Electrophile Goat
This must be one of the funniest things I've seen lately. As I'm
writing this and watching the video for the hundredth time I'm still
laughing myself to tears. So, without further ado and to prove you
don't need much to have fun (in this case just an electrified fence) I
give you.... the goat:
Although electrophile
commonly means something slightly different, analyzing the Ancient Greek
etymological components of the word separately makes "electrophile" a good word to use to express one's
"love of electricity".
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| Christian Nasulea - 07.02.2009 | |
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The Skating Plan
Looking back at a couple of pictures from the past few trips I realized there's another checklist I need to start working on. I want to go ice skating in all the European capitals where this is possible.
I've already crossed Prague, Belgrade and Bucharest (obviously) off the list.
The enclosed picture was taken in Novi Belgrade.
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| Christian Nasulea - 06.02.2009 | |
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Trip Theme Songs
Every time I go somewhere there's a song that seems to take up an
important, predominant role with regards to that trip particular trip.
For this association to happen the trip usually has to be at least 3
days long.
This song is the one that you'll hear
on the radio years into the future and be instantly taken back to
remember the hot summer nights spent dancing on the beach in Costinesti
or the endless, adventure-filled days trailing through the Baiului
mountains.
This theory has been brought back to
my attention by my last two trips where it's been tested and confirmed.
As a result it certainly seems like a very good idea to make a note of
a Trip's Theme Song in order to better capture and remember the
atmosphere and the state of mind of a little part of one's life.
Although my current Serbian adventure is only half-way
through I'm quite sure that this is the Trip Theme Song (henceforth
called TTS):
Artist: Severina
Title: Gas
Gas
Music: Goran Bregovic
NOTE:
Different people going on the same trip might have a different
perception of the TTS.
I'm going to post TTSs
for some earlier trips as well so it might be a good time to check back
into the blog archive.
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| Christian Nasulea - 01.02.2009 | |
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Male Pregnancy
Well, folks, it seems it finally happened. Somewhere, out in the world, right now, there's a pregnant male.
Although the entire procedure relies on the fact that Mr. Lee is
actually transgender, and therefore already had much of the necessary
equipment, at least legally speaking a man is going to have a baby.
You can read more about it on Male Pregnancy.com, the official website of the medical center overseeing the process.
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| Christian Nasulea - 30.01.2009 | |
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Celibacy Tax
In an ongoing desperate effort to determine me to get married, sooner rather than later, Grandma remembered there used to be a tax on celibacy, back in the good old days.
I looked into it. It's true.
People aged over 25 years old who were not married had to pay for the privilege. Furthermore, people over 30 who were married but had no children had to pay even more. I haven't been able to get accurate information but it seems the tax did not exceed 5% of gross income.
I found a fairly interesting debate about the topic on Ioan T. Morar's Blog.
Somewhere in the first few comments you'll find a joke from those days made in the form of a rhyming signed request to be exempt from the tax which reads (Romanian only):
Cerere:
Subsemnatul Ion Pendula,
Om al muncii fara p…..a,
Cer sa nu platesc tribut,
Fiindca eu nu pot ca sa f….t".
Si, imediat, primi si raspunsul:
"Cetatean Ion Pendula,
Om al muncii fara p….a,
Cat exista deget, limba,
Legea tarii nu se schimba.
The little "poem" is very typical for Romanian humour in communist times. Unfortunately the whole thing translates very poorly into English.
I'm not even going to bother to go into the complex task of expressing an opinion on the tax itself. Let's just say social policies from Romania, from any period, make for some really interesting reading.
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| Christian Nasulea - 26.01.2009 | |
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CHDK - Huh?!
Because I'm very likely to write about this again I'll start out with a brief introduction to take out the "Huh?!" from the title of my next post on CHDK.
CHDK stands for Canon Hack Development Kit and is essentially software development aimed at radically improving the functionality of your point and shoot Canon camera. If, like me, you don't own a DSLR camera but often find yourself wishing for more functions on your compact Canon PowerShot, CHDK will blow your mind.
CHDK is non-permanent firmware that you load onto your camera at start-up to allow your inexpensive 100 EUR Canon PowerShot camera to do things normally only available on high end cameras, like take pictures in RAW format or compute live, real-time histograms of your photo subjects. More than this, with CHDK you can even load scripts to automate complex tasks on your camera. I'm not going into examples and specifics as I'm still having loads of fun myself, testing a world of possibilities opened up by CHDK but it is really impressive.
To understand more and give CHDK a try go visit the official wiki.
While not all Canon compact cameras are supported I can confirm already testing it very successfully on 6 models: A70, A460, A510, A610, A620, S5.
Enjoy!
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| Christian Nasulea - 25.01.2009 | |
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More than Milk
Windshield washing liquid costs more than milk.
I just paid 27.5 RON for a 5 liter bag of windshield washing liquid
which means 5.5 RON / liter. I pay between 3.2 RON and 4.3 RON for a
liter of UHT milk (usually Fulga or La Dorna). That means soapy water
costs more than complexly processed animal products.
Food for thought...
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| Christian Nasulea - 23.01.2009 | |
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Entropa - Stereotypes and Controversy
A sculpture representing the countries of the European Union by means of stereotypes commonly associated to them was unveiled a week ago in Brussels. It is customary for the country taking presidency of the EU to put something on display in the Justus Lipsus building for the duration of their appointment. This semester it's the Czech Republic's turn and the sculpture, named Entropa, was what they went with.
Besides being controversial, the sculpture by Czech artist David Cerny is loads of FUN. I mean I'm pretty ok with what Romanian is represented by, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to be Bulgaria.
Have a look at this YouTube video and see how many countries you can recognize. Then go to the Wikipedia article on Entropa and read the explanations for any that remain.
A big thanks to Klaudia for pointing this one out and for the "behind the curtains" stories.
Oh yeah, France is absolutely hilarious! :))
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| Christian Nasulea - 20.01.2009 | |
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Using Your Skis
This is something I probably should have covered a long time ago and I
now finally have a good example picture. The enclosed image features
Ionut "Quicksilver" at Cota 2000 "resting" in his favourite position
with Sinaia and the southern Baiu mountains in the distance.
While
I don't recommend anyone try this at home to begin with, bear in mind
that trying it on anything but a serious pair of skis might result in
obtaining 4 skis out of 2.
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| Christian Nasulea - 19.01.2009 | |
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Skiing in Romania
This weekend was the first round of skiing on the slopes back home in the Post Austrian Era. I had a short 6 descent snowboarding treat in Busteni yesterday (great snow) and a full day skiing in Valea Dorului today (great ice).
Comparisons between countries were absolutely inevitable. Yes, slopes here are short, and inappropriately maintained, and lacking in cable installations... But, you know what? It was fun!
I also realized what we're missing in Romania from the cost point of view: a 300 EUR season ski pass to give you access to all the ski slopes from Sinaia to Poiana Brasov ALL winter. I'm afraid incentives for slope administrators to set up something like that are virtually inexistent, but that's a much bigger debate.
Today I also made a couple of very nice and completely successful jumps (good landings and none of the usual potentially catastrophic head injuries).
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| Christian Nasulea - 18.01.2009 | |
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