Tourism and Beyond

Experts came up with the winning conversational formula after analysing what more than 2,000 people liked and disliked about talking on the phone.

Lasting nine minutes and 36 seconds, the ideal phone conversation should consist of chat about family news, current affairs, personal problems and the weather.

They found that, during the perfect call, three minutes should be spent catching up with news about family and friends, one minute on personal problems, another minute on work/school, 42 seconds on current affairs and 24 seconds on the weather.

Chatting about the opposite sex should last 24 seconds, 12 seconds should be spent on celebrity gossip, one minute and 42 seconds on laughing, 12 seconds on silence and a minute on other general topics.

The research, carried out by the Post Office, also showed that one in five spent most time on the phone to their mother and only three per cent named their father as the person they spent most time talking to. This is mainly because fathers tend to hand the phone over to their wives.

According to Catherine Blyth, author of the book The Art of Conversation, anyone can conduct a good chat.

She said: “Conversation doesn’t have to be loud, outrageous or wildly funny. It can slip along with little more than a friendly smile and an open mind.”

Hugh Stacey, head of telephony at the Post Office, said: “This research shows us what people really want from a chat on the phone. People obviously value news about their loved ones, with news about family and friends topping the charts.

“It was perhaps surprising that celebrity gossip only occupied 12 per cent of the perfect telephone call and was outstripped by current affairs and even the weather.

“The biggest surprise is that it seems silence is golden – with 12 seconds of every call set aside for a little quiet contemplation.”

The perfect phone call:

3 minutes – news about family and friends

1 minute – personal problems

1 minute – work/school

42 seconds – current affairs

24 seconds – weather

24 seconds – opposite sex

12 seconds – celebrity gossip

1 minute, 42 seconds – laughing

12 seconds – silence

1 minute – other general topics

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There was no evidence of the global financial crisis as tycoons and celebrities streamed into Dubai last night for the world’s most expensive private party.

Having spent £1 billion, the owners of the Atlantis hotel, which they hope will become the new symbol of excess in a region already replete with towering statements of wealth, splashed out £13.5(approx. $20million) million on its opening.

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In the lobby of the Atlantis about 2,000 guests sipped Dom Pérignon. Outside, A-list celebrities from Robert De Niro to Lindsay Lohan walked the red carpet. After the pop singer Kylie Minogue performed on stage the sky lit up with the world’s largest fireworks display, seven times greater than this year’s Olympic Games opening ceremony in Beijing and extravagant enough to be seen from outer space.

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The price tag for the party even embarrassed Sol Kerzner, the chairman and chief executive officer of Kerzner International, who built the resort on the man-made Palm Island in partnership with Nakheel, a state-owned developer. “If I had to do it all over again, I might do it recognising the fact that we’re living through a bit of a tough economic environment,” Kerzner, a South African billionaire, told media.

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The timing for Kerzner’s imposing hotel is not ideal. The emirate is groaning under heavy debt and banks have tightened lending, delaying new developments. Gulf stock markets have sunk to historic lows and analysts are radically scaling back economic forecasts for the region.

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Since it opened its doors to paying guests six weeks ago, the hotel has been nearly 80 per cent full, Kerzner said. Nightly rates range in price from $800 (£550) for a basic suite to $35,000 per night for the hotel’s signature suite, which features floor to ceiling views of Dubai. The 1,539-room hotel has two towers set in 130-acre grounds that feature an aquarium with 65,000 sea creatures.

From:FLASHYDUBAI.COM

Luxury chiks, dubai, emilio botin, fireworks, luxury hotel, Sol Kerzner

A new campaign has born. “Di no a la pornografía infantil”. - Say NO to child’s pornography

This campaign is intended to fight against child’s pornography in the internet. The action is to write a post in your bloog against this problem and use words like “lolitas”, “pre teens” “child pornography” “angels”, “lolitas”, “boylover”, “preteens”, “girllover”, “childlover”, “pedoboy”, “boyboy”, “fetishboy” o “feet boy”.

This will make the crawlers to index all these blogs and sites, making this shit content very difficult to find.

The child’s pornography in the internet is smashing thousands of children, ruining their lives, ruining the future of our society.

Please, if you have a blog, do not hesitate to copy everything you find here.

For further information (in Spanish) visit “La Huella Digital”

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The ocean harbors abundant energy in the form of wind, waves and sun. All of these could be sampled on something called an Energy Island: a floating rig that drills for renewables instead of petroleum.

The concept is the brainchild of inventor Dominic Michaelis. He was originally unsatisfied with the slow progress in developing ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC), a process in which cold water is pumped up from the deep ocean to generate electricity.

“Nothing new was happening with OTEC, so I thought why not bring other marine energy technologies on board?” Michaelis said.

The Energy Island that he and his son have designed would have an OTEC plant at its center, but spread across the 2,000-foot-wide (600-meter-wide) platform would also be wind turbines and solar collectors. Additionally, wave energy converters and sea current turbines would capture energy from water moving around the structure.

One of these hexagonally-shaped islands could generate 250 megawatts (enough power for a small city), Michaelis said. Even more power is possible by mooring together several Energy Islands into a small archipelago that could include greenhouses for food, a small harbor for ships and a hotel for tourists.

To attract possible investors, the Energy Island team will present their concept this week at the U.S. China GreenTech Summit in Shanghai.

Running hot and cold

The principle reason to build an Energy Island is to harvest OTEC.

“The advantage of OTEC over other marine energy technologies is that it’s constant, 24 hours a day and all year round,” Michaelis told LiveScience.

This is because it is based not on the sun or the wind or the waves, but on the temperature difference between warm water at the sun-heated surface and cold water in the deep, dark ocean.

The biggest temperature differences can be found in tropical seas, where the surface water is around 80 degrees Fahrenheit (25 degrees Celsius).

This warm water is drawn in from around the Energy Island and used to evaporate a working fluid, which might be seawater or ammonia. The resulting vapor pushes a turbine that produces electricity.

To condense the vapor back to fluid, cold water at about 40 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius) is pumped up from a half mile below the surface. This condensation creates a pressure drop that helps suck more vapor through the turbine blades.

The same basic process occurs in a coal-fired or nuclear power plant, but the temperature difference between water boilers and cooling towers is much greater than in an OTEC system.

Read the rest of article HerE

real ecology energy islands, oceans, projects, real ecology

THIS year, the Balearic Ministry for Tourism’s inspectors have stepped up their activities and a total 581 establishments, including restaurants, holiday flats and homes, have fines pending after having been caught operating “illegally” or without all the necessary permits.

Last year, 309 fines were handed out but during the first ten months of this year, that number has risen by 88 percent.
The Minister for Tourism, Miguel Nadal, yesterday explained that one of the biggest problems continues to be the unauthorized renting of holiday flats and homes.

At the moment, the owners of 133 apartments and 120 homes in the Balearics are facing fines, as are a total 38 restaurateurs for also being caught operating without the necessary licenses.

Just a reminder: Our villa HAS all the permits, and we are associated to the Federación Empresarial Hotelera de Mallorca

majorca fines, holiday homes, ilegal, majorca