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Martian Naming Madness
Macblaster writes "With the rise of robotic exploration of Mars, scientists are having difficulty naming all the new features they're discovering. Accepted name lists have fallen by the wayside, and now scientifically important features are named after everything from 80's bands to romantic interests." From the article: "Like European explorers who named the New World after their homes in the Old, the Mars scientists have filled the strange landscape of the Red Planet with a mishmash of modern life on Earth. The twin rover missions have forced scientists to come up with more than 4,000 names to mark everything from the majestic Columbia Hills to a few pebbles in the sand. The result is an extravagantly labeled map punctuated by the scientists' ever-changing preoccupations with history, holidays, monkeys, ice cream, cartoon characters, sushi, Mayan words, Scandinavian fish delicacies ... the list goes on and on."
Actually the article says 70s bands. But it would rule to have Martian features named Oingo Boingo, Wall of Voodoo, Bananarama and Dire Straits.
Scandanavian fish delicacies? Ye gods!
Oh someone please don't tell me they've named a hill or rock or crater "Lutefisk"! Please, no!
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Unfortunately, people have to be dead for three years before you can use their name, so CowboyNeal Crater is right out.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
We should all include our /. logins. I mean, why confine the /. effect to just earth?
See this is what happens when you don't have a handy native to pull over and ask what the landmark is called. For those who don't know here's a quote from Terry Pratchetts "Light Fantastic"
The forest of Skund was indeed enchanted, which was nothing unusual on the Disc, and was also the only forest in the whole universe to be called -- in the local language -- Your Finger You Fool, which was the literal meaning of the word Skund.
The reason for this is regrettably all too common. When the first explorers from the warm lands around the Circle Sea travelled into the chilly hinterland they filled in the blank spaces on their maps by grabbing the nearest native, pointing at some distant landmark, speaking very clearly in a loud voice, and writing down whatever the bemused man told them. Thus were immortalised in generations of atlases such geographical oddities as Just A Mountain, I Don't Know, What? and, of course, Your Finger You Fool.
No driving up goatse canal
Well calling most of these rocks and dunes "Anonymous Coward" is perhaps not the smartest thing to do :-)
Just give them all ipv6 addresses.
main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}
When deep space exploration ramps up,it will be corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Philip Morris Galaxy. Planet Starbucks.
(fight club)
When you look at the state of the world, how can you not become a radical, liberal anarchist?
what? George III had a planet named in his honour so that when he looked through a telescope he would ask "what's that?" Astronomer: "Uranus My majesty." Teh King: "You're fired"
"When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name ..."
everything, the IBM Stellar Sphere... the Microsoft Galaxy... Planet Starbucks.
(And when the story is duped, I'll get to post, "Everything is just a copy of copy..." Whee!)
Just out of curiosity, how rich do you have to be in order to be "incredibly rich?"
Rich enough that you get bored with snorting cocaine through thousand dollar bills off the breasts of three call girls who are lying parallel on the bed in your personal zeppelin, which is floating far above a battlefield where armed men fight and die for your personal amusement.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman