Category: Website

I put a lot of work in this website as it shows when the number of articles (1320 so far) I’ve written since I started this website in September 2011. Donations allow me to keep writing on this website without being too much bothered with having to worry about financial problems too much (I’ve had enough of that for five live times already).

It is also clear that increase in volcano activity in Iceland means that I’ll be busier than ever writing articles about eruptions in Iceland and what that means. I do expect that the year 2018 is going to be something (possibly) and that wait might not be too long.

Please remember to support my work with donations. Everything helps, but it important to know that PayPal takes it share off any donations so smaller donations get even smaller when that is taken into account.

Thanks for the support. 🙂

It appears that May-2017 is going to be a money problem month, just like April. The reason now for this problem is due to my electric company changing their billing policy in such a way that I now get a electric bill every three months instead of monthly. This change resulted in a unusually high electric bill this month and that is creating problems for me. The electric bill is in total 283,12€ or 2.106,20 DKK. I also had problem (to make matter worse) with the VISA in Iceland (that I use for emergency cases) due to a dental problems I now have and have to be fixed by June or the tooth might be lost. I don’t know the cost of that at the moment since I have applied for a grant from the multiplicity I live in Denmark due to how poor I am.

If people can help me with the electric bill it would be welcomed. I have already moved 1000 DKK / 134,42€ to next month with VISA, that leaves me just short of 1106 DKK for the electric bill. I think that others bills are covered with what remains in my bank account in Iceland, its not much, but should cover the internet [5th May] and the hot water bill [3rd May] (that are paid in the next few days). I know this seems to be endless problems for me and sometimes they are, its unusual that this happens two months in a row. I normally get a month or a two as a break in this endless problems I have with money at the moment. That didn’t happen this month and is increasing my problems at the moment. Since I have to be able to pay the electric bill.

The good news are this. I have now paid down one loan (since last year, due to the move to Denmark) and earlier this year (February) I finished paying off the debt with the Danish tax from 2014. This means that the situation is getting better slowly. I wish this would happen, but reality doesn’t agree with me and there little I can do about it.

Thanks to a donation at the end of the month I was able to buy some extra food and put into the freezer and that means I don’t have to buy food for the next few days.

This also means that I have to delay the upgrade of my dedicated server for few months while the largest financial problems I’m currently dealing with are over. According to my plan I should be fully or close to debt free by August-2018 in Iceland. With the exception of possibly one minor loan if needed for buying new 4G hardware for the geophone in Böðvarshólar. Due to new frequency plan in Iceland 4G is soon going to be on 700Mhz and I need to have proper hardware for that once it goes on-line and a better antenna for that station for better gain (I know a lot about antennas and frequency and how that all works)

Thanks for the support. 🙂

Future plan

My plan on moving to Spain seems to have failed. The reason for that failure is simple. Along side with the plan on where I live I also have a plan regarding what I want to do in the field of science. The science plan has a priority over where I want to live plan, but only to such a degree that the plans need to fit together. If they do not, the science plan has priority. This is what happened now. The problem I did see when it came to Spain is that the house architecture and density (even in small villages) is not something I can work with. The second issue was difficulty in getting to Iceland as there are no direct flights from Spain to Iceland and due to that the travel time is up to 11 hours.

This is not a issue in Germany, some areas don’t have direct flight to Iceland but the travel time is around 6 hours less than from Spain at those location. There are direct flights to Iceland from Frankfurt, but not from Berlin or Hanover. I don’t know why that is, I guess its not economical to offer such services at those locations. If my plan fail, they do so quickly, since I normally check all criteria that I’m looking for quickly as was in this case. I’ve set-up a strict checking system to see if the place I want to move to fits my science plans and ideas. When it came to Spain the checks says it would not pass and if I move there it would just mean problems for me regarding my science plans.

The location I’m going to be moving to is going to be a bit outside of Frankfurt, I don’t have the details yet since that part of the plan is not in action yet (starts 2019 – 2020, depending on factors). I plan on setting up a long-period Volksmeter once I have a house (that I own) in Germany. I can’t do a lot with a rental property when it comes to my science plan and other things I want to do.

In Germany I’m going to monitor the West Eifel hotspot (science paper), it is known locally as West Eifel volcanic field. Last eruption took place around 10.300 years ago (8300 BCE) and there seems to be some gas activity in the area. No hydrothermal activity takes place at West Eifel volcano field at the moment. I plan to use the long period seismometers in order to monitor earthquake activity in Italy, Spain and other earthquake activity around the world.

Other notes

I have now moved to Windows 10 from Gentoo Linux. The reason for that move is the fact Linux in general doesn’t do so well as a Desktop operating system and since I started using Linux in 2003 what I need to do has changed along with the technology being used.. I plan to write about this here soon, not sure when that is going to happen. I find Windows 10 adequate, but it is clear that I need to upgrade my sound card (from ~2002) to get rid of sound problems I’m currently having due its age and limited compatibility with Windows 10 (the sound card works, but lacks certain features that limit sound problems I’ve been dealing with in Windows 10).

Please note that I sometimes need a break from writing to recharge my batteries and just to do other things than being in front of the computer writing. It has also been mostly quiet in Iceland since the Reykjanes ridge earthquake activity. Bárðarbunga volcano has so regular earthquake activity now that I have almost stopped writing about it unless its an earthquake above 4,0 in magnitude.

Article update on 05-May-2017 at 18:30 UTC. Future plans part has been re-written and updated. I ran into a few issues with the original plan I had written about.

April-2017 is going to be one of those awful bill months for me. As it currently stands I’m in the negative once all the bills are paid. Without donations I would not be able to keep this website running as things currently are. The good news is that this type of situation (me being completely broke) is going to happen less or not at all after June-2017 when the worst of my payment of my debt is over. Then the amount of payment I’m doing monthly is going to drop a little and it is also going to help that I’ve cancelled my cable subscription for good (it’s just useless reruns with advertisements most of the time). The reason for my problem this month is the cable bill, in Denmark they have the bad habit (in my view) of billing people for up to 6 months at the time for a bill (mostly new subscribers), with normal period being 3 months. Currently for me it is difficult to deal with this. I did try to save money for this bill, but that didn’t work out due to other bill where I’m charged for 6 months at the time (this is a bill that I can’t skip or cancel, since this trash collecting and such service).

I take writing on this website seriously as I do with any other job that I have worked in the past. As such I spend most days watching what is happening in Iceland, if not at home, then when I’m outside. Most of the time, as long time readers of this website know, everything is quiet in Iceland most of the time. Unlike many other websites. I don’t have windows jumping at readers when they leave this website with messages like “subscribe to our mail list” or something of that nature. I also try keep advertisement in a such way that I get paid and people can buy stuff from Amazon if they want to and and at the same time without being annoying.

My current financial problems are coming to and end in next few months. They should end by August-2018 I hope if everything goes according to a plan. After that I’ll have less problems, but due to my low income at the moment, I’ll always have some issues with money. Thanks for the support. 🙂

February 2017 is going to be a difficult month in terms of money. Due to two bills that I got and that was out of my control why this did happen. This is also happening because I’m lowering my overdraft at the bank fast for few months, until I slow down a bit (when I’m back to my planned levels). The good news is that I have finished paying up tax debt from 2014 with the Danish tax, its finished and is never coming back.

The bills I still haven’t paid are this ones.

• The internet bill, it’s in automatic payment and is paid on Monday 6th February (I can manually pay the bill until 28th of February). That bill is 2.492,83 DKK (335,13€).  Due to some bill problem (for me) my internet company in Denmark didn’t send me a bill for several months and are now charging for 7 month period. I did complain about this, since I’m not happy about this as it creates problem for me. It was also at the worst time, during the period when I was paying down my debt that higher rate than normal.
• The electricity bill is 2011,95 DKK (270,48€). The good news here is that I can afford this due to Amazon U.S payments that I’ll get in few days I think. But once I’m finished paying this I’ll be out of money to buy food for the rest of the month. I have until 15th of February to pay the electricity bill. The electricity bill this month is this high since they are adding up debt that was collected during last year (due to billing problems at the electricity company). I already had paid something into it (thankfully), but I still had unpaid around 1.500 DKK (201,68€). This happens due to high electricity usage that I have (running all those computers costs a bit of money in terms of electricity).

I find this type of problem stressful and I’m not happy about it, since it has the negative side effect of ruining my carefully planned plans. If anyone can help me with this month money problems a donation is welcomed. Since without it I’m going to be without internet at worst. One thing is for sure, I might run into problem buying food this month. I’m not sure how to deal with that, thankfully I have something in my freezer to use.

Thanks for the support. 🙂

Update on donations

I wanted to post this little update on donations (for a change). Current donations of 410€ allow me to pay all the internet bill without any problems. The rest is almost enough to pay the electricity bill in full (I don’t have around 700 DKK [~94€] so that I can pay the electricity bill). I don’t have the full amount to pay it at the moment, but once the Amazon U.S checks clear the bank I’m going to be able to pay it and have some left to buy food this month. The reason why I don’t have the full amount at the moment is that I had to buy food for next week at least, I buy based on current offers in the store and I buy enough so that I can put in my freezer.

Update on donations (08.02.2017)

Thanks to donations I should be able to pay the electric bill in full on Friday and have little thing left to use until the Amazon U.S checks are paid out by my bank in Iceland. I’m happy that this issue got resolved with help from people.

Thanks for all that support.

Server maintenance

The server needs to be upgraded due to it running a updated versions of php, mysql and other software. This update update is going to happen tonight (I hope) after 23:00 UTC (on 03.02.2017 until 04.02.2017) at the earliest and might run as long to 09:00 UTC. During that time access to this website might be limited or none at all.

Update on server maintenance

The server software is going to be updated from 23:00 UTC today (04.02.2017). It is expected that the update is going to take 2 hours at least if no other issues happens.

Article updated at 17:01 CET/16:01 UTC.
Article updated at 14:38 CET/13:38 UTC on 03.02.2017.
Article updated at 10:02 CET/09:02 UTC on 04.02.2017.
Article updated at 17:19 CET/16:19 UTC on 04.02.2017.
Article updated at 12:00 CET/11:00 UTC on 08.02.2017.