One of my favorite things to do in Paris, was find a nice place to sit down and have a 'steak tartare' for lunch. This series, with my photo impressions of living in Paris and wandering the streets, started off with a picture of a nice tartare, and it is a good a subject as any t end the series. A week ago I moved definitely out of Paris, and France even. So what better final snapshot of Lutetia than one depicting the condiments needed to self-prepare the tartare as it should be, served in the brasserie of Hotel Lutetia. Paris is a great city to live in, and I have enjoyed it thoroughly. Now, the new adventure in Riga has started. Which also means a shift of focus in the almost weekly photo-post. From next week on, it will be renamed to Postcard from the Baltics.
You see it happen from time to time: twitter accounts that suddenly send out a strange message. Mainly in the form of a Direct Message. And then, suddenly, it happens to you. Today, at around 10h30 CET my twitter account sent out DMs containing the text 'This you????' and a link. Let me tell you: it is not funny. You feel, and probably are, responsible for it and maybe people trust you enough to click on the malicious link. Fortunately, some of my followers replied immediately with questions and warnings, so I could act quickly, albeit too late to stop the DMs.
Anyway, I have learned something from it, which I think is good to share. So here are my five tips which I hope will prevent you from experiencing the same thing:
- Make sure you have a password that Twitter considers to be 'Very Strong'. Use upper and lower case character, use numbers and use special characters all in your password. Make sure it is at least 8 characters long.
- Change your password regularly.
- Do not enter your account/password combination on other sites. Use the Twitter oAuth functionality.
- Regularly go to Settings > Connections and verify if you still want all these applications to have access to your twitter account.
- If you find out: immediately let people know what's going on. Apologise, explain and thank them for warning you.
Right. Again I lost a coin to a machine. And it wasn't even a gambling one. It was one of those regular coffee vending machines you find in office buildings all over the world. One of those machines that give not very good coffee in exchange for some coins. We have several in our building, where roughly 600 people work. The machines are exploited by an unknown company. At least, unknown to the users. There is no contact information for the owner of the machines. At least not visible. Normally, I use one of those chip-keys. You plug it in, throw some cash in the machine, and it adds to your balance. Then you can use the balance to buy the coffee. Nice technology, but... it doesn't always work as expected. About 4 times in an 19 month period, it failed to add a coin to the balance. And I did not get the coin back. In total I probably lost the not schocking amount of 3 Euro. Small enough not to be bothered. Until you start doing the math, with some assumptions of course.
So, say I've lost about 2,50 EUR in a year's time. And assume that I am not alone, but that this happens to roughly 50 percent of potential machine users (600 in the building, meaning 300 that have a similar experience). For our building, that means 300 x 2,50 = 750 Euro per year. Then assume this nameless company has roughly 100 similar clients, not unimaginable in the Paris/Ile-de-France area. That means 100 x 750 = 75.000 Euro per year of pure extra income.
Or am I just being paranoid?
Yesterday, 20 years ago, was my 17th birthday. A Saturday that I remember rather well. Maybe even best of all my birthdays. There was, in the early afternoon, some of the family over in the house, and maybe even a friend or two. Actually, it was not really special, because probably we had already celebrated it on the Friday night before. You know how that goes at this age: you're in a bar with friends, clock strikes 12 and there is another reason to have more fun. Anyway, back to that Saturday. The phone rings, a fixed line as mobile phones were still heavier than an elephant and mainly used by drugs dealers, and since it was my birthday, I pick it up. A friend, obviously calling me to congratulate me. Nice, but there was something in his voice. Then he aplogized: he had something to say, even if it was my birthday. The father of one of our friends, part of our group, had died that morning. The worst thinkable birthday gift you can get maybe, but, it was obviously not about me. The guy whose father died, was 2 years younger than I, and it is totally horrible if you lose your dad at that age. I cannot imagine the feeling. And since he was my friend, the birthday fun was over. Not that I cared very much for my birthday anyway, but this was it: the brithday absolutely had no significance anymore. Who cares about a cake and presents when a friend just lost his father. So, wherever you are Jan, we lost contact along the way, but I still remember that day. Just hope we were there for you then. And then, the next day, 20 years ago today, everything turned around. It was one of the greatest days in modern history. The unthinkable, which was at that time actually to be expected, happened. Nelson Mandela was released from prison. I can vividly remember being glued to the tv, watching the gates open and Mr Mandela walking out, iconic fist in the air. History in the making. Afterwards, he proved to be a truly great man. With these events happening, who cares any longer for their birthday? Sure, I like a bit of attention, and I like to get gifts, but sometimes, I think back to that weekend 20 years ago. And then I realize there are quite a few things that just matter more. And I am glad to have witnessed this one, even if it was far away behind a tv set. So, if you think of giving me a (belated) birthday present: thank you, but don't. Bring some flowers to the final resting place of a lost loved one, or donate some money to a charity. For instance the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
I am a nomad, it's official now.
In a temporary place I live,
To move to the next place soon.
And after that another one,
Of which I know I'll leave it anyhow.
I enjoy being a nomad, I know now.
Moving from place to place,
Home to home, country to country.
Taking with me new experiences
along the way, new habits, new culture.
Always growing and learnig somehow.
No more fixed places, the world completly open.
Opportunities everywhere.
A nomad I am.
The Champs-Elysées is generally known for the shops that are almost always open. The area between the Arc de Triomphe and the Rond Point (des Champs-Elysées et Marcel Dassault) is practically always buzzing with people. And then, normally, it gets a bit quiter. The part between Rond Point and Concorde is mainly green. No shops to be found. You have the Grand and Petit Palais, and then greenery and park. This is a great spot for exhibitions and events. The christmas market, the finish of the Tour de France; 100 years of aviation, a Bugatti show and now a hommage to Clint Eastwood. I wonder whether in Riga there is such a place...
When I started working in Paris, a lot of my friends and colleagues, not only from the Netherlands, assumed that I was working in La Défense. The business district just west of Paris. In fact, the office I work in is in Saint Cloud, about 10 minutes south of La Défense with the tramway. But assuming that someone working for one of the bigger companies in Paris, is located in La Défense is not strange at all. In fact, most of the big French corporations, including my employer, have offices in this business center of Paris. Even so, there is business life outside La Défense.
Dressing up shop windows for the Christmas season, is something the Dutch do not specialize in. Of course, there is some special decoration, but not as abundant as in other countries. Sure, De Bijenkorf branches have their Sinterklaas and Christmas tricks, but that is mostly inside the shops. In Paris, however, it is a yearly event. People go out to look at what Printemps, La Fayette and Bon Marché have come up with. This year, the general theme seems to be moving puppets. In the picture, one of the windows of Printemps, especially made for Chanel.
Zoals elk jaar, heb ik de Kerst toespraak van Koningin Beatrix gemist. Gelukkig verscheen op Twitter al snel een link naar de volledige tekst. Dat is het mooie van twitter, vanachter een computer scherm kijk je naar berichten van mensen die je vertrouwt, tot op zekere hoogte. En die berichten leiden je vaak naar interessante inzichten, beter begrip voor andere standpunten, en waardevolle informatie. En daar hebben we gelijk een mooie brug naar de Kersttoespraak. Hoewel ik zeer veel voel voor de oproep tot gemeenschapszin die Koningin Beatrix doet, ik ben het sterk oneens met de notie dat het contact vanachter het scherm daar een tegengestelde kracht op vormt. Niet alleen is er al aardig wat wetenschappelijk onderzoek gedaan waaruit blijkt dat Social Computing een positief effect kan hebben in het opbouwen van teams en het bewerkstelligen van vertrouwen. Twee aspecten die aan gemeenschapszin zeker bijdragen. Daarnaast zijn er ook voorbeelden van hoe dat in werkelijkheid er aan toe kan gaan. Een voorbeeld uit mijn eigen ervaringen dit jaar, is de 10K4N Challenge die ik organiseerde. Volledig vanachter computerschermen werden wereldwijd 70 deelnemers aan een hardloopuitdaging georganiseerd, en werd 2000 dollar ingezameld, voldoende om een jaar onderwijs voor 21 meisjes in India te financieren. Als de Koningin vraagt om meer gemeenschapszin, dan kan sta ik daar volledige achter. Ik zou haar echter willen vragen om daarbij ook aandacht te geven aan de versterkende werking die social computing kan hebben op het opbouwen van een sterkere gemeenschap, ook buiten de eigen landsgrenzen. (This post is a response to the Christmas Speech of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. In exception to the general rule here, it is posted in Dutch)
Roosendaal, Lage Zwaluwe, Gilze-Rijen. Dordrecht, Breda, Tilburg. Not to mention all the Belgian small towns and cities. Or the Dutch football stadiums De Kuip and the Fuji Film of respectively Feyenoord and NAC Breda. The journey today takes longer than it was supposed to do. Somewhere in Belgium, even before Brussels, the high speed Thalys train that was supposed to bring me from Paris to Rotterdam in two and a half hours, broke down. The driver managed to temporarily fix it and get the train at crawling speed to Brussels. But from there we had to take the regular train. And because I was heading for Den Bosch, after that I had to go via Breda with two trains that call on all stations in between. I could have been annoyed, but that woudn't have brought me to my destination any faster. The first part was enjoyable enough, talking to a Dutch friend who coincidentally had the same train. The second and third part were mainly through a rural part of the Netherlands, covered in snow. Passing places I haven't passed by train in a very long while. Now that I am on the verge of moving from Paris to Riga, it is good to have a trip like this, and finding out that is has a nice nostalgic feel to be in the Netherlands, but that - apart from family and friend - there is nothing I really miss. I wouldn't exchange Riga for Dordrecht or Breda in a million years. But going back once in a while is not so bad.
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