My First Frogfish

I've been a certified scuba diver since 1992. I have dived in Israel, Sinai and Seychelles - and saw many interesting things underwater. I'm not a spoiled diver. Just give me salty and calm water, and I'll have my fun. Still, it's always fun to discover and see new creatures underwater. Yesterday, while diving in Eilat, I saw my first ever Frogfish.

We actually went to Eilat to try and get a glimpse of the Whale Shark, that's been hanging out there for a few weeks. No luck in that department, but we still had lots of fun and 6 dives in two days - which is cool.

So, here's my first ever Frogfish (more pictures on Flickr):

24 Interesting Images of Money

Money is fast becoming a digital, invisible thing. It's in the bank, we pay for things using our credit card and we buy things on the net with a click of the mouse.


Still, money has shape, colors and even smell. Here are 24 cool images of money.


For example, this image of a 10,000 Dollar bill. Apparently, the Federal Reserve used it to transfer money to and from banks and was never issued to the public. They also produced a $500, $1,000, $5,000 and even a $100,000 dollar note. They were last printed in 1945 and have since been discontinued.

Anonymous Protests Around the World - A Summary

Anonymous, the Anti-Scientology group, was true to its word. Protests and demonstrations against Scientology were held all over the world, in Australia, London, Los Angeles, New York, New Orleans, Vancouver, Brisbane and much more.

Estimates say that around 9,000 people demonstrated against Scientology - worldwide. After all the noise, that's not a very impressive number.

Reports from the protests came online rather quick. First it was pictures and videos from Sydney, Australia. Then came live coverage from London. After that, reports from the USA.

Videos appeared on YouTube, depicting the Anonymous protesters carrying signs and wearing masks. There some reports of violence, but it appears that they were all false. The protesters were peaceful and many of them carried cameras to record the event.

According to Wikinews, London was apparently the place in which the demonstration was the largest - around 500 people.

Interesting pictures from the Anonymous "raids" appeared on Flickr, as well. A search of the word "Anonymous" yields a huge amount of photos from the protests.

Here is a slide-show from the protests in Manchester:

And a bunch of interesting links:

• Photo Essay: Anonymous Protest in Hollywood
• Anonymous in Canada
• Coverage of the protests in Boston
• Project Chanology

First Pictures from the Anti-Scientology Demonstrations

The Anonymous protests against Scientology have began. Today, February 10th, is supposed to be a great day for the underground organization. A global protest against the church of Scientology is supposed to break out.

It started in Australia (click here for the pictures) - about 150 people gathered at the Church of Scientology building in the Sydney CBD this morning, most of them carrying picket signs and wearing costumes or masks. The demonstrators handed out flyers accusing the church of financially exploiting its followers and suppressing criticism.

The Church of Scientology's Oceania branch spoke against the actions of Anonymous, described the group as "cyber-terrorists" and accused them of hate crimes.

You can find more details about the protests in Australia in this blog, called Anonaustralia.

Related links
>> Anonymous VS Scientology
>> Anonymous VS Scientology: A Call for Action in Boston
>> Everything tagged "Scientology" in my blog

Yahoo's Top Pictures of the Year

Contrary to the bullshit behind the end-of-the-year-top-searches, I found Yahoo's top pictures of the year rather interesting.

Here you can see the most viewed pictures of 2007, and surprisingly enough, the first 5 do not include any women in bathing suits (just women on high heels).

The most e-mailed pictures are different. The top one is of crocodile at a zoo in the southern Taiwan city of Kaohsiung, that holds the forearm of a zoo veterinarian in between its teeth. It's a rather gruesome picture. I guess people enjoy shocking their friends - or maybe they need to SHARE the shock. The second picture in line, by the way, is of Villagers boil rats in Suphan Buri province. So, we like animals and death, don't we?

The 4th image on this list, finally, shows some booty. Thank god!

Cool Photos of Vintage TV Sets

Nostalgia at its best: take a look at this amazingly cool set of vintage TV photos. You can even see TVs from 1929.

Good thing the TV set was developed into something prettier and sexier over the years, though. I wouldn't want to watch Lord of the Rings on something like this:

Two Billion Photos on Flickr

Now, that's a number for you. Flickr has hit the 2,000,000,000 photos mark.

The uploader of the historical picture is a user named yukesmooks, and this is the picture (click on it to see the original):

It would have been nice if this picture had a more symbolic meaning, but you really can't control this kind of thing. That's user generated content for you.

I use Flickr, but not as much as I used to. I have a pro account and I am very happy with it. For me, Flickr isn't really a community or a social site - just a cool place to store my pictures. I used Flickr once to make very cool business cards (via MOO), and I might use other features - but the entire groups-contacts-comments thing never really caught on with me. I use the site mainly for storage, and to send links of my photo sets to my friends.

I know there are other great picture storage sites (like PhotoBucket), but since I'm cool with Flickr for the moment, I don't plan on switching.

So, congratulations to Flickr. See ya in the 3,000,000,000 photo!

Seven Days of Sun, Sea and Scuba

I have been an avid Scuba Diver for the past 15 years. The sea and its mysteries have always fascinated me. When I was about 10 years old, my father took me to Taba, Sinai, and sent me out with an instructor for an intro-dive. It was an amazing experience, and I was hooked for life. The minute I stepped out of the water I knew - I wanna do THIS!

I waited impatiently until I was 15 and was allowed to undergo a diving course. Got my 2 stars and started diving like a dehydrated fish. I enjoyed almost every dive, no matter the conditions or the amount of fish and corals visible.

Lately I haven't been diving nearly enough. Work, life and excuses - you know the drill. That's why I have decided on a week-long vacation of nothing BUT diving. Courtesy of Mr. Ilan Vered and the lovely SeaQueen 1, I had one of the best weeks of my life - Seven days of Sun, Sea and Scuba in the southern parts of Egypt.

The dives were nothing short than amazing. We managed 3-4 dives per day, including some very cool night dives. My two personal favorites were Panorama Reef and Jackfish Alley. Panorama is wonderfully rich and full of life. The reef is very healthy, the visibility was very good and it felt like swimming inside a dream.

Elphinstone presented very interesting and challenging dives. Some of the people saw sharks, but I didn't manage a glance at these amazing creatures. I saw one shark, White-Tip, small and sleeping, in a cave in Abu-Dabab reef. That was actually good enough for me... I suppose that the fact that I have never dived in Egypt or Sinai before (except for that intro, 20 years ago), added a lot to the fun element. Everything was new to me.

Jackfish Alley was the last dive on the last day, and it was truly the best way to end this fantastic journey. I officially declare it the sweetest dive I have ever experienced. Thanks to Amir Gur, our wonderful and super-professional Instructor, we got to dive through a special cave, which was a very unique experience.

This little post doesn't do any justice to this cool vacation. Some of my amateurish pictures in flickr might help to convey my impressions better, but nothing can REALLY describe the glorious feeling of freedom, nature, beauty and peacefulness.

To add to the fun, the people that were on board the ship were very cool and fun to be with. The instructors were very good and friendly, and the crew gave us 5-star service.

I hope to do this again soon. To top everything else, I got to seriously practice my underwater photography skills (Thanks again, Amir, for the tips and advice) - and I finally managed to get some reasonable pictures:

Well, I guess it's back to work now. It ain't easy getting back to the day-to-day routine, let me tell you. I really miss the sun, the diving and the company. Until next time - the sea will remain in my dreams.