Frederik and Gerrit Braun, energetic twin brothers with no shortage of dreams, have just finished construction of the world’s largest model airport. With 40,000 lights, 15,000 figurines, 500 cars, 10,000 trees, 50 trains, 1000 wagons, 100 signals, 200 switches, 300 buildings and 40 planes, Knuffingen Airport is both a wonder to behold as well as a technological tour de force. The best part of Knuffingen is that it’s alive. Forty planes and 90 vehicles move about autonomously.
posted by Trurl
on May 12, 2011 -
26 comments
Copenhagen: Come see "the busiest bicycling street in the Western world", and lots of other you-gotta-see-them-to-believe-them features including bike counters (featuring digital readouts), LEDS, double bike lanes (for passing) and giant hot pink cars.
Bicycle Highways may be coming to your town.
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posted by hortense
on Dec 20, 2009 -
44 comments
The
funicular railway is a kind of
cable-based railway that gives me great joy because of its peculiar shape and its uselessness for doing anything other than what it does. A funicular carriage is generally
stairstepped or
terraced, so you can't repurpose these cars for other uses. They generally work in a particular way, too, as pairs: one goes up the mountain, one comes down the mountain! Maybe this kind of glee is why they seem to be especially popular in Japan today, where they can be taken to many popular sightseeing areas--but a fair number of funicular railway riders are probably there for the journey, not the destination.
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posted by wintersweet
on Aug 25, 2009 -
64 comments
I know a man who once went to Sioux City, not one of the world’s leading destinations, precisely because he had never been there before. More than a decade later he still talks about the experience, from the Sergeant Floyd obelisk to the dog track of North Sioux and the meat packing plant converted to a shopping mall. The same impulse explains a non-specialist’s reading a history of Byzantine iconography or a survey of Australian wildlife. Both offer a break in daily life and an enlargement of our sense of wonder and possibility. That awareness can provide a sense of transcendence, and connection, or even the spark of divine discontent that leads people to change their lives.
Reading as Vacation, an essay by J. D. Smith and
Subway Reader, pictures of people who read while using public transportation.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 6, 2008 -
17 comments
One of my joys of going on vacation is to get off the interstate and
collect a bit of an old historic road. In California over the weekend
we managed to grab a bit of Hwy. 1 aka the Pacific Coast Highway past
nature preserves, resorts and neighborhoods. Another goal is to do all of
U.S. 50, the initial stages of which were reportedly surveyed by George Washington during his tour in the British Army.
Wired has a
nice
article about how a journalist and a photographer ignored the advice
of a Federal Highway Administration spokesperson to take a trip down
Route 1 from Maine to Florida.
posted by KirkJobSluder
on Oct 27, 2003 -
9 comments
