Author: (Stein) Runar Bergheim

  • Lorem Ipsum

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    I have always been curious of the meaning behind the latin sounding “lorem ipsum” text frequently used as “placeholder text” by graphical designers. Here’s what I found: The phrase originates from a speech, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, made by Marcus Tullius Cicero in the year 45 BC. The latin title means something like “On…

  • Ireland: The rain it raineth every day

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    During a recent trip to Ireland, me and colleagues Heather, Ivar Petter, Jostein, and Rune visited several key actors on the Irish ICT scene within public sector services, e-government and EU R&D projects. The Irish economy has been booming over the past few years and it was well worth the effort to see what they…

  • 8 000 rpm clothes drier

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    I spotted the ‘Clothes Drier’ at an electric appliance store the other day. This aptly named machine aspires to dry your clothes in a more efficient way, but I wouldn’t throw away my tumble-drier just yet. The Clothes Drier consists of a vertical cylinder mounted on a tripod with an electrical oven about fifty centimeters…

  • Star Wars inspired hand-held vacuum cleaner

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    While scouting for something to make the removal of leftover bread crumbs from fundamentally useless irish bread more efficient I encountered this laser-gun looking device. Vacuum cleaning might have been fun had I been in possession of one of these when I was little. Nowadays I am more uncertain as to whether this is the…

  • Please do not place cash in this box

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    As exotic problems go, my horizon was significantly broadened after a recent visit to Laoise County Hall. By the entrance door there is a postbox with the following warning on it: ‘Don’t put money in this box’. The thought of doing so never occured to me in the first place, but if people would want…

  • The 2007 incarnation of the call centre

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    In a scruffy-looking alley, more suitable for red-light activities than high-tech communication services, colleague Jostein Fondenes found the beautifully spartan (and on the occasion closed) hole-in-the-wall ‘OKIN Internet & Call Centre’. While this establishment may not be a cornerstone of the Laoise economy it brought warm feelings to old time, call centre enthusiast Jostein (photo).

  • The slow death of the public pay-phone

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    One would think, with the massive uptake of mobile technologies, that the public pay-phone would already have been made extinct in 2007. Why isn’t that so? I believe that one of the major contributing factors is the prepaid phone card industry. This industry largely targets people who wants to call long distance and can’t or…

  • Forklaringa ligg truleg oppstraums

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    Her om dagen kunne ein i Sogn Avis lese denne fascinerande historia om ein stramtluktande foss med misfarga vatn. Grannane vil ikkje spekulere i årsaka, men heller lære seg å leve med stoda slik den er.

  • Google search: 8 470 hates, 543 loves Facebook

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    Having spent the better part of the evening debating with my good friend Anders A Fitje on the topic of Facebook, I decided to round off the evening posting a small observation on my web page blog. I conducted two searches on the internet, one for ‘i love facebook’ and another for ‘i hate facebook’.…

  • Why twelve point Times New Roman isn't always a good idea

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    I am currently sitting in the very back of a conference room with about 170 attendees. Up front is a good speaker, except for the fact that he uses slides with a ridiculously small font. Why do people write so much anyway? There is no call for all this insane amount of writing on a…