Mikael Fernstrom

>It’s been a very good day. Woke up early, did the dishes, cooked breakfast, walked the dog. Then, and meeting with Liam re MY Phd. It’s now or never. This time it’ll happen. Aarrghhh, just got distracted by Dilbert.

>Watching CES2007, I’m now convinced that Steve Jobs is sharing my visions of the future, or vice versa.
In his Keynote, the iPhone and AppleTV is exactly what’s missing in my life.
Make your next device purchase and Apple. Make you next media purchase iTunes.

>Tonight, I finished writing teh final draft of the RE-NABLE grant proposal to Enterprise Ireland. Last time, they [the reviewers] didn’t like it enough, but this time – well – I can’t see anything better or more important.

>Today, I’ve done a full energy assessment on our house, all according to the stuff published by Sustainable Energy Ireland, the state agency responsible for the energy future of the country, and the EU DEAP directive. It didn’t turn out that well, as expected. The final measure ended up with 293 kWh/m2 which is pretty bad. The main causes are single-glazed windows and not enough insulation in the attic. To make things a little better, I’ll try to shop around town tomorrow and get a new set of thermostats and timers to improve the performance of the boiler.

>I wish you a Merry Midwinter. The real midwinter happened 22 minutes past midnight, the 22nd of December. We went out into our garden, reading a verse each from the Old Nordic Edda. Midwinter is a time to reflect upon what happened during the year, in our life.
What can we do, from now on, that will make things better for creatures on this planet – the only one we have… This is, of course, an impossible question. But, the more people that ask themselves this, and understand the question, the better it may become. If you don’ know how to, ask. If you know, just do it and be happy.

>Tonight I realised how right they are. Why travel? If you want to talk about my work, you come HERE. I have heard that Stanley Kubrik refused to travel. For a number of years, I have tried to invite Michael B. Tretow (amongst other things, ABBA’s sound engineer) and Ralph Lundsten (one of the world’s finest electronic music composers). They refused to travel. So, here I am, trying to plan my work for 2007. Invite from European Commission for Luxembourg in January, keynote in York in February. I might skip Luxembourg, but for York I’m currently checking out the possibilities using trains and ferries. That’s life. Hopefully this approach will enable a low CO2 footprint.

>I’ve been really excited for the last few days, since NASA launched the STS-116 mission, including the Swedish (Norwegian?) astronaut Christer Fuglesang. This evening I’ve been watching NASA’s TV-feed while Fuglesang and Curbeam try to do some re-assembly and assembly of some of the gear they brought up on the mission to complete the International Space Station.
I suddenly realised why I would not have been suited for the job. Part of the conversation the two guys had with Houston was asking if they would be allowed to use a different sized wrench to untighten a bolt. I would surely have picked the tool I found appropriate and done the job. I guess from the likes of NASA’s point-of-view, that would be unacceptable frm a disciplinary point of view.

>Today, we had Mr James Devine working with us. We’re testing him and the software we have developed for him. Our software enables real-time analysis of tap dancing, in terms of taps per second. Today, James broke his own Guinness World Record. His fastest tappng today was: 43 taps per second!!!!

>Tonight, we watched our DVD of the latest Hitchhikers movie, again. Alarmingly, it wasn’t the same movie as when we watched it the first time! The only rational explanation is the Effect of the Improbability Drive, i.e. each time to watch it, it’ll show you different versions….
Whatever you do, Don’t Panic.

>Tonight, I finished my local infrastructure – as far as networking is concerned. House server is installed, wrireless at 54 MB installed, etc. Next: get a new printer to connect to house server.