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Australia Is On So Much Fire, You Can See It From Orbit

Jeremy Lee writes "Temperatures in Australia this week hit the point where the Bureau of Meteorology had to invent a new color. And with heat and winds come Bushfires. So it's probably good that I made a real-time bushfire map with every known source of public data directly relating to fires in Australia, mostly because fire doesn't respect state borders." From space.

22 of 289 comments (clear)

  1. The smell, the horrible smell by crazyjj · · Score: 5, Funny

    Once you've smelled burning kangaroo mixed with the acrid stench of melted dune-buggy and dead mutant, you're never the same again. I can still hear the koalas screaming in my nightmares.

    --
    What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
  2. Re:Invent? by Dupple · · Score: 4, Funny

    They had to invent a new colour, Australia wasn't visible from space before

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    Watch those corners
  3. Re:Demise of the English langauge by SJHillman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes, because English teachers are the only ones against it. Everyone else understands that it's acceptable when used properly.

  4. Re:Invent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Octarine? That could explain its invisibility from space, I suppose.

  5. Good News! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Funny

    Australia is pleased and proud to announce that the number of horrid and lethally venomous creatures per hectare has reached historic lows!

  6. This is BAD by Gablar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course this has nothing to do with the fact that the north pole melted to record small levels this years. This is an isolated incident of freak weather, as was Sandy.

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    It's all about finding better ways
  7. headline by DarkOx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You know must of us English speakers, both in the USA and else were would have written "So Much of Australia is on Fire" for a headline. "Australia Is On So Much Fire" Sounds like George Lucas is posting now.

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    Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
  8. Plus 50? by dugjohnson · · Score: 4, Funny

    What's the big deal? It's 54 degrees here in Texas right now...what? metric? we don't do metric here in Texas. How much is that in 'merican? Wow, that IS hot. Never mind.

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    My brain is overly lubricated
  9. Re:Demise of the English langauge by crazyjj · · Score: 5, Informative

    Greetings, time traveler from the 19th century. "And" has been an acceptable opening segue for some time now here in 2012. Also, we attempt to use gender-neutral language, which has made using the plural "they" and its variants as singular forms increasingly acceptable. In addition, the delineation between "effect" and "affect" seems to be fading in popular usage as well, as have traditional meanings of "irony" and "hacker" (a word which probably means something REALLY different to you).

    Oh, and we have a cure or treatment for every venereal disease now! And we have a polio vaccine too!

    --
    What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
  10. Re:BBQ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Something with a little kick to it.

  11. Self-Solving Problem by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Eventually all the vegetation will burn off and then there won't be any fuel for fires anymore! Problem solved!

    I suspect next summer is going to be another bad year for fires in the USA. Seems like the entire goddamn west burned down last year. The sky was brown all summer. We cleared the layer of smoke in a plane, and the blue of the sky came as quite a shock. I'd actually forgotten the sky was supposed to look like that. I didn't want to descend back into the sludge, either. It was the first time in a couple of months that I'd had a breath of fresh air.

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    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  12. Re:Numbers from the article... by ssam · · Score: 4, Insightful

    seeing a whole graph of temperature (or daily max, or daily mean or whatever) against time will always tell you much more about a trends than a list of its peaks can.

  13. Re:Demise of the English langauge by datapharmer · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oxford disagrees (about conjunctions, but you are spot on about potatoes): http://oxforddictionaries.com/words/conjunctions It is fine to start a sentence with and.

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  14. Re:Demise of the English langauge by Abstrackt · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's nothing. I slept through the end of the world a few weeks ago.

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    They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance. - Terry Pratchett
  15. View from Space by Tofof · · Score: 5, Informative

    The summary somehow leaves out anything related to the headline - the view of the fires from space. Didn't even bother linking to the relevant NY Times article. Okay then.

    For the real good stuff, though, check out the high res images in the Universe Today coverage, which showcases several of the images directly from Cmdr Hadfield's twitter feed.

  16. Re:Deep Purple? by jfengel · · Score: 4, Funny

    It appears that they are using it instead for Fire in the Sky.

  17. Re:Demise of the English langauge by Bill_the_Engineer · · Score: 5, Funny

    Should you put "and" in quotes or should we wait for the rest of the sentence?

    I want to be a grammar nazi too. ;-)

    --
    These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
  18. Re:Demise of the English langauge by pitchpipe · · Score: 4, Funny

    Oh, and we have a cure or treatment for every venereal disease now!

    Greetings time traveler from the 22nd century.

    rather then argue with you id say your rite wen it cums to ppl dropping some real anachronistic and arcane usages of grammer speling is also real grate hear U definately have a point weve cum a long way!!! i think the affect of this has bin AWESOME!!!

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    Look where all this talking got us, baby.
  19. Our temperature scale goes up to 54 by qzjul · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's not 50. You see, most charts, you know, will be capped at 50. You're at 50 here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on 50 on your chart. Where can you go from there? Where?

    I don't know.

    Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?

    Put it up to 54.

    54. Exactly. 4 Hotter.

  20. Re: BBQ by TheEffigy · · Score: 5, Informative

    I think this was intended to be a joke, but actually kanga meat is available in most supermarkets here.

  21. Re: BBQ by nfras · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yep, I had Kanga Bangas for dinner last night. Not as succulent (fatty) as regular sausages and with a stronger flavour but not bad all the same. Kangaroo burgers rock, and Kangaroo steak is great when done quite rare, but overcook it and it goes tougher than a pair of Chuck Norris's boots.
    Kangaroo meat is also much better for you and the environment than beef. Kangaroos need to be culled in many parts of Australia due to rising population levels (there are considerably more kangaroos in Australia now than before white settlement, due to agriculture), the meat is very low in fat, and kangaroos fart far less than cows, so we don't get the methane output that cows produce. If you can get kangaroo meat, try it.

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    You call me a pedant? I prefer the term "correct"
  22. Re:Demise of the English langauge by dkleinsc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Another old joke about this problem:
    Visitor to Harvard: "Where's your library at?"
    Harvard student: "This is Harvard. We don't end our sentences with a preposition."
    Visitor; "Ok, where's your library at, jerk?"

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