10 Bizarre Things Cars have been Covered With

I don’t know what it is about cars in particular, but for some strange reason they are often a very popular canvas for people’s artistic talents – and I don’t just mean painting. This list looks at cars that have been used as the basis for artworks, or just bizarre hobby projects.

10

Nail Polish

Yvonne Millner of Hopkins, South Carolina, decided to give her 1996 Mitsubishi Mirage a different look, so she decided to paint the car—with nail polish. She started by drawing a smiley face, but today she has designs, patterns and slogans painted all over the vehicle. She would sometimes spend three to four hours a day on designing the car (which she nicknamed Smiley) and has used hundreds of bottles of nail polish in different shades, thus giving the car a unique, colorful appearance.

9

Postage Stamps

E. Hadley, of Casper, Wyoming, owns an automobile with a difference. Serving as a rolling stamp exhibit, his car is covered with approximately 10,000 postage stamps. To plaster the stamps to the car, five girls worked steadily for six weeks covering the vehicle with the stamps, which came from sixty different countries. The car was later varnished to protect the stamps from the elements.

8

Coins

Ken Burkitt of Ontario, Canada, has covered several vehicles, including a 1969 Austin Mini Cooper, with thousands of gold-plated English pennies. The coins used were covered with at least eight coats of polyurethane to prevent discoloration or rusting. To ensure that every inch of the car is covered, Burkitt uses a vice to bend coins in the shape of the surfaces they will cover.

7

Chocolate

A Chinese car company covered a Volkswagen Beetle with 440 pounds of chocolate for Valentine’s Day, in 2007. Several workers first covered the Beetle with plastic wrap, then the melted chocolate was spread all over the car and candy was used to decorate it. The chocolate Beetle was then displayed outside a grocery store in Shandong province.

6

Sticky Notes

Scott Ableman and a dozen of his colleagues from a company in Washington, D.C., decided to pull a fantastic prank on their coworker, Walt. In less than two hours, the group covered Walt’s Jaguar with 14,000 colorful sticky notes. Every inch of the car was covered except the hood ornament and the license plates. After finding out about his car, Walt went along with the prank and, after removing the notes from the windshield, drove it home to show to his family.

5

Toy Cars

James Ford, a young U.K. artist, after purchasing a 1981 Ford Capri on eBay, decided to turn the car into an art project. The result: General Carbunkle, an homage to the General Lee (the car from The Dukes of Hazzard), which is covered with around 3500 to 4500 toy vehicles. The toy cars mostly came from donations from around the world, although Ford obtained 2000 of the toy cars used by posing as a toy-store owner and buying them at a trade fair.

4

Grass

Brooklyn artist Gene Pool’s medium is grass. He first puts adhesive on the surface of his soon-to-be artwork, spreads grass seeds all over it, waters the plants, then waits for the grass to germinate, and voila! Instant art. Pool has used the technique on various items like suits, hats, shoes and briefcases, but his crowning achievements are the two Buick LeSabres that he covered with Manhattan Perennial Rye #2, as well as a grass-covered St. Louis Cardinals bus.

3

Musical Instruments

Harrod Blank created “Pico de Gallo” (“spicy salsa” in Spanish), a Volkswagen Beetle covered with working musical instruments. The car also features a stage on the roof and a stereo system. It’s currently displayed at the Art Car World Museum, in Arizona. He has also done the same thing with cameras.

2

Cigarettes

The Stink Bug is a Volkswagen Beetle owned by Carolyn Stapleton of Orlando, Florida. The car serves as a moving antismoking advertisement because it’s covered with thousands of used cigarettes. The words “kick butt” can be seen on the windshield, and a skull-and-crossbones adorns the hood.

1

Crystals

Remember Ken Burkitt from number 8? He and his wife, Annie, get the top spot on this list for their amazing work on a 2004 Mini Cooper, which is covered with more than a million genuine Austrian Swarovski crystals, depicting various U.S. landmarks and symbols, like the Statue of Liberty, the White House, and Mount Rushmore. The masterpiece, entitled “American Icon,” took four artists six months to create, because it was all done by hand. The crystals used were all of the same size and in 50 different colors to represent the 50 states of America. Burkitt said of the work, “We wanted to create something that would pay tribute to America in an eye-catching way. The car takes on a completely different look as the lighting changes throughout the day. The crystal design takes on a life of its own.”

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10 Worst Photo Manipulations

Photo manipulation is an art requiring both skill, creativity and an extraordinary imagination. Photographic prowess coupled with designing expertise gives birth to illusory images that are amazing, disturbing or both. But sometimes they really over do it. Following are ten examples of the of photo manipulation when not done right.

Iron Man

Artist caption: “Inspired by a German ad I saw in Berlin a couple of years ago.” Both the idea behind the manipulation and the title are very witty to say the least. Image via: alltelleringet

Triple Threat

Two’s company, three’s just disturbing. Image viaweb2.0-designs

Two Ladies

And you thought the phrase “girl on girl” couldn’t be more literal. Image via kandrson

The Eye

Talk about hand-eye coordination. As stated in the artist’s caption, this creepy masterpiece is a re-creation of the poster for the film The Eye. Image via Bobshaw

Male Harpy

Looks like someone is a stickybeak. Image Via  Sebastian Niedlich

Man Hand-ling

Weird, disturbing and amazing all at the same time, this Hand Man (or Man Hand-ling) would make a great mythical creature. Image via  Worth1000

Drawing Hands

From the artist’s caption: “Inspired by one of my favorite M.C. Escher Drawings.” Image via: Josh Sommers

Paint Dress

Not a very convenient way to get dressed. Image via : web2.0-designs.com

Living Tongue

It’s alive! Image via : vi.sualize.us

Go your own road

Get a road! Image via: alltelleringet

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Wednesday Geeky Pics: More Geeky Tattoos

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
The last time I found a bunch of geek cred tattoos, I noticed that there were a lot more floating around out there. So here’s a brand new batch of geek ink.
Tagged


Power In Progress

No Other Consoles Before Me

Oh, BSD, you little devil.

Next

<3

Space Invaders

Fractal

Gnu

Dogcow

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Top 10 Unusual Hotels

We’ve all seen, or stayed at, the typical “Holiday Inn” type of hotel. A vacation should be an experience that, from start to finish, is filled with fun, excitement and relaxation. Here’s a look at some unique hotel destinations that can seem like an adventure in themselves.

10

The Giraffe Manor

Nairobi, Kenya

        
               

           
The Giraffe Manor was built in 1932, by Sir David Duncan, and modeled after a Scottish hunting lodge. Located in Nairobi, with a view of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the Ngong Hills, it is located on 115 acres. The manor was opened, in 1984, as a hotel. The Rothschild giraffes were moved onto the property after the loss of their natural habitat, and now they thrive there. Staying at this giraffe sanctuary will allow you the opportunity of having the giraffes come right to your window, where you can hand-feed them and take pictures.

9

The Library Hotel

Manhattan, New York

           
   

                                
For those with a love of books and learning, the Library Hotel is for you. The floors are set according to the 10 main categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification system. They have arts, religion, philosophy, math and more. Included in the rooms are books from the theme of each floor.

8

Karostas Cietums Hotel

Liepaja, Latvia

           
                    

                     
The Karostas Cietums started as a Russian prison and remains much the same now as it was then. Your stay includes being handcuffed and led to your jail cell, stripped of your belongings, fed bread and water and allotted a bed of wood or iron mattresses. The hotel is only open from May 1 to October 1 each year. There have been reports that this is a haunted hotel, so in your cell you can expect to hear eerie noises, and maybe even see some of the former prisoners.

7

Utter Inn

Lake Malaren, Sweden

      
     

                                 
The Utter Inn is an art project by Mikael Genberg. It looks like a red garden shed stuck in the middle of the lake. The bedroom is located three meters below the lake, and is accessible by ladder. There are windows all around for fish viewing. Above water is a small deck to lounge on, and a row boat to explore the lake, or the island nearby.

6

Propeller Island City Lodge

Berlin, Germany

       
            

          
This strange hotel is the work of artist Lars Stroschen. Each room has a different theme. There is a flying bed room, which has slanted floors and a levitated bed; the upside down room, which features all the furniture on the ceiling and a trapdoor on the floor that you climb down to find your sleeping accommodations; they also have a padded room that is covered in green leather padding, from top to bottom. For those who have vampiric tendencies, they also offer a room with coffins as beds.

5

Hotel de Glase

Quebec, Canada

     
                            

            
Each December, artists start constructing this unique hotel. Open from January 7 to March 27 each year, the hotel requires 400 tons of ice and 12,000 tons of snow, and is redesigned and rebuilt each year. Everything you see at this hotel is made of ice, including the fireplaces and the glasses to drink from. They do have heated washrooms and outdoor hot tubs. The hotel also offers a wedding chapel, which is considered a top 10 wedding location.

4

Das Park Hotel

Osterreich, Austria

       
          

                            
We’ve all seen the big concrete sewer tubes waiting to be installed during construction work, and now Das Park gives the opportunity to stay in one of these tubes. Each weighs 9.5 tons and needs little up-keep, just a coat of varnish to help keep the moisture from cracking the cement.
Austrian artist, Thomas Latzel Ochoa, lends his touch to the inside of the tubes to make them a bit friendlier. The concrete stays cool on the inside and makes for a nice summer retreat. Das Park is open from May to October, and the rates are on a “pay what you think the stay was worth” type of system.

3

V8 Hotel

Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    
     

                                         
The V8 hotel is the perfect destination for car enthusiasts. Located in the city’s first airport, this hotel offers car themed rooms, including a Mercedes Benz car wash, Morris Minor Garage and a Route 66 theme. The beds follow the room theme by either looking like a continuation of the road, or a car. The whole hotel, from reception to the restaurant, features car memorabilia.

2

Capsule Hotel

Den Haag, Netherlands

             
                     

          
These bright orange oil rig survival pods are located in The Hague. While they aren’t very big, they do offer sleeping bags for 3 people (silk-lined ones for the more upscale package). Capsule Hotel offers a James Bond basic survival package, and an upgraded version that features a library of all the 007 movies, silk sheets, champagne and a disco ball. Bikes are included for sightseeing around the area. Those prone to seasickness should probably not stay here as the pods tend to sway constantly.

1

Hang Nga Hotel

Da Lat, Vietnam

       
                                   

Hang Nga Hotel (or “crazy house,” as it’s been dubbed by the locals) is hidden away in the mountain town of Da Lat. The house is considered one of the most unusual pieces of architecture in Vietnam, where they tend not to have too much unconventional architecture. A random assortment of cubbyholes and rooms that twist and turn are pieced together with bridges to form a maze-type place. The house also contains caged birds, spiderweb creations, enormous animals and other curiosities that create a fairytale like atmosphere.

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Top 10 Under Appreciated Silent Horror Films

Some of the most influential and beloved horror films came from an era before gory special effects, prosthetic limbs designed to be torn off actors, and meager shock scares.  These were the silent horror films.  Even today, while many silent films have disappeared from popular consciousness, silent horror films still maintain a widespread audience.  Whether they are the products of German Expressionism or early Hollywood creature features, they continue to intrigue and influence film makers and audiences to this day.  Some silent horror films have gained legendary status (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Faust, The Phantom of the Opera, The Hunchback of Notre Dame), while others have been either ignored or forgotten in recent decades.

Here is my top 10 list of underappreciated silent horror films.  Arranged chronologically from the date of their release, these films were some of the most influential horror films ever made.

(For a film to qualify for this list, it must still survive in some capacity.  Lost films or films with a majority of the footage missing are not eligible.)

10. Le Manoir du Diable

1896

Directed by Georges Méliès

This odd little cinematic jewel by early film pioneer Georges Méliès (whose most famous film remains A Trip to the Moon) is considered to be the very first horror film.  Clocking in at around three minutes, it contains many images that would go on to become staples of the horror genre.  The first image of the film is of a plastic bat hanging from a wire being dangled inside a medieval castle.  It quickly turns into Mephistopheles who summons all manner of objects and beasts.  These include a bubbling cauldron, skeletons, ghostly apparitions, and witches.  He uses these to torment two intruders to his castle.  The film ends with one of the men grabbing a crucifix and using it to repel Mephistopheles away.

9. Frankenstein

1910

Directed by J. Searle Dawley

The first ever adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, this film was a product of Thomas Edison’s Edison Studios in the Bronx, New York City.  This twelve minute short took three days to shoot and was directed by J. Searle Dawley.  It contains an extremely condensed version of the classic tale.  Doctor Frankenstein creates a living monster, the monster rebels against Frankenstein, the monster runs away after learning of his horrible appearance, and peace is restored.  However, this film provides an interesting twist to the story in that it implies that the monster was nothing but an outward manifestation of Doctor Frankenstein’s internal madness.  It contained some crude, yet strangely effective, special effects for its time.  The most memorable is when Frankenstein creates his monster by pouring a series of chemicals into a cauldron.  A skeleton pops out of the top and slowly gains shape and flesh.  Imagine the face melting scene in “Raiders of the Lost Ark” but backwards.

8. The Student of Prague

1913

Directed by Stellan Rye and Paul Wegener

The Student of Prague is an early German horror film that contains a basic retelling of the classic Faustian tale.   It involves a poor student named Balduin becoming completely obsessed with a countess.  He ends up making a deal with a sorcerer named Scapinelli to give everything he desires, including great wealth.  In return, he must sign a contract.  You can figure out where the plot goes from there.  The film is notable for several different reasons.  First, it contained some very prominent special effects that were considered quite extraordinary for the era.  The most famous is where Balduin shares the screen with a double of himself.  Also, Scapinelli is an incredibly important figure in the development of horror films.  He was one of the first characters who would seduce the protagonist with deals and bargains instead of defeating him with demons and infernal magic. It was due largely in part to this film that the entire trope of “Satan as a salesman” developed and flourished in the world of cinema.

7. The Golem: How He Came into the World

1920

Directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese

The Golem: How He Came into the World was a milestone in German Expressionism.  If The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari hadn’t literally been released mere months before this film, it would have gone down as one of the very first films of its genre.  The third (and only surviving) in a trilogy of films about a giant clay golem, this film explained the horrible creature’s origins.  We travel to the slums of Prague in the 16^th century where a local rabbi creates a clay golem and brings him to life to protect the Jewish community from their enemies.  Unfortunately, the golem goes crazy, sets fire to the town, and goes on a killing spree.  In addition to having some of the greatest sets and cinematography of the entire German Expressionist movement, The Golem: How He Came into the World was significant because it helped create one of the very first widely recognized movie monsters.  The golem paved the way for all of the vampires, werewolves, mummies, and other deadly creatures that would come to populate horror films in the coming decades

6. Häxan

1922

Directed by Benjamin Christensen

Häxan holds the distinction of being the only documentary on this list.  The film is an examination of superstition and makes the academic argument that much of the hysteria concerning medieval witch-hunts can be ascribed to mental illness.  While this may not sound very appropriate for a horror film, what makes it qualify for this list is how it goes about making that argument.  The film is based partly on the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15^th century German inquisitor guide.  As such, director Christensen indulges in lengthy recreations of witch covens, satanic rituals, and inquisitional witch hunts.  Scenes include a Witches’ Sabbath, the supposed possession of an abbey of nuns, and a cruel reconstruction of a scene where an inquisitor tricks an innocent woman into pretending to be a witch, in the process condemning her to be executed for witchcraft.  While it may be a piece of academic film making, no horror enthusiast should go without experiencing this film.

5. The Hands of Orlac

1924

Directed by Robert Wiene

Released in 1924, this Austrian film would introduce a plot that has been recycled countless times in multiple forms of media.  The story goes that a concert pianist named Paul Orlac gets a hand transplant after he loses his own in a terrible railway accident.  As fate would have it, the replacement hands were those of a recently-killed murderer.  Soon, Orlac finds himself fighting the urge to kill those around him.  Things go from bad to worse when his father, whom he was on the outs with, is found murdered.  The film features an early performance by horror icon Conrad Veidt who famously played the somnambulist in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the titular character in The Man Who Laughs.  Though the film would be remade several times over the years, including the classic American film Mad Love with Peter Lorre, this was where the idea of possession through medical transplant began.

4. Waxworks

1924

Directed by Leo Birinsky and Paul Leni

Featuring a who’s who of early German actors (including Emil Jannings, Conrad Veidt, William Dieterle, and Werner Krauss) and direction by legendary horror director Paul Leni, Waxworks is a dream come true for horror enthusiasts.  The film itself is actually an anthology film that encompasses many different stories.  It involves a waxworks proprietor who hires a writer to create a series of stories for his various exhibits.  These include the Caliph of Baghdad, Ivan the Terrible, and Jack the Ripper.  The audience travels to different eras of time as the film reenacts the writer’s various stories.  At first the film plays more like a fantasy adventure than a horror story…at least until the writer discovers that the Jack the Ripper statue has come to life…

Serving as Paul Leni’s last film made in his native Germany before moving to America, it was an appropriate send-off for one of German Expressionism’s greatest auteurs.

3. The Monster

1925

Directed by Roland West

Easily one of the strangest films on this list, Roland West’s film The Monster featured a unique blend of horror and humor that was unusual for the time.  But that isn’t to say that the film wasn’t important as a mainstream horror film.  In fact, The Monster could very well be one of the most influential horror films ever made.  It pioneered two important archetypes for horror films.  The first was that of a mad scientist that had minions at his disposal.  The mad doctor in this case is named Ziska.  At the beginning of the film, Ziska takes over an abandoned sanitorium only to kidnap people to use in his mad experiments.   This leads to the second important innovation in The Monster: the implementation of the ‘old dark house’ trope.  Armed with compelling characters, creepy sets, and an infectious sense of humor, The Monster raised the bar for horror films.

2. The Unknown

1927

Directed by Tod Browning

What do you get when you combine one of the greatest horror directors and one of the greatest horror actors of all time?  The answer is The Unknown.  A collaboration between director Tod Browning (Freaks, Dracula) and Lon Chaney Sr. (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera), The Unknown is one of the most unsettling horror films from the silent era.  Chaney plays Alonzo the Armless, a criminal posing as an armless circus freak to avoid the law.  He falls in love with Nanon, the circus owner’s daughter, who has a crippling fear of being touched by men.  Because of her fear, she is friends with Alonzo who is unable to touch her.  So one night, he decides to have his arms surgically removed so he can be with Nanon.  As fate would have it, while he is gone, she is miraculously cured of her illness and falls in love with the circus strongman.  Upon discovering this, Alonzo loses his mind and swears to take revenge.  An intense film combining some of the greatest minds of early horror films, The Unknown is not to be missed.

1. The Cat and the Canary

1927

Directed by Paul Leni

Before he made his most famous film The Man Who Laughs, director Paul Leni created the gothic masterpiece entitled The Cat and the Canary.  Like his earlier film Waxworks, this film utilized a unique blend of German Expressionism, horror, and humor.  Inspired by a 1922 black comedy of the same name, The Cat and the Canary would go on to be one of the most beloved and imitated (it was remade 5 times) silent horror films of the 1920s.  At least…it was at the time.  Nowadays the film has been largely ignored or forgotten.  It truly is a shame, because the film was incredibly influential at the time, even going on to inspire Alfred Hitchcock.  It deals with a young girl named Annabelle who inherits her uncle’s fortune after a reading of his will 20 years after his death.  But, in order for her to gain the fortune, she must have a clean bill of mental health.  Things are complicated when she and her family stay in his old haunted mansion and are stalked by a mysterious figure.  What’s worse, the mansion becomes the hiding place for an escaped lunatic simply known as “the Cat.”  Will she maintain her sanity?  And who, or what, is stalking her?  And what of “the Cat”?  Watch this classic and find out.

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Top 10 Unusual Bars

The history of public drinking houses and bartending dates back to ancient times. Public drinking houses, as they were called in those times, served as meeting places for both common and upper class people, they were gathering places for families and friends. Nowadays, there is a bar or pub for every taste and mood. For those looking for the odd, the bizarre and the outrageous of the international bar scene, there are many interesting establishments to choose from. The following unusual bars have gained international fame, attracting hundreds, even thousands of foreign visitors every year.

Have you been to one of these bars? Tell us about the most interesting bar you have ever visited.

10. Eternity, The Coffin Bar

Are you superstitious? Superstitious enough to refuse having a drink at this bizarre bar? The Coffin Bar is one of the newest tourist attractions of Truskavets, Ukraine. The entire bar is a giant coffin, 20m long, 6m wide and 6m tall. Real coffins and funeral flower arrangements provide the décor.

9. Dans le Noir

Looking for an unbelievable, unique experience? What about eating or having a drink in the pitch dark? Dans Le Noir will literally leave you in the dark. This French bar concept is quite innovative and even if it seems strange at first, you don’t have to worry about messing around or getting the food and drinks all over your clothes. According to Dans le Noir, their blind guides are carefully trained to ensure visitors’ welfare and will provide you with guidance. You will rely on your sense of hearing, smell and touch. London, Paris, Barcelona, and Bangkok are some of Dans le Noir’s locations. Why do I love this unusual concept? Because…

„In the dark room, you are guided and served by blind staff. A magic switch between sighted and blind people happens. For once, blind people actually become your eyes. This reversal of roles implies a transfer of trust from the sighted person to the blind guide because without him we are just lost. (danslenoir.com).

8. The Clinic

Located right in the heart of Clarke Quay, downtown Singapore, The Clinic is a hospital themed bar. Just as the name implies, its décor and ambience resemble a medical clinic. Hospital beds separated by hanging white curtains, surgery room lighting, wheelchairs and wheelchair tables, syringes, drips, test-tubes and paraphernalia will catch your attention for sure. Cocktails are served in blood bags attached to a drip or in large syringes.

7. Alcatraz ER

Tokyo is home to some very bizarre and crazy bars. Alcatraz ER, a bar and restaurant, is a fascinating “medical prison”. To enter Alcatraz ER, the guests have to declare their blood type and let the staff know if they are suffering from any kind of health disorders. A pretty nurse will fill out the medical chart and prescribe the right “medicine”. The guests will be handcuffed and taken to their prison cell.

6. Vampire Café

Nowadays, modern vampires hang out far away from Transylvania. Located in the heart of Ginza – Tokyo, Vampire Café seems to be a great meeting place. Blood Clot is on the menu! Draped in sanguine velvet, the décor is composed of crucifixes, spiders, skulls, candelabras, bizarre pictures and a Dracula’s coffin is the centerpiece. With bars and restaurants like Vampire Café, Alcatraz ER, Christon Café, Tokyo Ice bar, Alice in Wonderland and Office Bar, among others, Tokyo has established itself as the capital of the most unusual bars of the world.

5. The Red Sea Star

In the waters of the Red Sea, one of the ‘Underwater Wonders of the World’, a unique attraction was created: the Red Sea Star, the world’s very first underwater bar and restaurant.

4. Guácara Taina

Located in the Dominican Republic, Guácara Taina is the only underground bar/club built inside a natural cavern. It lies sixty feet below the earth’s surface and has a capacity of 3,000 people. Guácara Taina is spread over three floors, naturally decorated with stalagmites and stalactites.

3. Baobab Tree Bar

According to scientists, this baobab tree is about 6,000 years old. This makes it one of the oldest living things on earth! This fascinating baobab, located

at Sunland Baobab in Modjadjiskloof, South Africa is home to the Tree Bar as well as a wine cellar.

2. Cova d’en Xoroi

Known for its spectacular cliff top view, Cova d’en Xoroi is an amazing place to enjoy a drink. The disco-bar is set in the legendary cliffs of Cala’en Porter and has become one of the main tourist attractions of the Cala’en Porter resort, on the south coast of Menorca.

1. H.R. Giger Bar in Gruyeres, Switzerland

The H.R. Giger Bar, aka Skeleton Bar, contrasts dramatically with the bucolic Swiss scenery. The H.R. Giger Bar was designed by Hans Rudi Giger, the Oscar-winning Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer. He is best known for the design of the Alien set and the alien creature in the movie series. The bar is a cavernous, skeletal structure covered by double arches of vertebrae that crisscross the vaulted ceiling of an ancient castle. “The sensation of being in this extraordinary setting recalls the tale of Jonah and the whale, lending the feel of being literally in the belly of a fossilized, prehistoric beast, or that you have been transported into the remains of a mutated future civilization” (hrgiger.com/barmuseum).

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Hamburger Phone

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Top 7 Wonders of the Technological World

With all the discussion around the net regarding the new 7 wonders of the world, I thought that a nice complement to that would the be the 7 wonders of the technological world. I searched around for inspiration and was surprised to find that no one has put together a really decent list. One of the prominent lists I did find included Microsoft Surface – how ridiculous! (I wonder who owns that newspaper). So, without further ado, here is the list of the Top 7 Wonders of the Technological World.
7. iPod

This item will be the most controversial on the list I think. My reason for including it is the impact it has had worldwide on how we listen to music, how we buy music, and how we perceive entertainment as a whole. The iPod was not the first portable digital music device, but it has undoubtedly had the most effect of all. It has spawned an entire industry of supporting gadgets and accessories and it has been the basis of the only successful attempt by any company to break the Recording Industry’s hold on music distribution. For that alone, we owe Apple Corporation a big thank you.
Apple’s hardware engineering chief, Jon Rubinstein, assembled a team of engineers to design the iPod, including Tony Fadell, hardware engineer Michael Dhuey, and design engineer Jonathan Ive, with Stan Ng as the marketing manager. The product was developed in less than a year and unveiled on October 23, 2001. CEO Steve Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put “1000 songs in your pocket.”
6. International Space Station

Some 60 years ago the world was plunged in to one of the greatest wars known to man. Not so many years after that we were thrown in to the cold war. Who would have believed that before the end of the 20th century, countries that were bitter enemies for the larger part of the century would join together to create a space station? The countries participating at present are the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, and numerous European nations. The Space Station has enabled us to learn that we can work together peacefully, especially in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
In the early 1980s, NASA planned Space Station Freedom as a counterpart to the Soviet Salyut and Mir space stations. It never left the drawing board and, with the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War, it was cancelled. The end of the Space race prompted the U.S. administration officials to start negotiations with international partners Europe, Russia, Japan and Canada in the early 1990s in order to build a truly international space station. This project was first announced in 1993. The first section, the Zarya Functional Cargo Block, was put in orbit in November 1998 on a Russian Proton rocket.
5. Linux

Linux has to be on the list for the very fact that it truly opened the door to Open Source software to more people than any other open source project. The very fact that so many people can work together without meeting face to face to bring together such a complex project as an operating system – and to make it good enough to compete with the giants in the industry, is a wonder in itself. The project started as the brain child of Linus Torvalds.
In 1991, Linus Torvalds began to work on a non-commercial replacement for MINIX (another Unix-like operating system) while he was attending the University of Helsinki. With code from the GNU system freely available, it was advantageous that this could be used with the fledgling OS. Torvalds initiated a switch from his original license (which prohibited commercial redistribution) to the GNU GPL. Linux and GNU developers worked to integrate GNU components with Linux to make a fully functional and free operating system.
4. Hubble Space Telescope

Since its launch in 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has become one of the most significant instruments in the history of astronomy. Children of today do not need to look in to the sky and wonder – Hubble has brought the beauty of the heavens to the face of the earth. The Hubble telescope has enabled a multitude of incredibly discoveries about our universe and origins to be made. It has also provided us with some of the most beautiful images of all time. To understand the true value of this telescope, consider the Hubble Ultra Deep Field – the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light, looking back in time more than 13 billion years. It is impossible to look at this image and not feel a sense of awe at the technological achievement that made it possible. For your viewing pleasure, here is a full 3100 × 3120 pixel copy of the HUDF.
The history of the Hubble Space Telescope can be traced back as far as 1946, when the astronomer Lyman Spitzer wrote the paper Astronomical advantages of an extra-terrestrial observatory. Spitzer devoted much of his career to pushing for a space telescope to be developed. In 1962 a report by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences recommended the development of a space telescope as part of the space program, and in 1965 Spitzer was appointed as head of a committee given the task of defining the scientific objectives for a large space telescope. On April 24, 1990, Space Shuttle Discovery launched in Florida, taking the Hubble Space Telescope in to space.



3. Lasers

When lasers were invented in 1960, they were called “a solution looking for a problem”. Since then, they have become ubiquitous, finding utility in thousands of highly varied applications in every section of modern society, including consumer electronics, information technology, science, medicine, industry, law enforcement, entertainment, and the military. Every day virtually every person is effected in one way or another by lasers. In the medical field, lasers have revolutionized surgery and we can now restore sight to the near-blind with their help.
With its origins in the theories of scientists like Einstein, in 1960 Theodore H. Maiman created the first working laser at Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California. It used a solid-state flashlamp-pumped synthetic ruby crystal to produce red laser light at 694 nanometres wavelength. Later that year, Iranian physicist Ali Javan, working with William Bennet and Donald Herriot, made the first gas laser using helium and neon.
2. The Computer

There will be no controversy about this entry. The computer has changed the world so much that we could say we are now living in the computer age, having left the industrial age well behind us. Computers are used in virtually every arena of human life – including medicine, science, crime detection, entertainment, and much much more. The computer has revolutionized so many aspects of our lives that it is now hard to imagine life without it.
In 1837, Charles Babbage was the first to conceptualize and design a fully programmable mechanical computer that he called “The Analytical Engine”. Due to limited finance, and an inability to resist tinkering with the design, Babbage never actually built his Analytical Engine. Large-scale automated data processing of punched cards was performed for the U.S. Census in 1890 by tabulating machines designed by Herman Hollerith and manufactured by the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation, which later became IBM.
1. The Internet

A visualization of the Internet
Admittedly, without computers, we would not have the Internet, but the Internet far supersedes the computer in order of importance. It is fair to say that the Internet is the new Library of Alexandria. The Internet now stores an immense portion of human knowledge and it is not just available to an elite few – it is available to every man, woman, and child in the free world. For many of us, our daily life relies heavily on the internet – not just for information gathering and research, but for shopping, entertainment, news, and communication. It allows us to speak to any person on the planet without the high costs imposed by telephone companies. The Internet has launched the careers of many great artists – people who would normally be overlooked by the mainstream industries they work in. There can be no doubt, the Internet is the greatest wonder of the technological world.
The USSR’s launch of Sputnik spurred the United States to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency, known as ARPA, in February 1958 to regain a technological lead. After much work, the first node went live at UCLA on October 29, 1969 on what would be called the ARPANET, one of the “eve” networks of today’s Internet. The first TCP/IP-wide area network was operational by January 1, 1983, when the United States’ National Science Foundation (NSF) constructed a university network backbone that would later become the NSFNet. It was then followed by the opening of the network to commercial interests in 1985. Important, separate networks that offered gateways into, then later merged with, the NSFNet include Usenet, BITNET and the various commercial and educational networks, such as X.25, Compuserve and JANET.

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