Still the standard dusty outlet in regional trains in France. But any charger will fit, despite changing standards from USB A to C.

Date: In the past To give free food with drinks is nothing new. The Italian aperitivo is often the superlative of snacks offered with alcoholic beverages during the evening hours and before dinner. Cheap versions are chips, olives or salt bretzels. This photo as seen on Ellie’s Island 1 reports free Wienerwurst, German brew saucissage. Not actually from Vienna, but Berlin, Wienerstrasse 2. The beginning of the hot dog perhaps. exposition on immigration in New York ↩︎ ...

From the exposition Along the Color Line 1⁣ comes this photograph of a repair shop in the United States. They proposed umbrella repair and cover, a quite lost activity now, at least for the cover part. There still exist local producers of umbrellas in France, like Neyrat in Autun, Burgundy. But can you still bring your parapluie to be covered? Visited in 10/2026 at museum Ludwig (Cologne, Germany) ↩︎

Postal services combined with telegraphs and telephone is a classic association. However the alliance of a post office with a savings bank is neither rare and can be found in Europe and the United States starting in the 19th century 1. As we can read in this article giving a large overview of the american and european concept of integrating a bank into the postal service. For France we read: ...

What does these old tapestry and colors tell us? The images presented here were taken at the very old castle at Chaumont on the Loire river. We would like to make a carbon analysis to explore the pigments used to colorize theses rooms considering aestethics and use-ability. For an introduction to color read Ball1 and for pigments and glues, there’s an excellent introduction in French by editor Allia date: next week ...

Measuring length is still a mostly analog matter. A basic tool of wood, plastic or metal calibrated by an official length keeper is all what is needed to have precise measurements. Place found: Geneva flea market Price: 1 CHF Date: 30.01.2015 date: +10 days

 Writing instruments were not always so omnipresent as today. Especially industrially engineering and design changed the availability of pens and pencils as we can read in the excellent book on design by Papanek1 . Shortly after the end of World War II the New York Times carried the first full-page ad for Gimbel’s sale of the Reynolds ball-point pen at only $25 each. By Monday morning. Herald Square was so clogged with people waiting for Cimbel’s to open that extra police had to be brought in to control the crowds. Places in the ball-point pen queue could be sold for $5 to $10, and, until Cimbel’s slapped a one-pen-to-a-customer order on the sale Wednesday, pens could be readily sold for $50 to $60 each. ...

Signalization plays an important role in communication. A lighthouse gives visual signals to ships passing by to help navigation and avoid accidents. A lighthouse can give additional acoustic signals profiling the soundscape of surrounding area. However today, in a world of modern positioning systems, freely available maps of highest detail and radar systems, the need of a lighthouse seems to be outdated. The environmental impact is not to be neglected. Light pollution is considerable in the surroundings, as personally observed near the Phare de Creac’h, which has a visibility of 50 km. ...

There are some kind of shops that have disappeared in the last fifty years and been integrated mostly in a larger structure, a big general store or a super market. Think of the cordonnier who merged sometimes in history with the locksmith. Or the kitchen supplier who rarely still has his own shop, at least in a small town. Between specialized knowledge and the convenience of having everything on one’s fingertips, the trend went to the latter. ...