Topic: STRANGE - on August 15, 2007 at 8:36:00 PM CEST
Tokyo Summerland wave pool manages to fit in some water
It’s summertime here in Tokyo, and since we’re in the middle of the Obon holiday week a lot of Tokyoites have left town for the countryside, leaving a strangely empty city behind. Those who stick around or come in from the countryside pack just about every tourist spot to the gills. We went to the Tokyo Summerland today to catch some sun, and could barely move! Believe it or not, the picture below is of a pool…
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Topic: MAKE - on August 15, 2007 at 8:32:00 PM CEST
Toilet Paper Origami
Toilet Paper Origami (also called toilegami) is the origami-style folding of toilet paper. There are two ways to do toilegami: fold the toilet paper while it is still on the roll, or fold a single sheet of toilet paper.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on August 15, 2007 at 8:30:00 PM CEST
YouTube-Viacom trial turns comic
As if its court battle with Viacom wasn't funny enough, YouTube has now asked for testimony from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert - the faux newsmen whose exploits on Viacom's Comedy Central cable TV channel once made for prime viewing material on the video-sharing site.
According to a filing with the New York federal court where YouTube is fighting a $1bn copyright infringement suit from media giant Viacom, the Google-owned video sharer has requested depositions from 32 people, and numbers three and four on the list are Stewart and Colbert. That puts them a few spots below Viacom chief executive officer Philippe Dauman, who's first, and a few spots above executive chairman and American icon Sumner Redstone, who's number eight.
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Topic: POLICE REPORT - on August 15, 2007 at 8:27:00 PM CEST
Honey, You're Under Arrest
Meet Charlotte Moore. The Nevada sheriff's deputy was pulled over for drunk driving Saturday night--by her own husband, a fellow cop. The 36-year-old Moore, pictured in the below Elko County Sheriff's Office ID photo, was stopped by Deputy Mike Moore, at about 11:40 PM for some kind of moving violation.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 15, 2007 at 12:08:00 PM CEST
World Psychedelic Forum Basel Switzerland March 21-24 2008
Psychedelics have been widely used for thousands of years nearly everywhere on the planet. Psychoactive plants have been central to most ancient sacred rituals and primitive medical treatments. They have been worshipped in all cultures as "Plants of the Gods" and considered as mediators between human beings and the universe, linking the physical to the spiritual dimensions of existence.
In January 2006 the International Symposium "LSD – Problem Child and Wonder Drug" took place at the occasion of the 100th birthday of Dr. Albert Hofmann, the discoverer of LSD. Several thousand visitors and more than 200 media people from 37 countries gathered in Basel to hear speeches from scientists and historians, to exchange ideas and disseminate information. It was the biggest conference of its kind worldwide. For the first time since the turbulent 1960s, a wide range of psychedelic issues and topics has been brought back to public discussion and re-evaluation.
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Topic: DRUGS - on August 15, 2007 at 12:04:00 PM CEST
Dr. Timothy Leary’s Footprint
There are few individuals who have had the impact on all of humanity that Dr. Timothy Leary exerted. Certainly there are a number of people who have altered our understanding of the material world, who have sparked civil movements, or technological innovations that have rerouted or offset tragedy and the cycles of history. But Leary pulled people into contemplation of their own experience, and redefined what Western Culture thought of as ‘religion’ entirely. He showed that perspective altered experience, and this was a message too volatile for the institutions and the administrations of the sixties and seventies to digest.
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Topic: PHOTO - on August 15, 2007 at 12:00:00 PM CEST
60-year mystery of VJ-day kiss at an end
It was an iconic image that captured the wild excitement that greeted the end of the Second World War.
But the spontaneous moment of joy when a US sailor kissed a nurse in Time Square led to a bitter 60-year dispute over the identity of the amorous marine.
Over the years at least ten men have laid claim to be the one who planted the kiss on passing nurse Edith Shain on the VJ-day photo taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt on August 14, 1945 and made famous on the front cover of Life magazine.
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Topic: Glaubensfragen - on August 15, 2007 at 11:58:00 AM CEST
Vatican plans airways to heaven
The Vatican may have territorial limits, its own post office and even a football tournament, but it has hitherto lacked what all real states offer: an airline.
That will be put right this month as the Vatican launches its first charter flights for pilgrims from Rome to Lourdes, with some of the world's top religious destinations to follow, including the shrine of Fatima in Portugal and the shrine of the Madonna of Guadalupe in Mexico.
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Topic: NEWS - on August 15, 2007 at 11:54:00 AM CEST
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Light Pollution
What would Douglas Adams say?
It's a good question to ask at any time, and came to mind when I read a New Yorker article on how poorly designed urban lighting has made it nearly impossible to see the nighttime cosmos in all its glory, and sometimes nearly impossible to see at all.
Galileo's homemade telescopes were less powerful than a toy you might give to a stargazing boy on his birthday, but Galileo was able, writes David Owen, to discover that the moon has mountains and Jupiter has moons, and that the Milky Way is made of individual stars rather than a single continuous substance.
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