Fake Sandy Pictures

The news is all Sandy today, and the internet has covered it with its usual approach: OMG photos run through Instagram filters to make it look like the storm hit in 1972 and the photos sat in the sun for a year. Also, there are fakes. This is a real seal except it's fake -

By that I mean it was real in Duluth, when the flood opened the gates of hell - er, the zoo - and it's fake in New York. The Atlantic's tech blog studies the most popular passed-around shots to determine which ones are real; that's the source of the Seal Debunking. (Which could also refer to Heidi Klum's divorce.) Also, "Is Twitter Wrong," an essential tumblr for this sort of thing, notes:

Hmm:

Note: if something looks like a still from "Independance Day," it's probably not real. Also: if the storm appears to be coming from the East, it's probably something besides the hurricane.

Buzzfeed wants to be a Grown-Up Legitimate News Service, you know. Everyone makes mistakes, but this is like putting this on the front page of the Strib:

Or this.

How not to deal with the storm: Donald Trump version. He tweeted:

America Apparel got some folks het up with an opportunistic sale:

If things are going to fall down and explode and people might die, it's really not a good time to offer a discount on T-shirts.

Speaking of pictures: Wired has a story about plans to put 100 pictures into orbit affixed to a satellite, where they will remain long after humanity has either expired or left. Aliens who stop by will be able to find out things about us by examining the photos - specifically, they will find out that the people who chose the photos were nuts. To use an arcane term of criticism. Yes, a grim 19th century operating theater: that'll tell them who we were. If we put up a picture of a modern hospital, they'll just assume we came up with that without any antecedents whatsoever.

As people note in the comments, there's not much point in putting it around earth orbit. The sun will eat it eventually. Better to put it somewhere farther out. Just don't forget the flute.

The photos will be engraved, so they won't fade or degrade. Better put a smartphone loaded with Instagram on the satellite so the aliens can run them through the Kelvin filter, just to see what things looked like right before the sun engulfed the earth.