Category Archives: Rant

I’m a better driver than most.

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In Sweden, you are not allowed to be good at anything, it’s called Jantelagen and it comes sneaks up upon you even though you know it exists. One thing is that there are some “statistics” from a “survey” that everybody knows of (though I have not been able to find it) that say that “90% of the Swedish population think that they are better driver then most”. This “fact” is often followed by a chuckle and and the appendix “that cant be true, because 90% is more then 10%, and that’s not half”. This kills anyone dead that think they are a good driver.

The important thing here I think is that Swedes as a people totally forgets to analyze why the alledged 90% think they are good drivers. (trust me, we are not a land of champion f-1 drivers). Is it because they think that everybody else does lots of mistakes and drive badly (perhaps because of stupidity)? Or is it because you think you’re special (as the jante law tells you that you cannot be).

I know I make mistakes while driving, I know I forget rules from time to time, especially seldom used ones. I know I don’t remember all the roadsigns. What I also know is that I do know these things and when I made a mistake or found something that I’m unsure of, I look it up. I try to improve, that’s makes me a better driver then most other drivers I think. I avoid putting anyone in dangerous situations, or situations that I cant control. When it’s bad weather (like loads of snow and stuff) and I don’t need to use the car, guess what, I don’t!

What I’m saying is that I try to improve, and I use common sense, and I think that makes me a better driver.

A little rant about Swedish toll

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Toll in Sweden are taxes on foreign stuff imported. I have no big beef with paying taxes. Taxes are how we keep our society going. Sure the elected officials could be more efficient in smarter way’s but that is not really the issue here, most of the money go to the places where they should be. So when I buy something from America or any other non EU country the Swedish Toll office takes the value of that thing and adds tax. Usually 25% of what the thing costs. That’s all fine and dandy, but then the post office adds a seemingly random amount that they label “speditional fees”.

Let’s take my last international purchase for example, it was 75 USD (freight included)
75 USD is 543.05 SEK
Value was declared on the package and I got a letter home telling me I had to pay to pick my package up. Strange thing that I have to go somewhere to pick something up that the freight is already payed for. The amount I have to pay is 201 SEK. About 37% of the value. tax in sweden is usually at 25%. So when I was eager to see why the amount differd so much.
The value declared on the parcel was 75 USD, I don’t really think you have to pay toll for the freight, but the toll-officials don’t know that that was included, right!
At the specification 138 SEK is toll and taxes. witch is 25% no problem there. Then the postal office takes 63 SEK because toll was payed, in the spedition-fee. That’s the extra 13% add on the price. So I guess what really happens here is that I get to pay them for making me pay the Toll. I shouldn’t have to pay for the parcel being sent around. That was already payed for. I’ve searched for information on what I really pay for on the web, and asked postal workers. I still have no idea where those extra money really goes.

How I made a twitterbot for fun and profit! part 2

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Back to the bot. The twitter-bot. The Lars Ulrich twitter-bot. The Lars Ulrich swearing twitter-bot. He’s up and running, spreading obscenities all over the internets. Check him out at http://twitter.com/i_am_larsulrich

The engine I was planning on using didn’t do what I  wanted it to do (search) so I went with twitter4j and processing (processing to the rescue).

There are a lot of other bot’s you could build for example a “silent bob” bot, that twitters silent comments beavis or butthead bot’s that search for bad words and replies to those twitters in a “huh huh huh you say *”

I’ve included the source of the bot down after the jump for you to build further on if you want to, the whole shebang is also available here for you to download: i_am_larsulrich.zip

Continue reading →

The Android market-schmarket

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This is going to be a rant about stuff that I don’t like with the Android market.  Dont read it if you are a fan boy.

I have a google g1 phone from htc. I have had it now for a year or so. At first it was ok, then the small annoyances became really really annoying. Then the OS was updated to cupcace. That made the usagbility a lot better. Then more annoyances with small things. Like the market.

Why is the market so ugly? even the newest version is ugly.
Why wont I find the same programs on my G1 as my colleague with a HTC Hero when we do the same search. We stood next to each other. Did the search at the same time. In the same country, with the same courier.
Why is the search so god damn lame? I thought Google was a search engine company. Example: If I want to install jjComics. I will not find it if I search for “comic,” but if i search for “comics” I will find it. Thats stupid.
For every Android application you find, there are ten iPhone versions of that program, and 6 of them are better or have functionality that is crucial for the usability of the genre of program.
I live in Sweden, and the market have still not the option of buying software here. Why not? it’s been long enough. And there is no information available on when it’s going open here either.
As for developing for the Android. I made a blog once on my endevours when creating a simple program on both iPhone, J2ME and iPhone.  Developing is ok but not awesome.  But even if I cant buy stuff from the market I thought that I could at least sell stuff. but NO, you have to have a valid US address. Why, doesn’t Google want me to make programs for their phone OS?

And the fanboys? seriously, why are you so apeshit about android? it’s flawed and immature. Instead of repeating the mantra “it’s going to be awesome soon” at any critique try and help making it better.