Archive Category: Travel & Places
Astronomical Clocks – Literally and Metaphorically
Astronomical clocks – amazing works of engineering that are sometimes six hundred years old – can be found throughout the world. Europe, however, has the lion’s share. Here are some of the more remarkable examples of the form.
To say that this clock is astronomical is, perhaps, stating the obvious. Another word that might describe the Prague Orloj is exquisite. The first and perhaps most astonishing fact about this astronomical clock is that it was finished and in place in 1410, over eighty years before Columbus made his voyage of discovery to the Americas. The first thing that draws the eye is the dial at the center of the clock which shows the positions of the moon and the sun. What makes the Orloj a magnet for visitors to the Czech city is the clockwork show of the figures of the apostles, which on the hour parade themselves. There are other moving sculptures too – plus a dial which pitted with medallions which represent the months of the years.
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Scheming Homeless, Parking Mafia, and Meter Fairy: Just Another Day in Miami's Parking Hell
One thing I like about living (and working) in the ‘burbs is that not having to fight for cheap parking or pay through the nose for expensive spots. Not so for people in Miami. Apparently, the scarcity of parking there has created much violence, a cottage industry involving the homeless, parking mafia and even a "magical meter fairy."
Gus Garcia-Roberts from the Miami New Times explains:
In 2004, Kendall native Xavier Cortes was a 37-year-old out-of-work actor in desperate need of a gig. Opportunity came in the classified pages of this newspaper, where an advertisement sought "an extroverted, fun individual, male or female, who knows how to ride rollerblades and isn’t afraid to wear a tutu."
Cortes immediately answered the ad. He was hired by the Coconut Grove Chamber of Commerce. He donned a hot-pink wig and matching tutu, carried a wand, and began each shift with $40 in dimes. For his wage of ten dollars an hour, paid each day by a different Grove business, Cortes skated through the neighborhood putting coins in meters that were about to expire. He left a calling card tucked under windshield wipers. "You’ve just been saved by the Coconut Grove parking-meter fairy," it read, and included a coupon to the business that had donated the dimes.
Cortes’s new occupation was the counterattack strategy employed by Grove business owners who felt under siege by MPA enforcement officers scaring away customers. [...]
Cortes was catcalled by construction workers and berated by teenagers, but to the Grovites who understood his purpose, he was a hero worthy of tips, cigarettes, and free meals. Soon though, he says, a cold war developed between him and MPA officers. "They would try to intimidate me, telling me it was illegal to feed another person’s meter," he recalls. "They’d try to figure out my routes and shifts. I’d see them hiding behind walls spying on me. It got ugly, and it went all the way to the top of the MPA."
Link (Photo: C. Stiles)
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13 Other Leaning Towers
Hey, it’s hard to keep a tower on the straight and narrow! The Leaning Tower of Pisa may be the most famous, but there are towers that lean all over the world. Web Urbanist looks at thirteen of them, including the Round Tower of the Kilmacduagh Monastery in Ireland pictured. It leans 1.5 feet, but is in no danger of falling over. And its door is 26 feet off the ground! Link -via Unique Daily
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Denver to Singapore (and Back) in 5 Minutes
David D’Angelo took snapshots of his trip from Denver to Singapore via Chicago, Los Angeles and Tokyo (and back) and stitched them into a mesmerizing 5 minute video clip:
The creator put a ton of effort into filming as much of his trip as possible, and included some highlights like the automatic beer machine at the Tokyo lounge (at 3 minutes 50 seconds).
Gadling has the video clip: Link [embedded Vimeo clip]
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The Redundant Photography of Fred Lebain
Photo: Fred Lebain
French photographer Fred Lebain took a trip to New York City and took a series of photos around town. He then revisited those sites after printing out huge poster versions of his shots. Then he carefully re-aligned the shots to incorporate his previous image into a new, dynamically interesting one.
these postcard images show lebain’s preference for particular areas of the city,
telescoping his views – a time parallax representing the days which separate the two shots -
and superimposing his vision of new york. hands, feet or a pair of jeans can be seen…
like surrealistic winks, indicating that the photographer is not alone in his mission.
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China's Weather Modification Office: A Government Entity That Controls The Weather
Remember the old saying that everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it? Well, not China! The country has a Weather Modification Office that aims to control the weather:
Chinese meteorologists say they brought about Beijing’s earliest snowfall in a decade, after seeding rain clouds with silver iodide to ease a drought.
The Weather Modification Office sprayed clouds with 186 doses of the chemical to bring rain for the wheat crop, the Beijing Evening News said.
But the arrival of a cold front caused heavy snow to fall, disrupting road, rail and air travel.
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Giant Ethiopian Crack Will Spawn New Ocean
There’s a new giant crack in the desert of Ethiopia, and some scientists think that it will eventually create a new ocean:
A 35-mile rift in the desert of Ethiopia will likely become a new ocean eventually, researchers now confirm.
The crack, 20 feet wide in spots, opened in 2005 and some geologists believed then that it would spawn a new ocean. But that view was controversial, and the rift had not been well studied.
A new study involving an international team of scientists and reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds the processes creating the rift are nearly identical to what goes on at the bottom of oceans, further indication a sea is in the region’s future.
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The Seven Giants of the Urals
Seven rock formations called Man-Pupu-Nyor (little mountain of the gods) stand in the Komi Republic, a part of the Ural Mountain area of Russia. They range from 30 to 42 meters tall! The pillars formed when erosion washed away the mountain that once surrounded them over a period of 200 million years. Legend says they are evil giants who had a spell cast upon them. Link -via the Presurfer
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Caves of the Deep South
Photo: Stephen Alvarez / National Geographic
NatGeo photographer Stephen Alvarez took this amazing shot of the Stephens Gap Cave in Alabama. As you can see, you’d need to rapel down the sunlit entrance to the left, or simply walk down the dark entrace to the right.
Mark Jenkins of National Geographic went spelunking for this fascinating article:
I’m about to back out when my shovel breaks through. I feverishly round out the hole and cram my head through. There is a low, triangle-shaped crawlway ahead of me. Surging with adrenaline, I try dragging myself into this new passage, but my chest gets stuck.
From the beginning I have been hyperfocused on digging in order to stave off dark, horrifying feelings of claustrophobia. But now, stuck like a rat in the throat of a snake, a sickly anxiousness sweeps over me. I violently kick my legs, but to no avail: I’m swimming in dirt. I realize that by not using the drag tray to remove the dirt, I’ve buried myself.
I try to calm my racing thoughts, but my mind is preoccupied with the millions of tons of rock above me. I’ve been told that caves seldom collapse, and yet here I am, trapped at the bottom of a breakdown, in a cave that obviously did collapse. I try to slow my frantic breathing because I’ve also been told that hyperventilating expands one’s lungs and only tightens the squeeze, which is exactly what’s happening. Suddenly I’m thrashing shamelessly, kicking and clawing and writhing. I manage to knock off my headlamp, and everything goes black.
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The Hot Air Lanterns of the Chiang Mai Yi Peng Festival
(YouTube Link)
The Chiang Mai Yi Peng Festival is an Buddhist holy day in Thailand. That evening, celebrants send send burning lanterns aloft, floating on hot air. According to YouTube user bugzila:
[...]it is the great festival of Lanna duly succeeded from ancient age. “Yi Peng” or full-moon day of second lunar month of Lanna villagers is corresponding to the full-moon day of 12th month of central region during the end of raining season and beginning of cold season when the climate is very nice and fair. One tradition of Lanna other than Loi Kra Thong on the river is to light up the lantern and float up in the sky based on their belief that to pay worship to Phra Ket Kaew Julamanee in the heaven or to relief one’ bad luck for more auspicious life.
Via Urlesque
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13 Tombstones
The Haunted Mansion attraction at Walt Disney World features tombstones inscribed with the names of real people. This series of posts called 13 Tombstones tracks down who those people are -mostly Disney employees whose names are now enshrined in the parks for posterity. Link -via Boing Boing
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Place Names with Definite Articles
Why is it called The Hague instead of just Hague? New York City has Manhattan and The Bronx. Why not The Manhattan? Or just Bronx? And when did The Ukraine become plain Ukraine? It turns out that place names with definite articles all have a different story to explain the name, and different languages have their own peculiar rules and exceptions for naming places.
Those who live in The Hague never stopped using an old-fashioned name that described the place according to its medieval use. We get the official name Den Haag from Des Graven Hage, which means “the counts’ hedge” and refers to the fact that Dutch noblemen once used the land for hunting.
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Can You Identify This Building?
A reader sent this picture to Curious Expeditions, asking if they knew where it was taken. The biggest clue is the building in the background with its distinctive architecture. Can you identify the building or the setting? Link
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Twelve Ossuaries Around the World
Atlas Obscura has compiled pictures and information about twelve different churches and shrines decorated with human bones. The picture above is from a wall at the Chapel of Bones at the Royal Church of St. Francis in Portugal. Due to a land shortage, in the Sixteenth Century, the resident monks decided to clear out nearby cemeteries and relocate the bones to the chapel:
However, rather than interring the bones behind closed doors, the monks, who were concerned about society’s values at the time, thought it best to put them on display. They thought this would provide Evora, a town noted for its wealth in the early 1600s, with a helpful place to meditate on the transience of material things in the undeniable presence of death. This is made clear by the thought-provoking message above the chapel door: “Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos,” or: “We bones that are here, for your bones we wait.”
The immediate view as you enter the Chapel gives you some idea of its scale and the sheer number of bodies that are interred here – some 5000 corpses. Among them, in a small white coffin by the altar, are the bones of the three Franciscan monks who founded the church in the 13th century. Also included are two desiccated corpses hanging by chains from the wall next to a cross. One is that of a child.
Link via io9 | Image: flickr user Tiago Ribeiro
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Earhart's Final Resting Place Found?
Theories (some as kooky as being abducted by aliens or assuming another identity) have been swirling for years about the fates of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan, who disappeared during an attempt to fly around the world in 1937.
And now, researchers may have found the final resting place for the missing aviators:
Legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart mostly likely died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).
Tall, slender, blonde and brave, Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Her final resting place has long been a mystery.
For years, Richard Gillespie, TIGHAR’s executive director and author of the book "Finding Amelia," and his crew have been searching the Nikumaroro island for evidence of Earhart. A tiny coral atoll, Nikumaroro was some 300 miles southeast of Earhart’s target destination, Howland Island.
A number of artifacts recovered by TIGHAR would suggest that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made a forced landing on the island’s smooth, flat coral reef.
Just in time for the Hilary Swank’s new movie "Amelia". Coincidence? I don’t think so!
Link | Nikumaroro Island on Wikipedia
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Colors of the World's Flags
Media designer Shahee Ilyas has created pie charts showing the colors of the flags of over 200 nations.
Using a list of countries generated by The World Factbook database, flags of countries fetched from Wikipedia are analysed by a custom made python script to calculate the proportions of colours on each of them. That is then translated on to a piechart using another python script. The proportions of colours on all unique flags are used to finally generate a piechart of proportions of colours for all the flags combined.
Embedded on top is a screencap of a portion of the display, alphabetically arranged (Afghanistan, Albania…); the original at the artist’s website will display the name of the country when a mouse is passed over the pie chart. The larger pie chart on the bottom is a composite of all the colors from all of the flags.
Via The Life and Times of Michael5000, who notes that the color violet/lavender/purple is notably absent from world flags (as is gray).
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Language Map of Europe
Languages correspond only imprecisely with political borders, which are designated by the superimposed red lines. The map at the linked source can be supersized for more detailed examination.
Link. The English version of this map was created by Postmann Michael in 2007; it has subsequently undergone several revisions, and there are continuing doubts regarding the accuracy of some of the language borders.
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Panorama of the 2009 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta
Willy Kaemena took this 360° panorama of the 2009 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Hot air Balloons have certainly gone a long way in terms of shapes. Oh, and as far as I know, no Balloon boy hoax is involved in this event 
The embed is nice, but the panorama is meant to be exprienced at full screen so head on over to 360 Cities for a much better view: Link – Thanks Jeffrey!
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Televox, a Clever Ghetto Camouflage of an Ugly AC Unit
Photo: d.billy [Flickr]
Shaun Usher wrote a nifty post about a few unusual air conditioners from around the world – from the high-brow art/AC unit from LG to the Dunstable Wind Catcher, which is based on ancient Persian technology.
I, on the other hand, am immediately drawn to "Televox," a clever camouflage of a window unit by street artist d. billy in Brooklyn New York: Link – Thanks Dave!
Previously on Neatorama: Ghetto Car Air Conditioning
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Gasometers Reimagined as Apartment Community
Photo by Peter Korrak
For a hundred years or so, Vienna invested in coal/gas energy, but when the plant was decommissioned there were four large gasometers remaining. The imposing structures sat idly, appearing in the James Bond movie, The Living Daylights and hosting rave parties.
Rather than tear them down, architects designed them to be converted into apartment style housing. First, they gutted the structures.
Each gasometer was divided into several zones for living (apartments in the top), working (offices in the middle floors) and entertainment and shopping (shopping malls in the ground floors). The shopping mall levels in each gasometer are connected to the others by skybridges.
Additional features:
Over 70 restaurants/bars/cafes
A multiplex cinema with 12 screens
4200 person capacity events hall
Daycare center
The Vienna National Archive
11,000 square meters (118,403 sq ft) of office space
615 apartments
230-bed student dorm
Link with many cool photos.
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The Famous Layered Jewish Cemetery in Prague
There was a problem in the segregated Jewish ghetto of 15th century Prague: there were more people dying than there was land to bury them.
The solution? They were buried on top of one another. Here’s the unique story of the layered burial of the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague, Czech Republic:
Over the centuries, there has been close to 12 layers of people buried within the confines of the Old Jewish cemetery. It has been estimated that there are approximately 12,000 tombstones presently visible and there may be as many as 100,000 burials in all.
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Solar Footbridge Produces Excess Power
The Kurilpa Bridge crossing the river into Brisbane, Australia is expected to carry around 36,000 pedestrians every week. The world’s longest solar foot bridge is 1,500 feet long and sports 84 solar panels. The panels produce all the energy the bridge needs for its LED lighting and sends 25% of the power generated back to the city’s electrical grid. Link -via Digg
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Money Does Grow On Trees
After all of those admonishments when you were younger (or perhaps even now?) about your profligate ways, here at least is some good news. Money does, in fact, grow on trees. In the North of England, they seem to make a habit of it. OK, so it may just be visitors who do it but these trees sure look… well, make up your own mind.
It is said that if all the rich people in the world divided their money up between themselves then there almost certainly would not be enough to go around. Perhaps wishing for money is one thing, but getting it is another. As they say, when the gods wish to punish us, then they give us what we want. Cicero, way back before the Christian era said that endless money created the sinews of war – and nothing is truer than that two thousand years later.
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The World’s Largest Shopping Mall
The largest shopping mall in the world is no longer the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. The South China Mall near Guangzhou, China is twice as big! This is not a success story; there are only about a dozen stores open in the giant facility. However, because the mall is considered “too big to fail”, it is kept open with a staff working every day. The series POV tells the story in a 13 minute video. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend
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Return to Malibou Lake
Screenwriter John Cox posted a guest blog at Frankensteinia about his search for the site of the only location shot in the 1931 movie Frankenstein.
Where did Universal shoot the famous Maria meets the Monster scene in the classic 1931 Frankenstein? For years I could never get a straight answer. Some claimed it was shot on the Universal backlot along with the rest of the movie. But it’s clear from the size of the lake and the rugged mountains in the distance that this can’t be true.
Cox found that the scene was filmed at Malibou Lake and set off to find the exact location of the scene, despite the knowledge that it was now in private hands, and that after almost 80 years, it might not look the same. But he was surprised at what he found! Link -via Metafilter
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A Broken Chain and a Busted Pedal
Max Hirschberg missed the last dogsled out of Dawson, Yukon because he was recovering from tetanus. So he rode a bicycle for two months to get to Nome, Alaska in order to join the Klondike gold rush in 1900. Hirschberg was 19 years old when he started the trip.
The day I left Dawson, March 2, 1900 was clear and crisp, 30° below zero. I was dressed in a flannel shirt, heavy fleece-lined overalls, a heavy mackinaw coat, a drill parka, two pairs of heavy woolen socks and felt high-top shoes, a fur cap that I pulled down over my ears, a fur nosepiece, plus fur gauntlet gloves.
Along the way, Hirschberg suffered from exposure, snowblindness, and a broken bicycle chain. He came close to drowning. His money was gone. Still, he made it to Nome. Link -via Metafilter
(image found at Center Scene)
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Beautiful Blue Cave
Photo by Flickr user MelitaThis dreamy cave is Modra Spilja, The Blue Cave, located off the coast of Croatia. One of those hard-to-get-to locales, it is very much worth the effort to see the Bisevo/Balun Cove. The effect is caused by sunlight filtering in through an underwater opening from the sea, and reflecting off the limestone floor.
It has been there for ages, but wasn’t always accessible by raft:
Though Croatian fisherman have known of the blue cave since ancient times, it wasn’t until 1884 that a (relatively) easy entrance was blasted out with dynamite. Before this small hole in the side of the rock was opened, the only entrance into the cave was to dive underneath the rock wall in just the right spot.
Link with video.
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Ireland's Indian Sculptures
The annual United Nations human development index, released today, names Norway the best country in which to live. The list of 182 countries is based on 2007 statistics on life expectancy, literacy, school enrollment, gross domestic product, and other criteria.
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