Today our newspapers mentioned the fact that in August 2004, the warm Gulf stream stopped completely for two weeks. The government was secretly warned that they should consider hamstering fuel and food because if it would stay that way, the average temperature in this country would drop by ten degrees Celcius - an "extinction-level event" for Norway. The reason Norwegian scientists took this event so seriously is the fact that contrary to popular belief, dramatic global climatic changes often came in a matter of decades or even years, not eons.Norwegian scientists take climatic changes very seriously - they have taken the initiative to store most of the world's seeds inside a mountain - the botanical equivalent of the "Ark" in the movie Deep Impact.
In spite of the fact that Norway is the world's third largest oil exporter, 100% of Norway's electricity production is hydro-electricity.
Norway is great for software development because summers and social life don't really exist here. Opera and Qt are made in Oslo, and one of the most promising newcomers on the comp. Go scene is the Norwegian Fredrik Dahl's WinHonte.
Update #1: A thick blanket of snow covers the garden now and I saw three deer calves pass by.
Update #2: Holy Guacamole! I discovered today that even with winter tires, it is impossible to move even one millimeter, on ice. And you can't brake or change directions either. And that people can't push you to get unstuck either, because they'll slide as well. I learned a lot today. It's possible to thoroughly de-ice a car with a plastic cutting board and six buckets of warm water. And that I need to buy spikes ASAP or starve (I live miles from the nearest shop and it's an sheet of ice out there steep down the hill). My car is far away down the hill and I had to walk in -5 ºC without a jacket back home - stupid me. In Norway they say: "Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlig klær". Since Norwegian is so extremely similar to English, I don't have to translate this. I don't have money for those spikes. Then again, I shouldn't have moved to the middle of nowhere.
