Situations like this have haunted my nightmares from time to time. How you would deal with being trapped in a car, trying to cut through the smoke and unsure of direction or safety?
Some local people were trying to be a bit more proactive and help out their neighbors, and for that they got the scare of their lives. Make sure to read the captions.
Pardon for all the swearing in the video, but I think I would be doing the same thing if this happened to me!
I think I should have written the explanation for the vid, so it’s my fault. Those guys volonteered to help villagers fight the upcomming fire. Half an hour before the footage was taken, they safely used the road, which in the video, as you can see, is on fire, to come to the village in the first place. When they understood that nothing can be done in the village and everything will eventually burn, they’ve decided to drive away asap. But to their surprise the fire got to the road first. Now the reason why they wanted to go back is that there are two roads to the Tamboles village. the one they used in the video (the shortest one) and circumurban road (the longest) due to the fact they wanted to get away asap they’ve chosen the shortest.
Car – Mitsubishi Outlander XL 2007 year.
Camera – Canon 5D Mark II + 24-105
My hope is that drastic weather changes like this don’t cause too many of the same problems in other countries. It’s disturbing how random the sizes can be, from varied pockets in farmer’s fields to depressions large enough to swallow an entire playground.
Craters of different sizes have been seen in a vast area of land stretching across eastern and southern China’s Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangsu and Guangxi province, state media reported.
Cheng Jie, a geological expert from the China University of Geoscience, said: “I think it is very unlikely that the sinkholes were caused by human activities. It is mainly a result of natural causes, like the sharp weather changes from extreme droughts to heavy rainstorms.”
Japanese engineers are working on a new generation of android technology, which is both cheaper and more affordable. Dubbed the Geminoid F, it is the second model of interface technology to be developed by Hiroshi Ishiguro, after the Geminoid H-1. The possibility of experiencing the science-fiction life of robotic avatars takes another step closer to reality.
Geminoid F (F stands for "female") is a replica of an unnamed model, a woman in her twenties in the photo
The Geminoid F is an air servo-powered, remote-operated talking humanoid with eye, mouth, head, and shoulder mobility. She was designed by Osaka University’s Hiroshi Ishiguro, ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories, and Kokoro, a Tokyo-based entertainment firm. Copies of Geminoid are to go on sale for about $110,000, Ishiguro was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.
The development of this model extends beyond a company’s desire for mere prototyping and exploration. They plan on putting the Geminoid F to good use in the public arena as a commercial alternative.
Kokoro wants to sell 50 Geminoid Fs to museums and hospitals, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper. It has already offered to produce customized android clones to the public for about $225,000 apiece.
Cameras and face-tracking software follow the remote operator’s behavior, allowing the android to mimic its user in a sort of master-slave relationship via Internet link. Geminoid can’t walk, though, and giving locomotion to a robot running on an air servo system is a major challenge.
St. Wenceslas, the patron saint of the Czech Republic, is honored with many statues around the country. But the sculpture of St. Wenceslas Riding a Dead Horse in Prague turns those monuments — literally — upside down. Hanging in the gallery of a shopping and entertainment complex, it was created in 1999 as a parody of a right-side-up statue in a nearby public square.
Are you a fan of Gundam? I sure am, and wish I could see this guy in real-life.
Standing at 59 feet tall at a scale of 1:1, this is an actual sculpture that will be on display in Tokyo through July.
A perplexing array of geometry has been located 3.5 miles below the surface of the ocean. Could it be the long lost city heralded in myths of centuries past? Thanks to Google Earth adding new ocean mapping features, the question is now being pursued on a new platform.
The satellite image captured from Google Earth
The network of criss-cross lines is 620 miles off the coast of north west Africa near the Canary Islands on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.
The perfect rectangle – which is around the size of Wales – was noticed on the search giant’s underwater exploration tool by an aeronautical engineer who claims it looks like an “aerial map” of a city.
According to his account, the city sank beneath the ocean after its residents made a failed effort to conquer Athens around 9000 BC.
Dr Charles Orser, curator of historical archaeology at New York State University told The Sun that the find was fascinating and warranted further inspection.
“The site is one of the most prominent places for the proposed location of Atlantis, as described by Plato,” the Atlantis expert said. “Even if it turns out to be geographical, it definitely deserves a closer look.”
Bernie Bamford, 38, of Chester who spotted the “city”, compared it to the plan of Milton Keynes, the Buckinghamshire town built on a grid design. “It must be man made,” he said.
A goat is being held in jail at this time. Before getting into details, a quick look into the folklore’s definition may help to quantify other situations a bit more…
….Popular shapeshifting creatures in folklore are werewolves and vampires (mostly of European, Canadian, and Native American/early American origin), the fox spirits East Asia (including the Japanese kitsune), and the gods, goddesses, and demons of numerous mythologies, such as the Norse Loki or the Greek Proteus. It was also common for deities to transform mortals into animals and plants.
So those are a few examples of how widespread the concept has been throughout the world. For many, the belief of such practices have not died, which results in the BBC story below. Profane or sacred? That depends on your point of view….where and when.
Many Nigerians believe that magicians can turn themselves into goats
Police in Nigeria are holding a goat handed to them by a vigilante group, which said it was a car thief who had used witchcraft to change shape. A police spokesman in Kwara State has been quoted as saying that the “armed robbery suspect” would remain in custody until investigations were over.
But another police spokesman told the BBC the goat was being held in case its owner claimed it. The belief in witchcraft and the power to change shapes is common in Nigeria.
Police reform activists have condemned the “arrest”, saying it highlights the low education levels of many Nigerian police officers.
Nigeria’s Vanguard newspaper has a picture of the goat and reports that police paraded it in front of journalists in the Kwara state capital Ilorin on Thursday.
But this was denied by national police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu. “The vigilante group arrested the goat and took it to the police, then they told the media.” The next morning journalists turned up demanding to see the goat, he said.
Food and water. Yeah it’s something we need.
I like to eat breakfast, and you probably do too.
What if something cataclysmic where to happen (nuclear winter, asteroid collision, pole shift) and most agriculture was wiped off the face of the map? Not a pleasant thing to hypothetically brood over, but a tangible architectural undertaking if you happen to be Norwegian.
The answer in many ways would lie in seeds and their ability to be stored, grown, tended, and used for food and re-population of a depleted environment. An interesting solution has already been long in development on a remote island in the arctic circle. Not only is it functional, but looks like a fully-loaded computer tower with a multi-chambered storage facility to boot.
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault is a secure seedbank located on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen near the town of Longyearbyen in the remote Arctic Svalbard archipelago.The facility was established to preserve a wide variety of plant seeds from locations worldwide in an underground cavern. The Seed Vault holds duplicate samples, or “spare” copies, of seeds held in genebanks worldwide. The Seed Vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises. The island of Spitsbergen is about 1,120 kilometres (700 mi) from the North Pole.
Old frescos and architecture are interesting. We pass them in towns and cities, walking by banks and court buildings occupying blocks of development. Because they are ingrained into our routine of everyday visual cues, the iconic idea becomes a familiarity while their intentions and origins remain detached.
Looking at the meaning of the word “apotheosis” reveals further information.
a-poth-e-o-sis
–noun, plural -ses
1. the elevation or exaltation of a person to the rank of a god.
2. the ideal example; epitome; quintessence: This poem is the apotheosis of lyric expression.
That’s neat….so it’s not just the depiction of an ascension into a higher realm, but perhaps the additional elevation into godhood, like a story from greek mythology.
After finding this out, it makes me wonder how many people that frequent the building know that they pass under a fresco that depicts the first US president in this way. I myself wouldn’t have, until looking into this just a little today.
First there were dancing robots, then house-sitting robots and now a new breed of acting robots is making its big debut on the Japanese stage.
The play, which had its premiere at Osaka University, is one of Japan’s first robot-human theatre productions.
The machines were specially programmed to speak lines with human actors and move around the stage with them.
Actress Minako Inoue rehearses with her robot cast mate
Playwright Oriza Hirata says the work raises questions about the relationship between humanity and technology.
The play, called Hataraku Watashi (I, Worker), is set in the near future.
It focuses on a young couple who own two housekeeping robots, one of which loses its motivation to work.
In the play, the robot complains that it has been forced into boring and demeaning jobs and enters into a discussion with the humans about its role in their lives.
So far, the play is only 20 minutes long but it is hoped to become a full-length production by 2010.
The Wakamaru robot is manufactured by Mitsubushi but the software to train it for the stage was developed over two months at the university.
The 1-m (3-ft) tall humanoid robot is best known as a mechanical house-sitter and secretary.
But soon they may be signing autographs or trying to roll away from paparazzi.
One of the T-shaped monoliths in Gobelki Tepe, this one bearing a relief of a fox.
It’s more than twice as old as the Pyramids, or even the written word. When it was built, saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths still roamed, and the Ice Age had just ended.
The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals.
According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.
Schmidt and his colleagues say no evidence of permanent settlement has been found at the site, although there are remains of butchered animals and edible plants.
However, all of the bones are from wild animals, and all the vegetation from wild plants. That means the massive structure was built by a hunter-gatherer society, not a settled agricultural one.
I was rummaging through old work in storage and found some entertaining drawings from 4th grade: warriors with mechanical birds perched on their shoulders to aid in battle. I wasn’t sure where the idea came from then, but now know that its origins started in Falconry. There are even places allow you to witness the artform in real life if you want.
You can view some falconry in action in the video clip below.
(The first 8 seconds are missing audio. The sound works after that.)
Traditional view of falconry state that the art started in Mesopotamia. The earliest evidence comes from around the reign of Sargon II (722-705 BC). Falconry was probably introduced to Europe around AD 400, when the Huns and Alans invaded from the East. Frederick II of Hohenstaufen has been noted as one of the early European noblemen to take an interest in falconry. He is believed to have obtained firsthand knowledge of Arabic falconry during wars in the region (between June 1228–June 1229). He obtained a copy of Moamyn’s manual on falconry and had it translated into Latin by Theodore of Antioch. Frederick II himself made corrections to the translation in 1241 resulting in De Scientia Venandi per Aves.
August 1, 2010 | category: 
Old frescos and architecture are interesting. We pass them in towns and cities, walking by banks and court buildings occupying blocks of development. Because they are ingrained into our routine of everyday visual cues, the iconic idea becomes a familiarity while their intentions and origins remain detached.
