my favorite picture of earth from space

[Bob]

http://content.imagesocket.com/thumbs/pbo_2587.jpg (http://imagesocket.com/view/pbo_2587.jpg)

(taken from saturn, that's us, in the upper right hand corner...the box is enlarged)

[Bob]

here's a quote from carl sagan (dunno who that is to be honest)...the last paragraph's a little hokey for me, but the rest...well, i haven't had my mind blown in a while, let's just say that

We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

[fucktopgirl]

^ good stuff

http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d74/delfinou/wstar31.jpg
this is a supernova, just WOW!

[cosmo105]

YOU DON'T KNOW WHO CARL SAGAN WAS?!?!


read Cosmos, and Pale Blue Dot, and Billions and Billions (read that last, you'll be sobbing toward the end). Contact's fiction, but it's very well-written. the movie didn't do it justice. the man did so much for science in general, not just astronomy...he was the driving force behind the creation of SETI. i can't tell you how happy out of my mind i am that the science channel is showing new remastered versions of the orginal episodes of Cosmos. i watched them years ago in my astronomy class (i would go between classes to the planetarium, and the professor would let me sit there and watch the movies because she knew how much i loved them. she ordered the dvd set from the publisher of our book just because i begged her to, jesus christ i am a huge fucking nerd). anyway, if you read some of his writings, i think you'd really like him. i got into his work when i was about 13 and he was a huge influence on my life. this quote from his final work, the bulk of which was written when he was on his deathbed - it's pretty much my view on religion and the universe in general.

"I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking...the world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides...Five thousand people prayed for me at an Easter service at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the largest church in Christendom. A Hindu priest described a large prayer vigil for me held on banks of the Ganges. The Imam of North America told me about his prayers for my recovery. Many Christians and Jews wrote me to tell about theirs. While I do not think that, if there is a god, his plan for me will be altered by prayer, I'm more grateful than I can say to those, including so many whom I've never met, who have pulled for me during my illness. Many of them have asked me how it is possible to face death without the certainty of an afterlife. I can only say that it hasn't been a problem. With reservations about feeble souls, I share the view of a hero of mine, Albert Einstein: I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves. Neither can I, nor would I want to, conceive of an individual that survives his physical death. Let feeble souls, from fear for absurd egotism, cherish such thoughts. I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world, together with the devoting striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."


he was and still is my hero.

[Dr Deaf]

http://www.nativevillage.org/Editorials/TheBlackout-8-14-03.jpg
i like this one of the 2003 blackout. even tho it's fake (http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_blackout_photo.htm).

that was a pretty cool event. the sense of community and solidarity it brought was impressive. we happened to have a couple cases of beer (on ice)and a bunch o' buckets of KFC chicken. a blackout party came together easily. everybody was out and about strolling around, talking with neighbours and investigating the situation.

in my city of 500,000 there were only 3 incidents of looting. which really, i'm sure would have happened even if the lights were on.

it was cool to see the stars as if we were up north. true darkness in the city, what a beautiful experience.

[Helvete]

And of course the extended version of that, check out N.Korea! That's the real blackout.

http://www.visualpharm.com/wallpaper/earth_at_the_night_1024x768.jpg


http://img78.imageshack.us/img78/3527/s10720wall202ih8.jpg
http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/3632/sts9920croptg5.jpg
More earth.