Simple question: could this be more beautiful? (From the Astronomy Picture of the Day site, which is pretty darned cool — two professional astronomers who put amazing pictures up every day, and explain them in laymen’s terms.) Hint: click on each of the four words linked in the last sentence.

Also re: space and the great unknown, Hubble is back and better than ever (the picture of the Eskimo nebula is spiffy as all hell). And the Mars Polar Lander may have sent us a signal after all (tests this week will determine whether this is a pipe dream).

Brent Simmons (Userland employee extraordinaire and Manila logger) has released a great technote on how Manila’s search engine works. If you’re running a search engine, it’s a must-read.

OK, if this isn’t the smartest man on Earth, then I don’t know who is. (And besides, we all know that pudding rocks, but I don’t know how good Healthy Choice brand is.)

When I got to the Georgia Dome yesterday, I was a little uncomfortable seeing the Georgia state flag, with its Confederate flag contribution, flying high all around the stadium. (Jesse Jackson has called for players to alter their uniforms with American flags in protest; the league bans such practices. I wonder if that’s constitutional…)

Interesting… I was always under the impression that Linux prided itself on fixing big security problems quickly, but apparently there’s a long-timer out there. I wonder what it is…

First, we’ve turned poor Elián González into a political toy; now, his grandmothers have left without being able to lay eyes on him. (Interestingly, a similar issue was argued in front of the Supreme Court recently, although it wouldn’t apply here.)

And on the Supreme Court, yesterday the Supremes upheld campaign finance contribution limits.