A professional astronomer here, with some things to keep in mind:
* While opinions are divided on whether or not Pluto, and other 'dwarf' planets are full-blown planets, the astrophysics community, by and large, doesn't like - or adhere to - the IAU planet definition. It restricts the use of 'planet' to the 8 bodies in the solar system, ignoring the 5,000+ confirmed exoplanets. It goes to great pains to attempt a definition of the low mass range (which it fails at), and doesn't define the high end of the mass range. And the eligibility of those 8 bodies in 'clearing their orbital zones' is ill-defined (Shoemaker-Levy 9 and the Chelyabinsk meteor have entered the chat). If you look at the scientific discourse at astrophysics meetings - eg. the recent "Extreme Solar Systems V" conference in Christchurch, NZ - astronomers use 'planet' in a much more ecumenical fashion.
* A significant number of planetary scientists - the scientific community that matters, not us astronomers - have put forth a different definition of planet. The 'geophysical definition' of a planet is basically, "big enough to be a ball" - simple, elegant, and easy to explain to schoolkids. The 'big enough to be a ball' concept is rooted in actual physics, not tempest-in-a-teacup astropolitics.
* While it was apparently of paramount importance to define 'planet', the IAU hasn't made similar moves to define 'star', or 'galaxy', or anything else.

As someone who's trying to monitor my kids while they're supposed to be doing schoolwork on their laptops, being able to see what's going on from any angle would be great. I don't necessarily have to read their screen, but being to see at a glance if they're coding versus playing Doom would be great

When software companies realize they don't have anything more to offer a particular bit of code, and are too unoriginal (or lazy) to come up with new applications, what to do? The subscription model. I'm looking at you, Adobe Acrobat.

Landing is only at -69deg - 'southerly' but definitely not 'the south pole'. If Roald Amundsen had gotten as far as McMurdo and claimed he'd made it to the Earth's south pole, he'd have been laughed back to Oslo.

Literally the first step I take after any clean Windows install is to install Notepad++. Why would anyone ever use the stock Notepad?

We already have one example of a working space colony, Earth. More are just a matter of time. We'll be happy to leave the Luddites behind.

Anyone remember the Pirates of Puget Sound? dsPPS, gsPPS, etc. Somewhere there's an old Sider hard drive that still contains all that code ...

Something all hackers knew? The frequency of the most well-known tone of a blue box.

Just like God intended.

SpaceX *is* the only game in town: they have 2 landing attempts and a 3rd imminent. Blue Origin, ULA, and Airbus have PowerPoint, nothing more.

I had the opportunity to ask Ed Stone, the JPL Director & Voyager scientist, this question. His rather glib answer was, "well, Titan was 3 hours away, and Pluto was 3 years away - and I had to make payroll." I think the broader answer is that JPL assumed they'd get another mission funded if they simply skipped it (and they almost did).

Radar imaging posted by JPL (http://go.nasa.gov/1thVyOO) reveal the asteroid has a moon.

The star's ID isn't HP 56948, but HIP 56948 (from the Hipparcos satellite catalog), aka HD 101364, SAO 15590...

... but I'd gladly give money for any effort in this direction.

Another sad turn for our once-glorious space program. The simple motivation here? Not wanting to spend money on the landers for lunar surface access, or the base(s) we'll build once we get there. The shuttle program was short-changed grievously during its design phase, and while its design was compromised, its mission expectations were not - and this led to catastrophe. Going down the path of expecting miracles without adequate funding for them will, once again, lead to grief.