The Leirdal Blog - Life

Chocolate

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:06:36 +0100

I guess this is a kind of "different" blog for me. A friend of mine has his own blog at blog.menneske.org. He is writing a small series on chocolate right now, and I found his entries kind of interesting and educational.
So "introducing" Svein Magnus Sørensen:

Discovering fine chocolate

Fine chocolate for beginners (part 1) (Part 2 is not available yet)

The future, 2.0

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 16:00:31 +0100

As a follow up to my earlier fantasy of new possibilities regarding a documented generation I would like to blow out some steam regarding social software as well.

One of the problems we see today is that there are only a few people producing the information that is consumed by all the rest. Those reading are participating with tagging, bookmarking and rating of the content, but even this should be easier. The production of the content could also be easier.

So let us play with the idea of a documented world. On our way forward we have a few stops on the way. Some of them we are experiencing right now, among else by using Facebook, Linked-In, Plaxo or other social networking applications. By blogging and micro-blogging what we do and what interests us we are giving the world knowledge and information that can be used by other applications as what we often call value-added content.

Consider this, you are watching a video or listening to a podcast on the net regarding some information. The video or audio is tagged in such a way that as you play the content, different meta-information rolls by in tandem with the content, and the media player might then display related information based on automated searches as you watch. We are talking hypermedia that intelligently can give you information that you need or want. You will be able to decide where the information is gathered from.

In the next generation of social software I expect us to be able to increase the value for each other in even better and easier ways than today. And as always, the enabler of these features will always be technology.

So in the future, expect great things. Probably not some of the small ideas I present to you here. What we will see will probably be better.

And you will be a part of it. By easily producing content, and adding meta-information and grading what you see. The world will give you more of what you want and of what interests you.

Whether it is semantic technology or intelligent search engines, I bid welcome to interesting and feature rich social networks, in a documented world where you can have an even more enhanced life experience.

Soon, in a life near you!

Are you documented?

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 09:28:34 +0100

In the future: You will be able to rewind your whole life. Everything you have ever done, ever said, ever seen and ever heard will be reviewable, analysable, searchable and last, but not least, available.

We are getting closer to something a lot of people are calling the documented generation. Even today most of what we do is documented in some way or other. I myself have used my archive of digital images gathered over several years to remember when and where I visited some place. I’ve tagged all my images to simplify finding and searching, but I welcome the day this is an automatic process.

Most of your financial transactions are documented and traceable today when you use a debit or credit card for paying. Often you even use a membership card to get other benefits as well.

Most of your movements are traceable today, whether you use a car with an Autopass chip to pass trough highway toll boots, or you pass traffic cameras that watch the traffic. If you fill gas at a gas station you pay using a credit or debit card. When you go by train you use an electronic train ticket containing an RFID chip. When you go by plane you pay by card and you have to show a picture ID before boarding the plane.

Actually you are filmed by surveillance cameras almost everywhere, and most of what you do at work is logged on your computer.

All of your life is already stored on a plethora of computers all over the world and the internet.

These are known issues and something we have seen emerging over several years. Science Fiction authors have suggested this for years and the last decade these issues have been and are discussed in mainstream literature and media as well. And this is only the beginning.

What this will have to say for us personally, for our security against ID-theft and against the misuse of personal information is probably something a lot of people already have felt.
As long as our information is as available as it is, id-theft and misuse of information will become more and more common. The only way to prevent this is to change the routines and the systems available for those that need to verify our identity. They need a more secure way to verify that we are who we say we are, and they need to increase their efforts for protecting our data.

The way technology improves and evolves makes the possibilities for tracking and storing all kinds of information better each day. A new generation of people where everything they do is documented, from the day they are born until the day they die, is not that far away. The documented generation!

I would venture the guess that very soon we will see solutions in the consumer market that enables us to document events while they happen in new and exciting ways. Things like video-goggles that store everything you see, hear and say while attending a meeting or conference. The information might be stored on small, flexible, secure and large storage devices or directly on network storages units. This information may even be integrated with GPS-data and other environment information like weather or temperature, or with auto tagging features that adds other automatic metadata to the different parts of the recording. Face-, object and speech recognition will be automated and stored together with video and sound. And maybe not that much further in the future, this might be available in a 3D video with better than HD-quality.

The benefits that come with this kind of easily available information will of course be both a curse and a boon for us users. I often wonder where I met some people for the first time or what some customer said about some technical problem. Together with the stored information and multimedia we will probably be able to cross-reference our ”life-stream” with all other kind of information. With automated image and speech recognition everything we do, experience and say will be searchable and analysable.

What do you think? How soon will this be available? In 15 years? In 10 or 20 years? Will it be possible to rewind you whole life?

And as a small idea: When will we see the possibility for creating alternate experiences that makes it look like you have led a more exciting life than you really have? Will we see jamming equipment for jamming people from recording you on their life-streams? If you have an idea, please add a comment below.

PS: Yes I am aware of this little thing from the US, but I am saying that people are willingly going to do this just because they can.

The first snow of the winter

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 13:06:03 +0100

Yesterday the first snow this winter arrived in Oslo. As usual people think they will get away a few more days without switching to winter tires, when they suddenly realise that they are wrong. The right lane almost did not move at all.

Doozers

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 15:06:03 +0200

Some years ago there was a TV-series called "Fraggles Rock" from the creator of the Muppets.

The series was translated to Norwegian and one of the "races" or "creatures" of the series was called "Doozers" or "Doserne" in Norwegian.

I recently noticed the following sign on a building in Oslo. I guess the people of that company saw the series when they were young.

PS: If you didn't get the joke: The doozers always built things.

Are you that Evert Taube guy?

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:43:30 +0200

Me: Are you that Evert Taube (in Swedish) guy?

Evert Taube: ... Y..yees?

Me: Did you write "Flickan i Havanna" ?

Evert Taube: ... Yes?

Me: Did you write "Så länge skutan kan gå"?

Evert Taube: Yes?

Me: Did you write "Så skimrande var aldrig havet"?

Evert Taube: Yes...

Me: I don't like those songs, or that kind of music.... (turns away and walks)

Evert Taube: ....

OK, I admit it. I would never have done anything like this with a living person

Stockholm

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:07:33 +0200

I've just spent the weekend in Stockholm together with my girlfriend. A nice city to visit as long as the sun is shining and the weather is warm. And luckily for us, that was the case this weekend. Among else we went for a long walk trough the Djurgården park. A nice park with a lot of birds. Several pictures will soon follow

First attempt at blogging a video

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 10:38:01 +0200

Monday evening there was some thunder and lightning in Asker. I managed to get one of the "flashes" on video.

I've put the Video into the extended part of this Blog entry. Please follow the link to watch the video

Not exactly street art

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 10:06:04 +0200

I don't know about you, but I always seem to feel that there are two kinds of graffiti lining up our city walls right now. The art: well executed, often illegal, maybe beautiful, complex figures or drawings on a wall. The other kind: Signatures and quick squiggles on a wall, ugly and badly executed. This is one of the last. I guess they are left by people with no talent and a great need for writing their name everywhere.

Summer in Norway

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:35:19 +0200

We have had a slow start on the spring and summer in Norway this year, but now... Life is good. Something to drink in a glass and shades to hide where your eyes are looking. Oh, they also help reduce the glare from the sun. I guess that is an added bonus.

Life has been busy

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:36:13 +0200

May is one of the busiest months for people like me. A lot of things need to be done before the summer, and there are fewer workdays available than normally in Norway. Thanks to a few religious and other national holidays. It is also expected to visit family and friends during these holidays. Don't misunderstand, it's usually very pleasant, it's only that when you are back at work you really can't take any breaks to update your blog. But... soon you might find something new here. Probably later this week.

Schneier on Security: For a Safe Night's Sleep

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 08:35:33 +0200

This is just fantastic. Bruce Schneier has a blog-entry called For a Safe Night's Sleep that covers a product named Quantum Sleeper. I just can't shake the feeling this is published due to April first, but anyway. For a laugh check out some of the specs. Whether it's a joke or not it doesn't matter. It's still funny.

The Quantum Sleeper Unit is a high-level security system designed for maximum protection in various hostile environments

Quantum Sleepers can also be fitted to provide protection from destructive forces of nature such as tornados, hurricanes, earthquakes and floods.

The Quantum Sleeper is the ultimate in protection, entertainment and communications, “ ALL ROLLED UP IN ONE”

...

Features:

1.25" Polycarbonate Bulletproof Plating/Shielding

Bio-Chemical Filtered Ventilation

Rebreather

Control Panel Mode Selection (i.e., Basic System Ops., Intruder Setting, Energy Status, Lock Down, etc.)

Cover & Door Actuators w/ Emergency Release

One way see through head cover (reflective mirror on 2 sides and front)

Safety Features (Proximity Sensor, O2 Sensor, Smoke Det., Motion Det. Ect,)

Emergency Communication system (Cellular, Short-wave Radio, CB ect.)

Audio Amplifier (Amplify sound from out side unit)

Air/Water Tight Sealing

External Override Key Pad & Remote Control

Battery Backup Power

Toiletry system

A thing that makes it look real is the patent number. The USPTO web site actually shows a patent #7137881 for a protective bed unit. But all the typos makes it somewhat less real.

I leave you to make the decision for yourselves. Enjoy.

Dublin visited

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 12:49:28 +0100

So, I am back at work after a weekend visit to the green island, Ireland. I've never been to Ireland before. There is one thing that comes to mind about Dublin - the weather. I am from the west-coast of Norway. I am used to shifty weather, but ... Ireland. If I try to describe Ireland in just a few words: The first word that would come to mind would be... windy... and that would also be the second and third word I think. Except for that, compared to Oslo right now? Dublin has a relative mild climate; we even saw the sun a few times, between the rain showers and the windblown skies. The trees had already started to grow new leaves. The grass was green. Nice spring weather actually. A few pictures will probably be available here shortly.

Safari dreams

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 07:24:15 +0100

I friend of mine recently visited South Africa. I've never been there, but after seeing pictures like this, I would like to. Especially considering the hours spent behind a computer lately.

Wish for 2008

nospam@example.com (Jon Leirdal) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 10:54:26 +0100

When you read the news from anti-virus companies and security advisors you get convinced that 90% of the software you find on the net is malware, and the last 10% have so many security issues that it turns out the same thing. At the same time a life seems to be worth less than the copyright interests of media companies.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but I feel that the whole world has been overrun by solutions and programs that want to harvest personal information about me. The products that don’t ask for the information grab it anyway.

Trusted computing is a much debated architecture, maybe rightfully so. That kind of architecture might limit the spreading of free/open source software. Microsoft has proven that they can offer this trough their HD-Video support. There they have signed code in all layers, and only approved hardware devices are allowed in the pipe from storage media to screen. I am not saying that it is impossible to bypass this pipe in some way, but the threshold to perform such a hack has been raised a fair bit.

So, when you consider the stack of components needed to display HD-Video, what do you need to have the same security/quality for our computers? Especially when you are connected to the Internet?

The question then is if we maybe should take a look at this “cursed” subject again. Financing solutions in order to secure that open source software can be verified and approved might become a reality. There is one thing that we have learned so far. It is impossible to count all evil. You cannot permit the execution of all software except the bad ones listed in a list. Such a list will never be complete. But you can allow all enumerated good software and block the execution of all other code. Anti-virus software tries to perform this enumeration on our behalf, but still they do not know everything and ask the users what to do when in doubt. When they do, the s**t hits the fan. Users do not know what to do. They do not realize the consequences of their choices.

Again, the driver is the money. It is somewhat of a symptom of the state of the world that it’s more important for Microsoft that a video is not copied than to secure the personal information of a user. If somebody steals all our personal details, all our money from our bank accounts and our identity, that is not as important for Microsoft as a video unlawfully duplicated and distributed.

So what is my wish for 2008?

My wish is that our lives and our identities will become more important to protect on the net than the economic interests of a few.