Party Vibe

After an unusually high week of serious incidents (which is how I ended up somehow clicking on the link to follow the local Police) Munich is returning to normal raaa

It is the last Friday of the month, in many cities across Germany there is a Critical Mass bike ride. (they sometimes happen(ed)? in the UK as well but there were a few tense situations). Munich has historically been dominated by the motor industry; although there are plenty of cyclists too the roads are not that much better than here in Britain. So the origanisers and Police negotiated a way to make this event as safe as possible (it is a credit to the Germans it wasn’t simply restricted “due to terrorist security risks”.

It went safely; though the cops emoji message is a friendly warning not to overdo things at the Biergarten afterwards (or else you would get a €100 traffic fine, DUI laws apply equally to German cyclists!)

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Fahrradkorb mit Schutzgitter – DE: bike basket with protection cage.

A smart idea that keeps dog, rider and everyone else on the road safe as the animal cannot jump out and cause a nasty crash if it is distracted.

It is likely to be used more with pups being taken to Hundeschule (where both large and small dogs are taught to safely ride with their owners, larger ones walk alongside on a lead)

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Small German dogs are taught not to yap (unless there actually are burglars or other serious dangers) – thats whats Hundeschule is for :laugh_at:

In DE people either have a big dog or a small dog as there is dog tax and big ones cost more Euros to register.

Last time I was in Germany (and it was the centre of Berlin, hardly a rural area) there seemed to be a Hundeschule every 0,5 Km – seemingly as many as there were schools for humans. I was reading about the exact training last night; it was that thorough it covered every aspect of traffic apart from teaching the dogs how to ride the bicycles :laugh_at:

Supermoon. This is when the moon is nearer to Earth due to its elliptical orbit If it is dark (or getting dark) in your country you can look at it now, it should also be visible tomorrow (if there isn’t too much cloud or light pollution).

I had to fetch out my DSLR (which I haven’t used for ages), set up the 70-300mm lens and tripod, remember which buttons to press to work the thing and use the 2 second selftimer to avoid camera shake (it is right at the end of the 300mm point, “near” still means 357 000 km away!).

I had to also focus everything manually and use the shutter priority to get a small aperture so the moon surface can be seen; otherwise the cameras automatic metering gets confused and the image is blown out into a bright white disc.

A smartphone camera won’t work well for this sort of task! OK not exactly observatory quality but was worth the effort as the next one of these will be in 2034 – I will be in my early 60. Hopefully I will make it that far, the smart folk in Asia will still be in a position to make cameras and enough of the world remains standing for an older man to safely and peacefully take a photo so I will be able to upload a photo of that one as well!)

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the EXIF info and original pic is here

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rtnvfrmedia/25331837379/in/datetaken/