Earthquake activity:
Most recent earthquakes in Greece -
LINK
Local of Note in April:
01 Apr: 6.0 ML, 16.29pm. Crete. Undersea epicentre 51 km NE
Palaíkastron.
Link
to Story.
30 Apr: 3.0 ML, 23.29pm.
Crete. Undersea epicentre 16 km SW Pírgos.
Link
to Story.
Although
earthquakes most certainly are a common feature of life in Greece. It is
however, unusual for deaths, injuries and or damage to buildings to occur,
which could lead to a false sense of security.
The author of a ten year study at the National Technical University of
Athens says that Greece is sitting waiting for the next major
earthquake without doing anything to mitigate it's effects. (Our italics).
Link to Report.
There are certain existing buildings considered to
be at risk from major earthquakes. Link
to story. These buildings, which include a
number of schools, are being investigated with the objective of
safety.
Link to story. Engineers have also called upon the government to
institute checks on old bridges in Greece.
Link
(Item6.) _______________________________
A Little Extra (Current) News....
Well, here we are then with edition 100 of the CretanVista website news
page! And my, hasn't it been a long haul, accompanied by the so many
happenings in life which go hand in hand with any project created over a
period of time. Time, the one thing we never seem to have enough of. But
world goes on regardless. We just hope that we have managed to add perhaps
another grain of rice or two to the knowledge mountain sitting on Crete. It
should have done at least that - there are more than 13,000 files and 386
folders! Take visitors a while to get through that....
Looping the loop with personalization.
One of the great 'happenings' at the moment - dominating IT news - is the
growing movement of websites to personalize web searching - a
growing tendency seen by some to be an invasion of privacy. The whole world
and his donkey must be aware of social networking sites - which encourage
the individual to supply personal data about themselves in order to join,
then any data they may chose to add about other people - friends and/or
family - that they may feel inclined to join/meet (or not) online.
Including, of late, photographs to boot. Finger prints, Iris scans and DNA
samples are more than likely being worked on! Paranoia? You bet. You can
find out almost anything (even untruths) and say almost anything, about
anyone, online. In public!
My question is, does it really matter?! My answer is that for me - not one
jot! I don't really care who thinks that they know something about me
or my life worth 'outing'. But then I am only talking about me - others of
course, including you, may well object to any invasion of their privacy.
They most certainly have every right to do so and have no obligation to
justify their choice to anyone else....
Therein lies the crux of the current problem - choice. Individuals can
only make a choice if they know that they have one - the current wave of
criticism is that the internet is being used to profile people without their
knowledge. A clear breach, in my humble opinion, of human rights.
Facebook, Twitter, Google, old uncle Tom Cobley and all - there must be
millions on internet sites gathering personal data from their visitors - and
millions more buying it. Why? In order to sell us something of course. The
oldest reason in the world - money. It is much easier to sell things
to people if it is known what interests us, from cradle to grave. The theory
is that by watching our on-line behaviours the watchers will know what
we might want (even if we don't) and have a much better chance of parting us
from our money.... I don't personally care about being watched - but others
might. And maybe, just maybe, we should all care....
We should all care because it is not people who are watching, it
is the computers. Using algorithms (these admittedly created in the first
place by people), computers are now informing their owners not only about
who we are - but about who they see us as being. Inferring our motives
for doing anything that the machine has observed us to do. Giving us all a
machine made 'personalization'... Not really a problem you might think - if
I use a search engine (for example) to find out about anything and the
result is that it gives me the results I want rather than thousands that I
don't then I think that that's neat, quick, and effective. But are the
results what I want - or what the machine says that I want? The first option
is fine, the second isn't.
What if the machine only gives me what it thinks that I want on the basis of
it's numbers? If, as seems now to be becoming the case, it shows me
only what it says that I want... I mean, how on earth does it know?
Well, it thinks that it knows because it has watched my behaviour.
Unfortunately, according to my wife and friends I am very changeable -
predictably unpredictable. We probably all are, that is what makes us
all individuals. All different, and all constantly changing our behaviours
according to our experiences and our feelings about them. Once bitten -
twice shy... Can a machine really predict how I will behave when I
visit a supermarket to buy groceries. Well yes it can, and again, knowing
what we all want can influence the entire store - it's size, shape, colours,
aromas, prices et al, to make our visits pleasant and easier for us - making
the experience pleasant helps part us from our cash. Visiting a store which
was unpleasant wouldn't do that very easily. Unpleasant experiences -
perhaps a store with pictures of starving, wasted, dying children, the
sounds of their cries, laboured breathing, fetid breath, the smell of
excrement, the buzzing of flies... Not nice, won't do that again... But we
see, almost, the same things on TV daily in charity advertising and
newsreels - tweaking our emotions to part us from our cash. It often
works - but not at the supermarket...
But the big question is this - are we all - me , you, politicians,
bankers, doctors, nurses, soldiers, sailors and the three men in a boat ,
all of us, behaving the way we do because we are allowing machines too much
control of ourselves in the name of the god of gold?.....
Try this- answer each step:- 2x2=? 4x4=? 8x8=? 16x16=? 32x32=?
Now think of a number between 5 and 12 and go here:-
Link.
Kalos Ithate Stin Kriti.
WB. Cretanvista. Bringing the sunshine, keeping the rain off!
________________________________ |
Site Content:- Latest
additions to
Wildflower galleries.
Notices. |
We are still undertaking our upgrade of the site.
Changes here have left some pages outdated - new houses; hotels;
supermarkets; roads and all. But it all takes time; please
bear with us.
Contacting Cretanvista..
We have now discontinued all direct email
links. You can still reach us directly using our
new
Contact
form, and will still receive direct replies,
but if you see an email address please ignore it. |
Photo
Galleries...
Calendar Photo Galleries:
A new one every year for the past decade! The 2010 Calendar
gallery is complete and online now.. The 2009 calendar topic was 'Wild
Flowers of Crete' (after our wild flower galleries) and the result was
superb! Which is why we followed up the theme in 2010. And again in
2011! Because of our success we have already produced our 2012 wild flower
calendar format (and our other themes continue), but of course that is not
available until later in the year. But we can reprint any issue with the
next year's dates - whatever year that happens to be! Have a look at the
2011 wild flowers calendar Link.
Wild Flower Gallery -
Now at 360
different wild flower photographs
online - plus dozens in preparation - Galleries 13 - 15 are open.
360 flowers online. Gallery 16 is developing - which will mean
384 online..
Plus we have added more
reference information on redesigned pages -
with more photos of each specimen to follow later. You may
find an occasional duplicate, which we are keeping for the moment as
the actual photographs will be different and will be used in a later
planned re-organization of the galleries.
We are now well en-route to putting the first 50% of our target 1020
individual flowers on-line. But it all takes time. First find the
flower (hopefully in full bloom); then get the photographs (sounds
easy); put the photographs on-line (simply work); with basic
information on each, making certain that it is accurate...
If you know the location of a rare flower please don't hesitate to
help us photograph - we wont reveal your information to anyone else.
Please note also that All flower galleries have now been
successfully re-coded to eliminate a bug which affected some Firefox
browser versions. All the information will remain online at
Cretanvista. With the advent of ipods, ipads, Blackberry's and other
gizmos it will be much easier to take Cretanvista galleries on your
field trips - and
all the information that goes with them.
**Your Amazon Kindle will display cretanvista perfectly. |
Wildlife Gallery - the first two pages -
48 unique photographs, including
some
rare specimens of the Cretan fauna. Some is quite beautiful, some a bit
scary/creepy, but all now add to our wildlife page and the ornithology
gallery pages. Remember that it is always worth checking where you
walk or sit before you do!
Start here.
Chania Photo Gallery.
Our Chania photograph galleries commenced with a presentation from Klaus
Dieter Thill, whose photographs of some old buildings in the area of the
Venetian Harbour show a little of what we all sometimes miss. Have a look -
it's worth it. Start here.
Miniature Chapels of Crete Gallery.
Klaus-Dieter Thill - author of
Minaturkapellen auf Krista,
a printed photo album detailing some of those enigmatic roadside shrines of
Crete, has now contributed the first page of his Chania on-line gallery.
Cretan Art and crafts - Weaving pages...
Weaving is in full swing and natural dyes are being made up and the
photographs taken to add to this section. We will be adding our
pages on our new looms, equipment and new projects started as soon as we
can. The weaving tends to take the time right now..
Our very first nature gallery...
Contributed by Anastasios Sakoulis, whose book on Cretan wildlife
Moments of Cretan Nature is
also on our site as a book review.
Anastasios contributed 18 pictures of birds for addition to a
gallery some time ago now. We will attach these to our bird-watching pages
as soon as possible.
GENERAL: There
are now 37 galleries featuring aspects
of Cretan life, including sunrise and sunset pictures; Souda Bay War
Cemetery; the gallery of magnificent wild-life pictures by Anastasios
Sakoulis; our own wildlife gallery; the wild flowers; Chania; Mhlia (Milia)
traditional village; etc.. etc...
Our improvements continue. We sincerely hope
that you notice little - apart from increased enjoyment and ease of use.
Keep visiting - your presence is what make all worthwhile.
________________________________
|
Living in Crete
by Carol Palioudakis
OUT NOW IN PAPERBACK!
Price £9.50 GBP
|
Amazon.co.uk & Selected Cretan bookstores |
________________________________
|