It seems a ship carrying uranium crashed into a ship carrying methanol fairly close to where I live. Luckily there were no mushroom clouds and despite going for a swim I am not glowing green.

via SwedishWire

There are many famous universities around the world – like pop stars many don’t even need their institutional suffix, like Harvard and Oxford. But when venturing beyond the confines of southern Sweden it is rare that I meet anyone that has heard of Blekinge Institute of Technology. Even a friend from Stockholm thought I was studying in Denmark.

But this week I was given some comfort. My university was ranked 11th in the world in systems and software engineering research, and my main supervisor was ranked 8th amongst top scholars in this field (Wong et al., 2009).

Today Sweden has broken ranks with North Korea, and ended the state monopoly on pharmacies. With these change it will be possible to buy painkillers from the supermarket, but from what I’ve read will be more controls on the sale of painkillers than for cigarettes.

via Swedish Wire

While many Australians will not be convinced, Sweden now feels like it is in summer. The days are wonderfully long, people are wearing shorts and t-shirts to work, and everyone seems happier.

Wanting to take advantage of the fine weather, Oziel and I decided to ride our newly repaired bikes to the beach at Åhus, home of Absolut Vodka. This trip is 19 km each way, but felt much further when 13 km into the trip my back wheel realigned itself into a non-rotational position. Our best efforts at repairing the bike ended with me balancing my bike upside-down on top of Oziel’s bike for the six kilometre walk to Åhus.

With 3 km to go we realised it was uncomfortably close to 14:00, when all shops close. So Oziel went ahead as a scout – to either ensure something stayed open, or buy an adjustable spanner, while I continued carrying my bike in. After 2 km of trying various techniques for carrying a bike, Oziel and I regrouped. Oziel had ascertained that Åhus does not have a bike shop and the supermarket did not sell anything tool like.

Ready to forget all about the bike, and catch the bus back to Kristianstad, we found a service station with a shop (these are rarer that one might think in Sweden). At the far back corner, in a locked cabinet there was a small adjustable spanner. Only 15 minutes and 79 SEK (12.66 AUD) later we were riding the remaining kilometre to ‘downtown’ Åhus.

By this time it had reached 14:15, and Åhus had turned from a bustling village to a veritable ghost town. One place for lunch remained opened for lunch. Starved, we went to this pizza place for kabab.

We were both surprised how busy the beach was. There was a beach soccer comp, with six or so simultaneous games, two music areas, and you could hire human sized clear plastic gerbil balls – allowing you to go out in the water without getting wet. The sea was too cold for Oziel and he wouldn’t go in the human sized gerbil balls. But wanting to cool off and relax I ventured out the hundred metres required to get the water level past my knees.

I rarely see people begging for money in the Nordic region, but in summer there are always a few. So last weekend in Copenhagen I saw a number of people begging – but most of these people had changed their business model from the previous year.

In the Scandinavian countries cans and bottles can be returned to a supermarket for between 0.08 and 0.47 AUD a piece (0.50 SEK to 2 DKK) depending on size and country. I take my bottles to the supermarket because I like the idea of recycling, but I find the process of saving bottles up and then carrying them to the supermarket inconvenient.

Last weekend people were hanging around areas where people like to drink (eg. Nyhavn), and as people finished their drinks offered to take away the ‘rubbish’.

As someone who will carry a bottle around for a day looking for a recycling bin I appreciated the convenience. And as someone who doesn’t like the look of litter appreciated the service.

The people were polite – waiting until you had finished your drink before approaching you and thanking you when you gave them the used receptacle.

Many people here don’t like being asked for money when the government already takes so much and provides such high levels of social welfare. But no one seemed to have problems with people asking for their used bottles.

My name is Sebastian and I am an internet addict. My problem is that in a normal week I spend over over 12 hours on a train, and one day per week I work in a location where I cannot connect my laptop to a wired or wifi network.

In order to combat my internet withdrawal for these 20ish hours I purchased a Three Wireless Broadband package. While I have been happy enough, I recently updated the software drivers and now wish I could downgrade.

For the past year I have generally been happy. It is fast enough for my type of usage, and the coverage is sufficient, even if I know every point along the train line between Karlskrona and Copenhagen where the signal drops out, and I know how long I can wait before I can reconnect.

But just before I presented my licentiate thesis my hard drive crashed. The IT guys returned my computer freshly formatted and I diligently downloaded the latest drivers and reinstalled my Huawei E220 modem.

At first I was impressed with the new software. I was able to see all of the SMSes I had received in the past year and the strength of the signal. But my problems started when I went to Amsterdam for work.

Not wanting to fork over the roaming fees I instead tried to use the hotel and conference wifi connections, only to find that the new modem drivers had disabled my AirPort and ethernet connectivity!!?! The only way I found to rectify this problem was to delete the network location profile attached to the new software from Three. This in turn meant that on my return to Sweden I was unable to use my modem until I completed my two hour train journey and could redownload the drivers from Three.

Having more time to play on my return I concluded that the modem drivers were intentionally crippling the wifi and ethernet. At first I was a complete loss to explain this brutal behaviour, but then concluded they didn’t want me to share my Three wireless broadband connection with other computers.

While I think the ethics of stopping internet sharing are questionable this is not something I was doing, and to break my computer to a level my parents would be unable to fix is unacceptable behaviour! I want to use ethernet at work, wifi at home, and wireless on the road – and I don’t think this is an uncommon situation. Now I have an ugly fix where I have to make two changes in System Preferences every time I change from the wireless internet connection to a wifi network.

Now I am even more jealous that I cannot get a MiFi, a product designed with both my laptop and iPod Touch in mind. The MiFi connects to the internet via your ‘friendly’ mobile broadband provider, and produces a 10 metre wifi bubble in which you can connect all of your internet enabled devices. Sadly this is not available in Sweden (yet?). In the mean time I will just look for the old drivers and do a Windows Vista style downgrade.

This summer I will be going up for my licentiate degree. In Sweden the licentiate marks the the halfway point in a PhD programme. It requires a combination of research and coursework – and results in a thesis.

I will be defending my thesis on Friday, 5 June 2009. This is a public event, where I will present my research, and then answer questions from those in attendance.

Everyone is welcome to attend – if you want the details just contact me. My parents will be coming over from Australia. Until then I am finishing up my last three assignments to complete the coursework component.

Today I passed a major milestone – I received a bound copy of my thesis from the publisher to check and approve. There was one small problem that the publisher has now fixed, so I have approved the manuscript for printing.

I have been a terrible blogger of late because I am finishing my licentiate thesis. Understandably this has consumed much of my writing time. But more on Mexico will follow soon.

After I present my thesis I will be off to Spain with my parents and Oziel, so I tried to book a car for a week in Alicante. After pricing the various options at Avis, Europcar and Hertz, Hertz came out on top for best value for money with a VW Polo for €165.

When I went to book the car it would only let me enter an address in Spain. After no luck changing this I went back to the front page and found in the corner you could set your country of residency.

When changing my residency to Sweden [but keeping everything else the same], the price jumped to €330. There was no way I was going to pay double just for living in Sweden …

So I changed my country of residency to Australia. While this was a little better at €250, I now knew there was a better deal and was feeling less than satisfied.

Oziel called Hertz Alicante to find out what was going on, and how we could get the “real” price. They had no idea that the prices changed, but insisted we use the website.

Hertz effectively said adios to our business at this point, and now we have a Ford Festiva from Centauro for €140.

I am sure Hertz must be braking some EU trade law. But ultimately it was easier to go elsewhere than take them up on it.

A disproportionately large portion of my excitement visiting Mexico was directed towards the tortilleria. I just love the idea of a bakery set-up for the sole purpose of tortillas.

The tortilleria is where a Mexican would go to buy fresh tortillas, this being one of the Mexican staples. The tortillas in Mexico are unlike those found in Australia, Europe and the other North American countries, as they are made from corn, not wheat. While it is possible to find corn tortillas outside of Mexico, these are usually cheaper corn/wheat flour blends. This gives them both a different flavour and texture. The tortillas in Mexico are also generally smaller than found elsewhere.

On my first day in Mexico Oziel took me to two torillerias. It was obvious that neither of them had ever had a customer take so much interested in the tortilla manufacturing process. Both are documented in my Tortilleria photo album.

The first was the more exclusive gourmet producer (photos 1-2). Here a tortillera used a tortilladora to flatten dough into shape, before cooking each tortilla on a large hotplate. Notice how the tortillas fill with air, and actually have air gap in the middle like pitta bread. Here the tortillas were 12 MXN (1.20 AUD or 7 SEK) for the dozen. These tortillas will most probably be used for special occassions or by more expensive restaurants.

The second operation was a more industrial outfit, and would be where most villagers purchase tortillas for their daily needs. The owner of this establishment seemed happy to adopt me, as I obviously showed more interest in the family business than his son. He walked me through the process of making tortillas, which is documented in the remaining photos.

The tortillerias buy corn that has been removed from the cob in large bags. This needs to be cooked, before it is ground into the flour meal. This flour meal is then used to make the corn dough. After kneading the dough is placed on an automated torilladora, which flattens, cuts, cooks and stacks the tortillas. Here the tortillas are sold for 12 MXN per kilo.

But my tortilla education did not end in the tortilleria. While preparing my tortillas for breakfast one morning Oziel’s mother raised her voice in disbelief. I was obviously doing something wrong, but my poor Spanish could not work out what. Oziel and Brenda helped explain that while Tortillas have two sides, these are not equal. The tortilla filling should be placed on the side where the pastry is thinner (remembering there is an air gap in the middle).

Tortilleria: Place where tortillas are made.
Tortillera: Person who makes tortillas in a tortilleria.
Tortilladora: The machine used to make tortillas.

It seems the chickens of Sweden have been following the liturgy of Dana Lyons, and are surreptitiously trying to turn Swedes off their meat, with Chicken Run obviously acting as an instructional video to the revolutionary chickens.

Over the past week people from the across Sweden have been finding shards of glass in their chicken [1,2,3]. Glass has been found in a range of fresh and frozen chicken products from a number of different companies, with no link yet found between the cases.

Now I am just awaiting the final stage of the attack – chickens in choppers. While Sweden does have an extensive system of air-raid alarms and shelters, the alarms are rung on the first Monday of every month at 3:00 pm. This is the most obvious time of attack, as everyone knows to ignore this alarm.

But I’ll be ready …