One Astronomer's Noise

So it turns out that CLEANing and SelfCal-ing a faceted image over the entire sky takes a long time, long enough for me to surf the intarwebs while my program chews on my data. I revisited the Bad Astronomy blog, by Phil Plait, astronomer, educator, and UVa Astro alum! I was particularly interested in listening to a Nature podcast that featured him and James Randi, conjurer and skeptic. It’s worth a listen for that and other fun science-y tidbits. Randi, in particular, explains the rationale behind his famous Million Dollar Challenge, that promises a hefty chunk of change for anyone who can prove the supernatural or paranormal. Funny how decades later, no one has won the challenge? SciFi Channel’s “Ghost Hunters” probably haven’t even tried. Anywho, Randi explains in the podcast that his beef with psychics is that they use the same tricks that magicians do, only the use it to manipulate and swindle, rather than to entertain. You now, as always, have my applause, sir.

The end of the podcast featured a cool news story by BU astronomer Alan Marscher, AGN guy who also makes sweet movies of VLBI jets at high frequencies. The song, titled “Superluminal Lover” caught my attention somewhere near the first run of the chorus. I thought, “Wait, that is very thinly veiled sexual innuendo… on a Nature podcast?” Anyway, his webpage claims that the lyrics are “beyond X-rated, they are GAMMA-rated!” *snicker* It’s quite funny, even if you don’t know the astrophysics. It’s downright hilarious if you do… Also, every astronomer needs to listen to one of his other songs, “Bad Data.” Yes, I’ve had some of those things happen.

Now go check out the Bad Astronomer! Who is also a big Dr. Who geek…