Thinking about #ashtags

Interesting times. I’m in San Francisco on Ribbit work, and it looks like I might be here for some time, thanks to the fallout from the Icelandic volcanic eruptions. I’m scheduled to fly out Tuesday, let’s see what happens. No point fretting about what I cannot change.

There’s always a bright side. Like finding out that the hashtag for related incidents is #ashtag. Or discovering this site, flightradar24, which plots the positions of all planes in the air, identifying each plane by its callsign. Blue crosses are airports. Yellow planes are … you guessed it.

Sunset with volcanic dust



Sunset with volcanic dust, originally uploaded by BraCom.

I love sunrises and sunsets and crepuscular time as well. I was hoping that people would post photographs of tonight’s sunset as seen from Northern Europe, and I wasn’t disappointed. Thank you Bram.

There’s more. Just take a look at the flickr group here:

http://blog.flickr.net/en/2010/04/15/tonight-volcanic-sunsets-over-europe/

The Other Side of the Lava



other side of the lava, originally uploaded by Steingrimur.

I found this photograph hauntingly beautiful. Maybe it’s the jet lag. But I loved it. Thank you Steingrimur.

How the ash came about



The crater, originally uploaded by Steingrimur.

Wondering why there’s flight disruption in the UK and Scandinavia? Here’s why.

What intrigues me is that the photographs were uploaded nearly a week ago. What happened in between? Do volcanic eruptions of this sort sometimes decide “No, we won’t spew forth any ash”?

I felt certain that flickr would have photographs of the event. The world of Now is not just about Twitter. It’s about the web. About all of us.

Thank you Steingrimur.