Space, if nothing else, is an awfully pretty place. This week over at Space Cynic lies the 53rd Carnival of Space.

Some of the highlights of this weeks Carnival include the following:
- Cosmic Chocolates -- Japanese chocolates designed on the Planets.
- The Space Elevator -- We're still a long way away from this one.
- The Earth from other worlds -- See what the Earth would look like from Saturn or Mars.
- Private Space Tourism -- You've seen Virgin Galactic's plans, now see the Russian plan that will certainly be ready to go much sooner!
Have a great weekend, and don't forget to read and comment on this week's posts here!
More like this
After spending all last weekend preparing our income tax return, I must have money on my mind. So this week's Casual Fridays study is about money. I don't want to tell you much more about it before you participate in the survey because it may affect the results, so just go ahead and click.
It's been a while since I've written a topology post. Rest assured - there's plenty more topology
Topology usually starts with the idea of a *metric space*. A metric space is a set of values with some concept of *distance*. We need to define that first, before we can get into anything really interesting.
Metric Spaces and Distance
------------------------------
In the mid-1970s, the U.S. State Department prohibited the internal use of the term "space colony," due to the global bad reputation of colonialism.