Flight instruments as art
SkyArt has a collection of unique and interesting avionics controls, dials, and readouts that you can buy and use as a cool desktop curios. They even have furniture and large art pieces that you can buy.
Following the last 24 hours of Jesus
A surprising amount of things and locations of Jesus’ last days and hours in Jerusalem are known. This is worth a watch to follow along those last hours.
Take a dip in the world’s largest gold tub
If you’re ever in Sasebo, Japan (outside Nagasaki), you might want to stop into Huis Ten Bosch theme park for a unique experience. (1-1 Huis Ten Bosch Machi, Sasebo, Nagasaki 859-3243, Japan)
Besides enjoying the strangely anachronistic Dutch themed amusement park, for about $50 you can spend an hour in the world’s largest solid gold tub.
Articles:
Magical Tokyo Cocktails
The bartender at Bar Centifolia (Japan, 〒106-0045 Tokyo, Minato City, Azabujuban, 1 Chome−6−5 ラミュウーズ十番ビル ラミューズ麻布十番ビル6F) located near Azabujuban Station in Tokyo definitely puts on a great show while making his coctails. Reservations recommended.
Nuclear Tourism in New Mexico
A lot of nuclear world firsts happened in New Mexico. The difficulty is that due to the nuclear and secretive nature of the events, they can be hard to visit. It is possible – here’s how.
First, there is all the activities that happened at Los Alamos – a military site that didn’t even exist at first. It has since become Los Alamos National Laboratories – a government research site that continued the early nuclear work. Believe it or not, some of the original buildings are still on the site, and you can even visit them.
Dubbed “Behind the Fence” tours, you can actually visit some of the original buildings in which the first bombs were assembled and tested. You have to be lucky though. You need to be one of the 30 people picked for one of the 6 annual tours.
Next up, there is Trinity site itself – where the first nuclear bomb was detonated. You can visit it twice a year when the site is opened up on the first Saturday in April and third Saturday in October.
Climb high on Xenon gas – Climb Everest in 3 days
Don’t have time for pesky weeks of acclimatization when you want to climb Mt Everest? How about doing the whole thing in under a week. All through the wonders of Xenon gas.
A small group of Furtenbach Adventures clients plan to fly to Kathmandu this spring and try out a new climbing method. After arriving, they will receive xenon therapy in a clinic before flying to Everest Base Camp for an immediate summit push. The plan is to climb Everest in three days, with full oxygen and sherpa support.
How? Xenon, an inert gas occasionally used as an anesthetic, has been observed to have the side effect of radically increasing the body’s production of EPO (erythropoietin, a hormone that regulates a healthy level of red blood cells). Xenon helps red blood cells multiply without acclimatizing or injecting a synthetic version of the hormone. Furtenbach became a believer in xenon therapy after it was suggested by Michael Fries, a German anesthesiologist. It was tried by Furtenbach to great success on a climb of Aconcagua in 2000. Medical studies show it doesn’t have any of the harmful side effects of other similar medications.
The hope is to reduce HACE and HAPE deaths, reduce the dangerous up and down traversals through the Khumbu ice sheet, as well as reduce the life-threatening effects of frostbite and high altitude degradation. It is causing a stir in the climbing community that believes this just reinforces the idea of a more tourist-like behavior of bagging a summit for Instagram over demonstrating real climbing skills or embracing the hard-fought values of the climbing community.
The method may be fast, but it won’t be cheap. Furtenbach will charge his xenon climbers $154,000. Xenon gas treatment is extremely pricey: A 30-minute session costs $5,000 per person.
Articles:
- https://explorersweb.com/you-can-now-climb-everest-in-a-week-using-xenon-doping-the-implications/
- Furtenbach Adventures explained the new approach to Simon Usborne published on the Financial Times.
Buying GDC gear
Did you end up with too much junk in your bags and not able to fit the books, sweatshirts, or bags you wanted to buy at GDC?
Fear not, you can buy both online:
- Boldstores sells the GDC branded clothes and bags
- Breakpoint books sells the books you’ll find at GDC
Game Developer’s Conference Public Parties
GDC used to be known for extravagant and wild industry parties. You usually needed to know someone and be invited to them. Those older days of extravigance seems to have faded as has the exclusivity. There are more and more public parties – and now there is even a website to catch many of them.
New Mexican Christmas
The glowing brown paper bags that adorn Southwestern walkways, churches, and homes during the Christmas holiday season are called luminarias. They’re also sometimes called farolitos, or “little lanterns,” and date back more than 300 years. The New Mexican tradition began when Spanish villages along the Rio Grande displayed the unique and easy-to-make lanterns to welcome the Christ child into the world.
I loved seeing these when I lived in Albuquerque. They’re largely only found in the dry winters of the southwest as they would be buried in East coast snows, blow 100 miles away in Midwest winter winds and snow, or would be rained into a soggy mess in the Pacific Northwest.
Visit Albuquerque has a little write-up on them that’s pretty cool on how to make them yourself.