---
title: "The Artificial, Week 213: Bubbles"
abstract: "Another week of The Artificial"
categories:
- work
content-tags:
- weeknotes
- theartificial
- amsterdam
external: https://theartificial.com/blog/2017/05/05/week-213.html
---

Since my last notes, we’ve been busy having fun. Shannon wrote about [our trip to Belgrade](https://theartificial.com/blog/2017/04/24/resonate.html), and last week we had a great Konigsdag (King’s Day). The Artificial rented a nice boat where 18 guests consumed 101 beers, 17 bottled cocktails, 17 bottles of wine, and 4 bottles of Prosecco. There is no proof that I was wearing an orange suit.

Today, while we were taking the day off for Bevrijdingsdag (Liberation Day), the electric bike[^1] we have for a current project was liberated from outside our office. Someone across town noticed it suspiciously unlocked, reported this to the manufacturer, and they located and identified it as ours before we could even notice it missing!

There is an old Dutch joke[^2] about asking the Germans to return their bicycles, especially today (and any day that a German is annoying), but there is no evidence our thief was fleeing the Canadian army.

In other news: Shannon published some [lessons from our secret project](https://medium.com/the-artificial/join-the-conversational-interface-e93b727c8b9c), I [complained about people](https://hans.gerwitz.com/2017/05/01/boys.html), and multiple clients have surfaced to prevent our summer from being as quiet as we expected.

[^1]:	She is named “Bubbles”.

[^2]:	“Ik wil mijn fiets terug” seems to be a joke that’s not really meant to be funny.
