World's Most Mysterious Buildings

For stories you won’t forget, detour off the beaten path to these mysterious places.

  From October 2012By Adam H. Graham, Travel + Leisure Staff

Mysteries come in many forms: ancient, modern, unsolved, and unexplained. But the world’s most mysterious buildings are a physical force to be reckoned with. They’ve become popularized on websites like abandoned-places.com,weburbanist.com, and the granddaddy of them all, atlasobscura.com, an exhaustive user-generated and editor-curated database of the unusual. 

Our list of mysteries doesn't trot out clichéd write-ups of the Bermuda Triangle and the Egyptian pyramids, nor is it promoting the usual suspects of PR-pushed “haunted hotels.” These peculiar structures are original, lesser-known, and often arcane. Mystery after all, must be authentic.

“In an age where it sometimes seems like there's nothing left to discover, our site is for people who still believe in exploration,” says Atlas Obscura cofounder Joshua Foer, whose own favorite mysterious buildings include a murder mansion in L.A. and an art house in Centralia, W.A.

“It's easy when traveling to get stuck on very well worn paths,” reiterates cofounder Dylan Thuras. “Often the most memorable thing you see on your travels is not the beautiful palace, but the run-down theme park left to rot on the outskirts of town. These places give you more context than the highly polished tourist routes.”

Our definition of mysterious is broad and varied. Some buildings on our list are being eaten alive by the earth, such as a sand-swallowed lighthouse in Denmark’s Jutland and a lava-buried church in the remote highlands of Mexico. Others have design elements that seem to defy logic or were mysteriously abandoned by their people centuries ago. New York’s shadowy Renwick Smallpox Hospital has more recent traces of human life—and an eerie energy that lingers.  

We’ve got the photo proof.

—Adam H. Graham

http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/worlds-most-mysterious-buildings

The 30 Hottest Female Athletes We Can Follow on Instagram

As many are well aware of, social media outlets are taking over the world. It feels like every month there is a new social network that’s the craze (i.e. Snapchat). I am only involved in the two major social networks (Facebook & Twitter), but I might have to rethink that decision and join Instagram as well.

Most of Instagram is pretty worthless, unless you like pictures of stir fry and cats. It’s also more of a girl thing to do than a guy thing. Which is a pretty good reason for a guy to join, I find. What makes Instagram even better is some of these girls are very... umm… creative? Yeah, I’ll go with creative.

Take this list as an Instagram starter’s guide. Here are 30 of the hottest female athletes that we all can follow on Instagram. Some users are a lot more active than others, and some have a lot more “creative” pictures than others, too. However, all thirty of these lovely ladies are definitely easy on the eyes.

My main goal for making this list was to stick completely with athletes, which is why I’m giving Paulina Gretzky her respect on the title slide. After all, she helped make Instagram famous more than any other woman out there. I also made sure all these girls were 18, unlike other Instagram listees on the intrawebz *cough* McKayla Maroney *cough*.

Alas, these are 30 of the hottest Instagram follows from the sporting world. Feel free to include ones I forgot; because as I said, I am not a user quite yet and could have missed a few.

Read more at http://www.rantsports.com/clubhouse/2013/02/11/the-30-hottest-female-athletes-we-can-follow-on-instagram/?RhcrOpeDTBeYbBEm.99 

World's strangest natural wonders

Ever played the game of Twister on water? The green, yellow, and brown polka dots that form on British Columbia’s Spotted Lake each summer make it look like you could.

It’s a far cry from the stereotypical landscapes of clear blue lakes, rolling green hills, and white-sand beaches that inspire most travelers—and that’s part of what makes strange natural wonders like Spotted Lake so thrilling. A recently discovered cave that grows crystals the size of four-story buildings or a lake the color of a strawberry milkshake remind us that there’s plenty of mystery left to explore.

Seeing is believing, so take our tour of the strangest natural wonders—and keep an eye out for what the powerful planetary forces may do next.

Marble Caves, Chile 

Six thousand years of wave erosion created the undulating patterns that give these caves their marbleized effect, enhanced by the reflection of the blue and green water of Carrera Lake, near Chile’s border withArgentina. Although the area is threatened by a plan to build a dam nearby, for now, visitors can kayak throughout the caves on days when the waters are calm.

Lake Retba, (Photo: Martinez Codina)
Senegal

It looks as if someone poured a giant bottle of Pepto-Bismol into Lake Retba—that’s how deeply pink these waters are. The color is actually caused by a particular kind of algae called Dunaliella salina that produces a pigment. The salt content is extremely high, reaching 40 percent in some spots and allowing the algae to thrive (and swimmers to float effortlessly on the surface of the 10-foot-deep lake). Blinding white piles of salt line the shores, and locals work several hours a day harvesting salt from the bright pink water.

Spotted Lake, (Photo: Yvon Maurice)
British Columbia

It looks almost as if you could play Twister on Spotted Lake near Osoyoos, less than a mile from the Washington State border. Each summer, most of the water in this mineral-rich lake evaporates, leaving behind large concentrations of salt, titanium, calcium, sulfates, and other minerals that form a polka-dot pattern in shades of green, yellow, and brown circles of varying size. The lake is a sacred site to the First Nations of the Okanagan Valley, and the land on which it sits is private property owned by the Indian Affairs Department. You won’t actually be able to get up close to the lake, but you can get a good look from the nearby road.

Travertine Pools at Pamukkale, (Photo: danfay1009)
Turkey

People have sought the reputed healing effects of bathing here for thousands of years. The water that flows from 17 subterranean hot springs into the pools has an extremely high concentration of calcium carbonate, which forms soft deposits when it hits the surface. Those viscous white deposits harden over time until the springs resemble a fountain made of chalk or, as indicated by the poetic translation of Pamukkale, a “cotton castle” visible from more than 10 miles away. 

Sailing Stones, Racetrack Playa, (Photo: Brian Fitzharris / Flickr)
Death Valley, Calif.

No one has ever seen one of the “sailing stones” on Death Valley’s Racetrack Playa move, but evidence of their travels is visible in the long track marks that trail behind them in the dusty ground. Scientists aren’t sure exactly how the rocks—which can weigh hundreds of pounds—make their way across the dry lake bed. The prevailing theory is that when the rocks are wet or icy, they’re pushed along the flat playa by strong winds. The deep groove marks they leave behind indicate they may travel up to 700 feet from their point of origin.

White Desert (Sahara el Beyda),(Photo: VascoPlanet.com)
Egypt

Bulbous white rocks in strange shapes and sizes rise from the desert about 28 miles north of the town of Farafra in western Egypt—a cluster of mushrooms here, a herd of half-melted snowmen over there. Their appearance isn’t due to some avant-garde stone sculptor, but rather thanks to the wind. When the ancient sea that once covered the land dried up, the remaining sediment layer began to break down. The softer spots crumbled away, and over time, powerful sandstorms shaped the harder rocks into their current forms.

Moeraki Boulders, (Photo: Edwin Lee / Flickr)
New Zealand

The spherical stones that line New Zealand’s Moeraki Beach reach up to seven feet in diameter and have been compared to everything from the marbles of giants to colossal dinosaur eggs to half-submerged prehistoric turtles, ready to stand up and shake off the sand at any moment. They’re actually concretions, masses of compacted sediment formed below ground more than 50 million years ago. As the sand that surrounds them erodes, they seem to rise to the surface as if pushed up from the center of the earth.

Caño Cristales River, (Photo: Ximena Fajardo A. | Bogotá, Colombia)
Colombia

Folks make the journey into central Colombia’s Serranéa de la Macarena national park to see why Caño Cristales has inspired nicknames like the River of Five Colors, the Liquid Rainbow, and even the Most Beautiful River in the World. It’s important to get the timing right: when the water reaches the perfect levels (usually between July and December), it becomes a kaleidoscope of pink, green, blue, and yellow as a plant called the Macarenia clavigera, which lives on the river floor, gets the sun it needs to bloom into an explosion of colors.


The Eye of the Sahara (Richat Structure), (Photo: Corbis)
Mauritania

This enormous depression, circular in shape and stretching 25 miles wide, is like a bull’s-eye mark in the middle of an otherwise flat and featureless area of Mauritania desert. Visible from space, it has been a landmark for astronauts since the earliest missions. The Eye isn’t the result of any target practice by aliens; rather, it formed as winds eroded the different layers of sediment, quartzite, and other rocks at varying depths.

Asbyrgi Canyon, (Photo: Arctic-Images/Corbis)
Iceland

Legend has it that the Asbyrgi Canyon in northern Iceland was created when the hoof of a Norse god’s horse touched the earth, slicing through 300-foot-tall cliffs and flattening an area just over two miles long and more than a half mile wide. The likelier scientific explanation is that two periods of glacial flooding carved the canyon between 3,000 and 10,000 years ago. But standing atop the cliffs, with the green carpet of the horseshoe-shaped canyon spread before you, it’s fun to imagine otherwise.


http://travel.yahoo.com/ideas/world-s-strangest-natural-wonders-221501473.html

Moon mines, pyramids and cities by David Hatcher Childress

Moon anomalies by David Hatcher Childress.

Russia gets Bronze at the 2013 Astana World Team Chess Championships

The 2013 Astana World Team Championships ended with the victory of the Ukrainian team with their top formation (Lahno, Ushenina, M. Muzychuk, Zhukova and Gaponenko), congratulations to a great team! The silver and bronze was taken by two teams that were not able to align their best formations, first China playing without Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue, and second Russia (Gunina, Kosteniuk, Pogonina, Galliamova, and Girya) playing without the Kosintseva sisters. My (Russian) team did well, with 4 players out of 5 receiving individual board medals (super performance by Olga Girya with 6.5/8 on the last board). I started on a roll with 4.5/5 and even though I lost the last 2 games, still ended up with a performance of 2502 and just about 1 Elo point gained. More info and photos about the event can be found below. I hope to comment one or more games soon for my YouTube channel. Read also the report on USA’s top chess blogwww.chessblog.com.







The results of the event are as follows:













And the individual performances of the Russian team:







Photo of the Russian “Bronze” Chess Team
(Girls-players, from left to right: Pogonina, Galliamova, Kosteniuk, Gunina, Girya; Boys-coaches: Naer, Rublevsky, Riazantsev)







The second board medals went to Irina Krush (gold), Anna Ushenina (silver), and Alexandra Kosteniuk (bronze)







Posted by Chess Queen™ Alexandra Kosteniuk
12th women’s world chess champion
www.chessqueen.com







My 2 new medals:










Tags: Alexandra Kosteniuk, Russian Chess Team, Russian National Team, Russian Team, World Team
Posted in Chess Tournament | 4 Comments »

The new xbox

How to get to a MS-DOS prompt or Windows command line

Issue

How to get to a MS-DOS prompt or Windows command line.

Solution

Windows 8 users
Windows Vista and 7 users
Windows NT, 2000, and XP users
Windows 95, 98 and ME users
MS-DOS users
Windows 3.x users
Other PC Operating System users

Windows 8 users

1. From the Start screen type cmd and press enter.

or

1. Move the mouse cursor to the very bottom-left corner of the screen and right-click or press Windows key + X.
2. This will open the power user task menu, select either Command Prompt or Command Prompt (Admin).

Tip: How to use the Windows command line.

Windows Vista and 7 users

1. Click Start.
2. Type cmd and press enter.

Notice: For some commands and options to work in the Windows Vista and 7 command line you must run the command line as Administrator. To do this, right-click on the cmd icon and choose Run as administrator.

Tip: How to use the Windows command line.

If you're attempting to get into a MS-DOS prompt to troubleshoot the computer boot the computer into Safe Mode.

Windows NT, 2000, and XP users

1. Click Start.
2. Click Run.
3. Type cmd or command and press enter.

• Difference between the command.com and cmd.exe.

Tip: How to use the Windows command line.

If you're attempting to get into a MS-DOS prompt to troubleshoot the computer, boot the computer into Safe Mode.

Tip: Windows 2000 and XP users who are unable to boot the computer into Normal Windows mode or Safe mode, can also enter and use the recovery console to manage their computer from a prompt.

Finally, if you are experiencing issues getting into Windows NT, 2000, or XP, it may be necessary to run troubleshooting steps from a MS-DOS prompt. It is recommended that the Network Administrator get into the MS-DOS prompt by using either a standard MS-DOS boot diskette (note: will not be able to access data using a standard MS-DOS bootable diskette) or the ERD diskettes created after the installation of Windows NT, or boot from the Windows XP CD.

Windows 95, 98, and ME users

If you are able to get into Windows 95, 98 or ME, you can get to a MS-DOS prompt by following the steps below.

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type "command" and press enter.

This will open a MS-DOS shell. However, if you are attempting to troubleshoot an issue with the computer and are using Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98, we suggest you restart the computer into MS-DOS. To do this follow the below steps.

Tip: How to use the Windows command line.

How to restart the computer into a MS-DOS prompt

1. Click Start
2. Click Shutdown
3. Choose the option to restart the computer into a MS-DOS prompt.

If you are unable to get into Windows 95 or Windows 98 to get into a MS-DOS prompt, follow the below instructions (Windows ME does not have this option).

1. Reboot the computer
2. As the computer is booting, press the F8 key when you hear a beep or when you see "Starting Windows 95" or "Starting Windows 98." Windows 98 users sometimes may find it easier to press and hold the left CTRL key as the computer is booting.
3. If done properly the user should get to a screen similar to the below screen.

Microsoft Windows 95 Startup Menu ============================= 1. Normal 2. Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT) 3. Safe mode 4. Step-by-step confirmation 5. Command prompt only 6. Safe mode command prompt only Enter a choice: 1 F5=Safe Mode Shift+F5=Command prompt Shift+F8= Step-by-step confirmation [N]

   4.   Select the option for Safe mode command prompt only.

MS-DOS users

If you are running MS-DOS with no other operating systems, the computer should be booting into a MS-DOS prompt automatically unless you have a shell or other program loading automatically.

If the computer is not getting you to a MS-DOS prompt, reboot the computer and as the computer is booting, press the F5 key when you see the message "Starting MS-DOS" or the MS-DOS version. This will load the default standard MS-DOS.

If you successfully get to a MS-DOS prompt and would like to prevent the computer from loading the program that is preventing you from getting to a MS-DOS prompt, or if you would like to fix possible error messages you may be receiving when booting the computer, edit the autoexec.bat or the config.sys files.

Windows 3.x users

If you are running Windows 3.x it is likely that the computer is booting into Windows automatically and bypassing the MS-DOS prompt. If Windows loads successfully into Windows, to exit to a MS-DOS prompt, from Program Manager, click the File menu and then Exit.

If the computer is trying to load into Windows but is encountering errors while it is booting, reboot the computer and press F5 key when you see the message "Starting MS-DOS" or the MS-DOS version. This will load the default standard MS-DOS.

If you do not want Windows 3.x to load automatically into Windows 3.x, you will need to edit the autoexec.bat file and remove the "win" line.

Other operating system users

If you are using another operating system such as OS/2, Linux variants, or Unix variants and you need to get to a MS-DOS prompt, it is recommended that you use a MS-DOS boot diskette unless you are dual booting the computer. Keep in mind that booting from a MS-DOS diskette is not going to allow you to have access to the files used with other operating systems. However, if you're erasing everything and starting over this would allow you to delete all pre-existing information and start over.

Tip: If you're wanting a command line, you more than likely want to access the Shell or Terminal for your operating system, not MS-DOS.

Additional information

• See our Windows command line definition for further information on this term and related links.
• See our MS-DOS and Windows command line page for a full listing of all commands and additional information about each command.