Don't be evil!

Good news in my bank account statement today - a wire payment from a Dublin based finance services firm, representing no other than Google! This is the first payment ever that I receive as a result from my Adsense membership and people using those ads. Great - it actually pays for two months of internet access. Never mind that it's the first payment in four years' worth of membership ...

Betting against Jobs

We've been fairly early in beginning to speculate that Steve Jobs might sooner or later end his tenure at Apple - some will say, way too early, especially seeing how discussions are heating up again following Apple's cancellation of its Macworld participation. But now, we have it from His Steveness, namely that he is not intending to step down just now. 

On the very same day, intrade has opened two contracts where participants can speculate about whether Jobs will resign before June or December 09. I'll make sure to keep watching. There's no trading so far, and both contracts are at about 20% likelihood. If you own AAPL, you may want to go long those contracts ...

Renewing MobileMe

On my last trip to London, I picked up a boxed MobileMe activation key at the Regent Street Apple store. On account of Sterling dropping like a stone, this works out substanially cheaper than renewing online in the local currency, and it actually works! Although I'll say that Apple doesn't exactly go out of its way to make it easy - the option is absent from inside your MM account. You have to use this link - which I obtained from MM support via a pleasant online chat. It was the first time I actually used that support feature, and it worked really well, so thanks for that!

Sternstunden

This is quite a magic moment in Swiss TV, indeed - it's an interview with Harro von Senger, Swiss sinologist who popularised the Chinese 36 Stratagems in western thinking. In this programme, he discusses both the concept of stratagems as well as his most recent book Moulüe which reveals an ultra-long term, targeted thinking that is beyond what we consider to be strategic. The discussion, or rather, the somewhat clumsily scripted monologue is a useful first introduction into von Senger's subject. It is interesting to observe how very outlandish that subject appears to be to his interviewers, even though they have evidently done their homework. 

I've read Moulüe a while back, and I've been fascinated by the book. Von Senger's writing is chattier than his TV presence, meaning that it has its lengths. But these lengths are filled with a lot of erudite detail about Chinese literature and practice, so they are easily suffered. The concept itself of thinking "strategically" (for lack of a better word) over multiple generations with a view to a defined objective is quite an eye-opener, especially in conjunction with dialectical materialism as practised by the Communist Party. Many think that China has gone native with capitalism, but I have my doubts ...

The Switch

I just switched. But don't worry, I am still a Mac fan. Although the switch is PC-related, because I switched the vehicle of my virtual PC. Hitherto I used to be a Parallels customer, but now, I've taken advantage of VMware's CyberMondayDeal which is only valid today. You get their Fusion 2 product for 50% off, which is just about as much as the upgrade to Parallels' version 4 would cost. Since reviews give a slight advantage to VMware over Parallels, there's not much point in staying with Parallels because they seem to be milking their customer base all along the upgrade path, which VMware doesn't. 

Hurry, the offer is up just a few more hours ...

Loose that chill

On both of my recent trips to London, I've brought home a bottle of non-chill filtered single malt from the smallish duty free that is available at the City Airport - a 10 years old Ardbeg and a 16 years old Glenlivet "Nadurra". This is noteworthy because I think (I hope) it's indicative of a trend: distillers seem to increasingly loose the chill-filtering process. As a veteran member of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society, I've grown to love their stuff, all of which is cask samples, i.e. not chill filtered and undiluted. To me, chill filtering is nonsensical as it removes not just clouding factor caused by etheric oils, but also a major taste dimension that is fairly easily discernible to the palate. Luckily this realisation seems to be gaining traction. So, next time you are having a Scotch (or two), try the difference. You're not going to want to go back.

Google babble

With the new version 2.2 of its operating system, iBonePhone (that's my new wallpaper btw) has finally become a rock-solid, dependable everyday tool that does everything (& more) and is genuinely fun to use. The battery survives a full day of heavy use now, it doesn't crash, no dropped calls to date, the handling is responsive and smooth, and each day, you discover new things to do with it. Just check out the Google Mobile app, for instance: start it, lift it to your ear, state your search terms and listen to a soft babble for a few moments while Google does its thing until you're presented with the results for your query. The babble - it's just this sort of attention for minute, apparently superfluous detail that makes using it such an enjoyable experience. For my next trip to London on Wednesday, I'm not taking a laptop - enough said. 

Orange trickery

Kassensturz revealed that my mobile phone service provider Orange has just hiked their talk rates illicitly (via small print) by moving from precise (per second) charging to charging in ten second intervals. This amounts to a hidden rate hike that will increase their revenue by about 15 to 30 Mio CHF per annum, according to Kassensturz. The programme is fair enough to mention that both major competitors (sunrise and swisscom) already charge in ten second intervals, so Orange obviously came to the conclusion that their more favourable terms are not paying off in terms of ARPU and/or retention. Alas, I'll have to have a closer look at what's on offer when my contract comes up for renewal ... meanwhile, tish & pish to Orange!

P.S. Most strangely of all, Orange has managed to charge my iPhone only yesterday, a full four months after delivery. Thank you for that unexpected generosity, Orange!

The Ricola man, turbo-charged

A wonderful piece of self-irony, playing on virtually all stereotypes about Switzerland and the Swiss - enjoy!

J to L

The seventh of fourteen volumes of the Historic Encyclopedia of Switzerland (HLS) has just appeared - yes, they keep printing encyclopedias on dead trees. But it's all good - the full text of all articles is available simultaneously in German, French and Italian (and partially in Romansh, too!) and can be referenced directly. No pictures, though; strangely, they are reserved to the print edition. 

As an example, here's the article about eminent historian Jacob Burckhardt (1000 words), and here it is in the Wikipedia edition (1438 words, 2 pictures plus a number of links, among others to the HLS article). For good measure, Britannica invests 1791 words. True, the number of words is not relevant: I prefer an efficient (terse?) text over a verbose one any day, but why they would use quite so many abbreviations in the HLS is beyond me. I prefer the Wikipedia article for its more comprehensive overview of Burckhardt, whereas the HLS shines on the substance of Burckhardt's work. It's a pity, though, that the editors haven't recognised that printed encyclopedias are definitely a thing of the past. Yet, their key remit is to produce a printed encyclopedia. But then again, they are historians for a reason ...