rantlust

Posted by renéejo on August 21st 2007 in Engineering, Travel
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Tibet or Xizang as the Chinese call it, has been a dream destination for me and I finally made it out there a couple of weeks ago. And what a journey! I took the recently built Qinghai-Tibet train which is an engineering marvel as it goes through some spectacular scenery at very high altitudes. The journey on this train takes almost 48 hours from Beijing to Lhasa but is worth it just for the Golmud-Lhasa section. I booked a soft sleeper and the accommodations are quite luxurious. The train is pressurized to prevent altitude sickness. The Tanggula pass at 5072 metres through which the train passes makes this the highest rail track in the world. The dining car is decent and there is even a bar on the train. What’s amazing about this rail line is that a significant section of it is on permafrost.

I didn’t feel any effects of altitude during the train ride though I did often feel woozy once in Lhasa. This is a journey that every one who goes to China should take. You will not be disappointed.

Blogging is not easy from China as I found that from some Internet cafes I can’t even access rantlust. Weird. Now that I am finally out of China and am in Vietnam, I hope I’ll be able to blog more about my year off travelling the world.

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Posted by riyer on June 27th 2007 in Design, Engineering, Nature, Society, Technology
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Turns out you can use spinach to derive the energy to run your house as well
See here
All they need to do is grow olives and press some olive oyl from it.

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Posted by renéejo on January 09th 2007 in Engineering, Gadgets, Raves, Technology
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The iPhone is finally here from the company now known simply as Apple Inc. What a beauty! Too bad it’s going to be a while before it’s available in Europe. It will be time to replace my trusty old Nano when that happens.

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Posted by anupcs on December 16th 2006 in Engineering, Outdoors, USA
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Here’s something to cure your vertigo. The Hualapai Native American tribe is trying to lure tourists with an engineering marvel - a horseshoe-shaped glass bottomed walkway jutting out 70 feet from the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. The platform will be 4000 feet above the canyon floor, the Colorado river a distant sliver. To give you some perspective, Taipei 101, the world’s tallest building is only 1671 feet tall.

The “big hole in the ground” has always been a special place for me and have been there a total of 13 times (including a memorable four day backpacking trip deep in the canyon) but I’m not sure I’d want to walk on this platform.

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Posted by papi on October 20th 2006 in Engineering, Humor, Internet, Rants
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Today, while trying to access everyone’s new favorite web site, I discovered that my DSL connection was not living up to its name any more, and staunchly refused to connect me anywhere despite my impassioned pleas. Perhaps the little Gremlin who sits inside the black box and passes around packets had suddenly decided he’d had enough of the industrious lifestyle and gone to smoke pot and hang with the Hippies. In any event, I could not access my email, and I felt lost. I’m afraid I’ve developed an emotional dependency on reading a couple dozen offers every morning to improve my vitality and increase the size and strength of various appendages. They make me feel wanted. Besides, the early morning hello from that friendly Nigerian banker has become almost as important to my sense of well being as the morning cup of coffee, even if he usually tells me another long lost uncle has just died in a horrible car crash. As I said, I felt lost.
(Read more…)

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Posted by john on April 07th 2006 in Engineering, Humor, Random, Raves, USA
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A hack is typically a university prank done in good fun that doesn’t cause any damage to the subject of the hack and often is very clever in its execution and amusing in its results. No other institution has a more storied history of hacks than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Well the MIT hackers have struck again. This time, in an incredibly well planned and logistically coordinated operation, the hackers have transported a century old cannon (known as the Fleming cannon) all the way from the Caltech campus in Pasadena, CA to the MIT campus in Cambridge, MA. A website has been set up by the hack team. There is even another website that keeps track of and scores hacks played between the rival schools. This caper scored MIT a huge 10 points.

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Posted by tafkap on January 18th 2006 in Business, Engineering, Technology
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A great Honda ad made out of car parts. Should appeal to gearheads and others alike. Its amazing to the point that they had to explicitly deny the use of any CG. According to the page:

The sequence where the tires roll up a slope looks particularly impressive but is very simple. Steiner says that there is a weight in each tire and when the tire is knocked, the weight is displaced and in an attempt to rebalance itself, the tire rolls up the slope

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Posted by kinnum on November 30th 2005 in Cars, Engineering
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About as quick or quicker than the quickest (0-60mph) production bike:

http://snipurl.com/kdqe

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