LUNCAI n Tipah r soooo FUNNYYYY

Naughty Headlines

2010-07-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

Maybe "building of towers" could have been a better wording. (Link)

Every channel has a reporter who is a ‘ho'. (Link)

I'm kind of disappointed too. (Link)

(Link)
(Link)

Oh gosh, this sounds ugly. (Link)

(Link)

(Link)

(Link)

Money can't buy you love, but can buy… (Link)

When the editors at the Toronto Sun newspaper decide on their headline for the day, they should take into account the amount of the front page that can be covered by the newspaper box. This one is actually a very sad story about a mother and child that died when their car slipped into a CANAL in the winter. I hope that when there is an inquiry into the accident, the Sun doesn't go with the headline: CANAL PROBE. (Link)

Naughty dream. (Link)

The San Diego Union Tribune should have picked a different headline, don't you think? (Link)

He just couldn't fight the feeling anymore. (Link)

Crazy Optical Illusions

2010-07-20T06:25:00.000-07:00

When you are looking at these photos your brain don’t know how to react. Every time you see something different or something that you think is on a good place or real. Optical illusions are great thing. Enjoy in these photos, and check out the video “10 optical illusions in 2 minutes” that will blow your mind. This guy is awesome and show us great skill with optical illusions. I can’t figure how he created some of the illusions in the video. Did you know the real meaning of: “An optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. There are three main types: literal optical illusions that create images that are different from the objects that make them, physiological ones that are the effects on the eyes and brain of excessive stimulation of a specific type (brightness, tilt, color, movement), and cognitive illusions where the eye and brain make unconscious inferences.”

10 optical illusions in 2 minutes

[source]

Cenote Angelita, Mexico.

2010-07-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

Pictures by Anatoly Beloshchin in the cave Cenote Angelita, Mexico.

“We are 30 meters deep, fresh water, then 60 meters deep – salty water and under me I see a river, island and fallen leaves… Actually, the river, which you can see, is a layer of hydrogen sulphide.”

Museum of the human body

2010-07-20T03:19:00.000-07:00

In the Netherlands, has opened a unique museum where visitors can travel inside the human body. The museum is a steel figure of a seated human height of 35 meters, one sideways in the seven-storey building of glass and concrete.

[Visit their website]

[source]

Horn in forehead

2010-05-13T05:14:00.000-07:00

Hundred-year-old woman grows horn in forehead . The horn began growing on the left side of the forehead of Zhang Ruifang last year. Now it measures 5-6 centimeters long but the elderly woman feels no pain in the horn.

Images source

Incredible Desert Oases

2010-05-13T05:09:00.000-07:00

The yellow sand dunes stretch to infinity, whilst the scorching sun of the Sahel beats down on your head. You’re tired and you’re thirsty – you’ve been travelling for miles, searching for water. Yet nonetheless you are cautious: nothing is as it seems in this land of smokescreens and mirrors. “Water! Water!” you begin to scream. No… even imagination is playing tricks on you. But what if in the distance, past the undulating sand dunes, lay the waters of sand-locked lagoons and waterfalls surrounded by palm trees?

It is this vision of utopia, surrounded by barren wasteland that inspired us to catalogue some of the most incredible desert oases before they are devoured by the desert sands and become mirages themselves.

1. Ubari Lakes are part of Erg Awbari Oasis in the Sahara. Located near Fezzan and 30kms north of Germa in Libya, these salt water lakes are a central trading point for many locals, who gather at the edges of the lake selling souvenirs and other goods.

Photo:
sfivat

Umm Al-Maa, meaning Mother of Water, is one of the largest lakes in the oasis but unfortunately, like all the lakes, the water table in the area is so low that the lakes are drying up.

As well as the waters being extremely dirty, the saline levels are now similar to the Dead Sea (which is great news if you like floating in crud). The abandoned city of Gebraoun is also relatively nearby with its impressive ruins, the settlement is testament to the life-sustaining qualities that the lakes once had.

Photo:
10 Ninjas Steve

Photo:
unknown

Photo:
10 Ninjas Steve

Photo:
LucaG

2. Huacachina is a small oasis town in the Ica region of southwest Peru. This oasis, named ‘Oasis of Americas’, is a popular resort with local families and tourists. A legend says the lagoon was created when an inquisitive young hunter disturbed a beautiful princess bathing. She fled, leaving the pool of water behind which became the lagoon.

Photo:
dwhaynes2214

Photo:
unknown

Photo:
kanjiroushi

Photo:
Eric Bronder

3. Turpan, or Tulufan as it’s also known, is an oasis city in the Xinjiang Uygur Region in China. It is just 8km west of the ruined city of Jiaohe, a border garrison town destroyed by Genghis Khan during the Han dynasty.

Photo:
wikimedia commons

4. We’re not entirely sure where this desert oasis is but we had to include it because, surely, this is what most people perceive as the typical oasis mirage? If anyone has been there, shoot us the location.

Photo:
unknown

5. This wonderful desert lake is set within Lençóis Maranhenses National Park, Maranhao, Brasil. It forms part of a system of fresh water lagoons which fill up with rainwater during the first six months of the year and then gradually evaporate over time to be topped up again the following year. Some of the lakes within the park are dotted with palm trees. This lonely lake, however, has one solitary dry branch decorating its banks.

Photo:
Ric e Ette

6. Crescent Lake in China’s Gobi Desert sits on the edge of an ancient city that once saw traders embark on their journey along the Silk Road to the West. Today it is drying up and has dropped more than 25 feet in the last 30 years, in part due to water being redirected for local farmers and a doubling of population, resulting in the slow disappearance of a lake that has existed for thousands of years.

Photo:
Michael Zhao

7. The beautiful oasis of Chebika in Tunisia is probably one that most people know about without realizing it. It is where Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope was filmed. The story goes that the oasis was actually named after one of the characters, Chewbacca.

Photo:
Bartek Kuzia

Photo:
Howard.Gees

Photo:
Howard.Gees

8. This stunning image shows three men quenching their thirst at a small waterfall in the Saharan oasis of Timia, in Niger. It's a picture perfect portrait of everyday oasis life for local desert dwellers.

Photo:
nygus

9. There are always small enclaves or villages dispersed near bodies of water, no matter how small, and this image shows why. Even in desert areas wholes farms can exist with the life giving powers of water.

Photo:
wikimedia commons

10. This remote desert lake, fringed by sand dunes is located in Khar Nuur, Mongolia. It’s a refreshing swimming spot for travelers who manage to venture into one of the world’s vast desert plains.

Photo:
unknown

11. Nahal David is a quiet oasis found near Bethlehem, Israel's Palestinian West Bank. It’s certainly a far cry from the war-torn images often associated with that part of the world.

Photo:
unknown

12. This sprawling oasis is the village of Tinerhir, located at the foothills of Morocco's Atlas Mountains. Todra Gorge and oasis are about 14km away so travellers normally visit both oases on the one trip.

Photo:
jon keegan

13. Ghardaia is the main town in M'zab oasis in northern Algeria. Founded in the 11th century, the city was built around a cave which was reputedly inhabited by the female saint Daïa, and is still revered by M'zabite women today. The oasis offers some wonderful examples of original Arabic medieval architecture and is now a protected UNESCO World Heritage site.

Photo:
Addounya

Photo:
Masen

14. This castle is part of an oasis on the western shore of the Persian Gulf in Saudi Arabia, called Qatif. The city dates back to 3,500 BC and was for many years the main town and port in the western Gulf, which meant it was a popular spot for invasion and take over by ruling powers through the ages. This resulted in an eclectic mix of architecture and the area now boasts some of the best archeological sites in the kingdom.

Photo:
Alib_ahj

15. This oasis is hidden in the depths of the Oman desert, where a number of green oases dot the landscape. A few oases in the tiny Sultanate, on the corner of the Arabian Peninsula, are hotspots for botanical studies into agro-biodiversity where many of the ancient oasis are in rapid decline; researchers want to figure out why.

Photo:
loufi

16. Nakhl Fort sits overlooking a lush, green date-palm oasis in Oman. These impressive forts were strategically placed across much of the Oman desert, like many places, to protect villagers from invasion.

Photo:
unknown

17. This beautiful unnamed oasis is situated in Niger. If you have any further info, we’d love to hear about it in the comments section. Considering the recent unrest in the country it's amazing to find places like this still.

Photo:
unknown

18. The lush green carpet of shrubland and fields sit in stark contrast to the barren hills in the background of this typical oasis village. Any clues to where it is?

Photo:
unknown

MP3 listen and download from GEMPAKLAH Database

2010-04-21T22:21:00.000-07:00

Pautan senarai main:

Pergi

Vinyl record grooves under electron microscope

2010-03-24T02:19:00.000-07:00

Chris Supranowitz is a researcher at The Insitute of Optics at the University of Rochester. Along with a number of other spectacular studies (such as quantum optics, trapping of atoms, dark states and entanglement), Chris has decided to look at the grooves of a vinyl record using the institute's electron microscope:

Here is a shot of a number of record grooves (the dark bits are the top of the grooves, i.e. the uncut vinyl):

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The grooves magnified 500x – the little bumps are dust on the record:

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And here's a single groove even closer still, magnified 1000 times:

Click to view large

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Chris also did the pits in a CD – here's what they look like, just for contrast:

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Download full size (122 KB)

Chris decided to take the whole electron microscope image one step further, and created a blue/red 3-dimensional image of the record groove! So, if you have a pair of 3D glasses (sorry, the ones you got from watching Avatar won't work – you need red on the left, blue on the right), throw them on and take a look at this amazing picture:

Click to view large

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Video:

via SynthGear | Chris Supranowitz

Crazy House

2010-03-23T16:35:00.000-07:00

Enough snark! Let’s do a spell of awesomeness. Above, please see exhibit A. That is, A for “awesome.”I was going to go out and find a place in my backyard for a tree swing, but then I saw this and got a whole bunch of better ideas. Do you think I could copy this? I’m pretty certain the zoning laws in my American suburb are just about the same as those in Da Lat, Vietnam. I’ll just print these photos off and take them down to Home Depot, get some advice from one of the orange aprons, and I’ll be on my way.
Found by: dunno source

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi

2010-03-23T16:19:00.000-07:00

Located just across from Iran, the nearly-completed Ferrari World Theme Park sits on Abu Dhabi's largest natural island. In addition to the "usual" theme park rides, it will host this year's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Work only began on the 4,200 acre facility in November, 2007, but as things have a way of doing in the UAE, work is progressing incredibly rapidly. Ferrari World is scheduled for completion this November. Hit next to find out what to expect from "Ferrari World" and a shot-by-shot look at the build process from Sarlacc pit-like sand trap to prancing stallion princess castle!

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi will be the world's first Ferrari theme park. Tuesday we showed you its roller coaster. But today we saw the whole building. Frankly, we're now scared. It's obviously not a theme park, it's a Cylon baseship.

Ferrari World Abu Dhabi, set to open later this year, is the world's first Ferrari theme park as well as the world's largest indoor park. Its sleek red roof is supposedly directly inspired by the classic double curve side profile of the Ferrari GT body, spanning 200,000 sq meters (2,152,782 sq ft) and carrying the largest Ferrari logo ever created.

It also, after looking at it in the artist's concept (above) and in Google Maps satellite (below), looks like they're building a Cylon ship (way below) — something we didn't notice when we saw a more oblique look at the concept drawing exterior last year. We're not saying the designers stole the look from Battlestar Galactica, but if they didn't we suddenly have become very afraid for humanity.

We're told attractions will include
* The aforementioned world's fastest roller coaster emulating the feeling of being in an F1 car
* G-force experience taking passengers on an adrenaline-pumping ride up over 62m, through the roof
* State-of-the-art racing simulators using a similar system as those used by the Ferrari racing team
* Flume ride journey through the heart of a Ferrari 599 engine
* Driving and Racing school for junior drivers, with expert training
* Aerial voyage over Italy following a Ferrari
* A broad range of dining, quick service and beverage locations offering Italian-inspired delicacies
* Highlights include:
o Two restaurants inspired by the real Maranello food experience
o A true Italian ambiance of a traditional delicatessen, including:
+ Customised fresh pasta and pizza made-to-order
+ An array of international dishes to satisfy all tastes

Virgin Galactic

2010-03-23T11:16:00.000-07:00

Virgin Galactic has released some details about today’s first captive flight of SpaceShipTwo.

The early morning flight lasted for nearly three hours and achieved an altitude of 45,000 feet. Attached to WhiteKnightTwo, the second generation spacecraft from Scaled Composites lifted off at 7:05am from the Mojave Air and Space Port.

Scaled Composites founder and legendary aerospace designer Burt Rutan said it was a momentous day for the Scaled and Virgin Galactic teams.

“The captive carry flight signifies the start of what we believe will be extremely exciting and successful spaceship flight test program.”

As we reported earlier, captive flights are expected to continue for SpaceShipTwo and will be followed by unpowered glide flights.

Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic was equally pleased with today’s flight and said it was no surprise the ground-breaking vehicle flew so well.

“The Scaled team is uniquely qualified to bring this important and incredible dream to reality. Today was another major step along that road and a testament to US engineering and innovation.”

According to a press release, Virgin Galactic says it has already taken in around $45 million in deposits for space flights from more than 330 people.

The test program for SpaceShipTwo will continue through the rest of the year and 2011. There has been no announcement of a date for the first commercial flight carrying paying customers.

More photos, including close ups of SpaceShipTwo in flight after the jump.

Close up of SpaceShipTwo mounted on center pylon of WhiteKnightTwo

Close up of SpaceShipTwo showing tufts of yarn used to aid aerodynamic testing

SpaceShipTwo and WhiteKnightTwo departing the Mojave Air and Space Port

Easy formation flying over the Mojave Desert

Flying over the Mojave Desert

Photos: Virgin Galactic. Want the first three in high-res? Click here, here and here.

Book a flight to space now: Click me

Child Entrepreneurs

2010-03-23T10:05:00.000-07:00

If you’re never too old to follow your dreams, then you are never too young to get them underway. While some kids are out scraping their knees and playing in dirt, others are dutifully honing their business skills, devising innovative ways to monetize on their ideas either all on their own or through government grants for entrepreneurs. Here are 10 inspiring stories of exceptional child entrepreneurs and their path to success.

Cameron Johnson- Greeting Cards, Beanie Babies and Online Enterprises

While other kids were playing outside, Cameron Johnson was trotting his red wagon behind him, going door-to-door selling vegetables to his neighbors. That was when he was seven. By nine, he was the top-raffle-ticket-seller in his school, selling several hundred in a matter of weeks. His parents bought him a computer and printer for Christmas that year and a few months later he started his own business- printing greeting cards, stationary, and invitations for family and friends. A born businessman at 12 years old, he gave his sister $100 for her collection of 30 beanie babies, which he then sold on e-bay, raking in $50 000 a year. Investing in the stock market thereafter, by the time he was 15, his greeting card company had grown to sales in excess of $15,000 per day and he was eventually asked to become an Advisory Board Member to FutureKids, a Tokyo-based company as well as Sega America. Today, Cameron is 24-years-old and primarily spends his time traveling to different speaking engagements around the world. He is also very involved with several non-profit organizations.

Javier Fernández-Han- VERSATILE system

In order to meet the basic needs of many of the world’s poor, 15 year old Texan, Javier Fernández-Han, invented a fully featured algae-powered energy system, which captures and neutralizes greenhouse gases, treats waste and produces energy and food. Javier says that his system can be scaled up to provide for populations of 200,000 or more, or scaled down for smaller populations. Dubbed the VERSATILE system, the project was winner of the annual Invent Your World Challenge $20,000 scholarship.

Anshul Samar- Elementeo

At 13 years old, Anshul Samar is the founder and CEO of Alchemist Empire Inc. His first product, Elementeo is a card game based on chemistry designed to be both fun and educational. In Elementeo, elements from the periodic table have their own personality and fight with each other using their properties and oxidation states. For instance, Oxygen Life Giver rusts metals, Copper Cyclops shocks element cards around him, and Helium Genie airlifts element cards in balloons. Throughout the game, players create compounds, combat with element reactions, and conquer their opponent with black holes and slippery bases. Elementeo’s initial seed funding came in the form of a $500 grant from the California Association for the Gifted.

Leanna Archer- Hair Inc.

Leanna founded her company Hair Inc. when she was 8 years old, and was named Inc.com Magazine’s Youngest 30 Entrepreneurs under 30. Using a family formula for hair repair, she began her career by selling her product to fellow students. The buzz spread quickly and soon orders were coming from stores and online across the US. Meanwhile, Leanna still has time to develop new products, make the honor roll in middle school and has even been offered a scholarship from Harvard. She also delivers motivational speeches for parents in communication skills and teens to live their dreams and start their own business.

Umar Brimah- Yumazu Anime Shop

At the age of 12, Umar Brimah runs his very own anime store called Yumazu (his name in Japanese). He opened the new shop in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Turning his hobby into business, his mother put up $10,000 as an opening investment. Considering the Internet is one the only places you can find anime, some products can end up costing twice the price, plus shipping charges. Yumazu offers anime collectors a place where they won’t have to pay extra money to get what they want. Umar hopes to one day expand his business to a chain of stores.

Jason O’Neill- Pencil Bugs

Jason O’Neill is a young entrepreneur who started his own business called Pencil Bugs at the age of 9, selling hand-made bug-like pencil toppers. Soon after the success of Pencil Bugs he began making matching laminated bookmarks and t-shirts. Future projects will include a Pencil Bugs board game, a video game and then one day who knows, maybe even a Pencil Bugs movie! Over the holidays, O’Neill has decided to raise money for less fortunate children, donating teddy bears to children at Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego. Forbes.com identified O’Neill as one of the Hot Role Models To Admire on their list of Top 10 Role Models 18 & Under.

Alexandra McDaniel

When she was just 9 years old Alexandra McDaniel became the founder and president of Kid’s Roar a company entirely run by kids. The reason Alexandra started the company was because she wanted a horse and her dad told her that if she really wanted one, she’d need to raise the money herself to get it. Kids Roar has five different clubs (Safari Club, Marine Club, Horse Club, Best Friends Club and the Dinosaur Club) with various products, which can be found on the site.

Luke Underwood- McDonald’s Toys

At 11 years old, Luke has made £8,000 from the sale of his collection of McDonald’s memorabilia. The 7,000 items included posters, Happy Meal boxes, toys, limited edition cups and shop-front displays, all made between 1990 and 1999. The McDonald’s memorabilia was bought for Luke four years ago by his father Philip at a cost of just £250. After making such a huge profit, Luke knows he wants to be a businessman when he’s older. For now, he’ll continue to go garage sale (or car boot sale as it is referred to in the UK) hunting to get the best deals on items and sell them for more after.

Ashley Qualls- whateverlife.com

After seeing some of her friends personalize their MySpace pages, a then 14 year old Ashley Qualls had a million dollar idea- provide free MySpace layouts and HTML tutorials for her peers. Living in a one bedroom apartment with her sister and mother, her mother gave her $8 to buy a domain name whereupon Ashley created her first website whateverlife.com. Her site was soon generating traffic from over a million people a day. Her first Adsense paycheck was for $2,790, and in just three years she grossed more than $1 million. The website receives several times more traffic than circulations for popular teen magazines Seventeen, Teen Vogue, and CosmoGirl! combined!

David Wilkinson – Zi Media Network, Techzi tech blog

David Wilkinson’s love for computers and video games inspired him to begin his own technology blog at the age of 12. Though he wasn’t making much money from Adsense, a few months later, he branched out into affiliate marketing, which now brings him a steady income. He is also founder of the Zi Media Network (ZiMedia.net) where he will be launching several other blogs. He is currently spending all his time on launching Affiliate Defined: The Affiliate Marketing Revolution.

Bankrupt celebrities

2010-03-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Celebrities may seem to have it all, but they sure know how to blow it all too. From owning pet tigers and helicopters to buying an entire town here are two handfuls of stars that managed to foolishly squander their earnings, and then some.

Willie Nelson

Willie Nelson owed the IRS $16.7 million in 1990. In order to get on the road again, he released the album The IRS Tapes: Who’ll Buy My Memories. All proceeds went to paying off his debt to the government.

Mike Tyson

Tyson had earned over $300 million during his career as a boxer but jewelry, mansions, cars, limousines, cellphones, parties, clothing, motorcycles and Siberian tigers eventually caught up to him. In 2003 he had to file for bankruptcy, thanks to a colourful variety of debts including $13.4 million to the IRS and a $9 million divorce settlement to his ex-wife, Monica Turner. From 1995 to 1997, he spent $9 million in legal fees, $230,000 on pagers and cellphones, and $410,000 on a birthday party. In June 2002, he owed $8,100 to care for his tigers and $65,000 for limos.

Kim Basinger

Basinger was one of Hollywood’s highest earners in the late ’80s, so she decided to buy the entire town of Braselton, Georgia for $20 million. Braselton didn’t turn out to be the fruitful tourist attraction she had been hoping for and in 1993 she made yet another foolish move and was sued for backing out of a film she had agreed to star in- a controversial movie called Boxing Helena about a surgeon who kidnaps and amputates the limbs of the woman he is obsessed with- just four weeks before shooting. She was forced to sell Braselton for just $1 million. Kim was forced to declare herself bankrupt in order to settle the $8 million claim. A costly divorce from first husband, make-up artist Ron Britton, didn’t help matters much either.

Marvin Gaye

Besieged by tax problems and drug addictions, the Let’s Get It On singer filed for bankruptcy in 1979 and moved to Hawaii, where he lived in a bread van and began working on his album In Our Lifetime.

Jerry Lee Lewis

Goodness Gracious Great Balls Of Fire! In 1975 the IRS took most the Rock n’ Roll legend’s personal property for back taxes. In 1988 he filed for bankruptcy with three million dollars of debts and no assets.

Burt Reynolds

Reynolds declared bankruptcy in 1996 with $6.6 million in assets and $11.2 million in debts. He owned mansions, a helicopter, and a lavish Florida ranch. Bad investments in two restaurant chains in the late 80s and 90’s as well as a falling-off in his box-office clout were major factors attributing to the Bandit’s financial bust. In the end, he had to sell his trademark mustache at auction to help pay his bills. Reynolds got to keep his $2.5 million Florida estate however, a shining example of how bankruptcy proceedings go too easy on the wealthy.

MC Hammer

It seems the Hammer did have to prey just to make it today after amassing debts of $13 million and filing for bankruptcy in 1996. Some of his expenses included his modest California home – complete with two pools, cinema, tennis courts and 17-car garage. He also bought a helicopter, several racehorses, and a sound system that required 22 miles of wiring. Not to mention the solid gold chains for his four pet Rottweilers.
Hammer now juggles several careers as a rapper, TV presenter and preacher to support his family of six.

Gary Coleman

The once-beloved, highest paid TV child actor from Diff’rent Strokes filed bankruptcy in 1999 citing $72,000 in personal debts. Times were tough for Coleman and perhaps it was the financial stress that led him to punch a woman while working as a security guard. In order to dig himself out of his financial hole, he became the beneficiary of an Internet charity that auctioned off items such as his spatula, sofa, purple bowling ball, size 4 1/2 bowling shoes and his self-described yellow pinstriped “pimp suit”. He even held a contest in which the grand prize was a Christmas shopping spree — with Coleman serving as the winner’s “shopping elf.”

Judy Garland

A combination of tax debts – she owed several hundred thousand dollars to the IRS– and the demise of The Judy Garland Show, left the singer struggling financially. She died of an accidental drug overdose in 1969 at the age of 47.

Michael Jackson

On his death in June, it was reported that Michael Jackson was in $400 million worth of debt. A Neverland Ranch to maintain, the singer spent $35 million improving the property, which featured two railway lines, two helicopter pads, its own fire department, a zoo and a plethora of amusement park-style rides. Seventy-five cars, lavish gifts such as the $637,000 necklace he bought Elizabeth Taylor made for some of his outrageous expenses. He was also reported as having spent $25,600 a month on ‘medical needs’.

Disabled Artists

2010-03-23T02:06:00.000-07:00

Some of the best artists deal with disabilities in their everyday lives that the rest of us can’t even imagine living with, and use art to communicate with the world. The results are often stunning.

We’ve collected biographies and sample pieces from outstanding disabled artists, both famous and lesser-known.

The artists below paint with their hands, their mouths and their feet.

Many are blind or suffer from mental disabilities, yet they produce some of the most beautiful and intricate artwork that you can imagine.

Their achievements are arguably epic in the face of the adversity that they face.
We hope that the artists in this post inspire your designs and make you look at adversity in any field as a surmountable obstacle.

Stephen Wiltshire

Disability: Autistic Savant
Wiltshire was born in 1974 in London to West Indian parents. He is an autistic savant and world famous architectural artist. He learned to speak at the age of nine, and at the age of ten began drawing detailed sketches of London landmarks. While he has created many prodigious works of art, his most recent was a eighteen foot wide panoramic landscape of the skyline of New York City, after only viewing it once during a twenty minute helicopter ride.

Maria Iliou

Disability: Autistic
Maria Iliou is a Greek artist with autism spectrum disorder. She lives in Long Island, New York, and is an advocate for the rights of people with autism.

Joseph Cartin

Disability: Bipolar
Cartin is from Brooklyn and actively lives with bipolar disorder. He has been active in the Mental Health Consumer Movement since 1990 and considers himself a “psychiatric survivor”. He has won numerous art competitions and does corporate design work in addition to his art.

Peter Longstaff

Disability: Missing Both Arms
Peter is a foot painter. He creates all of his artwork using just his feet, having no arms. Peter’s disability stemmed from the drug thalidomide, which was prescribed for morning sickness until it was discovered that it caused deformities fetuses. After living most of his life without arms, Peter considers his right foot to be like the right hand of most people, using it dexterously to open doors and perform many other everyday tasks.

Willow Bascom

Disability: Lupus
Willow grew up in Saudi Arabia and Panama, where her father was a pilot on sea vessels. Her early introduction to varying cultures made her a huge fan of tribal art. Later in life she was struck with lupus, and started drawing when it went into remission.

Alice Schonfield

Disability: Diminished capacity through multiple strokes
Although Alice Schonfeld is most known for her sculpting work primarily in Italian marble, she is also regarded as an inspirational figure for the disabled community. She has shown a considerable tenacity to work through debilitating illnesses and has done a lot to promote awareness of disable artists. She resides in California.

Keith Salmon

Disability: Visually Impaired
Keith is a blind fine artist and avid mountain climber. He has climbed over a hundred Munros (a type of Scottish mountain), one of which can be seen in the first painting below. In 2009 he won the Jolomo award for Scottish landscape painting.

Lisa Fittipaldi

Disability: Visually Impaired
Lisa not only learned to paint after losing her sight, she wrote a book about it. Her inspiring use of color and her ability to tell which color she is using just by feeling the texture of the paint are just two remarkable facets of her story.

Matt Sesow

Disability: Missing a hand
Just six years after losing his hand as a child in an accident in which a crashed plane severed his arm and took away his dominant hand, Sesow played for the US team in the disabled Olympics in England. While working at IBM as a software engineer, he began painting scenes in oils that were influenced by his traumatic injury.

Michael Monaco

Disability: Quadriplegic
Michael Monaco is a quadriplegic who paints with his mouth. His work has been featured in global exhibitions and he is a member of the Mouth and Foot Painters Association.

Simon Mark Smith

Disability: No lower arms or right foot
Simon has no lower arms or right foot. In addition to his still paintings, he teaches digital photography and writes poetry and prose. He is also a web designer.

Dennis Francesconi

Disability: Paralysis
Francesconi is a mouth painter that excels at adding a high level of detail in his works, especially considering his method of painting them. He has participated in over 75 exhibitions around the world.

A. Erich Stegmann

Disability: Loss of arm use through polio
The first President of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World, Stegmann lost the use of both arms and hands from polio at the age of two. A prominent mouth painter, he formed the association around 1953 and was voted president for life. The association continues to be home to hundreds of Mouth and Foot painters globally.

Richard Wawro

Richard Wawro was a prominent and prolific autistic savant artist from the United Kingdom. He began drawing at the age of three, and immediately covered the chalkboard with a number of detailed images.

Jessy Park

Disability: Autism
Jessica Park is an autistic artist from Massachusetts. She starts with a sketch of the scene and may refer back to a photograph for more detail later. Her mother wrote a memoir about Jessy’s story.

Ping Lian Yeak

Disability: Autistic Savant
Ping Lian is an autistic savant who has been producing amazing art since his childhood. He is now fifteen. More of his amazing art may be viewed at his website.

Christophe Pillault

Disability: Autistic Savant
This French autistic savant artist was born in Iran. He is unable to speak, walk or feed himself, but he produces paintings of flowing, beautiful figures. His art has been exhibited globally.

George Widener

Disability: Autistic Savant
Widener is a famous autistic savant artist whose works are exhibited in museums and galleries nationwide. He not only creates intricate works of art; he is also able to make complex calculations in an instant.

Gilles Trehin

Disability: Autistic Savant
The city of Urville exists solely in the mind of this French autistic savant artist. His elaborate sketches of the city are executed in intricate detail. He has published a book with over 300 detailed sketches of his fabled city.

Amanda LaMunyon

Disability: Asperger’s Syndrome
LaMunyon is a talented child artist that began painting when she was only seven. She is now twelve. In kindergarten, instead of cutting out letters to illustrate her alphabet, she drew her own.

Resources

FAT SUPERHEROES

2010-03-22T18:41:00.000-07:00

Pencil Drawings

2010-03-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

LV Handbag?

2010-03-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe there are people who would actually buy this sort of hand bag. In my opinion it is not cute at all, if that was the original idea, but it is deeply disturbing and I can’t bare looking at it.

It looks like some sick taxidermist killed, shaved a stuffed some poor puppy and then made a handbag out of it.

There are even signs of Louis Vuitton over the bag. Maybe it was made as some sort of protest against using real animal leather in making handbags, but I couldn’t find any info about it on internet.

What do you think about this handbag? Would you ever buy something like this or do you think it’s a bit too much? Feel free to comment.

via

Flickr

2010-03-20T21:13:00.001-07:00

Design for flexibility

2010-03-20T21:10:00.000-07:00

Let nature be the ornament
There is a rich variety of colors and textures inherent to materials that are readily available in the Northwest. To us, there is nothing more beautiful than a smooth poured concrete wall, the tight grain of Douglas-Fir and the natural patina of steel all used in accordance with one another. When nature has already done the work, there is very little reason to cover it up.

Bruckner Residence near Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Paul Warchol

Campbell Orchard Residence in Tieton Washington by Miller | Hull, photo by James F. Housel

Allow weathering to be beautiful
No matter what the material, it’s going to weather in the Pacific Northwest. Ignoring the effects of weathering leads to projects that look neglected and unintentional. When the weathering is planned for and the process is acknowledged in the architecture, the weathering of a project can add an unparalleled beauty.

Wright Guest House in the Highlands Washington by James Cutler, photo by Peter Aaron

Bainbridge Island Residence by BUILD LLC, photo by Art Grice

Create deep overhangs
It rains all the time here. There are months in the winter where we’re not sure if it’s ever not raining to some capacity. Respect that and work with it. Long overhangs keep the rain off windows, doors and siding and allow the building to last longer. Overhangs also give a comfortable and warm feeling of shelter when executed correctly.

Yaquina Head Interpretive Center in Newport Oregon by Miller | Hull, photo by Strode Eckert

Bainbridge Island Residence by BUILD LLC, photo by Art Grice

Use subtle colors
Let’s face it – it’s dark and drizzly in the Northwest for about 8 months out of the year. The Scandinavians learned to use subtle yellows and oranges in their architecture to compliment the gray skies. We would be wise to take note and start experimenting a bit with a more colorful palette.

Hansman Residence in Seattle by Miller | Hull, photo by James F. Housel

Mile Post 9 near Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Chris Eden

Lighting is important
Did we mention that it’s dark for about 8 months out of the year? Artificial light is very important here.

Roddy/Bale Residence in Bellevue Washington by Miller | Hull, photo by James F. Housel

Bruckner Residence near Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Paul Warchol

Park Modern in Seattle by BUILD LLC, photo by Chase Jarvis

Floor to ceiling glass
Large walls of glass help us gather what light we can. In the best examples the “window” disappears and allows a clear view of the exterior.

Dr. Poor House near San Francisco by Jack Hillmer, photo by Alan Weintraub

Michaels/Sisson Residence, Mercer Island Washington by Miller | Hull, photo by Art Grice

Stretch Residence in Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Nick Lehoux

Park Modern by BUILD LLC, photo by Art Grice

Relationship of inside and outside
During those 3 relatively warm months in the Northwest, we take full advantage of the outdoors. The ability to open up walls and combine the indoors with the outdoors makes for a quantum leap in enjoyment of spaces.

Camano Cabin designed by Vandeventer and Carlander Architects, Construction management by BUILD LLC, photo by Steve Keating

Ching Cabin on Maury Island Washington by Miller | Hull, photo by James F. Housel

Allow the natural landscape to play a role in the architecture
In the Pacific Northwest, nature is going to work it’s way in, whether you want it to or not – it makes sense to be intentional about it.

Mayhew House in Orinda California by Clarence Mayhew and Serge Chermayeff, photo by Alan Weintraub

Paulk Residence in Seabeck Washington by James Cutler, photo by Art Grice

Let nature regulate shade and sun
When a trellis is cleverly situated it provides shade in the summer and sunlight in the winter.

Wayne and Joan Miller house in Orinda California by Mario Corbett

Use materials and trades from the area
With nearby lumber mills in the Cascades, an entire shipping industry in Ballard and a healthy manufacturing industry in South Seattle there is very little reason to go outside of the region for resources.

Picnic by BUILD LLC, photo by BUILD LLC

Build with methods and materials from our current time
Unless you’re drawing from Native American smoke houses – the northwest doesn’t have a substantial architectural history to derive from. Creating references to traditional architectures from the Midwest prairies, the East-coast or Europe is inauthentic. We have the rare opportunity in the northwest to create our own architectural path and there is no reason to ignore the innovations and knowledge of our current time.

Lagerberg House in Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Steve Keating

Bainbridge Island Residence by BUILD LLC, photo by Art Grice

Design for flexibility
As a young city, our society is still evolving. Neighborhoods that were industrial 10 years ago are now some of the most enjoyable places to live. While we can’t predict what will become of architectures we can refrain from over personalizing them.

Bainbridge Island City Hall by Miller | Hull, photo by Art Grice

Modesty
Architecture is rarely the main attraction here in the Pacific Northwest. With the Olympic Mountain Range, the Cascade Mountain Range, the Puget Sound, the San Juan Islands, rainforests, coast line, and more evergreens than you can swing a chainsaw at, the architecture is typically the means to admire other phenomenon. More often than not, the architecture shouldn’t get in the way.

Gorton/Bounds Cabin on Decatur Island Washington by Miller | Hull, photo by Chris Eden

Kogan Residence in Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Steve Keating

Honesty
We’re a pretty straight-forward people here in the Pacific Northwest– things should look like what they are. Covering up how a structure works to produce an academic or theoretical statement doesn’t carry much weight here. Houses and building should look like what they’re doing.

Tobias Residence in Seattle by E. Cobb Architects Inc, photo by Paul Warchol

Via
Miller | Hull, Architects of the Pacific Northwest by Sheri Olsen
Forgotten Modern, California Houses 1940-1970 by Alan Hess & Alan Weintraub
James Cutler, Contemporary World Architects, Rockport Publishers
E. Cobb Architects Inc. Website
BUILD LLC website

Enjoy

2010-03-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

Architects and photographs

2010-03-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

[H-House in the archipelago of Trosa south of Stockholm photos by Åke E:son Lindman]
[Casa Barone in Ingaro-Evlinge east of Stockholm photos by Åke E:son Lindman]

[Island House in the archipelago of Stockholm photo by Åke E:son Lindman]

[Empty parking lot in Buenos Aires, Argentina, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Ceiling at Union Station, Washington D.C., photo by BUILD LLC]

[Crowd at Sounders FC game, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Sculpture & concrete floor at Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, Spokane WA, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Comic book wallpaper at Kushibar, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Bead store, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Fire engine controls, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Garbage, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Jigs at Box Factory, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Shadows on a wall, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Solartube, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Tubes on UW campus, Seattle, photo by BUILD LLC]

[Subways, Washington D.C., photo by BUILD LLC]

[Photo by doubleare]
[Photo by Toshio]

[Photo by RobinandEd]

Cheers to Natasha, Håkan, Philip and all the other hardworking architects at WRB,
Thanks to Åke E:son Lindman and Max Plunger for your phenomenal photographs.

Women in design

2010-03-20T20:12:00.000-07:00

Jan Gleason, U.S.A.
We’d like to start out by acknowledging the loss of a true hero here in the Northwest. Founder of Environmental Works, a non profit firm in specializing in child-care centers, homeless shelters, low-income housing and community centers, Gleason believed everyone deserves good design. In addition to acting on that belief, she played soccer, was a cellist in the Cascade Symphony Orchestra and even put in time for other non-profits. She set an outstanding example and she’ll be missed.

Monica Ponce de Leon, U.S.A
Her work is innovative and challenges design protocols with fresh new solutions. Organic geometrical moves provide functional solutions and develop elegantly pleasing interiors.

Hilary Sample, U.S.A.
Delicate and diverse is the work of Sample. The finished products push the envelope of conceptual design, at the same time they maintain a careful agenda. Some of her work simply makes us think a bit differently about the built-environment, other work has our tongues dragging on the ground.

Kazuyo Sejima, Japan
It takes confidence and wisdom to propose designs as minimal and sterile as the work of Sejima. Her work focuses on the geometries and apertures that lie within seemingly simple forms. Her recent exhibit that toured the country, a collection models both built and proposed, was Bold with a capital B, like pushing a new agenda for architecture kind of Bold. It had our full attention.

Julie Snow, U.S.A.
Luminous and unencumbered, Snow’s work is the warm lantern in the cold northern winter. Her method of design is rich enough to give comfort, sparse enough to allow nature to take center stage. The thought of throwing a swanky party in one of her rocket-hot lakeshore vacation homes gets our gears going. We promise not to spill Pinot Noir on the couch Julie, c’mon just one little soire…

Benedetta Tagliabue, Spain
Tagliabue’s work is a rediscovery of form, color and mechanics. Her work is both playful and daring. Most of us will be lucky to achieve a single project in our lives with the level of ambition that each of her projects displays.

Maryann Thompson, U.S.A.
An architect with both technical competence and an eye for intriguing composition is rare. Thompson covers them both and then proceeds right on to knocking the ball out the park with her projects. Forward thinking in design, yet still warm and human these projects really speak to us and we spent a great deal of time reviewing her work. Kudos for a clean, easy to navigate website; taking the time and effort for high quality photos also makes a tremendous difference.

Billy Tsein, U.S.A.
Ahh Billy, so mysterious and elegant. In grad school they sung songs about her in the hills. Each and every project is deliberate and important as a piece of architecture. Each project has significance in the world. Intentional about what she takes on, intelligent and beautiful in the solution, and masterful in the execution, Tsein transcends design into epiphany.

Nathalie de Vries, Netherlands
Equal parts architect and human psychologist, the work of de Vries questions not only the design agenda but also the human agenda. Her solutions are striking in composition, wonderful in exploration and challenge the preconceived notions of living, working and playing. The design for the Dutch Pavilion at Expo 2000 makes us giggle with childlike fascination every time we see pictures of it.

Sarah Wigglesworth, U.K.
Wigglesworth brings a breath of fresh air to the urban context. Her forms are serious architecture well integrated to their sites. The interiors are inspiring spaces to be in and the envelopes abide by the form follows function aesthetic – big respect.

The “Women Making an Impact” is an ongoing series – hit that comments button to nominate your favorites or follow along with the BUILDblog research via twitter.

Jane Jacobs: In April of 2006 the design world lost one of its greatest writers, observers, theorists and activists. Her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities is, to this day, one of the most influential resources in the world on urban architecture and urban planning. Her other titles are every bit as good. At a time in society where the mainstream thinking was to tear everything down and start with a blank canvas – Jacobs questioned it all and wrote the book on urban design.

Eileen Gray: Like their designer, her pieces are elegant and enigmatic. The Eileen Gray daybed may very well be one the most pure furniture designs in modern history. She bucked the system of gratuitous curves and ornament for clean lines and functional design.

Anni Albers: We’ve always loved the balance of Albers’ textiles; the rational, clean grids woven with craftsmanship (or craftswomanship rather) into a tactile imperfect material. The perfect married with the real. There is so much materiality in her work that you can practically feel the weaves through the photos. We were lucky enough to catch her work at a Cooper Hewitt show years ago and we found her work to illustrate everything we admire about design.

Gwendolyn Wright: This woman is more passionate about architecture than all of us put together. For dinner she has medallions of architecture over a steaming bed of architecture with a side dish of architecture. She makes most of us look like ninnies when it comes to dedication of an occupation. She recently completed the USA version of Modern Architectures in History and continues to teach at Columbia University. She is a world class professor, excellent lecturer and stars in the PBS series History Detectives.

Maya Lin: From her installations to her portfolio of architectural work, Maya Lin’s vocabulary is full of craft and sensuality. In an increasingly digital and mechanized world, her work is refreshingly designed with the eye and built with the hand. There is a tangible sensation of wanting to touch, smell and hear these works.

Lise Anne Couture: As a principal of New York based Asymptote Architecture, Couture applies an illustrious design-forward manifesto to architecture, master planning, interiors, furniture, industrial design and exhibitions. Her designs are sleek and smart. If you want to see what the future looks like you should get very familiar with her portfolio.

Petra Blaisse: Her large scale surface coverings and hangings open up new ideas between nature and built-form. Her installations cause you to think differently. We particularly like her work as it relies heavily on proximity and where you are in relation to the pieces.

Hella Jongerius: At first glance her work is striking in terms of color and pattern. The further into her work we get the more we like the re-invention of form and assembly. Jongerius exemplifies that a good designer can design anything.

Deborah Adler: When it comes to design a small strategy can have wide ranging effects. Adler understood this with her clever Masters Thesis which applied a new set of logistics and information identity on prescription bottles. The concept was so successful that Target is now in partnership with her on the Clear Rx brand. She also has great hair – the kind of hair that should be flipping around in a shampoo commercial –rrroww.

Tina Roth Eisenberg: Otherwise known as Swiss Miss, she is at the helm of the design blog ship. Tens of thousands of design minded individuals look to her blog for emerging design. We check in with her daily – so should you.

Ray Eames, U.S.A.
So significant and infectious were her contributions to the design world that it is nearly impossible to walk through a modern project and not find some derivative of Eames design.

Lina Bo Bardi, Brazil
A spearhead of Italian rationalism her work is bold and unapologetically modern. Forms soar and materials are allowed to be true to their character.

Marion Mahony Griffin, U.S.A.
She was one of the first licensed female architects in the world, and is considered an original member of the Prairie School. Architectural writer Reyner Banham called her the “greatest architectural delineator of her generation”. Alrighty then. Marion Mahony Griffin’s pinky could probably achieve more than most of us combined.

Eva Jiricna, U.K.
Sophisticated and technical, Jiricna’s work pushes the boundaries and makes us feel like we’re building with Lincoln logs. Thanks a lot Eva.

Deborah Berke, U.S.A.
Simple but sensuous, her work employs slight geometric moves to engage the inhabitants. Check out her new book and recent NPR interview.

Tatiana Bilbao, Mexico
It’s refreshing to look at Bilbao’s work as it is such a new interpretation of form. The experience of moving through these projects must be surreal.

Virginia Kerridge, Australia
Warm materials, glowing volumes and simple geometries characterize Kerridge’s work. For a “young” architect (an architect under the age of 50) Kerridge is hitting it out of the park.

Ann Beha, U.S.A.
Rational, yet extremely elegant, Beha’s work tackles some of the more important institutions in society. We like the particular knack for resuscitating historic buildings with forward thinking modernism.

Christine Binswanger, Switzterland
Rumored to be next in line at world renowned Herzog & de Meuron, Binswanger has worked on a mind-boggling portfolio of projects including the Ricola storage buildings, the Walker Arts Center and the Miami Art Museum
Is it just our lack of resourcefulness on the internet, or does H&dM really not have a website?

Caroline Bos, The Netherlands
As the co-founder of UN Studio, Bos brings her previous experience as journalist, writer and critic to the architecture realm specializing in urban development and infrastructure. The work she is doing with UN Studio is redefining built-form and leading the way to the 21st century.

Amanda Levete, UK

Levete’s designs are future-forward and unapologetic. Her projects seem to have a commitment to the possibility of human behavior as opposed to simply delivering design twists on established formulas. The work challenges the functions of a society and interjects a necessary exploration into the design world.

Louisa Hutton, Germany
The grand scale of work that Hutton applies her skills to incorporates pleasing textures which create an urban fabric. We applaud the amount of personality and color that her work brings to the city scale.

Momoyo Kaijima, Japan
A master at urban infill, Kaijima’s projects explore new form, fill in the gaps of the city and bring new interpretations to the ergonomics of interiors.

Anne Lacaton, France
Her work is inconspicuous to the extent that the untrained eye may not even notice Lacaton’s sophisticated designs. But to the trained eye the projects come off as rational, deliberate and graceful.

Dorte Mandrup, Denmark
Like many of the women who crushed our little student hearts back in Denmark, Mandrup is smart, beautiful and can design circles around most of us. Not to worry Dorte, we won’t hold it against you. We find the design concepts original, the craftsmanship inspiring and the assemblies fascinating. So about that drink…

Victoria Meyers, U.S.A.
Meyers has a good handle on the ‘everything it needs to be and nothing more’ aesthetic and her work hits all the right chords with us. There is a nice range of challenging projects on her website and she also keeps a blog –big points from team BUILD.

E.B. Min, U.S.A.
We like the contrast between sleek, smooth glass with the warm textured woods in Min’s projects. The lantern-like glowing effect also gets us everytime.

Toshiko Mori, U.S.A.
Rigorously modern, Mori’s work has retained the qualities so arduously earned from mid-century modern design. The clear geometries and walls of glass integrate logic with inspiring spaces to live, work and play in.

Patricia Patkau, Canada
With a progressive design philosophy, Patkau’s methods are constantly generating new geometries and methods of assembly. We’re particularly proud of that northwest flavor that’s integrated with a global innovation.

Carme Pinos, Spain
Very few architectural studios are as diligent about the process of architecture as Estudio Carme Pinos. Through a rigorous lineage from sketch to drawing to physical model, form is rediscovered and architecture is born. The drawings are captivating from the initial back of the envelope sketches and the built work is an epiphany for the senses.

Allison Brooks, U.K.
Not only is the work ambitious, fast-forward thinking and inspiring but the Brooks website is a pleasure to tour. Brooks is skilled not only in design but in the mastery of enrolling clients in important, progressive ideas.

Marianne Burkhalter, Switzerland
Clean, crisp plans and rational boxes define the work of Burkhalter. Interior volumes are light-filled, open and flexible –just how we like ‘em.

Liz Diller, U.S.A.
Behind many of the most exciting projects of the decade is Diller, Scofidio & Renfro. Diller’s master planning shifts one’s paradigm and the architecture is deliberate all the way down to the detailing.

Merril Elam, U.S.A.
You know an architect is up to extraordinary work when their firm philosophy states “We travel well and find the discovering of new places invigorating. We have heavy overcoats and galoshes and we are fond of tulips. Place has everything to do with the character and outcome of a project.” We think Elam’s work re-ignites the senses of wonder and curiosity and we can’t wait to visit one of her projects.

Karen Fairbanks, U.S.A.
The work of Marble Fairbanks pushes a modern agenda, but importantly doesn’t loose the poetry of good architecture.

Jeannie Gang, U.S.A.
What Studio Gang has achieved for a young firm is off the charts, the construction of their Aqua Tower in downtown Chicago indicates decades of dedication, solid expertise and long grueling hours.

Annette Gigon, Switzerland
By the time we were finished reviewing the Gigon|Guyer website we were putting our own resumes together for submission. Gorgeous building after gorgeous building, all designed and crafted with that beautifully boring aesthetic that hits all the right chords.

Silvia Gmur, Switzerland
Bold and proud is the work of Gmur. We like the order, the clean lines and the transparency.

Laurie Hawkinson, U.S.A.
Let it be known that we adore Laurie Hawkinson. Having had her as a professor in graduate school we can vouch first hand that she’s smart, savvy and has a great sense of humor. Her work is rigorous Architecture with a capital A.

Anna Heringer, Austria
This woman is in the trenches, solving real problems for real people. Whether it’s a home for handicapped children in South Africa or family housing in Bangladesh, Heringer is the real deal.

Amazing

2010-03-20T20:07:00.000-07:00

Designed by Gollifer Langston for the Camden school district, these classrooms of the future are both useful and flexible. The classrooms are designed to easily and cheaply "clip on" to existing schools, as well as adapt to changes in use and technology. Although these look great, I'd be interested to hear feedback from teachers and students. My sister-in-law is a teacher who once taught in a pod separate from the main school (although, not as stylish as this), and the aesthetic wasn't the only problem. Being totally separated and isolated from the main school can makes things tough for teachers. Let's face it.. without major strutural changes made to the existing school, these pods are not actually going to clip on, more likely they will be set up adjacent to the school.

Rubik Cube

2010-03-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

The last Rubik Cube that we saw on Yanko Design had textures as tease for the visually challenged; this current iteration uses only Braille. Colors embossed include green, blue, red, yellow, white & pink. One of the more sensible concepts in a long time that hopefully will delight the sighted folks too! Maybe we’ll learn Braille in this process!

Designer: Konstantin Datz

Stupid Costumed Criminals

2010-03-20T08:34:00.000-07:00

Criminal is one of the most common things of today. So it’s normal to arrest that criminals. But what if that criminals are dressed in costumes? Doesn’t that make you think, “Whats wrong with that people”? I’m not sure what have they done, but i can bet on it that it’s something really stupid. Anyway, who normal will do something illegal dressed like a clown or something else?

Satellite IMAGES

2010-03-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Transparent Georgian police

2010-03-20T08:11:00.000-07:00

The pride of the Georgian police is transparent police departments’ buildings. Their transparency symbolizes the transparency and honesty of the police officers’ work. There were some rumors that some of these buildings have been rebuilt from former underworld leaders’ cottages.

Flipped out

2010-03-19T16:57:00.000-07:00

Upside down houses: they’re more common then you think… but why? Perhaps the artists and designers of these flipped out homes wanted to shake up the way we think of society’s most pressing need, shelter. Maybe they just wanted to stand out from the crowd. In that at least, they’ve succeeded.

Sakasa Restaurant, Japan

(image via: Nipponsoup)
Real estate agencies just love the image of this upside down restaurant in Matsumoto city, Nagano prefecture, Japan – what better way to illustrate the philosophy of “house flipping”?

(images via: S66)
The designer of the upside-down restaurant went all out, inside and out, to fulfill his/her image of a world turned upside down: many of the ceiling light fixtures are inverted buckets, the outside advertising signboards and emergency exit signs are inverted and the menu displays mirror image text. No telling whether they serve reversal-of-fortune cookies after each meal.

Norman Johnson’s Upside-Down House, Florida, USA

(image via: Lakaw)
Want to see what the houses in Florida’s Sunrise Golf Village look like? Well, just stand – on your head – outside the model home above. Norman Johnson’s Upside-Down House is a faithfully transposed recreation of a typical home in lovely Sunrise, circa 1961. Even the furniture inside was mounted upside down, and that palm tree outside looks VERY confused.

(image via: Florida View)
What appears to be a mid-1960s Dodge convertible is parked in the carport, or rather, on the carport’s ceiling. A good way to find loose change, to be sure. Sunrise, as it’s now called, was incorporated in 1961 by developer Norman Johnson and is located just west of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The upside down model home did much to attract attention and homebuyers to embryonic Sunrise; sadly it’s been torn down… or is that “torn up”?

Device to Root Out Evil, Canada

(image via: Chromatist)
If church steeples are meant to point to heaven, where does THIS church look to for guidance and inspiration? Who the Hell knows?

(images via: CultureKiosk, Beach United Church and 7 Deadly Sinners)
First installed in Vancouver, BC, Canada and later relocated to a park in Calgary, Alberta, the 25-ft tall, aluminum framed, red glass shingled “Device to Root Out Evil” was designed by American sculptor Dennis Oppenheim, who says that “Turning the church upside down makes it more aggressive, but not blasphemous.” Though commissioned by the President’s Panel on Art, the president of Stanford University rejected the sculpture because it was “not appropriate” for the campus.

Wonderworks, Florida & Tennessee, USA

(image via: Boback)
WonderWorks is “an amusement park for the mind” with 2 locations: Orlando, Florida, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Both look from the outside like an oversized White House flipped onto its roof.

(images via: Smart Destinations, Reserve Pigeon Forge and Tripadvisor)
WonderWorks features over 100 interactive exhibits, a 12-seat movie theater equipped with motion seats and a 36-ft tall indoor ropes course. Why was it designed to look like an overturned building? They don’t say… one more thing for you to wonder about, it seems.

The World Stands on Its Head, Germany

(image via: Urlesque)
Opened to the public in the autumn of 2008, the “The World Stands on its Head” (“Die Welt Steht Kopf”) House can be found on the island of Usedom in the Baltic Sea. The house was designed by Klaudiusz Golos and Sebastian Mikiciuk, who carried the theme of upside down-ness to the inside as well.

(images via: Zimbio)
Tourists visiting the “The World Stands on its Head” would be well advised to take their bathroom breaks BEFORE entering the house. Though it may not appear so, the law of gravity works in the usual manner.

House Upside Down, Russia

(image via: EnglishRussia)
Putin on the ritz? There’s not much information is available to explain why a homeowner in St. Petersburg, Russia, built his home upside down. Perhaps he wanted to make a statement on the status of the Russian real estate market. Perhaps he was holding the blueprints upside down.

(image via: Ultrafunbd)
The image above shows the Russian upside-down house after completion. Note the decorative brickwork along the base, er, top of the walls. Note also the doghouse in the yard which was NOT built upside down – you Laika?

Upside-Down House, Poland

(images via: Design Spot Cool Stuff and The Sun UK)
The Upside Down House in the tiny village of Szymbark, Poland, was built by Polish businessman and philanthropist Daniel Czapiewski. Unlike the anonymous Russian from St. Petersburg, Czapiewski hired a crew of carpenters and contractors who battled disorientation and dizziness to get the home completed in just 114 days.

(image via: United Cats)
Czapiewski’s purpose in building the Upside Down House was to ridicule the Communist era and its many foibles and follies. Considering the state of capitalism lately and the subprime mortgage financial fiasco of 2008, maybe Czapiewski should build another upside-down house in the USA.

Turkish Upside Down House

(image via: EnglishTurkey)
The Turkish Upside Down House in the city of Antalya was built as part of an effort to attract homebuyers to the area. They don’t call it the Goldcity Tourism Center for nothing! Obviously, some savvy Turkish entrepreneur took a page from Norman Johnson’s playbook. His cuning plan seems to be working as the house is said to be ” one of the most popular attractions for tourists in Antalya region.” Not sure what – if any – the other tourist attractions in the area are like.

(images via: EnglishTurkey)
The Antalya house’s roof, windows, front door and balcony are all constructed upside down, as are the rooms (even the bathrooms) on the inside. Even the landscaping is upended – check out that tree in the front yard! Truly a supreme effort to turn one corner of the world upside down, but don’t ask why the Antalya upside-down house got the works; that’s nobody’s business but the Turks.

House-Attack, Austria

(image via: Ananova)
The House-Attack in Vienna, Austria is not for the sensitive of spirit – you know what happened the last time someone from Austria said “attack!” We’ll hope that this artistic installation by Erwin Wurm comes to a better (not bitter) end. The building/sculpture was constructed at Vienna’s Museum Moderner Kunst (MuMoK) in 2006. The artist explains the sculpture as follows: “A symbol for conservative, small-minded longings, the single-family house collides into the museum as an temple to the muses, and the museum itself now also becomes part of the sculpture.”

(images via: The Letter, SBellen and Banitram)
That’s an actual house embedded in the museum’s roof, by the way – literally a “house attack”. Perhaps it wanted more lebensraum. In any case, watch this video to witness the rise (but not fall) of Wurm’s House-Attack:
Aufbau House Attack, via MuMoK Vienna

House of Katmandu, Spain

(images via: sider-oxydro and Enflecha2)
The House of Katmandu, opened in 2007, is a combination theme park, museum and tourist attraction located on the Spanish island of Majorca.

(image via: Odddutch)
Designed to resemble a Tibetan-style mansion, the House of Katmandu takes visitors on a room-by-room adventure that follows the adventures of a fictional Indiana Jones-type character on a mysterious quest for a legendary red jewel. On the way he meets an ancient monk and a magnificent mermaid princess. Sorta like Star Wars meets Indiana Jones, in Spanish. In an upside-down house. Hey, you pay your money and you take your chances.

(image via: Nicole Chang)
Gimme shelter… and some Gravol. These strange and unusual upside-down houses might be nice places to visit but you wouldn’t want to live there. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night, forgetting where you are… trying to find the bathroom would be the least of your problems.

Craziest skyscraper designs

2010-03-19T16:45:00.001-07:00

(Image via: arch daily)

Capital Gate, Abu Dhabi – the most acutely leaning building in the world. It bows out 18 degrees from the vertical – in comparison, Pisa’s famous tower is only leaning at 3.99 degrees. Technologically ambitious and architecturally stunning, it looks like nothing on earth. (Well, okay, it does look like something in particular, but this is a family-friendly corner of the Web and we refuse to draw certain parallels).

(Image via: cosmoworlds)

And by the looks of the first concept drawings, Capital Gate was meant to be even more ambitious. How on earth would this design have stayed up? Judging from the reworked shape, the designers couldn’t answer that question either.

(Images via: luxuo)

If you live in the Danish principality of Rødovre, you may see this queasy-making structure against the skyline. This ‘Sky Village’ is made up of 60 metre square blocks built up around the building’s core. Exactly how is up to the buildiers – meaning that in theory, no two buildings would look alike. We applaud engineering flexibility, but our applause for rock-steady stability is louder. Exactly how will it stay upright, please?

(Image via: freshome)

It may look like a bad or possibly drunken attempt at Photoshopping – but the Walters Towers will soon be reality. Forming an enormous W (possibly standing for “weird”), this apartment block complex in Prague is the slightly fevered work of architects Bjarke Ingels Group, and for obvious reasons, uses the latest in load-bearing building materials.

(Image via: freshome)

Our questions are endless. Do the lifts go diagonally? Is it safe? How would it fit in with the current Prague skyline? Is it safe? Exactly how is the weight distributed? Oh, and is it safe?

(Images via: design boom)

How would you feel about living in a building that looks less built than balanced? This Singaporean residential complex by OMA comprises of 31 six-storey apartment buildings stacked up in a thrilling haphazard manner, with the aim of circulating fresh air around every building. Since this is Singapore, heat loss wouldn’t be a problem – but what about air-con efficiency? And that certainly isn’t a balcony-view for the squeamish.

(Images via: gayol87 and IASeNews)

Costing over $600 million and reaching 51 floors into the blue, the China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing was completed in December 2008. It is built of steel, and its two rakishly-skewed towers had to be joined in the dead of night when the metal was coolest, to prevent expansion distortion. The local nickname? “Big shorts”.

(Image via: daylife / Reuters)

In February this year, it narrowly escaped damage when the nearby Television Cultural Centre caught fire after opening ceremony fireworks went awry. This event has sparked an inquiry into the widespread use of high-explosive fireworks in China – and into the subsequent attempt by national authorities to suppress coverage of the blaze.

(Images via: coolboom)

Commanding what must be one of the most spectacular views in Sydney, the Holman House teeters on the brink of architectural possibilities. Although not quite as unstable as the above photos suggests, the house juts out from the cliff edge so alarmingly that we commend its current occupants for their nerve (and try to hide our jealousy at having that view). But isn’t the Sydney basin prone to earthquakes?

(Image via: dezeen)

The new Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro is an award-winning response to the question “How unconventional can we make a museum look?” Looking like a stylishly collapsing carpark (ahem, arguably), the front-facing “vertical boulevard” hides galleries, auditoriums and even an outdoor cinema perched on top. No word on what the residents of the surrounding tower-blocks think of this last feature.

(Image via: dezeen)

Due to open in 2011, the design is meant to channel the energy of the beach promenade, providing an extension of its movement rather than an interruption. If they could turn one side of those steps into a waterslide, we think it would be made completely perfect.

(Images via: homedesignfind)

As well as challenging our assumptions and sensibilities, good architecture should make us feel happy. So what about this house from Ensamble Studio that seems designed to perturb, upset and make us permanently uneasy? From the swimming pool sticking out into thin air to the apparently badly-supported slab of concrete poking high above the roof, this void-riddled structure is certainly fascinating and challenging…but is it lovable?

(Image via: skyscrapercity)

Unlike with Capital Gate, there is no attempt to subvert the shape of the two towers that make Madrid’s Puerta de Europa. These massive structures (115 metres tall) look like conventional skyscrapers – except ones that lean towards each other at a 15-degree angle.

(Image via: luciapensache)

Completed in 1996, they were the world’s first leaning high-rise buildings (so urbanites who suffer from vertigo, you now have someone to blame for the trend). They are positioned so far apart to provide the room for a subway interchange.

(Image via: arch daily)

The new housing development of Strandkanten in Tromsø, Norway, is 900 decided modernistic homes making best use of reclaimed land – and of design possibilities. The waterfront properties lean out over the water as if they long to go for a dip.

(Image via: arch daily)

After hundreds of years of straight-up window design, how do we feel about windows that themselves lean out, making it impossible for us to safely do so? And there is the potential problem with all these designs: they’re built for people, and need a warm public response to become a success. No matter how ingenious the techniques or how space-age the materials used…are we truly willing to step inside the latest and craziest skyscraper designs?

For LOVE and MONEY

2010-03-19T16:15:00.000-07:00

Architecture is influenced by Eros, Greek god of sexual love and beauty, also known as Roman counterpart Cupid. Architecture can be beautiful and a thing to love. But there are some castles built specifically for love as loving tributes, gifts, or even erected for love lost. Nothing is more powerful than love and expressing love in architecture is divinely romantic. However, love and tragedy are reoccurring themes to these castles. For Valentine’s Day, here are 10 castles built for love.

Boldt Castle on Heart Island, New York

(image credits:fanpop,fanpop,Travis Feisthamel,webshots,webshots,Travis Feisthamel,webshots)

Valentine’s Day 1905 was to be the day that George Boldt gave his wife the five-acre Boldt Castle estate in the Thousand Islands. He had this medieval and Victorian architectural styled castle built as a testimonial of his love for his wife, Louise. Boldt Castle was to be an eleven-building complex, the most grand in the Thousand Islands. Among many amazing architectural landmarks, there was the Yacht House, a gigantic playhouse Alster Tower, the Power House, and a fairytale version 120-room home modeled after a Rhineland Castle. One year before Boldt Castle was to be completed, Louise, aged 41, died. Brokenhearted, George Boldt stopped the construction and never returned to the island. After more tragedy of vandals set free on the island, there is a bit of a happy ending. Drawn by the romance of the place, now couples come to be wed at Boldt Castle.

Taj Mahal in Agra, India

(image credits:wikipedia,taj-mahal)

The Taj Mahal was built for love, but tragically as a mausoleum and in memory of love lost. After the death of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, Emperor Shah Jahan began building a tomb that would be the most resplendent monument ever built by man for a woman. While the dome of the mausoleum and its four standing minarets are built out of white marble, all the outlying buildings within the Taj Mahal complex are primarily built out of red sandstone, combining Persian, Indian, and Islamic architectural styles. The central focus of the complex is the tomb and you can tour it virtually here.

Swallow’s Nest Castle: “Castle of Love” in Crimean, Ukraine

(image credits:English Russia,Oddity Central)

Built in 1912 near Yalta in the South of Crimea, the Swallow’s Nest is one of the most romantic castles of Neo-Gothic style. The Swallow’s Nest Castle was originally named “The Castle of Love.” However, the romantically named “Love Castle” started with humble beginnings as a wooden cottage. There is little proof that this “Castle of Love” was built for a great love . . . more like a lover’s nest. Perhaps not constructed for true love but built for the purpose of making love. In 1927, an earthquake measuring 6-7 on the Richter scale, cracked the 130 ft Aurora Cliff. The huge crack closed the castle for the next 40 years. The cliff and castle have since been fortified and restored. The public flocks to Swallow’s Nest Castle to look over Ai–Todor Cape, the Black Sea, and to dine in the restaurant now within the castle’s walls.
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Dobroyd Castle in Todmorden, England

(image credits:wwarby wwarby,Tasa_M,wikimedia,wwarby)

Dobroyd Castle at Todmorden started as a promise of love and turned into a honeymoon home. John Fielden, the son of a wealthy industrialist, fell in love with a local weaver girl, Ruth Stansfield. Fielden proposed to her, but she said she would marry him if he would promise to build her a castle on a hill. When completed, Dobroyd Castle had 66 luxurious rooms, a stable for 17 horses, boasted four small turrets and a main tower. The initials of John and Ruth were engraved in a dozen places, the monograms JFR carved into the Devon marble and Caen stone, as a testimony to their love. However, in a social climb to “immortalise the name of Fielden,” John sent his wife to finishing school in Switzerland to improve her education and learn social etiquette. Distance apart did not make the heart grow fonder, alienating the couple. When she died, he remarried. But John was crippled after being kicked by a horse and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Love and tragedy.

Kellie’s Castle in Batu Gajah, Malaysia

(image credits:wikipedia,WrldVoyagr,cuti,mutiarahidup,malaysia4holiday)

Kellie’s Castle is Malaysia’s oldest castle and built for love by Scottish planter William Kellie Smith for his wife Agnes Smith. She missed home tremendously and had also blessed him with a son. Construction began in 1915, combining three architectural styles – Greco-Roman, Moorish, and Indian. A Spanish flu epidemic killed most of the 70 Indian construction workers. Kellie Smith built a Hindu temple near the castle to please the Indians and to restart construction. Kellie Smith left for England to fetch a lift for the castle tower, but he died shortly thereafter from pneumonia. Construction on the castle built for love was left uncompleted. The castle ruins are rumored to be haunted.

Stratford Castle in Durban, South Africa

(image credits:castles-for-sale,glo-con,The Way 2 Stay,Castle Fiction)

Stratford Castle in Durban, South Africa, now is placed within Camelot Residential and Golf Estate, but it too started off as a kiss of inspiration from true love. The Castle’s cornerstone on the North wing is engraved with Sir Walter Raleigh’s immortal words: “But true love is a durable fire, In the mind ever burning; Never sick, never old, never dead; From itself never turning.” The castle was built upon the spirit of those lovely words. Do you wish you could build a castle for your true love? How about buy one? Stratford Castle is for sale to the tune of $365,000,000 and equipped with, among many things, a golf course within Camelot (and neighbors).

Mystery Castle in Phoenix, Arizona

(image credits:wikipedia,about,webshots,about,surrealist)

Mystery Castle is a castle built for a princess. Sounds like a magical love story, but it started on a sad note of despair. Boyce Gulley left from his home in Seattle, sick at heart after being diagnosis with tuberculosis. He slipped away from his wife and daughter, who he did not want to watch him die, and began one of the most beautiful yet odd love stories every recorded. With his last few pennies, he purchased a mining claim of 80 acres in the foothills of South Mountain. He then spent the next 16 years building a castle by hand while waiting to die. He used natural materials and old abandoned artifacts. With the memories of his daughter when the two of them built sand castles on the Pacific beaches, memories of the times when she cried as the tide washed them back into the sea, he built the Castle Made From Love. His Mystery Castle would never wash away and she would have it forever. After Boyce died, his daughter, Mary Lou Gulley, discovered her inheritance and received the love offering of Mystery Castle.

Coral Castle in Homestead, Florida

(image credits:wikipedia crystalinks,wikipedia,wikipedia,crystalinks,bibliotecapleyades)

In the early 1920’s, a man named Ed Leedskalnin was left by his fiancé the day before their wedding. Heartbroken, yet intending to leave the mark his undying love, Leedskalnin worked for 28 years on his tribute to his lost love. Working only at night, managing to move tons of stone, he built his lost beloved “Sweet Sixteen” an intricate and stunning castle made of coral. Mystery surrounds Coral Castle, starting at the gate which is a piece of nine ton coral. Leedskalnin claimed to know the secrets of the great pyramids. Yet neither his knowledge nor his devotion to his lost love brought her back to him. It has, however, brought untold thousands of visitors to Coral Castle.

Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California

(image credits:wikipedia,ghosts,go4teams,kidchamp,montaraventures)

This California “Castle” is a story of love and of tragedy, built less in an effort to remember her beloved husband and more for the love of her own life. Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Winchester, believed that her life was endangered and that she was haunted by the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles. Her master building plan was only to keep continuous construction so she would be safe and perhaps live forever, or for as long as the house was being built. Her “castle” was an architectural reflection of her psyche, built for 38 years without ceasing, into a maze-like mansion “full of twists, turns, and dead ends, so that the spirits would get lost and never be able to find her.” There are about 160 rooms, 47 fireplaces, 10,000 window panes, two basements and three elevators. Before the 1906 earthquake, the house had been seven stories tall, but is now only four stories. The Winchester Mystery House is allegedly haunted yet open for tourists. Love comes in all shapes, sizes, and colors as does tragedy.

Prasat Hin Phimai in Phimai, Thailand

(image credits:I Prahin,TravelPod,Thai Travel,ascendent)

The Legend of Pajitt and Orapima begins with a prince named Pajitt. The king wanted his son to take a wife, so Prince Pajitt traveled the countryside for months until he spotted a pregnant light-skinned woman. He considered her his soulmate, but he could not marry a widow. Instead, Pajitt planned to marry the unborn child when she, Orapima, reached the age of 16. As she grew, they fell wildly in love. Before he could marry Orapima, he returned to the King for the wedding payment to her mother. Orapima was kidnapped, but Pajitt rescued her. While they rested in the forest, a woodsman killed Pajitt with an axe and stole Orapima. She killed the woodsman and returned to Phimai where she built a sanctuary, Prasat Hin Phimai. Heartbroken, she prayed for her true love and the reincaration of Pajitt’s spirit. Prasat Hin Phimai was built, painted, and sculpted on the inside with scenes from her life with Pajitt. One day, a young man saw her handiwork and was brought before her. She recogonized Pajitt’s spirit and they lived happily ever after. Today, in the small town of Phimai, lies one Thailand’s most extensively restored Khmer temple complexes as seen above . . . the sanctuary and “castle of love” Orapima had constructed as she waited on her beloved Pajitt’s reincarnation.

RIP

2010-03-19T13:14:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, the world's shortest man, He Pingping, age 21, died after developing chest pains while filming a television show in Italy. Pingping suffered from primordial dwarfism, a condition which kept him from ever growing taller than 73 cm (2 feet 5 inches) tall. Pingping was recognized by the Guinness World Records organization, who also held a "World Records Day" last November, encouraging people all over the world to set their own records. Collected here are a group of superlatives, recent photos of world records and record attempts around the world. (31 photos total)

He Pingping of China smiles as Sultan Kosen of Turkey rests his hands on He's shoulders during a promotional event in Istanbul, Turkey on January 14, 2010. He, with a height of 73 cm (2 feet 5 inch), and Kosen, with a height of 246.5 cm (8 feet 1 inch), have been listed in the Guinness World Records as the world's shortest man and tallest man respectively. (REUTERS/Osman Orsal)

Kidnapped fan page

2010-03-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

Mr. Alex Bogusky, we mean business.
If you want your Facebook fan page, you must comply with our demands. You will buy one share of our company for 1$.
More than 1000 Facebook fans are waiting for your decision. You can reach us at Iwantmyfaycebookfanpaygeback@twentythree .co.il.
Until then, Miss Piggy stays.

Just imagine if u r a DOMESTIC ROBOCOP?

2010-03-17T07:09:00.000-07:00

gee.. i wonder...

Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop from Keiichi Matsuda on Vimeo.

Bizarre But True Drugs And Their Effects

2010-03-15T17:53:00.000-07:00

Seeking the ultimate high, people have ingested all kinds of bizarre chemicals and plants through history. Fortunately they have related (those who lived anyway) their experiences so we can now recount them to you. Prepare to be shocked by some of the contents on this list – you will almost certainly not know the drugging abilities of the majority of these. They may not be the most pleasant alternatives for when you run out of weed, but they certainly work. This list starts off with quite a bang, so get reading.

Anafranil (clomipramine)

Anafranil is an anti-depressant that causes people to have orgasms every time they yawn. Yeah. No joke. A 1983 article in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry found a case of a woman in her twenties who came every time she yawned! She even used it to her advantage: “She found she was able to experience orgasm by deliberate yawning.” This is one drug that had better not be outlawed. Now I just need to find a doctor willing to prescribe it!

DDT

Yes, this pesticide – which has now been made illegal in many countries, can produce feelings somewhat like Ecstasy (Hear that environmentalists?? You inadvertently banned a great hallucinogenic-drug!) A popular cocktail was made during the ’50s (called the Mickey Slim) was made by adding a small amount of DDT to gin! In the image above we see two women getting utterly stoned on DDT.

DIPT

DIPT is a tryptamine that affects auditory (sound-based) functions. Users experience things such as voices on the radio being lower in pitch than usual, music sounds distorted, and some people experience light hallucinations. The drug can cause the odd feeling of being bloated, but if you take an antacid immediately after consumption, it usually solved the problem. During the drugged experience, some users also claim to hear a constant ringing in their ears – this can (unfortunately) last for up to two weeks.

Saffron

Saffron is a flower used as a food additive. The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances states that the orange-yellow flower “…is known to have…narcotic effects similar to those of opium.” Saffron actually has an ancient history of use as a drug – the Ancient Minoans used to drink a tea infusion of it to get high and the Persians and Greeks considered it an aphrodisiac. The Romans and Egyptians used it in various medicines.

Catnip

It’s not just for cats anymore! Many who have smoked it say that it gives a mellow, pot-like buzz. Though most warn that you should not get your hopes up too high. It leaves a minty aftertaste and is apparently much easier to smoke that pot (and doesn’t cause coughing).

Xenon (Xe)

Xenon is a heavy, odorless, inert gas that can be found in the Earth’s atmosphere, lasers, gas-discharge lamps, medical imaging, in the process of creating nuclear power, for protein crystallography, in the production of MEMS (microelectromechanical systems), and for anesthesia. Naturally, most anesthetics – like nitrous oxide and Novocaine (which is made from cocaine), have hallucinogenic side-effects. It’s effects are said to be like that of nitrous oxide, except without the auditory-effects and the “headachiness”. One anonymous user on the web-site “Lyceaum” said that it gives the user an ability to, “…zero in on ’singularity’ thoughts and memories and hold them for ’sentimental orgasms’…”

Various Venoms and Poisons

Many poisons (such as arsenic and strychnine) and venoms have been known to have hallucinogenic (and sometimes beneficial) effects! Mountain-climbers in late-19th-Century Austria regularly consumed arsenic to, “…obtain healthy and sturdy looks…to appear strong and robust…”, and to “…facilitate breathing while climbing…” (Baron Ernst von Bibra.) In the 1902 book, “Morphinism and Narcomanias From Other Drugs”, it even says that a person can develop an addiction to arsenic. As for venom, The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances states that “…Holy men in India smoke cobra venom for its psychoactive effects. [T]heir dried venom glands or crystallized venom is often mixed with cannabis.” The Encyclopedia also reveals that ten Native American tribes in California were known to swallow live ants as a way of inducing hallucinations! The ants bite the stomach-lining, injecting their venom, and can be vomited while the ants are still alive.

C-4 Explosives

As everybody knows, C-4 is a very effective explosive (1.34 times more explosive than TNT!). But is it a drug? According to the book titled Uppers, Downers, All-Arrounders, it is! The authors state: “Modern veterans have been known to ingest C4…for their psychedelic effects. Tremors and seizure activity can result, but usually not an explosion, as it takes a blasting-cap to set off the chemical.” No joke. In fact, the Marine Corps training document on explosives includes the following caution: “Do not ingest any explosive material!”

Urine

At one time, Eskimos and tribes in Siberia were known to consume the urine of another person who had consumed fly agaric mushrooms (amanita muscaria). They did so for several reasons: Firstly, since there wasn’t an infinite supply of mushrooms, this approach help to conserve and economize them. Not only would drinking the urine of someone who had consumed the mushroom get you high, but also drinking the pee of the person who had drunk the first “batch” of urine would get you high! And so forth and so on, going up to 5 different “generations” of people! An added benefit was that pre-digested mushrooms didn’t cause as much nausea and cramps as just eating them directly. They loved this high so much, that they would butcher and eat reindeer who had also eaten fly agaric for a contact-high!

Salamander Brandy

No, it is not an alcohol made from salamanders, but rather from what they produce. Salamander brandy obviously can’t be found in your local liquor store. It is non-commercially produced in Slovenia. There are at least two ways of making it – both of which involve animal cruelty: (1) The salamanders are hung from their back legs, and brandy is poured onto their bodies, and drips into a cup. (2) The salamander is placed on a sieve, and brandy is poured onto them until they drown. The point of this is to infuse the alcohol with the poison salamanders produce when they are defending themselves. Nonetheless, it is said to produce symptoms like LCD and Ecstasy combined, in addition to the effects of the alcohol (although, the alcohol content is particularly low)!

Bonus

Old Books

Alright, it’s not exactly old books – it is the fungi and molds that occasionally grow on them! Some of these molds and fungi are said to have hallucinogenic effects. Don’t go eating pages of old books right-off-the-bat, though. They usually also come with side-effects, such as nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and confusion!

via

Expensive Art Works Found Accidentally

2010-03-15T08:22:00.000-07:00

This is a list of 8 great works of art (well – maybe one is only nominally so) that were found in unusual places. It makes you wonder how many great works of art are lost to the world simply because no one is looking in the right place!

1. In a farmer’s field

In 1820, a Greek peasant named Yorgos was digging in his field on the island of Milos when he unearthed several carved blocks of stone. He burrowed deeper and found four statues – three figures of Hermes and one of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Three weeks later, the Choiseul archeological expedition arrived by ship, purchased the Aphrodite, and took it to France. Louis XVIII gave it the name Venus de Milo and presented it to the Louvre where it became one of the most famous works of art in history.

2. Beneath a street

On February 21, 1978, electrical workers were putting down lines on a busy street corner in Mexico city when they discovered a 20 ton stone bas-relief of the Aztec night goddess, Coyolxauqui. It is believed to have been sculpted in the early fifteenth century and buried prior to the destruction o the Aztec civilisation by the Spanish conquistadors in 1521. The stone was moved 200 yards from the site to the Museum of the Great Temple.

3. In a hole in the ground

In 1978 more than 500 movies dating from 1903 to 1929 were dug out of a hole in the ground of Dawson City, Yukon. Under normal circumstances, the 35mm nitrate films would have perished, but the permafrost preserved them perfectly.

4. Under a bed

Joanne Perez, the widow of vaudeville performer Pepito the Spanish Clown, cleaned out the area underneath her bed and discovered the only existing copy of the pilot for the TV series I Love Lucy. Pepito had coached Lucille Ball and had guest-starred in the pilot. Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, had given it to Pepito as a gift in 1951 and it had remained under the bed for thirty years.

5. On a wall

A middle-aged couple in a suburb of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, asked an art prospector to appraise a painting in their home. While he was there, he examined another painting that the couple had thought was a reproduction of a work by Van Gogh. It turned out to be an 1886 original. On March 10, 1991, the painting Still Life with Flowers sold at auction for $1.4m (US).

6. In a trunk in an attic

In 1961 Barbara Testa, a Hollywood librarian, inherited six steamer trunks that had belonged to her grandfather, James Fraser Gluck, a Buffalo, New York, lawyer who died in 1895. Over the next three decades she gradually sifted through the contents of the trunks, until one day in Autumn of 1990 she came upon 665 pages that turned out to be the original handwritten manuscript of the first half of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. The two halves of the great American novel were finally reunited at the Buffalo and Eerie County Public Library.

7. At a flea market

A Philadelphia financial analyst was browsing at a flea market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, when he was attracted by a wooden picture frame. He paid $4 for it. Back at his home he removed the old torn painting in the frame and found a folded document between the canvas and the wood backing. It turned out to be a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence – one of 24 known to remain. On June 13, 1991, it was sold at auction for $2.4m (US)

8. Masquerading as a bicycle rack

For years, employees of the God’s House Tower Archaeology Museum in Southampton, England, propped their bikes against a 27 inch black rock in the basement. In 2000, two Egyptologists investigating the Museums holdings identified the bike rack as a 7th century BC Egyptian statue portraying King Taharqa a Kushite monarch from the region that is modern Sudan. Karen Wordley, the Southampton city council’s curator of archaeological collections, said it was a “mystery” how the sculpture ended up in the Museum basement.

10 Wonders of the World You Don’t Know

2010-03-15T08:17:00.000-07:00

While most of these wonders will be known to a few people, they are, on the whole, not as well known as the famous “seven wonders”. Despite that, each has a reason for being considered wonderful and deserves its spot on this list. Enjoy the list and be sure to share other lesser-known wonders in the comments.

Banaue Rice Terraces

Philippines

The Banaue Rice Terraces are 2000-year old terraces that were carved into the mountains of Ifugao in the Philippines by ancestors of the indigenous people. The Rice Terraces are commonly referred to by Filipinos as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. It is commonly thought that the terraces were built with minimal equipment, largely by hand. The terraces are located approximately 1500 meters (5000 ft) above sea level and cover 10,360 square kilometers (about 4000 square miles) of mountainside. They are fed by an ancient irrigation system from the rainforests above the terraces. It is said that if the steps are put end to end it would encircle half the globe. Locals to this day still plant rice and vegetables on the terraces. The result is the gradual erosion of the characteristic “steps”, which need constant reconstruction and care.

Sigiriya

Sri Lanka

Sigiriya (Lion’s rock) is an ancient rock fortress and palace ruin situated in the central Matale District of Sri Lanka, surrounded by the remains of an extensive network of gardens, reservoirs, and other structures. A popular tourist destination, Sigiriya is also renowned for its ancient paintings (frescos), which are reminiscent of the Ajanta Caves of India. The Sigiriya was built during the reign of King Kassapa I (AD 477 – 495), and it is one of the seven World Heritage Sites of Sri Lanka. Sigiriya may have been inhabited through prehistoric times. It was used as a rock-shelter mountain monastery from about the 5th century BC, with caves prepared and donated by devotees to the Buddhist Sangha.

Tower of Hercules

Spain

The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. The name Corunna is said to be derived from the ancient column. The structure is 55 meters (180 ft) tall and overlooks the North Atlantic coast of Spain. It is almost 1900 years old, was rehabilitated in 1791, and is the oldest Roman lighthouse still used as a lighthouse.

Toruń

Poland

Toruń is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus. The first settlement in the vicinity is dated by archaeologists to 1100 BC. During medieval times, in the 7th-13th centuries, it was the location of an old Polish settlement, at a ford in the river. The Teutonic Knights built a castle in the vicinity of the Polish settlement in the years 1230-31. In 1263 Franciscan monks settled in the city, followed in 1239 by Dominicans. In 1264 the nearby New Town was founded. In 1280, the city (or as it was then, both cities) joined the mercantile Hanseatic League and was soon turned into an important medieval trade centre. As you can see from the photograph above, it is a beautiful medieval city and well worth visiting.

Ajanta Caves

India

The Ajanta Caves in Maharashtra, India are rock-cut cave monuments dating from the second century BC, containing paintings and sculpture considered to be masterpieces of both Buddhist religious art and universal pictorial art. By AD 480 the caves at Ajanta were abandoned. During the next 1300 years the jungle grew back and the caves were hidden, unvisited and undisturbed until the Spring of 1819 when a British officer in the Madras army entered the steep gorge on the trail of a tiger. Somehow, deep within the tangled undergrowth, he came across the almost hidden entrance to one of the caves. Exploring that first cave, long since a home to nothing more than birds and bats and a lair for other, larger, animals, Captain Smith wrote his name in pencil on one of the walls. Still faintly visible, it records his name and the date, April 1819.

Valley of Flowers

India

The Valley of Flowers is an outstandingly beautiful high-altitude Himalayan valley that has been acknowledged as such by renowned mountaineers and botanists in literature for over a century and in Hindu mythology for much longer. Its ‘gentle’ landscape, breathtakingly beautiful meadows of alpine flowers and ease of access complement the rugged, mountain wilderness for which the inner basin of Nanda Devi National Park is renowned. Valley of flower is splashed with colour as it bloomed with hundreds different beautiful flowers, taking on various shades of colours as time progressed. Valley was declared a national park in 1982, and now it is a World Heritage Site. The locals, of course, always knew of the existence of the valley, and believed that it was inhabited by fairies.

Metéora

The Metéora (“suspended rocks”) is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Greece, second only to Mount Athos. The six monasteries are built on natural sandstone rock pillars, at the northwestern edge of the Plain of Thessaly near the Pineios river and Pindus Mountains, in central Greece. Access to the monasteries was originally (and deliberately) difficult, requiring either long ladders lashed together or large nets used to haul up both goods and people. This required quite a leap of faith – the ropes were replaced, so the story goes, only “when the Lord let them break”.

Bagan

Myanmar

Bagan is an ancient city in the Mandalay Division of Burma. Formally titled Arimaddanapura or Arimaddana (the City of the Enemy Crusher) and also known as Tambadipa (the Land of Copper) or Tassadessa (the Parched Land), it was the ancient capital of several ancient kingdoms in Burma. Bagan was submitted to become a UNESCO heritage site[1] but many speculate of politics as partly the reason for the exclusion. UNESCO does not designate Bagan as a World Heritage Site. The main reason given is that the military junta (SPDC) has haphazardly restored ancient stupas, temples and buildings, ignoring original architectural styles and using modern materials which bear little or no resemblance to the original designs. Nevertheless, this is still a must-see wonder of the world.

Leptis Magna

Libya

Leptis Magna was a prominent city of the Roman Empire. Its ruins are located in Al Khums, Libya, 130 km east of Tripoli, on the coast where the Wadi Lebda meets the sea. The site is one of the most spectacular and unspoiled Roman ruins in the Mediterranean. The city appears to have been founded by Phoenician colonists sometime around 1100 BC, although it did not achieve prominence until Carthage became a major power in the Mediterranean Sea in the 4th century BC. It nominally remained part of Carthage’s dominions until the end of the Third Punic War in 146 BC and then became part of the Roman Republic, although from about 200 BC onward, it was for all intents and purposes an independent city.

Library of Celsus

Turkey

This is number one for strictly personal reasons. I love books, I love libraries, and this site is dedicated to knowledge (as are libraries). The library of Celsus (in Turkey) was built to store 12,000 scrolls and to serve as a monumental tomb for Celsus (who had been consul in 92 AD, governor of Asia in 115 AD, and a wealthy and popular local citizen). The building is important as one of few remaining examples of an ancient Roman-influenced library. It also shows that public libraries were built not only in Rome itself but throughout the Roman Empire. In a massive restoration which is considered to be very true to the historic building, the front façade was rebuilt and now serves as a prime example of Roman public architecture.

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Natural disasters

2010-03-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

Natural disasters cause fascination in everyone – as is apparent from the enormous amounts of press coverage that they give – Haiti being a good example of this. We all fear the day that we might be caught in one, and perhaps that is the reason for our fascination. This list looks at ten of the most terrifying natural disasters ever.

TYPHOON TIP.

Pacific typhoons are generally more powerful than Atlantic hurricanes, because the former have much more water over which they can gather strength.

On October 12, 1979, Tip made history with the lowest air pressure ever recorded at sea level on Earth: 870 mbars. Standard sea level air pressure is 1,013.25 mbars. Hurricane Andrew only made it to 922 mbars.

Tip had one 1 minute sustained winds of 190 mph. It killed 99 people, a low number compared to some of the others on this list, but this must be placed in the perspective of a long warning before the typhoon strikes.

44 of the fatalities were fishermen in the open Pacific. Tip sank or grounded 8 ships. One of these was a giant freighter that the storm broke in half. Not only was it the strongest cyclone, it was also the largest ever recorded, half the size of the United States, excluding Alaska.

Lake Nyos Limnic Eruption

Limnic eruptions are one of the most bizarre natural disasters known. The criteria required for one to occur make them very rare. Lake Nyos is in a very remote area of the Cameroonian jungle. It is not very large, only 1.2 miles by 0.75 miles, but it is quite deep, 682 feet. Under the bed, a magma chamber is leaking carbon dioxide into the water. This changes the water into carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide is 1.5 times denser than air, which is why it will not rise from the bottom of a lake, unless shoved up by another force. There are only three such lakes known on Earth.

On August 21, 1986, the carbon dioxide at the bottom of the lake suddenly erupted all at once, 1.6 million tons of it, and released a cloud of carbon dioxide from the lake. This cloud, being heavier than air, hugged the ground contours, and blew out of the lake at 60 mph, went downhill throughout the area at up to 30 mph, and displaced all the oxygen in several small villages, suffocating between 1,700 and 1,800 people, not counting all their livestock.

The force of the gas expulsion also blew out the lake water itself, in an 80 ft high tsunami that stripped the trees, shrubs, and soil off one side of the shore.

1960 Chile Earthquake

The most powerful earthquake ever recorded struck near Valdivia, Chile on May 22, 1960, at 2:11 PM local time. As many as 6,000 people were killed. Many more would have been, had it not been for Chile’s preparedness for earthquakes, and the remote location of the epicenter.

Eyewitnesses reported that the entire world appeared as if God had seized one end of it like a rope, and slung it as hard as he could. 40% of the houses in Valdivia were razed to the ground. Cordon Caulle, a nearby active volcano, was ripped open and forced to erupt.

The quake measured 9.5 in magnitude, and 35 foot high waves were recorded 6,000 miles away. Of all the seismic energy of the 20th Century, including the 2004 Indian Ocean quake, 25% was concentrated in the 1960 Chile quake.

It caused 82 foot high waves to travel down the Chilean coast. Hilo, Hawaii was destroyed. The quake possessed twice the surface energy yield the 2004 Indian Ocean quake, and equalled 178 billion tons of TNT. This would have powered the entire United States, at 2005 energy consumption levels, for 740 years.

2003 European Heat Wave

Europe is not accustomed to hot summers. Give them a break, hot summers almost never happen there. But in 2003, they got hit with one that would make the southeastern United States, or the Australian outback sit back and marvel.

This lister is from North Carolina, where hot summers are expected and prepared for. In Europe, most of the homes built within the last 50 years before 2003 were not equipped with air conditioners, because none had ever been needed. Now, well over half of them have equipped themselves for the future.

There were at least 14,802 deaths from the heat in France alone, most of them old people in nursing homes, or in single family homes without the ability to cool off. The heat dried up most of Europe, and severe forest fires broke out in Portugal. Some 2,000 people died there from the heat.

About 300 died in Germany, where the weather is usually very cold to delightfully mild; 141 in Spain, where the temperature actually gets into the 90s Fahrenheit once in a great while; 1,500 in the Netherlands. Multiple temperature records, having lasted since the 1700s, were broken, then broken again a week later: 106.7 Fahrenheit in Brono, Switzerland. This melted a lot of Alpine glaciers into flash floods. 104.7 in Bavaria, Germany. 103 in Paris. The new record in Edinburgh, Scotland is now 91.2, which is unheard of there.
The wine harvest came a month early to save the grapes. 75% of Ukraine’s wheat crops were parched to death.

Storm of the Century

From March 12 to 13, 1993, a cyclonic storm formed off the east coats of the United States, so vast in size that it caused a unique hodgepodge of severe weather.

Rarely does a single storm system cause blizzards from the Canada/U. S. border all the way down to Birmingham, Alabama, but this one did, and Birmingham received 12 to 16 inches of snowfall in one day and night. This was accompanied everywhere with hurricane-force wind gusts of 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The Florida panhandle received up to 4 inches, and the strange thing is that 5 people were killed by tornadoes, in the middle of this blizzard.

The Appalachians of North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia received as much as 3.5 feet of snow, with drifts up to 35 feet. 300 people froze to death throughout the eastern half of the country when the electrical power was knocked out by falling trees. 100 mph wind gusts reached all the way to Havana, Cuba.

Great Flood of 1931

The deadliest natural disaster ever recorded occurred through the winter, spring, and summer of 1931 in central China. There are three major rivers draining this area, the Yangtze, the Yellow, and the Huai. All three flooded catastrophically, because the winter snowstorms were particularly heavy in the mountains around the river basins, and when spring began, all this snow melted and flowed into the rivers.

Then the spring brought particularly heavy rains. Then the cyclone season, which usually brings only 2 storms per year, brought 10, 7 of them in July. All this water swelled the three major rivers, especially the Yellow River, and because they drain a very large, very flat area of China, somewhere between 3.7 and 4 million people were drowned or starved.

Nanjing City, China’s capital at the time, became an island surrounded by over 100,000 square kilometers of water, more area than the state of Indiana, or all of Portugal.

Tunguska Explosion

On June 30, 1908, at about 7:14 AM local time, an asteroid or comet plummeted over the lower Tunguska River, in Krasnoyarsk, Russia, a remote area of Siberia, and detonated at an altitude of 3 to 6 miles.

It exploded with the energy of the largest thermonuclear bomb the United States has ever tested, the Castle Bravo bomb, 10-15 megatons. This is one-third the power of the largest thermonuclear weapon ever detonated, the Tsar Bomba. The airburst toppled about 80 million trees over 772 square miles of Siberian taiga, and would have registered at 5.0 on the Richter Scale.

Thankfully, no one was killed, because the nearest eyewitnesses were about 40 miles away from ground zero. They reported seeing a bright blue column of light streak across the sky, almost as bright as the sun, then a flash, and a report like artillery fire right beside them.

For one hundred miles around the epicenter, people were blown off their feet by the shockwave, their clothes were scorched off, windows were shattered, and trees seared to death and blown over. Iron locks were snapped off barn doors.

This detonation was more than sufficient to incinerate the entire population of Japan, the Sao Paolo metropolitan area, the Buenos Aires metropolitan area, or the entire United States’s New England megalopolis from Boston to Washington, D. C.

1999 Bridge Creek F5 Tornado

On May 3, 1999, a tornado outbreak lasting for 3 days, began with a bang, when an F5 formed at about 7:12 PM local time. This tornado was the most powerful windstorm ever recorded on Earth, at 318 mph. It killed 36 people, and traveled northeast from Amber, OK, through Bridge Creek and Moore. Moore is a southern suburb of Oklahoma City, and had the tornado veered north into the city, it would have probably caused more deaths than any other tornado in history, and become the costliest.

8,000 houses were obliterated. It shredded large vehicles with debris, and then wrapped them around telephone poles, threw them completely through warehouses, whipped 2×4s through wheel hubs, and pine straw all the way through 8-inch-thick pine trees.

This was the first time that the local weather stations reported over radio that if residents were not securely underground, they would be killed. Hiding under mattresses in bathtubs, in ditches, or under overpasses was insufficient.

1815 Tambora Eruption

Mt. Tambora is on Sumbawa Island, in south Indonesia. It erupted from April 6 to 11, 1815, but the worst of this was at the end, from 10 to 11 April. The power is rated as 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, making this eruption the most powerful in recorded history, four times more powerful than the 1883 Krakatoa eruption.

This means that the Tambora eruption was 52,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima Bomb. All the vegetation on Sumbawa was incinerated or uprooted, mixed with ash, and washed out to sea. The trees formed rafts 3 miles across. Pumice ash does not mix well with water, and one of these rafts of ash and wood drifted all the way to Calcutta, India.

92,000 people were killed, most by starvation, the largest loss of life caused by a volcanic eruption in recorded history.

The finer ash remained in the atmosphere for 3 years and covered the entire planet, causing brilliant sunsets, and the famous “Year without a Summer,” in both North America and Europe. The ash disrupted the weather, and caused global temperatures to decrease as much as 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit on average, an enormous drop.

1816 was the coldest year of the 1810s, and the 1810s was the coldest decade of the century because of the eruption. 12 inches of snow fell in Quebec City from 6 to 10 June, 1816. Crops in the entire Northern Hemisphere were severely damaged.

1958 Lituya Bay Megatsunami

Megatsunamis were only theorized until July 9, 1958, when, in Lituya Bay, a very narrow fjord of the Alaskan panhandle, a 7.7 magnitude earthquake shook 90 million tons of rock and glacial ice off the mountainside at the head of the bay. It dropped off all at once, almost vertically, and landed as a monolith into the bay’s deep headwaters.

This generated the highest wave ever recorded on Earth, 1,720 feet. That’s 470 feet taller than the tip of the Empire State Building’s antenna. It is, in fact, taller than all but the five tallest skyscrapers on Earth today, and most scientists agree that it had sufficient power to rip these buildings from their foundations.

The wave traveled from the head of the bay out toward the open ocean, and because the bay is so narrow, the wave was funneled up the mountainsides. It snapped all the trees off at 3 to 6 feet above the ground, everywhere up to 1,720 feet high around the bay. Most of these were 6-foot-thick spruce trees.

There were a total of 3 fishing boats in the bay, near the mouth, and the wave sank one, killing the two on board. The other two were lucky to ride this wave up the mountainsides and then slosh with it back into the bay.

One of them was anchored, and the 3-foot-thick iron anchor chain was snapped like thread when the wave lifted the boat. One of the survivors estimated the length of time between the wave’s overtopping of the island in the bay to its arrival at his boat as 2 seconds. If this is true, the wave was traveling 600 mph.
It stripped away all the trees, grass, and soil down to the bedrock, and then dissipated in the open ocean.

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Killed by a horse’s penis

2010-03-15T05:36:00.001-07:00

This is a bonus item as the penis belongs to an animal not a human. Kenneth Pinyan (June 22, 1960 – July 2, 2005) was a Boeing engineer residing in Washington who engaged in receptive anal sex with full-size stallions at a farm near the city of Enumclaw. He videotaped those sex acts and distributed them informally under the name Mr Hands. During a July 2005 sex act, videotaped by a friend, he suffered a perforated colon and later died of his injuries. Killed by a horse’s penis: fail.

Most-polluted-places

2010-03-15T05:27:00.000-07:00

Here is another list to help you with your travel plans – at all costs avoid the ten places on this list! This list was originally compiled by the Blacksmith Institute.

10. Dzerzhinsk, Russia

A center of Cold War chemical manufacturing, the city’s 300,000 residents have one of the lowest life expectancies in the world thanks to waste injected directly into the ground. “Average life expectancy is roughly 45 years,” Robinson (of the Blacksmith Institute) says. “Fifteen to 20 years less than the Russian average and about half a Westerner’s.”

9. Kabwe, Zambia

The second largest city in this southern African country was home to one of the world’s largest lead smelters until 1987. As a result, the entire city is contaminated with the heavy metal, which can cause brain and nerve damage in children and fetuses. “Measurements of children’s blood levels of lead average over 50 micrograms per deciliter and some were over 100,” Fuller (from the Blacksmith Institute) says. “For every 10 points above 10 micrograms per deciliter [(the U.S. Centers for Disease Control standard for treatment)] that your blood level goes up, your IQ drops.”

8. La Oroya, Peru

Although this is one of the smallest communities on the list (population 35,000) it is also one of the most heavily polluted due to lead, copper and zinc mining by U.S.-based Doe Run mining company.

7. Linfen, China

A city in the heart of China’s coal region in Shanxi Province, its three million inhabitants choke on dust and drink arsenic that leaches from the fossil fuel. In addition, extreme pollution makes visibility difficult.

6. Norilsk, Russia

This city above the Arctic Circle contains the world’s largest metal smelting complex and, therefore, some of the world’s worst smog. “There is so much pollution going into the air from this place that there is no living piece of grass or shrub within 30 kilometers of the city,” Fuller says. “Contamination [with heavy metals] has been found as much as 60 kilometers away.”

5. Sukinda, India

Home to one of the world’s largest chromite mines—used to make steel stainless, among other things—and 2.6 million people, the waters of this valley contain carcinogenic hexavalent chromium compounds courtesy of 30 million tons of waste rock lining the Brahmani River. “Hexavalent chromium is very toxic and very mobile,” notes David Hanrahan, Blacksmith’s London-based director of global programs.

4. Tianying, China

The center of Chinese lead production, this town of 160,000 qualifies as one of the eight most polluted areas in the country, according to the Chinese government. Lead concentrations in the air and soil are 8.5 to 10 times above national health standards and lead dusts local crops at levels 24 times higher than such health standards.

3. Vapi, India

This town at the end of India’s industrial belt in the state of Gujarat houses the dumped remnant waste of more than 1,000 manufacturers, including petrochemicals, pesticides, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals. “The companies treat wastewater and get most of the muck out,” Hanrahan says. “But there’s nowhere to put the muck, so it ends up getting dumped.”

2. Sumqayit, Azerbaijan

Yet another heir to the toxic legacy of Soviet industry, the city of 275,000 souls bears heavy metal, oil and chemical contamination from its days as a center of chemical production. As a result, local Azeris suffer cancer rates 22 to 51 percent higher than their countrymen and their children suffer from a host of genetic defects ranging from mental retardation to bone diseases.

1. Chernobyl, Ukraine

The fallout from the world’s worst nuclear power accident continues to accumulate, affecting as many as 5.5 million people and leading to a sharp rise in thyroid cancer. The incident has also blighted the economic prospects of surrounding areas and nations due to their agricultural heritage.

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The Antarctic iceberg that looks like a giant humbug

2010-03-15T05:14:00.000-07:00

One of them looks like a giant mint humbug, with its clear blue, green and brown stripes.
The other looks as if it has been shot through with a streak of spearmint.
These stunning banded icebergs - formed over hundreds, if not thousands, of years - were pictured floating in the waters of the Antarctic.
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The Antartic: Norwegian sailor Oyvind Tangen was aboard a research vessel when he noticed the unusual black lines striped through the ice block

Some of the stripes formed when layers of the iceberg melted and refroze.

Others were created from the dust and soil picked up when the ice sheet that gave birth to the iceberg was sliding down an Antarctic hillside.

The sailors thought that the icebergs looked like mint humbugs

They were photographed by Norwegian sailor Oyvind Tangen, on board a research ship around 1,700miles south of Cape Town and 660miles north of the Antarctic.

"It reminds me of striped candy I bought as a child," said 62-year-old Mr Tangen.
The first iceberg was about 150ft long and 30ft high. The second was about 100ft tall.

Most of those in the Antarctic were formed from snow falling on the giant ice sheet that covers the continent.
Over time, the snow is compressed to form more ice, which slides slowly towards the sea.

There it either breaks off into the water, or forms an ice shelf.

Most appear white as a result of the tiny bubbles trapped within them which scatter light in every direction.

However, if the bubbles are squeezed out, or if part of the iceberg melts and quickly refreezes, it can appear blue.

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A few days later, the ship came across another striped iceberg with a striking diagonal blue line through it, which towered about 30 metres above the ocean surface

Blue stripes are often created when a crevice in the ice sheet fills up with meltwater and freezes so quickly that no bubbles form.

When an iceberg falls into the sea, a layer of salty seawater can freeze to the underside. If this is rich in algae, it can form a green stripe.

Brown, black and yellow lines are caused by sediment, picked up when the ice sheet grinds downhill towards the sea.

Only one-tenth of an iceberg lies above the water.

The biggest known iceberg towered 551ft above sea level - the height of a 55-storey building.

The marbled icebergs look like rocks or striped sweets

The expedition came across a number of unusual ice formations

Another 15 Fascinating Factlets

2010-03-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

Since we have adopted the term “factlet” for our little fact lists, we have produced four lists of fascinating titbits of knowledge. This list is the fifth and it contains mostly facts but also some myth debunking which is always a bonus. Enjoy the list and be sure to add your own to the comments.

1. Karl Marx is the father of communism for which the Soviet Union is most famous – but in fact, he never stepped foot in Russia. That leads us to another fascinating factlet about communism:

2. Communism is the third step of a three step plan – the first step is revolution (to remove the monarchy or government), the second step is the establishment of a ruling proletariat which is called “socialism” (a government of the people). When the socialist government attains its main goal – removal of all private property ownership, the government is meant to step down and the state becomes headless – this is communism. Accordingly, there has never been a true communist state as all socialist states end up retaining their government.

3. The Earl of Sandwich gave his name to the snack, but he didn’t invent it. The first recorded example of a sandwich comes from the first century BC when Rabbi Hillel put chopped nuts, apples, spices, and wine between two pieces of matzoh – making what is known as “charoset”.

4. The Dead Sea is not the saltiest lake in the world – that honor goes to Lake Asaal in Djibouti (pictured above). It has 400 grams of salt per liter while the Dead Sea has 340 grams per liter. But don’t go rushing to Lake Asaal for a holiday – the lake emits a foul stench and if you wade barefoot, you are likely to have your feet torn to shreds by shards of crystalized salt.

5. While we often yawn when we are tired, we also yawn for a whole variety of other unrelated reasons – when bored, nervous, and sometimes for no reason at all. Dogs also yawn when tired, excited, or tense.
6. While Shakespeare is attributed as the author to the often wrongly quoted phrase “all that glisters is not gold” it was, in fact, first said in the 12th century by philosopher Alain de L’Isle who said: “Do not hold everything that shines like gold.”

7. We know that the sphinx is missing its nose – but it is not because of Napoleon. The true reason for the loss of its nose is unknown but it is most likely that it was caused by sand erosion over the years.

8. Most cats are lactose intolerant and should not be given milk beyond the kitten stage. Instead, give your cat water to drink – he will thank you for it by not leaving loose stools all around the house.

9. The first olympics were not just sporting events – they also included mental sports. When the olympics were revived in modern times, these “brain games” eventually made it back (in 1912). Alongside the sporting events we all know, the 1912 olympics included architecture, painting, sculpture, music, and literature. They survived until 1948 when they were removed because most entrants were professionals in their field. Pictured above is “Rugby” by Jean Jacoby who won his second of two gold medals in olympic art with this drawing.

10. Contrary to popular belief, elephants don’t create graveyards. While there are cases of large numbers of elephant skeletons found in close proximity to one another, this is mostly due to the fact that the old elephants tend to stay close to a water hole and, consequently, die there.

11. 35 passengers died in the dreadful Hindenburg disaster; but did you know that 97 other passengers survived the event? There were a total of 36 deaths as one member of the 200 strong ground crew was also killed.

12. If you are planning to visit Roswell in search of aliens, you will be sorely disappointed. The famous Roswell alien crash site was not in Roswell at all! It is just called that because it is the closest large city to the site. Of the three locations were debris was found, the closest to Roswell is 30 miles north of the down.

13. Charles Lindbergh was not the first to fly nonstop across the Atlantic. That honor goes to two British pilots: John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown in 1919 (8 years before Lindbergh). In fact, when Lindbergh made his historic flight, at least 81 others had already done so.

14. Marx never said “Religion is the opiate of the masses”. What he did say was: “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of the soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”

Via

Funny Football

2010-02-23T02:16:00.000-08:00

heh

2010-02-22T17:42:00.001-08:00

Little people

2010-02-22T17:29:00.001-08:00

Little People, hand-painted miniature figurines in the streets of London. This is a rad project. They’ve also got a book out which you can purchase, here.

Photo manipulation

2010-02-22T17:27:00.001-08:00

There’s brain teasers which are great for messing with your mind on a mental level and then there are visual manipulations that either have you wondering how the photographer did that or whether you just suffered an acid flashback.+

These ten are from a larger collection of some great photo manipulation work by Erik Johansson. I’m betting most will have you doing the ol’ scratch the head how’d he do that. a few though are definitely flashback material.

Guy Vocabulary

2010-02-22T17:16:00.001-08:00

We’ve pretty much never had a man refuse an offer for sex. We’ve had to abort the mission if he couldn’t, um, blast off, but “I’m too tired” doesn’t seem to be in the Guy Vocabulary. That got us thinking: What else can men be counted on to pretty much never say?

Here’s a list of phrases we’ve never, ever heard come out of a man’s mouth ... at least not with a straight face.

“Not tonight. I’m just not in the mood.”
“Cover up, sweetie. You are leaving nothing to the imagination!”
“Let’s throw the rest of that bacon away so we’re not tempted to eat it.”
”Tila Tequila? Oh yeah, I’d do her.”
“I should throw these socks away. They are disgusting.”
“Don’t sweat it; I’ll pay off your credit card balance.”
“We should totally get tickets to that Taylor Swift concert!”
“I’m not really into blow jobs.”
“My friends think I’m a Miranda, but I really think I’m a Carrie.”
“It’s OK, honey, I’ll do the laundry.”
“How about a rom-com?”
“Models just seem really vain and superficial to me. Why would you want to be around that?”
”‘The View’ was better when Rosie was on it.”
“Wow, my handlebar mustache looks really stupid.”
“Just a garden salad with dressing on the side, please.”
“Let’s go pick out a new bath mat today.”
“I know you’ve been on the pill for awhile, but I really think we should wear a condom.”
“We should offer to babysit your sister’s kid Saturday night. It’ll be so fun!”
“It’s so not fair at family gatherings when all the women clear the table and do the dishes after we eat, while the men sit at the table and keep talking. I’m going to help out next time!
“I think you should buy another purse.”
“This is way too spicy for me.”
“Wow, Tyra’s talk show is great!”
”$350 is a totally reasonable price for that tee shirt.”
“Your boobs look too big in that shirt.”
“American Apparel’s Best Bottom In The World contest was such a terrible idea.”
“We shouldn’t prank him — that would be so mean!”
“Can I join your book club?”

dunno source

2010-02-22T16:44:00.001-08:00

THIS LOOKED SO EASY ON YOUTUBE!
akshully, ais not so suprized
Picture by: dunno source Caption by: imonaboatlol via Our LOL Builder

Caffeo Lattea

2010-02-22T16:39:00.000-08:00

The new fully automatic Melitta Caffeo Lattea makes a terrific gift for anyone who appreciate fine espresso or latte. The machine offers straightforward coffee fun and is geared for the young, mobile lifestyle. You don't even need a supply of milk. Specially designed milk2shower powder which is available in 5 flavours including Simply White, Knock Over Rocks, Caramel Kick, Vanilla Reload and Spicy Chai, makes perfect milk froth. Melitta milk2shower consists of dried milk powder, skimmed milk, a special milk protein foam and a flavor additive, and has 18-month shelf life. Freshly ground beans and wonderfully creamy milk froth in different flavors will certainly create a unique taste experience. And Melitta Caffeo Lattea is quite easy to clean. The Caffeo Lattea comes with magnetic milk jugs that are simply removed and rinsed in warm water, while automatic cleaning and descaling functions take care of the rest.

Being 20 cm wide, 32.5 cm deep and 45.5 cm tall helps, as Melitta Caffeo Lattea is one of the smallest fully automatic coffee machines in the world and thus fits perfectly into a modern and flexible living and working space. It is available in four fashionable colors, eggplant-black, silver, black, red-black and silver-white. Behind the stylish facade with chrome controls and chrome plated coffee spout lies Melitta advanced technology including,
- high quality materials
- energy saving function
- zero-watt switch
- removable brewing unit
- 15 bar pressure pump
- 1.4 kW thermoblock heater
- coffee grinder
- adjustable coffee strength and volume
Price for this fully automatic coffee machine is € 500. Melitta. Also, Melitta Caffeo Solo.

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Jesus

2010-02-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

I learned the Josh Christ fact twice in one week, from both Ed Brubaker and Christopher Moore. Seemed like a sign to make a comic about it. - - There might be something blasphemous about running religion comics on Sundays, but man, I love 'em.

Heart of Abg Gebu

2010-02-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

Agak sukar atau mungkin Agak sukar atau mungkin belum pernah saya terserempak dgn kucing..

Kucing memang suka pancit sana sini, seperti kucing jantan...

Highest La Paz

2010-02-20T19:07:00.000-08:00

Highest La Paz, Bolivia – La Paz is situated at an altitude of 3’600 meters, the shortage of oxygen is compensated by playing with your head in the clouds. This 18 hole golf course, par 71 has its highest hole at an altitude of 3’342 meters and its lowest at 3’277 meters. Robin Sieger, co-founder of the Awesome 8 Golf Society: 13th December 2002 A private club with a most testing layout, no room for error. The altitude causes some strange things to happen. It is unlikely I will ever hit the ball as far again, a 4 iron at a 230 yds par 3 that went through the green - Deep joy! The altitude caused me to feel somewhat breathless, but the stunning scenery was amongst the most wonderful backdrop to any course in the world. It is a course I am determined to revisit for a couple of days and play again and again. Wonderful. www.lapazgolfclub.com

Renoir

2010-02-20T19:02:00.000-08:00

Renoir: 'The Concert', 1918

Renoir: 'Dancer with a Tambourine', 1918

Renoir: 'Large Bathers', 1884-87

Source: LACMA
The exhibition presents approximately 80 paintings, sculptures, and drawings by Renoir, interspersed with select works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Aristide Maillol, and Pierre Bonnard, to illustrate the developing avantgarde’s debt to the older master. Curated by LACMA curator Claudia Einecke and Chief Curator of European Art J.Patrice Marandel, the show offers an unprecedented look at Renoir through the lens of modernism, bridging the perceived divide between the art of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries. Co-organized by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux, the Musée d’Orsay, and LACMA, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the exhibition will be on view from February 14 to May 9, 2010

“Renoir in the 20th Century is unlike any other Renoir exhibition,” says Einecke. “By focusing solely on his later works, it reveals a Renoir who is largely unknown, in a completely new and unexpected context. The juxtapositions with Picasso and his modernist peers are astonishing.” During the last thirty years of his career, Renoir moved on from impressionism to an art aiming to be decorative, continue the great tradition of European painting, and be modern, all at once. The resulting paintings and sculptures became an enduring source of inspiration to a generation of younger artists who were feeling their way into modernism in the early twentieth century.

Renoir was acclaimed as an emblematic figure of impressionism in the 1870s, but even as that movement was winning wider acceptance, he embarked on new paths of experimentation and innovation. He challenged the basic principles of impressionism and, in an overt reference to the past, turned to traditional drawing and studio work. This period of crisis and research ended in the early 1890s, a decade that brought Renoir public and institutional recognition as well as commercial success. Without rejecting impressionist techniques, Renoir invented a style he described as classical and decorative. As a declared figure painter, he concentrated on the female nude, portraits, and studies from the model, in the studio or outdoors, and experimented with new techniques.

Like his contemporaries and friends Paul Cézanne and Claude Monet, Renoir became a point of reference for a new generation of artists. Picasso, Matisse, Bonnard, and Maurice Denis, among many others, expressed their admiration for the master, and in particular for his “last manner,” referring to his work at the turn of the century. Great champions of modern art, such as Leo and Gertrude Stein, Albert Barnes, Louise and Walter Arensberg, and Paul Guillaume, collected Renoir alongside Cézanne, Picasso, and Matisse.

As an artist who was forever exploring and keen to take up challenges, Renoir wanted to test himself against the great masters from the past, notably Titian and Rubens, but also Fragonard and Watteau, whom he admired in the Louvre and during his travels. His research was driven by his rejection of the modern world and a preference for a timeless Arcadia peopled by sensual bathers and inspired by the south of France, where he stayed often from the 1890s onward. Renoir saw the Mediterranean landscape as an antique land, at once the cradle and last refuge of a living, familiar, and topical mythology.

In his last years, Renoir persistently returned to a narrow group of themes which he explored even in unaccustomed media, such as sculpture. At the same time, in the first decade of the twentieth century, his work from life and from models yielded new compositions, of which his odalisques and, above all, the Large Bathers of 1918-1919 (Musée d’Orsay) were the crowning glory. Renoir himself considered Large Bathers an achievement and a springboard for future research.

This was, indeed, how the painting was seen by many artists in the early twentieth century, especially in the controversies surrounding the development of cubism and abstraction: it offered a working balance between objectivity and subjectivity, between tradition and innovation, which pointed the way to the classical modernity of the 1920s.

Since then, appreciation of “the late Renoir” has changed somewhat, and his paintings from this period are now little known. Although his landscapes and portraits have given rise to major exhibitions in recent years, there have been no studies or exhibitions focusing specifically on Renoir’s last years, as has been the case for Monet or Cézanne. Renoir in the 20th Century is designed to remedy this and explore this very fertile period in Renoir’s career.

Michelangelo

2010-02-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
The Dream of Human Life, c. 1533
Black chalk, 39.4 x 27.7 cm
The Courtauld Gallery, London

Source: Courtauld Gallery
The Dream is one of Michelangelo’s ‘presentation drawings’, a magnificent and famous group of highly refined compositions which the artist gave to his closest friends. These beautiful and complex works transformed drawing into an independent art form and are amongst Michelangelo’s very finest creations in any medium. The Dream was probably made for a young Roman nobleman called Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, who was celebrated for his outstanding beauty, gracious manners and intellect. Michelangelo had first met him in Rome in the winter of 1532 and had instantly fallen in love. The Dream is likely to have been part of the superb group of drawings which Michelangelo gave to Cavalieri during the first years of their close friendship. This group forms the heart of the exhibition and includes The Punishment of Tityus, The Fall of Phaeton, A Bacchanal of Children and The Rape of Ganymede. In his Life of Michelangelo (1568) the biographer and artist Giorgio Vasari praised these exceptional works as ‘drawings the like of which have never been seen’ – and they are still regarded as amongst the greatest single series of drawings ever made.

Michelangelo’s drawings for Cavalieri have not been seen together for over twenty years and this is the first time that The Dream will be shown as part of this group. Exceptionally also, The Fall of Phaeton will be reunited with two earlier versions of this composition. Both carry inscriptions in Michelangelo’s hand, one requesting Cavalieri’s approval of the preliminary design.

The exhibition starts with the earliest surviving letter from Michelangelo to Cavalieri, dated 1 January 1533, in which the artist expresses his delight that Cavalieri had agreed to accept the gift of some drawings. Cavalieri is thought to have been no older than 17 at the time and, according to Vasari, Michelangelo’s gifts were primarily intended to teach him how to draw. The mythological stories such as Phaeton falling to earth with the chariot of the sun, the abduction of Ganymede – the most beautiful of mortals – and the punishment of the lustful giant Tityus may also have been intended to offer moral guidance. The drawings certainly also served as expressions of Michelangelo’s love for Cavalieri.

Sculptures

2010-02-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

Alberto Giacometti - L’Homme qui marche I

The Guennol Lioness

Artemis and the Stag

Constantini Brancusi: Bird in space

David Smith: Cubi XXVIII - image from www.guggenheimcollection.org

Damien Hirst's controversial Skull

Alberto Giacometti: "Grande Femme debut"

Constantini Brancusi: Danaide

Edgar Degas: Petite danseuse de quatorze ans

Antonio Canova: The Three graces

by G. Fernández - theartwolf.com
Last Updated: February 2010
While working on the top 10 most expensive paintings ever sold I noticed that a lot of lists about that subject were displayed in many websites -though most of them were incorrect- but, surprisingly, no list of "the top 10 most expensive sculptures ever sold" could be found. So I decided to spend a few days creating what I consider to be the first list of this type published on the internet:

1. Alberto Giacometti: "L’Homme qui marche I", 1961
$104.3 million - Sotheby's London, February 2010
This life-size work ranks among the most arresting and iconic of the artist’s bronzes, and became the most expensive work of Art ever auctioned

2. Unknown artist: "The Guennol Lioness", c.3000 b.c.
$57.2 million - Sotheby's NY, December 5th 2007
The Guennol Lioness, a true masterpiece of Ancient Art, was created approximately 5,000 years ago in the region of ancient Mesopotamia. This work is also the most expensive antiquity ever sold

3. Constantin Brancusi: "Madame LR (Portrait de Mme LR)", c.1914-17
$36.8 million - Christie's Paris, Fenruary 24th 2009
One of the stars of the so-called "auction of the century", the sale of the Yves Saint Laurent collection of Art

4. Pablo Picasso: "Tete de femme (Dora Maar)", 1941
$29.1 million Sotheby's NY, November 7th 2007
Picasso is a "must" in any most-expensive-Art list. This piece slightly surpassed the auction record set by a Roman antiquity (see below), but was smashed by the Guennol Lionness

5. Unknown artist: "Artemis and the stag", 1st century b.c.- 1st century a.c.
$28.6 million Sotheby's NY, June 2007
This beautiful and well-preserved bronze statue is also the second most expensive sculpture ever sold.

6. Constantini Brancusi: "Bird in space", 1922-23
$27.5 million Christie's NY, May 2005
Brancusi is arguably the most important sculptor of the 20 th century and his Birds in space rank among his most iconic works. This stylized piece surpassed the previous auction record for a sculpture -also held by Brancusi- in almost $10 million.

7. Alberto Giacometti: "Grande Femme debut", 1959/60
$27.5 million Christie's NY, May 2008
Executed in response to a commission for the new Chase Manhattan Bank headquarters and public plaza in New York

8. David Smith: "Cubi XXVIII", 1965
$23.5 million Sotheby's NY, November 2005 Buyer: Eli Broad
Smith's impressive sculpture -formerly in the Guggenheim Museum- was purchased by Larry Gagosian, representing collector Eli Broad. This is the most expensive contemporary sculpture ever sold.

9. Pablo Picasso: "La grue", 1951/52
$19.1 million Sotheby's NY, May 2008

10. Auguste Rodin: "Eve, grand modèle", c.1885
$18.97 million Christie's NY, May 2008
"Eve, grand modèle-version sans rocher" by Auguste Rodin marks one of the great turning points in modern sculpture and was initially conceived in the 1880s for The Gates of Hell

UNCONFIRMED SALES

Damien Hirst: "For the love of God", 2006
$100 million - Private sale, August 2007
Hirst have claimed to having sold this skull with 8,601 diamonds for £50 million in 2007. If confirmed, it would be the highest price ever paid for a work of Art by a living artist

OTHER NOTABLE PRICES

Alberto Giacometti: "L'homme qui chavire", 1947
$18.5 million Christie's NY, May 2007

Constantini Brancusi: "Danaide", 1913
$18.1 million Christie's NY, May 2002
This elegant bronze head was the most expensive sculpture ever sold for three years, until it was surpassed by another Brancusi, the "Bird in space

Alberto Giacometti: "Grande femme debout I", c.1954
$14.3 million Christie's NY, November 2000
This work held the auction record for a sculpture until the sale of Brancusi's Danaide in 2002

Alberto Giacometti: "Grande tête de Diego", c.1954
$13.8 million Sotheby's NY, May 2002
Giacometti's expressive head sold for almost double its high estimate

10. Alberto Giacometti: "La forêt", 1950
$13.2 million Christie's NY, May 2002
Another Giacometti in this list. Large groups of extremely thin figures such as this rank among the artist's greatest achievements

Henri Matisse: "Figure decorative", 1952
$12.9 million Sotheby's NY, November 2006
Matisse's bronces like this are still a bit overrated by the Art market, since they are not among his greatest achievements. Another 1952 bronce by Matisse was sold for only $3.6 million in 1990, and a similar one for $12.65 million in May 2001.

Edgar Degas: "Petite danseuse de quatorze ans », 1879-81
$12.3 million Sotheby's NY, November 1999 Buyer: François Pinault
One of the most expensives sculpture ever sold, if you consider the amount of money it has move in recent years: it was sold for $11.8 million in 1996 and for $10.1 million in 1988. Later resold for $10.3 million in Christie's NY, November 2003.

Unknown artist: "The Jenkins Venus (The Barberini Venus)", c.1 st -2 nd century a.c.
$11.7 million (BP7.95 million) Christie's London , July 2002
This elegant marble Venus is the second most expensive antiquity ever sold, slightly surpassing the "Canford Assyrian relief", an impressive Assyrian relief sold at Christie's London in 1994

Antonio Canova: "The three graces", 1814-17
$11.5 million (BP7.5 million) Private sale, 1994 Buyer: Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Scotland
Perhaps not the most expensive, but arguably the most important sculpture ever sold, at least in recent times. Canova's masterwork was purchased jointly by Victoria & Albert Museum and the National Gallery of Scotland

Henri Matisse: " Reclining Nude I (Dawn)", 1907
$10.4 million Phillips, May 2001
While Matisse is best known for his colorful paintings, he also made great achievements in sculpture, and this "Reclining nude" is one of his best examples.

Adriaen de Vries: "Dancing faun", c.1610
$10.4 million (BP6.8 million) Sotheby's, December 1989
This extremely important piece was rediscovered by Cyril Humpris, who bought it from a couple who considered it to be an ordinary garden sculpture

Sauna

2010-02-20T14:51:00.000-08:00

The gym is crowded, your shoulders are sore, and all you want to do is hide in the sauna and relax. But, surprise, surprise, surprise, looks like everyone else has the same idea as you.

Do you ....

a. Get down with the other naked strangers (yes, you).
b. Forget you need to relax and head back to the treadmill.
c. Escape to your own personal retreat.

If you picked c, you're one smart cookie, and a Sunlight Sauna is just what you need. It’s like the anti-sauna. Meaning no attitudes, no unwanted strangers, and no traveling to get to it. Just total relaxation in the comfort of your own home, available whenever you want it. This unique infrared sauna not only promotes detoxification of metals and toxins, but it also boosts immune and cardiovascular systems as well as relieves pain.

The best part: It burns 200 to 600 calories in 30 minutes.

Fit for one person, and starting at $3000, this luxurious sauna can compliment just about any home.

Don't like to be completely alone? Get a larger one and invite over your friends.

Clothing optional.