This educational video might help a bit for homeschoolers and other new-to-geography learners.
The music of 'Gone Fishing'
3 hours ago
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Good Morning!
Good Morning!
The maker explains at http://blog.blprnt.com/ -
Much more info is at the post, with related images and explanation.
GoodMorning! Full Render #2 from blprnt on Vimeo.
The maker explains at http://blog.blprnt.com/ -
GoodMorning! is a Twitter visualization tool that shows about 11,000 ‘good morning’ tweets over a 24 hour period, rendering a simple sample of Twitter activity around the globe. The tweets are colour-coded: green blocks are early tweets, orange ones are around 9am, and red tweets are later in the morning. Black blocks are ‘out of time’ tweets which said good morning (or a non-english equivalent) at a strange time in the day.
Much more info is at the post, with related images and explanation.
I awoke last night to the sound of thunder...
Just one more gorgeous picture from the "big" bay area storm. Would have linked this earlier had it been up then.
It's still raining, but not lightninging. It feels unsettled, like seasons are changing a bit earlier this year. I hope this portends a proper wet El NiƱo effect this coming winter.
It's still raining, but not lightninging. It feels unsettled, like seasons are changing a bit earlier this year. I hope this portends a proper wet El NiƱo effect this coming winter.
I wasn't expecting an earth-shattering kaboom
Ian O'Neill posted about his experience watching the shuttle sail overhead, and I added mine in a comment:
In 1996, for some reason, the shuttle flew over Sacramento on its way to Edwards.
It went over at the very crack of dawn, so I went outside a bit before that, wrapped in a blanket, and lay back on the sidewalk to wait.
Soon, in the dark east, a hot pink triangle materialized, and slid quickly overhead. I think it was pink from the heat. It was close enough to see that it was clearly a triangle, and clearly the shuttle, but I could see no details.
It moved silently over me, then disappeared into the equally pink sunrise to the east.
I wandered back into my apartment, curled up in bed, then as I was drifting off, the BOOM that you experienced rattled my window glass. I jumped out of my skin, and then burst into laughter.
It was honest joy.
I am a total shuttle-hugger, and that morning made among my most memorable space-related events.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Abbey Road from low earth orbit
My friend Andy was poking around on the internets and found an interesting google satellite shot:
Abbey Road
Zebra crossings were cutting edge, back then. Now everyone has them.
That's a busy intersection. Wow.
Abbey Road
Zebra crossings were cutting edge, back then. Now everyone has them.
That's a busy intersection. Wow.
Dry Lightning...
I was awakened at about 4:00 this morning by thunderboomers and rain. I had to go cover our chickens, who perch on top of their hutch rather than inside, because it's higher, and won't always come in out of the rain.
Huge thunderstorms aren't that common here, and this one wasn't huge, but like too many of ours in the summer, was relatively dry, bringing no relief for the drought, but serious fire danger in our parched mountains.
It the same time, it's amazing and nifty. At our house, most of the thunder was about twenty-blue-tomcats away, and I wasn't one bit concerned. Our noise-phobic dog slept through them.
Avram Cheaney got a fabulous recording of the thunder, and that's what sent me geographile-ward to make this post. Go listen:
THUNDER! (Oh. And car alarms.)
Cory Dalva got a great picture that's too copyrighted to embed.
Huge thunderstorms aren't that common here, and this one wasn't huge, but like too many of ours in the summer, was relatively dry, bringing no relief for the drought, but serious fire danger in our parched mountains.
It the same time, it's amazing and nifty. At our house, most of the thunder was about twenty-blue-tomcats away, and I wasn't one bit concerned. Our noise-phobic dog slept through them.
Avram Cheaney got a fabulous recording of the thunder, and that's what sent me geographile-ward to make this post. Go listen:
THUNDER! (Oh. And car alarms.)
Cory Dalva got a great picture that's too copyrighted to embed.
Saturday, September 05, 2009
International Vulture Awareness Day
When I was a little girl, my family drove around a fair bit in northeastern California. The area wasn't nearly as populated then as it is now, with the growth of Redding and development of its suburbs, but the roads were lightly traveled. One day, while we were picnicking at Hat Creek along highway 89 north of Lassen Peak, my mother saw Turkey Vultures kettling overhead. Being my mom, she told one of my sisters to lie down in the middle of the road and see if the vulture would think my sister was roadkill, and land for a snack. Being one of my mom's kids, my sister protested but did it anyway.
Of course, the vulture never landed. What we didn't know then, but know now, is that the Turkey Vulture is one of the few birds with a keen sense of smell. They choose their carrion from the scents that waft up to them on warm air. It needs to be a few hours old, but can't really be rotting.
Researchers have put roadkill deer deep into bushes, not far from carefully cleaned and taxidermied deer that look dead, in a clearing, and the vultures have gone after the nice meaty stinky deer. There are stories of Black Vultures following Turkey Vultures to find better dinners.
North America's vultures – the common Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture, and the critically endangered California Condor – are very different animals from old world vultures, but share the same niche. They are more closely related to storks than they are to the old world vultures, and are not raptors, as they don't catch live prey with their feet. But all vultures and condors have mostly bald heads, and eat carrion. A bit more than a decade ago, the nascent Animal Planet had a show called “All Bird TV," and on it, host/ornithologist Ken Dial, a bald guy, illustrated the need for bald carrion eaters by putting a wig on and plunging his head into a huge pot of saucy spaghetti. It stuck all over the wig. Then he removed the wig and stuck his bald head in the pot. What spaghetti managed to stick at all was easily shaken and wiped off.
The California Condor is still at risk from myriad human causes. They bump their huge wings on high voltage lines, they consume lead bullets in carrion, they're occasionally shot at. They don't seem to mix well with modern human society, and there are only about 200 California Condors left.
Old world vultures are also threatened by loss of habitat and environmental toxins. King Vultures in India are dying from exposure to diclofenac, a common anti-inflammatory in cows there. When the cows die, and the vultures eat their meat, the vultures are poisoned. It's even affected the Indian Zoroastrians' tradition of sky burial, with too few vultures to do the job. (And careful with that link – there are some slightly gooshy photos behind it. But the King Vultures are fine with gooshiness.)
I feel lucky to have Turkey Vultures as yard birds. Those in the photo illustrating this post were in my yard at the time, and they often fly overhead. But few vulture species are as common, and few have as secure a future as the roadkill-loving Turkey Vulture. The rest really need our help, which starts with awareness. After that comes working to promote (or require) bismuth bullets for hunting in condor ranges, research into (and banning of?) chemicals that poison vultures, designing human infrastructure and planning development in ways that allow the birds their space as well. But it starts with awareness of their beauty, the jobs they do, and why we need to help them.
Here are more links and stories about Vulture Awareness Day:
International Vulture Awareness Day home page
Picus blog
Ecoworldly
Vulture Awareness Day at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center
In Haaretz
Vultures I Would Like To See
Reflection from Pinguinus
At Coyote Crossing
Carnival of vulture blogs
Of course, the vulture never landed. What we didn't know then, but know now, is that the Turkey Vulture is one of the few birds with a keen sense of smell. They choose their carrion from the scents that waft up to them on warm air. It needs to be a few hours old, but can't really be rotting.
Researchers have put roadkill deer deep into bushes, not far from carefully cleaned and taxidermied deer that look dead, in a clearing, and the vultures have gone after the nice meaty stinky deer. There are stories of Black Vultures following Turkey Vultures to find better dinners.
North America's vultures – the common Turkey Vulture and Black Vulture, and the critically endangered California Condor – are very different animals from old world vultures, but share the same niche. They are more closely related to storks than they are to the old world vultures, and are not raptors, as they don't catch live prey with their feet. But all vultures and condors have mostly bald heads, and eat carrion. A bit more than a decade ago, the nascent Animal Planet had a show called “All Bird TV," and on it, host/ornithologist Ken Dial, a bald guy, illustrated the need for bald carrion eaters by putting a wig on and plunging his head into a huge pot of saucy spaghetti. It stuck all over the wig. Then he removed the wig and stuck his bald head in the pot. What spaghetti managed to stick at all was easily shaken and wiped off.
The California Condor is still at risk from myriad human causes. They bump their huge wings on high voltage lines, they consume lead bullets in carrion, they're occasionally shot at. They don't seem to mix well with modern human society, and there are only about 200 California Condors left.
Old world vultures are also threatened by loss of habitat and environmental toxins. King Vultures in India are dying from exposure to diclofenac, a common anti-inflammatory in cows there. When the cows die, and the vultures eat their meat, the vultures are poisoned. It's even affected the Indian Zoroastrians' tradition of sky burial, with too few vultures to do the job. (And careful with that link – there are some slightly gooshy photos behind it. But the King Vultures are fine with gooshiness.)
I feel lucky to have Turkey Vultures as yard birds. Those in the photo illustrating this post were in my yard at the time, and they often fly overhead. But few vulture species are as common, and few have as secure a future as the roadkill-loving Turkey Vulture. The rest really need our help, which starts with awareness. After that comes working to promote (or require) bismuth bullets for hunting in condor ranges, research into (and banning of?) chemicals that poison vultures, designing human infrastructure and planning development in ways that allow the birds their space as well. But it starts with awareness of their beauty, the jobs they do, and why we need to help them.
Vultures are awesome.
Here are more links and stories about Vulture Awareness Day:
International Vulture Awareness Day home page
Picus blog
Ecoworldly
Vulture Awareness Day at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center
In Haaretz
Vultures I Would Like To See
Reflection from Pinguinus
At Coyote Crossing
Carnival of vulture blogs
Friday, September 04, 2009
Thursday, September 03, 2009
It's play time....
This makes me wish I liked Monopoly more!
Monopoly City Streets is having a worldwide, everyone's-in Monopoly game using Google Maps as the game board.
There's not much news about it now, just the blog. Will it be worlds of fun, or will the boringness (okay, so I really get bored playing Monopoly) scale up with the size of the game board?
Monopoly City Streets is having a worldwide, everyone's-in Monopoly game using Google Maps as the game board.
There's not much news about it now, just the blog. Will it be worlds of fun, or will the boringness (okay, so I really get bored playing Monopoly) scale up with the size of the game board?
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
The Station Fire from around the web
Mashable offers a great huge pile of embedded images and video from around the web to illustrate the ferocity of the Station Fire.
You know what's a scary thought? This fire grew and spread fast without the offshore Santa Ana winds that can pop up and push fires around at this time of year. I don't want to imagine what this fire might be like with the Santa Anas working their magic.
You know what's a scary thought? This fire grew and spread fast without the offshore Santa Ana winds that can pop up and push fires around at this time of year. I don't want to imagine what this fire might be like with the Santa Anas working their magic.
The Station Fire - this time with armageddon
For the next couple of winters, any storms with a lot of rain are going to make the San Gabriel range flow into debris basins and Pasadena.
After the Oakland Hills fire, officials sprayed the steepest hillsides with goo to glue the dirt together, mixed with wildflowers seeds - and the next few springs were stupendous. I'm not sure there's enough glue in the world for the San Gabriels, one of the fastest-rising and most fragile mountain ranges in the world -- but I hope they try something like that.
Thanks to Ian O'Neill for the pointer.
After the Oakland Hills fire, officials sprayed the steepest hillsides with goo to glue the dirt together, mixed with wildflowers seeds - and the next few springs were stupendous. I'm not sure there's enough glue in the world for the San Gabriels, one of the fastest-rising and most fragile mountain ranges in the world -- but I hope they try something like that.
Thanks to Ian O'Neill for the pointer.
Who ya gonna call?
Sometimes I wish California had the lightning storms they do back east.
We definitely get lightning, and parts of the state get intense lightning.
When I was little, in Shasta County, the grid wasn't as robust as it is now. We'd get days where the temperature would be 100, then 105, then 110, and sticky humid, unlike what we're used to in parts of California that aren't the northwestern corner. Then kaboom, the angels would start bowling, as Mom described it, and we'd have a huge storm, and the rain would pour. The power would go out, and we'd eat hot dogs cooked on unbent metal hangars in the fireplace, and pop popcorn in my mom's old campfire popping basket, and toast marshmallows, and sing. We were a girlscouty sort of family like that. Then we'd go to bed, and at some point the next morning, the power would come back on, usually just in time to power our tiny air conditioning unit in the living room so that as the temperatures rose back up into the 90s, we could lie in front of it and read. If the gutters were still running, we'd go block off the storm drain with detritus and walk around in our boots or pretend to fish.
There are other parts of the state that get lightning storms. But for the most part, we don't get big thunderboomers in California, the storms slide on overhead and aren't terribly dramatic.
We worry a bit when they come over, sometimes, as our summers tend to be dry, and a dry lightning storm can be troublesome. But lightning doesn't terrify me the way it can people in, say, Florida, where death by lightning is generally understood as one of the ways to go.
We definitely get lightning, and parts of the state get intense lightning.
When I was little, in Shasta County, the grid wasn't as robust as it is now. We'd get days where the temperature would be 100, then 105, then 110, and sticky humid, unlike what we're used to in parts of California that aren't the northwestern corner. Then kaboom, the angels would start bowling, as Mom described it, and we'd have a huge storm, and the rain would pour. The power would go out, and we'd eat hot dogs cooked on unbent metal hangars in the fireplace, and pop popcorn in my mom's old campfire popping basket, and toast marshmallows, and sing. We were a girlscouty sort of family like that. Then we'd go to bed, and at some point the next morning, the power would come back on, usually just in time to power our tiny air conditioning unit in the living room so that as the temperatures rose back up into the 90s, we could lie in front of it and read. If the gutters were still running, we'd go block off the storm drain with detritus and walk around in our boots or pretend to fish.
There are other parts of the state that get lightning storms. But for the most part, we don't get big thunderboomers in California, the storms slide on overhead and aren't terribly dramatic.
We worry a bit when they come over, sometimes, as our summers tend to be dry, and a dry lightning storm can be troublesome. But lightning doesn't terrify me the way it can people in, say, Florida, where death by lightning is generally understood as one of the ways to go.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Rambles through our country
Rambles through our country, an instructive geographical game for the young, 1890
Originally uploaded by trialsanderrors.
(The caption says:
From the Popular Graphic Arts Collection at the U.S. Library of Congress....This picture is in the public domain.)
edited to add at 10:26 pm:
Linda says that you can find the maps on ebay, and that the rules are on google books! Yay!
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Station Fire - August 29/30
From Eric Spiegelman, a time-lapse video of today's smoke from the Station Fire currently burning far out of control in the San Gabriel mountains of Southern California:
It's late and I'm sleepy, having paid too much attention to it today because a dear friend lives a couple of blocks outside of a mandatory evacuation zone. Things seem to be going reasonably well for her, in terms of how well the firefighters are protecting her little corner, but it's nerve-wracking.
The Briggs Terrace neighborhood is in worse shape -- okay for now, but transitions between night and day do weird things to weather and air circulation, and thus fire behavior.
Of course there are other fires burning in California. It's summer, after all.
That's the one capturing my attention right now.
Time Lapse Test: Station Fire from Eric Spiegelman on Vimeo.
It's late and I'm sleepy, having paid too much attention to it today because a dear friend lives a couple of blocks outside of a mandatory evacuation zone. Things seem to be going reasonably well for her, in terms of how well the firefighters are protecting her little corner, but it's nerve-wracking.
The Briggs Terrace neighborhood is in worse shape -- okay for now, but transitions between night and day do weird things to weather and air circulation, and thus fire behavior.
Of course there are other fires burning in California. It's summer, after all.
That's the one capturing my attention right now.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
We want you as a geography recruit!
Manchester Geography professors do the YMCA:
YouTube, though, has disabled the audio for copyright reasons, so you might want to pull out your Village People cassette and put it on in the background while you watch.
YouTube, though, has disabled the audio for copyright reasons, so you might want to pull out your Village People cassette and put it on in the background while you watch.
Monday, August 24, 2009
You might be a geonerd if ....
.... your first reaction to this video is that it's unrealistic for a hurricane to travel that far over land.
Hurricane Bound For Texas Slowed By Large Land Mass To The South
Hurricane Bound For Texas Slowed By Large Land Mass To The South
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Yosemite is still one of my favorite places (and a foreign exchange student question)
Plenty of photographers have wallowed in the joy of Yosemite Valley. Nothing in this time-lapse video is, frame-by-frame, better than the best Yosemite photography, but the timelapsey goodness of the video is lovely:
Thanks to Backyard Zen for the heads-up.
Starting next week, I'll be taking an environmental writing course. I hope to edit some of my work there for this blog.
Also: Have any of you been foreign exchange students, and would be willing to talk to me about it for a post on this blog? Please let me know, if so, and pass this post and request on to anyone you know who might be interested.
Thanks. :D
Time Lapse Round One from Sean Stiegemeier on Vimeo.
Thanks to Backyard Zen for the heads-up.
Starting next week, I'll be taking an environmental writing course. I hope to edit some of my work there for this blog.
Also: Have any of you been foreign exchange students, and would be willing to talk to me about it for a post on this blog? Please let me know, if so, and pass this post and request on to anyone you know who might be interested.
Thanks. :D
Saturday, August 22, 2009
ah, for the wide open skies
I grew up under stars like this, but now I live in the city, and I live in a city that gets marine layer fog many nights all summer. An onshore breeze brings the low clouds in around 4 or 5 pm, and they go out again the next morning, but we can't ever count on seeing the sky.
Next spring, I think, I want to go up to Northern California -- the northeastern corner, Modoc County, and camp for a few days, and watch the Milky Way move like this:
Next spring, I think, I want to go up to Northern California -- the northeastern corner, Modoc County, and camp for a few days, and watch the Milky Way move like this:
Thursday, August 20, 2009
sense of place - bay laurel
When I was young, I used to seek out nooks like this in the woods near our house, and make forts, and spend hours. Those woods now hold a housing development.
Later, when my mother was engaged to a man with a huge ranch in Tehama County, we'd go out with him and help flake the hay for the cows (picture two kids, 11 and 7, riding on the top of a big pile of hay on a pickup truck, cutting the bale wire and flicking flakes of alfalfa off the back of the truck onto the hills in a meandering line, as the truck was slowly driven, cows lining up behind the truck, the kids working their way down, down through the stack of hay, until the truck was empty, it was a big job but it was just a basic kid chore) then he'd drop us into a little gully to play as he ran around and fixed fences and did rancher things. We'd get up under the oak trees and build fairy lands in the undertree litter, or play hide and seek, or make forts, or even read. We learned young how to avoid rattlers and poison oak and even mountain lions (uncommon, but not at all unknown), and we stopped thinking about them, they left our daily consciousness. I think Mom thought of them as one risk of a natural childhood. If one of us had gotten badly injured, we'd have been well away from help until the truck came back a couple of hours later, we were at least three miles from the nearest house. But we didn't think about that, and we were happy, and well exercised, and strong.
As an adult, I still seek out the nooks, the undertree forts, the thick, strong trees, the places that feel safe.
Later, when my mother was engaged to a man with a huge ranch in Tehama County, we'd go out with him and help flake the hay for the cows (picture two kids, 11 and 7, riding on the top of a big pile of hay on a pickup truck, cutting the bale wire and flicking flakes of alfalfa off the back of the truck onto the hills in a meandering line, as the truck was slowly driven, cows lining up behind the truck, the kids working their way down, down through the stack of hay, until the truck was empty, it was a big job but it was just a basic kid chore) then he'd drop us into a little gully to play as he ran around and fixed fences and did rancher things. We'd get up under the oak trees and build fairy lands in the undertree litter, or play hide and seek, or make forts, or even read. We learned young how to avoid rattlers and poison oak and even mountain lions (uncommon, but not at all unknown), and we stopped thinking about them, they left our daily consciousness. I think Mom thought of them as one risk of a natural childhood. If one of us had gotten badly injured, we'd have been well away from help until the truck came back a couple of hours later, we were at least three miles from the nearest house. But we didn't think about that, and we were happy, and well exercised, and strong.
As an adult, I still seek out the nooks, the undertree forts, the thick, strong trees, the places that feel safe.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Geography as a fascinating and relevant subject
The youtube account holder is "geogfilms," so I expect enthusiasm and lack of objectivity. ;)
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