Pluto, say it ain't so!

I could not believe what I read today about scientist deciding that Pluto is not a planet anymore. The article states that

"the International Astronomical Union stripped Pluto of the planetary status it has held since its discovery in 1930."

I am a little shocked that this is happening. I admit that throughout history our concepts of everything around us has changed and we have needed to adjust to it like the earth is round instead of flat. I just hope that they did not rush the decision without having more information. It took scientists this long to agree on the criteria for classifying planets. But in the meantime we have a probe going out to Pluto to study it further which may tell us a lot more about it. The decision could have waited until we found out a little bit more about the former 9th planet in our solar system.
The new definition for a planet is:

"a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

It would be really ironic that in 10 or 12 years from now scientists come back to say that with the new information about Pluto, it really is a planet.

Technorati Tags: Space, Pluto, planets, solar system

Is Tiger the best athlete ever?

I read a article by Gene Wojciechowski titled "Woods is greatest individual athlete ever". I have to say that this is a little ridiculous. While we all know that it is becoming more inevitable that Tiger Woods will break most of the records in golf and pass Jack Nicholas for winning the most majors and become the greatest golfer ever, he has not done it yet. To say that he is the greatest athlete ever is more than just putting the cart before the horse, it is saying that the horse is not needed at all and that the cart can do it on its own. Some names at the top of the list of great athletes include Michael Jordan, Lance Armstrong, Wayne Gretzky, Ali, Pele, and so on. Needless to say, he is breaking records at an incredible pace, but he has not done it all and may not. The true judge of an athletes greatness is time itself. And for that determination, we will have to wait and see.

Technorati Tags: Tiger Woods, Golf, sports, athletics

Sleepless in Boston

I am a little late to write this but what a weekend! The Yankees go into Boston with a game and a half lead on them and the expectations were for a very heated battle. Well, I would have to say that it was a battle the whole way but I never dreamed that the Yankees would come out of it with a 6 and a half game lead! And who would have thought that the best pitching matchup of the series would be David Wells vs. Cory Lidle? After 4 games in which the Yankees outscored Boston 47-25, the last game of the series was only 2-1. Friday set the tone as both teams combined to use 18 pitchers in the day/night double header. Normally both teams would use that many pitchers in a 4 game series. It is far from over but you have to admit that this was the first nail in the coffin for Boston's hopes for the playoffs. Go Yanks!

Technorati Tags: Yankees, Red Sox, baseball, sports, american league

Blogger Beta

I am currently playing around with Blogger's new beta version. I wanted to see what improvements have been made. So far I have mixed reviews but there are definitely some nice features. I do hope that they soon add the ability to edit the html because that is important when you are customizing the layout of your blog. I do like the page elements section which allows you to rearrange the peices that make up the blog. I will be doing some more tinkering with it in the next few days to see what the full potential of this beta version is.

Technorati Tags: Blogger Beta, blogs, internet

Tax Free Days follow-up

I need to give an update to the story I wrote about the other day. My wife was contacted by the assistant manager at Dillards department store in Raleigh. They checked with their corporate office and admitted that there was a mistake and that the computer system had the wrong information. I am impressed that they got the answer quickly and responded back. If you bought anything from Dillards over the weekend and were charged tax when you believe that it should not, I would contact the store. They said that they were going to take care of refunding the money but it is going to be a tall order. They can easily do the credit card purchases but how do you identify customers who paid with cash and refund the money?

Technorati Tags: Tax Free Shopping, North Carolina, Dillards, shopping, commerce

Tax Free Days in North Carolina

I have to give a warning to everyone in North Carolina trying to take advantage of the Tax Free Shopping days this weekend. My wife was out today and stopped in the Dillards department store in Raleigh. She went to but my daughter some underwear and when she got to the register she was charged tax. My wife could not believe it. Later she went back to the store with the printout of what items are tax free. Even though the documentation clearly states that underwear falls under this category, they insist that the list did not include children's underwear! How ridiculous is that to say that adult underwear is tax free but kids underwear is not?! Also, according to how they set the descriptions in their computer system, the underwear comes up as Accessories. Someone will need to explain to me how something that is worn everyday under your clothes can be considered an accessory. My wife did speak to an assistant manager who was going to speak to the store manager who would be in on Monday but I think that it is only right to warn everyone now that Dillards has these problems. I hope that this can be resolved fairly, it could just be a mistake in what was entered in the computer system. If not then they are trying to do some shady business and should not get away with it.

Technorati Tags: Tax Free Shopping, North Carolina, Dillards, shopping, commerce