Qingdao Haiwan Bridge - China World’s Longest Sea Bridge

At 42.5 kilometers, the Qingdao Haiwan Bridge, connecting the city of Qingdao in Eastern China's Shandong province with the suburban Huangdao District across the waters of the northern part of Jiaozhou Bay, is the longest bridge over water. The six-lane road bridge is almost 5 kilometers longer than the previous record holder - the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the American state of Louisiana. When it opens to traffic later this year, the bridge is expected to carry over 30,000 cars a day and will cut the commute between the city of Qingdao and the sprawling suburb of Huangdao by between 20 and 30 minutes.

The bridge was built in just 4 years at a cost of US$ 8.6 billion. At least 10,000 workers toiled in two teams around the clock to build the bridge, which was constructed from opposite ends and connected in the middle in the last few days. The 450,000 ton structure of steel is supported by 5,200 columns and is strong enough to withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake, typhoons or the impact of a 300,000 ton vessel.

China is already home to seven of the world's 10 longest bridges, including the world's lengthiest, the 102 mile Danyang-Kunshan rail bridge, which runs over land and water near Shanghai.
And with Beijing pumping billions into boosting China's infrastructure, the Qingdao Haiwan Bridge will not be the world's longest sea bridge for very long. In December 2009, work started on a 31 mile bridge that will link Zhuhai in southern Guangdong Province, China's manufacturing heartland, with the financial centre of Hong Kong. The £6.5 billion project is expected to be completed in 2016.




[via Telegraph]

People Lifestyle Changes That Will Keep You Alive

1. Experience the benefits of sex

Sex has many apparent health benefits. Studies suggest sex can boost your immune system and reduce stress.

2. Keep your teeth clean

Diabetes, low birth weight babies and heart disease have all been linked to gum and bone disease in your mouth. Even heart attacks have been linked to bad dental hygiene.

3. Use the sun

A little sunshine is good for your mood and allows your body to produce necessary vitamin D, which is lacking in some 70 percent of American kids these days.

4. Drink less

After years of hearing that moderate drinking is good for your health, a study in November, 2009 found that having a drink or two each day might be something that healthy people do, rather than the drinks being the cause of their good health. And if you're having more than a couple drinks a day, then you're at higher risk for liver damage and diabetes.

5. Wash your hands

Hand washing remains the best prevention against the flu and many other diseases.

6. Get some rest

Serious lack of sleep -- less than six or seven hours a night -- has been associated with increased risks of high blood pressure, hypertension, obesity, diabetes and cancer. Lack of sleep can also contribute to auto accidents and on-the-job injuries.

7. Stop smoking

About half of all smokers die from smoking, and of these, about half die around age 50 or sooner.

8. Don't stress

Stress kills. It causes deterioration in everything from your gums to yourheart and can make you more susceptible to a range of ills, from colds to cancer.

9. Exercise

Over and over, studies find a host of exercise benefits, not just for your body: It can raise kids' academic performance and stimulate adult brains. Exercise makes bones stronger and alleviates many types of chronic pain. Regular exercise has even been associated with a lower risk of cancer.

10. Eat better

Choose real food instead of sugar laced with traces of real food. Cook at home rather than eating fast food, and use spices, rather than gobs and gobs of oil or sugar, to spice up your meals.

Valentines Day | E - Card | Gifts | Ideas | Poems | Quotes 2011

Most Romantic And Creative happy Valentine's Day cards and gift ideas make your Love And Emotional Poems celebration all the more special this year. Your mind might be cluttered now with thoughts to make the day

Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate Saying love you messages Or miss you the most beautiful feeling in the world Here are some ways to celebrate Valentine's Day a bit more romantically and Homemade creatively for Kids - Him - Her - Husband - Wife - Boyfriend And Girlfriend Too. you express your affection in a new way to help you have the most romantic valentine's day ever. on creative Valentine's Cards. Take printable Card

It is traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other by presenting flowers, Gifts, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards .Modern Valentine's Day symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid. Since the 19th century, handwritten valentines have largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.

Floating Monaco Yacht Designed For Super-Rich

A yacht has been designed to create a floating version of the streets of Monaco - complete with casino and racetrack.

The scaled-down landmarks would feature on the deck of the 500ft long ‘The Streets of Monaco’ yacht which would cater for 16 guests and 70 crew.

There's also swimming pools, tennis courts and other Monaco favourites like a Hotel de Paris, Cafe de Paris, La Rascasse and Loews Hotel.

If there are any multi-billionaire Spluch readers out there (you know our normal demographic) it's worth noting the yacht will cost around £700 million to buy.
A spokesperson for designers Yacht Island Design said: "The Streets of Monaco is the focal point of our story and the anchor for the themes that run throughout the yacht, revolving around a recreation of the famous Monaco Grand Prix race circuit.

"This fully functional kart circuit sets the stage for other famous locations seen on a lap of the principality."

Humongous Hair Creations - spectacular hairstyles, crazy looks

Avant Garde Hairstyles by Arnostyle are Awesomely Futuristic

It’s truly amazing what people can do with hair, just look at these spectacular hairstyles by Arnostyle. Said to be one of the “masters of hairstyling,” Arnostyle creates massive masterpieces from the follicles of his models.

The hairstyles by Arnostyle are anything but subtle. This hair wizard’s work is over the top, exciting, and outrageous. He must go through millions of hairspray cans a year creating these crazy looks. Some of his wicked work can be seen in the gallery.

Source: trendhunter

Beautiful Vintage Coloured Photographs - George Eastman

On September 4th, 1888, 122 years ago, George Eastman applied for a camera patent. It wasn’t the first camera, but it was the first portable film camera Vintage Coloured Photographs







George’s interest with cameras had first ignited when he planned to take a camera on vacation to Europe. He ended up canceling the trip, but he became obsessed with photography. It was such a hassle to take a picture with the glass plates and wet chemicals and so he was a banker by day and chemical experimenter at night spending all his time after work scheming up a way to make the camera portable. He started experimenting with taking Vintage photos on paper that had been painted with emulsion and later he got the combination right by putting photos on cellulose which allowed him to easily roll the film up for storage and development later.

Rare & Beautiful Vintage Visions of the Future

In his patent he refers to it as a “detective camera.” I can only imagine that it’s because a detective would be the type of person who would need a portable camera. The way it worked is you would take 100 pictures and send it to Kodak for processing and they would send you back 100 pictures and a new roll of film.





Vintage Photography's earliest practitioners dreamed of finding a method for reproducing the world around them in color. Some nineteenth-century photographers experimented with chemical formulations aimed at producing color images by direct exposure, while others applied paints and powders to the surfaces of monochrome prints. Vigorous experimentation led to several early color processes, some of which were even patented, but the methods were often impractical, cumbersome and unreliable. 12 vintage cigarette ads





After decades of wishing for a practical color process, photographers were thrilled when Auguste and Louis Lumière announced the invention of the autochrome process. The Lumière brothers, inventors of the motion picture camera, presented their invention to the French Academy of Sciences in 1904.







The process used a screen of tiny potato starch grains dyed orange-red, green and violet. Dusted onto a glass plate, the dyed grains were covered with a layer of sensitive panchromatic silver bromide emulsion. As light entered the camera, it was filtered by the dyed grains before it reached the emulsion. While the exposure time was very long, the plate could be processed easily by a photographer familiar with standard darkroom procedures. The result was a unique, realistic, positive color image on glass that required no further printing.







George Eastman House has significant holdings of autochromes, including over 3900 examples by amateur photographer Charles Zoller of Rochester, New York. The museum also holds autochromes by Edward Steichen among others.









Woman in Oriental inspired gown, sitting in wooden throne, 1915



Costumed man examining jewelry, ca. 1910



Woman posed as Sphinx, ca. 1910



Genre scene, woman in kitchen peeling vegetables, ca. 1910