Oskar Cooks and Thinks

The end

2010-09-08T13:12:00.000+02:00

So, that's all folks. If I write something interesting in the future it will be on familjenwivallingby.blogspot.com/ and in Swedish. If I write something uninteresting it'l be there to. But mostly, I will be spending time not blogging, as always.

My swinging vote

2010-07-09T13:14:00.000+02:00

So, there's an election coming up in Sweden. And as usual, I'm not sure where to put my vote.

Ideology-wise, I'm a socialist and a liberal, believing life-style decisions should be personal and security nets global. I don't believe in borders and I don't believe in unregulated markets.

We don't really have that on the menu, in fact most supposedly liberal parties in Sweden believe in the opposite - free markets for unfree people. There might be other words in their manifests, but in actions and suggestions it's mostly about making up new rules and lowering taxes. And socialists, well, lets just say they have yet to make ammends for the damage Göran Persson did.

So who's on the short list?

* The Green Party. We're pretty close, but I always get the feeling I never know what they really, really want out of life. What if they get a deal with someone I don't like? And I like nuclear power, so I shouldn't vote for the only party actively opposing it, should I?

* The Feminist Initative. Me like. But they won't get into the Riksdagen, so voting for them magically is also voting for those supposedly liberal guys and their semi fascist friends that rule the streets today.

* The Left Party. I don't know. I always felt they where to far to the left, and they never really got to me. But I can't find anything on their website I don't like.

I'll let you know when I decide.

Dear earth!

2010-03-28T13:26:00.003+02:00

Hi earth! Did you notice, the hour we gave you yesterday?

We know you are hugely annoyed with us for messing you up, with the carbon and the water and the and radiation. We know we you said we have to stop or you'll kill us.

Well, we won't do that. We're sure you understand. We need the car. And the candy-bar. And the holiday in Thailand. And we tried brushing our teeth with the tap closed, but it's just not the same. Sorry. And meat. Gotta have meat.

So - we had this idea: If we turn off some lights for an hour a year. Like... a compromise? (No, not the TV or any of the computers. In fact, no machines whatsoever, just the lights. Well, not ALL the lights, just the ones we don't really need and some that are very visible.) Would you please let us live on?

What's up with blogger?

2010-03-11T07:12:00.002+01:00

A friend who's just started blogging got nagged on facebook for using blogger. There was a consensus (minus me) that blogger was useless, and that he should get his own domain and set up a wordpress server on it.

Wordpress is clearly a superior interface. However, it is not a three-click solution. My wife just set up a Wordpress server on our play-domain skepsism.se. She's what I would call an experienced internet user. No developer, but an experienced user. Took her about 4 hours. Now, many bloggers do their blogging for fun, without allocating any time to it. Say it's possible to squeeze in 15 minutes of blogging time a day on average. That means 8 days before getting started if you use WordPress, compared to the 5 minutes it takes to get your Blogger account up and running.

So, if you're anxious to get started, I'd say Blogger is still your choice.

But there something weird with Blogger lately. I read a tweeet some weeks back saying 'parts of google aren't getting enough love, meaning Blogger. It's been quite a while since we saw an overhaul of the interface. It certainly stands out from other google applications, and not in a good way. Usually, when Google acquires a technology they integrate it with their other services. But with Blogger that hasn't really happened. For example: There's a little counter showing how many subscribers the blog has - but that's not Google Reader followers - it's followers in Bloggers own little reader, which no one in their right mind would use, except to show other Blogger users they like their blog. More example: I can upload a picture from Picasa to Blogger, yes. But I should be able to pick a picture for my blog entry from Picasa Web Albums directly. And Blogger still has it's own log in box, for no apparent reason.

Is Blogger waiting to be replaced? Seems like Google Docs could do the job with some simple modifications and links to Google Reader. Or G-Mail. Or Wave. Or is there a huge update to the blogger system in the pipeline, that just need a little more touching up before it can be released?

Eurovision countdown...

2010-03-05T13:21:00.003+01:00

Sweden is two weeks away from deciding who to send to the Eurovision. It is very unlikely to be this song, that absolutely rules:

Ah well. There are some other nice ones, we might not embarass ourselves this year. This one has a decent chance and is quite catchy:

I think it could make the final in Oslo. Won't win though. Sweden won't win until we reform our entry rules so that real bands have a chance. For real, not just as wildcards, as is the case above.

Brief comment on Swedish politics.

2010-03-01T10:40:00.005+01:00

We have a long running tradition in swedish politics. It's called the right-wing-coalition-one-term-fuck-up.

It's usually occurs after the normally ruling socialist party has suffered a period of increased levels of stupidity. And that does happen quite a bit, because of the inbreeding. So everybody gets mad at, say, Göran Persson, because he's ruining the folkhem and vote for Moderaterna instead, who doesn't want to ruin anything, only lower the taxes.

Moderaterna and their smaller cousins get majority and form a joint government. At least 20% of the minsiters go home the first month, some because media finds out they've been cheating on their taxes, some because they get caught having actual opinions, but most because they realize having power means actually having to work.

Then it's time to lower taxes. Well, not really. Swedes don't want lower taxes. The working class like their subsidys, the middle class like their jobs at the försäkringskassa and upper class - well don't pay much taxes to begin with, do they?

So the puzzle begins. How to create the look and feel of lowering taxes with out reducing goverment spending? A minimal workers tax reduction combined with raised job security fees? A coupon valid for a free maccachino in exchange for forced labour camps for patients dying of cancer?

Point is - Nothing they come up with make the wheels go any faster, since they know they don't have the support to actually change anything. As the four years go by less and less happen and more and more quarrels and scandals occur. By the time for the next election the country is at negative growth and the socialists have gotten their act together. Everybody gets mad at, say, Fredrik Reinfelt for ruining the folkhem, and go to vote for the socialists again.

We do this at least once a decade. When I took the statistics course at the University, they thought us how to spot the periods of right-wing government by looking at the gdp-curve and mark out the anomalies.

It's like watching an animal banging his nose into a glass window repeatedly. Ouch! What was that? Better try it again! Ouch! What was that? ...

Whoever treasures freedom...

2010-02-15T10:24:00.003+01:00

When it's bedtime for my little hellraiser I usually sing him this lullaby that I think is an Irish song and whit lyrics I remembered as:

On a wagon bound for market

there's a calf with a mournful eye

high above him there's a swallow

swinging swiftly across the sky

How the winds are laughing

they laugh with all their might

laugh and laugh the whole day through

and half of the summer night

"Quit complaing!" says the farmer

"Who told you what a Calf to be?

why don't you have wings to fly on

like the swallow so proud and free?"

How the winds are laughing....

Calves are easily bond and slaughtered

never knowing the reason why.

But whoever treasures freedom

like the swallow has learned to fly.

How the winds are laughing...

My interpretation of this song is that the wings are the material wealth needed to be able to make your own life choices, and I started to feel that what it really said was that rich people where rich because they had earned it in some way. So, I thought I must be remembering it wrong and changed the last phrase of the last verse to

like the swallow must learn to fly.

But then it became a bit weird, yelling on a calf that it should learn to fly or die. I mean a calf hardly has the option has he? So I went with a third option:

like the swallow shall learn to fly.

Which made it more of hopeful encouragement than a strict demand.

It never occurred to me to look up the actual lyrics. Until now. It's a Joan Baez song, and the original version was more or less correct. I like my improved one better.

Peeling prawns.

2010-01-16T19:51:00.003+01:00

So I realised that prawns that are fished in the North Sea and sold in Sweden are peeled in West Africa. It doesn't take a think tank to see how this is a really, really stupid thing, and it made me and my wife switch to unpeeled prawns and peel them ourselves.

Which is great. 'Cause the prawns taste much, much better and you also get a bunch of shells to make stock from.

So, you pay a little less for prawns, you sit down for five minutes to peel them yourself and in return you boost both the sandwich your having for lunch AND the salmon soup your having for dinner on Saturday with... like 30%!

And if you're into that kind of stuff you can feel really good about yourself that your not supporting the evil f*ing industry in their use of underpaid labor and waste of fossil fuel. We'll still be supporting them in their killing of prawns though, so we'll probably end up in hell anyway. Perhaps not as deep down in it.

Will Wheaton - Do not underestimate!

2009-12-28T11:38:00.004+01:00

It's about bloody time I said something about wilw. But what too say. My first impulse is to quote Zaphod Beeblebro's psychiatrist: "He's just this guy, you know!" but I guess it doesn't really give you that much info. So how about:

Will Wheaton played the really cool kid that was supposed to be a young Stephen King in Stand By Me and the really annoying kid that wasn't supposed to be on the bridge in Star Trek the next generation. Well, annoying to people over 14, to kids (like me a the time) he was an f*ing hero. Now he writes stuff, and most importantly, he reades the stuff that he wrote.

The podcasts of Wil Wheton are the first thing twitter told me about that really improved my life. It's like havng a really interesting geeky conversation stored in your pocket all the time, and whenever there's time to kill, you put on your headphones and wham. Total temporal genocide. People staring at you for laughing out loud on the train is a notable side-effect.

It really isn't important what he talks about, but it has been Star Trek in Memories of the futurecast. And now I honestly don't know.

Check it out!

The end of a decade

2009-12-28T10:49:00.004+01:00

So, we're closing in on the tentees. (And leaving the naughtees behind us.) What do we have to look forward to in the new decade? Here are some predictions:

* The US will elect another really stupid republican president who will further alienate them from the rest of us. There will probably be a war of some kind to catalyse this process.

* The EU will slightly increase transparency but do nothing significant about environmental issues like farming and fishing subsidies.

* Chinas expanding economy will hit an unexpected wall and relapse for a while.

* India will become very, very important in tech.

* Sweden will have a green prime minister.

* TV and printed media will have a huge crisis and probably loose it completely.

* There will be a huge nostalgia trip on indie pop and grunge.

* Personal computers will be replaced by phones/netbooks and "thin" media centers. Harddrives won't be a thing people generally deal with,

* There will be absolutely no people on mars.

* I will change my hair two times. One will be for the better, one will be for the worse.

So. There. We'll just have to wait and see if I'm right.

Happy Holliday Season!

2009-12-24T08:23:00.002+01:00

After a month of hard work in and about the bookstores, my little family has driven up to Skellefteå in the land of snow to celebrate Christmas.

Or rather, we celebrate Jul [Yule]. It really hasn't got anything to do with Jesus over here, when you think about it. We've been celebrating Jul long before a bunch of German monks came and christened us, ad we keep celebrating it now that we believe in science instead. Sure, there are loads of christians in Sweden, and they are likely to be celebrating the birth of christ. But for most of us Swedes, Chistmas is about Candy, Food, Light, Presents and Candy.

And in that context, it's really weird to see all tweets from American non-Christians complaining about insensitive neighbors wishing them a Happy Christmas. I say - Go with it! You can wear a little sign saying "Only in it for the candy!"

Transition

2009-11-27T21:20:00.003+01:00

This, I feel, is really cool. Now I'm going to read up on the Swedich part of the movement http://transitionsweden.ning.com/.

To the suggestion boxes of twitter, facebok, google, microsoft and anyone making business on the internet.

2009-11-19T18:44:00.005+01:00

At this stage in IT evolution, almost every application has a user account system. For every service we want to use, we have to supply personal information and create a login. A user probably has somewhere between 10 and 50 different accounts to keep track of. (In the next 10 years this figure is likely to double, at least.) Too many to keep in your head.

This means that some users are very likely to use the same login information on all their different accounts, and others will stick to a few different. Then there will some who keep their passwords in a file on their desktop. None of these solutions are safe. A hacker only needs to break one of these numerous security barriers to get access to an individuals whole life. I'm sure Google has a great system for keeping their passwords safe, but Fried Fred's Funky Fun Shop might not.

There are ways to solve this - here's an example. When citizens of Sweden interact electronically with their national authorities, they use something called bank id, a simple java app that users download from their internet banks. The app handles the authourization. Point is - users only have one login to remember, for several different sites. I use the same login when I do my company's monthly tax report as I use when I apply for parental leave compensation, and so forth. And best of all - the individual authorities do not know my login information - they only know what the bank ID app's go ahead message looks like.

We need that globally. We need it now, and we're going to need it even more in the future.

Here's how you do it: Form a little club including Google, Microsoft and Apple and some other big guys. Maybe some governments. Put some money into developing a secure authorization app, start up the servers and make it an option for users of your respective services. Make up some rules for how this app can and can not be integrated into your respective operating systems. Lease use of the app to every other online service. Make a tiny bit of money - use it to further the development of the app. Make it better, make more players wanna use it.

Do it this way and 10 years from now we have a global virtual ID card, reasonably safe, effiecient and available to everyone. Easily connected to their national plastic counterparts.

I know this is not the way it will happen, but one can dream - can one not?

Modern Policework

2009-11-19T09:07:00.003+01:00

This story gives me some thoughts. It's about the Palo Alto police arresting a bicycle thief by contacting him through his ad on craiglist.

Thought 1: Scary that this is news. If something is stolen it's likely to wind up on e-bay or craiglist (or blocket in Sweden). Shouldn't there be someone searching the web for stolen property pretty much in every police-station?

Thought 2: Nice that people in silicon valley uses bicycles. I always imagine all Americans as out of shape and into cars.

Thought 3: In the long run it should be very hard to sell something stolen. why didn't he advertise it online? Is it stolen?

For swedish readers here's a related story on tjuvtittat.se

Status update anxiety

2009-11-12T10:03:00.003+01:00

Status updates are becoming more more and more of a serious matter, and even more of numerous matter.

When I got my first broadband access, a student apartment WAN, we used ICQ to communicate. all my connections on ICQ where fellow students, and the jargon was pretty specific to that community. Weird philospohy, nerdy references and drunkenness and talk about drunkenness.

And with facebook it was kind of like that in the beginning. Most friends where from back then and most things that where said had some underlying lack of meaning. But now - for crying out loud, my dad's on facebook! So are most of my team at work, a vast amount of relatives, even some local journalists. I can't say "Emanuel Kant was a real piss ant." and expect everyone to understand the Python reference. Someone will undoubtedly ask me what I've got against Kant.

And then there's twitter. Which is all status updates. That anyone can read. So - you can't say anything bad about anyone - they will read it! Yes they will. They may not be that many following you - but whenever you mention someone - it's searchable. Soon it'l show up on google search too. I've got my name on google alerts - and my company's names. You have to expect other people to have theirs.

To make things worse, there are a status upstate fields in every single application these days. Google reader, msn live, skype, gmail, igoogle, livejournal and i'm pretty shure there will be one in my dishwasher any day now. Do I fill out those fields? It's not like I open skype every day, will people think it a bit weird that I'm still looking for a Halloween costume in December?

Ideally there would be just one status field. In the Op Sys. And the apps could just read that one. Right now mine would say: Me and the world are having a cold. Please come back when it's over.

Palt

2009-11-10T20:30:00.004+01:00

Since I actually do have some international readers according to the stats, I will first make a brief explanation of what Palt is. Swedes - skip ahead! Palt is a traditional dish in Norrland, the northern part of this northern country. It's a bit like german knödel, buns of potatoes and flour fileld with pork and boiled in water. It's heavy food, and people who don't know any better tend to boast about have many of theese they can eat at a time. There's also the expression Paltkoma(Palt coma) meaning being so swelled up from theese fellas that you can't bother to move from your armchair. It's traditionally served with butter.

My little angel is from Norrland, so every once in a while we have Palt to remember the cold vast darkness of winter and the neverending summer nights. But I simply can't make them as boooooring as they should be served traditionally.

So this how I made them last:

Sliced palt (pork free) brushed with olive oil and grilled in a grill pan. A sauce made from soy, mushrooms and celery.

Sourdough

2009-11-10T20:29:00.002+01:00

We've been getting some sourdough culture started. It was actually kind of easy. This here is a potatoe bread I made this weekend. It's just the culture, wheat & rye flour, and two mashed potatoes. Tasted great!

Weekend Breakfast

2009-11-02T11:20:00.001+01:00

This is a standard weekend breakfast - to go with cartoons and hangovers. We got some pancakes - standard recipie for american pancakes switching milk for soy milk 'cause of allergies. Then there's some roasted walnuts in soy youghurt and honey for topping. Two soy lattes and apple juice mixed with frosen strawberries to go with that.

What's the point of Twitter?

2009-10-26T10:01:00.002+01:00

My brother once asked me about twitter and facebook. What's the point? And I couldn't give him a good answer. For someone spending a good portion of the day checking the feeds, that really is unacceptable.

Some weeks later I was still thinking about that question and I realised it had some similarities with another question I couldn't give a straight answer to about a decade and a half ago. Why do you surf the web? What's the point?

Back then it was hard to explain the beauty of poorly designed html-pages with pictures of peoples cats, screenshots from StarWars and gif-animations of smileys blinking. Today internet access is becoming a civil right. There is so much vital information on the net today that life without is becoming difficult, at least here in Sweden.

And I think it's like that with microblogging - it might be flooded with commercial retweets, mildly enteratining jokes and shameless self-promotion - but somewhere in there something important is brewing - and I'm not missing it.

They probably meant well

2009-10-25T07:32:00.005+01:00

This week I recieved a folder from the swedish Government Offices entitled Växtkraft (Growth Power.) It was introduced by Maud Olofsson, our minister of Trade, and contained a list of 82 things my government had done for me as an entrepeneur since their rise to power on 2006.

Must have taken a while to mail them, because it's printed in februari.

Not sure why, but I decided to actually read the thing. My preconception was that the government had done a lot to make life easier for businieses, at the expense of poor people. After going through the 82 points in the broschyr I'm not so sure. There are about ten points that are things they actually did that might affect my businesses in some way. Then there are about 30 things that they haven't done yet - but say they really, really wan't to do. And the rest of the list is jsut extremely far fetched. Example: "The EU has lowered the roaming fees on cell phones, and we supported that, That's bound to help you some, ay? Ay?"

If the high rate of unemployment doesn't convince me of our governments excellence, this broschure of make believe fairy-dust certainly must do the trick.

Leadership seminars

2009-10-19T16:43:00.003+02:00

I've just been up in Gävle on a leadership seminar arranged by the franchise my bookstores belong to. As always it's great fun. You get to take tests, make charts and run around town like a madman chasing after clues. You learn a lot of abbreviations and you make a lot of friends.

However.

When I come home to my team with my boosted self esteem and my abbreviations I never seem to know what to do with it. I realize some thing should be done differently, but I knew that already. What I didn't know, and still don't, is how to do make the change happen. Next Tuesday I know I'm going to rush in on our morning staff meeting and draw charts and talk about goals and core values, and my team will nod and agree and we will all feel good about it. And two weeks later we will act exactly the same as we did before.

So that way, leadership seminars are a lot like sociology. The system works, as long as you son't apply it to reality.

I'm going to do my darndest to make sure this post is wrong. If I succeed I will tell you who held the seminar and offer him or her my praise for actually teaching useful stuff.

Uncle Bobs wedding at myliblog

2009-10-01T09:23:00.003+02:00

If this blog has a topic, this is certainly off it, but I just felt this was an important point about how freedom of expression works that a lot of people should take to heart. It's also a great piece of argumentative text - which is rare. Polite and keeping true to the opponents structure, but still making a very convincing argument. Written by a Colorado librarian about a children's book concerning gay marriage.

Uncle Bob's Wedding.

Pros and Cons of living in Sweden.

2009-09-17T15:03:00.002+02:00

Con:

...won't be available in Sweden for years probably.

Pro:

we don't have these guys either.

Melting ice

2009-09-10T10:01:00.000+02:00

Everyone should see this!

The future of telemarketing.

2009-08-31T12:11:00.003+02:00

Right now there is a telemarketer from a telephone directory called lokaldelen calling me. Last year I had decided not to advertise in it, but the caller was so persuasive that I ended up with an even bigger ad than the year before. So this year I don't even answer the phone.

This is the future of telemarketing.