
Puzzle Series: What is this, or what do you want it to be?
(I think this one will go fast, but I will try to wait a full turn of 24 hours before recognizing the winner…)

Puzzle Series: What is this, or what do you want it to be?
(I think this one will go fast, but I will try to wait a full turn of 24 hours before recognizing the winner…)
Nice catch on the rollers, AMagill. So, that entire outer ring moves independent of the working mechanism in the middle?
I guess the Belgian girls in the wooden shoes in the next shot are a pretty good hint, too?
I cannot image this being anything but a windmill…especially considering where you are at this moment!
Un moulin à vent! A windmill.
In my opinion, it is fun to be asked to guess even when the answer is so obvious. Vanita has a great attitude about it, imagining something utterly different just to be creative and amusing. You are the real winner Vanita.
@nhr, I have been leaving French words here for ages and Steve knows that so he also knows that I am not telling him that this is the correct term in Dutch but simply the name for a windmill in French.
wind = vent
mill = moulin
Vous le saviez.
@Mimosa: I thought you knew that I knew that Steve knew that your tags and translations are “du bon français” ![]()
The issue here thus isn’t what the proper French or Dutch term for a windmill is.
My comment was just meant as an oblique reference to the fact that even today, French is a lingua non grata in some of these backwater areas Steve has been travelling through.
A nationalist, xenophobic and anti-French extreme-right political party like the Vlaams Belang routinely gets 20%+ of the electoral votes in some Flemish cities…
heyt_myser: you see one 90 degree conversion here – the other one (not seen) has to be from the sails axis to the big wheel one sees.
This is the highest tech ca 1300’s wind turbine captured with the highest tech ca 11/2006 daguerrotype.
Nos ancetres les gaulois
Avaient peut etre une tete en bois
Ils n’etaient pas chretiens
Mais pas non plus des cretins
Leurs descendants se croient plus malins
Ils brulent tout comme s’il n’y avait pas de demain
Comme de grands gamins
Ils se foutent du futur
Apres moi le deluge
Comme disait le Grand Charles
Et moi et moi et moi (turn your speakers ON): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPKACL6Z0-c
Quick translation: our Gallic ancestors (ancêtres) might have had wooden heads (têtes). They were not Christians (Chrétiens) but neither were they idiots (crétins). Their descendants (descendants) think of themselves as smarter. They burn (brûlent) all as if there were no tomorrow. Like big troublesome kids they have no care for the future. After (après) me the deluge (déluge) as the Great Charles would say.
I noticed yesterday that the south windmill in Golden Gate Park is finally being rebuilt. Did you get a peek inside?
Bingo AMagill, in every detail. And gosh, he solved in within 10 minutes of posting. This windmill is one of 19 in a row at Kinderdijk used for pumping water up from the reclaimed lands that are below sea level. The rotating shaft turns an Archimedes screw in underground channels.
And yes, heet_myser, they can rotate the entire top of the windmill to point into the wind. It takes an elaborate system of chains and pulleys that connect to a ring of stone bollards that ring the tower.
Their concern with global warming is not the rising sea levels, but the flooding from fresh water streams.
Correction made on my quick translation. La correction est faite.
AMagill, congratulations on a good guess! It is great that you saw first what most of us saw later. It all depends on when we visit Steve’s page, doesn’t it? It might be fun to see who would solve the puzzles first if we were all awaiting the puzzle photo at the same time or better yet, if we were all in the same room at the same time. Knowing me, it would take me a little longer to react as I like to examine all the details in full size to make the experience interesting. If our answers were given privately and made public only after a deadline, that would also be quite different. In any case, I enjoy reading everyone’s guesses even after Steve has spoken. 😉
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