Narcissism

(Alternate title: 'See... I can too take physical form')

Did some self-portraiture this aft. And, 'cos as far as I'm concerned, ya can't have too many pictures of me on this site, a few of the results are to the right.

I have an excuse: I had to come up with a few headshots for a new web gig I picked up (how images of me are supposed to be good for traffic, I dunno, but it's in the contract), and as the Daddy in the family unit, there really aren't a lot of recent pictures of yours truly on file. Mostly 'cos, when the cameras are on, it's usually me operating them.

So I set up a tripod, fired up the mini-DV, mugged in front of it a few minutes, sucked the footage into one of my Debian boxes (mini-DV cameras are all digital, and have Firewire on the camera, making this very easy), and grabbed some stills from it. Fine for web stuff (at a resolution of 720x480 pixels), and less trouble than messing around with a self-timer on a still camera.

Not bad, if I do say so myself. Though next time, I guess I gotta keep in mind that white shirts and the sun do not a happy exposure make. Ya'd never know I used actually to get paid for shooting photos. Think I'm just gonna claim I was actually trying to get that weird otherworldly glow thing going.

(That's our crabapple tree in the background, by the way—along with one of our more seriously out of control flower beds. If I look nervous, it's because I'm afraid that, at any moment, the Virgina Creeper that's been staging a determined invasion from over the south fence might actually try to strangle me.)

Training for the Iron Daddy competition

So we've got one of those cool MEC frame-pack child carriers. Essentially a heavy-duty frame-pack style thing into which one can put a child.

Little guy's really taking to it. Sometimes, there's not much else that calms him, but putting him in it, walking 'round the neighbourhood a while.

As he's now probably somewhere just south of 30 lbs (or so I guess; his last paediatrician visit was almost two months ago now, and he was 24 lbs then), this makes for a reasonably serious pack. Do this daily, for a good 20 minutes, and it's got to have some conditioning value, methinks.

Little guy's obviously just making sure his Dad stays healthy 'til he moves out, is all.

And, announced at about the same time...

... another, smaller than Pluto, but with a small moon.

2003 EL61. Distance 51 AU. Mass approx 4×10²¹ kg, or 32 percent of Pluto's.

Quite the week.

Days of miracles and wonders

New Kuiper belt object discovered. Designated 2003UB313. Distance approx. 97 AU. 'Definitely bigger than Pluto'.

Damn.

The press, of course, is now due to do several thousand more column inches on nomenclature—whether this is the 'tenth planet', whether Pluto, Sedna, and this latest iceball ('Xena', I hear, perhaps), are properly to be called 'planets'. Which, gee, is of course the most interesting aspect of the story.

Regardless, the Kuiper belt just got to be a slightly more interesting place.

For reference, Pluto's mean orbital distance is about 39.5 AU. And depending a bit on surface brightness, this object may be 1.5 times Pluto's size.