowe’en, and this one’s from early September.
- In “Eye Exam: Perverted Tactics“, Jason Foumberg writes about paintings on view by William S. Burroughs, including his abstract portrait of Aleister Crowley.
- The William Blake Archive describes itself as “an online hypermedia environment that allows its users to access high-quality electronic reproductions of a growing portion of Blake’s work”. Neat.
As always, if you find something weird, cool or otherwise noteworthy, please e-mail me about it. If you’re pro-promotion, include your name and website for extra credit. Thanks!
