clipped from www.arkitectrue.com

Currently under construction in Dubai, Hydropolis is the world’s first luxury underwater hotel. It will include three elements: the land station, where guests will be welcomed, the connecting tunnel, which will transport people by train to the main area of the hotel, and the 220 suites within the submarine leisure complex. It is one of the largest contemporary construction projects in the world, covering an area of 260 hectares. It will open at the end of 2007.

The original idea for Hydropolis developed out of Hauser’s passion for water and the sea, and goes much deeper than just building a hotel underwater. More than just curiosity, it is a commitment to a more far-reaching philosophy. “Once you start digging deeper and deeper into the subject, you can’t help being fascinated and you start caring about all the associated issues,” he explains. “Humans consist of 80% water, the earth consists of 80% water; without water there is no life.”

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clipped from www.nytimes.com

the Department of Energy estimates that in the average home, 40 percent of all electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. Add that all up, and it equals the annual output of 17 power plants

“Some of the larger big-screen TVs consume as much energy each year as a new refrigerator,” according to Noah Horowitz, a scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Whatever machine you’re using, consider having it go into sleep, standby or hibernate after about a half-hour of inactivity. The shorter the period, the more energy you save. Graphic-intense screen savers can actually waste power.

Unplug unused external power supplies because they can draw energy even when they’re not connected to a device.

Consider buying a notebook PC, rather than a less-efficient desktop. Because notebooks are designed to run on batteries, they’re equipped with chips and drives that draw less power.

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Explanation:
If you took a picture of the Sun at the same time each day, would it remain in the same position? The answer is no, and the shape traced out by the
Sun over the course of a year is called an analemma. The Sun’s apparent shift is caused by the Earth’s motion around the Sun when combined with the
tilt of the Earth’s rotation axis. The Sun will appear at its highest point of the
analemma during summer and at its lowest during winter.
Analemmas created from different Earth latitudes would appear at least slightly different, as well as analemmas created at a different time each day.
The analemma pictured to the left was built up by Sun photographs taken from 1998 August through 1999 August from Ukraine. The foreground picture from the same location was taken during the early evening in 1999 July.

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“Lonely Sea Monster,” written by Deanna Molinaro is a cute, short story about a lonely monster who wants nothing more than the companionship of a little girl. Click the image to see what happens.

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