IKEA-hacking && Case-modding in 1!

I have a computerdesk from IKEA - a "MICKE" - which a bought recently. But my Midi Tower Case couldn't fit into it, since it was deeper than the desk. So I decided to build my computer into the desk.
And thus combining IKEA-hacking and Case-modding!

Above and below is the finish product. On the left picture is the front door of the desk, with the power controls inside the red square, and the case fan behind the grey mesh. My computer has remote booting capability, so its always on stand-by when supplied with power. That's why I have installed a key-rocker switch (the right most segment on the red square) which controls the dark outlet on the backside (see below). The red indicator light in the middle, indicate whether power supply is on or not (but not the computer itself). The two rocker switches on the left is the Power and Reset pins from the motherboard, extended with CAT6 data cable. Inside (on the left picture above) is the computer parts and room for a shelf. Below (left) is the backside, made from the backside of the old case and a cut out piece from the side fitted with the, before mentioned, power outlet. The white cord on the bottom of the picture, is the external power cord, connected to the key switch on the front. The right picture below is the front i low light conditions, in order to see the LED lights, when the computer is running.
Following is a series of pictures displaying the building progress.
The starting point. (I forgot to take a before picture of the desk).	The back of the case fitted in the desk.
The front. The upper blue installation boxes are for the power controls. The lower hole is for the front fan.	A look inside, before the internal components is installed.
The workshop... a.k.a. the balcony.	The backside... work in progress...
Leftovers from the front panel.	Inside, after PSU and Motherboard installed.
Inside, after HDD installed and frame for 5.25" components.	Inside finished and door with fan fitted.
The front control panel with wiring showing.

New favourite quote!

New favourite quote! (Or joke if you think that's more precise)

Wikipedia: "I know everything!"
 
Google: "I have everything!"
 
Facebook: "I know everybody."
 
Internet: "Without me, you all are nothing."
 
Electricity: "Keep talking, bitches"...


Thanks to Stine Vinther Jakobsen, for telling it to me.

Can 7 year old black beer taste good?

The selection and Kenneth

I've been meaning to write this post for some time - as you will see later... But first some background info...

I'm a member of the Danish Beer Enthusiasts - and their local affiliate which - at the time - covered my borough ("Nørrebro") in Copenhagen. Later all the small borough groups have joined into one big "Copenhagen" group.

This local group held a lot of their meeting at a bar called "Café Viking" (Street View). From outside it looks like a dank joint, and when you go inside they don't flash their beer selection. But don't be fooled! Look at the beer card and be impressed. 

This is were my local group held our Christmas "Lunch" (more like dinner) of 2009. At this Christmas "Lunch" there were a raffle, were I won four matured "Limfjords Porter" Double Brown Stout from Thisted Brewery, donated by our local chairman. Every year he buy a case of this beer, and then matures it in his cellar. I won a bottle from each of the years 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007. He told me to drink them with respect, perhaps after a good meal. I could also buy a current one for reference. 

Here my taste butts tinkled - because I have tried this "Limfjords Porter" before at a beer tasting session. Its a black and thick beer with a solid head, and it has a very powerful taste of a stout, which you either hate or love - and I don't love it...

He then told my that this beer will fermint and over time become more like Sherry. So obviously I had to try it!  

Us, the beers and the TV in the arpartment

Six month later, in June, I hooked up with my good friend Kenneth - who is also a beer enthusiast - in my apartment (which is technically my girlfriend's apartment - and not an apartment but a condo).

We did eat some good food (what I can't remember) and bought a recent exemplar of the beer.

We lined them up and started with the newest and worked our way through. After each year we summed up our experice of the beer and rated it from 1 to 10, were 1 is crap, 5 OK and 10 is super. Below is our rating.

Year	My rating	Kenneth's rating	Our experience
2010	5	5	Smoky. Pointy. Powerful after taste.
2007	6	6	Darker foam. A little more milder. Less pointy foam in the mouth.
2006	7	8	Less carbon acid. Much more milder experience. Very drinkable. Very thick and soft.
2005	8	8	Sweet, nice. Very soft. Lovely. Almost like dessert wine. Very little taste of alcohol.
2003	6	7	Bitter after taste. More taste of licorice. Closer to the new one - working backwards.

As the table shows my chairman was right. After five years of fermenting the beer taste like a dessert wine - such as sherry. And my personal oppennion is that the beer taste much better after fermenting than the original. I actually bought two beers for our little get-together, and we only opened one, so... only four years to go.

So to answer my initial question. "Can 7 year old black beer taste good?"... Well... Yes, it can.

The Duality of Roskilde Festival

The atmosphere at the Roskilde Festival can't be compared to anything else in the world.
It is the most friendly and open atmosphere I have ever experienced, where everyone is happy and willing to help and have fun with other people. But it has a dark side, which is most significant at the camp site. Let me tell my story, of how me and my friend Kenneth ended up in a camp of people we've never met.

The camp site opens on Saturday at 18:00, but people stormed the place around 13:00. We entered at around 23:00 hoping to find a spot for our 3-person tent, in the B section, where we usually stays. We found a spot were our tent could almost be. Since the tents around the spot were empty (people put up tents in the weekend, but won't occupy them until later in the week), we thought we'd move them a little bit to make room for our tent.
But suddenly some people from the camp across the path came running, and saying we couldn't put up a tent there, because their tents couldn't be moved. We tried to argue, that there were room for them to be moved - and that we would show them if let us try. After arguing for some 30 - 45 min. they finally allowed us to move a tent so that we could put up ours behind it - where there were also almost room for it. When we had moved it, and began to put up our tent, some people from another camp came running, saying that the spot we were occupying, were reserved for some friends of theirs, coming the following day. So after an hour, we began looking for another spot. We found one where someone had put up a round tent (also empty)  in a corner of a square - leaving a space almost big enough for our tent. After removing one string from that tent, we tried to put up our tent, but our spikes(?) wouldn't go in - the ground was simply to hard from the construction vehicle from the construction site just by. So I went looking for a rubber hammer we could borrow. I found one in a camp with some nice people who let us borrow it - and I told them were we were, in case they needed it themselves. After 30 Min. we had gotten three(!) spikes down, and bent many more... Then the fellow who had borrowed us the hammer, came and asked how it was going. When he heard the ground was still to hard, he offered us a spot in their camp! What a nice guy!
There were room for our tent, but we were told to move the next day by some other fellow, because the space was reserved for some people coming the next day (again). But the first fellow said that if it became a problem we could just sleep in his tent, since he had 3 sleeping cabins for 2 persons each, but it was only him and his girlfriend who were using them at the moment.
And it is here the duality of the festival comes to show.


10 - 15 years ago the camp site was for sleeping, when you weren't at a concert. But now people spent more time at the camp site, than at the festival site and they are getting more luxurious. Here two people are sleeping in a tent for 6 - with extra room for luggage. The camp has two pavilions (only one is allowed) and a huge stereo run by car batteries - both of which require that you pay a refund charge when entering with these items - which hasn't been done. Besides all this, almost all the people in camp live nearby, and regularly goes home to shower, sleep and such. So they take up almost four times as much space as they would have done 10 years ago, but the general camp site hasn't grown much since then. And with 75.000 people on the camp site, if the live in camps of 10, with a tent each, two pavilions and three car batteries, it means 75.000 tents, 15.000 pavilions and 22.500 car batteries! If no one takes these things with them when they leave - that's a lot of unnecessary trash!
Now people is complaining that the Festival is getting greedy, because you have to pay a refund charge for pavilions and car batteries. Well the easiest step is to just ban both things - but that would destroy the atmosphere, and the festival knows this. Already Roskilde Festival is the only larger festival in Denmark who allows pavilions - so what would people have them to do?
This is the duality of which I speak. People have a very open mind towards other people - but don't think of what will happen if everyone on the camp site, do as they do.
This is the challenge the festival has - to make people be a little less luxuries on the camp site, thinking of other people who wants the same - but without making a strict set of rules.

Let's see how it unfolds the following years...

P.S. It has now been three nights, and our tent is still standing, and the group of people in the camp has been really nice to us - well, most of them...

Not my first Blog

I know this is the first post on this Blog. But from '99 to '02 I had a blog - or a WebLog as they were called at the time - on my own site Baskedyt.dk. But since it was in Danish, and I will try to keep this Blog in English, I will not put it here. But when I get my own site reconstructed, I will try to put my old site, with the old WebLog there, for all of you that do understand Danish.

My goal is that Baskedyt.dk will be a common page with this feed and other feeds (when they come) and links to profiles on LinkedIn and Facebook and possibly Twitter, when I get an account there.

I won't give promises to how often I will update this Blog, because I know I can't keep it.

That's all for now.

Over and Out.