Having been to Australia and seen Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge, the Parthenon at the Acropolis in Athens, the Mona Lisa in La Louvre and the Statue of Liberty in America I consider myself fortunate to have witnessed these buildings in all their glory with my own eyes.
[Soliloquy: The trip to America a few years ago was tinged in sadness, walking past the site of 9/11, recently commemorated by a 10-year anniversary. Still the picture on my computer desktop is that of Gate 3 of the World Trade Centre site. A humbling moment.]
Buildings can be used as houses, commerical property, storage, museum, stadiums and landmarks among other things and, despite only seeing other houses as I look out of my window, my curiousity has been summoned at how bricks and mortar shaped the world.
When talking about impressive buildings it is hard to look past the pyramids in Egypt. The first pyramid was built around 2750BC out of sandstone and desert clay. Excavations seem to show the builders of the pyramids were Egyptians who lived in the surrounding villages. One day I hope to visit Egypt and the pyramids in Giza.
But nowadays we are building structures such as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates - currently the tallest building in the world at a sky-scraping 2,723 feet tall and contains a whole lot of steel.
Almost every country has an iconic building - Big Ben in England, the pyramids in Egypt, Sydney Opera House in Australia, Eiffel Tower in France, Great Wall of China, Colosseum in Italy etc etc.
Buildings are used as home sweet homes where the majority of people may read this from and could contain wood, mortar, metal, bricks and stone.
All this came from a couple of sticks in the mud, once we decided to move out of caves. Yet some people do still live in caves, others in tents, wooden shacks, brick structures and for an unlucky few there is nowhere to shelter as the winter approaches.
And we cannot finish this entry without a mention of "La Sagrada Familia" or the "Unfinished Cathedral" in Barcelona. Work started on this in 1883 by Antoni Gaudi and the work is not expected to be completed until 2026 - the 100 year anniversary of Gaudi's death.
Next time you come home from whatever venture just take a moment to look at where you have made your home and those dwellings around you - how did your building come to be?
source :http://www.timelineindex.com/content/view/1178
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/pyramids/pyramids.html
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0772716.html
http://www.famousbuildings.net/
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
B for Buildings
From the basic wooden shacks that class as houses in Third World countries of today to the pyramids of Egypt this post will aim to put a roof over your head.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
A for Animals
Since I have two "pets" we shall start there. The first is a cat we adopted from the local animal shelter and she is around two (of our) years old and still considered a yearling. We are all familiar with a cat but the bitesize content below may broaden your knowledge.
Cats started being domesticated from the time of the ancient Egyptians and in Cyprus 10,000 years ago, but are believed to descend from the Fertile Crescent and the "Near Eastern wildcat" 70-100,000 years ago.
A female is a "Molly" or "Queen" while a male is a "Tom". Domestic cats can see around six times better than humans at night, while we hear frequencies from 64Hz-23,000Hz, cats range from 45Hz-64,000Hz and they can smell around 14 times better!
The other animal in our household is the goldfish, which has been around my house for close to 15 years and is a member of the Carp family.
Goldfish originated in China around 1,000AD.
There are a few things people think they know about Goldfish but the main one - their short memory (we're talking seconds here, folks) has been proven incorrect.
Their memory is at least a couple of months long, maybe more. Goldfish don't have a stomach and they sleep with their eyes open. Spooky!
We don't have to look far outside the family home, to find the next animal in our roulette. Bats.
Most of us know they do not see well and combine that with hunting at night and they should have a problem. I would be a bit groggy after sleeping upside down in a cave all day/
But if evolution has taught us anything, it is that every species adapts (maybe not always successfully but back on topic). Bats use sonar to get around, they emit pulses of sound and navigate by the timing and direction echoes that bounce back from objects in their path. Some insects emerge at night due to less predators, meaning the bat has more than enough to feed on.
Kangaroo fart.
Exactly, an attention-grabber if there ever was one. From outside the home to the other side of the world. A certain TV show once broadcasted that Kangaroos cannot or do not fart/trump.
A little look into this and maybe my memory has let me down and they can pass wind but it is nowhere near as harmful to the environment as the methane passed out by cattle and sheep. Some articles say they can and others say they cannot.
Scientists in late 2007 were reported to be looking at using bacteria found in a Kangaroos stomach, transmitting it to cattle and sheep in the hope it would cut down on their Greenhouse Gas production. No news as yet as to whether this worked or not/is still in progress/was abandoned.
There are 25 "Quite Interesting" facts about animals posted on the Telegraph website from an extract of a "Quite Interesting" book.
An example from the above link: Spiders' silk is five times stronger than steel and 30 times more stretchy than nylon. An average spider will spin more than four miles of silk in a lifetime and this can be collected and woven into garments.
Cats started being domesticated from the time of the ancient Egyptians and in Cyprus 10,000 years ago, but are believed to descend from the Fertile Crescent and the "Near Eastern wildcat" 70-100,000 years ago.
A female is a "Molly" or "Queen" while a male is a "Tom". Domestic cats can see around six times better than humans at night, while we hear frequencies from 64Hz-23,000Hz, cats range from 45Hz-64,000Hz and they can smell around 14 times better!
The other animal in our household is the goldfish, which has been around my house for close to 15 years and is a member of the Carp family.
Goldfish originated in China around 1,000AD.
There are a few things people think they know about Goldfish but the main one - their short memory (we're talking seconds here, folks) has been proven incorrect.
Their memory is at least a couple of months long, maybe more. Goldfish don't have a stomach and they sleep with their eyes open. Spooky!
We don't have to look far outside the family home, to find the next animal in our roulette. Bats.
Most of us know they do not see well and combine that with hunting at night and they should have a problem. I would be a bit groggy after sleeping upside down in a cave all day/
But if evolution has taught us anything, it is that every species adapts (maybe not always successfully but back on topic). Bats use sonar to get around, they emit pulses of sound and navigate by the timing and direction echoes that bounce back from objects in their path. Some insects emerge at night due to less predators, meaning the bat has more than enough to feed on.
Kangaroo fart.
Exactly, an attention-grabber if there ever was one. From outside the home to the other side of the world. A certain TV show once broadcasted that Kangaroos cannot or do not fart/trump.
A little look into this and maybe my memory has let me down and they can pass wind but it is nowhere near as harmful to the environment as the methane passed out by cattle and sheep. Some articles say they can and others say they cannot.
Scientists in late 2007 were reported to be looking at using bacteria found in a Kangaroos stomach, transmitting it to cattle and sheep in the hope it would cut down on their Greenhouse Gas production. No news as yet as to whether this worked or not/is still in progress/was abandoned.
There are 25 "Quite Interesting" facts about animals posted on the Telegraph website from an extract of a "Quite Interesting" book.
An example from the above link: Spiders' silk is five times stronger than steel and 30 times more stretchy than nylon. An average spider will spin more than four miles of silk in a lifetime and this can be collected and woven into garments.
An octopus has three hearts, nine brains and eight tentacles and can change colour depending on emotion. Like a Chameleon, who do not change colour to match backgrounds, it is a reaction based on their emotional state.
My above synopsis and the 25 or even 100 in the book will hardly begin to scratch the surface of how amazing and diverse a planet we live in with regards to all creatures great and small. I am growing to embrace every crumb of knowledge, as I know I will never be able to obtain the loaf.
But we are ignorant and take for granted the majority of other species we share this earth with. Hopefully, just for a moment we can appreciate just how wonderful (and weird) this life is.
SOURCES: http://www.lsu.edu/deafness/HearingRange.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/06/070628-cat-ancestor.html
http://www.happy-goldfish.com/blog/10-goldfish-facts/
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,812332,00.html
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/blogs/109/Kangaroos-dont-fart.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/features/3634153/Gorillas-can-talk...-and-24-other-QI-facts.html
Thursday, August 04, 2011
before we begin . . .
Before we launch feet first into our A - Z world and beyond I feel compelled to post where I am up to professionally and personally.
I can now add a football club's PR assistant internship to my rejection pile. That makes it Lancashire Telegraph, Adfero, Sale and Altrincham Messenger, Scunthorpe Telegraph, Bury Free Press, BBC and Australia to have rejected me after interview stage.
I am not sure what to do next, still working at a supermarket I could give up the journalism dream and press on with rising up the retail ranks, find a new job completely or go on another working holiday - Canada possibly? University for this year at least has been disregarded, mostly because of the cost and the debate of how much it would actually help me.
Football does not interest me as much anymore, cricket is my main vice now. England V India at Trent Bridge has been seen and Twenty20 finals day at Edgbaston will hopefully be next.
I still hope I can post somewhere in the next 26 posts of a journalism job or at least another interview but with my qualifications getting more and more out of date and my self-confidence taking a further bashing it seems unlikely.
I can now add a football club's PR assistant internship to my rejection pile. That makes it Lancashire Telegraph, Adfero, Sale and Altrincham Messenger, Scunthorpe Telegraph, Bury Free Press, BBC and Australia to have rejected me after interview stage.
I am not sure what to do next, still working at a supermarket I could give up the journalism dream and press on with rising up the retail ranks, find a new job completely or go on another working holiday - Canada possibly? University for this year at least has been disregarded, mostly because of the cost and the debate of how much it would actually help me.
Football does not interest me as much anymore, cricket is my main vice now. England V India at Trent Bridge has been seen and Twenty20 finals day at Edgbaston will hopefully be next.
I still hope I can post somewhere in the next 26 posts of a journalism job or at least another interview but with my qualifications getting more and more out of date and my self-confidence taking a further bashing it seems unlikely.
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