Bixi, One year later

Montreal has had the Bixi bike for a little over a year now, and as a member I find it a great way of getting around the city or even just for a joy ride. Today my one year membership comes to an end (until I renew it), and these are the stats that are in my online account. Although recently I have been angered by the availability of the bikes at night, I still love Bixi. Over this year, I have made 297 trips, totaling a cool 47 hours, and traveling 565 kilometers or 351 miles for you imperial folk. The mileage though is approximate, because it does not actually measure how much you bike, but the time spent biking at an average of 5 kilometers per hour, I figure that I bike faster than that though. Finally we have greenhouse emissions, I would have used 142 kilograms of carbon emissions if i was using a car, and 40 liters of gasoline.  Overall I really like using the Bixi bikes, and love the online statistics and thought I should share!Bixistats

One Planet Version 3 by harajukumatt

While everyone enjoys art, not many people agree on what is beautiful, or good art. Today I found a really great piece of art that everyone can probably agree is great art. This piece is called One Planet Version 3 and is a creation by harajukumatt on deviantart. It is available in white and black. He has given the OK to share and distribute it, but remember give credit when doing so. On the the deviation page, it says it was even featured on an Australian TV show too!

One Planet Version 3 on Deviantart

ONE_PLANET_VERSION_3_by_harajukumatt
Click on the link above to download full sized versions
ONE_PLANET_VERSION_3_by_harajukumatt
Click on the link above to download full sized versions

TinEye: Cool image search engine

Today I was looking at pages that referred traffic to my site and I traced them. I found one very interesting link. TinEye is a new Image search engine, that can find where similar images are on the internet compared to ones that you upload or link to. Someone had uploaded an image of Mfi Multiloader and TinEye linked back to my site. However I noticed that it saves searches in its database which might cause some privacy issues.  None the less this search engine is really cool, and is already being used by Adobe, Associated Press, Digg. If you still don’t understand how this works, just take a look at the video on the faq page.

Montreal is great in the Summer! (Videos)

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I have not posted recently because my parents are in town, and I am busy spending time with them and being a tour guide. With that said I have had a lot of exciting video to capture and thought I would Share. If you like the videos and would like to know anything about them let me know.

First Video:

1. Medieval Battle in Mount Royal (Happens every Sunday in the summer at Tam Tam Park)
2. A Band in the Old Port
3. A Painter in the Old Port
4. A Human Robot in the Old Port
5. A Bicycle stunt rider in the Old Port
6. An Acrobatic Duo in The Just for Laughs Festival

Second Video:

1. Just for Laughs Stilts People
2. Just for Laughs Drummers
3. Just for Laughs small Parade
4. Just for Laughs Musical Van
5. Just for Laughs Pogo Guys (Double Backflip)

Third Video:

A crowd gathered around a performer singing a bunch of songs mashed up into each other. Reminds me of Playing for Change.
Stand by me, and In the Jungle, they actually sound good mashed up together!

Photo of the day – Stats from my first day of using Bixi

Bixi Stats

Yesterday I received my Bixi key. Bixi is a public bicycle service in Montreal. So I was so happy to receive my key yesterday, and I biked around and discovered parts of Montreal that I have never been to. As you can see from the stats I drove 39 KM, saved 10kg in greenhouse gas emissions, and 3 Liters of gas if i was to have riden a car for all those trips. If you want to know where these figures are generated from here it is: The distance you traveled is an estimate, calculated using an assumed speed of 12 km/h and depending upon the time of use. Source : Vélo Québec.
The reduction in greenhouses gases emitted is an estimate calculated according to The Urban Transportation Emissions Calculator for a light passenger vehicle, depending upon your estimated traveling distance. Source : Transport Canada, April 2008.
The amount of gas saved is an estimate calculated according to Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE ) norms for tourist vehicles, establishing average gas consumption of 8.5 litres/100 km. Source: Environment Canada.

Photo of the day – Salvation Army Clothes Drop

A couple of my closest friends have finished University here in Montreal, and have moved on with their lives. They left some old clothes behind that were going to be thrown away. I decided to take it to the Salvation Army, so they can benefit someone that needs them. We Should all donate whatever we have lying around that we don’t need.

Vote for me on One Young World

Please vote for me on facebook for One Young World. I have copy/pasted my profile info from there on here. (CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR ME)

Some might tell you the world was better off fifty years ago. Others will say that we are better off today thanks to technology, however I believe both statements are true. Today we face many problems. We need to first solve social disconnect.That is why I follow a quote that says “Be the change you want to see in the world”. I honestly believe that positive influences can snowball. We need to work together to achieve! By Solving Social Disconnect we can have a platform to solve other problems!

Well, I am Egyptian. I only lived in Egypt for three years before moving to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi I made lots of friends from all over the world, enabling me to see all different types of cultures and extract all the good parts from each. Life in Saudi was great. While in my senior year of highschool in Saudi I attended a Model United Nations Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia.I now live in Montreal, Canada and like Saudi it has many different cultures. The winters here can be very severe, and recently got me into a great depression. I did not know what was going on, I felt like life was not worth living, I had panic attacks (i sometimes still do, but i know how to handle them) and did not know what was the point of life. It took me a couple of months to recover, but recover i did! I knew that life is worth living if you make the most of it. At the same time I knew that for me, the point of my life was to change the world in positive ways. That can easily be by smiling or saying hello to someone you don’t even know, the world today is so socially disconnected. People are chasing money not to live better, but just for the sake of chasing money. My parents have raised me right, and I want to be the best person that I can be.

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