bossymarmalade | Reading

Though the skies were partly cloudy, my friend D and I were graced with a clear view of the total eclipse today, as we sat on the shores of Lake Marion in Summerton, South Carolina a few yards from the centerline of the path of totality. It was such a quick 2 1/2 minutes of total eclipse! We were so fortunate and my heart goes out to people who were hoping, and especially those who traveled far whose views were totally obscured by clouds.

We saw it. We both missed the first diamond ring because we didn't know you should take off the glasses while you still see a tiny sliver of orange, but we saw the ending diamond ring right before we put our glasses back on. I saw red-pink Baily's beads around parts of the moon's circumference during most of totality--at least I think I did--I didn't know you could see them the whole time. We got to see the wispy corona--I know they vary per eclipse--I think

I didn't register the temp dropping as the moon covered more of the sun, just that I wasn't sweltering anymore and I was feeling really comfortable, so it probably dropped 20 degrees from the 90's to the 70's. Afterwards, when D mentioned it, I was "oh yeah, the temp did drop!"

What was very wonderful is that just before totality, the cicadas in the beautiful Spanish Moss adorned pines and oaks behind us started singing.--so we got the critter special effects as well.

The clouds were pretty sunset on the horizon. We didn't see a lot of stars come out. The brightest one was way off to the right at 3 o'clock--west--I wonder if it was Jupiter or Venus? There was a dim star very close to the eclipse at 11 o'clock--was that mercury?

Another cool thing is before the totality, I remembered to run up and look at the sand under a tree on the edge of the beach and saw tons of tiny crescent suns reflected through the leaves--got pics of those I will post when I can upload them. Thank you

spiralsheep for turning me on to that--an awesome special effect. I might have seen some of the pre-eclipse gravity bands on a light gray metal sheets on the pier, but I'm not sure.

As the eclipse receded, the sky looked very dark southeast of us over the lake--I wondered if we were seeing the shadow falling on the clouds out toward Charleston and the shoreline--where it was reported to be cloudy--I don't know if anyone got to see it there--haven't had time to look at reports.

We were so lucky because there were clouds that at times totally obscured the sun as it was receding. D thinks she saw reflections of the moon's face (the man in the moon) on the sun's surface as the moon was receding.

It wasn't a life changing experience, maybe because I'm so wowed by so many of nature's details that many people don't take time to notice--(Eee to see palm trees out in the wild and Spanish moss again!), but it makes me feel very lucky and grateful because it would have been so easy for the view to have eluded us behind chance clouds that were so near. And it has been such a fun adventure to have.

And I have a wonderful new petsitter who spent the night with my cats, and Tuxie slept against her, so finally knowing I can leave my cats in security is kind of a life changing thing for me I haven't had for many years.

I will post more about this brief but wonderful adventure with pics in another post. I hope those of you who could catch the eclipse enjoyed. The viewing glasses we have now make watching even the partial eclipse so much cooler than when I was a kid. And yay for the wonderful NASA feeds--it was so cool to watch Oregon get their totality on screen just as ours was beginning outside while we were finishing lunch in The LakeHouse. What a great day! We were so lucky! Goodnight, my friends! <3<3<3

Crossposts: http://lavendertook.livejournal.com/235073.html

sabotabby

I vaguely heard that the US was getting an eclipse (as in this was all over my FB feed) but assumed it wasn't going to affect here, but I found out yesterday that, no, indeed, we were getting 72% of an eclipse. A woman's paycheque worth of an eclipse. So I made last-minute plans with

metalana. She is an A++ good influence on me as she makes me shoot RAW, so they came out slightly better than expected, and also made pinhole viewers since getting eclipse glasses at the last possible moment is not a thing that can be done. At any rate, we didn't need to bother, because during an eclipse, the usual rules of capitalism and urban living get suspended. Everyone came out to the beach and people were happy to share their eclipse glasses and show off their homemade viewers, which ranged from two pieces of paper to someone's modded-up telescope. The telescope people invited us to hang with them and gave us Coke and were generally lovely. Pointing a DSLR at the sun is not as dangerous as pointing your eyes at the sun, but is kind of pointless unless you have more sophisticated gear than either of us have, but I did get some awesome shots of shadows and things we found whilst wandering around.

( Pictures that are not pictures of the sun )But let's be honest here; cool photography and socializing with your neighbours is not what makes Eclipse Day great. The best thing is that, after a number of my friends joked that Cheeto Benito was going to look directly at the sun like a fucking moron, CHEETO BENITO FUCKING LOOKED AT THE SUN LIKE A FUCKING MORON. This is the actual best thing to happen and I am so overjoyed you have no idea.

Crossposts: http://sabotabby.livejournal.com/1414737.html

brownbetty

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goss

I took this photo at 3:53pm today:

From my house, this is as covered as the sun got during the solar eclipse. My dad has a special sun filter that he uses for surveying, so I took a bunch of video and pics during the event today. Though not a total eclipse, it was really cool to look up in the sky and see this in real time. :)

Current Mood: enthralled

recessional

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dine

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monanotlisa

1. Every day, there is sunshine. (Okay, 256 days out of 365, but still. Come at me, sis.)

2. When I open the front garden blinds, there's hummingbirds fluttering away. HUMMINGBIRDS! They're the fairies of the bird world. Magical.

2. When I walk outside in my -- low-key wealthy -- neighborhood in what is esseeeeeentially pajamas, no one comments, or even spares me a second glance. This is brought to you by the girl who for the one short outside stint planned did not bother putting anything on beyond house-pants and a Nevertheless She Persisted shirt.

4. When I walk outside in the City on a workday, however, people throw me appreciative glances. European-style attire isn't common on the West Coast, and even if people wouldn't wear it they seem to agree it's interesting, or maybe even daring ("How is she going to explain that to her startup CEO in his ratty, IRONIC Status Quo band t-shirt?")

5. People are nice. I do mean that in an occasional nice-guy kind of way, but for 99% of interactions that suits me perfectly well. Germans are forthright, and you will know where you stand with them. Just, in 75% of interactions, you won't LIKE knowing where you stand with them.

dine

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the_future_modernes

to see the shitty Confederate statues finally start coming down. Took the death of a white woman to do it, and rest in power Heather Heyer and strength to your mother and the rest of your family. (Funny how seven murdered black folk in a church wasnt enough but a dead white woman though, doesnt it say so much about the value of lives in this country?) But the terroristic statues are coming down and that right soon. I would like for humans to be less fucking stubborn though and not require literal blood sacrifice in order to change their ways. Hope in the Dark indeed.

the_future_modernes

They have been and still are targeted by CIA FBI and the police every single time they try to say ya'll need to stop killing and exploiting us, white folk. But i never hear white folk have a goddamn thing to say about our right to freedom of expression. As a matter of fact, you motherfuckers passed laws to jail us, beat us and were about to pass some more to make it legal for us to be run over by cars. And lets not even talk about Muslim freedom of expression. Or Native American. Or Latino, especially if you are an undocumented immigrant.

But now when white terrorists are out and about and saying clearly that they want to murder everyone who is not them; folks who have been violent and are STILL violent to goddamn day, I see a freedom of expression community pop up on dw. And the first thing they defend is the motherfucking confederate statues, you know, those statues deliberately built to terrorise the black community during the Civil Rights movement. Funny how that works. Statues built to terrorise black people wfor daring to demand their liberty is freedom of expression. White terrorism is freedom of expression. Meantime the Black Penthers got stamped out, Martin Luther King was murdered by the CIA and everytime BLM tries to hold a demonstration the same police who somehow were outgunned by the white militias in Charlottesville can find military equipemnt and riot control shit and sound cannons to hurt and maim and beat the everliving fuck out of black protestors.
And NOBODY defends the freedom of expression for the Muslim community let alone Muslim terrorists. There is a strict line of thinking Muslims can utter or else they'll have law enforcement real hard for themselves and their communities for the rest of their lives. Hell, even when they toe the line Law enforcement is up their asses anyway.

Further, the fact that Nazi's and Confederates and the KKK are proven violent ass mass murdering motherfuckers who had to be resisted violently to be put down (YES there was violent black resistance before and during and after the Civil Rights movement there are about 4 books on Amazon chronicling that shit look it up) and in the case of the Nazis and Confederates it required literal wars to stop them, is conveniently ignored and swept under the table for ahistorical lazy ass white supremacist favouring propoganda about freedom of speech. Its real nice to pretend that your stance is highminded when if you are affected at all it will be collateral damage. But our lives and liberty are on the line for this fuckery. If the Nazis and Confederates get what they want, and you pieces of shit are hellbent on giving it to them, then we will the the ones murdered and raped and put in concentration camps. And your surprise at the predictable result of allowing self identified murderous fuckwits to come to power will be useless to our survival. So I hope the worst for you. I hope the venomous snakes you are cuddling to your bosoms turn around and bite them. You folks are literal enablers and collaborators with mass murdering fuckwits and though the world is unjust and unkind, if the worst comes to the worst I hope you too get fucked.

$goss: (\o/)$

goss

Beach

Since my mom's abroad right now, I took my dad to the beach this weekend, with a couple other relatives for company. Saturday was a wonderful, sunny day, driving through the rainforest mountain. I was a bit worried during the week, since a tropical storm was headed to the Caribbean and there'd been a landslide on road along the coastline. But luckily, the storm missed us entirely and went further north. Also the effects of the landslide were mostly taken care of, so the road was clear.

Here's a pic I took on Saturday, of the view from the house. As you can see, we got lovely, clear skies.

And at nightfall it was just amazing to see thousands of stars per square inch in the sky. I mean, I know they're always there, but where I live we never see them all, due to the bright lights.

On Sunday, the weather was a bit more overcast, but it was nice being warm and dry, while still having that lovely view despite the rain. I did a little bit of sketching of the rain falling on the deck. It was oddly mesmerizing watching the raindrops making circular patterns in the pool.

( Pencil Sketch: Raindrops )

Glad the skies cleared up in the afternoon for the long drive in our return journey back home. Here's one more pic of the coastline on that part of the island. Gorgeous as usual. *___* ( Photo )
Eclipse

Hey, I hear there's gonna be a complete solar eclipse over the U.S. today. I think here in the Caribbean we'll be able to see a partial eclipse at around 2:30pm, a few hours from now. So I'm looking forward to that. :)
The Defenders

EEE! I didn't realised the series came out over the weekend. I see everyone on Tumblr and DW seems to have seen in. EVen my own *brother* has seen it. Where was I? At the beach. lol. Need to watch before I get spoiled somehow. /o\

rydra_wong

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/08/steve-bannon-wants-to-weaponize-mueller-probe-as-a-way-to-take-down-jared-kushner/
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/08/steve-bannon-readies-his-revenge

Okay, not the barely-veiled anti-Semitism going into massive overdrive. That bit won't be fun.

torachan

1. I already finished most of that paid translation job, so I don't have to worry about spending a lot of my day off on it.

2. Tonight's Rick and Morty was pretty good. I liked the Rick and Jerry plotline a lot. (I love Jerry, so I'm glad that him and Beth being separated hasn't meant he's totally out of the picture.)

3. This Molly!

roadrunnertwice

Gigi D.G. — Lady of the Shard (comics)

Aug 9

Readable online.

The stark and glitchy aliased look on this comic scratches some very particular itch for me. Especially the intense use of red, once that shows up.

Anyway, this is a simple story executed well, and you can read the whole thing in an evening or two.

Kristen Gudsnuk — Henchgirl (comics)

Aug 10

This is notably better than the average cape spoof, but I'm hard pressed to explain exactly how. It's some combination of the delicious art and the out-of-control tonal shifts, neither of which would do the job independently.

It also hits some #relatable Millenial territory, where it's like... fuck you we're not just lazy shitheels, but ALSO, UNRELATEDLY, being a lazy shitheel sounds kind of great sometimes.

Tobias S. Buckell — Hurricane Fever

Aug 11?

I don't think I can really... recommend this silly and formulaic spy thriller — in fact, I think it's less interesting and rewarding than Arctic Rising, which I was already a li'l lukewarm on.

But you know, sometimes I need something silly and formulaic. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯