Good grief what a couple of weeks this has been! We have finally moved all of our belongings to our new appartment. It’s now overflowing of boxes and stuff. I waited until the last possible moment with moving the servers and the other infrastructure – but now I finally got around to doing it. And it all worked on the new location with a button press – all the virtual machines did what they were supposed to do and now the diktator.org-domain (and a few others) are hosted from a new address. =)

Time to go take a shower and get some sleep (last night was only about 3½ hours) so that I’m fit for final contract signing tomorrow morning.

Right now I’m sitting right next to a person using a Kindle. It’s the first time I’ve seen one and I do have to say that the reading surface has an astonishing resemblance to paper! I’ve always said that I think it looks like something to be used in hospitals, but it actually doesn’t look that bad.

This weekend the day of midsummer was celebrated in Sweden. Last year around this time my girlfriend travelled to Bolivia to meet her parents for about two weeks, and instead of just sitting around in an empty apartment I decided that I’d rent a car and go for a roadtrip on my own. Said and done! I decided that I would go to a lake and take pictures of the sun rising over the water. I picked lake Siljan and I also planned on visiting a few deserted places around Gävle which would serve as good urban exploration prospects.

I got in the car and left town at about 10 pm and drove straight for a set of coordinates I had picked from a satellite photo of the area. I arrived at the position at about half past three on the morning only to realize that in the middle of the summer the sun doesn’t really rise. Mostly because it doesn’t set properly in the first place! Disregarding this slight setback I still got a few pictures which I’m quite happy with. Following this stop I drove around on small gravel roads round the lake and after a while I ended up on the top of a mountain looking down a ski slope and a series of ski lodges. At least the mosquitos were happy to see me. From there I went to central Mora and stopped for a couple of hours of sleep (in the car). After being woken up by a freight train which was everything but a well oiled machine it was time for breakfast for both me and the car – i.e. gas station for the both of us.

When looking at the map and the GPS it occured to me that going to Gävle would result in this day ending too soon. So I decided that I’d drive to the opposite side (west side) of this pine-clad country. Five or so hours later I arrived in Bengtsfors where I had lunch and later on I stopped by a good friend to the family who lives a few km outside of Bengtsfors (we used to spend a couple of summers there when I was a kid). By now the little bluetooth GPS transmitter I had used for navigation in combination with my PDA had completely run out of battery, so I decided that I’d head home to Stockholm. But when driving past signs showing exits to Enköping I couldn’t resist visiting this other old home town of mine. I went to have a look at the building where I had lived when I was working for the army in Enköping and I also drove around a bit on the training grounds remembering old times.

And now a year later I would like to do something similar again – just leave town and head to a distant target and do what ever you please on your way to it while taking pictures and listening to good music. Freedom.

The results of last years midsummer roadtrip can be seen by clicking the picture below:

Now let’s see if I have something to show you a year from now…

So, this is a post regarding swedish politicians and what has been going on in the swedish european parliament election, hence this post is going to continue in swedish. I could of course translate all of the referred texts, but where I’m at right now (moving and so on) it would take too much time.

Igår fick jag en länk av några goda vänner som pekade till en riksdagspolitikers (Annika Qarlsson) blogg och specifikt ett inlägg om utfallet av valet till det europeiska parlamentet. För att säkerställa att hon inte avpublicerar sitt blogginlägg och att ni således inte kommer kunna läsa det så har jag kopierat innehållet hitTankar efter ett val…

Kategori: Okategoriserad — skrivet av Annika den 14 juni, 2009

Många ha senaste veckan försökt ge svaren på varför det gick som det gick i EP-valet. Tänker inte bidra med någon lång utläggning på vad jag tror. Däremot så finns en tanke och en reflektion kopplat till Piratpartiets framgång med många unga män som lagt sin röst på dom för att värna den personliga integriteten. Tänker på statistiken som kom härom dagen som visar att det är ofattbart många unga kvinnor som våldtas av unga män som de känner lite grann eller lite mer.

Och jag får inte ihop det – tycker unga män att integritet är viktig eller tycker de inte det???

Det här inlägget skrevs den söndag, juni 14th, 2009 klockan 10:58 e m och är sparat under kategorin Okategoriserad. Du kan följa alla kommentarer till det här inlägget genom RSS 2.0 feeds. Både kommentars- och pingningsfunktionen är för tillfället avstängda.

När jag läste detta blev jag helt och fullständigt förbluffad över vilka flagranta misstag skribenten begått avseende enkel och grundläggande logik. Jag blev så bestört att jag blev tvungen att skriva ett mail till henne. Ett alternativ hade ju varit att skriva en kommentar, men eftersom hon fått över 160 kommentarer såg jag en viss risk för att mitt inlägg skulle drunkna i mängden. Dessutom hade hon ju också stängt av kommentarsfunktionen (vilket jag på ett sätt kan förstå, för en del av kommentarerna är ju knappast att räkna som konstruktiva). Nåväl, mitt mail till henne ser ni nedan:

Hej!

Fick av goda vänner en länk till ditt blogginlägg angående utfallet av valet till europaparlamentet (http://qarlsson.se/blogg/?p=710). Givet att kommentarsfunktionen på just detta inlägg verkar vara avstängd så skriver jag istället ner detta i ett mail. Jag reagerar särskilt på stycket: “Däremot så finns en tanke och en reflektion kopplat till Piratpartiets framgång med många unga män som lagt sin röst på dom för att värna den personliga integriteten. Tänker på statistiken som kom härom dagen som visar att det är ofattbart många unga kvinnor som våldtas av unga män som de känner lite grann eller lite mer.”

Det jag nu undrar över är hur exakt du kommer att tänka på våldtäktsstatistik och hur du avser koppla ihop detta med valresultatet?

Menar du att de unga män som röstat på Piratpartiet skulle vara samma unga män som våldtar unga kvinnor de känner? Och att deras röst på Piratpartiet (p.g.a. en önskan av ett ökat integritetsskydd på internet) skulle indikera att de tror att de genom det ökade integritetsskyddet skulle undanslippa straff?

Tillåt mig att addera lite funderingar som kanske kan tillföra lite klarhet:
Att försöka påvisa en identiet mellan den demografiska grupp som antas ha röstat på Piratpartiet och den demografiska grupp som genom statistik forskning tros vara överrepresenterad i kategorin relationsrelaterade våldtäktsbrott är fullständigt och komplett omöjligt.

Det är ungefär lika hållbart som att säga följande:
I New York (USA) begås det många brott. I New York (USA) finns det relativt (per kapita) många poliser. För att sänka antalet begångna brott måste vi således ta bort poliserna.

Ytterligare ett exempel:
Växthuseffekten har ökat stadigt sedan många hundra år tillbaka. Antalet pirater (i detta exempel avses dom med träben, ögonlapp och papegoja) har sedan många hundra år minskat drastiskt. Rimligen borde vi kunna bekämpa växthuseffekten med ett ökat antal pirater!

Vidare – förutsättningen för en sådan (identitets)koppling mellan grupperna är också att en majoritet av alla våldtäktsmål där en ung kvinna har våldtagits av en ung man som gissningsvis rör sig i offrets bekantskapskrets har ett bevismaterial vars ursprung är internet och att detta material genom ett ökat integritetsskydd kan undanhållas/undanröjas. Jag har ytterst svårt att tro att så är fallet. Min personliga gissning är att den huvudsakliga bevisningen i dessa typer av rättsfall består av vittnesmål, DNA-spår och offerutsagor – inte konversationsloggar via exempelvis MSN eller Facebook där unga män (som röstat på Piratpartiet i europaparlamentsvalet) skryter om att de har våldtagit en ung kvinna de känner.

Ber också om att få tipsa om en bok:

http://www.amazon.com/Crimes-Against-Logic-Politicians-Journalists/dp/0071446435

Med vänliga hälsningar,
Fredrik Arenhag

Nu återstår att se om jag får något svar eller inte. På ett sätt hoppas jag att jag får ett svar, men på ett annat sätt så skulle det inte förvåna mig ett dugg om jag inte fick det. Nåväl, sprid detta så gott ni kan.

The seemingly never ending onslaught of comment spam seems to have…. ended. It’s not the installation of the reCaptcha-plugin that did it, because the spam continued to roll in even after the installation (just that it wasn’t visible). What seems to have solved it was the fact that my server was offline for just about 24 hours when I was in Germany visiting the Wave-Gotik-Treffen. Now I’m hoping that due to the reCaptcha-plugin I won’t be of interest to the comment spammers anymore.

So, wanna stop comment spam? Go offline. =D

Ijust finished reading this really interesting article about Windows Workflow Foundation written by David Chappell. I’ve only tinkered around with WF a bit and therefore this article was a good read in order to confirm some thoughts I had about it but also to give me a few new ways to think about WF.

If you, like me, prefer to write your own (bad? =) code and don’t mind handling threading and stuff like that yourself, using WF might not be the most appealing thing for you to use. But rest assured, something called custom activities is available and that’s the place where you wanna strut your stuff! As many others say, this technology just means you get to spend more quality time writing business-related code and don’t have to bother with the infrastructure, which – to be honest – gets a bit tedious the n:th time you implement it.

Happy reading!

<P.S.> I wrote the most of this post on my P1i (which happens to have an absolutely horrid keyboard) using the WPhone plugin for mobile WordPress access. The only drawback is that I haven’t yet figured out how to add links using this plugin, therefore I had to finish this post in a real browser. </P.S.>

I should start this post with clarifying that I have no factual evidence saying that the abbreviation BFF actually stands for Best Friend Forever (eventhough I’ve checked out the website briefly).

I’ve been fairly non-updated regarding what’s going on on TV these days (apart from Mythbusters and Top Gear), but this night I happened to see a little snippet of  Paris Hilton’s My New BFF. I’m quite honestly and truly stunned. So, where to begin with this? I’m seriously wondering if it is true that there actually exists fourteen girls in this world which all have the full and clear intent to actually be nominated “Paris Hiltons New Best Friend Forever”!

Obviously there is also a weekly nomination. One of the girls is selected to be Paris’ pet! I probably wouldn’t care as much if I knew what it meant, but hearing it completely ripped out of context like that almost knocked me out of the sofa, and that’s not including the immense feeling of emptiness in my soul when I saw the nominees reaction – complete and utmost happiness! I mean, what the hell!? After having gained conciousness again it turns out that being Paris’ pet requires you to be some sort of spy keeping your eyes and ears on the rest of the group of girls and then reporting back to Paris on what’s going on. And what does the newly nominated pet do? She tells everyone that she is the new pet! Again, what the hell!?

I wonder what the feeling must be while sitting there in the middle of the stage with a serious face and without a flinch have to listen to every girls motivation as to why she should be the new best friend of Paris. Oh! And the fake tears are a must! Especially when one of the girls has to tell everyone with a broken voice what a shitty life she had while growing up and that she didn’t have any self esteem what so ever and that she believes that she can be the true best friend forever because she is a strongly believing christian.

What I’ll take away from this short experience of modern day television is that I now officially know that I’m getting old. You know that you’re old when you no longer know what the abbreviations used in the daily language of todays youngsters stand for. Let me give you an example: after one of the girls got eliminated another one said something and ended it with “TTYN”. I had to use google and then check what was listed on Yahoo! Answers to get it!

I’m doomed! I will now crawl back under the stone from which I came this evening. See ya.

Today I’ve been totally swamped with answering emails and attending meetings. Luckily the meetings had a good agenda and a good leader. The reason I’m so swamped with these things is that I from today have taken over the technical responsibility for the application/platform I’m working with.

From a productivity standpoint an excellent tool I used today was the good old task list (of course written in notepad =). Just the act of writing the stuff you need to to down can be soothing. Now I just need to keep that list from growing out of control. ;)

I finally made it back on to facebook. Not that I’ve been struggling with the possibility to do so, it’s just that I haven’t had the urge to. But now I’ve buckled under the pressure. I guess we’ll have to see where this ends up. *shivers* =)

So, back home from this years Wave Gotik Treffen. The trip to Leipzig went without a hitch apart from the fact that it turns out that my passport has expired. Obviously my passport was only valid for two years and I got it in 2006. Luckily all I needed for travelling within the European Union was an ID – which I had with me. Also my knee support gave the security guy at the security check the shivers. So much that he had to take me in a separate room and ask me to strip. I had totally forgotten that I was wearing it and that it contains four metal rods. Oups! =)

Evening 0:

We started out with dumping our luggage at the hostel and then going to the local absinth bar where the preparty for WGT had already started. Managed to get home in decent time after two rum’n'cokes.

Day 1:

Got up fairly early and went to get breakfast at PicNic. Went to get our wristbands and started enjoying our festival drinks contained in our 1 litre Coca Cola bottles. Then straight of to Werk II for the band Paniclift. Never heard of them before and I’ll probably never hear anything from them again due to them not having any real profile to their music. Two friends and I tried to start a moshpit, but we failed miserably. All we managed to get was a bunch of kidney jabs from some aggravated bystander.

In order to find something else to do we went to the Agra hall and did some shopping. Sadly I can’t really remember what we shopped, but it was something. Now, why do I know that we were shopping? Because we were late to the Combichrist concert where a bunch of us had decided that we would join a real moshpit! Luckily my fellow moshpitters had waited for me so as soon as I arrived we went straight in to hell. Moshpits in Germany at TBM concerts seem to be governed by three rules: adrenaline, aggression and consideration. The two first ones are pretty evident what they are for, but the third one could use some more explanation: I did fall over at one time and immediately everyone around me started keeping other people from stepping on me and helped me up on my feet. As soon as they could see that I was standing on my own two feet again the shoving resumed. Lovely! =)

Next up was Sara Noxx & Friends. I’ve always wanted to see Sara Noxx so I was really looking forward to it. Nothing else to do but head back to Werk II and get in line. We got in and the concert started. Sadly the sound technician must’ve been insanely drunk or completely incompetent, because as soon as Sara opened her mouth the feedback began screeeeeching in the loudspeakers. The never really got a grip on it so the whole concert was pretty much bummed due to this technical mishap.

Instead of staying at Werk II and listen to Die Form we decided to go back to Agra to see Project Pitchfork. Nothing much to say about it really apart from that it was a good concert. They played a bunch of old and well known tracks with good beats and the crowd seemed to respond well to it as well – always nice with a crowd that’s alive and kicking! We also had an ambition to go out and party at some club that night, but going back to the room and letting your feet out of the boots you’ve been wearing all day isn’t really helping your motivation. We went to bed instead.

Day 2:

The day started out with the compulsory breakfast at PicNic (scrambled eggs and bacon and  some other stuff along side). After that I managed to spend about €200 on one outfit destined to be used at a party later during the festival. A lot of money, but WGT only occurs once a year and you need to do something fun with the money you’ve been saving up. =)

Next up on stage at Agra was YelworC which turned out to be, how should I put it? Grossly overrated. I thought that I could stand the music in favor of keeping a good spot in the crowd for the next concert, but when I looked at the time and it turned out that only 12 minutes of this dreadful concert had elapsed I made a split second decision to leave the premises. This in favor of my mental sanity. Okay, the music isn’t my taste – someone else might like it, but the stage performance was gut wrenching. Not in the gory or bizzarre way, just pathetic. Sorry, but that’s the way I look at it.

Instead of just standing around and awaiting the upcoming Feindflug concert we obviously had to go around and go back in when it was safe to enter the concert hall again. This time a good friend of ours had decided that he’d join the moshpit – which he did. Twice. He had to come back and put cooling gel on his knee which he managed to injure when he fell down on the floor in the moshpit. Undeterred by this minor setback he pushed his way back into the moshpit and we didn’t see him again until the concert was over. The concert was nothing new compared to previous ones. Good music and a good performance. Although the theme of the music isn’t that joyful and is better listened to non-live they did a good job of not over celebrating their performance.

Some of you may have noticed that I put VNV Nation on the list so that I would remember to stay away from the concert. I failed. VNV Nation were scheduled to play right after Feindflug and our knee-injured friend was deeply determined to see the concert, so we decided to hang around and see it anyways. It turns out that although I’m a bit bored by the thought of listening to VNV Nation when I look at my CDs I don’t have that much of a problem with the concerts. A VNV Nation concert without an audience would without a doubt be an utterly devastating experience, but given the fact that the whole venue was packed with people and that everyone in the crowd was going along with the concert it proved to be a rather pleasant experience. Good job Mark and Ronan.

Going out clubbing that night was quickly deemed to be a bad idea given the fact that we wanted to be awake for a long while the next night. So we went home and went to sleep.

Day 3:

More shopping at Agra. This time more records than clothes (okay, I have to admit – I did buy one band t-shirt). Apart from shopping we drank german festival punch – dangerous, but good stuff I tell you! Without wasting any time we got in a cab and dashed to Parkbühne in order to see Aesthetic Perfection. Their new album is a kick-ass production which deserves to be listened to – so we did just that! Only saw the last half of the concert due to alcohol restrictions at the venue and we needed to take turns guarding the bottles left outside, but what I saw of it I enjoyed thoroughly. The same can be said about Icon of Coil which played afterwards. Mark Jackson (VNV Nation) played pranks on Andy by carrying around other band members from Combichrist behind his back on stage, nice with a soft and relaxed attitude at concerts. =)

Now back to reality and the fact that we didn’t have much time to get ready for the upcoming club night and actually make it there in time for the doors. So, grab a cab and zip back to the hostel for a change of clothes and a slight intake of alcohol. Disregarding the fact that we missed the opening time by about two hours and that the line was longer than anything I’ve seen before it was a great night! Awesome music in an awesome location! The drinks were a bit on the bland and small side, but that might’ve been a good thing actually. We danced and hung out until about 4:30 AM and then went back home in a cab. I slept like a baby that night.

Day 4:

Last day of the WGT. Got up, mixed up a couple of bottles of drinks and had breakfast at PicNic (again). Went to Agra to stroll around a bit and maybe do some more shopping. I know atleast someone who did some good shopping that day and it wasn’t me =). Given the nice weather we met up with some friends and had some more of that german killer-punch along with something called “quarkbällchen”. Can’t really describe it in a good manner except that it looks like a ball of white dough which has been deep fried and then rolled in sugar. Does magic to your intoxication! Since it was the last day of the WGT we had planned to go to the farewell party held at the Moritzbastei which is a medieval venue in the middle of town. It also has a concert location which luckily for us was hosting a few good bands before the party started. We wanted to see Patenbrigade:Wolff there but were too late (and the line to the concert room was looooooong). Instead we hade to make due with Sonar which was magic! I love seeing electronic bands without singers performing live. How can I tell that what they did was live? Well, you hear small mistakes when they’re not 100% on-beat with their equipment and that type of stuff. That type of performance is up there with Proyecto Mirage (who didn’t play this year but have been at the WGT atleast two times before (saw them both times)). Need to get me some Sonar records. Final band of the WGT (atleast for us) was Scandy. Third time we saw Andy on stage (Combichrist and Icon of Coil being the first two times). Can’t say that I’m that overly impressed with the music, but the stage performance was atleast average.

The club night afterwards was really enjoyable. Met a bunch of good friends, both Swedish and foreign. Was handed a drink which I thought was rum’n'coke but turned out to be cherry coke (or coke mixed with some cherry stuff) with tequila in it. Bluärgh! =) Went to the dancefloor where we stayed for about… a lot of hours. A weird mix of music, everything from Nirvana to Lady Gaga via Rammstein, was played by the DJ. Enjoyed the dancing and distractions and drank some water (I’m almost proud of myself). At about 6 AM we decided that we needed to take the party elsewhere and went back to the hostel for a night of well deserved sleep!

Day 5:

This day was dedicated to recuperating and do some traditional sightseeing of Leipzig. We first woke up at about 11 AM (i.e. only after five hours of sleep) but didn’t manage to get out of the room until about 1:30 PM. Breakfast at PicNic (extra everything this day). Eventhough I didn’t have a press pass for this years festival I had brought my camera along anyway for taking pictures of Leipzig and perhaps doing some urban exploration. So at about 3 PM we headed out for a location I’ve been looking at ever since I came to Leipzig the first time. I’ll be posting pictures of it at a later time – no worries. =)

Got back into town for dinner at Schnitzel Culture where we immediately drank approximately one litre of apfelschorle (appel juice mixed with mineral water). Mr. smarty pants (me) had forgotten to bring something along to drink when going out under the blistering sun to take pictures, so a lot of fluid had to be procured in order to prevent a potential killer head ache. A schnitzel was ordered and it was niiiiice. I can understand why some people in our group had both breakfast and dinner at that restaurant. Our plan was to conclude this feast with a trip to the local Häägen Dazs store and top it all of with some ice cream. Because they closed at 9 PM we had to hurry and as a result of that not everyone was interested in ice cream, especially not the person who had tried to push down 300 gr. of schnitzel just ten minutes before! Great going. =) The evening was ended with some packing and a short visit to the absinth bar (the same as when we arrived in Leipzig), where I actually didn’t drink anything with alcohol in it! Go in bed at about 11 PM.

Day 6:

Travel day. Train leaving at 6:51 AM. Had to get up 5:25 AM. Tired. Got up. Got on train with sandwich in paper bag. Felt like zombie. Slept a few minutes. Arrived in Berlin. Had to stand outside and freeze. Waited for another train. Froze some more. Finally arrived at airport. Bought another sandwich. Got on airplane. Ate sandwich – was happy. Pestered friend with questions about role playing games. Heard the co-pilot saying that the temperature at our destination was nine degree celsius. Had to keep darling from starting a riot in the airplane due to the meteorological circumstances. Fell asleep before landing. Woke up at touch down because it almost made me swallow my toungue. Waited for luggage. Got on Arlanda Express. Got off Arlanda Express. Went home. Tried to keep awake. Failed. Went to bed. Already looking forward to the next year. Only 350-something days left now.

Musical conclusion:

Using the list of the bands I had intended to see with, only this time giving you the actual result:

• Aesthetic Perfection (USA)
• Agonoize (D) – if nothing better is going on at the same time
• ASP (D)
• Cat Rapes Dog (S) – depends on what’s going on otherwise at that time
• Client (GB)
• Combat Company (D) – don’t know what to expect really
• Combichrist (N) – here on the other hand I do know what to expect. Pain. =)
• Container 90 (S) – we’ll see what this turns out to be
• Die Form (F)
• FabrikC (D) – this can not be missed!
• Feindflug (D) – seen them way more times than what’s healthy for you – but why not again? =)
• Fetisch:Mensch (D) – don’t remember if I’ve heard anything by this band before or not, let’s give it a shot
• FGFC 820 (USA) – let’s hope their stage show isn’t as pathetic as one of their music videos
• Frozen Plasma (CH)
• Icon Of Coil (N/CDN) – not seen live before, partly the same crew as in Combichrist
• KMFDM (USA) – ooooh yeees!
• Lahannya (GB)
• Megaherz (D) – this could be insanely boring, but it could also be great
• Melotron (D)
• Painbastard (D) – last time I saw this guy live it was a great show, let’s hope he can repeat it this year
• Patenbrigade:Wolff (D) – TURMDREHKRAN
• Project Pitchfork (D) – a potential sleeping pill, but if nothing else requires my attention I’ll be there
• Qntal (D) – always wanted to see them, but last time it was impossible to get into the venue even with a press pass
• SAM (D) – oh hell yeah!
• Sara Noxx & Friends (D) – I’d be willing to go to pretty great lengths to see her perform live
• Scandy (N) – I’m assuming this’ll be a DJ set in one of the night clubs
• Shnarph! (D) – this also can’t be missed
• Solitary Experiments (D)
• Sonar (B) – not really my taste in electronic style, but might fly anyway
• VNV Nation (GB) – now why did I put this band on the list? SO I CAN AVOID IT!
• Winterkälte (D) – I like freezing in the winter =)
• Yelworc (D)