Category: Cyprus

I live in Cyprus for many years now. It is a beautiful little island in Mediterranean Sea. It features warm weather for most of the year, sea, very kind and hospital people, plenty of jobs in IT industry, good food and plenty of alcohol, stable currency, and more. It’s really a nice place to live if you can handle small towns and villages. It’s also a great place to raise the kids.

Not much happens here. It is a quiet and simple place. Yet, when something happens or when I write about it, I post it to Cyprus category.

The Global Airport Database

Global Airport Database – Arash Partow

The Global Airport Database is a collection of data about all (???) airports in the world, big and small.  It covers a total of 9,300 airports worldwide.

That’s pretty interesting.  For example, how many airports do you think there are in Cyprus?  Obviously, there is the Larnaca International Airport and Paphos International Airport.  Then, there is one in Nicosia, which is not functioning since the island was divided.  And there is one in Acrotiri on the British military base.  Four, right?   Well, the Global Airport Database has a total of 7 (!!!) entries for the country of Cyprus:

LCCC:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA ACC/FIC:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCLK:LCA:LARNACA:LARNACA:CYPRUS:034:052:030:N:033:037:029:E:00003:34.875:33.625
LCNC:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCPH:PFO:PAPHOS INTERNATIONAL:PAPHOS:CYPRUS:034:043:004:N:032:029:008:E:00013:34.718:32.486
LCRA:AKT:AKROTIRI:AKROTIRI:CYPRUS:034:035:025:N:032:059:016:E:00024:34.590:32.988
LCRO:N/A:N/A:EPISKOPI:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCRR:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000

Larnaca and Paphos are there. The Akrotiri one is there too. Then we have 3 records for Nicosia. And one more for Episkopi. Hmm …

hack {cyprus} summit 2017

Last week I’ve attended the first ever hack {cyprus } summit.  hack {cyprus} is well known among techies in Cyprus for organizing other events, mostly hackatons.  They are good at that.  And this time it was something new.

The event itself was excellent!  It had all the usual things you’d expect from such a gathering – a bunch of bearded guys in dark t-shirts and jeans (each one secretly wishing that there were more women in tech), gadgets, coffee, snacks, and so on and so on.  And there were talks and workshops with lots of chatter in between.

Being a big fan and a frequent attendee of technical conferences all over Europe, I knew there was no chance I’d miss this one in Cyprus.  Even if I have to drive from Limassol to Nicosia.  In fact, I decided I’ll get even more value of it – practice my public speaking and presentation skills at the expense of the crowd.  So when the call for talks was announced, I submitted a couple of talks and one was picked.

There was a little hickup where I didn’t know the time slot of the talk (how long it would be), so I submitted two talks – one for 30 minutes or so, and one for 60 minutes.  The 60 minute one got chosen, and then I learned that the time I have is 20 minutes for the talk and 10 minutes for the Q&A.  Oopsy.   But, never the less, challenge accepted.  It took a lot of cutting and trimming but I think I sort of managed to get the essence of it into about 20 slides.  My talk wasn’t the first one of the day, so I observed other speakers.  I think most of them went slightly over 20 minutes and cut into the Q&A time, but on the other hand, there weren’t enough questions for most of the talks to fill all that time.  So in the end, it all worked out pretty well.  If I remember correctly, I managed to squeeze my talk into about 25 minutes altogether.   I’d love to see the video of that – there’s plenty of mistakes to learn from there, but for now, there are only the slides.

I would like to say huge thank you to everybody involved – organizers, sponsors, speakers, and attendees.  It was a blast and I hope to attend many more.

 

Landmark deal signed for Europe’s largest casino

Cyprus Mail reports that the casino deal is signed:

The contract for Cyprus’ first integrated casino resort, the only one of its kind in Europe, was signed on Monday in Nicosia between the gaming authority and the Melco Hard Rock consortium and is designed to provide for an investment of €500m, attract an extra 300,000 tourists a year, and to add 4,000 jobs.

The contract was signed at the Filoxenia Conference Centre between the president of the National Gaming Authority and Andy Choy, chief gaming officer, of the consortium of Melco International Development Ltd, Seminole HR Holdings LLC (Melco Hard Rock) and CNS Group (Cyprus Phassouri Zakaki Ltd).
Energy, Commerce and Tourism Minister Yiorkos Lakkotrypis, who addressed the event, touted the fact that the Limassol complex would be the only integrated casino resort in Europe, which will be based in Limassol, and will include four satellite casinos in Nicosia, Larnaca, Famagusta and Paphos.

The main resort will also be the largest casino in Europe, the minister said with 136 gaming tables, 1,200 gaming machines, a luxury hotel with 500 rooms with the capacity for expansion, a conference hall spanning 6,000 square metres that can accommodate audiences of 1,500, and a wellness centre covering 4,000 square metres.

It’ll obviously take a bit of time and effort until this all comes to life, but no doubt, with the support from the people behind https://www.bestuscasinos.org/legal/california/  and our beloved and respected staff members – it will be a new era for Cyprus as a country, as a tourism destination full of all kinds of entertainment and as a member of the European Union.

Exciting news!

House Affordability Calculator

Zyprus.com has this nice Affordability Calculator, which, given a few basic numbers, helps one estimate the price of the house that will comfortably fit into the budget (yeah, those are the words they use).  It’s a nice tool for people who have been saving up to buy a property.  For me though, no matter what I put, it returns this:

Nothing new here, but it’s always good to get a confirmation from another source.