Friday, September 12, 2008

Qatar Plans The World's First Underground Stadium

Qatar's capital city of Doha is planning one of the strangest and most inventive new stadiums the world has ever seen.

The soccer venue, called 'The Wall', will be both the first completely 'underground' stadium and the first open-air, air-conditioned stadium.

If you've ever been to Qatar, you'll known that the arid, desert climate would make sitting outside at a sports venue an absolutely miserable endeavor. That is why the unique underground design of 'The Wall' will be implemented to keep spectators and players in a cool climate. It will also save a ton of money on air-conditioning bills.

The design makes the structure resembled an opened laptop popping out from the ground. The stadium is expected to be complete in 2010, although these are just initial plans released by the architect and no actual construction has begun yet. The cost of the stadium is estimated to be $20 million. (More pictures after the jump):

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

The 'Most Expensive Desktop Computer' Kind of Sucks

most expensive desktop PC, zeus jupiter, expensive computerThis hard drive, case manufactured by a Japanese company called Zeus, costs over $748,730. Why would anyone want such an overpriced PC? Platinum, baby!

 As if anyone really needs it, this thing comes with a platinum or solid gold casing and is encrusted with constellation patterned diamonds.

Yeah, really fancy and gawdy, but what's under the hood? According to MostExpensive, the 'Jupiter' model, comes equipped with "Intel’s 3GHz E6850 Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of DDR 2 memory, a 1TB hard drive and a dual Blu-Ray/HD DVD drive. Additionally, it ships with a 24” 1920×1200 native resolution monitor."

That sounds awesome and everything (except maybe the useless HD DVD drive, now that Blu-Ray is king), but is all that really worth almost $750K? For that money you could buy a decently sized house almost anywhere in the country. Or a membership to one of the most exclusive country clubs.