Peterbe.com

I came back last night to London. Getting the luggage at Stanstead took half the time the whole flight took. Bloody Ryanair!

With me I brought a "tummy-bug" (spelling?). So last night I couldn't eat and a painful stomage kept me awake many hours. It still feels like a hangover but now tonight I've managed to eat some soup and decarbonated coca cola.

This is terrible timing because tomorrow I have to exams. One at 9AM and one at 1PM. Like I wrote in Two exams on the same day I said I would be supervised between the two. Yes, this is the case. Someone will babysit me for two hours until I sit the next exam. Let's hope my stomage and I can make it. I have studied a bit today but not enough I don't think. Not happy.

At the moment I'm here in a snowy Sweden in my parents house, with a cold and worries about not studying enough during this break.

It now appears to be so that I have to take two exams on the same day and same hour. What they do then is that they arrange so that I can take one of the two exams later in the afternoon. It is only me who has this clash of two exams on the same day and hour.

They will then have to "supervise" during the day so that I can't have any contact with my fellow students. I wonder how they do that. In fact I'm now curious to find out. Are they going to have some goon to follow me around wherever I go? Will I not be able to have my mobile on?

Well, we'll see what happens.
For now: Happy New Year

Don't ask why I was browsing GeorgeWBush.com but I did. I'm neither fan nor hater.

To the point, his campaign website is pretty good I must admit. I can find several usability errors (the gravest is that you can't see what links you've already visited and that some JavaScripts simply don't work), but let's see beyond that for now. All information is in your face with well chosen images and good choice of colours. Text is easy to read and articles have matching related content. The tabbed agenda is really nice too (I actually never read any of it but I clicked a lot). And when a page is not found a clear sitemap comes up. Maybe I'll set one similar up for me website.

Compare it to Howard Deans, which has some nice features, but is not nearly as good as George W's.

My guess is that this really matters. It still doesn't matter as much as speeches on national television or scapegoating tv adverts but I'm sure having a informative website will shift the voting results in numbers of millions.

As a professional web developer I'm glade to see that the effort is being made. It must be said that the logo could need some work. In fact, there seems to be two different logos. Is one just for the website?

Today I am leaving for Sweden to celebrate Christmas and the new year with family and friends. I come back on the 4th of Jan and sadly when I come back I have two exams to take on the 6th of Jan.

I will check my email but only very sporadically so don't send me anything urgent. Hopefully my UK mobile will work there too, but if not my parents number is +46 39010186.

Here's a webcam facing the centre of town

My job is to put together web applications and web pages. The number one tool I use for this is something called an application server. The one of choice is Zope (Zope's community homepage). I don't doubt that this is the best choice of an application server on the market today. Some alternatives might be better suited, but for purposes I don't care for at the moment.

This article describes very plainly what Zope is and how it works. For a senior in the topic I find many technical faults in the article; but that's not so important.

So if you want to learn more about the technology I use, please read the article.

On Thursday morning 11AM, David and I met to go and see Lord of the Rings - Return of the King. Long waited but still feared for it's length: 202 minutes (3 hours and 22 minutes + adverts). The cinema was only half full but we had the luck to go at the same time as some 150 school-kids who did NOT have the patience to sit 4 hours. It was noisy but we learnt to ignore it after a couple of hours.

It was mighty. Magnificent and mighty. Environmental scenes that makes you think it's an IMAX documentary. The acting was better than the two other two films I think, but maybe you simply appreciate them more between all the massive landscape scenes.

I haven't read the book otherwise I would probably also find flaws like this pessimist apparently has.

My biggest concern was that too many things happened too quickly. In the first two films I managed to follow everything but this time it felt like too many things had to be squeezed in to remain under three and a half hours. Maybe they should have done this last film in two parts both 3 hours long. Looking forward to download the Extend DVD version from the net when available.

People on IMDB.com seem to like it

"Adaptation was supposed to have been a straightforward adaptation of the fact-based novel The Orchid Thief but instead Kaufman turned his script into the story of his problems adapting such a difficult book for the screen."

I saw this film today and it is probably one of oddest and softest films I've seen in a looong time.

It's about a Hollywood screenplay-writer called Charlie Kaufman (played by Nicolas Cage) and his twin brother Donald (also played by Nicolas Cage). Charlie is the sensitive and talented one but has absolutely no confidence in himself or his work. He envies his brother Donald who is just as extrovert as Charlie is introvert. Here's a picture from the film

Charlie's job is to write a screenplay based on a book about flowers but he can't do it so eventually he instead writes about him trying to write the screenplay. That's what the film is about. Oddly self recursive somehow.

Nicolas Cage, Maryl Streep and Chris Cooper all do a wonderful job in this film. The best I've ever seen of any of them.

Charlie Kaufman has also written the screenplay for Confessions of a Dangerous Mind and Being John Malkovich and here is a page with a picture of him and there is also a picture on this IMDB.com page.

Movie trailer
IMDB.com page

This can get interesting. ESI, as I've understood it, makes it possible to display on a website "Welcome back Mr. Bengtsson" but have other parts of the page cached through something like Squid. So far I've only used Squid to cache the whole page. From the <html> to the </html> tag.

There is now some development to combine ESI and Squid, what I gather from this blog entry on plope.com I hope to be able to experiment with this here on my site.

Some impressive snow sculptures. I particularly likeed the third place winner of the 2001 championship.

Today is my birthday! I thus turn 24.

The 13th of December is a special day in Sweden, but unfortunately not here in England. This day is celebrated as a old tradition whose origins are quickly described as:

"Santka Lucia, started as a family tradition in which the eldest daughter, dressed in white with a crown of candles on her head and assisted by her brothers and sisters, brings Lussibread and coffee to her parents at dawn on the darkest day of the year. (Lucia is derived from "lux" Latin for "light.") The custom spread and today there are Lucia processions along the streets and in hospitals, schools and offices, all part of the tradition announcing that Christmas soon will he here."

An article about Saint Lucia in English here and a better one but in Swedish

If you by any chance would like to buy me a present, please see my Amazon.co.uk wish list