Completed my intro-course in Russian today! I’ve learned the alphabet (Алфавит) and a few words. What I didn’t know when I started, is that around 1/3 of the Russian words are so similar to their Norwegian counterparts, that you should be able to understand them. So once you know the alphabet, you can (at last in theory) read and understand 33% of the words. Sometimes it requires a little fantasy, but yes, it is actually possible to understand quite a bit once you know the alphabet and some basic words. Writing Russian is of course harder, as you have to learn the grammar. I haven’t decided yet if I will go on doing this, but I’m quite sure that I’m at least will take a break this spring to concentrate on chemistry. But for sure, it would be great to be able to write and speak Russian fully! Even though not everyone agree (they’re probably biased by the cold war and “Red Alert-Russian” :)), Russian is a beautiful language. Luckily, I still have many years in front of me, so maybe I will some day.. ? Until further.. Здравствуйте! Меня зовут Дан Михаэль. Я норвежских. (Hello! My name is Dan Michael. I’m Norwegian.)
The text on the image says “Merry christmas!”. It’s actually my first attempt on this years christmas card. The final result was a lot less artistic and completely different, so no need to worry :)
The blocking of Wikipedia in China seems to be history! Andrew Lih brings this good news for the chinese internet community. For long time, the Chinese government has been very hard on community-contributing or community-driven websites (”read-write-sites”). Beeing active in a local Amnesty-group some years ago, I remember we worked with a case where a young man was detained for several years without a sentence. The reason was his website. The main content on the site was not problematic, but he was held responsible for a comment, where a guest mentioned the 1989-massacre. In other words, including open comment-fields on your website in China is dangerous, and then, what about leaving the whole website open for editing by anyone (like Wikipedia)? Keeping that in mind, it will be interesting to see what is written about Chinese history in Chinese Wikipedia (well, at least it would be if I understood Chinese).
By the way.. Who would guess that the Chinese article about Henrik Ibsen is almost as long as the Norwegian one? And that Chinese Wikipedia includes a long article about my hometown Bergen? Wikipedia is truly fascinating.. :)
… but we won’t :(
I’ve already written about the advantages of using thorium as a nuclear fuel. There has been quite a bit research on this topic in CERN in the nineties. The next step now is to build a prototype-reactor, but unfortunately EU hasn’t been willing to fund this.
So who could fund this? Professor in physics at the University of Bergen, Egil Lillestøl, suggests Norway. We have one of the largest known thorium-resources in the world, we already are a big energy-supplier (of natural gas) and we do have a lot of money. Egil says the prototype-reactor will cost 550 million € (4,4 mrd NOK) – which is only 48 million € (400 million NOK) more than the Norwegian government just decided to spend on handling CO2 from our new natural gas power plants.
Of course this is a big investment, and even though the possible profit (both economic and ecological) is enormous, this is many years ahead in time. However, it seems obvious that thorium should be on the agenda in Norway? We should at least arrange a conference to have a look at the possibilites of thorium?
Unfortunately, the politicians don’t quite agree with this. The only party mentioning thorium is FRP, a populistic party that I really don’t like to identify with. Well, one should be able to distinguish between case and ideology sometimes.. I do applaud FRP for submitting an interpellation to the Norwegian parliament on the thorium-topic this week. Unfortunately, none of the other partys showed interest, even for arranging a conference on thorium to discuss the possibillities.
I’ve been very sceptic to the idea of nuclear fuel as the solution to the worlds energy problem. However, there’s a new fuel in town. Carlo Rubbia has suggested the use of thorium in a new kind of reactor, called an «energy amplifier». Some advantages of using thorium instead of uranium are:
- Weapons-grade fissionable material (uranium233) is harder to retrieve safely and clandestinely from the thorium reactor than plutonium is from the uranium breeder reactor.
- Thorium produces 10 to 10,000 times less long-lived radioactive waste than uranium or plutonium reactors.
- Thorium comes out of the ground as a 100% pure, usable isotope, which does not require enrichment, whereas natural uranium contains only 0.7% fissionable U235.
- Because thorium does not sustain chain reaction, fission stops by default if we stop priming it, and a runaway chain reaction accident is improbable.
So there are clearly some advantages. There has also been some talk about burning waste from old uranium-reactors… and some speculation on eliminating the waste completely by using multiple burn cycles.
Read more:
After a long summer holiday, which I mostly spent working at The Mediecentre, my thirst for new knowledge has again grown big - and starting to study therefore feels really good. This term I will be following courses in inorganic chemistry, chemical thermodynamics and basic mechanics. So far, especially inorganic chemistry appears to be in the middle of my sphere of interest. It starts with a basic look at orbital theory and the Schrödinger wave equation, which is really fascinating stuff. Also, the lecturer does research on Molecular Modelling, a topic that is a possible candidate for my Master thesis, which in itself is inspiring.
Do you think your own thoughts or do you blindly follow others?
General, dein Tank ist ein starker Wagen.
Er bricht einen Wald nieder und zermalmt hundert Menschen.
Aber er hat einen Fehler:
Er braucht einen Fahrer.
General, dein Bomberflugzeug ist stark.
Es fliegt schneller als ein Sturm und trägt mehr als ein Elefant.
Aber es hat einen Fehler:
Es braucht einen Monteur.
General, der Mensch ist sehr brauchbar.
Er kann fliegen und er kann töten.
Aber er hat einen Fehler:
Er kann denken.
- Bertolt Brecht
100 years ago the Wright brothers were granted a pantent for a flying machine - a patent that turned out to include almost every man-made vehicle that could fly. A few years earlier Guglielmo Marconi was granted a patent on radio waves. It’s needless to say how these patents obstructed further research and development. Regarding the airplane-patent, the US government made a short process in 1917, with the World War I underway. Marconi’s patent on radio waves was claimed invalid by the US Supreme Court in 1943.
Unfortunately we doesn’t seem to have learned much from the last century’s patent stupidities. Until recently, it was not possible to patent living organisms, which were regarded as discoveries of nature and therefore unpatentable. In 1980, however, this all changed. The US Supreme Cour ruled that a living organism, a bacterium that could digest oil, could be patented. Today we have lots of patens on life: on plants, animals, genes and smaller parts of DNA.
Patents on medicines is another sad story, causing the deaths of poor people each day. Those who defend pharmaceutical patents, argue that the research of new medicines is so expensive that the pharmaceutical companies need their patents to survive. The question to ask here is if patenting is the only way to raise money for medical research? Today it’s already the public sector that pays for the bulk of drugs used in Europe, thanks to various systems for universal medical coverage. So today it’s (at least in most European countries) already the government who pay for most of the medical research (by buying patented medicines). What if the government instead could fund the pharmaceutical research directly, with the clause that the results must be made freely available? This idea is promoted by the swedish Pirate Party.
People don’t go to war because it’s cute or fair. People go to war because of interests and passion. It’s not about moral. It’s about dehumanizing the enemy so you can look away from moral. Thousands of years of civilizing appears wasted when the worst insticts resting inside all of us are digged up.
I’ve seen a lot of war movies, mostly American. What I find strange is that none of them have made me puke. In fact many war movies don’t even leave a bad taste in your mouth. Most films show good soldiers fighting bad soldiers. Ultra-cool special soldiers take out their enemies with surgical precision. Few show what war really is.
Well, today I saw this film, Harrison’s Flowers, that at least cleaned my tearchannels. And it was not mainly because of extremely gruesome pictures, but because of the well-driven story. Instead of being put in the shoes of soldiers, we were photojournalists digging deeper and deeper into the Croatian War of Independence. It got worse and worse until we reached hell, Vukovar. A war without good guys or bad guys. Just alot of humans with the potenial for doing good and bad. We can make the most beautiful art and music - and we can be more evil than any animals. And still we are all born the same. Harrison’s Flowers show some aspects of human beeing..
Yes, we Norwegians are in many ways lucky. We don’t have the trauma from evilness coming from inside, like it did in Croatia or in Germany under World War II for that sake. This absurdness and surrealism have no place in Norwegian history. We so easily except human behaviour to be realistic. Therefore we so need movies like this to tell us the story about what human behaviour also can be like. We need it, not just to understand actions in other parts of the world, but also to spot the evilness inside ourself. Because also in Norway the evilness may come from inside sometimes, it’s just hidden so you don’t easily spot it: in everyday racism, child-beatening or other forms.
I like to think that I care more about the environment (and other important stuff) than about myself, although I admit it’s probably not the real, deep truth. Well, at least getting my hair trimmed is something I tend to forget. A week or so ago I discovered that it really was in need to be done soon. Then on thursday I heard some good news: Huldra, the first ecological hairdresser in Bergen has just established. That made the choice of hairdresser easy. Even though a normal haircut can’t really be ecological, I really love to support such a project. It’s not everyday you can get good conscience by going to a hairdresser!
So what is an ecological hairdresser? Basically, they avoid the use of hairproducts with certain chemicals known to damage either people or the environment. On their homepage they’ve made a list of chemicals to avoid. As a chemistry student I love most chemicals, but I also see it very clear that many of them really shouldn’t leave the lab. Of them are many found in haircolouring and other cosmetic products. In fact I’m happy to be a boy without the big need for cosmetics. I’m really not jealous on you girls! Well, enough about that. I’m satisfied with my haircut and I’m quite sure I will go there again.
Do you want this sweety in your hair?
So I got this thermocup for christmas… The only problem was that the holder was made for beeing placed in a car - and I have no car. However, a slightly modified bottle cage made my day. Even on quite bumpy roads, the cup doesn’t loosen. I spill some cooffe, but really not much. Of course I could just bring a thermos flask instead, but that’s no fun!
