I was searching today for directions to one of my daughter's friend's house. Of course, I just typed the address into the search bar and up it came in Google Maps. However, the hybrid view, with major streets identified on top of satellite imagery, showed discrepancies. The overlay drawing of the streets at one important intersection did not line up with the roads in the picture. Which was correct? Naturally, I would just assume that the picture is out-of-date, as it is easier to update a map than a satellite image. But, as a geek, I wanted to prove which was correct.

Yesterday's post about twitter as a source of breaking news got me thinking about misuses of twitter. After all, two uses of all communication media are advertising and porn. Both are almost guaranteed to be part of the present and/or future twitter.

I have been playing with Twiiter for several weeks now (I am known as @franksummers in twitter-speak). If you haven't played with it, twitter is a way to broadcast short (140 character) messages. Other people follow your twitter feeds and can see what you have to say with enforced brevity.

On the face of it, twitter seems like yet another internet distraction. Another way for an already over-stimulated generation to waste time.

However, today I saw a truly useful side of twitter. Twitter became a source for breaking news.

Asked by: Ed via email

Full Question: I have a question on Pluto's official designation. Is it a kuiper belt object or a dwarf planet? If it's a dwarf planet, then is it still a planet? My understanding was that it was downgraded, but to what?