Source: Today I found out
Read more...
Almost all travelers have found themselves dealing with a little white lie about what they’re bringing back when filling out their customs form on the return trip home. We strongly advice our readers to adhere to all local laws and NEVER bring any banned item into a country, as there’s probably a dam good reason not to. Not all “smugglers” are equal, however, and sometimes the risks do outweigh the pay-off. Sure, the average traveler might consider sneaking some butter in from Wales or chilli’s from Peru, and they might not even know about certain restrictions, like Israel’s iPad ban, but every day some people try to get things far stranger through sometimes shady security and customs regulations at airports around the world.
Via: X Ray Tech
Read more...
Bosco Verticale is an ambitious eco project in Milan, designed by architect Stefano Boeri, which tries to blend two discrepant mediums, urban and nature, into one harmonic whole. The project is comprised of two towers with giant cantilevered staggered balconies that permit fairly big trees to be accommodate, since there is a minimum of two storeys over every balcony. Basically, it’s a vertical forest in the heart of a blooming metropolis.
There is a wide insufficiency of urban green spaces in cities worldwide, and so much could be obtained with just a tree for every small building. Boeri takes it to a whole new level, up that is, with great results.
The vertical forest will offer its residents, as well as the rest of Milan’s populace, a cleaner, greener life, as it will produce humidity and oxygen, absorb CO2 and dust particles, and protect from radiation and acoustic pollution.
The Bosco Verticale, composed of two residential towers of 110 and 76 meters height, is currently under construction in the centre of Milan, on the edge of the Isola neighbourhood, and will host 900 trees (each measuring 3, 6 or 9 m tall) , alongside a wide range of shrubs and flowers.
If the apartments would have been constructed individually, the entire project would require 50,000 square meters of land, and 10,000 square meters of woodland.
Plant irrigation will be made filtering and reuse of the grey waters produced by the building.
The two towers, upholding to its sustainable, renewable new age bran will also feature an array of other sustainable tech, like photovoltaic and aeolian energy systems.
The towers under construction in the heart of Milan.
Via: zmescience.com / All photos credits courtesy of Stephano Boeri
Read more...
Everyone makes mistakes, but that notion seems to go out the window anytime syntax is misused. If the wrong there, their, or they’re is used at the wrong time on the internet, prepare for every web user to attack your intelligence and attempt to obliterate your self-esteem.
I know, we all have our momentary lapses. But with the help of the infographic below, those lapses can come less frequently. It shines light on the usual culprits, such as the tricky it’s/its decision and affect versus effect. The infographic also shines light on how to properly use the apostrophe and the correct spellings of commonly misspelled words. A few words left off this list that I always had trouble with were definitely and sandwiches. What are some of your trouble words?
Like this infographic? Get more copywriting tips from Copyblogger.
Read more...
Kobasicijada is an international sausage festival organized annually in the village of Turija, Serbia. 28. festivals had been held as of 24 - 26 February, 2012; it is one of the biggest and most popular village festivals in Serbia. The festival is attended by tens of thousands of people every year.
Organisers of an annual sausage festival in the Serbian village of Turija today said they had made the world's longest sausage.
Twelve butchers used the meat of 30 pigs, 30 kilos of paprika, 30 kilos of chili, 122 kilos of salt and ten kilos of garlic to make a sausage 2028 metres (6653.5 feet) long.
They had been preparing the sausage for two days and two nights, but unfortunately, the representatives of the Guinness Book of World Records did not come to register the new world record for the longest sausage.
If you are a fan of sausage this is the opportunity to try, on one place, sausages prepared in various ways (fresh, smoked, baked, boiled) and to attend to create the world's longest sausage.
Every day from 8am to 5pm, sale of fresh, dried and roasted sausages and other meat products.
More pictures of the world’s longest sausage:
Read more...
The Academy Awards are, for the most part, an elegant and tightly controlled affair. But wacky things can and do happen sometimes -- and those are the moments viewers remember the most. So, in no particular order, here are our picks for the 10 most bizarre moments in the show's history.
10.
Photo By AP Images
You like Sally Field (1985): "Places in the Heart" earned Field her second best-actress Oscar -- the first came for 1979's "Norma Rae" -- but this one meant more to her, she said in her acceptance speech as she clutched the golden statue, giddy and beaming. This time, she said she finally felt the respect of her peers: "I can't deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!" It's a line that would be endlessly parodied -- and misquoted.
9.
Photo By AP Images
"Dances With Wolves" beats "Goodfellas" for best picture (1991): Ten years later, the Academy gets it wrong again, and Scorsese is on the losing end again. Sure, Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" is a sweeping epic, visually impressive in its enormity, but looking back it feels condescending and a little corny. "Goodfellas," meanwhile, is an example of Scorsese's virtuoso filmmaking at its finest -- funny, brash, evocative and always riveting. Scorsese eventually got his due, though, with Oscars for best picture and director for 2006's "The Departed."
8.
Photo By Everett Collection
"Ordinary People" beats "Raging Bull" for best picture (1981): Not so much a wacky moment but a befuddling one. How could the Academy get this one so wrong? In retrospect, Martin Scorsese's "Raging Bull" emerges as a small masterpiece, intimately powerful in black and white, gorgeous -- even its brutal violence. "Ordinary People," Robert Redford's directing debut, feels like a respectable and well-made if austere family drama. But that's not as bad as ...
7.
Photo By Eric Draper/AP Images
Roberto Benigni's seat climbing (1999): Speaking of acrobatics, there's Benigni. Ever the clown, the Italian actor and director couldn't just walk up on stage and give humble, teary-eyed thanks when his "Life Is Beautiful" won the Oscar for best foreign-language film. Instead, he leaped from one seat back to another, whipping the audience into a frenzy, before hopping up the steps and giving presenter Sophia Loren a long, tight bear hug. ("Life Is Beautiful" also earned a best-actor Oscar for Benigni and one for its original score.)
6.
Photo By Craig Fuji/AP Images
Jack Palance's one-armed push-ups (1992): Palance already had been nominated for an Oscar twice before, both for best supporting actor, for 1952's "Sudden Fear" and 1953's "Shane." Four decades later, when he finally won the award for the comedy "City Slickers," he proved he was just as virile as ever at 72. In the middle of a raunchy acceptance speech, in which he was explaining how reluctant producers can be to cast older actors, Palance stepped away from the podium, dropped to the stage and did a series of one-armed push-ups. Who wouldn't hire him?
5.
Photo By Kevin Mazur/WireImage
Bjork's swan dress (2001): Being notoriously daring and different as she is, Bjork dazzled and bedeviled everyone when she showed up at the planet's most-watched red carpet in a white, fluffy gown with a swan's head draped around her neck. (The Icelandic singer and actress was nominated for best original song for "I've Seen It All" from Lars von Trier's "Dancer in the Dark.") It is arguably the most famous outfit ever worn to the Oscars. It inspired many a Halloween costume.
4.
Photo By Reed Saxon/AP Images
Rob Lowe's duet with Snow White (1989): Allan Carr injected an element of high camp when he took over as producer of the Academy Awards. He was, after all, the man behind such splashy movie musicals as "Grease" and "Can't Stop the Music," and he won a Tony for the Broadway hit "La Cage aux Folles." But his Oscar ceremony is considered one of the biggest flops in the show's history. It included a 20-minute opening dance number with a squeaky-voiced Snow White-lookalike singing "Proud Mary" with Lowe, who was just getting over a lewd videotape scandal. Just try and watch it without cringing.
3.
Photo By Everett Collection
Marlon Brando sends Sacheen Littlefeather on stage (1973): Brando won best actor for his iconic portrayal of Don Corleone in "The Godfather." But he refused to accept the award, and instead sent a woman who said she was an Apache named Sacheen Littlefeather to speak on his behalf. Brando was protesting what he believed to be stereotypical treatment of Native Americans in the film industry. Littlefeather's speech drew a mixture of applause and boos, as well as questions about whether she was truly a Native American herself.
2.
Photo By Everett Collection
The streaker (1974): Just as host David Niven was about to introduce Elizabeth Taylor, a naked man came running across the stage behind him, flashing a peace sign. (It was the '70s.) The whole place naturally went wild with laughter, but Niven, being the epitome of British class and cool, didn't miss a beat. He deadpanned: "Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen. But isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"
1.
Photo By Steve Granitz/WireImage
The "South Park" guys show up in drag (2000): Trey Parker and Matt Stone arrived to support the feature film version of their animated series, "South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut," which earned Parker and Marc Shaiman an original-song nomination for the jaunty "Blame Canada." But they couldn't just wear tuxes like everyone else. Since they've made a career out of skewering celebrities, Stone donned a replica of the pink gown Gwyneth Paltrow wore a year earlier when she won best actress for "Shakespeare in Love," while Parker wore a knock-off of the plunging green Versace number Jennifer Lopez famously filled out at the Grammys. So much chest hair ... and so hilarious.
Source: movies.yahoo.com
Read more...
The world is full of amazing locations and some are simply too good for commonly mundane names. Below is a list of places that have drifted far from the economy of words and have instead hung their hat on sheer length.
1. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu (85 letters)
- Short-forms: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu (57 letters)
- Location: A hill on North Island, New Zealand
- Language: Māori
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is the Māori name for a hill, 305 metres (1,001 ft) high, close to Porangahau, south of Waipukurau in southern Hawke's Bay, New Zealand.
The name is often shortened to Taumata by the locals for ease of conversation. The New Zealand Geographic Placenames Database, maintained by Land Information New Zealand (LINZ), records the name as "Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu". It has gained a measure of fame as it is the longest place-name found in any English-speaking country, and it is the second longest place-name in the world, according to Wises New Zealand Guide and reported in the New Zealand Herald.
2. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantys-iliogogogoch (58 letters)
- Short-forms: Llanfairpwllgwyngyll (20 letters)
- Location: a village in Anglesey, Wales, United Kingdom
- Language: Welsh
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a large village and community on the island of Anglesey in Wales, situated on the Menai Strait next to the Britannia Bridge and across the strait from Bangor. This village has the longest place name in Europe and one of the longest place names in the world. The short form of the village's name is Llanfairpwllgwyngyll, also spelled Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll. It is commonly known as Llanfair PG or Llanfairpwll.
3. Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagung-amaugg (45 letters)
- Short-forms: Lake Chaubunagungamaug (17 letters)
- Location: a lake in Massachusetts, United States
- Language: Nipmuc
Lake Chaubunagungamaug, also known as Webster Lake, is a lake in the town of Webster, Massachusetts, United States. It is located near the Connecticut border and has a surface area of 1,442 acres (5.84 km2).
4. Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein (44 letters)
- Location: South Africa
- Language: Afrikaans
Tweebuffelsmeteenskootmorsdoodgeskietfontein is a farm in the North West province of South Africa, located about 200 km west of Pretoria and 20 km east of Lichtenburg whose 44-character name has entered South African folklore in much the same way that Llanfairpwllgwyngyll-gogerychwyrndrobwll-llantysilio-gogogoch railway station has entered British folklore. The name was used as the title for an Afrikaans lyric written by Fanus Rautenbach and performed by Anton Goosen.
5. Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä (35 letters)
- Location: Lapland, Finland
- Language: Finnish (northern dialect)
Äteritsiputeritsipuolilautatsijänkä is a bog region in Savukoski, Lapland in Finland. The name is 35 letters long and is the longest place name in Finland.
6. Pekwachnamaykoskwaskwaypinwanik (31 letters)
- Location: a lake in Manitoba and Nunavut, Canada
- Language: Inuktitut
Pekwachnamaykoskwaskwaypinwanik Lake is a lake of Manitoba. The name is Cree for "where the wild trout are caught by fishing with hooks." It is the longest place name in Canada at 31 letters long.
7. Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta (28 letters)
- Location: a village in Andhra Pradesh, India
- Language: Telugu
Venkatanarasimharajuvaripeta or Venkatanarasimha Rajuvaripet is a railway station in Andhra Pradesh on the border with Tamil Nadu, India with the distinction of having the longest name among all stations on the Indian Railway system. It is on the Renigunta-Arakkonam section of Southern Railway.
8. Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya (26 letters)
- Location: a hill in South Australia, Australia
- Language: Pitjantjatjara
Mamungkukumpurangkuntjunya Hill is a hill in South Australia. The name means "where the devil urinates" in the regional Pitjantjatjara language. It is the longest official place name in Australia.
Source: Wikipedia.org
Read more...
Here are the top 10 most pirated movies of all time according to TorrentFreak. Thousands of illegal movies are downloaded everyday via Bittorrent or other peer-to-peer (P2P) communications protocol for file sharing but ever wonder what movies where downloaded the most? Although the the top 10 movies have been downloaded millions of times they have also done very well in the box-office. The data that was collected to create the list on TorrentFreak are from public BitTorrent trackers dating back from 2006. I would suggest movie-lovers to stick to Blockbuster total access or Netflix for all your online movie needs but if your wondering what to watch, the infographic might point you in the right direction. (Data was gathered from TorrentFreak).
Meoble – Free Trials | Premium Offers
Read more...
It is true that many of the traditions surrounding Valentine’s Day and similar holidays worldwide are directly linked to consumer industries scheming up ways to build business. And it’s clear from the US spending statistics that silly as some people may find it, Valentine’s Day is no laughing matter when it comes to the flower and candy industries. However, it’s interesting to see different ways this looks across the globe, and to explore some of the deeper legend and history behind it.
Overall, I think giving is a good thing, as long as you keep it within reason, and don’t get too caught up in the consumer hype surrounding holidays like this. Check out this infographic to learn a little bit more about just how complex the construction of Valentine’s Day really is.
Source: frugaldad.com, damncoolpictures.com
Read more...
We humans are builders. One of the ways we leave a mark on the universe is by creating massive structures that show that some opposable digits have been here. So when things get tough, like due to an economic meltdown or a cascading environmental crisis, what can we do but build?
Here are 10 massive engineering projects — some pretty real, some quite fanciful — that could help turn our economic and environmental crises around.
10. Renewable Energy
Let's start with a super obvious one — according to Bloomberg News, 2011 marked the first time that investment in renewable energy was greater than investment in fossil fuels: $187 billion versus $157 billion. The cost of solar energy is dropping rapidly, but even with a loss for the most recent quarter and a trade complaint, the Motley Fool still praised Chinese solar power company Yingli Green Energy as a solid investment. At a time when global investment is down in general, investment in solar and wind power is soaring, and could be the key to reducing CO2 emissions before we reach another point of no return.
9. Masdar City
As we wrote back in 2008, Abu Dhabi plans to build the world's first carbon-neutral city over 10 years, near the Abu Dhabi airport. According to NPR, the city would use shade and Northeast-facing buildings to reduce the need for air conditioning, and cars would be banned within the city limits. Instead, solar-powered vehicles would navigate within the city. And 80 percent of water will be recycled. And all human waste will be "repurposed" and used as energy. Shaikh Zayed, founding father of the United Arab Emirates, describes Masdar City as a way to move past a dependency on oil for the region's fortunes.
8. The Desert Aquanet
The Shimizu Corporation has proposed to create a matrix of artificial and interconnected seawater lakes in the desert, each with an artificial island in its center for farming and city construction. Theoretically, the lakes would cool the air above each island, making the land arable (after desalination) and the adjacent territory livable for humans. It's unknown what effects the lakes may have on global weather patterns or, even the potential fallout of the lakes themselves — but first the project would have to get past the biggest hurdle of them all: the question of sovereignty.
7. AMFORA
Architect Moshé Zwarts wants to build an underwater city beneath Amsterdam. And Zwarts says it isn't as ludicrous as it sounds: "It is both feasible and sustainable, creating a city beneath the city is not futuristic, it is a necessity in this day and age." Zwarts says they could drill under the city without disturbing the existing street traffic or causing any construction noise, once they had resealed the canals overhead. "Amsterdam sits on a 30-metre layer of waterproof clay which will be used together with concrete and sand to make new walls." And once construction was finished, AMFORA would be carbon-neutral, because heat pumps would provide the energy for heating and cooling, and excess energy would be used for temperature control in buildings aboveground. Some question, though, whether what Amsterdam really needs is more parking and shopping.
6. Geothermal Power Plants.
California start-up company Simbol Materials believes they can extract lithium, zinc and manganese from the brine produced by geothermal power plants, potentially producing the world's purest and lowest costing lithium on the market. As demand for lithium batteries skyrockets, this could be the cleanest and most potentially profitable way to satisfy all that demand. Simbol already has a plant that filters 20 gallons a minute. And a commercial plant, being built in 2012 near the Salton Sea, will have the capacity to generate 16,000 tons of lithium carbonate per year. By 2020, Simbol plans to triple production.
5. Megacity Pyramids
Another absurdly ambitious project from the Shimizu Corporation: a three-mile-long pyramid, 14 times higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza (made from 204 smaller pyramids) capable of housing 750,000 people on Tokyo Bay. Inspired by the Tyrell Corporation in Blade Runner, the lightweight carbon fiber pyramid would boast research facilities, shopping centers, private homes and restaurants. The businesses and residences would be powered by solar power, wind power, and even algae/pond scum. This pyramid is apparently already in development.
4. Seasteading Arcologies
In recent years, cutting-edge design gurus have proposed combining two old trends: the arcology, a self-contained monolithic city, and seasteading. Floating, self-sufficient arcologies have been proposed in places like Boston and San Francisco, but perhaps the most famous is the New Orleans Arcology Habitat, or NOAH. Among other things, the structure is intended to be sustainable, using "secured wind turbines, fresh water recovery and storage systems, passive glazing system, sky garden heating/cooling vents, grey water treatment, solar array banding panels, and river based water turbines." There would be internal electrical transport systems, both vertical and horizontal, eliminating the need for cars within the structure.
3. Coral Venice
Dr. Rachel Armstrong believes it's possible to create chemically engineered building materials in the form of synthetic limestone reefs. Created from protocells, fatty bags of DNA that move and react like living organisms, her buildings would grow, self-repair and respond to environmental pressures just as if they were living creatures. Armstrong believes that future architecture should be connected to the natural world, and communicate with nature. If that's not cool enough, Armstrong's technology could theoretically save Venice, Italy from sinking by lifting it from the ocean. (Top image: Mitchell Joachim. TERREFORM1: BlimpBumperBus, via Archimorph)
2. The Space Elevator
This is probably our best hope for colonizing space — an elevator that could lift tons of material off our planet. As we explained back in February:
Because the space elevator pulls cargo out of our gravity well, rather than pushing it using combustion, it would save a lot of energy and be capable of bringing far more materials offworld quickly. It would also be sustainable, making one or more runs per day. That it's reusable already makes it many thousands of times cheaper than the one-time-use Soyuz rockets that bring supplies to the International Space Station, only to destroy themselves in Earth's atmosphere.
A single Space Shuttle launch cost $450 million, but the space elevator could be much cheaper and much more energy-efficient. We attended a conference about space elevators in November, where people were talking seriously about how to make this ambitious project work.
1. Lunar Ring:
One more cool idea from the Shimizu Corporation. Shimizu's website describes a "masterplan" to place a belt of solar panels along the moon's equator, spanning an awesome 11,000 miles in length. A power conversion facility built on the moon (by robots!) would relay stored energy back to Earth through microwaves, later reconverting them to electricity at a power plant on Earth. Though only in the planning
stages, Shimizu's theoretical ring may ultimately suffer severe degradation from radiation and meteor showers, and technically no one is certain what the effects of such a massive beam of microwaves would have on the environment and wildlife (possibly none), but the idea of a robot-manned lunar ring around the moon would be too cool (and beneficial!) to pass up.
Article By: Charlie Jane Anders and Gordon Jackson, io9.com
Read more...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
