I’ve just had the wonderful experience of repiecing my computer together because windows died in a hard, hard way this morning. I’ve recovered everything but my main email folder now. I talked to Microsoft Customer Support for a good while, because I use Outlook Express. I’m sure I got what I had coming to me for that. Microsoft told me that I may need to uninstall Outlook Express and all of Internet Explorer 5.0 and then redownload and reinstall each component from scratch. The mail file may be unrecoverable, but they suggested that I use Netscape’s mailer to try and read it. Unfortunately, Netscape can’t directly convert Outlook Express 5.0 files, so I may be just out of luck.

The European Space Agency has a successful launching of an Ariane 5 rocket bearing the XMM Telescope. This telescope, named the X-Ray Multi Mirror, could be as important to astronomy as the Hubble Space Telescope (currently inoperational, with the Space Shuttle repair mission delayed yet again). Besides the X-Ray receiver, there are optical instruments on board as well. I do take issue with the following line: with its sensitive cameras it will see infinitely more than any previous X-ray satellite. “Infinite” is a mighty big word to be throwing around, especially in the space sciences.

Poetic language from Randy: Arrived yesterday in Seattle. The skies had parted and let a little bit of the sun through for the arrival. Today, though, the sky has been stitched shut and has resumed its slow leak. This morning, the moss ladened lawns are glistening and spongy to the shoe. They smell like dirt. That is a smell that is lost a majority of the year in the Southwest. There isn’t much like this overcast gloom.

A BBC story about the Cuban Boys’ single featuring the hampster dance. It’s poised to knock off England’s current number one single, a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer set to the music of Auld Lang Syne. I wish I was funny enough to make this stuff up.

In the Orkney Isles of Scotland, archaeologists are studying Mine Howe and its 29 steps that lead “into the bowels of the earth.” Probably thousands of years old, not much is yet known about this chamber, located underneath one of the familiar earthen mounds located across northern Europe. Local surveys and anecdotal evidence suggest that the immediate area may be littered with many of these chambers, undisturbed for countless centuries.

From the BBC: One in four Britons would rather be using their computer than having sex and four out of five would rather be using their home computer than eating a portion of chips

A new article in the journal Nature suggests that the planets Neptune and Uranus were ejected from a much younger Jupiter and slowly migrated to their present orbits. Astronomers have calculated that it would take longer than the solar system is old for the two to form where they are now, so this may be a big step forward in our understanding of the formation of planetary systems.

Five Points is a neighborhood of Athens that is generally upper-middle class, full of landscaped yards and healthy, active people. The area has nice small eateries, shops, and other businesses. It’s a nice place to walk and bike, and would be a nice place to live, if the rents weren’t so amazingly high (compared to the rest of town, anyway). Friends of Five Points is the community association, and their website is full of local activism.

Last night I went to the first meeting of BikeAthens, a group that, despite its name, supports all manners of alternative transportation here in Athens, GA. I hold a particular interest in this, because I was forced this summer to buy my first car (at age 28) just to survive here. Their site has links to street plans, biking laws, suggested civic improvements, and many other things that can make Athens an even nicer place to live.

What’s being called a Mars Internet (really just a flock of communications satellites) is being planned. Assuming that the Polar Lander touched down safely, such a system may have prevented its silence, and will certainly help all such future missions.