Today I got the following email from Amazon EC2 Notifications:

Hello,

We have noticed that one or more of your instances are running on a host degraded due to hardware failure.

   [instance-id]

The risk of your instances failing is increased at this point. We cannot determine the health of any applications running on the instances. We recommend that you launch replacement instances and start migrating to them.

Feel free to terminate the instances with the ec2-terminate-instance API when you are done with them.

Sincerely,

The Amazon EC2 Team
Reference: [reference#]

Now *that’s* great customer service.

EPOXI (the current mission for the already successful spacecraft Deep Impact) flew past comet Hartley 2 (103P/Hartley) at 4pm SA time today, and shortly afterwards began returning image data.

Deep Impact zoomed past the comet at over 43,000 km/h – and was around 700 km from the comet at closest approach.

Hartley 2 is a fascinating comet, approximately 2km long and 400m wide at the most narrow section, and streaming out jets of gas (it also jetted out huge amounts of cyanide gas in September).

• http://epoxi.umd.edu/
• http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/epoxi/
• Comet Hartley 2 Fires Out Poison Gas as NASA Probe Nears (space.com)
• Collage of the 5 images during the closest part of the flyby (closest approach of 700km).

More data will be released over the next few days and weeks by the teams involved.

This is indeed a great time to be alive and witness to space exploration.

The RMS Queen Mary 2 is to date the largest ocean liner ever built (but no longer the world’s largest passenger ship, a record she held until 2006).She arrived in Durban harbour this morning around 07h30 SAT to much fanfare and local excitement, these photographs are from colleagues who watched the arrival from the harbour area (she was also easily visible from the Derivco building).

RMS Queen Mary II’s current status (added bonus – a webcam on the bridge, even if it’s low quality)
Twitter coverage from @MarcForrest and @tequiladiva

Also see Marc Forrest’s Flickr set.

See the full gallery on posterous

Posted via email from Ewan’s posterous

All went well, Mom and baby are well and happy, and we have another wonderful little boy to thank God for! 3.4 kgs, 10/10 Apgar score – just like his older brother. Yet again I am incredibly proud of my wife, who endured a really painful final phase of labour when her epidural stopped working, and handled it all with a strength i (and i suspect she) didn’t realise she had.

I almost have feeling back in my right hand.

I can’t wait to see how Caleb reacts to his new little brother in person – visiting at the hospital tonight he kept crying “Daniel! Daniel!” and trying to get to the little person he has heard so much about.
Daniel you share your birthday with the anniversary of the first manned flight into space (Yuri Gagarin becomes the first man to fly in space – 1961) and the first Space Shuttle launch in 1981. You are obviously destined to become an astronaut, no matter what your mom says.

“As through the calendar I delve
I pause to rejoice in April twelve.
Yea, be I in sickness or be I in health
My favorite date is April twealth.
…”

- From “Lines in Praise of a Date Made Praiseworthy Solely by Something Very Nice That Happened to It“, by Ogden Nash.

My love, read the Wikipedia article – and note phrases like “The climb to Uhuru Peak is considered to be a relatively straightforward endeavour” and ”
Annually, approximately 15,000 people attempt to climb the mountain“. goafrica also says “The exciting thing about this mountain is that anyone who is fit and determined can make it up. No special climbing equipment or expertise is needed.“. I’ll be on babysitting duty for a whole year :-)

A mosaic of nine processed images recently acquired during Cassini’s first very close flyby of Saturn’s moon Titan on Oct. 26, 2004, constitutes the most detailed full-disc view of the mysterious moon.

(NASA).

Caleb James McPhail, born at 14h44 on July 14th 2004 – 3.5 kgs, 10/10 APGAR scores :)

Mom and Caleb are both fine and happy – I’m so proud of them both – and grateful to an Awesome God!