bioneural.net » Travel

Down the Nile to ancient Thebes

Bruce + Simone — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:15:13 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Following our visit to Abu Simbel and other temples on the shores of Lake Nasser, the second part of our 2010 Egyptian holiday involved a cruise down the Nile from Philae (Aswan) to Thebes (Luxor). Overview of our Nile cruise itinerary En route to board our boat at Aswan we drove through the Western Desert before making a stop at the High Dam, and then caught a small boat out to the island temple of Philae. From Aswan we sailed downstream, calling in on Kom Ombo then Edfu before reaching Luxor. From Luxor excursions comprised Karnak Temple, Valley of Kings, Temple of Hatshepsut, Colossi of Memnon, and Luxor Temple. Waypoints on the Nile Download a KMZ file (82KB) for viewing the above map in Google Earth, showing tracks at the key sites and location thumbnails. Recorded with a GlobalSat BT-335; zoom right in to see our footsteps! Nile cruise KMZ Day 5 to Aswan The early afternoon bus journey from Abu Simbel through the Western Desert took several hours. We made one stop, to look at a mirage that was barely in evidence due to the dust haze. What was remarkable about the journey, however, was how many different kinds of nothingness we passed through. Western Desert with sand haze Before reaching Aswan, given our approach from the south, we visited the High Dam and the Temple of Philae. Excursions to the High Dam and Philae Temple We couldn't really see much at the High Dam due to haze. We could only just make out the Egyptian-Russian monument, commemorating ...

Monuments of ancient Nubia

Bruce + Simone — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 18:52:27 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Bruce determined that he wanted to visit Abu Simbel as a child, when he came across an old National Geographic from May 1966 describing how the temples were saved from drowning. Although the engineering achievement was remarkable, what struck him at the time were the depictions of life in ancient Egypt. While he never did get to reign as Pharaoh, he has at least fulfilled that early ambition to see these magnificent temples for himself. In February 2010 we flew into Luxor (ancient Thebes, in the former Upper Egypt) and travelled south of Aswan (the site of ancient Philae, near the First Cataract) into the northern lands of Nubia (known as the Kingdom of Kush after decolonisation, now mostly in Sudan). Below are crops from two of the wanderlust-evoking paintings from the article Saving the ancient temples at Abu Simbel by Georg Gerster and Robert Nicholson, National Geographic 1966 129(5) p.694. We managed to track down a copy in good condition via an Internet bookseller and had it delivered from the US by airmail, all for a very reasonable £9.93. Pharaonic grandeur at Abu Simbel (© National Geographic 1966) Overview of our Nubian itinerary Our first stop on Lake Nasser was the Temple of Kalabsha, just south of the High Dam at Aswan. We 'sailed' south towards Abu Simbel with the Western Desert (eastern Sahara) to our starboard bow. Abu Simbel itself is about 70km north of the Sudanese border. All of the Nubian temples we saw (except for Kasr Ibrim) had been moved ...

Castles in the sand

Bruce — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:55:02 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Taken at Sugar Beach, Flic en Flac, Republic of Mauritius. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageCastles in the sand

Kayaking with alligators

Bruce — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:46:11 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Our first joint trip to the USA was to NYC; our second was a holiday in Central Florida, which we shared with friends from Jamaica. We did the Disney thing (twice was enough), fulfilled a childhood ambition to visit the Space Center at Cape Canaveral, damaged our hearing on an airboat, went kayaking with American alligators, and got some experience driving in the US. What we got up to in pictures We rented an apartment in Bella Piazza, located in Davenport, Polk County, Florida. The location made an ideal base for exploring the attractions of Central Florida, with a nearby supermarket and adjacent eateries. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageBella Piazza's communal pool Disney's Epcot theme park occupied us for a full day. Lots of animatronics. Each ride or pavillion supplements a sales opportunity (shouldn't that be the other way around?). It's one of those things you (almost) have to do, and probably works best if you have/ borrow children. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageThe monorail at Epcot The Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral was a highlight. The shuttle Atlantis was already on the pad, ready for mission STS-125. Being able to walk beneath the Saturn V rocket (used in the Apollo moon landings) was awesome. We went back to KSC on our last day (tickets are valid for re-entry within 7 days) and watched a 3D IMAX movie about the International Space Station; 45 minutes of the most riveting footage I've ever seen. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageAtlantis on the pad at Kennedy Since the Everglades were ...

The Scottish Highlands in eleven days

Bruce — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:48:59 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Scotland. Even the name of the country causes something to stir in my McKenzie blood. The last time I was there in 1994 we didn't get to the North Western Highlands and so in early September, between the high season/ school holidays and autumn proper, we drove 2845km (1768 miles) in our tiny 698cc car to scratch that itch. Here is our admittedly full but rewarding route and accommodation plan, complete with downloadable maps, KML files for Google Earth, and itinerary/ POI files for TomTom navigation devices. For more photographs, see here. Day 1: Home to Glasgow Although not itself in the Highlands (as demarcated roughly by the Highland Boundary Fault), Glasgow served as the staging point for our expedition. We arrived mid-afternoon after a long drive so had several hours in which to visit Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the overrated SECC beside the black waters of the Clyde (not comparable to the Sydney Opera House as suggested), and the civic centre. We stayed centrally at the Thistle, a tired hotel not deserving of four stars (the window sill in our room had been used as an ashtray; we were flabbergasted to see a smoker puffing away in the corridor beneath a smoke alarm; housekeeping fit pillow cases inside-out, etc.). There's free WiFi for patrons at the Kama Sutra Indian restaurant—if you find yourself in the, err... position without it (excellent food with excellent service too). Day 2: Glasgow to Kilchoan Click thumbnail to enlarge imageRoute and points of interest for Day 2 Not far from ...

Get your GPS fix with RouteBuddy 2.2

Bruce — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:11:27 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

RouteBuddy is an application for Mac marketed as "iTunes for your GPS" in reflection of some interface similarities. It works with most GPS receivers to plot your live position on high-quality street maps, but can also import and export saved data to/ from some devices, applications, and online services. With full-featured and highly portable personal navigation devices increasingly affordable (e.g. TomTom, Garmin) and free tools available for direction-finding and location-sharing (e.g. Google Maps, Google Earth), you may be forgiven for wondering what gap in the market RouteBuddy aims to fill. This question set the brief for my review as I determined to assess its strengths and weakness against the tools you may use already. Disclosure: A single user license for RouteBuddy 2.1.1–2.2 with UK & Ireland maps was provided by RouteBuddy Ltd. for the purposes of this review. Tested using a 1.83GHz Intel Core Duo MacBook with 2GB RAM. Skip to: Prelude The RouteBuddy interface in brief RouteBuddy and GPS device compatibility Have software, need map Tracking Planning Navigating Importing Exporting Sharing Analyzing Plotting Managing Finding Summary and conclusion Prelude I gave up on Route 66 (now defunct route-planning software) with the arrival of Google Maps, but still largely relied on a spiral-bound paper road atlas—until I hired a car with "sat nav". After a false start with Navman, I migrated to the more Mac-friendly TomTom platform, which led me to discover the sport of geocaching. Then it was back to Navman, and then TomTom again, by which time I had caught up with photo geotagging—and that has become something of a preoccupation. Why am I boring you with ...

The incredible dissolution of being

Bruce — Sat, 10 May 2008 20:25:51 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

Another former communist-occupied country visited, another monument to the fallen photographed. How did communism's lofty ideal of equality become so twisted and evil, delivering oppression and brutality wherever it was (or is) practised? Having seen the poignant sculpture in Moscow commemorating Stalin's victims, and the collected skulls from the Killing Fields of Pol Pot's Cambodia, I wasn't expecting to find a similar memorial in the Czech Republic so moving. But death is only one way you can hurt people: how do you physically capture the dissolution of a man's spirit? The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is located in Prague's Lesser Town, on the lower slopes of Petrín Hill (since my image and this post are geotagged, you can retrieve the exact coordinates). This work by Olbram Zoubek, Jan Kerel, and Zdenêk Holzel was unveiled in 2002 and is succinctly described in this passage: It contains seven "phases" of a man living in a totalitarian state—from the first statue being a full man, up to the last statue where only a part of him remains. This evaporation represents the gradual physical and [psychological] destruction of a man who is ruled by any undemocratic regime. The man disappears due to censorship, secret police, no freedom of thoughts and expressions etc. Click thumbnail to enlarge imageThe incredible dissolution of being Very powerful imagery, I think reinforced by the shallow depth-of-field in this photograph which helps to blur the detail (and even the existence) of the more distant figures. It's not a great shot—taken in light ...

New Zealand progressive on fair use laws

Bruce — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:12:48 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

As reported by Ars Technica, the New Zealand House of Representatives passed a bill on 8 April 2008 reforming copyright law for the "digital age". Most netizens even outside the US will have come across the American DMCA: any mention seems tainted by the taste of bile. The DMCA criminalises circumvention of digital rights management (DRM) technologies and access controls—many folk argue at the expense of "fair use". Do the NZ reforms provide workable compromise? Parliament Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand [© iStockPhoto] Ars cite a Canadian law professor as saying: The anti-circumvention provisions are arguably the best of any country, since they are compliant with WIPO, limited in scope, and seek to preserve fair dealing rights. Having looked at the new Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Bill I find myself almost as confused as I was before; it raises at least as many questions as it answers. Time and format shifting I've always wondered exactly how recording a TV programme to VHS tape, DVD+RW, or PVR hard drives sat with current copyright laws. It must be pretty unusual to walk into a living room and not find the home owner's favourite TV series or movie archived on recordable media for repeated viewing at their leisure. Fortunately the bill specifies that anyone watching TV that isn't "live" is no longer engaged in a criminal act (recording of an on-demand broadcast isn't allowed). It does mean, however, that domestic recording libraries are still illegal: you must watch your recordings within a "reasonable" time frame and then delete them. No ...

An ABC of geotagging photos on the Mac

Bruce — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:30:54 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net doi:tSglPpAB7a8nfM :

This article considers geotagging photos from a Mac perspective, looking at automatic and manual methods, and explaining terms such as data loggers, track points, waypoints, and routes. It lists OS X software options for connecting to data loggers, converting track log formats, geo-locating photos, and writing that data to EXIF for both raw and JPEG images. It also covers the importance of time synchronization, what you can do with geotagged photos, workflow, choosing a data logger and controlling it from your Mac. Introduction With my blog articles geotagged and mapped, and the launch of geotagicons.com behind me, the next challenge was to consider geotagging my photos in future. Some time ago I blogged about doing this in iPhoto, and although workable for a small selection of images this manual/ best guess option doesn't scale well to 2-3 week vacations when you return with several hundred images and a poor recollection of what was taken exactly where. Before getting started on something (i.e. spending money!) I like to try and gain a reasonable overview of what I'm about to get into. What follows is a summary of my research into the terminology, technology, hardware and software that a budding Mac photo geotagger will want to get to grips with. If you also like to look before you leap then this article may be of service to you. Although written with fellow Mac users in mind, if you're afflicted with Windows much of the article is still relevant. What is geotagging? In a photographic context, geotagging ...