Bubble architecture in Domodossala – 7

The bubbles!  The bubbles!  Oh, the stories about bubbles that I could regale you with!

But this post is not about bubbles, but rather bubble architecture. And more specifically, Italian bubble architecture.

I’ve said that France is the all time master at turning beautiful historical buildings into hideous monstrosities by encasing parts of them – or sometimes all of them – in giant glass bubbles.  There are very few exceptions where they get this mix right.

The Italians, it seems, have learned from the French mistakes and are creating their own beautiful bubble architectures, such as this one that I spotted in Domodossala:

For me the absolute nicest touch of the bubble is its base, which is a very smooth segue between the existing concrete paving blocks and the bubble itself.

Well, done, Italy!

Horse-o-dossala

Domodossala is a small kind of a village in Northern Italy, more specifically in the Piedmont region, just across the border from Switzerland. It’s famous for its marble production, where huge slabs of marble are carved out of the local mountainsides. Although to be honest, “just across the border from Switzerland” is misleading. There are the massive Swiss Alps sitting between the tiny Italian village of Domodossala and the next closest Swiss village of Brig – so unless you are prepared to get on a train and travel in a tunnel so long it would blow your mind (as well as your eardrums, from the Venturi force), then actually Domodossala and Switzerland are not so close.

Anyway, here is some street art in the Northern Italian village of Domodossala. Since it looks like a horse, I am calling is a horse-o-dossala:

Reflections of a Valley Guy — Part 7 “The Hollywood adventure continues”

A guest blog, by Chuck Ritley

I was riding high on heady fumes of stardom.  Then came another pinnacle opportunity. From 1965 through 1970, comic actor Don Adams starred in a James-Bond-send-up TV series named Get Smart.  He played an inept spy and the series had a big cult following.

Universal, to capitalize, decided to produce “The Return of Maxwell Smart”.    And they asked me for a full blown computer lab and would I come down and help the set designers plan it out?   My boss thought it was great, told me to take whatever I needed from inventory, and I left for Burbank with 4 field engineers and visions of getting my own Oscar.

Well, we cobbled up a lab, the studio prop guys added flashing lights, I wrote a bunch of nonsense programs, and the 4 FE’s sat around in case something burned out, and had their pictures taken with minor movie stars.  Oh, the glamour of Hollywood.  The movie plot line had Agent Smart use the computer to stop an evil genius from exploding a bomb that would leave everyone in the U.S. stark naked.

I knew this was the end of my Hollywood career, so I asked my boss:  “When the movie comes out at our local theater, why don’t we rent the whole theater for one night and take the whole company, their families and make a party out of it?”  (Ideas like this are the difference between me and Bill Gates.)  My boss thought it was great, and started negotiating.

But Hollywood dreams shatter. Just as the movie was ready for release, Universal changed the title.  Instead of “The Return of Maxwell Smart”, they named it “The Nude Bomb”. NOT a good follow-up to “E.T”.  The movie was a bomb, and the company wanted some distance.  No opening night theater party, no more movies for Chuck, only 3 confused lawyers trying to get our name removed from the credits.

 

Show biz!  There’s nothing like it.


This guest blog was submitted by Chuck Ritley, an adjunct professor of computer science with several major universities in the San Antonio area.  

Here are the links to the other blogs in this series:

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 1: “The Way It Was”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 2: “First Wave of Characters”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 3: “Evolution of the Geek”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 4: “When Giant Frys.com Sold Pork Chops”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 5: “Mr. Yee and the Albrae Street – Taiwan Connection”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 6: “Hollywood discovers the Valley”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 7: “The Hollywood adventures continue”

 

 

Cernay chinmey

Continuing the series, I’m definitely coming back here because this snap was taken just outside of a HUGE industrial park that was deserted – sort of a ghost factory. It was all open to the public, so it’s on my bucket list to head back and just poke around.  According to a small plaque here, this chimney was part of a textile factory – and I assume that the streams running down from the Vosges Mountains in the background were the reason for its location (water power):

Thoughts on getting a (great) job in Europe

A friend asked me to provide some advice for a family member of his, now living in Asia, who wants to find a job in Europe and relocate here.

I can’t speak for all of the countries – and I can’t speak for all of the jobs – but I can give a few pieces of advice.  This advice is:

  • Tips and tricks that have helped me enormously.
  • Tips and tricks that are not very well known inside of Europe.
  • Tips and tricks that are probably unknown outside of Europe.

Here goes!

Get your own a website – and brand yourself!

People having their own websites were all the rage back in the late 1990’s (when they first appeared on the scene) throughout the early 2000’s, pretty much until MySpace (now dead) then Facebook took hold.  But this does not matter: a personal website is the most important tool you have for advertising yourself and “branding” yourself today!

If you are reading this now, then you know exactly what I am talking about.

Some principles now follow.

Website Principle 1: Content does not matter

Content does not matter, look-and-feel does matter.   The advantages are all sublimin

Website Principle 2: Professionality matters

This means use a professional tool (WordPress is the best and the easiest, full stop). And using a professional hosting site (I like Ionos because the customer service is incredible and the self-management tools are excellent). And using a very attractive template (this one uses the Radiate template – still one of the most popular templates in the WordPress world).

Website Principle 3: It is not the obvious, it is the subliminal

The power of the website is not the content you show, not the creativity you show, but rather the “behind-the-scenes” and subliminal message you are sending to everyone, imperceptibly: you are professional, you work with a top quality, and you do unusual things (like a website) that other people do not normally do.

Good Personal experiences

Before I got a website, any time I applied for a job, usually there was a 30% chance I’d speak with HR for a first interview. After my website, almost every job application results in a quick HR interview. Why?  Have a look at my landing page and I hope the reason is clear: wow, this looks like an interesting and usual fellow, let’s have a quick chat with him.

Bad personal experiences

I’ve shared this advice about branding and a personal website site 2015, and sadly, nobody has acted on it.  And yet many of the same people who have not acted on the advice still come to me from time to time with a message like, “Ken, it is really hard to get an interview these days.” No wonder. Act on my advice and I can guarantee with the right branding and marketing, your chances will improve exponentially!  Because . . . it’s not about what you show, it’s is all about the subliminal messages you are sending.

Get on LinkedIn – and use it!

With the sole exception of Germany, where stubborn Germans are reluctant to leave XING, which only Germans use, the rest of the Western world uses LinkedIn. Here are some reasons it is so important:

LinkedIn Reason 1: Companies now hire by hunting

Increasingly, companies do not rely on job advertisements to hire: it’s too wide a net to cast, and the net brings in the wrong kind of fish. So particularly for the jobs at the upper level, senior recruiters use LinkedIn to find you and contact you personally.

LinkedIn Reason 2: A user-friendlier CV

Many companies still require you to submit a CV or a resumé when you apply. But even those that do will probably use your LinkedIn profile rather than your CV. The trick is: enough of the right keywords to allow the right kind of people to find you, but no so much writing that it is difficult to read.

Optimizing your LinkedIn profile

If you create a LinkedIn profile, I recommend reading some articles that discuss LinkedIn search optimization. For example, the line under your name has a higher priority in the search than the rest of your profile – so instead of “wasting valuable real estate” by repeating your company or job title, add in the keywords that you want people to find you for – and add in the words that strengthen your brand.

 

Reflections of a Valley Guy — Part 6 “Hollywood discovers the Valley”

A guest blog, by Chuck Ritley

While I enjoy movies, I’ve never been interested in the goings-on in Hollywood.   To me, it was a crowded place to pass through to get to the Burbank Airport on my way home to The Valley.  That changed – for a while – in 1980.   At that time, computer terminals were downright ugly – just square boxes with keyboards.  But the company I worked for paid a Swedish design firm (I think they also did the 1979 Saab) to come up with a streamlined, injection molded terminal.  Same electronics – fancy look.

Six months after the intro, I got a call from a guy who said he was the prop master at Universal Studios.  He had seen one of our terminals, liked the look, and could I help him get one in a movie?  Sounded like great publicity, so I flew to Burbank and drove out to Universal.  It turns out that prop masters for major studios are big-time executives, with golf carts, managing everything from jet planes to spears.  But he made me welcome.

The movie that needed a computer was “Captain America”.  No, not the one you saw in 2014, with CGI and wide screen explosions.  This was the 1980 version.  No CGI, much smaller explosions.  The plot:  Captain A, who rides a nuclear-powered Harley, must save Phoenix from a nuclear bomb, but he needs a computer to figure things out.  That’s where we came in.

So I shipped a couple of computers and some terminals South and showed up at the studio for shooting the computer scenes.  The studio techs had built panels of flashing light, since our computers had none.  And I cobbled up some nonsense programs to make things jump on the screen.  But it was tough to keep a straight face while showing a guy in a red, white, and blue jump suit how to tap the keys.

We appeared for only 6 minutes in what was not a very good movie.  But, Universal fell in love with the design of the terminals, and I got offers to bring more equipment down for appearances in “The Rockford Files”, with James Garner, and “Mrs. Columbo” (the wife of the Peter Falk detective, who sadly only lasted for 4 or 5 episodes, but was computer literate.)

But the apex was this:  we provided the computer terminals for “ET”, while the studio did their own flashing lights.  (Next time you see a re-run, watch the credits closely.  We come up just before the caterers.)

And no, I never even saw Steven what-his-name.  And I had no idea it would become a classic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


This guest blog was submitted by Chuck Ritley, an adjunct professor of computer science with several major universities in the San Antonio area.  

Here are the links to the other blogs in this series:

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 1: “The Way It Was”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 2: “First Wave of Characters”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 3: “Evolution of the Geek”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 4: “When Giant Frys.com Sold Pork Chops”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 5: “Mr. Yee and the Albrae Street – Taiwan Connection”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 6: “Hollywood discovers the Valley”

Reflections of a Valley Guy – Part 7: “The Hollywood adventures continue”

 

Cernay Church

Cernay in the eastern French part of Alsace known as Haut-Rhine is an interesting village for two reasons. First, apparently the German SS used this village as an “indoctrination” center during the second world war; and second, because the Thur river flows through it, and there was a river of the exact same name flowing through Winterthur when I lived there. (Note: it flowed through Winterthur before I moved there, and it probably still flows there today.)

Anyway, here’s the church: