November 27, 2020

The Book of Questions #5: Fatal Medicine

If a new cure for arthritis were developed that would cure arthritis but cause a fatal reaction in one percent of those who took it, would you want it to be released to the public. The Book of Questions #3 by Gregory Stock, Ph.D. (1987) What does the question actually ask? Most people would intuitively answer the question based on…

Categories Book of Questions

November 25, 2020

My life in cameras: Part 7 Olympus M5 Mk2 and M.Zuiko 25mm/F1.8

An unfortunate demise I was actually quite happy with my Olympus M10. It was a small lightweight and full featured camera. To my dismay one day it simply slipped out of my hand when I took it out of its bag. And this even right at home. I never dropped something valuable like this. It just happened and I was…

Categories Photography

November 22, 2020

“If you can’t see the truth about COVID19” and similar circular arguments

I had an exchange on Twitter (yes I know…Twitter) about the anti-corona protests on Germany this week. I will not put up screenshots or name of the people involved because it is unnecessary for the argument and I usually find such behavior quite distasteful. Here is what I said about the protests in Berlin on the 18th of November 2020….

Categories Politics

November 20, 2020

Above Ground Subway

New Yorkers are probably not wondering about this but Berlin has subways that go above ground. They are still called “Untergrundbahn” (underground rail) even though they are clearly above ground as my picture proves. This line is the U2 (no relation to Bono) and it is in part above and below ground. Back in 1910 when the construction on this…

Categories Photography

November 19, 2020

Can we please have a sensible COVID discussion?

I wish we could have a sensible and rational discussion about the actual dangers from COVID19 and the necessity and appropriateness of our response. Instead I have the impression that we are ending up in two opposite camps with no discussion happening between them. Essentially here in Germany we have a society that is split into two camps and both…

Categories Politics/Society

November 16, 2020

Beware of Train

Something I used to do was to visit train stations in the evening or at night. There was something special about the atmosphere when most commuters had left hours ago and the station became eerily quiet with just the noise of the trains and the announcements. The people I would see were an eclectic mix of travelers who arrived late…

Categories Photography

November 13, 2020

My life in cameras: Part 6 Olympus M10 and M.Zuiko 45mm/F1.8

At this point I was officially infected with GAS. I was just buying cameras because they were new but not because I needed them. Why I “needed” the new Olympus M10. There was really no reason to buy this new camera. Sure it had some more megapixels and was faster or whatever. The only real reason was that the viewfinder…

Categories Photography

November 10, 2020

The pandemic imperative

Germany’s top virolgist and government adviser Christian Drosten recently gave two interesting and also problematic statements [source, video speech in German] one called the pandemic imperative. Today I want to look at his nod to Kantian ethics and the categorical imperative. Handle in einer Pandemie stets so, als seist Du selbst positiv getestet, und Dein Gegenüber gehört einer Risikogruppe an….

Categories Ethics/Philosophy

November 8, 2020

Masks are not effective every bit helps

Preface I hope you are not tired of more COVID19 content? I actually never wanted to put much about it on this blog. This was supposed to be about images and thoughts. But seeing mostly hysteria and numbers porn on mainstream media and politicians whose only solution is to restrict our freedoms I feel that we sorely lack rational voices….

Categories Ethics/Politics

November 6, 2020

Glinting Sun

Something I like to do but rarely find the time for are morning walks on the weekend especially on Sundays. I enjoy the quiet and calm of the city when most people are still in bed or just got up. And precisely the unwillingness to get up on a Sunday morning makes those walks rather rare. Everything in life is…

Categories Photography/Urbanism