My travels are done for a whole week now (according to my calendar, I’m going to have to go to Washington DC next week), and I’m very, very tired. I’ll put up some of my thoughts on the Beyond Belief conference later (short summary: exhilarating!), but for now I’ll acknowledge the wonderful time I had at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. It was a big audience — much bigger than I expected — and they asked really sharp questions and tossed back a few important ideas on communicating science that I appreciated. Special thanks to my host, Miriam Goldstein.
I promised to mention the Three Seas Program, which looks like an excellent opportunity for students interested in marine biology—actually, I wish I could do it—and I’m going to be sure too suggest to my students who think marine biology and oceanography are cool (we get a few of these students from the midwestern prairies every year who dream of the distant seas) that they ought to consider the Scripps for grad school.
Thanks also to Hao Ye, official photographer to the PZ Myers Southern California Tour 2007.
I can’t really thank this guy for showing up, since he missed my entire talk and therefore missed the opportunity to absorb the PZ mojo and have his IQ doubled but some of you may know who he is. If you can’t, here’s a hint.
Hey PZ, you don’t look as fat!
Lose some weight?
Or have you got some disease?
It’s interesting that a troll would show up to meet you. I always dreaded his comments.
ew! R O’B!
strange, I always pictured him quite differently…guess it’s true: on the ‘tubes, nobody knows you’re a dog.
oH my gosh, Robert O’Brien. He’s almost famous for being stupid. Now that I see he’s just some young clueless kid itmakes you have sympathy for his backward ideas.
God, he looks like a dork, too (& don’t say he doesn’t have that coming. I wouldn’t make fun of most people’s looks, but he’s removed the need for restraint vis-a-vis himself).
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Now be nice. I think R O’Brien looks just fine. Kinda cute … considering ;)
What is it with people on the internet and judging appearance? If you walked by this guy on the street or sat next to him in a bar you wouldn’t think twice about what he looked like. Some folks seem to have spent too much time on the Am-I-Hot website.
What is it with people who don’t read the explanation plainly written out for them? He does look like a dork, and considering what an ass he’s been, to myself and to others, I’m damn well going to say so.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Regarding your comment about mid-western students….
When I was sailing the high seas as a young man, I would often hear stories about people from the mid-west dreaming of the oceans. You would hear how the teenage boys would climb high in trees or atop telephone poles and dream of being aloft on the yards of tall ships. Often these boys would take off for the nearest ocean port at the earliest opportunity to seek their fortunes as sailors.
Appropriately, you would also hear of the old salt who, upon retiring, would walk inland with an oar on his shoulder. As soon as somebody asked him what that thing was, he would know he’d gone far enough, buy some property and start farming.
Ah, the cycle of life.
Bwa-ha-ha, that last photograph is like the reverse of the picture of me, Andrew Arensburger, and Kent Hovind! Now if it’s truly a reverse picture in every way, then Robert O’Brien is going to end up incarcerated soon :-O
Glen wrote:
No he doesn’t.
Gee, you guys are pretty nasty to PZ — having a bad case of science envy today? Paying so much attention to someone’s looks strikes me as pretty shallow.
Personally, I think he’s hot. Perhaps not as hot as Mr. Science, also the possessor of a Trophy Wife (me), but still . . .
Then again, I’m a nerd/dork myself, so naturally I’d be attracted.
But here’s what I look like, for anyone who’s interested in throwing more stones: http://community.beliefnet.com/?page_id=24&tgt=1136969390
Maybe dorkiness — or beauty — is in the eye of the beholder, nicht wahr?
Whoa. Odysseus is still wandering the Earth like Caine in Kung Fu, then?
I did not judge his looks (though, like Glen and PZ and everybody else, I had long ago judged his verbal effluvia), I merely stated that he looked different than I had pictured him in my mind’s eye. The canine reference was not meant to imply that I thought O’Brien looked ugly or dog-like; it was merely referring to the famous cartoon from The New Yorker.
Although why I’m concerned about possibly insulting R O’B I have no idea!
Obviously that’s a living chupacabra.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071102/ap_on_sc/mythical_chupacabra;_ylt=AvNw1CBeraFMB77x.Z.AuWas0NUE
On the other hand, maybe it’s just a dead coyote.
What are you coming to DC for?
Maybe you can find someone among your friends you can translate this French text by an astronomer defending fundamental research. It is worth it.
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3232,36-974175,0.html
One point, among others, I like is,
“Je ne vous demande ni l’aumône ni la lune. Je vous demande des milliards d’euros.”
I am not asking you either for alms or the moon. I am asking you for billions of euros.
Doesn’t work.
Bit lengthy, but I might try tomorrow. Title: “Without the theory of relativity, no GPS”.
Doesn’t work.
Bit lengthy, but I might try tomorrow. Title: “Without the theory of relativity, no GPS”.
Hmm. Try this one:
http://community.beliefnet.com/?page_id=24&tgt=1194501717
That website just underwent a major redesign, and we’re all still fumbling around.
If that link won’t work, maybe it just isn’t meant to be.
Someone just isn’t praying hard enough to the tech gods.
It must be weird meeting someone who hates you virtually. Did you talk to him? Is he unhinged in real life too?
Hi PZ – glad the conference worked out well in spite of the fires! Thanks for sharing your experience and I’m looking forward to the BB II conference videos on the web. For students interested in all things Marine, also check out OSU: http://oregonstate.edu/.
Who’s unhinged?
Steve_C: O’Brien, of course. I mean, he supports Ron Paul for ’08. ‘Nuff said.
ah yes. the poorman’s ross perot.
Steve_C: “Someone just isn’t praying hard enough to the tech gods.”
But Steve, I’m supposed to be one of the tech gods myself! Guess I must be one of the lesser gods . . .
PZ:
Do please give some advance notice if you will be appearing somewhere in DC that is open to the public.
This is O’Brien making a video responding to comments on Pharyngula.
It’s weird. It’s like he made a mistake by not having the microphone anywhere near his mouth, so that you can’t tell what he’s saying, but then he POSTED THE VIDEO ANYWAY.
Next time in La Jolla, go see my old stompin’ grounds at the real Scripps, The Scripps Research Institute up the road a spell. Oh have Dr. Glen Nemerow take you out for some Adelberto’s carne asada fries, aka heart disease in a box.
Re: the old salt/Odysseus in #8 and #12: In 1978, when my younger brother came out West from Pennsylvania to live with us and finish highschool, he said the same thing to me, only it was a snow shovel instead of an oar. I assume he was making a classical reference; it did succeed in putting our winterlong rains into perspective.
Quick and dirty French translations my specialty, thanks to working for an underfunded NGO in Haiti :).
Here’s the first half; I got this done before leaving for dinner.
(leaving the lab now; will finish at home tonight or tomorrow AM, unless someone beats me to it.)
Wow, R O’B is a doofus kid. Makes one almost feel sorry for jumping down their throats. Almost.
If their parents won’t do it, the online village must…
If you’re feeling up to meeting fans, let us know where you’ll be. I’m not above bribing you with $BEVERAGE_OF_CHOICE to have you autograph my copy of “Bad Astronomy”.
BruceH @ #8:
I’ve heard a similar thing about someone nearing retirement in the DC area: “I’m going to take a snow shovel and start driving south. I’ll stop every mile and ask someone what it is. The first place where they say “I don’t know”, that’s where I’ll go to retire.”
What REALLY bugs me is that Robert O’Brien looks brighter than I did when I had MY picture taken with PZ:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hankfox/1176849611/
(Not many people know what a giant of a man PZ is.)
I can’t believe we’re using this thread to discuss how dorky Mr O’Brien looks.
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Meh, just give him a dorkiness rating out of 10. It’s more concise.
Picking up where I left off…
Okay, maybe I should apologize for that one. Today the video sounds okay. Huh. Go figure.
Sorry, Robert. I swear when I watched it yesterday the sound was so faint I couldn’t tell what was being said.
Is he unhinged in real life too?
I can assure you from personal experience that while he may come off as unhinged on the internet, in real life he’s a sniveling, contemptible jackass.
he missed my entire talk and therefore missed the opportunity to absorb the PZ mojo and have his IQ doubled
Yeah, well, double zero is still zero.
“You have an IQ of TWO! That’s how much the trash can needs to STINK!”
— Insult learned at school, “courtesy” one of the three Mödritscher brothers, probably Christian.
“You have an IQ of TWO! That’s how much the trash can needs to STINK!”
— Insult learned at school, “courtesy” one of the three Mödritscher brothers, probably Christian.
My point was that alleging an IQ of 0 is a really unsophisticated attempt at insulting someone. :-)
My point was that alleging an IQ of 0 is a really unsophisticated attempt at insulting someone. :-)
PZ, I can’t help it, I’m a producer. Lose the beard, you’ll look ten years younger.
(I say that, as Broadway Danny Rose insisted, with all due respect.
Why would I want to look younger? Is there some special virtue to a misleading appearance?
Not at all. It’s the beard that’s misleading. You’re only 50, right?
:)
Well, whilst I am part of the “R. O’Brien esq is an internet troll and thus deserving of much contempt and derision” subscribing clan, I think bashing the cat for his looks (which are certainly not especially disasterous, and not atypical for {for example} an average physics undergrad class*. Is he a male model? Nope. Is he John Merrick? Nope. Just like most of the rest of us) is a bit beyond the pale.
Granted he can act the tool on the webtubes, but as someone above pointed out, offline these internet troll superstars are usually more than a soupcon pathetic and almost exclusively poorly socially adjusted chaps, occasionally with an exciting array of mental illnesses. Having watched his “reply” and “turtle” videos, I’m beginning to feel more than a little sorry for the guy. I’m thinking some beers, some friends and getting laid might help him…..a lot.
So who’s for sending Bobbie a coupon for 24 Millers and a garrulous hooker?
Louis
* As a postgrad when I was TAing/demonstrating to varied undergrad classes I and my colleagues noticed a strange tendancy: move towards the physics end of the science “spectrum” and the undergrads seemed to become more facially inept, whereas if you moved towards the biological end of the science “spectrum” their pulchritude increased. A “Chemistry with materials” class was usually full of mingers, however a “Biological chemistry” class was usually up to the gills with stunners. More research must be done dammit!
I’ve heard a similar thing about someone nearing retirement in the DC area: “I’m going to take a snow shovel and start driving south. I’ll stop every mile and ask someone what it is. The first place where they say “I don’t know”, that’s where I’ll go to retire.”
Be serious. It does not ever snow enough in Washington DC to rightfully drive anyone crazy from the snow. I’m surprised anyone there even bothers to own a snow shovel; why shovel a couple centimetres of snow a couple times per year…? (I have a friend in the area who bikes to work almost all year round.)
The fact that DC shuts down because four flakes drift out of the sky says a lot about the wimpiness of people in DC, not the snow itself.
I am speaking to you from a city where, in one storm last winter, we got >1m of snow in ~30h. And I’m profoundly glad I don’t live in Buffalo, NY.