I know I promised that the next installment of Naked Eye Astronomy would be about unicorns, but y’all have indulged me so far. Please grant me this one birthday gift. Let me talk about the zodiac today. The zodiac is simply the twelve constellations through which the sun appears to move during the tropical year. Nothing more. Nothing less. I’m going to try not to sound rantish, but you see where this is going.
I sometimes write about astronomy. The stars, planets, comets, asteroids, planetoids, and all things astronomical have fascinated me since I was a child. I watched Apollo 11 land on the moon when I was 6 and the memory is as clear today as it was in 1969. I turned my childhood enthrallment into a hobby, amateur astronomy. I don’t want to put down anyone’s hobby, but astronomy is not astrology. Astronomy is a scientific approach to studying the heavens. Astrology is at best a funny, back page newspaper filler. At worst, astrology is a giant waste of time.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I probably insulted some true believer out there. Someone will probably want to argue/debate the merits of astrology with me. Let me save you the trouble…don’t bother. It’s a crock. A big steaming crock of crap. I wrote an article about that topic a long time ago and I’m kicking myself for not leaning on one point more heavily. I touched on it under the heading “Stuck in the past” in the article, Debunking Astrology: Myth in the Modern Era. What is the one, biggest, glaring, conspicuous reason astrology is so very, very bogus? Stellar drift.
It hit me again today like the blazing sun in my astronomy software, Stellarium. I’m a Sagittarius who was born a Capricorn. Four thousand years of stellar drift have bumped all the astrological signs back one month. The sun won’t even enter Capricornus until the 18th of January 2009. As it is today, as it was on my birthday, the sun is squarely in Sagittarius.
Those moldy Babylonians did a great job mapping out the sky and spinning some fanciful tales, but they didn’t factor in stellar drift. No one since has bothered to adjust the astrological houses. No one bothers to point to all the fancy birth charts and say, “Um…no. The sun is in the wrong house for me to be a Capricorn.”
I’m sorry if that offends someone, but stellar drift is a fact. I don’t care if you believe in God or gods or fate or karma. I don’t care if you think the flying spaghetti monster in the sky directs your daily footsteps. What snaps my garters is when people take something simple like gravity, twist it into some all-encompassing system, and try to relieve their minds of personal responsibility.
Just so we’re clear: 4,000 years ago astronomy helped plant crops. Then some joker got the idea that crop fertility equals human fertility and tried to apply that fancy new calendar to babies. Astronomy is not astrology. Stars are giant fusion reactors and do not control our fates. Planets follow Newtonian laws and not the laws of Marduk.
I was conceived under a “Do Not Disturb” sign and born under a stop sign. So happy birthday to me. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest. Consider that your annual sacrifice…er…present.
In the last installment of Naked Eye Astronomy, I concluded with a few questions. It’s time to answer those and continue the exploration of my favorite sky, the winter sky.
Last time, I told you how to find Orion the hunter by looking for his belt and four bight stars, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, Rigel, and Saiph. You’ll need to find him again because we’re going to use Orion as the starting point to locate some other wonders of the winter sky.
What is Orion Hunting?
You can make a case for just about anything, but I think like Momie Tullottes did in her comment. Orion is hunting Taurus the bull. The fact that Orion is always following Taurus through the heavens gives this story a little validity.
Face south around 11 PM local time and locate Orion’s belt. Follow the line of the belt from left to right (east to west). The first bright orange star you come to is the eye of the bull, Aldebaran (alpha Tau). Aldebaran’s orange glow is streaming across 65 light years to reach us and is still bright at magnitude 0.85. Aldebaran appears so bright after its lights’ long trip to earth because it is nearing the end of its life and has expanded to 44 times the size of our sun.
Can we see any of our relatives up there?
Aldebaran means “follower” in Arabic. Who is Aldebaran following? The seven sisters. Didn’t know you had sisters in the sky, did you? In the lore of the Dakota Sioux, Alderbaran is hunting the white buffalo, but we’ll stick to the Western/Greek lore and call the Pleiades, the seven sisters. If you want to geek your friends out, rattle off the sisters’ names, Sterope, Merope, Electra, Maia, Taygete, Celaeno and Alcyone. Throw in their parents, Atlas and Pleione for good measure. From Aldebaran, just look up the line you traced from Orion’s belt to find the Pleiades. Ever wonder why the car maker Suburu has that funky star symbol? In Japan, the Pleiades are called Suburu.
Where are Orion’s hunting dogs? Where in the winter sky can we find one of our nearest star neighbors?
Orion has two dogs following him on his hunt. They trail just left (east) of him. Go east from the red giant Betelgeuse and the next bright star you’ll find is Procyon, (alpha CMi), the 0.40 magnitude star of Canis Minoris, the little dog. Procyon’s owes its brightness to the relative closeness to our solar system. It’s only about 11 light years away. Now go south, below Orion and about half-way back west to Orion and you’ll find the brightest star in the northern hemisphere, Sirius. Alpha Canus Majoris, is also know as the Dog Star since it is the brightest star of the Big Dog constellation. Sirius appears so bright for two reasons. One, it is about 25 times brighter than our sun. Two, it is one of our closest neighbors at only 8.6 light years.
Sirius has great stories scattered in almost every culture. The ancient Egyptians kept track of Sirius because its heliacal rising coincided with the Nile flood. The Greeks called the month after Sirius’ heliacal rising the Dog Days of Summer because they believed Sirius was adding its heat to the Sun’s to make us all sweat. This also explains why Sirius Radio chose a dog as its logo and why J. K. Rowling named her werewolf character Sirius Black.
So after all these thousands of years, why hasn’t Orion caught that bull?
I blame his dogs. In the right angle, east of Sirius and south of Rigel, is the constellation Lepus. While Orion is trying to catch the bull, his dogs have been distracted by the rabbit under his feet. To the naked eye, Lepus the hare is fairly unremarkable. Arneb (alpha Lep), the brightest star in the constellation went supernova thousands of years ago, probably before there were humans to give the stars names. You can get some idea of what is left of Arneb when you consider the 2.55 magnitude object we see today is 1284 light years away.
I hope that answers the questions I posed last time. There is plenty more to explore in this part of the sky. Next time well talk about chauffeurs, twins, and unicorns.
The (Northern) Winter Solstice happened yesterday, December 21, 2008 at 12:04 UT. Yeah, I’m sure you didn’t notice, but the days are getting longer from here on out. My longest night was spent with the best sleep I’ve had in a week. Now begins what I consider the best part of the night sky, the Winter constellations.
Right after sunset, Piscis Austrinus (PsA) is low on the SSW horizon. The reason I like PsA is Fomalhaut (alpha PsA). The magnitude 1.15, class A star has the distinction of being the first star where we tiny earthlings saw an extrasolar planet in the visible light spectrum, thanks to the Hubble telescope. Though not visible to the naked eye, Fomalhaut has a 25 AU debris disk circling at about 133 AU that emits a stunning amount of infrared radiation.
Right now, Venus is hanging around just west of Formalhaut. A month from now, on 21 Jan 2009, Venus will be in conjunction with Uranus. Watch for it.
Around 11pm local time, Orion, the naked-eye astronomer’s dream, is due south. The reddish Betelgeuse (alpha Ori) and blue Bellatrix (gamma Ori) mark the Hunter’s shoulders. bright blue Rigel (beta Ori) and the dimmer Saiph (kappa Ori) mark his feet. You can spend an entire evening lost in the wonders of Orion. Betelgeuse’s impressive 0.45 magnitude is more impressive when you know that it is 427 light years away. Not to be out done, Rigel’s 0.15 magnitude comes across 772 light years to brighten our winter sky.
Orion is one of the easiest constellations to find. Simply look for Orion’s belt, the three evenly spaced stars, Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, in a diagonal line. Look down and hanging from Orion’s belt is his sword. At first glance, Orion’s belt looks like three fuzzy stars, but if you look closely (you may need binoculars), some of the fuzziness will clear. The middle star, theta-1 Ori C, is blurred by the Great Nebula in Orion.
So what is Orion the hunter hunting? Where are his hunting dogs and what are they after? Where in the winter sky can we find one of our nearest star neighbors? Can we see any of our relatives up there? All this in our next installment of the winter sky unless you want to throw out your guesses in the comments.
There seems to be great confusion about the submission options for Associated Content articles. There are also a few pit-falls in the system. Some combination of choices simply make no sense. Let’s take a look at some of the common problems new Associated Content contributors face and clear up a few things.
The submission template’s first page is where you select the options. Many people are over-looking the “learn more” links under each of the four sections. There are some very good descriptions hiding under these links. Click them. Read them. Afterwards, if you don’t understand them, ask about them. I’ll save what they mean for another day. Today, I’ll be covering some of the common combination that spell heartburn for the uninitiated.
1. How do you publish time-sensitive articles?
You have a couple of choices that will publish without waiting for a content manager review. Display Only is the easiest. Choose Display Only and the rest of the selections will be selected automatically. The other option is Non-Exclusive rights and Performance Only payments. Those are your only two options for immediate publication.
If you select Exclusive rights, your article will go into the review queue regardless of your other selections.
If you submit an article via the News template, your article will go into the review queue regardless of your other selections.
Those two are the biggest mistakes I see contributors make. Go back and read that again and let is sink in.
2 Rights: Exclusive, Non-Exclusive, Display Only
Never, under any circumstances, select Exclusive rights and Performance Payments Only. That’s just dumb. If you do, you are giving AC perpetual rights for nothing. At least get a few bucks up-front from them if you’re going to give up your rights. Use Exclusive sparingly and only with Up-front Payment. Exclusive articles are going to be reviewed anyway (see above) so you might as well get paid for the wait.
Non-Exclusive at least gives you the right to republish elsewhere. With Exclusive, you can’t even post it on your own blog. 95%+ of all your submissions should be Non-Exclusive. I’ve seen more than one person say, “I’m never going to use the article again anyway so why not submit as Exclusive?” Because you never know when things are going to change. Keep your options open.
Display Only gives you the ability to edit at any time or delete the article completely. It pays the same in performance bonus as any other submission. It’s your best bet for testing the AC waters.
3. What goes into the review queue?
Other than Display Only or Non-Exclusive/No-upfront, everything will be reviewed prior to publishing. The exception is News. All news articles are reviewed. Never submit news under either of the two aforementioned options. You’re going to wait anyway so you might as well put in for the money.
We’ll cover the various pros and cons of the selection options another day. For now, happy writing.
I’ve gone all out with the Xmas decorations this year. The house is ablaze with holiday cheer. The electricity is flowing and the meter is spinning wildly. I dread the January utility bill, but it’s Xmas and it only comes once a year.
This year, the whole family is coming over for caroling. We’ll be singing the traditional tunes, but with the alternative lyrics I wrote. If you’re interested in starting a new holiday tradition like us, you can find the lyrics here. Some say these are a little obsessive, but this year they are perfect. The new Tom Cruise abortion, Valkyrie is vomiting on movie screens nationwide this Xmas Day so why shouldn’t I profit from that little trolls so-called acting skills.
Why do I loathe all things Cruise? It’s really simple. People who are so absolutely full of their own shit need a constant reminder that they are human. Tommy acts like such a pompous jackass with his I-know-better-than-you-because-I-read-Dianetics-and-forked-over-an-obscene-amount-of-cash-to-the-”church”-of-Scientology attitude, he just needs a few reminders that, indeed, his shit does stink. When he started spewing his special brand of holier-than-thou, I-got-thousands-of-children-off-medications bullshit last year, I had to throw a shoe through my television.
So, yes, I loathe Tom Cruise and Scientology and bullshit in general. You are more than welcome to join in the holiday cheer with the alternative carol lyrics. Pour some egg-nog, put on your sun glasses and I’ll fire up the stunning Xmas lights. Here’s a photo of my massive decorations this year. Prepare to be stunned.
This stunning display of holiday cheer won 2nd place in the neighborhood decoration contest
Merry Xmas to all and to all a good, Tom-Cruise-less night. Please don’t buy a ticket to Valkyrie. Your nonattendance of this film will count as your gift to me this year.
Kid, You’ll Move Mountains’ new CD has its official release on 2 Jan 2009. I got a pre-release copy thanks to Nate “The Little Drummer Boy” Lanthrum, to whom I am very grateful. The new CD, Loomings, doesn’t really have a bad track on it. You can hear a few cuts at KYMM’s MySpace page.
In the mean time, enjoy this live performance recorded at Milwaukee’s Summerfest ‘07. Seems like a long time to release a CD, I know, but it has been worth the wait. Loomings is one of the best new Indie offerings I’ve heard this year.
At about six pounds each, my mini-mighty Chihuahuas are running about $110/lb. After 6 days boarding over the Thanksgiving holiday, annual shots, dental cleaning, tooth extraction, and the responsible neutering for each, my veterinarian presented me with a bill for $1,330 and change. This makes my pups about the same price as Kobe beef flown in from Japan.
Obviously, I’m not condoning a canine diet. There isn’t much meat on the little rats anyway. Though, when I start juggling the bills to pay the vet and the cupboard starts thinning, those dogs are going to start looking pretty tasty. Either, that or they’re going to have to share their dog food with me.
A little bonus from Associated Content. You get a chance at a little extra stuffing in your stocking. It definitely sounds better than playing dradle with your cousin or eating corn.
Here’s part of the official announcement with all the blah-blah frilly stripped out.
We’ll be giving away six iPod Nanos to Content Producers throughout December. Publishing a piece of content for Upfront Payment automatically enters your name in the sweepstakes, and we’ll be drawing two new winners each week starting on December 16. If you’ve already published for Upfront Payment in December, you’re already entered. No purchase necessary. Full contest rules available here.
I love how AC used the old “here link” trick to avoid their own inter-linker chomping the URL.
So happy writing and happy holiday, what ever that holiday is.
It’s that time of year again. AC has been taking nominations via a forum thread for the 2008 prizes for about a week now. Here’s the official announcement:
Associated Content is once again hosting its annual awards program that recognizes the achievements of exceptional Content Producers on AC. This year’s awards include one cash prize of $2,000 for the “Content Producer of the Year” and three cash prizes of $500 each for the best articles of the year. AC is also shelling out prizes for “Videographer of the Year” ($500), “News Provider of the Year” ($500), “Audiocaster of the Year” ($500) and three bonuses for Top Performing Content ($100 each). AC will be collecting nominations throughout December, and the winners will be announced in January 2009.
Just a few thoughts about this years awards.
1. Display-only articles don’t qualify for Article of the Year. I guess AC thinks the author will win and then might remove the article. If you think you have an award-worthy article, you’d better convert it to a Non-exclusive article.
2. Since videos and audios are not eligible for up-front payment, it’s nice to see these categories rewarded in some way. Fortunately for those in the running the competition is low. AC videos have a notorious history of not playing correctly so not many people bother. Likewise, audios take forever to publish and most don’t have the patience.
3. The News Provider category is yet another attempt at bolstering AC as a news site. I’ll catch flack for saying it, but AC is not and never will be a news site. It just doesn’t have the credibility. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of talented writers submitting to the AC news channel. I’m not down-playing the writing. It’s just that real, first-hand reporting is rare at AC and, oxymoronically, often rejected as unsubstantiatable. This creates the vicious circle that AC claims they don’t want, namely, regurgitated wire stories. Even more confusing is the fact that AC often publicly congratulates news contributors who submit exactly that. If I ever see a real, first-hand report published via the AC news channel, I’ll let you know, but don’t stand in the rain waiting.
4. As usual, the nomination thread is quickly becoming cluttered with thank-yous from those nominated. It would be great if the nominees saved their acceptance speeches for after the awards. Just a pipe dream, I know, but it would make it easier to follow the nominations.
5. CP of the Year? That’s a tough call. I already chimed in with Carol Bengle Gilbert. I only know Carol from her AC writings, but felt here consistent quality and varied topics make her the prime candidate. She’s a little light on community involvement, which I consider to be part of the over-all package, but she fits the AC model of a great, consistent writer.
If you’re an AC CP and logged in, just visit the Awards Forum to see all the nomination threads.
Good luck to everyone.
Like mom's fridge 
