Travelpod proposes to discover, through an online game, how well do you know your world.

Questions includes major cities of the World, Capital cities as well as travelers must see locations. Additional set of questions are also available (Continents, Flags, Unesco sites, Photos).

Want to play ?

My personal score:
Final Score : 576'899
Final Level : 12
Traveler IQ : 133

Tags: 2008, api, blog, capital, cities, Fun, game, im, knowledge, lan, location, must see, nomadcom.net, online, Our World, photo, quiz, sco, Travel, traveler, travelpod, world, worldwide, wp, www

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Tags: CTU, Flickr, ict, im, Our World, picture, simple

Is the Thomas Edison 1881 invention, one of the most successful invention of the 19th Century, will disappear soon due to its high consumption ? 

Today the World starts to wake up and governments finally show some concern about our ever growing power consumption and all its side effects. This may indicate that time has come for the incandescent bulb to retire. It exists, for many years now, some economical lighting alternatives (fluorescent ) to the incandescent bulb but most of them were not really welcome into our living areas (living room, bed room, etc..) due to the livid bluer color and their acquisition cost.

Then the LED (light-emitting diode) finally jumped out of electronics equipments and started to invade the streets (traffic lights, flashlights, bicycle, etc..). They may replace soon all incandescent and halogen bulbs we still have at home. Brasil and Venezuela have started the phasing out of incandescent lightning and Australia wants to get totally rid of them by 2010.

During "LED EXPO and FPD KOREA 2007" MK Electronics presented its LED lighting 'Lumi-Forta' which can present more 512 colors via remote controller.

In comparison with other bulbs the LED, once its price will be reduce, have lots of advantages

                               Incandescent     Fluorescent     LED 

Lifetime               ~3'000 hrs         ~10'000 hrs     >30'000 hrs
Input Power         60-100 W          20-50 W          7 W      
Temperature        60°C                 45°C               38°C
Color Change        n/a                   n/a                up to 512 pattern
Bright Control       external             n/a                10 steps
Main Issue           Input Power        Recycling        Unit price

Sources : Mkhunics, Ubergizmo, Wikipedia

Tags: 2007, art, ATT, blog, bulb, ces, consumption, Coup de Coeur, economical, electricity, flash, fluorescent, fon, global warming, Great Ideas, ia, im, incandescent, iso, lan, LED, light, lightning, Lumi Forta, MIT, MK Electronics, nomadcom.net, Our World, paris, power, space, traffic, world, wp, www, XP

As advertising on Fon web pages says it :

• At home you're a "Wi-Fi King"
• Away you become a "Wi-Fi beggar" 
  (or sometime even a Wi-Fi thief)

  so, why not to

• Share some Wi-Fi at home
• and get free WiFi access wherever you find a FON Wi-Fi access point (+360'000 members worldwide)

 

 That's the concept of Fon Movimiento but you can find more details on Fon pages or Wikipedia.

Hardware requirement :  

Benefits :

• Cheap wireless AP (with an "easy to get" voucher or invitation) : 20€ with shipping included.
• You're a Linus and get free access to others FON Wi-Fi access points
• You're a Bill and get 50% of the fees, currently $3.00, charged to Aliens (non FON members) for a day pass to connect through their route.

Risks :

• Your ISP may not like it, even if on their side they sell unsecured access point. So, it's up to you.. ask your ISP if you can share your connection.. or don't !   

Installation :

• Sign On Fon.com and order your Fonera
• Once you have it, connect it to your Internet router
• From your computer connect to the open FON_AP wireless network
• Launch your browser, you're automatically transfered to fon.com pages.
• Log On, change settings of your Fonera (password, SSID, WPA Key, etc..)
• Restart the Fonera or wait 24 hours
• Connect to your newly created wireless private network (by default named "my place").
• That's it… the whole process took about 10 minutes. 

Tags: 2007, 24, 802.11, access, advertising, art, blog, ces, community, computer, connection, find, fon, fon movimiento, fonera, fonero, free, Great Ideas, ia, im, install, internet, Internet World, King, lan, launch, map, minutes, mobile, Mobile Communications, network, Nomad Tools, nomadcom.net, On The Road, Our World, password, risk, safe, share, shared, space, telecom, Telecommunications, thief, Travel, web, website, wi fi, wifi, wireless, wordwide, world, worldwide, wp, www

This year, started on Friday 13 (when the Sun entered into the sign of Aries), Maha Songkran which is traditionally the Thai New Year. It is also known as the "Water Festival" as people believes that water will wash away bad luck. Thais traditionally celebrate Songkran like this:
 

• On the eve of Songkran day, it's a Spring cleanup and people clean their house and burn all the refuse.

• Early on the first day of Songkran, the people both young and old in their new clothing go to the Wat or monastery belonging to their village or district to offer food to the monks there.

• In the afternoon of the same day there is bathing ceremony of the Buddha images and also of the abbot of the wat. After this begins the well-known "water throwing feast".

  The bathing of images is done as ritualistic ceremony, but it is no other than a New Year's purification. Younger people will also on this day or the succeeding days go to pay their respect to and ask blessings from their elders and respected persons. They will pour scented water into the palms of the old people and present them with a towel and other bathing requisites.

Now, as far as I could experience it on my own, in Bangkok, the "water throwing feast" did not wait until afternoon to start. At 11h00 I was already soaked head to toes while moving in direction of Kao San road. In addition of water, chalk is also widely used to make "blessings".

More about Songkran traditions: Thailandlife
My Songkran 2007 Photo Set is on Flickr

Tags: 2007, 2550, art, Bangkok, chalk, Festival, Flickr, Fun, HP, ict, im, ITU, lan, list, New pictures, new year, On The Road, Our World, photo, songkran, space, splashing, street fighting, street water fighting, sun, thai new year, Thailand, water, water festival, www, XP

Three months after the United States successfully pressed the United Nations to impose strict sanctions on North Korea because of the country’s nuclear test, Bush administration officials allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from the North, in what appears to be a violation of the restrictions, according to senior American officials.

Article continues in the New-York Times

Questions : 

• May Kim Jong-Il have his new ipod now ?
• Who will complain first when UN resolutions will not be followed and respected by most of its members ?  

Further reading :

• United Nation Resolution 1718 : Acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, but barring automatic military enforcement of its demands under the Charter’s Article 41, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 1718 (2006), which prevents a range of goods from entering or leaving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and imposes an asset freeze and travel ban on persons related to the nuclear-weapon programme…continues

• Leading by Example: How We Learn About Leadership, a Paper Presented at the NEIA Annual Conference, Sun Valley, Idaho – June 9-13, 2004. (NEIA = National Executive Institute Associates, Major Cities Chiefs Association, Major County Sheriff's Association).

Tags: 1718, 2007, 24, 914, administration, Annual, arms, art, blog, bush, ces, cities, Coup de Gueule, embargo, enforcement, Ethiopia, event, example, free, hypocrisy, ia, ict, im, International, ipod, ITU, lan, leadership, nomadcom.net, North Korea, nuclear, nyt, Our World, press, public, resolution, space, sun, Travel, united nations, USA, violation, weapons, white house, world, wp, www, XP

Do you have an idea about the place you live (the Universe) ?

• 10E26 meter (13.7 billion light year) : The outer limit of the universe
• 10E24 meter (diameter 6 millions light year) : A group of local galaxies
• 10E14 meter (12 billion kilometer) : Our solar system
• 10E10 meter (diameter 1.39 million kilometer) : The Sun
  ….
• 10E0 meter (1.7 meter average) : The human (us)
  ….
• 10E-2 meter (4-6 milimeter) : Black moutain ant
• 10E-7 meter (40 nanometer) : Yellow fever virus
• 10E-10 meter (100 picometer) : Hydrogen atom
• 10E-15 meter (1 femometer) : Proton

  Have a look to this flash presentation made by Nikon.

  
  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source: Presse-Citron

Tags: 10E 15, 10E26, 2007, 24, blog, distance, flash, Fun, human, ia, im, lan, light, live, MIT, nikon, nomadcom.net, Our World, press, relativity, sco, space, sun, universe, universe scale, wp, www

The weekend was the grand opening of the 28th International Motorshow of Bangkok. The perfect opportunity to see how different such an exhibition can be here in Asia, as the only one I knew so far was the Geneva's one. 

The first surprise was to see where some exhibitors are located inside the exhibition hall. Imagine, just beside the prestigious british car maker Bentley you can find Carryboy (fiberglass hard tops & accessories manufacturer) and Club Car (golf cars & utility vehicle).

Then, come the real show…lots, but a lots, of pretty models everywhere. Normally (or I guess so), they are here to guide and inform potential customers on presented vehicles…nothing is less sure. In fact, I was wondering if cars were just there to serve as shiny background for the casting of new Southern Asia Top models (it's not a complain).

In South Korea, times have changed, and Korean design has advanced to the point where the need has waned to employ hundreds of pretty models at the upcoming Seoul Motor Show (6-15.4). Hyundai models will drop in number from 46 to 36, Kia is going from 44 to 36, and miniskirts and "sleeveless shirts" will be less prevalent in an effort to put more emphasis on the cars.

In resume, with global warming concern, if car sales go down and skirts stay up, the planet will be a better place to live (Monday philosophy!).

 

Flickr Photo Set : Intl. Motorshow
Source (about Seoul) : Autoblog 

 

Tags: 2007, 24, access, asia, asian girl, automobile, Bangkok, blog, cars, ces, CTU, customer, design, exhibition, find, Flickr, Fun, geneva, global, global warming, ia, im, International, lan, live, models, motorshow, New pictures, Our World, photo, Photography, power, pretty girls, resume, sexy, space, thai meet flickr, Thailand, vehicles, www

• You're traveling a lot.
• You're spending long boring hours in airport lounges.
• You're often having dinner in solo in unknown cities.
• You never speak with your neighbor during flight.

  Rings a bell ?

Could it be different if you could travel with someone who shares same interest or who works in the industry or even works for the same company than you ? 

So such reasons, PairUp proposes to reinvent business travels by introducing the concept of "Connected Travel" allowing businesspeople for the first time to easily share travel plans and instantly search for potential business connections at their next trip destination or industry event across companies and across booking engines.

For sure the "about PairUp" speaks only about business opportunities as it's "Made in USA" but it could also be used to meet people sharing same non-professional interests.

Once logged on, the workflow is rather simple:

• Add information about your trip itinerary
• Select confidentiality level (who can know about your trip, i.e people of your industry, in your network, attending same event, etc..)
• Select your Networking interests for this trip (activities, business opportunities, professional networking, companion seating, etc..).

Then, search (with narrowing options) to have your "Confirmed Connections" and "Potential Connections" displayed and easily contact any person of interest.

Sounds easy no ?

Now, is anyone use, or already used, this flying social network ?
What were the results?

Tags: air, aircraft, airport, arc, ATT, Aviation, book, business travel, cities, connection, connections, engine, event, flight, ia, im, industry, King, lan, light, network, opportunities, Our World, pair, pair up, search, seat companion, share, sharing, simple, social, social networking, space, Travel, USA, www

You need your own Google maps but you don't know about programming and what API stands for?

No problem, just visit Click2Map, open your free account and start creating, managing and publishing online your maps & markers.

Click2Map™ is a new Rich Internet Application (RIA) developed by HylioSoft, a french Web company.

Click2Map is actually running on version 1.0 Beta 1 Build 25 with a stable version expected in May-June 2007.

Sample : Nomadcom in Bangkok
Source: Presse-Citron (as often)

 

Tags: 2007, account, api, art, Bangkok, click2map, Cool Software, CTU, free, google, google maps, ia, im, internet, Internet World, lan, map, mapping, markers, online, Our World, press, space, Travel, web, web based, Web Design Tools, www, XP