Awesome commercial for Swiss luxury watchmaker OMEGA, produced by Italian production company Tax Free Film. Nice animated sequence and beautiful music.
Swiss Confederation
Swedish motorist facing world’s biggest speeding fine
A Swedish motorist is facing the world’s biggest ever speeding fine of £650,000 after being caught driving at 180mph on a Swiss motorway.
In Switzerland speeding fines are based on the income of the motorists and the severity of the speed. In this case the Swede is facing the highest possible penalty of 300 days of fines at £2,166 a day.
Finland (and probably a few other countries) also implement similar system. I remember a Finnish specialist introducing the idea to the Malaysian government a few years ago as a possible solution to reduce our traffic accident rate.
The suggestion was ignored completely though. Rumour is that our government officials are among the biggest traffic law offenders, so it can’t be done lol… thus we are ‘lucky’ to cap our speeding ticket at about £60 max.
Singapore tops Asia in competitiveness report
Singapore tops the Asian ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2008-2009 conducted by the World Economic Forum (and partners) using both publicly available data and the Executive Opinion Survey.
The annual report assesses the ability of countries to provide high levels of prosperity to their citizens, which in turn depends on how productively a country uses available resources. Thus, the index measures the set of institutions, policies, and factors that set the sustainable current and medium-term levels of economic prosperity.
The top 10 overall ranking are USA, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Singapore, Finland, Germany, Japan and Canada.
The top 10 Asian economic entities are Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China and UAE.
Kiwi skateboards 12,159km from Europe to China
New Zealander Robert Thompson set out from Leysin, Switzerland on June 24, 2007 and embarked on a 12,159km journey of solo and unsupported trek by skateboard through Europe, USA, and across China.
His journey was completed in Shanghai on September 28, 2008 [via Shanghaiist]
Rob has unofficially broken the Guinness World Record for the ‘longest journey by skateboard’ currently hold by by Dave Cornthwaite with a distance of 5,823km. Rob’s attempt has been submitted to Guinness and is currently under evaluation.
Video below is a summary of his final 1,200km journey from Xixia to Shanghai; which kinda reminds me of Chinese movie “Getting Home”…
The Large Hadron Collider begins action
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the world’s largest and highest-energy particle accelerator complex, has started its first test on September 10, 2008.
The LHC was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and lies underneath the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva, Switzerland. It is funded by and built in collaboration with more than 8000 physicists from over 85 countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories.
