From Monday to Thursday I have been in Düsseldorf attending an industry trade show. It has been four largely uneventful days, except for one incident that was particularly disturbing. I will write about it in a separate post.
Lots of walking, trains, meetings, and random thoughts:
Why does the baker not let me take a picture of one of their St. Martin`s Day “Weckmann”? There was a time, years ago, when I could speak some German.
I spent Wednesday evening and most of Thursday in Zürich.
On Wednesday I had dinner with some business partners; “business as usual”.
But on Thursday, after my business presentation to potential customers, I had the very rare and exclusive opportunity to visit one of the main data centers in Switzerland. Here are some impressive facts about them:
they host 1/3 of Swiss banks data internet traffic = 40% of Switzerland’s internet traffic energy bill = 2 million Swiss Franks per annum 2 different energy suppliers from 2 different access points, with preferential oil supply in case of a failure (full reserves for 5 days for the generators) almost 50 telecoms suppliers, from many different countries, providing direct access for their customers worldwide RFIDs paired with 3D fingerprint scanners which measure the fingerprint but also the morphology, pulse and temperature separate isolated room to open packages, to minimize the risk of fire single person magnetic doors temperature, movement, and sound sensors double-gated entrance even to the parking lot!
Tuesday was a very nice day in London, which was convenient because I decided to walk to my two appointments, which were quite far apart.
First I met with a PR firm. You know their founders are into art when in the meeting room we were in (one of many) they had a J. Opie and a W. Hewett. Nice. Bonus points.
Then I walked to the Japanese Embassy, where I had been invited to a symposium on big data research for dementia (actually, I chuckled when I thought that, in a way, it could be argued that “big data seems to cause dementia in some vendors”) 😉
On Monday I traveled to Paris for a quick meeting.
It was my first time on the Eurostars train, and I love it: to be able to work all the way from downtown London to downtown Paris, without wasting time going back and forth airports, and having a very reliable punctuality, is great.
In Paris I met a business partner briefly at the Gare du Lyon, and then my customers at Le Train Blue restaurant and business space.
Sunday November 8th we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum for some educational fun weekend.
I love the V&A for its interesting variety. We saw sculptures (although lot more Rodin than Bernini), Medieval objects (from reliquaries to clothing and drawings), and some fine examples of Japanese design.
In the Science Museum we went to see the small but extremely interesting exhibition on Ada Lovelace’s history. We learned a lot and I believe it was a great inspiration to my son.
On Friday November 6 I was invited to a Scientific Symposium on Translational Research, held at the Biotech Innovation Center. The fun part was to stop at the Royal Veterinary College cafeteria, with their interesting museum.
On Friday November 6, on my way to a meeting, I stopped by the British Library. It had been quite a long time since I had been there.
You need a special permit to use their volumes, but they have a very active schedule of events and presentations, and a wonderful museum.
Amongst the “treasures” they have, there are manuscripts from Mozart (‘Verzeichnüss aller meiner Werke’), Beethoven, Magna Carta, John Lennon, Percy Bysshe Shelley (‘The Mask of Anarchy’), and many other historically relevant documents, like the first printed music in western musical notation using Gutemberg’s movable type (Southern Germany c.
