A Turkish Encounter

A window view of the Blue Mosque in
the distance from the Hagia
Sophia

Last week, I had travelled to what I felt was easily a very impressionable city in the Mediterranean region. Istanbul, the city where Liverpool won the Champions League in 2005, where Christianity spread during the Byzantine rule and where the story of Ezio in Assassins Creed: Revelations takes place in. The locals spoke decent English for my girlfriend and I to get by and they were monumental in helping us find all the little and large attractions around the city.

Minaret Skyline

Inside the Hagia Sophia

The city is an eclectic mix of old and new. Small, local shops on the Arasta Bazaar (just beneath the Sultan Ahmet Mosque) trade colourful wares at crazy prices to the unsuspecting tourist, to the huge, crowded Kapali    Çarşi (The Grand Bazaar) where you'll see a large amount of very recognisable, luxury clothing and footwear on sale (can anyone say counterfeit?). Walking along the citys numerous roads and alleyways you'll come across very animated characters trying to hawk their goods, foods, restaurant views and Shisha flavours too. Having Türk kahvesi or Turkish coffee on the rooftop of a particular hotel in Sultanahmet, I was astounded to see the skyline dominated by an array of Ottoman mosques and the ever so famous Hagia Sophia. That church/mosque/museum is HUGE! It was the first church to be built during the Eastern Roman Empire era and stood strong as the largest church for nearly 10 centuries until St Peters Basilica was constructed in the Vatican. The invading Ottomans had no desire to tear down the place so converted it into a mosque. It is now a museum that  herds in thousands of tourists everyday. I loved the Christian era mosaics that were visible next to Islamic era calligraphy and architecture. Pure blend of the two faiths. 

You gotta love those Romans and their city planning skills

The blue mosque
 (Sultan Ahmet Mosque)

The citys skyline is not the only dominating feature. Look underground and you find huge cisterns buried from the early settlements. These cisterns were used to store water for the citys consumption and there are fairly many scattered all over. I had visited the Basilica cistern, bang opposite the Hagia Sophia and the city centre. It was indeed an astonishing site, although its just columns. 

The food in turkey is nuts and I mean good nuts. If you managed to bargain your way to a good deal, it tastes even better! There's so much that I managed to see in the span of 2 days but I'd rather leave it up to the traveller to find out more by visiting the place. Oh and one other thing, the driving in the city is analogous to the driving in India or Italy. 

Want to travel to mars? That'll be $500k please!

A Saturn V rocket - Reliable fellow! (Courtesy - NASA) 

Short change isn't it? That's what the SpaceX CEO thinks anyway. He says that the 'average' person would be able to travel to our red neighbour and back for that 'small' amount by 2015 or 2020 at the most. SpaceX is a private organisation that's been recruited by NASA to help build commercial flights and shuttles to enable the haulage of goods and crew from Earth to International Space Station (ISS). SpaceX have already built a rocket called the Falcon 9 which will implement completely reusable technology such that nothing gets wasted as with the case of NASA's Saturn V rockets (now decommissioned) that jettison off different levels of the rocket at different stages of ascent. This would mean that only fuel would be a factor in the cost for the traveller. 2013 has been marked on the SpaceX calendar for a scheduled test launch of their Falcon 9 rocket. Currently, a Dragon class shuttle built by the same company has hurtled back from the ISS carrying a heavy payload of completed experiments by the boys orbiting around earth.

The Dragon Shuttle leaving the ISS (Courtesy - BBC/NASA)

With regards to landing on Mars, NASA themselves are nowhere near to setting a specific date and many speculate that NASA will attempt for Martian landing in the early 2030's. I'd like to see that happen, considering that my childhood was all about the stellar heavens and astronauts.

Those tunes that make me hum...

Working in the lab in is good fun and all but it's a lot better with the radio in the background. I'm not much of a radio person to be honest, but over the last six weeks it's actually begun growing on me. More so is my database on chart hits. This week, these particular tracks make me tap my feet and sing aloud inside the lab (and are the major cause of cockups in experiments too...)

Too Close - Alex Clare

The catchy lyrics and the bass thumping dub drop as the chorus nearly caused pandemonium inside my office. Think crazy scientists with dangerous chemicals and mutagens headbanging at the dub drop...


Chasing the Sun - The Wanted

This tune is a good club anthem, again with its catchy lyrics and even catchier melody.


Somebody that I used to know - Gotye

I'm sure everyones heard of this one. It's been up in the charts for a while and its twinkling guitar riff along with Wouter de Backer's unique sounding voice makes this song another one of those foot tapping tunes. 

The torchbearer

Maggie Glastonbury was the
 first torch bearer of the day.

I was up early this morning (around 5:30 am) to check out the olympic torch relay take off from its stop at Bristol and onwards to Cheltenham, a place famous for its races. The lighting of the torch from "the mother flame" began at college green, right behind my place so easy access (and hence me waking up so darn early!)
I didn't expect that many people to turn up so early in the morning, but boy was I wrong. There were loads of families and university students all lined up on the green, vying for a glimpse of something they'd probably not get to see for a good while in person.

My University represented
itself today as well...in the form
of a hot air balloon.

The first torch bearer of the day was Maggie Glastonbury. A Bristolian with a passion for running, she's raises money for prostate cancer in men and has raised just under 5 grand in the past 3 years. She was in good spirits and really jubilant to see the hundreds that had turned up to support her...or just take a photograph.

While I moaned initially about waking up so early to see the torch run past me for just 2 seconds, I later felt priviledged to have been able to witness the whole scenario. It's a story I can tell my kids "the day I saw the torch in Bristol" (it'll be a very, very short and uninteresting story).

Once upon an RMX deck...

My ndugu (brother in swahili) Jay Patel and I have been good mates for over 4 years now, meeting randomly during our course back at Leeds University. Since then we've always been kicking about and doing damage (metaphorically speaking mind you) in which ever town we've hit.

Born in England but bred in El Doret, a small town in Kenya, this lad has the makings of good musical producer (even though he did a degree in Biochem). He was my mentor in the DJ scene, getting me to grips with the VirtualDJ programs and physical mixers. He's released quite a few tracks, some in collaboration with his brother Mikel and forming the MiJaPa Beats group with their Tracks known as Sounds of Sosiani Vols 1 to 3. These tracks are the hard hitting, bass thumping trance tunes that make you jump then lull you into a false sense of calm vocals only to be thrust back into the maelstrom of bass and synth.
On his own, he's produced a sort of mix perfect for the gym called Spartacus Vol 1 as well as the new Laminar Perception which contains this awesome Super Mario rendition in it. Its the perfect chill-out track when you get back home from a hard days work and just want to unwind. Dim the lights and whack this on.
Sounds of Sosiani Vol 1 Sounds of Sosiani Vol 2 Sounds of Sosiani Vol 3 Spartacus Vol 1 - The Workout Mix. Laminar Perceptions - the Chillout Mix. I will put up his latest works as they release right here for you to have an eargasm to. Enjoy!

Phone a water pump?

The irrigation device with the mobile apparatus in blue (Courtesy - BBC)

Here's a pretty interesting video that I just saw on the BBC website with regards to how a simple phone call can water a farmers crops. I'm not sure if the video is only viewable by UK residents or not. Will need to check that out.

Its a very simple process based on making a phone call to the irrigation pump which has "mobile phone components" built into it. A phone call by the farmer causes the pump to send out a message with regards to whether there is running electricity to power it up. A second phone call to the pump switches on the irrigation device and waters the farmers crops. Simple but sweet tech. It saves time and manpower and with mobile technology in nearly everyones hands today, it's a very well thought out use for the little device.

A Red Dilemma.

I am a Liverpool fan and I have been on a rollercoaster season with my team. From our nail-biting Carling Cup victory to our bury-our-heads-in-the-ground premier league form. Many a liverpool fan would have loved to see us back in Europes most elite competition - The Champions League, but alas that was better kept for another time. 

When I'd gone to see Liverpool play back in 2010 against Braga
We lost this day and marked our exit out of Europe for the first
time since 2004.

Our turbulent season cost us our icon, good ol' Kenny D. His team selections and bizarre tactics in the league may have helped his push over the edge tad easier from our American owners, the Fenway Sports Group. But Dalglish did bring back that order from the foray that was chaos at Anfield after the Roy Hodgson era. I myself didn't feel the spirit of the game when I watched my team play back in late 2010. Kenny instilled a little faith in us all and led us on to all time high (not speaking about the table, we only finished 6th, which was pathetic...) that we hadn't felt since Istanbul '05. 

The loss of Dalglish again has thrown us back into that chasm Anfield was 2 seasons ago. I just hope the FSG lead on and help us get our swag back and begin to feed fear to all those who come to our playground. I only hope that our tall beast Carroll flourishes a bit faster than what he's comfortable with. After seeing his end of season play, I felt a tad better knowing that the lad DID have some footballing spunk all knotted up in that ponytail of his. I have a feeling Suarez will leave us this summer but here's to hoping that my feelings are quashed.

With the new managerial position vacant and the reported £30million in the kitty to spend, I wonder what kind of funny red summer this is going be. Benitez back maybe? Heh. You never know.

Minority report, for real.

Well not really with the pop up holograms et al, but very, very similar. Technology changes even while I write this post down. I happened to stumble upon this really, awesome piece of tech that I cannot wait to get my hands on and have my own showdown on Call of Duty with just my finger....on the PC or Mac!

So this isn't really all that new with regards to motion technology already present in the likes of the all mighty Kinect and the good ol' Wii. But with the Leap as it's called, your computer, becomes your iPad,  without the horrible,oily finger marks across your screen. It uses a "mathematical approach to 3D, touch free motion sensing software" that's installed on your harddrive and all you need to do is boot it up, plug in the USB Leap device and wave your finger(s) away. It's taken a while on their drawing board, and looks to take a bit longer working out the bugs. It's priced at a decent £45 although I don't really see the use of it for the general person. If you're an artist or an engineer needing those precise touches, then I guess this would be ideal for them. Not sure how it works with an FPS gamer like me (although they do show a clip about FPS games being played like this pretty possible). I for one, prefer the traditional mouse and keyboard. I like being able to physically button bash my way, but that's just me.

You can read more about the Leap over here. 

Check out the video below, it's pretty neat. Snazzy looking apple screen (grrr).

So it begins...

I've kept pushing the date as to when I'd actually begin writing my blog, but at the persistence and constant niggling and nagging of my beloved, I finally begin my adventure into the "blogiverse". I shall be posting ad lib...or whenever I get the time to sit down with a cuppa and tell you my thoughts and views on tech I played with, movies I've slept through, food I've tasted, places I've visited and so on and so forth.

...yes, a very generic, repetitive blog, so to say!

No, I am not a cross-dresser, this is just for your amusement. :)

The logo at the top of the page is original banksy work (without the Lenticular Lives defacement of course, I have taken the image from another fellow blogger rambleswithacamera.blogspot.com)