Daniel's thoughts about this and that

Nu är det för varmt tycker jag, kl är snart 24 och det är 31 grader i mitt sovrum, hoppas hösten kommer snart, men enligt prognoserna ska det bli ännu varmare.

Annars har jag lyssnat på mina nya högtalare, det blev ett par Klipsch.

Stor skillnad mot de gamla, men det ska visst ta ett tag att "spela in" dem enligt hi-fi nördarna på diverse forum, vi får se om det stämmer :-).

När jag ändå är i fart med att skriva så kan jag ju nämna några mäkliga drömmar. Om nån är drömtydare kan ni ju få en utmaning med att tyda dem :-)

Jag brukar nästan aldrig komma ihåg vad jag drömmer, men just de senaste dagarna har två drömmar fastnat i huvudet av nån anledning. I natt drömde jag att jag spelade squash med Michael Jackson i nån slags skolsal. De som satt där var ganska irriterade av att få bollen på sig titt som tätt. Jag varken spelar squash, går i skolan eller lyssnar på Michael Jackson så det var en minst sagt udda kombination.

I en annan dröm för några dagar sedan var jag i någon lägenhet som var full med ugnar. Jag gick och räknade dem och konstaterade att alla var på och orade mig för vad dyrt det skulle bli på elräkningen att ha så många ugnar igång samtidigt.

Tänkte jag skulle skriva något här igen, det var ju en stund sedan. Så jag fick för mig av någon anledning att se om jag hade bilder i min databas som jag tagit själv för exakt 10, 5 och 1 år sedan. Både för 1 och 10 år sedan har jag exakt på dagen bilder ifrån och från 5 år sedan hittade jag en bild som bara avvek med en dag. Så här är dom.

1 år sedan:

För ett år sedan hade jag ganska nyligen skaffat mig en ny kamera och var ute och tog många bilder med den. Från den här dagen hade jag hela 81 bilder att välja på, delvis var jag ute och tog bilder på den nya Operan men även bilder längs KarlJohan. Här på bilden är en artist som sitter och spelar gitarr, jag tror han brukar vara där ganska ofta men det kan tänkas att jag blandar ihop honom med någon annan. Bilden blev i alla fall ganska fin även om den kunde beskurits lite. Oslo var tydligen fullkomligt fritt från snö vid samma tid förra året till skillnad från nu då det både igår och idag har kommit ganska mycket med snö.

För ett år sedan var nog mitt liv ganska exakt som det är nu, kan inte komma på så mycket mer att säga om det i alla fall

5 år sedan:

Från exakt 5 år och en dag sedan hittade jag denna bilden. Vitbalansen är alldeles för blå men jag tycker det gav en bra effekt. Det var mörkt och jag hade aldrig något stativ till den kameran jag använde då så jag satte den bara på marken och exponerade i 8 sekunder. Blev en ganska häftig effekt med molnslöjorna över stan. Marken var inte helt plan heller vilket syns ganska tydligt.

För 5 år sedan var jag nyligen färdig med mina universitetsstudier och hade precis börjat jobba. 3 dagar senare hade jag några bilder från den nya lägenheten jag då flyttade in i.

10 år sedan:

Denna något mörka bilden är tagen för exakt 10 år sedan och den dagen hade jag två bilder att välja på, en på en person och denna på mitt dåvarande studentrum i Uppsala. Under sängen ligger en hantel som även ligger här bredvid mig nu 10 år senare. Jag tror faktiskt jag lånade den av min bror. Hmm jag har visst lånat den ganska länge nu :-) , men han är välkommen att hämta den om han vill. Till höger i fönstret kan man se några kaktusar, de är mycket större nu men lever ännu. Jag har omplanterat dem i 3 olika krukor sedan dess. Bonsaiträdet till vänster i fönstret var fint, men det dog när jag var bortrest nån vecka, bättre att hålla sig till kaktusar. Soffan under fönstret blev lite senare flyttad till mina föräldrar där en liten katt passade på att göra sina behov. Lika bra det kanske för soffan var inte särskilt fin, men skön var den och kostade bara 200 kr om jag minns rätt. I Uppsala bodde jag i ett år innan jag följde hjärtat och flyttade till Norge. Men Uppsala var en trevlig stad att studera i. Rummet på bilden tillhör lägenheterna till Kalmar Nation. Det var ett bra rum eftersom jag kunde välja bland ganska många. Det var ju långa bostadsköer men jag var nummer 2 i kön då jag passade på att skriva upp mig innan jag gjorde lumpen.

Det skulle ju vara intressant att visa bilder ännu längre tillbaka, men svårare att våra så exakt på äldre bilder. Dessutom har jag inte alls lika många bilder som är äldre. Jag har digitala bilder sedan 1998 men innan dess var det papper som gällde. 1998 var nog ganska tidigt med digitalkamera, jag kände i alla fall inte många (om ens någon) som hade det då.

Yesterday there was a quite big thunderstorm in Oslo. This is not so common here, and not that it is so close.

I heard it in the distance but did not initially think it was coming much closer. But when I sat in my couch with a glass of water in my hand there was suddenly a huge bang with lightning and thunder at the same time, I jumped so I spilled out all the water in my couch and car alarms started in the street. I also got a ringing sound in my right ear for several hours after from the loud sound. I did not see where the lighning hit, but it must have been very close to my house.

When there is a thunderstorm it's of course good to disconnect electrical machines, but I was a bit surprised by how fast it came so I never got to that. So unfortunately I have now a long list of things not working anymore:

* My flat screen computer monitor died ( I had a dual monitor setup, so fortunately only one died and I can still use my computer )
* The DVD player for my tv is dead
* The sound in my PSP is gone ( which unfortunately was on charging when it happened )
* The network card on my computer was fried ( fortunately everything else on the computer seems to work though)
* My digital TV box is also completely dead.
* Even my wireless router is dead.

I am not sure I have tested all things here so there might be more.

At least I had an older computer standing in a corner from which I could grab an old network card, so I now have internet back even though I have a cable dragged across the floor as the router died.

Well it's all just things...

It's now really nice and warm outside. Unfortunately I sat mostly inside at the computer this weekend doing some programming and other stuff. However I did take a walk down to the new Opera building here in Oslo and took some images. It looks very nice. Not very cheap however, I read in the newspaper that around 4 billion NOK of tax money was used to build it. The same newspaper also mentioned that 8000 people from 700 different companies were involved in the building process. On saturday when I was there it was very crowded, you even had to stand in line on the small bridge over the road as it was so crowded in the staircase.

At the computer I tried to find a good way of drawing uml class diagrams in svg on linux. After testing different alternatives such as gaphor and umbrello I ended up using the old classic Dia. Gaphor was terribly buggy. Umbrello is ok, but it could not export proper SVG so I gave up on that too. Maybe there are nicer tools for this that I have not found ? Dia at least exported usable SVG after some tweaking of the fonts used.

Outside in the sun I immediately sneezed because of the bright light. I have sometimes wondered about this strange reflex but never cared to look it up. But now I did (on the net) and apparently it's a genetic thing. However scientists do not know exactly why this happen for some people, except that the connections in the brain are a bit crosswired between the reflex that should close the iris and the sneeze reflex. I am not very bothered by it though. Also sneezing seem to be something that is not really needed in it's current form in humans at all. Because it is thought that sneezing is supposed to clean out the nose to expell bacteria, pollen, virus and dirt. However humans sneeze almost completely with the mouth instead of the nose in contrast to other mammals. Check your dog or cat next time they sneeze, apparently they sneeze only with the nose (which is the proper and useful way of sneezing). So apparently it is a bit pointless to sneeze at all, and to sneeze when looking at the sun is then even more pointless :-). According to the report I found on the net around 20% of the Swedish population have this sun-sneeze reflex, I found that surprisingly high as I can't recall having met someone else that have mentioned beeing affected by this, but then again I have never asked. And to be precise it's not the sun in itself that causes it, for example if I have went to bed and been lying in the dark for some time and then decide to go up and turn on the computer; the bright light from the monitor is usually so bright that I have to sneeze :-).

This is stupid, I have signed up to not get a phonebook because I never use it, and apparently no one in my building use them. We are 4 apartments here and this is how it looked in the trashcans today, 4 unopened phonebooks.

I tried to cancel it last year also but it did not work that year either. The people who deliver these books do not seem to care, they just drop 4 books here because there are 4 apartments.

What a waste.

Most Swedes or Norwegians know that prices are often higher in Norway on various things. But I guess not everyone is aware of how much more expensive cars are here in Norway than in Sweden. I was aware it was expensive but not this expensive because I have never really bothered to check car prices before, but now I did.

As an example I just checked the prices of some brand new Volvo cars. And for further comparison I also added the prices in Denmark and Finland and you might be surprised to see that the Danish prices are even higher than the already extremely high Norwegian price.

Volvo S80 2.5:

Sweden : 286.900 SEK
Finland: 488.066 SEK
Norway : 677.125 SEK
Denmark: 697.957 SEK

And for the more powerful cars the difference is even greater:

Volvo XC90 V8:

Sweden :    577.900 SEK
Finland:       ?    SEK ( did not find a V8, the cheaper D5 costs 650.000 SEK)
Norway :  1.477.429 SEK
Denmark:  1.578.793 SEK

Sources: www.volvo./no/se/dk and www.bilia.fi

As another example on second hand cars you can find V70 TDI's from 1999 in the price span 30.000-50.000 SEK in Sweden (blocket.se) while in Norway (finn.no) it seems to be around (150.000-200.000) SEK for the same car.

I have not really digged deep with this investigation and I do not know anything about car prices really so of course there can be errors in the prices I listed here due to facts I an not aware of, but to me this seemed to be the base prices listed for these models in the Scandinavian countries.

And to buy a car in Sweden and register it as Norwegian is so expensive that you usually will end up with an even higher price than in Norway, because otherwise of course no one would buy their car in Norway or Denmark.

The difference seems crazy really... am I only dreaming ?

Up here in Scandinavia there are not so much sunshine in the winter, but I just read about a small town in Austria that has no sun at all in the winter. Sounds a bit weird but as the town is behind a large mountain and the sun is much lower in the winter they are in constant shadow. They were discussing installing som huge mirrors to get some light there but apparantly it was too expensive. So it's not too bad up here :-) And now with the snow it's all much brighter.

Now it's soon christmas so I have been shopping. It was not that easy to find some presents but at least I have something now :-). I brought my camera and took some images. Also I tried some macros in my bathroom at 2:30 last night because my neighbors was having a party outside my bedroom window so sleeping was out of the question. What better to do than crawling around on your bathromm floor photographing silverfishes instead :-)

The images can also be found at this set at Flickr.

Just a short story I read in a recent issue of Scientific American.

A hat seller, on waking from a nap under a tree, found that a group of monkeys had taken all his hats to the top of the tree. In exasperation he took off his own hat and flung it to the ground. The monkeys known for their imitative urge, hurled down the hats, which the hat seller promptly collected. Half a century later his grandson, also a hat seller, set down his wares under the same tree for a nap. On waking, he was dismayed to discover that monkeys had taken all his hats to the treetop. Then he remembered his grandfather's story, so he threw his own hat to the ground. But, mysteriously, none of the monkeys threw any hats, and only one monkey came down. It took the hat on the ground firmly in hand, walked up to the hat seller, gave him a slap and said, "You think only you have a grandfather?"