Velib' update

Having actually read some of the Vélib' website now, I've realised it's an even better deal than I thought - for an annual fee of 29 Euros, the first half hour of every ride is free, and you can take as many half hour rides as you like every day so long as you check the bike back in. Yesterday, over morning coffee in Pick-Clops on my way to work, I read in Libération that sales of bicycles in Paris have actually gone up, 10 to 20%, since the Vélib' scheme started. "You should have been here on Saturday, it was insane!" said one bicycle shop owner the paper interviewed. Apparently people try the scheme and find it's really handy to go around Paris on a bike, but then they get up one morning and find all the Vélib's are gone from their local rack, or they're all broken or whatever, and they wish they had a bike of their own..

ENS-Cachan

I started work yesterday at the Normale Sup' in Cachan - all seems well. They have the essentials for computer science: an excellent free espresso coffee machine, a water cooler and a good bakery a 5 minute walk away. And some computers and stuff. I work in the left hand side of the building in the picture. Not sure who the architect was - he's probably keeping quiet about it.