Puffy planet poses pretty puzzle

I just love the comment on this:

“Until we can find an explanation for both of these swollen planets, they remain a great mystery,” said co-researcher Dimitar Sasselov.

Anyway for more on this take a look at: [bbc.oc.uk]

iPod People

Like the iPod ads? They do look rather cool don’t they. Anyway I came across a couple of interesting pages on how to do this. I have attempted to do it myself but my efforts aren’t great, if I get some more time I will try and do some better ones that are worthy of posting. Anyway here are some links, the first is a bit more basic [www.photoshopsupport.com] but the second [www.macmerc.com]is a bit more advanced and probably will get the best results.

New PPS Committee

A new term, time for the Physics Society committee to pose…

“Mars will look as big as the Moon!” – not again!

I hadn’t come across this again this year. I have in the past and it is always funny to see that some spammer is sending around emails stating that Mars will be as big as the Moon in the sky. I do think it must be a bunch of astronomers trying to get people to go along to their local society, but I doubt it (oh if you want to go along to your local society go to [fedastro.org.uk] and you will find a big long list! Anyway [badastronomy.com] has a very good article on the big Mars hoax!

Xena no more, thank the Gods!

Yes the stupidly name dwarf planet Xena has been given a make-over and is now to be called, Eris “the goddess of strife and discord”. I know I am a bit slow in posting this, been a bit busy with radio data… anyway for more take a look at: [badastronomy.com]
Oh and that means we now have the dwarfs planets as: Ceres, Pluto and Eris…

Pluto Assigned a number…

Pluto is now known as a dwarf planet and now the Minor Planet Center has assigned it the asteroid number: 134340 reflecting the IAU’s decision to strip Pluto (*sorry* 134340) of its planet status.

Windows Backup Tool

I came across a very useful windows backup tool today. It works a bit like rysnc – which is just what I wanted to be honest! It is from 2BrightSparks and is called
SyncBackSE – they have a paid and free version, guess what I went for (the free one!). It does the trick nicely. You can even schedule it easily. If you want the free version see: [here]. It will take about 5 minutes to get into and trust me it might save your life….

Tabblo…

I thought I would give tabblo ago… I wonder if this will mess up the page / my strict xhtml….

This is my first time using Tabblo so this is as much of a test than anything else.

On this page you will see a few pics that I took in India in August 2006.
… See my Tabblo

Go full screen with Quicktime

I hate quicktime, I normally use other programs but sometimes you need it. I hate the fact that on the mac it will not go to fullscreen…. well there is a simple fix [here]

19 September be International Talk Like A Pirate Day

September 19th be the day that you are supposed to say, arrrrr!! [www.yarr.org.uk] – so my landloving fellows have a few days to perfect it.