AstroBlonde

I'm in a complicated relationship at the moment, with my mom's sewing machine. Either he's doing exactly as I tell him to do, or he doesn't. The tricky part is that he doesn't show any signs of mood swings, he looks exactly the same no matter what mood he's in. I guess I have to admit that it's easier to be in a relationship with a human, because they normally look different when they are in different moods. It just feels like I'm the one showing feelings here, and he's not.

Anyway, I'm stubborn and continue working on our relationship.

Patchwork so far...

I'm finished with the first two rows, and just started on the third.

Today I've been at IKEA and found some really cheap fabric to sew a bedspread (patchwork). I got an entire bag full for just 99 SEK. Yep, my second project is on! So, I was trying to find out the normal dimensions of a bedspred, Queen or King size. I was pretty sure IKEA had the answer for that as well, and yes: Normal size seems to be 260 cm wide and 280 cm length. Let's say that every patch is 20x20 cm... That means I have to make.... 13x14 = 182 patches! Oooookey, I think this will keep me busy for a while! :D

All 32 patches so far... Long way to 182!

I haven't been writing here for a couple of days, because I haven't had the time. But I'll write a bit about what I've done.

On Wednesday I was out shopping with my mom. Well, I don't have that much money so we bought stuff to my mom mostly. Because she has reumatism, she can't lift her arms that well. So, I was her personal assistant, helping her on and off with clothes and carried her bags.

I bought two things though. One really cosy blanket and a bathrobe. When I was a child I had a blanket I absolutely loved. I coudn't sleep without it, and I dragged it along everywhere. As you perhaps can imagine, that blanket was quite worn out after some time. I still remember when mom and dad threw it away. Anyway, this blanket is my new favourite blanket. I drag it along just like I did when I was a child!

My cosy blanket that I've bought!


My new bathrobe, both from the front and back.

On Friday I finished my first painting. Don't know if I've mentioned it here before, but I've started to paint. My first painting is now finished, and I like the result! I'll post a picture of it in a couple of days!

I've heard an amusing thing today: "Öland" is not an island! :D

Ok, let me explain to people what Öland is. Öland (Ö is Swedish for island, land is the same as in English = Island-land) is a county in Sweden, which to me always been an island.

But, according to the European union, Öland is not an island. To be an island the place has to:

Be surrounded with water

Öland is surrounded with water, for sure!

Have more then 50 people living on it

Well, my view of an island is independent of the number of residents, but ok. Öland has 24 697 people living there according to Wikipedia.
So what's the problem with Öland being an island? Well, it has a bridge from the mainland!

Not have a bridge connected to mainland, unless necessary for people to travel somewhere else.

I was laughing my socks off when I heard this! Öland, looks like an island and the name even says it's an island but according to the European Union it's not an island. What is even more funny about this, is that if they build one more brigde to Öland, it is considered an island. :D

I mean, not only does European Union meddling in how bent cucumbers are when they are for sale. Now they interfere with what is an island or not! Öland goes way back in time, but the brigde was built in 1972 (Ölandsbron). The European Union, on the other hand, was founded in 1993 (although EU traces its origin from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC), formed by six countries in 1958). Is is just me who thinks that this is just not right? I just think it's so stupid that I even laugh about it!

Extra note: The reporter asked an old lady and said "What do you have to say about Öland not being an island?" and the old woman was like "What? Are you stupid or what?!". The reporter continued "Öland is not an island according to the European Union", and the old woman said "Öland is an island, just look at the map for god's sake!". I just love the old lady's attidute! :D

Today I watched, for the first time, a new Swedish documentary about the Swedish history, called "Sveriges historia" (history of Sweden). Here's a link to TV4Play: Sveriges Historia

Anyway, it is so interesting! We've read about the history of Sweden at school, but that was such a long time ago I don't remember it any longer. So this documentary is great! Well, Sweden is such an old country so the documentary has several episodes, so to watch it all would take hours!

This time it was about the 1600's in Sweden, and all the wars against Denmark, Norway (I think it was Danish at that time), Poland, Russia... Well, all the usual "enemies" Sweden had during that time. But what amaized me was that the Swedish troups, during that time, was all the way to Ukraine! The city, Poltava was one of the cities Sweden conquered. I know that some areas of Germany, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia have been Swedish, but Ukraine! I had no idea that we were over there! No wonder that I've heard that other countries in Europe have been scared of Sweden! I've mostly laught about that comment earlier, because Sweden is not that scary today. But I guess it was a bit different during that time... :D

This evening I've been watching a Spanish movie, or at least some parts of it. I thought it was interesting, because the style is so different to Swedish movies. In the Spanish movie, guys are crying and standing really close to each other. It's almost like I think "Aha, he is in love with him". The woman characters are playing on sex, although quietly. Either it's the woman with power and money, dressed in buisiness suit. It can also be the stripper or the really beautiful girl who is playing with sex. The men, although, looked good but not playing on sex as much as the woman. Perhaps it was just this movie that had these kind of characters, but it was interesting to see! It is also notable that I'm far from being a movie expert!

If I compare it with Swedish movies, Swedish movies are very dark and gray. For instance, "the girl with the dragon tatoo" is not playing on sex like that.

Instead, one of the worst raping scences I've seen is in that movie, and it even made the people in Hollywood complain that it was too "real". "As it is in heaven" is also a pretty sad and dark movie, based on people hiding their emotions.



"Let the right one in" is also very dark and gray.




Ok, here's a YouTube video of the raping scene in "the girl with the dragon tatoo". Seriously, if you're sensitive, don't watch it!

I can't belive this day! I woke up this morning by the sound of someone concrete drilling in the the house. Great! I tried to ignore it, but it was impossible! I got up, ate some breakfast and decided that I'm gonna work from home today. I have all the papers to read, and my computer. I'm normally pretty good at working from home.

After breakfast I crawled down in bed, started to read some scientific articles. I was thinking to myself how good life is when you can just lie in bed with articles in astronomy and just have a cosy time. After about an hour they started to drill again. A bit annoyed by the sound, I tried to continue reading. The sound was horrible so I put my ear plugs in. After 15 minutes I started to think to myself "How long does it take for someone to put something up on the wall?!". After 30 minutes I started to get really annoyed and was so irritated that I couldn't concentrate on the text. I went out to talk to my mom, and she said that the neighbors below our appartment is renovating their bathroom.

I've never had migraine, so I don't know what it's like, but after 2 hours of almost constant drilling I had all the symptoms of migraine. I was about to walk down there and lie that I work during the night so STOP DRILLING! But, Swedish as I am, I didn't. I started to think where I can escape to get some time to read. The only place I could think of was the, one and only, café around here. But their tables are too small for a computer.

After, more or less, constant drilling for about 6 hours they finally stopped. I felt like I've been in a psychological test about how humans can handle bad noise. I was totally out! My head was aching, I was angry as a bee because I didn't get any work done. I was tired like a zombie (or something). And here I was, thinking I was smart to stay home and work. It takes me 1½ hour or more to get to the Uni, and I wanted to save that time staying at home and work. Geeez what a mistake!

In the evening I manage to get some work done, but not as close as I was hoping for! I still feel a bit weird, and I'm about to go to bed soon. I'm so exhausted!

Things never get the way I planned it! Today, I woke up and thought I would have a really productive day today. Then I started off being late in the morning (my fault). I still kept my head up, thinking "I will be so productive today". Sat on the bus from central Uppsala to the Uni, and saw one of my closest friends. She lives in Stockholm, so I was surprised that she was in Uppsala. Because I haven't seen her in a looong time, I called her right away but she didn't pick up. I saw that she didn't hear her phone and thougt "ah well". I got off at the Uni, then she texted me and wanted to meet me. I said that we could meet later, I really need to do some work. That was ok with her.

"Really need to do some work", yeah right! First, computer problems... as usual. I'm totally confused... as usual! Then, when things started to work, my supervisor had to go to a lecture and all my files are on his computer... somewhere. I decided to read instead. After some time, a Turkish student, who only been in Sweden for 1½ week, asked me if I wanted to go to Kiruna with her, to see northern lights. I told her that I don't have the time to do that, nor the money. She looked so sad, so I felt sorry for her. So, I ended up trying to help her find cheap flights to Kiruna. I know, I should have studied but I just felt so sorry for her. I mean, if I was all alone in a new country I would appreciate help, so I did. I realized that one for our PhD-students from Belgium has been in Kiruna so I asked him.

Ok, back to reading articles again and then, after a while, my friend calls and wants to meet me. I just couldn't say no, because she is such a dear friend of mine and I haven't seen her in ages. She is already in Uppsala, and I just couldn't say no. So I took the bus to meet her. I told her that I really need to work later, so I can't meet her for too long. That was alright, and we parted fairly early. I decided to take the train back home, and continue working at home, but then.... The train was delayed. I waited, waited and finally the train came. That meant that I missed the bus, that I have to take after the train, so I waited and waited for the bus.

When I got home, I had to eat dinner and all of a sudden it was time to sleep. I manged to read a bit before writing this, but I am really disappointed of my creativity today. I'm happy that I met my friend, I don't regret that, but I just wish I had done more today!

Ok, that sounds more scary than it actaully is! It seems like the hurricane Katia, which was "threatning" New York has turned and is now on its way across the Atlantic ocean in the UK/Scandinavia direction. So, they think that the hurricane will hit UK, Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Although, the ocean is getter cooler the more north the hurricane gets, so it will not likely be a hurricane when it hits. Here you can see more graphics about the hurricane: StormPulse - Hurricane Katia

Today I've read a funny thing in the media! In the 1950's said Alan Turing that if a computer can fool a person that it's human, it is intelligent. Or quoted: "A computer would deserve to be called intelligent if it could deceive a human into believing that it was human.". Two students, Jason Yosinski and Igor Labutov at Cornell University in New York, wanted to try this by letting two chat robots talk to eachother. It ended up in an argument! :D Watch whis video:

The Swedish newspapers can often write about lots of shit, but this one made me smile! I read in the Swedish news, Expressen, that a truck full of shit has been in an traffic accident just outside Stockholm. One of the people intervied in the areas said
        "It smells like shit!"
That is just brilliant and it made me smile! Some friends from Skåne (southern part of Sweden) was quick to comment on FaceBook
        "Can it seriously smell like more shit in Stockholm?!"
And the war has begun! :D

Sometimes, small and silly stuff can make us smile. This one made me smile! Here's the article from Expressen (Swedish):
Expressen - Släp med bajs har vält på E4 - långa köer utanför Stockholm

Yestarday it was the "Kulturnatten" (Night of Culture) in Uppsala. I think it's nice with those street parties! People are in a good mood, there are lots of things going on.

"Stora torget" (Big square) in Uppsala

J_AL^T and I first went to a lecture about happiness and meditation. I think the lecture as okey, but J_AL^T wasn't especially impressed. After that we went to get, I think it was, Shiatsu massage. I was happy to get massage, but J_AL^T thought it was weird.

After that we went to a resturant to try different Tofu's. We ended up having dinner there, it was sooooo gooooood! Yummie! We went to meet A_SS^G for a chat and then we went back home, before the teenagers started their party. It was a nice and relaxed day!

So, today I've taken it a bit easy. It's sunday after all. I've helped my mom with her second citizen proposal (you can write to the county staff about your ideas to make things better).

Mmmm autumn is coming...

Yellow leaves on the trees....


But it is pretty though!

Tomorrow it's "Kulturnatten" (directly translated to "Night of Culture"). But it's not just a night, it's the whole day! So, I better rest tonight!

Today I was sitting a while on the balcony, watching the kids at kindergarden play. There was one kid trying to throw a hula hoop into the tree, so he was facing forward as he threw. He managed to throw it backwards, and he looked so surprised when it fell behind him. The hula hoop fell in some poor kids head, who was standing next to another child who was building a sand castle. The second kid, who got the hula hoop in his head, fell on the sand castle making the third kid to start crying. Come on, if that's not entertainment I don't know what is! :D

On Monday Sep 12, ESO will have an online press conference about exoplanets. It just says in an e-mail that they will have talks about important science involving planets around other stars with the instrument HARPS on ESO's 3.6 meter telescope at La Silla observatory in Chile.

- Dr. Francesco Pepe, Genève observatory, Switzerland
- Dr. Lisa Kaltenegger, Max Planck Institute in astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany
- Dr. Markus Kissler-Patig or Dr. Joe Liske, ESO, about the future of exoplanets with the E-ELT telescope.

I don't know more than that! I hope it's something interesting that will be presented!

An old friend of mine wrote me a message about my blog! I'm happy that someone is reading it!
I am reading your blog and I really like it, especially the photos of Uppsala, of those nice seats by the riverside which weren't there when I was in Uppsala...

Thank you so much! She also recomended Texmaker as an editor for LaTeX. I haven't tried it myself but she wrote that it's free, works for all platforms and has really nice features. So, here's a link for all of you who wants to try it: Texmaker website

Instead of Texmaker, I use WinEdt, because I have Windows as OS. It is not for free, but is very cheap! I use it because of old habbits. Here you can find it: WinEdt website

I read in the Swedish newspaper, DN, today that an astrophysicist has calculated the fastest way of boarding an airplane. DN, didn't write much about it, so I started to read one of the references, Göteborgsbladet. They wrote a bit more about it.

So, apparently an astrophysicist, Jason Steffen, has calculated the fastest way of boarding an airplane. First he let the passengers sit down at every other window seat. Then the rest of the window seats. Then the middle seats and aisle seats in the same way.

Which method of boarding is the best?

The method in use now (the blocking method) is to fill the back of the plane first, then the middle section of the plane and last the front of the plane. That method should take around seven minutes to do. But Mr. Steffen's method should only take half of that time.

The tv-producer, Jon Hotchkisslet, recently did a test about this. He let 72 volunteers board an airplane with different methods. It turned out that the "blocking method" was on of the most time-consuming ways of board a plane. Even when people boarded with random seats in the airplane, was more time-efficient than the blocking method. The winner of the test was Mr. Steffen's method. Here are the Swedish articles I've read:
DN - Så fyller man snabbast ett flygplan
GP - Så fyller man planet på snabbast sätt

English:
ArXiv - Experimental test of airplane boarding methods
BBC News - Tests show fastest way to board passenger planes

Quite interesting! All I know from experience is that Swedes normally are pretty fast at boarding compared to Spaniards. :D I have two ideas about why: Either Swedes are pretty used to the boarding procedure because Swedes travel a lot! You know, cold and dark during winter and Swedes flee the country like crazy... OR it's because Swedes are very good (according to my experience anyway) to follow rules. You can see a big difference in how Swedes follow traffic rules and regulations compares to, for example, Australians.

But when it comes to luggage claim, Swedes are horrible creatures! :D No patience at all!

There's one news that is quite interesing in the media at the moment. It's not of what he did, that makes it interesting because this happens all around the world all the time. It's how people in countries seem to have such a different view of what is okey and not okey.

I'm talking about the news about the Italian politician Giovanni Colasante. According to witnesses Mr. Colasante was holding his son in his hair, lifting him up and hit him on the shoulder. They also say that Mr. Colasante hit his son in the face and shook him violently. It seems like all witnesses saw the boy scream in pain and cried. The witnesses say that they thought it was too much violence to tolerate and people tried to stop the argument.

Mr. Colasante was arrested for child abuse here in Sweden, but was free to walk around as long as he reported to the police every day until trial. So, today the trial has started.

What I find interesting in this story is not the fact of what happened to the boy, because that happens everywhere. What it interesting is how people can have such differnt way of looking at this. According to Italian news (as far as I've read), they can't understand how you can go to trial for trying to raise your kids like that. To hit your kids to raise them well, seem to be okey there. That is not okey in Sweden. Here, Swedes can't understand how Italian news people seem to think it's okey to hit anyone no matter who it is. The reaction here is that hitting your kids when they do something wrong will only lead to a reaction of fear and no explanation why that was a bad behaviour.

One can argue what is right and what is wrong forever with this. The funny part is, though, that people in two countries can have such a big difference in attitude. Well, I'm from Sweden so I don't think hitting should be allowed in any circumstance. I think children are smart enough to understand if you explain to them in the right way, especially when they are as old as 12! There are other ways to do this than to hit anyone. But I wasn't there, so I can't tell if he did that or not.

One thing that I do get annoyed with is how media seem to feel sorry for Mr. Colasante. Sure, he can be innocent like a new born baby, but to be honest there are quite a lot of witnesses and this happened openly on the street. But it doesn't matter if he did it or not! What I get annoyed is that people "kinda" defend him by complaining that there's something wrong with the Swedish law. I'm not saying that I fully agree with all the laws we have here, but come on! If you travel outside your own country, you make sure you follow the laws in that country! Simple as that, and there's no excuse for what he did. He was in Sweden, and it seems like Swedish people, watching this event, thought he broke the Swedish law against child abuse!

An extra note:
I think it's great that people dare to say no and interfere! There are too many people out there who watch bad things happen and never interfere. I think it's great that people call the police and let others decide if they're not sure themselves. It's the people who dare to interfere who can prevent rapes, burglary and other crimes. Better be safe than sorry!

Today I've been on a make-up session. I look so pretty now! Gosh, they are good at making you look gorgeous! It's quite funny tho, they ask you questions like "How often do you peel your face?" and "What kind of colors do you normally use?". I feel so silly saying "Uhm, should I do that?" and "Colors? Uhm, what ever color I have in my make-up bag..". :D I got a autumn make-over, with a lot of pink, gray, and purple. It looks really good!

After that I went to H&M to buy some autumn clothes. Seriously, Swedes (or people in all nordic countries) should get extra money because of all the seasons! At the moment, there is autumn clothes. Soon there will be winter clothes, and without winter clothes you will freeze your ass off! Then there's spring clothes, and sure you can use autumn clothes but in spring you want to have happy colors to match the spring flowers. The autumn clothes are often a bit darker, and a big no no in spring. Then, there's summer and all other clothes are way to warm for summer. So here's a suggestion to the Swedish government: Give us more money for clothes! Hihi, like free school and university, very cheap medical and health care, amongst others, is not enough! :D

Anyway, a good day!

This is the way it is, right? ;)

Well, on friday I went to Uppsala to see a piano concert with Andrei Gavrilov. He played in "Universitetsaulan" (Swedish for "University hall") which is a beautiful, old place! On the program it was from Frédéric Chopin and Sergei Prokofiev. I got so impressed by the guy! I wish I could play like that!

Andrei Gavrilov playing the piano

Afterwards we (J_AL^T, me and two guys) went out for a beer at Svensson's. We had a great time, so I have to say that day was really good. On my way home, I met a designer by the trainstation, who was sooo interested in my jacket. We started to talk and he seemed funny, weird but ok. :)



Else than that evening I have mostly worked on my website, AstronomiGuiden. I haven't really been feeling ok the last couple of days, so I've just relaxed.

The last couple of days I've been sick. That has given me more time to update my homepage, AstronomiGuiden.

Screen print from AstronomiGuiden today

I've been asked some questions about a planet made of diamonds, that has an orbit around a neutron star. I can't say I know much about that planet, but I suspect it's an old star which has "died", leaving carbon and oxygen behind. Because of the last stages in a star's life, the core is belived to shrink and the density can get higher. From Wikipedia:

"In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice."

"Most natural diamonds are formed at high-pressure high-temperature conditions existing at depths of 140 to 190 kilometers (87 to 120 mi) in the Earth mantle."

So, my guess is that it's a dead star orbiting the neutron star. All gas might have been stolen by the neutron star as well. But, this is only what I think it might be.

For all you Swedes, you can read about this at Aftonbladet. I don't think Aftonbladet is especially good when it comes to science, but here's the link anyway:
Ny diamantplanet upptäckt
Scientific american has written about it here:
Diamond World Discovered by Astronomers

Something else that might be interesting is that Caffau et al. (Nature, today’s issue) report that a "mysterious" star has been discovered. Apparently a star in the Milkyway with very low metalicity, ie. low abundence in heavy elements. That means that the star contains almost exclusively of Hydrogen (H) and Helium (He). Those kind of stars are believed to be very old stars, because heavier elements are belived to form when stars dies.

Let's take it from the start:
It is belived that the Universe, when it was young, contained only light elements such as Hydrogen (H), Helium (He), Lithium (Li) and Beryllium (Be). But today, we have other heavier elements such as Iron (Fe) and lots of others. So, how was those elements created? Well, the most likely thing that can create heavier elements are stars. When stars die, they can explode and send a lot of gas out in the Universe. That gas, can then create new stars, but those new stars will contain of heavier elements than the star before. This leads to heavier and heavier elements for every generation of stars.

When knowing this, you can perhaps see why this star is different. It seems like it doesn't have heavier elements. That's why people are saying that it might be a really old star, perhaps the oldest one we've found so far. It is also located withing our galaxy, which contains a lot of gas. So, this is a new, interesting discovery! What else that is interesting is that this will be a new challenge for astronomers to understand. Earlier models for how stars are formed need some heavier elements to contribute to its formation. So this star should not have been formed according to the understanding we have so far. Very interesting indeed!

Swedish links:
ESO Swedish - Stjärnan som inte borde finnas
Sveriges radio - Mystisk stjärna funnen i Vintergatan

English link:
ESO English - The Star That Should Not Exist