I just stumbled upon an interesting article on / (the discussion on /. as often is the case contains many interesting points, if you have the time to read through them).
I think this is a great idea, the concept has already been used on offshore drilling rigs and a company like Statiol who has extensive experience with this seems right to get this idea going.
Wind power really is something that really needs to become used as extensively as in any way possible and I think this might be a good step in the right direction.
May 25, 2008
May 24, 2008
SAS Survival Guide a book for fieldworkers?
This being the only survival book I have ever read I am not really in a position to judge if it is a good book or not, just surfing over a few reviews on the internet shows me that there are some people who think that there is some things in this book that is inaccurate, but also a lot of people who have a lot of positive things to say about it.
I myself have learned a whole lot of things by reading this book and among the things I have learned a lot of them have come in handy when doing geophysics fieldwork. I often take the book with me and try to learn to get better at identifying the different plants that it talks about when I am working outside in nature anyhow.
This is something I have found is a good way to avoid getting your mind all to much mixed up by being out working all day long every day for months in a row, setting myself a goal to learn something while being out there, something that perhaps is not all to related to the work I am doing. When I am out working with someone who has a lot of knowledge in some field, like for example a forester student who can teach me about trees or someone who knows a lot about birds, then it is a given what it is I am trying to learn. But quite often I am out working on my own or with someone who doesn't have any specific knowledge I am interested in. In such situations trying to get to know new edible or poisonous plants, knots or something like this of which there are plenty to get started with in the book that can be both very good skills to acquire while it also keeps me sane.
Often bringing a book into the field is not practical, but that doesn't keep me from bringing home small samples of plants and trying to identify them in the evening and such
I have found that it is generally a good idea to give it a bit of thought how I am going to stay "sane" if I know that I am going to be on a longer assignment, it actually makes it a lot easier to get the job done and do it well if you have something else to think about than the work itself.
I myself have learned a whole lot of things by reading this book and among the things I have learned a lot of them have come in handy when doing geophysics fieldwork. I often take the book with me and try to learn to get better at identifying the different plants that it talks about when I am working outside in nature anyhow.
This is something I have found is a good way to avoid getting your mind all to much mixed up by being out working all day long every day for months in a row, setting myself a goal to learn something while being out there, something that perhaps is not all to related to the work I am doing. When I am out working with someone who has a lot of knowledge in some field, like for example a forester student who can teach me about trees or someone who knows a lot about birds, then it is a given what it is I am trying to learn. But quite often I am out working on my own or with someone who doesn't have any specific knowledge I am interested in. In such situations trying to get to know new edible or poisonous plants, knots or something like this of which there are plenty to get started with in the book that can be both very good skills to acquire while it also keeps me sane.
Often bringing a book into the field is not practical, but that doesn't keep me from bringing home small samples of plants and trying to identify them in the evening and such
I have found that it is generally a good idea to give it a bit of thought how I am going to stay "sane" if I know that I am going to be on a longer assignment, it actually makes it a lot easier to get the job done and do it well if you have something else to think about than the work itself.
March 28, 2008
Walking in plowed fields
Right now I am doing a MEP-project. I have shocked by how many plowed fields there are out there right now, which makes life for fieldworkers like me pretty unpleasent. One of my co-workers already had to be sent home because his ankle couldn't take any more.
To begin with I didn't understand why we had to struggle with these unusually many plowed fields, but I have by now found a couple of reasons for it.
First of the prices for grain on the world market are pretty high right now according to a farmer I talked to, especially the price on barley is high which makes it more rewarding economically for the farmers to plant crops on the fields instead of setting the fields aside and receiving compensation for this from the EU. Also the compensation for setting aside fields has been lowered quite a bit lately this also plays a big part I think.
At the same time we have a later winter here in Denmark which means that even though the fields have been plowed the farmers have not yet planted anything as it seems that barley needs some spring temperatures before being put into the ground.
So I am hoping for some higher temperatures soon to spare my legs from all of these plowed fields which is kind of rough to walk all day, planted fields are somewhat easier to handle.
I sure am going to miss all those nice set aside fields which are a joy to make MEP on, not only because it is not as tough for the body, but also because there is much more animal life there that makes it all the more enjoyable to do the work that I do.
To begin with I didn't understand why we had to struggle with these unusually many plowed fields, but I have by now found a couple of reasons for it.
First of the prices for grain on the world market are pretty high right now according to a farmer I talked to, especially the price on barley is high which makes it more rewarding economically for the farmers to plant crops on the fields instead of setting the fields aside and receiving compensation for this from the EU. Also the compensation for setting aside fields has been lowered quite a bit lately this also plays a big part I think.
At the same time we have a later winter here in Denmark which means that even though the fields have been plowed the farmers have not yet planted anything as it seems that barley needs some spring temperatures before being put into the ground.
So I am hoping for some higher temperatures soon to spare my legs from all of these plowed fields which is kind of rough to walk all day, planted fields are somewhat easier to handle.
I sure am going to miss all those nice set aside fields which are a joy to make MEP on, not only because it is not as tough for the body, but also because there is much more animal life there that makes it all the more enjoyable to do the work that I do.
January 27, 2008
Time to slow down on the multitasking
An article I read really has made me think a bit about my habits.
I guess I already knew this but the article really makes it very evident multitasking makes me stupid and slow.
Sure it might feel like a great thing to be able to do two or more things at once, but it always just ends up with two things done bad instead of one thing done well.
So from now on I am going to turn of the background music when doing stuff that takes concentration.
I am going to turn of the computer when working with "analog" stuff.
I am going to try and relearn to focus on one thing and only that thing for longer periods of time.
It has become more and more evident to me that this has become increasingly difficult in the past years.
I am going to turn of the cell phone more (sorry to those people who get annoyed by this, I already get complaints that I am difficult to get in contact with ... it's not going to be easier in the future I guess).
I guess I already knew this but the article really makes it very evident multitasking makes me stupid and slow.
Sure it might feel like a great thing to be able to do two or more things at once, but it always just ends up with two things done bad instead of one thing done well.
So from now on I am going to turn of the background music when doing stuff that takes concentration.
I am going to turn of the computer when working with "analog" stuff.
I am going to try and relearn to focus on one thing and only that thing for longer periods of time.
It has become more and more evident to me that this has become increasingly difficult in the past years.
I am going to turn of the cell phone more (sorry to those people who get annoyed by this, I already get complaints that I am difficult to get in contact with ... it's not going to be easier in the future I guess).
January 09, 2008
Dashing
This blogpost is an attempt to do what my little brother did and write a blogpost in dasher.
I am afraid this takes more time and training than I have right now, but I might try to continue the experiment in another post. It actually is quite fun.
I am afraid this takes more time and training than I have right now, but I might try to continue the experiment in another post. It actually is quite fun.
January 05, 2008
Motorcycle training by Tux Racing?
Playing this game gives me a little bit of the same feeling I have when riding my motorcycle "to the edge" of what I am able to ride it.
So I kind of tell myself that the time I am wasting playing tux-racer is good training of my motorcycle skills here in the winter where I don't get so many kilometers on the road ... I have been out a few times just to keep the engine oiled, the gasoline from going old and the battery from dying, but it really is freaking cold out there :)
Anyhow I just hope that I don't some day see a hearing on the road and do a dive to get to it on the motorcycle :)
January 04, 2008
The perfect keyboard
I have for a long time been looking for and trying many different keyboard but so far haven't been able to find the right one for me at an affordable price, but now I think I finally found it and since I am so happy about it and satisfied with it I thought I just wanted to write a blog post about it so that if anyone is looking for the same kind of keyboard that I have been then I can tell them that IBM's W95 is a really good shot at what you are looking for.
Actually I think that sums up my demands for a keyboard. It turned out much more difficult to find this keyboard than I had expected. Probably has to do with me going to so few stores and the first demand is something that I can't find until I have the keyboards in my hands.
Anyhow way to to go IBM/Lenovo I love your W95 keyboard
- The most important thing for me about the keyboard I was looking for was that it didn't have this annoying loud click sound every time you click a key, it doesn't have to be totally silent either, but just not that loud click noise that annoys me when i sit and write in the late evenings.
- I prefer my keyboards to be ... well just a keyboard, I prefer not having all of these fancy buttons for all kind of shortcuts ... they just annoy me.
- It needed to be wired, I found quite a few keyboards with a nice feel about them, but they all turned out to be wireless and that made them a non-option for me. I don't move around with my keyboard and I don't want to replace batteries in my keyboard also I am not totally certain that there isn't some negative effects about having all of this wireless stuff around us all the time, so I see no reason for my keyboard to be wireless when it serves no practical purpose what so ever.
Actually I think that sums up my demands for a keyboard. It turned out much more difficult to find this keyboard than I had expected. Probably has to do with me going to so few stores and the first demand is something that I can't find until I have the keyboards in my hands.
Anyhow way to to go IBM/Lenovo I love your W95 keyboard
September 14, 2007
Drilling
Drilling's isn't the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of geophysical methods and I guess it is more geology and geophysics, never the less that is something I work a lot with these days and it is a method that should never be ignored.
Drilling really seems quite straightforward and it basically is very simple. Making a hole in the earth with pretty much the same radius all the way down.
In general something can be said about drilling as such when compared to other methods:
- You only get information from one horizontal point (or maybe more accurately a small area with the radius of the drilling and perhaps with certain log-methods some information from the earth surrounding the drilling but I have yet to see a drilling to be used as more than a point information for all practical purposes) to the depth that you drill.
- You usually get extremely accurate information, when used with other geophysical methods drilling information is often used as very certain information which is used to check data and improve on the processing of data acquired through other geophysics methods.
There are many ways of doing drilling's, each with it's advantages and disadvantages.
One method is using a real drill head and turning/pushing that down the earth, the big advantage of this is that if you pull up the drill every time you have drilled the depth of the drill head you get a pretty undisturbed sample of the earth at that depth, that makes it possible to make very accurate description of the earth. One of the big disadvantages of this method is that it is far from always possible to do this, the harder the earth is the more force is needed to turn and push down the drill and the more strength is required from the drilling equipment.
This method is what is for example usually used for geotechnical investigations to check the underground before a building is build and to decide what kind of foundation is needed, for this purpose the drilling's need not be much deeper than to the layer which can carry the weight of the building which often here in Denmark means only a few meters for a normal house even though sometimes deeper drilling's are needed even for small houses depending very much on what is found in the drilling.
Drilling really seems quite straightforward and it basically is very simple. Making a hole in the earth with pretty much the same radius all the way down.
In general something can be said about drilling as such when compared to other methods:
- You only get information from one horizontal point (or maybe more accurately a small area with the radius of the drilling and perhaps with certain log-methods some information from the earth surrounding the drilling but I have yet to see a drilling to be used as more than a point information for all practical purposes) to the depth that you drill.
- You usually get extremely accurate information, when used with other geophysical methods drilling information is often used as very certain information which is used to check data and improve on the processing of data acquired through other geophysics methods.
There are many ways of doing drilling's, each with it's advantages and disadvantages.
One method is using a real drill head and turning/pushing that down the earth, the big advantage of this is that if you pull up the drill every time you have drilled the depth of the drill head you get a pretty undisturbed sample of the earth at that depth, that makes it possible to make very accurate description of the earth. One of the big disadvantages of this method is that it is far from always possible to do this, the harder the earth is the more force is needed to turn and push down the drill and the more strength is required from the drilling equipment.
This method is what is for example usually used for geotechnical investigations to check the underground before a building is build and to decide what kind of foundation is needed, for this purpose the drilling's need not be much deeper than to the layer which can carry the weight of the building which often here in Denmark means only a few meters for a normal house even though sometimes deeper drilling's are needed even for small houses depending very much on what is found in the drilling.
August 09, 2007
MEP also known as static DC-profliling
I thought I would write a bit about the things I work with, hopefully this will only be the first of a row of posts about different geophysical methods.
The geophysical method I work with the most is called MEP, Multiple Electrode Profiling, I think in some areas this is better known as static DC-profiling.
The idea behind this method is to send an electric current between two points on the surface of the earth and measure the potential difference between two other points which then will give you some kind of resistance measurement.
Now this resistance says something about what it is you are sending the current through. Of course you measure higher resistance the further apart the electrodes are, but when you do some calculations on this you find out that this can be taken out of the equation by dividing by something called the geometrical factor, you then have something that is measured in ohms/m, called relative resistance which if you stand on a "homogeneous halfspace" (a flat earth consisting of the same material) will give the same output no matter how you arrange the electrodes. Now the earth is not a "homogeneous halfspace" but this relative resistance that you measure says something about what it is you send the current through.
Another thing that is being used is that the further apart the electrodes are, the deeper the current will run into the earth. So this way you can get a lot of information about the resistance of the earth. By doing measurements with different configurations of the electrodes you get ever more information on the resistance structure of the earth.
There are almost always more than one resistivity model that will fit data, but if you also have some other geological information and put on some boundaries on what kind of model you accept (like for example the 1-d model which says that the earth is composed of horizontal layers, which often is close to true) you can get a pretty good idea of what is beneath the surface.
The way this is done practically is most often (at least in my experience) with some special equipment from a company in Sweden, Abem, the company is closely connected to the university in Lund.
Usually you lie out 400 meters of multi conductor cable, connect that cable to the ground using spears that you connect to the cables outlets and then let the machine in the middle send out current and measure potential differences on a lot of preprogrammed configurations. When it is done you move 100 meters of cable to the other end of the line, move the machine back to the middle and let it measure again, then move another 100 meters and so on and on.
One of the good things of this method is that you can measure in almost any terrain as long as the fieldworkers are able to lie out the configuration in a straight line (can be a bigger challenge than what you might imagine, but it is can almost always be done). All the equipment and work can be done by two men carrying the equipment.
With the 400 meters configuration you can usually get reliable data down to at least 50 meters depth and sometimes even 200 meters depending a lot on what structure the underground has. As with almost all of these method the deeper you get the less resolution you will have on the structures in the underground.
The geophysical method I work with the most is called MEP, Multiple Electrode Profiling, I think in some areas this is better known as static DC-profiling.
The idea behind this method is to send an electric current between two points on the surface of the earth and measure the potential difference between two other points which then will give you some kind of resistance measurement.
Now this resistance says something about what it is you are sending the current through. Of course you measure higher resistance the further apart the electrodes are, but when you do some calculations on this you find out that this can be taken out of the equation by dividing by something called the geometrical factor, you then have something that is measured in ohms/m, called relative resistance which if you stand on a "homogeneous halfspace" (a flat earth consisting of the same material) will give the same output no matter how you arrange the electrodes. Now the earth is not a "homogeneous halfspace" but this relative resistance that you measure says something about what it is you send the current through.
Another thing that is being used is that the further apart the electrodes are, the deeper the current will run into the earth. So this way you can get a lot of information about the resistance of the earth. By doing measurements with different configurations of the electrodes you get ever more information on the resistance structure of the earth.
There are almost always more than one resistivity model that will fit data, but if you also have some other geological information and put on some boundaries on what kind of model you accept (like for example the 1-d model which says that the earth is composed of horizontal layers, which often is close to true) you can get a pretty good idea of what is beneath the surface.
The way this is done practically is most often (at least in my experience) with some special equipment from a company in Sweden, Abem, the company is closely connected to the university in Lund.
Usually you lie out 400 meters of multi conductor cable, connect that cable to the ground using spears that you connect to the cables outlets and then let the machine in the middle send out current and measure potential differences on a lot of preprogrammed configurations. When it is done you move 100 meters of cable to the other end of the line, move the machine back to the middle and let it measure again, then move another 100 meters and so on and on.
One of the good things of this method is that you can measure in almost any terrain as long as the fieldworkers are able to lie out the configuration in a straight line (can be a bigger challenge than what you might imagine, but it is can almost always be done). All the equipment and work can be done by two men carrying the equipment.
With the 400 meters configuration you can usually get reliable data down to at least 50 meters depth and sometimes even 200 meters depending a lot on what structure the underground has. As with almost all of these method the deeper you get the less resolution you will have on the structures in the underground.
August 07, 2007
Gentoo and Daniel Robbins
I am an incarnated user of Gentoo Linux, for many years Gentoo has been the only operating system I have been using on the computers I own.
Ever since Daniel Robbins, the guy who created Gentoo, left the project because of money problems there has been a lot of problems finding the right structure within the Gentoo society, I think I will avoid commenting on it, lots of has been going on I hardly understand. My computers have been running as I wanted them to in the time I have been using Gentoo, and on the Gentoo Forums I have always found the help I needed to get the problems I had fixed, the problems seem to have been in "developer society" of Gentoo, not as much on the user level.
Anyhow it seems that Daniel together with others doing again is trying to find solutions to these problems after Daniel has been absent for some years. Daniels blog is quite interesting reading these days.
Ever since Daniel Robbins, the guy who created Gentoo, left the project because of money problems there has been a lot of problems finding the right structure within the Gentoo society, I think I will avoid commenting on it, lots of has been going on I hardly understand. My computers have been running as I wanted them to in the time I have been using Gentoo, and on the Gentoo Forums I have always found the help I needed to get the problems I had fixed, the problems seem to have been in "developer society" of Gentoo, not as much on the user level.
Anyhow it seems that Daniel together with others doing again is trying to find solutions to these problems after Daniel has been absent for some years. Daniels blog is quite interesting reading these days.
July 03, 2007
Handling an unstable income
Geophysics fieldwork is often a very unstable business, at times there is enough work to keep you busy all day around, cast gushing in your account and then there are these periods where there hardly is any work around at all, and with that no real income.
One thing that controls this is the seasons, a lot of the manual geophysics work is often done in spring and fall (see previous post about crops for part of the explanation why), other things that may change this is the financial situation for those that order the work done and then again the company where you are working for the most might not win the big assignments that you are were counting on etc. etc.
So how to handle this, not really being able to count on a stable income?
Now I am not an expert on this, far from actually, but still I thought I would share a few thoughts on this subject with those who might have interest in this.
One thing that sure helps is to have a big bag of money lying there for the periods without income.
This is something that needs to be thought of in the periods where the income is really good, don't spend it all at once, tug a bit aside for times when work might not come as easily.
Different unemployment insurances might also be something that could help, I myself prefer to steer clear of as many insurances as possible (easy for me to say living in a country with free health care ... a health insurance is something I would avoid living without if I could) and try my best to be self insured. If you wonder why then take a look at the big office buildings (palaces might be a better word) and the many many workers in these buildings of the insurance companies, where do you think these money come from?
I don't find it easy at all handling this financial instability, but one thing that helps in handling this is the art of making a budget and working on sticking to it.
Another thing that helps is to have some kind of back up job that you can fall back on when geophysics work is getting slim. At this time in Denmark that is no problem at all, there is more work than there are hands to do it, but this will not always be the case. How you get one of these jobs to fall back on isn't something that I have a recipe for ... having an open mind never hurts, for example the tourist business has a lot of their main seasons in the summer and winter which fits nicely with the geophysics fieldwork in spring and fall.
One thing that controls this is the seasons, a lot of the manual geophysics work is often done in spring and fall (see previous post about crops for part of the explanation why), other things that may change this is the financial situation for those that order the work done and then again the company where you are working for the most might not win the big assignments that you are were counting on etc. etc.
So how to handle this, not really being able to count on a stable income?
Now I am not an expert on this, far from actually, but still I thought I would share a few thoughts on this subject with those who might have interest in this.
One thing that sure helps is to have a big bag of money lying there for the periods without income.
This is something that needs to be thought of in the periods where the income is really good, don't spend it all at once, tug a bit aside for times when work might not come as easily.
Different unemployment insurances might also be something that could help, I myself prefer to steer clear of as many insurances as possible (easy for me to say living in a country with free health care ... a health insurance is something I would avoid living without if I could) and try my best to be self insured. If you wonder why then take a look at the big office buildings (palaces might be a better word) and the many many workers in these buildings of the insurance companies, where do you think these money come from?
I don't find it easy at all handling this financial instability, but one thing that helps in handling this is the art of making a budget and working on sticking to it.
Another thing that helps is to have some kind of back up job that you can fall back on when geophysics work is getting slim. At this time in Denmark that is no problem at all, there is more work than there are hands to do it, but this will not always be the case. How you get one of these jobs to fall back on isn't something that I have a recipe for ... having an open mind never hurts, for example the tourist business has a lot of their main seasons in the summer and winter which fits nicely with the geophysics fieldwork in spring and fall.
May 26, 2007
The problems of crops and other difficult terrain
This week I have been out doing a little geophysics job and one particular experience from this week inspired me to write this post.
Things were as such going smoothly with our fieldwork, it looked as if we might even be able to pretty much finish two days work in one long day, we were slowly moving south with the stuff we were doing. Then it was that I saw something that made me right away forget about getting this job done in one day ... rape ... about the hight of my head and entangled as only rape can be. We were able to move all measurements but one with the first method we were doing in the area out of the area with rape but had to take some serious detours and the one measurement we had to do in rape took about 3 times the time that one would otherwise do in not so annoying crops.
The next day we were also moving through the same rape, giving us quite a few problems also but this time we were doing PACES which involves a puller on crawler tracks which cleared a way through the lines we were moving on, still the part of the lines that were through the rape did take something like double the time and the measurements were of much worse quality due to the rape lying down were making the earth contact worse.
So I by now really understand why anyone who is just a little experienced in planning geophysics fieldwork try to push the fieldwork so that it can be done when there are as few crops on the fields as possible ... not only because of the problems that the crops (the worst crops here in Denmark being rape, charlock and corn but others can also cause problems). There are times when the job just can't be pushed to the right seasons like the job I did this week ... with the weather we have had here in lately the crops are at least two weeks ahead of what they usually would be.
Again certain kinds of terrain take even more time than any kind of crops, the most extreme experience I have had was when we were lying some CVES lines through a swamp, it took an entire day to get done 1/5 of what we would usually have been able to do on a day.
Other things causing problems is forests, some method just can't be done there (or in "worse" terrain) while others like CVES just takes a lot longer time to do and requires experiences fieldworkers to get good results.
I have been thinking of maybe developing a way of estimating the problems caused by different kinds of crops and terrain for the fieldwork that needs to be done, this would probably be a useful tool for the people put in charge of planning geophysics fieldwork. I have not seen this done anywhere yet, but I would be grateful if someone could point me to such a resource if it exists ... if for not other reason then because it would be interesting to see if my experience from practical fieldwork fits what some theoretic work is predicting.
Things were as such going smoothly with our fieldwork, it looked as if we might even be able to pretty much finish two days work in one long day, we were slowly moving south with the stuff we were doing. Then it was that I saw something that made me right away forget about getting this job done in one day ... rape ... about the hight of my head and entangled as only rape can be. We were able to move all measurements but one with the first method we were doing in the area out of the area with rape but had to take some serious detours and the one measurement we had to do in rape took about 3 times the time that one would otherwise do in not so annoying crops.
The next day we were also moving through the same rape, giving us quite a few problems also but this time we were doing PACES which involves a puller on crawler tracks which cleared a way through the lines we were moving on, still the part of the lines that were through the rape did take something like double the time and the measurements were of much worse quality due to the rape lying down were making the earth contact worse.
So I by now really understand why anyone who is just a little experienced in planning geophysics fieldwork try to push the fieldwork so that it can be done when there are as few crops on the fields as possible ... not only because of the problems that the crops (the worst crops here in Denmark being rape, charlock and corn but others can also cause problems). There are times when the job just can't be pushed to the right seasons like the job I did this week ... with the weather we have had here in lately the crops are at least two weeks ahead of what they usually would be.
Again certain kinds of terrain take even more time than any kind of crops, the most extreme experience I have had was when we were lying some CVES lines through a swamp, it took an entire day to get done 1/5 of what we would usually have been able to do on a day.
Other things causing problems is forests, some method just can't be done there (or in "worse" terrain) while others like CVES just takes a lot longer time to do and requires experiences fieldworkers to get good results.
I have been thinking of maybe developing a way of estimating the problems caused by different kinds of crops and terrain for the fieldwork that needs to be done, this would probably be a useful tool for the people put in charge of planning geophysics fieldwork. I have not seen this done anywhere yet, but I would be grateful if someone could point me to such a resource if it exists ... if for not other reason then because it would be interesting to see if my experience from practical fieldwork fits what some theoretic work is predicting.
May 06, 2007
Help stop animal abusive rodeo in Denmark
Just wanted to tell people (especially Danes) that the sick idea of rodeo's is coming to Denmark, please also sign this petition to support the efforts to stop this.
Sure there is lots of this kind of stupidity and animal cruelty going on in other places, it might seem difficult to do something about this for a Dane (but that doesn't mean it is not possible), but lets make sure that we don't get this particular stupidity here in Denmark, this is the time for Danes that care for animals to act.
*edit* he rodeo has been canceled due to too few people buying tickets, that sure is good (and by this update old) news *edit*
Sure there is lots of this kind of stupidity and animal cruelty going on in other places, it might seem difficult to do something about this for a Dane (but that doesn't mean it is not possible), but lets make sure that we don't get this particular stupidity here in Denmark, this is the time for Danes that care for animals to act.
*edit* he rodeo has been canceled due to too few people buying tickets, that sure is good (and by this update old) news *edit*
May 03, 2007
Sudoku
I have just been spending 4 hours on a 4x4 Sudoku puzzle where I here after 4 hours sitting in front of the computer find that I have made a mistake and can't find room for the 5 that needs to be somewhere in a quadrant. I can identify in which quadrant the mistake is, but I end up figuring that 4 hours is enough time spend on this.
Sudokuy is really very fascinating, the 3x3 is usually solved in less than 30 minutes, it is a nice way for me to relax, but I have only once had the patience to solve a 4x4 sudoku, that took me something like 4 hours back then.
I have made myself a little programming task of making a Sudoku program of some kind, Sudoku is something that computer programs are much faster at solving than a human brain will probably ever be ... at least if you have anything that resembles as much computing power as what has the everyday person has easily been able to get for the last ~25 years.
Still to make this program I need to learn Java better which right now is the language I am trying to motivate myself to get learned, it's been months since I last did spend time with this, it will probably have to wait until winter like so many other projects involving a lot of sitting down.
Right now I am out working a lot in with geophysics and related things which has me very physically active, if I was to sit down to much now I would get out of shape, it has been hard enough to get myself into physical shape again after the winter, I am kind of planning not to allow myself to get as much out of shape again like I did last winter.
Sudokuy is really very fascinating, the 3x3 is usually solved in less than 30 minutes, it is a nice way for me to relax, but I have only once had the patience to solve a 4x4 sudoku, that took me something like 4 hours back then.
I have made myself a little programming task of making a Sudoku program of some kind, Sudoku is something that computer programs are much faster at solving than a human brain will probably ever be ... at least if you have anything that resembles as much computing power as what has the everyday person has easily been able to get for the last ~25 years.
Still to make this program I need to learn Java better which right now is the language I am trying to motivate myself to get learned, it's been months since I last did spend time with this, it will probably have to wait until winter like so many other projects involving a lot of sitting down.
Right now I am out working a lot in with geophysics and related things which has me very physically active, if I was to sit down to much now I would get out of shape, it has been hard enough to get myself into physical shape again after the winter, I am kind of planning not to allow myself to get as much out of shape again like I did last winter.
April 06, 2007
Kvistur looking good when he is angry
I have moved my horse to this new place where I live now, right now he is on the pasture with a mare, Skotta, that he is getting along with very well.
Now today Skotta was taken out for a little ride while Kvistur was left alone on the pasture, he sure wasn't satisfied with this, I kind of expected this so I had brought my camera and this resulted in this little album of Kvistur hissing around over having been left alone.
Now today Skotta was taken out for a little ride while Kvistur was left alone on the pasture, he sure wasn't satisfied with this, I kind of expected this so I had brought my camera and this resulted in this little album of Kvistur hissing around over having been left alone.
March 17, 2007
Saving power
Until I moved to here I had not been paying for the electrical power I was using and my hut was heated by electricity anyhow so I didn't care much about the power my computer was consuming in the winter I even used my computer as a heater by running the CPU at 100% while working on the project Seventeen or Bust.
Now I have moved a place that is heated by a central heating system running on wood, I don't pay for the heat but I pay for the electricity I use so I have been trying to change a few things.
My investments in 2 P4's while living in the little hut seem a bit annoying now, I have been selling the smaller of them and now only have one system running.
I have activivated the CPU-frequency scaling in the kernel, which means that the CPU will scale down when there is no need for running at 3GHz, it is scaling down to around 400 MHz I notice a little delay in scaling up, but that is not something that annoys me to much, a bit of fine tunning of this system and I have quite a bit of power saved.
Anyhow the P4 is still eating too much power, but for the time being that is the best fix I could come up with, I don't want start investing in new hardware right now.
I think I would do well to invest in a better power supply with the 80 PLUS specification, which would allow my power supply to better follow the demand from the system instead of it being a bit conservative and eating to much power all the time, until I have that kind of power supply I don't think I will see the full effect of the frequency scaling.
Another big problem with my desktop system here is the two old CRT screens I am using for my dual screen setup, I surely would save a lot of power replacing them with two LCD's or maybe even better one big LCD (not sure about that though, I think I might get better watt/squareinch with two smaller LCD's). As I wrote earlier I don't want to make any new investments, so for now I try to remember to shut down the CRT's when I don't use them.
I am sure I will find other ways to reduce my computer power use, I will try to post about it here when I find them.
Now I have moved a place that is heated by a central heating system running on wood, I don't pay for the heat but I pay for the electricity I use so I have been trying to change a few things.
My investments in 2 P4's while living in the little hut seem a bit annoying now, I have been selling the smaller of them and now only have one system running.
I have activivated the CPU-frequency scaling in the kernel, which means that the CPU will scale down when there is no need for running at 3GHz, it is scaling down to around 400 MHz I notice a little delay in scaling up, but that is not something that annoys me to much, a bit of fine tunning of this system and I have quite a bit of power saved.
Anyhow the P4 is still eating too much power, but for the time being that is the best fix I could come up with, I don't want start investing in new hardware right now.
I think I would do well to invest in a better power supply with the 80 PLUS specification, which would allow my power supply to better follow the demand from the system instead of it being a bit conservative and eating to much power all the time, until I have that kind of power supply I don't think I will see the full effect of the frequency scaling.
Another big problem with my desktop system here is the two old CRT screens I am using for my dual screen setup, I surely would save a lot of power replacing them with two LCD's or maybe even better one big LCD (not sure about that though, I think I might get better watt/squareinch with two smaller LCD's). As I wrote earlier I don't want to make any new investments, so for now I try to remember to shut down the CRT's when I don't use them.
I am sure I will find other ways to reduce my computer power use, I will try to post about it here when I find them.
March 05, 2007
Linux keyboard shortcuts
I just found this nice blog post on Linux keyboard shortcuts, just thought, I learned a few new ones there.
February 23, 2007
A bit about my field equipment
I have just been spending a bit of time writing about field equipment primary from my years of experience in geophysics fieldwork.
The page is far from done yet, I plan to write a lot more, primarily to help myself remember everything when I am in a hurry getting new equipment or packing for field trips, it has so far happened quite often that I do not have many days between field trips.
The page is far from done yet, I plan to write a lot more, primarily to help myself remember everything when I am in a hurry getting new equipment or packing for field trips, it has so far happened quite often that I do not have many days between field trips.
February 22, 2007
Seventeen or Bust
Sitting here with the snow keeping me indoors I just wanted to write a little praise for the project that is keeping my hut warm.
The hut is warmed by electric radiators, so I don't feel bad about using my two Pentium 4's for heating the hut.
The way I am doing that is by keeping these two processors working at 100% checking if some big numbers is prime.
The numbers I am checking is of the form k * 2^n + 1, where k is one of 9 numbers left (when the project started there were 17 k's left to check hence the name) that is smaller than k=78557, with this k it has been proven that there is no primes for any n.
So the challenge is to show that k=78557 is the smallest of such numbers. The project is now checking numbers bigger 12 million, it approximately half a month to check one of these n if it is prime with the CPU running 24/7.
There are no practical implications for this search right now, I do this mostly because I like the project, the way it is driven. It started out as a garage project and hasn't really gotten beyond this stage in many ways even though there are lots of people contributing.
I think I will suspend my efforts on this project soon with a bit of sadness, but I am going to move to an apartment that is not heated by electric radiators. That probably also means I will replace the smaller of my CPU's with something that uses a bit less power consuming, having a P4 as a server is a waste of money and energy, even if it doesn't run 100% all the time.
So if anyone out there is interested I have a p4 2.4GHz with motherboard for sale, I'd even throw you a never NVidia graphics card in the deal, I don't need any heavy graphics for a server.
The hut is warmed by electric radiators, so I don't feel bad about using my two Pentium 4's for heating the hut.
The way I am doing that is by keeping these two processors working at 100% checking if some big numbers is prime.
The numbers I am checking is of the form k * 2^n + 1, where k is one of 9 numbers left (when the project started there were 17 k's left to check hence the name) that is smaller than k=78557, with this k it has been proven that there is no primes for any n.
So the challenge is to show that k=78557 is the smallest of such numbers. The project is now checking numbers bigger 12 million, it approximately half a month to check one of these n if it is prime with the CPU running 24/7.
There are no practical implications for this search right now, I do this mostly because I like the project, the way it is driven. It started out as a garage project and hasn't really gotten beyond this stage in many ways even though there are lots of people contributing.
I think I will suspend my efforts on this project soon with a bit of sadness, but I am going to move to an apartment that is not heated by electric radiators. That probably also means I will replace the smaller of my CPU's with something that uses a bit less power consuming, having a P4 as a server is a waste of money and energy, even if it doesn't run 100% all the time.
So if anyone out there is interested I have a p4 2.4GHz with motherboard for sale, I'd even throw you a never NVidia graphics card in the deal, I don't need any heavy graphics for a server.
February 20, 2007
When people just have too much time
Some time ago I came upon this video, it apparently has taken these two guys two months to make this movie.
I think the coolest part of the movie is how one of the persons get dressed.
I think the coolest part of the movie is how one of the persons get dressed.
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