Eunoia
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--> Most recent Blog Comments Policy Impressum Maths trivia Search this site RSS Feed Eunoia, who is a grumpy, overeducated, facetious, multilingual ex-pat Scot, blatantly opinionated, old (1944-vintage), amateur cryptologist, computer consultant, atheist, flying instructor, bulldog-lover, Beetle-driver, textbook-writer, long-distance biker, geocacher and blogger living in the foothills south of the northern German plains. Not too shy to reveal his true name or even whereabouts, he blogs his opinions, and humour and rants irregularly. Stubbornly he clings to his beliefs, e.g. that Faith does not give answers, it only prevents you doing any goddamn questioning. You are as atheist as he is. When you understand why you don't believe in all the other gods, you will know why he does not believe in yours :-) Oh, and he also has a neat English Bulldog called 'Kosmo'.
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Thursday, March 29, 2018
Mondrianesque Bulldog ahoi :-)As you may know from my left sidebar, SWMBO and I are fans of the English Bulldog. Our current dog is called Kosmo; here are two photos which Alex took.What you may not know, is that I am a fan of the cubism style art of Piet Mondrian. This is an abstract style so straightforward that I can copy it myself, as many others have done. So imagine my pleasant surprise when driving into the coastal village of Carolinensiel we saw this rooftop statue :-) Afaik, Mondrian never drew a bulldog nor made such a resin/fibreglas statue, so it's just somebody else copying his style. But worth taking this photo nevertheless :-) We stopped and rang the bell of the house (a shop) on which this huge bulldog was placed, to ask for more info, but sadly there was nobody in :-( If the shop had had smaller, transportable, copies, I might have bought one :-) Sunday, March 25, 2018
Norwegian BlissMy hefty cardiac problem of march 11th led us to realise we were going to have to work faster at ticking things off my bucket-list :-(One of the items on that list was to see the Ems-passage of a big cruise ship; so we went to see Norwegian Bliss going down-river from Papenberg to Emden, last week. Meyer's shipyard in Papenberg makes two huge cruise ships each year but has the disadvantage of being about 25 miles inland !!! The only connection to the sea being the rather shallow river Ems from Papenburg to Emden. So they take advantage of the high tides in spring and in fall to convey their 2 ships per year to the sea. Even so, they have to use the tidal barrier of the river Ems to contain the high tide on those days for a day or so, so that there is enough water under the keel to move the ships down-river to the sea. And the Ems has to be dredged regularly { at taxpayers' expense :-( } also. There are places with only 8 to 12 inches of water under the ship! If the cruise ship moved forward downriver, its propellers would suck water from beneath the boat, causing it to squat down by about 4 inches. So the ship moves backwards (under its own power) downriver so its propellers push water beneath the boat, raising it 4 inches instead :-) There are 2 tugs for the pilot to make lateral fine adjustments of the route, one at the upriver end (attached to the ship's bow) and one pulling the blunt stern aside as necessary. Movement is still slow, to avoid disturbing the riverbed, max. walking pace, taking 12 hours or so for the 25 miles. We drove to the Ems tidal barrier to get a close-up look at the ship. Our first glimpse of the ship saw it towering over a village, twice as high as Gandersum village church! We had to park about a mile from the Ems tidal barrier but we were in plenty of time to see the ship approaching, we and about 3000 other spectators. After about an hour's wait for the highest tide downstream, the Ems tidal barrier was opened and the tugs aligned the big ship carefully - like threading a needle - so the ship could move through the lock-gate in the Ems tidal barrier (less than a foot to spare on each side). The beam of the ship has to be designed for it to fit through the lockgate. Transit of the barrier has to be timed to coincide with high tide. A tight fit through the lockgate in the Ems tidal barrier, side winds would be bad :-( The ship is HUGE. 4000 passengers in cabins - most with balconies - on 12 decks. Three more bulleyed decks for crew. 168,000 gross tons. Over 360 yards long and a 45 yard beam. Painted with whales, because it will be doing arctic cruises. About 100 workmen still on board, putting finishing touches in place and fixing anything not yet functioning correctly. That was really impressive, I'm glad we saw it. Enjoy my photos :-) Thursday, March 22, 2018
Stone Age MegalithsDuring the last ice age (300,000 to 125,000 BC), glaciers moved south from the Baltic and up the nearby Ems valley in a layer 200 to 400 meters thick. They transported soil and boulders, forming moraines at the edge of the glaciers, which remained as the ice retreated north.Northwest Germany was initially a tundra landscape but as the temperature rose to 2-3 degrees hotter than the present, became mixed oak forests. During the Neolithic (stone age) period (4000 to 3000 BC) mankind adopted a sedentary lifestyle (agriculture and animal husbandry instead of hunter-gatherer societies). They put the ice age relics, huge boulders, to good use, building megalith graves for their dead (their own houses were made of wood). A large number of these megaliths can be found in the Ems valley, north of Osnabrück. They define a stone-age "road" from what is now Osnabruck to Meppen and then Meppen to Oldenburg. Written records from the early middle ages show that this "road" had been in use for millenia. So we went to see the megaliths last week, ticking them off our bucket-lists. Some graves have lost their capstones, but you can still see the outline of the walls, e.g. in the photo above. Nine tombs though are in good condition, this one below has 12 orthostats, 2 endstones and 3 capstones still in the original places. I just wonder how these neolithic tribes managed to get the walls into place and even more so, how they got the capstones onto the tops of the tombs. The capstones each must weigh several scores of tons! Quite an achievement by our forefathers, imho!
Comments (1) Sunday, March 18, 2018
Bad Signs... ;-)We know that the beautiful people stay in expensive hotels, so there must be other places where the others stay.This place is in Neuharlingersiel, a small and neat coastal town on the East Fresian coast of Germany. I doubt that the owners know what their name means in English, or they would have chosen to give a better (more neutral) name to their hotel ;-)
Comments (3) Monday, March 12, 2018
RIP Ralf Waldmann :-(Ralf Waldmann, who was a german professional motorcycle racer for many a year, later a MotoGP TV expert commentator, died of a heart attack(?) in Ennepetal on saturday, aged 51. He was twice vice-world-champion. We will miss him, his cheery humour and his sheer racing talent (e.g. at the Brit GP in 2000, he came up from last, trailing by a lap, to win!).Requiescat in pace, Waldi. Saturday, March 3, 2018
Peak Flu ?I have spent much of this week in bed, due to the flu, which has been spreading rapidly across Germany these last 4 weeks.The blue colour represents normal infection levels (i.e. low), green moderately raised, yellow high, and red obscenely high. The leftmost map was the situation at the end of january, centre map was early february, the rightmost map shows late february. Black lines show state boundaries. The white ring marks my domicile. Of course the low temperatures of these last 2 weeks (ten below zero down to 15 below here) encourages the flu :-( At my age (73) I am regarded as a high risk so I'd had my flu shots in november. Thus the infection hasn't been TOO bad for me. I didn't go to the clinic because they're really overloaded with flu cases right now. Over 236 dead so far and many far worse off than me. A few days in a warm bed, warm drinks, cough medicine etc (all the tried and true housewives' remedies) now has me past the peak and on the road to recovery. Granma used to say : a hot grog, ⅓ hot water, ⅓ honey and ⅓ strong rum won't cure the flu but at least you'll enjoy it ;-) Nevertheless blogging will continue to be be light for a while :-( Update March 11 : Close call cardiac problem wednesday 4 am. Emergency ambulance run into hospital, where they put a stent into a 95% blocked artery. So I'm back home now 'cos they saved me. KellyAnn was right. Wow, that really hurt! But blogging should resume in a week or so :-) Comments (4)
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Mondrianesque Bulldog Norwegian Bliss Stone Age Megaliths Bad Signs... ;-) RIP Ralf Waldmann Peak Flu ? Indoor MC Trial Where's Waldo? Timetravellers' vocab. Calculated Nostalgia Ignorant advertising :-( The Berlin Wall Starship Two Burns Supper Flop Folkstone's Funicular Hurricane Frederika What Norwegian... Police Museum Size Matters? Poles Apart (Non-)Xmas Dinner Mele Kalikimaka Saving Charlie Brown Challenging Patchwork Bitcoin Bubble Bill Bailey videos Letter to Elon Musk Blogroll Ain Bulldog Blog Badtux... Balloon Juice Cop Car Curmudgeonly... Earth-Bound Misfit Fail Blog Finding life hard? Mockpaperscissors Mostly Cajun Not Always Right Observing Hermann Pergelator Rants from t'Rookery Reading in Reykjavík Starts with a Bang Yellowdog Grannie Archive 2018: Jan Feb Mar Archive 2017: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2016: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2015: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Archive 2014: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec This blog is getting really unmanagable, so I've taken the first 12 years' archives offline. My blog, my random decision. Tough shit; YOLO. Link Disclaimer ENGLISH : I am not responsible for the contents or form of any external page to which this website links. I specifically do not adopt their content, nor do I make it mine. DEUTSCH : Für alle Seiten, die auf dieser Website verlinkt sind, möchte ich betonen, dass ich keinerlei Einfluss auf deren Gestaltung und Inhalte habe. Deshalb distanziere ich mich ausdrücklich von allen Inhalten aller gelinkten Seiten und mache mir ihren Inhalt nicht zu eigen. This Blog's Status is Blog Dewey Decimal Classification : 153 FWIW, 153 is a triangular number, meaning that you can arrange 153 items into an equilateral triangle (with 17 items on a side). It is also one of the six known truncated triangular numbers, because 1 and 15 are triangular numbers as well. It is a hexagonal number, meaning that you can distribute 153 points evenly at the corners and along the sides of a hexagon. It is the smallest 3-narcissistic number. This means it’s the sum of the cubes of its digits. It is the sum of the first five positive factorials. Yup, this is a 153-type blog. QED ;-) Books I have written
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