Dangerous Jobs - Photo Journalist

online game - Gyro Runner

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clip - Cat Jump

Sketchbook

online game - Stare Down Sally

Strawberry Pop-Tart Blow-Torches

Truth in Advertising

Scary Squirrel World

Your source for squirrel photographs, games, facts, stories, information, and more.

the payphone project

Internet Crime Archives

Wiring up the 'Victorian internet'

The world's first global communications system for exchanging text messages was not the internet nor the mobile phone. It was the great engineering project undertaken 150 years ago to put wires across the globe. In an editorial on 20 April, 1857, the New York Herald commented: "The laying of the telegraph around the world is the great work of the age." For the first time in history, the telegraph made rapid communication possible between Europe and America, and between Britain and her distant colonies such as Australia. "It's worth trying to imagine how fantastic it would have been when that cable was finally completed and instead of taking 45 days for a message to get through from Britain to Australia, it took less than 24 hours," says Mary Godwin, director of the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum in Cornwall. ...more

A Rainbow and the Pot of...

online game - Monster Invasion

Pack of Dogs savage Crocodile

Tks DE

clip - zippo trick gone wrong

Nobody Here

Bored?

"How bored are you?"

online game - Dots & Diamonds

Where's George

Black toilet paper / Schwarzes Designer-Klopapier

A home design innovation that is, already on a roll in Europe will be available in the US in January. Executives at Renova, a Portuguese paper producer, introduced black toilet paper a few months ago in cutting-edge boutique hotels in Madrid; it has just appeared on shelves at Monoprix, the Super Target of France. “We are getting a lot of global feedback,” says Jose Manuel Pinheiro, Renova’s international brand manager. ...more

Es ist sauteuer, aber es wirkt - irgendwie: Der portugiesische Papierhersteller Renova bringt absolut exklusives schwarzes Toilettenpapier auf den Markt. Wer sich damit den Allerwertesten säubern will und wie erfolgreich er bei dem Unterfangen ist, sei dahingestellt. ...mehr

Wintereinbruch verursacht "Kabeltanzen"

Der plötzliche Wintereinbruch hat in Nordrhein-Westfalen für Chaos gesorgt. Auf den Straßen des Landes gab es lange Staus. Auch die Stromversorgung wurde in Mitleidenschaft gezogen: In mehreren Städten gab es kurzfristige Stromausfälle und so genanntes Kabeltanzen. "Durch den Wind geraten die Hochspannungsleitungen ins Schwingen. So kann es zu Spannungseinbrüchen kommen", so Petra Beardsley-Robrecht, Pressereferentin der Stadtwerke Düsseldorf, gegenüber unserer Redaktion. "Experten nennen das ,Kabeltanzen'. Das macht sich dann zum Beispiel durch ein kurzes Flackern der Lampen bemerkbar. Für den Bruchteil einer Sekunde leuchten Glühbirnen etwas weniger hell." Durch den Schnee bilden sich an den Hochspannungsleitungen Eismäntel, die die Angriffsfläche für den Wind vergrößern.

Streetmattress

Radium & Radon

Radium Water Baths in Nowata Oklahoma. It seems that at some point (before the effects of radio activity were well known), the locals discovered that they could make water glow by putting radium in it. They opened a spa where people could pay money to come sit in a glowing pool of toxic waste. It was considered therapeutic. During the 1930s it was found that worker exposure to radium by handling luminescent paints caused serious health effects which included sores, anemia and bone cancer. This use of radium was stopped soon afterward. This is because radium is treated as calcium by the body, and deposited in the bones, where radioactivity degrades marrow, and can mutate bone cells. Handling of radium has since been blamed for Marie Curie's premature death.

Radon was a popular additive in products like toothpaste, hair creams and even food items in the early 20th century, due to its supposed curative powers. Radon was subsequently removed when its carcinogenic properties were discovered. However, there are still radon baths and hot springs in Austria, Germany and Japan. These baths promote radon by saying that it cures illnesses like hypertension and hemorrhoids. There are similar radon treatment centers in the U.S. and elsewhere which are usually billed as 'health centers', though the health benefits of low-levels of radiation are seen as dubious, at best, by most radiologists.

Christmas Lights

...via Drommels

An embarrassment no more

It's 25 years since Madness hit the charts with a jaunty pop song that hid a bleak story about a mixed-race pregnancy. In a generation, attitudes to inter-racial relationships have changed strikingly. And the song even has a happy ending. ...more

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Worth1000 - Monster ModRen 3

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