APOD: QR Codes: Not for Human Eyes (2011 Oct 04)

[Wireman]

This was pretty lame, APOD! Astronomy means "study of the stars" or other celestial objects.

[500pesos]

What is this smartphone that you speak of? and the image, it is intriguing.

[Valio]

QR code for the URL of the English Wikipedia Mobile main page

[Pete123123]

Whilst today's APOD has generated a significant response, it is for all the wrong reasons.

That's just a statement. You should put some reasoning.

[Pete1234]

Pathetic. The negative comments, that is.
APOD, you've been my home page since August of '95 and will continue to be. Thanks!!!

It's pathetic how people can't handle criticism.

People clearly dislike the choice. Get over that. It's ok to complain. You get no where with just sholderpadding.

[Peter123123]

This is a pretty interesting change-up; I learned something new today (one of the many reasons I visit APOD), as I'd been seeing these 'QR Codes' in many places recently.
Great job, APOD!

I'm curious. What did you learn?

Oh, and to all the whiners/complainers: Please feel free to start your own site.
Buh-bye!

And please drop the juvenile nonsense, that people shouldn't complain about a website, but should just make their own instead. It's not valid. If you don't like peoples real opinions, don't visit the forum.

[Pete123123]

Some angry trolls here.

You seem to not understand the world troll. Don't call people trolls, just because they aren't happy with something, and they express it. That has nothing to do with being a troll.

[Redbone]

It looks like the Grumpy Old Man angered some viewers again, oh well. People are such creatures of habit. I enjoyed the post, it's different. And thanks to <b>wavelet</b> for the decoder. I would like to know exactly how the image is parsed, I'm guessing by pixels? It must be some sort of binary. This is a science page, after all. Carry on.

[agulesin]

Well I'm amazed that APOD got so much flak for publishing this QR code... Maybe I'm the only one here who loves them and straight away got my smartphone (!) focused on the screen and realised that I could follow APOD on it instead of making my laptop busy.

I'll publish a link to my photos of the QR code being read sometime later in the day. if I don't get carried away making my own QR codes from the links you supplied!

PS Am I the only one with a perma-QR code on my office wall? I think we should make more use of them, for instance printing out a code for all the pages we regularly visit and then just pointing the camera at them rather than fiddling around with those silly stylus or mini-keyboard things...

WELL DONE APOD team, keep up the good work. I'm sure that tomorrow's photograph will settle down those complaining here...

[neufer]

Well that's kind of disappointing...

Not only is it a QR code in place of one of the many amazing astronomy images that could be there, but it just links back to the main page. You'd at least thing you'd have it linking to a real image actually related to astronomy...

oh well....

The Ouroboros, a dragon that continually consumes itself,
is used as a symbol for self-reference.

<<Self-reference occurs in natural or formal languages when a sentence or formula refers to itself. The reference may be expressed either directly—through some intermediate sentence or formula—or by means of some encoding. In philosophy, it also refers to the ability of a subject to speak of or refer to himself, herself, or itself: to have the kind of thought expressed by the first person pronoun, the word "I" in English. Self-reference is related to self-reflexivity and apperception.

Self-reference is studied and has applications in mathematics, philosophy, computer programming, and linguistics. Self-referential statements sometimes have paradoxical behavior.

An example of a self-referential situation is the one of autopoiesis, as the logical organization produces itself the physical structure which creates itself.

Self-reference also occurs in literature and film when an author refers to his work in the context of the work itself. Famous examples include Cervantes's Don Quixote, Denis Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître, Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, many stories by Nikolai Gogol, Lost in the Funhouse by John Barth, Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author, and Federico Fellini's 8½ . This is closely related to the concepts of breaking the fourth wall and meta-reference, which often involve self-reference.

In computer science, self-reference occurs in reflection, where a program can read or modify its own instructions like any other data. Numerous programming languages support reflection to some extent with varying degrees of expressiveness. Additionally, self-reference is seen in recursion (related to the mathematical recurrence relation), where a code structure refers back to itself during computation.>>

[Copepod]

It may be October, but this BOOOOOOOOOO is not a ghost.

This site is a refuge from our planet, and surely you have not exhausted the possibilities of space. I appreciate all the work that goes into this site, but I'd rather just see a recycled APOD that actually involves astronomy.

[Francerve]

Be thanked for your images, you amateurs and enjoy ! For today’s intriguing image is to be sent to others, placed on boards, a way to SHARE your emotions with others… Isn’t it a brilliant idea !
Many great thanks to you, dear Apod Team, every day you make us marvel at stars or earth phenomenons and enlarge our field of view with sth to think upon. Must be a real challenge to select a piece every day, thanks a lot !
I like it ! as they say now with all these new communication modes…
As for these criticisms, they intrigue me more than this QR Code… do some people really think they own this free Picture of the Day ?
Francerve

[leon.l7027@gmail.com]

Dear APOD and you mostly lost viewers, especially the one who swore:
There is still nothing in this world that was not created by Christ, imho. And so, I forgive you on behalf APOD and those who enjoyed the QR code. Blessings on all of you, but mostly on the person who posted the working out of the solution.
Pax Christi!
Leon

[wwbirder]

This is totally uninteresting and makes a very annoying background.

[tcox]

Well, I had never heard of or even seen a QR code so thank you for the enlightenment. I do not use cell phones nor do I assemble automobiles but I find all of this interesting and, in spite of all of the negative comments to today's APOD, I think you have provided a real service to some of your readers.

[geckzilla]

Some things you guys should know:

1. The editors know that this is not an astronomy picture.
2. The editors also know what kind of response is generated by non-astronomy pictures.
3. Your criticisms are futile because they already know.
4. This will happen again in the future.
5. You have been officially (educationally) trolled by APOD.

[Unca Lar]

LAME!!! APOD's new definition: A PILE OF DUNG. I at least expected the QR code to take me to some impressive photo. It's obvious you guys took the day off!

[tgallen]

Other than being the link to APOD, what does this have to do with astronomy? Stay on topic, people.

[quintia]

thank you for reminding us of the aliens in our midst, and there are many

[michael t]

This is to the editors of this site - keep up the good work. I'm appalled at the bad manners of some of the other posters. A free service and they complain - sheesh! This is a great site. Please - keep posting interesting stuff - I've enjoyed this site for years and will continue to do so.

[orin stepanek]

Oh my!

Click to view full size image

[Turbomax]

Dissapointing

[qmutt]

the two gentlemen that purportedly edit this page seem to have seriously lost their focus, that or their good sense.
if they continue on this track maybe they should think about changing the name of this page from apod to rpod - retail picture of the day.
on this new mission they can inspire people to go shopping rather than contemplating the mysteries of the universe.

[alphachap]

irrelevant!

[alphachap]

worst wallpaper ever!