Kiwiblog

Watch this three minute video of a 30 story hotel being built in just 15 days.

I’m guessing it wasn’t a unionised workforce

The Telegraph reports:

The week before Martinez had reportedly visited the CardioVascular Group in Lawrenceville, complaining of chest pains that shot up his arm.

He was due for tests the following week but the threesome took place the day before he was scheduled to return.

Lawyers for Martinez’s estate, in filing a medical malpractice suit, had argued that his cardiologist did not tell the man to avoid strenuous physical activity before the test was performed, and that high blood pressure as well as a risk of clogged arteries put him at risk.

This has to be seen to be believed. Only the Germans could do it. It is 1300 square metres in size and has 13 kms of track, 900 trains and 12,000 wagons!

But it also has a 30,000 litre “North Sea” with cruise ships, 250 computer controlled motor vehicles, a fire brigade that responds to fires, Police chasing speed offenders, and get this an airport where with 49 airplanes that land automatically at it and get serviced by ground crews.

They also have 200,000 people populating the model.

I am so going to visit Hamburg now!

When Michael Cullen wanted his own train set, this is what we should have got him instead of Kiwirail!

Kids Magical Day Out from Ro Tierney on Vimeo.

A short two minute film of 200 primary school kids (sponsored by NZ Post) to go to Peter And The Wolf which was running in Wellington as part of the International Arts Festival. Ro Tierney tagged along with one of the schools from Porirua to capture their experience.

Some had never even been on a bus to the city before, let alone see a show like this, and it shows looking at their reactions. A cool reminder how most kids love new experiences.

An incredible visual tool at this website, showing the Universe in scale.

You use a scroll bar to zoom in and out. The scale goes from 1×10^-35 to 1×10^27. At each stage, you see objects of that size and can click on them for more detail.

The smallest item is quantum foam, which is slightly shorter than a planck length.

After that then a neutrino, which is around a yoctometer in length, or 1×10^-24. After that top quarks, and finally at 1×10^-15 you get protons and neutrons around a femtometer in size. Actual atoms get seen at just before 1×10^-10.

At the other end we have Pluto at 2,300 kms, the Moon at 3,500 kms, the USA at 4,200 kms and then Earth at 12,700 kms. Jupiter is at 140,000 kms, and the sun at 1.4m kms or 1.4 x 10^9.

Then the distance from Neptune to the Sun at 4,5b kms, larger than any known star. Voyager 1 is 17b kms from Earth. At 26b kms you have the distance light travels in a day. Sedna, the most remote object in our solar system is 140b kms from the sun which is .014 of a lightyear. Sedna takes 10,000 years to do a rotation around the sun.

The Oort Cloud is around 2 light years in size, or 2×10^18. Our closest star, Proxima Centauri is 4.2 light years away. The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy is  10,000 light years in size, while the Milky Way is 120,000 light years.

After that you have the Virgo Cluster at 30m light years, and the Virgo Supercluster at at 110m light years. Finally you have the Observable Universe at 93b light years, or 9.3×10^26 metres.

It’s a great tool to get people interested in science. Lots of fun and interesting facts.

Enjoy this video of a motorist taking to a parking meter with a chainsaw!

A few will have seen this story in Stuff:

Prime Minister John Key’s signing of Emily Beaumont’s bulging belly in Nelson yesterday was symbolic on a day it was announced the country is now in a “man drought”.

Mr Key made a flying visit to Tahunanui Beach to help launch the election campaign of his sixth-ranked Cabinet minister, Nelson MP Nick Smith.

In response to yesterday’s story in the Sunday Star Times, which said there were now 50,000 “excess” 25- to 49-year-old females living in New Zealand , Mr Key assured that “we’re doing everything we can to keep people in New Zealand and we’ll now have a specific focus on men”.

Along with his signature on Ms Beaumont’s belly, Mr Key left what he termed a marketing message.

“If it’s a boy, John’s a good name,” Mr Key wrote on the most radical thing he had ever signed.

Ms Beaumont, of Motueka, who was “due to give birth any minute”, said she would probably name her baby John if it was a boy.

Now what interested me was that the belly already had a couple of marks on it. I got a copy of the higher res version and it is below.

The other marks are actually advertisements. One even has a URL!

I wonder if this method of advertising will catch on!

AP reports:

A Swedish man who was arrested after trying to split atoms in his kitchen said Wednesday he was only doing it as a hobby.

Richard Handl told The Associated Press that he had the radioactive elements radium, americium and uranium in his apartment in southern Sweden when police showed up and arrested him on charges of unauthorized possession of nuclear material.

The 31-year-old Handl said he had tried for months to set up a nuclear reactor at home and kept a blog about his experiments, describing how he created a small meltdown on his stove.

Only later did he realize it might not be legal and sent a question to Sweden’s Radiation Authority, which answered by sending the police.

May have been wiser to check before you start, whether it is legal to build your own nuclear reactor at home.

Samuel L. Jackson reading out the book. Perfect.

I blogged Labour’s little fun game earlier today. Someone has also designed a couple of fun games of their own – you can make Pete Hodgson dance or kick Trevor Mallard.

Please note that I don’t endorse people kicking Trevor Mallard in real life, and I certainly don’t endorse anyone making Pete Hodgson dance in real life.

Just got e-mailed this clip by a friend. All I can say is that dangerous weapons like that should be licensed

The show appears to be Germany’s Got Talent. What I love most of all is the looks of shock on the judge’s faces.

Stuff reports:

Indian model Poonam Pandey is not the first and probably won’t be the last in vowing to strip naked if her country wins a major sports event.

Her promise to strip naked if India wins the cricket World Cup is similar to that of Paraguyan model Larissa Riquelme at last year’s football World Cup.

Riquelme chose to follow through with her promise even though Paraguay didn’t win the World Cup. …

British newspaper website, Metro.co.uk, quoted Pandey as saying: “I’m confident of my body and I’m doing this to excite our boys to play better.”

Will Sri Lanka match this incentive?

Those who have played Angry Birds will like this video. I especially like the giant eagle at the end.

From io9:

1) It’s really wrong. In the best way — at least, if you like movies that go way too far and then just keep going, you’ll like this. It has insane ultra-violence, plus some pretty intense sex and general weirdness. James Gunn, the psychopath who brought us Slither, has managed to mash up religion, ultraviolence, fetishism, and a slew of social anxieties into one horribly disturbing package. There are some moments in this film that’ll stick in your mind for quite some time afterwards.

2) It’s scream-out-loud funny. Especially every time Nathan Fillion comes on screen as the Christian superhero, the Holy Avenger, you’ll fall out of your seat. There will be Holy Avenger T-shirts everywhere in a couple months, if not sooner. But also, Rainn Wilson is pretty freaking on top of his game as a well-meaning nutcase who really believes that whacking people in the head with a lug wrench will make the world a better place.

The movie is “Super”. I can’t wait.

Kate Newton reports in the Dom Post:

Pay day is great but neighbourly love gets short shrift from Wellington’s bright young things.

A Colmar Brunton survey of 500 New Zealand 20-somethings has found pay day and pay rises are the things they love the most – even more than sex.

Really?

What is wrong with young people today

Heh, that is rather unfortunate placement of stalls and signs.

At Harcourt Park in Upper Hutt this weekend is a world invitational jousting competition.

There will be foot combats, seige engines, jousting and archery. Should be a fun day – especially if you have kids.

There’s also a competition for best costume.

AP report:

South Africa’s governing party has pronounced: eating sushi off the body of a model in a bikini is politically incorrect.

A statement from African National Congress secretary general Gwede Mantashe on Monday is unequivocal: “This act is anti-ANC and anti-revolutionary. This act is defamatory, insensitive and undermining of woman’s integrity.”

The fish-on-flesh question has raged in South African media in recent months following reports of the practice at parties of wealthy businessmen and socialites. Earlier Monday, Johannesburg newspapers reported the head of the ANC’s powerful youth league had attended such a party over the weekend.

How nice of the ANC to decie this matter. I wonder if it becomes acceptable if it is sashimi instead?

I wonder how successful it was? Hat-tip: Spare Room

Giles Brown in The Press reports:

A Christchurch doctor had to treat a woman after she was partially paralysed by a lovebite from her amorous partner.

Dr Teddy Wu, who is currently working in the neurology department at Christchurch Hospital, said he believed it was the first time someone had been hospitalised by a “hickey”.

An article on the case has appeared in the New Zealand Medical Journal.

Wu said he saw the woman over a year ago while he was working in Middlemore Hospital in Auckland.

The 44-year-old Maori woman went to the emergency department after experiencing loss of movement in her left arm.

It happened while she was sitting watching television.

The only injury was a lovebite on the right of her neck near an artery.

I just hope this doesn’t mean there will be a public health campaign warning against the dangers off hickeys!

The Age reports:

A bizarre decision to ride an inflatable doll down a flood-swollen Yarra River blew up in a woman’s face yesterday when she lost her latex playmate in a rough patch.

The incident prompted a warning from police that blow-up sex toys are “not recognised flotation devices”.

Police and a State Emergency Services crew were called to the rescue when the woman and a man, both 19, struck trouble at Warrandyte North about 4.30pm yesterday.

They were floating down the river on two inflatable dolls and had just passed the Pound Bend Tunnel when the woman lost her toy in turbulent water.

Now that would make a great You Tube video.

I know of the odd flat which has a sex doll (invariably students), but having two sex dolls is rare – perhaps they went out and purchased them just for the floods?

Stuff has a headline:

Nude women’s rugby players draw a crowd

Who would have guessed?

The Old Boys University women’s rugby team have put together a nude calendar as a fund-raiser. They are on Trade Me.

What a great neighbour!

Stuff reports:

Police in western New York said two Canadian men attended a church festival and wound up in the woods drunk, naked and covered in mud.

I’m fascinated by what church has festivals like that. Not the Mormons I guess.

This is the Royal NZ Ballet as you may not have seen them before – Lady Gaga style with gaffer tape only.

Hat Tip: Stuff