Mylos

(Eid blessings).

Today is the first day after Ramadan, known as the Eid-al-Fitr, one of the two main Islamic holidays (the other being the Eid-al-Kabir which celebrates Abraham’s sacrifice and occurs after the yearly Hajj pilgrimage).

The month of Ramadan is the one in which the Quran was revealed, and after a month of fasting, muslims emerge with a newly refreshed appreciation for God’s gifts of food and drink (remarkably similar, in fact, to the American holiday of Thanksgiving).

My best wishes on this festive occasion and may you find peace and joy, wherever you are.

For your enjoyment, a 360° immersive panorama I took of the Louvre courtyard in 1998. Java-enabled browser required (I tested this with Mozilla 1.1 and IE 6 with the Sun JRE 1.4.0 plug-in).

San Francisco was hit by a violent storm yesterday night (November 7). It shattered the windows in my living room and turned it into a mini swimming pool. Fortunately, I wasn’t hit by flying glass and most of my stuff survived (almost) unscathed.

I have put up some pictures of the aftermath (the first two were actually during the storm about half an hour after the window shattered).

For your enjoyment, a 360° immersive panorama I took of the Louvre courtyard in 1998. As a Java-enabled browser required, I moved it to a page of its own so as not to slow down the loading of this page too much:

Louvre Panorama

The Chinese government sends executed men’s families invoices for the cost of the bullet. Not to be outdone, the German secret service bills the people it is tapping…