So, I've moved to a new place, and as a result of that move, I need to get a decent setup for networking. One that gives low latency for gaming as well as high bandwidth for big Linux image downloads for example.

I have a Netgear router lying around which I could use, but I've also got some bits I've accumulated the last couple of years, like a Raspberry Pi mini-computer, a 10 metre Ethernet cable, USB Wi-Fi adapters and more.

So I opted to create my own access point, and thought that would be easy enough. Well it wasn't as easy as it should be, because the Realtek chipset has some old drivers, so I had to fiddle with patching the standard hostapd (access point app).

I ended up compiling the wpa Debian package to include the rtl871xdrv patch ( https://github.com/pritambaral/hostapd-rtl871xdrv ) and then set on to create an accesspoint using create_ap ( https://github.com/oblique/create_ap ).

The AP started up and was visible, but it wasn't possible to authenticate. So I tested things back and forth, and also considered making it an unencrypted access point with MAC address based access control, but luckily I got a response from Guan Xin on the hostap@lists.infradead.org mailing list hinting that I should turn off some capabilities to make it all work.

So I now have an access point running, and it seems to be running just fine, I get about 25 Mb/s downloading from the internet now. [Edit: That was 25 Mbit/s, not MB].

Here's how it looks:



It's maybe a bit overkill building my own router, but now I have full flexibility and control in how it should be setup, from QoS to firewalling to logging.

So, I have had access to a little bit of my oldest sons school information in an online IT system, but that access has been retracted now.

The principal Bente Grønningen Marthinussen at the school is referring to the verdict last year, which does give the kids mom the custody rights.

Now from what I gathered from my lawyer, granting one parent these rights is a way of dampening the conflict between the parents.

But since the verdict, I've participated a little bit in my oldest sons school activities, and I can't see I've done anything negative in that regard.

So it seems the kids mom is over time doing the one thing she has the power to do, and that is provocate using the kids as a pawn, first denying me access to the kids, then changing their last name (which used to be mine), then denying me information from kindergarten and school.

Couple this with sexual assault, sexual harassment, trying to force me into a sexual relationship, hinting that she was just using me to have kids and then using that argument against me and things are looking pretty ugly.

I've been focusing on food, exercise and getting healthier the last couple of years, and a part of that has been going slightly flexitarian in what I eat.

So far I've eaten chicken and farmed salmon, but lately eating this kind of food has left me with a little bit of distaste, distaste for how these animals are farmed up and then slaughtered after a rather petty life.

So it fits well that I some months ago bought some frozen hens on the local megamarket, these are hens that have lived a productive life, pushing out eggs on a regular basis.

I'd say eggs and garlic are two staple foods in my diet these days, and I do feel more comfortable with a mixed flexitarian diet rather than going full vegetarian, because I feel that it's easier to eat well, healthy and varied by going a bit mixed.

So, these hens cluck around their lives, put out eggs and are at some point slaughtered. And then that meat (and everything else) can be put to good use.

A picture of a couple of hens that have simmered just below boiling for some hours:



Later I'll pluck the meat off these, and freeze that, and then take everything that remains and let that simmer for at least 4 hours, let it boil down and then run it through a siv and freeze that as well.

From what I understand, there are a lot of nutrients in what remains, and it feels right to be able to make use of everything. It's a bit of a contrast to what most people do here in Norway, which is buy minced minced chicken meat, filets and so on. That's fine I guess, but with my approach, I make good use of an animal that hasn't just been brought up and fed to then be slaughtered.

I can't tell how these hens have been treated though, I guess that's on of my next goals in ethical eating - making sure that the animals I eat have been treated well enough.

As for chicken raised just for slaughter and fish raised in pens just for slaughter - I think the treatment they often get is questionable, and as for fish raised in pens, the effects on their surrounding environment can't be all positive, as has been seen on thick layers of sediment below then pens, as well as fish escaping from the pens and mixing with the local fish. I think I'll be buying more fish that has been roaming freely and then caught as well.

So, I've had a productive week(end), and after some fiddling over the last couple of months, I've managed to create a Javascript demuxer/decoder of OGG/Vorbis files. :)

It's located here:

http://blogologue.com/player/

Long story short, it runs in some browsers, as mentioned on the page. I think this is very cool, and it is nice to see that I've managed to make some practical use of the C programming I've been dabbling with the last couple of years.

So I got a nice streak playing this evening:

http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/battlereport/show/1/784...

I was off to a bit of a rough start, with an enemy jet attacking me around my base, and my AA was oblivious to this so I thought "OK, this is not going to be a good round".

But it ended up being quite good, in terms of K/D. Still getting used to the gamepad and analog sticks, as I've had to change from keyboard+mouse because of a tennis elbow.

I'm still looking to get more of an edge on the really good jet players, for example making use of the outside (and reverse) view - but changing to gamepad has been good as in, it makes me more positive towards trying different tactics and styles of playing.

So, I was with the kids a couple of weeks ago, we had 4 hours together and had a good time. However, at the hand-off of the kids, the kids mom and I ended up in a discussion about various things - and she referred to my blog as "that damned blog". Obviously she doesn't like that I'm writing about what's happening, and that is understandable because it can make her look bad, interfere with her plans and so on.

Now, I've blogged various things about the situtation about not seeing the kids, and I thought I'd give a summary / repetition about what has happened over a long period of time, and fill in some extra information.

So, first thing is first. I met the kids mom maybe around 2007, and my first son was born in October 2009. Around the time of his birth, I got some medication from my doctor, and also became psychotic (with among other things, hallucinations). Since the start of 2010 I've been taking anti-psychotic medication, and most of the time I've also gone to therapy, seeing psychiatrists and psychologists.

In 2010, we moved to my hometown, Trondheim, and lived there for 3 years. During this period, things were going better for me, I was working a bit, taking the oldest son to kindergarten, playing with him and so on.

But also in the same period, the relationship between the kids mom and I deteriorated, and in the start of 2013, she went back to her hometown, Mo i Rana.

In the deteriorating period, we went to family counselling together, and the kids mom also went there by herself. But that didn't help. So when we broke up in the start of 2013, we made an agreement at this counselling office, that I should get to see the kids 3 days every 2 weeks.

[Edit: Added paragraph]
Over a period of years, I have not gotten to see the kids as often as I wanted to, and I've been in contact with the police among others regarding this.
[/Edit]

However, the kids mom never signed my copy of that agreement, so later on the police wouldn't do anything about it. Here is an email thread where the family counselling office verifies that we were in agreement on how things should be regarding me seeing the kids:

http://blogologue.com/referat_fra_meklingstime.pdf

So in the period from January 2013 to May 2013, things were a bit back and forth, and when the kids mom left in May 2013, I made it clear that I did not want to be in a relationship with her.

I think before that final no from my side, we had made an agreement that I would come up some weeks later to help take care of the kids while someone in the kids moms family had a coming-of-age ceremony. I was there at that ceremony, and sat opposite the kids mom. She looked as if she had a very strained, doll-like smiling face, while you could see in her eyes that she was sad and angry.

Her parents were present as well, and took care of the kids until I figured out it was better to be wandering around with the oldest son to avoid dealing with the kids mom and that weird situation.

Anyway, during that visit in Mo, the kids mom came in one morning and touched me in an intimate place, even though I made it clear that I didn't want any kind of relationship. Maybe in a timespan of a couple of months before that, the kids mom more or less said that she would like just a sexual relationship.

So, maybe the same day or the day after this morning incident, the weird mood at the ceremony and all this, I got upset and used a loud voice to make it clear that this was something I didn't accept. As I was angry and said different things, the kids mom fiddled with the phone as she was recording something, if I remember correctly, she also purposely sounded stressed or scared during this argument.

So I feel she did a lot of things to aggravate me, and then either did record something that was a misrepresentation of the situation - or just pretended to.

Fast forward a couple of years, I'm now getting to see the kids on a regular basis, but the kids mom is still denying me visits to the kindergarten and school to see the kids, and she doesn't give any reason as to why.

But then, at the last visit to see the kids, at the hand-off, she said something along the lines of "at the school they don't have anyone who can keep an eye on you" - as if I could be a threat. I'm not a threat, and the following document shows that there are two things I've been diagnosed with during my treatment, and that is a psychosis and an anxiety disorder:

http://blogologue.com/skann-av-uttalelse-fra-helsevesenet.jp...

I can add that this was said in front of the kids, and I don't know what the oldest son got of the conversation, but that also is not a good thing. The kids mom has been offered to talk with my therapists before and has done so, and it could have been arranged this year as well.

So I'm starting to think that either the kids mom had a plan and is now caught in her own web and doesn't know exactly what to do, or she is a psychopath or something along those lines. I think that she all the way has had a wish and a plan to live in Mo i Rana, and has been working towards that.

As for myself these days, I'm doing OK. I'm no longer that suspicious of women and no longer see their flirting and attempts at seducation as something negative.

Now, finally I'd like to add that I think criminal acts, mental illness and so on are mostly private matters. The reason I'm mentioning them here is that it is relevant, because I want to have contact with my kids and ensure they are doing well and become good people. There is also a bit of revenge from my side in this, and that's because I've been very upset and angry about this situation for a long time, and the one thing that made the situation bearable was that I was going to get the kids mom for what she did - by telling it in public.

So, I talked with my oldest sons contact teacher last school year, about coming to visit my son at school, see how things are etc. I was under the impression that this was OK. On my last visits to see my kids, I've been talking to my oldest son about coming to visit his school and he has been excited about this.

However, now my son has gotten a new contact teacher, and I got an email from the school principal today that I couldn't come visit him after all, and they refererred to the verdict from the court.

Now I'm assuming the kids mom has dropped by with the verdict, and has actively worked to stop this visit, because she did the same when it came to me visiting my youngest son in kindergarden.

I really don't know what to say about this, except that I'm not shocked that this has happened.

I think it's worth mentioning that this week I started getting heavy pains due to what seems to be a tennis elbow, and this after I started getting treatment and exercises because of an accident last year. An accident I'm not sure was entirely an accident.

Now, this is not much in itself, but I think it's worth mentioning that the response from the school principal came one week after I sent them an email, and that the accident last year happened one week before the first time after the verdict that I was going to see the kids without the kids mom meddling in, with a supervisor.

Now this may all be coincidental, but maybe a year or two before I and the kids mom made the final break-up, her dad drove up to me one summer and said 7 and nothing else. He has also given me the impression that he knows well there is something called "affekt" in Norwegian law, where a crime has been committed under what one can call heavy emotional influence can get a lower prison sentence than one done with consideration first.

[Update, 21st of September]

OK, so I've asked the principal at this school, Bente Grønningen Marthinussen, if she could verify that it was in fact the kids mom that dropped by with the verdict, and if the kids mom gave her the entire document, or just the verdict itself. As the entire document contains sensitive information which can affect many people, I think that's a fair question.

The principal refuses to give an answer, and has several times referred to the initial document/email which says I can't visit my son at school. I guess she can do that, and I can blog about it.

Anyway, it's going to be difficult to tell the oldest kid that his mom has refused me visiting him at school, as that was something he was looking forward to.

The kids mom has stopped responding to written emails and messages entirely, and I'm not going to call her as I suspect she'd twist that call into something it wasn't, and I can't legally record it either.

So, because of illness my income has dwindled down the last couple of years, and I haven't quite kept pace with the downgoing income, I used some credit cards, and now have accrued a little bit of credit card debt.

Now I like to keep my commitments, so even though I don't have a lot of income today, I would like to maintain my debts. So I've asked the credit card issuer that I only pay the interest on this debt, until I'm into a better financial situation, but they have declined that offer, and want me to pay about double of that, each month.

This is even though I after deducting the rent for my flat, I have less money to spend than what the state limit for forced money collection is. So in other words, if I defaulted on the debt and let things just slide, I would ultimately have more money in my pocket than with this deal they're offering.

I asked for the name of the person who is responsible for what they're saying and offering, but they did not give a name, just said that the responsible department was special engagement (Spesialengasjement) operations.

Now this is a bit annoying by itself, but when I see that the state wants to collect double of the child support they used to, but don't have a right to, and I got a notice this week that my application to postpone the next student loan payments was rejected, it adds up. And next week I have a meeting with the state agency NAV, my doctor and so on about what happens next on my path to being back to work again. I can add that the student loan organization is also a state agency, and that they get information about my income and status from the other mentioned state agency, NAV.

Not to mention that I've started on medication for pains as well as exercises to train up my neck related to my accident last year, and the insurance company is declining to pay for these appointments with the chiropractor.

If you add all these up, it starts to suck as a lot of negative things are happening at once.

So, I'm paying some money for child support for my kids, not because I want to, but because I'm forced to. These payments are deducted from my income automatically.

Now I see myself as a responsible man and do feel responsible for my kids, but paying more than I should, when I barely get to see my kids, doesn't seem, or feel, fair.

So I applied to get this child support reduced, but it was instead increased. It was increased, because I had some temporary income this summer from my company Nidelven IT, because I had to do some required-by-law accounting and tax-related work. Now I get my main income from the state, and I have to report work hours to the state. These work hours are then deducted from my payments. So if I get 3750 per week from the state and work 5 hours, that is reduced to 3250. I got about as much in payments from Nidelven IT these summer months as I lost in my regular income.

I made this clear on the application form to the state, that these payments from Nidelven IT were temporary and a compensation for the other lost income, but they managed to make it a regular, recurring income, and because of that increased my child support. I was left with the option of sending in a complaint which cost around 1000 NOK (~110 EUR), but I will not send in a complaint, I will rather send in a new application and make this blog post my complaint. You can talk about people nickle-and-diming you, but here it is the state, when I don't have a lot of income.

The case workers there were Erling Noste (office boss) and Eivor Merete Høgli (case worker).

So I was a trial to get to see my kids with supervision (partly to keep the kids mom at bay), and to get mental health professionals to review the kids mom, as I've seen quite a bit of negative behaviour from her, ranging from not signing an agreement about seeing the kids so that it wasn't legally binding, to manipulation and agressive acts.

I have it documented that we did agree on me seeing the kids 3 days every 2 weeks.

However, and this is my side of the story, after I rejected the kids mom when she still wanted to be in some sort of intimate relationship, it became difficult to see the kids.

So in this letter I got, which rejects my appeal on getting financial support to cover the kids moms court costs, there are a couple of things that don't seem right to me.

Because I've been sick, I'm now on a support plan from the state which doesn't give me much income, and because of that, it will be difficult for me to pay the court costs from the trial that was.

And because it will be difficult to cover the court costs, I might not get another change to go to court for some years, to get more time with the kids and another review of the kids mom.

In the trial that was, there were mental health professionals that reviewed the kids mom, and they found no narcissistic or sociopathic traits. And this was repeated in court when the judge asked the appointed mental health professionals, that this was the case. And this had been a subject before the trial. After discussing this online and with mental health professionals, my understanding is that it is unlikely that a person doesn't have at least one trait in either the sociopathic or narcissistic category. And I don't think they're incompetent, so it is likely that they lied.

So I'm now in a situation where I get to see my kids 4 hours every 6 weeks, and this is depressing and difficult. You can say what you want about a life with or without kids, but once you get attached to them it is heartbreaking to not be able to spend time with them. And because it is heartbreaking and depressing, it affects my well-being.

The letter states that I have and will have enough income for things like a place to live, food, necessities and this is true. But it also says that I'm already planning a new trial, and they can't put me in a position where I get myself in further debt. So basically, they won't cover my existing court costs because they assume that I will put myself in further debt with a new court case.

I find that as a bit of a strange argumentation, and the whole paragraph that states this convoluted.

Now, they also say in this letter that they understand that the situation can affect my mental health, and this is also true, but they have not taken into account that I am winding down on anti-psychotics, and that this medicine over a longer time perspective can have side effects such as diabetes and heart problems. So in fact, this whole situation is having a direct impact on my physical health.

I find it interesting that the letter also states that there wasn't found anything wrong with the kids moms ability to take care of the kids, when documentation about her lack of response to several emails regarding seeing the kids more and sharing the costs for my travels to see the kids were attached to the case.

If I put a cynical and negative look at what they're saying, they're basically saying that it doesn't matter if the kids mom screwed you over, she can take care of the kids. But not letting your kids see their other parent when they express that they want to see the other parent, and not cooperating around such a simple thing as costs that have arised from travelling to see the kids, when the law states that these costs should be shared between parents according to income, shows that the kids mom doesn't do what's best for the kids, and therefore is neglecting the kids!

It should be added that my lawyer has applied to get the court costs covered, and I think that was at the county govenors office as well, but I have not received any feedback regarding whether that was accepted or not. Which is strange.

So I've had a meeting with my old chiropractor regarding the fall I had on a bus last year, and she did find some stiffness in my neck. I have not been treated for neck issues earlier. I have a new appointment with the chiropractor and will get some documentation on the whole situtation.

Interestingly enough, I've told this to Stein Rønning at Gjensidige insurance company, but they are saying that they will only cover the immediate medical costs from the accident.

So I took at look at their home page, and took a screenshot. At the end there it says that "Our vision is to know our customer best and care the most". Does that mean that they care about their customer the bus company and their interests only? As a victim of an accident or something worse, am I a customer or an opponent?



Oh I took a look at their Twitter account, and their header image is of a group of people known from the Norwegian series "Olsenbanden" (the Olsen gang) - a criminal gang that does various things to get money. I'm not sure what message they're trying to convey with that?

So, in my quest to find cheap and nutritious food, I did some research and created a new dish today. It consists of Fusilli durum wheat pasta, brown italian mushroom aka. cremini/champignon (or in Norwegian, sjampinjong) and garlic.

Now, from what I've gathered on the net, corn products contain a lot of protein, but not a lot of the amino acid Lysein. And there's a lot of Lysein in said mushroom.

I'd say that garlic is becoming a staple food in my kitchen, as it it spicy and strong raw or sweeter but still tasty when cooked. I can add it to just about any dish and it works.

So, what I do is peel the garlic, divide it up in reasonably sized pieces for faster cooking and fry that and the mushroom first, in olive oil. Now when I say fry, I mean having it on an electrical stove on a 2 of 6 setting until the garlic is easily dividable and soft.

I think food is better if you spend some more time on it, and using a relatively low heat setting and starting the cooking an hour or two before eating is a good thing.

So, after the garlic and mushrooms have been fried, I pour them over into a bowl, and then boil the Fusilli until its done. Then I pour the vegetables back into the pot, let it heat a bit and pour it back into the bowl.

So, half a garlic, about 100 grams of mushroom and 120 grams of Fusilli makes this dish, and I think it tastes nice.

So I've been fixing up on my blog lately, adding some iframe and javascript code, as well as backend code, to make it play my playlist from SoundCloud automatically.

This blog is running on Zope 2, and the blog software was written by me.. it's not been maintained well though, so I've been fixing up some minor things here and there.

One of the things I needed to fix was that on the search page, some images were referenced that for some reason wasn't approved by the weblog layer, and raised old-style HTTP authentication boxes.

So I figured I'd fix this in an easy and quick way. I created a new image in The GIMP, 1x1 transparent, and saved it as a PNG with as little metadata as possible and level 9 compression.

Looking at the file afterwards in Python, it looks like this:

-rwxrwx---+ 1 Morphex None 117 aug 2 14:26 1x1_transparent.png
-rwxrwx---+ 1 Morphex None 68 aug 2 14:36 1x1_transparent2.png

Morphex@Morphex-PC /cygdrive/C/Users/Morphex.Morphex-PC/Documents
$ python
Python 2.7.10 (default, Jun 1 2015, 18:17:45)
[GCC 4.9.2] on cygwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> f=open('1x1_transparent2.png')
>>> f.read()
'\x89PNG\r\n\x1a\n\x00\x00\x00\rIHDR\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x01\x08\x06\x00\x00\x00\x1f\x15\xc4<MY BLOG LAYOUT LINE BREAK>
\x89\x00\x00\x00\x0bIDAT\x08\xd7c`\x00\x02\x00\x00\x05\x00\x01\xe2&\x05\x9b\x00\x00\x00\x00IEND\xaeB`\x82'
>>>

I updated the IssueDealerWeblog code to return this:

    security.declarePublic('image')
    def image(self, id=None, REQUEST=None, RESPONSE=None):
        """Returns an image related to the published issue."""
        result = self.catalog_search(id=self.get_published_ids(),
                                        get_local_image_ids=id,
                                        meta_type='Issue')
        if result:
            return base.base.image.im_func(self, id=id, REQUEST=REQUEST, RESPONSE=RESPONSE)
        else:
            RESPONSE.setHeader('content-type', 'image/png')
            RESPONSE.setBody('\x89PNG\r\n\x1a\n\x00\x00\x00\rIHDR\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x00\x01\x08\x06\x00\x00\x00\x1f\x15\xc4<MY BLOG LAYOUT LINE BREAK>
\x89\x00\x00\x00\x0bIDAT\x08\xd7c`\x00\x02\x00\x00\x05\x00\x01\xe2&\x05\x9b\x00\x00\x00\x00IEND\xaeB`\x82', lock=True)
            return

And now the search page returns without raising any authentication boxes. It's not the most purist way to just fail silently like this, but a quick fix that helps with the appearance and user-friendliness for a regular user.

[Edit: Adding paragraph..] And in case you're wondering, that image binary is released to the public domain, so you can use the Python string here anywhere. Or download the image .

So, life has been progressing, in a positive direction. I've blogged about being ill and different troubles, but now it looks like things have stabilized and I'm planning more for the future.

I've been reflecting the last couple of days, and although I've learned a lot in life, I also feel short-changed on the positive experiences, having lived with a diagnosis for psychosis and an anxiety disorder since 2010, but having suffered for many years before that.

So I decided some time ago that I should work to put more things into my positive experiences bag, and that also means taking care of my body (eating well, exercising) as well as doing things that feel good.

For some years now I've been changing my diet, starting with eating more fruits and vegetables. It has taken a couple of years of change and experimenting, and now I'm at a place where I enjoy eating a bowl of cooked kidney beans and white rice, along with about half a fried garlic.

Now, since I became acutely ill in 2009, I tried to keep things together and worked a bit in my own company, Nidelven IT. But things slowly dwindeled down there, and in 2013 I reached the end of the line with regard to money, and had to go ~100% unemployed. I stretched out the money and earned a lot less than before I got sick, but it was the end of the line.

Now though, after being unemployed for a while and also being on sick leave from that, I'm on the minimum support plan from the state, which doesn't give me a lot of money to work with, and I have to find ways of saving money and being frugal. I'm not sure, but I think if I had gone 100% sick from the day I became ill, I would have been in a better position now economically, so I do feel short-changed by the state for trying to make the best of things.

Anyway, as I've been changing my eating habits and getting better from my illness, I feel that eating healthy is nice, and I feel it as well, that the mood is more stable and see that my body is shedding some weight.

I've been following Paul McCartney on Twitter, and he's an advocate for Meat Free Monday, which has a website with vegetarian food.

Now I'm not going to jump into it and go fully vegan, but I think that it is generally a good idea, because less animals will be bred and kept for food, which is good for animal welfare, and more food will be available as it takes a lot of feed to generate 1 KG of meat for example.

So I experimented a bit, and found that about 200 grams of cooked kidney beans and 150 grams of cooked white rice as well as some fried garlic, was a good combination. What I like about this meal in particular is that it leaves me full, but not sluggish. I feel good after eating a meal like that.

Here are some soaked, but uncooked kidney beans:



I cook them for about an hour, and the water is boiling, to make sure that a toxin that can make you unwell is destroyed by cooking at high temperature.

After boiling, I take off the lid and continue at a low temperature, until most of the water has vaporized. I bag these kidney beans about 200 grams in each bag and put them in the freezer, and I like the idea that as much nutrients as possible go along with it (and aren't washed out in the cooking water), and it's easier to fill the bags with a little bit of water each that way.

I'm not a nutritional expert, but from what I gather, the protein combination from the beans and the rice combine well, to make a complete essential protein source. Which is important, as I don't want the strength exercise to go to waste and need protein. And it makes it a real alternative to for example meat.

I've got a whole salmon thawing in the refrigerator as well, and I'll be posting some pics and the recipe for that later today, it's my own recipe and I think it works quite well. :)

[Edit: Later the same day..] The salmon has thawed enough that I could put it in the pan in pieces:



I bought some salmon for about 5 $ per kilo a while ago, which is cheap, and it's been lying around in the freezer. I'm not that good at creating filets yet, so I'll just let them simmer long enough that I can pluck all the edible parts off. I put a dash of oil in the bottom of the pan, and I'm hoping there will be some run-off as well which I can put in the soup.

Now this is farmed salmon, salmon that has been raised in a small pen out in the sea. As far as animal ethics go, the fish does have some intelligence and feelings, so I'm not sure how much of a life it is swimming around in a small enclosure and being fed pellets. They can't tell us.

I like fishing, but I think that's fairly morally balanced as the fish I catch is going after my lure. If that lure had been a real fish, a big fish would've tried to eat a much smaller fish, but instead it ends up being my dinner. Which is ironic, but fair. I also expedite the fish I catch as soon as I can, with a quick stab and twist in the skull to put an end to the suffering. The way fish eat each other is fairly gruesome if you think about it, they swallow something alive and then it suffocates in their stomach.

[Edit: Even later in the day..] Alright. So I started making the soup itself, first I started off with a litre of almost skimmed milk and two litres of water:



And after that, I added a dash of olive oil as well as some corn starch (for thickness), and fish bouillon:



Two whole garlic, chopped in pieces:



I find it useful to keep all pieces fairly small, so that they take less time to cook.

Now this time I decided to go for some pre-cut vegetables, and over time I've grown fond of having frozen vegetables in the freezer. It doesn't spoil, and cooking time doesn't matter much, they thaw fairly quick:



A nice mix of potatoes, carrot, celery and I think the last component was leek.

The salmon was cooked at low heat in some oil, and ended up in a tower on a plate, plucked once. Now I could see some fish bones left, so I'm going to pluck it another time when it goes into the caserole.



The whole fish was 1099 grams, and I guess after plucking it, removing bones, most of the head etc. I was left with 900-950 grams of fish and skin, and that ended up being around half of what a similar weight in raw form would cost in the store.

My oh my. I almost forgot an ingredient that makes a big difference, green olives with red peppers!



I think these make a big difference for the taste, also if they simmer in a warm soup for maybe an hour they become quite easy to chew. This is about 200 grams of that stuff.

So to sum up the ingredients:

• 1 litre of almost skimmed milk
• 2 litres of water
• 4 cubes of fish bullion
• Appropriate amount of corn starch
• A dash of olive oil
• 0.8 - 1 KG salmon
• 2 whole garlic
• 800 grams vegetable mix
• 200 grams red pepper stuffed olives

So I was in an accident towards the end of last year where I got a bad cut in the back of my head:

https://www.instagram.com/p/9Bd3XCKKuX/?taken-by=morphexx

There have been some different trouble since then with pain and nowadays the neck feels a bit stiff and there can be some pain here and there.

I've had a dialogue with the insurance company Gjensidige since the accident, and they keep repeating that they have closed the case, and I've also asked them to pay for a 675 NOK (~100 EUR) exam to see if I need some treatment for the neck, but they refuse to pay for it.

Oh and the case worker there is Stein Rønning.

So, since I've been sick for a while, I'm [edit: removed not] on a minimum economical support plan called AAP, or "work clearance money" from the Norwegian wellfare system, NAV. Which I guess is basically money you get while your health and work ability is being figured out.

I got a bit of a nasty surprise the other day though; there had been a mention of a meeting close to the summer, but after I asked about my case worker (Elisabeth Nossum) about getting AAP for the rest of the year because I need to update my tax rate, she replied that we could discuss that in "the meeting" in my doctors office on this coming Friday.

I hadn't gotten any notice of this meeting, and when I asked about when this meeting invitation had been sent, my case worker replied that there was some "technical issue" so that meeting invitation had not been sent out.

I followed up with an email to her superior, Per Olav Gundersen asking about this meeting invitation, but he was "too busy" to deal with it.

I really don't like this, because if the meeting had gone along, it could've looked like I was skipping it, and decisions could also have been made "over my head". Thus making me less credible towards my doctor, and the relationship to him is important for how my life is.

My doctor has also been asking me about anti-depressants, but what I need is to rest, eat healthy food and exercise. When I was psychotic I did agree to anti-psychotics because I was psychotic and had many unpleasant symptoms, but I really don't want to stuff more pills in my face and get a new dependency which I will have to gradually wean off, when I'm working well physically and mentally - I just need a period of rest before I start the next round of weaning off the anti-psychotics.

So, basically Elisabeth Nossum from NAV could've made me look bad in my doctors eyes, and she could also have gotten a reason to stop my AAP support, which would've forced me to do some paperwork and would've made my economical situation unpredictable. I really think this is unacceptable, and it doesn't look like NAV is going to explain their actions.

So, the kids mom went to the authorities a while ago, to get her court expenses covered, as she won the case. I didn't appeal because I got something I hadn't had before, a legally binding agreement to see my kids on a regular basis.

Anyway, out of nowhere the kids mom went to the authorities to get her court expenses covered, and I opened a letter just now detailing the verdict in this claim. Since I've been psychotic, my business has been slowly winding down etc. - I haven't had the income that I used to have, and today I get a minimum rate economical support from the state.

Anyway, the kids mom had her court expenses, and now I have to pay 500 NOK per month, on a 80000 NOK debt with a 12% annual interest. I see that the highest interest rate for a savings account in Norway is 3%, so basically the kids mom is going to get a decent return on investment maybe the coming years, as I don't see myself working a lot for the time to come.

So from being an emotionally agonizing period where I didn't get to see my kids on a regular basis, I now get to see my kids, but I also have economical pressure on me and a depressing growing debt.

I think this whole thing has been very difficult, and it has sucked a lot of energy and time from me, in an already difficult situation. I found out something interesting though, a week before my last visit to the kids, I woke up with a foggy vision and saw rainbows around light sources, and from what I've googled on the net, it looks like it could be from an allergic reaction. Wind the clock back some months, and I also had a very nasty accident on the bus which split open the skin on the back of my head, a week before seeing my kids.

So I think that I haven't only been played by the kids mom, I think others may have contributed as well, and that in a period where I've been treated (going to therapy, taking medication) for psychosis and an anxiety disorder.

So a short while ago, I got a call from the police, because the kids mom had contacted them, as she found my blogging "uncomfortable" (my wording).

I told the police that what I'd blogged about the court case, seeing my kids, etc. was true and correct, and that almost all of what I blogged could be documented.

But, I'm going to take a pause from blogging about seeing my kids, the court case and so on, until I've talked to my lawyer about it, thought about it, talked some more to the police and seeing if anything comes from the kids mom and her lawyer.

So, yesterday I got a unpleasant surprise when I opened a letter at my mom's place, as the kids mom had gone to the authorities, to force me to pay for her expenses on the court case we were in regarding the kids.

So I'll have to go through a process documenting my income, expenses and belongings so that her claim can be fulfilled.

My understanding from my lawyer was that expenses regarding the trial would go via him, and we've sought to cover both my expenses and the kids mom's expenses from the state.

As far as I know, the kids mom is well off financially, with an above average income and millions of kroner (NOK) in fortune.

Since the summer 2013 I've had significant expenses for seeing the kids, and the law is that these expenses should be divided between the parents, according to income. I don't have much income, as I've been sick for a long period of time.

Expenses for me seeing the kids was something the kids mom and her lawyer agreed to find a deal on, after the day in court, after the judge had left the room. I think that since the day in court, I have not heard or seen one constructive thing regarding expenses for me seeing the kids.

So I think this shows a couple of things. Either my lawyer has made a mistake, or the kids mom is stepping over a line. I wouldn't be surprised if the kids mom did step over a line, as she has been been threatening, harassing and assaulting in the past.

To make things more interesting, I thought my last visit with the kids went well, and asked the supervisor from the state if she saw any reason why the kids mom should be present in the house, on a text message after the visit. She has responded to my earlier SMS messages, but this time she did not give any reply and that's been almost 2 weeks now.

So it's been a while since I got severely ill, and since then I've struggled to make things and ends meet. I thought things were getting good and was looking forward to the spring and summer, but this Easter an old substitute tooth loosened and took with it some of the foundation, and it feels like the foundation is cracked as well.

The cracking has me a bit worried, as I don't know if it can cause sores or infections (I talked briefly with some professionals today).

Anyway, since I've been sick, medicated and everything for a while, I'm not getting a lot of money from the state to get by, and in addition to that, they want me to pay child support for my kids, even though I only get to see them 4 hours every 6 weeks, and are forcing me to pay money now.

I stopped by the state service today (NAV) to get some help sorting out financing fixing the tooth, and even though I had things written down, things still seemed difficult for the clerk helping me out, so I got tired of it and basically asked for a written response to my written request and documentation. I later sent an email with price quotes.

It feels like some sick joke, that I have to make by with little income and then struggle when I get a problem with my teeth that could lead to complications. In addition to that I'm working on getting off the medication (but have paused that for now because of all this) and I don't get to see my kids.

How much shit is a person supposed to take? I've paid my taxes.

[Later same day..] Now I went to check on my clothes in the dryer, and the dryer was off and the clothes were dry. I heard it starting up earlier..

It seems many small things are not going my way these last couple of weeks.

[Later same day..] Clothes were NOT dry.

[Even later same day..] I emptied the water container before starting it up, and it is almost brand new. I'm not sure if it is a failure, some clown having fun, some clown doing something he or she shouldn't be doing or somebody asking someone to do something.

So, I got to see my kids this 27th of February, following the visit the kids every 6th week agreement laid down by the court.

After seeing the kids, the state supervisor said that the kids mom wanted some changes in the schedule, to accomodate holidays I presume. To be on the safe side, I've contacted my lawyer about it and I'm waiting for a response there.

But it is now about 2 months since I contacted the kids mom via email, as I want to see the kids more, and the oldest kid has expressed that he wants me to visit more often. This last time I visited the kids, they both said that they wanted me to visit in kindergarten / school as well.

So the kids mom doesn't want to communicate to me on email about seeing the kids, but she can communicate via others to get changes in the schedule for me seeing the kids.

That's interesting enough, but this morning I was thinking about the trial again, and the report from the court-appointed mental health specialists. The report was very favourable towards the kids mom, and even the people from kindergarten said that me being there visiting the kids was awkward and inappropriate.

I thought the visits to the kids kindergarten went OK, but I guess I might seem a bit lethargic due to the medications I was on. I thought one of the guys there who showed me around seemed very nervous and anxious, I don't know what the reason for that was.

But, interestingly enough, a (I guess close) friend of the kids mom works in the kindergarten, her name is Elisabeth Bjørnådal and the kindergarten is Mjølan barnehage. It might be that she has coloured the perception of me there, or that someone has pulled some strings to get the kindergarten to say what they did to the court appointed mental health people.

In the break-up period with the kids mom, I remember though that the kids mom said something along the lines of me just using her to have kids to this Elisabeth. On the other hand, for example my mom has said to me that she thought that I was just sad about the break-up etc. - same as the mom of the kids mom said to the court appointed mental health professionals.

So it seems that there may be different perceptions of me in this whole thing, and I'm not sure who's mostly responsible for that but there is an obvious person or group of persons that could have something to do with it.

So I went to trial last summer, to get to see more of the kids.

One of the things the kids mom has been on about, is that I've been mentally ill (which is true), but so much that I couldn't be alone with the kids, or rather that she had to be there whenever I was to be with the kids.

The kids mom been playing that card for a long time, and the last time I saw the kids, she had to meddle about something that I could have sorted out with my oldest son myself, so in my opinion she's using the kids to keep some contact with me, what the motivation for that contact is, I don't know, but obvious reasons could be to establish a relationship, even though I don't want to have anything to do with her, in any way.

And I've made that perfectly clear, many times.

Anyway, when I went to trial, I remember the kids moms lawyer saying something along the lines of documentation about my mental health from my therapist hadn't been submitted to the court.

In my email records I can see that a document regarding my mental health had been sent to the kids mom and her lawyer towards the end of 2013, and that document is here:

http://blogologue.com/skann-av-uttalelse-fra-helsevesenet.jp...

It says clearly that nothing in their treatment of me has given them reason to contact other authorities, regarding me and my kids. And therapists are bound by law to give notice if they discover something of concern.

I sent an email to the current lawyer of the kids mom, Anne Fladvad working at Advokathuset Helgeland, and will see what she has to say about this.

So, I've been on different forums talking about my music, and I'm having some issues on the freak.no music forum.

Long story short, I think a lot of the feedback on the forum has been laced with unecessary negative remarks, and I've talked up against that.

So it seems that if other posters on the forum talk shit in threads I start, the threads get dropped. Which seems unfair.

There is also a very loose rule in the forum which says that the admins can do whatever they want, which is a bad rule as it gives too much power to the administrators and as such, is of course abused or misused.

Here's the discussion I had privately with one of the admins:

http://blogologue.com/dialog_med_administrator_freak.no.pdf

And yes he/she did OK that I posted this to my blog.

And the last thread I started which got deleted:

http://blogologue.com/feedback_self_made_and_produced_demo.p...

So, I've blogged now and then about my issues seeing the kids, and the kids mom that isn't cooperating.

Two weeks ago today, I sent an email to the kids mom, as well as the family mediation unit where she lives about seeing the kids more often, but neither the kids mom or the unit has replied.

The email I sent the kids mom about seeing the kids more is here:

http://blogologue.com/epost_til_mor.png

The email I sent to the family unit in Mo i Rana (commune) is here:

http://blogologue.com/epost_til_justin.png

I think it's a bad thing that neither the mom nor the family unit are able to communicate when I want to setup something to see the kids more often.

Interestingly, I sent an email to the kids mom on the 19th of January, to which she replied on the 23rd of January:

http://blogologue.com/epost_til_mor_hvordan_ungene_har_det.p...

Telling me a little bit about how the kids are doing. So she is reading email.

So, I've gotten to see my kids a couple of times now, and that's nice.

It's good to have a steady and predictable schedule for seeing them, and the supervisor that's there from the state is a good person to have around, as I have issues being alone with the kids mom.

So I get to see my kids 4 hours every six weeks now, and although I enjoy being with the kids and being there for them, every time I get back home it is a bit sad to know that it'll be 6 weeks until I see them again. I don't know how they feel about it after I leave, but I know they want me to be there more often.

I decided a couple of weeks ago to go another round in the court to get full custody of the kids, as I have doubts about how the kids are doing and how they'll turn out when they're older. The previous trial was also a bit poorly prepared from our (me and my lawyer's) side, so I thought it all was a bit unfair and the wrong things were considered and put weight on. And I'm sceptical about the report from the court appointed mental health professionals which concluded that the kids mom had no narcissistic or sociopathic traits (too good to be true for a lot of, if not most, people).

The trial was in June 2015 and the verdict said the first appointment for seeing the kids was the 1. of August, but that fell through, as did the next appointment. I've blogged about that earlier: http://blogologue.com/blog_entry?id=1441623208X02

It's not peaches going another round in court though, as certain things are stacked against me. For example the status quo principle that the situation for the kids should not be changed is important, so even though the sum of the other parts are in my favour, it might go the other way anyway.

I've thought a bit about this, and when the first kid was born I became psychotic, and was under treatment and heavily medicated when me and the kids mom split up in the start of 2013. So I had enough to deal with at that time, and was probably depressed and tired after the psychotic episode as well as the break-up, and wasn't able to muster going to trial. I also couldn't be alone with the kids mom, so seeing them became difficult.

So I guess it's a wait and see thing, to establish a good relationship with the kids again and then go another round in court.

So, I reached a bit of a milestone. Because of mental illness I've had to take some heavy-duty medicine for some time, and at the most I took 800 mg of Seroquel per day.

Today I'm down on 400 mg per day, which is half of that, and I can say I'm quite happy about that. The medicine has short- and long-term side-effects, and on a very long term view, side-effects can also include diabetes and heart disease.

I'm glad that there has been treatment available for my issues, and I can say that today I'm feeling much better than I did 5-10-15-20 years ago.

Here's to many good years to come. 🍷 🍷

So, I've been struggling to get more time with my kids, and went to trial in June to get something in place.

The judge ordered that I visit the kids every 6th week, with supervision from the commune/state.

Both I and the kids mom wanted supervision, my main motivation for supervision has been, and is, actions that the kids mom has chosen to do, and still chooses to do.

So, long story short, the state department called BUF was supposed to setup supervision for the visits, but so far they have failed to do so. Before the trial I also seldomly got to visit the kids, and then a person from Rana commune was there to supervise.

The trial ended up in a verdict, and the verdict was legally in effect on the 1st of August, but the BUF state department was unable to provide supervision, and is also unable to provide supervision now the 12th of September.

Over a couple of weeks now I've tried to get Rana commune to provide a person that can supervise on the 12th of September, but they are unable to do so. They called me this morning and only wanted to give a verbal message that they could not provide someone. When I pressed on for a written message saying the same, they refused to provide that.

So today I sent the kids mom an email asking if we could be in a public place on Saturday for a couple of hours, but she refused to cooperate on that as well. So the state isn't doing what it should, the commune isn't doing what it could, and the kids mom isn't cooperating. I'd like to add that I emailed the kids mom on the 20th of August regarding getting Rana commune to provide supervision on the 12th of September.

I think that pretty much sums up the situtation, but would like to add that sharing confidential and/or untrue information has many and severe consequences.

So, I was in a meeting with my lawyer today, and got the explanation that after a verdict with a set number of time with my kids, the mom or rather the primary caretaker can deny anything else.

Which means that the mom of the kids can deny me visiting the kids in the kindergarten and at school, even though that has worked OK in the past.

I think I've blogged enough about this, but would like to add that one of the reasons the trial went as it did, was that the verdict put spoken testimony above an actual document as to whether or not I was cooperating regarding opening a bank account for the smallest kid. I also had to correct my own lawyer in the courtroom regarding this..

A link to a copy of that document is here:

http://blogologue.com/epost_siste_mekling.png

And it clearly shows that I sent an email with a cooperative attitude after the last meditation, but never got any replies to that email and can't see that I've gotten any other emails after that email in that regard either.

So, a couple of months ago I went to trial, partly because I haven't gotten to see a lot of my kids the last couple of years.

Although the trial was a bit of a dissapointment for different reasons, the result seemed to be OK because I got to see my kids every 6th weekend, an improvement from the current situtation and a predictable schedule.

When I visited my kids before the trial, I also visited the kids in the kindergarten and that was an OK experience.

However, it seems that as a result of the trial, the kids mom has come in the position that she can deny me visiting the kids in the kindergarten and at school. Which is strange, because visiting them earlier went OK, and neither the kids mom or her lawyer want to comment further on it.

I have a meeting with my lawyer next week about all of this, so it should be interesting to see what he says about it.

I've heard some talk about mothers having a very strong position in Norway when it comes to who gets care etc. but I'm not sure that's the case, so far things have been very difficult so we'll see what happens next.

So, these last couple of months I've been dabbling with C and XML, to get to know C better. Out of all of this there might also come a nice XML parser and writer that will be freely available for anyone to use.

I wish I learned more C earlier, as a lot of things related to IT have fallen into place now that I've been forced to work on low-level stuff.

There have been quite a number of posts to comp.lang.c, and lots of useful information has been exchanged back and forth.

Anyway, the project is here:

https://github.com/morphex/smash_xml

I guess the bulk of the main code and tests are now around 25KB, which is quite a bit of code. One of the next steps is to create the main parsing loop, which will break down the XML file into its internal C representation. There will also have to be some data types created so that things work well.

One of the more interesting points that have come up is whether to use iteration or recursion when working with the internal representation.

In C, when you do a function call, things are pushed onto something called the stack. And with recursion, more and more things get pushed onto the stack, and if the recursion is deep enough, the stack is exhausted with unpredictable results.

So I think I'm opting for an iterative design in the C code, and using little if any recursion. I'm sure that's going to tick some people off, but having predictable and intelligible results when running the code is important for this project, because one can work with malicious input data.

Right now it feels like I'm past the most "painful" parts of learning C, and look forward to learning and writing more in the time to come.

These last couple of months I've been learning a bit of Assembler and C programming, as these days I have the time available. I've always found Python and other high-level languages fast enough for what I needed to do, but I've always wondered a bit about C and Assembler.

What I've learned so far is that the computer is in fact a very large calculator, and pretty much everything that happens is that instructions are called (for example adding two numbers), and that numbers are moved around in memory, disk, peripherals etc. I've found it useful to learn about Assembler and C because it gives me a more detailed and correct view of how things work in computing.

With my programming and system administration background, I found it easy to dive into C and Assembler, and I also appreciate a lot more what for example Python does as a high-level programming language.

I've been looking for some gig or project to create a C and Assembler project for, and what I've landed on so far is that I want to create an XML parser. An XML parser that validates the Unicode used, as well as insures that the document is "well formed". I haven't gotten that far yet, but I've pretty much decided that the parser should (for now at least) be restricted to an UTF-32-LE encoding, and that whenever I work with pointers the rule is to initialize to null when they are created as well as after free() has been called.

I think this is good fun and I do it whenever I have the time and energy, here's the code so far:

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
  char *buffer = NULL;
  int read = 0;
  buffer = malloc(1024*sizeof(char));
  FILE *file = NULL;
  file = fopen("test.xml.2", "rb+");
  read = fread(buffer, sizeof(char), 1024, file);
  if ((char)buffer[0] == (char)0xFF && (char)buffer[1] == (char)0xFE &&
      (char)buffer[2] == (char)0x00 && (char)buffer[3] == (char)0x00) {
    // We have a UTF-32-LE Byte Order Mark                                       
    printf("BOM found\n");
  } else {
    printf("BOM not found, %x\n", buffer[0]);
    exit(1);
  }
  printf("%i\n", read);
  fwrite(buffer, read, 1, stdout);
  printf("\n");
  free(buffer); buffer = NULL;
  return 0;
}

So, it's been a while since I blogged about my mental health, and I thought I'd do that today. Some years ago I had a major crash (psychosis), and after some months I was put on Seroquel, and over a period upped the dose to a top of 800 mg.

Together with the psychologists and psychiatrists and lately my doctor I've been reducing the amount of medicine, and today I'm on 450 mg a day and it feels OK.

I've seen some advocating for medicine-free treatment, but from my experience, the medicine has helped. That and going to therapy has helped me a lot, and today I feel better, smarter and stronger than what I did before the crash.

Now the medication isn't perfect, it has side effects as most medicines do, but I can say today that I'm glad medications were an option.

Psychosis can happen to anyone. There's a lot of stress and pressure in society, there is a lot of (heavy) things to think about, life is a mystery, and my impression is that mental health issues is rather something that counts towards the patients' intelligence than against it.

Some can become psychotic from physical trauma, some can develop it over time for various reasons, some can be slipped a pill - many different things can happen that causes psychosis and severe mental illness has been documented for a long time in history.

So it's good that there is a way to deal with these issues, the treatment isn't perfect but it is a lot better than the alternative, maybe going through a kind of hell for an entire life.

I'm a software developer, that has pretty much loved music my entire life, and I've at times listened to music almost all my waking hours.

I'm now in the middle of my thirties, and these last couple of years I've also been playing the guitar, singing and doing some piano and drumming as well.

Now, to me it seems natural that one learns to play instruments, by playing songs one has grown up with and know, it's a natural place to start. So for some time I created simple cover versions of songs, and uploaded them to SoundCloud.

Around this last Christmas (...) I got a notice from SoundCloud that my account had "two strikes" with a dire warning of my account being "terminated", where they had taken down my track "Summer (original by Calvin Harris) Simple Mic". Now it is funny that I get a notice like that on the 1st day of Christmas (25th of December). Another funny thing is that I asked to get a copy of my track, but they denied that request and said that

"This was reported to us by an anti-piracy agency on behalf of Sony. We won't be able to reinstate this, not even privately, unless you have permission from Sony to have it on SoundCloud."

Now, luckily I had a copy of the track on my computer, but it would have been a bit more sticky situtation if I didn't. Now this track is 01:19 long, that is just under 80 seconds and recorded on a simple microphone, but they still saw it necessary to take it down. If it was because I made a remark somewhere that you could just put that snippet on repeat and there you had pretty much the entire song I don't know.

Anyway, because of this, I got somewhat stressed and decided to move my cover songs to MixCloud, because there you can tag the artist and the song in uploaded tracks, and the artists (and MixCloud) get some revenue, and that seemed like the best thing I could do.

However, I recently reviewed the terms on the MixCloud site, and it basically says that they can do whatever they want with what I upload, forever. This wasn't what I expected; what I expected was that I could put things up there as a temporary solution, and take things down if necessary, or take things down if something I create has potential to make money. Now, I guess I could leave everything I have up there as the recordings aren't high quality, but it would be nice to have a reasonable amount of control of what I've created.

So my expectations of MixCloud and what is in their terms of service didn't match up, and I sent an email to MixCloud asking about this, but the reply I got was

"For licensing reasons we don't host individual tracks (even if it's your own track), so unfortunately we've had to disable your single track upload."

Which wasn't close to what I emailed them about

"
Expected Behaviour
------------------------
My impression of the site was that one could upload things, and take them down and that was pretty much it, you and the original content owners got a cut through radio-style fees.


Actual Behaviour
------------------------
However, I've read the terms you have, and found that for example having others create derivates, that I'm liable for being in the middle, that you can use my content perpetually etc. is not something I expected.
"

So now I'm in a situation where I have created content which I'm unsure about who has the rights to do what with, and I also can't continue doing podcasts and cover songs because I don't have a place to share these things.

Does anyone know of alternatives to these services that work like I want them to? Comments or emails to morphex@gmail.com are much appreciated.

It's been a while since I did anything on Zope 2, and these last couple of months some bugs on the weblog publisher on blogologue.com have been bugging me.

So I decided I should get that fixed, and also get the IssueDealer updated to work with the latest stable version of Zope 2.

It has been some days of fixing things back and forth to get things working, but now I have an updated version of the IssueDealer, as well as a procedure for building the latest and greatest Zope 2.

I've been quite out of touch with what has been going on in the Zope, Plone and Python world lately, and it took me quite some effort to get things working, from getting Zope from GitHub, getting the right dependencies in etc. One thing I've noticed is that pypi.python.org is using a common name of www.python.org - which forced me to make a shell script to aid in the process of setting up Zope. This is sloppy at best, as it forces users to skip SSL verification.

But, enough of that, here's the hands on procedure for getting Zope 2 installed on a Debian Linux box. Beforehand, I think it's necessary to install the build-essential package as well as git, in other words:

sudo apt-get install build-essential git

I'm not sure what the procedure is for Fedora/Red Hat, SuSe etc. is but it should be easy enough to figure out.

OK. We'll install Python and Zope in a directory called

/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com

First thing we do is get Python 2.7.9 installed, which is done with

mkdir zope_blogologue.com
chmod o-rwx zope_blogologue.com # So other users can't read the database etc.
cd zope_blogologue.com
mkdir tmp
cd tmp
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.9/Python-2.7.9.tgz
tar xfz Python-2.7.9.tgz
cd Python-2.7.9/
./configure --prefix=/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com
make install
cd /home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/
git clone https://github.com/zopefoundation/Zope zope
cd zope
git checkout 2.13.22
wget --no-check-certificate https://raw.githubusercontent.com/morphex/IssueDealer/master...
chmod +x bootstrap.sh
./bootstrap.sh ~/zope_blogologue.com/bin/

Now, edit the buildout.cfg file, so that the [zopepy] and [wsgi] sections contains the line

    Products.IssueDealer==0.9.140

like so, maybe using the command "nano buildout.cfg":

[...]
[zopepy]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs = Zope2
    Products.IssueDealer==0.9.140
interpreter = zopepy
scripts = zopepy
[...]
[wsgi]
recipe = zc.recipe.egg
eggs =
    Zope2
    repoze.who
    repoze.tm2
    repoze.retry
    Paste
    PasteDeploy
    PasteScript  
    Products.IssueDealer==0.9.140

Now, when that's done, we're ready to run buildout. Run the command

./bin/buildout

Now, this script may fail, if there are network issues for example that make downloading of packages break. If that's the case, just re-run the command until it completes with lines something like this:

"""
Generated script '/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/bin/runzope'.
Generated script '/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/bin/zopectl'.
Generated script '/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/bin/zpasswd'.
Generated script '/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/bin/addzope2user'.
Generated script '/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/bin/mkzopeinstance'.
Generated script '/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/bin/paster'.
"""

After a lengthy process with lots of output, we can create the Zope instance, like so:

./bin/mkzopeinstance -d ~/zope_blogologue.com/zope/instance

I'll leave it up to you to choose a username and password.

Now the instance has been setup, and we can run it for the first time. Type in the command

./instance/bin/zopectl fg

And you should see something like this:

/home/morphex/zope_blogologue.com/zope/instance/bin/runzope -X debug-mode=on
2015-02-13 04:31:04 INFO ZServer HTTP server started at Fri Feb 13 04:31:04 2015
        Hostname: 0.0.0.0
        Port: 8080
2015-02-13 04:31:05 INFO Zope Ready to handle requests

Now I login to my server on the URL http://blogologue.com:8080/manage_main - and select "Issue Dealer" from the drop-down list, click on add and give it the ID issues, and the title "My issues". Now that Issue Dealer instance is available on

http://blogologue.com:8080/issues

Voila. If you're setting up a plain Zope 2 or Zope 2 with some product, just remove the Products.IssueDealer parts from the buildout.cfg and it should work.

Hope you found this useful, and comments etc. are much appreciated. My email is morphex AT gmail.

So this week I've been visiting the kids, and the visit went relatively well, it was nice to see the kids again.

I don't have a relationship with the kids mom or her family anymore, and took the train from Mo i Rana to Trondheim yesterday evening.

Some of her relatives were on the train as well, but they didn't stop to say hi and it was fine by me.

Had a good time towards the end of the train journey, ate well and had some wine and beer. Headed towards a regular place when I got to Trondheim to have some beers and maybe meet some friendlies there.

After a while I was ordering a second beer when this chick I might have met before started suggesting what I should have. So OK, I went with her suggestion.

After drinking some of that beer I figured I could go talk to her, since she struck up a conversation with me.

But I think she was (the only girl) sitting at a table with maybe 5 other guys, and as I started talking to her, a guy at the table asked me to stop talking to her, I kept talking a bit with her and she said she studied law, then she said she studies psychology.. I glanced around the table and persisted a bit, but the guy still kept asking me to stop talking to her.

Well, I got a bad feeling right then and there and instinctively agreed with the guy asking me to stop talking to her. Next time I'll look at the company someone's with before I start talking to someone who started talking to me first..

So, I've been playing around with different technologies the last couple of weeks. The one I've talked the most about is the Raspberry Pi, a small computing unit that's available for cheap.

Where I'm staying doesn't have wired internet, and the Wi-Fi that is available isn't any good. So I decided I should create a router based on the Raspberry Pi that makes some "smart" decisions about network traffic.

I've got two providers of mobile internet, one on my phone and one pure mobile broadband subscription. The former has a good latency but limited capacity, while the latter is the opposite.

So when I'm playing online games like Battlefield, where latency (ping) is very important, I'd like to have the router choose what the best thing to do is, based on my instructions. I also flip between Windows and Linux on the desktop, and having things just work without per-OS configurations would be nice.

This router should be flexible so I can connect to it using Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and the Ethernet USB-dongle I got for it kept crashing the Pi. I reported this bug to the kernel developers but it is an old (not updated in years) driver that's causing the crashes so I don't have my hopes up. I found a patch which fixes the crashing ( https://github.com/kmtaylor/rpi_patches/blob/master/dm9601-b... ), but I'm not sure that patch does the right thing, it's probably the network chip driver is the one that should be patched.

Anyway, today I was able to patch the Raspbian kernel, cross-compile it on my X64 Octo-core 3.4 Ghz (significantly faster than compiling it on the Raspberry itself), install it on an SD-card, modify the config.txt file and boot the Raspberry with usbnet.c patched. And that worked well, copying a large file using scp went painlessly.

I ordered a new Ethernet dongle today, one that supports 1 Gbp/s in addition to 10/100 mbit, as offering that option as well seems like the right thing to do.

The Raspberry has support up to high speed USB 2.0, which has a max bandwidth of 480 Mbit/s (in practice the bandwidth one can use will be significantly lower) and there is also some CPU overhead, so it will never fast enough to give full 1 Gbps access. But it will offer the option of 1 Gbps connectivity, which probably means the upper limit is a couple of hundred Mbps.

I think this was a fun and smart thing to start with, I've also got some other Raspberry Pi ideas lurking, but limitied time and energy to play around with things.

OK, so a little while ago I had problems with SoundCloud ( http://blogologue.com/blog_entry?id=1420246529X05 ), they took down a simple remix I made and gave me a dire warning that they would "terminate" my account.

Now I've got got a notice from MixCloud that they've taken down a song, even though it's my understanding that they pay licensing fees to the original creators so even though I make my own cover variant song of their song and all the income for that song goes to MixCloud and the content creators, they still take it down.

I think it's natural that people interpret popular culture and make works with popular culture. Popular music is also where a lot of people start, so there must be many, many people out there who want to share whatever they're working on, if just for fun (but also for feedback, a chance at getting noticed, making it big and so on). For me this music thing is a hobby so I'm not giving much thought to making money off it and all that entails, and to me it seems just wrong that it isn't possible to participate in a cultural exchange without getting hammered down like this.

So, this weekend I was feeling restless and nothing really fancied me, so I decided to play around with Hydrogen.

Hydrogen is an open source drum machine that runs on Linux, I've previously posted ( http://blogologue.com/blog_entry?id=1406401445X72 ) about a VirtualBox image that contains Linux and Hydrogen - which means you can run it on Windows and Macs as well.

Anyway, one of the things I've noticed with some (most?) EDM music is that it contains a "drumstick peak" where the beat gets more intensive in a song.

So I decided to create a drum track in Hydrogen that gives this peak in the song and I was able to do so just using the standard samples in Hydrogen.

The hydrogen file as well as an ogg file is available here:

http://blogologue.com/music/

Just thought I'd share this, if anything it can show how one creates a track in Hydrogen. I like Hydrogen for its simplicity, but now I yearn for something where I can edit the drum track as well as the synth/ambient sounds at the same time. So I'm looking at different apps that run on Linux that could do that.

So, where I'm staying right now doesn't offer a wired connection, so I've setup a mobile internet solution instead.

The companies that offer wireless mobile internet also offer routers etc. that can be used to setup WiFi access to the internet, but I didn't opt for any of those as I had a couple of old devices that could be setup as WiFi hotspots instead.

Up until a couple of days ago, I was using a Nokia Lumia as a WiFi hotspot and used the computer as a power source via USB, but I found that it started giving a very poor speed (20-30 KB/s) when I was on Linux. So I dug up my old Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000 instead, and placed my mobile internet provider SIM card in there.

It didn't work though, it just gave a couple of bars on the network indicating that there was some sort of connection, but no internet access.

After googling a bit, I found the setup procedure on Netcom (the provider of mobile broadband) for one of the devices they sold if internet didn't work. After some adjusting of the APN settings, I found that setting the Server to internet.netcom.no and the APN-Type of connection to internet, the Galaxy Tab started working as an access point to the internet.

So there you go, if you've got old phones etc. don't throw them away, they can be put to good use later.

Hoi. OK, so these last couple of weeks I've been cleaning up things in my SoundCloud account, as there were lots of cover songs and some mixes and remixes that triggered the "SoundCloud copyright system".

There has been many rounds back and forth, and I even had to clear out private tracks for example of cover songs, which is strange.

Anyway, I figured that it would be nice to be able to export all of the content I've created over the last couple of years, just in case SoundCloud decides to "terminate" my account, files could be lost etc.

I downloaded the python-soundcloud package, and started getting to work. This module has been created by some person over @ SoundCloud. After some trying and failing it looked like it wasn't able to download tracks with the package, so I forked it on github ( here https://github.com/morphex/soundcloud-python ). Using that module and the following code in a script called for example download.py should do the trick.

# The following code is available under the GPL, version 3, available here: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

import soundcloud, urllib2, urllib
from soundcloud.request import make_request
import os

CLIENT_ID = 'REGISTER ON SOUNDCLOUD AS APP'
CLIENT_SECRET = 'REGISTER ON SOUNDCLOUD AS APP'
USERNAME='YOUR SOUNDCLOUD EMAIL'
PASSWORD='YOUR SOUNDCLOUD PASSWORD'
LIMIT = 1000 # Maximum number of tracks to download
             # a limit in case something goes wrong 
             # so we don't hammer the system.

def download_tracks(output_directory):
    client = soundcloud.Client(
        client_id=CLIENT_ID,
        client_secret=CLIENT_SECRET,
        username=USERNAME,
        password=PASSWORD,
        )
    for track in client.get('/me/tracks', limit=LIMIT):
        path = track.download_url[len('https://api.soundcloud.com/')-1:]
        filename, data = client.get(track.download_url)
        output = open(os.path.join(output_directory, filename), 'w')
        output.write(data)
        output.close()
        print 'Downloaded file: ', filename

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    if len(sys.argv) != 2:
        raise SystemExit, 'output directory required'
    import os
    output_directory = sys.argv[1]
    try:
        os.mkdir(output_directory)
    except OSError:
        pass
    download_tracks(output_directory)

OK, so a couple of days ago I got the idea that I should create a new personal website, which syndicates information from various sources into one channel, or page. That is, all my Youtube stuff, Tweets, stuff posted on SoundCloud, Instagram and so on.

Now, I've been using Python, Zope and Plone for many years, in work projects as well as personal projects. This time, I was thinking of creating something very simple, maybe even static HTML, Javascript and CSS files. Well, as for the static part, I think it is a good idea. The process for creating those static files could be done in any way though.

So I started looking at responsive design, and having a framework that delivers a lot seemed like a good idea. I ended up choosing Zen Grid because it felt right, a Ruby- and Compass-based framework for creating grid-based layouts. Ruby is a programming language, and Compass is a framework for creating CSS. I got Ruby installed, and got SASS, Compass and Zen-Grid installed using gem, an easy enough process, typing 'gem install sass', 'gem install compass', 'gem install zen-grid'.

OK, everything installed - fine. Now I had to create a SASS/Compass project, and the 'compass create <projectname>' command handled that. Creating a project creates some files, using the find command shows which files are present in my project right now:

morphex@infernal-love:~/apache/stats/tester$ find .

./config.rb
./index.html
./sass
./sass/ie.scss
./sass/print.scss
./sass/screen.scss
./stylesheets
./stylesheets/ie.css
./stylesheets/print.css
./stylesheets/screen.css

The sass directory contains the SASS files which will be compiled into the CSS files in the stylesheets directory. Now, first thing is first, and that's the web page. It is available here:

http://blogologue.com/stats/tester/index.html

If you look at the source of that file, you can see it's an example copied from the Zen Grid reference, with the E field commented out. This is because I saw the E field being moved down as content was being added in rows to the B field. I couldn't see any need to go beyond the D so it was just easy to remove it and don't have any headaches trying to figure things out.

The CSS file that gives this page its layout and colours is here:

http://blogologue.com/stats/tester/stylesheets/screen.css

And the SASS file that generated that CSS is here:

http://blogologue.com/stats/tester/sass/screen.scss

It's all fairly straightforward, and it is a nice simple way to create a layout on a web page.

A final note on these files, config.rb should contain

  require 'zen-grids'

to make all of this work, like my one does: http://blogologue.com/stats/tester/config.rb

For my part, I'm thinking it could be fun to create some tools in Python that pulls everything together, at least something that can generate HTML with information from all the different sites I post content to. It's easy to start over-engineering on projects like this, but maybe I'll also wrap Ruby, SASS, Compass etc. in a Python package to make these features easily available for Python. As well as look at including Zope's page template package to easily create templates.

Oh well, I'll get back to progress on all of this later. Tata. :)

OK, so been a while since I blogged the last time. Lots of things have happened, but the most important part is that I've gotten a lot better at relaxing and taking it easy.

I thought I had something to say about music, and what can I say.

Up until maybe a couple of weeks ago I was cranking out music and getting into the groove of creating music, creating demos & songs. And I'm not the one to blow my own horn but in my opinion I was creating some good stuff that would suit some audience.

Anyway, these last couple of weeks I've spent at the family hut. Some days after I arrived, a violin also came in the mail. Prior to going to the hut I was listening to a cover of Viva la vida made by the Dallas String Quartet if I remember correctly, and I was deeply moved by the violin in that piece.

A picture of the violin is here:

http://instagram.com/p/r7sBWrKKpD/?modal=true

So yeah, a violin arrived last week, but it's these last couple of days I've been getting to play on it. It's really just posture, grip and open strings now, but it is good fun. I guess I'm that grown up that I can just STFU and do whatever the instructor says.

I found the lessons by this lady

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLLxyaKSNav9f9Vqvp99npQ

To be nice, easy and simple to follow. Now, to be honest and as a side note I'm on a very limited internet connection, so instead of replaying the lessons in a browser, I used a Python tool called youtube-dl to download the videos and play them locally.

It's here: http://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/

This means I get video files that can be played locally, without the advertisements. Not exactly sure what to do about the ads, but Youtube should create some app that can store videos locally with ads so everything is in order.

Funny thing is, I bought a harmonica about a year ago, at the local rock museum, but haven't played it much up until now. But some travelling, broken violin strings etc. kinda forced my hand with regard to what I could use and the harmonica (picture here http://instagram.com/p/sTI8PXKKp9/?modal=true) was the obvious choice.

I guess to sum it up, these last couple of weeks I haven't really been creating or pushing myself to do much creative work, just playing with new instruments, relaxing and winding down. Not sure when I'll get back to creating new music but I think that new music will involve some harmonica and violin playing. :)

By: nikos

This one is quite nice...

OK, so I've been dabbling a bit with Hydrogen again, the IMO very good drum machine kit for Lunix..

I've been a user of Linux for a long time both on the desktop and server side, but lately I've been running Windows a lot because that's where Battlefield 4 runs, an FPS-strategical-tactical war game.

And every now and then I fire up Audacity to record something. Now, I've also got myself a set of digital drums to learn how to play the drums, but it's also nice to just be able to plot something into a program and have a nice, perfect drumtrack to go.

Now, Hydrogen doesn't run on Windows, so I figured I could have a copy of Hydrogen running in a virtual machine on Windows. I tried setting something up using QEMU, but after a while I just gave up because of many different bugs.

So, I ended up using VirtualBox and created an appliance which you can download here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/77290387/Hydrogen%20Debi...

If you don't have VirtualBox installed, get it installed and then import this (via the File menu in the VirtualBox main panel) and start it up and you'll have Hydrogen readily available.

This appliance has today's export (26th of July) of Hydrogen from Github running, so it's the latest and maybe even greatest version of Hydrogen available.

Give it a try why dontcha?

So I've been playing around with Sia's Chandelier this weekend, first finding the beat and then adding onto that.

I also started playing around a bit with Audacity (audio editing) and Hydrogen, a drum machine software kit for Linux. Audacity has some features line tone generation, which is nice for creating these deep tones, and it is possible to create custom drum kits for Hydrogen..

So here's a kit that has the lowest notes and cross-fades them out over 2.5 seconds: http://blogologue.com/c0-b0%20crossfade%20out%202.5s.h2drumk... - it gives the long punch to this thing: https://soundcloud.com/morten-w-petersen/chandelier-part-2

I know the chorus vocals could be a bit better but I have to draw the line somewhere, this is a hobby after all and something I do when I have the energy and the "lust". :)

OK, so it's been a long time since I blogged the last time. For about a year or so now my mental health has changed in a positive way.. although I guess I've been depressed for a while, my two main issues, psychosis and anxiety have improved dramatically.

So it's a mixed bag you may say, as things improve, there are (natural) reactions to what one has been through. At the same time I've not seen my kids more than a couple of hours each month since last summer, and that's really tough, in the emotional, sad way.

I think I've had fairly deep issues for many years, but been good at covering it up, for different reasons. Anxiety, or what could be said to be similar to obsessive compulsions, has been one of the main things I've worked with in therapy. To put it simply, OCD/anxiety has a lot to do with fear, fear of what one think might happen, what one is afraid will happen. Mix that with some maybe poor separation with daydreaming, fantasy and so on and one might end up thinking one is something or capable of something, or that others might do you something - dramatic and not good. And when this anxiety and obsessiveness gets bad enough, one goes around thinking about it all the time, and checking in different ways if these fears are true. Examples are worries one might stab someone with a knife (although that's far from what the obsessive person is capable of) and have problems around knives and people, that one can get contaminated by touching a door handle and has to wash the hands often and so on.

It might sound weird, but it's real in the mind of the sufferer and completely natural.

I've been in therapy and taking medication for a little over 4 years now, and I think there's been a steady improvement over the whole period, and when I started noticing improvements, that really gave motivation to continue the process. There have been three important things in my life, that has enabled me to change and become better. Two are therapy, talking to therapists, the other taking medication.

The third thing is my two kids.. there are wonderful things that happen when one becomes a parent, maybe the most positive thing is being able to give love to and take care of these small humans. I got psychotic around the birth of my first son, and that's maybe natural, as birth and the time around it is a time of a lot of changes, and natural, instinctive thoughts and feelings come into play. It might also have been poor sleep or lack of enough sleep, but I don't remember that much details from that period.

Regarding therapy and medication; I've noticed myself in periods with little therapy that my mental health has improved.. And I think that's because of the medicine doing its thing, as well as new ways of thinking and handling issues learned from therapy have been working gradually over time.

So it's maybe not the best thing to see a therapist every week, several times a week and so on. It might be more than enough to go every two weeks, once a month etc. This might be the most efficient way, as the mental health services can treat more people with less resources too.

As for psychosis, wow it's a trip to hell. It's like a nightmare you can't wake up from, and if you think of love, thinking, anger, fear, hate as separate wires in your brain, it's like these can get connected up the wrong way so that for example something you've feared deeply before now can be come fun. It's hard to explain in a good way, but it's important to say that most people who are psychotic do no harm, and that it's a lot about what goes on inside a person's head.

http://blogologue.com/fourth-improv.mp3

Enjoy.

More music posts are on this link: http://blogologue.com/search?category=1088844297X43 - simple recordings and thoughts about music

I found this video on Facebook and twittered about it

  https://twitter.com/blogologue/status/357625893239267328

It's about a guy who's scared of heights, and as a part of the bachelor party, they are doing a fake bungee jump from a bridgde.

It is funny, but after laughing and smiling a bit about it, I found how it can illustrate mental issues... you can see the guy there, after having believed that he was about to jump of a bridge blindfolded and jumping, that he's struggling.

The other guys think it's funny, and it is, but just look at the guy afterwards and his reaction.

I think it illustrates a very good point about mental health, anxiety and so on. The thinking that something is a lot worse than it actually is, and that you need to keep on pushing to break through these barriers.

For example, panic attacks, social phobia and so on, can tire out someone just like the guy in the video, on a daily, weekly or whatever basis. Mental health is very real in the mind, and it evokes reactions from the body, for example that you get tired, put out and so on.

But the trick is to keep on pushing.

I've been playing different songs the last couple of days, nice to finally jam a bit and have som fun. :)

http://www.blogologue.com/improv-2013-07-16.mp3

So, a little while ago I bought myself a new phone, one in addition to the HTC One X I already have.

It was the Nokia Lumia 920, with a Windows Phone 8 operating system. I've played a bit around with it, and decided I like the new user interface.. it's intuitive that boxes can be dragged round and resized in the start screen. Downloaded some apps, for Twitter, Facebook, the bank and more, and these apps are OK to use. The gripe I have with the phone is that it the Spotify app isn't running as well as it should and the user interface is not that good, but I guess they'll improve that as time goes on.

So, some benefits of having two cellphones have popped up. I use a multi-SIM card solution from the phone operator Netcom, and for example when travelling by train where the coverage can vary, one phone can get SMS messages seconds or minutes before the other.

It is also nice to have one phone connected to the WiFi and the other not, so that whenever WiFi doesn't work as it should, it is easy and quick to use the other phone to check out Twitter, Facebook and so on.

So, now I have on Android Phone and one Windows Phone, and if the rumours are true, a big new Apple phone will arrive this summer. I think I'll get that one as well, and probably sell the HTC One unless I find a good reason to keep it.

A third benefit of having two phones is that one can pretty much always go through an entire day without having to charge up, and just put both in charging mode when going to bed. Most new phones suck battery like there's no tomorrow (...) so it is practical to have more than one phone in that regard.

I guess the only thing I'm missing for the Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone is an alternative browser. Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera would be nice, I guess WP8 isn't "big enough" yet that it has alternative browsers available.

So, I've had the Nokia Lumia 920 phone for a couple of days now. As I twittered fairly quickly, the user interface was interesting, the built-in speaker sound was good and the screen was nice to use, even in sunlight.

Now I've played with it some more, and it's a phone I can like. The biggest gripe I have is that it doesn't look like there are any alternative browsers for it. I use IE sparingly, which I think MS deserves after years of dragging web-developers down with their half-hearted approach to supporting web standards.

Another nag was that the logon to the Microsoft-account system (Hotmail, what was MSN messenger etc.) failed to begin with, and gave a pretty cryptic error message as to why. After googling (in a way a regular user would most likely not be able to), I found that the issue was an incorrect time zone setup on the phone.

Anyway, I keep playing with the phone and getting used to the "start" screen with all its little boxes and customizing it. It has got apps for Spotify, 7 Digital, Skype, Facebook and more, so it will be a phone I can use on a regular basis. I think it's a good phone so far. :)

So, long time since I've blogged :)

There has been a lot of changes in my life the last couple of months, Hilde has moved back to her home town to think about things, and I'm here in Trondheim trying to figure out things.

Not being around people you care about and have gotten used to, is hard. It's going better now than a month or two ago though, so one can adapt to most situations. Visiting Hilde and the kids now and then.

Up in the middle of all this, I've been working and hustling to get the house sold, things cleared up, getting more work and somewhere to go next. I feel more confident about myself now than I did half a year ago. The last couple of months have been very tough at times, but I've managed to get through it in a good way, and become more of myself again in the process.

Some months ago I also got a position as a board member in the local mental health organization (Mental Helse Trondheim), and also handling PR in that position. It's been a a very good experience participating there, seeing people who have been through tough times, that want to help others and getting paid nothing for it. Very inspiring and just the kind of positive experience I need.

So I'm up for new experiences these days, trying out new things and breaking away from my old, negative, thinking patterns.

Managed to cut down on the medicine as well, now using only 1 Truxal a day, compared to 3 some months ago. So I managed to cut down on medication while I was in a very tough situation.. that is something. :)

So, life is pretty good these days. :)

Studying some Spanish every day, working hard and getting some exercise.. just over a month ago I was discussing the use of anti-depressants with my psychologist and the psychiatrist in charge of prescribing medicine. I got a prescription and was planning on starting taking it, in the start of January.

I didn't start taking it; after many talks with the psychologist I guess I'm all for managing mental issues naturally, and since I'm already using Seroquel and Truxal, starting with another medicine seemed somewhat daunting.

Here I am some weeks after I could have started with anti-depressants and things are feeling quite OK without them. I'm not saying that if your doctor says you *should* start taking anti-depressants you shouldn't - but sometimes it can be OK to try regular psychological therapy instead.

We talked about using anti-depressants not for depression, but for general anxiety (including panic attacks) and obsessive-compulsive thoughts. I guess it's hard to be pessimistic about life when life has been shitty for a good while and then gradually gets better and better. :)

A combination of therapy and medication has worked well for me.. now I'm looking forward to one day be completely off the medicine, but there's no rush. Life is OK and I don't notice a lot of side-effects from the medicine anymore.

So, merry Christmas. :)

This Christmas has been the best one in a good while. Good food, good drink, relaxed atmosphere. It's nice to chat with family, have a glass of cognac and just spend time enjoying life.

Just having peace of mind and doing what one could call mundane things is nice, after having mental issues it is easier to enjoy such smaller things in life.

It seems like time goes by at an increasing rate, the kids grow up quickly and all that jazz.

I've always been a curious person and until 94 I did pretty good at school. Since then and until this year, learning and such has been a struggle. I've been focusing on learning more Spanish the last month or so and it is starting to be good fun, because I feel I'm learning and understanding more over a short period of time.

Life has taught me many lessons, and I feel wiser than I maybe should at the age of 32, and to complement that with a proper education seems like the perfect thing. So that's one of my goals for the next couple of years, get the basic high school grades required for admission into university.

That, as well as keeping my day job (build a successful triple bottom line business), providing for and taking care of my family, loosing weight (or rather, keeping in shape) and getting familiar with politics and doing some projects there are my goals and projects for the next 4-5 years.

There I said it, and now to deliver on that. :)

OK, so I here I go blogging about mental issues again.. :)

A recurring theme for my mental health has been anxiety. Anxiety for many different things, panic attacks and so on.

Now, I could try to describe panic attacks (for me), they start as a murmur and then build themselves up to a climax, and the process from murmur to climax is very uncomfortable. Today I'm glad to say that it has been quite some time since I've had a panic attack.

I think the most important thing around panic attacks is that you learn that they are uncomfortable, but not dangerous. It might feel dangerous, but it's just your mind having a bad time. And you can get anxiety for having a panic attack as well. That is, anxiety for anxiety.

It can seem like a vicious circle but with therapy and medication it can be managed.

Well, I was going to blog about anxiety in general, that is, lately I've had some pretty bad anxiety that is somewhat constant and uncomfortable, waxes and vanes but is ever present.

Before this anxiety I had a long period where I felt good about things and life was flowing nicely..

So yeah, I had a nice run for a month maybe where things were fine, then I started getting bad anxiety again.. I talked to the therapist during the summer whether we should start using SSRI (aka. anti-depressants) but that we would wait and see if it is necessary.

I'm still not sure if I should start with that medicine, thinking less medicine is better, but now that I've had some good time to contrast with the bad anxiety I'm thinking I should start taking more medicine. Life is too short to spend it on having a bad time..

OK, so I'll let you know how that medicine thing goes. But, back to the real spark for this post, why I'm writing this post. I've talked to people that also suffer from anxiety, and a recurring theme is that a part of the negative process with anxiety is how others will perceive and treat you. A part of the anxiety is the thought that "Oh, now I can't get anxiety, what will people think?" - so part of the problem with (social) anxiety is that one is afraid of showing feelings, behaviour and thoughts because it is a taboo or not socially normal to talk about.

That's why I'm blogging today. Because talking about it, whether it is in therapy, among friends or in public, makes anxiety smaller, lesser.

So, been a while since I blogged about mental health.. life has been pretty good the last couple of months but I have had a bit of a "dip" a couple of weeks now.

I guess most people go about their lives and don't think too hard about how they're thinking, how they're acting etc.. the last couple of months I've been myself without giving much thought to how I behave or how I think.

Which is how it should be.. there has been quite a bit of talks with therapists and I notice now that I'm able to stop my mind running away with some negative/weird/scary thoughts and feelings once I become aware of thinking like that. Maybe not immediately but I've learned to take a break from <whatever>, focus on here and now and apprehend these thinking patterns.

It's a bit like error correction in hardware and software I guess, and a funny thing is that I use a form parity checking in that medicine tablets should be even or odd in the packaging, and something is up if it has been even for a while and suddenly goes odd. I also have a calendar reminder for taking meds in the middle of day, because I often get so lost in what I'm doing that I can end up taking it an or hour or two late.

So I'm getting used to being close to normal, and also getting used to that now and then uncomfortable thoughts and feelings can come back in periods of stress for example. When I read about things the therapist mentions these days, names for different psychological issues for example I'm able to understand what I'm reading and understand myself, while earlier it was just a big mess of thoughts and feelings and not much clarity.

I think the deal with severe mental health issues is that the here and now can be scary and uncomfortable, but one must always strive to think, and know, that things can get much better. I think the psychotic episode and issues that came after our first (Isak) was born is the worst I've had. It's in the couple of last weeks I recognize that it must have been very hard for Hilde in this period as well, jumping into the role of mom while I was so far down and so mentally ill. Just so that's said. :)

They've been working around or home the last couple of months to setup fiber for internet access. They had a mishap where internet was unavailable and one a couple of days ago as well.

So, I decided the other day that I need proper redundant internet access. We have devices on both of the major mobile GSM networks, and after being unsatisfied with how they work in lesser populated areas I decided to try something new.

So I bought an ICE.net router which is "CDMA EV-DO Rev. B". OK, so GSM, EDGE and CDMA etc. is different in speeds and features, I don't know much more than that.

So yeah, bought the router and got it fired up. And I must say I'm pleased with how it works. Great ping (SSH is as responsive as on regular broadband) and the transfer speeds are good too.

I'll use it now and then I guess, but it is good to have a backup besides the usual mobile phone networks. I look forward to taking it to more remote locations as well, to see how well it works in lesser populated areas.

So far it's looking good, it really feels like regular broadband.

So, I've been using Android phones and tablets for a while now.. My HTC One X Android phone stopped working properly last week and this week I got around to delivering it in for repair.

I've been happy with the HTC One X, the only thing I have that is a bit annoying is that it sucks a lot of battery and needs to get charged during the day. Which might be partly because of lots of different apps pushing and polling over the network, but how hard can it be to get something going with good power management?

I think I'll buy a thicker phone, with a bigger battery, next time.

So yeah, I delivered the phone for repair and got a HUAWEI Ascend Y100. A snug little phone that runs Android. But typing things on it is a real pain, the keyboard and screen is much too small.

As I use different Android devices it is nice that they run the same icons, system etc. If I know one Android Phone I know them all.

I think that will be a good thing for Android, that you can go between devices and have calendaring and contacts sync over different models and that for example resetting a borrowed phone is the same on different models and easy as going through a couple of menus (privacy tab in settings).

So, I've been without a portable phone (using a big Samsung Galaxy Tab now) for a week, as the HTC One X suddenly got a black screen.

Being without something to constantly look at and play with, naturally some thoughts around smartphones and their use have popped up.

I don't like lugging around a lot of stuff, and I like to work *and* play with my phone, so I'd like one that runs in two modes. Regular mode, with games, Facebook, Twitter and those kinds of apps, and one mode for work, which is better protected, password-protects the screen faster etc.

I guess you can put more than two modes on the phone as well, but those are the ones I can think of now. Maybe a simple button on the phone that switches between the modes, and these modes are completely separate in terms of kernel- and user-space processes.

Have the protected mode in a paranoid configuration so that if you for example switch to regular mode and switch back, the password-protection is there immediately.

Sounds good to me. :)

So, after firing up Spotify in Wine a couple of times I got the message that I was running Spotify on an unsupported platform (with a link).

I opened the link and found that Spotify for Linux is in technology preview state. Fine, got some instructions on how to install it and followed them and voila, Spotify for Linux installed. Of course it was debian-package based which seems like the way most software organizations distribute software for Linux these days.

It works very well, looks a bit better than Spotify in Wine. Music sounds good etc. so it's a win. :)

So I try different things now and then, Linux, Windows a little bit of Apple. These days I'm keen on playing around with Linux again, and have Ubuntu Studio running as my main desktop.

I like music. I love music. So I thought I'd get Spotify installed using the Crossover "Windows-for-Linux" plugin, as I got a free 12-month deal on Halloween on the CrossOver plugin.

So yeah, installed CrossOver and downloaded the Spotify installer, but the installation process hung and I exited.

Thought I'd try regular Wine (1.4) instead, located the Spotify installer in /tmp and installed. And yes, it works fine. :)

Maybe we'll see more and more developers more aware of the Linux platform and developing in a way where Windows apps work transparently on Linux with Wine, that would be nice.

I leave you with this: spotify:track:4er8NyQ8cFnZ2b643Tjc44

[Update..] Here's how Spotify looks on Linux: http://blogologue.com/spotify.png

So, time to show some statistics again:

Firefox 32.46%
Safari 23.77%
Android Browser 21.16%
Chrome 12.75%
Internet Explorer 5.22%

This time the results are from Google Analytics, and I can see there is quite an increase in visitors from a month back..

I think now with some quality writing and content, things are looking up and I just got to continue the trend.

That over 20% of visitors use the "Android browser" (whatever that is), is surprising. I've twittered and written a bit about Android-related stuff so there's that impact I guess. But why isn't Chrome the default browser?

Nice to see Firefox on top though. :)

[Update]

To make things a bit more interesting, here are the operating system stats:

Android 29.28%
Macintosh 25.80%
Linux 21.45%
Windows 19.71%
iOS 2.61%

Which shows that 50% of my visitors are using some variant of Linux. That's pretty cool! :) And if you count "UNIX" systems, close up to 80% are using that, assuming Macintosh means Mac OS X and .

OK, so there's my crowd, the UNIX people. And some Windows, when they do a desktop running on top of some UNIX it'll be up to 100%. [:)

I'm going to start using Skype more, or "chat software" in general so I got Skype fired up today and logged in.

Everything was fine, except the video camera (video chat) had the image turned upside down.

Some googling later I found the fix, and here's a small tutorial for an Ubuntu box:

cd /usr/bin
mv skype skype.bin
emacs skype

Paste this into the file:

#!/bin/sh
LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/i386-linux-gnu/libv4l/v4l1compat.so exec ./skype.bin

save, and run

chmod +x skype. Next time you fire up Skype via the terminal, video should be correct vertically.

Some months I suddenly felt the urge to buy a new smartphone, and got myself a HTC One X smartphone. I've been using it over months now and am satisified with how it works. If I use it a lot, the phone needs to get charged during the day, but I'm not sure what the reason for that is, might be many apps running polling and pushing over the network.

I've been looking for a TV-adapter for the phone, but couldn't find any. Looked around many places, and no-one had an adapter. So I was pleasantly surprised when one salesman said they had a wireless HD adapter (Media Link HD) that pairs with the HTC One X. So, OK, I bought it.

Setting it up (pairing the phone with the adapter) was as easy as plugging into the power adapter, connecting HDMI and swiping some fingers on the phone and they autoconfigured and were ready to go.

I've played around with the phone and adapter for a couple of days now, having struggled a bit with for example choppy playback of video, and sound lagging a bit.

Here's the phone streaming to the TV yesterday.

So I took a look at the processes that were running (task manager) and stopped a lot of them, Facebook, Maps etc. - all non-essential processes.

And that made a big difference, now playback is almost perfect, some minor hiccups once in a while, but nothing that can't be pragmatically overlooked.

Well, that's that. But I'd like to see an app that can instantly kill all non-essential processes, or a setup where some programs like those who display video and are a bit "heavy" can get maximum CPU priority so that other apps running don't disturb the playback.

Oh, and I would probably be good with an app that can diagnose things relevant to streaming over Wi-Fi, such as network bandwidth, network latency, CPU used by background processes and so on.

So it's been a while since I blogged anything about the "blood disorder" haematomachrosis/hematomachrosis. It is a thing where the body takes up too much iron which can lead to fatigue and other things.

Well, I've been going regularly (forgot the last appointment) to drain blood and they draw roughly a pint every time.

I feel a lot more energetic these days, and that might be due to the bloodletting, but it is more likely because I've been treated for psychosis for almost 3 years now.

Since both treatment for haematomachrosis/hematomachrosis and psychosis has been going on for the last couple of years it is hard to tell what helped, but I think both things helped, mostly the psychosis and mental health treatment but also the draining of blood.

It's quite an easy treatment for the haematomachrosis/hematomachrosis - they just draw blood, I drink some water before, during and after drawing blood and relax for a little while in the room when they're done and that's it.

I think I've felt fatigue after bloodletting, but the last couple of times I haven't felt anything in particular so I guess that could just be expectations. And that general anxiety about it made me more tired than usual.

That's how it goes with anxiety, one can get drained of energy (somewhat crippled) from doing things that should evoke some concern or worry and it can interfere with normal functioning.

So, a little over a week ago we came back from Spain. A month of relaxation, family time, tanning, a little drinking have been good.

Last week I started working again, and the situation being what it was I worked hard and long hours to get things under control after a month of nearly not working.

And it went fine. The things that's been bothering me the most the last 6 months maybe is anxiety, panic anxiety and different kinds of worries that can seep energy leaving me unresponsive, unproductive and other things. The anxiety is now almost gone, it creeps up every now and then but haven't had a panic attack in many months. Every time I feel an attack creeping up I check that I've taken my meds, eaten enough and just trying to do normal things and relax. And then it passes.

Last week I started practice driving with my brother as well, we were out driving 2 times and it went surprisingly well. Mixing the clutch-, brake- and gass-pedals to get a smooth start and cruise, looking far ahead when driving (for pedestrians and other things) while keeping a steady pace, keeping within the lane etc. isn't that hard to do. With anxiety manageable I'm able to do new things, necessary things.

Now I'm going out to jog, trying Endomondo for the first time. Hit me up, I'm Morten W. Petersen (morphex@gmail.com) - would be nice to have some more friends on there.

Suitable amounts of exercise: Mental and physical health win.

So I decided to look a bit at statistics today for this site, and found that there is quite a bit of constant traffic to this site.

Looking at the browser statistics shows this:

MS Internet Explorer - 37.2 %
Opera - 19.2 %
Firefox - 17.2 %
Google Chrome - 15.8 %
Mozilla - 6.2 %
Netscape - 1.9 %
Safari - 0.8 %

I'm surprised that there are so few Safari users, and that Netscape is still popular among some (!).. that's just statistics for one month though, and I've seen Firefox close on the top, often.

Speaking of browsers, today I had to fire up Google Chrome because Firefox was hanging on gmail.com - I hope that's just a temporary glitch and not something permanent. I think Chrome is OK, but one should be free to choose any modern browser and expect it to work flawlessly with such a big service that GMail is.

So, I've been participating in a discussion around treatment for mental health, primarily medication.

I've been discussing in Norwegian with @agteien ( https://twitter.com/agteien ) and her story about being on antipsychotic medication (forced). She told the story about becoming suicidal when under treatment and that's she's worked hard to keep herself from any mental health care to avoid being subject to forced medical treatment again.

Anything that is forced upon a person automatically sucks more. That's just the way it is, so I understand that after being forcibly treated that's she's sceptical about mental health care. Some 8 years (I think) she's now kept herself away from treatment.

So she twittered this in public and I began a long dicussion around mental health treatment. My point of view after being in treatment for some 3 years now is that medication works. It really does.

I've been talking to psychiatrists and psychologists during this period, and what struck me was that in a long period without appointments (vacation, calendar mismatch etc.) things improved by themselves, I take that as an indication that the medication works fairly well by itself. I believe that medication is important when treating psychosis or other very severe mental illnesses.

A person can get used to anything, including psychosis and related disorders. For me, life right now is so much different than what is has been the last 10-15 years maybe. I feel more relaxed, content and able to deal with complex situations and issues easily. This is due to the medicine, *as well as* the appointments with different therapists to talk about whatever is the most uncomfortable issues the last couple of weeks.

To add some comic relief, @mizzmonique81 headbutted herself into the end of the discussion claiming that @agteien's public twittering about medical treatment of mental issues was none of my business. Well it is, because it is in public, my public Twitter bio says "Software developer with an interest in management, politics (liberal) and a better life for the mentally ill." and I believe a lot of people with mental problems can be easily affected, or persuaded if you will, to for example not seek medical help or take medicine to improve their mental health.

So, been a while since I blogged about mental things now, but I thought it was time to blog a bit about it.

Nobody I know that knows I`ve struggled with things says anything negative about it, I haven´t heard once anyone say anything negative at all. People think I´ve got guts talking (blogging) about it. Some comments and suggestions on dropping the medicines I use and so on, but that´s something I`ve never done to the most important one, the anti-psychotics.. It´s around 2 months since I last took a Valium and that´s a victory.

That`s maybe natural too because I don`t talk a lot about it, it is interestingly enough easier to blog in public than speak about it in person.. it is important to be seen for things besides mental illness.

Anyway, life is pretty good. Discussed adding some medicine (anti-depressants) to the regimen but these last couple of weeks in particular have been good, I´ve started doing exercise on a regular basis (strength and running). It is widely known that exercise helps on a lot of things, and I`m quite a bit overweight so it is good to see the weight go down and feeling more energetic.

Anyway, the title of this blog post is about attitude. Attitude really matters. I often remind myself that how far I`ve come is good, and that things will go even better over time, over time there is constant progress and some ups and downs along the way.

So I got a new monitor the other day, was walking around downtown and visited a computer store.. asked why the 27" 3D monitor was the same price as another plain 27" monitor and the salesman explained that it has been used for demos, so OK I bought it.

Came home, plugged it in and it didn't work very well. So I took it back, they confirmed it was broken and got me another one, the one that was actually on display.

I must say, so far I'm very happy with having an extra monitor and a big one at that.. lots of space, and it is possible to have several terminal windows up with different code which makes things a bit easier to work with.

Here's a one-terminal screenshot of the new monitor space, I'm running Ubuntu with 2 monitors, one 27" and the other on the laptop. The laptop isn't heavy duty so I was surprised that things are so snappy on the big screen as well:

http://blogologue.com/screenshot_27.png

So, Isak our firstborn in getting closer to 3 years old. We've noticed some tantrums here and there, but they pass eventually.

It is said that if you give them the pinky they'll take the whole hand, which I'm sure is true after seeing some parental programs on the telly. And seeing how Isak can sometimes try to push the right buttons to get his way.

Anyway, I just about always put him to bed. Take him upstairs, give him a fluoride tablet, brush his teeth and put him to bed. There have been some things like Isak wanting an extra hug or kiss from mom before bed but that also passed.. I've been pretty strict about what happens before bedtime and I think that has been smart, as this procedure is a breeze these days.

It's a fine balance between nurture, structure and discipline to raise kids, but if they get a lot of affection and some leniency with discipline and structure as the default, things work out fine.

Today, somewhat inspired by my brother who has gotten mobile broadband (which works well), I bought myself some new networking gear.

It's a Netgear Powerline Nano 200 WiFi Set, which works by plugging in an adapter in one end and a another in the other end, hooking up the former to the router via ethernet and configuring the latter (via ethernet) to set up wireless access.

I had some small issues configuring the wireless adapter, but the setup tools for the adapter worked out on the second try.

Nothing big really, but at least I now have 5 bars on the WiFi, larger capacity for data transfers and a good ping to boot. Small things like these matter when you're working on a computer all day, feels smoother and snappier.

Loreen - Euphoria

So yeah, a little update from last time. What can I say, things are better than ever.. I feel relaxed and am able to take things easy if I feel negative emotions and thoughts are creeping up.

I've been discussing the use of another medicine (SSRI) with my psychologist and I'm going a bit back and forth on it in my own head as well.

Seeing how well the anti-psychotics and cognitive therapy have worked, that's a positive experience that makes me think the SSRI medicine could help as well, as it is similar to anti-psychotics in that they treat the current issues as well as has a long-term (permanent?) effect on the brain so that the chance of going nuts (...) again is reduced.

On the other hand, it would be good to just learn how to cope with things without medicine, and life is pretty good now. Just the social situations that are sometimes too much and I'm sure that will get better over time.

Oh well, we'll see. :)

So this last week I've been on vacation in Geilo (see here for example https://twitter.com/blogologue/status/217356386647019520/pho... and things have been good, taking it easy.

Been fishing, been drinking (a little bit) and reflecting over life.. the pace in Nidelven IT is picking up and there is enough to do for a while to come.

I'm very glad we ditched the hosting part of our business (handed it over with care to another company) and that we now can focus on mostly one thing, selling our time to customers, as well as selling some licenses of in-house developed e-commerce software.

As far as my mental health goes, things have been steadily improving since I started treatment and that's encouraging because there is a dip in comfort now and then but it can be managed by taking some extra medicine.

I talked with Vebjørn (brother-in-law, studying to become a police officer) this week about drugs and medicine, and yes Valium can be considered a drug, but so can morphine if it is abused, so Valium as a solution now and then and not regular use or mixed with other things such as alcohol (dangerous), I consider to be OK. Although I'm thinking of trying an extra Truxal the next time there's too much anxiety, as I can have some beers then without worrying about a bad reaction to Valium and alcohol.

Life is pretty good.. and now some tea. :)

So lately I've found a new joy in life.. after being a heavy coffee drinker for many years, I watched a program on the TV where a woman talked about coffee being "too fast" for her, and that drinking tea was better.

I've been drinking tea now and then and it struck me that this could be true for me as well. I get too "manic" when drinking coffee and these last couple of weeks I've been drinking tea instead.

And it is a great joy, tea tastes great especially with honey and milk added. And there is a plethora of different tea types so one can vary and try different things now and then and have a selection of different types at hand.

And yes, it seems that it is better for me to drink tea than coffee, so now I know that as well.

So it's been a little while since I blogged.. things are changing and getting better.

Ḯ've managed to go on without Valium for a while now, and now it's only Quetiapine (Seroquel) and Truxal (Chlorprothixene) to manage my symptoms..

I had a meeting with the psychologist and the doctor that prescribes the drugs and we talked about going at least another year on the Quetiapine and trying to get off the Chlorprothixene as soon as possible. Which is fine by me, when the time is right we can start reducing the medicine.

It's been a long and hard battle (to use that overused metaphor).. it is not so much a battle as it is accepting life's realities, accepting stress and things that get you out of balance and rolling with the punches (...) - or rather avoiding them. :)

I'm happy now.. I think I'll be even happier as more time passes by, but I must always remember to stop and enjoy the things that are plentiful and small, but oh so important. Such as playing with the kids, sitting outside when it is sunny, getting out and about.

This psychosis/anxiety thing has been difficult, and things still get very heavy at times, but I wouldn't have thought 1-2 years ago that I'd be doing as well as I'm doing now. Which makes me think about those who have heavy problems and end life prematurely.. such a loss, as one is out of it and in pain and miss out on so much of what comes in the future. It is true that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, and today I feel strong. Things can still get heavy but I feel smarter, more energetic, peaceful and stronger than I ever have before.

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Been a little while since I blogged so I thought it was time again. Long story short, things have been improving steadily since I first started treatment for psychosis.

I am able to think now that someday in the future, my mental problems will be mostly or completely over.

My medicine regime these days consists of 800 mg of Seroquel, 45 mg of Truxal and 1,25-5 mg of Valium when needed.

The deal with those who treat me is that I use Valium when necessary, and I've heard that those who use Valium (mostly) fare worse than those who don't, but it is a very effective and useful tool that brings stability for me. Knowing I have it and that I can use it, and using it, makes me able to control my mental health with confidence.

We had a new kid that arrived on Wednesday (Theo) and up to birth and after the birth I've used more Valium than usual. And events like childbirth can trigger psychosis or a relapse into psychosis, and now 4 days later I still feel things are well under control, that's thanks to anti-psychotics, Valium and the cognitive therapy I've had with different therapists the last couple of years. I just made sure I ate enough, slept enough, didn't undertake anything particularly stressful and took Valium when I felt severe anxiety creeping up.

Now that I was able to deal with the birth of Theo I feel more confident about most things and that it will be possible to beat (or rather, manage) my mental health problems.

It's been a long and at times incredibly (insanely..) hard battle, but it's possible to go through things like these and have a normal happy life. I know that now. :)

FWIW, I now have the "2012 ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code" main diagnosis F41.3 and a "side diagnosis" (?) of F29. It's kind of nice to have a diagnosis, but the important thing has been working away at whatever problem I felt most pressing at the time, and over the last ̃2.5 years it has been just that, as well as taking medicine. There's a lot of hurt in those diagnoses which is hard for someone who hasn't gone through similar things to understand (just some of the feelings alone would probably scare the bejesus out of a mentally well person), but at least it's somewhat understandable now.

So, yesterday I had a minor setback, as I awoke after falling to sleep and had a pretty bad anxiety/fear attack.

Thoughts about using more medicine and reacting badly to those (as in having dangerous side-effects) gave me a lot of anxiety and I had to rush to the local doctor that is open 24/7.

The anxiety lasted for about half an hour, most of it was pretty uncomfortable but when I got to the doctor and got to talk to someone things got better. After about 90 minutes of waiting I got to talk to a doctor about this anxiety and these concerns and I was calmed down by it.

The whole ordeal was pretty uncomfortable and I feel a bit tired today, but all in all it was OK. I managed to handle that situation as well. And did not even have to take a Valium to manage it.

These last months I feel things have greatly improved for my mental health, and incidents like these are more of a symptom of things that have been, not how they will be in the future. It is almost like I have gotten used to having it so bad, that feeling good feels a bit dangerous and I fall a bit back into feeling badly again.

Well, as far as medicine goes, I take and have always taken the medicines for psychosis regardless of how I feel about them and that other people are somewhat skeptical and some outright suggest that I stop taking them. That is something between me and those who give me treatment for (mental) health.

So, over the last years I've become more aware and focused on security and doing things securely and "hygienic" so that different activities don't transfer security issues between different platforms.

One trick I've been using is to have DVDs/CDs with some live Linux distro running, so that between activities the system is shut down and any contagion from one activity doesn't transfer over to another.

This approach works well, but it is a bit slow starting up and doing different things.. waiting for the disc reader to spin up or do its thing is so slow at times that it can become annoying. And if you're really paranoid, the risk of malware hiding in the firmware or some other part of the computer is always there.

So yesterday I bought myself a USB stick, so I can install Linux onto that.. I'm going to use the Ubuntu Linux Live disc and do an install to the USB stick with that. I installed a Live/Install disc to the USB stick first using UNetBootin, but when booting from the stick and trying to install to the stick from the stick, it didn't work.

Interestingly it didn't work because for some reason the installer had to modify the partition table on the stick and couldn't do that when the stick itself was mounted. [Edit: The stick already had a partition configured, so why should it modify?]

Then, when I boot up from the USB stick for the first time, I'll install VirtualBox onto the USB stick Linux, and could run different activities within virtualized machines. I think I'll setup a script that can cleanly initialize a virtual box image, and then startup that image, so that each "work session" within a specific area is contained to that virtual box, and it is never re-used again.

Some other things that will need to go onto the USB stick Linux is a setup for WiFi as well as removing certain standard services such as CUPS that is configured to startup automatically and listen to a port which can be accessed by users on the same network and effectively becomes a potential security hole.

With an installation of Ubuntu as the USB stick Linux, I feel fairly confident it'll be able to work on most computers' hardware it is plugged in to. WiFi can be an issue, but I guess the trick there is to keep the Ubuntu up-to-date.

Well, that's the plan for now. I'll keep you posted. [:)

So, I've added a page about my PyPi stuff here:

http://blogologue.com/morten%20w.%20petersen%20-%20pypi%20pa...

It lists my published Python/Zope/Plone packages, and over 7000 downloads of them so far although I haven't prioritized PyPi until recently. Sweet deals all around!

So, been a while since I last blogged.. life continues to improve and I am able to control my feelings and thoughts better.

It's been well over 2 years with medications and therapy, and it helps. I feel I've been making really good progress after having started going to psychologists. I'm not sure exactly what it is they do, but just talking about things and getting control over bouts of anxiety and learning that things that are felt as perceived as dangerous are in fact not that dangerous helps tremendously.

My ability to focus and persist has grown a lot, the last week or two I've been sticking my head into some pretty complex stuff ( http://www.nidelven-it.no/weblogs/hosting/blog_entry?id=1329... ) and I've managed to fix things that might have been out of my reach earlier.

Through the last years I've had some persisting uncomfortable thoughts and feelings which have seemed very real, and those have been part of a psychosis. I know now that psychosis and other serious mental health issues are things people in general don't know or care that much about, but that they are very real and painful. And that you can live with various symptoms if you learn how to handle them and have a normal functional life. For example if you go around hearing voices or see things that others don't see or feel and think you are something you're not - it can be managed, one can live with it and see it as a part of a normal life. Or they can just go away.

I'm probably having GAD now, generalized anxiety disorder. There is some relation between my anxiety and my psychosis, and that makes sense as low doses of anti-psychotics are used to treat anxiety as well.. managing my thoughts and feelings is what I'm working on these days and I am making great strides in it.

Well, now it's about two months until baby #2 comes, and I feel OK about it. There is something to be said about births and them triggering psychosis or other things, but we're doing everything we can to manage our time and stress in that period (having frequent appointments with the psychologist for example) so we're doing what we can do make it a "controlled landing".

So, it seems I'm pretty much over the psychosis stage now, after having talked to the therapist the last time.. I'm not sure how this diagosis thing works and everything, but now they are thinking about changing it.

I've read quite about this and that diagnosis and things related to psychosis such as being bipolar, depressive, manic and schizophrenic. I've also talked quite a bit to different therapists about diagnosis, and so far delusional disorder with psychosis seems to fit well.

Now it seems there can be severe bouts of anxiety and maybe some PTSD left.

Should I stay or should I go?

I've blogged quite a bit over the years and even when I was severely mentally ill, and lately I've been thinking about whether it is a good idea to blog about mental illness for me personally..

Spring 2011 we sold a part of our business to a partner, because we found that we were too small to be doing a lot of significantly different things.

Since that time there has been a lot less to do in the company, and although I've been fully committed to working in the company, I've also applied for jobs to get a steady income (since we sold a lot of the work and income) as well as "to get out a bit" and socialize more.

Anyway, I've got a ton of experience in running technical stuff as well as developing it and managing things. Even with that experience and having applied for a number of jobs I've only gotten one interview offer.

It's easy to find my blog through Google, and I think a lot of employers do search on the to get information about the applicant.

Ending a vicious circle

I think the problem with being mentally ill is that it is still a bit of a taboo, and this makes things worse because stigmatization adds to the problems. So what's needed is that more people talk about it and make it more acceptable to be ill. That's the only way to fix it really.

If I'm missing out on jobs because I'm blogging about my illness, then that's a part of a negative circle. If I'm not getting a job, then that could mean I could be out of work for a long period, and the longer you are without a job, the bigger the chance is that you don't get back in the job market - regardless of mental health.

Having something to do makes the days go by, and having a job is (I guess) a big deal for most people, as there is something to do and you get some social status from working. I think there are a lot of people out there who are mentally ill that could maybe work 10%, 30% and more, and that would be very helpful to the economy as well as IMO more people would get better, mentally.

During my most intense periods of psychosis I still worked 20% in the company, and in that period made decisions and plans that have in hindsight been very positive, and correct. So even if you're psychotic you can do something. And it helps to have something to do.

So this vicious circle.. you get ill, then you can't talk to a lot of people about it and if you apply for a job you can't talk about it. I think there is apprehension and fear around mental illness. Another part of that negative cycle is that not a lot of people talk about mental illness. There are I'm sure a lot of people who have varying degrees of mental illness, but because of for example stigmatization they don't seek help. Or maybe they are so ill that they lack the ability to understand that something is wrong with the way they think, or that they have become accustomed so the various symptoms of mental illness and go around with a serious mental handicap that hinders optimal functioning in life and enjoyment of it.

For the severely mentally ill, the problem with self-diagnosis or knowing that something is wrong with the way you think is that the same thing you're using to understand yourself is the thing that isn't working properly.

In that regard, it is helpful that mental illness gains acceptance, so that for example you can save a friend, relative or anyone by knowing a little more about mental illness and symptoms. Save them from squandering years of happiness, or even a whole lifetime of unecessary pain and stress.

So, now it has been well over 2 years since I had a psychotic break. I'm feeling better and feeling more now than for a long time.

I've had to deal with my issues and change my ways. Change the way I think about things, change habits.

And I'm glad to say that it works. Life is pretty good.

I think I've had a bad relationship towards web usage (using it too much) as well as work (working too much, not "disconnecting") for a number of years..

So what have I learned from all this? That life is short and it isn't easy for a lot of people. And that people can always change.

But the most important thing is taking the meds. Without them I would probably still be in a bit of a mess. And going to the therapist and being honest. That can be very hard, but to change something, it helps to start talking about it.

So, been a while since I blogged the last time. I've blogged a lot about psychosis and the related issues, and the last 2 years or so have been a steady climb towards feeling well. Some ups-and-downs, but in the longer perspective it's been going up all the way.

I was at a high-school reunion on Saturday and had fun and there I talked a bit about being ill as well. At its worst, the psychosis was the worst thing I've ever experienced.. and as we talked about on Saturday, it is hard to know how a mental illness feels for a person as the different illnesses vary and there are subjective feelings involved as well.

I've thought about explaining psychosis, and the best and shortest explanation is that it is like a nightmare you can't wake up from. Maybe some "weird" symptoms such as hallucinations as well, but mostly just intense fear and loosing the ability to observe and interact with the world around you. For me it was a nightmare initially, then I think I went into some mode of coping with dashes of intense fear and other things.

You can imagine how a person comes into a coping mode, if you compare the fear involved (for me anyway) with the fear you would have if you are in danger of being seriously hurt or dying. And going around with such a fear constantly makes your mind and body work in a different way than it would for a normal, healthy person.

I guess it changes the mind as well, and that's where antipsychotic medicine is so valuable. Some brain/body chemistry or interaction is off. I wasn't paying attention a week or so ago and forgot to take my last pill before going to bed. And the next morning I got some of the psychosis-related symptoms back, not uncontrollably intense, but uncomfortable. As I've mentioned before, "coming down" from a psychosis can be uncomfortable as one can get PTSD and other related problems, and these may be attributed to the medicine, but taking the meds is vitally important. I've taken them since day 1 of getting them, and that's a part of the reason I'm doing as well as I'm doing now.

Anyway, now I feel good and feel smart, and act smart. :)

[Later same day..] Got a phone from the psychologist's office that she was on sick leave. So I may have to get a new psychologist, maybe for a longer period. Of course, I forgot to mention that the psychiatrists/psychologists have been very helpful as well and I notice a little stress about establishing a new connection. Talking about some things is hard, but it also gets easier every time I have to do it with a new person.

I'm settling into a comfortable pace these days, prioritizing exercise.. I'm quite happy with that actually, I'm now up on 102 push-ups, which is IMO a feat since I'm pushing up a bit of weight.

Soccer is fun, and even though I haven't played much in the last 12-14 years I'm able to make some nice plays.. Soccer is great, as it never gets boring.. running on a threadmill or out in the woods isn't quite my thing, interesting how much more fun something is when there competition and a ball to kick around.

Oh well, I'm thinking of getting a drum kit; there are ones out there for about 4000 NOK which look OK. I've heard it isn't that hard to play the drums, you just need rhytm. So maybe I'll start playing the drums too and create another track. Whatever music and rhytms that pop into my head.

The local elections are coming closer, and I should do some stand-work for Venstre one of these days. Politics is interesting, and I guess you can get a kick out of that as well, finding good solutions and making decisions which affect a lot of people and has the potentional to do a lot of good.

I have some (business and tech) concepts I'd like to realize, not sure about the funding yet but maybe try the local state-backed funding sources first. Some neat ideas, which could make the world a better place.

Bruce Springsteen - Hungry heart

Queen, David Bowie - Under pressure

Last weekend I was with friends and we fished for a while. I got 4 Mackerell and a couple of Cods one evening and it was good fun.

I'm bitten by the fishing bug I think, and today I bought myself a second fishing rod and some 30 gram sinkers. So now I'll be able to have one out lying with bait and another where I actively fish, pull and jerk and so on.

It should be good fun, and now that I have a moped I'm more mobile as well so I'll be able to go out after workhours and fish.

The bait fishing rod will have 2 hooks with some fish food on them (probably fish or shrimps (shrimps = catching wolffish)) and a 30 gram sinker. Wolffish are not that pretty, but excellent (a delicacy) as food.

I can't wait to go fishing. :)

Well, my mental health is still improving (or rather at the moment at a bit of a plataeu). There is still some bouts of anxiety which are uncomfortable, but with techniques and ways of thinking about it I learned from my psychiatrist, they are at times manageable.

It is a great comfort to have Valium, if nothing else as a backup and then trying to deal with situations without using it.

I think the Valium is a great aide, but that it also maybe postpones some natural emotional processes.. so that if I take it one evening it does enable me to disconnect from stress and problematic emotions and then the day after deal with them.

So taking a Valium in the evening and then going to bed at an early hour and getting a good nights sleep breaks up stress and troubled hours and makes them manageable.

As the doctor in Spain said, people who use it over time and relatively often are worse off in the long run than those who don't. And I see that now. A lot of my mental problems are entangled experiences and emotions and need to be untangled.

I still look back sometimes and think of a lot of wasted time (happiness) during my life due to mental issues, but it is getting better now. I think I remember from a younger age that I wondered what mental illness and such was and not understanding, and for better or worse, I understand a lot about it now.

Norway is a pretty good place to live, but if the thing that's handling the input is broken, one can still be in a kind of hell while everyone around is OK or happy, and playful. It is a handicap to have serious mental issues, a handicap that you can hide from everyone else but at times come off as odd, irritable, weird, clumsy, stupid and so on. And a handicap you can get rid off by taking medicine and/or going to therapy, although one is (in the case of psychosis) more vulnerable to a new psychotic episode after having one.

Well, I'm exercising more and trying to get at least 30-60 minutes of exercise every day, either walking, doing strength exercises and so on. Exercise is as I've said earlier probably one of the best things one can do for mind and body, although overdoing it makes things worse.

I'm up to 50 seconds sideways plank (25 seconds on each side), 50 seconds static pushups (25 seconds on each side) 64 squats (without weights), 63 push-ups (12, 12, 12, 27), 108 sit-ups, 108 back-lifts (lying on the back and lifting the butt) and 108 lower-back push-downs (lying on the back pushing the lower-back down to the floor) and 120 arm pull-ups, sitting and squatting forward while lifting the arm up fast or slow.

I'm quite proud of reaching this level of exercise and strength now, and it has been a gradual build up from about half of what's listed above.

So, Friday a Norwegian guy went on a rampage and first set off a bomb in Oslo (killing 7, so far) and then a bit later went around and slaughtered young kids (about 86, so far) for over an hour on an island.

I found the whole thing very disturbing, and at first it seemed unreal that something as big as this could happen in Norway. But it did.

I've reflected a bit about it, and thought that it's one thing to set off a bomb, another is to go around on an island and slowly but surely slaughter over 80 kids and some adults with "high impact" ammunition, as they scream and beg for mercy.

He was apprehended and in interrogation told the police that what he did was gruesome but necessary.

So here you have an intelligent guy that decides to kill a bunch of people, because of anti-islamist and other beliefs and trying to "save" Norway (and the world?) from "left-wing" thinking. The guy was on the extremist right-wing.

Some more about that here:

http://www.oysteinrunde.no/#post18

Well, he's going to be put to justice I think.. I think he'll be kept in "safe keeping" for the rest of his life. There has some been talk about how a person could be able to do this and that he is a psychopath (had an antisocial personality disorder). There has also been talk about him being psychotic, but it is hard to believe that a guy could have such a high level of functioning and be psychotic. Maybe delusional, and maybe other things.

Maybe he'll be able to change.. maybe there were one or more deep things that enabled him to emotionally be able to do this. Maybe he'll be able to change from what he is today.

There are war criminals that have slaughtered a lot more people than he did and that have relatively short sentences and that this guy thought he was doing the necessary thing in a kind of war. But these are complicated questions and it will be interesting to see how the trial goes.

So, another test with Audacity exporting to MP3, now with a gain on the "solo" track so that it's easier to hear it:

http://blogologue.com/audacity-test-2-solo-track-gain.mp3

So, I've been a bit overweight for a while, and that's not good for the health. Some acquaintances are doing the low-carb diet, and I see it has been successful, as in they've lost quite a bit of weight.

I was watching the Discovery channel today about the "fertile half moon" (in the Middle East) where the oldest known form of farming started some 10000 years ago.

For us white westerners the problem is surplus of food, surplus of "bad" food such as sugar and fat. In the olden days I assume that we were hunter-gatherers here up north, and eating carbs was associated with autumn, berries and other ripe fruits and vegetables and storing up fat for the long, hard, cold and energy-lacking winter.

It makes sense to me that low-carb diets would work, and I'm thinking of starting one at a later point, although I see Quetiapine can raise the blood-sugar (and thus hindering the ketosis process which burns fat in low-carb diets).

Oh well, we'll see.

So, we've been on vacation for a week now. Good fun, and nice to be with family.

I feel better than ever I think, it's been steady progress towards a stable-everyday mental state. I'm getting more relaxed about things now, and see most things (problems) as something I can try at and if I fail or get self-conscious I tend to be able to not give a fuck, or shrug it off if you will.

I see most things as an exercise and just see opportunities at getting better. If people want to make fun of things or give me a hard time then that's their problem.

I feel smart, I feel sharp. It's easy to talk about most things, and I'm also getting playful in social situations.

At times I've had some scary physical symptoms which I did talk to my psychiatrist about, and I'm able to tell myself now that thinking about having a scary physical condition doesn't necessarily give you that condition. Although stressing about blood pressure over time would probably give, high blood pressure. It's easy to get psychosomatic symptoms I think, maybe in combination with medicine as "coming down" from a psychotic episode presents its own challenges and then psychosis restitution symptoms are attributed to the medicine.

A small thing I found that works well, is splitting the "good night" dose into 2 smaller parts, so instead of taking 400 mg of Quetiapine at 9, I take 2 at 7 and 2 at 9. Works well, and take the unpleasant side-effects of the medicine away. And it's good sense too, as taking 400 at once is a lot more than 200 in the morning and 200 in the early afternoon.

http://blogologue.com/audacity-test.mp3

Like it? :)

So, I bought myself a bike last week, after having advertised that I would buy a bike on a local advertising site.

I ended up with a Nakamura hybrid bike about 5 years old but in good shape, with a Cateeye Velo 5 bike computer. I only paid 700 kroner for it, which I think is a very good deal.

I'm getting into good shape these days both mentally and physically, but I still weigh too much. So going for longer bike rides seems like a good idea as I play soccer 1-2 times a week, and soccer + high weight = could be bad for the knees. And biking isn't that hard on the knees.

I'm also reducing the amount of snus I'm using, partly because it's expensive, but mostly because it's known that you get a high blood pressure when using it and my blood pressure is a bit too high.

Mentally things are mostly up, I get "out of it" sometimes, but not for long and when I feel OK I'm relaxed and sometimes happy. Just taking my meds and being aware and thoughtful about how I treat myself. Not taking Valium either, just working through it and not masking the symptoms which are signals that I should stop and think about what's happening.

In regular week mode I now drink 1-2 days a week, and then not more than 3 units at a time. Doctor said the liver values were a bit high so no use in pushing it. And getting too drunk isn't fun anyway, "I'm too old for this shit." :)

So after a year of work with my psychiatrist he's moving on, starting work on a more acute part of the mental health sector.

We've talked a lot about structure and stress in my life, and structure is something that's been there for a while now. Now other stressors are something I have to manage, and I think I'm getting better at that as well. Hilde has been great at getting up in the night if Isak needed tending, and that has helped me as well as interrupted or too little sleep is a very real stressor.

My psychiatrist has been very restrictive about doling out medicine, only prescribing me Quetiapine (the Valium I got from a doctor in Spain). There's a (paraphrasing) saying that your current solution might be your next problem.

I think that's a good thing, using as little medicine as possible.. as taking additional medicine could in many ways make it easy to mask the real source of the problem which are lack of structure and stressors. Sure it has been painful, but I'm in a pretty good place now.

Tonight there's a late soccer match, starting around when I usually go to bed. But things are feeling good and I want to push myself a bit so I'm going.

Exercise in the right amounts is probably one of the best all-round medicines out there.

We've finally gotten our new moped in order:

http://www.orientimport.no/?dim=2010-03-31_15-02-11_WEB01.jp...

It's a Sporto Street Cruiser, the cheap kind. Bought it at my brother's store and started driving it yesterday.

It's fun to drive again, although one feels a bit "naked" on the road on a simple moped. Car vs. moped and car wins.

But, have to trust people driving around in their cars.. got a tip from my brother as well, that driving in the middle of the lane rather than doing the polite thing and sticking to the edge. People have to do a proper drive-by then.

In other news, life is getting better and I feel a lot more structured. :)

So I downloaded WiMP yesterday, a streaming music service. The cable/broadbrand provided sent me a letter where I got an offer for 1 instance of WiMP streaming on my computer.

First thing I noticed is that it uses Adobe AIR. So it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux. I've seen some Adobe AIR apps before without being impressed, but I like this application. It's responsive, and it has something Spotify doesn't have: autocomplete on searches.

The focus on music is a bit different than Spotify. In WiMP playlists are in focus, and I see that it is easier to go outside of the mainstream and find different kinds of interesting music.

Right now I'm listening to the latest Foo Fighters, and it sounds good.

Well, things have improved the last couple of months, and life is a lot better, better than it has been in a long time.

Last week I got a stomach-flu bug which resulted in quick passing of what was ingested, as well as some exhaustion. I didn't think that much about it, but noted to myself that the antipsychotics would probably have less effect as well so I just took things easy, but also did normal things.

Sunday evening I opened up a bottle of red wine and was planning to have an easy evening. But then at 8 or 9 in the evening I "crashed" and went back to a mental form last visited 3 or more months ago.

It was quite terrible and stressful, and today 2 days later I'm still recovering as last night was tough as well, thinking about if I could crash again.

Well I didn't, but today Tuesday I still feel exhausted; probably a combination of having a crash and having the stomach-flu.

On the other hand, I kind of welcome it happening, as I was able to deal with it on Sunday, and go to sleep yesterday without taking any extra meds. I'll have some Valium this evening though I think, because I do feel exhausted and a bit sick and it's important to recuperate.

Yes, I welcomed this happening. Because up until now it has been hard to differantiate what's me and what's psychosis-related-thoughts. I feel that with Sunday evening's crash, it is now easier to see what was psychosis-related, and that the healthy-me is a normal, good guy.

Oh well, as we say.. It's not so bad that it isn't good for something. :)

I keep playing with the Galaxy Tab, and found that it was using up the battery quite quickly, even in "sleep" mode.

Well, I found "SystemPanel App / Task Manager" in the Android market after reading up a bit about it, and it runs in the background now and kills processes that are eating up battery, costing about 18 NOK to download and install from Nextapp.

The iPad had something like this built-in and battery lasted for a long time without any "hacks" being made, so score for Apple in the easy-to-use department there.

However, I do like the "rawness" of the Galaxy tab, installing the task manager gave me an overview of CPU usage etc. and which processes that are running, something more Linux-like than the iPad, and I've played with Linux for many years.

As mentioned earlier on this blog, I've found Voddler(.com) - a nice video streaming service.

I'm quite happy with it, as the process of viewing content and that it has new movies makes it nice to use.

It also has a host of free movies, some old, some new that we're watching in the evenings.

One nag I have about it all, is that when streaming starts up there is a "video jingle" of Voddle which is too loud, and it is annoying to turn the volume down, to then turn it up again because actors in the movie are inaudible.

So, I've played with the Samsung Galaxy Tab(let) now for a couple of days, and so far - I like it.

Early on I found a cool background feature, which creates a 3D animated background which also responds to touch gestures.

It is smaller, but thicker than an iPad. It also looks like it's good a good resolution, as games and other graphics are quite smooth on it.

One thing I find a bit nagging, is that scrolling in the browser for example, is a little bit choppy. On the iPad that was completely smooth scrolling.

There are lots of apps for the Galaxy Tab, and so far I've found Spotify, Tweetdeck, Firefox, Opera Mobile & Opera Mini + a Hold'em poker app and some other things.

That it is smaller than the iPad is nice, as I can but it in my jacket which makes it more portable.

It looks like it has a poorer battery life than the iPad, but that might be my settings and not closing apps.

So, impressions so far: good. A 4 out of 6.

So, I had a candid talk with Hilde the other day. She quite simply said I was over-the-top smart. Which is true in some ways, I think too much. And thinking too much is not good.

Lots of existential thoughts, and thinking about how things are and why.

It's interesting to think we're walking around on a big ball, which orbits around a bigger ball. The ball we're walking around happens to have a core that generates a magnetic field, so that the big ball we're orbiting around doesn't fry our ball. There is a smaller ball that orbits around us, and is one of the reasons there can be life on our ball today.

The auroras make a show every now and then, and while our solar system and galaxy hurtles around in space away from other galaxies, we walk around here and live our daily lives.

I saw a program on Discovery, that we're stardust. Remnants of old stars which exploded a long time ago. And going further back, simple chemical atoms whirled around after the big bang and started getting together making bigger and bigger things.

It's been a long time since the big bang, and we walk around doing our daily stuff and contributing to the development of society. Sooner or later we'll have AI, and then there will be intelligent beings that given the proper systems will live forever.

Will that be the tool that gives us good answers?

And it is interesting to note that we're talking about "solar sails" now, that we're talking about sailing in space - sailing is a very old art.

Well, given the time that has gone, we're just here for a very small fraction of time. One can wonder if that's it.

So, long time since the last update.

Today I got a Samsung Galaxy Tab in the mail and have a new toy to play with. My old iPad 1 got sold, and it took about an hour or two of advertising until a buyer bought it from me (maybe I sold it a bit too cheap).

Anyway, good to get rid of old things as they're likely to just collect dust anyway.

I've also after some ruminations found a good service for streaming movies (and maybe TV shows) on voddler.com. A little bit cheaper than renting physical DVDs - and that's OK.

I'm using Hilde's old laptop to stream movies, and it is *just* fast enough to stream movies. You'd think a dual core laptop processor @ 1.73 Ghz would be more than enough, but no. Hooked up via VGA to the TV, and the TV is connected to the surround system.

The old laptop is an Acer, and I think they had some problems for a while with a range of overheating laptops, so luckily I had an USB-pluggable cooling pad that lies beneath.

Otherwise in the health department, all things are looking up. Started exercising more and it helps. Some flashbacks and issues from the past are popping up but things are overall easier than before.

The Manic Street Preachers - A design for life

So, lately things have gotten a lot better, I feel normal and it is easy to concentrate on things. Easier than it has been for many years.

One of the things I've lacked for some years is a good structure on the day. Clear 8-4 workhours, then not doing anything too exciting in the evenings and getting a good night of sleep.

No caffeine, no alcohol, no truxal (I stopped taking 30 mgs in the mornings a couple of weeks ago), no work after 15 or 17 depending, and going to bed early as well as getting up early at around the same time every day.

+ Some exercise of course, and eating healthy food such as 3-4 fruits a day, one fiber-rich meal and normal Norwegian "household feed".

I have one vice left, and that is "snus". Maybe I'll stop using it some day, but right now it is good to have something to enjoy.

Well, been a while since I blogged the last time. Things have really improved.. I'm on a regiment of 800 mgs of Seroquel now per day. 400 mgs before bedtime to get some proper sleep.

In the course of a couple of months, things have improved and it is possible to function close to normal.

Four major changes have been that I've gone from drinking a little, to nothing at all. I've also started participating in a soccer team and we have exercises every Sunday and will start playing in a league soon. And no more caffeine, just decaf instant coffee. And, no candy and little sugary foods. Just wholesome fiber food, fruits, vegetables and regular, healthy meals. Sushi for example. :)

When you're down and out, it is hard to get things going. For me, I had to work just to keep the money wheels turning, and I think it is good to do something you feel you're good at.

But, exercise is a really great medicine. I've talked to the psychiatrist about it and it is something that is well known. As an anti-depressant and many other things. I agree, things have gotten a lot better after starting soccer exercise as well.

This last week has been good. I'm able to relax, work and in general take control of my mind.

There has been a component of obessive thoughts in my problems, and it is something I've become better at dealing with. Talking to the psychiatrist and being aware my own thoughts and what stresses me enables me to see what I should do.

Take it easy is one thing. I have a tendency to work 120% and exhaust myself when programming for example, but at least I'm getting better at taking breaks now.

Lately I've also thought about blogging about this thing. Sometimes it feels like I'm whining, and sometimes I want to pull the curtain and be private again.. but now that I've blogged about it, it's out there, and it is nice to see people get in touch and treat me normally, now that I'm feeling normal again.

I think it's important to talk about it; it is just a disease after all. A terrible disease, but something you can recover from.

I find myself meeting new people, and my mental health isn't something I want to talk about. It's more important to just be "on par" and be able to do normal things.

I did something big this weekend. I attended a class about politics, arranged by the political party I support (Venstre, http://www.venstre.no/print.php?article=981). There I had 2 presentations (one presentation reading off paper, one speech where I also stared a bit too much at the paper). But I have to congratulate myself on that.

Being scared, having a high pulse and then managing to pull it off.

For better or worse, I think being on the net has helped me through a lot of problems through the years, having something to do, talking a little to people and being a bit in touch. But there is also this thing that I've had scary thoughts and problems before, and I think being on the net and not interacting with people, has made me interpret things in the wrong (negative way).

Oh well, it feels a bit weird now to have blogged about this whole process and sometimes I want to undo it. But it's also important to just get the word out there and make it more normal to be sick, and be aware of what the signs are.

So, lately I've been feeling a lot better, and the start of this week was nice.. However, I think too much coffee and activity brought me to a crash towards the end of the week.

During the Christmas holidays, I was feeling relaxed and really good, so the last couple of weeks had been good as well.

But I think the culprit here, as I think I had some manic episode this week. Tricked by feeling closer to normal, I set myself up for a knockout punch or two..

I'm aware now that a lot of my thinking earlier for some years, had been overly paranoid, and at times or all the time delusional.

So I see there is a psychotic disorder which is mainly about delusions.. But this week it felt like I was on top of the world.. So maybe it is schizoaffective disorder, which I see covers both paranoia, delusions and some sort of "bipolar" thing.

The doctor pretty much told me to not ruminate and read about mental diseases on the net but I don't feel it is ruminating, and anything that speeds up the process of getting the right diagnosis, and then treatment through medicine and therapy, is important.

Well, things are going flying these days. Things feel simple, and I have a lot of energy.

That will take some getting used to as well, so I don't burn myself out..

But structure and clear limits should help.

So last week I talked to another person at the treatment centre, and the topic of depression after a psychotic episode came up.

I feel a bit sad this evening, but I don't know if it is a day's blues or something else. I see the Seroquel can be recommended for depression as well.

I'm getting used to seeing and experiencing the world 'as it is', and it is nice, sad, scary and exciting.

I also watch out in a different way than before, looking out for things that can be dangerous for Isak. I think I have one main goal for him, and that's giving him love and attention. Anything else should come naturally out of that.

It's good to be 'normal', but it is also a bit hard.

So.. i'm sick. I have been very sick, but I'm getting better.

I'm getting more structured, and I'm learning how to leave things as they are and not obsess.

I'm understanding more about this illness, and I'm getting better at asking for help.

Life is getting better, but it is very tough at times. It is more good than bad though.

I'm able to enjoy social situations more.

Where have I been all these years?

So I've stepped up another notch with the doctor's approval. 800 mg of Quetiapine per day and 30 mg Truxal. The Quetiapine is in the upper normal range now, on dosage.

I feel better and more normal than I have in many years. That's thanks to medicine, family and Hilde & Isak.

I've talked to my doctor a bit about structure. Going to bed and getting up at around the same time, keeping things predictable as stress is something that makes things worse.

A big thanks to Hilde that has been a good help in keeping me structured, and also forcing me to evaluate how I think and do things with her verbal and vocal fists.

Although other issues pop up and become dominant now that the psychosis and paranoia thing is settling down, it is still manageable if a bit unpleasant at times.

If I hadn't dealt with things and gotten help from various places, I kind of wonder where I would be today, and 10 years from now. I can tell you one thing, living with heavy mental issues can't be good for the body and would probably have gotten me to an early grave if things hadn't gone they way they did.

As I read this:

http://scripting.com/stories/2011/01/01/theWorldIsSocialist....

I found myself nodding. Pooling of resources is important, and as an example, it is easier to have one firestation paid by a whole city's populace, rather than two different paid by different parts of the population, for being able to pool resources towards 24/7 watch and response.

Then again, things probably evolve faster (products, production processes, whatever) when you have competition.

So there is probably some number of competitors in any market segment that is optimal, one or billions.

I like the idea of socialism and capitalism mixed together, and it is already, everywhere.

One thing I've wondered about is the rule of law here and there. A death penalty is harsh, and I've heard Abid Raja say that it is the most effective or gruesome if you will, form of torture.

We have a liberal rule of law here, which emphatises with the offender and gives a relatively light sentence.

We don't have the death penalty for example, it is 21 years max, with some exceptions.

I think that is acceptable, as 21 years is a long time, it will be a lesson. And it will certainly take the "fun" out of things.

I've griped a bit with justice issues, and thought about how things are for me and my family. I know my kid can grow up to be "good", but he could also be "bad" and in need of correction.

Seeing my family vs. anothers for example. If one kid should become a murderer, it is a tragedy for the victim. But it is also a tragedy for the person that becomes a murderer. And as we know by now, you can't make people alive again, by killing another.

So a liberal rule of law, is the system with the least amount of overhead, IMO.

So, this disease I have.. I think it is Schizophrenia or maybe bipolar. I used to have quite a bit of social anxiety, and I see that's part of the Schizo process.

Now with the meds, today for example, I am able to deal with largeer groups of people and focus.

In any case, meeting and dealing with people is good for my issues, now that I've "been myself" towards the psychiatrist and Hilde and come to a level field with them, it is easier to deal with others as well I think.

Looking back, I think I've spent WAY too much time working and not socializing.

So I've found a good place to be, medication-wise. I'm taking 700 mg of Seroquel and 30 mg of Truxal.

That kind of dosage takes the edge of most things, but I could hope I'd be able to cut down or drop medicines at some point.

It looks like I'll be on these meds for up to 5 more years in the first run. It doesn't matter, life is so much more manageable now.

Thank god there has been much work done in this field.

Another thing that is vital to me, is having a medicine dosette. Just one used day-to-day.

I sometimes catch myself a couple of hours after I should have taken medicine, and it's not a problem as you can see what's supposed to be taken.

Makes life easier, one less thing to worry about.

So, last week was stressful; to boot I had some stomach problems this weekend - which I've paid attention to.

I think (not sure) that having stomach problems while taking Seroquel makes things worse, as the stomach problems makes things go through the system faster, or makes it so that the medicine isn't fully absorbed.

I thought about this yesterday, and surely enough today I had some problems. It was handled though, by taking about 1,25 mg of Valium.

Tips to the people out there on meds! If you have stomach problems, check with your doctor if it can affect the medicine you're taking.

Well, the last week has been stressful. 2 major issues on work, but we managed to handle them.

Yesterday after work I felt tired, dead tired. That's a feeling I need to get used to.. Now I can be tired and lack energy, without some negative thoughts popping into my head or feeling stressed.

In some ways, I feel like a kid who has seen and been through a lot.. Strange as it may sound.

I look forward to Christmas eve.

So I've been following the Wikileaks debacle these last months, and I find it interesting, interesting to see what people think and say when "off the air".

As far as I can tell, there are some things there that are damaging, but at the end of it all, I think most people will say that it wasn't that surprising what was published.

Someone used the analogy of these documents being like private patient records.. not quite, as these are documents of people working and taking decisions on their people's behalf.

Most people want their sausage, but don't want to be reminded how it was made.

I don't like sausage that much by itself, but properly prepared I love it:

http://ingvildsmatblogg.blogspot.com/2009/08/plsegrateng.htm...

It is interesting indeed. Wonder how information sharing and protection goes in the future, and how states communicate now that everyone can reaech everyone else.

Yesterday I had another appointment with the psychiatrist. They have some doctors-to-be (4th year students) who attend the therapy as well, and I agreed earlier that one could attend.

So we talked and I explained how life was at time before the psychotic episode that started last winter. And it was screwed up mentally in periods.

I think I have some problems relating to people, and now I'm more open about my thoughts and feelings it is possible to talk to Hilde about our "connectivity issues" as well. And in the process also get better from the disease.

Well, I'm taking one more Seroquel starting yesterday, and that feels right.

So, I've learned to manage myself better this last year. Setup appointments, not work too much, not exercise too much.

I had a small meltdown earlier today, but as with different thoughts and "trains of thought" - I am now able to break them off. Instead of quietly suffering and feeling stress, I can pretty much just stop it.

That's a great thing. I still have moments of feeling pretty out of it, but it is possible to combat and handle it, so it's good.

Test

So I went to the doctor today, after tests on Tuesday. They did different tests, blood pressure (120/85), an EKG, liver tests, iron and so on.

Everything looked good, except slightly elevated liver values, which makes sense as I did have a couple of beers the day before the test.

Knock on wood, life is good. :)

I see that Facebook is happily tracking users.. There is more and more information becoming available..

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/11/30/1734249/Facebooks-Lik...

And with these multi-input machines, one is ultimately susceptible for more sureveillance...

That's why I'd like a hardware switch, similar to what you use to turn the light on and off.

That way, you'd be able to make perfectly sure that noone is listening to what you're saying, or seeing through the camera on your device.. After all, people that understabd security, know that it is impossible to make a device unhackable, if it is connected to and used on the web.

So, I've managed to reduce the pace at which I've been living the last year, and after some discussions with the psychiatrist, I see that stress is something that makes my (psychotic) symptoms worse.

I think a big part of my problems, is that I've kept them "locked up" and not talked to other people about them.. now that I talk about them and get feedback, I see things differently.

The psychiatrist is using cognitive theraphy (I think), and to me it seems it helps me think normally, and manage my thoughts and feelings. We're also talking about structure, and I've gotten a lot better at leaving work-mode after working 8-10 hours, which makes me happier, less stressed and more energetic.

Where I would usually come into some negative or anxiety way of thinking earlier, I am now able most of the time to tell myself to stop thinking that way (because I can't bother or have the energy for it) and I can "switch" from that thinking pattern, to a normal or playful thought pattern.

So stress is the trigger for most things; and keeping things structured every day, every week, helps prevent this. Drinking alcohol for example, probably makes me more stressed, as sleep is not as good if you have a bit of a buzz and then there's hangover anxiety (stress).

The Valium is something I cherish, not so much because I use it everyday, but it is an emergency medicine I can use if I feel a panic coming along or get one. It also helps in "heavy" social situations with lots of people. It something I use sparingly and I'm able to train at being sociable.

It is a bit difficult to differantiate between panic attacks and worsening psychotic symptoms. I think lately there has been less panic attacks and more psychosis-related symptoms.

I think talking about things is the best therapy I can get really, but the medicines helps manage the symptoms. And if I weren't on antipsychotics now (Quetiapine), life would probably be a bit different.

There is some strength training every 2-3 days, doing push-ups, sit-ups and more; I've been steady at the same weight for the last 6 months, but I see now that I'm a lot more firm, and it really is good for the mind to do manageable amounts of exercise.

Therapy with my psychiatrist, as well as some other therapy helps..

I now am able to get that loving feeling, as in empathy and being able to care and feel.

It is weird, it feels good. :)

As I read on other blogs and can relate to, you gotta stop caring so much about what other think. And really see the world for what it is and how it works.

Life is too short to worry about what someone who don't see and feel things the way you do. But, it's easier to relate now.

Progress with the psychiatrist.. it helps to talk about things.

And I think I'm on the water wagon again, even though alcohol at times is a good thing to relax with.

In short, I'm feeling more love, less other things. :)

[Later..]

Which reminds me, I talked to an old friend on the phone the other day, he's almost deaf on one ear, so there was some confusion and I asked if he was using the wrong ear.. to which he replied and asked if I had taken my pill today. Hehe. :)

..the start of a Pink Floyd song goes.

Mmm, I've been pretty out of it, I know. And it's weird to look back at.

Things are going pretty good these days, but there are still (very) up and down moments. I plump out into some things, but hey - I have to find a good footing.

It is strange how one can get used to being a bit mad.

I've been a bit sad lately too, feeling that I've wasted a lot of my life on "pain", and lost a lot of happiness.

On the other hand, I know how easy it is to be out on the edge, something a "normal" person would have problems relating to and understanding.

I see things differently now, that's for sure. I think I'm looking for something I can be really passionate about. And still have a family life.

1,2,3 .. and 3.

Jonas Fjeld - Engler i snøen

Well, well. I feel a lot better.

I feel normal; normal in the sense that well.. I feel a bit restless sometimes, and other times I feel like I can focus and think normally about things.

There are still some tendencies to panic attacks in the late morning, but I think that will get better. It's interesting that my psychiatrist wouldn't give me Valium, while a doctor would, and I feel like that helped a lot with the panic attacks.

I'm starting to see the experiences I've had in another perspective, and I can see why I feel this or that way, or experience weird things. Something to talk to the psychiatrist about tomorrow.

So last Friday I bought myself a pill-box, which contains the pills for the day + emergency pills (Diazepam).

I think it works well, and I feel a bit more comfortable now, it's easier to keep track of things.

So, I sold my Asus Eee PC to my brother Tor Inge a while ago, because I wasn't using it much.

I had installed Linux on it, so it had Windows XP and Ubuntu.

Well, the machine crashed in some way, and required a reinstall of XP. After some fiddling I found that partition 3 had an XP reinstall set of files, and using it didn't work (maybe because of repartitioning the PC to use Linux as well).

Well, I searched a bit and found

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ - a great tool to setup a USB stick as a bootable device. I'm currently installing Puppy Linux.

And on a related note; pendrivelinux.com sucks, it seems more like an advertisement trap than something that can help you get install bootable Linux on a USB stick.

This evening Hilde and I met the rest of the kindergarten people; parents and employees.

Nice, relaxed gang - good humor. And it looks like they have things in order when it comes activating kids and giving them healthy food.

We joked a bit about NAV (the people that have taken their time getting me my sick-leave money which should arrive shortly), but all things considered, NAV works OK but slow. And they could definently get better at *informing* users about what's going on. That's a service thing they should be able to do.

Today I got up somewhere around 7, with Isak. Gave him some food and enjoyed the first hours of the day.

Then I read a bit in various online newspapers and read some articles that annoyed and affected me. I see people in Norway believe in the death penalty for some crimes, and that's a bit scary. But I think those people are a small minority.

After that, Hilde and I argued a bit about things that needed doing, and who does what it in the household.

I started feeding Isak and relaxed a bit and thought after; I think Hilde and I's biggest job is communicating better and breaking out of negative patterns. So I made some good points and saved the day.

In the process, I could also feel pain in the left side of my body; in my chest, my chin, my leg. Usually that pain would scare me and set off some negative cycle of working too much, exercising or just stressing, but now I was able to just let it hurt a bit and control it.

Left/right balance has been a theme for me, I was talking to the chiropractor yesterday and she gave me some new exercises; there has been the matter of one side of the body being stronger than the other.

I wonder if that has something to do with the mental issues as well; IIRC, the left hemisphere controls the right side of the body, and vice versa.

Oh well, we're off to the photograph, to see if any of the pictures we took were keepers. But I doubt we'll have any, as it costs way, way too much to get a CD with high-resolution pictures.

So I made a big leap today, in telling how I think and feel about things. I think the good doctor pushed a bit as well, to see.

It's weird with this thing, feeling and thinking the wrong way. But I feel it's really getting better.

I had to lie down for half an hour when I got home, it was that taxing. :)

So, yesterday I had a small serving of cognac. I felt thirsty, thirsty for something strong.

Not exactly cognac, but maybe Irish whiskey, Italian grappa or something along those lines.

But, I only had cognac. So I drank for a little while, but it wasn't tasty.

Before going to Spain a little over a month ago, I hadn't had more than a couple of beers in the prior months. When in Spain, do as the spanish (visitors) and drink. So there has been some drinking.

Well, the first time I drank in Spain it was nice and fun, but I didn't get much out of it after that.

I think I have a better time when I'm not drinking.

So there has been some political discussion lately, about opening hours for pubs, discos and the like. Like cutting the opening hours by one hour.

I also see that there are 3000 people in various places in Norway waiting for a nursing home place. The old, disabled, blind etc.

It would probably be a politicians wet dream to be able to cut one hour of opening time Friday night, and have people work taxable work 2-3 hours on Saturday instead. And also avoid having one-day sickleave from work, due to hangovers.

If you take maybe 100000 people, have them work 2 hours extra each week, and the money saved by lowering costs through less police, less injuries and less crime.. it could be big numbers.

Anyway, the problem I guess is cutting public bar opening times, and then getting an illegal market which isn't taxed at all. People want their fun, after all.

It's sad to see these old people not getting help, because there isn't enough money. But politics is about prioritizing money, so one can't have everything.. I guess.

We've adapted some continental (southern Europe) drinking habits in Norway, but the problem is that a lot of people go binge-drinking during the weekend; a little alcohol combined with food is (from what I can tell) good for you. But for some reason we have a need to get shitfaced during the weekends.

As I got more established, and others I know have done as well, there has been less time spent partying, but there is still the occasional binge for most people.

I think my life is better when I don't get too drunk, or drink too often. And it's easy to "hit oneself" with the bottle and end up on the wrong side of use, abuse.

I think it is culture, and then bad habits formed as a result of that culture. And I know a little about intoxicant abuse; it's just a bad habit or self-medication that makes you feel worse.

So, today I have an appointment with the psychiatrist again, first time in well over a month.

I've been able to relax during the vacation, and reflect. So I went on and on about thoughts and such, the "hour" we had went by pretty fast.

I'm happy with my psychiatrist, but I think I want things to progress faster, so I might use a psychologist as well. I see they have different lengths of psychological education, so it might be worth doing both.

I don't think I'd be as normal as I am now, without the medicines. But it looks like I'm getting the money I should from the state regarding sick-leave, so I'll get a dash of cash where I can spend some on a private psychologist. 1 hour, for 46 weeks, is 23000 NOK. I think that sounds reasonable.

The question will be if the psychiatrist and psychologist can work in paralell, or even work a little bit together.

And that I can deduct on my taxes as well.

So I have a contact on LinkedIn that is a forensic psychiatrist in the UK it seems. So sometime in the future if I happen to be charged with something, I might just be said to haven been a cunning sociopath trying to make the right friends.

So, yesterday I think I slipped back into kind of a psychosis for a couple of hours.

Today I'm OK though, although I've been tired and a bit out of it.

Tracing things back a bit, I found that the last 3-4 evenings before yesterday evening I took less than usual of the Quetiapine, because there was some drinking.

Yesterday afternoon I forgot the pill as well, I don't know exactly why.

But, last night was bad. Not a panic attack, I think it was more of a psychosis moment for some hours. Chugged down a Truxal 15 and a Valium 5 and was able to sleep after a while.

But f*** me, that was uncomfortable.

So, I took another one of these on Thursday, and it helped then too. The plan was to use it max once a week, but given the choice, I took 5 mg.

Mmm, we've been here 3 weeks now, I'm starting to miss Norway. The cold weather, and firing up the fireplace. And good long walks.

So, a long time ago I heard a joke about rather black people..

Here in the south of Spain, there are quite a bit of African people going around in beaches, restaurants etc. typically selling watches, sunglasses etc.

I guess some are immigrants, others like one we met yesterday are here for periods working and then at home.

Anyway, this guy we met yesterday came to our table while we were eating out late and it was quite dark. This gentleman selling was also quite dark, so the eyes and teeth become a contrast in the dark..

I a bit amuzingly rendered an old anecdote and the joke of what to do if robbed by a gang of black men in a dark tunnel (tell a joke and hit foe the teeth).

I thought a bit about it today and wondered if it was racistic to tell the joke; but I don't feel like it is.

These guys selling watches are 'cold call' sellers, and I can respect the honest hustle of selling things to make a living.

The guy who sold watches yesterday had a big family bacl in Africa, and was 6 months here and 6 in Africa every year.

So, I'm really happy about the Diazepam, it gives me control over the panic attacks, the last big thing that's really been bugging me.

The panic attacks and the anticipatory angst of a new one are a vicious cycle, and with other things such as psychosis and regular angst under control, it is possible to feel when panic angst is building.

As long as I have the Diazepam ready, I'm able to relax. Used it once so far.

Well, I had that panic-attack-could-come feeling today, so I took a 5 mg tablet. It took a little while before it worked, but I did feel better.

Lately I've gotten a thing against intoxication, but this Valium thing wasn't a "buzz", it was more of a calm and snooze. :)

Good to know I have this available now, I know the whole day and next day(s) won't feel like crap and then some.

I'd rather not take it, but snoozy and feeling OK is better.

Todsy I got a prescription for Valium (Diazepam). The contrast between relaxing and enjoying the vacation, and a panic attack was too great.

I now have daily Seroquel (Quetiapine) - antipsychotic, Truxal (Chlorprothixene) - antipsychotic, but in smaller doses against anxiety and finally Valium.

I think I'll be able to use less Truxal now, as I have the Valium in the emergency kit. Both my psychiatrist at home and the doctor here in Spain made it perfectly clear that it is easy to get used to using Valium daily, so one has to watch out. And that using it too much was like pissing in your pants to stay warm.. Which has special connotations for those who live in .. colder regions. :)

Anyway, I'm set for cognitive behavioural therapy helping me with the panic attacks.

It's a balance, and it's a training deal.. I need to charge the batteries, as well as build up more mental strength. I'll be able to push harder now, and get well faster. And climb old mental walls.

Physical exercise and healthy food makes life easier, but in manageable and correct doseage. I feel it is easy to get in shape, I think that's thanks to exercising heavily at periods in my life, it comes back easy. :)

So, I called NAV today, to follow up on my sick-leave money and the increase I was expecting.

I called the local office first, then I got a new number to call for the old office (Oslo).

They hadn't gotten the papers I sent in, and on it went. So it let it rip and barked a bit but was on topic the whole time.

So now I had to call the local office again. And talked to 2 people there about the papers and application.

During the process I got to learn about NAV and how it works, but what do I care, and why do I have to manage the application process?

I pay my dues, and I expect service, not a mess which sucks up my time and energy.

Well, had some beers today, but poured the final parts of the last one down the drain.

That's a good thing, feels better now.. It didn't taste good today.

Hilde's parents arrived, which is cool. We're getting some time off as they care a bit for Isak.

Hilde and I are considering a day or two in Valencia, which is about 23 miles from here (Torrevieja).

IIRC, John Carew played some years for Valencia, and I'd like to experience a soccer match in Spain. I have a feeling it would be fun.

So I've started noticing more about how I think, and trying to be careful about how I think and what thinking/emotional paths I go down.

As I try to relax and think about how things have been, I am able to think at times that I am doing very well, given the starting point I've come from.

I think my problem has been that there has been a disconnect between my expectations of myself and reality.. with therapy and help now I think I should find some base level that I can build on.

Some structure and realistic goals is what I need. While I'm in Spain I'm not working (well, had to work a little, but that's the way it is) and just trying to relax and enjoy the vacation.

Walking every day (Hilde, Isak and I), and I think I should walk 2 days towards the evenings as well. It's about managing health and weight.. it's funny how that goes, one can dabble and drabble along and suddenly find that the sum of many things can be dangerous and then it might be too late (damage done). I think a lot of people fall into that trap, living (somewhat) vicariously and then getting a rude awakening.

I'm drinking a bit again, it's more of a enjoyment thing here in Spain. I've figured as far as drinking goes, that if i drink max 2 days a week, never get drunk and never drink 2 days in a row, things should be manageable.

That's the nice things about rules and structure, you don't have to watch and think all the time, just play along.

Yesterday evening I noticed I was daydreaming or having very "high" thoughts.

Which I didn't put too much into, but I noticed today that I was a bit out of it, and this last hour or two I got some real downer-time.

But it's not depressed, if I look at bipolar terms and explanations, mixed episode seems right. This evening I got far down and remember things negatiely and crisis-maximize it all and then my mind goes into hypergear.

But it's not as bad ; I am able to take control now.. as I tell it to Hilde and get some feedback. Maybe the meds help as well.

I think the daydreaming yesterday was some sort of escape mechanism, and I can get grandiose ideas and put a lot of mental energy into imagining and living in a dream - quite vividly.

Well, this vacation should be the first time in many, many years where I don't work at all and as Hilde says 1-2 weeks isn't enough to get fairly or completely unplugged.

So, I've been through a process of medication, therapy and general treatment.

When I think back now and see how things have been, I've had some heavy problems for a long time.. why I didn't seek help I'm not sure of, but one can get used to pretty much anything.

Not seeking help sooner was stupid, but it might also be a part of the disease, to be alone.

Well, I should give myself a pat on the back. I've managed to build a million kroner business with a psychotic disorder.

To me, it makes the whole achievement many, many times bigger.

Well last night, and this morning.. I feel normal like I haven't done in a looong time. It's weird, a bit scary.. but also good.

Things are going OK these days, I've started doing some more strength exercise and keeping a very healthy diet.

I see the weight isn't changing that much, but the body is firming up, which is positive.

I've talked a bit to Hilde about what happened this winter, and after Hilde's observations, I got a lot better when they took me off the Zoloft. It's hard to describe what that Zoloft period did to me and I've probably forgotten/supressed a lot of it.

So I'm considering suing/raising a case for that specific medical treatment; if they want to cure or drug down patients with pills (which is cheaper) when it can have such an effect, they're also gambling a bit and should be made to pay when treatment goes drastically wrong. I got Zoloft "just like that" from my primary physician.

In other news, I'm doing the application for more sick-leave payment from the state in the proper way tomorrow, handing in some papers and documentation. I think it'll either be settled and I get the money, or we might try to get back a lot of the fees paid over the years to cover the sick-leave "insurance".

[Later..]

Which brings an idea to my mind. I think a lot of people in the psychiatric part of the health sector might be unable to fend for themselves, and maybe don't have the network.

It might be an idea to appoint a guardian to anyone who gets in touch with the psychiatry, so that the person's interests are taken care of.

I wouldn't have thought much about this Zoloft crap unless Hilde mentioned it to me a couple of times.

Things feel good today. Lately I've been able to relax and just be myself. I guess I haven't been that way for a while.

Still taking "enough to knock a horse out"'s worth of Quetiapine, but the meds don't affect me as much as they used to.

I feel brimming with energy, and today culminated in a business idea where I have the concept, the name, the logo (and it's so snug). Just need the resources to get it developed and grown. Not sure it's a big-big revenue generator, but it's a cool thing.

Today is very different from where I was 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 7,8,10,15 years ago. It feels like an annoyance or disturbance has been lifted away.

I can feel, relax, laugh - all with a fuzzy feeling of chill. :)

Still some panic attacks creeping in now and then, but I'm able to control it. I think of them as things that must be combatted and just things that happen as I start functioning normally again.

Life is good. :)

2 weeks until a month in Spain. I'll try something I haven't done in 17 years.. relax and enjoy life for a whole month. No work, no stress.

Talking Heads - Once in a lifetime

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1wg1DNHbNU

So, I've learned some tricks lately that can help with day-to-day living if you have serious mental challenges, either just in your head or also brought upon you by others.

It is easy to get stressed (and have a high pulse). One might automatically start doing something if stressed, such as working, exercising, drinking water, drink alcohol or simply just sit there fretting.

And then the alternatives for calming down are usually medicine. But I've found a better way which requires some work and focus, but it has worked for me recently. It is as simple as taking deep breaths (suck air down to the stomach area) through the nose, and then exhaling through the mouth.

I tried it yesterday, and it worked well. Another thing with these mental matters is that a lot of things feel real and scary, but there isn't much one can do to control them. So one has to "let go"; ultimately one only has control over one's own actions and thoughts (and not even that at times when unstable), and scary things can happen anywhere.. Best trick to deal with it is to take things at a normal or slow pace.

Another thing I've discovered (reminded by a psychologist who was on the morning TV today) is that it is good to take 10-15 or even 30 minute breaks doing nothing, between mentally challenging tasks.

Work for me is mentally challenging, and it feels better to do something with flair and pace and take a good break afterwards, rather than to .. sift through it. And what to do during those breaks? Nothing, just relax and let whatever that wants to pop into your focus do so. But the point of the break is to relax.

If you can't relax after doing some task.. then you have to analyze the situation and figure out why you can't relax. But I think that just relaxing properly for some days or weeks can help the situation.

Went by a Fairtrade store the other day, they were selling Ubuntu Cola and I had to get one. Didn't cost more than in a regular store either.. :)

So today was a pretty good day. Had a business meeting around noon with Dave and Stig, and the rest of the day has been some work, and relaxation.

I see it is windy outside, and there is even leaves falling off the trees.. Is it that time already?

As I eat healthy things, like fruit and vegetables, I feel my mind working better; it's good to be able to appreciate things now and then.

Work is going OK, we're doing some things that are necessary to run the business in a responsible way. Whatever it takes.

So I'm using meds; it's strange in some ways, the Truxal can take the edge of things, but I can feel the motions of anxiety/terror rolling through the body. It is strange.

Oh well, I'm going to relax some more, and try to go fishing more as well.. fishing is fun.

The XX - Intro

Well, I've been in a slump the last week or three, some panic attacks and such that have been striking.

I think I've found the problem; the last couple of years I've gained considerable weight, and I've decided I want to shed some. At some point I think I got stressed and it's easy to forget things..

Being on the wrong kind of diet (too stressful) can get anyone off-balance I think, but I'm particularly vulnerable. It gets to a point where I forget whether I took medicines, forgetting to eat properly. I need to have a checklist for each day, as well as some log of what I eat and drink.

I've been through this before, but now with the meds as an emergency tool to relax and get a grip, as well as Hilde as a observant helper, I'm able to recognize this and do things to alleviate the situation.

When I think back, I think I might have had psychotic episodes before and times similar to the one I'm having now, but back then I just dug in, or ran away or hid in the computer and focused on web activities and work.

This time I had Hilde and Isak to consider, so I just couldn't run away. And maybe I was strong enough to take the fight as well.

I made an OK salary before I got sick last autumn/winter, and because things went as they did, I didn't get the right compensation from my company and the state (they run the sick-leave payment deal). So we pay a fee on each krone paid out in salary, and this gives some insurance in case of sick-leave etc. So it'll be a process to get that money which I think I'm entitled to.

Oh well.

So I talked to the doctor the other day, that the symptoms I've been having come and go, and I guess stress worsens them.

So we agreed to up the dosage, so I'm on 600 mg of Seroquel per day now.. I feel that it helps a good bit, and it gives some comfort that the dose can be increased still so that meds could help me with most of my issues.

I've found that smoking and drinking alcohol are really, really bad for me now, so I think I'll avoid those two things for a good while. I think I might have had my last cigarette, ever.

I've been using nicotine patches for a good while now, and they worked, but I've switched to Snus portion, since it is easy to dose and decrease, and at this point it is cheaper and easier to do the gradual nicotine ditch using Snus.

I think that says something, that a tobacoo with carcinogenics is cheaper to use than pure-nicotine substitutes.. and, nicotine is a poison, but I can't do the quitting cold-turkey, then I'd probably suffer a good bit.

It's established with the doctors etc. that I have a psychotic disorder NOS (not otherwise specified). So I'm told that schizophrenia, bipolar and so on are basically groups you fall into, once a given set of symptoms are reached. It is work from now on to see if I fit in a given group.

I have gotten some time to reflect the last months, and the whole experience since last autumn/winter has been.. quite an experience you might say. I see life a lot differently now.

At the same time, I feel a lot more like myself as well, at least I can relax and enjoy things now, if it is just watching at the trees and nature outside the window. Long story short, I was a propellerhead when I was younger, but when I entered into my teens I started having problems.

Work is going OK too, I'm able to work better now.

I went fishing yesterday with my brother - and caught a big pollock (4.2 KGs). You can see the fish head in the previous blog post, it was quite a beast.

I think it's the biggest fish I've caught from land, and it came towards the end of a rather unproductive fishing day.. I threw out a 40 gram Stingsild with a green back, similar to this one

http://www.solvkroken.no/media/42902/501107_400p.jpg

towards a sandbank, and let it sink (IIRC). I started wheeling it in and noticed there was something on, but I'm not sure it was that heavy to pull in to begin with.

So after a while it got closer, and I could see it beneath the surface and feel that this was something heavy. Shouts and hilarity ensued, and after fighting with it, I had a good-sized pollock lying towards a stone at the surface.

Kaye came to help out, and struggled a bit with the fish. As luck would have it, he got a call from his coming wife's mother, and chatted in the phone while struggling with the fish. He managed to lose the phone in the sea, and some moments of manic laughter from the both of us ensued, and then we got the fish up.

He's now one HTC Android phone poorer, but quoting him: "It was worth it".

We both forgot to pack a knife, so the usual, humane knife-through-the-skull-and-twist method of dealing with fish wasn't done, but we managed to let it bleed out so that the meat didn't get filled with blood.

After catching that fish we finished up, and went on home. The scale showed 4,160 grams - which we can nicely round up to 4,2 KGs.

Great fun, biggest fish I've caught from land, and it was a bit of a struggle so well worth it.

When I "did up" the fish and got about 1 KG of eatable meat, I also found a 100-200 gram herring in its belly, partially digested (some outer shells left).

So I guess he thought he'd be having dinner, but became dinner instead.

This was done while standing on a larger rock, maybe 2-3 square feet of standing space and rocks all around, it is quite amazing how one can do something while the feet and body are taking care of a balancing act.

and then there's having your back against the wall.

While we were in Mo i Rana last month, I bought (ordered) a new battery for my Nokia E 90. I'm not sure what the deal is, but that's a lot of room for a small battery.

The battery was plastered to the bottom of the box, where an A5 letter with "poppers" as internal packaging should do.

Atomic Kitten - The tide is high

Eddy Grant - Give me hope Jo'Anna

Eurythmics - I Saved The World Today

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vueJNE3y0iA

Eurythmics - There must be an angel

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B8Y8seX7IU

Eurythmics - Here comes the rain again

Life is getting a lot better these days, I think it helps a lot that others in the company are taking responsibility and me working less.

I've been using the Quetiapine drug for little over half a year, and as the doctors have said, it works better over time. It's probably the meds + the talks with various health personell.

This weekend there was a wedding, Hilde's sister Laila and Vebjørn got hitched. It was wonderful. And a great party afterwards to boot.

I'm getting back to my self, my feeling-better/more-than-ever. It's not a manic thing I think, there are just things that feel better and I can think and have fun. And laugh. :)

Well, there has been some social occasions the last couple of weeks, and for that I've been taking Truxal. There has also been some alcohol, but that's the way it is. I'm not sure if it is the alcohol or the Truxal, but something about those things fuck me up. So I'm thinking of asking my therapist to get me some benzodiazepines instead.

Those are a lot more addictive, but if they aren't too unhealthy and they work, I'd give them a shot instead of Truxal.

I feel things are going to be OK. I've been reading up on Schizophrenia and I'm thinking it could be process Schizophrenia (not acute or reactive) + some psychotic episodes. I read about it and it's aha, aha and aha again.

So, family life. I notice that there is a lot more logistics now, and that's fine. I work under the motto <joke>"If it doesn't fit, it isn't afraid of you"</joke>. :D

Depeche mode - Enjoy the silence

I've been wondering what my next phone will be, at times I've been tired of my old Nokia E90.. It discharges very quickly these days, I'm not sure why, it seems as if the battery started getting worn out after I switched to the Telenor mobile operator.

I've bought a 2,5mm to 3,5mm plug, and am able to use Spotify with headphones and it works well. Volume buttons inside the E90 enables music at the right volume.

My next phone.. well, I might just buy a battery for the E90.

If not, the match is between iPhone and HTC Evo 4G. I asked a salesman at the local mobile store, and he quite plainly said that unless you're an Apple fan, the HTC Desire is a good choice or another HTC phone is the best.

I've been looking at the HTC HD2 with Windows mobile, but he said it basically sucked.

I feel the iPhone screen is a little too small, and the 4,3" display on the GPS feels a lot bigger. Which reminds me, TomTom could borrow a trick from Apple and implement a keyboard and touch system that doesn't suck.

I think I'm getting better all-in-all, finding it easier to relax in periods, and having some laughs.

It is strange, the things I went through this winter (which scared the bejesus out of me), and that I can feel that I get tired after being with people is kind of funny. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger etc.

To laugh a little or a lot at others' quirks and your own is good I think, and this mental thing is what it is. I think for the first time in 15 years or so I'm able to at least have some good laughs now and then in "normal mode".

I've switched a bit around on the meds, so that there's 100 mg around noon, 100 mg late afternoon and 300 mg an hour or so before bedtime. It seems to work a bit better, but I'm not completely sure.

I talked to the pharmacist about the meds and the side-effects, and told me to talk to the doctor. So I think I'll talk to the doctor soon about Seroquel XR, which is a sustained-release thing that works the same over (I think) a 24-hour period.

But that variant of the medicine is still patented (IIRC) so it's more expensive and requires some paperwork to go through.

It's fun to see Isak develop, starting to get some personality and teeth and whatever else. It motivates me to get a better health too, I'm eating more fruit and vegetables than ever before.

It's weird, I guess you want to stick around and see how things go, as well as to be there. I've had some thoughts about "the end", but I'm starting to reconcile with the fact that we all go in the end, and that you have to "carpe diem and plan for tomorrow."

I'm taking Quetiapine 200 mg around lunchtime and 300 mg before bedtime.

It works fairly well - lately I've been able to think more clearly and coherently, but I seem to get some weird mental state after taking it
around lunch sometimes which is very unpleasant.

I'd describe it as a panic or stressful thing and I get dizzy - almost as if I feel drunk. It also sucks energy, I had to lie down and sleep for a couple of hours because I felt exhausted after the fact.

It sucks because for two reasons. 1) It sucks. 2) It can come without warning, some days it happens, some days it doesn't happen.

I think I'll need to keep a diary of events and nutrition to see if it is predictable.

So, I mowed the lawn today, with the new electrical lawnmower. Hilde liked that, I guess most women appreciate it when we men do practical things.. :)

Anyway, doing these chores gets the juices flowing. I had a dinner with Daniel Mikkelsen (http://dm.cl.no) on Saturday and we discussed some obscure heavy subjects.

It's interesting to see how development (understanding) is going in two ways, we find smaller and smaller things and build bigger and bigger things.

As Daniel said, you can't understand something bigger than yourself. Which is kind-of-true I guess. But we build societies and "grow bigger" and are able to, what can you call it, we're able to sustain longer, remember longer too as a society.

In Norway we have a social democratic politicial system, and the Scandinavian safety net and "jantelov" has made us more leveled-off I think. Progressing as a society.

Anyway, it's fun with the internet.. if we think of the nation as an organism, the internet is providing us with the neural network.

If you think about it, it is kind of funny. The nerves in the body are pretty quick, while the digestion/acquirements of energy and transport of energy and oxygen is slower. If wonder what the numbers are if you compare the body's nerve system and "energy handling" vs. nations and the internet and all that.

So, this capitalism thing. I haven't studied it but I guess I've "jukset i faget" and learnt thing from different perspectives.

The financial crises that have been are.. because of experimentation? Gambling? Greed? Lazyness? ...?

I dunno, but capitalism is, in progress-and-long-view-terms, a coopetition, where companies compete and experiment and serve as a transport mechanism and gearbox in society.

http://e24.no/boers-og-finans/article3686602.ece

This made me smiles. Spetalen, an investor well-known in the Norwegian media takes a piss at capitalism and that a few are holding a lot of the resources.

I think economies-of-scale, bigger-is-butter and head-tail thinking are something that used to work, but we've heard the wierarchy, peer-pressure-thinking and so memes going for a while now.

Information is abundant now, and it is getting harder and harder to keep "secrets", and I think the head-tail will be too slow for a lot of things.

It is interesting that a capitalist such as Spetalen disses capitalism and quite plainly says that we should never join the EU (because you can see how the financial things are working there at the moment).

If I could get an article like that every day with my morning coffee, life would be better. :)

So, I've been reflecting a bit lately. Today was a somewhat stressful day, with some heavy anxiety or whatever it is during the day.

That's stressful in itself, but I managed.. I get easily annoyed and jumpy though, and I'm a bit tough in my responses to Hilde and I feel a bit bad about that right now.

But, down to business. I have this paranoia/conspiracy thing that comes crashing every now and then. Back in 2000-2001 or so, I worked with a company called Thingamy (now http://www.thingamy.com) where we were on some projects which didn't work out too well. I went out on a low note, on a project which didn't finish, because I (I guess), lacked experience and was under pressure so I kept making promises. Young and naive.

Well, after that last project I went back home licked my wounds for a while, and that last project had a lasting effect on me. I think I was burnt out, and I had acquired a bit of debt.

So, close to 10 years later that project still haunts me. 5-6 years ago I teamed up with David (http://www.aktivnett.no) for a customer on a site, and we started working together after that. The customer we met on in question had (from what I heard, a deal with a company the lead from Thingamy had worked with before).

So, I guess since 2002 somewhere I've worked starting my own hosting/development company, but for some reason I kept working on the same track on some of the ideas we worked on in Thingamy.

Well, today things came crashing back again, as the mailing lists on the Plone project (where the Thingamy lead again knows some key actors in the Plone head) were discussing licensing for the Plone project, where some finer legal details could hurt my company a bit.

Well, in my time I've done some dumb things, and I feel like that's being held against me now, as

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/06/08/2038233/America-Versu...

"Asperger's syndrome, depression, anxiety, and panic attacks" has something that could relate to my deal, which is that I have those symptoms, well, not so much depression these days. And there was this thing about keeping promises.

Well, I had the post with the number 3 the other day, and here comes one from Sigurd today:

http://blog.thingamy.com/sigs_blog/2010/06/three-types-of-ui...

Where I feel that the world is crashing in on me, and I'm impicitly pressured and threatened into working and inventing something related to user interfaces and that system without getting credit or paid for it.

This feeling is very real, and very bad.

Well, I've had some serious problems up through the years, but it was a little time ago that I heard about a, if you can call it that, prank, where the idea was to get a troubled guy who did something selfish to really suffer, without knowing what it was for.

[Later..]

I guess this sucky experience was triggered by a tall, slender white-haired guy who was (apparently) a bit drunk and eager to talk semi-good cuban or was it spanish to the storemen at the trainstation where I bought the cigars.

There has been people around me for shorter or longer time screwing with me I think.
  And I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing.

Superchunk - Say my name

So I decided to go for a walk today, getting back on the fitness track. Ate a salad for lunch, and started walking.

I was walking and daydreaming about this and that (to the tune of http://trololololololololololo.com/) the phone rang, which has the trololo tune as the ringtone.

It was Stig, and while we talked business I could hear the short beep for an incoming SMS message.

After talking to Stig I could see the message was from the answering machine service, and I called to check.

It was my "interviewer" from the TOP project, and I had tried to get in touch with her several times last week to get a copy of the report.

Oh well, all is well. Some minutes later I had to burp and out came 3 small chunks at high velocity from the lunch as well. You'd think the reflex is to stop burping, but I went on and 3 came flying out.

Anyway, eventful day. This evening we're rounding off the visit to Oslo by having some XO cognac and Cuban cigars.

By: Erik E

<3

Well, life is improving.. I think.

I'm on a good dose of Quetitapine (200 MGs morning 12:00, 300 at 22-23) and it helps, although some panic attacks and shortness of breath are side effects, or part of the root issue.

I've had some REALLY good laughs lately.. and today I had Isak for 3 hours while Hilde was getting her hair done for Laila's wedding.

It might be that I'm S0chizotypal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disorde...

Life goes on. :)

So, I've played a bit more with the iPad, and I'm getting comfortable with it. Discovered the Keyboard configuration screen, so I think autocompletion (auto-annoyance) should be better. I wouldn't mind autocompletion but I didn't like the way it worked and cludged up things.

I still think the keyboard could be better, I'm holding the iPad with both hands and typing with my thumbs.. there might have to be some special mode for that.

I've found two annoyances with Safari, one is that it doesn't scroll (some) textareas correctly (no scrollbar is present), the other is that it doesn't handle <iframe> elements correctly. Or, at least I know the iFrame and such works correctly on other browsers.

I see there are lots of apps, and I want to test many of them. In that case, the App store / iPad apps don't go all the way. I'd like to see some shareware-like feature where you can try an app for x active hours, 1-7 days or something similar.

I'd think that would save the app developers some time too, as they would be able to tick a box or two to enable shareware features, instead of building a separate app for demonstrations.

OK, the apps that demo one of their best features in the demo might come short, but try-before-you-buy.. that's something.

I am seeing bits and bobs about twitter, facebook and other user-generated-content sites.

It is the content that users generate and their inherent structure which provides exciting ways of mining new data.

I guess we'll see the UGC sites blossom, and like the pig that could've helped the pancake across the river, it would eat the pancake.. It is after all, a pig.

But the interesting thing here is user content. In the long run I think services like Facebook, Twitter and so on will be legally required to share their raw data created by users, and to do so at the same rate it would charge to itself, plus a markup, similar to how telecommunication companies do today when resellers renting access to infrastructure make money on top.

It depends on how these pervasive these services get I guess.. if you have photos on your machine, and upload them to Facebook that's one thing. Another is to directly tweet something or update your status.

I also think we'll see users wanting to be paid for their opinions. There are services out there today that premier you with points etc. for giving you their mind on things.

So I'm still playing around with my iPad. I really like it.. downloaded a TV episode by the BBC about nature the other day, which is the kind of entertainment I like to see.

It's around 3-4 dollars for an episode of anything, and that's an OK price.. I've cut out snus now (taking one portion per day) and with those savings (15 dollars a day) I can instead spend it on content that I find entertaining and interesting.

I'm also trying to eat healthier, eating some fruits every day and a vegetable or two. And today we had fish sticks with potato, carrot and sour cream.. it was tasty, and I replaced butter on the potato with real virgin olive oil instead, the kind which is expensive and tasty.

Small steps..

I've played with the iPad for a day or so now, and the thing I'm stuck with is.. how?

How are they able to make such a thin, screen, really - behave like any computer? It feels sleek, the on-screen keyboard works well. I've even seen heavy-duty 3D racing games where you move the entire iPad as the driving interface (steering wheel).

How, how, how? :)

Well, it looks like Apple are doing a lot of things. Making a (somewhat closed) content and application delivery platform, a well-designed (aestetically) device and a prong for web standards. It's also easily usable by most people I would think.

Jamiriquai - Virtual Insanity

So, I probably need to get some antibiotics for my throat, the sickness has been lasting for 1 1/2 weeks now and it won't let go.

Sickness has been going around in the family, and some have used antibiotics (Isak has started Clarithromycin today, and is already better, ate most of his porridge for the first time in weeks). (Later.. well, he still coughs, but eating more. Which is good).

But I see Quetiapine's effectiveness (rate of metabolization) changes when using Clarithromycin so that's something I'll need to talk about with my doctor (...).

I guess they'll need to do bloodtests and such, and the TOP project which maps psychosis-related things also does bloodtests - which is next week.

Well, I'll visit the doctor tomorrow and see what he says.

Was at the psychologists office today and we had a roundup-meeting with Hilde as well. We talked a bit and had a good time, while I was skribbling with pen on paper in between.

I've been "coming down" as one might say in the last month or so, and in that process the last week-and-a-half I've been having a dry mouth and an ear infection, a runny and stuffy nose and a sore and try throat. And dry mouth.

Well, I've been taking 45 mg Truxal along with the 400 mg Quetiapine a day, and I've had serious problems with a dry mouth and throat. So I ditched the Truxal, and started drinking some hot water with either honey+lemon juice or Sage and Thyme + honey.

It feels like the Sage and Thyme with honey helps quite a bit, and it might even help me relax and soothe the throat.

I see that Sage is considered a drug once you put it into hot water and make a tea.. which is interesting. Medical use of herbs, who would've thought.

So, this last week has been weird, tough and good. The last .. half a year+ has been one hell of a, pardon my french, fucked up ride.

But it feels like I've come back to my senses, my very old self. And I wonder how long I've been out of touch.

Anyway, I picked up a clue today.. we went to a mall and bought some stuff, and I bought an FM-tranmitter, the kind you can hook up to your phone and get music on the car radio.

Well, the clue was, I noticed when I sat in my car that I could "lock up" and almost desperately try to figure things out and ignore anything else. So it is kind of a .. have to finish or get it right thing going on. Or have something to focus on. I could literally feel my mind and body revving up and staying there.

On the other hand, when I'm not doing much and "feeling more" I can get anxiety and that fall-asleep-and-you'll-die feeling.

So, that's how it is. But I'm optimistic and feeling that things could get better and more stable in the long run.

Oh, and the FM-transmitter hooked to my phone.. worked in the car, but the volume could be better.

Seal - Crazy

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-safe-ways-to-remove-ear-wax...

Is about removing earwax. Short story, a bit warm olive oil + one of those "ear cleaning bulbs" = win.

By: Morten W. Petersen

Yeah, feels like I've gotten my fair share.. yup, will call.

Hey, when are you coming to Trondheim the next time? We've got a new place, and I've got some rough ideas about brewing my own beer.

Not the atomic kind though. ;)

By: Erik E

Life is a series of ups and downs, we all go through them from time to time. Call me if you want to talk sometime.

Mary J. Blige, U2 - One

This week has been OK, a bit tiring at times. Isak has been sick since Sunday evening, and he is still sick - but I guess somewhat better.. he's more active and responsive now.

It has been very tiring for Hilde, where Isak wakes up several times at night and pukes and eats. As the doctor said, puking might be because the mucus from the nose-and-throat region gets swallowed.. on a lighter note, Hilde's sister says kids who puke get well faster.

I've had an OK week, some stress with work and tiring that Isak cries and is sick, which makes Hilde stressed as well. But, Hilde and I had a good chat the other day and I think I'm getting better too.

Some late evenings I still get the dry mouth / swallowing / breathing anxiety, and an evening or two ago it felt like I could die or something if I fell asleep, so I laid there, tried to relax and fall asleep and then a jolt hit me when I was about to go to dreamland. {Later.. and that happened repeatedly]

But, talking to the psychologist and getting to know that this is normal is comforting, and I know I have to work myself through things, however difficult it may be.

Today we went shopping at IKEA, and bought a big, fluffy rug (in moss-/olive-green) as well as orange and black towels, some kitchen and eating tools and misc. other things. When the furniture for the living and eating room arrives, we'll have an India-furniture style going.

I'm also thinking of getting two big framed flags (for Norway and India), which seems fitting. :)

Abba - The winner takes it all

Chamillionaire - Good morning

I read a bit about journalists and civilians getting killed by troops with what seemed as a just cause.

I haven't served, but I've had my own issues, and knowing that paranoia and delusions can really screw with you.

There was the case of the psychiatrist that went bananas last year and killed a number of soldiers on an army base..

There are rules of engagement, but what happens when those who are by any perception civilian are in fact masked soldiers? How would that be, day after day while failing on the line of goodwill can get you killed?

I know a guy that has been and is into army matters, and I can tell he's more on edge than the average guy. Not necessarily jumpy but apprehensive.

If someone of inferior force resorts to hiding-in-plain-sight to gain an advantage in war, then who is responsible for an increased number of noncombatants being killed?

I've installed Opera Mini on my PC, while using the Nokia E 90 as a mobile modem.

http://my.opera.com/community/blog/2008/04/03/opera-mini-on-...

Using the microemu program, I'm able to use Opera Mini at 1000x600 pixels or so, see (clickable) screenshot:



On a separate but slightly related note.. why doesn't VG (vg.no), one of the biggest newspapers in Norway, have automatic go-to-mobile version of the site for Opera Mini et al?

BTW, Opera Mini is FAST, and great.  :)  The microemu thing doesn't steal focus, lock the keyboard/mouse or anything.

Motorpsycho - Nothing to say

Bonus link: http://www.allthelyrics.com/lyrics/motorpsycho/nothing_to_sa...

de

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/de

mo

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/modus+operandi

cracy

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cracy

http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/04/02/nyheter/aksjoner/arbeider...

French workers are angry about their severance packages. I lived in France for a year or so while working on a project (which was a small, but in some ways also very productive disaster).

I learned un peu French, but spoke mostly English while there. I had my issues while I was there (had to pay some 2K EUR for a dental job, which was probably due to long periods of grinding teeth, i.e. angst and stress), but also had some moments where I got to enjoy the French way.

They have an excellent cuisine for example.

But, anyway. I remember one thing or story about the French, and that was that they were upset about some advertising campaign(s). So people went around and tore the ads down. I've found that amusing and appreciable. Capitalism in its most malignant form is about (cynical, careless) exploitation and generating money.

But, I guess things like this can scare investors and entrepeneurs away as well, if there are certain norms or preconceptions about how a company should behave, that should be in some regulation and known up front.

Being kidnapped and threathened in various ways is bad for business. Period.

R.E.M. - It's the end of the world as we know it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomerang_%28mobile_shooter_det...

Quite interesting application of hardware, software and microphones. I saw this on the Discovery channel. Ingenious really. :)

What a little math can do.

Colors

In January or February (I think) I talked to my psychologist about having a couple of seconds where I saw red/green light flashing (and nothing else, I think..  it might've been other colors too, but red/green was what I remembered).  It was a weird and scary experience, I can tell you that much.

It's interesting that they ran this article now.

I guess you can see where the paranoia and grandeur kicks in, and how weird it can be with these conspiracy thoughts and being surveilled/broadcasted in some way.

This experience could be a movie some day.  ;)

I think I'll go for a walk tomorrow, try to get somewhat into shape. 1-2 walks a week is a high enough goal for now.

Things feel OK, although I guess it is hard, I don't know if it is because I'm depressed or something else. Been pretty drained for energy the last 7-8 days.

I feel more normal, no that's wrong, *different* than I've felt in the last 6-7 months, and maybe for some years. This feeling of being burned out or something is there. I've been in the TOP project for a while now, where they map psychosis and such, where I answer questions in a structured interview.

Work is what keeps me going in many ways, it is good to have something to do. And the joy Isak can bring, even through an MMS message from the mountain. He's a cute kid, and brings me great joy. Even though I went through hell the last half year or so, I think maybe something has improved. I remember it was pretty bad and weird, but it is also a bit distant, maybe that's a coping mechanism.. forgetting the pain and stress. If not anything else, I'm in a system now where I could get some help.

I'm by myself now, taking a few days to wind down while Hilde and family are up on the mountain.

I need to find something fun and not stressful I think. A hobby. Whatever that should be I don't know. Maybe start reading books.

Playing Call of Duty is not as much fun now as it was some weeks or months ago. Maybe that's the meds.

Queen - We are the champions

I'm back on the ground in some ways, but still feel stressed and tired.

I don't know if it is the disease or something else, but the half last year or so I've felt surveilled and manipulated. Where I am now, I know it seems far fetched, and it could just be me going into a negative cycle.

But, as these things go, I'd just like to say that my phone could have been eavesdropped/controlled (for a long time) and my computers also surveilled or controlled, and my input from the world (stuff I read and see on the net). I guess I've dumped enough of the threads that needed nesting to someone to make a rope and hang me with, but so be it. Accidents happen etc. So if something interesting happens in the future, I've probably said the wrong things or spoken publicly about something I shouldn't have.

Don't trust anything except what you can see me say in person. :)

That said, I'm having a hope that this could all resolve and be done with, and that I could get some sort of diagnosis on what are very real psychological issues. And that's perfect if you think in the paranoid sense, as it in many ways can discredit me.

I kind of jokingly thought I could go into politics, but where I am now.. if I get a diagnosis, I could go back to studies, and study something really interesting. Or, I could just continue working and fiddle with things on the side.

Art has begun to interest me more and more, so maybe something like that. But one has to make a living etc.

So we'll see. Now there's springrolls and cider.

Happy easter. ;)

So, I've been reading up on various mental things on the net, and figuring I have something like PTSD now:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posttraumatic_stress_disorder

Which is interesting, since I know the feeling I have today from earlier in my life. I don't know where I got into this track I've been in, but anyway. Feeling like you're going to die for a good while kinda sucks.

Stress and such, well there are different kinds of threats. With this condition I have, whatever it is, I guess I've always been quite sensitive to what other people want and need.

So I think I've treated the people in my company pretty well, not laying too much on them, and at times handing out a lesson. I know this past half year has been tough on "my crew" but I've been having it tough too, so now we might get to wind down the next month. I see people performing well now, and it is good to see that the time and effort I've invested is rewarded. I know some people might prefer to break people down with techniques such as Gaslighting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaslighting

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_torture

But that's not my style. Think of it.. with the web things can be setup and changed without a trace. And you have no physical wounds or traces to show..

Interestingly, my psychologist has spoken to a friend I know about my history, and things were taken up there, things I didn't remember. So he said it might just be a misunderstanding too.

Anyway, this paranoia/schizophrenia/bipolar thing. The meds help, but right now I'm at a place emotionally where I've been before. So I dunno, things are taking their time. I'll relax now and try to do as little as possible and just get better.

Dire Straits - Walk of life

Lately I've been getting better, but there has also been some major holes in the road. :)

But, I can feel again now. Feel more than I have done in a long long time. Cuddling for example feels great now, compared to one year ago. And I feel more around anything, really. It isn't just going through the motions any more.

As the psychologist said, I've been going around in my own bubble for quite some time (think 10-15 years maybe) and that's true. I've been out of touch with my emotions.

I can feel the anxiety sneaking up on me when it gets closer to bedtime, but it isn't so bad now, probably because I've been taking Truxal again.

http://www.israeldogs.com/

I'm still thinking of getting a Mops.. they're cute but I guess prone to various health issues. Not sure how a toddler would treat a small dog like a Mops either.

Dogs are easily trained, for an OK years salary cost here in Norway a dog can be trained to assist a blind person too. We're probably going to build a website for something related to that soon BTW.

After baby monkey has gotten his rice-banana porridge, daddy monkey can have his banana.

http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/03/26/2240250/Nvidia-D...

So it isn't a surprise that they have to prioritize. Some light could let their flowers bloom.

Pink Floyd - Another brick in the wall

Motorpsycho - Feel

Pink Floyd - Coming back to life

So, yesterday I had a panic attack. A pretty bad one. :)

It started around 22:30 I think, because my mouth gets so dry from the meds. So I started compulsively swallowing, and getting stressed out.

I've recently upped my meds, from 300 mg a day to 500 mg a day. And I find it strange that the doctor would let me make a 200 mg jump just like that and not 100 mg.

Anyway, so this panic attack started, and around 22:50 or so I think it got really bad. To the point that I was wheezing like I had been running and getting a panic. The feeling that I might choke up and die was there and very real, and I considered calling 113 (911). But then Hilde organized things and I was able to take a taxi with Vebjørn down to the health emergency center.

So, for 20-30 minutes (at home and on the way to the hospital) I had a feeling that death by choking could be imminent, and there was panic, numbness in my hands and dizzyness.

I felt better when I arrived at the emergency health center. I knew there were doctors and such there who could help me.

So I talked a bit to one of the nurses after a while and got to stay over there during the night. Got something to help me sleep and in the morning I talked to a doctor about what happened and was let on my way.

Today I've been feeling a bit tired, but relatively OK. Hilde says I look serious.

The scary thing to this compared to the radiating angst thing is that lately I've begun feeling what you could call normal, with a somewhat normal range of emotions. But that angst/choke incident was scary as FUCK.

[Later..] And funnily enough, the dials you have to punch to get a direct taxi order is 119.

I know a guy and some people who are against implementing the DRD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_2006/24/EC) which will enable storing of communication etc.

Here's the 'sign on against the DRD page'

http://stoppdld.no/kunnskapsbanken/folkets_horingsuttalelse/

The arguments against it are pretty good, that it violates privacy, treats everyone as a suspect, that it creates false security because criminals can circumvent it and that it opens for massive surveillance in the future.

I see EU member states that have gone above and beyond the DRD, and you have to wonder why. If you think about it, the order of events on copyrighted material being shared and not much being done to compete with it / making a viable alternative is odd. There has been filesharing tools and systems out there for a long time which distribute the bandwidth load of music and other media.

And the argument that it can be used to track terrorists is pretty moot. All you need as a terrorist to circument it is a plan and a watch. What you could stop / discourage is potential cross-border recruitment

Storing surveillance for 6-24 months.. well, for stopping serious crime (abuse, molestation, bodily harm, murder) I'd think that is OK.

Usually the investigators have to deal with things as they are and nature itself (evidence). Here we're defining the "law of internet nature".

Once you get the legal right to surveill someone, you can store pretty much anything you want and keep it running until you get the criminal charged for something, or delete it after a given amount of time if there is no reason to suspect something.

If you get a conviction, that data can the be used together with heuristics, and you have programs running in the system that scan and monitor for other possible offenders.

When you do something criminal I guess the law of chance applies to whether you get caught. Maybe these systems monitoring the flow of randomness in them so that one isn't continually being surveilled.

But, the system. I think a system that monitors everything and uses heuristics (not people) to scan for potential offenders is interesting. And once you get to a level where you are "tagged", a person can come in and get anonymized and relevant data and decide further action. The access control to the monitoring data would have to be superb. Access logs, encryption etc.

Today the scanning function is pretty much cops driving around in cars and civil/uniformed cops going around on spaces. What is a public space on the internet?

Oh well, time for bed. More thoughts later.

I see the policital party SV, a party far on the left side. And when I say that, the party on the furthest right in Norway is socialistic compared to the Democrats in the US.

They're pushing forward for CO2 cleaning on a gas power plant (and more) in Norway to the tune of 27 billion NOK (some 4.5 billion USD).

I'd say go for it. And it doesn't have to be a Norway-based company either.. take some of the oil money (pension fund), invest in research and development.

Build business in the less economically developed parts in Eastern Europe, own the company and share the risk with the local government, local investors and others. Economic inbreeding isn't a good thing IMO.

It isn't necessary to have the company/companies in Norway. With ownership there is still a nice profit to be made.

The climate reports etc. done by the climate panel are I think, pretty solid, and if we have to fail, we should fail on the side of caution.

And we, in Norway, have a moral obligation to clean up CO2, as we've been made stinking rich by oil.

I'm liking Høyre (Right)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_%28Norway%29

more and more. Today Erna Solberg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erna_Solberg

talked about centralizing of some cancer operations, as those local hospitals that only do a few each year don't get the necessary .. 'pace' to keep up their skills, thus increasing the amount of things that can go wrong.

She said that if people were given information about this when deciding where to get an operation, the choices would be pretty clear.

I guess this would centralize and save money too, so it's a win. Acute things, local hospital. I guess most cancers don't kill that fast.

I read this piece on slashdot:

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/03/19/1928244/Company-Sued-...

Where a guy sues (and wins) because the tablesaw manufacturer didn't include a patented feature, which would be making the saw more expensive and in some ways less practical to use and prone to break, costing in repairs.

Here's a choice comment:

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1588948&amp;cid=3154...

"Table saws, at the best of times, are what guys who work with power tools like to refer to as "fucking dangerous". There are ways to certainly manufacture safer saws, but no matter whether you're using some cheap $200 bargain basement table saw or a top end unit is that you never stand in front of our behind the saw blade and just as importantly if you're ripping small pieces of wood, you don't feed them in with your hands. This is a good way to keep your hands intact."

Yup. The thing is that different table saws have different features, and some might find a safety mechanism off-putting.

My company is kind of a hybrid between being a producer and a retailer. We produce (create) things for the customer, as well as resell some things.

We've learned some things along the way, and one thing is (data) security. When offering something to a customer, we need to tell the customer what the security implications of each (hosting package) choice is. Although we need to get even better at informing the customer about it.

Some things are cheaper, but also less secure. Some things are more bare-bones, unsecured and powerful but also more expensive. And yet other things are secure, powerful and comprehensively packaged.

You'd think at least power tools manufacturers (and the likes) would agree on some, if not standard rating, standard categorization of security features.

Then you'd have a brochure, or something the retailer could compile and print and give to the customer and/or discuss. Which would enable the customer to make informed decisions.

Or, some 3rd party website could evaluate products in that particular market and give ratings and such and derive revenue from ads or referrals.

Yes yes, the potential for 'raw deals' in 3rd party websites could be something, but then there's the law, putting persons' life and health in jeopardy and the red face factor.

I'd lean towards secure products every time I think. Unless I really knew what I was doing.

And it would bring the right focus on things, namely life and health. It'd be a positively twisted competition.

Queen - Too much love will kill you

So, I've read a bit about Aspergers today, and that seems to fit my way of being pretty well. I also see that Seroquel which I'm taking has had a good effect on Aspergers too.

But I see also on the net that you could be diagnosed with both Aspergers and Schizophrenia.

I mean, I hallucinated in November I think it was and saw a globe that spun above me (while I was lying in bed) which I could touch and it glowed of red almost in a magical, hedonic or evil way. I also for a second saw an item in our home as something else. Sometime after new year I thought some low-clicking noise (in a sense modem-transfer-noise) from the phone triggered something in me that gave me negative thoughts and .. "visions". I call them visions because they aren't hallucinations i.e. something that is like any object you see which seems real. They were more like.. what you can get if you play a game all day, you still see the game playing when you close your eyes, but it is also a bit more .. creative/uncontrolled/mixed together.

And that feeling of radiating angst or whatever out of my body was.. on a scale from 1-10 of fucked-upness.. A 9.5 I think.

Paul Simon - You can call me Al

So, today I had a good day. It started out good, then at around 1700 it was a bit difficult (tired, annoyable) and a bit struggling on the social part.

But I was able to pull myself together and keep going. So, I'm feeling so much more .. good and relaxed, and a bit more human.

I may be a bit cold and calculating at times, but I guess I've been burned enough times and struggled so much that I've had to think hard to be able to function and exist. And running your own business makes you understand that you have to decide and move on or sink. During my psychosis from before Christmas to over new years I wondered if I was a sociopath or something like that.

But I've looked at the traits of sociopaths and I don't score high so I think I'm OK. I have difficulties watching things like "Norwegian talents" (similar to Idol or X factor except it accepts all kinds of weird acts). Anyway, I have difficulties watching that and soap operas and whatever, because I become so embarrased over difficult social situations. And I can get teary eyed watching some programs.

But, I wonder if I've been exposed to people with sociopathic traits, or people who can put you down and make you very self aware. And it might be that I react without knowing sometimes when I'm in the presence of sociopaths.

When I think of it, I think I've met some and may have even been burned by some. But that's part of growing up too, you learn and move on. I saw an old program on NRK via streaming where there was a psychiatrist who said something like "I'd rather have a sociopath than a softhearted person if it was about sending away a bomb while at war" or something like that.

So sociopaths are everywhere I've read, and I guess it must be a different life experience.

There was a blog post I read during my desperate-quest-to-figure-out-myself during the psychosis too, which said that everyone is a sociopath, you have the winners, the ignorants and the losers. That's funny, and it might even be true. I guess all people have someone to "look down on" if you think about it. And with the selfish-gene theory, yeah.. Oh well. I experience warmth and care now from Hilde's family and get something good thrown at me or after me every day, so I think there's hope. :)

The Midnight Beast - Tik Tok

Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton - Islands in the stream

There's another good cover of that song:

Bertine Zetlitz - Islands in the stream

Pink Floyd - Comfortably Numb

So, I'm playing along with the Schizophrenia theme, and have been reading up a bit about it.

On this page:

http://schizophrenia.com/hypo.php

There was a nice "flow chart" of how Schizophrenia develops. I looked at that page a week or so ago, and it stuck to my mind.

Today there was the baptizing of Isak (which went well). Afterwards there was dinner, and I had to make a little speech. Which was very short, and I could feel my hands shaking for 5-10 minutes afterwards. :|

Anyway, down to business. Later we went to Hilde's parents place and had coffee & cake. So far so good.. but after some time I started thinking negatively and with anxiety and shame for my lack of ability to cope socially. What had been an OK or good day turned bad. And things in that light of negativity became bad, so that the whole day felt rotten and shitty. In such a cycle there seems to be some emotional hyperfocus, where I can tell exactly what's happening on the social/personal level between people. So, I guess that's a feature, at times when I'm tense or focused I'm easily able to tell what's happening by reading facial expressions and other things. But at the same time, I'm bombing my own mind with negative thoughts and feelings.

But, I managed to pull things together afterwards, and had an hour or so with talk and such with others. I think I managed to pull together because, today, I have a fairly good life (status) and something to "brag about" plus 2 very important people (Hilde and Isak).0

But is this Bipolar or Schizophrenia? I'm not sure. I know now when I think back, I've had periods where I'm helpless and bomb myself with negative thoughts (it is hard to describe the emotional impact), but you can say that such a negative feedback-loop becomes so bad that you don't get sad any longer, it is just negative thoughts and anxiety and confusion, fatigue, agression and compulsion. And something negative said by someone else can be devastating, unless the "shield is up" and I press on no matter what.

Today had such a negative cycle that lasted for an hour or two, but the preceeding week or so had been fairly good, so I was able to be sad afterwards instead of just turning into some sort of emotional zombie where emotional and mental "noise/storm" was the result.

And I feel now that I'm exhausted. This crap can tear you down, time after time.

A coping mechanism I've developed since childhood perhaps, is that I daydream and think that I am great in some ways, and "read a lot into" things I read, hear or say. That's fine and dandy, but also a bit weird as there is a disconnect with reality.

So, I can dream and think I'm something, and sometimes those daydreams and perceptions can be good. But it is also a downside, as one of those negative cycles get really bad, because not only are things difficult, you "daydream" a lot of negative things too. So that life in essence becomes a nightmare you can't escape from.

And then there's the compulsion to fix things. Not myself directly, but I read, think and try to fix things and work on things. And then things that a "normal" person would see as straightforward I mull over and just about everything takes an effort.

I find the writing therapeutical right now and could've written more, but I have to go.

[Later..] Some units of alcohol later, things are fine and dandy.

And the negative self-bombing thing. Well, to explain it, things in recent events come back in a negative light, and then other things that have happened in the past also come back with a vengeance. Jokes, things I've said and done. It sounds like the deep depression thing from BiPolar. But the thing is I haven't felt very "euphoric" for longer periods of time, or at least I can't remember them as such.

I don't know if this rubber-band backlash effect is because of unprosessed (undiscussed) events or something else.

On 300 mg of Seroquel now, plus 30-45 mg of Truxal. I think that helps a lot.

Art Garfunkel - Bright eyes

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2009/eur/136050.htm

(thanks Chris)

I think racism (or "racial profiling") is a problem here in Norway, but that's the way it is. It'll get better. Prejudice, fear.. Stories about immigrants on welfare.

I don't know what came first, but I talked to a cab driver last year about things, and he said "it is YOUR culture, that's the way it is". That stuck to my mind.

If someone is steadfast and doesn't want to integrate, problems happen. And natives are suspicious and have a culture and set of norms already.

OTOH, you'd think the people in charge would do a better job at integrating immigrants. I see in some muslim environments there's work to make change and integrate, so I guess things are happening. And one of the Islam-values-fearmongering political parties in Norway are asking for more school-time in Norwegian. And more integration (understanding) is better.

I've had beers with muslims myself, and they were OK, if not a bit hard around the edges (which could be because of any of the things above).

(Add soap)

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/11/leaked-documents-uk.htm...

The text on the page says a lot. I've been to London and worked for a little while in Guildford some years ago, and it was an OK experience. Brits have a good sense of humour and the hot chicks are REALLY hot.

But I see they're putting up cameras everywhere, talking about drones for surveillance. OK, in the interest of safety and justice..

But if they're going to experiment with those things, I think it is very, very important to make sure that free speech is cemented and celebrated at every turn.

So, I'm still on these meds, and it feels like it is helping. I've gotten some additional meds as well (Truxal) which makes things even better when I have to be social. I guess it also takes a bit of the edge off the Seroquel.

Up in Mo i Rana now, staying at Hilde's parents place. It's nice to be here, I always feel welcome.

It feels like things are improving, and I'll work hard (smart) to make sure they do.

One thing I'll have to deal with is getting more exercise. Had to get a new suit (again) last week. At a great shop BTW, "House of singles". Good service, although maybe a bit too intimate. ;)

Still need a lot of sleep though, it puts me off if I don't get enough.

Smashing Pumpkins - Bullet with butterfly wings

http://www.brasil.gov.br/

Brasilian government on Plone. Bra as we say in Norway. :)

Pink Floyd - Learning to fly

My oldest brother gave me some Oliver Twist last week, and I tried it and it was really nice. I've always thought of Chaw as an "old mans tobacco", but I guess I'm getting older. :)

I also see in the news that Phillipp Morris are suing the state because that tobacco is being hidden out of sight in places where you can buy it. I guess the best they can hope for in the long run is an inverse Streisand Effect where they keep (re-)recruiting some tobacco users.

I fell into the trap and here I am. Maybe I've self-medicated a bit with tobacco too, but anyway. Having tobacco on display anywhere is marketing, if you think about it. I think it would be good if we could get all .. "drugs" into some sort of system so that people could be helped if they fall too far down.

There's the choosing your poisons thing, but even if it is taxed, I guess the money could be better spent (and taxed/retrieved) elsewhere, there'll be less sick people and more money to spend on other, important health issues.

I haven't found (original) Pink Floyd yet on Spotify, so I thought I'd give iTunes a try. And yes, there they were.. Pulse album and everything.

I bought the album and have been listening a bit to it today. I don't know, but I think Pink Floyd are truly some of the greatest ones.. great tones and interesting song names and lyrics. Some great puns in there too.

Some day I'll have to get a biig screen, good surround system and a high-res version of those concerts. Oh, I'd give a bit to get to go on a concert like that. There's a concept.. well-produced recordings of concerts with kick-ass sound. In movie teatres. And, the Dutch could RAKE in money. ;)

We went to the priest's office today, for the talk before Isak gets baptised. The priest was a nice and wise man, who talked about being a Christian was about the relationship to God. And that man acquired the knowledge of what is sin and isn't.

I've wondered lately, what else is there. Is there something beyond the physical boundaries. One can wonder..

He drawed while talking (upside down too), the image is scanned and below (I assume it's OK to publish it, since I got it after asking to keep it). He had a nice thread going through the conversation and went off track inbetween and made some interesting points. He also mentioned that it wasn't about indoctrination, I've had some thoughts about that before - but oh well.

But yes, a nice man - 65 years old. At the end I asked if he had read The Divine Comedy.. he said no, he had heard about it. But that his wife (who's into books) - probably had.

So, here's the drawing (click on it for a larger version):



On Sunday there's the baptizing, I guess afterwards - we'll eat cake - and maybe mom/mom-in-law can make some Waldorf-salad too.

Foo Fighters - Times like these

I got up early this morning, as Hilde was visiting a friend who just got a baby.

I was looking forward to today as Vebjørn and I were going to do a long session on Call of Duty. Which was fun, played for some hours but towards the end I got a pretty bad headache and it wasn't as much fun.

I've been getting better (I think) the last week, but I get easily tired, and there has been some challenging stuff relating to work too.

It is easy to get distracted from work, I think I have a bit of a messy head (and maybe always had) - but I'm going to bite my teeth together this coming week and get something produced.

This last week has been fuelled and managed with the help of some alcohol, but I'm not drinking tonight and will try to keep it to Friday/Saturday at the most. As "suggested" by Hilde. :)

I think part of my problem is that I can't focus (or not give a shit) and have problems concentrating. So I hook onto something and then analyze and think a bit and leave it.

I have some thoughts and ideas I'd like to pursue. But there is an underlying angst or paranoia of being ripped off or shafted in some way I think which makes it hard to do anything. First priority is NIT though.. it works and pays the bills. And we have some great customers. And it's my job.

There was some news today on patient care, was a guy with Pompe's disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogen_storage_disease_type_I... which required some very expensive medicine (in the millions per year IIRC). So, there is going to be a panel on what the upper limit is.

So this guy's lungs might deteriorate to the point that he will have difficulties or stop breathing. I can't image how that might be, and it is in a sad ironic way kinda like a lethal injection, except there you get knocked out first.

Tough decisions.. if you will/have cost too much we'll have to let you go?

Anyway, my plan for myself. To get a diagnosis and keep doing therapy. There have been glimpses of feeling good, perfectly normal and relaxed, that's probably because I've got to dump my thoughts. And maybe it is the medicine. Now the TOP project mapping will be finished soon and that'll give an indication of what it is (I hope). Work with NIT for a while, and then within a 2-3 years span put some plans and ideas into action, where I can take a creative/directional role as a part of a team.

In any case, habilitation and rehabilitation is one area I'm interested in. People want to contribute and feel good, right?

Donkeyboy - Ambitions

So, suddenly the word huss popped into my mind. I googled it, but couldn't see anything definitive. I seemed to remember it was a word, so I went to m-w.com (a nice place to look up words), but it said it was only in the unabrigded dictionary.

And that costs 5$ per month. I thought, why not. m-w.com is a fine service and I can pay a bit extra.

Is kinda sucks that information like that should be behind a paywall though.

I have a plan...

:)

In not so related news, I was at the therapists place today. We talked, and it came up that I.. I think I have a somewhat negative memory. Earlier I blogged that I've always been a bit dietetically challenged, but we were up in Trondheim this week and looked at pictures, and there were many from my childhood were I wasn't obese.

I wonder if it has been some sort of very deep depression or something else, that has left a permanent imprint of some sort of thought.

I also seem to vex between different modes or interpretations of reality (3 at the moment), where some wacky thoughts pop up, and then it could also just be coincidences of events.

Donkeyboy - Sometimes

http://www.zazzle.com/i_can_neither_confirm_nor_deny_the_pre...

http://sale.images.woot.com/Venn_Vittles5zdDetail.png

http://www2.csusm.edu/resources/images/Biohazard.gif

Original pages with images:

http://shirt.woot.com/Forums/ViewPost.aspx?PostID=3714777

(thanks Nixon)

http://www.michaelsalamon.com/design/birth-of-the-biohazard-...

We were taking the train today from Trondheim to Oslo, and talked a bit to a woman visiting Namsos all the way from Rhode Island (some 4 hours away from NY).

I asked a bit about "socialistic" health care, and she moaned on about the 2700 page document and people there being childish about their health care and the broken system that is. A self-perpetuating black hole for money, light and well-being perhaps.

One doctor had to pay 110K USD per year in malpractice insurance.. oh well.

I guess a system where the gap between people is so big screws things up. A capitalistic darwinism if you will.

Here in Norway I guess we have a fairly even spread when it comes to resources.. on the other hand, social pressure and social darwinism is a beast of its own. The angry birds pick 'til the feeling is gone.

The other day I was viewing COPS or somesuch, and saw some guy speeding away from the police in a car. Over gardens and driving like crazy.. he subsequently got out the car and started running. He ran for a while and got caught by the cop.. wrestled to the ground he responded to the officer, "Yes sir! No sir!". Well, I guess it is never too late for good manners. :)

[Later..] In related news, a police officer was killed by a speeding car around 3 last night here in Norway:

http://www.dagbladet.no/2010/03/04/nyheter/politijakt/innenr...

That's just sad. I don't know if most people recognize that when driving they're steering a ton or more of potentially lethal material at velocity.

I also read the officer happens to be the 10th officer killed in the line of duty since the end of WW2. 4-5 million people and 10 officers killed, that's pretty good considering I guess. The scary thing is that the pace has picked up the last 20 years.

So, today has been a lot of anxiety and negative thoughts.. Some breaks and we were looking at a new place to live.

I keep getting streaks of anxiety and negative thoughts, and once when Isak started crying I thought it was because I was having negative thoughts and feelings. That's pretty nuts isn't it? And I think I've had this before. Would almost be funny, if I wasn't anxious about it striking again. Which reminds me.. Last week I had an extremely tense and bad day most of the day but wasn't sure why.. I guess it was so bad that after taking my meds I couldn't stop smiling and chuckling to myself, without knowing why.

Anyway, the place we looked at was nice, with a nice place dowstairs with a fireplace. There is only one shower, and I've been dreaming of a room of my own. So jokingly I thought.. Why not get a 50 inch LED TV with, a Jacuzzi and waterproof PS3 controllers. Yeah, why not.

Travelling by train is a great experience, especially here in the winter. It gets dark outside and the moonshine (...) and lights from buildings and roads and snow make it a great experience.

The da-dum-dump sound the train makes om the tracks while the landscape whizzes by is comforting.

We chose a toddler coupe and met some nice people travelling the same way. Smiles and expressions of understanding as Isak was telling us off that something wasn't to his liking in his own way were nice and we had some good conversations.

It is funny how things change when you become a parent.

So I'm thinking of a new phone again, and the iPhone looks tempting.. My second oldest brother's clique are into HTC Hero and that looks good too, but the iPhone is sleek.

So, I think I'll go for an iPhone soon, it has a large user-base and good momentum so yeah.. it looks good too. And brownie points for drawing the line regarding child labour.

I'm looking at the Telenor pages, as I'm also considering switching from Netcom to Telenor (it sucks to be at a friends cottage up on Geilo without coverage). I had a GREAT time there this weekend by the way.

Anyway, in slightly related news (about my health), I'm starting to feel again.. I think I've been numb for a long, long time, or at least feeling and thinking something different than what's usual. It is good, but also scary. I had a dream while taking a daytime nap about loosing Hilde, and it felt bad, like it should. I guess it is better to have nightmares while you're sleeping and waking up from it, rather than going around in some kind of emotional veggie-state.

I don't know what the fuck it has been, but I know for example that I could've been in a state of paranoia/delusion for a long time, and at times when I have taken the time to face it, I could beat the bad feeling and delusions and have a glimpse of normalcy, while at other times I guess I've just "worked them to death" and run away from it by being a workaholic, an internet addict and trying to fix my nightmare-ish thoughts by shoveling imagery of crap into my head.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/24/phone-hacking-sc...

As it breaks in the news that people are being wiretapped ilegally, here's a choice quote:

'No 10 also issued a statement, saying: "The scale of this is absolutely breathtaking and an extreme cause for concern."'

The internet and the phone business is a jungle, with smartphones and unlimited data plans become the norm. Who bothers to check their data usage if it is unlimited and doesn't cost more?

If you get in a piece of malware (piece of data, some 3rd party advertiser with malware etc. or simply an MMS with a virus) you could be easily cooked.

People with hidden agendas can build up a treasure trove of information where they can analyze you to a tee, or just see what can be damaging or embarassing. It is a literal front door to your innermost being, with things you might not even share with your closest friends and could be a place dump damaging information. On the other hand, people with hidden agendas could also manipulate the input you get, by seeing where you surf and what you read and make things seem different than they are.

I guess you should assume that you're always compromised and that people can see EVERYTHING on your PC and Phone, and try your best not to become a Person Of Interest.

The internet is a big intertwined ball of connections without borders, and I think Psy-ops could be the new tool of choice. If it hasn't always been.

That's the web, free, open and unorganized. But also an uncharted jungle.

Townes Van Zandt - Waitin' around to die

"They're fighting!", the man behind the curtain thought to himself as he was counting his chickens.

So, I'm on my 3rd pint of cider now, just relaxing on a Saturday. These last couple of days I've come closer to my real self I think.

I'm in the TOP research project now (http://www.med.uio.no/forskning/tematisk/top/), helping science with psychosis-related issues and the carrot is that they'll give me me an evaluation of what the possible causes of my problems are.

I've been at two visits at TOP now where they ask questions and such, the last visit was OK, but afterwards I felt a bit annoyed as if they questioned my ability to answer honestly. It is kind of strange when your state of mind for the last 10-15 years has been in a flux of sorts and you're asked to accurately define your experiences. Although this depressed, sad feeling I have right now is something I *have* had for periods in that time. I think it has been at times combined with a feeling of being exhausted as if you've just sprinted for a while without warming up first.

Anyway, since I started having big problems towards the end of last year I've been to observation, gotten medicines etc. and talked to doctors, psychologists and so on.

I visited some website about Schizophrenia last week and had an epiphany for an hour or two that "That's me!" but then it went away again.

They say Bipolar and Schizophrenia are difficult to differantiate, so I guess the gene tests and brain scans on the TOP project will give some hard data.

The latest papers from the diagnosing doctor says "Unspecified Schizophrenia" which as I've read also happens to be the most regular variant.

I know I've done some dumb things in the past, and that's to a lesser or greater degree grade my own fault, but it'll be good to get an explanation of why. Not an excuse, but an explanation.

I guess most people do dumb things in the start of their lives, and then it is the opportunity (obligation?) to turn things around and help others in trouble as well as yourself.

http://www.gifthub.org/2010/02/arthur-brooks-to-head-up-amer...

"So what would be wise investor get as a solid return on that sound investment in public policy? Higher minimum wage, environmental protections, robust public goods, and greater social justice. Just kidding."

Well, if you're cynical I guess the right thing to do would be to make sure the machine runs efficiently (damn the consequences), or maybe the idea is to trim the bush. Maybe it is a reasonable thing to live without a safety net over your head, or not go to the Opera in Gotham.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Money says

"Economists assert that the largest transfer of income will be as the older generation leaves wealth to the baby boomers. Inheritance has been estimated to make up 6% of the US GDP each year.[10] The current generation is wealthier than any generation before. This increase in wealth and inheritance indicates a rise of "old money" in American families. Stephen Haseler argues that America is becoming an inheritance culture in which much economic opportunity is from family inheritance and not personal achievement.[11]"

Is the timer for the music for the chair game gaining on the end?

For those squeamish of bloodshed, I guess one can hope that international trade and the internet will create the internation. One can wonder where the power will lie.

As we reap the environmental rewards of past development, we can live longer, happier and things like that.

I think things will turn out all right.

Verdens Gang (Norwegian Newspaper) reports that two reindeer have been liquidated:

http://www.vg.no/rampelys/artikkel.php?artid=581763

No reports yet on whether this is a retaliation for recent events in Dubai, as a ploy to set a scare in Santa Clause's pack.

More in the news at 7.

I see you in the news these days, talking about these old, dated and wicked ways.

Who knows who, what or where made you this way, a fairhanded love IS OK.

We all have our role to play, yours is that you think you have something to say.

I can see the anger, desire and fright in your eyes, something you can't hide between the confounded lies.

Sorry my friend, the game is already won, now it's a question of minimizing the damage that will be done.

So I'm playing some Call of Duty these days, it is nice to have something to do, do something which isn't so serious and get an escape from the daily thought-mill.

I still think though, and noticed a couple of things with CoD which could be nice (if they're not already there).

One would be a mute-all button. The jibber-jabber various players is just distracting and annoying. And selecting mute on each and every one is annoying.

Another thing would be an even playing field for everyone, something CS-like.. where one could choose from a common set of weapons and not have any perks. And maybe a handicap if you've got a high rank. One would think the game hosts could do the numbers/statistics on kills etc. and give an appropriate handicap.

Could be more fun for everyone, or an alternative style of playing.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/02/12/1323248/Warner-To-End...

Well.. when you idly sit by or whatever you do and let people get financially steamrolled I kinda question your ability to judge what a fair deal is. Although I don't know how exactly those financial things work in the US.

When the US went after a shuttle spy to set an example, they had the heart and brains to choose a guy who has lived a life.

I got an iPod nano for Christmas from Hilde, and I haven't used it much so far. It looks good though, and I'm impressed they managed to get a video camera and playback in there. Nice design on the device too..

I've had a Nokia E90 for some years now, and it works OK, but I'm kinda ready for a change.. the phone is a bit slow, but I guess that's the OS.

I see Spotify is available for the iPhone now, and that makes it a bit more tempting to go for an iPhone next. A lot of my friends have gone for an HTC phone, and that HTC uses Android is cool.

Oh well, for now it would be cool to have Spotify sync against my Nano, but I guess that is a pipe dream.

I guess for neverending unlimited economical growth, we need unlimited "resources". That's OK, because the resources we grow now will give us the unlimited, in whatever wrapping you may desire.

As Frank Zappa sang it, "I can take about an hour on the tower of power - Long as I gets a little golden shower"

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gGbsAkYnfw

Today I had a pretty good day. Played some Call of Duty with Vebjørn, which was stressful at times, but it felt good afterwards. Walking a little and taking my meds helps. There was a Norwegian soldier who got killed a little while ago by a roadbomb.. it feels kinda lame in a way to play war games when I never was in the military, and seeing people make such sacrifices, but I'll try to contribute in my way.

It has been tough lately, but there are also good moments.. I'm glad I have Hilde and Isak, and Isak is starting to be a lot of fun where he responds a bit. Both Hilde and I think he looks like some character that could be from "Barne-TV" (kids hour on the regional broadcaster NRK). It is great fun to blow him quickly in the face, he gulps a bit, blinks his eyes and smiles. Simple joys.

I've found myself in a way these last months, gotten on the right track it seems.. atleast when I'm with Hilde. She's the CEO of the house, and that's OK. This is a good moment, but there are difficult times too, but I manage to feel good now and then.

Some years ago I did create lots of graphics with The GIMP, and I'm thinking of going back to that perhaps.. express things that are there in the subconsious. A bit therapeutic too. Maybe do some programming/graphical thing.

The meds are a story in themselves.. I don't know how long I'll have to take them (maybe forever), and in that case I'll have to cut down on drinking (which isn't a big loss). They drive up the apetite too, and that's something I'll have to watch since I've always been a bit.. dietically challenged.

So I'm hanging in there.. getting to talk to a psychologist and then later they'll do more thorough tests including scans..

I'm working a little, and it feels good to work a bit. Keeps the juices flowing as they say. It is good to get support, care and understanding from friends.. Dave (aktivnett.no) says that I should crawl-walk-run, and crawling seems about right now. ;)

The meds are helping, but getting a fix on "reality" is somewhat difficult. Some nosebleeds, including feeling, no, *being* knocked out and having a stuffed nose an hour or two after taking the meds are side effects. I tried drinking 2 pints of beer some hours before taking the meds the other day and had jello-legs when walking to the bed.

(The medication is a generic substitute for Seroquel, google it and see..)

I feel tired too, not sure if that's the illness or the cure.

New Radicals - You get what you give

So I bought a new headset, as seen above. Trying it out and it sounds good so far. Haven't tried the chat function yet, will have to save that for later.

I think it cost around 60 USD, and it feels like a fair deal so far.

I've been big mouthed and arrogant at times, and venting on this blog...

I think I've got a problem with being easily .. triggered into saying dumb things, or saying things that could be misinterpreted. So, sorry about that.

I think I've been vexing between being anxious, focused, aggressive, arrogant (manic) and disorganised. And a bit too curious for my own good.

Sometimes I get things right and sometimes I just blurt out things..

(Later..)

Oh well, one lesson learned. Watch how much coffee you drink. ;) I'm down to 1, max 2 cups a day now.

Bought a PS 3 today, as well as Call of Duty 2. Going to play a little with friends and see how it goes.

Work is exhausting after a little while and surfing around on the net isn't that interesting either.

So, life isn't easy these days, but I'm managing somehow.

They've got me on some meds which seems to be helping, but there are periods where it is storming inside, both in my head and today mostly in my torso.

Anyway, I'm jotting down some notes for myself for future art which I or someone else could do, images and "films" I've gotten in my head:

8 (8)

4, green hill, day and night, with and without nightvision

Radiant angst

Cliff, noose and safety net

The 3 flowers hanging their heads in the dark, violet/pinkish

[Later..]

Some more: stickman, cable/warp/"offshoot"

I was in a meeting today and got some talk therapy. It was helpful, but I still fall back into the negative thinking process which keeps on spinning.

Headaches come and go during the day.

I'm going to try to relax a bit now however, and watch Isak play with the set of babytoys, it gives some joy to see him all mezmerized by some hanging plastic things. Oops, he fell asleep, snoring a bit. :)

The last 8-12 weeks have been tough, sometimes excruciating.

The funny thing about mental problems is that they're not easily visible. You can see someone is down and out, but that's about it.

Anyway, I'm getting these things sorted out somehow, seeing Isak smile and evolve is what keeps me up as well as support from Hilde.

It feels like I'm somehow (and have been for a while) trapped in my own mind, thougths, fantasies and nightmares and I get the feeling someone is pushing my buttons but haven't given easily traceable directions.

It's weird, time goes by for decades and centuries and things change, but it is still a game, a game of perception, illusion and invisible groups and dynamics.

Oh well, I think of myself as a metal box which has contained the blast.

Spin away... And keep notes.

After sorting through some thoughts, I'm thinking whoever owns and runs Nidelven IT should have shares in the company.

Seeing how my situation is today, I'd be happy to help them transition into a more focused company and then move on to other things while I get treatment for whatever is wrong with me. I'm mostly on sick leave, but I help out with experience and knowledge where I can. There are good people taking care of business there now and I think they can do well.

What I'd like in life is to be a good family man, do my share of simple work, have a flask of red wine in the weekends and maybe paint a bit or do other artistic work.

Lately I've been struggling, the last 10 weeks perhaps have been building up and the last 2-3 weeks have been exceptional.

To put it this way... I now understand the angst expressed in Munch's painting "Scream". At one point I woke up one morning in angst, went out compulsively to have a smoke and could feel pain/angst radiating out of my body, like in the painting...

Today however, I feel a calmness I haven't felt in a long time. I think I've been mentally/physically sick for a long time, and it might have started in my early teens or before that, but I've always tried to manage on my own (being too proud, too dumb, too paranoid, too ashamed..). But who knows about that.. It is hard to go back in time and do tests.. Spending most of my days and nights in front of the computer for 10+ years stressing with work hasn't exactly made it better but it has been a part of the struggle. Now that I've done some regular social interaction without a PC, relaxed and sorted through some of my messy head it feels better.

So, what am I to do? Figure this thing out with professional help.. Meanwhile, people around me are thankfully taking care of things. And it is great to have mom visiting.

I'm thinking a simple factory job or something similar could be right for me (I've worked with that earlier). Just seeing results every day and doing my part.

So, lately I've been reflecting on life and my path through it... I lost my way, and I need to be a better person, for my family and for society.

I'm thinking of living a humble life and follow the faith I was Christened to. This would entail giving up my stake in my company (maybe selling out my portion for a small sum so I can start from scratch).

I'll be a strict but caring father, and contribute to good where I can.

What I'll be working on in the future I'm not sure of, but I'd like guidance. I'm not built to handle a lot of stress, so it has to be a simple but interesting job that matches my skillset.

...to help an idiot/genius

So, I'm getting some mental (therapy...) help now. Been mostly away from home the last week.

Got some tough work to do. :|

Since I'm on partial sick-leave now and taking it easy I think it is important that I give myself some pats on the back.

Here's a summary page for my company's performance:

http://www.proff.no/proff/search/companyDetails.c?freeText=n...

You can see the graph on the right hand side is the result before taxes and it has a V-like shape, 2006 was OK, 2007 was not so OK and 2008 was great. The graph on the left is the turnover.

With the progress we've made, the things we've learned, the value we've created for our customers and how the future looks, I'm quite optimistic.

It's good to see that the wheels are turning, even though I'm mostly away these days. :)

I went to see the doctor today to get my (partial) sick-leave extended.. there we discussed medicines and such and he convinced me I should give that a try too.

So I got a prescription for Zoloft and took the first pill today. In sum I'm: talking to a the-rapist (haha), reading self-help books, ditching caffeine and taking medicine.

If that doesn't work, I don't know what will. If I had more time and money I'd do more therapist sessions and self-help, but I don't. I've got work to do.

In my quest to rid my self of OCD and other issues I'm going to cut down on the caffeine, maybe completely or I'll dare myself to drinking a cup of coffee each day. It sucks because they have really, really good caffe latte here at the local mall.

I'll let you know how it goes.

By: Morten W. Petersen

OK, NLP could be an option if this doesn't work. A little bit sceptical about NLP though, but anything that helps..

By: Vinay S Shastry

Hey Morten,

A friend of mine suggested NLP for OCD. Check out books by Richard Bandler.

After hearing a wonderful version of Time after time, I found another song with the same title accidentally on Spotify.

So here you are:

  Eva Cassidy - Time after time

and

  Tiff Lacey, Alexander Popov & Feel - Time after time - Chris Reece Main Mix

the latter is a nice one.

http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/taxes_marijuana/reven...

That is the projected revenue of regulating and taxing marijuana in the US.. not to mention the saved cost of not putting people through the justice system for choosing to have a little fun and doing something that affects them and their own body.

Here in Norway we're still much trapped in "portal theory" / "stepping stone" theory hell. When will people here realize that making something which is less harmful than alcohol illegal gives all the wrong signals about other drugs and also drives more revenue into the illegal economy not to mention pushes people into environments where they get lured into doing more illegal things?

After a couple of hours with the psychologist, I've now gotten my hands on "Feeling good" - a book by D. Burns.

Website here:

  http://www.feelinggood.com/

(Yes I know, sales opportunity there, design and such could be better..)

I've started reading a bit and so far I'm optimistic. They make good arguments that you can change the way your brain works without using prescription drugs (such as SSRIs) and I'm thinking "Yes I can". ;)

I'm all for using as little medicine as possible, that's something I have from my mom I guess who has worked and is still working in the health sector.

Anyway, after trying to "fix" myself and cope in various ways for many years it feels good to be guided and helped by someone who is trained and pretty much nailed my state of mind on the first session. Which is good since the psychologist charges an arm and a leg an hour (around 165 USD per hour).

Reading books can be good, but when it comes to self-help, I think having a guide and help and then reading books to speed up / help the process is the key.

Fuck OCD, I think it stole a big chunk of my happy parts of life and fuck me for letting it. ;)

I just hope something good comes out of it all..

By: Morten W. Petersen

I think working in NIT is cool, but keeping my options open.. Just threw this out there in case anyone was listening. :)

By: Vinay S Shastry

Tired of zope? :)

http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2009/10/arnold_to_sf_fuck...

That made my day. :)

So, I've updated my about page (might not see it yet, as the results are cached):

http://blogologue.com/morphex?DONT_CACHE

What do I know, right? :)

I've thought about this for a little while.. I'd like to see/hear a remix of Elvis' "All shook up", but now in the form of "All fucked up".. ;)

Since the last couple of weeks have been rough, and that I take the responsibility of being a good father very seriously, I went to see a psychologist today.

I explained how I felt and thought about things, and he hinted that I might have OCD, which is explained here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obsessive-compulsive_disorder

I thought that was a perfect match. I didn't delve much deeper into it, as I think knowing too much about the treatment process might taint the treatment itself. I don't know whether it is physiological or psychological, but we'll see..

Anyway, I found a Norwegian support group:

http://www.ananke.no/

So, Isak arrived a couple of days ago, at 00:38 on the 15th of October.

The contractions started at around 5 o'clock on Tuesday morning, so the whole process took a while.

I've seen and read a bit about birth and maybe thought the process was a bit .. unappetizing. It is a brutal, painful and messy process. But when we were in the middle of it, my mind was a bit foggy and it all seemed like a natural process (it felt natural thanks to the staff I guess, they were very good).

The result is wonderful and beautiful.

The hospital (Ahus) we're at is very modern and well equipped, and the staff is great. Initially, a couple of the staff we've been interacting with have been .. strict/a bit sour, but as we weren't too demanding they softened up and showed some more care. I guess they have to be a bit strict at times to get a hold of the situation and then they can soften up. I would guess most are working in the health sector because they like caring for people after all. :)

So far in my life, I've found kids crying to be a bit or more annoying most of the time. But when Isak popped out and started crying, it was the best sound in the world. :')

Here's a pic for those of you who want to see:

http://blogologue.com/isak-sleeping.jpg

Morcheeba - Rome Wasn't Built In A Day

Coldplay - Fix you

We went to the hospital earlier today, as there were some signs that things were in motion. No major motions yet though, so we're waiting to see.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvKbEU3pIoM&amp;feature=relat...

(thanks Wedge)

So, 5 days to go until the planned arrival today. My head feels like a bit of a mess at times and from what I've read on the net that can happen close up to the birth for both the expecting mom and dad.

I've gotten a completely new perspective on life now that a baby is about to arrive, so..

Sorry for the dumb things I've done - I've learned from them - and I'll do better in the time to come.

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/doc/2009/10/09/to-win-you-need-...

"I’m all for giving the guy a chance, but why hang a garland on him when the race has hardly begun?"

Well, I'd rather like to think of it as extra wind in the sails for an inspirational captain..

In reply to

http://www.gifthub.org/2009/10/managing-the-creative-class-a...

I bring you

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xkxt1_23-madonna-express-yo...

The human race.
To the bottom.
Quality over quantity.

I've been reflecting about my life lately, especially now that Isak is about to arrive.. I see it as a big responsibility raising a child or three, and in todays high-paced society it is important to take the time to do simple things (in Norwegian):

http://mycornerintheworld.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/sa-kan-ma...

My dad worked as a cop (just retired) and my mom worked in the healthcare sector (also communal/state). I see on the news some of the things they have to deal with in that line of work, and it can be tough I think..

It would be interesting to work in politics or something similar, I think I could make a contribution there. (Abid Raja who represents my party Venstre is an inspiration: http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abid_Raja)

As I build Nidelven IT I learn a lot which could be applicable in politics, and it might seem as a natural set of stepping stones to go from business to business and non-profit work to politics.

But right now though, I'm happy with where I am. I'm a bit tired, as this successful haemotomachrosis treatment has unleashed a lot of emotions, combined with the adaptation to a new situation with a baby.

I feel like the company is like my farm (or ship) (although it is shared with Stig - http://www.djkoala.org), and it is also my domain where I get to take the lead and.. dictate if necessary. ;) Since I've built up the company I feel comfortable running it too.

So, maybe 5-10 years from now I'll do something different, but for now I'd like to relax, heal, enjoy nature and invest in good health. :)

I've long had a dream of starting a band or two to ... I guess, to be a part of the expression.

I've got two band names so far:

Clowns with Downs

and

Tools for Fools

I thought these were unique, but googling for both of these turned up results. So I guess I'm a little too late and will have to find new names, if I get to start a band.

:)

(f)art

John Farnham - You're the voice

So, a couple of months ago I got the diagnosis haematomachrosis:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haematomachrosis

It is an iron-overload disorder, where the intestines absorb too much iron from the diet, which results in too much iron in the blood as well as iron sediments being deposited in major organs such as the heart, liver etc. (This could be helpful where there is little iron available in the diet, bug or feature you be the judge).

Anyway, I've been on dailystrength.org:

http://www.dailystrength.org/c/Hemochromatosis/forum/8058404...

Where another person with the same condition listed up some symptoms, such as anxiety, fatigue, depression and IBS. Trust me, I can relate to that. My teens were pretty rough and I thought the anxiety (which I got medication for) was a result of that. But now that I've been "phlebbed" (drained for blood) 3-4 times, I feel great. I mean, I *feel*, I'm energetic and most of the time it feels like I'm using 1% of my brain, even if I'm doing complex tasks. I think I've been depressed for a long time as well, because how I'm feeling now can't compare..

When I was maybe 14-15 I remember my (at the time) girlfriend commenting on how much I slept, her dad noticing as well. Since that time I've had a need to sleep a lot, maybe 10-12 hours per day.

Now, I think this condition was triggered somewhere in my early teens, but maybe I've had it most of my life. But I guess boys are brought up this way, to be tough and suck it up and not complain. So for the last 15 or so years I've been dragging around this extra weight, being emotionally numb and drained for energy.

I've tried most things, including a long stretch of 1-2 years where I exercised rigorously and ate properly, but nothing helped.

It is kinda funny that all I needed was a little old-fashioned bloodletting to get up to and beyond par.

So, what's the lesson here? Mmm.. Ask for help is one. Another is, if you're not feeling well, chase up the health system until you get help. It took 3 different doctors before one finally bothered to take my high iron levels seriously and thanks to that, I have a new life.

So, now that I feel much more, I've quit smoking and expect a baby to arrive in a couple of weeks, my life is really an emotional rollercoaster. But, paraphrasing.. it is better to have felt than to never have felt at all. ;)

:O

:)

Nine Inch Nails - We're in this together

http://imgur.com/RzRcw.jpg

A long time ago (1999-2000 I think) I wrote a, relatively, huge javascript library for a web-application that never happened. A lot of the work in that library was creating code that could be used cross-browser consistently, including some widgets.

These days my Javascript work is mostly doing some small scripting and changes here and there, but I'm thinking of getting more into Javascript again as it seems to be a necessity for a lot of web applications today.

Thankfully there are frameworks and libraries out there that take a lot of the work out of creating advanced things today, guess I'll have to dig around to find the framework that works best.

I like the idea of a Python interpreter in Javascript (Skulpt comes to mind: http://www.skulpt.org/), but after all this time, I think Javascript has its charm. Besides, adding a "translation layer" on top of a language has some overhead and some quirks of its own. On the other hand, a unified "Python frontend" to browser development that eats up the inconsistencies between browser implementations *could* be really sweet.

Oh well, enough daydreaming.. now back to doing something that pays the bills.

Well, after visiting Amsterdam this summer I must say I'm intrigued by the country. :)

So, I'm sniffing around and considering moving to Holland, found this site which had some useful info:

http://www.movetonetherlands.com/

Also lots of other good sites with info.

http://sfist.com/attachments/SFist_Brock/Benefits_of_smoking...

(thanks StFu)

Des'ree - You gotta be

:O

:)

:)

:)

...

We bought a new car today, a Wolkswagen Passat 2006, which is looking promising so far. I'd upload a pic but I'm too lazy right now. ;)

:)

Saturday I bought myself some new toys. A Fender Stratocaster and an UX1 from Line 6. Some other things were bought as well, cables, adapters, a guitar-stand and other items.

I haven't bought myself something nice in quite a while, and thought it was time to make a splash now.

The guitar is good to play, and the UX1 has got some accompanying software which enables mixing and matching guitar sound effects.

Music has always been a big part of my life, and after clunking away on a spanish guitar for many years, it will be interesting to experiment with an electrical guitar. Not to mention all the effects available in the UX1 PodFarm software.

When I get this thing hooked up properly for recording I'll share some riffs. :)

So I got a server alert at 00:25 this .. "morning" and had to spring to action. Luckily it was an easy issue to fix, now I'll just have to wind down for an hour or two before getting to sleep. Good thing I'm getting compensated for it. ;)

Up again before 10:00 to start the work day. The new plan is to work 10 - 14 on a regular basis and work flexibly the rest of the day. To get some structure into it all, starting with a simple plan.

:O

:)

Today I got Ubuntu installed on the netbook. It was peaches. :)

But that's probably becaused I've got experience with installing Linux from somewhere in the middle of the nineties (Red Hat, Slackware)...

So, I read up here and there on what to do. Lots of documentation and heplful hints. After reading through various docs, I found

  http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Unetbootin, which could transform a USB-stick into a bootable .. thingy. So, I fired up Unetbootin, plugged in a USB-stick and selected the latest Ubuntu Netinstall. It didn't take long, maybe half a minute and I had a bootable stick.

Another thing documentation mentions on the net is that you need to press the Esc key when the Eee is starting up, to get to select the USB-stick as a boot device.

That's what I did and the Linux installer started booting.

As I mentioned, I've installed Linux countless times, and the Ubuntu console install is pretty similar to Debian which we use at Nidelven IT, so this was familiar. However, I hit one snag, and that was the retrieval/install/configure phase of the installation of Ubuntu...

I'd selected the basic, desktop, netbook remix and openssh server options for package groups, and the installer choked on that after progressing 10% or so.

So, in something that was a Zen-like moment, I unselected the netbook remix group and tried again - and it worked. :)

I've now got Windows XP and Ubuntu installed on the netbook, and it seems to be working just fine!

So, after having used this .. "mini-pc" for a day or so, I'm starting to get used to the keyboard. Switching back to my old laptop earlier today was weird though.. not used to the keys being where they are.

This thing performs well, it was a bit sluggish earlier today, but that was because of the scheduled virus scans.. I've got a trial of some software (AVG) installed and will probably buy that when the trial is over.

Unless I get Ubuntu installed, and can start using that.

So far, very happy with my new PC. :)

Jay Z - 99 problems

Today I picked up a new netbook, the Asus PC Eee 1000HE. It runs Windows XP and is fairly snappy.

I've installed the essentials (Thunderbird, Firefox, putty, Spotify and AVG) and it seems to be working well. Even updated via Windows update to get the latest fixes.

One gripe is the keyboard which is taking some getting used to, but if I use this as my main work PC it shouldn't take long to get used to.

The touchpad is a bit sucky, but it might be that it just requires some use before it becomes.. usable.

Next thing to do is to get Ubuntu installed

  https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EeePC

guess I'll have to get a USB stick for that. I think this will be a good tool to use, feeling optimistic about it. More posts about it later.

[Later..] Getting slightly more accustomed to the keyboard, but it is scary how close and easy it is to mix up the enter and backspace keys.. don't want to be working with 'rm -rf' too much there. :)

http://img48.exs.cx/img48/1029/1matrix.jpg

(thanks Willoch)

:)

Mike & The Mechanics - Over my shoulder

:)

:)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis

Could it be that cats inadvertently pass this disease to mothers who might have less offspring and thus take better care of the cat?

Nurturing instincts being what they are..

Today it is 100 days left until the baby (Isak) is planned to arrive. The whole process of waiting for Isak to arrive has changed a lot of my perspectives. Not necessarily what I stand for, but I guess thinking like a parent makes you smarter in some ways.

The days go by, and at times I'm giddy with joy over Isak, at other times I'm scared about the responsability. It is a project for life, after all.

Hilde and I talk about these things, so that helps. Communication is the key. There is some nagging and minor conflicts, but nothing we can't handle. Going around with a baby in the belly can be a strain too I guess (hormones..).

Will Isak become a programmer? A businessman? A musician? A doctor? These are things I think about. I think it would be wise to let him become whatever he wants to be, and not push him too much in any direction. Just listen to what interests him and encourage him.

From hearing from other people, the first period (2 months or so) after the baby is born can be especially tough. Feeding, pooping, diaper changes, crying, getting up in the middle of the night - things like that. But we've made the choice now and have to follow through. It will be interesting, that's for sure.

I'm ready to kick ass, for the new boss.

Billy Ocean - When the going gets tough the tough gets going

;)

http://blogologue.com/isak.wav

:)

(Later.. updated with the right file. Turns out I uploaded some meta-file)

http://www.spotify.com/blog/archives/2009/06/25/bumping-up-t...

(I'm a Spotify subscriber now, paid my dues)

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/3064/0ekux3808481.jpg

(thanks Geir)

Looking at the stats for this blog, here's the top visiting countries:

Canada
Russian Federation
India
Germany
Luxembourg
United Kingdom
Brazil

Interesting how it differs so much, from the west to the east. Maybe this blogging in English thing was a smart thing to do.

PS: The top entry is commercial (.com) - but I guess a lot of different providers in different countries use .com for their subscribers. So it is hard to say whether they're from the US.

Monday and Wednesday this week I've been hiking up a mountain here in Mo i Rana where I'm on .. "workation" :) It is a great exercise, tough, but I can feel it is improving my body.

It is something the chiropractor recommended, who I've been visiting now a couple of times. Interestingly, he told me that chiropractors weren't recommended by doctors as they can compete with doctors.

Well, I'm kind of holding my breath here, hoping this chiropractor treatment + walking in varied (and soft) terrain will help. Tired of chugging down painkillers. A couple of people with back problems I've talked with have recommended chiropractors and they have gotten well quick, but now that I've had this back conditition for a while, it will probably take a while to get well too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8118721.stm

(thanks Eirik)

http://myfirstdictionary.blogspot.com/

(thanks Willoch)

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fan...

(thanks Chris)

Amsterdam this June 2009 was nice.  ;-)

I also got to visit the torture museum, where the "spanish chair" was on display.

I've found that Opera mini is quite good when surfing on my mobile phone. It is fast in use (scrolling etc.) but as I understand it, they also compress the content retrieved, scaling down images etc. One gripe I have about the Nokia E90 is that it is slow and sluggish. With Opera mini however, it works well.

A couple of years ago I was working out really hard.. I've never been a jock so I decided I'd try out being really fit.

Now I'm a bit heavier than in my "fit period", but I'm happy. I eat what I want pretty much when I want and I don't spend a lot of time working out. I should get out and walk more often though.

I guess my "fit period" was just a daze I was in trying to find the up/down, left/right in life. I blame all the models and clothing people pushing their photoshopped images of people who can't do much else than work out and eat salads.

A bit FU to bad role models and a big grouphug to the big & tall and round & small.

Whenever I'm not around my PC and listening to the radio, I tend to listen to P4 - a Norwegian radio channel.

They keep good playlists, with a slant towards older music (hits). They have really good playlists actually, that's what I rate radio stations after. Most talkshows on radio suck, a lot of talk about nothing.

But.. anyway, P4 (www.p4.no) uses Windows Media or something similar, so it won't work in my Firefox without extra plugins. But they also have a played, current and next song feature which displays the artist and song. So I'm using that now to find good songs on Spotify.

I guess the crux of any good music service is their playlists. Spotify nailed that with their playlists, but in their finite wisdom I think they might've made the playlists too restrictive. But maybe that's something we'll see improved later unless they see the playlists as they are, as an important piece of it all.

Oh well, I can always create new playlists in new software..

The last couple of days have been interesting for me, I've been setting up a Storage Area Network (SAN), some servers and a switch. With the good help of the folks from Servetheworld it went smoothly.. a few bumps in the road but fun. The SAN weighed around 40 KGs - quite heavy, and it wasn't that long either, but 3 Us tall.

Here's Dag, wouldn't been possible without his help:



So, now we're soon ready to host a new customer which requires a few servers, and in a week or two we'll have some new irons with 72 GBs of RAM each to take over hosting for the old servers.

Oh well, interesting times. I've been working for 14 hours now, but I don't feel that tired. The overtime-pizza helped I guess. :P

Now, just to get things ready before I take 4-5 days off, to .. relax in Amsterdam. :D

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism."

-Howard Zinn

http://www.bestofblocket.se/bilder/fullsize.php?v=blocket_80...

(Thanks Eirik)

John Farnham - You're the Voice

"It's all shit to me"

Not sure who came up with that, but it's a good one.

I spent about 4 weeks in Spain now, and during my stay Spotify said I could only be outside of Norway for 2 weeks (or update to my current location).

So update the location on my profile was what I did, and a bunch of songs disappeared (first they turned red, then they went goner).

Luckily, now, after being in Norway for a day or two the songs are back! Saves me the trouble of adding them again (something I started on, but didn't complete).

Spotify lads, get your cross-country licensing in gear, I want to go to Spain again soon! :)

http://dl.ziza.ru/other/042009/27/pics/041_pics.jpg

(Thanks Chris_B)

Alanis Morisette - Hands Clean

Google Analytics

Google Anal-y-tics

(I'm learning a bit of Spanish these days)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

(thanks Hoffa)

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/replacing-world-la...

(thanks Hoffa)

"Build it and they will cum"

(I thought that was original, but a Google search revealed 270 hits):

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22build+it+and+they+will+cum...

I watched Quantom of Solace, and wasn't impressed. So, here's a review of the movie:

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=quantum_of_p...

Covers all the important points. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw&amp;feature=featu...

(Thanks Vegard)

http://blogs.news.com.au/images/uploads/bearattack.jpg

(Thanks Jeremy)

http://sovietrussia.org/f/src/tetoris.swf

(Thanks Skjaeve)

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2cpokyr&amp;s=5

(thanks Hoffa)

So now I've gotten Spotify to work on Linux, using Wine. Was easy enough.. the only trick to the whole deal is specifying the OSS option in the winecfg option tab.

Now my only gripe is that Spotify doesn't work in the air. :-)

But maybe that'll change?

I've always wanted to learn a bit more about writing C code, but nothing yet. Here's something that'll motivate me though

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHosLhPEN3k

http://temp.idklubb.org/elg/

(Thanks Ingolf)

"Mental masturbation - Can't beat the peeling"

-Me

I've encountered copying and pasting from Microsoft Office (Word) lately on Vista, and it turns out Word doesn't jive well with Plone editors such as FCKeditor, TinyMCE or Kupu.

A lot of XML and other .. crap is put into the HTML source when copying from Word to a web based editor.

The solution? Use Openoffice 3. It creates nicer HTML, in the cases I've tested anyway.

Created by Train Horns

(Thanks Ole)

By: Morten W. Petersen

Vinay,

yes - that could be something. Thanks for the tip :-)

By: Vinay

What about using something like motion (http://www.lavrsen.dk/twiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome) and then scp/ftp the generated file?

So we've got a new gig for a customer, creating a website which among other things includes a feature where a live-image-feed of their office is one of the tasks. This is on Zope and Plone of course.

Today I picked up a web camera (Logitech QuickCam Sphere AF) - looks good so far and it has up to 8 megapixels capacity. It is also possible to enable tracking of people and autofocus, but both those features are.. not 100%.

So, now all that remains on that bit is finding a tool that can capture these images and upload them to the website. I think I've found one (it's called fwink), but it remains to be seen after some testing if it'll hold up.

I've gone through 5-6 different webcam-to-website upload tools and all of them sucked, badly. At the bottom of the list was an Open Source tool (fwink) which actually worked. The only irk is that it has port 21 for FTP as a default - I'd like something where you can define the port yourself so I mailed the author. I have my hopes up, maybe this could be an easy fix.

I've been reading up on Rick Falkvinge's blog, the leader of the Swedish Pirate Party:

http://rickfalkvinge.se/2009/02/27/valkomna-ombord/

It talks about the "Private police law" - Ipred which was accepted in "Riksdagen" a little while ago. I don't know where to begin, but to sum it up, the content industry would be able to:

* Perform private criminal investigations
* Force an ISP to provide the subscriber info for the IP address they've been supervising and see as an (illegal) file sharer (even the Swedish police don't have the rights to do that)
* Confiscate the house and freeze the bank accounts of the person they suspect for illegal filesharing

  They go after the person responsible for the connection, not necessarily the person doing the infringement

* Search the house and any equipment which can contain infringing content (private diaries? private surfing history? politicial intentions? sexual preferences?) They get to see it all.

And that's just some of it. On the other hand, I see Telenor here in Norway today are sticking it to the content industry, saying that basically they can't shut down access to the Pirate Bay, because it would be like the postal office inspecting mail. They also nip it in the bud and flat out say that the business model of the content industry is broken, and that it needs to change (using mobile phone ring tones as an example of something that works). That may be because Telenor has a vested interest and a piece of the pie for content that gets ordered through their network or using their broadband, but oh well.

But, anyway back to this Swedish deal. From what I surmise, the content industry can go after anyone they suspect, freeze their assets (how do you pay your lawyer then?) and force the people to pay up the sum on short notice. Nothing like being held hostage huh?

Another bit in that article is that the group of people accused of filesharing can be forced to pay an ad where they admit to being convicted. To draw a macabre paralell, I know there are places where you can be executed and your family forced to pay for the bullet. Or that you're publicly humiliated (flogged) and then sent to economic prison for a while. If it isn't an economic death sentence.. can anyone fathom the anguish of being publicly humiliated and ruined?

I can only hope that the politicians here in Norway don't go down the same path.

By: Morten W. Petersen

Completed and launched, now we just need to follow up and make some minor adjusments.. :)

By: Vinay

whoa, you finished the site?

http://www.fnm.com/news/

(thanks Eirik)

http://images.foodproof.com/bacon-and-cheese-stuffed-pizza-b...

(Thanks Eirik)

Update...

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

(thanks Hoffa)

http://rolcats.com/

(Thanks Hoffa)

Everything but the Girl - Missing

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k299/doogiescard/Hilarious...

I salute to that, as I'm drinking Pripps Blå Extra Stark right now, a beer I bought in Sweden yesterday. Were they have much lower prices. All combined, I saved around 7-800 Kroner on that short trip, as I got to use Hilde's customs quota as well.

http://www.carlsbergsverige.se/Drycker/ol/Sidor/PrippsBl%E5E...

Lately I've been working my butt off, for good reason. My guesstimate for a project was a bit off, so I had to do double-time to reign it in.

That's how you learn I guess. I've been in this game for over 10 years now and still learning. But I have faith that it will all be worth it some day.

Heck, now I even had some time and energy to update and fix my weblog. One thing I've become vary about lately is legal things. Different rights on different things. So I've combed through the weblog to make sure I'm on the right side of the track there. We've been shelling out money on lawyers for contracts and such lately so I've figured I've gotta keep my path clean in whatever I do that can be even loosely related to the business.

This weblog is a personal thing, but if some uptight dude or dudette comes along I don't want to have anything out of order. It makes sense too, as I start to play the I-own-this game I've gotta play by the rules..

This blog has been a bit slow but I didn't bother to check why. Turns out spammers were hammering a demo of this tool with spam, so I made a public demo private instead. Easy, but not so fun fix. :)

Oh well, time to go to bed.

http://robsell.com/rs/Google_Van_Deer/

(thanks Eirik)

Richard Clayderman, James Last and His Orchestra - Streets of Philadelphia

It's been light blogging lately, I'm currently busting my noble bits on a big project. Not much to say now, but we're in good shape. At times I feel like a stretched-out octopus.

Focus, focus, focus!

http://dont-read.com/imghost/waterboard.jpg

(thanks Kre)

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CH_cow_2.jpg

(thanks Esc)

http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mccain.gi...

(thanks Rad)

http://www.headsethotties.com/

(thanks Hoffa)

Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy

We've got a christmas tree up, nothing to brag about, but it brings the spirit of Christmas to our living room.

http://gadgets.boingboing.net/gimages/Keyboard%20Art.html

(Thanks to Skjaeve for the link)

Lately I've been playing with Spotify, a new app/service which makes music available through a player:

http://www.spotify.com/en/

It doesn't have a lot of Pink Floyd or Metallica originals, but lots of other good obscure music. I think I've found a new favourite app.. it's snappy and music loads straight away.

A Linux port isn't available yet, but I've heard rumours of people getting it running with Wine. So there's hope.

Today we had taco-pizza for dinner, which Hilde prepared. With tortillas on top and lots of cheese. Tasty.

Along with some lite beer (not light, but lite, as in less calories) we've been relaxing all night on the sofa, not doing much at all.

As I grow older I've learned to enjoy some of the smaller things in life, not chasing after something all the time, but just being and relaxing.

I think the key is learning not to give a shit at times. Live and let live. Some issues have an expiry date anyway, a different place, a different time... :)

Went to the movies on Wednesday, saw the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. Nice flick, was in suspense for most of the movie.

I'm not going spoil the plot, but I liked it. Recommended. :)

David Bowie - Let's dance

Python 3.0 is released:

http://www.python.org/download/releases/3.0/

I'm an eager reader of "Verden vil bedras" (The world wants to be deceived) - a blog which I stumbled over a while ago, while googling for "verden vil bedras."

Today I read a posting about the housing bubble here in Norway, and the people who've been pushing the prices up up and away. These same people who have everything to gain from prices going up. Now these people (whose businesses are close to bankrupt) are going into the debt collection business, collecting money from hard-working and/or unfortunate people who get lured into buying things they don't need. And you can't go bankrupt as a person here in Norway (in the traditional sense of the work), you can get deals however. 5 years of hard work and little income to live off, and then if you get lucky later and strike it rich, the people who lured you into buying it can still come and collect.

What I surmise from this is that basically, this is our modern day version of torture. You will get tortured until you understand (or believe, whatever you like). A broken system?

Anyway, I don't have the time or energy translate it - here it is, a good read:

http://verdenvilbedras.blogspot.com/2008/12/notar-jakter-enn...

Ziggy Marley - Tomorrow people

According to this:

  http://www.typealyzer.com/

we have different personalities depending on which page you look at..

Makes sense, I guess. :)

Hilde had some spare time so she decided to have some fun.  :)

The last song of the day was something I listened to a bit when I was younger. The "cool" kids were into Public Enemy, wearing PE caps and things like that.

We were rebelling against something, but I'm not sure exactly what. I guess PE was born out of anger as a group of people were fighting for a good status and place in society.

A couple of weeks ago we saw some punk-heads having a protest, and there were several cop-cars at the event. The cops were pretty relaxed about it, even when that song was played on a boom-box. "Raaawrr, we're rebelling!"

My dad's a cop, so don't take that reference as me being for cop-hating. Cops have to play by the rules defined by politicians, and someone with the power (and the law on their side) can easily abuse it - there are bad apples everywhere. I still see some stigma and racism here in Norway, where the actions of a few gives ammo to those who live by stereotypes.

But I guess that's the way it has always been. Ignorant people find something to hate and it spreads like a disease..

Public Enemy - Fuck the police

;)

Just a question...

Madonna - Express yourself

;)

"Their argument, in effect, was that the SYM is putting off traditional markers of adulthood—one wife, two kids, three bathrooms—not because he’s immature but because he’s angry. He’s angry because he thinks that young women are dishonest, self-involved, slutty, manipulative, shallow, controlling, and gold-digging. He’s angry because he thinks that the culture disses all things male. He’s angry because he thinks that marriage these days is a raw deal for men."

http://city-journal.com/2008/18_4_darwinist_dating.html

That's what happens when you experiment, I guess. I like the traditional roles, that the man is the breadwinner and the woman is at home. Or perhaps not like, but the roles are familiar and predictable.

I'm not saying women are less capable of doing a good job at the workplace (raising and nurturing kids in a good way with good results is one great feat and I've met women in prominent positions doing their jobs well), but it is the natural (as in, nature's way) order of things. Hilde (my better half), is mostly the boss at home. Boss, as in, she takes initative to doing things in our home (and I say, "uh ... OK" ;)), and often arranges social events. No, I was only kidding, it's not that way. We talk and discuss things, but she likes to deal with those things and I play along.

I've gotten a bit better at the homebase thing myself, stepping into the softer manly role. After all, she has a job too and nobody is a superhero.

Times they are a-changin' - that's for sure. Maybe we're getting exactly what we're wishing for?

Maybe the feminists got a little more than they bargained for, or maybe it is just something that needs to be balanced out over time.. I hope for the latter.

Anyway, I find it interesting how we try to come to terms with evolution. If we take evolution's history, things started out as little not very intelligent organisms. What's been happening for the last thousands of years is nothing more than us collectively becoming a bigger organism. The tribe, the kingdom, the state, the .. what? :)

I wonder what they'll be saying about this 300 years from now.

Who's there?

Boo.

Pearl Jam - Jeremy

Radiohead - Creep

Bonus link, wonderful alternate version: http://takingtigermountain.com/archives/113

:)

Thanks to Freeclipartnow for the buttons.

Fine young cannibals - She drives me crazy

;)

Lately I've been too lazy to shave, so I'm starting to get something that looks like a beard. And then I found this link, for extra motivation:

http://www.biggerbetterbeards.org/

Kelly Rowland - Work (The Freemasons radio edit)

;)

Metallica - Cyanide (compressed version ;))

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/k5OmVVfssYBrsUJZCF

(thanks Stig)

Last last night (around 3 AM) Hilde (my girl), Kaye (my bro) and I came back from 2 weeks in Spain. Also in the gang was Britt (friend of Hilde, but she had to leave after a week).

We spent the last week with Hilde's folks as well, which was a good time. It's good to get to know her family and get some roots (for our flower to grow ;)). :)

Anyway, there was a lot of time to think and relax on the trip, and for better or worse, I think a lot.

Religion, politics, existence are things that I often mull over, to the point of being like a bulldog that never lets go. Picking up bits and pieces of information on the net as I go along. :)

Anyway, what I'm thinking is that religion is a system which in many ways has been the basis of modern society. Rules, rituals and laws which bring order to chaos. The chaos of survival of the fittest, the selfish gene etc. Structure to the slow burn that evolution is.

I learned a bit about Christianity in school, and although I understand and respect the basic rules, some of those rules are outdated as well. It's like a artist called Ravi said (something along the lines of) in a song, "navigating by old maps is insane".

The bible is full of good stories and metaphors that can teach us something about life, and I suspect that with a bit of experience in that field know that there is no God or Devil, Christianity is a tool devised to give people meaning and hope (and perhaps to give "the wise" the control they need). I guess there is some good in most religions, it's just about picking the right things. Maybe YOU should start one of your own? Nirvana sounds like a good idea to me. ;)

Heaven and hell, the carrot and the stick.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions they say, and that is often true. The US plays cop in the world, and steamrolls Saddam under the excuse of avenging the 9/11 attack. Too busy taking care of others business to take care of their own (financial collapse anyone?)

I'm not saying Saddam is a good guy, and maybe these smoke and mirror games are required to keep the public at ease and prevent things from escalating, but that's basically saying that "we know what's good for you, now take this sweet pill."

Maybe these things are just bumps in the road towards A Better Place (TM), but I can't help thinking about it.

I read the other day that the universe could stop expanding.. or "working" or whatever in 50 billion years. The basic laws of physics implied that.

Well, isn't it time to stop the bickering and work together to bend the laws of nature so that we can ourselves be gods, and be able to manipulate everything?

I saw the Matrix some years ago with a friend (Erik) and he kinda got the point, it took a while (me being hung up on details) before I understood the metaphor. The most of us are living in an illusion, being born into it and being none the wiser.

Anyway, enough rambling. Just had to say something. :-)

Whitney Houston - I Wanna Dance With Somebody

;)

Aphex Twin - On

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toS-QvUtbfY

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/2856435471_e65eecb2db.jp...

I personally found the picture above funny. Still chuckling as I think about it and in the context of what Obama said earlier about lipstick on a pig.. well. Good one. :)

From the outside that election looks like a bit of a farce, with all the off-the-issues, dirty remarks.

But I see that here in Norway as well, you have a lot of politicians/newspapers who take mistakes other politicians make, and maximize it and really rub it in.. the drama is entertaining to some I guess, and it gives the tabloids something to write about.

Here's hoping whoever wins will do a good job. To me it's a win-win, the first time an African American is President, or a woman is Vice President.

Progress.

http://bildr.no/view/257105

(Only understandable if you follow Norwegian news)

Bruce Hornsby - The way it is

Bonus link: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1tn79_bruce-hornsby-the-wa...

Tina Turner - We don't need another hero

Salt-N-Pepa - Push it

George Harrison - I've got my mind set on you

Kool & the gang - Celebration

ABBA - Dancing queen

Johnny Nash - I can see clearly now

:)

Bob Marley - Three little birds

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtwGyxzxBDg

Weezer - Pork and beans

Lupe Fiasco - Superstar

Last Thursday we arrived at Mo i Rana, up in northern Norway, visiting Hilde's family.

It's been good, and right now we're at the family vacation place in Sjona:

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sjona

enjoying the nature (just look at those photos) and fishing. Caught some large fish so far, and will probably catch some more.

Fun to get back to fishing.. it's been a while. :)

NDA is part of the DNA of interesting business. I guess.

Snoop Dogg - Gin & Juice

Bonus link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6TUhx2wX0M

Since last Friday, we (Hilde & I) have been having family visting, her parents, my mom and the extended family.

Lots of good food & drink, trips here & there.

Yesterday we went to Tusenfryd:

  http://tusenfryd.no/english/location.aspx

an amusement park here just outside of Oslo. Some pictures, me and my mom and Hilde and me:





On the last picture there you can see me clinging to the handlebar, as that could help in case something broke and we could fall out.  ;)

Hilde's family is good at arranging things together, and we have some good times;  in the short time we've been together (some 8 months and counting) it feels like I've gotten an big extended family and a lot of new friends.  And as you can see on the picture above, mom is enjoying herself as well.

We even went to the Bruce Springsteen concert on Monday, but I was too busy drinking beer and talking trash to take some pictures.

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=599793&amp;cid=2400...

I'm sure a lot of people have had that thought before.

Maybe get myself one of these soon?

http://www.openmoko.com/products-index.html

So, this Norwegian Wood thing was cool. Went there Thursday, Friday and Sunday (Saturday I attended a bad taste party, dressed as a gangsta).

Today Hellbillies (a Norwegian band) and Alanis Morisette played. Overall they were good performances, but the best had to be Foo Fighters on Thursday.

Oh well, another festival notch in the belt. :)

Yesterday was the first day at the Norwegian Wood, where we saw Dinosaur Jr and Foo Fighters.

The Foos were great live, and during the concert we found a sweet spot on the left hand of the scene where we got a great view of the whole thing.

Music + (one too many) beers + kebab pretty much sums it up.  Good fun, hope Queens of the stone age are as good as Foo were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Comparison_of_file...

(Thanks Vinay)

Whisking away in a car at 90 km/h in the middle of nowhere, and I still get EDGE level internet access on my phone - that is very cool. Will be visiting family this weekend, and attending a festival called Vømmølfestivalen. Maybe do some linkage afterwards, so you'll see what it is all about. :)

Guns'n'Roses - Civil war

Bonus link: http://video.aol.com/video-detail/civil-war-by-guns-n-roses-...

Kelly Rowland - Work (Put it in)

;)

Bonus linkage: http://youtube.com/watch?v=pjw9XTqMe6A

Thanks to my brother Kay for this one:

"A Japanese doctor said, 'Medicine in my country is so advanced that we can take a kidney out of one man, put it in another, and have him looking for work in six weeks.'

A German doctor said, 'That's nothing, we can take a lung out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks.'

A British doctor said, 'In my country, medicine is so advanced that we can take half of a heart out of one person, put it in another, and have them both looking for work in two weeks.'

A Texas doctor, not to be outdone said, 'You guys are way behind. We took a man with no brains out of Texas , put him in the White House and now half the country is looking for work."

Wyclef Jean - Gone til' November

I've been skipping reading blogs and feeds for a while (using Bloglines for feed reading, works great).

Anyway, after reading Mozillazine's post on the latest Firefox beta:

  http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=23077

and seeing you could install a separate version of Firefox without it messing around with the Firefox version I use regularly I thought why not.

Here's the link to the portable app version:

  http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test

I'm playing around with Vista these days, and I don't have the time (or inclination) to learn about how to backup the default Firefox profile so yeah, it seemed like a good idea.

What can I say, Firefox 3 rocks. It looks good, and it is fast as hell. Props to all the developers for this one. If I had to use one word to describe Firefox 3 it would be snappy.

I've seen Vista get a lot of flack, but it isn't that bad actually. A bit slow perhaps, and it gives the BSOD every time I try to connect to Nokia Communicator E90, but otherwise it's OK.

Oh well, have to test new things I guess, back to Ubuntu soon. :)

Kanye West - Good life

84 words

Speed test

It was worth a couple of tries:

"353 points, so you achieved position 74628 of 1345635 on the ranking list.

You type 448 characters per minute
You have 84 correct words and you have 0 wrong words
Might be worth revisiting later. "

On the other hand, less is more.. ;)

By: Morten W. Petersen

Hehe, good point. Oh well, guess there are no simple solutions to complex issues after all. ;)

http://blogologue.com/wow.png

Taken on my new ~1200 USD 15.4" laptop with Core 2 Duo and 4 GB RAM. Gotta love Ubuntu. :)

By: David Todd Watson

I act like an idiot everytime i drink... so I would lose my license right away. If there was a reward system to get it back, I probably would be a good boy until I got it back, and then lose it again.

People are idiots, and us idiots should be allowed to have fun too. Who would you make fun of if you didnt have idiots?

I think we should have a drinkers license. Act like an idiot when you're drunk? Have it revoked.

Don't have it? OK, then you can't enter nightclubs, order drinks at restaurants or buy any alcohol "legally."

Just a thought.. :)

http://www.little-gamers.com/index.php?comicID=576

(Updated to point to the right space..)

Pearl Jam - Jeremy

Lift up the receiver, I'll make you a believer

By: Hilde

:* :)

http://www.maniacworld.com/death-star-cafeteria.html

;)

Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love

:*

:)

http://img.4chan.org/b/src/1200677477924.jpg

http://img.4chan.org/b/src/1200677163749.jpg

Ooops, looks like they pulled the files..

Went to the movies with Hilde this evening, to watch I am legend. Nice movie, a bit over the top but it hit home. :)

Michael Jackson - Black or white

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI9OYMRwN1Q

;)

And I've been working like a .. cat?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7_u0PgEbYE

;)

Soul II Soul - Back To Life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvC1ijiyv1c

Yesterday I helped out Kaye (my brother) on his store, doing an inventory count. We were some 10-15 people and spent 8 hours or so counting up stock.

I had a short stint earlier working at a similar store, but that didn't last long due to .. various reasons. :)

The tasks were easy enough, but there were some challenges as well, with things that didn't work as expected. One notable thing was the sticky notes used to keep track of the count on each product, but that was solved with rolls and rolls of tape.

Kaye has created a great working environment at the store, where people are friendly and sort out most things themselves without having anyone rip some lip. Kaye is a people person, I think I've always seen that in him.

Now all that's left is figuring out what I'm going get compensated for my help, if anything. ;)

I'm lying here on the sofa with my laptop, just relaxing and watching what my brother is watching on the TV. We've got the computer hooked up to the TV using HDMI (sweet) and have the computer hooked up to the sound system as well.

As we were watching, I noticed that Kaye was online on MSN, so I decided to have some fun. I use Pidgin, but it is possible to nudge using the "/nudge" command, so I did that a couple of times.

The nudge sound came and went a couple of times (on the sound system), and I asked Kaye if maybe he should log off MSN while we were watching something (this has happened before).

Well, it took a couple of more nudges, but I got him out of the sofa. When he came to the computer and turned around I just laughed and he rolled his eyes.

I laughed hard for a while after that too. :)

I got a nice present for Christmas from Chris (http://magnon.wordpress.com/). It's a certificate which gives me some money I can loan out to entrepreneurs around the world, through

  http://www.kiva.org

I was daydreaming about something similar maybe half a year or year ago. I remember playing a lot of Sim City in my younger days, and the fun of that was building things and seeing what works.

I'd like to see something similar for developing countries; the ability to participate in some project somewhere, where you get frequent updates where you can see the results of your ideas, investments and things like that.

Might be helping modernize a town, might be something else. Total transparency would be needed of course.

Christmas is a nice thing.  It's a bit of stress buying presents, and helping around the house - but you get out of the usual routine and get some days of pure joy and relaxation.

So, we have a little bit of extra cash in the company, so I'm wondering what it makes sense to spend that on.  If not saving it for a rainy day.

My laptop has been overheating randomly, and it's a bit slow.  Which is an annoyance at times as it is my ultimate work tool.  So, maybe getting a new, kick-ass laptop could be something.  On the other hand, it's not that long since I bought it, so maybe use it for another 6-12 months and get some ROI.  I wouldn't give it to anyone else, even for free, because it's badly worn.  :)

Anyway, I've also been considering taking an MBA.  It's expensive and time-consuming, but maybe also a good investment. If I can get the company to pay for the education and maybe some of the time spent studying, it could be a good thing.  It's good for the company, it's good for me.  But it will cost money.

Since my late teens I've not been big at school;  I used to love it, then dreaded it, now I'm kind of motivated for it again.  I see the value of adding to my "knowledge bank" the easy way, instead of trial-and-error (which is extremely valuable knowledge too, but maybe takes a while longer, not to mention might be more painful).

Oh well, we'll see.  Times are-a-changin' :)

A couple of days ago I bought a new wireless router, so I could lay on the sofa with my laptop.

Visiting mom for Christmas, and thought why not get a wireless router so that she and my sister get wireless access, and I get it whenever I'm here in Trondheim for business reasons.

Well, the first router didn't work.  It was cheap, so I thought to myself, OK - you get what you pay for.  It kept dropping the connection, both to the ADSL modem, as well as the laptop.  So I decided to try upgrading the firmware.  That helped for a little while, then it started misbehaving again.

Today I traded in that router for a more expensive one, and thought that would fix things.  But no;  after a while it completely shut down and was extremely hot when I tried to handle it.

So, I'm going to deliver that router back, and not buy anything from that router manufacturer for a while, and be skeptical about buying anything from that electric store.

Trading in the broken router was an ordeal in itself, as I got a receipt for only the "upgrade price";  when explaining that I needed a receipt for the entire amount for accounting, the employees were not sure what to do, and finally ended up giving me a "warranty slip" for the entire amount.  Which may be good enough for accounting, but I don't know.  But that's not too much of a problem now, as I'll be delivering the router back and getting a full refund.

What's the lesson here?  I dunno..  it might have been better to go to a more expensive, dedicated store.  If you spread too wide, chances are that the quality of what you're offering goes down.  It also makes sense to research products and brands first, so that you know what to go for before buying something.

Oh well, I'm back to using a cable for internet access now.  Which is OK, but it would've been better to have wireless.

:)

Coldplay - Fix you

:)

Ozzy Osbourne - Dreamer

Marc Cohn - Walking in Memphis

Lately I've been considering how things are going in my life, with business, personal stuff and everything.

I was fortunate enough to meet a very sweet girl about a month ago. We've talked a lot about different things, and we are comfortable together. It's been a while since I had a girlfriend, so it took a while to get used to it.

Balancing work, a girlfriend, friends and other activities is a bit tricky, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. Hilde (my girl) is understanding, and we talk together about different things so it's working out.

I've been doing this Nidelven IT thing for 5 years now, and this year is going to be the best we've done so far. I feel we've got a good network, both through our partners and our customers.

I've been reading Wealth Bondage / Gift Hub for a while now, and it's been a part of my thought process. Serving the double bottom line, doing well while doing good.

It's a balancing act; taking care of those around you, making sure everyone gets a good deal, while also watching out for possible dangers.

If it's windy at the top, why not do it like the penguins do? :)

Warren G - Regulate

Elvis - Teddy Bear

Rage Against the Machine - Fistful of Steel

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LLQki-mQF4Q

Norway is a good country to live in; you may blame that on the oil resources, but I'd like to think it's the culture, laws and social norms that have given us these benefits.

Related: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jante_Law

Translation:

Sweaty balls?

Try Balls Powder!  Keeps your crown jewels dry and comfortable.