Last night was very clear, so I dragged everything out to see what Comet 17P Holmes has been up to during the last 17 days. It has moved closer to Mirfak (Alpha Persei). It has also grown in size quite significantly, now it is about the same size as the full Moon. This has however lead to a slight reduction in brightness. It does however now look more comet-like and less like a planetary nebula....
From the BBC: The UK "must do everything in its power" to stop the EU's Galileo sat-nav system going ahead until concerns over funding have been resolved, say MPs. They say it isn't a good idea, because EU taxpayers would have to contribute towards filling any shortfalls towards the system. I say the taxpayers should exclusively pay for it, and any private companies should be locked out of running it and its development....
From an essay written by Albert Einstein in 1949: Production is carried on for profit, not for use. There is no provision that all those able and willing to work will always be in a position to find employment; an “army of unemployed” almost always exists. The worker is constantly in fear of losing his job. Since unemployed and poorly paid workers do not provide a profitable market, the production of consumers' goods is restricted, and great hardship is the consequence....
Windows Live Writer was released this week, with new versions of all the Windows Live applications. I've been following it in beta for over a year. However all my attempts at using it with b2evolution have not been successful enough to use it for my general blogging. Metaweblog seems to be the most stable API, using Wordpress, Blogger etc, don't even bring up the full list of categories to post to....
Hat tip to the People's Commissar.
Well the skies have cleared at last, so I went outside for a little while to snap some pictures of 17P Holmes, which a few days ago recently brightened by a factor of a million becoming a magnitude 3 object. First up, the view through the telescope. This was taken with the camera at prime focus of my TAL 2M reflector (effective focal length 1200mm) for 10 seconds at ISO 1600....
Well these guys couldn't of picked a better time to unleash their Mac mouth-foam session. Their article opens up with: Apple has given Microsoft a lesson in software development with the launch of its new Leopard operating system which is faster, slicker and packed with a lot more practical features compared with the slow, underperforming Windows Vista operating system that is prone to crashing or locking-up systems. Well that's a lot of claims chucked into a small space....
So I splashed out a bit this week and brought a new Tablet PC. After having a convertible style Portege M200 for over two years now, I decided I'd rather go for a slate, it is very rare I use the keyboard on my M200. As Motion this year released the LE1700 a slate machine with a 1400x1050 screen there was really no other choice. 1024x768, or any combination of weird widescreen ratios, just don't do the job....
So I opened up Windows Update, the first time in a few weeks and what's happened? I assume this was due to the new Windows Live Unified Installer. Simplifying the categories into say: Windows Vista Windows Live Windows Ultimate Extras Would I am sure be much better. Instead of having each Windows Live application listed under their own category, which kinda defeats the purpose of having categories.
Update: The date for this appears to of been shifted to the 25th of November. The Yeovil Labour Party will decide their candidate for the next generation election in under four weeks time, on the 15th of November the hustings will be held, and hopefully we'll have the results soon after. Why am I interested in standing? To give Yeovil Labour Party members a socialist option and if successful to give Yeovil residents something other than the right-wing, pro-business nonsense of David Laws or that Tory bloke....