Monthly Archives: January 2006

Albino reindeer

This entry was posted in Sweden on by (updated 6691 days ago)

You know how we have squirrels everywhere in Michigan? Well in Northern Sweden, they have reindeer. Everywhere! One day I was driving along the road I spotted an albino reindeer among this group, so I pulled over a grabbed some pics.

albino reindeer 1albino rhiendeer 2

Sweden is a beautiful place with very friendly people. I spent most of my time in the vicinity of Arvidsjaur, which is about 60 miles from the Arctic circle. Fortunately I also got to see the rest of the country driving from Goteborg across to Upsalla and up to Arvidsjaur. I also drove back south through Stockholm and down to Malmo. It is an absolutely gorgeous country. If you ever get a chance to visit make sure you go, it is worth iit.

You think it’s been dark around here?

This entry was posted in Sweden on by (updated 6691 days ago)

I was looking through some old photos and I found some stuff I took in Sweden in 1993. In my job we do cold weather development in various parts of the world including the northern Sweden, On my first trip to Sweden I arrived on Jan. 4 1993. Moskosel at noon in early january crop
This photo was was taken while standing on a frozen lake in Moskosel Sweden at approximately 12 noon on about this date in 1993. Note the proximity of the sun to the horizon. That is as high as it gets this time of the year and it only visible for about 20-25 minutes. The rest of the time it is dark. The plus side is that it is great for star gazing. You get to see a lot of northern lights too.

arvidsjaur map

This map shows where Arvidsjaur is in Northern Sweden west of the Finnish border.

Real Estate developers suck! 4

This entry was posted in Ann Arbor News Ypsilanti on by

Michigan desperately needs long-term high paying jobs. Building yet another subdivision will create a few construction jobs for a few months to a year. There are already plenty of houses that are sitting on the market for increasing amounts of time. What we need are companies that are going to create well paying high skilled jobs for the long haul. Today the Michigan Supreme Court decided to screw the workers of Michigan. They ruled in favor of an Oakland County developer who wants to buy the former Ypsilanti Psychiatric Hospital site for another subdivision. The state is trying to sell the property to Toyota who want to build a new Technical Center that will create 1000 new high paying jobs. If they don’t get this property they will very likely build their tech center in Kentucky where they have their biggest North American production facility. The developer DPG-York should stop this case now and walk away from this, but they clearly care more about their own short-term gain than they do about the health of the Michigan economy. The court should have dropped this case and let the Toyota deal move forward which would have been best for Michigan.

Is this the beginning of the end? 2

This entry was posted in politics on by (updated 6696 days ago)

Big-time republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff plead guilty in a plea agreement today. Abramoff will become a government witness in on-going investigations of corruption in congress. Tom Delay should be shaking in his boots today. Abramoff will probably bring down some democrats too, but that is a small price to pay to rid this country of a right wing republican led congress.

Top images of 2006

This entry was posted in drm patents politics technology this and that Unintelligent Design on by (updated 6697 days ago)

At the end of every year you always see the lists of top images and stories of the past year.  Here are a few of the images I am looking forward to seeing at the end of 2006:

-George W Bush being convicted at his impeachment trial

-Karl Rove’s perp walk and subsequent conviction in the Valerie Plame leak case

-Republicans loosing control of both houses of congress in November

-Tom Delay convicted on all charges in his corruption trial

-the final US troops returning from Iraq

-the RIAA announcing all file sharing lawsuits are dropped and previous settlements are refunded

-Record companies announcing they will never use DRM again and repudiating the DMCA

-prices of online music downloads being reduced to the point ($.20-$.25 per song) where file sharing of music becomes pointless except for old out of print recordings.

-More people listening to podcasts than Clear Channel radio stations

-The Thomas Moore Law center is disbanded and all intelligent design efforts are abandoned.

-Software and business model patents are ruled invalid and are permanently rejected

Clearly some of these items fall into the realm of fantasy (like the RIAA giving up on drm),  but some are definitely things that could happen this year.  What are some images or stories you would like to look back on come December 31 2006?