Links

Stuff I find around the web that interests or amuses me.

Greetings, Earthlings

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Just something cool: a weblog from space, written by NASA Science Officer Ed Lu from on board the International Space Station.

At night, the dominant thing you see when you look down is thunderstorms. Lightning lights up the clouds in sometimes spectacular displays. At any given time at night, especially over the tropics, you can see one or more lightning storms going on. The lightning flashes illuminate the clouds from within, and ripple through the storm systems. I enjoy turning off all the lights in the docking compartment, and watching thunderstorm systems at night through its sideward facing windows. The southern Indian Ocean is a great place to watch thunderstorms.

As we near Australia, if you look towards the horizon southward you can see the aurora. The aurora look like glowing green curtains which move upwards from the top of the atmosphere. The curtains intersect the atmosphere in a curved line, which appears as a bright green line south of Australia. There are times when we actually fly through the aurora, and you can look downwards and see the green glow below you. Sometimes there are traces of red along with the predominant green. We’ve taken some time-lapse movies looking towards the horizon as we fly past the aurora.

(via Craig Suchland)

Linky love

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After getting a comment from Iki about the Homeland Security Chokers, I wandered over to her site (er…his site? I think Iki’s a ‘she’, though, this being the ‘net, Iki could be a secret super-evolved marmoset [which, incidentally, would probably be really cute] and I’d never know) and noticed that I’d been chosen as Iki’s Aortal site of the week (you can see the link midway down the sidebar)!

I thought that was fairly cool, and, never being one to let a good deed go unpunished, I wanted to promote sending a little traffic Iki’s way, too. So, here you go Iki — with my readership, you might get, oh, three or four more hits from this! ;)

And for what it’s worth, I think Entertainment Weekly temporary tattoos could be the new trend for the summer season.

Harry Potter Uno

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Ooers — there’s a Harry Potter Uno game that looks really cool! I found this review from sirriamnis:

Game Review: Harry Potter Uno is more vicious and high-scoring than the normal Uno game. This is due in part to:

Draw 2s are now Draw 3s.

There are two new cards, the Howler which is wild and will let you see all of another player’s hand (Ok, technically they’re supposed to shout out their entire hand, but with the sizes of the hands we were accumulating last night, not really practical) and the Invisibility Cloak card, also wild, which lets you cancel the action of any card played on you like Draw 3s, Draw 4 Wilds, Reverses, Skips, what have you.

I think the Howler contributes most to this. As it was used multiple times to let us see what an Uno-ed player’s remaining card was, and then we heaped on the new cards with glee.

We had some massively big scoring hands last night. But a good time was had by all.

I’m ordering one for me right now…

The Rocky and Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show

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I’m torn between being impressed and frightened, but I have to admit, it’s quite a piece of work: the script for The Rocky and Bullwinkle Horror Picture Show!

Snagglepuss was okay\
But he was prob’ly gay\
‘Cause his fur was — shocking pink

And Bugs Bunny would gloat

When he got Elmer’s goat

Then he’d turn to the camera and wink

That Daffy’s a riot

I wanted to try it

When he shot off his beak with a gun

Whenever Scooby-Doo

Was searching for a clue

I’d always shout, “Run, stupid, run!”

[Chorus]

Animated — cartoon features

Elmer Fudd — will shoot at creatures

See Foghorn Leghorn — and Chilly Willy

Speedy Gonzales — acted so silly

Woah oh oh ohhhhhh

On those great, old — early morning — cartoon shows

Oh, I really loved Porky

Who talked kinda dorky

When he tried to say really long words

And that mean cat, Sylvester

Who’d constantly pester

That poor little innocent bird

In the eighties, the Smurfs

Conqured ‘toon turf

But now they’ve been pulled off the air

And when Mel Blanc died,

Said Chuck Jones to his bride,

“Now we’ll never hear Daffy Duck swear.”

Too bad!

[Chorus]

Animated — cartoon features

Elmer Fudd will shoot at creatures

See Foghorn Leghorn — and Chilly Willy

Speedy Gonzales — acted so silly

Woah oh oh ohhhhhh

On those great, old — early morning — cartoon shows

Remember those? Woah ohhhh

I love all them — early morning — cartoon shows

Don’t pick your nose! Woah ohhhh

On those great, old — early morning — cartoon shows

They don’t wear clothes! Ah-ohhhh

On those great, old — early morning — cartoon shows

(via MeFi)

Still looking

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I could have sworn that I linked to this before (it’s been on the ‘net for months), but I can’t find it now, and it’s bouncing around the ‘net again. So…

  1. Go to Google.
  2. Type in “weapons of mass destruction” (without the quotes) as your search phrase.
  3. Click the “I’m feeling lucky” button.

Or, just click here. ;)

The hat?!?

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No one wants to put words in J. K. Rowling’s mouth, but it’s safe to assume that when she hails her readers’ creativity, she has in mind something other than tales wherein Professor Snape is fellated by the Sorting Hat.

— from Taking Liberties with Harry Potter, an article on the explosion of Potter fanfic

(via Jason Kottke)