Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008

krou writes "The Big Picture blog is running a Hubble Space Telescope imagery Advent Calendar, where for 25 days (it started on the 1st of December), a new photo will be revealed from the Hubble Space Telescope."

Comments

What ever happened...

[Thelasko]

to separation of church and space?

A picture?

[HardCase]

But...are they chocolate pictures? Mmmmm...chocolate universe...

But why wait 25 days?

[liraz]

Showing one image a day for 25 days is a great way to generate repeat traffic for your blog and increase page views, especially if your blog is picked up by Slashdot!

Or you could skip the middle man and go directly to the source and get as many beautiful HST images as you want... right now.

Re:But why wait 25 days?

[dtml-try MyNick]

This is one blog that doesn't really need the attention. Boston.com is already pretty renown for it's excelent photographic series.

The bigpicture section of the site is updated weekly with amazing shots of a specific subject and linked to by a large number of other websites. This post on /. is just one in many I have seen linking to them.

In short, this is one site that should be bookmarked if you're into nice photographs.

Re:But why wait 25 days?

[kevin_conaway]

Showing one image a day for 25 days is a great way to generate repeat traffic for your blog and increase page views, especially if your blog is picked up by Slashdot! Or you could skip the middle man and go directly to the source and get as many beautiful HST images as you want... right now.

Because thats what an advent calendar is!

I understand that being skeptical of blog postings is tradition (and a good way to get mod points) on Slashdot but trust me, the Big Picture does just fine without needing to troll Slashdot for hits

Wise Men complain

[MosesJones]

Today the Union of Wise Men complained about the Hubble advent calendar and released the following statement

"How on earth are we meant to follow a star if using Hubble we can now see billions of the buggers and makes it clear that rather than being Wise men we are in fact just gullible fools who are clinging to an outdated set of beliefs and primitive ideas on how the Universe operates. We insist that the Hubble advent calendar and telescope are shutdown immediately in order to prevent our beliefs in star following being ridiculed as a result of this vicious use of information. The Union of Wise Men is in favour of scientific endeavour as long as it doesn't imply that star following is a silly way of finding things."

The Union of Wise Men also denied that Star following tended to happen after they staggered out of a pub drunk and went "oooh look at the pretty star".

Re:Wise Men complain

[MyLongNickName]

I've been reading through "The Audacity of Hope" by Barrack Obama. I am not a huge Obama supporter, but figure it would be good to read through the then-presidential-hopeful and now President elect's thoughts. One thing that impressed me is how Barrack identifies the "I'm right an will ridicule everyone who disagrees with me" mentality as the single most harmful element of political discourse today. He has a great point. take a look at Slashdot. Out of 100 "disagreement" threads, how many are actually civil? How many have folks listening to the other point of view?

I know I am guilty of this.

Your post did nothing to advance discourse. It was simply a poor attempt at humor and making fun of a belief system. Yeah, I know.... this is Slashdot. But for some reason I'm having a Don Quixote complex today and felt like pointing this out.

Re:Wise Men complain

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I'm reminded of the classic line from "Good Morning Vietnam":

"You are in more dire need of a blowjob than any white man in history."

Re:Wise Men complain

[E 99]

I remember an interesting survey of religions beliefs across different scientific fields. Astronomers were the one group that stood out as containing almost no atheists.

Re:Wise Men complain

[theLOUDroom]

Your post did nothing to advance discourse.

It is not possible to advance the discourse.

The beliefs he's ridiculing are based on pure, blind FAITH.
It's the same basis that suicide bombers use to support their actions, that was used to justfiy the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition.

The is no such thing as a rational discourse here because these people are not rational.
All you can do is make it blindingly obivous to the people that are not 100% locked into an arbitrary belief system, that beliefs based on nothing more than faith are fundamentally flawed and not worthy of respect.

These people admit up front that nothing you say can change their mind because god told them the "truth".
The idea of "keeping the discouse at a high level" is really just a smoke screen for actually saying, "Let's not challenge these peoples belief system by pointing out the obvious logical flaws and inconsistencies."

If I believed that whites were genetically superior to blacks, people would criticize, ridicule and ostracize me. This is a natural, rational response to the problem. My irrational, arbitray beliefs have a negative impact on society and society is actively seeking to discourage them. Although I would be allowed to hold these beliefs, the rest of society is not obligated to treat them as anything more than utter bullshit. (People with those beliefs can still be treated with respect, but an idea must stand on its merits.)

The idea that just because someone somewhere believes something, we have to treat it as a well-founded legitimate proposition is one of the biggest tradgedies in our educational system today, both at the high school and college levels.

Sneaking a peak under the petticoat of creation...

[Brad_McBad]

If Jesus comes finds out that we're using his birthday as an excuse to peddle images of his dad's side projects he's going to come back packing heat.

Advent is not 25 days long every year...

[Sopor42]

I'm not even a Christian and it bothers me that Advent calendars are commonly 25 days long. Advent is NOT the days of December leading up to Christmas! It is the days from Advent Sunday (Wikipedia), which this years was 30 November, to Christmas. Which at one point in the history of this mostly harmless Earth was a celebration of the birth of Christ...

Re:Advent is not 25 days long every year...

[E 99]

The length of the "advent season", the season leading up to Christmas, varies depending on tradition. It begins on Advent Sunday (4 Sundays before Christmas) for Roman Catholics and Anglicans (and maybe others). However, advent calendars were introduced by German Lutherans, who had 24 days of Advent, beginning on December 1st. Adding a 25th day for Christmas itself is a modern innovation.

Re:Sneaking a peak under the petticoat of creation

[Brad_McBad]

The winter solstice occurs between 20/12 and 23/12. It's been moved to a former pagan holiday. Anyways, he'd forgive us. That's his deal. That and being a parable.

I always thought advent was the TV

[jollyreaper]

It spews commercials so it must be the ad vent.

Mine was a troubled childhood.