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New submitter Foundryman writes: Amidst fake missile reports in Hawaii and Japan, Michigan gets hit by something real. From a report via Ars Technica: "Early last night local time, a meteor rocketed through the skies of southern Michigan, giving local residents a dramatic (if brief) light show. It also generated an imperceptible thump, as the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed that there was a coincident magnitude 2.0 earthquake. The American Meteor Society has collected more than 350 eyewitness accounts, which ranged from western Pennsylvania out to Illinois and Wisconsin. They were heavily concentrated over southern Michigan, notably around the Detroit area. A number of people have also posted videos of the fireball online. The American Meteor Society estimates that the rock was relatively slow-moving at a sedate 45,000km an hour. Combined with its production of a large fireball, the researchers conclude it was probably a big rock. NASA's meteorwatch Facebook page largely agrees and suggests that this probably means that pieces of the rock made it to Earth. If you were on the flight path, you might want to check your yard.

chongo writes: "The Leonid meteor shower certainly lived up to its hype this year. At Fremont Peak, CA (USA) we saw a peak rate of 2408 meteors/hour. We saw many bright fireballs. During the peak (18 Nov 2001 1015-1130 UTC) there were frequent instances where multiple meteors were visible. Because of this, we suspect the true rate was likely higher than 2500/hr." We've also heard from several folks who were foiled by weather, but it's good that at least some people got the full show. Update: 11/18 17:09 GMT by T : BrianGa writes: "If you missed the show, like I did, you can see some still pictures and animated pictures." He also points to a site with a preliminary graph of the number of meteors visible on November 18th.

Space.Com, Astronomy Magazine and The American Meteor Society all have tons of information, viewing guides and historical perspectives for you to peruse in anticipation of tonight Lonid meteor shower. Many are predicting a once in a lifetime event, as the Earth is expected to swing through 3 debris trails laid down by Comet 55p/Temple-Tuttle. One article mentions that up to 10,000 events per hour could be in the offing. So if you feel like staying up till 2am pst (10 ut) you'll be able to check it out. I know we've been hyping this event, but, well, we are okay with this.

Jens Lönn writes: "The annual Giacobinid meteor shower (also known as the Draconids) peaks on October 9th and 10th. Most years the shower produces no more than a few shooting stars per hour for northern sky watchers. But there have been some impressive Giacobinid outbursts - most recently in 1998 where the maximum rate was over 500 per hour. The shower's parent comet is far away, so this year's display will probably be modest. You can see the comets orbit simulated here."

Jens Lönn writes: "The annual Giacobinid meteor shower (also known as the Draconids) peaks on October 9th and 10th. Most years the shower produces no more than a few shooting stars per hour for northern sky watchers. But there have been some impressive Giacobinid outbursts - most recently in 1998 where the maximum rate was over 500 per hour. The shower's parent comet is far away, so this year's display will probably be modest. You can see the comets orbit simulated here."

Slashback tonight with more on the continuing role of Mitchell Baker with the Mozilla project, flying through comet trails, gaming particulars, and the interesting Microsoft FrontPage EULA forbidding certain types of web pages be made with it.

Because not everything is as simple as who signs your paycheck ... cetan writes: "As a follow up to being laid off by AOL from Netscape, Mitchell Baker posted an article on Mozillazine discussing her role within Mozilla.org."

Can you think of a title to help her replace "Chief Lizard Wrangler"? All that wrangling has been a good thing, though, as recent builds make clear. I'd like to suggest "Reptilian Ambassador."

Sometimes, you just have to play. t0qer writes: "This is an update to this story. Originally I said kaillera was a net enabled version of mame, it's actually a free SDK to enable any emulator to have netplay. It was written by Christophe Thibault, of winamp fame. Contrary to some comments that the code was ripped from netmame, it was actually borged from jnetlib which was written by his boss and buddy Justin Frankel. So far kaillera has been adopted by 10 different emulators.

Speaking of games, iphayd writes: "Graeme Devine updated his plan , and released a version of Return to Castle Wolfenstein. While this isn't interesting in itself, he's claiming that he is getting 3x the frame rate on a dual 800 G4 system than his dual P3 800 system."

You shall not convert the news headlines in the MSNBC component into an audio format. MarkedMan writes: "There has been some confusion over Microsoft's Frontpage EULA, with some claiming it prohibited using the software to produce works disparaging Microsoft and some saying it simply prohibited the use of the Frontpage logo on such sites. (The logo restriction actually seemed reasonable to me.) After some searching I found that some versions of the EULA do indeed limit use of the program itself. This from Northwestern University's Microsoft User License: Check out page 2, section 2. http://www.tss.northwestern.edu/select/mspur.pdf"

We have come to terms. bkuhn writes: "The FSF and FSMLabs have an agreement on a GPL-compliant version of the RTLinux Open Patent License. You can read our statement and related press release on the matter."

It's cool to see this sort of conflict work be met and resolved.

Not quite a date with a star. Troodon writes "A brief reminder, JPL and BBCnews report that this Saturday (22/SEP/2001) at 2230 Universal time (3:30 p.m. PDT) Deep Space 1 has a date with the Comet Borrelly"