Doom 2009

So, the great FPS game will be back before the end of the year 2009. Either the launch campaign started early in Nepal or the bus drivers are using their vehicles as video game weapons (the latter would explain the extraordinarily high frequency of dramatic road accidents there).

Gantter

I have been really impressed by the quality of such a software program. It may need to get some interface polish for Opera users (I had a couple of little display bugs), but the operation is fully adequate for many projects.

Its Nepalese name is Sagarmāthā (Nepali: सगरमाथा), and it is very near to the Lhotse, another 8000-summit (precisely 8516m or 27940ft).

Everest and Lhotse

The image here was taken from the pilot seat when we were at the nearest point to the Everest during the flight (click on the small image to enlarge it).

The unlabeled peak on the right is probably the Makalu (8463m or 27766ft). But this needs to be confirmed by somebody more expert than I am.

A Spectre in the Eastern Veil

Thanks to NASA.

Google decided to celebrate with an anti-latin graphic to great their visitors.

See the size of the larger sensor: The RED 617 Mysterium Monstro sensor has 261,352,000 pixels (about the same number as sensitive cells at the back of a human eye).

The images to come out of it will certainly be monstrous as suggested by the sensor name.

The tracks are made of traditional magnets and the train contain a big super-conducting magnet (cooled down by liquid nitrogen to maintain its super-conducting characteristics). Everything is relying heavily on magnetic fields. So, not surprisingly, these fields can be observed in the real train. The following video — shot on the Rokko Liner in Kobe, Japan — shows metal paper clips dancing on the stray magnetic fields of such a Maglev train, going through the floor of one of the passenger cars.

Don’t drop your credit card (or an age-old floppy disk) on the floor for fear of seeing it quickly erased.

Pygargue à tête blanche - Copyright (C) Yves Roumazeilles

The Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) is a bird of prey found in North America that is most recognizable as the national bird and symbol of the United States of America.

You can buy an original print at RedBubble.

Source: Autoblog.

I say to you, this morning, that if you have never found something so dear and precious to you that you will die for it, then you aren’t fit to live.

You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be, and one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls upon you to stand for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid.

You refuse to do it because you want to live longer. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab or shoot or bomb your house. So you refuse to take a stand.

Well, you may go on and live until you are ninety, but you are just as dead at 38 as you would be at ninety.

And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.

You died when you refused to stand up for right.

You died when you refused to stand up for truth.

You died when you refused to stand up for justice.

DemocracyNow via BoingBoing.

I’m not prone to vertigo, but I would not try it. I am happy being currently in Nepal and not in Pakistan. Wait! Here is a bridge in Nepal:

20 foods you should not eat together

You can’t read Chinese? That’s a pity. You would learn from this official announcement that some foods should not be eaten together (it is not clear how the exact risk was identified, though).

According to Xinjiang, the list of terrible mixtures is:

1. Pork + water chestnuts = a stomach ache
2. Beef + chestnuts = vomiting
3. Lamb meat + watermelon = a decreased vigor for life
4. Dog meat + green beans = poisonous to the body
5. Rabbit meat + celery = loss of hair
6. Chicken + celery = a decreased vigor for life
7. Goose meat + chicken eggs = a decreased vigor for life
8. Turtle meat + amaranth (a nutritional herb) = poisonous to the body
9. Carp + liquorice (not the candy) = poisonous to the body
10. Crab + persimmon fruit = diarrhea
11. Chicken eggs + saccharin = poisonous to the body, potentially fatal
12. Brown sugar + preserved eggs = poisonous to the body
13. White wine (白酒) + persimmon = chest pains
14. Onions + honey = damaged vision
15. Radish + fungus = dermatitis (a skin disease)
16. Bean curd + honey = makes you deaf
17. Potatoes + bananas = (not translated)
18. Bananas + sweet potato = a bloated belly
19. Peanuts + cucumbers = harmful to the body
20. Sweet potatoes + persimmon = lithiasis (formation of stones, such as the kidney stone)

I knew that you wanted to know about it…

I am leaving France for a photo trip to Nepal. Why did my colleagues pay a part of that trip?

Red deers fighting (during the rut)

Also, some portraits of other stags which are obviously calmer (for now).

Two red deers

Two red deers