{"id":524,"date":"2006-08-23T08:29:42","date_gmt":"2006-08-23T08:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/2006\/08\/23\/pick-a-definition-already\/"},"modified":"2006-08-23T08:29:42","modified_gmt":"2006-08-23T08:29:42","slug":"pick-a-definition-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2006\/08\/23\/pick-a-definition-already\/","title":{"rendered":"Pick a Definition, Already!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning&#8217;s <cite>Times<\/cite> bring a story saying that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2006\/08\/23\/science\/space\/23pluto.html?ex=1313985600&#038;en=a987252f9015527b&#038;ei=5088&#038;partner=rssnyt&#038;emc=rss\">astronomers are still dithering about Pluto<\/a>. The latest plan would create a new category of &#8220;dwarf planets,&#8221; and presumably get the International Astronomical Union <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scalzi.com\/whatever\/004405.html\">eaten by Cthullu<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>My immediate response is: &#8220;<strong>Jesus<\/strong>, people, make up your frickin&#8217; minds!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Look, the joke is over, ok? The Pluto story has officially worn out its welcome. Pick a definition, any definition, and <strong>go home<\/strong>. Make room for some real science news.<\/p>\n<p>Honestly, this is why physicists sneer at astronomers. Not only do they use dumb units, and have the axes backwards on most of their graphs, they spend too much time fussing about with names. They&#8217;re almost as bad as those damn biologists.<\/p>\n<p>Pick something to call Pluto&#8211; &#8220;planet,&#8221; &#8220;dwarf planet,&#8221; &#8220;distant iceball,&#8221; &#8220;Fred&#8221;&#8211; and end this nonsense.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning&#8217;s Times bring a story saying that astronomers are still dithering about Pluto. The latest plan would create a new category of &#8220;dwarf planets,&#8221; and presumably get the International Astronomical Union eaten by Cthullu. My immediate response is: &#8220;Jesus, people, make up your frickin&#8217; minds!&#8221; Look, the joke is over, ok? The Pluto story&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/2006\/08\/23\/pick-a-definition-already\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Pick a Definition, Already!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,33,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-in_the_news","category-science","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}