Fairyland

Posted on January 15, 2012 by laura

The temperature was -6ºC in Franche-Comté overnight. The hoarfrost transformed the landscape into a magical world covered with icy down until late in the morning.

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Internet Search Is A Joke

Posted on January 14, 2012 by laura

I am trying to find an article I read sometime within the past two years. As I recall, it was a blog post in which the author was examining the question “Where exactly does the action take place when you read a book?” It was well-written, humorous, direct and contained a fair number of four-letter words. I think the post started out with an excerpt from a book that the author had read over the weekend and that made her think about the question. Yes, I think the author was a woman.

Unfortunately, if I saved a link to this article somewhere, I am not able to find it in my delicious bookmarks or Twitter backups. I say “unfortunately,” because I have lost faith that I will be able to find that article using any existing search engine.
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Posted in Internet, Search Engines | 4 Comments

Day of Kings, The Aftermath

Posted on January 9, 2012 by laura

Photo taken this morning in the break room at work.

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Unphotographable Sign?

Posted on January 1, 2012 by laura

What better way to start the year than with a mystery? It might not be the most interesting mystery, but it’s the one that presented itself to me yesterday afternoon when I noticed that some information was missing on the gas station prices displayed at the Super-U in Vaison-la-Romaine, and I thought I’d snap a funny picture showing Unleaded Gas at 0.00 Euros.

When I opened the camera on my iPhone I was surprised to see a sparkling red light on the sign. Since I was shooting into the sun, it didn’t occur to me at first that I was looking at a display equipped with what seems to be countermeasures designed to prevent taking photos of the prices. It wasn’t until I checked the first photo I snapped that I realized what was happening.

As far as I know my iPhone doesn’t let me adjust the exposure time, so I took a video instead. A slow-motion half-speed version is embedded below:
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Posted in Personal Interest, Society, Technology | 2 Comments

eBooks At Payot In Switzerland

Posted on December 18, 2011 by laura

Last year, a few weeks before Christmas, I went to Payot in Lausanne to see what the largest French-language bookstore in Switzerland was proposing to readers looking for eBooks. A year ago, they didn’t have a story.

A few months ago, I noticed by chance that Payot had added an eBooks section to their online store. I didn’t get around to writing a post about it at the time. Judging by the search terms in WordPress stats, many people arrive here looking for information about buying eBooks in Switzerland, so I thought it would be worthwhile to have a look and write something about it here.
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Posted in Digital Books, eBooks, Switzerland | 1 Comment

Swiss Apple iPad Email Features iBooks

Posted on December 16, 2011 by laura

It’s been over two months since Apple launched the iBookstore in Switzerland. I still haven’t seen any official announcement or marketing of the store.

Yesterday, I received the following email from Apple letting me know that there is still time to get an engraved iPad or iPod for Christmas. As always, the email was in German.


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Allegedly Unlawful Google Search Results Removed

Posted on December 12, 2011 by laura

I was looking for a quote this evening in Google on my iPhone, when to my surprise, I saw this message on the second page of results:


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Bitter Cherries: Les Lyonnais (Film)

Posted on December 11, 2011 by laura

Friday evening I went to see Olivier Marchal’s Les Lyonnais at the movies. The film tells the story of Edmond Vidal, leader of the gang responsible for some of the most spectacular bank robberies in France in the 70’s.

Vidal was born into a family of gypsies. His life took a definitive turn when, at the age of 17, he and his friend Serge Suttel were arrested for stealing a crate of cherries. The judge wasn’t sympathetic to gypsies, and they were sentenced to 2 months in prison. While incarcerated, Edmond, known as “Momon,” and Serge were drawn into the world of crime and when they were released, they joined a gang of criminals, and eventually started their own gang, which became known as the Gang of the Lyonnais.

Olivier Marchal, actor, director and screenwriter for film and TV, is a former officer in the French Judiciary Police. His films are known for their authenticity and explore the sometimes blurry lines between crime and justice, between right and wrong, between good and bad, portraying criminals and law enforcement officers in a way that emphasizes how little separates them and how easily our judgements can be swayed.
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Swiss iBookstore Now Spricht Nur Deutsch

Posted on December 10, 2011 by laura

I finally got around to upgrading my iPad to iOS5. The process took about an hour and a half from start to finish and ate up most of my free time yesterday evening so I didn’t have time to investigate all the new features right away. When I got home this evening, I was looking forward to checking out iBooks to see what was new and to try The PDF Torture Test to see how my iPad1 compared to the iPad2.
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A Kindhearted Breakfast

Posted on December 8, 2011 by laura


An early appointment took me into town this morning. On my way to catch the bus around 8:30, I took the covered underground passage beneath the main street that passes through the center of town.

It was rainy, cold and windy. Just beyond the entrance, well-sheltered from the elements, a homeless person was still asleep in his sleeping bag beside the wall. It was the same young person I saw sleeping outside on the bench beside the bus stop a few weeks ago.
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