Posted 2 days ago

Disqus: The Official Blog: What’s Cooler Than a Billion Monthly Uniques?

disqus:

Last month, Disqus achieved a significant milestone: our network hit a billion monthly unique visitors. No matter how you slice it, it puts Disqus in a select category of ubiquitous web services that millions of people use everyday.

image

Some other supporting data includes:

  • 7 billion monthly…
Posted 1 week ago
Posted 1 week ago

Mini-Mokum [Miniature Amsterdam] from Pieter Manders on Vimeo.

A short tilt-shift time-lapse video shot in Amsterdam, which is sometimes nicknamed “Mokum”.

Created by Pieter Manders (8088.nl)
Music by Oskar Schuster (oskarschuster.com/)

Posted 1 week ago
30 years of Alberta tar sands developmentIf this fails to animate, you can find the scary GIF at https://plus.google.com/111051039748078110427/posts/FpRR24PgZwp

30 years of Alberta tar sands development

If this fails to animate, you can find the scary GIF at 
https://plus.google.com/111051039748078110427/posts/FpRR24PgZwp

Posted 1 week ago
Texas Textbooks, lol. 

Texas Textbooks, lol. 

Posted 1 week ago

Energy from Tar Sands or Solar? Our choice. 

Posted 1 week ago

Republican states leech off of Democratic states. 

Posted 2 weeks ago

North Country Dreamland from LakeSuperiorPhoto on Vimeo.

“North Country Dreamland”

A northern Michigan celestial dark sky exposition

photo video/edit: Shawn Malone-facebook.com/LakeSuperiorPhoto
cameras used: Canon 5d, 5dMII and 5dMIII bodies and multiple wide angle lenses

Music: David Helpling/Jon Jenkins track titled, “Lifted” from the album “The Crossing
contact: spottedpecarry.com
used with permission

any commercial/media use of any portion of this video requires permission first from Shawn Malone at mqtphoto@aol.com

This video is my first time lapse compilation of a resultant 10k photo frames equaling 33 scenes of various night sky events from Northern Michigan 2012- It took a year to shoot and a bit of tenacity and persistence to get this into a form of coherent electrified cosmic goodness.
Night sky-capes include multiple northern lights scenes, meteor showers, nebulae, planets, including Venus and Jupiter setting from Spring 2012, constellations, the milky way, comet Pan-Starrs, night-scapes over both Lake Superior and Lake Michigan.
Thought I might mention some of the more interesting wildlife encounters during the photo gathering-

1.sparring moose on Isle Royale under a pitch black sky after wrapping the Isle Royale Tobin Harbor airglow / northern lights opening scene at 3am in the morning, with their thunderous antlers clashing with fear inducing power that could be felt in the knashing soundwaves echoing in the hills, (and I had to hike a two mile ‘deer path’ back to my shelter in the direction of those moose, I survived to tell the tale without getting pancaked)
2. the howl of wolves in the eastern UP piercing the freezing air under a calm full moon sky
3.a particularly persistent beaver on an inland lake in the Hiawatha National Forest, determined to be in just about every frame with a methodically spaced tail slap on an otherwise beautifully FLAT CALM star reflected lake- sooo even though the star reflection sequence is blown by this beaver with a ‘tude, the scene is included anyway as a humorous memory
4. the blue heron fishing for a midnight snack by auroral light at the mouth of Sand River and Lake Superior- if only I would have not moved, this heron would have walked the river bank thru the entire frame..

Rare pairings caught on camera include ribbons of aurora above a full moon fogbow on the horizon of Lake Superior, the aurora and an isolated singular lightning storm cloud over Lake Superior, and the aurora and Milky Way in several scenes including Copper Harbor, Marquette, Isle Royale, Pictured Rocks, and Eagle Harbor Lighthouse.
There are also a couple sequences of rare magenta/red aurora that I will never tire of.
I feel extremely fortunate to have witnessed and photographed the several strong auroral outbursts shown here from 2012 at a relatively southern 46.5 degrees latitude in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and am so grateful for the advances in high iso dslr technology to allow for time-lapse capture to be able to create these sequences for such high quality video reproduction of the night sky.
When one thinks of locations to go view the aurora, most people think of Alaska or Norway, but in 2012, the auroras were also over the Michigan skies every month except December- (which the aurora was out then too, but that’s when our run of clouds moved in and shut me down for the year, and that cloudy streak still persists well into Spring 2013). makes everything recorded in 2012 extra special indeed..
All scenes are within 200 miles or so of my home in Marquette, Mi. and I feel very blessed to live where I do and to share the beauty that I see ‘in my own backyard’ with you. I hope it inspires others to take time to find the beauty that is everywhere around us and also to raise an awareness about the importance of preserving our night wondrous starlit skies.

A special thanks to David Helpling and Jon Jenkins who granted permission to use their spectacular track, ” Lifted” - from the album “The Crossing” , thanks again David and Jon- so glad to know of this track, I couldn’t have thought of a more fitting and inspiring piece of music as a contributing impetus to the completion of this project- you can find more of David Helpling and Jon Jenkins music at spottedpeccary.com.

Video locations include Isle Royale National Park, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Headlands Intl Dark Sky Park, North Country Trail, Hiawatha National Forest, Marquette Michigan, Copper Harbor and Eagle Harbor MI.

Video ©Shawn Malone lakesuperiorphoto.com all rights reserved

Posted 2 weeks ago

2 Years of Timelapse from 3d pete on Vimeo.

I have a full 1080p version but unfortunately cannot replace this actual file. Look for it in my list of videos to the right if you would like a high quality version. This is a compilation of timelapse clips shot mostly in San Diego county (CA), also Big Sur (CA) and Arizona.
Some were edited as HDR’s

Lots of my still nature photography from these areas and more can be found at 3dpete.smugmug.com/

The music “Apollon” is by adamned.age
adamned-age.com

Posted 2 weeks ago

DEATH VALLEY DREAMLAPSE 2 from Sunchaser Pictures on Vimeo.

(Watch in HD with headphones on and the volume cranked, if you can. Hands and arms inside the cart at all times!)
To get the latest on Sunchaser Timelapses, LIKE our NEW Facebook Page! facebook.com/SunchaserPicturesPage
Check out “STARCHASERS: BEHIND THE DREAMLAPSE”, a 4 minute Behind the Scenes Doc here: vimeo.com/65031084

After the unbelievable response to our first DEATH VALLEY DREAMLAPSE (vimeo.com/57757618) our team returned for Part 2, this time going deeper, to the mysterious and unexplained sliding stones of Racetrack Playa. No UFOs this time (we THINK) but plenty of wonder and amazement, including some insane star trails, a beautiful milky way pass over the lakebed, and an incredible pink desert aurora! We also tried out some new timelapse techniques, like moonpainting the foreground landscapes (0:53 — 1:20), and also some experiments merging regular timelapse footage with star trails — a technique we’ve been calling STARSCRAPING (1:07:1:33). If it has an actual name, let us know! :) Star Trails shot at 25 sec exposures. No special effects used, just the natural rotation of the earth’s axis. Photography Merging: STARSTAX. Used two Canon EOS 5Dmkii, with a 24mm/1.4 lens & 28mm/1.8.

The pink aurora first makes an appearance during the star trails shot at 1:36 and later in more detail at 2:22. Since we didn’t even know auroras were POSSIBLE this far south, we did some research and learned there was a CME (Coronal Mass Eruption) solar event that night (March 17th) which likely triggered what we see. Read more at UNIVERSE TODAY (bit.ly/11ygzCy). If anyone has any additional theories/insight, we’d love to hear more! To learn more about the mysterious sliding rocks, read here: bit.ly/YgjOf2

Download our DREAMLAPSE 2 PRESS KIT (22MB) of Behind the Scenes Photos, Stills and Full Captions: bit.ly/17s4u5d

Shot and Edited by: Gavin Heffernan twitter.com/GavinHeffernan
Producers: Michael Darrow, Rachel Payne, Ben Dally, John Brookins
Associate Producers: Michael Leland, Briana Nadeau, Adam Jeremy Williams
Music: “Stay Down (Ambient)” by MOBY (License Courtesy MobyGratis.Com)
Behind the Scenes Doc: Shot, Edited, and Produced by John Brookins.

For more on this this and other upcoming projects, visit SunchaserPictures.com or twitter.com/GavinHeffernan
The Sunchaser team is CURRENTLY SEEKING SPONSORSHIP for future adventures. Email info@sunchaserpictures.com
To see more of our other Sunchaser Pictures Timelapses, visit our album here: bit.ly/LFy9KJ