Wednesday, December 3, 2008
These Pictures are Actually Not Photoshopped
Walking In The Sky
Salar de Uyuni. Some 40,000 years ago, the area was part of Lake Minchin, a giant prehistoric lake.
When the lake dried, it left behind two modern lakes, Poopó Lake and Uru Uru Lake, and two major salt deserts, Salar de Coipasa and the larger Uyuni. Uyuni is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States.
During the Bolivian rainy season the flats are covered in several inches of water—reflecting the sky like a giant mirror. The rest of the year the flat looks like a massive field of snow. The way the salt dries in a consistent hexagonal pattern is most interesting.
Great level for Quake or Unreal
The Japan’s Futuristic Underground Flood Tunnel looks like it would make a great level for Quake or Unreal.
The G-Cans project is an underground infrastructure mainly in Saitama, Japan built for preventing overflow of the city’s major waterways and rivers during rain and typhoon seasons.
Work on the project started in 1992; it consists of five concrete containment silos with a height of 65 m and a diameter of 32 m, connected by 6.4 km of tunnels, 50 m beneath the surface, as well as a large water tank with a height of 25.4 m, with a length of 177 m, with a width of 78 m, and with 59 massive pillars connected to a number of 10 MW pumps that can pump up to 200 tons of water into the Edogawa River per second.
The G-Cans project is also a tourist attraction, and can be visited for free. More pics
Frozen Street
Geneva, January 27th 2005, After a conjunction of intense cold (-8 to -12 degrees Centigrade), plus very strong winds, blowing at over 100 kmh (70 mph), the waves got so harsh that they passed over the dikes and the droplets immediatly froze everything they touched
Amazing Lightning Storm
This photo captures a lightning storm taking place over Boston in 1967
A thunderstorm, also called an electrical storm or lightning storm, is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its attendant thunder.The lightning in a thunderstorm is caused by an electrical charge that builds up inside the storm due to the movement of water droplets or crystals carried by the wind. Thunderstorms are usually accompanied by heavy rainfall (heavy downpours), strong winds, hail, and sometimes tornadoes. During winter months, snowfall occasionally takes place in a thunderstorm, an occurrence sometimes termed thundersnow.
The Magical Tap
At “Aqualand” near Cadiz, you can admire this incredible fountain that seems a Magical Tap floating in the sky while delivering an endless supply of water. It seems a Photoshopped picture but it’s not. It is real, just a clever idea that makes possible this optical illusion. Actually there is a hidden pipe inside of the water jet that functions both as a support for the whole structure and to supply the water
There is another version of the same optical illusion in the Technorama science park in Zurich:
Walking In The Air
This German artist, Johan Lorbeer, seems to unhinge the laws of gravity. For hours on time, he remains, as a living work of art, in physically impossible positions. Elevated or reduced to the state of a sculpture, he interacts with the bewildered and irritated audience, whose appetite for communication rises as time goes by, often culminating in the wish to touch the artist in his superhuman, angelic appearance in order to participate in his abilities. The Secret? His arm is the supporting bar, and his real arm is hide inside his cloth.
- Tennis In The Sky
In February 2005, tennis pros Roger Federer and Andre Agassi were in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for the ATP’s Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open, a $1 million International Series Gold event. While in town, they took part in a publicity stunt, engaging in a friendly exhibition tennis match on the grass helipad atop the luxurious Burj Al Arab hotel.
The Burj Al Arab hotel, built upon a man-made island and designed in shape to resemble the sail of a dhow, features a large cantilevered helipad that extends out from one side of the hotel and over the ocean. The helipad itself rests 692 feet above ground level, and on the day depicted in these photographs it was temporarily set up as a tennis court for the exhibition. (A year earlier, golf star Tiger Woods had engaged in a similar publicity stunt, hitting several golf balls off the helipad and into the waters of the Persian Gulf.)
Unbelievable Fire Storm
Bitterroot River, Montana, one of the most destructive fire seasons since 1910. The fire evolve into a 300-foot tornado, destroying everything. A firestorm is a conflagration which attains such intensity that it creates and sustains its own wind system. It is most commonly a natural phenomenon, created during some of the largest bushfires, forest fires, and wildfires.
The Great Peshtigo Fire is another example of a firestorm. Firestorms can also be deliberate effects of targeted explosives such as occurred as a result of the aerial bombings of Dresden and Tokyo during World War II.
A wall of sand moves through Iraq
Iraq (2005). A dust storm similar to special effects on the big screen bellowed across the western desert of Iraq on April 26. The storm was spawned near the border of Syria and Jordan. Forward Operating Base Korean Village experienced tornadoes around 2 p.m. The storm moved in a northeasterly direction until it reached Al Asad, around 6:45. As the storm moved closer the sky changed to a shade of orange until total darkness blanketed the ground. The storm passed over in about 45 minutes, leaving a heavy sheet of dust in its wake. Forecaster say the wall of dust may have reached 4,000 to 5,000 feet. This dust storm was a spectacular sight and may look worse than it actually was. No one was injured and no equipment was damaged here.
Two Faces
Picture of two people forming one figure. The left-hand side is a mirror, and the right-hand side is clear glass. Very cool.
Colorful Lake
The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park is the largest hot spring in the US and third largest in the world next to those in New Zealand
During summer the chlorophyll content of the organisms is low and thus the mats appear orange, red, or yellow. But in winter, the mats are usually dark green because sunlight is more scarce and the microbes produce more chlorophyll to compensate, thereby masking the carotenoid colors.
The deep azure blue color of the water in the center of the pool results from a light-absorbing overtone of the hydroxy stretch of water. While this effect is responsible for making all large bodies of water blue, it’s particularly intense in Grand Prismatic Spring due to the high purity and depth of the water in its center.
View in Google Earth
The Black Hole
This extraordinary structure on Montrose Boulevard took motorists by surprise. A pair of artists, Dan Havel and Dean Ruck was responsible for this house installation. The two wooden buildings were to be replaced by a new built project so the few months before the demolition, they made this into an architectonic installation.
Freezing rain
Freezing rain is a type of precipitation that begins as snow at higher altitude, falling from a cloud towards earth, melts completely on its way down while passing through a layer of air above freezing temperature, and then encounters a layer below freezing at a lower level to become supercooled. This water will then freeze upon impact with any object it encounters
Another Dust Storm
This photo captures a dust storm taking place over Stratford, Texas in 1935.
The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms causing major ecology and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1933 to 1939, caused by severe drought conditions coupled with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation among cotton, corn and grain farmers using techniques that promoted erosion. The fertile soil of the Great Plains was exposed through removal of grass during plowing. During the drought, the soil dried out, became dust, and blew away eastwards, mostly in large black clouds. At times, the clouds blackened the sky all the way to Chicago, and much of the soil was completely lost into the Atlantic Ocean.
Airplane Crossing the Street
Princess Juliana International Airport.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.
Missile Car
Can you imagine the faces of the other drivers when you’re on the freeway with some of these balloons ? Unfortunately … they are not for sale. These balloons were made for an ad campaign, and not without success. The concept won the Grand Prix in the Outdoor advertising category at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival awards. It was created for the TV station CH-9 Media.
Square Melons
Square melons are prepared for shipment in Zentsuji in Kagawa Prefecture. The melons are grown this way by being put into cubes of translucent plastic while still on the vine. The idea is to make it easier for them to fit into refrigerators