Auroras Borealis, Australis and Michiganis
The Northern Lights went crazy last night over Michigan and the Michigan Northern Lights log that I created several years ago blew up as well with nearly 30 reports from all over the state of Michigan from the UP to the Michigan/Indiana state line.
It was pretty cool to see the reports pour in, not to mention to see the lights, even though they were trailing off when I was alerted. There’s a cool video from Michigan at that first link, and I also saw an amazing video from the ISS of the aurora australis (southern lights).
Pumped up kids
Robert’s got a quick hand.
He’ll look around the room, he won’t tell you his plan.
He’s got a rolled cigarette, hanging out his mouth he’s a cowboy kid.
Yeah, he found a six shooter gun.
In his dad’s closet hidden in a box of fun things, and I don’t even know what.
But he’s coming for you, yeah he’s coming for you.
I heard Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People on and off over the summer. I loved the upbeat bounce, but I have to confess that I never paid attention to the lyrics.
Here’s an interview with Mark Foster where he talks guns, “overnight” fame and more.
I do love this version from SNL, and the video for Helena Beat is also very cool.
On dreams and following them
About 10 years ago my nephew Tyler told me he was going to develop video games. Today he is working as one of ten writers on the BioWare / LucasArts team that is 2 months away from releasing Star Wars: The Old Republic. It’s a massively multi-player online game from set thousands of years before the rise of Darth Vader when war between the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire divides the galaxy.
The story is certainly compelling – check out pieces here and here and in the video below. Well done Tyler.
Standing on the shore
One of the peculiar & cool features of WordPress blogs is that they are strewn across the vast shore of blogs that is WordPress.com.
WordPress uses categories and/or tags to taxonomically link between posts that have similar content. The common tags like art or news or photography have become fairly polished online magazines. Less used tags like wine or Michigan are more like little eddies around which similar content flows.
In either case, it means that people you’ve never met drop by to read things, and you have a chance to do the same. Here’s something I found from Aaron Leaman titled Documented Elements that I liked.
#occupywallstreet
Check out the livestream channel via Adbusters. The images look like they might have come from any of the protests that are sweeping the world. Do you think we’re heading into our own “American Spring”?
Here’s a photo from the occupywallstreet slideshow on Flickr.
The photo is by David Shankbone who has his own photographic coverage. On his blog he writes:
The cops arrested over 700 Occupy Wall Street protesters today, and the people on this post are the kinds of people they are slamming around. Today Zennie Abraham said in a video posted on the San Francisco Chronicle‘s website that the Goethe girl photograph above has “signaled the start of a movement”:
The Occupy Wall Street Movement has something the Tea Party could never claim to have: hot chicks at its protests quoting Goethe. This woman, photographed by David Shankbone during the protest at Wall Street, looks like a cross between Laura Croft and Norma Jean. It’s possible to see a whole line of fashion spring forward just from this photo – the latest in protest wear.
Additionally she, whoever she is, totally alters the image of the female protestor: gone is the dirty-haired earth girl with hairy arm pits; fashion models take to the streets.
