Attention fellow mad scientists! After years of searching and countless minutes making phone calls we have finally made contact. The secretive and mighty Ronin Motorcycle Collective has obtained rights to lease the most excellent and prime secret laboratory location in Duluth. Oddly totally hidden and yet right in front of everyone’s nose at the same time we are ready to assemble an initial team of elite and dedicated moto-enthusiasts, crazy ass artists, techno-hackers and general all around collaborative individuals willing to commit and create the Zenith city’s first Co-operative and collaborative moto/hacker/art/wtf space.

The Specs:

• 3300 square feet of open and huge HEATED warehouse space within walking distance of Sir Ben’s, Brewhouse, Carmody and Zeitgiest.
• Bathroom
• Panoramic Lake View
• Monthly Association Fee + per sq. foot storage rate
• the rest TBD!

We seek like minded mad scientists from all disciplines, dance troupes, robot teams, motor-heads and electronic music wizards to join us in a high secure and ultimately culture expanding project of world domination. I’ve talked about hackerspace here before and if you want to know more check out this information on hackerspace bylaws and lessons learned for more ideas on how this might be organized. Serious inquiries should fill out the form here you’ll be contacted. We’re looking for 4 to 6 more charter members who want to insure access to a huge space, convenient location, nice view of lake, high security and odd-ball friendly fellowship/support in your plans for world domination.

ATTN: We have interest!! All is good, keep ‘em coming!

The problem is fixed, and creating an account should work now. We apologize to those who were frustrated by this.

Unfortunately, there is no website for actually making the lights happen, but we did learn that it was going to be “quiet” going on “extremely quiet” each night she was here. But we learned a ton and had fun in the process.

First of all, we read up on the Aurora Borealis together – the Conservation Volunteer has a great article on the phenomenon, and how to catch it, in this month’s issue. That was night number one. On night number 2, we drove around Duluth’s residential neighborhoods after dark and took in the, er, leftover Christmas lights. Kind of festive, and after all my aunt was in the north (from the south) and they were lights.

As if that weren’t enough, on day number 3 we went to the Lake Superior Writers Open Memoir Group. One of the writers read a beautiful passage about northern lights and their reflection off the snow. On night number four, my husband and I recounted that amazing display of northern lights that were shockingly colorful right here in town. The reds (yes, there were reds!) blues and greens when on for what seemed like hours and we stood on the lawn with our neighbors taking them in. That was at a high point in the auroral cycle – at least six years ago judging by the age my daughter is now. We told her all this to entice her to come back. That is, watch the forecast, drop everything when the lights are gonna be good, and hop the next plane to Duluth.

So my ears naturally perked up when I heard that there was a huge solar flare that hit the earth at 9 this morning. And I was thinking of calling her back up here. The auroral forecast for northern Minnesota is  “extreme.” It was a beautiful clear day, but now that it is dark, the clouds have rolled in. Aurora. Not. Visible. 

I think I’m happy just knowing that in all likelihood the lights are dancing behind the cloudy curtain. See PRI’s coverage on Finland this evening by clicking here.

Bjørn Jørgensen Image taken: Jan. 22, 2012 Location: Grøtfjord close to Tromsø, North Norway

Also to listen to the effects, check out the software defined radio from Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The low and middle bands show the activity.

I recently got hosed big time by Go Daddy. My domain was up for renewal and instead of notifying me, they sold it. Now I have a new domain, but I lost my search engine standing (my old site was numbers 1,2 and 3 for a Google search of my name). Anyway, if you have a minute, give my new site a click and help a guy out. Thanks.

tim-kaiser.org

(1) Is there any way for a common man to take the good parts from the MacBook and update the iMac?

(2) Are there any other suggestions for the old iMac? Can we load some flavor of Linux on it for the web-savvy here at the Mission?

… but we think we’ve taken care of all of those issues now. Please let us know if you see the old colors popping up anywhere.

Also, let us know if you love or hate the change. If you love the change it will make us feel good. If you hate the change we will get all defensive and accuse you of having poor taste.