| |

unseasonal heat

Byrichard

In Austria, there’s a pollen warning. Apparently the lack of frost has encouraged the trees and other plants to begin releasing pollen. That’s quite amusing. We have the same temperatures in central Europe as you’d expect to have down in the south

Israel has seen snow but the resorts can’t open because of the lack.

Where is winter? Is it hiding in the south? Should people go on skiing holidays with their bikes and hiking boots rather than snowboards and skies?

On the Porte du Soleil ski pass you’ll see that they advertise their summer time activities like downhill mountain biking.

Apple’s phone

Byrichard

It’s a nice screen, it’s a laptop replacement similar to the phone I’ve had for two or three months but the hard drive is much better.

He advertised all these features as new yet I’ve got most of those capabilities already so I’m laughing slightly. I was just two months ahead of that particular market.

I’m wondering about wifi access. How easy is it to connect to password-protected networks and how strong is the antenna?. Would it work only on open networks?

I like the screen but where’s the keyboard for fast texting? How easily will it scratch?

I know at least one person that’s going to be looking forward to the PVR with integrated wifi although I don’t find it interesting because the hard drive is too small at the moment. The fact you can stream from five computers at once is nice.

Cooking at the table

Byrichard

It’s a wooden tray with two sauces on the left, a dish to the right with chips, at the back some vegetables. Front and centre you find a slab of stone. It’s very hot. That’s because it’s Entrecote sur ardoise, similar to a steak. There’s a hot slab of stone and you use it to cook your meal on top. It’s delicious.

|

Television Series

Byrichard

I love watching television series on DVD and straight from the hard disk. You never understand the complexity of the storyline until you spend 12 hours or more watching entire seasons of series like Scrubs or House.

If you look at the series scrubs you’ll get to know the characters very well and they’ll become far more interesting than if you were to watch only an episode a week. That’s probably why they have channels where you run a series every day for a number of days before going back to the beginning again. The best example of that is the Simpsons and Mash. How many times have you seen certain episodes?

Recently I enjoyed watching the series House because it’s analytical nature. You’ve got a patient and you run tests, and lot’s of lumbar punctures. For some reason that seems to be one of the favourites… probably because it’s the most interesting.

When I finished watching a few episodes I saw how greatly I enjoyed the series but more than that how diagnostic you think you become. I don’t mind that you can cure diseases or anything of the sort. I mean that the series is exploring how reason and empirical knowledge can accumulate so that when you see something out of the ordinary you try to understand it. You start to notice smaller things. It’s great for students, It’ll encourage you to diagnose various situations and find solutions.

The most recent series I’ve been watching is Dexter. After I came back from New York I was curious about the program. The adverts had peaked my curiosity therefore I had to find a way by which to access the series. I’ve been watching the series and I’m enjoying it. I watched the first episode on my video iPod, to see just how watchable series were on an i-pod. It’s not that bad. I watched the next two or three episodes on my laptop since that’s more comfortable.

The beauty of holidays is staying in a quiet place and doing what you want, driving around and more. It’s just over a week until I go back to England and the fun starts again.

|

Too much listening to podcasts.

Byrichard

I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts over the past few days. i had to catch up with all those I haden’t taken the time to listen to over the last few months.

It’s amusing. in “96 I began working on my website, in 2007 I uploaded it and since then I’ve been following everything that’s happened. I’ve seen as some new things became old and old things became new again with time.

How many people remember Geocities, Angelfire and other projects? I remember them. I remember when I started trying to get people to contribute to my website because I didn’t have time to produce the content. It didn’t work. That was web 2.0 several years before the time.

I remember 6 degrees.com, a website that attempted to do something which is becoming more standard as new social networking websites come of age. Look at myspace, look at youtube and Flickr. Each one concentrates on your interest, whether music, video, or video. Everything the youth enjoy. Rupert Murdoch is attempting to join the fun.

It bothers me that people are putting so much content on myspace without attempting to put that content onto their own domain names and websites. Why should I create content only to have a billionaire make a little extra money when the content is mine.

The challenge for me is to find how to create content, host it myself, and then make money through other people showing interest. Over time it should improve.

A site I like at the moment is Facebook because of how much information is available. The user interface is good, the add ons are interesting. If I create a post in a blog on my own website it’ll automatically be synchronized with Facebook for people to come to and read.

It’s also where people I haven’t seen for over a decade re-appear and I can see how things have evolved since last time. We’ve grown up.

|

On thermal inversions

Byrichard

Thermal inversions are a great part of life in valleys. Whilst you’re living down in the glacial trough you’re waking up every morning to the knowledge that you won’t see the sun for the next few days… until the wind shifts.

If you’ve got the time during daylight hours though you have the option of going up to the mountains. It’s at this point that you can enjoy the sun. As you walk in the Jura at the moment you’ll find that there are long plaques of ice and they’re slippy whilst in direct sunlight. In the shade traction from normal shoes is possible and walking is not that complicated.

There are different types of ice, that which is transparent, where you see the leaves and other objects, that which is white, from too much oxygen and then the mixture where it’s a little of both.

Many families were walking today, some were struggling and others treated the landscape like a giant playground. Some people spoke French, others, German, Italian, Spannish and more. It was international.

Sometimes when I walk there are hardly any sounds and it’s good, a break from London and student life.

The night before Christmas

Byrichard

It’s the night before Christmas day and it’s been relaxed.

With the thermal inversion it’s easy to get above the clouds, simply get in a car and go to the mountains and you’ll get a nice view of the sunshine. We went to the vallée de Joux and that’s where you find many of the watch factories. This includes Audemars Piguet amongst others.

Tomorrow’s Christmas day, then 6 days till the new year.

| |

Embouteillage pour cause de sapin sur l’autoroute a1 en direction de Lausanne Blecherette

Byrichard

I went snowboarding at it was great fun. At some moments the snow was great fun so it felt really good. I love the feeling of snowboarding at a fast rate down ski slopes and keeping up with skiers who don’t mind waiting too much.

All the snow canons were active because there’s a lack of natural precipitation. Some resorts are worried about what to do but as long as it’s cool then fake snow can be created to make a base on which for skiers to have fun. It’s tomorrow the resorts open properly, when all the tourists arrive.

On the way home on the radio I heard there was a traffic jam on the way to lausanne due to a christmas tree being on the road and I burst out laughing. only in Switzerland would you hear such a traffic jam warning.

| |

On it being cold but sunny

Byrichard

It’s winter, I can tell. There are icicles hanging from the metal parts and the wooden covers are on fountains to prevent them from freezing entirely. Add to this my birthday yesterday and the winter tires today and there’s no mistaking this time of year.

I worked on my dissertation yesterday, seeing how familiar I am with certain elements of the documentary genre. I watched a few open university documentaries about the university and there’s one that makes me want to go back to Sienna to see the building in more detail. I’ll wait till the summer.