Recently in Business Category
I've been back in Switzerland for a little over a week but I thought it would be nice to share the looks of our (Navarco's) temporary offices that doubles (or begins, really) as George's apartment in the Wollishofen section of Zürich - on the left (west) side of the Lake of Zürich. Since my return - my 6th trip to Zürich in a year - the city has started to grow cold again and the leaves are changing in preparation for winter. However, the country hasn't gotten the weather report totally down yet. Today, we had a lunch meeting downtown with a couple of fund managers and I arrived wearing a polo shit, sweater, a suit jacket and an overcoat (rain-style).
After lunch, George and I wondered downtown in search of a Nespresso store so he could buy some coffee. Within 15 minutes I was stripping on the streets - down to the polo, as I was roasting away in all my layers. But the day was beautiful and we were happy - the city was happy - everyone was out, enjoying the day. But we worked (as we have a company to build in a new land).
At 8PM, I headed home. And I was happy to have all my layers, as it was briskly cold. But it was a good day, and I had warm food waiting for me at the other end. Above are the shots from the "office" windows. On the right you can see (if you look closely) the swiss pride at work.
Ha! I just solved a major technology hurdled while being handcuffed by corrupt and "broken" hardware. The issue: I needed to solve the static vs. dynamic IP requirements of hosting a database that will be accessed by remote clients while maintaining security within the network and I needed to give the host machine wireless access to the rest of the network. The problems: I had one of two ISPs down for the count, I had a machine on the network whose wireless connectivity was gone (faulty card?), I had another machine who had lost all connectivity and I had somehow managed to confuse the wireless router into a brick of uselessness. To add to the discomfort: I have a colleague coming into town in two days, my roof is being demolished tomorrow in preparation for the new one, I have a very important lunch meeting tomorrow, and I will be getting on a plane next week for a month away - depending upon the fact that the database is up and running.
The simple solution would have been for me to plug the wireless router into the working modem, plug the "master" machine into that and call it a day. But this would have killed the concept of a static IP, which would have killed the idea of a remotely accessed database. Next I thought of using the "master" machine as the bridge and placing the router after it in the chain (which is ultimately what I did) but it isn't as easily done as said.
The first problem I had was that I couldn't tell or diagnose if the router was working at all. I had asked it to reconfigure so many times in various setups and connections that I am sure it was suffering from an identity crisis. The second problem with testing it (as a wireless solution) was that both of the machines at my disposal that used wireless connectivity were not working - the first because its just fucked and needs to go back to the repair shop, and the second because it suffered the identity crisis measures that I put the router through earlier. I had asked it to perform various bridging functions in the pursuit of a solution - none of which worked
As any scientist will tell you, you need a control sample - something that you know to be true - something to compare and test against - something that works. I had nothing of the sort and still needed a solution. And I needed it quick as my office was starting to look like a dumping site for rejected cables, wire, and computer parts - which sucked as I had just finished having my office decorated last week.
I'll spare you the technical details - way above your brain power anyway <evil laugh>. But the solution rested in me overriding DHCP and NAT - fuckers! Anyway, I feel so jazzed about it, I had to tell someone. However, nobody is here to bow before greatness but me. So, I am tooting my own horn.
While feeling big and powerful, I played Tribal King - Façon sex - via WiFi broadcast to remote speakers and felt great about it. And since I felt like it, I added a photo that has nothing to do with this story. Its Sybille and me at Dani's birthday party - which included making my house look like a cheap bordello. Cheers!
Some well known European fund manager and financial advisor suggested that gold would jump from $550 an ounce to $3,000 in a few years and indeed it broke through the $550 celling today and moved about 2% higher on the news. Wow!, maybe.
But it makes me think of the true "herd mentality", to which I have become dependent - in some fashion or another. Every day I see some IR crew crow their "next great pick" and its usually followed by a spike in price and volume. I often wonder how they achieved the first pick, because the second, third and the last are all driven by the herd - and not the knowledge or foresight of the picker. The very fact that they have a following is what makes them successful "pickers". It is the following that causes the success. To a certain point, they could say that peanut butter would be in short supply tomorrow and indeed it would as their following would buy cases of it to insure they could sell it to those in need when the price was right. Cart/Horse theory.
Given that, I wonder how often any of these soothsayers are wrong. And why? Is there a point when the herd says, "Hey Buddy! You're going the wrong way."?
