the best days of my life

Firefighters and rescuers work on a lear jet that plunged into the waters of Guanabara Bay during landing at the Santos Dumont domestic airport in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Aug. 12. The three people on board were rescued with only minor injuries. According to airport authorities, the jet skidded at the end of the runway after one of its tyres exploded.

Photoblog - Close call

Check out this resource at dancingengineer.com.

Three US amputee veterans have climbed Mt Kilimanjaro, enduring tumbles and sores to reach Africa’s highest peak with only one good leg among them.

The veterans – of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq – hiked to the top of the 5,891m (19,330ft) high Tanzanian mountain in six days to show that disability need not lead to inactivity.

An incredible feat. Congratulations!

I love Hubble.

The 28-hour exposure

How often do you clean up your downloads folder?

It was a jack russell!

Doctors say a dog saved its owner’s life by biting off his infected toe. Suzanne Geha reports.

Yeah, just like Bruce Hornsby sang.

After two years of speculation, a new eight-day Colorado stage race is set to roll out in August or September 2011.

According sources that spoke with VeloNews on the condition of anonymity, the event will debut next year as an eight-day UCI stage race, following a schedule similar to that of the now-defunct Tour of Missouri.

The United Arab Emirates is to block sending emails, accessing the internet, and delivering instant messages to other Blackberry handsets.

Saudi Arabia is to prevent the use of the Blackberry to Blackberry instant messaging service.

Both nations are unhappy that they are unable to monitor such communications via the handsets.

This is what an airport terminal should look like. I love the European-style outside platforms for the FasTrack trains.

All 20 photos at the DenverPost.com: DIA South Terminal Development Project

The BBC has a video:

Inside the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

The best international news website just got a whole lot better.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, left, walks Chelsea Clinton down the aisle during her wedding to Marc Mezvinsky at the Astor Courts Estate on Sunday, July 31, in Rhinebeck, N.Y.

CNN Eatocracy:

Halfway through, I convulsed: my mouth felt raw, my lips singed, my tongue unable to function properly. I know an old trick to cool the heat, so I shoveled in raita, an Indian condiment made with yogurt. It helped - but not much. Maybe it is because I am a former athlete who still loves to compete, maybe it was because I needed to be able to describe the experience to readers, or maybe a combination of both - whatever it was, I refused to stop until I finished the 16-ounce dish.

(thx Matt)

I found a plane ticket nearly 10 years old a few weeks back, but this is just great.

Kevin Guilfoile finds a ticket in an old book at his parents’ house.

(via)

From my favorite network of travel blogs, Matador.

[Matador] Goods Associate Editor Michelle Schusterman rounds up her top 25 free iPhone apps that travelers, writers and bloggers might find useful.

It’s time to get back to basics — back to optimizing every little byte like your life depends on it. Your challenge? Build a web app in less than 10 kilobytes.

There’s only one company in the world that can make batteries look gorgeous.

Handy tool that spits out the syntax and associated vendor-prefixed CSS3 for properties like border-radius, box-shadow, multi-column layout and more. Especially helpful are the supported browsers icons with pop-up version numbers for each property.

(via simplebits)

The lanterne rouge, or red lantern, is given to the rider who finishes last in the Tour de France.

Congratulations to Adriano Malori, Italian rider on Lampre, for finishing the 2010 Tour de…

Congratulations to Adriano Malori, Italian rider on Lampre, for finishing the 2010 Tour de France – an accomplishment that 27 of the starters this year failed to achieve. He rode a total of 2,263 miles in 3 weeks at an average speed of 23.4 mph – and half the time he was riding faster than that! His pace over the course, finishing as Lanterne Rouge, was a mere 1.1 mph slower than the Tour winner. (tdflr)

The Big Picture has some great photographs from this year’s tour in two parts.

Photoblog - Pilot ejects an instant before fighterjet crashes

Everyone can attack when it is easy. You win races by attacking when it hurts, you attack when it is hard, when your legs are burning, when everyone else is breathing hard and you are suffering. That is when you attack.

Contador’s only valid rival in the race had stopped pedaling his bike and was futzing with his shifter when Contador attacked. I consider that attacking when it is easy.

I want to see that skinny bastard Schleck attack tomorrow like a demon. He will drop Contador, in anger. And it will hurt. He is gonna get those 8 seconds back and then some.

Andy is going to win this race.

(via)

Take a look at this map. See that blue state in a sea of red and purple hues? It’s Colorado, the only state in the union with an adult obesity rate below 20%. (”Just” 19.1% of its residents are obese.)

There are signs posted in several spots around town that show a bicycle with a circle around it and a line across it; however if people miss it and didn’t read the section in the local newspaper talking about Black Hawk’s new law, most would have no clue riding in spots is illegal.

The city manager said the casino owners knew about the law and support it.

“It’s a choice,” said Copp. “We made our choice and now the bicyclist need to make his or her choice.”

WTF.