Jim Gray tribute meeting

Tony Linde just emailed me to bring to my attention a Tribute to Honour Jim Gray, on May 31st in Berkeley.

Jim was a giant of the database world, and a good friend to the Virtual Observatory world in general, and Johns Hopkins and the SDSS archive in particular. He also helped us here in Edinburgh in our development of the WFCAM science archive, which is based on Microsoft SQL Server.

In January 2007, he disappeared without trace while on a sailing trip off the Californian coast. This was one of my own posts about Jim.

Gemini : back from the brink

Interesting announcement from Gemini Board :

Update on the UK status in Gemini — updated February 11, 2008

Negotiations have been re-opened, and UK time re-instated. US community members have had an email explaining the volte-face. Presumably something official will coem from STFC soon…