phases n faces

Today I was checking my old archives and found some of my forgotten old photos. It was funny to see them, so I decided to share them n opened an exhibition called "phases n faces" which shows pix of yours truly in different phases of my life (for me it looks like everything same except the hair :p);

Online Turkish TV

Online Turkish TV:

satellite photos!

Google Maps is an excellent tool to have a bird flight view on any place on the world. No matter, you haven't been to Colloseum in Rome, pyramids in Egypt, Hawaiian islands, Red Square in Moscow, etc. Or just you missed your town, your street or your apartment! :) It is possible to see many real places by Google Maps satellite photos. It is very entertaining too. Not all the places have high resolution photos though, mainly big cities or well-known places have high resolution view. I managed to get few shots of my town, university campus, my office building and some places around the world! Here are some;

Istanbul, Bosphorus bridge and fortresses of Topkapi palace


Forbidden Palace in China


Statue of Liberty, New York


Collosseum, Rome


Egypt pyramids and Sphinx (bottom-right corner)



Red Square and Lenin's (ex)maoseleum



Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall, Taipei/Taiwan



Eiffel tower, Paris



Pentagon building in Washington



Stamford Bridge Stadium ("Chelsea FC"), London


Nou Camp stadium ("Barcelona FC"), Barcelona/Spain



Houshanpi (where I live now), Taipei City Hall area and edge of Four Animals mountain (Taipei/Taiwan)



View of Kaaba (holy place for Muslims) in Meccah (Saudi Arabia)



My hometown - KyzylKya, in Kyrgyzstan



Marina Bay and Kallang area in Singapore (unfortunately clouds are blocking Bugis and Chinese Garden)



My university (METU) campus in Ankara, Turkey

Miss Eurasia 2005!

Zarina Turdubayeva, she is from Kyrgyzstan. She is the winner of regional beauty competition (Central Asian contries, Russia, etc.) Miss Eurasia 2005! :)
I always say that Kyrgyz girls are the prettiest!

Around Taiwan in 3 days or Triin visits the island!

Our well-known AIESECer, beautiful estonian Triinka was the one who visited Taiwan last week, and it was great to see her again and listen to her endless enthusiastic talkings!;) Apart from my previous friends who visited Taiwan, she had more time and a nice weather outside, as a result she could manage to see nearly whole Taiwan in only 3 days! That's truly amazing; Taipei -> Taroko Gorge -> Green Island -> Penghu Island -> Alishan Mountain -> Taipei. When you look on the map, it is almost complete trip around island plus 2 small islands.

what is typhoon?

Typhoon is a warm-core tropical cyclone with one-minute sustained winds of 74 mph or more (typhoon Haitang reached up to 200 mph!) that forms in the Northern Hemisphere west of the International Dateline (the Western Pacific). The term hurricane is used for Northern Hemisphere cyclones east of the International Dateline to the Greenwich Meridian.
In meteorology, a tropical cyclone (or tropical storm, typhoon or hurricane, depending on strength and location) is a type of low-pressure system which generally forms in the tropics. While some, particularly those that make landfall in populated areas, are regarded as highly destructive, tropical cyclones are an important part of the atmospheric circulation system, which moves heat from the equatorial region toward the higher latitudes.
Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are exactly the same-except for where they form. Hurricanes in the Atlantic and East Pacific, typhoons in the West Pacific, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean and South Pacific. However, tornadoes are a completely different phenomenon and are much more localized, small scale "twisters", that can at times have winds of nearly 300 MPH (WAY higher than the most powerful hurricanes).

...so I witnessed the strongest typhoon that Taiwan had seen in 5 years. Typhoon Haitang hit central Taiwan hard, but in Taipei it was only a heavy rain and time to time there was a strong wind. Although it didn't give much damage for Taipei, I could witness a lot of broken trees, advertisement panels, many scooters and bikes lying on the asfalt, etc. in the morning today. And there were many floods, landslides, storms in other parts of Taiwan as I watched it from TV. It was a day-off for whole Taiwan. Definitely, a big disaster, but luckily not many human lives were lost this time (comparing to the one in 2000 where lots of people died). But the storm has caused about $14.2 million US in damage to Taiwan's agriculture. Once someone told me that Taiwan is the least safe place from natural disasters; typhoons, earthquakes, rains, floods, landslides, etc. Maybe it is true.

When typhoon Haitang hit Taiwan...

Here you can see more satellite photos of typhoon Haitang, typhoon Emily, etc.

And here you can watch typhoon Haitang's animation.

typhoon is coming

this weekend will bring me the first typhoon of my life, as you can see from photo, it is approaching directly to Taiwan and probably it will be here on Monday. This also means that it is official day-off! will be exciting, but first I need to back up some food and borrow nice DVDs ;).

Cool video: maestro!

so funny! +download+

Why talented people leave companies?

...It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them... (read full article from Dong Wei's blog)

Next destination: Kiwi land???

Yesterday, I was talking to Tee on MSN, and I was asking about software conpanies in New Zealand. Once my traineeship in Taiwan is over, I will be looking for a permanent job this time, and at the same time I want to continue my exploring adventures. So, I thought, if there are some nice professional environment for computer engineers in New Zealand, then why not to go there and work for few years? It is an amazing place to explore, also near to Australia, Fiji and South Pole! Enough places to explore for 2-3 years. And I'd be going to the games of AllBlacks. Time will show...

planet with 3 stars

A newfound planet has three suns, a scientist says—a discovery that highlights the unimagined beauties the cosmos still has in store for us, suggests planets are even more common than previously believed, and could rewrite theories of planet formation. (full article).
- Animation video

read my lips

Funny site. You cna watch clips of Bush and Blair singing a love song, or S.Hussein singing "Imagine", etc..

want to listen to Kyrgyz radio?

... then check the radio stations list on the right side!

New president of Kyrgyzstan!

New president of Kyrgyz Republic - Kurmanbek Bakiev! He was the leader of opposition in March Revolution against old president and his government. He got almot 90% of the votes. It shows the trust of people on him, and what a big responsibility is put on his shoulders. Expectations are huge, I hope he will be able to make true even half of my nation's dream. Good luck! We are hopeful...

C. Asia summit urges U.S. pullout

ASTANA, Kazakhstan (AP) -- A regional alliance led by China and Russia has called for the U.S. and its coalition allies in Afghanistan to set a date for withdrawing from several states in Central Asia, reflecting growing unease at America's military presence in the region. (full article)

Diego

New trainee in Datatronics. Diego from Colombia! After being the only trainee for 3 months here and if we add the fact that 90% of people can't speak english here, and the rest 10% besides 2-3 people speak poor English, I am happy to have someone to talk to and hang out at lunch breaks. Welcome Diego!

black bread

another "original" type of food in taiwan... black bread... maybe it is a usual type of bread in many other countries, but for me it is very new. it is inkfish bread. not that common thing. still can be found in bakeries, but definitely in "Jason's" grocery shops. and I decided to try...uhmmm... tastes like normal bread!

for "da vinci code" readers

here are the few interesting sites about the bestseller:
1- Film trailer (coming next year in May), news, synopsis, etc.
2- Brain-game: Uncover the code contest.
3- Author Dan Brown's web-site.
(After reading his book "da vinci code", now I started to read his another book "digital fortress" :))

favourite books + 1

Coming from book-reading family, I used to spend my summer holidays in high school checking and finishing books from my father's small collection or borrow from the library. That used to keep me busy and teach many things as well, as a result it somehow prevented me as a kid thinking of other things, and it shaped my hobbies, interests, goals and be a dreamer...
Anyways, coming back to topic, thanks to my sweetheart for her nice present and introducing me to a book called "da vinci code", I definitely add it to the list of my favourite books.

Below are some of my favourite books (mostly from school years);
- "The headless rider" by Mayne Reed
- "The hearts of three" by Jack London
- "Crime and punishment" by Dostoevski
- Dale Carnegie books
- "Rich dad poor dad" by R.Kiyosaki
- "Three musketeers" trilogy, and other novels by Alexander Dumas
- "The broken sword" by T.Kasymbekov
- "Sherlock Holmes" stories
- etc.
If you haven't read them, I strongly recommend! Any book that you want to recommend me?

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife1.0.
I soon noticed that the new program began unexpected
child processing that took up a lot of space and valuable
resources. No mention of this was included with the product
information. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself (continued in "make fun of it")