Mexican aid

Mexico has withdrawn its offer of help to the United States for the latter country's recovery from the ongoing hurricanes and storms:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexico-earthquake-us-hurricane-aid-withdraw-donald-trump-condoloences-harvey-irma-houston-texas-a7942626.html

Why has Mexico done this? The largest reason is because a massive earthquake has hit that country and it needs to focus on sorting out damage within its own borders. The other reason is because the current President of the United States not only failed to accept aid from Mexico but also failed to send condolences to them for when the earthquake hit.

Wikimania 2014 images

Here are some of my images from the final day of Wikimania 2014; I used my phone and my brother's camera for this photography:

I took this from the Barbican Centre's squared spiral stairs looking out; the domed building in the background in St Paul's Cathedral. I forgot to mention this in my previous post, but the venue for Wikimania 2014 was the Barbican Centre, which is a performing arts centre located in the City of London (the City of London is a separate entity to London itself; look it up and you'll see).

This is the guide to all of the Barbican's levels; I visited up to floor four and I think -1 was the lowest I visited.

This is the "village" from an above balcony. The village featured gift shops and a coffee shop, as well as representatives from several Wikimedia local chapters. Chapters help to promote Wikipedia on a local level.

These are two posters and a pillow within the village, which were located next to the desk for Wikimedia UK's representation at Wikimania 2014.

The two highest floors featured this refreshing conservatory. There weren't many people in the conversatory itself; instead, most were in the two nearby seating areas.

The Barbican's main hall as people awaited the closing speech. Shortly after the hall was filled, the audience was shown a short film about Wikipedia Zero. Wikipedia Zero is a project started by the Wikimedia Foundation to ensure that everyone in the world can access Wikipedia via their phones without having to incur any mobile/cell phone data charges.

The man of the hour: Jimbo Wales, there to deliver the closing speech. Much of his speech focused on the need to improve civility on Wikipedia; in particular, he talked about users who contribute large amounts of content but are hostile towards other people. Mr. Wales expressed his opinion that such users, while adding plenty to Wikipedia, are net-negatives to the site because they drive away others.

This is Ihor Kostenko, whom Mr. Wales announced as the "Wikipedian of the Year". He was Ukrainian and was a significant contributor to the Ukrainian Wikipedia, as well as a promoter of Wikipedia on social media; Kostenko was killed back in February when a sniper shot him during his participation in the Ukrainian protests.

These two women are Cynthia Ashley-Nelson (see bottom of link) and Adrianne Wadewitz, who were two highly influential and respected Wikipedians; both of them died this past April and their losses were felt throughout the community on the English Wikipedia. I thought it was fitting for a tribute to them to be included in Mr. Wales' speech.

After Mr. Wales' speech officially closed Wikimania 2014 and set the stage for Wikimania 2015 in Mexico, the rest of the evening and night featured a party. I met several more Wikipedians - including more people I'd known online for years - in the first two hours after the speech; most attendees left the venue during this time to eat elsewhere, so I was fortunate to meet as many as I did while I had the chance.

At last, I was able to see The Shard, which is the tallest building in the United Kingdom and European Union. I missed seeing this tower during my previous two trips to London but luckily for me, it was visible through a gap in the buildings near the Barbican Centre. This was taken after 7:00pm and, as you can see, it was still fairly light outside.

At around 9:15, I left Wikimania 2014 and the Barbican Centre; by this time, most people had already exited and everyone I knew had gone. I had to take a picture of Barbican Centre before I returned to my train station; this picture was taken with my phone on its low light setting.

I have numerous other pictures of Wikimania 2014, but I consider the overwhelming majority of them to be unsuitable to post here because they are either similar to the above or are close-up images of people, such as a few that I took in the diversity workshop and a few selfies with a friend. I was selective with my photography because I wanted to enjoy the conference rather than see everything with my cameras while experiencing nothing.

Finally, there is also this group photo of many of the conference's attendants (enlarged version here); it was taken just prior to Mr. Wales' speech. I am in the picture, but good luck trying to find me!

The cucamelons

Other than going with my grandfather to get some groceries, today has been a quiet day; however, there is something interesting about the day to note:

It's a cucamelon. The cucamelon is a plant that has been eaten in Mexico for centuries but was introduced to the United Kingdom only this year. It looks like a tiny watermelon but it tastes like and is eaten as a cucumber. My grandfather is growing a couple cucamelon plants in his garden; I learnt about them because I'll be watering his plants each morning while I'm here.

Drayton Manor Theme Park media

On the 12th of August, my aunt and uncle, two cousins, my brother, our friend, another friend of our cousins, and myself all went to the Drayton Manor Theme Park. I have some pictures and at least one video of our time there:

This is G-Force, and was the only ride all eight of us went on (though not at the same time). It is the first "proper" rollercoaster I have ever ridden, and was the second one our group visited during the trip to Drayton Manor (the first was Maelstrom, which I have a video of later on in this post). I impressed everyone by being the only one who did not make any sound whatsoever while on the ride; if anything, I was more worried about my camera being crushed by the brace than I was about anything else going on. Still, it was my first-time on a real ride and it was fun.

This is actually an image my brother took while we were waiting to ride G-Force. It shows a little more of the park, and the ride pictured is entitled Splash Canyon.

I took this of G-Force's car returning to its bay: everyone except my aunt and I rode it when it went next, as there was not enough room for us to board, but we went on the following turn.

My aunt, both cousins, and I all then went on a ride called Shockwave, a high-capacity ride where you had to stand, though you did have a large "bicycle seat" underneath you (I was silent on this ride too). I did not get any images of Shockwave, but I did take this picture of Splash Canyon form the ground once the Shockwave ride had finished.

We went to the zoo area of Drayton Manor after lunch, as it is not a good idea to go on any rides for at least an hour after eating. I have to admit that the zoo was my least favourite part of Drayton Manor, as I felt that a zoo really should not be at an amusement park (too much noise from people, and animals need peace and quiet), and because I thought that the enclosures were too small for some of the animals. The tiger had a large enclosure, however, and I heard that it had actually been expanded, which I thought was good. My brother got this nice picture of a mallard with her ducklings, though none of them were part of the zoo and were free to roam!

My two cousins really want to go on this ride, Apocalypse. Essentially, a car (one on each side) takes four people to the top of the tower, and once there, it rushes back down to the ground again at high-speed (less than five seconds from the top to the bottom). All eight of us watched the people going before us so we could make a decision on whether to go on it or not: in the end, only my cousins and my aunt went on it. Even though we did not want to go on Apocalypse, it was still good to watch.

Now I certainly have a story to tell about this one! This picture is of the Haunted House: everyone except for my aunt and two cousins were waiting in line for to go on it. However, they finished their ride on Apocalypse and went to join us to see what we were up to; they had decided that they wanted to go on a ride called the Splash Canyon Rapids, and anyone who wanted to go with them was welcome to do so. Everyone except my uncle and I went with them: after all, my uncle and I had been in the queue for half an hour, and we wanted to stick with the Haunted House at least to justify the wait.

Let me say that the others made the right choice to go on the Splash Canyon Rapids! When our wait was finally over, both of us plus a large group of people (the ride is high-capacity) were herded into a small room with two monitors. Then, the monitors activated, and a man somewhat reminiscent of Dr. Evil informed us that a "team" had been sent into the house and never returned. Once the video had finished informing us of our possible doom, we were led into the house.

The first part of the house was a hallway that went pitch black, made lots of "scary" noises, and a skeleton appeared from the ceiling. We then went into a larger room with a painting of what was presumably the "owner" of the house, and the lighting went and the subject of the painting changed to become some sort of "shrunken head" (the real "owner" of the house). In the words of my uncle, the painting became "some German guy who wanted to destroy us", as the head spoke in a German accent and told us about all the horrible things he was going to do to the group. The final room of the house contained the ride itself...a pendulum with benches: the ride had only a mild swing to it, plus lots of darkness, more "scary" noises, evil laughter...and that was it. My uncle and I walked out laughing and went to meet the others. If anything, the ride was worth going on just to talk and laugh about later!

Finally, this is the video I took of Maelstrom, the first ride members of our group went on. It can be unnerving to even watch this ride in motion, so imagine what actually being on Maelstrom is like!

We had ice cream after the others got off the Splash Canyon Rapids ride (I managed to get two cones for my ice cream somehow!), and then we made our way back to the car park. One of our friends was dropped off at her home on the way back to my aunt and uncle's house, and our other friend was to spend the weekend camping with one of my cousins. The rest of us went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner: surprisingly, I never got to eat at a Mexican restaurant while living in the United States (though I had eaten Mexican food), so this was another first for the day.

Drayton Manor Theme Park was a fun experience, and if I had the chance to go again I would. Everyone had a fantastic time at the place and left with satisfaction.

Drayton Manor Park

We went to a theme park, Drayton Manor Park in Staffordshire, and our group today consisted of myself, my brother, aunt, uncle, cousins', and two of my cousins friends. It has been a brilliant day, and as far as I can remember this is my first ever visit to an amusement park, and my first time on a major rollercoaster. I have pictures of this day to post soon.

During the evening, one of my cousins and her friend left for their weekend camping trip, and the other friend went back home. However, the rest of us went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner (also a first for me!) and had a good time there. Although our trip to Nottingham is coming to a close, there is still the weekend, and since my parents decided to come back up on Sunday rather than Saturday, we have an extra day to spend with family.