It's official, Pluto is no longer a full-fledged planet. The new definition finalized by the International Astronomical Union today states that a planet in "a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun [or another star], (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit." Pluto does not meet the third requirement, so will now be a dwarf planet along with Ceres and 2003 UB313 (aka Xena) plus some others.

Personally, I have thought this should be the case for a while now. Since we keep finding Pluto-like bodies out there, it's hard to see Pluto being more "important" than all these other (even though it may be a bit bigger).

So go rewrite your textbooks... how do you like "Noodles" replacing "Nine Pizzas"?

Trolltech will be shipping a linux-based phone for developers in September. The device will be sold with a developer kit with everything (presumably) you need to write/rewrite software for it. It will connect to cell networks via GSM/GPRS and have builtin wifi. (Story here).

Depending on the price, I really think I want one of these. I'm thinking of using the wifi for communications over jabber+jingle and/or SIP in addition to web and email.

If I end up getting one, you can bet that I'll be posting about it... you know, my birthday is in September ;-)

This is pretty neat:

Beethoven's own violin has been used in a recording for the first time, according to the Beethoven Foundation. It was played by German violinist Daniel Sepec on a CD of the composer's violin and piano sonatas.

I want this CD, but can't find it anywhere online. I wish I at least knew the title of it or something. [Via WCPE]

This Microsummary thing is fun! I keep coming across sites/pages that should have them, so I keep makin em. I threw up a little script to allow viewing and installing the ones I've made. I propose a wiki-ish microsummary generator site to allow folks to submit ones they've made for others' use. But I'll just keep putting mine up here for now.

Also, I'll be putting up links to other peoples lists of generators. If you've got one let me know.

In case you missed it, Italy's Word Cup championship was almost overshadowed by France's Zinedine Zidane's vicious headbutt to Italy's Marco Materazzi. The attack, which was replayed over and over all around the world earned Zidane a red card, ejecting him from what was most likely his last international soccer appearance.

If you missed the game (you know how American's hate to miss soccer games), take your pick from the plethora of videos of it hosted on youtube.