Digital Dreams
Hi. I still use LJ, follow my friends and similar, but I've moved my main host to Dreamwidth now, and am crossposting everything to here, but asking people to comment there.
Mat Bowles.
It's still fully interoperative, the OpenID comment functions there are good and improving, and I can follow everything from both sites easily.
Mat Bowles.
It's still fully interoperative, the OpenID comment functions there are good and improving, and I can follow everything from both sites easily.
You've just assaulted my eardrums with some music—in a news report on Radio 4, a radio station which has as a selling point a lack of music.
In it, the reporter revealed, once again, a complete lack of basic understanding. Chimpanzees are APES, not MONKEYS. Please send your reporters on a refresher course. I'm sure this little guy is upset enough, you don't need to insult him as well.
This entry was originally posted at http://matgb.dreamwidth.org/364803.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Firstly, on the Atheist Bus campaign[1], three scientist bloggers, Dave Godfrey, Debi Linton and Strangefrontier who says:
Dear Christians on my friendslist, when you feel that atheist campaigners are generalising about your whole faith and railing against you, the real target is folks like Stephen Green. The problem is that he and others like like are so damn loud and have such a constant media presence, they drown out the normal, decent and sane* Christians. No matter what positive PR you throw out there, the attention will be given to some cunt shouting, "God hates fags!"I especially liked Dave's line
If he didn't exist I think the atheists would have to invent him, he's launched a case on which the crux is he has evidence of the existence of God. Well, like Dawkins, if you can give me some proof I'll change my opinion...
Anyway, next topic. Woolworths has shut down. Since he finished his degree,
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doctorvee has been working for them, in a number of branches, and I heartily recommend his series of posts on the history of the company and the experiences of working there in its dying days. Like him, I loved Woollies as a kid but found them fairly pointless as an adult, they definitely had no clue what they were trying to be as a chain, and Wilkinson's have definitely displaced a lot of their business in Yorkshire. I had no idea that the company had started out as the early equivalent of a pound store, they only dumped their fixed price policy because of rationing during the war.Sad news however. Number 6 is dead.
Cool news: Molecular Analysis Confirms Tyrannosaurus Rex's Evolutionary Link To Birds. They didn't die out, they evolved. Next time you eat a chicken dinner, that's one of T-Rex's relatives you're chomping down on ;-)
Want: Trends Are Cyclical: the Asus Eee Keyboard. It a complete fully functioning computer, all inside thin keyboard. How cool is that?
Have to say, I pretty much agree with Tim here, economic protectionism makes us poorer and damages our economy more than it benefits us. Buy British if you want, but if it's not the best deal, buy whatever, the economy benefits from the transaction regardless. ETA: Friday's More or Less is a politics special starring Vince! Yay!
Last up,
innerbrat wants to declared this year as the International Year of True History to commemorate both Darwin and Galileo. She's wrong to call it "true" history of course, everyone knows that real history started at about 1600, everything before that is pre-history, but it's a nice idea.[1] From which I've taken this icon, I yoinked the LJified version from
strangefrontier but it was designed by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
jonworth_eu_fd who coordinated the intial fundraising campaign before it all got a bit bigger than anyone expected. I'd forgotten how good a blogger he is until I found him on Twitter, Labour party members that can actually write well about politics are worth paying attention to, methinks[2]. [2] On a similar line,
blimpish_fd is back, one of the few Tory bloggers that doesn't make me want to shout at the screen at the idiocy and ignorance.I am, for the record, willing to bet anyone that wants to take the bet any amount of money that the LHC will not destroy the earth tomorrow. I'm assure by all the scientists I know that it's got no chance of doing so, hence my confidence in offering the bet.
ETA: Look at the source code for extra giggles
ETA2:
lhc_kills_earth set up by karohemd-
Taxing times for Hungary's porn inspectors | The Register
A Hungarian porn producer has filed his tax forms, and claimed scene dressing props as legitimate business expenses. So the tax inspectors have to watch his films to confirm they're used. Apparently 'It's a hard job'
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Solar Cycle 24 Could Be 13 Years Long - Cooler Times Ahead? « Watts Up With That?
I'm not enough of a scientist to know if this holds water at all, written from a sceptic perspective I think, but I don't discount the anti-climate change position completely, doubt is good. Anyone able to expand, confirm or debunk?
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'The Only Moral Abortion is My Abortion' - When the Anti-Choice Choose
I've read many of these quotes before, but it is a fairly good collection about how anti-abortion campaigners react if it's them that needs to make the choice.
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Hack Attack: Burn almost any video file to a playable DVD
Mostly for my reference as I've got some stuff I want to back up from my old PC and have never done it. Anyone got experience of using this or other software to burn AVIs and similar onto DVD?
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Basic UK libel law for idiots by Adam Porter
Another guide to online libel, this time from Urban 75. Seems accurate, although I'm really not sure about the linking could be defamation thing. Mentions the Staggers/Scallywag case directly though.
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Charlie's Diary: Moderation Policy
Not a bad general guide about what is and isn't acceptable on someone else's blog, and most of it applies to me as well (although the bits about huge readership numbers and similar aren't, natch). Freedom of speech doesn't apply.
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Qinetiq ships first 'Transformer' war-droid | The Register
It doesn't actually change shape, but it's got a selection opf different weapon fits, and dude, it's a robot. Um, not 100% sure I approve, but still, it's cool
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The greatest defunct Web sites and dotcom disasters - Crave at CNET.co.uk
These are cool, a set of failed 'name' websites and why they failed. Some of the could work well now, others are just bad examples of stupid business plans.
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delicious -> livejournal reposter - May Contain Nuts
Andrew's redone some of the code for the cross poster I'm using, much better, solves the timestamp problem and a few other things. I really need to reinstall an FTP client and fix mine.
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Interesting, not had time to read fully, linking for reference: The results suggest that women are not only aroused by a variety of types of sexual imagery but are more flexible than men in their sexual interests and preferences.
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Nice summary of the legal rights to copyright we have under UK and international law - in other words, don't let the Mail on Sunday rip you off without permission, and demand payment if they do.
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'As the rest of the world makes leaps and bounds in science, engineering and technology, we're perfecting a reality television.'
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Democratic pary my arse: the BNP's national election officer then goes on to say that any resulting election 'should be carried out in the most rapid manner possible with zero publicity allowed for the joke candidate.'
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Or, in other words, why having a dark background for your sites and documents cuts electric use. Lots. and it's easier on the eyes. My LJ layout: saving the planet ;-)
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Iains followd up on the landslide/wipeout link I posted: Could Labour fall to just five seats at the next election? It's unlikely, but not completely impossible. One of the preconditions is the invention of a competitor party in heartland seats
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I still dislike using IM, but the snobs are wrong: far from ruining teenagers' ability to communicate, IM lets teenagers show off what they can do with language
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For the science writers and reviewers out there, Nick Mamatas needs feature articles for his Clarkesworld magazine. He'll even pay you.
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Note to train drivers - if you're going to have a wank after making an announcement to the whole train, turn off the intercom first? (from Popbitch, natch)
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There are some rather good ones in this set, haven't figured out what to yoink yet but will definitely grab something
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Not a bad little tool, biased against the Govt but not horribly so, picks 14 issues of the last few years and you get to compare your opinion to the party voting record, includes stuff like the smoking ban and fox hunting, not all dry stuff
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These are brilliant
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Jarndyce is spot on with this one: The notion that sport and politics should never mix is a curious, and also deeply political, one. Sport, after all, is just the waging of international politics by other means
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I wrote this 18 months ago, but I've linked to it increasingly recently to explain points, so I'm bringing it to the top. The electoral system encourages broad church coalitions and two main parties. Every vote is thus, in some way, tactical.
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Charlie goes back over Fermi's classic 'if they exist, why aren't they here' paradox with a bunch of possible explanations.
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Follow up from Fermi - Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space - the Vatican is organising a conference next year to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of the author of the Origin of Species, Charles Da
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Very very cool. Link to part one of some production stills and mock ups of the CGI original design Cylons from the Razor TV movie. Part two, witht he gold cylon, is worth clicking through to.
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For those that wanted them from last time, Jen's now posted the whole article.
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Picture. Rather amusing
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picture. Also funny
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Rosie Millard: worst parent ever to write an editorial?
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I think I even understand the science of this one; thanks pTerry! Could a superheavy element â“ heavier than anything previously found in nature or made in the lab â“ exist naturally in the rocks of Earth?
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Jen has a poll and some scans on the new film. Which I'm going to go see. Even if I go alone. It's not Bond, but it's still cool.
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Annoyingly addictive, the telescopes game especially
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Flash thing. Fun
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Justin linked to this earlier, and it's as true today as it was then.
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A reason to go to MySpace regularly? This are not good. Actually, it is good, it's damn good, Milk and Cheese are back online. This are very very good.
New Statesman - Richard Reeves
Wrote the bio of JS Mill I'm currently reading, which means I like him already. Very interesting set of columns, well worth looking over, even if they are in Staggers.
Edible Dirt,—Easter Sunday, Jesus wakes up
Not original, probably offensive to those that care, rather funny
10 Unfortunate Facts of Life | f*cking c*nts
This amused, it's about time I cleared it from my linklog and actually posted it somewhere
theweaselking: Abortion discussion
Key quote from comments: "It's a hard enough choice without having to make it in an alley. I'll always be pro choice, period."
Why I am an abortion doctor
Read this: 'I can take a woman, in the biggest trouble she has ever experienced in her life, and by performing a five-minute operation, in comfort and dignity, I can give her back her life' Safe, legal, rare, why is there still a controversy?
How to Pack Up & Leave LiveJournal (A Tutorial) (://URLFAN)
Not a bad little how-to. Not how I'd do it specifically, I've already backed up everything including comments to a Wordpress install, but still not bad.
drjon: The LJ Strike (which is today)
Containts a nice little history of previous fusses on the site, with a balanced overview and points out that, well, we've won already
Pharyngula: EXPELLED!
Creationists premiere dodgy movie near home of famous science blogger, specifically ban him from viewing, but not his family or his guest. This is a really dumb move...
It's Just a Game... - Review: The Bible
Funny: "Summary: A confused film, half effects laden, no-brain blockbuster, half cinema-verite talking-heads, lacking a conclusion or climax to justify the budget. Poor plotting and characterisation lead the audience to sympathise with the villains rather
FT.com | The Undercover Economist | Dear Economist: How can I create an incentive scheme to keep our house clean?
Sounds familiar: "My fiancee is moving in with me. We’ve lived together before, and we hate housework. Before, we didn’t do work in retaliation for housework not done by the other." Good to know that even economics doesn't have all the answers
if you need a bit more explanation, ask a skientist, I recommend Debi the evolutionary morphologistand for damn fine reason.
Debi Linton - On Intelligent Design:
This week, however, I have been asked to give a basic run down of the I.D. milarkey from the point of view of an evolutionary scientist, and who am I to refuse to write about evolution?Making the serious point that Evolution fulfills the serious requirements to be defined as a Theory, namely that a) it is predictive and b) it can be disproved. Intelligent Design cannot be defined as a theory because a) it is not predictive and b) it cannot be disproved [1]. The post contains some very (very) good explanation about what science is (and is not), and makes the solid point that the scientific method can only work with the world as it is, not as we might like it to be. This post is another prime example of why I love the ease of publication that blogging gives us, anyone can be a pamphleteer, and when someone, anyone, writes good content, that post can be picked up, linked to, and the ideas can spread. And spread. Yes, that is a hint to everyone.
( About Science and Religion )
( Evolution is only a Theory )
( Creationism/Intelligent design is also a theory )
( Evolution and abiogenesis )
( And a YouTube vid )
I'm, unusually for me, closing comments on this post; Debi welcomes comments and questions, she promises not to bite (
ms_ntropy might object), and it'd be good to keep the discussion in one place. Go read, talk, question, discuss. [1] I've read some speculation that some Quantum theorists may, or may not, be working on a method to prove the existence of a higher, guiding power, based around disproving the parallel universes theory. I have no clue or links about that one, but what I read (in comments elsewhere and I've done no research on it) was intriguing to say the least.
brad have finally launched their social graph API. Simple version: Your friends list on LJ, Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook etc are public information. So if this takes off (and it will) you'll be able to log into one and find out if your friends from one are on the other. If the information is private, then you'll need permission, but if it's open info then I don't need to ask you gits to find me on Twitter or Bebo (MatGB, natch), I can get the site I just registered for to go see who I know, just like I can currently get them to check my Gmail addressbook. Which will be nice. If it works. It should do. Meh, Brad explains it in all his geekiness if you want:( Brad's product launch vid, in all his geeky glory )
There's an example of the code for those that want it on David Recordon's Blog, including a nice little in-joke.
LJ's new overlords are proceding apace with dragging Livejournal into the 21st century. It aggregates interesting public posts, yes, you can opt out if you want to (how it works for communities) but why would you want to? If you don't want people to see it, don't post it publicly. While it probably won't be of much use to established users, it will really help new users, which the site needs to survive, SUP spent money because they thought they could turn the site around and make it work. Features that draw new users in and help them get set up easily are needed--every other similar site has had this for years.
Last up,
davegodfrey brings the science funny. SRSLY, go read and if time listen, watching a Discovery institute loony get schooled is always worth it, right?Petition of the day
Sign this:Petition to: reverse the decision to cut vital UK contributions to Particle Physics and Astronomy.
If you're not sure why, read
purplecthulhu's recent entries, or just go look at the signatory list. The Arts Council mess was bad enough, but that's just "stuff wot I like". This is "stuff wot we all need" FFS. G'night all.nannyo excellent post about her encounter with the people that run the Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm. I am very scared that that place exisits within the UK. On a similar vein, those that haven't seen it should probably read Scalzi's report of his visit to the Creation Museum. Does anyone have any brain bleach?Heh: I do like this from the comments at Scalzi's report though:
Galatians 4:24So, um, the bible, if literally true, is literally a metaphor according to St Paul?
These things may be taken figuratively, for the women represent two covenants.
ETA:
innerbrat has put on her day job hat and got into contact with them, removing the bit that she studies evolutionary morphology from her NHM email sigline. Go Debi! [1]
innerbrat and davegodfrey based on their regular postings on such topics.The attractiveness of a low waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) is generally due to it being an indicator of health and fertility, but this new research offers a possible additional factor, that low WHR also indicates high cognitive ability. So, yep, the study suggests that curvy girls are likely to be smart and produce smart children, and this increased smartness is possibly what makes the curves attractive to men. It's to do with the difference in upper bopdy fat and lower body fat supplying the particular kind of fatty acid that's essential for brain development.I now have an excuse to letch after a nice arse--I'm checking out her likely mental capacity as well.
OK, I didn't have this excuse before, and it's never stopped me, but, y'know, skience on my side now. There are a lot of very smart women on my blog reading list, this is good. I'm marrying one of them. This is even better.
Oh, rest of the post and comments is worth a read over as well. I have another, different follow up post planned, but that one requires engaging my brain, which isn't working today, sorry...
theweaselking, Palaeos Vertebrates: Glossary Ta - Th:Thagomizer: this started out as a Far Side joke, but has now more or less become a part of the serious anatomical literature. The thagomizer is the, otherwise difficult to describe, collection of spikes at the end of a stegosaurid's tail. It is named after the late ThagIs that for real?
Firstly,
linkfrenzy is back, despite drjon's insane interpretation of Aussie copyright laws, and is also catching up with a massive backlog of Links From The Dawn Of Time, including three methods of making tinyy Daleks. How cool is that?jonnynexus has a bit of gaming history with a scan of the contents page of White Dwarf #77. The last one before Ansell moved it to Nottingham. Pay close attention to the words spelt out by the first letter of each line. Of course, this humble non-RPGing gamer thinks better to have a miniatures based White Dwarf than no White Dwarf at all, and better to have a Games Workshop making products still than a dead company and some 'good old days', but I'm very aware that most gamers will remain of the GW = EEEVIL mindset no matter how many times actual real facts are presented to them. Yes, I'm biased, but I do not in any way regret the years I spent working for them. Although Ansell was an arse, they're right on that point.
Next up, LJ polls! Everyone likes a good poll, right? Ongoing discussion of 'best SF film ever' is added to by
bagrec who first asked his readers for nominations and then put upa poll of the finalists. talvalin, who I met [properly] for the first time Friday, had a similar poll a few weeks back. And yes, I had meant to link to Richard's first nominations post while they were still open, I acquired one of those 'life' things and forgot, sorry...pickwick has a poll about knowledge of scientific theories and experiments, and asks What other experiments and theories should everyone know about?So go tell her, mm'kay? Also, can anyone else out there confirm that Occam's "simplest possible solution" for pretty much everything was in fact "God did it", or am I talking out of my backside with miss remembered facts again?
Met
the_vin Saturday at the Imperial War Museum, and a look through his archives gives this Zombie!Christ video that is, well, disturbing in its hilarity.Now, how about a bit of filth? Political point making, Belgian style, in which a rather nice looking young lady offers the world 40,000 blow jobs in order to get publicity for her campaign. Umm, yeah. Well, she certainly got my attention. Then we have, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Muppet Porn. Yeah, um, even I found that one a bit disturbing. Amusing, but a bit weird.
Finally, for those complaining about the Eurovision block voting, a proper academic study of the voting patterns, revealing something we sort of know anyway. Besides, Anglophone nations tend to vote for songs in English, why is it a surprise that slavonic countries like to vote for slavonic songs?
Yeah, that's folder one cleared out. More to follow at some point.
chris_dillow_fd has some worrying research that seems to point that nature is more important:If genes were all that mattered, you'd expect the education of biological parents to affect children's outcomes whether they were adopted or not. If nurture were all that mattered, you'd expect biological parents' education to have no effect on the outcomes of adopted children.Not a huge difference, but a difference nonetheless. It may just be that who you are matters more than what you were taught. I await further study on this one, because it really does go against some of my more basic instincts.
So, what did they find? That biological parents' education mattered even for adopted children.
- Scotland's interesting message to alien life
- Miss Freddie is talking about dice and music:
- wpts has launched a Does my web site suck checklist, the bulk of which I agree with wholeheartedly (and some of you will have read the draft of my forthcoming rant about flash sites and navigation already - Vincent agrees)
- dm_of_the_rings has the most recent episode upDwarven Diplomacy. If Gimli is to be comic relief, at least he can be cool comic relief. And yes, that feed address is just for the comic, the full feed is 20sidedtale, but I'm a little feeded out at the moment so I used my mighty Wordpress fu to just syndicate that category.
- On the other hand, just reading the comic feed means missing out on stuff like this review of the Fate Diablo II clone:
- davidnm has decided to abandone pretence of being a serious scientists, and explains how we could be descended from alien colonists:
- Some official communities are starting to show ads. I have nothing further to add to that statement, but isn't it great that they started doing so just before the annual State of the Goat on
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news? - Was going to write this up properly but I doubt I'll ever get around to it so, lj_nifty: Using Firefox 2 to quickly add RSS feeds to your LJ account:
Been reading about indeterminacy (think John Cage), and I just had a thought. Dice Music. Assign each note to number on a D12(?). Roll. A lot. Assign lengths of notes, dynamics, other markings, to different dice. Even assign the choosing of instruments to the dice. Brass, Woodwind, Strings, Voices? Then Trumpets, Trombones etc...Interesting comments thread there, with some daft suggestions as to where to go next.
What sort of dice can you get? D20s, D6... what else?
Fate is one game where I think the “clone” moniker is deserved. Fate is more or less a straight-up Diablo clone. It duplicates the mechanics and play style of Diablo II right down to having the same windows with the same information that are opened with the same hotkeys.On the subject of Diablo:
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play_diablo, set up by theweaselking, I have every intention of joining in properly once I've gotten myself a decent connection speed. It goes like this. Suppose you want to colonise a planet, but you want to avoid either the War of the Worlds scenario (bumped off by native life) or the 'terraforming by accident' scenario (your intestinal flora or whatever outcompete everything else on the planet). Basically, you need to make your proposed colonists fit in with the local environment.OK, he's not being serious, but still...
So, you find some local dominant species to use as a template.
Firefox 2 has a nifty feature for easily subscribing to RSS feedsSince discovering this feature hack, I've added over 50 new feeds to various filters. Hence me being a little feeded out; I keep meaning to cut down but, y'know, they're all so cool. I'm not sure if non-paid users can use it to discover new feeds, but if not, or if you want something set up, it's so easy to do I'm happy to oblige.
Phew, that was a longer one; question: Would people prefer I cut this sort of thing, or is having all the links there easily more preferable?
RESOLUTION 5AYou'd have thought that, during their biggest conference news in years, they'd manage to not schedule essential maintenence on their main website? Mirrors are fine, but the mirroe is way down the Google results for them.
The IAU therefore resolves that planets and other bodies in our Solar System be defined into three distinct categories in the following way:
(1) A planet1 is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (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 neighbourhood around its orbit.
(2) A dwarf planet is a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape2, (c) has not cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit, and
(d) is not a satellite.
(3) All other objects3 orbiting the Sun shall be referred to collectively as "Small Solar System Bodies".
( full text )
ETA: They rejected resolution 5B, which means that a dwarf planet is not a type of planet, but a wholly different thing. So they've both redefined the solar system and the rules of grammar. Go IAU!
Feeds
Introspection
There probably ought to be a Creative Commons licence in here somewhere but in the meantime consider this permission to quote me (link) & link to what I write.
If you decide to keep reading, please do say hello, let me know where you found me from, etc. I promise not to bite (well, unless you want me to...)
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