Penguin January 4th, 2009
I’m at a free internet terminal at the Eslite bookstore in Taipei, just outside of the Taipei 101 building, the tallest building in the world.
It’s been an interesting last few days. But I just wanted to give everyone a quick shoutout that I’m still here and alive. I’ll be uploading pics later tonight once I get real internet access. I have tons of pictures of trees and food. Exciting!
I was a little sick the other day. Just a cold, but it put me out of commission for a day. Much better now.
Peas,
-Penguin
Related posts
Tags: Taipei, Taiwan, Travel, Trips
Penguin December 31st, 2008
I woke up this morning to a surprisingly brisk day. I hadn’t expected it to be this chilly, so I hadn’t packed many long sleeve shirts or pants. The pants that I did bring were pretty thin.
In the morning, I just bummed around and caught up on some blogs and other reading. I sorted through the pix I had taken and uploaded them.
For lunch, we met up with my cousin “clock” at this Japanese place.
Afterwards, we walked around the Taiwan University campus a bit.
Then we went shopping.
I was hoping to pick up a hoodie and a pair of jeans, but I was unsuccessful. The 2 hoodies that I did find didn’t have anything in my size. Most of the jeans that I looked at weren’t my style either. They were either too loud or too baggie for my tastes.
Then dinner, we met up with my other uncle at BBQ place. Think Korean BBQ, but without the Korean, just cook your own meat.
Throughout the day, I would roll video of whatever I thought would be interesting. Not sure what I’ll be able to throw together, but hopefully I have enough interesting shots to make it look nice, even if it lacks a narrative.
-Penguin
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Tags: Photography, Pictures, Taiwan, Travel, Trips
Penguin December 30th, 2008
It’s been over 10 years since I’ve been “home” to see family. A lot has happened and changed in that time. I’m looking forward to spending time with them and just relaxing a bit. Though there is some work that I can do. I wish I had a new laptop to do some real work.
I’ll be in Taiwan until the 14th. Until then, I’ll have sporadic internet access. Hopefully I can jump on my cousin’s network.
Hopefully, I’ll be able to post pics and vids along the way.
Until then, have a very happy new year!
-Penguin
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Tags: Taiwan, Travel, Trips
Penguin August 19th, 2008
I love scifi and this “news” comes as a real wet blanket.
The major problem is that propulsion — shooting mass backwards to go forwards — requires large amounts of both time and fuel. For instance, using the best rocket engines Earth currently has to offer, it would take 50,000 years to travel the 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri, our solar system’s nearest neighbor. Even the most theoretically efficient type of propulsion, an imaginary engine powered by antimatter, would still require decades to reach Alpha Centauri, according to Robert Frisbee, group leader in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group within NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- Wired
Luckily for us writers, most people don’t know that much about space or how difficult it is. But it also goes to show how important “magic” is, such as “hyperspace” (Star Wars), “FTL” (Battlestar Galactica), “Gates” (Stargate, Babylon 5), and of course “warp” (Star Trek).
Most of them take the right approach by not getting into the technicalities of these systems. They just assume that they “just work” and thus, we assume it too. And it’s a good thing too, otherwise, there would be a lot of boring scifi out there.
-Penguin
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Tags: Scifi, Space, Travel, Wired, Writing
