Where's the winter?

I really wonder if the winter is coming at all here in southern Norway. Last year in January, we had dug "trenches" around our house. The current weather is a mixture of fall/spring, it isn't winter.

The climate is unbalanced, and I do not think this is a natural change from natures side. Natural changes tend to take its time. 10 or more years ago, winter was winter and summer was summer. The last summers have been cold and rainy. Something is really messed up.

Took this photo at Hove, Tromøy 12. January.

My 2012 predictions, and Zeitgeist 2011

I’m going to try to predict some of what 2012 has in store. I’m not seeing this as an solemnly prediction, but writing most for the fun of it.

Technology
Speaking of technological advancements I’m thinking we will see more of augmented reality implemented in various digital devices. There are a lot of applications, games and electronics which have these capabilities. But I’m thinking augmented reality will be more frequent to see in new devices, and more people taking this technology to use. Due to the fact that many people resent 3D TV glasses, advancements in autostereoscopy is a must for selling more 3D TVs. I think we will see more advancements in this field; improved picture quality and the use of 4k or higher instead of 1080p since 3D breaks down the resolution.

Science
It would be a lot of fun and probably a little scary for the firsts tourists in space, which may happen in 2012. Maybe we will see a breakthrough in cancer research? This is shot in the dark, but the biggest flood in a hundred years may occur, somewhere in a developed country.

Politics
The chances that the fragile economy will be drastically improved is much less than it is to be drastically deteriorated. This crisis will continue throughout 2012, and be slowly improved in oncoming years. We will see more revolutions and confrontations in more of the world’s countries with totalitarian governments. The «arab awakening» will continue and spread. But may be put on hold by an possible war between Iran and the rest of the world. If Iran blocks the strait of Hormuz, the economic consequences will effect everyone. Therefore I think most of the world, even Russia and China, will look down on Iran’s government and will be willingly to take part in an operation. This possible war will unfortunately take a huge toll on innocent citizens, like any other war.

Media
Maybe we will see an Xbox 3 / 540 / 720 since the coming of Nintendo Wii U. I don’t think we will se a new stationary console from Sony’s camp, since I think there are so much unfinished business with the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Network. Commercial physical media formats will soon be a thing of the past. Digital purchases and digital deliveries via the Internet will be more and more common. Movies will be rented and purchased, as well as games, music, software and other medias. Before the audio cd can be called «outdated», high quality lossless audio formats must be better and more incorporated in online stores. Maybe one last physical medium will come after the discs. Memory cards; lightweight and you could have an collection of 1000 movies on one shelf. This is more ahead in the future, but we will see more discussions on this topic and most probably a high rise in digital purchased and delivered medias.

If you want a fast highlight reel of 2011. The video below is one of my favorite end of year summaries. Google made one for 2010, and I hope they will continue for the oncoming years.

Twelve Truths of Christmas

So it’s that time again. Time to celebrate Jesus Christ’s day of birth. Or is it? This is a minor summary of what christmas is, and my opinion what christmas should be like.

Is it true, that Jesus Christ was born on the 25th of December? While most of us know that this statement is incorrect, we ignorantly continue to pass this wrong information from the current generation to the next. If you look at the opinions of biblical historians and date calculations from the bible. You end up with the birthdate in the late summer/fall. The exact date is not know, since the bible don’t emphasizes Jesus Christ’s birth; it however emphasizes more on the death of Jesus Christ. In prechristianized countries, they already celebrated in December. They celebrated solstice, and the coming of brighter days. In nordic countries they called it «Yule», and they put food out to the nisses. The «old» nisses were cruel creatures accordingly to the some folklore at that time. With green-glowing eyes, they spread diseases amongst the humans and farm animals, and was accused of killing farm animals. The other side of the folklore depicts the nisses as a helpful farm aid, doing many tasks while the farmers are sleeping. In the early days after the christianization of Norway, one farmer could blame a neighboring farmer for having help from nisses at the farm, there so getting help from occultisms and the devils minions. The poor accused farmer could get a harsh punishment.

These mythological creatures are one of the occultisms and paganisms that are popular in this time of year; which is condemned in the bible. Some other pagan celebrations that has influenced christmas is the festival of Saturnalia. Which was held to celebrate the agricultural god Saturn. The christmas gifts and greenery has strong inspiration from that festival. Koleda is a slavic orthodox celebration of the old new year (meaning new year of the Julian calendar). The celebration is named after the winter god Kolyada, and the goddess of sunrise Koliada, and is in honor of the god Dažbog. Christmas carols and the bonfires at St John's Eve on midsummer solstice; are influenced by the Koleda festival.

The date of the birth of Jesus’ birth was decided between 243 anno domini and 336 anno domini by the western christian church; the eastern christian church had their own date, which would later be changed accordingly to the western. It was a good idea to use that date, because of nearly all of the unchristianized countries were already celebrating paganistic and occult beliefs at that time of year. So it was easier to christianize those surrounding countries, meaning they could hold on to their current festivities.

Then there was the christmas star. By nearly all regarded as a friendly star. The three wise men were sent by Herodes to kill Jesus, these men are also known as astrologists, which is by the bible regarded as demonism. Now if you think «logical» about this story. If these three men, were to kill Jesus, they would probably seek answers of were to go in the stars. Now, if the bible condemns astrology as demonism and who would be most satisfied of the killing of Jesus? Probably Satan. He wanted to kill Jesus, so he gave an helping hand.

Now, I don’t regard Christmas as a christian holiday. It is a mixture of different religions and paganisms. One point to top this is Jesus' teachings of to be aware of materialism and all it’s «temptations». Despite that, christmas is the most materialistic season of the year. If Jesus exists, I think he would be pretty pissed at the moment.

Instead of mixing christianity in to this season, or any other religious doctrine, why not have an holiday for the humanity? A worldly human celebration.

Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up as Sheldon in tBBT would do it. Since Sir Isaac Newton was born some time this season, Merry Newtonmas!

15 Alternative Holiday Tunes

Just wanted to share some non-traditional holiday songs. The YouTube playlist is located here.

Break the mental obstructions

When you hit a wall, when life gets a staggering amount of bottleneck points. When people say it isn't possible, when the narrow-minded inflicts stagnation on the world. Think of this quote, that will break many mental obstructions of creativity and innovation.

From now on we'll live in a world where man has walked on the Moon. It's not a miracle, we just decided to go. -Jim Lovell, "Apollo 13".

An Angry Letter To The Current World Order

Sometimes we are all frustrated, frustrated and the feeling of inability to make a change. We live in a world were politicians are like the main actors of a soap opera, too much talk, and way too little action. Sometimes I wonder if many of the worlds politicians lack the ability to make sense of the world around them. Has money and greed made their logical sense illogical? Corrupted the dreams they had when they were young? Whether a political party leans to the left or right, money is overly important either way. To make way into politics you need to have money, lots of money. To make changes you need to begin lobbying. And why isn’t lobbying illegal by the way? Isn’t a good political point, good whether you throw money at it or not?

Truth is currency. What I mean by that, is truth is a tradable object. Not that it should be, but that’s how it often is today. You can pay your way to freedom, if you have done something wrong. And sometimes you can’t get your freedom, despite you have done nothing wrong. It’s just that you don’t have any money to smear the machinery with. If you can’t pay the high rating of truth, you’re just going to jump as high as they say. Is this reality? Has it really come to this? You may say I’m paranoid, but then I’m just going to say you’re naive.

If you look through the fog, you can see an increasing trend. The trend is called authoritarianism. I’m happy to live in a state like Norway, but the feeling of authoritarianism is getting stronger. Just watch the news, see how many people are neglected by their government and are discriminated by their government. People thrown in jail, because they spoke the truth. I’m not talking about all the dictatorships in the world. But this is a scary increasing trend in western countries as well. Including humanitarian neglect to small «niche» regulations against the people. This trend may be biggest risk of decreasing human wellbeing. The withdrawal of peoples rights, the decreasing meaning of justice, and governments running over the weak, the poor and the underrepresented.

I propose that every government, needs an internal affairs department. That departments responsibility is too make sure governments sticks to their promises, decrease governmental overruns, and controls that the law is being held by the politicians. If the people need to be more controlled, then governments need it more, because of a simple fact: they got a lot of power. With a lot power, the chances to make good changes increase, and so the chances to make negative changes, increase.

Money equals freedom. The more money you have, the greater arsenal you have. That’s a fact, a sad fact.

I going to finish with a video, that in my opinion has one of the greatest lyrics ever written. Almost as good as John Lennon’s «Imagine», I may say.

Can science answer moral questions?

A very fascinating speech by Sam Harris at TEDTalks. I have thought of that question a lot, is there a definite definition of good vs. evil, and answers regarding questions involving morality. But have never gathered my thoughts together to a mental compendium. This is a great speech, and highly interesting!

The Rebooting Spider-Man

The following were written several months ago.

When I heard there where going to be a Spider-Man reboot, I just thought: "What did I just read? Have I been in a coma for 20 years?" No, I really wasn't thinking that, but I think that it should be at least 20 years before making a remake of Spider-Man. The movie with Tobey Maguire, is not so old that is has terrible special effects. There are so many comic book movies being made, and more around the corner. We don't need a remake at the moment.

I would be thrilled if there was a Spider-Man movie which would take part in an expanded Spider-Man universe, in other words not Spider-Man 4, or more worse a remake of the first. What I'm thinking is, what if this is contagious? Will we soon see a remake of these movies: The Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man or even Scott Pilgrim? If that happens I think the audience will be tired of the comic book movie genre, that's what I'm afraid of. In the opposite side, expanded universes makes the audience more interested, and leaving them wanting more.

But I prefer that these movies stick faithfully to the specific comic universe. If a Superman movie suddenly tells that Superman formed a secret organization on the planet Croston in his youth, I think that would make some Superman fanboys angry. I made that up of course, but expanded universe movies need to stick with the original spirit, and not take advantage of the brand. Cooperation with the comic book creator is always a plus.

But this might be a good remake, we'll just have to see. Make your own assumptions by watching the trailer.

Minor Spontaneous Pneumothorax

For a couple of weeks ago, I got pains in my chest after I’ve been working in the yard; with cutting down trees, driving wheelbarrows and other gardening work. I had slight trouble breathing, and the pain were tolerable. I just thought it was a broken rib, or a sprained muscle. So I toke some painkillers the next four days, and it went over. Then last friday, the same breathing problems and the pains came back. Then I realized I better go check it out at the ER.



Not my X-Ray image by the way, hehe.

Came in on friday evening, and took an x-ray image of my chest region. Turns out I had a minor pneumothorax. Came back on saturday at noon, got on a similar table to the operating table, got locally sedated. Then they "installed" a chest tube on my right chest side. Which has a box on the outside, and tube going in between my ribs, through my pleural cavity and around my lung on the back side, where the unwanted air is.

Pneumothorax is a condition, which tall and slender people have no problem getting, with no reason at all. What happens, is that air is trapped between the lung and pleural cavity, and that air puts pressure on the lung, making it harder to breathe. I had a minor case, but pneumothorax can develop into a more serious condition if left untreated.

I was locally sedated when they took the tube in me, but it was really uncomfortable. But there is really nothing to be scared of. It was quick and professional performed. I think they mentioned it was a new type of tube.

Anyway, in this time of writing, I'm at the hospital waiting to take an x-ray to see if the trapped air has resided...

Got the answer, there is still some air left. So I need to go with this box on my chest until friday, then I hope I can remove it. It isn’t so uncomfortable now, it just itches and tickles, and I feel like I’m Iron Man, lol.

Is attencion only negative?

It is local election time now in Norway, and every party is going to let them be heard. Everybody wants everyones attention, and who can blame them. But some politicians are arguing; "They only want some attention." (!) Isn't it election time? Attencion is nessesary in these times.

Arguments like that, makes your other more or less proffesional statements seem obscure. Arguments like that tells a story about a politician who doesn't have anything better to say in that discussion, and therefore shouldn't be in that particular discussion.

Every party wants and gets attention now, no matter how controversial or conservative the statements is. You can have another opinion, but keep your argument to the subject.