Cave Diving

Cave Diving

The Rubber Boy

Rubber Boy

Daniel Browning Smith is the most famous contortionist in the world and here you can see why…

The Scissors Dance

The Scissors Dance

(An Ancient Tradition Of Peru)

Performed in the central and southern highlands of Peru, the Scissors Dance is a traditional event that tests the physical and spiritual strength of the participants.

Westerners usually regard “La Danza de las Tijeras” as a physical test where two men have to prove their dexterity and resistance to pain, but to the people of the Andes, this dance is a sacred ritual. The dancers, called danzaq, perform difficult stunts and leaps, called atipanakuy, accompanied by the music of a violin, a harp and the sound of the scissors they each hold in their hands. So much about not playing with scissors, right?

The origin of the danzaq and their Scissors Dance is shrouded in mystery, but some anthropologists believe they appeared in 1524, during the rebellion against Spanish colonial rule. According to old Spanish chronicles, Huancas (pre-Hispanic deities) possessed the bodies of indigenous young men, allowing them to perform an impossible-looking dance signaling the return of the Old Gods to vanquish the Christian God of the Spanish. As we all know, that didn’t happen, but the tradition of the Scissors Dance was kept alive by the Andean people.

It’s almost impossible to believe someone can accomplish this kind of acrobatic moves, while handling a pair of scissors made out of two individual sheets of metal, 25 cm each, but the danzaq do much more. To show spiritual superiority, they go through a series of challenges that include sticking sharp objects through their bodies, eating glass or walking on fire. The Scissors Dance is sometimes performed continuously for hours, until one of the competitors proves his superiority.

The best Scissors Dances can be witnessed in Ayacucho, Apurimac, Arequipa, Huancavelica and Lima.

The Art of War

The Art of War                                                        Faces of Darfur (Sudan)

The Darfur conflict is a complex crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan. One side of the armed conflict is composed mainly of the Sudanese military and the Janjaweed, a militia group recruited mostly from the Arab Baggara tribes of the northern Rizeigat, camel-herding nomads. The other side comprises a variety of rebel groups, notably the Sudan Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement, recruited primarily from the land-tilling Fur, Zaghawa, and Massaleit ethnic groups. The Sudanese government, while publicly denying that it supports the Janjaweed, has provided money and assistance to the militia and has participated in joint attacks targeting the tribes from which the rebels draw support. The conflict began in February 2003. Unlike in the Second Sudanese Civil War, which was fought between the primarily Muslim north and Christian and Animist south, almost all of the combatants and victims in Darfur are Muslim. Here are some ways you can help stop the killing in Darfur

Human Relationships with Robots

The future is not written yet and who knows whether robots are dangerous or not. What is for sure is that humans, being the curious beings, will develop new advanced generations of robots.

It happens so that people and robots go together in this life side by side, in some spheres of life they are even interchangeable and who knows into what this opposition “Human and Robots” will translate. Robots and humans that live and prosper together…Or robots will realize they don’t need that much…

For now it is up to out fantasy to express what we think will happen in human-robot relations in the future. This is a collection of 3d computer generated images of various creative 3d artists that shows their vision. The level of detail of these computer graphics shows that our technology will lead us to the point where these fantastic photographs will be the reality.

Who will win in this game of chess? When there is the opposition of the mechanical creature and the human intellect it is not easy to predict the outcome of the game. You can make books, but you will never be sure about the results, they are unpredictable.

In the process of the humming work robots can be of a great use for people. With them less time would be spend for the most complicated tasks and the crunch times would take place not so often. The only question that is left – to find such a robot.

I’m not sure that it is more pleasant to work in the company of robots, but it definitely has certain advantages. One of the main is the high efficiency of the process of work, furthermore not a lot of time is spent for the idle talks, spreading silly rumors and gossiping.

This robot looks like a housekeeper who takes care of everything around. In its duties are household activities and it copes with all the everyday duties without any difficulties in a short time and without procrastinations.

Some time ago, when I was a human being I was dreaming about the perennial youth, the thoughts that were so peculiar for every woman. My dreams turned into life immediately after my death and I have obtained the desired eternity: now I’m a robot.

When you touch gently the lips of your beloved your heart begins to beat speedily, the mind is hazed with pleasant feelings and you fly away. These minutes can fly not so that you’d notice, but they are so sweet and inimitable.

Karadeniz Power Ship for Pakistan

SOS for Pakistan – The KAYABEY Power Ship

Pakistan is facing the worst ever electricity crisis in its history. Thanks to years of mismanagement, shortsightedness and corruption; a country bestowed with rivers, enough wind to generate 50,000 MW and a Solar belt that can also generate an additional thousands of Mega Watts of electricity, not to mention the world’s biggest coal reserves. The city of Karachi, the industrial hub of Pakistan and a city which generates almost 65 % of the country’s revenue was the worst hit. Karachiites suffered, and are still experiencing up to 12 hours of load shedding. Now a Turkish Power Ship, perhaps the only of its kind has set sail from Istanbul to Karachi which will give the city a relief of some 230 MW. This agreement has been signed for a period of 60 months, or 5 years. This may sound as good news, but the point to note here is that this is again a short term solution, it will run on fossil fuel and it is not going to be cheap, not at all.

Our daily newspapers carried this story along with a photograph of the ship which words like “ To end the power problems of Pakistani brothers and sisters”. Well, I have no qualms at admitting that I wept on seeing this picture. Not because it carried an emotional message, but because despite being bestowed with so much we are still waiting for God knows who to help us and alleviate our problems. That perhaps is the most painful thing. The leadership will never understand this, there are suffering from acute shortsightedness I guess.