Paro Airport is the only international airport in Bhutan, located 6 km away from Paro town, in a deep valley on the bank of the Paro river at an elevation of 2,200 m.

It is surrounded by Himalayan peaks as high as 5,500m.

It is probably the world’s most difficult airport to land on – as of October 2009, only 8 pilots in the world are certified to land there. Flights are only allowed using visual cues, not automatically; and only during daytime.

As can be seen from the following video of a landing there, the plane has to make some hard banks through a narrow path of tree-covered hillsides before even seeing the runway. Add to that mix the propensity of strong winds going through the valleys, often causing severe turbulence:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Skylab 4 (also known asSL-4 and SLM-3), the 4th Skylab mission placed the 3rd and last crew onboard the space station. The mission started on 16th November 1973 and lasted 84 days.

The crewmembers were Commander Gerald P. Carr, Pilot William R. Pogue and Science Pilot Edward G. Gibson.

Therefore, after Apollo 8 in 1968, they were the second group of a humans to spend Christmas in space.

The crew made a Christmas tree using food cans.

The best I’ve ever seen is this one:

A close second:

Jim Murray is a leading whisky expert.

The whisky scored 97.5%, a record-equalling score.

It’s matured in American oak casks and bottled at Pulteney distillery, Wick, Caithness, Scotland.

Murray tried more than 1,200 varieties before he came to his conclusion.

In his own words:

The 21-year-old Old Pulteney absolutely exploded from the glass with vitality, charisma and class. Pulteney doesn’t have the financial muscle of the major whisky barons to market its malts on the global stage. I hope that this award helps one of Scotland’s great unsung distilleries to become discovered around the world.

At 2nd and 3rd place are 2 American bourbons: George T Stagg & Parker’s Heritage Collection Wheated Mash Bill.

Source
The BBC, 23 Oct 2011

The Voynich manuscript could very well be the most unreadable book in the world. Created in the early 15th century in possibly northern Italy, it was discovered in 1912 inside a library in Rome.

It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich, who purchased it in 1912.

It has 240 vellum pages of illustrations and written in a language nobody knows. The illustrations seem to be present information about plants and how they might be used for medical reasons, but strangely, most of the plants don’t even exist.

A sample page

No one, even the best cryptographers in the world, has yet managed to decipher the text. These included American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II.

In other words, it’s easier to master motorhome repair than understanding the contents of this book.

A sample page

At this point many of us would have dismissed it as a hoax, yet statistical analysis of the writing has shown that the manuscript does seem to follow the basic structure and laws of a real language.

Since 1969, it is owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, and is formally referred to as “Beinecke MS 408″.

A sample page

Aimed squarely at the non-alcoholic drinks market, it goes on sale worldwide on 1st December 2011.

That means it’s just in time for the holiday season – then it’s really possible to not “drink and drunk”.

In the UK, it’s sold at GBP4 per can and GBP10 per bottle.

- refusing to buy them toys;
- giving them the wrong kinds of birthday card i.e. it didn’t have money attached, and had a picture of tomatoes with “googly eyes”, with the message: “son I got you this Birthday card because it’s just like you … different from all the rest!”;
- failing to bring Kathryn to a car show;
- threatening Steven II to inform the police if he did not buckle up that seatbelt;
- haggling over dress prices;
- calling Kathryn at midnight to ask her to come home from a party;
- perhaps, for failing to provide them with equestrian riding apparel too…

Heck, other kids would just simply kick up a fuss.

Steven II & Kathryn were represented by 3 lawyers that included their father, Steven A. Miner. Now, it’s here we can understand the situation a little better: Miner & Garrity were married for 10 ten years before divorcing 16 years ago.

After battling it out for 2 years, an appeals court has dismissed the case, ruling that Garrity was “not being extreme / outrageous.”

Source
Daily Mail (UK)

The following is his devilish-looking mugshot, his forehead covered with bulges/horns, “666″ tattooed at the centre and several spiky piercings through his nose.

He looks like the devil himself, no?

But there are at least 2 methods that claims to be more “ecologically favourable”:

(i) Alkaline hydrolysis

- Put body in silk bag
- Put silk bag in metal cage
- Put metal cage into Resomator
- Fill machine with a water + lye mix
- Heat to about 160°C at high pressure (to prevent boiling) for up to 3 hours. This will break down the body into its chemical components, resulting in a liquid that is green-brown in colour and white bone ash.
- Give ash to next of kin.
- Liquid can be simply poured into sewerage system, or use in a garden.

Sounds intense, like something that needs to be done in steel buildings.

(ii) Freeze drying (Promession)

- put coffin into Promession machine
- once inside, remove body from coffin
- treat body with liquid nitrogen
- vibrate body until it fragments
- dry and refine remains further
- pass body through filters to remove metals (can include dental amalgam)
- pour remains into square biodegradable coffin, for shallow burial (like composting)

An Hermès black crocodile Birkin bag

It was created in 1984 by Hermès chief executive Jean-Louis Dumas, based on an 1892 design.

Since then, it has since become an icon.

Specs:
- handmade in France: process includes hand-sewing, buffing, painting & polishing, on average taking 2 days to complete
- signature saddle stitching developed in the 19th century
- leathers obtained from different French tanners
- no logos

It’s probably the most coveted of all ladies handbags due to its status as a wealth symbol, with a reputed waiting list of as long as 6 years.

Definitely expensive and difficult to get one, even if you had the money. It’s distributed to Hermès boutiques at unspecified timetables and possibly intended small quantities.

Price range: USD9,000 to USD150,000, depending on the material used. Price justified by “the meticulous craftsmanship and scarcity.”

If only we could get red envelope codes for hefty discounts on these babies.