My uncle recently sent me a link to some hubble pictures. They are incredible and i've lost that link but here's some equally impressive visuals from the satellite which I personally have some kind of spiritual connection with i think, mainly from memories of numerous features on Newsround, possibly of the John Craven variant. Sadly, hubble's mission ends in 2010 and becasue of the grounding of the shuttles it won't be decommissioned as such, it'll just decay until someone brings it down. Kinda sad.

My surfing has taken a cosmic theme these last few days due to another spiritual connection I have, this time with Space hero (aka astronaut) Michael Foale, whom I met in Dcember 1990. He has since flown loads of misions to become the most spaced out american ever. In other words, he has the most space flight time of any American astronaut, not the Russians who avergae about quadruple the time in space of the Americans I think. This is all pretty confusing for me cos I could have sworn he was British... Then again we don't have a space program that I know of so I shouldn't complain. Anyway the point is he's been on the ISS since October and yesterday did a rather special spacewalk.

What did ISS Commander Michael Foale eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper in the last 10 days? I hear you cry.. Seems like there is more choice in space than here in Norway...

Hamburg warehouses

In the interests of consistency here is Greg's pic again:

My friend Greg took this picture in Hamburg just before Christmas. I like it, he`s getting really handy with his digital camera these days. Respect.

Gaz Drummin'

Roughly this time last year...

Even more cool b&ws of Glasgow at Dawg's rapidly evolving site.

Jonathan Percy has an amazing photo on his blog at the mo.

Humphry and Great Aunt Pam

"How did that knitting needle get there?"
"Thats the eighth glass today, where does she put it all?"
"Anyone got the number for AA?"

On the theme of reflections - by Gareth Johnson

Wow! I was just going to remove the link to the photoslog cos I've realised that its crap and slow and I can do the same thing with blogger (see below) And then I noticed the dawg had replied! And with an awesome photo to boot! keep em coming dawg..

Pointy hat

An image from Trondheim. This was a few days ago - most of the snow has gone now sadly, but it will be back no doubt.

I had an idea. I want to share this idea with you but it would be nice if I could retain credit for it. I want you to take this idea and make something new of it, whatever you like, except don't make any money out of it without checking with me first. It would be nice if whatever you created could be shared in the same way as this idea is.

My idea originated as a phrase: "Open source product design". Open source is a phrase relating to the way in which programmers develop software by sharing the source code, changing and improving it iteratively while avoiding the irritations of copyright law so treasured by big business. Product Design is, a) the pursuit of creating real world objects and systems; b) my degree.

Having a love of both phrases I would like to combine them. If programmers can collaborate internationally and create operating systems that out-do all others in functionality and economy, why can't designers do the same with products?

I went on a search to find out how the programmers did it. I ended up at the Creative Commons website. There I found the very license that would allow me to protect my idea in the way that I want. Here it is:





This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.





So why not with products?

Comments and queries welcomed.

Some rights reserved.

25.02.04 - This article has since been transplanted to and augmented at theSound...

One of my favourite pastimes here is eating hobbits. No really.

<-- Look! A picture of Trondheim. Well, of the shopping street anyways. I live several miles away but you get the idea. Its snowing.

Last week I was the happy recipient of two haggises. Since then I have heard rumours that the sending of haggii through the post may be frowned upon by the authorites so perhaps I should keep quiet. I will however say that they were delicious, enjoyed with friends and a halved swede and two minis of Jura which, I would like to add, fall well within the legal importing volume of "1 litre of beverages with more than 22 up to and including 60 % alcohol per volume as well as 1 litre with more than 2.5 up to and including 22 % alcohol per volume or 2 litres with more than 2.5 up to and including 22 % alcohol per volume" and thus cancel out any wrongdoing in importing two haggii.

The norwegian embassy in the UK has a nice site.