Actually, I would say the main problem is that people just have hideously low expectations of journalism. I'm Irish, hardly the most irony-deficient nation by stereotype. I thought the article was sincere (if not serious). If I were more familiar with the usual tone at The Register, or if I'd initially read parts like the 'letter from mom' at the start which I skipped to get to the claims mentioned in the writeup, then I suspect I'd have caught it. But instead I simply saw it as another piece of uninformed twittage finding its way into an op-ed, and it didn't stand out from any number of stupid pieces you'd find on the net or even in print. That's what's really sad here.
This is gone over in one of Alastair Reynolds' books - Redemption Ark I believe it was. From what I can remember the main problem wasn't colliding stars but colliding gas clouds and such, prompting new star formation, leading quickly to supernovas, which due to their size or location or both would basically sterilize most of the galaxy. Not quite a boring night sky...
Slashdot Mirror
...that's not what pink kryptonite does...
Co-opting a commonly used word isn't evil. Slashdot giving us false hope that the Google homepage was now going to dispense Guinness - that's evil.
Actually, I would say the main problem is that people just have hideously low expectations of journalism. I'm Irish, hardly the most irony-deficient nation by stereotype. I thought the article was sincere (if not serious). If I were more familiar with the usual tone at The Register, or if I'd initially read parts like the 'letter from mom' at the start which I skipped to get to the claims mentioned in the writeup, then I suspect I'd have caught it. But instead I simply saw it as another piece of uninformed twittage finding its way into an op-ed, and it didn't stand out from any number of stupid pieces you'd find on the net or even in print. That's what's really sad here.
This is gone over in one of Alastair Reynolds' books - Redemption Ark I believe it was. From what I can remember the main problem wasn't colliding stars but colliding gas clouds and such, prompting new star formation, leading quickly to supernovas, which due to their size or location or both would basically sterilize most of the galaxy. Not quite a boring night sky...