My Scuba Diving, Insects, Photography and other interests blog

Sydney funnel-web spider

2011-12-04T02:22:00.000-08:00

Under a social business dinner recently the newly appointed CIO of Westpac, Clive Whincup, who is a literate of many subjects, told us that the neurotoxin from the Sydney funnel-web spider only was deadly to primates.

This is particularly interesting given that there are no other indigenous primates in Australia than the humans.

The neurotoxin causes wholesale release of neurotransmitters, especially acetylcholine. The puncture wound is intensely painful. Although the bite of the funnel-web spider (Atrax robustus) can be and has been fatal, there have been no reported deaths since the introduction of the antivenom in 1981.

This may be because all Sydney funnel-webs live within commuting distance of the Opera House, a relatively small area dense with well-supplied hospitals.

Although extremely toxic to primates, the venom appears to be fairly harmless to many other animals. So apparently science do not have an answer to why the funnel-web spider has developed a toxin that is harmless to many of its targeting small animals. It has been suggested that these animals may be resistant to the venom's effects due to the presence of Immunoglobulin G (lgG) and possibly cross-linked IgG and Immunoglobulin M (lgM) inactivating factors in their blood plasma that bind to the toxins responsible and neutralise them, or it may involve a non-specific reaction due to the highly basic nature of the toxins.

In other words, we don’t know why the funnel-web spider has developed a neurotoxin that is only able to kill the English convicts and immigrants at their arrival in Sydney more than 200 years ago…

Sydney

2011-09-29T22:50:00.001-07:00

Today marks the sixth month after moving to this fantastic and amazing country and city of festivals, [marine] wildlife, exciting insects and friendly people (sydneysiders).

There are a few ‘properties’ we have noted while been living in Sydney for the last six months:
• There are very few churches in Sydney
• There are a number of very skilled buskers (street musicians)
• You will find public toilets on most corners
• There is a festival ‘every day’
• There is a food festival every week (and almost as many wine festival)
• There is a beach on ‘every corner’
• Almost every sydneysider lives by the shore
• All shops are open every day
• This is a very green city with trees along every street
• You can enjoy fresh and very tasty locally grown vegetables and fruits every day
• You can eat your ice-cream inside the cinema
• The wines of Australia is different and very nice
• People in Sydney is not only friendly, but indeed polite and social

So in short I can say, without even mentioning the excellent climate, life is indeed tolerable in Sydney Australia!!

Muslim role model and uproar in the Middle East

2011-03-23T23:46:00.000-07:00

It feels good when one read or experiences every day heroes and role models, people that stands out like a lighthouse and gives this good gut feeling that there are after all some people that has courage and self-sacrifice to make a better world for all of us. Nowadays I am sure that the nuclear plant workers in Japan are such role models, but I have also just had the immense pleasure of reading a very inspirational interview in Times (March 21^st 2011) with Shaista Gohir, a British Muslim feminist and an advisor to the government. I myself take an agnostic stand towards religion, to me religion is a personal thing, nothing that one should impose on others or use as a political instrument, those that fights the religious moral police should be supported and Shaista Gohir is such a brave woman.

Traditionally the moral police has been scholars, persons (read males) that had the better understanding of the religious guidelines that you would find in the religious books like Koran, Bible etc., but lately there are more and more people (males again) using these religious guidelines out of context for their own purposes, typically to achieve their own goals and to control other people (women or “subjects”). Ms. Gohir is herself a well educated scholar in the Koran and has many examples of British Muslims that has approached her believing it is the husbands right to hit them and that men are superior to women etc – and Ms. Gohir explains that there are no support for these medieval interpretations of the Koran – its just male interpretations. I have never read the Koran, but I am sure she is right, it does not make sense; I mean if one should have a religion it must be based on respect and tolerance, why should one have a religion if those basic human social qualities are not there. I am sure it is in the Koran, it must be, I myself have lived among a majority of Muslims and has never experienced more tolerant people (Bangladeshis), much more than my “local” Christian protestants that cannot tolerate homosexuality or a priest that publishes a book about sex in the Bible. I shiver when I think about those men that need to control everyone else, specifically their women.

Ms. Gohir has an interesting story about an argument she had with a British imam. The imam told her that “most inhabitants of Hellfire were women” and to back it up he quoted a Hadith. Hadiths are accounts of words and deeds of the Prophet, categorized as strong, i.e., likely to be accurate, or weak, i.e., likely to have been made up. Ms. Gohir argued that it was a weak Hadith and reminded the imam about a verse in the Koran that describes the inhabitants of Hell, “and nowhere does it say that there are more women than men”. The imam then began to list his intellectual credentials. “He was trying to make me feel unsure about my knowledge. But I was sure! So I kept pressing him and eventually he admitted it was a weak Hadith”, explained Ms. Gohir.

I say that this story is repetitive in possibly all other religions – its been used by Christians millions of times over!

Ms. Gohir has received numerous threats to her person, but has relentlessly taken the position to fight for the Muslim women and against the male suppressive interpretation of the Koran, “there is nothing in the Koran that prohibits women to wear trousers” and Ms. Gohir also does not agree to the veil; “in other countries women are fighting to take off the veil, in Britain they are fighting to put it on”. “Young men who think they are the moral police have reduced Islam to a piece of cloth”. Also, she says, those who wants to use the veil should be left alone.

I have hereby put down Shaista Gohir as one of my inspirational and brave everyday hero’s that is dedicated to make the world a better place!

Ok, so here comes the punch; In lieu of what is just now happening in the Arab world, a world of Muslims, why have they tolerated the suppressive dictatorship for so long? I am not only happy for their liberation, but also very impressed by their courage and bravery, but why not earlier? They (read men and women) have clearly demonstrated that they have it in them, is it the religion that has been misused by their leaders to misguide the people to sustain oppression? The leaders themselves have obviously prospered since they all have and are very, very wealthy? Moreover, now that the courageous Libyan people are liberating themselves from their mad dictatorship, where are their Arab and Muslim brothers? It’s only the oil-hungry west that is spending vast their resources in helping them out.

Just like the Chinese and Russians (members of the ‘abstain’ club) it appears that their Arab brothers are just saving their funds till ‘the others’ have fought the battle and then they come creeping to ‘invest’ and put their straws into the resources of the liberated Arab countries.

I think there is a final battle to be fought; lets liberate all nations from the religion instrument!

Paradise, marine life and democracy

2011-03-06T21:36:00.000-08:00

Yet again I have had the opportunity to experience a close encounter of the fascinating gigantic manta rays in the Maldives, specifically at the Conrad Rangali resort on the Ari atoll. Two years ago, at exactly the same time of the year, I got to see the first one, now I encountered a giant of something like 5-6 meters wingspan (pictured by my dive buddy Nigel Hossack) – its nothing less than breathtaking – literarily as the encounter happens around 10 meters under water and only 1-2 m away from us. In general, experiencing the amazing marine diversity is in itself awarding. Nobody knows how vast this diversity really is, but the recently published Ocean Census is at least trying to record and find out, so are the scuba divers in the Maldives. Counting only those species being recorded with photos by scuba divers at the Maldives, we already have around thousand fish species, but of course, the reality is much higher, no wonder this marine diversity is important to the diversity of the whole globe, us included.

The Maldives is truly a paradise, but reviewing a few facts may present a different picture in retrospect, not only consists this paradise of about 1200 coral islands and 26 atolls, but the Maldives is the lowest country in the world, with a maximum natural ground level of only 2.3 metres, with the average being only 1.5 metres above sea level, it is the country with the lowest altitude in the world!

Politically, Tunisia is possibly not the first Arab/Muslim country in recent time where the people has successfully overthrown the government and its dictator who where exploiting the people and the country for decades, the Maldives did it already in 2008 when a ‘bloodless revolution’ occurred and the people of the Maldives got a democratic constitution and a President elected fairly by the people. It’s a pleasure and with great admiration I have observed what their young President has achieved in terms of creating a contagious enthusiasm for the Maldives by us who visits the Maldives and by the Maldivians themselves and their hope for the future!

Nokia + Microsoft Mobile = bankrupcy?

2011-02-13T01:57:00.000-08:00

About two years ago Nokia launched N97 as a response to the iPhone challenge – all of us who explored this ‘innovative’ new Nokia phone was rather surprised that it was possible to launch anything as poor as this …?#$...

Not only was this a poor mimic of the iPhone, but it was low quality and really poor usability – ages away from anything that could resemble the iPhone or challenge the iPhone. At the time I predicted 10 years before Nokia would go bankrupt if this was the best they could come up with… In the meantime the Google Android OS has been launched and embraced by most of Nokia’s competitors – Android is a real challenge to iPhone, but Nokia did not follow the crowd, they continued with Symbian, until now…. Nokia is so down on their knees that they actually marries another mobile looser, Microsoft mobile 7 which their partners have left already to the benefit of the much more user friendly Android.

HPC, one of the more successful smartphone providers left the Microsoft platform and shifted early to the much more modern Android. Why would Nokia think they will be successful with Microsoft 7 – have they not noticed that there has been a shift of paradigm and that the iPhone, and now Android, represents a disruptive technology? Just like the mobile communication technology (GSM, GPRS, etc) was to the land line telephony in the beginning of the 90's…

"Management is the Most Creative of Arts"

2010-12-27T09:18:00.000-08:00

I doubt there are many persons in my generation that can identify the origin of the following quote:

"Management is, in the end, the most creative of all arts - for its medium is human talent itself. What, in the end, is managements most fundamental task? It is to deal with change. Management is the gate through which social, political, economical, technological change - indeed change in every dimension - is rationally and effectively spread through society.
Some critics, today, keep worrying that our democratic, free societies are being overmanaged. The real truth is precisely the opposite. As paradoxical as it may sound, the real threat to democracy comes from undermanagement, not from overmanagement....." (my bold face emphasis)

This is an excerpt from a speech made by Robert S McNamara in 1967 when he set out his vision of the role of management and its importance in our world.
I am sure I share shudders with lots of persons of my generation when we hear the name of McNamara whom the most of us connects with his role as the US Secretary of defense during the Vietnam war, but in reality he is regarded as one of the most brilliant management spokespersons and tutors of the modern management philosophy that I am sure Barack Obama and other 'modern' leaders today subscribes to - not to mention all those that really should read McNamara on management to execute their management roles more efficient and to the best of the team they are managing - simply put, there is lot to learn from this brilliant and wise man.
Another cold war 'ghost', Barry Goldwater, said: "McNamara is one of the best secretaries ever, an IBM machine with legs" - that sounds to me as .......

MC kjøreteknikk og mange gode råd

2010-12-26T05:38:00.000-08:00

Endelig en Norsk bok for oss som allerede dagen etter at vi har satt bort sykkelen for vinteren føler abstinens og rykk i clutch- og brems-fingeren for om mulig våren kommer tidlig neste år...
Boka til Geir Ugland Jacobsen fortjener en honnør for sitt forsøk på å balansere behovet, for noen MC-førere, å kjøre fort og samtidig ikke ta unødvendig risiko og/eller å sette andre trafikanter i fare. Geir gir et definitivt modent innblikk inn i MC-førerenes utfordringer blandet med sine egne omfattende erfaringer og gode råd - og gode råd er det mange av.
Sjøl er jeg bare opptatt av svinger, Geir er i tillegg opptatt av fri fart på Tyske autobahn og/eller på Ringen, helt greit spør du meg, dersom det gjøres med fornuft - og til det tror jeg Geir er et godt forbilde.
Sjøl er jeg som sagt, kun opptatt av svinger, dvs svingteknikk og det å kunne ta svingene så raskt og korrekt som mulig - og dessuten deler jeg med Geir hans begeistring for naturopplevelsene du får på Norske veier om de nå er på Vestlandet eller Østlandet.
Jeg deler også Geir's forundring over trafikkmyndighetene og deres tolkning av fornuftig kjøring, dvs ikke all kjøring over fartsgrensen er ufornuftig, det må sees i en helhet. Blant mine egne erfaringer har jeg fra over Dovrefjell i topp vær og sommerføre, nesten ingen trafikk og muligheter til å se veien flere kilometer foran deg, da er det vanskelig å forstå at 101km/t er uforsvarlig...
Geir har mange gode erfaringer og eksempler å dele med leseren som jeg i høyeste grad kan kjenne meg igjen i og som er gode påminnelser nå i vintermørke hvor vi alle bare sitter å venter på mildere klima, vår og sykkelslepp!

Dette var en fin julepresang og en herlig lesing som selvsagt ikke har hjulpet mye på å redusere forventningene til våren. Dersom det skal sies noe ut fra en subjektiv negativ observasjon så måtte det være at bokas forfatter har en lang liste med "riskokere" på samvittigheten som alle mer eller mindre har kraft og høy toppfart som fellesnevnere, ikke sikkerhet som jeg vektlegger høyt. Med dette mener jeg at teknologien innenfor sikkerhet og MC for lengst har løst "stoppie" problemet med f.eks. BMW's paralevel "stupgaffel". Det samme kan sies om frivillig og ufrivilige "wheelies" - bakhjulskjøring som kan skrues av og på med BMW's antispinn. Antispinn løser også delvis problemet med grus i kjørebanen og plutselig glatt kjørebane og på toppen av det hele så har flere andre produsenter enn BMW også løst problemet med feil nedbremsing ved å la ABS og balansert forbrems virker på både bak- og forbremsen. Beklager Geir, men jeg måtte bare si det ;-), et teknologihjerte som mitt lar seg selvsagt også begeistre av disse løsningene. Uansett, boka anbefales på det sterkeste!
Boka kan dere bestille på: www.fastest.no

So long and thanks for all the fish!

2010-11-08T11:12:00.000-08:00

This famous quote from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams should be known to most of you, but what is possibly less known, is how much fish do we actually have in our great ocean?

We have a long history of performing censuses in each country to better understand population growth of people and even cows and pigs, but we have never done a census of the marine life! This means that we possibly know very little about the ocean that feeds us, not only as food, but also in terms of what we need to live as the ocean produces about 70% of the oxygen in the atmosphere.

The newly published Census of the marine life is a unique first attempt to better understand the life in the great ocean of our planet. It has been composed by 17 different international projects over 10 years involving more than 2,700 researchers and more than 500 expeditions. The result is more than 1,000 new species to science – and still counting!

The fact that the ocean is to Earth thinner than the skin to an apple, we know very little about the diversity and what is going on in the great depths of the ocean that science just a few years ago was certain did not contain any life forms, but we were all wrong! In 1990 experts estimated that less than 5% of the biodiversity in the ocean had been described. If we start counting microbes, it gets even more breathtaking as a single litre of seawater can contain more than a billion microbes and the microbes accounts for 90% of the total biomass in the ocean!

So, there is a job to do and a great opportunity to better understand how to ensure that our great ocean can be harvested in a sustainable way to the best of the entire population of the planet, and that includes the marine life itself, as there are many predators out there that belong to the food chain. Talking about predators and food chain, the humans are on the top and we should of course be the most concerned about our harvest and hunting habits.

In the October 2010 issue of National Geographic you can read about the disturbing consequences of fishing (and eating) top predators in the sea. One such top predator is the Atlantic bluefin tuna another is the Atlantic salmon. The blufin tuna is about to get extinct and it becomes obvious if you look at the price tag for each fish in market, they easily reach tens of thousands of dollars. The blufin tuna is slow to reproduce and is among the most energy demanding predators in the sea. If you eat 1 kg of a blufin tuna, it equals to 10kg of its intermediate predators like Pollock and herring and 100 kg of anchovies and lobsters and 1,000 kg of phytoplankton. This is really amazing and should be back of your head next time you go to the fishmonger. Ask for 1 kg herring or squid as it has a tenfold less impact on the species in the ocean.

Talking about buying and eating fish, one fisherman in Norway told us recently on the news that when he sent 1kg fish for preparation and packaging to China, he got 1.2 kg back. The reason is that the fish is being filled with water and Tri Sodium di Phosphate – that is E450 – how do you like that? Apparently the food authorities don’t care if you are being fed with phosphate – what about you?

We all should be more concerned about the link between the fish industry and the authorities, another example from Norway is the giant red King crabs (Kamchatka) that are now invading and clearing the sea floor along the cost from North to South and the fish industry is being imposed catch limitations to ensure the prices are kept high – what about the ocean environment and the diversity – down the drain, if you ask me!

In reality, and very much confirmed by the Census of the marine life, we don’t understand the consequences of wiping out huge amount of marine life as we still dont understand how vast the marine life really is. The most dense populated places in the ocean is the coral reefs, even here the scientists only have estimates that it is the home of between 600,000 and 9,5 million species, talking about big variations in estimates – and btw, there are deep sea coral reefs along the Norwegian cost line as well.

Make sure you eat the delicious and nutritious food from the ocean, but be a bit more cautious about what you eat. In 1949 Danish fishermen catches 5,500 tons of bluefin tuna, today they are extinct. And remember, it is all or nothing, that is, even the fish we don’t eat (at least most of us) needs to be protected, in the Mediterranean Sea, sharks have declined 99.99%!

Check out the ocean-film http://www.coml.org/oceans-film

Serious Men

2010-10-22T00:55:00.001-07:00

I have just completed a hilarious and amusing book “Serious Men” by Manu Joseph – and I need to share with you some of his very Indian and very global philosophical views through some of the statements given by the characters in this very readable book.

First of all, the book is about a clerk (read low cast) who is the secretary to the Director (high cast Brahmins) of Institute of Theory and Research, a kind of sandbox for astronomy and even bioastronomy (?). One of the tasks given (or taken) carried out by the secretary is to write ‘Thought for the day’ on the Institute blackboard and as a low cast he also enjoys the possibilities of upsetting any of the researchers as they are all Brahmins and has been given education – he himself has 'only' an IQ of 148, but has still not been given the opportunity of higher education. When he writes the thought for the day, he picks up real quotes by famous science people, but he also invents some quotes which the said person have never given:

“It’s a myth that Sanskrit is the best language for writing computer code. Patriotic Indians have spread this lie for many years” – Bill Gates

“A greater crime than the Holocaust was the untouchability. Nazis have paid the price, but the Brahmins are still raping the rewards for torturing others” – Albert Einstein

“If souls are indeed reborn as the Brahmins say, then what accounts for population growth? Rebirth is the most foolish mathematical concept ever” – Isaac Newton

As you can understand, this is a must read book and I cannot resist some of the quotes by the Director himself, even though he is a Brahmin, he is being respected by his secretary, possibly because of his brilliance, but also because he is not concerned about petty things and is brave enough to say so. As a astronomer he opposes all theories about the big bang and he is not supporting any activities related to listening for aliens by spending lots of money on radio-telescopes etc. “The human search for aliens is now in the imbecilic stage that robotics once was” and he goes on “…I will not support people who presume that somewhere, far away in space, there could be beings so human that they will build machines that will send radio signal. Man is not searching for aliens. Man is searching for man. It’s called loneliness. Not science” he has got a point and its getting better “Scientist want to search for alien signals because that’s what gets them publicity. They are like Jesus Christ.

You know he turned water into wine. From the point of view of pure chemistry, it is more miraculous to make wine into water than to make water into wine. But he did not do that. Because if he had gone to someone’s house and converted their wine into water, they would have crucified him much earlier….”

Enjoy!!

An exciting moment for an amateur entomologist

2010-08-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

Check out this tiger striped swallow-tail - quite common in Italy, but for someone from cold Nordic (who has papilio machaon) this one is really beautiful!
The picture is actually taken with my iPhone in the right hand while the swallowtail is shocked and resting on my left hand...

Wine, Italian food and beautiful landscapes (and biker roads)

2010-07-29T03:26:00.000-07:00

This year motorbike vacation started in Oslo on the Oslo-Kiel ferry - rather crowded as there was a large group of Germans 'going home' after a long cruise to Nordkapp.
After cruising, on scenic country roads from Kiel to Hamburg, the day after, we loaded the bikes on the excellent DB AutoZug. The train is very popular, not only among bikers, but also by car travellers who wants to avoid the 'boring' autobahn through Germany.

Once the bikes where loaded, we entered our two-bed cabin with our own bathroom including a shower - really ingenious on how they have been able to fit a bathroom with a toilet and shower on such a small space, but there you go, the cabin even had a working air-condition - which we soon discovered we would need when we entered the south side of the alps where the temperature was above 30 degrees - every day!

On arrival in Verona we tanked and drove towards Modena - we had a lovely hotel in a lovely town:

From Modena we drove over the Appenins, was surprised by a heavy rainfall, but arrived outside Florence in sunshine and enjoyed the scenic Chianti Classic wine road (S222) all the way to Castellina in Chianti.
In Castellina we stayed a few days, enjoying the lovely hotel in the center of this lovely small (wine)town. Everyday we also enjoyed the beautiful view from our window - including early morning wildlife.

Next stop was Montalcino - famous for its Brunello wines and the fantastic view over the wine-areas below - we also took the opportunity to visit one of the many hot springs for a bath on the road between Montalcino and Montepulcano.

After Montalcino we drove north in Tuscany again and reached Puccini's Lucca late the same day in a very hot 35 degrees with silk-soft night air and a very enjoyable small town.

After lovely Lucca, we went back to Verona through Parma (one night to taste the best ever Parma ham, Parmesan and wine). In Verona we had the pleasure of enjoying Madama Butterfly in the famous nearly 2000 year old outdoor Arena at the center of Verona.

After Verona we drove further north to our 'little secret', the beautiful little Sud-Tirol town of Merano where there are very few tourists, majestic surrounding Alps and top service from the hotel in the center of the town - the road to Merano includes also some of the best motorbike roads in Italy with perfect curves and breathtaking views of high mountains as well as plains down below - and if you add perfect weather one can easily understand that this is one of my favourite:

This last flower-picture is the view from our hotel-room. After Merano, the last leg was to Bozano where the bikes once again was loaded onto the AutoZug and we returned back to Oslo via Hamburg and Kiel with many good memories of beautiful Italy, great motorbiking and good food and wine!

My Vanessa Cardui's

2010-06-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

This is just a small collection of my 'babies' in some unusual compositions:

More bike fans...

2010-06-11T00:17:00.000-07:00

There are more than one of my grand-kids who appreciate my bike:

Lars Arve has left its captivity

2010-06-10T12:03:00.000-07:00

My last Vanessa Cardui has now been released and is enjoying its freedom in the mild Norwegian summer:

Hatched

2010-06-08T08:09:00.000-07:00

Finally, my first four (out of five) Vanessa Cardui (Painted Ladies)
Can you see them all in the picture?

Go hang yourself...

2010-06-02T01:45:00.000-07:00

Mugabe's expression "go hang yourself" has literally been adopted by my caterpillars - now it's less than two weeks for the imago's - the adult butterflies!

Caterpillars

2010-05-31T11:25:00.000-07:00

Now I am about to share with you my Vanessa cardui, or 'Painted Lady' breeding project. I have 5 caterpillar’s of the Painted Lady species and they are now about to build themselves a pupa (chrysalis) hanging down from the ceiling inside their captivity box:

The first picture is about a week old and the last is today and you can see that two of caterpillars have already built their pupa and the two others are preparing - the fith is down on the floor eating...
In about a couple of weeks I should have the adult butterflies (imago)....

Proud grandpa

2010-04-20T11:04:00.000-07:00

Boys like the same :-) proud grandpa is training Pelle while his little brother, so far, is just watching from a safe distance...

It has arrived.....

2010-04-14T13:09:00.001-07:00

... and it exceeds the expectations...

New spring-bike

2009-10-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Contract signed, now is the time to dream through the long winter and with a big smile and high expectations look forward to start of next season in 2010:

Luca tells a story..

2009-07-11T09:44:00.000-07:00

Lucky me who is enjoying the visit of my grandson Luca and his 'fishing' stories...

... and the reality must be relieved - of course...

Finally summer again...

2009-06-26T22:19:00.001-07:00

More great moments of life...

2009-03-14T05:46:00.000-07:00

Once again I have had the pleasure of visiting the Maldives, specifically the Hilton Conrad Rangali resort which is a real treat and a genuine paradise in the sun, not only are the two small islands filled with sunshine and white soft sand and you walking everywhere barefoot, but it is serviced with smiling servants and tourists who appears all to enjoy their moments in the sunshine or in the sea, either scuba-diving (as I did and experienced a close encounter with the great Manta ray) or simply snorkling, enjoying the rich marine life on the reefs....

... and as in most paradises, the tranquility and beuty of sun-rises and sun-sets are as wonderful as ever...

X-mas 2008

2008-12-30T11:21:00.000-08:00

Lucky me who had both Mia, Neil and lovely Luca on X-mas visit. As Neil had never been to Oslo, we had to take a small tour around Oslo seeing both the Vigeland statue park:

-- and the new Opera in splendid sunset:

Oslo new opera house

2008-08-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

The new opera house is really fantastic, the white architecture is simply splendid and the "open" concept of letting people walk all around the building, even on the roof, is simply genius - so is the various surfaces on the marble and the "digital" impression on the top "curtain" tower:

No wonder this amazing architecture is about to be the no 1 tourist attraction in Oslo:

Mindstorms

2008-08-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Finally I have managed to upgrade my Lego Mindstorms Robotics to NXT - and it is really worth it, new excitng sensors and a complete new programming platform. Folllowing is my latest contraption, based on the Lego TriBot, but extended with the capability of finding the ball on its own:

Summer in Oslo

2008-07-31T03:19:00.001-07:00

This summer in Oslo has, so far, been fantastic! Lots of nice weather and our 'traditional' visits to Hovedøya (a protected island within the Oslo harbor) has so far given great value in swimming, relaxing and a very beautiful swallowtail - this is only the second time in my life I have spotted the beauty, let alone taken a photo:

Also, maybe not as big as the swallowtail, but never the less equally beautiful, the common blue:

Two small additions to the family

2008-02-26T02:51:00.000-08:00

Only with three months appart I got two small grandkids into my family, Pelle is already a "big" boy and now Luca, born 6 weeks prematurely, but he is coming along just fine:

X-mas 2007

2008-01-05T13:47:00.000-08:00

This x-mas we spent at Tenerife, Canary Island with Mia and her boyfriend, Neil.

The first week I mainly spent diving (Mia and Neil are professional recreational divers @ AquaMarina divecenter in Las Americas). Tenerife is really a underrated diveparadise, there are so many exciting diving divesites and marine life, one could go on for ages...

The second week I spent mainly in Santa Cruz, the capitol of Tenerife - a very nice spanish-like small town with more or less no tourists - and, to my great joy, Monarchs migrated all the way from the Americas:

Fall in Oslo

2007-10-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

Summer 2007 is over, its been great, my bike is parked in the garage for a long dark winter, but fortunately the fall has so far been dry and shining:
- however, I cannot say I look forward to the cold Norwegian winter, but it is the prospect of the spring and summer that makes the 'clock tick' in a Norwegian heart :-)

Austin, Texas

2007-10-15T13:06:00.000-07:00

I just had the exciting pleasure of attending the IBM Academy annual meeting in Austin, Texas with lots of interesting people - and insects:

Austin is actually a very interesting place with lots of small bars and joints where young Stevie Ray Vaughan inspired musicians plays the blues... Austin is also famous for all the bats flying out under the bridge at sunset, although I found the bugs more interesting:

Swiss Alps and Alsace

2007-08-03T12:59:00.000-07:00

This summer we did the Swiss alps and Alsace on my motorbike in best possible weather with breathtaking views, wonderful curvy roads, nice people and some very very good Alsace wines - and not to forget, the *** Michelin Auberge d'Lill restaurant in Illhausen:
Alsace was actually 'packed' with beautiful small towns, well maintained with lots of flowers and colours:

San Diego

2007-05-26T10:38:00.000-07:00

I recently proudly received an award for my work within digital media and was invited together with Marianne to lovely San Diego to be honoured and receive the award:

As we stayed for a whole week we had lots of time cruising in our rented Mustang convertible and enjoy all what San Diego offers in great nature (La Jolla etc), shopping (Fashion valley) and restaurants and bars in the gas lamp district.

Obviously we also visited Sea World:

And of course I found some macro
opportunities as well:

Early spring butterflies

2007-05-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

These two lovely creatures are enjoying the early spring sun, they are both awakened from last year and thus have only this summer left..
The peacock shows no signs of being a year old:

-whereas the white Comma looks a bit "worn":

Berlin by car

2007-05-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

..and then we take berlin... we did it recently by car
from oslo via sweden and lovely south of denmark (falster) where the spring was just about to explode in colours..

Macro photography

2006-12-26T11:14:00.000-08:00

Believe it or not, but this is a quite ordinary Lilly and its seeds, exciting!?

Scuba Diving in the Maldives

2006-12-23T13:07:00.000-08:00

Last November I spent nearly 3 weeks at the Hilton Rangali Resort in the Maldives. The only dive center (PADI) on the resort is managed by a Canadien couple, the quality of service is excellent and the dive-sites offered are all great. Once you have registered and succeeded the test-dive enabling the dive center to classify your skills, you are off to start the great adventures of diving with all those exciting animals living on the reefs. This is so far the most exciting diving I have experienced