Archive Category: Travel & Places
Border Fence To Put US Business in the Mexican Side
Golfers who want to play on the Fort Brown Golf Course near the US-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas will soon need a passport.
That’s because the Department of Homeland Security, in an attempt to build a more or less straight fence, decided to put the US golf course
on the Mexican side of the border fence!
Imagine being a United States citizen having business … a business in the United States and then finding out the Department of Homeland Security is building its Mexican border fence with you on the Mexican side!
Podcast by Dick Helton at KNX1070 Newsradio - via LA Times
Cyclone Nargis Wiped Out an Entire Burmese Village
Image: Geoeye/CRISP-Singapore, Caption by Holli Riebeek.
The two images, taken by the Ikonos satellite, showed how a village in Burma (Myanmar) was completely wiped out by the Cyclone Nargis:
This tiny village was located about 27 kilometers (16 miles) south of Yangon, the country’s largest city. In the lower image, taken on May 3, 2002, trees and buildings line a single street, which is surrounded by fields of crops, probably rice. After the disaster, the trees and buildings are completely gone, replaced by messy piles of rubble.
New Rough Guide to (Self-Important and Irritating) England
According to the new "Rough Guide to England" travel book, England is a nation of "animal-loving, tea-drinking charity donor who love nothing better than forming an orderly queue."
That, and "an irritating and insular country full of overweight, binge-drinking, reality TV addicts," the guide warns tourists:
Gone, it seems, is the image of a genteel country awash with Englishmen politely tipping their bowler hats, groping through the London fog and being kinder to pets than kids.
The writers confess to bafflement over the quirky English, concluding that of the 200 countries the guide reviews there is none "so fascinating, beautiful and culturally diverse yet as insular, self-important and irritating as England."
They said the English are proud of their multi-culturalism and are united by one thing — their sense of humor.
But there are constant contradictions. In a country priding itself on patriotism, they have a Scottish Prime Minister, an Italian football coach and a Greek married to the Queen.
Even with all that, my trip to London some years ago was the best vacation I’ve ever had! Link
The Traveler’s Guide to Nuclear Weapons
Have you ever considered planning your vacation around the places that made nuclear history?
The Traveler’s Guide to Nuclear Weapons illustrates 160 important homes, offices, laboratories, factories, mills, and bomb detonation sites in the United States. Scaled maps, photos, tour schedules, and site telephone numbers provide atomic tourists with all they need to visit these historic locations, vicariously or in person.
Link -via Everlasting Blort
(image: National Archives)
Waterfront Park Time Lapse Video
Now this is a time-lapse video! Andrew Curtis stitched over 2600 photos he took in the Cinco De Mayo Carnival in Waterfront Park, Portland, Oregon to make this neat video:
Shooting 1 second exposures every 2 seconds
A total of 2683 images in this video, played back at 12fps.
Shot on 2 consecutive nights. First night was the panning tripod. While we were shooting, a guy called me back about an ad on craigslist for his Peleng 8mm fisheye. We went and picked it up at midnight and brought it along the 2nd night, when we did all the still shots.
Hit play or go to Link [Vimeo] - via Ursi’s Blog
Bollywood safe sex PSA
Dancing condoms! [eBaums]
San Francisco Cityscape Sculpted from Stainless Steel Cookware
From On Gold Mountain: Sculptures from the Sierra by Zhan Wang
Artist Zhan Wang created the cityscape of San Francisco using stainless steel pots and pans and silverware!
His work is now on display at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco: Link | Photo Gallery - via Boing Boing
Greenpix: Giant Solar-Powered LED Wall in China
Behold the Greenpix Zero Energy Media Wall, a gigantic LED wall completely powered by solar energy!
Gizmodo has the story:
Greeting visitors attending the Xicui entertainment complex near the site of the games is a 20,000 square foot wall of computer-controlled LEDs, the largest of its kind ever built. Better yet, the wall manages to power itself completely using only the sun.
The GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall, designed by Simon Giostra & Partners and Arup, uses thousands of solar capture cells attached to each of its glass panels to charge up during the day and then release dazzling light shows at night. It’s the first time perforated photovoltaics laminated in glass have ever been used in a building in China, but if all goes off without a hitch, it most certainly won’t be the last.
Link | Greenpix website | YouTube video at Technabob
Office Snapshots
Office Snapshots blog, like its name suggests, is all about where you work. Well, if you work in a tech company or for a successful blog (not in a dumpy ol’ warehouse like me!).
Here are some fun photo galleries of the offices of Digg, Apple, Adobe, and even Om Malik’s neat tech blog GigaOM: Link - Thanks Haendel Dantas!
Shark surfing
An amazing story of a boy, a beach, a board and a shark. It looks real to me. What do you think? [YouTube]
Impossible smells exhibition opens
As reported by Telegraph.co.uk, scent professionals of many stripes were tapped for the “extinct and impossible” smells exhibition at the Reg Vardy Gallery, University of Sunderland in the northeast of England. They’ve created a series of unique historical odors that would likely not exist naturally today. Scents include odors found a medieval plague doctor’s first aid kit, the smell of the fallout from an atomic bomb, the sweaty stink of a space station, the bouquet of extinct flowers and more. I wish the exhibition was showing here in the northeast of the US as well. Update: Here’s more from 24 Hour Museum.
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+SUThe Aliens of Calgary
Did aliens just landed in western Canada? Some people have reportedly seen striking images of aliens on the wall of a Calgary home:
"I looked out and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve lost my mind,’" resident Karen Henuset said of the first time she saw the specters. "So I asked our nanny to come and take a look at this, and the hair on her arms just stood straight up."
It’s as "clear as day. You see two eyes on each of them, they both have this little thing over their head. It’s a little weird," said resident Reid Henuset.
Link - via Boing Boing
Thai dog rescue!
My sister-in-law sent these photos from Bangkok. These two kids were spotted rescuing a small dog that was stuck in an aqueduct. Innovation and pluck! I love Thailand. [Flickr set]
The Most Polluted Cities in the United States
Yay for Los Angeles! The City of Angels no longer holds the dubious title of the Sootiest City in the United States. That honor is now held by Pittsburgh (though LA is still the most polluted other measures).
The American Lung Association’s State of The Air 2008 report ranked metropolitan areas according to their ozone, year round and short-term particle pollution (Data [PDF])
The most polluted cities, according to the short-term particle pollution measure are:
1. Pittsburgh - New Castle, PA
2. Los Angeles - Long Beach - Riverside, CA
3. Fresno - Madera, CA
4. Bakersfield, CA
5. Birmingham - Hoover - Cullman, AL
6. Logan, UT - ID
7. Salt Lake City - Ogden - Clearfield, UT
8. Sacramento - Arden - Arcade - Yuba City, CA - NV
9. Detroit - Warren - Flint, MI
10. Washington - Baltimore - Northern Virginia, DC - MD - VA - WV
The most polluted cities, by year-round particle pollution:
1. Los Angeles - Long Beach - Riverside, CA
2. Pittsburgh - New Castle, PA
3. Bakersfield, CA
4. Birmingham - Hoover - Cullman, AL
5. Visalia - Porterville, CA
6. Atlanta - Sandy Springs - Gainesville, GA - AL
7. Cincinnati - Middletown - Wilmington, OH - KY - IN
8. Fresno - Madera, CA
8. Hanford - Corcoran, CA
8. Detroit - Warren - Flint, MI
8. Cleveland - Akron - Elyria, OH
The most polluted cities, by ozone pollution:
1. Los Angeles - Long Beach - Riverside, CA
2. Bakersfield, CA
3. Visalia - Porterville, CA
4. Houston - Baytown - Huntsville, TX
5. Fresno - Madera, CA
6. Sacramento - Arden - Arcade - Yuba City, CA - NV
7. Dallas - Fort Worth, TX
8. New York - Newark - Bridgeport, NY - NJ - CT - PA
9. Washington - Baltimore - Northern Virginia, DC - MD - VA - WV
10. Baton Rouge - Pierre Part, LA
I find it amazing that for all its environmental-consciousness, California leads the nation in having the most polluted cities.
Link - Thanks MoonCake!
Lesbos Islanders Mad About the Word “Lesbian”
People of the Greek Island of Lesbos [wiki], the original Lesbians, are suing gay organizations from using the term "lesbian" to mean a homosexual woman:
The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world.
He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos’s inhabitants.
By the way, the word "lesbian" is derived from the erotic poems of the ancient Greek poet Sappho [wiki], who was born around in the 7th Century BC in the island of Lesbos.
Link - Thanks CheeseDuck!
Cat juggling!
OK - not Cat Juggling*, but something almost as good. Baby dropping! Even better, perhaps? YouTube.
*First person in comments to correctly identify the “cat juggling” reference WITHOUT THE AID OF GOOGLE gets a tip of the hat!
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUThe Poop Report Gives Back
The Poop Report is a blog of scatological humor, but this is a serious project where you can make a difference. Karanpur is a village in Uttar Pradesh, India with a school for 700 lower caste girls. The village has no plumbing. The girls must rise before dawn to attend to their toilet practices in a field before daylight. School founder Virendra “Sam” Singh wants to provide toilets for the village.
Here is an appliance that embodies his philosophy. A toilet protects its owner from the danger and humiliation of outdoor defecation. But it also provides a haven for neighbors to achieve the same standard of safety and dignity — educated or not, Sam knows, no woman wants to poop in the fields. Here is an inexpensive way to improve health and spread sanitary practices beyond the walls of his students’ dwellings.
Sam settled on the Sulabh toilet model, which collects and composts waste in alternating pits that need to be emptied only once every ten years. But as inexpensive as they are, they still cost too much for Sam to fund them on his own. He approached participants of the World Toilet Summit for fundraising help. My wife and I accepted his offer to tour the school and meet his students; and now I’m passing his plea for help on to you.
Sam’s immediate goal is 43 toilets in Karanpur itself, followed by a toilet for each of the 700 girls in his school. Every cent will help achieve this goal. A dollar is lunch for four workers building a toilet. Twenty dollars may pay the labor cost altogether. And $250 — which is no small sum, even for an American — will fully cover the cost of bringing health, sanitation, and dignity to a student of Pardada Pardadi, her family, and her neighbors. For $250, Sam and his team can build a complete toilet.
Any amount donated will be appreciated. If you sponsor a complete toilet for $250, you get naming rights for the facility. Donations can be made through a PayPal link at The Poop Report. Link -via Boing Boing
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUThe Shipping Container House in New Zealand
Flickr user petraalsbach took a series of photos of the construction, as well as interior shots, of the Shipping Container House in Wellington, New Zealand.
The home is "built" using 3 shipping containers stacked on top of each other.
Link - via Jetson Green
Google Street View Captures Kid Falling Out of His Bike
One minute he was having fun riding his bike, and the next he’s sprawled on the driveway after wiping out … and all captured by Google Street View:
Link - Thanks Ian Andrew Bell (nice meeting you on Web 2.0 conference, btw!)
Siberian Aurora
LiveJournal user evendym snapped some really nifty photos of emerald-green auroras in the desolate Siberian outpost. Link [in Russian] - Thanks collin douma!
Brazilian priest takes to the air attached to helium party balloon, disappears
Brazilian priest Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli embarked Sunday on a 465 mile journey across Brazil using thousands of helium party balloons to lift and transport him. Unfortunately, he was blown off course and his ground crew has lost track of him, not knowing whether he has landed safely somewhere or unsafely or if his journey through the sky continues. The video above from Brazil’s Globo TV G1 television station shows the priest preparing for his flight, taking off and disappearing into an overcast sky. There are more videos (all in Portuguese) about the flight - and the subsequent search & rescue operation that is taking place now.
Update: Basically the same video [YouTube], but from the Associated Press with a voiceover in English.
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUJapanese festival features fat phalluses for fertility, fortune and fun!
The Kanamara Matsuri (aka “Festival of the Steel Phallus”) is a Japanese health and fertility rite dating back as far as 300 years. During the festival, well-wishers literally worship massive, portable representations of the engorged male member. Fun for the whole family! Reuters has video of this year’s event.
Golden eagle attacks, kills and consumes mountain goat
For real! This Spanish language video shows a massive golden eagle stalking, killing and eating a mountain goat (or possibly a deer?). Amazing nature clip! YouTube. (Thanks, Sirkowski!)
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this +digg +del.icio.us +reddit +SUThe Böögg Bonfire
To celebrate the coming of the longer and milder days of Spring, the Swiss city of Zurich burns a 43-feet tall bonfire called "Böögg".
And to make it more interesting, they pack the Böögg with explosives … Ursi has more on the story and a time lapse video: Link
Houses Covered in Kudzu
Photo: Jack Anthony
Kudzu is a climbing vine introduced into the United States from Japan in 1876 at the Philadelphia Centennial Expo as a forage crop and ornamental plan. In the early 1950s, US Department of Agriculture encouraged farmers to plant kudzu to reduce soil erosion.
Fast forward a couple of decades later, kudzu is a fast growing weed that has infested about 11,000 square miles of the southeastern United States. It costs around $500 million every year in lost cropland and control costs.
Jack Anthony has a photo gallery of abandoned houses in Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina that have been taken over by kudzu, noting that they make "interesting natural sculptures": Link - via Cynical-C
Mooning Statue Irks Austrian Town
A statue recently installed on the German bordertown of Simbach is causing a stirr in the neighboring town of Braunau, Austria.
Why? Because the statue is of a naked man riding a giant fish, symbolizing the personification of the Inn River, which marks the border between Germany and Austria. That’s all fine and good, except Braunau noticed that the naked man is "mooning" their town!
Deputy Mayor Helmut Bogner, said: "This creature has his butt straight in our face. We, the people of Braunau, don’t appreciate this gesture and we want it moved."
And the statue’s name? "Aenus" the Latin name for the River (suuuuuree!): Link [translated from German, with larger photo] | Ananova article
Origin of Alaskan Place Names
Yay for Alaska! Flip Todd of Todd Communications is hoping to publish an updated "Dictionary of Alaska Place Names" by Donald Orth. The book details humorous stories of the origin of various places in the state:
Mishap Creek, aka Big Loss Creek, is Unimak Island stream named for a lighthouse keeper who stripped naked to cross the water, then tried to throw his clothes to the other side, only to watch helplessly as they landed downstream and disappeared.
There’s Chicken, an old mining town established during the Klondike Gold Rush. A detailed history of the name is not in Orth’s dictionary, but according to oft-told lore, miners wanted to call the community Ptarmigan after a bird common to the area, but no one knew how to spell it. So they settled on Chicken, since miners also called ptarmigans "tundra chickens."
Atlasta Creek was inspired by a remark uttered by the wife of the owner of a nearby roadhouse after the first building was completed: "At last a house."
Lost Temper Creek, an Arctic Slope stream, was named over a "camp incident." Eek, a western Alaska village, was derived from an Eskimo
word that means "two eyes." Big Bones Ridge, in the Talkeetna Mountains, came from the large fossil mammoth or mastodon bones found at the site.
Over-Water Bungalows in Bora Bora and Other Incrediby Cool Hotel Suites Around the World
ProTraveller blog has a neat post about 10 of the coolest hotel suites I’ll never be able to afford. Oh well, here’s what most of us just have to satisfy ourselves with while counting our meager savings: amazing photos of amazing hotels around the world.
This one above is the Over-Water Bungalows at Le Meridien, Bora Bora:
Located in the Pacific Ocean, Bora Bora is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. To take full advantage of this natural beauty, the over-water bungalows at Le Meridien are a great choice. Each private bungalow is built upon stilts just above the ocean, so you can literally take a few stairs down from your bungalow to the ocean for a swim in the warm, turquoise water.
Link - Thanks Andy Boyd
World’s Tiniest Countries
Cracked has a funny post about the world’s tiniest "countries" - it’s in quotes because they’re just patches of land (or an old sea fort) that some crazy guys claim as their own countries.
Take for example The Kingdom of Redonda:
Christopher Columbus discovered the island in 1493 and named it Santa Maria la Redonda (meaning "Saint Mary the round") and that’s all we know before the history of this proud uninhabited nation turns into legend, fiction and drunken lies. Back in Queen Victoria’s days, a guy named Matthew Dowdy Shiell claimed himself as king. Over the generations the kingship was given away and sold several times to people who loved the idea of putting "King" on their business card.
Right now, four men claim to be the rightful king of this shitty island.
You may think we say "shitty" as an insult, in which case you are half right, because it is also an accurate description. It’s biggest export is shit (Guano, to be exact). Over 7,000 tons of shit came out of Redonda every year until operations ended in World War I.
Link (And yes, the photo is King Bob the Bald, one of the self-proclaimed rulers of Redonda) - Thanks Christophe!
Previously on Neatorama: 5 Smallest Countries in the World
Abandoned Soviet Wonders: From Island Fortresses to Frozen Mines
This isn’t my idea of a vacation, but places like this abandoned Soviet mine in the Kyshtym region (which unlike other Soviet mines, at least it’s not radioactive) seems to be very exciting to urban explorers.
WebUrbanist has a list of abandoned "wonders" of the former Soviet Union (from island fortresses to frozen mines): Link
