8 years ago Microsoft released a new version of the controversial "Internet Explorer" browser - version 7.0. To this day older versions still hang around, which is sort of sad. Now, if you don't see a red-ish warning sign and some links for installing the latest versions of the most popular browsers, I guess this post would seem kind of meaningless. If on the other hand you do live in the past as far as browsers go, I suggest following at least one of the aforementioned links and get with the program! No excuses!

IE6 No More!

The warning originally contained a link to Apple's Safari browser, but seriously: Don't install it. Ever. If anything it's even worse than IE 6 - and Apple bundles it with Quicktime (worst video-plugin ever) and their Bonjour Service, which screws up your network

Perhaps surpased only by Amsterdam and Peking (well, any Chinese city of comparable size), Copenhagen is one of the cities with the highst bicylce to car ratio in the world. In fact Denmark is one of the few countries that actually build separate lanes for bicycles.

Right now, my bicycle is parked in a ditch, the habour or maybe in Christiania somewhere. I guess I should say my 'old' bicycle, since technically still mine, I no longer know where it is. That's right, it got stolen. Luckily my new insurance comes with a "self-liability" of approximately $200, and the bicycle itself is 6 years old, which would rate it at 40% of its original cost. In conclusion I stand to get maybe $50 from insurance, so I wont even bother. Thanx a million mr. Bicycle Thief. Grr!

You would think, that with maybe 800.000 bicycles in Copenhagen, everybody would have one (I actually had two until recently) but no. Well at least now theres one more out there who does have one, and if I ever meet him, I'll probably go kung-fu on him.

My 'new' bicycle is - hopefully - safely parked downstairs sporting two locks, one on the wheel and one of those wires to attach it to the bicycle stands (which you don't see anywhere else either) - well, actually it's safely parked at the Bicycle repair, because this morning my front tire was flat - 6 days old. The old bike had one flat tire over a period of 6 years .. everything was better in the good old days :o(

Ok, so you should know by now that I bought a camera, a Nikon D40 (Digital SLR). It cost me a mere $600 for the "kit" consisting of a house and an 18-55mm lens. The equivalent kit I haven't seen for less than $800 on mail order and closer to $1.000 in the stores.

Now, this struck me as a pretty sweet deal, and I think it may still be, but here are a few words of warning, if you're considering going in this direction. The D40 is a scaled down version of the D50, ie. they removed auto focus from the house leaving it up to the lens to do the focusing. Only lenses marked DX (for Digitial) and AF-S or AF-I give you what you expect. Currently the number of compatible lenses is maybe 15.

Also, the accompanying lens of 18-55mm very quickly becomes a serious limitation if you want to "get close", and as such you quickly feel the urge to go out looking for another lens. I'm there already. In particular I've been looking at two (well three, but the last one is way to expensive): a 55-200mm lens priced at roughly $550 and an 18-135mm lens priced at roughly $600. The former would complement my existing 18-55mm lens, the latter would act as a replacement all-round lens with an acceptable zoom.

The things I am considering now is this: Why didn't I just buy the D80 camera with the 18-135mm zoom (default) - it would have cost me a little more, but the D80 has AF (and thus you can use all of Nikon's lensens) - and you can use non-Nikon lenses as well (mind you, they come a lot cheaper!!) and these you're actually able to get your hands on. Appearently Nikon is way back logged when it comes to supplying lenses to Danish stores. I've been everywhere, and the 55-200mm lens is "on the way" and the 18-135mm lens is hugely expensive for some reason (closer to $700).

On top of everything, I've been looking at the same lenses in stores in the US. They're only $300 and $400 respectively, which would make the effective DKK/$ exchange rate a whopping 10 DKK/$ - official rate is something like 5.6 - I know VAT carries some of the blame, but this is just insane.

So should I maybe sell my brand new camera and buy the D80? Or should I just buy the 55-200mm lens and be forced to run around with two lenses? Or get the 18-135mm lens and be satisfied with "only" 7.5x zoom (as opposed to the 11x zoom the 200mm lens offers.. Argh!! And worse still: Am I becoming a photo nerd?!

It appears that Members of Parliament have been given free rides on public transportation - without being taxed for it. Now, some of the present and former MPs risk receiving quite a bill.

Kaj Ikast, former Minister of Transportation, had this to say:

The parliament never informed me, that I should pay taxes for this (free transport). So you can all go to Hell. I built Storebæltsbroen, and I built Øresundsbroen (the two bridges connecting Sealand to Funen and Sweden respectively). At least this should give me free transport when going to and from meetings at Christiansborg.

full story here

:o) I totally agree. And we should also erect a monument in his honour - and maybe introduce a national holiday - Kaj Ikast-day.

Wednesday Denmark got a healthy dose of snow storm. Considering the northern latitude, this should probably not come as a big surprise in February, but somehow it always does - especially to the Danish Railways.

Wednesday evening they actually announced, that they thought people should seek other means of transportation and of course local Police thought people should not to go out unless absolutely necessary.

Back on Bornholm, I seem to remember, that we got about half a meter's worth of snow in a snow storm every other year, roads and schools closed and the like, but I don't remember people panicking over it the way they do in Copenhagen?

Getting on buses and trains is a nightmare with all those morons standing in the way, too busy worrying about themselves to notice that they're obstructing what could have been an easy flow. I mean, if they're so concerned about being late for whatever they're late for - work presumably - maybe they should've got out of bed half an hour earlier?!

At any rate, we've been promised more snow today and on Friday it'll all disappear - that'll be the end of this winter.