how now brownpau
I just made a small — but significant — change to the site. Can you see it? If you think you know what it is, leave a hint in the comments, but don’t just blurt it out. More details and updates tomorrow; I’ve had a loo-oong two days and really need to sleep. In the meantime, check out these photos from today’s hike on the Billy Goat Trail near Great Falls on the Maryland side of the Potomac River.
(Update: Gee, was it that obvious?)
Good news from the Pluto Demotion Defense Front! Amy and I were at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum today to watch Superman Returns in the IMAX Theater, and we found that the “Exploring the Planets” exhibit had removed Pluto from the listing of major planets, and added a notice to that effect in the “What’s New” section of the exhibit.
Update: This was an old joke and the domain is no longer active.
The debate over Pluto rages: What is a planet? It is a question that calls us to take sides: the rationalists who insist that it can no longer be considered a planet, and the sentimentalists who will hear none of this aspersion against O Great Pluto. I have chosen my side in this debate, and I now solidify my stand with the establishment of a new website:
Demote Pluto!
Join me, my friends. We cannot let Pluto, a common speck of rock and ice, be raised to the echelons of the majestic gas giants or the diverse terrestrial planets. Nor can we allow bureaucratic wrangling to needlessly complicate the classification of what is clearly a simple planetoid among many in the outer solar system. Maybe once we thought of Pluto as a planet with an eccentric orbit, but today history and progress must march forward hand in hand, and they march towards this goal: the Demotion of Pluto! Remember: If too remote, you must demote!
The alternative, my friends, is war.
Update: I’ve updated Demote Pluto significantly. There is now an FAQ and a feedback page for comments.
Update, 24 Aug 2006:
Results of the IAU Resolution votes.
Pluto’s Demotion is Well Deserved and Long Overdue
I knew something was up when the hits on WWTQ/Buzz suddenly took a huge jump — also generating a ton of secondary hits to this site. The hits were pouring in from Stavros The Wonder Chicken’s Bullshitr, which, it turns out, had been thoroughly Dugg, del.icio.us’ed, Hot Linked, Fireballed, Reddited, TechCrunched, and generally linked to from all over.
What with all the attention, I figured Buzz needed a slight update, so I added a few phrases to the buzz list, changed the font to Lucida Grande / Trebuchet MS (Note: 1.1em Trebuchet MS is the new 11px Verdana), and published the PHP code I use to do the typographic remixing so other people can do their own versions of Buzz. Hope you like it. It’s the wave of tomorrow. 2.0!
Here are a couple of macro shots of Pandora on the couch, for your “aaawwww”-ing pleasure. Poor cat hasn’t been feeling well this past week — she’s been a bit weak, sleepier and more sedentary than usual, and has had a bit of a cough and a touch of feline conjunctivitis. She’s getting better now, though, and her appetite is strong as ever.
(I was halfway out the door before I noticed, uploaded by brownpau.)
Thanks to Michael Grass at ReadExpress for highlighting Planes on a Snake yesterday. The joy of getting noticed was only partially dampened by the fact that my mention came out under a photo of Jessica Cutler, a.k.a. Washingtonienne. Ah, well, at least I can now say I had the Washingtonienne on top of me for a day.
COD liked PoaS too, but so far that’s all the inbound linkage I’ve noticed. Come on, Internet. You can do better.
Those of you who got here searching for “mayon volcano webcam,” sorry to disappoint, but there aren’t any live cameras pointed at Mayon 24/7 — not that I know of, anyway. At best you’ll have to settle for watching the “Mayon” tag on Flickr, and PHIVOLCS’ Mayon photos page.
(Photo uploaded by cathy_)
Latest update from PHIVOLCS reports six explosions in the last 24 hours, with lava still flowing down the mountain into the danger zone. There was a significant eruption event last Saturday, and the ABC 5 S.O.S. crew has some great photos of the violent pyroclastic flows which swept down Mayon’s slopes that day. Photographer Ninfa Z. Bito has shots of a trip into the danger zone to see the advancing lava wall.
Update: I have launched a site for just this issue: Demote Pluto!
I’m kind of happy about the IAU’s recommendation for a reclassification of Solar System planets: simply put, “planet” would be defined as a round body orbiting the sun, but the Pluto-Charon system receives “minor planet” status, along with other relatively large, spherical objects in the outer solar system, henceforth to be called “plutons.” As I said just about a year ago, it’s enough to settle for eight major planets, and give Pluto chief position among a new class of smaller faraway bodies of similar size, composition, and orbital eccentricity, thus preserving Pluto’s stature as first of these objects discovered, as compensation for its demotion.
I would argue that “plutons” don’t even need the distinguishment of being regarded as “planets,” officially; it’s enough to lump them in with comets and asteroids and planetoids as part of the leftover debris from the formation of the solar system. That way, we can avoid arguments about whether to number Ceres and Sedna and UB313 among the planets, and just settle for a solar system of “eight planets and a bunch of smaller things.”
More from Space.com, National Geographic, Metafilter, Bad Astronomy, WaPo, NPR, Mule Design, and Defective Yeti.
I really could not care less that Snakes on a Plane is coming out tonight, and I was tired of the meta-self-referential hype before the hype was even cool, but it did at least inspire me to make this gem in Photoshop. Enjoy and share liberally. Also see more Planes on a Snake, and the sequel movie trailer.