Rafael - Living live a day at a time

I am sure that there will be thousands of images going around from yesterday's historical day, but here are some that I have found to be very interesting:

• Geoeye satellite took an aerial picture of it and it is definitely worth a look. Follow the link and you can even download the high resolution from it
• Cnet has a couple of zoomed images from the original. It's make me wonder as these are pictures taken 423 miles up in the sky by a satellite traveling at 17,000 miles per hour
• The New York Times as a zoomable photo showing the president addressing the crowd. Just hover over the crowd and you will get some help identifying the attendees.
• CNN has 360-degree panorama with the stand before the ceremony
• CNN-Microsoft put together a commemorative 3D portrait of the presidential inauguration using Microsoft's Photosynth Technology and it should be a really interesting view (I have not seen it yet as I cannot install it at work), via PCWorld
• Reuters has put together an Audio Slideshow with the Best of the inauguration and Obama's speech

Enjoy them and share any other good and interesting ones you find.

Labels: News, Politics

The 2008 China Olympics have passed already (some time ago but I had not blogged on it) and with it a new image has been given to the world about China and their capabilities to organize such an outstanding event and as we say in Spanish "Botar la casa por la ventana" which literally means to throw the house through the window or to do it with splendor.

US lead in total number of medals with 110 medals in total, while China finished on top with 51 Gold medals and 100 medals in total. That's an outstanding result when compared with 1 Bronze medal that my beloved Venezuela got, but hey one is better than nothing, right?

I wanted to share some great links about the Olympics, specially pictures from the Olympic games which I have found on the web:

• You have got to check this page at The New York Times which has an interactive map showing graphically the quantity of medals won by each country in all the Olympic games since Athens 1896!
• The big picture blog has the best set of pictures I have seen of the opening ceremony
• Sports Illustrated has an underwater slideshow of the 100m butterfly final where Michael Phelps won by .01 seconds, you have to see how close it was!!
• The Daily Mail has a story of how photographs helped overturn a result in taekwondo, giving Britain the chance to win the Bronze and taking china out
• Stern from Germany has very unusual and sometime humorous set of 150 pictures from the Olympics, you should not miss.
• Sports Illustrated has a great photo archive of their coverage of the Olympics
• If you are into photography (as I am) you should check this 360 degree high resolution panorama, shot by Kari Kuukka from a photographer's corral before the men's 100m final.
• London has now a big challenge to host the Olympics in 2012 after this amazing show put up by china, so preparing for that The big Picture posted a great looking set of pictures of London shot from above and at night.

I hope you enjoyed the Olympics and that you enjoy these links too

Labels: News, Olympics

¡¡No se pierdan este video que está increible!! Y pensar que RCTV fue cambiada para que los Venezolanos disfrutaran de esto



Este es Willy Oviedo, comentarista deportivo de TVes y quién tuvo una pequeña confusión al cubrir la noticia sobre Michael Phelps al ganar su octava medalla de oro. Según el Michael Phelps nadó en 1972, cuando los juegos Olímpicos fueron en la Alemania Nazi y Hitler no le quizo dar sus medallas de oro ¡No te lo pierdas!

Encontrado via franengotas.com

Labels: Español, News, Venezuela

According to the Census Bureau Thursday released projections, by 2050 whites will make up 46% of the US population (down from 66% today), blacks will make up 15% (a relatively small increase from today), Asians will raise to 9% (from 5% currently); while "Hispanics" will account for 30% (up from about 15% now).

The U.S. population is projected to grow from about 305 million people today to 400 million by 1039 and 439 million by 2050. While it's over 85 population is projected to more than triple to 19 million by 2050.

US is still far behind China or India on population, but that's a significant increase in population and in retired population, which as in many other developed countries will put big pressure on retirement funds. And the quantity of "Hispanics" is expected to increase from 49.7 million in 2010 to 132.7 millions by 2050, that's about a 267% increase!!

Read more in Yahoo or if you want to look into the data itself check the Census Bureau directly

Labels: News

A global television audience of more than three billion people watched in amazement as a series "video footage from a helicopter" of giant footprints outlined in fireworks proceeded through the night sky from Tiananmen Square to the Bird's Nest stadium - except they were watching a computer animation 3D graphics sequence that took almost a year to produce.

While the dramatic display actually happened as portrayed on television, members of the Beijing Olympic Committee said it was necessary to replace live video with computer-generated imagery because the city’s hazy, smoggy skies made it too difficult to see, according to The Beijing Times, which first reported the story.

"Seeing how it worked out, it was still a bit too bright compared to the actual fireworks," "But most of the audience thought it was filmed live - so that was mission accomplished."Gao Xiaolong (the man responsible for the animation) told the China's Beijing Times.


Now honestly, how many of you thought there was something fishy about those almost perfect fireworks? This definitely raises the bar for the next computer animated films and interaction of CGI with real world news, footage, video, etc.

More information on PhotoshopNews.com, news.sky.com, Bloomber.com and NBC.com

Labels: News

A new study from the International labor Office (ILO) gives interesting insights into the labor market for young people all over the world, and it does not look good.

While the youth population grew by 13.2% between 1995 and 2005, employment among young people grew by only 3.8% to reach 548 million. From the 1.1 billion young people between 15-24 worldwide, one third is either seeing but unable to find work, has given up the search entirely or is working but living on less than US$2 a day.

The Developed Economies and EU region where the only ones to show a considerable decrease in youth unemployment over the last 10 years, but the report attributed this to a declining number of young people in the labor force rather than successful employment strategies.
The highest regional youth unemployment rate was observed in the Middle East and North Africa at 25.7%. Central and Eastern Europe (non-EU) and CIS had the second highest rate in the world with 19.9%. Sub-Saharan Africa's rate was 18.1%, followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (16.6%), South East Asia and the Pacific (15.8%), the developed economies and European Union (EU) (13.1%), South Asia (10%) and East Asia (7.8%).

With the persistence of poverty among as many as 56% of young workers - and the possibility that they may be facing long working hours, temporary and/or informal contracts, with low pay, little or no social protection, minimal training and no voice at work - it becomes clear that having a job is not the same as having a decent job. The ILO report estimates that at least 400 million decent and productive employment opportunities will be needed in order to reach the full productive potential of today's youth

Read the Communication from ILO.
Read the Report

Conclusion: Entrepreneurs, support for them and education availability is needed.

Labels: News

I decided to post some Tech News to feed my inner nerd, who is always taking a look at the new gadgets out there:

	BMW is developing a Turbosteamer: An overall 15% improvement could be obtained by using the energy from the exhaust gases (heat produced) of the traditional Engine to power a steam engine. The best part of it is, that it's designed to be installed in the current cars.
	Do you want to have cool, flat, flexible, big, digital clock? Even if it is being sold by $4,000? Well Then you should try out Citizen's upcoming flexible digital wall clock, which measures 21-inches high by 52-inches wide and can wrap around corners, so you'll always know either the hour or the minute depending on where you sit.
	US and Canadian Skiers to get body armor: I know, it is not winter anymore, and it is actually quite hot, but how cool will it be to have a body armor that whenever it is hit it gets hardened? I can imagine about a 1000 usages for it, but I am sure at least dody will enjoy it for the horse riding lessons!!
PQI packs an amazing 16 GB into a credit card sized drive, just 3 mm thick!
	Robot surgeon performs world's first unassisted operation. Physorg.com has the story of a robot which using the experience of over 10.000 performed operations, it has learned the procedure and made a 50 min surgery in Milan Hospital on his own. Are you ready to be the next patient?
	Honda's Asimo gets mind control interface. Developers have made an interface that gives humans the possibility of controlling the robot only by thinking. In the tests the robot copied the action of doing a fist after his commander. Do you think any time soon they will do some cool stuff?
	How much would you pay for an self suspended (as a matter of fact levitating) bed? Would you pay 1.2 million Euros for an out of this world sleep? Well Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars thinks his bed is worth that much, and is preparing a scaled version for 115.000 Euros, Anyone?

Labels: News