Tour de Suisse, part 5: Bern

As usual when I'm on holidays, I catch a cold, a flu or whatever. So I had to spend this day at home, where I did some further HDR experiments. I'd gladly present you more, but my computer here is far too slow, so there's only one picture so far.

For all those who like some pictures of my travels, I append some pictures of Bern I've taken some time ago.

HDR:


Bern:

Tour de Suisse, part 4: Lyssach

As the electrician had to fix some power sockets in my flat, I didn't take a long trip, I just went to IKEA and got a Pello, a Fixa and Dokument. I hope nobody is disappointed about my report now, sometimes this stuff also needs to be done.

Even More Wack-o Rock Star Movie Cameos

Gibson's lifestyle page is writing about rock star movie cameos, so far there are part 1 and part 2, if there is ever going to be a third part, then they surely should include Brian Setzer and the Country Bears in this clip.

Tour de Suisse, part 3: Murten and Avenches

I spent this beautiful day in Murten and Avenches. The latter is known for the Roman city Aventicum.

Murten:



Avenches:

Tour de Suisse, part 2: Brig and Sion

Today I enjoyed the beautiful weather in Brig and Sion in the canton Valais. Of course I visited the Stockalperpalast in Brig and in Sion I climbed up the hill to the Basilique de Valère where you can find world's oldest playable organs and you have also a beautiful view over the whole valley and especially to the nearby Château de Tourbillon.

Brig:



Sion:

Tour de Suisse, part 1: St. Gallen

Yesterday I've been to St. Gallen. I was in St. Gallen before, but I've never had the time to take a look at it. It's quite a nice city, but it was also a little bit disappointing as I especially looked forward to see the abbey library which was smaller than I imagined and taking pictures wasn't allowed. Nevertheless, it was a nice journey.

The master of far fetched fiction

People, knowing my fondness for and broad knowledge about books, often ask, which are the most remarkable books I've ever read. And after a lot of sophisticated remarks about classic novels, some good sips of brandy and furious critique of the post-modern literature, I always recommend to have a look at a certain Mister Rankin from London.

Actually, neither of the above is true, but I've read some odd books and among the most extraordinary books I've read are those of Robert Rankin and at the moment I'm reading his The Da Da De Da Da Code, so this is where I got the idea to tell you about this. It's pretty hard or actually impossible to describe Rankins books, so I suppose you just read them yourselves. The Brentford Trilogy, the Cornelius Murphy Trilogy (consisting of The Book of Ultimate Truths, Raiders of the Lost Car Park and The Most Amazing man Who Ever Lived), The Witches of Chiswick or The Brightonomicon might all be a good starting point.

But beware, you might consider it good advice to read one of Rankin's many biographies or have a look at the man himself first.

Natural language is not context-free

Richard McKinley recently pointed out to me that the evidence against the context-freeness of natural languages was first found in Swiss German. Now I'm looking forward to read the original paper Evidence against the context-freeness of natural language by Stuart M. Shieber.