ypsi~dixit

That's a Hubble photo of Pluto, incidentally.

Heh.

One kind reader wrote a new poll answer,
"Our Mr. Sun" would have said yes, wouldn't he have?

This response utterly mystified the 1967-born Y. till I googled it.

Ah. "Our Mr. Sun" was a popular children's science show in the 1950s and 1960s, with episode titles like "Mystery of the Cosmic Rays." Our Mr. Sun appears as a, um, beaming, avuncular sort of fireball. The kind you might want to toss a baseball around with.

So, what happened to the poll on favorite Ypsilanti landmarks? I didn't see the results for that one.

Kate: Whoopsie, sorry, here are the landmark-poll results! They do not add up to 100% because write-in answers start counting only after they're written in, so they have a smaller overall pool of respondents (i.e., 4 respondents for the MLK Plaza answer).

The overall winner? Water Tower.

Martin Luther King Plaza at EMU, with gorgeous bust of MLK 2 / 4 50%

Water Tower 6 / 25 24%

the giant penis, uh, i mean, water tower 2 / 9 22%

Riverside Park 3 / 18 16%

Paper Mill (exists in memory only) 4 / 25 16%

Water tower 2 / 16 12%

Starkweather Fountain with bowls for dogs, horses, and people (temporarily misplaced) 2 / 25 8%

My definition of planet will remain unchanged. If it can be seen with the naked eye and it's not a star, it's a planet. Otherwise, it's an astronomical object. Pluto's never been a planet in my book.

And as a fellow 1970's child, I must point out that no matter what the outcome of these astro-geek debates, Interplanet Janet will surely need to revise her travelogue.

Misha: I think your definition of planet is a sound and sensible one. In my case, I'm so myopic that I have no planets at all :) Well, I've seen Venus on the horizon a couple of times. OK, one planet.

I love the term "astro-geeks". One gets the sneaking suspicion that if there were no "controversy," there would be little reason for the continuance of their jobs. I could be wrong.

It's vaguely like the September U-M conference of "gendered identities in Poland, Chile, Lithuania, and Russia" being held by the women's studies folks. More or less just something to justify the existence of their jobs.

I could be wrong.

Regarding "Xena", here's a clip from the webpage of one of the astronomers:

The name "Xena" is frequently heard associated with this planet; this name comes from an internal cod name that we used before we publically announced the existence of the planet. Other code names have been "Santa" (2003 EL61), "Rudolph" (the moon of 2003 EL61), "Easterbunny" (2005 FY9) and "Flying Dutchman" (Sedna), and "Gabrielle" (the moon of 2003 UB313). We use these names internally simply because they are easier to say and remember than things like 2003 EL61 or S/2005 (2003 UB313) 1 . There is no chance whatsoever that these will become the permanent names of these objects! As soon as the committees make their decisions these objects will get real names. When we first announced the existence of these objects we thought that the real names would be decided in days to weeks, not months to years so it never occured to us that these code names would last more than a few days.

Hmmm...Community gardens, eh?

Considering that at least part of that place was once a foundry, and decades-old site plans label one area "sludge pits", I think I'd want to see a thorough Phase II environmental analysis before I'd be willing to put anything in my mouth that came off that site. (Not that my own yard doesn't likely contain lead from paint and old car exhaust, but, whatever.)

Maybe we should start with some community bioremediation?

Eww, Murph has a point! You can't use just any soil to grow things, because the plants absorb what's in the ground. A foundry definitely would have people-unfriendly things in that soil. Now, if someone wants to change that to floral gardens, I'd be okay.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Planet-Mutiny.html?hp&ex=1156478400&en=85bb38024b6fc8ff&ei=5094&partner=homepage

I guess they voted to kick Pluto our of the solar system today...go figure

Big Mike: In a way, I'm glad. I never warmed up to Pluto much. No big red spot. No pretty rings. So standoffish, way out there. Dinky.

So we need a new mnemonic. "My Very Elegant Mother Just Served Us Noodles"?