Guardian: Mecca super-hotel to offer spa, butler and a chocolate room

Guardian: Mecca super-hotel to offer spa, butler and a chocolate room: "BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Full article here:

Raffles, which gave thirsty wanderers the Singapore Sling, is opening a luxury hotel in Mecca offering pilgrims a coffee sommelier, a chocolate room where chefs will prepare bespoke pralines and truffles, and a 24-hour butler service.

Undeterred by restrictions on beautifying oneself during the Hajj, the hotel will also have segregated gyms, beauty parlours, grooming salons and a spa.

There are strict rules regarding personal hygiene and behaviour during the hajj, and forbidden activities include sex, the cutting of hair and nails and the trimming of beards. These bars are lifted once certain rituals are complete, but Muslims are generally expected to forget worldly thoughts and activities and focus on the divine.

Mohammed Arkobi, the general manager of the new hotel, did not explain how a chocolate room and spa would help pilgrims achieve spiritual fulfilment. Nor was he able to comment on how the amenities complied with the ethos of the hajj, which is about simplicity and humility.

…..

Mecca’s makeover is alarming international activists, such as Ali al-Ahmed, the director of the Washington-based Institute for Gulf Affairs, a thinktank analysing events and issues in the region. Ahmed, an outspoken critic of the Saudi regime, said many factors were driving the changes.

“The al-Sauds want to make Mecca like Dubai, it is a money-making operation. They destroy ancient buildings because they do not want any history other than their own, they see it as competition. They destroy and dispose of artefacts.”

He also expressed concern that the arrival of luxury brands would increase the price of a pilgrimage. A 2009 platinum Hajj package from a UK tour operator costs £6,400 for 16 nights full board, based on double occupancy.

“By developing Mecca in this way they are making it inaccessible and unaffordable for the majority of Muslims. It will only be for the elite,” Ahmed said.

The city’s increasing westernisation was a “perversion of the religion”, encouraging activities that were at odds with the spirit of the hajj, he said.

“The Saudis may come across as austere but members of the ruling class have billions of dollars between them – even the muftis live in palaces with chandeliers.”

Development of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina should not come at the expense of religious practice, he said, before turning his attention to the lack of protest from Muslims around the world.

“Let’s take Jerusalem as an example. Muslims are outraged when Israelis do something in the Old City, but in Mecca things are being systematically destroyed and nobody is raising an eyebrow. It is a catastrophe.”

Circle flies

Circle flies: "

A cowboy from Texas attends a social function where Barack Obama is trying to gather more support for his Health Plan. Once he discovers the cowboy is from President Bush’s home area, he starts to belittle him by talking in a southern drawl and single syllable words.

As he was doing that, he kept swatting at some flies that were buzzing around his head. The cowboy says, “Y’all havin’ some problem with them circle flies?”

Obama stopped talking and said, “Well, yes, if that’s what they’re called, but I’ve never heard of circle flies.”

“Well Sir,” the cowboy replies, “circle flies hang around ranches. They’re called circle flies because they’re almost always found circling around the back end of a horse.”

“Oh,” Obama replies as he goes back to rambling. But, a moment later he stops and bluntly asks, “Are you calling me a horse’s ass?”
“No, Sir,” the cowboy replies, “I have too much respect for the citizens of this country to call their President a horse’s ass.”

“That’s a good thing,” Obama responds and begins rambling on once more.

After a long pause, the cowboy, in his best Texas drawl says, “Hard to fool them flies, though.”

The Great Flyescape!

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Faceless

Faceless: "

Brit ISP TalkTalk shows why cutting people off because a record exec says they're file-sharers is dumb

Brit ISP TalkTalk shows why cutting people off because a record exec says they're file-sharers is dumb: "

The British ISP TalkTalk has produced a compelling case against the government's plans to disconnect whole households from the Internet if the copyright industry accuses them -- without proving anything in court -- of three acts of infringement. TalkTalk picked a random street in North London and showed that 23 of the households in that road were using WEP security to stop strangers from accessing their networks. WEP has been thoroughly broken for years, but many older games consoles, phones and other devices are only capable of using WEP to connect to WiFi networks. TalkTalk argues that householders who have done everything they can to secure their networks from people who want to use them for cover during illegal file-sharing are still vulnerable to being disconnected by record- and film-company execs.

Households that are subjected to this form of collective punishment -- 'someone around here broke the law, so you'll all suffer' -- lose access to the net, and with it, connectivity related to their employment, education, family connections, health, and government. All on the unsubstantiated say-so of the same entertainment companies that have previously accused a laser-printer of illegally downloading an Indiana Jones movie, not to mention the small legion of dead people; ancient, non-computer-owning grannies; and other innocents who've been legally threatened by the music industry for alleged copyright infringement.

A rep from the record industry insists that he has bought some magic beans 'robust' evidence-gathering software that will never, ever cut someone off from the Internet on false pretences, so we don't need judges or evidence or trials or any of that messy business. But, of course, if someone is hacking your WiFi without your knowledge, he's prepared to cut you off from the Internet, because 'the responsibility for ensuring that an internet account shared throughout a household is not being used for illegal filesharing clearly lies with the account holder.'

I think I will sue Royal Mail...

I have bought a battery for my phone. This is being shipped from Hong Kong. This battery I bought from eBay. The seller's ad told me it would take between 8-16 days for me to receive the battery.

In the vague hope that I will somehow get it before then I have been ringing home everyday since, sometimes twice a day, to inquire if the battery had come. As of today, the 10th day, it hasn't.

I don’t blame the seller. I am sure he has, in all honesty, sent the battery to me. The jackasses I do blame are the people who call themselves the Royal Mail.

They have recently gone on strike because apparently they aren’t being paid that much. Lazy SOB's. Also they want their working conditions to be improved. For fuck's sake, how hard is it to shift an envelope from one slot to another. Imagine if the people building the pyramids had said this to the Pharaoh. You know what would have happened! I’m not saying anymore!

Royal Mail should be sued by me...and every other person who is expecting something important that has not arrived. What say you?

I will be writing again...

Ok so I have not posted anything of my own for a while.

In the selfish drive of gaining more readers to this blog I have often posted stuff from other peoples blog's and websites. This has been quite easy for me to do. Using the "send to" button google reader has made it much more easier.

However, I do admit that I have neglected the people who came to this blog to read what I wrote.

So I will be writing again soon. And the other colourful shit that you see on this blog I will keep to a few posts a day!!

In the immortal words of the muscley one...."I'll be Back"!

No One Wanted to Claim Rocket Launcher

No One Wanted to Claim Rocket Launcher: "

Jarrette Schule found a rocket launcher in his backyard in rural Comal County, Texas on Tuesday. Against all common sense, he took it in his house, then began calling authorities to report it. He called the FBI, the sheriff’s department, and Homeland Security.

“Everyone was handing it off to everybody else,” Schule said.

He was surprised at the amount of work it took to get the military to pick up its lost missile launcher.

Schule initially was nervous when he found the weapon. But as the hours passed, he did what most guys would do — marvel at the mind-blowing awesomeness of finding a missile launcher. He posted photos on Facebook and called his buddies, saying: “Guess what I found?”

Schule called the military police at Fort Sam. But their jurisdiction doesn’t extend off the post. Schule’s information was passed along to an Army criminal investigator, who visited Schule on Wednesday morning — about 19 hours after he started making phone calls.

Three hours later, an Army ordinance disposal team retrieved the weapon. There is still no word on how it got to Schule’s yard. Link -via Queuebot

The Dark Sword UAV - Chinese Knockoffs Can Be Better Than the Real Thing [Uav]

The Dark Sword UAV - Chinese Knockoffs Can Be Better Than the Real Thing [Uav]: "

The Chinese military has apparently been copying American UAV designs for a while now. After they got bored simply rebuilding Uncle Sam's models, they decided to design a few of their own. And they blow ours out of the water.

Above is the Dark Sword, the Chinese military's newest drone. Not only does it look a lot cooler than any American model, it's apparently much more maneuverable and highly capable in air-to-air combat. This is on top of the Chinese having carbon copies of the Predator and Global Hawk UAVs ready to go in their arsenal.

Not to mention the names are much more awesome. How cool is the phrase 'Dark Sword?' Or better yet, 'Sour Dragon?' Seriously. [DefPro via Wired via PopSci]

Batgirl by elledupomme

Batgirl by elledupomme: "

Conan the Merciless by Michal Ivan

Conan the Merciless by Michal Ivan: "

222 – The fastest pun in the west

222 – The fastest pun in the west: "

He should have been educated not to do this, but he was tragically just too cool for school.

Batman rogues collage by Mike Henry

Batman rogues collage by Mike Henry: "

Star Wars —Sith Death Mark by Darren Tan

Star Wars —Sith Death Mark by Darren Tan: "

Old-Fashioned

Old-Fashioned: "

William Dalrymple- The White/ (last) Mughal

Special Feature – William Dalrymple, The White Mughal: "The Delhi walla's pretension in writing makes me want to lodge a bullet in his balls - Blogger Nimpipi, the woodchuck chucks
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Delhi’s most famous expat author.

[Text and pictures by Mayank Austen Soofi]

William Dalrymple has a big paunch. When The Delhi Walla met the Delhi-based British author at his Mira Singh farmhouse off the Mehrauli-Gurgaon highway, he was lounging on a wicker chair in his garden.

Looking like a white nabab, Mr Dalrymple is as popular. India International Center fills up each time he speaks. His articles are published in literary journals such as The New Yorker.

Mr Dalrymple’s bitch, Aishwarya, was barking; his bird Albinia was kissing him on the lips; his children were playing with goats and cocks; his wife, Olivia, had returned from a walk. The latest New York Review of Books was on the table, along with his latest work, Nine Lives – In Search of the Sacred in Modern India. It needed eight translators to make Nine Lives. Even after living in Delhi on-and-off for 25 years, Mr Dalrymple has not learned Hindi or any other Indian language.

“I know, I know...” he laughs while stroking Albinia’s beak. “My Hindi is terrible.”

Quite a few question Mr Dalrymple’s expertise about India. Historian Sunil Khilnani mockingly credited him for creating the genre ‘Bollywood history’. Ramchandra Guha said that his “knowledge of this country is so superficial.”

Is it?

“Westerners have written on India to suit their own prejudices but I avoid that,” Mr Dalrymple says. “For instance, in Nine Lives, I‘ve let people speak.” In the book, Mr Dalrymple follows the spiritual pursuits of nine people, including a jain monk, a tantric skull feeder, and a devdasi. “The whole point was to humanise and demystify such entities,” he says, “The mundane mingles with the exotic.”

Why is Dalrymple’s India always exotic? The City of Djinns, his award-winning travelogue on Delhi, starts with a sufi whose “beard is as tangled as a myna’s nest” and ends with a sanyasi “dancing like a madman.”

“But India is exotic,” he says. “In the West, you see the homeless outside the malls, here you see them at the cremation grounds.” However, he dismisses the charges of exoticism as unfair. “My imagination is not that of a doped orientalist,” he says. “The Mughals dressed the way they did and I did not make that up in my previous books.”

Mr Dalrymple is considering a biography of Aurangzeb, the Mughal emperor infamous for his religious bigotry. “The young Aurangzeb was a very different person than what he later changed into and as stereotyped by Indian historians,” Mr Dalrymple says. “If Babur was a great diarist, Aurangzeb was a great letter writer. He was like a Shakespearean character, like the bastard Edmund in King Lear. Unloved by his father, he lived old enough to realise that he had fucked up the empire.”

Historians usually are not so engaging while talking of kings and empires.

“There is a singular quality about William Dalrymple's 'brand' of writing,” says author Rakhshanda Jalil whose PhD subject deals with the progressive writers’ movement in India and its impact on popular culture. “He makes history readable to a lay reader in a manner a conventional historian can not.”

I earlier turned to Bombay-based writer Aakar Patel to get more views on Delhi’s most famous expat author. He reads Indian history books written in English as well as in Hindi, Gujarati and Marathi. Perhaps he could compare Mr Dalrymple with those who write in regional languages and are not read widely. Mr Patel e-mailed saying he has never read the author, despite buying most of his books.

“Perhaps this is prejudice, but it is borne out of an incident. I saw him on BBC many years ago, doing a documentary on the Delhi riots after Babri Masjid was pulled down. He gets into a taxi and tries to speak to the driver in Hindi, but what comes out is gibberish. He then reverts to English to the cabbie’s relief. He's driven to the walled city, I think, to one of the mohallas behind Jama Masjid. A charpai is brought out and he asks the elders for their reactions. One of them says that a mob threatened to attack them. “Were they Shiv Sainiks?” Dalrymple asks eagerly. (Shiv Sainiks are members of a regional right-wing extremist party not active in Delhi) At that point I switched the TV off, and haven't really been able to switch back on to him. My loss, doubtless.”

But another man gained a wife thanks to Mr Dalrymple’s works. “The Last Mughal brought us together,” said Jacob Anil Rose, a Delhi-based consultant whose contribution to Italian-Indian business ventures got him knighthood in Rome a few years ago. Both he and his future wife were listed on a marriage portal. On discovering that she liked reading, he sent her a mail praising The Last Mughal. She responded. Discussions followed, passions flared, they met, fell in love, married.

“Dalrymple makes history come alive for me,” said Mr Rose, adding, “He subtly combines fact with fiction.”

I then called publisher Jaya Bhattacharya Rose, his wife. “All said, Dalrymple has added layers to Delhi’s identity,” she said. “He makes the past approachable by turning it into living history.”

Coming back to his farmhouse, Mr Dalrymple asserts that Nine Lives is about the ‘real India’ of villages and small towns. “(Author) Pankaj Mishra told me that this is the India that he grew up in but never saw in print before,” he says.

By now it was evening and this being October, there was a slight chill in the air. “In the winter,” Mr Dalrymple says, “I like going to the Mehrauli Archeological Park around Jamali Kamali and the Safdarjung’s Tomb for dog-walks and picnics.”

Since he first came to Delhi in 1984, is he fit to be labelled a Delhiwalla?

“That’s a classic immigrant conundrum,” Mr Dalrymple says. “To a certain extent, you always remain a stranger but as a writer that’s an asset.”

Mr and Mrs Dalrymple, and Albinia



Aishwarya and Mrs Dalrymple



The Dalrymple family in the launch of Nine Lives



Mrs and Mr Rose



The White Mughal



Courtesy of The Delhi Walla

Saudi rural women's freedom to drive cars and trucks under renewed threat

Saudi rural women's freedom to drive cars and trucks under renewed threat: "Perhaps one of the most misunderstood aspects of Saudi society in the non-Arab world is the myth that all Saudi women are banned from driving cars. Read any English-language news periodical and the message is absolute: It’s illegal for Saudi women to drive.

Well, that’s kinda-sorta-usually-but-not-always true.

For decades, Saudi women have been driving on highways and streets outside of urban areas. They must drive because their families’ survival depends on it. While men are working, wives are tasked with taking the kids to school, transporting livestock to market, and managing the house. They also drive big tankers to bring drinking water to their villages. Many of these women are also Bedouins who travel from village to village earning a living by transporting goods.

This is not a case of heading down to the local Danube supermarket for a box of corn flakes. This is a long drive, sometimes hundreds of miles, over a harsh desert environment usually in a 2-ton Mercedes truck or a Hilux pickup. These moms, some who arm themselves with a handgun for protection while driving alone, are a hardworking, tough lot that can handle a truck better than most men.

I remember as a child my uncle in one of the Yanbu villages going to work at 4 each morning, leaving the management of the house, the family and the harvesting of their crops to my aunt. She drove all over the region to make sure not only her kids but the extended family were cared for.

As a practical issue, the police and Hiy’a (Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, commonly referred to as the religious police) can’t effectively patrol these remote areas. For the most part, women have had free reign in driving vehicles where they please.

Common sense, which is not always a prime ingredient when journalists address perceived wrongs with Saudi Arabia, tells us that it’s impractical and dangerous to ban all Saudi women from driving. Of course, Saudi conservatives, and that includes some members of the Commission, share the same problem.


Although rural women have had it pretty easy on the roads, apparently there can be too much of a good thing. Last week, the Hiy’a filed a complaint with the administrative ruler of the Hail region in which they asked him to ban 15 village women from driving their cars and trucks. Now, women who make sure the family’s chickens and goats get to market and keep the village supplied with water, are without transportation.

These women can’t hire a driver because their primary means of transportation is a pickup truck, which forces them into a state of khalwa -- or seclusion with a non-relative male -- as they sit beside the driver.

Consider what is more dangerous: a woman driving a truck or a woman alone with a male stranger in the middle of nowhere. The female breadwinner is faced with the double whammy of being denied the right to use a vehicle to contribute to the household income and the
right to hire a driver as a solution to her economic problem.

Many Saudis support the idea of enforcement of our moral and religious obligations. Indeed, it’s addressed in the Qur’an. But it’s quite another thing to mess with hardworking families who depend on the motor vehicle to make ends meet. For decades Saudi law authorities recognized that ranch and farm families were an exception to the driving ban edict because a family’s livelihood depended on a vehicle. They understandably turned a blind eye. That right apparently has been taken from them for no reason other than the conservatives feel threatened by it.

Saudi Arabia is in a period of great transition, and there is an expectation of movement forward, not backward. Naturally there are many people who prefer the comfort of the past. Perhaps forcing working rural women to return to camels and donkeys as transportation makes some people feel more comfortable. But their comfort comes at the expense of the working family.

Ardi, In-Depth

Ardi, In-Depth: "

You'll recall (hopefully) Ardi, the Ardipithecus ramidus, an ancient human ancestor that's recently gotten a whole lot of media attention. Excellently pseudo-named blogger Zinjanthropus (actually a mild-mannered biological anthropology grad student) is doing a series of posts that take a close-up look at some of the biological quirks that make Ardi such a surprise.

The first post is on Ardi's hands...

The extant African apes are knuckle-walkers, they have stiff, inflexible hands and wrists that allow them to support their body weight in sort of a weird position. Because they also have to climb trees for food and protection, their hands are very long and powerful. Humans, on the other hand, have pretty mobile hands and wrists which allows us what we call a 'power grip.' We are very good graspers, and this has allowed us to become the dexterous tool-wielders that we are. Because of our close genetic similarity to chimps, and the close morphological similarity between chimps and gorillas, it has been argued that certain features of the Australopithecine wrist- and even the human wrist- were 'hold overs' from the period of time when we, too were knuckle-walkers who required a stiff wrist and hand.

However, Ardi's hand more closely approximates the human hand than the knuckle-walker hand."

The magic of Japanese space-saving products

The magic of Japanese space-saving products: "When my mom came to visit me from Tokyo in August, she brought the summer 2009 edition of a wonderful furniture catalog called Iimono Hakken Jutsu, which roughly translates as The magic of discovering great things. The cover promises 3-day delivery and 24-hours of easy living. From cheap fake bricks to decorate a bland white wall to shoes for pregnant moms, the catalog really does seem to solve every household dilemma in a SkyMall-meets-IKEA-meets-Japanese research lab type of way. Although I live in the US and will probably never own any of these things, I thought I'd show you some of my faves — in particular, the ones that are made to save space. Most Japanese, especially in the cities, live in smaller spaces, which explains why things like refrigerators and vacuum cleaners are on average much tinier there than here. Here are some practical, innovative solutions offered in the Iimono catalog.

This bulky ironing board alternative consists of a small rectangular bag made just big enough to fit a standard-sized iron; take out the iron, unfold the bag, and you have a portable ironing board surface that can be laid on top of any flat surface. For less than $15.



This revolving bookshelf only takes up 45 square cm of floor space but fits up to 250 comic books or 150 VHS tapes. Amazing right? It comes in five different colors and two height options — 120.5 cm or 166.5 cm — depending on how many books you have or how low your ceiling are. Each costs less than $100.



Many Japanese sleep in the same room that they eat and lounge in — instead of owning beds, they have mattresses (called futons, though not the same as the bulky mess you get in America) and blankets that are hidden in a closet during the day and pulled out at bedtime. But even folded up mattresses can take up a lot of closet space that could and should be used for other things. Using these blanket cases reduces the amount of storage space consumed to 1/3.



And finally, the portable toilet. This is actually supposed to be for emergency use only, but I love that it folds up into a briefcase (see bottom left illo). It costs about $64. Also, it's called the Rescue Toilet.

A Lack Of Common Scents

A Lack Of Common Scents: "

Me: “Thank you for calling [clinic], how can I help you?”

Customer: “I’d like to know how much it is to descent my cat. He was a stray that was eating our other cats’ food and we decided to keep him.”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am. We can’t de-scent a cat. He may be spraying to mark his territory, and if he is, we can neuter him.”

Customer: “I assure you my cat has scent glands! He backs up to furniture, marks them, and if you startle him, he will turn around and try to mark you! And he’s mean too! If you try to come near him, he growls and tries to bite.”

Me: “Ma’am, cats don’t spray when startled usually. Are you sure it’s a cat?”

Customer: “Well, yes.”

Me: “What color is it, ma’am?”

Customer: “Black and white.”

Me: “What do his markings look like?”

Customer: “All black with two white stripes down its back.”

Me: “Ma’am, that is not a cat. That is a skunk.”

Customer: “Well, you have obviously never seen a cat before!” *hangs up*

Was Marie Rogêt Murdered by Edgar Allan Poe?

Was Marie Rogêt Murdered by Edgar Allan Poe?: "

In July 1841 the dead body of the beautiful brunette Mary Cecilia Rogers was found in the Hudson, near Hoboken.

When the famous author Edgar Allan Poe soon afterwards published his story "The Murder of Marie Rogêt", it was clear that his detective Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin was solving a true crime mystery…

On a Wednesday morning in July 1841, three men in a sailing-boat saw a body in the water off Castle Point, Hoboken. It was the dead body of a beautiful brunette, Mary Cecilia Rogers, just 21 years old. According to the New York Tribune ”it was obvious that she had been horribly outraged and murdered”. Her clothes were torn, her petticoat was missing and a piece of lace from the bottom of her dress was embedded so deeply her throat that it had almost disappeared. An autopsy led to the conclusion that she had been “brutally violated”.

Link – via historicalmysterywriter

Hit-and-run driver who hit cyclist

Hit-and-run driver who hit cyclist: "

JWZ was nearly hit by a crazy driver while on his bike in San Francisco; the driver then went on to hit his friend, and then took off. JWZ caught up with him and said, 'Hey! You just hit that guy!' and the driver said, 'Really? That's just terrible,' and drove away. But there were witnesses, a paramedic's report, and a photo of the driver's license plate.

I was hit by a drunk driver on my bike when I was 21, and still have knee problems because of it. It was a hit-and-run, and the police caught him later with parts of my bike stuck to his grille. He was a repeat offender, too. But because of Ontario's screwy no-fault insurance and crappy justice system, I wasn't informed of the court date, didn't get to object to him entering a plea and merely losing his license for a few months and paying a $1000 fine. I got a new bike, a change of clothes, and three physio sessions out of it.

I can't think of anything more cowardly and vile than hit-and-run driving. I hope this guy loses his car, his license, and the respect and fellowship of his community.

Monday around 6pm, [info]netik and I were biking West on Harrison on the right side when a car passed me on the left, within a few inches. I had enough time to think, 'Hey, that was close', look forward, and yell 'Look out!' before the car's mirror hit [info]netik's handle bar from behind and sent him tumbling. The guy kept driving. I chased after the car, pulled up to his window and said, 'Hey! You just hit that guy!' He look at me and said, in a calm deadpan, 'Really? That's just terrible.' And then he drove off.

[info]netik has a giant bruise, but isn't hurt badly, and his bike is ok. Knowing him, had this guy stopped and been even slightly apologetic, there probably wouldn't even have been a police report. But instead, the driver chose to turn it into a felony hit and run, with three witnesses, a paramedic report, and a photo of his license plate.

Enjoy your upcoming lack of a driver's license, loss of insurance, $1,000 to $10,000 fine, and possible jail time, scumbag.

You have a nice day too, Sir.

You Go, Grrl: Emily Cummins

You Go, Grrl: Emily Cummins: "Emily Cummins, a 22-year-old University of Leeds student, has been named the recipient of one of Barclays Women of the Year awards after inventing a sustainable fridge:

Her prototype fridge, which does not need electricity, was designed for use in the developing world and was refined during a visit to Namibia.

It works by harnessing energy from the sun to cool medicines and other small items using evaporation.

Ms Cummins, an inventor since the age of 15, said: 'My time in Namibia made me wonder how often we miss the simplest solutions to problems.'

Crediting her grandfather with setting her on the road to becoming an inventor, she said that it was sometimes easy to overcomplicate the invention process.

'We assume that the answer will require us to develop new and better technologies.

'Perhaps we should keep an eye on the past as well as the future, and combine the best of both.'

The Barclays Women of the Year awards are given annually to 'exceptional and selfless women who, with determination and vision, have made an impact on the lives of many.'

You can see an explanation of how it works here.


Between this fridge, the ROSS, and Adaptive Eyewear, there are a lot of innovative solutions for problems in the developing world coming out of Britain these days.

I can't help but follow that thought with ...and we're still treating people in animal stalls because we can't sort out universal healtcare. Sob.

[H/T to Shaker SapphireCate.]

Applause For Finland: First Country To Make Broadband Access A Legal Right

Applause For Finland: First Country To Make Broadband Access A Legal Right: "

Kudos to the Finnish government, which has just introduced laws guaranteeing broadband access to every person living in Finland (5.5 million people, give or take).

This is reportedly a first worldwide.

Starting July 2010, every person in Finland will have the right to a one-megabit broadband connection as an intermediate step, says the Ministry of Transport and Communications. By the end of 2015, the legal right will be extended to an impressive 100 Mb broadband connection for everyone.

According to Wikipedia, approximately 79 percent of the Finnish population use the Internet. Finland had around 1.52 million broadband Internet connections by the end of June 2007 or around 287 per 1,000 inhabitants.

(Via IntoMobile)

Thor painting by Garry Brown

Thor painting by Garry Brown: "

porco-voador:2009-07-10 03:50:24

porco-voador:
2009-07-10 03:50:24: "

(via porco-voador)

(via porco-voador): "

Crazy Straw

Crazy Straw: ""

Suspicious News: Kellogg's to Laser Its Name Into Corn Flakes to Prevent Fakes [Wtf]

Suspicious News: Kellogg's to Laser Its Name Into Corn Flakes to Prevent Fakes [Wtf]: "

There's a fair chance this is a joke. Dear god, tell me this is a joke. Apparently dismayed by legions of counterfeit corn flakes, Kellogg's has developed a laser to etch 'Kellogg's' into individual flakes.

Indications this may be a joke:

1. I'm not totally sure you can laser-etch corn.
2. There's no way Kellogg's has or deserves a monopoly on flakes of corn.
3. A Kellogg's 'food technologist' claims that 'In recent years there has been an increase in the number of other brands trying to capitalise on the popularity of Kellogg's corn flakes.' Corn flakes are not a new invention, you guys. Why the sudden popularity? Plus, 'capitalize' is spelled with a z (zed).
4. Corn flakes requires tons of sugar to be palatable anyway, and the combination of sugar and milk is sure to erase the delicate laser etching.
5. This appeared in the Daily Mail, which I don't know anything about—but it is British, and my damnable xenophobia has convinced me that all British publications not called the Guardian are lying tabloids.
6. LASER-ETCHED CORN FLAKES LASER-ETCHED CORN FLAKES.

It's pretty hilarious, regardless of whether it's true (and the above six points indicated it is not). Way to be exciting, Corn Flakes, even though you have neither marshmallows nor peanut butter! [Daily Mail via Geekologie]

Photo

Photo: "

I have probably posted this before....But this is good enough to come back ! HA

Be Careful Who You Poke

Be Careful Who You Poke: "

In yet another case of blurring between the lines of virtual and reality, a woman broke the law for poking via Facebook! Shannon Jackson of Tennessee broke the law when she poked a contact on her Facebook list, by violating a restraining order.

The order specifically prohibits either telephoning, contacting, or otherwise communicating with the petitioner. Violation of a restraining order in Tennessee is a class A misdemeanor, punishable up to 11 months and 29 days in jail, as well as a fine up to $2500.

This does leave one big question on the table, however—if the plaintiff here felt so threatened by the defendant, why didn’t she block (a little-known option in the privacy settings) or at least de-friend her on Facebook? From what I can see, you can only poke friends (or possibly people on your network with public profiles). Yes, the accused is responsible and shouldn’t have poked her, but shouldn’t the plaintiff have taken steps to avoid contact if she was distressed enough by their interactions to get a restraining order?

What do you think? Should the perp here have known her poke counted as contact? Was she naive or hoping to subvert the court order?

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#146 Staring At Their Useless Diploma(s)

#146 Staring At Their Useless Diploma(s): "

For generations people have fallen for that whole “work hard in school to get a good job” bull crap that is starting to sound more and more like a line of lies these days. After hitting the books and taking the smart people classes to avoid turning out like Jimmy, the town screw-up who never went to college, the unemployed have taken to staring blankly at their diplomas and asking themselves, “Is that all there is?”

Many people went to college for various reasons: to work hard for the rest of their lives, to get drunk, to get away from home, etc. No matter which path they took, whether they actually earned the degree or had Daddy pay for it so they could eventually become president some day, the idea was that a college diploma would help them find better jobs than the ones they had in high school. And, of course, the notion that sacrificing fun for studying would lead to getting into a better college and thus, better jobs, always drove people to work harder and even pursue advanced degrees.

After accumulating years of debt and being unable to answer haunting questions such, “Why did I major in dance?” the unemployed are struggling to make sense of what went wrong. Sure, they might have taken their college years for granted, deciding to party instead of actually studying. But at the end of it all, they still walked away with the same piece of paper as everyone who actually secreted blood, sweat, and tears to graduate. The diploma alone should have guaranteed at least some form of mind-numbing employment, right? Unfortunately, recent graduates, or people who’ve been booted out of the work force are finding that having something to “fall back on” could have easily been their ability to tie an apron around their waist and say, “Welcome to Starbucks, what kind of overpriced coffee beverage would you like to order to jump start your employed day?”

Starting at the End: 12 New Cities Built From Scratch

Starting at the End: 12 New Cities Built From Scratch: "

A good city, like a good wine, needs time to develop. As any Civilization-playing geek knows, it takes decades or centuries to turn a cluster of villages into a living, breathing metropolis. It cannot happen overnight. Or can it? Here are 12 urban centres that offer a radical alternative to the traditional model of urban development – they are brand new, fully-working cities from the first day they open for business.

King Abdullah Economic City, Saudi Arabia

(Image via: King Abdullah Economic City)

Saudi Arabia, as you may be aware, is not short on cash. It is therefore unsurprising that its king (Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud) can afford to put $80 billion on the table to finance a new city in his name that will hold an incredible 2 million people.

(Image via: King Abdullah Economic City)

Eventually covering 150 square miles – core plus suburbs – on the edge of the Red Sea and just an hour away from Mecca, the spiritual centre of the Islamic world, King Abdullah Economic City appears to lack nothing but a sexy name. It will house one of the largest sea ports in the world, it will provide over a million jobs (desperately important for the future of a country where 40% of the population is currently under 15 years old) – and if construction sticks to schedule, it will be complete by 2020. Truly amazing.

Treasure Island, San Francisco Bay Area

(Images via: Inhabitat)

Named after Robert Louis Stevenson’s swashbuckling adventure novel (arrrr, that it be!), Treasure Island is yielding a different type of gold these days. The island is an entirely artificial construction built during the 1930s, and its massive derelict aircraft hangers have proved a popular resource for film-makers. A lively history – but soon to be entirely eclipsed by its redevelopment as a sustainably designed eco-city, incorporating an organic farm, wind turbines and a wastewater treatment plant. Most ingenious of all, the streets will all be realigned to minimize their exposure to the brunt of the wind, keeping residential energy bills as low as possible.

Songdo, South Korea

(Images via: Songdo IBD)

New Songdo City is much more than an agreement between designers and developers, accompanied by flashy computer models and artistic renditions…it’s rising higher every day. Perched atop 1,500 acres of reclaimed land, the city is designed with one overriding purpose in mind, as announced on its entrance gates: “Welcome: we will change the face of business“. With 80,000 apartments and 60 million square feet of office and retail space, it may be no idle boast. The $40 billion development will open in 2015 – and will probably only attract residents with deep pockets, as the average apartment will cost half a million dollars.

Waterfront City, Dubai

(Image via: OMA)

It goes without saying that ultra-wealthy Dubai has a new city in the works. It is at the centre of a development made of artificial islands and canals called Waterfront, the design-work of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. With a population of 1.5 million, Waterfront will double Dubai’s population, boost its job market by one million and add 70km to its coastline.

(Image via: OMA)

At its centre, Waterfront City – around 100,000 fulltime residents with a working capacity of three times that number, and arranged around a central island (pictured) comprised of a 5 x 5 grid of streets arrayed with high-rise buildings. (If you are wondering, the curious-looking silver sphere is a 44-storey skyscraper). However, the cultural focus of the development will be the second of Dubai’s Palm islands, appearing to sprout from one end of the Waterfront’s crescent.

Guangzhou, China

(Image via: Joncrel)

A city steeped in history, Guangzhou – better known to European history as Canton – is in the process of getting a much-needed makeover from the ground upwards…in essence by building a new city and threading it through the best remnants of the existing one. At present, derelicts buildings and crumbling concrete blight significant stretches of the metropolitan area (total population, a shade under 10 million).

(Images via: Inhabitat)

The new Guangzhou will be a place of green spaces, space-efficient housing, an expanded transportation system and a new waterfront. Designers Heller Manus Architects intend for the city to be arranged around networks of open courtyards, attempting to beautify the shabby, impractical areas of the city with greenery and planned gardens. The Southern axis of the city is currently under scrutiny, and when it is developed it will be linked with its already renewed Northern counterpart (also the work of Heller Manus) and the city’s transformation will be complete.

Malabo II, Equatorial Guinea

(Images via: skyscrapercity)

The capital of the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, Malabo, is eager to leave its past behind – not just a troubled post-colonial history, but an urban infrastructure that can’t keep up with a booming population. The answer is Malabo II: an attempt to relocate the heart of the city on its outskirts and rebuild outwards from there. Many of Malabo’s principal governmental buildings will be resituated at the new site, surrounded by good-quality paved roads and cutting edge infrastructural technology. The money for all this is coming from huge oil and gas reserves found off the coast in the 1990s – and the eventual aim is to absorb the old capital into Malabo II, replacing the city from within.

Rawabi, West Bank

(Image via: Rawabi)

If ever a place was desperate for new cities, it’s the Middle East’s West Bank. For the last 50 years, Israelis and Palestinians have struggled to find common ground in every sense imagineable – and the fallout has blighted the Palistianian economy and the region’s standards of living. The new city of Rawabi intends to change all that.

(Images via: Rawabi)

As well as offering a place for Palistinian professionals to set up home in beautiful, airy, well-kept surroundings, the city is also designed to anchor the region’s economy and provide a place for long-term investment, research and learning. It is a place built to endure in a land in flux for decades – and more than that, it is an unambiguous political statement for the Palistinian people: We Are Here To Stay.

Masdar City, Abu Dhabi

(Image via: Masdar City)

With a projected population of 50,000 people, the planned 6-million-square-metre city of Masdar may seem thoroughly overshadowed by all the cities we’ve already outlined – but when it comes to green living, this is the winner on the grounds of sheer ambition.

(Images via: Masdar City)

Designed by Brit architects Fosters + Partners and being built by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, Masdar wants to show the world how a city can go green from the get-go. Automobiles will be banned within the city walls. The city’s energy needs will be entirely met with renewable sources including solar, wind and geothermal sources, and even the world’s largest hydrogen power plant. Up to 80% of the city’s water supply will be recycled, and waste will be reduced to as close to zero as possible. (No news on accomodation prices for those lucky 50,000, but we suspect this green utopia comes at a hefty cost).

Destiny, Florida

(Images via: Destiny Folrida)

The environment is top of the list of priorities for Florida’s new urban wonder, Destiny City. Planted on 40,000 acres of Osceola County land, the city is an attempt to make “the Silicon Valley of green technology, in the words of its developer Anthony Pugliese. Once completed it will house a quarter of a million people, with a large proportion of them working in newly-created green collar jobs in the area. Recycling facilities, electric car filling stations, gray water irrigation, a possible biomass power plant producing super-cheap energy – the list goes on. It sounds too good to be true…and since ground hasn’t been broken yet (that’s scheduled for 2011), it’s very early days. In every sense – watch this space.

Ziggurat Project, Dubai

(Image via: )

Moving further into the realm of what-if, we have the return of the ziggurat – the colossal terraced pyramids of antiquity, typified by the famous monumental temple at Ur in what is now modern-day Iraq. Ziggurats are back – except on a scale we’ve never seen before.

(Image via: Business Intelligence Middle East)

The Ziggurat Project is a proposal for a self-containing sustainable community of one million people. Renewable energy would power this enormous multi-tiered machine, while its occupants would get around using the integrated transport system (removing the need for personal vehicles).

Crystal Island, Moscow

(Images via: Foster and Partners)

A new city proposal with similar designs on the sky is the dazzling Crystal Island. Covering 27 million square feet and nearly half a kilometre high, this structure would house 30,000 people (making it more of a new town than a new city) and its terraced gardens and dynamic frame would moderate the inner environment depending on the season – allowing cool air in and reflecting unwanted sunshine in the summer, insulating and illuminating during the winter. 3,000 hotel rooms, 900 apartments and a thriving business sector complete the picture of the world’s first inhabited steel volcano.

X-Seed 4000, Japan

(Images via: Inhabitat)

Of course, you can go too far. Take the X-Seed 4000, a building so absurdly ambitious that the designers later admitted it was never meant to be built (they were trying to impress the industry – or put another way, showing off). With a 6-kilometer-square footprint, it would reach 800 floors into the Japanese sky and cost anything up to $900 billion to build. The shape is inspired by Mount Fuji, except (you may want to sit down for this part) the X-Seed 400 would actually be taller than Fuji by 200 metres. Madness? Here and now, perhaps…but since the design is perfect for lower-gravity environments, is this the first draft of humanity’s first offworld city from scratch?