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English

Running project – still on it

I have not been writing much about my workouts here lately. The reasons are that I, as usual, lost the continuity in my workouts when the snow came, it is of course entirely possible to run in snow but I am not a very keen snow-jogger I must admit. Running indoors, while good for stuff like interval training is making me more or less mental really after a while. I actually read a book las time I ran my usual 5 click on the treadmill, that’s how tedious that is, staring out over the usually empty gym. I wish there was a TV set to watch the news or something while you are beating the treadmill.

But now the outdoorsy environment is back on track again, spring albeit very late this year is finally here, and it is definitely weather to go out and run which I did start off well enough and then suddenly came the flu and put and eand to my running efforts for about 3 weeks. My flu was not really that bad, about 4 days of fever but then a long recovery before I was actually feeling well enough to go running.

And now I am doing it again. Working my way back up into some kind of shape and I actually like it a lot − especially since my good friend Jenny has gone running with me again, we have been out three times now this year and every time is really good!

The routine is as usual, trying to get 3 quality runs in every week, no matter really the days, trying to get rest between the runs but I am actually about to violate this right now since I am actually scheduled to run tomorrow evening but I just can’t resist the woods right now so I will go and run a short but fun track, about 3 km is what I had in mind.

Me before a run at my favourite track

I have also limited my energy intake to about 2000 kJ less than usual (that’s around 500 kcal for you non-SI guys) which means I have started to shed some of the excess weight. I hope to be able to shed some 20 kg or so until the Kista race takes place in November. After that I should loose another 10 kg and I should have reached a reasonable goal weight for my kind of height but my first goal is to get 10 kg lighter. I think it will improve my running a lot.

I am starting my 3 rd week now of food planning (dieting sounds so dull, does it not?) and it is actually going pretty well. This weekend has been a bit over the energy budget however, it was also planned, the move night with the guys is once a month and that night I will drink beer, eat what I want and have a good time.

So that is what has been going on at this front for a while. I am also happy that some friends from Wales will be coming over this summer to do some hiking in the highlands and out in the archipelago. Need some fitness there as well since walking up- and downhill in the highlands carrying what you need is also pretty tough sometimes. I need some good maps to plan the trip which I have ordered both in digital and paper form, it will be really nice!

I have not been in these highlands for about 10 years so it will be like a completely new thing for me as well. I am planning for 2 nights camping out in the free, so I need to go through my gear to see the tent and everything is in good working condition as well as the backpack and hiking boots and so on. We are likely to go the first week in August as it seems now and I am so looking forward to it.

English

Wk 16 Playlist

This weeks playlist is the soundtrack of alien life. All music are parts of movies that I like from films about life extraordinnaire.

Get soundtrack here.

  • Dream is collapsing
  • Bad Things
  • After Dark
  • Cat People (Putting out fire with Gasoline)
  • El Tango de Roxanne
  • Eye of the Tiger
  • Mombasa
  • Theme from Salt
  • On the Road Again
  • Girl You’ll Be A Woman Soon
  • I See You
  • Lothlorien
  • The Bioluminescensce of the Night
  • Inception – Mind Heist
  • Batman: Dark Knight
  • Rambo
  • He’s a Pirate
  • Wolverine
  • Becoming one of ”The People”
  • Theme from Sherlock Holmes
  • Dexter
  • Star Trek
  • Not Human
  • Mogadishu Blues
  • You’ll be in my Heart
  • Lust for Life
English

Favourite track – in spring

It smells like ldaybugs outside right now. Today was a little warmer again but later it got back to the chilly spring that we are having. Some years we could go swimming (and enjoy it) in mid May but I am certain it won’t happen this year. But springtime is here and all the dreadful snow is melted away now. Not even the north facing hills on my track had any snow now (which they had last sunday).

The starting point

 

Toward the cottage "Slammertorp"
At the crossroads
Water from the snow that is now gone...

The old fields close to Slammertorp cottage
This is the best part of the woods, the one I always look forward to when struggling up the hills at the other end, this is where it pays of and you can just enjoy the woods
The open fields - but from the other direction actually. The track goes around this field.
The finish of the first part of the track. You can almost see the starting point way up ahead - but not quite. There is about 1/2 km to the finish from here if you cut it short... wich I did not tonight...
Starting on the second part of the track. It is very much uphill from here now just beyond the part you can see here is one of the toughest hills on the track now.
Also a nice part of the track but it is steeper than the picture shows...
The setting sun makes it all worth it. But now it also gets colder, good there is only about 1 km to go from here
Some playthings for strenthening your abdominals, back and arms
English

Spotify to limit free use

2 kommentarer

The very popular music service Spotify is about to limit its free use for people who has been using the service for more than 6 months. People who have already used the free Spotify service for more than 6 months (prior to November last year) will have the limits reinforced on may 1st and new users will start counting when their accouint is created.

The limits means you may only listen 10 hours a month and play the same tune maximum 5 times.

I believe it is pressure from the music industry behind this, in order for spotify to be able to offer their music to unpaid subscribers in some fashion the commercial spots are not enough for the industry. We have seen several labels lately pull music from the Spotify service and hopefully by doing this the music will come back, at least for the paying users!

And in actual fact, the 99 SEK a month it costs us here in Sweden (and many broadband ISP’s have deals where you get Spotify for a discount or for a free period) means you can listen to it on your mobile, in your home and so on unlimited by these new rules.

I’m a happy paying customer and so is my wife and Spotify is still the best music service out there – especially in comparison to anything the record industry has produced so far…

English

Phishing attempt or real?

2 kommentarer
Edit: As you can see in the comments below the email was actually legit.

I recently got an email from what appears to be the manufacturer of an app I am using on my Android phone. The app in question is the GeotagPhotos Pro, which records GPS locations and time to a database, then when you take pictures using your digital camera (not the mobile camera) providing the camera’s time is set to the same time the GPS has it will then be able to geotag your pictures after you have downloaded them from the camera.

I have used this software for a few months now and out of the blue I get the following email from what appears to be a legitimate email from the manufacturer:

Dear Geotag Photos Pro user,

recently, we got information from Android Market / App Store about all licences of Geotag Photos Pro. When mathed with users in our database, we were unable to find valid licence for your account. This can be just bug in licence database, so that please if you are sure, that you bought our application officially, please send us your order id. You can find it in orders history in Google Checkout (for Android) or in iTunes (for iPhone). We apologize all legal users for this inconvenience.

If you downloaded our app from another source, than official store (Android Market or AppStore), please consider of buying  official full version. To help you with this, we will make ”licence amnesty” this Wed, April the 6th, when Geotag Photos Pro will be offered with 50% discount – for $1.99 instead of $3.99.

Please contact our support staff, if you have any questions.

Best regards,

Jindrich Sarson
CEO of TappyTaps

I find this deeply disturbing. All the signs of a bad phishing attempt is here, the bad spelling (however the manufacturer is a Czhech company which may explain that in part, but the idea of sending payment credentials from the Android Market and Google checkout is deeply disturbing to me.

I have contacted the manufacturer to ask them to verify that they actually are who they claim to be but if they, as they claim, have a problem with their licencing database they should be able to verify the data with the raw payment data from Google Checkout that they as a seller receives.

There is also no information about this problem on their home page and this leads me to suspect foul business and that this is not legitimate. Otherwise I should think that there would be at least a mention about this…

We will see what comes back…

English

Feynman: Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle

Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle

by R.P. Feynman

Introduction

It appears that there are enormous differences of opinion as to the probability of a failure with loss of vehicle and of human life. The estimates range from roughly 1 in 100 to 1 in 100,000. The higher figures come from the working engineers, and the very low figures from management. What are the causes and consequences of this lack of agreement? Since 1 part in 100,000 would imply that one could put a Shuttle up each day for 300 years expecting to lose only one, we could properly ask ”What is the cause of management’s fantastic faith in the machinery?”We have also found that certification criteria used in Flight Readiness Reviews often develop a gradually decreasing strictness. The argument that the same risk was flown before without failure is often accepted as an argument for the safety of accepting it again. Because of this, obvious weaknesses are accepted again and again, sometimes without a sufficiently serious attempt to remedy them, or to delay a flight because of their continued presence.

There are several sources of information. There are published criteria for certification, including a history of modifications in the form of waivers and deviations. In addition, the records of the Flight Readiness Reviews for each flight document the arguments used to accept the risks of the flight. Information was obtained from the direct testimony and the reports of the range safety officer, Louis J. Ullian, with respect to the history of success of solid fuel rockets. There was a further study by him (as chairman of the launch abort safety panel (LASP)) in an attempt to determine the risks involved in possible accidents leading to radioactive contamination from attempting to fly a plutonium power supply (RTG) for future planetary missions. The NASA study of the same question is also available. For the History of the Space Shuttle Main Engines, interviews with management and engineers at Marshall, and informal interviews with engineers at Rocketdyne, were made. An independent (Cal Tech) mechanical engineer who consulted for NASA about engines was also interviewed informally. A visit to Johnson was made to gather information on the reliability of the avionics (computers, sensors, and effectors). Finally there is a report ”A Review of Certification Practices, Potentially Applicable to Man-rated Reusable Rocket Engines,” prepared at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory by N. Moore, et al., in February, 1986, for NASA Headquarters, Office of Space Flight. It deals with the methods used by the FAA and the military to certify their gas turbine and rocket engines. These authors were also interviewed informally. Fortsätt läsa Feynman: Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle →

English

Google is documenting Swedish ski slopes

Google snowmobile, Photo: Pontus Johansson

Google Sweden has a specially designed snowmobile that they are using with the google camera technology to creat a first person view of all the ski slopes in Sweden. The snowmobile has been spotted in several different ski slopes, large and small, documenting the whole slope.

You can expect an integration in ”StreetView” with the swedish ski slopes soon. Something that I believe ski enthusiasts will be happy for. You can virtually visit the ski slopes before you pack your bags and go there in person. Very handy…