Giant Ginkgo

The highest resolution pictures and movies of the sun are really quite something to behold. Here is the web site with more information and cool eye candy.

Wired recently had an article on the really creepy posters that have been put up at the bus stops in London. Check out this picture!

This evening was quite an interesting one at work. The TABD protests in Chicago occurred outside of my building at Pioneer Plaza. It ended up being the stopping point for the march, the protesters stayed around for an hour or two. They played drums, did dance numbers, made speeches and appeared to have a pretty good time overall. Sean, a green party member that I know, was given a soundbite in the Chicago Tribune's coverage.

The entire afternoon at work was filled with my coworkers running around scared that a protester would attack them on the way home, others made rough and tough statements about how they were going to kick the protesters asses if they got in their way. Apparently it must have been the protesters and not the police who were beating up and gassing the residents of Capitol Hill during the Seattle WTO protests.

Above is the first real sign that the protesters were finally making it to the end of their march. The number of police around them was quite mindboggling. I've never seen so many in one place before.

The protesters start to stream into the cordoned off end zone. A fair number of bystanders stood and watched from the concrete traffic barriers and the sidewalks in front of the Wrigley building.

This picture really doesn't do justice for the size of the protest, between 800 to 2500 people were down there, not including the hundreds of police men.

There was something kind of graceful about watching hundreds of police officers doing synchronized routines around the protesters. It seemed like something out of a 40s musical.

All types of organizations with a multitude of issues were represented... There wasn't a single solitary plank that everybody was there for. The police were also watching from a boat in the river (which can be seen in the first picture), from a couple of helicopters hovering overhead, and a mysterious small airplane that would buzz the Tribune Tower. When I was first told about it by a coworker I thought it might have been a drone, but I saw it later and it appeared to be manned.