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60 Funny Facts About Romania. A List Created By A Brazilian Tourist

admin — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 12:05:42 +0000

A young man from Brazil has spent some time visiting in Romania and has posted his opinions on Romanians and Romania on Facebook.

This is what Fernando Catilho Cintra thinks about Romania and Romanians:

1 – Dracula is a vampire outside Romania.

2 – The same dude, Vlad Tepes, is a national hero.

3 – While vampires drink blood, the real red thing I loved to drink was Visinata.

4 – Another devilish drink is Tuica, Hungarians call it palinka, but it is the same thing.

5 – Most moldavians, muntenians and others have no idea what happens with Hungarians in Ardeal

6 – Romanians smoke an absurd amount of cigarettes. They smoke inside their houses, restaurants, and even shopping malls.

7 – Romanians always take of their shoes when entering home
.
8 – I believe Romanians prefer to keep their floor clean rather than their lungs.

9 – Traveling in Romania is one of the best memories I have. Rivers, canyons, hills, mountains… They have it all

10 – While traveling in Romania you will go through Romanian roads. They are in good condition, but they have an absurd amount of curves.

11 – Also when traveling in Romania, you might want to pee. But worry not; there are so many houses by the side of the roads that it’s easier to end up in a bathroom than behind some bushes.

12 – Maramures is a happy place. Happy people, happy costumes, happy collors, even happy cemetery

13 – The only thing that isn’t happy in Maramures are shepherd dogs. They are not happy. They don’t like you. Run.

14 – In fact, unless you are inside a city, whenever you see a dog in Romania, run.

15 – Another tactic is to always carry mici with you. As I’m vegetarian, I wouldn’t mind giving mici to dogs.

16 – As a matter of fact, as a vegetarian in Romanian I can definitely say: Romanians love meat

17 – Sarmale, tocanita, slanina, carnati… you have it all, meat eaters.

18 – Romanians have soup every single day of their lives.

19 – Taxis in Romania are ridiculously cheap. In Bucharest they can cost as low as 1,29 per km.

20 – Another extremely easy way to go around is Hitchhiking. Romanians do it, and give it in return.

21 – Romanians also expect you to pay for giving you a ride. You can, of course, say “nu am bani” before hopping in, but you can get a frustrated driver to shout “INCHIDE USA” at your sorry moneyless face. (true story)

22 – My favorite mean of transportation though was by inter-regio train. They are cheap, comfortable, on time and often not crowded.

23 – However, you can end up inside a 12 hours train trip from Suceava to Mures back from New Year’s holiday. Then you will know what “crowded” really means. (true story)

24 – Romanians love skiing.

25 – Skiing in Romania is absurdly cheap.

26 – It took me 3 full days to be taught how to ski. Skiing is not for Brazilians or tropical countries inhabitants.

27 – Once you learn, though, you will love it and open another door to my favorite part of Romania: Mountains

28 – Romania has the most beautiful scenarios I’ve seen so far in my life. All of them from mountain tops.

29 – Romanian mountains have incredibly well signed paths for hikers, cabanas for travelers to stay overnight and places for the more audacious to camp.

30 – By now you should have guessed that doing such a trip will be absurdly cheap.

31 – Interesting though is that many Romanians have never been to such mountains.

32 – Even more interesting is that Romanians will often overestimate some rather average places (e.g. Mamaia or Bucovina Monasteries) and underestimate awesome places (e.g. Bucharest).

33 – Bucharest is a great city. Sure it has no such architecture as Budapest, Krakow or other eastern European cities, but it has the museums, parks and nightlife that few others have

34 – People say there are many stray dogs in Bucharest.

35 – I had more dogs chasing me in any given day by bike that I had during a week in Bucharest.

36 – Truly, I didn’t see stray dogs in Bucharest.

37 – Romanian language is beautiful. It sounds beautiful and is achievable for Brazilians to learn

38 – “Cu carne de vaca nu se moare de foame”…. And my Google chrome translator thought I was writing in Portuguese.

39 – However, the most obscure part or Romanian language is Dativ.

40 – AHHHHHH DAAAATIIIIV!!!!

41 – You can say “mi-e foame” “mi-e sete” “mi-e somn”….. but you can’t say “mi-e oboseala”.

42 – AAAAHHH DATIIIIIV!!!!

43 – Romanians talk with their shoulders. Observe it! When someone says “pai, nu stiu…”.

44 – Follow the same exercise mentioned above and observe their mouths and the chin.

45 – Hungarians won’t admit, but they have THE Romanian accent. The way of saying “nu stiu” is the same of saying “nem tudom”

46 – My preferred way of practicing Romanian is with drivers that have me a ride by the road.

47 – They would often say what the hell am I doing in such a country if am Brazlian.

48 – These drivers didn’t know that Romanian healthcare system is great, it has a lower murder rate than Norway and is the fastest growing economy from eastern European countries.

49 – Generally Romanians complain about Romania. They will find a way to complain about it. Politics, economy, society…

50 – They are wrong.

51 – I learned what 4 seasons mean: Hot summers, cool autumns, cold winters and fresh springs.

52 – Romania has all the 4 seasons with two huge advantages from northern countries: In winters they have sun. In summer it’s not cloudy.

53 – Romania has a nice wildlife: Dears can be seen frequently, black goats can be seen on occasion (been there done that), bears and wolves are invisible.

54 – The closest we’ve been to a bear was its footprints

55 – Romanians are latin in language, but not as latin in blood.

56 – When you enter an office, you have to shake hands with the men but you just wave to the women.

57 – Romanians expected that me as a Brazilian would play football really well… Terrible mistake

58 – For months after the world cup I would hear “so, do you like Germany” from people. Go to hell…

59 – Most Romanians at their 18’s have two dreams in mind: 1 – Moving to the UK. 2- Moving to any other country that isn’t Romania.

60 – While Romanians dream to leave, I dream once I will come back.”

Lampix’s Augmented Reality ‘Crypto’ Crowdfund Scores $4.5M, Targets $60M

admin — Thu, 17 Aug 2017 00:51:50 +0000

Lampix, a US-based fintech building a blockchain-based ‘image mining’ network for augmented reality or any other computer vision systems, raised 11,111 ethereum (ETH) – a little over $3m – from investors in three minutes during a ‘pre-sale’ crowdsale token launch (CTL) of their PIX token this week, together with partner company ICO.info.

At the prevailing exchange rate of $285 USD/ETH at the time, Lampix, with offices in New York and San Francisco that transforms any flat surface into a smart surface using machine learning and computer vision, pulled in $3,166,635 of investment prior to the crowdfund in PIX tokens being opened up to the public for a 10-day period from August 9, 2017.

Since being created in 2015, Lampix has garnered paying clients from the likes of Bloomberg, PwC and large retail chains amongst others, and is creating what is described as a “new blockchain that will hold data-sets of real world objects.”

This data is said by the company, which won the best Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality company this March at SXSW festival, the largest festival of its kind in the world, as being a “vital pre-requisite” for augmenting reality systems ranging from smartphones, wearable glasses, or their own Lampix product. The founders behind project believe that Lampix will impact humans as much as computers or smart phones in the future.

Bold stuff – but why do we want smart surfaces and Augmented Reality? Well, the team at Lampix believe they can free human computer interactions from digital screens. As their website stated: “Think Tom Cruise in Minority Report. Imagine your room in five years: you will be able to use any surface around you as if it was a computer. The ability to transform any surface into an interactive computer (augmented reality) is going to unleash applications we have not even conceived of.”

The crowdfund itself is being structured in three stages. Specifically, day 1 of the crowdfund had a token sale cap slated of $20 million (m) minus the total amount of tokens during the pre-sale with a 15% bonus. Subsequently, day 2 will also has a maximum of $20m but with a 10% bonus of PIX tokens for sale. Then finally from day 3 until the tenth, a third and last $20m tranche of PIX tokens will be made available for purchase at a 5% bonus.

However, in order to enable Lampix to reach its full potential, the firm said it needed to build a “billion-picture-and-description database”, and indicated it required a total of $60m to fund creation of their computer vision machine learning distributed database and to build the Lampix ecosystem.

The plan is to use the capital raised to pay as a bounty the image miners for the database, to build the database software (both for image processing and the blockchain part), build the Lampix software and hardware (manufacturing and App development costs), as well as to help promotion of the entire ecosystem through sales and marketing, and pay staff salaries.

Reaching Its Funding Target?

But what if this $60m target is not reached by August 18, you might well be asking? When canvassed about this, George Popescu, CEO of Lampix and an MIT alumni based in New York, commenting in that event said: “Everything will be smaller and slower. We would cut the sales and marketing parts, the initial database bounty we start with will be smaller.”

He added: “And, instead of ordering a 10,000 Lampix-device run we will order a smaller one. Thus far we have raised [over] 15,000 ETH, which is about $4.5m and already a significant amount of money to enable us to do all of this on a smaller scale.”

(Source: Lampix).

A pie chart showing a breakdown of the where funds being raised by the PIX token sale will be allocated. (Source: Lampix).

The Offering & Use Of Funds

Lampix are creating a supply of just over a 1.1 billion (bn) PIX tokens. Intending to sell 50% of the tokens in the token launch over three days, they need to raise around $60m to make any surface a smart surface over the next four to five years.

A total of 30% of the tokens will be placed in reserve and 20% of the token will be used for the team.

The funds collected through the launch will be used to cover the expenses of the project until it starts making profits and sufficient cash flows to function on its own. According to an 85-page whitepaper on the project, Lampix stated that it expected to make profits by 2021.

How much is a PIX at launch?

One PIX is equivalent to $0.12 during the crowdsale token launch, with tokens being distributed as follows: (a) Issued – 50% of the tokens will be issued for the ICO; (b) Reserves – 30% for data purchase; and, (c) Company/Team – 20% earmarked for research and development.

A Lampix spokesman said: “We will use PIX tokens to grow the data ecosystem through purchases and payments. The crowdsale token launch is a vital component to bring the Lampix and database to fruition, which will play a key role in developing augmented reality applications across many devices.”

Blockchain Technology

Lampix’s Popescu, who holds three Masters degrees in Computer Science and Electrical Engineer, 3D Printing and Nanosciences, commenting on the application of blockchain technology going forward, said: “It has major application beyond currency and programming. We have invented here a big data crowdsourcing plan, which we think can be applied in many other directions. And, I think tomorrow’s Google or Facebook-size company will be built using blockchain.”

ICOINFO, established in July 2017 that is partnering Lampix, separately revealed that is on the lookout for robust ICO projects from all over the world, which will allow users to participate in the blockchain industry.

Lampix’s crowdsale token launch for PIX tokens runs until August 18, 2017 and at the time of writing on August 10 (4.42pm in New York) it had raised a total of 15895.46ETH.

Those wishing to participate in the PIX Token distribution or purchase the tokens for investment purposes should fully understand the details outlined in Lampix’s whitepaper, which can can be read here, before investing. For a video about the platform, how it works and what one can do with it can be accessed via this link.

Chinese Airline’s New Haute Couture Uniforms Puts Other Airlines To Shame

admin — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 14:28:49 +0000

One airline in China has just elevated their dress code to new heights by providing their crew members with stylish haute couture uniforms that seem to be taken straight out of a fashion magazine cover.

Hainan Airlines have collaborated with designer Laurence Xu who introduced the new attire at the Paris Couture Week. Inspired by the ‘Cheongsam’, a traditional Chinese dress, the uniform features a blend between the modern Western-style fashion trends and traditional Chinese art elements like cloud drawings, waves and even the Chinese mythical bird – the Roc.

“The cooperation between Hainan Airlines and Lawrence Xu is industry leading. We are not only creating a new uniform but also showing the internationalized image of our airline. Especially on international routes, we would like to let passengers know that China is modern and trendy,” said Xu Fei, brand director of Hainan Airlines.

Men’s version of the uniform is a bit less extravagant and Western-looking, with double-breasted overcoats and smaller elements of the traditional Chinese culture.

(h/t: demilked)

I spent 118 seconds on a bridge that’s been around for 80 years

admin — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 21:06:07 +0000

It’s been 80 years since the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fran opened up. We visited the place a couple of years ago – for all of two minutes. Wasn’t enough to take in all the stunning details. So we’re going back.

We were merely passing through. It was nowhere on our itinerary. As part of a media trip over a year ago, only three things were highlighted in our all-too-short stop in San Francisco: arrive at the hotel past midnight after four dizzying days of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, get on a bus early to visit the Sonoma Raceway some 86km away and zip back to catch a mid-afternoon flight to Los Angeles for some more action.

On the way, it hit me: holy cow, we’re in San Francisco; the Golden Gate Bridge can’t be far.

As far as I can recall, the bridge never even crossed my mind despite the fact that I knew we were going to SanFran. Heck, true to my basketball roots, I was a mite more concerned about whether I could get even a distant glimpse of Oracle Arena, home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors and their superstar two-time MVP, Stephen Curry. So when it was apparent that we were indeed going to pass through the bridge on our way to our real destination, I did what everyone would do in today’s age: fire up the video app on my smartphone.

One minute and 48 seconds, captured on video. Seemed like forever. I was so fixated on capturing the video I didn’t really have time to appreciate the view with my own eyes. The Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t honoured for being one of the Seven Civil Engineering Wonders of the World for nothing. The funny thing is, when it was first proposed, it was met with opposition, and it took decades of back-and-forth before it was finally okayed. And before it was opened 80 years ago, the most meticulous methods were applied to what would become one of the most recognised mega structures in history – technology’s creme de la creme of the time, so to speak.

The anniversary of the bridge just went by – it was opened on May 27, 1937. Today, we have technology and robotics to aid the construction of something this iconic. Ever wondered how they did it back then, erect that 1.6km long bridge?

According to the Public Broadcasting Service, 80,000 miles (129,000km) of steel wire less than 0.196 inch in diameter were bound 1,600-pound spools and attached to the bridge’s anchorages to spin the cables. A fixture within the anchorages called a strand shoe was used to secure the ‘dead wire’ while a spinning wheel pulled a ‘live wire’ across the bridge. Once it reached the opposite shore of the Gate, the live wire was secured onto the strand shoe and the wheel returned with another loop of wire to begin the process again. This spinning process was repeated from tower to tower, anchorage to anchorage, so imagine the work it required for it. And it had to be done in a precise way, in order to create the balance needed for the cables to absorb the proper amount of wind pressure. God I miss physics class.

The construction team was, however, able to devise a way to speed things up: a split-tram system was made that would eventually be capable of spinning six wires at once, equivalent to 1,000 miles of wire spun in an eight-hour shift. The result? The cables were finished eight months ahead of the projected 14-month time frame.

Here’s more head-spinning figures: the bridge’s two main cables are 7,650 feet (2,332m) long, over three feet in diameter and contain 27,572 parallel wires. The largest cables ever spun, they’re long enough to circle planet Earth at the equator three times over. To keep it sturdy, each of the bridge’s towers have about 600,000 rivets. When they became corroded in the 1970s, they were replaced with high-strength galvanised bolts. That, ladies and gentlemen, was, at that time, technology in its purest form. Ever wondered why some projects go badly wrong today despite all the innovation present?

And since little federal support was available, most of the funds used for the bridge came from bonds sold by the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District. A $35 million bond issue was okayed in 1930 (that’s almost $513 million, or Dh1.9 billion, in today’s terms), but it required that those interested put up their homes, businesses and farms as collateral. Guess what? It was a hit with residents.

The bridge’s construction safety record was also impressive: a rule of thumb back then was that you can expect one fatality per $1 million cost. The Golden Gate Bridge claimed only 11 – and 10 of them unfortunately met their end when a platform broke down on February 17, 1937, mere months before it was completed; imagine if that didn’t happen.

Until 1964, the Golden Gate Bridge was the world’s longest suspension bridge. Today, it sits at 14th place, though it is still considered the most beautiful and most photographed of the lot.

It’s funny that its iconic colour was meant to be temporary. The bridge’s website says that the ‘international orange’ hue was not only visible during a fog, but it also complements the topography of the surrounding hills and contrasted well with the blue skies. Hey, it was even intended to be painted in stripes by US military units. The options: black-and-yellow from the Navy or candy-cane-esque red-and-white from the Army Air Corps. Seriously?

And if you’re wondering why the Golden Gate Bridge wasn’t painted gold, it’s because ‘Golden Gate’ actually refers to the Golden Gate Strait, which is the entrance to San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. Honestly, I had that question in my mind when I was a kid. Why is the Golden Gate Bridge rusty orange? It doesn’t make sense, mommy!

I’m heading back to San Francisco this weekend, but this time, I’ll be heading south. I won’t be surprised if this time – though not going to the Golden Gate Bridge’s direction – I’ll be turning my head north a number of times, eager to recapture that moment again, even from afar. Nevermind this time even if the NBA Finals is underway.

ENGLISH – InvestTravel.ro

60 Funny Facts About Romania. A List Created By A Brazilian Tourist

Lampix’s Augmented Reality ‘Crypto’ Crowdfund Scores $4.5M, Targets $60M

Chinese Airline’s New Haute Couture Uniforms Puts Other Airlines To Shame

I spent 118 seconds on a bridge that’s been around for 80 years

37 Reasons Why You Should Never Visit Romania

1. So you think you should visit Romania because it’s beautiful?

2. Who lied to you? You shouldn’t visit it …

3. I honestly tell you: It SUCKS.

4. I’m serious!

5. Everything here is average and unexceptional.

6. Don’t expect to fall in love with the place.

7. Or to take your breath away.

8. Because it won’t.

9. It has common scenery.

10. NO underground wonders!

11. The waterfalls are awful and unmemorable.

12. Castles? All of them are dull.

13. Dracula’s legend is old… not at all interesting.

14. Cities are boring!

15. All of them

16. And the arhitecture? blah…

17. Not to mention the villages.

18. With no interesting history at all.

19. And no remarkable events.

20. Everything is so lame…

21. Even the beaches.

22. Don’t even get me started on the mountains.

23. And the Danube Delta? Not impressive at all, just a few birds.

24. Same goes for the lakes.

25. Transfagarasan is just an ordinary road.

26. Peles Castle has nothing to offer.

27. Neither has the House of People.

28. Not to mentions the Painted Churches of Bukovina.

29. Everything is so ugly and meaningless. Eww…

30. Bucharest has no class.

31. Oh my god! The souvenirs are simply repulsive.

32. And you have nothing to do here.

33. The tradition is below average.

34. Romania has no cultural heritage.

35. This hurts my eyes. Eww

36. What more do you want?

37. Just stay home, don’t bother. It’s a waste.