The Sky Before Katrina Struck

 

Whoever took these pictures did an awesome job.   And whoever said Katrina was 'awesome and terrifying' is telling the truth. Wow, take a look at this ....   These pictures were made by a man in Magee, MS where the eye of the storm passed thru- what an experience. Magee is 150 miles North of Waveland, Mississippi where the Hurricane made landfall. The dance with Katrina, part of her beauty as she left destruction on her exit. They are remarkably dramatic...                                     The following picture was taken from the third story balcony of Saint Stanislaus College located next door to Our Lady of the Gulf church in Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi on the morning of August 29th, 2005.   This is believed to be the initial tidal wave from Hurricane Katrina. The tidal wave was approximately 35 to 40 feet high. When it slammed into the beach front communities of Bay Saint Louis and Waveland, Mississippi to completely destroy 99% of every structure along the beach for 9 miles and over a mile inland. The destruction only started there. The flooding that continued inland destroyed the contents of all but 35 homes in these two communities of approximately 14,000 people.

 

Dangerous Job

Place: World's Most Dangerous Road in Bolivia.
Job: To fish out cars and accidents victims.
Challenge: Keep your crane and yourself from falling 800 meters down.


(image credit: ultimatejourney.com)

55 Examples of Beautifully Integrated Social Media Links in Web Design

I believe that everybody already understands the importance of social media, and incorporating it into a web design. To get the attention of your viewers to your social media links you need to use both strategy and good taste. To design a good call-to-action social media icon/link you need to think about its positioning, its color, approach, style, size, everything. You also need to keep in mind that you want to get the attention of your viewers to the social side of your website without distracting from what’s important, such as the content. In my opinion, a good social media link is one that you have no trouble to finding and when you find it, you like what you see.
To give you some ideas of how you might integrate social media links in your next project, I’ve put together a collection of 55 Examples of Well Integrated Social Media Icons in Web Design. There should be plenty here to inspire you.

What’s Up Cupcake?

Sizable Tracks

These monstrous iron feet belong to Marion 6360 model, aka "The Captain"


(image credit: bouwmachineforum.nl)


(image credit: stripmine.org)

"The Mercedes Massacre" in Berlin

Check out these heart-breaking pictures of a bunch of luxury Mercedes cars, which met their untimely demise at the "hand" of a fallen crane in Berlin. One car seems to be left untouched, but the rest quickly ascended to their Mercedes heaven (which does not allow cranes inside "pearly gates")












(images credit: Stefan Le Breton)

Tractors at Risk

(images credit: Jeeps)

Beach Park makes a Splash Waterslide Advertise

Beach Park, a water park in Brazil, has an insane-looking giant waterslide called, appropriately enough, Insano. To promote it, digital agency Pmweb sent out a pretty neat e-mail, designed to give you the feeling of flying down the horrifying contraption. The JPG from the e-mail is posted below.
Click and hold your browser's scroll bar and pull down. →

Most Remote Place on Earth

Probably as far away as possible! Short of launching him into space, consider this island - the most remote inhabited location on the planet. There are other distant places, but they are uninhabited, mostly barren and unexciting - but here life is established in a very British way, so our world-leader-in-exile would not mess it up so easily, one hopes.



(images credit: 1, 2)

Tristan da Cunha, the Loneliest Island on Earth

When Napoleon was sent to St. Helena by the British, they annexed the closest chain of islands to prevent the French from attempting to rescue him. After all, who wouldn't travel a mere 2430 km over rough and hostile seas in order to rescue the Emperor himself? Yes, that's right, the islands of Tristan Da Cunha closest neighboring land mass, the island of St. Helena, is 2430 km away.



The island is so small that cartographers can't even put it on their maps (not enough resolution). Located in the South Atlantic between Africa and South America, this volcanic outcropping has the honor of being the remotest inhabited island on the planet, and that's including Antarctica and the North Pole. One of the islands in the archipelago is called "Inaccessible", which only seems appropriate, together with their motto: "Our faith is our strength"


Maps Courtesy of Jean-Pierre Langer of Monaco

Capital: Edinburgh of the Seven Seas
Language: English, Population - barely 300 people.
Religions: Christianity (Anglican and Roman Catholic)
Monetary Unit: Pound Sterling (GBP)


(images credit: Manuel Bauer)

Tristan Da Cunha is home to a population of 270 very isolated people, with an economy based in the fishing industry. The climate is sub-tropical, with very little variation in temperature from season to season, and it would probably be a pleasant place to stay... if there were more arable land: the only sort-of level bit of land is located at the northwestern edge of the island, and the rest is moutainous and rocky.


(images credit: Peter Balwin and Sue Scott)

The group of islands is a huge volcanic formations which rose out of the South Atlantic about a million years ago. They are located on the edge of the caldera of the very active volcano! In 1961 a cone near the town, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, began to erupt and the whole community was evacuated to England. After 2 years, an investigation was conducted and it was found that damage was minimal and the residents were allowed to return.





(photos courtesy Rob Crossan & Simon Dunston and Sue Scott)

The islanders frequently face the full wrath of Atlantic storms: the gusts of wind of almost 190km per hour once were so strong that they swept the grazing cows and sheep from the fields and into the ocean... Think about looking out of your window and seeing woefully mooing bovines sailing past... perishing in the waves...

Refreshment - away from the maddening crowds

Islands of Refreshment, this is how self-proclaimed ruler (remember our little "despot" joke in the beginning?) Jonathan Lambert called these islands in 1811. "Lambert declared himself sovereign and sole possessor of the island group", but he did not last long, as he drowned while fishing a year later.

And here are the "refreshments" - Genuine Tristan Lobster Tails - the tastiest in the world!


(image credit: Roland Svensson)

"The island now boasts a convenience store, a radio station (broadcasting the World Service four days a week), a cafe, a video shop and a swimming pool. Tristan is now connected to the world by one telephone and a fax machine in the Administrator's office, and is visited once a year by the only mail ship in the world, the RMS St. Helena. This ship brings not only mail, but canned food, videos, books and magazines, medical items, and the occasional visitor." (source)


(images credit: sthelena.se)


(images credit: Manuel Bauer)


(images credit: Rob Crossan)

"Unemployment on Tristan is almost unknown, with both girls and boys guaranteed jobs when they leave school, even if posts have to be specially created for them. In recent times, girls have increasing started to continue their education (usually at St. Helena) - young women are increasingly becoming an intellectual elite on the island."


(images credit: sthelena.se)

Here is another kind of native: yellow-nosed albatross chick -


(photo courtesy Sue Scott)

and you might recognize this character ( Northern rock-hopper penguin, made popular by "Surf's Up" animated movie ) - 90% of the world population breed on Tristan:


(photo courtesy Sue Scott)

For an intrepid explorer of "abandoned & haunted places", there is something as well
- the whole abandoned and grounded oil rig!


(photo courtesy Sue Scott)

Heavy Machinery in Trouble

Nothing wrong here, this is a normal procedure, business as usual:



Another "business as usual" situation that requires special care:



Trouble comes... and stays:
















(images credit: offroad.no)








(image credit: wreckedexotics)