Places - Funny Photos

Funny Photos

follow this blog

1659 followers

5710 daily readers

rank of 833

Over 50,000 readers every month

Get paid to write for FunnyPhotos.net.au

Submit a Post
Click Here

[Posting Guidelines]

E-mail Subscription

Receive an e-mail notification of new posts on this site:

On Vashon Island (near Seattle), there is an unusual sight. A tree which has literally eating a small bicycle. The story goes that in 1914 a boy went to war and left his bike tied to a tree. The tree the grew engulfing the bike and rasing it up.
Author Berkeley Breathed was so moved by the bike-in-a-tree that he used it for inspiration on his children's book Red Ranger Came Calling.

For a time the front wheel and handlebars were removed from the bike but have now been returned leaving it in good shape for visitors.

*Images source 1 & source 2.

117

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Travelling With Peeps

May 3rd 2010 02:11

Peeps are marshmallow candies, sold in the US and Canada, that are shaped into chicks, bunnies, and other animals.
National Geographic launched a "Peeps in Places" competition for travellers to send in their most innovative tourist shots involving Peeps.
Below are some of the best contenders, view the full set here.

Peeps Coming to America by Debra Brockway

Yosemite is Just a Peep Away by Armand K Williams

Peep's Last Stand at the Alamo by Bea Adams

Van Gogh Peep by Stanley Felderman

Hollywood Peep Show by Charlotte Johnson

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Who Doesn't Use The Metric System?

March 3rd 2010 01:34

The metric system is an international decimalised system of measurement, first adopted by France in 1791, that is the common system of measuring units used by most of the world.

A primary goal of the metric system is to have a single unit for any physical quantity; another important one is not needing conversion factors when making calculations with physical quantities. All lengths and distances, for example, are measured in metres, or thousandths of a metre (millimetres), or thousands of metres (kilometre), and so on. There is no profusion of different units with different conversion factors, such as inches, feet, yards, fathoms, rods, chains, furlongs, miles, nautical miles, leagues, etc. Multiples and submultiples are related to the fundamental unit by factors of powers of ten, so that one can convert by simply moving the decimal place.

click to enlarge

Only three nations have not officially adopted the International System of Units as their primary or sole system of measurement: Burma, Liberia, and the United States.

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article for the Metric System.

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Most Dangerous Places on Earth

September 18th 2009 11:11

Everyone has to deal with the perils of mother nature, but for some residents on earth these perils are worse than others, so bad in fact that it's hard to understand why anybody would want to live there. Thanks to popularmechanics.com, here are some of the most hazardous and life threatening locations to live on the planet. Read more here.

The Cold Pole

Verkhoyansk, Russia

On the frigid taiga, 3000 miles east of Moscow, deep in the heart of Siberia, sits Verkhoyansk, the oldest city above the Arctic Circle. For more than three centuries, Russians have continuously resided here, braving endless winters on the banks of the Yana River, which is frozen solid for nine months of the year. Today, approximately 1500 people live here.

Verkhoyansk lays claim to the title of coldest city in the world, the so-called Cold Pole. It's hard to dispute the designation, when you consider that from September to March the city averages fewer than 5 hours of sunlight each day. (In December and January, there is nearly no sunlight.) Winter temperatures there typically fall between minus 60 and minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit. The low, recorded in the late 19th century, was minus 90.

Nowadays, the city is attempting to attract "extreme tourists," who are drawn by the intense cold. For much of its history, however, Verkhoyansk was a preferred exile destination, used first by the Czars, then later by the Soviets. In the 20th century, Verkoyansk's population peaked at 2500 residents.

The Mountain of Fire

Most dangerous places to live on the earth

Mount Merapi, Indonesia

Even during its most tranquil periods, Mount Merapi, on the island of Java, smoulders. Smoke ominously floats from its mouth, 10,000 feet in the sky. "Fire Mountain," as its name translates to English, has erupted about 60 times in the past five centuries, most recently in 2006. Before that, a 1994 eruption sent forth a lethal cloud of scalding hot gas, which burned 60 people to death. In 1930, more than 1000 people died when Merapi spewed lava over 8 square miles around its base, the high death toll being the result of too many people living too close.

In spite of this volatile history, approximately 200,000 villagers reside within 4 miles of the volcano. But Merapi is just one example of Javans tempting fate in the proximity of active volcanoes—it's estimated that 120 million of the island's residents live at the foot of 22 active volcanoes.

The African Lake of Death

Lake Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo/Rwanda

Lake Kivu, located along the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, is one of Africa's Great Lakes. Deep below the surface of this lake's 2700 square miles, there are 2.3 trillion cubic feet of methane gas, along with 60 cubic miles of carbon dioxide trapped beneath the lake under the pressure of the water and earth. If released from the depths, these gases could spread a cloud of death over the 2 million Africans who make their home in the Lake Kivu basin.

The precedent for this concern stems from a pair of events that occurred in the 1980s at two other African lakes with similar chemical compositions. In 1984, 37 people died around Cameroon's Lake Monoun in a limnic eruption. Three years later, at Lake Nyos, also in Cameroon, 80 cubic meters of CO2 were released from the water. Subsequently, 1700 people died from exposure to the toxic gas. These incidents were apparently caused by volcanic activity below the lakes, which triggered the release of the gas. Similar activity is believed to occur beneath Lake Kivu, causing many to worry that this area is next. A report from the United Nations' Environmental Program went so far as to call the three bodies "Africa's Killer Lakes," and said Lake Kivu was cause for "serious concern."

The Ephemeral Isles

The Maldives

The Maldives are such a dangerous place that Muhammed Nasheed, upon taking office in 2008, made it one his first items of business as the Maldives' first democratically elected president to announce a plan to create a fund for financing the relocation of the entire population.

The Maldives is a confederation of 1190 islands and atolls in the Indian Ocean. Its highest point of elevation is little more than 6 feet, and, sometime in the not-too-distant future, it is likely to be swallowed whole by rising sea levels. A 2005 assessment by the United States Geological Survey, conducted after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, called the Maldives one of the Earth's youngest land masses, adding that they're not long for life above water. According to the report, the islands "should be considered ephemeral features over geologic time."

By President Nasheed's reckoning, the people of the Maldives would be well-served to find someplace else—India or Sri Lanka were floated as potential refuges—lest they too become ephemeral. Recent events support his decision to invest money earned through tourism in a relocation fund: The 2004 tsunami, which occurred at low tide, swept over the island, leaving 10 percent of the country uninhabitable. Of the Maldives' 300,000 citizens, one-third were left homeless, and more than 80 people died. In 1987, during so-called "king tides," the capital of Malé, an island city covering 1 square mile, was completely inundated. The effects of these disasters were compounded by the mining of the coral reefs that surround the islands, which has made them highly susceptible to sea erosion.

The I-44 Tornado Corridor

Oklahoma City/Tulsa, Oklahoma

More than 1 million people reside along the Interstate 44 corridor that runs between Oklahoma City and Tulsa, the Sooner State's two most populous metropolitan areas. Each spring, as the cool, dry air from the Rocky Mountains glides across the lower plains, and the warm, wet air of the Gulf Coast comes north to meet it, the residents of this precarious stretch, locally called Tornado Alley, settle in for twister season.

Since 1890, more than 120 tornados have struck Oklahoma City and the surrounding area, which currently has a population of approximately 700,000. On May 3, 1999, an outbreak of 70 tornados stretched across Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas. Several of the most destructive storms swept through Oklahoma City, destroying 1700 homes and damaging another 6500. Even with modern prediction capabilities and early-warning systems, 40 people died when an F-5 twister tore through Oklahoma City. In addition to the loss of life, this display of natural devastation caused more than $1 billion in damage. Since 1950, the longest the area has gone without a tornado is five years—from 1992 to 1998. (As if making up for lost time, in the 11 months that followed that record lull, 11 tornados hit.) For only three other periods during the last half-century has Oklahoma City gone more than two years without a tornado.

Northeast of Oklahoma City, along the same track that most tornado-producing storms travel, sits Tulsa, which has experienced its own share of devastation at the hands of Tornado Alley's storms. Between 1950 and 2006, 69 tornados spun across Tulsa County—population 590,000—though none proved as deadly as the 1999 storm that hit Oklahoma City. But because of its geography—the city lies along the banks of the Arkansas River and is built atop an extensive series of creeks and their flood plains—Tulsa is particularly vulnerable to the rain that accompanies Oklahoma's severe weather. Major floods in 1974, 1976 and 1984 caused hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of damage.

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Subway Maps of the World

August 10th 2009 02:34

What do you think makes a good map of a city's metro or subway system?
Geographically accurate, spaced out, easy to read, colourful, interesting, aesthetically pleasing or just simple to understand?
Different cities seem to have different ideas, see what you think of the examples below. Click on each image to open a full version. These maps and information sourced from TreeHugger. More metro maps from large towns can be seen here.

Melbourne

Melbourne's Metro is only underground in the city center -- the city loop includes the southern hemisphere's busiest railway station, Finders Street -- but it emerges into an extensive heavy-rail commuter system as it stretches into the suburbs. The map is a shining example of clean, clear diagrammatic design, dispensing with geographic accuracy and relying on the 45-degree diagonal colour coding of lines to denote different zones.

Tokyo

The Tokyo Subway is often considered the most complex of the world's urban rail systems, and not just because it's made up of separate public and private networks. Even if it isn't overly detail oriented (an unofficial map once included the locations of stairs inside stations), the standard map accordingly remains the most complex in the world. Though relatively clear up-close, with line letters and station numbers listed above every station in the Roman alphabet (along with the older Japanese numbers and letters), the map's intricacy lends it a hypnotic, circuit-like quality that well symbolizes the chaotic, connected city itself.

New York

The New York City Subway map is more geographically accurate and less diagrammatic than that of any other large network, a trait that critics say keeps it cluttered and unwieldy. But it wasn't always that way. An update by Massimo Vignelli, published by the MTA between 1974–1979, was more schematic, with simple 45-degree diagonals and separate coloured lines for each route. While the MTA eventually abandoned the map, owing to its lack of geographical accuracy, it has since become an icon of smart subway map design.

London

The London Underground map, or Tube Map, was once actually many maps: like a number of early urban rail systems, the Underground began with separate lines run by different private operators. It wasn't until 1908 that the lines were consolidated onto one map. But the map remained a challenge to read until 1933, when Harry Beck's design traded geographic accuracy for a relative positioning of stations and their fare zone locations. Angles of route lines were locked at 45 and 90 degrees, helping legibility, and while topographical detail was left out, the Thames was included, lending the map a sense of connection to the grand city it served. Meanwhile, the map's unmistakable Johnston typeface and rounded logo, commissioned by former publicity manager Frank Pick, have become synonymous with London.

Paris

It is the "City of Light," but Paris had a fairly heavy design for its Metro map for years. Without a commission, Harry Beck, the designer of the iconic London map, came up with a design to replace the city's squiggly-line map in 1946, but to no avail. Throughout the '90s, the map's routes were straightened out, but all titled at an angle to reflect the city's above-ground topography. In 2001, the Paris Metro finally acceded to the diagram style of many other cities, with a simpler design that owes an obvious debt to Beck and the London Underground.

Kharkiv

The metro in Kharkiv (Kharkov), the second largest city in Ukraine after Kiev, might be out of its depth in this slideshow, so to speak. The country's second subway, and the fifth in the USSR when it opened in 1975, the Kharkiv metro is a simple three-line network, common to many former Eastern Bloc subways. But its map is a peculiar stand-out. It uses different colours to denote zones, indicates key streets and district names, and is set upon a jagged and playful geographic representation of the city. It's eye-catching to be sure -- even if it's somewhat evocative of London's divisive 2012 Olympic Games logo.

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Tourist Traps You Don't Need to Avoid

August 5th 2009 12:06

When travelling the world, there are many people who would be more than happy to take your holiday money in return for a cheesy gimmick. However, some tourist traps are well worth a visit despite the large number of visitors and expense. Thanks to concierge.com, here are some tourist spots where you won't mind being ripped off. More can be found here.

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Mud Festival in South Korea

July 31st 2009 07:23

Boryeong Mud Festival

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Holiday Ideas For The New Year

January 23rd 2009 01:34

Looking to do something different with your next holiday?

Here are some fantastic ideas for you!

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Chinese Anyone?

June 4th 2008 13:33

Thanks to Speigel Online for a look at this exclusive restaurant in Beijing.

The Guolizhuang Restaurant in Beijing. There are four franchises in the city alone, and the chain is expanding: there's one in Atlanta, Georgia, in Chinatown

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (1)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Got Beer???? A Landlord's Nightmare.

November 2nd 2007 02:22

A SINGLE GUY LIVED IN THIS TOWNHOUSE FOR 8 YEARS IN OGDEN UTAH , USA
THE LANDLORD THOUGHT HE WAS THE BEST RENTER BECAUSE HE NEVER CALLED OR COMPLAINED AND WAS NEVER LATE ON A PAYMENT.

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (3)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Romania

October 19th 2007 10:50

In Borat's movie the scenes showing Borat's home village were filmed in the village of Glod, Romania.
Borat's neighbours in Kazakhstan were portrayed by Romanians who were unaware of the film's subject.
The pictures below show why Romania was chosen as the filming location for the movie. Romania actually has an upper middle income economy, but scenes like the ones below can still be seen around the country

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (4)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

Big Things in Australia

September 14th 2006 03:38

The Big Things of Australia are a loosely related set of large structures or sculptures representing much smaller objects which pertain to the area in which they are located. Each one is individual and constructed without reference to any of the others, but together they have certain things in common and are collectively known as Australia's Big Things. The first Big Thing is usually held to be the Big Banana built in 1964 in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales. However, 'Ploddy' the diplodocus at the Australian Reptile Park in New South Wales has a claim to being the first big thing, which was built in 1963. Now there are over 146 similar objects around the country.

There is no real consensus as to what qualifies a structure as a "Big Thing". Some loose rules could be

[ Click here to read more ]

Vote

Comments (5)

Add Comments

[ Link ]

Posted By: Ian - Category: Places

Email this Post to a Friend

[ Funny Photos Home ] [ Create A New Post ]