Horolonomics

Swiss news media report that yesterday, Sunday, August 9, 2026, burglars broke into the Musée d’horlogerie du Locle in Le Locle, Switzerland. Satellite view of Musée d’horlogerie du Locle, Source: Google Earth. An alarm went off at 6:14 in the morning, just before sunrise. Further, a witness contacted the police in Neuchâtel in order to report that there were people near the museum behaving suspiciously. At least four people broke in through a door to the north which, according to satellite imagery, faces a wooded area. Reports indicate that the thieves were only on the property for, at most, five minutes. They seem to have gotten away with less than ten objects (perhaps pendulum clocks). The museum is roughly two miles from the border with France so French authorities have been informed of the theft. Reports of other thefts in this region suggest that criminals sometimes cross the border with their ill-gotten goods. Let's hope the items are retrieved. They are part of the...

Early last week I started listening to the latest episode of Openwork, a podcast by the good people at Collective Horology. A photo from Windup Watch Fair 2024 in which Collective recorded a podcast live. Collective co-founder Asher Rapkin is on the right (a co-founder of Urwerk is on the left). Note that AI created the blur effect on the lower part of this photo. Collective was founded by two former Facebookers as a retailer of high-end independent watch brands from different parts of the world (there's more to Collective's history and you can read about it here ). I've visited Collective's booth at a couple Windup events and I enjoy the podcast. It is business-oriented, primarily, which I find very informative. At the beginning of the podcast, Collective shared a statement mentioning that the retailer joined a lawsuit filed in opposition to the most recent round of tariffs by the Trump administration. I found this very interesting so I went ahead and downloaded ...