I didn't personally hold up the thermostat, but I was told after I walked to university (around 35 mins walk) with a red face, snot pouring out of my nose and tears running down my face from the cold wind, that the temperature was -11 degrees. Add the wind chill factor to this and it would explain why my face and legs were completely numb.
In celebration of this horrible weather, which my house mate Anton thinks is beautiful (easy to say when you stay indoors and drink tea all day: the snow is always whiter on the other side ;)), I will put this video. Enjoy. Also enjoy how YouTube (a Google company) and blogger (a Google site) are incompatible for formatting. I love it how the video goes outside this column.
P.S. The winter here is nothing like in the video. The whole damn place is covered in snow and ice making it impossible to ride my bike (without risking my life).
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Sitting with a list
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| Writing things down seems to work |
Every day I make myself a list of things I need to get done during the day. The list features my daily work for Alfa.lt English and then there is always something to do for university one way or another.
Other activities that also make the list include the raft of other activities that I do to easy the financial strain in my life at the moment. I'm slowly finding work in Sweden that pays better than the work I'd been doing in Lithuania.
Going by the look of the list these days it seems like I'm living a triple life: full time university, a work life in Sweden and a work life in Lithuania. Sooner, rather than later I'd like to be able to end my work life in Lithuania because the returns I get for my work are rather poor when you take them and spend them in a country like Sweden.
One way that I manage to get through all the important tasks every day (and even complete a lot of the less important ones) is to make the list in the first place and write everything down and then categorize them in order of importance. Often when taking a break from doing an top-priority job there is time to do a less urgent, but also important tasks in between. Thanks to the technology that surrounds me in Sweden (washing machines, bicycles - things that I didn't have in Lithuania), I can do a lot of things simultaneously.
Parkinson's Law also somehow comes into play when I write tasks down. I even find time for doing things (like writing blogs or eating) in between.
Parkinson's Law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."In the same way, if I write everything down and prioritize the tasks, they all seem to get done.
Friday, 26 November 2010
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
You get what you pay for
I was recently commissioned to write a feature article by a news service in Sweden and I'm waiting on my editor to tell me whether he is happy with the work I've submitted.
In the meanwhile I've got a moment to reflect on why people actually pay others to produce their communications material. For the last three and a half years, I've made my way as a wordsmith (thats fancy talk for journalist) and people pay me because when they ask for something to be made, I make it the way they expect. If its not the way they like it, then it doesn't take long to fix it.
The new mode of the day is for everyone to try to do things themselves in the creative and media fields. It makes sense right? You have learned how to use a camera (press the red button) and you have a USB cable and you have a YouTube account. So why not? As the information age propaganda preaches: everyone is a director, journalist and film star.
The trouble is (and always has been) that you cannot just pick up tools and expect to be good at using them the first time. In most cases (and there are many examples) people get their iMovie or similar low-tech video editing software, chop together some terribly shot raw footage and then they think because it exists, therefore it is good.
Actually you can forgive this misconception, that the makers of these amateur films believe their product is good because over time, by watching television we have come to learn that anything we see on a glass screen is high quality.
It has always been this way because in the past the only people with access to the tools were those who devoted their entire careers to learning how to use it. So back to the present, the amateur director, journalist and film star watches their film and puts it online and suddenly they think its good because its on a screen.
The logic behind this is similar to someone who buys IKEA furniture thinking that they are a carpenter. Or perhaps someone whose finger can bend and therefore they can pull a trigger, that they could be a professional soldier (and not die). Or perhaps you can put your foot down and operate your hands at the same time - now you are a professional race car driver. No.
You get what you pay for. If you think you can do everything yourself, go for it, but do be prepared when you don't get the result you want. Also be prepared to spend more time on the project and waste more resources than if you just outsourced it.
In the meanwhile I've got a moment to reflect on why people actually pay others to produce their communications material. For the last three and a half years, I've made my way as a wordsmith (thats fancy talk for journalist) and people pay me because when they ask for something to be made, I make it the way they expect. If its not the way they like it, then it doesn't take long to fix it.
The trouble is (and always has been) that you cannot just pick up tools and expect to be good at using them the first time. In most cases (and there are many examples) people get their iMovie or similar low-tech video editing software, chop together some terribly shot raw footage and then they think because it exists, therefore it is good.
Actually you can forgive this misconception, that the makers of these amateur films believe their product is good because over time, by watching television we have come to learn that anything we see on a glass screen is high quality.
It has always been this way because in the past the only people with access to the tools were those who devoted their entire careers to learning how to use it. So back to the present, the amateur director, journalist and film star watches their film and puts it online and suddenly they think its good because its on a screen.
The logic behind this is similar to someone who buys IKEA furniture thinking that they are a carpenter. Or perhaps someone whose finger can bend and therefore they can pull a trigger, that they could be a professional soldier (and not die). Or perhaps you can put your foot down and operate your hands at the same time - now you are a professional race car driver. No.
You get what you pay for. If you think you can do everything yourself, go for it, but do be prepared when you don't get the result you want. Also be prepared to spend more time on the project and waste more resources than if you just outsourced it.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Monday, 15 November 2010
Some instruction for the Swedish ladies out there
If you Swedish girls didn't know that you have the power to solve the immigrant integration problem in this country, well think again.
Have a quick look at this informative video from SVT, Sweden's public broadcaster, about how you can help your country get to know its immigrants better.
Have a quick look at this informative video from SVT, Sweden's public broadcaster, about how you can help your country get to know its immigrants better.
Sunday, 14 November 2010
The beginning of the end
I just saw this story about how automated news stories are becoming closer to reality than fiction. In previous years people talked about computers writing the news, but there were always people laughing and feeling safe in their writers' jobs because "how could a computer replace a human"?
Now it is becoming a possibility, as you can read in this story. Of course these are just sports statistics from low level games, but it starts here and ends somewhere with the Financial Times generating its content by computer.
The Los Angeles Times is famous for outsourcing their reporting to India, a clear slap in the face of its readers. If their city isn't seen as important enough to have journalists on the streets, then why are they bothering to read it?
There is this video that you can watch, which was made in 2003 (I think) then updated in 2005 when their predictions actually came true.
Now it is becoming a possibility, as you can read in this story. Of course these are just sports statistics from low level games, but it starts here and ends somewhere with the Financial Times generating its content by computer.
The Los Angeles Times is famous for outsourcing their reporting to India, a clear slap in the face of its readers. If their city isn't seen as important enough to have journalists on the streets, then why are they bothering to read it?
There is this video that you can watch, which was made in 2003 (I think) then updated in 2005 when their predictions actually came true.
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