Month: July 2018

This is how to fly, but there is only two seats

Markozen.com Offbeat

Markozen.com's avatarThe MarkoZen Blog

BBC

In the compendium of complaints about air travel, we have not yet encountered “I do not have an unencumbered, horizon-to-horizon view of the entire planet.” At some point, we surmise, someone must have shared that frustration, because Windspeed Technologies has come up with a solution.

The company’s SkyDeck is a clear bubble that pokes up out of the top of an airplane. One or two passengers access this viewing dome via a staircase, or (rather showily) in an elevator. Once they are head and shoulders above the fuselage, they may rotate their seats to view some particular object — the sunset, or a constellation, or a cloud that looks a lot like a bunny. The bubble is made of the same material as the canopies of a supersonic fighter jet, and it’s a teardrop shape mounted just before the tail to have the smallest possible effect on aerodynamics. Its…

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Manitoba UFO sightings date back to 1792

Markozen.com Offbeat

Markozen.com's avatarThe MarkoZen Blog

manitoba

Manitoba has seen more than its fair share of UFOs over the years.

A new report suggests that there have been over 2,000 UFO sightings in Manitoba in the last 200 years.

The report, which has been compiled from Canadian and US government records, suggests that people have been seeing strange things in the skies over North America for several centuries.

“It’s not a phenomenon that’s a product of television and movies that are going on right now,” said researcher Chris Rutkowski. “These things go back quite a number of years. People have been fascinated with things in the sky and wondering, ‘Are we alone in the universe?’”

The earliest documented Manitoba sighting dates back to 1792 when two explorers reported witnessing a strange object cascading from the sky which “struck the river ice, with a sound like a mass of jelly, was dashed into innumerable luminous pieces and instantly…

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Huge Ancient Rock Tomb

Markozen.com Buildings, History

Mada’in Saleh is an ancient city of pre-Islamic period located in northern Saudi Arabia, about 1,400 km to the north of capital Riyadh. It lies in a strategic position on one of the most important ancient trade routes, which linked the south of the Arabian peninsula to the north, as well as to the great economic and cultural centres of Mesopotamia, Syria and Egypt. It is considered one of the most important and oldest ancient cities in the country and the second largest city of the Nabateans who ruled in the first century AD. Today, Mada’in Saleh is an archeologically important site with majestic ruins that are often compared with those of Petra. The most stunning among these ruins and the most iconic symbol of Mada’in Saleh is Qasr al-Farid, rising four stories tall not far from the center of the ancient Nabataean city of Hegra.

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Butchers Demand Protection from Radical Vegans

Markozen.com Food, Offbeat

French butchers have written to the government asking for protection against militant vegans, accusing them of trying to shut down the country’s traditional meat-eating culture.

Shops have been stoned or defaced with anti-meat graffiti and stickers, the French Federation of Butchers says.

Over the last few months, 15 shops were splashed with fake blood.

Federation chief Jean-François Guihard said in the letter that such attacks were a form of terrorism.

“It’s terror that these people are seeking to sow, in their aim of making a whole section of French culture disappear,” he wrote.

Vegans wanted to “impose on the immense majority of people their lifestyle, or even their ideology”.

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“The vegan way of life has been over-hyped in the media,” Mr Guihard said, contributing to intolerance.

French butchers have an exalted place in traditional French life but incidents like these are not entirely new, BBC Paris correspondent Lucy Williamson reports.

One shopkeeper described his locks being glued shut 20 years ago.

As a result of a reduction in meat sales, farmers’ groups have appealed to President Emmanuel Macron’s government in recent weeks to prevent measures that they perceive as anti-meat.

Food makers want to stop the use of the terms “steak”, “fillet”, “bacon” and “sausage” for non-meat products.

A proposal to require schools to introduce a weekly vegetarian meal was rejected in parliament.

 

Sally the Sleuth

Markozen.com Cartoons

Sally the Sleuth, no last name given, only referred to her as Sally or Miss Sally, was a plainclothes detective with the police in an unnamed city.

Often working undercover (or barely covered) an experienced investigator, she was an expert shot as well as being adept at judo.

Her supervisor was known only as The Chief.

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Sally the Sleuth first appeared not in the comics, or as a newspaper strip, but in the pages of pulp magazine Spicy Detective Stories in November of 1934, she was drawn by Adolphe Barreaux.

Consisting of 4 to 6 black and white pages all of her spicy adventures were just an excuse to get her out of the plainclothes and stripped down to her unmentionables and captured by the villain so that by the last page she could be saved by the Chief.

When Crime Stories became the big thing in comics in the late 40s and early 50s Trojan brought back Sally in the pages of Crime Smashers, in the four color format however she was a much better detective, actually doing some sleuthing, and was able to keep her clothing on for whole stories.

Though there generally was still a lot of leg and bare shoulders.

Pretty risque for the 1930’s.

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