Google has started adding maps and aerial photographs for some of Europe. Here's the Eiffel Tower, and St. Basil's Cathedral, much less impressive from overhead. I'm going to have to scan some of my photos from my Russia/Europe trip and GeoBlog them. Stay in touch with Google Sightseeing, as I'm sure they will have many more overseas sights.

Tomorrow (2005-06-21), Cosmos 1 will be launched from a submarine in the Barents Sea. A few days after entering earth orbit at 825 km, Cosmos 1 will deploy its eight triangular solar sail blades that will eventually be turned toward the sun to start collecting energy.

This mission is expiremental, measuring the effects of sun light on such a craft. It won't go far, just acheiving a higher orbit. But the measurements gathered will help researchers create solar sail powered vehicles that could eventually take us to other star systems.

After the the sails are deployed, the satellite should be clearly visible in the night sky. See Heavens Above for passings in your area.

I now have a more permanent web situation. And you have found it. My Bloglines Blog will be retired, and this will be the place to catch up on the life of Jay.

This will also serve as the place that I post news about Pictrus. Pictrus is a young, open source project that I've started. The purpose is to create a low-dependancy, lightweight, easy to use local image browser. It will also feature the ability to upload pictures (pictrs?) directly to Flickr. More to come.

Oh, and I might try to make it look pretty sometime, no promises.