Tech problems due to Mercury in retrograde?

When Yahoo Messenger went down Wednesday, it might have just been one of those little technology glitches that happen from time to time.

And when some people started having problems with Gmail Thursday, well, it probably was because of some small gremlin in Google's hamster wheel.

Same with my friend's company's corporate e-mail going down the last couple of days--all easily explainable.

Except, maybe there's a single unifying explanation. Maybe it's because of Mercury in retrograde.

I know. Roll your eyes all you want. But the phenomenon--an optical illusion in which Mercury, from our earthly perspective, seems to alter its usual path across the sky to go east to west, or backward, for a time--is thought by many to be directly responsible for all kinds of technological problems and snafus.

And guess what? Mercury is in retrograde right now, as we speak.

So when your e-mail goes down, or your TV goes on the fritz, or your TiVo stops working in the days leading up to July 10, when Mercury comes out of retrograde, think about whose tech support you should be calling.

[biceps20]

That's so weird

I have suddenly been going thru email and internet problems. Slow
internet AND even my cable tv blanking out very so often.

[ewelch]

Oh please...

This astrology stuff is worse than intelligent design and
creationism.

The taco you had for lunch has more of a gravitational effect on
your life than Mercury does. So taco in retrograde has more chance
of influencing your life.

[declan00]

Astronomy, superstition and fallacies

As one of Dan's colleagues here in the newsroom at News.com, I can reassure you that he has a fine sense of humor and is almost certainly joking about this Mercury retrograde nonsense.

There is, of course, no relation between Mercury and computer glitches. One might as well blame two recently-discovered supernovas in the constellation Hercules for the fact that your car has a dead battery (ignoring the inconvenient fact that you left the lights on).

The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (csicop.org) has some good resources on why astrology is hogwash, but a more specialized debunking is here:
http://skepdic.com/astrolgy.html

Here's another:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/astro/act3/astrology3.html

Thanks for keeping us honest. :)

[rbiz]

No So Fast

Outside of what I call "mystery science" (which includes fortune
telling, talking to the dead, and etc.) there is plenty of
repeatable scientific evidence that biological life on Earth does
interact with our other planetary neighbors via natural causes -
causes that include natural forces like gravity, radiation, and the
simple fact that, if nothing else, the other planets in our system
shield us from a significant number hits from rocks and ice.

Since you didn't bother to mention the most obvious proof I'll
take the opportunity to remind you that the sun, about every ten
years, goes through magnetic cycles which, among other things,
can and do cause temporary loss of our planets various and
diverse communications networks - globally. These periods of
hyper solar activity can even cause parts of our planet's power
grids to go dark. And let's not forget that our planet has a
magnetic shield that protects us from the regular, moment-to-
moment radiation that reaches us from our sun all of the time.
This same magnetic shield even protects us from the ocassional
deep space radiation hit.

The best astrophysicists in the world will tell you that we are just
finally beginning to understand how Earth in fact does interact
with its solar system buddies, and visa versa.

I think you would have shown the better part of wisdom to have
let your colleague's sense of humor stand on its own - I don't
think that Dan needed any rescuing. One truth is that, there are
still enough mysteries in the universe to keep us guessing for
many generations to come.

And I leave you with this final thought: The only thing more
ridiculous than blind faith is blind skepticism.