A Geophysics Fieldworkers Journal

Slashdot on learning

2012-01-30T06:41:00.000+01:00

This slashdot article and it's comments makes a very interesting read, lot's of stuff there I never really gave all that much thought before.

Not all geophysics fieldwork invovle that much exercise

2012-01-29T14:26:00.000+01:00

Pulled array seismics being one of them, especially when I am the only one on the team to take care of the stuff up in the vehicle that we use to pull it all.

I have been trying to do a bit of exercise at the hotel rooms, can be difficult though to motivate yourself after a long day at work.

Positive enviromental activism

2011-06-28T22:42:00.000+02:00

I think this initiative from Greenpeace is really good, trying to get in dialoge with WV to make them try and focus more on green technology might prove to be the way to go.

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Help me in my Jedi training as I confront Volkswagen's threats to Planet Earth http://vwdarkside.com/en/jedi/arne-bargheer-50480
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I kind of have lost faith ever more since some time in the late 1990'ies that we can prevent global warming from making our planet a place where we live and into a place where we survive.
In the last few years I have dispaired so much I have stopped doing anything, I guess the time for dispair is over for me ... time to get back to doing whatever little I can in my own little ways ... so guys (or whoever is reading this blog) come on, let's try and give WV that little push to do the right things.

Nuclear Plants in Japan

2011-03-13T06:41:00.001+01:00

Well I used to be very much against nuclear power, lately I'm a bit more unsettled with it all. Global warming is upon us and far from enough have been done in the past years to stop greenhouse gas emissions. At the current stage of things I think nuclear power is a necessary evil that we have to live with if there is to be any hope left for mankind and life on earth as we know it to handle the global warming that we as humans are responsible for.

In that light I think it is important not to become hysterical about what is happening in Japan right now after the big earthquake. The nuclear plant that exploded is terribly old technology, as I understand it this is still pretty much the same design as the one on Three Mile Island ... it is close to 30 years ago that disaster happened!
I have a feeling that maybe it would be better for some of us environmental fanatics (I count myself one of them even though I am not as active as I once was) to spend our energy on opposing old fashioned nuclear power plants being build.

There exists nuclear power plant technology now that in my eyes makes them acceptable.
Wind energy, solar energy and other renewable forms of energy I far far prefer to nuclear energy, no doubt about that.
I do however prefer nuclear energy to coal power.

At presently I doubt that the political will is there to make the switch to total renewable energy sources. It could be done, only the political will is not there.
I don't know how to get that political will, I know it is worth fighting for, but it doesn't seem realistic to me that politicians should suddenly turn sensible.

*edit* if you want to know what is going on in Japan this is the best best explanation I have found yet *edit*

Would Roethlisberger have been suspended if NFL was played in Europe/Denmark?

2010-04-21T22:43:00.001+02:00

I'm pretty sure the answer to that question is no.

(to all those who don't know what I'm talking about, maybe this article will help you a bit on the way)

Being a longtime Steelers fan from Denmark, I have dropped my jaw a few times seeing the things that has happened this off season.
Sure the public would have been hard here in Denmark too. They would have been even worse in England thinking of the incidents with their National team in football (soccer version), but as far as I know the only thing that these incidents in England have caused directly sports related is a change of who was captain for England, where being captain for a soccer team is, as far as I know, mostly of symbolic value.

Now Rothlisberger get's suspended for something like 1/3 of a season for something for which he has never been convicted?
I don't know what really happened, only Ben Rothlisberger and maybe a few others know that ... but this really seems a bit crazy to me.
It kinda scares me.

Steelers also traded another top player, Santonio Holmes, because of similar stuff. I am really very uncertain of if Santonio even did ... someone else has taken the blame for that someone being hit by a glass in bar (not thereby saying that he is actually the one who threw the glass ... I will probably never know for certain). Still Holmes is now suspended for the first 4 games and has been traded to the Jets for much less than what he is really worth as a football player (a fifth round pick in the draft as I recall it)
Another move of shear madness in my eyes.

I guess maybe not as much madness if you look at it from a financial perspective which I bet Rooney also does. They have to please the fans and it seems the fans want this madness to be happening.

Oh well I don't think I will ever really understand what is going on here ... I live in Europe. I leave the judging to those who do it best (judges) ... or at least I try to ;)

I really hope that the madness doesn't get any worse and they trade Rothlisberger ... I'd have a hard time figuring out if I should cheer for Steelers or Rothlisberger's new team if that was to happen.

Ash cloud slows global warming

2010-04-18T11:57:00.000+02:00

In Danish media everyone seems to be complaining about this ash cloud. A geophysicist being a bit enthusiastic about the things happening in the eruption almost had to excuse herself. It does annoy a lot of people I'm sure, but I really think this ash eruption and the ash cloud is a great thing.
It might just help fight global warming in quite a few ways.

The first thing is that a big volcanic eruption in history always has had a cooling effect on the earths atmosphere. Two things that add to this is
- The ash cloud absorbing some of the sun's rays up in the higher layers of the atmosphere from where the infrared rays can much easier get out into space again.
- The particles released into the atmosphere increases development of clouds which also helps cool the atmosphere.

But then there is another effect, maybe not the first one that springs to mind, but perhaps the one with the biggest long term effect.
With people being forced to find other possibilities instead of going by plane these days, they will discover that some of the solutions they come up with these days are actually better than going by plane, thereby reducing the amount of plane travel.
For example people who have not really tried online meetings will be forced to try it now, I am sure quite a few of them will see that is actually has become a viable alternative to meeting in person, there's a lot of money saved using these kinds of meetings and I'm sure that just the fact that people try this out now will make online meetings more common when airspace is opened again.

So thank you Iceland for helping fight global warming :)

Apologizing is a good thing.

2010-02-26T07:29:00.001+01:00

The Danish newspaper Politiken has brought what to me seems to be a very sensible apology to anyone they offended by bringing a certain drawing of a man with a bomb in his turban (according to the drawer he didn't even draw Muhammed, but I guess that's kind of isn't the point of this whole thing, people got pretty upset by it no matter what the intention of the drawing originally was).

What has me wondering is that quite a few danish politicians have already complained about this apology. That Dansk Folkeparti (the far right in danish politics) have complained was kinda to be expected, their propagandizing way of politics kind of demands it , but that other politicians do the same is a mystery to me.
Since when has it been a bad bring to apologize?
An apology here and there could have saved lots and lots of human lives and even more suffering through history.

I for one think that Politiken did a good thing.

Another press release about the apology and a bit of background

Off-road driving

2010-01-30T01:02:00.002+01:00

Doing geophysics fieldwork often involves at least some degree of going away from the roads with different kinds of vehicles and/or equipment depending on what you are doing.

Off-road driving is something that you really don't learn well by reading about it, getting good at driving in the terrain is something you learn by experience, however this experience can be pretty "expensive".
I myself have spend many many hours reparing damages and getting stuck vehicles freed, I guess I have learned a bit in the process.

Here is a few tricks that might be of help:

Tire Pressure: Lowering the tire pressure is a help in many kinds of terrain, but not all. I have been amazed at how much it helped to keep a car afloat while driving in sand. Keep in mind that with lower tire pressure you also increase your risk of punctures and don't go out driving fast on tarmac in a vehicle with low tire pressure.

Speed: Often the best way to get through bad difficult terrain is to keep the vehicle moving at good speed, if you feel the vehicle is starting to get stuck don't take you foot of the gas pedal or you might not be able to get out again

Stuck: If you have come to a stop in deep mud or something similar don't just spin the wheels, you will just bury them deeper, often what will get you out is moving the wheels very slowly or in bursts to make a rocking motion until you have the vehicle moving again. Use whatever you can get your hands on to free the vehicle: Sand, branches, stones etc. It all might help get the vehicle up where it again has something solid that the wheels can grab. Another trick to be used with great caution is to tie something like a long tough log to the wheels (especially if you have a vehicle with big rear wheels like a tractor) and rotate the wheels until either the vehicle is standing on the log or if more suitable until you have moved half a turn of the wheels.

Training: Getting out and driving on slippery winter roads is great training for driving in the terrain, so on days where the roads are particular slippery get out and have some fun. Big empty parking spaces and gravel roads do especially well for this.

Towing: Very much depending on the situation there is some point where trying to free a vehicle on your own is no longer the right way to go, sure you might be able to do it, but only at great risk to the equipment, personnel and costly hours spend, keep in mind that there is a time when calling for help is the way to go.

Topography: Everything gets a lot more difficult when you go uphill, try to use the terrain, find places to drive where the slope is less steep. In muddy terrain try to keep up on the high areas or close to drain channels and such where the ground is not as wet.

Trailer: Pulling a trailer or similar through terrain increases you risk of getting stuck and makes it a lot harder to free a stuck vehicle. Bring along chains or ropes and when stuck, unhook the trailer move the vehicle out and then tow the trailer from better ground.

Weight: A pretty obvious thing, but it really is worth cutting down on the weight as much as possible. More than once I have been able to free a stuck vehicle by unloading it.

These are just a few things from the top of my head, surely there's lots of better reading to do on the subject than this, but best way to learn off-road driving is by doing.
It's great fun by the way ;)

More pictures ~ now on plogger

2010-01-16T12:08:00.004+01:00

I have recently started using a CMS called Plogger to store my pictures on my homepage.

I like to keep my pictures on my own domain, that way I am certain that I am not giving away rights of some kind to my pictures and also I am a bit better able to keep track of what they are used to.

Plogger is a nice and simple system, installing it was extremely easy and uploading my pictures, sorting them and putting a bit of text to them is as easy as anything else I have tried.

So feel free to go take a look at my new picture galleries, I even have added some pictures from recent geophysics work I've done.

Floating offshore windturbines

2008-05-25T14:54:00.003+02:00

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.

SAS Survival Guide a book for fieldworkers?

2008-05-24T13:33:00.002+02:00

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.

Walking in plowed fields

2008-03-28T22:30:00.003+01:00

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.

Time to slow down on the multitasking

2008-01-27T23:02:00.000+01:00

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).

Dashing

2008-01-09T13:08:00.000+01:00

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.

Motorcycle training by Tux Racing?

2008-01-05T13:07:00.000+01:00

I have been playing a bit of this game Tux Racer lately, it is a wonderful little game very well designed and shows nicely that open source software can do really neat things ... also I think it is one of the few things that pushes my overpowered system here to the edge, it is the only thing where I can feel a really big improvement after having installed 2 extra GB of Ram moving to 3GB of dual-ram on that this machine (P4 3GHz, 400 MHz FSB). Now this game is really floating along with all the graphical features turned on.

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 :)

The perfect keyboard

2008-01-04T20:18:00.000+01:00

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.

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

Drilling

2007-09-14T17:42:00.000+02:00

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.

MEP also known as static DC-profliling

2007-08-09T08:36:00.000+02:00

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.

Gentoo and Daniel Robbins

2007-08-07T11:50:00.000+02:00

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.

Handling an unstable income

2007-07-03T18:13:00.000+02:00

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.

The problems of crops and other difficult terrain

2007-05-26T12:42:00.000+02:00

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.

Help stop animal abusive rodeo in Denmark

2007-05-06T10:17:00.000+02:00

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*

Sudoku

2007-05-03T13:17:00.000+02:00

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.

Kvistur looking good when he is angry

2007-04-06T13:40:00.000+02:00

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.

Saving power

2007-03-17T15:44:00.000+01:00

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.

Linux keyboard shortcuts

2007-03-05T23:09:00.000+01:00

I just found this nice blog post on Linux keyboard shortcuts, just thought, I learned a few new ones there.

A bit about my field equipment

2007-02-23T14:58:00.000+01:00

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.

Seventeen or Bust

2007-02-22T06:31:00.000+01:00

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.

When people just have too much time

2007-02-20T13:26:00.000+01:00

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.

Slashdot, flamebait and sensitive topics

2007-02-12T16:47:00.000+01:00

There has been quite a few topics that I have found interesting on Slashdot lately (check out my profile there, it is mainly those that I label geophysics as that is what I have been studying a lot), it probably has a lot to do with how global warming has been brought up a lot, both by Al Gore and then by the new UN report.

I have been somewhat annoyed by the moderators on the site. I really feel that I am trying my best to give sensible and meaningful comments to the articles that add something new. At times I write something stupid, but mostly I feel I succeed at doing so.

Still I am often moderated down, for example a comment I just gave on the topic of how low clouds formed by cosmic radiation had an effect on the global heating we have seen in the last 30 years or so. This comment was given to begin with given the moderations insightful and interesting, all nice, but then this moderation flamebait comes along and moderates me down. To begin with I got really frustrates over this, getting positive moderations on Slashdot is a good thing generally as it improves your credibility (they use the word karma for this, which I don't really like because of it's religious meanings).
Anyhow after looking a bit on the following comments I have to agree with whoever moderated me flamebait, my comment really did give way for some aggressive comments or political statements, so I guess I have been bait for flaming.
I no longer really care much for the political side of global warming, there was a time when this was something that concerned me a lot, but I no longer believe in that humans will be able to safe this earth, we have gone to far. (I have now found another hope in the Bible, but that is a totally different topic which you can look at my homepage for a little more information, as I don't wan't to give release some really serious flame bait here ;).
I am kind of glad that I no longer have a political position on this topic of global warming, I find it highly interesting still, but it no longer matters all that much to me what is being done politically, I try to do what I can myself to be the cause for release of too many particles that add to the greenhouse effect as possible, but the political system and the political side of this story is no longer something I want to be part of or I guess I am by writing this blog post and such, but I don't want to take any direct political action anymore would probably be a more correct way to state this.

Global warming has really turned into a hot political topic. I guess that begin was also part of the reason why I choose to study geophysics, I really thought that I was able to do something that way, for a better world and such, but I have since realized that the best I can do is to not do to much harm to the environment that I love and then spend my time on other things than trying to do a little change that is not going to mean anything really in the big picture.
I still have deep respect and understanding for those that do spend a lot of time trying to make political change for a better environment, I feel a bit sorry for having left them behind, people I really still care very much for, but I don't believe that putting my energy there is the right thing to do anymore.
Anyhow see you all on Slashdot soon again, probably from more flamebait from me even though I will try to avoid it, I guess I can't deny my opinions, but at least I don't spend my time sitting in treetops anymore :)

htop

2007-02-12T06:30:00.000+01:00

I just came upon this little program for Linux, htop.

I think top is one of my most used commands in Linux, I use it to monitor my system and for setting which processes get priority on the cpu and such.

htop is a step forward from top for me, I recommend anyone who regularly used top to try it out.

Best looking Linux desktop I have seen yet

2007-02-10T15:57:00.000+01:00

I just came upon this thread on the Gentoo forums.

The page has a really cool video that shows you just how cool and smooth a well run Linux can look (turn on your speakers, there is some nice background music for it too).

I myself don't run any of all these fancy graphic things, I go for the minimalistic look and efficiency. But for those of you out there who are stuck with windows because it is pretty try taking a look at this and think again. The graphics is not a valid reason for staying away from Linux.

Quick login to blogger

2007-02-09T12:55:00.000+01:00

I have for some time been really tired of the slow front page of blogger.com, so it is with some relief that I finally found a way to log in to blogger without having to go to that page.

I noticed that I was directed to a different page when I put in the wrong password when trying to login to my blogger account. The address for this page is

https://www2.blogger.com/login.g

So just type this into the url line of your browser, bookmark the link above or or this blog post for a quicker login to your blogger account.

Choose the right service to provide your weather forecasts

2007-02-09T12:47:00.000+01:00

I just came upon this interesting article on /. pointing to a statistical evaluation of the forecasts from 10 different internet forecast channels that have weather predictions for the USA.

Pretty useful for anyone living in the USA to try and figure out where to go for their weather forecasts I would think.
I am happy to also be able to give the advice in this case, stay away from Microsoft products, MSN weather turns out to be pretty much the worst in that evaluation.

Still I think getting to know the basics of meteorology and then study what is going on at the moment and why the predictions were made the way they were is an even better option if you are really dependent on knowing the weather. That way you have an idea of possible scenarios and know how to read the skies and other signs when you are outdoors and can take your precautions.

Fever pictures

2007-02-08T16:38:00.000+01:00

For some reason my body decided that today it didn't wanted to take stop working.

I have been feeling sick all morning today, I haven't really been able to figure out why until now where I had the bright idea to try and put a hand to my own forehead, no wonder I am feeling a bit sick.

Anyhow I was out for a walk today and took a few pictures, these 12 pictures I uploaded reflect some of the strange things that catch ones attention when being fever struck, seems taking pictures with a fever isn't that terrible idea after all.

Anyhow I am of to bed, enjoy the pictures.

How a Roman legion ended up in China and formed a village

2007-02-05T06:07:00.000+01:00

I just found this interesting story in the news about how a lonely village in the north western China has a lot of inhabitants with western features.
Some "old" theory from the 1950'ies suggests that the reason for this is a lost roman legion, lead by Markus Craccus. Craccus was defeated in 53 BC in what is now Iran, the theory suggests that these troops then moved eastwards as mercenaries until they were taken prisoners by the Chinese and described as using a "fish-scale formation" which fits well to the way the romans had a habit of defending themselves with shields all around.
Some scientists now want to test this theory using DNA samples from the inhabitants of the village, to see if it really is Roman blood that gives the inhabitants of the village their special features.

I find this story quite fascinating in many ways.

*2nd edit*
As pointed out in the comments to this post, the pdf linked to below, while being an investing read is pretty unscientific on the subject and also does not cite it's sources, so please do not take it for a historic document or an accurate description.
I have not read this paper yet [pdf] that the comment also links to but it sure does look a lot more scientific and worked through at a first glance.

*edit*
I got a post posted to /. on this subject, a user was so friendly to direct me to this very interesting piece [pdf] about the story and theory from the 1950'ies. I stand corrected for leaving behind the impression that the roman troops were acting as "happy mercenaries" when they moved eastwards, that is probably far from true, in some ways they were more like prisoners of war.

Searching for Jim Gray on mturk

2007-02-04T14:27:00.000+01:00

As my previous post also told about there is a online search going on for the Tenacious (Jim Gray's boat) where people online are to trying and determine if there is a boat in satellite images. Many of the pictures are quite noise and in the 80 tasks I have done I think I have had quite a few false positives.
It seems some better quality pictures have started showing up among the tasks on mturk, I think they are infrared, I think there is better chance that they will find actual boats and not just noise.

I am starting to wonder if this really does help anything at all, but I continue doing a few tasks now and then, it must be terrible for the family not knowing what has happened.

Here is more information on the search.

Man gone missing on the ocean, this time you can help

2007-02-03T09:23:00.000+01:00

Jim Gray, computer expert, is reported missing on a boat trip.
This man has friends that really know their way with computers, this might turn out to be his luck.
Satellite images are now online to be analyzed by human eyes, there are 40000 of them so all help in doing this is appreciated.
If you want to do your little part take a look over at mturk and spend a little time looking for a boat through satelitte images.

Windows Vista released, my thoughts

2007-01-30T08:33:00.000+01:00

Today is the day where Microsoft Windows Vista is released to the public.
I am sure almost everyone has a say on this, I have not tried it, I have no intention to try it. This is my perfect opportunity to no longer be able to help people who need help with their computers (yeah I will probably learn it like I learned XP, but I have hopes that I will no longer be able to figure out how it works).

If any windows users as me for advice if they should get Vista (as if anyone would ask a Linux geek for advice on this). Then my advice would be to stick with what you have got, from what I have heard Vista will run pretty badly on anything but the newest hardware.

An option for those a bit tired to be paying to Microsoft for new operating systems, and not willing to spend hours and hours getting things to work the way they want to, exists.
I haven't tried Ubuntu myself, I don't think I will in the near future either.

I have my OS and I am quite satisfied, but I have given up on trying to tell others to use it, you really have to be willing to learn and spend time to use Gentoo.

Remember to show your appreciation

2007-01-28T09:47:00.000+01:00

I am all for free software and open source software as this blog hopefully shows.

Still free software doesn't mean that you can't contribute financially to the projects. One of the big problems for open source developers is that they are often not being paid for what they do.
So if you can financially manage it then remember to donate to the programs you like and use, if all that you feel you can afford is a dollar here and there then do pay that dollar, if many people do that then it still gives an income to the developers, most often this income is used for the project solely, keeping web pages running, buying hardware etc. etc.

I still remember how Daniel Robbins the man who developed my favorite Linux distribution had to take a job offer from Microsoft because he had been using all of his time on Gentoo and therefore had developed a big depth of what I in my memory was at least 100.000$. On the Gentoo forums I remember this thread where we tried to gather some cash for the poor man who had given us so much, I think we succeeded in pulling together something like 10.000$.
I really felt terrible about it at that time, I was afraid of what was going to happen to Gentoo, felt sorry for Daniel Robbins who also has a family to support. I was kind of happy that Microsoft saved my favorite developer financially even though it meant he had to leave the Gentoo project. He has again left Microsoft which sure is understandable and have started to contribute to Gentoo again, now as a developer among many.
When Daniel Robbins left Gentoo, he gave the control over to a board, something that had already been in the works for some time but that had to be rushed a bit because of him being hired by Microsoft. The project had been developed to a stage where it could continue well without Daniel Robbins and Gentoo is still my favorite Linux distribution (not that I ever really have been trying out that many others).

Since this experience with Daniel Robbins being forced to accept a job offer from Microsoft the cash has been a bit more loose in my pocket when it comes to contributing to OS projects.

This was just meant as a little call for people that like me use OS software to remember to contribute a bit, that being by cash or in other ways.

Matildes pictures

2007-01-26T13:07:00.000+01:00

A farrier I know superficially from the time where Kvistur and I was riding with tourists during the summer where I bought Kvistur takes some really great photos. A lot of these are of Icelandic horses but there are also other great shots.
Thought I would just post a link for you all to enjoy.

The annoyance of an (unconfigurable) router

2007-01-26T10:52:00.000+01:00

I am currently sitting behind a router on this connection which is causing me quite a bit of annoyance.
I have the router suspected of messing up the connection now and then, last week I spend hours talking to tech support of our ISP until we finally got the problem nailed down to this *** router.
Now if I had access to this little little annoying box I could probably get on with solving the problems getting it set up so that it works as it should, but I don't have this access. That really is a quire annoying to put it mildly.
The same router is the reason that I am not able use my IP-phone because I can't get the right ports open.
Also I am not able to experiment with setting up servers, available from the internet.

Still routers are a good thing for many people, sitting on a NAT is pretty secure for people who just use the internet for surfing and other "normal user things", but I am not one of those that appreciates the router I am behind, especially not since I am not able to configure it myself.

Anyhow this is probably going to change in the near future, I guess that marks me as nerd that one of the things I look the most forward to by moving is to get my own public IP-address again.

When things are changing

2007-01-20T11:53:00.000+01:00

Right now a lot of changes are going on here.

Many governmental systems have changed from the year change of 2007, because of something called a "kommunalreform" which I was very much against when I was still politically active, but which I don't care much about anymore. Part of these changes is the environmental agencies that once were gathered in the so called "amt" have now been moved out to all three different levels of administration, and the old "amt" have been shut down.
In short this means no one knows who is doing what and for my case it means I don't know how much work I will have this coming spring season of field work.
I think the change and uncertainty is nicely reflected in the home pages of the newly created miljøcenter, who some days ago had a pretty much empty homepage that would be "filled in with time", right now the homepage is then down so that is all nice and very comforting.

Another thing is that is maybe about to change is my housing situation, but that is not something I plan on writing about here.

Blogger changed from old to new blogger, I like the new blogger, but I don't like the front page of Blogger before I sign in, it is extremely slow, probably because of the thing at the bottom where new blogs titles come in all the time.
I have been looking for another way to sign in to blogger, I haven't found it yet, not one that I would trust with my password anyhow, but if one doesn't show up at some point I might consider moving this blog to another format.

Another page that has been behaving really badly is Technorati, their service seems to be down most of the time, I registered this blog there, but I am not overly existed of what I have seen there since then.

It seems to be the entire blogosphere has been a bit overheated lately, which btw. is nicely reflected in a competition like the Love to Lead that Toshiba has launched to get some publicity for some kind of new release from their them, I considered joining the competition at some point, but then again I would just be supporting another computer with Windows Vista installed pr. default (maybe Vista will be the point where I loose total knowledge of M$ products, that would be kind of nice, I have no intention of learning to use Vista if I can avoid it) and I have no chance of winning with the few readers I have on my blog and my bad writing skills. And really I don't want to lead, not with my blog or anywhere else, I might consider participating here and there, but leading is not something I have any wish for.

If everyone trashed trash

2007-01-15T19:15:00.000+01:00

I was out walking with a friend today in a forest where he has often walked.
At some on that walk I saw this water hole inside some conifers in the forest, the path we were walking were passing close by the little water hole and next to the path there were some different strange things lying nicely in order. Silently I wondered what had been going on there.

As we came closer my friend told me that this was a place where some people some time in the past had dumped all kinds of trash, he then had cleaned the place somewhat up.
Often when he came by that place he would bring some trash with him to the nearest dumpster (which I think is at least a kilometer away). The things that were lying neatly ordered by the path were the things that he had not been able to bring with him yet, most of them were heavy iron things so that was quite understandable.

I think that showed a very nice trait in my friend, something that there is far to far between in people today as far as I can tell.
One way to tell that is to take a look at all the trash lying around when you take a walk, it is by far worst when walking close to a place where a lot of people pass, like a road out in the country (inside the city there usually are people paid to clean the place now and then, at least here in Denmark).

It would really be nice if people would take home their own trash, that is really all that is needed.
After all there are people out there like my friend and I who will bring trash we find to the nearest dumpster, I am OK with you leaving this to people like us, if just all of you others bring home your own trash.
If this was possible then in a few years I think there would be very little trash lying around in nature.
That way we would as humanity do a lot of less damage to our environment and we would all be better able to enjoy the beautiful planet we are living on.

Sadly I feel quite certain that these things are not going to happen in this world, still I can do my little part and I invite others to do their little part.

Calculating the value of a change in lifestyle

2007-01-13T16:38:00.000+01:00

Yesterday a friend told me about this test called the life expectancy calculator. I took the test expecting to get a result saying something like your life expectancy is 89 years, which I also get, not really all that interesting (there of course are lots of factors a test like this doesn't take into account and there are many other flaws in this kind of test).
However the cool thing about this test is that it gives you some useful response to your answers to the questions asked and ways you can improve your life expectancy and how much each action taken in your life would improve your life expectancy. That is really nice and useful, that kind of gives you an idea how much this and this change would be worth in terms of living years (remember there can be other positive benefits apart form a longer life) and that way have a better idea if this or that change to your life is sensible or not.

If you are not from the USA I suggest you enter "00000" on the question of zip code.

Help improve earthquake information

2007-01-09T07:50:00.000+01:00

I live in an area of the world where earthquakes are very uncommon, that is they are that rare that I never really experienced an earthquake in real life.
Never the less one of my big interests and areas of study is earthquakes, they can tell us many interesting things about the interior of the earth and also give many other forms of information.

I often check in on the USGS online service where they show the different earthquakes registered all around the world.
If you go looking at the specific earthquakes there is a link called "did you feel it" in there you can give your experience of a specific earthquake, so if you do live in a region of the world where earthquakes are not as uncommon as they are here you can help by telling about your experience of the earthquake.
Maybe this information can help to improve in different ways, the more data available the better research can be done and in the end this might also lead to better detection systems, better warning systems and better preparedness from the authorities. Maybe it is a bit much to hope for, a single report probably are not going to do this, but I do think that if enough people were to report in their experiences of earthquakes the people working with the data from USGS and other sources would be able to do an even better job.

Google Maps Mania

2007-01-06T19:48:00.000+01:00

I found this great blog called Google Maps Mania, they post all kind of stuff about Google maps, quite interesting really. There are many nice things to see from Google maps when you do not have anything else to do and this blog is a nice place to find interesting things to do with and in Google maps.

Vim

2007-01-06T15:18:00.000+01:00

Again I am inspired by /. for this blog post.

Vim, the text editor, has become a very dear tool for me. To begin with vim was quite a hassle to use, I don't remember what kept me at it, I guess the praise that others had for this little program and now that I have gotten the touch of it this is my favorite text editor, so I will join those that helped me get over the first steep learning curve in the hope that maybe I am going to be a little piece of the reason why another programmer will also adopt to Vim.

It is my experience that I am getting ever faster at writing code when using Vim and I keep on improving my speed, there are still many aspects of Vim I have not started really using.
I have found this little Vim Quick Reference Card (pdf) very handy to have next to the computer.

There is a ongoing dispute whether Emacs or Vim is the best editor for coding, I am not really able say anything on this as I have never really tried out Emacs, I can only give my warmest recommendations of Vim and if others are doing well with Emacs then that's fine.

Methane lakes

2007-01-04T15:26:00.000+01:00

I have just been sitting wondering a bit about the news that NASA says they now have found what appears to be lakes of Methane on Titan, the largest of Saturns moons.

I was looking a bit at the properties of Methane, at first just looking at the estimated mean temperature on Titan I was a bit amazed that this was possible and gravity is even less than on the earth and therefore the pressure is also less, but then I checked the article linked to above and read that it was only possible on the poles (where the radar images are also from) because the temperatures are much lower there.

I can't help but wonder how things look on Titan, how it would be walking around there (even though I would probably need all kinds of protective equipment) and things like that.
What would happen if you stroke a match on Titan? Probably nothing at all ... I haven't been checking up on this and I guess I don't know my chemistry well enough to figure this out without quite an effort (the easy way to figure it out would be seeking the internet, hoping someone better at chemistry than me has asked themselves that question too, I haven't done that either).

Try reading the Climate part of the Wikipedia article linked to above. Clouds and maybe even rain of methane. Surely fascinating stuff

Panoramio

2007-01-01T18:55:00.000+01:00

I just came upon this service Panoramio which is a photo album where you can upload your pictures and then geotag them. The whole thing uses google maps, it's quite nice (even though also a bit slow).
I uploaded two pictures myself, but I don't think i will be uploading many pictures to this service, there are too many errors all the time, most of them probably caused by problems with too little bandwidth for their servers or perhaps overloaded servers.

Pictures: Trækstien from Ans and almost to Kongensbro.

2006-12-29T12:36:00.000+01:00

I have just been putting some new pictures on my homepage.

They were taken on a walk along a path called Trækstien (pdf link) which is a long walking path that goes on the northern/eastern side of Tange sø but that is just a little part of it, the entire path is from Silkeborg to Randers, I guess walking it in its full length is at least two day travels (with good speed). I walked from Ans to Kongensbro but ran out of batteries for my camera along the way, the path where the pictures are from is something like the northern shore of Tange Sø on this map.

I parked the car not so far from Ans (just on the other side of the bridge leading over Tange Sø) and when I then got to Kongensbro I took the bus back to Ans. It a really beautiful trip, but I advice that if you bring really good footwear especially when the water is as high as it is now where parts of the path the path are very swampy.

Distance measurement on Google maps

2006-12-28T11:48:00.000+01:00

Sure there are lots of little tools on the net for measuring the driving distance using asphalt roads, but sitting here trying to figure out if I can make a walk from Ans to Kongensbro along Tange sø and Gudenåen and if I shold take the bus back to Ans when I get to Kongensbro or walk back again, these tools were pretty useless.

That is when I realized that google maps is perfect for this, someone must have build something to measure distances along a chosen path. I am sure there are other tools out there but this one solved my need.

The distance from Ans to Kongensbro should be something like 7 km. along the water so I should be able to walk out and back home before the sun sets if I get out the door now. ... which means I should stop writing and get moving :)

M$ laptop for free

2006-12-27T19:14:00.000+01:00

It seems Microsoft has started sending out laptops for free to some chosen bloggers, with Vista installed.
I would like one but I am not sure Vista is going to stay on it for long ;)

Sex identification test

2006-12-27T19:03:00.000+01:00

I just took this little sexID test, the results as such isn't all that interesting (I scored 50 to the male side) but the things that is told along one taking the test is quite interesting.
I for example never knew that men tend to have a difference in length of index and ring finger while women tend to have their fingers more of the same length (you have to measure the length difference in milimeters, but my index and ring fingers actually are not the same length).

Good old Tetris

2006-12-27T01:20:00.000+01:00

I just found this nice little java game and put it on bargheer.dk

I still haven't gotten far enough in my java sessions to be able to make a game like this, but finding this kind of motivated me to get on with my java studies, it would be nice to be able to build online applets like this one.

A few new pictures

2006-12-26T11:57:00.000+01:00

I just added a few pictures to this gallery from a walk I took in Vodskov and not so far from where I live here and one picture from a trip to Ry.
I had something like 450 MB of photos in the camera after these two trips, these three pictures I added were some of the better ones.

Water rising

2006-12-25T19:57:00.000+01:00

It has been all over the news this day, the water has risen high enough to take away the first lower lying inhabited Island, Lohachara, some thousand people have lost their home.

If it hadn't already done so this should be the final evidence needed for changing the discussion from if the water is rising as to why it is rising.

Lohachara is only going to be the first of a lot of land mass lost in the coming time.

Here in Denmark we had a big flooding a month ago or so because of strong winds from the north that pushed water into the inner Danish ocean from two sides.
I know of at least one place on Lolland where the dikes broke and have not yet been reestablished, it's only 155 acres but still it's not only far away from Denmark we are going to feel the effect of this.
Many places on Lolland where I grew up are quite low and many other areas are too.

Hiking boots

2006-12-23T18:38:00.000+01:00

My hiking boots are very important to me, having hiking boots in good condition means a lot when working as geophysical fieldworker, where I often have to walk up to 50 km. a day with heavy equipment with in all kinds of terrain.

In the perfect world I would every day when I return home from work clean my boots in water and every now and then give them a bit bigger haul over. I have gotten better at getting this done with time, but still I am not as good to my boots as I wish I was.
If it wasn't for the wear hiking boots get better the longer they are used, so good maintenance gives you good boots for a longer time.

I found this page which contains some nice advice on taking care of hiking boots, so far it's the best page I have found with advice for taking care of hiking boots but then again I am not an expert on this

I some time ago heard the advice of soaking a pair of new boots in water and keeping them on your feet all day for a long walk and then stuffing them with newspapers over the night, this should give a much better fit and save you from many hundred kilometers of walking in the boots.
I tried this back in August with a new pair of Lowa boots and it actually turned out to work much better than I had expected. Sure it still was a new pair of boots, but no blisters, and I had no problems with my feet during the months tough work that I was doing after this. I will follow this advice again next time I am to get a couple of Hiking boots.

Another thing that I have found is important is the sole, I have found investing in a quality sole like for example this one is well worth the money. After having replaced the not bad standard sole in my hiking boots with these soles I feel a lot less tired in legs and back after a tough day at work.

A PDF I wish the political leaders would read

2006-12-23T07:14:00.000+01:00

Apparently a Captain in the US army made this little handout (pdf) with some good thoughts on how to make some positive progress in Iraq. According to this article the Captain was killed recently though.

I wish this would come into the hands of some of the political leaders, but I guess they wouldn't hardly react to it.
As usual the people who is in the middle of the mess doesn't get much listened to ... sadly.

I feel so deeply sorry for everyone who is in Iraq at the moment, especially the civilians who, as it has been an ever stronger trend since WWII, are the ones suffering the most.

Where the puzzle came from

2006-12-21T13:23:00.000+01:00

I just found out that I have just been rewriting a puzzle made by Einstein :)

The puzzle below is the so called zebra puzzle, I found it in a danish version and made my own translation back to English, it seems there are also some other differences since the solution differs a bit, a bit strange I guess.

A little puzzle

2006-12-21T10:51:00.000+01:00

This is solvable without guessing (it's not that hard):

every house has it's own color
all residents have a different nationality
they all have different pets
all of them drink different drinks
they all smoke different brands of cigarettes

There are 5 houses
The Englishman lives in the red house
The Swede has a dog
In the green house they drink coffee
The Dane drinks tea
The green house is left of the white one
The person that smokes Long has a bird for pet
In the yellow house they smoke Kings
In the center house they drink milk
The Norwegian lives in the first house
The person smoking Cecil, lives in the house next to where the pet is a cat
In the house next to where there is a horse, they smoke Kings
The person smoking North state drinks beer
The German is smoking Prince
The Norwegian lives next to the blue house
Water is the drink, next to there where Cecil is being smoked

The big question:
Where does the Zebra live?

If you have got the answer then try and check it against my answer. If you have a different answer that still fits the description that would be quite interesting (I am not totally certain that the solution I came up with is the only possible).

Ungdomshuset

2006-12-18T06:18:00.000+01:00

I am not going to comment on the political side of this stuff, I really don't have an opinion on that.

There has been some pretty heavy street fighting in Copenhagen a few days ago, the autonomous (are they called that in English too?) have this house in the middle of Copenhagen that they are fighting for but the law says that they have to go as the house is now owned by someone else.
So far my impression is that the house has been used by some pretty peaceful danish youngsters who have had this place as a kind of musical scene and a place where they can do what they like without parents and others interfering.
Anyhow with the authorities wanting to shut down the place, the people around Ungdomshuset have been sending out this international invitation. I think this was where things started going in a nasty direction.

My feeling is that these people from the autonomous environment have now big time taken over the leadership of this place. These people (or at least some of them) are really dangerous from what I know of them (primarily from the time where I was still politically active and among other things were pretty involved in the so called Castor transports to Gorleben) many of them are not afraid of violence (maybe even being the opposite of afraid of it) and they are very experienced in fighting the police, that is police that is a lot harsher than the danish police (like the German police, that at times act more like a military force than a police force, for example in Gorleben).
There is a lot of anger in these people, I never really understood what message they are trying to put out (I have a feeling there really isn't much of a message other than the anger), but I sure do feel the anger in it, they always scared me even though I have been among many of them in demonstrations and such in the past.

I am really afraid that the situation around Ungdomshuset can get really really nasty, I am afraid that the danish authorities are not really aware how dangerous this situation is.
I hope and pray for a peaceful outcome of all of this.

For those of you able to read danish this article from a danish newspaper is quite interesting.

Deer pictures

2006-12-16T16:21:00.000+01:00

My internet connection is back!

Yesterday I spend a lot of the day walking around with my camera in the forest.
I spend what must have been more than an hour trying to get close enough to 3 deer grazing to get a decent shot with my camera that only has 8x zoom.
As can be seen the best picture I got of these three young deer isn't amazing. Still I enjoyed the time spend watching these beautiful creatures, trying to get closer to them along the edge of the forest without making noise or otherwise letting them become aware of my presence.

Offline

2006-12-13T18:50:00.000+01:00

It seems I will be ofline for the coming week or so because of a problem with the cables leading to where I live somehow malfunctioning, it will take some time before the technicians who are to fix this will arrive, I appoligize to everyone that I am not able to get in contact with or the other way around.

Great Amazon reviews :)

2006-12-09T08:32:00.000+01:00

Try taking a look at this review of the book "The Story about Ping" the review I am referring to is called "Ping I love that duck!"

This review has had me smiling all morning. I wish reading reviews on Amazon would always be this fun, I am even tempted to buy The Story about Ping, just for the joke of it.

Captain aka Garfield

2006-11-29T05:35:00.000+01:00

For some reason I have not been able to sleep all that well this night, I did get early to bed for me standards (22:00) but still getting up 4:30 is a little early in my book.

Captain has been in here with me for some time. He really starts to resemble Garfield in more and more ways.
One thing is that he has gotten a bit overweight lately, but it is not as if he recognizes that when he moves around, he probably still thinks of himself as a little kitten.
He also seems to be more and more obsessed with food, my fridge in here is standing on the floor and for some reason Captain seems to think that every time I open that fridge I do it so that he can get in there.
When making a few slices of bread or something like that it is not unusual to open the fridge a few times, but even though I try and tell Captain quite strongly that I don't open the fridge for him to walk in there the first time I open it I have to fight just as much to make him understand it the second, third, fourth etc. time I open the fridge door.
Captain also seems to have gotten a liking of my plants here on the table.

It seems I had better start to hide these Garfield comics a bit better away, seems Captain is reading them when I don't look.

Greetings
Arbuckle errrh Arne ;)

The beauty of Thy

2006-11-17T11:45:00.000+01:00

I have the last few days been working in northwestern Jutland, being outdoors all day. I will be going back in a few days again to complete the job there.
The area is really beautiful, it has been quite windy and the waves at the shore of the north sea shore is truly amazingly beautiful, make you feel how little I as a human am compared to the forces of nature. I think it is healthy for me and my emotional welfare to get this experience of how little I am compared to the forces of nature.

My boots have served me well, the groundwater table is apparently quite high in the area and there lot's of area with shallow water, we are moving all around the place outside roads and in all kind of terrain out there and I would often have had wet feet had it not been for my Lowa boots that I do my best to treat well in spite of the tough use, they pay me back by keeping my feet dry which is something one really learns to appreciate working as a geophysical fieldworker.

I am Linux user #435106

2006-11-09T20:40:00.000+01:00

I just registered myself to the Linux counter and got this nice little picture for it.

The homepage estimates the overall number of Linux users to 29 millions, but as it is stated on the homepage it is really hard to count how many people use Linux.
I looked a bit on their method of making this estimate and it seems quite sensible to me, but it may still be very far of.

Nature experiences on the internet

2006-11-08T06:31:00.000+01:00

About a month ago the danish environmental ministry and Danish Society for Nature Conservation launched a new little website, my best experience in nature.

This site let's people put a point at a map where they have had an enjoyable experience in nature in Denmark, write a bit about it and then there is a dot on the map where others can read about this experience.
Looking at the map is a bit awkward right now, there is a overweight of dots especially around Copenhagen, to me this map does in no way reflect where the best experiences are to be found. I think it better reflects where there is a lot of people living, where Danish Society for Nature Conservation has most of it's members and things like this. But if you are going to Denmark and want to experience nature then don't go after the amount of dots ;)

Also I think it reflects a bit of the way people view nature, here in Jutland it's more like something we are in most of the time, nature isn't as as much thought of as something we "visit", we are in nature all the time (and some of us go nuts if we are to be trapped in a city for more than a day or two).

Still the idea is nice, it's great looking at this map for inspiration for a spending a good day and getting new experiences. Hopefully the amounts of dots will grow as the service gets more used. There are lot's of wonderful places all over Denmark.

Wooden browser

2006-11-07T14:04:00.000+01:00

Sitting a bit bored looking around in Firefox, I found this theme.

It is actually quite nice, at least for now having used it less than an hour, so it is hereby recommended to try out if you are running Firefox.

I just found a similar Thunderbird theme, so I now have matching Thunderbird and Firefox again ;)

Counter steering

2006-11-04T08:42:00.000+01:00

Now this morning sitting here at the computer, thinking about what to write here at this blog, I remembered that there was something about counter steering that I had never gotten looked into as much as I wanted to, but I thought I had the basic idea what it was about and it wasn't so complicated, so just understanding it in a little time now and then write a blog post explaining it would be great .... it turns out that is not possible.

Counter steering is far from as simple as I just though. Ssure the gyroscopic effect, that I thought it was all about, has a lot to say here, but there are other things like rake and trail to consider that I hardly even thought about.
So this is going to be something I will need to study a bit more ...

In short counter steering is the action of pulling my motorcycle wheel in the opposite direction of the turn to lean the bike into the turn fast and efficiently.
Many seem to want to teach people that they should think of it as push steering, I understand that this is easier to comprehend as it easier for brain to understand when you are used to cars and bikes at low speed that you should "do action" on the side of the bike that you want to turn to, but I have a feeling that keeping on thinking of it as pull steering is the way to go, for me anyhow. I have tried doing both when riding and somehow pull steering just seems the most efficient to me.

I think it will be really healthy for me to really understand counter steering. both for the sake of everyday riding totally correct and efficiently, but most of all to be able to handle the emergency turn that I might at some point have to make to safe my life and/or others absolutely perfect.

I have been looking through a few pages this morning, I'd recommend this one for people totally unknown with aspect of counter steering and this one for those who want to know more.

Contributing to OS

2006-10-31T09:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I was talking to a friend about participating in an open source project. The project in question was the Ubuntu Artwork Team, since she is very skilled at working with computer images.

I myself have often been thinking about helping out in different open source projects, but until now I have not gotten further than reporting bugs to Gentoo bugzilla when a package somehow seems to be broken working on my system and things like that. I never really got further than being an active user of the open source software I am using. I have often been thinking about getting to learn how to make ebuilds which is a core thing in the Gentoo system. It is quite simple making ebuilds, but I have been taking the time to sit down and learn it and be able to contribute in this way.
Instead I have now started instead trying to learn to write Java code, that might end up being the way I am going to contribute to the open source movement.

Alarm Clocks

2006-10-30T07:21:00.000+01:00

I find myself in an eternal struggle to figure out a way to get myself out of bed.
Right now I use my cell phone with a quite annoying melody that I know by heart and my old JVC stereo (the image) that plays either a CD or the radio in the morning.
I need both of them most mornings if I need to get up at a certain time and even then with my stereo blasting away at what to my ears sounds as far to loud and cell phone playing an annoying melody I again and again find myself sleeping away from the it all and get up to late.
The problem with only running one of these alarm clocks is that they both have drawbacks which make it much easier sleeping away from them.
The JVC plays music which is something that can be quite nice to stay in bed and listen to, instead of doing what I am supposed to do .... get out of bed.
The cell phone only plays this annoying tune every 10 minutes and it only lasts 30 seconds or so, the first time it plays it this is hardly enough to wake me up and 30 seconds is shorter time than it most often takes me to pull myself together to get out of bed.

I guess I could take in use more violent measures to get out of bed in time, but really I don't mind oversleeping a bit now and then if that means my day won't be ruined. I can't stand to get out of bed to fast and be in a hurry, the rest of the days usually goes wrong.
I prefer to have at least have an hour in the morning where there is nothing I need to get done and can just sit and look out into the air (or the computer screen).

Grisbi

2006-10-20T20:32:00.000+02:00

I found a new program today that I think I am going to have quite a benefit from using.

The program is called Grisbi, it is a personal accounting program.
I have never really been lying a solid budget, I actually don't have much clue of how much my living expenses are and generally so far I have pretty much just been making sure that I didn't spend more than I had in my account, but I never did much planning as to my economic situation.

I think the time I will invest in trying to get a track of my economic situation would be well invested as it will help me see how much I actually need to work and where I can save some money also.

Grisbi seems pretty simple, I have not been reading any manuals on the program so far and I think I already have it up and running with the most simple features, I plan to be writing in all my expenses in the coming time and see what information I can get out of these data.

I found out about this program in a bit of strange way, I was just looking through a book about Ubuntu, which one of my friends is a fan of, and in the back of that book there was a list of Linux programs that could be used instead of the windows programs one was used to using (I guess it was written mostly for windows users, thinking about trying out Linux). I don't remember what the windoze program was that it was supposed to replace, but I guess that isn't a big wonder as I haven't been using an accounting program in neither Linux or Windoze before.

It will be interesting to see what comes of this and if I can keep on writing in my expenses and incomes in this little program.

Flash

2006-10-20T15:15:00.000+02:00

Well here's another blog post, it's been some time since I last posted, sorry about that.

I have just been reading a bit about this new flash harddrive that should be created pretty much for Vista by Samsung together with M$

It motivated me to read a bit more up on what flash is, I've never really been looking to much into this and still there is much I am not sure about (I only read parts of that wikipedia article I linked to).

I was thinking about if using a flash drive as swap for my old laptop might be a good idea, I am not totally certain about it but I learned that the problem with flash drives is that they have a limited number of write cycles before they "die", people don't seem to agree on how many read a flash drive can take before dying.
I might experiment a bit with this, old flash drives are not expensive and maybe it would a cheap way to improve my old laptops performance a little, but then again I don't think I have the time/energy for playing to much around with it, one of the reasons why I have not been posting to this blog for some time and I really don't use my laptop a lot.

Do I still belong at Aarhus University?

2006-07-07T12:11:00.000+02:00

I am sitting at the university of Århus right now.
It is the first time I am here for months. I am just here to pick up my old laptop from my locker that I want to bring to Zealand where I am going to work the next three months or so.
I have this feeling that I don't really belong here anymore, once this place had a lot of appeal to me, it was kind of the high caste of knowledge to me. The magic of this place is somehow gone now.
I know I have a long way to go through all kind of stupid paperwork if I am to get a degree from this place, the line of study that I followed here doesn't exist anymore, I haven't been fast and dedicated enough, studying only part time. They have been going through so called "study reforms" many times during my time as a student, I don't think has gone to the better, everything is even more focused on results and exams now, I don't feel there is really room for going to the depth with things like I felt there was when I started here back in 1999.

Maybe I will like it here again if I start following some teaching, but the culture here doesn't appeal to me anymore. Everyone is surfing the surface, there is very little kindness and care here, people are purely logical and to some degree cynical. I don't like this.

I don't know what I want to do with this half done education that I have here ... but the experience of being here today doesn't help me gain more interest in spending more years here. Still maybe that is the right thing to do ... I really don't know.
I will be working the next three months a lot more than what is usually thought of as full time here in Denmak (37 hours a week) so for that time university is not an issue at all.

Traveling

2006-06-27T19:04:00.000+02:00

I am now in my mothers house in Ry, where I have just arrived from Lolland. It has been more than a week since I last was home and have seen Kvistur and Captain. I miss them terribly.

I am afraid all this traveling is not going to get less in the coming time. I been hired for a full time employment on Zealand for what looks like 3 months time, starting on the 10th of July. I think I will pretty much only be home on weekends.

I about a week I will go to my motorcycle driving test, if I pass some things will be somewhat easier as I will then be riding a Honda CBF 500A.

I wish I had some highly interesting thoughts to write about here right now, but I can't come up with anything right now. I guess writing on Captains weblog doesn't feel right without Captain lying on my lap.

Swamp walking

2006-06-23T15:36:00.000+02:00

Yesterday at work we had to pull some cables through a swamp.
It was an interesting experience, besides the fact that I have been removing quite a few of these little bloodsucking beasts (I don't remember their english name) afterwards and my feet, socks and lover legs were soaked after an hour in there (I worked there for at least 7 hours), I really enjoyed it.
I had to cut myself a way through the plants, which is quite a special feeling. Had I not brought a compass in there I am not sure I would have been able to find the right way through it all, the GPS also gave up as it "needs a clear view of the sky" as it kept telling me: Yeah right budy, I am in the middle of a swamp how do you suppose I should find clear sky ;)
At times the ground was so soft that I had to put out dead wood to make temporary bridges over these places, while at other times I had too jump from place to place where the ground could carry my weight.

There are far to few places like these left in Denmark but actually we have a few of them close to my hut. I think I will spend a bit of time exploring them in the future.

Growing a darker skin and Kvistur getting new horseshoes

2006-06-17T08:39:00.000+02:00

Finally I have a little time to write here again. I have not had the opportunity to write here because of a lot of work these last days.
It has been quite enjoyable working even if also quite tough, especially because of the heat. I think I have been drinking at least 12 liters from Tuesday to Thursday this week. Especially Tuesday I consumed extreme amounts of water, I was working in a corn field, with the corn at the height of my hips. There was almost no wind and the temperatures in the shade was well above 25 degC, inside the corn it was a lot hotter and when we were trotting a new path through the corn (which we did pretty much all the time) I felt how the heat was rising from the ground and corn up past my face, making it hard to breath. Often I was also dragging more than 50 kg. along. A pretty tough, but at the same time efficient way to get a darker skin color ;)
I don't think I have ever enjoyed an ice cream as much as the one I bought when we had a little break.

It is really nice to be able to work again after having been idle for a month because of my ankle. It is a bit tough as I am not in the physical shape I was in before I sprained my ankle, but the endurance and strength is coming back to me pretty fast.

Kvistur has gotten a set of nice new shoes yesterday, his hooves are not that strong. He had lost one shoe while I was away and the hoof that he had been walking on was pretty worn down, the hot weather these last days have not made things better, with the hoof getting dry. I feel a bit bad that I was not there to help my horse with his dry hooves and the lost shoe.
The skilled farrier that comes here did a really good job with this damaged hoof. Kvistur behaved OK getting new shoes, even though he did protest a few times when he got bored. The farrier handled it very sensibly, being all calm along the way and that also made it a lot easier for me to calm down Kvistur.

Good morning /.

2006-06-12T06:47:00.000+02:00

Well this morning I awoke to find that for the first time (and the second time I submitted anything) my submission to /. composed yesterdays morning had been accepted during the night (DK time).
So this probably means that there will be a few people from /. clicking over on this site, they are just as welcome as anyone else, but I doubth they will hang around much longer than anyone else, I think I generally write blog posts that are a bit to long, a bit to boring and with to little content ;)

Later today I will be picked up by one of my co-workers, we will be going away for full time duty for a few days where I probably will not be able to write in here. I will be trying to put in as many hours as I can pressure out of my foot and my co-worker, as there are other jobs of the same type waiting for me if I get this over with fast enough.
This is the season where there is plenty of work for me, so I'd better earn a little extra to make it through the winter where there is not as much geophysics work around.

Liferea

2006-06-11T09:14:00.000+02:00

I finally found a good way to efficiently browse news. I have for a least a year and probably more used RSS to follow some news channels. Firefox's booksmarks is a bit clumsy for this even though I have made it a habit to use them, they waste a lot of my time. A the firefox plugin that I also occasionally use to browse the firefox bookmarks more efficiently is Sage, this program is OK but somehow doesn't work for me, I keep on falling back to the standard bookmarks in firefox. Thunderbird should be able to read RSS channels also, but it doesn't seem to work at all for me.
Now I have been using the Liferea for some time and find it very efficient. Especially the sorting ability within this program is useful. I am able to configure pretty much anything I need to configure in this reader. Also I am able to run this program offline, which I plan to use for my laptop when making it possible for me to bring along a bit of news reading for the bus travel or other places where I will be without internet access.

Stinging nettles for dinner

2006-06-10T21:08:00.000+02:00

My dinner this evening didn't cost me much to make. It consisted of stinging nettles from the horses pasture and rice.
The fresh shoots from stinging nettles can be treated pretty much the same way as spinach after it has beaten around in water for some minutes to take out most of the acid, which also is what gives the nettles their burning effect.
They don't taste of much by themselves so heavy spicing is a good idea.

I would really like to learn to make more use of the things that naturally grow around me in this way, I am picking up a little here and there along the way. It is also a great way to be prepared in case something goes really wrong, natural disaster, a breakdown of society, war or things like these.
Living in the peaceful part of the world that I do it is easy to forget that things might very fast not be as easy as they are today, being prepared is always a good thing. If nothing else it gives me the confidence that I will be able to life of the land in the case I have to.

Sleeping my day away

2006-06-10T16:22:00.000+02:00

It has been a while since I last wrote here, it has been some pretty busy days lately and I have not had much time to write in here.

The summer has set in here now, we have had clear sky and high temperatures these last days. It is a bit tough for me to get used to this weather, I am sleeping a lot and feeling very tired generally, for some reason I just don't thrive in the heat.

Yesterday I passed the theory test for my motorcycle drives license, no problems at all, these test are just about learning to think the way that the test makers do. It might still be some time before I can go to the driving test, my teacher told me that I might have to expect up to a months waiting time. That is a bit annoying, but there really isn't anything I can do about it.

Hiding from the heat inside my hut

2006-06-06T12:54:00.000+02:00

Today it is really summer weather here, and I am in my usual dilemma, it is to hot for me outside in the sun, but I can't help but feel bad about staying inside and not using the chance, now that the weather is suitable for doing many things outside.
It will get better as I get a little more used to this hot weather, but for now I am sitting here writing in Captains log.

It seems Captain is enjoying the weather more than I am, during the day he is most of the time outside, but in the evening, when the sun has set he does as he always does when he wants in. He hangs by the claws in one of the windows, scratching it a little and yelling to me that he would like me to open the door. He then spends the night here with me and in the morning he again goes out.
To begin with I often got quite chock when Captain did this hanging in the window, but by now I have gotten used to it.

From the weather forecast it looks like I will have to accept this weather for the rest of the day, I'd better somehow find a way to use it for the best.

Back in X, now with cool fonts

2006-06-05T21:12:00.000+02:00

I now again have X working, it took quite a bit of messing around but one of the things that took some time for me to work out was that my optical mouse is not working anymore.
Anyhow I also now took some time to do some tinkering with the fonts, my previous settings had gone away. It all worked out for the best because these new settings are much better than what I had before.
Again it turned out I did actually learn a lot even though problems like these are annoying, especially when my laptop is not here in the hut but lying in my locker up at university and my other server does not have a graphical system installed, so I don't have any back-up when this computers graphical systems doesn't work.

Posting from Links

2006-06-04T10:39:00.000+02:00

It seems I have again messed up my computer, at times like this I have to really remind myself that I am learning right now ;)

This is posted from the terminal browser links, a great little program. It seems blogger works well from links, so I am able to post this.

This again reminds that I need to get things set up so I am able to have things work from the terminal.
So I hereby excuse to everyone I am not able to write to right now.
I am not sure I will have the that much time to mess around with X the next few days, so I might not reply to or write as many emails as I usually do.
Reminder to self: You are learning Arne ;)

Comments turned on

2006-06-03T16:15:00.000+02:00

To begin with I was a little afraid of how my blogging here would be recieved but now that I am starting to feel a bit more comfortable with blogging I have turned on comments.
I don't expect a lot of comments here, but welcome any comments as long as they are sober, so please feel free to comment.

If this should turn out to be a big problem and extra work I might turn of the comments again, but I don't expect this to be the case.

Thermometer in window

2006-06-03T15:47:00.000+02:00

I just put up an outdoor thermometer in my window.
It found it at Brugsen in Ans when I was getting groceries there earlier this week, it didn't cost much so I guess I shouldn't expect the greatest precision.

I have an idea that where I live here, uphill from Ans and Tange Sø is pretty cold in winters, compared to the rest of Denmark, also this is one of the areas the furthest away from water in Denmark, which again should mean more extreme temperatures.
Often when people come from Ans up here they get a bit surprised at how strong the wind is here compared to in Ans, but that probably also has to do with the fact that Ans is in a little valley and especially shielded from the wind from west which is the major wind direction here in Denmark.

I have a little plan of keeping track of how the temperature inside (where I also have a thermometer) follow the trend outside, I don't know if I will be able to use these data for anything useful, but I guess I am just the kind of person who likes to do things little measurements like this, if for nothings else then for the training and experience it gives.

Another positive spin of from motorcycle riding

2006-06-02T15:13:00.000+02:00

Today I realized another great thing about taking motorcycle lessons to get a drivers license for motorcycle.
I have gotten better at riding a bike and doing so safely, when biking to Kjellerup today I suddenly found myself planning how to get around in the turns the best way, also have started being even more aware of the other road users and what is going on the sides of the road.

Apparently the fact that I have now been out riding bike with a higher speed than what I can ride a bike for longer times has had a very positive effect. Quite different from how I when I went to Gymnasiet (~high school) almost taught myself halfway to sleep while biking the ~25 km. to and from school at pretty high pace (50 km a day does help you get into pretty good shape).

Merapi updated, thoughts about repression

2006-05-31T11:46:00.000+02:00

I'll start this post out with an update on my speculations on the two earthquakes and the Merapi eruption.
I have been looking a bit on the reports from the two earthquakes, the one on the 26. of may might have been directly associated with the eruption of Merapi as the summary also says:

From presently available data, we do not know if there is a direct link between the May 26 earthquake and the ongoing eruption of the volcano Merapi which is several tens of kilometers to the north.

while the second big one on the 28th seems not to be directly linked to the Merapi eruption as it is far to far away and deeper .~50km compared to the first one which was very shallow at ~10km, to me it seems very likely that all three event are associated with the same plate movements and are in this way connected, but a direct link does probably not exist between these three events in Indonesia even though it might exist between the two of them.

Anyhow that is enough geological mumbo jumbo for now, most of my readers probably have stopped reading this post (but hopefully not my entire blog) by now.

It is kind of scary how easy it is to forget all the suffering that is happening because of these events when I start studying them like I have been doing for the last few hours. I feel deeply sorry for all the animals, people and beautiful nature that has suffered because of these earthquakes, but when I only work with geological terms and numbers them this damage slips away from my mind. In a way this is a good thing, being able to not think of all the suffering makes it easier to live through these difficult times for our planet and for humanity, but still it is also scary.
I don't think Hitler would have been able to do what he did, killing so many people if not people had this ability to repress the suffering and just look at the numbers etc. without thinking about what is lying behind the numbers. How would a general ever be able to order an assault if he thought about the human suffering it would cause, if he thought about which of his soldiers, his friends, he would never see again?
This ability to ignore what lies behind the numbers and technical terms might be necessary in the world we are living in right now, but it sure isn't anything I want to train.
After all this is kind of the same thing that is often done to teach a soldier to kill ... He is being asked to shoot again and again at figures of men, teach him that they what he is shooting at is not a human like himself, it's just a piece of wood.
When he then when getting out in a war situation shoots a silhouette of a man like he has been taught and have done hundreds of times in training, from then on he is a killer. Which is what the power somewhere there behind the wars, the political and religious powers of this world wants and needs.

Merapi and earthquakes

2006-05-29T12:34:00.000+02:00

First of I want to start this post saying that I feel very sorry for the people who have suffered from the earthquakes and volcanic eruption in Indonesia and the areas around them.

As geophysicst I find this entire situation kind of interesting and not least the fact that we have not been able to predict this situation very well.
It is the first time I am aware that there is such a direct connection between a volcanic eruption like the one happening at Merapi and the strong earthquakes that has been happening. With the other volcanic eruptions in my life time that i remember there has not been these strong earthquakes ... or at least they have not done all that much damage.

What is happening in the underground below Merapi would be very interesting to study closer. I guess it would require quite big investigations to be able to detect exactly what is going on.

It is kind of awkward that it takes disasters and human suffering like this one to make me again become interested in what I am studying at university, it makes me feel a bit guilty.

Well done Basso and Voigt

2006-05-27T20:33:00.000+02:00

Right now I sit here regretting a bit that I don't have a TV with Eurosport.
I have just read about how Ivan Basso triumphed big time on the second last stage of Giro d' Italia. I would have loved to follow this stage on TV.
I am really impressed by the way Ivan Basso has been riding in this Giro d' Italia, I like his style of riding and competing on bike. Miguel Indurain is still my favorite biker of all times, but Ivan Basso is also a very sympathetic rider.
I do really enjoy watching bike racing on TV, when I was still living on Lolland I followed Tour de France whenever I was able to, I guess my fascination of bike-racing is because it is the only sport that I have ever been really good at. I never really competed, but when I was on Nakskov Gymnasium I had something like 20 km. to school which I was riding on bike almost every day. I got in pretty good shape and could without much problems overtake the flocks of competition riders that I sometimes met or at least hang unto them without too much effort. I also biked some quite long distances a few times, I think I have done the trip from Lolland to Århus on one day about 10 times and a lot of other long trips also.
Another thing I enjoy about bike racing is the tactical part of it, especially in the long tours, the team structure of cycling is a very interesting and fascinating thing to me.
Now that I am at the topic I'd like to applaus Jens Voigt for the way he left the victory to Juan Manuel GaraÂte on yesterdays stage of Giro d' Italia because he didn't feel he deserved to win because he had only been hanging on to the break-away without participating. That was a truly big gesture and one of the bigger moments of this years Giro d' Italia in my book.

Sisyphus planning

2006-05-27T14:08:00.000+02:00

Today has been one of these days where I have been doing pretty much nothing. I had quite a struggle with the sheets this morning just to get out of bed. Sometimes the path out of the bed looks like hopeless struggle, this morning that was how it was.
At some point I did get out of bed and I was happily surprised to find a reply from my big brother on a mail I sent last evening. I have my brother helping me with finding the right motorbike for me and again he's reply was very helpful even though I think at first I got even more confused with all the new bikes he suggested, but it helps me get a clearer idea of what it is I want and what I do now want. I am very thankful for my brothers help, I have very little knowledge about motorbikes (the only real knowledge I have is from watching motoGP and from physics classes which is not of much help when looking for a motorbike for daily use) while my brother's spends a lot of his spare time on motorbikes.

Lately planning has been very hard lately for me.
I know that I will probably be sent out on a week long work assignment in the coming time, but I don't know exactly when and how long it will be. That is especially difficult to fit in with me taking my drivers license for motorbike these days as this requires me to plan ahead with the lessons we have there. It is not something I go thinking about all the time but I think it is more stressful for me than I am aware of. No matter how well I try to plan my way out of things it might all fall together if just a few unknowns don't fall out the way I need them to.

Elephants Dream

2006-05-23T12:05:00.000+02:00

I have just watched the movie Elephants Dream for what must be the 5th or 6th time. It is a short movie that I got aware of through a /. post and it is a so called open movie, which as I understand it means that it is made with open source software tools (even though it is only the graphical side that is made with open source software, the sound was made the usual way for movies) and the movie is now free to distribute any way you like to.

I don't really know what to think of the movie in itself. I don't watch a lot of movies anymore, mostly because I don't have a TV (by choice) and there is no cinema nearby where I live so mostly I only watch movies when I visit someone.
Technically the movie is really great, just as good as Shrek or any other of the animated movies I have seen. The story in this short movie (I think it is about 9 minutes long) has me a bit puzzled, there sure are some fascinating aspects of it, but it still has me left puzzled ... I don't totally understand what the movie is about, even though I do vague idea, but maybe that was the idea behind the plot. If that is the case then it worked.
Anyhow if you do have a broadband connection to the internet then I do think it is worth the trouble to download and watch the movie.

Invitation from old classmates

2006-05-22T09:01:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I got a letter, that is not something that happens all that often, most of my window envelopes come through the internet (which is a great thing).

Anyhow this letter was an invitation from two of my older classmates from my first school (where I went from when I was 7 to 16 of age). It has now been 10 years since I left that school and that apparently is a reason to celebrate.
I don't really know what to think of this. These years of school is not something I think back of with great joy, classes were OK, pretty boring and I lacked challenges, but at least I learned some things and had an OK relationship to most of the teachers (especially those teaching natural science classes). The breaks on the other hand, was something I often dreaded. Most of the time in the low classes I just walked around by myself on the school trying to avoid the other kids. In the higher classes I was involved in some roleplaying and card games with what I now know is demonic content which took up all of the breaks and a lot of my spare time also, it helped me in the way that it made it easier for me to have social relations with the other kids with the same interests, but now I know that it sure wasn't a healthy interest.

Anyhow it would be interesting to see what has become of my old classmates, as such I have nothing against any of them, I just don't think going to the kind of school we have in Denmark was the best thing for me back then. I could have learned a lot more in lots of other ways instead of going to school and I was not prepared for the rough environment that a school with so many kids with different backgrounds is, kids can sadly be very cruel at times and before going to school I had lived a very protected life at home. I actually think we had a pretty good environment at our school compared to many other schools (especially the big school one or two kilometers from ours), but for me it was still to rough.
Time will show if I will be able to go to Lolland in about a month where this gathering of old classmates will be, there is quite a distance to travel and I am not sure I am able to pull out a few days of my calendar to go there (if I am to go to Lolland I want to visit my sister and her kids also), but if I do have the time I think I will go.

The new adventures of Captain

2006-05-20T11:00:00.000+02:00

Lately Captain has found a new way to entertain himself: Trash Hunting.
Today he got really lucky, he found himself a discarded container for youghurt. Of course he had to turn over the entire wastebasket to get to the container, but he really doesn't seem to mind at all.
I guess I am pretty unthoughful to put the nice youghurt containers in the bottom of the wastebasket, I hope I made up for it by ripping open the youghurt container so he could easier get to all the youghurt inside the container.

Otherwise Captain seems to be doing well, he still doesn't seem to be able to figure why I don't like havnig his claws planted in my skin ... I guess I am kind of sensitive that way.

Linus Thorvalds tells the truth about meetings

2006-05-19T19:10:00.000+02:00

I have just been reading a nice interview with Linus Thorvalds and some of the comments that have been spinning of at the /. community

One of the things Linus says is:

For example I long ago decided I will never go to meetings again because I think face to face meetings are the biggest waste of time you can ever have. I think most people who work at offices must share my opinion on meetings. Nothing ever gets done. When things get done, you usually have someone come into your office to talk about it. But a lot of the time the real work gets done by people sitting, especially in programming, alone in front of their computers doing what they do best.

I for one agree with what he is says here.
In my "political past" I have been wasting so much time going to one meeting after the other. I got really good at these meeting, knowing exactly what to say when, how to give the things I wanted to present the best possible presentation etc.
But still it was always between the meetings that the real valuable work got done. I am so happy that I am done with all these political left wing movements, where I went to one meeting after the other without getting anywhere when I was at the meetings. Thinking back the only purpose these meetings served back then was that they were a kind of social event, a very big part of the very little social life I did have back then, but boy have I wasted a lot of time there.
I don't even want to try and make an estimate of just how much ... I fear I would end up in something like a year of my life, if I also count the "side expenses" in time of all these meetings.
Meetings sure is not something I miss from my political past ... living in trees is something I do miss, but I could just go build myself a new platform without having any political reason for doing so.

bargheer.dk now also in English

2006-05-17T15:24:00.000+02:00

Finally, it took me a little while to figure out how to do this and even longer to get it done, but now I finally found a way that works for now.
My homepage is now in dual-language, with both a Danish and English version of some of the pages (I haven't translated that many pages yet).

For now this solution is OK I think, it means double the work when I want to update a page if I want the update to appear in both Danish and English, but that is the only major drawback of this method as far as I can figure.
A minor drawback has to do with the layout of the page, if your browser windows gets a width of less than ~600px then there will be a problem with the menus getting cluttered, I haven't figured out how to fix this in a nice way yet.

Anyhow I will need to build the page with some kind of database system at some point, as the content hopefully grows writing every page in the hand from scratch and copy-pasting will be far to much work.

Other news is I am now able to walk again without crutches, I have given back the crutches to the friends I borrowed them from, that is really nice, but still I have to be careful.
I count on being able to return to work next week.

My thermos bottle and dreams of trees

2006-05-16T08:54:00.000+02:00

Today the weather has turned Danish again, a pretty much constant drizzle of rain and cold winds from west.
I am not one to complain about this change of weather, I like it.

On a morning like this the wonder of the thermos bottle is really nice. I have this one bottle that I got from my mother, I think it was one of her clients that had forgotten it and it had never been picked up again. This bottle has been with me for some years now and it works better than any other vacuum bottle I have ever tested. The tea is still steaming hot even though it was made 16 hours ago.
Lately I have started drinking a lot of tea again. It is really nice as I am not able to move as much as usual because of my ankle, the tea makes my body relax and makes it a lot easier to sit down and work at the computer.
I don't really understand why people use coffee for this purpose, coffee makes me unsettled. The only purpose I use coffee for is helping me stay awake when I need to.

Last evening Steffen, the man of the house I live next to, cut down a tree close to my hut. I am still feeling sad and hurt over this. I know the tree had to go, the horses had been eating away the bark before anyone did anything about it and the tree would have died soon anyhow, but still I can't help but be sad to see this beautiful tree go down.
I dearly love trees, they all have their own personalities. Following big trees from they are just a seed or acorn and through their entire lifespan is one of my big dreams, planting a forest, watching it grow and slowly turn into primeval forest, that is one of the things I look very much forward to when the short lifespan of humans is gone.

A little revelation on motorcycle

2006-05-15T16:12:00.000+02:00

Today I for the first time was out riding motorbike on the road, I really enjoyed it.

We were driving three people in formation with our teacher behind us in car and with radio contact.

After a few minutes I had gotten used to the feeling of the wind, from there on it was pure pleasure. If transport has to be motor driven this is the way. Everything is experienced much "closer" than in carm the feeling of the road, with the motor and vehicle is so much better. It is not like in a car where you risk halfway falling asleep because of the bore of driving ... going from A to B is going to be a pleasure this way.

Another cool little feature is how much power you have when only weighing ~300 kg and have plenty of horsepower to give from.
At one point we got stuck behind a truck and our teacher told me (I was riding in front) that when there was room I could just overtake. Me not really having tested this power before waited nicely to have plenty of room ahead for a long overtake, when that room was there and I fired of the power of the little bike. It wasn't much more than blinking before I was past and a few seconds later the two other bikes and my teacher with his fancy four wheeled BMW was past.
I start to understand what my brother meant when he said it could be difficult to stay within the speed limits ... I will have to watch myself when I am let out on my own.

I wonder why it took me so long to get this mc drivers license. I am really happy that I have finally gotten this started :)