Posterous was a wonderful blogging platform with a twist; you didn’t need to register to start blogging, you just sent an email to post-at-posterous-dot-com. Posterous’ access control was based on your email address, some heuristics, and the fact that people for the most of it mean good. If you wanted more control, you could then claim that site and mark it as your territory.

A year back, Posterous was bought by Twitter, and like many good things that are acquired by other companies, shuts down today.

I had a bunch of blogs on Posterous: a mirror to my actual blog Navelfluff (in case things go pear-shaped with my Navelfluff proper), my techy blog “Core dump” (which wasn’t very techy but at least it was more technical than this one) and some personal stuff which wasn’t public. I’ll need to think of a new platform for the Core dump, but as it probably never had much of an audience, i don’t think there’s much to stress.

Just in time for being too late, i downloaded backups of my Posterous sites. This included my daughter’s stuff (on horses), which i somehow managed to merge into my own blog posts. Thankfully i have one backup downloaded which does not contain the horsy stuff

So thank you Posterous for all the fish, and i do hope it was a fun ride!

Visited my new employer today, and it felt — homely, like a sort of homecoming… Sure, there are a lot of new names and routines to learn, but it’s all refreshing and welcome.

What was really good and what i appreciated immensely was how ready they were to have me roll in. My new computer and phone were waiting for me. The computer was pre-installed and -configured; the only thing i had to do was change my password. On the wall were a considerable number of post-it-notes with stuff for me to learn and assimilate, all ordered in chunks and with the name of the person who’d help with the induction.

And people from the left and the right were welcoming and more than once i heard that they’d appreciate somebody in the support to care for the people. So yeah, i will miss the people at eCraft but i’ll be right at home at Reaktor.

Tomorrow may be the last day i’ll be using Windows for work. As Windows is a minority OS at the company i’ll be joining, and i already use one of their two majority desktop operating systems, i decided to learn something new and get a Mac as a work computer.

I’ve used Macs in the Days of Old (remember when having an external floppy drive meant you didn’t have to juggle the OS disk and the other disk with your apps and docs that didn’t fit on the boot floppy?) and a tiny bit thereafter, but my OSX skillz are no-where near my Windows and Linux competences. So that’s why i’m diving into… well, BSD/Unix with a pretty coating

It’s going to be fun, but be prepared for a bunch of newbie posts with googly eyes when i stumble over the idiosyncracies of the Computer d’Pomme.

Efter sex och ett halvt år på eCraft byter jag scen. Fredag 15.2.2013 är min sista arbetsdag på eCraft, sen är jag arbetslös i knappa två veckor (sport- och nervlov) och den första mars nördar jag vidare på ett bolag som heter Reaktor. Om vi per arbetets vägnar är bekanta, ser jag dej gärna på en tack-och-hej-öl på Sellos William K. Hör av dej.

Kuuden ja puolen vuoden pusertamisen jälkeen eCraftilla, kiitän kumarran ja laitan pillini pussiin, nyt perjantaina. Nörtteys jatkuu ensi kuussa Reaktorilla. Jos olemme työn kautta tuttuja, tapaan sinut mielelläni tattis-ja-moro-olusilla Sellon William K:ssa. Ilmoittele itsestäsi.

This Friday will be my last day at eCraft, and on the 1st of March i’ll start nerding for a company called Reaktor. Beers at William K, Sello. Make yourself heard.

Så nu återupptar jag kampen mot de onödiga klagomålen. På med det gredoliskära gummibandet. Det som slutligen fick båten att tippa över var min kollega Peter som dök in på rummet och visade upp sin gummibandsprydda handled. Vad bra att jag hade en extra snodd i ryggsäcken.

Sen är det bara att försöka samla sej så att magfettet fortsätter krympa. Det var kul när jenkkahandtagen försvann, men ännu finns det att ta från.

Min vänstra handled

As you may know, i have a habit of chipping in here and there for things that seem important to me. My practice is that i’d rather drop a few euros in many hats — and hope that others do too — than feel bad either because i can’t pay a lot, or because i think my contribution won’t matter. If many offer a little, it will matter a lot.

One site i use almost daily is Wikipedia. Yesterday i looked up the page on the Japanese Katakana writing system so i could try and spell my kids’ names in Japanese [0].

Wikipedia run on contributions from individuals. They serve 470 million different users each month using 679 servers and a total of 95 staff. They run no ads. They’re funded by you. And me.

And if they’re not funded by you personally — or haven’t been for a while — maybe it’s time for that to change. Donate a few shillings today.

[0] supposedly ロニャ and リーヌス, but if you know better, please let me know!

The Dumb Customer

A few weeks back, Brittish progressive rock band Big Big Train hauled out a spammage that their record Far Skies Deep Time is available for our listening pleasure on Spotify.

Not having listened to BBT for a few whiles, i took the bait, and it was good. Especially the opening track Kingmaker was much to my liking. It’s like if Selling England were made in 2011 (but without the wigs and double neck guitars).

So i did what i often do when i like an independent prog band: i offer them some monetary support and as a token of my patronage, they send me a CD (which often lays forever unplayed on some shelf). In the case of Big Big Train, this is especially easy since an album from them costs between seven and eight quid sterling, which includes worldwide p&p.

It was only a few days later i did find that i’d already bought Far Skies from the band a year or so before.

Duh.

The Customer Service

When a thankyou message a few days later arrived from Greg of BBT, i replied that you are very welcome and in fact your record was so mind blindingly good that i’ve bought it twice. But thankfully i’d bought the special “MALS” edition including the track Kingmaker which was not on the original version. I didn’t expect a reply, but one i got.

Uh, says Greg, according to our records, you did in fact order the original version and it is already in the mail.

Well duh again. Stupid stupid me.

BBT have a very liberal approach to distributing their music. They understand that obscurity is the enemy for a small band so they have over 90 minutes of their music available for streaming or download on their site. For free. Nice deal. And when they re-issued their album The Difference Machine with an extra song, they told fans that had bought the original edition to email them for a link to that new song. For free.

Really, really nice deal.

So i asked Greg whether there was a download for Kingmaker.

Sorry, says Greg, but we’ll send you the Special Edition as well. Merry Christmas from Big Big Train.

Guys. You prog. Hard.

Share and enjoy 

Since i now have three copies of Far Skies, two of which are identical, i want to spread the joy. I’ll send my extra Far Skies to One Random Commenter to this blog posting, either on www.navelfluff.org or its mirror navelfluff.posterous.com. Comments on the social nets don’t count, so if you’re reading this on Facebook, come on over for a visit to the real deal. I’ll give you a few days or a week.

And even if you don’t win, you can listen to Big Big Train free and legally both on Spotify and on Last.FM. And hey, maybe spinning polycarbonate just ain’t your thing even if the music is.

Hats off to my colleague Pauliina and to Derek Sivers for the idea and the inspiration, and to Greg Spawton for being such a nice guy and who intrinsically just seems to grok what good customer service means.

Efter nio mÃ¥naders medveten (men ofanatisk) “Ferrisdiet” och sammanlagt över ett Ã¥rs snaskstrejkande har jag gÃ¥tt ner knappa tio kilo och tappat en synlig mängd magfett. I morse vägde jag magiska 80.0 kilo. Det är nästan 20 kilo mindre än vad jag vägt som mest och det är faktiskt inte mer än ett par kilo mer än när jag gifte mej.

Och “Ferrisdieten” gÃ¥r i korta lag ut pÃ¥ detta:

• HÃ¥ll dej frÃ¥n “snabba” kolhydrater, sÃ¥ som ris, pasta, bröd och potatis — i förenklade ordalag all mat som kan vara vit (utom kol och rädisor). Det här är den svÃ¥raste regeln.
• Ät proteiner, fast inte till vansinne. Det här är inte Atkins och inte “karpping”.
• HÃ¥ll dej ifrÃ¥n allt som innehÃ¥ller socker. Tyvärr innebär detta ett nej till frukt och bär. Och mjölkprodukter.
• En gÃ¥ng i veckan fÃ¥r… nej, skall man äta precis vad man vill, hur mycket man vill.

Vill man sÃ¥ kan man krydda pÃ¥ med ett extraintag av vitlök, grönt te och liponsyra men det är inget man behöver ta pÃ¥ alltför stort allvar. Och om man vill kan man träna, men i glädande smÃ¥ mängder. Den bärande tesen i all Ferriss’ lära är minimum effective dose – ta/gör/ät/stressa inte mer än nödvändigt. Mrer info finns att kollas pÃ¥ Tim Ferriss sajt The Four Hour Body.

Måttliga mängder rödvin är okej. Kaffe och te tillåtet. Öl är förbjudet. Bönor däremot är godkänt. Och spenat. Jag har aldrig gillat vare sej bönor eller spenat.

Lite har jag “fuskat” oxÃ¥. Under ledigheter — sommarlov, höstlov och snart jullov — har jag lagt dieten pÃ¥ paus. Sen är det bara att omstarta efterpÃ¥. Helkornigt rÃ¥gbröd är okej pÃ¥ morgnarna. Och ibland lite lagrad ost pÃ¥ pastan.

Det har inte alltid varit roligt, men visst känns det bra nu.

Hade jag som nyårslöfte lovat att besöka gymmet i år så hade nog det löftet varit uppfyllt. De som känner mej vet att jag inte är en sportig karl, men att jag nog kan övertalas till de underligaste saker. Såsom att springa Coopertestet. Eller jobba sej till en skakande aladob, klämd ur en kalleskaviartub, på ett gym.

90 “forward luges” (“preussisk högt knästående ställning”, men upp igen och ner på andra knäet).

60 magmuskler.

40 push-ups

20 “kettlebell”-vift

och tio patetiska försök till armhävningar.

Sjutton minuter och fem sekunder stönande, stånkande, svettande och press. Och vad allt man nu kan räkna det som. Jag var så slut jag varit sen jag vet inte när.

Men så har man provat på den saken oxå. Jag är inte riktigt säker om jag vill göra det där nånsin igen — eller om jag kanske ändå vill göra om det om en vecka. Sådär lagom till jullovet. Men riktigt klokt är det ju inte.