Derick Rethans - tag: photography

Using OpenStreetMap tiles with Flickr

Tue, 01 Mar 2011 09:20:00 +0000

Using OpenStreetMap tiles with Flickr

Tuesday, March 1st 2011, 09:20 GMT

Update August 4th, 2011: I've changed the script to use any of the three OpenStreetMap tile servers, instead of hard coding it just to one.

I like taking pictures, and I usually take a GPS so that I can place them on a map on my Flickr page. On my last excursion however, the battery of my GPS had died, so I did not have location information available to store in my pictures' EXIF headers. Flickr can use the EXIF headers to then show the images on the map.

Because I did not have the location information to automatically place my pictures on the map, I wanted to do that by hand. Flickr, being owned by Yahoo!, uses Yahoo! Maps. Yahoo! Maps however, is not terribly great in the country side. Actually, it is mostly empty, especially compared to OpenStreetMap's version. This made placing photos onto the map by hand quite impossible. So I set out to have only OpenStreetMap tiles as back ground in Flickr like they already do for Bejing and some other places.

Inspired by the Upside-Down-Ternet I installed Squid, and set the url_rewrite_program to a PHP script (with execute bit on):

url_rewrite_program /home/derick/bin/redirect.php

Squid will fire up a few of those scripts (depending on the url_rewrite_children setting) and then supplies them with URLs to rewrite. Each line of input is an URL to rewrite, and the script should echo a rewritten URL.

The script itself is rather simple. It just needs to account for two different formats because the Yahoo!Maps URLs are different from the Flickr ones (as indicated by the r argument in the original URL). I'm including the script here (and as download):

#!/usr/local/php/5.3dev/bin/php
 $newUrl\n" );
        }
        else
        {
            // This is the format that Yahoo!Maps uses

            // Do the math to calculate the OSM tile
            // coordinates from the Yahoo!Maps one
            $z = $queryParts['z'] - 1;
            $x = $queryParts['x'];
            $y = pow( 2, $z - 1 ) - $queryParts['y'] - 1;

            // Assemble new URL and write log line
            $range = range('a', 'c');
            $server = $range[rand(0, sizeof($range)-1)];
            $newUrl = "http://{$server}.tile.openstreetmap.org/$z/$x/$y.png";
            fwrite( $a, "REDIR: $parts[0] => $newUrl\n" );
        }
    } else {
        $newUrl = $parts[0];
        fwrite($a, "NORMAL: $newUrl\n");
    }

    // Output the rewritten (or original) URL
    echo $newUrl, "\n";
} while ( true );

After I configured my browser to use the Squid proxy running on localhost, Flickr is now shown with OpenStreetMap tiles as background:

And with the OpenStreetMap tiles in the background, I could place my photos on the correct location on the map.

Snowdon Hike

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 23:08:00 +0000

Snowdon Hike

London, UK

Tuesday, July 20th 2010, 00:08 BST

This weekend I escaped London to enjoy two of my other hobbies: hiking and photography. This time I headed to Wales to climb up the 1085 meter high mountain Snowdon; Wales' highest peak. As opposed to staying in Llanberis, the town closest to many of the routes up Snowdon, I stayed in the little quiet town Caernarfon. Or rather, in the B&B Tal Menai not too far away from it. If you get there by bus though, make sure you don't get off on the one that's just a stop too far, because there is no way you can walk along the road. We ended up backtracking over a cycle path.

Caernarfon has a pretty nice castle and also a bit of town wall still. It's otherwise not very interesting but they do have a non-floating floating restaurant. As it's on the Menai Strait there are some pretty sunsets however.

There are several tracks up to Snowdon, also from different starting points. Our starting point was the Pen-y-Pass parking place at 359 meters above sea-leavel. From here on we went up the Pyg track to the summit. Unfortunately, the Welsh weather was doing it's normal thing: clouds. Which means we saw nothing of the view once we got to the summit at 1085 meters high. Basically, the view was the one that you can see here on the left.

After tea and some snacks, we headed back down. And as soon as we did the clouds cleared up showing us the view that was denied us on the way upwards. We took the Miners track back to the parking place to take the bus back to Caernarfon for a very welcomed proper pub meal.

I think I would like to go back once more, to try some of the other tracks. The Crib Goch one is supposed to be a really nice ridge walk; unfortunately it wasn't marked on the rendered OpenStreetmap at that point (it is now of course).

To see all the pictures, please visit my flickr set "Snowdon".

Letter to my MP to urge her to debate the Digital Economy Bill in parliament

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:12:00 +0000

Letter to my MP to urge her to debate the Digital Economy Bill in parliament

London, UK

Thursday, March 18th 2010, 11:12 GMT

The UK House of Lords passed a controversial internet piracy bill that will have great consequences for society. Not only because it wants to disconnect file sharers, but also because of other privacy invading clauses. It is possible (likely even) that this bill will be rushed through parliament without a proper debate. I therefore wrote to my MP to urge her to properly discuss this in parliament. I am copying that letter below:

Dear Sarah Teather,

I've been following the recent developments around the Digital Economy Bill and what I read worries me deeply. This law, spearheaded by the Lord Manderson, is controversial in many ways. Now it seems possible that this bill is going to be rushed to be signed into law without a full Parliamentary debate.

There are several issues with this bill that I would like to address. First of all, the proposed US-DMCA like practices that would allow copyright holders to ask an ISP to take down content. ISPs will have no choice, but to comply with those take-down notices because it would be their legal responsibility. ISPs will have to fight out in court if they want to prove that certain content is not infringing, and obviously they will not have the inclination to do so on their customers' behalf. This makes it relatively easy for anybody to demand content taken off-line, whether they are the copyright holder or not, or even without having to prove the content is in violation.

At the same time, the Digital Economy Bill will allow the use of "orphaned works"—works for which the author is not easy to find. I am a semi-professional photographer with many images published on the Internet in various locations, some that are difficult to link me to as an author. I expect this to be even more the case for people's holiday pictures that they post to sites such as flickr and facebook. I don't want my work to be used commercially without consent, but if the Digital Economy Bill would be signed into law, corporations could use anyone's family pictures without their consent. This is of course in full contrast with other proposed clauses that criminalize copyright infringements where the copyright is owned by large (mostly not even UK) corporations.

As you can see, there are measures in this Bill that concern me, and so I think that it deserves proper scrutiny. Please don't let the government rush it through. I, and many of my peers, think it will damage schools and businesses as well as innocent people who rely on the internet because it will allow the Government to disconnect people it suspects of copyright infringement with any due process.

I am writing to you today to ask you to do all you can to ensure the Government doesn't just rush the bill through and deny us our democratic right to scrutiny and debate. I would be happy to discuss this matter with you further and provide some examples.

Yours sincerely, Derick Rethans

I have not seen a reply yet, but will update this post in case I receive one later. Please also write to your MP in case you are concerned with how this bill will affect your privacy and rights.

Scotland Holiday

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 19:58:00 +0000

Scotland Holiday

Scotland, UK

Friday, August 29th 2008, 21:58 CEST

Edinburgh, August 9th and 10th, 2008

I had a good flight through Amsterdam to Edinburgh, the real nerves started when my luggage did not appear on the baggage belt. Apparently I had missed it and it had fallen off in the back, out of sight. After being reunited with my bags slightly later and getting the car I made the arduous trip to the "hotel". The "hotel" was the Heriot-Watt campus, which was neither sign-posted or easy to find. After making a few circles through the neighbourhood, I managed to find it. However, finding the campus wasn't the only issue -- 30 minutes later I finally had found the reception in a pitch black night. Sleep commenced very soon after that.

I got up early in the morning for a light breakfast and unhappily discovered that it was raining. Not something you should be surprised about in Scotland. I took the bus into town to meet up with Lorna and after a cup of tea Scott as well. Without any real plan we wandered around the city and taking in the views. This quickly turned into looking for food. While having some drinks over lunch we chatted a bit more, and more walking occurred in the afternoon. We got tired, had some more drinks and by that time Lorna had to leave for home again.

Scott and I dropped of our gear at his room and went looking for a comedy show to go to. The Edinburgh Fringe festival was happening, so the biggest problem was to which of the 640 shows we wanted to go. We settled for "Des Clarke - Desire" at the Pleasance Courtyard. After a cup of tea in a café full of loonies, we left for the show. We had a great time, although his accent was sometimes a bit hard to understand for me. A cab brought me back to the "hotel".

After sleeping in a little bit, I took the bus again to downtown Edinburgh. I took a quick bite to give me strength to visit the Edinburgh castle. I took the long route through Princess Gardens up the hill. The queue for tickets took a little over hand an hour. The tour at the castle itself, was interrupted by the occasional shower, but the weather had improved a lot since the previous day. The castle is a must see. I liked the "prison of war" exhibitions best, and the crown jewels where the anti-climax.

After visiting the castle I was quite hungry and went to have a lunch of stir fried scallops at the Mussels hut. With the new found energy I climbed Caston hill. The last hours in Edinburgh I spend at the various street theaters of the fringe. After a light dinner at "bar One", consisting of swordfish and an apple/carrot salad I left back by bus to the Heriot-Watt campus.

Edinburgh to the Isle of Arran, August 11th, 2008

I started the day with a simple though hearty breakfast at the newly opened Mensa. From the hotel I travelled first slightly south to visit Roslyn's chapel. Unfortunately the chapel is mostly hidden by a roof to protect it from the rain. Inside photography was not allowed, so I didn't manage to take any pictures. In the church I listened to a guide explaining all the interesting art from the chapel. From pagan green men, the apprentice pillar and the Hollywood circle, the church appeared to house much more than I expected. From the church I left for Falkirk, home of the Falkirk Wheel.

The wheel replaces many locks between the Union and Forth and Clyde canals, and is quite an engineering feat. For some time there was even some blue sky which made watching the wheel turn more pleasant. I continued my journey after a quick lunch towards Glasgow and to Ardrossan where I would take the ferry to the Isle of Arran. I was a bit early and wandered about the really windy harbour. They also tried to fool me that my ferry would be two hours later, but that I didn't go for. The trip of the Firth of Clyde was windy, bumpy and slight sunny.

When I got the Brodrick on the other side, I shopped for essential energy suppliers for the upcoming walks around the island. I was staying at the Catacol Bay hotel on the northern point of the island, where I had breaded haddock for lunch. The wine that came with it "forced" me to walk around a bit along the windy coast. The heavy rain that had plummeted down when I arrived was gone. Before I went to bed I prepared a bit for the hikes of the following day.

Isle of Arran, August 12th, 2008

Hiking on an empty stomach doesn't work, but a full Scottish breakfast might be a bit too close to suicide. Way too much artery clogging goodness for me. Of course, the rain had returned but that was not going to stop me from a little hike around the "Cock of Arran". From my "parking place" I spotted a few seals, but they were obviously not sun-bathing. I didn't walk the whole planned tour as there was simply too much rain. In the end I was happy that I didn't continue, as I would have missed some many other things during my really short stay on Arran.

The next stop on my tour around Arran was a short walk to the standing stones and stone circles of Machrie Moor. During the two mile hike it was of course raining still. The last hike of the day was to the King's caves. I was silly and went the wrong way for nearly half an hour, but it finally stopped raining. After some dry period I finally ended up at the caves. There was even some sunshine. The rest of the day I merely drove around the rest of the island thinking I had no water with me. Back at the hotel I found six bottles in the trunk. I had dinner in the hotel's bar and the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy brought and end to the day.

Isle of Arran to Isle of Skye, August 13th, 2008.

A heavy Scottish breakfast started the day. I left quite early to catch the ferry at Brodrick back to the mainland. The day consisted of a lot of driving over narrowish roads. I stopped for a late lunch at a café overlooking Monty Python's castle Stalker. The weather was getting better the close I got to Skye. After the Skye bridge beautiful scenery appeared but I stopped only briefly to take some pictures as it was getting late too quickly. I didn't really settle in at the lovely B&B "Roskhill House" until after dinner at Hotel Dunvegan's bar.

Isle of Skye, August 14th and 15th, 2008

A nice breakfast at the B&B started the day. It was beautiful weather and excellent for my plan to hike to the Quiraing. A quick drive later over surprisingly good roads--although the last part was a one-file road--brought me to the parking place at the start of the hike. From there I walked for ca. 2.5 hours over the maintain range. Very strange rock formations and beautiful vistas. From there I drove on to walk to the Cave of Gold but was met by some bulls in a field that I had to cross. I gave up in fear of my life, and instead drove to Neist's point and enjoyed the view there in the setting sun.

I had dinner at "Old School" restaurant. Actually, I had dinner twice. For some reason my starter--duck--was misunderstood as another main course by the totally cute, but clumsy waitress (it could have been my accent of course as well). Both dinners were excellent; if you want to eat here as well, make sure you book on time, one, if not two days before hand.

The second day I was woken up by a little rain shower, but luckily the rain was gone before I was out of the shower. As the weather on the east coast of the island was supposedly going to be a bit better, I opted for climbing up to the "Old Man of Storr". A really nice walk with excellent views -- which got even better when the sun broke through. From the Storr I traveled up the coast and stopped a few times to enjoy the views and take some pictures. I ended up doing a walk to a lock, which was boring. With threatening rain I aborted the walk -- I got back to the car just before the shower would have soaked me. I had dinner at the Dunvegan hotel as my first choice, the "Loch Bay Seafood Restaurant" had no space for me.

Isle of Skye to Edzell, August 16th, 2008

Lots of driving again this day. I started off after brekkie for Scotland's east coast. I took a few compulsory pictures at Eilean Dohan castle and then drove along the shore of Loch Ness towards Invernness. I made a quick stop at Urquhart and but not manage to spot Nessie. I continued my way south from there through beautiful Aberdeenshire where all the heaths were blossoming. I was staying in a small village, Edzell at the Kelvingrove B&B. I had dinner at the Panmure Arms Hotel, which has an interesting setting. The food however was excellent.

Angus, August 17th, 2008

Breakfast was early at the B&B which meant that I had some time to kill before all the attractions opened -- it was a Sunday after all. So I decided to drive into Glen Clova, the supposedly nicest of the Angus glens. Unfortunately there was not much too see in the mist. I then proceeded to Glamis castle, said to have been the set for Shakespeare's MacBeth. It is very nice, with gardens all around. I found it a bit too commercial. From there on I visited the Pictavia museum in Brechin followed by a quick visit to Aberlemno to see a few of those Pictish stones. It was a bit of a bummer and lame. As last activity of the day I wanted to walk a little bit along the coast. But at the moment I started to walk, the rain started to pour down as well. So I aborted and went back to the B&B to eat, pack and watch a movie. The following day I was going home again.

Final notes

I should definitely have spend more time on Arran and Skye - both beautiful places of which I've not even seen half.

The food is mostly great in Scotland, as long as you stay away from Haggis.

My best accommodation was Roskhill House , there were also lots of other hikers there, which added to the atmosphere.

I had the least amount of fun in the last day in Angus.

It always rains in Scotland, so bring waterproof gear.

My pictures from the trip are on flickr .

Nacreous Clouds - take 2

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:16:00 +0000

Nacreous Clouds - take 2

Skien, Norway

Saturday, January 19th 2008, 18:16 CET

Finally another sighting of those rare nacreous clouds. More on flickr .

Finally a sunset after so much rain.

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:41:00 +0000

Finally a sunset after so much rain.

Skien, Norway

Tuesday, August 21st 2007, 21:41 CEST

Snowy Sunset

Sat, 03 Feb 2007 16:55:00 +0000

Snowy Sunset

Skien, Norway

Saturday, February 3rd 2007, 17:55 CET

Brasil Conference Wrap-up

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:42:00 +0000

Brasil Conference Wrap-up

Foz do Iguaçu, Brasil

Tuesday, December 19th 2006, 16:42 CET

In the beginning of this month I attended the PHP Conference Brasil . Besides speaking on Xdebug and the eZ Components I also spend a few extra days as holiday there.

During those extra days I flew to Foz do Iguaçu to have a look at the Itaipu dam on the border with Paraguay and Iguaçu falls .

Besides the falls there are many other things to see in the park, such as butterflies and very big ants .

After visiting the park I travelled further south to visit one of my colleagues, Melissa . Together we travelled to Gramado, a very German looking city .

For the rest of the pictures check my gallery . There are also a few panoramas available.

Just too late for sunset

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 22:46:00 +0000

Just too late for sunset

Helgeroa, Norway

Sunday, November 19th 2006, 23:46 CET

I usually try to get out in the weekend a bit instead of staying inside the house. The weather was great yesterday so I invited Sebastian for a little trip to Mølen to take pictures at sunset. Unfortunately, we were two minutes too late to see the sun set. Luckily that did not stop us from taking pictures - just after sunset there is still some sunlight that hits the clouds turning them red. Here you see Sebastian taking a picture of just those red clouds:

After the sun sets the light decreases which allows you to play a little bit with longer exposures. You can get very nice effects such as in this four second exposure of waves breaking on the (rocky) shore:

If you instead of a close up take a bit wider image of the shore it gives an eery feeling just like this shot of the waves and water flowing inbetween the rocks that were deposited here by a glacier a long time ago:

The rest of the images in this serie can be found in my gallery .

Iceland - Fire and Water

Tue, 18 Jul 2006 15:09:00 +0000

Iceland - Fire and Water

Reykjavik, Iceland

Tuesday, July 18th 2006, 15:09 GMT

Most people don't mention "Iceland" as their top number one holiday destination. However I'm a bit strange and decided to go to just this place on holiday this year. After some investigations it seemed that the best time of year was somewhere around the end of July regarding temparature, however you never know certain about what to expect. That means packing all types of clothes... summer clothes, but also a thick winter jacket, skiing clothes and rain clothes. Of course, depending on what you are going to do exactly. I wanted to see all possible types of terrain on iceland, which includes nice warm lagoons (swim wear) and glacier (warm clothes is a good idea there). Flights to Iceland are not very cheap either, but then again, nor is anything else cheap on Iceland. (Yes, the alcohol tax is even higher than in Norway). After a bit of investigation in the different points-of-interest on Iceland with the help of some locals (thanks Helgi and Bjori!) and the Lonely Planet I headed to Iceland with a friend on July 6th.

101 Reykjavik

After getting to Keflavik airport way to late at night we managed to find our way to the guesthouse just to find that I fluked the reservation and they they expected us to arrive the next day. That meant that we had to sleep in "sleeping bag accomodations" which was not so confortable but I really didn't care after this overly long trip. A guesthouse is normally just a small step down from a hotel usually without people cleaning up your room every day. It does however provide a good and somewhat cheaper place to stay at.

The next day we toured around Reykjavik and the Reykjanes peninsula a bit and basically just waited until our room at the guest house was ready. After a well needed shower to get rid of all the smells we met up with a local and headed for a relaxing bath in the Blue Lagoon, the most famous (but definitely not the only) geothermal pool in Iceland. Helgi suggested to have dinner at ... and so we went there for a good meal. The best meat in Iceland is sheep or lamb and you figure out why once you start out driving in the country side... the only animal that you'd find there is sheep... and you find them literally everywhere - both off the road and on the roads.

Þingvellír (Thingvellir)

Iceland begun quite some time ago with the first parliament ever in

930. The parliament was build on a site called Þingvellír which is now part of a national park. Besides the site of the former parliament the general landscape is also quite interesting as well as there is a massive lava ridge cutting across the landscape there as well as some water filled gorges and (ofcourse) a waterfall. From Þingvellír we avoided the ring road on the way back to Reykjavik and instead took some road closer to the south of the country. Little did we know as suddendly the road turned into a gravel road which we had to follow for the next, say, 50 kilometers. The road did however pass an interesting site with lots of water coming up from the ground in bright coloured mud pools.

Water

As proper tourists we visited two other popular sites the next day. Starting off on the southern ring road we left busy Reykjavik to visit "Geysir".

Before we ended up at the geysirs we drove past the Keriđ explosion crater. We actually tried to have a look at this one the day before but our map had it in a totally wrong place, however my GPS map (!! add link) did have it correctly. (!! add stuff about this event). All that as left now is a crater which now houses a small lake in the middle.

The English word geysir finds its origin in exactly the site which formerly housed this great natural water fountain in Iceland. However, in the last few years the original geysir does no longer function properly and only rarely spits out its water into the air. However at the same site there is another geysir called Strokkur which still performs well. About every 5 to 10 minutes it bursts out water into the air, however each bursts intensity varies quite a bit. You need to be a bit lucky to see a "big one". Besides Strokkur there are also a number of smaller less regular geysirs and "Bluesi" - a very blue pool with warm water.

From the geysir field we then proceeded towards Gullfoss - the Golden Falls - named because its always present rainbow. However... if there is no sun there won't be a rainbow either ofcourse. We were lucky and the weather was fair so we could enjoy the magic of the great falls.

Past the great glacier

Leaving Reykjavik behind we set off for Höfn (pronounced like "Hùb"). Along this route there are many smaller and larger waterfalls including one of Iceland's finest called "Seljalandsfoss". We went to see a few of those and then wandered off the ring road to have a look at the Dyrhólaey plateau where there is a large colony of puffins as well. We spend some time trying to get as close to the puffins as possible for a good photo and then proceeded our route to Höfn. When driving along the southern ring road we passed lots of lava fields and glacier tongues. The glacier toungues are all part of the largest icecap of Europe: Vatnajökull.

About an hour before Höfn we passed the Jökulsárlón bay which is filled with icebergs from the Breiđamerkurjökull glacier. This bay gives a very strange feeling as it looks like it just comes out of a movie. Coincidentally we figured out later that parts of a James Bond film (Die Another Day) was shot here on this bay. Höfn itself is a tiny tiny town with little to do, however we would only use it as base camp for our glacier expedition.

Hike on Svínafellsjökull glacier

The next morning we left early from Höfn to be on time for our 10 o'clock appointment with the Icelandic Mountain Guides. This little plan of ours almost went wrong because at the Jökulsárlón bay they where working on the bridge which set us back by about 20 minutes. We barely made it on time to the base camp of the mountain guides just to find that they had us down for 14:00 and not 10:00. Luckily there was still some space for us in the 10:00 tour. There was not much Icelandic about our guide as he was there on an exchange project from New Zealand: Ben. Ben took us out on a trip over the lower parts of the Svínafellsjökull glacier and explained us about the different things that make up a glacier. Basically a glacier is just compressed snow but because of gravity this compressed mass starts moving down the valleys until there is a point where the sun is winning from the accumulation of snow. Here the glacier melts and ends. Between the main icecap Vatnajökull and the edge are the glacier valleys and ice falls. Just after we came off the glacier it started to pour so we just drove back to Höfn and stayed in. I managed to assemble most of my panoramas and manage all my photos that I'd taken so far.

From Höfn to Akureyri

Rain, rain and more rain was the case this day as well when we passed past numerous bays and inlets on the eastern side of Iceland and later through high plains with lava fields. Somewhat closer to Myvatn we made a small detour to see the Krafla region's vulcanic activity but bad wind and rain killed that plan. We did manage to have a look at the Krafla power station where electricity is won from earth heated water in the form of steam. The small tour of the plant was done by a girl who've had this summer job for the past 4 years and was happy to answer our questions, especially because were not so loud as the three tour busses that left when we just got there I suppose. We promised to come back to the Krafla area to see more of it the next day as weather was supposed to improve a lot.

Waterfalls and Vulcanoes

And indeed the weather did improve. With 18°C and sunny it was the perfect day to investigate some of the waterfalls in the area and then head back to the Krafla region. First on the menu was Gođafoss, which is situated very close to the ring road itself. From there on we went to the Ásbyrgi canyon on the north side of the road that leads to Dettifoss. The road that leads to Dettifoss is a 25 km long gravel road (doesn't matter from which end) that goes over some very intersting landscape which can only be similar to something as remote as the moon. There are actually multiple waterfalls in this river and you can get close to three without too much walking. The first one is Hafragillsfoss, which is rather uninspiring as you can see Dettifoss' spray in the background already. Dettifoss is actually quite ugly with black water but it is the most powerful waterfall in Iceland so you shouldn't really miss it.

From the same carpark that serves Dettifoss it's a nice 1.5 km hike to the third waterfall that you can get to, Selfoss. After visiting those three falls we proceeded southward to end up in the Krafla region, this time with some sun. Now the rain was gone we could actually see the big Viti explosion crater and walk a bit around it. Another popular hike here is the one around Lernhjúkur that takes you through a geothermic area with lots of hot springs and the lava fields that were created with the latest erruptions in this area. You can quite clearly show where the lava came from and how it flowed. It was also clear that the area is still active as the ground was usually warm and there were lots of steam vents spraying bad smelling vapor into the air. Nearby is the Hverarönd area which also has a lot of interesting pools.

Dimmuborgir

On our last day on the North side of the country we again traveled to the Myvatn area to see Dimmuborgir, the black castles. However before we went there we tried to have a look at some intersting lava pillars that can be found just inside the lake. It is quite obvious why the name of the lake is Myvatn (Mosquito lake) as the were literally swarms of mosquitoes attacking us as soon as we got out of the car. Even at the Dimmuborgir site the mosquitoes were quite persistent however not as bad as closer to the lake. Dimmuborgir has some intersting formations of lava resembling buildings and even a church. On the way back we also visited the Laufás farm museum which has some restored old homes.

To the west

After Akureyri we traveled to the Snæfellsness peninsula on the west of Iceland. Unfortunately this day was again full of rain and lots of wind so we didn't really see a lot besides dirt against the car window. We stayed in a tiny town called Grundarfjórdur in a tiny but cosy hotel which also serves as the local restaurant. The town lies under the realm of Kirkufjell which we actually couldn't quite see just yet. With promises that the weather would clear up the next day we headed for bed early.

Snæfellsness Peninsula

At the westernern part of Iceland is the Snæfellsness peninsula with its main feature being the Snæfellsnessjökull glacier. But there are many more sites along the coast, although some of them might be a hard to get to. The Lonely Planet helped here a bit and we eventually made it to some very little traveled place: Öndsverdnes - the most western point of Europe - Very remote and actually quite boring. However when traveling further south along the coast the weather cleared and we had some nice walks along the coast near Arnarstapi where the water carved out interesting features in the rocks. The small hikes here however were the end of the holiday as we needed to head back for Reykjavik to catch the next day's early morning flight.

Pictures

For pictures of the whole trip, see my gallery , panoramas are here .

Holmenkollen

Tue, 14 Mar 2006 10:15:00 +0000

Holmenkollen

Oslo, Norway

Tuesday, March 14th 2006, 11:15 CET

Every year there is a ski jumping event in Oslo, at the Holmenkollen venue. As I'm turning more and more Norwegian now (already been here for almost two years now) I could not let this slip. So together with some folks we drove to Oslo and walked up the hill to the venue. It's pretty impressive to see how high this hill they jump off actually is. Much more impressive then on TV.

Normally Holmenkollen is always very foggy, but this year there was excellent weather: "warm" and sunny. We were a bit early so had to wait a bit but atleast there were some performances to get the audience going. Amazingly that seemed to work better than I expected.

There were 50 participants and they started in the order they were ranked in FIS ' World Championship. After the first round the best 30 continue to the second heat where the best one from the first heat is the last man to jump. Adam Malysz won which didn't please the Norwegians too much (best Norwegian was 10th). There were a lot of Poles at the event though, and they were ofcourse quite happy.

For more photos see my gallery .

Singapore, Bangkok and Bintan

Fri, 23 Dec 2005 18:47:00 +0000

Singapore, Bangkok and Bintan

Singapore

Friday, December 23rd 2005, 19:47 CET

In the last week of November and the first week of December I had my holiday, which I choose to spend in South East Asia.

The first stop was Singapore, where I have some family . That made it an exellent point to start my trip. The flight to Singapore is quite long from where I'm living and the 7 hour time difference is not very nice either. The moment I stepped out of the airport and into the taxi the rain started pouring down, topped off with a nice loud lightning strike - that was an excellent start.

Singapore is a very modern and western city, albeit it has a lot of eastern influences.

Not only from the Chinese and Malay , but also from Tamils. Therefore in Singapore most signs are in 4 languages (English, which is still the primairy language, Mandarin Chinese, Tamil and Malay). The influences from the other cultures are mostly visible in dedicated areas. There is Little India and of course China Town. Interestingly enough, the largest hindoe temple (to the right) is in China Town :).

When Stamford Raffles reached Singapore in the early 1800s he did not find a large bustling city that is now Singpare, but instead he found a lot of rain forest. There is still some of it left, in the northern part of the country, in a nature reserve called Bukit Timah where monkeys still roam freely (although they also pester you near the entrance of the park).

From Singapore we made a 6 day trip to Bangkok , which official name in Thai is "กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์". Bangkok is a whole different world compared to Singapore. Where Singapore is clean and modern, Bangkok is large and polluted and has a horrible traffic problem. The main attraction (atleast for me) is all the different temples (wat in Thai). As I like photography, all those temples are a nice subject to take shots of. At your left you find the 46 meter long reclining buddha at Wat Pho .

Above is one of the decorations around the building housing the emerald buddha at Wat Phra Kaew . This temple lies on the Grand Palace premises, which houses a lot of other templates and the some buildings used for royalty.

We visited the day before the King's birthday which unfortunately meant that some of the buildings were closed. Our hotel was close to Khaosan Road , which is a very vibrant area with lots of food stands and shops that sell fake stuff :). One temple that has quite a different style compared to the others is Wat Arun which you see here on the left. It's in Khmer style and covered with porcelain.

After 6 days we left Bangkok and prepared for our next trip. The next trip went to Bintan, an Indonesian island about an hour by ferry from Singapore. As Dutchie I needed to get a visa for Indonesia so we had to spend some annoying time at the Indonesian embassy in Singapore. We managed to retrieve our passport with the visa just in time before going to Thailand so we were all set to go.

Bintan is a small island and mostly leased by Singapore to put resorts on. We did not go to the North Western resort area but instead we went to Trikora Beach on the east side. We stayed at the Shady Shack which is definitely not a luxurious place. It did have running water (from a large tank) and electricity but that was about it. The main attraction was the nice beach on which our shacks were located. We were the only tourists there and it was very nice and quiet to relax on for a whole day.

On the second day of our stay we walked to a nearby fishing village that was built on poles in the ocean. During the night the villagers go out fishing with their kelang (houses on floats) and during they day they would sell their fish in the village. Bintan gave me a small tan and I relaxed quite nicely. In the afternoon of the second day we went back to Singapore where I concluded my holiday.

For all the other pictures that I made during the trip see my gallery .

PDM 2005 photos

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 21:47:00 +0000

PDM 2005 photos

Paris, France

Sunday, November 20th 2005, 22:47 CET

Last weekend we had a PHP developers meeting in Paris to discuss PHP 6. (More about that later). Ofcourse when you're in Paris you need to see some of the sights. Together with Marcus , Andrei and Jani we toured the famous landmarks in Paris. On the left you can see the Eiffel Tour and below the Arc de Triomphe .

The other pictures can be found in my gallery .

Frankfurt Zoo

Sun, 20 Nov 2005 18:53:00 +0000

Frankfurt Zoo

Frankfurt, Germany

Sunday, November 20th 2005, 19:53 CET

During the conference in Frankfurt I visited the local Zoo with Ilia and Sebastian to take some pictures.

Unfortunately most of the animals were inside, and it's quite hard to take pictures through think glass. But atleast you can get really close up pictures without your head getting torn off.

This shows really well what an aperture of 1.2 does - you can see that only a very small amount is in the focus area here.

Outside we found two leopards, one was constantly moving, but this one was quietly laying and watching around.

The rest of the pictures from the Zoo are in my gallery .

Skien Sunset

Sun, 16 Oct 2005 12:31:00 +0000

Skien Sunset

Skien, Norway

Sunday, October 16th 2005, 14:31 CEST