Some great Space Shuttle stuff from the past 24 hours — the spacewalk yesterday was the second-longest in US history, and they managed to replace all six of the gyroscopes on Hubble. Today, they’re planning to replace the main computer on the telescope; it will be three linked 486 machines. Here’s CNN’s wrapup of the first EVA; of course, there’s also John Grunsfeld’s daily diary entry, which has beautiful pictures and terrific writing:
Big day for me tomorrow. My first EVA, and my chance to meet the Hubble Telescope up close and personal. As an astronomer I face the day with great excitement, and a little trepidation.
The NY state appellate court overturned the conviction of Oliver Jovanovic yesterday. (Jovanovic is the Columbia University graduate student who allegedly kidnapped and sexually tortured a Barnard College student; the court ruled that explicit email that she had sent to Jovanovic was incorrectly kept out of the trial.)
Bruse Feirstein pens a sentimental tribute to Desmond Llewelyn, the actor who played Q in the Bond film series.
Again, our domain name system demonstrates that it isn’t quite ready for prime time yet (but unfortunately, we’re in prime time now!).
The end of year has been pretty good at InfoWorld. There’s a great Bob Lewis column about how deadlines should not rule your life, Ed Foster’s justification for continuing the battle against spam, and even a Laura Wonnacott article fessing up to major Y2K problems at a magazine that has covered the true impact of the problem for almost a decade.
Interesting — a black bank robber says that racism by white people is what made him insane, and he claims that a white psychologist would not have the “empathy, moral courage and responsibility, as well as the intellectual depth or the peculiar understanding … of the African-American’s unique humanness, sensitivity, and the traumatically acquired psychological aberrations” of white racism.
APBNews has filed a lawsuit against the judges, demanding that the judicial disclosure information actually be disclosed.
