We want 3D datamining

At work we have this system...this big, huge 20-year-old system. Consisting of 1500 programs and who knows how many subprocesses.

They are currently discussing how to get on from here, since the framework support will cease within a few years - and the idea of a completely new start (named "The Big Bang" approach) is nothing but scary. Platform migration was done once before - and was entirely cumbersome, resulting in years of patching.

So, the idea is to cut the system up into more or less self-contained parts that may be swapped for specialized new commercial pieces of software.
Main problem now is getting to grips with the connections between software parts, users, and organisational structures. It reminds me of a process I saw with LEGO a few years ago - in which they also were trying to abolish, maintain and develop their software system - all at the same time.

I suddenly thought of visualising the whole thing, when dozing off at a meeting yesterday - so now I am on the lookout for 3D data visualisation tools that may have system data added (preferably along several dimensions) and then show the entirety of the mess. I've looked into a few already on this page - unfortunately, many are quite old...and have no easily accessible interface - which is sort of key - if you want many different actors to use them readily.

Things of note, so far: GraphViz, Atlas info, Tinderbox, mind-mapping.org
The latter points to an interesting list, with 3D Topicscape as the first reference. Promising at first sight - but I quickly found that it was really only a narrowly hierarchical structure that it could visualise. A shame with all that 3D and then they only use it for things better shown on regular diagrams.
I want the x,y,z dimensions to hold parameter references - and nodes that are equally dependent, not necessarily in a parent-child relationship. I want navigation around clouds of connected elements, coloured by their business value, ordered by their program hierarchy, translated by their [insert parameter here].
Still looking....makes me annoyed I didn't become a graphical coder.

[EDIT]
Seems I have found something useful in TheBrain. Not exactly 3D...but the way of adding, linking and dragging nodes has me somewhat persuaded. After all, what good is a big, shiny 3D structure if it is impossible to update easily or navigate quickly. Seems like TopicScape actually imports TheBrain XML-structures...so maybe I can visualise it all more deeply later on.
Next step is to get to work and start adding systems data...=)

Time for an upgrade

The past two years have gone by like a maglev - it really dawned on my when I bought the new game Bioshock, expecting my hardware to be just around the absolute minimum requirements. No way, José.
My gfx-card (ATI x800 pro) was nowhere near even the bottom of Tom's Hardware tests. And I've hardly played anything but WoW with it...wasted my money on it back then, I did.

I find it a bit odd that games are also still pushing Moore's envelope. But then again it is only a few games that can provide the quality of content that Bioshock supposedly does.

The trick is trying to avoid wasting my money this time - a colleague just assembled a fairly nice machine for about 3000 Dkr in parts, which is peanuts. I'd like to spend a bit more maybe - but then again come 6 months and it's worth half already.

The worst thing is RAM systems - I tried to find an internet guide on it but most are 5-6 years old. Luckily, I found this table - which also shows the formula by which SDRAM is calculated. One of those things you need to study again each time you need it :)

RAM type	Theoretical max. bandwidth
SDRAM 100 MHz	100 MHz X 64 bit= 800 MB/sec
SDRAM 133 MHz	133 MHz X 64 bit= 1064 MB/sec
DDRAM 200 MHz (PC1600)	2 X 100 MHz X 64 bit= 1600 MB/sec
DDRAM 266 MHz (PC2100)	2 X 133 MHz X 64 bit= 2128 MB/sec
DDRAM 366 MHz (PC2600)	2 X 166 MHz X 64 bit= 2656 MB/sec
RDRAM 600 MHz	600 MHz X 16 bit= 1200 MB/sec
RDRAM 700 MHz	700 MHz X 16 bit= 1400 MB/sec
RDRAM 800 MHz	800 MHz X 16 bit= 1600 MB/sec

Read it and weep...joyfully

If I were to be asked which people I am really really a fan of, I suspect I would be hard-pressed to answer...either I might find too many candidates, thus diluting the point of mentioning them. Or I might claim that I am not that big a fan of anyone in particular.

However, this guy comes close - and now he has started blogging!

Hint: All people that claim to recognise depth, humour, and intelligence should be like this -> \o/

Shocker

Today I learned that a good friend of mine, Morten Lindholm, recently passed away - apparently due to brain cancer.
Although we were not all that close, we always had time to stop and chat - and give each other updates on life and mutual acquaintances. We were classmates at university since 1996.
As late as Friday, 3 weeks ago, I thought of him during the 25th anniversary gathering of IMV. Wondered why he wasn't there, actually - since I knew that he still worked on campus.
I feel quite sad. I always thought he was one of the nicest people I knew during my university studies and work.

This coincides with another recent tragedy where one of my Roskilde festival buddies' 7-year-old son also died from some kind of brain tumour. Makes you feel way too fragile.

WTF are LOLcats?

I've just researched the term, having heard or read it several times without really getting it.
Halfway through the Wiki explanation, I still didn't get it.

What the hell is so special and hilarious about digital pictures with subtitles? This stuff has been going on for the past decade; we did similar stuff back in '96-'97 at Uni. Yet, the web pop culture seems so (im)mature now that it only takes one funny caption, allowing for replication and customization - and then everyone goes ape shit, invents new terms, entire fandom websites, not to mention taking up space in otherwise respectable news media.

You've got to hand it to American pop culture - they really know how to arouse each other when they're bored. That's probably how cheerleading and professional wrestling was invented.

New developments

On Monday, September 10th, my daughter was born - a big kicker at 4900 grams.
She's, of course, adorable - and very mild-mannered so far. Nevertheless, she does get a bit grumpy when deprived of pacifiers of any sort. :)

There has been so much to do and get in order that I am still fairly knackered - but I'll try to put up some better descriptions soon, along with some photos.
I'm on a short 2-week paternal leave, yet I feel as stressed out as ever!


[EDIT]
Here's a couple of shots. Thor is overjoyed as you might suspect from his expression.
And then there is me, at post-op (we had a caesarian). Cute, but I dread the huge turd underneath that hair cap of mine. It sure gives Donald Trump a run for his money.

My cartoon dreams

When I was a teenager, I thought seriously about becoming a cartoonist. I have always been doodling a lot, although it has dwindled ever since I started studying.
Sites like Flight, Insanely Twisted and the blog of Michel Gagné make me wish I had started properly back then.

Still, I guess I always found cartoons a fun pastime, not an obsession. And I think you need to be almost obsessed to make a living off it. I remember attending a cartoon convention in Melbourne (or was is Sydney?) back in 1995. At the time, I thought I was getting pretty good but when I saw what some youngsters were creating, I sort of lost heart. Talent be as it may, it mainly requires very high amounts of dedication, practice and maybe also an inspiring environment of like-minded artists or aficionados. Cutting edge cartoons were not readily available in Northern Jutland back then..! :D

I might have a small amount of talent - but I think persistence is more important. I'm not patient enough to be a cartoonist, but I wish I was.

I see giants falling

The introduction I saw didn't really mention the scope or quality of collaboration services and file storage - but I think this appears fairly impressive. And it's lean...supposedly.

I.R.I.S.H.

They beat us the day before yesterday....by 4 goals to nil. A nice, warm evening at the Aarhus Arena, even if the Danish team was disastrous.

Best moment by far: the Irish cheering for Denmark, in the 2nd half.
Cracked everyone up.

Stock, Mayhem & Waterman

This news clip had me laughing today.

Apparently, an error in one of the subsystems of the Nordic Stock Exchange (OMX) put the Maersk stock on the market for a measly 1,99 Danish crowns. 150 transactions went through, before the error was discovered. One transaction involved 556.200 stocks - which, in a less unforgiving world, would have saved the lucky buyer more than 35 billion Danish crowns (since the Maersk stock is generally going for about 65.000 DKR each).

The faulty transactions are, of course, already annulled. However, I wonder how they measure the indirect costs of the error. If we assume it took 10 minutes before the error was corrected and the assets were frozen, then a drop of, say, 2% (the Danish stock fell quite a bit during the first hours of today) would mean that the sellers "avoided" losses of nearly 15 mio. DKR.
Of course, I expect that the stock value is written back and updated correctly. And if it is not, then I'm going into brokering software.

Spacy philosophy

A few blogs of note that I am watching at the moment:

Sentient Developments
Have a look at the posting on the Simulation Argument which assumes that the Matrix plot might have some real merit. Personally, I think it's an artificial construct, assuming way too much. But it's a funny thought, at least.

Futurismic
Nice bits of compiled techno-babble.

In other news, I am well into home improvement at the moment. Yesterday I got into a fistfight with a roll-up curtain and this weekend I might look at tool shed insulation...a domain of kings.

Sleepy hollow - the anecdote

Some years ago (maybe 7 or 8 - I seem to remember being single) I'd often have some weird experiences in my sleep.
I would wake up in the middle of the night and be completely paralyzed. Hearing, feeling and thinking as if awake. Not seeing, naturally, since I couldn't force open my eyes.

It happened maybe once a month over a period of 4-5 months. At first it was quite scary. Once the sense of capture seeped through my sleepiness, a huge sense of claustrophobia would kick in. I would start struggling, trying desperately to move a limb - sit up, flail an arm, get those eyelids up. Sometimes it resulted in a violent break-through. I must have looked like an unlucky fish out of water, caught up in my sheets, gasping.

Later on, I actually got used to it. Tried to go with flow and sense the physical state I was in. It was virtually impossible to go back to sleep, though. The feeling of powerlessness was usually too heavy to ignore.

It concerned me a great deal, of course. I also had a lot of "falling into sleep" in the literal sense of the expression - most people have probably tried this. The big sleep-dive that has you jerking like an idiot.

I researched it and became aware of the medical concept of "sleep paralysis" (although the phrase had not been so accurately coined back then). The human brain sends signals - in the form of hormones and neurotransmitters - to the muscles, telling them to ignore physical instructions during the dream sleep phases. Sometimes the brains sends too much or lets one wake up before the effect has worn off...and then you're in the iron maiden.

It hasn't happened to me in a long time now. Probably because I never get as much sleep nowadays as back in my student days. Fuck all risk of me waking up late at night these days =)

This fun article / tutorial spurred my memory, however. I have had lucid dreams, too - but I only recall them dimly, none of them so totally in control as the article suggests.

I'm not sure I want to experiment with my dream phases - but it is tempting. The absence of logical coherence when you're dreaming is fascinating, especially because that same absence seems so perfectly natural in situ.

Leftover sludge event horizon

The narrow transitional phase of leftovers - which leaves you indecisive as to pour it in the sink or in the trash bag.

I really hate that one.

Cleaning recipes

Just because I'm a homeowner now...

Vanessa's Cleaning Recipes

Strange magic

Just started the, apparently, award-winning "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke. Promising, so far.
I was struck with a heavy feeling of recognition - due to my few attempts at the roleplaying game Ars Magica. Also focused on "true magic" and mythical, un-categorizable faery folk.

Set in the 1800s, it also reminded me of "The Baroque Cycle". Read this if you haven't!

A place for my garbage heap of snapshots

Check out Photosynth - a technology on the horizon by Microsoft. Pretty impressive - and fits perfectly with the mindset of tourist photography. Get it ALL in there!

Now is the winter of our discontent...

So that was that. Summer holidays are over...I'm back at work. Bored as hell. Must stay strong.

I've had a great vacation, though. 9 days in sunny Austria...with soaring temperatures and bikini sightings. Back in Denmark, I am trying to adjust to temperatures as low as 16-17 degrees. I really, really hate this climate.

On the upside, we got a new sofa yesterday. It's about the size of an aircraft carrier...zzZZzzzzZZZZZZzzzz...
The Tour de France is looking mighty good from there. Naturally, I am cheering for another Doped Dane of Doom:



"Hey, at least we're almost honest about it."

Survival completed

Sitting on my Dad´s porch in Austria, enjoying a strange wheat beer in about 35 degress celsius.
This past monday I returned from what was by all non-participants generally agreed to be a disaster, namely the Roskilde Festival.

We had some rain, sure. In fact, we had twice the amount of rain that the next-worst year provided (1997). My tent got washed away by a mud flood Thursday around noon. I still have scars on my calfs from where my wellingtons gnawed (before I got smart and padded them properly).

Nevertheless, the drama has been a bit exaggerated by the media, I felt - once I got home and had a chance to study the reactions. Wednesday and Thursday up to the official festival start it rained for 30 hours straight - a single, long event that pretty much caused all the problems. I´m not sure I have ever experienced 30 continuous hours of fierce rain, not even in Denmark. By noon on Friday, however, the weather was tolerable with only few showers and, at least in our camp, the mood was flying high. After all, this year people had been prepared for troublesome weather, unlike in e.g. 2004.

Saturday and Sunday was a blast - and all the adversity, in a sense, only contributed to the feeling of togetherness and common cause. Strangers at Roskilde had even more to talk about this year (not that they usually hold themselves back).

Musically, I didn´t have my most active year. I quickly realized that the sheer mud-wrestling energy necessary to see all the bands I wanted to was way too high. So, instead I relaxed a bit and chose a fair selection of known goodies as well as smaller acts.

My best experiences this year (in no particular order):

CSS - great party.
Mahmoud Ahmed - Ethiopian funky vocalist supreme.
Stones Throw (Percee P) - this guy can flow.
Beastie Boys - no comment necessary.
The Who - I remember I thought it was good.
Flaming Lips - weird and different and quaint and feel good.
K´naan - Somali new-yorker with a message. I´m getting that album ASAP.
Justice - french excentric house madness.

Looking back at the program, I see at least 5 acts that I really regret not seeing. But that was this year´s festival for you. Mud madness had you making too many last minute decisions.

I was sick of seeing reviews of e.g. the Chili Peppers in Ekstra Bladet when I got home. I agree it was no awesome concert, but they did most of it at a medium level. Flea´s bass play alone is enough to generate a good show. Thomas Treo at that crap paper gave them 0/6 which just shows that too many reviewers either come out each evening from their cosy Copenhagen apartments or sit in hiding in the backstage Media Village trying to not get mud on their fashionable pants before they venture out to take a peak at the artists. There is too much of that musical snobbery going on at the moment, methinks.

Pitchfork was attending the festival this year - they have some good coverage including fantastic photos - go take a look (search for "Roskilde").
It´s fun to read an American perspective on the whole thing, although I think they use too much space on artists they have previously experienced or already condone professionally.
Oh, and they are a bit prissy when it comes to excessive drinking and urine. They´re young...I guess they can still learn.

Happy summer to all - I´ll try to post some pictures as I receive them.

Beware

If Hitchcock had lived today, this fellow would surely have been his next apprentice.

ATnotes - so far so good

I've mentioned the need for a truly contextual notes application. I haven't made one but so far I am using ATnotes.
A certain option allows ATnotes to minimize the notes and park them for later onMouseOver access - which works pretty well for me right now =)


ATnotes

Roskilde on the rise

As ever, I'm ready for it. Apparently, a criticized lineup this year - I think it's damned good. Screw the others.

Moreover, a good sound check initiative here. It's not all that amazing and has a clear bias towards metal. Much more convenient than Last.FM, though - I doubt I am ever going back there...every 2nd mouse click a waste of time, bleh...

This was a geeky joke...yesterday

http://www.physorg.com/news100445957.html

Minute ideas

Since starting my recent job as a developer, I've been noticing an increase in my interest in digital tools or "helpers", if you will. Mostly to do with productivity issues - or small everyday personal needs.

Might as well list a few of them - maybe someone has access to these exact things - if so, I'd love to hear about it :)

• An application- or window-based notes apparatus
  
  Right now I have a more or less crazy setup at work where I access the development platform remotely on a distant rack server. Beside issues like latency and singular command transfers of e.g. mouse clicks and scrolling interactions, I'm annoyed when having to remember say 3 or 4 concurrent minor projects. Since the tasks are very similar both in content and nomenclature (many work orders and packages have almost the same ID tags), I'm regularly confused and inhibited in my mental "flow" which, as popular psychology would have it right now, is critical to efficient task handling during one's work hours.
  
  I'd like a notes app that attaches notes (post-its or the like) to specific development applications, ideally to specific windows within those same applications. So, if I am holding 2 windows related to one project and 4 related to another project, the notes application shows relevant notes contextually for whichever windows I have configured and subsequently activated. Of course, I could theoretically ALT+Tab my way to a dedicated notes document, but in my case the remote calls generally fuck that up - they cannot distinguish between Alt+Tab at home and "abroad".
  
  The functionality should be useful regardless of remote development, anyway. Digital post-its have a tendency to become increasingly invisible to me by each passing minute, and such an app would help call them into focus exactly when needed.

• A personal tag/shop/item list
  
  Probably covered in one way or the other by certain e-shopping sites or services like del.icio.us, but nevertheless I found myself dreaming of a service (likely a FF add-on) that could help me store specific products, collected through the random cool-surfing that particularly BoingBoing, Lifehacker and Neatorama are responsible for, in my case.
  
  In other words, a repository that - upon receiving a tag from a specific product posting (like this cool clock) - would store the URL for easy panel access and also provide updated pricing information. Perhaps along with some statistics on price development, stock status, recent related products, or the like. I'm not sure if products in general (apart from books, I guess) have completely unique identifiers accessible through web scrapes - but if so, one could also imagine price comparisons across several vendors.
  
  As it is now, I all too often come by gadgets, books, furniture, etc., which I store on my Del.icio.us or in my bookmarks and then usually forget. Sometimes I'm not sure about whether I want it, sometimes I don't have the money, sometimes it's not available. The point is having the "system" remind me and keep it zuhand.
  

• Productivity twittering
  
  I've been following some of the debate on Twitter and its (non-)usefulness. I was ever the staunch critic of the concept of spamming strangers with atomized everyday crap - but experiences on my not-always-so-lively team of developer colleagues has made me ponder twittering in a productivity sense. Bearing the earlier description of some of my work in mind, we lads at work are sometimes so concentrated on handling all the reigns that we forget to communicate entirely. This happens despite the fact that most people there have known each other for years and certainly know that the bloke at the next desk is an expert on so-and-so specific data process. Basically, it's the well-known dilemma of knowledge sharing in an environment that both demands relative calm in order to get things done, but also could jump many leagues if communication was better nurtured and accurately timed.
  
  The idea could be to expand a given messenger-service with a sort of twitter notification property. This would allow a developer to "post" a current activity or shortly stated problem through a common, real-time medium. It should stay non-obligational so that receivers could choose to ignore or postpone any feedback - but, once again, the goal is just to make topics visible but only intrusive to a certain extent. So, no pop-ups that need receiver acceptance or dismissal - maybe just a transient interface alteration that teases a bit.
  
  I'm aware that RSS as a broad concept is useful for some of this. Problem is, not all people - not even developers - keep an eye on the feed reader all day long. Nor do they really want another application to handle, professionally. It would only involve more navigation and distraction. My guess is the key is to use existing, accepted time-eaters and just nudge them towards my stated goal - possibly abandoning their original purpose altogether.
  
  Soon Lotus Notes 8 is arriving to my work place, and I know it will feature lots more RSS-related stuff...but I still bet bloatedness will be the order of the day, not simple improvements. I hope I'm wrong.
  

I have other small ideas...some of them more graphically rooted - one day I hope I have the time and technical insight to work on these things actively. :)

Thrill ride

Sure beats the crap out of Danish theme park commercials.

The Arrogance of Power

Reading this almost makes me want to cry.

I remember my horror when Wolfowitz was first appointed. A man so biased and with his right wing cowboy-hawk track record should never have been appointed to that office.

It is quite ironic that a man accused of nepotism is now being defended vigorously by his old buddies in the political system. If that doesn't constitute political nepotism and a lower form of corruption, then I don't know what does. I know it's all part of the geopolitical game but at the very least the Americans should have the decency to acknowledge due process - saving Wolfowitz' face doesn't help either the World Bank nor the US administration itself. It only enhances the feeling that there is some kind of Men's Club over there, always ready to bend global issues to favour personal causes.

According to NYT, it's really the British that have no balls and continue to suck up to an American administration that is probably weak as never before. What does it take to challenge the American political arrogance, even when they continue to fuck everything up?

A chance to study

Roskilde 2007 is right around the corner - and I've dived headlong into Last.FM to easily access an artist radio channel. Not a bad thing.

Last.FM is a beginner's disaster, however. As a registered user I see a general level of menus to access Last.FM on the surface. I also have my personal profile (accessed by either a very small link to the far left or to the far right) and a Dashboard (first thought to be the same thing as the profile)...which I think handles the building of my musical profile. Each of the sub-levels hold 7-8 distinct menu tabs. I was on the verge of giving up when I finally found a way to actually see the Roskilde 2007 group I had previously subscribed to.

Why on earth make things so complicated and bloated? Pandora has a much easier concept...but I still - much more easily - manage to hear the music I like. LFM is obviously extremely customizable...but I get so weary when I enter the page :/

[Edit]
Pandora's shut down for extra-terrestrials, by the way. Easily circumvented, I read. Some simple proxy setting in the browser should do it. No idea where I read it, unfortunately. Must tag more often.

What I'm payed for

Here's a list of stuff I need to relate to in my new job:

IBM VisualAge Generator (v.4.5)

IBM AIX

NetOp Remote Control
This gadget works a charm, actually - although I have no clue how complicated it is to configure. Danware.

Reflection for IBM
Mainframe connectivity/emulation software. We use it to access what we program, as users.

PuTTY
Mainframe connection app. We use it to access what we program, as nerds.

Lotus Notes (v. 6.5.4)
The user interface is a disaster - learning curve surpassed only by the slopes of Everest. Still, it is extensive...and covers a lot of ground if you're a medium-large company. This version is from 2003...the new 2008 looks promising, with blog, wiki and web2.0 features integrated.

TestDirector
A test management environment. Seems pretty cool and customizable.

Advanced Query Tool
Used for accessing and checking the DB2 database records on various accounts. Neat little program for the SQL dependant.

Apart from these, Word and Excel are the order of the day - of course.

I'm also getting very much into productivity tools, thanks to my favourite site at the moment, Lifehacker.
Through it, I stumbled upon the best app of the year.
I even integrated it into the remote VisualAge development through NetOp that I need to do every day. Mouse scrolling bliss restored remotely..!

Brilliant and unexpected

In some abstract sense, I (we?) have always missed such a "tool" or just a method of identifying melodies stuck in our brains. I never dreamed that it would come as a web service.

The wonderful world of ERP

A short update on my employment status.
I started with EDB Gruppen on March 14th - after an interview for a project coordinator position they asked me if I wanted to join them as a developer instead. Not sure whether that was a compliment or not, but in any event I've now begun my new career. I'm currently trying to find out what the hell is going on around me.

I'm working with the CargoLink division which is the department that handles the main transport ERP system for the big big DSV transport group. Basically, if DSV wants some cargo to go from A to B, CargoLink makes them able to book trucks/planes/ships, pick up, and deliver that cargo - as well as invoice the crap out of every player involved.

It's an old 70's system, recently ported from HP3000 to the IBM AIX platform...so it's UNIX and DB2 SQL mingled with some old COBOL code. And if that gibberish means nothing to you, think about how I feel..! I doubt the sentence was quite accurate.

I'm not sure how I feel about this job just yet. On one level, it's very interesting because I'm experiencing "real stuff" that makes "real physical actions" happen. Not as "virtual" and conceptual as most of my other projects. On the other hand, it doesn't feel all that sexy - and I'm still wondering how my broad skills are going to come into play in the long run, if I am to specialize in very specific system functionalities.
But, then again, I've often felt that I lacked some deeper technical insight and a bit of dirt on my shoes...so hopefully this will just enhance my generalist skills even more.

The workplace is great on all other levels. Nice location, good facilities, benefits and a great cantina :)

List of startpages

I've been meaning to ditch Google Desktop for a while now. It's handy but I have the feeling that it consumes too much processor power held up against how much I actually use it. It slows down the startup, that's for sure.

Similarly, I'm getting fed up with my Google startpage. Recently, they added a fold-out functionality, so you can read entire articles within the startpages instead of spawning a new tab. Good stuff but it doesn't go down well with all kinds of feeds, of course. Also, I am getting pretty tired of its dull appearance. So far, my browser (FF) starts with a GMail tab and the Google Startpage. I want to put all those 3 things together, since I am actually checking mail/news 3 or 4 different places. You get to the point where all your nice little helpers divert your attention so much that you are wasting time instead of saving it.

So, I went to look at some alternatives...and I thought I might as well list them here, briefly commented:

Netvibes
- The extensive one. Everything is here and the focus is clearly on news feeds. Styling is nice but options of customization are few.

Pageflakes
- Tight and neat. Compares to Webwag and is strictly functional. I can't decide whether it's too boring. Love the "flakes" metaphor, though :)

Protopage
- The playground. You can drag anything anywhere. Yikes. Luckily, you can turn on "gravity" to bind feeds in place. The background is fully customizable, nice touch. Something about the styling puts me off, though. Too idiot happy, maybe the Protopuppy reminds me of Stimpy...and the lower menu hangs when I scroll, too.

Webwag
- I nearly chose this over Google in the beginning. Maybe I should have...the styling is nice and neat, not too much, not too little. Since this is a newcomer, I'm doubtful of durability and compatibility.

Webjam
- The all-in-one. I chose "personal homepage" as the start template...you can do "blogging" instead and one or two others. It's admittedly very good. The styling is nice and simple, yet characteristic. You can scale it as you wish...move into blogging further down the road. Problems: apparently it doesn't go beyond 1024 pixels, so I have 1/4 of white browser space to the right. Not pretty. Also, it has 3 privacy levels that can be configured per feed through an ugly drop-down. I don't want that choice, basically. Don't default it - who makes a startpage with feeds that need hiding? I'd place my porn a lot deeper than that..!

Yourminis
- The stylish gay cousin (let's call him Mac). When you see this, you automagically think "oh, man...this has to be sluggish"....but in fact, it's not too bad. It has some of the happy stuff of Protopage...but a bit more subtle and designer-like.

I know I've left some out...but I don't know which...so feel free to point me in other directions.

My choice? Tough one. My rational mind says Netvibes, or possibly Pageflakes/Webwag. You get tight, no-nonsense service. However, the dull Google startpage has me craving for something pleasing to the eye...something that actually makes me want to look at the headlines every morning.

Netvibes can come on a bit strong because there is so much text. Protopage is too much stress. Webjam is great but has a few, serious flaws. Pageflakes is prehaps a bit stronger than Webwag, if not in terms of style then in terms of feed setup and the option of importing feed templates.

That leaves Yourminis which I have chosen...as soon as I get the time to configure it properly! It may disappoint me with bloatedness and lag, but it looks good and seems fun to interact with. And it is certainly different from the other industry leaders...which gives me street cred in my own shallow mind...

It's just like a mini mall

We need more guys like this.

Outlands Spanish Project Management Child

A "short" status would be in order. The past weeks have been full of action. Mainly, the World of Warcraft expansion pack was released and I'm questing happily along with my guild mates in the Outlands. Always fun!

Other than that, I'm attending a 6 week course on project management - as defined and documented by the Project Management Institute (PMI). It's a crash course so I'm not getting any formal PMI certificate...but I will receive a limited course certificate.
It's great to get out of the flat and meet some new people with real experiences and different views on life, business, and not least unemployment :P

The course is quite good. Through my education I was always taught how to criticize the formal tools that this course hands you. The "new" project paradigm was preferred as the academic default. This course, however, gives me a much more exact picture of the tools, schemata, and procedures that are the foundation of that same critique. So, I'm learning project management backwards, one might say. It's good because I feel much more conscious about what methods fit which situations and projects. And why much of the "new" critique is well-aimed, providing you're acting within a modern and flexible organization.

Yesterday, I started attending a Spanish course - I figured that learning another language might be sensible before I succumb to mild Alzheimer's. 'Twas good fun and my few experiences in Spain with the company helped nicely as far as translation and "feel" was concerned.
I have to admit, that the "learning-by-heart" aspect of any language start-up is something I have to get used to again. That's a part of my brain that has been suspended for a long time...and now it's getting bashed in by two courses at once!

As a final but powerful note, we're expecting our second child sometime during the fall - actually, my girlfriend figured out the date to be the exact same as Thor's birthday - freaky. I am not exactly fully aware of the fact yet...life goes on...and the excited thrills and fears of our debut haven't appeared this time. But gradually we are adjusting and the next goal is to find a better place to live. We're sick of this flat by now...and it will be too small for 4 people anyway.
If only some certainty could be introduced through my getting a job, for instance...

Modern music repository

I accidentally found this place, Deephouse, while doing a bit of research on techno pioneer Jeff Mills.

It's a repository for a lot of mix shows and DJ performances in the US - as far back as the mid-80's. Right now, I'm listening to an 85/86 show from Detroit. The sound quality isn't exactly great - but adds to the atmosphere somehow.

This is really great. It's quite difficult to find live DJ performances - gradually getting easier through the internet, of course.

Sadly, Deephouse is a bit contaminated with Realplayer formats...but I've managed to kill all the malicious sub-processes of my Realplayer, so I'm pretty ok with the *.ram downloads, actually. =)

Comic book McCarthyism

(Thx to The Signs)

2007, w00t!

Things are almost back to normal following the Christmas and New Year's shenanigans. I'm suffering the usual 2nd day hangover. No actual pain, but my eyes don't move too fast and I frequently stare at things, trying to recall what the hell I was just doing.

Holidays were good. We celebrated Christmas in our summer house in Southern Jutland. My Dad, unexpectedly, chose to participate (he hates this season) and he invested in 3 semi-pro light chains to decorate the house. The result instantly reminded me of some of the happier bars and restaurants in Bangkok. We only needed a proper karaoke system but a few German Christmas game shows turned out to be adequate replacements.

Santa's Den of Sin

New Year's Eve took place in Aarhus at a friend's flat. I brought the light chains for that venue...great night with old friends. We even popped out for a bit of night life. Of course, I got hammered and had to stagger home in a wet gale, at one point guiding and helping a young lad find his mate's flat. A real good deed so early in the new year.

Bad browser lag?

Am I the only one whose Firefox started lagging pretty badly after the last minor update?

I am waiting several seconds for the menu drops to show - if they ever show at all. Maybe it's a broken add-on...

Second place, aiming high

Yesterday, I got turned down for a project manager position with Vestas - the world's largest maker of wind turbines.
I finished second which, on second thought (ha-ha), is fairly nice - considering that I have no immediate experience with that line of work. I was through a long process with Mercuri Urval with interviews and testing. I really learned a lot about myself from those events, so I'm confident that the characterization of myself in applications to come will be much much better.

It's quite a new thing to suddenly have to market myself and not the entity or field of work that I am a part of.

Work aside, we also got the final verdict on our housing project. It's been a while since I last described it but recent events made us aware that about half the roofing on the huge house is badly constructed. A few years ago, the owner had taken it upon himself to isolate the roof and did not do his homework properly, according to a carpenter we brought in as an expert. He said that there was a big risk of damp and related damage to the roof.

Naturally, this was not acceptable and we could foresee big trouble getting the insurance companies to cover future damages. So, after having provisionally signed the deal, we went back and demanded a further price cut - based on the carpenter's estimated costs. A whopping 550.000 Danish crowns.
So, yesterday the owner reacted by telling us to fuck off, once again. I was more or less certain of this outcome. He didn't bother to negotiate, he just cut off. Just like the last time we pointed to bad faults and asked for some compensation.

Time will show if he comes crawling back, again. As I've understood it, the real estate agent must tell other buyers of this roofing fault. The buyer may well need to comply in order to sell the house. But for now, we're trying hard to forget about it and get on with our lives.

Publicsquare launch

My buddy Lars Pind has launched his social web editing system, Publicsquare.

In short (as far as I know), it is a community-driven CMS that makes collaborative blogs and webzines easier to handle. Through various rating and voting functionalities your webzine automatically sifts and publishes posts and stories, freeing the authors to concentrate on the actual content.

I have no experience with it - but I talked to Lars a couple of weeks ago and it sounds intriguing. It's a social networking offspring but it's narrowed down and focused towards webzine editors. Looking forward to experimenting with this - if I only had a purpose...hm...

Brilliant tagging concept

I love the tag cloud system they have implemented here.

They have superimposed a key word filtering process to the regular tag cloud. That way you can refine and incrementally expand your tag search. I think it's a stroke of genius.

Not only do you circumvent the inherent weakness of the tagging method (the subjective forest of tags pointing at similar things), you also exploit the whole logical, googlish search paradigm. When I do a good Google search - and in all modesty I feel that I am getting pretty good at that - I define whatever I am looking for in 2-5 different terms that either relate through syntax or semantics, preferably both. The syntactic coherence ensures that I hit articles/pages that mention the same word combinations or, if lucky, match on entire sentences - the semiotic coherence gives a better chance of hitting anything remotely similar to what I want. People speak in different terms, especially in English - so the ability to come up with 5 different names for the same concept is vital to googling.

I think the tag system above is a brilliant mash-up of mental tagging efficiency and logical search methods. It is itself a product of many subjects, but it provides the user with a logic tool to navigate through all this uncertainty. I can use my sense of semantics (not sure about the syntax yet) to find what I want much faster.

I'm bugged @ Threadless

I have a bit of spare time at the moment so I've been doing a few very basic t-shirt designs to put up on Threadless.

It's a fun concept - relies heavily on the social networking hype but has clearly been heavily commercialized. In fact, you might say they exploit people that do casual design by offering "only" the chance of prizes but gaining shitloads of creative ideas and making money off the most popular prints.
I don't mind at all...they're just smart...and I am happy to be able to channel my creativity a bit.

I've started a series of small iconic insect designs and submitted 4 so far. The ant got axed...which is ok...it wasn't all that good. The millipede was the first to get through, and the spider and wasp are still pending approval.
Go score the millipede...it's not great art, but I sensed a niche in some more simple stuff. Other designs in there are really talented and complex. They, of course, deserve much more recognition :) Although I'm not sure I'd wear all of them....too boombastic, mon.

We promise...

http://postrapturepost.com/

Gogol Bordello, Voxhall

Wednesday evening. Place just about full. A very mixed audience - possibly because of the "NYC Live Band of the Year" predicate on the Voxhall flyer. Inspiring and energetic support band. Great DJ warm-up of house- and indie-coated gypsy music. Enter Gogol Bordello. People dancing, jumping, clapping all the way to the bar. Madman Hütz doing his thing - beating the crap out of his acoustic guitar. Manu Chao extra. 10+ crowd surfing youngsters during the show. An incredible 10, maybe 15 minute extra, most of it repeating one single verse - yet the crowd loves it and is determined to keep up.

All of this on Wednesday evening. I think I'll just skip Thursday and head straight into weekend mode.

Digestive masochism

Why is it that women have an obsessive craving for full-grain bread products?

I'm sure varied food is good and all, but I don't really care for mother-in-law's full-grain oatmeal buns, when they've been frozen to death and then re-heated for consumption in the early hours of what was supposed to be a good day. It's like eating dehydrated compost. Your tongue feels all swollen when the blood vessels succumb to oral osmosis. The coffee you desperately need to process it with turns back into its instant form and gets crunchy. The density is like that of pulverized lead.

I prefer my buns to be white, fluffy, crispy, and not craving more energy to consume than they provide.

When greedy execs claim the field

I can't say I'm crazy about this.

When you acquire a mobile phone and you enter into a customer relationship with Telia, you need to text them to get a password for the self service section of their homepage. There's something beautifully arrogant about that concept. I'm not even a customer but still pissed off at the sheer greed of such a demand.

In order to help yourself so we can save money, you must pay us.

It reminds me of the banking shams that are getting common, at least here in Denmark. Customers pay fees for services that have always been an inherent part of the banking trade, such as having a lending offer put together. It's like a grocer charging money for putting groceries on his own shelves.

St. Stephen mimes the point

Seems Colbert has caught on to the same detail =)

We can only hope that the Democrats notice the trap before they stumble into it...or, rather, before they build it themselves and then dive into it.

Pulling an Arnold?

This morning I read a short transcipt of Dubya's statement following the complete pummelling the Republicans received in yesterday's election. He apparently emphasized bi-partizanship and nationwide collaboration as a desire expressed by the American public.

It reminded me, strongly, of a short documentary I saw on TV the other day which focused on Schwarzenegger and his efforts (past and present) in California. Arnie has been really sly and after receiving immense criticism and public outcries, he's made a complete policy U-turn the past 6 months or so. From being a hawkish rightwinger that wanted more powers and lower taxes, he's now described as more democrat than the Democrats themselves. He's made real efforts on educational, environmental and social issues - often sidelining parts of his own party.

The funny thing is, everyone loves him for it. As a piece of political strategy, it's a brilliant move when aiming for election day. And lo and behold, he got re-elected - basically because he stole and, more importantly, effected parts of the Democrat agenda. No doubt, he might have estranged several core Republicans in California. However, because he has attended the best interests of his own power, he now has 4 more years to appease them. I'm strangely fascinated and repulsed at the same time. It goes to show how shallow the political discourse and pride really is. It seems that when you have money enough, the next big prize is raw power. Regardless of actual policies.

I suspect that during the next two years we might see Bush try the same stunt. Certainly, Arnie has provided a very enticing template for it. Go along with the midfielders, do symbolic (and some practical) actions of collaboration, win back those 20% or more that always fluctuate between the wings. And do it all in time for the next presidential election when it really counts. In the meantime, the Democrats will have shot themselves in the foot trying to market themselves as the solution to the Iraq idiocy. Iraq is, at the very most, an acceptable failure. No solution will generate political favour by now.

The democrats are in danger of swapping their role as wartime realists in favour of a saviour-like rhetoric. If they do, the next Republican presidential candidate might have a field day pointing the finger at "the weaklings that thought they could fly".

On another but perhaps sadly related note, I went to see Borat yesterday with a bunch of friends. Cannot remember having laughed so hard and for so long. It is completely outrageous and a must see. I actually built up a mild headache and neck strain during the film because of my inability to stay calm. I won't put out spoilers already, but Borat's fat sidekick is involved in a scene that just blew me away in its mindblowing extremity. I'm chuckling right now, as I recall it. This film will get you through the winter, folks...

Americans, beware this man! Jagshemash!

Leading an interesting life

Here I am. It's now November and overnight the weather changed from crap to bollocks. And I still have not found a job. I haven't even been asked to an interview, save 1 which turned out to be a recruitment agency and didn't really count.

Although I have heard stories on how this is oh-so-perfectly normal it's beginning to bug me a little.

A few days ago I was turned down for a position that was so me. I reacted immediately (almost surprised myself) and called the HR consultant. He told me that it was a typical academic's application. That very instance, I knew he was right. He then proceeded to tell me about all the "errors" that I had made. Afterwards, I was hugely relieved...and quite angry at myself for having written at least 10 applications without ever calling back to get feedback.

You need a real person to comment your stuff later on. Reckon it must take 2-3 hours of designing and writing your resume and c.v. and then you're completely blind. Incapable of acknowledging structural mistakes. I've experienced the same thing when writing project proposals or lectures. So, although it still bugs me, at least now I know what to do for the next applications.

Apart from this, our big 3-family housing project suddenly came back on track yesterday, much to everyone's surprise. 3-4 weeks ago the seller basically told us to fuck off. I don't really see the sense in that insofar as the seller has now wasted loads of time (his and triple ours), and from now on he's not getting any easy discounts, the cunt.

Also, we had more or less trashed the idea of that house and had moved on. So, now we have to get used to it all over again. Dig up all the documents. Get ready for mortgage talks and sodomizingly mean banks. It's good, but it's also annoying. I had a plan going with a job posting in Bangladesh. Have to shelf that one now.

Ah well, it's ok - this project is really cool...and as the title of this post implies, it's all about leading an interesting life. Be that in the far east of just outside town in a cool house with fun people and comeradely activities. It's all good....I think. The past 2 years I've made (or postponed) more decisions than the entire 28 years before that. It's interesting but, dammit, sometimes you get so weary of being a grown-up. Think I'll go spin a bottle.

Recommendation

Just finished reading "The Algebraist" by Iain M. Banks.

Very recommendable.

I haven't read true sci-fi for a long time, not since I tried to restart my interest in Asimov's Foundation series. Although I love Asimov's fiction there's no getting past the fact that his literature feels a bit old-fashioned in this day and age. Especially if you're accustomed to reading cyberpunk where the settings are typically much more recognizable. "The Algebraist" feels a bit like a Neal Stephenson attempt at "advanced sci-fi". It's imaginative, action-packed, very witty and peppered with thought-provoking technological inventions (and cultural implications hereof). I love the Dwellers (a mysterious gas giant based alien species) and I really hope he comes back to this universe - although it seems like a stand-alone novel.
In the meantime, I might have a go at his trademark novels...supposedly taking place around a future society named "The Culture".

What a slow site

In my attempts to land an interesting job (yes, I'm that picky), I've been looking at Mercuri Urval as a recruitment possibility. They should be quite professional - but Hell, is their webpage slow on searches and deeper links - both in IE and Firefox. I wonder why.

POPping your GMail

More as a note to self:
If you want to check your GMail on Thunderbird, be sure that Server Settings > Security Settings does not feature use secure authentication.

I had a bad delay on my GMail messages in Thunderbird - I think it was because of this. :)

Emotional yet objective

I like this political comment by a commentator named Keith Olbermann. Incredibly well-spoken, factually and logically coherent, and very emotional. I wish he were a politician.

I love his comment on "political hackery" which seems to be ever on the increase, both in America and here. I despise political hackery. Non-factual, rhetorical spewings that usually generalize isolated phenomena and produce false grounds for judgment. The Danish People's Party is by far the worst example here in Denmark. Although compare it to Austria's right-wing groupings at the moment, and the DPP looks like preschool.

The kid has confidence

Übervirality

Got my aunt's PC today - on the usual familiy-needs-my-digital-fingers quest. This time, the machine had all but closed down on her. And, when I got it jacked in to check myself, I was pretty taken aback by the magnitude of the problem, considering that she has had 2 adware-stoppers and one extensive virus guard installed all along.

Somehow, she manages to get her PC into trouble all the fucking time. If it's not the printer bugging out, it's her mail account - or the update services on Windows. I myself have only run rare occassional virus checks and adware purges - yet I have only had a problem once in 8 or 9 years.

Anyway, I confidently sat down and began deconstructing the problem. It was much harder than expected. I was up against an intelligent bug this time. Shy and stealthy, yet aggressive when taunted. First of all, the browser spawned ad-related windows constantly and the machine denied access to the anti-virus software already installed. It simply exited the applications. I have yet to understand why the AV program has not updated itself prior to infection and caught the bug, but since Auntie has only just had broadband installed, it may have been manually configured.

It quickly became clear that this was more or less impossible to solve elegantly. IE denied me access to all virus-related (free) websites (Kaspersky, Pandasoftware, AVG, you name them). It even shut down Google queries containing the word "virus" or "malware"..! Luckily, I remembered TrendMicro's Housecall - an online virus scanner that I have used regularly. Through Google the query provided a link that was the direct "start scan" link to the online scanner. Very lucky, since all other TrendMicro links were shut down immediately by the bug(s).

The scan resulted in something like 5 trojans, considered severe (all of the AdLoad type), and something like 20 different adware bugs, more or less icky. I felt lost and cornered by evil, hollow horses of wood. I asked Housecall to remove and/or quarantine the various bugs. Of course, this was not possible with several of them - and when Housecall seemed to stop responding to my panic-striken attempts to "force" the deletion, I was basically back to square one. When I rebooted the computer the bugs were still there and this time Housecall did not register anything wrong. My respect, albeit hostile, for the über-bug in question deepened. Apparently, it had managed to register the online scanning being made and then circumvented that same "engine" or whatever. Can they really do this? I'm getting scared, goddammit - I think I'll be keeping a closer lookout for my own machine from now on, since this is too much Asimov-come-Matrix for my liking...

Outcome: the PC is getting the FDISK axe, after I manage to export all the relevant data. Even if I solve the most annoying issue, I still have 25 other bugs that may still be lurking in the darkness of my Auntie's registry...

Cleaning out the closet

Been with my Dad these past few days, hauling out an old stash that we have kept for years at a friend's house in Northern Jutland. The stash dates back to when my Danish childhood home was sold about 5 year ago - but a lot of the items date back to the 70s and 80s and early childhood. Our first cleaning only sifted so much away of old rubbish. This time around we were a lot more determined. I only got caught up in old books and memories once...my Dad quickly kicked me out of it again.

Odd feeling, discarding books that you remember being fascinated with when you were 5-6 years old. A few of the most precious I have kept. Also there are several really old children's books and cooking books that were inherited from my grandparents. They are something like 100 years old and I don't know whether they are worth much but you simply cannot just tip them off at a dump site, knowing they will likely be burned.

I also found my old writing books from when I attended English International School in Doha, Qatar. I see now that I kept several journals in class, "My writing book", "Qatar topic book", "My maths book" and one or two others. I wonder if they do this anymore. When I read them today I can feel and almost remember the enthusiasm that these things were made with. I also se the teacher's comments now and again, like "Your writing can be much neater than this". Good discipline there! I'm fairly certain Danish 6-year-olds don't get that kind of direct message nowadays. It's all wrapped up in "Could you be so good as to kindly try to improve your 'A's a little bit, if you have the time and motivation, of course, Sir?"

A nice passage in the back of "My Writing Book" tells a bit about my state of mind at that time. Both my Dad and I laughed out loudly when we read it:

Today is saturday 25th June 1983. I am laeving for the summer but I am not coming back to Qatar. First I am going to Greece and I think I am going to Denmarck after that and after that I don't know Where we are going.

We travelled a lot in those days...

Hammers swoop

Can't say that I am a West Ham fan per se, but I did gawk a bit when it was clear that they've bought Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano from Brazilian side Corinthians. Tevez is the butt-ugly forward that played some of the matches at the World Cup this past summer. He's brilliant, probably one of the best players in South America, and it's going to be great seeing him play the premiership. Perhaps the least likely club for those two to go to, since Mascherano was also one of Argentinas best players in the tournament. Wonder if the rest of the team will be able to feed them properly. It will either be a disaster or a huge succes, methinks.

Ah, the joys of sequential thinking

Sometimes you see straight thorugh the workings of a particular webpage. I went to Excellent Match today to fill in a job application form. After 30 minutes of filling in more or less meaningless check boxes, I uploaded my C.V. and the application document...and then I didn't really feel satisfied when I was returned directly to the front page after having clicked "Submit". Sometimes you can just sense intuitively that something did not register properly.

So, I went to the website FAQ which stated, in its second last paragraph, that pop-up killers were a no-no. At this point I got fairly annoyed, since the application is a long process and although Firefox has a nice warning at the top of the browser, you rarely notice it when writing stuff. My conscience is evenly divided between keyboard and text fields, mostly.
I couldn't believe that this pop-up killer warning had not been issued before I was permitted to go into the application forms. So I navigated back to check and surely enough it was. And can you guess how?

...

Yes, that's right. In a pop-up window.

[Edit]
I have now received an e-mail confirming the registration. It was about an hour late...not too suave when direct feedback from the website does not precede it.

The loneliest adobe

I feel a rant coming up.

Many months ago I was running Adobe Acrobat Reader 6.0 - and I never liked it because of long load times and such. I then tried out the real thing, Adobe Acrobat. This was even worse - apparently the professional editing program didn't even come with a quick PDF-viewing interface...I could almost see the little chunks of data running around in circles shouting "Why the bloody hell do we need to wake up the entire village just because a shoddy postcard needs reading?!!"
Anyway, after Adobe Reader 7.0 came out many have been over the moon about how efficient it is, how quickly it reads in PDFs, and how well it handles ActiveX viewing.

I beg to differ.

Back then I tried and now, for the past 2 hours, I've tried. Tried what, you ask? Tried to run the program..! I install and it just sits there...the first time you execute the Reader after installing it you hear the machine getting into gear...and then nothing happens. If you shoot directly from a PDF file, nothing happens. If you try to drag a PDF into a browser to witness the amazing efficiancy of version 7.08, nothing happens. The Task Manager shows the process "AcroRd32Info.exe" in action...for about 30 seconds at least...then it shuts down silently.

The weirdest thing is that almost nothing similar to this shows up when I do a search on Google. I usually pride myself on being quite good at digging out obscure online information that can get technical glitches eliminated - my technologically inept family have provided hours and hours of information-sifting fun. But this time...nothing. I find this fairly strange, since Acrobat Reader must be one of the top 5 installs worldwide (not counting the minions of Monopoly Microshaft).

Actually, I did find one nice match...but that was on Expert's Exchange, and I'm not paying $10 for advice that could very probably be useless. Why don't they do micro payments...that would bring in so many more customers and potential members.

The agony of looking at what might be a solution, yet not having access, drove me to find alternatives. There are several PDF viewers popping up out there. Still, it seems that they are somewhat emulator-like and need to carry their own interpretation of PDF. I finally chose Foxit, mostly because of its rating on del.icio.us - time will tell how well it performs. Their homepage looks awful but I guess that's the only real quality assurance you can get these days...

An offer not easily refused

On may way through this mornings job postings and industry news, I came across this company which has put up their demonstration machine, the "Stone & Steel Buster" for sale. Alledgedly, it's the world largest industrial hammer.
I might post this to Boingboing....it's has some nerdy potential :)

New projects on the horizon

Well, so far I've released 4 job applications into the corporate ether....3 of which are directed at specific positions. One is a sort of web project manager position, one is more consultant-like and regards GIS planning, and one has to do with knowledge management and organizational development. I think I have a pretty good chance of an interview in all of them, especially the two latter. The first relies a lot on web development knowledge...an area I have tried to keep up with but that I am not very technically involved in. That might not be needed, difficult to say. It takes a good deal of mental exercise to throw away one's inhibition and boldly claim "I'm worth it..!" :)

Alongside all these applications (not boring yet, but close), my girlfriend, Thor, and I have been invited to be part of a real estate deal. Yes, an option to get out of this weary flat suddenly came along. One of my good mates has had a project concerning a huge house just outside Aarhus and now we are 3 couples trying to get a deal in order. The house is already divided into 3 seperate living quarters (thirds?) and the idea is to establish a fellowship that acts privately within the seperate apartments but shares and cooperates about most everything else. I have a good feeling about it. It's a monster house with a enormous basement that will be claimed and developed into a recreational theme park. That's what the guys want, anyway. Football tables, snooker, computer den...there is already a sauna. Unfortunately, the swimming pool has been covered and is now used for storage but we shan't despair. It's a great hideout if the in-laws decide to drop by.

Since I have nothing to do (!!!), I've been put in charge of contacting the credit providers that are going to lend us all the money to buy this mansion. It's a hell of a jungle when you're not used to it. Today I "woke up" at 3 p.m., realizing that I had sat the entire day and researched interest rates and mortgages on the web. The headache was building up. I hadn't even eaten anything, such was the combination of boyish excitement and frustrated anxiety. This stuff really ought to be part of basic public education - many words meant nothing to me and I was spinning around the same 3 sites trying to compare a gazillion different mortgage setups. Finally, I felt more or less ready and called the credit consultant in person. It helped a bit but there is still much I don't understand and have never been exposed to before...it's interesting but energy consuming :)

I've been thinking about another idea for a consulting service that is not very common here in Denmark. Actually, it is probably not very common in Europe as a whole. It concerns the strategic and human resource-related application and use of new media. The applications of Web 2.0 and all the related social web services that are now being spewed out faster than one might say "relevance".
There is a research institute called The Gartner Group which has made an interesting assessment of 1900 different technologies and trends inside IT, around the globe. It's called the "Gartner 2006 Hype Cycles" and the one I was particularly interested in was the Emerging Technologies Hype Cycle. Everyone should read it, although it is a somewhat superficial introductory text, I think. However, I like the basic premise of a "hype cycle" that defines the way new stuff is being launched, bloated, and finally business-trimmed.

Anyway, my thought is to base a consulting service solely on the exploitment of these trends, in the right fashion, at the right time, for the right company. Three main areas might be sought out; customer-directed services and public sector systems, internal organization tools and services, visual feedback systems in development departments. The latter I have added myself, mainly because of my own background and knowledge of the needs of small and medium-sized businesses. The first area points at the usual e-shopping or mass-customization trends that are maturing in the States but have not yet really reached European consumers, and the second is targeting medium and large companies that have knowledge sharing difficulties regarding design-related or mechanical production.

I think there is real potential here and there will be a prime-mover advantage for at least one or two years to come. However, having experienced the way our first e-learning projects were actually ahead of their time in regards to business potential, I'm not sure Denmark is an easy place to start such an enterprise. The problem here is that you need big customers to get a firm foothold and Denmark does not have many big companies. Besides, those that exist may not want to go outside their regular consulting channels. Which leaves the option to offer these services as specialist consulting to other major consulting houses until the concept gains momentum and may carry its own. Alternatively, the first area bears another possibility in Denmark which is public sector self service systems. Denmark is ahead on this field and there might be opportunities in acquiring tasks for many Danish municipalities (these are being re-organized as I speak).

What do you think? :)

Escher galore

There's a Escher remix competition going on at Worth1000.com - and it's quite fun. Even better, I found an online gallery with quite a few of Escher's original works. Sweet.

[Edit]
The more I explore the gallery the more I realize I had not seen. Some of those things are incredible. All the mosaics with intertwining patterns and colours - I'm amazed at the patience and planning it must have taken.

Funny thing, I recognized the piece "Double Planetoid" from the brief time I spent at the airport in Billund this summer. Billund is the place of LEGO's HQ and the airport had a huge LEGO rendition of the piece on display. At that time I didn't know it was Escher.

I'm gonna catch that wabbit...

As of early last week I started my "full time" job hunt. Boy was it a pain to get going after the holidays but now I am into gear, it seems.
I've done my C.V. which you are welcome to look at, print out, comment on, or even distribute by aerial means should you have the resources to do so.
Actually, the more responses the better - so please give it a look and tell me what you think. It's probably a bit academic and I do a lot of explaining, partly because I need some length, partly because I need to give a clearer picture of competencies. I'm not exactly a cookie-cutter class..! :)

I've begun buying tactile newspapers which have huge job sections on Sundays. Jyllandsposten is more rewarding if I am to get anything close to here and I actually found 2-3 positions that might be relevant. It's tricky because my background and subsequent specialty with 3D and CAD-related stuff doesn't exactly draw a recognizable profile. At the same time, any larger company looking for generalists (as one might call Information Studies people) might not be willing to pay for the 2-3 years of "experimental activity", no matter how enlightening it's been. They might settle for a fresh graduate to brainwash more easily.

I picked up a sort of career manual magazine thing at Uni a month ago. It's called Target, supposedly links to http://www.doctorjob.com/europe. It's quite good but of course aimed at aforesaid fresh graduates. However, because of this it has very good descriptions of different industries, job functions, and career paths. If only the universities and business schools actually taught these things in-house then I wouldn't have to spend weeks and months trying to figure out where I fit in. I would also avoid the classic Information Studies existential crisis that me and several of my co-students had halfway through the degree.
However, remembering the faint academic snobbery at the university, it would no doubt seem vastly un-academic to actually tutor people in these things. Especially in Denmark where there still reigns some kind of socialist panic anxiety over involving the private sector or even business-related information in public educational processes. The task is pretty much laid out to the student counsellors but, of course, noone ever attends a student counsellor unless they have a specific problem. Once you're nearing the end of your studies, it's the last person you seek out.

Oh well, I found a nice quote in Target regarding the concept of consultants which has always perplexed me. The word itself is maybe the most commonly used specifying word compared to the broadness of it potential meaning. "IT" would probably be another candidate - or "thing". Actually, "thing" probably takes the prize but consultant is not far behind. Conclusion being that a consultant is a "thing", only a bit more specific...

So, I've never fully understood the underlying logic that entitled one to be a consultant. The actual work involved is rarely specified along with the word. My own experience with consultants is limited. I know they often do specialist work and usually receive humongous undeserved pays for it. Which has always indicated that consultants are fairly intelligent.
Anyway, the Target quote finally provided the broad, acceptable explanation for the word:

Consultants aim to improve their clients' efficiency, profit-making ability or position in the market. The sector [i.e. "Consulting sector"] doesn't divide itself neatly into areas of work. Broadly speaking, there are "functions" (such as strategy, implementation, operations, HR and IT) and "industries" (anything from government agencies to automotive companies).

There. Why the hell hasn't anyone told me this 10.000 years ago? It's one of those words which academics and professionals use towards each other all the time - and you get the feeling that noone really has a clue what the hell is being said.

Holy crap

This Thai lady has done a stunning piece of vector artwork with Adobe Illustrator, see it here.

I am struck with awe. Insane gradient meshes...I think she mentions 42 layers for the body alone. I've only just gotten used to gradient meshes - the sheer ambition involved in starting such a project is way beyond me.

See the rest of her work here. There's a good rendition of Frodo Baggins as well =)

I think there's a Japanese word for it...

To break my usual habit of not blogging interesting things that I see, I needed to come and post this (courtesy of Lifehacker).

One thing is the actual knot which I just learned myself in 2 minutes. It'll save me a day or two by the time I am 75 - reminds me of the Japanese management trend about maximizing effectiveness in even the smallest details of activity (forgot the name for it).
Even greater is the webpage in its entirety...pure nerdy class.

Height of Summer vs. Weight of Unemployment

Back in Denmark after almost 2 weeks in Austria, visiting my Dad. He lives in Strobl bei Wolfgangssee in the area of Salzkammergut. Love those names.

We were there during the European Draught which is a fair title for the 3 weeks of high sunshine and almost unbearable temperatures all over the continent. Dad's balcony peaked at 36 degrees one afternoon - but at least you had a nice view of the mountains and 2 minutes walk to one of the cleanest lakes in Europe.

One weekend we did a get-away to the southern part of the country, on the border of Steiermark and Kärnten. We had booked 2 nights at the Seehotel Jägerwirt in the valley of Turracher Höhe. A small, quaint mountain valley at 1760 meters - by the lake of Turracher See.
The place is targeted at families with kids, and offers sublime facilities including extensive playgrounds, pool areas, wellness areas (3 saunas!) and deicious food buffets and evening menus. You can even put your kids into an in-house kindergarten if you need a break. That seemed a bit escapist to us, though. Hopefully, you're actually there to spend time with your kid(s) but I guess mountain treks might be a handful for smaller children.

Anyway, we relaxed and swam in the lake and went up a mountain lift, had a view of the southern mountain ranges, and came speeding down again on a little monorail rollercoaster. Great fun! I can only recommend the place and the concept of "kinderhotels" in general. This particular place was not the cheapest - there are many price ranges depending on access to facilities and hotel services.

Before this, I went 3 days to Copenhagen with Thor. Dragged him along like bagage - our first Dad/son trip. It was great fun and it meant a lot to me. To be on my own with the kid put more work my way, of course - but it definitly also made our interaction more deep and direct, which a dad can miss during the first year. I visited old friends Lars and Caroline and their cute baby, Flora. Lars will forgive me for calling him an insomniac Zombie - but I remember those nights of the Living Dead, vividly ;)

Other than that, I LAN'ed with a lot of the mates this weekend. The days of summer go by quickly so it was the only real chance to meet the guys. Of course, we played World of Warcraft (Darksorrow server, alliance) - much more fun in a real life social setting. We also ate and drank a lot..!

Today I'm pondering my moves. I'm almost halfway through my C.V. and it's looking fair. I need to work on this the next days, even if I still feel like I'm on holiday. Funds are drying up and I am getting excited about finding a good job, following the recent demise of the Sektor4 fellowship. My biggest concern is actually salary. I feel like I am worth at least 32k a month because of my experience and broad achievements the past years (bear in mind, these are Danish wages). Still, it will be a problem to find a position that can exploit my experience well enough to allow me that kind of starting pay. I feel fairly confident that I can argument it, though. I'm just not sure how well I will handle the bargaining process...I'm usually annoyingly generous. However, I'm getting sick of earning nothing so I need to be adamant! Any heavyweight arguments or similar experiences are welcome in the comment section!

Alongside the formal writings and application channels, I'm going to contact some of my past acquaintances and contacts. Usually, networking lands you the better deal.

Life in a bubble

Got back from Roskilde 2 days ago - boy, what a venue this year. The weather was amazing, the music was amazing, the girls were amazing, everything was amazing.

Even the hangovers were amazing, especially on Saturday. But I pulled through and might mention the best musical experiences of this year: Veto, Gogol Bordello, Looptroop, Whomadewho, Tool, George Clinton, Arctic Monkeys, Coldcut, Franz Ferdinand. This is about two thirds of what I got to see - so the general quality has been very good this year, in my opinion.

First prize, however, goes to Roger Waters and his band - doing the Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon" special show with quadrophonic sound system, multimedia imagery, and an intense presence. I was frequently struck with awe during that show.

Right now, I'm trying to get my hands on as much Pink Floyd as possible. That experience was very likely the best audiovisual venue I have experienced (maybe not the most dramatic or action-packed gig but by far the most beautiful).
The sound was astounding and several times I could just stare into the huge video screen showing more or less abstract images, thinking about why I never really heard any Pink Floyd before now.

I hope maybe to obtain the set list from the Roskilde Festival website...but from now on I'm lobbying for the thing that Depeche Mode's got going on their website, which offers the possibility of buying an exact copy of a specific local live recording (MP3 or CD). This ought to be possible at Roskilde, too - especially because the larger Roskilde venues are often specially tailored by the playing bands.

The Comeback Kid

Leaving for Roskilde Festival within an hour or so. Going to be great - I missed out last year for the first time in 12 years, so it's been a big part of my life and I miss it.

Reports from the camp pioneers that left already on Saturday tell that the incomparable "Dige" (an old school friend of mine) was released from police custody Saturday morning after having spurred mayhem at a local midsummer's eve venue in or around Copenhagen. Apparently, he was convinced that several people were burning up inside the bonfire - and being very loud about it, he quickly drew the attention of police and rescue teams. Of course, it was all bollocks and probably hash-induced ravings...but seeing as the police and rescuers were there anyway, they opted to take him in and give him some sheltering for the night. Probably good form since he would have bunked in the bonfire himself, I'd bet.

Anyway, back from the pen, he proceeded to knock down the camping fence moments before the gates were opened Sunday morning. Seems this year's placement of our camp is second to none because of this great feat. Look forward to seeing him - apparently he's been running around naked most of the time.

I can't say that I'm anyway near the levels of this guy when I attend festivals - but I do enjoy such mad happenings immensely. Gives you a great chance to laugh at life and meet up with old buddys for once. The laughs I get from RF keeps me going the rest of the year!

The weather seems promising after a couple of heavy showers yesterday. Going to savour the tequilas at the Ballroom scene. ;)

Computational art

Here is a nice gallery that sports algorithmic art. Some very cool images - it gets even better when you se how the final image evolves. Click the images and you'll be able to execute the apps (mostly implemented in Java or Flash).

It's also open source - the apps I accessed let you peep into their inner workings :)

Cuteness personified

Woke up this morning with my son repeatedly kissing my shoulder. Although, as a (somewhat) responsible parent, I miss out on a few things, I feel sorry for a lot of people that really have no clue what they're missing out on.

About bloody time

Personally, I'd rather communicate with a Bulgarian clam fisherman through hand signs than run upon an American teenager talking like that.

Next venue, please

My trip to Depeche Mode here i Aarhus the other day really sparked my live act appetite. I'm really excited about Roskilde this year, probably because of my absence last year. It's hard to kick a habit.

About the concert, it was a great show. David Gahan is impressive on a stage, twisting and spinning - always in full control and mastering both the slow and the manic. Generally, I was satisifed but I left with a feeling that I needed another 10%. The duration of the actual DM gig was only about 1h50min...which is a bit tight in my book. Especially at a dedicated venue. At Roskilde Festival many larger acts play 2 hours, frequently more. Also, DM opted to play a slow quiet song as an extra - which was not well chosen. People wanted to jump, not slump.

That said, the quality was very high and I didn't feel the sound was too muddy. My favourite part was Gore doing "Home" about one third through the show. An unlikely candidate, since I was really waiting for "Personal Jesus" and "Never Let Me Down Again", but Gore did it with such feeling and grace that it was beauty unmatched.

In for a fashion update

Caught a bit ill today, after a fantastic weekend at my uncle's 50th celebration in Sweden - in the middle of the forest. Maybe I'll have some pictures of that soon.

Anyway, going to Depeche Mode this evening, here in Aarhus. Quite excited, although this bad throat annoys me. Been leeching old stuff...jesus, do these guys have many hits to play. The newest album is very solid, also. I feel well-prepared...I just hope the Atletion venue has good sound, despite all the concrete.

You can actually pre-order Depeche Mode concert recordings from every location on their tour. Now, that is embracing new media. I'm considering the Aarhus offer...but I think I'll wait till I hear the real thing. I suspect all the concrete at the stadium may give nasty eccoes. We shall see.

The future is now

Seems I went ahead of myself, talking about Google and free web hosting...and then again I did not. Moved.in is not married to Google (yet) - Google was just used as a metaphor for the nature of Moved.in. That's actually interesting in itself....if you say "like Google", that means 20 different things by now - but people almost always understand you :)

Anyway, I found out that my GMail account is already linked directly to GooglePages which is, in effect, free web hosting. It is a bit sluggish because it is all web-based but I have 100Mb of free space associated with the webpage account. So I've just uploaded the Flylikeabrick resources and link to them from here. Neat.

Thinking of MySpace - it might be a good idea since I have 5-7 different kinds of free services active now on the web. Still, it means that I need to get into all that again. Can't really be bothered now this works. And I don't actually like the default MySpace setup that everyone uses. Looks too much like an online music shop, selling bad music.

Digitizational ramificationz

All this recent career drama has given me some time to get into the nuts and bolts of blogging again. I like that.

I recently attending a management strategy conference and it seems that blogging is finally getting through to the bizz-heads as well. :)
Kolind was very inspiring, by the way. People may know his achievements at Danish company Oticon - the case was part of my curriculum at Uni. A nice, seemingly gentle man - who nevertheless was quite focused on making money and lots of it. I knew they were out there somewhere...
I'm thinking of buying his book. He made it clear that his writings are quite non-scientific which is a sympathetic confession. I might kill my own reading experience with my over-academic perspective but I'll try to remind myself that this guy has probably made more money (and not least happy people) than 99% of the world's philosophers and scholars.

I still need to fix the image links and the sub-pages that were previously hosted on a now extinct web server. I'm not sure how to go about that since I have no hosting set up privately. I don't really feel like paying for this, since I discovered a myriad of free hosting solutions. So many that I got quite spooked, actually. I even came across Google's version as referred by this message. Does anyone have experience with this kinda stuff?

A new beginning?

Well, a brief return. After 5-6 years of working together, my company is splitting up. The shocking revelation came in on last Monday where two of us (not me) declared that they wanted to leave the company and seek new challenges.
It seemed a bit surreal, especially because we had - after a relatively long period of stress, bad morale, and business frustrations - finally begun to turn the tide in our favour. At least, this was my impression. Apparently not that of those two.

Times have been hard....almost 6 months of no substantial income has taken its toll. Also, we have had several cooperation problems, although many have been settled and people seemed willing to swallow some pride in the anticipation of future succes.

The worst thing, from my perspective, is the fact that our recent "sell more" campaign never got finished - that would have given all of us a clear indication of the company potential. The next worse thing is to have to disappoint a lot of people that we have started or contemplated projects with. This was my most recent field of work and I was really making headway and getting into the task of formulating and structuring public projects as a supplement to our main product development.

It really annoys my to leave these things hanging in the closet - some of them have fair potential, although that is always hard to judge in this IT/3D area.

The fact that two months ago we all agreed to transform into an actual company with legal bindings and all does not make the situation easier. Being assigned as CEO of a holding company means that I now have no right to social compensation - I have to sell my share to another before I have so little assets that I may regain my unemployment benefits. This was a really smart move by the renegades. To shake hands and establish debts and company structures 2 months prior to sudden departure. I guess some people didn't really analyze their options or ambitions sufficiently :P

I'm risking that they read this, although we have an agreement to stay friends. But then again I have a right to be pissed and express it. Besides, I'm not as annoyed as it may sound. Part of me is maybe relieved since it certainly has been a rough ride at times. Last year I had the same thoughts on the project but deliberately suppressed the urge to quit. I guess they just couldn't do that anymore, which is basically ok. Can't argue with feelings. The timing just sucks like a Nilfisk.

So, the next challenge is to find a real job, I guess. Not something I've been used to - but then again the past years of experience should amount to something. I've learned a helluva lot about business logic, strategy, design work, and creative projects. Not to mention the problems that come with all of those, especially when trying to communicate goals and procedures between peers.
I guess I am really quite confident after these experiences. I used to think that these things were infinitely complex but being in the midst of work life gives you the sudden realization that everyone is really as perplexed and uncertain as you are yourself. That's quite comforting. At Uni everything was deliberately made complex in order to impress the people in charge. Outside those walls people like it better if you keep it simple, at least on the basic level of business that we have been exposed to - I'm only just getting used to that. It's a useful beacon in my sometimes way too academic way of perceiving my surroundings.

I have at the very least acquired quite a large network of contacts that I should try to exploit in order to get ahead. We shall see. You have a job for me?