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World's Most Dangerous Airports

2008-10-12T22:07:15Z

1. Princess Juliana International Airport (Saint Martin)

Princess Juliana International Airport serves Saint Maarten, the Dutch part of the island of Saint Martin. It is the second busiest airport in the Eastern Caribbean. The airport is famous for its short landing strip — only 2,180 metres/7,152 ft, which is barely enough for heavy jets. Because of this, the planes approach the island flying extremely low, right over Maho Beach. Countless photos of large jets flying at 10--20 m/30-60 ft over relaxing tourists at the beach have been dismissed as fakes many times, but are nevertheless real. For this reason as well it has become a favourite for planespotters. Despite the difficulties in approach, there has been no records of major aviation incidents at the airport.

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2. Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport (Saba)

Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport is the only airport on the Caribbean island of Saba, in the Netherlands Antilles. It is well known among experienced fliers for the way in which airplanes must approach or take off from the airport.

Yrausquin Airport covers a relatively large portion of the small island of Saba. Some aviation experts are of the general opinion that the airport is one of the most dangerous in the world, despite the fact that no major tragedies have happened at the facility. The airport's sole runway is marked with an X at each end, to indicate to commercial pilots that the airport is closed for commercial aviation.

The danger arises from the airport's physical position. It is flanked on one side by high hills, and on the other side and at both ends of the runway by cliffs dropping into the sea. This creates the possibility that an airplane might overshoot the runway during landing or takeoff and end up in the sea or on the cliffs.

3. Courchevel (France)

Courchevel is the name of a ski area located in the French Alps, the largest linked ski area in the world. It's airport has a certain degree of infamy in the aviation industry as home to a relatively short runway, with a length of 525 m (1,722 ft) and a gradient of 18.5%. It's so short that you have to land on an inclined strip to slow down and take off on a decline to pick up enough speed.

Who gets to land here? Well, Pierce Brosnan made the short list. This was the airport used in the opening seen of Tomorrow Never Dies. For the rest of us, private plane, helicopter, or charter are the only ways to go, and your pilot is going to need some serious training before he or she is allowed to land at CVF.

4. Gustaf III Airport (St. Bart)

Gustaf III Airport also known as Saint Barthélemy Airport is a public use airport located in the village of St. Jean on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy. Both the airport and the island's main town of Gustavia are named for King Gustav III of Sweden, under whom Sweden obtained the island from France in 1785 (it was sold back to France in 1878). The airport is served by small regional commercial aircraft and charters. Most visiting aircraft carry fewer than twenty passengers, such as the Twin Otter, a common sight around Saint Barth and throughout the northern West Indies. The short airstrip is at the base of a gentle slope ending directly on the beach. The arrival descent is extremely steep over the hilltop traffic circle and departing planes fly right over the heads of sunbathers (although small signs advise sunbathers not to lie directly at the end of the runway).

5. Barra International Airport (Barra)

Barra Airport is the only airport in the world where planes land on the beach. BRR is situated in on the wide beach of Traigh Mhor, on Barra island, in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. If you want to fly here commercially you will want to book with British Airways, which flies to Barra from Glasgow and Benbecula.

The airport is literally washed away by the tide once a day, and if you arrive on a late afternoon flight, you may notice a couple of cars in the parking lot with their lights on, which provides pilots some added visibility, since the airport is naturally lit. Needless to say you probably don't want to hang out at Barra Airport beach, unless you are a aviation junkie, in which case Barra Airport has a fool proof system, as sign that reads: "Keep off the beach. When the windsock is flying and the airport is active."

6. Madeira Airport (Madeira)

Madeira Airport also known as Funchal Airport and Santa Catarina Airport, is an international airport located near Funchal, Madeira. The airport controls national and international air traffic of the island of Madeira.

The airport was once infamous for its short runway which, surrounded by high mountains and the ocean, made it a tricky landing for even the most experienced of pilots. The original runway was only 1,400 metres in length, but was extended by 400 metres after the TAP Air Portugal Flight 425 incident of 1977 and subsequently rebuilt in 2003, almost doubling the size of the runway, building it out over the ocean. Instead of using landfill, the extension was built on a series of 180 columns, each being about 70m tall.

For the enlargement of the new runway the Funchal Airport has won the Outstanding Structures Award, given by International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABSE). The Outstanding Structures Award is considered to be the "Oscar" for engineering structures in Portugal.

7. Lukla Airport (Nepal)

A huge mountain on one end, a thousand meter drop on the other. And it's at 2900 meters elevation, so you don't exactly have full power.

Lukla Airport is a small airport in the Town of Lukla in eastern Nepal. In January 2008, the government of Nepal announced that the airport would be renamed in honor of Sir Edmund Hillary[1], the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, who passed away on January 11, 2008. The airport is quite popular as Lukla is the place where most people start their trek to climb Mount Everest.

Tony Wilson

2008-10-12T21:07:07Z

Anthony Howard Wilson (20 February 1950 – 10 August 2007) was an English record label owner, radio presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager, impresario and journalist for Granada Television and the BBC.

Wilson, commonly known as Tony Wilson, was the music mogul behind some of Manchester's most successful bands. He was the founder and manager of The Haçienda nightclub, and was one of the five co-founders of Factory Records. Wilson was also known as Mr. Manchester, dubbed as such for his work in promoting the greater cultural status of Manchester throughout his career. He was portrayed by actors Steve Coogan and Craig Parkinson, in Michael Winterbottom's 2002 film 24 Hour Party People, and Anton Corbijn's 2007 film Control respectively.

]]> After his graduation in 1971, Wilson began as a trainee news reporter for ITN, before returning to Manchester in 1973, where he secured a post at Granada Television. He went on to present Granada's culture, music and events programme, So It Goes. Through the 1970s and 1980s he was one of the main anchors on Granada Reports, a regional evening news programme, where he worked with Richard and Judy among others. He continued in this line of work even at the height of his success in the music industry.

In 1989, Wilson hosted The Other Side of Midnight, another Granada weekly regional culture slot, covering music, literature and the arts in general. Its Sunday night slot made it one of the UK's first experiments in late night weekend TV. He reported for ITV's celebrated current affairs series, World in Action in the early 1980s and also hosted Channel 4's After Dark, the UK's first open-ended, late night chat show, in which he chaired loose discussions in a darkened studio between intellectuals and celebrities of various descriptions, often in various stages of inebriation. He hosted the short-lived TV quiz shows Topranko! and MTV Europe's Remote Control in the 1990s, as well as the Manchester United themed quiz, Masterfan, for MUTV.

In 2006 he became the regional political presenter for the BBC's The Politics Show. He presented a weekly radio show on Xfm Manchester - Sunday Roast - and a show on BBC Radio Manchester. In October he joined Blur bassist Alex James, Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq and previously unknown presenter - Emily Rose - to host the 21st century version of the iconic 80s music programme, "The Tube", for Channel 4 Radio which ran until 2 March, 2007.

After developing renal cancer, and having one kidney removed in 2007, Wilson's doctors recommended he take the drug Sunitinib (aka Sutent), the £3,500 per month cost of which was not funded by the Manchester Primary Care Trust. He was turned down by the NHS, while patients being treated alongside him at the Christie Hospital and living just a few miles away in Cheshire received funding for the therapy.

A number of Wilson's music industry friends, including former Happy Mondays manager Nathan McGough and their current manager, Elliot Rashman and TV stars Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan, formed a fund to help pay for Wilson's medical treatment.

Wilson said: "This [Sutent] is my only real option. It is not a cure but can hold the cancer back, so I will probably be on it until I die ... When they said I would have to pay £3,500 for the drugs each month, I thought where am I going to find the money? I'm the one person in this industry who famously has never made any money ... I used to say some people make money and some make history, which is very funny until you find you can't afford to keep yourself alive ... I've never paid for private healthcare because I'm a socialist. Now I find you can get tummy tucks and cosmetic surgery on the NHS but not the drugs I need to stay alive. It is a scandal."(via wiki)

His famous quote was : "When you have to choose between truth and legend, ... I say choose the legend."

Vermont Eco Builders

2008-09-29T11:08:07Z

Raedia and Ian Albinson are used to thinking outside the box. So when the artistic couple - she's an animator, he's a designer and media producer - started house hunting, it's not surprising that their search took an unconventional turn.

They yearned for community, proximity to farmer's markets, and a space uniquely suited to their tastes. They also wanted to live green. To them, this meant more than adding eco-friendly-looking finishes. It meant finding - or building - a house with passive heating and cooling capabilities and energy-efficient insulation and using Energy Star-rated appliances and lighting. It meant avoiding fossil fuels. And it meant using as many green building materials as possible, and choosing a spot located within walking distance, not driving distance, of daily activities.

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Then they had to find a mortgage. A green house costs more to build (even though, when finished, it's often worth more) than a non-green house of the same size and in the same location. But the loan officers whom the Albinsons spoke to couldn't take this into account when determining an appropriate loan size; there weren't any other local houses like it on the market with which they could compare. "The people doing the appraisal had no clue what we were trying to do," Ian says. "They just didn't have the knowledge about sustainable design and building to understand its value." But Ian and Raedia, 27, successfully argued their case. "Ultimately, the bank designed a new green building loan program based on us," Ian adds triumphantly.

They broke ground in May 2007. "We studied shelter magazines and collected designs we liked," Raedia says. "Flooring, details, materials . . . there's so much to think about." Ian's dad, a master woodworker who lives in nearby New Haven, Vermont, drew up the house plans. They positioned the house and the windows to maximize passive heating and cooling and natural light.

Sourcing cost-effective green materials proved the most challenging. While ecofriendly materials are more widely available than ever, they found that many come with a big price tag. "Focusing on green materials that we could actually afford helped us narrow things down," Ian says.

They skipped the expensive Paperstone counters (made of recycled paper) and instead chose more affordable Marmoleum (a green flooring and countertop material). They opted out of big-ticket items like an induction cooktop and photovoltaic solar panels but splurged on a geothermal heating system. "We had the option of going with an efficient propane-based furnace, but stuck with our no-fossil-fuel mandate," Ian says - plus, he estimates the system will pay for itself in 10 to 12 years.

One of the Albinsons' cost-cutting, and ultra green, tricks: using castoffs from other construction projects. "We went to places that carry Marmoleum and asked them for remnants," Ian says. "You have to go to a lot of showrooms and look in the back." They used as many reclaimed and salvaged materials as possible, such as a substantial set of 500-year-old Douglas fir support beams and drawers and doors left over from a woodworking company's other projects.

Not every material in the house is completely green, nor is the home fully carbon-neutral. "We still pull energy from the electric grid," Ian says. Still, compared with a conventional home, this is a seriously earth-friendly abode. No one looking at it would ever know the Albinsons chose concrete made with fl y ash (a greener alternative to standard concrete) for the foundation and slab, or that all the wood comes from carefully managed sources.

To off set the costs of their green choices, they've tackled most of the interior work on their own, from painting with low-VOC paint to floor installations. But it's been worth it. "It can be depressing at times to live in an unfinished house. It's tempting just to do things the conventional way," Ian says. "But you always have to keep in mind that being green really is important."

Follow Raedia and Ian's progress on their blog, vtecobuilder.com.

Sticky Note experiment

2008-09-22T11:00:47Z

Very niceeeee...

Lufthansa Airbus 380 - VIP Saloon

2008-09-22T08:08:34Z

More informations on Airbus 380 tech data, can be found here, and detailed deck plan here.

Futuristic Medical Center Concept

2008-09-06T13:51:49Z

Medical center concept designed by Sarah Schneider is a whole new concept of outer space home base right in the middle of Alps where people love to have Jacuzzi and fly ion jet wings. It is an unbelievable concept for a medical center for rehabilitation of trauma surgery patients. This unrealistic concept is no less than an Alien Space Ship. But no one can imagine how much investment and labor this concept would require for construction. Designed to accommodate 50 patients, it features balconies overlooking the mountains and raised walkways running through the surrounding forests. Looks pretty awesome for a medical center in the future.

Science Proves Exotic Cars Turn Women On

2008-09-06T13:39:45Z

David Moxon subjected 40 men and women to the sounds of a Maserati, Lamborghini and Ferrari, then measured the amount of testosterone in their saliva. He found everyone had higher levels of the stuff -- a measure of their arousal -- after hearing the revving exotics, but the amount the women had was off the charts. The econobox, however, left everyone colder than a January day in Nome. Link

Sharpie Lamborghini Gallardo

2008-09-05T09:39:45Z

No matter how tasteful or tasteless you think Lamborghinis are (as if it matters what most of us think of them), you have to admit the idea of writing all over one with Sharpie markers is pretty cool. It took Prestige (Lamborghini Miami) about 2 weeks to ink the artwork and seal it up with a layer of clear coat. See more pictures of the car here.

BMW kinetic sculpture

2008-09-01T16:46:36Z

One particularly stunning highlight from the 125 exhibits packed into the newly-renovated BMW Welt in Munich is a mechatronic installation by ART+COM, the Berlin-based interactive media company. The project uses 714 metal balls that are individually suspended one barely visible strings, creating an seemingly weightless, amorphous mass. Each ball lowers and retracts independently, which allows them to approximate almost any form.

The installation moves through a cycle of classic and contemporary BMW car shapes from throughout the company's 90-year history. In between cars, it goes through some impressive routines, showing the creation's versatility. Take a look at one visitor's video below. (via Core77)

Paris Hilton doesn't change facial expressions

2008-09-01T16:07:31Z

Self-promoted lifestyle icon, Paris Hilton virtually never changes her facial expression for pictures. That dumb little smirk just stays there.

Culture digest

2008-08-29T06:13:14Z

UbuWeb is an unlimited resource with unlimited space to fill. It is in this way that the site has grown to encompass hundreds of artists, hundreds of gigabytes of sound files, books, texts and videos.

"UbuWeb posts much of its content without permission; we rip out-of-print LPs into sound files; we scan as many old books as we can get our hands on; we post essays as fast as we can OCR them. Totally independent from institutional support, UbuWeb is free from academic bureaucracy and its attendant infighting, which often results in compromised solutions; we have no one to please but ourselves."

Banksy

2008-08-28T06:25:06Z

Banksy is a well-known pseudo-anonymous British graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to have been born in 1974, but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and personal and biographical details.

He started as a freehand graffiti artist 1992-1994 as one of Bristol's DryBreadZ Crew (DBZ), often assisting writers Kato and Tes. He was inspired by local artists and his work was part of the larger Bristol underground scene. From the start he used stencils as elements of his freehand pieces, too.

Banksy's stencils feature striking and humorous images occasionally combined with slogans. The message is usually anti-war, anti-capitalist or anti-establishment. Subjects include animals such as monkeys and rats, policemen, soldiers, children, and the elderly.

On 7 February 2007, Sotheby's auction house in London auctioned three Banksy works, reaching the highest ever price for a Banksy work at auction: over £102,000 for his Bombing Middle England. Two of his other graffiti works, Balloon Girl and Bomb Hugger, sold for £37,200 and £31,200 respectively, which were well above their estimated prices. The following day's auction saw a further three Banksy works reach soaring prices. Ballerina With Action Man Parts reached £96,000; Glory sold for £72,000; Untitled (2004) sold for £33,600 - all prices being significantly above estimated values. To coincide with the second day of auctions, Banksy updated his website with a new image of an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, "I Can't Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit." (via wiki)

More Banksy works here and @ his website.

Earth 7 amazing holes

2008-08-26T06:23:20Z

Discover some fascinating photos of the largest holes on the Earth.

Piers of Tomorrow

2008-08-19T06:38:27Z

Piers are timeless landmarks of many oceanfront metropolises, as they embody paradise on the edge of civilization. Gaining popularity early in the 1900's, piers resembling scaled down versions of Coney Island were erected in coastal cities around the world. People of all ages were drawn in by the glowing aura of their attractions, the aroma of fried cuisine, as well as the sounds of mechanical rides and the adjacent ocean. Alas, the evolution of modern theme parks has ostracized pleasure piers into a realm filled with the nostalgic relics of our past.

Nevertheless, the humble pier is being reinvented around the world in more creative ways than we could ever imagine.

Bradford Waugh's Bike with No Chain Design

2008-08-15T06:52:34Z

Bradford Waugh concept and idea for future bike transmission system. It looks awesome...