Pawan's 筆

Amazing Buildings In The World

2011-08-11T08:37:00.008+05:30

Cubic Houses, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Piet Blom had an idea of cubic houses in 1970s. Some of them were built in Helmond and when Rotterdam city asked him to build housing on top of a pedestrian bridge he chose this concept.

Dancing Building, Prague, Czech Republic

The ‘Dancing Building’ is a nickname given to Nationale-Nederlanden building that is located in Prague’s downtown. Designed by Croatian-Czech architect Vlado Milunić in collaboration with Canadian Frank Gehry the building was completed in 1996. The building was built instead of the one that was destroyed during Bombing of Prague in 1945.

The Ufo House, Sanjhih, Taiwan

The Ufo House in Sanjhih, Taiwan is actually an deserted resort project. It earned this nickname from Taiwanese for its strange futuristic design.

Kansas City Public Library, Missouri, United-States

As an incentive to visit library the design in the downtown of Kansas city was made in shape of books that according to people of Kansas city represent Kansas.
Update: I was told that it’s a parking garage not the actual library. And still it looks awesome, isn’t? What can I say? A suitable building for storing books.

Ferdinand Cheval Palace a.k.a Ideal Palace, France

Ferdinand Cheval Palace was built by a postman in Hauterives, France, who intended to use it as his own tomb but haven’t obtained a license for that. His Ideal Palace is now known around the world.

Forest Spiral Hundertwasser Building, Darmstadt, Germany

Forest Spiral Hundertwasser was built in 2000. Designed by Austrian architect and painter, Friedensreich Hundertwasser the building has 105 apartments and features colorful and organic design.

Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Built by Nervion River Guggenheim Museum of modern and contemporary art was designed by Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry. The building’s silhouette resembles the ship while the design was random, which helped it, according, to architect catch the light.

Bahá’í House of Worship a.k.a Lotus Temple, Delhi, India

Bahá’í House of Worship mostly known as Lotus Temple was constructed in 1986 and is a Mother Temple of the Indian subcontinent. It is open for people of all religions.

Ripley’s Building, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Known for the collection of odd and unbelievable things and artifacts Ripley’s Believe It or Not! franchise just had to have this kind of building.

The Crooked House, Sopot, Poland

Started and finished in 2003 The Crooked House was design was based on Polish artist and child books illustrator, Jan Marcin Szancer’s and Per Dahlberg’s, Swedish painter pictures and paintings.

Japan's quake shifts earth's axis by 25 cm

2011-03-12T22:49:00.000+05:30

Initial results out of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology show that the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rattled Japan Friday shifted the earth's rotation axis by about 25 centimetres.

INGV's report, which came hours after the devastating incident, is equivalent to "very, very tiny" changes that won't be seen for centuries, though, Canadian geologists say.

The impact of this event on the axis of rotation, said INGV, was also much greater than that of the great Sumatra earthquake of 2004, which was 7 cm of linear and two thousandths of an arcsecond angle, and probably second only to Chile earthquake of 1960. The earthquake in Chile last year shifted the Earth’s axis of about 8 cm .

"It's going to make minute changes to the length of a day. It could make very, very tiny changes to the tilt of the earth, which affects the seasons, but these effects are so small, it'd take very precise satellite navigation to pick it up."

The earth's rotation will now shift at a different speed because the globe's mass has been redistributed, said Michael Bostock, a University of B.C. earthquake seismology professor.

CLASSIFICATION FOR INTENSITY – The earthquake of 11 March 2011 stands at fifth place in the ranking of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded since the seismic surveys are accurate.

1 – The strongest ever occurred May 22, 1960 between Temuco and Concepcion in Chile: 9.5 on the Richter scale, resulted in 1,655 dead, 3,000 injured, 2,000,000 homeless. That triggered the tsunami caused 61 deaths in Hawaii – did not exist warning systems and even it was known that a tsunami could cross an entire ocean – 138 in Japan, 32 in the Philippines.

2 – The second strongest quake was recorded March 28, 1964 in Alaska, the epicenter of the earthquake of 9.2 degrees was in Prince William Sound, not far from Anchorage: the dead were 113 for the Tsunami and 15 shocks. In nearby Montague Island, the land rose up to 13-15 meters.Valdez in the Gulf of the tsunami wave reached a height of 67 meters, 15 deaths were recorded on the coast of California and Oregon, even in Cuba and Puerto Rico took place small tidal waves.

3- 9.1: it is the magnitude of the earthquake that everyone remembers very well. On Boxing Day, January 26, 2004 two minutes before 8 am (local time) on the Asian plate moves over the Indo-Australian subduction beneath Sumatra. The north-west of the island was devastated following the tsunami in Thailand came up and swept the east coast of Sri Lanka, India and as far as Somalia in the west. In all the dead were 230 000, but some estimates speak of 300 thousand victims.

4- 4 November 1952: south-east coast of Kamtchaka Island Russia (then Soviet). It is an earthquake of 9 Richter scale, there is no news of casualties. Hawaii got a 3-meter tsunami

CLASSIFICATION FOR VICTIMS – The strongest earthquakes are not always those that produce the greatest number of victims. Often, in fact, occur in uninhabited areas. Instead, less intense but earthquakes near densely populated areas or buildings without earthquake resistant, produce devastating effects.

1 – More than 800,000 deaths, estimates of the Chinese earthquake of 8 degrees of Shaanxi January 23, 1556.
2 – Between 250,000 and 700,000 victims in the earthquake of 7.5 degrees in Tangshan, China, July 28, 1976.
3-250 thousand deaths estimated in the May 21 earthquake in Antioch of 525, maybe 8 degrees
4 – even China, Gansu, December 16, 1920: 235,000 dead, probably due to a shock of 7.8 on the Richter scale.
5-230 thousand deaths in the 26 December 2004 Sumatra earthquake tsunami
The earthquake of 7 degrees on January 12, 2010 in and around Port-au-Prince in Haiti is estimated to have caused 223,000 deaths and puts him in seventh place

A 2,000-pound house in the air.

2011-03-10T20:26:00.000+05:30

300 weather balloons lift a 2,000-pound house into the air

It took the team about two weeks to plan, build, and lift the house into the air using balloons. They needed about 300 weather balloons, each of which inflated to a height of 8 feet, in order to lift the 2,000-pound, 16x16-foot yellow house. Lifting off early in the morning outside of Los Angeles, the house floated for about an hour and reached an altitude of 10,000 feet.

According to the National Geographic Channel, the floating house set a world record for the “largest balloon cluster flight” ever attempted. The entire aircraft of house and balloons was about 100 feet tall.

The concept of a house being lifted into the air by balloons may sound familiar to young movie-goers who have seen Pixar’s latest animated feature called “Up.” In the movie, an old man and a boy go on a ride when the house they’re in is lifted into the sky by balloons tied to the house’s roof. Just like in the movie, there were a few people inside the real-life house while it was flying.

John Smeaton-"Father of civil engineering"

2011-03-06T06:53:00.000+05:30

John Smeaton, FRS, (8 June 1724 – 28 October 1792) was an English civil engineer responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours and lighthouses. Smeaton was the first self-proclaimed civil engineer, and often regarded as the "father of civil engineering".
He was associated with the Lunar Society.

Smeaton was born in Austhorpe, Leeds, England. After studying at Leeds Grammar School he joined his father's law firm, but left to become a mathematical instrument maker (working with Henry Hindley), developing, among other instruments, a pyrometer to study material expansion and a whirling speculum or horizontal top (a maritime navigation aid).

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1753, and in 1759 won the Copley Medal for his research into the mechanics of waterwheels and windmills.

Recommended by the Royal Society, Smeaton designed the third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755–59). He pioneered the use of 'hydraulic lime' (a form of mortar which will set under water) and developed a technique involving dovetailed blocks of granite in the building of the lighthouse. His lighthouse remained in use until 1877 when the rock underlying the structure's foundations had begun to erode; it was dismantled and partially rebuilt at Plymouth Hoe where it is known as Smeaton's Tower. He is important in the history, rediscovery of, and development of modern cement, because he identified the compositional requirements needed to obtain "hydraulicity" in lime; work which led ultimately to the invention of Portland cement.

Deciding that he wanted to focus on the lucrative field of civil engineering, he commenced an extensive series of commissions, including:

the Calder and Hebble Navigation (1758–70)
Coldstream Bridge over the River Tweed (1762–67)
Improvements to the River Lee Navigation (1765–70)
Perth Bridge over the River Tay in Perth (1766–71)
Ripon Canal (1766–1773)
Smeaton's Viaduct, which carries the A616 road (part of the original Great North Road) over the River Trent between Newark and South Muskham in Nottinghamshire (1768–70)^[2]^[3]
the Forth and Clyde Canal from Grangemouth to Glasgow (1768–77)
Banff harbour (1770–75)
Aberdeen bridge (1775–80)
Peterhead harbour (1775)
Nent Force Level (1776–77)
Harbour works at Ramsgate (retention basin 1776-83; jetty 1788-1792)
Hexham bridge (1777–90)
the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal (1782–89)
St Austell's Charlestown harbour in Cornwall (1792)

Because of his expertise in engineering, Smeaton was called to testify in court for a case related to the silting-up of the harbour at Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk in 1782: he is considered to be the first expert witness to appear in an English court. He also acted as a consultant on the disastrous 63-year-long New Harbour at Rye, designed to combat the silting of the port of Winchelsea. The project is now known informally as "Smeaton's Harbour", but despite the name his involvement was limited and occurred more than 30 years after work on the harbour commenced.

Eminem

2011-03-02T03:40:00.000+05:30

Marshall Bruce Mathers III (born October 17, 1972), better known by his stage name Eminem, is an American rapper, record producer, and actor. Eminem quickly gained popularity in 1999 with his major-label debut album, The Slim Shady LP, which won a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album.

LIFE:-

Eminem was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III on October 17, 1972 in Saint Joseph, Missouri, as the only child of Deborah R. Nelson Mathers-Briggs and Marshall Bruce Mathers, Jr. He is of Scottish, English, German, Swiss, Polish, and possibly Luxembourgian ancestry.His father abandoned the family when he was 18 months old, and he was raised solely by his mother in poverty. By the age of 12, Mathers and his mother had moved between various cities and towns in Missouri (including Saint Joseph, Savannah, and Kansas City)before they settled in Warren, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.

Mathers was initially signed to FBT Productions in 1992, run by brothers Jeff and Mark Bass. Mathers also held a minimum-wage job of cooking and dishwashing at the restaurant Gilbert's Lodge at St. Clair Shores for some time.

DRUGS & EMINEM

Eminem has spoken openly about his addiction to prescription drugs, including Vicodin, Ambien, Valium and Methadone.His group-mate Proof from D12 stated that Mathers "sobered up" in 2002 from drug and alcohol dependence.

Discography

Infinite (1996)
The Slim Shady LP (1999)
The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
The Eminem Show (2002)
Encore (2004)
Relapse (2009)
Recovery (2010)

Memoir

On October 21, 2008, Eminem released a tell-all autobiography entitled The Way I Am, which details his struggles with poverty, drugs, fame, heartbreak and depression, along with stories about his rise to fame and commentary on past controversies. This book also contains some of the original lyric sheets from songs such as "Stan" and "The Real Slim Shady."

^{Interesting facts about Eminem}

Eminem failed 9th grade a total of three times and then dropped out of high school
, because he didn't care much about school. All he wanted to do was rap.

Eminem says that he can't stand it when people spell his daughter's name wrong.

He loves South Park, and even calls himself a "twenty-six-year-old skinny Cartman" in the song Marshall Mathers.

Eminem has his own radio station, Shade 45.

In December 2007, he was taken to a Detroit-area hospital for a serious heart condition and severe pneumonia.

In 2006, Eminem filed for divorce from his wife Kimberly again.

Eminem has a tattoo on his right lower shoulder of Hallie.

When Eminem was in fourth grade, he was bullied by an older child. The beating caused a near-fatal brain hemorrhage. In one of his songs, Eminem named the bully and the man sued Eminem for $1 million.

The Eminem Show has sold more than eighteen million albums worldwide.

Eminem had a huge fan who ended up killing his pregnant girlfriend and then himself. This is similar to Eminem's song "Stan". Eminem began performing as early as thirteen.

Eminem is a fan of fast food chain Taco Bell, Wendy's and frequently eats there while on tour and at home with his daughter and niece.

Weird facts about Michael Jackson:-

2011-02-27T01:11:00.000+05:30

1. Jackson's oxygen chamber.

For the purposes of beauty and longevity, Michael Jackson used to sleep in an oxygen chamber. 2. Jackson and an ancient Egyptian sculpture.
A netizen called 'mandalariangirl' speculated that Michael Jackson got some of his plastic surgery ideas from this ancient Egyptian sculpture. 3. Jackson's unique anti-gravity boots.

Michael Jackson invented anti-gravity boots and patented the invention with the US Patent Number 5255452. These unique boots allow wearers to tilt so far forward that they appear to defy gravity. 4. Jackson's animal friend – a chimpanzee named "Bubbles."
Jackson regarded "Bubbles" as a son. Aside from teaching the chimp basic human behavior, Jackson also taught "Bubbles" to dance the "moonwalk." It was said that "Bubbles" also learned to fold a bed for Jackson,he had a snake called Muscles and a llama called Louie. And of course, it is well-known that Michael Jackson had a personal zoo at his Neverland estate.5. Jackson suffered from a rare genetic disease.
Michael Jackson suffered from a rare genetic disease known as Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, which is one of around 8000 rare diseases worldwide. 6. "Billie Jean" was the first MTV video to feature a black artist.
"Billie Jean" was the most successful single from Jackson's "Thriller" album. 7. The world's largest Thriller group dance.
In 2008, 4000 people from all over the world donned white gloves and zombie make-up to celebrate Michael Jackson's Thriller dance. The activity involved 4177 people in 72 cities in 10 countries performing a synchronized zombie dance. TRIBUTE TO M.J.

One of Jackson’s greatest achievements was: him being listed in the book of Guinness World Records for his support of 39 charities, more than any other entertainer or personality. He also received additional eight Guinness World Records among them: “First Entertainer to Earn More Than 100 Million Dollars in a Year” and “Most Successful Entertainer of All Time”. Jackson was awarded the Diamond Award on November 15, 2006, for selling over 100 million albums, at the World Music Awards. His breakthrough album “Thriller” went on to sell upwards of 109 million copies, making it the best-selling album of all time.Michael Jackson won 8 Grammy Awards in 1984 - the most anyone had won in a single year.

Weird Facts About Albert Einstein:-

2011-02-25T18:11:00.000+05:30

1. Einstein Was a Fat Baby with Large Head.
2. Einstein Had Speech Difficulty as a Child.
         As he was a late talker, his parents were worried. At the supper table one night, he broke his silence to say, "The soup is too hot."
Greatly relieved, his parents asked why he had never said a word before.
Albert replied, "Because up to now everything was in order." .
3. Einstein was Inspired by a Compass
        When Einstein was five years old and sick in bed, his father showed him something that sparked his interest in science: a compass.
4. Einstein Failed his University Entrance Exam
         In 1895, at the age of 17, Albert Einstein applied for early admission into the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule or ETH). He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.)! Einstein had to go to a trade school before he retook the exam and was finally admitted to ETH a year later .
5. Einstein had an Illegitimate Child
        In the 1980s, Einstein’s private letters revealed something new about the genius: he had an illegitimate daughter with a fellow former student Mileva Maric (whom Einstein later married).
6. Einstein Became Estranged From His First Wife, then Proposed a Strange "Contract".
        A. You will make sure
        1. that my clothes and laundry are kept in good order;
        2. that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room;
        3. that my bedroom and study are kept neat, and especially that my desk is left for my use only.
        B. You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not completely necessary for social reasons…
There’s more, including "you will stop talking to me if I request it." She accepted the conditions. He later wrote to her again to make sure she grasped that this was going to be all-business in the future, and that the "personal aspects must be reduced to a tiny remnant." And he vowed, "In return, I assure you of proper comportment on my part, such as I would exercise to any woman as a stranger." .
7. Einstein Didn’t Get Along with His Oldest Son
      After the divorce, Einstein’s relationship with his oldest son, Hans Albert, turned rocky. Hans blamed his father for leaving Mileva, and after Einstein won the Nobel Prize and money, for giving Mileva access only to the interest rather than the principal sum of the award – thus making her life that much harder financially.
8. Einstein, the War Pacifist, Urged FDR to Build the Atom Bomb
      Re-creation of Einstein and Szilárd signing the famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939.In 1939, alarmed by the rise of Nazi Germany, physicist Leó Szilárd convinced Einstein to write a letter to president Franklin Delano Roosevelt warning that Nazi Germany might be conducting research into developing an atomic bomb and urging the United States to develop its own.
The Einstein and Szilárd’s letter was often cited as one of the reasons Roosevelt started the secret Manhattan Project to develop the atom bomb, although later it was revealed that the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 probably did much more than the letter to spur the government.
Although Einstein was a brilliant physicist, the army considered Einstein a security risk and (to Einstein’s relief) did not invite him to help in the project.
9. The Saga of Einstein’s Brain: Pickled in a Jar for 43 Years and Driven Cross Country in a Trunk of a Buick!
       After his death in 1955, Einstein’s brain was removed – without permission from his family – by Thomas Stoltz Harvey , the Princeton Hospital pathologist who conducted the autopsy. Harvey took the brain home and kept it in a jar. He was later fired from his job for refusing to relinquish the organ..

(All the information given is from this link http://www.neatorama.com/2007/03/26/10-strange-facts-about-einstein/ )

Incredibly Weird Facts About the Human Body

2011-02-25T06:32:00.000+05:30

The Brain

Complex and poorly understood, the brain is what makes everything work properly. The body may be kept alive, but without the brain, a person can’t truly live. Here are some interesting and weird facts about the brain.

The brain doesn’t feel pain: Even though the brain processes pain signals, the brain itself does not actually feel pain.
Your brain has huge oxygen needs: Your brain requires 20 percent of the oxygen and calories your body needs — even though your brain only makes up two percent of your total body weight.
80% of the brain is water: Instead of being relatively solid, your brain 80% water. This means that it is important that you remain properly hydrated for the sake of your mind.
Your brain comes out to play at night: You’d think that your brain is more active during the day, when the rest of your body is. But it’s not. Your brain is more active when you sleep.
Your brain operates on 10 watts of power: It’s true: The amazing computational power of your brain only requires about 10 watts of power to operate.
A higher I.Q. equals more dreams: The smarter you are, the more you dream. A high I.Q. can also fight mental illness. Some people even believe they are smarter in their dreams than when they are awake.
The brain changes shapes during puberty: Your teenage years do more than just change how you feel; the very structure of your brain changes during the teen years, and it even affects impulsive, risky behavior.
Your brain can store everything: Technically, your brain has the capacity to store everything you experience, see, read or hear. However, the real issue is recall — whether you can access that information.

Information in your brain travels at different speeds: The neurons in your brain are built differently, and information travels along them at different speeds. This is why sometimes you can recall information instantly, and sometimes it takes a little longer.

Some intresting facts about Indian Independence & Partition

2011-02-25T05:56:00.000+05:30

Here are some facts about India's independence and partition:
1) In early 1947 British Prime Minster Clement Atlee announced that Britain would leave India no later than June 1948. The decision came after years of dissatisfaction and non-violent resistance, termed 'satyagraha' by Mahatma Gandhi.

2) Newly-appointed viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, oversaw the birth of the modern states of India and Pakistan. They came into being at midnight on August 15 1947, as astrologers could not decide on an auspicious date. Mountbatten attended one transfer of power ceremony in Karachi on the morning of the 14th, and another at 11 pm in Delhi. Pakistan's Independence Day is August 14, India's is August 15.
3) The border was drawn by a London lawyer, Sir Cyril Radcliffe. Appointed head of the Boundary Commission on June 3 1947, he submitted his partition map on August 13. The Radcliffe Award split Pakistan into two separate areas, East Pakistan (today's Bangladesh,) and West Pakistan, with India in between.
4) Millions found themselves on the 'wrong side' of the border after August 1947's Indian Independence Act. An estimated 14.5 million people crossed the border in the months immediately after partition. Hundreds of thousands were killed in resulting clashes.
5) The ruler of the autonomous Jammu and Kashmir princely state had not decided which side to join by August 1947. Pakistan still believes the state should have become part of Pakistan, because the majority of its population is Muslim. But the Hindu Maharaja finally agreed to join India in October 1947.

Mistakes

2011-02-20T23:23:00.000+05:30

Some said that people who fear to make mistakes hardly do anything with their lives. But failure to learn from one's mistakes will lead one to commit the same mistake again. There's got to be a balance somewhere.
Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once.
Sometimes we know we shouldn't and thats exactly why we do.
Mistakes are sometimes the best memories.
You're born, you die, and in between you make a lot of mistakes.
Every new day is another chance to change your life.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

Life

2011-02-18T21:34:00.000+05:30

If you hv food in ur fridge, clothes on ur back, a roof over ur head, and a place to sleep, You are richer than 75% of the entire world...

If you hv money in your wallet, a little change and can go anywhere you want, You are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy...

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, You are more blessed than the million people who won't survive this week and die...

If you can actually READ this message and understand it, You are more fortunate than the 3 Billion people in the world who cannot see, dont know english, or suffer being mentally retarded...

Life is not about xamz, girl/guy who dumped you, or whatever else that does not matter...

It's about a thousand other reasons to be happy.....

So Be Happy Always