Ecological Homeostasis

Are We Short of Water and Food ??

http://www.lovinghut.com/
Since the vegetarian diet is the most effective solution to global warming, under Supreme Master Ching Hai's guidance, members of The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association recently opened a chain of Loving Hut vegetarian restaurants around the world, in the United States, Japan, Indonesia, Au Lac and Formosa. These places provide affordable and high-quality vegetarian delicacies to the public, bringing a positive impact on the food and beverage industry...
Meat or vegetables? Independent online (SA)
A recent study has revealed that giving up meat could drastically reduce one's carbon footprint. A diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year (as many) greenhouse gases as driving a mid-sized car for 4,758 km, the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOeW) said last week. But the food a vegetarian consumes in (the same period of time) is responsible for generating (gases only) as driving for 2,427km, the IOeW said in a study commissioned by independent consumer protection group Foodwatch...
Vegetarian Shoes And Bags
The term pleather ("plastic leather") is a slang term for synthetic leather made out of plastic, a portmanteau of plastic and leather, the term can be either descriptive, or derogatory, depending upon the user (the derogatory use implies use as a substitute for genuine animal hide leather to cut costs)...

From All Corners of the Galaxy

Which Stars Are You From?
  • Galactic Highway - The Wormhole

    • Wormholes are a valid consequence of Einstein's general relativity view on the universe. A wormhole, in theory, acts as a shortcut or tunnel through space and time. There are several versions on the same theme (i.e. wormholes may link different universes; they may link the two separate locations in the same universe; they may even link black and white holes together), but the physics is similar, wormholes create a link two locations in space-time, bypassing normal three dimensional travel through space. Also, it is theorized, that matter can travel through some wormholes fuelling sci-fi stories like in the film Stargate or Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

    If wormholes do exist however, it is highly unlikely that you'll find a handy key to open the mouth of a wormhole in your back yard, they are likely to be very elusive and you'll probably need some specialist equipment to travel through them (although this will be virtually impossible).

    Alexander Shatskiy, from the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow, has an idea how these wormholes may be observed. For a start, they can be distinguished from black holes, as wormhole mouths do not have an event horizon.

    Secondly, if matter could possibly travel through wormholes, light certainly can, but the light emitted will have a characteristic angular intensity distribution. If we were viewing a wormhole's mouth, we would be witness to a circle, resembling a bubble, with intense light radiating from the inside "rim". Looking toward the center, we would notice the light sharply dim. At the center we would notice no light, but we would see right through the mouth of the wormhole and see stars (from our side of the universe) shining straight through.

    Source:http://www.universetoday.com/

  • Stream of Time

    • Plato argued that time is constant - it's life that's the illusion. Galileo shrugged over the philosophy of time and figured out how to plot it on a graph so he could get on with the important physics.

    Albert Einstein said that time is just another dimension, a fourth one to go along with the up-down, side-side, forward-back we move through every day. Our understanding of time, Einstein said, is based on its relationship to our environment.

    Weirdly, the faster you travel, the slower time moves. (Is it truely weird? Not quite!!) The most radical interpretation of his theory: Past, present, and future are merely figments of our imagination, constructs built by our brains so that everything doesn't seem to happen at once.

    Source: http://www.socialtext.net/

2007-09-02

Taipei 101

Taipei 101 ─ the second tallest building in the world, Wi-Fi coverage, and vastly expanding subway system throughout the city....

In the last few years, Taipei — the sprawling metropolis of 2.6 million and the capital of Taiwan — has grown into a sophisticated and multicultural city.

The people, too, embody all the complexities of a country that influences includes United States, Japan, Korea, China, and South-East Asia.

Rooms in the Grand Hotel can be booked at around 5,500 Taiwanese dollars. (The exchange rate is about 32 Taiwanese dollars to one American dollar). If you want to feel like you're sleeping in a Ming emperor's palace, this is the place for you.

People in Taiwan are in general very obsessed with food that they won't leave the house without a dumpling or a plate of stinky tofu (yes, it's a real dish) at their destination.

The Night Market in Keelung selling quite bites is the most famous. Thick rice noodle soup, great lunch special for 350 Taiwanese dollars, and all-you-can-eat vegetarian buffet for 200 Taiwanese dollars are also available.

If you are wondering what to do during the day, the yellow cabs are everywhere and they can literally take you anywhere you want to go.
For just 100 Taiwanese dollars, you can see thousands of years of Chinese artifacts at the National Palace Museum. With only a small fraction of the enormous collection is on display at one time, with the rest stored in underground vaults dug out of the mountainside, you can still be assured of viewing a jade piece shaped like a cabbage.

The epitome of today's Taipei, however, is Taipei 101, the world's second tallest building, a 1,671-foot behemoth that may have disturbed an ancient fault line on the earthquake-prone island.

A trip to the 89th floor costs 350 Taiwanese dollars, a waltz around the 91st-floor observation deck is another 100 Taiwanese dollars. Agoraphobics may wish to wander the high-end mall on the lower floors.

For the opposite of such advanced architecture, take a taxi to Treasure Hill, a grassy neighborhood of illegal dwellings that Taipei's Culture Department is starting to transform into an arts district. Its epicenter is the lovely Treasure Hive cafe, which holds weekly outdoor concerts.
台北101 是位於台北市信義區的一棟摩天大樓。由建築師李祖原設計，是目前全世界第二高的大樓。樓層包括購物中心、辦公室、觀光景點等綜合用途。

夜間的台北101外觀會打上燈光，以彩虹七種顏色為主題，每天更換一種顏色，如星期一是紅色、星期二是橙色…等，每天落日時間開始點燈，至晚上10點關閉。

為了因應高空強風及颱風吹拂造成的搖晃．大樓內設置了「調諧質塊阻尼器」(tuned mass damper)，是在88至92樓掛置一個重達660公噸的巨大鋼球，利用擺動來減緩建築物的晃動幅度。據台北101告示牌所言，這也是全世界唯一開放遊客觀賞的巨型阻尼器，更是目前全球最大之阻尼器。

防震措施方面，台北101採用新式的「巨型結構」（megastructure），在大樓的四個外側分別各有兩支巨柱，共八支巨柱，每支截面長3公尺、寬2.4公尺，自地下5樓貫通至地上90樓，柱內灌入高密度混凝土，外以鋼板包覆。

大樓內並使用了光纖和衛星網路連線，每秒的傳輸速率最高可達1GB。

Source: New York Times (image by http://www.krugerfan.com/、http://www.flickr.com/、http://zh.wikipedia.org/ by Theodoranian)

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