Neil Armstrong dead. Family statement here. I like the quote at the end.


I noticed NBC's headline read, Astronaut Neil Young, first man to walk on moon, dies at age 82. (yes, NBC, not Fox this time). See screen capture. They corrected it quickly, but bloody hell....I suppose we should be happy they didn't say "Lance Armstrong".

Sigh. One paper called him the first woman on the moon (think it was the Dutch telegraf), and another has called him the first man on earth. Who knew Neil Armstrong was a singer, composer, metamorphic gender transformer and time traveller.

I don't remember Fox ever reporting that Neil Young was the first man on the moon. I remember plenty of similar gaffes by MSNBC, though.



He was the first woman on the moon in Red Dwarf. He was Nellie Armstrong there, of course.



How about thinking of both Neil and Buzz? Buzz would have been the first man on the moon if Neil hadn't pulled rank on him, and Buzz is the guy who popped a moon landing denier in the jaw, so let's not be petty here. Give Buzz his due too. The moon's big enough for both of them.

Absolutely. I've been thinking about Buzz Aldrin too, and I watched the video of him popping the guy in the jaw. Other folks are talking about Buzz too....Here are a couple of the tweets....

Somewhere out there, idiotic conspiracy theorists are mouthing off. And somewhere else, driving towards them, is Buzz Aldrin. (Ed Yong, of Not Exactly Rocket Science).

What a beautiful image. Buzz Aldrin, driving a lonely road across the high desert, fists clenched white-knuckle on the wheel. (Eben Marks, political commentator).
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And a sad image from xkcd which is now one human closer to accuracy.

Re: gaffes. I was referring to the level of the mistake. It was worthy of a Fox News report (e.g. like the one where they stuck Egypt in the wrong place....and still hadn't corrected it that evening). Of all the news stations, Fox is the one most likely, by a very long shot, to get things wrong. So NBC pulled a Fox.

And I did go outside, stare at the moon, wink at it, thought long and hard about Neil and the men who went to the moon, stared some more and got misty-eyed so figured I'd better get indoors and stop getting so sentimental (so far, not working so may as well go back out into the dark and stare at the moon some more...).

Another gaffe in the papers. Neil Armstrong, first man on man.

Truly, he was a pioneer.

Just out today Misinformation and Its Correction a review article published by the Association for Psychological Science. I have printed a copy and will be reading it over the weekend.

Commander Chris Hadfield, on the International Space Station*, has done a David Bowie video and done a fine job with it too. It is going viral, 1.8 million hits in a day. His pictures of earth from the space station are phenomenal too. He's been declared one of the greatest science outreach people this generation. He talks to grade schools from outer space, takes requests for pictures, answers questions (google his answer to the question, what happens when you squeeze out a wash-cloth in space), and is an ambassador of goodwill and for science.

*he is returning to earth today. We welcome him back, but we are going to miss his numerous tweets and facebook posts from life on the station.

Just learned today that the editor of the video is someone who graduated from my brother's multi-media (including video work) courses, so I'm sure that video will be shown to his classes in September to inspire them as well.