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The joy of cloudspotting: 10 incredible visions in clouds

The joy of cloudspotting: 10 incredible visions in clouds
A “cloud on the horizon” means that something bad is about to happen. Meanwhile, someone with their “head in the clouds” is thoroughly out to lunch. As Gavin Pretor-Pinney points out in today’s talk, clouds get a bad rep when it comes to language. Gavin Pretor-Pinney: Cloudy with a chance of joy“But I think they’re beautiful, don’t you?” he says. “It’s just that their beauty is missed because they’re so omnipresent, so commonplace that people don’t notice them … unless they get in the way of the sun.” Pretor-Pinney is the founder of the Cloud Appreciation Society and, in this talk, he asks each of us to do something we excelled at when we were kids — looking up at the clouds and letting our imaginations run wild. Below, Pretor-Pinney (and a few guests) shares a few cloud images with the TED Blog. A heart-shaped cloud, spotted by Angelo Storari of Ancona, Italy. A fish in the sky, spotted by Gavin Tobin of the Blasket Islands in Ireland. Spotted by Andrew Kirk of Deep Springs, California.

Most Beautiful Forests in The World Bluebells in Halle`s forest, Belgium. From late April to early May a few acres of woodlands are covered by a splendid carpet of wild bluebell hyacinths. Photo by: Raimund Linke Thick grove of poplar trees, Oregon. Photo by: David Thompson Arashiyama, a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan. Magical winter in Quebec forest, Canada. The Black Forest during night in Baden-Württemberg region, southwestern Germany. Deep in the green forest, France. Natural the tunnel near Halnaker, England. Mysterious glowing light in a Finland forest. Beautiful forest from a fairy tale, Belgium. White carpathians forest in autumn. Splendid yellow forest. Deep in the moss forest, Spain. Camp/trek in the beautiful forests by safely navigating, storing memories, and staying connected with hosted virtual PCs, Windows applications and cloud storage with your phone using Apps4Rent.com. . Bluebells in Halle`s forest, Belgium. Thick grove of poplar trees, Oregon. Arashiyama, a bamboo forest in Kyoto, Japan.

10 Most Unbelievable Places in the World There are ten most unbelievable places in the world that you definitely must visit before you die. 1. Tunnel of Love, Ukraine Image credits: Oleg Gordienko This powerful train tunnel of trees called the Tunnel of Love is located in Kleven, Ukraine. 2. Image credits: Allard Schager The sensational landscape provokes a visual effect hard to repeat in a life time. 3. Image credits: dadi360 Salar de Uyuni (or Salar de Tunupa) is the world’s largest salt flat at 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi). 4. Image credits: nipomen2 | sename777 Hitachi Seaside Park, located in Hitachinaka, Ibaraki prefecture, Japan, next to the Ajigaura Beach, is a flower park and a popular tourist destination. 5. Image credits: Kent Mearig The Mendenhall Glacier is a tongue of ice stretching 12 miles from the Juneau Icefield to Mendenhall Lake. 6. Image credits: MJiA The Red Beach is located in the Liaohe River Delta, about 30 kilometer southwest of Panjin City in China. 7. Image credits: Yuya Horikawa | Tomoaki Kabe 8.

21 Most Beautiful Nature Photos On Stumbleupon These are the 21 most beautiful nature photos on Stumbleupon. Stumbleupon is big society where you can spend all your day and all you life with smile on your face. On that site you can find lots of things, like photos, animals, home stuff and many more, nature photos like these one below. These nature photos are really beautiful and very amazing and that is the proof just how much our Earth is beautiful place. The 6 Most Creative Abuses of Loopholes The best way to get away with cheating isn't to avoid getting caught... it's to technically not do anything wrong, and still get all the rewards. That's where you find the line between lawbreakers and those who simply think outside the box... and that line is very thin indeed. Bar Declares Everyone to be Actors to Circumvent Smoking Ban Back in 2007, Minnesota followed a national trend by passing an anti-smoking law that banned smoking in pretty much every public building, including bars. Unfortunately, that was bad news for the bars, because if you're going to get good and drunk to fight off the depression manual labor and seasonal affective disorder brings, you want to get your smoke on, too. "...or, we could get stoned and play Xbox." The good owners of the Barnacles Bar were determined to find a loophole that would let their nicotine-addicted clientele feed their deadly vice in peace. "Now can I fucking smoke?" Man Flies Free Thanks to Pudding It really does pay to read the fine print.

Aquascaping Is Underwater Art Unlike Anything You’ve Ever Seen | Fill The Well Like Fill The Well on Facebook! You may have never heard of aquascaping, but to many people it’s a very serious art. The International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest holds an annual competition that ranks the best of aquarium design, and the results are phenomenal. Here are some of the entries that showcase the incredible underwater landscapes that contests have designed using their expertise in art and biology. “Forest Scent” by Pavel Bautin “Pale Wind” by Takayuki Fukada “Whisper of the pines” by Serkan Çetinkol “Verve!” “Way to heaven” by Dmitriy Parshin “Wild West” by Stjepan Erdeljić By Georgi Chaushev By Francisco Wu By Long Tran Hoang “Pilgrimage” by Shintaro Matsui If you liked this, please share:

10 Mind-Blowing Theories That Will Change Your Perception of the World Reality is not as obvious and simple as we like to think. Some of the things that we accept as true at face value are notoriously wrong. Scientists and philosophers have made every effort to change our common perceptions of it. The 10 examples below will show you what I mean. 1. Great glaciation. Great glaciation is the theory of the final state that our universe is heading toward. 2. Solipsism is a philosophical theory, which asserts that nothing exists but the individual’s consciousness. Don’t you believe me? As a result, which parts of existence can we not doubt? 3. George Berkeley, the father of Idealism, argued that everything exists as an idea in someone’s mind. The idea being that if the stone really only exists in his imagination, he could not have kicked it with his eyes closed. 4. Everybody has heard of Plato. In addition to this stunning statement, Plato, being a monist, said that everything is made of a single substance. 5. 6. Enternalism is the exact opposite of presentism.

Powerful Pictures Three sisters pose for photographs taken years apart. A Russian war veteran visits the tank that he fought in which has been preserved as a monument. A child gives a gift to riot police in Bucharest. Retired Police Chief Captain Ray Lewis is arrested at an Occupy Wall Street protest. A monk prays over the body of an elderly stranger who died suddenly while waiting on a train in China. A dog named Leao keeps watch by the the grave of his owner who was killed in a landslide in Rio de Janeiro. Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their fists in a gesture of solidarity at the 1968 Olympic games. John F. Christians protect Muslims during the 2011 Cairo uprisings. A North Korean man waves his hand as a South Korean relative weeps, following a luncheon meeting during inter-Korean temporary family reunions at Mount Kumgang resort October 31, 2010. A dog is reunited with his master after the 2011 Japanese Tsunami. A mother comforts her son following the 2011 tornado in Concord, Alabama.

What insightful and thought-provoking websites have you across throughout the years? Here are mine. : AskReddit Abandoned Russian tunnels where mind-bending patterns naturally cover every surface By Sara Malm Published: 15:56 GMT, 5 February 2014 | Updated: 18:18 GMT, 5 February 2014 Hundreds of feet below a Russian city is an abandoned salt mine which might as well be the inside of a rave. The walls are covered with psychedelic patterns, caused by the natural layers of mineral carnallite creating swirls throughout the coloured rock. Carnallite is used in the process of plant fertilisation, and is most often yellow to white or reddish, but can sometimes be blue or even completely colourless. Jaw dropping acid: The psychadelic walls inside the abandoned salt mine in Yekaterinburg, Russia more than 650ft under the surface Beauty below: Although the patterns appear man-made, they are all formed by layers upon layers of minerals which were mined for their use in fertilizers Scratching the surface: The mineral carnallite, a hydrated potassium magnesium chloride, decorates the empty tunnels under Yekaterinburg ‘We take our safety very seriously but of course there are always dangers.

Utne Reader: Alternative coverage of politics, culture, and new ideas Pictures of Clouds and Sunsets - What a Wonderful World Long’s Peak – Sunset Pictures of Clouds and Sunsets credit: David Evenson These pictures of clouds, nature and landscape are really inspirational. Clouds are created when rising air, through expansion, cools to the point where some of the water vapor molecules “clump together” faster than they are torn apart by their thermal energy. Some of that (invisible) water vapor condenses to form (visible) cloud droplets or ice crystals. After cloud droplets form, one of two things happen. In any case the beauty is impossible to ignore and our Grand Architect surely has an excellent eye for design. Hint: Use “J” and “K” keys to navigate from picture to picture. July SunflowersPictures of Clouds and Sunsets credit: David Evenson Vanishing Points“I’ve never seen such prominent anticrepuscular rays as we had this evening. Valley Tractor Sprinkler & SunsetPictures of Clouds and Sunsets credit: David Evenson Late Summer – Northern Colorado Pictures of Clouds and Sunsets credit: David Evenson

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