Oh - those Danes...!

Mobile Satellite Internet

2015-10-07T13:20:00.003-07:00

Introduction
These are portable electronic devices that help when it comes to communication; helps access to voice, data and video conferencing form of communication.
The RVDataSat 840 is a new satellite device that is an automatic rv satellite Internet antenna designed for consumers. These device features are:

Easy to install.
A dish antenna of 85 meters.
Optimal performance.
Award winning iDirect Evolution X5 satellite modem.
Works by the touch of a button which.

Mobile Satellite Internet devices are used by various consumers such as:
RV Owners
   The need to maintain a reliable Internet connection by traveling owners of weekend or full-time RV'rs
Government Agencies: This agency sole responsibility being safety since the country and its people heavy rely on agencies such as the military, police, or firefighters. Mobile satellite and mobile command centers are specially designed to operate on rough terrain and when disaster strikes, since they are connected to the main databases and information center.
Race Teams Support Personnel: The support team is always on the move to help the racers in case of emergencies or any other communication requirements.
Insurance: Since this sole intuition purpose is to compensate for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a premium. mobile satellite internet devices helps such institutions set up mobile centers to provide prompt claims services
Banking Institutions: Banking services such as deposits or withdrawals tends to be in high demand, and mobile branches provide clients with their banking needs in undeveloped areas, disaster-stricken areas or during social events.
Medical Teams: Mobile health clinics deploy in areas without hospitals, and for this matter this device provides connections to hospital computer network. Accessing medical analysis/data upload, patients’ records, and performing other basic functions.
Broadcast journalism: Given the nature of their daily coverage work such as competitions, filming, news events, among other various activities, their work is not set up a specific location. The broadcast of video, voice or data might be set up in an area where there no signal and this reason a reliable satellite Internet uplink connection is a requirement.
         When it comes to disaster management/ mitigation mobile satellite, provide communications voice, data, and video to the unreachable area. Forest fires, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, biological, floods, aircraft incidents, or radio logical such are the type of communication breakdowns that can interfere with normal signal making it hard for emergency provide help.
   The mobile satellite devices communications capability and access to outside information and resources without delay saves lives, eases communication trouble in times of catastrophic disasters, helps in emergencies providing the necessary signal for information access.

Contact Mobil Satellite Technologies to see what state-of-the-art solutions are available to help with any situation, in any place, to get an Internet connection.

Education...?

2015-10-07T13:12:00.007-07:00

Statistics show that the Danish population is not as well-educated as they would like to believe.

This only shows that wealth is not equivalent to the desire to broaden one's mind. However, as I pointed out some time in November, I guess, there are indications that Danes are more motivated to get away from something than to reach a goal.

The wealth has been acquired through the wish to get away from poverty. That things have gone so well in this respect may be due to the fact that people had difficulties figuring out when to stop.

That policy-makers have not have the foresight to invest in programmes that could entice more youngsters to get more education may very well be due to the fact that they would have to define goals that reach far beyond "staying in power" or "being re-elected".

Today Venstre's spokesperson on education suggested that the universities should dramatically decrease their demands on students' theses because the writing process is time-consuming and hard to get through. Some students never reach the end of this particular tunnel.

Writing a thesis is tough work. But cutting it down to one third of the size it has now only cures a symptom. When students drop out while writing their thesis one of the reasons is that their tutors have never been taught how to be managers, too.

I know that most of the university teachers I know will not love me for this: but there is so much more to helping students through these agonies than just to discuss the material they have handed in. Tutoring means that one has a responsibility towards one's students. And this responsibility is personal as well as professional.

Being learned is a dangerous thing in Denmark. Everybody is entitled to bash intellectuals. The PM does it, and if you do not hold with his rhetoric you are no defender of democracy and should be shunned by the majority of the people.

With plenty of money who needs knowledge? With a full stomach now who needs to think about the future? It's not as though we were standing with water up to our necks, is it?

At Last: A Goal!

2015-10-07T13:12:00.004-07:00

Denmark's minister of culture, Brian Mikkelsen, is very interested in sports. Especially football it is said. And he is a zealot when it comes to doping. Whenever he is close to a doping affair he is sure to make an appearance on Danish TV as though he personally was responsible for solving this particular crime.

During the Winter Olympics one could get the impression that all the commotion about the Austrian athletes had been produced by Mr Mikkelsen, and Mr Mikkelsen alone.

However, let's not be harsh on the man. He has dreams, too. And some of them he even shares with the public.

Obviously he would love to be remembered as the political visionary who brought the Olympic Games to Copenhagen in either 2020 or 2024. This really is a goal. It is big, prestigious, expensive, and difficult to attain because of the worldwide competition.

Since I have the tendency to accuse Danes of not being very keen on goals I had better shape up and support this project whole-heartedly, no matter how boring I may find sports competitions (apart from cricket and sheepdog trials, which do not seem to count as sports, though).

On the other hand a report published yesterday by Rambøll Management shows that the plans are only feasible if they are carried out in a truly puritanical way: nothing new, nothing spectacular, nothing prestigious. Over the next 14 to 18 years 25 billion kroner (about 3 billion €) are to be spent on maintenance, repairs, and the upgrading of the local traffic, for instance extensions of the Metro's lines - and this money will have to be found, anyway.

The solution lacks vision and an acknowledgement of the fact that the IOC will most likely be looking for something a bit more splendid. A collaboration with the Swedes would be a good idea in that case. After all, there's the bridge now - and there has been a lot of talk about pulling the region around the Sound together, which might very well be another goal.

This could be the project to achieve something outstanding and truly international. Now the question is: will the decision-makers dare? Or would they have to act too much against their own natures?

Law Inforcement - an Illusion!

2015-10-07T13:12:00.001-07:00

Pets are good for your health - as long as you are not an allergic. Pets that are considered to interact with humans like cats and dogs are better for you than e.g. fish.

Well, at least with dog you can get some health benefit out of walking it, and walk it you should, at least twice a day.

In the early 1980s a walk through a street with many dog owners could be quite difficult if you wanted to avoid stepping into their pets waste matter. At the end of that decade, however, things had changed considerably, partly due to regulations in several cities that no longer wanted to accept filthy pavements.

Although the new rules were difficult to reinforce by the police the pressure from the large group of considerate dog owners was unmistakable. More and more people brought small plastic bags on their daily tours with their four-legged friends. They collected the waste, discarded it into the next dustbin and taking a stroll did no longer mean that you had to negotiate a smelly minefield.

Nothing ever lasts, however, and we can now look forward to a new area of agile walking.

According to rules and regulations concerning order and cleanliness on pavements, which were passed by the Danish parliament last year and first now have come to the attention of a wider public cleaning up a dog's waste is no longer the responsibility of its owner but of the resident who has to keep the pavement clean.

The residents find this deeply unfair. And who can blame them? The amount of dog faeces on the pavements is increasing, and there have now been calls in favour of a revision of the law.

One of the problems the police are facing is that they would only be able to fine the real culprits when caught in the act, which would put an extra demand on their sparse resources.

More cameras might be an option - or houses on wheels if you want to avoid being pressured into assuming responsibilities for latrine services.

Untill a reasonable solution is found, however, look where you're walking. Especially when you're walking a dog.

Language Lessons

2015-10-07T13:11:00.005-07:00

The other day I had a true Eliza Doolittle experience. I had thought that I had outgrown such situations. But life has still a lot to teach me - and this was one of the lessons it had deemed essential for me to repeat.

A Dane made it his business to correct my Danish. Under normal circumstances it is his business to correct other people's Danish. It is part of his profession. It's his turf - and as long as a language is alive there will always be something that is not quite as it ought to be or was a couple of years ago and he will not be out of work. But I had not come to him for linguistic advice - and I did not pay him for it either. Just in case you should wonder.

Among Danes you can find quite a few who have a tendency to belittle foreingers' Danish skills. Language and identity are closely related in their minds. It is - as Philip probably would remark - part of the brain washing they are exposed to from early childhood, the songs about the beauty of their mothertongue being an indication that there may be some truth in such an assumption.

Anyway, the Dane who talked to me pointed out that many of the Danes who corrected foreigners were men. He did so with a certain amount of puzzlement. And then objected to my usage of the word kedelig as a synonym for sad.

His expertise lies in phonetics therefore I could not help but think of "Pygmalion" - and the fact that men quite often think it their right to correct women's language as a way of moulding them.

It is a matter of power. Over other individuals, over the public domain, over intellectual resources. And whether or not one's impressed by it.

Geography

2015-10-07T13:11:00.002-07:00

Everybody who does not live in Northern Europe knows for a fact that Denmark is the capital of Sweden.

Now the official guide to Stockholm has launched a campaign claiming that this city is the capital of the whole of Scandinavia.

The Danes are livid and have threatened to stop any co-operation with the Swedes where the development of tourism is concerned.

The Norwegians seem rather unconcerned about the bickering among their brothers and sisters to the east and south. And hardly any of the individuals who belong to the target group will know the difference. Especially since Denmark only is a part of Scandinavia on sufferance.

Finally: A Revision of the Danish Tax System

2015-10-07T13:10:00.006-07:00

Danish taxes are said to be the highest in the world, ruining the country's competitiveness.

No wonder, companies and certain politicians have been calling for a revision of the Danish tax system for decades. One of the subjects that has been discussed quite heatedly over the last couple of years has been a flat income tax with everybody paying the same percentage of their income. Just like the VAT this hits people with low incomes the hardest, which is why Danes in general are opposed to the idea. The general conviction being that the strongest shoulders should carry the heaviest burdens.

So what do politicians do who are eager to change a system that their electorate approves of? They instigate a reform somewhere else. Something dealing with the administration. Something that promises greater efficiency, better service, quicker responses.

In the case of taxation the Danish solution had three aspects: a merger of the national and municipal tax offices into one inland revenue would pool the combined expertise and therefore strengthen service and response time. A new computer system would lead to greater efficiency. On top of this the individual employee's results are now measured by a system that assigns a certain amount of points to every finished task. In order to fulfil the management's expectations concerning productivity every employee has to score a certain amount of points. It may not come as a surprise that easy tasks gain them points easier than the difficult ones.

This system has been operational since November 1, 2005, and it has already lost the Danish government about 1 billion kroner (about 134 million €) in arrears that have been left uncharged.

Since the new computer system is slow and the employees have a hard time to get an overview over the business routines the backlog is growing steadily. Mail received in early January is in the process of being answered now. The rule is four weeks.

However, it is still comparatively easy to deal with those citizens who have forgotten to pay their parking ticket, real estate tax, or day care. Complicated cases involving everything a certified accountant can dream of are pushed to the bottom of the pile.

This way of simplifying a complex tax system may not be pretty - but it sure is efficient.

And nobody had to ask parliament.

Governmental Plans for Globalisation

2015-10-07T13:10:00.002-07:00

A conversation I had this morning convinced me that I ought to write about the Danish Government's plans for a bright globalised future.

At a press conference the prime minister and members of his cabinet presented the public for 333 proposals as to how to meet globalisation head on. Unfortunately I can't give you a link to these proposals because they do not seem to be that public.

However, quite a few of them are said to concern education and research. Both are to be strengthened. Which is to say that they will constantly be weighed and measured, meaning that anything that cannot be weighed and measured will have to give way to the realities of the market.

Some university teachers are expecting a lemming effect - with everybody running to where the money is; and this will hardly be in the treasury.

For years the Danish government has starved universities and public research facilities, having them find their fundings in private foundations and companies. Yesterday, when the multitude of plans was revealed both scientists and business people uttered their hopes for an increase of public investments in a hurry.

They are likely to be disappointed. There is much more entertainment to be had in watching lecturers and professors fight for the survival of their departments than by taking their needs seriously.

It is a comfort to know that it won't last. But there will be carnage to look forward to before it ends.

Picking up Loose Ends - 1

2015-10-07T13:09:00.001-07:00

The story about the Danish cultural canon isn't over yet, so I shall entertain you a bit with the political side of it all. It is going to be published by Poltikens Forlag - just to pick up another of the loose endes.

When Brian Mikkelsen, minister of football and other cultural affairs, spoke at the annual meeting of his party in September last year, the Conservatives, he announced that the cultural canon would be used as a weapon in the cultural war against the medieval Weltanschauung of Islam. (This was just a couple of days before the publication of the famous cartoons, by the way.)

When challenged by Erik A. Nielsen, professor in Danish literature at the University of Copenhagen, and other members of the canon committees, he insisted that he had been misunderstood - although it was quite difficult to see for the undiscerning public what there was to be misunderstood in his words. They were broadcasted - and not just quoted.

Anyway, those who had threatened to leave the project felt mollified and continued their work.

About a week ago Brian Mikkelsen said in an interview that he had meant what he had said in September - and professor Nielsen popped up again like another Jack-in-the-box, threatening to leave the rest of his canonical work behind.

Mr Mikkelsen again claimed to have been misunderstood. Professor Nielsen accepted the explanation.

Torben Bille, member of the committee for popular music and editor of a Danish encyclopedia of pop music, however, lost his temper and decided to leave because he could not bear to be fooled twice by the minister.

Since professor Nielsen had been in example in fickleness already Mr Bille had to face a few questions by the press assuming that he eventually would return to the laughing stock as well.

His answer was: "I have no comments on Erik A. Nielsen's actions. But I can say this much: I am a man of my word."

His possibility to withstand temptation is greater than professor Nielsen's, anyway. In an article in the Copenhagen daily Politiken the professor explained why he was in favour of a canon: his students knew everything about positioning themselves within the framework of consumerism - but they knew nothing about the joy of Danish literature.

I will not argue with him about that. But somehow, somewhere he has to accept the responsiblity that comes with having tenure. He is not known for taking an interest in the literary education of children in primary or secondary school. Very few of his colleagues are.

Now that his objet aimé is showing signs of age and decay he thinks it important to make a list about its former beauty.

When we make lists about what we want to remember we already have forgotten.