Gheorghe Curelet-Balan Blog

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Maple Moon = The Sweet Season of Maple Syrup Harvesting.

The spring is in the air and the earth is breathing. I took yesterday a short sunset walk in the neighborhood and I had the feeling that the earth is breathing.

Inspired by the upcoming Elmira Maple Syrup Festival I did a little research on how maple syrup is produced. To my surprise I realized that maple syrup is the result of the way maple trees perceive the "earth breathing" caused by the temperature variations during this time.

Right now, North Americans in the Maple Belt area, are in the Maple Moon season, as Ojibwa natives called the harvest season of the maple syrup.

Check out this link to learn how "earth breathing" helps the maple tree to "pump" the maple syrup.

Some are saying that Europeans think of maple syrup as a cure-it-all potion. After reading about the abundance of minerals that it contains it is no wonder that maple syrup is also used for purification cures.

Links:
1. a CBC video clip on maple syrup
2. A Canadian sugar shack:
-in English
- CBC video clip in French
3. my last year short post about an Elmira trail.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Speaking of green...

I hope you don't need more convincing that Ontario is a green Province and Canada a green country. Canada actually is well known for its parks and wide open spaces. For those that need more convincing I have some living proof of my assertions. Check it out below...

It looks like below guys are still upset of not getting EinsteinFest tickets. In consequence they decided for an early start of the golfing season on the Grey Silo Golf Course in the RIM Park :) [Picture taken on the same day the picture on this link was taken].

Thanks to the nice weather during the past weekend, they had a chance to enjoy a bath in a pond in Waterloo.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Green = Life, Safety, Comfort and Happiness.

I hope that everyone agrees that green symbolize life. It is the green Chlorophyll pigment that is essential in transforming the blessed sun energy into chemical energy that is vital to life. That is why, maybe, people associated green with safety in traffic lights design and other applications.

Well, I've discovered another association between green and life, safety, comfort and happiness. Click on this link and explore how one of the most trusted company in the world can make a city green. And once a city is green it produces more green :)

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Mea culpa with explanations.

My apologies to all that found a reason to be offended by my previous post. No assumption was made and no offense of any kind was intended. The only explanation I have for that unfortunate title is that I need to put more effort in mastering my English and that in the blogging rush I do not always follow my WLRRTDTS credo. Who says that blogger's life is easy?

To eliminate any ambiguity, I’ve changed the title of the below post to: if you want to be smarter... This is at least what I feel when I'm in Waterloo. I hope that the spirit of the post reflects the idea I want to convey.

Since I live close to Waterloo and witness its scientific and cultural vivacity, I’ve been biased, of course, when I was talking only about it. I'm sure that the other cities competing for the title of the Intelligent Community of the Year are making their communities smarter, since they are broadband connected.

In the spirit of fair play I will list the other contenders: Cleveland (Ohio, USA), Gangnam District (Seoul, South Korea), Ichikawa (Japan), Manchester (England), Taipei (Taiwan) and Tianjin (China).

Let the best broadband community win!

Monday, March 20, 2006

If you want to be smarter...

You need a connection of some kind with Waterloo. Why? Because Waterloo was nominated by the Intelligent Communities Forum as one of the World’s Top Seven Intelligent Communities of 2006.

The picture shows part of the main entry of Waterloo Public Library.

Sunday, March 19, 2006

Yahoo! I'm on flickr!

I've just opened an account on the well known picture sharing site www.Flickr.com. I've posted pictures from our hike near the lake Banister, close to our neighboring city of Cambridge. Lake Banister is situated at the intersection of roads 75 and 49 on your way from Cambridge to Ayr. It feels good to be refreshed by a breeze of fresh cold air.

Also I've posted a glimpse at today's sunset and a pair of robins waiting for the spring.

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Next generation information storage media: Holographic memory.

This is another example of what a difference a dimension makes.
Click on this link to learn how adding an extra dimension in information storage yields a 200 times increase in the DVD's capacity.

The upcoming Blu-Ray disk maybe cool but the holographic disk is amazing.

Friday, March 17, 2006

Green for a day.

March 17th is a special day for all the Irish people around the world as they, and others, celebrate St. Patrick Day. The Irish have observed in different forms, this day, for centuries, to celebrate the life of Saint Patrick, the religious patron of Ireland.

St. Patrick Day events are organized all around the world but the biggest are the New York City parade and Dublin parade, of course.

It feels good to be surrounded by so much green. Consequently I become Irish for a day.

Links:
1. Green chemistry, Ecomagination and the environment.
2. Discovering Ireland.
3. Toronto St. Patrick's Parade.
4. The Scotish/Latin noble origin of the Patrick name.
5. The truth about the Shamrock, Ireland's symbol.
6. In search for his Irish roots.
7. Irish Mythology, Literature, Folklore and Drama.
8. Waterloo Region's Irish dancers (Photo 43 on the second gallery on the page of my January 14th post ).

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

What a difference a dimension makes.

Going from two dimensions to three makes a big difference.

Click on this link to see how GE's 3D tomosynthesis unit makes the difference in cancer detection. One more proof of science and technology's practical impact.

What a difference a day makes.

From above 10 degrees C, spring weather on Sunday that melted under my eyes the Grand River remaining snow in RIM Park.

To scary clouds and winds of change yesterday evening.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

To freezing rain today that created small ice flying saucers. Now it is snowing again.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

World's largest skating rink.

The Ottawa's Rideau Canal holds the Guiness World Record as the largest skating rink.

You can virtually skate the canal if you click here.

Friday, March 10, 2006

Local CTV TV station: http://www.southwesternontario.ctv.ca.

Links I like to visit:
Business.
The Beat.
Vernile File show.
Province Wide show.

Discover Ontario's culture.

http://www.ontarioculture.ca

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

The Einstein and bulldozers puzzle solution.

So what's the link between Einstein and bulldozers? It was quite intriguing for me to find out on Saturday that bulldozers can use GPS systems.

Damian Pope, the usual presenter of the regular Perimeter Institute's Black Hole sessions used this puzzle to give us an unusual example of modern physics use in everyday life. It is well known that the success of GPS systems depends on Einstein's Relativity Theory (check out for example Clifford Will's EinsteinFest presentation starting at minute 62:20, as I documented it in one of my previous posts).

Picture taken on March 1st at the Waterloo Collegiate Institute, before Lisa Randall's amazing PI lecture "Warped Passages".

The next question is how a bulldozer is using GPS? During the grading process, besides knowing where to move, the bulldozer needs to determine the blade position too. A 3D GPS bulldozer can do this job in a reliable, economic and safe manner.

By Damian's quote the switch to GPS bulldozer control, increased the profits by 30%. Also, it is estimated that the economic impact of GPS systems is around $35 billion.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Oscars, Canada and Romania.

You may be wondering how Canada relates to the Oscars Awards. Click here to learn about different forms of this connection.

I found interesting that the beautiful sceneries of the eight times Oscar nominated, Brokeback Mountain are from Canadian Rockies.

This reminded me of another strong movie, Cold Mountain, that was filmed in the beautiful Romanian mountains.

Other links:

CTV Oscars
CBC Oscars Coverage
Canada.com Oscars site
CBC Oscars blog
Oscars Memorable pictures

Other Brokeback Mountain awards:

1. British Academy Film Awards
2. Golden Globe Awards
3. Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the Venice International Film Festival
4. Best picture at the Spirit Awards.

This week in pictures

Cool web site: click on this link to see memorable pictures of the week.

Einstein and bulldozers puzzle.

Another Einstein puzzle I'm working to formulate a solution. What can Einstein have in common with bulldozers? When I and other folks have been asked this question yesterday, my first thought was: well...we can say that Einstein's work went like a bulldozer through the theoretical physics of the past century. Unfortunately the expected solution was more practical. I'm passing to you the puzzle while I'll try to formulate in a future post the solution that was given to us.