Courtesy of Mr. Blass- Already drawing the crowds in the South American resort of San Alfonso del Mar in Chile, this artificial lagoon and swimming pool is eight hectares in size and contains an incredible 250,000 cubic metres of water. Acknowledged by Guinness World Records as being the world’s largest swimming pool, the lagoon trounces all other record holders in the category, including the Orthlieb pool in Casablanca, Morocco, itself a huge 150 metres by 100 metres – the San Alfonso pool is 1km in length. The revolutionary clear water artificial lagoons, transparent to a depth of 35 metres and unprecedented in design and construction methods, are the brainchild of Crystal Lagoons founder, biochemist and Chilean businessman Fernando Fischmann. Equivalent in size to an incredible 6,000 standard domestic pools, details of its technology are to be unveiled for the first time at Cityscape Dubai later this month.
this controversial 326 metre high elevator takes you up the side of one of the many enormous cliffs in zhangjiajie, china - the lower 1/3 running from a cavern through the rock, the top 2/3 rising outside to the summit - and is the highest and heaviest outdoor elevator in the world. the elevator has an uncertain future due to the potential harm caused to the surrounding landscape.
The gates have been lifted! The restrictions unrestriced! I can finally talk and about my new job (only kinda sorta about time, considering I've been on the Bobby Fischer plan the last 5 weeks), and I'm psyched. Believe it or not, the worldwide leader in sports (ESPN) has hired the worldwide leader in nonsense (ME) to follow Monday Night Football around the country, making short videos in every city we visit. And before you ask, YES, the job is as fun as it sounds...and no, I don't know what they were thinking. Right now I'm in New Orleans for the Titans/Saints game Monday, then it's on to Cincinnati (home of cornholing!) for Pats/Bengals. with VideoGate cooling and the Pats on fire I anticipate raising quite a ruckus in the Queen City.
Seriously...Brady to Moss all day, all day, all night.
So be on the lookout for 3-4 new videos from a new Monday Night Football city every week, mixed in with the occasional Wicked Pissah Webcast, random commentary and whatever else I can do, seeing as sleep has officially been ruled out of my fall schedule. To view the videos elsewhere just go to ESPN.COM, click on the "Video" section, and under "ESPN Collections" you'll see Fitzy's Monday Night Mania (somehow I couldn't get the suits to go for Fitzy's Monday Night GFY Party).
Go Sox! Go Pats! GFY!
With a life that's Entirely Sports and Purely Nonsense,
Fitzy
This is first Video for ESPN:
Tailgating With the Saints Fans Down In New Orleans
For all of those out that is a FItzy Fan: he has three Videos, from the Monday Night Game this week, Bengals vs. Pats
The Hype Report dynamically tracks companies and executives that have been blogged about in the past 72 hours. Those who've appeared most frequently in the blogosphere appear under Leaders. Those with the highest percentage gain in the previous 24 hours appear under Gainers.
Here, then, is a guide to what happens during a typical Google search—now, of course, with automatic spell-check.
1. Query Box It all starts with somebody typing in a request for information about the safest dog food, what time the D.M.V. closes, or what the prime rate is in China.
2. Domain-Name Servers “Hello, this is your operator . . . ” The software for Google’s domain-name servers runs on computers in leased or company-owned data centers all over the world, including one in the old Port Authority headquarters in Manhattan. Their sole purpose is to shepherd searches into one of Google’s clusters as efficiently as possible, taking into account which clusters are nearest to the searcher and which are least busy at that instant.
3. The Cluster The request continues into one of at least 200 clusters, which sit in Google-owned data centers worldwide.
4. Google Web Server This program splits a query among hundreds or thousands of machines so that they can all work on it at the same time. It’s the difference between doing your grocery shopping all by yourself and having 100 people simultaneously find one item and toss it into your cart.
5. Index Server Everything Google knows is stored in a massive database. But rather than waiting for one computer to sift through those gigabytes of data, Google has hundreds of computers scan its “card catalog” at the same time to find every relevant entry. Popular searches are cached—held in memory—for a few hours rather than run all over again. That means you, Britney.
6. Document Server After the index server compiles its results, the document server pulls all the relevant documents—the links and snippets of text from its massive database. How does Google search the Web so quickly? It doesn’t. It keeps three copies of all the information from the internet that it has indexed in its own document servers, and all those data have already been prepped and sorte
There's high mileage, and then there's this. A 1995 Honda Civic is for sale in Atlanta with, count 'em, 939,899 miles. That's 200+ miles a day. Every day. Including Sundays. For 12 years. It even has a Carfax report from when the car had 907,000 miles on it. According to the seller, the car runs like new, with no leaks, no noises, no oil burning, and not even a scratch on the body. In fact, the only blemish listed is that one of the dashboard lights doesn't work, and that's only sometimes.
The car is on its ninth timing belt, ninth water pump, and fourth clutch. But the engine and transmission are original, as are the floor mats. The car even comes with records. The most incredible thing isn't the mileage, though. It's how the owner put the miles on the car: driving on business trips from Atlanta... to Seattle... and San Francisco. We want to know what kind of business -- or what kind of boss -- makes a guy drive across the country and back, and then some, every single month for 12 straight years.
To paraphrase The Proclaimers, if you buy this car then you can drive a million miles and you can drive a million more...
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The Pig Roaster loves the '98 Civic he drives every day - its a no frills car, but it gets the job done with nary a complaint. Granted, I have nowhere near a million miles, but I plan on running it that long if I can!
All that crud on your system is slowing it down and, likely as not, producing mysterious problems. Here are some great tools you can use to take out the trash!
What motivates humankind to burrow deep into the Earth? From London to Paris, Budapest to Moscow, the USA to Australia, here are seven of the most amazing examples in the world. Some were built for military defense or shelter, many are abandoned while others thrive. These amazing images feature tunnels, caverns, labyrinths from seven underground location around the world.
NFL- Besides Favre breaking the all time touchdown record from Mr. Dan "Laces Out" Marino. the Biggest highlight has to be Donovan McNabb being sacked 12 times IN ONE GAME> That's like three or four years worth of sacks for Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. No wonder he's always throwing up and eating beef stew.
P.S. what are the odds San Diego even makes the playoffs right now. Colonel Sanders here and KC beat them down to 1-3. A tough tough climb. I don't think they can do it in that division.
MLB-- oh my goodness the METS. A Choke of epic proportions. At least that gets 1978 off the backs of Red Sox fans. One good thing about negative history, someone else can always come along and be worse-
Sox apparently brought the party to Game ON! hardcore last night after they clinched the division. Pretty cool to see everybody hanging out with the fans and getting trashed. I love how Coco was all business.
The iGroove HG is a true two-way system that employs dual 2.5-inch woofers, crossovers and dual 1-inch MicroTractrix Horn-loaded tweeters. It is the only speaker system in this category utilizing horn technology, a design that reproduces genuine, lifelike sound as well as produce more output using less energy.
Operators of Paul Brown Stadium want permission from the city to kill birds that have been pooping on Bengals fans.
Pigeon droppings have been falling on patrons and into their food and beverages, according to a letter to the city from Eric Brown, managing director of Paul Brown Stadium Ltd., which runs the stadium for Hamilton County, which owns it.
He asked in his letter that stadium employees who are familiar with firearms be allowed to shoot birds a few days prior to an event, adding that company officials believe the shooting to be a “cost-effective way to get this problem under control.”
City officials are working with stadium officials on both the legalities of killing the birds as well as the means by which they might be killed, said city spokeswoman Meg Olberding.
The bird issue becomes public just as Cincinnati is preparing to again be center stage as the home of a Monday Night Football game. Mayor Mark Mallory is touting the game as a way to highlight the positives of Cincinnati, asking employers to encourage their workers to wear orange and black Monday. Downtown office buildings will be lit up, and 17 downtown restaurants promise food and drink specials.
The bird problem solved itself initially, with fan noise on game days driving the birds away, said Bob Bedinghaus, the Bengals’ director of development. But the birds apparently have adapted. In fact, pigeon poop has become such a big problem around the National Football League, he said, that officials have discussed it at league meetings and stadium management meetings.
"Like every other big building in the city, pigeons make their way to our building,” Bedinghaus said Thursday. “In three of the four corners of the club level, they land and are an irritant during the week. We have to clean up a lot of bird poop. We’re looking for options to rid ourselves of these little critters.”
Brown, in his letter, wrote that any shooting “would be done discreetly during times when there is little activity in the stadium.”
Cincinnati’s municipal code, Sec. 701-15, says no person shall kill, wound, maim or injure any bird. But that doesn’t apply to any city employee or officer acting in accordance with another statute, Sec. 701-17, which says when birds and animals create a nuisance, the city manager is authorized “to use all necessary means” to destroy the nuisance-creators.
Brown’s letter said the bird carcasses would be placed in black plastic bags and deposited into the stadium’s trash compactor.
Several fans who sit in the club (middle) level have complained to the Bengals about getting hit with poop, Bedinghaus said. The birds land on “innumerable” pipes and beams in the stadium canopy - and in the corners of the stadium, the canopy hangs over the seating bowl of the club level.
Other solutions being investigated, he said, include strobe lights, noise makers (which can’t be used during games) prickly coverings for horizontal surfaces, fake owls and netting.
archguide - excellent, attractive site catalogs many websites related to architecture. Categories include organizations, jobs, law, services and materials
Sapling.org - UK-based architecture, planning. landscape information gateway
ARCAT - tons of links. Great place to find anybody who is anybody in the AEC World.
Built in America - Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) and the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the US and its territories
Great Buildings Online - architecture from Stonehenge to Fallingwater, around the world and across history, with images, drawings and 3D models
architecture.com - London-based site includes the searchable Royal Institute of British Architects library catalog containing more than 150,000 articles
Googie Architecture Online - stylish site with news, articles and a gallery of images that capture the ultra-modern era of giant tailfins, tiki gods, boomerang shapes and the promise of Tomorrowland
architectureasia.com - includes links to over 800 architecture, design and construction Websites from 21 South, North and East Asian countries, plus Australia and New Zealand
building environments - a visual delight, abounds with interiors of offices, homes, museums, schools and more, with furnishings and details, many inspirational projects
Recommended
e-interiors.net - catalog of of the main international furnishing companies, a valuable reference for architects, designers and those interested in interior design
Gain control over your entertainment experience. With Beyond TV, you determine what you want to watch and when you want to watch it. With incredible features and extensive setting options, TV is under your control.
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MIT's known for pranks, or hacks, against rival school Harvard (and sometimes even on their own campus). Their latest hack today enhances the John P. Harvard statue with a battle-ready Master Chief Spartan helmet and assault rifle (with a bullet count of 2E) in honor of Halo day. Other notable, and perhaps more difficult, hacks include assembling a painted MIT Campus Police car on top of their great dome, assembling a MIT Fire Department truck on their great dome, and a gigantic Triforce on top of the great dome. If they somehow got the Harvard Master Chief statue on top of their great dome, we'd declare this the best hack ever.
This photo was taken at a competition in June 2006. The competition was between 9 women for best makeover. They had every possible beauty treatment available to them over a period of 12 hours before the contest.
Look at the before and after photos. Conclusion - There are no ugly women, only those who can't afford a makeover. More...
25Sep07 here are some examples of vehicle cemeteries around the world, areas on earth that have unwittingly become the home to rusting, unused machines - remember, this is just a selection of the many boneyards on earth and while they often look stunning and make for a great photo, the environmental costs far outweigh the view.
(photos found on flickr link to source)
- ships
bay of nouadhibou, mauritania
welcome to the bay of nouadhibou, mauritania, an area containing over 300 ships which have been abandoned during the last 20 years.
until recently the attraction of this particular area for frustrated boat owners was, unsurprisingly, money. in order to avoid the high costs needed to discard a ship properly, people from all around the globe slowly realised that the harbour authority in this particular bay was corrupt and would turn a blind eye to any decaying vessel in return for a cheeky backhander.
the result can be seen below. it’s a surreal, haunting image. there’s an unembeddable clip of some of the dead ships here.
i found this brilliant photo on flickr (click pic to go source) and, according to the description, once a piece of mining equipment or a mining vehicle enters the consolidated diamond mine in oranjemund, namibia, it’s never allowed to leave. for that reason there’s a huge vehicle graveyard near the mine. considering the mine apparently owns the largest private earthmoving fleet in the world, that must be a huge boneyard.
i’ve had a look on google maps for the boneyard but the area is massive. the picture below is of a collection of machinery i found - whether it’s the correct collection i don’t know. take a look on google maps here.
- planes
amarc/the boneyard, tuscon, arizona
home to over 4000 aircraft, amarc (aerospace maintenance and regeneration center) is managed by the us airforce material command who claim to carry out ‘a continual process of anti-corrosion and re-preservation work’ in order to stop the unused aircraft damaging the surrounding environment. whether that’s the case or not, i don’t know.
either way, it’s an immense amount of aircraft in such a relatively small area.
a kilometre outside the town of uyuni in bolivia is the train cemetery, a resting place for dozens of old steam engines along a short length of unused track. pretty much all of the trains are comlpetely covered in rust and way beyond any kind of repair, the eerie sight attracting a large number of tourists each year who have come to the area to see the world’s largest salt flats (salar de uyuni) and a few locals on the hunt for scrap metal.
following the cold war, russia is now home to the largest fleet of nuclear-propelled submarines in the world, a large percentage of these currently out of service and residing in harbours on the eastern coast of russia in various states of decay, the main reason for the neglect apparently being lack of funds. these areas have become known as the ’submarine cemeteries’.
here are some photos from just a couple of these harbours.
zvezda
above: 2 unused submarines at zvezda shipyard.
below: a similar scene on google maps. direct link here.
chazma bay
above: submarine reactor compartment units floating in chazma bay.
Boy survives two-hour flight to Moscow hanging onto plane wing
20:56
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24/ 09/ 2007
MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - A 15-year-old boy from the Urals suffered acute frostbite after riding the wing of a Boeing-737 plane on a two-hour flight from Perm to Moscow, Russian radio station Mayak reported on Monday.
After clinging on for the entire 1300-kilometer (808-mile) flight to Vnukova Airport, the boy, named Andrei, collapsed onto the tarmac. His arms and legs were so severely frozen that rescuers were at first unable to remove his coat and shoes, the radio station said.
The airport did not confirm the report. "We have no information on this," the Vnukovo press service told RIA Novosti.
However, Moscow's air and water transport control department said the radio's claim was true. A department spokesman said the incident occurred on Friday, and that the boy's parents were immediately informed, and flew to the capital the same day.
Doctors said it was nothing short of a miracle that Andrei survived the flight, with temperatures hitting minus 50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit), the radio station said. The Boeing-737 has a cruising speed of 900 kmh (560 mph).
The boy reportedly made the journey after a commonplace domestic dispute. Angry with his father, who reportedly has a drinking problem, and with his mother for siding with her husband in family rows, Andrei ran away to the neighboring village, where his grandmother lives. On reaching the village, he decided to go on, and hitched a 220-km (137-mile) ride to the regional center, Perm, where he was dropped off at the airport.
It remains unclear how Andrei was able to climb on a plane wing un-noticed, and the Perm Airport security service is being asked some serious questions, the radio station said.
Andrei is now being treated in a Moscow hospital, Radio Mayak said.
To help prevent the risk of fraudulent charges, simply open an additional checking account at your bank. You simply have one for direct deposit and checks and the other for ATM and debit transactions. Simply transfer in the amount of money you see fit to your debit account while leaving the main account safe.
That way if your debit account is compromised and charges result, your existing checking account balance is not impacted in the time between filing a fraud complaint and and a credit being issued to your account.
Especially useful while travelling or on vacation.
Salmonella bacteria grown on the space shuttle displayed unusual genetic activity, becoming much more virulent.A new study shows that its effects on microorganisms may be just as dramatic: Salmonella grown onboard the space shuttle was many times deadlier than its terrestrial counterparts. The study suggests that NASA and other space agencies may need to worry that long manned missions will increase the virulence of microorganisms that astronauts inevitably carry with them. It has also given microbiologists insights into Salmonella that may lead to new therapies for infections on Earth.
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All you art collectors out there. Here is a chance to get a Giclee copy of some of Ian M Sherwin work. Ian is planning on doing a whole series of Marblehead, Massachusetts paintings. His work is amazing.
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