Solipsism Gradient

Posted by Rainer Brockerhoff (away):
This is the last message before we return to Brazil. I’m typing this at a cousin’s company near Frankfurt.

The trip from Berlin to Düsseldorf was long but uneventful. We stayed overnight with a friend near Siegen and then 3 days with another friend in Düsseldorf. The big family meeting was a huge success and I’m looking forward to posting selected pictures (I took over 1100!) and typing up my notes and comments on the whole trip.

So, look for normal updates to resume around July 3 or 4! Thanks to all of you…

Posted by Rainer Brockerhoff (away):
News from Königs-Wusterhausen, a small suburb of Berlin. We decided to stay here at very comfortable and not-too-pricey hotel, and commute into Berlin by rail – it takes about 50 minutes. A whole-day ticket covers both the commute and any metro, rail or bus travel within Berlin itself. There’s even a network company that offers Internet access, though they open late and close early – at least from our point of view. In terms of friendliness to tourists, the Berliners take the prize so far – and of course I can understand what they’re saying, which is a big plus. 😉

Turns out this was a good choice. Berlin is huge and the largest city we’ve seen so far in terms of attractions, too. It would take two weeks to see less than half of what’s in the guidebook, so we’re just taking some samples. Yesterday we went to see Checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish Museum (which turned out to be so huge that we stayed for 5 hours!), the Brandenburger Gate, and some adjacent parks and shops. We also saw a couple of iMax films which turned out to be excellent – one about Australia and one about underwater reefs.

Today we’re supposed to see the Berlin Wall Memorial, the Berliner Dom and the area around the Kurfürstendamm, including the Memorial Church. Whew. Sorry, no time to chase up links for any of these… then the next day we’ll drive off to Düsseldorf for the big family meet. On our way out we may drive through some of the outlying parks. Stay tuned!

Posted by BlogalVillager (cbrayton):

Rainer Brockerhoff (away) wrote:

A few more quick notes from Budapest. I finally hit upon the trick of selecting the US keyboard layout and not looking at the keys… works well for English, less so for e-mail in German and Portuguese.

I have the same trouble with my machine at home: I have alternate keyboards set up for all that foofaraw you have to type in French and Portuguese, but just try to find a readily accessible keyboard map in Windows. It’s not friendly to the multiorthographic!

This trip sounds like loads of fun! Enjoy. I hope to be back in Brazil sometime after your return there.

Posted by Rainer Brockerhoff (away):
Just a fast post from Prague, so far the best place we’ve visited. Everything’s going well, but no time to hang around Internet Cafes… we had a wonderful time with our friends in Brno, but all reports on that will have to wait until we get back.

Tomorrow we’re off, driving back into Germany over Dresden to Berlin, where I’ll hopefully have more time to post stuff. More soon!

Posted by Rainer Brockerhoff (away):

Rafael Fischmann wrote:

Rainer Brockerhoff (away) wrote:

At one point I caught my camera strap on a bit of Velcro and dropped the camera with some force on the pavement…

…Anyway, it’s good that nothing happened and I hope you can fix it. By the way, do you have a warranty for the camera?

I e-mailed Pentax in Hamburg (Germany) and they said gravity effects don’t fall under the warranty. Anyway, everything else works perfectly… if the lens got misaligned I’ll notice some lack of focus when viewing the photos back home, but my impression is that’s not the case. So it’s just the case itself.

Posted by Uirá:
depoimento acima antes de ler o texto “mundo de Pontas”… PUTZ aquele texto é muito louco LegaL INTERESSANTE… como diria meu tio – é FUDIDO – e é mesmo ainda naum sei como tive a capacidade ( mesmo depois de ler dez vezes(o que é RELATIVAMENTE POUCO)) de entender a incrível salmodia que esse texto é .. mas essa salmodia seria saudável, até boa… é o que faz que a pessoa reflita, e muito, o que está lendo….

Confesso que até agora estou completamente voando nesse texto, ( mas naum era esse o objetivo? fazer o leitor voar e alcançar a imensidão que o texto nos confere?)

Mas é isso… a bese que temos que seguir é essa, coisas extraordinárias para um mundo extraordinário… pois afinal, e, apesar de tudo o mundo é extraordinariamente extraordinário…

Depois que li aquele texto decidi…

– vou lá, procurar na NET tudo o que eu poder ler e absorver sobre as pontas, como entrar e sair de pontas sem saber e sem que saibam que eu naum soube (sei lá, hackear), quero agora mais do que nunca saber e entender cada processo que minha máquina executa… e naum ficar de trás do Windows/MAC/LINUX só vendo a maravilha colorida do mundo pós-DOS…

quero enxergar que quando uma porta se abre eu posso entrar, posso fechá-la, posso avisar que está aberta para que outros entrem/não entrem, posso apenas entrar sorrateiramente e sair sem deixar suspeita alguma que estive lá…. e o melhor de tudo… sem ter de pedir, avisar, AUTORIZAR ou qualquer outra ação mais distante do “livre arbitrio” que é o mundo de pontas…

Posted by Rafael Fischmann:

Rainer Brockerhoff (away) wrote:

At one point I caught my camera strap on a bit of Velcro and dropped the camera with some force on the pavement. The battery flew out and I had the awful impression of other expensive innards strewn about, but after replacing everything it still works flawlessly. A corner is rather dented, but looking closely I may be able to undent it after removing the outer shell – after I get back, that is.

Oh my God! That’s my biggest concern with this kind of equipment, I’m actually the champion in making this kind of stuff. Anyway, it’s good that nothing happened and I hope you can fix it. By the way, do you have a warranty for the camera?

Posted by Rainer Brockerhoff (away):
A few more quick notes from Budapest. I finally hit upon the trick of selecting the US keyboard layout and not looking at the keys… works well for English, less so for e-mail in German and Portuguese.

Yesterday in the evening we walked about half an hour up to the castle hill – a walled-in part of the old Buda town. Several museums, churches and restaurants there, and a beautiful view of the Danube and the Pest side

In the morning we purchased day tickets for the Budapest public transport system and spent several hours on the Pest side. A guided tour of the Parliament was very impressive. Budapest is unique in that it has three Parliament buildings – after the architect’s competition in 1900 (or so) the second and third-placed architects were allowed to build their designs on the same square, one is a museum and the other a public building.

The Budapest subway is the second oldest in Europe and surprisingly well maintained and signed. On the other hand, it was disquieting for me – in all of my previous trips (a small, guided trip to Tunisia in 2001 excepted) I was able to understand at least some of the signs and of the language people spoke. But Hungarian is completely alien, and there are very few cognates. On the other hand, most people speak a little English (for the younger set) or German (for the older), so one can get by.

At one point I caught my camera strap on a bit of Velcro and dropped the camera with some force on the pavement. The battery flew out and I had the awful impression of other expensive innards strewn about, but after replacing everything it still works flawlessly. A corner is rather dented, but looking closely I may be able to undent it after removing the outer shell – after I get back, that is.

Tomorrow we’ll leave around noon and drive up towards Prague in the Czech Republic, with a stopover in Brno to visit a friend.

More later, as usual.