Interested to improve your history for free? Try this…
Go to MIT’s OpenCourseWare website and browse to the history section. Download any coursework file and have a look at the essays that the students are suppose to write on.
Do your own research (reading) at wikipedia and read up on the articles.
Good if you have some time to spare. Hey… even though I posted this during office hours, doesn’t mean that I waste company time to do this. But that’s a thought.
Finished this book this weekend. Took me less than a week to finish, which is a first. Loved all these history books.
The first book I read from this author was one called The Last Apocalypse, which was about medieval europe around 1000AD when just about everyone was thinking the end of the world was near.
This latest book I read is about the Third Crusade circa, well… 1180AD more or less. At least this book tries to be neutral in depicting the fight between christians and muslims for Jerusalem. He highlights the plus and minus sides of the two main characters King Richard the Lionheart & the muslim sultan Saladin.
What’s irritating are the quotes from the troubadours… they’re the propagandist of the era…
But then again, I usually take a few weeks to finish a book but this one was in a few days, and that says something.
Misunderestimated the amount of film I would need in Shanghai, and I only have 4 rolls of 400TX, HP5+ and FP4+ Black and White films left this morning. Made a trip to Shanghai Railway station and bought 3 rolls of Ilford FP4+ ISO125 and 2 rolls of Ilford HP5+ ISO400 film.
Ilford FP4+: 20RMB/each
Ilford HP5+: 21RMB/each
Since most of the time my shots are in the daytime and outdoor, I guess I dont need a whole cabinet full of HP5+ film. Usually I keep a lot of Kodak 400TX and Ilford HP5+ since most of the time I’m shooting night time using available light pushing the film to EI800 or EI1600 at least. My shooting style with b&w has changed a little when I’m in Shanghai.
Ever since my short term move to Shanghai, I’ve been spending some time in the gym doing some running. I still dont like gyms, but in Shanghai at night you have no choice.. the cyclists don’t use brakes, the cars fight for the title “king of the road” and the parks (at least the ones with barricades) are closed at 5pm. Oh… and people walk backwards on footpaths so your chance of colliding with something while running is quite high.
Just to keep the run interesting, I picked up a Polar S625X (check out www.polar.fi and look for the model under “Running” category) on my way through Hong Kong back to Shanghai yesterday. The only shop that I found that sells this model is a large sports shop called Gigasports in Harbour City Kowloon, and a few branches of City Chain around Kowloon. Gigasports got my business since they gave me 15% off the sticker price.
Continue reading 'Getting Fit: Polar S625X'»
Finally.. managed to squeeze a daytrip to Hong Kong on my way back to Shanghai from Manila for business trip. This one is a little too long… 10 hours stop over in Hong Kong! I’m sure I can do everything I wanted to with less time. This is what I did today in Kowloon alone:
1. Scout for Heart Rate Monitors… and of course to buy them at the lowest believable price
2. Buy magazines (other than time & newsweek its impossible to find english language magazines in Shanghai!)
3. Pack a variety of sandwichs from Pret-a-Manger for suffering wife in Shanghai
4. Eat wonton noodle
5. Buy my 5.11 Tactical pants from Mongkok
6. Window shopping at Tin Cheung camera shop in case they have exotic used lenses on sale
All that in 10 hours… by the way, stored my luggage and notebook at the left luggage counter at the airport (cheaper than the left luggage at HK Station) so that I can move quickly.
Been some time since I posted anything on this site, and what’s new, other than being one of the millions of people that managed to download google Earth these few days after its released.
First impression? I got it running on a Dell D600 notebook (Pentium M 1.3MHz) and its fast enough. I used it to search addresses in the US (some cities come with 3D buildings that look like its a Phong shaded preview on most 3D rendering programs, but not available on most suburb maps).
Did a search of a location in Paris but the satellite pictures are not that detailed for anywhere outside of the US. I’m not sure if this is becuase its Google Earth and not one of the premium or pro versions which you have to pay annual fee.
A quick search of a location in Shanghai gave the same detail as Paris. Blurry map that’s not detailed enough to look for an address, but ok for “flying around” as what the Google Earth site advertised.
Address search works very well in the US, but unfortunately not so well in Western Europe (I’m assuming it should be better for the UK rather than the rest of Europe) and the rest of the world.
As of the time of writing, Google Earth downloads have been halted. Its a fun freeware to fool around in, and for some it might be a useful tool… no wonder its clogging Google’s server bandwidth…
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