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Colorado Springs fire can be seen from Space!

Reuters just mentioned authorities have found a second body in the debris of a burned-out home in Colorado Springs, marking the second fatality from a fierce wildfire that ranks as Colorado’s most destructive on record after incinerating 347 homes, police said.

I may not have a foot on Earth but I know an estimated 18500 acres were burned and hundreds of people forced to flee their homes… On the left, homes in Colorado Springs (AP Photo/The Denver Post, RJ Sangosti).

How do I know that , besides the fact I read the news like everyone else on Earth? Well, I can actually see Colorado Springs fire from Space!

I don’t have a camera aboard the Sama Airship but there is one aboard the International Space Station and it captured a footage of the wildfires burning in the Western U.S., including Colorado.

I can’t even imagine the disaster on the ground…

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Salon du Vintage in Paris next month!

Dear readers, if you live in Paris, don’t miss the Salon du Vintage! It will take place July 6-7 2012, at Espace d’Animation des Blancs Manteaux (in the renown ‘Marais’ of Paris).

The press release is in French but the program of events is promising: music from the 80s, vintage fashion (clothes, shoes…), make-up a la 50s. A ‘vintage bar’ will also offer you some vintage drinks and food…

Entrance is free. The event will last 3 days. More info here!

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Willem Dafoe and others wearing Steampunk clothes

Prada got inspired by the Steampunk world with this new line. And I never thought Willem Dafoe would wear Steampunk clothes so well.

Tor.com posted about it and was also pleasantly surprised:

High end fashion line Prada has just unveiled photos and video of actors Willem “Green Goblin” Dafoe, Gary “Commissioner Sirius Black” Oldman, Garrett “Sam Flynn” Hedlund, and Jamie “TinTin Billy Elliot” Bell wearing their heavily steampunk-influenced fall/winter menswear line.

And I totally agree with their last sentence: ‘Somehow, watching Willem Dafoe psych himself up for his evil glare is even scarier than his actual glare…‘. Howesome!

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Steampunk alarm clock & ‘Beautiful lepers’ by anXiogene

anXiogene is a multi-faceted French artist from the city of Caen. I have been following her work for some time now and she is very talented.

Annliz Bonin, a.k.a anXiogene, works with mechanisms and makes beautiful Steampunk alarm clocks; she creates unique dolls and her creative world is diverse, varied and filled with unexpected, surprising and sometimes even sexy creatures… She also created with Futuravapeur, the fantastic ‘Historiettes de Monsieur Sandalette’ (uchronic short stories I will come back to it soon).

I selected two pictures to illustrate anXiogene’s work. The first one is her latest alarm clock (left picture); the other one is from a serie of photographs taken in 2010 titled: ‘Belles lépreuses’ (‘Beautiful lepers’), with voluptuously gorgeous models ana and noémie.

I invite you to visit her website. Even if you don’t speak French, the pictures talk for themselves…

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Doctor Who actress Caroline John dies aged 71

Sad news for Doctor Who fans who watched the show back in the Seventies and the Eighties: British actress Caroline John, known to many for playing Doctor Who companion Liz Shaw, has died at the age of 71.

John played Liz Shaw in four Doctor Who adventures in 1970, later reprising her role in 1983’s The Five Doctors. Full story on BBC website.

Below, a video tribute to the actress titled ‘Doctor Who R.I.P: Our Brilliant Caroline John (Elizabeth Shaw)‘.

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Highlight notifies you when friends are nearby

I just read the news on CNN: ‘Highlight works by allowing a small online cloud of personal information to follow a user wherever their cellphone goes. Whenever two users pass in the street or walk into the same venue, Highlight compares their data and alerts them to things they share in common, such as friends, music or favorite TV shows.’

According to this article, since its launch in January, Highlight has received positive reviews from tech-industry journalists and was one of the most heavily hyped apps this spring at SXSW Interactive. A similar app, Glancee, was snapped up by Facebook in May.

I don’t know what to think about this app. It’s cool to meet with your friends and even with strangers with mutual interests when they are nearby. But it can also be very dangerous and Highlight has already been called the ‘stalker app’…

On the other hand, I would love to use this app to meet new people in the Universe. I feel quite alone right now… Hopefully, I know I have your full support! 🙂

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SETIcon II, June 22 -24, 2012 in Santa Clara, California

SETIcon (June 22 -24, 2012) is organized by the SETI Institute and it is a public event where science and imagination meet.

I wish I could attend SETIcon II but unfortunately and as you probably know, I’m not on Earth right now and I still don’t know yet how to teleport or travel through time…

But since you obviously are on Earth, maybe some of you living near Santa Clara, California, will attend the great event.

SETIcon brings together innovative scientists, science fiction authors, space and science artists, space lovers, and the curious and adventurous everywhere for a 3-day public celebration and exploration of space, real science, technology, imagination, and science education.

There is no other event in the world like SETIcon that explores space and the human imagination through the lens of real science, attracting global interest and participation. This is not a science conference with technical lectures (SETI Institute scientists lecture all over the world).

Instead we’ll bring together scientists with authors and artists to celebrate science and exchange ideas around space exploration and our place in the cosmos. SETIcon will create a new channel of discussion between Earthlings where real science and imagination will meet.

Note that SETIcon is also about music: Sheldon Reynolds, a star of the band Earth, Wind and Fire, will perform his hit, “Shining Star,” for Jill Tarter’s Gala on Saturday, June 23rd.

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Chet Baker ‘You make me feel so young’

Chet Baker was a great  jazz trumpeter but he also had a great voice. It was soft and delicate, and if you listen to ‘Let’s Get Lost’ or ‘Autumn Leaves’, you will understand what I mean.

He also sang ‘You make me feel so young’ (the 1946 popular song covered by Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Paul Anka, Rosemary Clooney…) and needless to say his fragile voice brings something unmistakably unique to this cover.

Baker died on May 13, 1988, in Amsterdam, Netherlands. In 2007 Mayor of the City of Tulsa Kathy Taylor proclaimed December 23 as “Chet Baker Day”. But Chet Baker is also often celebrated during many jazz events around the world.

I couldn’t find an audio link of Chet Baker singing ‘You make me feel so young’ but I could find a video (although it’s not really a video). Click and listen, just open your ears and relax…

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RER cars decorated as beautiful rooms at Versailles

Have you ever visited Versailles? The Gallery of Mirrors and the Queen’s bedroom?

Since last month and until 2014, RER C travelers may have a chance to sit in one of the RER cars decorated as beautiful rooms at Versailles.

I think it’s a great idea and for once, travelers using RER C will enjoy the time they will spend inside the cars.

I like this ‘anachronistic’ decoration, and you will see more of it in the video (in French but you don’t need subtitles to look at the decorations).

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Brazil: retro-futurism, Steampunk and much more

Brazil is a 1985 science fiction, black comedy film directed by Terry Gilliam and it is a variation of George Orwell’s 1984.

When I selected the movies I wanted to bring with me during this trip, Brazil came out in evidence I had to take it. I love the “retro-futurism” a la Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with a hint of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.

Here is what Roger Ebert wrote about the movie:

The movie is very hard to follow. I have seen it twice, and am still not sure exactly who all the characters are, or how they fit.

Perhaps it is not supposed to be clear; perhaps the movie’s air of confusion is part of its paranoid vision. There are individual moments that create sharp images (shock troops drilling through a ceiling, De Niro wrestling with the almost obscene wiring and tubing inside a wall, the movie’s obsession with bizarre duct work), but there seems to be no sure hand at the controls.

The best scene in the movie is one of the simplest, as Sam moves into half an office and finds himself engaged in a tug-of-war over his desk with the man through the wall. I was reminded of a Chaplin film, “Modern Times,” and reminded, too, that in Chaplin economy and simplicity were virtues, not the enemy.

If you still wonder what is this movie about, then you have to watch it. And let me know what you think of it!