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Tue, 01 Aug 2006
Happy 1st of August to everyone!
Switzerland's National Day celebrates the declaration of independence on August 1st, 1291.
From Wikipedia:
(...) representatives of the three forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden signed the Federal Charter.
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Tue, 20 Jun 2006
Freitag's Skyscraper in Zurich
You'll find the Freitag bags all over the world. Even in San Francisco with strong local competition by Timbuk2 and Zo Bags. But not many people know that Freitag is a small Swiss company.
Learn more about their new "Skyscraper" in Zurich at Cool Hunting.
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Swiss-list Stammtisch on 6/21/06
Our next Swiss-list Stammtisch is this WED in Portola Valley. We'll start at 7. Come join us.
Alpine Inn Beer Garden (formerly Rosatti's)
3915 Alpine Road
Portola Valley
Yahoo! Maps
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Switzerland is doing pretty good at the Worldcup so far. Stay tuned.
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Thu, 08 Jun 2006
Baseball bats are weapons
The senat in Switzerland just approved a revision of the
weapons law, and it looks like baseball bats will be considered weapons, check out this article in the NZZ (German only):
Quote:
- Baseballschläger, Softair-Guns und Veloketten sollen neu als Waffen gelten. Der Ständerat hat am Donnerstag als Erstrat die Revision des Waffengesetzes gutgeheissen. Künftig soll es auch nicht mehr möglich sein, Waffen anonym über Inserate und Internet anzubieten.
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Mon, 27 Mar 2006
Not Swiss, but Germans are the most intelligent in Europe
You probably thought that Swiss people were among the most intelligent ones in Europe, right? Well, think again. The top contender are the Germans and the Dutch, and the Swiss follow only as 6th, after the Italians, but at least at the same level as Austrians and before the French. Here some links:
http://www.nzz.ch/2006/03/27/vm/newzzELAKI82F-12.html and http://www.nzz.ch/2006/03/27/vm/newzzELAKI82F-12.html
The authors home page: http://www.rlynn.co.uk/
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Fri, 24 Mar 2006
Wisconsin holds a world championship for cheese, and this year for the first time a swiss cheese was selected as the best cheese (an Emmentaler from Duedingen, made by Christian Wuthrich.
For the gory details check out http://www.wischeesemakersassn.org/wccc/2006/past_results.php?year=2006
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Wed, 08 Mar 2006
The Winter Olympics are over. Time to have a quick look back. Switzerland got 14 medals (according to Yahoo! Sports). No, Switzerland, not Sweden! Ok, Sweden too. ;)
This is kind of cool I guess. We're a pretty small country and made it into the top 8. Then again we are a winter sports nation so we could have done better. Plus I heard somewhere that Switzerland was the only nation competing in every single competition. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
It is with joy that I see that we beat France (Bonjour Eric) but I'm not really looking forward to all the slack we'll be getting from Frank (Germany kind of kicked ass with 29 medals). The U.S. are second. Btw, interest in the Olympics was pretty moderate here in California.
Thanks to our successful competitors. Do you know anyone?
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Sun, 12 Feb 2006
I'm on a roll. Here is the third entry for today (it's SUN after all):
A "chain blog entry" is making its rounds currently. The concept: A tagged blogger answers 8 personal questions on his blog and tags 4 other bloggers. These will then answer the same questions and so one (you get the idea). It's a pretty interesting idea as you learn a little more about the blogger. But it's getting boring pretty quickly. Except if Switzerland is mentioned under "Four Places I'd Rather Be". Thanks to Media Guerilla for the kind words! (A must read blog if you're into PR, marketing related to technology.)
Let's see:
Basel: sunny, 0 degrees Celsius
San Francisco: sunny, 18 degrees Celsisus
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Swisscom gets blogs? CoComment
The one thing that everyone is still talking about from the Lift conference is CoComment. It's a tool that lets you track comments that you left on other blogs. Interestingly enough it was developed at good old Swisscom. It's apparently going open source soon. Exciting.
And Scoble doesn't want to leave Switzerland anymore... ;)
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Some of my favorite bloggers have been hanging out in Switzerland (gapingvoid, Scobleizer, Forthcoming). They attended Lift '06 in Geneva. Check out the videos. Sounds like it was a success.
Maybe we should ask the organizer Laurent to contribute to the Swiss-list blog. :) Subcribed.
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Sun, 22 Jan 2006
I took the "Ficelle" (metro from Ouchy to Flon in Lausanne) every (rainy) day during my time at EPFL. I even took it at the end of last year while staying in Switzerland for a few days (that's 3 weeks ago).
I was very surprised that they shut it down last weekend. It was running since 1877. It will be replaced with a new metro in 2008. In the meantime 7 buses (from Poland) will transport the passengers.
Ficelle means string (no, not the geeky version) and refers to the fact that the tracks are totally straight.
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Tue, 03 Jan 2006
Before planning your next vacation in Switzerland check out those pictures: http://isdc.unige.ch/~muflon/gallery/geneva/ice/index.html
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Mon, 02 Jan 2006
I do follow quite a few blogs and doing so I come across some random stuff sometimes. But how random is it to then discover a Swiss reference? Not that I would be looking for it obviously... ;)
Example ssahn.com
ssahn.com shows pictures of people that cover one eye. (Did I mention I come across random stuff). I don't remember where I got the link from but I decided to subscribe to the feed because I found it somewhat funny. Plus I wanted to see how the idea spreads.
It all started in Asia in March 2004 if I'm correct. You'll find 2 Swiss (Ralph Schraivogel and Megi Zumstein) in the first month already, staying in Tehran at the time though. Then the idea spread further but apparently not through Swiss connections. In September 2004 three Swiss graphic designers (Niklaus Troxler, Jorg Zintzmeyer, Melchior Imboden) appear, all staying in Beijing at the time. Melchior, makes another appearance over 6 months later from Finland. No other Swiss in this period. In August 2005 Werner Jeker in France followed by three Swiss (Ruedi Ruegg, Giorgio Pesce, Stephan Bundi) from Berlin in September. Then Werner again followed by several (Franzika Raez, Elisabeth Schwarzenbeck, Gregory Vines, Diego Renner, Ahn Seong-Yeon, Kim Ki-Young, Ahn.Jin-Su, Claudia Mareis, Nicole Boillat, Christian Heusser, Barbara Frey, Simon Stotz, Julia Schibler, Tom Ferraro, Madeleine Stahel, Lukas Marti) in Basel and Bern in late December 2005 (including Albert Einstein).
I wonder if any of the participants has looked at this from a social network point of view. Has anyone leveraged this network to generate new connections? They're all graphic designers after all. Why is this phenomenon limited to graphical designers? Did they hear about this idea from Swiss colleagues or internationeal ones?
Search the site to follow the Swiss connection.
The Million Dollar Homepage
Completely different topic. I'm still banging my head against a wall for not having had this idea first. A guy figured it might be a good idea to sell pixels on a homepage for advertisement in order to get rich and created The Million Dollar Homepage. And, being the first, he did get rich. There are thousands of copies/imitations by now but the important thing is to be the first.I never really paid attention to this page because it's not useful at all. It is just interesting as an experiment. I saw it mentioned again today and had a closer look. I discovered a Swiss cross somewhere which prompted me to look at the source and count how many Swiss domain names are present. I'm counting 27! Some of them are small Swiss companies, others are well-known large travel agencies. Some of them are political in nature and others are just simple rip-offs of the idea translated into a Swiss version. And some links are dead.
Makes me wonder if having your ad there works... I can hardly imagine a worse place to have your ad. The page is so cluttered and the ads are so small. If someone happens to click on your ad it's probably more by accident then by choice. So does it work? The site get's quite a bit of traffic. A small click-through-rate (CTR) with a lot of traffic might still result in some new visitors on your site.
I guess it might work for more of a technical reason. Search engines use links to derive a notion of importance and authority for a site. Simplified: More inbound links = higher position in the search results. Some of the search engines look at this network of links over several nodes. The outbound links of a site with a lot of inbound links (like The Million Dollar Homepage) might get a higher weight than on a site like the Swiss-List Blog. If that's true than buying one pixel with a link behind might already be enough to boost your ranking.
2 things are important to mention:
- Search engines are now punishing obvious attempts to game their system. A page like The Million Dollar Homepage that contains nothing but links might be considered abusive and therefore punished. The same might apply to the sites linked from this page.
- The Million Dollar Homepage uses an image map for the links. The search engine spiders and bots have historically had problems interpreting these maps or have decided to ignore them. I don't know what the current status is.
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Or in the 4 official Swiss languages (thanks Jean-Pascal):
- Ein glückliches neues Jahr!
- Bonne année!
- Buon Anno!
- In bun onn nov!
Not official but most frequently used:
Ä guets Neuis!
I'll explain the difference between Swiss-German (the "language" that the majority of Swiss citizens speak) and German (the official language that no one speaks) another time ;)
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Fri, 16 Dec 2005
I just got back to Switzerland for the first time in 1 year. My Swiss-German is a little shaky and sometimes English words come out much to the amusement of my brother.
I was reading CASH and was surprised at how many English words are beeing used in there. Swiss have always been quick at adopting English terms (and almost pronouncing them correctly compared to our German counter parts) and advertisement is full of it. But I was amazed at the extent of usage and and the complexity of some words. I wonder if the Business language in genereal changed or if this is particular to this one publication...
Resistance is futile. Someone tell the French!
Oh, and CASH has blogs now too...
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Sat, 05 Nov 2005
The blog Overheard in New York is probably one of the greatest time sinks. New Yorkers post overheard conversations that make you wonder, sometimes laugh but most of the time just leave you dumbfounded how stupid people are. And when they talk about Swiss cheese, then I have to put it up on the Swiss list blog!
Merchant Marine guy #1: Did you hear that there are like 75 swiss cheese deaths a year?
Merchant Marine guy #2: What? What do you mean?
Merchant Marine guy #1: It's really rare, but sometimes there is a chemical reaction and the cheese blows up in people's stomachs.
Merchant Marine guy #2: That has to be the worst death ever.
Merchant Marine guy #1: Or the best if the guy really loves cheese.
--LIRR
Side notes:
- Swiss cheese in the U.S. refers to Emmentaler.
- Maybe it's the air in the holes that is dangerous? ;)
- So how do the holes get into the cheese?
- I tried to find a good overview of (real) Swiss cheeses. I found this.
- Long list of cheeses (Swiss and others)
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Tue, 25 Oct 2005
Pictures of the de Young museum
c|net has some pictures of the newly opened de Young museum.
The building's copper "skin," conceived by Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, is meant to complement its natural surroundings and evoke dappled sunlight filtered through trees. But some city residents are not all that fond of the design.
Sounds like the collection is pretty high tech and well worth a visit:
The Collection Icons combine advanced video projection, infrared and audio technologies and are among the de Young's numerous high-tech efforts to enrich each visit to the museum.
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Thu, 20 Oct 2005
A slice of Swiss tradition - Raclette cheese ritual binds aficionados
Hey, why didn't anyone tell me about this?!? Did anyone go?
On a brilliant Saturday afternoon earlier this month, members of the Golden Gate Swiss Club gathered under the oaks in Contra Costa County's Briones Regional Park to celebrate one of the tastiest aspects of their heritage: raclette.
Includes addresses in the Bay Area to buy good cheese as well as tips on white wines.
Thanks to Anjana for the hat tip.
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Tue, 11 Oct 2005
de Young Museum Grand Opening - Golden Gate Park, SF
[Via flavorpill]
Closed in 2000, completely demolished, and subsequently rebuilt, this San Francisco institution throws open its doors to the city today and leaves them open through the wee hours.
(...)
The Herzog & de Meuron-designed museum additionally boasts a sunny, lively café that features a few dozen outdoor tables, bringing a much-needed al fresco dining option to the park.
And Herzog & de Meuron are obviously Swiss! From Basel ;). They're also responsible for the Tate Modern in London. (Does anyone have their official website?)
And who's the architect of the MOMA in San Francisco? Mario Botta! And where is he from? Exactly!
Looks like our plan to take over the world is finally coming together...
More info: http://www.thinker.org/deyoung/visiting/subpage.asp?subpagekey=885
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Sat, 24 Sep 2005
Swissnex events in October 2005
- TUESDAY OCTOBER 4, 2005, 6-9.30pm "Content Delivery and Digital Rights Management (DRM)" http://www.swissnex.org/our-actions/events/drm
- TUESDAY OCTOBER 11, 2005, 6.30-9.00pm Opening of art exhibit Philippe Monod (pastels) and Catherine Bolle (acrylic glass sculptures) http://www.swissnex.org/our-actions/events/mobo_open
- OCTOBER 12 - DECEMBER 9, 2005, 11am-6pm Art exhibit Philippe Monod (pastels) and Catherine Bolle (acrylic glass sculptures) http://www.swissnex.org/our-actions/events/mobo_exhibit
The art exhibition sounds interesting to me. I'll probably try to make the opening night. Anyone interested?
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We had another Stammtisch last WED. This time in San Jose's Gordon Biersch. Great location, good food and lots of fun (as usual).
The title of this blog entry suggest a different topic though. I just came across this article on the recent strength of Gold and it's correlation to the Swiss franc. Interesting. And the author has a very Swiss name (but lives in the U.S.).
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Sat, 27 Aug 2005
Have you been wondering why cellphones work better in Europe than the US (in particular with respect to coverage and features?). A friend sent me this article http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8753895 that talks about it, and I also just found this other one http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/63295 about new cell phone coverage in the NY subway (and how "other" subways have had even better coverage for years). Btw., I couldn't care less considering that I don't own a cellphone.
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Mon, 22 Aug 2005
Water II - When the rain doesn't stop
Several areas of Switzerland are fighting floods caused by excessive rain. And it looks like the rain will continue in the next days. You can find online coverage in newspapers like the NZZ or photos on 20min.ch.
P.S. I managed to get a sun burn today. California.
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One of the great traditions in Basel is the Rhine Swim. Thousands of people swim (or float) down the river Rhine right through the heart of the city. The following picture shows how busy it can get. It's truely great to float by all the buildings and see the people hanging out and enjoying the sun.
This article in the BaZ (in English) discusses how Renata von Tscharner would like to make the Charles River in Boston swimable again. Interesting read.
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Thu, 18 Aug 2005
10th European Cycle Messenger Championship 2005
Not the World Championship (see previous post) but at least the European Championship was held in Basel last weekend. Cycle Messenger that is! And Velocite of Lausanne won again. I think they should be nice and let the other guys win next time...
More coverage on their blog. If you're familiar with Basel you might recognise some places on the photos.
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2ème Championnat du monde de FEUILLE CAILLOU CISEAU
Switzerland is once more proving its leading role by organizing the 2ème Championnat du monde de FEUILLE CAILLOU CISEAU in Lausanne on Aug 28, 2005. Don't miss it!
Thanks to Loic in London for the hat tip.
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Mon, 15 Aug 2005
Radio Journalist Robert Zanotti has launched a new audio web site at http://www.switzerlandinsound.com (as a low cost replacement for the now defunct Swiss Radio International which went to an internet only presence at http://www.swissinfo.org )
There is an NZZ article (in German) about this new website: http://www.nzz.ch//2005/08/12/em/articleD167X.print.html
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Sat, 13 Aug 2005
Swiss-talk next week in Mountain View
next Wednesday, August 17, we will have a special event featuring a talk by Jean-Luc Fattebert, Center for Applied Scientific Computing, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, on the topic:
"Research in condensed matter by molecular dynamics simulations on supercomputers"
Abstract: "Molecular dynamics is a computer simulation technique used to study condensed matter at the microscopic level. It involves physics models, mathematical algorithms and efficient computer implementations. Computer simulation results can be compared to experiments to validate models and have a better understanding of microscopic phenomenon (at the atomic level), but also to make predictions beyond experimental capabilities. Applications range from biology to materials science and nanotechnology. In this presentation, I will give a brief overview of the field for non-specialists, with a bias towards my own research area and some of the research in condensed matter carried out at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory."
Like last time, the talk will take place at Jacques' company:
Catalytica Energy Systems, Inc.
Building 4
430 Ferguson Drive
Mountain View, CA-94043
Here is a map, but please come to Building 4 (and not 3 as mentioned on the website)
We will start at 7pm with some networking time, followed by Jean-Luc's presentation.
After the presentation we will meet at the
Tied House for some food and drinks.
Please RSVP before Monday night so we can make sure there are enough chairs in the conference room.
I hope we'll see many of you at this event!
Eric
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Thu, 28 Jul 2005
1st of August is coming up soon. How do you celebrate? Do you celebrate at all?
2 suggestions for the Bay Area from the mailing list (both on July 31, 2005):
- Photo Gallery reception
- 1. August BBQ
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We had another great Stammtisch last week - this time in Sunnyvale. Anisha took some pictures that we could probably share. Sunnyvale has concerts every WED until the end of August. Pretty cool.
The remaining dates in 2005 for the South Bay Stammtisch are: August 17, September 21, October 19, November 16, December 21. Join us!
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Swiss-themed CA vanity licence plates
In California you can get a custom license plate with a word of your choice of up to 7 letters. I mentioned "BASEL FC" in one of my earlier posts.
Yesterday I was driving behind "DAVOS". And the driver looked actually Swiss.
Have you seen any other Swiss-themed vanity license plates? Any suggestions for what I should get? How about "AUG 1ST"? ;)
Do you agree that some people look Swiss?
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Mon, 04 Jul 2005
2 Swiss in the Top 3 Cycle Messengers
A bunch of Swiss cycle messengers were competing at the Annual Cycle Messenger World Championships in New York as I mentioned in my last post.
triple of vélocité explains why he didn't win this year (also read the comments). He came in third in 2005 after winning the previous 2 years. But another Swiss stepped in and made sure the title for the best cycle messenger remains in Swiss hands. Congratulations to Karl from Metrokurier in Basel.
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Wed, 29 Jun 2005
One of the very few Swiss blogs I read regularly is *velocite* the blog of my friends at the cycle messenger vélocite in Lausanne.
Superdom and triple have won pretty much every title from Swiss Champion to European Champion and even World Champion in the last 2 years. If you have ever been to Lausanne you can imagine why!
triple is currently in New York competing at the Annual Cycle Messenger World Championships. And the pressure is on! Le matin asks: Futur roi de New York?
San Francisco has a pretty important cycle messenger culture too. And hills! Good luck from the West Coast!
And this made me laugh: nous transportons tout..
Do you have a favorite Swiss blog?
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Wed, 22 Jun 2005
I remember making fun of the U.S. last year when they had this big power outage. Shouldn't have!
Swiss Rail System Halted Nationwide by Power Outage [Bloomberg]
Schweizer Bahnnetz seit 21.30 Uhr wieder unter Strom [BaZ]
Les CFF ont pété les plombs [24 heures]
An amazing thing usually happens when people are stuck in the same situation: They start to talk together! Maybe we need more of these kinds of incidents so that people are forced to stand still and interact?
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Sat, 18 Jun 2005
More about flight costs
Here some more plots regarding flight costs from SFO to ZRH for three different days. For each the cheapest ticket found on 6 different internet reservation systems is shown for different booking days:
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Thu, 16 Jun 2005
Tale from a US postdoc in Basel
As the article below explains, working in Switzerland can be beneficial for a US postdoc.. and apparently can be also financially attractive. Read the article:
Chronicle Careers: 06/16/2005
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Tue, 14 Jun 2005
Stammtisch today at Alpine Inn Beer Garden
I'm really looking forward to today's Stammtisch. Why? Because it's always fun, very entertaining and interesting.
I hope a lot of people show up. The location sounds very promising! I've never been.
And I'll try to be on time...
If I may quote Eric:
We will meet on Wednesday June 15th starting at 7pm at
Alpine Inn Beer Garden (formerly Rosatti's)
3915 Alpine Road
Portola Valley
650.854.4004
It's located in the hills above Stanford and is a historical landmark. The place looks like an old saloon, and you need to walk through the old bar area to get to the outdoor beer garden (where we should be with the Swiss flag).
Directions from 280, take the Alpine Road exit and go west. Check your odometer as you exit 280.
Roughly 1.9 miles after turning off 280, turn left onto Arastadero Road (sign on left; hard to see, but the only left-hand turn for miles).
Immediately after turning left on Arastadero, turn right into the parking lot of the Alpine Inn Beer Garden.
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NPR & PBS
The US has several large TV networks, some of them well known worldwide (CNN for example). Some of those networks have lots of more or less independent TV stations all over the US that rebroadcast part or all of the programs they get (ABC, CBS, MSNBC are the big ones). All those networks are financed with ads in one way or another and interrupt their program regularly (4-6 times per hour) for ads.
However, there is one special tv and radio network called the "Public Broadcasting System" and "National Public Radio". They are financed via corporate sponsors, private members and federal governement money. They never interrupt their programs with ads (although they have sponsorship messages at the beginning and end of programs). In my opinion this makes them the only watchable TV in the US unless you own a Tivo.
Congress just decided to terminate all funding to this network which jeopardizes many series created by PBS ("Sesame Street" for example is PBS series). There is currently an online signature campaign to stop this bill (organized by MoveOn.org).
PBS
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Thu, 09 Jun 2005
I've been waiting for the right moment to post this for a long time. Looks like it has finally arrived because Scoble just picked it up.
Remember when Google announced Google Maps and everyone went crazy? I didn't quite get it because the same existed for Switzerland before and of at least even quality.
Check it out for yourself! Can you find familiar places?
And stay tuned for the MSN version of it. Is Yahoo! busy too? Some claim that Yahoo! Maps are useful (live traffic information) where as Google Maps are nice and fun.
Swiss Quality ;)
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