MINIATURE WUNDERLAND

 

A short review…it was started by two brothers as a place to show their hobby began to grow by leaps & bounds. 

Soon they were joined by other ‘Model Railroad Clubs’ and other craftsmen. Some were electricians, model makers, carpenters, computer programmers. Their wives would stop by to see what they were doing and usually bring them a lunch.

One thing led to another.

Three of the ladies had worked at a bakery, several visitors would ask  if they had a snack bar. The idea was planted; some of the carpenters came and built a nice restaurant area for the bakery and a kitchen, too. If the fresh coffee smell didn’t get you, then the bakery definitely would 

Over 400,000 man hours were spent making  this dream come true.

This was about 5 years ago.

One of the breweries came and furnished all the tables and chairs, serving counter etc. Their latest finished area is the airport. Planes look like they are flying and landing.

 

GERMAN WONDERLAND IN HAMBURG!

The video says it all……….

100 YEAR OLD ROLLS ROYC

It was originally bought for $1,000 in 1912 (almost 93,000 in today’s money) but has now gone under the hammer for $4,705,500, making it the most expensive Rolls- Royce ever sold at auction.

The Rolls Royce Silver

Unique: This 100-year-old

Unique: This 100-year-old Silver Ghost Rolls Royce has sold for a world-record price of 5 million after a furious bidding war at Bonhams.

Through the roof: The

Through the roof: The lengthy auction saw two enthusiasts dueling for the pristine car as the bidding went up in increments of 100,000, smashing past the 2 million estimate.

In great

What it lacks in gadgetry, the British-made classic more than compensates for with an extraordinary level of luxury that leaves its modern-day counterparts looking a little unsophisticated.

 Its gleaming interior fittings are made of silver and ivory, while the door panels are embroidered silk, with brocade tassels attached to silk window shades for privacy.

 THE PASSENGER FOOT REST HIDES A FULL PICNIC SET FOR FOUR, A CHINA TEA SERVICE, COMPLETE WITH AN ALCOHOL-FUELED BURNER AND KETTLE TO HEAT THE WATER, AND A SET OF SIX DECANTERS – THREE IN STERLING SILVER AND THREE IN LEATHER-WRAPPED GLASS.

 The sale took place at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in West Sussex on Friday. Auctioneers had expected it to sell for around 2 million and were astonished when the bidding between two rival collectors topped 4 million. James Knight, from Bonhams auctioneers, said: ˜There were three bidders, then one of them dropped out at 2.3 million and we thought it would end there.

Traveling in style: The

Travelling in style: The design chosen by its original owner echoed the luxurious ‘ Pullman ‘ Railway carriages pioneered by American George Pullman.

The lu

The front seat and                                                          steering

Luxurious: The elegant passenger compartment (left) complete with 29 beveled glass windows and (right) the stylish steering wheel.

˜But then another bidder entered and the bidders were duelling. It went up in increments of 50,000, and then 100,000, and then back down to 50,000.

˜It went on and on and on and was the longest car sale I have ever witnessed. It was pure theatre. Everyone was very respectful but when the price reached a milestone, like 3 million, there was an intake of breath.

˜The bidders were duelling and when the hammer came down there was spontaneous applause. ˜It was fitting because the car is celebrating her centenary.

The car was commissioned by Rolls Royce connoisseur John M. Stephens, who also bought the first Silver Ghost the luxury car-maker produced in 1906. The body was built by former royal carriage-maker Barker’s of Mayfair , which had previously built coaches for King George III and Queen Victoria.

Standing the test of                                                          time:

Standing the test of time: The 7.3-litre, six-cylinder engine is still purring smoothly and is capable of doing around 15 miles to the gallon.

Mark of history: A plaque

Mark of history: A plaque bearing the vehicle’s chassis number of 1907.

Touch of class: The

Touch of class: The original owner employed the services of the best coach-making company, Barker and Co. Ltd, to do the bodywork.

Classic

Classic designs: One of the car’s brake lights. The Rolls- Royce still had its headlights, carriage lights, rear lights and inflatable tyres when it went up for sale.

The car even had an early speedometer – an important addition given that a 20 mph speed limit was introduced in 1912.Unlike most car enthusiasts of his time, Mr. Stephens, from Croydon, South London, asked the makers not to include a glass division window between the driver and the passengers as he wanted to drive it himself rather than rely on a chauffeur.

The car’s distinctive cream and green design echoed the luxury ˜Pullman Railway carriages of the time, and it was known as a Double Pullman Limousine.

But it was nicknamed ˜the Corgi Silver Ghost in the 1960s after the toy-maker based its Silver Ghost toy car on this model.

Mr. Stephens’s car is believed to be the only one of its kind to survive with its full interior and bodywork, as many Rolls Royces from the era were converted into ambulances during the First World War.

EXTRAORDINARY MUSICAL INSTRUMENT

This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of  Engineering at the University of Iowa. Amazingly, 97% of the machine’s components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa…Yes, farm equipment.

It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video. As you can see, it was WELL worth the effort. It’s now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and it’s already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

THE EXPONENTIAL AGE

Welcome to the exponential age!

In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide.

Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt.

What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years – and most people don’t see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again?

Yet, digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore’s Law. So, as with all exponential technologies, they were a disappointment for a while, before they became superior and mainstream in only a few short years. This will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution.

 

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don’t own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don’t own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don’t get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So, if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% less lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain.

Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You won’t want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and you can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver’s license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% less cars. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km; with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies might become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in more beautiful areas.

Electric cars will become more mainstream after 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will be electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don’t have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if we can have as much clean water as we want, for very low cost.

Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year. There will be companies who will build a medical device (called the “Tricorder” from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and your breath into it. It then analyses 54 bio-markers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world-class, inexpensive medical care.

3-D printing: The price of the cheapest 3-D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, they became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies have begun 3-D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3-D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large amount of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smartphones will have 3-D scanning possibilities. You can then 3-D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they have already 3-D printed a complete 6-story office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that’s being produced will be 3-D printed.

Business opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: “in the future, do you think we will have that?” and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn’t work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their fields instead of working all days in their fields. Aeroponics will need much less water. Petri-dish-produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces are used for cattle. Imagine if we don’t need that space anymore. There are several startups who will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as “alternative protein source” (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called “moodies” which can already tell in which mood you are. By 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it’s being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span was 79 years, now it’s 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So, we all might live for a long, long time, probably way more than 100.

The world has always had an overpopulation problem within recent history, and this will make it worse.  Technology may grow by leaps and bounds, but human enculturation will not.  We will have the same political greed for power and control, others kicking back, and wars will continue.  The new technology will be evident in the tools of war, and the death rate could be staggering.  Continued overpopulation will make cemeteries unpopular and there will be a push to replace them with something that does not take up space.

Education: The cheapest smartphones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. By 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smartphone. That means everyone has access to world class education. Every child can use Khan academy for everything a child learns at school in First World countries. They have already released their software in Indonesia and will release it in Arabic, Swahili and Chinese this summer, because they see an enormous potential. They will give the English app for free, so that children in Africa can become fluent in English within half a year.

HOW ABOUT THAT?!

MINE KAFON

Over 50 million land mines remain unaccounted for in countries such as Angola, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Mozambique. People still regularly lose their limbs or even their lives to these hidden killers. Disarming even one mine is estimated to cost around $1,200, and considering that Angola alone has over 20 million of them, the total required to rid the country of this terrible plight could be over $24 billion.

Massoud Hassani, an Afghan designer and former refugee, has built his own low-cost detonation device. Weighing in at 70 kilograms (150 lb), it’s heavy enough to trigger a mine but light enough to be propelled by the wind alone. It looks like a dandelion and moves like a tumbleweed. Made out of bamboo and biodegradable plastic, this device can detonate three or four charges before it is completely destroyed. The cost of producing one Mine Kafon is just $40.

The Mine Kafon also has a built-in GPS tracking system that can detect the movements of each individual device and shows where a detonation has taken place. This helps people map out which areas are mine-free and which aren’t.

Nevertheless, the Mine Kafon is still in early stages of development and has drawbacks. It is possible for one such device to not trigger every mine it rolls over, especially if it has already detonated a few times. Another hiccup involves the terrain. No matter how hard the wind is blowing, chances are that it will not be able to push the Mine Kafon up a steep hill, out of a ditch, or through a heavily wooded area.

Hassani is aware of these issues and says that future generations of the device will be equipped with electric motors for increased mobility and metal detectors to map out every metal object, in case of a failed detonation. Even if this is not the perfect device, it’s a step in the right direction.

WARKA WATER

Ethiopia has the least access to clean drinking water among all African countries. Women and children from most villages have to travel many hours a day to collect water, which is oftentimes dirty and contaminated from being shared with livestock and other animals.

“Warka Water” is a solution designed by two Italian engineers and is based on a very simple principle. It traps water vapor from the air through condensation. Standing 9 meters (30 ft) tall, the framework is made out of bamboo and a special polyethylene fabric that collects water droplets. It weighs around 60 kilograms (130 lb) and can be put together by four people in a couple of hours without scaffolding. Each pillar can produce around 100 liters (26 gallons) of clean, fresh water a day from thin air with no effort at all.

The Ethiopian word warka refers to a wild fig tree native to the country. The warka tree symbolizes fertility and generosity and is commonly used for public gatherings and school classes.

The Warka Water project aims to be up and running in 2015 in some villages across the country. It stands as a simple, cheap, and elegant solution to solve a small part of a great problem.