1469 replies to this topic

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Quote

After just 20 minutes in a helicopter above the Manhattan skyline, autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire was ready to re-create a city that took hundreds of years to build.

Wiltshire is drawing a 20-foot panoramic view of New York - all from memory.

The 35-year-old artist's autistic disorder affects his ability to interact with other people.

It has also given him a photographic memory - and a gift for putting it on paper.

"I just looked without drawing," said Wiltshire as he explained how he is able to draw the skyline without referring back to a photograph of the city.

"Everything is like a TV show," he said. "I have never drawn from a sketchbook."

Wiltshire, a Londoner, is creating the image at the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, where the public can watch him work through Friday afternoon.

New York is the last in a series of eight panoramas of major cities across the world, including Dubai and Tokyo.

"This city is very beautiful," he said, as he drew the Big Apple from the Bronx to Staten Island.

"It has got skyscrapers ...and the American people."

Wiltshire began drawing as a child, when his teachers used art to help him learn.

"Stephen used his drawings to communicate with the world," said his sister, Annette Wiltshire, 37. "He used his drawings to learn the alphabet."

He has his own gallery in London, which his sister helps him run.

"He's good at picking up on things the human eye normally wouldn't," she said.

New Yorkers watched yesterday as Wiltshire furiously moved his pen across the paper.

"I could watch him all day," said Karen Smith, 51, of Brooklyn, who works at the Pratt Institute.

"It almost makes me cry," said her co-worker, Emma Legge, 39.

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/1...rom_memory.html

I can do that, I just don't wanna

[Brad]

I heard about him in a Ripley's Book, I've still got it (it was last year's version)
He is really inspiring though, none of us here could do that in reality.

[Ion Cannon!]

I had a book of his when I was younger, one of my hobbies used to be drawing cities both real and fantasy. So it was pretty ideal, I wish I had a photographic memory. Would have made chemistry a doddle!

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

I did think about posting this in PC... but I don't think you can really have a serious discussion about this, without using a load of facepalm images.

P.S.

[H4mm3r]

*facepalm so hard it breaks my nose*

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Quote

A Somalian man who claims to be 112 years old has married for the sixth time, to a 17-year-old girl.

A crowd of hundreds attended the wedding between Ahmed Muhamed Dore and Safia Abdulleh in Guriceel, in the Galguduud region of Somalia. Mr Dore said: "Today God helped me realise my dream."

Mr Dore and his teenage bride are from the same village, and he said that he had waited for her to grow up before proposing.

He said: "I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry."

The bride’s family said she was "happy with her new husband".

At 95 years older than her – if his claimed age is accurate – he is old enough to be her great-great-great-grandfather.

He already has 18 children by his other five wives.

According to Somali historians, the wedding is the first of its kind in Somalia for over a century.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...r-old-girl.html

Shame there's no pic... but still, that's just wrong

[Ion Cannon!]

[quote name='Ted Turner' post='711352' date='31 Oct 2009, 18:42']
I did think about posting this in PC... but I don't think you can really have a serious discussion about this, without using a load of facepalm images.

P.S.
[/quote]

What the fuck is wrong with these batshit retarded people?

[Libains]

[quote name='Zoey' post='711372' date='31 Oct 2009, 19:34'][quote name='Ted Turner' post='711352' date='31 Oct 2009, 18:42']
I did think about posting this in PC... but I don't think you can really have a serious discussion about this, without using a load of facepalm images.

P.S.
[/quote]

What the fuck is wrong with these batshit retarded people?
[/quote]
If we knew that, we could help them. Sadly, we can't and thus the world is bloody well doomed.

[TheDR]

Ted Turner, on 31 Oct 2009, 18:58, said:

Quote

Mr Dore and his teenage bride are from the same village, and he said that he had waited for her to grow up before proposing.

He said: "I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/...r-old-girl.html

Shame there's no pic... but still, that's just wrong

What the hell, "waited for her to grow up", that implys he like her for a while, thats a horrible thought.

[BeefJeRKy]

[quote name='Ted Turner' post='711352' date='31 Oct 2009, 20:42']
I did think about posting this in PC... but I don't think you can really have a serious discussion about this, without using a load of facepalm images.

P.S.
[/quote]
.... Seriously? Though I love the tone of the anchorman And that reverend is an awesome character it seems

[Ion Cannon!]

Oh my god....

Quote

In the United Kingdom, the BBC is under fire for rewriting Humpty Dumpty to give it a happy ending on the CBeebies children's program Something Special.

Instead of the last line saying "couldn't put Humpty together again", the new version claimed all the King's horses and all the King's men "made Humpty happy again".

June Factor, who has spent nearly four decades researching and writing children's books, says such moves to "sanitise" story-telling is very concerning.

"It's a sad sort of ignorance involved. It's completely unnecessary, it's a misjudgement and it's foolishness," she told ABC News Online.

"I am concerned about this misunderstanding and misreading of human development, and in many ways there are quite serious restrictions being placed on children.

"It's a worrying trend because there is, in countries like England and Australia, a strange panic about children.

"The idea is that children should be protected against all risk and in this case they are seeing a psychological risk. On the contrary, it's a psychological strengthening you gain from this material."

Dr Factor, an honorary senior research fellow at the Australian Centre at the University of Melbourne, says unnecessary changes have been made to children's tales for generations.

And she says those who "bowdlerise" children's literature do have good intentions, but they are missing the cultural and historical point of nursery rhymes and fairytales.

"Their intentions are always admirable - the path to hell is paved with good intentions. They are hoping to make sure children aren't frightened but of course they are omitting the purpose," she said.

"[Nursery rhymes] are not there as a cotton ball to protect children from the world. They are a way of exposing children to the world from the safety of someone's lap."

Dr Factor says scary tales are meant to teach children about dangers in the world.

"Fairytales are full of very grim life experiences - dead parents, being left in the woods, there's tricksters and dangers - and what they do for children is a whole number of things," she said.

"It's a way of approaching the world for children in symbolic ways so they do gain some understanding of the world but they don't actuallty have to go out and experience the big bad wolf or whatever.

"They are about courage, resilience, quick-wittedness, patience and they are all about hope."

[Ghostrider]

*sigh*
It's things like that which make me feel less bad about wasting time on the internet. At least I'm not running around wasting time, trying to save fairy tales.

Most of the original fairy tales that we know have been severely modified already anyways. For example, the original Little Red Riding Hood has the wolf eat both the grandmother and Little Red, but a hunter comes in and slices the wolf open, rescuing them. Then they fill the wolf with stones and throw him in a well to drown. The end.

[SquigPie]

(Demon Candy)

Sigh, why! oh god why!

Why do these stupid motherf*SQUIG*ing lolspiracy idiots keep on destroying whats left of the religious image.

Please people, we're not all like them.

Some of us are much worse :evil:

(Bowlderizing)

If theres one thing that pisses me off, more than Twitards, its censorship!

Edited by SquigPie, 03 November 2009 - 10:08.

[Pav:3d]

lul, new labour for ya

[BeefJeRKy]

It's true. Fairy tales are good euphemisms for children about the harsh realities we must face. These "innocent" children will have much greater emotonal impact when they grow up later on.

[Libains]

Ghostrider, on 3 Nov 2009, 6:20, said:

*sigh*
It's things like that which make me feel less bad about wasting time on the internet. At least I'm not running around wasting time, trying to save fairy tales.

Most of the original fairy tales that we know have been severely modified already anyways. For example, the original Little Red Riding Hood has the wolf eat both the grandmother and Little Red, but a hunter comes in and slices the wolf open, rescuing them. Then they fill the wolf with stones and throw him in a well to drown. The end.

Ghost has it for me. Not all Fairy Tales have happy endings, and they sure as hell aren't always pretty. And if they do have a happy ending, doesn't mean they aren't eaten or something first. Molly-coddling society, and I for one hate it. A lot.

[Brad]

After reading that, I must say the temptation to hold my head in my hands were great, but I do see where she is comming from, and that I agree with her partly.
Children now-a-days are being sheilded a bit too much in modern times, as once they grow up all new experiances which will cost them if they did not learn about them. If stories did not teach our children about certain things they would be all the worse for it.

[Ghostrider]

I don't think I've ever had a time when I read about an experience in a book and it taught me how to deal with a situation in real life, Brad. Especially not fairy tales.

[Chyros]

Ah bleh, this way the rhyme loses all of its power as an expression. I like to use it as an expression sometimes, but this completely undermines it. It's kind of like changing a Shakespeare quote, rendering it useless >.> .

[WNxMastrefubu]

the holloween lady is cracy

[H4mm3r]

*bangs head against brick wall*
What the hell is wrong with humans now?
Maybe i am missing the bigger picture, when i was in year one (1st grade for my american friends)
I was reading year 3 level books. Maybe that is why Im just a little smarter than the village idiot.
My Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is 140

It really is, despite the stupid comments i make in the spam section.

Another note:
THROW AWAY ALL YOUR CANDY CUZ THE CRAZY ASSED WOMAN SAID TO!!

[SquigPie]

If not, then because Jack Chick says so.


HALLOWEEN MAKES YOU A STANIST! HAW HAW HAW!

[deltaepsilon]

Bob, on 25 Oct 2009, 20:37, said:

Quote

Think you had the world’s greatest treehouse as a kid? Well this guy’s got you beat. Horace Burgess’s treehouse is located somewhere near Crossville, Tennessee and stands over 97-feet tall thanks to the 80-foot white oak tree it was built around which also happens to be about 12-feet in diameter at its base. It has 11 floors, somewhere in the neighborhood of 8,000 to 10,000 square feet, a miniature basketball court and is held together by roughly 258,000 nails.

Horace Burgess’s treehouse may be as close to heaven as a body can get in Cumberland County.

It rises 97 feet into the sky, the support provided by a live, 80-foot-tall white oak 12 feet in diameter at its base. Six other trees brace the tower-like fortress, but Burgess says its foundation is in God.

“I built it for everybody. It’s God’s treehouse. He keeps watch over it,” said Burgess, who received his inspiration in a vision that came to him in 1993. “I was praying one day, and the Lord said, ‘If you build me a treehouse, I’ll see you never run out of material.”‘

And thus far, as Burgess sees it, the Lord has provided. Most of his materials are recycled pieces of lumber from garages, storage sheds and barns. Now into his 14th year of construction, he is not finished.

The treehouse has 10 floors, averaging nine to 11 feet in height by Burgess’s reckoning. He has never measured its size but estimates it to be about 8,000 to 10,000 square feet. He did count the nails that he has hammered into the wood — 258,000, give or take a few hundred. And he guesses he has sunk about $12,000 into the project.

“God used my hands to put every piece in place, but I had a lot of help,” said the 56-year-old landscape architect. He’s a country boy but lives in town and compares himself to Job of the Old Testament. His pale blue Paul Newman-like eyes beam and he wears an easy smile on his tanned face.

“I’ve always proclaimed it to be the world’s largest treehouse, and no one has ever challenged it,” Burgess said.

http://funster.us/2009/10/worlds-largest-t...ear-crossville/

I want one [img]http://i404.photobucket.com/albums/pp129/JonThePon/Smilies/:cool:.png[/img]

That totally needs to be made in to a TF2 map.

[RaiDK]

H4mm3r, on 4 Nov 2009, 12:33, said:

*bangs head against brick wall*
What the hell is wrong with humans now?
Maybe i am missing the bigger picture, when i was in year one (1st grade for my american friends)
I was reading year 3 level books. Maybe that is why Im just a little smarter than the village idiot.
My Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is 140

It really is, despite the stupid comments i make in the spam section.

Another note:
THROW AWAY ALL YOUR CANDY CUZ THE CRAZY ASSED WOMAN SAID TO!!

Relevance zero.

Please refrain from spamming outside the SYD.

[BeefJeRKy]

Quote

Egyptian politicians call for Gigimo Artificial Virginity Hymen kit to be banned

Egyptian politicians have demanded that an ‘Artificial Virginity Hymen’ kit be banned in the country, calling it a “mark of shame”.


Artificial Virginity Hymen is distributed by a Chinese company called Gigimo and sells for about £19. It consists of a pouch which is inserted inside a woman’s vagina before sex and leaks a blood-like substance when broken during intercourse.

Its website says, in broken English: “No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back anytime... Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable.”

Sheik Sayed Askar, a member of the conservative Muslim Brotherhood political party, said: "It will be a mark of shame on the ruling party if it allowed this product to enter the market."

"This product encourages illicit sexual relations. Islamic culture forbids these relations except within the confines of marriage.

Abdel Moati Bayoumi, a prominent Islamic scholar, agreed. He said: "I think this should absolutely not be allowed to be exported because it brings more harm than benefits. Whoever does it (imports it) should be punished."

However, the product has met with some support. Marwa Rakha, an Egyptian blogger and activist for women’s rights, said the Artificial Virginity Hymen "sticks it in the face of every male hypocrite" in an Arab culture that condemns women’s sexuality but turns a blind eye to male promiscuity.

The Gigimo website offers shipment of the product to all Middle Eastern countries – and, by alphabetical chance, its default destination is the profoundly illiberal Afghanistan. It is not advertised in Egypt, but a reporter played an Arabic translation of the Chinese advert on Radio Netherlands, sparking the controversy.

In a region where premarital sex is not just frowned upon but actively condemned, with so-called honour killings not unheard of, being able to show one’s virginity on one’s wedding night can be vital.

A surgical method of reconstructing a hymen can cost up to 1000 Egyptian pounds (around £115) Many women seek it out, despite the sum being prohibitive for the poor, for fear of reprisals.

Egypt is considered more liberal than many other Middle Eastern states. Nonetheless, a 2005 UN report estimated that 52 out of a total 819 murders in the country in 1995 were honour killings.

Creepy product is creepy.