People have shown a kind interest in this sliver of Danish coastline, so in case anyone would like to turn their head and look in the other direction: here’s the view from the same spot, now looking to our left, facing North. This is Grenen, the literal tip of mainland Denmark, where two seas visibly meet.
None of the sunsets or flowers I saw this week was as lovely as these ugly patches of tarmac. This is the old Aarhus County Hospital. The council is developing it into a mixed-use neighbourhood. While excavating, they discovered that 2 huge emergency generators in bomb-shelter operation rooms still work perfectly. So they dug them up, threw tarmac in the hole and donated them to Ukraine. Now they ensure electricity in a hospital in Odessa that had been plagued by power cuts.
You mean well, I know, all of you who read what I wrote, but are now telling me to install Linux anyway. Please just let me have this today, friends. Please don't make me tap the sign.
Happy 19th birthday to my bicycle. I take absolutely no care of you. I leave you out in the rain. I ram you through snow and mud and up and down kerbs. I make you drag stuff too heavy for you. I rarely remember to feed you with oil and air. I fling you onto trains and into hedges and into any space you fit, or don’t. And yet you always work, cost little to maintain and nothing to run. And you give me easy exercise. And I will never be too old not to think Wheeee! as I freewheel you downhill.
I just realised how old my bike is and that made me realise how few parts I’ve ever had to repair or replace. A brake cable, once. A couple of spokes. A new saddle, but only because I wanted a different kind. And all hail its dynamo lamp - not only does it not need batteries, but it works faithfully, has never as much as blinked a single time in almost 20 years of use, and I have yet to replace the bulb. In the age of enshittification, this feels remarkable.
My favourite thing in the whole Fediverse is when I get a notification that someone has edited a toot I favourited or boosted months ago. Like, something in that toot has been bugging them for half a year. A comma that could've been a semi-colon. A spelling mistake they belatedly spotted. Some good information they wish they'd put in the Alt Text. And thanks to the magic of Mastodon, they can just fix it now, all these months later. I feel happy for them, knowing they can sleep soundly again.
So many ordinary people in the United States are taking to the streets, turning up to protest at politicians’ meetings, contacting anyone of influence they can, are organising and doing and acting. But the media (there and here) are mostly ignoring them. The revolution will not be televised, it seems. And it’s distressing to see so little (if any) institutional backing or protection for the people. It's not new, but it's alarming that the US doesn't have a functional organised opposition party.
@aral This has made me think, not for the first time: our species doesn't deserve all that the planet and evolution has given us. We deserve what's coming and I hope all the other species are very happy and thrive on Earth once we're gone.
Another sign that a 15-minute city is a lively mixed-use place: a hardware store opened on a main city square in the shadow of the cathedral.
It's the kind of flagship space where you’d usually find a designer bag store. It rents drills, sack trolleys and tools by the hour. That can only make commercial sense when a city centre is not just for businesses and the rich, but for ordinary people living just around the corner in ordinary homes.
A visitor from abroad was surprised to discover that you can borrow an electric cargo bike at the hardware store if you need to carry bulky stuff home.
The first two hours are free. After that, you pay 99 kr. (about €13) per hour. Another nice sign, I think, of the advantages of walkable, bikable cities.
There is too much Monday today. It had been a long week even before lunchtime. I can't believe it's still Monday. So much Monday. Here's a picture of a horse I met once.
“We’ve got to be a little aggressive with some of these folks here. Your voice is meaningless right now. I can talk over all of you.”
Said the Republican M.C. on stage as the event in a school hall continued while three unidentified men grabbed a woman from the audience, tied her up and dragged her away because she had spoken against plans to repeal Medicaid.
Pure Brownshirts. While police and politicians looked on. Chilling that it's not even headline news.
I post about books. I post photos I snap while wandering about. I post in English, dansk and Danglish.I mostly hang around these spaces:#Books #Audiobooks #ShortStories#Libraries #Bibliotek #Fredagsbog#SilentSunday #ClimateDiary #AarhusBanner: Aarhus skyline and bay. Profile pic: Me, white, dark shortish hair, tallish, emerging from a tunnel, smiling, happy, wearing a bright red leopard-print dress because that’s the sort of thing a woman in her 50s can happily wear because who cares.