Volcano Erupts In Iceland 191
Reports are coming in that a volcano in Iceland called Grimsvotn has erupted, sending plumes of smoke 15km into the air. It was accompanied by a series of earthquakes, but all of them have been minor so far, and scientists don't believe the eruption will cause problems for air travel like 2010's Eyjafjallajokull event. Local coverage in Icelandic is available, as well as early pictures of the eruption.
Oh man... (Score:5, Funny)
We're all doomed! Repent! Then end is here! ... I still have time for the doomsday stuff right?
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Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Funny)
You know at least half the people over there had this thought cross their minds, "Shit, I hedged my bets wrong"
Hedging the bet was easy. I just hung around on the west side of a time zone division, watching to see whether anything happened on the east side. If people had started going up, I would have had an hour to get to church and get saved.
Re:Oh man... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I really doubt that. 1) Icelanders are not idiots. 2) It's fucking Iceland. This is hardly the first time they've seen some volcanic activity.
Had this been in biblebelt kansas, maybe you'd be right.
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They started loads of dotbanks, took in shedloads of money as of deposits, then refused to pay any of it back.
Idiots, no. Thieving bastards, yes.
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Well aren't you a racist little piece of shit.
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Wait, isn't saying "a volcano erupted in Iceland" like saying "a bag of rice fell over in China"?
I mean come on, the whole thing is basically a set of the biggest active volcanoes on the whole fault line, with some grass on them.
I say "some grass", because the rest is still dead land from the last giant magma flow.
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The rapture did happen (Score:4, Insightful)
Random chance (Score:4, Insightful)
Even though this is purely coincidentally, all the believers of the May 21 "rapture" are going to cite this as evidence.
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Hey if they all flee to iceland, all the better for the rest of us*
*iceland excluded.
- Yo Grark
Re:Random chance (Score:5, Interesting)
They'd hate it there. Remember, we're talking about a country that voted in same-sex marriage 49 to *zero*, and has a lesbian prime minister.
Re:Random chance (Score:5, Funny)
Is she hot?
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Random side note: her name is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. Do you know the proper way to address her?
"Jóhanna".
You similarly address your teachers, elders, etc by first name. Even phone books in Iceland are sorted by first name. The "last name" is a patronymic -- "Sigurðardóttir" literally means that her father's name was Sigurðar.
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Should a straight person go by "breederminister"? I mean, it's such a stupid joke.
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+: cool with gays.
-: volcanoes; no sense of humour.
I'll still with England. We suck but we sure know how to laugh at ourselves.
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No sense of humour? What do you think Icesave was? The only problem was that the English took THAT one seriously.
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Volcanoes are easy.
Step 1: Stay far away from anything substantially higher than air temperature.
Step 2: Stay far away from anywhere the lava may flow.
In the end, you win or lose. Winners survive. Losers ... well ... don't survive.
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Even though this is purely coincidentally, all the believers of the May 21 "rapture" are going to cite this as evidence.
Umm, if they're still 'here' after May 21st, all the evidence in the world isn't going to be very persuasive.
And as a side note, what's with these weird Icelandic names? "Vatnajokull" sounds like something only a Scrabble fanatic would come up with.
Re:Random chance (Score:5, Funny)
You've got to remember that they're descended from the Vikings. If you look at the syllables in Vatnajokull, they're all something you could get out between sword swings. Evolution would have taken its course and all longer syllables would have died out.
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They have cats that like to walk across their keyboards. That's just what happens...
On an unrelated note: English names are stupid (Score:2, Offtopic)
On an unrelated note: English names are stupid. Really.
Come on, why 'Colbert' is pronounced as 'Col-bear'? Or what about this 'th' sound in general? It's ridiculous!
Names starting 'w' ('William', 'Watson') are laughable and ambiguous - the first sound can not be adequately transcribed in Russian, it's either hard 'w' (as in 'water') or clear 'u'. Wouldn't it better if everyone just used perfectly serviceable Russian names like Tatyana or Fyodor?
And don't get me started on differences between 'wh' and 'th'.
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Colbert, like many of our weird English spellings, is French.
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Fine. But Worcester (pronounced "wooster" or "woosta") and Taliaferro (pronounced "throatwarbler mangrove", err, no, actually "tolliver") have no similar excuse.
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Waiter! Can you bring me some worcheser.... worchestire.... worcestyre.... ketchup, please?
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(Also, by video. [thedailyshow.com])
Re:On an unrelated note: English names are stupid (Score:4, Informative)
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through?
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird,
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead -
For goodness sake don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt).
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
Just look them up - and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward,
And font and front and word and sword,
And do and go and thwart and cart -
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive!
I'd mastered it when I was five!
(author unknown)
For extra credit, look up Gerard Nolst Trenité.
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I know. However, some words are pronounced this way ('rapport', for example).
Also, this tendency of English to borrow spelling _and_ pronunciation from other languages had been driving me crazy when I was learning it. On the other hand German (which has very consistent transcription of words) was much easier to learn.
Re:On an unrelated note: English names are stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Spelling was deregulated until roughly Coleridge's time. Thus Shakespeare spelt his name quite a few different ways.
Eventually, there was a big move to standardize English spelling. Rather than adopt a simple phonetic system, the academics chose to use the phonetic system of the root word. If the word is Germanic, in origin, you use a Germanic inspired phonetics. If it's French, in origin, you use a French inspired phonetic system. Greek? Latin? Guess what, there's more systems. Sucks, doesn't it?
Oh, and Dutch printers were some of the first big printers of English books, so sometimes a bit of Dutch crept in.
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However the French did conquer England, whereas the Germans were' foiled by a few brave RAF chaps.
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Even though this is purely coincidentally, all the believers of the May 21 "rapture" are going to cite this as evidence.
Umm, if they're still 'here' after May 21st, all the evidence in the world isn't going to be very persuasive.
You can bet that some will cite this as evidence that they had the date right, but God decided to let us off with a mild warning.
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Why does Icelandic seem so weird to so many people here? It's more closely related to English than, say, Spanish. Norse branched off from the west Germanic languages (from which English mostly descended) around 200 AD (although the split started a few thousand years earlier). Icelandic is very similar to Old Norse.
Vatnajökull is (in typical Icelandic fashion) the not-very-creatively-named "Water Glacier". Is it really that hard to see how "Vatn" and "Water" are related words? It's even easier to
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Actually, I probably should get myself out of the habit of translating buinn & similar as "finished" and simply use the past tense....
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No, norse language did not branch off west germanic languages..
Germanic languages split into three somewhere around North Germany/South Scandinavia: East, West and North, but East Germanic languages later died out.
English is close to Icelandic and Danish, because Denmark conquered and settled England for a century or so around 1000AD, straightening out most of the grammatics of verbs (only the am/are/is separation survived), setting the names of the week-days, introducing danish derived names for life and
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Old Norse (or more accurately, Proto-Norse) is the origin point of the North Germanic languages. Hence, it branched off from the West Germanic languages when each went their separate ways (aka, were no longer mutually intelligible)
English has a number of Norse-origin loanwords (several hundred), but has more in common through the original Germanic connection.
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Takk! :) Hehe, ég get ruglað Íslensku mjög vel stundum ;) Ég verð að aefa mig. Fyrsti ferð mín til Íslands er í Júlí. Ég ekki að allir tala ensku, en mér finnst gaman að læra. :)
(hmmm... Slashdot borðar "thorns". "Ég 'th'ekki...", etc)
Rapture (Score:5, Insightful)
Fail.
Re:Rapture (Score:5, Funny)
Fail.
With the world economy the way it is right now, it's hard to do a quality Rapture on the limited budget that God can afford, what with his credit rating in the toilet, and all.
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With the world economy the way it is right now, it's hard to do a quality Rapture on the limited budget that God can afford, what with his credit rating in the toilet, and all.
It's all His fault! He could've just bought that 1-bedroom house in Flushing (J-Dawg got His right hand and they can share the flatscreen, so no need for 2), but He just had to take out the jumbo morg on that crib with the pearly gates. Our God is an idiot.
Xenu did it (Score:2)
15 km (Score:2)
...sending plumes of smoke 15km into the air.
15 km is nearly two times the height of Mt. Everest.
Which is very, very high up.
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>15km into the air
Speaking of which, does the air extend 15 km up?
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according to the Big Bang Theory, 10 miles is still in the atmosphere
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It's not even *that* far up--most modern military jets can fly that high.
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Yes, it is that far, it's just that modern technology has, once again, made nature their bitch.
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Still, any height at which an airplane staying aloft by aerodynamic forces and using an air-breathing engine can operate has to be described as part of the atmosphere.
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still a good place for inaccurate Star Trek sex
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And the Blackbirds could fly at nearly 30Km. However its the effect on commercial jets that will be the problem.
(as it was with the previous major icelandic eruption.
Down with Iceland (Score:4, Funny)
Not only those people give asylum to known subversive people (such as Bobby Fischer) but with their volcano eruptions they are speeding up glaciers melting, causing people to believe in global warming. And whenever they run out of money because they can't do proper banking they make deals with the communists.
If they could send the fumes over Libya it could cripple the army and help the revolution - but no, they prefer bothering the good people who are planning a trip to Europe.
(Days like this one, I feel like I could do a pretty decent job at Fox news).
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> Not only does Iceland have chess on TV, and hot babes, but they have cool volcanoes on top of it! How can it really get any better?
They could have hot babes on tv and chess on top of volcanoes! That would be awesomer.
But no, they insist of ruining my trips to Europe.
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Not only does Iceland have chess on TV, and hot babes, but they have cool volcanoes on top of it! How can it really get any better?
They could have hot babes on tv and chess on top of volcanoes!
Volcanoes on TV and chess with hot babes? Strip chess?
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You fool, hot babes don't play chess, they are too busy posing for cheap t-shirts ads, wearing headsets (see http://www.headsethotties.com/ [headsethotties.com]) and/or using their charms to make people sign waivers when they get caught in lousy hidden camera pranks. Duh.
Re:Down with Iceland (Score:5, Informative)
How can it really get any better?
The entire country pretty much runs on geothermal and hydroelectric power.
There are bathable hot springs.
The word geyser comes from Icelandic.
The whole country is snuggled up against the Arctic circle, but the jet stream keeps it from getting unpleasantly cold. In summer it can get quite toasty, actually. (And from June through August the sun dips below the horizon, but it never gets really dark.) In winter, you can see northern lights in the afternoon.
They have Europe's largest waterfall.
And millions of puffins.
And, for better or worse, Björk.
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I assume you mean tallest, not longest ;) And is Vinnufossen a waterfall or did someone leave a tap dripping? ;)
In terms of sheer power, Iceland's easily got you beat. You have no Dettifoss [wikimedia.org], for example.
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Most people in Iceland find it disgusting, and it's not eaten often. Pizza, on the other hand...
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No heavy industry or smelters? Their main export is aluminum. What do you think the Kárahnjukar hydro plant was built for?
Every time I report some news, my wife asks: (Score:2)
Ragnarok! (Score:4, Funny)
Not the Christian Rapture, but Ragnarok! Right date, wrong set of Gods. Oops.
They probably just saw the movie Thor, causing Odin to blow mead thru his nose. Keep an eye on the sun, and any wolves you meet.
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That would be infinity+1, wouldn't it? I always wondered what that symbol was for. Thanks for pointing out a practical usage.
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As a Norwegian I found the movie Thor quite interesting (: It was sort of neat how they refurbished the old cosmology of the norse mythology with modern day elements. Apart from the annoying pronunciation of scandinavian words ("We're going to Jotunheim!" which is an actual place [wikipedia.org] quite close to where I grew up) it was fun.
Those who like the movie might enjoy taking a peek at the actual mythology [wikipedia.org] (:
Stop volcanic proliferation! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stop volcanic proliferation! (Score:5, Funny)
This is exactly the sort of anti-volcanic rhetoric I'd expect from the unwashed masses. This volcano was built using plans from three generations ago. Todays volcano's are far safer and far less likely to erupt in such an unpredictable fashion. Your are glossing over the fact that this volcano has just endured a rapture and is only blowing a small quantity of ash. The design specifically stated that the volcano would require some additional re-enforcements before the rapture came but these were never done owing to budget constraints, so it's hardly fair to judge all volcano's on the poor maintenance of this one case.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Brilliant!
Re:Stop volcanic proliferation! (Score:4, Insightful)
This. We have had no new volcanoes in the US for decades. The ones we have are getting quite old, but have been operating safely - there have only been minor incidents and occasional loss of life. Instead of learning from the mistakes of other countries (Look at Krakatoa or Pompeii) and having safe volcanoes, they refuse to allow any new volcanoes at all. Meanwhile, earthquakes kill far more people, but we do nothing about them!
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I've had modpoints continuously all week, and today of all days I have none :-(
Rapture probably took 'em to heaven.
Anyone with access to data? (Score:2)
Has there or has there not been an increase in weather and seismic events on the planet of late? Starting as early as hurricane katrina, the frequency and severity of such events seem to be increasing. Of course it could be that the news is making a much bigger deal than ever before and I never noticed before and now take more notice of these things. So I wonder if there isn't some sort of data which could be made into a larger overall picture of what has been happening and how severe the events have bee
Re:Anyone with access to data? (Score:4, Insightful)
No.
Of course it could be that the news is making a much bigger deal than ever before and I never noticed before and now take more notice of these things.
Yes.
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As the world's population increases, it becomes more and more likely that a natural disaster will strike a populated area. Corollary to that, as technology advances, it becomes more and more likely that there will be video of a natural disaster for news services to splash all over the TV/website.
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Has there or has there not been an increase in weather
We've always had a constant amount of weather; it's just the quality that changes.
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At least quote the WHOLE sentence will ya? "weather AND seismic events." You know? As in "weather events and seismic events" combined for efficient and meaningful sentence construction? And it was implied that I was talking about disasterous weather events, not seasonal rain or clear skies.
It has been recorded that the temperature of the oceans have increased. It has been recorded that there has been an increase in seismic activity over the past 10 years when compared against the previous 10. So maybe
Interesting (Score:2)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oooh, someone who knows their Icelandic geography and actually types their accents, umlauts, and eths ;) I'm actually hoping to hike Fimmvörðuháls in July. It should be pretty neat, seeing the lava that móði and magni laid down fresh over the trail.
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Rapture light! (Score:2)
More great taste. Much less filling! *And* you don't have to listen to those annoying proselytizers.
So maybe God was just a little confused... (Score:2)
by time zones. Camping never did say whether that was 6pm standard time, daylight time or sun time. So let the eruptions and volcanic fun commence!
"Eruptions" blog (Score:2)
airplane video (Score:2)
View the eruption from an airplane:
http://visir.is/section/MEDIA99&fileid=CLP4238 [visir.is]
Smoke out of volcano? (Score:2)
I have never seen a volcano smoke. Ash, rocks, mud, steam, noxious gases yes, but no smoke.
You want smoke you gotta burn something.
(maybe the volcano came up thru a coal bed???) (no coal that I know of in Iceland).
NB: Maybe trolls are surreptitiously feeding it peat.
Its a hacker name (Score:3)
Streams from the volcano and more (Score:2)
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Written from the inside the ash cloud, Reykjavik For those of you who are interested there are a few streams online of the volcano and surroundings. These are being set up so they are not all functional at this moment. Also dont expect to see much in all the webcams when the wind is blowing from certain directions. The ash cloud actually reached Reykjavík 26 hours after the start of the eruption, which is much fast than last summer during the eruption in Eyjafjöll. I will have to give you a few pointers in icelandic since the english version does not have a direct link to the webcams. Webpage: http://live.mila.is/ [live.mila.is] "Vefmyndavélar" means webcams so click that link. Currently the bottom three streams are of the volcanoe. "Grímsvötn" is the volcanic system "Hvannadalshnjúkur" is the mountain not far from Grímsvötn. And finally a little extra treat, a time vs richter map of the eartquakes in the area Again "Vatnajökull" is the glacier that Grímsvötn are in so you can click that for a more detailed map. Have fun.
Sorry, forgot the link to the earthquake site http://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/ [vedur.is]
Not Slavic (Score:4, Insightful)
If by Slavic you mean North Germanic,[ 1 [wikipedia.org]] then yes.
Re:Not Slavic (Score:4, Funny)
If by Slavic you mean North Germanic, then yes.
Isn't Iceland part of Scandislavia?
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Unless you're one of the Sámi people, you Norwegians are just a bunch of Germans who moved north while the Pharaohs were ruling Egypt.
See how this silly game goes?
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Nah... Björk is part húldufólk. ;)
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Because there are geology nerds on /.
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Excellent, now we can get on with the serious science.
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Given the Cod Wars [wikipedia.org], I hardly pity the UK being inconvenienced from Icelandic volcanic activity. Which is hardly something they can control anyway.
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I don't see how Iceland has anything to do with your involvement in the Cold War. Or was your goal to change from a discussion of a dispute between Iceland and the UK into a dispute between the UK and the US in order to avoid discussing your long history of (over) exploiting the resources of a poorer country which couldn't defend itself?
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I'm sure you're mispronouncing it. It's basically "GREEMS-vih-dn", with the ö pronounced as the eux in the French "deux" and the 'r' rolled.
And anyway, Grímsvötn actually refers to the subglacial lakes in the area (vötn = lakes, plural of vatn)
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As said in Revelation 8:7ff. (2011 Post-Icelandic Rapture Bible):
7The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon Iceland; and a third part of the trees were burned up, and all green grass was burned up.
8And the second angel sounded and, as it were,
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*Campers* are *juicy*.