The year is 1971 in a small village called Darvaza (or Derweze) about 260 km north of the capital Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Back then it was part of the Soviet Union and the area was (and still is) quite resource-rich. One day, amidst the drilling and vodka, geologists accidentally punched into a massive underground natural gas cavern. This led to the ground collapsing, the entire drilling rig falling in, and a subsequent crater 300+ feet wide (90+ meters) and 65+ feet deep (20+ meters).
And what was the solution to curbing the raging emissions of natural gas? BURN IT. And so it has for the last 38 years. Fin
A little background on the country of Turkmenistan:
– After 69 years as part of the Soviet Union (including 67 years as a union republic), Turkmenistan declared its independence on 27 October 1991
– With a population just over 5 million, over 80% of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert
– Half of the country’s irrigated land is planted with cotton, making it the world’s tenth-largest producer. It also possesses the world’s fifth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil resources
– In 2004, the unemployment rate was estimated to be 60%, their GDP per capita is rougly $5,710, and is among the twenty countries in the world with the highest perceived level of corruption
In Soviet Russia, Crater flames you!
All images courtesy of John Bradley. You can find the originals HERE
This crater is not be confused with the Flaming Homer. I mean Moe.
Thanks to Tonewise for letting me know about the Door to Hell
I stumbled across this video on the weekend and was floored by the idea presented. It’s brilliant, simple, and effective. A true testament to the notion that small contributions can make a BIG difference.
For those who can’t spare 12 minutes for the brilliant and entertaining talk above, here’s the gist:
THE PROBLEM: Spammers
Free email services like Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft were suffering attacks from hackers/spammers who had written programs to obtain millions of email addresses every day. Why did they need so many email addresses? Because these free services only allowed users to send a specific amount of emails per day (e.g., Yahoo only allowed 100), so in order to effectively ‘spam’ they required numerous addresses.
THE SOLUTION: CAPTCHA
Develop a program that protects websites against bots by generating and grading tests that humans can pass but current computer programs cannot. For example, humans can read distorted text as the one shown below, but current computer programs can’t.
This is an example of a typical CAPTCHA
In 2000, Luis von Ahn and Manuel Blum coined the term ‘CAPTCHA’. They invented multiple examples of CAPTCHAs, including the first CAPTCHAs to be widely used, which were those adopted by Yahoo!.
THE REVELATION
– Approximately 200 million CAPTCHAs are typed every day around the world
– Each CAPTCHA takes nearly 10 seconds of time and thus;
– 500,000 hours of human time are wasted every day typing CAPTCHAs
THE CHALLENGE Is there any way this human effort can be used for the greater good of humanity?
THE SOLUTION REVISITED: reCAPTCHA
– Digitizing books one word at a time. reCAPTCHA is a free CAPTCHA service that helps to digitize books, newspapers and old time radio shows
How it works
In an effort to make information more accessible, book pages are being photographically scanned, and then transformed into text using “Optical Character Recognition” (OCR). The transformation into text is useful because scanning a book produces images, which are difficult to store on small devices, expensive to download, and cannot be searched. The problem is that OCR is not perfect.
reCAPTCHA improves the process of digitizing books by sending words that cannot be read by computers to the Web in the form of CAPTCHAs for humans to decipher. Each word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is placed on an image and used as a CAPTCHA. This is possible because most OCR programs alert you when a word cannot be read correctly.
But if a computer can’t read such a CAPTCHA, how does the system know the correct answer to the puzzle?
Here’s how: Each new word that cannot be read correctly by OCR is given to a user in conjunction with another word for which the answer is already known. The user is then asked to read both words. If they solve the one for which the answer is known, the system assumes their answer is correct for the new one. The system then gives the new image to a number of other people to determine, with higher confidence, whether the original answer was correct. BRILLIANT!
FYI: With the assistance of reCAPTCHA, the entire New York Times archive from the 1850’s – 1980’s will have been completely transcribed in less than 12 months.
Luis Von Ahn
Graduating from Carnegie Mellon with a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2005, Von Ahn is now a professor at his Alma mater. When he’s not lecturing about the Science of the Web he’s working on Human Computation, which harnesses the combined computational power of humans and computers
to solve large-scale problems. Some call this “crowdsourcing.”
His 8-page C.V is quite impressive and his list of accomplishments will only grow as he continues his research. Some of his ‘selected honours’ include:
– MacArthur Fellow, 2006-2011.
– Discover Magazine: 50 Best Brains in Science, 2008.
– Silicon.com: 50 Most Influential People in Technology, 2007.
– Microsoft New Faculty Fellow, 2007.
– Sloan Fellow, 2009.
– Smithsonian Magazine: America’s Top Young Innovators in the Arts and Sciences, 2007.
– Technology Review’s TR35: Young Innovators Under 35, 2007.
– IEEE Intelligent Systems “Ten to Watch for the Future of AI,” 2008.
– Popular Science Magazine Brilliant 10 Scientists of 2006.
You can find his personal blog here, and his university page here
Like many street artists, I can’t find much information on the stencil artist known as Meek. What I do know is that he is based out of Melbourne, Australia (a mecca for street/stencil art) and his work is sick. His art started appearing around 2003, and he has been gaining notoriety ever since.
All images shown here are from Stencil Revolution and were personally uploaded by Meek. You can find all four pages of his work HERE
There is also a sparsely detailed Wikipedia entry on Meek here.
Better recognize foo!
Sprayed onto an old CT brain scan
Meek the Marionette
From the Melbourne Stencil Festival 2005 – 140 cm x 140 cm
Meek apologizes for the witness protection program pixelation 🙂
Designed by architect Robert Konieczny of KWK Promes, the OUTrial House is the first property I’ve encountered where the roof doubles as an atrium. The catch? It is only accessible through the interior of the house. This allows the homeowners the benefits of an outdoor garden, while remaining a safe internal zone within the building.
While Humpback Whales employ several hunting techniques both individually and as a group (pod), their most dramatic feeding method is surely bubble net feeding. Bur first, let’s look at some quick facts about this incredible mammal.
The Humpback Whale
– A full size adult can range from: 48 to 62.5 ft (14.6 to 19 m)
– Weight is approximately: 36 metric tons or 80,000 pounds
– Humpback whales can dive for up to 30 minutes to a depth of 500-700 feet (150-210 m)
– Humpback whales normally swim 3-9 mph (4.8-14 km/h), but can go up to 15-16.5 mph (24-26.5 km/h) in bursts when in danger
– Humpback whales have a life expectancy of 45-50 years
Feeding
Humpback whales (like all baleen whales) only feed in the summer, living off their fat reserves in the winter. Their diet consists of: tiny crustaceans (e.g., krill), plankton, and small fish (including herring, mackerel, capelin, and sandeel). During feeding season, Humpback whales can eat anywhere between 3,000 – 5,5500 pounds (1,360 kg – 2495 kg) of the animals above per day.
Bubble Net Feeding in three easy steps:
1. A pod of whales blows bubbles while swimming in circles to create a ring of bubbles (the ring can be up to 100 feet or 30 meters in diameter)
2. The ring encircles the fish, which are too scared to cross the bubbles. The whales swim in a smaller and smaller circles, tightening the ring and making high pitched sounds to confuse the fish
3. The whales then suddenly swim upward through the bubble net, mouths agape, swallowing thousands of fish in one gulp
The video below is an awesome demonstration of Humpback whales bubble net feeding on a school of herring
Name: KEN BLOCK
Date of birth: November 21, 1967
Residence: Rancho Santa Fe, California
Car: #43 Subaru Impreza WRX STI
BUSINESSMAN
After creating three successful skateboarding and snowboard entities: Eightball Clothing, Droors Clothing and Blunt Magazine, Ken Block co-founded DC Shoes in 1994 with partner Damon Way.
Damon convinced his pro skateboarding brother Danny Way and fellow skateboarder Colin McKay to defect from their shoe sponsors and put their names on the first two DC shoe models. Lacking a shoe design and designer, Ken jumped into the role.
Ken and Damon grew the business from a small operation, making and marketing performance skateboarding footwear, to one of the leading companies in the industry that is distributed throughout the world. DC was acquired by Quiksilver in May, 2004, making it part of a nearly $2 billion action sports family. Block now serves as Chief Brand Officer where he oversees the DC brand.
Notable achievements:
– Winner: 40 Under 40 Awards, Sports Business Journal 2005
– One of the most influential people (#17) in Sports Business Journal 2004
– Ad Age’s Marketing 50 in 2004
– One of the Fast 50 in Fast Company Magazine, 2004
RALLY CAR RACER
In 2005, Block’s first year of rallying, he was aptly named Rally America’s Rookie of the Year. He was then signed by the Subaru Rally Team USA in 2006.
Notable Achievements
– Silver Medal @ X Games 13 (2007)
– Bronze Medal @ X Games 12 (2006)
– 2005 Rally America Rookie of The Year
– 18 podiums and 7 Overall Rally Wins
– He successfully jumped his rally car 171 feet for the Discovery Channel’s popular “Stunt Junkies” show in 2006
PERSONAL
He’s been a skateboarder since he was 7, a motocross rider and racer since age 12, and a snowboarder since age 20. He even moved to Colorado to be a snowboard bum. Ken still loves to snowboard and has a home in Utah that features it’s own private snowboard park called the DC Mountain Lab.
Ken looks up to athletes that work hard and put their whole heart into what they do. These athletes include: Danny Way, Ricky Carmichael, Michael Jordan, and Petter Solberg
GYMKHANA
Gymkhana events are time/speed events in an automobile. There can be obstacles such as cones, tires, and barrels. The driver is expected to maneuver through the predetermined “track” performing many different driving techniques. What separates gymkhana from your traditional autocross event is that in gymkhana drivers are required to perform reversals, 180 degree spins, 360 degree spins, parking boxes, figure 8s and other advanced skills. Also drifting is encouraged where helpful/necessary. You can consider any event a Gymkhana which has a starting point, a finish line and some sort of “obstacle” to get through, around, or by, and is timed.
– source
MUST WATCH VIDEO
Check the first Gymkhana practice vid HERE
Check the TWO build video HERE
Check the rally car/snowboard shoot HERE
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