Facebook Hackathon

At first we were hesitating whether we should go or not. But it was proved to be a valuable experience. I’m talking about Facebook Hackathon, an event that took place in London on the 27th and 28th. First of all, for those of you that keep asking me, no a hackathon isn’t a place where all the geeks gather and hack the system. Ah, well not exactly. A hackathon is an event in which all the participants spend 24 hours in the same place to make something from scratch and compete depending on what they made. These days there were two main hackathon’s going on in London, one from Facebook and one from Yahoo. We decided to go to the first one, but if I could do it again I don’t know which one I would choose, both had their ups and downs. Anyway.

Cambridge vs Oxford

After being to Oxford twice I’ve been dying to go to Cambridge as well, only to be able to actually compare these two and see which side I’m choosing. Yesterday, after a lot of effort to overcome the obstacles that have been raised (bloody money), we finally made it there and I’m so happy we did. Don’t get me wrong, Oxford is beautiful and I hate everyone that lives there just for being able to be there.. But I think I’m more of a Cambridge person. The universities were enormous and beautiful and mostly there was so much green over there! The garden in the back of Trinity College was simply the best.

But, silly me, I think what got me the most was the Jerwood Library. It’s stupid I know, it’s not like it’s something old or beautiful or anything, but I loved this window seat, next to the bridge, in front of the river. I actually wish I could be there right now, while writing this post, lying on this bed, looking outside the window and facing the beautiful view.

Someday I will meet your brothers

This is a Moai standing at the British Museum. Moais are human figures carved on rock, centuries ago, by Rapa Nui people. More of them can be found on this island.

Mastering Geography

When you can’t travel physically, it’s a good opportunity to broaden your knowledge about the world, discover new places to visit and prepare your future journeys. As that’s the situation with us, because we just returned from our Easter trip and our money box is empty, we have started playing geography games on the internet to test our knowledge and to learn new stuff.

After achieving satisfactory scores in findind countries, cities and landmarks on the European map we focused on other continents like Africa and Asia. So far, we are both able to locate almost every country plus some popular cities on those two continents and all that by just playing games. I think we are addicted in this kind of games…

Free sand portraits in Science Museum…

Me & Andy sketched by a cold robotic arm on sand.

If you can’t visit the Science Museum, you can have your face sketched on sand by visiting the Web Lab site: http://www.chromeweblab.com/

Timelapse Mountain View

I wish someday we’re going to be lucky enough to create something similar. Kinda takes your breath away, ain’t it?

Also, the song is “Nuvole bianche” by Ludovico Einaudi, and it is at least amazing.

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

The sink paradox

Wondering around the United Kingdom we came across the same problem many times. Trying to wash our hands, brush our teeth or refresh our faces we had to choose between boiling water or ice-cold water because there were two separate taps located in opposite directions on the sink. See for your selves:

A typical sink in UK

As a result of the above situation, a plausible question arises; Why is this happening? Are the sinks from an age that it was difficult to produce complex faucets? Is it a tradition derived from the above ages? What is it?

Like they say, it’s the journey that matters not the destination.

After a long journey in the UK mainland, for the Easter vacations, we ended up in Scotland. We spent two days in Edinburgh and there was one more left until we return to London. The plan was to visit Glasgow but we made a last minute change to our plans as a little thought that planted in our head grew up spontaneously fast. We were so close to the Highlands…

So, we booked a full day trip to Loch Ness, charged our cameras, prepared our bags and here are the results of our decision.

On our way to the Highlands

Welcome to the Highlands

Impressive mountains

Snowing at the Loch Ness