Tuesday, August 29, 2017

South Beach's most infamous hotel: Inside the Versace Mansion

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The world-famous Ocean Drive is one of the most photographed stretches of Miami Beach.
But, with its neon lights and sidewalk cafes serving beer-garitas for two, it's not known for being a high-end destination.
The exception, nestled amid low-rise Art Deco hotels, with streams of tourists strolling past, is the Villa Casa Casuarina -- better known as the Versace Mansion.
What many of those selfie-snapping tourists outside may not realize is that the former home of late fashion designer Gianni Versace isn't a museum or private home, but a hotel.
And it's a hotel where guests can sleep in what was Versace's bedroom. Or in the bedroom of his sister Donatella. Or perhaps the suite where Madonna used to stay when she visited Versace in the '90s and helped put the Miami Beach neighborhood of South Beach on the national scene.
If a $1,000-plus-a-night hotel room is out of reach, members of the public can indulge in the villa's Baroque grandeur with a dinner reservation at Gianni's, and an aperitif in the intimate, clubby Onyx Bar, in the space that used to be Versace's kitchen.     

A Game You Can Control With Your Mind


When you pull the headset over your eyes and the game begins, you are transported to a tiny room with white walls. Your task is to break out of the room, but you cannot use your hands. There is no joystick or game pad. You must use your thoughts
You turn toward a ball on the floor, and your brain sends a command to pick it up. With another thought, you send the ball crashing into a mirror, breaking the glass and revealing a few numbers scribbled on a wall. You mentally type those numbers into a large keypad by the door. And you are out.
Designed by Neurable, a small start-up founded by Ramses Alcaide, an electrical engineer and neuroscientist, the game offers what you might call a computer mouse for the mind, a way of selecting items in a virtual world with your thoughts.
Incorporating a headset with virtual reality goggles and sensors that can read your brain waves, this prototype is a few years from the market. And it is limited in what it can do. You cannot select an object with your mind unless you first look in its general direction, narrowing the number of items you may be considering.

Intercourse isn't everything for most women, says study -- try 'outercourse'

Sex can lessen pain. Studies have found that even stimulation without orgasm can reduce menstrual cramps, chronic back and leg pain, even <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23430983" target="_blank">migraines</a>. Something to think about the next time you consider saying "Not now, honey, I have a headache!"
Many of us equate "sex" with "intercourse" and use those words interchangeably. Yet highly satisfying sex doesn't have to be limited to penetration -- and doesn't even have to include it at all
According to a recent study, many women report that they require clitoral stimulation to have an orgasm.
    For the study, Debby Herbenick, director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University and a research fellow and sexual health educator at the Kinsey Institute, and her colleagues assessed data from 1,055 women ages 18 to 94 who answered a detailed online survey about their sex lives.

    Tropical storm Harvey displaces 30,000 in Texas

    More than 30,000 people are expected to be placed in temporary shelters in the US state of Texas due to widespread flooding caused by Tropical Storm Harvey, US officials said, with more rain expected in the coming days.
    Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on Monday that 50 counties in Texas are affected by the floods, which were brought about by an estimated six months-worth of rain falling in the last three days alone.
    "We have not seen an event like this. You could not draw this forecast up, you could not dream this forecast up," Long said.
    Earlier, Texas Governor Greg Abbott deployed an additional 1,000 National Guard troops, on top of the 3,000 already sent in the flood-stricken state, which is the size of France, Belgium and Switzerland combined.
    Texas officials said Monday that six more people are feared to have died in the Houston area as a result of the storm and flooding.

    Monday, August 28, 2017

    Houston inundated by water as Harvey pummels Texas

    Evacuees wade through a flooded section of Interstate 610 in Houston on August 27.
    Around 13 million people are under flood watches and warnings stretching from Corpus Christi to New Orleans as the remnants of Hurricane Harvey menace drenched Texas and Louisiana.
    "Catastrophic and life-threatening flooding" continues in southeastern Texas, where bands of storm have been repeatedly pummeling the same areas.
    Over the next few days, Tropical Storm Harvey is forecast to head back into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will pick up moisture before moving back over Galveston and into Houston again, CNN meteorologist Karen Maginnis says, meaning at least four more days of rain.            

    Sunday, August 27, 2017

    Floyd Mayweather retires with perfect record by stopping Conor McGregor in mismatch

    Conor McGregor was eventually left bloodied and beaten by Floyd Mayweather Jr in Las Vegas but he proved his point by providing the now 50-0 all-time great with a few moments of panic, writes Declan Taylor.
    This fight was described in the build-up as everything between a circus and the biggest event in combat sports history. In many ways it was both.
    And what it was, without question, was entertainment, as McGregor, the mixed martial artist turned pure pugilist befuddled his experienced foe with an unorthodox style and switch hitting.

    Saturday, August 26, 2017

    The Honor of Boxing Is at Stake



    Everyone, or almost everyone, wants to be a tough guy. Americans are infinitely interested in the question of who can kick whose butt.
    As a kid growing up on the New Jersey shore, I was often involved in heated debates as to who was my school’s biggest badass. Even though there was an automatic three-day suspension for fighting, this involuntary vacation was well worth the price to defend your status as someone not to be trifled with. It was a matter of honor; you had to throw hands with anyone who challenged you.
    With one exception. It was not considered dishonorable to excuse yourself from a stairwell battle with a boxer. Back then, boxing was considered the supreme martial art. No one messed with boxers. That is precisely why I took up the sport.
    Mike Tyson called himself “the baddest man on the planet,” and in his prime most everyone believed him. They believed that mano-a-mano, no judo moves or karate chops could defend against his superhero-like powers of pugilistic destruction.

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