Rubénerd!

Wikimedia Commons really is an amazing place, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a Wikimedia supporter and contributor! I can spend hours trawling through its archive of images and art.

In this case, while looking for some bread iconography with Clara (for a bad pun to insert into a group presentation), we came across an entire photographic series on bread making. Every step is there, from the initial ingredient mixing, to the dough kneading and shaping, to the baking and final presentation.

The bread the bakers are baking (how's that for an inspired sentence) is houska, a style of Czech roll. I remember having one of these in Plzeň when we took a detour from Bavaria on our last Europe trip, and wanting to smuggle a huge bag of them home with me! The atmosphere of tucking into one of these freshly baked, warm rolls in a small café with my dad and sister while we looked outside at the snow... it had a lasting impression on me.

But back to the photos! I'm a home baker, and am always interested in seeing how others perform the craft. I'm fascinated by their mix of machinery and human touches; while you can automate the entire process and produce boring sandwich bread slices, in this process ultimately the humans still have the final say.

Thanks to Chmee2 for this great photographic series, you made my morning ^_^.

A quote from a Deutsche Welle article I added to my beloved Instapaper queue ages, ago but only just got around to reading. Use the original and best, people!

"The common goal of all the states in the region is, one day, to be part of the European Union, where we have freedom of movement for everybody," [German Foreign Minister] Westerwelle said. "That is why a redrawing of national boundaries is out of the question, including the Balkans. In Europe, borders are losing their significance."

If they're losing their significance, what's the harm in redrawing them then?

Having just posted about the Higgs boson, other matters suddenly seem inconsequential. Still, such a convincing defeat of ACTA in the EU gives me cautious hope we'll be rid of it worldwide. Well, until we replace it with another acronym; after SOPA and PIPA we've still got plenty of letter combinations left!

Image from RT.

From The CBC, of all places:

The leaders of France and Germany said boosting economic growth across Europe is a priority in their efforts to stem the debt crisis that is showing signs of spreading across the 17 countries that use the euro.

Water also discovered to be wet, and The Bird is The Word!

Okay, I posted this story to get you to click through to the original article. Angela Merkel's expression is priceless!

I woke up this morning to the news that Italy has a new President of the Council of Ministers (generally referred to as the Prime Minister in the Western press). I'd been wondering on The Twitters who they might get, and whether they'd have the same bad luck as the Greeks.

A split second search in the Book of Knowledge turned up this.

Monti is an international adviser to Goldman Sachs

They're not even trying any more.

Analysts at Westpac noted on Wednesday that the US dollar erased its overnight gains in Asia as the market shrugged off Moody's downgrade of Portugal's credit rating to junk status and the placement of it on the negative watch list. Traders also paid little reaction to Moody's warning that the banks involved in Greek debt roll over may have to record impairment charges. ~ AFX News

Hardly surprising, if true. Where were these ratings agencies before the global financial crisis? I wish I were the first to make this observation, but I would rate their relevance and predictive performance as "junk".

Despite my resurgent interest in the colour purple owing to not being embarrased to admit to being my favourite colour anymore, when I randomly stumbled upon this photo of Strusta Lake in the Vitebsk Province of Belarus taken by zedlik, I just had to use it as a background. What a sight.

The icons for my drives are from the Treasure Isle Wiki, of all places.

There's seems to be a lot of controversy flying (sorry, that's a bad pun even by my standards) around the grounding of most of Europe's aircraft fleet following the eruption of an unpronounceable volcano. Sheesh.

Does anyone else sometimes find it macabre when people display frustration over precautions that could have saved lives but didn't end up being necessary? I mean, think of all those times I wore my seatbelt in the car when I didn't crash, or when I looked both ways before crossing the street when there weren't any cars around; because I wasn't injured, in hindsight I shouldn't have done either and saved time! In the words of Brian Griffin from Family Guy, having spent so much money on that checkup it's a shame you're not sick so you can get your money's worth! Sheesh.

Did I mention sheesh?

Pertinent to this case, I'm reminded of a National Geographic documentary I saw a few years ago about British Airways Flight 9. From Wikipedia:

On 24 June 1982, [British Airways Flight 9 from London Heathrow to Auckland flown on a] 747-236B aircraft flew into a cloud of volcanic ash thrown up by the eruption of Mount Galunggung, resulting in the failure of all four engines. The reason for the failure was not immediately apparent to the crew or ground control. The aircraft was diverted to Jakarta in the hope that enough engines could be restarted to allow it to land there. The aircraft was able to glide far enough to exit the ash cloud, and all engines were restarted (although one failed again soon after), allowing the aircraft to land safe.

They were lucky. Really lucky :O.

The lose lose situation

Now there are some people claiming that the ash concentrations in the stratosphere weren't dense enough to have caused damage. If that's true, I'd like to see their studies that prove conclusively that lower density ash doesn't pose a safety risk, and as a secondary point I'd also like to see them make the business case that damaging hugely expensive engine components for one flight makes sense.

Imagine if airlines had been allowed to choose themselves whether they flew their aircraft, then one or more crashes occurred. Who would be blamed? The airline would cop flack, but I bet there'd be more than a few people calling for resignations at the European safety agencies. Instead they're being chastised for taking precautions and saving people's lives. These folks can't win, either way.

If I've missed something or misunderstood a point, feel free to leave a comment and correct me. This line of reasoning has me genuinely confused and I'd love some clarification!

Thanks to Anynobody on Wikipedia for the illustration of G-BDXH without power in the ash cloud.

When we get back to Singapore on Tuesday, we're going to die!

I'm typing this post from a small café next to our hotel in Dublin and boy it's freezing! There's snow lightly falling outside and the footpaths are slick with ice which has caused more than a few bruises in the last few days, but we've still been thoroughly enjoying ourselves! Anyway I was going to save blogging until I got back to Singapore, but I couldn't resist when I saw the above ad.

Yes, having just logged into the free WiFi at said coffee establishment, I was presented with the above advertisement which, if you care, looks almost like a square but is in fact a stumpy rectangle. A pointless and utterly stupid observation about size is not the humerous part of this yarn though, I found it to be pretty ironic this free WiFi hotspot is sponsored by Dublin Airport with the slogan "flying has never been easier" given its closed due to the freak Arctic weather conditions! Then again I can't seem to access Twitter tweets on it anyway, so perhaps saying the two are alike was intentional. Makes sense.

We'll be back in Singapore in a few days, can't believe we've been in Europe now for over two weeks. WiFi has been very hard to find so I gave up the prospect for live blogging, so instead I'll be uploading photos and blogging about places upon our returny substances. Return-y substances?

Update

I've been informed the above graphic, had I cared to click on it, is for an airport in the UK and is in fact not Dublin. Must be all the Guinness :). Given many of the airports in the UK are closed too the point of the post still seems to stand though!

Can't see the image?

Neither can I now that I'm using Firefox again. Perhaps Adblock Plus attacked it!