Unsworn Industries

If you've ever had a burning desire to have your voice projected through a megaphone in Norway, today is your last chance.

This summer, a group of artists erected a 23-foot-tall, wind-powered "telemegaphone" on top of a mountain in western Norway that overlooks the village of Dale and a scenic fjord. Dial 47 90 369389, and your voice will be projected through the telemegaphone and across the scenic Nordic landscape. Sing, yell, yodel, pontificate. Better yet, play a concerto.

Today's the last day, however. Tomorrow, Sept. 6, the telemegaphone is being turned off -- deer season is commencing.

A new BBC series called Britain From Above looks absolutely stunning. Using satellite technology, the producers have created interactive, dynamic maps of the country's modern migrations -- everything from watching a sped-up version of the hundreds of ships that pass through the English Channel each day to tracking the routes of London taxis through GPS signals. The resulting dance -- around one another, off crowded thoroughfares -- is fascinating to watch. Check out the teaser below.

Bhutan -- Land of the Thunder Dragon -- is on the cutting edge when it comes to postage stamps. It has a stamp on a CD-ROM, roughly 4 inches in diameter, seen in this image. The CD plays a video on the history of the country's kings. Other philatelic highlights from Bhutan include 3-D stamps and scented stamps, as well as stamps printed on steel, silk, and extruded plastic.

Want to buy the stamp? Check out the "Marketplace" tent at the 42nd annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, held through June 29 and again from July 2 to 6. In addition to its exhibition on Bhutan, the event has programs on NASA ("Fifty Years and Beyond") and Texas ("A Celebration of Music, Food, and Wine").

TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images

This cork-filled life preserver from the Titanic, which sunk in 1912, will be sold at auction house Christie's annual ocean liner sale in New York next Wednesday. The life preserver, one of only six known to exist, had been kept by a family in Nova Scotia since it was found -- allegedly by a farmer at the Halifax shoreline soon after the tragedy. Christie's expects it to go for 30,000 to 40,000 pounds ($59,000 to $79,000); the auction house sold another one last year in London for 61,000 pounds ($120,000).

This just might be the coolest vending machine of all time:

Michael Keferl of CScoutJapan reports:

Pushing the button on the vendor won’t exactly pop out a car, but it does dispense a branded tube containing pamphlets on the new models, dealer information, and a sheet of Smart Car stickers featuring the available colors.

Not quite as cool as an actual car vending machine, but ingenious nonetheless. I'm still waiting for MIT's Media Lab to roll out its long-hyped stackable cars, though.

(Hat tip: TreeHugger)

Via Kottke, the latest in Japanese innovation: machine-readable tombstones:

Behind doors on the tombstone that can be locked is a QR code -- a square code read by mobile phones that can link to Web addresses. Grave visitors can use the code to access images and photographs of the person while they were alive. [...] In addition to images of the deceased, people can view a greeting from the chief mourner at the funeral and browse through the guest book. They can also make entries using their cell phones.

Here are a couple photos:

In the United States, the Oreo cookie is a classic. Millions of American children have enjoyed dunking the sweet treat -- white cream sandwiched between two round, crisp, chocolate cookies -- in milk as an afternoon snack.

Kraft Foods, makers of the Oreo, introduced the cookie to China in 1996. But the Chinese didn't exactly take to them. So starting in 2005, the Wall Street Journal reports, Kraft engaged in a classic case of adapting a product to suit local tastes. The Chinese found the cookies too sweet, so Kraft reduced the sugar in them. China was developing a thirst for milk -- a product that traditionally hasn't been a Chinese dietary staple -- so Kraft launched a campaign, complete with Oreo ambassadors, to "educate" the Chinese on how to dunk the cookies in milk.

The most radical change was in the shape. Noticing that sales of wafer cookies were increasing faster than those of traditional biscuit-like cookies, a new version of the Oreo was created: a long, narrow, layered stack of crispy wafers and vanilla and chocolate cream, all coated with chocolate. Whoever said Oreos have to be round?

Of course, amid rising food prices and increased demand for chocolate (whose consumption in China has nearly doubled in the past five years), the success of the Chinese Oreo brings to mind the broader question of "Can the World Afford a Middle Class?," a topic recently addressed in FP and one that fans the flames of Chinese frustrations with the West.

(Meanwhile, Oreos have been trying to colonize British biscuit tins, the BBC reports.)

The world's 16th richest man -- already the proud owner of the world's longest yacht -- may soon also be the owner of the world's largest drill bit (think he’s compensating?).

Roman Abramovich, the Russian dropout turned oil tycoon, recently invested $160 million in the 19-meter-wide drill, outdoing the previous recordholder by a good four meters.

Not only has Abramovich set the record, but his colossal purchase just happens to coincide with rumors that President Vladimir Putin will propose the construction of a physical link between Russia and the United States: a 64-mile, $66 billion tunnel beneath the Bering Strait.

Abramovich has denied that his purchase has any connection to Putin's plans. But seriously, but what else is he going to do with a drill that can bore a hole wide enough for a four-lane highway?

Rumors of the tunnel come at a precarious time in U.S.-Russian relations, currently strained by the Kosovo decision, the proposed U.S. missile shield, and George W. Bush's renewed NATO membership push for former Soviet states Georgia and Ukraine.

Hopefully, all this Cold War nostalgia won't stand in the way of a great bicontinental highway. Just imagine the road trip possiblities -- you could park your RV in Red Square.

With the race for the Democratic presidential nomination entering the homestretch, more and more people are talking about superdelegates, who may be crucial in determining whether the party's choice will be Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. But what are these superdelegates? Who gets to be one? Are you as confused about them as I am?

Rick Klau, an employee at Google, took on a personal project to help clarify things. He set up SuperDelegates.org, a wiki-style Web site that not only tells you how the Democratic Party's superdelegate system was developed, but also lists who all 795 of them are and whether or not they've pledged their vote to Clinton or Obama. Even cooler, Klau has done an overlay on Google Maps, so you can see where they're from and whether they're still undecided or are leaning toward one of the candidates. Check it out here.

Via Lee Sigelman, a brilliant collection of maps used to display quantitative information:

United States

Burkina Faso

European Union

The artist is Icaro Doriaa, a talented young Brazilian with the magazine Grande Reportagem in Portugal.

UPDATE: Tim Ogden of Beyond Philanthropy writes in with some questions about the data behind these flags:

I thought the flags were really cool too -- then I started thinking about the numbers behind them. While I have not doubt that some are accurate several flags caught my attention as being dubious:

1) Brazil: the flag indicates that a huge percentage of the population is living below $10/month, which would be well below the $1/day threshold. According to Globalis sourcing the "UN Common Database (WB)" the population of Brazil living at that level in 2001 was 8.17%. Since Brazil has experienced quite rapid growth since then, one can only presume that this figure has fallen since then. The flag would indicate that the figure would be above 30%.

2) Burkina Faso: According to the WHO, the under-5 mortality per 1000 live births is 192. A tragically high number to be sure, but nowhere close to the figures that one would guess at from the flags. [...]

Just looked up the numbers for Angola to determine that there really is a problem:

According to WHO, malaria infections is 2002: 1.5 million
According to UNAIDS, HIV infections in 2005: 240,000

According to flags, 1.5 million = 240,000

It's still a cool idea, though.

RUD14ME? That's the question people in the United Arab Emirates who covet the vanity license plate with the single digit "1" must be asking themselves. The "1" license plate is going up for auction and is expected to end up as the world's most expensive license plate. The number "5" has already sold for a record $6.75 million. I guess those willing to plunk down millions for a vanity plate have the philosophy that U LIV 1S.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has just officially unveiled its plans to build the world's first carbon-neutral city. Situated on Abu Dhabi's desert outskirts, "Masdar City" is designed from the ground up to be the first completely environmentally sustainable city and a hub for renewable energy research. The UAE's rulers hope Masdar will eventually house at least 1,500 businesses and 50,000 people, powered by solar and other renewable energy sources.

KARIM SAHIB/AFP/Getty Images

Residents will be able to get by on foot, despite the region's blistering climate, thanks to architectural techniques that promote shading and help generate cooling breezes. Stops for the city's solar-powered "personalized rapid transport pods" will be no further than 200 meters apart. Lord Norman Foster, the founder and head of the architectural firm in charge of the Masdar development, said the project "promises to set new benchmarks for the sustainable city of the future." Is he right? Is the project even viable?

Ann Rappaport, an urban and environmental policy specialist at Tufts University, spoke with FP about the project a while back. She seems to share Foster's optimism:

[F]or almost everything, it's easier to do it right the first time. That's true of a new building versus renovating an old building, [so] why shouldn't it be true of [building] a new city, [rather] than transforming an old one? ...

[Y]ou can think about spatial patterns, you can think about their notion of creating walkable spaces... shading—all these things that we now understand to be very important to our carbon budget. We just weren't thinking about that hundreds of years ago when our major world capitals were developed. So that's exciting.... [Your first reaction may be that this is] a city in the middle of a place that others might define as a desert. On the other hand, I think that climate change is challenging us all to think about where the good locations are for human development.... When many of the world's foremost cities were developed, we were looking at transportation access by boat, and now that means that these cities are really vulnerable to sea level rise... [T]he prospect looks attractive, and perhaps the devil's in the details, but it’s not a ludicrous concept.

No country needs this type of innovative thinking about the environment more than the UAE, designated by the World Wildlife Fund as the country with the world's worst per capita ecological footprint. Obviously, one project is not enough to exonerate the country's wasteful and unsustainable practices. But at least it's a start.

Reuters

Just about every newspaper, magazine, and website has published a holiday gift guide. And inevitably, their lists include lots of eco-friendly products, such as bamboo bowls or bamboo clothes. But how about a bamboo computer? Cashing in on the green trend, Taiwan's Asustek Computer has developed a laptop encased in bamboo. Most laptops are encased in plastic that contain toxins like polyvinyl chloride, or PVC, whereas bamboo is a fast-growing, durable natural grass. Sadly, though, you can't buy it. Asustek has only unveiled a prototype. Maybe it'll hit the market by next year's holiday season.

Check out this very cool map, which was on a promotional e-card for a new book being published by Penguin called Transit Maps of the World:

(Click for a larger version)

Based on the famous London Underground map, this map contains the major cities of the world that have underground transportation. It also has the same fun distortions that the Tube map has to make everything fit. For example, to get from Tehran to Dubai, one must go through Haifa. And Pyongyang appears to be south of Tokyo, when in fact the opposite is true. The map also cleverly reflects what's actually going on in certain parts of the world. Most of Africa is "Under Construction" and Siberia is a giant wasteland for public transportation.

Too bad this map isn't available for purchase. I'd rather have this for Christmas than the actual book it's promoting, although that looks pretty cool too.

(Hat tip: BKNY 2.0)

iStockphoto.com

We've all heard about cars powered by wacky biofuels, including switchgrass and leftover French fry oil. Now, two British men who love the environment are trekking from Britain to Timbuktu in a truck whose fuel comes from cocoa butter extracted from waste chocolate (as in, like, misshapen Easter bunnies).

The vehicle is a Ford Iveco cargo truck, and as it travels 4,500 miles to Timbuktu, it will burn 2,000 liters of biodiesel originating from 4,000 kg (8,800 lbs.) of misshapen chocolate. That's enough of the sweet stuff to make 80,000 chocolate bars.

On Friday, the chocomobile crossed the English Channel by ferry, and after a sweet ride through France and Spain, it will hop onto another ferry to Morocco. Once it vrooms through Mauritania, it will plow through Mali's deserts until it arrives at Timbuktu, the city once regarded in the West as being at the ends of the Earth and which today is in a region that is being buried under sand.

The two Brits behind this stunt are, of course, trying to bring attention to biodiesel, a renewable resource that generates lower carbon emissions than fossil fuels. It seems unlikely that fueling vehicles with cocoa butter could be achieved at a large scale—that would require a tremendous amount of chocolate or, perhaps, tanning oil—but if the men's journey makes more people aware of the benefits of biofuels in general, that would be a sweet success.

Just in time for Guinness World Records Day Thursday, a church steeple in Suurhusen, Germany, has been declared the most tilted tower in the world, toppling the record of the world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Guinness World Records found that the 13th-century church's 15th-century steeple tilts an astonishing 5.07 degrees, while Italy's circa-1372 defending champ in Pisa only tilts 3.97 degrees. Nevertheless, the Leaning Tower of Pisa is still taller. At 185 feet (56 meters) tall, it towers over the 84-foot (26-meter) German steeple, which rests on a wooden foundation and sodden soil. And with its ornate columns, arches, and cornices, Pisa's leaning tower is nicer to look at.

Check out the video here:

Google Earth is a cool tool that's fun to play around with. Now you can also use it for something more serious—monitoring countries' progress toward achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, eight objectives to be reached by 2015 that form the blueprint of a mighty effort to make poverty history.

Launch Google Earth (download it first if you don't already have it) from the MDG Monitor Web site and you'll be able to click on capital cities all around the world to monitor their corresponding countries' progress toward achieving the MDGs. For example, you can learn that due to improvements in health and education, Madagascar brought its poverty rate down from 85.1 percent in 2003 to 67.5 percent in 2006. (The goal is to reduce the percentage of Madagascarians living on less than $2 a day to 50 percent by 2012.) There are also links to complete country profiles, such as this one for Madagascar.

Not to be outdone, the World Bank has put a bunch of its own data and links to its projects around the world into a Google Maps mashup. It's not quite as flashy, but you don't need to download any special software to view it. Is this the beginning of a map war between the World Bank and the U.N.?

(Hat tip: Mark Leon Goldberg)

NASA is seeking astronaut candidates to staff up the International Space Station and to carry out future missions to the moon (and beyond). Here are some highlights from the want ad posted on USAJobs.com:

• The salary range is $59,493.00 to $130,257.00 per year
• "The open positions require extensive travel on Earth and in space. Possible destinations may include, but are not limited to, Texas, Florida, California, Russia, Kazakhstan, the International Space Station and the moon."
• All positions require mandatory drug tests
• Women, minorities, and teachers are specifically encouraged to apply
• The positions are only open to U.S. citizens
• Applicants must be between 62 and 75 inches tall to fit in Soyuz space capsules
• Minimum requirements are a bachelor's degree in specific math and science fields, as well as 3 years of experience in the workplace
• New NASA employees receive 13 days of paid vacation per year, plus 10 federal holidays
• Most NASA facilities have free parking

Today, Sept. 18, is the 25th anniversary of the smiley-face emoticon. At 11:44 a.m. on this day in 1982, Scott E. Fahlman, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, first typed the smiley-face emoticon, :-), on an online bulletin board as part of a discussion about how to signal that an online comment is being made in jest.

The historic phrase, located after a "heroic effort" of digging through ancient backup tapes, reads as follows:

I propose the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways.

A reproduction of the original bulletin board thread that gave rise to the emoticon is available here. (The discussion reveals that "&" and "#" were also proposed joke markers. The character "&" supposedly looks like a "jolly fat man in convulsions of laughter," and "#" supposedly resembles "two lips with teeth showing between them.")

Fahlman writes on his Web page about :-): "I've never seen any hard evidence that the :-) sequence was in use before my original post, and I've never run into anyone who actually claims to have invented it before I did."

Fahlman seems to have cemented his place in history as the creator of the smiley-face emoticon, which has spawned the creation of other emoticons and given Internet users worldwide the ability to express what in verbal communication is normally conveyed through tone of voice. In doing so, he has probably helped millions of people avoid all sorts of misunderstandings and hurt feelings. And that should make everyone feel :-).