Making it official: We’re moving to Lausanne!
I’ve been wanting to yell this from the rooftops for a while, and now I can! I’ve been hired as a senior software engineer in the Nestle Institute for Health Sciences’ bioinformatics team. I start in July, and that means that Katy, Bean, the cats, the dog and I are moving to Switzerland :)
I’d sent an application a while ago when I was looking into what was available out there, post-EBI, but hadn’t really heard anything back. Then, out of the blue, I get contacted for several hours of phone interviews, followed by F2F interviews in Lausanne. It’s been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for the last couple of weeks, oscillating between “yay, OMGWTFBBQ!!!!” to “shit, what the hell have we done?!” Logically and emotionally, the upsides outweigh the downsides, but it’s still going to be a major upheaval and a sharp shock to the system. I mean, how many times in a lifetime does a job pop up out of blue and then you move to another country?
The project itself is insanely ambitious, and there’s going to be lots of work to keep me busy and happy. The project has been described as “hiring the team that will design and build a plane that’s already flying”. I’ve spoken with a few expats that are either in Lausanne from the UK or in the UK from Switzerland and they’re all mostly positive about the quality of life. There will be a bit of culture shock (everything is SO BLOODY EXPENSIVE!!!!!) but we’re actually looking forward to it.
So yeah, watch this space, because in the coming months, I might be losing my mind trying to get everything sorted out to ship all of us over there. The plan, once we’re all settled in, is to get Bean ready for school and for Katy to become a lady of leisure for a year or so while her french improves to the point where she can be a care worker again.
Oh yeah, we’re also looking for a house with a spare bedroom, in case anybody wants to come over for a visit :)
Yo-Yo Ma, Bach Cello Suite No.1 – Prelude
This is a beautiful Cello piece, played by a master. Sit back and enjoy.
I’ve had dreams like this :)
You must be logged in to be able to see this content.
[Gallery] Juan Osborne
A picture is worth a thousand words, but a Spanish artist has turned that concept on its head with these images which each contain up to 200,000 words of varying lengths, heights and colours. They are so detailed that from afar, each simply looks like a picture But on closer inspection hundreds of thousands of words can be seen making up every minute detail. Amateur Spanish artist Juan Osborne, who scours speeches, lyrics and books for the words used, creates the masterpieces dubbed word art.
Each one is painstakingly pieced together using home made software designed by Juan on his laptop – which he takes with him everywhere. He creates the images in coffee shops, on trains, in dentist waiting rooms and even on the sly at work. They take him three days to complete with larger ones taking up to a week. He first isolates the main image from its background on an image editor, then uses the picture as a template to spread thousands of words one by one across the image until every space is filled. By changing the size and colour Juan is able to create different shades and colour to bring the pieces to life.
Juan sais: ‘Words are powerful, they go straight into the human mind and really add something to my pictures that you can’t get from a regular picture taken with a camera. Mine have stories behind them that can be read, which is pretty unique. I’ve made so many now that I’ve got the process down to a tee and can churn out a lot in a short space of time – maybe just a few days each.’
He added: ‘People are surprised when I tell them that my work is created using a standard netbook and software that I built myself – which is very basic. There are no limits to creativity – if I need something or think of a new way to make something I just create a new application to do it. I feel free without the need for commercial software.’
The 40-year-old, from Madrid, stumbled across his new found talent while working at an architectural firm in 2009. He has since created more than 500 word art images in his spare time.
I thought I was a fan
…. but this takes serious dedication!
Epic Rap Battles of History
The record-breaking digital series “Epic Rap Battles of History” (ERB), created by Peter Shukoff (aka Nice Peter) and Lloyd Ahlquist (aka EpicLLOYD), features comedic rap battles between historical and/or pop culture figures—such as Albert Einstein vs. Stephen Hawking and Steve Jobs vs. Bill Gates. The series, which airs on the YouTube channel /ERB, is currently the most viewed format on YouTube on a per episode basis.
Now that was a good meal
Katy and I took advantage of the fact that my mom was in the UK last night and had our first dinner out in (more than) 2 years. We went to the Cross Keys in town. It was a really good meal and they really took care of us. I had a starter of bubble and squeak with bacon and a poached egg, followed by a nice steak with chips, mushrooms and a blue cheese sauce and a lemon cheesecake for dessert. Katy had a smoked salmon starter, duck and roast veg for main and the same cheesecake for pud. We had a nice bottle of Brunello, and when the pub owner heard of our lack of nights out, he gave us a shot of vodka with lime and lemongrass (really nice!). We were playing “guess where the hostess is from”, because her accent was really hard to pin down. Turns out that, after a series of clues including the fact that her country once won eurovision, we narrowed it down to Latvia. She was really nice, and gave us contacts for babysitting. She also extracted a promise from us to come back within a month :-) all in all, a nice evening.
Calvin & Hobbes
All of these are animated GIFs. Click for the full picture. These are all based on the work of someone else: https://www.facebook.com/CalvinAndHobbesGifs
[Gallery] Oliver Jeffers
Bean loves all of the books written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers :)
Update:
