Lithuanian News in English.

I was looking to read Lithuanian news in English. I found the Baltic Times which covers the 3 Baltic countries, but some articles are only accessible if you pay a subscription fee... Erm not so good then. We'll pass.

I finally found an other website which does the same, and all for free! Alfa.lt provides daily interesting and various contents in English from different sources. And it is web 2.0 as you can also leave your comments after reading the articles. Enjoy!

http://www.baltictimes.com/
http://www.alfa.lt/katalogas/AlfaEnglish

LRT.LT: Blemba, you are evil!

Usually, we can watch lrt.lt tv program online from our computers, but today, new years eve, they have decided to switch off the feed for those who live outside Lithuania. So no new year evening Lithuanian show for all the Lithuanian abroad! Is that a tactic to make the courageous lithuanian people come back to the Homeland. I say that is a dirty tactic. LRT = evil and someone had to complain about it. So here I am to report it on my internationally read blog! Bad LRT.LT, bad, bad...How down can they go?

Vilnius Live Webcam ...NOW.

The webcam is installed in the Citypark Hotel right in Vilnius city center.
This is currently the only functioning live webcam in Lithuania.
To update the view, press your F5 key to reload or press the refresh button of your browser.

Tragic Escapade

Dora, our Beagle ran away last week. As usual, I let her running free on this field near our home. I was a bit day dreaming that day. And when I came back on earth, she had vanished. I waisted precious minutes walking to the little hidden beach where she often goes drinking. But she was not there. Then I went round the fields but could not see her. I looked for her more than one hour without success. So I went home and came back a few hours later and again in the evening. She did not come back around. The day after, we printed notices and I went to stick them everywhere around her rather huge walking territory. Saturday morning, a phone call. Someone spotted her running along the Neris. I rushed there and here she was. I thanked the guy who managed to catch her. He told me he saw her running with wild dogs at the open market the day before, which is quite far from our home. Dora got hit by a car or a trolley bus. She is alive, but wounded and under shock. We took her to the vet who said she will be recover and she should be fine. She got anesthetized and stitched.

Above, a pix of Dora recovering before going to be inspected by the vet.

So this tragic escapade has a good ending. Dora is back at home and slowly recovering, but this adventure changed her completely: She can walk properly and is scared by everything. I have lots of work, both physiological and psychological to do with her to bring back her confidence and to have her running again.

FPS Games I play now...

This the short list of FPS games I am totally addicted too.

Vietcong 1, for more than 3 years now.
TC:E True Combat Elite, a free stand alone mod for Wolfenstein Enemy territory.
Counter Strike 1.6 condition zero.

And I would like to thank C Gate Lithuania for the worst ping ever during the day. I need to wait past midnight to get a decent connection.

Battlestar Galactica Season 1, at last, in Lithuania.

Saturday night, the lithuanian channel TV3 broadcasted for the first time ever in Lithuania the episode "pilote" of Battlestar Galactica season 1. It was awfully dubbed in Lithuanian but I watched it around 1 am (why so late?) with real pleasure.

2 Striking images printed in my memory:

- A full squad of vipers being anihilated without a fight by two Cylons ships: they used a disabling beam which neutralized all the onboard electronics and propulsion of the human interceptors, followed by a salvo of auto guided missiles. There was no chances of survival to the 20 or so interceptors which became a cloud of metal coffins derivating helplessly in the void. Actually, one ship escaped and landed on Caprica.

- The bombing of Caprica by the Cylons with nuclear weapons. A group of human found a small military ship landcrashed on a grassy land (the ship I am talking about above). The 2 men crew managed to fix it. At the horizon, nuclear blasts and atomic mushrooms, the group of human decides who can board the small ship and who will stay on the doomed planet.

Pure moment of science fiction. It really reminded me my saturdays afternoon, decades ago, when I was watching avidly those sci fi series: Galactica, Buck Rogers, Star Trek, Planet of apes...
I think I will really like this first season of Galactica, the episode are broadcasted the saturday, very late.
One other thing I wanted to say: "Lost": Get lost! This serie sucks so much. Even my wife gave up watching it. Why can't they move it to saturday late at night and put Galactica on tuesday evening at 10 pm instead?
Ha, and forget the awfull lithuanian dubbing, keep the original version and put subtitles if you want. That would be my two 5 cents advices.
I do hope they also bought season 2 & 3...

If you wanted to know how a Cylon looks like in this new serie, here it is:


Scary, isn't it?

Switching to Linux: Ubuntu

I nearly forgot I had a blog running. Life is going so fast.
Last week, my desktop died and the box is currently undergoing some repairs. It might take a week before I get it back. A few hours before my pc died, I decided to kick Windows XP out of my laptop, and to switch to Linux. I remember the first time I attempted to install this OS, a few years ago, it was a total disaster. I could not get anything to work, the screen resolution was screwed up and could not even access the menu. After a few hours of struggle, I gave up and came back to windows.
But with Ubuntu, a "flavor" of Linux, this old story is definitely forgotten now. Not only, everything work as it should, but everything is logical, safe, and self explained. I like the interface which is completely customizable.

For those who are still skeptical about Linux, here is how it happened.
I spent one week reading about Linux Ubuntu. They have a super website, with all the informations you want about this OS. Here it is: http://www.ubuntu.com/
Of course, you may think what is written there is only advertisement, there is a catch, it cannot be that easy to install it, to run it...that they dont ship the cd-rom of the full version free of charge...well, apparently they do, if you want to wait a few weeks and not get the most recent version. If you do not want to wait, you can also download the current version legally for free: Linux is open source.

This is what I did, I copied the 700 meg iso on a cd rom, and inserted it on my windows own laptop. I did not have to reboot. I just ran the cd. A simple interface appeared on my screen, offering me to try Ubuntu, to install Ubuntu, to check the cd integrity. I did the last operation, you do not want to have a corrupted file on the cd or it will screw up the install in the middle. It took a few minutes to check the cd, and everything was ok, no error. Then, I selected: try Ubuntu. Wait...how can you try without installing? You can! The OS can be run from the cd. You can not save the changes you make, but it allows you to play with the interface and see how it looks like. I liked it, although everything was different from Windows XP: the interface displays exotic names like Gnome or synaptic packet manager... however, everything was explained simply.
Then I decided to install and ...to kill XP. Ubuntu offered me to partitioned my hard drive: One side for windows, the other for Linux. I selected: no partition. Scary, huh ?

The installation took 20 minutes during while my laptop seemed not to oppose any resistance, i did not have to do anything. After a while, a message announced me that Ubuntu was now installed, to reboot and to remove the disk. For a few seconds during the reboot, I doubted a bit, but not so long. After the splash screen, the system asked me my name, my password, and the computer name. I entered the info in the boxes, and pressed "enter". The system announced me that I was the administrator, and displayed a plain screen, coffee latte color, at the correct resolution, with a top and a bottom menu barre. I saw immediately the Firefox logo. Kind of re assuring to see it here, something familiar. I clicked on it. Firefox booted and showed me the Ubuntu help page. I typed www.google.com, and my favorite search engine appeared on the screen. Hey wait, the laptop is connected already? I expected to struggle a bit at least to access the Internet.

Nope, no struggle, or very little. I followed a bit the instruction on the ubuntu website, to make sure that I have everything updated. It took an other 5-10 minutes to update everything via this famous synaptyc packet manager who is here to download and tidy nicely all the upgrades/updates you do. With the add/remove application, i also installed some software and even a game Battle for Westnoth. Everything work as it should, a few days later, I customized a bit my desktop to make it look good, practical, with some little gadgets.

I have not finished to customize it yet but just now my Ubuntu is exactly how I need it. I am glad to have switched to Linux, without looking back. I miss a bit photoshop, thats all. Gimp, the image editing equivalent is not as good as I want, but i expected it. I could have ran it if I had kept my Windows partition. All the other applications are up to the tasks, it even opens me new horizons as I can now do some video editing, vectorial drawing and other cool stuffs like 3D, I need to go through the long list of applications available.
Until now, the only thing that resists to me is printing. I have connected the printer to the back of my laptop, I have the recommended driver, but it does not print.
I was hoping a Linux more orientated with web design & web development. I am not sure this is the case yet. Linux has however many server potentialities but for that, go on the website to read about it.

Overall, after less than two weeks using Linux: Ubuntu, I am totally satisfied. I am thinking about doing a Linux partition on my desktop too when it will comes back from repair. Only Daiva is moaning a bit, cos everything is different and she misses her "Windows". Should I conclude by saying that Linux is more for "Ze boys"?

Here is 5 interesting links you may want to check to know more about Ubuntu.
The official website: http://www.ubuntu.com/
A presentation of Ubuntu with screenshots: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop
The community forum: http://www.ubuntu.com/community/forums
A manual: https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/desktopguide/C/index.html
Mark Shuttleworth, the founder of the Ubuntu project: http://www.markshuttleworth.com/biography/

www.robocrow.com

Finally, my new website running on the CMS Drupal is online. All options are not active yet, I am still fighting with my menu section. But from now on, the latest openGL/abandoware/freeware gaming news will be added there. Go there and have a look!

Here is the link: www.robocrow.com

My little family.

The heats of summer are gone now, and we are preparing ourselves for the Indian Summer, which is always a beautiful season in Lithuania. Today was ideal to go for a walk on the green hills above Vilnius.
Here is a picture of my girlfriend and our beagle dog taken in a field behind the 3 crosses :-) Dora is now 6 months and weights 11 kg!

Weekend at the lake

Last weekend, we went to a lake 60km from Vilnius, a hidden paradise in the middle of a wood. It was an amazing first time for Dora who had never seen a forest in her life. But she fell quickly at ease in the green. On saturday morning, around 5 o clock, I took Dora for a walk and I took my camera as well as the sunset on the lake was amazing.


This is Dora and the "third man", my camera tripod...


Here is a funny picture, Dora rocketing out one of the tent where she introduced herself to lick everybody's face. Camera was set on high speed shooting and I could take her while in the air.


Maybe for lithuanian, such landscape is normal, but for a westerner, It is an amazing view and surely a heaven for fishermen. Dora is still impressed a lot by the water so she is very carefully approching the shore.



(to be continued...)

Please meet Dora...

Dora is a 3.5 months old female Beagle. We thought that if captain Archer's famous Beagle named Porthos is able to live on the Starship Enterprise, then Dora will also be able to live easily in our flat with us.


She is a very friendly dog, great with children, adventurous and packed with energy. When we saw her in the middle of the others dogs, we could not resist long...

Pictures taken around Trakai

Here is some pictures of the lakes around the castle of Trakai. The clear water of the lakes and peacefull landscape make of this place a paradise for photographers. They managed to keep the direct surrounding of the castle clear from harsh urbanism. Coffee and restarant as well as shops for tourists remains discret but well placed. On the last pix, you can see the castle of Trakai between the trees. These images has been edited in sepia color with Photoshop.

Vilnius Latte Benchmarking

If you live or come to Vilnius, here is something interesting for you. I have to say, I discovered the smoothness of the Cafe latte in Vilnius, and not in Italy or in some loosy Starbucks Coffee selling "Coffee Ersatz" a bit everywhere in the world. The idea rulling in this post is that the quality of the Latte produced in a place reflects rather well the overall quality (food and service) of the establishment.
That is why this post is called the Vilnius Latte benchmarking, which is the first benchmarking of its kind ever made in the whole world. (I looked on Google). I encourage all bloggers to do the same in their city and report it in their blogs.

Since I have arrived in Vilnius, Daiva and I have been wandering in many pubs, cafes, restaurants in the city. I have to say the quality of the Latte can change a lot from one place to an other, this lead me to consider other aspects in the visited places and I eventually came to this conclusion: The better the Latte, the better the place.
I noticed also that Lithuania has a definite advantage over Latte drinker countries: its milk is of excellent quality, which really helps a lot.

Cafe Solero on Traku Street serves so far the best Latte in town. I gave this establishment a note of 4.5 out of 5. The caffe Latte is served in high transparent glass allowing you to see the 3 layers: 2/3 milk, 1/3 espresso and the thin layer of milk foam. The coffee beans used has a good quality, and you will get your caffein kick for your bucks. Reflecting this high score, the Solero is a great place to meet friends or to organize relax professional meeting. The Solero has 3 rooms of medium size (some of them slightly below ground level), well designed, equipped with rather large tables and confortable sofas. The service is perfect nevertheless a bit slow: it takes time to produce quality. The standard is well kept. The dishes served succulent and very well presented. The groovy but relaxing music is sometimes a bit to loud, but you can ask the staff to reduce the volume. I definitly recommend this place.

Double Coffee, a Lithuanian coffee company, a copycat of the Starbucks Coffee, provides an excellent Latte. You can find many stores across the city, the two sites I have tested for you are located on Gedimino prospektas. I am giving a note of 4 out of 5. The Latte, served in a high glass allows you to see the layered composition. The milk is at the right temperature, and you may drink it fast. The service is quick as well. Double Coffee has a large panel of hot and cold beverages, alcoholic drinks and hot dishes. The Double Coffee interior design are quite similar from one store to an other and on the dark tones, the stores visited lacked of windows, therefore, appart from the sexy waitresses and other customers, there is not much to look at. One of the good thing at Double Caffee is that they give "drink on the house" vouchers. This attractive offer is definitly a plus for them.

The Pica 25 is located at the last floor of the shopping centre CUP. I will give a note of 3.5 out of 5. The Latte served there is a normal Latte. It has absolutely nothing special to say about it: it tastes coffee, it has a correct proportion of milk, espresso shots and foam, served in a transparent glass. It remains a good Latte, far better than any Latte served in any Starbucks. This establishment is a pizzeria serving italian dishes arranged to the taste of lithuanian people. Their hot dishes have no extra stuff, but it is tasty, and served quickly by the two members of staff working there. It is a small place with a big view. This small pizzeria has big windows bay from which you have a view on Vilnius. Not a fantastic view in fact, a view on the black waters of the Neris and the grey building accross, with many people crossing the pedestrian white bridge. I recommend to go there for sunset and order there a pizza and a latte. Simple combination. No better place to threat yourself after work.

The Presto is a coffee company like Double Coffee and you can find many of their stores well located accross the city. The stores I have tested are located in Europa and on Trakai street. I would give a maybe fair note of 1.5 out of 5. The latte is served in a small white cup. It taste coffee but disappointed me a lot. It seems they use skimmed milk to make their latte and it tastes very much like water. The fact that it is served with a little coffee bean does not smoothened my unsatisfaction. The place itself are not particulary attractive. It is small without being cosy and it is noisy. Bad experience really and we could not wait to leave the place really.

The Mambopizza is located on Gedimino prospektas which is Vilnius main street, but not on the most passing section. It has a covered terrace advancing on the pavement which is quite pleasant in summer. However, I gave this establishment a harsh note of 1.5 out of 5.
The Latte macchiato served there has definitly lost its capital letter. The milk was burned, the shots were burned too or they maybe use a low quality of coffee, the beverage did not taste like a latte, actually it tastes anything particular. The place is far too dark, they failed to create a cosy atmosphere. Even air seems to be lacking there. The pathway is none existant: When you enter, tables are right in the path and you have to squizze yourself against the wall to make your way to the long bar. The armchairs are not particularly confortable and the tables are too high. They offer hot and cold beverages, pretty much all tastless and alcoholic drinks. The Mambopizza offers an average selection of italian dishes arranged to the lithuanien taste, but even the traditional lithuanian cold soup made with beetroot looked not fresh and untasty. They are trying without much effort, consequence of that: they are not convincing, therefore they desserve their note..

I will continue my Latte benchmarking throughout spring and summer in Vilnius, and surely in other towns of Lithuania. After all, this calm country has a lot to offer.
Our next target will be Fortas, and other independant coffee shops.

Don't mess with the crows

One of Vilnius symbols could be the crow. There are a big number of them flying and croaking above the capitale. Beware, the crows are always watching you...

Vilnius: 1st day of spring!

Today, we could really feel spring coming. We went for a long walk along the Neris, then climbed to the castle. Here is a general view of the Vilnius upper castle, built during the 14th century. This time, bricks were used instead of wood too easily burned by the enemy: The Teutonic Order.

Below, a close-up of the Gedimino castle. Inside, you will find a museum. It was much higher before, but you can still catch a superb view of Vilnius from its top.

Then, we went down hill and reached the cathedral square: The cathedral tower is our "little Pise"


A few step away from here, the passing Pilies gatve (Castle street), with all its small craft shops and welcoming cafe.



(Love is in the air...)

The Slaves of Dubai

I should have done this a long time ago as it is not new. Dubai is the richest of the emirats of the UAE. The city of Dubai is famous for its luxurious hotel and its wealthy economy based on petrol ressources. Dubai is trying to diversify its economy by developping tourism and becoming a business pole in the region. New developments are emerging everywhere in the city: Amongst them, skyscrappers lodging offices, 5 to 7 stars hotels and apartments, but also sports palace, artificial islands, private residence etc etc...

A couple of months ago, I watched on TV5 Monde a french documentary about the building site workers in Dubai. Today, I read on BBC news that those workers have started a strike to complain about their working conditions and salaries. Please visit the BBC website.

Dubai: One of the richest place in the world is underpaying those who build it. They are so rich, everybody is closing their eyes on all their slavery activities.

This Emirat is importing labour forces mainly from China, India and Pakistan, attracting them with good contracts, the building companies are even advancing the money for their trip to Dubai. These offers are hard to refuse for those poor people who lives with less than a dollar a day. Some hope to come back after a couple of years with their savings for a fresh start in their native country; Other dont have enough money to support their family, they also accept to go to work in Dubai.

Their dreams dont last long. At their arrival in Dubai, their passeport is immediately confiscated. The new contracts they are forced to sign at their arrivals have changed. Less money, more working hours, no over time paid. They have only the right to shut up. The labourers can't go back as their employers only advanced the money for a single trip, the return ticket is too expensive for them to pay. Stuck, they are forced to work in awfull working conditions. A minimum of 12 working hours per day but it is often more, under extremly high temperatures. Living conditions are mot acceptable either. The workers are packed into prefab building and camps outside the city If a worker injures himself on the building site, companies are not responsible for their medical cares. If a worker dies on the building site...these companies are wiping their hands too. When a worker commit suicide, he is accused of being alcoholic or junky. It is impossible to track records of all the casualities as the figures are hidden or modified to an acceptable but untrue rates.

Example of salaries paid by companies implanted in Dubai, mainly run by locals but also by foreign companies.
Skilled carpenter: from US$7.60 per day.
Labourers: $4 per day.
Millions of labourers have migrated to the Dubai emirat.
(Source are BBC news)

Those facts and others are ignored by most of us in the western world. Going to Dubai, or promoting it is the same as supporting a state which violates daily human rights. Boycott Dubay!
Feel free to check the links below. Thanks for reading my blog.

Links:
The wikipedia: Dubai
Human trafficking and modern-day slavery
BCC: Migrants' woes in Dubai worker camps
BCC: Strike halts work at Dubai tower

Short Snow Storm in Vilnius

It's when you think the spring is coming soon, and you are just about to celebrate that the winter strikes back hard. For an hour, the snow, carried by raging guts of wind, fell on the city. Fortunately, we were not outside but keeping ourselves busy in our cosy flat. Locals are maybe used to such weather, nevertheless it was an impressive snow storm. At some point, we saw a electric flash in the sky followed by a cracking noise: First time ever I witnessed a lightning during a snow fall. This pix was taken from the balcony of our appartement tonight. A surreal atmosphere, that was.

Eurovision 2006: The Lithuanian Submission

Love it or hate it, after a tough competition (as you can imagine in Lithuania) between contestants for the Eurovision 2006, the band LT United will go to Eurovision to sing (shout) their " We are the winner" song. The band has been created a few days only before the contest, they thought the whole thing as a joke and never expected to be selected. Surprisingly, they still got chosen by the Lithuanians people. According to the Eurovision website, the song has received 32699 votes, but many other sources mentioned 8061 votes only. Anyway, whatever the figures are, they won by far the national contest.
The lyrics badly written in english, countain even a few words in french, but no lithuanian which is known as the oldest language in Europe. The song itself could be easily sung in a football stadium, or maybe more in a basketball hall, as Lithuanians are more fond of the orange bouncing ball. It has received some harsh critics and William Butt , a.k.a. "Billy", bitterly descriebes the song as "probably one of the worst and most crazy songs from the history of the Eurovision Song Contest." He, in fact, is the writer of the last lithuanian entry for Eurovision 2005 "Little by little", a song that finished at the last place of the semi final... Will LT United do better? Far from uniting lithuanians, they've definitly left their shyness in the drawer, showing a more ambitious way of doing things.

LT UniteD: "We are the winner of the Eurovision."
Lyrics

We are the winners
We are the winners
(We are, we are)
We are the winners
(We are, we are)
Go

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)

So you gotta vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners
Vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners
Oh...

We are the winners of Eurovision
De Vilnius et ici à Paris, LT united see
We are the winners of Eurovision
Chanson, la meilleure chanson, yeah
'Cause we got it going on

Everyday, you hear us on the radio (Radio)
And everyday, you see us on the news (That's right)
It doesn't matter, in mono or in stereo (It's better in stereo)
'Cause we are here to represent the truth

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are, we are, we are, we are)

We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are the winners of Eurovision)
We are the winners of Eurovision
(We are the winners of Eurovision)

So you gotta vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners
Vote (vote), vote (vote)
Vote for the winners

'Cause we are the winners of Eurovision
Vote!

You can watch their performance here and have your say: http://www.keithm.utvinternet.ie/videos/Lithuania06.wmv

LT United has also bought a web domain name but the site has still to be built (Thanks to Ana for the info):
http://www.winnerofeurovision.com/

A simplified "Spore-like": Flow (Flash)

This morning, I spent some time to play this little Flash Animation game called Flow.
You will incarnate a micro organism living in a liquid environment. You can control its direction and its speed by left clicking. Make him grow and evolve by eating all what's floating around. Other creatures are evolving too and are becoming as big as you. A really interesting concept, very similar to Spore, the game currently being developped by Will Wright.

You start like this:

After a while, you become this...

Make your own experience, the link is below. Enjoy.
http://jenovachen.com/flowingames/implementations/flowing/core.html

Lithuanian trolleybus(as)

Lithuanian trolleybuses are usually old and slow. In winter, the ice often covers the windows inside, appart from the front window obviously. Its a bit like sitting in a fridge or in the cave of an iceberg. As you can't see outside, its sometimes hard to locate yourself, you have to scratch the ice until you create a small patch of clear area and peek out, or wait for the vehicule to stop and open its doors.
The best place is on the right side of the trolley, 2nd seat behind the middle door. Why? because there is a little electric heater on the floor which, when it works (rarely actually), keeps your legs warm. It can be as cold inside as outside, especially when the driver forgets to close the doors when driving which happens often on the line 13.

This pix has been taken today, on my way back from work. Yeah, its old, but has its charms...You can also notice that I am sitting at the best place, just above the heater. Each stop is announced by a recorded women voice: Kita stotele...Saltinielis.... The first time I heard this voice, I nearly jumped wondering what it was. First, You dont expect these old trolleybuses to have such system, and second, the strange voice seems to be coming from "outerspace", like if suddenly you were in an old sci fi movie.
There is now a new model of trolleybus running as well, much faster, but they are not many and they do break down as often as the old ones. Here is below an outside view of an old model:

You may have noticed the electric cables hanging above the street, (top left), and the yellow "antennas" sticking out of the roof. When the trolleybus turns and get too far from this cable, the antennas get detached from them, and the vehicule simply stops where it is, then the driver has to get out and play with some ropes at the back to reposition the sticks. And beleive me, nobody is happy when it happens.

Yes, if you ever come to Vilnius, you will quickly see one of these fat and slow bugs. You will also find normal buses, slightly faster but as old as the trolleybuses, and the minibus, very fast, but using them to commute is at your own risks, they crash a lot.