Personal
-
I'm just taking a few days off to visit family in Italy. We're sitting in a brand-new EuroCity train on its way from Bern to Milano Centrale. Aside from it being very comfortable – which is new, most of the other times I've made this journey have been in cattle-wagons – it's got one cool feature I hadn't seen before and simply had to mention: real-time tracking of our progress inside Google Earth displayed on overhead screens inside the cabin. Now you needn't even look out of the window to see where you are! Simply marvelous! Unfortunately this visualization of…
-
Joyeux Noël, 圣诞快乐, Frohe Weihnachten, عيد ميلاد مجيد, Nollaig Shona, メリークリスマス, Nadolig Llawen, 즐거운 성탄절 되세요, Buon Natale, क्रिसमस की शुभकामनाएँ, Feliz Natal, חנוכה שמח, Feliz Navidad, สุขสันต์ วัน คริสต์มาส, Vrolijk Kerstfeest, С Рождеством!!! I've now officially started my Christmas holiday, which means my blogging/tweeting will be almost non-existent until the second week of January. Unless I get bored, of course, but then as I've just managed to get our digital cable box replaced, granting much-missed access to British TV stations (BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, ITV2, Film 4), I suspect you won't hear all that much from me over the festive…
-
Important note: If you're only interested in programming-related posts (rather than those related to interpersonal or possibly human-computer interaction) please stop reading. I lived in the US between 2000 and 2003, and have since kept a bank account there which – among other things – makes online shopping easier, on occasion. Anyway, my bank over there (which shall remain nameless) has recently changed their policy regarding my account, as my salary is being paid elsewhere: basically they wanted to start charging me a $9.95 monthly fee. I phoned the bank and negotiated a fee waiver for the coming 12 months,…
-
Our first daughter, Anokhi, was born yesterday evening at 22:46 CET, weighing 3.38 kg and measuring 47.5 cm in length. Her older brothers Kalan and Zephyr were thrilled to meet her today. I'll be on vacation properly from next week - spending time with our newly super-sized family - but will probably manage to squeeze in another post or two before mother and baby get home from the hospital.
-
As those of you following me on Twitter may know, I spent Monday morning at Milan Design Week. I had a couple of reasons for being in Milan at this time. Firstly, my grandmother now lives there, so I spent Sunday evening (the evening of her birthday) with her and my Milan-resident family. The second reason was Milan Design Week. In recent weeks I've been in touch with a Swedish designer, Staffan Holm, who I knew would be exhibiting at SaloneSatellite during this year's Milan Design Week. SaloneSatellite is the general-admission (i.e. it's free to get in) section of the…
-
MI can safely say that this was my most enjoyable (and exhausting) Autodesk University so far. This post contains a "blow by blow" account of my involvement in this year's event, to give a feel for what it was like (from my perspective, at least). Monday Before AU proper I attended two great events: our ADN conference - attended by upwards of 400 people - and Autodesk's inaugural Design Computation Symposium. I found it very interesting to see some of the capabilities of algorithmic design, an area I've started to get involved in and a theme that continued during the…
-
It looked like the perfect trip across to AU: the train connection was good, so even though I had a 9am flight from Geneva to Newark I could leave my house at 6am and still make it (even after dinner at friends' the night before, but that's another story). The flight itself went well: I'd managed to snag a bulkhead seat - the first row in economy - and had an empty seat next to me. I even slept for a few hours, which is really rare for me on a flight. I got off the plane really quickly, got…
-
I've been meaning to do something like this for a while, ever since I bought a Flip video camera, back in July. Here's a (nearly) 10 minute segment where I talk a little bit about myself. If you found this interesting (or boring and irrelevant) please say so in a comment. Be sure to let me know if there are further topics you'd like to hear me talk about.
-
Today is a national holiday in Switzerland: the Jeûne Fédéral, or national fasting day (here is some related information), although I have to admit I haven't done anything of the sort. In fact I may just have done the complete opposite. Oh well. I didn't get the chance to put together a technical post for today, but did want to share a book I'm re-reading, 15 years after I first read it, and getting on for 30 years since it was written. This book is an incredible piece of literature, and is certainly the geekiest (in a good way) Pulitzer-winner…
-
Many of you will have noticed the blog's new design. Hopefully you will find the new look both pleasing to the eye and easier to read/navigate (I personally like the new design very much - even down to the way the comments are now listed and something as fundamental as the font's typeface and colour). There may be a few differences - such as the display of one month's post history in calendar view, rather than three - but I expect to readjust these items over the coming weeks. I'm also hoping to find a way to provide a master…
