Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit Tonopah, Nevada, home to an inn on the edge of the desert that’s packed with statues and figurines of clowns. It is both eerie and a labor of love. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the……
toggle audio on and off change volume download audio WTOP’s Jason Fraley previews Virginia Film Festival (Part 1) $(function () { $(‘.fa-play’).on(‘click’, function(){ var audio_filename= $(‘div.wtop-audio-file’).data(“mp3-url”); ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘Audio’, ‘play’, audio_filename); }); }); Don’t worry if you missed the Middleburg Film Festival and Washington West Film Festival. The Virginia Film Festival returns to Charlottesville this Wednesday through Sunday. “We’ll be screening over 85 films in that five-day period on the downtown mall in Charlottesville and on the grounds of the…
The Legatum Center for Development & Entrepreneurship at MIT recently introduced the inaugural cohort of Legatum Foundry Fellows. Hailing from eight countries, these 13 entrepreneurs have grown ventures operating in nine different markets across Africa. Having pioneered innovations in health care, fintech, education, and more, the Foundry Fellows are dedicated to transforming systems and improving lives on the continent. Launched earlier this year, the Foundry Fellowship is a first-of-its-kind fellowship focused on African entrepreneurs who have successfully grown ventures……
Between electric vehicles, driverless cars, and accident-prevention tech, the wonders of automotive invention are all around us. Of course, for every idea that worked, there are many more that failed. For all the ideas that didn’t—either for technological or commercial reasons—there’s the Lane Motor Museum. The museum opened with a personal donation in 2003 by Jeff Lane—an area car enthusiast and current museum director—of 150 rare vehicles displayed in a 132,000 square-foot brick building that was a bread factory……
In the past few years, artificial intelligence models of language have become very good at certain tasks. Most notably, they excel at predicting the next word in a string of text; this technology helps search engines and texting apps predict the next word you are going to type. The most recent generation of predictive language models also appears to learn something about the underlying meaning of language. These models can not only predict the word that comes next, but……
This piece was originally published in The Guardian and appears here as part of our Climate Desk collaboration. For more than 30 years the Morettino family had been trying to produce their own coffee on a small piece of land in Sicily. And for 30 years they had failed. But last spring, 66 seedlings produced about 30 kilograms of coffee, in a development that could turn the Italian island into the northernmost coffee plantation in the world. Experts say……
Many hotels are approaching direct bookings the same way they did 5 years ago. While the basics still apply, new opportunities have emerged to drive engagement and Conversion. In this article, you’ll learn how to engage customers during the booking process and increase Conversion. Enhancing Your Hotel Direct Booking Process: a Key Asset for Hotel The post 5 Innovative Ways to Engage Customers in Your Hotel Direct Booking Process appeared first on Revfine.com….
The Australian Nurses Memorial Center is a “living memorial” to the Australian nurses who lost their lives during World War II. The organization was set up by Betty Jeffrey and Vivian Bullwinkel, two nurses who served during the war. Both Jeffrey and Bullwinkel were survivors who showed remarkable heroism through their careers and this memorial pays tribute to their colleagues who tragically lost their lives. Bullwinkel was the only survivor of the 1942 Bangka Island Massacre, one of the darkest……
It is impossible to find this bell tower for those who don’t know where to look. Between street numbers 1 and 3 in Vicolo Santa Caterina, there is a gate that shows the small apartment building garden. There, between houseplants and watering cans, stands a Romanic bell tower. Probably it was built in 1329 in a simple Romanic style, made of bricks with its mullioned windows. The bell tower and its Santa Caterina D’alessandria Church stayed together from the……
Dyffryn Ardudwy is located on a hillside, tucked between a housing estate and a school. It’s a location that can be easily missed. The site goes by various names including; Arthur’s Quoit, Carreg Arthur, and Coaten Arthur. It’s believed that the burial chambers were erected between 3000 and 1900 BCE, likely as a shared burial place for the early community that was established in the area. It appears the burial site originally offered views of the sea before the modern town was……
Listen to the full conversation on our podcast “Beyond the Fame with Jason Fraley.” toggle audio on and off change volume download audio WTOP’s Jason Fraley chats with Henry Winkler (Part 1) $(function () { $(‘.fa-play’).on(‘click’, function(){ var audio_filename= $(‘div.wtop-audio-file’).data(“mp3-url”); ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘Audio’, ‘play’, audio_filename); }); }); The 23rd annual Fall for the Book Festival, based out of George Mason University, runs this week in Northern Virginia. This Friday afternoon, Henry Winkler and co-author Lin Oliver will discuss their…
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As the Gaza war raged and tensions surged across the Middle East last May, Instagram briefly banned the hashtag #AlAqsa, a reference to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City, a flash point in the conflict. Facebook, which owns Instagram, later apologized, explaining its algorithms had mistaken the third-holiest site in Islam for the militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, an armed offshoot of the secular Fatah party. For many Arabic-speaking users, it was…
Mayburgh is a massive henge that dates to the Late Neolithic period. The banks of Mayburgh stand nearly 10 feet (three meters) tall in some places and were constructed from pebbles taken from the nearby River Lowther. Unusually, there is no surrounding ditch. The structure is believed to have served as a meeting place for a prehistoric community, perhaps involving trade or astronomical observations, as well as rituals or social activities. Mayburgh was originally part of a complex that consisted……
Not unlike the more famous ruins of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, the history of Christchurch Greyfriars Church involves both the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the Blitz bombing by Germany during World War II. The original church located on this site was constructed in 1225 and, until its first destruction in the 17th-century, was the burial site of four British queens. Famous architect Sir Christopher Wren designed the new church, which was completed in 1704. The building lasted until……
This rickety, spooky-looking church with an iconic, pointy steeple is believed to have been built around 1880. The surrounding area of Brandy Station and the very grounds the church stands on were the stage for major battles during the American Civil War. It is believed by some that the church is home to restless spirits of soldiers and locals who perished during the war. The church has been featured on a local television show investigating the paranormal activity inside…….
