Not actually a joke this week, more a concept.
Did you ever watch a music video and think "how the hell does that relate to the song?"
Well these guys have got a Karaoke machine and taken that to the next level.
The result is "literal video", its very simple and very funny...
So a good introduction would start with the song that began the genere Aha's Take on me . Then moving to the Monkeys' Daydream Believer followed by an awesome version of the Chili Peppers' Under the Bridge and finishing up with Creed's Eyes Wide Open
Enjoy and have a good weekend. We are back to Hemsedal for more boarding and ice climbing.
13 March 2009
11 March 2009
Publishing frenzy
When I was in school, which admittedly was more than half a life time ago, I had an English teacher called Dai Gealy. He was a small weasely fellow who was much more interested in talking about rugby than he was in teaching english. He had spent his entire life in the school, initially as a pupil and then as a teacher. For whatever reason he took a serious dislike to me and told me in no uncertain terms that my English was very poor and I would never amount to anything. He said so on several occasions and even blocked my path to study the humanities before I had personally decieded on a science track. As they say, that was then and this is now...
I just had to compile a summary of my academic output for 2008 which came to a total of 12 peer reviewed articles and numerous other bits and bobs. Twelve papers in a year is a personal record for me and brings my total to 75 in 17 years (or 20 depending on what you consider to be the start of the career). It should be said that I certainly didn’t write all of last years papers just by myself, 6 of them were part of a thematic set from a large EU funded project and the rest were written with various students and co-workers. However that tally still accounts for 15% of the total annual output from a University department which contains 110 researchers and PhD students. Some of those guys are co-authors on some of the papers but considering I only work there half time, it’s not bad going.
This year we have already had two papers published from Atle's Phd, one in AAPG and one in Petroleum GeoScience. In both those cases we got the front cover photo of the journal. The AAPG photo from which was taken by Simon (see below) shows use doing fieldwork in Canyonlands National Park in Utah - one of my favorite parts of the World. If you look really carefully at the photo you can just see me and the laser scanner on the rocks in the foreground in the bottom left corner - I made the front cover, fame at last!
On a non scientifc front UKC just published my ice climbing article "Feeding the Rat: fear and ice in western Norway" which was originally published on my blog a while back. It is illustrated with Mike Hutton's excellent photo of me from Bergsdalen.
I am certainly no poet laureate or Nobel novelist but I do think that Mr Gealy's total dismissal of my writing ability was perhaps a tad premature, but I guess that's why he spent his whole life in a small school in an obscure part of mid-Wales.
I just had to compile a summary of my academic output for 2008 which came to a total of 12 peer reviewed articles and numerous other bits and bobs. Twelve papers in a year is a personal record for me and brings my total to 75 in 17 years (or 20 depending on what you consider to be the start of the career). It should be said that I certainly didn’t write all of last years papers just by myself, 6 of them were part of a thematic set from a large EU funded project and the rest were written with various students and co-workers. However that tally still accounts for 15% of the total annual output from a University department which contains 110 researchers and PhD students. Some of those guys are co-authors on some of the papers but considering I only work there half time, it’s not bad going.
This year we have already had two papers published from Atle's Phd, one in AAPG and one in Petroleum GeoScience. In both those cases we got the front cover photo of the journal. The AAPG photo from which was taken by Simon (see below) shows use doing fieldwork in Canyonlands National Park in Utah - one of my favorite parts of the World. If you look really carefully at the photo you can just see me and the laser scanner on the rocks in the foreground in the bottom left corner - I made the front cover, fame at last!
On a non scientifc front UKC just published my ice climbing article "Feeding the Rat: fear and ice in western Norway" which was originally published on my blog a while back. It is illustrated with Mike Hutton's excellent photo of me from Bergsdalen.
I am certainly no poet laureate or Nobel novelist but I do think that Mr Gealy's total dismissal of my writing ability was perhaps a tad premature, but I guess that's why he spent his whole life in a small school in an obscure part of mid-Wales.
08 March 2009
Quiet Weekend
This year I have ice climbed or boarded every weekend and a few week days. Chalked up 5 climbing and about 20 board days - my body is buggered. Also have a cold which I am having trouble shifting, so with Katharine away in jockland I opted to have a quiet weekend in the lair. Lola was very happy. So I declined offers of climbing and top touring and just pottered about, checked on the boat, cut wood, fixed the hot tub, did some editing and went for curry and beers with the boys on Saturday night. Sometimes its good to take a breather.
I also played with my camera. I have seen a few High Dynamic Range photos on various website and been fascinated with it. So I set about teaching myself. The basic principal is pretty simple. The dynamic range in a normal photo is limited and some area will be over exposed and blown out while others will be in shadow. So you take a series of shots of the same view at different exposures (bracketing) and then use some software to combine them.
Here are my first attempts. I am rather pleased.
Comparison of HDR and regular photo of same view
06 March 2009
Friday Joke - John’s Guide to Zen*
Do not walk behind me for I may not lead. Do not walk ahead of me for I may not follow. Do not walk beside me either, just fuck off and leave me alone.
Sex is like air. It only becomes important when you aren’t getting any
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a flat battery and a burst tyre
The darkest hour comes just before the dawn. So that is the best time to steal your neighbours milk and newspaper.
Remember that no one is listening – until you fart.
Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
If you think that nobody cares if you are alive or dead – try not paying a few bills
Before you judge someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you judge them you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.
If at first you don’t succeed, avoid skydiving [particularly relevant to me]
Never miss an opportunity to shut up and listen.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will spend all day standing by a canal in the rain.
If you lent somebody 200 nok and then you never saw them again, it was probably money well spent.
Don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time you do it, after that…
Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment
A closed mouth gathers no feet
You are not learning very much when your lips are moving
Experience is something you get just after you really needed it
There are numerous theories about how to win an argument with a woman. They are all wrong.
*shamelessly stolen from somebody else
Sex is like air. It only becomes important when you aren’t getting any
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a flat battery and a burst tyre
The darkest hour comes just before the dawn. So that is the best time to steal your neighbours milk and newspaper.
Remember that no one is listening – until you fart.
Never test the depth of the water with both feet.
If you think that nobody cares if you are alive or dead – try not paying a few bills
Before you judge someone you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you judge them you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.
If at first you don’t succeed, avoid skydiving [particularly relevant to me]
Never miss an opportunity to shut up and listen.
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will spend all day standing by a canal in the rain.
If you lent somebody 200 nok and then you never saw them again, it was probably money well spent.
Don’t worry, it only seems kinky the first time you do it, after that…
Good judgment comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgment
A closed mouth gathers no feet
You are not learning very much when your lips are moving
Experience is something you get just after you really needed it
There are numerous theories about how to win an argument with a woman. They are all wrong.
*shamelessly stolen from somebody else
05 March 2009
Åre - just across the border but rather different
Last weekend we were in Åre, a big ski resort just across the border in Sweden, never been there before so it was a bit of an adventure. We flew from Bergen to Trondheim then drove for two hours across the boarder. The journey was made more amusing when the extremely camp man at the SAS check-in totally lost it when I refused to pay for the ski bags. He started ranting and shouting about Ryan Air and how unfair it all was. Still we didn't pay so that was the main thing!
The drive across to Sweden was made worse by the snow storm and the fact that Wales lost to France. That in itself was compounded by me losing two bottle of wine and a lot of face in a bet on the game to a small hyperactive French girl. Bugger!
Åre had a really nice feel to it, just a bit smoother and more polished than most Norwegian resorts. We stayed in a rather strange hotel, ultra modern with very small rooms with 4 bunks and no windows. Outside the room was a little seating area like a patio, but all indoors. Odd but functional. Anyway it was central for both the town and the resort so no complaints.
The boarding was ok but it needed a good dump of snow. Still it was fun to explore and new resort and we found some fantastic terrain, including a huge U shape bowl with tonnes of potential. Lunch on the Saturday was a challenge since all the restaurants on the mountainside seemed to be sit down, table clothes and waiters. Not a bit like the pølse and waffle shacks we are used to in Norway.
The drive across to Sweden was made worse by the snow storm and the fact that Wales lost to France. That in itself was compounded by me losing two bottle of wine and a lot of face in a bet on the game to a small hyperactive French girl. Bugger!
Åre had a really nice feel to it, just a bit smoother and more polished than most Norwegian resorts. We stayed in a rather strange hotel, ultra modern with very small rooms with 4 bunks and no windows. Outside the room was a little seating area like a patio, but all indoors. Odd but functional. Anyway it was central for both the town and the resort so no complaints.
The boarding was ok but it needed a good dump of snow. Still it was fun to explore and new resort and we found some fantastic terrain, including a huge U shape bowl with tonnes of potential. Lunch on the Saturday was a challenge since all the restaurants on the mountainside seemed to be sit down, table clothes and waiters. Not a bit like the pølse and waffle shacks we are used to in Norway.Saturday night we had an excellent meal and a few beers. Sunday was strangely quiet on the slopes and we chalked up another good day but bailed early as I am still feeling under the weather with man flu. The drive and flight back were uneventful. In summary definatly worth a visit and surprisingly different in a lot of subtle ways to Norway.
03 March 2009
My favorite airport - Bergen Flesland
I travel a lot and spend too much of my life in airports. On the whole I don't really enjoy the experience although I am, by now used to it. The whole airport experience has got significantly worse over the last few years, due to a number of factors including the post 9/11, knee jerk security reaction and the reduction in service quality as the big carriers try to out-cheap the budget airlines.
In most parts of the World the typical airport experience involves
1. Leave for airport 3 hours before departure because its going to be a long and painful experience.
2. Arrive at airport - generally have to park or get dropped off several miles away, spend ages getting to the actually terminal.
3. Go to check in - argue with check in staff about luggage allowance, seating etc. This is fairly standard and somewhat tedious because they are inconsistent and despite smiling a lot they are pathological liars.
4. Go to security - now this is the worst bit...
If one were cynical (and I am) you may believe that giving you loads of hassle at the airport is designed to annoy you but at the same time amplify the feeling of being threatened while strengthening the subliminal impression that the people in charge are at least doing something about this grave threat. The threat is real but extremely small. Statistically, you are more likely to be struck by lightening twice on the same day than be on a hijacked plane. But the threat has been grossly exaggerated as a justification for all sorts of other nasty actions, such as stealing people's oil. This fact is illustrated by an interesting paradox...
If you try and board a plane with a gun they will arrest you - obviously. However if you try and board with a knife or even a bottle of highly infeasible liquid explosive that looks like Evian, then they will simply confiscate it. So, for the very determined suicide terrorist this is a "no loss game" - they can just keep trying until one day they get through. Meanwhile for everyone else it is a totally pain in the arse, designed as I said to provide inconvenience that fosters a belief that there is a huge threat but the government is looking after you. A few questions to ponder:
- Did anyone ever shout "stick em up and spread em" whilst hijacking a plane with a pot of jam?
- Is there any difference between the nail clippers you buy in the shop outside the airport and those you buy inside? Security, but not when it interferes with revenue creation.
- Isn't a broken wine bottle a more effective weapon than a key-ring penknife with a 1 inch blade? Yet one is band and the other is not. Why? Think duty free equals income, again security, but not when it interferes with revenue creation.
- If I wear a jumper I don't have to take it off to go through the scanner machine. If I wear a jumper with a hod, I still don't have to take it off. If I wear a cardigan or sports top with a zip, I still don't have to take it off. If I wear a hoddie with a zip I am asked to take it off - I have tried this experiment numerous times. I am rather keen to know what is special about that hod/zip combo that makes me a security threat?
- Is that an X-ray machine? Well if it is it should be able to see through this bag and see that I have a computer in it. Why do I have to take the computer out?
- The utter idiot fest in London Gatwick were you remove your shoes to go through the scanner, walk 10 m and are then told to remove your shoes again and have them scanned. What is that all about?
- The whole clear plastic bag thing for your tooth paste etc. Ok so if you want to limit the total volume of liquids it works but what happens when I only have one thing that says 80 ml on the side of the tube. How does placing it in a plastic bag make any difference?
- And finally the people in the queue. They have stood there for an hour watching their fellow human sheep being told to take off their belts, remove their mobile phones from their pockets, leave the bottle of water behind (so you have to buy another on the other side) and still when they get to the machine they try and walk through with belt on, phone in pocket and water bottle in bag. For Christ sake - it may be inane and pointless but its not that complicated. Salt Lake City airport has green, red and black lanes like ski runs, green is for clueless people with 5 small children who have never seen an airplane, black is for experienced travels who can get through running. It works a treat and should be adopted everywhere.
Anyway back at our trip to the average airport...
5. Get through security and realize that you still have 1.5 hours to kill. Ask yourself why you bothered turning up so early.
6. Wander around a load of over-priced shops that you would never dream of visiting at any other time in your life.
7. Buy some food that you don't really want and watch lots of Tenerife bound easyjetters drinking beer at 8am
8. Get called to gate, despite the fact that the plane still isn't going anywhere for three quarters of an hour. Find out that it isn't infact boarding at all, they laid - again. Wander off.
9. Get distracted looking at electrical goods in the duty free shop and then get summoned over the tanoy. I like it when they call me by name, it makes me feel special.
10. Board the plane and then sit there bored while the plane is delayed for another hour.
This rant is getting away from the original purpose of the post which was to comment on my local and favorite airport, Bergen Flesland, which just voted the best in Europe (see below) by some dodgy travel mag from the UK.
Why do I like Flesland? Because it works, efficiently. To repeat the above trip to the airport...
1. Leave home 1 hour before the plane departs and drive 25 mins to the airport.
2. Park and walk 5 mins to check in.
3. Check in anytime up to 20 mins before the plane leaves and get no hassle from the check in staff.
4. Five minutes to go through security, sometimes 10 when it’s really busy. Limited hassle and most of the travellers know what is going on
5. Walk past the few shops and get straight onto a plane that leaves in 10 minutes
Fantastic - that is how all airports should be. And anyone who says that it's easy for Flesland to be efficient because it's small - well that seems like a good argument for not expanding the other already oversized and overstretched airports even further.
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