A little refreshing randomness from around the globe
The Republic of Molossia has a population of four.
It is presently in a state of perpetual martial law, courtesy of the ‘foreign menace over the border.’ This border encompasses all of fourteen and a half acres, most of which can be found just outside Dayton, Nevada. There resides President Kevin Baugh, his wife, two children, [...]
It was founded by a psychiatric nurse, on the site of a former whiskey factory.
The Visionary Art Museum now stands as a testament to the self-taught. Exhibited here are the creations of street people, farmers, scientists, and the occasional eccentric loner in a mountaintop cabin. Who else, really, would take the time to forge a [...]
It’s called a ‘rocketbelt.’ Not a ‘jet pack.’
This is not a misnomer, really. Your average rocketbelt consists of two tanks of ‘rocket-grade’ hydrogen peroxide, which you attach to your back. Add nitrogen, and the fuel suddenly expands in volume by a factor of 5,000. The whole mixture then gets converted to steam, which reaches about [...]
It might be the best Indian food you’ll ever have.
The langar is a staple of Sikh worship - and is absolutely free, to everyone. No creed, color, nationality, or even religion is turned away. You sit on the floor, in rows that may stretch as long as a football field, as volunteers dish out ample [...]
It’s like the world’s largest jungle gym.
The City Museum in St. Louis has been pieced together with scraps of the past, all culled from within city limits. Fire engines, school buses, and aircraft fuselages are fused to the outside of an old shoe factory. Wrought iron slinkies, four feet wide, stretch from castle turret [...]
Over twenty million people live in Mexico City.
Only four of them live in a gigantic nautilus shell. A Mexico City couple, and two small children, have moved into their new home - one inspired by the humble cephalopod. Its walls are held together with steel-reinforced chicken wire, and coated with a cement composite that makes [...]
In New Orleans, they send you off in style.
The ‘jazz funeral’ starts off sombre. On its way to the cemetery, the brass band plays soulful, sad funeral hymns called ‘dirges’: ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ is a popular choice, but it can be anything that reminds mourners of the ups and downs of life. This [...]
In central Scotland, boats take the elevator.
The Falkirk Boat Wheel is the world’s only rotating boat lift. Boats that travel along the Union Canal have to transfer to the Fort and Clyde Canal - an eight-story drop. Thirty-five meters wide, the Falkirk Boat Wheel scoops boats up like playthings, and deposits them below.
It uses barely [...]
It’s been called ‘the worst building in the history of mankind.’
And Kim Jong-il would have been so proud. The Ryugyong (”Capitol of Willows”) Hotel stands 105-stories tall in the dead-center of Pyongyang, the capitol of North Korea. At its inception, it was hoped to have 3.9 million square feet of floor space (and seven revolving [...]
Once upon a time, off the coast of Turkey, a gigantic rock sat in the middle of the ocean. Unable to budge it, the local villagers summoned a man who was known to possess the ‘evil eye.’ ‘My,’ he said. ‘What a big rock that is.’ And with a deafening crack, the rock split in [...]
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