nordic currents

Atlassian releases new wiki (Confluence) which leads to conversation about why one should buy commercial wiki when there are free ones like SnipSnap.

We are entering a neomodern age. We have all forgotten what postmodernism was all about. Now we are diving into this new modernity created by information technology. Maybe it is a dialectic feature of our culture to happily endorse modernity and somewhat later dismiss it due to its lack of deep content.

Isn't it amazing how the past just continues to harrass you for years. Those fatal decisions comes back to you in all kinds of colors and forms. All in all the result will hopefully be wisdom - not bitterness. And an increased ability to maintain a flowing stable state of mind regardless of circumstances out of control. To just feel the sadness for a while and then to let go and get back into the present. Transcending ones history.

The server side reports that JavaWorld is back which is good news for me. I am rather nostalgic about JavaWorld - I used to hang around there a lot when I picked up Java long time ago.

Medieval stuff in France could quite possibly make up a summer vacation. Starting in Provins - a city where not much has happened since the middle ages. Moving on to the bridges in Pont-St-Esprit and Avignon and then on to the former harbor city Aigues-Mortes in the Rhône delta.

Planning a trip to Rimini and Italy this summer. It will be really nice getting back to Italy. Last time was Milan and Lago Maggiore 6 years ago on a job trip. Now we have stacked up with travel guides, maps and history books making the planning as convenient as possible. One issue is what proportions there should be between sun and culture. On the other hand - in Italy you just have to turn your head a little to find yet another really old house or the tomb of some renaissance hero. From Rimini it is rather easy to get to Ravenna and Bologna and rather more work to get to Firenze. Tuscany may be worth a couple of days in a rented Fiat. I would also like to get to Assisi - the place where the Fransiscans started out. It is to the south. It is interesting that Italy became a nation in 1860 - it has a rather great reputation for such a short history. One might think that Lombardy or the two Siciles would have more history to make up a reputation but obviously the name of the nation has been the most important durign the two last centuries. Italy acually was a kingdom between 1860 and 1946. Good they dropped that habit. What is a king of Italy compared to an emperor of Rome or a pope of the holy catholic church?

Sunday mornings always comes with a feeling of a lost sacred place. Going inwards is not always a good substitute for communal worship although the worshipping communities I have had most experience with doesn't know much about sanctity. Our modern swedish society doesn't know how to build sacred places. They are perhaps somewhat better in Finland. The most recent place I can come to think of with this quality in Sweden is Skogskyrkogården and it was created between 1917 and 1920. The name translates to The Forest Cemetery. And now there are neither frost nor leaves.

Heard Monica Groop live at Berwaldhallen last friday. Gustav Mahlers symphony No.3 unfortunately has only a small part for the mezzo soprano so we were a little disappointed. (Not knowing anything about the symphony before the concert.....) The symphony required a fyll orchestra with lots of brass instruments and two harps which fully made use of the piece. The symphonys 6 movements originally were labelled narratively - inspired by Nietzsche. The first movement - for example - was labeled Pan awakes, Summer Marches In and the last What Love Tells Me. With the narrative as background the symphony is much more interesting to hear. I would not by it on record though - it is one of those pieces that only is truly enjoyable live.

Seriously - what would I do without Svensk-engelskt lexikon?

Moments of Imperfect Clarity is poetry imagined through the frosty leaves of a possible tree. Today it says towards the end:

(...)
yet the tears do fall
breaking the silence
you are surrounded in
keeping your feet together
humbly
alone

Possible names for neomodern albums would be:

• urban landscape
• asbest addict
• concrete revisited
• commuter heaven
• lovely traffic jam
• breathing?
• magic bus.

Kulturhuset in Stockholm has a nice room for kids where they (and their parents) can do some relaxed reading. With older kids it is even possible to sneak away to some of the exhibitions in the house. I did that to find the exhibition Slöjan (the veil) with modern art mostly in the form of photographs dealing with the veil and related topics. One picture, for example, is of Stockholm City Hall in the background and possibly turkish boats in the foreground. Another picture shows eastern oriented business with vegetables and stuff with westminster [another nice picture] as background. A veiled statue of liberty is perhaps most thought provoking at the exhibition. Another part of the exhibit shows pictures of algerian women that were forced to be photographed by the french during the occupation in order to get IDs. A vivid expression of resistance is the lasting impression. The most beautiful items to my subjective eyes are 3 pictures of a desert, a tree and a veiled woman. Associating with the madonnan video for the song frozen where she poses as some kind of dark goddess in a barren landscape.

Yesterday we went to the movies for a Runaway Jury. John Cusack, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman and Rachel Weisz delivered 2 hours of good entertainment. I think reading the Grisham novel would be more thrilling though. [official site]

Isn't it ironic that I just recently realised that so unsexy from Alanis' album under rug swept is about herself? I rarely pay notice to lyrics which makes it even more interesting. At least for me. Someone just recently pointed out that the lyrics of the song ironic seems to misunderstand irony (at least in the european sense). Well that is ironic.

Driving through mist this morning was a rather pleasant experience much due to trees and ground enhanced by frost. Frost and mist forms a good basis for a flowing presence in mother nature. Questing AltaVista for mist returns a wide selection of misting systems (which I don't want in my living room) as well as the maid of the mist about a Niagara Falls tour boat. Seems to be quite some experience. The mistiest place I have visited is Bukit Fraser (Fraser's Hill) in Malaysia. The 5 year old hotel we stayed at was completely wasted by mould due to extreme humidity.

Today Västerås will see nothing of me. Fortunately I have a work space in Solna as well - to be used with caution.... 20 minutes of driving got me here at 8:10. Makes it easier to put in lots of hours. The fanzy centralized microsoftian deployment mechanism had my computer working for 20 minutes though.

This is the first post to Nordic Notes and it will be followed by millions of other posts - hopefully at least one each day. (Hopes are there to be scattered - right?) The author is based in the nordic and is still dealing with snow and ice when entering the outside. Getting to my current client involves driving for about 33 kilometres and drinking coffee on a train from Bålsta (also known as the end of the world) for about 30 minutes. All in all about 80 minutes from door to door. And where do I end up? In Västerås! Good to have some decent reading for such long trips. Pengar och makt is the current book. (Translates to Money and power.) It is about middleage trade and economics and it is written so that even me doesn't get bored halfway through. Nice. Today Käthe needed the car so I made the long run for about 120 minutes including bus, commuter train and 53 minutes long distance train. Now I will deal with da bed.