Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
This has been everywhere across the ‘net for the past day, so you’ve probably seen it…however, if you haven’t, now’s your chance.
The Star Wars trilogy, as told by someone who hasn’t actually seen the movies.
Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn’t seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.
42 years ago today, “The Man Trap” introduced Star Trek to the world.
Jason Kottke’s done a wonderful job of rounding up some of history’s best Olympic moments on YouTube. However, I think he missed a select few that truly deserve to be seen and appreciated.
I’ll freely admit that, while geeky, I’m not one who will stand in line for hours for an item I can get faster and easier if I wait a few days. I’m less concerned with “firsties” than with my own convenience.
That said — I love the fact that the customer in this video actually calls the reporter on his idiotic “reporting.” I wish more people would do this — perhaps we’d actually get a bit more news in the news, instead of mindless fluff.
Probably not. But perhaps.
Flickr user SLOWLORIS was hanging out on her balcony taking video of a thunderstorm, when she was hit by lightning. She’s fine, and apparently so is the camera — ’cause she’s got the video to prove it!
From what i understand, it went through my left hand holding the camera, crossed my back and exited out of my right hand holding onto the metal railing. No entry or exit wounds, just a really good zap!
Just amazing.
While I’ve never been around one (something I’m not at all disappointed about), I’ve certainly heard of tornadoes, waterspouts, and I’ve seen many of their smaller cousin, the dust devil.
However, I’d never thought about what the wind patterns around a wildfire might do.
From Wikipedia:
A fire whirl, colloquially fire devil or fire tornado, is a phenomenon in which a fire, under certain conditions (depending on air temperature and currents), acquires a vertical vorticity and forms a whirl, or a tornado-like effect of a vertically oriented rotating column of air. Fire whirls may be whirlwinds separated from the flames, either within the burn area or outside it, or a vortex of flame, itself.
A fire whirl can make fires more dangerous. An extreme example is the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake in Japan which ignited a large city-sized firestorm and produced a gigantic fire whirl that killed 38,000 in fifteen minutes in the Hifukusho-Ato region of Tokyo. Another example is the numerous large fire whirls (some tornadic) that developed after lightning struck an oil storage facility near San Luis Obispo, California on April 7, 1926, several of which produced significant structural damage well away from the fire, killing two. Thousands of whirlwinds were produced by the four-day-long firestorm coincident with conditions that produced severe thunderstorms, in which the larger fire whirls carried debris 5 kilometers (3 mi) away.
Most of the largest fire whirls are spawned from wildfires. They form when a warm updraft and convergence from the wildfire are present. They are usually 10-50 meters (30-200 ft) tall, a few meters (~10 ft) wide, and last only a few minutes. However, some can be more than a kilometer (0.6 mile) tall, contain winds over 160 km/h (100 mph), and persist for more than 20 minutes.
Just…wow. Cool, beautiful, and frightening, all at the same time.
In other tornado goodness, a bank security camera in Iowa was running when the bank was hit by a huge tornado a few weeks ago.
Freaky cool.
Google Maps Streetview seems to have discovered a wormhole while driving down Muldoon Road in Anchorage, Alaska (my hometown). Somehow, in all the years of driving up and down this road, I’d never noticed the sudden jump into a residential parking lot and then back onto the road itself. I’m obviously not paying enough attention!
Y’know, it’s really sad that this kind of polite, civil, and amusing discourse is so rarely seen these days. Two people on very different sides of an issue who, rather than loudly proclaiming their absolute certainty that they are right and the other is wrong, are able to amiably chat and joke with each other about the differences in their viewpoints.
Part one:
Part two:
I wish more newscasters would do something like this. Kudos for Mika Brzezinski, and it’s a pity she has to work with shmoes like the two guys who just won’t let this drop and keep pushing it in her face.