Here is a fascinating 3-D modelled flyby of Nazi Germany's planned architectural makeover of Berlin. Hitler intended to establish a World Capital he called Germania (strangely, this is the Russian term for Germany) with some of the most colossal buildings ever conceived. The Volkshalle (People's Hall) was designed by Hitler himself (read more about Germania's planned monumental architecture here).
See more American vintage car advertisements in our series Cars and Girls.
And not to forget some very groovy-looking "Atomic Age" concepts from General Motors in the 1950s:
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Majestic Space, Courtesy the Refurbished Hubble Telescope
Simply mind-blowing in their beauty, these images were released by NASA on Sept. 9, 2009 (more info). Click to enlarge.
Stars bursting to life in the chaotic Carina Nebula (AP Photo/ NASA)
Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 6217 (AP Photo/ NASA)
A clash among members of a famous galaxy quintet reveals an assortment of stars across a wide color range, from young, blue stars to aging, red stars (AP Photo/ NASA)
A Perfect Storm of Turbulent Gases STScI-PRC2003-13 (AP Photo/ NASA)
"Resembling the fury of a raging sea, the image above actually shows a bubbly ocean of glowing hydrogen gas and small amounts of other elements such as oxygen and sulfur - a small region within M17, a hotbed of star formation. M17, also known as the Omega or Swan Nebula, is located about 5,500 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. The wave-like patterns of gas have been sculpted and illuminated by a torrent of ultraviolet radiation from young, massive stars, which lie outside the picture to the upper left. The glow of these patterns accentuates the three-dimensional structure of the gases. The ultraviolet radiation is carving and heating the surfaces of cold hydrogen gas clouds. The warmed surfaces glow orange and red in this photograph."
Speaking of the Russian Doomsday Machine ("The Perimeter", or "The Dead Hand")
The first article linked to above is a chilling look at an automatic nuclear launch system that unleashes once it decides that a full-scale nuclear attack on Russia is taking place. Nobody knows exactly where the "Perimeter" system robot brain resides, but there are some sites that have been on American radar for some time.
Here are photos of at least one such ballistic nuclear installation: Kosvin Kamen, deep in the Ural Mountains. The location of this nuclear base is well-known in the West, but what exactly hides beneath the pretty mountain shown below, is open to conjecture. The eye-witnesses in the nearby village testify that this mountain is completely honeycombed with tunnels, with more trucks and construction coming to the site.
These are the "control missiles", or "master missiles". They launch first, and once safely airborne activate the launch codes for all other Russian nukes (including the ones on the submarines, and on heavy bombers):
The "Dead Hand" system would still require a human touch: a soldier somewhere deep in the bunker will need to actually push the button, before all Hell breaks loose:
Lucas Price - aka Cyclops - is a new star in the urban art world; his debut show running from October 15-November 13 show marks his ascension from a life on the streets to one of the UK’s bestselling graffiti-inspired artists.
"Featuring the artist’s irreverent and often politically-loaded satire as well as visual commentary on society’s dark underbelly, this promises to be the most audacious debut show of the year."
Another great exhibition is taking place in West Hollywood, California, through Saturday, September 26, 2009 - "The Machine in the Garden", featuring original paintings by Tristan Shane and four other steampunk-oriented artists:
In the meantime, according to reputable news source The Onion Western civilization will reach its nadir this Friday, which is... um, today... Read more here.
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See What Can't Be Seen
Send your sample to ASPEX, a leading producer of scanning electron microscopes (SEM) and microanalysis software, and have them scan it for you!.
Yes, you heard right, we are talking about a free, SEM scan of any sample you'd like to send them. You could send a piece of glass, some broccoli, pocket lint perhaps... anything you'd like to see a picture of under a powerful microscope. Once they receive the sample, they'll post the resulting picture online for you and all of your friends to see. Hopefully, you can find some pretty intriguing stuff lying around your homes or offices to scan!
To send a sample, you need to download and fill out this form from the ASPEX website. Then mail it along with the sample to:
ASPEX Corporation
Free Sample Submissions
175 Sheffield Dr.
Delmont, PA 15626
Once ASPEX has completed the scan, the images and report will be posted on their website on this page. It should take about two weeks for the results to post to the ASPEX website, and they will also notify submitters via email. Samples scanned for free will not be returned.
There's a gazillion of Star Wars t-shirts available online... but some did catch our eye recently:
Didn't feel the Force (or the Froth) with any of these ones? Try this list, then.
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Perhaps the Best Way to Fish:
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Something Entirely Weird and Addictive
See if you can resist reading this great anthology of "flash fiction" from a roster of talented "new weird" writers, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. The cover itself speaks volumes about the dizzying heights of literary madness attained inside the book's covers. I predict that this sort of "flash fiction" will become highly contagious, and you might even get to writing a vignette or two yourself. Read more about it here.
Contributors include Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, and Marly Youmans.
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Mystery Bike-Thing
Well... I can not imagine why would anyone want to ride it this way, other than to get his, or her head straight.
Well.. the russian might use that term also but the history of the name comes from the days of Julius Caesar himself who adopted the Gallic term of that are that consist most of the present Germany...
@ Jyri: You're absolutely correct, and I think the fact adds even more meaning to the Russians' current use of the term, and more to the Nazis' intended use. Perhaps Herr Absolutely Ridiculous Moustache intended his World Capital to trump all - even, symbolically, Julius' plans for the region. Mitteleuropa, after all, is far from a new concept..
well, it is the same in Italian too... and Germany and Italy were allied countries during the war. I think this is less fascinating but definitely more probable: at the end of the day Hitler called this plan Germania and not Германия (not sure about the spelling, sorry)
Wow, this is awesome. I had an uncle who went to North Korea and told me about the traffic light women, but still, I now realise that there is still so much I have to find out about that country...
I have read that mothers in Korea whistle as a cue to their very young infants to urinate — early toilet training was essential before disposable nappies or automatic washing machines. The story goes that this conditioning lasts into adulthood, causing a feeling of urgency whenever foreigners whistle.
I am living in Korea and have also had comments about whistling. As I understand it is thought to attract either evil spirits or snakes. That said however I do know many Koreans who can whistle including several who do it exceptionally well, to the point that I imagine the could do it in concert etc.
Several months ago while walking in a shopping center in the evening a man angrily told me to stop. It was not about sound pollution it was about the issues of the activity itself. Interesting none the less.
@ K: Yes, showing that life in a country can have some normal aspects which are caught on film definitely is propaganda and completely wrong. People see that there is not a gallow on EVERY street corner and forget about the dictatorship immediately. In fact they might just start moving there, causing a massive exodus from the Western world and they might take all relevant secrets (military and industrial) with them for Mr. Kim Jong Il to use. All because of these pictures.
BTW, I guess it's the common North Korean who use the BMWs. In shape of those who represent (?) them, of course.
The board game, "Paduk", is more often spelled "Baduk" in english when we're talking about the game in Korea. However, it's a lot more commonly known as "Go" or "Igo" in the west, after the Japanese word for the game. The game is originally Chinese however, where it's called Wei-qui.
The writing of a name in red is found in Asia. Take a look at Kill Bill movie and watch the lady write the names in red. It means death. Commercial breaks happen between the shows to kill the dead air time. There is Valentine's day and there is White day where men give to women. No foreign cars? Porche, mercedes, toyotas, bmw, masseratis, ferraris, puegeot, and others are plentiful in the South.
I lived in Korea for more than a year and several of these are gross generalizations or not accurate at all. No foreign cars?? The Valentines Day info is not entirely correct - there is one holiday for girls gifting to guys, another one for the other day around, and yet another one for the single people.
erm, it's not a whistling sound at all. They say shhh which means pee in Korean. Plz gt ur facts straights b4 they leave the hollow cavity that iz ur headz
The video game channel is probably showing professional Starcraft competitions, which far from being 'not very good,' is one of the most popular and award-winning games of all time.
I am realy suprised at the speed at which yo turn around these bog post, this is a great post, I normally do not sit down and read the thing slowly but I need to come back and read this one slowly
Gutenberg was first with the movable type printing press in the Western world. Movable type didn't catch on to well in Asia because of the number of characters in Korean, Chinese, etc. It makes a lot more sense with European languages as only a few characters are needed instead of hundreds or thousands.
Hey, you mixed up the stories about South Korea and North Korea. Most of your comments are about North. Many Koreans can whistle and they just don't. And there are so many foreign cars in Korea, including Japanese cars. And I heard that I can see skinned dogs at some of the local market. I have lived in South Korea for 36 years and I have never seen skinned dog. It is regarded as orgish and no shop will want to scare customer...
Nice post, but I was in Daejeon like 3 or 4 months ago and drank at the Wa bar, but didn't see the "Fuck Club" there. Must have closed quickly. Also, I've never seen a skinned dog, but there are plenty of Gaegogi shops around. I guess they would show you a skinned dog if you like. A lot of myths and stories about Korea are probably from the 50's to 70's. Their culture has changed a lot since then and their cities are pretty modern now.
The bus is electric, I could, I think, see the railing. Not many of those still cruise around, maybe it would be interesting looking out for more of them?
As someone else has mentioned, the computer game is Starcraft...probably one of the most globally played RTS games ever made. Age of Empires pales in comparison and even comparing the two makes me cringe. Whistling is taboo because it was traditionally believed to call dead spirits...its not belived anymore but the taboo still exists. "In fact," i also know some Americans who can't whistle, including me.
I live in Daegu, South Korea and of the 40-50 parking spots just outside my apartment, only about 1/4 of them are taken up by Korean cars. There are many BMWs, Audis, Pontiacs, Harleys and even a Mustang and Corvette to boot. Sad thing is, most of them are completely beaten up due to traffic accidents and lack of respect in parking lots.
I'd have to agree with those who feel that this post is not a fair representation of the reality of life in North Korea. Although its important to meditate on the good, we have to ask ourselves the hard questions. How did those buildings get funded? How did their cities get built? At what cost to the people?
Although I haven't looked into it much myself (my apologies, I'm working on opening my eyes), I've heard reports that the NK government won't allow its people to move into the apartments, and most don't have functioning utilities, on top of other injustices.
The aim isn't to make foreigners out to be barbaric or less than human, or get stuck on fights over ideologies (for that is indeed propaganda), the point is to focus on the people who have suffered injustice, learn their stories and tell them, in the hope that there can be change in their lives for the better.
On so amny North Korean posters, there is only one message: USA is the 'great evil' and must be crushed?? We really need to deal with these people somehow! There are some real anger issues there..........
1. I'm Korean and can whistle very well, as can my brother and father. I've found that many people in general can't whistle. 2. Writing in red is used to record a dead person's name. This isn't, however, all over Asia. Chinese people consider red to be good luck. 8. We use scissors a lot because it's easier to cut some things, but we do use knives all the time. 10. The reason there aren't many foreign cars is because there are large taxes. Only wealthy people can afford them.
I understand that you're visiting many countries and you think these "quick facts" are funny, but they're really not. Even with no harm intended, generalizations like these are insulting. Generalizations are insulting to everyone. Please learn something from your trip around the world. It's one thing to think something interesting. It's another to portray other people as strange and weird.
I can't make any sense which korean you most likely saying about between north and south. I am now leaving in seoul S. korea. lots of info you posted seem strange to me eventhough i am S.korean. but interesting posts if you were talking only about North. We do not know well of north either.
Wow, this was fascinating. Especially the facts about addresses (I'm so glad they don't do that here in America. I have a hard enough time finding addresses); writing in red pen (wonder how many people I've killed off lol); and cutting food with scissors (that makes total sense). Thanks for a great post.
North Korea and South Korea are COMPLETELY different countries.
North Korea has been shut off from the world for over 60 years and has faced nothing but misery and isolation, while South Korea has thrived to become a developed country.
Putting North Korea and South Korea would be putting apples with grapes... not even oranges. USA and Saudi Arabia. They're THAT different, and I find it ignorant and offensive how North and South Korea are described as the same thing in this article.
...and Koreans can't wistle? I can thanks. They choose not to? I've never heard this. Also, we use knives - also don't know where you got that from... and a lot of other things.
Korean doesn't have "hundreds or thousands of characters" in the alphabet as someone commented above, there are about 14 consanants and 10 basic vowel sounds. It seems perfectly possible that koreans could have come up with a printing press first.
How is this any different from the nationalism of Washington DC with its long boulevards and structures honouring every single President? I don't see much of a difference really. This is scary because it's nationalism you guys don't like. DC is just as terrifying.
Yes, showing that life in a country can have some normal aspects which are caught on film definitely is propaganda and completely wrong. People see that there is not a gallow on EVERY street corner and forget about the dictatorship immediately.
Bloody hell some commenters are thick. This is about North Korea, too! Just because you went to Seoul once doesn't make you an expert on the entire peninsula.
I worked at the Battersea power station site a few years ago, the site was the venue for two weeks of concerts. I spent a day exploring the interior of the power station its amazing and strangely beautiful,especially the amazing control room with the brass knobs and old gauges is a steam punk dream. will try and find the pics i took.
Battersea Power Station is an iconic piece of Art Deco architecture, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, and as such should be restored and preserved. There is a group dedicated to doing just this, and it can't come quick enough for me.
Some fantastic photos and info there - especially the images of Battersea Power Station. Can't believe that tank, how random is that?! I guess it must be left over from Full Metal Jacket... I've been past BPS so many times on the train and am always impressed. Great to see sime pics of the inside though. Looking forward to the redevelopment but hopefully it won't lose too much of its mystery in the process.
As publicity for the Simpsons movie, the version of the pig from the animated movie was floated in front of this station in the same place Pink Floyd's pig was. Photos are probably still around the internet.
The Tank you see was part of an exhibition, I went to it as it made Battersea PS open to the public and always wanted to see it. From inside its very big and empty, Thatcher let the vulchers in and they stripped the place for its metal during the 1980s I'm sorry to say (that would never have happened in France!).
If anybody else went to see the exhibition do you recall the wall of Apples? It was slowly decomposing, a great piece. I also got a recording of the video playing. Oh and there was a penny machine which took pennies and you put them in and turn the machine crank with a handle, they would come out flattened with a logo on them - I still got mine. At the time it was of the shopping centre complex to be invested in by a Chinese firm, but they pulled out.
http://lh6.ggpht.com/_hVOW2U7K4-M/SqchnPxaPUI/AAAAAAABHos/F7wtmSynLUQ/s640/76ie7utrshdtfd.jpg That's sign by an hungarian street artist, Magyar Kétfarkú Kutya Párt (Hungarian Two-tailed Dog Faction :). Some of his related works: http://mkkp.hu/parkolasirend.html http://mkkp.hu/leesik.html http://mkkp.hu/godzilla.html There are many of stuffs on his page, but most of them are hungarian-language related :)
The "mystery sign" at Prospect Mira Metro station is an icon for Greco-Roman Wrestling. This station is next to an olimpic complex built for Moscow '80 olympics, so they decorated the station with blasons for different olimpic sports.
The Anti-Monkey Butt powder is a real product, aimed at motorcyclists to counter the unfortunate effects of sitting in the same position for long periods wearing tight leathers. The same company sell a range of products with risque names, such as visor-cleaner called "Foxitorff".
AND, the Harley Parking sign is commerically available from lots of suppliers. There are "retaliatiory" signs (Suzuki parking, Triumph parking etc...) too.
The "Enter Only/Do Not Enter" one is from a Target store. I noticed it on a door of the Target in my town and always meant to take a picture of it. I never use that door because I'm never quite sure what's expected of me!
The loop road sign is in Great Smoky Mountains National Park (Tennessee), on the road up to Clingman's Dome -- there's a short tunnel at one end of the loop.
The TV Commercial Blind and the Armpit Dryer ads are not from from an old mail-in catalog, as the caption suggests, but a NatLamp parody. Drawings by Bruce McCall.
There are new building materials being introduced nowadays made with super dense formed fungus. Its apparently tons stronger than drywall, and far lighter as well.
This is wonderful! The "chair that grew" reminds me of Odysseus' marriage bed (made of a living tree, so when Penelope tells him she's moved it, he gets angry and thus proves he's really her husband).
Down here in Australia, the Boab tree of the semi-arid west has a short, squat and voluminious trunk that had been used variously as a house, jail and particularly sturdy restroom.
I actually grew up with a shaped tree in the backyard— my dad spent a couple of decades shaping a cave out of the lower branches of a mulberry, while the upper area has a fort-like feel, big enough for several adults (we've gotten at least eight up there at one time.) It was a great place to read.
When I was going to college, my dad asked if he should remove the cave. "Dad, you are going to have grandchildren at some point!"
Not to the level of these things, but it goes to show that even an amateur can come up with something lovely and appreciated.
Fantastic presentation! Marvelous! But, all that is not just fantasy of some crazy peoples. It is part of our own cultural heritage. Not only huts and shelters of reeds or twig-arks bound with lianas covered with leaves are still part of everyday life in many places of the world. In ethnology or cultural anthropology this is well known today. But archaeology has mistakenly taught us to accept only durable materials as prehistory of material culture. In contrast to this we can construct a "soft prehistory" getting together all the secondary sources of signs (early script in China and Mesopotamia) and symbols (life trees) and even early representations of deities (Ishtar-Inanna of Uruk) with their roots in neolithic village culture where they were important as territorial signs and nuclear aesthetic models of the local village culture. We know even that there were "Babylonian Creation myths" focused not on the universe but on the foundation of the local "cosmos" (that is the spatial organization) of an agrarian village by making a deity of reed which grew and grows in abundance in the Eufrat/Tigris region. The founder becomes some sort of chief of the village. The "Marsh Arabs" are still widespread living there in reed huts and around reed mosques, but having Islam as their religion today.
Paradoxically this very ancient "soft prehistory" is still vital as a sacred tradition of annual cyclic renewal of sacred Shinto-symbols in Japanese agrarian villages. From these traditional survivals we can understand that, originally, this was not "primitive religion", but was a very complex event, an essentially aesthetic territorial demarcation system which used only one symbol in the center of the village built of reed an bamboo and using its aesthetic structure to define the village territory Yin-Yang style: "holy woods and agricultural fields". The annual renewal of the symbol had become a festival of central importance for the village. The destruction of the old one put the whole population into a crazy ecstasy for one night until the new one was rebuilt next morning. Important: early civilizations copied a lot from this nuclear territorial system of the neolithic agrarian village! See my 6 videos 01-06 at YouTube (type: 'negenter' in search)
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4 Comments:
"strangely, this is the Russian term for Germany"
Well.. the russian might use that term also but the history of the name comes from the days of Julius Caesar himself who adopted the Gallic term of that are that consist most of the present Germany...
I suspect the reason why would be either
"for a bet" or
"because he can"
@ Jyri: You're absolutely correct, and I think the fact adds even more meaning to the Russians' current use of the term, and more to the Nazis' intended use. Perhaps Herr Absolutely Ridiculous Moustache intended his World Capital to trump all - even, symbolically, Julius' plans for the region. Mitteleuropa, after all, is far from a new concept..
well, it is the same in Italian too... and Germany and Italy were allied countries during the war. I think this is less fascinating but definitely more probable: at the end of the day Hitler called this plan Germania and not Германия (not sure about the spelling, sorry)
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