Angry British mob chases Google out of their town

by Scott Carmichael on

Here in the US we are used to being able to zoom in on street level images of anything in our area.

Google started mapping up and down our streets years ago, and it all happened with so little fanfare, that nobody really got the chance to complain.

Things are different in the UK, where residents are beginning to complain quite vocally about the privacy invasion caused by the ability to get up close and personal with just about anything, anywhere.

In the town of Milton Keynes, residents noticed the camera equipped Google car snapping photos of their homes, and decided it wasn’t going to happen.

The angry mob stopped just short of bringing their own pitchforks, but managed to block the driver, and then chase him away.

Of course, the whole thing could have been done to prevent anyone in the town showing up on Google doing something stupid.

Model’s boyfriend puts the “bang” in Bangalore

by Tom Johansmeyer on

It always starts with a drunken model. Always. Cover girl Sarah Hannon was beyond furious when awaking to find her boyfriend, Daniel Melia, engaged in a “sex act” with the woman next to him. It sounds like he had a middle seat and liked it!

Hannon fell asleep on a nine-hour flight from Bangalore to London, as anyone would hope to do on such a long flight. Oh, and having bent elbows with boyfriend certainly helped. Melia’s libido, however, resisted the powers of both fatigue and alcohol, and next seat neighbor, Clare Irby, was happy to help him out.

The alleged performance occurred under a blanket, and Melia and Irby thought nobody was the wiser … until a flight attendant stopped them, impeding pleasure and likely ending a show for many passengers bored with the in-flight movie. This is when Hannon woke up and Hannon started screaming.

The model was furious and had to be calmed by the flight crew. When Kingfisher Airlines Flight IT001 touched down at Heathrow, police boarded the plane and arrested all three. Melia and Irby were pinched for alleged indecency, while Hannon was nabbed for being drunk on an aircraft. All three made bail.

The local cops had little to say but got it right: “They certainly put the bang into Bangalore.”

[Via news.com.au]

Take the kids to Austria

by Tom Johansmeyer on

I did not know that crystal is measured in carats. I didn’t need this bit of insight for the notion of a 300,000 crystal to be impressive. Apparently, this is one of the many unique items on display at Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Wattens, Austria. According to MSNBC, this is the second most visited tourist attraction in the country – after Vienna‘s Schonbrunn Palace. Swarovski also has the smallest, which measures a mere 0.8 millimeters.

The art workshops, sculpture garden and playground also make Swarovski Crystal Worlds a great destination for kids, proving that Europe isn’t just for adults.

Eileen Ogintz asks: “Who says kids will be bored in Europe?”

In Austria, there is plenty (even beyond Swarovski). Childrens can dress up as royals at Schonbrunn Palace and later stop by the Imperial Zoo. In Innsbruck, they can traverse a bridge that dates back to 1080 and marvel at the fact that The Goldener Adler hotel has more than six centuries of history.

Perhaps the favorite for kids is Aqua Dome in Langenfeld. It’s less than an hour from Innsbruck and boasts thermal mountain waters. For the youthful – at least at heart – there is a waterslide, climbing wall … and plenty of supervision. Let the kids go nuts while you soak in the warm mountain water in a futuristic hot tub or relax on the ice grotto.

Annoying mobile phone calls now possible on 27 European planes

by Scott Carmichael on

Here in the US, most of our airlines are rolling out WiFi Internet access to their entire fleet. For some reason, the European airlines seem more interested in bringing mobile phone access to their planes instead.

There are currently 27 planes out there with GSM mobile phone service, all part of a European Union trial. Last year, the EU granted permission for airlines to install the equipment, after extensive research into the safety of mobile signals in-flight. The service is installed on planes from bmi, TAP and Ryanair.

Personally, I think it is a horrible idea, and one I hope never reaches the US. I’m a huge fan of getting some work done during my flight, but to me that involves getting online, not talking gibberish to my “stock broker” or calling my family members and telling them how awesome the in-flight meal was.

Thankfully, the European airlines have put one very simple measure in place that will probably limit the amount of calls made during the flight – at just under $4 a minute, only the most insane or drunk passengers will spend any length of time on the phone.

Barneo Ice Station Opens

by Kraig Becker on

In another spring tradition, the Barneo Ice Station has opened for another season, providing the gateway for adventure travelers and explorers to make a “last degree” journey to the geographic North Pole from the Russian side of the ice.

The ice station sits roughly 60 miles from the Pole at 89º N. Latitude, and each year it has to be rebuilt thanks to the shifting ice flows at the top of the world. The process begins with two Russian built Hind helicopters scouting the region for relatively flat, smooth surfaces on the ice. Once the location is selected, the first supplies, along with a team of engineers, hits the area to go to work creating a runway. Once that runway is finished, large supply planes can land on the surface, and a full blown camp, including a Russian post office, is established.

Shortly after the camp is officially opened, visitors begin to arrive. Some are polar tourists who will make an expedition to the North Pole on skis, while others are scientists and environmentalist that come to study the area, and the effects of climate change on the health of the ice, as well as the creatures that live there.

Generally the station closes down at the end of April or early May at the latest. It is just there long enough to support the teams, and then everything is packed back on to the supply planes and shipped off for another year, when the process will begin again. But for a few short weeks each spring, it becomes a hub of arctic adventure.