OSLO, Norway (AP) — A Web camera in a Norwegian artist’s living room in California allowed her sons in Norway and the Philippines to see that she had collapsed and call for help, one of the sons said Friday.
Karin Jordal, 69, collapsed Thursday in her living room in Pinon Hills, California, and was motionless on a couch when her son Tore in the Philippines checked in through the Internet.
Despite the highways, the airport, and the brand-new buildings, the city of Lijiang still feels a lot like the legendary lost paradise. Set on a beautiful lake, surrounded by ancient villages, and inhabited by the Naxi people, the essence of this corner of Yunnan province has barely changed in the past century. Lijiang has becomes China’s biggest cultural attraction
This picturesque town is the historical capital of the Naxi civilization, a Chinese minority that numbers 300,000.
Lijiang is at about 2,000 m above sea level. Local resident are darker as they are exposed to more UV light than those staying near the sea level. I was at Lijiang sometime back for 2 days travelled from Dali. Journey from Dali to Lijiang by road was about 200km but it took nearly four hours through mountainous winding road.
The main attraction at Lijiang was no doubt the visit to the old town of Lijiang which as more 800 years of history. In this old town, everything was kept old style. The narrow road meant for only pedestrian was made of cobblestone. No cars, bike and just pedestrains.
Walking through the old town require at least half a day. At 2000 m above sea level, weather was cooling and I enjoyed so much here as there are so much to learn about this city and especially the culture of the chinese minority of Naxi people.
At the top of the hill is a park with a fancy pagoda and lots of big trees. I was told that pagoda is the tallest pogado in China erected totally with 100% of wooden material and stand at 33m high.
There are three old town at Lijiang and only one is opened to visitors and tourist.
I was at the old town the who of one afternoon and after dinner, I went back to the old town again and enjoy the night view of the area. Red lanterns hang everywhere and they are so beautiful at night.
“Old Town of Lijiang” was added to Unesco’s World Heritage List in 1997
I would love to be back to Lijiang in the future and hopefully have a chance to visit the Mosuo minority and pay a visit to the nearly Shangri La.
Some of the pictures taken during the visit to Lijiang are as follow:-
All pictures were taken with a Canon G6 Digital Camera.
‘It was the most humane option’
Malay Mail, 15 Nov 2005KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 15 On Nov 11, The Malay Mail front-paged a report that the SPCA put to sleep a cat and four kittens belonging to 12-year-old Anis Aliff Lam and her sister Adlinor, four days after the siblings sent them to the shelter.
The girls’ father, Aliff Lam Abdullah, claimed he was never informed by the officer-in-charge about the time frame for the cats to be put to sleep if no one adopted them.
However, an SPCA spokesman insisted that they had clearly laid down the terms and conditions contained in the surrender form to him.
SPCA animal inspector Sabrina Yeap told The Malay Mail that euthanasia was the most humane option. “The animals do not feel any pain. They are merely given a specific dose of anesthetic and drift off to a painless sleep. “If there was any other option, we would definitely have pursued it. But as of now, we have no choice as there is a severe lack of resources and space,” she said
As a large number of animals are sent to its premises, the SPCA puts 800 to 1,000 animals to sleep each month. She said there was a lack of resources and space at their premises.
Each year, a lot of cats and dogs surrendered to SPCA had to put to sleep due to lack of space and resources. The number of unwanted cats and dogs sent to SPCA far exceed the number adopted. The best to reduce the number of unwanted cats and dogs is the cut down unnecessary breeding and this can be achieved by spaying and nuetering your dogs and cats.
Klinik Kembiri operated by DBKL and SPCA offer spaying and neutering services at a very affordable rate. For dogs, the cost is only RM 90.00.
My pond will turn 10 years old soon and during the last 10 years, I have used a total of 3 Tsurumi pump for my koi pond. 2 of the three pumps have since retired from service but third one is still going strong serving my Vortex Filter
I must say that the Tsurumi pump is extremely lasting and as long as you ensure that the pump is submerged all the time, it should last you for 7 or 8 years without any problem, serving you 24 hours a day. The best feature of the Tsurumi is its low power consumption of only 150watt and that ensure low power bill even running two pump at the same time. The original pump installed by my pond contractor was the DAB pump with 375watt rating and I soon replaced that with Tsurumi pump.
Quick facts om Tsurumi pump :-
The most dependable, longest lasting pumps! Designed for 60,000 hours of
continuous operation – that’s almost seven years without ever shutting off!
Google Base gone live.
What is Google Base?
Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types
of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online. You
can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people
find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your
items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other
Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.
Quick Facts about Google Base
Sign up or login to Google Base at http://www.google.com/base/
Toyota and William will use Bridgestone tyre for the 2006 F1 season. With such announcement, there will be 5 teams using Michelin and another 5 using Bridgestone tyres.
The 10 teams are:-
Mild Serven Renault – Michelin
Mc Laren Mercedes – Michelin
Ferrari – Bridgestone
William F1- Bridgestone
BMW Sauber F1 – Michelin
Midland F1- Bridgestone
Squadra Toro Rosso – Bridgestone
Red Bull Racing – Michelin
Bar Honda – Michelin
Panasonic Toyota – Bridgestone
There is likely a new F1 team by the name of Super Aguri Formula One that Takuma Sato will drive for in 2006 season. The new team is pending approval from F1 Authority. Chances is this new team will use Bridgestone tyres since it will also use Honda engine.
2006 F1 Season (provisional)
Mar 12: Bahrain Grand Prix (Bahrain)
Mar 19: Malaysian Grand Prix (Sepang)
Apr 02: Australian Grand Prix (Melbourne)
Apr 23: San Marino Grand Prix (Imola)
May 07: European Grand Prix (Nurburgring, Germany)
May 14: Spanish Grand Prix (Barcelona)
May 28: Monaco Grand Prix (Monte Carlo)
Jun 11: British Grand Prix (Silverstone)
Jun 25: Canadian Grand Prix (Montreal)
Jul 02: United States Grand Prix (Indianapolis)
Jul 16: French Grand Prix (Mangy-Cours)
Jul 30: German Grand Prix (Hockenheim)
Aug 06: Hungarian Grand Prix (Hungaroring)
Aug 27: Turkish Grand Prix (Istanbul)
Sep 10: Italian Grand Prix (Monza)
Sep 17: Belgian Grand Prix (Spa-Francorchamps)
Oct 01: Japanese Grand Prix (Suzuka)
Oct 08: Chinese Grand Prix (Shanghai)
Oct 22: Brazilian Grand Prix (Interlagos)
After serving the koi pond for about three years, the latest unit of Hi-Blow 80 watt finally break down. A new replacement unit was purchased at RM 820.00 per unit. The prices of Hi-Blow has increase quite a bit. Considering it 24/7 operation for solid three years, the Hi-Blow is still on of the best compressor around for koi pond. The broke down unit will be sent for repair and to be used as stand by unit.
Yunnan Province in Southern China is the home for 26 minority races. The most interesting minority race is the Mosuo Minority in Lugu Lake. I have never been to Lugu Lake but I got to Lijiang which is not far away from the place where Mosuo people orginated.
The people of Mosuo practice zouhun (èµ°å©š) – walking marriage (a commitment made between two individuals without legal restraints) – that makes this community noticeable as a lakeside love haven. Men and women never get married. Children only know who is their mother and do not normally who their father are. Children will stay with their mother and in such way, their family and get pretty big. Women are the boss in this Mosuo Minority where all decision are made by women. When a man and woman fall in love, the man visits the woman in the night and then returns to his mother’s home in the morning. They never formalize the arrangement to create a new family group, although some couples remain committed to each other throughout their entire lives and often have many children together. It is also normal for a man to have several lovers.
I had a chance to meet a Mosuo gentlement at Lijiang and spoke to him at length and happy to learn a lot about the Mosuo people.
One of the book that I have purchased and read is as shown below:
The Southern part of China is so rich is culture and I do hope to visit Tibet in the not too distant future.
Google launched Google Analytics, a free analysis service for Webmasters and web marketers. Base on Urchin which Google acquired and make the service free.
Website owners will be able to see exactly where visitors come from, which links on the site are getting the most traffic, which pages visitors are viewing, how long people stay on the site, which products on merchant sites are being sold and where people give up in multi-step checkout processes.
Google Analytics can be signed up for free at http://www.google.com/analytics/
The launched of Google Analytics will surely hurt many paid web traffic analysis services and free service alike. With each passing day, we continue to see more and more web services being offered for free and I believe many other services such as web hosting will be offered for free in a big way in the future.
The old Sauber Petronas F1 Team will be called BMW Sauber F1 Team in 2006 after BMW acquired the Sauber Team. The Petronas name will therefore be dropped from the name and at this point of time there is no report as whether Petronas will still be involve in the Sauber team in 2006.
A visit to Xan years back and taken several photographs at Pit 1 of the Terracotta Muzeum. The Terracotta Warrior was found by a group of farmer who were digging a well at the tomb area in 1974. The farmer who found the Terracotta Warrior now work for the Terracotta Muzeum.
The pictures were taken using Canon G2 Digital Camera in year 2003. No flash allowed in the Muzeum area.
Finally, my Gmail Box filled up and the box stop growing ay 2.65GB. With the Gmail Box filled up, the first impact is the inability to send mail out.
While Gmail post can be deleted using the “More Action” drop down menu to move unwanted post to Trash, an easier and handy way is to add a delete button to your Gmail. That can be done by going to Mozilla Update Site on Extension
With most information stored in digital format. Having an automatic backup system is critical these days to protect your data. I have been a happy user of Vice Verso Pro 1.3 at home and have recently upgrade to Vice Versa Pro 2.0. The best feature that attracted me to upgrade is the ability of VV 2.0 to backup locked and open file.
Can ViceVersa synchronize, backup, replicate files and folders? YES *
Can I visually compare folders to see the latest changes? view YES *
Can I use it with USB disks, flash drives, hard disks, DVD, CD? YES *
Can I use it over the Local Area Network and VPN? YES *
Does it track file conflicts (files changed on both sides)? YES *
Does it track file deletions properly? YES *
Does it copy / backup locked file, open files? details YES *
Can I schedule it to run at a specified time interval? view YES *
Can I schedule it to run in “real-time“? YES *
Can I run it on all Windows platforms, including servers? YES * ‘
Is it easy to setup and use? YES *
How many customers are using ViceVersa? 10.000+ *
How much data can ViceVersa handle? 1000GB+
The Vortex Filter that I have installed on my koi pond is now more than 3 months old. I have since shut down other filter system and solely relying on the Vortex. The pond water remain clear with moderate feeding. Maintenance on the prefilter or settlement chamber is being done at 2 months interval that invoice flushing the brushes with pond water. There has not been any blockage so far and the result is good considering the fact that the filter is above ground with pond water feed to the filter via submersible pump.