The Grand Prismatic Spring, USA

Here is another classic example of a US Natural Wonder making us convinced we’ve accidentally taken Acid or at least some foreign desert Peyote. Is this God just splotching around with his magic paintbrush or is this rich oozing color just something that could have happened any old millennia? This 300 feet / 91 meter wide and 160 feet / 49 meter deep hot spring originally described as a “boiling lake” comes from Yellowstone National Park and sits alongside a 50 foot / 15 meter geyser. From a distance this could be described as a huge earthy pimple. The picture reveals its colossal size. See that grey tubing alongside it? That’s the highway with a little speck of a bus riding along. The reason the coloring looks so rich is because of the surrounding bacteria and microbes which become pigmented while coexisting with the mineral water for long periods of time. The spring boils at a scintillating temperature of 160° F/71° C daily.

City Eating Earth Vortex? Mirny, Russia

Known as the second largest hole in the world, only second to George Bush (the biggest asshole in the world). What either looks like a neighborhood destroying vacuum/vortex wormhole, a gap in space and time leading to another dimension, or that monster from Return of the Jedi that Jabba attempts to feed Luke to, is actually just a really deep and foreboding looking diamond mine. Although the all destroying vortex theory is not far off. The giant thing has been known to actually prey on helpless helicopters who get sucked in to all of its 525 meter depth by the downward draft, propelling them to their eminent doom.

The Sedlac Osuary, Czech Republic

We should change the title of our article to “10 Locations stranger than your imagination and also scarier than your worst nightmares… or at least that one movie: Jeepers Creepers 2.” But to save ourselves from a mouthful we only have this one single church of terror on the list. It’s a sanctuary fully decorated with human Bones, complete with bone chandelier and all! But you must be wondering: Why would anyone actually create something that sounds like the twisted mansion out of an obvious plot twist from a slasher flick? Apparently the reason is: there were just too many extra bones lying around in this former graveyard site. So many, in fact, that there wasn’t enough room in the earth to contain them all. So what better way to solve a space problem and celebrate the dead than turning them into religious architecture and furnishings? All the while attracting plenty of tourists looking with a reason to travel to the Czech Republic (for reasons other than buying cheap beer and absinthe of course). That’s killing three birds with one stone (or with thousands of skulls, whichever way you like)! The Republic of Czech offers no rest for the dead indeed in their Boney Church.

Giant Crystal Cave, Mexico

Yes, this awesome crystal cavern is real. Yes, it looks like something out of your fantasy video game RPG. No, Superman was not actually born here. If you’ve ever been to the abode of a collecting hippie you might have seen one of these stalagmite crystals about as large as your arm standing upright and claiming to offer healing power. But if those proportionately tiny crystals can heal at all, we imagine standing in this Cave for ten seconds alone would vaporize your cancer like those kids on the swing set during the opening scene of Terminator 2. They had to drain the water from this cave under Niaca Mountain to reach it but now if you go and see it, it might be one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever find. As you can see, some of these crystals are over an enormous 40 feet long.

Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

If you’re thinking this picture is a fake: you are wrong! If you’re thinking the man in this picture has died and gone to heaven, you’re probably right. Either that or this is the place that Belinda Carlisle was singing about in her hit 80’s smash, “Ooh Heaven is a place on Earth.” This divine looking locale can be found on an enormous salt flat in South America. It is essentially a group of transformed lakes now extremely dense. It also happens to be the coolest photo op ever. It is the largest salt flat in the world measuring a colossal 10,500 square kilometers.  When it’s covered in water it looks like the picture above. Amazingly, it also makes any average Joe Shmoe moseying along with a nonchalant stroll look like he’s Jesus with the ability to walk on water.

The Wave, Arizona USA

The only surfing you’ll be doing in Arizona is on these sandstone earthy rock formations straight from the Jurassic age. They look like an acid trip and might even be perceived as one on the right day (which would be only natural from the heat exhaustion after the necessary 10 km hike in the scorching Arizona desert).  A natural combination of the original sand dunes solidifying, calcifying, and eroding has given these “waves” their spectacular look. They only let 20 people enter the grounds per day who are given a permit from the Bureau of Land Management. So seeing them in person may be more difficult than reserving a table for two at the top of the Eiffel Tower.

1) Infrastructures et réseaux: assurer le développement de l’ensemble du territoire grâce aux réseaux et services numériques.

2)Logiciels et services: renforcer la compétitivité des entreprises françaises.

3)Partimoine et industries culturelles: valoriser les contenus et les rendre accessibles au plus grand nombre grâce au numérique.

Les 5 heures de débats sont apparues assez surprenantes tant chacun des ministres présents semblait principalement motivé par la perspective d’obtenir des fonds du grand emprunt national pour son budget. En effet Michel Rocard et Alain Juppé qui président la Commission chargée d’identifier les priorités de l’emprunt national assistaient à l’évènement et se sont dits conscients du besoin d’investissement en la matière. Une opération séduction un peu surfaite dans la mesure où, comme l’a rappelé François Fillon lors de son discours de clôture, c’est bien évidemment le chef du gouvernement lui même qui « décidera en dernier ressort » de l’affectation des fonds du grand emprunt.

Pour le gouvernement la priorité est donc la couverture de la France en réseau très haut débit, avec un budget blogal de 30 à 40 milliards d’euros et dont les modalités de financement ne sont pas encore très précises.

Frédéric Mitterrand, Michel Mercier, Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, Hervé Novelli et François Fillon.

Sur le plan de l’entrepreneuriat et du développement des start-up françaises, le débat s’articulait principalement autour des raisons du succès américain et de la faiblesse de l’Europe en la matière. On notera l’intervention assez éloquente de Marc Simoncini, PDG fondateur de Meetic.com qui a comparé le développement de sa société à celui de son rival Match.com. Selon lui Match et Meetic sont ex-aequo avec 1 million d’adhérents.

Pourtant pour parvenir à un tel résultat, Meetic a dû développer 16 sites en Europe, dans 13 langues et a été confronté à 6 devises différentes. De son côté, Match avait un seul et unique site qui se satisfaisait du marché américain.  Simoncini considère métaphoriquement que pendant qu’il courait son 110 mètres haies, Match n’était confronté qu’à un 110 mètre plat. Pour toutes ces raisons il affirme haut et fort que si cela était à refaire il s’implanterait d’abord aux USA. Face à cette déclaration, j’ai trouvé les intervenants un peu résignés, préférant changer de sujet rapidement. François Fillon a toutefois déclaré espérer qu’un jour une entreprise numérique française parvienne au même succès que Google. Quelle ambition!