Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Apps are displacing the WWW from your time and focus.You HAVE to read this: The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet.

You already know that the world wide web (WWW) is just a part of the Internet. But do you realize that the apps are displacing the WWW from your time and focus? All those applications you run from your smartphone, TV, etc.? Read carefully this VERY interesting duplex article from WIRED magazine.

While we focus on Information Technology updates in this blogpost, here's a very rare and cool item: a space-theme cover, with a Technology Day Station pictorial postmark from 2006.

I never met an extraterrestrial [ :) ], but I did meet people who have been in Cosmos.

First I met cosmonaut Dumitru "Dorin" Prunariu (Romania). My mother is his former biology teacher in elementary school.

Then I met astronaut Henry "Hank" Hartsfield Jr. (USA)
We shook hands and he autographed this space cover for me (COSMOS3b, in my photobucket.com album "dorincard").




Friday, August 20, 2010

Romanian maximum cards: the Order of the Dragon connection between Sighisoara and Moldovita Monastery

Girl with the Dragon tattoo? Anybody can get that (the tattoo, that is).
How about men with Order of the Dragon induction?


"Central Sighişoara has preserved in an exemplary way the features of a small medieval fortified city; it has been listed by the UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Each year, a Medieval Festival takes place in the old citadel in July.

View from Villa Franka
Sighişoara is considered to be the most beautiful and well preserved inhabited citadel in Europe,[citation needed] with an authentic medieval architecture. In Eastern Europe, Sighişoara is one of the few fortified towns which are still inhabited. The town is made up of two parts. The medieval stronghold was built on top of a hill and is known as the "Citadel" (Cetate).The lower town lies in the valley of Târnava Mare river."
This 1997 series of stamps from Romania, with beautiful drawings, commemorates 550 years from the death of Vlad II Dracul.
"Vlad II (c. 1390 – December 1447), known as Vlad Dracul ("Vlad the Dragon"), was a voivode (duke) of Wallachia. He reigned from 1436 to 1442, and again from 1443 to 1447. He was the father of Mircea II,Vlad CălugărulVlad Ţepeş (also known as "Vlad the Impaler"), and Radu the Handsome
All four of his sons would at one time rule Wallachia. Vlad Tepes would go on to become one of the most notorious rulers in history."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sighisoara


Sighisoara, Romania - maximum cards (notice the different pictorial postmarks).









Order of the Dragon inductees include both Vlad II Dracul and his son, Vlad III Dracula.
"On December 12, 1408, following the Battle of Dobor[5][6][7] in which he slaughtered most of Bosnia's nobility, many who had fought the Turks [8] Sigismund and his queen, Barbara of Celje, founded the league known today as the Order of the Dragon.[9][10] Its statutes, written in Latin, call it a society (societas) whose members carry the signum draconis (see below), but assign no name to it. Contemporary records, however, refer to it by a variety of similar if unofficial names, such as Gesellschaft mit dem TrakchenDivisa seu Societate DraconicaSocietate Draconica seu Draconistarum and Fraternitas Draconum.[11] It was to some extent modelled after the earlier Hungarian monarchical order, the Order of St. George (Societas militae Sancti Georgii), founded by King Carol Robert of Anjou in 1318.[10] It likewise adopted St. George as its patron saint, whose legendary defeat of a dragon was used as a symbol for the military and religious ethos of the order."

The edict of 1408 describes two insignia to be worn by members of the Order:
" ... we and the faithful barons and magnates of our kingdom shall bear and have, and do choose and agree to wear and bear, in the manner of society, the sign or effigy of the Dragon incurved into the form of a circle, its tail winding around its neck, divided through the middle of its back along its length from the top of its head right to the tip of its tail, with blood [forming] a red cross flowing out into the interior of the cleft by a white crack, untouched by blood, just as and in the same way that those who fight under the banner of the glorious martyr St George are accustomed to bear a red cross on a white field ..." [13]
The dragon described here, with its tail coiled around its neck, bears comparison to the ouroboros.[citation needed] On the back of the dragon, from the base of the neck to the tail, is the Red Cross of Saint George, with the entire image on an argent field. The Order's dragon emblem has not survived in any original form, but it has been referenced on coins, art, and in writing."

Notice the Dragon on the outer, upper margin of this medieval saddle.

A fresco showing St. George slaying the Dragon, from the Moldovita Monastery, Romania - UNESCO World Heritage Site (Painted Monasteries of Bucovina/Moldova/Romania):

"The Moldoviţa Monastery (Romanian: Mânăstirea Moldoviţa) is a Romanian Orthodox monastery situated in the commune of Vatra MoldoviţeiSuceava County, Moldavia, Romania. The Monastery of Moldoviţa was built in 1532 by Petru Rareş, who was Stefan the Great's illegitimate son. It was founded as a protective barrier against the Muslim Ottoman conquerors from the East.".

"Stephen the Great, the King of Romania [MY NOTE: Prince/Voivode of Moldavia, actually] from 1457 until his death in 1504, fought 36 battles against the Ottoman Empire, winning 34 of them [MY NOTE: not too shabby :) ]. He was very religious and built churches after many victories. Stephen's illegitimate son, Petru Rareş, who ruled Romania [MY NOTE: Prince/Voivode of Moldavia, actually] from 1527-1538 and again from 1541-1546, promoted a new vision for Bukovina churches. He commissioned artists to cover the interiors and exteriors with elaborate frescoes (portraits of saints and prophets, scenes from the life of Jesus).
The best preserved are the monasteries in the towns of Suceviţa, Moldoviţa, Voroneţ, Humor, Suceava, Pătrăuţi, and Probota. Seven of them--including the Monastery of Moldoviţa--were placed on UNESCO World Heritage list in 1993."



=======================
Happy PFF (Postcard Friendship Friday)!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Size does matter for Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus) - WWF official maximum cards from Brunei Darussalam (Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace)


The bigger, the better.
"[It] is thought to be used to attract females and is a characteristic of the males, reaching up to 7 inches in length."
We're talking about the nose (proboscis).

"Proboscis Monkey belong to the order of Primates, from the family Cercopithecidae and subfamily Colobinae (Bennett & Gomber, 1993). According to Bennett & Gomber (1993), in the Old World, these monkeys are divided into two groups known as cercopithecines and colobines. Proboscis Monkey are colobines. Males are much larger than females, weighing up to 24 kg (53 pounds) and reaching 72 cm (28 inches) in length, with a tail of up to 75 cm in length. Females are up to 60 cm long, weighing up to 12 kg (26 lb). This large sexual dimorphic difference is greater than in any other primate.[5]"












"Brunei (pronounced /bruːˈnaɪ/ in English), officially the State of Brunei Darussalam or the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace[5] (MalayNegara Brunei DarussalamJawi: بروني دارالسلام), is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by thestate of SarawakMalaysia, and in fact it is separated into two parts by Limbang, which is part of Sarawak. It is the only sovereign state completely on the island of Borneo, with the remainder of the island belonging to Malaysia and Indonesia."


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Top 30 Stamp Collecting Blogs, by guidetoartschools.com

#2:
"Dorincard: Blogger Dorin C is a stamp and postcard fanatic, and luckily he's more than pleased to write prolifically and charmingly about his obsession. He has a particular bent for stamps with wild mammals on them, but his blog demonstrates an affinity for stamps of all forms and backgrounds, as long as they offer a special narrative that's worth sharing with his readers.


  • Source: http://www.guidetoartschools.com/library/best-stamp-collecting-blogs#ixzz1KirbuA4p
    "

    Some feedback received about me and my blog here

    [DORIN'S NOTE: There are over 100 million websites.]

    From alexa.com traffic rank site

    "There are 1,699,250 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Dorincard.blogspot.com.
    About 43% of visitors to the site come from France, where it has attained a traffic rank of 152,077.
    About 80% of visits to the site consist of only one pageview (i.e., are bounces).
    Dorincard.blogspot.com's visitors view an average of 1.5 unique pages per day.
    Visitors to the site spend roughly two minutes on each pageview and a total of three minutes on the site during each visit."



    inkling (Enthusiast)

    The best use of this site is Other.

    Likes
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    Comments:
    Postcards and stamps, mainly featuring mammals and birds but Dorincard also has other creations
    and interests he likes to share.
    His enthusiasm for Maximum cards (a postcard and a similar themed stamps sent through the
    postal system) shines through.
    He shows how he gets the right card, stamp and postmark together.
    Visiting his site you will also learn things about the natural world told with a dry sense of humour,
    possibly with a play on words, and a unique style of headings.
    Topical and informative both for the enthusiast and casual visitor.
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    1 Review
    Global 1,699,251
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