The Peirce quincuncial projection is a conformal map projection that presents the sphere as a square. In this photograph found on Flikr, the technique presents a spherical panorama.

Notice the cultural differences at the G20 meeting in Toronto:

The Canadian: Self-absorbed and disconnected from reality.
The American: Businesslike, unwilling to be distracted.
The French and the Italian: “LOOK AT THAT A**!”

Happiness is the friend who’ll dance with you to the song that’s not meant for dancing.

Worry less, smile more, accept criticism, take responsibility, listen and love, don’t hate, embrace change, feel good anyway.

The spacebar trick is a kind of shortcut that can save you time (a few split seconds) when you are writing something. If you are finished typing a sentence on your iPhone or iPod Touch, you can rapidly press the spacebar twice to automatically add a period and a space at the end and capitalize the following letter for the next phrase you will type.

This trick might take a while to get used to, but it can save time for those who write very long texts or even novels on their iPhone. Writing novels on a mobile phone is something that is starting to become popular, especially in Japan. I am also sure you can also use the spacebar trick in the numerous apps that are offered for the iPhone.

Oktapodi (2007) – Oscar 2009 Animated Short Film

In Oktapodi – a 2007 short film – you will watch the story of two cute octopi help each other escape the clutches of a tyrannical restaurant cook. But, even once they are out of the kitchen, their battle to stay together is not over.

The scene takes place in an animated setting that looks like the Island of Santorini in Greece. The two octopi seem to be a couple in love, and they watch over eachother when one is in danger. It is not clear which octopi is male and which is female… or whatever!

Oktapodi is actually a graduation film created at Gobelins l’école de l’image by which were then students 5 third year students with the collaboration of a UCLA music graduate.

USA ■ The Windy City has been the Midwest’s centre of transportation, industry, finance, and entertainment ever since it was founded in the 1830s on the south-eastern shore of the great Lake Michigan. Today, Chicago is the third most populous city in the USA. More than 9.5 million people live in the Chicago metropolitan area, popularly known as Chicagoland. It is intersected by the Chicago River, which runs through the downtown area, its banks lined with modern architecture and futuristic tower blocks.

Known as a Mecca of music, film, theatre and culture, Chicago is a melting pot of the descendants of immigrants of every imaginable origin. Its most famous son is US president Barack Obama, but others include the notorious gangster, Al Capone. Chicago attracts 45 million tourists a year. Chicago is also an extremely important transport hub, with a network of 97 km of underground freight railways encompassing most of the downtown area, and freeways connecting it with other cities in the Midwest.

In the last 30 years, the city has seen an average temperature rise of 1.5°C. In 1995, a severe heatwave killed 700 Chicagoans. In 1986, 1996 and 2008, it experienced severe flooding, with torrential rain shutting down highways and railroads, causing damage to streets and bridges and flooding properties in much of Chicagoland. Throughout the rest of the 21st century, Chicago could experience a gradual, dramatic increase in heatwaves and flooding due to global warming. Prolonged summer droughts and heavy rainfall would have a grave effect on its infrastructure and transport system. An increase in hot summer days with temperatures rising above 43°C, combined with unpredictable heavy rain and flooding, could cause more heat-related health problems and damage Chicago’s tourism industry. By the end of the century, the climate in Chicago could be similar to that of southern states like Texas and Alabama today.

Photography: Jim Richardson

100 Places to Remember Before They Dissapear

Kauai (Hawaii) USA

Caribbean Sea

Recife BRAZIL

Chicago USA

Brazil ■ This commercial centre of north-eastern Brazil is also a prime destination for tourists thanks to its pleasant weather and 187 kilometres of white beaches. Located close to the Equator, the coastal city of Recife enjoys a year-round warm climate and gentle trade winds from the Atlantic Ocean.

The city’s past as one of the first Portuguese colonies in Brazil and a main port for the slave trade has left an indelible mark on Recife. Nowadays it is a cultural melting pot with an ethnic mix of Indians, Africans and Europeans. African culture is particularly visible in the local religion, music, dance and cuisine. When the Dutch took control of Recife from 1630 to 1654, it also became home to the first Jewish community and synagogue in the Americas. Some of those early Jewish settlers later fled to North America, founding the first Jewish community in New Amsterdam – now known as New York.

A line of coral reefs protects the shoreline of Recife and gives the city its name, which is Portuguese for “reefs”. Water covers the reefs at high tide but at low tide, natural pools form along the shoreline. Inland, Recife is full of waterways due to its location at the point where the rivers Beberibe and Capibaribe converge and flow into the ocean. Due to its low-lying coasts and dense coastal development, Recife – like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires – is highly vulnerable to rising sea levels, hurricanes, and storm surges. Any rise in sea surface temperature, combined with the increasing acidity of the ocean, is likely to damage Recife’s natural barriers – the coral reefs – leaving the city even more exposed to flooding.

Photography: Andy Caulfield

100 Places to Remember Before They Dissapear

Kauai (Hawaii) USA

Caribbean Sea

Recife BRAZIL

Chicago USA

Caribbean Sea ■ Sea turtles have been around for tens of millions of years. The males spend their entire lives in the ocean. The females venture onto beaches for a few hours once or twice every second year, lay their eggs in holes 40-50 cm deep and cover them with sand before promptly returning to the sea. Despite living in most of the tropical and subtropical waters around the world, several types of sea turtle are registered as endangered species.

Four types of endangered sea turtles feed and mate among the corals of the Caribbean. One of them is called the hawksbill turtle. Sea turtles of the Caribbean feed and mate among the corals and nestle on the sandy beaches around the rim of the sea, from Barbados in the east to Mexico in the west, from Florida in the north to Colombia in the south.

At about a metre long and weighing up to 120 kg, the hawksbill is one of the smaller sea turtles. Considered a delicacy, it has been hunted for centuries. Now, global warming poses a new threat to its survival. Rising sea levels and temperatures, acidification of the oceans, and extreme storms could erode the beaches where the females nest and could threaten the coral reefs upon which the turtles depend.

This would pose a serious threat to them. Although capable of migrating for thousands of kilometres and taking up to 30 years to mature, sea turtles always return to the beach where they were born to mate and nest. Higher sand temperature presents another threat. The turtles have no sex chromosomes, so the ambient temperature of the sand determines whether hatchlings are born male or female. The hotter the sand, the shorter the incubation and the more likely the hatchling will be female. In other words, hotter sand might result in a drastic decline in the number of male turtles, which would pose a severe threat to the survival of one of the oldest living animal species on the planet.

Photography: Raul Touzon

100 Places to Remember Before They Dissapear

Kauai (Hawaii) USA

Caribbean Sea

Recife BRAZIL

Chicago USA

USA ■ The fourth largest of the Hawaiian Islands, Kauai is one of the wettest spots on the earth. Large parts of the mountainous island are swathed in cloud. These lush and mossy forests are home to the colourful Hawaiian honeycreeper, an endangered bird species. Even small shifts in rainfall patterns could cause major local changes, putting the islands’ distinct ecosystem under severe stress.

These rare birds use their long, downward-curved bills to sip nectar from flowers, hovering like hummingbirds and emitting a variety of sounds, from nasal squeaks to clear, flutelike calls. The species of honeycreeper that is endemic to Hawaii lives at an elevation above 1,500 metres where the climate is too cool for mosquitoes to survive. Most of the Hawaiian honeycreepers are only 10-13 cm long and weigh no more than eight grams. They are extremely vulnerable to diseases like avian malaria. The Hawaiian cloud forests make up one of the ecosystems that is most at risk due to climate change. Relatively small shifts in patterns could cause major local changes, putting the islands’ distinct ecosystems under pressure.

Deforestation and non-indigenous species like pigs and goats have decimated the honeycreepers habitat in recent years, and it is now an endangered species. With the projected rise in temperatures, mosquitoes are likely to gain a foothold at higher elevations in the Kauai mountains, slowly driving the honeycreeper to extinction.

Photography: Ira Block

100 Places to Remember Before They Dissapear

Kauai (Hawaii) USA

Caribbean Sea

Recife BRAZIL

Chicago USA