A Roll in the Universe

Everybody's talking about it . Everybody. But to tell the truth, hearing about it is getting as tiring as that other piece of "news" . And when Joy of Tech does three jokes in a row about it, I've had enough. There is no where to turn where it's not mentioned. Even iTunes is out in a new version solely so I can sync to it. And the darned thing may not even work in Norway when it finally gets here sometime in October. So can we talk about something else, please?

Making the rounds of some Norwegian blogs is a meme about what you remember from 1987 (a 20th anniversary). I can't tell you anything about popular culture, fashion, top 40 hits, news items, or the year's best movies without looking it up, because I can't remember. I do remember 1987, though, because that was the beginning of my first experience of a Saturn transit to my Sun and Moon and 12th and 6th houses. That's astrological symbolism for matters affecting the psyche, work, and ego with Saturn meaning time to throw out what doesn't work; the reality was being downsized at work and finding myself facing possible unemployment, making me feel depressed. It was at this time I rediscovered the power of affirmations, and managed to keep myself from continuing to worry about things I could do nothing about. I did eventually get placed in a different department at work. Not ideal, as it turned out, nor permanent, but I learned a skill that I did enjoy and that led me

The above quote is from Matthew Erwin's blogpost on one of three most pivotal discoveries of our time. The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy (Sag DEG) was discovered in 1994 , replacing the Large Magellanic Cloud as the closest galaxy to ours. The Sagittarius DEG is currently circling the Milky Way in a dissolving loop . If we could see infrared, we would see our entire sky look like the Milky Way. In the years since Sag DEG was discovered, we have come to realize that it is actually being cannibalized by the Milky Way. Matthew Erwin has used this information to come up with some theories for the following: Why our solar system is at a near 90 degree slant relative to the Milky, why the Mayan calendar ends in 2012, and why we are currently experiencing global warming. If we follow Erwin's theory, that right angle view is of someone else's galaxy, and we aren't being invaded, as APOD said in 1998 . We are the invaders. And this is Erwin's explanation for w

Elsewhere in Blogland (Blogdom, Blogovia, Blogostan, etc., take your pick) or at least that part of the Country of Blog I visit, the debate of freedom of speech and how far can you go in saying mean or threatening things to someone in a comments war has resurfaced. I've already given my opinion on the matter , and although several have told me that the right to free speech is meant to limit government censorship, not to keep people from lying about each other, I think my earlier post still makes my point in the debate. Some other citizens of the Country of Blog have found it necessary to post a comment policy for their blogs. Understandably. I have seen the flame wars of Usenet make their way into comments of people's blogs. Same nastiness, same off-topic and personal attacks. And in some cases, same altering of the original comment. But one reason is because the blog owner lets it happen. And why? Well, maybe because they want everyone to like them, or they have sworn in

Sravana and I have been having a discussion about using the new Norwegian weather website, yr.no , mentioned in my last post . She noted some oddnesses and I've noted them, too, but it is hard to tell if this is intentional or a bug. The site is still in beta. So for those of you who don't speak Norwegian, here's some navigation help, if you want to check weather anywhere: At the top of every page is a search field. "Værsøk" is the site's own combination of weather (vær) and search (søk). Click on that to start the search. The text under the search field is telling you to type a place name. Norway has its own links by region under "Varsel for Norge" (forecast for Norway) in the sidebar at left. "Varsel for utlandet" (forecast abroad) is for the rest of the world. Pretty self-explanatory even with K's where C's would be. Nord = north, Sør = South. Asia covers everything from Israel to Japan. Where Sravana ran into trouble was

Norway's main broadcasting company (wholly government operated) and Norway's meteorological institute have joined forces and produced a new website , with animated maps and stuff. It's still in beta, but I'm finding it a rather fascinating alternative to the institute's own pages. I can search for my own little neck of the woods, Fyllingsdalen. I am informed that there is no other place on the planet called Fyllingsdalen, and we are part of a city. Going to Fyllingsdalen's own weather page, I learn that the weather station is 3.2 km (2 miles) away (and so likely not even in Fyllingsdalen), and that I am located at 60°21′42″N 05°17′45″E. I also learn that today, which is Midsummer's Eve or St. John's Eve, I can safely leave my umbrella at home if I intend to see the bonfire in my local neighborhood. The meteogram delivered by the institute is a simple graph, with green bars showing precipitation and a red line showing temperature, moving in a strai

No, not the swahili word, but the Mac OS (now also for Windows) web browser: I'm testing the version 3 beta , and I like that I can re-open a tab in a new window, move tabs around in an existing window, and that Safari will warn me before closing a window I've typed some text in. Like just now, when I replied in the comments to my own blog and clicked on the "close window" button, rather than "publish". Safari stopped me from having me a) think I've commented and end up wondering why the computer hates me, or b) having to retype everything all over again and that first draft was so brilliant - and impossible to remember exactly because of course I typed lots this time. ("Re-open last closed window" also rocks.) Why do I close the window rather than press "Publish"? For that, you can blame another piece of Mac software: MacSOUP , wherein one simply closes the window when done typing to save your brilliant retort and await sending bec

A good laugh. That's what. Spurred by the Webmiztris' comment on naming your kid Imola or Werdna (do read that one), I went looking for Imola. It's a town in Northern Italy. But that lead me to this blogger's category of bad baby names , and from that I laughed myself silly at this: Qwuincey - Representing the finest in grammatical errors, Qwuincey’s parents decided to flaut hundreds of years of linguistical tradition and break up the Q-U marriage. But that’s not the worst of it: in the comments some imbecile named Quinsey managed to figure out how to use a keyboard and leave not one but three comments saying that “this is a stuiped webkite”. My own fairly rare first name has its story. My mother saw it in an obituary years before I came along, and liked it. She and my father agreed she'd name the girls and he'd name the sons. So instead of John Henry, I got Keera Ann. My mother missed having a middle name, so she made sure to give me one. The convention was

I like archaeology (can't spell it, but I like it). I like stuff about religion. I am fortunate enough to belong to a culture where the two get combined all the time, thanks to a book that's actually a collection of books, called The Bible. Fact or fiction, God's actual words, or just men's. This is the debate about the Bible. Add to that debate the book "The Bible Unearthed" , a very scholarly archaological look at the history of ancient Israel and the version of it that's in the Bible. Because it is such a scholarly read, it took me a while to get through it. Not exactly a page-turner, but for anyone who wants to know about the buried past of Israel, this book will tell all. With maps. I finished the book because it had one hook: After all this archaeological digging around (no pun intended) in the Bible passages, the authors promise that there was a reason why the Bible was written after the fact, and therefore ended up with a screwy timeline and so

"Heia" is an encouraging shout in Norwegian, and "Heia Brann!" is of course what any decent citizen of Bergen shouts at a home football (soccer, to you leftpondians) match. Bergen's pride and joy and disappointment (a team for all eventualities) has just added a whole new section to their aging stadium, and it has turned out gorgeous. My labor union treats local members to a monthly dinner and this time the venue was Brann Stadion (lit. Fire Stadium, fire being the bane of Bergen), referred to as "stadda'en" by the truly local. Its northern side now sports a brand-new section of choice seats, lounges, and the city's largest restaurant. The photo shows a bunch of insurance and banking people entering throught the new section. I'm the one with the camera. (Made you look, didn't I.) Inside on the luxury side, we viewed the existing bleachers. If the team is to keep making money, and also have room for the regular folks, a similar expa

Paula was tagged to do a piece on the pop music of the year she turned 18 . I turned 18 the year before her, in 1978 . Luckily, 1978 wasn't a bad year for music. However, very little really stands out in my mind. Some of these songs I associate with driving to and from work in my car, which means they survived into 1979 and on. I bought my car in January 1979 (as I recall; I know it wasn't long after my 18th birthday). Here are my comments on the list (and to make it easy, * means I don't remember/recognize anything about the song): Last Dance - Donna Summer - I still like this song. Many of Summer's songs were my favorites in the 70's. Disco Inferno - Trammps - I still like this song, too, but I prefer the radio edit. Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton - I don't remember this from 1978. I associate it with dancing in Norway. Good to move slow and close to. Paradise By The Dashboard Light - Meatloaf - This was discovered later in life, but happily so. Just

This is supposed to be another slacker report, but I'm not really slacking. It's just that I'm not blogging. So what am I doing that's not blogging? Here's a list: Mulling this "tag" from another blogger over in my mind, looking for some way to respond, because I think it's worth responding to. Downloading podcasts from this site (via iTunes ) to try to make sense of some anger I've been venting lately, as well as learn about buddhism. Helping a friend in frequent e-mails sort out her break-up with a boyfriend of 7 years, as well as discussing buddhism, spirit guides, and some childhood/emotional stuff, which also concerns my own development. And which brought up some of the above mentioned anger. The spirit guide discussion has brought back one spirit guide I used to have as well as my current one, and my frustration/anger seems to be the moment before change. It's time to move on, move forwards and I can feel I must. I just hadn't

Many people have photo blogs or publish photos to their blogs. Some are happy amateurs and will forever remain so (like yours truly), while some happy amateurs have the makings of going pro. My good friend Alice is one. She has the "eye" for photography, and captures birds and other critters especially well. Another natural talent is Hanne (who I know from the Norwegian Mac Usenet group). You won't understand what she writes unless you're Norwegian, but you can certainly appreciate her pictures, especially her macro photography, like a rabbit's eye and the hidden beauty of a dandelion .

June days are perfect for gathering people for almost anything. My trip to the city today to get my hair cut, had me getting off the bus one stop sooner than planned because I saw all this color on our "festival square" - Festplassen. It turned out to be a huge collection of Corvettes, handled with much care and love. I noticed models from 1966 - and 2007. In Norway, old American cars (mainly cars from my childhood) are a huge hobby, but are seen only in the summer, when they no longer salt the roads. In fact, seeing a classic Buick on the road is a sure sign of spring. Over on Fisketorget - the fish market - an old tradition had been reinstated: Torgdag (Market Day). People came in on the old-style boats they used 100 or so years ago, and some dressed in period clothes. In the old days, country folk would row into the city to sell their wares, mainly fresh fish and produce. They rowed because going by boat was actually easier than walking those same miles, and also becau

Some of my favorite reads don't update daily. I don't, either. I don't mind the daily checking of blogs that update maybe every 2 or 3 days, but thanks to you guys who let it go a week or more before finally remembering you have a blog and a reader, I have taken the dive into RSS-feeds and the attendant software to let it tell me when you (other) slackers update. And I've opted for RSS-feed software because I want all the new feeds in one window, more or less. But seeing the number of unread feeds in the application icon is helpful, too. Downside: The software I downloaded (Lite version) has about a thousand pre-defined feeds to subscribe to and of course I want to surf them all. So update your blogs, so I can see the little red number in the application icon in my dock. (And those of you who don't have RSS-feeds, get one! This means you, PJ so I know when you're done fishing.)

Complained to employee ombudsman about Norwegians' propensity to fire up the barbecue at the first sign of hot weather because co-workers chose to do right outside my office window today and the lighter fluid fumes actually made their way indoors. My sinuses hurt for several minutes after just a minute of exposure to that. Other (Norwegian) co-worker agreed that it is a shame that lovely summer days are constantly ruined by stinky cooking methods. Had ice cream with chocolate and nuts and got chocolate stains on new shirt. For some reason, that made it truly feel like summer. Argued with teensy spider on balcony. After I broke her web and her three silky attempts to rebuild said web, she finally got the hint and just stayed on the side of the flower pot until I left my tanning session on the balcony. New web is in place, going at a diagonal to avoid perpendicular spot where it kept breaking earlier today. I think I can live with that. Returned some clothes ordered by mail to ma

Except nobody calls it that here. A record 26.6 C (79.9 F) in the shade during the first week of June in Bergen (60N23 latitude) is not a heatwave; it's SUMMER and is to be celebrated, enjoyed, marvelled at and hoped to last. It is nice compensation for last winter's three months straight of overcast and wet weather. I'm not unaffected. I'm actually overly cheerful. I get out on my balcony every afternoon and tan myself. I sweat if I walk fast. I find it a little harder to sleep at night. This country has no air conditioning anywhere. The upside: I can go to work or shopping without a jacket because there is no cold blast of air indoors. The downside: No cold blast of air on stuffy, crowded city buses. I had a point to this weather report. Oh, yes: Who can be bothered updating a blog when there's SUMMER to be enjoyed? In other news: Today marks the 102nd anniversary of Norway's independence from Sweden.

An insurance company in Norway has interviewed people about bad luck. Is it your own fault when you trip or when you spill or break something? When that happens, how do you explain it? You're clumsy? You're stressed or distracted? Or it's just one of those things? There's a fourth explanation they don't list: It's a message. That's how I interpret things breaking. Breaking something is symbolic. If you are destroying things in your life, it could because things are getting broken inside of you. I know of several people, besides myself, who experienced more breakage after the death of a loved one. Things just went to pieces, as if to emphasize the loss. I have a cookie jar that sat forever on the top of Grandma's refrigerator. It is shaped like a big cabbage with a characterized bunny on its lid. When I was little, she kept Fig Newtons in it and she'd sometimes offer me one. She'd take one, too, and it always felt like she and I were conspirin

I do like blogrolls. During more bored moments, I will surf the entire menu of links on someone's blog and sometimes discover a few gems. But I did like Paula 's idea about not having a blogroll for two reasons: 1) It's no longer a list of who's in and who's out (for those folks saddled with such problems), and 2) Less maintainance. I manage my template manually and that's one reason why I don't tweak links and such all that often. So instead: I give you the link to my del.icio.us page o' blogs (some are in Norwegian, too, and a lot have to do with web design). As of this writing, there are 64 links under that tag. (And already I can see I need to update.)

I'm a slacker, apparantly. I don't update daily. (Actually, I'm considerate. I don't want to bore my readers.) Life is so not-worth-writing about that what I really need is some stupid blog test but my sources (other slackers) have not provided me with any inspiration lately. Therefore I offer random thoughts from this week past: The best hugs are given with one arm over the other person's shoulder, and the other arm around their waist. Meet in the middle of their back for that extra squeeze. Women stalked by ex-husbands get no police protection, in spite of the Norwegian government asking them to. In fact, some women seeking help are told to just get used to the idea that they may be killed. (Yes, I'm shocked and outraged.) Norwegian newspapers suck. There's no news in them. iTunes has updated itself with an iTunes Plus feature (when they start adding "Plus" to a feature, I get skeptical). After three days of frustration (interrupted downloa