Istanbul

I was in Istanbul, Turkey for a few days earlier this week. I had great weather and the city looked gorgeous! Here are some photos I took. Above, Hagia Sophia at twilight.

Above, inside Hagia Sophia.

Above, view of the Black Sea from Yoros Castle in Anadolu Kavagi.

Above, birds on the Bosphorus.

Above, view of the Bosphorus from the Topkapi Palace.

Above, the Moonlit Seat (or İftar Kiosk) inside the Topkapi Palace, with the Golden Horn in the background.

Above, view of the Galata Bridge from the Galata Tower.

Above, the Süleymaniye Mosque.

Above, the shore of  Burgazada, one of the Princes’ Islands in the Sea of Marmara.

Above, the Levent business district.

Above, view of the Mihrimah Mosque from the Walls of Constantinople.

Above, the Dolmabahçe Palace.

Weekend in the South: Avignon / Marseille

Last weekend, I went on a trip to the south of France: Avignon, known as the “City of Popes”, on Saturday and Marseille, France’s 2nd largest city, on Sunday. Above, the Papal Palace in Avignon.

Above, room inside the Palace.

Above, the famous Avignon Bridge (Pont Saint-Bénezet) on the Rhône river, with the Tour Philippe le Bel in the background.

Above, Avignon seen from Fort Saint-André in Villeneuve-lès-Avignon.

Above, morning in the Old Port (Vieux Port) of Marseille.

Above, the Mediterranean Sea seen from the Frioul Archipelago, with Marseille in the background and the Château d’If on the left.

Above, Marseille seem from Notre-Dame de la Garde.

Above, sunset on the port.

Dave Brubeck

Dave Brubeck died yesterday. Here are a few songs in his memory:

The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Koto Song (from “Jazz Impressions of Japan“)

Dave Brubeck & Paul Desmond – These foolish things (from “1975: The duets“)

The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Take Five (from “Concord on a Summer Night“)

Animated GIF art

Definitely seizure inducing but pretty awesome. I can’t stop watching…

More of those at the Reanimator Lab.

[From The Verge]

Spaun (Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network)

 

The SPA Unified Network (Spaun) model demonstrates how a wide variety of cognitive and non-cognitive tasks can be integrated in a single large-scale, spiking neuron model. Spaun switches tasks and provides all responses without any manual change in parameters from a programmer. Essentially, it is a fixed model that integrates perception, cognition, and action across several different tasks.

Impressive work! The singularity must be near…  although it is not quite as fast as the brain yet: According to the website of the project, it takes about 2.5h of computer time for one second of simulation. Nengo, the software used to implement the brain model, is open source and is available here.

[From canada.com]

HAZUS-MASAS

It is not a magic incantation used by GIS wizards, just the name of an interesting project I was involved with when I worked at Galdos Systems, back in Vancouver. I just saw CEO Ron Lake has written an article about it on the company’s blog. In short, the goal of the project was to enable the distribution of HAZUS files (created with a FEMA-provided ArcGIS plugin for the estimation of potential losses from natural disasters, like earthquakes or floods) through the Canadian Multi-Agency Situational Awareness System (MASAS), used by emergency managers. Some of the UI was done with the ArcGIS Viewer for Flex (screenshot above): In the backend, it connected with INdicio (a CSW-ebRIM implementation), which provided metadata about indicators extracted from HAZUS files, as well as the contents of the indicators themselves, stored as KML documents.

Walk in Brussels

Last weekend, I went to Brussels for some sightseeing. It was my first time in Belgium. I had a pretty good time. Above, the Atomium.

Above, in the morning, City Hall in Grand Place.

Above, the Berlaymont building, headquarters of the European Commission.

Above, pond in Parc Leopold.

Above, the European Parliament building in Espace Leopold.

Above, Square Marie-Louise.

Above, arch in Parc du Cinquantenaire.

Above, statue of Gaston Lagaffe.

Above, the famous Manneken Pis.

Above, an orchestra near Palais de Justice.

Above, a waffle van.

Walk in Paris

Yesterday, I went for a walk in Paris and took many pictures. Above, the entrance to the Jardin des Tuileries.

Above, in the morning, street art near Centre Georges Pompidou.

Above, the Musée de la Sculpture en Plein Air, on the banks of the Seine.

Above, Pink Flamingos at the zoo inside the Jardin des Plantes.

Above, Jardin des Plantes.

Above, church of Saint-Etienne du Mont.

Above, people walking on the banks of the Seine river.

Above, modern art in a fountain inside the Jardin des Tuileries.

Above, in the evening, fake ruins in Parc Monceau.

Annecy

I have been spending some time in Annecy since my return from Canada. Above, the prison in the Old Town of Annecy.

Above, wall coloured by stained glass inside the Annecy Cathedral.

Above, Pont des Amours (Lover’s Bridge), with Lake Annecy in the background.

Above, santur player in the Old Town.

Above, basilica of La Visitation.

Above, Lake Annecy in the morning.

Above, the “Zozo” statue in the Old Town.

Above, saucissons for sale in the Old Town market.

Chambéry

Yesterday, I went on a bicycle ride around Chambéry, the former capital of the Duchy of Savoy. Above, the Elephants Fountain.

Above, the castle of the Dukes of Savoy.

Above, a thermal spa in Challes-les-Eaux.

Above, mountain around Chambery.

Above, grazing sheep.

Above, Carré Curial.