Hmmm... What have we here? Maps, Fallen Buildings and a Dicey Game with Death

Remember that building in China that fell down all in one piece, we put up a post yesterday about that.

Here are more picture of the same at Gizmodo.



And then, remember that Obama interview where The One swatted a fly? This time he is interrupted by a Duck- but since it is just another ringtone, and more possibly because he could not get his hand at the cellphone, he has the grace to laugh it away (Small Bits and Pieces):



Did we post anything about that Aster map that NASA has made?

An astonishing new map has revealed the elevation of nearly every place on Earth.
The Global Digital Elevation Model was created using nearly 1.3million images collected by a Japanese camera on board Nasa's Terra spacecraft. It is made up of a giant grid of 23,000 tiles, with each height point spaced 98ft apart.
It shows a detailed representation of the planet's land mass. In this colourised version, low elevations are purple, medium elevationsare greens and yellows, and high elevations are orange, red and white.
-The Daily Mail

Here's a beautiful photo from that article which you must read:



And finally, to keep you awake for the night, here is a game that not many people would dare play, or dare watch:

Fallada typified the extremes of this era when he and his friend HannsDietrich von Necker made a pact--each would submit a poem to a thirdparty for judgment, and the author of the work judged inferior would beshot. Their poems were never submitted, understandably. But Fallada'sdesperate obsession with a girl led to a second, more serious pact withNecker. Hoping to disguise their suicides as a duel, the two precipitousyouths climbed to a famous lookout, paced off and fired. Having missedtheir targets, the two young men were forced to reload--with Neckertending to Fallada's rifle for him, as Fallada didn't know how toservice it. In the next round, Necker missed, but Fallada hit his man.At Necker's request, Fallada took his friend's pistol and finished himoff. Then he turned it on himself. The bullet skipped past his heart andpunctured a lung. He was found and rescued.
-The Nation. via Harper's.

Be at Peace.