SPIEGEL Surfs the Web Africa Extreme
Nothing like a short bike ride to get the blood flowing. But what about a really, really long bike ride -- like the entire length of Africa for example? On Saturday, the fourth annual "Tour d'Afrique" is set to get underway, an 11,900-kilometer (7,438-mile) bike race from the pyramids in Egypt all the way down to the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of the African continent. Of course, if you don't want to race, you can just ride along for the fun (and excruciating pain) of it -- for the small fee of $8,800 per person. Lion repellent not included. A bit more detail on the race's 99 stages can be found here.
French Maids Deliver Podcasts to the People
Three American girls, dressed up as French maids, have mixed a number of trends with the cutting-edge online experience to bring you something you probably didn't even know you needed: podcast lessons! Not just that, but video podcast lessons. A "podcast" is an amateur TV or radio show self-produced by regular people - like a new-generation blog - and posted on a Web site for downloading and viewing (or just listening) by people with iPods, or some other technology that can play back video (or just music) files. The magic of podcasting is that you can bring the file with you and watch it anytime. The
French maids - "Laura," "Eve," and "Natalie" - use their cheesy podcast to teach you how to make your own. The French maid project is brand new, but apparently popular. "This is the stupidest thing Ive seen," comments one user, "but I love watching the pillow fight."
Digging to China
Most kids digging with a shovel on the beach want to know where they'd end up eventually if they just kept on going. If you're were brought up in the Western Hemisphere, your parents probably told you: "If you keep digging that hole, you'll wind up in China." Could it be true? Well, a Brazilian named Luis Felipe has posted a new tweak of Google Maps that shows where you would end up, if you started digging at any point on the globe. Most American kids, it seems, would actually end up in the Indian Ocean while Australians would re-discover the Atlantic. So where, exactly, do you have to start digging, if you want a cheap Chinese vacation? Hint: You may need to speak Spanish.
