Thursday, December 29, 2011

Fantastic photos I've received in my Email

Office of Selgas Cano in Madrid



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The world's highest chained carousel, located in Vienna, at a height of 117 meters.


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Thor's Well a/k/a "the gates of the dungeon" on Cape Perpetua, Oregon. At moderate tide and strong surf, flowing water creates a fantastic landscape



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Emerald Lake in the crater of an extinct volcano. Tongariro National Park - NewZealand


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Restaurant on a cliff on the east coast of Zanzibar.


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Gryfino, Poland. The cause of the curvature is unknown


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Desert with Phacelia (Scorpion Weed). Flowering once in several years.


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Balloons in Cappadocia.


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Dubai. The view from the skyscraper BurjKhalifa. The height of buildings is 828 m (163 floors).


And this is the view down


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Day and night. The monument in Kaunas, Lithuania


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The border between Belgium and the Netherlands in a cafe


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Twice a year in the Gulf of Mexico rays migrate. About 10 thousand stingrays swim from the Yucatan Peninsula to Florida in the spring and back in the fall.


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In the resort town of Skagen you can watch an amazing natural phenomenon. This city is the northernmost point of Denmark, where the Baltic and North Seas meet. The two opposing tides in this place can not merge because they have different densities.


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In the Chinese province of Shandong is a bridge across the Gulf of Jiaozhou. The bridge length over 36 km is calculated for eight car lanes, and is the longest sea bridge in the world.



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Paris computer games store. In fact, the floor is absolutely flat.


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An unusual tunnel in California's Sequoia National Park

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This statue, created by Bruno Catalano, located in France


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Family photo


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The longest traffic jam in the world recorded in China. Its length is 260 kilometers


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Lena Pillars. Russia, the Lena River.


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Marcus Levine - slaughtering an artist in the literal sense. He creates his paintings by nailing a white wooden panel. At his latest series of paintings exhibited in a gallery in London, Marcus has spent more than 50 000 pieces of iron



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In the city of Buford (USA) lives just one person. He works as a janitor and as a mayor.


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Autumn camouflage


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Haus Rizzi - Germany.


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Balcony of floor 103 in Chicago. (Outside)


Balcony of floor 103 in Chicago.


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Lost paradise in the Indian Ocean. Isle of Lamu.


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Banpo Bridge in Seoul, South Korea


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Favelas of Brazil. The boundary between wealth and poverty.


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Lighthouse guard in Mare, France must be one of the most courageous people on the planet!
Not everyone will have a smoke in such weather, and in such a place!


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View of the sunset from inside the wave.


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This is a unique geological phenomenon known as Danxia landform. These phenomena can be observed in several places in China. This example is located in Zhangye, Province of Gansu. The color is the result of an accumulation for millions of years of red sandstone and other rocks.


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In northwestern Montana, USA. The water is so transparent that it seems that this is a quite shallow lake. In fact, it’s very deep


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Airport in the Maldives is located on an artificial island in the middle of the Indian Ocean


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Morning Glory - kind of clouds observed in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia


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Photo of storm in Montana, USA, 2010


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Skyscraper-Crescent Crescent Moon Tower (Dubai)


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Heavy fog in Sydney, which enveloped the whole city


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The river above the river: Magdeburg Water Bridge, Germany.


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Gibraltar Airport is one of the most extraordinary airports around the world



Enjoy them!
-- Robin Low

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol -- MOVIE REVIEW

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol



I would not really have wanted to watch this movie as I felt it was just going to be another "Tom Cruise - Mission Impossible" Movie, and bring the fourth one, I never expected it to be good.

However after watching it, I must say that this is the best mission impossible movie thus far! In theme with "M:I", there are a lot of exciting sequences and beautiful scenes, but in this movie, there was a good blend of humor.

It was very hard for me to say this, even for a Tom Cruise movie, I actually enjoyed it better than Sherlock Holmes 2! Strangely enough because in this movie, Tom Cruise is depicted as more human, just... very tough!

You will be dazzled by all the (bond like) gadgets that are pretty believable by today's science and the action shots of Cruise climbing a 130 storey building is indeed exciting. Along with an exciting score, the pace of this movie is good, and the action seems to continue and there was not much of a dull moment.

In this movie, you see Ethan (Tom Cruise's character) miss a jump several times, nearly costing him his life, and it was exciting and funny in a way as well. Many scenes were timed perfectly and the framing, movements and camera angles gave this movie the extra edge to make it far more exciting than the other movies.

Again, the gadgets in the movie were not perfect field gadgets, and they are quirky at times, which adds to the humor. The locations are also beautiful, Moscow, Dubai and Mumbai...

I did not expect much but was delighted at the movie as a whole. It was well put together, no thanks to Tom Cruise, and the movie was well made, edited and presented. Good job.

Overall: 8.5/10

-- Robin Low

Monday, December 12, 2011

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - Movie Review

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)



Robert Downy Jr teams up with Jude Law again in A Game of Shadows, directed by Guy Ritchie.

I expected this movie to be good after watching the first one, and had pretty high hopes for this one. Not to reveal the plot, I would just go to what I like and dislike about the movie.

Likes:
1) A lot of funny moments. The chemistry of Watson and Sherlock Holmes is great, and there are tons of funny moments.
2) The cinematography, colors, costume and set is beautiful, a real high quality production.
3) Story is very cohesive and Guy Ritchie managed to bring everything together at the end.
4) A very innovative way of telling the story. Very original story. And they DARE to kill off characters.
5) You get to see one of the ugliest onscreen women -- Robert Downy Jr.
6) Felt very family friendly. It is PG-13 afterall.

Dislikes:
1) The action sequences, use of the slow motion to add dramatic effect gets a little dry after a few times.
2) There are many jokes that are unnecessary and falls pretty flat Do we really need to see a fat white guy? Really?
3) The investigation is a little epic. Too Epic. Sherlock Holmes stopped Prof. Moriaty's plan to start a world war? Do they have to go there?
4) The explanation for all things get a little stale at times, and for some action that Sherlock Holmes take, there just too much explanation.
5) There are a lot of moments where the action stopped and they tried comedy, then some dry parts. Movie is in pieces and the story is pieced together, but it did not seem to be a very good job.
6) Tries too much to be a comedy / action movie.
7) Felt very family friendly. It is PG-13 afterall.


Its a great holiday movie. If you like the first one, you should like this one. It feels very much similar. It seems a little like they are milking the series though.

The End?

Overall: 7/10

-- Robin Low


If you want to know why I did not like this movie. I don't get why Prof. Moriaty has to go after Watson... Its kinda unnecessary. Watson is married and pretty much out of the story otherwise, and going against Sherlock Holmes would be much easier.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Kindle Fire -- 10 things I learn using it


I've read so many reviews about the Kindle Fire, and I am not going to review it, but rather, let you know what I've learn after using it and charging it for the second time.

1) This is a colored ebook reader, not really a replacement for your notebook. A tablet is still a tablet. If you think you can answer emails, write blogs and do actual work on this, you are kidding yourself. The keyboard is still crap. Don't throw away that notebook.

2) You get one month free Amazon Prime, and you get free ebook checkouts and videos to watch. When you activate your Kindle Fire, your free month starts immediately.

3) Android apps in the Amazon Appstore get Fire-optimized version. There are about 200,000+ apps in the android store and the Kindle app store only has 10,000. There is no Android app for the Kindle fire.

4) The Kindle Fire is able to download and store media locally. However after all being said and done, you only have 6GB to store on the memory of the Kindle Fire. You do get online storage on the Amazon cloud though. The kindle Fire uses Micro USB, and you can connect with your notebook to transfer files. Alternatively you can email it to yourself once you allow the email account to send you files.

5) Amazon claims 8 hours of battery use, however after my full charge, I watched 4 movies on Amazon prime and played around and download apps. (Yes, Wifi is on) I get about 6.5 hours left and the warning 15 mins left is now on. My screen is also on 65% brightness as I'm indoor all day. (And the 15 mins lasted 30 mins or more now, so 7 hour battery with wifi)

6) Amazon updates the kindle all the time! I left the wifi on, and I get updates several times now. It feels kinda invasive, however it is in the terms of service.

7) New Silk browser is still a mobile browser. It is indeed fast and smooth though. Has not crashed on me yet. I've watched Youtube videos on it fine as well.

8) There is only one button on the Kindle Fire. The power button. Everything else is on screen, in app buttons. This may be one of the reasons why some apps will need a rework on Kindle Fire.

9) If you stream everything, you will not even use much of the 6.5GB space in the Kindle Fire. Each app is about 20MB, and I installed about 100 apps, and I still have more than 6GB of space left. After loading in significant amount of ebooks, I have now slightly less than 6GB. I guess without music and video, 6.5GB may seem a lot.

10) Kindle Fire runs nook Apps. Yes, it does. Read here <-

-- Robin Low

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Kindle Fire -- The Unboxing.



I got my Amazon Kindle Fire on 17 Nov and it comes with just a charger and the tablet itself. Packaging is modest and simple. There is an instruction card, not even a manual!

The manual is actually an ebook in Kindle Fire!

I have charged it and played around with it for a while. JUST A REMINDER, when you want to do anything, you have to register with your Amazon Account, and instantly, YOU WILL GET YOUR FREE AMAZON PRIME.

So if you are not ready to start watching the free videos or ebooks yet, DON'T register!

The App Store is much different from Android App Store. It is fairly limited. The Kindle Fire is not really a tablet. It is more of a ebook reader Hybrid. Even though it runs Gingerbread Android 2.3, it is totally different from my Galaxy Tab with Gingerbread 2.3.

If you want to use it as a tablet, you may be totally disappointed!

Will play with it more and give a review later. Here are some photos.

-- Robin Low