Drivers on the A10 ring road in Amsterdam can be forgiven for any confusion experienced when they see this incomplete section of highway bridge.

We’re not sure what happened – maybe the construction crew finished up early one Friday afternoon and by the following Monday had forgotten what they were supposed to be building?

Meanwhile in Tehran, a similar situation seems to be coming to an end. We’re told this bridge sat unconnected to anything for at least 8 years, but the construction currently visible at the north end of the bridge may mean that it will finally get put to use some day. Still a bit of a drop if you were to drive off the south end though…

Let us know if you find any more abandoned bridges.

Thanks to Asmir Babaca and Mazi.

The Bolwoningen golf-ball-shaped buildings are an early-80s housing project reminicent of the previously featured “Kubuswoning” cube-housing.

The stupendously-ugly (and presumably incredibly impractical) homes were designed in the late 70s by an architect going by the name of Dries Kreijkamp.

Mr. Kreijkamp doesn’t seem to have done much else of note during his career, and by the sound of things, was a little obsessed with his balls.

All of which begs the question, what is the ugliest building you’ve ever seen? (If enough of you post a comment with a link then we’ll post a roundup of the best ones over the weekend.)

Thanks to colapunk.

It’s Island Week 3 here at GSS, which means we’ll mostly be posting about Islands. For about a week.

Schiermonnikoog is a small island off the coast of the Netherlands, that only 758 years ago was actually 2 kilometres north of its current location, and a completely different shape to boot! A combination of current, tides and wind have actually moved this island at the astonishing rate of around 2.64 metres per year.

The island’s name, “Schiermonnikoog” translates into English as “Island of the grey monks” and was named for the colour of the robes of the Cistercian monks who first owned this tiny piece of land. Today it stands as a municipality in its own right, and with only around one thousand inhabitants, is the least densely populated municipality in the Netherlands.

See our April 2008 post on Sea Reclamation for more on coastal erosion.

Thanks to Arjan.

The town of Brummen in The Netherlands is perhaps the last place you would expect to find a secret government conspiracy in action, but any other explanation would be naïve: Google have obviously been forced to disguise the structure with the help of the clone tool, and the repeated use of a beige trees produces some rather amateur results:

However, when you look at it in the rival Live Maps service, you can see nothing amiss, apart from a half constructed golf course to the side – not the most secretive fortification in my eyes. When compared side by side, the woods seem to be wider and there is definitely a suspicious change in water colour:

In reality, the most plausible suggestion would appear to be an humble technician trying to clear up a mess left by an imagery artifact or cloud, but my gut knows that it is something to do with the renegade Staten-Generaal. The bloggers over at ‘Stinky Journalism‘ (seriously) have been to Google about this, and apparently they are investigating the anomaly.

We’re aware that there seems to be an anomaly in our imagery and are working to determine what happened.

Of course, this isn’t the first time Google has taken part in a bit of photoshop trickery, as we saw last year when they put on a sham aerial display.

Thanks: PhotoshopDisasters and StinkyJournalism.org

This is the Homomomomonument, er… we mean the Homomonument, in Amsterdam.

Unveiled in 1987, the humorously-named monument serves as a very serious memorial to the many thousands of gay men and women who were murdered during the Second World War.

Homomonument consists of three pink granite triangles, which each form the point of one much larger triangle.

The eastern triangle steps down into the canal, pointing to the National War Memorial at Dam Square. The northern triangle points to the Anne Frank House, and finally the south-western triangle points to the offices of the Center for Culture and Leisure – the world’s oldest continuously operating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender/transsexual organisation.

More information about the Homomonument is available on the monument’s offical website, as well as on Wikipedia.

Thanks to romulusnr.