Danish activist tied the knot in world’s 1st gay marriage
(NEWSER) – Axel Axgil spent decades fighting to make Denmark the first country in the world to legalize same-sex partnerships and, after victory in 1989, was the first to enter a union under the new law. Argil, who has died at the age of 96, helped found one of Europe’s oldest gay rights organizations in 1948. In the decade that followed, he lost his home and his job because of his activism, AP reports. More»
Article source: http://www.newser.com/story/140257/finnish-leaders-husband-caught-ogling-princess.html
Denmark is a leader in implementing well-designed policies for renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate change, according to a review of Danish energy policies published today by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The review applauded Denmark s long-term vision for a low-carbon future all Danish energy supply is to come from renewable sources by 2050 and its achievements to date, but also sounded some notes of caution regarding the implementation of such an ambitious strategy.
“The IEA commends Denmark and its people for the scope of their vision and their many successes in adopting sustainable energy policies,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven as she presented the review. “Even with Denmark s exemplary record, however, challenges remain and there is room for further enhancement if Denmark is to remain at the top of the class. This report provides a number of recommendations for Danish policymakers to consider.”
Meeting 50% of electricity supply from renewable energy sources by 2020 is a challenge, and Denmark, already a world leader, is better placed than most to meet it. Nonetheless, integrating large volumes of variable electricity supply will require a large reconfiguration of the electricity network, within Denmark and elsewhere. Denmark is well-connected with its neighbours, but more investment in interconnectors will be needed. Furthermore the phase out of coal-fired generation capacity will have to be managed with care.
“Electricity security must not be compromised in the medium term,” Ms. Van der Hoeven noted. Furthermore, as President of the Council of the European Union, Denmark can play a key role in finalising the Energy Efficiency Directive which will help the EU reach its goal of reducing the level of energy consumption by 20% by 2020. Denmark is also ideally placed to drive further integration of European electricity markets and facilitate new investment in energy infrastructure.
The IEA places Denmark at the forefront of not only renewable energy policy development but also technology research, development and deployment; but others are catching up. Denmark must take the necessary steps to develop training and educational capacity to ensure it continues to enjoy access to highly qualified labour and research communities with skills needed to deliver a low-carbon future.
The radical transformation of the energy sector will not be cheap. Denmark has estimated that the transition costs will be in the region of DKK 5.6 billion. Danish consumers must be certain that they are paying for the most efficient solutions and optimal policy outcomes.
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Article source: http://www.utilityproducts.com/news/2012/02/22/denmark-iea-commends-new-danish-energy-strategy.html
23 February 2012
By Ed Dutton
Unease with internationalisation echoes growing concerns in other Nordic nations. Ed Dutton reports
Across the Nordic countries, academics are under pressure to publish in English to give their research greater international impact. While some believe this is a necessary step towards improving university standards and attracting international students and scholars, there is a growing backlash against Anglicisation, amid fears for the future of the Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages if they cease to be used in academia for critical analysis and the exploration of complex concepts.
In Finland in particular, the pressure to publish in English has given rise to a shadow market in translation and proofreading services – which can prove expensive for academics and universities.
At an institutional level, Finnish universities increasingly pride themselves on their internationalism. There are a number of “international” master’s programmes taught in English. These are the only courses in Finland’s higher education sector – undergraduate or postgraduate – for which fees may be charged, and the fees apply only to non-EU students on these courses. Even so, the Finnish higher education sector’s level of internationalisation – as indicated by numbers of foreign students and university staff, Finnish academics’ and students’ international mobility – lags behind that of other Nordic states.
For some, this is a serious problem. For others, it is part and parcel of a focus on protecting the Finnish language that may help to avoid the kind of academic backlash being seen in some neighbouring countries keener to embrace internationalisation.
According to Kimmo Viljamaa of Ramboll Management Consulting, a public-sector consultancy firm, Finnish academic research has significantly less impact than that of Sweden, Norway or Denmark. Finnish academics, especially in the social sciences, are far more likely than their Nordic neighbours to publish in their native language or in anglophone journals based in their own country.
Mr Viljamaa, who is also a doctoral researcher at the University of Tampere, conducted research in 2009 on university internationalisation for the Academy of Finland, the governmental funding body for scientific research. In his view, the sector’s relative lack of internationalisation is a problem. “There are fewer foreign students in Finland than in other leading countries. The share has been growing but it’s still below average,” he says.
Self-perpetuating
Viljamaa adds: “More worrying is that Finnish researchers don’t go abroad very much. Mobility has actually gone down in the past decade. And there are far fewer foreign staff at Finnish universities than in other Nordic countries.”
Viljamaa stresses that this lack of internationalisation seems to be self-perpetuating, making it difficult for Finnish institutions to attract the best international scholars.
“Language is a big problem. Science research will be carried out in English but all of the administration will be in Finnish. This means that foreigners may be able to work on a project but it would be very difficult for them to make a career in Finland.”
The relative lack of internationalisation in Finland’s universities reflects the state of the country as a whole, compounding problems for international scholars, Viljamaa argues. “The culture makes it difficult for the family [of the academic]. It’s very difficult for a spouse to find a job without speaking Finnish.
“In the capital [Helsinki], it’s easier. But at a small university elsewhere, language is a much bigger barrier.” The problem, he suggests, is less common among Finland’s Nordic neighbours, where the standard of English is higher.
Lack of internationalisation in Finland also has a financial impact on both individual scholars and departments.
Pentti Haddington, a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki, notes that all Finnish universities offer proofreading and translation services to their academic staff.
“Normally, before you submit an (English-language) article to a journal, you’re asked to get the language checked. Sometimes it’s done by the English department and sometimes by a special language centre,” explains Haddington, who used to work at such a facility at the University of Oulu.
But either way, he adds, “you have to pay for it, and it’s very expensive. Sometimes, if your research is part of a project, there may be funding to pay for proofreading. But in most cases, the department can’t afford to pay so academics have to pay for it themselves.”
According to Haddington, this means that there is a clear financial advantage to being a native English speaker, or having near-native fluency. Poor written English can be costly: according to Arja Alin of Oulu’s language centre, university employees are charged €15 (£13) per page for proofreading, but €35 per page for translation. Demand for the two services is roughly evenly split.
But the perceived slowness of the language centres also leads to Finnish academics employing freelance proofreaders. One freelancer, a British postgraduate living in Finland who wishes to remain anonymous, says he charges between €14 and €16 per page for proofreading and EUR40 per page for translation into English. Most articles sent to him are about 30 pages long.
Obfuscation
Following proofreading, he says, academics “want the work to be of publishable quality…Often, many sentences have to be rewritten.”
The freelancer sometimes finds himself editing the articles academically as well as linguistically.
“The idea is to make the sentences clearer and in better English. But I find that there’s a lot of obfuscation. Sometimes, they’re writing in a way that they think academics like. And when you take away the obfuscation, which you inevitably do if you’re making it clearer, then you can find the argument and agree or disagree with it.”
Others in Finnish higher education argue that the sector is maintaining a necessary balance between a local and global outlook.
Anita Lehikoinen, director of higher education research policy at the Ministry of Education, says Finland is making moves to increase university internationalisation.
“There will soon be greater rewards for international scientific publications published in English,” she explains. “But we also have an obligation to the Finnish public that universities should offer education in Finnish and Swedish, our two native languages.”
She emphasises that the hard sciences are increasingly international but that “many of the people in the social sciences and humanities think that most of the impact [in work in those disciplines] is within Finland. So there is more resistance to the use of English there.”
But, for Lehikoinen, the most important reason for maintaining Finnish in higher education is that it needs to be preserved as a language of scholarship.
“We have nation-states now and they are not going away any time soon,” she says. “We are a small country with a small language that nobody else speaks. If we don’t take steps to preserve Finnish, then nobody else will.”
In Norway, internationalisation has been the subject of heated debate. But there, unlike in Finland, publishing in English is not only encouraged but rewarded. Beginning in 1997, academics at Norwegian universities have been given financial bonuses for English-language publications.
It is also common for Norwegian academics’ English-language articles to be submitted for “language washing” (proofreading). However, according to Birgit Brock-Utne, a professor in the department of educational research at the University of Oslo, this service is typically paid for by the department and its use may be seen as a sign of poorer-than-average English skills.
Brock-Utne sees the internationalisation of Norwegian academia as highly problematic.
“If everything is in English, it means the lowering of our language because we stop creating academic concepts and the language deteriorates,” she argues.
“Our research is paid for by the Norwegian taxpayer, so it should be in the language that the people feel comfortable with.”
She concedes that the problem could be partially solved by popularising English-written research in Norwegian, but notes that academics “do not gain prestige” for doing this.
Brock-Utne’s view echoes an increasingly voluble backlash against Anglicisation across Nordic academia. In neighbouring Sweden, the Language Defence Network campaigns to strengthen the Swedish language in the Swedish academy, where, the group claims, more than 90 per cent of doctoral theses are written in English.
In 2010, it referred Gothenburg University to the parliamentary ombudsman for demanding that all applications for a post at the institution be written in English.
Brock-Utne says of the situation in Norway: “We have internationalised very fast and we have many international academics who have been here for six years and do not even speak Norwegian.”
In her experience, it is mainly UK academics who have failed to learn Norwegian after many years.
Brock-Utne proposed, as a requirement of their employment contract, giving them three years to learn fluent Norwegian. Her university’s anthropology department follows that policy, which she thinks is “a good thing”.
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Article source: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=419064&c=1
22 de febrero de 2012, 15:32Abu Dabi, 22 Feb (Prensa Latina) Danish tennis player Caroline Wozniacki won Wednesday 6-2 and 6-3 over Romanian Simona Halep and classified for the quarter finals of the Open Tennis Tournament of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Wozniacki, the third pre-classified player of the tournament, only needed one hour and 11 minutes to defeat her opponent.
In the following phase, she will have Serbian Ana Ivanovic as her contender, a woman who beat Russian María Kirilenko in sets of 6-2 and 7-6.
Australian tennis player Samantha Stosur also classified for the quarter finals when she dominated Czech Lucie Safarova 6-1, 6-7 (5/7) and 6-1, in two hours and one minute.
Stosur, the fourth head of series of the tournament and fifth best player of the world right now, had to work hard to get her ticket to the quarter finals, where she will face Serbian Jelena Jankovic, the winner over Italian Flavia Penetta (6-4, 6-2).
Also, Polish Agnieszka Radwanska overcame Israeli Shahar Peer 7-5 and 6-4, in one hour and 49 minutes, and so classified for the quarter finals.
The fifth favorite in the world and favorite to win the title in Dubai will match German Sabine Lisicki, who dominated Czech Iveta Benesova, for a double 6-3.
Finally, Belarusian Victoria Azarenka announced she abandoned the Open of Dubai to avoid aggravating the injury to her ankle.
“I am concerned, I don’t want to worsen my injury. They already told me to rest in the Open of Australia. I made it a couple of days but now I am not able to do more,” said the number one in the world ranking. This decision benefitted German Julia Georges, who faced Italian Casey Dellacqua and defeated her, by 6-0 and 6-2.
Now, the German player will match up against Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova.
sgl/ as/tac msl/ycv
Article source: http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=480749&Itemid=1
BERLIN |
BERLIN (Reuters) – The German government has agreed to accelerate the next round of cuts in state-mandated photovoltaic incentives by three months to April 1 after a record-breaking expansion of solar power in 2011, government and industry sources told Reuters on Wednesday.
The environment and economy ministries have also agreed to deepen the next round of reductions in the feed-in tariff (FIT) to between 20 percent for smaller rooftop power plants to as much as 30 percent for larger plants.
The cuts were more extensive than previously envisioned and the speed of the agreement between the two rival ministries was also somewhat of a surprise. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats control the Environment Ministry and the coalition partners, the Free Democrats, control the Economy Ministry.
The next scheduled cut of 15 percent was originally planned for July 1. The feed-in tariffs are the lifeblood for the industry until photovoltaic prices fall to levels similar to conventional power production.
The FIT in Germany was cut by 15 percent to 24.43 cents per kilowatt hour on January 1 after a round of steep cuts in 2010 and 2011 cut the incentive nearly 40 percent. The retail price for electricity in Germany is about 23 cents per kwh.
Germany is the world’s leader in solar power with about 25,000 megawatts of installed capacity. It added 7,500 mw in 2011 and now gets about 4 percent of its electricity from solar power. The government has a target of 66,000 mw by 2030.
The FIT incentives cost consumers about 7 billion euros per year. The government has a target corridor of 2,500 mw to 3,500 mw of new installations per year.
Economy Minister Philipp Roesler had wanted steeper cuts and a limit of 1,000 mw per year, but Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen resisted such a cap. The two will formally present their joint proposal at a news conference on Thursday.
Roesler’s demand to cap new installations at 1,000 mw per year — a move that some feared could cripple the sector — was also no longer part of the agreement between the two rival ministries.
The country’s solar power industry lobby criticized the proposed cuts, warning they could endanger many of the jobs in the sector that has grown to more than 100,000 workers in the last decade.
“Thousands of solar industry jobs in Germany are now in jeopardy,” said Carsten Koernig, managing director of the German BSW solar producers association. “The sector cannot handle additional cuts of between 20 to 30 percent and this move will greatly slow down the expansion of solar power in Germany.”
Workers from about 50 companies in the solar sector around Germany are planning to take part in demonstrations on Thursday against the cuts.
Solar companies in Europe and the United States have been hit hard by a toxic mix of oversupply, falling prices, low-cost Asian competition and lower government incentives.
On top of the FIT cuts of up to 30 percent, the government also wants to introduce a new ceiling on how much solar power a plant can pump into the grid: a maximum of 90 percent of the electricity produced can be pumped into the grid.
Also, the FIT will be adjusted each month with an expected cut of at least 1 percent per month after April 1.
Support from the opposition parties will be needed if the measure is to clear through the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, quickly.
Producers of photovoltaic electricity are guaranteed fixed rates for 20 years from the point the solar power systems are installed. The FIT has fallen to 24.43 cents per kwh, down from 49 cents for systems installed in 2007.
The costs for solar power are paid for by consumers, who pay about 2 cents per kwh on top of their electricity bills for photovoltaic producers. Germany gets about 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources such as wind, biomass and solar.
(Reporting by Markus Wacket; Writing by Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Hans-Juergen Peters)
Article source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/22/us-germany-solar-idUSTRE81L1LY20120222
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 by: SooToday.com Staff
Fourteen Soo Finnish Nordic athletes attending the Ontario Cup #3 in Timmins this past weekend brought home seven gold medals, two silver and two bronze, hitting the podium 11 times.
Adam Baggs captured gold medals in midget boys 3 km free technique and 3.8 km free technique races.
Erin Mallinger won gold in senior women’s 3.8 km free technique, silver in 10 km classic technique and silver in 5 km free technique races.
James Isaacs won bronze in junior men’s 15 km classic technique and 3.8 km free technique races.
Sebastian Gingras won gold medals in mini-midget 5km classic technique and in 3.8 km free technique races.
Temeara Barret won gold medals in mini-midget 3 km free technique and 5 km classic technique races.
The Soo Finnish Nordic race team is coached by Helen Lindfors.
The team is training hard for the next O Cup in Duntroon on February 25 and 26.
All athletes did exceptionally well, achieving many of their personal goals producing great results for Soo Finnish Nordic.
Seven athletes will be travelling to Mont Ste. Anne in March for the 2012 Cross-Country Ski Nationals.
Article source: http://www.sootoday.com/content/sports/details.asp?c=39369
February 22, 2012, 5:43 PM EST
By Allison Bennett
Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — The yen weakened to a seven-month low against the dollar as the highest yield premium on Treasuries when compared with Japanese debt since August damped the appeal of yen-denominated assets.
The yen fell for a fifth day, the most since April, after a report showed sales of previously owned U.S. homes rose to the highest in almost two years, bolstering expectations for growth in North America. It has weakened 3.7 percent since the Bank of Japan on Feb. 14 unexpectedly expanded its asset-purchase program. Norway’s krone rallied against all its major counterparts as investors pared bets the central bank would cut interest rates after unemployment unexpectedly declined.
“Given the movement we’ve seen in dollar-yen over the past couple of years, this move is pretty significant,” said Brian Kim, a currency strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc’s RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. “There is a possibility, not a certainty, that the BOJ is doing stealth intervention now that we know that they did it before.”
The yen dropped 0.7 percent to 80.29 per dollar at 5 p.m. New York time, after falling to 80.40, the weakest level since July 11. Japan’s currency slid 0.8 percent to 106.38 per euro, after sliding to 106.57 yen, the lowest since Nov. 14. The euro rose 0.1 percent to $1.3249.
The spread between U.S. and Japanese two-year notes expanded to 19.05 basis points yesterday, the most since Aug. 1, according to closing-market data compiled by Bloomberg. The difference was 18.6 basis points today.
Norway Employment
The krone, this month’s best performing major currency against the dollar and the euro, strengthened 0.7 percent to 7.4865 per euro and 0.8 percent to 5.6506 per dollar.
Traders now expect a 0.1 percentage point interest rate reduction from Norges Bank in the next 12 months, compared to 0.23 percent reduction a week ago, according to a Credit Suisse Index based on swaps.
A report today showed Norway’s unemployment fell to 3.3 percent in the December quarter, when most economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted no change from 3.4 percent in the prior period.
Australia’s dollar fell 0.2 percent to $1.0638 after the resignation of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, the former prime minister who was ousted as leader in 2010. The move was announced during a trip to Washington and opens the door for Rudd to contest for the top post again.
Net-Longs
Futures traders pared bets the yen would appreciate versus the dollar versus those it would weaken by 25,712 contracts in the week ended Feb. 14. The so-called net-longs totaled 29,459 compared to 55,171 the previous week.
Borrowing in yen to buy higher-yielding currencies such as Brazil’s real or Mexico’s peso returned 2 percent month-to-date according to the UBS V24 Carry Index.
The BOJ expanded its asset-purchase program to 30 trillion yen ($374 billion) from 20 trillion, with 19 trillion yen set aside for government bonds. The central bank also said it will target 1 percent inflation “for the time being.” Consumer prices fell at a 0.2 percent annual rate in December, government data show.
BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa has told Japanese lawmakers that policy makers set a price target to show the central bank’s resolve and it will take further steps to end deflation.
“Everyone was really long yen early this year and now people are selling their long positions and that is compounding the move,” said Charles St-Arnaud, a foreign-exchange strategist at Nomura Holdings Inc. in New York. “A lot of participants have been waiting impatiently to be going long dollar-yen.” A long is a bet an asset will appreciate, a short a wager it will depreciate.
Home Sales
The Dollar Index, which tracks the U.S. currency against those of six major trading partners, climbed 0.2 percent to 79.198 after dropping 0.4 percent in the previous two days.
Sales of previously owned homes in the U.S. rose 4.3 percent in January to a 4.57 million annual rate, the highest level since May 2010, according to a Bloomberg News survey before the National Association of Realtors’ report today.
UBS AG raised its forecasts for the dollar versus the yen, according to an e-mailed report. Nomura Holdings Inc. raised its first-quarter dollar-yen forecast to 79 from 75 today.
“We now target a move to 85 by the end of this year and 90 by the end of 2013,” analysts including Mansoor Mohi-uddin in Singapore wrote in the note. Previous projections were 80 yen and 85 yen respectively, according to the report.
The median estimate of 49 strategists is 80 yen for the fourth quarter of 2012. The forecast has been stable since Oct. 28.
Fitch Cuts Greece
The yen has depreciated 7.2 percent in the past three months, the biggest decline among 10 developed nation peers tracked by Bloomberg Correlation Weighted Indexes. The dollar weakened 3.2 percent, and the euro dropped 4 percent.
The euro held gains against the yen after Fitch Ratings cut Greece’s credit rating to C from CCC. A default by the nation is likely in the near term, the ratings company said in a statement today.
“We’ve seen some decent rallies in the euro crosses, and an unwinding of euro shorts is what is driving the market moves at the moment,” said David Mann, regional head of research for the Americas at Standard Chartered in New York. “It’s not necessarily a euro-dollar story going on right now.”
The 17-nation currency has strengthened against all but three of its major counterparts over the past week after European Union finance ministers awarded 130 billion euros ($172 billion) in aid to Greece and reached an accord for greater debt relief from investor representatives.
–With assistance from Austen Sherman in New York, Stephen Treloar in Oslo and Keith Jenkins in London. Editors: Kenneth Pringle, Dave Liedtka
To contact the reporter on this story: Allison Bennett in New York at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dave Liedtka at [email protected]
Article source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-02-22/yen-slides-to-7-month-low-versus-dollar-norwegian-krone-rallies.html
Before we plunge into the fray with boundless gusto and wild abandon, if you are confused about the “Stardate” nomenclature in the title to this article, then you might want to revisit my original Norwegian Odyssey (Stardate 19984) commentary, followed by the 19985 and 19986 installments.
The point is that this column pertains to Stardate 19987 (which would equate to Thursday 16 February if we were to be using your quaint Earthling Calendar). As I pen these words, however, I am back in the Pleasure Dome (my office) in Huntsville Alabama and it’s actually Stardate 19993. There simply hasn’t been enough time to keep everything up to date. All I can suggest is that you close your eyes and visualize me in the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard of Star Trek the Next Generation, sitting in my command chair thoughtfully stroking my chin, while the scene dissolves into a flashback annotated by sub-text saying “Six days earlier…”
OK, you can open your eyes again (this simply isn’t going to work otherwise), and we will continue…
Originally, I had been provided with instructions on how to catch the Oslo Metro (Oslo T-bane or Oslo Tunnelbane in Norwegian) to the campus for the Department of Informatics at the University of Oslo (www.ifi.uio.no). After I had actually met some of the guys from the department at the FPGA Forum earlier in the week, however, they had quickly realized that leaving me to explore the metro system on my own was a recipe for disaster, so they said that one of them would come to our hotel to pick us up.
Thus it was that on Thursday morning we [my son Joseph and I] were met at our hotel by Doctor Dirk Koch. In fact, my understanding is that I should more properly refer to Dirk as “Postdoc Dirk Koch”. If Dirk was working in the commercial world, the “Doctor” honorific would be appropriate; the “Postdoc” moniker indicates that he is continuing to perform original research.
I tell you, things are somewhat different to when I was a student. I really enjoyed my time at University, but it has to be said that our facility was very “institutionalized” in form and function – “utilitarian” would be a good way to describe it. By comparison, the Department of Informatics building was like a luxury hotel – bright and airy and festooned with little seating areas and fresh-ground coffee machines.
And the artwork has to be seen to be believed. I understand that every public (government-funded) building in Norway has to devote about 5% of its construction budget to art. Consider the following image, for example, where the different colored dots represent the digits forming Pi
In reality this is huge. Below is a photo of Joseph (on the left) and Postdoc Dirk Koch (on the right). We are on the second floor, so we’re only seeing the upper portion of the Pi plaque, which continues all the way down to the ground floor.
There is art everywhere you look – both inside and outside the building. On the north-west outside wall, for example, we discovered some massive “Equations in Stainless Steel” panels. Each of these started off as a concept that was then modeled in MATLAB and subsequently converted into three-dimensional casts as shown below.
Poor old Joseph… wherever we went I kept on saying to him “Can you stand in front of this to provide a sense of scale.” Towards the end of our trip, whenever I got my camera out and said “Joseph…” He would reply “I know, I know, stand in front of it so you can get a sense of scale” (grin).
In the case of the Doppler panel, imagine the sound a train’s horn makes as it approaches you and then passes you and recedes into the distance. As the train approaches, the sound waves are compressed (as shown to the right of the sculpture); as the train recedes, the sound waves are stretched out (as shown to the left of this image).
With regard to the Orion’s belt panel, this is a visualization of the 42 strongest stars in a 6×7 degree section of the constellation of Orion, showing Orion’s belt and sword as imaged through a hole the size of a pencil-tip (0.1 mm), where the central 99% of the hole is blocked. The ring patterns from the 42 different stars will then interfere with each other producing a very complex result. This panel was produced by convolving a point spread function with the 42 point sources from a star catalog.
When we returned inside the building and started to walk around, I was surprised to see pictures of yours truly plastered everywhere announcing my talk.
My presentation was scheduled to start at 12:15pm. So, at around 11:55am we strolled up to the lecture theater to make sure that I could use their equipment. The theater itself was huge (much bigger than it appears in the photo below). We entered at the top to see tier-after-tier of chairs arranged like a movie theater.
You can only imagine my surprise to find that the lecture theater was jam-packed full. “Oh wow,” I thought to myself, “they must really want to hear what I have to say.”
And then the bell rang and everyone got up and left (grin). The image above shows the state of play about 20 seconds after the lecture had just ended.
Happily, my audience soon began to arrive, and we ended up with quite a crowd. The image below shows the scene after I had just finished my presentation and folks were coming down to chat with me. I’m the guy facing the crowd and furthest away from the camera (Joseph took this picture, which may explain the blurred effect 
And how did my talk go? Well, it would be immodest of me to “blow my own horn” as they say, but I did receive quite a number of complements at the time and also via email afterwards. For example, I received one email that read as follows:
Dear Max. I found your talk today both exciting, inspiring, and entertaining.
Three of my favorites.
The writer then goes on to say that when he was young he hung out with some friends who built a computer. He didn’t have any money to buy electronic components so he instead went into the software side of things. He finished as follows:
Now that you have some of my background, I will get to the real point of what I wanted to say… Thank you for your talk and conversation today. You brought some of that old glow, optimism and happiness of the early years back to me. Don’t misunderstand, I have not been unhappy. It is just that you brought to the top of my stack of thoughts that there is so much more cool stuff to enjoy.
Well, what can I say? This is high praise indeed. I have to tell you that receiving feedback like this is what makes all of the time it takes to pull one of these presentations together so worthwhile.
Last but not least (for this column), the following image shows me after my talk. We were walking past the library portion of the building when we spotted yet another poster advertising my presentation.
The white box in my hands is a present from the university. It contains a miniature model in cast aluminum of one of the “Equations in Stainless Steel” panels that adorn the outside of the building. The one I have represents the interference patterns caused by someone singing a pure high C (C6 = 1046.5 Hz) while walking toward one wall – and away from another – at a brisk stroll of 10 meters per second. (Just in case you were wondering, an ambient temperature of 15C is assumed [grin]). If you are ever passing by my office, please feel free to drop in and I would be delighted to show it to you.
Following my talk we had a wonderful lunch with the attendees, and then we toured the department to see all of the research they are doing. This includes some incredible work with FPGA reconfiguration, self-learning robots, interactive music systems, and… but I’m afraid this will all have to wait until the next installment of my Norwegian Odyssey…
If you found this article to be amusing and/or of interest, visit Programmable Logic Designline where – in addition to my blogs on all sorts of “stuff” (also check out my Max’s Cool Beans blog) – you will find the latest and greatest design, technology, product, and news articles with regard to programmable logic devices of every flavor and size (FPGAs, CPLDs, CSSPs, PSoCs…).
Also, you can obtain a highlights update delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for my weekly newsletter – just Click Here to request this newsletter using the Manage Newsletters tab (if you aren’t already a member you’ll be asked to register, but it’s free and painless so don’t let that stop you [grin]).
Article source: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-blogs/other/4236784/Norwegian-Odyssey--Stardate-19987-6-
MICHAEL FIELD
One dead in overnight blazes
Forsyth Barr building: No deaths down to luck – lawyer
Tremor rattles Christchurch
Policewoman’s alleged attacker hospitalised
Ferries cancelled after near-miss
Body lay in flat for months
Runners strip off for Christchurch
Carterton tragedy: Balloon airworthiness questioned
Camps ‘revolutionary military wing for Aotearoa’ court hears
School bus crash accused in court
A Norwegian sailor who is illegally in Antarctica’s Ross Sea has continued to suggest New Zealand authorities are to blame for the deaths of three sailors in the region a year ago.
Jarle Andhoey, 34, is sailing a 16-metre steel yacht, Nilaya, through the same area his yacht Berserk disappeared in during a fierce storm on February 22 last year.
Speaking to Radio New Zealand from near Beaufort Island, 140 kilometres north east of Scott Base, Andhoey repeated claims that Berserk was ordered out from a safe anchorage into a forecast storm.
At the time of the disappearance, Andhoey and teenager Samuel Massie, who had left Berserk days earlier, were on quad bikes trying to drive to the South Pole.
Nothing was found of the dead men despite a search in a severe storm. An empty life raft was recovered by a Sea Shepherd boat.
The Royal New Zealand Navy, whose crew aboard the ship Wellington spoke with Berserk, and Antarctica New Zealand have repeatedly denied ordering the yacht out of the Sound.
Andhoey told Radio New Zealand that the crew on Nilaya, including New Zealander Busby Noble, 53, had marked the death in a ceremony which included putting flowers into the sea.
Noble conducted a service in Maori.
“For me, when a tragic accident or disaster happened, the first thing I ask, is what happened and why,” he said.
“In the case of the missing Berserkers they have been judged as ignorant seamen who did not know what they were doing.”
Andhoey said they wanted to know what the crew from HMNZS Wellington told those on the yacht.
“We know Berserk was not welcome at McMurdo Sound,” he said.
“There is a reason that the Berserk was actually on land prior to the storm and they knew the storm was coming.”
He said it was illogical for the Berserk to have left its safe anchorage and headed into the forecast storm.
He said they had found nothing in the area Berserk had disappeared in and he would search two other planned meeting points before heading out of the Ross Sea.
“We have the equipment we need to get out of the Ross Sea,” he told Radio New Zealand.
He said it was unfortunate that Antarctica New Zealand had removed one of the depots created by Berserk last year that contained equipment, fuel and survival gear.
“But we will still be okay to manage; it is still a good time to sail through the ice.”
– © Fairfax NZ News
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Article source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/national/6466305/Norwegian-explorer-still-blaming-NZ-for-deaths
STOCKHOLM
– A Swedish artist who angered Muslims by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was pelted with eggs during a university lecture when he presented another drawing of Islam’s revered prophet, police and the artist said Wednesday.
Lars Vilks told The Associated Press that he was not harmed in Tuesday’s attack at Karlstad University in central Sweden and that he continued his lecture on the limits of free speech after police evicted the protesters from the building.
Vilks, who has received numerous death threats from radical Islamists, said about a dozen people started yelling and hurling eggs at him when he presented a sketch showing Muhammad and 19th-century Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen at a beer factory.
“They were just waiting for the right moment to go to attack,” he told AP.
The 65-year-old artist said he made the drawing in 2006, inspired by the debate that year over 12 Danish newspaper cartoons of Muhammad, which sparked furious protests in Muslim countries.
Images of the prophet, even favorable ones, are considered blasphemous by many Muslims.
Karlstad police spokesman Per Strom said the attackers had been identified and the incident was being investigated, but no arrests have been made.
Though there was a police presence at the lecture, the audience had not been searched because such measures must be announced in advance, Strom said.
Vilks has faced a string of threats and violence over his more well-known drawing of Muhammad as a dog in 2007.
In 2010, he was forced to abandon a lecture at another Swedish university when protesters rushed toward the stage and scuffled with police.
Last year, a woman from Pennsylvania pleaded guilty in a plot to try to kill Vilks, and a year earlier two brothers were jailed for trying to burn down his house in southern Sweden.
Vilks said he won’t be deterred from making public appearances.
“I’ve experienced this so much now. It is what it is. You have to expect these things,” he said. “I have good protection and it works the way it should.”
Article source: http://www.startribune.com/world/139947293.html
