Time passing

Welcome to winter and the change of the clocks!  It happened today here in the US (Swedes are ahead of us as usual, they changed their clocks a while ago).  Back to normal Eastern Standard Time for us now, no more Daylight Savings time (which is called Summer Time, 'sommartid', in Swedish).

The amazing hybrid solar eclipse (Nov 3, 2014) we had planned to watch this morning was hidden by a large could bank.  Oh well.  Somewhere behind those clouds were a partially visible sun.  We will have to wait to 2014 for another solar eclipse. There is some photos and info here of this rare event.

And, sad memories and news - it is 50 years since developers in New York City crushed the old, beautiful Penn Station and built a mega-ugly box on top of it.  Penn Station now are horrible cramped tunnels below Madison Square Garden.  Look at the photos of what once was here... At least Grand Central Terminal is still standing in New York, and Penn Stations are left in Baltimore and Philadelphia.  If you wonder about the names - Penn Station comes from the old Pennsylvania Railroad, and Grand Central was the railroad station for the rival New York Central Railroad.  Union Station in Washington, DC, had several railroads, that is why it was called 'Union'.  (PP can correct me if I am wrong :)

Sunsets around the world

Tonight, while driving to pick up LA, there was a golden-red sunset in the west.  One of those that we described in Swedish as 'the sky is on fire" (himmelen står i brand). It made me think of other amazing sunsets I have seen around the world, and how amazing it is that a fireball far away affects our colors and emotions so much.  So, here is a trip around the world in sunsets:

 
Brazil, near Itaiaia National Park, between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, sunset on thunderclouds in the rainforest.


Costa Rica, over Palo Verde marshlands in early spring.


Sunset over Stockholm in September, Sweden (of course)


Chicago sunset, in Illinois, USA, out on Lake Michigan. A hot day in August.


Sourland Mountains, New Jersey, USA, with oaks and ash trees in the foreground.  Home. 

Moon over Hopewell

moon over Hopewell, originally uploaded by Vilseskogen.

Just a photo from New Jersey, taken last week. A moon and a globe and a spire...

Vintertid (Winter time)

Snön har lagt sig som ett täcke över hela vår värld här i Mälardalen. Stora sjok tynger ner träd och grenar och stora snömassor täcker grönskan. Under snön är det ganska varmt, jag skottade igår och fram över stenkanten tittade några blåsippsblad fram ur snötäcket. Det kändes nästan som att jag borde stoppa om dem igen, med ny snö, men gjorde det inte. Kraften finns i rötterna , och i bladrosettens mitt finns en hårt knuten knopp med blom-embryon. Ljusblå, mörkblå och röd blåsippa finns det i hörnan. Det känns trösterikt att veta att de finns därunder, och mer snö kommer snart.
Mer snö väntas, men först har vi kallgrader några dagar efter vad jag förstår av väderleksrapporten. Ute kör stora lastbilar iväg snölass ikväll, det var enorma mängder snö som kom, så den måste flyttas för att göra plats.
Luciafirande idag på skolan, alla barnen var så söta och sjöng så fint som bara barn kan.
Förra helgen var det skidpremiär för familjen och två barn försvann iväg på snabba skidor genom skogen, i varsitt spår. När rundan var avklarad ville de åka mer, men mörkret föll.

Jorden passerar genom Geminiderna just nu, men vi har mulet så vi ser inte stjärnfallen. En meteor syntes härom kvällen över delar av Sverige.
Om det är stjärnklart över norra Sverige kan man njuta av norrskenet i Abisko, via deras webkamera.

The snow has fallen and created a thick blanket over all of our world here in the Mälar Valley. The trees are decorated with snow on the branches and all the green is covered in white.
Below the snow it is still relatively warm, as I found out when I was moving snow in front of our house entrance. More snow is expected, but we will have some days with cold weather first if the weather forecast is correct. Outside tonight there is large trucks moving snow away from the streets; there are huge amounts of snow that need to be moved.
Today is Lucia Day in Sweden, and all the school children have been dressed up as gnomes (Santa), ginger bread cookies, Saint Lucia, maidens and Staffan the stable boy. It´s hard to explain this mix of religion, fairytale, Christmas and maiden and boys, but it is all very traditional. They sing the same songs as I did in school, and it is the first real sign that Christmas is soon here.
Last weekend was the family's skiing debut for this winter. Two fast boys disappeared on their skis, in one track each, into the silent, snow-covered pine and fir woods. When the tour was finished they wanted to go on another, but darkness fell.

The earth is passing through the Geminides now, but we don't see the shooting stars, it's cloudy. A meteor was seen in some parts of Sweden a day ago. If there is a clear sky in the north of Sweden, one can enjoy the Northern Lights in Abisko, through a webcam.

Color.... dyes from our food

There is a great little article in a New York Times issue about how to use food scraps to dye shirts and towels with onions, cabbage, curry or whatever is left over in the kitchen.  Fascinating. An earlier article talk about dye plants available in the garden. such as marigolds, Oxalis, and madder (Rubia, which of course makes red).

The article ends with these words, which I like a lot:

Will these gorgeous new hues be permanent? Short answer: who knows? If it’s any consolation, on a celestial scale, nothing lasts. Cosmologists suggest the universe has passed through its own dye bath over the eons, shifting from bluish to reddish.

How often do you see the physical phenomenon of red shift being mentioned in a craft article? :) Nice.

Now I want to go out and boil up lots of weeds, but it is winter...

Last night's sky

Did you see it?  I giant full moon at 6 PM here in New Jersey, USA, and right next to it, Jupiter!  Wow!  Isn't the world amazing?

Congratulations LA!

Guess who got into a competitive astrophysics summer program today!?

Here is the Cat's Eye Nebula for you!  (Image from NASA)

Venus is a tiny planet...

...when you see it in front of the sun.

Image from NASA taken today during the Venus transit from the International Space Station. Click on the image to read more about this amazing event.

I like this image too, also from NASA. 

Spots, threads and snippets from the internet and media

From my forays and wanderings around the internet the last couple of weeks (months, maybe...):

Newsweek has an article about rich people buying modern art, more to show how rich they are more than because they like it.  One of the artists they say is overvalued and will not last is Damien Hirsts with his paintings of colored spots. The same week (= today), New York Times has a long article about Damien Hirsts and his marketing scheme and moneymaking art.  I can definitely live without a spot painting in my house, but I think they are cool.  The kind of cool that would fit in a modernly designed library or hotel foyer. If I had something like that in my living room it would b dizzifying and disturbing, and probably reminding me of ads for M&M candy or something.

A famous needlework woman just died, Erica Wilson, and I unfortunately didn't know about her until now.  Being in a family filled with embroiderers, I immediately notified he other side of the Atlantic (Sweden). Here is an example of Erica's design.  I wonder if she is related to the incredibly talented Erin Wilson, who makes the most artistic and amazing art quilts I have ever seen.  We bought a tiny sample from Erin at our visit to the Philadelphia Crafts Show, which I will write about later.  But her quilts, oh wow! But Wilson is such a common name, so probably not a relation. Example of one of her quilts (my own photo, so not that great):

Some exoplanets might be made up of lots of diamonds.  You think they sparkle like diamonds then? It must be hard to dig there, the shovels loose their edge pretty fast.

For those of us that still write and draw by hand, think and take notes, there is Moleskine.  A company that is doing better and better.  It is the backlash against the techno-stupid, I am convinced of this.  While some people follow their GPS' directions literally and take a right turn straight into a church, others are contemplating life with carefully (or sloppy, it is OK) drawn lines generated by real thoughts. It is your choice: be real, or be a automaton, copycat, and online addict.

That's all for now.

The most farfetched advent calender ever

Count down to Christmas with Hubble telescope images: LINK


Source: Hubblesite.org

This is just amazing, I love it!  (thanks IS, for the link). The photo above is of the Crab Nebula.

Equinox

Today is Equinox, the day when day and night are the same length. Wikipedia has an article about this astronomical and earthly fact here.

I checked up the English name, in Swedish it´s "höstdagjämningen".

Equinoxe...thoughts go back to childhood and music of Jean-Michel Jarre, a french musician who made music with synthezisers only. Very futuristic at the time, by 1978. LS used to listen to this at home a lot. Do you recall the music, LS?

Are we there yet?

Now, THIS is worth reading.  Fantastic.

News from space: DNA was there first

Amazing news from NASA today - the building blocks of DNA have been found in asteroids from space.  Maybe Earth's primordial soup was seeded with DNA building blocks, an idea I think is very likely.  Of course it just means that DNA and its building blocks evolved somewhere else in the universe.  I wonder if living cells evolved anywhere else?  Why wouldn't it have?  Fascinating! 

Fascinating sunrays

Tangled up Active Region [hd video], originally uploaded by NASA Goddard Photo and Video.

Check out this video posted by NASA on Flickr. Isn't it amazing?

Stamp of the Day: Can you see the stars?

Maybe not, it depends on where you live.  And soon you might not see many stars in most places, due to light pollution.  There is a great article about this on Design Observer: Starry Night. The most stars I have seen recently were in Costa Rica.  It is amazing to think that all those thousands of stars are here in New Jersey too, but we flood them out with lights.  Our township, for example, have parking lights on at the highschool even in the evening when nobody is there.  Neighbors sleep with floodlights on.  Princeton glows with a pink haze some nights. Imagine how many northern lights are being missed because of our electricity obsession. Most of those lights are just wasted electron movements created by coal, oil, gas, or nuclear power.  The article is great, and a good read, so take a look and check out the maps too (Europe included).

 

Stamp of the day are two Swedish stamps from 2009, a star map with the Crab Nebula and a polarimeter.  Nice designs as usual from the Swedish postal service. (Information in Swedish about these stamps)

Bits and pieces from the internet: species edition

There is a bird inside this pistol.  Seriously! And it sings. Seriously wonderful things from the past. 

Why do we call it the 'human race' and not the 'human species'?  Personally I think it is because people didn't want to be thought of as on the same level as other species, such as monkeys, flowers, and sheep. Humans are supposed to be bigger, better, smarter and of higher value than other species in the world.  But we really are just a species... Wikipedia is solving this by redirection human race and human species to just 'human'.

A nice little interactive guide to endangered species of different parts of North America. (New York Times)

And don't you wonder what kind of living species might be found on the exoplanet Gliese 581d?  In our lifetime, do you think we will be able to know if there is life on other planets?  And if there is life, then there are probably different species. 

Ponderings on potatoes

Why are so many people more excited over the new flavors on potato chips than over the fact that potatoes (and we) actually exist?  I think that potatoes exist is much, much more awesome and extreme than the latest flavor cooked up in some food chemistry lab. But nobody talks about that...  (OK, for the record, I love salt & vinegar and pickle-flavored chips).

Some photos of recently 'discovered' flavors from the food labs.




Extreme Screamin' dill pickle chips, anyone?  And dipping a chip in ketchup is not longer necessary (who would dip them anyway?).  And horseradish and cheddar, Swedes - would you eat 'pepparrot och ostsmak'?  In Sweden there are chips flavored with dill, chives, and 'juicy onion and cheese'.  There are lots of special chips flavors around the world, and I would like to try the kimchee one from Japan. 
 
But I am getting away from the topic.  My point is that many people sit around and think about and drool over chips, without being in awe that one little planet in a huge vast, maybe infinite,universe has 'managed to' evolve humans and potatoes from scratch (or near scratch). I think that is much more awesome than some new flavor of a chips developed by a human brain and marketed for millions and millions of dollars that could have been spent on making this planet a better home for everybody. 

Conversation at our house

 "Oh, come kids, hurry up, look, look, you are going to miss it! It is nearly gone now! "
Thump, thump, thump, comes kids footsteps down stairs and dining room.
" Mom, what is it?", says one kid.
" Look, the last sunset of 2010!"
Kid's comment:  "Sigh, you are so silly!"

Happy New (and belated) New Year everybody!
Now it is MMXI.

Stamp of the Day: Lunar eclipse

In honor of the gorgeous lunar eclipse the other night, here is a stamp from Portugal.  

And now, the days will be getting brighter and longer (even if very slowly in Sweden).

The moon last night

The disappearing moon last night, right before the total eclipse. Click on the photo for a larger version.
copyright 350z33 (talk) [via Wikipedia].