My reactions to the satellite thing: (which piece of space debris are YOU?)

What are all those ones doing way out in the big belt around the earth, like AMSC-1? DirecTV is out there. I thought it would be up close like the phone satellites.

AO-10 has the coolest orbit. Its ground trace is this irregular wavy thing, but its orbit is just a smooth ellipse.

Atlas Centaur R-B is like 3-D spirograph, and Chandra is just weird. I wonder what they're tracking with that dip into the southern hemisphere after three spirals over the north? ...I Googled it. It's not tracking anything on Earth; it's measuring X-rays outside Earth's radiation belts, and it has to stay out of darkness for more than two hours at a time.

Ooh, the GPS satellites are all in a zone of their own, between the two densely populated zones.

IUE just paints a teardrop shape on the side of the earth. Is that possible?

Very cool link. They should put the Moon in there, to show it's ten times farther out than the farthest satellite. It would make for cool zooming and rotation.

Glad you liked it. I did warn that it was a time-waster didn't I, but I guess that it's at least educational.

Upon retirement my father decided to pursue his childhood hobby/dream/interest of astronomy. This involved spending serious amounts of cash on a largish (12in diameter, 3-4ft long) computer driven automatic tracking telescope, joining the Australian astronomical society, and participating in public education outdoor sessions at various observatories for viewings of things like Hubble, Halley's Comet and other such entities. Consequently I usually build up an impressive favourites list of space/astronomy/cosmology related sites but this last round of computer problems has pretty much wiped the latest ones.

IUE just paints a teardrop shape on the side of the earth. Is that possible?

Is that one of the 'geostationary' ones? They orbit -- more or less -- over the same fixed spot (you have to get the distance right on the nose to make it work) and I suppose the tilt of the Earth would help make the teardrop shape.

Jim, you want my Matrix comments here?

IUE is the International Ultraviolet Explorer, which was up '78-'96. It had 2 spectrographs.

This is an skymap with a dot for every observation it took.

And moonlit, here's a site with just some glorious Hubble Space Telescope images.

I'll see'em in Movies, ita. I'm seeing it Wednesday, anyway.

I'm not actually in movies, so I'll put a capsule up here anyway ...

Plot: Well, we don't have the shock value of the existence of the Matrix anymore, so it threatens to be a straight chase movie. Never fear ... although some don't like what they did, thought-provoking wise it's there. Perhaps not evenly distributed throughout the two hours, and there is some exposition unbalance but ...

Action: That's why I was there. And it was there. One of the fight scenes noticeably dips into CGI (there was no other way -- you'll know it when you see it), but the CGI is great! They may be a bit gratuitous, but that's only (to me), if you went in looking for other things. All our main characters get to kick some ass, and there are fun new obstacles and allies.

Costume: I'm marrying Neo's coat, but I may have a thing on the side with Trinity's shoes. That is all.

Acting: Sufficient. Keanu doesn't scream wooden, but Jada Pinkett Smith takes up that slack. Carrie Ann Moss is great, and the zeal in Fishburne's eyes is wonderful too. All hail Gloria Foster.

Oh dear, I was just talking to someone how much I'd prefer Jada to Halle as Storm. Does this put me on ita's list.

Granted, I'd prefer Gina Torres to either, but name cache carries the day in these things, I fear.

Gina Torres, N'Bushe Wright, Angela Basset, RUPAUL.

No Jada.

Angela Basset does not get enough respect, let alone work. If I'd never seen her in anything but Strange Days, I'd still worship her - Mace RULED.

I have to admit, the happy ending violated everything the movie was leading to, but I didn't care, because Mace got what she wanted.

The fact that she was too damn good for Lenny is a whole other thing, but I also liked the happy ending because Mace ending up dead would have pissed me off no matter how "right" it might have been for the story. In some cases, character love blows narrative logic out of the frelling water.

Edited because I know the difference between to and too.