French photographer Vincent Fournier has produced some wonderful images of the Chinese, Russian and US space agencies, including their earthly training grounds.
More of Fournier’s work can be found at his website.
(via snarkmarket)
Tsutomu Yamaguchi, Survivor of 2 Atomic Blasts, Dies at 93
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a witness to both of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in August, 1945, and not only survived, but lived into his nineties.
Mr. Yamaguchi, as a 29-year-old engineer for Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, was in Hiroshima on a business trip when the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on the morning of Aug. 6, 1945. He was getting off a streetcar when the so-called Little Boy device detonated above the city.
Mr. Yamaguchi said he was less than two miles away from ground zero that day. His eardrums were ruptured, and his upper torso was burned by the blast, which destroyed most of the city’s buildings and killed 80,000 people.
Mr. Yamaguchi spent the night in a Hiroshima bomb shelter and returned to Nagasaki, his hometown, the following day, according to interviews he gave over the years. The second bomb, known as Fat Man, was dropped on Nagasaki on Aug. 9, killing 70,000 people.
Say Goodbye to the Netflix New Release Rental
Netflix has entered into an agreement that will oblige customers to wait a month to rent new releases from Warner Bros.
Today is sad day for Netflix customers. The online video rental supplier has just announced an agreement with Warner Bros. that will forever alter your online rental experience. Now should you wish to rent a Warner Bros. flick you’ll have to wait out a 28-day holding period after the film’s initial DVD release date.
On Arthur Koestler, Genius and, Uh, Rapist
From Bookslut, on a new biography of Arthur Koestler by Michael Scammell.
So you’re writing a biography, and the guy is a genius. Wrote a masterful book, and is underappreciated for a lot of the rest of his career, something you’d like to see changed. But there are a few weird personal life details you have to overcome in the biography. Like, say, how the guy had a slight rapey habit. How do you deal with that?
The Burj Khalifa, World’s Tallest Building
Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago, the Burj Khalifa rises 2,717 feet above the desert in Dubai. Originally named the Burj Dubai, it opened on Monday with a new name, a month after Dubai narrowly avoided bankruptcy by receiving a bailout from Abu Dhabi to help cover its debts.
But in deciding to change the tower’s name from Burj Dubai to Burj Khalifa, in honor of the president of Abu Dhabi, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, Dubai revealed a rare streak of humility consistent with its diminished economic condition. Once the most proudly autonomous of Arab Emirates, Dubai has found that its financial troubles have made it more dependent on Abu Dhabi and more likely to be drawn closer into the federation.
“Dubai not only has the world’s tallest building, but has also made what looks like the most expensive naming rights deal in history,” said Jim Krane, the author of “City of Gold: Dubai and the Dream of Capitalism.” “Renaming the Burj Dubai after Sheik Khalifa of Abu Dhabi — if not an explicit quid pro quo — is a down payment on Dubai’s gratitude for its neighbor’s $10 billion bailout last month.”
Google Phone Not Revolutionary
David Pogue reviews Google’s Nexus One phone and doesn’t find it as groundbreaking as we are led to believe, especially regarding the new Google phone store.
I mean, it’s a great idea and all. It’s just that, well, apart from the iPhone, who really cares which carrier has a certain phone? In the list of complaints about American cellphone carriers sent to me by readers, that one is waaaaaay down the list.
Besides, the Google phone store doesn’t really do much to solve the problem. In this country, there are two competing network formats. There’s C.D.M.A. (used by Verizon and Sprint) and there’s G.S.M. (favored by AT&T and T-Mobile and most other countries).
The current Nexus One is a G.S.M. phone. So when you buy it online, you get the following vast menu of carriers: T-Mobile. (Or you can use AT&T, but you have to supply your own subscriber card, and you won’t get 3G Internet speed.)
Wow, that changes everything, doesn’t it?
Still, you have to agree that it’s in everyone’s best interests for the Google phone store to succeed. Here’s hoping it gets better.
Bridge House
Bridge House in Adelaide, Australia, designed by Architect Max Pritchard, spans a creek and provides “the experience of living amongst the trees in an almost untouched beautiful setting”.
Guenter Grass’s Stasi files
Whenever Guenter Grass was in the communist German Democratic Republic after The Tin Drum came out in 1959, the East German secret police went to great lengths to track his every move.
“Grass was completely surrounded by spies when he came to the GDR. All his official interlucutors were IMs, ‘unofficial employees’ (spies), all of them,” said Schlueter, who went through over 2,000 Stasi files to compile his book.
“Whether they were from writers’ associations, publishers’ representatives, state representatives, theatre people … he was completely surrounded.
MicMacs Trailer
MicMacs is a new film from Jean-Pierre Jeunet, the man behind Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children and Amelie.