Ensure Enough Sleep Before Driving

In order to avoid accident, make sure that you have enough sleep the night before. In case you need to hit te road and follow the following advices as shown in the following infographics.

Spider Web at Bario

Spider Web at Bario, a photo by wanhashim on Flickr.

it was early in the morning in Bario where you can see thousands of spider web scattered throughout the Bario Island. The spider is coming from a species which is very small in size and very difficult to see through naked eyes. However, the view of the spider web surrounding the Bario highland early in the morning is very spectacular.

Perfect Landing

This picture was taken at the Adelaide's airport. It shows a Qantas Aircraft performing a perfect landing at Adelaide's Airport.

Amazing Train Journey Within 60 Years Lifespan

All of us know what 2013 is like whereas some of us can tell stories about life 30 years ago. However, not many of us could tell stories about 60 years ago.

BBC has created a video comparing that whole time span revealing the difference of 60 years for train ride from London to Brighton. The video shows exact train ride filmed in 1953, 1983 and 2013.

Amazingly, there are not much differences for the 60 years lifespan. However, it is easy to spot differences in term of modernized train station, boring digital signs now, train conductor dress differently and several stations have been eliminated.

As compared to developing countries, in 1953, the tract is already double tracking. In most developing countries, even until now almost all of the train lines are single tracking. Along the route, almost all of the tunnel, underpasses are almost the same. Similarly, at one of the train station, the original clock seems to be still functioning. It shows the ability of them to maintain the historical architectural values of the infrastructure.

How to Boost Your Imagination

You might have been wandering on how to boost your imaginations and eventually achieve great things. There are actually 10 ways to boost your imagination as suggested by Lifehack. I found most of the suggestions are practical enough where you can apply them throughout your daily chores.

 

Among the recommended tools that you need are as follows:

• Realize your potential
• Locate your thoughts
• Decide where to channel your energies
• Observe
• Take time to explore your passions
• Always take time for yourself.

Please rad HERE for more information.

 

Make Sure You Aim it Right

Make sure you aim it right if you are using public urinal in Shenzen. Otherwise official in the Southern city will fine users 100 yuan for failing to urinate accurately. However they never mentioned what amount of spilled urine would be considered as a violation.

The new law which will come into effect next month has already received mixed reactions. So next time you are in Shenzen, be aware of the right manners of using urinal.

 

Boredom Room

Boredom room or sometimes being referred to as Chase-Out Room is used by big corporations in Japan to ensure unproductive employee to quit the corporations voluntarily.

 

Any person who are being identified to be not fitting to the company's progress but the person did not take the offer for early retirement will be sent to the Boredom Room. As the name implied, the company hopes the person will eventually leave the company out of boredom. Read the story about Boredom Room HERE.

 

Posted with Blogsy

British and American English

The following infographic is very useful to differentiate between British and American English.

 

 

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Architectural Greatest Failures

History's greatest failure infographic reaching back to Ancient Rome's Fidenae Ampitheatre (collapsed in 27 A.D.) all the way to the Lotus Riverside apartment complex in Shanghai (collapsed in 2009)serve as valuable lessons for students studying Civil Engineering and Architecture. Two of the famous failures are described below:

Wind: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge, a suspension bridge in the U.S. State of Washington, opened to traffic on July 1, 1940, and dramatically collapsed into Puget Sound on November 7 of the same year. Construction workers giving the bridge the nickname "Galloping Gertie" because since construction, the bridge will move vertically in windy conditions. The bridge's main span finally collapsed under 40 mph (64 km/h) wind conditions the morning of November 7, 1940.

Watch the collapsed of the Tacoma NarrowsBridge.







John Hancock Tower


The John Hancock Tower is a 60-story, 790-foot (241 m) building in Boston and was completed in 1976. The structure was famous for its blue reflective glass windowpanes in a steel tower that detached from the building and crashed to the sidewalk hundreds of feet below. The failure of the glass was due to oscillations and repeated thermal stresses caused by the expansion and contraction of the air between the inner and outer glass panels which formed each window.

Petronas Twin Tower is No. 7 Tallest Building in the World for 2013

Once, it was the tallest building in the world surpassing the Sears Tower in Chicago. However, in 2003, the Petronas Twin Tower is the 7th tallest building in the world. The tallest building now is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The top 10 tallest buildings in 2013 are as follows:

1. Burj Khalifa Dubai; 2723 feet high - 163 floors.
2. Makkah Royal Clock Tower Hotel, Mecca, Saudi Arabia; 1.972 feet - 120 floors
3. One World Trade Center New York; 1,776 feet - 104 floors
4. Taipei 101, Taipei, Taiwan; 1,669 feet - 101 floors above ground and 5 floors below
5. Shanghai World Financial Center, Shanghai, China; 1,614 feet - 101 floors
6. International Commerce Centre, Hong Kong, China; 1,588 feet - 118 floors
7. Petronas Towers Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 1,483 feet - 88 floors
8. Zifeng Tower, Nanjing, China; 1,480 feet - 89 floors
9. The Sears Tower, Chicago; 1,451 feet - 22 floors
10. Kungkey 199, Shenzhen, China; 1,449 feet - 22 floors

Watch the video: http://youtu.be/eK1o5lJo2ik

Too Many Bikes Also Become a Major Problem

Traffic congestion is common among major cities. Congestion is usually due to too many vehicles on the road at any given time. One way of reducing traffic congestion is to encourage people to use non-motorize vehicles such as bicycles. However, when the number of bicycles is too many, a different set of problems arising such as inadequate number of bicycles' parking space and inadequate facilities for vehicles on the roadway. Such problems occur in Amsterdam where majority of city dwellers ride their bikes. Read Amsterdam clogged up by bikes for more information.

Lone Ranger

Lone Ranger, a photo by wanhashim on Flickr.

A Lone Ranger was seen sheltering under the shade of a palm tree. He might be resting after a busy working hours or he simply was waiting for potential customers tempted to try riding his horse.

The Power of Lidar

The title of this entry seems like a title of a movie but it is not. It is about a remote sensing technology known as Lidar being used to make high resolution maps and other surveying purposes. The term lidar comes from combining the words light and radar.

Recently, by using airborne Lidar, a city lost for a millennium has been found. The lost city currently lying beneath the odd above-ground temple ruin covered with shrubs and dirts was unknown until researchers from University of Sydney's archaeological research center in Cambodia successfully using airborne Lidar to unhidden the lost city figuratively and literally. 

The name of the city is Mahendraparvata as mentioned by Gizmodo. The lost city is located at the corner of Cambodian jungle. It is the oldest lost city in Cambodia, predating the nearby Angkor Wat by some hundreds of years. It is also the main reason for Angkor Wat was able to be built in the first place.

Photo set about Anchor Wat is HERE.

RIver Transport in Sarawak

Rajang river is the longest river in Malaysia. To travel along the mighty river, powerful boats are needed to carry passengers and goods. As shown above, the express boat is loaded with all types of goods on top of the roof.



Since the express boat is the main mode of transport, most of the time the boat is overcrowded with passengers especially during peak season. However, the express boat is also the main attraction for tourists to travel to the interior of Sarawak.

It is a must for the boat operators to ensure that the boat is not overloaded either with goods or passengers to ensure any untoward incidents such as the one reported recently along the same river.

Electronic Road Pricing

IMG_1107, a photo by wanhashim on Flickr.

Electronic road pricing is a mechanism to control number of vehicles entering city center. During peak hours, road users usually avoid from entering the city center due to very high charge rate. However, the road users have several other alternatives such as via very efficient public transportation system to enter the city center.

Nuri Helicopter

IMG_4234, a photo by wanhashim on Flickr.

Nuri Helicopter is one of the most versatile mode of transport especially to travel in the interior of Sarawak. Seen in this photo is a Nuri Helicopter attempted to land in Bario, Sarawak.

Highland's Buffalo

IMG_8632, a photo by wanhashim on Flickr.

In this photo, the buffalos were grazing the grass of the highland area in Bario, Sarawak. The features of the highland's buffalo is quite different than their cousins in the low land of the tropical area. Due to the mild temperature of the highland, the buffalo has a very visible hairy skin. Also, their size is quite smaller than those in the low land area.

Toward very Unsafe Road: Guard Rail Less

The main purpose of installing guard rail along roadways is to prevent road fatalities when accident happen. The guard rail will prevent the skidding vehicles from hitting other fixed objects along side the respective road. Also the guard rail will prevent runaway vehicles from plunging into rivers or other water canal. Most of the time the type of guard rail being installed along side roads is made of metal.

However, there seemed to be some syndicates profiting from the installed guardrail. Immediately after the installation of the guard rail, the syndicate will dismantle the metal to earn quick buck at the expense of public safety.

I am sure the respective agencies responsible to maintain the road must has spent so much money to keep on replacing the missing metal of the guard rail. Immediately after they had replaced the missing metal, the syndicate will carry out their unholy duty to steal the metal. This vicious cycle will continue until something is being done to rectify the situation.

In the following picture, the metal connecting the guard rail beam and guard rail pole are missing. These are the favourite items among the thieves because it it so easy for them to dismantle the metal assembly. In case there are runaway vehicles hitting the guard rail, the occupant of the vehicle will be in serious condition.

Now, the thieves are becoming more daring by removing the steel guard rail beam. It seemed that somebody has put temporary tape to warn road users about the dire condition of the guard rail. However, the tape will not save any life when an accident happen.

Thus, in the area of road safety, the task to provide a safer road is getting tougher since there are irresponsible citizens taking advantage of the lack of enforcement to apprehend those who are involved in trading metal collected from illegal source.