Tag Archives: Costa Rica

Word Lens – Translate Spanish to English Instantly on your iPhone

Posted on December 23, 2010 | 1 comment

The Word Lens application is amazing, one of the best uses of augmented reality yet! word-lens-logo.pngYou just point it at a sign (or any text) and it removes the words that are there and superimposes the translation over the old text.

The program is free and if you want to test it out, it’s two translation modes: “erase the text” and “reverse the letters”, while not very useful, make a great demonstration. The Spanish-to-English dictionary is $9.99 (they also have English-to-Spanish for an additional $9.99).

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Here’s the sign that was taped up that I wanted to read.

It’s not the best video, but I really wanted to demonstrate this in a real world example. And since in the middle of recording the video I realized it was time for my bus, it’s pretty real world…

You’ll want to make the video full screen to actually be able to read it (and maybe you’ll need to pause it to really see what’s going on).

As I said you’ll want to look at it full screen (in HD) or you won’t be able to see the action on the iPHone screeen, so be sure not to just watch the embedded version.

I forgot to mention, no internet connection is required to use it! Once you purchase a dictionary it’s on your device (I assume it runs on the iPod touch with the camera also), it’s actually got a “dictionary” where you can look up words.

UPDATE: Also available for Android devices and Glass.

UPDATE: Now they also have Russian, Portuguese, German, Italian, and French available. To be clear the program translates back and forth between English and the other languages, but does not translate between the other languages (yet!).

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Alien Pyramid Training Grounds found in Costa Rica

Posted on December 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

I always feel like these stacks of rocks are something the aliens left behind; you know, like they did with the pyramids.

When I went to the waterfalls in Montezuma, I saw the aliens had been very very busy…

Also viewable in HD (of course).

Actually, later I did notice a few people adding some smaller rocks to the tops of some already existing piles. I was too high up to get some good footage though. Some people calls these piles “cairns” or “ducks”; personally, “cairn” makes me think of something religious or a memorial.

I was really hoping that zooming in would change the rocks scale to make them look huge, but no such luck. Not sure if it’s the plant life or that everything looked in focus (or something else) that made it look so different. But I still thought it was fun enough to share…

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Some kind of Lizard (or Iguana) in Montezuma, Costa Rica

Posted on December 22, 2010 | 1 comment

Just kind of beast crawling around making a lot of noise on the roof. At first I thought it was someone (I say “he” in the video) up there fixing a leak or something (it’d just been raining). But a little while later I spotted this. The video is a little slow in the middle but it does pick around 53 seconds.

And it’s watchable in 1080p HD, so be sure to watch it full screen! Can anyone tell me what it is?

The next morning I was eating breakfast on the balcony and this guy was up in a tree nearby. It’s something different, doesn’t appear to have the spiky things on it’s back.

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The image is a little dark, but you can see better if you click to enlarge it. FYI, I don’t eat breakfast without some kind of camera nearby, you never know what might be nearby. Usually we have the lizards and monkeys, but I’ve not seen any monkeys by the hotel yet.

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The Ferry from Puntarenas to Paquera

Posted on December 21, 2010 | 2 comments

As always the ride from Puntarenas to Paquera was fun and we got the big ferry which is a lot nicer than the little one. The boat was packed, I’ve never seen it that full of people before. The weather was gorgeous but got a little cloudy at the end of the ride (before the rain that started after the ride) but otherwise it was a great day for the ride.

This isn’t charming music that I edited into the video, it’s what was actually playing on the ferry in the background while I was shooting the video!

This video is watchable in HD (and for the first time you can watch video from me in 1080p! If you do watch in 1080p, let me know how it looks, I don’t have a screen with that high of resolution.

PS – This was mostly just me playing with the zoom on my new Canon Vixia HF20 that I mentioned the other day and I’m still a little shaky using it…

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Friday Question #91 – Weather Wise

Posted on December 4, 2009 | 2 comments

Would you rather live somewhere where the you see significant changes in the seasons throughout the year, or where it pretty much stays the same? What is your ideal daily temperature? from Friday Question #91.

I like the changes in weather. While I’d rather have winter shorter, Michigan weather isn’t too bad, but then again I’m used to it. I need more sunshine though! Give me more below freezing days but with sunshine I’d be a happy camper.

My preference would be the nice weather of Costa Rica every day (75-95° F) but I can’t have that here if I have to wear a suit every day. Plus, when you get something like the nice weather of Costa Rica you get the ultra-rainy season to be the down side (and when it stops you can’t get around due to the flooding).

So I think I’d choose Costa Rica. GIve me the hot weather and if I complain in the rainy season just remind me that I live in paradise.

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The best map of Montezuma, Costa Rica I’ve ever seen.

Posted on November 24, 2009 | 1 comment

I was looking at the Montezuma Beach web site the other day and I found the best map of Montezuma that I’ve ever seen. The town is mostly just those two blocks at the center of the top. Montezuma really isn’t that busy, it’s the names of all the places that take up space. It even shows the start of the path to get to the waterfalls (at the bottom).

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Here’s the original (and often updated) larger Montezuma, Costa Rica Map.

It’s one of the few maps that shows both roads in and out of Montezuma; the split at the South end of town that goes to the North always gets left out (even my Costa Rica purchased GPS maps don’t have that road!). There is an “Open Source” Open Street Map of Montezuma. I’ve actually added a lot of the items on the Open Street Map of Montezuma. If you look at it and zoom out you can see how small Montezuma really is. I’ll admit most of the locations are estimates based on the few roads already in the image, but they’ll get you there. I’ll use the GPS next time I’m there to make it more accurate.


View Larger Map

I’ll (probably) tell more about the Open Street Map project in a future post, but it’s one of the few maps only zoomable map with all the roads in and out of town that actually shows some detail of “downtown” Montezuma. This is all that Google shows and I’m not even sure where that (nonexistent) road the goes North-East up the coast goes..

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Evil Traffic Sign

Posted on August 20, 2009 | Leave a comment

The Lens Day Challenge for this week is Traffic.

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People in Costa Rica barely look at the stop signs. Do they really think someone is going to read this one? This is a pretty busy sign, no matter where you are. And just in case you aren’t sure: Alto means Stop.

This is on a busy side-street in San Jose, Costa Rica; It’s a block or two east of La Sabana Park. I think it’s this messy intersection off of Calle 40; but if that’s where it is, it’s not even a very good representation of the intersection.

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I’ve finally got a new theme set up for my blog

Posted on June 10, 2009 | 1 comment

So I’ve got a new theme. I figure I have to mention it because if you just read the RSS feed, you’ll never see it.

themejune2009.pngIt’s pretty much the Simple Indy theme by India Fascinates. It really reminds me of a few other themes out there, but it handles my long categories, works well on Mac, was easy to modify, it’s zippy and it works really well.

I’ve modified it a bit here and there to fit my needs but it’s pretty close to the original code. I like titles on all my archive pages and added my header image. I also changed the way it marked posts with the tags and categories. I also like full posts, if it’s the main page, archive or search results. And I like error messages to come with a search box. So other than that a few other minor changes it’s 99% the original theme. I still need to integrate my old logo into it…

If you see any problems, please let me know.

The photo will probably be changed soon, but it was one of the first ones I tried that fit okay. Currently it’s a view of the Pacific from Quepos, Costa Rica. I think maybe December of 2006 (New Years Eve,I think). If it’s not a picture of the coast with two tree trunks (like the thumbnail), then I changed it to something else ;)

I liked my old theme but it just loaded too slow and it had been bugging me for a while.

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