blog of kaiyen

BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Shuttle blasts off to fix Hubble.

Sorry for all the links to news articles, but how can one not promote news about a mission to repair the Hubble Telescope?  I remember all the hype when it was launched, the dismay when it turned out the mirror specs were wrong, the awe and amazement when the mirror flaw was corrected (through a compensating lens, I believe) and the just…stunning images that Hubble produced.  I think many (myself included) take it for granted now – “oh, we discovered a planet?  look at that tremendous picture!” – but this mission is a reminder that we should not.

Europe Looks Ready to Slap Down Intel – BusinessWeek.

I have always found the differences between US and European Union monopoly laws intriguing.  Certainly, the additional measure against impact on one’s rivals that is applied in Europe opens the door for many successful anti-trust cases vs. in the US.  But one must wonder whether a loss for Intel in Europe will cause problems for the company here – legally, it should not, as we have a different standard and the company’s actions should be judged accordingly.  But justice is not immune to bias from outside sources.

Building the Syndication Bus: Plugin Ingredients at bavatuesdays.

I read Jim Groom’s blog on a semi-regular basis.  At the least, I always read the headers and take a quick glance via Google Reader.  

He has been working on a rather larger WordPress Multi-User (WP MU) project for a while now.  I’ve messed around with MU but haven’t had a good reason to implement it yet, but have been following his efforts.

Not only is it a pretty interesting project (though you have to read a lot of posts to really get a feel for it), but this particular post has links to some of the best RSS feed plugins for WP.  I use most of them myself, though I don’t have a multiple-author blog – otherwise that would be quite a nice feature.