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Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in
Dark Roasted Blend's LiveJournal:
| Thursday, January 8th, 2009 | | 9:43 pm |
World's Most Dangerous Roads, Part 6 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThrillingWonderStory/~3/sfJaY-WKhS0/worlds-most-dangerous-roads-part-6.html  "QUANTUM SHOT" #519
Link - by Avi Abrams
Wicked Routes in Pakistan, Romania, Ethiopia and Germany. Yes, Germany.
"Last road to see before you die" for mad motorists and visual candy for location-starved Hollywood producers: depending on your driving experience (not on your "Need for Speed" scores) and your outlook on life, these roads can be either the ultimate, or scariest travel destination. (this page is a part of our bigger series, read it all here)
Want to feel happy and safe? Then gaze on this picture for a while, because the rest of this page is only going to unnerve and distress you.
(image via)
1. Pakistan:
The Way to Fairy Meadows (is steep and narrow indeed)
There is no free lunch. If "Fairy Meadows" sounds like a heavenly destination, the way to reach them can be expected to look like a road to hell. Sure enough, it's a 10-km single lane road leading to one of the highest peaks in the world, Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. From Raikot Bridge (over the Indus River) to Tato village, the view gets better and the road gets dizzier:
(images by Shah Khan, Vaughn)
"Halfway down our engine died and the driver used nothing but brakes to control our descent," remembers Vaughn.
(image credit: Hassan Wassim)
Don't look back, or down. The road ahead is all you really need to watch... If rocks come plummeting down, there is no shoulder to avoid them:
(image credit: Umair Shaikh)
Admittedly, the road has been built by local residents of Tato and the Pakistani Government had no part in it - which means you can't sue anybody if the worst happens. However, once you get to the Fairy Meadows, the scenery is heavenly enough:
(images by Umair Shaikh)
Another great road-challenged destination in Pakistan is Deosai National Park. Deosai means Land of Giants, and it is one of the highest plateaus in the world. Here is a nerve-wracking way to cross the bridge, demonstrated by fearless local drivers:
Photos by Qavi and Captain Ash
Aptly named Bridge of Big Water (Bara Pani), this suspension bridge is pretty adequate for Deosai, which is snowbound most of the year with Himalayan brown bears being the only population for many months.
Not every suspension bridge crossing ends safely:
Bridge in Kashmir, India - image via
Crossing Pan-African Highway bridges in Congo (Zaire) in Central Africa can be a good challenge for your truck:
Photos by David Wall)
Not as bad as, say, in the William Friedkin's film "Sorcerer" -
(image via)
Africa is a continent with so many roads in dangerous condition that it requires its own page. Who has ever heard of Weldiya, Lalibela Road in Ethiopia? At 12,000 ft, be glad nobody asks you to drive an overloaded truck there:
Photos by David Wall)
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2. Romania:
You can consider yourself safe, once you cross the Fagaras Massive
The second highest road in Europe (highest point: 2040 m. elevation) features ex-vampire and ex-communist castles placed among the "highest, largest, widest, rockiest and most impressive mountain range" in East Europe - try this route for automotive excitement:
(images by Dénes László, via)
Roads in Romania can be intense, for example, when you drive on top of the spectacular Barajul Vidraru dam:
(images via)
However, one road - Transfagarasanul Road through the Carpathian Mountains - stands out from the rest.
The Fagaras mountain range features the Fagaras Castle, a Medieval stronghold of Transylvanian Princes, used in the 1950s as a prison for opponents and dissidents of the Communist State of Romania. There are also ruins of Poienari Castle, Vlad the Impaler's real castle, lurking on this route, to get your blood flowing. As you can see, some Van Helsing action can be almost guaranteed... in the ever-present mist:
(image via)
You can have lots of fun: you can make way for swaths of snow -
(photos by Thomas Stellmach)
...or crash through the tunnel's doors, if necessary:
(image credit: Thomas Stellmach)
Another fun road in Romania: Mateusz Figat sends us his experience of braving a Romanian National Road - TransAlpina 67c:
(images by Mateusz Figat, 1)
"From 500 to over 1700m high, mostly not paved, with creeks running on the road - all with standard Ford Focus and a whole family inside!"
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3. Germany:
Want even more excitement? How about driving on a racetrack that is open to the paying public?
I am talking about Nürburgring Nordschleife in Germany - the greatest & most challenging race circuit in the world.
Ever since Germans started building the autobahns (as part of the Nazi's plan to revive economy), we've come to think of driving in Germany as fast, exciting and safe experience:
But for those who are willing to up the stakes and risk their life, there is an option to book a few laps at Nürburgring Nordschleife - also called "The Green Hell" - a foggy and ridiculously twisty forest route. It is said that there is one fatality per week (so take out an insurance policy before tackling it).
(image via)
One reader tells us: "There is a scary story of a biker that had an accident throwing him and his machine into the woods. Although not killed in the crash, he died there because nobody noticed the accident."
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You think Gary, Indiana, has potholes?
Think again:
(image credit: Reuters)
Maybe not so dangerous looking, the following road has deadly statistics: the Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City, Philippines, in terms of deaths and accidents is far more dangerous than even the Halsema Highway (which we featured in Part 3). It's known as "killer highway" to the locals: most deaths are blamed on too much traffic congestion and chaos.
(images by Rico Sempai, Dr.Iluminada F. Castigador)
Landslides - "premature road seizures" - can render a road obsolete in a few seconds:
Such ruined roads, however, might be happily used by the 4x4 enthusiasts: these guys are constantly on the lookout for epic locations. But if they get stuck, they get stuck on an epic scale, too:
(original unknown)
There are plenty of hair-raising mountain roads in U.S (see our extreme off-roading article): some of the great routes include Gold Camp Road (from Colorado Springs to Cripple Creek), the road up to Yankee Boy Basin, or the highway from Ouray to Silverton (all in Colorado)
Idaho Springs, Colorado, also sports a nice drive called the Oh My God Road. In the same state, there are roads up to the summits of Mt. Evans, Pike's Peak, Black Bear Pass, Mosquito Pass... the list goes on. Canada beckons north of the border with some wicked 4x4 roads, too.
(images via)
Hazards of mountain road construction also cry out for their own page. Check out this one-man bulldozer which digs off the higher side of the slope and fills in the lower side (more info)
(image credit: modernmechanix)
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Spectacular routes, but don't take your eyes off the road!
It's frustrating when you can only afford fleeting glances around you, trying to keep the car on the road - and some of the best scenery on Earth passes you by. Check out, for example, this twisty road in Morocco's Atlas mountains, offering an awesome view on the Dades Gorge:
(image credit: Rosino)
Another great road, this time in Peru: near Aquas Calientes, at the base of Machu Picchu -
Night cruising in Rueifang, Taiwan, close to Taipei City:
(image credit: Te-Wei Liu)
This one is great for drifting:
(image via)
Roads like these are great for auto rally spectaculars:
(original unknown)
Bikers have to be careful while enjoying the Gavia Pass in Italy:
(photos by PistonHeads, David, Bob Rogers, Marc McDaniel)
Extreme biking? Try this one:
(original unknown)
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Hiking Trails for the Those in the Know
Hike the Deepest Canyon in the World! No, it's not the Grand Canyon, it's the Colca Canyon in Peru, which for hundreds kilometers maintains depth of 3400 meters (around 2 miles). That's more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon!
(image credit: Kevin)
Try some trails in Himalays, China - just be sure not to lean too much to the left:
(trail to Kangtega peak, close to Periche village, in the Khumbu valley)
(image credit: D. Chatrov)
This path goes on long enough: one can follow it for four days, ending up at an altitude of 5,000 meters. Be careful crossing bridges, too:
(image credit: Ne-Palec)
The Most Dangerous Staircase in the World? -
(image credit: Chris and Amy)
Send us photos and accounts of driving on crazy, dangerous roads - for inclusion in the next part of the series.
READ THE REST OF THE SERIES ->
 Permanent Link... ...+StumbleUpon  ...+Facebook 
Category: Travel, Auto
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| | Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 | | 11:19 pm |
Swimming Bald Eagle http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThrillingWonderStory/~3/OG3C4qkYkwA/swimming-bald-eagle.html 
Link
Scroll down for today's pictures & links.
Swimming Bald Eagle
Alternatively called "Quitting is not an option", this video shows the "swimming" bald eagle fighting to get a huge fish out of the water. This video has a happy ending (let's hope the same can be said about US economy one day)
url
Today's pictures & links:
Dark Roasted Blend in the 2008 Weblog Awards! Please vote for us :)
We are excited to see that Dark Roasted Blend has been named a finalist in the "Major Blog" category of the 2008 Weblog Awards. If you have a moment, please cast your vote at
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-major-blog/
You can vote several times, too - once every 24 hours, if you feel like it. Polls close Tuesday January 13, 2009 at 10:00 p.m. GMT.
Thank you for being wonderful readers and great supporters of DRB in 2008! Lots of irresistible awesomeness is coming to DRB pretty soon, stay tuned.
(cartoon by Dave Walker)
Oh, and among other things -
"This site is being hosted entirely with recycled electrons."
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Have a Great 1909!
Selected postcards from 100 years ago:
(images via)
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Inner Space Panoramas
"Nano"-landscapes by Michael Oliveri: using Scanning Electron Microscope imaging, he deliberately blurred some areas for scale and perspective, ending up with familiar landscapes of (microscopic) valleys and fields:
(image credit: Michael Oliveri)
See all of them here.
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Reflected Glamor
Luc Viatour has updated his gallery... Colorful and very inspiring.
(image credit: Luc Viatour)
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Cold and miserable place? Maybe, but also rather haunting and mysterious...
This is the Arctic Technology branch of the University Center on Svalbard - GoogleMaps coordinates.
Photo by Evendym
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Mixed fresh links for today:
Terrifying Clouds in Greenland - [nature]
List of Unusual Deaths - [interesting]
Incredible Treasure Hunting - [vintage]
Cool Circuitry Art with Spare Parts - [art]
Architectural Wonders of the Natural World - [nature]
Gross: Strangest Foods - [careful...]
Top 10 Useless Car Gadgets - [auto]
Exciting glimpses into the future of green housing - [design]
You're nothing but a fish-dog - [fun video]
New extreme way of parking... barrels - [wow video]
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Truck cabin by Colani
As an interesting addition to our collection of Luigi Colani's streamlined designs (click here), here is a truck cabin - a futuristic jelly bean:
(image credit: L. Benkard)
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"Meat Art" by Victoria Reynolds
See more appetising? examples in this gallery
(image credit: Victoria Reynolds)
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Cute... but strange
Does it have more than 4 legs? What is it anyway?
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Crossword mural on a building in Lvov
Here is a pretty neat urban project: find the crossword's questions in various locations around the city, and then come back during the night to check the answers - they are visible when illuminated.
Somebody suggested even better idea:
(image via)
Also read our "Cool Murals and Painted Buildings" article
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Never leave home without a puzzle
Just use washable markers:
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Ushering in 2009
...or 4707 according to Chinese calendar (on January 26), or 5770 according to Hebrew calendar (it does not come until September 19) Also lets not forget the Greek (and Russian) Orthodox Christmas tonight, January 7 - lots of occasions to celebrate and lots of numbers to remember.
We'll start with a sublime image created by Tim Girvin:
The Sky Tower in Auckland:
(image credit: Felix Wu)
Illuminated displays (on the roads!) in Tokyo:
(image via)
We like this card from Stephane Halleux (featured in our "Robots in Arts" series)
Hayao Miyazaki' creature joins the festivities:
(original unknown)
Here is what Santa does (in between Christmases) -
(image via)
(image credit: Worth1000)
READ THE PREVIOUS ISSUE ->
Permanent Link......+StumbleUpon ...+Facebook  |
| | Tuesday, January 6th, 2009 | | 4:23 pm |
Hellish Weather on Other Planets http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThrillingWonderStory/~3/A6gqd8yEmGI/hellish-weather-on-other-planets.html "QUANTUM SHOT" #518
Link - article by M. Christian and Avi Abrams
Wild, Wild Planets
We've seen the worst that Earth's climate can offer (see our "Extreme Weather" series), but what if you're an apocalypse junkie, and don't really want to pack your bags and head to Kansas to cruise inside a tornado-chasing vehicle? If you get bored with Earth's extremities, look up at the starry sky and consider the other wicked, in fact simply hellish atmospheres available there:
Hot, Fast and Furious!
Take for instance a vacation spot a mere 870 light years away. Whatever your definition, WASP-12b is an unusual place. Discovered in April of this year, it’s a large planet – 50% bigger than our own biggest world, Jupiter – and a damned fast one.
How fast? Well, you know that Earth takes 365 days to go around our comfortable yellow sun. But WASP-12b takes a fraction of that time … in fact a 364th fraction of that time. WASP-12b orbits its sun in a little longer than one day.
(image credit: ESA/C Carreau)
WASP-12b is also a rather balmy planet. Considered a “Hot Jupiter” world, a gas giant without a rocky surface, its temperature has forced a lot of astronomers to rethink exactly how hot a planet can get. Time to play that game again: how hot? Well, our previously mentioned comfortable yellow sun has a surface temperature around 5,000 degrees centigrade. WASP-12b is also a fraction of that... in fact only half of that. WASP-12b has been measured at about 2500 degrees – one of, if not the – hottest extrasolar worlds so far discovered.
Here is an artist's conception of how bright the illuminated side of such planet might look - "roughly 500 times brighter than desert sand dunes on a midsummer day" (on the left). Right image shows a Jupiter-like planet in front of the HD 149026 star (more info) -
(images by U.C. Santa Cruz andLynette Cook)
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Another big fast wonder - with a possibility of life on it??
(the first organic molecule found on an extrasolar planet)
Another distant, possibly temperate, vacation destination is much closer, a mere 63 years away at the speed of light. Charmingly named HD 189733b, this world in the Vulpecula constellation is another big, hot, and fast wonder - it's slightly bigger than our own Jupiter, orbits every 2 or so days and has a registered temperature of around 700 degrees Celsius.
Why a lot of people are so thrilled about the world that can turn you into a puff of ash if you so much as even cracked your starship’s door?
(image by ESA, NASA, G. Tinetti, via)
Many things can get astronomers all atwitter: new stars, new worlds, new phenomena, and especially certain colors showing up on a spectroscopic scan. Without getting too technical, and not testing your patience any further, Giovanna Tinetti (and later NASA) discovered those spectroscopic colors in HD 189733b: water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane – evidence of what could be some form of life. Though what kind of life could live on a world like HD 189733b is anyone’s guess.
(image by NASA/JPL-Calech/T.Pyle, SSC, via)
Especially since the winds on this planet are supersonic blasts exceeding 2 miles per second or 7,000 miles per hour. "You're talking about winds fast enough to carry you in a hot air balloon from San Francisco to New York in 25 minutes" (source)
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Speaking about supersonic winds, there is enough hellish weather to be found inside our Solar System:
Saturn's Psychedelic Clouds
Saturn boasts winds up to 1,800 km per hour - whipping up wildly irregular clouds, which are often enveloped by darkness: the huge shadow of Saturn's ring system blocks sunlight for long time, over a huge area. Look into the eye of a monster storm on Saturn: the image on the left shows an 8,000 km area, big enough to swallow Earth.... the right image shows a mysterious hexagonal storm cloud shape:
(image via, more info)
Do you remember the wave clouds (or Kelvin-Helmholtz instability) that we featured in one of our extreme Earth weather articles? Such wave clouds are a regular feature on Saturn:
(images by NASA, via)
Don Dixon imagines what flying through Saturn's clouds may look like:
(image credit: Don Dixon)
Some slightly-enhanced images show the coffee-colored atmosphere (looks like a tiramisu) -
(image credit: space.com)
The weather can be a concern, though, with supersonic winds whirling around. And then, of course, there is Uranus, which has seasonal patterns (each season lasts more than 20 years) that are entirely messed up: the planet is tilted 98 degrees from the orbital plane! The poles are actually getting more sunlight than the equator.
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Enceladus Shifting Terrain
The Saturn's moon Enceladus experiences periodic and dramatic tectonic shifts, including the spontanious creation of new terrain! - caused perhaps by the existence of organics-rich, liquid-water environment beneath the moon's surface (more info). Often called a "tectonic feast", this activity produces twisted breaks, spreading ridges and even vigorous jets of vapor and icy particles, shooting off into space.
New images of "tiger stripes" on the surface testify of such dynamics (a spreading and splitting of the existing surface) -
(images credit: ciclops.org)
Jets of Enceladus: huge plumes erupt from giant fissures in the moon's surface -
(images credit: NASA, Karl Kofoed)
"What causes and controls the jets is a mystery", NASA admits. If there is evidence of water, then Enceladus will become the prime candidate for providing a habitable environment... similiar to the oceans under the surface of Europa (moon of Jupiter). Europa's mysterious hidden ocean covers the whole moon and is 100 km deep - containing in total more water than all Earth's oceans combined.
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The Crab Nebula has a really crabby instability
Interstellar nebula clouds can sometimes display a Rayleigh-Taylor type of instability (when two fluids of different densities interact with each other, compounded by gravitational effects). Such "RT fingers" can be clearly seen in the Crab Nebula, where the "expanding pulsar wind nebula is sweeping up ejected material from the supernova explosion long ago".
(image via)
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Where's CNN when you need it?
Cold or hot, comfortable or not, the universe can be a very dramatic place – and a very dangerous place if you should get caught in one of its ‘dramatic’ events. Everyone knows about black holes and supernovas, and some of you might have heard about neutron stars, quasars, and hypernovas, but in a few billion years everyone – if anyone is still around of course – will know all about our neighbor galaxy, Andromeda.
Galaxies, like our own Milky Way, come in a variety of shapes and sizes, including elliptical, peculiar, or – in the case of our home galaxy – a barred spiral. Like everything in the universe they’ve been moving since the Big Bang, heading to an eventual Big Crunch (if there’s enough mass in the universe to slow, stop, and eventually reverse the expansion back into a supermassive black hole and then, possibly, out again in another Big Bang), Heat Death (where everything in the universe simply dissolves into a dull, gray, warm ‘blah’), or one of the many other theories about the eventual fate of the Universe.
An example of interacting galaxies, info, image by Stanford University)
But one thing is known: sometime in the next two and a half billion years, our skies will become very interesting as our Milky Way galaxy collides with, and merges with, our neighbor Andromeda. No one knows what will happen then, but if we’re around – maybe holding ‘hands’ with our friends from HD 189733b – the sight will truly be something behold.
That is, if we’re around to enjoy it …
A near galactic-collision between NGC 2207 (left) and IC 2163. via. See the animation of similar event here.
Another galactic collision captured in incredible detail (click to enlarge, or see the really large image here) -
The Antenna Galaxy (more info)
Also Read:
Most Spectacular View of Saturn
Stars & Planets Scale Comparison
Permanent Link......+StumbleUpon ...+Facebook
Category: Space
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| | 12:39 am |
| | Monday, January 5th, 2009 | | 12:22 am |
| | Sunday, January 4th, 2009 | | 12:26 am |
| | Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 | | 7:10 pm |
Funny Animal Pics (DRB Series) http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThrillingWonderStory/~3/RcgPb3blLW4/funny-animal-pics-drb-series.html  DRB Popular Series
linkThe Ultimate Collection of Funny/Cute/Ugly Animal PicturesIf you want a quick fix of incredibly cute (or ugly) animal pictures, laugh-out-loud snapshots of animals in their daily life and element; if you want a definitive collection of "not-yet-LOLified" cats and other pets, plus learn about rare exotic animals - then this series is for you (part of our larger Animals Category). We will be constantly updating this page, as new issues come out, so make sure to bookmark it.  | Funny Animals, Part 12
Hilarious animals expressions! |  | Funny Animals, Part 11
Natural hilarity reaches a new high |  | Funny Animals, Part 10
Animal Comedy Club, at Full Swing |  | Animals Having Fun, Part 9
No posing for the camera, only real life |  | Funny Animals, Part 8 - page 1
Could it be that funny animals outnumber funny people? |  | Funny Animals, Part 8 - page 2
LOL Cats, Dogs, Frogs, etc. material |  | Hilarious Animals! Part 7
LOL Cats are tame compared to this |  | News from the Animal Kingdom, Part 6
Humans will never be as funny as animals |  | Animals Having Fun, Part 5
The Cute, The Weird and the Ugly: Page 2 |  | Animals Having Fun, Part 5
LOL Cats material, and more: Page 1 |  | Silly Animals, Part 4
Hunted, Hunters and Acrobats: Page 2 |  | Silly Animals, Part 4
The Cute & the Ugly: page 1 |  | Animals Having a Blast! Part 3
It's a zoo out there | 
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News from the Animal Kingdom, Part 2
Page 2: plus "What animal is this?" mystery photo
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News from the Animal Kingdom, Part 2
Page 1: a nutty zoo, if there ever was one |  | Animals have all the fun!
The start of the series: Part 1 |
This series is only part of the larger "ANIMALS" category of posts on DRB, so make sure to check them all! - CONTINUE TO THE "ANIMALS" CATEGORY ->See the incredible fishes, insects, newborn animals and even micro-organisms - all in "Animal Category" page. Permanent Link... ... +StumbleUpon ... +Facebook Category: Animals
| | Thursday, January 1st, 2009 | | 12:23 pm |
The Best of "Dark Roasted Blend" in 2008 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheThrillingWonderStory/~3/ktqVntXcOPE/best-of-dark-roasted-blend-in-2008.html "QUANTUM SHOT" #517
Link
Dark Roasted Blend: Weird & Wonderful Things in 2008
Many great things happened for us and our readers in 2008: our site received a redesign, the DRB gift store has opened, new subcategories and more popular series were introduced, and a whole lot of interviews and other media attention brought DRB content into the web spotlight.
During that year DRB has achieved Technorati status as one of the Top 100 sites on the internet; we enjoyed working with new writers, editors and fans, who also helped us with the DRB Science Fiction section.
As a sort of overview, but mostly trying to highlight the themes and articles of 2008 that you might have missed, here is a roundup of the most popular and interesting posts on DRB (arranged by months)
January - Most Popular:
January - Hidden Gems:
February - Most Popular:
February - Hidden Gems:
March - Most Popular:
March - Hidden Gems:
April - Most Popular:
April - Hidden Gems:
May - Most Popular:
May - Hidden Gems:
June - Most Popular:
June - Hidden Gems:
July - Most Popular:
July - Hidden Gems:
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