November 06, 2003

Solar flare
Hey, look: the sun god is angry and narrowly missed killing us all.

IMPACT: A coronal mass ejection hurled into space by the superflare described below has just swept past Earth (at 1924 UT on Nov. 6th). Moderate geomagnetic storms and high-latitude auroras are possible during the hours ahead.

SUPERFLARE: Astronomers won't soon forget Nov. 4th, 2003--the day of the biggest explosion ever recorded in our solar system. The blast originated from giant sunspot 486, and on the Richter scale of solar flares, it measured X28. Smaller flares in the past have caused power outages and widespread auroras. The Nov. 4th explosion was not directed squarely toward Earth, and its effects so far have been relatively minimal. Even so, it was a flare to remember.

Alas. It would have been fun to watch the apocalyptic aurorae from somewhere dark. (Link stolen from doc.) Note also that by looking here within 24 hours you can see the increased solar wind reflected in a real live sciencey-looking graph!
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Fonts
font.gifThe raster tragedy at low resolution explains why computer fonts mostly suck. It does so by way of showing all the hoops one must hop through in order to make a font even kind of okay.
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