Archive for March, 2008

Lidl pushed out of Norway

By oyvind – 31 March 2008 Active testNorwegianPosted in: News


Lidl

On March 14th we received news that Lidl is leaving Norway after a rough experience in a strange market. What really happened? We know from reports that after 2 years in Norway Lidl already struggled to gain enough marketshare to earn money. From day 1 they have been hated by many and loved by few.

Rema 1000 buys all 50 Lidl locations and have promised to take good care of the employees and location, is this what we wanted?

We read that Lidl’s employees were given slave-saleries, poor workconditions and were surveilenced by the company but is all we read the truth?

Owners of the large Rema 1000 and Norgesgruppen have monopoly in Norway and they are billionares, is it naive to think that they are innocent of pushing Lidl out of Norway?

When Lidl arrived in Norway 4 years ago peoplegroups were treathening Lidl with violence if they builded in certain locations, were these groups sponsored by Rema 1000 and Norgesgruppen?

The Norwegian Competition Authority is looking into the deal these days and most likely they will approve the deal between Lidl and Rema 1000, maybe inflicted by the latest news about illigal survailance of employees and customers.

Its strange that norwegians want them out, in my opinion all competition is for the customers best.

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Bye Arthur

By oyvind – 22 March 2008 Active testNorwegianPosted in: General


Arthur C. Clarke

For many years Arthur’s books has thrilled my imagination and curiousity and I think he influenced the way I think of science – he had a positive attidtude towards new science and he was an optimist and a dreamer, and he loved talking about exploring the universe.

Each clear night when I study and gaze at the stars I alsways let my imagination fly, mostly with images that Arthur C. Clark helped me form in my inner space with books like Glide Path, 2001 A Space Odyssey, 2010 Odyssey Two, 2061 Odyssey Three, 3001 The Final Odyssey, The Nine Billion Names of God, Imperial Earth, The deep range, Songs of Distant Earth, Imperial Earth, The wind from the sun, Rendezvous with Rama and so on. Rendezvous with Rama the movie btw is being released 2009.

In june 1999 I joined SETI and The Planetary Society – inspired by Arthur C. Clarke, after that all my computers have been working day and night. He was a fighter for Seti and I think we can thank him that the project still gets funding.

Rest in peace Arthur, I hope you get your 3 wishes through – that we once find cleaner forms of energysources, we once find life in outer space and peace in Sri Lanka.

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Top of the world

By oyvind – 19 March 2008 Active testNorwegianPosted in: Photos

We’re back from a long weekend tour to the mountain hut were we had lovely weather and perfect skiing conditions, what a trip. It started out well with amazing high snow over the mountain passage, our car became small compared to it :
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Sunday was a bit windy but when the sun showed up we got amazing conditions, its hard to capture this on a cellphone. Dunes of white snow :
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We didn’t go to the top this day since the strong wind kept suprising us with dark clouds and short sight, it was amazing to watch the snow blow past us as if there was a giant vacum nearby.
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On monday the weather finally permitted us to go to the top we were trying to reach Gongefjellet (on about 950 meters). The view was breathtaking.
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On the top of the world :
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Africa here I come!

By oyvind – 11 March 2008 Active testNorwegianPosted in: Travel


Cape Town

Wheee! I am going to Africa! Our company won a trip to Cape Town and I was allowed to go, all expenses covered. Its kind of unreal, I’ve never been that far south.

Its only a week but I don’t have word for how much I look forward to this. *bouces all over the place*

Now I have to figure out how to send images directly from my cellphone to my blog.

Is it hot there now? What does business casual dress code mean? (tie?) (there will be some work) What should I not forget to do down there? Google!!?!??

(The image to the left is taken by Andreas Tusche)

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Inventions I miss

By oyvind – 9 March 2008 Active testNorwegianPosted in: General


Inventions

When I was a kid I expected to be driving flying cars by now so I am a bit disappointed. I mean, I like my Toyota, it has a fancy speedometer in the midle of the dashboard and stuff but its not really what I imagined when I dreamed of year 2000 in the 80s. I also pictured that all roads were beneath the ground to make room for all the parks. But that is a different story.

I know there are flying cars, but seeing how people drive on roads I’m not sure I would dare going outside if everyone had one. If the crafts weren’t fully automized that is. To compensate my loss of dreams coming through I at least expect that someone invented cool stuff like :

- Temperature gauge (the ones you stick in steaks to eh steak) with bluetooth! So you can monitor what you steak on your PC. Or better, so you can monitor it on your television which have bluetooth. Or cellphone! (I hereby call this iTemperatureIT just to annoy Apple in the future)

- A software on a machine that has a GPRS/3G card and a Sim which makes a video conference call to you and transmits any program that you have programmed it to send to you. You know, when you’re in that dull 3-hour meeting? Just set your home-PC to call you at 11:05 when the match begins at TV94 and you can see it on your cellphone, beautiful. (I hereby call this iTransmit2You just to annoy Apple in the future)

Any inventions that you miss?

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Stuck at work

By oyvind – 5 March 2008 Active testNorwegianPosted in: General

Flu

Someone must have heard me when I wished for tons of snow and chaos. I am stuck at work, hehe but I’d rather be stuck at home. Large trucks are blocking many roads and a truck full of dynamite just tipped over. People outside the building are not getting everywhere, its kind of comic.

I could try with my car but I don’t trust my tires, its on last season and I don’t want to take any chances, enough people does that today. (here are som images (page in norwegian though))

Heres a car outside our office building that can’t get up. I could have gone out to help himp push but I don’t want to be responsible for letting him out on the road. If he can’t get up that litle hill he shouldn’t be driving today. (sorry about the quality, I had to rotate the video before I uploaded it)

btw I love that its so easy to share videos like this. I recorded it on my cellphone and uploaded it to You Tube, then I just pasted the link to it (because I have this plugin thingy (read more about it on my sandbox)). Its awesome. Poor Bell who had to call himself when he invented the phone, I wish he could see what we can do now.

Edit : Finally home, it took a few hours. It was weird to see all the cars parked around in all kind of places.


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