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Wow, I actually saw the meeting of the waters! We traveled up the Rio Negro from Manaus, though, so we didn't get to see most of the cool stuff you did, but it was still awesome... If you ever go back, I would recommend trying to see the "fish festival." I don't remember much about it as I was maybe nine years old at the time, only that people came from miles around to watch performers dance in spectacular fish costumes in a concrete soccer stadium, and it was amazing. to give you an idea of the size of the celebration, the small village it was held in was out of beer for a full week.
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A correction: It's ribeirinhos.
I think so that typical costumes of Boca de Valeria is about the Parintins costumes not from the indians of Amazonia or it's just for the foreigners
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I'm from Manaus, and this is one of the wonders of the city which is one of the city's in Brazil that's going to be the World Cup Soccer Championship. If you don't know it, come and visit!
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Well...I live in Manaus also...and I gotta tell you...
We ain't too proud of having Parintins folklore festival this close...
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Wha?
Why so serious, son?
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This is a requirement, Peter, and we could not make it funny enough ;)
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Ehh... that's good that you're posting your P.P. like that, however.. I don't believe that the ability to change it at any time w/o direct user notification is a good thing (and even though IANAL I believe it may be illegal too...) Otherwise please keep up the good work, I check on DRB daily for your cool articles, especially of CCCP tech!
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Brilliant, some great photos and illustrations. I am a firm believer in this technology and can't understand why it is not being advanced further.
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Is there a link to a higher-rez version of the first photo? I looked into the guys flickr page but he has too many photos and I can't find it.
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ah poor abandoned VVA 14! should be cared much. any geeky millionaire out there?
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The proper rendering of the acronym is "Wing In Ground effect".
A high-flying aircraft's wings force the air downward, and the reaction (Newton's Law) holds the plane up.
Close to the ground, the downward-moving air hits the ground and rebounds. The upward-moving air adds a bit of energy back to the system; that is the "ground effect". If the wings are in the ground effect zone, the ekranoplan doesn't need as much power to fly.
The bigger and heavier the ekranoplan, the more air is forced downward and the stronger the ground effect. A big one is therefore safer, because it can go higher. An ekranoplan makes its entire flight in what is actually takeoff and landing mode for a "normal" airplane, and takeoff and landing are the most dangerous parts of the flight.
Regards,
Ric
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orly? o no.... k
Before chatspeak, there were Russian planes.
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Elise: great explanation of the "Orlyonok" name origin. lol.
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Avi thanks a ton for putting up another Ekranoplan showcase. I love planes, but I love Mother Russia's planes even more. Great job!
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Vadi,
Another link to the first image - from the artist's official site:
here (click on 'view hires gallery)
another great article, DRB!
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I'm not an airplane geek, I'm just a science fiction geek, but if someone would put out a line of these in small plastic models, I'd definitely be hooked and start building and collecting them!
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Some of those look straight out of Mobile Suit Gundam---not at all surprising when you consider that many designs in Japanese anime are inspired by Russian rocket and aeronautical designs. Thanks for a great pair of articles on one of my favorite planes! (boats?)
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Here the information and a photo Ekranoplans:
http://images.yandex.ru/yandsearch?p=0&ed=1&text=%D0%AD%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BD&stype=image
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what if cold war continue? i think more plane will develop undercover both side
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I believe that the black and white picture of the large headed person is from the short sci-fi film "To Serve Man". The guy in the photo is actually an alien.
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The soap-bubble rabbit looks like a render test showing an iridescent shader and HDRI reflection mapping.
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Anonymous was half-right. It was an old Twilight Zone episode, called "To Serve Man." One of the classics:
http://www.cbs.com/classics/the_twilight_zone/video/video.php?cid=649562032&pid=EhJkGeNGuUqJfc9CCfD81h6TpxCIglq1
K
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The Russian building tradition goes back a long way, enough to have the name
Potemkin village.
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The person you borrowed the gum-massage ad from has some issues.
Check out his personal comments.
He complains about TV making people into idiots that don't read, yet he can't spell words correctly.
And his factual errors are hilarious:
Characterizing blood sucking mosquito as female is sexists? Errrmmm ... male mosquitos don't suck blood.
Adding Iodine to salt to prevent goiter is dated medicine? Iodized salt is why no one gets goiter in civilized countries.
Man needs a spell checker, and needs to lrn2Google.
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The done-headed man is Ted Cassidy who later played "Lurch" the butler in the Adams Family TV series.
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The alien is actually an early role for Richard Keil, later played "Jaws" in the Jame Bond series
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i like the soap bubble rabbit :D
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The soap bubble-shaped rabbit is a screen capture showing the real-time possibilities of nVidia graphic cards using Cg (C for graphics)language. Cg is part of Cg toolkit and the first version came when they released the GeForce 3, the first mainstream programmable graphic architecture. Using pixel and vertex shaders, the manipulation of objects in the demo occur in real-time.
You can download the Cg toolkit here: http://developer.nvidia.com/object/cg_download.html
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I'm guessing that the TV detector is exactly that: a van that detects people using TVs. This may be done in order to ensure that they're not doing so without having a TV license. It's probably British.
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Yup it's an old TV detector van used to find people who hadn't paid their TV Licence in the UK. More of a scare tactic really then an effective system.
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To follow up the previous two comments (for those that don't know the British system).
In the UK everyone with a TV has to have a TV License. The funds raised are then ploughed back in to the BBC so that they can produce programming without having to rely on advertising, therefore (theoretically) producing a high standard of programming that does not pander to the lowest levels of crass commercialism. Of course that does not explain programmes like Eastenders or the usual early evening Saturday night dross, but the theory is sound!
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As above and more info here at the Mail on line.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-468466/The-new-TV-detector-reach-home.html?foo=2
And the "infamous" imformation film is on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NmdUcmLFkw
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the van iteslf is an old commer van used by most of the public utility companies at the time - more info here http://www.commervan.com/?page_id=7
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Re: the Commer Van after the piece on the Colombian crowd control vehicle.
It was used for enforcing TV Licensing in Britain. One had to purchase a TV license to operate any TV receiver.
The money went to support the Beeb (BBC), the public broadcaster in Britain. This was continued even after
commercial (With paid advertising) TV became available in Britain. The equipment in the van could detect RF
(Radio Frequency) leakage from a TV receiver and consequently require that the offender purchase a license.
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The TV detector vans were used in Britain to fool the uneducated masses into believing that the authorities could tell whether they were watching TV without a license...
The technology to do this does not exist.
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Television Detector van history, via autoblog
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/09/a-visual-history-of-the-bbcs-tv-detector-vans/
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From what I understand there was no need for equipment in the van. Since television ownership was ~100% all they needed was a list of houses that hadn't bought a licence and then turn up there. As an impoverished student in the 80s I didn't have a telly and so didn't have a licence. I received several notices saying I would be punished and I had to write many times to confirm that I was innocent. IIRC the Beeb also required radio licences for a while...
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why would FARC Guerrilla ever have an encounter with an Anti-Riot unit of the police? It's the Colombian army that faces off with the Guerrilla.
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I agree with davidg80. I´m colombian and I live in Bogotá and those vehicles are only mostly used in university protests and riots but in my whole life i have never seen one of that fighting against any FARC militant or even anyone with camouflage...It´s a shame that the world keeps thinking that Colombia is just a big jungle filled with savages...think twice
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Praise to the editors of this fine blog for, uhm, the way the text reads now.
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I'm given to understand that the detector vans could receive the intermediate frequencies that TV sets give off as part of the process of amplifying the signal for demodulating. (See wikipedia for superheterodyne, intermediate frequency)
Of course, I'm still not sure how effective it would be in real life.
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The Colombian machine seems nice, but is not as used as you would think. Most of the violence in the country is not in the cities and mob control is dangerous but usually the police is there just to watch the people protesting. There are notable exceptions, and there is crime in the streets, but that´s not how you use this machine.
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The last image is probably from the government somewhere where you have to pay mandatory TV licence money, the control group rolls around in these vehicles with a map and a list over which households own a TV but havent paid their licence, then they start knocking on doors and harrassing you until you pay. We still have these in Norway today.
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Commer PB Autovan.
I have one sitting out the back of my house which I'm doing up for a trip around Europe this summer.
I was actually sitting here mixing the paint stripper for it while I was reading this article.
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You Colombianos need to relax, nobody is dissing your country. If this thing is mainly used for student protests, why is it required to be able to withstand .50 cal machine gun fire? Do Colombian university students usually carry assault rifles?
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Indeed, a television detector van, from the 60's, used by the UK gov to find folk who were using tv's , without the proper licence..
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I recall the "pay your license" ads, they used to imply that the people in the van could actually see what program you were watching.
Of course if you were in an apartment block they had no hope of picking you out.
If you tried to avoid the license issue by using your TV for watching videos only, they still had you because the licensing law referred to possessing a demodulator rather than watching broadcast programs. I think that would exclude computer monitors.
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hi, i just found this article, and i think the photos are geat, because i'm colombian and i haven´t seen one of this from inside and didn't know about the technology involved, but i have to say that this does not represent the people of Colombia, the times they use this kind of trucks are rare... and are against riots presented in universities and some manifestations where the invoved people start things up manipulated by criminals (guerrrilla and anarchists).
thanks
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In answer to your request for information on the truck in this picture, These are known here in the UK as a 'TV detector van'. And these vans were used to detect anybody using a TV without a license.
Here in the UK the BBC (Television, radio and online) is funded using a license system, basically a tax that must be paid by anyone using a TV.
This funding model, whilst seeming bizarre to many who don't live here and some who do!, means the BBC is able to broadcast 6 national TV networks, 7 national radio stations, The BBC.co.uk website, and a whole raft of local media outlets. And none of these networks carry any commercials whatsoever.
The license costs a not insignificant $229 per year, and as such many people don't pay it. As it is a legal requirement to have a license if you own a TV, these vans used to drive up and down streets, and could supposedly tell if a Television was on in an unlicensed property.
It all sounds a bit Orwellian, I know, but many suspect these vans were more a way of putting the fear into license-fee evaders. Most evaders of the license fee are caught via a database these days. Even when they were in use, they were used rarely. I'm 38, and I think I've only ever seen one of these vans/trucks once or twice in my life.
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These vans could locate down to the
room in a house if there was a TV in operation - which was then
cross-referenced with the licenses and if there was no licence for that dwelling, a fine was issued.
When I lived in the UK I remember they would prowl around the streets in the evenings - and also at lunchtime when the popular lunchtime shows were on.
They could even tell what programme you were watching.
There have also been rumours that because they were so accurate, they were used by MI5 to detect transmissions from Soviet Spies during the Cold War...
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Thanks for all the info, guys! Updated...
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Hi again, good comment the one posted by an anonymous...0.5 caliber guns...I´d say that has to be wrong, I´m an student in Bogotá, and if they´d dare to use guns in protests the government would be in a lot of trouble, I can assure that. Another possibility is that maybe it can be used near some capital cities and towns to break riots and protests but the fight against guerrilas id discarded but not because I want to defend my country but because the topography and geographical conditions would turn those vehicles to pieces in days.
Keep the good job DRB and thanks to Anonymous.
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...Beautiful trucks. WAY over spec'd for what Columbia has used it for. (You can see it in the news as well.)
The riots are usually sparked by FARK propaganda. Some of the protests can really get out of hand. To keep the enforcement safe from the pure passion and engagement from these political issues - these trucks are brilliant and do wonders for crowd control. Hell, if FARK had a sniper or something else kicking around - the potential is there, the armor would do wonders.
Maybe the "too much" is pro-active and better than "too little"
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That looks similar to the one in Death race but it had more weapons then this one and it was much larger
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WTF?? "Multiple riots (including Farc Guerrillas, who attack riot vehicles with rifles" LOL you think colombian people have to fight all day against guerrillas in the city, they are only in the jungle. Although colombia is one of the best countries in security: The bulletproof clothes obama uses are made by a colombian.
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"Multiple riots (including Farc Guerrillas, who attack riot vehicles with rifles)": Please, don't make up the information, the guerrillas are in the jungle, and they should be the target of the Colombian military and police there. Though, the people who demonstrate through riots do it because their rights are being violated. The anti-riot units have been accused by NGOs for being the ones that act with most brutality and violence against civilians. See this video so to know how things are like in my country, Colombia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZdnMsPrrNQ
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I know in the article, it states "The tires can be protected with tyron bands, runflats, or filled with polyurethane", but to me the weakest part of the vehicle by far is the tires. Once immobilized (which could be done in any manner of ways), the vehicle is a sitting duck. I wouldn't want to be trapped inside.
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Any of these available in higher resolution? Would love to print some out and hang them...
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I saw "Our Hitler" in the early 80's.
It was 5 or 6 hours long with an hour intermission.
No kidding.
It was part of the Toronto Film Festival in the first few years of it's start.
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Not sure if you know this site, but it has a gallery of polish movie posters really interesting:
http://www.agrayspace.com/posters/
Some of them are really disturbing :D
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The "Tobor" poster is a funny rip-off of the famous "Forbidden Planet" poster:
http://tinyurl.com/r5net2
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Oh, I think I own the book of "The Venetian Affair", bought mostly because it's the most awfully written thing ever making it the best thing to read.
Some gorgeous posters here!
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I want that Russian Star Wars poster!
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The Russian poster actualy says: "Star Wars - a Cosmic Western"
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The Russian poster. Unfortunately it's not an official poster. it`s fake. A joke.
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some of these i found on Art's Not Dead artsnotdead.com
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http://www.wrongsideoftheart.com/ has hundreds of different movie poster scans. There are some really cool sci-fi, horror, and sexploitation posters in full-size scans.
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Does anyone have any more info on those fantastic delivery vehicles? Are they a certain make of car?
...I MUST HAVE ONE!
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"If you consider yourself a beer connoisseur and feel like splashing out a little, take a trip to a bar called the Bierdrome in London, the only place in the world where you can buy Vielle Bon Secours. The world’s most expensive beer, a bottle of this will cost you around £500 or $1000."
Ahahahahahahah hahaha hahahaha ... gasp hahahah hahahaha...
We had two identical bottles of that exact stuff for my dad's birthday. Yes, we were being ridiculously lavish - they cost about €10 each from a Belgian supermarket. Beer was surprisingly drinkable for the price, too...
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The "Gösser-Radler" is actually not a beer brewed with lemon juice.
A "Radler" is a mix of beer and soda,
mostly lemon or orange soda. There is also a "sour Radler" with soda water.
Very refreshing in summer!
In Bavaria and Austria it's called "Radler!"
The french call it "Panaché"
In the UK it's called "shandy" as i learned from google.
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You failed to mention DeuS (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/202/7661), a very nice champagne like beer.
And, my personal favourite because of the very special glass and exquisite taste (the shape of the glass has a very nice and true story behind it): kwak
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauwel_Kwak)
Nice post however :)
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"Despite the unusual and at times downright odd flavours mentioned earlier in this article, the simple recipe for beer, based on the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, has remained largely unchanged over the centuries. However, if all beers are generally similar"
You are definitely wrong about that. There are many many many many beer styles and they taste very different.
You need no "odd" ingredients to brew "special" beers.
besides this, beer styles like "kriek lambic", "cream", "Champagne" and "radler" are not even strange. they are tranditional and very old beer styles.
also only german beers (not even all of them) are brewed following the the Bavarian Purity Law.
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[...] which determined the only ingredients permissible in beer were water, barley, wheat and hops.
Wheat is not metioned in the purity law. Only water, barley and hops are allowed ingredients.
cf.:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/4.html
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Love this site! Being Canadian and a lover of beer this feature was especially interesting.
A little Candian beer trivia for you. Canada produced 4 major world class breweries. Molson's and Labatts of course but 2 others that started in the same home town as Labatts. Can you name them? You'll be surprised!
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[QUOTE]- Moose Drool from Montana’s Big Sky Brewing Company tastes nothing like the drool of a moose. [/QUOTE]
How do you know that?
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I am sorry to tell you that your mention of Bon Vieille Secours is utterly wrong. It's a belgian beer that can be bought in every supermarket with an extended range of beers, for only a few euros, same as the other special beers, just a bit more expensive than the "normal" beers.
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I tried Moose Drool at the Oregon Brew festival and it's the only beer I have ever spit back out.
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re: Vielle Bon Secours
Even though you can get normal versions of this beer, the price in the article must be for the super-magnum bottle, around $75 a pint.
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You left out Canada's Greatest Beer! UNIBROUE!
They have the best Belgian style beers, huge Alcohol content and are in the Top Ten Breweries on the Planet! They also have the best names, too; 'La Fin du Monde', 'Maudite', etc.
For shame!
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Stone, indeed UNIBROUE is exceptional... And it was in the original draft of this article - got it back now!
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Hey,
I think you totally missed the Czech beers, maybe because they are not that strange but rather they taste conservatively. Think of where 'pilsen' beer got its name - in Pilsen, the Czech Republic. Now the original is called Pilsner Urquel, and you could find a lot of vintage posters about it. Btw, Czechs drink the most per person- check official statistics, but it is around 160 liters per person per year.
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For a fun beer song, go here:
http://www.tomsmithonline.com/music/dsr0a9d1i0o/index.html
and play song #148
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I have had the Pizza Beer (very tasty, spicy and oregano-accented ale) and that Sea Dog Blueberry (best fruit-inspired beer in my recent memory excepting Dogfish Head's Aprihop). I think maybe you want to add Three Floyd's "Dark Lord" to this list. Incredibly tasty, and incredibly hard to come by (only sold one day a year at their brewery in Munster, IN)
http://www.darklordday.com/
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Can I disagree with your choices of weird names? I don't think that La Fin du Monde should be in there cause it's called like that because it's one of the strongest beer that Unibroue makes. I really think that there are weirder names.
And in the weirds flavours, you should've add Folie Douce [Sweet Madness] (Les Brasseurs de l'Anse, Canada) wich is a blueberry beer that tastes like muffin or La Carotte du Lièvre [The Hare's Carrot] (from Microbrasserie du Lièvre, Québec, Canada) that really taste like carrot... really weird taste trust me!
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perhaps you should add Bionade here cause it is "brewed" like normal beer but is a totally different drink (tasts like icetea but with less sugar)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bionade
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Wells Banana Bread beer is really really good. You wouldn't think that would work, but it totally does.
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They should have added l'alsacienne sans culotte (the girl from alsace with no panties)
http://randoloup.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/als2.jpg
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There seems to be some confusion here about the German Beer Purity Law. The 4 allowed ingredients are water, barley malt, hops, and yeast.
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Might need to add "Westvleteren" to it, it's not really a beer, but costs a lot, it's brewed by monks and only sold limited once a year.
"Mort Subite" is also a nice name for a beer, it translates to "soon be dead".
Also the "Lindemans kriek", you put 3 pictures up of different brands, none of them is "Lindemans".
The one you posted, "Bellevue" is a bit more bitter than the very sweet "Lindemans".
PS: Yes, I'm Belgian lol
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Arrogant Bastard Ale is horrible...i should have listened to the disclaimer on the bottle stating that I "probably would not like it."
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delirium tremens
(pink elephants included)
and yes, belgian too :)
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Ohh I could go for a couple of Krieks right now ... delicious!
(of course Belgian too..) DOe maar een Duveltje erbij ;)
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Polish Karmi has also beer with coffee flavour, it's very tasty, but I'd rather name it cold drink which tastes a little like a beer :)
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The Japanese are not the only ones to have (or have had)a beer made for children. When I was a kid my family lived in Germany (Koblens and just outside Munchen) and I remember drinking a product called "Kinderbier" ("Kid's Beer"). This was in the early to mid 1970s and I was just a youngster.
I presume it was non-alcoholic.
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Do milk stouts count as bilk?
Moloko Stout (another 3 Floyd's beer) = DELICIOUS
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For me, Taster´s Choice is comprised of the eight most popular brews from World´s Best Beers Tasting Sessions conducted over the past 10 years. It is the perfect mixed case for entertaining and makes the world´s best gift.
Luis
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On the odd names front, Robinson's brewery in Stockport, England produce a beer called Old Tom, which has a picture of a tomcat on it, taken from a doodle in the original brewer's recipe book. It's an 8.5% dark winter ale (like alcoholic treacle, basically) and has won many an award.
http://www.frederic-robinson.co.uk/beers/oldtombottled.html
(and yes, I'm from Stockport and yes, I drink it...hic)
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@Pieter-Jan: Westvleteren is not really a beer? And you're Belgian? Don't they put you in prison for saying something like that?
It is brewed all year round, but can only be bought at the gate of the monastery. Although I did pay 10 euros for a glass once in Amsterdam. Worth it.
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6 Comments:
I can't recall the Bertin Aerotrain to be seen in Truffaut's Fahrenheit.
But there's for sure a futuristic suspended train in this movie, the SAFEGE prototype (see http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Orbit/1061/safege/ for instance). Sadly enough, both projects were abandoned, without much consideration, and left to rot in remote hanger (the SAFEGE firm has patented a kind of monorail system, anyway).
Greets from France !
The first link - to the film - crashes my computer. FireFox under W2k.
It should be just an embedded QuickTime movie - maybe try it in another browser.
Would love to have that film from the first link as a screensaver
Brutalist Architecture is a term as is a Modernest Brutalist but as a classic?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brutalist_architecture
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernist_architecture
see: forex Trellick Tower
The monorail in 451 was an underslung model, see here:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Orbit/1061/safege/safege.html
The Aerotrain would have been much more interesting, though it would not have fit into the mundane landscape quite as well as the more utilitarian one actually used.
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