Flickr - Schmickr

Flickr would be great it it weren't so stupid. It's free, though when you choose not to pay, you have a 20 MB per month upload limit. That's upload limit, not space. If you delete something you won't get your bits back. You also have a limited number of sets, which is annoying, for while Flickr is good as a catalogue where you can search through pictures by tag, popularity, and so on, it gives you no good way of presenting pictures the way you want. It appears cumbersome and chaotic to visitors. Flickr seems to think 25 $ is really cheap per year for their service. I don't. Especially since most people are having trouble with their uploader software, which is really the only way if you've paid and want to upload a lot of files.

And now I've discovered that for free users they only allow 200 pics! That's frikkin annoying, and they don't even tell you! They just disappear. Well, not totally disappear, but they're not yours anymore. Not until you pay. So if I look into my tags now, the "Aalborg" tag is big, becaues I have taken lots of pics tagged "Aalborg" lately. But if I click it it says I have "no pics labeled Aalborg, but others do". And then I can see mine among the others. It's lame. Especially since it's not really mentioned.

The reason why I stared using Flickr was that the way stupided Aalborg University blocks all ports so I wasn't able to use ftp. Now that AAU is no longer a problem, I can go back to posting pics the way I was used to, with Web Album Generator, and posting them to UiO. I loose simple upload, and intellingent sorting. But I get a sleeker presentation. And it's free.

RIP Flickr.

9100

Time passes quickly. And today is day 9100in my life. It just doesn't sount that much. Day 9100 is has not been that good so far. I got up at 10, but on I never fell alseep on day 9099, and 5 hours was all I got. Our landguy is stressed out. When he left at one in the morning, he still left it kinda messy. Especially the kitchen is not so nice. I've been cleaning though. It's better. No exactly shiny though. Without sounding too full of prejudice, I don't think the people living here are too handy - there are some easy repairs that haven't been touched. I've had a go. They say tools is half the job. And though I love my Swiss Army Knife, it sometimes only does one third of the job.



Luckily though, he also left some nice stuff. For instance, we have beds. That's nice. And there's a big TV, and kitchen table with chairs, and leather chairs in the living room. And light. And balcony furniture. This is gonna be nice!

Another move

Some people claim I am a little restless because I've moved several times the last few years. That might be true, but some of the planning is not due to restlessness, but rather poor planning, and other reasons. Since 1999, I've lived at these places:

1999: Steinkjerm Norway, Kalv Arnesons gate.
1999: Richland, WA, Russell Ave.
1999: West Richland, WA, Paradise Ave.
2000: Richland, WA, Thayer Rd.
2000: Trondheim, Norway, Kirkegata.
2002: Relocating in Kirkegata.
2003: Trondheim, Norway, Klæbuveien.
2004: Ferney-Voltaire, France, Avenue du Bijou.
2005: Trondheim, Norway, Valøyslyngen.
2005: Oslo, Norway, Olav M. Troviks vei.
2006: Inderøy, Norway, Vangshylla.*
2006: Aalborg, Denmark, Skallerupvej.
2006: Malmö, Sweden, Lönngatan.*

And now I'm moving to Skolgatan. That's 14 places, including the * which means it is only for a short period of time, but still being the place where I had my stuff, and my only residence... My Trondheim years were pretty stable.



Now I've been living in Malmö, I've escaped Aalborg, and I've been living in the apartment that John and Hanneke rented here for May and June. Fortunately we've found a bigger apartment for us, for July, August and September, which fits us perfectly. It's even closer to town, and right by the wonderful Möllevångstorget. Pildammsparken is also close by, as is Folkets Park, where stuff happens now and then. Hopefully, I'll also be able to go to the library more often, and... work.

Now I need to hurry up and pack! I'm so inefficient!

Tinkering Towards Failure

It is Tuesday.

Tuesdays are work days. Work is thesis work.

Breakfast. With coffee. Another cup of coffee. Getting stressed. Too much caffeine. Too little confidence. Too little overview. Too little insight. Too little structure.

Coffee. Jitters. Uppers and downers - try rooibos - try ice cream. Tummy ache. Don't know where to start, continue - or whatever it is I am doing.

General tinkering. Reading. Writing. Rereading. Deleting.

I'm lucky. I'm only worrying about my thesis. Hanneke has additional issues. We're not each other's constructive company today.

Is this general confusion and nervous apprehension going to end up in a successful thesis, a job (the paid kind)? Are we Tinkering Towards Success, as Karin Knorr-Cetina wrote in an article I never read too carefully, or is this going to end with Failure?

I guess that is up to me...

Another tinkering project that recently has come closer to failure, is trying to fix John's iPod Shuffle, that stopped working. As any attempt to remedy the situation by following various recipes for success have failed, John has moved on to hardware inspection.



John is a software guy, and after carefully disassembling the shuffe into as many pieces as you can, while still being able to reassemble it, there are really no more options. The shuffle is a compact piece of plastic with no movable parts, no dust, no apparent busted parts. The shuffle is a so-called "Consumable" product. And consumed it is.

Failure is relative, and you shouldn't kill the rookie.

Instead - all you need is love ("kärlek" - these two grafittis were next to each other)


Love is not that easy though. And when you open the love black box, commonly popularized through television, I guess it's as hard to understand what the individual parts do, and which buttons to press in order to make it work again - and what caused it to break down anyway?

While the internet is full of benevolent suggestions for fixing your iPod Shuffle; explaining what's wrong with a Thinkpad battery, and how to recondition it; there's not that much helpful material on how to mend love when it's not working properly. I'm afraid that the otherwise wonderful Howstuffworks.com, while brilliant at explaining how the common four-stroke internal combustion engine works, is not going to be terribly helpful when explaining love

I guess all we can say is good luck, Hanneke.

Malmö, religion and the relativity of things

Today I borrowed John's camera - and headed out into town on my new bike. Since John's away, and I didn't have a lock this morning, I had to set out on my new adventure without the luxury of leaving my bike for long. Luckily, one of the many immigrant stores in Malmö are open on Sundays, even more specialized stores like the key and lock store I visited.

I took a little round near to Möllevängstorget where we're going to live to shoot some of the stores and life around it, that makes it so special, almost like New York, John says. I haven't been there, but I think it's a mix between Oslo's Grønland, and Trondheim's Svartlamo'n. That is a mix of cultures, both based in geography and political affinity. I made a little collection of pictures from my day on the bike.

After heading home I came across this dude, who's in some way is doing some kind of religious praise, or some kind of personal enlightenment procedure, where he faces the sun, with his hands pointing up, in a 90 degree elbow position, and then, before he finishes, crosses himself, and resumes his otherwise normal activity.

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Today I met him, in a more direct manner, our roads crossed, so to speak. I stopped, and asked him what he was doing, if he was part of some religion or something. And he didn't stop, but after he'd passed me he turned around and said "Search, and you'll find. Do you get it?". I said "Eh, no, no. I... I... No, not really. What do you call it, who do you belong to?" And to this he replied, "why do you have to belong to anything? It's him, it's God, you don't have to belong - search, and you'll find - don't you get it?". Then he was gone. I continued walking, mumbling... "No..."

I'm still kinda baffled, that this guy, so openly doing something so weird, relative to his location and time at least, was so reluctant to talk about what he was doing. Enlightenment without teaching. Personal religion - though he'd probably oppose any such labeling as "religion". I mean - regardless of if I agreed with the fella, he might have had some interesting stuff to tell me. This dude has had some epiphany, and doesn't want to share. That's rare.

The other day though, at the midsummer party, we got to meet this buddhist, vegan, American, who's called John, and has worked and lived in Palo Alto as a programmer, much like the old John, or John One, or any other suiting label. He's into sanskrit, computer games and linguistics - not unrelated as such, but still, John Two is to me a good broad education specimen. He also made me aware of a movie, Powers of Ten (download: 147MB), which is been deemed culturally significant, by the US Library of Congress. It's a 1977 documentary, showing the meaning of powers of ten in the universe, from a couple having a picnic in Chicago, zooming out to the outer limits of space, by adding a power of ten every ten seconds. For anyone having studies physics, I suppose it doesn't add anything new to the table, but it's still an interesting visualization of the large and the small, and the relative scale of things.

Now it's time to address more secular interests, like watching Ecuador beat England in the world cup.

Adjö Sverige

And then it's over. Sweden is out of the world cup. The bad start was a shock, and hope diminished as we realized that the Swedes would not improve, and the odds for Sweden winning kept climbing: 4, 50, 100, 250, 999... I guess it doesn't go higher.

The mood at Malmö Central Station, where John, Hanneke and I had settled down after today's falafel, was rapidly going down hill.



The only one smiling is Hanneke, the owner of the "Adjö Sverige" mug, that someone in the Netherlands made for all the other teams, than of course, the Dutch.



John, the best Swede is bravely smiling after the game...



Now I can only hope for the best for other teams, like Ecuador and Ghana, and hope that Argentina will provide some entertaining football tonight!

Midsommar

To make the most out of our stay in Sweden, we have to, of course, take part in the Swedish midsommar tradition - a truly ethnic experience. We were invited to Eric's place in Lund, or his back yard of an old brick house, where tables were set with red-and-white-patterned table cloths, a gigantic pot of potatoes, herring in different varieties, an old and sun-bleached Swedish flag, and aquavit. And a nice little party it was, with Swedish songs, and a broad range of guests.

The only thing missing in the increasingly cold night, was a proper mid summer fire, but in the end, as we were leaving, that was taken care of too. Not a very lasting event, but you gotta take what you get.

Purple train

Purple train, purple train
Purple train, purple train

I only wanted 2 see u traveling in the purple train

I never wanted 2 be your weekend lover
I only wanted 2 be some kind of friend
Baby, I could never steal u from another
It's such a shame our friendship had 2 end



"Our next big challenge is to break out of Sweden's tought oil addiction. Supporting the train is an important way to succeed at this. We want to lower the prices and ensure that they are on time." (Sweden's green party)

Midtsommer

Being in Sweden for mid-summer should be nice, so John and I went to Folkets Park to see the celebration - with the may pole and all. Singing along to Swedish songs quickly gets old though, so we had a look around at a petting zoo, feeding rabbits and stuff, before we checked out a falafel place right by our new place. Like many places in Malmö, they have a wide range of combinations for falafels and similar food. Like many places in Malmö, they cost 15 kronor, and like many places in Malmö, they are number 1. and best in test. And they are good, and since they are all more or less the same, I suppose they can all claim to be #1.

Play authentic background music

And see the pics.

Rough Malmö

Our little trip in new territories in Malmö brought us into a rougher neighborhood. Dead rats, broken locks, weird driving schools. Have a look.

Min nya cykel

Since we live kinda close, but not that close to the center, I've been looking for a bike. Yesterday I visited an old man in a very bad neighborhood who'd posted some bikes for sale on blocket.se.

The bike was bad, and the tires were flat, and the guy insisted it was an extremely good deal, so I said no. Besides, we kinda got the idea that the stuff was hot, and on the way, we found a cut off bike lock, and not to mention a big run-over rat.

The bike situation here seems rough, and we read in the newspaper today, that there'd been a bike-stealing raid, right by our house yesterday. And even really crappy bikes have really heavy locks.

But a bike is nice... John bought aa cheap bike at Biltema, but I was looking for an even cheaper bike, and the old-and-used look is probably good. And after looking into a lot of bikes fitting the old and scruffed up look, but not the low price, I hit a guy that sold bikes for 300. That was an OK deal I though, though it's hardly worth anything more. So now I've ended up with an old ladies' bike with semi-working brakes, semi working gears, and... well. If it's not stolen or completely broken by the time I leave, maybe I can sell it for about the same price.



This will be cool. I haven't had a bike since the bastards stole my good bike in Oslo :(

New apartment, new happy meal - new everything!

Our apartment deal seems to be settled. We got a key, and paid the first month of rent, and we can even move in a couple of days in advance, which can be convenient.

John has a lot of coupons that he got when he moved to Malmö, whose value we needed to collect. This brought us to a new mall not so far from here, where we got a free Big Mac, a free Happy meal (at McD) and a free .5kg of coffee from ICA.



John's at home, and the happy meal, is quite healthy: I got carrots instead of fries and juice instead of coke, and the happy meal toy was a pedimeter! Quite fun.



I put it in my belt to see how many steps I walked on my way home, but I lost it in the stairs and it got reset, so I'm no wiser. Anyways, it's one of the more reasonable things I've seen from McD.

But it doesn't end there, the world is full of new things and new innovative things. At ICA, they had some new basket-trolleys, where the basket is kinda like a suitcase, handling wise. I thought these were pretty cool. There's only one hitch:



It makes me feel extremely old!

Norway, Sweden, Denmark

A puzzle, that needs to be solved.

When I moved from Denmark, I gave up my B-citizenship, and I got two pieces of paper, that I were to give to my home town in Norway. Since I haven't really got any home place in Norway, and that I've lost those papers, I am not really registered with an address in Norway. I figured, that'd be ok for now, but the other day I was trying to get a phone plan with Tele2, because the prices are equal for Sweden and Norway, but I didn't pass their credit check. I was a bit scared, I thought there was some bad info on me, but it turns out it's just because I'm not registered in Norway, and they don't like that. So today, I've been a good boy, and printed out some forms from Norge.no to make an official move somewhere, so it'll be ok.

So make that a lesson, people - Do as the tax and move-people say...

Heja Sverige

Seems like we got the apartment. We'll be moving in July 1st. That's cool. We had to do some bargaining to make the deal though. Now I just hope it'll work out without problem.

Tonight though, we went to Folkets Park to watch Sweden play England in the World Cup. Since we were making some dinner (which turned out crap) and making arrangements for a new apartment, we starte moving towards the park a little late, and by the time we got there, the park was actually so crammed of ppl that we couldn't get in and get to the big screen.


Instead we ended up in a little pubbish thing, where they had a tiny LCD TV (everyone now have tiny TVs that cost three times as much as a normal tube, just because LCD is hip). It was kinda slow, since it's hard to get involved when you can't really see anything. Some Swedes that were trying to pep up the Swedes were not impressed with my enthusiasm, but I explained, in vain, that I was Norwegian, and my support by wearing a home made "Tre Kronor" t-shirt was as good as it was gonna get.



Anyways, it's nice to be back in Malmö. I got a Skåne Trafiken bus card, an apartment, and everything is dandy!

Malmö

I'm back in Malmö! For now, I'm in Maria's apartment, where John and Hanneke has lived for a couple of months. Today we looked for an apartment where we can live for the next three months.

It is a big and nice apartment, and tomorrow we'll know if we can get it. It's partly furnished and close to Möllevångstorget.




Tonight we're going to support Sweden in the game against England :)

512 - a magic number

I've been messing around with memory configurations lately, looking for more RAM for my laptop. However, it's expencive for olde Notebooks, and not easy to get second hand stuff either. My attempt to buy a cheap and unspecified chip in Bergen enden up as more mem in my sister's computer, so I was still stuck with 128. Now though, after a luxurious deal, where RAM was traded for a bucket of beer on ice, I have 512 MB ram and everything is smooooth and responsive. I've never had this much mem on any computer, actually! Yay!

A nice picture:

Sicknesses and diseases

I came across this medical site with listings of the codes for all kinds of sicknesses, and since I'm into broad education, and diseases, and seriously lacking the ability to do anything useful these days, I had a look into it.

For postponing my military service, I've used the following diagnoses made by my doctor.

L13: Hofte Kneppende/Snapping hip
L98: Plattfot Ervervet/Flat feet
L84: Skiveforskyvning, rygg/Dislocated discs
A12: Allergisk reaksjon/Allergic Reaction
R96: Astma aktivitetsutløst/Astma

I haven't read my medical journal, but it may also include the following:

A27: Engstelig for sykdom/Worried about sickness

And some other people, including myself has diagnosed me with
P70: Alzheimers
A04: Sløvhet/General fatigue

Hmm, interesting.

Bergen and Oslo and master thesis

After a long and relaxing weekend in Bergen, I am once again in Oslo, and this time to do some interviews for my thesis.

First, the morning before I left Bergen I went to the green head quarters in Bergen, to talk with some ppl from Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth). The ambience was pretty calm there, in the old wooden buildings of Bryggen, and pragmatic environmentalists. Today, though, I've been in Oslo to talk with some people in the administration of transport (SD) and environment (MD). At the SD, although a lot more fancy, with prepared people who had made coffee, and had a folder with my name on his desk when I arrived, this conversation was a lot more dominated by one-way-communication, and resolute avoidance of definite answers, and anything beyond written down facts and party programs. But hey, it was interesting to experience a more formal environment, and I really needed that coffee.





Later I went to the MD which was less fancy but in very cosy surroundings. Actually, it was kinda hard to find, with no logos or anything, really. And no sign of any environmental activity, until I found this little sign for refuelling your electrical car. Kinda cool, haven't seen that before.

Hair

Babies haven't any hair:
Old men's heads are just as bare;
From the cradle to the grave
Lies a haircut and a shave.
~Samuel Goodman Hoffenstein

The other day, in Denmark, I figured, since almost everyone I know more or less have left, I can experiment within the hair cutting trade - that is, trying to cut my own hair. I invested in some disposable razors, so I could shave completely if I totally failed (though that would have been a pain), and went ahead with practicing with a pair of school scissors. Surprisingly, it turned out alright, I must say, for a first attempt, and my respect for hair cutters specializing in male hair cuts dropped radically.

Anyhow, my real goal was to get it all off, so today I had my sister buzz it all off. The experimenting continued though:



This is of course not for me, clashing with my otherwise very normal image. So we went on and got it all off. It's very nice having no hair.



I look pretty evil though. A sleezy little bastard.

More pics at Flickr

Stena Saga

After a successful getaway from Aalborg (I got my ticket out of that place, to put it like that, though the means of transportation: bus and train, did not have an optimized schedules for my purpose). Now I'm sitting on the Stena Saga. The very Swedish captain has just kindly informed us that it is overcast. I have spent my time so far in the familiar laptop-man's idle trawling up and down and all around in search for for a power outlet. It's quite sparingly diffused, you might say, on the Stena Saga. After deciding I wouldn't sit on the floor by the black jack table, I had given up. Sitting down in a quiet corner, after all, it's 10 AM, I haven't really had a good night's sleep - and I am, for all practical purposes in hell. But then, while putting my head down, lying back, I noticed there are power sockets in the ceiling! Yay. Now we'll see how long it takes before they make me buy a coffee. Which wouldn't be a bad thing, but I'm saving it.

Yesterday I was on the bus, and I realized, though not for the first time, that in Denmark, there are more people smelling like they've been drunk and sleeping in their own piss than anywhere else. Maybe it's just Aalborg. Although Norway is not really the best place to go to get away from this Scandinavian condition, I'm still looking forward to going to Norway. But as the saying goes, it's always at its darkest before the morning breaks (or does it?), the bulb is the brightest before it burns out. And so also with what I'm trying to run away from, the alcoholics, the smokaholics, the right-wing voters and racists - the whole schebang - it violently peaks on this cruise of all the mentioned-aboves. Old, wrinkly and coarse-voiced Norwegian men and women, drunk German bikers and run-away teenagers, all sharing the vision of a perfect society - where alchol, cigarettes and gasoline is free, and everyone lives in peace and smoky harmony, without the "ethnic" and the gay.

A woman next to me, clearly relieved to inhale what appears to be the first first-hand smoke she's had in a while said: "Hey, are you ready for action?" which makes me really scared, although it was not meant for me. What is scary - I mean, what really makes me afraid - is the drum set and the synthesizer behind me on some make-shift scene. I assume the action she might be talking about is some kind of freak show with 60 year old men with bleached hair, playing covers of songs I only recognize from similar places. Puh. It is, as mentioned 10 AM, and beers, and various blends of alcholic beverages are widely being consumed - while the crew on Stena Line kindly insists to wear warm clothes if the alarm sounds. My own alarm of uneasiness has long ago sounded, and I am in a mental brace position for witnessing the unshameful presentation of Norwegian (or should be in the spirit of the community, call it Nordic) social pornography, human retardedness, and the breaking of the FrP-code...

So long - and ship ohoy.

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On the way Norway showed itself from the best side. Though, to have a nuanced picture of the whole thing, I would have to add that it's not strange that people coming to Oslo is surprised of the high level of hookers and junkies. The former is very striking when arriving from the harbor. But anyways. Back in Norway!