It will be enough to hear what’s the name of the company that has designed this project and you’ll realize how incredible this really is.

Chinese architecture company MAD Architects has created a conceptual design of a housing complex that should be eventually built in Beihai. The key feature of this incredible megastructure is that it just looks like a few of hills brought together.

The project is named “Fake Hills” and designers are claiming that it will significantly reduce consumption of energy by allowing natural air and light to filter through the construction.

As you can see from photos, it is planned to put in a few of botanical gardens inside this complex. Let’s just hope that the designers will find company that is strong enough to ensure financial backup for this colossal complex which, if it was built, will become one of the main touristic attractions in China.

Credits: [ Designboom.com ]

1902: A diver exploring a shipwreck off the coast of Antikythera, an island between the Greek mainland and Crete, brings up a heavily encrusted mechanism that turns out to be the world’s first known scientific instrument.

The Antikythera mechanism plotted the positions of celestial bodies 19 years into the future — and as an added bonus, it kept track of upcoming Olympics.

“The maker took information about astronomical theories, and made a machine that could predict the future,” said Tony Freeth, co-author of a study published in Nature in July 2008. “And it would tell you, as a bit of an add-on, what Olympic games would be in progress at the time.”

A dictionary-size assemblage of 37 interlocking dials crafted with the precision and complexity of a 19th-century Swiss clock, the machine has been dated to approximately 150 B.C. The wreck was first discovered in 1900, but its most famous artifact was not brought to the surface until May 17, 1902.

The device captured the world’s imagination. Such craftsmanship wouldn’t be seen for a thousand years after the Greeks — but its purpose was a mystery to 20th-century archaeologists.

Many different researchers took turns investigating the machine and its possible uses. Scientists painstakingly reverse-engineered the mechanism, deciphered the script etched on its housing — the world’s first instruction manual — and pieced the fragments into physical and later digital models, and most recently a working replica.

They determined that the mechanism predicted future positions of the moon and sun, and perhaps other planets. But that’s not all: Freeth and his Antikythera Mechanism Research Project colleagues found a tiny dial labeled with the locations of Olympic competitions.

The feature was probably not integral to its function, said Freeth, but a stylish demonstration of the machine’s power, not unlike a watch that displays stock prices or an iPhone-enabled speedometer.

“It’s slightly opportunistic in terms of how it’s powered through the gearing. If you wanted to do a dial that turns every four years, it’s easy, but this is at the end of a more complicated gear train. It’s an add-on,” said Freeth.

Of course, the mechanism itself was much more significant than a watch or an iPhone: It’s the forerunner of all scientific instrumentation. The Olympics were also of paramount importance to ancient Greeks, who labeled years in relation to ongoing Olympiads and suspended wars for the games’ duration.

Perhaps the mechanism was used to foretell the celestial auspices of competitions, said Freeth, but he’s not convinced.

“We haven’t found anything on the instrument that suggests it was used for astrology, which was suggested in the past,” he said. “I think the maker was showing off a huge amount of knowledge and skill. They demonstrated that you could take these theories about how astronomical bodies move, and make a machine that would calculate them. That was a completely revolutionary idea.”

Though its functions are understood, said Freeth, its application remains unknown.

“We don’t have any insights into the mind of the designer,” he said. “We can only look at the result — and the result is dazzling. You can only admire the person who made it. But I’m not quite sure why they put the Olympics there.”

With its burgeoning economy and bold commitments to reducing carbon emissions and deforestation, Brazil is poised to be an important player in the years and decades to come. So for many Brazilian, having their beloved city of Rio de Janeiro selected to host the 2016 Olympic Games presents an opportunity to introduce their nation, on the forefront of the environmental movement, to an international audience. In hopes of creating an icon for Rio’s Olympics that’s as forward-thinking as the country itself, one firm has designed a structure that symbolizes Brazil’s natural beauty and its commitment to a sustainable future.

Designed by the Swiss firm RAFAA for the International Architecture Competition for the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, the proposed structure is both beautiful and green. Named the Solar City Tower, the building is adorned with solar panels that can be used to help make Rio’s Olympics the first ever zero-carbon games.

Excess energy gathered by the solar panels will be used to pump seawater high into the tower to power turbines, producing energy during the night. For some occasions, the tower can transform into an urban waterfall the designer calls “a symbol for the forces of nature.”

The proposal situates the Solar City Tower on one of the island in Guanabara Bay that make up Rio’s dramatic natural skyline. Just as the city’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue has come to symbolize Brazil’s strong Catholic tradition throughout the last century, the Solar City Tower could represent the nation’s role as a green leader in the 21st century–all while contributing to it with its sustainable features.

According to RAFAA:

“The aim of this project is to ask how the classic concept of a landmark can be reconsidered. It is less about an expressive, iconic architectural form; rather, it is a return to content and actual, real challenges for the imminent post-oil-era. This project represents a message of a society facing the future; thus, it is the representation of an inner attitude. Our project, standing in the tradition of “a building/city as a machine”, shall provide energy both to the city of Rio de Janeiro and its citizens while using natural resources.”

In addition the being a machine that produces clean energy, the structure will boast an amphitheater, auditorium, cafeteria and shops in the ground level. Several observation decks will offer visitors yet another view of a city known for its breathtaking vantage points. The proposal even includes a deck for bungee-jumping.

Just as the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio will surely help reinforce Brazil’s position as a nation on the rise, both in terms of economic power and as a spearhead of the global green movement–the Solar City Tower may help redefine sustainable urban design.

The Internet provides an infinity of stuff, but it’s all too easy to siphon off oneself in a cozy, ideologically uniform echo chamber of information — or disinformation. You might expect that the searchable, personalized architecture of the Internet might guarantee that we find the information we’re looking for rather than the information that we need to know.

But a fascinating new paper from NBER says that’s not exactly how the Internet works. The authors find that online news consumption is much less ideologically segregating than face-to-face interactions, but more segregating than offline news consumption. Ryan Avent concludes “The internet, if anything, provides a counter to the more ideologically homogeneous circles of friends, families, and colleagues in which we operate daily.”

There’s a more pessimistic way to interpret the findings. Imagine online news consumption, from newish e-magazines (eg Slate) to blogs like at The Atlantic and Economist, as a halfway mark between offline news consumption and face-to-face interactions. Many of them are, as Andrew Sullivan likes to say, a broadcast of the writer’s opinions rather than an iterative publication. A good broadcast is powerful, but also personal and emotional. In that light, online news takes the offline news model and slow-walks it toward the ideological homogeneity of social circles. Avent’s right. We’re not there yet. But it’s a slow-walk.

The Web might not be turning us into partisans. But it gives our partisanship the chance to marinate in partisan news — a lot of it, accessible from anywhere. Newspapers have been somewhat partisan for centuries. Magazines even more so. But even if Web readers are merely consuming the news we’ve always read, but pixelated rather than printed, it is a little disappointing that having been offered a universe of content, readers are probably sticking to their ideological solar systems.

Ever had such a bad date that venting to your friends just wasn’t satisfying enough? Well, you might want to check out BadOnlineDates.com.

The world of online dating is exciting, ridiculous, comical and sometimes depressing. No matter how carefully you screen your dates, veterans know that you’re going to eventually end up with a bad one. Still, if you’re fortunate, you’ll end up with at least a few hilarious stories.

BadOnlineDates.com is a social networking site for online singles to share, laugh and commiserate about their awful dating experiences. Users can set up individual blogs, join chat rooms, and post photos and videos.

Recently, the site launched a free iPhone app [iTunes link], perfect for not only venting about your bad date while you take yet another long bathroom break, but theoretically for getting advice from other members of the site while you’re out and about.

You’ll have to be patient, though, as the only way to communicate with others on the app is by posting to your blog; chat features have not yet been integrated.

At the very least, if your date has likewise found an excuse to wander away from you for 20-going-on-30 minutes, you can peruse the blogs and videos of other users while you wait.

If you’ve tried online dating, what was your experience like? Would you vent about or seek advice during your date with your iPhone?

In December 2009, mobile search engine Taptu found about 326,000 touch-optimized mobile sites on the Internet. By April 2010, this number had grown by over 35%. According to Taptu’s latest report, there are now over 440,000 touch-enabled sites on the Web. The annual growth rate for touch-friendly websites is close to 230%. In comparison, Apple’s App Store is currently seeing annual growth rates of around 144% and the Android store is growing at around 400% annually.

In the company’s last report, Taptu estimated that the size of touch-friendly Web would reach half a million sites by the end of the year and about 1 million by the end of 2011. Given these new numbers, however, Taptu now estimates that there will be 1.1 million touch-optimized sites on the Web by the end of 2010.

The reason for this rapid growth is surely the increasing popularity of touch-screen phones and touch-screen enabled devices like the iPad. As touch-enabled mobile devices become more common, having a touch-optimized site is now becoming a necessity for online publishers and retailers, especially as more and more users simply expect these organizations to have sites that are optimized for mobile usage. In Taptu’s analysis, shopping and services sites now make up 22.1% of all touch-friendly sites.

These retailers and publishers could obviously also opt to just develop native apps (and many currently do both), but thanks to HTML5 and other new technologies, it will become increasingly possible for developers to create mobile web apps that will feel more and more like native apps. There will always be a role for native apps, but given the choice between developing numerous native apps for an increasingly diverse mobile ecosystem or one mobile web app that works everywhere, many companies will surely opt for developing a touch-friendly website instead of mobile apps.

According to a group of researchers at Korea’s Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Twitter is not a very social network. After analyzing over 41 million user profiles and 1.47 billion follower/following relationships, the researchers concluded that only 22% of all connections on Twitter are reciprocal. On Flickr, this number is closer to 68% and on Yahoo 360 it’s 84%. The large majority (78%) of connections between users on Twitter are one-way relationships.

What’s even more interesting than the small number of user pairs is that 68% of all Twitter users aren’t followed by a single person they are following. As the researchers rightly note, this makes Twitter more like a broadcast medium than a social network.

Given that Twitter was set up for these kinds of non-reciprocal follower/following relationships, it doesn’t come as a surprise that many users would use Twitter to follow breaking news channels and celebrities. The fact that almost 80% of these relationships are one-way relationships, however, does come as a surprise and hints at how Twitter’s mainstream users use the service more as a news medium than as a social network.

A lot get said about the economic value of API’s but few have illustrated it as well as Sam Ramji did last week at Web 2.0 in San Francisco.

Ramji, vice president of strategy at Sonoa Systems, used his presentation at the Web 2.0 conference to compare Darwin’s theories about finches to the 20th century economy and the rise of API’s.

Darwin made the connection between adaption and evolution by studying the finches on the Galápagos Islands. The Galapagos Islands are a remote place. As Ramji points out, the finches that survived were the ones who adapted best to the severe environmental pressures of the islands hey inhabited.

Much is true for the evolution of 20th century business. In the early 20th century, the economy operated through a direct model. With the evolution of the business economy came a network effect that lead to new channels for physical goods. This shift in the economy meant the emergence of supply chains and ecosystems that ran on infrastructures made of roads, railways and flight paths.

Then the Internet emerged. The Web arrived about 15 years ago. People and the businesses where they worked went online with their own Web sites.

Today, the infrastructure is far deeper with API’s connecting loosely joined networks. These API’s represent a new indirect economy where business is conducted through interconnected services.

Ramji:

“I believe that we’re going through such a surge right now as the early versions of the web – designed for people using browsers – gives way to the next version: using APIs to design the web for people using applications that communicate on their behalf in complex ways to the services that make up the world’s businesses.”

Ramji is planning to do a voice over for his slides. But I think you will get the picture once you go through his deck.

We are just at the beginning of this wave. Ramji puts the issues in perspective to form a context for the importance of API’s and why they so well represent cloud computing and its importance in the shaping of a new economy.

Insects have been a food source for people around the world for thousands of years. And while entomophagy, or the practice of eating insects, is uncommon in Western countries, it continues to be popular in developing regions such as Africa, Central and South America and Asia. There are about 2,000 species around the world that can be safely consumed.

In Asia, insects are popular in Cambodia, China and Vietnam. In Thailand, locals eat about 150 types of insect, including crickets, silk worms and dung beetles. Edible insects are readily available at markets or from street vendors. They are popular not only for their nutritional content, but also for their crunchy texture and taste.

Almost every foreigner walking past a cart filled with trays containing different kinds of fried insect finds it hard to resist pausing to take a closer look, and wondering just what the strange delicacies are.

The more adventurous may be offered a free sample by the bug seller or even a customer, wanting to see their reaction.

“Many Thais love to eat insects, but some won’t touch them because they think they’re dirty, unhygienic and carry disease. From time to time, people say this to me, but if I can convince them to just try one, they usually stop complaining,” said Mr Vinai, who has been selling insects along Sukhumvit Road for many years.

“There’s a perception – and this is even stated on various websites – that insects are only eaten by bargirls from the North or Northeast of Thailand. But it’s totally false, because middle- and upper-class people, some driving expensive cars, often stop and buy insects.”

Mr Vinai usually arrives with his food cart in Sukhumvit Soi 24 at around 10pm, and carries on selling his insects until 2am.

“Business is good here because most of my customers are regulars, employed by nearby hotels. When they finish their shift, they come to buy insects,” Mr Vinai said.

“I send my friends to buy the insects at Klong Toey wholesale market, and I keep them in a refrigerator, but someone else fries them for me,” he added.

Mr Samran, a frequent customer, said: “I like to eat insects very much. They are cheap, delicious, nutritious and also good for the libido. After finishing work at 10pm, I stop here on the way home and buy about 20 baht of insects.”

He, like many others, usually eats his insects on the spot, while chatting with Mr Vinai and other customers.

Mrs Lumyai, who has been selling insects on Khao San Road for about 20 years, also buys her products at Klong Toey market, and goes there in the early morning. She cooks the insects herself.

“I sell from 6pm until 2am. My customers are equally split between foreigners and Thais. They all like them a lot, and I’ve had no complaints.”

She said that the best selling insects are grasshoppers, silkworms, ants and crickets.

“However, because the political unrest is keeping tourists away, business has been way down in recent months, not only for me, but other vendors as well,” Mrs Lumyai complained.

WHOLESALE MARKET

A visit to Klong Toey market is quite an experience. There are many vendors selling a wide variety of fresh produce, including vegetables, poultry, live fish, yellow frogs and edible insects.

Mrs Sakhon has been wholesaling insects with two of her relatives for about 10 years.

“I open at midnight and close around 9am. Three other wholesale shops nearby open at the same time, but close before 6am.

“We sell about 100kg of insects every day. Our customers are street vendors who come themselves or who place orders by phone, which we deliver to them,” Mrs Sakhon said.

She sells 12 types of insects from Burma, Cambodia and Vietnam, as well as Thailand.

“We have an agent who buys them for us at markets like Talat Rong Kluea in Sa Kaeo province bordering Cambodia and also in Mae Sot in Tak province, near the Burmese border.

“We sometimes buy insects at Talat Thai in Pathum Thani province. You often see Burmese and Cambodian people delivering insects there.”

She said one of the most popular Thai insects is called sading (a small cricket), which is bred on farms in Lop Buri, Khon Kaen, Roi Et and Korat.

“I sell dead insects, but when they are delivered to Talat Rong Kluea, which is the biggest insect market in Thailand, only live insects fetch a good price. If they’re dead they fetch much less, and sometimes can’t be sold at all.

“The insects are caught mainly in Cambodia and no poison is used, as some claim, because the traders at the market won’t really buy dead insects.”

FAMILY BUSINESS

If you go to Phitsanulok in northern Thailand, a visit to the Ruammalang mobile edible insect cart found in front of the Rachaphruk Hotel is well worth your time. They have been selling various types of insects for almost 22 years.

“We display edible insects on trays, which guarantees that many tourists, especially foreigners, stop and try them,” said Thongchart Nusu, who started the business about 25 years ago, but is now making sausages and meatballs, and has passed the insect business on to his 22 year-old daughter, Ms Ratee.

“I open at 4pm and close at 11pm every day. We wash the insects with water and let them dry. Then we boil them and deep fry them in clean oil until crispy, and season with sugar, salt, Magi and so on. We cook them every day, so they’re fresh every day. We also tin our insects for sale locally, but we’re not yet ready to export them,” Ms Ratee said.

“We’ve became a tourist attraction. Many tour groups, whether Thai or foreign come to our place to see the cooking process and to taste them as well. Most people like the taste and buy a tin.

“However, business has dropped compared to four years ago. It started to pick up again a few months ago, but after the political situation worsened, especially in Bangkok, business has gone down again,” Ms Ratee said.

She said that three or four years ago she could make 20,000 baht a day, but now she makes less than 8,000 baht a day.

“I sell about 10 kinds of insect,” she said. “They originate from various places such as bamboo worms from Laos and China, Bombay locusts from Talat Rong Kluea and giant water bugs from Burma and Cambodia.

“I get most of the insects from Cambodia, but in Thailand I can get bamboo worms from the North, silkworms from the silk factories in Phetchabun and crickets from Khon Kaen.

“The most popular are the bamboo worms, silkworms, Bombay locusts and the giant water bugs. The most expensive are bamboo worms, and I buy most of the insects from Talat Rong Kluea,” Miss Ratee said.

“I’m trying to improve the business and attract new customers with innovations such as taking pictures of customers and printing them as labels for the tins of insects. I sell two types of tinned insects. One has bamboo worms for 100 baht, and the other is mixed insects for 50 baht. We do the tinning at home.”

She said that about 90% of her foreign customers come from France, with the rest from other European countries and the US. As for Asian tourists, some are from South Korea and Japan, but there are very few compared to the Europeans. She has never seen a Chinese tourist at her stall.

FALLING SALES

Mrs Rujirej sells edible insects in the southern city of Hat Yai. She has a small shop with a few tables near to the bus station.

“I’ve been selling insects for about eight years. Before that I worked as a labourer on building sites. I sell about 10 kinds of insects these days, down from 15 in the past. Business started to drop about four years ago because of competition and fewer tourists,” Mrs Rujirej said.

“I used to sell at least 80kg of silkworms, 50kg of Bombay locusts and 7,000 to 8,000 giant water bugs, but now I can sell only about 10kg of silkworms, 5kg of Bombay locusts and no giant water bugs at all because they are too expensive.

“I buy everything at Talat Rong Kluea. I used to go there myself because it was worthwhile but since the business is not so profitable the insects are delivered to us on the public bus.”

Salern Mui, who lives in Cambodia, has been selling insects at Talat Rong Kluea for 20 years. She crosses the border every morning and returns in the evening.

“This market is the biggest for edible insects in Thailand, with more than 100 stalls, including 50 big ones. About 90% of the insects sold here come from Cambodia and the rest are local,” she said.

“Bombay locusts are the most popular insects, normally available from May to September, but as they are very popular, they’re stored in freezers and sold all year round. Bombay locusts come mainly from Pailin province in Cambodia.

“As with other edible insects, Bombay locusts are caught mainly at night. People in Pailin catch Bombay locusts with their bare hands in cornfields. Many people, sometimes hundreds, will catch them because it’s extra income for them.”

Mrs Salern said that most of the insects from Cambodia are still alive when they reach the market. Dead or spoiled insects will turn red and are not saleable.

NOT ENTIRELY RISK-FREE

The Ministry of Public Health warns that those with allergies or asthma should avoid eating insects because they may contain high levels of histamine, a protein involved in many allergic reactions. In the case of a serious allergy, the result may be fatal.

Dr Suphan Srithamma, a spokesmen for the Ministry of Public Health, says that the consumption of insects in Thailand is increasing. Originally, insects were consumed mainly by country people who grilled or fried them, or used them in salads or soups, but nowadays insects are eaten as a snack.

However, even though insects are high in nutrients, they can be contaminated with pesticides.

The Thai Health Promotion Foundation also warns that people who have allergies avoid eating silkworms and wasp grubs, because they may result in fatal allergic reactions. And several medical practitioners contacted by Spectrum warned that patients with allergies should avoid eating fried insects.