Brisbane’s newest pedestrian bridge. The bridge is a multiple-mast, cable-stay structure based on principles of tensegrity, an architectural and engineering system in which the structural integrity is a synergy between balanced tension and compression components. This produces a lightweight yet strong and stable structure.
Some people love it and some think it’s a tangled mess – I think it’s hot!
You can vote between five nominees. These were based on the highest averages for the images that were submitted last week.
Please give all photos a fair chance and try not to vote only by the building or forumer you like, but also on the photo technique, setting and quality.
Here is our five nominees in random order.
1. La vida a gran velocidad.
By: GustavoCba
2. UFO in the neighborhood
By: rober2010
3. In the dark
By: Shapoor
4. REAL MADRID
By: THINKR
5. Summer night`s dream
By: RaKLeZ
Brisbane’s newest pedestrian bridge. The bridge is a multiple-mast, cable-stay structure based on principles of tensegrity, an architectural and engineering system in which the structural integrity is a synergy between balanced tension and compression components. This produces a lightweight yet strong and stable structure.
Some people love it and some don’t – I love it
Pocecu azbucnim redom,kako ne bih favorizavao neki Grad,mesto ili varos.
Beograd
Vracar
Зграда III мушке гимназије
Налази се у Његошевој улици бр. 15. Саграђена је 1906. према пројекту архитеката Драгутина Ђорђевића и Душана Живановића, а радове је извео предузимач Васа Тешић. Архитектонски је обликована у стилу академизма. Има приземље и спрат. Конципирана је као слободна грађевина, повучена према улици, са основом у облику ћириличног слова Ш, која обухвата главни подужни тракт са наглашеним централним ризалитом и три попречна дворишна крила од којих је средње знатно краће. Обрада фасаде заснива се на строго спроведеној класичној симетрији. Средишњи ризалит главне фасаде јако је наглашен као и део са каријатидама на улазном порталу, удвојеним стубовима на спрату, богатом пластичном декорацијом прозорских отвора и три бронзана попрсја Доситеја Обрадовића, Вука Караџића и Јосифа Панчића, радовима познатог вајара Петра Убавкића. Архитектонску пластику извео је Фрања Валдман, а сликарске декорације ентеријера Драгутин Инкиостри Медењак и Пашко Вучетић. У развоју средњег школства у Београду, Трећа београдска гимназија имала је изузетан значај и као педагошка институција и као архитектонски простор организован по најмодернијим европским принципима. Конзерваторско-рестаураторски радови на објекту извођени су 197071. и 1997. Кровни покривач је замењен 2002.
Зграда I српске опсерваторије
Налази се у Булевару ослобођења бр. 8. По оснивању Провизорне астрономске и метеоролошке опсерваторије 1887. у Београду, приступило се припремама за подизање зграде за њен смештај. Зграда Метеоролошке опсерваторије саграђена је 189091. као павиљон са спратом мање површине од приземља, према пројекту архитекте Димитрија Т. Лека, а по скици њеног оснивача, професора Милана Недељковића. Изведена је у духу романтизма. Главна фасада завршава се зупцима који образују атику и ограду терасе, постављене изнад једног дела поткровља, а остале фасаде степенастим забатима. Прозори у приземљу и улазна врата су лучно завршени. Декорацију фасада чине оквири прозора и испупчене хоризонталне траке на зидовима. Око зграде је формиран парк. Њеном изградњом Србија је добила прву зграду такве намене, опремљену савременим инструментима, установу дугог континуираног рада, из које се развијала и ширила ова служба. Конзерваторско-рестаураторски радови завршени су 19871988.
We’re still working through CES content, with a few more stories being prepared for next week. The big winners here? The upcoming LEGO Universe has enchanted everyone who sees it, and Microsoft’s announcement that the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 content will be exclusive—for a time—to the Xbox 360 has some gamers celebrating, and others fuming.
Let’s take a look at the big stories of this week.
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Are members of the Taliban, the radical Islamist terror organization in Afghanistan and Pakistan, in fact descendents of a lost Hebrew tribe which migrated to the region after being exiled 2,700 years ago?
Shanez Ali, a young Indian researcher, who is currently visiting Israel, is trying to answer that question.
Ali arrived in the Holy Land as a guest of Karl Skorecki, deputy head of the Rambam Medical Center in Haifa who also serves as manager of the Rappaport Institute for Research in the Medical Sciences within the Israel Institute of Technology .
Ali, an expert on genetic profiles of Mumbai populations, will attempt to tackle the question whether the main tribe comprising the Taliban includes descendents of the lost tribe of Ephraim.
Professor Skorecki, who is renowned for his groundbreaking work in the field of Jewish genetics, will be overseeing Ali’s research.
Her study is expected to last anywhere between three months and a year and will be funded by a scholarship on behalf of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The Taliban is mainly comprised of members of the Pashtun people, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group. Locally, the Pashtuns are thought to be descendents of an Afridi tribe originating from Uttar Pradesh in India.
Ali brought with her DNA samples of the Afridi tribesmen in order to examine their genetic connection to the lost Jewish tribes.
Theories of such a connection are based on ancient manuscripts and popular traditions within the Pashtun people, however no scientific study has yet succeeded in proving the relation.
Nevertheless, Muslim and Jewish scientists have claimed over the years that the theory is in fact correct.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7…832610,00.html
:O
AARP, the association for seniors, poses that question to luminaries and ordinary folk in the new issue of its AARP Bulletin.
Among the answers:
When my patients go back to talking about how much they hate their mother, rather than how much they hate the government for getting them into this financial mess. Carole Lieberman, psychiatrist, Beverly Hills, Calif.
When my commission is more than I pay my baby-sitter. Kelly Brockington, high-end retail saleswoman, New York
When I no longer count mail-in rebates as income. Nancy Lombardo, comedian, New York
When the car ads on television replace those for depression meds.Tom Pryor, director, Small Business Development Center for Enterprise Excellence, Fort Worth, Texas
When I become first in line at the stroke of noon at our local thrift shop and the pickins are more like they were two years ago. Ohhhh, we used to get some gooood stuff. Joy Cadden, handbag designer, Millville, Del.
How will you know the recession is really over?
A synagogue on the Greek island of Crete has been targeted by arsonists for the second time in three weeks, local police said Saturday.
They said an unknown number of people entered the building in the city of Hania, broke through a first-floor door and started a fire.
The fire brigade said the blaze partly destroyed the synagogue’s wooden ceiling, as well as many of its archives, computers and CDs. It estimates the damage at $43,000.
The attack occurred around 4 am (0200 GMT) Saturday.
Police said about 2,500 books, many of them rare editions, have been destroyed in this and a previous arson attack three weeks ago.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7…835109,00.html
:ohno:
Solar Roof at Livermore Movie Theater.
Niyi Alebiosu, Lagos
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
|
FOLLOWING the plan by the National Sports Commission to privatise the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos, the Lagos State Government has signified interest to take over the facility. Tribunesports scooped that the Lagos State Government has submited its bidding documents to the technical committee set up by the NSC to look into privatisation of the facility . And the bidding, according to the source is receiving favourable consideration from the committee which is expected to storm the state for on the spot assessment any moment from now. The decision of the state government to acquire the National Stadium was as a result of its plan to bid for the 2020 Olympics. The government had argued that for it to actualise its dream of hosting the Olympics, it need a world-class arena and as such decided to take over the running of the National Stadium and carry out some renovations instead of constructing a new sporting arena of Olympics standard. The source added that some structure would be put up such as a standard Games Village around the arena to boost the chances of getting the hosting rights. |
The end is near for the Daily News and several other newspapers in the LA market owned by Denver’s Dean Singleton, the Denver media mogul whose holding company is filing for bankruptcy.
Many papers in the MediaNews chain ran a company press release that buried the bankruptcy, saying Singleton’s holding company, Affiliated Media, had cut a deal with creditors holding nearly $1 billion in virtually worthless paper.
The deal will leave Singleton and his management still in charge but in control of only 20 percent of the stock. That will reduce the burden of debt to just $165 million, according to the Wall St. Journal, which the company’s value at $200 million and noted it is the seventh newspaper company to file for bankrupty, including the LA Times and Orange County Register.
The WSJ reported what the MediaNews announcement did not: What Singleton plans to do now.
“Singleton said he wanted to try to be the aggressor in merging newspapers…cleaning up the company’s debt load allows him to help lead newspaper-industry consolidation,” the WSJ reported.
“People in the industry have pointed to MediaNews’s paper in St. Paul
and the Star Tribune in Minneapolis as potential candidates for a
combination, as well as to adjacent papers in Southern California
published by MediaNews, Tribune Co. and Freedom Communications Inc.
There are potential regulatory hurdles to some newspaper combinations.”
When asked which newspapers might be combined, Mr. Singleton answered: “You can look at the map.”
If you look at the LA map you will see Singleton owns the South Bay Breeze, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, the Whittier Daily News, Pasadena Star-News, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Inland Valley Bulletin and San Bernardino Sun.
In the past 10 years, Singleton has tried to consolidate many operations of those papers, then backed off and tried various other strategies without success, hit hard by the decline of newspapers and more recently the recession.
The Hearst Corp. has been his principal benefactor over those years, buying the Daily News offices and other property from MediaNews and partnering in some newspapers. The WSJ, in reporting details about the bankruptcy, said Hearst had a $400 million stake.
What the implications of the deal and Singleton’s “merger” and consolidation” comments is this: There just isn’t enough money in newspapers to allow for competition, even the pretense of competition.
Hearst and MediaNews own almost all the newspapers in the Bay Area, for instance, from San Francisco to San Jose, Contra Costa and Oakland — all of them crippled by debt and falling revenue.
The entire LA market is owned by MediaNews and Tribune Co., throw in the bankrupt Register and you have Orange County with options on San Bernardino and possibly Riverside County.
It’s noteworthy that the San Diego Union-Tribune ,bought last year cheaply without heavy debt, is believed to have become profitable again after staff cuts and scaling spending to revenue..
That is the point. One paper without competition can thrive for a good many years even in the face of the Internet and the lack of younger readers. Two or more cannot.
So look for deals quickly.
It’s not a coincidence that the Times just took over printing the Wall St. Journal and others papers, forcing it to move to early deadlines as the Daily News did several years ago.
The predicate of the deals are already in place and you can be sure a lot of negotiations have been going on behind the scenes for a long time.
The only obstacle to the Times taking over the whole LA market and potentially salvaging the existing papers nameplates in localized editions is the U.S. Justice Department and laws against monopolies.
As someone who worked in corporate journalism for four decades and bristled against its homogenizing of the news, you can take my word for it that there hasn’t been much competitive journalism in newspapers for most of those years.
The corporate rules of journalism sucked the life out of newspapering, eliminating the kind of robust wars when there 12 newspapers in New York, eight in LA, six in Chicago with multiple owners and very different points of view.
One monopoly newspaper in major cities is sustainable and should have been done several years ago before staffs were gutted, talent and skill lost and the value to readers diminished.
Many will lament the loss of competition but competition has been an illusion for years and there should only be a brief mourning period for newspapers that lived a long and prosperous life and died of old age.
One healthy mainstream corporate newspaper can do things we will never be able to achieve on the Internet.
Most of all, they can provide a singular place for a shared experience available to everyone for an overview of who and what we are, an overview sanitized by the so-called objectivity they provide.
And they will have the resources to send teams of reporters out on the big stories like earthquakes and catastrophes of one sort or another and to develop staff with highly specialized skills and experience in specific areas.
The real question is whether they will provide an over-arching vision that will bring vast and complex metropolitan areas together.
For our city, that has always been the problem. The Times has failed to offer a vision of greater LA that is inclusive and reflective of the incredible complexity of the region, geographically, ethnically, demographically and all the social, cultural and political ways we differentiate ourselves.
That is where the value to readers and advertisers is — and where the money is for publishers.
By Wing-Gar Cheng and Wendy Leung
Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) — Hong Kong lawmakers approved funding for a HK$66.9 billion ($8.6 billion) train line linking the city with Chinas high-speed rail network.
Lawmakers voted 31 to 21 to ratify the project, which had been delayed twice amid objections about the cost and homes that will be destroyed in the rural New Territories, said Emily Lau, chairwoman of the finance committee.
The train line will plug Hong Kong into Chinas network by 2015, cutting travel times and deepening Hong Kongs links with the worlds fastest-growing major economy. The railway is one of the 10 infrastructure projects that Hong Kongs government plans to help boost its economy.
We support this project because the economic benefits it can bring are very important to Hong Kong, lawmaker Paul Tse said in a legislative council meeting today. Hong Kong needs to look into the future and consider the jobs that the project would create, the tourism opportunities with more people traveling between Hong Kong and China.
Hong Kongs government plans to construct an underground terminal in the citys West Kowloon district, across Victoria Harbor from Hong Kong Island. Hong Kong-based MTR Corp. will construct the link at a cost of HK$2.57 billion per kilometer.
Demonstrators chanted slogans and waved banners outside the council building, demanding that the government review the project as it will cost too much and destroy village homes in the rural New Territories.
Protests, Clashes
Radio Television Hong Kong said as many as 10,000 demonstrators had gathered outside the building. Some protestors clashed with the police as they tried to break through metal barriers to get into the building, local television footage showed.
The polices public relations branch wasnt able to immediately comment on the protest, or give an estimate on the number of demonstrators.
The train will travel at speeds of up to 350 kilometers per hour (217 miles an hour), cutting the travel time from Hong Kong to Beijing by two-thirds to eight hours, the government said in a paper presented to lawmakers.
The high-speed railway will save the Hong Kong public 40 million hours per year, generating an annual economic rate of return of 9 percent annually, according to the governments paper to the Legislative Council.
Hong Kongs government believes the project will generate a profit and it wont need to rely on bank loans for funding, Eva Cheng, secretary for transport and housing, told lawmakers today.
Start Construction
Were looking to start construction as soon as possible and this is also the wish of the majority of the Hong Kong people, Cheng said at a press briefing after the meeting. We will monitor work on the project very closely.
The railway is one of 10 infrastructure projects that Hong Kongs government plans to help boost its economy. It also intends to construct a bridge linking Hong Kong with the gambling enclave of Macau and the city of Zhuhai across the border from Macau.
The government still hasnt yet given any details on how it will ensure the project will generate profit, lawmaker Cyd Ho, who voted against the funding, said. I hope that the government wont return to the legislative council again to seek additional funding.
With little over a week before launch, the pricing for the Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus has apparently been leaked. According to an anonymous tipster, Verizon Wireless will be matching the prices of the Sprint Palm Pre and Pixi by offering the improved Palm Pre Plus for $149 after a $100 mail in rebate and two year service agreement with the Pixi Plus coming in at a mere $99 after an undisclosed rebate amount and a two year agreement. Making the deal even sweeter, the tipster claims that the Pixi may launch as part of Verizon Wireless’ popular BOGO promotions. Not bad, Palm. Not bad.
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Sobre la la ausencia de cultura de pago en internet trata el artículo de ADN en que citan a un servidor sobre las mismas claves que venimos comentando en este blog: frente al gratis del P2P se lucha con experiencia de usuario y que el principal problema de la industria con los contenidos no es otro que la abundancia.
It was a bit of an up-and-down week on the QJ PS3 blog. Things started off on a high note with a few awesome God of War III scans, took a dip with the announcement of another Gran Turismo
This is phenomenal footage, showing what an eagle sees as it flies courtesy a very small and light camera attached to the bird.
Wow. I have to find a copy of that whole show. That’s really amazing footage!
Tip o’ the flight feathers to Fark.
Akamai released their quarterly State of the Internet report this week, along with this chart showing the fastest national networks in the world. From 2008 to 2009, on average, the world’s internet got 13% faster. America’s got 2.4% slower.
There are tons of interesting tidbits to be found in Akamai’s State of the Internet report for Q3 2009. This particular chart shows the 10 countries with the fastest internet in the world. It also shows that they’re not slowing down.
South Korea, already pumping at 14.6 Mbps, managed to improve 16% over last year. Ireland improved most dramatically of the top ten, improving their infrastructure to increase year over year speeds 73%.
But America, who has the 18th fastest internet in the world, slowed down ever so slightly to 3.9 Mbps in 2009. Though our nation as a whole didn’t get any faster, some individual areas showed significant improvement, including a 20% bump in Massachusettes and a 17% jump in D.C. and Utah.
If America’s megabit mediocrity depresses you, just be thankful you don’t live on the Island of Mayotte, in the Indian Ocean: it was the slowest of the 203 nations tested. [cnet]
