Tag: Swiss

Bern – 90GHz­—UBS Dream 02-07-2021

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I woke up this morning at 6AM and was pretty sure that I would not go back to sleep. I did and had this dream. When I tried to wake up my right eye was difficult to open it been sealed with sleep. As an aside since I stopped smoking, I have had much more gummy eyes with loads of sleep. Here is the dream.

I am in a vast laboratory. It is filled with optical benches upon which are optical components and lasers. I know this laboratory to be in Bern Switzerland. Unusually for this kind of laboratory one can see out of the windows and to the town below. W is excited he has received a parcel and is busy unwrapping it. It is a new slim, top of the range, Tektronix digital storage oscilloscope. It has all of the functions of the bulkier models but is slimmed down. I say to W that I can help him understand how to use it because all of the experiments at the lab of S used one of these. All we need first is a square wave waveform generator so that we can have a play. Ben C says that he thinks there is one in the store. I go with him to the store and there is a pile of instrumentation. I see one with the name GR on it and note that it is odd that it should be here in Bern. BC finds a square wave generator and hands it to me. He says that it starts at 90GHz. I comment that it might be a bit too high frequency for the oscilloscope. He says that probably not, the scope may not capture all of the waveform but should be Ok for us to play with. I go over to W.

Next, we are back in the flat. It is full of youngish men who all work at the laboratory. We are all sleeping in one bed. It is somehow on a veranda outside the house. I wake up and decide to go shopping. I look across the valley where this is a night club called Bodhisattva. We all sometimes go there. I think that it will be nice to look at Migros again. As I go into the shop there is a queue for baskets, and I am behind an old Swiss man. He unpacks the baskets and hands me one. I go into the store and am at the fruit counter. It is immaculately laid out with very high-quality produce from around the world. It is even better than I remembered it. I get some groceries and take them back to the flat. Where I put them in a bag in the pantry. I explain to W that it is very nice to see high quality Swiss produce as things here are not so consistent.

In the dream I have paid with a UK credit card but to my surprise my UBS bank card is also in my wallet.

We are back in the laboratory, and I know that I have a job there. It has been easy to set up because my Swiss Bank account at UBS is still active {in reality this is not the case}. We play with the oscilloscope for a while.

Next, I am back in the flat asleep in the big bed with a whole bunch of other people. The wife is there next to me. I am on the extreme edge of the bed, and she is nestled in my left arm. I kiss her on the brow, and everybody wakes up. I ask what time it is. Close to midday. I comment that is late. Not if you were up drinking and smoking {implied cannabis}.

I had better rush to get to the bank before it closes. I rush of down hill concerned that I will fall because of my left hip. I am a bit awkward running down the hill. I need to get to the bank to ask them for a new PIN number for my bank card. I know that all I have to do is ask because they will recognise me. I could ask in English or German or even French. As I am running down the hill, I rehearse what words I would need first in Hoch Deutsch and second in French. In my mind I know that the language I will choose depends upon who I meet at the bank counter.

Dream ends.

Swiss Technology – Flatmate – Dream 23-08-23

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This morning’s dream sequence pertains {perhaps} to the early to mid-1990s.

The first sequence starts with me on a train to Poole in the UK. I get off the train to go and see my university flatmate D. {I helped nurse her through recovery from a bad car accident and was best man at her wedding to a school friend of mine.} When I get off the train D is nowhere to be seen. So, I try to call her on my mobile ‘phone. I cannot figure out how to use the ‘phone so I ask a teenage boy to help me. He scrolls down my lists of contacts and finds her number. {In reality I do not have this.} I call her and she does not answer. A short while later she calls me back and leaves a message. She does not live in Poole anymore, rather Bognor Regis. {They are quite distant.} I try to call her back and she says that my school friend A will come to pick me up in his Beemer {BMW}. I wait for ages and he does not turn up. I try to ‘phone again and we go through a game of ‘phone tag, missing each other’s calls.

It is clear in the dream that this is all about miscommunication something which happened a great deal in the past.

The next dream starts in a stark concrete apartment block I am exploring a landing on an elevated floor. I notice a door at the end of the corridor which I open and walk through. I am in a large smart office of a research establishment. The office is populated by young research scientists of both sexes. They are Swiss and the is the research group of one of my bosses S {from early-mid 90s}. The lab is in Switzerland. The conversation in the office is in a mixture of English, French, Swiss German, and Hoch Deutsch. One of the lads asks me if I can still understand German. I say that it will take me a few days to get my ear in. I say that I miss Switzerland and feel at home there.

I then ask them about their projects and they explain in a great deal of detail the experiments they are currently doing. I say that I will need a while to update my understanding of the high level ab initio programmes because I will be rusty. They ask me which radicals I did spectroscopy of. I explained that way back I looked a mass resolved spectroscopy of neutral water clusters. The rumours are that S has gotten me back to work on a research project to develop a very high power carbon dioxide laser. He has gotten a big tranche of funds and wants someone like me to oversee.

I go down the corridor to another office and can see what was once my desk.

I enter a hectic office with a secretary and S. S is working over at his desk I go over to shake his hand which he reciprocates then he says that I will have to wait my turn, somewhat coldly. He is very busy and there is a queue of people to see. He gestures to the secretary and says that she will help out with the formalities. She is young and speaks excellent English.

While I am waiting, I go downstairs and out of the building. I look around and sure enough it is Switzerland and I recognise the main street upon which I once lived.

I go back into the office and wait turn. When I meet S he unrolls a massive set of blueprints for the new laser design, it is for multiphoton induced chemistry to make radicals by direct vibrational bond cleavage.

The dream ends and I am astounded at the level of technical detail in the dream which I have cut down by a large factor in the write up.

Quantum Key Distribution Dream 08-09-23

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Here is this morning’s dream…

The dream starts with an internet Skype like call. I am speaking with an ex-student of mine. I can see him on the lap-top screen and he can see me. We are talking and there is a large amount of background noise and his image is juddering. I can see that he is flying a helicopter over some mountains. One of his friends has recently died and he would like to come visit to talk about this with me. He is on holiday with his father in the Swiss-French alps. I agree and he says that he will be here in a few days’ time.

 I think it odd that he is flying a helicopter but knew that his family are very wealthy.

He turns up with his father and I invite them in. We start talking about how he buried his friend. There were not many people at the ceremony and he said that it was very strange seeing someone his own age in a coffin. He had touched the coffin after it was placed in the grave as did his friend’s mother. She had freaked out a bit and he was concerned for her. I say that death touches all of us in different ways and that before grief there can often be denial. It sounds like that is what is happening. I say that I need to go and fetch something from outside.

As I come back into the house, I note the father’s car. It is a top of the range Mercedes convertible, bespoke even. I notice on the back of it the letters QKD. In the dream they stand out for me.

I go back inside. I say to the father, “Is that one of the new Quantum Key enabled prototypes?”

“Yes, it is fully Quantum Key enabled and if I need to make secure transactions, I can do it from the car while I am en route.”

I am impressed. I heard about these but have not seen one. The implication is that the father is very wealthy indeed a special client of the banks.

The ex-student says that I should tell his father about my patent applications.

I say to the father that I have two old patents concerning EUV and one for an entangled pair photon source. I say that this device could be integrated into a Quantum Key Distribution device.

His ears prick up. He reaches into a briefcase and pulls out a piece of paper. The paper is an email. On the top is his email address together with that of one of his technical people and his lawyer.

He says to get in contact with them with more details.

His ‘phone rings and he starts to speak animatedly in French.

The dream ends and I know that it is pointing towards looking again at Quantum Key Distribution.

Patents-VCs-Dream-19-02-18

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Here is this morning’s dream. Last night we watched Dragons’ Den on TV and I had another dream of its ilk earlier in the night which I cannot recall.

I arrive at some swanky offices in London and go into reception. It is plush and modern with a glass fronted airy atrium. The security guards at the desk take my name and give me a badge to wear. They direct me to a holding area / outer office. I am suited and booted but with no tie.

The PA greets me. In the holding area there is another man sat. He is clutching documentation and a tablet computer. I tell the lady, who is smartly dressed, that I am here for a 10 o’clock appointment. It is 9:24AM. The other guy is about to go “in”. Knowing that I am, as per usual, early, I ask the PA how the timing and schedule is going. “Is it Swiss?”, I ask. She says, “not quite” with a wink. So, I say that I will pop out for a coffee and come back. She points me in the direction of the canteen. I say I would rather go to a coffee shop; she is unhappy about this as it threatens her scheduling. She doubts I will be back on time.

I head off into town and find a coffee shop. I sit at one table and am joined by three other people. They do not notice me and are deep in heated discussion. I can see that they have a design for a beam steering column to be used in conjunction with a microscope. They are discussing a possible patent application. The younger one is talking the others through the design drawings which are in clear view on the table.

Just as they are about to leave, I say that the design looks OK but that is doesn’t look all that novel to me. Anyone “skilled in the art” might have come up with it, they need to find a better angle or way of doing it. They are a bit shocked.

I look down at my watch it is 9:55AM. I had better leg it back. I get in my car and drive fast through the traffic back to the office.

As I arrive the other guy is coming “out”, clutching his documents. I wish him luck.

I sit in a chair close to the open door which leads to the inner office it is now 10:02AM.

Through the ajar door one of the posh geezers says that I had better come in. In the room there are a number of men (~4-5) dressed in expensive suits and “Rolex” type watches. They are having their coffee refreshed. The first man ushers me towards some chairs facing the men whom I know to be rich VC types. I say that I would prefer to stand. Which I do facing the semi-circle of investors. I have no documentation or IT. Just me. I am very relaxed.

The PA leaves the room and one of the men there says that I should tell them about myself.

I start off on the cancer and tutorial story. I can sense their eyes glazing over and the thought “time waster” starting to manifest. One says, “That explains why we haven’t heard anything from you or about you!”

I then say that I have also been looking at and delving into patents. I know a patentable idea when I see one and I have a couple sketched out. This sparks their interest a little more. The tone and the mood in the room suddenly changes. One of them who is the lead turns to another and mutters something under his breath. I have their attention now.     

At that point I start engaging them in a very relaxed manner. “What kinds of investment opportunities are you (plural) looking for? “

Because thy have been sat all morning listening, they welcome the chance to speak for a bit, so they begin.

The dream ends.