Hello all

I've been lazy the last couple of days and have, again, failed to get out riding on a Sunday, although the weather is perfect for it (overcast)

Have been checking Wired Magazine and they have an anniversary article on the Hubble telescope (14 years old!!) which is well worth checking out for the pictures alone.



2 sad things about the Hubble;

A) it's a teenager. When was the last time any of my gadgets lasted more than 14 months, let alone years. Imagine what could be put up there now, telescope geekery wise, compared to what was launched way back when. You could have powered the Apollo missions with 1/2 the computing power on my mobile phone.

B) NASA are pulling maintenance funding with Maintenance mission 4 having been cancelled (NASA astonaughts being too scared to take the shuttles up. Big girls...) This probably means that the Hubble will fail before it's successor, James Webb Space Telescope is in place (2011.) Definitely the seed for a new B Willis disaster movie there "the day the earth was blind and missed a far of galaxy rotating" or something.

Apparently JWST will be super duper compared to Hubble, although we can all expect it to be scrapped to pay fro more tax cuts or the invasion of Foreign or something.

A weak link to US paranoia, Neil Gaiman has a very interesting piece in his blog about use of US anti-terror laws to convict non-terrorists. In this case, a guy was proven to have made ricin in his kitchen. Cops theorised that he was doing it as part of a plan to kill his wife and run off with his mistress (the harlot...) but apparently felt that they didn't have enough for an Attepted Murder charge. What they DID have enough for, according the the Boltimore Sun article linked by Gaiman, is a charge of possession of a biological agent with the intent to use it as a weapon. According to the article; " They [anti-terrorism laws] require lower standards of proof and, in general, impose harsher sentences." This makes no logical sense at all. Surely "intent to use it [ricin] as a weapon" should require the same burden of proof as attempted (or in this case - intent to attempt) murder. Bah humbug, must recycle that store of anthrax in my cellar. Gaiman also illustrates his argument; that there are plenty of people who would make ricin etc with no mal-intent with several links to websites of obscure hobbyists, my favorite of which has to be the electric gerkin and the most poignent the story of the kid who built a breeder reactor to get an Eagle Scout badge. Check it out.

Andre is now blaming me for her not getting any work done on her masters (the reason for the cancellation of the biking today) on the basis that she needs the computer to do it, so I'll hand over to her.

See you next week

Bomber out