about 18 minutes ago – 25 comments
Read more: www.newscientist.com Watch New Scientist compete in a water-walking race and see if nature could have helped us. Related Posts Episode 132: Car Walk Contest! ★ WATER BLOOPERS (#7) Americas funniest Home Videos part 453 Solar water heaters take off in China Howie do It ~ bad Water drunk woman trying to walk to
Hi Guys,
Though this is an old post of may 23 in DAWN but it seems Kamran Ahmed had some super wild thoughts floating around:
Do not read the whole thing I have highlighted the WORD
The water bomb
By Kamran Ahmed
Sunday, 23 may, 2010 | 01
Nobody except few experts anticipated that the disaster of January 4th, 2010 would turn Gojal valley into a water bomb. Gojal is a valley situated in upper Hunza with a population of twenty five thousand scattered over small village settlements. The Karakoram Highway is the only route connecting Pakistan to China. KKH runs through Gojal into the Xinjiang province which makes Gojal an important asset to both Pakistan and China.
It was in the afternoon when a movement of terrain resulted in collapse of a massive segment of a mountain as an enormous landslide in an Abottabad village between Gojal and lower Hunza. The disaster resulted in deaths of twenty people and destroyed two villages completely. The collapsed mountain completely destroyed 2 km of the KKH.
The story however did not end here. The river amplified day by day and taking the contours of a deadly dam started moving upstream. Ayeenabad was the first village that fell prey to the river and submerged completely; houses, properties and plants of the people were consumed by the river. Second victim on the bank of the deadly river was Shishket village. As spring approached, water flow from surrounding glaciers and GLOFs (glacial lake outburst floods) raised the river even to a more dangerous level and a major part of Shishket was submerged. The longest bridge on the KKH situated between Shishket and Gulmit also immersed rendering strategic and monetary loss to Pakistan. so far eighty houses of Ayeenabad and Shishket have been submerged leaving the people as helpless IDPs.
Next was Gulmit village, the tehsil headquarter and largest settlement of Gojal valley. Meanwhile the river has risen to the bed of Gulmit submerging the houses and properties of Saeed Jan, a resident of Gulmit. Five kilometers of the KKH has also been submerged by the river so far which has now turned into one of the largest artificial lakes of the world; 20 kilometers in length 330 feet depth. National and international experts say that the artificial lake has maximum chances of outburst while the report offered by Professor David Petley of the International Landslide Centre at Durham University undoubtedly affirmed that there was a substantive risk of water outburst as a large flood wave may travel downstream as far as Tarbela Dam, 50 kilometers northwest of Islamabad.
The outburst is most likely when water travels across the spillway. however, such an event can be set off by a range of other processes, some of which may provide little warning.
The rising water levels are slowly but steadily causing damage to the infrastructure and endangering the downstream population destroying several villages.
In case of outburst of the deadly artificial lake, the consequences would be devastating for the downstream population right up to Tarbela Dam and settlements from Hunza Nager down to Hazara division.
The point to note is that the KKH and the river run parallel from Khunjerab down to Hazara. In case of outburst the KKH is feared to be obstructed and bridges on the KKH would be severely damaged. The worst case scenario would leave Pakistan completely disconnected through land route from China. with the KKH obstructed and the bridges damaged or collapsed, the settlements of Gojal would lose communication with Pakistan leading to food insecurity, health issues and economic slump on the local level.
As days pass and the weather becomes warmer and warmer at Gojal, the glaciers melt rapidly and frequency of GLOFs increase, the water bomb becomes more and more perilous.
Some local experts are of the opinion that early use of powerful water pumps to ejaculate 
the water at the blockade site and subsequent start of work to make spill way across the debris could have saved Gojal from turning into a water bomb. As the situation deteriorates, the people are left in psychological trauma as they see their houses, properties, crops and plants getting submerged. Desperately they wonder why the authorities declared the disaster a minor issue in the first place. After outburst of the lake, will the people of Gojal survive along with remnants of their properties or would it be a desperate battle for survival?
As this goes to print 36 villages have been evacuated as water level touches the spillway. The authorities ignored the first disastrous episode and now watch the stupendous water bomb with consternation.
FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance which carries out regular disaster mitigation, geological survey and hazard measurement especially in the mountainous areas of Gilgit Baltistan in its report of 2006 identified a high risk of terrain movement and potential disaster but no preventive measures have been taken. FOCUS set up an early-warning system to alert villagers downstream in case the dam bursts.
Questions like Who is responsible for the one month delay in making a spill way?, Will a judicial enquiry begin?, Why were nt NGOs allowed to provide relief to people?, would there be compensation for loss? remain unanswered.
Any Japanese romantic Comedies I search for online are in the settings of China or Korea or just not Japan. can someone please list some
cute/funny Japanese Romantic Comedies, the setting doesn’t have to be Japan but I’m looking for something Japanese (Dub) with english sub.
Thanks in Advance,
ありがとございます
Some of the funniest fight video clips that I have ever seen on TV are related to fighting, whether boxing moments, wrestling moments, martial arts moments, or drunken guys fighting. However, I could not find any of these videos online until I discover the Funny Fight Clips at UTubeVideoClip.com.
sometimes simulated sometimes for real fights between two guys who are not mad but under the effects of excessive alcohol ingestion are comical. there is an old Chinese film starred by Jackie Chan during his old days as a Hong Kong superstar in 1978. being essentially a drama, Drunken Master is a movie that portrays young Jackie learning the ancient martial style of the “The Eight Drunken Immortals” mythical Chinese gods.
According with to the real tradition, those gods appear in China during the Tang Dynasty between the years 618 and 917. Originally known as the Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup, they were widely known for being in love with alcoholic beverages and there is a female figure among them. Overtime the Eight Immortals also received the name of Eight Immortals Indulged in Wine and the Shaolin temple developed the style that is taught to Jackie Chan by and old drunk master performed by Simon Yuen, who was his martial arts teacher in real life.
whoever has watched a Jackie Chan’s movie at least once in life should know that he has always incorporated comedy moments in almost all of his movies, before and after his arrival to Hollywood. Drunken Master in not an exception and just the fact of a female goddess among the Eight Immortals make you enjoy a very funny fighting sequence when the lazy student Jackie Chan tricks his teacher skipping the learning of the female fighting manners being forced to improvise them when the final fighting to defeat an assassin takes place.
Wine is not certainly a good friend of human or divine body reflex or special skills so the fighting movements of each god are funny by itself. The Chinese Poet Du Fu wrote a poem about the Eight Drunken Immortals describing who they were: he Zhizhang, Li Jin, Li Shizhi, Cui Zongzhi, Su Jin, Li Bai, Zhang Xu, and Jiao Sui, who were real living people during the Tang Dynasty as well.
As an undisciplined student, Jackie Chan provides numerous UTube funny video clips that their fans love to share, and because all his former Chinese movies are plotted around martial arts stories, there are many opportunities to see a funny fight moment, although Drunken Master is a classic among those people who laugh aloud with the clumsiness of a drunken guy.
Multiply that fun for Eight Drunken Immortals and mix female manners during fighting time to enjoy an incredible funny UTube moment. However, it is not only about martial arts or Hong Kong movies; any funny fight clips have an open space for upload, share, and watch at utubevideoclip.com. Of course, if you are one of the lucky owners of the original Jackie Chan martial movies, take advantage of it and take some funny clips to share with us.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Google: U.S. security experts are zeroing in on the Chinese cyber-spies responsible for the recent hacks affecting Gmail accounts. the IE-flaw-exploiting spyware hack has been traced back to two schools in China, according to the Financial Times, one with ties to the Chinese military. while both schools deny involvement, we know one thing for sure: Google’s recruitment at Shanghai Jiaotong University and Lanxiang Vocational will drop in 2010.
Facebook: Ratings show that nearly half of all Americans tuned in for the first 7 days of the Winter Olympics, but it looks like NBC isn’t the only place they’re watching. According to Nielsen, about 13% of Vancouver’s TV audience simultaneously watched the opening ceremonies online, and over 41% of these viewers turned to Facebook for coverage. the site blew away its competition, with users spending an average of 16 minutes on the social network, compared with only about 14.5 minutes for its next three competitors combined. Hey NBC, next time work out some Zucker-Zuckerberg revenue-sharing deal.
Twitter: Speaking of the Winter Olympics, Twitter’s analytics team just released a new graph showing its growth curve, and it’s a slope that’d even intimidate Shaun White. the number of tweets in 2009 grew 1,400%, jumping from 300,000 per day in 2008 to 2.5 million. Currently, Twitter’s seeing about 50 million tweets a day–that’s about 600 tweets per second.
Microsoft: a new initiative announced today in Redmond will give more than 1 billion speakers of endangered languages access to technology. Under the Local Language Program (LLP), Microsoft is adding 59 new languages for both Windows 7 and Office 2010. “Allowing for people to use and build software in their native language helps emerging markets build a stronger work force, and ultimately prepares employees to help grow their local economies,” said Lauren Woodman, the senior director of Microsoft’s Government and Education Engagement Programs.
Apple: the U.S. International Trade Commission has just agreed to investigate Nokia over Apple’s patent-infringement claims, even while it is simultaneously investigating Apple over Nokia patent-infringement. Sound messy? It is. Apple and Nokia have been in fisticuffs since October of 2009 when Nokia first filed suit against Apple, and the spat took a nasty turn two months later when Apple countersued. Steve Jobs’ boast in January that Apple was the world’s “largest mobile device company” only worsened the situation.
Funny or Die: Will Ferrell’s online viral-video machine ‘Funny or Die’ (Top 10 in Film/TV) has moved from the Web to cable. the series premiered last night on HBO. did you see it? was it any good?
Women’s hockey coach Johnson mum on choice 
”Jessie’s playing awesome, so as long as she’s playing well, I don’t see us getting much of a chance,” No. 3 goalie Brianne McLaughlin said.
Vetter and Schaus had similar pre-Olympic statistics, with Schaus owning a better goals-against average (1.98 to 2.12) and save percentage (.917 to .915).
”Molly’s pretty technical,” McLaughlin said. ”She can move around, and she’s very positional. Jessie is athletic-looking. she dives around and makes the saves she needs to make.”
Schaus of Natick, Mass., said Johnson hasn’t said a word to them about what his plans are.
”We are comfortable [with our plans],” Johnson said. ”But I don’t know what will happen against China. If you get ahead of yourself, funny things can happen.”
Vetter, of Cottage Grove, Wis., played for Johnson at the University of Wisconsin, and based on her experience, she predicts ”he definitely will try to rotate and keep his goalies fresh.”
”[But], when it comes to the end, he’ll just go with who’s playing best,” Vetter said. ”You never really know until the day of, the night of. he just keeps it until the last minute.”
Johnson said ”probably” both goalies would play in the Games.
”But don’t hold me to that. It is such a short tournament that if one of them doesn’t look comfortable on this stage … from my standpoint, I want them both to be ready to play each game,” Johnson said.
Schaus, a junior at Boston College, also believes the hottest goalie will get the big games.
”We trust [the coaches'] decision,” she said. ”The whole team trusts their decision.”
Although there has been strong competition to be No. 1, there is no animosity between competitors. McLaughlin, of Sheffield Village, Ohio, said the common thread among the three American goalies is their laid-back approach.
”The three of us get along well, which I think is uncommon,” McLaughlin said. ”Obviously, we compete and push each other, but it’s not negatively. We’re very positive with each other. when I get in there, it’s not a jealousy thing. They’re like, ‘Oh yeah, go do it. good luck.”’
Gannett News Service
