Kim Bach . Org

BarCamp Copenhagen 8.2 on the 22nd of November 2008 is over, THANK YOU SO MUCH for being such a great crowd.

BTW! We’re trying to build a community site at barcamp.dk, so check back often for updates

Pre-camp game
I’m a 3 time veteran of BarCamp Copenhagen, and this time I had multiple roles, primary Henriette challenged me to hosting a pre-camp game, and this article is focusing on how that unfolded.

My roles were these:

• Co-organiser
• Co-host
• Host of pre-camp warm-up - hmm, it was freezing wasn’t it - event
• Co-sponsor through Nabz.dk - reseller of the Nabaztag
• Speaker (accept my sincere apologies for that disaster of a session, but I did learn some important Xcode/Interface Builder tricks)
• Webmaster at barcamp.dk

Phew! I think that’s about it, no wait, I also found time to be a participant!

“Un-conference”
For those of you not familiar with the concept, BarCamp Copenhagen is part of the world-wide phenomenon BarCamp, and can best be described as a conference with a twist, a so-called un-conference.

I’ll try to illustrate the differences between a conference and BarCamp below.

Conference

• The list of speakers usually is announced and scheduled
• Active participation is neither required nor the norm
• Speakers are invited and often payed
• Attendees usually pay a fee

BarCamp (un-conference)

• The list of speakers and the schedule is made up just before the camp starts
• The audience is expected to participate actively
• Speakers are volunteering, and access is only limited by the number of presentation slots

Technological treasure hunt, huh?
My major contribution to BarCamp Copenhagen 8.2 was being organiser of the pre-camp warm up.

The task of organising a pre-camp warm-up was given to me by Henriette Weber, she had envisioned a “technological treasure hunt”, and I immediately jumped at the chance, but what to do?

Technology and treasure hunt, we’ll that should be something with GPS, isn’t that something you can assume that people have these days?

After looking into what existed in the market, and even considering if we should try to build our own, I was sort of stuck for at while.

I suspect that Henriette was getting a bit worried, so she sent Mark Wubben to the rescue, and that was great, Mark is probably the coolest guy I’ve ever met, and it’s hard to believe that he’s only 22. Mark is destined for greatness, and I’m humbled by his presence!

I quickly started down an avenue of sending the participants out to research the history of the neighbourhood where the event was to take place, but Mark, in diplomatic terms, told me that that sounded too boring, I instantly agreed, it really sounded too much like a school project, I guess my short career as a school teacher had a bad influence on my creativity ;-).

Brainstorm
On October 28th I met with Mark, and he made a couple of important points.

• The game must not be boring
• The game should be “hackable”
• The game should be directed using SMS by the game master

We had a great brainstorming session, and immediately we were turning in the direction of spies, conspiricies etc. Mostly because I instantly made the connection to November 22nd and the mother of all conspiracy theories, since November 22nd is the day of the JFK assassination.

So what we came up with was the concept of a spy-game where you were supposed to find an assassin, take a picture and return with it to the headquarter.

The assassin would be meeting with a contact at an undisclosed location, I thought of Nørrebroparken because it has a “grassy knoll” ;-).

The participitants would be divided into teams, and then sent around in the area looking for codes that, when found, should be relayed to HQ, resulting in another hint about the whereabouts of the assassin.

Planning
On the 8th of November Mark Wubben and I met to investigate the area, and we found several places that would be suitable for waypoints, we decided that Nørrebroparken would be too far away, since we only had two hours for the game, and wanted 5 hints/waypoints.

I didn’t really work too much on the detalis of the game, after the 8th, but when the 22nd of November approached, I suddenly decided that we needed a website to support the game, and what you can whip together in two shakes of a rats tail using Drupal is just amazing, I had a full community site with full geolocation support up and running in a few hours.

Calls for participation
Approx. one week prior to the event, we issued an e-mail with a call for participation, and people were asked to sign-up for the pre-camp event, this was before I had configured the website, so I received a possitive answer from a few people.

Teaser
On the eve of the event, I then sent out this e-mail to the people that had responded to the call for participation:

Dear Agent,

You’ve been selected as a prospect to lead a team at BarCamp Copenhagen.

You will be given a mission that requires that you operate as a field agent from 10am to 11:59am.

Any technology you bring can potentially help you, but you’ll need, at least a camera and a cellphone.

There will be a briefing at 10am on November 22nd @Lygten 16.

Until then you can get updates at the barcamp.dk site, so check back frequently. http://barcamp.dk/content/barcamp-copenhagen-intelligence-agency

If you choose to accept the mission I’ll need your cell-phone number.

Kind regards
Kim Bach aka. K.ox
BCCIA Director

I received commitment from 4 people, I picked them as team-leaders, so that we would have four teams, and now I started building the website, having specific locations geocoded on the website helped me produce nice maps, so all I needed was to finalise the plot.

In the week leading to the event I had enlisted two of my friends to act as agents, and one of them is an experienced role-player so she helped me debug the game, she suggested that I should get rid of the good/bad distinction, and focus on making it much more confusing what was good and bad.

We met the night before BarCamp and decided that the mission should be for the teams to located the whereabouts of an agent, deliver documents, that they should document the handover of the documents, and return to base. What they weren’t aware of was that there was a second agent operating, and that he should steal the documents and disappear.

Hackable game
Like I mentioned, Mark Wubben thought me the importance of the game being hackable, meaning that you should be able to bend the rules, so what I came up with was this:

• Information about the waypoints would be made available on the website once the teams had departed
• It would be possible to guess the access-codes, and get the hints faster. I choose these numbers for the 5 codes that should be gathered: 13-21-34-55-89 - does that ring a bell? Not? Well it’s the 5 two digit Fibonacci numbers
• You could get help if you asked for it

The plot
I ended up with a plot where the participants were sent out to locate field agent Szeba, they would be guided by hints that were given to them once they had gone to a waypoint and located the access code and sent it by SMS to HQ

The mission was to hand over some documents to the agent, and return with proof that the documents were delivered to the agent, and return to HQ.

The twist
What the participants didn’t know, was that I had also enlisted another agent, Petrus. The idea was that the agent would steal the documents once they were delivered to agent Szeba.

Game-on
On the eve of the evening I met with agents Szeba and Petrus (aka. Signe and Kim, thank you for helping me, you guys rock).

We went over the plan.

Szeba would be at Nørrebro Station at 11:30 waiting for the documents, Petrus would be lurking, wait for the next train, steal the documents and jump on the train just before it left.

We were ready for the game - mu-ha-ha-ha - it will be GREAT!

Stay tuned for the part two of this where you’ll be told how the game actually unfolded.

The picture that accompanies this article was taken by Karin Høgh, it’s copyright Karin Høgh but I claim fair use. The picture shows one of my bags!

It’s time for the yearly Copenhagen event “Kulturnatten”, or “Night of Culture”, and I’m basically done planning for it.

At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a list of events I’ve saved to my profile on kulturnatten.dk, unfortunately they don’t have a RSS feed or a URL that I can share, so I had to copy/paste/edit the list :-(.

I’m planning to attend the events below, but I usually stray, and end up in strange places, my recommendation is to just go with the flow, and stay in places longer than you originally planned for, if you feel “good vibes”.

Last year the high point for me, was a visit to the old shipyard crane on Holmen, which is back this year, and Ars Nova in Marmorkirken, which isn’t :-(.

The events hit by elitism
I’ve been a huge fan of Kulturnatten for several years, but this year the organisers has decided to limit the official program, and has weeded out some events that had been running, successfully for several years, for instance the event by IT Politisk Forening.

I’ve been noticing that Kulturnatten over the years has become more and more like a carnival, and that was somewhat annoying, but I think that the strict selection of “relevant” events is an example of elitism.

This being said, the Kulturnat is an impressive show of strength, and I’ll keep on attending, even though I strongly disagree with the new policy of the organisers.

List of events I’m planning to attend:
Kultmusik og magiske videoinstallationer
Kultfænomenet Snöleoparden fylder gården med sin særlige equilibristiske nordiske version af østens musik, alt imens den verdensberømte kunstner Yang Fudongs magiske videoinstallationer tegner billed…

Time: 18:00 - 00:00
Place: GL STRAND, Gammel Strand 48

Lasershow illuminerer facaden på Charlottenborg
Facaden på Charlottenborg er hele kulturnatten illumineret med klassisk italiensk billedkunst. Lasershow arrangeret af den romerske kunstner Livia Canella.

Time: 18:00 - 00:00
Place: Danmarks Kunstbibliotek, Kongens Nytorv 1, Postboks 1053

Konspirationsteorier fra Tempelriddere til 11. sep
Konspirationsteorier er som en virus, der angriber, når immunforsvaret er svækket. Med benhård historisk kildekritik afmonterer Dan H. Andersen nogle af nutidens mest populære myter og konspirationst…

Time: 20:30 - 21:30
Place: Frederiksberg Bibliotek, Falkoner Plads 3

Polkageist Power Party
Nyd energifyldt koncert inspireret af salsa, calypso, funk, rock og balkanmusik sammen med “cool” øko-snacks.
Generel info: handicapfaciliteter, bespisning

Time: 21:00 - 22:30
Place: Det Europæiske Miljøagentur, Kongens Nytorv 6

Social networking /foredrag
Kim Sneppen, Models of Life, NBI

Time: 22:00 - 22:30
Place: Niels Bohr Institutet, Blegdamsvej 17

Herredømmet - Lykke, Thordal, Trier & Zahle
Carsten Lykke, Kenneth Thordal, Tobias Trier & Oliver Zahle pisker stemningen helt i vejret med en vittig, varm og swingende koncert om den moderne mands genvordigheder. Sangenes tema “Mænd forstår a…

Time: 22:00 - 00:00
Place: Frederiksberg Bibliotek, Falkoner Plads 3

Salsa Loca - Kulturnattens hedeste danseaften
Traditionen tro spiller Salsa Loca op til dans. Kulturnatten afsluttes på denne måde med et brag af en fest med livesalsamusik af bedste kvalitet og dans til den lyse morgen.

Time: 22:00 - 03:00
Place: Krudttønden, Serridslevvej 2

See also:

• Posts on Kim Bach . Org tagged with Kulturnatten

For 10-years the Danish housing market has enjoyed inflatory growth rates, backed by changing administrations in an unholy alliance with the credit-unions, and a seemingly never-ending, and historically cheap, credit, the average to upper middle-class financed their escalating consumerism by “eating bricks” (i.e. taking out mortgages).

Everybody knew it would end at some point, but what is the solution suggested by our politicians? Bail-out packages of historic proportions.

We can’t afford that people loose faith in “our” financial institutions.

Suddenly they’re ours? What has happened the last 10 years is that credit-giving has been based on the premisses that housing-prices will keep going up at super-inflatory rates, and when credit was running thin, we’ll just boost it by allowing people to take out mortgages where you only pay the interest.

This has led to the following:

1. Higher prices, effectively baring first time buyers from owning a house
2. No-one can afford to move, because the prices have skyrocketed, seriously limiting the flexibility of the workforce
3. Now that prices have dropped, you’re left with huge monthly payments, that you can’t afford if you loose your job

Our financial institutions
The Danish financial market has undergone the biggest changes in more than 100 years over the last 10-20 years.

The Danish credit-unions was based on solidarity and they were owned by the mortgage-holders not the big banks, if you look at your mortgage payments, you’ll notice that you pay something called “bidrag”, these days it’s simply a fee, but it used to be called “reservefondsbidrag” (”reserve-fee”), and it was paid back to mortgage holders if the credit-union did have to dig into the reserves, read was running a healthy business.

Why the focus on stock prices?
Personally I don’t understand the huge focus on stock prices. The stock-market is highly volatile, and what is reported in the news is the stock index, which is an average based on a selected few of the major companies, the Danish stock-exchage index is called OMX-20, the 20 refers to the fact that only 20 of the listed companies are counted in the index.

The market cap of these 20 companies does indeed represent a huge percentage of the total market, but they’re also carefully selected based on the performance of the stock, and if one or a few of the 20 companies sneezes the market catches a cold.

The focus on stock-prices will only hit you if you sell, if the companies are healthy they will make a profit, and you’ll receive dividends

Mortgage 101: Why I sleep tight at night
My own mortgage is made up of 60% variable rate, and it’s refinanced every year. Right now it looks like I’ll have to pay .5% higher interest next year, but I think this might change and probably to the better. Why do I think so? The variable rate mortgages are financed by selling of bonds, and since we have a financial crisis that hits the stock market, bonds are in higher demand which means higher prices and thus lower interest rates.

The financial crisis also means that short-term bonds should be in higher demand, making the variable rate mortgages more attractive. But since the short-term bonds are less attractive for the credit-unions, they’re trying to convince the mortgage-owners to refinance or take out insurance, which will make them more money.

I’m keeping my variable-rate, short-term, mortgage.

Take back your financial institutions
I suggest that we go back and look at how the credit-unions originally were organised, owned by the mortgage-holders, based on solidarity and healthy loan giving.

The idea of people being able to finance their house is instrumental in improving the quality of life, a lot of people haven’t been able to afford this due to the inflatory prices and rampant mortgage-giving using creative and unhealty offers.

It’s time to take back our financial institutions and our lives, but also to stop the rampant consumerism and the irresponsible behaviour, that is helping destroy the planet.

The financial crisis: a control mechanism?
Personally I feelthink that the financial crisis is a “control mechanism” on the scale of “The Matrix”. It’s meant to scare us into fearing the future, and since we’ve taken out loans we can’t really afford to pay, driven by irresponsible lending politics, we’re forced to work even harder, and even remain active in the workforce for a longer period.

Hmm, this sounds exactly like what the OECD and The Danish Economic Council, and thus the Government, has prescribed.

Sources:

• Wikipedia contributors, “Subprime mortgage crisis,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Subprime_mortgage_crisis&oldid=243578283 (accessed October 7, 2008).
• Wikipedia contributors, “Dividend,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dividend&oldid=242969435 (accessed October 7, 2008).
• Wikipedias brugere, “Realkreditinstitut,” Wikipedia, Den frie encyklopædi , http://da.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Realkreditinstitut&oldid=1523746 (hentet oktober 7, 2008)
• De Økonomiske Råd - Vismænd: Alle skal spare op til pensionen
• Wikipedia contributors, “The Matrix,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Matrix&oldid=243566930 (accessed October 7, 2008).

The image that is used above is taken from WikiMedia Commons and it shows the “TED spread”.

From WikiMedia Commons (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:TED_Spread_Chart_-_Data_to_9_26_08.png&oldid=243108019)

Opdateret den 10-oktober-2008.

Vi har nu fundet stedet vi skal være. Det bliver på Københavns Teknisk Skole på Lygten 16, 2400 København NV. At vi har fundet sådan et fantastisk sted, betyder at vi udvider antallet af deltagere fra 50 til 100.

Så skal vi til det igen, for tredie gang i alt, og for anden gang i år, bliver der afholdt BarCamp Copenhagen (applause).

Det eneste der er helt klart på nuværende tidspunkt er at dDet kommer til at foregå i på Københavns Tekniske Skole, Lygten 16, 2400 København NV (doh!), og at det bliver lørdag den 22-november-2008 fra kl. 10:00 til ??.

Hvis du ser videoen nedenfor så lover vi i øvrigt at “blyanterne vil vende tilbage”, hvis vi ikke finder nogle sponsorer. Vi vil gerne holde BarCamp gratis, men også på et vist niveau, så hvis vi ikke finder sponsorer, så må vi skrue ned for ambitionsniveauet, og i januar var vores prop altså nogle blyanter - fine, jo vist - men vi vil så gerne give jer noget endnu bedre.

Reglerne kender i vist efterhånden, ellers kan i læse dem her.

BarCamp handler om deltagelse, så det der gør BarCamp interessant, er DIG. Vær parat til at dele!

Til de første to BarCamp Copenhagen handlede det mest om præsentationer, men i år håber vi at kunne få mere gang i nogle diskussioner, og måske vil vi forsøge os med et mere workshop eller open space lignende format, smid evt. en kommentar hvis du har nogle ideer!

Vi regner med at have plads til 50 100 mennesker deltagere, og vi har allerede nu 31 tilmeldinger.

Så skynd dig at melde dig til ved at redigere wiki-siden på BarCamp.org, eller ved at bruge vores Facebook gruppe.

Ses vi? Det tror jeg nok vi gør!

Læs også:

• Indlæg på KimBach.Org omhandlende BarCamp

Her: “I’m trying to forget it” (in Danish: “Jeg prøver at fortrænge det!”).

I miss her!

Mel: Hvor du fra…

Hvor du nu? Du i Danmark
Hvor du nu? F…ing Danmark

Du i Danmark, tro ik’ du er no’et
Ellers ser vi til at du mister ho’det

Så kom ik’ her med evner
Det ku’ ske at du revner

Jantelov, Jantelov troede det var for sjov
Meningen er at dine evner gør dig flov
Så lemmingeeffekten kan trænge gennem som en plov
Og gennemsnits Jensen føler han tog det fulde rov

For hvor du nu? Du i Danmark
Hvor du nu? F…ing Danmark

Kom tilfældigvis forbi Kim Bach . Org » Blog Archive » Missed the Alicia Keys concert, og genopdagede min gamle Jantelovs Rap. Ikke just stor kunst, men jeg synes den var aktuel pga. de oplevelser en veninde, der lige er kommet tilbage til Danmark, har haft - egentlig er der vist mere brug for en Kafka Polka…

When “Sergei and Larry” approached Yahoo with a brand new concept of a “search engine”, they discovered, to their dismay, that Yahoo wasn’t really interested in “search”, but in selling ads. So Google was born.

How I discovered Google

In 1998 I was doing a search of myself, e.g. ego-surfing, using my preferred search engine, Lycos, and I was stunned to see that the top hits were Usenet groups that contained my name, several of them in fact, but worse: they had names like kimbach.slut.slut.slut etc.

I was a bit upset, especially since I, at that point, was being sued over violation of the marketing law by a former employer - a case that was later thrown out - but I assumed that they might have created those groups, to slander me, and I was quite sure that it wasn’t me that created those groups ;-).

I took a look at the content of the groups, and they had very low traffic, I only found some spam, which was rare in 1998, and someone who asked the question “who is Kim Bach” - a question I’ve pondered myself, but it didn’t look like it had anything to do with me.

Eventually I contacted the hotline of my ISP, Image Scandinavia, and they referred me to…GOOGLE.

Doing a search on Google, I realised that it had nothing to do with me, but that the groups had been created by a disgruntled husband, and Kim Bach was his ex-wife!

I also believe that using Google for the first time, immediately made me drop Lycos. At that point Lycos actually yielded what I’d label “better results”, but that changed quickly.

Google, originally, cracked “the search code”, and the world changed.

How I discovered Wikipedia

This I also remember clearly, and it’s quite interesting, I googled it - indirectly!

3-4 years ago I was trying find the English word for the type of dog, that is called “gravhund” in Danish, I somehow knew that a literal translation wouldn’t do, since that would have yielded “diggingdog”, “digdog”, “gravedog”.

So a Google search let me to the English Wikipedia article for Dachshund, and that was what I was looking for!

Seeing Wikipedia was an instant eye-opener, and at that point it hadn’t even dawned upon me, that Wikipedia was pure user-generated content!

Google isn’t interested in “knowledge”

Google won by doing a better job, but now “we, the people” are approaching the world with a concept of a “knowledge engine”, only to discover, to our dismay, that for instance Google isn’t really interested in “knowledge”, but in selling ads.

The difference: “we, the people”, will, surprisingly, transform Google from a “search engine” into a “knowledge engine” as well, no matter what Google does. The algorithm Google uses will give preference to “quality”, at least in the long run, and since “we, the people” are so numerous this will happen sooner rather than later.

Case in point, the best SEO strategy I know of is to create a Wikipedia article, try googling the terms I’ve created Wikipedia articles for (for instance: Kim Schumacher, DB03 and DB07).

You’re brainwashed

Google and the big companies have had us, pretty much, brainwashed to think that we have no say. This is reflected by the response to the launch of the Wikia Search engine, on the historic day, January 7th 2008.

Everyone is trying to compare Wikia Search to Google, and that’s missing the point COMPLETELY, and people should read what Wikia Search are writing:

WE KNOW THAT THE QUALITY OF THE SEARCH IS: “PRETTY LOW” (a polite way of saying that it “stinks”)

The way to help change it, is simply to get involved.

Every-time you do a search on Wikia Search, you’re offered the option to edit a “Mini Article” on the search. A “Mini Article” is just a Wiki article, that explains the search term. The “Mini Articles” will be used to improve the search index.

“Unfortunately” people seems to have been using a search on themselves as a benchmark, meaning that a lot of the “Mini Articles” are links to private and small web-sites, but that reflects the community.

Ego-surfing was also one of the first things I did, and the first hit that could be attributed to me was result number 8, and that yielded the photos I’ve taken, that are in the Flickr pool I created for Sjakket, my former place of work.

Is that my major contribution to the world? Well it’s not that far from it, bordering that I believe that it could be.

Getting involved - choose a community to “work” for

My criteria are:

Not for profit, open, free, strong community, sustainable.

The beer isn’t free however, so you’re allowed to make money, but take into consideration how the money is being made, if it is sustainable etc.

Personally I’ve chosen these organisations

• Kim Bach . Org - My personal Internet presence with community support (some call that a blog ;-))
• Netværksgruppen i Mjølnerparken - Volunteer to help inner city kids, of non-danish descent, with their homework
• Æbletræet.dk - A Wiki-based community site dedicated to serving Apple users with content in the Danish Language
• Wikipedia - The open encyclopaedia
• Wikia Search - The open search engine

Currently I’m mostly involved in Wikia Search, I’ve found it really intimidating to be a contributor to an Encyclopaedia, so my contributions to Wikipedia have been quite limited, Wikia Search is much less intimidating, and right up my alley.

Where would you put your money (e.g. time)?

In ten years, Google has gone from no to 16.000 employees, but “we, the people” will, in ten years go from no to 6,5 billion, or how many it is that “we” are in 2018.

Where would you put you money (e.g. time)? It will only cost you time, and you’ll be involved in building a beautiful shrine to knowledge and human achievement.

Together we’ll do Google one better: crack the code of “knowledge”, and the world has changed forever.

Free at last, free at last, oh God almighty we’re free at last.

And “we”‘re hiring! No need to submit a resume, come join the fight!

Read more here:

• Your “Pyramid” is beautiful, but we’ve just invented the “Arch”

This could have been a much more interesting blog post, about a completely different, and important subject, but that happened in an alternative reality, so this is what you get:

In 2007, after some “fumbling” around, in a totally, to me, strange element, I got this “advice”:

“You should rather buy a new gadget”

This blog post, painstakingly, documents that that was exactly what I, Kim Bach, aka. “FJUMMER”, did…

Nintendo DS Portable Gaming Console

I had read an article in Wired Magazine about how you, literally, can shave several years off your, perceived, age by training, and changing habits and lifestyle.

The author had, for instance, used the Brain Training software on a Nintendo DS to improve his mental capacity and youth.

I was intriged, but my purchase of the DS was, eventually, a total impulse purchase. It was triggered by general ignorance, fear of growing up and taking responsibility, I really can’t claim stupidity, just foolishness, meditating on my old mantra “if it feels right, then it must be right” - well, let the record show that it never is - will I ever learn?

Interestingly, solving Sudoku puzzles, which I learned using the DS, actually brought me some of the best moments of 2007.

It should also be mentioned that the DS was a stunning success with the children at the school where I worked, the math-problems and the competitiveness of the Brain Training games, really catered to the children, and I’m sure that regular use of the training programs can increase your ability, to do basic arithmetic, dramatically.

Nike+ Kit

2007 also saw me picking up running. The Nike+ Kit transforms the iPod nano into a tool, where you can track your runs. It’s more that a toy, the genius of the Nike+ solution is the great web-site where you can run against other Nike+ users, track your progress, analyse your runs etc. The community is a great motivational factor, and it even worked on me.

In my first month of running I managed to log 40+ kms, and I could feel how my stamina improved, it amazed me how quickly that happened.

Unfortunately I got a little overconfident, and a small injury that caused me to gear down, I have learned that I should not try to do training that involves rapid changes in tempo.

Olympus SP-550UZ Digital Camera

I was tired of not having a zoom-camera, and the Olympus has 18x optical zoom, but I still prefer my Canon IXUS i5, since I can carry it around all the time, while I did take some wonderful pictures with the Olympus, it’s just too bulky for my taste. Eventually I’ll get a DSLR, but it’s not high on my wish-list, it’s more likely that my next camera will be another Canon IXUS.

Nokia N800 Internet Tablet

It looked cool, and I wanted to get one before a friend. The N800 is an interesting concept, with a Linux based OS, but it’s not ready for prime time. Battery life is it’s biggest problem, and the form-factor isn’t perfect, and I very rarely use it.

Nokia 5500 Sports Phone

Mount Vesuvius “killed” my Nokia 6070 - SERIOUSLY that was what happened, and you can’t live without a “presence device”, at least that was what my rather (understatement) confused mind dictated, as I wrote in a previous post “I was not in my right mind”.

The Nokia 5500 is a Symbian S60 based smart-phone with some clever motion based applications, for instance it has a step-counter, and the music player can be controlled by tapping it, to trigger the motion detector.

Telia Navigator

Extremely well designed GPS solution. It integrates with a 411 online directory, meaning that you can perform searches by name and address. It automatically stores the most recent destinations, and the external Bluetooth GPS device, that comes with a good rechargeable battery, works great with all Bluetooth devices.

The strongest feature of the solution is that it downloads the maps dynamically, meaning that the solution runs perfectly on relatively lowly hardware, with limited storage, I’ve used it with the Nokia 5500, and that is a great combination, the only downside I can think of, is that the solution only works with Telia’s accesspoints.

My favourite feature is the compass mode, and since it doesn’t require download of maps, and you often have pre-programmed your way-points, using Telia Navigation in this manner made me feel adventurous.

Lenovo V100 Laptop

For a while I thought that I could switch to Linux, and the Lenovo V100 is a fantastic platform for just that.

I did encounter some stability problems with the wireless networking support, the biggest issue with Linux as I see it, and that was hampering my productivity, so I’m back with my PowerBook

The Lenovo has been donated to a worthy cause, it’s now being used to control the digital whiteboard at the school where I used to work.

Samsung SP-P310ME Pocket Imager

My projector lamp burned out, but instead of replacing the lamp, I had to get one of the ultra-compact Samsung SP-P310ME projectors. It’s not really suited as a TV, since it needs a darkened room to operate, but I can now bring a projector everywhere I go, it’s amazingly portable, and can even run on battery power. The good thing is that the long life of the solid state technology of the SP-P310ME, means that it will take a long time until I have to replace it.

Nokia E65

Finally I went on the 3G bandwagon, and the Nokia E65 is a sleek 3G handset handset that even supports WiFi. I use the E65 all the time, it’s the perfect client for the Jaiku online service, that I’m sort of addicted to. Did I need a new phone? No, but it felt right, and it’s actually the only, truly useful, gadget investment of the year.

Making 2008 a healthier year

HEY! There are some signs, that I’m not going to be spending that much money on gadgets in 2008, first and foremost I’m actually feeling (mentally) healthy, and all of the purchases above were based on pure impulse (bordering mania), and right now it’s completely under control. And you know: the “advice” to “rather buy a new gadget” I got was “lost in translation”:

“GET A LIFE - FJUMMER!”

Today October 12th-2007 is the day of the cultural event of the year in Copenhagen, “The Night of Culture” or Kulturnatten, and I’ve just finished “shopping” for events.

You can build a custom program on the web-site, unfortunately it doesn’t have a URL or a feed so that I can share it directly with you.

This year it seems like my theme will be Passion, Science and Christianity. Below is a list of events that I’ll try to mange to attend - it will be tough, and I’ll let the “Instincts be my shepherd” and stay for long in the places where I feel good vibes, and I’m very confident in my instincts.

It does look like my fix-points this year will be Kastellet, Botanisk Have, Humanistisk Fakultet, Glyptoteket and Marmorkirken. The previous years I had an extensive program as well, but I ended up spending hours at the Copenhagen HQ of The Danish Refugee Council, but since they’re not open this year, I might manage more.

Really there’s only ONE event I’m not going to miss, and that is Ars Nova singing English renaissance music in Marmorkirken - last year they were spectacular, and this year they’re issuing a new CD on the Kulturnat, I’ll be first in line to get a copy.

From the previous years I’ll HIGHLY recommend the Exhibition at Thorvaldsen’s Museum, the lights are turned off, and the statues are illuminated, it’s just fantastic, for me it’s been there done that this year however.

Rundetaarn is always too crowded, and the midnight concert this year is just too mainstream for my taste, but I loved it two years ago, and the storage room above the church is just wonderful.

So I wish you all a great Kulturnat, you just have to love Copenhagen for having the energy to set up such a massive event. And strange things happen on the Kulturnat, if you just let your senses guide you, and while you wait for my next blogpost, you can read about my experiences of the last two years here:

• Kulturnatten 2006: Is that a FireWire cable in your pocket or are you just happy to see me
• Kulturnatten 2005

Events I hope to cover in 2007 - prioritised order - but my full intended program is 4 pages long:

• Shantysang i Kanonkælderen - I missed that last year, but that only let to the very strange story that involved a FireWire cable and the Architect School that you can read above, only goes to show that you should just let your senses guide you!
• Opstigning i Mastekranen på Nyholm
• Længslernes Nat
• ZEITGEIST
• Kulturnatten i Kastellet
• Botaniske Have ved nat
• Skriv med fjerpen og blæk
• Monstre og dæmoner i oldtidens Ægypten
• Kolbøttemand, lysshow og rundvisninger!
• Natmusik i Kastelskirken
• Gudstjeneste om tro og viden
• Linné på Botanisk Museum
• Katedralernes mystik og det gotiske
• Dans i Natten
• Lyd og Lys i natten
• Andagt med musik og lys
• B-samfundet - et alternativ til 8-16 samfundet

En god veninde spurgte mig om nogle pæne måde at sige nej til et job-tilbud.

Hun spurgte mig, af ALLE personer?

Selv er jeg nemlig DÅRLIG til at sige nej…MEGA dårlig…

Det der sker er at jeg siger “Ja” eller “Måske”, og undlader så ofte at udføre det jeg har sagt “Ja” til, hvis jeg af den eller anden grund ikke gider.

Det er, forståeligt nok, noget der altid har irriteret mine venner, og det resulterer naturligvis også i at jeg bliver stresset. Det er noget jeg vil arbejde på at blive bedre til at håndtere.

På trods af denne mangel på en vigtig social egenskab, så kom jeg nu alligevel med at par forslag:

• “Tak for tilbudet, jeg evaluerer for tiden hvordan min karriere skal udvikle sig, og jeg ser mig derfor nødsaget til at takke nej”
• “Tak for tilbudet, jeg vil takke nej fordi jeg ikke mener at det er det rigtige for mig”
• “Tak for tilbudet, jeg vil takke nej fordi jeg ikke mener det er det rigtige for Dem”
• “Tak for tilbudet, men jeg mener ikke at deres arbejdsplads søger efter en med min profil”.

Kan i komme på nogle flere?

PS. Jeg kan godt li’ når der bliver sagt PÆN, men der menes måske “høflig måde” i stedet for “pæn måde”…

PPS. Ved nærmere eftertanke sagde jeg faktisk “nej” til noget i efteråret, men det var især fordi jeg sagde “ja” til noget andet, men det var en del “i familie” med det første.