BRBcoffee

Archive for the ‘The blog’ Category

So it’s been a while. I’ve been thinking about what I want from BRBcoffee, and what you want, dear readers. That’s why I made that poll you see on your right. Sadly, the participation was low, and the results inconclusive. Therefore I turned to analytics, and found an interesting fact: You guys are crazy about unicorns.

Now, while I like unicorns, it’s not something I like to, or can, write about at length, so I choose to disregard that statistic, and instead I choose to focus on what I want, and what I want to give to the people who enter this humble corner of the web. Politics has taken an ever larger role in my life, as has music; I work at concerts at least once a week these days, and will be putting up more than a few of my own later this year.

The more perceptive among you will have gathered that I’m talking about a rebranding of sorts. We average at around 40 visitors per day now, and while I’m proud of those 40, I think we can go a lot bigger if we don’t spend quite so much time confusing them by writing with no coherence. When you blog, you’re supposed to focus on a niche, and if that’s a target, we’ve been shooting in the opposite direction, adding new authors and categories consistently, spreading ourselves thin. Most of our authors are what would be considered political radicals, and quite a few of us are in the Norwegian communist party, or it’s youth organization. You see where this is going, don’t you?

Now, without further ado, I present to you my glorious concept:
“BRBcoffee, the lives, thoughts, and coffeebreaks of the revolutionaries.”
Expect redesigns, fewer categories, and more offensive posts!

And now for a private public word with my cohorts. I know we’re not all revolutionaries, and some of you will probably disagree with this new concept. I’ll be sad to see you leave us for my egotism, and you’re more than welcome to stay and write. You can even write blatant right-wing propaganda, I’ll be happy for the discussion material. So, with me?

And to kick it all off, in Norwegian only, sadly, here’s my public speech on the data retention directive:

Ah, and our cat being cute.

Yes, our cat is also a revolutionary. Hers will be the claws that tear through the bullshit of the bourgeoise once and for all. Our cat is that badass. And her claws are very sharp. Seriously, ow.

 
Song of the blog: We Are Sex Bob-omb – Sex Bob-omb

Yours truly
Bjørn

I know I promised to review my new phone and netbook to ya’ll, but actually this is my first oportunity to sit down, relax with ice cold, nasty coffee, a bad radio show, and the smell of new car, to review at least one of them! (Yes, I’m at work, and there is absolutely nothing to do… And if you didn’t read the title, this entry will be about the HTC Desire Z!) It wont be to long or complicated, so dont worry!

So, what do I have to tell you about this phone? Well, to be honest I’m not very impressed, yet! But again, I love the phone, it’s android that’s bothering me the most… Frankly, I don’t know which version I’ve got, but it sure as hell is buggy and slow! A lot of the programs and apps for the Z is awesome, but yet again even more buggy than the OS itself. Sure I were to expect this, but not to this scale. Lately the whole thing has just been turning itself off once a problem occours, or locking everything up, so that I can’t do shieet. Also Android has a bad file system and using the menues are somewhat rocket science. While I play scientist, not to many programs are running, and the only program allways enabled is the 3G data transfer service, still Ive got to charge this beast every 10th hour. Sure I should expect. This from technology as new as this, and even so I’m happy with my new baby!

So i told you things are badly organized, yes? Exactly! Every single freaking program is just put into the main menu, and there aren’t possibilities for sub menues, as far as I’ve figured out. The good thing about it is that 20 seconds of insane scrolling gives you a good overview over what’s installed. Menues brings me to contacts, don’t ask me why, but for me this seemed logic… Contacts, well… WTF? Why the hell would they mess up this critical and important part of a phone? Every single contact gets doubled, tripled, fripled or worse, based on your SIM contacts, phone contacts, facebook contacts, twitter contacts, etc…
so every single freaking time I want to find a contact, i got to scroll through all the dupliicates. Fortunatly, you can link duplicates, sadly this demands more memory from the phone, and every time you use the “phone feature” it wants to know which of the one billion numbers you want to call. This is the only thing bugging me enough to want to chrush my phone against a telephone pole! Still, that would be a waste of the 4100NOK I’ve spent on this thing. Lets just pray this will get better in close future.

Now, maybe you’ll want to know why I still love my phone? Hah! Thats what I thought! You’re dying to read further in this crapppy entry… So, the main thing I love about this baby is the QWERTY flip out keyboard, oh my god how I love it. If It haden’t been there, I would’ve never written this from my phone. Touch keyboards are just annoying, and my chubby fingers don’t work well with’em. Second is the variety of awesome apps, and the bright an nice screen it’s got makes the apps and everything I do even better. Right now, I’m using the Word Press app to write and post this. Gebious little app. The possibility to make my own WIFI and connct my laptop to is great, also using WIFI in general, but that is old news on most cellphones nowadays. Headphone jack is nice, and an USB-charger is genious, saves me at work, since I’ve got an USB plug in the taxi.

All in all, this is a great mobile device with clear sound, good camera and speakers, bright screen with a good resolution, many posibilities, QWERTY and lots of other stuff. Downsides with the battery usage, contact organizing and menues. Still, in 2-3 months this will most likely be improved in the upcoming android updates. If the contacts doesn’t get properly organized by then, I will kick some developers arse. I would not reccomend it to novice users, but rather to those with more than a basic understanding of technology, and with interest or knowledge to program and fix some bugs themselves. Be prepared Bjørn! Don’t get your hopes up, but you’re about to get into a new and exciting era of smartphones, though I suspect you’ve got a feeling on android from your old tattoo.

Finally I got a customer! So this will be the end.
Upcoming: Samsung Galaxy Netpad review.

As you were!
Steinar

Just checking in to say that I removed the wallpapers page, after realizing how unnecessary it was. To those who sent wallpapers to me, I am sorry for the hassle.

Really, Burnie, wallpapers on a blog? Why? That’s what sites like 4walled are for…

Also I did this from my phone in minutes. I love technology!

I hope everyone had a great holiday, I know I did. I shall blog you soon, that I promise. Now. Scram, I need to sleep.

I got my wisdom teeth removed yesterday, so I’m in a state of nostalgia that makes me mull over quotes. So… here are some quotes!

We don’t get a chance to do that many things, and every one should be really excellent. Because this is our life. Life is brief, and then you die, you know? So this is what we’ve chosen to do with our life. We could be sitting in a monastery somewhere in Japan. We could be out sailing. Some of the [executive team] could be playing golf. They could be running other companies. And we’ve all chosen to do this with our lives. So it better be damn good. It better be worth it. And we think it is.

–Steve Jobs

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars. Learn how to drive a stick shift. Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back. Say no when you don’t want to do something. Say yes if your instincts are strong, even if everyone around you disagrees. Decide whether you want to be liked or admired. Decide if fitting in is more important than finding out what you’re doing here. Believe in kissing.

–Eve Ensler

Once upon a time, I, Chuang Chou, dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Chou. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. Between a man and a butterfly there is necessarily a distinction. The transition is called the transformation of material things.

–Chuang Chou

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

–Aristotle

The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else.

–E.E. Cummings

That Harry Potter is a true American hero.

–My Daddy

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.

–Alexandre Dumas

Have you even been in love? Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… and you give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like “maybe we should just be friends” or “how very perceptive” turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.

–Neil Gaimon; The Sandman

Merry Christmas, or whatever…

In lack of stuff to do after the Christmas climax, I’ve been stuck in front of the telly all day long. By now, every single movie they’ve managed to put on screen, I’ve already seen at least 2 times before. This brings me to dubbing. This time of year, many of the movies sent, are animations or cartoons, dubbed to Norwegian… Well OK, I can understand this for the sake of the children, but when they mix up the movie with several languages like in the Norwegian version of Happy Feet, which in fact is on TV right now, it makes me want to crush stuff to bits and pieces.

A movie should always be in its original state. Dubbing = crapping, in most cases. Ive seen a few animations and cartoons that works with dubbing, but the original content is still better than the recreation of lyrics and translations. What really bugs me about Happy Feet right now, is the mixing of languages! (I assume you’ve all seen this film.) Theres is quite a bit of singing in it, but this haven’t been translated at all. This means; The original voices by Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman, are still in the dubbed version. But the Norwegian voices are different, so their voices vary a bit throughout the movie, and it gets totally ruined by the fuck ups that decided to do this pathetic thing to such a good movie!?

Sorry about all the whining, but this is really upsetting me… How can the producers live with themselves knowing what pain they cause us (or just me)?!

Well, I hope Santa got you what you wished for, or at least something similar that made you happy!

As you were!