Well, they have offically done it, and no, not giving Iraq their sovereignty back, although that did happen...but Real Networks has announced that popular distros will now have offical support from Real Networks! You can read about it on NY Times website, free registration required, of course...here's the link

One of the big problems with current space launch systems is the volatility of the fuels. They may be exotic chemicals, or simply kerosene and liquid Oxygen, they tend to blow up at the slightest provocation. Since there are huge amounts needed to put payloads into space, this means that launches need to have a huge safety perimeter around the lauch sites.

One of the innovations of Rutan's Spaceship is the use of what is known as a hybrid fuel that conists of basically rubber and nitrious oxide. Both are easy to obtain, don't need massive refriguration units to keep them liquid, and are pretty much know quantities in terms of their behaviour.Although the "bang for the buck" is not as good as many more exotic fuels, it makes up for it in terms of weight savings and reduced complexity. Both are important aspects to commercial space flight.

CNN has an article taken from a Space.com article that talks about this.

ttyl
          Farrell

Well, it used to be that the closest Science Fiction had to a museum was Forrest J. Ackerman's house. It was chock full of books, posters, models and other "stuff" pertaining to SF and Fantasy...but now, Paul Allen has taken part of his "Experience the Music" complex and turned it into a SF Museum. New York Times has an article here, the usual blahblahblah about registration.

In reading the article, I fear it may be mostly a media oriented museum...and I guess in today's culture it can't be helped...but I certainly hope that the place has a good selection of stuff from Books, and maybe, SF Fandom. Without Fandom, SF probably would have died a long time ago.

The BBC has a great series of photos of Dr. Who's companions over the years. Here is the link

I've never been a big Dr.Who fan, but I have watched my share of episodes, and do think that it is one of the better SF series ever made.

Currently, CNN has an article on DDR up on it's website. It focuses on the health benefits of playing DDR. Some people play it just for fun. Still a good way exercize, unless you have fscked up knees like I do.

According to CTV News, the Internet and Open Source Software have made significant contributions to the fight against SARS.

"Without the Internet and special open-source software, Jones said, the dissemination of the SARS data would have involved taking several months to write the research paper, a month or more for peer review of the data and up to six months for it to get into the medical journals."

This is really important since it shows that Open Source, and it's development model also work in other fields where free dissemination of information encourages innovation.

Read the whole story here.

I've gotten tired of the editors at Slashdot rejecting my stories...so, I am going to post them here, and see if I can attract some attention...

ttyl
          Farrell