Shorter Days, And Parties

Here's an interesting bit of news I found today:

Our days may be permanently shortened by a fraction of a second, and the earth's rotation increased in velocity due to the recent seismic activity (Link) in the Indian Ocean. So it may be true what I read earlier this week - that the earth literally "jumped" in orbit.

Wow. Anyway, here are some unified torrents of amateur videos taken during the tsunami, all consolidated here thanks to BoingBoing (Link).

In the meantime, there's been some heated discussion over whether or not we should be celebrating the New Year with a big bang. Some have proposed parties for the bereaved (Link, which I personally think is rather iffy, but I don't know) whilst others laud the PM's move to not hold any national level celebrations, at least. Either way, I have a feeling that the usual hotspots will be doing business as usual as 2005 kicks in - and it's pretty much a personal thing either way. I DO feel strongly that we shouldn't be seen to be holding a big national bang; for form's sake at least. Surrounded by nations that have lost so much more, doing so would be like thumbing our noses at them, and that would be in serious bad taste.

As for the Ox, he'll probably be indoors on New Year's Eve, hopefully with some friends, just thankful for the fact that he's alive - and remembering that there's always a lot of work to do with the time he's given.

For next year.