with the two photographs of the sea at La Jolla (where one could mark for comparison the high tide line on both photos) that we thought Our Faithful Reader would enjoy these two photos. The first one accompanied an "open" letter by 250 scientists, mostly not "climate" scientists, denouncing those with doubts about the Sacred Simulations. The second comes from the same photographer.
Here, side-by-side:
There are two theories:
1. The Last Penguin reached the ice floe first and was basking in the sun. Later, the Last Polar Bear, swimming to Antarctica from the warming at the North Pole, climbed aboard and ate the penguin. (That the polar bear came later can be seen from the "high noon" position of her shadow.)
2. There are two identical ice floes, one in the north and the other in the south polar regions, floating past identical ripples in the otherwise glassy sea, while miraculously similar clouds scud through the sky. A cloud bank on the horizon in the first shot coincidentally occupies the same location as the land mass in the second shot. And both floes happened to be boarded by local fauna, whom the same photographer fortuitously captured on film (or digits) standing in the self-same location.
If anyone has a more likely theory, we are open to suggestions.
Page Summary
marycatelli : (no subject) [+7] - ilion7 : (no subject) [+1]
- thegameiam : PSD? [+1]
- jjbrannon : Tricked again! [+1]
- jjbrannon : Collective Noun [+0]
- m_francis : (no subject) [+6]
- (Anonymous) : I was greatly amused; now, musing about music [+5]
- the_deuce : (no subject) [+1]
- the_deuce : (no subject) [+0]
Comments
The first ice flow is much larger, and the ripples must be, too. See, the penguin appears to be much larger than the bear -- impossible even with a cub.
And the pygmy mammoth simply clashed with cocktail sauce.
JJB
Or, is it that similar to water circling the drain, water-reflections go in opposite directions north and south of the equator?
here is the working link
4] Seattle zoo-keepers visited Sears with their charges for the annual Easter shots.
5] These are standard floe-steering license photos.
Okay, my ingenuity sputtered. I cannot honestly say which, if either, of these photos is valid, but the reflection of the bear appears wrong to my eye.
Be back.
Back.
I checked "istockphoto.com" and tracked down Jan Will's area. He admits there the bear photo is an amalgam. The penguin pic is almost two months older if one credits upload dates.
Look at the sunlight vector on the clouds and the direction of the shadows created. That vector more closely aligns with the penguin's shadow.
JJB
If the light source appears at 2 o'clock outside the photo's frame as it seems from the cumulus clouds, the reflection can't be that bright -- it should be more a shadow.
A reflection of that clear, vivid nature would have a light source at least from 5 o'clock, emanating behind the photographer.
JJB
:>)
JJB
But I have no more time to spend on this frippery -- I need to turn my attention to Up Jim River.
JJB
I know you received the Sturgeon and Heinlein awards, but the more I read of you, the more you put me in mind of Cordwainer Smith.
I'm wracking my brain to figure out the multilingual pun [which may not be there!] for Siggy O'Hara. Segura? Safe? As in, "We're safe"?
I caught the allusion to buccal swabs immediately and that they have no genetics. It's not an "article"; it's a "story".
Also liked how you substituted the historical swapping of astronomical data for the fictional engineering data in Mountain Dew.
It's a one in three chance, for the Seven in One.
Critics complained that much of the SF produced in the Golden & Silver Ages displayed the "The One Culture Fallacy" of planetary depiction. Can't stick that tag on you: moving through a room in one of your stories is a more multicultural experience than anything short of a Manhattan coffee-shop.
JJB
Mea culpa.
JJB
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_
One difference between you and that other Irish-extraction writer James Joyce is that you can plot.
Otherwise, the footnotes for either of you two's works exceed the size of the original story's text by a factor or two.
I swear that it's the literary version of Hopi sand-painting, except you do if with miniature semi-precious stones.
Must get back to it, the hot butter on the popcorn with which I am fortifying myself must be allowed to cool in vain.
JJB
By the way, while reading Up Jim River I was also thinking about the kind of music one might read while reading the books of the Gaelactic Periphery series. I like the multicultural mixtures of the soundtracks for the reimagined Battlestar Galactica (especially season 1) and Firefly.
Also good (or even better, because it won't call images from any TV show into your head) are the works of Dead Can Dance, an Irish-Australian duo who composed works with Gaelic, Middle Eastern, Indian, Native American and Medieval and Renaissance European influences. I like the instrumentals and non-English-language pieces the best, especially for this purpose. If curious, one might start with their live CD Into the Labyrinth or Toward the Within or maybe A Passage in Time.
-- Stevo Darkly
You are the first to announce completing the book, which is good news, since it means at least one person did not throw it away unfinished.
Up Jim River was a great romp; thanks for writing it.
I will investigate Outback and Béla Fleck & the Flecktones. Thanks for mentioning them.
In trying to describe The January Dancer (especially the cultural mixing), I once described it as "a combination of Dune, Firefly and The Maltese Falcon, as told by an Irish bard in an Indian restaurant." Perhaps that's not the most apt summary, but the best I could do at the time. However, I am proud to say that a friend of mine said he was going to pick up a copy based entirely on that description.
-- Stevo Darkly
Quite good. Now I eagerly await the finale.
**A year from now!**
JJB
Be still my beating heart.
:>)
JJB