but I'm in California. I'll just wait for the ring of fire to do the job for me.

Let the ring of fire begin!

*related if interested in plate tectonics
http://videosift.com/video/Earth-Story-Journey-to-the-Centre-of-the-Earth
http://videosift.com/video/Earth-Story-Ring-of-Fire

Earth Story - Journey to the Centre of the Earth has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

Earth Story - Ring of Fire has been added as a related post - related requested by eric3579.

The one thing that I don't like about the One Ring explanation:

It turns you invisible, unless you are the one person for whom it was actually designed (Sauron).

To me, it seems like the rings of power and especially the one ring should grant a more consistent actual power than that. The three elven rings made by Celebrimbor outside the influence of the one are much better examples.

Narya is the "ring of fire", and in the timeline of LoTR it is held by Gandalf. Which makes sense, because he does a lot of fire-related stuff with his magic. Nenya is the "ring of water" held by Galadriel, and Vilya the "ring of air" held by Elrond. These are used less consistently in the books (or movies), but one movie example is the flood that helped save Frodo and get him to Rivendell. In the movie, the flood is shown as being made of water with horse shapes surging through it, which suggest the magical influence of both Nenya and Vilya (water and air) working together. Anyway, those 3 rings have a consistent and fairly well established list of powers associated with their "elemental" attachments, fire, water, and air.

But the one ring lacks that consistency. It is supposed to help Sauron with his urge to dominate, but it doesn't really explain how that works. It doesn't make him invisible; only others who wear it. Also, it helps him to control or at least influence the wearers of the other rings. That is probably the best, most established power of the one ring, but it is also a bit shaky because wearers other than Sauron don't get those abilities. It seems to make other wearers just more susceptible to corruption, greed, and lust for power.

To me, I think it would be more interesting if the one ring actually granted a more specific power, unique to the psychological state of the wearer. The consistently presented thing about the one ring is that it corrupts, and nothing corrupts more than power. So basically, I think that the one ring should be analyzing whoever wears it, and granting them a unique power that is specifically designed to provide them with their greatest source of temptation to abuse that power.

The invisibility power actually makes a lot of sense for hobbits. As presented in the video here, they generally aren't very ambitious. BUT, hobbits are established as being stealthy beings by default, so granting them invisibility is a good source of temptation to turn that stealthiness into more nefarious purpose. So, I don't mind that the three main hobbit (or hobbit-like) wearers (Gollum/Smeagol, Bilbo, Frodo) all consistently get the invisibility power out of the ring.

Human wearers like Isildur would have less consistent powers granted by the rings, because they have more diverse motivations than hobbits. Just as an example, I'd think that Isildur would be motivated by martial prowess and leadership after watching his father killed by Sauron and the human/elven armies decimated at the end of the second age. So, the ring could perceive that about him and grant him physical power and charisma to lead -- both of which would be very easily turned to corruption. Invisibility just doesn't logically provide the same level of temptation for someone like Isildur.

Finally we come to Sauron himself. He is already an exception to the "ring grants invisibility" concept. But for him, the ring should (and arguably does) represent power and control. Sauron had to put on a false face and play the role of deceiver to get Celebrimbor and the other elves to accept him and create the other rings. Having to stoop to that rather than simply crushing them made him despise that sort of approach; after creating the one ring he cast that aside and became all about sheer power and domination, rather than trickery and deception. So, I see the ring's powers granted to Sauron himself as being sort of a conversion of those cunning/deceptive abilities into might, self preservation, and overwhelming mental dominance that allows him to control his orc armies.


Sorry for the length of that -- I have just always felt that the established powers of the one ring would be a bit more interesting if they led to corruption through real power granted to the wearers, rather than "it makes them invisible, but not Sauron, and in general corrupts them, just because".

Someone should add Johnny Cash "Ring of Fire"

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Hopefully it's not Mount Rainier.


No KIDDING!! There is recent concern that Mt Fiji could be getting ready to blow. The Ring of Fire is heating up =oO

the ring of fire....

>> ^Kesavaram:

I think one of the teams is Aris Saloniki from greece
the language is greek


I think you are correct http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aris_Thessaloniki

I follow soccer pretty closely and Freddy Adu was playing for their soccer team last year. They have a pretty spectacular pregame display for soccer too. They call it the Ring of Fire for good reason.

http://videosift.com/video/Aris-Ring-of-Fire-pregame-display

Fcuk dude...



Magnitude 3.5 SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CALIFORNIA June 06, 2008
Magnitude 3.9 NORTHERN CALIFORNIA June 04, 2008

He nailed the size and location...

http://www.syzygyjob.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=1&id=13&Itemid=2

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eqinthenews/2009/

He appears to be wrong for most of 2009 & 2010 and if you publish this every month..
"7.0+M globally, probably within the Pacific Ring of Fire where 80% of the strongest quakes have occurred in the past."

He hasn't made any predictions since 2010 and it appears he had the same guess for like a year straight. But he has been correct a few times a few days ahead. Most people don't think there is anything to syzygy.

>> ^guymontage:

Criticalthud,the links you posted dont seem very credible and while they do use actual data, its their interpretation of said data were they lose credibility. http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm
Just at a glance, this site claims there are more earthquakes now than ever, because in the 1970 there were around 4000 earthquakes, and in 2002 there were just over 23 000 earthquakes. Probability does play a role in science, but so does critical thinking. When i see these numbers the first thing that comes to mind is, "Well no kidding! Instruments in 2002 are probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than they were 30 years ago!" Technological progress alone can easily explain these numbers. Now days we can detect even the tiniest earthquakes almost anywere, unlike in the 40 years ago.
I checked wikipedia as i typed this, and yep, here is a quote confirming my thoughts exactly;
"The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurren
ce
If the author of the web site you quote has done so little research, you can barely take anything he or she writes as credible.

The site also lists 6 earthquakes over a magnitude of 7.0 that occurred in 2002, but the average number of earthquakes per year in the 1900s over 7.0 is 18. So by the figures he is going by, the author should state that earthquakes are decreasing! How ever this line of thinking just shows a lack of understanding of probability.
If the yearly average is as low as 18, then the law of large numbers indicates that the standard deviation will be large enough to affect the number of earthquakes on a yearly basis enough that some years there will be several more than 18 and some years several less. In other wards if one year there are only 10 and some years later there are 24, its still normal.
More over, one must consider geography and probability of the location of earthquakes. The location of 90% of the worlds earthquakes occurs along the ring of fire. However a lot of the ring of fire is not near large cities susceptible to widespread damage. Most of it is in the middle of nowhere. some years large earthquakes will occur close to high population areas, and other years most of the earthquakes will occur too far to cause any harm. on the years that several earthquakes happen to occur near populated areas, it might seem like earthquakes are increasing, but its just probability. This also would be normal.


fantastic. i would be very happy if science could disprove this theory. but we're still looking at probability.

Criticalthud,the links you posted dont seem very credible and while they do use actual data, its their interpretation of said data were they lose credibility. http://www.detailshere.com/earthquakeactivity.htm

Just at a glance, this site claims there are more earthquakes now than ever, because in the 1970 there were around 4000 earthquakes, and in 2002 there were just over 23 000 earthquakes. Probability does play a role in science, but so does critical thinking. When i see these numbers the first thing that comes to mind is, "Well no kidding! Instruments in 2002 are probably orders of magnitude more sensitive than they were 30 years ago!" Technological progress alone can easily explain these numbers. Now days we can detect even the tiniest earthquakes almost anywere, unlike in the 40 years ago.

I checked wikipedia as i typed this, and yep, here is a quote confirming my thoughts exactly;
"The number of seismic stations has increased from about 350 in 1931 to many thousands today. As a result, many more earthquakes are reported than in the past, but this is because of the vast improvement in instrumentation, rather than an increase in the number of earthquakes."
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthquake#Size_and_frequency_of_occurrence
If the author of the web site you quote has done so little research, you can barely take anything he or she writes as credible.


The site also lists 6 earthquakes over a magnitude of 7.0 that occurred in 2002, but the average number of earthquakes per year in the 1900s over 7.0 is 18. So by the figures he is going by, the author should state that earthquakes are decreasing! How ever this line of thinking just shows a lack of understanding of probability.

If the yearly average is as low as 18, then the law of large numbers indicates that the standard deviation will be large enough to affect the number of earthquakes on a yearly basis enough that some years there will be several more than 18 and some years several less. In other wards if one year there are only 10 and some years later there are 24, its still normal.

More over, one must consider geography and probability of the location of earthquakes. The location of 90% of the worlds earthquakes occurs along the ring of fire. However a lot of the ring of fire is not near large cities susceptible to widespread damage. Most of it is in the middle of nowhere. some years large earthquakes will occur close to high population areas, and other years most of the earthquakes will occur too far to cause any harm. on the years that several earthquakes happen to occur near populated areas, it might seem like earthquakes are increasing, but its just probability. This also would be normal.

Thanks!

In reply to this comment by dag:
This is awesome - just tried to submit it. *promote

>> ^undefined:

This is awesome - just tried to submit it. promote


I concur with dag... this is pure awesome.

Seems like a good time to play some Cash...

I fellll in to a burning ring of fire!!