So I’m watching the reactions to the mars landing an hour or so ago, and I have to admit I’m really laughing at some of these people.

“It’s just a shadow!”

“It’s in black and white!”

“There are only a few pictures!”

I love how we just went to MARS - you know MARS, an entirely different planet, currently one hundred fifty-four MILLION miles from this planet - and we're going "Oh, the pictures suck."

WHERE'S THE DANCING GIRLS?  DAMMIT NETFLIX HAS THIS IN HD, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM??  CAN'T A GUY GET A COLOR FEED HERE?

What were we expecting, a chorus line?  To be "greeted as liberators?"  Did we think the other two rovers had reproduced and created an army of underground resisters to seize power from the maintainers of the Martian status quo?  Brass band?

Jeez.  A hundred years ago Mars was a complete mystery.  We thought there were intelligent life forms all over it, even when I was a kid in the 70’s “martians” was still the default word for intelligent alien life.  Now here we are not even 40 years later and it’s all “omg low-res black and white photos WORST. PLANET.  EVER.”

Perspective, folks.