Today The Next Web had an excellent infographic about 3D printing. I have been following the technology for about a year now and think the next Google, Microsoft or Apple may come from this part of the industrial world. If you are new to 3D printing go through the below graphic, it’s a fascinating industry. Not just to print your own cups or plates (which is fun of course), but also for more serious things. Did you know that in the near future you may be able to print your own new organs?

Original source of the infographic: Sculpteo

I somehow thought 2011 would be a more relaxed year than the past years, but that seems to have been wishful thinking. The past months have been at least as busy as last year, work wise but also privately. I am more relaxed in my day to day work after leaving the CEO position at Spil Games Asia, but I am still spending way too many hours behind my laptop or on the phone. That in combination with a lot of business trips with major jet lags (I would need to check this blog to see how many times I have flown to either Europe or the US this year already, if all trips are even on here) means that I feel physically tired. I still do a lot of sports and am in decent shape (I ran 15 km on Tuesday morning before going to the office for example), but I feel I am ready for a holiday to recharge my batteries.

So that’s what I am going to do! In about 2 weeks I am taking the family to Europe for a few weeks of rest & relaxation. I will combine it with a bit of work of course: I can’t let go completely, I learned over the years that not checking and answering emails makes me feel more stressed. We’ll likely spend some time with my parents and we plan to spend a week on the Cote d’Azure where we’ll rent a nice villa with pool (and fast wifi…). I like the south of France, a nice climate, excellent food and a good supply of great wines. With Spil Games I will spend a few days on the Dutch island of Vlieland, where the company outing will take place – haven’t been there in years, looking forward to it. And with the family we might also visit some other places in Europe (maybe Luxembourg again?).

I plan to do some more writing during my holidays as well, I have an outline for several online game and entrepreneurship related articles in my head that I want to put on paper (or more precisely, on the Internet). I just need a few quiet hours for them, but I don’t seem to find that time in China. And of course more sports: on November 6 my dad, sister and I will run the New York marathon, so I need to start running longer distances more regularly. In China I mainly run indoors which is not only relatively boring (well, at least I get to watch some movies while running) but it also can’t really prepare you for a long run on asphalt with some elevations. The half marathon I ran about 2 months ago in Yangzhou caused me quite some muscle ache the days after because I am just not used to running on asphalt on my Vibram FiveFingers.

I am now also preparing a list of books that I want to read. Mainly thrillers and some new literature, haven’t made up my mind yet but will do so over the next couple of days. I don’t want to bring any physical books (with 2 kids we already have enough luggage), but luckily most books are available on my Kindle as well. Or if there is only a paper version I just buy or order the book(s) in Holland, then I don’t need to bring them over from China.

Writing this blog post already puts me in a holiday mood, I am looking forward to the trip in July!

Last night my wife and I planned to have a dinner together and we had decided to try out Jimmy’s Kitchen in the old Jinjiang Hotel on Maoming Lu. Late afternoon Sam Flemming got in touch with me to see if I knew a place that would still have a table available for him and his wife (if you don’t reserve in advance on a Friday night it’s almost impossible to still find a table in a good place), so we invited him to join us at Jimmy’s. He had also not been there yet and it turned out to be a good choice.

In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, Jimmy’s Kitchen was the place to be for good Western food in Shanghai. It was the first Western restaurant in town, and according to their advertising from those days the only one with a clean (open) kitchen. But in 1948, shortly before the Communist takeover, Jimmy packed his bags and left for Hong Kong, never to return to Shanghai.

But 63 years later Jimmy’s Kitchen is back – without Jimmy, who passed away back in 1990 in Dallas, Texas – but with a similar menu as the one from the old days and a similar ambiance. A huge menu with among others such classical items as Borscht, Lobster Bisque and French Onion soup in the soup section. Prawn Cocktail, Home Cured Norwegian Salmon, Fresh (French) Oysters, Iberico Ham and Foie Gras (parfait or pan friend) as appetizers. And in the classical main course section among others Steak Tartar, Chicken Kiev, Beef Stroganoff and Ox Tail Pot au Feu! There is also a large choice in curries and pasta and rice dishes, plus fresh fishes (from Fish and Chips to Boston Lobster!)

I decided to go for the Mulligatawny (an Anglo-Indian lightly spicy curry soup), that came recommended by the manager. For my main course my choice was a good old Tenderloin. Jimmy’s has a broiler that prepares the meat at 650 Celsius and the result was excellent. Together with the side dishes and two bottles of Californian Cabernet Sauvignon I was so full that I decided to skip the dessert menu (think Hot Sticky Date Pudding!) and just have some coffee.

Jimmy’s Kitchen location in the renovated old wing of the JinJiang hotel feels exactly right. The restaurant is a bit dark inside with leather seats and booths and soft lightning, reminding me of good US steak house. The service is top, waiters speak good English and are very attentive. Not something you can take for granted in all of Shanghai’s top restaurants.

We had a very enjoyable dinner. Not only was the food great, but also the conversations with Sam and Vennie were interesting and entertaining (and a lot of what we said was unbloggable). We decided to stay away from business topics as much as possible, talking more about developments in the Chinese Internet world and (long-term) plans for the future. We seem to have more in common than I realized. A nice evening in a great setting. I’ll be back.

During my last trip to California I bought a Nike+ watch to record my runs. The watch (powered by TomTom) uses satellite navigation to calculate your position, so you can get all kinds of statistics about your runs. A cool gadget that worked flawlessly in the US, Germany and Luxembourg over the past 2 weeks. But not in China: when I did an outside run today and looked at the map of my run afterward I realized that the data are incorrect. This is the map of my run:

My start and end position are the same, but on the map they appear at different locations. That’s already an indication that something is not right. Next to that both the start and end position are in the wrong location, both are about 200-300 meters off the real place. During the run you can really see that the satellite data is manipulated, because I ran 4 loops of each about 900 meters (exactly the same loop 4 times in a row). The first one measured 800 meters, the second one 920, the third 850 and the fourth 880, too much of an error margin to be reasonable. When you look on the map you can see why: none of the 4 loops is in the same position! While running, the satellite changes the data it sends to my watch, meaning that you never know exactly where you are.

I re-checked my runs in Europe and the US and there is no error whatsoever. So it is China specific. This means the watch is not very useful here, at least not for precise measurements. I read before about GPS data from non-Chinese devices (=data from non-Chinese satellites) being slightly incorrect, but I did not realize how big the error is until I saw it myself. And worse, the error seems to change randomly over time.

Luckily I mainly run on my home treadmill when in Shanghai: air pollution is normally too bad to run outside, but today it was raining so I made an exception to run in the open air. So when I use my watch it’s normally outside China where it works well. But it still sucks that Big Brother is messing with satellite data. At least I now know it, so I won’t rely on my watch to tell me exactly where I am.

Last Thursday I flew to Duesseldorf (Germany) to speak at the Persgroep Advertiser’s Summit. I hadn’t been to Duesseldorf in several years and it was nice to be back there. The Persgroep is a Belgian/Dutch media conglomerate (mainly traditional media) that invited its top advertisers to a yearly event with speakers, good food & drinks and excellent entertainment.

I arrived on Thursday morning, but the rest of the group only arrived at 2 pm (they had their own chartered plane from Amsterdam, but I flew in through Frankfurt). That gave me some time to go for a sightseeing run through Duesseldorf. I ran along the Rhine river to the old city center of Duesseldorf, which was a very enjoyable experience after a night on a plane. The air was so clean and the views excellent. Once again I realized that this is what I miss so much in overcrowded and polluted Shanghai. You can’t have it all, but I am glad I often travel so that at least I can run outside a few times per month.

Some of the other speakers at the Summit were Christian van Thillo (CEO of De Persgroep), the editors-in-chief of Dutch newspapers AD, Volkskrant, Trouw and Parool, and communications guru Carmine Gallo (with a great talk about the presentation secrets of Steve Jobs). The overall theme of the summit was building brands, and I actually watched most sessions because they were so interesting. Normally at conferences I sort of zone out after a few speakers and start doing emails, but this time I stayed to watch most of the presentations and interviews.

Of course the food, wines and entertainment were also excellent. I had already heard from people that attended last year’s event that this sets the event apart from many others in the market, the Persgroep really put an effort in to give its advertisers the best of the best. Of course the hotel was great as well, we were all staying in the Hyatt in Duesseldorf (located in the trendy area Medienhafen). I was pleasantly surprised that the organization gave a me a suite – so big that I only found out on the morning that I left that the suite had 2 bathrooms, I had assumed that the door to the 2nd bathroom was a wardrobe or so. All in all the event was very well organized had some interesting participants. It’s an invitation only summit, but in case you should get invited for next year’s event you should try to attend.

After the conference was over my parents came to pick me up and we drove to Luxembourg to visit my sister. She moved there a couple of weeks ago (she is now working in the trust world) and I thought this would be a good opportunity to see her new working and living environment. We arrived around 7 pm at her office and had a beer there with some of her colleagues (I was actually surprised to see people still working at 7 pm on a Friday evening, so China is not unique in that sense). We then drove to my sister’s house, where we had a bottle of Pinot Gris on her terrace with a nice view over part of Luxembourg city and the valley. At night we walked around the old city center (with lots of bars and restaurants) and had a big Italian dinner there.

Saturday morning we started with a one hour trail run through the woods. Most of the run was either up- or downhill, which was quite different from my normal runs! But we took it very easy, so we all enjoyed it (we=my dad, my sister & me). Two of my sister’s friends had driven over on Saturday morning and they went shopping most of the day. Not my favorite pastime, so my dad and I decided to do some sightseeing and enjoy Luxembourg food and wine at one of the cities many terraces. I had not been to Luxembourg in many years and had forgotten how beautiful the city is. Very old with lots of magnificent buildings in a very hilly landscape. I liked it a lot and fully understand why my sister decided to move here!

I only stayed in Luxembourg one full day and on Sunday I flew back to my family in Shanghai. I very much enjoyed the 3-day trip to Europe and will certainly be back in Luxembourg soon.

Since finishing the Emperor of all Maladies a little over 2 weeks ago I read a couple of lighter books. Some were quite good, so I decided to put them on my blog.

The Hampton Affair – Vincent Lardo
In the 1990s I was a big fan of Lawrence Sanders books about Archy McNally. After Mr. Sanders passed away Vincent Lardo took over and wrote a couple of great books in the McNally series. But eventually he stopped writing them, so I started looking for other books that he had written. On Amazon I found The Hampton Affair, a book written over a decade ago, very similar to the plots of the Archy McNally books: murder and sex in a place well known for the rich and famous. I recognized the style of Lawrence Sanders books right away, and very much enjoyed this novel. Too bad Mr. Lardo didn’t write many more books (I found just one more on Amazon) would have loved to read more from him. If anybody knows of books similar to this one or the Lawrence Sanders one let me know. Although this book is out of print and not available as an ebook (I bought it second hand on Amazon) I highly recommend picking it up if you are looking for a good summer read.

The Dirty Parts of the Bible – Sam Torode
After reading Water for Elephants a couple of weeks ago Amazon recommended me this book, so I bought it on my Kindle. It’s a short book, but well worth the read. No literature, but a fun story that takes place in 1936 about the naive 19-year old son of a Baptist preacher in Michigan who travels to his uncle’s farm in Texas and becomes a real man along the way. Obsessed with both God and women, he soon realizes that not everybody believes in God and so he turns most of his attention to girls. At a whore house he loses his money to one of the girls and from then on he has to try to survive his travels across the US without any possessions. A good read, but the ending was a bit bizarre and therefore I’d call the book good but not great. A nice book to read on a beach in an afternoon with a couple of beers.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption – Laura Hillenbrand
Unexpectedly a great story. I bought it a couple of months ago, but only started reading it when I was on an airplane and was looking for a new book to read on my Kindle. I sort of forgot about the book after I bought it and when I saw the title I did not really know what to expect. The book follows the amazing life of Louie Zamperini, who was one of the best runners of his time (he ran in the 1936 Berlin Olympics) and ended up in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during WWII. The things he endures in Japan are unbelievable (don’t read this book late at night before you go to sleep) and makes you wonder about humanity sometimes. He survives, but barely. His after war life is not easy but eventually he finds his calling (literally in this case as he starts preaching) and even forgives the guards who torture him. I am not a big fan of books in which people find God and then change their lives, but after what Louie has gone through I sort of feel it fits to him. Louie is still alive today and has lived an incredible life, Laura Hillenbrand describes it in details (sometimes a bit too much detail, esp. about his time in Japan). A good read.

A Game of Thrones – George R.R. Martin
I had high hopes for this book, as it was recommended by some friends, but it was not by cup of tea. I never read fantasy, but wanted to give the genre a try anyway. The story (which was put into an HBO series) is not bad, but it drags on too long and it’s just not my genre. The book (the first of a series of 4 books) plays in medieval England, but the England that we know of. There are different animals, a different climate pattern and of course the political situation is very different from the England hundreds of years ago. I could not get into the book, but it might be a very good read if you enjoy fantasy (the book has 4.5 stars on Amazon). So I am neutral, if you are a fantasy fan you should probably try the book (but then you probably read it already), if not read the reviews and decide for yourself.

The Last Resort – A Memoir of Zimbabwe – Douglas Rogers
This is the book I am currently reading (I am at about 2/3rd of the book, just enough for a review) and I love it. It’s the story about a British, but born in Zimbabwe, writer whose (white) parents still live there and try to survive (literally) in the corrupt, bankrupt Zimbabwe of Robert Mugabe. They used to have a famous backpacker place, but the tourists have left and upon return to his parents place the writer finds that it has turned into a brothel. His parents live in constant fear that their farm will be taken over by settlers, which basically means that they can get kicked out of their own property at any moment. I have not finished the book yet, but so far I love it. Of the five books in this probably the best, esp. considering it is non-ficition. I look forward to the end of the book!

I spent quite some nights on airplanes over the past couple of months, not something I’d recommend but something that’s unavoidable. One of the things I always wear on a plane is a travel mask. Using this gives the impression that it’s dark around you and makes sleeping a bit easier. Most airlines provide you with an eye mask, but they are not very comfortable. The elastic starts hurting after a while and the eye masks are made of cheap synthetic materials that cause me to sweat.

I never thought of buying my own travel mask. Or to be more precise, I had never even thought about the fact that you can probably buy better eye masks than the ones you get for free on every flight. But then a few weeks ago a friend of mine gave me a high-end travel mask as a present. The mask, hand-made in England by Otis Batterbee, not only looks good but is so much better than the standard masks that I wished I had gotten this luxury item years ago!

The eye mask is made of cotton and velvet and instead of using an elastic band to keep the mask in place, this one has a velvet string that you can tie behind your head, so it is exactly the right size. The mask is filled with lavender, meaning that there is always a pleasant fragrance when you put on the mask. The velvet and the lavender is a good combination, and the mask feels very natural when wearing it. I have tried it on a couple of intercontinental flights over the past weeks and it’s something I would highly recommend to frequent flyers.

The mask is for sale on Bondstreet.nl, the link for my travel mask is here.

Today Lose The Heat 2 was launched on agame.com and several other Spil Games’ portals, the sequel to mega-hit Lose The Heat. The original game was launched in August 2010 and has established itself as one of the most popular games in its genre, with an average of 6.1 million game plays per month. And Lose The Heat 2 is even better, it’s one of the most action-packed games we