picture-postcard

It is an ennobling project to try to capture the world’s wonders and share them with a public that may not be able to visit in person, and though a virtual tour will probably never be able to match the real experience, one effort, as theLocal reports, is falling perversely short. Using the same techniques that allow viewers to explore the world’s terrain, oceans, highways and byways, virtually drifting along any path, the towering Cathedral of Cologne (Kölner Dom) was inadvertently rendered squatty for this go around. The error will be redressed, I’m sure, but it would be a shock for anyone to see a favourite and important landmark sloppily portrayed. Some people trawl around for such gaffes but quite a few things that went overlooked were found by scouring satellite images and now endless pavement, and possibly this awkwardness will renew interest and pride and prevent the distortion (both through inattention and ignorance) of less familiar cultural and historic sites and allow more people to get to know as they really are.

pokal and fly-wheel

Some time ago, H found this beautiful and stern, smooth and geometric, loving cup or trophy (Pokal). There is no engraving or dedication, only a small plaque in the form of a winged wheel. I suspected that this logo was covering up something else but I’d never risk taking a peek, and is a little mysterious, like an unawarded prize and it is not clear what the symbol refers to: it could be the sign of a watch-making guild in München at the turn of the century or it could be a sign for the old Imperial Railroad (Reichsbahn) that preceded the Deutsche Bahn. Taking a walk around lunch time, I noticed for the first time this ornamental cornice piece of a cherub mounted above that same logo (although there’s a bit of variation with the spokes) cradling a steam engine. H found this treasure at a massive antique flea market (Flohmarkt), rather than in one of the sadly endangered emporia of hordes and cast-offs. It is has gotten increasingly harder to find a traditional antique or junk store, like this one occupying an old brewery building.

As this space and hobby gave the owners a mission to completely fill every available inch with stuff, one used to find a lot of store-fronts hanging on as vanities, something to showcase on the side that never sees much traffic or revenue, like photography or second-hand shops, proprietors got to have relaxed fun. Certainly the weekend markets are wonderful to explore and have traditions and trappings of their own as well, and though there’s a regularity to their season—with frequent and planned routes and tours and always a good excuse to discover some place new, I think towns and villages need this sort of kooky, lazy, sleepy enterprises (rather than ubiquitous telecommunication shops and fast food joints) as potential and permanent repositories of treasures.

beauty mark or parallax view

Our bit of the morning sun has unfortunately been hidden behind steely grey and rainy skies, so we weren’t able to try to see the shadow of Venus crossing the sun ourselves. The intense interest the event has garnered in hobby astronomers everywhere, however, does make me happy and I think expresses continued regard for the sciences and exploration. People flock and cluster around more common lunar eclipses (Sonnenfinsternisse) and meteor showers and though with more heuristic merit than a school science fair project reduplicated without discovery or method, and studying this rare transit will give planet hunters a better understanding of how to spot alien worlds around distant stars, who might disclose their existence by casting a similar tiny shadow and what the roughness of that shadow says about a planet’s atmosphere, size and composition. Historically too Venus has brought together astronomers from different countries and dispatched them to far-flung places, from Tahiti to the Desolation Islands (the French Kerguelen archipelago) by the Antarctic. For really the first time in modern times, scientists cooperated and collaborated on an international level to observe this phenomenon in the 18th century, needing to do so from several different vantage points, irrespective of national or religious convictions: comparing the incidence, size and angle of Venus from different points on the Earth at the same time let scientists extrapolate (from the known distances along the Earth) the distance between the sun and the Earth. That was a pretty nifty trick.

crystalline entity

With a franchise spanning over four decades, many creative and original story-lines, astute social observation and visionary gaffing and rigging that’s brought us so far the tricorder and synthehol, the talents behind Star Trek could certainly be forgiven for coming up with a few dullards. Topless Robot has gathered trading-cards on the top twenty lamest Star Trek alien encounters in a fun and irreverent way, demonstrating I think there was genius behind missing the mark. The web site also features a lot of other humorous collections of sci-fi superlatives that stirs memories of all sorts of forgotten episodes.