Monthly Archives: December 2004

Barcelona, General, photos

Two facades – Barcelona

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While strolling around Barcelona with a friend of mine I did two pictures :

First one is a detail from Bulevard Rosa building on Paseo de Gracia and the second one is a shot from the new Torre Agbar of french architect Jean Nouvel which is built on Avenida Diagonal.

Although two popular architectural jewels of Antoni Gaudi – La Pedrera and Casa Batlló – and several other examples of modernist period are standing all along Paseo de Gracia and in the neighbourhood of Eixample, Bulevard Rosa building creates a graphically different and contradictory view to its surrounding with the calculated design of its façade.

Bulevard Rosa, Paseo de Gracia, Barcelona Spain

One of the symbols of the changing and renewing face of Barcelona, Torre Agbar, besides creating speculations provoked due to its form among the citizens of Barcelona, manages to add color and new textures to the cityscape.

Torre Agbar, Boulevard Diagonal, Barcelona Spain, architect : Jean Nouvel

Islas Canarias, photos, Spain, Tenerife, travel

Photos and notes – Tenerife

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We are back in Barcelona… now it is the turn of Bam,the blogkeeper to and spend some time hanging out with its pals, for instance in a volcanic island ..

I am uploading a few photos from Tenerife island to justify my absence.. Briefly, we had pretty good time.

Tenerife is one of the seven islands forming the Canary Islands. There are lots of things to do and places to visit. Being a known spot for massive tourism, it is surely not the same what it was… and as far as I am concerned it is not known to be the best protected of all the Canary Islands neither.

Teide mountain -the highest mountain in Spain with 3800 metres- is an impressive volcano beautifully forming the silhoutte of Tenerife..

Skirts of Teide are surrounded by rocky slopes, some other volcanos and valleys and it is known as lunar landscape and full of lava formations creating unusual and dramatic scenes..

Allover the island there are banana plantations (except the buildings that optimistically we filter out in real-time !) and on the north coast, which seems greener they have wine production especially around Orotava valley and Tacoronte – Acentejo villages ! The reds that we tasted had a peculiar taste and they were easy going that we liked so much.

Here are some photos :

The view of Teide volcano as seen from the town center of La Orotava. In the old district of the town there are old Canarian mansions and houses dating back to 17th century, and it is probably an ideal place to observe architecture of the early hispanic period.





Some views from the Parque Nacional de Teide, with the volcano itself and all the lava formations and desertic landscape !


Dramatic cliffs of Los Gigantes. Ugly urban traces are cropped out !! The scene is still beautiful.


Mazca village is a very well protected and pictoresque point of Tenerife thanks to a very narrow,curvy and steep road. It is inside Parque Rural de Teno.


Sierra de Anaga. It is totally the opposite corner of Parque Rural de Teno. Beautiful landscape where the mountains and the ocean prefer to have a serious clash ! The photo is made from pico del ingles.


With Dorada -most popular beer in Tenerife- inspiration is endless :p This is the christmas labeling of the brand with 3 kings !


And a canarian mermaid watching a fisherman`s boat…!

General, technology

Landmark for hand-held game devices in sight

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Nintendo DS

Nintendo started commercializing their new hand-held video game device DS . It is proposing wireless LAN connection and yielding multi-player gaming and communications possible and it has a double screen equipped with at touch-screen, which are promising a new gaming experience.

Nintendo Game & Watch Popeye from homecomputermuseum.de archive
The creators of the legendary Game & Watch toys of early 80s and Game Boy series would probably exploit the gaming capabilities of their toy with new game titles which are under development for this platform and their existing libraries.

But it seems they also want to work the non-game potential of Nintendo DS with applications that can convert it to a mobile internet browser using wi-fi hotspots and could add PDA functionalities. These could be crucial in defining if Nintendo DS manage to set another landmark –as Game & Watch did in my opinion– for the gamers or not ?

With other interesting hand-held video game devices like Nokia’s N-Gage QD –that functions both as a phone and capable of executing Java games among a long list of specifications– and very fresh Play-Station Portable soon to appear (already sold in Japan) , the gamers will have much to discuss and play ! Sony PSP is opting for the same objective of creating new markets annexed to classic video games market with the introduction of latest technology capable of video and music playback and internet connection .

For further info :
Wired.com ,
Geartest.com ,
homecomputermuseum.de : This is an archive of handheld game devices and computers ,
and of course nintendo.com , n-gage.com, playstation.com !

General, technology

Tv on mobile phones ??

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Although the marketing efforts and fuss made on 3G services are again so hot nowadays –with christmas and new years approaching– , it seems TV on mobile phones could become a reality not through 3G networks , but digital video broadcasting with digital terrestrial TV capable devices !

According to newscientist.com, “the momentum behind DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast – Handheld Standard) seems unstoppable.” and the project to start commercializing the services in 2006 is being considered in UK.

The whole idea seems to be far more conventional, considering the existing projects on digital terrestrial tv undergoing in several countries and it is promising the consumers a better pricing scheme than current 3G services. ( business as usual, adding services and functionality to mobile phones go hand in hand with promising miracles like wap, 3G, then 2.5G, then again 3G… :p )

Until then I will go on driving my Peugeot 205 and using my Philips Savvy phone !

General

first message and about my mentor :)

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After spending so much time being a voyeur checking blogs of others, at last I am starting today…

I think a close friend of mine stimulated me to make this step. He is Mr. MartinMystere and those who can read turkish can follow his blog ! He is a good connaisseur of movie and comics arts and surely it is worth a visit from time to time ! Being my mentor in this blogging business, I think I was owing him this dedicatory ! By the way he is a newcomer also.. so some of you can think that i am just so modest (or loser!!) choosing a friend who has just a few messages in his blog.. but it is the quality that counts , not quantity !! One Martin Mystere message worths 100 tigers in a jungle..

So far so good… I hope that you can hear from me very soon !