Plasmafish

Swaziland or Switzerland!

Grealish — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 17:20:12 +0000

Got to be the biggest mix up one can make when filling out applications,Whats so miss leading is when you see Swaziland in English is looks like a miss spelt Switzerland, This has caught me about a few times.

Swaziland is this small landlocked country stuck on the south of Africa, again like Swizerland in the middle of europe.

Anyways will have to visit there on my travels some time

Getting Started in Switzerland

Grealish — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 17:26:51 +0000

I’m going to write abit about my first off experience in moving / returning to Switzerland for work, only a few days after moving to Schaffhausen in the very north of Switzerland I am almost official residence! but dare I say, it feels like a more European place then Ireland. nether the less, once you have work arranged, then their is really only a few visits to some local government buildings and your set.

Whats involved

First off, Look for a job, have HR make arrangements.
Give them a good reason why you and not a Swiss person, (they will mostly handle this at their end)
Your contract of Work and Accommodation Contract
Take that to a the local City Hall of the Canton (County) along with some additional forums from HR.
They fill out a few forums tap on a computer, say.. mm no one else exists with such a surname,
65CHF (€44 welcome to Schaffhausen Sir)
Wait 10days, you get an official residence permit!
Go to a Bank open up an account.
They are allot of banks in Switzerland you bet! however you’ll find these Kanton branches (as in county banks) and then the big international players UBS, etc…

Lets look at Cost

To make the most my stay, and taking into account i’m going to travel abit;

4x Passport photos 8CHF

General City Pass 44.50 CHF

Half-Fare Card + Track 7 249CHF

Postbox Registration + Label (12.30CHF)

Health insurance, Everyone is required to have this, but got 3 months to research whats the best option. (900<1100 CHF per annum)

They charge for EVERYTHING here! not even government services will be free! well low taxes, etc.. that what happens

Whats Next?

Well like a swiss army nikfe and all geared up, enjoy life! with the knowlege of know how and where to go to be a citizen it’s quite comforting, i’ve seen and expearence some fustrations in moving to other countries but Switzerland has got to be one of the most accessiable ( not easyest) but not a place where you will be left standing wonder! where and what to do at any moment

My Tags from Delicious

Grealish — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:36:20 +0000

Today I disovered Wordle! it’s just clas, you give it a URL or a bunch of words and it will scrap them all together in a cloud + you can customize your arrangement making it look all creative and such!

Life Instructions

Grealish — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 22:54:25 +0000

So I saw a talk in TED today, and had to do my search to post about this! So a few yeas ago a designer went around to replace all the NYC Subway Signage, this is one of the best, still of to find the rest, I know in the Londan Underground have used similar posters intensional to create a more relaxed feel around public transport.

(i’ve more to add later, but this is a taste for now )

XKCD – Friends

Grealish — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 18:49:52 +0000

Saw this on XKCD today, Friends with detriments

http://xkcd.com/513/

Positive Thinking and Attraction

Grealish — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:14:13 +0000

This is something i wanted to blog about a long time ago, but now that i understand it better, it’s quite true “Positive Thinking and Attraction” When one is in a positive state of mind, they attract good things. But why?, from what I’ve discovered reading and watching a few documentaries in this area is they all have one thing in common. If you believe and visualize a solution to want you wish to achieve you become attraction to that goal step by step. It’s true! Why i am telling you this is because I’ve realized the same! As i wanted something to happen, and as i was positive of it becoming a reality, it did! it wasn’t a surprise to me as at the time the process is was going through unfolded as I was approaching that goal. And Way, because one simple thing. I was positive, Positive that this was going to happen, positive that the things i need to do would bring me closer to achieve what i had first visualized.

That’s the power of Positive thinking and Attraction. Once you believe, once you positively visualize the process involved. It will unfold and become a reality. Sounds all a bit superficial but really it’s not, as we relate such words Visualize, Positive and Attraction, their merely means of representing a feeling in ones ability.

New Trains in Galway!

Grealish — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 18:47:53 +0000

So to my surprise they finally get new trains on the Galway to Dublin route!

New Class 22000 DMU Train Coupled together

New Class 22000 DMC Train @ Galway

From the CIE site

Irish Rail InterCity 22000 Class DMU

They are from Korea, and did a bit of searching around and they seam pritty good, but more of a Interregiononal train then an InterCity train, with a max speed of 160km/h where most Trains in Europe do +200km/h. The DMU 22000 suit for short trips, (less then 2hrs) but it’s huge step up from the old train, it tilts too! and thats got to make journey’s shorter, 20 %to 40%! shorter at best! but we’ll see if the Rail network is ready for it. Still have to take a trip on it first.

Languages Across Switzerland…

Grealish — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 14:09:46 +0000

Languages Across Switzerland… It’s clear that the German speaking (orange) is far the double the size then anything other language. But still can’t beat the French region!

Swiss Internet

Grealish — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 15:17:34 +0000

So just in my new apartment! and discovered that they do actually provide you with decent internet access, in student accommodation [halls of residence in Switzerland. so i can vpn to home, have a pretty stable VoIP call, actually voip now SIP, using a Irish VoIP operator here’s a quick test from Speedtest.net,

And a Little test from the Lab earlier today in EPFL just crazy!! 80MBit’s! at LAN Speed!;)

I in the lab on a 100Mbit this is crazy! 87Mbit!!

With speeds generally above 5Mbit’s it’s effortless most of the day when it comes to moving large files. But haven’t found many free WiFi spots, … well not yet.

Darragh

Lausanne, Switzerland

Grealish — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 12:44:54 +0000

As now beginning to settle in one of the beautiful cities along the lake of Geneve, Lausanne. i decided to take some photos around the city as if i don’t know then i won’t later as with place that you begin to get acoustomed to you usally don’t see the same common things as before.

[Photos to come soon.... ]

Trip Plan from DOPPLR

Also i should note the picture will more like screen shot of trip plan taken from DOPPLR as i’ve been trying to add the HTML tags to allow javascript but unfortunatly WordPress have that disabled and we can’t have this cool intergration