A couple of hours this evening spent going through every online auto renewing subscription and changing the credit card number. Good thing it only expires every few years and that I thought to actually keep a list of all those.

Usually reading comments is not something recommended, but sometimes you come across something worth the effort. 

In response to this, http://gizmodo.com/nasa-calls-bullshit-on-goops-120-bio-frequency-healing-1796309360 you find occasional gems. Via http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/nasa-slams-goop/

Most people live in a world of magic that they do not understand. They flip a switch and the room becomes brighter. They turn a key and the car starts (making noise) and they can then make it go places. They put pre-packaged food into a box and press flat numbered places on the front and the food spins and gets hot. They walk up to a transparent wall and part of it slides out of their way… They swipe and press on places on a flat glass rectangle and get photos of cats and of their friends making funny faces… ALL of this is magic. They have no idea how any of it works, not really.

Is it any wonder that people believe in magic rocks to put into private parts? Or that this or that magic fruit will help them be healthy? Or that one type of needle wards off evil spirits (viruses) that can make them sick and another type of needle wards off evil spirits (unbalanced chi) that can make them sick? They literally have no means off separating our modern tech and science from woo. All of it is magic.

As Arthur C. Clark said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. We have arrived.

– http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/nasa-slams-goop/#comment-338655

Two things come to mind.

1. The joys of living in the country side
2. It has been a relatively quiet winter

2016-08-13 05:51:32 +0300  Power failure.
2016-08-13 05:59:48 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-08-14 10:04:36 +0300  Power failure.
2016-08-14 10:04:37 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-09-13 07:10:29 +0300  Power failure.
2016-09-13 07:10:31 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-09-30 10:46:39 +0300  Power failure.
2016-09-30 10:46:41 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-09-30 10:46:41 +0300  Power failure.
2016-09-30 10:46:43 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-09-30 10:47:42 +0300  Power failure.
2016-09-30 10:47:44 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-10-06 18:44:42 +0300  Power failure.
2016-10-06 18:44:44 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-10-11 08:09:43 +0300  Power failure.
2016-10-11 08:09:45 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-10-28 17:43:18 +0300  Power failure.
2016-10-28 17:43:49 +0300  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-11-23 13:29:53 +0200  Power failure.
2016-11-23 13:30:55 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-11-23 13:30:56 +0200  Power failure.
2016-11-23 13:44:40 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-11-28 00:57:35 +0200  Power failure.
2016-11-28 00:58:37 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-11-28 01:04:23 +0200  Power failure.
2016-11-28 01:35:42 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-11-28 01:36:58 +0200  Power failure.
2016-11-28 01:37:43 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2016-11-28 01:37:43 +0200  Power failure.
2016-11-28 01:37:43 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2017-01-30 13:11:37 +0200  Power failure.
2017-01-30 13:11:39 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.
2017-02-04 07:42:26 +0200  Power failure.
2017-02-04 07:42:28 +0200  Power is back. UPS running on mains.

After weeks of southerly quarter winds and warm wet weather it has finally turned to the north. Just over a week ago the temperature went from +5 to -15°C in a couple of days. A little bit of a shock to the system, and also our power bill. Mid 2013 the power company installed a smart meter as is required by law now. So we went from doing the reading ourselves once a year to getting hourly readings automatically. Before we used to get monthly estimated bills that were evened out over the entire year with a correction every 12 months. That usually wasn’t in our favour though.

Now we get actual bills relating to what we really used. So I’m not looking forward to the next couple of months. It is also pretty easy to see how our heat exchange system handles the cold. And that isn’t pretty either.

For some reason it feels pretty cold at the moment even though it is barely below zero.

But after a month of wet and windy weather this is as close to winter as we have had. Still, it doesn’t take more than a couple days of this to get a decent hoar frost going.

As you might have heard it has snowed a little bit in the south of Finland this year. And this has caused us and others a few problems.

Firstly we were running out of places to put all the snow.

But now the temperature has risen above zero C for the first time in about 60 days. That and predictions of more sleet and snow are giving rise to warnings about snow loadings on roofs. There has already been one sports hall roof collapse and although we have no idea of the actual loading of the house it is better to be safe than sorry. As it turns out the snow was up to 1m deep on our roof in places, although a bit less on average. That gives about 100kg per square metre (depending on snow density) and then with the size of the roof (about 185 sq.m) that is about 18 tonnes loading on the roof… Sooo, maybe a good idea to take some of it off.

Luckily our roof isn’t so steep and the snow was pretty deep. So not much slippage which was good for me. The snow layers separated pretty well, which in the mountains would be good for avalanches… But for me it meant it was a bit easier to remove the snow. Although it took several hours to clear the whole roof over the weekend and quite many aches and pains.

Unfortunately we thought we had a snow problem before.

Now we really have a snow problem…

So much that it is a bit difficult to get out of the house now!

I just worked out I can see how Google views this site with the Google Webmaster Tools.

I guess that everyone else knows this already, but it was news to me!

You might have noticed the new FriendFeed box in the menu block. That is where basically everything online is agregatted into one place. There you can find my entries on Twitter, Facebook, Kevätkartano, and anything else I do online. If I add something new I’ll include it in FriendFeed.

If you use an RSS reader (Google Reader, Thunderbird, Firefox, etc) then the easiest thing is just to use the FriendFeed RSS feed instead.

It seems that frozen lakes can actually be quite noisey. Not just crunching and creaking of ice, but much, much more.

When the conditions are right, rapidly changing temperatures, snowless ice, no wind, the entire ice sheet can resonate when minor cracks form. We discovered this a couple of weeks ago when it was a calm evening with the temperature dropping past -12C. There were very strange resonate boings coming from the direction of the lake. The noises were so loud at times that we could hear them up to 200 metres away from the lake edge. But standing on the jetty it was a different matter. The noises were coming from all directions all across the lake, just seconds apart. It was a very strange sound and quite freaky in the dark. They sounded so odd it was hard to imagine they were natural.

But as we found out later (thanks to Google), it is known, if not that common. And here are a few examples.

• http://www.vimeo.com/139013
• http://silentlistening.wordpress.com/2008/05/09/dispersion-of-sound-waves-in-ice-sheets/
• http://kalerne.net/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=138&Itemid=115

The lake was over 20cm thick at the time and extremely clear. That is easily thick enough to walk on, which we did the next weekend a couple of times. The lake even rewarded us with a few extra boings as well.

Well, another winterless winter. Occassionally a bit more snow than last year, but not much colder. Still, it is the 15th now and no snow outside.

On the web site side of things no big changes. A couple of minor reformattings to the menu is about it. In other site news there is a new section. I would like to do some update to the site theme, but I think that can wait for now.

And as for our rodent problem. I checked the traps again last weekend and they were empty. Even the cheese looked untouched. So hopefully that is a good sign.