Eirik Refsdal

Norsk  |  English

May all doubt be swept aside, like autumn leaves meeting their final destiny when faced with one of the mighty street sweepers owned by the city of Trondheim (I'm not actually sure they have any, but they probably do); this is an introduction.

I mean... even the tiny city of Kragerø have acquired a new street sweeper and they are extremely satisifed with it. So I must admit I'm having a really hard time imagining that Trondheim is any less of a city when it comes to street sweepers.

But enough about street sweepers and back to the main issue: introductions.

Personally I'm somewhat ambivalent when it comes to introductions, but certain rumours would have it - in spite of massive campaigns claiming the opposite - that it's flat out rude to let go of the introduction and get right down to business. So here we are, me and my politically correct introduction.

Now, it's important to make sure that the introduction is not as extensive as the actual content, so I guess I'd better put an end to it soon - before I lose control of the letters. All things said, letters flying through the air in all directions is not a pretty sight.

Imagine a warm, friendly and good looking ending right here.

Personal Information

Education

Work Experience

  • Yahoo! Technologies Norway (2007-)
    Systems Solutions Engineer for Vespa.
  • FIRST LEGO League Trondheim (FLL) (2002-2007)
    FLL is an activity for children aged 10-16, where the participants "solve real-world engineering challenges, develop important life skills, and learn to make positive contributions to society" (quote from firstlegoleague.org). Each year approximately 70000 children participate in FLL all over the world, 300-400 of them here in Trondheim.

    2006-: Project manager
    2005: Responsible for judges and sponsors
    2004: Responsible for judges
    2003: Responsible for volunteers
    2002: Volunteer

  • The Computer Department at The Faculty of Medicine, NTNU (2002-2003)
    Design and implementation of a web based e-learning system and development of PHP extension for the Oracle Calendar server (written in C). Also summer job in 2002.
  • Fast Search and Transfer ASA, Trondheim branch (2000-2001)
    Development of the frontend for FAST Multimedia Search 2.0 and general work on user interfaces.
  • User support at Orakeltjenesten, NTNU (1997-2001)
    User support (in person, by phone and via email), development of internal, web based systems, development of e-learning system and maintenance of various serves and workstations. Also summer job in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.
  • Contributor to annual Winnie-the-Pooh book (1997-1999)
    Wrote articles for three books on Winnie-the-Pooh published by Gyldendal. In the name of narcissism the article from 1999 is available on my Winnie-the-Pooh web page "Hundremeterskogen" (The Hundred Acre Wood).
  • Contributor to Exact (1996-1997)
    Wrote articles about the Internet for magazine Exact.
  • Editor for graduation magazine (1996)
    Editor for the graduation magazine (Norwegian: russeavis) Tranberg VGS in 1996.

Hobbies

  • I try to swim at least three times a week at Pirbadet in order to become young and vigorous. Lately I've been a bit preoccupied elsewhere (can you spell master thesis), but I hope to get back to the pool real soon.
  • I like to read, and I'm having a blast living with my approximately 900 books.
  • I cannot deny spending quite some time with my Xbox 360.
  • I play cageball every Monday.
  • In the summertime I enjoy playing soccer outside, running and taking my bike for a ride.
  • Once upon a time I was an eager collector of stamps, and I still get first-day covers on an irregular basis.
  • I'm still very enthusiastic about LEGO, both City, Knight Kingdom and MINDSTORMS.
  • I used to juggle a bit, but nowadays all I can do is a regular three ball cascade for show.

My 15 minutes of fame

  • My pretty face was used as an illustration for a web site on hacking; Hack attacks!.
  • Was awarded Nasses stafettpinne 1999 (Piglet's Baton 1999) (read more about the honor in the article "Pinne og flis"), but due to exams the following year I was unable to attend The Delivery of Piglet the next year and pass the baton on.
  • 39th chief of Astronomer mot orddeling (Astronomers against hyphenation).
  • I won the Easter crime novel competition at Radio 3 (a former community radio in my hometown Gjøvik) two years in a row. The last time I won six eggs and a couple of bingo sheets. Lucky me.
  • Won the Pinball World Championship 2000 (or something like that) and got a nifty diploma plus a Playstation 2.
  • One of the founders of the support group for Opera for Mac. The web page in the back was made by Finngard, who tried to make us join him and the dark side by seducing us with Windows and Internet Explorer. Later on Finngard has become a die hard FreeBSD supporter.
  • There is no sinister conspiracy.
  • One of the founders of the project Gutter og data (Boys and computers) at NTNU. Kind of a response to the official NTNU project "Girls and computers" where they focused on the fact that girls draw circles while boys draw squares..

Eirik the Adventurer

  • Along with my brother Erlend I was the first person ever in the history of mankind to set my foot firmly on 59°N 7°E.
  • In the summer of 2003, along with Finngard, Kristian and Erling, I was the first person to visit 64°N 10°E.
  • In the summer of 1999 a crazy bus driver attempted to hire me as his navigator on the Greyhound bus between New Haven and Hartford, but that's a story for another day.

Code

In addition I have a Subversion repository full of PHP code for a thousand different projects, but I need the time to look through it and clean things up before a potential release.