Mapping Traces of the Karlsruhe area
Back in 2006 I bought a new bike to get some physical training to compensate the work and computer sitting motionlessness. I also bought a Garmin eTrex Venture Cx GPSr together with the City Navigator map material for routing. The device was about 300€ and the maps about 200€.
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That is it: Requiem for a Mixing Console
All credits to Fons for the 32′ Bombarde in Aeolus :) .
(Hint: Firefox 3.5 plays ogg files autonomously)
After me and Linus, one further old fart, who is a friend of both usenet and IPv6, but also openstreetmap, entered web 2.0. Welcome Sven :) .
The Lassithi plateau is an interesting geoformation. It’s almost a circlar area, completely circumvented by some mountains, up to 2148m in hight like the Δίκτη (Dikti). The plateau itself is about 800m above the sea level. There are only a few passes to enter it. One is the pass of Ambelos, where I took a panorama picture showing (from left to right) the Lassithi plateau south, the pass with some ruins of its windmills and then the sea north of it:
Panorama of the pass of ambelos
During yesterday’s election of the german president, some interesting glitches happened. I’m not talking about the political aspects of the election, but of some housekeeping issues.
On the 60th birthday of the Grundgesetz, Horst Köhler has been reelected as the President of Germany by the Bundesversammlung.
As in 2004, Gesine Schwan was his main competitor, but Horst Köhler won again. Though we left the chance to get the very first female president ever, Horst Köhler might be the right guy for the next five years. As he is not allowed for a third term in 2014, he might be tempted to even more show the way towards the future, independently from political parties and “daily business”.
(Image shamelessly stolen from de.wikipedia.org)
The german constitution, the »Grundgesetz«, became effective the 1949-05-23. Since then, after 12 years of Nazi terror and the lost second world war, the Grundgesetz became the base of our free and modern democracy. Together with the Bundesverfassungsgericht, it served us very well during the last 60 years. Kudos to its fathers and mothers!
I have been asked what still can be seen of the roman highway I mapped recently. The answer is simple: Not that much. It’s just a trail of about 3 to 5 meters in width, covered with trees and other plants, which is raised compared to the ground by approximately 70 centimeters. If you are not aware of its existence, you probably would not notice it. If you know that it’s there, you can clearly see it, but it’s difficult to see it on a photo. Anyway, here’s an attempt.
Shorpy has a nice “poser” image of workers in the “U.S. Geological Survey engraving room.”. What was openstreetmap like in those days :) ?
The weather was really excellent the last two days, almost spring. So I did the first biking tour in 2009 yesterday. Only about 50 kilometers, but hey, it was the first tour this year – the season began :) .
In addition to former history mapping I visited an ancient roman highway. The remains I mapped are part of a huge highway, which went from Strasbourg over Speyer, Mainz, Cologne and Xanten to the north sea. There’s a project of the european union which aims at resurrecting this road for educational/recreational/touristic purposes. I started to the west of Hagenbach, where you can see a replica of a »Leugenstein«:
Today (and two weeks ago) I’ve done some mapping in the Bienwald. Though the weather was not optimal, I needed a bit of physical activity. I wanted to map some minor paths and ways by foot which are not fun to be mapped by bike.
The Bienwald contains lots of ancient remains, which more or less all belong to the german-french history, such as the Mundat stones:
Here’s a panorama picture I took in Auschwitz-Birkenau. It’s far from being perfect, as I only used the automatisms of Hugin without further interaction or editing. The camera position was approximately here, with camera movement from east over south to west (left to right):
I took the images in auto mode, thus the variant exposures. I should have used the stitch assistant instead.
Of course it’s part of the political show business. But anyway, do you remember such a stirring speech of a german or even european politician? Admonishing, but also encouraging each individual citizen? Clearly stating that freedom is the base of our modern societies? That we want to lead the world?!?
This speech is not comparable to the boring monologues of most german politicians. Obama will be judged past his presidentship. But his first official act looks promising. Wish to be an american today.
The second book I just read about the mass extermination of jews during the second world war is called »We wept without tears« (»Wir weinten tränenlos…«) by Gideon Greif. It’s a compilation of various interviews he held with some survivors of the Sonderkommando of the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
If you remember a little latin, you might know what »Anus Mundi« means (a vulgar german translation would read as »Arsch der Welt«). Still under the impression of my recent visit to Oświęcim, Poland, I wanted to get a bit of a clue what life was like in those infamous german concentration camps.
