Travel

From Ljubljana to London

The coming week is hectic and filled with a bit more exciting travel locations than the recent train trips I have taken. On Monday I fly to Ljubljana in Slovenia for a conference with a focus on content licenses and copyright. Then on Thursday I am of to London to give a lecture at the London School of Economics and to have discussion with a group of Andrew Murray’s PhD students.

So this week promises to be an exciting mix of locations and content. I have never been in Ljubljana and so I am looking forward to the half day off planned for sight-seeing. London is an old favorite and I have already booked dates with friends – I just hope that I will manage to squeeze in some of my second-hand bookstores. All I need to do is to start packing…

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Seven Kilometers per Minute

This week I began my interviews. Basically I am going to conduct between 25-30 interview at university libraries all over Sweden. First up were Borås on Wednesday, Linköping on Thursday & Jönköping on Friday. The interviews went very well and it was fun to visit the libraries (pictures on my Flickr account)

The problem with travel in Sweden is that the distances are most easily covered by train and buss but there are too many lakes to be able to travel in straight lines. I have been to places that I have never heard of. This means that:

  • Wednesday – an easy stretch (total 2 hours)
  • Buss: Göteborg – Borås
  • Train: Borås – Göteborg
  • Thursday – delays due to a derailed train (total 8 hours)
  • Train: Göteborg – Katrineholm
  • Buss: Katrineholm – Norrköping
  • Train: Norrköping – Linköping
  • Train: Linköping – Norrköping
  • Buss: Norrköping – Katrineholm
  • Train: Katrineholm – Hällsberg
  • Train: Hällsberg – Göteborg
  • Friday – too much travel, not a happy traveler (total 4 hours)
  • Train: Göteborg – Falköping
  • Train: Falköping – Jönköping
  • Train: Jönköping – Göteborg

The final two hour stretch was sitting next to a young man who smellt really bad, drank beer and had bad teeth. Boy was I happy to get home. At an estimate I have traveled 1400 km in 14 hours over three days for 3,5 hours of interviews. That works out to seven kilometers per minute of interview… Science is an arduous task.

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Some help for the geographically challenged

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Back from the snow

Even though there seems not to have been any snow in the cities, there has been plenty in the hills. So I spent the weekend skiing in Eggedal Norway. Brilliant place!

 

with some great views…

 Normal blogging will be resumed soon…

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Yesterday in Brussels

What a long day. Woke up at 4.30 and flew to Brussels to participate in the European Union Public License (EUPL) workshop. The license is an attempt by the EU to create a copyleft license available in all EU languages. Not only is the license to be translated into all EU languages but it is even to have legal effect in all jurisdictions.

The first draft of the EUPL was created in 2005 and was accepted in three official languages (French, German & English) in 2007. During 2007 the license has been translated into all the languages of the member states of the EU and the translation and adaptation process was carried out.

My role was to work as one of the Swedish experts and the work was to both fact check the language and terminology and to adapt to Swedish law. These 19 translations were approved by the European Commission on 9 January 2008.
A secondary, but more interesting role, was to wake questions and to discuss during the workshop. The presentations and discussions were interesting and occasionally lively.

This liveliness was in relation to copyright/licensing lawyers so it was hardly a rowdy gathering.

The meeting was held in the EU district but after the meeting I managed to do a bit of flash sightseeing in the center. The city is real nice even if I didn’t find the little peeing statue.

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Trysil

Off to bed soon. All the packing is done. The skibox is on the car and we are heading off to Trysil. The weather looks good (between -2 tomorrow and -13 on Monday) so my first skiing experience should be a good one. The main part of my first skiing will be cross country rather than alpine but I hope to try the latter as well.

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Photo jmcunnin2000

Besides the fun of buying “functional” clothes and equipment that boggles the mind (for example ski wax!) their is a technique to be mastered (source wikipedia): herringbone, diagonal stride, double pole with kick, and double pole.

  • Herringbone: This technique is used for climbing steep hills. A walking or running action with splayed skis and without any glide. The poles are planted alternately behind the skis. A distinctive herringbone pattern is left in the snow.
  • Diagonal stride: An exaggerated running action with parallel skis and a glide on each stride. The poles are planted alternately on the opposite side to the kick. For experienced skiers this technique is used uphill. Less experienced skiers also employ the diagonal stride on the flat.
  • Double pole with kick: Both poles are planted simultaneously to give a powerful thrust. As the poles swing forwards again a single leg kick is made. This technique is used when the skier is still moving too quickly to diagonal stride, but is having difficulty double poling (typically on slight uphills or at the bottom of a long hill, just before switching to diagonal stride).
  • Double pole: As above but without the kick. During some long races, in reasonably flat terrain, competitors double pole for the majority of the course

So having purchased the clothes, looked up the information online and read-up on the technology I am prepared to go where I have never gone before and make a total ass of myself, again 🙂

Check out the Trysil webcam.

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A nine to five

Sitting on the train watching the beautiful autumn landscape fly by. Trains mean transportation and work so naturally work is what is happening. A flock of sheep grazes in a field. My focus is interrupted but not broken. What are the implications of yet another Internet based application on copyright? This is interesting stuff, I find it absolutely fascinating, and yet there is something, sometimes that delivers a case of the blues.

An empty golf course outside – inside the article I am working on is moving slowly. Since I work in different places and spend my free time away from home I am wary of my own sense of rootlessness. This may not be the reason for the blues but it is definitely a contributing factor.

Sometimes, just sometimes I long for a nine-to-five job and to live in the nine-to-five world. Not to take my work with me at home. In some of these fantasies I think I would like to be a crane driver. They, at least, never take any work with them home. To sit on a train and not think of work but to actually enjoy the landscape.

Oh never mind! I would probably get bored – or at least I always assume that I would…

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The gang was all there

Today began with the really early train (6 am) to Stockholm since I had to be in there at 9 am to make a presentation at the Internet days an event organized by the Swedish IIS. My track was an e-government track but my presentation was on e-democracy and the way in which the citizen is forgotten in the rush to implement technology with the goal of making bureaucracy more efficient. My main gripe is the use of the word democracy when in actuality the goal is efficient bureaucracy.

The presentation went well and woke several questions among the listeners but it is doubtful whether an audience focused on bureaucracy really wanted to hear about democracy – but on the other hand it democracy is never wrong.

After the presentation I had an interesting (but brief) discussion with Rolf Berndtson  from Dataföreningen (always interesting and insightful) and at lunch I met Désirée Liljevall and Eliza Roszkowska Öberg two politicians with a special interest in IT. Other people there were Johan Schiff who was there as a representative for the newly launched Swedish Wikimedia Foundation. Naturally the gang from FSFE (Jonas Öberg, Henrik Sandklef & Irina Dzhambazova) were there, and I also said a quick “Hi” to Helena Andersson from the IT law department at Stockholm University, saw Nicklas Lundblad (Nicklas I cannot find your blog anymore – where are you?) but missed the opportunity to talk to him (shame), so the whole thing was a very friendly and familiar affair.

Then it was a brisk walk to the train to Lund where I shall be until Thursday morning when it’s off to Stockholm give a lecture and then back to Göteborg for the weekend. Ah, my train-setting lifestyle…

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Never mention the technology

A few posts back I talked about travel and was stupid enough to mention the vulnerability of technology while traveling. I could do this because fundamentally I am not a superstitious person and I was speaking about the risk of forgetting a vital part of technology like a cable. Naturally things like this do not go unpunished and I was (almost) instantly struck by lightening.

The keyboard and pad to my macbook pro just stopped working. Using an external mouse and keyboard worked fine – basically a hardware error. But I was far away from rescue disks, backup systems, external hardware, support and any kind of help. Basically I was screwed.

So I spent my days traveling with dead technology, wishing it to work but to no avail. Fortunately I was back at home base (Göteborg) on Monday. Major backups, handing in the laptop to the repairman and then attempting to get my old laptop into some kind of working order. My old one is very unstable and insecure no matter what I do to it.

Getting a computer into shape takes time. All the minor adjustments that turns it from a mass market product into a comfortable work environment is a slow process. Eventually I managed to get to sleep only to wake up two hours later for no reason. Returning to sleep never worked. After tossing and turning I succumbed to the temptation and went back to adjusting my laptop.

Sometime during the night I began to think about an idea of my former professor, Bo Dahlbom. He used to claim that we were becoming a nomadic society. Naturally he was referring to a segment of society and generalizing. Even though it’s mostly by train I am beginning to feel like a nomadic tribesman. But there is a problem with the nomad analogy.

The nomads are a self-reliant group, their technology is durable, lightweight and basic. If they cannot carry it, service it or fix it then they will not use it. The same cannot be said of the tecchie nomads who need a well functioning infrastructure around them to be able to carry out the semblance of what they (we?) would call a normal life.

On the train platform I saw my first iPhone – sweet!

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Experiences of a semi-nomadic lifestyle

By accepting my new position at Lund’s university I knew I was also accepting a great deal of travel. Before actually beginning the plan was that I would spend 2-3 days a week in Lund, two days in Göteborg, where I maintain a small part of my previous work. Most weekends would be spent in Norway with my girlfriend.

The plan naturally required living in Lund. This turned out to be rather difficult since Lund is a university town (small population – loads of students). Despite this I managed to find a flat with a flatmate. It’s a rather expensive university accommodation – but on the bright side it is in the center of town.

All this was easy enough to plan and predict.

Then came the surprises. Since I spend so little time in any one place:

Buying food for longer periods almost does not work. So I end up eating out a lot more. This is expensive, unhealthy and rather dull in the long run.

There is no point in ordering a morning paper in the letterbox so reading a newspaper becomes a luxury.

The gym is becoming a thing of the past. Running is the activity of choice. However carting around running gear (in particular the shoes) quickly fills any small carrier bag.

Any book, cd, dvd (whatever) you need or want will always be somewhere else.

Travel requires two things organization and patience, the former before and the latter during. Frequent travel requires much more of the same. Missing the bus to work is annoying missing the train is F##cking annoying & embarrassing. I have missed two in the last months.

Since I have always liked words of advice like “Keep your powder dry”, “go west, young man”, and plastics is the future (or something similar in the film The Graduate) here is some advice for others – based upon what I have learned.

– Never take the window seat on trains. In winter the heating is on this side, in summer the heat and light is annoying and if the train is crowded leaving the seat is difficult.
– Extra underwear must be kept at all locations.
– Duplicate (or triplicate) necessities. Shaving kit, after shave, aspirin, running shoes, notebooks, teas, etc etc.
– Make sure you have a bag with all your technical kit. Do not unpack this bag. Keep it close to you at all times. Clean underwear is nothing compared to a mobile with an empty battery.

    Once you start planning and organising things tend to work themselves out rather nicely… Until the next ugly surprise…

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    On Happy Danes, Morose Finns and Liberal Swedes

    Since attempting to explain the differences in personality between Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and Finns to my Greek flat mate in Lund last night I have not been able to drop the concept of geography and personality.

    Naturally this is an old and distinguished discussion including such greats as Montesquieu and Hegel – so I will not go into an argument with these guys!

    Montesquieu posited (in Esprit des Lois) that since the laws are a based upon the ways in which people live their lives and the way in which people live their lives “has as much to do with geography as with climate”. Therefore both law and personality are part of a complex function of nature, geography & climate. Of course Montesquieu believed that geography and climate are constant (no global warming back then!) and therefore do not play a part in social change. Hegel also followed the same ideas

    The unchangeableness of climate, of the whole character of the country in which a nation has its permanent abode, contributes to the unchangeablness of the national character. A desert, proximity to the sea or remoteness from it, all these circumstances can have an influence on the national character (Hegel – Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Part III; Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind).

    But what I wanted to add was this.

    Not only are people different in different locations but also I behave differently in different locations. But is this just a coincidence? Is my behavior in Lund and Göteborg conditioned somehow by climate? Or is my personality changed by distance from my well-known surroundings? And how important is the fact that I am (literally) surrounded by good espresso houses in Lund affect my behavior? If I could transfer Lund physically to Göteborg (or vice versa) would behaviors (my own and others) change?

    If the answer is yes then would that mean if we could physically transfer the northern Finnish town (of slightly depressive people) Sodankylä (67°22′ N, 26°38′ E) to coastal region Denmark (57°22′ N, 9°42′ E – the present location of the happy people of Løkken) that the people would all become extroverted and jovial?

    Am I on to something or have I just had too much strong coffee on a Wednesday morning?

    Posted on by mklang