I Love NASA

A few years ago someone at NASA’s PR department must’ve gotten a weird idea and said “hey, we have the ability to produce some of the most amazing visuals with out technology and access to ISS so let’s start doing that” because in the past months we’ve seen some amazing videos and images from them, including the incredible hi-res shot of the americas.

But this goes about and beyond!!!

NASA – Aurorae from Space from Camilla SDO on Vimeo.

Sleeeeeepy

One thing noone told me about being a parent is how tired you are and feel it’s ok to go to bed at 9 pm. Me and Helena have done that basically every night for the past 2 weeks (except the weekend) ann we feel it’s totally ok. But I also feel we’re missing out on alot of “us” time. I remember when I used to play WoW to 1 am every night, go to bed and up at 6 again, that’s right now not even conceivable how that would work!!

What a weekend :)

If we disregard the actual result from the F1 race, that was a helluva weekend!

Saturday morning we went to do a bit of last minute shopping (even bribed Sam with a guitarr) and on the afternoon my sister AC, her son Alex and my brother Jocke came by and we had a small little BBQ (just burgers and bacon and all that good stuff), then watched the F1 qualifying (yeah, I waited a full 12 hours to see it ’cause it’s more fun to do it with other people). Then we played alot of PS3 move and some normal board games into the wee hours. Well for us anyway, we went to bed at 1 am and I think the last time we did that was when we took the small cruise together! Then woke up early on sunday to watch the F1 race, some more PS3 move and just talking and they went home. Great fun!

Then my wife had invited two of her friends over with their kids so we had our hands full until around 6 when they went home. Then it was a quick dinner, Sam to bed and after 8 we decided that we’d had an awesome but busy weekend and just went to bed. And it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep.

Awesome 🙂 .. if we disregard the actual F1 race..

Time for F1 again!

It’s finally time for Formula 1 again! As usual it kicks off in Australia again. And as usual me, my sister AC and brother Jocke are picking up something that we started 10 years ago – they come over to my place on saturday evening, we eat, drink, watch movies and try to stay awake all night (with varying degrees of success) and watch the race in the morning. Ofcourse this was easier when they started the race at 2 pm local time which was like 5 am here in Sweden but for capitalistic reasons they are now started 4 pm local time which is 7 am here so we’re gonna have to stay awake even longer. Or we’ll just go to sleep at 2. I dunno. We’ll see what happens.

But it’s good to keep up with tradition 🙂

Followup

A little followup on yesterday’s post – I updated my Samsung Galaxy SII with the officially released Android 4 and I kept an eye on the connection indicator to see if they had gone the same route as Apple. Nope, still only HSPA+ 🙂

Btw, gotta love flashmobs (although this seemed a bit TOO well organized)

I Hate …

Time for another “I hate…” post.

I hate it when marketing departments screws with technology terms and twists them. The latest example is .. can you guess… that’s right, Apple! Read this if you’re interested in the technical aspect of it – or let me summarize. We all know what 3G is on cellphones today. It’s pretty fast. So the next thing is ofcourse 4G which is really really fast. But there have been a technical debate about what defines each. Most people agrees that the technology called “LTE” is what really is 4G. Actually as far as I knew there wasn’t anyone saying anything else. Well in the latest iOS update Apple and AT&T decided to redefine it and include HSPA+ as 4G. HSPA+ has been available for years through the 3G network. And yes, in perfect conditions HSPA+ can come up to the same transfer speed as LTE. But that don’t make it 4G because it still uses the overcrowded 3G range. LTE is a new technology that uses new infrastructure which is what I, and every other sane tech nerd, call a new technology – when you need to change the infrastructure!

I mean, did Intel ever overlock a Pentium 3 CPU to ~2 Ghz and call it Pentium 4? Ofcourse they didn’t since Pentium 4 is a completely different architecture!

But I guess the marketing departments at Apple and AT&T decided that doesn’t matter and just went for calling HSPA+ 4G and BAM! overnight Apple has the most 4G capable devices in the world (but not a single one publicly available that actually uses the 4G network). Good work And it also makes it easier for them to sell the new iPad in europe as a “4G” device even though it can’t handle European LTE!

Now the big question is how will they sell the iPhone 5.. I mean they can’t brag about “it has 4G!” since the iPhone 4S already, by their definitions, has 4G!

Let these technical things be for technical people and let marketing do ads. I mean if technical geeks where to make ads it’d probably be something like this –

George Takei

I really like George Takei. You know, that asian guy that played “Sulu” in the old Star Trek. I can’t say I either like or dislike his acting or whatever, but I am a huge fan of his facebook-page. It’s one of the big downsides to deactivating my account – I don’t get to see the funny pictures and clips and his posts that are always full of Zen-isms. And I loved his roast of William Shatner!!

And then the guy goes and does something like this…

It’s hilarious shit! I wish Hollywood had more people like that!!

Regarding Carema

Sweet – http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/carema-foljde-de-etiska-riktlinjerna_6911371.svd

It’s basically the findings of an investigation into how Carema have handled the care of elderly and they can’t find nothing wrong that Carema isn’t fixing and they also go as far as saying that the media was in some cases totally outright lying. 🙂

Women’s day, huh?

So it’s the International Women’s Day today.. what does that exactly mean? And does it mean every other day of the year is Men’s Day? ..

I don’t need a special day to remind me how much I love my beautiful Helena; the woman that keeps me on my toes at home instead of being the lazy couch potato I’d probably be; the mother of my wonderful child; the love of my life; the wonderful person that I wake up next to every morning… hm, I guess it took a special day for me to write it though 🙂

Pictures

Time to post some pictures. I haven’t done that in a while so there is alot to post.

Here we have pictures from when we went out to have some fun in the snow, going sleigh riding down the slopes and whatnot.

Here are some pictures from Sams 2nd birthday which we celebrated a little bit but since it was a normal weekday we didn’t have much of a party, but enough for him to know it was a special day.

Here are some pictures from the real birthday party we had on Sunday.

Password is the name of my current employer.

It’s My Party …

Yesterday we had a birthday party for Sam. We were a bit unsure if we should invite family or friends with kids he can play with. Because after all it is his party, not ours. But we eventually decided to invite “people he likes to be with” which included my sister, mother and father and same for H. And some other friends and neighbours with kids. So about 20 people all in all. And our house suddenly felt a bit small!!

But next year will probably be different. He’ll be three by then and hopefully have made friends at kindergarten that we can invite because I really wanna make his birthday parties about him!

I Spoke Too Soon

Right, so remember a few updates ago that I mentioned that “I’ve been sick enough for the whole year”. Well I spoke way too soon on that one! After we’d gone to the cemetery on Saturday to honor Eden we went back here to watch some Star Trek now in Bluray. And all of a sudden I got this vibe that not all is right with me. And on sunday I woke up with a fever and banging headache. Popped a few iprens, drank alot of Coke, stayed in bed and watched F1. It was so bad I was totally delirious all sunday night! Monday was even worse, my fever spiked at 39.5! And my throat started to swell up. Tuesday not much better. Wednesday the fever went away but still very swollen throat and today my throat is dry as hell, I dont have much energy so I’m home from work one more day.

But I HAVE to go to work tomorrow! Call it work ethic or pride or whatever, usually it’s in Sweden considered idiotic to come in and work one day, especially a Friday but I just can’t stay home any more! And I’ve run out of Formula 1 races to watch!!
So now I’ve had the “common flu”.. is this really so common? Down and out for almost 4 days!? What’s up with that? And you have to appreciate the irony that I’ve just started working for this healthcare company…

Eden

 

10 years ago today that I got that horrible phonecall. 10 years ago today that my friend died in his flat. On the one hand it seems like ages ago considering all I’ve done since then (travelled the world, got married, had a son, built a house, changed jobs twice). But on the other hand it feels like yesterday – sitting in his flat enjoying some DVD’s or the latest episode of “Enterprise”. And the memories from arranging his (kick ass!) funeral.

On the upside I learned alot of things from him and I learned to appreciate life more than I did before because all of a sudden it could be over. And I got to know Ricki whom I’m still great friends with, so atleast something positive about that. But I still miss him and find myself thinking “if that hadn’t happen where would he be today and would my life have turned out this way?”.. I know, it’s irrelevat since it did happen, but still..
Going to Skogskyrkogården today with Eva and Ricki and Markus to pay our respects.
“To absent friend!”

Business Idea

Wanna hear a great business idea? Start a shady company with multiple company names and addresses, sell incredibly cumbersome items like say a couch for $2500, offer to have it delivered to your doorstep for only $100 more and say “it’ll be here in 8 weeks, we’ll call you when it’s ready for delivery”. Then 3 weeks later call the customer and say “it’s here already so you can pick it up yourself if you want, or wait 5 weeks because that’s when we’re suppose to deliver it, your choice but if you chose to pick it up yourself you won’t get any money back”.

Oh wait… Masku / Finnlandia / Läderinvest AB is already doing that 🙁

DOCTOR’S ORDERS

Yesterday we took Sam to the doctor again to have another look at his eczema / allergies. They quickly said “that’s not normal!” which is a good start in our opinion! Although they don’t know if he’s allergic to anything and the state he’s in right now there’s no use doing one of those prick tests. But we got more penecillin and 3 more creams to use on him and some histamines to stop the itching.

And we’ll be doing that for 2 weeks and we’ll go back for another visit to take a blood sample to see if they can figure out if there’s something he’s extremely allergic to. But until then it’s just “keep on going as normal”. I’m just happy he seems unaffected by it!

RETRO ALL YEAR

You know I’m huge on retro, right? I’m a sucker for 80’s references and “the good old days”. So this year is looking to be quite extraordinary!

First we have the blu-ray release of “Star Trek The Next Generation”. Then we have tons of video-game remakes coming this year – Leisure Suit Larry, X-Com and Syndicate, all of which I played like mad “back in the day”. So I’ll get my share of retro this year 🙂

STAR TREK THE NEXT LEVEL

I usually don’t miss much Star Trek related. Or movie related. So when a friend of mine said “have you preordered the Blueray of The Next Generation?” and I’m all ????. I had no idea this was even happening so gimme a minute to handle it. It was just too good to be true!

The big problem is of course that like most TV shows between say 1970-2000 it was filmed with “normal” resolution cameras. Before, back in the days of the original Star Trek, it was filmed on 35 mm film which means taking it to bluray isn’t a big issue, they “only” had to redo the f/x like the “this is the Enterprise in orbit” cut scenes. And TV shows after 2000 was mostly filmed in HD anyway so not a big problem transferring to bluray. But all this TV inbetween there is stuck in DVD quality. Until some smart enthusiastic person got an OK to reprocess every single scene of “The Next Generation” to HD quality which is gonna take alot of time but as a teaser they released “The Next Level” this week which is 3 episodes (“Encounter at Farpoint”, “Sins of the Father” and my favorite “The Inner Light”). This is just meant as a teaser for us to see what is possible so we’ll preorder the bix boxes coming soon.
And it kinda worked!! Most scenes of “The Inner Light” was very very bright (which is part of the story) so alot of stuff in the background got very very grainy. I didn’t see that much of it in the other episodes. But apart from that, the f/x and everything made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Unfortunately I have two problems this time around that I didn’t have when “The Next Generation” was released on DVD – back then I could afford it and I had the time to watch it. Now I’m not sure I have either 🙁

PROUD DAD

Today I’m a really, really REALLY proud dad. Why?…

Watch this and this ! It took me almost two years but it’s finally done. My son now finally knows which one of all his cars is the worlds bestest car!!

🙂

ECZEMA

So it seems that my worries wasn’t in vain – my son has indeed inherited my eczema. It’s not a huge surprise since it’s in the genes on my side. And on every checkup I’ve made it a point to tell them I’m concerned he’s inherited it and that the dry red hardened patch on his throat may not only be dry skin but actually eczema and everytime I’ve been told it’s normal. As late 6 weeks ago we were told it’s normal by the pediatrician. 2 1/2 weeks ago we were told it’s not normal but probably a result of the tonsillitis. And now after 10 days of penicillin it’s still bad and we saw a doctor on tuesday who said “no this is definitely eczema, I’ll send you to a specialist”. And I got the “no shit Sherlock”-feeling I hate.

And then it gets worst when I tell people it’s eczema and we’re going to see a specialist, I’ve always gotten a “well good it’s nothing bad/worse than that”! It’s like people don’t know what it means! It’s a life long suffering with itching and scratching and bleeding and creams!! I’m really happy it almost went away when I hit puberty but it’s come back in the past few years, so yeah, I still have to use prescribed creams and stuff all the time. So you bet your ass I hoped it was something else like chicken pox or something like that that would be bad for a week or two and then it’s over, or even something else that there’s a cure or treatment for, but eczema, you’re never gonna get a treatment for that (unless there is some huge advances in genetics!) so that’s a life long issue to deal with, one I hoped my son wouldn’t.

Don’t know when we’ll get an appointment to see the specialist or even when we’ll be able to test his allergies. Worst case is that he’s as allergic to fur as I was and we’ll have to get rid of the cats.

VERITAS

A few months ago I mentioned how annoyed I was with the current reporting about the company I work for, Carema. There was a borderline witch hunt from the media to take down the “evil greedy corporation” that they wanted to portray Carema as. As I said I work here so I know better.And I was surprised at how some stories were downright lies and that they never, even after Carema presented their version, wrote about that.

Well now an independant review company have gone through the media events and the result is here:
http://www.second-opinion.se/sites/default/files/RAPPORT%20Caremadrevet%20120201.pdf
This was ofcourse initiated by Carema but still, it points out alot of bad things about the reporting during this time. Not as if there is any chance any of the big media channels will ever write anything about the report, but there it is…