LOL Videos of awesome

Another time lapse for you all courtesy of the Expedition 43 crew. This one begins just south of Thailand, travels north through Vietnam and along the east coast of China, then ends just north of North and South Korea.

The prominent features in this time lapse are the lights. The little dots are off-shore platforms and fishing vessels, and as it progresses through the countries you can see the shift in colors due to the different kinds of lights they use. There's another big light feature - specifically, the absence of light. At the end, you can clearly see the Korean Demilitarized Zone along the 38th Parallel. It appears as a thin orange line separating the brightly lit South Korea from the darkness of North Korea (note: it appears as a vertical line due to the orientation of the image - north/south is sort of left/right). Most of the lights are more or less sharp, and the smudged areas indicate light getting scattered by a thin layer of clouds.

Fun fact: I had seen a similar time lapse sequence during the Expedition 34/35 timeframe, and the first time I saw it I got confused. I was trying to identify the geographic area, and although the lights and shapes told me that it was southeastern Asia, I got thrown off by the large "island" at the end. I kept checking my maps but I couldn't find it. After many head-scratching minutes it suddenly hit me. It's not an island in the traditional sense, but a very political one.

Uploaded in 4K for those who can manage it.

 

So I'll just leave this little nugget here..

 

How wonderful this develops into song and how beautiful it is.

He could make any bar or club feel wonderful, what a talent.

 

Shameless self promotion;
The annual summer solstice celebration in Ålesund, Norway.
The bonfire is a long tradition, it has been built every year for the last 100 years (except for the years when the Germans visited, naturally)

The bonfire is mainly built by 14-22 year old boys, and they build it by hand (no cranes or anything), one pallet at a time.

this year it was 34 meters high!
the highest it has been was in 2010, when it was 40,45 meters high.

 

Its a bit like the 12th of July up the North

 

Didn't know you were from Ireland theshadow2001!

 

Oh begorrah begosh, born and bred

 

"This video has been removed by the user"

 

Bums. Was good

 

I believe this was it, terrible audio though.

 

I would say that this is neat and fun, except that they are firing over the heads of what looks like 1000s of people who are essentially down range.

Also, they aren't firing perfectly straight up, which means those bullets are going to keep a trajectory and come down with a lethal speed. I don't know if they're in the middle of nowhere and don't need to worry about who might be off in the distance, but since they're firing at all sorts of crazy angles and directions, my guess is that the odds are high of stray bullets coming in the path of unsuspecting people just going about their business.

Even if they were firing perfectly straight up, if there's a strong wind the bullet could keep its trajectory and kill someone coming down.

So they're breaking every single rule. Don't fire a gun when someone is down range, ever. Don't fire unless you have a target. Don't fire if you can't see where the bullet is going to go/don't know if there are people around.

Guns aren't fireworks. The noise and even the tracer rounds make them seem similar, but they just plain aren't. It seems like a crappy way to end a wedding by having essentially everyone in the party playing a variation on Russian Roulette whether or not the volunteered.