28

By on 08/02/2009 in Personal

There’s couple of really good things or changes I want to carry to the new year.

Lesson(s)

It’s too easy to ignore things when you’re seemingly busy. It’s too easy to put things off just because you think there’s more important things to do. It is today that I have to lay the ground work for tomorrow.

I know it sounds fucking philosophical but if this was the only lesson I learned from last year, I’d be happy. Stay on top of things, do my best now and be ready to do that tomorrow as well.

One of those groundworks I did last year – and I’ve written about this before – was to take better care of myself. There’s few things worse than being 27 and in the worst shape you’ve ever been. It’s easy to wait until tomorrow to get started. it’s too easy to put things off. Luckily I stopped doing that last August, dusted the good old Asics and started counting the kilometers. Now – 591 km later – I’m looking forward on doing my first half marathon in two weeks and full 42195 meters in the end of May. I’m 28 and in the best shape I’ve ever been. Ever.

Work-wise, I think I’ve learned to be a bit more proactive. Autumn was a bit too quiet for my liking and that was pretty difficult. As a result I started looking for more jobs and not relying on things that were supposed to be happening. It’s good to be busy now but I know it’s not going to last forever – try this May – so I must keep that in mind. Be proactive.

Five Goals for the 29th Year.

  • Do three things I can be proud of in the end of the year. Maybe an exhibition. I’ve wanted to do one for a while.
  • Stay on top of things. Leapfrog with work. While doing a job today be ready to start a new one tomorrow. Take better care of my paper work.
  • Concentrate. Maybe an AppleScript that’ll stop me from launching NetNewsWire between 0800-1700. Stop trying to multitask as much.
  • Diversify. Learn a new skill. Don’t know what yet. Any suggestions? I’ve got a PHP book on loan from Alex, maybe that. Maybe not.
  • Make five people happy for a day. Nice experience or something that’ll help them in life.

It’s been a really good year over all. I’m happy in life and every year seems to be getting better. Let’s make this an ever better one. Over and out.

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Photographic Heroes

By on 20/01/2009 in Photography

It doesn’t really matter that digital is – not the future but – the present of photography. I don’t think any of my photographer friends use film in their professional practice but probably all of them use it once in a while for other, ‘personal’ stuff. Photographing on film, especially with medium and large format cameras, is very different from photographing with DSLR. Photographing is a process that is effected by the tools and methods used.

Just about a year ago, Polaroid announced that they won’t be making Polaroid film much longer and in June this year production was stopped. This was obviously a great blow to many but most of all to those who’s style depends on the use of it.

Now, a group of Dutch heroes have bought the equipment that was used to make Polaroid and not only are they re-starting it’s production but are also researching into modern ways of assembling the film cartridge.

The Impossible mission is NOT to re-build Polaroid Integral film but (with the help of strategic partners) to develop a new product with new characteristics, consisting of new optimised components, produced with a streamlined modern setup. An innovative and fresh analog material, sold under a new brand name that perfectly will match the global re-positioning of Integral Films.

Impossible b.v. Be sure to check it out. They have a more info on the project as well as really cool Polaroids of machinery used to make it.

–kristian

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If Any More Prove Was Needed…

By on 18/01/2009 in Advertising, Microsoft

… That Microsoft doesn’t excel at making adverts for their products, watch this ad.

Something to notice is that Songsmith – the product it advertices – doesn’t run on a Mac.

They also haven’t realized that when other companies use real people as actors they’re actually ‘real’ people – actors. Maybe MS should send their engineers and product managers back behind their desk to do their real jobs.

–kristian

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While I'm Away

By on 22/12/2008 in Travel

_MG_2656Just a quick note to say merry christmas to everybody. I’m not updating this blog during christmas holidays but I do have a travel blog I’m keeping with Darina. Have a look here: thegui.de/travel. Lots of great photographs there!

–kristian

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300 – Challenge Done

By on 18/11/2008 in Fitness And Running, Personal

Just last week, 32 days early, I completed the 300 km running challenge I set myself 3 months ago. There were two things I wanted to accomplish with this:

1) Get into shape for our up-coming trip to New Zealand this christmas

and

2) Feel better

It was something that had been nagging me for quite a while; the thought of being 27-years-old and in the worst physical shape I’ve ever been. Weight kept creeping up at the pace of about a kilo per year and my 11-year-old brother can now challenge me in doing chin ups. I used to run before moving to the UK but was never really able to keep up the routine here. And routine is, I think, one of the most important things when it comes to exercise.

By setting that goal, it was easy to motivate myself to go outside and run. Another even greater source of motivation has been that my friends Ville, Johanna and Heikki joined me on the challenge. Ville ‘virtually’, as he lives in Finland. It’s been so good to have company along the way.

Another challenge Ville and I set ourselves about 7 years ago was to run a marathon by the time we’re 27. I don’t think we’ll quite make it (after all we are both 27 already) but to try and live up to that promise, I’m signing up for the Edinburgh Marathon that takes place in May next year. I haven’t set a target time yet, we’ll first have to see how training goes.

A Little Bit About Equipment

Good shoes are the most essential thing you can invest on if thinking of taking up running. After all, on a 10 km run your feet will hit the asphalt some 11’000 times, they need something nice in between. Mine are Asics Gel’s that my dad kindly passed on. He’s been using the same make, model and size for years now but the ones he bought earlier this autumn didn’t fit properly. Apparently Asics had changed the recipe. They fit me perfectly so that’s good.

First running gear item I bought after starting was shorts. Problem I had was that my thighs were rubbing against each other and causing a rash. Instead of trying out the Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr method of walking/running without knees touching, I decided to get NikeFit shorts. They have a little pocket in the back that’s good for keys and perfect size for the iPhone. Surprisingly, can’t even feel it’s there.

RunKeeper Review


Talking about the iPhone, I tried out RunKeeper for some ten of the last runs. It’s a general exercise app that I was really excited with what it promises; distance, pace, speed, path on a map etc. Just what you’d expect from a well equipped running watch. It took me five or six tries before I got a solid good result from it. One thing or another always seemed to go wrong. Some of the problems are inherit to how the iPhone work i.e. you can’t have apps running in the background – which means you can’t properly lock the screen while running – and GPS drains the battery really fast. Biggest problem, however was the unreliability of the app, things like the screen showing that one minute I’m running at a steady 9 km/h and next I’m sprinting at 20 km/h (once it even said I’m running at almost 200 km/h). Also system wide warnings like low battery and incoming text messages paused the training, which meant that either you stopped to pay attention to your run and fixed your tracking or – more likely – just kept going and had a big gap in your route. Although it has a build in screen lock, I found on few occasions that it had released and paused or stopped the trip. Very annoying.

All this said, I think if they can fix the problems they have, it’ll be very useful. Cool thing that it does is it sends data of your run to their website and you can view it there along with a map of the run. It does it very quickly; if I press ‘Save Trip’ downstairs after the run, it’s ready to view by the time I’m in the flat. It’s also free, so barrier of entry is very low, all you have to do is to bear with it’s short comings.

Over all, good thing about running is that it’s not about equipment or skill or even time, all you need is the will to get started.

–Kristian

PS. Some Numbers Gathered Along the Way

83 days to reach the goal

Goal was reached 86.67 km a head schedule

Daily average was 3.63 km

Shortest single run: 2.94 km

And the longest: 17.33 km

20349 calories burned while running

weight: -4 kg

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Running on the Streets of London

By on 01/11/2008 in Fitness And Running

What a lovely piece of film making. It gives an image of London that seems so distant as soon as I step out and take the 55, 48 or 26 outside my flat. It’s been years since I travelled on a Routemaster* and I really understand why it’s missed by so many people. I think it’s the feeling of community. Not just because they were smaller but an actual person checking you ticket and welcoming you on board.

I happened to find this video when doing a bit of research on a running competition idea I had few weeks ago. We’ve all heard of Man Versus Horse Marathon (haven’t we?) that takes place in Wales every year. It’d be called ‘Man versus the London Machine’. Or something like that. Perhaps taking on a bus on route 1 – for the simple reason that it’s THE number one route – which leaves from Canada Water and goes to Tottenham Court Road. I think it would have to be quite early in the morning as during rush hour the bus journey takes about two days. I’ll have to go and measure the distance and figure out if it’s doable. Will keep you posted.

kristian

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Wassup 2008

By on 30/10/2008 in Politics

Classic Budweiser ad turned into an Obama ad. good stuff. Watch the original here.

kristian

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All you need to know

By on 10/10/2008 in Politics

George W. Bush addresses the American public. This is the sort of stuff we’ll be missing when Bush leaves the office in January next year. It’s not a bushism – and I’m sure we’ve had enough of those to last a lifetime – but I’m personally going to miss these unintentional laughs he can deliver without a hint of irony or sarcasm.

(Thanks to BBC News at Six for the video)

kristian

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Apple Drops iPhone SDK NDA

By on 01/10/2008 in Apple, iPhone

Fantastic news:

We have decided to drop the non-disclosure agreement (NDA) for released iPhone software.

We put the NDA in place because the iPhone OS includes many Apple inventions and innovations that we would like to protect, so that others don’t steal our work. It has happened before. While we have filed for hundreds of patents on iPhone technology, the NDA added yet another level of protection. We put it in place as one more way to help protect the iPhone from being ripped off by others.

However, the NDA has created too much of a burden on developers, authors and others interested in helping further the iPhone’s success, so we are dropping it for released software. Developers will receive a new agreement without an NDA covering released software within a week or so. Please note that unreleased software and features will remain under NDA until they are released.

Thanks to everyone who provided us constructive feedback on this matter.

Reason, of course, why this is great is that this allows developers to talk to other developers about their apps and issues they might have come against. Having the NDA was a bit like Grain Corp. selling a grain but not allowing farmers to talk to each other how to best grow that grain.The Pragmatic Programmers has already reversed their decision to pull the production of an iPhone app development book. So it’s pretty good news.

What surprises me though is the way Apple has worded the announcement. They are apologetic not that it’s taken so long to reverse the decision but that they had it in place in the first place. That strikes me as being slightly odd. They could have easily just said this was their plan along and that the SDK is in a good enough state that it can be talked about.

On the other hand, maybe they’re apologising for this to make it easier to ignore people complaining about those few apps that haven’t been allowed into the App Store. Remember “…dropping it for released software…” means that you still can’t talk about it if your app is stopped at the gates of Apple*.

Nevertheless, I’m sure 99% of iPhone devs are happy to hear these news.

kristian

*Most famous case of an app being rejected entry to the App Store was ‘Podcaster’, an app that would allow you to subscribe to and listen to podcasts on your iPhone. What made it unique over iTunes/iPod combo on the iPhone was that it allowed you to download them directly on it without tethering to a computer. Pretty cool feature if you listen to a lot of podcasts like myself. Reason Apple gave for the rejection was that it ‘duplicated functionality of iTunes’. Fair enough reason as that’s warned about in the SDK. But doesn’t that mean that Apple is worried that someone might do things better than they do? Isn’t it just slightly anti-competitive?

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Running Update – Day 35

By on 24/09/2008 in Fitness And Running

First month or so has gone really quickly and surprisingly painlessly. Only after about a week of running it started to feel easy and I found myself waiting for – rather that fretting – the next run. I started of with really shorts runs, only about 3 kilometers, and have steadily increased them so that today I ran 13.8 kilometers – longest distance so far. That’s more than I did during the whole of first week of running. It felt really good. Total distance: 112 km.

On top of the goal of reaching 300 km total by 15th Dec, I’ve decided to signup for the Brighton half marathon which is in the end of February. Thanks to Mike and Colin for persuading me to join them. Both goals are well doable, what makes the difference is the time I want to do them in. I’ll set the goal for Brighton closer to it so I wont set it too low as I did with the 300 km run. Then again, it doesn’t really matter, main thing is to have fun and feel fitter and healthier.

Ok, that’s it for the first update (I know, it was a bit more than 10 days…), next one coming at 200 km mark.

kristian

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