Jacob's Web

Blog moved!

2008-10-07T13:21:00.002+02:00

This place is DEAD. Go to jacobsweb.wordpress.com now!

Back from Cairo

2008-10-06T13:00:00.003+02:00

I was off to the Egyptian capital city of Cairo for the weekend, and at the same time recovering from the flu I caught last week. Now I'm back with tons of photos which I will upload here very soon, so stay tuned. But first I gotta take care of some work-related stuff!

Flu!

2008-10-01T20:34:00.005+02:00

Can you catch the flu in tropical climate? Today I unfortunately found out you can...

Damn. My muscles hurt, I got sore throat, fever and I slept whole day. What's wrong with me? I thought that the illness in this part of year is related to the weather in Northern Europe where I usually live. Obviously it's not the weather cause it's still 35° C here and I somehow got influenza. Hate being sick!

Here are some pictures taken yesterday, before it all happened. Let them remind me of the good days.

My aunt from Poland made a visit.

Whaddup y'all!

"Grrrr..!"

Mosquitoes were everywhere

Prof. Jake tells the story of the Mosque

Staying on the safe side

2008-09-28T18:30:00.006+02:00

I've been living here in Sharm on and off for over three months now, and taken lots of photos (some of which you might see here, and other on Facebook and - most important - my Flickr account). My favourite motive has been the sunsets over the beautiful mountains of South Sinai. Once I also managed to shot the mountains at the sunrise (couldn't sleep at 6 am), but that's nothing I'm doing on a daily basis. So.

The mountains are cool from the distance. But I think it would be even cooler to get there and maybe climbe a little. (Nothing like Kebnekajse or Galdhöppigen! ;)). But there might be problems...

According to pretty much everyone I've spoke to, it's rather dangerous to go there. For various reasons. Some say the police are there and won't let anyone in. That might be because they really are there or they just say it so the tourists don't go there and get harmed by the real dangerous things waiting there. What might that be? Here's a (pretty serious) list of dangerous "stuff" waiting arount the corner in the mountains of South Sinai.

1) Mines - Remains from the various wars in the area in the 60's. I've heard that both Israeli and Egyptians have mined the area. Then as the time went on the land was once in Egyptian and another time in Israeli hands, and both sides added more enforcements, so now nobody really knows where it's safe to go.

2) The animals - according to locals it's best not to go alone in the desert as one might meet some wild animals. Most dangerous are the arabian wolfs they say. They are hungry preditors living in the desert, so better watch out. They look a lot like wild dogs but they're said to be not exacly "human's best friend".

3) Police/military forces - they're said to be here to protect us (the foreingers in Sharm). But who knows what they actually do when they sit in the middle of the desert 24 hours a day and stare at the sun, sand and dust all around them? Also they're of course fully armed so you might not want to get into trouble with them.

Anyway. I've also heard that from the point where I'm living (at the edge of the city, so to say) it's only 10 minutes walk to the Ring Road (also called Desert Road). After that road there's nothing there, except the three things I've mentioned above. If I continue I should get to the foot of the mountains in about 1 hour of walk through the desert (not exactly the 40 years Moses and his followers are said to have been walking in the area in the bibilal times). So, one day I'm planning a little walk, with my camera of course. It can't be that dangerous right.. It's just sand?

Could have been worse!

2008-09-26T12:38:00.004+02:00

... =)

Egyptian hospitality

2008-09-24T19:26:00.004+02:00

Egypt is after all a nice country with nice people. Regardless of what some of the foreigners living here might say, it's good to be here. A sad but true fact I actually agree with having spent some time here is that unfortunately lot of people are not that smart. But that's the education probably, or as I heard people describing it - the social education. The society "teaches" you certain things and you keep doing that cause it's the "right" way. This includes playing stupid in certain occasions and later on blaming the stupidity on misunderstandings of English or saying that something "got lost in translation".. You know. So probably 90% of the people you will meet here are dumb (or play dumb, whatever it is it has the same effect - you think they're acting dumb). But regardles of the IQ, I find the vast majority to be very friendly to me.

So now it's time to get back to work. I have some PR stuff to do. But first I have to eat up all the sweets Mr. Ahmed brought me. I asked for "a small cookie for tea, and oh..give me something traditional Egyptian". This is what I got:

Next time I'll ask specifically for ONE piece! And you better keep that sleek and smooth memory of me, cause next time you see me when I'm back from here, I might not be as sleek and smooth anymore... =P

Ciao!

Update: I'm feeling a little dizzy cause of all that sugar, but it turned out that the whole thing was a gift (they didn't accept any money) so I had to eat it up. All of that. E-V-E-R-Y P-I-E-C-E. Not so LEGEN...wait for it ...DARY! (Season 4 of How I Met Your Mother started this week, go and grab it now!) See ya...

Housefly

2008-09-24T17:34:00.002+02:00

I hate houseflies. I can't stand them. They can destroy any situation at any time no matter of your previous mood. Why the hell do they exist anyway? Is that just a proof that there are meaningless things in life?

Shit they are everywhere. God help me!

Why can't a smart scientist devote his or her life and invent a substance that efficiently kills all the houseflies in the world? HEEEELP!

Ridiculous thoughts on sleeping

2008-09-23T02:01:00.004+02:00

Recently I noticed a change in my behavior, I became what you might call a late-sleeper. Not that I sleep really really long in the morning (or rather day, cause some might not consider the time I get up at as "morning" anymore). Back in the days (whaa?!) I was what Swedish people use to call "ein Morgen Menschen". Though that was a German translation (don't ask me why... it just sounds more cool in German this time, aka "show off some language skills!"). Whatever. The thing is: I sleep late. Occasionally even as late as 1-2 p.m.. And on a daily basis I usually get up at noon. Today I tried to "get up early" as you say... I was out in the kitchen at 10 am but decided I was way to tired, I had work to do later today and hence needed a "fresh" mind (good luck with that boy!), it is too hot outside anyway for going now and besides..it's Ramadan and nobody's gonna be in the offices until later anyway. So... I got back to bed...

What's wrong with me? Am I dying?

Screwdrivers and Israel

2008-09-22T16:11:00.006+02:00

Egypt is not Europe. I knew it before I came here. But I had no idea how frustrating it can be to leave the Old Continent.

My hard drive "died" last week. Surprising, cause I put it in only 10 months ago when I installed Leopard, back in November. The reason is probably burned electronics on the drive - something that might have been cause by the damn electric sockets which are not grounded! That would be nice to have here since they turn the electricity on and off all the time (I literally mean like 10 times a day!). Furthermore, I guess that the current isn't really stable and I can see the sudden peaks and falls of the voltage just by having the lights on in the evening. Anyway, my disk died and I needed a new one.

Before I could change the drive however, I needed screw drivers. More specifically a Philips #00 and Torx T8 which are necessary for changing the hard drive in MacBooks. My first guess after speaking with some natives was that I won't get it in Sharm. So I took a trip to Israel. Thought that would be nice. They are civilized, after all..right?

Maybe they are. Maybe not. I don't know. But I had no luck with finding the screwdrivers in neither Jerusalem or Bethlehem. Probably I just don't know how to look. All the time I ended up in the Arabic parts of the cities by the way... Where are the Jews?!

So no luck here. But the visit in Israel gave me at least some nice photos...

On the Mt. of Olives a mix of tourists and Israeli land forces. Fully equipped... Shit.

Oh it was soooo bright!

These children reminded me that the summer's over and it's time for school for some! Too bad...

Meat. Lots of meat. Old City in Jerusalem. Wonder if it's kosher?

Something similar in the background.. you see? Must be dangerous to live so close to lots of gold...
Old City in Jerusalem

I found some Jews in the Old City after all. Turned out the city is divided in four quarters: Muslim, Christian, Armenian and Jewish. At least that's the traditional division.
No in Bethlehem. Looking for screw drivers.
Bethlehem is a part of the Palestinian Autonomy. No Jews on the streets here. No screw drivers either..unfortunately.

A view from somewhere in Bethlehem.
And the panorama over Old City in Jerusalem from the Mt. of Olives.

So that's it. Got back to Sharm. Found the screw drivers (at Radio Shack...). Bought an exactly identical hard drive in a computer shop. I got it for 80 euro last year in Sweden. Now I payed 100 euro... Today the same costs about 55 euro in Europe (checked it on the Net). But hell.. what was I supposed to do?

Now thanks to Time Machine (love you!) I'm back and running just where I was! Egypt and technology are however still two very different and incompatible concepts. No Internet at home, cause somebody somehow messed up the telephone cables for the DSL line. And it's Ramadan, so they can't promise it will be fixed anytime soon.

But still it's 35 degrees and sunshine... At least the life is wonderful!

Egypt blocking Facebook?

2008-09-21T16:40:00.003+02:00

Here's the first of hopefully no more posts about why Egypt actually is a third world country (unfortunately after the recent day's events, I have some more themes for blog posts about why sucks in Egypt).

I hope I'm wrong now, but it seems like the Egyptian government is blocking Facebook. Not a big deal, huh? Maybe not, but it's still narrowing an individuals options for communicating with the surrounding world. Seriously, it is a bigger issue, considering why the persumed block is taking place. According to LA Times:

The reason: In April, one group of young citizens mobilized 80,000 supporters to protest rising food prices. Facebook networking played a crucial role in broadening support and turnout for an April 6 textile workers' strike and protest.

OK, now it seems like an issue. Considering that I have found a few more evidences. All from the end of the summer of 2008, where people presumed it would happen. Now it seems like it has. For political reasons. Great... Hard to believe it but it seems like I'm living in a country where basic human rights are not respected.

Right now I have been accessing the social network site via different proxy servers available, but it looks like the scripts essential for Facebook get blocked, so I can not even send any messages to people.

Stay tuned for more reports on human rights in Egypt. Hell yeah... bye!

Update: Btw, I've been off for another reason - my hard drive suddenly decided to end our yearlong collaboration and leave my with a 5 days old Time Machine backup (thanks God for Time Machine!). But it took my a couple of days to find anything that I could replace my dead drive with in this part of world. More on this later!

Bad bad bad bad bad bad news

2008-09-17T16:53:00.004+02:00

This won't be a happy post. It won't be long neither. All I will say is that today I was working on a PR thing for the company when my Mac suddenly froze so I had to kill it by shutting it off. Now I see how some of you laugh: "haha there you go, even your fantastic Apple computer died!". Yeah, maybe it did, cause when I reboot all I see is a pretty neat icon with a blinking question mark, which represents "I can't find any disk to boot from". And that's true, my hard drive appears to be dead. Damn..great timing. Just for your information, the hard drive isn't original Apple, it's a 250Gb Toshiba drive I put in two years ago, and I knew it would die some day. Luckily I have Time Machine backup, which means it will be easy to get up and running again. Badly though, the last backup is 5 days old...

So tonight I'm going to Jerusalem to look for a) a new hard drive and b) some screw drivers cause I left my set back home in Sweden. Great. Sweet. Fantastic. I love this. Pray for me.

And I will pray. I'm a bit confused to whom I should pray though, considering I'm European, currently stay in Egypt and hope to find everything I need to fix this in Israel...

It's great, isn't it?

2008-09-12T10:37:00.004+02:00

Hey look what I just found in my inbox:

For those of you who didn't get the Swedish part in this, it is an ad which entitles for discount buying a jacket this fall season. The funny part goes something like this: "There's always something positive going on. Like now: it only gets darker, colder and more rainy, which gives you this fantastic opportunity to buy a jacket [bla bla]. It's great, isn't it?". Haha yeah, that sure makes my friends way more happy about the weather conditions in Scandinavia. =D But you know what is great? This!

WTF Microsoft?

2008-09-12T10:19:00.003+02:00

The Redmond software giant have been airing their two new ads recently, certainly as a response to the long-running series of "I'm a Mac - I'm a PC"-ads from the Get a Mac campaign. I watched both and seriously, what are they talking about? Is it really a good idea to bore people out... I was hoping for something better when they announced Jerry Seinfeld would be featured in the ads, but this is not good. Check it out for yourself.

Can somebody explain to me, please? I feel confused...

End of the world? Yeah whatever...

2008-09-10T01:42:00.003+02:00

This is so funny. Some people seem really concerned about tomorrow's upcoming experiment at CERN with the Large Hadron Collider (yepp, it's the same CERN and the same LHC as described in Dan Brown's Angels & Demons – let's hope they'll create antimatter, just like in the book ;)). So what's their concern? Well, they think that during the experiment, except the particles the scientiets are looking for, they might as well incidentally create a black hole! Yeah right... that's what I'm saying. But they're serious. Just take a look at this apocalyptic video:

The scientists at CERN have replied with – what they believe is – a "cool" message. One of the most pathetic music videos ever, gotta love it! :D

Well, we'll see if we're still alive by tomorrow. Oh gosh I'm so worried right now... shit ;). Bye!

Why it's critical to put something into the right context

2008-09-09T13:56:00.004+02:00

Good morning (yeah I know, but it's Ramadan and I like sleeping late nowadays)! Here's a random thought for you. Buying a computer is often seen as a huge expanse. Especially when it comes to a Mac. I don't know why but I hear it all the time from people that "oh those Macs, yeah they're sure nice but too expansive". Erm, well not so sure about it, take a look at the consumer MacBook or iMac and compare it with a Dell or something – and see what you get for the money, I'm talking about the build quality – and think again. And I haven't even mention that you get rid of the probably most irritating thing with new PCs: the Windows Operating System. But check out this story.

About 26 months ago (or 780 days if you count like 26*30) I bought a than brand-new MacBook. A year later or so I wanted to upgrade it a bit with bigger hard drive and more RAM, so I bought additional. Total cost for this 26 months is something like 12.000 SEK (that's about €1200). It's 12.000 SEK/780 days, that is something like 15 SEK a day, or €1,50! €1,50 a day for using an amazing machine every day in two years. Still think it's expansive? Think again!

Update: Oh yeah, almost forgot: the second season of Californication is out, get the two first episodes now! From Wikipedia: "The premiere of season two is set for September 28, 2008. The first and second episodes of season two leaked to the internet on September 8.". Sweet!

Late night work

2008-09-08T02:14:00.006+02:00

Living in Egypt (or probably any Arab country) may seem a little strange and off for Westerners. In my opinion the vast differences that appear at this time of year might depend on Ramadan (the most important month of the year for Muslims) and the practice of fasting during the day hours.

When I'm about to eat something out of home, I can't stop thinking about that I'm eating and the people who work in the restaurant aren't and won't be, until about 6-7 p.m. (that's when the sunset is). When I'm downtown among people during the day, it feels unfair to take out my bottle of water, which I always bring with me, cause it feels like I'm offending the people around me by drinking (cause they can't). (And now, forgive me for this rough distinction between "us" and "them", but it will make this whole conversation a lot easier.) So these two example are when it feels like we make them feel bad (although, every Muslim I spoke to insist that they don't want to eat or drink and they don't think about it during the day, not even if they see someone else drinking – so I should not feel guilty about doing it – according to "them").

How about the opposite? Are there situations when "we" get disturbed by those who practice the holy month, and have to adjust their whole lives after it? Well hell yes! But let me get this clear first: I personally absolutely agree with the idea of "one should adapt after the local practice, conventions and rules".

But.. there is this one thing that is different here. Something that is difficult to like, or even to accept, though you might fully understand the reasons of it. It's the practice of working at nights. It seems like every building worker in Sharm lives according to the New Zealand Standard Time (that is like +12 UTC folks...). I really understand that they want to work after the iftar (the first meal of day during the fast in Ramadan), but it doesn't make it easier to fall asleep when they're banging on your roof at 2.30 a.m.! Anyway, enjoy the pictures I just took since I couldn't sleep anyway.

But there's something else that "we" might like about Ramadan: the practice of decorating everything with colorful lights which is soooo familiar for "us" (if you have seen Christmas decoration in December, you know what I'm talking about ;)). Check out those pictures too!

How to get things done NOW

2008-09-06T01:31:00.002+02:00

So I found this quite amazing presentation tonight. If you feel like you're getting distracted and waste your time when you really should DO SOMETHING ELSE, take a look. It will take you a couple of minutes but it's well worth it. For real!

For more stuff like this, visit 43Folders.com.

Why planning is impossible in Egypt

2008-09-05T14:05:00.003+02:00

The question could probably be something like "why planning is impossible in certain cultures?", which would be an incorrect way of asking, or like "are there differences between the concept of planning in different cultures?". The last one is at least possible to answer, and the answer is a clear: yes. Want to learn more about trying to do something as planned in Egypt, and hear some funny stories as well? Read on!

Nothing is as you've planned it in Egypt. There you go – my new motto for the time being. Those of you who know me a little have said that I'm pedantic. Those who know me well say that it's more like it seems like I am, but in reality I'm not. And for those of you who don't know me at all: I'm not pedantic, I just like having my stuff figured out in advance.

And that is what I was trying to do with this day: have it figured out in advance. The plan was simple: go to bed early (not 3am which I'm used to down here), get up in time for breakfast (funny word, you know it's derived from "break the feast", i.e. the feast after having been sleeping – poor fellow Muslims, no breakfast for them till sunset this month!). After eating I wanted to devote the whole day for some writings I have to do. So that's the plan. Here's reality...

At 8pm last evening, a bunch of workers decide to start doing some work on the roof . Yeah I understand they do it after eating... I would prefer to rest during the day as well if I were them. Sooo hot outside, and they don't eat or drink. Damn. So they work during nights. Well, they stopped at 11pm so I could go to sleep. But by then I got too interested in studying renaissance art and the works of the Great Trinity of Renaissance: Raphael, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. Some quite amazing works over there. Anyway, you know Wikipedia: one post takes you to another which takes you to a third and you end up at something that seems to have completely nothing to do with where you started (but it has, since you got there someway by just clicking the links!). So there goes my "go and sleep early tonight"...

One part of my plan succeeded: I got up at 6.30. Though I wanted to sleep, but couldn't. They started the work on the roof again. I guess they ate just before sunrise and with the stomachs full it was easier to get back to work. Plus that the sun isn't that hot in the morning either. I'm sure they planned it all – too bad it wasn't in line with my planning. So there you go, the longer explanation to the problem of planning in Egypt: it's not that they don't plan here at all. The planning is just different from mine for at least one big big reason: cultural differences. So when you go on holiday somewhere, don't blame the locals for spoiling your day. You might as well be spoiling their'.

3pm, and I just got up from bed for the second time today. No more planning today, just start work!

Ehm.. after I've eaten something first. And oh. I still gotta do the laundry. Oops.

Back in Sharm!

2008-09-03T22:48:00.008+02:00

After 26 hours of travel, and over 5000 km later, I'm back in Egypt. I'm not going to bore you with a detailed description of this "fantastic" trip – still I'd like to share some thoughts. Let's start chronologically.

First of all, don't complain about the railways in Sweden. It's a fast, convenient and pleasant way for traveling short to mid-long distances. The standard in Sweden is really good (I'm talking from the experience of having spent the last summer vacation on Europe's trains in 11 different countries - so for once, I know what I'm talking about ;)). Speaking of which, I can really recommend an InterRail vacation, it probably is the best way to experience different countries and cultures (as you see more and meet more people, compared with e.g. going by car or just simply flying to your destination). But let's move on now to my recent journey...

I wouldn't recommend sleeping at the Copenhagen Airport (CPH), unless necessary. I've heard something about a sleeping lounge, but it turned out it's after the check-in. Which really isn't of any use if you're flight is in the morning as the check-in usually opens like 2h before the departure. So what I did was spending 6h on a bench. Reading, listing to music, trying to use the Internet (but they demanded astronomical amounts of money, like 60DKK (about €8) for 30 minutes!), talking to people... But no sleep at all. It just wasn't dark and quiet enough (or I wasn't tired enough).

When I thought that CPH was big and noisy, I had no idea what London Gatwick (LGW) would be like. It felt like it was 5 times bigger and 50 times more crowded than the first airport! I had to spend about 7 hours there, so I found a place to lay down and get some sleep. Seems like it doesn't matter how bright or crowded it is when you're really tired...

And in fact, the waiting room at LGW's North Terminal (yes, there's a South Terminal and they're connected with... a railway) was way better than anything I could find at CPH. I can especially recommend the "beds" on the ground level, opposite to the WH Smith store in the departures terminal. And oh, one more thing: no free WiFi at Gatwick either! What's wrong with supplying people with that for free? You get pretty much all the basic stuff - warming/air condition, water, even electricity and news from all these randomly placed TV screens - for free at the airports. I really hope that they're soon realize that taking money for such an elementary thing as Internet access is highly immoral! If you know any airports that give away WiFi, let us know in the comments. Next time I'll plan my trips to go via does...

The airlines I flew with (Sterling and easyJet) are pretty much okay, perhaps as good as it gets when it comes to the low-cost airlines (that's a nicer term for basically "cheap airlines", I assume). The planes were new and fresh, there was no problem whatsoever with luggage – not even with the 3 extra kilos of my check-in luggage. A smile and a "come on, it's just 3 kilos... do you want me to take my boots out and carry them as hand luggage really?" was enough to not having to pay the ridiculous €15 for each extra kilogram.

So now I'm back, just in time for the holy month, Ramadan. I noticed immidietly that something was going on – there are lights and decorations everywhere, pretty much like Christmas in the Western civilization. Back to sun, back to warmth and back to work. As long as it's fun, and as long as one enjoys it, everything is just the way it's supposed to be!

Three obvious revelations

2008-08-31T00:37:00.001+02:00

I spend the last night in the cozy flat of my good friend "oh-I-really-love-Microsoft-but-they-still-haven't-came-up-with-anything-as-good-as-the-iPhone-so-that's-why-I-use-an-Apple-product"-Viktor. That made me realize a few things:

Revelation no. 1: Watching TV can be fun

Alright, this headline might sound bloody obvious, but let me explain. Those of you who know me somehow well must have noticed my - what should I say - ignorance of television. I don't like to watch it, and I almost never do - except the news in the morning, for a short period during my second college year. In fact, I don't even have a TV in my apartment anymore. And I'm good with it! This morning however, I zapped a bit between Discovery Channel, National Geographic (both in HD!) and VH1 and got kinda stuck... I really felt like I wanted to watch more and more, and couldn't help myself checking those three channels (which just happened to match my expectations of what I wanted to see and hear that morning). It got worse: I couldn't get away and do what I really wanted to do (and that was to eat breakfast - those of you who know me at least a little know how important that is to me). So here's the strange conclusion, which might be obvious to pretty much anybody except me (till this morning): watching TV can be fun! But hey, I noticed something else: it's really easy to get stuck, not realizing the time going by and end up with nothing done! Have you noticed that?

Revelation no. 2: Music videos may have an impact on the song's popularity

As I watched VH1, they played a lot of familiar songs, among them Amy Winehouse's "I'm no good for you" and Coldplay's "Viva la vida", both of which are on records I recently enjoyed. The funny thing was that the music video kind of exaggerated my reception of the music - it seemed even better than what I expected it to be. Yeah.. sure, I know that people since 1639 say "seeing is believing"...

What I realized through my own experience led me to an thought-provoking conclusion: music videos may have an impact on a song's popularity. That might explain why it is so important for artists to get air-time on MTV, Viva or VH1, but also why popular music aired on those channels gains so much popularity! Now, this is of course just one of many other reasons, among which social impact of the music video's air-time might be crucial (that is when you - or your subconsciousness - go like: "hey, since it's aired on the TV, many others must think it's good, and if other's like it, I might as well give it a go and listen to it"). So that might be the solution to the mystery of popular music. Or... perhaps I'm just over-analyzing it a little...? ;-)

N.B. Even now, I can hear "Viva La Vida" playing at a party somewhere nearby. Guess they watched VH1 this morning too...

Revelation no. 3: Sofas can be comfortable

Yes, they can.

Well that was it, three damn obvious facts, for your reading pleasure. Something you never thought about. But I did. And I wrote it down. And that's the difference between me and you! Peace out ;-)

Coming up next: A "new" ocean

2008-08-29T10:49:00.003+02:00

This is something we already knew, you could hear it throughout the summer: the ice in the Arctics is melting and reaching new, record-low levels. This has led to some political dispute, when Russia about a year ago claimed a vast territory of the Arctic as Russian, and also placed their flag below the North Pole. If somebody back then - in 2007 - doubted the Russian imperialistic ambitions, I guess they can stop hesitate now: just take a look at the development in Georgia recently (English BBC, Swedish Dagens Nyheter and Polish Gazeta Wyborcza all have special service about the on-going conflict).

This development on it's own is of course a great storyboard for blogs like this, but it's not what I was intending to talk about in this post. Something else is a big issue, and as I said, I'm sure that pretty much everybody have heard about the melting Arctics. Well, hearing about something and seeing it are two different things, cause - as they say - a picture is worth a thousand words. So here are the pictures I wanted to show you in the first place: the world with an ice-free Arctic Ocean. Scientist say we can expect this somewhere between 2030 and 2050. But than again, remember how they underestimated the melting so far? So this 2030-2050 looks to me as a conservative calculation. But hey, let us hope we're all wrong!

Hello, again!

2008-08-29T01:14:00.004+02:00

It's been over a year since the last post (which by the way happen to cover the original iPhone launch) and a lot has changed since - although I still don't own an iPhone, when it seems like the whole world does. For example, my friend Viktor - who btw makes living by being an excellent Microsoft .NET coder and isn't really known for being an Apple fanboy - recently picked up his second one (3G this time) of those all-in-one devices. Beside this I've seen people everywhere - from Palestine to Poland and from Sweden to Sharm el Sheikh - using these phones and I was just about to get one this fall, when something changed.

I was looking for interesting opportunities for job, as well as for collecting some data for my upcoming master thesis, when I got stuck in Egypt where I found both - and even more. One funny thing I can say about this guys is: read The Secret.

When the summer of 2008 came to a rainy end (at least in the northern parts of Europe) I returned to Sweden to move out of my apartment and say a "see-you-soon" to my friends (I don't believe in good-byes for some reason). I got out of the flat two days ago, spend a night at bullshit-Mackan's house and finally got picked up by my family and went to visit them. So this weekend I'm gonna be in the charming city of Göteborg (or, technically, just outside) visiting my family. I'm also planing on using this new DSLR of mine and shoot some pictures while I'm here. Talking about pictures, don't forget to check out my Flickr account, where you can see some of the better shots from around here. I'm also working on adding some photos from Egypt, and these will come continuously, as I shoot new when I get back there soon!

So what can you expect from this blog from now on? Well... more frequent updates - that's for sure (shouldn't be too hard to achieve since the last update was something like 400 days ago). Besides, I will of course talk something about the life in Sharm el Sheikh - what, where, when and how - and illustrate everything with knife-sharp photographs. Furthermore, you can expect the usual crap about tech, geeky stuff (such as the world politics, travels and weather) and of course, music.

That's it for tonight! Thanks for reading and stay tuned (preferably by adding this blog to your RSS reader of choice - I recommend Google's web-based solution). Ciao!

World's most successful PR-campaign?

2007-06-30T14:27:00.000+02:00

I seriously doubt that there are people out there who haven't heard about the big release these days. Few have seen it (except the official photos), even fewer had a chance to put their hands on one of them. The product is kinda pricey and lacks a couple of key features (which will most probably be fixed in a Rev. B, or the European edition). Still people have been standing in line, all across the States to get one of the iPhones. One of the world's most successful PR-campaigns is over, and the reviews will soon tell if it really is a revolutionary product or just an over-hyped one.

However, I just had to post this when I saw the front pages of a couple of big newspapers (online). They're all mentioning the introduction of the iPhone last night! Check it out.

The Polish Gazeta Wyborcza's front page

"Most read" section of the Swedish Dagens Nyheter

Best picks from Hönö

2007-06-27T22:21:00.001+02:00

Here are some photos from Hönö (and one or two from Göteborg). I upload a selection of good shots. I hope you like them!

Some statistics

2007-06-23T23:52:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!
Today I'd like to show off some of the stats for you. As I browsed through the Google Analytics pages for my blog, I noticed that You - my visitors - come from many different countries from 5 continents! I would like to say thank you for your time and attention, I hope you enjoy this somehow-frequent blog and that you return every now and then (to be honest, I can tell from the statistics that you do :-)). Take care!

Pictures from Poland

2007-06-21T20:02:00.000+02:00

I have one more photo blog post for you this evening. It containts a selection of pictures from Poland. Scenery, family and friends, buildings... You can click on any photo to view a larger version.

Pictures from Borlänge

2007-06-21T19:26:00.000+02:00

This week I returned from Poland, and as I promised in my earlier posts, I publish pictures from my recent trip to Borlänge today.

I'm trying out the new, embedded photo album from Picasa (as it simplifies the process of publishing, since I have a "export to Picasa" option directly in Aperture, check out the new plugin ).

You should easily see the pictures as a slide show (Flash player needed!), but you can also click on the yellow icon in the bottom-left corner and select "View Jacob's gallery" to go to my Picasa gallery and view bigger versions of the photos!

A short vacation

2007-06-05T15:41:00.001+02:00

Today I'm leaving for Poland for some time (rather short than long visit). That most probably means no updates, as I will be busy visiting family and such. I'll post the pictures from Borlänge when I'm back. Maybe something else as well...

Meanwhile, Apple has released new, Santa Rosa based, Macbook Pros. If you happen to have too much cash, OR if you just need a really really good notebook computer, check them out at Apple. Speaking of which, I guess we'll see some Apple related news during this and next week as the WWDC is approaching, with a feature-complete demo of Mac OS X Leopard. Stay tuned!

700 year aniversary

2007-05-31T13:51:00.000+02:00

As I promised in yesterday's post, I'm going to upload pictures form the trip to Borlänge very soon. First though, I'd like to get this one online...

I took a walk to the town centre today, to see what's going on with the 700 year aniversary celebration in Halmstad (it meens it's been 700 years since Halmstad got the status of a town (btw, the city was Danish at that time - intressted in more history, search the Wikipedia and/or the Web)). I snapped a couple of photos downtown, check them out below. By the way, if you'd like to view high(er) quality/download any of these pictures, right-click on it and select >Download. Bye!

Back, for a little while

2007-05-30T16:51:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!
Just recently, I returned from the short vacation in Borlänge. Beautiful scenery, I've got tons of pictures which I'll try to upload during the next few days. As I returned, I read a couple of interesting news stories that I'd like to share with you.

First of all, there's a new "thing" on iTunes Store called iTunes U. It looks like a co-operation between Apple and some universities and colleges in the States, and the result is a lot of classes, from schools like MIT, PennState or Berkeley, available online - for free! There's a broad range of classes availeble and if your interessted I recommend you to check it out at iTunes Store->iTunes U.

The other news is the introduction of something called Microsoft Surface. I saw a demonstration of this kind of device about a year ago at some Internet TV Channel on Democracy. Then, it was a scientist introducing a working device, and it made a huge impression on me. Now it looks as Microsoft is rolling it out in the winter of 2007. Go to the website and check out those three short video films now! It's seriously cool stuff...

Guajira y son

2007-05-20T14:23:00.000+02:00

I just finished watching the 1999 movie "Buena Vista Social Club" (IMDB). I love watching it over and over again, even though the spoken language is Spanish while the subtitles are in French. Since it's a documentary about Cuban musicians, most of the movie consist of recordings and live performances, so it doesn't really matter that I (officially) don't understand what they're saying/singing. I think that when it comes to music, there's always a way of understanding each other. So, I highly recommend you watching it, although it can be hard to get your hands on a copy Good music is (with some exceptions) not the same as popular music, but we all knew that already.

Tomorrow's the P-Day ("P" as in Presentation. Funny, huh...? Erm...whatever). I'm kinda excited about it, especially what our opponents will say. It's really hard to know if we've done the entire project "the right way" (if there's any "the right way"). Well, guess I have to wait and see. Time for a break, ciao!

A big update.

2007-05-15T16:59:00.000+02:00

The second time I woke up today was at 2pm - exacly the same moment as Apple introduced its new , speed-busted MacBook update. You see the connection? No...? Neither do I. Anyway..

The first time I woke up today was about six hours earlier, at 8am. You might think that's late, but considering the amount of work I've lately put into a damn project at school, and the fact that I came back from school at 1.30am that night, you may understand. The project was pretty much done today at 11am, so after handing it in to the project leaders, I felt that a quick nap might be just what I need.

What else can I say? My life has been circling around that project lately. Wake up, workout, think about what needs to be done today, get to school, work, eat, work, eat, work, get back home, think about what else could have been done if there was more time, eat, try not to think about the project, fail not to think about the project, eat, hit the pillow, try not to dream about what needs to be done tomorrow...

Aw, I just figured out that there's a short description of the project online. Feel free to check it out over here, under "Student Projects" -> Health Check.

I feel kind of guilty about not updating this blog in almost a month. As I realized the visitors number dropped to below 1 person/day I thought it's time to lighten things up again.

One more thing (I almost forgot that one): photos from the "celebration" of Valborg, over two weeks ago, are online. You should see them in a box below. These are un-edited so don't expect too much quality this time. I just wanted to put them online so I could get rid of them and stop answering those "when-are-you-gonna-upload-the-pictures"-questions.

That's it for today!

Some latin chords

2007-04-16T17:07:00.000+02:00

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across a couple of great CDs from a label named Putumayo World Music. As the name suggests, the label's CDs feature international artists - all of them previously unknown to me. I particularly like the latin CDs, such as "Baila - A Latin Dance Party", "Nuevo Latino" and "A Mediterranean Odyssey", as well as others, including "Gypsy Caravan" (a compilation of gypsy music from different European countries) and the untipped "Mali" (from the African country of Mali - this CD is actually much better than what one would expect!).

I couldn't hold myself back from playing along, and since that resulted in a transcription of some songs, I'd like to present the chords for two tracks today.

The first one can be found on "Nuevo Latino". It's by Raul Paz and the track is called "Mulata". I can't find the lyrics, unfortunately, but the chords are pretty easy. Here they are:

Verse:
Am Fmaj7 - 2x
Dm C Dm E7
Stick/chorus:
Am G Fmaj7 - 2x
Outro:
Am Fmaj7 E7 till fade

The other one is from "A Mediterranean Odyssey, Athens to Andalucia". It's written by (I think...) a french artist named Tekameli and the track is called Que Son. I couldn't find the lyrics for this one either (although I've tried searching for not only "lyrics" but also "líricas" and "lyrique" ;)). The chords are really basic (though I'm sure one could go on with some more advanced grips). The hard thing with this one is to catch on with the rhythm, so listen carefully before playing!

Verse:
Em D C (not so sure here) B7
Pre-chorus:
Em B7 a couple of times, listen to the CD
Chorus:
B7 Em - Try to keep up with the rhythm! :)

That's it for today, have fun!

(Update 1: Ooops, the chords were eaten up by HTML-markup tags since I put them inside << & >>, fixed!)

StreetB, pre-party & "Maluch"

2007-04-15T12:00:00.000+02:00

I don't really feel like writing today. And besides, let's face it: I know that most of you don't even read this crap - you're here only for the pictures. ;-) So here they are:

This one goes out to all my Polish friends out there: A Maluch i Sweden. Haha!

Below are some pics from this Friday (btw, the weather has been outstanding this weekend!).

Last night's pre-party with friends from school:

One last thing: if you have more photos from the pre-party, please send them to me! Cheers!

A couple of weeks in a life

2007-04-09T17:18:00.000+02:00

Intro
Two weeks, no posts from me. Again. Sorry. I'm not a good blogger. I know. I'm doing my best, but still it's not enough. Too bad. Most of my readers probably left a long time ago and aren't coming back anytime soon. But, the good thing is that if you're reading this, you're obviously still interested about hearing from me. That's good, thumbs up dude!

Anyway, enough of that bullshit-talk. Right now I'm busy with the last project for this semester. It's a major IT-related project which is just staring up, so I can't tell that much yet. So far there's been a lot of reading and comparing to gain the necessary theoretical background. Yeah..they call it research I guess... Yawn.

And oh, BTW, another reason for lack of updates was my lack of a stable Internet connection. But I'm working on solving it, it should be up within a week or two. Can't wait!

"I Was Here" /Summer '07

Somebody's taking a swim. March 28th, 2007, Sweden.

So far it's empty, but within a month or two... well, we'll see!

Unfortunately, the last week was a bit colder, with temperatures only around 10 C degrees, but it looks like it's on the way up once again. Sweet!

Hair make-over

A new haircut, yuppie! Here are some shots from the make-over...

Not ready...

Nope, it's ain't done here either...

Tadda! Everything's done, just a little clean up. And you will see the result another time cause we forgot to take the pics when the hair was done.

Miscellaneous

Among others, a friend visit and how a good cup of cappuccino should look like. Enjoy!

Summer's comming!

2007-03-26T18:55:00.000+02:00

Hi folks!
This post won't be long. Not because I have nothing to say, nor because I'm busy (which I kind of am, as usually), but because of this:

Amazingly, the summer's pretty much here already. It's hard to say how long it will last, but this weekend has been great, with daily highs around 15 Celsius degrees. It might not like that much, but it's enough to take of the jacket, at least in the sun.

This weekend we took a walk to one of the beaches around here. Here are some pictures...

A normal day in Sweden...

...one more.... No, seriously, we believe this was a fire exercise.

Somebody took a looong ride with her or his bike... ;)

Finally, an update!

2007-03-21T19:06:00.000+01:00

I'm alive and all good, folks. I've been really busy lately, mostly school-related stuff (kind of a mid-term exams, projects deadlines, and so on...). Just a couple of days ago I had an opportunity to go out and shoot. Here are some of the results!

Halmstad is a nice city to live in, even if you have high aesthetic demands on the surrounding environment. Some examples:

Some nice, new apartments

The Halmstad Library

Today, me and some friends from the class (as well as a couple of others from the school) went to Göteborg for an exhibition about future IT-related job opportunities. The best part was probably the free bus trip... (So much for Gösta...damn!) Anyways, here are some pics:

Going with the Älvsnabben across the Göta river.

Tourists... ;)

A view upstream the Göta River, toward the Göta Älv Bridge

Famous "Barken Viking" with its hotel on board

The Opera House

Somebody's weirdo...

Somebody's cool-o... ;)

Last couple of days...

2007-02-28T23:30:00.000+01:00

So, what's been going on here lately?

Well, while some of us played games, others were trying to come up with new, weird poses...

Some of us were shooting the weather (and one of the school buildings)...

...while some tried to get a good view. Which wasn't easy in these weather conditions... But I'm planning to get better shots of the town, so stay tuned for that!

While some of us were cooking (this particular meal was one of the best this year, even if it looks simple and was easy to cook, it tasted delicious and luxurious)...

... other's been putting up new curtains....

...while other's were playing basketball (and some of us watched the game and took some nice shots).

That's it for this time, come back for more soon!

Sweet little video

2007-02-27T23:44:00.000+01:00

It's an old one, but I haven't seen it until a friend (;-)) found it today and since it's a blast to watch I highly recommend it!
It's about a small, flightless bird - Kiwi. Here it is:

And hey, stay tuned for more updates later on this week!

E-paper at school

2007-02-22T23:09:00.000+01:00

This week, during our interaction design class, we were able to play around with some different portable devices, in order to evaluate the different interfaces. One of this devices, the prototype of the iRex iLiad is one of those new upcoming electronic paper book/newspaper readers. It was really nice to have the opportunity to play around with tomorrow's technology during class, and of course, I took some shots!

Two different types of tablet PC's running Windows:

Since these devices do not contain keyboard (unless you attach an external one), there must be some way to do the (in)famous Windows trick: Ctrl+Alt+Del. So how did they solved it? Like this (look closely):

That's right, use the pen to push the reset button which sends the Ctrl+Alt+Del command to the system. This reminds me of my Windows-age back in the days (before Linux and just recently OS X). =)

What else do we have? The Samsung Q1 is a real hottie. The interaction, considering the size of the touchscreen, is impressive.

And finally, we have the electronic paper device, iRex iLiad (who came up with this kind of name anyway?!). You can read more on electronic paper on the Net, a good started is (as always), Wikipedia's article on the subject. Here are some pics:

Okay, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this post! (And sorry about those two last pictures, I can't understand why Blogger has such problems with rotating my photos properly.)

/JW

What I've been up to lately

2007-02-18T10:54:00.000+01:00

Hi there! Here's a brief sum up of what's been going on the last few days. I go for the pictures instead of boring you with me poetic descriptions of the world around us.

Friday: Quick meal 'n quick shot.

Saturday:
Studying at school. Checking out an extraordinary thin cell phone.

And looking at the first reboot in 25 days (it was necessary after an firmware upgrade).

And in case you still haven't seen anything interesting in this post, here's a final photo which might change your mind. Cheers!

Another day has passed

2007-02-16T00:23:00.000+01:00

Hi there. I don't really have much to say today. I've been doing the usual, school, job.. Saw a basketball game this evening as well. Unfortunatelly it didn't turn out well for Halmstad this time. Well, yeah, here's a shot:

One of those must-see videos

2007-02-14T21:47:00.000+01:00

While reading my daily RSS feeds today, I ran across this video. Featuring Jobs & Gates, and some other special guests, definitely worth watching, if so for the Finder song. Not as geeky as one might think, so give it a go!

Why? Because I'm forced to!

2007-02-11T13:30:00.000+01:00

Okay, so just so you know: I'm not doing this voluntary. I'm not doing this because it's fun. And I'm not doing this because I want to.
Nope..the reason is..school. Sure, I could design an interface in Macfriendly applications such as Flash, but seriously, if it's got to be, it better be got! So the prototype will be build the same way as real applications are. For that to be possible I need to install something I can run at school (i.e. Windows...). So here it is, those of you who didn't know already: Macs are perfectly capable of running whatever you need (need is not the same as want in my case) them to run.

Running Windows 3.11 on Mac

2007-02-10T13:05:00.000+01:00

This one goes out for all the geeks out there ;)
Here's what's possible to do with a Mac nowadays:

Kinda ol' school feelin' ;)

Studying at E.H.

2007-02-05T14:59:00.000+01:00

Tomorrow's the exam in entrepreneurship class, time's running out and I have kinda mixed feelings about it.. Gotta go back to studying tho, so I can say I was trying, at least. Not giving up! ;)

Trying to learn something

2007-02-02T14:26:00.000+01:00

The exam is just 4 days away so it's high time to start studying hard!

Watching some basketball

2007-02-01T20:59:00.000+01:00

This time Halmstad won't win, but hey, at least I made it to the game!

Microsoft Norway Demos Vista on a Mac

2007-01-26T21:44:00.000+01:00

As The Unofficial Apple Weblog wrote earlier this week...

"Some things just speak for themselves. In this video on the Norwegian site VG TV (apparently associated with Norway's largest newspaper), a Microsoft Norway executive demonstrates Vista on what is clearly an Intel iMac (they don't even bother to hide the Apple logo)."

Now this is great!

Winter's here!

2007-01-24T18:01:00.000+01:00

So it looks like the winter is here, finally! Here's a photo I took on my way from school today.
Update: Unfortunately it looks like Blogger is kinda dumb cause I can't find a way to rotate the image (although I've already rotated it on my computer before uploading...). Sorry for the inconvenience.

Two pics

2007-01-22T11:15:00.000+01:00

Hi there, I just thought I'd show you how it looked outside my window 2 days ago (Saturday):

First snow of 2007, yeah!

But then, Sunday morning was different:

So much for the year's first snow...huh?

Last night

2007-01-20T12:44:00.000+01:00

At Sanjin's place, having fun with friends!;)

Whiteboard-animation

2006-11-26T22:24:00.000+01:00

Såg detta på YouTube idag. Rätt cool video där en kille tecknar på whiteboardtavlan en musikvideo. Synd bara att jag inte kan teckna sådär, men finns andra som kanske blir inspirerade...

Afternoon light

2006-11-26T11:45:00.001+01:00

Afternoon light
Originally uploaded by Roselea.

Just found this one on Flickr. Great shot, isn't it?

Zune eller den nya Shuffle?

2006-11-14T23:16:00.000+01:00

Idag introducerade Microsoft Zune och CNN har lagt upp en rätt så bra video där de pratar lite kort om den nya MP3-spelaren från Redmond. Kan vara värt att se om man inte har en aning om vad Zune är (vill vara?) men vänta mot slutet, då den kvinliga reportern tar fram sin nya iPod Shuffle och alla börjar hylla den. Slutar med att hon frågar "Why would I buy that [ Zune]?", och Microsoft spelare blir kallad för "clumsy"... Kanske bäst att önska Microsoft lycka till! ;-)

Kononowicz

2006-11-14T22:58:00.000+01:00

I helgen var det ett val i Polen (till bl.a. kommuner, landsting och stadens presidenter). Och som alla val så hade även detta föregåtts av en valkampanj. En av kandidaterna, Krzysztof Kononowicz, hade så trevlig presentation av sig själv att han nu har blivit en kändis på YouTube.

Varför? Han ser ut som han gör, han pratar "om enkla saker med ett enkelt språk", och han vet hur man ska "eliminera brottsligheten, eliminera droger, eliminera alkohol, eliminera ALLT!". Dessutom vill han öppna fler arbetsplatser "för folk, ...och för ungdomar".

Det och mycket mer, kolla in själva, nu med engelsk undertext! Get it while it's hot!

Tröja och rakhyvel

2006-11-08T21:12:00.000+01:00

Så här års tar man ofta fram sina vinterkläder, vilket bl.a. innebär en del tjockare tröjor. Speciellt ull är skönt att ha på sig pga dess förmåga att värma när det behövs men ändå undvika att bli för jobbigt varmt, då man är inomhus. Så jag tog fram några ulltröjor idag och... guess what? Noppor. Och det finns ju inget som ser mer ovårdat ut än en nopprig tröja. Så jag tänkte bara dela med mig av ett tips på hur man blir av med nopporna.

Lägg tröjan på ett hårt underlag. Ta fram rakhyveln. "Raka" tröjan. Det som stannar på rakhyveln tas bort med handen (försiktigt så det inte blir en massa blod...) och samlas upp i exempelvis en skål med vatten (så det inte blir fullt av det i luften). Tänk på att rakhyveln ska vara lite slö, annars är risken stor att man tar bort lite för mycket material på sina ställen... Annars är det bara att köra på. Ta i. Jag märkte att jag gjorde lite för lugnt i början och fick göra om jobbet på de ställen. Måste förresten säga att det kan ta en stund, så försök inte med det på morgonen innan ni ska ge er ut till jobbet/plugget.

That's it! Ut nu och fixa era tröjor så vi slipper se noppriga kläder i höst!

iChat, MSN, Jabber - A big mess

2006-10-21T22:20:00.000+02:00

So I thought it's time to solve the problem. Here in Sweden everyone uses MSN (except from some "geeks" who go with a way better alternative: Jabber). "So what?", you think, "all my friends use MSN too and there's no problem with that". As long as you stick with a Microsoft products - MSN and Windows - everything works pretty good, I agree. But here, on Mac OS X, although it exists, the MSN client from Microsoft sucks really bad. I'd like to compare it to...hum, let's say Windows Messenger version 4.5. You've got the text messaging. You've got emoicons. And...that's pretty much all. Well, there is some file transfer support, but it uses the old MSNP4 or maybe 5 (or maybe something else?), which means that the files are transfered via MSN's servers insteand of peer-to-peer as in the newer versions of the protocol. The result? Speeds like 4-5 kb/s. That worked in 1999 perhaps, but try sending a gillion-something megapixel photo image with it today. Add no support for all the new "cool" effects as well as no audio nor video support. That's the reality for Microsoft's official MSN client for Mac OS X, 2006. No wonder folks try to go different ways.

Yesterday I found this excellent tutorial which I had time to follow today. To sum up: it gives iChat (the default Mac OS X messenger client) an ability to connect to a MSN account via Jabber. I'm not going to get too technical here so if you want more detalies, just read the first paragraphs of the tutorial.

The result? I'm not sure, but it looks like everyone I ever had on my MSN contact list and everyone who ever had added me on their got notified about me adding them (requested authorization). Since I haven't changed MSN account since 1997 you can imagine how many people got affected.

I'd like to say sorry for the inconvenience, it was completely unintentional. I'm not blaming anyone, I just hope you all understand now that even if you are happy with Microsoft and their products, it is still concerns you whenever they can deliver quality products for all supported platforms (after all, MSN on Mac OS X is officially supported by Microsoft), or not.

Oh, and by the way, since MSN - like it or not - is the de-facto standard for IM in many countries, why can't Microsoft just open up the protocol? It's not like they are making any money on this... Or are they?

Showtime!

2006-10-14T16:57:00.000+02:00

The Mando Diao show last night was great! The show was at a local club located in a basement so the whole thing wasn't too big which resulted in a special atmosphere inside, between the band and their fans. Mando played about 13 tracks (though I didn't count so this is probably wrong) from all three albums released so far. I had the feeling the volume of the show was at some moments to high. Or was just the place too small? Nevertheless, it was a fun night well worth the money spent!

Friday

2006-10-13T18:56:00.000+02:00

Can't really get used to it: not even 7pm yet but already dark. Anyway, it's been a nice day, to a long walk on the beach with Jeanette. I have to say that although we're already in the middle of October, it doesn't feel like fall. It was still warm in the air (even if the water was colder, I guess) and I was totally comfortable wearing only a t-shirt and a pair of jeans. We even saw a nude guy sun bathing! (Not the most pleasant sight I must admit...)

Now we're getting ready for a concert this night, Mando Diao is in town. More on this later!

First post

2006-10-10T23:43:00.000+02:00

End of a long and busy day. Trying out a new Blogger widget for OS X which I found on Google's Mac-site . Not much to add for now, so I'm just going to post this now. Bye!

Två artister

2005-12-16T11:03:00.000+01:00

Ett tag sen jag skrivit. Vad ska man säga, har haft en del för mig. Men inte det jag tänkte prata om. Jag tänkte "presentera" två artister för er. Vi kör i kronologisk ordning...

För någon vecka sen hörde jag en låt på någon musikkanal på TV och insåg att jag hört den innan vid ett tillfälle men han inte uppfatta artistens namn riktigt. Låtens titel - "For Real" - var knappast tillräcklig utmärkande heller för att hitta artisten den vägen.. Men så såg jag videon igen och den här gången var jag mer uppmärksam. Resultatet blev att jag hittade till Ninsun Poli och lyssnade igenom det som fanns där (även videon finns för nedladning där). Grymt bra soul/r&b med vissa influenser av funk (iaf i en av låtarna). Ninsun har en helt grym röst och feeling för bra musik, jag skulle bli mycket förvånad om det här inte resulterade i en skiva snart (idag finns bara EP:n med fyra låtar). Hur som helst: en artist som ännu inte har fått den uppmärskamhet hon förtjänar, men se till att lyssna på henne nu för snart lär man få höra henne mer eller mindre överallt.

Såvida hon slår igenom som mainstream, vill säga.. För hennes musik är knappast mainstream så som det ser ut idag på mainstreammarknaden (tack och lov för det!). Men ärligt talat, Idol och sånt... Om folket verkligen tycker att dessa pseudoartister (med all respekt) är bättre än riktig musik (där man verkligen kan lyssna på musiken!) så bekräftar det bara min tes att mänskligheten generellt sett är tondöv.

Den andra artisten jag hade tänkt nämna här behöver knappast presenteras. Laleh har blivit nominerad till si sådär 7 MTV Nordic Music Awards, eller om det nu var P3:s guldbagge... Hon har i alla fall slagit igenom får man väl säga. Men bra, orginell och nyskapande musik som agerar fläkt på den annars så stilla och insnöade svenska (eller västerländska för den delen) musikmarknaden var efterlängtad. Kul att hon uppmärksammas så mycket också, för i och med det så blir man så att säga popartist (även om hon inte spelar pop i första hand, men pop står ju för popular, och nomineras man till så mycket som hon nu gjort så är man väl populär). Kanske blir det en förändring inom mainstreammusiken så småningom ändå. Man kan alltid hoppas.

Men nu vet ni vad som är värt att lyssna på!