Slashdot Mirror
Indoor Tropical Island
fons writes "The huge construction dome of the now bankrupt zeppelin maker CargoLifter, has been turned into an indoor tropical island. For about 20euro a day you can swim in the sea, take a walk in the rainforest or go to a beachparty. While it is snowing outside, it's a always a pleasant 25C on the island. And there are no tsunami's. It's bigger than Biosphere2 (it fits the Eiffeltower) but there's less sunlight. Would you spend your vacation in there? The Germans don't seem to be very eager."
25 Degrees is too cold!!! Now if it was 77 Degrees, then we could talk turkey.
It would be better if they had the whole ceiling lined with cloud pictures to simulate clouds instead of seeing steel.
Quick, someone call Pauly Shore!
Of course i'd spend my vacation there! i could get away from my mother-in-law and get rid of the clown fish in my spare bath tub in one shot!
Keep the faith, share the code
10 euros is ~$13.46 (as of 11:12 AM EST [-5 GMT]). So you pay over $13 dollars for 4 hours of relaxing in a tropical environment. That cost doesn't include drinks and food which will of course have their prices jacked up by a few bits.
Yes, you can stay longer and get charged more but I'm just using the base cost.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Here in Montreal, Mexico (that country's Tourism Board at least) is advertising with a glass-panelled trailer with sand and bikini-clad models in it, and enough heaters and sunlights. I'd like to have one of these in my backyard. I'd just have to hack a trail through the ice every morning to get into it.
/.ed already?
Would you spend your vacation in there?
Probably not. Since it's in Germany it's as expensive or more expensive to travel there than to the real thing. Plus the extra incentive that's it's not artifical.
But I suppose that's a pretty American-Centric view. If I was in say Latvia, I'd definitly go.
-Teiresias
The Germans like it ... isn't the beer any good?
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Untill the nudist version? Surely this would be the simplest option and stop the retards going "I SAW SOME GUY NUDE ON THE BEACH PAST THAT SIGN SAYING NODISTS! I WILL SUED THE CITY FOR IT!".
It would be a safe (As in child molesters can't get in) and private (yet still free and among nature). It seems the perfect solution to a problem we don't even have (sort of..).
I like muppets.
It seems to work every other time. Maybe it can only serve 1 person at a time.
Yeah, I'd spend my vacation there! Unfortunately, Survivor has booked the whole place for the 387th season. You pay for your ticket, then they vote you off. The title is slated to be Survivor: Rip-Off Island.
Would you spend your vacation in there? The Germans don't seem to be very eager.
Everybody knows that a real German's idea of a vacation is invading Poland.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Site is already really slow.. save them some bandwidth
e ngl/fotos-opening-e.htm
http://www.my-tropical-islands.com.nyud.net:8090/
"The Germans DON'T like it ...."
Sorry.
Raise your children as if you were teaching them to raise your grandchildren, because you are.
Sooner or later, on Mars? With holodisplays imitating Earthian weather? On surface, or, to lessen radiation, underground?
The thing I like about travel is getting a taste of a different culture - calypso music, new kinds of frozen cocktails, ethnic food, historical sites. Whenever I go on a trip I always stop at a museum or two. Climate and scenery are not all there is to a vacation. So this is definitely not for me.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
An abitious project to bring back some of the most amazing and majestic technology humanity has ever concieved... turned... into... a ... theme park...
I remember this feeling. It's the same feeling I had when I was a young nerd, trying to save up enough money for a 4 generation old computer, watching my clients use their top of the line $5,000 machines to play solitare....
Next youre going tell me they are using space shuttles for tourists; and advanced cybernetics for robotic pets...
Ladies and gentelmen: The dark side of capitalism.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
In honor of this idea, I'm going to watch the Truman Show today.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
I was imagining some sort of technical marvel like the Truman Show set with realistic looking sky, sun rays, jungle you could get lost in and most importantly an actual island with water all the way around (i think thats still the definition of an island?). Instead I see something that looks like a cross between a sports hall, a tacky cruise liner and some kind of theme park but without the rides. The whole thing looks very dark and dead, they atleast need retina-burning spotlights or something to hide the ugly structure? The jungle is just a load of trees with a linear zig-zag paved path! and I bet they won't let kids climb the trees for safety reasons, if I was 8 I would be pretty pissed off.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
They've had something like that for ages:
http://www.gluckman.com/IndoorBeach.html
I really think the biosphere 2 people got it wrong by trying to recreate all the various biomes of the Earth in one building. That, and the whole issue with the concrete reacting with their atmosphere says to me that they really didn't plan very well. I'd like to see someone try to make a contained ecosystem that is engineered with the sole purpose of keeping some humans alive and comfortable. I wonder how many species of plants and animals would be necessary for such a thing.
It seems like it could be a lot simpler than what Biosphere 2 tried to do, and a lot more likely to be successful. It would also be beneficial in helping us figure out what we'll need for long-term space missions.
Do they send the Gestapo after you like in the movies?
And there are many non-native english speakers, ignorant one.
www.weberseite.at
Another typical example for german politics. Some clever foreign entrepreneur spends a little money on a dubious idea, the rest is paid by the state. A few years later the thing is bankrupt, the entrepreneur gone for good with more money than he invested, and the German taxpayer has to pay the bills. It's not the first time that happens and it really makes me furious.
tsunamis
not tsunami's
. .
I think what really gets me is how flip people are feeling they can be about this in the West. Yes, Slashdot is global, yada yada, but it's readership is, for the most part, centered outside the affected area and in the United States in particular, so I blame us.
I live in New York, and what struck me was the global outpouring of sympathy after September 11, which killed 3,000 people, and it was months before anyone felt comfortable enough to to discuss anything but the horror.
But now, just a week after 118,000 parents and children and brothers and sisters have been drowned in a single moment, we start making fun little tsnumai references to set off an article on an indoor beach. That, and going to our climate-controlled indoor beaches are all part of our healing process, I suppose.
Sorry, I have a pretty high threshold, but that makes me ill.
The only acceptable defense of scientific results is to say that they were the product of the Scientific Method.
30 years after its cancellation, Cosmo Kramer will somehow managed to find the set for the TV show "Survivor" sitting intact in a dumpster. He will set it up as an indoor tropical island in his apartment, and invite his guests over for "challenges" and to be "voted off the island". Since the episode involves a high likelihood of Newman competing naked, I don't think I'll be tuning in at all.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
If you don't mind the German descriptions you can get the same (and a few more) picturesh tm
n ing-e.htm
on the German site (has a different IP, so should work as a mirror):
http://www.thetropical-islands.com/fotos-opening.
(English version (with less pics) is also available:
http://www.my-tropical-islands.com/engl/fotos-ope
Ha, Animats was more right than he even knew!
I believe in de-evolution. God made the world perfect, man fell, and its been going downhill ever since!
They definitely need to do something to hide the roof! Maybe line it with reflective screen and have a projector in the centre that projects a sky map to it? Of course, I don't want to know what kind of light source you'd need.
Would be a bit tricky to match the projection with the roof geometry, but can think of some cool thinks to do.
It look just like a huge themepark to me - whats the most unpleasant thing is in my opinion the sky. What about nice temperatures and warm sand if you look up in the sky and see..... a grey dome-wall. Great.
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
Northern climes will naturally attract many people to flock to some warmer clime, real or not and zepplin hangers seems less risky than the Indian Ocean nowadays. Just sayin.
bunjee jumping from the roof supports.
Flights from Germany to Ibiza are about 100 Euro.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
therefore this is definitely not within the male definition of tropical island.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
A three hour tour.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Germans ain't got no beach. So what if they've now 'got one' in a bubble, it still ain't no beach. That said, its still frickin' cool
And
[If it weren't for my perfect German job, I'd be back home on the beaches tomorrow, sheesh..]
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
25C is freezing! Even if you were trying to be funny, come to Africa, we need something like 30C to be comfortable!
- Singpolyma
(Tuesday December 21, 2004)7 12,00.h tml
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1377
First: Zepplin is not a generic term it is a registered trademark of the Zeppelin family and refers only to rigid airships (having a framework). .
Second: An airship that is nothing more than a giant gas bag is a blimp
I'd post a link but I can't get to the site. So for the $13,xx you can sit at the beach for 4 hours with free nocat :)
I think if they catered to young kids who wanted to get piss ass drunk, they might succeed.
Seriously. Take a look at Cancun. It's not that less artificial.
And there are many non-native english speakers, ignorant one.
I disagree with your perspective. The misuse of apostrophes (in particular, the "oh shit, there is an 's' approaching, best put in an apostrophe to warn the reader") to be a crime almost exclusively committed by native English speakers.
Fucking philestines!
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
since octopus become octopi
That isn't the issue the parent was complaining about, it was the use of an apostrophe to indicate a plural. "'s" indicates possession, not multiplicity. It's one of my pet-peeves, too. How often do I want to strangle a store owner for having a sign that says "Thank's!". Ugh!
Which is more painful? Going to work or gouging your eye out with a spoon? Find out!
http://www.workorspoon.com
The only thing missing, which is very important, is the gorgeous blue sky associated with tropical islands. I guess that a metal sky will have to do for now. The next step is to research a force field and replace the building with it.
I think of a beach full of middle aged German men all wearing their favorite Speedo swim wear.....I think I will pass.
"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. " Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Tsunami is a japanese word. According to a book I have, nami means "wave" (and "tsu" I'm too lazy to check). As a japanese word, it has no plural form.
25C may be enough for germans, but in Spain we usually don't like to go to the beach if it's not warmer, now it's 15C here in Valencia and for me it's pretty cold, we can reach 20C in winter some days, and in the summer it's obviously much hotter, and we are not talking tropical weather even remotely.
DON'T PANIC
What happened at Kalkar was FAR worse - far more money was invested (i.e. wasted) by various governments. Read all about it here. My parents paid the extra "Kalkar tax" (to pay for the reactor) for years and years, and now it, too, is a theme park. And not even a nuclear theme park, it is simply a health spa. I know, I visited while you could still see most of the reactor and equipment...
Oddly enough, this is in Germany as well. Makes you wonder...
It's not that making life enjoyable is bad, on it's own.
It's when there are other things that *ought* to be getting done, but we're too busy using *the same technology* to make life enjoyable and *not* doing those things.
Case in point: Space Tourism
I'd *love* to be a space tourist. If it ever gets down into my price range while I'm healthy enough, I will. But if we get *so* preoccupied with space tourism that we don't think or prepare for comet/asteroid detection and deflection, that's bad. If tourism prevents exploration, that's bad. At the moment, I don't think this situation exists. In fact, I think space tourism will make people *more* conscious of the things we ought to be doing in space, and more supportive of them.
But preoccupation with entertainment at the expense of real goals is something to watch out for.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Holiday Rates:
1) On National Holidays apply our weekend rates.
2) If a workday follows: Prices as on Sundays.
3) If a Sunday or Holiday follows: Prices as on Saturdays.
4) On a Holiday's Eve: Prices as on Fridays.
I agree with this, but in defense of the insensitive, I think many people (especially young people) have no way to fit a disaster of the scale of this tsunami into their frame of reference.
Humor has always been a way to deal with things you don't understand and can't grasp. In Africa, there are tribes in which the normal response to seeing something unimaginably horrifying - like a pile of dead, decaying human bodies - is to laugh. This is not amusement, it's a reaction to the incomprehensible, a way to deal with it. In the West, there's a veneer of cynicism over this response, but in the end joking about something like this is an acknowledgement that there's really not much else to be done about it (aside from actually donating or dropping everything to fly to the affected areas).
That said, people should be more aware that their offhand comments can seem incredibly insensitive to people who are more directly affected.
I'll bet this loses a lot more than 120 million euro.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Hehe, yeah I noticed that last time I was in Leshoto - while we were walking around in shorts everyone else was wrapped up good in winter clothing (it was some 22-25 C)
and blinks with a red light from just before age 30 and onward.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
They're replacing large parts of the roof with a transparent material so the atmosphere should be better soon.
Not just Africa. It was 70F (21C) in Southern California when I went there in November and I was in short sleeves and my counterparts were wearing winter coats.
You do forget about this thing's "pseudo-cultural" values though. This fabricated cultural concept of a tropical paradise, probably manufactured by an intl. conglomerate of 'habitat engineers'; technological systems (re-)creating the idea of an exotic getaway. Personell following rule-books on how to make the patrons feel 'away'.
:).
Feels similar to recycling garbage and selling it back to the polluters as e.g. 'art'.
The very artificiality of this seems rather interesting, not that I'd *ever* consider it as a bona fide vacation.. But as an anthropological excursion, possibly
Plus Germans like their suntan/sun burn. There just isn't enought light for them in there. :)
Addition: Invading Poland...with beach towels!
www.westedmontonmall.com/play/waterpark.asp
I rtfm and it looked lame but pictures don't necessarily convey how it feels to be there. Even so, I'd rather go to the West Edmonton Mall if it wasn't 2000 miles away from where I am. It is/was the world's biggest mall. People do travel hundreds of miles to go there. People do use the entertainment. The day I was there the waterpark was packed. Comparing pictures, the wave pool at the WEM makes its German cousin look pretty sad. Many of the attractions are free. I stayed in a cheaper hotel across the street but the WEM has some pretty neat theme rooms. The movie theater has a fire breathing dragon whose flame looked about 20 feet long to me. I could feel the heat from about 50 feet away.
Come to think of it, there are several malls I would travel a hundred miles to shop and take in the free entertainment and shop and eat. (my kids are past the age where they like the rides.) I think the guys who built this German thing just didn't do their research.
Alcohol discounts and club music would bring the Germans in 10-fold. In my experience they are more interested in a party than a beach, but open to both, as long as there's a party.
When will this meme catch on? Whoosh!
I suspect this is a case where it's going to take some time to work out the kinks, and hope the owners took that into account when doing their business plan.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this become successful - eventually. I also wouldn't be surprised if that didn't happen until the debt had been restructured, and possibly through transfer to new ownership.
Just my .02 worth...
---
For my other .98, check here :-)
And there are no tsunami's.
The apostrophe-s (e.g., dog's) indicates ownership*, whereas s at the end of the word (e.g., "dogs") indicates plurality.
For example, if you wanted to talk about the water that the tsunami owns, you would say, "the tsunami's water." If, on the other hand, you wanted to talk about more than one tsunami, you would say "there are multiple tsunamis."
We understand that the /. "editors" are about as useless as tits on a boar when it comes to cleaning up each story's text, so we ask that each author go the extra mile to 'cut the muster'.
For more information, please check the Common Errors in English site.
* Yes, there are other uses.
Lets Hope they don't get too carried away and send a Tsunami to wipe out everyone once a week.
For further information on why the apostrophe does not live before every 's', along with other essential punctuation guidelines for English, "please refer to Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynne Truss. ISBN 1861976127
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
Uhhh, waiter, there's a zeppelin in my drink.
Then at least the holigans would show up.
Pauly Shore could cause some trouble in that bubble...
It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
i've been there last thursday for about four hours. At that time, about 5.000 other people did the same. On some days between the holidays, the dome had to be closed due to overcrowding (max. 7.500 people at the same time). The visit was the birthday present for my girlfriend (together with a musical visit later that day).
The dome is extremely impressive. The size dwarves everything i ever seen before. I'm familier with large halls (productions sites) due to my connections to AIRBUS, but those are much smaller. The Statue of Liberty would fit inside the dome upright. The mentioned Eiffel tower would fit only if laid down. The tropical feeling suffers from the size. Only lower 10m (30feet) contain some tropical stuff (houses, plants, pools), the remaining dome looks still industrial. It seemed a little dark to me, i would have prefered more and warmer light.
The temperature inside is as warm as advertised. Both pools were overcrowded and queuing up was required for nearly everything (food, toilett, entry, cashier, changing cubicle, etc.). Prices are very fair. Overall rating would be a "B". There a quite a lot places to improve, but i hope the "Tropical Island" will survive.
For geeks: Every person entering the dome receives a card with a RFID chip. This card is used to pay food, drinks, etc. The RFID chip even operates the lockers (instead of a key). On exiting the dome, you pay according to the bill for your RFID card. Unluckily they had some trouble with this process. So it was up to "What did you have?" and paying what you told them.
The dome is open round the clock; i would recommend to visit it during the night, when there are less visitors (there were too many small children for my taste). You can even rent a tent for inside camping ;-).
If anyone is interested, i can add links to images and a short video later.
Regards, Martin
And I thought my heating bills were expensive.
(if they made the thing out of glass, they'd at least have a greenhouse effect.)
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
In our defense, jokes were popping up in the wake of September 11th too. Not a day later, I received a joke involving a businessman answering his cell phone from his mistress's house on September 11th afternoon, assuring his wife that he was fine, just working at his office late as usual...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
What's funny is that I spent 15 minutes last night in a T-Shirt in my back yard, untangling the dogs' leashes and it was -10C. I was perfectly comfortable. I wouldn't have wanted to spend hours like that, but it was OK. I actually like the -5C that it hangs around for most of the winter here. I only really want/need it warmer a couple of days every few weeks because it helps clean off the sidewalks and streets when it's above freezing.
Right now, it's -12C with a wind chill of -17C and I didn't (along with a lot of other people) bother to fasten my overcoat this morning when walking the 3 blocks from the parking lot to get indoors.
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
Time for a quick review of Proper Apostrophe Usage
Giant airships was just so much cooler, it's sad they have gone bankrupt.
Maybe we'll see some new uses for these neat spherical blimps sometime soon.
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
Great all we need now is Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin and we got ourselves a big hit.
Well, I wouldn't call white trash America "native English speakers."
Look, 9/11 was 'a tragedy', but its been a worse tragedy that the entire American Nation 'completely changed' afterwards.
... and reject nationalistic jingo-ism, in all its forms.
I'm not American. To me, Americans taking offense at someone feeling '9/11 is irrelevant' is more offensive. The U.S. gov't, and its people (and its psycho-techno-militant-industrial complex) used 9/11 'as an excuse', with 'the emotions of the people' toyed with all so well, oh so cleverly, to produce the results desired: wanton invasion, and promotion of warfare, on a global scale.
What I wish is for America, and its nation of consumers, to Chill The Fuck Out, realize that the New World Order is upon you, and forget about nationalistic pride in the face of the human condition.
The Tsunami [(c) 2000 Mad Magazine] taught me that the notions of nation are irrelevant in the face of natures fury. And I choose to follow natures path over mankinds irrelevent discourse, any day
9/11 was a farce. Anyone getting upset over it is an idiot.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I'm from Aruba, nough said!!
#include "a_life.h"
And there are no tsunami's.
Thats the same thing as saying "And no worries about some plane crashing into you!" in September 2001.
100,000 people died last week, I'd say its a tad too early to start making wisecracks about it to sell your product.
So it's kind of like 'deer?'
One deer, two deer, a million deer...
One tsunami, two tsunami, a million tsunami...?
It doesn't sound that bad...
In Silicon Valley, thousands of geeks drive by the airship hangers at Moffett Field every day. They're so large, clouds sometimes form in them. But the beaches of Santa Cruz are a few miles away, so I guess there'll be no indoor resort in Sunnyvale.
I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA). Current temp here is 9 deg F (-13 C). I think something like this would be great if it were here and reasonably priced. Say, spend a long weekend for under $200 USD/person. We already have the Mall of America, and indoor water parks we getting popular (in Wicsonsin Dells, WI).
This could work well here, but I think the value/price factor is big. If it's much more than what I stated above, a person can fly to a real destination and not be "trapped" in a dome.
Would I travel there to try this out? Never. I'd much sooner visit South America (or Mexico, or Puerto Rico, etc) and find a real tropical paradise along with all sorts of other intersting things to do see like museums, ruins, hiking/biking trails, etc.
I am sure the Germans have fond memories of news footage seeing the effects of snow on an indoor water park in Russia in the not too distant past. Seeing Russians rescued in snow wearing bathing suits gives me chills.
The plural of "tsunami" is "tsunamis". There is no apostrophe. The apostrophe is not used to pluralize! EVER! If you use an apostrophe to make a plural you are doing something very bad and wrong. Please stop.
Sorry, had to get that out.
Visit the
Who needs to know how to spell when you can be hanging out on a tropical island :)
roamingfeet
News Article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3492313.st m
Pictures http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/ 3489533.stm
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
25C is considered winter temperatures to the average resident in the tropics. It was hotter than that this weekend here in Florida :-)
40C is closer to the mark for summertime. Don't forget your sunscreen!
Such as testing terraforming, etc.
Though this is a cool idea due to the fact that it almost simulates a perfect environment. This place could be looked at for research value as well, like how well the plants thrive in this environment.
I dont see this place lasting long, sadly, however, if it gets turned into a research facility, that would be better, we could use to simulate space colonies, or space farming. Or practice terraforming in micro environments (fill the place up with dead soil or sand, etc.. then start building water enriched areas with their own water systems that help with producing water, adding in plants, etc, and see how it spreads, etc, the phoenix area of arizona is a perfect example that terraforming can work in deserts)
I lived a few summers in a very very small German town on the Netherlands border. They had a public pool uh... center (I guess). It had about 3-4 outside pools (along with a pro diving pool). Inside there was a pool that snaked inside the entire partially glass-domed building with waterfalls, a sauna area, whirlpools -- and a nice long slide that slid outside, then in, then out again, and finally into the main pool. Adjacent, still inside there was an Olympic sized pool. (This I remember somewhat accurately, it was over 10 years ago).
I think the idea of going to this place is nice, but when you have something SOMEWHAT similar in your own town and it's free (or it may have been $1-2) then why go?
Fairfax County in Va. also has a couple of pools, some of which are almost like waterparks, with wave pools, slides, etc.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Oh please. Even if it *was* official policy to kill as many people as possible, the US would have an INSANELY FAR way to go before beating Hitler's tally.
If the US ever does set that policy, you'll fucking know it. Because a whole shitload of people will start dying. And no, the Iraq situation isn't even close.
The most immediate problem I can see is that it's overpriced. 20 EUR for a day (27 USD) would be OK, I guess (even though it still seems rather expensive), but that's just for fours hours - every hour beyond that costs another EUR, and while that's not *that* much more, it makes the whole thing seem like quite a rip-off. If I go to a place like that, I want to be able to relax without having to keep an eye on the watch - I want to be able to pay a flat fee and actually get a ticket for the whole day.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
ahh, but that is where you are wrong my friend. In the heavily German/Dutch population of central Pennsylvania that sign is quite legit. They use the word 'you' so poorly that it now takes on a plural tense to mean a bunch of you, ie... yous. Used in a sentence such as when are yous going to come over and see our new house. so taking that into account, the sign "Thank's" must mean "Thanks to all the yous that have visited/shopped/etc..
I resisted, when I saw the posted text, actually visiting the site(s) with the images. Somehow I just knew that it couldn't possibly live up to my expectations. Where's the sense of design drama? All that money, and they didn't hire even one graduate student from a theater school? That colossal space has so much potential as a canvas, but instead it's been used in an attempt to weakly echo "real" places with the expected themeparkish results.
Perhaps they should have gone for something more exotic (read: surreal, though maybe not right out of Arthur C. Clark), or somehow completely unexpected. I'll resist all holo-deck references other than to say: create a place where you could otherwise NEVER go, rather than a pale shadow of reality, even if they have good sushi.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
So the only real change is that the hydrogen has been replaced with methane? Oh the humanity!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
239 Posts and not one Risa joke, cmon people are we all still hung over from the New Years parties?
I'd go, but not for a whole week the first time because I need to know what it smells like in there before I make any sort of committment. That's the neat thing about naturally-occurring islands: you get adequate ventilation for free.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Not exactly "back to nature."
But your us-centric perspective on this is pretty telling. Actually, if you look at the site you might even find a nekkid kid running around the lagoon. They're tiny pics and one can't be sure, but it does look like that one kid is naked. Oooh, call the cops.
Now, answer me this: when a third (at least) of molestations involve an adult with children, how do you keep out those evil molestors? How do you know who might be molesting their own kid? How do you even know who in your own extended family is or isn't?
When they talk to the families of these people on the evenng news you nevr hear someone say "Yeah, it's too bad.. I knew he was evil from the minute he moved in next door, but I let my kid sleep over there with his kids anyway..."
Anyone else get the reference to Coleridge's "Kubla Kahn" in that article:
"In Brandenburg did Colin Au his stately pleasure dome decree."
Interestingly, "Kubla Kahn" can be interpretted as a description of an unacceptable affair between two individuals, or, possibly as a description of the sexual act itself. It describes unattainable pleasure, or pleasure, that, once attained, carries with it a burden.
One must also note the described context of the poem:
It is the first part of a description of an opium enduced dream enjoyed by Kubla Kahn while undergoing medical treatment.
I wonder if the proprietor of this indoor island had similar inspiration.
Actually, from what I remember, the apostrophe *is* used to pluralize several special cases:
Letters and Numbers called out in text:
p's and q's (or 1's and 0's if you prefer, though the case for it there is slightly less clear)
Words that are called out in text:
I find bold, italicized and all-caps ever's are rarely, if ever, called for.
Also plurals of abbreviations:
We've had enought RTFA's for this story, on to the next.
is why people would wager upwards of 70 Million on a project that left them "stuck with what they had."
I dunno. I looked at all the pics, the webcam, and it still looks to me like it just sucks. It looks like a big shopping mall - which is probably what it will end up. Except probably not even then, because it's an hour away from the population. Maybe they could devote one end to apartments - then people could move in and never have to leave or go outside. All the benefits of life in the GDR at twice the price - but without those cold Russian winters. Yeah, that's the ticket.
And there are no tsunami's. ... or do more people feel it's a bit too early for those kinds of jokes?
In Sweden there are still over 2000 people missing/presumed dead, which - possibly - makes it the greatest disaster ever for us.
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In a free and open internet, who needs Windows
Maybe the sand isn't deep enough for them to dig their infamous six foot holes in the beach? They dig holes in which they lie in the bottom all day or until (sometimes) the sand caves in and buries them.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
It didn't look like it got enough sunshine...how are you supposed to get a tan? Also, it just looked like a cool theme park...not somewhere anyone would want to vacation.
would LOVE that place. They already have indoor skiing and beaches, so more must be better, right?
>Why can't we simply extend that level of consideration to public forums?
Because non-real time text exchange is just not the same thing as being in front of a person. No matter how much you talk about it or what have you, it's just not the same.
People just don't have a good ability to conceptualize that those words on a screen were made by real, actual, living, breathing, human beings with feelings and all that. Unless it impacts them personally and then they feel it really big.
The internet is a world of overreaction and underreaction. Overreaction to what others say when it impacts you (because text lacks visual and emotional cues that all people use as a primary source of input during face to face communication) and underreaction to what they say to other people (because they think that things don't need to be said.. like this sentence is *obviously* meant jokingly and what have you). Once you realize that and come to terms with it, you'll find that the online world becomes a bit easier to cope with.
Also, lets say, for example, that I said something you took offense too. I don't know you. I'll likely never know you. Why should I concern myself with what you think? If you were friendly then you'd understand it in the way I meant it.
People tend to see others online as being just like them and their own circle of friends. Without referents, all people tend to imagine other people as similar to the ones they're around most often. "My friends wouldn't be offended by a joke about tsunami", sort of thing. The fact that other people exist and may be impacted or offended by the joke in question is known by the person making it, but they don't really grasp that fact on an emotional level. The two types of knowledge don't mesh well. And so they fail to see that people could be offended because jokes are made by the emotional level (except for puns, which explains why puns are not funny).
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Thanks for the corrections. Apparently this is disputed. Here are several sources that say not to use the apostrophe in those circumstances:
= 28 3493
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id
Although a Google search turns up other documents(mostly manuals of style for various organizations) that back up your claim.
The examples you mentioned don't bother me much. It's the completely random use of the apostrophe in other situations that drives me crazy. Next time you see an improper apostrophe, look at the text surrounding it. Odds are there will be at least four or five properly spelled words, with no noticeable pattern setting them apart from the error. The submitter, for example, spelled "Germans" correctly.
Visit the
Right now it's 23C and I am bundled up in a sweater because with the breeze coming through the window it's too cool to be comfortable in a T-shirt. I was outside a couple hours ago and many people were wearing jackets.
Fortunately I can count on it reaching a comfy 30 again tomorrow so I just have to make it through the night.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
For those who don't know, the Eiffeltower isn't very big. I mean it's cool and all, but not because of it's size.
My house is NEVER above 20C and is usually between 15C and 20C. In the summer, I set the air conditioning to 20C/68F. In the winter, that's also where the furnace is set during the day. At night, we drop it down to about 15C/60F (though not with the air conditioning as that would get really expensive).
The Glass is Too Big: My Take on Things
I've been to Australia. Yes, I love my white Christmas and majestic mountains - but as you've said having "never been to Germany, never been to Australia" perhaps you're just a bit too attached to home? In other words, don't know what the other guy has to say until you've seen it. Certainly I still have daydreams of Australia every time I have to shovel 3 inches of snow off my damn car.
Trust me, if I actually were an Australian I'd definately at times lament what I left behind. Not all the time - but enough that perhaps an indoor beach might be a nice idea for awhile (though it would likely lack the beautiful avian wildlife that Aus has).
Wow, I think I would die within 15 minutes of entering your house. It gets up into the 30s almost every day here and I never use the AC.
Good thing we've got such a big planet with all these options...
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
In Dutch, if you are writing a word that ends with a vowel and takes an 's' in the plural (such as many imported foreign words), then you are required to use an apostrophe. For example, "Foto's" is the plural of "Foto".
So I guess now we have the question if what is really meant by misuse.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
You know what's amazing to me?
The fact that I've read every post on this thread and there isn't a SINGLE "news for nerds" comment in the lot.
No questions about how it works.
No questions about why the zeppelin co. failed and whether or not it really could succeed (for cargo).
Hell, not even a comment about Beowulf clusters of these things
Not to be a lemming here but is slashdot the new Fark? I used to come here to be a fly on the wall as people much smarter than me debated the science, engineering, programming, and overall impact of "news for nerds". Well, the news may be for nerds, but the comments are for children.
Where are you my old-ass slashdotter friends? And I mean that in sincerity. If anyone knows, please let me in on the secret so I can get back to reading about things I enjoy instead of the constant whining and/or political slant.
Thank You.
What the hell is WRONG with you people? I run around in sandals all year round. Frozen outside, and I'm still in 'em (no I'm not wearing socks you geek!). Meanwhile, mid summer I sometimes have to work in 50C temps. Its hot, but I can hang. LEARN TO ADAPT YOU FOOLS!
Send whiskey and fresh horses!
So I guess now we have the question if what is really meant by misuse.
English != Dutch. End of question.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Having grown up in Filelfia, I'm all too painfully aware of the use of youze. As in "Youze gies frum Kin'gaprussia wunt sum wooder?" :)
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Agreed. A lot of people glorify their homeland/hometown/etc just the way people often glorify "the good ol' days." They tend to forget about all the bad things too.
My GF is Shanghai and while here in Canada lives in a smaller city. She tends to wander into a "this small town sucks mode" and forgets about the downsides of her hometown too. Right now she's back home for awhile but suffering from terrible allergies due to pollution etc. I can see that there's probably a lot of exciting things in Shanghai, but as with your example of Toronto there are downsides as well (probably similar downsides).
Look at the picture again, but now imagine it's a huge cylinder in space, rotating slowly like Rama for artificial gravity. Like an interstellar colony ship or something. Wouldn't that be cool...
When Hogan's Heroes finally came to German television, it was very well received and popular. However there was one slight problem: a stiff-armed "Heil Hitler" salutes are banned under German law.
So on German TV, whenever Col. Klink answers the telephone, his arm goes straight up into the air, and he says, "Look how high the corn grows!".
The width and height of this indoor beach thing is actually comparible to the stanford torus ( a space colony design from the L5 Society). Of course, to make it the same length as the circumference, the dome would have to be nearly 4 miles long.
There is a similar thing in Japan, called Big Splash. However, this one looks better.
The price is a little high. The full day price should be around 15 Euros.
Maybe you've missed the context, which was a claim that only native English speakers put apostrophes before plurals in English words. I was explaining why some non-native speakers might in fact have that tendency.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
as a german who has been to australia, i have to say that e.g. James Boag's is an excellent beer, and they have several others which are pretty good. Fosters only gets exported in huge amounts because nobody drinks it in australia.
if you like good beer a trip to australia won't disappoint you.
I'll take German beer over a tropical vacation.
if somebody ever offers you a tropical vacation, let me know and i'll swap for a case of german beer.
OK, I think I know which one of you is thinner than the other.
I read about this place about two weeks ago and noticed on their website they had Wifi access.
"Cool" I thought, "I can bring my laptop and work on the beach for a day".
We would have left right away but heard on the radio that they where having heating problems. Heatint problems were a definte deal killer sine it was currently snowing outside. I think the heating problems lasted a few day and at no time was this information posted on their website.
That left a bad taste in my mouth right away.
A week later we called to ask if the heating problem had been fixed. They said it had (while only grudgingly admitting they had a heating problem at all).
We were on a mission and weren't going to let a little poor management stand in our way. The three of us piled into the car yesterday and were on our way. After slight more than a one hour drive from Dresden (I think it's 45 minutes from Berlin) we were there.
The website says 100km from Dresden and 50km from Berlin. It is almost 200km between Dresden and Berlin.
As soon as we saw the building from the freeway the excitement started building (this building is big). We were in for something big.
Ten minutes after first sighting we were in the parking lot. The weather was perfect. An ice cold rain with strong winds. Tropical Islands was just what the doctor ordered!
On the way in the door I commented to my coworker with a sinking feeling that we neglected to ask on the phone if the advertised wifi was working yet.
Oh well it probably works and its not like we're turning around now.
We walked in the door and it was soo....
underwhelming.
The problem is that the building really is unbelievably huge. And what they built inside it is just really big.
It was dwarfed by the building really. Thow we coudl see a few people floating above us in a hot air balloon. That was pretty damn cool.
Most importantly it sure was warm!
I had to take my jacket and sweaters off immediately to keep from sweating.
The entry way was kind of confusing. We were shuttled to the entry were we were given a debit card to keep track of how much we spent and how long we were in there so that you can pay on your way out. Take a card and walk in. There were no prices posted anywhere. Nowhere was the system explained If we had not read about the system on the website we would not have even been aware we were explicitly agreeing to pay by accepting that card the pretty girl handed us.
And I forgot the Polynesian dancers. Right next to this girl were three "Polynesian dancers". These were three Asians in "traditional" Polynesian dress with about 40 pounds of makeup on with the most depressed/humiliated looks on their faces.
Now we're in. We went to change into our swimsuits and then proceeded to ask the nearest coworker about wifi.
WLAN?
Wifi?
Wireless Internet?
What's that?
We had to ask 5 coworkers before we finally make it pretty high up the management chain and were told to please sit while they found an answer for us.
After awhile a guy who gave me the impression he was the manager on duty came out explained that the it department couldn't help him. However if we hag around near the office area and use the password "Guest" we might be able to get it to work but he could make no promises.
Funny I thought the website said they had wifi access.
We gave up on working and went swimming. We swam around for like two hours had a great time. Then we got bored, had a decent lunch for a reasonable price, and paid our minimum four hours and headed to work.
I had a good time. But I don't think you'll see me around there again anytime soon.
There are no tsunami's WHATS? Don't leave us hanging!
Heh. No comma needed.
Texas has at least one of everything.
I want to lie on the beach but I don't have time to travel so I installed an umbrella over the bed. Then I put my sunglasses on and ate junk food. Sometimes I find shells in my Cygwin.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
http://www.westedmontonmall.com/play/waterpark.asp
It's something like $25/day/person but in the winter there's a family pass for up to four people for $150.
Believe me, when you're in a cold snap like we've been this past week or so (-30C/-20F) that's $150 well-spent.
The Cargolifter hall wasn't designed to be heated up to tropical temperatures. The problem seems to be, that the humidity is collecting and the water keeps dripping from the roof.
.. then I've got some sea-weed to sell you.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --