A Roll in the Universe

10 days in a bus can still teach one a thing or two. Like how asphalt will tent in extreme heat, blocking the whole autobahn. Or how upsetting Norwegians find dealing with older German tourists who speak fondly of their time in Norway back in the 40's (I'm sure some US GI's have made the same faux pas when visiting Europe). Or that whatever may be going on financially, the Germans and Austrians still manage to keep the sides of their roads manicured. Or that words like "cup" and "large" don't translate at all. It's "large cup" in English, "grosse Tasse" (more or less) in German and "stor kopp" in Norwegian. My German was terribly rusty, but I did manage to use it. And I discovered that German-speakers have something in common with the French: They love that you try to use their language. So, this year's summer vacation was a bit early for me, and it feels like I didn't actually have a vacation. Still, I...

A scene from work: My boss comes over to talk to me, and I am typing something, and continue to do so as I look up at him to answer him. He stares in horrified fascination at my fingers accurately producing words on the screen without me looking, and finally can't stand it any more and orders, "Look down! Look down!" It became a running gag between us. Me, I can't remember when last I saw another person typing with all ten fingers. Touch typing. I see a lot of typing, but it's all done with two or four fingers, evenly distributed between two hands. I did have another boss who typed with four fingers and he was as fast as me with my ten (nine, actually. I don't use my left thumb.). I know how to touch type because my family advised me to take typing classes in school. I discovered I sucked at typing itself—never getting beyond 30 words per minute if I wanted to avoid mistakes—but I was very good at the non-typing stuff: Adjusting margins, changing ri...

So, if you scroll down a bit, there's a list of stuff I read. I have a lot of this on RSS-feeds but decided to share here. Under the category "READ" are blogs and sites that are mostly for reading but may contain photos. Here be some good writing by friends - not necessarily opinions or language you'd agree with, but good writing - a couple of health blogs, a blog for web designers and design junkies, and the official Getting Things Done blog. Under the category "VIEW" are blogs and sites that mostly for looking at or watching. In the first four are three friends of mine who photograph, and do so very well. Don't miss! The Periodic Table of Videos and Sixty Symbols offer videos that explain chemistry and physics, respectively. I would have aced my high school chemistry class and maybe gone into physics if I'd had these videos! Ugly Overload and Walk the Wilderness are about critters: One has the intent of finding things humans deem unappealing, ...

When last I wrote… When the heck was that? Sheesh, a month ago. You know, a proper post with several paragraphs and stuff. Something that requires a cup of coffee to read - and write. (I bought the cup you see because it says "Beautiful Home". Nice affirmation.) I am happily busy at work. That's good. We're redoing our logo and graphic design of brochures, business cards, etc., and I've been thrown into the thick of it. At home I've been getting back into more routines. Or trying to. I at least feel like doing that, which I haven't in quite some time. In the midst of all this, is the fact that there is change. Change is all around me. Things don't stay the same. Tomorrow will not be like yesterday, even if I do nothing. I find that that bothers me. And being bothered by change bothers me. I used to willingly embrace anything new and different. I still do that to some degree. I bought a domain and have started to build my website there using iW...

View Larger Map Wordless Wednesday (Check out Norwegians in Bergen chasing Google 's camera car)

I first saw a computer in the 1970's and my first job out of high school was for a manufacturer of so-called mini-machines: The size of a washing machine, with storage and memory measured in kilobytes, not megabytes, and running BASIC. Barely 10 years later, I was an expert with WordPerfect on an IBM PC, after several years of using a Wang (look it up), and what I learned about Lotus 1-2-3 back then has helped me use Excel ever since. Then came e-mail. What fun! Then came the internet, and I got hooked up at home in 1997. More fun! I even learned HTML and designed my own webpages. I became an eager user of Usenet. I even figured out IRC and took an entire course via ICQ. Web 1.0 was good to me. Web 2.0 came along with interactive applications embedded in the web browser. Some were cooler (and more useful) than others. I like del.icio.us and still use it, and Twitter and Facebook are also in use. And blogs and Blogger, of course! I found a good use for Google Docs the day I ...

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.

This year submitting the income tax forms was done entirely via computer. Forms were received via a web page, and submitted via a web page. A little too quickly on my part. (Next year I won't try to be first.) I should have reacted at the print-out my bank gave me; it showed me owning stock. I don't. The tax return was published this week, and I was notified via e-mail and SMS. Since I was a little too quick, and my bank's global correction came a week after I submitted my tax forms, I decided to file a complaint last night. Electronically, of course. Well, after a frustrating evening of being locked out of my own account (which may not have been my fault) and not getting passwords to my right e-mail account, I finally sorted out passwords, e-mail addresses and password codes, and merrily filled out the online complaints form. It protested when I neglected to check off the box for being within the complaint deadline. I checked the deadline box off. The numbers 108 app...

I knew I had to rush out and take pictures of certain flowers before the first lawn mowing of the year. I mean, how awesome is this? "This" is what the Norwegians call "engkarse". I have never heard its English name, but Wikipedia has . And contrary to what Wikipedia says, in Norway, children pick them and bring them indoors. OK, time for the close-up! During my lovely Sunday walk, I took a bunch of other photos, too. Those I have tested as wallpaper (as in "Oh, hey, I can still find my folders among the leaves!") are published at gallery.me.com/kafox#100028 for your downloading pleasure, including the close-up above. (My one winter photo there finally has some company.) Have a continued wonderful spring!

My reading takes me through various links and sublinks and cups of coffee, and has led me to some information and a wee moment of a-ha which I think is important enough to share. The information pertains to URL shorteners, the service offered by sites like TinyURL , MakeAShorterLink or budURL . These services are for those times you want to share a long, hairy link with someone, without risking it being ruined by a mandatory line break. However, this was a problem for older e-mail and news programs which would have a fixed line length. Now the problem seems to be the URL shortener itself. Let me quote Joshua Schachter, whose post on URL shorteners inspired me: [T]he biggest burden falls on the clicker, the person who follows the links. The extra layer of indirection slows down browsing with additional DNS lookups and server hits. A new and potentially unreliable middleman now sits between the link and its destination. And the long-term archivability of the hyperlink now depends o...

I'm kind of having a blast from the past these days. I remember reading time management books and a lot of other management books some 25 years ago when I was a lowly secretary. While other women's hearts get all aflutter at the idea of a bouquet of red roses or a sweet note left for them on their mirror, mine beats faster standing in line at the local McDonald's watching employees helping each other fill orders, watch the fries, responding to empty dispensers. Or working in an inspiring and efficient work place as outlined in umpteen management books. Back then, I so longed for the power to try some of the suggestions but I had no one to boss around. Well, at some point I knew that I would never use the management skills offered in the books because I wasn't going to become a manager. Years later, however, a system appears that doesn't target people in management, but anybody who has to make a lot of decisions and work on a lot of projects. Listening to Merlin Ma...

Once again I was lured into some Web 2.0 way of communicating with friends, and once again, it just doesn't suit me. I am not interested in telling you the minutiae of my day. I have no gene for exhibitionism. I am speaking of Twitter : It gives me the opportunity to tell you I'm at home or at work or bored or happy. And although I haven't found my friends' tweets boring or redundant, I also haven't found them, well, useful. (Nothing personal, my dears; it's just that the important stuff is on your blogs or in your e-mails, anyway.) Twitter is for me the cyber-space version of small talk at a party. The superficial hellos, how-are-yous, with questions about who you know here, do you like this song, have you tried that green dip. Better conversation is impossible because of the din of the music and all the others shouting their "ice-breakers". I can't do small talk. I want real conversation, some bona fide story-telling and some laughs. If there...

Yeah, I joined the great unwashed, er, wordy and have a Twitter account. See sidebar at right. No, your other right. Thanks.

You know how it is: You get a new toy, so you just have to try it out. I installed iLife and iWorks and set iLife to updating my iPhoto library (that thing has gotten pretty big!), and then tried the face recognition software which supposedly can label portraits for you more or less automatically. First experience: Doesn't do too well with tilted heads. I then opened up iWeb for the first time in ages, and set about making an introductory page to all my photo albums on me.com. I also need to finish my 2007 trip. Fiddling with iWeb felt rather inspiring.

Wordless Wednesday UPDATE: Because of the reactions in my comments, I thought it may help to see the original:

I got this information from the US embassy in Oslo. As of today (Jan. 12) there are new visa rules for Norwegians wanting to travel to the US. Basically, instead of having to shove what's left of your last meal aside on your tiny little airplane table to fill out the green immigration form, you fill it out in advance via the web. If you already have a visa, you can use the ESTA-page to check its status. United States Visa Waiver Program - ESTA Internet-Based Authorization Required for Norwegians Beginning January 12 Beginning January 12th, 2009, all Norwegian citizens must obtain approval through the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) prior to traveling to the United States without a visa under the Visa Waiver Program (VWP). ESTA is a Web-based system, available at https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/ in 16 languages, including Norwegian. Under ESTA applicants answer the same few questions that have long been answered on the small green paper form I-94W (typically on th...

Flight of the Conchords (from New Zealand) play some wicked good disco guitar and ditto lyrics.

Welcome to George Washington National Park, Norway. No photos yet, but there is talk of oil exploration. Read all about it here: Department Of The Exterior Opens U.S. National Park In Norway OK, so my title is misleading. So's the article. ;-)

Wordless Wednesday I'm sure you've seen the Google logo for the super collider already. I'm reposting because in one way, it is historical.

It's been a somewhat nerdy Sunday. After successfully solving all the sudoku puzzles in a couple of newspapers, I then tackled the computer. Apple has upgraded and changed its online service "dot Mac" to "Mobile Me" . So I spent a little while this afternoon upgrading to a cloud. When that was done, Apple offered me yet another store to shop in. *swoon* So now I'm looking for the next great to-do list app. On my aging Zire 72 (now used only for more sudoku games) I had HandyShopper , the neatest little app and best reason ever for sticking with the Palm OS. It isn't just a to-do list; it's multiple databases. And it is free. One can only hope that it will reincarnate on the iPhone/iPod Touch. But until then, I'll be surfing the new store for alternatives. Whee!