Entries from August 2007 ↓

Via Presurfer

The dance moves that this girl runs through are amazing. Really cool to watch. And of course, I like Techno.

Edit:The above video seems to have been removed from Youtube. I’m leaving the link up because there is some discussion that it may come back up. Meanwhile, here is a new link from Yahoo.

Check out a whole gallery at Centripedal Notion: Eric Staller: Light Drawings

Did you ever wonder what was in those fancy coffees? Or for that matter, how to spell or pronounce them? Well, then the illustrated coffee chart is for you. Lokesh Dhakar has kindly made up the above chart for your comparison. Now you can easily tell what it is you are ordering at that Starbucks down the street.

Coffee Drinks Illustrated

Shibam, Yemen is home to some of the oldest skyscrapers in the world. Some of them date back over 500 years. The houses of Shibam are all made out of mud bricks. There are about 500 surviving tower houses, rising 5 to 9 stories high. the city has been in existence for about 2,000 years. But most of the city’s houses come mainly from the 16th century.
The city was first settled as a result of ancient incense trade routes. Later it became the capital of the Hadramawt under Islamic rule. Because of it’s location on an elevated piece of ground in the river floodplain, and a desire of it’s inhabitants to live within a protective wall, houses were built vertically.

Via DeputyDog: the world’s first skyscrapers

I just watched the most amazing video of a new product called Photosynth from Microsoft. This post may be a little more technical than most of my posts here, but I was so blown away by the possibilities of a system like this, that I had to post about it. In the video a Microsoft Live Labs Architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas gives a demonstration of
The Photosynth application uses algorithms to interpret, categorize image data and create links between related images and other data from anywhere on the net. Basically it’s building a “Visual Web” on top of the existing Internet.

For the original source of the video above go to TED: Talks Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo

Yesterday the shore front of New South Wales Australia was transformed into a mass of bubbles.

From Daily Mail:

Foam swallowed an entire beach and half the nearby buildings, including the local lifeguards’ centre, in a freak display of nature at Yamba in New South Wales. One minute a group of teenage surfers were waiting to catch a wave, the next they were swallowed up in a giant bubble bath. The foam was so light that they could puff it out of their hands and watch it float away.

Sea foam is not actually that uncommon of a sight. Here in my hometown of Pensacola Florida, you can often find bubbles and foam on the beaches. What is uncommon is the sheer quantity of foam produced.

Check out the article at Daily Mail: Cappuccino Coast: The day the Pacific was whipped up into an ocean of froth

Via Neatorama

Dark Roasted blend has an interesting article on dust storms. It has a ton of pictures, mostly from the Middle East and Northern Africa. The picture above is of a dust storm advancing in the Negev Desert of southern Israel. It’s advancing at a speed of 40 miles per hour and is over 4,000 feet high.

Check out the article for a lot more pictures.

Dark Roasted Blend: Dust Storms!

For some more pictures of dust storms, check out my previous post of dust storms over Iraq.

Xtreme pug skydiving is the title of this video. And it’s pretty interesting. This guy thought he would take his dog skydiving with him. LOL
I’m not sure what would posses you to do that. It just doesn’t look fun to me. Though the dog looks like he is having a great time.

Just read this fascinating article on PhysOrg about snakes. Snakes can survive up to two years in the wild without eating anything. They do this by lowering their metabolism and using stored fat. The amazing thing is that they can lower their metabolism up to 72%. And this is on an animal that already has an extremely low metabolism to start with.
The scientists conducting the study, examined three species of snakes. The python, the rat snake, and the rattlesnake. While examining them, they starved the snakes for 6 months. The amazing thing, is that even though the snakes lowered their metabolism, they continued to grow in length for the entire period.

Personally I hate snakes. I can’t imagine ever having one as a pet. But articles like this one and the one about the rattlesnake bite I posted a few weeks ago, really interest me.

Check out the article: How Snakes Survive Starvation