Visit Wales and its 641 castles – a mixture of gothic, medieval, and Victorian styles

With its rolling hills and numerous royal conquests, there’s no place where history comes alive in such a lush setting as it does in Wales. Everywhere you look, the evidence of kings, queens, conflict and empire call to you. There are more than 600 castles – 641 to be precise – so even without trying …

Salted Magazine – a new all-female surfing magazine from the editors of Surfer

The time has come. We’re finally giving female surfers the love they deserve in a brand-new, all-girls magazine, SALTED. The mag, created by the editors of SURFER Magazine, features the best female surfers on the planet, trips to the most idyllic locales, profiles, interviews, history, fashion features, and more. It’s is a much-overdue homage to …

Peter Jackson turns The Hobbit into three films – explained in his own words

From a post by Peter Jackson in Facebook:   It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made. Recently Fran, Phil and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut …

History of Olympic Pictograms overcoming the language barrier

  Of all the instances in which graphic communication is necessary to transcend language barriers, the Olympic Games are, if not the most important, probably the most visible. We take the little icons of swimmers and sprinters as a given aspect of Olympic design, but the pictograms were a mid-20th Century invention—first employed, in fact, …

Jane Austen’s beautiful 200 year-old ring goes up for auction

A ring once owned by author Jane Austen will be auctioned by Sotheby’s later this month. Austen, the author of the much-loved novels “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility” and “Emma,” never married or had children, but the ring has remained in the possession of her family since her death in 1817. Scholars had been unaware of …

History of air conditioning, invented by Willis Carrier – cool reading for a hot day

Willis Carrier submitted drawings of the first modern air conditioning system on July 17, 1902. Carrier was working to solve a problem that effected the quality of printing… He came up with the brilliant idea to circulate cold water rather than steam through heating coils in a machine he used to test heaters. Carrier’s design …

Chart – 21st century has already created more goods than previous 1,900 years

  In the first decade of the 21st century, the population of the world produced more economic output than in the first 19 centuries of the common era combined. If people do make history, then two people make twice as much history as one. Since there are almost 7 billion people alive today, it follows …

IPv6 – It’s only the biggest change to the internet – ever!

It’s only the most significant architectural development in the history of the Internet, and presto, it transpired last night at 00:01 GMT. Did you notice? I’m betting not, and that you probably didn’t even know it was happening, which is precisely how things were supposed to go down. Don’t worry, you’re fine, you don’t need …

Happy Birthday Golden Gate Bridge – 75th anniversary festivities, history, and solar beacon

The Golden Gate Bridge is one of the most internationally recognized symbols of San Francisco, California, and the United States. It has been declared one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. The Frommers travel guide considers the Golden Gate Bridge “possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world”. via …