Bizarre History

In my online scour for floating morsels of information / news that made an impact on me, I came across this photography site (2nd one for today), and had to stare at it in puzzlement for a full minute before what I was seeing hit me right between the eyes.

If you're wondering what kind of drinking fountain this is (like me!), read the labels on the wall. While racism has not been totally eradicated in the 21st century (will it ever be?), at least we are no longer confronted with such blatant displays of class discrimination, which is illegal today.



I personally found this photo totally heartbreaking and disturbing.

China's Bizarre Solution to Global Warming

What is your biggest challenge when you have a population of 1,321,851,888 and are facing the phenomenom of 13.45 births but 7 deaths per 1000 population? According to TODAY Online, it's generating enough power / energy to keep your citizens cool enough during summer and warm enough during winter while trying to not to contribute to the problem of global warming.

Sound impossible? You bet. The Chinese government have resorted to setting laws for how high and how low their citizens can crank up their air conditioning / heaters during the 2 seasons, together with the imposition of power cuts in some parts of cities like Shanghai. Even then, they still face energy supply failures due to an overburden of the demand for power supply.

Read all about it here. So next time you crank up (or down!) on your air conditioner, think about how lucky you are... unless you live in China.

Zoomable Pictures

While browsing for something that captured my fancy enough to blog about, I stumbled onto the "Scott Howard Photography" website and thought it was such a brilliant site. So there are thousands of photography sites out there - what makes this one so special?

It only boasts of 3 pictures, so to speak, of Sydney & Chicago night skylines. However, the Sydney night picture is taken at 720 mega pixels, using 169 photos. The Chicago by night picture is taken at 1000 mega pixels, using 194 photos. The Mega Machu Picchu one however, is taken at a staggering 1500 mega pixels composed of 400 photos.

Using a software called zoomify, you can zoom from a night landscape to a room where you can actually count the number of people inside it:

Chicago By Night



Chicago By Night - Zoomed In



Fascinated? Try it for yourself:

Chicago By Night
Sydney By Night
Mega Machu Piccu (only day pic)

Some iPhone tidbit

For those of you Apple fans who are still awaiting the much anticipated release of the iPhone, here are some extra tidbits for you to "chew over" in your purchase decision.