Rainbow Break!

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I was sitting with my fellow Space Place Educators today, waiting for the next presentation and discussing things like the merits of Dragonlance* and the questions Darmok raises about the Universal Translator and how Cracked is more journalistic than actual journalism (I have found my people), and suddenly another Space Placer dashes over.

"You've got to come outside!" she yelled. "There's some kind of rainbow thing you've got to see!"

So we all followed her outside, and sure enough there was a goddamn fire rainbow** hanging in the east, over my mountain.

Once again, living in a panorama has its advantages. I think I've seen circumhorizon arcs before, but it was never quite as dramatic as the one in the link. This one showed you why the term FIRE RAINBOW was used. Because dang, that thing may not be fire OR a rainbow, but by god it's majestic enough that it needs a majestic name.


*Raistlin, pretty much. And maybe Caramon, but only in the context of Raistlin.

**Okay, yeah, officially they're called circumhorizon arcs, but screw you, FIRE RAINBOW is way cooler. As a coworker put it, "Well, now that I know it's called a FIRE RAINBOW I have to go look at it again!"

Comments

[beccastareyes]

Hooray for refraction and the optics of water in the atmosphere!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

I know, right? Hexagons are great!

[hrhleia.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I love rainbows!

[dark-phoenix54.livejournal.com]

TOTAL COOLNESS

[acrossthelake.livejournal.com]

and the questions Darmok raises about the Universal Translator Fuck, I'd never even thought of that. What conclusions did you come to?

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

No conclusions, just more questions. I mean, they seem to have syntax, since their sentence fragments still have structure. But given that so much of language is lexicalized metaphor anyway, why doesn't the universal translator translate their idioms as straight lexemes? Which makes me wonder how it handles other languages' idioms and lexemes. And if they DON'T use syntax, what are they using instead? Do they have a sort of base language, with basic lexemes, and the references are higher language? But then why can't their translators hear ours as a basic language? But if the language evolved into JUST the reference language, why didn't that become fossilized as lexical? BUT--BUT--SO MANY QUESTIONS.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

Double rainbow all the way across the sky...

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

SO INTENSE