So, Velikovsky May Have Been Right After All

Some scientists at Caltech think there might be nine planets (ten if you count poor Pluto). (www.gizmag.com/solar-system-nine-planets-caltech/41423/) Velikovsky spent most of his adult life insisting that there was a tenth planet and that the inhabitants of it had uplifted humankind from apes in order to mine gold for them back in ancient Babylon. Just watch Ancient Astronauts if you want to know more about that scenario.

UPDATE: As my friends Chuck Puckett and Shelley  Wilmoth pointed out on Facebook, I misremembered who it was that was hypothesizing the Ancient Aliens. It was Zecharia Sitchin that wrote about Nibiru, the twelfth planet. Immanuel Velikovsky wrote Worlds In Collision. That will teach me to do my research before I rip off a blog post.

Nielsen TV Ratings on Facebook?

I heard a news item on Marketplace last night (http://www.marketplace.org/2016/01/20/world/media-ratings-agency-pushes-new-ground) about Nielsen scanning Facebook and other social media for mention of TV shows. I immediately wondered how sophisticated their algorithms were and whether my mention of the Big Bang Theory in other contexts might add to the show’s already gargantuan ratings. Not that I’d mind.