Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Technology Explained: What Are Computer Chips Made Out Of?

PCB_SpectrumIf you’ve ever wondered, “What are computer chips made out of?” – That’s a tougher question than one might think. A computer chip is any small electronic device that contains an integrated circuit (IC). What that means is if you look at an ordinary electronic circuit, like the copper lines on the green boards in a radio, that circuit gets miniturized and integrated into a ‘chip’.

So that’s not limited to Central Processing Units (CPU) but can include any other transistorized device in the computer.

Kilby_solid_circuitWhy do I say transistor? Well, a transistor is the electronic component responsible for the computing part of an IC. Think of the transistor as a switch. If the electronic conditions are right, the switch may be on. If the conditions are not right, the switch may be off. On might represent true, and off might represent false. On might represent the binary number 1 and off might represent the binary number 0.

Carrying the switch metaphor a bit further, a lightbulb that is on represents a well lit room. That’s information. One small piece of information. If you want to make decision with LOTS of information, you’re going to need LOTS of transistors. Have you seen a transistor? They’re pretty big compared to what’s on an IC. Just for reference, here’s a picture of what the very first transistor looked like.

what are computer chips made out of

That transistor can only answer one little question at one time – Yes or No? True or False? On or Off?

How many decisions are needed to run the programs that we use on computers these days, second by second? Millions? Billions? Honestly I don’t know. But what I can tell is that in a space roughly one inch by one inch square, Intel has crammed 731 million transistors on the i7 Processor Extreme Edition. That is supposed to be the latest and greatest processor for a desktop computer right now.

As you can imagine, it would be really hard to cram in all the copper and solder that you see in the old time transistor above. So, new materials were needed. Enter the semiconductor material. You’ve heard of silicon right? It’s a semiconductor. What’s a semiconductor you ask? Good question. You know how copper is a conductor of electricity right? And rubber or glass are considered insulators of electricity, meaning they don’t pass electricity, right?

Well, a semiconductor sort-of passes electricity under the right conditions. Think of it like a pinched-off hose. If there is enough pressure, or electromotive force (EMF), the water, or electricity, will flow.

You can see now how important silicon is in the construction of these circuits. There are other semiconductor materials out there, but we have silicon in such abundance that it’s the most economical material to use. That’s a silicon wafer, highly polished below.

what are computer chips made out of

Whew, clear as mud?

Now, take that main part of the CPU, called a die, and think of over 700 million transistors on it. Do you see 700 million little sockets where you put your CPU in? No. There are 1,366 pins on the bottom of the CPU. There is a bunch of small electronics in the die and the CPU combining those 700 million transistors down to just 1,366 pins. I like to try to visualize it by thinking of all the roads and streets in a country leading down to just a few thousand major highways.

So, the short answer to the question of, ” What are computer chips are made of?” is lots of transistors, a little bit of superconductive silicon and some mind-numbingly incredible engineering. Seriously, after almost 20 years with computers and other integrated circuits, I still have a hard time fathoming what a miracle it is. Take a look at the drawing just for the package that the die goes into.

what are computer chips made out of

How To Make Your Own Banner For Your Website

1204275_fun_painting_2A banner might well be the representative of your site. It’s the little guys that goes around the internet and promotes you and your online brand.

To grasp the attention of people, you need a good, noticeable banner. One that makes people interested and which makes them want to check out what you’re trying to sell.

Before we go on, I want to point something out. If you really want a banner of outstanding quality, you should consider contracting a professional designer. Such a banner will nearly always be of superior quality than one that has been generated automatically. Nevertheless, for practicality, you can make your own banner with banner generators that will surely serve its purpose.

MyBannerMaker

MyBannerMaker is probably the simplest banner generator we’re going to see today. Divided by tabs, you can tweak various characteristics, including size, background, text, border and effects. The generator allows you to use up to four different lines of text, all of which have adjustable formatting and positioning.

The real ’styling’ of your banner happens in the background, border and effects department. You can use a gradient, or (advised, if you want better results) upload a picture. You can make one if you’re very creative, or search a free stock photo site like sxc.hu, which can turn up plenty of alternatives as well.


Most of the time, a border is not advised, but there are two exceptions. Either use it to create a slight contrast with your website, or – in this case – use it to separate the watermark from the rest of the banner. Use a very light color to drown it out, or make it stand out by creating a heavy contrast.

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There are several interesting effects that you can apply. You’ll want to ignore any dynamic effects – people don’t want a banner to be screaming at them – but others, like Edge Detect can create a nice text accentuation.

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After you’re done, you’ve got a few alternatives to downloading your banner. Already uploaded on ImageShack, you can request the BBCode or HTML, respectively to embed your banner in a forum or on a website.

PureSilva BannerMaker

My personal favorite to make your own banner is PureSilva’s BannerMaker. Although there are a ton of available options, the interface remains relatively simple.

The BannerMaker website hosts a ton of available background images, of both pictures and abstract colour-themes. Besides backgrounds, you can also use one of the multitude of overlay images. There are dark overlays to flourish up your background, or practical icons like the RSS icon I used.

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All the other functionality is there as well. You can change font formatting, even including shadow and glow, create a border, and upload images of your own.

If you’re still a bit lost here, read my tips for using borders and backgrounds above, in the BannerMaker explanation.

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Unlike on these other websites, your image isn’t already uploaded to a hosting site. If you’re to use the banner on your website, you’ll first have to upload it yourself. For this purpose, PureSilva recommends Imgur, a free image host that doesn’t even require a sign-up.

Extra: BannerSketch

BannerSketch is pretty similar to MyBannerMaker. It uses the same tabbed interface and offers much of the same functionality. However, on these grounds, it does not beat MyBannerMaker. The strength of BannerSketch lies somewhere else.

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As an alternative, if you don’t want to completely make your own banner from scratch, BannerSketch offers prebuilt templates. Not just one or two, but over 1,300 of them. All of these ‘backgrounds’ are specifically designed to create great banners. You can browse through them using a categoric interface, and quickly spot the one you need. Afterwards, you can succeed in altering the banner’s characteristics, tweaking text and border formatting.

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BannerSketch allows you to send the banner to your email address, but also uploads it to ImageShack and supplies you with all the necessary embed links. As an extra, BannerSketch removes its watermark after creation!

Friday, September 18, 2009

Superimpose Your Face Into Other Photos With Photo505

505HeadI showed you a cool website last week that lets you superimpose your face in the place of someone else’s on fake magazine covers. Some of you wrote in asking how you could do the same thing with other magazines or even pieces of art.

Now I have found a website that will let you do just that! Check out Photo505 .

Once you get there you will see what we are talking about. After all a picture is worth a thousand words right? There are lots of pictures on the home page. Each of these images is a template. Your picture can replace the one shown in each template. In other words you will be putting yourself (or someone else) into the picture…

So upon arrival you will see a screen similar to this:

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Each of those pictures has the same person’s face imbedded into it. Now the site lets you upload an image and superimpose your face over the one that is there. Are you following me? Let me show you how it works. Simply select one of the squares with a picture in it.

I choose the Andy Warhol-like tomato soupesque shot and was ready to rock and roll. After selecting your template you will need a image to upload. I suggest cutting up a digital picture of yourself and saving it as a PNG 8 or another small format meant for the web.

Hit that big orange browse button and if you want to show your finished image to the world do not uncheck the show my photo in gallery button. On the other hand if you are a fugitive from the law or are in hiding, UNCHECK this box to NOT make your image PUBLIC. If you are unsure of what you want UNCHECK the box just to be on the safe side.

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I browsed on over to my picture. This is what I used:

KarlShot

Photo505 worked for a minute and then spit back my compiled new image. This is what I got back:

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How cool is that? And very simple too! When it is done you will get links to socialize your link, save it to your local machine and hotlink as well as direct links so you can plaster your new found favorite image every where!

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I was hooked. So now how about a Grand Theft Auto wanted poster with my face on it? Well that is what I tried next. Lets go and have a looksie at what that produced:

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Are you loving this yet? I am so I continued on… next up was Russian President Medvedev. How would I look when I superimpose my face on his picture? Well guess what – we are going to find out shortly!

This one had me select my face from my image with a picking tool. I sesized it by moving the arrow into the bottom right corner and dragging. Once I was done I continued on…

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Then the web site spit back my image:

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Not the best one but very funny! Check out 505Photo for your own private photo placing web site.

Monday, September 7, 2009

Pick 3 Icon Changer Programs To Customize Your Folders By Color

ThumbnailHow boring is yellow? The color brings on a state of yellow blindness when you have been staring at it for a decade. But ever since I can remember, that has been Microsoft’s color of choice for its folders. Vista has brought in some changes, but for us Windows XP users it’s the same old default without resorting to a total change of our icons. We can change icons but we fall short at changing its colors.

Changing the colors of our folders has certain visual advantages. Other than the superficial visual appeal, different colors for different folders can serve as visual tags. We can color code folders according to importance (for instance, red for red hot documents) or say, according to contents (green for country music, orange for grunge?) or whatever strikes our fancy.

Looking at a bunch of yellow folders can make us unsighted as to the true value of the folders. And it’s quite easy to inadvertently delete the wrong folder. With color labeling, we can easily make the important ones standout amidst the sea of yellow.

So, let’s begin to paint our folders in any colors other than yellow, with these three free applications.

iColorFolder

1_iColorFolder-Color-Label

iColorFolder (ver. 1.4.2) is a small program that lets us color Windows XP folders with a right click. Choose from 7 different colors (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink and Gray) or eight differently colored folder icons. Selecting a new color is a cinch. Just right click on the selected folder and select Color Label to go into the sub-menu with the seven colors. And if you hanker for the old yellow, you can go back to it easily by selecting None.

iColorFolder also comes with three skins – Agua, Mac OS X and Vista. Additional folder skins are available for download in a 7MB pack. The skins can be easily applied with the installed Skin selector. On un-installation, all icons return to the same ol’ yellow.

1_iColorFolder-Skin-Selecto

The only two negatives I could observe were its tendency to realign my desktop icons when they weren’t auto-arranged. The other peeve relates to the lack of skins. But beyond this, iColorFolder is a simple color labeler for our folders.

iColorFolder is an Open Source project and supported by Windows XP.

Folderico

2_Folderico-Folder

Folderico (ver.3.7.2) is another program built for Windows XP just to give it some touch of color. Folderico is quite similar to iColorFolder but it has its individualistic pluses.

Using Folderico, we can browse to the target folder and select any icon to apply from the five icon libraries provided. A further bit of customization can be added by putting in a custom tooltip for the folder that gets displayed with a mouse hover.

2_Folderico-Browse

Additional Folderico themes (i.e. icon libraries) can be downloaded from the website. Using an associated program called ICL Builder (Beta), we can create ICL-files from standalone ico files.

Right click integration is a matter of choosing the choice theme and setting it. We can opt for one theme and set it to apply on folders using the right click context menu. The best feature of this little free software (apart from the tooltip customization) is that it stores the folder’s new icon within the folder itself. So, if we transfer the folder to another computer it will retain the new icon.

Folderico is a free software and supported by Windows XP.

StyleFolder

3_StyleFolder-Folder

Customizing a folder’s icon is just one feature in the repertoire of StyleFolder (ver.1.0.3). It goes one up on the first two programs by letting us customize the entire folder starting with its icon.

Let’s start with changing the icon – StyleFolder does not offer any unique sets of icons but we can use it with any available (or downloaded) icon resources.

The folder can be given its own ‘wallpaper’ using any picture as a background. Set contrasts within the folder by giving the sub-folders names their own color. Like Folderico again, you can change the folder’s info tip. Right click integration makes the whole process easier and if going back to square one is easy with a click.

3_StyleFolder

Again, the best thing about this freeware (like Folderico) is its ability to keep the look ‘permanent’ even with a change in folder location, as the customizations are stored within the folder itself.

StyleFolder is a free software and supported by Windows XP.

As with all things related to customization, the ultimate goal is to create an intuitive system for ourselves. These three are just a few among the many tools which help us to change a bit of our Windows user experience.

Probably, Varun’s post on 10 Tools to Overhaul Your Windows Interface would make good reading for those bored with timeworn milk-and-water looks of our PCs. If you happen to read his post, then do also click through to the mention of Rainbow Folders , another of the ilk we talked about here.

Are you caught up in colors and customizations? Or do you like your yellows just the way they are?

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Convert A File To HTML Instantly With File2.ws

file2HeadFile2.ws allows us to convert almost any type of file into an HTML webpage with zero knowledge necessary in any web language or programming skills. This is awesome for someone to share a document or song with the world or a group of people.

If you get a email with a Word document attachment all you have to do is upload it to File2.ws and it will convert a file to HTML and shoot back the link.

Let’s check out how it works.

You start off by visiting their website. You will see a page that looks like this:

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All it takes to create a web page is to point that browse box to your local file and let it upload to their server. You can convert the following file types:

  • image/photo files (jpeg, gif, png, svg…)
  • audio formats (mp3, ogg…)
  • documents (doc, pdf, odt, txt, rtf, ppt…)
  • programming source code (java, php, cpp…)
  • web documents (html, htm, swf…)
  • archive (zip, rar, tar…)
  • video, fonts, chemical file formats and more

How awesome is that? I started with a Word document that was formatted and included highlighting. Let’s see how it was handled. Hit browse and find your file. Then hit open.

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You will see the filename filled into the box. There is a 15MB file max then hit the start conversion button. The file will upload to their site and the rest of the process is automatic.

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Once your file has been successfully transferred to their site you will see a success screen with a link to your new webpage containing your document’s contents.

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If you click on the link it will take you to the page. It should appear identical to your original with the exception of the Adsense or Bidvertiser ads at the top of your document directly under your title.

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Next up let’s upload a MP3 and see how that handles. I threw it a old “Tribe Called Quest” song called Start it up. It took longer to upload then the Word document that’s for sure. It took about 11 minutes to upload but then the track came back embedded into a website. Fearing copyright infringement I will not post the link to the track but here is the link to my Word document that contains no sensitive data.

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I can think of hundreds of users for this free website including showing a client a proof, showing a document, Excel sheet, Powerpoint document, home movies…. I mean the possibilities are endless. the site goes on to talk about its features. I figured I would post them up so you can see them as well:

  • Fastest download speeds
  • No download limits
  • No CAPTCHA codes
  • Multiple simultaneous downloads and uploads
  • Unlimited page bandwidth
  • No sign up required
  • No software to install
  • Link directly to the generated web page

I can say the download speeds are WAY better than the upload speeds but what we here at Make Use Of LOVE is the no signup and software to install. This makes this site very versatile.

Do you have a similar application that you use? We would love to hear about it? Maybe you have some creative uses for this service? Leave them in the comments and don’t worry you won’t be judged (maybe a little!)

Friday, September 4, 2009

Watermark

So after spending the day snapping like crazy, the photographer comes up against a new problem – copyright. As a freelance writer, I discovered my work stolen by two websites on two separate occasions when playing with CopyScape. The feeling of anger and to be honest, helplessness is awful.

What can you do? It’s the internet and tracking down someone is like looking for a needle in a haystack. However, with photographs the creators can protect them by adding in a watermark that will stop people from stealing their work.

watermark

A great (and free) online tool I found that can do this is a photography website called Watermark. This has a good free account option with the ability to upgrade to the premium account if you so wish. The free account does all you would really need. You can mark multiple photos at once and you can customise the watermark with different text, colours, size and effects as seen in the screenshot.

The only bad parts to the free account that you would notice is that a picture cannot be any larger than 0.5Mb which shouldn’t obstruct you much if you’re only posting them online. Also, it doesn’t save your watermark for when you come back later.

Icon Finder

iconHeadI find myself using the same crappy buttons on websites because that is all I have. Everyone knows that buttons and icons are a integral part of any website. So it’s always back to the drawing board and start making new icons!

Time and time again I have to create custom icons and buttons for clients. Now with IconFinder that is a thing of the past. IconFinder is a search engine that will return icons or png files of free website icons. They allow you to change the background of each from either black, white or transparent as well as filter results for a commercial website or just for personal use.

Let’s take a look at Icon Finder:


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Just like any other search engine the search bar and options are at the top. Type in a search term and hit that search button. It will then search through their 109,067 free website icons and 206 icon sets. Not too shabby for a new site.

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After hitting that search button you will be shown your results. They will look like this:

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Now you can click on one to download or view it but check out these features. Click on the transparent or black button under background color and watch the free website icons change to meet your requirements:

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You can also narrow down your results to only show commercial images or ones you can use personally by hitting this:

iconChoice

Once you see the image you want to download click on it and it will bring up another screen that looks like this:

iconIndividual

You see from this screen that you can grab the PNG file or the ICO file. It also has the dimensions – in this case it is 128×128 – a nice size for an icon. There is a link to show all icons in this set and tags/ratings.

When we click on the show all icons in this icon set button we get this:

iconSet

These images are free for commercial use! WOOT! That means I do not need to pay any royalties or fees to use these in a website that makes someone money. I can’t express how awesome this is. Consider this the equivalent of Creative Commons for icons!

I ran a few other searches before I bounced, including this left arrow search:

iconLeftArrow

These icons are great for small buttons designating back or forward.

The site is pretty new and I can only assume that as time goes on the site will get bigger and be filled with more and more icons. If you create icons I am sure you can get some recognition by uploading them to their site. You can browse all those sets by hitting the browse sets button.

That will take you to a page that looks like this:

iconSets

You can then click on the entire set and view all of the icons in it. This is great for sticking with a static theme throughout the website.

Where do you grab your icon files from? We would love to hear about more icon download sites in the comments! Don’t be shy guys!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Guinness World Records

1. Longest jet of milk produced from the eye.

Ilker Yilmaz (Ilker Yilmaz) from Turkey issued a strict eye milk 279.5 see Record was recorded on September 1, 2004 at the Hotel Armada Hotel in Istanbul, Turkey.

2. The most hirsute men.

Victor "Larry" Ramos Gomez (Victor "Larry" Ramos Gomez), pictured in the photos, and Gabriel "Danny" Gomez (Gabriel "Danny" Gomez) (both from Mexico) belong to one family, consisting of 19 members, has five generations which are rare disease known as a common congenital Ray, and characterized by excessive hair on the face and Volvo. Traits cover women's family can be described as a light or average, while 98% of men covered with thick body hair, except for the hands and feet.

3. The biggest pick-up.

Height truck Bigfoot 5 is 4.7 m height tires-3 pm-weight 17,236 kg. This is one of the 17 pickups such established Bob Chandler (Bob Chandler) from the city of St. Louis, Missouri. It was built during the summer of 1986, he is now permanently berthed in the city of St. Louis and occasionally appear on the local festivities.

4. Smallest and most of the living horses.

On July 7, 2006 the smallest of the living horses were Tambelina (Thumbelina) , miniature mare, whose growth was 44.5 Bobcats see Her owners, Kay and Paul Gesling (Kay and Paul Goessling) live on a farm in Goose Creek the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Growth Radar (Radar) - Belgian upryazhnoy horses, has been measured with Horseshoe on July 27, 2004 and amounted to 202 see Radar owned firms Priefert Manufacturing Inc. city of Mount Pleasant, Texas. Both horses are brought together for a photo in the Guinness Book of September 3, 2006

5. The strongest vypuchivanie eye.

Kim Gudmen the United States can vypuchit eye of the eye of 11 mm. This fact was recorded in the television show "Guinness World records : Praymtaym" June 13, 1998

6. The longest fingernails on both hands.

Nelvin Feyzel Booz (Nelvin Feizel Boothe) from the city of Pontiac, Michigan, not strig nails 25 years, bringing the total length of 1910 amounted to 931 nails see

7. The largest number of needles in the head.

One 1,790 needles for acupuncture was votknuto in the head and face Shengchu Chinese Wei (Wei Shengchu) on March 23, 2004 in the city of Nanning, China.

8. The largest number of snakes gremuchih held in his mouth.

American Jackie Bibby (Jackie Bibby) was able to hold in his mouth without assistance 10 gremuchih snake tails for a period of 10 seconds on the Day Guinness World Records on November 9, 2006

9. The largest number of concrete blocks, broken karatistom one minute.

Ninety concrete blocks for one minute broke his arm Norwegian Narve Laeret on televisions transfer "Senkveld" television TV2 on November 9, 2006 in Oslo.

10. The biggest leap riding on a lion.

The biggest leap riding on a lion to a distance of 2.3 m. Askold committed and Edgar Zapashnye (both Russian) - Russian State Circus performers, the circus scene Perm July 28, 2006

11. The quickest office.

The quickest office is a table specially equipped to ride on the roads, and moving with a maximum speed of 140 km / h. His boat Briton Edd China (Edd China), and he also has held across Westminster Bridge in London on November 6, 2006 on the Day Guinness World Records.

12. The largest mirror ball.

The largest mirror ball is 5.01 m. in diameter. Imaginate Events. His boat Nigel Burrows (Nigel Burrows) from the company Imaginate Events. Shaer was demonstrated in the city of Reading, England, October 13, 2006

13. The biggest hamburger, which can be bought.

The biggest hamburger weighing 35.6 kg. included in the menu bar grill Bob's BBQ & Grill on the beach in Pattaya, Thailand on July 31, 2006

14. An old man, who committed lowering a rope.

The oldest person spustivshimsya a rope from a height of more than 30 metres. a britanka Doris Long (Doris Long), which on June 10, 2006 has descend from the building Millgate House-60 m. from the roof to the ground, at the age of 92 years and 24 days (she was born on May 18, 1914). The building is located in an area of St. George in the city of Portsmouth, England.

15. The heaviest apple.

The heaviest weighing 1,849 kg apple. Chisato raised Iwasaki (Chisato Iwasaki) for its apple farm in the town of Hirosaki (Hirosaki), Japan, which was thwarted by October 24, 2005

16. The highest paid attraction in slow decline.

The highest attraction slow fall called "Sky Jump" (Leap from the sky) and is located in the tower and entertainment center crossovers Macau. Fall begins with a 61-level towers at a height of 233 m. over land, and continues for 17-20 seconds. Solemn leap committed A. J. Hackett (A. J. Hackett) from New Zealand on August 17, 2005

17. The longest dog ears.

The longest dog ears and see the size 34,9 34,2 cm-right and left, respectively, measured on September 29, 2004 They belong Tiggeru (Tigger), Jr., whose owners Brian and Christine Flessner (Bryan and Christina Flessner) lived in the city of St. Joseph, Illinois.

18. The most stretchable skin.

Harry Turner (Garry Turner) from Britain could spread to the abdominal skin to see 15,8 This is due to a rare disease known as syndrome Elersa- Danlosa violation connective tissue, affecting the skin, ligaments and internal organs. Collagen, strengthens skin, and is responsible for its elasticity, damaged, which, among other things, is the weakening of the skin and joints razboltannost. In more severe cases, this can result in the destruction or rupture of blood vessels, leading to death.

19. Highest walk on air balloon.

Mike Howard (Mike Howard) from Britain walked the beam that can extend between two balloons at an altitude of 6522 m. near the city Yovil, County Somersetshir, UK, September 1, 2004 This feat was captured on videotape for the television show "Guinness records : 50 years, 50 of Records."