You are undoubtedly excited about the upcoming Xiamen International Cow Parade. Who wouldn’t be, as cows are awesome. A few days ago about 50 designs got picked out of a 100 that were submitted for this totally cultural event. With those odds it doesn’t seem too hard to have your own cow grazing in the streets one day, which is probably what a very talented designer from Hong Kong figured when he submitted his masterpiece, The Bruce Lee Cow:
An instant classic we say, with the “udder penis” as its most interesting feature. Of course the fact that a cow would have slight troubles holding nunchuks is only something a fussy cow-anatomy freak would point out. The Xiamen International Cow Parade is jointly held by Xiamen and Taiwan this year and starts next month. Speaking of horns by the way, the Tibetan rumors are true after all: Satan lives in China!
It’s probably hard to believe, but sometimes we interest ourselves for scientific stuff. And look what we came across: new shots by NASA which are the most true-colour images available till date of that little planet we call Earth. Isn’t it pretty? We owe it to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, whose researchers created a Blue Marble series via images from the Terra satellite which is in orbit more than 700 km above the Earth’s surface. Resolution goes up to 21,600 pixels across. Check out cool animations here, showing seasonal changes in landcover and Arctic sea ice. TDS Science Report out.
This morning Taiwan was struck by an earthquake of magnitude 6.4 on the Richter scale. Reports so far mention 11 people being injured and no fatal casualties. The epicenter of the quake was in the mountains northeast of the city of Kaohsiung at a depth of 5 km.
Hence, not exactly a Haiti or Chile-like disaster it seems, yet only 11 years ago a quake measuring 7.3 killed approx. 2,400 people and destroyed/damaged 50,000 buildings on the island. As usual, we were slightly amused by Xinhua’s -the PRC’s official press agency- depiction of the situation, referring to the island as China’s Taiwan:
Fung Shui is a beautiful, ancient energy system which can be manipulated used for increasing one’s wealth and well-being. It also brings us amusement, considering the many sex scandals involving “masters” and gullible Hong Kong citizens. It’s of course no surprise that the profession of Fung Shui master is considered to be the least trustworthy in this town. However, when the bullshit these people spill directly impacts our safety, we get a little agitated.
Today SCMP reports that the construction of a weather radar which helps pilots land safely at our airport in difficult conditions is to be postponed. Why? Because the location is rejected by angry villagers who claim the radar would affect the area’s Fung Shui. The Doppler radar in Tai Lam Chung is currently the only radar in this town capable of monitoring wind changes near the airport in bad weather. This radar is scheduled for breakdown shortly, yet with the villagers’ objection against the proposed new location we could potentially end up not having a decent bad weather radar until 2015.
SCMP illustrates the importance of the Doppler radar with an example of a pilot who ignored a microburst once, a rapid descent of cool air (detecting these is what this radar does best). The pilot ignoring the warning nearly crashed his plane, as he got to 9 meters from the surface of the sea. So how is it that our government can push a HK$ 69 billion railway down our throats and force hundreds of villagers to relocate, while the construction of a radar that is absolutely VITAL for our safe arrival and departure can be postponed for a few years due to local superstitions?
Food for thought on a Monday. Have a great week folks.
Soon you’ll be able to travel from and between Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Macau and Guangzhou by a Canadian built DHC-6 Twin Otter, a.k.a. as a floatieplane:
Cheaper than the helicopter, more expensive than eco-friendlier alternatives like the dull ferry and train. Waterfront Air aims to have at least four of these babies available by the end of this year.
