Ruby Falls - Underground Waterfall

 

Ruby Falls is a 145-foot high underground waterfall located within LookoutMoutain, near Rock City and Chattanooga,Tennessee in the United States.The cave which houses Ruby Falls was formed with the formation of Lookout Mountain. About 200 to 240 million years ago (in the Carboniferous period, at the end of the Paleozoic era) the eastern Tennessee area was covered with a shallow sea, the sediments of which eventually formed limestone rock. About 200 million years ago, this area was uplifted and subsequent erosion has created the current topography. The limestone in which the cave is formed is still relatively horizontal, just as it was deposited when it was below sea level.

 

The Lookout Mountain Caverns, which includes Ruby Falls Cave, is a limestone cave. These caves occur when slightly acidic groundwater enters subterranean streams and eats away at the relatively soft limestone, causing narrow cracks to widen into passages and caves in a process called chemical weathering. The stream which makes up the Falls entered the cave sometime after its formation.

 

The Falls are located at the end of the main passage of Ruby Falls Cave, in a large vertical shaft. The stream, 1120 feet underground, is fed both by rainwater and natural springs. It collects in a pool in the cave floor and then continues through the mountain until finally joining the Tennessee River at the base of Lookout Mountain.While Ruby Falls Cave combines with Lookout Mountain Cave to form the Lookout Mountain Caverns, the two caves were not actually connected by any passage. Ruby Falls Cave is the upper of the two and contains a variety of geological formations and curiosities which Lookout Mountain Cave does not have.

 

Electric lights were installed in the cave, making it one of the first commercial caves to be so outfitted. Motorists travelling on I-75 in the 70's were subjected to dozens - maybe hundreds - of billboards along their route with the words "VISIT RUBY FALLS" beginning hundreds of miles north and south of the falls itself. Ruby Falls remains a staple of Chattanooga tourism, operating daily. Ruby Falls is owned by the Steiner family of Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Creative Umbrella Designs You Can Buy

 

Think like a knight and slay the rain with this awesome Broad Style Sword Umbrella ($35).This 36" full length umbrella with a beautiful broadsword handle will help you destroy inclement weather. It even comes with a sheath with carrying strap. Precipitation, your day has come!

 

Turn those dreary, rainy days into something with a little more style. This stunning umbrella is printed with a bright pink daisy ($24) to add a little cheer to your walk in the rain. A breathtaking work of art!

 

MoMA's witty umbrella ($38) with an eternally cheerful sky is known and enjoyed throughout the world. Designed by EFM for the Museum with the cloud by Tibor Kalman's.

 

Get ready to hop around in the rain! Rain doesn't go away! This fun child umbrella with a happy frog face ($9.50) and pop up eyes folds down with a Velcro wrap strap. It is sure to brighten any child's day.

 

Galleria Palm Tree Folding Umbrella ($23.47)

 

Sport Brella ($55) sun shelter for the entire family, 8 ft wide, all season shelter, perfect for any event.

 

Stroll the streets of Paris while looking more chic than the locals! This elegant parasol is great for sun and is also a functional umbrella for rain ($32).

 

Funny umbrella golf fishing costume party ($1.99) sun shade hat.

 

Stroll along a tree shaded sidewalk and remember days of yesteryear ($49.99). This decadent parasol features layers upon layers of lace trimmed with ribbon on every other spoke.

 

This unique umbrella has a special holder ($10.99) that fits comfortably over your shoulder and under your arm so you can keep both hands free in the rain to easily carry babies, groceries, packages, suitcases, etc.

Unique Office Lamps

The Beetle Sphere

The Beetle Sphere

At the inaugural Art Basel show in Hong Kong, Indonesian artist Ichwan Noor caused quite a stir with his Beetle Sphere, an eye-catching sculpture made from a 1953 Volkswagen Beetle that measures 180 x 180 x 180 cm (5.9 x 5.9x 5.9 ft).

Coolest Shower Designs

1. Aquarium Shower

This totally baller shower enclosure called Plano Acquario by Cesena has a real aquarium built right into one of the walls. How cool would it be to be standing in the shower under a flow of water while watching fish swim around you? Very relaxing. They say you can put a TV or a bookshelf in there instead of the fish tank but what fun would that be?

2. Deer Stag Shower

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to take a shower with a deer stag head spewing water onto you? Now you can. This porcelain version was unveiled at Milan Design Week 2010. I've no idea what such a design would even cost, but it's safe to assume it won't be showing up in the fixtures aisle of your local Home Depot anytime soon.

3. Colour Phasing Shower Light

This is shower head with a temperature controlled light so you will never burn your bottom again. Temperature changes from green (when the temperature is less than 32C) to red (at more than 45C). The phasing colours in between are blue, orange, purple and pink.

4. The 18-head Shower

With all of the crazy inventions people come up with today, it comes as no surprise that this baby would be invented. What? You want to be freakishly clean and you enjoy a solid stream of water to caress your nether-regions? Well, look no more! As you can see in the picture, this shower does enjoy the advantage of sporting 18 different shower heads. With adjustable settings (i.e. temperature, water pressure, etc.), you really can't go wrong with this. Oh wait, yes you can. How? Well, one only needs to look at its price tag. $100,000. Yes, that is 5 zeros you are looking at. I need to find someone who has this and see if they will give me a spin in it.

5. Viteo Garden Shower

The Viteo Garden Shower begins a gentle, meter high shower as soon as you step on its white platform a little over four inches high. What's interesting about it is that instead of water coming down on top of you; it springs up from below, fountain style. Honored with the iF Product Design Award 2007, the white platform is made from a stainless steel frame base, sturdy UV-resistant ABS plastic white skin and slip-resistant tread. Sandwiched in between are springs which take a light load of about 33 pounds in order to activate the valve which causes water to spray from an inner channel system to 16 fine cone shaped jets. The result is a gentle cone of water from 2 to 4 meters (6ft to 13ft). And while the gushing flow of cold water from your tap may prove rather startling, not nearly as so as the cool $930US price tag.

6. Folding Shower

This Folding Shower, is a concept by French company Supiot and it is currently looking for a manufacturer and a distributor. It has a unique design that's supposed to allow people living in small apartments to install a shower that doesn't take up too much of their limited space.

7. Rotating Shower/Bath

The industrial designer Ron Arad came up with this rotating shower/bath with Italian manufacturers Teuco (the shower section of their website was particularly funny). You can have a bath in the lip, or rotate it around to give you a shower cabinet if you fancy that instead. Of course, you'll need a bathroom the size of most of our entire flats to fit it in. And it also doesn't explain why this girl is having both a shower and a bath with her clothes on. Still, it's very cool.

8. Pocket Shower

This is a very cool idea for campers and festival followers, the pocket shower, fill with water, hang from tree, get clean. The pocket shower comes in a fist sized bag but can hold up to 10 liters of water which is enough for a 7 minute shower. The water reservoir is made from a thin black material which absorbs sunlight and a solar system that heats the water. This is probably one of the few showers you'll enjoy when camping. You can buy the pocket shower from I Want One of Those for $26.98

9. Psychedelic Shower

These awesome temperature-sensitive glass tiles will change color depending on their current temperature. You just tell the manufacturer what base temperature you want, and every 6-10 degree increment from there activates a different color phase. There are three phases in all, and once you've passed the third, it will return to the original color. I wouldn't recommend installing these in a house with more than one or two people in it. You can bet that the first person in the shower is going to use up all the hot water just messing with the colors on the tiles. Of course you'll need to rob a bank first, since a single 4" x 4" tile will run you $33, or around $300 per square foot.

10. Shower Pod

It's nice being clean. It's a shame, then, that being clean is just so much damn work. Like, you get in the shower, and then you're supposed to STAND there. Stand! And you have to be rubbing soap on your body and shampoo in your hair, and if you try and do that in opposite directions at the same time, it'll make you fall over and you'll crack your head open and die. And that would be bad. The automatic human washing machine takes most of the dying out of showers by not only giving you the chance to lie down while getting clean, but also by doing all of the actual cleaning for you. You stick yourself inside the washing pod and command it to go, and it will wash you with soap and water, use infrared light to steam heat you, pamper you with sound and aromatherapy, and then finish up with a seaweed wrap and some body lotion. Then you get out, and the machine sterilizes itself to get rid of all the nastiness you left behind.

I have no idea how, or how well, the automatic human washing machine (aka the "Santelubain 999") actually performs its numerous cleaning tasks, but the website assures us that “the automatic human washing machine has been recognized by various people through coverage by different medias.” Ah, okay, very good then.

ZIG: Modular Furniture Lets You Build to Suit Your Space

Article by Steph 

 

Assemble rectangular furniture components like building blocks to create the exact arrangement of seating, tables and storage to suit your space and lifestyle. ZIG Modular furniture by Cezign comes in four different block types – upholstered foam, solid wood, open wood and clear polycarbonate – that can be stacked and strapped together any way you like for optimal versatility and adaptability.

Perhaps you need to make the most of a tiny studio apartment, or you need to be able to quickly and easily clear furniture away to use your living space for other purposes. Maybe you just like to change things up. Modular systems like ZIG give you control over what is typically some of our bulkiest, heaviest, most unchangeable possessions.

ZIG offers colorful adjustable belts that hold the foam pieces together, so you can build couches and beds of any size, or just use them as soft tables with no sharp corners to harm clumsy toddlers. Putting them together is like a creative project, challenging the user to come up with the ideal geometries for their interiors and usage requirements.

Available through Cezign, ZIG comes as a set of six units, and expansions are virtually limitless. “Our focus is on creating affordable spaces that have a high level of multi-functionality but that still blend aesthetically with what is unique and contemporary,” say the creators. “It is a creative force that transforms unused existing raw spaces and turns them into attractive, modern design projects at  reasonable cost.”