Cultural sensitivities

In hackerdom, it’s deeply ingrained behaviour to look away when somebody else enters their password; it’s automatic and often quite subtle, just a slight turn of the head and a defocussing of the gaze for the necessary few seconds. Conversely, it is expected behaviour by the other: A n00b that I was instructing leaned over my shoulder and watched my actions even while I logged in; I couldn’t have been more disturbed if she’d insisted on following me into the bathroom.

Hand and eye coordination

Yep, you saw right, those are the fingers of master builder Emmanuel Nouaillier, who shares with us his methods for creating derelict buildings. There’s some quite impressive work here.

H/t Neil Crawford.

Veckans ord: råkost

När jag var liten fanns i tidningen varje vardag en liten spalt som listade skollunchen i länets kommuner. Råkost var en stående komponent. Jag var inte riktigt säker på vad det var, men jag utgick från att det nog var lika äckligt som mesost. Som tur var var det ingen som tvingade mig att smaka på denna fågelmejeriprodukt och jag fick äta rivna morötter istället.

Word of the week: diety

Adherents of many religions have food restrictions placed on them by their diety.

Veckans ord: pateter

”Men snälla lilla du, vad är det för gräsliga saker du har på väggarna? Det är ju pateter!”

Happy birthday

We celebrated Honeybuns’ birthday with breakfast at Hotel Diplomat. The atmosphere was much cosier than at Grand Hôtel, including the “five and a half and a little more” girl at the next table who regaled us with various bits of information and curiosities, such as her father just having gone to have his hair cut, because sometimes it stood straight out just like a dead rabbit on his head. On bad hare days, one presumes.

The selection in the buffet was somewhat smallish, but not inconveniently so, on the other hand they closed it already at 10. We relocated to the lounge and lounged there until lunch, when we went out on town to look for what we could find. Honeybuns found a very cute collar in fake fur, which I look forward to see her wearing on our next outing.

Veckans ord: bikinilinje

Irans regering har en tydlig bikinilinje: Den får inte synas.

Stereotypes

Scandinavia and the World is drawn by a Dane who stereotypes nationalities in the typical Danish way.

Eclipse

I’d forgotten about the eclipse, but excited workmates reminded me. In return I told them how to make a pinhole camera for safe viewing out of two pieces of paper.

On the subject of conspiracies

I see many people whose opinions I would otherwise respect tacitly make the claim that Julian Assange has been caught in a “honey trap”, but what none of those has been able to formulate is What exactly could the CIA/UD/Säpo/Illuminati offer the women concerned to make them go through a rape trial? Their identities are public, their motives questioned, their reputation picked apart, their careers most likely shot, and I can’t imagine they’ be able live a life in quiet luxury afterwards without it being brought to the light.

Inspiration

Hm, compare this with this.

Hangover

But for my own part I’m fine. We spent New Year’s eve at K’s home over a most exquisite dinner. We also test-played Orangino. No clue why it’s named that way, but the box is very orange. The idea of the game is that you pick cards which each contain a claim about your character and then you and and all the others state how well that claim fits you. If your assessment agrees with that of your friends, you get points. Clearly the way to win is to assess yourself the way you suspect your friends see you, not necessarily truthfully (and of course, it might be argued that your truth does not necessarily trump your friends’s truth(s) anyway). In the end, I won, Honeybuns exclaiming: “…because you’re such a caricature of yourself!” Yeah, I guess I manage to keep my public face on even in private.

Eventually we trudged off through a thickening snowfall to Skansen where we caught the last bit of the New Year’s show (we didn't actually see any of it, coming so late we ended up behind some thousands of others), sang along and cheered at the new year. The snowfall allowed us to see only the most powerful of the fireworks, but K had brought along sparklers that we waved around and also handed out to some tourists who hadn’t thought of bringing their own pyrotechnics.

We slipped and slid down the hill from Solliden and wandered homewards. I thought there were fewer over-inebriated revellers out than usual, possibly due to the snowfall. It wasn’t all that cold though, probably just around 270 K, but I still winced at the sight of various young women walking around in short skirts and ultra-thin pantyhose.