Skip to content

So so sad Nokia

For many years I have been a Nokia fan and user. I have primarily owned Nokia phones since 2000 with only 1 defection when I bought a SonyEricsson T610. I quickly went back to Nokia after that. Last year I finally found the money and bought my dream phone a Nokia N900. Could the world be any better than getting a phone from Nokia running Linux, no not in my opinion. I was originally against it when Nokia joined forces with Intel and created Meego but I tried to see the best in the situation. When Nokia announced the Microsoft venture in February I realized that this was the end. How on Earth the board managed to let Elop destroy the greatest mobile phone manufacturer in the world with the board's blessing will always be a mystery to me but one thing is painfully clear. Nokia as the we all knew it is dead and there is no turning back at this point. I can only hope that they will manage to release a good Meego phone until someone else can can pick up where Nokia left off. Read SemiAccurate's news posts on it and judge for yourself: Microsoft gutted Nokia and left them without a chance Microsoft gutted Nokia and runs off with IP

Oops I did it again

Sunday I was gonna go do the 13.3 km run through Dyrehaven known as Eremitageløbet. The race starts a 11:00 but since I live out in BFD (bum f... Denmark) I got up at 7 am to be able to be on the train at 8:23. Well of course the train from Copenhagen to Kalundborg was late which made the train from Kalundborg to Copenhagen late due to there only being one track between Kalundborg and Holbæk. Well I was at our local train station (Svebølle) at 8:15 and I got my ticket at all was good. That the train was 7 min late coming to my station was no biggie (I thought I had plenty of time). My planned arrival at Klampenborg station was 10:25 so even if I was a little late for my connecting train in Copenhagen I should still have plenty of time to catch the next one and have time to get there before the race start. Well the train ride went smoothly until we got to Regstrup where the train operator announced in the speakers that we would have to wait 7-8 min before leaving due to another late train (funny how one late train makes all the other trains late as well even though they can pass each other at the stations). Well after about 10 min and us not moving he announced that the train before us had broken down on Holbæk station and there was no way of knowing when we could leave. Then the ticket guy came running through the train asking everyone where they were going (at this point I had called my wife and she was getting the kids in the car to come pick me up). After 5 min wait more the train operator announced that we would go to Holbæk and couple to the train in front and we would be on our way. Once we had gotten moving he announced that coupling up to the train in front would take 20-25 min. Well we finally made it to Holbæk station about 30 min late I am guessing. I got off there and waited for my wife to pick me up. When she picked me up at 9:50 or so the train still had not left Holbæk (about 1 hour after it was originally supposed to leave Holbæk station). My wife kindly drove me up to my run, I was there 10 min before my group started. So DSB. I have used you 2 times within the past 8 months or so. Last time you made me sit and wait on Odense station for an hour and this time you made me have to get my wife to come pick me up. I have filed my request for compensation but I am sure you are going to deny it so that not only will I have wasted DKK 121,- on a train ticket that didn't get me to my destination but I will also have wasted the money on an envelop and a stamp to send in my request. I can't honestly believe I was once again stupid enough to think that DSB as a company would be able to get me where I needed to go on time. I think a 30 year old Trabant is more reliable than your trains and I know for a fact that both of our cars are. Thank you once again for nothing. I hope it will take me at least a year before I am stupid enough to try traveling with your crap trains again.

Good exercise during the past week.

My last post was about how I had a good bike ride in the wind. The following day I had a very nice run but I could feel some tired mmuscles following the bike ride. It was rather windy on the run as well but I had a good run anyways. (Sunday April 11th) Distance: 5.32 km Time: 00:27:23 Average speed: 05:08 min/km Average heart rate: 176 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29669376 Wednesday I got in another bike ride and I managed to bump up the distance a little. It was still rather windy but I had a very nice ride anyways. I do get sore while riding but usually there isn't much left the following day. (Wednesday April 14th) Distance: 27.04 km Time: 01:03:46 Average speed: 25.4 km/h Average heart rate: 159 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/30282758 Yesterday I got in another run. Still just my standard run of a little more than 5k but it went well. I didn't get to complete the entire run up the final run into Viskinge as my son came running to meet me. Another day with some wind, I guess it is just that time of year! (Saturday April 18th) Distance: 5.25 km Time: 00:27:56 Average speed: 05:19 min/km Average heart rate: 174 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/30282796

First bike ride of the season

Yesterday I got my bike ready and took my first ride of the season. It was a very windy day and I only took a short ride. Just as I expected it totally kicked my ass and the wind certainly didn't make it any easier. Besides the wind it was a little chilly but once I got going I didn't think too much about that. I hope to get some good rides in soon and get my butt in good riding shape over the summer. Distance: 21.64 km Time: 00:54:24 Average speed: 23.9 km/h Average heart rate: 161 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/29549420 Comparing the stats to the ride I did August 29th of last year I have gotten good and well out of biking shape. I hope some good training will get it back fast.

Finally another run

I finally got on my running shoes to go for a run in nature. For the past 4 weeks or so I have been trying to use the gym at work a couple of times a week. I have had good use of the rowing machine and the treadmill but neither can make up for or prepare you to run up and down hills, the wind and so on. Besides running on the treadmill is about the most boring form of exercise I can possibly imagine. Well back to my run yesterday. It was very windy and I thought I would end up with a very poor time but at least the sun was out. I am still trying to get back into shape after a long winter with the flu and various colds. Starting a new job and the arrival of our second son has not made it easy to get the right amount of exercise in. The run went very well and I overall ran faster than I had expected I would. Distance: 5.33 km Time: 00:27:17 Average speed: 05:07 min/km Average heart rate: 180 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/28796980 Well I need to get some stuff ordered so I can get my bike ready to take it out for a ride. Hopefully that will be next weekend but who knows if that will go according to plan.

Complaint about DSB

Once again I made the mistake of thinking that it would be a good idea to take the train somewhere here in Denmark. I was going from my home i Viskinge to Bred on Fyn to pick up our new car. Sadly there are no really good connections from my home town that way so I got a lift by car to Slagelse. I was at Slagelse train station around 10 min before planned departure. I went to the kiosk and bough my ticket (kr. 171,-) and went down to wait for my train. When I got to the platform the screen said that my train was 25 minutes late. Already here I knew I was fucked. I knew that by my schedule I had around 15 minutes before my connecting train in Odense meaning that I would be around 10 minutes late. Well finally my train arrived and just as expected I was around 10 minutes late for my train to Bred so I had the pleasure of waiting 50 minutes for my next train. So a train trip that should have taken 1 hour 7 minutes ended up taking 2 hours 7 minutes. I don't know what the problem was and honestly I don't give a shit either. I am just bound to hate public transportation. I don't know how DSB or the Danish government can possibly think that they can convince Danes to primarily use public transportation. First off taking the train is way too expensive. I you are 2 people I would say that you break even taking the car and more people than that it is definitely cheaper than the train and you are not at the mercy of DSB. Secondly it always takes longer to go anywhere by train especially if you include waiting time at either end and transportation too and from the station. So once again a big f... you to DSB and their lousy service. I may try the train again in another 6-12 months if I have no other option.

Busy busy busy

The beginning of this year has been very busy for me. Starting my new job has been both challenging and very interesting. I am really enjoying it. Then I have been out on paternity leave for 3 weeks after the arrival of little Erik. I really thought that I would have time to catch up and do some of all the stuff I have been neglecting but no such luck. Getting back to work was very nice but also a little stressful. I have finally been getting some runs in again but I haven't taken the time to upload them until now. Here are links to them. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25219653 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25219677 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25219809 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25219713 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25219743 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/25731855 I hope I will be better about getting runs in and post about it here.

Happy New Year

Happy new year to the few people who actually drops by here. I hope you will have a just as exciting 2010 as I will. I am looking forward to starting my new job on Monday and of course I am looking forward to the arrival of "Fenris" in February. Godt Nytår!!

First run in more than 3 weeks

Finally I had recovered enough from my encounter with first a cold and then the flu to do a run. It was about -6 degrees Celsius but very little wind but the road and sidewalks hadn't been cleaned very well so it was very rough. I am looking to get my but back in shape and hopefully I can get ready for at least a half a marathon in the spring. Distance: 5.32 km Time: 00:32:18 Average speed: 06:04 min/km Average heart rate: 182 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/20773984 I hope I am ready for another run Tuesday.

Finally got to upload some runs

Life has been somewhat busy that past month. I really though it would all slow down after handing in my thesis but then there was the thesis defense and finally I had to do a 27 hour work day from Sunday at 10am to Monday at 1pm because of some problems at work. Today I got to do a run with a coworker. It went really smooth even though we weren't super fast or anything it was really nice. It was cold this morning (just around freezing) but no wind or anything to make it miserable. Now I just hope I can get in a good run this weekend, preferably a 10k or more. Distance: 6.59 km Time: 00h:35m:33s Average speed: 05:23 min/km Average heart rate: 177 bpm URL: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17531604 Here are some links to the few other runs I did this month. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17531588 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17531575 http://connect.garmin.com/activity/17531563 I really need to get back to running some more. Now that I start full time at work on Monday it will hopefully help me get out at least 2 times a week.

Random email

As most people I get lot of spam email although a lot is caught by greylisting and spamassassin some random emails still make it to my inbox. Today I received a new one and I feel I need to put it here on my blog to share it with everyone. ----------------------- email begin ----------------------- From: "Elena" Subject: Letter to Denmark To: elenfegal@ysmail.ru Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:03:17 +0300 Hi, My name is Elena, I have 32 years and I write from Russian province. I work in library and I can use computer after work when possible. I find your address in internet and decided to write you this letter in despair. I have daughter Angelina, she have 8 years, his father has abandoned us and we live with my mother. Due to financial crisis recently my mother lost job and our situation became very difficult. Prices for gas and electricity is very high in our region and we can not use it to heat our home anymore. Winter is coming and weather becoming colder every day. We very afraid and we do not know what to do. The only available possibility for us to heat our home is to use portable wood burning oven. We have enough wood in our region and this oven will heat our home all winter for minimal cost. Unfortunately, we can not buy this oven in our town because it's price 8190 Russian roubles (equivalent of 191 Euro) and we cannot afford it. If you have an old portable oven and if you do not use it anymore, we'll be very grateful if you can donate it for us and organize transport of this oven to our address (200km from Moscow). This ovens are different, they made from cast-iron and weight 100-150kg. I'll wait your answer. Elena and my family. Russia ----------------------- email end ----------------------- Now don't get me wrong, I do feel very bad for poor Elena, her daughter and her mother. That being said does she have the faintest idea how much it would cost me to ship a 100-150kg cast iron wood burning oven to Russia? I think it would probably be cheaper for me to buy her and her family plane tickets and let them stay at our house for the winter. Maybe I should reply back to her and offer that as an option?

Finally done!

On October 5th I handed in my thesis and today I did my thesis defense. I personally felt that it went very well and I guess my adviser and the external examiner didn't mind it too much ether since I got a 10. To most foreigners it probably wont mean very much but I do think that most Danes think that a 10 i a very acceptable grade. I can therefore now call myself cand.polyt. or civilingeniør or say I have a MSc. in Engineering (or I at least will when I get my diploma). Now ahead awaits real life with a 9am to 5pm job but also a better paycheck than what I have been used to.

Private TeamSpeak server

For a pretty long time I have been running a personal TeamSpeak server on my home server. I don't have it advertised anywhere and since my wife and I haven't played with any of our friends for well over a month it hasn't been used or so I thought. Well yesterday we wanted to talk to a friend and we had plans for all 3 of us to meet up on our TS server. When my wife and I logged in there were 4 strangers using our TS server. It made me kinda cranky and after my wife had played some loud music at them for a few I shut down the server and put on a default password. Now if people had just been nice and asked me if they could use my TS server or something I wouldn't have complained at all. I might even have created a public or private one for them since I have a 100/50 Mbit fiber optic connection and therefore ain't worried about bandwidth problems. For the time being I think my TS server will have a default password.

Handed in my thesis

Today I finally handed in my masters thesis at the Technical University of Denmark. The title of the paper is "Interactive Questionnaires on Mobile Devices". It has been an interesting process writing my thesis and I hope I have done a good job on it. Hopefully I will do my thesis defense later this month so I can finally say that I am done with my M.Sc. in Engineering (majoring in computer science).