Nov 20 2007
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Where (else) has the BA book been?
This may become a series. In the last episode, we saw my first book, Bad Astronomy, at the VLA in New Mexico. Where else has it been? Well…
I have known for some time that the book was a runaway international sensation. Of course, I live in a fantasy world where all people think critically and creationists don’t exist. Still, I do know the book sold well in some other countries, including Australia.
I was Down Under a few years back to give some talks and tour the fantastic countryside there. I visited "The Dish", the ginormous Parkes radio telescope, for example, and gave my "Moon Hoax Hoax" there. There were two guys there who actually manned the Dish during the Apollo 11 mission! So the talk went over pretty well. I love Australians.
A while back, the International Planetarium Association had their meeting there, and some of the attendees were friends of mine. They made it to Parkes as well… and what did they find in the visitor center centre bookshelf?
That’s my old friend Carolyn from Loch Ness Productions in front of the venerable dish with some excellent reading material. But she wasn’t alone…
That’s another friend, Todd Slisher, who works at the New Detroit Science Center. He also has excellent taste. For what it’s worth, I have no evidence that isn’t the same copy of the book. For that matter, I doubt they even bought those copies. I’m pretty sure they each already had a copy.
So, do you own a copy of the book? Take a picture of yourself holding it in some fun location, send it to me, and I’ll post it here. But hurry! In a year the second book will be out and I’ll forget all about the first one.
Hehe. I started a trend. Cool.
I USED to have a copy of your fine book. However, in an attempt to educate my woo-infested MIL, a believer in chem-trails, ancient astronauts, hoaxed moon-landings, etc., I loaned it to her. When I asked her to return it several months later, she claimed not to know what I was talking about! Somewhere, in the deepest, darkest woo-infested areas of Oklahoma, rests your book, and I doubt I’ll ever see it again.
In revenge, I have asked her for a new copy for xmas! If she complies, you’ll get a pic of a very happy me on xmas day, just down the highway from Oral Roberts University!
Can’t wait for your latest to be released!
I don’t have the BA book, but I do have a picture of me sitting in Barnes and Nobles holding this monster Feynmann book that weighed about 10 pounds.
However, I have in my possession a B&N gift card, and I’m going out in about an hour to purchase Mass Effect, so I think I could make a detour to the bookstore and completely geek out by purchasing the book.
I see a picture in the making!
[…] your picture with the Bad Astronomy book Just spreading the word, from the BA Blog: Where (else) has the BA book been?: […]
No picture to prove it, but Taiwan was the furthest I have taken it (purchased, actually, in that fine Country). Imagine me sitting by the ocean side, in the misty mountains or in the sweat drenched school chair, flipping through the pages.
Taiwan….and then by travels to Nepal. Quite the life my (your) book has had. Not sure where my brither in law and father have taken their copies….ill ask.
Hi Phil
Nice Parkes photos. You’ll be happy to know that we sell the book at our Visitors Centre shop at the Dish. I always plug it at the teacher workshops that we run there annually.
Hey Phil, I don’t have a copy of the book yet, but when I do I’ll take a photo of it up where I work.
I’ve been doing a fair bit of work up around where they plan to build the S.K.A if Australia wins the bid. Man that puppy is going to be sweet! You think Parkes is a big dish? One Square kilometer of radio telescopic goodness is hopefully going to be in my backyard soon! gee I’m excited!
Cello man, I hate to point this out, but don’t assume that the order in which these are posted is the order I got them in.
“I visited “The Dish”, the ginormous Parkes radio telescope, for example, and gave my “Moon Hoax Hoax” there.”
Moon Hoax Hoax???
RAF, I think the BA means that his talk exposes the “moon hoax” woo to be itself a hoax.
Anyhoo, BA, I live about 100 miles from Jodrell Bank; maybe I’ll see if I can take a side trip one day and get a pic of myself with your book (which, of course, I own and treasure) in front of the big dish there.
I have a copy of your book, which I read last year, but don’t really go anywhere ‘fun’ to take a wacky photo - unless London counts (not nearly as ‘fun’ once you’ve lived there a while). Mind you, I am supposed to be going to Oz next year to visit my sister, so maybe I’ll take it along and visit the Parkes dish.
Oh, I wish I had a camera, Phil, so I could show off your book at The Cape.
I did see it at one of the vistor centers near Cape Canaveral. Not the JFK one, but the manned space flight museum that’s across the river. It was near a book that features some of Cassini’s images of Saturn.
Nonsense! Allow me my delusions of internet psuedo fame!
Seriously though, it’s cool just to have my picture on your site anywhere, regardless of who’s first.
…I don’t know… It looks like these pictures *may* have been doctored! Could this be a ‘BA Moon Hoax’ book hoax?
[After all, there is just so much that can be swallowed and taken at face value, these days…]
-larry
-larry’s post looks photochopped.
My copy is in a storage somewhere Down Under
Hey Phil,
Kewl pix.
You should have been there to enjoy Todd and me giggle like school kids as we plotted how we were going to take these pix and send them to you. I took his, he took mine.
And yes, of course I had a copy already, but the nice folks at the bookshop let us be camera hogs with the one you see. In return, I bought a couple of shirts and other assorted goodies.
Carolyn/spacewriter
Phil, I can get a pic of your book at our observatory, peering through the telescopes.
And your pal Todd Slisher used to belong to our astronomy club when he was a youngin’.
Visiting the Parkes’ dish was where I bought your book originally!
And then stumbled across an interesting website…..
No photos, though.
Hey… that’s where I purchased my copy of Phil’s book! I actually had a camera with me, but I did not use it as it was an automatic with electronics and motor drive, and there were signs everywhere warning us not to use “Electrical equipment” in the vicinity of The Dish. There were even signs in the car park requesting visitors to park and switch off as quckly as possible. Paradoxically, the visitor centre includes as displays a scale model of The Dish, which can be rotated and elevated presumably by electric motors, and one of the props from the movie, the control panel with Nixie tube displays of solar and sidereal time (I had to explain the difference to my father). Evidently these are shielded somehow.
Phil,
Cool pictures!
I hate to pick nits, but a small correction needs to be made. The meeting in Australia was of the International Planetarium Society, not the International Planetarium Association.
http://www.ips-planetarium.org/
Well, I’m a little late to this and a little bummed…..if this had been posted a few days earlier, I would have brought my book on my honeymoon to Portugal and Spain! I went to the Planetario Gulbenkian in Lisbon…Carolyn, I saw Hubble Vision there! Great show!