California’s Silicon Valley is a microcosm of America’s new extremes of wealth and poverty. Business is better than it’s been in a decade. Facebook, Google and Apple have minted hundreds of new tech millionaires. But not far away, the homeless are building tent cities along a creek in the city of San Jose. Homelessness rose 20 percent in the past two years, food stamp participation is at a 10-year high, and the average income for Hispanics, who make up a quarter of the population, fell to a new low of about $19,000 a year — in a place where the average rent is $2000 a month.
Don’t make people pay for music, says Amanda Palmer. Let them. In a passionate talk that begins in her days as a street performer (drop a dollar in the hat for the Eight-Foot Bride!), she examines the new relationship between artist and fan.
Photograph by Grzontan on Wikimedia Commons
Voidokilia Beach is a popular beach in Messinia, in Southern Greece. The beach is in the shape of the Greek letter omega (Ω) and its sand forms a semicircular strip of dunes. The land facing side of the strip of dunes is the Gialova Lagoon (or Yalova Lagoon), an important bird habitat; and the whole area is part of a Natura 2000 protected area (Natura 2000 is an ecologice network of preotected areas in the territory of the European Union. [Source]
Parking for the beach is reached by sand tracks either from the Gialova Lagoon parking area (also used by bird-watchers) or by following the Northside route from Petrochori.
If you’d like to see this exact location on Google Maps, click here or enter the following coordinates: 36° 57′ 48.75″ N, 21° 39′ 49.20″ E
Picture of the Day: The Omega Shaped Beach in Greece «TwistedSifter.
The Infinity Bridge, a pedestrian bridge in Stockton-on-Tees in the UK, is suspended from a pair of beautiful asymmetrical bowstring arches that, when reflected in the water, look like the flowing double loop of the infinity symbol, hence the name. Designed by Expedition Engineering and Spence Associates, not only are the shape and reflection striking and interesting, but the lighting design by Speirs & Major makes the bridge an interactive kinetic experience. The deck of the footbridge is cloaked in a blue glow that shifts to a white light that moves along with you as you cross, much like a protective spotlight.
