Designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa, the Crown Fountain is one of Chicago‘s most popular landmarks. It’s made out of a black granite pool placed between two glass towers and it is covered with LEDs depicting faces of the residents of Chicago and natural sceneries. It is 50 meters high and when it was built, in 2004, it cost around 17 million dollars.

In the warm season the Crown Fountain provides entertainment especially for the children of the city who love getting soaked by the water coming out through two nozzles, that makes it seem like the face on the tower is spitting  it out. Crown Fountain is extremely popular among the residents of Chicago that come here to relax, enjoy themselves and have their pictures taken in hope that their face might end up on the fountain.

German company Nemo Tauchtouristik GmbH & Co KG recently tested their Nemo 100 mini-submarine.The Nemo 100 was created using the blueprint of a normal size submarine and adapted into a tourist attraction. It can only carry 2 people, the pilot and one passangers, it can reach a depth of 50 meters and has an air supply that lasts 70 hours.

Nemo Tauchtouristik GmbH & Co KG will soon start organizing dives for tourists in lakes across Germany and in the Baltic Sea. I don’t know about you, but the Nemo 100 makes me feel claustrophobic just looking at it.

No idea who built this bad boy, but it’s definitely the most impressive auto sound-system I’ve ever seen. Just imagine cruising through your neighborhood with that thing cranked up to full volume, old people yelling and throwing their canes at you, hommies giving you envious looks and babes falling at your feet. Well maybe except for the last one, but it’s still worth it.

Would like to see it on a more decent ride, but this mega sound-system is still wicked. I wonder what its specs are. If you have some info on this baby please share.

A new landmark found its way on the map of Chicago and it may make people call it The Shitty City instead of The Windy City.

Installed in front of a residence in Augusta, The Shit Fountain was created by Jerzy S. Kenar, an artist internationally known for his religious sculptures, who has had enough of people not picking up their dogs doo-doo of the streets. So he decided to make a monument for the dogs and created a bronze sculpture that perfectly resembles dog crap.

Most people received The Shit Fountain warmly but their have been people who disapprove of such a display in their neighborhood.

The Big Picture is a project by British creative artist Helen Marshall who worked with specialists from PollyTiles to create what may be the world’s largest photo mosaic in central Birmingham. The idea behind The Big Picture was to create the biggest photo album in the West Midlands, where people donated over 110,000 photographs.

The photo mosaic is a new record in terms of size, covering over 3 tennis courts. If you’re ever in Birmingham, you shouldn’t pass the opportunity of seeing The Big Picture photo mosaic unveiled at the city’s ThinkTank in Millenium Park, on August 23rd.

The Big Picture

On August 23rd, an extraordinary even took place in the German port-city of Hamburg. The world’s top 10 cliff-divers gathered here to demonstrate their abilities and claim the title of 2008 Red Bull Cliff Diving Champion.  The winner of such a competition is not even important, just being able to accomplish such incredible acrobatic feats is remarkable. These people accelerate from 0 to 90 km/h and drop back to 0 in a free fall that only lasts 2.5 seconds.

Just watch the video and be amazed:

I don’t exactly know where this kind of snake hunting is practiced but my money’s on Australia. I tried to find some info besides the photos but I couldn’t find anything; if you know more, please share.

Wherever they’re from, these snake hunters have balls the size of freakin’ Jupiter, I wouldn’t chase a snake in its lair even if you paid me all the money in the world, and armed with only a piece of leather around my arm and a small fire. Look at the photos and judge for yourself if this is courage or insanity…

Read More »

In Krasnaya Presnya Park, Moscow, a gallery of Russian ice-sculptures opened its gates for the first time. In an ice-museum of over 500 square meters the most popular samples of Russian culture were presented in ice. The facility where the sculptures were kept was cooled using the latest cooling technology, managing to keep the temperature below -10 degrees Celsius.

One of Houston‘s most popular landmarks, the Beer-can House was built by John Milkovisch, a retired upholsterer. The project began in 1968 when, because he was getting tired of mowing the lawn, he began playing with, rocks, marbles, metal and concrete to create a beautiful landscape. Then he turned his eye on his house, which he eventually covered with flattened beer cans that he, his wife and his neighbors had drunk.

The thing John Milkovisch loved about the Beer-can House was that people would just stop and stare at his creation when they drove-by and they only left to come back with more friends. The Beer-can House has been restored over the years and preserved as an important local landmark.

That’s right folks, if you were lucky enough to stumble across this article, you have the privilege of seeing the latest technology in automated agriculture at work. This invaluable tool comes all the way from Belarus, a country that apparently spares no effort when it comes to investing in new technology.

This revolutionary agricultural device is a state-of-the-art cucumber harvester that uses the newly discovered power of people on their bellies. That’s right, people sitting on their bellies being pulled by a tractor. It’s simple and effective and I for one can’t wait to get my hands on one, cucumber harvesting will never be the same again.

I wish I lived in Belarus (sigh).

I can here the Brits screaming “Run for your lives, the blue rubber duckies are attacking!!!”, must have been horrible…Well not really, it was just the annual Great British Duck Race, a charity event where people paid 2 ponds two enlist their rubber ducky in a race on the river Thames.

The prize was 10,000 pounds for the fastest floating rubber duck on the river and all the earnings went to charity. In case you were wondering, the rubber ducks were blue because last year, when they were yellow, people threw their own ducks without paying the fee.

This year’s Great British Duck Race scored a new world record for the most rubber ducks in one place, around 250,000. I wonder who had the “pleasure” of counting them.

Don’t know if this is normal or not (I’d put my money on the “not”) but hail has fallen in Africa, Kenya specifically. Don’t think Kenyans are worried though, global warming is probably the last thing on their minds. Look at them all happily surprised, little do they know this could be yet another sign that our planet is going to hell really fast.

Much like the Giant’s Causeway, the Garny Gorge is made out of a high number of basalt columns. It’s an absolute must-see if you find yourself in Armenia. It’s a wonderful canyon shaped by the ever-flowing river Goght river. Atop the basalt walls of the gorge the famous 1st century Garni temple can be seen.

Garni Gorge offers its visitors an incredible view and makes them feel like they’re in a fantasy place.

Giant’s Causeway is one of the most beautiful places in Northern Ireland and one of the four wonders of Great Britain. A result of volcanic eruption, Giant’s Causeway is made out of about 40,000 interlocked basalt columns. Almost all the columns have a hexagonal shape withe the highest one standing at 12 meters in length.

The legend of this place says the famous Irish giant Finn McCool built the causeway to reach Scotland and fight Benandonner, his Scotish counterpart. he fell asleep before reaching his destination and when the much larger Benandonner saw he was waiting in vain, he crossed the bridge to confront McCool. To ptotect the Irish giant, his wife Oonagh covered him with a blanket to make him seem like an infant. When Benandonner laid eyes on the disguised Finn he thought to himself that if that’s the child, the father must be colossal and fled to Scotland destroying the causeway so he wouldn’t be chased by Finn McCool.

Wether you like legends or believe in cold facts, Giant’s Causeway is quite a sight and shouldn’t be missed if travelling to Ireland.

Daniel Deutsch is one of those Star-Wars fans that likes to create memorabilia of the series in his own garage. So he decided to build the X-34 Landspeeder used in Star-Wars parts 1 and 4 using any materials he could find and his extraordinary talent. The speeder has the exact size of the original and it’s built out of glassfibre on a custom chassis. It has an electric motor that pushes the X-34 to a max speed of 25 miles per hour and can go a few miles on a single battery charge.

The X-34 Star-Wars Landspeeder took 6 weeks to build and it was first unveilled at a Star Wars Celebration in May 2007.

Source: Neatorama