The Tallest Abandoned Structures on Earth

from: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/

Image via English Russia

Today, we’re going to do some urban exploring as we’re searching for the tallest abandoned structures around the world. We’re going to visit Russia, North Korea, the US and Poland on our quest for the rustiest. Once found, we’re going to climb the towers and buildings so make sure you leave your vertigo behind…

1. Ostankino Tower, Moscow – 540 m (1772 ft)

The Ostankino Tower was completed in 1967 to mark the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was the first free-standing structure to exceed 500 m (1640 ft) and held that title for nine years until it was surpassed by the CN Tower in Toronto in 1976. The Ostankino Tower is named after the Moscow district in which it is located.

The Ostankino Tower in all its glory…

Image via English Russia

…during the fire in 2000…

Image: Elke Wetzig

It served telecommunication, observation and tourism purposes until it caught fire in August of 2000 when most of the tower’s interior was destroyed. Rebuilding the heavily damaged tower proved a long and costly task, so that both the tower and the idea of renovation have been abandoned ever since.

… and a stomach-churning view down during construction:

Image via English Russia

2. Ryugyong Hotel, North Korea – 105 floors, 330 m (1,100 ft)

The Ryugyong Hotel was named after the historic name for Pyongyang, “capital of willows”, the district it can be found in. Unlike a willow and more like a pyramid that would be every skater’s dream, it towers over the city of Sojang-dong; the whole country in fact. Construction of the ambitious project began in 1987 as a response to Singapore’s Westin Stamford hotel built by a South Korean company the previous year.

Not yet under construction in June 2007:

Image: Timur

Construction went on for five years but ceased due to lack of funds, electricity and building materials. It was abandoned for 16 years, but construction resumed in 2008 and the hotel is now being readied to open its doors in 2012 for the 100th anniversary of Kim II Sung’s birth. With 360,000 sq m (3,900,000 sq ft) of floor space and 105 stories, it would be the world’s tallest hotel. It is currently the world’s 28th tallest building.

Something’s going on – in February 2009:

Image: Myouzke

3. Mystery Tower, somewhere in Russia – around 300 m (1,000 ft)

The next tower is one of Russia’s tallest abandoned structures but that’s pretty much all we know about it. It certainly looks like a TV or radio tower and someone without vertigo has made the climb up those icy steps to snap some dizzying pics.

Where do you even hold on?

Image via English Russia

The tower when it’s not frozen over:

Image via English Russia

4. PacBell Building, San Francisco – 26 floors, 133 m (435 ft)

Though almost 200 m shorter than the previous structure, the PacBell Building in San Francisco’s South of Market district can claim to be the world’s tallest abandoned skyscraper. It was completed in 1925 and housed the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph company, which is why it was called Pacific Telephone Building at first. Part of the Bell System, the company had bell motifs chiseled into its façade.

The PacBell Building rises behind SF’s MoMA:

Image: Christopher Beland

Renamed PacBell Building after the breakup of the two big phone companies, the Neo-Gothic office tower was sold to investor William Meany Sullivan and Stockbridge Capital Partners in 2007 at the recession price of $118 million. Though a request for a building permit was made in December 2008, no redevelopment has started yet.

Faded glory – the auditorium’s waiting room on the 26th floor in sunset glow:

Image: Jonathan Haeber

The PacBell eagles have kept a watch since 1925:

Image: Jonathan Haeber

5. Gliwice Radio Tower, Poland – 118 m (385 ft)

Radio Station Gliwice’s tower might not be the tallest abandoned structure mentioned here, but it has two records to its name: It is the only remaining radio tower constructed of wood in the world and the tallest wooden construction on earth.

The radio tower today:

Image: Tonkow1993

But that’s not all. The tower was completed in 1935 and with the impending Second World War, had a bit of a tumultuous history. It was used by the Nazis for broadcasting as Gliwice was a Prussian province until 1945 and therefore belonged to Germany. The Nazis even staged an attack on it by Polish soldiers as one of various border incidents on the night of August 31st, 1939 – an excuse for their invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939 – a move that would start WWII, 70 years ago almost to the day.

Looking up at the wooden construction:

Image: Andrzej Jarczewski

The radio tower, nicknamed Silesian Eiffel Tower for some resemblance in construction to its famous Parisian cousin, was used until the 1980s. Though not in service any more, the tower has served as a museum since 2005. Most other wooden radio towers, popular in the ‘30s, disappeared by the ‘50s.

6. Broderick Tower, Detroit – 35 floors, 113m (369 ft)

The David Broderick Tower in Detroit, Michigan is a Neo-classical and Beaux-Arts limestone skyscraper completed in 1928. It was commissioned by Theodore Eaton, an importer and trader in chemicals and dyes, and was initially known as the Eaton Tower.

The Broderick Tower with a whale mural by local artist Wyland painted in 1997:

Image: Aaron Barth

The building was bought by David Broderick, an insurance broker, in 1945. Since Broderick’s death in 1957, the tower has changed ownership many times and closed completely in the 1980s. Except for bars or restaurants occupying the first floor, the building has been abandoned ever since. However, redevelopment has been underway and the tower is set to reopen in early 2010. Planned is a mall on the first four floors, office space on the two floors above and residential apartments on floors 5 through 34.

A view from the 17th floor down:

Image: Aaron Barth

A view from Broderick’s once exclusive Sky Top Club on the 33rd floor:

Image: Aaron Barth

Who would’ve thought that so many amazing towers and buildings would just get abandoned? If only we could put all that wasted space to use for where it is needed. Some of the buildings portrayed here are already under new contract while the others will have to crumble, er, fend for themselves.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Not Photoshopped: Just Incredible Forced Perspective Photography

Wed, Sep 9, 2009

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Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.

Photo: abmiller99

From Gulliver’s Travels to Alice in Wonderland, the idea of people shrinking and growing has proven endlessly fascinating. What if, we wonder, we were that big or that small? Then along came mass produced cameras, and easy as eating a cake that says “EAT ME”, the more adroit shooters among us were able to realise just such size-shifting exploits – or at least the illusion of having done so. Places around the globe provide backdrops for these fine examples of forced perspective.

Size is everything – or nothing: Salar de Uyuni

Photo: abmiller99

Bolivia’s Salar De Uyuni is a particularly conducive environment for photographers keen to test out their perspective-bending skills. The vast, expansive landscapes of the world’s largest salt plains have few features to shatter the illusion of big objects appearing small or small objects big.

Scots bonsai: Carrot Hill, Scotland

Photo: stuant63

Taken in the Angus area of Scotland, this photo shows that with an isolated tree, a bit of imagination, and no little skill, you can pull the wool over the eyes of human perception. It’s all about the way scaled objects are made to relate to one another and the viewer’s vantage point.

Gobbling a hot dog: Kennedy Space Center

Photo: toastforbrekkie

This next pic could be construed as being be a little on the lewd side, but that’s up to you. The Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida is the launch pad for the visual gag. It’s a good job Space Shuttle Discovery’s STS-121 Mission to the International Space Station wasn’t launched when the photo was taken.

This could be painful: Cape Canaveral

Photo: Lorenia

What is it about Kennedy Space Centre and high jinks with forced perspective? The flat background broken only by the instruments of space launches obviously inspires some people. This photo of a guy doing a good impersonation of a cheerleader even made it onto Japanese TV. Who’d have thought it?

We are not amused: Peggy’s Cove

Photo: lifecreations

Nova Scotia’s Peggy’s Cove provides the setting for this next addition to our list. This small rural community is nevertheless a busy tourist attraction, and its classic red-and-white lighthouse is major focal point for visitors carrying cameras. Believe it or not, it’s almost 15 metres (50 ft) high.

Think big, be big: The Eiffel Tower

Photo: ~Thanh

This touching shot makes aiming for the top not such a fanciful dream after all. The most famous landmark on the Parisian landscape is the perfect prop to make this little girl seem like a giant standing some 324 m (1,063 ft) tall. The low camera angle and large depth of field do the rest of the work.

Just hangin’ around: Perito Moreno

Photo: Alexandre Duarte

This shot was taken at the Perito Moreno glacier in the Argentine region of Patagonia. The 250 km2 (97 sq mi) ice formation is an important tourist attraction, and the sheets of frozen fresh water clearly offer ample opportunity for a little playfulness with visual perspective.

Blowing off some steam: Old Faithful

Photo: toastforbrekkie

This is one instance where you might safely accuse the subject of the photo of being full of hot air – except of course that it’s Old Faithful, Yellowstone’s most famous geyser, producing the steam for this gigantic breath. The creative snapping of nature’s geothermal force delivers a cool result.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

Van Damme Friday - The Western Front

Wine? Grow some stones, laddie! Connosr is a social site for whiskey

by Lee Mathews

William Faulkner once said "There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others." Well, late Mr. Faulkner, have I got a social networking site for you.

Connosr is the place to be. Fans contribute ratings and reviews to help you decide your next single malt purchase. Whiskeys are broken down into Scotch, Irish, and American, and can also be browsed by dozens of user-created tags such as vanilla, smoky, earthy, and spicy.

Don't think fancy-pants reviews are limited to wine aficionado sites. Whisky connoisseurs can be quite flowery with the descriptions, too. To whit:

The first thing that hits you about the nose is an orange blossom fragrance combined with a underlying smokey peatiness.

Connosr user reviews are, in general, a terrific read and very informative.

The site also sports a Google Maps-powered display of each distillery as well as a collective map of those in Scotland. If you can't make it out, it's the whiteish-bluish thing covered with dozens of favicon-sized bottles. Too bad there's no integrated travel booking so you can arrange an impromptu distillery crawl.

Tags: aficionados, drinking, whiskeyWine

1-Year-Old Girl Carrying Parasitic Twin

A 1-year-old girl from China is waiting to have an operation after doctors discovered she was carrying her parasitic twin.

Kang Mengru left doctors baffled after her belly became enlarged, The Sun reported.

They carried out a CT scan to discover the cause of the growth and found a fetus inside her. They believe it is her parasitic twin.

While the condition is very rare, Dr. Manny Alvarez, managing editor of health at FOXNews.com, said it is possible that's what this child is "carrying."

"There are multiple varieties of parasitic twins," said Alvarez. "In some cases you could have some sort of merging body parts... like an extra leg or sometimes you have an abnormal formation of the head when you have two brains."

In this instance, Alvarez said from looking at a picture of the girl, you can clearly see that it’s a large abdominal mass that could potentially be an embryonic remnant of a lost twin.

"This could be a type of parasitic twin called fetus-in-fetu," he said. "What you find is that you have an encapsulated tumor-like formation inside the body, which contains fetal parts."

Mengru is now waiting for an operation to have the fetus removed, according to the report.

View shocking images of the girl at The Sun.

Police Say Brandy Marrie Badillo Really Wanted a Baby, So She Hired Them to Kidnap One

By Pete Kotztable

Brandy Badillo: It's doubtful she'll be consulted by criminologists on the finer points of kidnapping ​

Brandy Marrie Badillo of The Dalles, Oregon badly wanted a baby. So she dressed in maternity clothes, had a baby showered, prepared a nursery and took days off from work, presumably for morning sickness.

Yet Badillo wasn't content to have one the old-fashioned way. Like, say, finding a man, settling down, and engaging in reproduction. No, she decided it would be easier to simply kidnap an existing one, since it would alleviate nine months of discomfort and prevent the advent of embarrassing stretch marks. And who do you call when you want to abduct a small child? The police, quite naturally.

So she unknowingly hired undercover cops to kidnap the child of a family friend. She apparently didn't think through how the friend would suddenly notice her baby was missing. Or how Badillo had mysteriously given birth to the exact same child. But it's safe to say our assailant isn't a detail person. Badillo gave the cops cash and guns and told them where to grab the preferred child. That's when they grabbed her on a slew of kidnapping charges.

Madden to serve as special adviser to Goodell

NEW YORK (AP)—Hall of Fame coach John Madden will serve as a special adviser to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell.

The league said Thursday that as part of his unpaid position Madden will chair the coaches group in the competition committee. Madden will also participate in meetings of a general managers committee and be part of a weekly call with Goodell or another NFL official to discuss issues from the previous week’s games.

Madden retired from broadcasting in April. He says the new role allows him to stay active in football. Goodell says that when Madden suggested helping out, “it was an offer we couldn’t refuse.”

Army Accidentally Grows Pot At Rocky Mt. Arsenal

Reporting
Shaun Boyd

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (CBS4) ―

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A scene from Copter 4 Tuesday of Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

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A scene from Copter 4 Tuesday of Rocky Mountain Arsenal. CBS

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The Army has made an unusual and unwanted discovery at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal northeast of Commerce City.

They are in charge of cleaning up the arsenal, a job that includes reseeding some areas. When their seed started to grow, they realized it was marijuana.

It isn't commercial grade, but it's still an illegal drug. It's called ditch weed or feral hemp, the kind that grows in the wild in some places.

Charlie Scharmin with the U.S. Army is in charge of the cleanup. He said he was quite surprised when he was told marijuana was growing at the arsenal.

"It's not something you expect in an environmental cleanup job," says Scharmin. "It was a little surprising."

Scharmin says they were finishing containment of two large contamination areas at the former chemical weapons production site. He said they laid down rock and clay, then put vegetation on top.

"The specification is that we acquire weed-free mulch from the supplier," explains Scharmin.

The Army blames the supplier for the snafu. It says it bought the mulch for its ground cover from a supplier in Kansas where the low-grade weed is common. Some of it apparently got mixed in with the grass.

The Army made the first discovery of hemp on the property in June. So far they have picked about 100 plants that Scharmin says are low grade. He says they plan to mow, burn or maybe even have bison who roam on the land eat the rest.

"(The) Fish and Wildlife Service does not seem to have any concern about having bison out there (with the plant present)," Scharmin said.

(© MMIX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

How to Make Your Very Own Badass Arcade Cabinet for Cheap-ish

By Adam Frucci (Edit, to draft, Slurp)

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Arcade games are a touchstone of many of our childhoods, holding memories of hours spent burning through quarters and chasing high scores. Now, MaximumPC has a guide for making an epic MAME arcade cabinet for cheap. So very tempting. [MaximumPC]

Tourists no longer welcome in cannabis-selling coffee shops

http://www.nrc.nl/

Under proposal, Only registered members will be able to buy soft drugs from coffee shops.
Photo Rien Zilvold

By our news staff

The Dutch government wants to maintain its tolerant policy towards cannabis and keep so-called coffee shops open, but they should no longer be tourist attractions, Dutch ministers wrote in a letter that was leaked to the press on Tuesday.

The ministers of justice, home affairs and health wrote that reducing the number of coffee shops and keeping foreigners out should make it easier to reduce crime and other nuisances the coffee shops are now causing.

A government memorandum on altering the coffee shop policy and other drug-related issues is expected this fall, but the letter already shows where the ministers now stand. They want to implement a members-only system to keep tourists out.

Herds of tourist who buy their drugs in border towns near Belgium and Germany have become a pest in several places and neighbouring countries have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Dutch system.

The Netherlands has been tolerant about the use and sale of weed and hash for three decades. Cultivation and wholesale of the drug are prohibited however. This discrepancy has become known as the 'gedoogbeleid' (tolerance policy).

An advisory committee said in July that the policy has gotten out of control in the past 15 years and needs to go back to small, private shops for local users. It advised against legalising soft drugs altogether.

The ministers want municipalities to implement a members-only system, where members can by up to three grammes of hash or weed each with their (Dutch) bank card. This should make it less appealing for tourists to travel to the Netherlands to buy cannabis. The ministers will also allow experiments where coffeeshops can have larger quantities of drugs stocked. Currently, a coffeeshop can have 500 grammes in store and an alternative supply system via drugs runners is a source of nuisance.

The three coalition parties in the government have long disagreed about the overhaul of the drug policy. Christian democrat CDA had called for an end to the tolerance policy and the orthodox Christian ChristenUnie agreed, but the Labour party PvdA believes banning coffeeshops will not solve the problems of crime, nuisance and health and wants to legalise the whole chain of supply.

Chronic City: Taking the High Road -- Attorneys Say DUI Laws Shouldn't Apply To Pot

By Steve Elliott

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Hey, watch where you're going!

​ Remember the first few times you drove high? You knew you were stoned, you knew it might be dangerous to operate a motor vehicle, and you drove like a little old lady.

This tendency of stoners to overcompensate for their impairment is one reason that marijuana-related car crashes aren't in the headlines every day. With estimates of current marijuana users in the United States varying between 40 and 100 million, you can bet that if weed really caused wrecks, it'd be a national tragedy on the level of drunk driving.

But you don't see those headlines, and you probably don't have anecdotes about "that time I was so high I couldn't even remember how my car got in the ditch." Seems all those stories have alcohol as a component instead. (That certainly goes for me, with 32 years of accident-free driving on pot. And, yes: There were a few alcohol-related crashes in my teens.)

Now, I'm not recommending you take a few bong rips and then hit the freeway. In fact, it'd probably be best for everyone if you'd stay your stoned ass home on the couch. There's a reason God invented pizza delivery.

San Diego attorneys Lawrence Taylor and Cole Casey, however, are arguing that California's DUI laws shouldn't apply to marijuana. While many automatically assume that pot affects the ability to safely operate a vehicle, Taylor and Casey said two federal studies do not support that.

Even the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), which in its understandable quest for respectability is very cautious around the stoned driving issue, grants: "...emerging scientific research indicates that cannabis actually has far less impact on the psychomotor skills needed for driving than alcohol does, and is seldom a causal factor in automobile accidents."

The attorneys -- who could certainly benefit from the name recognition as "The pot DUI guys" -- point out that while the California Department of Justice has found that marijuana impairs driving, the U.S. Department of Transportation's studies contradict this."There are two federal studies that have come to that conclusion that although marijuana can impact someone's short-term memory, when somebody is concentrating on the task of driving that really there was no measurable impact," Casey told 10News in San Diego.

Another study by the Department of Transportation (DOT) found that "it appears not possible to conclude anything about a driver's impairment on the basis of his/her plasma concentration of THC."

Law Offices of Lawrence Taylor, Inc.

DUI Attorney Lawrence Taylor: Stoned does not equal drunk.

​ Taylor, known as the "Dean of DUI Attorneys," points to another more recent report. Titled "Marijuana and Actual Performance" (DOT-HS-808-078), it also found that "THC is not a profoundly impairing drug....It apparently affects controlled information processing in a variety of laboratory tests, but not to the extent which is beyond the individual's ability to control when he is motivated and permitted to do so in driving." Voila!: The Little Old Lady Effect.

So, first of all, according to the DOT, there is no association between marijuana intoxication and driving impairment. But that's not the biggest problem with detecting THC in bodily fluids.

The glaring weakness of tests which detect THC, as opposed to alcohol sobriety tests, is that marijuana metabolites stay in the body for at least 30 days -- long after any impairment associated with being "high" is gone. Therefore the mere presence of THC or its metabolites in a blood, urine, hair, or saliva sample is meaningless when it comes to measuring impairment.

Bottom line, according to attorneys Taylor and Casey: (1) marijuana may not impair driving ability at all, and (2) the blood "evidence" only measures an inactive substance which may have been there for days.

iPhone OS 3.1 is official, available today

by Paul Miller

Apple just announced iPhone OS 3.1, which includes Genius recommendations for the App Store. The update also brings a ringtone store, with over 30,000 ringtones at $1.29 a pop. 3.1 is available today for free to iPhone users and iPod touch users with 3.0.

74 Years Ago, Henry Ford Predicted Hemp Cars Powered by Biofuels

by Jennifer Lance

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The modern day car owes much of its history to Henry Ford, who dreamed of “producing an automobile that was reasonably priced, reliable, and efficient…” Many of Ford’s dreams have not come to fruition since Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903. It is debatable how affordable and reliable today’s autos are, and the average car’s fuel efficiency leaves much to be desired. Today’s auto industry is not what Ford envisioned, especially considering he predicted cars would be constructed of hemp and run on biofuels.

In fact, in 1941 Ford constructed a vehicle made from biodegradable cellulose fibers derived from hemp, sisal, and wheat straw. The car was even fueled by hemp ethanol. In 1925, Ford told the New York Times:

The fuel of the future is going to come from fruit like that sumach out by the road, or from apples, weeds, sawdust — almost anything. There is fuel in every bit of vegetable matter that can be fermented. There’s enough alcohol in one year’s yield of an acre of potatoes to drive the machinery necessary to cultivate the fields for a hundred years.

Photo by dok1

Ford predicted cars would be made from hemp and powered by ethanol.

Why has it taken us so long to return to Ford’s dreams? There are many factors involved, especially politics, as Bill Kovarik, Ph.D. writes in “Henry Ford, Charles Kettering and the ‘Fuel of the Future’“:

In this case, fuel technology developed in a direction that was a matter of policy choice and not predetermined by any clear advantage of one technology over another. For different reasons, Henry Ford and Charles Kettering both saw the fuel of the future as a blend of ethyl alcohol and gasoline leading to pure alcohol from cellulose. A dedicated agrarian, Ford thought new markets for fuel feedstocks would help create a rural renaissance. On the other hand, Kettering, as a scientist, was worried about the long term problem of the automotive industry’s need for oil, a resource with rapidly declining domestic reserves. Clearly, the shortage of domestic oil that was feared in the 1920s has occurred in the late 20th century, although it has hardly been noticed because of the abundance of foreign oil. Whether the oil substitute envisioned by the scientists and agrarians of the first half of the century would be appropriate in the latter half remains an open question.

Although the merits of ethanol are debatable, its share of the fuel market has grown from one to seven percent in recent years. In addition, Ford’s biomaterials team have invented seats made from hemp and soy. Almost 75 years later, Ford Motor Company may actually be moving in the direction its founding father predicted.