A visit to Wanfried

2 to 500 years ago transcontinental sailing ships came via the North Sea to the sea-harbour at e.g. Bremerhaven offloading their import freight there. Such freight was transferred to smaller, single-sail riverboats and shipped south up the river Weser to its confluence (the Weser doesn't have a source, it starts at the confluence of the Fulda and the Werra rivers in Hann.Münden). From there the freight is shipped south up the Werra to Wanfried where the Werra gets too shallow to be navigable (unless you are in a kayak). So the imported freight was offloaded into a freight storage hall on the quay in Wanfried, later to be transferred to the centre of the country e.g. Mühlhausen via horse- or ox-drawn carts. In the other direction agricultural goods were taken by cart to Wanfried freight hall, there to be loaded onto the little freight boats and shipped north downstream for export or distribution along the riverside.

The old freight hall has been restored as a riverside pub/restaurant now. It contains a 3D model of the old harbour as it looked around 1800 AD, quite busy as you can see. Some of the little ships would be horse-drawn barges as the Werra is too narrow to sail against the prevailing SW wind when coming upstream. The old frame buildings are still there, looking great :-)

The photo below, taken from the bridge, shows the old freight storage hall, now a riverside pub which also has tables and seating outside on the quay.

That little freight boat is being restored to working order again. The photo below shows you how small such freight riverboats were 200+ years ago.

We had lunch in that riverside pub. SWMBO had a freshly smoked trout straight from the river, I had a HUGE rack of smoked ribs from a wild boar. Delicious!
After lunch we had a walk through the old town with its frame buildings, several centuries old. The one shown below is the town hall with stone-walled courtyard.

Just across the road from the brown and white town hall is the town's hotel The Swan built centuries ago for the merchants using the harbour. A frame building too, it is painted red in the traditional ox-blood.

Even modern businesses are housed in the centuries-old frame buildings; below is the BMW motorcycle dealership. The top floor needs fixing up again, I see, as the daub is flaking off again :-(

A nice day's trip; Wanfried is worth seeing.

Comments (2)
Billions of Versions... wrote " The 3D model looks like it has some nice detail to it." I believe the men, horses, wagons, cannons and freight are model railway accessories and the ships, houses etc were hand made.
John (UK) corrects me "Hi Stu, obviously not being picky but doesn't daub flake off of wattle? All the best, keep it up." You are right; corrected; my bad.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on October 22, 2021 permalink Comments Email

Bernd's medal, revisited

Back in september, I told you about friend Bernd getting a medal, the Bundesverdienstkreuz auf Band (Federal Cross of Merit), for volunteer service to the community for 40 years or so. On monday we got together with half a dozen old friends and I'd asked him to bring his medal along for all to admire. Here are two photos in more detail. We are all so proud of him :-)

Wow! just Wow! I'm speechless...

...and, to be honest, just a little envious ;-)

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on October 20, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Wednesday, October 13, 2021

Kirk boldly went...

William Shatner, aged 90, who played Captain Kirk in Star Trek for many a long, long, long year, boldly went to space today aboard Bezos' little rocket. Finally. But boldly? Not really. Not as the captain on board, nor even as a pilot. Just locked up in an airtight can in the best traditions of Laika and Ham or indeed Schroedinger's cat. A can controlled from the ground and otherwise fully automated - just like Gagarin's ship - he and 3 others barely reached space (getting to 106 kms) and after 10 minutes - only 3 of which were weightless - it was all over. Much ado about nothing. Albeit, the 4-passenger box had windows (not Linux) but Shatner didn't get to see even a single Klingon ship let alone a Vulcan :-(

Still, it was a freebie, Bezos paying (just for the advertising publicity). They didn't even take the opportunity of naming the tin can "Enterprise" :-( Star Trek was first broadcast in September of 1966 and I am proud to say I never saw a single program thereof; 55 years of being unnerdy :-)

Comments (2)
Billions of Versions... wrote " Well, I can’t say that. I did watch Star Trek. And as the series moved on, the sets got better and better. Watching the original series now is like watching the old Buck Rogers series." To each his own.
Schorsch (D) points out that"While Bezos' rocket can barely manage the 100 km lower bound for space, Musk's Space-X can reach orbit and carry people and loads to the ISS. !!!" Yep, not just marketing hops!

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on October 13, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Monday, October 11, 2021

Mailserver back up again :-)

Just to notify anyone trying to email us. Our Mailserver is back up again. But please repeat any mails sent after October 3rd please, as they may well have got lost.

On a similar note, when Whatsapp returned after the Facebook crash last week, I had a negative number of messages??? WTF does that mean?

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on October 11, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Friday, October 8, 2021

Mailserver down :-(

Just to notify anyone trying to email us. Our Mailserver is down. So I'll have to wait until next week to get the mail service provider to fix it. Seems to me that his Xfer spooler is running out of memory.

So hold off mailing us for a while please, lest it get lost. I'll put up a notice when it is running again. Then repeat any mails after October 3rd please.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on October 8, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Multiplying Roman Numerals

Back in spring I was teaching a class of 12-year-olds arithmetic to different bases (e.g. 8,12,16 etc) and the subject of Roman Numerals cropped up, so we did some arithmetic in Roman Numerals.

Now addition is dead easy, just tip all the digits/letters (I,V,X,L,C,D,M) into a common heap, sort them l2r large to small, then simplify any multiples (e.g. IIIII=V, VV=X, XXXXX=L, LL=C, CCCCC=D, DD=M) . Example 28+32 = 60 is XXVIII+XXXII put in one heap getting XXVIIIXXXII, sorted is XXXXXVIIIII, simplified is LVV = LX which is 60 as expected. Subtraction is similarly easy.

Multiplication in Roman Numerals is a little harder. We chose two numbers, e.g. 17 and 23 which you can multiply in your head in less than a second because there is a shortcut known as difference-of-squares. 17=20-3 and 23 = 20+3. the shortcut is that (a+b)*(a-b) = a²-b², so 17*23=400-9=391. Like I said, in your head in less than a second!

Now do it in Roman Numerals without knowing that shortcut. I showed them a method of multiplication used by e.g. russian grandmothers (babushka), you may not know it yet.

Write the smaller number in the left column and the larger in the right column as shown below.
17 23, now halve the left column, (rounding down if needed) and double the right one,
8 46, and repeat
4 92, and repeat
2 184, and repeat
1 368, stopping at 1 in the left column.
Now just add up the entries in the right column which have an odd number in the left column, so 23+368=391, the correct product of 17*23 :-)

Having understood the method, the class then did it in Roman Numerals, halving and doubling in Roman Numerals can be done in your head or with paper and pencil if needed (or a damp clay tablet and a stick).
XVII XXIII
VIII XXXXVI
IIII LXXXXII
II CLXXXIIII
I CCCLXVIII
Adding up the entries in the right column which have an odd number in the left column, we got XXIII+CCCLXVIII= CCCLXXXXI which is 391 :-)

Comments (1)
Pino (Italy) jokes "I, for one, dislike even the smallest Roman Numeral." Nice pun, Pino.

Copyright ^© Ole Phat Stu on October 6, 2021 permalink Comments Email

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Link to the previous month's blog.

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