Orbiter is a really cool space simulator. It’s written by Martin Schweiger as a freeware project and is probably one of the most realistic (and beautiful!) space simulators out there. It features very physically realistic models, which means you probably need to learn orbital mechanics before you can put anything in orbit.

But the thing I like the most is all the stuff that goes into the DeltaGlider III, the main spaceship used in the simulation. The first thing I did was to try to take off as a normal plane, and within twenty seconds I had master alarms going off, warning lights and beeping sounds all over the cockpit. In a futile attempt to figure out what was wrong (the landing gear broke due to high speed), I inadvertently shut down the main bus generators and suddenly I sat in a dark cockpit, slowly descending towards earth with broken landing gear, and absolutely zero power. For a few seconds, I frantically tried to press random “APU start” and “emergency power” buttons, but before long I plunged into the ground like a JAS 39 with faulty software.

The picture on the right is the fuel and engine control block. It controls the regulation of fuel to main, rcs and hover engines, as well as crossfeeding, refilling and fuel dump systems. As you can clearly see, the system is hooked up to a space station (dock), from which we are refilling the main fuel tank.

And there’s systems for the high-gain antenna, power supply, autopilot, landing gears, airlock and docking, passenger status, main-engine gimbals, life-support and the on-board computer, the flight controller.

In short, a dream come true. :)

On the topic of what 2007 is going to look like, the Minneapolis Star Tribune had an article about what might possibly happen, and what is actually likely to happen. And on the topic of health, it was said, which I thought was very true and rather amusing…:

You’ll probably hear that some common food has an unexpected health-boosting property. (Eggs prevent glaucoma! Onions promote healthy scalps, but only in suppository form!) You’ll read that cappuccino froth has been found to make lab rats actually explode with tumors, but this study will be countermanded by another one that says cell-phone radiation deactivates the froth peril, and in the end you will still hit the drive-through because there’s nothing in the fridge but French’s mustard from 1999, and everyone has to die of something.
(StarTribune, James Lileks: “A white-bread year ahead”)

Read the full article here.

As most people know by now, I’m trying to move from Skövde to Stenungsund because I’m changing jobs. However, that turned out to be not quite as easy to do.

It turns out that the apartment market in Sweden is, in a word, terrible – at least here in the Western part. I’ve been trying to get an apartment somewhere around Stenungsund and it takes a long, long time. I may have a chance at an apartment soon here, but there are no guarantees.

And leaving your old apartment isn’t easy to do either. There’s a three-month “notice” period; meaning that you have to leave a note to the landlord that you’re leaving your apartment, but you can’t move until three months later – unless you can negotiate a deal with the new guy moving in.

But if I get an apartment in Stenungsund in February, and I can’t leave this apartment until May… I’ll be stuck with three months of rent for two apartments.

Furthermore, I called my own landlord today and they say that the average waiting for a new apartment in town – any apartment of any quality – is about six to twelve months. For a downtown apartment, eight years.

Let’s just pause here for a moment. Breathe deeply.

Relax. Control your mind, control your spirit.

WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS WRONG WITH THIS COUNTRY!?!???!!

It’s easier getting an apartment in RUSSIA than over here! And everybody says it’s too expensive to build new homes, so no one is doing it.

So much for free enterprise in this God-forsaken country. If this was America, there would at least be a mobile home I could move into in some oppressed swamp outside city limits. But here? I guess not.

Maybe I’d just as well fix a bloody tent and set it up underneath the freeway.

It’s gearing up for Christmas again, and the increasing internationalization (i18n, for short) in the world means that all Americans once again wonder why the heck we celebrate Christmas on the 24th of December, instead of the 25th.

I now have the solution. First, let’s make a few observations:

• In the Czech republic, St. Nicholas dropped by almost two weeks before to drop off his Christmas presents.
• In the Netherlands, Santa appears as Sinterklaas on December 6th to hand out presents, assisted by his little Zwarte Pieten – representative of little helpers black from chimney soot, Canadian soldiers or a captured and shackled devil.
• By early morning on the 24th of December, gifts are handed out in Italy.
• By the evening of the 24th, presents are opened in a flurry in Scandinavia, Germany, Austria, Iceland, Poland and many other countries in that region.
• By the morning of the 25th, kids in America find their socks stuffed with presents from an overnight “intruder”.
• In Spain and Latin America, gifts are not opened until January 6th.

It so happens that the Swedish Army, Radio Surveillance Division, back in early November intercepted and successfully decrypted a secret, internal memo from the Santa Corporation. It read as follows:

From: Claus Wunderbaum, CEO Santa International Corporation
To: All Santa Intl. employees
Circulation: Confidential, Internal
Subject: Logistics plan for the 2006/2007 distribution

To all employees,

As we all know the Big Distribution Event is soon upon as again. As a large part of the reorganization outlined in the July memo is now complete, we are looking forward to an even more efficient distribution this year, which in our consultants recommendations should be well enough to handle the population increase, at least until 2015.

To reduce the stress on logistics, we will continue with the phased distribution grid as before:

1) Preliminary distribution grids in A-class nations (for reference, see the National Classification Reference on the corporate intranet) will commence on EVENING DECEMBER 5TH. Permission to use guest workers (Zwarte Pieten) is hereby granted, as per usual. Distribution should be completed in these nations before 1800 HRS 6TH.

As noted before, the A-class grid allows us to fine-tune the distribution grid for the Big Santa Sweep. Any complaints, evaluations and recommendations must be completed before DECEMBER 11TH.

2) The Big Santa Sweep, with the South European (B1 class), Pan-European (B2 class), and Scandinavian (B3 class) distribution grids, will commence EVENING DECEMBER 23RD. B1 nation sweep should be completed by 0600 HRS 24TH, B2 and B3 sweeps completed no later than 2200 HRS 24TH.

3) At the same time, initial preliminary activation of the C-class grid (North America) will be initiated at 1800 HRS 24TH, with subsequent full-scale distribution initiation and completion no later than 0600 HRS 25TH. Distribution teams, please relocate from B-class to C-class grids as soon as the situation allows.

Management is continually aware about the volume and weight of the per-capita distribution in North America, and has taken into account the complaints from regional workers from last year. However, since there is a higher percentage of evil children in this region, we feel that this is balancing out nicely. We will continue to evaluate the situation as is necessary.

4) Backup teams will continue to cover the Big Santa Sweep until JANUARY 1ST, in case of – as per usual – children in hospitals, family emergencies, or other contingency situations. Remember, No Child Left Behind!

5) Restocking operations will continue for the final activation JANUARY 5TH for D-class nations, which is to be completed no later than 1200 HRS 6TH.

We continue to appreciate the enormous efforts of our dedicated staff during this season, and we remain confident that the 2006 distribution will be as big a success as the previous season. As per usual, watch out for frostbite; and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder cases should be reported as soon as possible to the medical staff.

Sincerely,
Claus Wunderbaum, CEO

I realized this morning that I’m a Trekkie.

Oh, the horror… the horror…

I’ve always considered myself not to be one, since I don’t really care about any other series than Star Trek Voyager.

And then it hit me.

• I’ve watched almost every Star Trek movie.
• I’ve watched almost every episode of Star Trek Voyager.
• I really enjoyed watching Star Trek Enterprise.
• I’ve watched a fair share of episodes from the original series and Star Trek Next Generation as well.
• I was this close to buying an autographed picture of Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway.
• Several times I’ve looked into purchasing Star Trek costumes. But only for fun. I would never do it, in real life. Really. And if I did, I would never wear one. At least not in public.
• I’ve studied the specifications for the Star Trek computer systems, LCARS.
• I’ve built Delphi components that enable computer programs to look like Star Trek systems.
• I know how to read Star Trek rank (“yes, er… lieutenant commander”)

I’m so ashamed.

But I solemnly vow that I will never, ever have (or attend) a Klingon wedding ceremony.

I couldn’t hold it. I had to put up my Christmas tree, although I know I’m breaking many an unwritten Swedish rule by doing so.

Merry Christmas!

Ever since my little adventure in C# and Collection services, I’ve been thinking more and more radical ideas about CRUD operations in an application.

Hibernate is a nice tool for solving the persistence part of an object space (i.e. the objects that make up a system); this and similar toolkits provide the functionality to stream objects from persistent storage (e.g. databases) into memory. But there are many other repeatable components in an application.

Why, for instance, do I always have to build a GUI? Why do I always have to build an application? Define windows and menus? Build message loops, include frameworks… painstakingly design every window and every form by hand?

There should be an easier way.

The theory of Naked Objects is a nice way to go forward, I think. An object should contain enough information about itself, such that an efficient GUI could extract the methods and properties of the object, display it, and handle all the CRUD operations itself. With enough attributes, run-time type information or reflection, it should be an easy trick to pull off.

A form designer might be introduced to order the information in a convenient manner, but would only have access to the actual component being edited.

What are the common properties of these operations? I must be able to

• Fetch a list of objects, or fetch a list of references to objects (ID values)
• Fetch an individual object
• Create, edit or update an individual object
• Delete objects
• Manage links between objects

It seems to me that the parameters of object-oriented development already allow for these things. It seems to me that it should simply be a matter of designing objects for published use (to follow the Delphi terminology).

With a few descriptive statements about the system, it should be theoretically possible to build an entire application out of objects alone, without GUI, without persistence code, without tedious manual labor of slaving for hours over application-specific code.

Most of the common design patterns could be used to abstract and simplify the behavior of a multitude of objects into a coherent workspace. The definition of an application could effectively be the workspace of related objects, components, abstractions, models and views that implement a specific domain of tasks.

By relegating the effort of creating a uniform GUI for a single application to an operating system-like helper component, it would be possible to transcend the plethora of application designs, skins and various other interface-related mechanisms and seemingly integrate all of the applications into one coordinated user experience, without necessarily experiencing the negative effects of today’s COM-based approach.

A setup like this could very well be agnostic to the specific user interface. Depending on the application helper component, it could be a GUI, a system presented through a text-only terminal, or a web-based solution (with or without AJAX).

Basically, I’m just thinking out loud, but it’s not a bad idea.

I have a habit of watching the Nobel Prize celebrations on TV, which I think is a really wonderful celebration. The peace prize aside – which can get a little political at times – it’s just great fun to see all the people dressed up, the celebrations, the banquet and all the pomp and circumstance. It’s the one night that Sweden gets a chance to show off that we’re still a Kingdom, with His Royal Highness taking the high seat for once and the Prime Minister taken a few notches down.

I’m not much for titles and stuff otherwise, but when it comes to the Royal Family, I confess that I really appreciate them, and I think a Sweden without them wouldn’t be much of a Sweden any more.

It’s an opportunity to put little Sweden on world map, to show off our country, and impress the American laureates (they’re all Americans these days, typically) with our little kingdom.

And besides, don’t we have the most beautiful princess in the entire world? :)

I’ve been following the TV series Star Trek Voyager for a while now, downloading episodes and watching them on my computer. Star Trek Voyager is a story about a lone earth starship that gets stranded in the “Delta Quadrant”, the other side of the Milky Way Galaxy, some 70.000 light years from home. And during the seven seasons the show was running, it mostly consisted of “getting home”.

Of course, this is a TV series, so they have access to technology few of us would consider likely today: warp drives, slipstream drives and so on… And a few random wormholes here and there. But at the start of the journey home, it was predicted to take 70 years. And that’s traveling at the speed of a 1000 light years per year, one thousand times faster than light itself.

Space is huge. If we look to the parameters of our own solar system, the Apollo missions were the farthest we’ve traveled today. Any mission to Mars, our closest neighbor, will take roughly six months to complete – one way. And beyond Mars is Jupiter at about five times the distance away, then Saturn… and so on. Our closest neighbor star is four light-years away…. At today’s technology it might take thousands of years to go there.

The journey across the galaxy, then, seems a bit longer. Following the TV series through season after season gives a little indication of the size of it. The Milky Way is over 100.000 light-years across, and is thought to house between 200 to 400 billion stars. One can easily sympathize with Voyager’s relentless crew.

But what is beyond that? Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is just a tiny part of the universe. We’re part of a little galaxy group neatly dubbed “the Local Group”, some 50-odd galaxies that make up our little part of the Virgo Supercluster, which itself contains some 100 clusters and groups of galaxies. And this supercluster makes up the structure of the Universe, which contains many, many more superclusters with enormous voids in between them. The entire universe is thought to hold some 80 billion … galaxies (not stars, galaxies).

If our galaxy were about the size of a soccer football, the Virgo Supercluster would be about the size of 20 soccer fields spread out in a ring around it. Ample space to kick our little galaxy football around. Our little solar system, the Sun and its planets, would itself be the size of roughly 10-20 atoms of oxygen inside the soccer ball.

And the universe itself? The observable part of the universe might be well over a million soccer fields to play on. And the universe beyond that, which we can only speculate about… might be infinitely larger.

It’s a big world.

I updated the Desktop Shooter to a new version. This one includes more sounds (including ambience sounds), reloading, more realistic gun configuration etc.

Most options can be turned on/off. A, for instance, controls ambience, R controls reloading or no reloading, and…. well, that’s about it. Oh, and the M-16 has a burst mode. And the shotgun is the way it’s supposed to have been from the start.

Click here to download.

Please notice that copyright is still… uhm… shaky at best. So don’t go spreading it like wildfire, hmm? :)