MahaNakhon is a luxury mixed-use skyscraper currently under final stages of completion prior to the grand opening in late August 2016, located in the Silom/Sathon central business area of Bangkok, Thailand. Designed to fit into the Thai landscape with a unique pixelated facade, it features the unconventional appearance of a glass curtain walled square tower with a cuboid-surfaced spiral cut into the side of the building. Following transfer of the first residential units in April 2016, it has been recognized as the tallest building in Thailand on 4 May at 314.2 metres (1,031 ft), with 77 floors. Featuring hotel, retail and residences, 200 units of The Ritz-Carlton Residences, Bangkok inside the building are priced between around US$1,100,000 to US$17,000,000, making it one of the most expensive condominiums in Bangkok.
Boldly going where no 90-year-old has gone before. Image Credit: Twitter / William Shatner
The legendary Star Trek actor is set to become the oldest person ever to venture into space next month.According to reports, Captain Kirk himself – William Shatner – will be one of the passengers aboard the next civilian flight of Jeff Bezos’ New Shepard spacecraft when it launches in October.
Like the previous flight in July of which Bezos himself was a part, the launch will see Shatner and his fellow passengers reach the edge of space on a trip that will last only around 15 minutes.
If he does go, the Star Trek veteran will become the oldest person in history to venture into space.
There are rumors that a documentary will be filmed of the event, however Discovery allegedly rejected the concept and Shatner’s team is now looking for an alternative channel to pick up the project.
While neither Bezos or Shatner have officially confirmed the flight, Shatner had previously mentioned it during a San Diego ComicCon panel earlier this year.
“There’s a possibility that I’m going to go up for a brief moment and come back down,” he said.
The current record holder for oldest person in space is 82-year-old aviation pioneer Wally Funk who joined Bezos during Blue Origin’s previous flight in July.
If Shatner’s flight does go ahead, Funk’s record will have been broken within a matter of months.
A curious chasm in Yemen, dubbed the ‘Well from Hell,’ has finally been explored by cavers in what is thought to be the first documented expedition down into the centuries-old hole in the desert. Although the location had something of a fearsome reputation among local inhabitants of the area, due to longstanding legends suggesting that the puzzling pit was home to the infamous djinn, it largely came to the attention of the world at large back in June by way of media coverage detailing how authorities in the country were baffled by the strange site and that previous attempts to get to the bottom of the pit had failed. It would seem that those headlines caught the attention of a group of cavers who set about conquering the chasm once and for all.
Last week, eight members of the Oman Cave Exploration Team (OCET) reportedly descended into the ‘Well from Hell’ and captured breathtaking never-before-seen footage from inside the ominous pit. According to geology professor Mohammed al-Kindi, who participated in the investigation, at the bottom of the cavern they spotted snakes that were largely harmless as well as dead birds and formations known as cave pearls. “Passion drove us to do this,” he explained, “and we felt that this is something that will reveal a new wonder and part of Yemeni history.” While down in the pit, the cavers collected samples of the water, rocks, and the downed birds that will later be analyzed by scientists.
A wild video from Zambia shows the terrifying moment when an ornery hippo set about chasing after a group of tourists on a sightseeing boat. The jaw-dropping footage, which came to light this week, was reportedly captured earlier this year on the Zambezi River in the town of Livingstone. In the video, a group of what may be juvenile hippos can be seen a short distance away from the boat in what initially seems like a rather serene glimpse of the majestic creatures.
However, the scene takes a troubling turn when the camera quickly pans a few feet away where a massive hippo has emerged from the water in hot pursuit of the vessel. The aggressive animal seemingly surprised the people on board as it was initially shockingly close to the boat. Fortunately, the person driving the boat smartly slams on the gas and keeps the hippo a relatively safe distance away, although the monstrous creature continues it chase the group for several seconds before finally throwing in the towel.
Taal Volcano is a large caldera filled by Taal Lake in the Philippines. Located in the province of Batangas, the volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in the country, with 34 recorded historical eruptions, all of which were concentrated on Volcano Island, near the middle of Taal Lake. The caldera was formed by prehistoric eruptions between 140,000 and 5,380 BP.
The volcano is located about 50 kilometers (31 mi) south of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
Taal Volcano has had several violent eruptions in the past, causing deaths on the island and the populated areas surrounding the lake, with an overall death toll of about 6,000. Because of its proximity to populated areas and its eruptive history, the volcano was designated a Decade Volcano, worthy of close study to prevent future natural disasters. All volcanoes in the Philippines are part of the Ring of Fire.
Police in Croatia are investigating the case of a mystery woman who is unable to recall anything about her life.According to reports, the woman, who is believed to be in her 60s, was discovered sitting on the rocks of Croati’s Krk island back on September 12th.
Sporting cuts on her face, the woman was able to speak perfect English but did not seem to be aware of what had happened to her or even who she was or where she had came from.
She was taken to a local hospital for treatment, however despite their best efforts, authorities have been unable to determine her identity and are now appealing to the public for assistance.
According to a local resident, the mystery is deepened further still by the fact that she was discovered on the rocks because the area itself is dangerous and inaccessible.
In addition, given her physical condition, there’s no way she swam to the island, so it seems that she was either dumped there by someone or had washed up there after falling into the sea.
According to the police description, she is 5ft 4in, has shoulder-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She was found wearing a striped navy blue T-shirt, black trousers and a pink linen cap.
An anomaly hunter pouring over NASA images from Mars believes he has found the depiction of an alien face carved into the side of a mountain in a fashion similar to Mount Rushmore. The odd discovery was made by indefatigable UFO researcher Scott Waring as he was studying a photograph of the Red Planet that was taken by the Mars Curiosity Rover. Standing out amid the rocky landscape was a puzzling shape that drew his further inspection and led to the anomaly hunter concluding that it was not a natural formation.
Specifically, Waring contends, the oddity appears to be the “side profile of an almost human-like alien species” that was presumably carved into the mountain, likely as a tribute to a prominent Martian leader from the distant past. To that end, he theorizes that the weathering of the visage suggests that it could be “over 100,000 years old.” Waring went on to argue that this would seemingly confirm that there was an advanced civilization living on the Red Planet at that time.
Waring boldly concluded by declaring that the purported alien profile is “undeniable proof that intelligent life once roamed the surface of Mars.” While such a discovery would certainly be a fantastic development, skeptics will undoubtedly disagree with Waring’s assessment and, as with so many similar peculiar anomalies found on Mars, point to pareidolia as the source of the ‘Martian face.’
Definition of pareidolia
: the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern
This quote is from just before “the Rumble in the Jungle” when Ali defeated champion George Foreman in Zaire.
“I’ve done something new for this fight. I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalized a brick; I’m so mean I make medicine sick.”
Since the late 1970s, California has had a thriving regional punk rock movement. It primarily consists of (but is not limited to) bands from the Los Angeles, Alameda County, Orange County, Ventura County, San Francisco, and San Diego areas.
Pre-1976
Los Angeles had a very strong experimental rock scene in the early 1970s. Many figures from this earlier scene would play notable roles in the later punk scene. The experimental LA rock scene was centered around a club called the Rodney’s English Disco, run by Rodney Bingenheimer, who later, as a disc jockey for KROQ’s “Rodney on the Rock”, did much to promote LA punk bands.
In the mid-1970s, a wave of protopunk glam bands emerged from Los Angeles, including Shady Lady, Zolar X, Berlin Brats, Imperial Dogs, and most notably The Runaways.
1976–1980
Starting in 1976, following recent releases of recordings by punk bands such as the Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and The Damned, a number of punk bands formed in the Los Angeles area. Among these bands in L.A. were The Weirdos, The Germs, The Plugz, The Controllers, The Skulls, The Dils, Black Randy and the Metrosquad, Catholic Discipline, The Go-Go’s, The Screamers, The Dickies, X, The Zeros, The Alley Cats, Hal Negro and the Satintones which featured Masque nightclub owner Brendan Mullen who co-authored three books in the 2000s about the punk era in Los Angeles, and The Bags.
Many bands also formed in the San Francisco Bay Area; The Avengers, The Nuns, Mutants, Flipper, Negative Trend, The Offs, and the Dead Kennedys. California punk of this period was musically very eclectic, and the punk scene of the time included a number of bands whose sound strongly crossed over to Art/experimental Punk, new wave, synthpunk, Rockabilly, and hard rock.
In 1978 in Southern California, the first hardcore punk bands arose, including The Middle Class, Black Flag, Vicious Circle, and the Circle Jerks (in late 1978). Hardcore bands and fans tended to be younger than the art punks of the older LA scene and came mainly from the suburban parts of the Los Angeles area, especially the South Bay and Orange County and San Diego. This resulted in a rivalry between the older artsy “Hollywood” scene and the hardcore “suburban”, “surf punk”, or “beach punk” scene. Those in the “Hollywood” scene often disliked what they saw as the musical narrowness of hardcore and the violence associated with “suburban” punks (the South Bay and Orange County punk scenes had a particular reputation for violence), while the “suburban” punks looked down on what they perceived as the lack of intensity of older “Hollywood” bands (The Germs being a notable exception with lead singer Darby Crash) and the fashion consciousness of “Hollywood” punks. The Penelope Spheeris documentary The Decline of Western Civilization, shot in early 1979 and early 1980, documents the period when the older LA punk scene was being completely taken over by hardcore and features performances by bands from both scenes. Decline was filmed in part at punk shows sponsored and promoted by David Ferguson, who in 1979, formed CD Presents, a recording label that would record and promote a number of pioneering groups from the California punk scene. Ferguson and CD Presents organized New Wave 1980, the first festival gathering and showcasing punk bands from all over the West Coast.
By 1979, hardcore had displaced the Hollywood scene and become the dominant expression called hardcore punk in both Northern and Southern California. By this time, many of the older punk bands had broken up or become relatively inactive. A few, such as The Go-Go’s, The Dickies, and X, went on to mainstream success (in some cases, X, almost abandoning punk entirely), while a few others, such as The Dickies, embraced hardcore completely.
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