"Everything flows, everything
is in constant flux & movement,
  nothing is abiding, therefore
    we cannot step twice
    into the same river
when I step into the river for the
second time, neither I nor the river
            are the same"

            HERACLITUS
            540-480 B.C

I took this picture back in June 2003 (River Swat), precisely the first time I ever used manual camera. I am going there again in September, and I dont think it would be the same :)

Trust Nobody .. :P

This is an animated GIF so wait for all the other images on the page to be loaded and then you 'll be able to see some movement :)

Bingmayong

The Terracotta warriors (bingmayong) are among the top archaeological excavations of the 20th Century. This incredible collection of 6,000 men and their horses was actually discovered completely by accident by a group of peasants in 1974 who were digging a well! In a bizarre twist, the man who supposedly discovered them now sits in a hall at the site signing postcards of the stone army. The Terracotta Warriors represent only a small portion of the eight thousand strong underground army buried in front of the Emperor Qinshihuang's tomb (r. 221-207 BC) to defend him in the afterlife.
T
he craftsmanship attested by each of the statues is as stupendous as the scale of the project. So who was the Emperor Qinshihuang to merit such magnificence?


One of the most important rulers in Chinese history, this Emperor leaves a legacy as morally complicated as that of Peter the Great. For, like the Russian Tsar, he is as well-known for his contributions to the modern state as he is for sacrificing the lives of thousands of laborers to his visionary projects. Made King of the state of Qin at the age of thirteen, by the time he was thirty-eight he conquered the six neighboring states to unify China for the first time.


Although reviled for his tyranny, Qinshihuangdi is also admired for many radical and insightful policies which subsequent dynasties employed. To synthesize seven separate states into one nation, he standardized a common script and established uniform measurement and monetary systems. For effective government, he codified a legal system and replaced hereditary rulers with a centrally appointed administrative system. To improve industrial productivity he encouraged agricultural reforms and constructed many roads. And in an effort to limit the inroads of barbarian tribes, he supervised the construction of a defence fortification along the northern frontier, the first Great Wall. Although China benefited from these policies, thousands of Chinese workers died in completing this far-reaching public works program.

700,000 forced laborers were sacrificed to construct his tomb which was begun as soon as he ascended the throne. All workers and childless concubines were interred with him to safeguard its secrets. According to Sima Qian's "The Historical Records" written a century later, heaven and earth are represented in the tomb's central chamber. The ceiling, inlaid with pearls, represents the starry heavens. The floor, made of stone, forms a map of the Chinese kingdom; a hundred rivers of mercury flow across it. And all manner of treasure is protected by deadly booby-traps.

The main tomb (where archaeologists believe possibly a larger and more impressive army is buried) has still to be excavated - partly because archaeologists are still uncertain of its exact location. Often Emperors amassed huge burial mounds simply to divert robbers' attention from the true site of their tomb. So the artificial mound that today marks the Emperor's tomb does not necessarily indicate the location of its wondrous central chamber. However, because high mercury levels have recently been reported nearby, archaeologists think they may, at last, have discovered it. The Terracotta Warriors, that you will see today, form just one of the many barriers the ruthless Emperor employed to protect his tomb for eternity.

The limestone and marble Kouroi and Kourai of the Greek Late Archaic Period (535-480 BCE) refute the claim that the Terracotta Warriors were the first free-standing statues in the history of world art. This, though, does little to undermine the ingenuity of the Terracotta Warriors' design and manufacturing process. For whereas the Ancient Greeks meticulously carved individual statues out of stone, the Qin dynasty project held all the problems of production on a mass scale. Tens of thousands of individual human and animal statues were manufactured within a series of processes that began with the molding of solid legs.



It was by constructing each of the hollow statues upon solid legs that the Ancient Chinese craftsemen solved the perplexing problem of how to make a statue free-standing. Hollow heads, arms and legs, made of coiled earth, were joined together with strips of clay and set upon the solid legs. After this rough model was assembled, a fine clay slip was added, and details such as eyes, mouth, nose and details of dress were carved into the clay while it was still pliable. Additional pieces such as ears, beard and armour were modeled separately and attached, after which the whole figure was fired at a high temperature.

Sources: CHINAPICTURES.ORG (most images are taken from that web site)
Archeology.net
Chinatravelclub.com/topsight/10.asp

Welcome to What The Hack!

What The Hack is a largely self-organizing outdoor hacker conference/event taking place on a large event-campground in the south of The Netherlands from 28 until 31 July 2005. Events such as WTH take place every 4 years, and have been described as 'the Woodstock of the hacker scene'. For an impression, check out some pictures or browse the conference program. (A slightly longer introduction can be found here).

Mosaic Art

Mosaics are designs or pictures created by embedding small pieces of glass, stone, terracotta etc. into a bed of cement or other form of fixative. This form of decoration is often used for panels or on floors, but is especially effective on curved surfaces, such as ceilings and vaults. Mosaics are found both indoors and outdoors.

The art of mosaic, in one form or another, has been practiced for thousands of years, but mosaic as we know it was invented by the Greeks (probably sometime around 4th century BC), who then passed their skills on to the Romans. By 200 BC, specially manufactured pieces ("tesserae") were being used to give extra detail and range of colour to the work. Using small tesserae, sometimes only a few millimetres in size, meant that mosaics could imitate paintings. Many of the mosaics preserved at, for example, Pompeii were the work of Greek artists.


The Chora Church, home to some of the best preserved Byzantine mosaics in the world.

Closeup of some of the mosaics.


The Romans in due course became the Byzantines, who are renowned for their superb wall and vault mosaics. If you compare mosaics from Roman Britain with Italian ones you will notice that the British examples are simpler in design and less accomplished in technique. Typically Roman subjects were scenes celebrating their gods, domestic themes and geometric designs. The inter-twined rope border effect here is called "guilloche". With the rise of the Byzantine Empire from the 5th century onwards, centred on Byzantium (now Istanbul, Turkey), the art form took on new characteristics. These included Eastern influences in style and the use of special glass tesserae called smalti, manufactured in northern Italy. These were made from thick sheets of coloured glass. Smalti have a rough surface and contain tiny air bubbles. They are sometimes backed with reflective silver or gold leaf. Whereas Roman mosaics were mostly used as floors, the Byzantines specialised in covering walls and ceilings.


The ceiling of the Chora Church

Byzantium fell in the 15th century AD, and mosaic went into a decline until the great revival in the 19th century, a revival which has continued to this day. Modern developments in materials and techniques are evidence that mosaic is very much alive as we approach the Millenium. Computers are of course ideal for designing contemporary mosaics, and are increasingly used for that purpose.


Another shot of ceiling of the Chora Church

In the west of Europe, the Moors brought Islamic mosaic and tile art into the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century, while elsewhere in the Muslim world, stone, glass and ceramic were all used in mosaics. The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Ummayad Great Mosque in Damascus are excellent examples of Islamic Mosaic Art. The Dome of the Rock was built in the late 7th century and is decorated with floral mosaics depicting acanthus leaves, palm trees, cornucopias, vases, and tree-of-life motifs. The tesserae are set against gold backgrounds in dominant shades of green and blue, with accents of red, silver, gray, mauve, black, and white.

Originally, colored glass and stone mosaics covered the outer walls of the Dome of the Rock. Of any building still remaining from the 7th century, this shrine has the largest area of original mosaic. During the Ottoman period (1517-1918), the outer walls were recovered with brilliant blue, green, yellow and white ceramic tiles in either Arabesque design or with Qur'anic verses. Original tiles can still be seen on the outside of the drum. The rest of the tiles were restored in 1964.


The Ummayad Great Mosque in Damascus (see the above picture and notice the similarities between this one and the 3rd picture from top - interior of chora church) was finished in the early 8th century. It has mosaics on both the exterior and the interior of the building that depict floral and tree motifs as well as buildings and an imaginary city. In the 13th century the Seljuk Turks of Asia Minor developed a mosaic technique using glazed tiles. These mosaics are dominated by turquoise blue, yellow, green, and white against a cobalt blue background; they are set in geometric patterns with Arabic inscriptions.

Sources:
1. My memory & old HD :), most of the images in particular
2. Harvard Fine Arts Library
3. http://www.thejoyofshards.co.uk/history/index.shtml
4. http://www.sacredsites.com/middle_east/israel/jerusalem.html
5. http://encarta.msn.com/text_761575462___4/Mosaics.html

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans

John Lennon

Google ka moon shoon :o)

"In honor of the first manned Moon landing, which took place on July 20, 1969, we’ve added some NASA imagery to the Google Maps interface to help you pay your own visit to our celestial neighbor. Happy lunar surfing."

And when you zoom right in, the surface changes to Swiss cheese.

Googly Moony

Love is real, real is love
Love is feeling, feeling love
Love is wanting to be loved

Love is touch, touch is love
Love is reaching, reaching love
Love is asking to be loved

Love is you
You and me
Love is knowing
We can be

Love is free, free is love
Love is living, living love
Love is needing to be loved

John Lennon

Uploading these three lennon songs to educate a friend, listen and enjoy :)

Love

Beautiful Boy

Dreams

Srebrenica - 10th anniversary

July 11 marked the 10th anniversary of Europe's worst massacre since WWII. 8000 Muslim men and boys were systematically murdered by Bosnian Serbs after they took over one of the United Nation's Safe Areas.

"They killed my entire life and the only thing I want now is to see the guilty ones pay for it," Fatima Budic, whose 14-year-old son Velija was one of the victims, told AP news agency.
Her husband and another son are among the missing.

Read the full story

Google Earth

This is really amazing, a 3D interface to the planet. Fly around the Earth courtesy of Google. Works with Windows.

Google Earth

Since I am not in a mood to sit in front of my damn machine tonight so I am just gonna put a couple of quotes I read somewhere, and then probably gonna watch Roman Holiday (black & white wali). It's been a while :)

The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.

Elbert Einstein


Civilization is maintained by a very few people in a small number of places and we need only some bombs and a few prisons to blot it out altogether.

Cyril Connolly

WWI - Color Photography

I was searching for some facts anf figures about WWI last night when I found these amazing pictures. These are color photgraphs of French soldiers fighting on various fronts.

Although color photography was around prior to 1903, the Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, patented the process in 1903 and developed the first color film in 1907. The French army was the only one taking color photos during the course of World War One.

Senegalese soldiers

Without knowing more, it is impossible to tell which French Colony these soldiers may have come from or, in fact, if they are French soldiers. But France had a number of colonies in Africa at this time. In fact, almost one-third of Africa was under French rule in 1914.

Troops at rudimentary fortifications


Anyone able to read the sign?


A church building after shelling


How do I know it is shelling? The air-to-ground war as it realtes to bombing did not really come about until WWII.

Notice the camouflage netting.


Outside their bunker cleaning


Taking a break


Guardhouse


Appears to be cooler weather, given their dress


Rail car under an overpass

Looks like there may be some minor damage to the car

Source: I am sorry I have lost the link to these pictures :| .. I 'll put it here as soon I find it.

Kingdom of Heaven

Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven is the one movie I am really looking forward to see. Finally hollywood has come up with something related to my favorite subjects. Sultan Salahuddin Ayubi is probably one of those very few Muslims whom Europeans have usually treated with great respect in their history books.

The film's most striking message (as I have read in various reviews), that Muslims and Christians can live together in peace, will provide an opportunity for increased interfaith dialogue.

Very very highly recommended.