Torfinn Nome - Life as a …

I recently bought an Apple Airport Extreme N. Mostly to get a more or less decent NAS. I was pleasantly surprised to see that it supports IPv6 out of the box; both automagical 6to4 and manual sit-type configured tunnels. As my trusty old IPv6-ISP PowerTech seems to have, temporarily (?), stopped caring about IPv6 (tunnel up, upstream IPv6 links down), I had to find an alternative tunnel broker. I ended up with SixXS. Got me a tunnel and a /48 net with reverse DNS to a low latency POP in Sweden. The tunnel terminates at a linux server (hosting this web page), from which I have delegated a /64 net to my Airport via a static sit tunnel. It’s working great, and all my hosting services are now multihomed. Not as great as if my physical upstream ISP (Lyse) would provide native IPv6, of course, but still. Now, if only you could nag your ISP to provide IPv6, maybe we could all finally get rid of that nasty NAT! (Oh, wait, that’s right, Apple was forced to firewall all IPv6 traffic by default after massive negative publicity. And there is no IPv6 NAT-PMP/uPNP yet. Here is an interesting read on the topic: Turning a feature into a flaw.)

Some months ago, my dad bought a Navibe GM720 (from Clas Ohlson, ~550NOK) to use with his laptop and AutoRoute while going on vacation to France. A couple of weeks ago, I started searching for an alternative to AutoRoute using my Mac. I found RouteBuddy. But I’m slightly turned off by paying $200 (program, maps for France and Scandinavia), when Autoroute is less than half that price. So I searched some more, and found Roadnav! It’s free, open source (GPL), and works with my Mac. Even the maps are free! For maps in Europe, Roadnav uses the OpenStreetMap database. Only … well, there is a high discrepancy between The World and OpenStreetMap, said gently. Some scattered roads, no street names, etc. Especially in places like Norway (excluding Oslo, the capital). Too bad. Well. Not really. I connected the GPS receiver to my MacBook, downloaded some software, and started driving around. GPSd while driving, to get the coordinates. GPSBabel to convert the raw file to GPX. And JOSM to map the coordinates into streets and upload to the OpenStreetMap project. I spent this evening listening to my favourite cellist, Truls Mørk, drinking whisky, and mapping parts of Fredrikstad and Ås. Not at all bad. Now, if I only spend the next 200 years driving, I might cover a fraction of Europe, to make the maps I thought I needed…

Our lab environment is polluted by not only cancer inducing chemicals like ethidium bromide and the neurotoxic polyacrylamide. Even more disturbing is the frequent usuage of the radio. Or, to be more precise, the lack of a radio station that does not suck. Here in Norway we have a couple of commercial nation wide channels in addition to some channels provided by the public broadcasting institution. I can’t stand commercial channels, with the non stoppable annoying advertisements. But, even worse: The channels we listen to (we switch a lot) have one thing in common that annoys me the most. The repetition rate of some of the music. I mean, I don’t want to listen to the same tune 9 times during just a few hours.

Anyway.

Lately I have started wearing my trusty old DAP, which luckily carries an endless number of hours of music. After a few weeks I have come to the conclusion that I prefer some kind of jazz inspired music while doing lab work. Even tho my favourite band this week has been Gotan Project, which is a fusion of tango and electronica.

(Yup, Nat King Cole works pretty darn good for me.)

8 weeks have passed. I’ve been able to force myself doing short 15-25 minutes short runs, until my knee starts hurting. 2-4 times a week. It’s been frustrating. Especially since I need all the endorphines I can get after struggling with lack of results in the lab, and other, more personal issues… BUT! Today, I managed one hour! I feel I’m back on track, and my spirits are already rising (obviously the endorphines talking). Hooray!

…meters. One hour, forty-nine minutes. I expected worse. Having gained interest in running during the summer, heavily influated by Lasse and fellow co-workers at Folkehelseinstituttet, I started running early August. Yesterday, I participated in Oslo Marathon, running the 1/2 marathon. I guess I’m kind of hooked. In September I ran a 11km off-road race, Sørkedalsløpet. October 14th I will run the 9.7km Nøklevann Rundt race. Even tho I much prefer running off-pist tracks, I have a goal; completing a full marathon within two years. I feel kind of wasted today, my legs are extremely stiff, and I just feel like doing nothing. But, I will follow Anita’s (co-lab-student) advice of running at least 40 minutes, “with a pace that would ashame your gramma”.

Update: I didn’t manage 40 minutes. I managed 20 meters… Now, a week later, I still struggle with something that might be the classical “running knee”. Sigh.

It’s official. I’m a Switcher! May 17th, after having waited at least 12 months, I ordered an Apple MacBook (white, 2.0). Today, May 19th, it shipped from China. It may arrive prior to my exam the 31th. I really wasn’t expecting it being delivered this fast. Already, she is spreading despair and havoc; the beginning of a beautiful relationship. I can’t wait!

(MacBook review)

Busk and myself have been on a movie spree the last three days. Three movies in as many days. And it’s been great. Not only did I enjoy the movies (”Good Night, And Good Luck”, “Capote” and “Mi:3″ (the last to a lesser extent than the first two)), what made it great was: Capote. 80 seat theater. All leather. Middle/middle seats. Alone. No disturbance. Ah…

I have a racing bicycle, and have been biking since the snow melted some 4-5 weeks ago. Nothing (that I know of, at least…) beats the feelig of cruising along the fields on a sunny day doing good speed on your bike. Anyway. I use tubless tires. Mostly because the bike was equipped with such tires when I bought it, around ten years ago. One day last week, having biked around 25km, the tyre blows. In the middle of nowhere. Sure, no problem, I always carry a spare tyre. So, I swap tires, and continue riding. 30 meteres down the road: BOOM. Bah! Hero of the day: Busk, which picked me up when I called and explained the … situation.

Vi vurderer å selge seilbåten vår, en Fabola Campus 600. Lettseilt liten seilbåt på rundt 19 fot (6,15m), senkekjøl, overnattingsplass for fire, storseil og fokk, og påhengs. Ikke at jeg egentlig vil selge den, har hatt mange fine turer med den. Men det blir vanskelig å få tid nok (eller ta seg tid…) til å bruke den fremover. Får vel prøve å slenge inn en annonse på FINN.no.

Edit: The ad went public one evening at 23:00. 600 page views by 11:00 the next morning, 4 phone calls, several emails. I had to disable the ad within 12:00. SOLD!