Heureka

Ok, this is the one, the one that will make me rich!

Put a kid anywhere near a shower and you know that the wailing will commence. I have spent years of deep thoughts and careful analysis of the situation and I have come up with the ultimate solution that once and for all will solve this problem. A solution that will end the wailing and put a smile on every kid and every parent come bath time: Shower brows! 

Kids only has these tiny, barely visible, eyebrows that is no match for the flow of water and soaps which then of course ends up in the eyes of the innocent child. A pair of thick, bushy, glue on eyebrows that would make any pensioner proud will deflect the flow around the eyes and make shampooing a breeze! 

Ok internet, you know the drill by know: I give you the idea for a couple of the finished products (and a piece of the business, lets say 25% of the profits)

Ice ice baby

When, before you jump on your bike to ride to work, you think through where your phone is best protected in case of a fall - then you know it is slippery... But studded tires and a great deal of denial goes a long way...

My brain made a decision on its own

I noticed something fascinating about my brain today..

It made a decision - totally on its own - based on its own observation of the time it took to process a specific task.

I was sorting mail, and the fiftyeleventh thousand letter I was sorting was, after a quick check either going to the E or the X pile. Being rather tired however (after a thirteen hour workday and an hour of bike commute the day before) I promptly forgot. Now, here comes the fascinating part, Before I could return my eyes to the list to determine if it was an E or an X letter my brain said: 'Based on the time it took me to analyze the task the first time I am certain it should go to the E pile!'. This is not something that I have taught my brain to do. There are plenty of tasks at my job that I try to do as unconsciously as possible, but I have never thought of this strategy nor analyzed the problem that way before.

I got quite startled when I realized what my brain had done, and I felt the need to verify the answer even though I knew it was correct, which it then turned out to be. I gather it is not a unique event, but I have never before observed my own brain doing anything similar. Cool things sometimes happen when you are close to your breaking point!

I had a House moment

I have been having a House moment over the last couple of weeks. No, not one where I suddenly realize what ails someone, but... Ok I'll (try to) explain... 

I lost my headphones. It was on a Thursday, I came home, parked my bike, climbed up the stairs, came through the doors and went into the apartment. Some time between the parking of the bike and being inside the apartment I took of my headphones, which I use almost all day every day - listening to podcasts to keep my brain entertained, and later that day I could not find them. I got puzzled, I usually put them in my pocket or on my nightstand stand-in (which is a chair), but now they were nowhere to be found. I found it odd, so I searched the apartment - nothing. I asked the kids if they had scrounged them but they flatly denied it. Strange. I searched all the clothes I had been wearing - nothing. Not around my bike or in the stairwell. Over the coming two weeks I went through my behavior, I analyzed my movements and tried to find clues and hints. I started to get a sensation that I had put them on a hook, thinking that - yea, this is not my usual place to put them but I will remember cause this is a hook (or something). But it was not a real memory, just a hint of a memory. So I searched all the hooks in the apartment, not once but several times over the following days. Finally I said to myself that - to heck with it I'll accept my loss and get on with my life. Which of course I could not, not for the monetary setback (they are nothing fancy, just little better than what you get with your phone) but for the reason that - If I can loose something like that in such a well declared space I must truly be loosing my mind. I knew I had them when I parked my bike, I took them of before I showered a few minutes after coming home and that night they were gone. So I kept looking. Two weeks after the incident I was standing in the kitchen and one of my sons was out on the balcony and he asked me something and I happened to turn my head just right and There, on a hook next to the balcony door on which we hang kitchen towels and oven mitts, there they were. Right in the open but a totally illogical place to hang them on. My mind is calm now. I have not lost it. 

So what does that have to do with House? I don't know if you too see the parallel, but maybe you do: There is an episode in which he gets a water leak in his apartment. The repair guy tells him that this must come from someone pulling on the pipes and House retorts that No, why would I do that? Who pulls on pipes? My memory is vague here but I have it in my mind that he goes through all possible scenarios in his mind the following couple of days, he tries to analyze what might have caused the leak and he can not come up with anything. But then, then he takes a bath, and to get out of the bath he uses his cane to pull himself up, he uses it by hooking it over a pipe and then we see the light bulb turning on inside his head, he can now see the answer, he now know he is not crazy. 

It is sometimes hard to analyze even yourself. 

//

Another short note on the same theme..

Back in eight grade I sometimes found that my fingernails on my right hand were partially white. I could not for the life of me figure out what was going on. I put my brain on the task but to no avail. It scraped off, so it was some kind of paint I supposed, but why would I have paint on my fingernails? Then one day I walked down the corridor in the school and I realized what I was doing - I was letting my right hands fingers touch the wall as I was walking along, rasping along on the corrugated wallpaper, picking up small amounts of paint as they did... 

Ability to communicate

Have you also lost the ability to communicate? Phone I could handle. Email is great. Sms, hmm, sure if the communication is quick and non important. But now I can't even keep track where my different communications are, somewhere on facebook, messenger, hangouts, Twitter, Google+. It is all just to confusing and my brain has shut down -> I do not communicate anymore. Can we not all just throw away everything but email and see where that takes us?
(And now I am so confused that I don't even know if I have expressed this thought before in some medium, maybe even this very same blog, but that is just proof of my lost ability right?)

My latest Great business Idea

What do you think of this: Buying up vacuum cleaner bags from families with children and mining them for Lego pieces.

The Guerilla Bicycle Repair man

I once had a great idea that I forgot to tell you about, but better late than never right?

What do you think about my chances if I applied for money (from the EU) to do some guerilla bike repair.

You know all the bike parking-lots around town. If you look closely you see that often more than half (yes, I have actually been out collecting the statistics) are in some kind of disrepair. Many people are not that handy and when their bike fails, via a flat tyre, broken breaks or worn down chain it often becomes a hurdle to large to conquer. So they leave the bike at the closest stand and continues on with their life. A life that is a little less environmentally friendly, a life with less spontaneous everyday workout, a life that is just a little bit worse than it was before.

So, my idea is to stealthily repair the bikes. Ill pick the lock, repair the flat tyres, grease up the chain, fix the breaks, give it a quick polish and lock it again. Ill leave behind a note stating that

'This bike was repaired by the Guerilla Bicycle Repair man, with funds from the EU

Fare well, and remember to use a helmet'

Yes, I know that you can get your bike repaired at the shop, but you don't do you? The hurdle is too great. You use your car instead. Because that is easy. And then you get used to the car again. And then the bike gets forgotten... But if you one day happen to walk by your old bike and sees that, hey? what?, is that my bike?! Cool new tyres (special ones with my Guerilla Bicycle Repair man logo on and a EU flag)... You see? Isn't it a great idea? Would not people get on their bikes again? Is it not a great way to help save the environment? To help fight the growing health problems?

I am doing it, I am f***ing doing it. Anybody know where I should send my application? And where to get custom tyres made?

Is it a boy or a girl

I know. I do it to. But that does not mean that I can not complain when other people do it right? (maybe it does, but here goes anyway)

Buying a bike to my kid, the salesman asks - is it for a boy or a girl? And I almost flip. Its a bike. It should have two wheels, pedals, breaks, a seat and a steering device. Why should this purchase in any way be determined by the gender of the kid? Why should a girl need to have a basket on her pink bicycle? Argh. Why can I not buy a gender neutral bike?

Then I turn around and hears that an acquaintance is expecting a child and the first thing I ask is - is it a boy or a girl?

(That and the fact that I think that all princess stories where the girl is depicted as a helpless being frothed in pink should be hidden away deep in the library and movie vendors cellars is my contribution to the gender debate)

Don't you just love it

when things just magically optimize themselves?

Cucumber glue!!!

Whilst cleaning the daycare today I came up with yet another one of my classic Great Ideas! Who is with me in developing a totally eco-friendly strong as shit glue out of cucumber? Nothing sticks to a linoleum floor as good as a slice of that green stuff left to really dry out. There must be some magic going on there and I bet that the power can be applied to other materials as well.

Soda -> Stupid in da head

Today I commented that 'Well, wasn't that unnecessary?' to one of the ~10 year old kids in the park that just kicked on his empty soda bottle so that it broke against a bench. 'Yea, wasn't it?' one of his compadres replied. He started to pick the pieces up and I left them sitting there, probably thinking I was stupid and what not. Minutes later they were all gone and I noticed that the broken bottle was still on the ground, together with one other and a soda can that was twisted so that sharp pieces of metal protruded from it.
The only explanation I can come up with is that soda makes you fucking stupid in the head. There should really be an age limit for buying that shit, or maybe it should be banned all together.

Kind of blue

Your taxes makes me kind of blue and dirty. 

Solution:

This is how we ought to solve the problem of low security around our nuclear plants (in regards to this):

1. Put up sign: Trespassers will be shot.
2. Shoot trespassers.

How the hell can we swedes be so fucking weak in regards to something so fucking important?

2010 - wtf

Ok, who here thinks that maybe, just maybe, we, as a people, by the year 2010 would be able to construct a car - or every car - such that if you by mistake leave an interior light on it would, after a couple of days - maybe when the battery is about to run out of juice - by itself, decide that - hmm, this is probably not right - I will turn that light off so that the owner of me will be able to start me next time he/she requires my assistance?

First Book

My son Tage (4.5y) is writing on his first book. It might become a manual for life I think. This is what he has written so far (although, as he is not fluent in English, he writes in Swedish):

You are not allowed to destroy 

each others pictures in the sand.

You may ...

Written by Tage

My wife said tonight that her first book was a collection of her impression of people. This person is nice. That person is funny. That really hit a spot in my memory from back in the days. Not of writing books. Not even of a time when I was four. But back in the early days of my computerized life. Lets say it was in 7'th grade (I am really unsure of the correct time, but when I think of the people involved it kind of ends up around there). Back then I wrote a Incredibly complex BASIC program on my C64 that, if you entered a persons name (probably people in my class), wrote on the screen a small tidbit on that person. 

    Enter a name: Kristoffer

    Kristoffer is good at ...

I wonder. I really wonder, if this program is still somewhere in my digital archive. Could it be worth going down to the basement and digging through old boxes, finding old floppys, get a computer to read them and look for that specific program among dozens and dozens of programs and texts and stuff. Is it there to be found? What can I learn of myself as a teenager? 

Or Maybe I should just construct a new such 'program' and enter a sentence or two about each and every person that is part of my social network. In the style of the early teen Mattias of course. And then put it up on a webpage somewhere for the whole world to enjoy. 

Fun project, who is with me?

Just got an incredibly funny idea watching CSI NY.

Lets go through all films and TV series that has ever shown a fingerprint. We will build a register and do a serious analysis of them. What do you think? Is every fingerprint shown on CSI actually one and the same? Can we match prints to actors/staff on the shows? Will we discover that the prints are not real but just an artists rendering?

Who has got the time to spare? Who wants to be on the front page on WIRED? Who is with me?

Silly I know

I have walked past this sign almost every day now for several months and I still think it is funny. Silly, but funny. 

No no, we do not sell time traveling t-shirts here, our t-shirts only have three dimensions. (T-Shirt 3D Only)