• Valencia – a set on Flickr
  Valencia’da cektigim fotolarin bir kismi.
  (tags: Valencia photos fotografia city spain mediterranean architecture)

You can see the rest of the photos through “Valencia photos”

Barcelona’daki L’Illa Alışveriş merkezinin geçici promosyon ve etkinlikler düzenlenen kısmında şu günlerde yukarıdaki görüntü var. Zamanlama olarak ilginç olmuş doğrusu.

Muhtemelen o alanı kiralayıp, uyduruk bir balonu oraya yerleştiren İsviçre turizm tanıtım ofisi ve de yanına cami minareli çocuk oyun alanını tasarlatıp, yerleştiren alışveriş merkezi yöneticileri meşhur referandumdan bihaber Tayyipsiz ve tasasız bir yaşam sürüyorlardı. Bu arada arasalar, tarasalar bundan daha fazla nasıl “politically correct” olunabileceğinin yolunu da bulamazlardı… (Minarenin yanında Eyfel ve Piza kulelerinin de replikaları var. Çocuklar tüneller, merdivenler ve kaydıraklarda oynarken, ana-babalarının alışveriş için çıldıracağı varsayılıyor.)

ps: Bu arada Pere Julia’nın dün facebook duvarına astığı şu habere de bir link vereyim:

Suisse : « J’ai construit ce minaret pour protester » Il est suisse, il s’appelle Guillaume Morand, il n’est pas musulman, il est propriétaire de la chaîne de magasins de baskets Pomp it up et il vient de construire un minaret sur le toit du siège de son entreprise à Lausanne pour manifester son opposition à l’interdiction de construire des minarets, décidée par 57% des votants lors du référendum organisé en Suisse le 29 novembre…

More photos of Jaleo – Fiestas de San Luis 2009, Menorca in my flickr: Menorca photos

foto_ilustracion
Originally uploaded by Xerman

This is how German resumes the crisis.

While reading “6 Things More Expensive Because of Marketing” published on bargainerring.com, I find about a study developed by Antonio Rangel of California Institute of Technology. Dr. Rangel and his colleagues found that if people are told a wine is expensive while they are drinking it, they think it tastes nicer than a cheap one, rather than merely saying that they do. Here is a brief explanation of their study as published by the Economist:

Dr Rangel gave his volunteers sips of what he said were five different wines made from cabernet sauvignon grapes, priced at between $5 and $90 a bottle. He told each of them the price of the wine in question as he did so. Except, of course, that he was fibbing. He actually used only three wines. He served up two of them twice at different prices. What is truth?

The scanner showed that the activity of the medial orbitofrontal cortices of the volunteers increased in line with the stated price of the wine. For example, when one of the wines was said to cost $10 a bottle it was rated less than half as good as when people were told it cost $90 a bottle, its true retail price. Moreover, when the team carried out a follow-up blind tasting without price information they got different results. The volunteers reported differences between the three “real” wines but not between the same wines when served twice.

HITTING THE SPOT: People do not just say they enjoy expensive things more than cheap ones. They actually do enjoy them more – Economist / Jan.17 2008

The article on bargaineering.com also talks about why we pay more for bottled water, enhanced water, coffee, diamonds and so on.

One of our favourite wines months costs 4.95€ and it’s fine. (It is from Toro region.) Still, the idea of paying 100€ and thinking that this is a “great” wine horrorises me…

In fact, some should make a similar study, for instance, in Turkey. I think for the prices they are paying for a bottle of wine, turkish wine drinkers should be just so happy and satisfied- as a bottle of red wine costs like 5-15 times more than it should cost in Spain or Italy. (Prices are this high on this land where since thousands of years people produce and drink wine because of stupid government tax policies on producers and merchants!)

• Neuromarketing: Understanding the Buy Buttons in Your Customer’s Brain – Patrick Renvoise, Christophe Morin
• Neuromarketing – Leon Zurawicki, Gerhard Roth, Ursula Dicke
• The Luxury Strategy: Break the Rules of Marketing to Build Luxury Brands – Jean-Noel Kapferer, Vincent Bastien
• The Affluent Consumer: Marketing and Selling the Luxury Lifestyle – Ronald D. Michman, Edward M. Mazze
• Neuroeconomics – wikipedia (Neuroeconomics combines neuroscience, economics, and psychology to study how people make decisions. It looks at the role of the brain when we evaluate decisions, categorize risks and rewards, and interact with each other.)
• Wine in Turkey to 2010 – Datamonitor

Read the rest of this entry »

Online dating tools and sites are among the most popular and competitive applications on the internet. Lots of people use them and some others try to make money out of it. Until now online dating was only possible between people.

Now, a system called Zoological Information Management Systems would help pairing up of animals.

You can read the whole article on Discovery News – Zoo Animals Try Online Dating .

While reading gas2.org I found out about a research held at Stanford University that made it possible increasing the capacity of lithium-ion batteries by 10 through usage of silicon nanowires.

Yi Cui, who was the head of the research team says: “Given the mature infrastructure behind silicon, this new technology can be pushed to real life quickly.”

This is good news. Lithium-ion batteries are used widely nowadays and such a boost in their capacity due to nanotechnological achievements would probably help arise of lots of applications in different fields like energy storage, mobile device batteries, electric-powered automobiles etc.

They managed to increase the capacity of batteries by storing lithium inside tiny silicon nanowires. As they soak up, lithium nanowires inflate four times their normal size but unlike other shapes, they don’t fracture.

You can have a more detailed read:

• Stanford News Service – Nanowire battery can hold 10 times the charge of existing lithium-ion battery
• gas2.org – Nanotechnology Increases Lithium Ion Battery Storage Capacity 10 Times Over by Dana Nuccitelli

and another one:

Marco Facciola isimli 16 yaşında zanaatkar ruhlu bir eleman tamamı ahşap parçalardan oluşan bir bisiklet üretmiş.

Zincir sisteminin dahi ağaçtan işlendiği bu bisikleti üretmeye dedesinin 2.dünya savaşı hikayeleri sonucunda karar vermiş. (Dedesi Hollanda’da savaş ortamında bisikletlere ahşap tekerlekler yaptıklarını anlatırmış.) Hikayeyi, bisikletin detaylarını ve resimleri kendi yazısında bulabilirsiniz:
Building a Wooden Bicycle – Leo Valley Tools / Woodworking Newsletter

Bu haberi neden iletiyorum? Sadece Marco’nun hürmetine değil elbette. Aşağıda meneame aracılığıyla bulduğum bir kaç ahşap bisiklet ve bir tane de ahşap Harley Davidson yorumu:

• Tasarımcı Jan Gunneweg’in projesi
  
  
• Garibanın çakma Harley’i – joe-ks.com
  
• Octopus Drop Kick üzerinden giderek Roland Kaufmann’ın projesi