Hulleye Comes By!

Microsoft says that today’s release of the Windows Vista February CTP is “feature-complete”. Two new features are Sidebar and Welcome Center. Take an illustrated walkthrough of Vista build 5308 with these 53 screenshots.

Astronomers using NASA´s Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the presence of two new moons around the distant planet Pluto.

The moons were first discovered with Hubble´s Advanced Camera for Surveys in May 2005, but the science team probed even deeper into the Pluto system on Feb. 15, 2006 to look for additional satellites and to characterize the orbits of the moons. In addition to verifying the reality of the moons, the observations also rule out the possibility of other satellites of roughly similar size orbiting Pluto inside the orbits of the two moons. The moons, provisionally designated S/2005 P 1 and S/2005 P 2, are approximately 40,000 and 30,000 miles away from Pluto…

The confirmation reinforces the emerging view that the Kuiper Belt, a swarm of icy bodies encircling the solar system beyond Neptune, may be more complex and dynamic than astronomers once thought. Pluto resides inside the Kuiper Belt and is about 3 billion miles from the Sun. Pluto was discovered in 1930.

The moons’ orbits are in the same plane as the orbit of the much larger satellite Charon (discovered in 1978). This likely means the moons were not captured, but instead were born, along with Charon, in what is commonly theorized to have been a titanic collision between two Pluto-sized objects over 4 billion years ago…

South Dakota lawmakers have voted to outlaw nearly all abortions, setting up the first direct legal attack on Roe v. Wade by a state in 14 years.

Abortion rights advocates across the country reacted with outrage and dismay. The Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which runs the sole abortion clinic in South Dakota, said it was bracing to fight the move in court immediately, if the governor signs it.

Some opponents of abortion rights celebrated what they called a bold and brave move and lauded South Dakota for taking the lead in what they said they hoped would become a series of states to challenge Roe, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal.

The shifting makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, the opponents said, offered a crucial opportunity, the first since at least 1992.

“It is a calculated risk, to be sure, but I believe it is a fight worth fighting,” State Senator Brock Greenfield, a Republican who is also director of South Dakota Right to Life, told his colleagues in a hushed, packed chamber here.

After more than an hour of fierce and emotional debate, the senators Wednesday rejected exceptions for incest or rape or for the health of a mother and voted, 23-12, to outlaw all abortions, except those to save a mother’s life.

They also rejected an effort to allow South Dakotans to decide the question in a referendum and an effort to prevent state tax dollars from financing what is certain to be a long and expensive court battle.

To be enacted, the bill requires the signature of Governor Mike Rounds, a Republican, who opposes abortion…

thomas pink, probably my favourite maker of shirts has just sold out. sad i am. sigh.

British shirt-maker Thomas Pink has begun selling a limited edition tie with an integrated iPod holder, the better to allow City gents to groove to their favourite beat combos as they battle their way to work every morning.

The £49 ($86) tie is bright red - ideal, perhaps, for the much-rumoured red AIDS-awareness iPod - and made from silk and nothing else. On the back is a small pocket in which to place the player, and there’s a handy cable tidy a little further up, closer to the knot.

via the reg.

i wonder who the choreographer for this film was. you guys got any clue what movie this is?