“Ej spiser du honning? Det er ordentlig sødt!”
“Nej, det smager fornuftigt!”
Tag: story
The 28th of October 2006 was the day of the Linuxforum 2006 Birds of a Feather sessions, and as it might have been noticed by regular readers, yours truly hosted the session on “open standards”, inspired by the recent legislation that asks the government to start using, and implementing, open standards in their IT solutions.
- Check by my wiki page for updates (in Danish for now)
- My presentation (20K ODF in Danish)
The forum was held at Symbion, which is a “research incubator”, I arrived late, and I followed the signs…Hmm that door leads to a stairwell, I entered, and immediately the door shut, I knew I was in trouble – I’ve experienced the same situation before – Shudder! There was NO way to exit the stairwell without a valid keycard, which I naturally didn’t hold. OK, in the words of Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic…There actually was a door to the outside, but it had a clear sign that said…Don’t open, it will trigger the alarm…
Hmm…I was as usually packing, using my cell phone to access the yellow pages actually yielded a number, I called it and the man on the line was quite surprised, first and foremost he was a bit annoyed about the fact that the building was open to host the Linuxforum, secondly he wondered how I got hold of his number, well it was listed with information! Well he gave me the main number to Symbion, he suggested that they had a number to call in case of an emergency…No way, I got a machine and a friendly goodbye! Damn…Well there were two numbers to some security services posted in the stairwell, I called both but they were also closed for the weekend. Now I started pounding on the door, but no one could hear me…Finally I heard a door slam…Hey! Wait a second…Phew someone was working that afternoon…With one swipe I was let out of my temporary prison, but I could have stayed there for a long, long time.
It’s a stupid set-up, and dangerous, I’ve experienced worse once, where I got trapped in another stairwell, and in that particular stairwell I didn’t find any doors to the outside, luckily I had my cellphone and the number of one of the employees.
The label on the button that opened the door read “Udtryk” this is funny, “udtryk” is Danish the litteral translation is “outpush”, and the meaning is that you press the button to get out, but “udtryk” also means “expression”, I’ll spare you the highly irregular and colourful expressions that I wanted to spill while trapped in the stairwell.
Oh well, now on topic!
My call for BoF was:
The spread of open standards
With Kim Bach, kim.bach(at)gmail.comI’m interested in how we can help implement the legislation B103: On the use of open standards in the public central administration.
Steps like the implementation of Open Document Format is a small step in the right direction, but don’t we need to establish a central CIO (Chief Information Officer) function in the public, inspired after Massachusetts. The “Bedst og Billigst” (best and cheapest) software policy of the government isn’t too clear, and it often results in “non-movement”, since that always will be cheapest.
How can we spread the knowledge of open and free alternatives to commercial products within, for instance, content management.
I’ve never done anything like this before, so I didn’t really understand the BoF format, but it’s really workshops, and quite informal, or at least that was the way my session ended, and I was very happy to see that some 20 people had joined the session, and more arrived later and they actually stayed!
Most of the sessions yesterday were hardcore technical sessions, and most of them were really packed.
I had prepared a few slides (follow link) and I’ve blogged on the subject several times, and I’m maintaining a page on my wiki.
I started out by presenting my slides, but really I only had 2-3, and immediately we had a real discussion going on, but it wasn’t till the end that we begun getting suggestions that we could write down. I’ll put it down to my lack of experience, and that I should have done more to keep focus, but it was really more of a brainstorm, and it was very rewarding indeed, at least to me, with most of the audience getting involved in the discussion.
We had a long and very fruitful discussion, mostly focused on the window of opportunity that we have right now, with Linux and open source software reaching such a high degree of maturity, and the major commercial player being almost tied down by huge technical challenges creating the next generation of their bread-and-butter software.
When it came to open standards, we spend a lot of time talking about Open Document Format, and ODF is very important indeed, because it can be considered a “Trojan”, simply start sending documents to the public authorities and tell them that they simple need to get hold of an open and free implementation of an Open Document Format viewer, for instance OpenOffice. With B103 in our hands, we can just say that what we sent was a document in the ONLY format that is an official ISO standard, and that the authority should start complying with B103.
Another important point that was made was that the volume agreements that the Danish public sector has with Microsoft, called eAftale is about to expire, so now’s the time to start pushing the alternatives to the politicians.
I’m quite happy with my own performance, and I’ll try to use this experience to build a shorter presentation, and I think that I got good response.
After “my” session, there was a session on the next steps for the open source movement in Denmark.
A number of suggestions on next steps were listed. We need to do A LOT more lobbying, and we need some reference cases, e.g. this school switched to Linux…
We’ll set-up a press centre…using the SSLUG wiki as a starting point, it seems that the Open Source movement in Denmark is in need of new blood, and I’m voluentering my services, I really need to join these SIGs.
The day ended with quality beer and more geekery, I’m REALLY REALLY impressed by Ubuntu 6.10 and I have the perfect machine to test it on, an iBook G3 500MHz that I just acquired.
I’m right@home@Linuxfourm. IT’S MY CULTURE! AND LET’S GO WITH THE LOBBYISM.
Her er et tip til alle Firefox brugere som ikke gider lukke sine faneblade fra en af mine kreative venner.
Jeg har brugt Firefox et par uger, det har været en sjov oplevelse, det kedelige var at jeg ikke kunne få mine faneblade tilbage, når jeg havde slukket for min computer. Men i mellemtiden hørte jeg at der var kommet en ny version af Firefox, og den har jeg lige hentet ned til min computer. Jeg har ikke haft lyst til at lukke mine faneblade, men så ved et uheld gik min strøm mens jeg sad og arbejdede med min midt i min arbejdstid, så jeg var helt ude af den, men heldigvis havde jeg husket at gemme dokumenterne, men hvad skete der med min Internet browser. Så startede jeg min computer årh heldigvis spurgte Firefox mig om jeg vil gendanne den gamle session eller starte en ny session, så kom smilet tilbage i mit ansigte.
Tak til Bilal fra http://www.bilalameen.info.
For andre eksempler på kreativ problemløsning kig her: Barometerhistorien.
On the 13th of October 2006 it was time for the great yearly Copenhagen event, Kulturnatten. Kulturnatten, means “night of culture”, and it keeps growing bigger and stronger with every year that passes.
This year I had. as last year, been quite ambitious in selecting the number of events that I would attend, “unfortunately” I started by visiting the “Frivillighus” on Nørrebrogade, and I stayed for almost 2 hours.
Well it was nice meeting some people that I keep running into, including the mother of my old friend Sporado – she’s serious KEWL.
Next stop was The Fredriks Church, better known as the “Marmor Kirken” (The Marble Church), the beautiful domed church in Copenhagen. They had engaged the vocal ensemble Ars Nova to do a mini concert. And it was fantastic, just listening to the voices “hanging in the air” after each part, the “hang time” seemed to be like minutes. It was a fantastic experince, and great to see a full church for once.
I also managed to talk a little about the history of the church with some people that were sitting next to me, they seemed to be impressed by my knowledge, “it sounds like it’s your passion” – “not at all”, I said, “it’s just due to my high age that I have such extensive common knowledge” – that being said I’m quite passionate about the Marmorkirke, it the most spiritual church in all of Copenhagen. Sunday, two days later, I made an observation:
Out side the church statues of the most important figures of the “Christian Peoples Church of Denmark”, are mounted, but there’s no women among them, that is a disgrace, but who should we nominate? I asked some girls outside the church, but they had no suggestions, I started thinking, and I came up with the Danish Jazz singer of African American heritage: “Etta Cameron”, not only a woman, but a good Christian, and she’s also an Immigrant of “colour”. But I’m open for nominations, Christianity is TOO important to leave to men.
Next stop was supposed to be “Orlovsmuseet”, but I falsely thought that it was located on Holmen, so instead I ended up at the School for Architects, and there something remarkably strange happened. In the main conference room was an art installation, but I missed the performance. I was lugging my camcorder, and a FireWire cable. The last fact was strange, because I didn’t bring my computer, anyhow, the performance had been controlled from two Apple laptops, and they had done a recording of it, that they now wanted to show, I overheard a conversation: “But I only have USB”, I immediately picked up on it: “Do you need a FireWire cable”, “YES we do”…”Wow that is really strange, you’re the only outsider around, and you have a FireWire cable!”, my answer: “Well that was the reason I was sent here”! I know this is just PURE coincidence, but it’s very strange, and makes you wonder if that was a sign from the divine providence. It was events like that , that made meloose mind last year…Hmm!!!
Now I was in a hurry, because I wanted to go the the concert in “Rundetaarn”, on the way there I checked out the light installation at “Thorvaldsens Musseum”, and the installation at the museum was very well executed, with beautiful shadows being cast. The most impressive was the central garden at the museum, I never noticed this before, but the museum is modelled on an Egyptian temple, and the light effect on the central statue of the Christ, was impressive, above in a window someone was playing the flute…It was just beautiful.
Reached Rundetaarn, only to be turned away, due to massive demand…Bummer! However: I’m not really regretting that I went see “the statues” instead.
That actually concluded my attendance at the official Kulturnat events.
Conclusion a great night, with lots of surprises and a number of GREAT events I missed, and some rather mind blowing experiences. And finally: I found out that I might be falling in love.
One more thing (LOL), Kulturnatten is becoming more and more like the old Copenhagen carnival, there seems to be a decreasing number of people that join the events, but more and more drunk teenagers.
Well the world didn’t end yesterday, the terrorists are holding their breath, the world shouldn’t however, something will happen again. ’nuff said.
Last week I asked myself a question. Would I be doing what I’m doing today if 911 hadn’t happened? It’s possible, but I think that it made me curious to learn more about the reasons behind, and since ignorance is the order of the day, I’ve been trying to swim against the tide.
I now have several Muslim friends, but that wasn’t the reason I started doing volunteer work in a predominately Muslim neighbourhood. It simply felt like the right thing to do, and I also wanted to come to terms with my limitless tolerance, that my friends criticised me of having, calling me naïve and even worse names.
One of the most important things that has happened as a result of my work as a tutor in Mjølnerparken, is that my friends no longer can claim that I don’t know what I’m talking about.
A few weeks after I started as a tutor in Mjølnerparken, I went on a trip to New York. In 2004 I travelled a lot, and most of the times I had a mission. The actual reason I went to New York, was to attend one of the Ladies First Tour dates, but on the night I arrived, I first went to a great musical, and even though it was late, I immediately decided to head downtown.
After a 30 minute walk, I’m obviously not scared – this being after midnight, and I’ve never been to New York before – was standing at Ground Zero at around 1 am, being the only human being around, but probably the most surveilled person on Earth, just looking around saying: “Det er så WTC sitet…Et stort hul i jorden som man kan se” “So that’s the WTC site…A huge hole in the ground”.
It was immediately clear to me that my trip to New York, was much more a pilgrimage to visit the place where it all started, than it was about attending the Ladies First concert (which was great with performances from Missy Elliott, Beyoncé and an impressive Alicia Keys).
Like I wrote several years ago, I find it amazing that there was so little damage. Yes the hole is huge, but the WTC towers were so immense that it’s really a miracle, that a huge part of lower Manhattan wasn’t destroyed, when the towers collapsed. This fact is part of the fuel for several conspiracy theories, and that’s understandable.
One of the most important lessons I learned during my visit to New York, was that the New Yorkers wasn’t exactly suffering, like I wrote yesterday. Another thing I felt on my body was the fact that the war on terror is also about revenge, and that New Yorkers seem quite paranoid.
I felt the paranoia when I went far out in the suburbs to attend the Ladies First concert, basically being the only white person in a venue with something like 5.000 people of colour, might not have been the smartest thing in the world to do, walking home through projects, picket-fenced homes and deserted shopping mall parking lots, was down-right stupid. There are no pedestrians nor street signs in a New York suburb, and I though that locating a train station would be easy, it wasn’t. Working back and forth on the outskirts of the city, I felt the eyes watching everywhere. You know, I even tried to hitch a ride when I was trying to reach the venue an ice-rink..No I was definitely not in Kansas anymore.
So am I doing what I’m doing because of 911? I’m not sure, but it most likely came into play on the subconscious level, because my work in Mjølnerparken wasn’t something that I was shopping actively for. I actually didn’t really grasp the concept of volunteer work until I was actually doing it.
15 minutes to go…5 years since Mohammad Atta shouted Allah Akhbar and slammed into the WTC, focused on Jannah and the waiting virgins, and the Church doesn’t have Wi-Fi.
A selection of today’s headlines:
- The Internet is evil because the terrorists are using it to co-create terrorism manuals.
- The problems of the Middle East are bigger than ever, but who cares about the people of Lebanon.
- Danish forces are engaged in Afghanistan and Irak, we’re good at killing people
- Anders Fogh thinks that Denmark is weak when it comes to foreign policy…We need to do more! OMG!!! Denmark is the 51st State!
- Documents with lab results from the police investigation regarding the terrorism case from Odense has been found laying around in the open!
- RFID tags, great Big Brother is watching!
- Oh it’s so sad for the poor New Yorkers that lost their business! Well others lost their lifes! As far as I could tell when I was in New York in 2004, the New Yorkers aren’t exactly suffering.
Who do you believe? Our media? Their media? Your media!
It’s time to take back what’s rightfully ours, our constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.
Forgive me I have to pray, pray for humanity, the jury is still out, but are we going to make it? Only if we wake up!
WAKE UP!!!
And my keyboard switched to Arabic!
Amen!
SLAM!!!!!!
And because the Church doesn’t have WiFi, I can’t access the Sacred Texts Library, to meditate on Surat 2.112, I’ll have to write it down in my own words:
“He who worships his Lord and is a doer of good shall fear nothing!”
Alahu Akhbar…SLAM!!!!
Hey my cell-phone and Google to the rescue…Surat 2.112 al quran…Yielded this page:
It started out with quotes from Al-Quran most of them hinting a violent side of Islam, with quotes like this:
Surat 9, Al Taouba, “Repentance; The Immunity-Dispensation,” verse 29:
[9.29] Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Apostle have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.
This means that Islam must conquer Jews and Christians, and if after being conquered they do not convert to Islam, then they must pay a tribute (head tax). You would either have to convert, or pay an “infidel tax.”
I was quite sceptical, what was the point? But I actually found the correct Surat 2.112 (my all time favorite quote from Al-Quran):
[2.112] Yes! whoever submits himself entirely to Allah and he is the doer of good (to others) he has his reward from his Lord, and there is no fear for him nor shall he grieve. â€Ø¨ÙŽÙ„َىٰ مَنْ أَسْلَمَ وَجْهَهÙÛ¥ Ù„Ùلَّه٠وَهÙÙˆÙŽ Ù…ÙØْسÙÙ†ÙŒÛ ÙÙŽÙ„ÙŽÙ‡ÙÛ¥Ù“ أَجْرÙÙ‡ÙÛ¥ عÙندَ رَبّÙÙ‡ÙÛ¦ وَلَا خَوْÙÙŒ عَلَيْهÙمْ وَلَا Ù‡Ùمْ ÙŠÙŽØْزَنÙونَ ‎
balay’ man ‘Ê”aslama wajhahuw lil:ahi wahuwa muḥsinunm falahuwÊ” ‘Ê”ajruhuw Ê•inda rab:ihiy wala’ xawfun Ê•alayhim wala’ hum yaḥzanuwna (I hope this was correct, I’m not proficient in Arabic).
Surat 2.112 is as far from fundamentalism as you can possible get.
Then the text suddenly become much more interesting, and turns into a rather full historical account of the “Birth of Islam”. Very interesting indeed sitting in a Danish Church reading this historical account of the “Birth of Islam” on the 5th anniversary of 911 on a cell-phone using Google, including sentences rendered perfectly in Arabic script. This was not possible to do 5 years ago, there’s still hope for humanity.
BTW the bible quote of the day was from the Letter to the Galatians. Paulus basically says “remember: the ‘books’ aren’t written by men!”…Hmm…I don’t agree – the ‘books’ are inspired, spiritual and ‘eternal’, but they are indeed written by men.
I lit all the candles in the “globe” in the Church and prayed some more for humanity. Too bad that the “bowl” with Bible quotes for contemplation were nowhere to be seen! But I welcome that this tradition has reached Denmark, I saw it in Lund 2 years ago, and actually I prayed for it to be adopted in Denmark. My prayers were heard it seems.
Today was my regular day in Hjemmelektiehjælpen – private tutoring.
The 13 year old boy had an assignment where he was supposed to put into context World-war 2, The Battle for Dybbøl Mølle, Christian the 4th and 9-11 none the less. Phew! THAT triggered me!
The context was “what can you learn from history, and how do you avoid history from repeating it self” (or “man bliver klog af skade – great to hear such a phrase from a 13-year old), so “past in relation to future”. The boy was interested in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, Star Wars or Ronald Raygun’s wet dream), that’s the future! Well that wouldn’t have stopped Mohammad Atta was my point. And I also remembered the words (not literal) of Mikhail Gorbachew, “if they build it we’ll just throw a stone at it!”.
It actually turned out that the 4 historic event are more closely connected than you might expect. I didn’t discover this until I had made a history 101 (or 911) lecture, of history as I see it.
The US entered World-war 2 after Pearl Harbour, 9-11 was a new Pearl Harbour. 9-11 triggered the “war on terror” and that is somewhat akin to World-war 2, since it keeps provoking images of the “next Hitler”, learning from history eh’? Peace in our time?
Denmark lost Schleswig-Holstein after Dybbøl Mølle and it was the final nail in the coffin for the dreams of a Danish Empire, that Christian the 4 had.
Denmark regained some of the land lost after Dybbøl Mølle, as an indirect result of the peace treaty of Versailles, that eventually was a pivotal point in triggering World-war 2, since it left the German economy in shambles, resulting in the likes of Hitler coming out of the woodwork, some see the same happening today.
Everything is connected, as James Burke, one of my favourite authors, always points out.
Poor kid, he didn’t really get any homework done, but I ended up having a fantastic discussion with his mother. The view Muslims has of 9-11 is “somewhat different” from mine. They do seem to see a huge conspiracy, which is not as far fetched as it might seem. The truth has been a major casualty of the war on terror.
I går var der et af børnene fra Mjølnerparken, en 8-klasses dreng, der gav mig lektier for, til på tirsdag.
Jeg skal finde arealet af det område der fremkommer når man tegner fire cirkler, (som vist på billedet). Hmm…Det er jo kun to af cirklerne der skærer hinanden…Hmm jeg nummerer cirklerne som I-IV følgende et standard koordinatsystems kvadranter. En oplysning er at cirkel I og III skærer hinanden ved cirkel IIIs 0 og 90 grader, og at cirkel II og IV skærer hinanden ved cirkel IIs 0 og 270 grader osv. Det er ikke helt tydeligt udfra tegningen.
Er der nogle der kan hjælpe?
Jeg mener det kan løses med geometri, trigonometri (det kender drengen faktisk, hvilket han demonstrerede, da jeg prøvede at løse en trigonometri opgave, med forholdstals regning) eller integral regning (det tror jeg ikke han kender).
Han spurgte mig også om hvad pH værdi er for noget. Jeg forsøgte noget med et mål for styrken af syrer og baser, men han sagde: “det er den negative logaritme af koncentrationen af brint-ioner” – den er da vist lige i skabet.
Interessant, det er paratviden og udenadslære, noget der faktisk ikke bliver så stor brug for i fremtiden, eller tager jeg helt fejl her?
Det er da nyttigt at kende grundbegreber, men detaljerede informationer, som f.eks. definitionen på pH værdien, kan man da bare slå op på Internettet?
Alt i alt var jeg imponeret over drengens viden, det virker som om han elsker/kan lide viden, og det er da relativt sjældent blandt de børn jeg kender.
Nå drengen mente at man kan få 13 hvis man kan sige ting som definitionen på pH værdien. Jeg nævnte så at jeg en gang var tæt på at få 13, nemlig mit 11 tal i Biologi fra Gymnasiet.
Tilsidst nævnte jeg at jeg var en mislykket ingeniør studerende…”Og nu er du lektiehjælper? Hvad gik galt?” “Tjoh…Jeg lavede ikke mine…LEKTIER!” Så kan de lære det ;-).
Nåeh hvis det mislykkes med geometri opgaven, så kan jeg da i det mindste fortælle ham hvad jeg har fundet ud af om HTX.
Categories
Kulturnatten 2005
Friday october-14th was the day of the annual Kulturnat (night of culture) in Copenhagen.
Categories
Tsunamien i det Indiske Ocean
Jeg føler at det er nødvendigt at skrive noget om tsunami katastrofen i det Indiske Ocean.