Tetherd Cow Ahead

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s science news pages are currently carrying a story about the discovery of a ‘rogue’ planet ((Is it just me, or does the term ‘rogue planet’ automatically conjure for anyone else Wagnerian-type music and sinister intentions? I mean, it’s not like it set out to storm the universe and take no prisoners. Why is it not simply an ‘orphan’ planet, or a ‘lost’ planet? What’s actually rogue about it?)) ‘wandering all alone through deep space without a host star’. As far as such stories go, it’s an interesting astronomy tidbit, evoking, in the words of Philippe Delorme from France’s Institute of Planetology and Astrophysics, a ‘striking image of orphaned worlds, drifting in the emptiness of space’.

The editors of the ABC science pages ((Along with just about every other outlet carrying the story…)), however, have taken the view that readers will not have the wits nor imagination to be able to conjure up the striking image for themselves, and so have helpfully provided an artist’s impression to help them along. ((It is worth noting here that when the story first went up, the image was presented without the explanatory caption.))

I am not a big fan of the artist’s impression.

How much does this ‘impression’ tell you about the reality of the event in question? Would you say that it’s reasonable to expect that, should you be able to hop in a fast spaceship and fly off to planet CFBDSIR2149 (as it is catchily named), this artist’s impression would give you a vague idea of what you might see? This romantic milky sapphire marble swimming in a luminous sea of misty cerulean stars? Well, my friends, you’d be mightily disappointed. CFBDSIR2149 does not orbit any sun, and so does not reflect any light. In addition, it does not emit much, if any, visible light of its own either, being detected as it was by M. Delorme, via infrared radiation. The Wikipedia entry on CFBDSIR2149 has this to say:

In visible light the object is so cool that it would only shine dimly with a deep red colour when seen close-up.

All things considered, here is a better artist’s impression of what you might see should you ever be in the close proximity of CFBDSIR2149.

Yep. It’s never going to feature on the ’10 Most Visually Impressive Planets You Must Visit Before You Die’ list, that’s for sure.

So what use, actually, is this artist’s impression? It tells us nothing at all about the reality of CFBDSIR2149, ((C’mon! Astronomers! Where are the days of imagination when planets had names? Are we to expect that if you were doing the solar system anew we’d be living on 3 and sending little rovers off to 4? How BORING is that?)) substituting actual facts with a whole lot of visual speculation and even just plain old untruths. Why not paint a picture of the Death Star or a Borg Cube – ‘impressionistically’ speaking, either would be just as informative. Worse still, whatever mental image we might have formed of a darkened planetary body drifting forlornly across the unimaginable dark nothingness of the interstellar void is now indelibly replaced by the fantasy of an azure Xmas bauble that has no relation to anything.

Here is an artist’s impression of what I believe should be the fate of editors who indulge in artist’s impressions. ((Yes, I am aware of the recursive nature of what I did there.))

OK, thanks to Atlas, a COMPETITION! Cows photobombing famous events.

Rules: Make me laugh.

There will be a prize.

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Thanks to Atlas for this find.

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I think I may have to invent a new Cow category: Completely Useless Objects Created By Advertisers For No Real Purposes Other Than to Increase the Material Amount of STUPID in the World. Yes, a bit cumbersome, I agree, but how else to best classify the ridiculous object pictured above, which was given to Vermilion and her friend on a recent shopping expedition?

Let me detail its physical description for you: it’s a flat round disc, about six inches across and printed on that pliable magnetized plastic which has no practical reason for existence other than for sticking on fridges. The centre black-coloured circle rotates and has a little triangular window cut in it to allow you to ‘reveal’ portions of the text.

So, by rotating to the ‘Orange’ category we see that the Club Orange chocolate is ‘Made with delicious orange pieces covered in smooth bittersweet Club® dark chocolate’:

Rotating to the left of the orange coloured segment we reveal the helpful advice that you can ‘Unwind with this perfect combo: Delicious Club® Orange complemented with a cup of tea’:

But why? WHYYYYYYYY?

You see how I wrote those identical words down and they gave you exactly the same information? Why do you need a little magnetic wheel with the suggestions hidden away out of sight until you turn it to the right position? Does someone, somewhere, actually think that I’m going to stick this to my fridge in case of frightening emergencies?

My God! I have a bar of Club® Peppermint and I’ve completely blanked on how I should enjoy it. Quick – THE WHEEL!!! (Phew, and can I say how glad I am that this ingeniuous rotation mechanism has cunningly hidden the information from the sight of a casual passer-by! Wouldn’t want the wheel-skillz-challenged knowing how to get the best out of their Club®! Am I right?)

All I can think of when I see ridiculous tsotchkes such as this is that, should I ever be inclined to actually buy Club® chocolate, part of whatever they charge me for a chocolate bar is serving to offset the cost of a useless piece of crap that nobody wants, and the wages of the advertising idiots who came up with it.

And just in case anyone from Club® chocolate should ever read this post, I’ve prepared a wheel of my own – with no unnecessary moving parts – to explain how this all works, and what your advertising agency won’t ever reveal to you:

If you like, I can print it on a magnet so you can stick it on your fridge.