Istanbul Photos - The Hagia Sophia Panoramas

The Hagia Sophia was the most beautiful building that we visited in Istanbul. A church for more than 1000 years, a mosque for nearly 500 years and now a museum since 1935, a trip to this city would be incomplete without paying your respects to this magnificent structure. And it's huge, so big in fact that it was the world's largest cathedral for over 1000 years until the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520. Unlike previous photostitched posts, this one is dominated by vertical panoramas.


The Hagia Sophia is located on the European side of Istanbul, on the peninsula that is also home to the oldest parts of the city. The current structure dates from 537 AD but the original cathedral was dedicated in 360 AD.


As usual, click on any of the images to enlarge them.

( 5 more to give you a complete picture! )

Who knew?

Windows Live Photo Gallery, which comes pre-installed with Windows Vista and Windows 7, has a panoramic stitching feature. Judging by the image below it's bloody good. You can even use the program to upload directly to Flickr and Facebook!


The result using Windows Live Photo Gallery.


The result using Autostitch.

Copyright extensions are bad for innovation

When copyrights were first created in 1709, it protected creative works for 14 years with the option to extend that by another 14 if the author was still alive. Over time the length of the copyright period was extended to: 42 years in 1842, or the life of the author plus seven years; to 50 years in 1911 and to life plus 70 years in 1996 for a "literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work", while sound recordings were protected for 50 years. That was until two days ago when the European Commission extended the copyright term on sound recordings from 50 to 70 years. Such extensions are bad for innovation. The legal safeguards were introduced to offer an incentive to create, but instead the current regime makes a mockery of that original purpose by working as an active disincentive. Indeed, a copyright period that extends beyond the life of the author is clearly not an incentive to create, it's a mechanism for publishers and record companies to boost revenues, often long after the author has died. In many cases, the publishers and record companies are merely the latest owners of the author's copyright, having invested nothing into the creative process that went into the work in the first place. Yet thanks to their deep pockets and our ridiculous copyright law regime, they're able to stifle creative innovation. For example, in America it's well known that copyright extensions have tended to happen whenever Disney is about to lose the exclusive rights to Mickey Mouse. And the way things are going it's not hard to imagine that eventually, the most powerful publishers and record companies will extend copyright periods to an indefinite limit until they last forever. It's not too late to join the fight against it!

Trivia of the Day

Carlsberg Special Brew was invented for Winston Churchill to commemorate his visit to Copenhagen in 1950. Here's what the beer company's official website says about it:

"Originally called V-øllet (V-Beer), the drink followed the Danish tradition of producing a new beer to celebrate outstanding events such as a royal occasion or European coronation. Churchill's favourite drink was cognac, so in brewing him a commemorative beer, the brewers at Carlsberg created a stronger lager with cognac flavours among its tasing notes. At Christmas in 1952 Special Brew was launched throughout Denmark, and has been available in the UK since the '70's. Special Brew is a full bodied, fruity tasting, strong lager with a good clean bitterness."

I wonder if he liked it. Either way, I'm certainly looking forward to impressing my friends with this lager nugget the next time I'm at a pub that stocks it.