Anyone else feeling a certain ennui since the melt has slowed?

[XemaSab]

Checking the ice updates just feels so... empty. :(

That and the Harry Potter series ending. :(

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Well, I suppose you could consider it this way:

We now get to spend the next 6 months waiting to see how low the arctic ice maximum will be this winter. How can that much ice possibly reform, and to a decent thickness, in that little time?

That's what I'm spending my time thinking about, and I wish I could drive it the fuck out of my head. :(

[GliderGuider]

2. There's still fun stuff to watch up there - the Northeast Passage is almost open

Look at the ice next the Taymyr Peninsula:

http://iup.physik.uni-bremen.de:8084/amsr/arctic_AMSRE_nic.png

[hatrack]

3. Fascinating! That big spur just keeps on thinning, though we're past minimum.

Maybe Maersk will send ships west August1 - September 15th, and then turn east through mid-October.

Of course, those Arctic shipping schedules aren't quite final yet . . .

[phantom power]

4. That is really something.

I've noticed a total absence of discussion about this on the TeeVee. You'd think that somebody, somewhere, would think that a picture such as this might be worth 30 seconds of coverage:



Now I realize that it doesn't merit the same kind of 24/7 coverage demanded by Janet Jackson's boob, or Britney Spears' naughties, but I figure 30 seconds might be about right.

[tom_paine]

9. Isn't it yet clear that such things are forbidden to be discussed, especially

anytime large numbers of people could be watching.

Yes, such a picture would open many eyes simultaneously, and such powerful raw data (the Northwet Passage being open for the first time in at least 400 years, as well) as theat single picture (or the real satellite photo, which was in this forum not two weeks ago and is still around.

How does that work? I have no idea how it works onthe nuts and bolts level of daily life in corporate Cable TV Infoganda, but it works as well as if Bushie "KGB" Thugs stood behind everyone with pistols drawn.

Amazing. I watch and am amazed.

Ray Bradbury was right. Oh, he got some of the details wrong, but we are living in a world not unlike that envisioned by the book "Farenheit 451".

Go and read, or reread, Beatty's soliloquy to the bedridden Montag and tell me if that doesn't describe our nation's mental state today.

[Nihil]

10. You've done it now ...

> Ray Bradbury was right. Oh, he got some of the details wrong, but we are
> living in a world not unlike that envisioned by the book "Fahrenheit 451".
>
> Go and read, or reread, Beatty's soliloquy to the bedridden Montag and
> tell me if that doesn't describe our nation's mental state today.

That tripped a little wire in the depths of my mind so I went and googled
for it and found the following commentary

"... government doesn't need to censor books and ideas.
Mindless entertainment will trump rigorous reading, the discussion
of ideas, and robust inquiry. The discourse so essential to a free
people will atrophy on its own. It's just a matter of time and
enough mindless programing. Television will be the government's
co-conspirator."

Talk about "in a nutshell" ... :scared:

Now I'll have to go and buy the book (had previously read my brother's
copy and he lives too far away now!).
:toast:

[tom_paine]

11. From Beatty's soliliquy:

Speed up the film, Montag, quick. Click, Pic, Look, Eye, Now, Flick, Here, There, Swift, Pace, Up, Down, In, Out. Why, How, Who, What, Where, Eh? Uh! Bang! Smack! Wallop Bing Bong Boom! Digests digests digests, digests-digests. Politics? One column, two senetences, and a headline! Then, in midair, all vanishes! Whirl man's mind around so fast under the pumping hands of publishers, exploiters, broadcasters that the centrifuge flings off all unnecessary, time wasting thought!

He wrote this in the 40s and early 50s, and it's like he lives next door and is a self-aware cable TV junkie.

[XemaSab]

6. This is true.

:pals:

[phantom power]

5. We can still have a party waiting to see what that open water does to the weather.

[hatrack]

7. Then again, maybe it's kind of like baseball - "Just wait 'till next year!"

:eyes:

[XemaSab]

8. Unlike the hapless Oakland A's,

I KNOW we're going to go all the way! :bounce:

Oh, wait.... :P