Sunday 28 August 2011

Retreating Sea-Ice

The Arctic sea ice has been melting fast this year, and for a while it appeared set to break the 2007 record for the smallest minimum area in the satellite record.

However, in recent weeks it has been running a narrow second to 2007.

"The minimum ice extent is still three to four weeks away, and a lot depends on the weather conditions over the Arctic during those weeks," said Leif Toudal Pedersen, senior scientist at the Danish Meteorological Institute.

"Whether we reach an absolute minimum or not, this year again confirms that we are in a new regime with substantially less summer ice than before.

"The last five summers are the five minimum ice extent summers on record."

The volume of sea ice continues to decline annually.
SOURCE

24 comments:

Tokyo Shemp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tokyo Shemp said...

I could have sworn I hit preview not publish. Here's what I wrote minus the typos. What's up with the "I'm a lady of distinction" comment? I could have sworn you are a bloke. Or maybe you are a bearded lady?

As for this entry, I will respond with my impersonation of a wingnut: Al Gore blah blah blah.

the_last_name_left said...

hehe - the proofreading is going well then....next skill to practice is hitting the right button. :D

I am a bloke, yeah. I just thought it was amusing next to my bearded lady....bloke. The dude in the picture is some Islamic guy i met at a forum....i used to do pics of him ...just to annoy. He used to say Jinnis and Iblis would get me, that I'd burn for eternity in Hell etc. He used to write letters to world leaders, perhaps imagining they would listen to him. funny.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I'd say you're way down that list, well past Salman Rushdie. Aaah, good thing I just used google to spellcheck. I thought that bloke's name is spelled Salmon.

I'm busy watching some foreign movies. I'm curious why French films can't go ten minutes without showing some boobs. Not that I'm complaining.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I just googled for famous Welsh actors. Stanley Baker? Wow. That dude was wicked awesome. Richard Burton. Ha. Anthony Hopkins. Ok, I've heard of him. Ray Milland. Wow, he's one of the most famous regardless of birth place. Catherine Zeta-Jones. I think she's married to Kirk Douglas' son Michael. Anyway, Stanley Baker alone puts your country on the map.

the_last_name_left said...

Who is Stanley Baker?

Richard Burton is from Pontrhydyfen and Anthony Hopkins (and Zeta and Ivor Emmanuel) are all from a few miles away. Same neck of the woods as where I live, really - about 15 miles away.

Some woman said to me once that I should do advert voiceovers.....she said I had a voice like Richard Burton.....lol. I think she was just being nice. I'm certain.

Burton's home village is an odd place. It's a lovely setting, but totally dominated by a huge aqueduct which towers over the place (it's in a valley - big shock).

pic

Dylan Thomas is from a few miles in the other direction too. He used to drink in my hometown....it's mentioned in his letters.....he describes the short fat women in Lammas St. IIRC. They're still here.

And here's Burton reading Thomas' Under MilkWood

http://youtu.be/uuPO2Kvqlms

I don't really care for poetry usually, nor poetic prose, but Thomas' Under MilkWood is brilliant.

I guess it speaks to me somehow, as it's so Welsh and so very local. Looocaaaaallll as we say.

Weeee eeeexteeeend aaaal oooouuuurr voooweeeels, seeee.

the_last_name_left said...

AH, the Zulu guy.

Apparently 'Baker was a dedicated socialist'. Not surprising coming from a mining background like Burton and everyone else.

Here's a good interview of Burton - with Parkinson. Speaks of his background, mining, Wales, working-class, and lots of his voice. He doesn't very Welsh though.

http://youtu.be/8rDV_Jdelrs

the_last_name_left said...

Burton on mining

http://youtu.be/VkddEkM7FQw

the_last_name_left said...

hey, maybe this is a treat for you.......Burton's first film role....(about Wales.) Apparently he speaks Welsh in it.....it's set in Wales too.

http://youtu.be/zMeJ3bljLg8

Y, certainly welsh-speakers in it.

the_last_name_left said...

Burton played Trotsky...."Assassination of Trotsky"

http://youtu.be/8npkIdtafnk

I think I'll actually watch that.

Tokyo Shemp said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tokyo Shemp said...

(Sorry, there were more awkward typos including a broken link in my last post. So I deleted it, and this is the new and improved version.)

I never saw Baker as Zulu. He was in some fairly decent movies. Perhaps if he had more conventional pretty boy looks like Burton or that Scotsman Sean Connery, he'd have been more well-known.

I can find you links to some of his stuff, if you like. It's somewhat mind boggling you've never heard of him too much.

Uhm, myself and poetry have never gotten along.

I wasn't going to reveal my youtube channel. I guess it doesn't matter, because if anyone stalks me there, I can delete their posts. I put together quite a list. It's nearing 400 links. The danger is they are all subject to deletion at any moment. So if you find something you like, it's best to watch sooner rather than later.

http://www.youtube.com/socratictruths

One drawback to youtube is they don't do too well for volume. For some links, you have to stick your ear right up to the speakers or wear headphones, or you might as well be watching a silent movie.

the_last_name_left said...

Oh, I know absolutely nothing about film.

You've been busy!

I don't recognise many. Leon.....I'd hoped that was about Trotsky. It was quite good anyway though. hehe

I've never watched TV or films much at all. I used to watch along with others when I was small, Laurel and Hardy and cowboys and war. In retrospect it's all an influential I'd choose to have missed tbh. I have seen quite a few french films though - Truffaut maybe? I like something about French films. There was a sexual frankness. Nothing much ever happened...except relationship. I've never watched much though, and I watch much less now. ;)

So, essentially I'm completely ignorant of it all. That's a great resource you have got together there though. You're quite the movie guy? old films in particular?

the_last_name_left said...

actually, they might be a great resource for me too. For evocative lines to put into dance music. ;)

the_last_name_left said...

so if you can direct me to some......

i'll have a go at using them in some song. not that the song will be any good! so careful if they're precious. ;)

Tokyo Shemp said...

I used to have a serious disdain for the entertainment industry. I saw it as a main cog in the culture industry.

But then slowly but surely I saw enough good ones to see it could accomplish the opposite, get people to think.

Truffaut was one of the ones that got me to catch the movie bug. I thought 400 Blows was excellent. Then I tracked down the sequels he came up with over the next decade or two. Those really had nothing to do with the original except for the main character being the same.

I'd have to say overall I am not too impressed with Truffaut.

I am very choosy about what I'm going to waste an hour or two on. That list has been whittled down to the essentials. I want one to be able to go to that list and know that there's a good chance they'll like whatever they click on.

I definitely appreciate the older stuff much more than anything recent.

The French do make good films. There are quite a bit of them on my list. I also found a few Italian. The Japanese came up with a ton of goodies too. I like subtitled flicks, because even if youtube is lame for volume, it's much easier to still absorb the movie the way it's supposed to.

I'd say this has just been another fad for me. I don't usually watch things more than once. Most of those I've seen over the years. I just figured I'd use my research skills to help others have access to those goodies.

A lot of movie afficiandos simply want to share the happiness they experienced with others. That's all that list is, a humble attempt to do that.

That's why I'm not too into going back and forth with trolls. Oops, I know you don't like that word. I just don't think there has to be friction for internet forums to be fun. Civilised debate is one thing. That can be fun. That's not what I'm talking about. Like on a past thread, what'shisname is still blabbing about Obama being born in kenya. He's not doing so with his usual potty mouth. But it's still lame just the same. And it's tough to forget all the nasty things he's posted before. That's been my problem with donkeytale. I always forget how rotten he can be. Some people never change, but they are darn effective at making it seem they have.

Tokyo Shemp said...

I don't know which ones to recommend. What you can do is use imdb.com to suss out whether you might like or not like a specific link. But you have to be careful doing that. You can end up reading a spoiler by accident.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Your blogger account can actually be used at youtube. When I sign in for one or the other, I am signed in for both.

the_last_name_left said...

S: I just figured I'd use my research skills to help others have access to those goodies.
---

y, that's a very good thing about the net, one of the things it is surely for. I really appreciate people putting time into some lists and collections of things I am really interested in (or not even yet interested in). It's great to come across somewhere that has done all the work. :)

A film blog is quite a good idea, isn't it? YouTube comments are useless. Bit of feedback, perhaps?

The most visited post at this blog is the one I did for a game, explaining how to install user content. A measure of interest. haha. But still, it's pleasing to know something here helps someone.

I'll have a gander at the list. But like with baseball....no basketball isn't it? I can't offer anything I'm afraid.

I'm not sure if it was Truffaut.....or the other most famous french guy. One or the other i am sure. Any other French directors you can think of?

Y, subtitles over dubbing.

If you ever track down "Goodbye Lenin" I'd like to watch that again. :D ha, my ridiculous narrow interest.

I watched Bunuel and Dali. Hmmm. I was big into Dali, but....Un Chien Andalou is it? I read Dali's autobiography too, if you can call it an autobiography. Hmmm.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Maybe you were thinking of Godard.

You should check out Louis Malle. There's one on my list you'd like, kind of autobigrophical concerning a Jewish kid in France during the Nazi occupation. There's someone I think her name is Agnes Varde. I'd have to check. I liked a couple of her films, very subversive. I've a feeling there are movies on my list that are right up your alley. Watch them with a sultry girlfriend. Usually the titles show up early in a movie. So then go to imdb.com and plug it in, and you can tell by skimming if it'your kind of movie.

I haven't seen every minute of every link. No way. Sometimes it's been for background noise. Most of it was put togetehr simply because I'm such a nice person! And humble too! It's kind of a pretentious list. It reeks of arthouse, lefty know-it-all isms. But we can't help being on the left (right) side of history.

I liked Bunuel too, though not so much his heavy duty surrealism. I think he was a man without a country.

I know what you mean how what you might not expect to get a lot of page hits does.

It wasn't the worst hobby for either of us to try. Maybe we are both evolving as bloggers, and our best stuff will come forth in the future.

It's too bad the internet is so deranged in so many ways. It really could have been something special. Ok, this is one of those times I'm simply going to hit enter. If there are typos and dumb sentences, that's the way the cookie crumbled.

Tokyo Shemp said...

Subtitles over dubbing is a no-brainer. You want to hear the actors even if you don't know the language. It's not that tough to read the titles. You get used to it, and it's not as choppy as it might seem a process. Uhm, for that title or any other you're seeking, just go to imdb and get basic info, like date of movie, actors, exact title, and plug them into youtube. I'll try for this one. Something like that Lenin one you mention sounds obscure. That's almost as tough to find as something highly popular with copyright issues.

Tokyo Shemp said...

youtube.com/watch?v=DOu0X58i-jI

It says you can have subtitles, if you put on closed caption. I'm not able to do that.

the_last_name_left said...

yay! ta. sleep for me first tho.

Tokyo Shemp said...

That's cool. Glad to have helped you. It looks like a good one. There's nothing like a decent, lefty arthouse flick. Some can be pretentious and worst of all not entertaining. But that's where the best movies come from, away from the oppressive Hollywood structure.