by Stop Mike Lupica on May 7 at 1:06PM
You might have heard about that volcano that erupted down there in Chile, spewer lava and ash, and all that dirty stuff from deep in the bowels of Planet Earth, onto my Patagonian neighbor. Well, did you know that the volcano is also responsible for a rash of "dirty thunderstorms," according to this National Geographic article. That's when lightning comes from the volcano to the sky.
Peep the ill photos attached to that article. A commenter on this sci-fi site took one of the photos, and turned it into one of those motivational posters:
DJM: "Yeah, I have no idea what is going on down there. Dirty thunderstorms?"
SML: "What's next? Ball lightning?"
Ball lightning, ya'll - it's when a round sphere of bright lightning appears at ground level, darting across a surface (and sometimes through a surface). It's kind of like Ryu tossing a Hadouken, only replace "Ryu" with "Mother Nature":
Ball lightning is still a highly debated phenomenon among scientist; they haven't formulated an exact explanation for it, or even proven that it really occurs. It has been discussed since the 17th century, when during a severe thunderstorm in a church in England a ball of fire materialized, swept through the aisles, and killed 4 people. It injured another 60 people, and almost destroyed the church, burning or smashing walls and windows.
Another famous story is the one involving the Russian Ben Franklin, Georg (leave off the last "e" for savings) Richmann. A professor in St. Petersburg, he was conducting an experiment during a thunderstorm (always a safe idea), and had an engraver there to "capture the event for posterity". Instead, what he captured was a ball of lightning appear on the ground, head towards Richmann, and smack him in the forehead. The result was red spot on the now-dead Richmann's head, his shoes got blown apart, and his clothes got burned.
There are other accounts throughout history, but no one has been able to confirm ball lightning, or give a scientific explanation for it. However, scientist have recently started theorizing that it may be related to vaporized silicon (from the lightning striking silicon deposits in the ground), and have conducted experiments to try to recreate the phenomenon in a lab. This site here has several video files of the experiments. Click on that last video ("Supplementary Video 6") to see what might possibly be a small version of ball lightning, as created by Doctor Ken and Doctor Ryu.
Last tangent of the day: I went to the Yankee game last night with some friends. One of them brought up a Mortal Combat character by the name of Kano. He asked me if I remember him.
"Kano? No. Is he the one that was Sub-Zero's twin?"
"No, that's Scorpion."
"Was he in the movie?"
"I didn't see it. Now, he was a crazy white guy."
"The one with the six arms?"
"No, that was a boss. This was a regular character."
"Let's see... I remember Raiden. Lui Kang. Sonya. Scorpion and Sub-Zero ("get over here"). Was Kano the dude with claws and the flamenco dance?"
"No, that's Vega from Street Fighter II..."
And so it went for a bit. My friend gave up. Later on, when talking to another friend young/old enough to have been into Mortal Kombat, he tried again.
"Kano. Come on, you have to remember Kano?"
"Was he Scorpion's twin brother."
"Noooo..."
"What was his special moves?"
"He would throw himself at an opponent"
I chime in: "Ohhh, yeah. The little hairy Brazilian dude."
"No, that's Blanka, man. You're back in Street Fighter II again."
We then argued about whether E.Honda, Zangief, or Dhalsim was the least used character. I personally liked Dhalsim. Yoga fireball is my ish. But having checked out the character list today, trying to refresh my memory of Kano (still got nothing), I have to say... it's very arguable who is more forgettable: Balrog from SFII, or Kano from Mortal Kombat. Maybe I'm just old.
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Peep the ill photos attached to that article. A commenter on this sci-fi site took one of the photos, and turned it into one of those motivational posters:
DJM: "Yeah, I have no idea what is going on down there. Dirty thunderstorms?"
SML: "What's next? Ball lightning?"
Ball lightning, ya'll - it's when a round sphere of bright lightning appears at ground level, darting across a surface (and sometimes through a surface). It's kind of like Ryu tossing a Hadouken, only replace "Ryu" with "Mother Nature":
Ball lightning is still a highly debated phenomenon among scientist; they haven't formulated an exact explanation for it, or even proven that it really occurs. It has been discussed since the 17th century, when during a severe thunderstorm in a church in England a ball of fire materialized, swept through the aisles, and killed 4 people. It injured another 60 people, and almost destroyed the church, burning or smashing walls and windows.
Another famous story is the one involving the Russian Ben Franklin, Georg (leave off the last "e" for savings) Richmann. A professor in St. Petersburg, he was conducting an experiment during a thunderstorm (always a safe idea), and had an engraver there to "capture the event for posterity". Instead, what he captured was a ball of lightning appear on the ground, head towards Richmann, and smack him in the forehead. The result was red spot on the now-dead Richmann's head, his shoes got blown apart, and his clothes got burned.
There are other accounts throughout history, but no one has been able to confirm ball lightning, or give a scientific explanation for it. However, scientist have recently started theorizing that it may be related to vaporized silicon (from the lightning striking silicon deposits in the ground), and have conducted experiments to try to recreate the phenomenon in a lab. This site here has several video files of the experiments. Click on that last video ("Supplementary Video 6") to see what might possibly be a small version of ball lightning, as created by Doctor Ken and Doctor Ryu.
Last tangent of the day: I went to the Yankee game last night with some friends. One of them brought up a Mortal Combat character by the name of Kano. He asked me if I remember him.
"Kano? No. Is he the one that was Sub-Zero's twin?"
"No, that's Scorpion."
"Was he in the movie?"
"I didn't see it. Now, he was a crazy white guy."
"The one with the six arms?"
"No, that was a boss. This was a regular character."
"Let's see... I remember Raiden. Lui Kang. Sonya. Scorpion and Sub-Zero ("get over here"). Was Kano the dude with claws and the flamenco dance?"
"No, that's Vega from Street Fighter II..."
And so it went for a bit. My friend gave up. Later on, when talking to another friend young/old enough to have been into Mortal Kombat, he tried again.
"Kano. Come on, you have to remember Kano?"
"Was he Scorpion's twin brother."
"Noooo..."
"What was his special moves?"
"He would throw himself at an opponent"
I chime in: "Ohhh, yeah. The little hairy Brazilian dude."
"No, that's Blanka, man. You're back in Street Fighter II again."
We then argued about whether E.Honda, Zangief, or Dhalsim was the least used character. I personally liked Dhalsim. Yoga fireball is my ish. But having checked out the character list today, trying to refresh my memory of Kano (still got nothing), I have to say... it's very arguable who is more forgettable: Balrog from SFII, or Kano from Mortal Kombat. Maybe I'm just old.
Leave a comment
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Kano was the shit dude.
SubZero's fatality would rip a guy's head off with the spinal column still attached to it. Pretty --cking amazing. Well, Kano's the dude fashioned after the Superman movie alien characters. You know the characters I'm talking about. The aliens? The woman, the mute brute and balding-bearded leader. Well, Kano looked like the alien leader (complete with the outfit) and would rip your heart out of your chest and hold it up as it was still beating. Your body would collapse in a heap on the floor while blood was dripping from your still beating heart.
Kano was the man dude. The special move where he flew towards and pushed you back wasn't even the half of his coolness. The fatality was the shit.