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General: CALVINISM SWITZERLAND GENEVE BANK SECRECY INTERNET WORLD WIDE WEB CERN CALVIN
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“Banking secrecy has its roots in Calvinism”
 Calvin's influence spread well beyond Geneva RDB
Today's Switzerland - and its cherished bank secrecy - still reflect the influence of church reformer Jean Calvin, an economic think tank director tells swissinfo.
This content was published onApril 26, 2009 - 10:21
6 minutes
Xavier Comtesse, who heads the western Swiss branch of Avenir Suisse, says Calvin stood for morality in the granting of credit, but also for protection of the personal sphere.
This year marks the 500th birthday of the religious reformer whose ideas shaped the Protestant Church. In his honour Protestant denominations have designated 2009 Calvin Year.
Calvin, who spent much of his time working in Geneva, not only influenced democracy in Switzerland but modern-day thinking on both moral and financial matters, Comtesse believes.
swissinfo: What is the basis of Calvin’s Protestantism?
Xavier Comtesse: It is based on the Bible written in the language of the people, on the separation of church and state, and on the understanding that the grassroots faithful – who fund the community – choose their own priests.
This Calvinist form of institutional organisation has also over time had an influence on non-religious areas of the Swiss mentality. All state institutions remain separate from religious ones, and bottom up participation in political decisions continues from communal to national level.
Both lead to an emancipation of the people, an ’empowerment’, as we say today.
swissinfo: What would Switzerland look like today without Calvin?
X.C.: I don’t think we’d have direct democracy without this popular emancipation that was spurred on by Calvin. We would probably be a republic [with an elected president], like our neighbours. Of course when talking about German-speaking Switzerland we should mention [Zurich reformer Huldrych] Zwingli just as much as Calvin.
This communication from community organisations up to the highest state level is typical for us Swiss.
swissinfo: To what extent was Geneva more significant than Zurich?
X.C.: In those days French-speaking Switzerland did not exist. Geneva was the place to be – across the whole country. Basel was worth considering, but Zurich wasn’t. Neither was Bern nor Lausanne.
That is also why Calvin is rated so much more important internationally than Zwingli. Even in the post-Napoleonic period Zurich was smaller than Geneva both in the number of inhabitants and economically.
swissinfo: How did Calvin stamp the mark of the Reformation and the image of Switzerland on the world?
X.C.: I know most about his influence on the United States. There Calvinism is very pronounced with around 15 million Calvinists – called Presbyterians in Anglo-Saxon countries.
There are also communities in Scotland and South Korea. Worldwide there are said to be around 50 million Presbyterians. But there are very few of them in Switzerland.
swissinfo: What was Calvin’s influence on the economy and banking?
X.C.: As a reaction to the papal selling of indulgences as a mean of raising money for Rome, Calvin was one of the first church leaders to permit the granting of loans with interest – albeit tied to high moral standards.
That forged a link with the present: extortionate interest didn’t come into question, therefore the loans had to be cheap. As in religion and politics, the thinking behind this banking was to protect the citizen through high moral standards.
Also considered worth protecting by Protestantism was the personal sphere. Add this to being able to bank and you get banking secrecy.
swissinfo: Historically banking secrecy was meant to protect citizens from state interference.
X.C.: Exactly. And that’s why there are many misunderstandings concerning the term. The description ‘banking secrecy’ is actually incorrect – ‘protection of the private sphere by the bank’ would be more appropriate.
Such legal protection is not unique to Switzerland. In France for example a wife has no right to any information about her husband’s bank account – French legal law considers that his private sphere.
We Swiss simply go one step further. We protect against any state despotism. This way of thinking has historical roots in Protestantism, which in Calvin’s time sought to protect the people against the despotism of the powerful Catholic Church.
swissinfo: What remains from these Calvinist ethics today – bearing in mind the drama playing out in the world of banking and finance?
X.C.: At the moment we’re in a moral crisis. As a result we’ll soon have to grapple more with social responsibility.
That will be a form of secular Calvinism with new, still moral, but no longer religious characteristics. Regarding quality for example – new ISO standards in the area of quality attempt to rectify deficits in the area of responsibility.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is based in Geneva – like many other international institutions. This is also part of Calvin’s legacy.
Another ‘Geneva’ institution is the World Wide Web – invented at Cern. This also works ‘Calvinistically’ insofar as it enables direct access to information to the population, or rather the user.
Until now, powerful intermediaries were needed for this access. The internet has reformed access to the markets – similar to Calvin’s reformation of direct access to God.
swissinfo-interview: Alexander Künzle
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Tim Berners-Lee, a British scientist, invented the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1989, while working at CERN. The web was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world.
 Screenshot of the recreated page of the first website (Image: CERN)
The first website at CERN – and in the world – was dedicated to the World Wide Web project itself and was hosted on Berners-Lee's NeXT computer. In 2013, CERN launched a project to restore this first ever website: info.cern.ch.
On 30 April 1993, CERN put the World Wide Web software in the public domain. Later, CERN made a release available with an open licence, a more sure way to maximise its dissemination. These actions allowed the web to flourish.
https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web |
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Temple de la Madeleine Church - Geneva, Switzerland
Temple de la Madeleine Church - Geneva, Switzerland
Madeleine Church, Geneva, Switzerland. The Temple de la Madeleine Madeleine Church is located in the foot of the Old Town of Geneva, Switzerland
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Was Steve Jobs actually Satoshi Nakamoto the creator of Bitcoin? ????
Satoshi Nakamoto is the anonymous creator of the revolutionary system known as $Bitcoin (BTC.CC.CC)$. It provided a trustless, decentralized way to transact value across the internet, eliminating the need for an intermediary. Through this innovation, Satoshi Nakamoto paved the way for countless future blockchain applications.
Third-Party arts, logos and marks are registered trademarks of their respective owners.
The real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto has never been revealed and the likelihood of Steve Jobs, Founder of $Apple (AAPL.US)$, being Satoshi Nakamoto rest in the speculation that his death properly aligned with the disappearance of Satoshi Nakamoto on the internet. In truth, the identity of the creator remains unknown, so it is simply a theory that Steve Jobs was the person behind it all.
Third-Party arts, logos and marks are registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Many experts believe Satoshi Nakamoto was a group of individuals given the complexity of the code and the fact that the code was written over the course of several years — starting in 2007. The network was launched in 2009 and the white paper found on MacOS, "Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System", was first published in 2008 to describe the fundamentals of the system:
Third-Party arts, logos and marks are registered trademarks of their respective owners.
The true developer of Bitcoin has never been officially revealed leaving HIS -or- HER identity to great speculation.
https://www.moomoo.com/community/feed/110163576946693
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Bitcoin Lecture at CERN, December 2 and 3
wo-parts lecture on Introduction to Cryptography and the Bitcoin Protocol will be given at CERN, in Geneva (Switzerland), on December 2 (Part 1) and December 3 (Part 2), from 11am to noon on both days. CERN, one of the most prestigious research laboratories in the world, is also the birthplace of the World Wide Web and the modern Internet, which gives this event a special symbolic significance.
The lectures are part of the CERN Academic Training Lectures program, open to all members of CERN personnel (in particular staff members and fellows, associates, students, users, project associates and apprentices) free of charge. The lectures are not officially open to the public, but many people in Geneva have friends or acquaintances at CERN, so getting an invitation to enter the CERN campus shouldn’t be too much of a problem for those who really want to attend the lectures.
Introduction to Cryptography and the Bitcoin Protocol
Cryptography is a key element of many Internet protocols – used for ensuring privacy, integrity, and security. Topics to be covered will include symmetric encryption, asymmetric encryption (public/private keys), digital signing and cryptographic hashing. These topics will serve as background information for the lecture on an Introduction to Bitcoin. The Bitcoin protocol not only supports an electronic currency, but also has the possibility for being (mis)used in other ways. Topics will include the basic operation of how Bitcoin operates including motivations and also such things as block chaining, bitcoin mining, and how financial transactions operate. A knowledge of the topics covered in the Basic Cryptography lecture will be assumed.
The lecturer is Bob Cowles, a Cyber Security Expert at BrightLite Information Security. Cowles was Chief Information Security Officer at SLAC, another prestigious research laboratory, for fifteen years until 2012.
What do you think of this high-profile Bitcoin event at the birthplace of the Web? Comment below!
Images from CERN and Wikimedia Commons.
https://www.ccn.com/bitcoin-lecture-cern-december-2-3/
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I love the adventure stories with twisted plots, mysteries, puzzles. That is why I love the stories created by Dan Brown and his major character Professor Robert Langdon who was very well played by Tom Hanks in the series of successful movies. Moreover, in my travel adventures I managed to visit most of the countries, places, museums, etc, and even CERN, which are described in the books and movies. And when I watch the movies I travel back in time together with Professor Langdon.
So, today I invite you to solve great mysteries of Leonardo, Illuminati, and Dante. It’s time to refresh your knowledge of history and arts. Welcome aboard!
Jacques Saunière, a Louvre curator, is pursued through the Grand Gallery by an albino Catholic monk named Silas, who demands the location of the Priory’s “keystone” to find and destroy the Holy Grail. Saunière gives him a false lead and is murdered. The police find his body posed like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Police captain Bezu Fache has his lieutenant, Jérôme Collet, summon American symbologist Robert Langdon, who is in Paris for a lecture on the interpretation of symbols, to examine Saunière’s body.
Langdon is shown the body and a secret message, readable only by blacklight. It contains an out-of-order Fibonacci sequence. Sophie Neveu, a police cryptographer and Saunière’s granddaughter, tells Langdon that Fache planted a tracker on him after finding the words, “P.S. Find Robert Langdon” at the end of Saunière’s secret message. Fache believes that Langdon murdered Saunière. Sophie throws away the tracker, distracting the police while they sneak around the Louvre, finding more clues in Leonardo da Vinci’s works. Langdon deduces that Saunière was the grand master of the Priory of Sion. And our adventure begins.
We meet Professor Robert Langdon for the first time during his lecture. He uses Sony laptop for his presentation.
In one of the next scenes of the movie we can clearly see the van with Bosch logo. Same is for the famous French water – Badoit. We can see it in a bucket full of ice.
When Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu (Audrey Tautou) come to the bank to retrieve the cryptex, we can see how KUKA robot picks the right box that belonged to Jacques Saunière. When the bank employee helps the main characters to pass the police, we can get a glimpse of his Rolex watch.
At Sir Leigh Teabing’s (Ian McKellen) house our guests learn more about The Last Supper painting secrets. Their host is also a fan of Sony, so we may see various TV sets and displays in the house. While enjoying their evening tea, we can as well see Heinz there, of course.
When Robert Langdon and Sophie look for a tomb in London, they borrow a Sony Ericsson smartphone to search for more information.
In the final scene of the movie we see that Robert lives in Ritz hotel in Paris, and from there he starts his evening walk to follow the Arago medallions and come to the Louvre.
The Catholic Church mourns the sudden death of Pope Pius XVI, and prepares for the papal conclave to elect his successor in Vatican City. Father Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor), the camerlengo, takes temporary control of the Vatican during the sede vacante period.
Meanwhile, at CERN, scientists Father Silvano Bentivoglio and Dr. Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) create three canisters of antimatter. As Vetra goes to evaluate the experiment, she discovers that Silvano has been murdered, and one of the canisters was stolen. Shortly thereafter, four of the preferiti, the favored candidates to be elected pope, are kidnapped by a man claiming to represent the Illuminati. He sends the Vatican a warning, claiming he will murder each of the cardinals from 8 p.m. to midnight, when the stolen antimatter will explode and destroy the city, hidden somewhere within.
Unlike two other movies, there are only few product placements in Angels & Demons. And they can be divided in two categories – Sony and TV channels.
That is why we see Sony computers and displays in the first scene in CERN.
And when the events of the movie accelerate, we can see various TV channels broadcasting from Vatican City. These are Canal+, CNN, and Reuters.
And this is it for Angels & Demons. More product placements are waiting in Inferno.
Some time after helping the Vatican dealing with an antimatter threat, Harvard University professor Robert Langdon awakens in a hospital room in Florence, Italy, with no memory of what has transpired over the last few days, but being plagued with hellish visions. Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), the doctor tending to him, reveals that he is suffering from amnesia as a result of a bullet wound to the head. An orderly says the police are there to question Langdon but the officer turns out to be Vayentha, an assassin, who shoots the orderly while coming up the hallway. Brooks helps Langdon to escape, and they flee to her apartment.
Among Langdon’s personal belongings, Langdon and Brooks find a Faraday pointer, a miniature image projector with a modified version of Sandro Botticelli’s Map of Hell, which itself is based on Dante’s Inferno. They soon realize this is the first clue in a trail left by Bertrand Zobrist, a dangerously unstable villain who believed that rigorous measures were necessary to reduce the Earth’s growing population, and who committed suicide three days earlier after being chased by armed government agents.
When Robert Langdon wakes up in Sienna’s house, we can find various brands across her apartment. First of all we see Sony TV remote controls. And when Professor asks for coffee, Sienna goes to the kitchen where we spot tea brands like Greenfield and Twinings.
While Sienna is looking for some clothes for Robert, he decides to use her Apple MacBook to check his Google mail.
When Robert and Sienna decide to call to the consulate, we see that Sienna uses Sony smartphone. When they realize that they can trust no one, they start their investigation. First, they search for the information about Zobrist. Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube are very helpful even in the movies.
Later in the movie we see more Sony product placements – a TV set in Command Risk Consortium, a smartphone and a tablet used by Elizabeth Sinskey.
When Robert Langdon and Sienna Brooks try to escape from their enemies with the help of Christoph Bouchard, they make everyone believe they are going to fly to Switzerland via Swiss, but instead they take an Italo speed train to Venice.
When finally the truth is revealed and memory is restored, Robert and Elizabeth go to Istanbul to stop Sienna from unleashing the virus. Elizabeth shares Zobrist’s message with Robert. They watch it together on a Dell laptop.
In the final scene when Professor returns Dante’s mask to the museum, we can see the museum employee wearing the tag with the Florentine Civic Museums branding.
Unfortunately, there is no news about the future movies with Tom Hanks. And no news about any new books. Looking forward to new adventures of Professor Langdon.
I highly recommend you to visit Product Placement section of the website. You will find more amazing movie series analysed there.
https://www.marketing-psycho.com/robert-langdon-product-placement/ |
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Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( EYEN-styne;[5] German: [ˈalbɛɐt ˈʔaɪnʃtaɪn] ⓘ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is widely held as one of the most influential scientists. Best known for developing the theory of relativity, Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics.[1][6] His mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2, which arises from special relativity, has been called "the world's most famous equation".[7] He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics "for his services to theoretical physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect",[8] a pivotal step in the development of quantum theory.
Born in the German Empire, Einstein moved to Switzerland in 1895, forsaking his German citizenship (as a subject of the Kingdom of Württemberg)[note 1] the following year. In 1897, at the age of seventeen, he enrolled in the mathematics and physics teaching diploma program at the Swiss federal polytechnic school in Zürich, graduating in 1900. In 1901, he acquired Swiss citizenship, which he kept for the rest of his life. In 1903, he secured a permanent position at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern. In 1905, he submitted a successful PhD dissertation to the University of Zurich. In 1914, he moved to Berlin in order to join the Prussian Academy of Sciences and the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1917, he became director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics; he also became a German citizen again, this time as a subject of the Kingdom of Prussia.[note 1] In 1933, while Einstein was visiting the United States, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. Horrified by the Nazi war of extermination against his fellow Jews,[9] Einstein decided to remain in the US, and was granted American citizenship in 1940.[10] On the eve of World War II, he endorsed a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt alerting him to the potential German nuclear weapons program and recommended that the US begin similar research. Einstein supported the Allies but generally viewed the idea of nuclear weapons with great dismay.[11]
Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science.[12][13] In 1905, he published four groundbreaking papers, sometimes described as his annus mirabilis (miracle year). These papers outlined a theory of the photoelectric effect, explained Brownian motion, introduced his special theory of relativity—a theory which addressed the inability of classical mechanics to account satisfactorily for the behavior of the electromagnetic field—and demonstrated that if the special theory is correct, mass and energy are equivalent to each other. In 1915, he proposed a general theory of relativity that extended his system of mechanics to incorporate gravitation. A cosmological paper that he published the following year laid out the implications of general relativity for the modeling of the structure and evolution of the universe as a whole.[15][16]
In the middle part of his career, Einstein made important contributions to statistical mechanics and quantum theory. Especially notable was his work on the quantum physics of radiation, in which light consists of particles, subsequently called photons. With the Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, he laid the groundwork for Bose-Einstein statistics. For much of the last phase of his academic life, Einstein worked on two endeavors that proved ultimately unsuccessful. First, he advocated against quantum theory's introduction of fundamental randomness into science's picture of the world, objecting that "God does not play dice".[17] Second, he attempted to devise a unified field theory by generalizing his geometric theory of gravitation to include electromagnetism too. As a result, he became increasingly isolated from the mainstream modern physics. His intellectual achievements and originality made Einstein broadly synonymous with genius.[18] In 1999, he was named Time's Person of the Century.[19] In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World, Einstein was ranked the greatest physicist of all time.[20]
Life and career
Childhood, youth and education
 Einstein in 1882, age 3
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm,[21] in the Kingdom of Württemberg in the German Empire, on 14 March 1879.[22][23] His parents, secular Ashkenazi Jews, were Hermann Einstein, a salesman and engineer, and Pauline Koch. In 1880, the family moved to Munich's borough of Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, where Einstein's father and his uncle Jakob founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment based on direct current.[21] He often related a formative event from his youth, when he was sick in bed and his father brought him a compass. This sparked his lifelong fascination with electromagnetism. He realized that "Something deeply hidden had to be behind things."[24]
Albert attended St. Peter‘s Catholic elementary school in Munich from the age of five. When he was eight, he was transferred to the Luitpold Gymnasium, where he received advanced primary and then secondary school education.
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