Dubai Is Building a Refrigerated Beach 249
dataxtream writes "The world's first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in Dubai, located along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. The beach will include heat-absorbing pipes under the sand along with large wind blowers, which will keep tourists cool and guard their feet against the hot sand. Half of me says these guys need a reality check, the other half wants to go there." I believe I've just thought of a way we could solve this whole global warming thing I've been hearing about.
Idle this shit (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:5, Insightful)
much of the beaches in Dubai are artificial. More in the sense that they have dredgers which constantly infuse new sand on the beaches to stop beach erosion. My main concern with Dubai desire to be the playground of the rich and famous is what they plan to do when terrorist realize there are infidels partying in their neck of the woods.
I've never heard Dubai speak of how they plan to handle potential hostility from extremists. It wont be long before what happened in India finds its way to Dubai
Re:Idle this shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you implying that this audience isn't interested in domes cities and artificial living environments??
Read some science fiction man! I grew up on this stuff.
Re:Idle this shit (Score:5, Insightful)
not all nerds collect hard drive platters for a living .... I have an architectural background and think it quite interesting when fringe type ideas make it unto slashdot. Nerd =! Computers there are many other types of Tech out there besides C++
Why bother going? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother going to Dubai anyhow? It is too hot, they only have sand and some fake islands [theemiratesnetwork.com] that no-one wants to buy and no culture (unless you are into modern, megalomaniac architecture). And in terms of population, there are just overwhelmingly rich locals, western expats designing toy projects for said locals and Indian immigrants actually building those toy projects. If you are choosing a holiday destination, I could not thing of anything less interesting.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that there are more foreign workers in Dubai than there are citizens, and that most of those foreign workers get by on little better than slave wages and with few rights, I'm amazed something nasty hasn't happened already.
Dubai is building their playground for the rich on the backs of exploited foreign laborers. That sort of arrangement is rarely successful over the long term. Eventually the scattered civil unrest gets larger and more organized, and then the real trouble starts.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I don't expect you would hear them speak about it. Better to have it just be a surprise to the bad guys, but I'd be very surprised if there isn't a plan. Also, in a small country like Dubai, it's easy to both know and control who goes in and out, and how they do so. Additionally, I expect that in Dubai, their laws probably give them rather broad authority in that are. Finally, Dubai is at least somewhat less of a target simply by virtue of the fact that it is an Islamic nation. That isn't to say that the terrorists have any qualms about killing other Muslims with whom they disagree - they most certainly have none - but it would make them look bad to attack an Islamic nation, and while they care not a whit for human lives, they do care about image and PR. Marketing, in fact, is probably the thing they are better at than anything else.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:3, Insightful)
The UAE doesn't have to deal with pesky problems such as "human rights". They can just post armed guard and snipers all around with orders to shoot first and ask questions later, if it really comes to that. And sink all unidentified approaching boats on sight.
Re:I use my air conditioner in the summer (Score:3, Insightful)
...and there's definitely no heated football fields [grounds-mag.com] in the "developed" world, right?
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:5, Insightful)
The funny thing is though, that if you go back a generation you'd see a role reversal in the jealousy with regards fancy Americans with their indoor plumbing and other technological innovations.
Comes around. Goes around. Etc. Get off the merry go round or keep cycling in what amounts to self hatred.
Stupid, stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
This idea is as stupid as the indoor skiing slope. Not only is it a waste of energy, but it will NEVER capture the true feeling of being on a beach, especially if you forget your sandals. I hope the footwear industry lobbies long and hard to block the refrigeration of beaches -- there's some revenue to be had in those overpriced sandals one could buy near the beach.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:3, Insightful)
The funny thing is though, that if you go back a generation you'd see a role reversal in the jealousy with regards fancy Americans with their indoor plumbing and other technological innovations.
Comes around. Goes around. Etc. Get off the merry go round or keep cycling in what amounts to self hatred.
Or just, you know, push for alternative fuels, and cut dependence on foreign oil. Whining solves nothing.
Easier solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Go to Bermuda for your next vacation, a place where the sand isn't scorching hot.
It's about location, location, location. And Dubai isn't the location.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:5, Insightful)
What do the people in your office do? Are they out there building and maintaining the wonders of Dubai's skyline? Working the dredgers that build up the artificial islands? Serving the meals, cleaning the sheets, polishing the brass, driving the trucks?
Yeah. Of course the office workers aren't getting the slave wages. They're the rich people the slaves are building Dubai for.
Jeez man, think a little. Just because you need a job doesn't mean you're poor.
Re:Patent Pending (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, no.
That was all true for a long time without an global economic depression.
There is a recession in the US and some other places which may become a global economic depression because of a massive credit seize-up in the wake of, among other things, the bursting of the housing bubble in the US, and because of other factors (including the decline in income in the bottom four quintiles even during the most recent expansion in the US) reducing both industrial and consumer demand. The global reach of the crisis is due to the effect that the world economy is massively integrated through investment and trade.
The independent central banks that have become a near-universal norm have only marginal relevance; they aren't a significant cause of the problem (government policies in the US, like Gramm-Leach-Bliley, probably a significant role, but that's not central bank action.) Nor, for that matter, are they capable of doing much about the problem; they are mostly capable of short-term stabilization of minor disruptions, big crises render monetary responses mostly meaningless except as slight mitigation at best.
Um, there was money in circulation when the Federal Reserve was set up.
"the Founding Fathers" did no such thing. Certain of the Founding Fathers opposed a central bank (Jefferson and those that went on to form the nucleus of the Democratic-Republicans), OTOH, certain of the Founding Fathers (e.g., Alexandar Hamilton and the rest of those that went on to form the nucleus of the Federalists) certainly favored a central bank as a desirable thing.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because all those imperialists in Darfur, Bali, the Philippines, etc., etc., really had it coming to them.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:1, Insightful)
The "office" that you have there probably isn't made of construction workers building a beach.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:1, Insightful)
Wrong! Shell, BP and Haliburton are NOT from Dubai!
Take another guess WHO has raped the world, I'll give you some names as a hint
You have two guesses left
Re:Patent Pending (Score:3, Insightful)
This system, inherently and by design, has more debt than currency in circulation to pay that debt because interest (the "prime rate") is attached to money the moment it is created...
Let's say the Fed creates ten billion dollars. The Fed gives the USA Government ten billion dollars. In exchange, the USA Government gives the Fed government bonds (a promise to pay back) worth $10,500,000,000 (the original ten billion plus the 5% interest). Now you have money in circulation. Except now you have a problem because there is only ten billion dollars in your entire economy
You don't understand the terms you are using.
First, the prime rate is the interbank lending rate, and not directly related to treasury bonds.
Second, you can't say "there's only 10 billion in the entire economy" as though that means something. Nobody (except for conspiracy nuts) measures an economy by the amount of available paper money! That's insane!
A simple exercise of your limited imagination would have revealed that, one, there's far more "money" than there is cash (about 8 times more if you count time deposits as money), two, the ability to work and to pay is not limited by the quantity of money. Do you have to amass $500,000 at once to pay off your mortgage? No! Wrong!
When your understanding of money is sourced from conspiracy nuts, it's only expected that you will be grossly uninformed.
.sig (Score:2, Insightful)
A great variant, I have to say, on "Some are born posthumously", Ecce Homo. [fws1.com]
Marketing? (Score:1, Insightful)
Marketing, in fact, is probably the thing they are better at than anything else.
I have to disagree. If the "terrorists" were so good at marketing then why hasn't most of the world condemned the US for invading souverein countries based on nothing more but lies and assumptions? Wouldn't you agree that the underdog is usually always favored (in movies for example) than the bigger and badder opponents?
This has nothing to do with marketing at all, this is all a direct result from the narrow minded approach of the US to call whatever resistance they meet "terrorists". People in Iraq who blow up soldiers because they have blown up their houses? "Terrorists". Fighting Muslim groups in India which have been fighting and quaralling for years now, long before 9/11? "Terrorists". The Kurds who have been fighting for their own nation for years and have been fought by both Saddam as wel as Turkey and many other surrounding countries? Prior to 9/11 Turkey was fighting dissidents. But ever since Iraq was invaded they suddenly started fighting "Terrorists".
So suppose something will happen in Dubai; how easy it is to blame it all on "terrorists" even though these may simple be the original residents of the place who are getting fed up. But no; we'll blame "terrorists" so the blind will immediatly link this with groups as Al Quada, Hamas, and so on without any furhter explenation needed.
So, be carefull with who or what you call terrorists.. It may be made to serve a complete different purpose.
Re:Patent Pending (Score:3, Insightful)
> It is the only way to continuously grow an economy indefinitely
And this belief is exactly why people continue to fall for these Ponzi schemes time after time, and why we inevitably have busts. Because you CANNOT grow an economy indefinitely.
> Fixed asset (gold-standard, etc...) systems will eventually become systems in which a select few will possess all the money in the world while the rest grovel at their feet, or revolt and take it back.
As opposed to what we have now. Oh, wait...
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:2, Insightful)
Interpretation? It's written in black-and-white in those holy books. I don't know how much clearer it could get.
...
And you want to tell me that I'm misinterpreting these passages? That's ridiculous.
You demonstrate exactly how the extremists think. They cherry pick and then they come back and say things like "how much clearer could it get?" But they and you ignore contradictions and chose the worst possible interpretation as it suits you. You clearly know what you are doing because you pre-excused your dismissal of the contradictions by saying "they even have a convenient excuse" - it is not an excuse - it is words that are at least as much a part of the bible, but you chose to ignore it in favor of the worst possible interpretation.
So, no you are not misinterpreting those passages - you are misinterpreting the entire body of the text as a whole.
Religion is not simply a bunch of unrelated sound bites.
Re:beach erosion/movement (Score:3, Insightful)
The only suicide bomber ever caught alive was in Bombay, where the brave police of DB Marg police station simply lunged at them [rediff.com]:
Feel free to be afraid of being in India for all you want; that's your right. Feel free to give us suggestions on how to deal with the situation (although, I'm not sure how carrying guns would help in a situation where everyone's jumping nervously when a metal detector goes off). Feel free to accuse them of corruption and a general lack of weaponry, among other things. But don't, DON'T, ever question the bravery of the Mumbai police; there was some extreme heroism on display on those three nights there. I'll trust my life with these people before any armed band of vigilantes in Smalltown, US.