I guess it's not only computer mavens that are concerned with cleaning up. It turns out astronomers are as well. Only one month ago I noted the date on which a tenth planet revolving around the sun was discovered (only one year ago), and one month later, it seems that one step forward has become two steps back, and we've officially moved from ten to eight. But more importantly on the cleaning up front, classifications have become more specific. Pluto may no longer be a planet, but instead a new category of "dwarf planet" has been created, and it's been joined in that new category by three other objects in the solar system. I guess it's sort of like losing a lover and gaining a friend (or should that be the other way around?).

I admit that the decision of the International Astronomical Union surprised me. I assumed, like many others of more or less my generation, that tradition was going to carry the day in Pluto's favor. But I guess that when our scale for measuring is celestial, seventy five years of tradition doesn't seem to count for much. On the other extreme of scale, I get the feeling that the Wikipedia entry on Pluto was changed almost in real time (while some others seem to lag well behind). Not bad.