...

*just starts laughing*

My friends, a good morning to you, though I cannot lay claim to such myself; indeed, you find me dismayed, laid once again by the lee. It has of late been brought to my attention that, through custom and long tradition, today is a day which amongst the inhabitants of the World Wide Web (Strabo's Tela Totius Terrae, commonly referred to amongst sailors as 'the Internet') is habitually given over to the imitation of pirates - known in the lingua franca as Talk Like A Pirate Day. Though I am hardly as who should say intolerant of indigenous customs, and the Dear knows I should not otherwise speak ill of them, I yet find myself grieved, deeply grieved, that any good and right-thinking fellow should consider pirates - the very wickedness of the world incarnate, a villainous false rapacious lot - to be worthy of emulation. Rather, shall we not look to a more benign and indeed elevated ideal for inspiration? If mimicry is to be the order of the day, I propose that we reject this risible and ill-conceived notion of comporting ourselves like pirates, that we refute it utterly, and instead elect to model ourselves on the altogether more estimable figure of a physician and natural philosopher, a valued member of the Royal Society: Dr. Stephen Maturin.

In the words of the admirable Sir toko: The back of my hand to pirates. You will never forget it is Talk Like Dr. Stephen Maturin Day, for all love?

And now, my dears, I pray you will excuse me from your company; I am called upon to report to the Admiralty for a theoretical examination in the proper conduct and operation of small vessels, that I might demonstrate the proper judgment to be employed when navigating a lee shore, and my ability to distinguish port from starboard, a yard from a mizzen, and a sail from a washcloth.

Sometimes science sort of makes me want to cry.

First Picture of Likely Planet around Sun-like Star

Astronomers have unveiled what is likely the first picture of a planet around a normal star similar to the Sun.

Three University of Toronto scientists used the Gemini North telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i to take images of the young star 1RXS J160929.1-210524 (which lies about 500 light-years from Earth) and a candidate companion of that star. They also obtained spectra to confirm the nature of the companion, which has a mass about eight times that of Jupiter, and lies roughly 330 times the Earth-Sun distance away from its star.

That's 3106 trillion miles from Earth.