Tariel . . . Sci-Fi

Time to say goodbye

2011-02-19T22:31:00.000+01:00

... it has come ...

Bye bye Blogger, I've moved to Tumblr:

(http://tariel.tumblr.com)

Sophie's World

2011-01-30T11:21:00.000+01:00

Still reading, I am. I started with a long book series, of which I'll write more in near future, when a friend of mine asked me if I can borrow him my Kindle to see whether it is something he wants or not. But I wanted something in exchange, something to read while I am separated from the book series I was reading. I borrowed a book I should have read in high school but I haven't - Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder.

It is a book that offers great introduction into Philosophy science and offers young mind new perspectives of how to look at the world around us through a great adventure of a teenage girl. It is a great reading that just drags you in and pushes you to read more and more. It's not a short novel but it encourages you to finish it as soon as possible.

I can't say I learned much new, but it was a great wrap up of what I have already known in a completely different tone. The book gives you challenges and riddles to solve while you are reading. It's a great way to inspire a reader to continue reading to see if he solved them properly and to see weather one agrees with the solution presented in a book.

If you haven't yet touched the Philosophy and would like a gentle intro, than this is the book for you. It gives a great chronological progress and development of Philosophical science through time, from its beginnings to the modern time.

Happy holidays

2010-12-25T22:18:00.000+01:00

I try to put together a holiday card each year by myself. This year I decided to try and make my own snow crystals with some help of math and Java. I think I got quite nice result (for time spent), enhances in some image processing software and composed with a nice thought that might make us all think for some time.

...
Be who you want to be,
go where you want to go,
love who you want to love
...
-Santana

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Feast for Crows

2010-12-23T12:21:00.001+01:00

Yes. I did it. I've finally managed to finish all the published books from series A Song of Ice and Fire written by George R. R. Martin. He promised three more books from the series but they were not yet published. I must say I can hardly wait to get my hands on them once they appear in this realm. The timeth book tells a lot more about few characters and their story.

You really get to know why things are as they are and what drives certain individuals to do what they are doing. However the book concentrates on the characters that, at least for me, are less interesting and I miss the dragons a lot. I really do hope they will play some major role in events that are yet to be. Also some of great villains (if they really are that) had no part in this book. And this is one more reason why the next book is so anticipated. It should air soon and I really hope that's true.

Kindle

2010-11-27T21:03:00.000+01:00

Yes. It's true what I said in my previous post. I've got one. I have to say so far I like it a lot. I have it for 3 weeks now and I have finished reading my first book on it. Like you can read in previous post, it was not a thin book, but a book of almost a thousand pages. I just had to try it out very thoroughly and that's why I wanted to finish reading a decent book, before evaluating the usability of it.

I had a very hard time choosing the right e-book reader for myself. I usually think things through and do my research before I spend such amount of money on something. It was a hard choice to make, but I think I made the right one. I was weighting between the original Kindle and it's larger brother (the DX version) as well as Sony's readers. The tests and reviews on the internet made my choice easier. I would like a touch interface of Sony's readers but the trade of between less shiny display screen and touch screen goes to better readability and that's why I've choose Kindle. Now decisions between smaller and bigger brother was the matter of price as well as size. If the DX model would have much smaller edges and the touch screen for the price I would have chosen that one.

Kindle proved a great way for reading books and even browsing the web, reading news and more. I will use it mostly for reading books and much less for anything else. And that is the thing that work awesome. The contrasts are great, the font sharpness is great and the build in English dictionary does a great job. It is all I need of such device and love it. It even fits in my pockets (I do have to say my pockets are quite big) and it is light enough to take it almost everywhere.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Storm of Swords

2010-11-27T20:22:00.003+01:00

It took me a bit longer to finish the third book (The Storms of Swords) from A song of Ice and Fire series. Like first two parts (1st and 2nd) I must say this one is at least as good if not better, but that might be because I've read this one in original - english language, as well as waiting to get it in my hands. The story is so fascinating that one can hardly stop reading even if he must. It took me longer to finish this one because I have even more things to do now that I had just month ago.

The story drags very hard and it is hard to resist it's depth and richness. G. R. R. Martin proves that he is a great novelist and this series surely puts him very high on my list of favorite writers. I can hardly wait to finish the whole series, once it will be done. There are still many other books and series waiting to be read, hopefully at least half as good as this one. Again, if you haven't started reading the yet, and you are a Fantasy lover, I really do not know what you are wanting for. Go grab it and you won't be sorry.

This was also first book that I've read on my very own and brand new Kindle, but more on that in the next post.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Clash of Kings

2010-10-22T23:16:00.003+02:00

Just two weeks ago I completed a really great book from A Song of Ice and Fire. It was the first book from series and it was so good that I just had to get the second one (A Clash of Kings) in my hands as soon as possible. The story finally starts coming together and characters that were at different parts of the world started to meet and their life-stories began to merge into one really interesting mixture. But even here the events are not really directed and there are many ways that story can go from here. It still runs very slowly but has it's magical touch to it. Still the story of dragons is masked and I hope they will get much bigger part in overall picture. But I'll just have to wait and see where the third part takes me.

If you haven't started to get excited about this fictional book series, now would be the time for me to tell you: "It's good! Hell, it's awesome." I just hope I won't be dissapointed some time in the future. Go grab it.

A Song of Ice and Fire: A Game of Thrones

2010-10-09T13:29:00.001+02:00

A friend of mine who also likes good fition recommended this series of books to me. And today I just finished the first one. The series of books A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin is a not yet finished fiction series that I'll surely have to read. First book A Game of Thrones is a good start of an epic tale. There is a wast world that a tale takes place in and there are many characters who's life story the tale is all about.

There is a disadvantage here though. The story advances really slowly, on the other hand there is much detail in everything, which gives a great plus to the whole package. And I really can't wait to start the next book. And there are dragons as well.

The Hobbit

2010-09-14T00:47:00.000+02:00

It's been quite a while since I've last read this great book. This weekend I wanted to read something good again and I remembered a book that my sister brought back from her exchange in Netherlands. It was a 1966 edition of the book written by J. R. R. Tolkien titled The Hobbit. Since I do believe you all know it I just won't say anything about the content except that it is darn good. This was the first time that I have read it in it's native language (English) and I have to say it is worth it.

I just can't wait the movie.

Summer School on quantum physics

2010-09-13T23:36:00.000+02:00

A different kind of summer school that I also "visited" this summer, was summer school on quantum physics held by bureau42. It was my first on-line summer school where you get all the materials in PDF format once per week. It was a nice review of quantum physics topics explained in a very simple way so that broad number of people can understand what it is all about.

If you are new to the quantum physics I can recommend this series of 10 documents to get a better understanding of it and to get the feeling if you would like some more.

Google Scribe

2010-09-08T19:43:00.000+02:00

I have just read a news about this great tool that Google has in their Labs. Google Scribe is a great tool that helps you with writing, by suggesting the next word or two. And it does it with great success. I must say it's is an amazing tool that just boosts your typing productivity by a great factor. The only bad thing about it so far is that it only "speaks" English. But I think that will change very soon.

I love it.

You can read more about it here.

The Foundation novels (continued)

2010-09-08T19:32:00.000+02:00

Just few day ago I posted a note on the Foundation novels series form Isaac Asimov. It showed a good thing as a friend of mine read the post and told me that he owns the first part of the series and that he can lend it to me (thanks Luka). I was so glad. I've finished the book in just few days after I borrowed it and I must say it is a great beginning. It gave me the nice intro into flow of events that led to second and third book of series. Now I just need to read the rest of them and I hope it will be soon.

Greatest Show on Earth

2010-09-08T19:21:00.000+02:00

During my summer school in the Netherlands I had quite a lot of time while driving on trains and waiting at the airport. Yes again my plane had been delayed. This time it was because one of the flight companies planes broke down and they didn't have any spare planes. It happens. And that was why I had several more hours to spent at the Amsterdam airport. Since I have finished other books that I had on me, I went to a bookstore to find some other book. I spent quite some time there, but I just couldn't find any interesting fiction or science fin books. The next obvious choice was some science reading. And I have to say I was glad to find this book. It's a book from Richard Dawkins (wiki) a very well known evolutionary biologist.

I didn't really learn that much new things from it but the books gives you a great overview of the evolution theory and the different perspectives that people have about this topic. I was just jumping from one page to another and finished it few days after my return home. If you are new to evolution theory and want to learn about it from the best man in the field, this is surely a book for you. I would even recommend it to someone who just wants to refresh his/hers knowledge on the topic and see it from another angle. It's a really great book.

The Foundation novels

2010-08-31T22:18:00.003+02:00

A great Sci-Fi author Isaac Asimov wrote a great novel series that I've started to read this august in Netherlands, during train and plane rides. I had so much time that I had finished two of them Foundation and Empire and Second Foundation. Unfortunately I couldn't find the first parts in the bookstore, but I will surely read them soon. This two parts are just amazing pice of work that keep you reading for so long that you almost miss the station where you should step off train.

I can recommend them to anyone because it is not a high technology science fiction but it concentrates on what might happen to the society in far future and what might happen with the science.

USMIR & ISMIR 2010

2010-08-31T22:03:00.003+02:00

This August wasn't really vacation time like it usually is. It was quite a lot of work (but a great work). I was attending the Utrecht Summer School on Music Information Retrieval (USMIR) and International Society for Music Information Retrieval Conference (ISMIR).

USMIR was summer school that I actually attended and didn't help with organisation. It was my second international summer school on my research topics and I have to say it was great. I have learned several new things that will surely help me with my research and completion of ma MSc. thesis, but the most important thing is meeting new people and people that work in same field as you. It's great feeling.

ISMIR was great as well. There were many interesting research works presented during very interesting poster sessions and we had many great chats with people from all over the globe, the people whose work you read about in all the articles and people that are doing same work on the other side of the planet. It's amazing feeling to get in touch with those people and exchange experiences and ideas that will help you on what you are doing. Hope to get to the next ISMIR as well.

Summer Schools @ FRI

2010-08-31T21:39:00.000+02:00

Like many years before, this year we had several Summer schools at our Faculty. Most of them are intended for high schoolers and younger student, who would like to learn something new even during summer vacations. Every year I enjoy helping with organisation of some of them and I always loo forward doing it, since I enjoy passing on new knowledge to people that are eager to consume it.

This year I helped with organising the CoLoS Summer School for High school teachers where I also had a lecture about HTML5 (on-line examples in Slovene are here, and a script on HTML5 also in Slovene can be found here).

Other school that I was in charge of was Summer School on Developing Applications for Android Platform. All the materials including videos of lectures (again in Slovene) are available on-line in our Faculty Moodle.

I can't wait to help organising summer school next year as well.

Warhammer 40.000

2010-08-31T21:36:00.003+02:00

Once again I have came across one of Warhammer role-playing game shops (you know those that have plenty of Warhammer books, figures, playing terrain and of-course bunch of geeks that play the game). First time I've encountered one it was last fall in Tokyo and I've came across one just few weeks back in Amsterdam. It was great experience both times. We still don't have any shop like that in Slovenia (there is one trying, but it's just not there yet) and that is why I always try to stop in a shop like that when I pass one.

Last year in Japan I've also bought a Warhammer comic book (Flames of Damnation) in there and it is a great book. It's been a while since I've read it but combination of comic and Warhammer realm works very good.

Gapminder

2010-08-31T21:20:00.001+02:00

Gapminder one is quite old. It's been several times since I've first come across this web application. First time I've seen it was in one of TED talks (for instance this one). It is a great application for discovering new information in different kind of data. It's a great application to play with and to get a perspective of what is actually going on in large amount of data behind a neat visualisation.

If you do have any time to spent and want to see a great data visualisation tool, I do recommend to try Gapminder, If you do put some effort in it you will have great time with it.

It's about time

2010-06-08T18:32:00.004+02:00

Now that I look back ... hell its more than 2 months since my last post. That just is not good. I'll blame it all again on free time lack and off-course my laziness. Still I was quite busy there past months. Lets do a brief overview.

End of semester - well I don't attend any courses myself anymore, but U do have classes. And since it was the end of semester there were exam preparations, final presentations, seminar grading, point counting, and more and more.
Summer schools - I play a role in two of them (at least for now).

Developing the applications for Android platform - like the name states we'll be doing just that. It'll be great and it will be in Slovene. You can find out more about it here.
CoLoS summer school - where my part will be to do the introduction lecture and a short workshop on HTML5. Again also this school will be mostly held in Slovene. To find out more about it follow this link.

New workforce in our Lab - two enthusiastic students join our lab (LGM) that also require a lot of my attention and help with blending as well as wanting to know a lot of new things. And that's a good thing. We like and want such students.

Well. There's surely more, not to mention introduction of fundays (a specific day in week to have some fun with friends, watching movies, playing games), which resulted in playing few great PS3 titles like God of War 3, Super Street Fighter 4, Uncharted 2, as well as "testing" the beta of StarCraft II, ...

Let it be for now. Hope more comes soon.

Utherworlds

2010-03-21T14:17:00.003+01:00

It is so much more than just a book. Artist and writer Phillip Straub is known by his beautiful digital drawings. One can find many of his artwork topping the lists of sites such as deviantArt (Phillip's pfofile), CG Society. And not so long ago Phillip decided to make a book about a fantasy world he put together in past years. But as said before it is not just a book, it's a world. One can enter this world here, but to get the real feeling hot it is to be part of this world, you just have to read the book.

The book itself is a masterpiece, and I am proud to say I own one from the limited edition of 100 hardcover ones (it's number 75). The story that the book tells us is deep and addicting. It pulls you in and you just have to finish it.

It was a long time since I took time and read a book again. I sure missed reading such great works.

Objectified

2010-03-21T13:12:00.002+01:00

A movie I wanted to see for a long time. Now I finally have. It's a great movie that tells people what design really is, why it exists and why it is mostly not what majority things it is.

It shows why and how design makes life easier, better and fuller. It also shows that designers are not some eccentric artists that just happen to have an idea, but there there is much more. That basically every design bases on some research and many prototyping. It is a real trial and error process.

I thing it might show world in a different lite for some people.

Homepage of movie: http://www.objectifiedfilm.com/

What went on this past month ...

2010-03-21T12:56:00.007+01:00

Again there was more than a month since I've written anything here. It's not just that I'm lazy or that I don't have anything to write about (I keep a list of thing to blog about), it was mainly because of lack of time and different focuses.

Now that the Magic (oups. not magic but snow) has gone, at least in the lowlands and surrounding hills, I don't go to Ski Touring every weekend anymore. But because of warmer weather, I have started to jog again and I've even made my first bicycle trip yesterday. It was great.

I've also started to use my phone a bit more and you can find two resulting maps at the links below:

Ski touring trip to Smrekovec (here)
Bicycle trip to Gora Oljka (here)

There are also many new photos of our winter adventures on my picassa:

Smrekovec (1, 2, 3, 4), and there are few others on FaceBook as well
Logarska Valley (1, 2)
Matkov kot

In the summer semester I have also started with teaching some practical courses at our faculty and I must say that preparations took quite a long time as well. I might even publish some of the content that I've made for these courses some day.

Well, I'm back. Again.

Growing Up in the Universe

2010-01-24T15:43:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I have seen a new video posted on TED.com, where they have recently started to post external videos that they think are worth watching. One of them was first part from this series.

This series of lectures was filmed in 1991 and given by Richard Dawkins (Wiki) a great evolutionary biologist and a author of a famous book The selfish gene.

The series is targeting youngsters and so the audience is comprised mostly of children. The lectures are very well prepared with a great practical insertions. It shows us why creationism is surely mistaken by saying what can and can't be achieved during an evolution. A great example is explaining the eyes.

One can watch the full series for free on YouTube here, and I greatly recommend it.

How The Mind Works

2010-01-23T18:26:00.004+01:00

Just recently I have read this book, written by Steven Pinker, a great cognitive scientist, and psychologist, that nicely describes how not just us but also our mind came to be during the evolution process, why and how we got the sense of sight, how and why did evolution decide that bigger brains are what is better for the spices, how we think, interact and do many other things in life that we as humans do.

It opens your mind to the completely different perspective of perceiving the life, it tells us why do the modern cognitive scientist think that cultural evolution has taken over of changing our spices away from the biological one.

Author tries to explain the mind by putting together small pieces, that do simple calculations, to create an enourmus biologically powered computation machine that mind actually is. He shows us how the mind is easily convinced to see world different than it actually is, why do we see it the way we do, why a pair of eyes is much better than just a single one.

The journey that one makes by reading this book is amazing since it starts with explaining simple thing and the puts them together just like bricks to explain some complex phenomenon like why do we behave the way we do, and in the end, what the meaning of life is.

If you dare to touch these questions and would like to know some of the answers (or at least what they might be), I recommend you to read this great book.

The Game

2010-01-23T17:53:00.002+01:00

It was on my way back from Japan, when I didn't have any literature or anything better to do during my 12 hour flight back to Slovenia, when I visited the bookstore, picked up some books for presents and browsed through book of my own interests (mostly fantasy and Science Fiction), when I came across the book from Neil Strauss - The Game

It was a while ago that I heard of this book. Supposedly it describes a part of life of a pickup artist (a man that goes out, picks a girl, gets her attention and makes her fall for him). We get to know what that actually is, how this community formed, how it operates etc.

The story describes how author actually joined the community, became quite a respected icon there and in the end realizes that there is much more to life than live a life of pickup artist.

I must say that I liked the end the most, when author realizes that he must stop pretending who he is if he wants to get a girl who he wants to spend the rest of his life with. I believe this is very true and the most important point that is made throughout the whole book. Even thou the book has 600+ pages, I managed to read it almost till the end just during the duration of flight. And that means it is written very good.

I can't say I recommend it, but one sure won't be disappointed reading it.

TED - Technology, Entertainment, Design

2009-12-25T16:59:00.002+01:00

I've heard about TED a long time ago, and I actually watched lots of lectures and presentations there. But before this summer I did not realize how big this whole thing is. How many lectures/presentations there are on TED and what topics TED covers. When I got to know that, I put together a small "project" or task for myself, to get through all the presentations on TED and to watch the one that might be interesting for me.
I can finally say I have reached the goal so far. Why "so far"? Because there are more and more presentations being uploaded on the regular basis and that means I will keep track in the future as well.
I rather don't do the calculation of how many hours I have spent watching TED and how many videos have I seen. But I did however managed to put together the list of my favorites. There are lots and sadly they are not ranked. I must say there were many presentations that I have watched but didn't make it to my favorite list and I hope there aren't many that I would enjoy watching but I skipped just based on its name and tags.
I started watching posted videos in reverse chronological order and today I have reached the first page and the newest posts. Usually I watched several presentations in a row here and there.
I am glad that I made it through and that also means I'll have a bit more time for some other things (hopefully).

Happy hollidays and mindblownig 2010

2009-12-25T06:12:00.008+01:00

Japan

2009-12-24T20:34:00.003+01:00

It has been quite a while that I have returned from my trip to Japan. It was mostly business trip, but I still had a week for my own traveling and getting to know Japan.
After my business part was over in Kobe, I (with my mentor) traveled to Himeji to have a look at the nicest Japanese castle. It was worth seeing and it was beautiful. The same day I took the train to Osaka, a city that has more than 2 million people. It's quite big, but still manageable. I stayed there for a night in a really nice hostel put up in some old garage. I went out in the evening to see the city at night. It is very nice and safe. Next morning I went in Osaka castle that stands in the middle of the city in a small palace park behind great walls and pitches.
In the afternoon I went to Nara a "small" city (300k inhabitants) that holds the most temples in Japan. It is a very strange feeling to walk in the park together with hundreds of deers and of-course thousands of tourists. I stayed there in traditional Japanese inn - Ryokan. It's a nice feeling but it does get cold at nights. Two days in Nara passes by quite fast and the railway took me to Kyoto.
Kyoto is the cultural capital of Japan. It holds many museums, temples and castles. It has a very nice rail-station. While there are lots of tourists at sightseeing places the city gets full (and I mean full) of youngsters and others in the afternoon. It's quite hard even to walk in the street because of the number of people. Again two days past very quickly and I managed to get to know few tourists at the hostel I was staying. Quite interesting people I must say.
For the last three days I was staying in Tokyo. I liked it a lot. I went to different parts of the city to see what is the life in different districts like. It is very colorful I must say. While some parts are full of fashion shops others are full of electronics shops and then others are full of pachinko's, manga shops, book stores and so on. I even went to fish market one morning to find that they pull half of the sea life out every morning and sell it while it is still more or less alive. I even went to the Tokyo's highest sightseeing point in one of the governmental building. The subway is a very handy transport there that brings you wherever you want. Once I even went to the new living district on the artificial island that look kinda nice.
To conclude I must say I am very glad I had a chance to be there and to see what is the most developed country like. I must say it is über clean and über safe. I never ever had even a bad feeling and thrashes can only be seen in very few places. I could live there.
You can find some photos here.

Animes and Mangas

2009-11-05T12:37:00.003+01:00

Part of my preparations on the trip to Japan was also study of their very special art, that I appreciate a lot, Animes and Mangas. Since there are not many manga strips or books available in Slovenia and I don't enjoy reading them on the screen, I was mostly studying the animes.
Well it wasn't as much study as it was pure pleasure. I like animes since forever and I just had an excuse to spend some more time watching them. It didn't really help with my knowledge of Japanese language bt anyway, it was joy.
During my staying in Japan I also visited the International museum of Manga in Kyoto. And I am proud to say that I held and read GITS (Ghost in the Shell) in English. It was a great experience after seeing the movie so many times and loving it a lot.
Manga stores are great as well lots of different mangas, I just can't find any English ones. Hope to have some luck in next two days.

First real conference, ISMIR 2009, Kobe, Japan

2009-11-03T12:25:00.004+01:00

Now that is over, and I had some time to rest afterwords, I can finally write something about it. ISMIR 2009 (International Conference on Music Information Retrieval) was my first real conference where I actually presented something. I must say it was very intense.
It lasted 5 days, whole days. Even during the lunch there were poster sessions so no time was wasted. Sessions were more or less great and the stuff that was presented was really good. I might even use some of the presented methods one day in my own research. ISMIR is one of rare conference where sessions actually don't overlap so you can attend all of them without fear of missing something good.
It all started on Monday with two tutorial sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Between tutorials there was a special self-heating lunch. A very strange Japanese invention (or remake).
Next four days were reserved for session presentations of chosen papers. More then 300 people attended the conference, which is a lot for such a small community and such a specific field of research. I got to know many very nice people and great researchers from allover. We had really nice debates during the brakes and after the sessions. I hope I'll have a chance to meet them again and maybe even collaborate with them some time in the future.
Altogether it was a neat experience. But there is a lot of work waiting for me, reading all the relevant papers once I get back home. But in the mean time, I'll enjoy Japan one more week just by myself and just for myself as well.
Hope to be there next year in Utrecht (Netherlands) at ISMIR 2010.

Dr. Michio Kaku

2009-10-08T10:44:00.002+02:00

I've been writing about the documentary series The Universe a while ago. One of my favorite scientist that appears in the series is definitely dr. Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and popularizer of science.

A while ago I've came across his web-site where much of his work is presented and where one can find many things concerning science. It's at: http://mkaku.org/.

MultiTouch Book and our project.

2009-10-08T09:46:00.004+02:00

Together with my friend (Luka, see his homepage under links on right) we've been working on MultiTouch table for almost a year now. It took us so long because it is a hobby/garage project and we only worked on it when we booth had free time. It was sponsored by research lab where I am employed. The prototype is coming to an end and will arrive to the Faculty very soon. You can find more on our project in posts on Luka's home page.

In the mean time MultiTouch community was very busy working on documentation, software and now even hardware for the popularization and accessibility of MoultiTouch techology. NUI group e-book. is the leading community that supports MultiTouch and many things can be found there. You can get fast support on their forums and all the knowledge to start your own MultiTouch project that is now gathered even in e-book.

Singularity University

2009-10-06T14:41:00.003+02:00

Quite some time ago I read about new Ray Kurzweil's new project (well he is not alone, here is the whole list) of starting a great University with very futuristic program called Singularity University. Group pulled together set of great professors that will run courses like Nanotechnology, Space & Physical Sciences, AI & Robotics (more can be found here).
I believe this will be a very fine University and that the people finishing it will have a great skill and insight in future technologies, how to use them and more.
But (yes, there is always but) for me the worse thing about such school is tuition. It is true that if you are good enough and will try hard enough you might get scholarship and enter such University. But I still thing this is just another mistake of capitalistic world where knowledge is on sale for sale. I just don't like the concept.
Still I wouldn't mind participating nor leading some of the courses they have.

Hero

2009-10-06T13:56:00.009+02:00

I need a hero ...

... this is how a very famous song from Bonnie Taylor starts, and this is what I was singing to myself before previous Tuesday. Now I have one. HTC's Hero of course; with a great Google's Android platform. It's white one and it feels great.

It's true I wanted iPhone, I even planed buying one, but then I put down facts why I even wanted a smart phone:

I need all the basic mobile phone functionalists (except MMS's )
I need GPS
I would like Blutooth, WiFi, EDGE, etc.
I would like to develop my own apps

Because of these there are some additional requirements, like:

GPS drains battery life really fast, so it would be great to have a chance of switching battery
Custom storage capabilities.

Since iPhone is lacking these I haven't bought it and I decided to go for Hero. Even thou I have to say Hero is ugly in comparison to iPhone it has some additional advantages:

mini USB connection to computer and for charger as well
it cost me half the price of the iPhone
one can develop in a beautiful language of Java (instead of Objective C)
HTC Sens UI's home screens are much more pleasant then iPhone's

I am happy with my new gadget and I'm sure it will serve me very well. I will report on my proggres and the applications I might develop (one is in production right now).

Hard debate

2009-10-06T13:10:00.004+02:00

Just last week, a friend of mine (from far far away land - NZ) asked me, what it would seem an easy question:

"Is it fair to say that our most primary form of communicating information is spoken language?"

Like usual, I didn't gave him a simple answer (my friends would say I'm quite known of complicating things as much as possible, but I would say like to have things very determent and precisely defined). There were several uncertainties about the question it self and how it was meant, so this is how I broke down the problem:

1st
What do you mean with word "primary"? If you mean "common" then I would say Yes for the current time being. If word "primary" is there as "what means of communication man used through time", let us say from stone age on. Then I'm not really sure. It might have been gestures at close distances. I can't really decide between them.

2nd
The second question here is what is the "spoken language"? If that is anything that comes from your mouth then you'll find the answer under 1. But if spoken language is a well defined collections of sounds, organised and so on ... then yes for time being, but not in the early ages of humankind.

3rd
If we take it the easy way ... What about "written language". I would still say that spoken one is more common, but not all would agree.

Later, when he caught me on-line and we chatted for a while the debate went even deeper. But still this debate put my mind on a mental workout again and that is why I like hard debates very much.

Thanks Brandon.

Mont Blanc (4810m)

2009-09-09T23:28:00.003+02:00

This last weekend was a special one for me. I was in the mountains again. But not just any mountains. I was on the highest peak in Alps - Mont Blanc.

It was not my highest peak. It was not my hardest. But it has that special touch of a special mountain. Let me just describe how we did it in three days.

There was 7 of us altogether. We started our expedition on Thursday evening (around 7 pm). It took us 8 and a half hours just to get to Chamonix (to be more precise it was Les Houches, the neighbor village). Since we came there really early in the morning, we took a short rest and spend the morning for sightseeing of Chamonix, the pristine mountain city and the alpine center of Alps. It is a nice city worth spending more time in, than we had.

We took the 1pm cable car from Les Houches and the mountain rail, to reach the starting point at about 2.400m. The weather on Friday was really bad. It was cold, foggy, rainy, snowy and very windy. But that did not stop us from reaching the first cottage at 3.167m (Tête Rousse). This first part only took us about 2 and a half hours. We took the rest of the day off for relaxation, eating, rehydrating and playing cards.

Next day we started the climb to next cottage (Goûter) at around 3.800m. Again it only took us about 2 and a half hours to get there, and since it was a beautiful day we took some time for sunbathing and sightseeing around the cottage.

Very early next morning (at 2am) we started our ascend to the top. It's not really hard, nor dangerous to reach the peak, but it is the question of weather you can get to that altitude or not. Even thou that Sunday was again very beautiful and that there was a full moon it was very windy. We made a short rest at the last refuge (around 4300m - Vallot) and carried on to reach the peak at 4.30 am.

Because of the wind we didn't stay on top for longer time and started to descend really soon. We made short stops at both cottages to pick the rest of our stuff and we made it on the 1.25pm mountain train. We left the Chamonix at 4.30pm and came back to Velenje at 1.45am on Monday.

Now a short info about expenses and timing.

it is possible to peak the Mont Blanc in 2 days, we did it in 3 just because of better acclimatisation.
It took us 8 and a half hours to get to Chamonix and same to get back home.
we rented a minibus for 8 people for 30€ per day and spent around 100€ on gas, 84.6€ on toll and additional 41€ on Mount Blanc tunnel.
the cable car was 12.90€ for return trip and 14.50€ for mountain train return ticket.
sleeping at cottage was 13.30€ per person on Tête Rousse, and 13.90€ on Goûter. Food was 24€ for dinner at both cottages, tea was 3€ at Tête Rousse and 3.5€ at Goûter, water was 4.5€ Tête Rousse and 5€ at Goûter. We reserved the beds almost a month ahead.

The only thing that is left is the photos. You can find them here.

Stenar (2501m) and Križ (2409m)

2009-09-02T12:33:00.003+02:00

Two weeks back 4 of us decided to go for a trip to the mountains again. This time we conquered two peaks in little more then 6 hours.

We started early (4am) from Velenje and arrived to valley of Vrata few minutes before 7am. The marked path says it's 5 hours to reach the peak. We did it in 2.5 hours. On our way down we topped another peak and took a different path back down. The weather was nice, a bit chilly few times but at least not too hot.

Some photos are here.

Three trips (Skuta-Dolgi Hrbet-Češka cottage-Kranjska cottage-Savinjsko pass, Lovrenc lakes, Kanin)

2009-08-19T12:26:00.007+02:00

Last two weekends I finally took some time for myself and did some trips to hills and mountain. There were three to be precise.

The first one was a bit more then just a trip, since it was quite intense. My sisters fiance Božo and me went on a trekking to Skuta, Dolgi Hrbet, Češka cottage, Kranjska cottage, Savinjsko pass and back to the valley. It took us altogether 12 hours and few minutes with all the rests and stops to finish this trekking. Our knees betrayed us on the way down. But we did it and were glad.
You can find some photos here.

The second one was to Lovrenc lakes. The pristine lakes on Pohorje that are really beautiful. We went there with my parents and it was a bad choice actually. There were tons of people all over the Rogla (our starting point) all the way to the lakes. It was hardly bearable, much like pilgrimage. Still it was worth all the beauty and fresh air.
Some photos are here.

The third one was to the mountain of Kanin. The plan was to see the new part of highway that was opened just a week earlier, and to get through Trnovski forest to city of Bovec and from there to Kanin. It was our first time in Trnovski forest and we were amazed by the beauty of it. Its the pristine natural forest in the midland. Perfect for easy trips and picnics. I bet there are lots of mushrooms there as well (note to myself: get them next time). We took the cable car from Bovec to the ski resort of Kanin and did some trips up there. Rocks are so different there because of all the glacier remains and karst terrain. There are some of the world deepest abysses here.
Again some photos are here.

World Science Festival

2009-08-07T18:00:00.003+02:00

Now a traditional festival for promoting science, called World Science Festival takes place each summer in the city of New York. I've only found out that last week, when one of my friends posted a video from the festival on the facebook (thank you Samo). I was so amazed by the content of the video that I just had to check it out. And once I discovered the home page of the festival (here), I found out that there is an archive of videos (here) there from previous festivals. I took some time and watched most of them. And I liked them all.

Since I am a science freak this was an amazing discovery for me. I hope that I'll have a chance and join this festival. The things that scientists are presenting to the public are amazing, the discussions between the scientist are awesome, including all the arguments. I would suggest everyone who is interested in science to check this site and event.

Jon Schmidt

2009-08-05T18:37:00.004+02:00

Just a week ago or a bit further back I have accidentally discovered this really great composer and pianist. It was on a site who all of you know for sure: YouTube when I was listening to the music for my research.

I came across a brilliant composer Jon Schmidt, his home site is: http://www.jonschmidt.com/

The first composition I was listening to was: All of me (YouTube, Jon Schmidt). An amazingly happy composition. I just couldn't stop listening to it for quite some time. I've also watched some responses to it like: None of me (YouTube, Jason Lyle Black), which also are amazingly beautiful.

But then I made even bigger discovery and I found: Love Story meets Viva la Vida (YouTube) that just blew my mind away for even longer time then All of me. This is just amazing piece of composition.

Still listening to it every day.

BBC documentary series

2009-08-05T00:05:00.004+02:00

There were three BBC documentary series I've watched recently:

Yellowstone (IMDB, Wiki)
a 2009 documentary about my favorite national park I can think of. This three part series shows us what goes on in Yellowstone throughout the year. Each part is about different part of the year and shows ups and downs of commodity of living in this beautiful piece of Earth. It only encoureges me to go there by myself someday.
Earth: The Power of the Planet (BBC, IMDB, University of Plymouth)
a 2007 documentary series where in five episodes geologist Iain Steward takes us around the world to show us all the nature wonders and beauties our planet has to show. It also shows us how very small we are and what some real powers of our planet are. Also he shows us how human race is changing the planet and what are the consequences of our doing. At the end he faces us with the fact, that it is not planet that might "die" if we don't start taking better care of it, it is us that won't be able to survive in conditions that we are creating.
Planet Earth (BBC, IMDB, Wiki)
a 2006 documentary series in eleven parts. If I would have known sooner that the US version was nerrated by Sigourney Weaver I would have watched that one. But anyway. It is a series that shows us nature in all of its beauty. The places of the earth one could never see by himself, spices of plants and animals I've never heard of before. It was well worth watching to see what all our planet hold and what all there is to see in the nature.

All the documentaries are awesome and if you haven't seen them yet, you should watch them as soon as possible.

My first conference article

2009-08-04T23:41:00.003+02:00

It finally came down to this. As I wrote down several times here on my blog, I am a researcher at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Multimedia (a long title it is).

And as a researcher there is some research I am conducting. My current research involves ethnic music and computers. More precisely I am researching how we can use computers to help ethno-musicologists with their research with use of computers.

Now to be really precise I will just put down the title of my article, that was accepted at the ISMIR 2009 conference: Calculating Similarity of Folk Song Variants With Melody-Based Features. I however had a lot of help and guidance of my mentor who is also a coauthor of this article.

I am glad that my work finally showed some results that are actually worth showing to the rest of the world. Once the conference is over I will publish the link to the article here as well. I will continue my research work in this field and hope to good research results in the feature as well.

New Dask Lamp

2009-07-25T10:35:00.002+02:00

Just last week I got an package from USA which I've been waiting for for quite some time. I was thrilled. A friend of mine, that I got to know while I was on exchange in New Zealand, sent me a desk lamp (the silver one).

I am very pleased to have one of these low energy, High efficient LED lamp. It's very hard to impossible to get them in our country or even Europe. That was the main reason why I asked my friend John to send one to me.

Thank you John.

Richard Feynman Lectures

2009-07-25T07:23:00.003+02:00

Everyone who likes Physics a bit should already know Richard Feynman and at least heard about very famous Physics lectures books - "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" made after his lectures to undergraduate students at Caltech in 1961-63.

In 1964 he gave a series of lectures called "The Messenger" at Cornell that were recorded and published but BBC. Now they are accessible free of charge at M$ Research center (Thanks Bill for this). I recommend it to every physics fan.

You can watch it on-line here.

Ribno 2009

2009-07-25T07:08:00.002+02:00

I felt really bad last year when I just couldn't go camping with our scout group. I went on the camp for 18 year, each year and it was amazing every year.

I was in shortage of time this year again, but I was at least able to go to the "Ferry-tale" (like we call that little piece of heavens in Julian Alps region, near the city of Bled. Its just amazing. I was there for 2 weekends each weekend with different group of kids and youngsters.

For time being I helped two other guides with leading the guide school. It is my favorite task/assignment at camp. With first group we went on the hike on Jelovica. We had a really great weather and awesome time up there where the nature is still amazingly beautiful. With the second group I helped with some lectures and other things that are going on in the guide school.

Once again I was really happy in company of large number of scouts.

BP

Summer schools of 2009

2009-07-20T13:00:00.002+02:00

Each year there are several summer schools organized at our Faculty. Summer schools have different target audience. Some are for high school-ers , students or teachers, and there are some that are for all of them.

Last two weeks, we organized two such events. First was CoLoS summer school for teachers of Informatics. It was about Action Script 3 (wiki, adobe) and Silverlight 2.0 & 3.0 (M$).
All the classes were recorded and streamed to the internet for everyone to see. The official summer school home page can be found here (in Slovene), where you can also get all other information and links.

The other summer school was Development @ iPhone platform. GameTeam group from Faculty of Computer in Information Science, University of Ljubljana created great program for a summer school for everybody to join. From beginners to more experienced programmers.
More about this summer school can be found here. Also this summer school was recorded and streamed over the internet and the archive can be found at the home page of the summer school.

Both schools were a success and will probably return next year. There are more summer schools coming up this summer at our faculty. Here is the list of all of them.

Peru, Bolivia report

2009-05-28T16:55:00.002+02:00

This will probably be my longest post ever. I just had to do a brief overview of where we were and what we have done on our trip and since I was lazy not to write it day by day I'm putting it all in this one post. Hope you like it.

There are also photos from our trip in my gallery here.

Day 1 & 2 - Home, Venice, Madrid, Lima (17. & 18.4.2009)

Well the adventure actually started on the very first day and the adventure involved our airplane tickets. Few months before start of our journey we have booked and bought our airplane tickets. We wanted to have connected flights throughout our journey and that is where the thing started. Because the airliner we were traveling with (IBERIA - we'll say more about it later) didn't have agreement with some other airliner, we couldn't get electronic tickets. We'll OK we thought, we'll get printed tickets and we'll have to take good care of them ... Eeeee, wrong. They told us, that they will send tickets to us, but later we realized that they "sent" them to our departing airport (Venice). OK, we've said. We'll get them before we'll board. Eeeee, wrong again.

When we came to the airport and told them who we are and what we are there for, the told us that there are no tickets for us, even more, that only reservations were made. After several hours of debating we finally convinced them that we were right and they said that they will arrange things for us and that they will call us, when we are ready to go with one of the next flights. Good we said, we'll at least have a chance to see Venice.

We went for a sightseeing and were waiting for the call from IBERIA. But there was no call. After several hours we went back at the airport and asked again what is going on. They told us that we were re-booked on the flight that left just half hour ago. After another hour of negotiations they finally booked us on next flight, gave us electronic tickets and checked us in.

At last, we boarded and left Venice behind. After few hours of waiting at the Madrid international airport for overseas connection, we successfully boarded LAN's (gladly it wasn't IBERIA) Boeing 767 and started the long flight to Lima.

We did loose half a day (actually whole night in Lima), but we were there.

Day 3 - Lima, Ica (19.4.2009)

Because we were a night short we skipped the planned sightseeing in Lima, took a long taxi ride from airport through the city (There is not much too see and it was not really pleasant city - at least for our taste) and went straight for the next city on our list, Ica. Ica is smaller city to the south, what we knew about it, was that there are sand dunes there. After arrival we "accidentally" met a guy (Luis) that was a freelance tourist/travel agent, who spoke really good English. he made a really good offers for buggy ride and sand-boarding, as well as for visit of Ballestas Islands (Glapagos for poor people, as they call them), visit to Nazca Lines and visit of Cruse del Condor. It was a good offer and we took it.

The first thing we did was buggy ride and sand-boarding, we did it in afternoon, since we had to rest a bit and find a place to stay first. It was amazing. The sand dunes were so nice, the ride was adrenaline rush and sand-boarding was great new experience as well. On top of that sunset at dunes was like cherry on the cream.

Day 4 - Ica, Nazca (20.4.2009)

We started the day with a long (50 minutes), slow (max 60 kph) taxi ride to the port where boats for Ballestas Islands start their way on the tour. The islands were great; I've never seen so many birds at such small area, and so many different sorts of birds. There were cormorants , penguins, pelicans and lots of different seagulls. On the island there was uncountable number of sea-lions and the coast was really nice, rocky. There are guano collecting facilities located at the islands, that are collecting bird shit for production.

In the afternoon we have continued our way south to get to Nazca. And we did it in style. Luis organised a ride for us with an old American muscle car; a beauty. The ride was long but fun and we stopped st a sightseeing tower to get the look at the Nazca lines from ground. After we arrived to the Nazca airport we had to wait for our flight over the lines. We had a great pilot, that was willing to do some acrobatics with our 4-seats CESNA airplane, if we will not get sick. It was awesome. Not only the flight but also the sight on the lines far below us and the landscape of half desert.

Day 5 & 6 - Arequipa, Cruz del Condor (21. & 22.4.2009)

After the overnight drive from Ica to Arequipa we just missed our tour to Cruz del Condor, to catch up we took the local bus and start our journey there by ourselves. We were really lucky to meet nice girls (Milagros and Angela), and a woman that used to be a tour guide that helped us with all this. We left our heavy backpacks at the hostel and took with us only the necessities for 2 days. After another long drive with local bus we arrived at our resting place for the day in small village near Chivay.

We had some problems with altitude sickness because of major altitude difference we did in such short time (it was from 600 m to 4900 m and back to 3900 m above sea, where our hostel was). We were very tired, but it was much better next day.

In the morning we went to Cruz del Condor to see those mighty birds, spreading their wings over the second deepest canyon in the world - Colca Canyon. The scenery was amazing. Over 5000m high mountains cut down by the river for more then 2 km. It was as someone would painted tall peaks and put some cream on the highest of them.

On our way back we also encountered vicuñjas, whose wool is really pricey (300 - 400 $ per kilo), not to mention all the llamas, alpacas and donkeys. After we returned to the Arequipa we still didn't have much time for rest. We took a night bus to Cuzco.

Day 7 - Cuzco, Ollantaitambo, Aguas Calientes (23.4.2009)

In the morning we arrived to a nice city of Cuzco. We wanted to find a cheap ride to Ollantaitambo, and to see some attractions as well. Again we had a bit of luck. We got a taxi that rook us all the way and stopped at the places worth visiting. And they were wort visiting. We had to buy Cuzco pass thou that wasn't really cheap, not even with student discount.

On the way we stopped at several places (you can see what is included here:
http://cache.virtualtourist.com/3320694-Cuzco_Tourist_Pass-Cuzco.jpg
). It was very much worth it and the drive through the valleys offered amazing sights as well. There were lots of ruins (probably from Incas).

When we reached Ollantaitambo and wanted to get train-tickets to Aguas Calientes (Machu Picchu), we found out that all the "cheap" tickets for Backpackers train were already sold out. The only choice that we had was to buy the once that were a "bit" more expensive. To put it in numbers. The once we wanted were 31$ (yes 31$ one way and it is US $, for like one hour of drive); the once that we got were 53$. We realized that price varies according to hour of departure, and we also had "fancier" train then people with "cheap" tickets.

Even thou that the tickets were insanely expensive we did have a really nice ride with awesome view at very high peaks on each side of the valley. It was breathtaking. We arrived to Aguas Calientes in early evening, found a hostel and took a walk through the small city.

Day 8 - Machu Picchu, Cuzco (24.4.2009)

We woke up early in the morning and began our ascent to the Machu Picchu. It was still dark and we had a headlamp to show us the way through the jungle at the heights of our highest mountains. The path was well seen and easy to walk on. Because we started so soon we were one of the first people waiting with tickets in front of entrance. Due to early morning hours there was very thick fog all over the place and you couldn't see much.
Once the doors opened the crowd rushed in and spread all over the Machu Picchu. Fog was the reason that the feeling one had was really mystic and almost a bit creepy. After about hour and a half fog started to rise, and over about another hour it was completely gone, leaving behind awesome scenery of the great complex of Machu Picchu.

We took the path to Sun gate to see the ruins from above. To see the remains of once great fortress feels amazing. We had to make our visit fast, due to lack of time; our train left early in the afternoon and there was so much more to see. Sadly we had to skip visit of Waina Picchu, the upper part of fortress.

We left Machu Picchu full of amazing sights and feelings. Upon our arrival to Cuzco we bought tickets for night bus to Puno and enjoyed the evening on the main plaza. Soon we realized that the city is getting more and more alive and that we are leaving a great tourist-party-city behind without attending any of the parties. We sadly realized that too late.

Day 9 - Puno, Titicaca, Copacabana (25.4.2009)

Early in the morning (3 or 4 am), we arrived to Puno and fortunately encountered yet another "tourist guide", that made us a good deal. We booked morning trip to Titicaca floating islands and he offered us to stay at the common room of one of the hostels until the sun gets up and the tour starts. Before the tour started we briefly visited the central plaza of the city.

Taxi picked us up at hostel and took us to the port where we boarded a ship. It is a very big lake, and the waters are very dark, unless there is something green growing on the surface. On the way to the islands guide explained some details of the lake and the floating islands. We stopped at one of these islands and their chief told us how the islands are built, why they living on the islands and how is the life on the islands like. The feeling to walk on those floating islands is good (one can feel if someone runs, jumps, etc.). The main resource on the islands is totora reeds, that is used for building the islands, homes, boats and as food as well.

In the afternoon we continued our way to Bolivia. First stop there was Copacabana, a small tourist city. There was quite a big difference in architecture as well as infrastructure and of course prices and living standard.

We booked into the most fancy hotel in the town for 50 Bolivianos (5€) per person per night including breakfast. The hotel still wasn't very luxurious but it was worth the price. The city was very relaxed and our rest here was good. After all it was only stopover on the way to La Paz.

Day 10 & 11 - La Paz (26. & 27.4.2009)

Running through Peru was very exhausting, especially because we've seen so much more than we planned. That was the reason why we needed a break. La Paz was a perfect spot for our break, since it had everything we needed. Our hotel (Hotel Torino) was in the center of city and it was affordable (30 Bolivianos per night with shared bathrooms was good price). There were many Internet spots with cheap rates (from 2-3 Bolivianos per hour), with good machines and many huegos (games). And we really needed those.

In this 2 days we have booked our tours for days to come, ate some proper food at Burger King and Mc Donald's, went to cinemas few times, drank a lot of Coca Cola and played lots of Warcraft 3 mods. A great relaxation.

Day 12-14 - Uyuni, Salar (28. - 30.4.2009)

In the south part of Bolivia, close to the Chile border there is a large salt dessert - Salar de Uyuni, which was our next destination. We started from La Paz in the evening and reached the Uyuni early in the morning. We looked for a good agency to take us to the desert and beyond on the 3 day tour. We got a really good discount and pretty service.

On the first day we went to see the train graveyard, where many old trains were, that used to drive minerals to the sea (at those times, Bolivia still had sea, but as you should know, nowadays it doesn't have it anymore). Because there was no need of those trains anymore, they were left in the desert to rotten through the years.

After some more driving we have reached the white ground of the salt dessert. The feeling of white ground is really different. Everything is so bright and it's really hard to see any texture when the sun at highest. Salt hotel (the original one) was our first stop in the desert. Hotel built completely from salt (salt bricks, salt tables, salt beds, stc.). We also stopped at the island that once used to be in the watter, but is now only surrounded by salt, where many big cactus's are and where one can see remains of old corals. From the top of the island there is amazing view at the white all around and volcano's at the far ends of horizon. We were driving at about 4000 m all the time and those volcano's were still 1500 to 2000 meter higher. At the afternoon we have left the Salar behind and start driving in volcano-lands where we also slept the first night.

Second day we continued our way to the south through the strange and colorful lands, passing many lakes, seeing many birds, vicuñjas and some other animals, and we finished our day in a small village at 4200m. Last day we got us very early and vent to see "geysers" as they call them. They are actually steam pillars that are bursting from the ground. There are also other form of volcanic grounds like bobbling mud and stinky sulfur steams.

We also stopped at the "aguas calientes" (thermal waters), left two passengers at Chile border and started returning to Uyuni. On our way back we've seen a mini sand twister, remains of old lava flows and listened to a new music that our driver bought during one of the stops.

Day 15 - Potosi (1.5.2009)

We came to Potosi (highest city in the world) with evening bus from Uyuni and thankfully reserved our hostel before we came. The room was waiting for us and we took a good long sleep. In the morning we went for a tour to the mines. It's really funny that you can buy explosive (Dynabol, a Bolivian dynamite) at the market. We bought some as gift for the miners. It used to be a very well payed job to be a miner in this mines. They do not use any new technology at all, the mining is still the same as it was almost century ago. There aren't any plans of all the shafts in the mountain and everybody can dig where he thinks it's best.

The fact that we were in Potosi on 1st of May was the reason that many people were drunk and were celebrating. There were also explosions (small ones) in the city as part of celebrations. We left Potosi same evening and went to Sucre, the constitutional capital of Bolivia.

Day 16 - Sucre (2.5.2009)

1st May evening was very joyful and happy in Sucre once we came there. Many people were out celebrating. It was also much warmer then in Potosi, and also much greener, because of the altitude. We had a good night out and next morning went for a city tour. We unintentionally came over a bus that was driving people to "dinosaurs". We took the bus that took us to the museum where they had replicas of the dinosaurs as well as many posters and also some real bones. This museum was built next to the biggest site where they found dinosaurs footprints in the world. The carbon wall next to museum used to be at the bottom of shallow lake in times of dinosaurs and kept their footprints. It was a pleasant experience to see such site.

In the afternoon we took a walk through the city and bought the tickets for the evening bus to La Paz.

Day 17 - La Paz (3.5.2009)

We took another day off in La Paz when we went for shopping, to get some souvenirs and of course to play some huegos, again.

Day 18 - Tiwanaku (4.5.2009)

Tiwanaku was the cultural heart of South America. Here were found the oldest of all remains of Pre-Inca civilisation. Tiwanaku used to be right next to lake Titicaca, when it's waters were higher. There are not many remains but those that were found tell a story about civilisation that was spread over a large part of South America. There are many theories why they came to an end and why Inca civilisation came to a rise after them.

At the Tiwanaku one can see many monoliths and gates (sun gates, moon gates, star gates), pottery, and even remains of the pyramid that they built.

Day 19 - Death Road, Coroico (5.5.2009)

The world most dangerous road. That was the title that many agencies used to attract people too book a bike ride on THE road. The prices for this trip varied from 260 Bolivianos up to 600+ The difference was in equipment that you got and bikes. We checked the bikes at one of the cheep agencies and their equipment; we were satisfied and we booked there. We took hard-tail, front suspended, mechanic disk Trek bikes that were good enough for the challenge. The bike ride starts at 4750 m and ends at 1170 m. It is downhill all the time. Much fun and pleasure. It takes about 3-4 hours to get down. The first part is asphalt, but later on you get to the old road that is more adventures.

The road is not really dangerous if you drive with caution. We stopped many times so that we regrouped and also for a snack. The temperatures went form about 10 to over 25 in the low part. When we came down we took a shower and had a meal. But we were not the only ones. Sand flies also had a great mean until we managed to escape to a bit higher grounds of Coroico. We met a really nice Swiss couple and realised that we are all on the way to Rurrenabaque.

Day 20-23 - Road to Rurrenabaque, pampas (6. - 9.5.2009)

The 14 hours drive on bus to Rurrenabaque we were driving on almost as dangerous road as the death road is. We also had an unplanned stop in the middle of the night when our bus got stuck in the mud and we had to pull it out of it. Because of that unfortunate event we almost missed out tour in the morning.

When we arrived to Rurrenabaque, there was a man waiting for us at the bus stop. We gladly had time for breakfast before we started our tour to Pampas. To get to pampas we had to survive 3 hours drive with an old Toyota Land Cruiser on a bumpy muddy road. And after that another 3 hours drive on the boat. While the first drive wasn't really pleasing, the second one was awesome. All the green, still water, birds and amazing sky.

In the evening we went to Sunset bar, and after we have left we realised how many mosquitoes there are in pampas. During the day, there isn't a single mosquito around, but only 5-10 minutes after a sundown there are so many that it is unbearable. For me not even repellent didn't do any good. I was bitten so many times, but gladly I managed not to scratch so that it wasn't even worse.

Next day we went on a hunt for anacondas. We were lucky to find not only one but 4. Two of them were mating and two more males were close by. Later we realised that those weren't actually anacondas but were one spices of spitting cobras. This hunt was the worst mosquito encounter ever. I'm glad it's past.

In the afternoon we went fishing for piranhas. Me myself wasn't lucky but together, we coughed enough for everybody to taste some at dinner.

I the evening of the second day we went on a alligator hunt. If you point the headlamp at the eyes of young alligator they glow red, and it is pretty easy to see them. Our guide coughed one and we could held him for a while. It was a pleasant experience. Later we realised that of course that wasn't alligator but a spices of caymans.

On the last day in pampas we went for a swim with dolphins in the morning, and it was great. Water was just of the right temperature. In the afternoon we left for Rurrenabaque. The boat drive was shorter, but car drive took 3 hours again. From Rurrenabaque we took the plane back to La Paz.

Day 24 - La Paz (10.5.2009)

This was last day of our trip for one of us. We used the day to relax, to do his last shopping and for him to pack all the things. The remaining two of us also had to prepare for a trekking plus mountaineering trip we booked for next 4 days.

Day 25-28 - Trekking, Huayna Potosi (11. - 14.5.2009)

We sad goodbye to our flatmate and put him on a taxi for the airport early in the morning and went back to bad for few more hours. Later on we checked out from hotel and went to the agency to try all the equipment packed the one needed for trekking and waited for a ride to our starting point. On that day there were manifestations in the city and almost all the roads were blocked. We spent over a hour just to find non-blocked road to escape from La Paz. After that we had another two hours to get to starting point.

The weather was getting bad for the first time on our travel (except at nights). The weather was getting worse and worse during our first day and at the end it was already snowing. After we put up a camp we went for acclimatisation trip few hundred meters higher and returned for dinner and a good night sleep.

Next day were walking for several more hours over two passes (one 5100m and the other 4900m) and through a long valley. The scenery was amazing. We didn't have many problems with altitude; it was hard to walk uphill but we kept a good tempo and came to the end more then two hours early. After the trekking we took a ride to Huayna Potosi base camp and spent a night there.

Next morning our mountaineer guide came and took us from 4700 m to 5200 m, where we stayed for the rest of the day. Very early next morning (at around 2am) we started our ascend. It should take about 6 hours but we did in 3,5 hours, including all rests and waiting for the sunrise below the top, where it was less windy. The tour wasn't easy but it was beautiful and very much worth all the efforts.

Day 29 - La Paz (15.5.2009)

It should supposed to be the relaxation/packing/shopping day, but it was far from that, at least for me. We both got food poisoning in the mountains and I was feeling really bad whole day; I was vomiting and had diarrhea. Gladly it was much better next day when we had to go to a plane. We were both very tired and had no energy at all.

Day 30 & 31 - Way home (16. & 17.5.2009)

Early in the morning we payed the hotel room for the last time and ordered a taxi to the airport. We had to pay airport tax upon our check-in and we were on our way to Santa Cruz where we had to switch plane to get to Buenos Aires. In Buenos Aires we had few hours time but not as much as we planned, so we couldn't afford to go in the center. We had to wait for our flight and we had to pay airport tax again. On our way overseas our plane run short on fuel and we had to make unplanned stop at Canary islands to refuel our plane. That was the reason that we missed our connection from Madrid to Venice and had to wait for the next flight.

Finally we landed in Venice where friends parents were waiting for us to take us home.

Again, you can find photos from our trip here.

Peru, Boliva

2009-04-16T13:01:00.002+02:00

Another thing that kept me going and took lots of time for preparations is our (my roommates and mine) trip to South America. We are planning this trip for quite some time now, but day after tomorrow is "D" day.

For almost a month we will travel through Peru and Bolivia, trying to see as much of the wonders as possible.

If I'll have a time enough will, I might even write some things here. Wish us luck.

Adios.

End of BSG

2009-04-16T12:52:00.002+02:00

A very sad but on the other hand a very good thing. For those of you that don't have a clue what am I talking about. The sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica has come to an end. It is a good thing because I really enjoy the well closed story throughout the whole series and I especially like the last part.

I almost cried. It was that overwealming. But the producers said they will return with the story from before the on of BSG.

I hope you enjoyed it at half as much as I have.

Arcade dancing

2009-04-16T12:46:00.002+02:00

Yes. One of the things that kept me occupied was my new little addiction, arcade dancing. We have the dance pad in our laboratory at work and I just had to try it out. I must say it's great. Especially for cold evenings when you just can't go for a run.

I discovered that there is quite a large community behind the whole thing and you can find a lot of info about arcade dancing here.

It's a great calorie burner and a sport that keeps you in shape. You just need to do it often enough. I admit I have put it on a side these last weeks, since it is nicely warm outside and I rather go for a run.

We (my roommates and me) are planning a sport event thou that will include arcade dance and some of our friends. Stay tuned.

Zeitgeist Addendum

2009-04-16T12:41:00.002+02:00

Another documentary from the Zeitgeist movement. And I must say it's quite a good one as well. Ok. Well, there is some BS (bullshit) in it but it shows what could have be or what maybe is. It is up to each individual to decide weather he (or she) will believe everything that is stated in the movie.

You can watch the movie on-line here. And I do recommend it. If not anything else, it broadens the mind and perspective.

Finally another post

2009-04-16T12:37:00.001+02:00

Yes, ...

I know. I am a really bad person. But I was really really busy this month. Had a paper to finish, WoW to play, series to watch etc.
You know how it is.

But I have also done some nice things, that you'll be able to read about in the following posts. So let's begin.

Triglav (1.3.2009)

2009-03-02T08:29:00.002+01:00

Like every year we planned to pay a visit to Slovenia's highest mountain last year sometime near Christmas time. Since the weather was terrible at that time we had to postpone our tour to some later day. And that day was yesterday. We started early in Saturday morning and reached the Kredarica cottage somewhere around noon. Our cars were parked more then hour and a half walk further then previous years so it took us a bit longer to get to cottage as usual.
We used the afternoon for relaxation and rest so that we were ready next morning to conquer the peak. And we did.
The weather really nice, except for the wind that was blowing quite hard, and we had to be very careful because of that.
After taking a good look at the surrounding areas (mostly Alps, Slovenian, Italian and Austrian) we started our descent. We packed the rest of the stuff at cottage and head for the cars.
It was really nice.

You can find some photos here.

Skiing in Arabba

2009-02-23T15:23:00.001+01:00

After last years winters holidays in Val Thorens, we have returned closer to home this year in the village of Arabba. We've been here two times already and it was fun every time.

A week of skiing in winter paradise does good to us every year. This year there was more snow then previous two times so it was even better.

I'll put some photos on-line soon and link them here.

Big Endian, Little Endian

2009-02-23T15:09:00.003+01:00

It's more computer science thingy than anything else.

Most of you (CS) people out there have heard about different endian rules when it comes down to handling individual bits of data. There are basically two rules:

Little endian - LSB on lowest address (see wiki)
Big endian - LSB on the highest address (see wiki)

There is also much less popular rule of (Middle endian).
Now one of the interesting things about this rules is where do they come from. And the answer is from inhabitants of island of Blefuscu from the book Gulliver's Travels (see wiki). It's not much, but I wanted to share this little secret with you all.

Long break again

2009-02-23T15:08:00.000+01:00

I know, I know. But I was really busy. It's just one of many excuses that I usually use when I feel bad about not blogging more often.

I do have some posts too publish, I just need to put them into a proper form and publish them here.

Grintovec (30.12.2008)

2009-01-09T14:31:00.003+01:00

In the lowlands of Slovenia weather was very foggy and the clods filled all the sky. Very depressing weather. But we decided to take a nice winter mountaineering trip to 2558m high mountain of Grintovec.

Once we left the lowland and have reached the height of about 900 - 1200m we were astonished. We passed all the clouds and left them beneath us. The sun was shining very strong and there wasn't a cloud in the sky above us.

It was, as some would surely say, "perfect". And it really was. I f you don't believe me trust your eyes and check pictures here.

Series

2008-12-13T13:09:00.003+01:00

Like I mentioned in previous post, I have to refresh the list of current series that I am watching. Let's see how the week is playing along:

Monday: Desperate Housewives, Californication
Tuesday: The Big Bang Theory, Heroes, Prison Break, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Cronicles
Wednesday: Fringe, Eureka (currently on hold)
Friday: Time Warp, The Universe
Saturday: Stargate Atlantis, Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Sunday: Merlin

That's about it. It's quite a lot but I manage to see them all (for now).
And there are also some other series that I am waiting for, like:

Battlestar galactica (final season)
Doctor Who

WoW - Wrath of The Lich King

2008-12-13T12:57:00.002+01:00

Alongside all the things that I am working on, and all the series that I am watching (more about that in the separate post) and all the other things I am keeping myself busy with, I also find a bit of time here and there to spend it in WoW. I have already published a post or two about my little addiction long time ago. And I am starting to realize that it's not really addiction since I am not spending all of my free time in WoW.

Well after more then 6 months of non-playing I have started again. It was only because of the WTOLK (Wrath of The Lich King), another expansion that I have started to play.

I am currently 76 level of 80 and I am enjoying it a lot. The new quests are amazing and I only had a taste of instances. I still won't play a lot, just to get through the content of the game. I'm not really fan of non-stop raiding of PvP play. I am still waiting for the other two Blizzard games (Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2).

Wall-E, Burn-E, Presto

2008-12-13T10:37:00.003+01:00

I know it's a while since the long awaited animated movie from Pixar came on screens, but just a while ago it was released on Blu-Ray as well. And that was what I was waiting for. To see this fantastic movie in full detail. I must say I was astonished by all the detail and finesses that one can see in full HD quality.

I know that I don't write short reviewes anymore, but I had to write something about movie as good as this one. Alongside with Wall-E you get Burn-E on the same disc. It's a short movie but so worth watching as well.

The third title, Presto is yet another short animated movie from Pixar. And I must say, one of the funniest ever. Really really worth watching.

Jump from 4200m aka. Sky diving

2008-11-29T14:41:00.003+01:00

Our research group, Laboratory for Computer Graphics and Multimedia decided that it is time to put our fears aside and face the free-fall.
And we did it. We decided to go to Vrsar a nice Croatian coastal city. While it was really cold and cloudy in Ljubljana, it was sunny and warm (for this time of year) in Vrsar. We prepared for the jump and then took the airplane up to 4200m where we decided to leave the plane and go down our own way. Off course we did it in tandem with instructor on our backs.
But it was fun. All the 40 to 45 seconds of free fall.
The sky was completly clear and the visibility was amazing.
I want to go again. What a feeling.
Some photos are here, but not from the air, since they did not alow us to take the cameras with us (and it was the only righ thing to do).

König See & Großglöckner strasse

2008-11-29T14:17:00.003+01:00

Another post from past.
On our way back from Austria (see previous post), we also stopped in one of most beautiful German resorts that even Hitler wanted for himself - König See. Not that nowadays this is one of more prestige German tourist place, Hitler's followers have build so called Eagle nest for their Fürer there, a nice mansion on top of hill with oversight on the lake and surrounding mountains.

After that we took the Großglöckner road, a mountain high road with nice view at Glöckner group that ends at Franz-Joseph Höhe, where one can see one of Europes largest glacier.

Photos are here.

Salzbug

2008-11-29T14:12:00.003+01:00

A post from past.
When I was returning from my exchange in Austria, Hagenberg, we have stopped in Salzburg for few hours. A nice city with lots of tourist attractions, and lots of things to see. Here are some photos.

Giant crystals

2008-11-29T14:06:00.002+01:00

I usually don't write about news that I pick up here and there. But this one was extreme. I have never heard of crystals as big as there were found in Mexico this October. They are just amazing.
But why say more, when picture is worth more then 1000 words. Check it out by yourself here.

Johanisberg & Mittlerer Barenkoepf

2008-11-29T13:50:00.002+01:00

We were in the mountains once again. And this time we went on two peaks in the Glöckner group. First day we went straight for the first peak, we only stopped at the cottage for so long that we left our backpacks there. First one was Johanisberg (3453m). The weather conditions were not really good, but we were fast. We reached the peak very fast, and it was my first ascend from lowland to more then 3000 in one day, except for flying.
For next day we planned a really long tour, but since the weather forcast was not good, we decided to conquer only a nearby peak - Mittlerer Barenkoepf (3358m). It was a really short tour, but we did the right decition, since it had started to snow during our descent.
Overall it was a nice two day mountain tripp. You can find some photos here.

Xania, Crete - SSMS - Summer School on Multimedia Semantics 2008

2008-11-29T12:39:00.005+01:00

When I was still on my exchange in NZ, my mentor send me an e-mail regarding summer school. It was in the beginning of September, and yes that means I was really really lazy, and have put my blog aside for quite a while.

I hope this is about to change and that I will write here more often again. So let's start.
Xania, Crete. A nice coastal city, with beautiful old town and nice beaches in the neighborhood. 8 days. Well, does it sound nice. I think so. The only problem is that there are lectures 5 of those days, in the morning and in the afternoon. So you really do not have much time to go somewhere. We did have some time to hang out with lots of other Phd. students from all over the Europe and elsewhere as well (Indonesia for instance).
Since I didn't have to pay for anything and we also had some nice organised trips it was nice. On top of that I had the whole Saturday just for myself, and it was really really nice. Lying on the beach in the hot late summer sun. What more would you want. Nice sea just 20m away.
On top of that I also had most of the Sunday to walk around in Athens. I was amazed. It is really nice capital. Well for photos, you'll have to go to my gallery here.

The Last Lecture

2008-09-13T20:18:00.005+02:00

The same day that I found out about Steve Jobs's speech I also heard about this one. And I have to say this is much much better.

This is not only speech but it is a lecture. And as the title already states it is "the last lecture". The lecturer was very good professor, Randy Pausch, from Carnegie Mellon University. It was his last lecture because he had an incurable cancer and he knew he will die really soon.

He made it very good and I recommend everyone to watch it, at least once. All the thing he says and especially the way he says it is just amazing. If all the lectures were half as good the schooling would never be a problem.

Randy shows how the lectures should be prepared, how one should lecture and why. See it for yourself.

link

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates speeches

2008-09-13T20:06:00.003+02:00

Quite a while ago, I have watched two very good speeches from very known persons (almost celebrities). They were speeches from Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to the students at their graduation.

While Steve was invited to Stanford (where he studied for really short time) and Bill was invited to Harvard (where he also studied for really short time). It is funny to know that they both are actually dropouts and never really finished their studies. But they are both successfully now and have as much money as one can have.

Even thou they never finished their studies they still know how to survive in today's world and they gave some really great pointers to all new graduates.

Worth watching.

Steve Jobs's speech

Bill Gates's speech (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Lost Worlds

2008-09-13T19:55:00.004+02:00

If you happen to have too much time and you enjoy watching documentaries, this is a really good documentary series. As the title already tells us it's about lost worlds.

And both words "lost" and "worlds" have a broad meaning here. Yes most parts are about some lost civilizations or nations, but there are also parts that show us what happened in some specific time era in some places. For instance World War II Bunkers, Nuclear stations and more.

It is really fun to watch and you learn some new facts about ancient as well as near history.

Watch it. IMDB link.

Report from Austria

2008-08-01T14:14:00.005+02:00

It was a while ago since I came back form the second part of my exchange in Austria.

As I already said I was there with two other Slovenians and since all the classes were already finished they arranged some other things for us to do.

Our coordinator organized several workshops for us: Motion capture and tracking, Adobe AIR technology and Z-Brush workshop. It was a really good experience to get in touch with people that know a lot in particular area of expertise.

We also took a challenge of writing a plug-in for Maya. A purpose of the plug-in is to import 2D tracked data. That plug-in should help with faster workflow in getting motion captured data to the final model in Maya. This was my first plug-in for Maya, and first Maya programing also. The good thing is that Maya now "understands" Python and that I was able to use it for my purpose since python is really not a hard language to learn.

That a short report from two weeks staying in Hagenberg.

Mauthausen

2008-07-15T15:28:00.002+02:00

Another short trip to a nearby city. This time to one of the historically important city of Mauthausen. This city is important because of concentration camp that was held here during second world war.
Today it is there for reminder what should never happen again. There are monument from all the countries from which there were people in this concentration camp. There is also exhibition that is describing what was happening in all the concentration camps, how many people was there in the camps and where the camps were.
I am also connected to this camp somehow, since my great grand father was there for some time.

Ceske Budejovice

2008-07-15T15:13:00.003+02:00

During my exchange in Austria we didn't have much to do one Sunday and that was the reason for us (two Slovenians I've met there) to pay a visit to a neighbor Czech city of Ceske Budejovice. It was only 1 hour 15 minutes drive away from Hagenberg and it was worth getting there for few hours.
One can see mayor difference when you get from Austria to Czech Republic. There are lots of adds for Night Clubs just 50 meters from the border. Once we reached the city we payed a visit to city center. The center is very well preserved and nice. We didn't remember right away that they don't have Euro in Czech Republic yet.
In Czech Republic the prostitution is legalized and that is one of the reasons why there are many Austrian and German tourists there. There are also many "markets" near the road where you can get cheap 3rd class things.
It was a nice trip and we spend a nice afternoon there. You can also see some pictures here.

Zeitgeist

2008-07-08T10:54:00.002+02:00

I don't know what was the real reason for not watching this really good movie before. But I have watched it now.

This documentary is about origin of Christan religion and how American banks took over the world. It also shows how this is connected to all the wars of the 20th century.

It is a good conspiracy theory documentary that shoes how the money took control of everything that is happening in the world around us and how it can trigger really horrible events. The movie is telling the story of why the world wars were started in the first place and why all the American wars all over the world were started just to put more money in few people's pockets.

Zeitgeist is free documentary that you can watch on-line on google.video with subtitles in many languages. Or you can legally download it over P2P network. You can get more information on movie's official home page.

It is up to you if you believe what is said in the movie or not, but the story does explain everything quite good. However you can make a good story containing many facts that still sound believable.

In Austria

2008-07-08T10:18:00.001+02:00

And here I am.
For more then a week now I got into the living in a small town of Hagenberg im Mühlkreis, near Linz. The town only has about 2000 people and more then half of those are students at the Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences.

There are two more Slovenians here on the second part of Leonardo program. As it turned out I am not working on the project homepage. They prepared some special workshops and presentations for us and gave us an option of using their equipment. And that is a good deal. They have a lot of hi-tech equipment worth thousands of euros.

A really good is motion capture system. The real one. Just like one of those that are used in film industry more and more recently. And we have a chance of using it. For the price I must say I expected lot more. I'll write more at some later time, when I am done using it.

So far I must say I am enjoying my staying here since there is something new to discover almost every day. And I really like that a lot.

I will write more once I finish my exchange here and get back to Slovenia.

Diablo III

2008-07-08T10:07:00.002+02:00

One of my favorite games was surely Diablo II. And ever since I stopped playing it I wanted a bit more from it. I wanted the story to go on, I wanted more arcade RPG gameplay, I wanted more incredible cinematic videos and finally I wanted more Diablo.

Diablo II was an awesome game, with the expansion set was even more awesome, and that was the reason that I always felt a need of next part.

And just a little more then a week ago (28. June) Blizzard suprised me and anounced the third part of ghotic saga. They gave out lots of information about what the game will look like, what the background story will be like and how the gameplay will be like.

I read the whole site the moment I get a chance and I was really setisfied with all the effort that they are putting in makeing the game.

But not just Diablo III; Blizzard is known to put lots of efforts in creating all of their games. Just look at the World of Warcraft and few months back anounced Starcraft II.

This is the way to produce unforgettable experiences and to put the right amount of right content into each and every game that you put on market.

Can't wait to buy my own Diablo III and start playing it.

Homology

2008-06-26T17:09:00.002+02:00

One of my courses in first semester of postgraduate study was called Geometrical Homology. It is a mathematical course that tries to connect mathematicians and computer scientists.

Part of assignment was also to implement algorithms that are described in chapter 7 of the following book:

Zomorodian, A. J., Ablowitz, M. J., Davis, S. H., Hinch, E. J.,
Iserles, A., Ockendon, J., and Olver, P. J. 2005 Topology for Computing
(Cambridge Monographs on Applied and Computational Mathematics).
Cambridge University Press.

You can find all other details if you get the source with README from SVN repository.

We did it in Java and we decided to publish our results.

We presented our work at seminar (link).

The algorithms were programmed in Java 1.6. You can get sources from public SVN repository:
svn co http://svn.andrej.com/homology/

The algorithms were developed by Marko Toplak, Damjan Glad and me with a lot of help and supervision of our mentors Andrej Bauer and Neža Mramor Costa.

http://tyroneohia.com/

2008-06-26T16:46:00.003+02:00

A friend of mine from New Zealand started his blog some time ago. It's basically his portfolio page that shows his work.
You can find it here.

Since he's a good designer and artist I think it's worth a look. He has some really good things there and I'm sure there is a lot more to come.

Keep up the good work Tyrone.

to Austria I go

2008-06-26T16:41:00.003+02:00

Like I mentioned in one of the previous posts I have to get to second part of my exchange in Austria next week. This will be a short exchange (2 weeks only) and I'll probably work on EUNZ
This is home site for the exchange project that I was on. And we have to make the site more current and add some new content.
I'll see how will all end. I think I'll have good time up there for this 2 weeks. And I also think I'll make my German a bit better again, sice I used to know quite a lot of German.

Wish me luck. home site.

Waiting on Airport and back home again

2008-06-26T16:30:00.003+02:00

I didn't have lot of luck on my way back home from Hong Kong. When I arrived to Hong Kong International airport I already found out that my flight will be delayed. And yes it was delayed, for 6 hours. And that was enough for me to miss my flight from London to Zagreb.

We landed in London just few minutes before my plane should take off. But I missed it. Air New Zealand sent me to hotel with buffet dinner, bad and breakfast and they book new flight for me next day. And that was it. When I arrived to the airport again next day I realised that that was it for real. They only reserved new ticket for me, but they did not pay it. And they reserved 800€ ticket for me. I tried to get in touch with them to find out if thete is any slution, but there was no way I could get in contact with them before the middday and that is why I looked for new ticket, cheaper then the one they offered me.
The cheapest one I could find was 500€. And yes, I had to pay aditional 500€ just to get from London back home. Ridicolus!!!

But what can I do. I'll make sure that next time all my tickets will be connected so I won't have any additiona expences. It was expensive school thou.

But I'm home. And that is what metteres. I started my job again and since I'll be here only for a week I don't really have to do much. The real work will start when I return from my second prat of Exchange. But more about that in some later posts.

Classes in NZ

2008-06-26T15:31:00.016+02:00

I will write something about the results of my study down under in New Zealand.

Computer Illustration:

First assignment was to produce three illustrations in no matter what medium. I chose Photoshop and my themes were Wizard, Necromancer and Mountains. I have bigger image (A4 size) of wizzard, so if you want it just send me an e-mail.

Second assignment was to create character and bring to the class. Later on we had to make the combined illustration from some of the characters.

Maya:

My project for Maya class was to create a WoW (World of Warcraft) character as good as I can in 3 months time, while learning Maya software almost from scratch. I was very setisfied with my reults. I have bigger images (A3 size), so if you want them just send me an e-mail.

Animation:

In animation class we had two projects. First was called Spring, where we could make any kind of animation connected to this word. The second project was 10seconds. The goal of second project was to create exactly 10 seconds long animation. I also entered the 11second club competition with my second project. I didn't really expect much, because my main focus was on lipsync, while other mostly made whole body animations.
Here is the link to 11second club homepage.

Spring:

10 seconds:

ARS 2008

2008-06-26T15:26:00.003+02:00

Adventurerace Slovenia 2008 is finished.

more about the race you can find on the official page and live page.
This year there was one major difference from previous years. There were two categories one for teams with 2 members (Rover) and one for teams with 4 members (Explorer). The live support went quite smooth and the race it self went smooth as well. The track was a little bit too long.

Official sites:
http://www.adventurerace.si
http://live.adventurerace.si
You can also chech the photos in the gallery here.

Hong Kong

2008-06-26T15:23:00.002+02:00

As on my way to New Zealand I did a short stop on my way back as well.
I stopped in Hong Kong for two days to make some sightseeing. I can say it was very worth it. Hong Kong city is very different from Dubai. While there are almost no people in Dubai, there are always lots in Hong Kong. The city is very alive and that is a good feeling. It is also not as "fancy" as Dubai. You can find really bad parts of city somewhere and very clean and modern in other parts.
That gives a city a distinctive feeling. While everything in Dubai is still is still under construction, you can see very nice completed parts of city in HK.
They also have many different types of public transportation. MTR (Subway), buses (double deckers), trams, taxis and ferries. I've tried many of them.
There is also a light show every evening at the bay, where the high business buildings are flashing in different colors. The show is on for about 10 minutes and it's fun to watch.

The nicest part of HK at night is Mong Kok. All the neon signs are lighting the street so it's almost as bright as during the day. The feeling of night market full of useless junk. The feeling is what counts.

One of more beautiful parts of HK is peak. The view up there is amazing. Especially at night when everything is lighted and all the lights are on. You can find some of most expensive apartments up there. They don't really look that nice from outside, but I believe that the view is what counts.

Apart of heat and humidity, HK was really nice experience. And if you do have some time you should definitely stop there sometime.

You can find some photos from Hong Kong here.

Prism stones

2008-06-08T06:42:00.005+02:00

Last weekend we went out for a walk with two of tutors from WSD. We were looking for a very rare phenomena that happens only in two places in the world. At least that's what thay told us.

The strangely shaped stones are shaped like prisms, because of the wind erosion. The strange combination of sand beach, wind and stones are reasons for their creation.

You can see them in the album here.

DesignSchoolNewZealand

2008-06-08T06:00:00.001+02:00

Abou a week ago one of the tutors here at Wanganui School of Design started student blog.
It's called DesignSchoolNewZealand and you can find it at this link.
There will be published different things from and for students of WSD.

Thnx Tanya for that :)

Looking through the telescope

2008-06-02T00:50:00.000+02:00

For the first time, I had a chance to look through the magical device - telescope. And I must say I was really amazed. Last Friday I went to observatory here in Wanganui since they have public open days every Friday.
I was also lucky that the sky was clear and that there were two biggest planets up that night. We had a chance to see Saturn and Jupiter with few of their moons. I saw planets that close for the first time (except from photos). I was in trance.
After we've seen the gassy giants we turned the telescope to some other points in the sky. First was the globular cluster. A group of several hundred thousand stars just outside our milky way.
After that we took out the smaller telescope and checked several other things. One was twin star of Alpha Centaur, we also checked several open clusters and one nebula.

It was indescribable. I'll go back if the weather will be clear. And I'll put down some more facts about the telescope itself

South Island Report

2008-06-01T11:15:00.002+02:00

Finally after weeks of putting it aside, doing other more important stuff for school, I've found time to write report from south island. Here it is and it's not short.
And with the report goes the photos as well, they were on for long now, but here is the link.

Day 1:
Wanganui - Wellington
Our journey started in the morning from student flats in Wanganui. We turned our car in direction of Wellington and start driving. The weather was nice and the roads weren't too full either.
Just few kilometers before Wellington we've seen the sign for a car museum and stopped there to check it out. As it turned out it was well wort it. The car collection was so big, nice and well preserved. They had cars from beginning on. And not only cars they had bikes and motorcycles as well.
After two amazing hours we hit the road again. We came in Wellington in the afternoon and first checked where our ferry for south island is leaving from.
After we found the place we went in the center of city and payed a visit to city museum and private gallery. We walked along few roads in the center and decided to go to botanical gardens that were just on the hill in the city. We spent few hours there to walk several trail and stopped at interesting spots.
We still had some more hours to spent before our ferry departure. And we went to cinema to check what they are rolling.
After the movies we went to the beach and finally ended at ferry terminal where we waited until 2am for boarding.

Day 2:
Picton - Kaikoura
After a nice sleep on the ferry we started our way on the south island. From Picton, where the ferry came in, we went in direction of south. We still didn't get enough sleep and that was the reason that after few kilometers of drive we stopped for a short rest (2 hours). After we were awake again we continued our journey. We stopped at the salt works at Lake Grassmere for a while. Soon after that we the road hit the coast. The views were amazing.
In the afternoon we came to the end of first days traveling in Kaikoura. Since there were still several hours before the sunset we went for a walk along beach to get to the seal colony. The walkway was great and led us from cliffs to low beach. And yes we also encountered seals there. After the walk we planned to pick a tent somewhere around, but sadly weather was getting worse and it started to rain. So we searched for a hostel and found one. We cooked our meal and went to bed.

Day 3:
Kaikoura - Christchurch - Banks peninsula - Christchurch
Our destination for this day was Christchurch and Banks peninsula. That meant a lot of kilometers of driving and so we started early in the morning. We continued on coastal road for several more kilometers and finally turned inland. The scenery completely changed. The grassy hills were just amazingly beautiful.
In the early afternoon we came to Christchurch and found our hotel there. We were staying in the middle of the town in a 4 star hotel with buffet breakfast.
After we checked-in we continued our journey to Banks peninsula to the south-east of Christchurch. The scenery there was again amazing. We did two short walks on the peninsula and returned to city late in the evening. We still didn't have enough and so we went out to see how the city looks at night.

Day 4:
Christchurch
After a really great breakfast we started the sightseeing in the city. We walked through the center. We payed a visit to the art gallery and city museum. The museum was really nice, especially the kids area. They had collections of birds, fishes, arctic expeditions, early settlement things and more. After museum we went to park. A really big park in the middle of the city and in that park we went in the botanical gardens, where they had closed environments of rain-forest, desert and few other environments. They also had nice collection of meat eating plants and cactus.
After that we went to HitLab, where they had demonstrations of all the things that they were currently working on. It was amazing. They are researching cutting edge technologies of augmented and virtual reality. You can find more on their website (here).
After we went back to our hotel we went for an American (Wisconsin) burger and back to hotel. There was again long drive waiting for us next day.

Day 5:
Christchurch - Mt. Cook Village
In the morning there was quite a lot of traffic in the city and it took us a while before we came out of the city. We started our trip to the heart of south island and so we went inland to the southwest of Christchurch. At first we had bad weather with rain. But we were nearing our destination and came to the really nice places the weather started to get better and better. We passed Lake Tekapo and stopped at the Mt. John observatory near there. The center of NZ astronomical observations. After few more kilometers we reached the biggest lake in NZ, Lake Pukaki. And that was the first time we've seen it - the highest mountain in NZ, Mt. Cook - Aoraki. We drove along it and onwards to the Mount Cook Village. That was close to mountain.
After we finished our lunch and picked the tent in the camp, we went for a walk for a short walk on a track nearby. It was amazing. The mountains around were so beautiful. After we came back I stayed outside for another hour laying on soft grass, enjoying a nice view at the stars.

Day 6:
Mt. Cook Village - Dunedin
The night was really cold and windy. The wind got worse and worse. And we woke up in windy morning with few snowflakes falling down on us. After we had breakfast in a cooking shelter we went for a short walk to one of the other tracks in the area. As every day there was long way to go this day also. We drove past Pukaki lake again, enjoying it's gorgeous color and size. We were heading for the east coast again and we were passing really nice landscape on our way. Somewhere along the road we stopped to take a look at very old Maori drawings on walls.
We passed several more lakes, all of them really beautiful. After several kilometers along the coast we stopped again to see very famoues stones: Moeraki Bolders (Kaihinaki). These are spherical stones that grow under surface. The see was washing the land away and that is how they got exposed.
We continued our path south and hit Dunedin soon. We didn't stopped and were continuing our drive to the nearby Otago peninsula. We went to Albatross colony shelter, the only albatross nesting area on mainland in the world. The weather was getting worse and we stopped at private backpackers place which as run by very nice old man. After the dinner we went out for a walk to see seals or penguins, but unfortunately we didn't encounter any. But I did manage to lose my glasses. We went out later to search for them but without luck. Later on we went for a chat with owner and he told us many stories that he lived through.

Day 7:
Dunedin - Milford Sound
After a really nice sleep on Otago peninsula we went to search for my glasses again, and this time we were more lucky. I got them back. We also found out that there was first snow of the year in the nearby hills. After search and rescue mission we went to Dunedin and stopped for a short time to check our e-mail account and get some news from the world. This day we had the longest part in front of us. Our goal was to get all over from east coast to the west coast in Fjordland.
We only stopped for a short time in Gore to get more food for our journey. After that we were driving for hours and hours. We encountered now on one of the passes. The first encounter with Fjordland was in Monapouri next to the lake with same name. And it was just B.E.A.utiful. Few kilometers later we stopped in Te Anau to get some warm clothing like gloves and hats. Te Anau is next to big Lake Te Anau that is surrounded wit hills and mountains. So nice. It was already getting dark and we still had lots of kilometers in front of us. So we filled out tank with gas and went on. The night caught us on the way. and we had amazing view at the sky full of stars and moon. And on top of that there were mountains all around us. It's just indescribable. We came to Milford sound at 10pm and got ourselves a room at backpackers. After a good dinner we went to the Milford sound (fjord) itself and walked a short path there. We also went to a really nice waterfall, where we wouldn't be able to in day.
Full of excitement and pleasure we went back to backpacker and took a well deserved sleep.

Day 8:
Milford Sound - Somewhere south of Queenstown
As every morning we put some food in out bodies and start adventuring. First stop was Miford sound. Completely different then at night and still amazing. We started our way inland again. First we stopped at some really nice dawns that created amazing things out of rocks. Wild structures. We stopped for another short walk with magnificent view at glacier in the mountains. Few more kilometers back inland we stopped again. This time for a longer walk. We went for several hour walk on one of the trails to Key Summit. It was breath taking. So nice, that we just couldn't stop and went one for few more hours then we planned. And it was much worth it. The scenery was so amazing, the colors so beautiful. So many greens, so beautiful.
After we returned from out walk we still had long way in front of us. We stopped at another dawns and Mirror lake. And then continued our way back inland. We were driving till late in the evening. And stopped to take some pictures of amazing night sky. We settled at one of the resting stops in the middle of nowhere. We cooked dinner, picked the tent and slept till morning.

Day 9:
Somewhere south of Queenstown - Queenstown - Franz Josef Village
After breakfast we went to Queenstown, walked around a bit. It's a really tourist city. We stop at cybercafe for hour and bought something for eat. After that we were on road again. This time to northwest to get to the West coast. The landscape was amazing. We also passed lakes Wanaka and Hawea and started to ascent to Haast Pass. The weather was getting worse again. But it cleared when we reached the West coast in Haast. Again the landscape was so beautifull.
We had cloudy weather with few showers till we reached our destination. But before that, we stopped at Fox glacier and enjoyed the view from far. In the evening we came to Franz Josef Village and settled in hostel there.

Day 10:
Franz Josef Village - Greymouth
After everyday morning routine we drove to the Franz Josef Glacier and went on the walk from there. It was about hour one way to reach the face of the glacier and it was well worth it. While there were many kindergartens (groups of tourists with a guide) that were actually going in the glacier we didn't go that far. We didn't have the right equipment. And guided tour were just too expensive.
I would never take such responsibility on myself. The walking on glacier is just to dangerous even if you are expert you have to be very careful. We did see the glacier from close, we even touched it. And we also went on a viewing track, so we had a nice overview on the glacier. It's amazing.
The special thing about this glaciers (Fox & Franz Josef) is that they are coming down to very low altitudes, almost as far as 300 m above the sea.
After glacier experience we had lots of kilometers of road ahead of us. Next stop was Hokitika, a greenstone hometown. First we walked along the beach and looked for some greenstone there. As we later found out we didn't found any. After the beach walk we went to center and payed a visit to few greenstone shops there. In some of them they are even showing how they work the stones to get the nice outcomes. The process is called carving. After a small lunch we continued to our final destination for the day. And that was Greymouth the home of New Zealand's most known beer: Monteiths.
After the dinner we went to tour in the brewery. It's quite small brewery and they don't really produce that much beer. They have 6 sorts of beer and at the end of the tour we had chance to taste them all.
My best is Radler.
That was the a nice end of the day for all of us.

Day 11:
Greymouth - Collingwood
Again there was long way in front of us. We had to go all the way to the north most point of south island. Our first stop on the way was seal colony at Cape Foulwind near Westport. Seals were resting at the coast and some young ones were running around exploring the neighborhood.
From there we continued our way inland to the Nelson region. We reached the north coast at Motueka and continued to west. We stopped at the pass and took a short walking path to the viewing spot. Again we were stunned of beauty that we saw and it was again completely different that we saw earlier. Several more kilometers and we reached the Collingwood in the early evening. We stayed in nice hostel Somerset. After the dinner we went out to beach and through the village itself. It's a really small village with about 250 people. The tide was out, far out and we had a chance to walk far into the area which is under water for half the time.
I slept in the 3rd flour of bunk bed, very very high above the ground.

Day 12:
Collingwood - Picton
This was last day of our south island adventure. We started with visiting the north most point of island. There is an arch there and it looks nice. After that we went on a short walk to a nearby hill to check the view. From the hilltop we were able to see the Farewell Spit as well as well as inland of Nelson region and the city of Collingwood. After the ascent we went for Farewell spit. It's a sand peninsula of 21 km of length and you can only get to the end with organised tours that were too expensive for us. We took the cheaper tour. We went into Farewell Spit for two kilometers on foot, we crossed it and then returned on the outer beach. And man that was exciting. At first it all looked just like an ordinary sand coast but soon all started to change. The vegetation was getting rarer and rarer, until at some point there was only sand left. That was where we crossed the dune to reach the other side of spit. On our way across I found some fresh watter and it was drinkable. The outer coast was even more extreme. You were able to see hoe each wave left new layer of sand on the coast.
It was amazing.
We were fortunate to have a really nice day and it felt almost like walking in desert.
After we returned from spit we still had to go all the way to Picton. And that's why we didn't made any stops but one for the gass.
We reached Picton at 9pm and stayed in hostel there. The weird thing about that hostel was that almost all the people there were German and so you could mostly hear just Gearman language everywhere.

Day 13:
Picton - Wanganui
In the morning of our return day we went on ferry and again witnessed a miracle. When our ferry was going out from south island it had to go along the Queen Charlotte Sound. The morning colors and rays in the deep waters of Sound were amazing. We even saw few dolphins that were swimming next to ferry for a short time. The only problem was that it was really cold and windy. But I stayed on deck anyway.
When we reached the ocean the waves were really high and weather was getting worse. I went back in for the rest of our drive.
Just before noon we reached Wellington and weather was much better there. The only part of our travel was the road back to Wanganui. After few hours of drive we were back home. And another adventure was behind us.

Going south

2008-04-12T02:21:00.005+02:00

Yes. The time has come for the mighty adventurers to head south. We have been waiting for this time to come for some time now. And now, when the date of the departure is coming very near, we have to do some final preparation, so that party will travel safely and won't get lost on the way in the mysterious land that awaits them.

The departure time is tomorrow (13th) in the morning hours.

Party came up with a plan how they will travel in the unknown land of south. Here you can see their plan in the unknown land.
In this last day we must purchase the food and drink, and pack everything together so that the departure will be when it should be.

It will be long.

Party plans to return on 25th.

It will be hard.

There are more then 3.000 km just on south to do.

It will be unforgettable.

There will be much to see.

Wish them luck and bare with them on their journey in the south.

More will be written upon their return from "THE SOUTH"...

Road Trip #2

2008-04-05T20:35:00.000+02:00

I was really lazy last week and I didn't write any post. But anyway. here is the first one to break the silence.

On the easter weekend we had 5 days off, so we planed a longer road trip on the north island.

Day 1.
We had to do some starting millage. On our way up we went around the Mount Ruapehu, the highest mountain on the north island. We went past it on the east side on the so called "Desert road". Later some of the local people told us that there is a training area for NZ army there. And that they were shooting the great battle of Lord oft The Rings there.
Our first stop was Lake Taupo. Its a grat lake with really nice landscape around there. We made a short stop in city of Taupo. Its nice beach there but we didn't have time to stop there for a swim.
Just few miles to the north of Taupo we stopped at Hakka falls. This are really big rapids wit the fall at the end. The water is so wild there.
The second thing there, just few minutes away was "Craters of the Moon". This is a park with 45 min walk where you can see what thermal ground means. There was smoke coming out from small pitches and cracks in the ground everywhere. And there was hot mud lake there as well.
Next stop on our final destination of the 1st day was hot stream that was running through the forrest several kilometers to the north. We first went there to check it out. And then put our swimsuits on and get into it. It was really hot spring in the middle of the forest (at least 40ºC if not more). We were in there just for few minutes.
After that we went to city of Rotorua. A really stinky place. But the smell was there because of all the thermal smoke at that area. We had a hard time finding the place to sleep and finally found it in Korean youth hostel. It was not very tidy but we lived.

Day 2.
On the second day we paid a visit to the beautiful lakes around the Rotorua in the morning and had breakfast at one of those lakes (Green lake, Blue lake, Lake Tarawera). We found out that there were really great terraces close to those lake before 19th century, when eruption of nearby volcano put them to rest in depths of one of the lakes. The volcano also buried one village in that area.
Our next stop was Watakane. We hoped that we could see the White island from there (an active volcano island), but it was too far from the shore to see it. We passed several lakes on our way to Wakatane. We bought tent there, and reserved the place to sleep in Tauronga. We got a space by the YHA. From Watakane to Tauronga we took the coastal road and stopped on the way for a swim. The beach was really beautiful and the waves were really gigantic. It was a white sand beach.
When we came to Tauronga, we cooked the dinner and went out on the Jazz festival that was on on the Easter weekend. The center of the city was full of life and it was really nice. After the concert was over we went through the center where all the clubs were filled with young drunk people. The feeling was amazing. So many people at one place. We didn't join them thou.

Day 3.
We started in the morning wit a tour through th Tauronga and neighbor city Mt. Manganui. The cities are sticking together and you can't really tell where one ends and the other begins. mt. Manganui got its name by the mountain (its a small hill actually) that stands up at the coastal ridge. It's quite prestigious city with fancy building and hotels and a really nice coast.
After that we continued our was in direction of Auckland. We took the Pacific Coast Highway and paid a visit to Coromandel peninsula. Its a really nice hilly peninsula that stretches out of the north island. The landscape there is just amazing. We went through few tourist cities on our way up, and they looked quite prestigious. We reached our most north point this day in city of Kuaotunu. The coast there is amazing. From cliffs to sand beach full of shells. There were shells all over the coast there and it was amazing. We continued our way to the city of Coromandel. The weather gave up on us and it started to rain when we got there, so we didn't see much of the attractions there. But we did see some of its really nice landscape. The views there were amazing.
We continud our way along the Coastal Highway with plenty of nice views. We reached the Auckland in the evening and were happy that we booked our rooms day before at International YHA. This hostel wasn't as nice as the one in Tauronga but it did the job.
After the dinner we went out to explore the city at night. The city has 1.2 million people but it covers large area so the population isn't concentrated as in cities in Europe. There are still some high building in the center. We went to coast, where all the life should be (according to the guy at information center). There were several nice restaurants but all the clubs were closed because it was Easter Sunday. We went to the highest building in the south hemisphere - the Sky Tower. And the view at night was amazing. All the lights of the city were spreading as far as the eye could see.

Day 4.
After we woke up we started our tour around the Auckland. First we went to the art gallery that was really close to our YHA. We were lucky since there was no entrance fee on that Monday. Only half of the gallery was opened because the main part was being renovated. After that we went for a walk to the Museum, but turned around and get the car, since it started to rain.
The museum was fantastic. You can see so many things there that you just can't believe. This was one of the best museums that I've been to.
After we finished with the museum we looked for an aquarium for more than half an hour. We were on the right street but we just couldn't find it. We gave up and started our travel back to the south.
Next stop was Hamilton. We found out that there are nice gardens there and so we went there. And yes, they were really nice There were all kinds of gardens from all over the world there. From Japanese Zen garden to Chinese garden, English garden, Modern American garden, Italian renaissance garden, and more. There was a big park around the complex, but we didn't have time to see it.
We continued out way to Waitomo caves. We reached the caves late in the evening. We had a dinner and after that we went for a night walk in the land of "glow worms". And it was amazing. The walk takes around 45 minutes and you can see lots of blue glowing worms right next to the track. It's beautiful.
When we came back we put the tent up and slept till the morning.

Day 5.
In the morning we went to one of the caves there "Ruakuri caves". It was a nice experience. On our way through the cave we met the group on their dark water adventure. The cave was amazing.
When we got back from the caves we did the same walk that we did the night before. And we saw many more things and went to the natural tunnel that we missed at night.
After that we started our return. It took us many hours of drive to gat back to Wanganui. The landscape was nice all the time. It was amazing.

You can see the photos from out trip in my gallery here.

No more movies spam

2008-04-05T10:27:00.001+02:00

Yes, I have decided.
I will not post my movie reviews on this blog anymore. If the movies won't be really really great and worth it.

Open studios

2008-04-05T09:58:00.003+02:00

This and last weekend were the Open studio weekends in Wanganui, when all the art studios in the city open their doors for anyone to visit.

As far I went in Green Bench studio where Julian and his wife are settled in.
She is a graphics designer and he is a computer scientist that took the art with it. He had an exhibition on reusing old things. Especially computers and all stuff connected to them. One of his projects is called geekosystem. He uses paper shredder to shred all computer manuals and create soil from them. He mixed the shredded manuals with the coffee beens and watter and planted some seeds in there.
He also had workshop on how to reuse old computer parts. and some people made nice artworks from old transistors, chips and other stuff. I made myself a working radio station in the box.
It was really nice experience to handle the hardware. I havend done much of that even thou that I'm a computer scientist myself.

Here are some pictures of my FM radio station.

Road Trip #1

2008-03-26T11:54:00.003+01:00

Yes there was the first road trip for us a weekend before Easter. I was lazy and didn't write anything about it for quite a time. And now time has come to put some words here about it.
For our first road trip we choose Mount Taranaki. The second highest mountain on New Zealands north island.
It's a very mighty mountain in the middle of flat landscape all around. The mountain is a dead volcano. It is proud and overlooks the great landscape around it.
The area around the mountain is National park and is really nice covered in very colorful forest.
Our at begun at around 900m above the sea level. And took us all the to the peak at 2518m.
Only two of us managed to summit. It took us 8h and some more minutes to get from our car to top and back again. We'll have to get into better shape for future summits.
But this was only first day of our trip. We concluded the trip in New Plymouth where we fell asleep as soon as we got our beds.
On the next day we looked arroud the New Plymouth, payed a visit to art gallery and one of the parks. After the New Plymouth we went on te Highway 45 that goes on the west coast around mount Taranaki. On our way back we also visited the Dawson Falls. They were really nice.
Late in the evening we concluded our first road trip back in Wanganui.

You can see some pictures in my gallery here.

A car

2008-03-12T11:46:00.004+01:00

Yes. We did it. We (my 2 flatmate's and me) bought ourselves a car.
It's an 92 Ford Laser. It has small engine so the gas consumption shouldn't be high. And that is great.
It cost us 1.700 NZ dollars, so it wasn't expensive. Now we'll be able to get around to some nice places we wanted to go.
Maybe we'll do the first trip this weekend.
Anyway here is the picture of it at night. I'll put one in a daylight up soon too.

The beach - 2nd time around

2008-03-12T11:37:00.003+01:00

We went to the beach again last Sunday. The weather was not that good but we still tried out the water. We went to the other beach this time around to see the cliffs.
They were quite nice, but the beach was not so nice. There were quite a lot trashes there.
We went back to the beach where we were last time and ran into the ocean. It was cold and the waves were high, the current was strong also. We weren't in for a long time.
On our way back we stopped at botanical park, where there were many plants thet can be found in New Zealand and elsewhere in the world.
You can see the pictures of our trip here.

Study in New Zealand

2008-03-08T02:03:00.002+01:00

I have chosen three classes here:

Computer Illustration (3 credit points)
Is a class where I will try to learn to draw. For the first part of the class we have to do 3 illustrations with any medium. I have chosen the Photoshop and Wacom tablet as my medium for this first assignment. I have also chosen the theme I'll be working on.
I will try to create a wizard in different circumstances (spell casting, summoning, channeling).
Animation (3 credit points)
In this class we are learning the basic of animation. We did the stop motion here. For our assignment we have to do a short animation. It can be as short as 6 seconds, but it has to follow the basic principles of the animation.
Maya (9 credit points)
In this class we are learning how to 3D model. We are working on Maya.
My project here will be to create the 3D model of Blood elf female mage from World of Wordcraft.

All the classes are very good, but they take a lot off time to get the things done. I enjoy them.

Playing with toys

2008-03-08T01:41:00.005+01:00

Yes it's true. That is what we are doing in our school. We are playing wit toys.
At animation class we had to bring toy character for our stop motion animation practice. I had no toys with me, so I had to buy some new ones. And I bought Lego's Bionicles. Two small robots that I could use for my stop motion practice.
So what is stop motion?
Some of you might remember the well known stop motion movie "Nightmare before Christmas". This is type of movie where you have to create frame by frame with help of miniature scene and characters. You have to get each and every shot for the complete animation.
I did three short movies. The first one is not for the public, because it's too bad, but here are other two movies put together.
You can find the video on youtube (here)
We only had 3 hours to learn the principles of stop motion and create some test videos. I'm quite pleased with my output. If we would have more time we could create so much more :)
It's fun doing it at first, but after a while you get really bored.

Swimming in the ocean

2008-02-26T01:42:00.000+01:00

Yes. I did it again. It was quite a while since I have last swim in the sea, and even longer since I have swim in the ocean. I did it in Portugal few years back.
And I did it again here. The waves in the ocean are so much bigger. You just can't believe it.
On Saturday we (flatmates and me) went to a beach a little to the north of Wanganui (10 min car ride). And we went to a beach. It was a nice fine dark send beach. The weather was not extremely hot, but it was really nice. The water was quite cold, but when you jumped, it wasn't that bad.
As I already said the waves were fantastic. We were passing the rugby ball in the water.
The current was quite strong and the tide went out quite fast, leaving behind even more fine dark send.
I hope we'll repeat it someday.

First week in school

2008-02-25T00:31:00.000+01:00

Well. It's over (I mean the first week), so I should probably write something about it.
The school here is quite different then in Slovenia. For instance. The main goal of your study here in NZ is to create something that will help you get a job. So if you want to get a job in animation field your product should be good animation that you could show as your portfolio when you are applying for a job.
This is way different then in Slovenia. The goal there is for you to reach certain degree of knowledge when you get out of the school.
Both types of education are good by they differ quite a lot. The NZ system is much more competitive and forces you not to disclose everything that you have done by now.
However people are still happy to share knowledge of how did they achieve something,
It is really relaxed school and everyone is very kind.
We already have some assignments that we have to do this week. The school doesn't force to do much, you only have to do as much as it's necessary to pass. Every additional work is up to you. But students here are very hardworking and they want to do as much work as they can. Well, most of them at least.
This is probably because the fees here are not cheep. And if you pay for your education (it is still free in Slovenia) you will want to get out as much as you can.

Walk around the Wanganui

2008-02-16T09:32:00.003+01:00

Today we (two American roomies and me) walked across the city of Wanganui. On our way we went through several parks, a reserve, to the beach and back through the city to our flats.

We made more then 20 km and were walking for about 5 hours. It was nice tripp even thou the wind was blowing really fast.

Here are some photos from our walk.

I'm in New Zealand

2008-02-16T08:34:00.003+01:00

Finally. I hve some time to write something about my coming to New Zealand.
Now that I'm here almost for a week I can write some things about my new home.

I'm living here in international student flats that are situated near old Universal College of Learning (UCOL) Campus. I have my own room but I share Two bathrooms, kitchen and livingroom with 5 more international students. The flats are not really new, neither are they well preserved, but they do the trick.

Wanganui School of Desugn (WSD) is part of UCOL. The whole UCOL is moving to a new campus and will be united after ager of living in separation. We are moving there in April.

We start school at Monday, yes in two days. I'll mostly learn Maya. I also took classes of animation, and computer illustration.

Dubai

2008-02-09T19:15:00.002+01:00

On my way to New Zealand I wanted to see some other parts of the world too. Since New Zealand is right on the other side of the Earth from Slovenia, I had more choices. I took this one, Dubai.
Right now I'm in Dubai and I must say I like it so far. The costs are about the same as in Slovenia some cheaper and some more expensive. The one thing I don't like so far about it is that they don't have as many pedestrian paths as there should be. Even thou it's winter, the sun is still strong here. I am already red like tomato.
Here are the first photos from Dubai.
I am staying here for another day and I hope I'll make some good tomorow too.