Why the Hell you should be at a university

Think about it. Why attend a university? Sure, you can learn a lot. There are professors and classes and books, homework and projects and exams. There are thousands of students in Trondheim alone who come here to get a formal education, be that at NTNU or HiST, but why the Hell should they?

Now, this is a matter concerning nearly every single person I know in Trondheim, and is one I've given quite some thought during the explosive spurt of reading, memorization and frustration accompanying the exam period of each semester. In and of itself, exactly which classes you take during your years at the university only loosely decide what you can start working with after you are done with a bachelor or a master. You can study boats, but end up evaluating building sites. You can study geology, but end up programming. It is all up to the individual. Not only is that true, but in addition, your grades don't even matter that much so long as you don't fail your classes. In fact, after working for a year or two, not a single employer will likely ask for your grades again. Just to top it off, reading intensely for five days before an exam is in most cases sufficient to not only get a passing grade, but maybe a C, or even a B in some cases. If passing is your goal, then it's relatively easy, but then you're missing the point.

Most everyone agrees that you go to a university to learn. The problem is, in my opinion, that most have the wrong idea as to what they're actually here to learn and what employers will actually look for later. If you want to learn about, say, mathematics, not only is there a plethora of textbooks and well written material out there, but you can learn it all as fast as you want, and for free through libraries and the vast amounts of internet communities out there ready to explain, help and contribute to your learning. In fact, you could probably learn the equivalent to what a masters in mathematics would give you in three years or less if you really wanted to. Now, I'm not saying that this is a reason not to take higher education. You actually should, but for a very different reason. What you actually learn when getting education past high school is two things: Culture and work ethic.

Firstly, after finishing high school you have the level of culture and sophistication of a typical high school movie. While movies often depict nearly exclusively the party- and bachelor-themed lifestyles of students (a life which, admittedly, many students live), you learn to freaking behave. Talking to professors, the more serious students and possible future employers, students all learn to act formally when it's needed and to and to not chuckle quite as much when someone discusses the stiffness of a rigid body. Unlike high school, the university is a place where you possibly, maybe even probably don't know anyone else from before. You have a fresh start. A clean slate upon which the developing student can model a socially functional human being, and that's just what some need to find out who they are and how they can be themselves best.

Finally, you get some work ethic. While a friend of mine recently contemplated why the concept of having to do a set amount of homework to do the exam while doing them actually didn't help your grade was stupid, I remembered what another guy told me a while back. His job is to hire others, and in doing that, he often prefers people with a degree from the university, but not because they're smart. It's because "they f****** deliver stuff on time," he said. "Even if it might not be as good as they would want, I get something," and that counts for a lot. You learn that delivering something, and then improving it over time is a lot better than not handing in anything at all. At least to some degree, you learn to f****** do something (you might thing the profanity isn't needed here, but it really is. That, however is a topic for another post).

Just like many of my friends, I study at the university to learn about science and engineering, to learn about how to be a functional social being, and to f****** do something (more on that later). Why the Hell are you at a university?

How you're supposed to tell stories

I noticed it the other day when a friend of mine asked me about my trip to Singapore and Malaysia. Or rather, I noticed after I had talked a bit about it and asked her about her trip to the Philippines.

I tell boring stories. Or rather, I don't tell stories as they should be told. And in a flash of apparent insight, I realized why some people not only always seem to have something to talk about, but they also seem to have a boundless bounty of stories from every single event they participated in.

The thing is, I'm not the only one who does this wrong. Lots of people do, and experience time and time again that they have tried to explain a fantastic moment or incredible event, and see how their listeners either trail off into other thoughts or change the subject. It often has little to do with how a particular part of the story unfolds, and usually has even less to do with the story itself; it is a matter of how the person telling the story has re-imagined it before telling it!

As I said, I noticed this as I do this the wrong way myself. I'll try to explain. Whenever I tell a story, or rather talk about a trip or recent event, I have a habit of doing it chronologically. I start at the beginning, listing what happened and what was entertaining and fun, finishing as I get to the end of the event. There are three major problems with this approach:

Firstly, chances are slim that anyone wants to hear every single detail and know about everything that happened during most any trip. And even if they do, it would be getter not to give out everything at once.

Secondly, you leave yourself no bits and pieces of the event for later storytelling. You won't really have the chance of saying "apropos that, once on my trip to the tundra..." or where ever without talking about something you've already mentioned earlier.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, this mode of storytelling is often nearly completely one-sided. You have already decided that you are going to tell this story, and so you easily rant on, often being a bit too prolix, reveling a bit in hearing your own voice and knowing that someone else is listening too. And so it is hard for others to interject, ask and comment as you go, because you swiftly jump to a new subject or the next thing that happened before anyone has the chance to say anything — as soon as the conversation becomes a monologue, it is destined to be doomed.

Listening to Kathrine describing some of her experiences made me realize how this affliction of prolix and bland storytelling can be mended. The first thing you should do is think of one of the most memorable things that happened, and then you should explain how great that single memory is. Now, here is the important part: Leave spaces where any listener(s) might want to ask about something or add a little comment. Don't be afraid to stray from the original course of the conversation. Don't be too intent on having to tell all of it at once, but treat it like any other discussion or conversation with more people involved.

Basically, you should just remember to always tell the stories you want to tell most, try to limit them to what you are most excited about, and remember to laugh a lot. so long as you do that, chances are you will have lots more stories to tell, get better responses from your listeners, and have more fun.

Man, that post nearly made me feel insightful.

Moro med nytt kamera og panoramafunksjon

På klasseturen til Singapore og Malaysia kjøpte jeg meg et nytt kompaktkamera (det er jo greit å ha i tillegg til speilreflekskameraet) med en panoramafunksjon som lapper sammen et panoramabilde bare man sveiper over det en skal ta bilde av.

Det begynner jo å bli en stund siden nå, men jeg tenkte jeg skulle dele noen bilder, da spesielt noen jeg tok med panoramafunksjonen.

Det mest vellykkede prosjektet med funksjonen.

Stian og Erik fortet seg rundt bak meg, og stilte seg opp igjen i andre enden av bildet samtidig som jeg sveipet sakte over tablået (er ikke tablå et fantastisk ord?).

Et av de overdådige byggene i shoppinggata i Singapore - hele forsiden var en stor skjerm.

Vi landet på Tioman omringet av jungel, blå himmel, en frisk bris og godt humør.

Ikke tatt med panoramafunksjon, men stilte litt på kontrast og ISO i forkant.

Skulle gjerne tatt flere slike bilder som det her.

Jeg liker jo godt å ta bilder. Kanskje jeg skulle satt av litt mer tid til det. Nå er jeg jo midt i eksamensstyr og -mas, men neste lesepause kan fort inkludere en tur ut med kamera parat og med en stopp for å spise is i en park eller på en lekeplass.

Gleder meg allerede.

Ny pc og bloggeksistensialisme

Hurra, jeg har endelig fått meg ny pc etter tre måneder uten skjerm på den forrige bærbare!

I den anledning har jeg glemt å lage meg frokost, fortet meg til butikken for å hente pc i posten og handle, gått hjem og glemt alle dagligvarene ute på benken fordi jeg skulle leke meg med den nye pcen, glemt alt som heter skole, og først nå kommet på igjen at jeg egentlig skulle spise litt mat.

The übergeek at work med to pcer, mobil, to tver, ekstern harddisk og

fire stk spillkonsoller (kun to er mine) innen en radius på to meter

Det er fantastisk fint å ha en bærbar som har responstid på under 5 sekunder, fungerende skjerm, batterilevetid på over 3 minutter og en temperatur som gjør det mulig å holde pcen igjen. Da mangler bare litt mat, og så er dagen fullendt.

Ellers har jeg tenkt litt på funksjonen til bloggen min. Den kommer til slutt opp med å ende opp med å være todelt — Jeg kommer til å ha poster om livet generelt og hvordan jeg har det i hverdagen, og i tillegg noen poster i stil med de forrige par postene mine hvor jeg later som om jeg vet hva alt annet handler om. Ville det vært en fordel da å dele det opp i to forskjellige blogger? I og med at jeg liker å skrive både på norsk og engelsk hadde det kanskje vært en idé å segmentere bloggene slik også, både for min og eventuelle leseres skyld.

Jeg skal tenke på det og se om jeg kommer fram til noe vettugt, og om jeg finner ut hvor mange vedlikeholdskrav det kommer til å gi opphav til. Men først skal det spises speilegg til frokost. Jeg kjenner jeg begynner å bli så sulten at jeg snart får vondt i magen her.

Men en strålende god dag har jeg allikevel, og jeg håper du har det også.

Everyone should discover the World, but noone should travel it.

Most everyone says they enjoy travelling. If you ask them why, they will usually say that they enjoy discovering new places, some will say they enjoy the sun and/or the shopping, and a few will say that they enjoy it because it is great time spent with their friends.

Now, if you ask me, you should spend at least a month of your life to discover a new culture, a new way of life, a new friend, a new place, a new outlook on life, or at least a new dish. Everyone should do that at least once.

At the same time, meeting people is sort of like sub-atomic particles: you can't really observe them without ultimately changing them. Upon increasing the amount of travel, discovery and observation, eventually we will end up with a world lacking a cultural gradient. Except for, of course in a few, very isolated places. Like I heard yet another time a few days ago, it's a small world. And the world is shrinking with the increasing possibilities of travel we experience in a more and more internationalized and ultimately normalized world.

Just like you assimilate some of the hand gestures, vocabulary and behaviour of people you encounter and spend time with, entire cultures assimilate some of each others' traits as they blend through an unbounded stream of tourists, backpackers and visitors, all expecting, wanting and hoping for something different. And this is what is killing culture.

As some of the local community tries to accomodate the visiting horde, and large international companies arrive with new standards, conventions and ways of doing things, a culture is gradually watered out. You can now buy a big mac in a whooping (no pun intended) 119 different countries, and it will sprobably taste the same in all of them.

Now, perhaps what amazes me most about all of this is how happy everyone seems to be to find something familiar on holiday to the other side of the World. The last time I asked around, well over half the people surveyed named discovering and experiencing a new culture and way of life (or something similar) as the most significant reason for travelling abroad. At the same time, a great deal of the same people will opt for McDonald's over a local restaurant, or at least eat spaghetti and meatballs at the local restaurant rather than trying something different.

Has travelling become something many do just because everyone says that it's cool? Something some do even though they actually prefer the comfortably safe spot in a café or the sofa at home because 'obvilously', a vacation is something which has to include travelling and culture? Is it just a matter of conformity, social norms and the need for validation? I hope that is not the case.

Myself, I love travelling to meet new people I've never met before, to talk to the owner of a cozy tea- and tobacco-shop on the corner, to eat things I can't name, to use a hole in the ground as a toilet, to climb in forests and mountains and playgrounds I've never been to before, to view life and learning from a new perspective, to stare at a different sky, to breathe in heavy and moist as well as dry and thin air, to smell coriander or tarragon through the window of a local kitchen, and to live life a bit differently for a while.

I am currently looking forward to going back to Leh in northern India next summer, perhaps revisiting the family I stayed with for a few days a whole 6 years ago, and staring at the World's most beautiful night sky in the middle of the Himalaya mountains.

Next time you are on vacation, ask a local where thay would go out to eat, and when you are eating there, try asking those who work there what they prefer off of the menu, and then take that so long as it's not the most expensive iten (then they're probably just trying to earn money). Discover something genuinely new to you, that you haven't already learned through lonely planet. Try bargaining just a bit more at the local bazaar, even if the price already seems reasonable, be a bit naïve and adventuous (but try not to do anything stupid of course), be sure to actually spend your travelling days discovering all the nooks and crannies of the amazing world in which we spend our daily lives. Be that on the other side of the planet, the other side of the country or the other side of town.

It's all out there, yet to be discovered; so what are you waiting for?
Sieze the day, pack a bag, tie your shoes, and discover a new bench, playground, coffee house or view point – I know I will today.

Why facebook is scary, potentially taking over the World, and potentially dying

I have a lot I'd like to include in this somewhat serious post, but bear with me, and I'll try not tot be overly prolix.

Firstly, it is important to me to say that I think facebook is one of the scariest things out there. It is past a point where delusions of grandeur turn into some sort of twisted reality where facebook has been placed on a shrine for all to see and it no longer matters much what it says, because the whole system has become so convoluted and maddeningly complex that noone can make perfect sense of it anyway. And we are all subject to Facebook's whims and iterations, twists and turns because we are all so far down into the system.

When it started out, theFacebook (now just facebook) was a small space where you could share pictures and opinions, reconnect with long lost friends and enemies, and perhaps spend a bit of time on a silly game, but now it has turned into a monster of a thing that knows that it mostly owns the social networking scene, the latter being the damgerous part. As of right now, the site has more than 400 000 000 active users; about 6 % of all the people on planet Earth. And they all conform to the need for 15 clicks to make an event or an album or something similar; the five different forms of "liking" with confusing, subtle and important differences between them (the original for which they actually took from FriendFeed, who they later aquired); the immense number of privacy settings (I was going to count them, but gave up around 70), not to mention the account settings and separate application settings which also affects your privacy; and the constant torrent of new designs and privacy policies spewed nearly monthly out of the machine that is facebook.

In trying to merge your online profile and your identity, Mark Zuckerberg (CEO of facebook) has created an information gathering giant that generated positive revenue for the first time half a year ago, and shows no sign of stopping that trend. As I see it, one of two things can happen: One is that a good, open alternative pops up which requires fewer clicks and manages to convince some users to migrate, making sure others follow in their wake. This is the option I'd definitely prefer. The other is the one that makes facebook scary as hell.

As of now, facebook is worth a bit more than 4 billion dollars. What if they could increase that number tenfold? With the introduction of Facebook Connect in 2007, they started spreading their influence across other sites as well, so that if you have been using this feature, you will be even more hard pressed to let go of facebook. After all, it is so simple to just log in to facebook, and then not having to log in at, say, Digg or TechCrunch. This might, however, be slightly dispelled by Firefox' possible future integration of security and logins in the browser. At least if it is adopted by other browsers as well. Now, imagine if you will, that facebook came up with the idea of expanding their business into something they might call social banking or social shopping. If they could extend e-commerce fluently into the social sector, there would be no stopping them. Paypal has been around forever, and is a well known and trusted money-handler, but consider that you already entrust mostly all of your secrets and personal information to facebook. Having them handle a few transactions as well would not be such a big step, and could easily increase the value and revenue of facebook by a fairly large factor. I even feel myself that if facebook could both help me gather opinions from my friends about a product and handle the transaction after i have decided to buy something, that would be a great way for me to do it, and a minor fee to facebook might be worth conforming to the rules of the beast considering what I get out of it.

I feel it is safe to say that if a good alternative arise, I will convert rather readily, and try to convince others to do the same, although I am a rather heavy user of facebook at the moment myself. Facebook has become insanely huge and complex, and eventually, unless they either make it all simple again or manages the feat I mentioned above, I believe it will drive off the people to other grounds. And somehow, I hope that happens.
Because facebook scares me.
And it should scare you too.

Eksamensdekorasjon og bra folk

Nå som eksamensperioden offisielt er i gang er det på tide med eksamensdekorasjon. Alle har sin helt egne måte å gjøre det på, og det ender stort sett alltid med å se ut som en eller annen form for ordnet kaos. Det består gjerne av litt for mange ark og bøket utover bordet på en gang, en stk vannflaske, en stk motivasjon i form av noe spiselig, og en stk student i midten av det hele som er enten dypt konsentrert, fantastisk fortvliet eller langt avgårde i dagdrømmenes verden.

Det er en viss følelse som ligger i en vegg dekket av fasediagrammer, notater, grafer, formler og tegninger du har laget i et inspirert øyeblikk som gjør at du bare kommer i rett modus, og gjør deg klar til å gjøre en innsats. Det gjør at du kan sette deg ned, gjøre et stykke arbeid og være strålende fornøyd etterpå, og ta deg litt fritid med god samvittighet og en følelse av å ha oppnådd noe som stundom er nesten like fint som det er å plukke (eller rive) hele herligheten ned fra veggen igjen en måned senere.

Morgendagen bringer lappopphenging, innsatsvilje, turmiks med nøtter og sjokolade, og akkurat passe mengder fritid jevnt spredt utover dagen med en solid dose plassert helt på slutten. Gleder meg allerede (:


Noe annet jeg ville nevne var forresten noe jeg var innom i forrige post om hvor viktig det er med andre rundt deg, hvordan de oppfører seg og hvordan det påvirker deg.

De siste to månedene har jeg blitt litt bedre kjent med en person som er den flinkeste jeg vet til å få folk til å føle seg bra, om det inspirerer meg til å være en bedre person å se hvor mye andre lyser opp i nærheten av henne. Hun er en av de personene som legger merke til det når du har gjort en innsats uten å kreve oppmerksomhet og uten å kreve noe igjen for det og som sier hvor fint det er, det er en person som kan si overbevisende at noe er bra når du kanskje ikke er helt fornøyd selv, og en person som kan hjelpe til med å inkludere deg når du føler deg litt utenfor.

Det er altså ikke noen forelskelse det er snakk om fra min side her, men anerkjennelse for at Lene, du er en fantastisk person fordi du er den du er og hjelper andre å være seg selv så bra de kan i en til tider utakknemlig Verden. Om alle hadde spredt litt mer glede sånn som deg hadde alt vært litt bedre for hver og en av oss.

The importance of a partner

Vi blir alle påvirket av andre rundt oss, og det viser seg spesielt godt når det kommer til innsatsvilje.

Jeg synes allerede det nesten er skummelt hvor fort jeg gjør meg opp en mening om ting basert på hva andre jeg kjenner synes om det. Dette er sant når det gjelder musikk og film, politikk, 'han sære fyren på tredje rad i timen' eller det siste store nyhetsoppslaget. Det som er mest fremtredende er imidlertid hvor mye noe påvirker oss når noe må gjøres og man er fler om å skulle gjøre det. Jeg kjenner det så godt hvordan jeg mye lettere får summet meg til å komme meg ut døra og opp til skolen om jeg vet jeg skal møte noen andre der som skal gjøre det samme.

Nå er det lett å tenke at "hallo: stort sett hele klassen din skal jo opp på skolen og jobbe," men det er ikke det samme. Nå snakker jeg om at du har en partner in crime så å si. Noen andre som skal jobbe sammen med deg og glede seg over å være ferdig med oppgaven etterpå; sammen med deg.
Vi har alle opplevd det, hvordan det er mye lettere å glede seg over noe andre gleder seg over eller slippe seg litt mer løs enn vanlig når det er en atmosfære i en gruppe som innbyr til at du kan være akkurat den du er, akkurat som du vil.

Akkurat på same måte er det med arbeidsmotivasjon, ambisjon og innsatsvilje! Sammen med noen som sier at nå skal vi jobbe med det her og bli ferdig, og så kan vi ta oss en is og en tur ut i sola er det så mye lettere å gjøre nettopp det. Og det er noe jeg trenger. Et eksempel på det motsatte er hvordan det er mye vanskeligere å stå opp om du har noen andre i senga som heller vil ha deg der, eller noen som sier at du kan ikke gå hjem og legge deg ennå, vi har det jo så moro her nå!

Det samholdet du har med andre, den effekten du kan bruke til å hjelpe andre til å bli flinkere og føle seg bedre, den muligheten vi har til å hjelpe hverandre igjennom hverdagen eller grave hodet ned innunder dyna, er noe som skremmer, fascinerer, målbinder og overrasker meg igjen og igjen, og jeg skal passe på å prøve å bruke den enda bedre i fremtiden for å gjøre Verden til et litt bedre sted. Neste blogginnlegg blir om nettopp det.