Weather report

Geneva Weather Forecast
presented by

Maggi The Weatherman

24/02-2006 Today	25/02-2006 Saturday	26/02-2006 Sunday	27/02 -2006 Monday	28/02-2006 Tuesday
Rain/Snow showers	Light Snow	Snow showers	Snow showers	Snow showers
High: 4° Low: -2°	High: 5° Low: -3°	High: 4° Low: -2°	High:-1° Low: -4°	High:0° Low: -6°

Have a nice weekend!

Music Video (Vocal Trance)

This is a tribute video to the song "Beautiful Things" from ANDAIN that I found on www.youtube.com
The animated graphics seen in the film is from the videogame "Kingdom Hearts" by Square/Enix.

World's largest plasma screen

The plasmascreen from Matsushita Electric counts 103" (inches), and is according to the company the largest of its kind on the market today.

Embedded Video Test

This is a live recording of the song "Hosni2005 - Kiiltopiste" performed by Hosni2005 using the Korg Electribe MX.

(Trance music)

Performer: Harri Lähteenmäki

PACO (Test via PICASA 2)

Beware of

PACO

Kraftwerk

Yes... I know... a little bit late...!

But I was looking through my harddrive with an excellent picture-organizing program that is free from google called 'Picasa' and found these pics from a kraftwerk consert that was in Montreux, Switzerland last summer (4th of July 2005) and which I attended!

For those who don't know Kraftwerk I can tell you that they were pioneers in electronic music and started in the late 60-ies by Ralf Hütter och Florian Schneider.
Later on Karl Bartos and Wolfgang Flür joined, during the years members have changed but the Ralf and Florian is still in the band and beside them they now have 2 new members (Fritz Hilpert, Henning Schmitz).
Kraftwerk members are now around 60 years of age but still going strong!

1.2 Petabytes harddrives@home in 5 years!?

1.2 Petabyte is a quite sufficient amount of storage I.e. an almost infinite amount of storage that most likely will not be intimidated by neither 200GB Blu-ray discs nor Holographic discs with over 300GB capacity.
The last six months we've seen several new new harddrive models being launched using perpendicular recording; a technology that makes it possible to store more information on the same surface.
The technology American inventor Michael Thomas has developed is something completely different and al lot more efficient.

'Spintronics' is the name of the new technology that in the future will make it possible to create electronis units or a 3.5" harddrive with 1.2 Petabytes storage capacity.

"Normally all the electrons could spin randomly working against the best electrical signal. The electrons are also capable of spinning in both directions a once. But my unique method for creating uniform in-sync spinning electrons will for the first time allow a whole new field of science and electronics to emerge. With the ability to control electron spin we will see much smaller electronic devices on the market."

Thomas is apparently having discussions with manufacturers in Japan in an attempt to develop a prototype in 2-3 years while he means a commercial model should be ready in 5 years costing $750 a piece.

Source: p2pnet

Weekend report!

Finally,

On Saturday morning I made it to the mountains to ski... I must say it went pretty well considering I hadn't skied for almost a year. The weather was not very nice with fog, wind and snow falling.
The pists were not prepared and a layer of 10-30cm of new snow were all spread out over the area. But that didn't stop me from speeding down the slopes! :)
Luckily there was also a resturant that served beer and food which made the skiing even more fun after some visits.

The place visited was "The Grand Bornand" and it is one of the closest resorts to where I live and you get there within 45-60 minutes...
A skipass was €25.5 for an adult / (satur)day.
Today I have a little bit of body-ache and feel kind of stiff but it was great fun and well worth the effort! :)

Saturday evening was dinner and a movie and then a very nice and long sleep, yesterday I started up with a coffee and Irish coffee at the pub and later on I saw Sweden beat USA in hockey with 2-1. I finished of with a re-watch of the movie "51st State" and got to bed at 22.30-ish.

And of course I didn't miss out on the ordinary Friday-after-work-beers at Charly's. :)

Koenigsegg CCX

Gimme... :)

Here's two photo's of the Koenigsegg CCX, the eagerly awaited swedish repsonse to the Bugatti Veyron. In couple of weeks' time everything about this new super-car should be revealed in Geneva.

UPDATE!

Rumoured specs:

• Engine: Aluminium V8
• Power: 900 BHP
• Weight: 1180 kg
• 0-100 km/h: 3.1 secs
• Top speed: > 400 km/h

Thanks, David Naylor for the info!

Maggi's Weekly Weather Report

Geneva Weather Forecast
presented by

Maggi The Weatherman

17/02-2006 Today	18/02-2006 Saturday	19/02-2006 Sunday	20/02 -2006 Monday	21/02-2006 Tuesday
Rain/Snow	Rain/Snow	Snow	Rain/Snow showers	Rain/Snow showers
High: 3° Low: -3°	High: 5° Low: -2°	High: 1° Low: -1°	High: 0° Low: -1°	High: 3° Low: 0°

Have a nice weekend!

Laser Projector

The company Light Blue Optics Ltd have managed to produce an extyremely small projector (matchbox size) that uses laser as its light source. They call the technique PVPro and the projector has no moving parts not even a fan!
It is said to be able to produce a picture with a resolution up to 2048x1280 pixels - Impressive!!! Nothing mentioned about it's price yet and we can expect quite some waiting time until it shows up at resellers...

Link

Higgs Boson particle a-go-go (CERN related)

Physicists have trialed an international computing grid that will help probe the moments following the Big Bang. The Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid will manage data from a huge particle accelerator at CERN in Switzerland, which it is hoped will answer mysteries in particle physics.

These include whether the hypothetical Higgs Boson particle, postulated as the progenitor of mass, actually exists. In 2004 bookies Ladbrokes offered odds of 6-1 that it would be proven by 2010.

The grid reached an unprecedented sustained data transfer rate during the week-long trial, breaking the 1 gigabyte per second barrier - roughly equivalent to a full DVD every five seconds. An earlier test last year managed 600 megabytes per second.

Once up and running in 2007, the Large Hadron Collider will produce 15m gigabytes of data per year.

Geneva-based CERN sent out data to 12 major academic computing centres across the globe. The UK grid received 200 megabytes per second during the evaluation, a figure they hope to double in time for the LHC coming online. Dr Andrew Sansum of Oxford's Rutherford Appleton Lab explained: "Then we'll really be approaching the speeds we need."®

Source: www.theregister.com

World's fastes digicam goes to CERN, Geneva!

I just snapped this up... it is interesting news especially since I work at CERN! :)

A group of 20 scientists at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have spent the past five years developing this project. The 8-foot-tall camera can take images at less than two-billionths of a second. The project, called the Regional Calorimeter Trigger, is used to take pictures of colliding particles. This $6 million digicam will finally be put to the test later this year when it is shipped to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland.

World's fastest image processor aids search for elusive form of matter

Weekend weather

Geneva Weather Forecast
presented by

Maggi The Weatherman

10/02-2006 Today	11/02-2006 Saturday	12/02-2006 Sunday	13/02 -2006 Monday	14/02-2006 Tuesday
Snow showers	Few snow showers	Partly Cloudy	Mostly sunny	Partly cloudy
High: 0° Low: -5°	High: 1° Low: 5°	High: 3° Low: -4°	High: 3° Low: -2°	High: 3° Low: -1°

Have a nice weekend!

20 of my favourites of Trance/Club music !!!

Hi,

If you like electronica or music that wanna make you dance I urge you to check out these songs as they are some of my absolute favourites, some are a bit old but really good and should not be forgotten...

Many of the mixes can be found(use search function) and listened to on: http://www.audiojelly.com

So without any specific order, here we go... happy listening! ;)

1.	Scott Bond vs. Solarstone	3rd earth
2.	Andain	Beautiful things (Gabriel & Dresden unplugged mix)
3.	4 Strings	Diving
4.	Rank 1	Breathing
5.	Chicane feat. Marie Brennan	Salt water
6.	Konkrete	Law unto myself
7 .	Madonna	What it feels like for a girl (Above and beyond club mix)
8.	Axwell	Feel the wibe
9.	David Guetta feat. JD Davis	The world is mine (Deep dish radio edit)
10.	Darren Tate vs. Jono Grant	Shine (Original mix)
11.	Mylo	Drop the pressure
12.	Above & Beyond	Far from in love (Shane 54 remix)
13.	Avanto	The flute
14.	Mind One feat. Rena	Star for me
15.	Matt Darey & Marcella Woods	Voice of an angel (Vocal dub)
16.	Perasma	Swing 2 harmony
17.	Oceanlab feat. Justine Suissa	Clear blue water (Ferry Corsten remix)
18.	Conjure One feat. Sinead O'Connor	Tears from the moon (DJ Tiësto Mix)
19.	Nalin & Kane	Open your eyes (Radio mix)
20.	Above and Beyond	Alone tonight (Original mix)

Still didnt get enough?
Here's a bonus for you (a relaxed version of another great song):

"4 Strings - Take Me Away (Into The Night) (Chill Out Mix)"

Military Costs of U.S.A. - 2007

The news bureau Bloomberg reports that George W. Bush will ask the congress for 439 billion dollars to cover the U.S. military costs for their defence year 2007.
In Swedish money that is the same as "3400 miljarder Sek" wich corresponds to the total BNP together of the following countries:

Sweden, Georgien, Honduras, Cyprus, Lithuania, Jordania, Cuba, Kenya, Iraq

This sum does not include the extra $120 billion that Mr President wants to use for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year and 2007.

Ohh, I am now confident that Mr Bush must love peace since he is prepared to spend all that money where it is really needed...

(Source: CIA World Factbook & http://bloomberg.com)

Maggi the Weatherman goes onto blog!

Geneva Weather Forecast
presented by

Maggi The Weatherman

03/02-2006 Today	04/02-2006 Saturday	05/02-2006 Sunday	06/02 -2006 Monday	07/02-2006 Tuesday
Partly Cloudy	Sunny	Few snow showers	Partly Cloudy
High: 5° Low: -2°	High: 5° Low: 0°	High: 4° Low: -3°	High: 3° Low: -3°	High: 0° Low: -3°

So we have soon reached another weekend, weather looks OK for Saturday if M.T.W. can be trusted !?

I wish all of you a very pleasant and relaxing weekend!

Cheers,
Maggi

Skiing season is here...

...and I have still not skied yet !?

I live 100km from Chamonix and I have alot of other cool skiing resorts close to where I live; Avoriaz, Flaine, Verbier, Tignes, Val d'isere ....to name a few!
Maybe I will get my ass into one of this slopes this weekend!?
Weather will make me decide, I think.
Isn't It kind of funny? When you live far away from something, you really long for it sometimes, but if you live very close to that thing you do not really take advantage of that situation.
This year I have been far too lazy, it is so nice when you finally get there... sun, mountains, blue sky, white powdery snow and gorgeous skiing (maybe even a cold beer or two and some nice food).

I must admit that I have become more of a chicken nowadays compared to my wild days back 8 years ago or more... or is it maybe just that I have grown up and think things through more now? Naaahhh!!! ;)
Boys will be boys and I will never grow up, the day I do, the days are counted! *LOL*

Anyway here are some pics from my "Wild Period" of skiing, 8 years ago as of this winter (January, 1998)... maybe I should be lucky to be alive and appreciate life even more than I do!?

24 meter backflip - 1st try!


2nd try, same length, same stupid skiier!


Cliff jump, 5 meters up... still no birds!


"Aguille de midi", Chamonix, France (3842 metres)

To my defence I will say that doing a backflip on ski's had always been one of my goals in life, I can happily say that I reached that goal and I see no reason of trying it again. ;)

Crane Course Part II, VOIP and other things...

Hi,

Crane

Today I followed the rest of the crane course, more theory and practice + a test in the end... I just wanted to share some pictures of the equipment we used:

The BIG crane that can take 63Tons, radiocontrolled.


The 11Ton concrete-block we were moving...


Crane from different angle...

It was FUN and you felt kind of powerful (haha) when you controlled it from a box on your stomach! Anyway the course is now over and tomorrow i am back to ordinary work tasks.

VOIP

For those who have heard of SKYPE and think that it is a good program I want to share the news of another similar program that has one benefit, it can call landlines for FREE in 35 countries!!! Even Mobile numbers are possible in some countries (USA, Canada & China to mention some...).
I installed it yesterday and have so far called several landline-numbers in Sweden with good results. The name of this program is VOIPSTUNT and can be downloaded from the link provided, only thing needed to do is to install and then register as a user. BRILLIANT!

UPDATED!

The VOIPSTUNT program stops working for FREE calls after a while.... :(

Movie

Yesterday I saw another film, Proof (Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins & Jake Gyllenhaal). It was OK but I felt disturbed a bit by the character that Gwyneth Played.
She was performing really well in her character but I got a funny feeling inside.



Life

What IS the meaning of life?

Do you ever feel like you are in a hamster-wheel? That you expect more things to happen than the ordinary daily routines? At the moment I feel like I am doing almost the same things every day... You wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast, go to work, check mail, have a coffe break, do some serious work, have lunch, work a bit more, take another coffe break, make a last effort... before going home, Stop to shop some food on the way home, cook some dinner, surf the web/see a friend, watch a film, go to bed, sleep 7-8 hours before the damn bell rings again and you are up for another day that repeats the above written.
Off course there are variations and even weekends occassionally... :)
But am I missing some things out or is this the way it will be onwards?
I am not depressed or anything... in fact I have always been positive to life and my place in space but maybe it is healthy to raise this question from time to time to get on track and broaden your mind a bit.

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy says the following:
The answer to the meaning of life is 42, but what is the question?
Interesting... but I am not sure I understand! ;)

Islam says appearantly that GOD created man for one only purpose:

To worship GOD!

This is nothing I agree on, I am not even sure that GOD exists or have existed... but it is kind of easy to have GOD as a good beeing and SATAN as an evil. The only thing I know for sure is that religion have been the reason for many wars and many peoples deaths.
Maybe the only true answer to the question or the only one I will ever get to know is that it is a film made by Monthy Python in 1983 (The Meaning Of Life), If you have not already seen it - do it!
Anyway, I have always thought that the answer to this question was to have as much fun as possible and to be as nice to yourself and other people as you can before you reach the final rest. At least this is some rules what I have tried to live after so far and managed pretty well.


Enough for today... (Be nice to animals and kids!) :)