Bizarre Ball Lightning Remains a Mystery
Posted: June 29, 2013 Filed under: Environment, Phenomena | Tags: bizarre, fireball, lightning, nature, thunderstorm, unsolved mystery Leave a comment
Ball lightning in action? Photo: http://www.postersusa.com
Nature and its ways keep fascinating us. Especially when there is no easy explanation for what it offers. Like with the oddity of ball lightning.
French illustration of ball lightning 1889. Photo: National Geographics
Ball lightning may come in sizes of tennis balls, oranges, and beach balls and are set alive with electricity. Stories of lightning balls have been told with enthusiasm for centuries. No wonder.
Imagining during a thunderstorm a highly unusual ball of electricity passing through the air in front of you with an extreme intensity and speed, only to disappear within a split-second. Most people would probably be starstruck. And perhaps start to wonder if the glowing bouncing fireball before their eyes actually was real, if they have simply gone mad, or if it was a reflection of divinity.
A celestial expression was exactly how the last emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, believed it to be when once seeing a ball lightning in the middle of a church service:
Suddenly it became quite dark, a blast of wind from the open door blew out the flame of the candles which were lit in front of the iconostasis, there was a long clap of thunder, louder than before, and I suddenly saw a fiery ball flying from the window straight towards the head of the Emperor. The ball (it was of lightning) whirled around the floor, then passed the chandelier and flew out through the door into the park. My heart froze.
Fictional description of ball lightning, here in the Adventures of Tintin.
Also in the fictional world authors have depicted ball lightning as something mystic belonging to superstition. In one of the stories of The Adventures of Tintin by Belgian Hergé, a lightning ball is said to be the cause of the disappearance of the Inca mummy Rascar Capac, which Tintin is investigating on an expeditions to the Latin-American Andes.
Apart from the tales, science tell us that however rare, balls of lightning do exist. Why it occurs still remains a mystery. Theories of different kind of materials which trigger ball lightning involve microwave radiation, nuclear energy, dark matter and black holes. Scientists have also relied on their own risky experiments on reproducing the highly unpredictable energy balls. Lately, experiments with silicon balls of fire have been tested and proven to be a fiery material of the electricity balls.
Much of the research on the phenomenon is based on eye-witness reports, which obviously and unfortunately are scarce due to the strikes infrequent nature. So if you happen to be (un)lucky to be struck by ball lightning, be kind and tell the world about it. No matter how weird your story may sound.
More incredible lightning photos here.
Photo: http://www.redorbit.com
“Testy festy: Booze and balls are the name of the game”: The testicle festival phenomenon
Posted: June 28, 2013 Filed under: Culture, People and their weird ideas 1 Comment
“Chowing down” in Oakdale, Calafornia. Photo courtesy of Courier Post online
Testicles, bollocks, plums, nugs or flesh-eggs… Call them what you will, these people cannot get enough of ’em when, every year, several small towns across the USA and Eastern Europe stoke up their deep-fat fryers for the annual consumption of animal balls.
While the very first festival originated in Byron, Illinois in 1978, “The Testy Festy” in Rock Creek Lodge, Montana is one of the most famous of these testicular celebrations. There around 6,500 festival-goers can feast upon deep-fried bull gonads, otherwise known as the “Rocky Mountain Oyster”, and participate in such games as The Undie 500, where “grown” men & women racing tricycle in their underwear (or less)”.
The policy is strictly that only those over 21 years old can enter, understandable in light of No Panty Wednesday, which sees punters offered a free drink in exchange for their underwear. There is also an event called Itty Bitty Titty, but thankfully the website description lacked further clarification as to what this would involve.
For those keen to skip small town shenanigans – and it does look very small as you can see from the helpfully attached google map feature below – skipping straight to the big fry, you may be interested to know that World Testicle Cooking Championships take place yearly in a remote Serbian village.
The food, politely called “white kidneys” in Serbian, is believed to be rich in testosterone. In the Balkans, it is considered to help men’s libido.“This festival is all about fun, food and bravery,” said Ljubomir Erovic, the Serbian chef and testicles gourmand specialist who organises the bizarre cooking festival and has published a testicle cookery book.
“The bulls’ testicles are the best, goulash style,” last year’s winner Zoltan Levai told the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Centralia – The City On Fire
Posted: June 26, 2013 Filed under: Environment, History, Phenomena, Uncategorized | Tags: burning, centralia, city, coal mine, fire 1 Comment
Smoke indicating the underground fire in Centralia. Photo: saygudday.com
Can you believe it? A city on fire! The town of Centralia in the U.S. has been on fire for more than fifty years and is burning to date.
Centralia started to burn in 1962.
In the state of Pennsylvania in the U.S., the thriving coal-mining village of Centralia has been abandoned for decades, leaving a ghost-town with a constantly slow-burning underground fire. After more than fifty years of burning, what is left of the city are overgrown streets, toxic gases leaking into the air, collapsing ground, cracked asfalt, and dying trees. There are just a few scattered houses remaining in the town along with the city hall and a church.
Once a vibrant city of about 2 000 people living from the production of the coal-mines, sadly their livelihood became their worst nightmare when a day in May 1962, a fire was started in a garbage dump located on top of a coal seam. Apparently, the fire spread through a labyrinth of coal mines beneath the earth of the town and created a widespread fire below the surface.
Warning sign in Centralia, the city that might burn for another 500 years. Photo: undergroundminers.com
The Centralia Colliery Engine House in 1889. Photo: sliprockmedia.com
The authorities tried to do what they could to stop it by monitoring the fire and drilling to check the temperature of it. But the fire could not be stopped and the first families in Centralia were forced to move in 1969. The same year, the biggest effort to put out the fire was initiated. It included digging a trench and covering the fire with fly ash and clay seals. But it did not succeed.
Over the years more and more people have left the highly dangerous grounds of Centralia. The fire itself is still spreading and in 1983 it covered 350 acres underground. Only 8 years later, in 1991, the fire had increased by 75 %, when the state bought the remaining houses to evacuate the rest of the population. In 2005, only 11 people still lived there. There are no further plans to halt the fire. No one really seems to know what to do.
According to experts, there is enough coal underneath the surface of Centralia for the fire to keep burning another 500 years or longer.
The abandoned Amusement Park on Silent Hill in Centralia. Photo: Sara Collaton.
The Rule of the Odd
Posted: June 25, 2013 Filed under: Society Leave a commentOn June 21 the New York State Assembly abandoned a law that considered carrying a condom as an evidence for prostitution. Until that day you could have possibly been considered a sex worker – and thereby accused of comitting a crime – if a cop thought you looked like a whore and happened to find a condom in your purse. Being a responsible sexually active human being could potentially bring you to jail.
This odd law has inspired The Odd Blog to embark on a search for other, rather weird laws that can be found in the Civil Codes today Some of these laws date back to the Middle Ages. They are not executed anymore but are still part of a written legal code. People who unterstand more of legal-speak refer to these laws as ‘dead laws’.
Rescuing what is technically the Queen’s property. | Creative Commons
A Whale for a Kingdom
The United Kingdom might be the only country in Europe without a written constitution, it does however offer another set of hilarious laws that will make you smirk. An act from 1322 for example says that “whales and great Sturgeons taken in the Sea or elsewhere within the Real” belong to the sovereign. So technically the Bottlenose Whale the swam up the Thamse into central London in 2006 was the Queen’s whale and hers only.
Drinking and Cow-ing
The Licensing Act of 1872 – another law from the UK – makes it illegal to be in charge of a cow or steam engine on a public highway under the influcene of alcohol. People who were caught weavering next to their were to expect a penalty “not exceeding forty shillings”.
Stealing Raindrops
Until 2009 a law in Colorado prohibited the act of catching rainwater by using rainbarrels or other methods for personal use. The lae considered rainwater to be in the states property and therefor the act of catching rainwater would equal robbery
Irresponsible Horesback Speeding
Despite it’s tradition as the United State’s capital of car races they are quite serious about speeding in Indianapolis. On any street within the city limits it is illegal to ride a horse at a speed that exeeds 10 miles per hour.
Be Nice to the Fire Men in New Orleans
While a firemen are carrying out the act of extinguishing a fire, and only then, it is illegal to curse or to use opprobrious language towards him/her. So be nice or wait unitl they are done!
Sec. 74–2. — Cursing, etc., firefighters prohibited.
It shall be unlawful and a breach of the peace for any person wantonly to curse or revile or to use obscene or opprobrious language toward or with reference to any member of the city fire department while in the actual performance of his duty.
“The Little People Project” by Slinkachu
Posted: June 24, 2013 Filed under: Culture Leave a comment
Walking down the street, you spot something on the ground in front of you. First of all it appears a child has dropped one of its toys, but on closer inspection you see that you are looking at an intricately crafted scene featuring teeny tiny little people.
Slinkachu is a talented artist and former art director based in London. His concept is creating miniature scenarios in public places before photographing and abandoning them, leaving them to discovered by unsuspecting passer’s-by.
He creates the figures themselves by remodeling and painting old miniature train-set character.
“If my work plays with the notion of surprise and I aim to encourage city-dwellers to be more aware of their surroundings. The scenes I set up, more evident through the photography, and the titles I give these scenes aim to reflect the loneliness and melancholy of living in a big city, almost being lost and overwhelmed,” the artist says on his website.
Websites: slinkachu.com | little-people.blogspot.com
French Etiquette
Posted: June 23, 2013 Filed under: Society | Tags: Paris, Tourism, Travel 1 Comment
One coffee, 2,00 EUR. One coffee please, 1.80 EUR.
Ranking a country’s friendliness is not something that I could do very well since, as a travelling Austrian, there is a certain, rather rigid conversational pattern that you have to stick to when interacting with locals.
You have to:
1. Clarify that I did not grow up chasing kangaroos through the Outback
Or
2. Apologize for the World War. I and II, that is.
Fighting the Rudeness
I have however heard the rumors about a particular French rudeness. Hard to tell if this is the truth or just another stupid stereotype that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy as soon as the ordinary tourist touches ground at Charles de Gaulle. Whatever it is, it was enough to provoke action from French authorities.
To tackle the supposed rudeness the Parisian tourist office and the chamber of commerce started a campaign to promote friendliness. 30.000 copies of a six-page booklet entitled “Do you speak Touriste” were distributed to taxi drivers, hotel staff, and waiters all around the city.
“The Chinese have a very idealised and romantizised image of Paris.” Information about the Chinese tourist, his expectations and habits.
Apart from listing greetings in several languages it also promotes cultural sensitiveness. British visitors, the guide suggests, liked to be called by their first names Italians should be shaken by their hand and Germans like to eat their breakfast rather late.
“We would like to get rid of our image as a rude city”, Jean Pierre Blat, head of the tourist office explains. Especially in recent years Paris’ pole position as the most visited town in Europe is in danger, due to allegedly friendlier cities like London, Amsterdam or Berlin.
Peeing in Public
Posted: June 22, 2013 Filed under: Culture, Society 1 CommentUsing the bathroom is usually something that we see as an irritating habit, nothing special about it, really. However, finding yourself outside in the public almost pissing your pants because you have gone too long without finding a suitable place to take your leak, can actually be directly painful. In that moment, you probably could not care less about your surroundings and how beautiful or funny or clean the toilet looks. But in some corners of the world, designers and city planners have in fact invested great amount of time and effort to make your peeing-experience a wonderful one. Here are some examples.
With this transparent toilet in London, you are able to take a dump while looking at by-passers checking their outfit in the exterior mirrors.
These tuba-pissos are found in a normal tavern in the South-West of Germany.
In a fancy restaurant in London, going to the ladies room must feel kind of spaced out.
Only in Japan you can play a videogame by directing and controlling your urin. Sadly only for men, though. Located in four different metro-station in the capital Tokyo.
In Lausanne, Switzerland, the walls of this bathroom turn opaque at the push of a button, and a motion detector makes the glass clear again if there’s no movement.
Click on this map to check out where the innovative toilets are located.
The Odd Blog’s Top Ten Loopy eBay Listings
Posted: June 21, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a commenteBay. A place which somehow feels a little dodgy, perhaps because I still don’t really understand paypal. Or perhaps, as the below list demonstrates, almost anything goes.
#10. A single cornflake.
On November 2009, Bill Bennett sold a single cornflake for $1.85. He said the sale came just in time, as eBay had told him to withdraw the cornflake because he had no “Best Before” date on it. “But it’s sold now, I had some interesting inquiries about it, someone asked if it would mate safely with a Sugar Puff and another asked if it would be sociable if it was dropped in a fish tank.”
Grilled cheese Virgin Mary
#9. Iceland
On October 2008, an anonymous seller put Iceland for auction. During that time, Iceland owes $5.49 billion to Russia and the seller thinks that they can use the payment to reduce the debt. Bidding started at 99 pence but it reached $17.28 million in just a couple of days. Globally renowned singer Bjork was “not included” in the sale, according to the notice, but there were nonetheless 26 anonymous bidders and 84 bids.
#8. A group of men
On February 2006, 4 men put themselves for auction for a fun filled weekend at February 18 and 19. They will not be liable for the travel bills but promised “some beers, some snags, some good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs.”
#7. A partially eaten sandwich
In 2004, a partially eaten, 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary sold on eBay for $28,000
#6. Scarlet Johansson’s snot
While many thought she was just joking with Jay Leno, Scarlett Johansson put a dirty tissue on eBay, and the bidding immediately drove the bogey-ridden item to more than $2,000.
#5. Britney Spear’s Hair
After Britney Spears went on a rampages which resulted in her deciding to have all of her golden locks shaved from her pretty little head. The salon put her hair on eBay in hopes of making a quick fortune. However, due to eBay’s policy, this person’s hopes in making a quick buck was “cut” short!
#4. 
New Zealand
A citizen of Autralia attempted to sell the country of New Zealand in May 2006. The bid had reached $3000 before it was taken down due to a violation of eBay’s policy. I guess you can’t sell a country without the consent of its’ people.ater
#3. A ghost.
On September 2010, Martin Fawcett put his friend ghost for auction. Fawcett said that the winning bidder will also receive the ghost’s home, a regular glass jar. In the description on eBay, he writes:
“He enjoys being let out occasionally but please ensure to put him back as when left out for too long, he begins to get anxious. Twenty minutes a time is sufficient. I have not yet given him a name, so you can call him whatever you want, although he does giggle when I call him Casper.”
#2. The chance to be a bridesmaid.
You couldn’t pay some women to be a bridesmaid. But Kelly Gray thought someone would bid be in her wedding. “As weird as it sounds, I just think somebody might be interested,” she said. “Somebody who’s never been in a wedding and always wanted to, or somebody who does weddings and wants to help out.”
#1. Entire life.
On June 2008, Ian Usher put his entire life for auction. The auction included his three bedroom house in Western Australia and everything inside it including his car, motorcycle, Jet Ski, and parachuting gear. He also offered complete introduction to his friends and a trial offer for his job. Mr. Usher said his friends in Perth were willing to be introduced to the highest bidder, allowing him to advertise his auction as offering a complete lifestyle. When the auction finished, his entire life sold for $384,000.
Ian Usher
Fancy a Can of Fresh Air?
Posted: June 19, 2013 Filed under: Environment, People and their weird ideas, Society | Tags: air on can, innovation, pollution Leave a comment
Air on Can. Photo: China Daily.
A can of air a day, – how to keep living a healthy life in a dirty city. Almost all wonderful inventions have started out with a problem, a problem that required a creative solution. Most new solutions might sound outrageous, controversial or freaky. But in time, the inventions and ideas either become socially acceptable and even applauded, or they disappear.
Chen Guanbiao, a Chinese multi-millionaire, is together with the rest of the Chinese people, worried about the problem of massive pollution his country is facing. In the cities of China the smog is so pressing that you can’t even see people only a few meters away. So Chen, with his $740 million fortune, started to look for solutions. Among them was to give away 5000 bikes to stop people from driving cars.
But his latest endeavor is an odder one; cans of fresh air for the Chinese urban dwellers to enjoy when they make their way through the blanket of contamination that covers their surroundings. For only 5 yuan (less than a dollar), you can choose between a variety of “air flavors” which should bring back memories of a pollution-free society, like “post-industrial Taiwan” and “revolutionary Yan’an”.
Mr. Chen promoting his new product. Photo:
http://www.wantchinatimes.com
Talking to Fairfax Media, the passionate initiator and environmentalist, Mr. Chen, said that the pollution problem of China has become so bad that the canned air is not even meant as a joke. Although it is not directly Chen’s invention, he has most definitely made it a more acceptable solution for the dire smog-crisis of China. And who knows, maybe 5 years from now, we will all be sipping the air of “pristine Tibet”?
Odd Things from Above
Posted: June 18, 2013 Filed under: Environment, Phenomena Leave a comment
Just of the Croatian Coast near the City of Zadar lies this romantic island.
Google Maps. The indispensable tool for all the busy people roaming the pavements of big cities on their way to the shoe shop, to the hairdresser or to that nice Cuban restaurant that this one friend recently recommendend. In recent years this online world map has helped us disoriented ‘Digital Natives’ to find our way through the sometimes intimidatingly chaotic analog life, and we slowly start to forget what life was like without it.
This systematic mapping of every single corner of our lives has a rather sad sideeffect. By preventing people from getting lost on their way, it also prevents them from discovering new things the would have never found otherwise. On the other hand, one has to admit, Google Maps offers a whole new dimension for finding weird things.
Here’s the Odd Blog’s list of ‘Odd Things from Above’.
[Sometimes you need to zoom in or out a little to see the whole picture.]
Gigantic Fingerprint
Near the City of Brigthon in England we find an odd looking sculptre by environmental artist Chris Drury. From above the sculpture a giant fingerprint, like Mr. Google Maps himself had just pressed his mighty thumb into the impeccable English lawn.
The Naked Cornfield Woman
A woman’s torso including her exposed rear end can be seen clearly in a cornfield in the Palermo province in Italy.
Jesus in Hungarian Field
Could it be possible? The face of Jesus in the middle of the endless flats of the Hungarian Puszta? Some say yes, others claim these odd shadows look rather like a very feminine Adolf H. with a fringe and mustache. Decide for yourself.
Cerne Abbas Giant
Another odd sight in England is this chalk figure carved into the countryside and is supposed to be over 400 years old.
Badlands Guardian or The Native American listening to an iPod
This natural formation in Alberta, Canada shows the profile of a head. A street leading to an oil pond appear like the person was actually wearing headphones.
Strange Tree Formation
Just outside the town of Pensaukee in Wisconsin we find a rather strange arrangement of trees that, when looked at frome above, clearly read the word “FOWL”. The reason behind this literary gardening concept remains unclear.
Joke or Kidnapping?
Google Streeview offers quite amusing insights as well. Here we see four hooded men are waiting for the Google car in Los Hoyos, Mexico. If the reason behind their disguise is joke or a raid they had planned is unknown.
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