Boaty McBoatface

[nycguy]

From the Brits who gave us Monty Python, Benny Hill, Absolutely Fabulous and much more. Ya gotta love it!

 

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/03/21/471299842/meet-the-u-k-s-cutting-edge-research-vessel-boaty-mcboatface

[+ FreshFluff]

I loved the NYT's article on this, which had a history

 

Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

 

The initiatives are often hilarious but don’t often succeed. Remember when Slovak lawmakers overrode the public’s vote in 2012 to rename a pedestrian bridge after the actor Chuck Norris? Or the debacle in Austin, Tex., a year earlier, when people unsuccessfully tried to name the city’s waste management service after Limp Bizkit’s frontman, Fred Durst?

 

Corporations have also tried the tactic, and the penalty for trying to play with the Internet tends to be meaner: Mountain Dew learned the hard way when 4 Chan took control of a vote to name a new flavor, and the joke was on Taylor Swift and VH1 when the Internet chose a school for the deaf as a concert location.....

 

“We’ve had thousands of suggestions made on the website since we officially launched; many of them reflect the importance of the ship’s scientific role by celebrating great British explorers and scientists,” Ms. Robinson said. “We are pleased that people are embracing the idea in a spirit of fun.”

 

Sure they are.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html

[rvwnsd]

Just for yucks we should let the Internet decide what to do with escorts who lie about themselves or scam their clients.

[bigvalboy]

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/03/21/boaty_wide-1aaa376fdd015039a077cecfe2096e8839599d7e-s800-c85.png

 

 

 

 

It's a tragedy, a tragedy I tell you....I'm a boater, and boats regardless of size, deserves a proper name. Yes I am aware, I view them quite differently than most people do, but damn it, it would be a crime to launch a vessel of her importance, and send her into the polar ice fields with a name like.....I can't even bring myself to type the name...

[mike carey]

The guard on a train to London Waterloo joined in with the fun.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2016/03/22/16/3276587200000578-3504727-image-a-28_1458665270572.jpg

[Zman]

From the NYTimes article you can click through to an amusing story about Mountain Dew's attempt to let the internet name a new flavor (“with green apple attitude”):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/13/4chan-mountain-dew_n_1773076.html

 

My favorite response was "Fapple" http://www.ourgtn.org/public/style_emoticons/default/roflmao.gif.

[+ FreshFluff]

http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2016/03/21/boaty_wide-1aaa376fdd015039a077cecfe2096e8839599d7e-s800-c85.png

 

 

 

 

It's a tragedy, a tragedy I tell you....I'm a boater, and boats regardless of size, deserves a proper name. Yes I am aware, I view them quite differently than most people do, but damn it, it would be a crime to launch a vessel of her importance, and send her into the polar ice fields with a name like.....I can't even bring myself to type the name...

 

But it looks like a bath toy, so Boaty McBoatface describes it perfectly.

 

And there were other suggestions for the polar research ship's name like Bloody Cold Here, Captain Haddock and Big Shipinnit.

[bigvalboy]

But it looks like a bath toy, so Boaty McBoatface describes it perfectly.

 

LOL...I did not see that. I does look like a bath toy. Alrighty then..."Boaty McBoatface" it should be.

[mike carey]

The Australian Antarctic Division has announced a public competition to name a newly announced icebreaker. Sadly, the Environment Minister has specifically ruled out calling it Boaty McBoatface. Presumably calling it It's Cold Here has also been ruled out.

 

On a serious point they have also announced $38m to extend Hobart Airport's runway to accommodate heavier flights to Antarctica, and funds for the runway in Antarctica to allow flights beyond the Division's A319 and RAAF C-17s that fly there now.

[sincitymix]

I loved the NYT's article on this, which had a history

 

Boaty McBoatface: What You Get When You Let the Internet Decide

 

The initiatives are often hilarious but don’t often succeed. Remember when Slovak lawmakers overrode the public’s vote in 2012 to rename a pedestrian bridge after the actor Chuck Norris? Or the debacle in Austin, Tex., a year earlier, when people unsuccessfully tried to name the city’s waste management service after Limp Bizkit’s frontman, Fred Durst?

 

Corporations have also tried the tactic, and the penalty for trying to play with the Internet tends to be meaner: Mountain Dew learned the hard way when 4 Chan took control of a vote to name a new flavor, and the joke was on Taylor Swift and VH1 when the Internet chose a school for the deaf as a concert location.....

 

“We’ve had thousands of suggestions made on the website since we officially launched; many of them reflect the importance of the ship’s scientific role by celebrating great British explorers and scientists,” Ms. Robinson said. “We are pleased that people are embracing the idea in a spirit of fun.”

 

Sure they are.

 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/world/europe/boaty-mcboatface-what-you-get-when-you-let-the-internet-decide.html

kind of like when they had that internet contest vote to name the new module on the ISS. They didn't like the name that was chosen: Colbert, after Stephen Colbert from "The Colbert Report" so they decided to put the name on a treadmill, and gave the module the name Tranquility.

[mike carey]

Well, the decision is in, the ship will be called the RRS Sir David Attenborough.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/06/boaty-mcboatface-ship-to-be-called-rrs-sir-david-attenborough?CMP=soc_568

Oh, and the ship's submersible will be called Boaty McBoatface.