Looking back at growing up in Germany/Europe made me really feel disadvantaged compared to people growing up in more tech friendly environments. I would want my child to grow up somewhere where technology is not overwhelmingly debated about in a negative light.
So much good stuff is coming out of ETH that it really seems to be a place where people talk more enthusiastically about tech in general.
As for being cold - I have several Swiss friends in Zurich. They are warm and decent people, but they are more reserved than most Americans.
The only area where I'd agree is nuclear power, which regrettably doesn't have wide acceptance.
I am now in Germany on C++ job and I don't now German that much.
Edit: fixed Barcelona
I certainly noticed the city becoming a bit more modern in recent years, with the whole SoHo thing and the Pompidou, but it generally always seems to be aimed towards boosting tourism. I'm really happy to hear that there's something else going on [:
Entrepreneurship is another issue, I feel like "failing" had and still has an overly negative connotation here.
Was this really true for the place you grew up ? It sounds so luddite.
It's not like I grew up around Amish, but its just generally a very acceptable stance here to be skeptical of all new technology. It's very apparent especially when you look at the discussions centering our school system.
We still debate about the harm of too much technology in school, theres still no real IT classes and people just now start looking toward programmers as a favorable job, simply because we have stable jobs while so many other industries have problems...
This article says this is enough space for 5000 more employees.
Though Cranfield CIT and half way between Oxford and Cambridge woudl have been another good choice. - they could even have taken RAF Twinwoods over as a site for a DC as it has a direct link to the Grid.
I think google came to Zurich because of EPFL/ETH, the very high living standard and most of all the rather liberal labor law. It's very easy to fire someone in Switzerland, compared to the surrounding countries.
ML anecdotes - Schmidhuber makes a point of how LSTM was developed on European taxpayer's dime. Backpropagation was invented by Esko Linnainmaa (a Finnish researcher) in the 70s.
Universities or startups can't compete with finance/Google/FB level compensation, so that's where a lot of the bright minds go.
By "a lot" I mean cultural things, vision, strategy, how to set your own expectations, how decisions are made, what tools are available, etc.
And then there is France (polytechnique) and the rest of Europe...
A young company where I live have HQ in Switzerland, but that's just a post box and some servers for tax reasons. The are so few people working there it's negligible.
That being said, I'm pretty sure this is almost an entirely tax based move. By doing this, they now have a way to spend a bunch of the money they have "stranded" in Europe.
Also, the ML meetup in Zurich has 2000 members, which is a lot for a small town like Zurich (http://www.meetup.com/Zurich-Machine-Learning/).
Salaries are huge (7000 CHF - 12.000 CHF after taxes) and the living standard is very high. I am well-connected in the tech-scene in Zurich and if you're thinking of moving here and need support, send me a message (e-mail is in my HN-handle). Disclosure: I am a tech-recruiter.
If you immigrate to America you can become an American. You can shop till you drop, eat mc donlads, celebrate 4th of july and call yourself an american.
This can not be said for any other country. In Germany you will always be an "immigrant", maybe if your kids are white and young enough to pick up the language maybe they can become invisible. But for anyone else it impossible to become german, dutch ect. I don't mean any of it in a negative way, btw.
Lived ten years in California. Studies, Green Card etc. Could have gone for citizenship, but didn't. I was never seen as an American. Ever. Not even a little bit. I was always 'the German'.
Almost every coffee shop, restaurant, super market, you name it I got asked where I am from or where my accent is from.
No. It is not cute. It reminds you you are NOT one of them.
Your interpretation of these sorts of questions may have been influenced by your German upbringing.
There's a wide variety of accents even by Americans who were born and raised here. Add in the fact that we're all pretty much only a generation or two removed from at least one immigrant, and discussion about where people are from, etc. is typically just a way for people to make conversation and attempt to connect with one another.
There are probably nationalities which would make certain people uncomfortable and treat you differently, but I don't think Germany is one of those.
Yea we have people here from all over the world. Why is that question offensive? You seem to be assuming that that question is being asked to point out that you don't belong here.
I love asking people where are they originally from and try to impress them with trivia about their country that I know , being a world history enthusiast.
Perhaps you were not seen as an American because you yourself didn't feel that way? I would think that someone who feels American would apply for citizenship given the opportunity. American citizenship does not bring many additional advantages compared to the green card, in fact, there are some downsides (jury duty, potentially having to pay US taxes even if you leave the country). So, most immigrants apply for US citizenship only if they feel that they belong.
I agree that people asking where your accent is from is really annoying, however, that question doesn't have the same implications as in, say, Germany.
Edit: I guess people don't like reading descriptions of fact?
People from every where seem to exhibit the behavior; I don't think it is specific to California and I'm not sure that it occurs more in California than any where else.
Sure you can call yourself whatever you want but whether or not you being treated as an american is a different story. I know several immigrants who get yelled by the local people to "go back to your country." US immigrants still suffer from loneliness like other immigrants too.
2) The lobbyists can be based in Brussels, Zurich isn't that close to Brussels anyways!
2) Yeah, but Zurich is a much nicer place than Brussels :) . And most likely not as watched by investigative journalists.
Anyway, there is also a lot of EU funding in countries much farther removed, see e.g. Horizon 2020 which is the most important EU science fund http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/docs/h2020-funding...
