Lacul Oasa and Transalpina

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The second leg of our trip through the Southern Carpathian Mountains, whose first leg took us through Obarsia Lotrului and Lacul Vidra, now took us by Lacul Oasa and the Northern portion of the Transalpina, a high-altitude road which offers unsurpassed vistas and which I documented through photos in late fall of last year.

This picturesque, unpaved portion of the Transalpina Road is also quite dangerous. The rocky cliffs you see hanging above it are eager to hurl rocks at passersby. It’s a situation made worse by man’s presence there. They blasted through the rock to make the road (a necessary evil) but they also set up a temporary concrete factory there and chewed through yet more rock to make the stuff. Until vegetation grows back on that slope to hold together the rocks, or measures are taken to reduce the rock falls, it’s a dangerous section of the road. Rocks were falling right by us as we drove through.

Be sure to view the full gallery posted below for more photos.

Lacul Vidra and Obarsia Lotrului

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We drove into Lacul Vidra and Obarsia Lotrului this past weekend. The approximate location we visited is this one.

It’s a wonderful drive that offers gorgeous vistas (as most roads in Romania do), and because it’s not summer yet, the roads are relatively empty, meaning we were able to take our time and stop wherever we liked to take photos.

I’m going to publish the first group of photos today and the rest tomorrow, because there are quite a few of them and I’d rather not overwhelm you.

On the way, we found a grotto formed of ice and snow at the foot of a forest, right over the bed of a brook. The snow had been insulated by a thick leaf cover, and that’s why it had kept so far, but in 75-degree (Fahrenheit) late spring weather, I doubt it will keep for much longer. It was a remarkable sight for the middle of May, particularly since we weren’t at a high altitude (about 400-500 meters).

I recorded a short video of it as well.

We found a beautiful meadow on the top of a mountain, where we relaxed and breathed in the fresh air.

In case you’re wondering what I look like these days, here’s a portrait of me taken by Ligia.

Make sure to go through the full gallery posted below for more photos.

Have great shoes? Use a cobbler.

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If you like and buy quality leather shoes (over $100 or more), and if after you’ve worn them for some time, they need repairs (sole or heel repairs or restitching) don’t throw them away. Find and use the services of a good cobbler (a shoe repairman) to breathe new life into them.

A cobbler repairs shoes. A great cobbler can make old shoes look new again and can even repair a shoe’s sole so well that you’d never know it was replaced. Good cobblers are few and far between, but they’re the only ones that can help you, so it’s worth it to find them.

In this video, I talk about how I repaired three pairs of shoes.

There’s also a great video from Put This On, a web series about dressing well, where shoes and shoe repairs are discussed (found it thanks to Sheldon Schwartz). It’s a great video that teaches you how quality leather shoes are made and how they can be repaired. It will also show you how to shop for good shoes.

Enjoy!

It’s autumn in the Southern hemisphere

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It’s so easy to forget for us “Northerners” that seasons are the other way around in the Southern hemisphere. While we enjoy the beauty of spring and are expecting summer, the “Southerners” have autumn and are expecting winter.

Sighisoara: off the beaten path

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This Labor Day, we drove into Sighisoara and we decided to see it differently from the way most of its visitors see it. The typical route is to park at the bottom of the hill, walk up the stairs, see the clocktower, tour the piazza, buy some trinkets and go back down…

We drove into the outskirts, climbed up one of the adjacent hills, found a clearing, and got some interesting views of the city that way.

Afterward, we went up into the fortress to see if we could see some spots we hadn’t yet seen, and after walking up a well-known side street, were rewarded with the open gates of the rectory. We went right inside the courtyard and had a marvelous walk up into the gardens adjacent to the fortified walls.

We were greeted by a very pregnant and friendly kitty in the courtyard, who acted as our host for the duration of our visit.

The human hosts saw fit to ruin the architecture with polycarbonate sheeting as cover and communist-era poured concrete as a rude balustrade for the balcony. The satellite dish is apparently a modern pre-requisite.

Back to our walk in the beautiful garden.

In this view of the fortified tower, you can see the city and the river in the background.

Our feline host got a belly rub, which made her very happy indeed.

She then accompanied us to the gate.

We stopped at one of the local establishments for some lemonade.

Here are some more photographs from the streets of the Old Town.

How can a normal YouTube video garner so many copyright claims?

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Have a look at a screenshot from my YouTube account, listing the various copyright claims made on a single video of mine.

That’s eight copyright claims, one of which still remains to be released if the music publisher in question, Believe, will do the right thing.

How can a simple video like this, where I went to the beach and filmed various simple scenes, cause YouTube’s copyright ID engine to flag it so many times?

I’m not upset (anymore). I used to get upset. (You can read those posts here and here.) For one thing, it’s not worth getting upset about. For another, YouTube has already taken steps to remedy the process, for which I thank them. Their copyright claim process, which I wrote about almost two years ago, is much improved these days, which makes it easier to file a dispute and to explain my position.

But it is mind-boggling that a simple, average video like this could trigger so many copyright flags. As I explained in past posts, all I did here was to minimally supplement the natural sound of the surf, which got muffled by wind noise in some portions of the video, with an iLife track called “Ocean Surf”. The track is royalty-free, approved by Apple for commercial and/or personal use, and the terms are clearly spelled out in the iLife Service Level Agreement.

I think there are two lessons to be learned here:

  1. YouTube’s copyright ID engine is still trigger-happy. It should be tweaked, and I suggest that this particular video of mine be used as a case study by YouTube engineers. If someone from YouTube/Google is interested, I’m willing to do a Screen Sharing session with them and show them exactly how I edited the video and where the “Ocean Surf” sound loop was used.
  2. Perhaps all these music publishers ought to stop copyrighting beach sounds? Let’s face it, nature sounds, especially ones that are as easy to record as beach sounds, are as public domain as sounds can get. Now if it’s the sound of the rare Brazilian polka-dotted bazooka bird, or some other rara avis, then I can understand the need to copyright it, but going to the beach, turning on the recorder, then calling it a copyrighted sound, is an exaggeration. Are you listening, publishers?

A new faucet design

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I had an idea recently about a new faucet design. (If you’ve been reading my website for some time, then you may remember I post my ideas here — when I remember to write them down and don’t forget them.)

When you look at a shower, right after it’s been used, you’ll see the splash line is somewhere at chest or shoulder level. Very little water goes above that line, unless you’ve been monkeying around in there.

If you’ve also seen the pipes being put in for a shower, and the faucets also being put in, you’ll know that first the pipes have to be laid in the wall, then the tiles placed over them, making sure to leave two holes with the appropriate hot and cold water connections for the faucets. And these holes happen to be right at waist level, where it’s easy for most people to reach the faucets — and where most water also happens to splash.

What you’re essentially doing is piercing the water barrier (the tile or marble wall) with two big holes right where you throw the most water. If you’re concerned about water seepage into your wall, or if your walls already have water issues, then this isn’t the smartest thing to do. Plus, there’s a lot of mildew that accumulates around those two holes, and no matter how much silicone you put there, you still get mildew and overtime, you still have water seepage into the wall.

Behold my new faucet design, which does away with this problem. I scribbled it down on a piece of paper when I got the idea.

The point here is that the two faucet holes are brought up above head level, above even the shower head, where water is seldom splashed, if ever. The faucet design consists of its two attachment points at the pipes, with hot and cold water lines coming down, exposed, to waist level, where the faucets are located, then continuing upward to the spigot, where they unite (or they could unite down, in-between the faucets, then come up to the shower head as one pipe). The shower head can be included as part of the package, or you can attach your own shower head to the faucet assembly.

So, there are three points of attachment for this faucet assembly to the wall. Two at the faucet lines and one at the shower head. There are no screws that connect the faucets to the wall at waist level. There the faucet assembly has two contact points with the wall, dressed in rubber, which can be left as is or secured to the wall with a bit of silicone.

What are the implications of this design? Well, it will clearly be bigger than normal faucet designs. It’s also not going to be for everyone. It’s going to be for those discerning consumers who want to reduce the seepage of water between their shower cabinets and the wall, who want to protect the beauty of their shower walls, and who are interested in a new design.

It also means that the builders will have to be clearly instructed where to place the new faucet holes. This faucet will need to purchased ahead of time and its exact location determined before the bathroom walls are laid with tile or marble or precious stones. It also means existing bathrooms cannot be fitted with this new faucet unless significant modifications are undertaken to the shower cabinet.

Like I said, this new design isn’t for everyone. It’s for certain discerning consumers.