Toppels' Cafe, Wertheim, near Frankfurt, Germany - an unusual upside cafe

This is Toppels' Roadside Cafe in Wertheim, near Frankfurt, Germany.

It's owned by a fictitious family, the Toppels, who were clearly very high when building this place. Why? Because they mixed up the ceiling and the floor of the place. Yes, you're thinking right! Their house and cafe is UPSIDE DOWN.

And it's not just from the outside. It's inverted from the inside too. So once you enter the cafe from what's normally an attic window, you're in a for a really trippy experience.

Everything from the windows to the ceiling lamps, the cafe counter, bedrooms, living room, is upside down.

A website to help shop for wife No 2

Polygamy.com is aimed at polygamists; its creator claims it's better than adultery and one-night stands.
Add this twist to the panoply of websites that promise to fill the holes in your love life: Sites that are aimed at married men who want to add wives, and single women who'd be happy sharing a spouse.

Certain that there were plenty of people in the world who'd be interested in such a service, Azad Chaiwala, a 33-year-old British entrepreneur of Pakistani origin, created what he said were the world's first matchmaking sites for aspiring polygamists.

He started SecondWife.com, aimed specifically at Muslims, in late 2014, followed by Polygamy .com, which is open to anyone, this year. The sites now have thousands of members, Chaiwala said. Most registered users are in Britain or the US, even though bigamy is a crime in both countries. But some members log in from India, Pakistan, or other countries in Asia or Africa where it can be legal. While he has no way to know how many polygamous marriages his sites may have facilitated, Chaiwala said he had received more than 100 letters from users thanking him for guiding them toward multiple-marital bliss. He speaks of his sites with an evangelist's fervor, hoping to spread the idea that polygamy offers a pro-family antidote to promiscuity, prostitution, divorce and broken homes. He dismisses those who criticize polygamy as anachronistic, saying it is better than adultery or one-night stands. "I am saying, `Marry two or three, and be loyal to them'." Creating a profile on either site is free, but to browse profile photos, you need to upgrade to a paid membership of $20 (Rs 1,340) a month or $45 (Rs 3,016) for three months.

Three-quarters of the users on SecondWife.com are men, but most of the profiles on Polygamy.com are posted by women. He guesses that many women don't want the obligation of a full-time husband, or consider it a plus that a man is already married. "If they are capable of taking care of one wife, perhaps they are capable of taking care of me," he said, speculating on what women might be thinking.

(Source: Ben Hubbard, NYT NEWS SERVICE)

Amazon delivers priests in Japan

The Buddhist priest lit incense at a small altar just as members of his order have done for centuries. As he chanted sutras, Yutaka Kai prayed for his wife, who died last year. Kai, 68, set aside his family's devout Buddhism when he left his hometown years ago to work in a tire factory . That meant he did not have a local temple to turn to for the occasion that's considered a milestone for Japanese Buddhists.
Cue the internet. J In modern Japan, a B Buddhist priest can a now be found just a few clicks away -on Amazon.com. Junko Soko, the priest at Mrs Kai's memorial, is part of a controversial business that is disrupting traditional funeral arrangements. Their venture has been condemned by many Buddhist leaders. Many sects in Japan complained after Amazon began offering obosan-bin (priest delivery) on its Japanese site last year. But priests say that it is helping to preserve Buddhist traditions by making them accessible to millions who have become estranged from the religion.

However, much of the reaction has been positive, for familiar reasons: It offers convenience and low, predictable prices. Obosan-bin was originally the brainchild of Minrevi, a for-profit internet start-up.Before signing on with Amazon, it built a network of 400 priests and took bookings on its own website. It said it keeps about 30%of the fees it collects; the rest goes to the priest.

Now, the company has added another 100 priests to meet demand generated by the Amazon partnership, said Jumpei Masano, a spokesman. It expects bookings to increase by 20% this year, to around 12,000.

"A lot of people don't have any connection with a temple, so they don't know where to turn or what to do when they have to ar range a funeral," Masano said. "We saw there was a need."

First test of driverless minibus EZ-10 in Paris on 2016-09-24

The French capital's transport authority carried out its first test of a driverless minibus on Saturday (2016-09-24), in the hope that regular routes for the hi-tech vehicles will be up and running within two years.

The electric-powered driverless EZ10 minibus, able to carry up to 12 passengers, has already been tested on closed circuits in Japan, Singapore and California and in a road test in Helsinki.

One of the self-driving shuttle buses, made by French hi-tech firm Easymile, will on Saturday run along a special circuit in Paris on a pedestrianised street near the River Seine.

The bus will travel at 25 kilometres (15 miles) an hour and for RATP, the transport authority for the Paris region, it is the start of a series of tests.

The second test, to be held in the French capital before the end of 2016, will see the EZ10 running between two major transport hubs, the Lyon and Austerlitz train stations.

"The autonomous vehicle presents an opportunity for new services notably in less densely populated areas," RATP president Elisabeth Borne said in a statement.

The east-central French town of Lyon carried out its own test on a driverless minibus this month.

New York opens first breast milk donation bank

The first community-based, non-profit breast milk bank has opened in New York.

The New York Milk Bank, which collects, sorts and pasteurises breast milk from donors, ships it throughout the state to premature babies who are most in need.

Follow @NewYorkMilkBank on Twitter.

Roman Court to man: Buy feminist books for minor sex worker

A court in Rome has ordered the client of an underage prostitute to buy her 30 books on the theme of women's dignity.

In addition to a two year jail sentence, the man, 35, will be required to give the 15-year-old victim works, including novels by Virginia Woolf, Anne Frank's diary and poems of Emily Dickinson, as well as two feminist-themed movies, the court said.

(Source: TheGuardian.com)