A musical black swan

Reading this fun conversation on literature ("I no longer understand what arrogant means") between Nassim Taleb and Rolf Dobelli gave rise to the discovery of a musical black swan when Taleb mentions that musicians don't do music about music. As you now know, Glenn Gould did, and he certainly was a musician, even though one of black swan quality.

A favourite of mine

This is a piece I can never get enough of - clever, smart, complex ... you can just see the composer having fun in writing it! Glenn Gould rules.

Oratio brevissima

P6059747
Originally uploaded by chdreyer

Salvete amicae, salvete amici,
sed primo ordine, Salve uxor nova, maritus novus!
Mea maxima delectatio et honor est orationem in honorem maritorum novorum facere!
Non timete - oratio mea simplex et parvula erit. Pariter parvula ac Romana nova vel Romanus novus in utero uxoris. Tandem hodie causa ceremoniae nostrae est, et non lucra tributorum, quod mariti dicunt aride et sine passione. Malum simulacrum et excusatio redunda est, quoniam excusatio opus non est pro festum celebrare.
Ita desidero ut mariti nostri habent maximum felicitatis et valetudinis, et multos liberos - non modo pro FCB futuro aut Oranjes futuros!
Sed quomodo dixit Asterix? Nunc est bibendum!
Itaque vitra surgite!
Thomas - vale! Wenda - vale! Coniuges - valete!

Romani ite domum!

My nephew Tomi's other hobby horse on Swiss TV for your viewing pleasure ... enjoy!

Never eat alone

Perhaps you've heard of the self-development book by the same title? I haven't read it, and I'm pretty sure that my dog hasn't, either. And yet, she seems to be much more business-minded than her master, because she actually refuses to eat without company, even though the food bowl is right next to her bed. Very odd.

Remote birthday

I'm not trying to escape from a party - far from it - but I'll be spending my birthday this year in Florida at a CFA conference. Leaving tomorrow, back on 1 May. See you then ... and don't forget to drop all these presents!

Watch before breakfast

... and your day starts in a good mood!

Rom, die Nietkopen

No idea why I haven't posted this when it actually came out ... especially since I contributed the subtitles. Have fun with my nephew Tomi's latest opus magnum!

Another trip, another gadget

Coming home from my latest London trip on Thursday night, I found a nice surprise: Following my rather favourable comments and suggestions about their mobile charger, Lifetrons sent me their Xmini capsule speaker - thank you very much! Now, although you're apparently not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, that's exactly what I'm going to do:

The Xmini is a tiny technical miracle the size of a golf ball that's been chewed on by Laika - when closed. When opened, it folds out like an accordion to provide the resonating cavity required for a mighty big audio effect. Hearing is believing! It comes with a double mini-USB cable that plugs into the device and a powered USB port (for charging only) or a 3.5 mm audio out port suitable for most devices. An amazing little thing!

But again, under-marketed. Those Lifetrons guys need to do something, and quick, the competition isn't sleeping. Compare the Powerstick - it doesn't even pack a sixth of the performance of the Lifetrons product (which is still not available on their own web store!) with a similar form factor, but it is much more visible and will therefore sell a lot better. Wake up, guys!

SBB's iPhone plans

This blog is slowly mutating into an iPhone blog, what with the slow frequency that my few readers must have noticed. The reason for that btw is that I've become more active on facebook for very short links and notes and stuff. If you want to keep up with what's going on, move over to my fb profile and find out whether I want to be friends with you ;)

But back to the topic at hand: Yesterday, the Swiss Railways SBB have gone public with a mobile phone based ticket shop. Me being the avid rail traveller that I am, I tried to upgrade my account to it straight away, only to find out that the shop is not compatible with iPhone! Seeing how iPhone has a wide distribution in the Swiss market, and iPhone users tend to be heavy web users on the road, that surprising, to say the least.

But chances are that this is a transient issue, as I heard today from SBB: A version 2.5 of their app is already in the works and scheduled to see the light of day at the beginning of March. This version should take care of the stability issues that continue to crash the app on my phone. And by mid year, the app is planned to include the mobile ticketing feature! Now if that doesn't sound like good news!