Wordless Wednesday - Massive

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday - Skolebolle

Wordless Wednesday
- a Norwegian Danish

Keys

They were tucked behind a little notepad, in the tiny envelope they were handed to me in by the attorney handling my grandma's estate. Nearly exactly four years after her death, I finally got around to handing them over to whoever had taken over her apartment.

I hadn't been by there in all this time. I realized that in four years, some habits have faded and I had to actually think for a moment where my most effective route was. I was fine until I caught sight of her balcony - the only one in her building that was glassed in. A familiar tightness arrived in my chest.

I couldn't remember if her downstairs call button was the second one up from the bottom. I couldn't remember which mailbox was hers, though I suspected it was the third from the left, but the names on the mailboxes did not help.

I went up the one flight of stairs, so familiar and yet oddly unfamiliar, to the door that had not changed. But it had no name, so there was no help there. I decided to ring the bell. I could hear children inside. A tall blonde woman of about 30, with a bit of a gap between her front teeth, answered the door. Without preamble (but typically me), I asked if she had changed the locks since she'd moved in. She hadn't. I handed her the little envelope and explained that they were an extra set of keys. The place had belonged to my grandparents, I said. Here are the extra keys. She seemed happy to get them.

I was happy to finally get them delivered, and left the building feeling light-hearted. I thought Grandma would be pleased to know a family had taken over the old place; she loved children. And then the old feeling of irrevocable loss came back, the grief swelled again, and I hardly noticed where I was walking. I wished I hadn't felt that all over again.

Losing a loved one leaves a wound with a scab that can be picked off years later, repeatedly. It is what it is. I know I'm not the only who can feel such hurt years later. Still, I'm glad the keys are now where they belong.

Where my weather forecast really comes from

Here I was, thinking that the data the Norwegian meteorological institute (NMI) uses to forecast the weather for the 70,000 places it brags about forecasting via the website yr.no was collected by charming geezers in wayward places, who empty little cups marked in tenths of millimeters to say how much rain has fallen and observe the wind sock next to the chicken coop to say which way and how hard the wind is blowing. But it's not cups and wind socks. It's more like fishing nets.

I got curious about the weather, that is, the weather forecasting, after reading in today's local paper that areas that rely on cabin rentals as a source of income are complaining about yr.no's forecasts. The complaint is that the forecasts are so pessimistic that tourists cancel their cabin stays. Rain or cool weather is often forecasted by yr.no but the reality is sunshine or milder temperatures. Yr.no had an explanation: They don't actually measure the weather in all areas on their list of 70,000, but make a sort of average based on the grid points surrounding the area. The grid points are set up by the numerical weather prediction model HIRLAM (High Resolution Limited Area Model). HIRLAM is based on a consortium of the meteorological bureaus of nine European countries, including Norway's. Here is a sample of various data at the grid points for Sweden.

The Norwegian meteorological institute explains HIRLAM like this (my translation based on their page in Norwegian): Imagine casting a fishing net where the size of a mesh hole is 10 square kilometers. Where the threads of adjacent holes meet is a grid point. At each grid point, barometric pressure, humidity, wind and temperature are measured over time. There are layers and layers of these "fishnets", going up as high as 50 km in the atmosphere, and there are two mesh sizes: approximately 10 km (0.1 degree of horizontal separation) and approximately 50 km (0.5 degree of horizontal separation). Met.no says:

Because the atmosphere follows the laws of physics, we can calculate how changes in each grid point will influence surrounding grid points. It is an enormous math problem. To solve it, we need a computer - a super-computer as powerful as possible.

Predictions can be a bit off for weather systems that are less than 10 km wide (like a local thunderstorm), or for areas on the map that fall between grid points. The weather bureau interpolates the data in such cases.

But yr.no had another problem, which wasn't with the accuracy of its predictions, but how they were presented. yr.no has now realized that people ignored the text forecast, and focused on the symbols. Showing a rain cloud in the graphics for a minimum of rain was throwing (and putting) people off. Yr.no changed an algorithm in their computer program so minimal rain will now still show a sun or cloud with sun. That'll bring back the cabin renters.

In spite of ever-increasing computer power and ever-increasing amounts of data, weather can still not be predicted beyond ten days ahead and no prediction beyond five days can be considered reliable. The reason for that is the inherent chaos of atmospheric behavior. That butterfly effect, you know. Fishnets can't catch butterflies.

Wordless Wednesday - Church bells

Wordless Wednesday

In pairs

I'm back on Twitter. And Facebook. I'm kafox9 on Twitter and kafox on Facebook.

There.

I am no longer a dinosaur. I am no longer hitting myself in the face with a hammer. I have decided I can't beat them so I join them. And I owe it to these two ladies.

Speaking of two ladies, here's a pair I want to be like when I grow up and here's why. I love people who call a shovel a shovel.

To the scared Swedish youth: I'm sorry.

(This is an English translation of a Norwegian original.)

Today I came across a well-written essay from a Swedish teenager. She was scared to death about her generation. She is worried about what will become of them. They seem to be so self-destructive. They are still embarrassed in the school locker room, while being happily posing in minimal clothes on the web. The Swedish teenager wants to know where we, who were kids in the 60's, are as parents. Why do we not look in on our kids? Why do we not read their Myspace or blog pages? Why do we not insist on making them come home at a decent hour? She touched a nerve in me, and I left the longest comment I've ever written on the Norwegian site that first pointed me to the Swedish girl's entry. This is my translation of that comment:

To the Swedish youth who wrote that she was scared to death: I'm sorry.

I am a 48-year-old woman, born as the 1960's started. I don't have children of my own, but I do have powers of observation. I have often said that we who were kids in the 60's are the last generation who had adults around us - named and nameless - who looked after us, chewed us out, guided us, _saw_ us. We had good reason to respect the grown-ups and rules.

Then society became far more lenient, and rules and respect in society disappeared. It didn't go to hell, but it was the end of deferring humbly to authority. So-called **"free child-rearing"** started. For some reason, it was believed that kids who got grades in school or were scolded for behaving badly were oppressed. I was never oppressed! Quite the contrary: I learned the difference between right and wrong, how to make amends if I hurt a friend, and how to stay out of trouble. I knew where I stood, both as a person and as a student, and what to do to improve myself.

My generation has a foundation that later generations didn't get. Because we know the rules, we can break them. We know what the alternative is if ignoring the rules doesn't work as well as we thought. But: We haven't passed the rules on to our children. We haven't noticed the _warning signs_. We haven't noticed that society has become materialistic without room for today's young to participate on those terms. Instead, we've given the young the impression that they have to live up to the message in advertising in order to be successful. My young mind was not influenced by such things; NRK - our only channel - had no ads. My generation could leave school at age 16 and get a job and were actually welcomed by the adults. They trained us; they believed we could think and be responsible. And we could because that was what was expected of us. Now we have money, we have cars, we have both parents working, we can afford cheap vacations to the Mediterranean (a rare event in the 70's) and complain if it isn't cheap enough.

We, who grew up without so many _things_ around us, are now surrounded by stuff - and have forgotten what made our own childhoods safe, which the Swedish girl misses: Attention from and guidance by the grown-ups.

She says that we adults are clueless about what goes on on the internet. She is quite right. Not everyone my age got to touch a computer on her first full-time job as a teenager - and liked it so much it has since been both a regular part of work and a hobby. But I know what to avoid on the 'net. I know what will make me feel sick. But I am nevertheless somewhat naïve because I don't participate in youth culture. My generation has not considered what impact modern technology and the internet has and that this is what today's kids are growing up with. We also haven't considered how current sexualization and objectifying affects today's people, especially the young.

I'm sorry, teens. I'm sorry that we who are older have not have the right priorities when it comes to you. There is nothing wrong with you, but I see that you live in a far more chaotic and confusing world than the one we had. I see that you haven't been made clear on how to be your own best friend, in other words, have self-respect for and a sense of responsibility to both yourselves and others. You haven't been given something to reach for, and you haven't been given anything to protect yourself with.

In order to survive chaos, it is good to know that some guides to life are eternal: Kindness and respect between people; friendship; self-respect; personal responsibility; knowing one's self-worth does not depend on outer things such as fashion or income; and a belief that the world does actually progress and is basically safe. No matter what some cynics will claim, people are still mainly good to each other.

That is what you and all young people should learn as children. It would help you navigate the teen years a little more easily.

Til svensk ungdom som er redd: Jeg beklager.

I dag kom jeg over et godt skrevet innlegg fra en svensk jente via Aftenposten. Den svenske jenten er livredd for sin generasjon. Hun opplever generasjonen sin som selvdestruktiv; de er sjenerte i fellesdusjen, men publiserer nakenbilder på nettet. Hun savner at foreldrene bryr seg, og henvender seg til oss som født på 60-tallet. Det hun sa fikk meg til å skrive det lengste kommentaren noensinne, og jeg gjengir den her.

Til den svenske ungdommen som skrev at hun er livredd: Jeg beklager.

Jeg er en kvinne på 48, født idet 60-tallet begynte. Jeg har ikke barn selv, men jeg har observasjonsevne. Jeg har ofte sagt at vi som var barn på 60-tallet var den siste generasjonen som hadde voksne rundt oss - kjente og ukjente - som passet på oss, kjeftet på oss, veiledet oss, _så oss_. Vi hadde grunn til å respektere voksne og regler.

Så skjedde en voldsom oppmyking og endatil opphør av både regler og respekt i samfunnet. Det gikk ikke til helvete, men å bøye seg ydmyk for autoriteter var det slutt på. Og den såkalte "fri oppdragelse" begynte. Av en eller annen grunn ble det oppfattet at unger som fikk karakterer i skolen eller fikk refs for dårlig oppførsel ble kuet. Jeg var da aldri kuet! Tvertimot: Jeg lærte forskjell på rett og galt, hvordan jeg skulle gjøre opp for meg om jeg skulle såre en venn, og hvordan jeg skulle unngå bråk. Jeg visste hvor jeg stod, både som elev og menneske, og hva jeg skulle gjøre for å forbedre meg selv.

Min generasjon har en ballast som senere generasjoner ikke fikk. Fordi vi kan reglene, kan vi bryte dem. Vi vet jo hva alternativet er om regelbrytingen ikke var så heldig. Men: Vi har ikke lært reglene videre til våre barn. Vi har ikke sett _faresignalene_. Vi har ikke sett at samfunnet er blitt materialistisk uten å gi ungdommen noen mulighet til å delta, men har heller gitt ungdommen det inntrykk av at de må leve opp til reklamens budskap for å være vellykket. Mitt unge sinn ble ikke påvirket av sånt; NRK - vår eneste kanal - hadde ikke reklame. Min generasjon kunne gå ut i arbeid som 16-åringer og ble faktisk ønsket velkommen av de voksne. De lærte oss opp; de trodde vi hadde hjerne og ansvarsfølelse. Og det hadde vi fordi omgivelsene ikke forventet annet. Nå har vi penger, vi har biler, vi har begge foreldre i jobb, vi har råd til å reise til syden flere ganger for året (da jeg var tenåring var det uvant om noen reiste til syden i det hele tatt), og vi klager over det hvis vi må betale mer enn 1000 kroner pr. person pr. uke.

Vi, som vokste opp uten så mange _ting_ rundt oss, omgir oss nå med ting - og har helt glemt hva som gjorde våre egne barndom trygge, som den unge svenske jenten savner: Oppmerksomhet og veiledning fra de voksne.

Hun bemerker at vi voksne ikke har peiling på hva som skjer på internet. Det har hun gjerne rett i. Det er ikke alle på min alder som fikk ta i en datamaskin på sin første fulltidsjobb som tenåring - og som likte det og har det både som arbeidsverktøy og hobby. Men jeg vet hva jeg skal styre unna på nettet. Hva som ikke vil få meg til å føle meg vel. Men jeg er likevel noe blåøyd fordi jeg ikke deltar direkte i ungdomskulturen. Min generasjon har ikke tatt høyde for hvilken gjennomslagskraft moderne teknologi og internett har hatt og at barn vokser opp med det. Vi har heller ikke tatt høyde for seksualiseringen og objektifiseringen som påvirker dagens mennesker, spesielt ungdom.

Jeg beklager, ungdom. Jeg beklager at vi eldre ikke har hatt de rette prioriteringer overfor dere. Det feiler dere ingenting, men jeg ser at dere lever i et langt mer kaotisk og forvirrende verden enn den vi hadde. Jeg ser at dere ikke har fått en oppfatning av hvordan være deres egen beste venn, mao. selv-respekt og ansvarsfølelse overfor både dere selv og andre. Dere har ikke fått noe å strekke dere etter, og dere har ikke fått noe å beskytte dere med.

For å overleve kaos er det godt å vite at det finnes visse ting en kan alltid styre livet sitt etter: Godhet og respekt mellom mennesker; vennskap; selv-respekt; personlig ansvar; vissheten at en ens egenverdi ikke er avhengig av ytre ting som mote eller inntekt; og troen på at verden faktisk går fremover og er egentlig trygg. Uansett hvor kyniske enkelte vil påstå at verden er blitt, så er mennesker fortsatt i hovedsak gode mot hverandre.

Det burde du og alle ungdommer fått lære som barn, så hadde ungdomstiden vært litt lettere å navigere.

(English translation.)

Don't stop 'til you get enough

When I woke up this morning and heard Michael Jackson had died, my first thought was, "Now he won't suffer any more." I have never had the impression that he was a happy man, an impression supported by what I've heard about his childhood, his family, his plastic surgeries and the accusation of his molesting children. So my first thought was that he was now finally at peace. A genius with music, but not with living.

I do not write about celebrities, but Michael Jackson has the odd distinction of being one of only two celebrities I have ever said hello to in Los Angeles. It may sound weird, but you can live for years in Los Angeles and not meet any show biz people. All you have to do is not move in their circles. But sometimes circles overlap, if only momentarily.

It was the autumn of 1979. I was a computer temp, mainly working part time while I went to college in the morning. One job was for an accountant in Beverly Hills. We were four girls in one office, entering various accounting data, like cancelled checks for various clients.

One day some great music came from our boss's office. "What's that?" we wanted to know. "It's Michael Jackson's new solo album," we were told. Michael Jackson had released several solo albums as a child, but it was this album in 1979, produced by Quincy Jones, that launched Michael's adult career away from his brothers, The Jackson 5, and Motown. And one day, he was at our office. While being shown out after a visit with our boss, our boss stopped in our doorway and invited us to say hi to Michael. We cheerfully said "Hello, Michael!", seated at our computers, to Michael standing in the doorway. And we got a boyish and shockingly shy "hi" in return.

That did not stop us from buying "Off the Wall". And at a party one of my office mates invited me to, the record we played the most that evening was "Off the Wall". It was my first "grown-up" party, where I drove a girlfriend and myself, and we had wine, and we went home with a couple of guys for a bit, and by the time I got home, it was 6:30 am.

The opening track, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", is still a huge favorite of mine, and features Michael's soon-to-be iconic, falsetto vocal insertions (hiccups) without limitation. I remember we thought it was odd, but it worked. It worked well. "Off the Wall" was a huge hit, with several tracks he wrote himself and co-produced, and gave him and the music industry faith in the new direction of his solo career.

Michael was known for his glittering glove, but before the glove were his glittering socks, as shown on the cover of "Off the Wall". I bought the CD version on vacation in Germany several years ago, happy to reacquaint myself with a fond memory.

Thanks for letting millions of us rock with you, Michael.

Wordless Wednesday - Ulven pond

Wordless Wednesday