Photo Essay, Some last Amsterdam Photographs

A funny statue in Schipol Airport, Amsterdam

A view from my office in Amsterdam.

Outside the office, it was a lovely day.

Your's truly spotted this svelte beautiful, well put together thing of beauty sex god and quickly took a photograph of it in the foreground. You can see yours truly in the background as well.

Some old technologies

I was in our Dutch offices for the last time I guess. And I noticed some display equipment which were frankly very interesting. Can you make out what they are? (Click on the photo to access a larger resolution)

 

 

 

 

 

The top photo relates to an IBM System 370. A system manufactured in the 1970's, so its about 35 years of age, equivalent to the pyramids in normal human age, I guess.

The second and third photograph relates to the IBM 3330 Direct Access Storage Facility. Again a 1970 vintage hard disk, it was designed to work with the IBM 370 machine and had an awesome memory of 100 MB!. The last two photographs are for the power unit for a very very old printer unit, but there is no information on the unit.

Here you go, a bit of a computer history for you.

Technorati Tags: Amsterdam,History,Technology

Photo Essay: Amsterdam Commercial District

I nipped across the Amsterdam earlier this week for a meeting and was at a pretty high level up on a sky scraper, so took the opportunity to take some photographs. 

Curiously, the first thing which strikes me is the lack of trees inside the city, but that said, this view does contain trees. But other than that, some boring views of railways and roads

Say what you will, the Dutch have some good adventurous architecture, every time I get to this window, I am attracted to that wavy line on the middle of the building. It is a sort of a ladder like formation...

 

Where the road and rail meet. One of the problems of living in a settled country is that it is processed to an inch of its life. Even more so in a country like Netherlands which is mostly reclaimed. So for example, this tilted shot shows a landscape which is full of straight lines, the pond, the road, the railway lines, the bridges, the lampposts, everything, all lines and squares...

The train station. The Dutch have an excellent railway system, very nice, powerful and on time (usually). I am, of course, comparing it to that half baked abortion of a British train system. The trains are clean, payments swift and clear, and very well connected. One day, once the kids are grown up, I will go on a Europe wide trip just on the trains, it is fascinating to travel via train! Anyway, here's the train station, if a bit boring in architecture.

A Photo-Essay on Amsterdam would not be the same without a photo of the obligatory bicycle stand. I think we have zillions of those poxy things all over the place. And for such a wet place, to see so any bicycles is amazing. Very good. But a traffic menace!, lol.

I call this building as the weird one. The way they have made the outside of the building looks like it has been put together by a giant kid. Very eye catching indeed. From other perspectives, it looks like it is cracked and makes me want to reach for my giant tube of polyfilla.

And then this is the ship, well, I call it the ship building. Can you see the garden on top of the building? There are many fellows on top who were gardening!!!, nice. I bet it would look very nice in the summer. Again, you would note the weird construction, the strange shapes, the holes, all which go to make the buildings very eye catching.

 

There you go, a 10 minute overview of a part of the commercial district of Amsterdam

Technorati Tags: Amsterdam

Photo Essay: Termites in a hillside

During a recent trip to India, I was in a car going from Bhopal to Indore and just outside Dewas, I noticed this low hill, which looked a bit strange.

 

 

Can you see the shape just behind the truck? it almost looks like there has been an avalanche, no?

come closer and you see that it is almost like the hillside has been sliced off. When I rolled down the window, I could hear the distant explosions. The hills were alive with the sound of explosions.



to get an idea of the scale, keeping in mind the perspective, see this petrol (gas for the yanks) station in the foreground.

 

this termite business has been happening for a long period of time, the excavated areas are slowly turning green.

 

see the far right hand side of the hill, it is stepped as the Saqqara step pyramid.

 

on the left hand side, blasting going on, see the cloud of dust in the shadow?

 

Looks like even the Gods are helpless against the depredations of man on the hills



And now the cloud of dust on the sunlit side, bushes with plastic bags stuck on them, manky trees. It is a sad landscape.



But moving on, you can see farmland, with trees and even more dusty explosions.



The trees are having a valiant battle to hide the eyesore, but I am afraid, they're failing miserably.

 

A solitary palm tree stands at the end, looking rather sadly over the termite ridden hill. This made me sad. Pragmatically, I know we need those rocks to make gravel, to make houses and roads, to make buildings and bridges. But to see a hill which took millions of years to form being torn down in a matter of decades....., what are we losing in the pursuit of development?

As before, here's the full slide show in larger resolution.

Technorati Tags: India,Photo Essay

The McDonaldisation of Tutankhamen

Very disappointing, to put it bluntly. We were invited to visit the Tutankhamun Exhibition at the O2 centre in London for a corporate dinner. I have to admit that I was quite excited about it, having had an interest in all things Egyptian for a very long time. So we all got decked up, and despite the fact that a large part of the evening would be spent on corporate networking, I figured, at least some part I can go and touch the hot sands of Egypt.

It was the evening when we arrived at the O2. It is horribly designed, I tell you, no good parking or drop off/pick up areas. We had to walk literally a kilometre from the car to the exhibition. So be warned, all you ladies with high heels, it is a pain. Your best choice would be to be dropped off just next to the taxi rank and then leg it from there, rather than from the car park...

Here you go, Mr. Anubis himself on the right. Welcoming guests to the o2. I immediately had a sinking feeling, why on earth would you put the god of the underworld, mummification and embalming as a welcoming god? Not to mention the very idea of weighing my heart against a feather and if I am found wanting, then visiting hellish tortures on me?

Entering the foyer, a lovely light sculpture, it was beautiful. The soft blue light would move in waves up and down and it looked beautiful. London Stock Exchange also has something like this in its foyer.

 

A view of the O2 from inside, you can see one of the legs, the wires and the roof, how it is all supported, very airy and very nice.

We could see the large sign up up on the wall which said, King Tut. Finally, it was a bloody long trek and I was constantly hearing about how inconsiderate my hosts were for putting up the dinner at a place where ladies have to walk a mile in high heels and how men do not know the joys of high heels and if we did we wouldn't have put the poor innocent women ....

The entrance hall. We were handed headphones and a playback unit. Omar Sharif in a voice over, introduced the exhibition. He has a lovely voice, and I was slowly getting all excited about it.

We were told to switch off our cameras so this was the last photo before the exhibition. There are 18 halls of exhibitions, the full trip to take about an hour. Some exhibits had numbers against them. We went inside and you press a button for the number on the unit. Then the dulcet tones of Omar Sharif would give you a 30 second potted history of that item.

 

The exhibition started from King Tut's ancestors, Amenhotep III, to Akhenaten, their assorted grandmothers and wives such as Tiye, Tiaa, Nefertiti, Ankhesenamen (sighs, another thing which bummed me out was to keep on overhearing people saying, this is the queen from the Mummy Returns film and she loved Imhotep), and other officials. Well over half of the bloody exhibition relates to others for a start.

 

There were not that many artifacts around. I liked the representation on the floor of how the nested set of sarcophagi looked like. Some of the ornaments which were included inside the mummy were also displayed and some of them were beautiful.

 

There was quite a lot of displays about the excavation, Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. Quite an interesting hall, that one. But then that slimy git, Zahi Hawass, appeared and that ruined it for me. He is such a monumental egotist and bore that one cannot imagine. His voiceover on the head phones, his huge photographs on the wall, his video's, it was like, Howard Carter and then Zahi Hawass. And actually what has he done in so far as King Tut is concerned? nothing that I have read about. Done a CAT Scan on King Tut. BFD.

 

And then at the end, the inevitable souvenir shop full of tourist pap which I ignored royally and marched out. I suppose, for those who have not been to Egypt and actually been to the Cairo Museum (where most of King Tut's stuff is kept) or smelled the sands of Egypt, this is good, but it was a deep disappointment to me. As I said to my sister, this was the McDonaldisation of King Tut. If you have the money and inclination, then I suggest saving the cost of admission to this exhibition and going to Egypt to actually see the Egyptian Museum. At least you will avoid seeing and hearing that slimy git.

Some photographs of the dinner place, lovely food and conversation, met quite a lot of old friends and acquaintances. They had done it up well. I was looking for foul (I love that), beef knuckle soup and karkade but couldn't find it. But still, it was good.

Nice view of the escalator up to the film theatre

And the top of the theatre.

And the exit. And again got an earful about the high heels.

 

So, all in all, not impressed, boring and not for people in high heels nor for people who are serious about Egypt (can be both as well...).

Here is the full slideshow in bigger resolution.

 

Technorati Tags: London,Exhibition,Egypt,Photo Essay

The back end of Liverpool Street

I take this back end exit out of Liverpool Street Station. Who wants to struggle through all the tourists, the passengers standing and gaping up at the departures board, the free newspaper hand outers, etc. etc.?

Much easier to nip from the back and you are out, dry and quickly. Anyway, the problem with going down the back end is that its usually very dark and my little mobile phone camera didnt have the power to take good photo's, but surprisingly enough, we had good light so I took the photo's

The roof is all manky, and has not been cleaned for years and decades. As you can see from the far end, it makes a huge difference once you have a clean roof.
the roof on this side of the platform is held up by these cast iron pillars with quite an intricate grill, this is also the taxi rank on the left.
Here's looking towards the exit, on the top, you can barely make out the fat lady and the coffee republic shop on the top. Can you see the grill work on the top? Can you imagine? casting something huge like this for so many times with no problems? those Victorians were brilliant at all this. 

And then we have the cycle stand, but somehow, you get the feeling that you are standing in a cathedral, the long corridors with huge tall pillars with soaring roofs, even the sunlit window at the back can be thought to be a church window...

Please click to see the full slideshow in bigger resolution.

 

Technorati Tags: London,Railways

Kannu leaving for his school trip

My son, Karn, left for his school trip yesterday morning. I miss that little twerp, even though he spends most of his time on that bloody PC of his or collapsed like a spineless boneless octopus on the settee in front of the TV.

 

But here is Dad's revenge, showing him and his trips for posterity.

 

Loading all their stuff into the coach luggage area, they had to take pillows with them..., how strange, why on earth would they need bloody pillows? dont they have pillows where they stay?

 

Extremely embarrassed because Baba is insisting on taking photographs and making me look like a doofus in front of my friends (read girl friends, I have started to notice them, they are quite interesting but I cannot confess to that...)

 

Back to welfare to deal with the inhalers, medicines, instructions... 

Now getting last minute instructions. These school teachers are amazing, they manage these kids like no Marine Sergeant can ever will.

Look to the left.

Look straight...

Look to the right, the 2 coaches

Baba again embarrassed me again by giving me a big hug in front of everybody, I escaped from mum but not from Baba. And now I dont even want to catch his eye...

 

I am sitting behind the smoked windows but I suppose you need to be there to see it..

And off they go. I miss him, even though he is now all grown up, very soon he will be off to University and I suppose I have to get accustomed to it, but, I can understand how my father felt and even feels now...

As before, please click here for the full resolution slide show.

 

Technorati Tags: Personal,Photo Essay,London,School