Haven't posted anything for many days because I caught a brutally dangerous trojan, CoolWebSearch, which killed my Windows. Because of my PC's quirks (I have a SATA drive and RAID , no regular single PATA IDE) I couldn't easily reinstall it, I barely managed to pull it off. And now on top of that I've come down with some weird cold (or is it the flu?). My parents are separately hanging out away from home, each with their own crowd, while I'm sitting here all alone watching Futurama, the first 3 episodes that have finished downloading.
So I won't be able to churn out anything but another diary post.
When I was in Riga last week, I dropped by the patent library one more time to snap copies of a couple of books on my digital camera. It turned out pretty well: fast and high-quality enough to actually read them. Then I spent a few hours trying to figure out what to compress the massive.jpgs into and how best to do it, so I could share them with anyone who wants them. Turns out there's an old free version of a piece of software called DJVU solo on the net, which compresses into the awesome DJVU format. Unlike the sluggish and bulky PDF, it is absolutely perfect specifically for scanned or photographed books.
On the way back from the library I took some pictures of snow-covered Riga. First up - Dome Square
Restaurant "Planeta Sushi", next to the library
Dome Cathedral
The House of the Blackheads, rebuilt a few years ago
St. Peter's Church
St. Peter's Church has an observation deck at a height of 70. It used to be open, which was awesome - you stand at the edge, everything below is tiny, and the wind is blowing in your face. Now they've apparently fenced it off, if not glassed it in completely. If things keep going this way, soon we'll be living in impenetrable bubbles.
Railway Bridge
Riga currently has 3 road bridges and 1 railway bridge. If you count from south to north, meaning towards the mouth of the Daugava, first comes the super long Island Bridge, then the Railway Bridge, then the Stone Bridge, which the tram runs across, and from which I took the photos. And closest to the mouth of the Daugava is the Vanšu Bridge, a famous symbol of the city.
Vanšu Bridge
Construction on the Southern Bridge has already started, which will be located south of the Island one. And most likely, further north after the Vanšu Bridge, a northern tunnel will still be built. It costs a colossal amount of money by Latvian standards (up to half a billion $, while our annual budget is 5 billion), and so there are always corruption scandals surrounding it. I'm writing this from memory, so I might be wrong about the numbers.
Panorama of the frozen Daugava
Looks more like a field in the middle of nowhere in the Urals, rather than a river over a thousand km long.
Panorama of central Riga
This is the famous picture of central Riga that you can see on postcards, except it's in winter, tiny, and taken by an amateur. A classic "Rabinovich sang it to me".
All photos