The wave of cold weather is approaching us, the nature's way of saying Wind of Change. While some parts of Europe enjoy the snow already, Oslo is relative still calm and actually enjoyable, even in the afternoon, for a walk.
(Picture was taken and shared to Flickr using Nokia N900 :)
Just like last year, Oslo Mela Festival few days ago was something we did not miss, in particular because of the food.
Just like last year, I took again the picture of the horizon from my apartment, in the early few seconds of Monday. Last Sunday was summer solstice (for the northern hemisphere), the day was 2 seconds longer (in Oslo) compared to Saturday.
Approaching the Qt 4.5 release, in order to relax the atmosphere a bit, and while I was just back from vacation in Indonesia, last week I brought nice goodies to the office. Read what I posted to our internal list:
Subject: durian, for the glorious nation of Indonesia
Date: Tuesday 24 February 2009
From: Ariya Hidayat <ariya.hidayat@trolltech.com>
Executive summary: try durian candies I brought, find them on the desk in the 5th floor, next to the stairs.
Durian [1], an arguably very nutritious and delicious fruit, my all-time favorite snack, best things before sliced bread and LISP, is unfortunately forbidden to be carried in the flight, placing it in the same category as guns and drugs. Since I am not a brave as our Chief Troll (with his cheese adventure), instead of smuggling a large quantity of durians, cowardly I fall back to a simpler solution: durian (flavored) candies. For me, they taste fantastic (albeit not as heavenly as the fresh fruit, or when made into mixed drink [2,3]), but for most people, they stink, smell horribly, and taste disgusting.
When you start the losing fight with your stomach, when you count the minutes in the toilet, when your days in Emergency Room are almost over, now think about it: how do most Asian feel about European cheese? [4]
Now I am back on completing my patent application on "Method and Apparatus of Information Extraction from Combatants Using Exotic Tropical Fruit", before someone ratifies the counterpoint as an addendum to the Geneva Convention.
Enjoy the ride!
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
[2] http://flickr.com/photos/ariyahidayat/3293814359/
[3] http://flickr.com/photos/ariyahidayat/3294638128/
[4] Surprisingly, "durian" and "revenge" share a general theme: they are best
served cold
These candies of course can not reach the real taste of the fruit itself, especially when made into fresh drink like the picture here:
This week in Oslo we have visitors, as evidenced from this picture:
(Zoltan, Holger, Simon, another Zoltan, Enrico, Tor Arne, Ariya).
Basically we are doing a QtWebKit hackfest. Beside the usual three musketeers of us (Guardians of QtWebKit here in Oslo), we have also two Zoltans and Akos (not in the picture) coming from University of Szeged, as well as Holger (WebKit open-source developer) and Enrico (Italian ueber-hacker).
We managed to nail down a lots of stuff, among other the discussion about development workflow using git, a heavy round of final API review, brainstorming on the DOM API, ACID3 patches merge and some font handlings, lots of bug fixes and touches such as fix for annoying focus problem, cursor flashing, proper non SVG build, multiple file chooser support, state save and restore signals, native plugins instance lifetime, file extension for images, autogenerated inspector qrc, fix for Enter does not work, missing plugin icon, and many other stuff, including non-technical ones.
It is a fun hackfest and we certainly need to do this more often :-)
Last weekend, when the weather was just about perfect, there was "Norwegian food in the streets" (official website is www.matstreif.no). It comprised quite a number of stalls that sell (and offer you to sample) products such as honey, fresh organic vegetables, crabs, organic salmon and many others.
Just welcoming the autumn equinox, several things happened in Oslo. Some worth noticing were river walk by torchlight along Akerselva, the 8 km river in Oslo, Culture Night with its closing fireworks, and of course Oslo Marathon right at Aker Brygge.
Also, check out the photo sets for torches and fireworks.
(Credit: photos are taken by this girl)
The unverified reason Irn-Bru is not available in Germany is because the ingredients label and so on are only English, not in German. Usually this is remedied by sticking another label in whatever language it should be. No idea why it doesn't work out.
Apparently, this famous Scottish soda is available in Norway.
There is Mela Festival this weekend in Oslo. Lots of food, dance, music, fashion, stalls, as well as some interesting children activities. Too good to miss!
(see some more pictures)
A sunny morning in a small coffee shop.
"Hi!"
"Hi!"
"I'd like one chai latte, please".
"OK."
The girl went on to prepare the order. After a while,
"Do you want honey or sugar?"
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"Yes, honey."
One second passed. Then we shared a laugh.
(Just like in a [HB]ollywood movie)
Taken today, half an hour past midnight, where the night lasts for only roughly 5 hours 10 minutes. And Oslo is only at 59° 56' North. I wish I would have gone further north.
Screenshot of AccuWeather.com just now (to those who said "Gee, it is cold up there!" the moment they knew I was about to move to Oslo):
Finally the weather permits some wonderful sightseeing! The above is Holmenkollen ski jump, with its 60 meter high tower.
Fortunately, that is not what happens to me (anymore). I moved to Oslo a week ago. It is nice to come back to the place I have shortly visited months ago.
From now on, I am working for Trolltech, the best company to work for :-)
It is definitely interesting to know Oslo, one of the most beautiful and also most expensive city in the world.
My first touchdown wasn't that smooth, however. Just a day before I left, I caught a terrible cold. This was likely because I was too tired after the 5-day conference in Berlin and had only few hours to rest. I travel very seldom, but just when I had these important flights, both were delayed and caused some incoveniences. I still managed to get the very last express train from the Oslo airport to the crowded downtown (this was weekend afterall) and found my hotel. So here I was cold, sick, hungry, with this bad fever, looking around trying to feed myself with some sensible food and hot drink at over midnight in a completely foreign land, at the same still trying to understand the Norwegian Kroner. Fortunately everyone here does understand English. And fortunately there is Deli de Luca everywhere. In the end I was finished with my business at 3 am and fell asleep almost immediately.
I took the time on Sunday to take some needed rest. In the afternoon I met Helder, the current maintainer of SpeedCrunch, and he became my just-in-time guide and showed me some nice spots of Oslo, although the weather wasn't so friendly. We had a nice dinner together. Of course we discussed a bit about SpeedCrunch. Unfortunately Johan did not manage to come here; otherwise we're set for a SpeedCrunch Developer Conference :-)
I spent Monday mostly in Trolltech office. Some faces were already familiar to me and it's good also to finally meet some others chaps I know only in names as well as few other famous Trolls. Simon gave me a tour of all the cool stuff they have. It was definitely very impressive.
My time in Oslo was obviously too short. And due to the weather, I still missed some beautiful sights Helder told me. For sure, I must go back again someday...
