Singing Potatoes
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Tuesday, 22 June 2004
Ah, accuracy.

I just saw an ad for Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 which began, "Fahrenheit: the temperature in the atmosphere when it reaches the boiling point."

Um, no. Fahrenheit is a system of measuring temperature, named after the person who devised it. The atmosphere, at least on Earth, is always well above its boiling point (the temperature at which a liquid becomes gaseous). Earth's atmosphere comprises primarily nitrogen (boiling point: -320° Fahrenheit) and oxygen (boiling point: -297.4° Fahrenheit).

With a blatant inaccuracy like that being used to advertise it, I'm not filled with high hopes about the veracity of the film itself.

Posted by godfrey (link)
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Comments
Had you heard Ray Bradbury's comments on Michael Moore's appropriation of his title? I believe the exact words were "Michael Moore is a piece of [expletive]." (Yes, including the brackets; science fiction writers can pronounce those.)
Posted by Squelch on 22 Jun 2004 19:17
What Squelch said. The article is here.
Posted by Darren on 22 Jun 2004 21:01
Yeah, I've seen it.

On the one hand, I can understand where Bradbury's coming from. On the other hand, it's a literary allusion, an incredibly commonplace thing which neither requires permission nor usually gets its practitioners branded as pieces of [expletive].

I mean, if it did, Terry Pratchett would be one of the biggest pieces of [expletive] on the planet...

Posted by Godfrey on 23 Jun 2004 06:56