A couple of days ago the Cassini probe flew within 745 miles of Saturn’s moon Titan. This is the closest any probe has ever been to that moon. The Voyager probes showed only a hazy disk, but the new Cassini pictures reveal much more. Some scientists thing Titan might even be gealogically active.
I’m waiting with much anticipation for the Huygens probe’s plunge into Titan’s atmosphere. This should happen sometime in January, 2005.
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Starting around 2pm today my blog began getting a gluttony of comment spam. My blog has managed to avoid this kind of attention for sometime, but today was the end of Speljamr.com’s virginity. This blog has now officially grown up and entered the real blogsphere.
The spammer appears to be proxying himeself through 2 IP addresses, 209.114.176.69 and 130.208.220.215. For the time being I have blocked this individual (the stupid fool keeps using the same email address) so that any comments he attempts to post go straight into the moderation list, where they are quickly deleted by me. So the good news is that nothing he is attempting to post is actually showing up on my blog. Thank heavens I chose a piece of blog software that has anti-spam features.
Well, back to watching this fools antics……..
Howard Stern takes on the chairman of the FCC: powell-stern-2004-10-261.mp3
Listen and make your own judgements.
According to George Bush, “A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as commander in chief.†Kind of like jumping to conclusions regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction? So what your really saying, George, is that Kerry is at least as good a candidate as you? Hmmm, I’m looking at it and the pot is still black. So’s the kettle.
Nice to see that a country that prides itself on ‘Free Speech’ doesn’t feel the need to set a good example for the rest of the world. For some unknown (and probably very stupid) reason the George Bush camp has decided to restrict access to it’s campaign web site. Only users within US borders are able to access the site. So how do US citizens abroad get to see George’s campaign?
Read on: Bush website blocked outside US
Karlyn and I have been holding off on the good news for a while because we wanted to hear the baby’s heartbeat first and make sure everything was going ok. Today we heard the heartbeat and it was strong, so we are officially announcing that we are expecting. We are currently 12 weeks into the pregnancy with lots more time to go.
Here are some of the sonogram pictures from today’s doctor visit:
There are some things that just set off that inner anger, and this is one of them. According to Steve Ballmer, Microshaft CEO, “The most common format of music on an iPod is ’stolen’.” Excuse me sir? I own, yes that’s right own, over 1000 cds and I have been building my music collection for years. All of the music on my iPod comes from that collection. So, is it really theft if I own the original cds? The answer to that question should be a resounding ‘NO’ because the copyright law our founding fathers originated allows for what is called ‘Fair Use’. Simply dumping my collection to my iPod so that I can make use of what I paid for is, in my humble opinion, ‘Fair Use’. Those like Mr. Ballmer have a vision of a world in which all use of creative works is controlled. That’s not a world I want to live in, nor should anybody else. Our founding fathers knew that copyright law must be a careful balance between protecting intellectual property and allowing for ‘Fair Use’. The current state of IP law seems to forget this notion.
So to Mr. Ballmer I say, be careful what you say. Because those of us who have spent our hard earned cash on music and are now being lumped in with thieves might think twice about where we spend our money next. Like on that nice new HP laptop that comes with (*gasp*) Linux…..
Read more: iPod users are music thieves says Ballmer
It would appear that SpaceShipOne has won the Ansari X-Prize. This flight appeared to be almost perfect, though the pilot did mention that things were a bit shaky. Now I just have to start saving my $200,000 so I can catch a flight on Virgin Galactic!
The unofficial alltitude marker at this time is 368,000 feet.
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