Fallin Face First

Facebook Timeline - Viewpoint Of An Average User

2012-01-03T14:21:00.001+02:00

Facebook launched it's Timeline feature here in Finland on the 22nd of December. Of course everyone got a notification to clean up Timeline from stuff you do not want other people to see. This made me go through almost all of my Facebook posts and it gave me some time think about what the launch of Timeline means and how I feel about Facebook in general. Here are a few thoughts that the launch of Timeline raised.

Going through my posts from three years ago made me feel like an idiot. Why on earth did I post this stupid update/link? I don't want my friends to be able to read this not to mention the new friends that I may add.

Timeline makes it very easy to see what I have done in the past. It is very easy to check what kind of photos or comments I have posted at one time period.

Facebook has a lot of data about my past. I created my account in 2008. That means Facebook has on it's servers every like, recommendation and comment I have made during the past four years. If you would ask me now would I give information of all the interaction I have had with my friends and acquaintances during the past four years to privately held company that may or may not have connections to FBI, CIA and NSA, the answer would be something along the lines of "FUCK NO"

Timeline made me realise that I do not understand how Facebook works. Who really understands Facebook's privacy settings or copyright policy? I do not fully understand how Twitter works either, but the basic idea is that all your tweets are public and everybody can read them. So far I have not encountered any advertising on my Twitter timeline. Added bonus is that Twitter does not ask me to tell anything about where I work, how I date, where I live or have gone to school.

Finally, the launch of Timeline made me realize that I really do not want a company to be in-between me and my friends. I bet it would not be too difficult to create a standalone software based on, for example, bittorrent technology that would sync activities between the members of your network. This would mean greater control over your privacy and content.

These are just a few things Facebook Timeline raised in the mind of a average user. What do you think about Timeline?

Canonet 28 and Canolite D flash

2011-11-24T01:44:00.001+02:00

Canonet 28 and Canolite D flash

I was rummaging a closest at my parents place and found an old rangefindercamera that my dad had bought when he was young. I found Canonet 28 rangefinder camera which Canon used to produce between 1971-1976. You can find more detailed information about the camera at Camerapedia. Canonet 28 seems not to be the favourite among vintage camera enthusiast but I find it kinda cool.

The camera was in full working order. All I need to do was to replace the battery so that the automatic light meter would start working and buy a film. I decided to go for a black and white film to get more artistic effect to my photos. It is funny how expensive film is nowadays. A film roll with 36 shots costs 9,40€. You can get quite a big sd-card with that kind of price.

I am quite excited about trying to shoot with a film camera. You really do not know in advance if your shots are any good. I'm thinking about getting a note book where I would write down the values that I've use. I am really excited to see if my pictures turn out good.

I had a bit of a problem getting the flash working and it took me a while to figure out what the problem was. The problem with the Canolite D, at least in my case, was the battery compartment was a bit too tight and battery cover was a bit broken (hence the piece of white tape on the flash). When I inserted the batteries in I pushed the battery all the way to the bottom and since the compartment squeezed the battery there was no contact to the lid of the battery compartment. So all I needed to do was not to push the batteries all the way to the bottom and use the lid to press the batteries in place. This enables all the connectors to have a proper connection and the flash work. I hope this helps some one with figuring out and fix their Canolite D.

*EDIT*

I was able to fix the battery compartment of my Canolite D flash unit. Here's an illustration of the situation:

Well there's your problem!

So the basic problem was quite simple. The other wall of the battery compartment had jumped out from the small groove that holds it in place. What I did was even more simple. I unscrewed the screws and pulled the components out (extremely gingerly) just a tiny bit. This gave me enough space to slide the plastic wall into place. Now the batteries slide into place without any trouble. Now I just need to figure out a way to fix the broken cover of the battery compartment.

Fight fire with fire: Nokia N9 and Apple Macintosh commercials

2011-11-18T11:45:00.001+02:00

Take a look at these two videos:

and here is an advertising classic:

Is it just me or do you see something similar in these two ad films? I guess Nokia is really pulling out the big guns (copied, but still) against Apple's iPhone and Android. It also quite explicitly signals for Nokia China is very important and it will do everything to emerge as winner in the smart phone competition in China.

Tell me what you think. Has Nokia just copied the concept from Apple or is there something really original in the ad?

Magic Gloves - Halti Stormwall Gloves

2011-11-17T09:42:00.001+02:00

Gloves

Two days ago I was out geocaching and noticed a cool feature in my gloves. Yes that's right, gloves. I have a pair of Halti Stormwall gloves and noticed that I can operate the touchscreen of my phone with my gloves on. Great.

I guess the pattern on the gloves enables the small electric current to pass between your finger and the touchscreen.

Jobs.

2011-11-13T23:15:00.001+02:00

What would you say of a guy who believes that by eating fruit he does need to use deodorant, is an admires zen meditation and practices, but explodes every now and then at work, and can not furnish his house because he is such a perfectionist that he can't find suitable furniture that meet his criteria. Do you think this kind of a guy has any chance of succeeding? Well that was how Steve Jobs was. Still he managed to create a company that has shaken up the market of consumer electronics throughout the past decade or so. The pace has been especially furious since the launch of iPhone in 2007.

If you have not noticed, Steve Jobs died on 5th of October 2011. After his cancer diagnosis in 2005 Jobs wanted a biography written. while he was still alive and in 2009 Walter Isaacson started working on the book. The book was scheduled to be released in March 2012, but the release was moved to October since it became clear that Job's health was declining.

The life story of Steve Jobs is, of course, very interesting and inspirational, but what kind of picture does the book paint of Mr. Jobs and is there something missing from the picture. In this review I try to focus on evaluating the book and not Steve Jobs's persona which is naturally a bit challenging taking into account the topic of book.

As Literature

As a piece of literature biographies rarely are remembered for their literary excellence. The text flows nicely and is very easy to read. At times it feels that Isaacson underlines too much of Jobs's character traits. One good example of this is the way Isaacson brings up how Job's father taught him to pay attention to things that where not visible while two were building a fence. This is brought up quite often when Jobs's perfectionism comes up, like in the case of the power source of original Macintosh.
It could have been a better choice to structure the book around discussions that Isaacson had with Jobs. It would have created a more intimate feel to the book. A feeling that Jobs is talking himself. Of course this is not what the book tried to achieve. Now the book goes with content and objectivity first which is a very good choice.

Apple

The book captures well the main points of Apple's history. It is especially interesting to read about the early stages of Apple and home computing. There was really something special happening in Palo Alto and Silicon Valley in the 1970s. How can such a small area become the synonym for innovations and hightech?

Opening up how the creative process worked in Apple when Jobs was still around is one of the most interesting points in the book. Well let's make one reservation, the book is not good at telling how the others teams actually worked. It just simply gives a glimpse on how the teams tried to manage with Jobs's way of leadership. The role of Jonathan Ive in the creative process and the fact that Jobs almost blocked 3rd party apps from iPhone prove that Jobs wasn't the only creative and brilliant individual at the company.

At times it feels that the book is all about marketing Apple products. Especially when you read the story on how Jobs tries to confuse Siri on the new iPhone 4S. Maybe this is inevitable.

Steve

In my mind the only way to evaluate a biography is to try and determine if the the biographer has been able to shine light on all the sides of personality of the biographee. Jobs wanted the biography to be realistic. His wife also admitted that Steve's personality, to put it politely, is complicated and wanted it all to be in the book. Clearly, work was number one for Steve Jobs and the book describes mostly his professional personality. I would have wanted to know more about the private side of Steve Jobs. We get to know that Jobs liked walking, photography and was a picky eater, which in my mind isn't that much. I would liked to know a bit more if he had any hobbies, what he did with his kids. The book tells a little about Jobs's relationship with his children. Mostly quite negative things. Of course his kids are still young and it would have been a bit unethical to make young children to evaluate their relationsship with their father.

Without ever having met Steve Jobs or having spent any time with him it is hard to say if the biography is accurate representation of his personality. In order to write a book you need good stories and usually good stories emerger from situations where there is a conflict or problem to solved. Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is portraid as a manic personality. While the book depicts the mercurial personality of Mr. Jobs, it seems to hide the everyday guy and how he was when things went smoothly.

What I kind of miss in the book is Steve's opinion on social media. Did he think it was important or driving for of technological innovation?

Conclusions

The book leaves your opinion about Steve Jobs swinging back forth. Why was this very strange guy able to create two extremely successful companies? What was his magical touch that enabled Apple to grow in to the most valuable technology company during the past ten years? Even though Steve Jobs's personality was flawed he must have had a clear vision of what he wanted. On one level I can understand Jobs. He barely 25 when he suddenly noticed that he had a fortune of 250 million dollars. It is next to impossible that this much money would not affect you at all.

Give it a read and tell me what you think.

Moomis

2011-11-09T15:56:00.000+02:00

Since I was a child I've been a big fan of the Moomin animated series produced in Japan in the early nineties. The manga style animation was so beautiful and the stories were so well adapted to TV. Even though the stories in the animated series were quite different from the original Moomi books, the animated series has educated several generations to appreciate the Moomi way of life.

Moomi books are wonderful and exceptional pieces of literature

I felt that I wanted to know a bit more about the original stories and I also had herd that the original Moomi books are great literature and have philosophical side to them. I chose three books that I thought had the most interesting titles except for Moominpappa at Sea (Pappan och havet, 1965) which I knew to be very good novel. The two other books I read were Moominland Midwinter (Trollvinter, 1957) and Moominvalley in November (Sent i November, 1970). The second reason why I chose these two books was that I thought they might help me get ready for winter and all the darkness of autumn, or so I thought.

It is amazing how different the stories in these books are compared to the stories in the animated series of my childhood. The animated series lacks most of the gloomy atmosphere and philosophical reflection of the books. The world of the animated series is happier and more carefree. That is how it was when you were a child.

One theme that rose up in all three books was how the Groke symbolises what happens when you are forgotten, not seen by others and left without love. The Groke represents everything scary and Moomis are scared of Groke, but I can't help feeling a bit sorry for the Groke. Groke is left out of everything and has to live all alone outside of the Moominvalley. Of course, in the book Moominpappa at Sea this changes quite a bit.

It is quite funny when you notice that you are reading about your own problems and weaknesses from a children's book. Sometimes it feels that do these books even give anything to children. My mother read Moominsummer Madness to me and my sister when we were little but I can't remember how the story really progressed. All I remember is the feeling. That is probably the strongest quality of Moomi books.

Reading these books was a really great experience. My favourite book of the three was Moominvalley in November and how it portrays what keeps people from being happy and the different mentalities and life philosophies of people. If you are looking for happy-go-lucky children's stories the Moomi books might not be the thing for you.

Medvedev presidency

2011-10-25T12:31:00.000+03:00

Time for yet another book review. This time the book I want to tell you about is about Russia and it's current president Dmitri Medvedev. The book is written by Arto Luukkanen and titled "Medvedev - Venäjän isäntä vai Putinin renki" (Medvedev - Ruler of Russia or Putin's servant? [free translation]). The book recaps the story of Medvedev's road to power and his relationship with Putin. Since the book is about very recent events the analysis in the book isn't that in-depth. The book is more of a narrative about what has happened in Russia during the past ten years. It is truly surprising to realize how many note worthy events there have been during the Medvedev presidency and how many of them I have forgotten.

I really liked the book. Reading it was a bit like reading a thriller. The book sheds light to structures of Russian society that get virtually no coverage in the media. As a good example of this is the short introduction on the Russian newspaper landscape and what kind of organisations and people can be found behind different newspapers. Various Russian think tanks are also covered and who they support. Out of the many Russian bloggers Luukkanen mentions Aleksey Navalny who has gained popularity for his campaigns against corruption and revealing government misconduct. You can find his blog here. One thing that amazes me after reading the book is the fact that we in the west do not know by name that many people from the Russian ruling elite.

The book explains very well the basic structure of Russian politics and gives you an idea about the different political tendencies.* Particularly the rise of securocracy is extremely intriguing and at the same time extremely worrying. The big dilemma of Russian politics seems to be (and is) the need for immediate and swift modernisation versus the stability (or stagnation) of society that is needed for development.

Since the securocracy rose to power the conditions in Russia have stabilised and the standard of living rose until the financial crisis of 2008, but now the infiltration of ex-intelligence operatives to all regions of Russian society threatens to prevent all meaningful modernisation efforts. To make things more complicated the different security branches are not exactly friends are there are different factions inside the security services. The securocratic elite has in few years become more of an obstacle than enabler of modernisation. For them everything is fine as long as money flows in their pockets and no one questions their rule.

Did Medvedev rule Russia at any point? What were his goals and did he achieve any of them? In my opinion Medvedev clearly had some vision on how he wanted to modernise Russia, but the brief war with Georgia and the financial crisis postponed the start of the reforms. Also Putin and Medvedev seemed to have disagreement on the speed of reforms. In my eyes the bad guy here was Vladislav Surkov who is widely seen as the main ideologist in Kreml. He was appointed as the First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Presidential Executive Office by Putin in 2008. Surkov was the one who critised Medvedev(!) for being too ambitious with his plans for modernisation. Maybe the situation was such that there were two against one and Medvedev had to back down. Further more the book suggest that the battle for presidency started already in 2010. Medvedev supporters are/were mainly Moscow's think tanks and parts economic elite who thought that the liberalisation of political life is necessary. However Medvedev was not able to gain the support Russian regions. At the end it seems that even tough Medvedev tried there never was enough room to for him to accomplish anything of significance. 4 years is too short time in Russian politics and changes don't happen gradually, but are more like earthquakes that change everything in a heartbeat. It seems that for now Putin is back in helm and that is how it is going to be for the next 12 years.

I learned a bunch of new things reading the book and had leave out a lot of details that were worth mentioning. I believe that the book equipped me with information that enables me to look at what happens in Russia more objectively and to better understand what happens in Kreml in the future.

*Wikipedia also has an article about the topic, but I am not sure how accurate it is at the moment. Should give you some leads if you want to know more.

Hedge funds. What are they? [Note to self]

2011-09-21T22:43:00.000+03:00

Here is another post inspired by the book "Ascent of Money" written by Niall Ferguson. You will probably get better information on hedge funds and hedging from Wikipedia, but here is my take on the subject and what I saw as important in Ferguson's presentation of the matter.

Hedging and hedge funds have their roots in agriculture. For a farmer there are two things that affect his income: first one is the amount of crop and second one is price of the crop. The amount of crop depends on the weather and there is not much you can do about it. The price the farmer gets paid depends on the market price. The farmer pretty much knows what his expenses will be when sows his seeds. What he does not know is how much he will be paid at harvest. The farmer could protect himself against price fluctuations by making a deal with, for example, bakery that it will by all of his wheat with certain price. At harvest the market price may be lower than the price the farmer and agreed upon, in this case the farmer wins. It also could be that the market price is higher than agreed in which case the bakery wins, because it gets it wheat at a cheaper price than if it would by the same amount of raw material with market prices.

The first standardised future contracts that were traded in after markets were created in Chicago. The Chicago Produce Exchange was the first permanent place for trading futures.

Since this type of elimination of risk requires a speculator as a counter part trading in futures has been viewed as nothing more than a casino. Partly because of that only 1970s trading of interest and currency futures was permitted. In 1982 the future contracts were allowed to stock trade.

Since all futures contracts are derived from the value of the property the contract is based on all futures contracts are so called derivatives. Here are some derivatives that Ferguson presents in his books. There is a good list of derivatives on Wikipedia.

Options are form of derivative financial instrument closely related to futures contracts. There basically are two types of options selling and buying options. The option grants the owner of the contract the option (not an obligation) to buy/sell a certain amount of goods at a price agreed in the contract.

Swaps are a form of derivative where two parties basically bet on, for example, the development of interest rates. Someone who receives income from loan where interest is fixed can swap the interest rate to floating rate.

Credit default swap is a contract where the buyer of the CDS makes a payment to the seller and receives a pay off if a instrument goes default.

There are also weather derivatives which enable you to insure against natural catastrophes and extreme weather patterns. In 2006 the nominal value of weather derivative was 46 billion dollars.

Nowadays most of the derivatives are no longer standardized but tailor made and sold in so called over the counter (OTC) trade outside the stock exchanges. Banks are the usual seller of OTC derivatives and majority are temporarily arranged between two parties.

The problem with derivatives and future contracts is that it has divided world into those that have money to protect themselves to those that don't. It usually takes a seven-figure-sum of money to protect against unexpected fluctuations in interest rates or in commodity prices etc.

Facts About Financial Crisis Of 2008 [Note to self]

2011-09-20T17:08:00.000+03:00

I recently listened to an interesting radio programme where Heikki Koskenkylä explained some facts that contributed to the financial crisis of 2008. The radio programme was a series produced by YLE and you find link to the programme here.

Here are some interesting points that I picked up from the programme:

Community Reinvestment Act = CRA Banks are obligated to issue loans to the area from which they receive deposits. Initially created to support housing industry and expand house ownership.
Sub-prime loans where only 15% of the total number of mortgages in U.S. Only about 20% were left unattended, and the amount of bad debt was not that large.
Sub-prime loans where bundled together with other loans (student loans, car loans, credit cards) and sold to investors. On paper the profit from these bonds where higher than from normal mortgage loans.
The problem was that "bad" and "good" loans where mixed together and rating agencies gave these bonds AAA-rating. There was wide belief that housing market could not collapse and these mortgage and loan bundles were built on safe ground.
Already in 2007 there were couple of instances where banks where affected by the sub prime crisis (1 English bank winter of 2007, couple more in the summer.)
On 7th of September 2008 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were put under the control of federal government.
In Europe many thought that it would be the hedge funds that would start crumbling, not the institutions that issue mortgages.
Basic problem in the U.S. was that people with know in come where allowed to purchase houses. Europe had it problems too. In Spain (circa 07/08) there were unsold apartments as much as in Germany and France combined. But unlike in U.S. in Spain no "bad" credit was given.
Week after the take over of Freddie and Fannie Bank of America purchased Merrill Lynch
On 15th of September Lehman Brothers declared it was entering company reorganisation procedures (Chapter 11).
On 17th of September Federal Government issued a emergency credit of 85 billion dollars to American International Group and as collateral the government got 79,9% of stock and withheld a veto to all significant decisions in the company. AIG had large investment in credit default swaps (check next post for explanation) which led to it's down fall. The insurance part of AIG's business was healthy but it had issued credit risk insurance (hedging credit risks) amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. The company failed totally in evaluating the risk and the price to be paid for these insurance were very low during the economic up turn.
The complexity of the system was a partial contributor to the crisis. It was very hard to comprehend the risks and due to how deeply the whole system is interconnected it was difficult to determine who would take the losses.

Kit, Kit, Kit(once again): Camelbak Cloudwalker reservoir backbag

2011-09-19T12:44:00.002+03:00

Camelbak Cloudwalker

Since I started geocaching I've been hiking and biking a lot more than before. When you are on the move for three hours or more a single half a litre bottle does not get you far. You just need to have more drinking water with you. Secondly my old backbag was a bit too big for short hikes and bike rides. Luckily I spotted a used (in this case used 3-4 times) Camelbak Cloudwalker at an on-line auction and managed to purchase it at very good price.

I've used the backbag almost daily and used the water reservoir couple of times on short hikes and I must say that I am very pleased. It is just amazing what a difference having enough to drink makes on your stamina. I could quite easily walk for three hours and when I got to home I wasn't that tired. Hydration is important! But now to the properties of Cloudwalker.

The backbag is designed so that it does not make your whole back sweat after half an hour. Somehow the design is better ventilated and the bag is narrow so it does not cover all of your back. I also like the 10l of carrying space. It fits quite easily the equipment I need for geocaching (flashlight, multitool, camera etc.). Last weekend I had my jacket and some food in the backbag and it all fit quite well inside. Pocket in front of the bag hold easily your wallet, phone, gps or what ever you need to take with you to the trail. The front compartment has two pocket with zippers so your stuff won't be flailing around.

Pocket for the water reservoir.

The drink reservoir itself fits quite nicely to the pocket in the backbag and there is loop inside the pocket that holds the reservoir in place. Having the reservoir in place does not affect the carrying comfort in anyway. The bag still feels comfy. If you are a runner this is not the bag for you, the water inside the reservoir does start slosh the moment you start running. The reservoir holds 2 litres of water and if you are not drinking all the time it should be enough also for longer workouts. After you come home you most likely want to dry the reservoir. The operation calls for little creativity. I use the drinking tube to hold the reservoir open by making a loop out of the tube and sticking it inside the bag. The tube itself is a bit harder to dry. Mine has been in the cupboard for a week and it still contains some moisture. I guess I need to remove the nozzle next time.

Nozzle and valve

The drinking nozzle is really ingenuous. When you squeeze the tip of the nozzle with your lips it opens up and you can take your sip of water. The seam is really tight when closed and no water will run out. There is also a valve in the nozzle (the yellow bit in the picture) that turns and closes the pipe if you want to be extra sure that no water gets out. The valve comes useful, for example, when you want to keep the drinking tube inside the bag.

Over all Cloudwalker very good backbag for me. I am pretty sure it will serve me for a long time on my geocaching adventures, hikes and bike rides.

Rothschilds

2011-08-31T15:15:00.000+03:00

This the second post related to a book I am reading. It is written by Niall Ferguson and it is titled "Ascent of money". This post will quickly summarize the story of how the rise of Rothschild's is represented in the book. It may or may not be entirely accurate but I found it very interesting.

Let it be reminded once again that this post is more of a mental note for myself.

Rise of Rothschilds'

The story of Rothschilds is very fascinating. For centuries the family has had significant power in the financial world. It was quite fascinating to find out that their success was preceded by a gigantic miscalculation. Any way let's start from the beginning. Or not all the way to the beginning, but to the wars Britain fought against Napoleon.

Britain had been fighting against Napoleon for several years without much success. The war efforts were financed by issuing war bonds. The problem was that the only universal currency at that time was gold and the wars where fought in regions were it was impossible to use pounds. In 1814 Britain needed gold fast and they turned to Nathan Rothschild to procure the gold. Nathan had brothers and relatives running banks in the major financial centres. This network allowed him to buy gold from all over Europe quickly. He actually was able to buy double the amount that he asked to acquire. British government paid Rothschild's commission on the gold he delivered, but there was another way how Rothschilds made money during this operation. They were able take advantage of the differences of gold prices in Europe. For example, if price of gold in Amsterdam was lower than in London Nathan would sell gold bonds (is this the right term in English, don't know) send the money Amsterdam where the money was used to buy gold. The gold was then sent back to London, the bond was redeemed and the gold that was left over was kept as profit. In April of 1814 the Coalition forced Napoleon to surrender and sent him to exile to Elba.

In 1815 Napoleon escaped because of rumours that he would exiled to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon managed to gather a sizeable army and decided to go in to offensive. Nathan Rothschild thought that this meant that there would be another lengthy war and started to gather gold so that he would ready when the governments came to him asking for gold. The battle of Waterloo was a success to the Coalition. Napoleon was crushed and sent to exile in Saint Helena. To Nathan Rothschild this was a disaster he was sitting on a pile of gold that nobody needed.

Nathan decided to bet on the government bonds of Great Britain. He evaluated that since there was no longer a state of war the government would need less money and government would not release as many bonds. That would decrease the supply of government bonds on the market and according to basic principles of market economy if the supply decreases the prices should go up. Not to mention that Nathan drove the price up by hoarding government bonds. After one year the price of government bonds had risen by 40%. At this point Nathan started to sell and made profit of 600 million pounds in todays money (figure from Ferguson). This move basically secured Rothschilds' as the one of the leading banks in the financing sector.

I'll write more about financing if I find anything else that interest me in Ferguson's book.

Quick note on government bonds

2011-08-30T16:11:00.000+03:00

I am reading a book by Niall Ferguson titled " Ascent of Money". The book so far has been a bit of a disappointment, but still I have learned quite a bit about government bonds and general topics related to financing. Again this a posting that is more of mental note for myself. The majority of the material here is from Ferguson's book. I've made the illustrations myself and condensed and added some ideas of my own.

Basics of how government bonds work

In this section I'll try and explain what government bonds are and how they work as I understand them. These days virtually every government needs to borrow money from the market. In the early days government bonds where used to collect money to pay for wars but today they are used to finance government expenditure.

The basic idea behind a government bond is that the state sells a piece of paper with nominal value of 5000 and promises to pay 5% interest(paid from the nominal value) per annum for the next 10 years to the holder of the bond. This means that the buyer can sell the bonds at market price if faced with a acute need of money or if the owner sees that the money can make better profit when invested differently.

The concept of effective interest is something worth discussing. It is calculated like this:

What this means that if you purchase a bond from after market at price of 4500 the effective interest rate is higher than the one marked on the bond. But there is catch. As we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Why has the market price of of Brutopias 10 year bond declined? Well it means that the consensus on the market is that Brutopias ability to take care of it's debts has decreased. This means that investors may not get their money at the end of the ten year loan time, or the payment might be delayed.

This means that really big profits can be made when the governments financial situation is some compromised. Also when investing to government bonds of foreign nation you must take into account the changes in exchange rates and the inflation rate in that country as it may quite quickly eat up any profit you expect to make.

In general government bonds are safe investments as it is usually quite impossible for country to go bankrupt, because it can always tax it's citizens. However the profits are not that big either.

Battlestar Galactica Online

2011-08-16T14:35:00.000+03:00

I found a great I new MMO. Battlestar Galactica Online is a game based on the universe of Battlestar Galactica. The game is a played in space and at the beginning you can choose a raptor or the legendary viper MKII as your ship. You can buy other ships as you advance in the game. The range of ships is pretty large and the biggest ships are giant juggernauts that can destroy almost any ship. This means that the biggest battles in BSGO are fights between two giant fleets consisting of large command ships, support ships that are focused on electronic warfare and fighters like vipers and raiders. The list of ships can be seen here.

I had a bit of trouble at first. I created a profile on the server Sagittoron and exited the game without doing the right log out procedure which caused my profile to crash and I can't enter the server any more. I do not if the fault is in the game or in my browser. Luckily I did not get too far. Now I am playing on the Virgon server. It turned out that entering the full browser mode in Firefox caused the game to freeze. I had to install Chrome and you that as the browser to play the game. On Chrome the game works perfectly.

I must say that I enjoy flying a viper. It just feels so cool. The basics of the game can be learned quite easily but the there seems to a lot of strategic details that you need to take into account when you advance in the game. I encourage you to give this game a try. It is wonderful.

Battlestar Galactica Online

Colonial outpost and my Viper

Mac Optical Audio Issue Part 2.

2011-07-28T23:12:00.002+03:00

In my previous blog post (Apple Remote - A Quick Complaint) I complained about the "features" of optical audio out of Mac. Last nite Apple realesed a update that supposedly addressed this problem. The update realesed last nite was 10.6.8 Update v.1.1 and 10.6.8 Supplemental Update. At least for me this has not worked. So far I have not found any comments on forums if this update has worked for other Mac users or if there is anything else I need to do to get the update working.

Did the update fix the issue of optical audio not working? Is there anything I've missed? Please drop a line.

PS. I am running Macbook Pro (late 2010) and Snow Leopard.

EDIT: Today I started to watch a mkv-file using VLC-player and hey presto the remote control was able to change the audio volume of VLC-player. So forget Quick Time and use VLC-player.

Robot Overlord! T-Shirt Shop

2011-07-13T09:45:00.000+03:00

When you think of cool stuff what is the first thing that comes to your mind. That's right. Robots. I was also recently thinking about robots and how cool they really are. I was also holding a pencil and had a notebook on hand. I started doodling and after awhile I noticed that I drew pretty cool robot heads. Might someone else think they are cool? Would they like to see them in t-shirts? There should be enough cool geeks and nerds on this planet that would appreciate my robot designs, they might even think that they are really cool and buy one.

I decided to set up my own webstore using Spreadshirt's platform. You can find my webshop at:

robotoverlord.spreadshirt.net

From RobotOverlord! can currently find two designs: Robot 1 and Robot 8. There is model for men and women from both designs. I think they are pretty cool clothes and you should check them out.

RobotOverlord! - Check it out

PS. Sorry for the shameless self-promotion.

Tablets - Large square tablets

2011-06-27T20:56:00.002+03:00

Samsung Galaxy Tab

I bought Samsung Galaxy Tab a few months ago, because I was really interested to find out if there was anything to this tablet computer craze that swooped over the techscene during last year. I was about to buy iPad 2, but then I came into the conclusion that it was just too expensive for my budget also I did not like the fact that Apple controls the applications you can install on iPad. Then I found Samsung Galaxy Tab. I got myself a used one at half the price what a new one would cost and the device was only a few months old so it was a very reasonable deal.

I admit that I am a bit of a addict when it comes to Internet. I spend way too much time in front of my computer. Tablet does not solve this but when I am reading news or checking Twitter or YouTube videos it is just perfect. Especially in the evenings it is much better to read news from a smaller screen than blast your brains with a light from a 24" monitor. At least for me it does improve my sleep quality.

At least when it comes to iPad it has been gaming that everyone has been buzzing about. In the case of Android devices I haven't found any games that would be that interesting. The quality is all right but nothing that will revolutionise gaming. Galaxy Tab comes with NOVA which is okay for a fps-game. The gyroscopic control is all right but sometimes you find yourself pointing into very strange directions. It needs some improvements.

What is BIG PIECE OF STINKING POO-O is the updating system of Galaxy Tab. Why on earth do you need to install Kies before you can update the firmware. The whole system is just complete bollocks, because my HTC Wildfire is able to do updates over wi-fi. Don't tell me that wi-fi is not reliable. > :( It gets better. The Galaxy tab can't be charged via USB when it is connected to a computer. Woohoo. The update process takes a lot of power (for some reason) and if the battery of your device is not fully charged you will need to cancel the update process and recharge your device. ISN'T THAT MOTHER FUCKING CONVENIENT OR WHAT?!?

In my mind tablet computers are fun innovations that have lot of positive sides but so far I think they still have some drawbacks that limit the usability.

How do you use your tablet computer? Was it worth the money?

The Winner Stands Alone - Paolo Coelho

2011-06-23T21:55:00.001+03:00

Yeah, read The Alchemist instead.

Apple Remote - A quick complaint

2011-06-23T06:56:00.001+03:00

Maybe a week ago I bought the latest addition to my collection of Apple products - I got myself an iRemote or is it Apple remote. iCan't remember. My problem was that I wanted something that would control both picture and sound with the same remote. Unfortunately Apple Remote meets only half of my requirements.

iRemote or Apple Remote (which one is it anyway)

Apple Remote does work quite well at controlling Front Row. Browsing through your music library, photos and videos is a breeze. Here's the catch, Apple Remote only controls the master volume of the whole computer it does not control the volume level of the music/video player being used.

Why is this a problem? Well, because I use the optical audio connection of my MacBook Pro to feed audio to my stereo. As we all know when you use optical audio it isn't possible to control the master volume of the computer. Therefore it would be really cool if Apple Remote would control the volume of the player (iTunes/Quicktime) being used. Then it would possible for me to use just one remote when I watch/ listen material from my laptop. I would just adjust the volume level of my stereo to one level and that would be it, then continue using just Apple Remote. Somehow it is a bit stupid that if you use the better quality sound connection you can not adjust the volume at all using Apple Remote. Apple has a reputation for making products that are easy to use and which operate flawlessly. I guess Apple Remote is an exception to the rule. Who is sleeping at the design department?

If know how to fix this please drop me a comment.

I can't see you

2011-06-13T16:38:00.000+03:00

Once again a book by Paul Auster has found a way to hands. This time I read Auster's newest novel titled "Invsible". It was first published in 2009. This was the third book by Auster I've read. The other two being "Mr. Vertigo" and "Brooklyn Follies". The links guide you to the blog entries that I wrote about those books.

Auster: Invisible (Photo by the author)

Unsurprisingly the book takes place (where else but) in New York with a French connection. It tells the story of Adam Walker and what happend to him during 1967. Auster is a brilliant story teller no doubt about it. He writes in a way that makes the story flow with ease and unexpected twists and turns are placed perfectly. "Invisible" is a thriller, love story and a growth story all at the same package and it is executed with great precision.

Let it be emphasized, I did enjoy reading this book.

Auster has found the winning formula that goes without saying. When you compare "Brooklyn follies" and "Invisible" I found some points that I find a bit of annoying, mainly because my own world view is compatible with these points and I know Auster has written these points in because he knows people like me enjoy them. This only means that he knows his audience very well. The most prevailing of these points is the intellectual East-Coast university sentiment that is so overwhelming that is hyper analytical and self-concious.

The second point that annoys me is sex and how Auster always needs to put some of it in his. Yes, yes it is part of being human and quite large part. (The fundamental part?) Sometimes it just seems that the sex is there to get a cheap trick to get a reaction. In this book there is a sexual relationship that annoyed me. First I was disgusted. Then I tried to explain why the characters did what they did based on their tragic childhood. After that I wanted to kill myself for trying to explain the thing out. Maybe it just my own problem. Why do I need to analyse everything?

Stargate Universe - it's all over

2011-06-01T16:22:00.000+03:00

It is over now. The Stargate franchise will not have show running in the near future. Poo. Stargate Universe was the unique project that pushed the Stargate franchise to another level. In away it did what it promised, but it did not attract enough audience to get the advertisers to buy commercials.

I did like Stargate Universe right from the get go. The setting was new and exciting and there was different types of characters in the cast which created tensions within the crew. There were also fun story lines like the initial powering up of Destiny, power battle between Rush and Young and the main plot line of Destiny's mission was really exciting. I was not so crazy about the invasion of Lucian Alliance to Destiny and the drones were a bit old. The plot line of Lucian Alliance attacking Destiny tied the series too deeply to the previous Stargate series'. They should've focused more on the new galaxies and find the stories from the new planets and cultures Destiny met or one alternative would have been to explore Destiny's various nooks and crannies. For example, there could have been new technologies that could have created problems or some creatures that would attack the crew.

With it's flaws the show started to get better this season and it is a shame to see it go. However I did like the ending which enables the show to pick up where it left off. That might be sooner than we expect.

Why I like geocaching?

2011-05-30T14:45:00.001+03:00

Last year I bought a phone that had an internal GPS receiver. I decided that I would try geocaching. It sounded like a hobby that I might like. And boy, did I get hooked. In my mind geocaching is the awesomest hobby in the world. Here are a few reasons why:

First of all you get to spend time out doors. No need to spend time in those dusty gyms. Being outdoors also means that you can observe the changes that spring, summer, autumn and winter bring.
You can cheat yourself to do exercise. It is easy to spend couple of hours walking and get a good aerobic work out. If you like you can run while going from cache to cache.
Besides physical exercise, you get also some exercise for those grey brain cells. Some of the geocaches can be tricky to find and you really need to think where the cache is hidden.
Also, if you're a bit childish like me, the idea that you are doing something secretive is really exciting.

More about this very exciting hobby can found at geocaching.com.

Arts&Crafts: HTC Wildfire bikemount

2011-05-09T21:55:00.001+03:00

Time for the first arts and crafts entry in this blog. I'm pretty sure that there won't be many more of these. Anyway, I was searching a way to mount my HTC Wildfire to my mountain bike and was unable to find a solution that was commercially available that would meet my requirements. Of course there are some solutions available, but most of them are expensive, clumsy and look pretty stupid. Then I got this idea of making a bike mount myself. I came up with design that is cheap, sturdy and at least in my opinion looks pretty cool. This design can be adapted for many other types of devices and it is kid of universal bike mount mobile phone/devices. Here is how you can make one yourself:

1 Parts:

What is so great about this bike mount is that you do not need that many parts. There is only two parts that you need to buy. Firstly you need to buy this mount from DealExtreme. It costs 8$/6€, so it's very cheap and the shipping is free. Then you just get a silicone case that fits your phone. I don't have any recommendations where you should or could buy the case. It shouldn't be hard to find.

In total the parts should cost you less than 20$/15€ so this bike mount won't blow any ones budget.

2 Putting the mount together:

First thing you need to do is to remove the screw that is on the Fotopro Flip Motion Mount. Basically what you need to do is to cut a bit of rubber from the other end of the hole. This allows you to take the screw out. There is a little notch at the other end of the hole that was used to put screw in, be sure to cut from that end.

Secondly, you need to cut holes to the silicone case. You can use the Fotopro mount to mark the places where you make the cuts. I recommend that you use a leather hole puncher to make holes to the ends of the markings and then cut out the rubber in between with a sharp knife. Utility knife should do the trick. The round ends of the holes should prevent the silicone from splitting. You could reinforce the holes with electric tape. Any ideas for reinforcing are welcome.

BAM! And you are done.

Time to slide the velcro straps through the holes and mount it to your bike. Now you can use your mobile phone's navigation features while biking! SWEET.

Since the mount is on the stem it is easy to read and operate your device.

The mount sits pretty nicely on the stem.

If you combine your Android phone with something like WorkSmart Cardio Trainer your phone turns into a fully featured bike computer. Cool.

EDIT: If you decided to build a bike mount using these instructions, please drop me a comment and/or picture of your bike mount.

On networks [Note to self]

2011-04-23T23:52:00.000+03:00

Aah, networking the buzz word of the last ten years that just won't die. I hate networking. It is stupid and a very unpleasant process. Talking to people you do not even like just because you want to be part of their network and expect to gain something from this connection. It reduces human contact to just pursuit of personal benefit. That's not cool.

Anyways the concept of networks and how they operate is a very interesting topic. Recently I saw a documentary about the structure of networks and it was pretty damn interesting. Here are some ideas that I picked from it.

The main point of the documentary was that networks seem to have a few universal rules that they follow. It seems that all the participants of a network are really just a few hops away from each other and that the six degrees of separation is not a myth after all. This pattern can be seen in social networks, electrical networks and even in biological organisms.

Why isn't "six degrees of separation" total myth. Well any network follows a pattern where most of the members of the network only have a few connections. Second point is that, for example, in a social network members usually are connected to the same people, think of your circle of friends, you all know each other. But if one point of a network has a connection to a point far away it can connect two clusters and create new connections within the network. Illustration please:

Social network diagram Source: Wikipedia

Usually these points of network that have connections to far away clusters have connections to other clusters as well. They can be described as being kind of a super cells (or nodes, or hubs) they connect the different clusters together. These super cells can be found in road networks, micro chips and human cells. The fact that clusters start to emerge seems to inevitable in a network. In fact all networks can be described with to attributes high connectivity and clusters There lies the strength and weakness of networks. Removing the major hubs (small nodes do not matter that much) will cause the network to collapse. It also means that, for instance, in the case of social media and networking in general, you want to try and become a hub of connections and it would be a mistake to focus on the people you already know. Only by becoming a hub you can ensure that your message spreads the farthest it can spread. (If that is what you want.)

You can find more information on different networks on Wikipedia.

International reactions to results of Finnish Parliamentary elections 2011

2011-04-18T15:30:00.004+03:00

I am writing this mainly out of my own interest to the topic and as way to record the different reactions, see if there is any consensus on what the reseult means and if there are any differences in the opinions. Maybe this collection of links is useful to other people interested in the topic, as well. I'll keep adding links if I find something interesting.

BBC News:
Nationalist True Finns make gains in Finland vote
Story + short video interview of Timo Soini

Der Spiegel:
Überraschungswahl in Finnland - Revolution der zornigen Männer
Wahlen in Finnland: Rechtspopulisten legen deutlich zu (Video)

Deutsche Welle:
Nationalists enjoy surge in support in Finnish elections

Das Erste:
Überragender Wahlerfolg für Euro-Kritiker in Finnland

France 24:
Eurosceptic gains in Finnish elections spark worries over EU bailouts

Reuters:
Euro zone reels over Finnish vote, Greek struggle
Finnish populist party surge clouds EU bailout
Euro zone woes face new Finnish PM

Svenska Dagbladet:
Ett bubblande missnöje
Stor valframgång för Sannfinländarna

Aftonbladet:
Svenskspråkiga riskerar misshandel i Finland
+ Join the conversation it's freaking hilarious.

NHK World:
Anti-EU bailout party scores gains in Finland vote

Russia Today:
Finns vote for nationalists over EU bailouts row

San Francisco:
Finns vote for nationalists over EU bailouts row

New York Times;
Populist Advance in Finland Could Endanger Bailouts

Some points from the news above and a few own opinions mixed together:

Now it seems that most of the news services are taking a not e on the Euro-scepticism of TrueFinns[TF] (Am I then some sort of figment of imagination as I did not vote for them). Atleast in the BBC story Soini is saying that they are not extremists. He just conveniently forgets that quite a few far right representatives got through to the parliament from TF lists'. Although there is a substantial element of far right inclined people in TF the main reason that lead to TF victory was the disappointment to the traditional parties and their politics. It will quite interesting to how the government will look like in May/June 2011.

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline for Mac

2011-04-14T15:33:00.000+03:00

This is fucking awesome. So last nite I bought Asphalt 6: Adrenaline from Mac's Appstore. I haven't played driving games much, just never been a fan. Most of the games out there are focused on givng a realistic driving experience and that just ain't fun. Why should spend hours on tuning your car or practising the best line to take in a corner. Boring.

Asphalt 6 Adrenaline throws all realism out of the window and replaces it with a ton of arcade driving awesomeness. I seriously got hooked after a few races. The car selection is pretty large: 42 cars. Even though there aren't that many tracks (12) the different racing modes keep the game interesting. At times you can see that the graphics aren't what the latest technologies can do, but for the price that you pay for the game they are pretty good.

So if you are looking for a fun driving game spend your money on this one.

Asphalt 6: Adrenaline on Gameloft's website.

Take a look at the game trailer:

Next post will most likely (again) be about a book.

On nihilism

2011-04-11T16:57:00.001+03:00

This post is about nihilism. A concept that is more or less always misunderstood, or at least the concept is not fully understood. The thoughts presented here are not my own. Everything is based on a book by Kalle Haatanen Ei vois vähempää kiinnostaa (I couldn't care less), in which he explores many aspects related to nihilism and how intertwined it is to our modern society. I wrote this text mainly as a note for myself and as a way to go trough once again the things I read in the book. I have not checked everything so there might be misunderstandings and totally wrong interpretations in the text. Lastly let it be noted that this is the first time I try to write about philosophical topics in English, so my language may be kinda wonky. (It is usually wonky, but now even more.)

The two men who can be said to have developed the way modern philosophy thinks about nihilism are Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. It is important to note that they both were strongly against nihilism. As a side note, let it be said that how Nietzsche became associated with Nazis was that his estate (writings etc.) fell to the hands of his sister Elisabeth who was antisemitist and his husband who was a member of the national socialistic party and quite high in the ranks.

Book cover: (Atena Kustannus Oy)

There two core concepts into which nihilism can be divided into. These are the concept of passive and active nihilism. Passive nihilism can be described as a way of thinking where one submits to just pursuing happiness and small mindedness, everything being relativistic and feeling the weight of sin inside yourself. Nietzsche calls this the life of the last man. The last man no longer feels powerful nor does he have any want for power. He only wishes to have long and secure life. Active nihilism can be described as an attempt to try and restore Truth, Beauty and Greatness to this world. An active nihilist looks at the world and admits holding his head high that the golden era is long gone. He faces nothingness with an aristocratic courage and looks it in straight in the eye and hopes that the world will continue it's internal cyclical dance. An active nihilist says “Yes” to life even though it is diminishing and has no eternal meaning.

On the last pages of the book it is mentioned how nihilism comments analytical philosophy, particularly Wittgenstein's obsession to formulate every sentence in a logical and clearway. The goal being a situation where there are no longer any contradictions. In this world philosophy works like a machine and A=A, always. In the book this conept, by the words of Staley Rosen, is called a longing for silence. World where there is no contradictions or room for imagination and flying.

This short piece of text, misses many fine points made in the book about cultural relativism, misinterpretations of nihilism and comments on many other phenomenons of our time. I did not know that nihilism could open so many new ways for looking at the world. Almost always nihilism is viewed as anti-life way of thinking which could not be further from the truth. What nihilism actually is against are the phenomenons that are anti-life, the things that try and reduce life in to just eating, shitting and having sex.

Mr. Vertigo

2011-04-11T16:13:00.002+03:00

Book cover: Mr. Vertigo

Time to hand in yet another book report. This time it's about Mr. Vertigo a book by Paul Auster that was first published in 1994.

This is the second book written by Auster that i've read. I did not enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed Brooklyn Follies. The story is alright, but there are too man highs and lows in the book. In one way it is understandable since it tells the life story of the main character. Somehow it might have made more sense to focus on just one story arch and develop it further.

Maybe this book is directed to those people who look back at their lives and can see all the phases of their lives, the high points and mistakes. I am not at that stage in my life.

Mr. Vertigo is not a life changing reading experience. That does not mean you should not read it. Mr. Vertigo is book that shows how talented Auster is as a storyteller. Even though the text is not A+ quality it is still better than that of most people. The basic positive and humane tone that is present in the book is Austers trademark and creates a unique atmosphere for the story. That makes taking the flight to the world of roaring 1920's and times of great depression of 1930's worthwhile.

Skiing on lake

2011-04-01T22:13:00.000+03:00

Today I went cross-country skiing. Skiing on the frozen lake Pielinen was probably the best thing I've done the whole spring. I skied 20 km and, get this, it took me only about two and a half hours with a little break at the half way point in Pyhäsaari (it's the big island in the middle of the map). Even though there is not much to do in Joensuu and it is a pretty boring place to live in the feeling you get after you've skied ten kilometres and sit in the sun shine of spring in complete silence in the shore of Pyhäsaari is amazing. You start to think that maybe world isn't such a bad place. I highly recommend this activity to everybody.

Näytä suurempi kartta

On Libya

2011-03-27T21:36:00.000+03:00

My blog is one of those barren wastelands of internet that probably no-one ever visit. Still I would like to you tips were to find information on Libya.

The first website I have been following irregularly is LibyaFeb17. It is a website ran by the activists and the website compiles everything that is happening in the media about the events in Libya. If it ain't on this website you do not need to know it.

Secondly I'd like to promote tweeter from Iran. SaloumehZ tweets frequently and follows the events in Libya very closely. Follow her and you know what is happening at the moment in Libya.

Hope that the bloodshed end soon.

Blood's A Rover

2011-03-27T21:11:00.000+03:00

James Elroy. One of the most respected American crime novelists of our time. I read his book "Blood's A Rover". It came out in 2008. It is book about United States and what happened there in 60's and early 70's. Should it be read as a social commentary. Maybe. Is it one? Probably not.

You won't like the characters in the book. You will hate them and despise them. They aren't nice people. Some of them try to do the right thing at the end but it does not save them. They just have gone too far.

Like in Elroy's previous books the story has many different branches and the fate of characters is intertwined around one key event. This time everyone is after emeralds that were lost during a robbery of an armoured van. There are people searching for the diamonds from left and right.

Even though the violence, drug abuse and the evil things that happen in the book will make you nauseous and dislike the characters there is something captivating in the story and Elroy's story telling. Big reason for that is the style how Elroy mixes real life events and stories from his imagination is something very unique. I almost started to believe that these things really did happen.

Blood's a Rover gives you an opportunity to take trip in to the world of rogue FBI agents, mobsters and leftwingers. Take it if you are ready to watch the evil that lives inside us humans straight in the eye.

Changing to Mac

2011-03-25T22:06:00.000+02:00

At the end of 2010 my old Acer laptop started to show signs of old age. I started to consider my options. I was pretty sure that I did not want to buy a desk top computer. There were couple of very interesting options that were on offer from Sony and Samsung. Both of them were laptops with Core i5 processors and large and fast hard drives. The buz that has been surrounding Apple for the past five years got also to me and made me consider buying a Mac. Unfortunately the pricing of Mac computers has been a bit of putting. Let's face it the hardware in the laptops usually is a bit out dated (that changed with the new generation of MacBook Pros. Still there is something strange with the Macs that lured into buying one. I was pretty lucky to find a two month old base model MacBook Pro for only 870 euros with a neoprene bag (value 40-50 €) and with preinstalled MS Office. The whole package was delivered to me with the same price. So converting to a Mac did not end u being so expensive, at least not for me. I've used a Mac now for about four months and here are some of thoughts about my experiences.

Even though I would not like admit it there is this strange aura around Macs. It just feels so much cooler to use. It is funny how Apple has been able to make devices that do not not represent the latest technology cool. A lot of it is to do with user experience which, I think, is just wonderful. The ease of use and the fact that device just works is wonderful. Also it was not that hard to impress me since my previous laptop was from the 2006.

I usually listen my music from my computer so I really appreciated that the 3,5 mm headphone jack also acts as an optical audio out that connects to my stereos. I also like iPhoto and iTunes works much more smoother than in Windows XP. Before this blog post turns totally into just repeating how wonderful Macbook Pro is as a laptop I think it is better to stop. But before that I want to make just one more point. I think that for most people that are not even so technically oriented as me Mac offers ease of use and stress free computing. Also you will constantly find features that make the use of your computer more easier and just a bit more pleasant. So far the closed nature of Mac's software environment has not caused me any problems and I have been able to install all the programs that I have wanted to. In conclusion, so far my Mac experience has been very positive.

PS. Don't change to Firefox 4 it caused me a lot of problems I had to go back to 3.6.

PPS. Oh, they are starting to sell them iPad twos in my country. Should I get one?

My favourite Android apps

2011-03-25T17:03:00.000+02:00

I've had my HTC Wildfire now for nine months and I would like to share couple of my favourite apps.

Winamp

Winamp for Android

The standard music player that HTC offers is all-right, at first. After awhile you start to notice the limitations of the program. They are mainly on the usability side. The default music player just isn't that agile and easy to use. Particularly changing between the player and library and getting to the track list of a album is a bit difficult

Winamp for Android is makes listening to music more enjoyable. The user interface has some pretty nice features. Like when you are playing an album you just simply swipe down wards and the track list is exposed. Also the search function is very agile. At the newest versions when you swipe left or right you can change the song. Winamp for Android also plays Shoutcast internet radio.

C:geo

C:geo

Oh, this app has brought me so many fun moments during the last six months. Absolutely the best way to search geocaches on a Android device. Not much more to say about this. The program is updated frequently and if you start geocaching you might find a fun new hobby.

AndNav!2

There are a number of software that you can use for navigation in Android and there are also paid version available from TomTom and others. I opted for AndNaz!2 which is free navigation software. You can use maps from many sources like Mapnik and Google Maps. The maps that Mapnik provides are very accurate and detailed. You can download maps directly from Mapnik and save them on your device. Also when you browse maps on AndNav!2 the maps are saved to the device for later. The problem is that the route directions are downloaded from a different service which is bit of a bummer. This means that you always need an internet connection when you want route directions, but if you have an unlimited data plan that shouldn't be problem. For a free navigation software AndNav!2 is great program and is able to fulfil most of your navigation needs.

Frozen Yoghurt

Finally thank god they finally released the 2.2 Froyo update also to Wildfire. It made the device so much better. The device itself feels a bit more responsive but the best thing that came with the 2.2 update were the many small tweaks and corrections made to the GUI and language translation. Like the fact that when you turn the phone while using the camera the controls turn accordingly.

Coco Starts a New

2011-01-07T16:35:00.000+02:00

This blog post has been delayed due to lazyness and work obligations. Now, being unemployed, I have a lot of free time so I can focus on more important things like blogging.

Have you noticed that Conan has started his new show on TBS. Oh, you have. Shit. This is not starting very well.

Anyways here are my thoughts about the new show.

I was totally excited about Conan's new show and had really high expectations. I think so did Conan and his crew, because Conan was visibly nervous during the first couple of shows. After a couple of weeks I think Conan got his act together and was again able to relax infront of the camera.

This new show has proven atleast one thing. The style of comedy that Conan his writers do can not be adapted to suit Tonight Show. There needs to be that edge and sillyness in their comedy. Or maybe, and actually I vote for this option, it is just the fact that the audience of Tonight Show is so much older that they just do not understand Conan's comedy. The comedy in the new show is atleast as good as the in Late Night. And you can see that people doing the show are having fun.

Conan is enjoyable to watch and even the product placements do not bother me that much.

Still:

To Kill A Mocking Bird

2011-01-06T17:12:00.000+02:00

I finished this book already couple of weeks ago, but still I wanted to say a few words about this book.

It is no wonder that "To Kill A Mocking Bird" has its place as one the novels that is mentioned when talking about how the race question in U.S. society has been dealt in literary culture. Yes, eventhough the book is written from a "white" perspective it draws very sharp and clear picture of the double standards in the U.S. justice systems and peoples minds in the 1930s. Of course the whole book is commentary to the situation in 1960s, but still the it draws a vivid picture of Maycomb county.

At times you can feel the warm summer breeze on your face or the floor boards slighty squaking under your feet when you walk accross the kitchen inside Finch's house. The atmosphere and milieu is so well crafted, present all the time and strong with out being pushy. It just lingers there in the background as it should.

The second thing I wanted to say is about the story line. I did not have knowledge about the actual story line before I started the book so the kind of indirect progression of the story with couple of side stories really lead me a stray. I really did not know how the story would end. This is probably the best part of the book.

But what makes this book so great is that is Harper Lee's ability to write in a manner which touches your feeling and with out preaching at the same time.

Moscow, Moscow

2011-01-04T17:56:00.000+02:00

In November my travels took me for the first time to Moscow, the splendid capital of Russian Federation. I was very excited to go since I had a lot of previous experience from visiting and living in St. Petersburg.

St. Basil's Cathedral at night

I was visiting Moscow on a business trip and was staying at one of the best hotels in the city, at least location wise. The hotel I stayed in was the lavish ”Hotel National” on the edge of Kreml and Red Square. The room that was booked for me was the basic room of the hotel but stil it was one the nicest hotels I had ever stayed in. The bed was huge and there was hot tub in the bathroom. Very nice!

The days I had to spend at the exhibition dedicated to higher education. The event itself was pretty pointless but it gave me the opportunity to observe the behaviour of young Muscovites. Somehow I was not able to see anything especially Russian in the young people they seemed like young people in any other European city I have visited.

My free time in Moscow was rather limited. During the day I popped for lunch to ГУМ and then headed back to the exhibition booth. During the evenings I went and tried to explore the area around Kreml. I did not visit any special places I was just very happy to spend the evening walking around in the fresh air after having spent the day in doors. Yes, fresh air. At least I felt that the air in the center of Moscow is much fresher than in St. Petersburg.

Out of the few places I visited I should mention the small church on the edge of Red Square and the shopping center Okhotny Ryad. I light a couple of candles for the memory dead grand parents and observed the evening service for couple of minutes. It was really nice to see something different than the usual turisty stuff. The shopping Okhotny Ryad is massive under ground complex and I almost got lost in it. I had some nice fried chicken at food court down stairs. Fried chicken seems to be one the favorite fast foods all over Russia. Other than food I did buy anything from the shopping center, but if you are in of anything you can get it in Okhotny Ryad. The prices at the New Yorker store did not seem that expensive taking in to account the prices in Germany and the fact that it is the center of Moscow.

What did I eat in Moscow? I must admit that quite a few times visited some fast food place, but I did visit the traditional soviet style restaurant in ГУМ a couple of times. You can get a proper meal there for few hundred roubles but I usually filled my tray with everything. I once tried the boiled cows tongue. All I need to say is that I do not have to try it again. Maybe prepared in different way than just boiled would make tongue a more appticing choice. The last night me and my colloegues visited ёлки-палки another restaurant serving traditional Russian cuisine. It is actually a chain of restaurants but the price quality ratio is very good and at least during the evening you get a discount for choosing the buffet table and beers are not that expensive either.

Corona at Stary Telegraph

I only visited two bars during my stay, I tried to stay a way from the hotel bar since it looked very expensive and a place that might eat your soul after it takes your money. I went to the restaurant on the second floor of Stary Telegraph twice and on the last night I found a nice Irish Pub on a side street near my hotel. It was full of lively conversation and all the people seemed to be on a good mood. After a few beers in the pub I headed to to Stary Telegraph for the second time where I was kindly invited to table of a group people celebrating birthday of Natalia. I had very nice evening with them. For breakfast the next day I had only two glasses of water. =)

My only criticism goes for the Шереметьево airport. It was quite difficult to decide which check in desk to choose since there were no signs to guide which check in desk leads to the gate your flight is leaving from. Yes, in Шереметьево you must choose your desk according to the gate. Ofcourse there were quite good signs in the main lobby but we never went there. So more signs please.

Happy New Year 2011!

2011-01-01T22:40:00.000+02:00

Twentyten was a pretty good year for me. I achieved some things that I never thougth I would do. Also I think it was a year of spritual transformation for me. At the beginning of 2011 I feel much more relaxed and happy than before, still I do have some things to work on.

I am quite excite about the new year. I hope it brings new and exciting things for me and my loved ones.

I did see quite a strange dream last night. At first I was at a medeval town where I was hiding from Death Knights and evil Mages from World of Warcraft. I threw spells on them and was able to defeat couple of them and drive the rest of them away. Oh, and I was wearing this magical cloak (or I did cast spell, can't remember which) that made me invisible.

In the second part of my dream I was flying with Lady Gaga over southern France. I do not why we were doing this. We were looking for the apartments in the top floors of apartment blocks and tried to sneak in. Maybe to have sex. I remember how the sun was shining and the trees were green it was obviously the beginning of summer since the temperature was not that high. Eventually I think me and Lady Gaga found a place we liked and got in. The apartment was on top of a white house and there was a big balcony almost like a veranda. I unfortunately I do not know what happend next.

Hopefully this was some sort of a premonition of what will happen to me during 2011.

Conan on TBS

2010-11-06T00:00:00.000+02:00

Oh yeah. Conan's new show is starting on TBS on the 8th of November. Definately going to watch. I do not want to forget to watch the first show. That is why I added the counter.

BTW. Still getting lot of hits because of the blogs I wrote about Conan earlier. That's cool.

Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France

2010-10-30T13:43:00.001+03:00

Nantes, Pays de la Loire, France

My work travels took me to Nantes in the latter half of September. It was very nice there.

Fuck this turned out to be a very short post. =D

Ps. I honestly don’t have anything else to say about this topic. Here are some pics.

Paul Auster: Brooklyn Follies

2010-10-30T13:18:00.001+03:00

Paul Auster: Brooklyn Follies

Picture from Wikipedia

Brooklyn Follies ended up in my bookshelf after a sale at the local bookstore. If my memory serves me correctly it was three paper backs for 10€, so I got quite a good deal.

Brooklyn follies is a book Paul Auster first published in 2005. Mr. Auster is well known writer in the United States and probably he is well known among European book worms. Paul Auster first made is big break in the 80’s with his New York trilogy.

Back to Brooklyn. The book starts with section where divorced cancer patient, Nathan Glass, is looking for a place where to wait for death. Of course it would be a very short book if this would be the only story arc in the book. The events in the book start to roll out bit by bit and at the end of the book the lives of the characters have gone through a total transformation. But I won’t tell you if it takes turn for the positive or not.

The language in the book is very light and enjoyable to read without being simplistic. It feels like this book had been quite easy to write for Mr. Auster. There couple of things that annoy me in the book. Firstly in some place the book unnecessarily underlines the liberal east coast attitude and thinking, like in the section where one of the characters (Nate or Tom can’t remember which) thinks about the events in Kosovo. Secondly the ending is a bit dull, maybe in 2005 it was still effective way to end a book, but somehow as time has passed the world did not end in September 2001. Yes the events created lot of suffering and problems but I think we now have other problems to solve. Book could have more universal appeal if it was not so tightly knitted to turn of the century USA. As a snap shot of its time the book is however very good.

By no means is “Brooklyn Follies” a bad book. Auster is able to paint a picture of Brooklyn that this believable and very likeable. The themes the book handles are something that many of have felt during our lives and continue to feel. Brooklyn follies is a very light book and not that intellectual, but it will definitely touch you emotionally and tells you something how we should live our lives.

BeBook model "One"

2010-09-30T23:12:00.001+03:00

There was story on the local paper that my local library lends out e-book readers. I immediately thought this is something worth checking out. So I went there got one. The library lends out model “One” made by Bebook, which I guess is a manufacturer from Holland. Here are some of my thoughts about the reader.

BeBook "One"

First of all I was quite delighted that I did not need to buy any books in order to try this gadget. You can download thousands of free books from BeBook’s webpages. Most of the books have been digitized under the project Gutenberg and they are in pdf-format. The selection of books covers quite a big range of languages and I was able to find some interesting books also in my mother tongue. I ended up reading two and half books. I read two classical novels and half from a book that explains the universal esoteric meaning of Kalevala and how it discusses the same themes as all other religions of the world. It ended up being such bologny that I could not finish the book.

The first thing you notice is how light the device is how similar the weight compared to a real notebook. The buttons are placed so that you can choose pretty freely so how you hold the device. You can change page holding the device only with one hand and you can do this with both left and right hand.

The e-ink display of model “One” was still quite pleasant to read even though technology in it is already two years old. The 6 inch screen gives you very book like feeling. It is fun to notice that reading a screen does not need to put stress on your eyes. This something were e-ink technology is far superior compared to the lcd-screens found on tablet computers. You were also able to zoom the text and rotate the text around on the screen.

Then a few words of the user interface of model “One”. The basic operations are quite easy to execute. You just push the number on the keyboard that corresponds to the title/action on the screen. The system is not that advanced but it works reasonably well. The user interface of devices that have a touch screen is far superior to the system found on model “One” and would be very nice to see e-ink screen with touch sensors it would be so much easier to just point at what you want.

The device has the ability to show pictures and play mp3s but I found these features a bit poorly implemented. I put some pictures on a SD card thought that the device would be able to resize and turn them the right way. I guess not. There seems to be a lot of limitations on what kind of pictures this device can show and at what resolution. The mp3-player worked out just fine but the usability was not very high. You are better of using another device for listening to music.

In conclusion I would say that using BeBooks model “One” is a positive experience and I never would have thought how easy it was to adjust reading books of a screen. This really made a believer in e-book readers.

Still I would not rely completely on e-books, because batteries do not last forever. What happens if you do not any power to charge your device? Also traditional books rarely brake down.

You can find more information about BeBook from their webpages.

Do You Know Hurley?

2010-09-30T22:47:00.001+03:00

Hurley -Weezer

It is the one with face of that fat guy from “Lost” on the cover. Yes, that is Hurley, the new album by my favorite band Weezer. This band got me through high school with out too much damage.

I did not know that Weezer was releasing any material this autumn. I think I got the news maybe as late as beginning of September that the album will be released on the 14^th. So two weeks ago when I was in France I picked the album up from a local record store and used it as soundtrack when I was wandering around Nantes.

That’s enough about that. What about the album itself? Is it any good and how does it compare to Raditude and Weezer's previous albums?

Well on the first listening you notice that the album rolls (and rocks) very smoothly. The track list is maybe not entirely “all killer, no filler” but there are no really weak songs and there every song could be a single. Actually the first single from the album “Memories”, compared to the other songs on the album, is not the best song on the album. One, I guess strange, feeling I got listening this album for the first time was that you do not need listen to it second time for you to start liking it. You do not have wait for it to grow on you.

Let’s admit it Maladroit, Make Believe and Red Album were not the best albums. Yes, there were good songs on those albums but something just was missing. Weezer started to experiment new styles on the Red Album and finally I think they have found what they have been looking for. The overall mood of the album is focused and relaxed. The songs, to me, reflect the mind of person who has had a done a lot of fighting with oneself and now is on clearer waters and has found some sort of a balance. Maybe this is more about my own experience the past few years I project to the songs.

What are the songs you should check out from this album? I think at the moment my favorite tracks are “Ruling Me”, “Unspoken” and “Hang On”. These are also the songs you should also give listen. There are two bonus songs on the album that are definitely worth a listen (or two). First one is the wonderfully hilarious, but still a song with meaning, “All My Friends Are Insects”, the second one is the cover of Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida”, which has violins and bells ringing in the back ground.

I am happy to see Weezer put out such a good album. They have moved on and have a new voice and style of doing music that has some familiar elements from the past but also a lot of new attitude and ideas to keep you interested.

Track list:

1. Memories

2. Ruling Me

3. Trainwrecks

4. Unspoken

5. Where’s My Sex?

6. Run Away

7. Hang On

8. Smart Girls

9. Brave New World

10. Time Flies

11. All My Friends Are Insects

12. Viva La Vida

13. I Want To Be Somebody

14. Represent (Rocked Out Mix)

I want to leave you with track from the album. This one is "Unspoken".

HTC Wildfire

2010-09-30T22:29:00.001+03:00

I’d been thinking about buying a smart phone for long time, but never saw that spending 500 euros for a smart phone was worth it. I had been interested about getting a HTC phone, I almost bought the Legend, but not until the Wildfire came out I decide to part from my money. Having used the phone a month I would say that you get quite a good and solid phone considering price.

I have been quite impressed with the navigation applications that you can install on Wildfire. I have been frequently using AndNav2 and c:geo. AndNav2 for storing maps and routes and c:geo for searching geocaches. Both of these are free.

My Wildfire is running Android 2.1 and it performs reasonably well. I’ve had quite a few crashes, but the system recovers quite fast and so far there have not been any major issues. The software is not as good as the Apples operating systems, but considering the price of the device it is acceptable. I must say I am waiting for the the 2.2 update of Android which should come also to Wildfire. However I am a bit sceptical when it arrives. The update should have arrived Q3, but now it seems I may have to wait a little longer. In some discussions there have been statements that it may not come at all.

Android Market offers a range of apps and games for you to download but the amount of programs is not as great as in iTunes. There is another catch that rises from the hardware of Wildfire. Wildfire is not equipped with very fast processor and therefore not everything that is on offer on Android Market is on offer to the Wildfire. So if you are looking for serious gaming or other applications that require the processor to pack little more punch then the Wildfire isn’t the phone for you.

If you are on a budget and looking for a Android phone I could recommend Wildfire to you. The phone does not have that WOW factor iPhone or Ipod Touch had back in the day but it is a solid device and should serve you well for couple of years.

Funny or Not?

2010-08-15T01:35:00.000+03:00

A few weeks ago I bought the new book by Hugleikur Dagsson, a comic artist from Iceland who makes comics with extremely dark humor. Almost always the jokes test the limits of good taste. You check out what I am talking about at dagsson.com. The jokes on the front page are of the not-so-offending-kind, but you will get the idea. The book I bought is called in Icelandic "Okkur 4". In Finnish the book is called, freely translate to English, "Laugh Pervert, Laugh".

Now to the content of the book. I thought that nothing would shake me and I would think most of the jokes would be hilarious. But I was wrong. Of course one thing that the author wants to do is to test the limits of your humour, I do understand that much. Still some of the jokes were just too brutal and there was no joke or twist in them. And there are quite a few of those in the book.

Second thing is that it seem that this kind of humour works only in small servings at a time. Reading the whole book at once is just too much. My favourite joke in the book is the one were wife farts and the husband says "our marriage is over". =)

After reading this book I felt immensely disgusted and amused at the same time. Which I think is what the author is aiming for. If you want to laugh and wonder who writes this kind of immoral shit I recommend that you read Okkur 4.

Do you have Bols?

2010-08-15T01:07:00.000+03:00

I was in Amsterdam in June on a work trip and I bought a bottle of Corenwyn from Schiphol on my way back. I finally managed to crack open the bottle tonight and here are my thoughts about the this Dutch spirit.

This is what Wikipedia has to say about jenevers in general:

Jenever (also known as junever, genievre, genever, jeniever, peket or in the English-speaking world as Holland gin or Dutch gin), is the juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands, from which gin evolved. Believed to have been invented by a Dutch chemist and alchemist named Sylvius de Bouve,it was first sold as a medicine in the late 16th century. In the 17th century it became more popular for its flavor. Traditional jenever is still very popular in the Netherlands and Belgium. European Union regulations specify that only liquor made in these two countries, two French provinces and two German federal states can use the name jenever. Source: Wikipedia: Jenever.

Okay, now that we have our facts it is time to go to how this fire brew tastes like. At first the smell of juniper is quite pleasant. *EDIT* There is also hint of yeast in smell. However after the first sip you realize that the taste of Corenwyn is quite strong and you can really taste the juniper. The after taste leaves a nutty taste in your mouth. For a spirit the taste is very agreeable and nice. I really like this stuff. This time I drank Corenwyn raw, but some time I must try mixing it with tonic water. Plus the bottle made from clay looks really cool.

Devilishly good album

2010-07-25T00:48:00.000+03:00

Okay, okay, "Get behind me Satan" isn't the newest album, hell it isn't even the newest album by White Stripes, but it is the one that I am listening at the moment.

Previously I had almost ignored The White Stripes and did think that they weren't even that good.Somehow this summer I really started digging "Blue Orchid" and it's great guitar sounds. I was quite surprised how much there is variation on this album. There great rock sounds. The drumming is awesome. The strange country wibe in some of the songs is incredible. You won't get bored listeninh to this album.

I definitely want to recommend that you go listen to in Spotify.


The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan

New type of living

2010-07-24T23:45:00.000+03:00

Maybe a month ago I saw a document about Michael Reynolds.Garbage Warrior made in UK in 2007 is document about Micheal and his life.

I think I have heard about Mr.Reynolds and his "Earthships" at least once before. These earthships are experimental houses that Mr. Reynolds has been building already for many decades. His goal is to make houses that are made out things that people throw away (e.g. car tyres, bottles etc.). The houses are designed so that they would leave the smallest possible impact on nature and that the houses would be as far as possible self-sufficient when it comes to heating, electricity and water.

The documentary showed that sometimes the rules that we have made to protect ourselves inhibit truly innovative people to try new things. This really bothered me since here is no question about it that we need to develop housing that uses less electricity and natural resources.

In my home country industrial production of low-energy and so-called passive houses is about to start in larger scale and that is quite positive sign. Even though these houses consume significantly less or even no energy the downside is that they rely heavily on technology provided by the society. There is nothing wrong with organised society, but sometimes things go wrong you cannot rely on society to provide utilities. That's why I think Reynolds gets it right. Let's make our housing self-sufficient and ecological.

I think what Michael and his team are trying to do is achievable. At the moment he is building his houses in New Mexico (and I guess also in Georgia) what know about the climate in New Mexico is that it is not the most hospitable. So it should possible to develop these houses so that they work also in places were conditions are less harsh. I just wonder if these houses work in places like Finland where temperature difference during the year can be 70 degrees celsius?

Anyways I was really impressed and inspired by the documentary and if I ever get possibility to visit one of these Earthships I will definately do it. Check earthship.com for more details. The houses look really cool.

My thoughts on social media

2010-07-02T15:36:00.000+03:00

This week I participated to a training course that gave an overview on how to use social media in marketing. The course was reasonably interesting and I must say that I now know a bit more about how to utilize tools like Facebook and LinkedIn in marketing.

One lecture on the course handled the future. The lecturer presented a vision where social media and networks will penetrate to every field of our life. Let?s say that you are walking in the city center and would like to find a restaurant. You take your mobile phone from your pocket and it can recommend to you restaurants based on the places you have visited before, what your friends have recommended and so. The phone could give you the menu an how to get to the restaurant, maybe even make a table reservation and if your friends happen to be in near the phone may suggest that you ask them to join for dinner. This sort of services would apply everywhere and to everything. Computing would be ubiquitous.

For me this kind of vision sounds a bit pointless is the problem that is being solved with computing being everywhere all the time really that big. What is wrong with not knowing where you are, why don?t you want to explore new cities. What this ubiquitous computing becomes a straight jacket that instead of making us explore and try new things keeps us always in our comfort zone. I think that the best part of living is not knowing what becomes happens next, trying new things and challenging yourself every day. If people become so accustomed to being surrounded by technology that advises them in every situation, we might soon be living in world that Isaac Asimov drew up in his book ?Caves Of Steel?.

One crucial point of network is that it brings benefit to the participants. How does the situation change if network becomes too large and it is difficult to assess if someone is getting things without contributing anything. I also wonder that is it possible that the actual first signs no longer are seen in social media, but instead the first signs of trends will be seen in the IRL social networks of early adopters of new trends. What I mean that if when some new trend appears in social media it is already everywhere and known by everybody it becomes quite impossible to try and benefit from this emerging trend.

What happens when people do not want to share or wish to limit the network among which they wish to share information? Will we see new barriers and borders being raised so that people will able to protect their networks? Last week I read that the World Economic Forum has started an social media service for its participants. The service is called WELCOM and the participants of the service are 5000 of the most influential people in the world. Of course these people can not (but should they?) talk openly about what they think about where the world is going, so it is quite understandable that a service like WELCOM has been created.

Social media undoubtedly brings with it also good things. It will be easier to tell about new ideas and opportunities to the right people straight away. The rippling effect of your message may reach a lot more people than a normal marketing message and it will also be more accurate. There is also a great possibility to react to customer responses more efficiently and to develop your goods and services according what customers think.

I predict that the next phase in the evolution of social media will have something to do with assessing if this matters to you personally. The professionals, I believe, speak of semantic web.

Making Innovations

2010-05-26T15:42:00.002+03:00

As I wrote in my previous blog posting I am participating to the 1st EU-Russia Innovation Forum in Lappeenranta, Finland. I want to stress that I am total dilettante in the field if someone does not notice that from the things I have written to this blog.

Somehow these seminars are a bit idiotic, because there is a room full of people just yapping (or few are yapping) about things that have no potential in creating these innovations ie. the supposed goal of the seminar. Also it may be harmful to have these seminars because there is a danger that thinking about these things unifies and thus making the appearance of new innovations difficult. I believe it is crucial that there is diversification in thinking patterns and practices, that enables the creation new ideas and practices. Somehow I agree with the CEO of Technopolis Mr. Keith Silverang that governments are the problem not the solution in these innovation matters, but on the other hand governments have the ability to build circumstances that are needed for innovative society, I mean education and equal opportunities for all to develop their own abilities to full potential. In this respect there are grounds for organizing these sort of events: it is good that the government, business people and universities think together how to create the best circumstances for new innovations to appear and how process them so that they became viable options to better our society.

This brings us to the second thing is it possible to make innovations grow. I think that the answer is yes and no. Yes, it is possible to promote the appearance of so called small innovations i.e. the development of telecommunications and types of new services. Is it possible to promote the appearance of big, world changing innovations? For that you, naturally, need time, money (a lot) and talented people. They will not appear, because of some 5-year government program. For that you need enough resources in the basic structure that support innovation starting from social security, basic education and universities that supports all and has the possibility to give enough challenge to these special individuals to realize their interest. Of course there is also this point that maybe there should not be any support that these extra ordinary people will find their way, what ever the circumstances are.

Every child should have the feeling that the world is open to them. Some doors will of course close, but the ability to succeed should be open to all. To create this feeling every child should receive the best education possible. The content of the education should be as wide as possible. It should support their ability to understand the big picture and their basic education should include ability understand many different subject areas and the ability to think, to categorize, to argue, to induct, to exchange views, to weigh different possibilities and make a decision based on the facts. Also they should high values and moral. I think this is one of the most important things. In addition the concept of success should not be too narrow, because then we may lose innovations that are not in the fields of business and economy.

I think the focus should be on the big world changing innovations rather than innovations create quick profits and business.

This writing is all quite general and a bit high flying but this is how I feel. This is what long day at a seminar and one Guinness does to you.

Ps. If you are looking for Irish pub in Lappeenranta go to Old Cock. (hahaa) Happy hour 12.00-18.00 Guinness/Kilkenny/ Kozel/Fosters etc. 3.20€

Seminar Blues

2010-05-26T15:42:00.001+03:00

I am participating to a seminar in Lappeeranta, 1st Eu-Russia Innovation Forum. The purpose of the forum's purpose is to discuss the innovation cooperation of the two parties from different perspectives.

Previously I haven't participated to such an seminar and it has been quite an enlightening experience and here some remarks I've made during the seminar:

1. The same things seem to be repeated in many speeches.

It just shows how important it is to support the status quo or create rapport or show that you know the basic things of the subject area. Also disagreeing is something that does not exists in these events or maybe in the corridor discussion and discussions during the evening dinner.

2. You should know why you are there

Why go if you do not have a clear target. It is a bit embarrassing to talk to people when you do not have a clear target to present to them.

3. Going as an outsider

Social aspect

It is quite painful to just walk around and look as other people group and meet the old acquaintances and chat around. People seem to know exactly are you in or out. I've seen couple of other young people that walk around and obviously they do not have a clue why they are there.

Outside of the subject area

The topic of the seminar is something that is totally unknown to me. I have no previous knowledge of how innovation is supported and promoted by universities, businesses and governments. First of all the jargon related, especially the different program and policy names, is quite a jungle to navigate. Also not knowing anything makes the lectures and speeches quite irrelevant.

As a closing comment I'd like to say that this seminar has left me with two kinds of feelings. Firstly it has been a great opportunity to meet new people and familiarize with subject area that has previously been unknown to me. Secondly I think that for me this seminar was a bit unnecessary and I had nothing to give or ability to take use of the opportunities at the seminar.

Is True Blood softcore porn?

2010-03-16T21:47:00.000+02:00

True Blood started in my country a couple of weeks ago. Now I've seen three episodes of the first season and at first I was quite impressed. The show is well written and the setting in Louisiana creates a great atmosphere for the show.

The first two episodes were great, but in third one started to feel like that the show is sucking up the viewer a bit too much. I think there is too much sexual and violent content shown in True Blood. What I mean is that maybe it would be more interesting that sexual tension and threat of violence would be present all the time instead of ultra violence and explicit sexuality being shown all the time. But I must admit that showing Sookie touching herself (I hate euphemisms, I meant to masturbating) is quite brave and something that you don't see everyday on TV.

But still the the show is extremely good. I just hope that the show wouldn't be so obvious and graphic. It makes this excellent show look pretentious. It seems that the writers are trying to write a show that would have wide appeal among young men and women. I think that less is more would be better in this case. On the other hand showing all the violence, sex and drug use gives a touch of reality to the show.

Anyhow I like the show. The southern wibe in the show is just something that makes True Blood stand out from the crowd and there are also some interesting social issues that are being discussed in the show, all be it it is a bit fake, but still fun ideas.

Is True Blood soft core porn? Well I must say that it is, but it is still entertaining to watch.

No more silent mornings

2010-03-11T08:19:00.001+02:00

Now it's official, spring is here. How did I notice you might ask. Well let me tell you.

This morning when I was standing on the bus stop I noticed two things. Firstly my balls were not freezing. That means that the temperature is not -20 Celsius any more, more like -5 or under which is quite bearable. Secondly you can hear birds singing in the trees and they are now longer just singing little beeps, like they do in the winter, but instead you can hear actual exchange of song.

Spring is finally here. GREAT.

PS.

Actually the first thing you notice every morning is the fact that it is light when you wake up. The light part of the day is almost 11 hours long and getting longer. Wonder when we get over twelve.

The Ricky Gervais Show aka mumbling about things that aren't actually even funny -show

2010-03-08T21:24:00.002+02:00

The other night I watched The Ricky Gervais Show, which is the animated version of his weekly(?) radio show that he does with couple of his friends. In the show they discuss topics that are somehow actual, but usually they just talk about something that Karl Pilkington thought about during the week.

Pilkingtons opinions and theories are supposed to be funny, but I never seem to see anything original or amusing in his views on various issues. The show mostly consists of mumbling and Gervais' fake laughter which in my mind does not make a funny TV show.

At least the episode I watched did not make good television. Maybe the show works in the radio but the animated TV version totally sucks. Somehow there is no dynamic in the sketches they do and the animation is rubbish. In short the show lacks punch lines. Yes, yes I understand that it is possible to make comedy with out punch lines, but the stories in the show just are not funny, they don't make laugh.

Maybe these guys just did not understand why their show originally started in the radio. I'll give you a hint. It is the opposite of funny.

Cross-Country Skiing

2010-03-06T16:58:00.000+02:00

It is perfect weather for cross-country skiing. Go now. That is what I did today. I skiied 8,5 km.

Caprica

2010-01-29T21:35:00.000+02:00

Last weekend I watched the pilot of Caprica and boy what a pilot it was. Although the pilot was released in the spring 2009 I only remembered that this spin-off form Battlestar Galactica was starting when saw it in the TV listings.

The opening sequence from the holoclub really catches your attention and first few moments of the pilot start to build an interesting story line that you really want to follow. The characters feel real, none of them are super heroes, but instead all the characters are some how flawed, have their weaknesses and live a life were they have to break the rules in order to survive.

The theme of morals and ethics is big part of Caprica. The show will also deal with what it means to human and what is the line between human and a machine. These two topics will give the story line a great support and content that makes the series go beyond the usual battle of good and evil.

I found the pilot of Caprica all in all a very positive experience. The storyline was good and there was enough scifi for me in the pilot. Actually it was kinda nice that the scifi side of the pilot was not that overwhelming. There was enough material in the pilot to fill out the first season of some other scifi show.

Anyhow pilot was interesting enough to get me hooked and I'm really looking forward what will happen in Caprica during the rest of the season.

Winter is kinda nice

2010-01-25T15:31:00.001+02:00

I took some fotos today. Some of them were decent enough to be posted on my blog. It is incredibly chilly outside. Temperature (or lack of it) has been around -20 Celsius for about a week now. The freeze has decorated trees with frost which makes going out worth while.

I'm With Coco

2010-01-19T16:15:00.000+02:00

I just noticed that the blog entry I wrote in June about Conan O'Brien and his new show has received a lot of hits from the United States during the last week or so. Cool.

Eventhough this argument between NBC and Conan (which is an under statement) has caused a lot of sleepless nights for many people, it has produced a lot of great comedy. The shows have been extremely funny and entertaining and it seems that the writers are not holding back anything.

Anywho the situation for Team Coco looks kinda bleak, at least if you believe the various stories on the media that this Friday would be the last show for Conan as the host for Tonight Show.

I still do not expect Conan to be sacked after this week. I am sure that this episode will make the show more interesting and launch the Tonight Show back to the top of ratings.

Join "I'm With Coco"-group in Facebook today and show your support.

Seasick Steve - I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left

2010-01-18T21:10:00.000+02:00

I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left. Isn't that the coolest statement ever? Well that is what Seasick Steve tells you on the first track of his 2008 album.

Steve plays blues. And he knows how to play blues. He does not just play the notes at the right time, the music flows in a way that shows that this guy did not start yesterday. Technically the songs aren't that complicated, but it takes talent to get the right sound and groove in to the songs.

There are no big high points on the album. However the songs form a nice entity that you want to listen from start to finish. The songs do not vary that much in style and actually that is not what you would expect, but the there is enough variance in the songs so that you do not get bored.

Steve's music uniquely rooty (is that a word?) and offers you a great listening experience. Seasick Steve plays the blues with talent and right attitude. No doubt.

More info on the man and his music can be found at his home pages

Seasick Steve - I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left

2010-01-11T22:05:00.000+02:00

I bought today Seasick Steve's album "I started out with nothing and I still got most of it left". Stay tuned for a review.

(Yeah, the album is old, but is new for me.)

Someone has ran out of ideas

2010-01-11T21:22:00.002+02:00

So I went to store the other day and spotted a really disturbing chocolate product. And it made me think that someone has really ran out of ideas in the product development department of this company.

This is what the product looks like:

The product is called Sucklaa, which comes from the words suklaa (that is chocolate in Finnish) and the word suck. Thus this product is chocolate that you can suck. I find that very disturbing. Also it says on the bag as a some sort of a marketing phrase "Suck it yourself". Again something I find disturbing.

Who wants to suck chocolate from a aluminium bag. Squeezing the back gives equally repulsive impression.

This sucks, totally.

Plans for the future

2010-01-07T02:59:00.001+02:00

It is again that time of the year. It's time to reflect on the past year. Check the balance of the year and all that shit. Did you achieve your goals and were the things you did positive or negative. What would you like from the next year. How would you like to develop as a person. All this is crap that does not have any meaning. Things will go as they go and I do not think we have much control over our lives. We just drive on autopilot guided by our sub conciousness. But still we need the illusion of being in control.

Anyhow there are couple of things I'd like see happen this year.

I'd like be less tired than the previous year. (13h work days and 2 jobs tend to get to you)
Find something to study or work place or both
Become a bit nicer person
Lead a healthier life
Blog more

Yep, no I've done everything I say I hate and do not believe in. Sweet.

Bono is a boner

2010-01-05T09:33:00.001+02:00

I just read at the news that Bono has written in his blog at the New York Times that ISPs have to stop internet users from illegally downloading content from the internet. Yes I agree, illegal downloads are a problem and probably something should be done about it, but what this douche tells us as an example of good restricting of illegal internet traffic is China (along with the US anti-child porn campaign, which is totally the right thing to do, but probably not that effective).

What the hell is this guy thinking! China of all countries has the least free internet and the basic right for free expression of opinion is severely limited. We should not give any praise for this violation of basic human rights.

Does Bono mean that we should also turn our internet like it is going to be in Belarus, that each and every internet user needs to register in order to to be able to access the internet.

These restrictions to internet traffic that Bono is suggesting are like giving your little finger to the devil and if we start going down that road we will be living in our own Democratic Peoples Republic.

Internet has it's problems but lets not even talk about restricting it like in China.

Avatar

2009-12-30T00:06:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I went to the movies to see Avatar and boy was it good. The movie was totally awesome amazing. It really felt like that Pandora and it's ecosystem was real. All the weird animals and plants were really something different.

I was so happy that the movie did not explain too much. It just gave you the story and did not resort on explaining every little detail about the technology and why people acted the way they did.

Granted the story is not that revolutionary, but it makes many good points that we as humans should be thinking every once in a while.

The 3-D effects were not that impressive but I think they were a great supplement in creating a great setting for a great movie. I guess that how you should use 3-D effects, as supplement, not as the main attraction.

I must say that I really liked this movie. At one point I was really feeling bad for the na'vi and was a bit teary eyed for a moment. Go and see this extremely beatiful movie.

What Do You Think About Raditude?

2009-11-17T10:02:00.000+02:00

Weezer released its new album a couple of weeks ago. It is called Raditude. It has a really stupid cover and it is their seventh album. At the moment I kinda have mixed feelings about the album. I am not sure if it is totally awesome or the most mediocre album in the world.

The album statrs with one of the most catchy tunes I have heard lately. Somehow "(If you're wondering) I want you to" sounded like the best song ever when I first heard it. The next two songs do not have anything that important to say. The mood in them is quite alright and when you are listening the album they do not catch your attention in any particular way. They are fillers.

The fourth song is "Can't Stop Partying" featuring Little Wayne and it is something we have not heard from Weezer. The song is very trippy, but somehow very cool. The next song is a bit traditional Weezer song with really emo lyrics. The song flows nicely and has nice rising intensity. There just is no reason to start inventing the wheel once again.

Songs from six to ten are not as good as songs from one to five, but they are still quite ok and that is probably the problem since there are four truly brilliant songs in the album. Out of the last five songs I'd like rise up "Let It All Hang Out", it has a killer guitar intro. The album ends with slower song "I Don't Want To Let You Go".

As fan of Weezer I liked "Raditude" quite a bit, but I do not think the album is such an great listening experience to those who have never listened to Weezer. When you listen to the objectively it lacks some coherence. The flow from song to song good be better. Clearly the quality of the material is not that even, but at least the mood in the songs is similar or what I mean they form a unified album.

If you are not a Weezer fan "Raditude" probably does not offer you anything special, but as a fan I would go even as far as saying that this album is way better than their previous album or "Make Believe" ('05).

Songs you should check out:

"(If You're Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To"
"Can't Stop Partying" (featuring Lil Wayne)
"Put Me Back Together"
"Let It All Hang Out"

New Raditude!

2009-11-04T15:22:00.000+02:00

They called me from the record shop. Raditude is here. Will post my opinion after I have listened it for couple of days.

We are living exciting times!

Muse

2009-10-26T14:35:00.000+02:00

I bought the new album by Muse the other day and I like it. I've never cared for progressive music are complicated moledies. So as the songs on the new album are much poppier and straight forward than on the previous albums it makes it much more easy to approach the Muse's new album. Some songs even sound like Queen (U.S.E.A.) which is not a bad thing. The album is a very tight package and songs flow quite nicely.

Me like Muse.

Name Your Poison

2009-10-09T22:21:00.000+03:00

Because it is Friday I'd like to give a tip on what to drink. Couple of weeks ago I felt like I was about to get ill, my throat was sore and I had no energy. Everyone knows that you can try and stop the early signs of flu by drinking some hot drink with alcohol (rum), so I went and bought a bottle of Rhum Pecoul. After two cups tea with healthy pours of Rhum Pecoul and good night sleep I felt a lot better. So I highly recommend this for anyone who feels that they might have caught a cold.

My recipe for mixing Rhum Pecoul was the following:

- hot water
- tea bag
- sugar
- 5 - 10 cl Rhum Pecoul (according to taste)(don't go over 1 dl, this stuff is really potent stuff, 54%)

Mix this all together and enjoy!

One more chance for Bloc Party?

2009-09-29T13:34:00.000+03:00

I have been quite a big fan of Bloc Party for the past few years. Their album "Weekend in the City" was my sound track for 2007 and I still listen some songs from the album quite frequently.

I noticed the new single "One More Chance" in the beginning of September on YouTube went to iTunes and downloaded it straight away.

The song starts with keyboard riff that could (maybe it is) be from any 90s pop song. Somehow it brings to mind Rick Astley. The rest of the song is pretty much the basic Bloc Party quality. Song is quite catchy and you can hear that it is not made by with no musical talent but still it does not make you listen to it again and again like Flux when it first came out.

Even though I am a big fan of Bloc Party, I must say that I am afraid they might have showed us everything they've got give. The fourth album must be something completely different and awesome for me to give one more chance to Bloc Party.

Bastards

2009-09-14T13:34:00.000+03:00

So on Saturday I went to see "Inglorious Bastards". I really liked the movie and do not understand why some people are whining that it is not as brilliant as some other movies by Mr. T. Of course it is not as good as his best work. This movie does not try to be a very meaningful or revolutionary movie. It is just simply a very entertaining adventure movie with really good characters.

My favorite was Colonel Hans Landa, he was the true bastard in this movie. Also I must mention Diane Krüger as Bridget von Hammersmark. She was like reincarnation of movie star from the 1940's and extremely attractive. However I do not think Brad Pitt's performance was all that great or worth mentioning. He did a solid role but there is no reason to call it especially good.

The movie also flipped the role of Jews to the role of the mass murderer. Just proves that mass murder is mass murder irregardless of the party that actually does it. Actually all of the characters were not particularly likeable. Everyone seemed to be bastard of some sort and definitely everyone was killer.

But in some situations turning the other cheek just is not enough.

PS.

Crap. Now I started to search for meaning in this film, which it really does not have. If you really like a good adventure film with ambiance from the 1940's, go see this film.

New Weezer rocks!

2009-09-08T08:46:00.000+03:00

Have you heard the new single by Weezer? It's freaking awesome. Go and listen it here.

This song just makes me feel that it is 2001 again when first heard Hash Pipe. Of course Weezer was not to me in 2001, but somehow I they just went vanished after 1994. I guess for a nine year old anything that does not play on MTV does not exist. Maybe the situation is still the same.

Listening to Weezer (and Clash, and many others) was my coping strategy through High School. Weezers melancholic songs about people that were not on the main stream seamed to comfort me and kept me going.

I really hope the new album is as good as the new single. If I remember correctly the album is out October 27th. What I know for sure that it is called Raditude.

Give me freedom.

2009-08-20T10:25:00.000+03:00

If someone would ask me right now to go for trip around the world, I'd go in a heartbeat it. I'm just so sick of it all. All the pressure and sheet load of work I should be doing.

Even though there probably is no absolute freedom, I'd be really happy with being free to choose the shit I have to do everyday. Now I can't even choose. I wish I could just snap my fingers make it all go away or have button in watch that would put time in pause mode so that I could breath for a while.

In the end there is only one way to get out of this big pile of dung. Pick up the pitchfork and shoveling.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

2009-08-10T12:50:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I went to the movies to check out the new Harry Potter movie. I'm not big Potter fan, I haven't read the books and I've never watched the first film from start to finish. The bits that I've seen of the first film I've always regarded as bit childish and not that exciting (story about bunch of 12-year-old kids, childish?. How can that be. I don't understand).

The Half Blood Prince surprised me positively. It was way more sinister and scarier than I thought. Malfoy was great character, somehow he represented to me the outcasts of the school world. I could not help having impressions of these school shooters while watching Malfoy.

Even tough the movie was scary it also managed to be funny and heartwarming at the same time. Seeing Hermione and Ron squirming around waiting for the other to take the initiative to tell about s/he feels, was quite entertaining. Also the other small side plots were quite alright.

The movie in its entirety was totally perfect. I felt some trouble on the flow of the film. Some how all the events did not tie into each other seamlessly. Anyways the movie was so good that I may go and see the next Potter movie to be out in 2010.

Things to do

2009-08-04T12:19:00.000+03:00

For a week or two I have been dreaming about January. I've been having this very vivid impression of me in Vienna, alone of course, on clear and freezing winter day. I am carrying a newspaper and I'm going into a cafe. I see images of frozen trees in parks and the magnificent old buildings that Vienna has abundantly as I walk leisurely on the streets of a capital of bygone empire.

I dream of hot cup of coffee and croissant. I read the news paper. As the day starts to turn to evening I start to walk into my hotel. The sky is red and the cold wind bites into my nose. Somehow I could not feel any happier.

I must go there.

Year One

2009-07-30T00:04:00.000+03:00

If you are in a mood for watching a really lowbrow, but funny movie, I really recommend that you go and see Year One starring Jack Black and Michael Cera.

I went today to see the movie and was constantly cracking up. Somehow this movie just hit me in the laugh nerve. I had to hold the laughs back a bit because I noticed that other movie goers did not sem to think that the humor was that fun. Maybe the others did not get all the jokes or then I am bit weird.

Eventhough the humor is really stupid the movie has a great positive vibe. There is also level in the movie that makes fun about religions and human nature. This probably gives the movie some depth and thus making Year One pretty darn fun and quite watcheable movie.

Complaints and grievances epidsode 2056

2009-07-23T13:55:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I changed a hard drive for the first time in to a tabletop computer. It is remarkeably easy to change a hard drive, you just pop out some connectors and loosen a few screws, put it all back together again and your done.

booting the computer is also very easy and installing XP on your computer fairly simple. After the xp installation you start to face the problems. One thing I do not understand why does not xp show, as a default, when it is downloading new updates. If you know anything about computers you normally will head straight to Windows Update after you have installed XP. However going to Windows Update will result to a situation where your computer is downloading updates simultaneously from two different channels, since the automatic update tool is doing the same thing at the same time.

This is infuriating because it has, again, resulted in to situation where my freshly installed XP is completely stuck and I do not know how to make the update work so that I would KNOW WAHT IS HAPPENING.

Please Microsoft, add a feature to your next OS that enables users to see in real time what kind of updates OS is downloading.

***EDIT***

I just want to add how I solved the updating problem. The XP version I was trying to update was XP SP1 and the OS was not able to update itself over Windows Update after installation. After several attempts trying to update over internet I did the following. After installation I only registered XP over the net and then pulled the ethernet wire off from computer then I just installed the latest SP3 to the computer. Do NOT try to install SP2 it fucks up the OS too, atleast that is my experience. After installing SP3 I was able to turn on the automatic updates on and update XP over internet.

Case solved.

First whisper

2009-07-15T11:03:00.000+03:00

Somehow you start to hear it whispering around mid July. The first whispers are so low that your barely even notice them. You see it in the colors and around midnight when you should already be sleeping. Birds fly more anxiously, they sing differently than in spring. Then you realise what the silent whisper is trying to say...

It autumn whispering ... I'm coming.

Isaac Asimov and Audiobooks

2009-07-06T23:41:00.000+03:00

Today at work I started to listen Isaac Asimovs "The Caves of Steel " on my ipod. Now I've listened about one third of the whole book and I must say that Asimov was genius as observer the human society and making remarks about the current situation and trends that drive this world but he was also a talented writer. Somehow his text flows freely without being shallow. There really is some deep shit in those books. (In this context "shit" is not meant to be understood as literally as shit, but as representation of well thought out observations about humans as a society and individuals). I do not understand how he can explore the relation of artificial vs. natural intelligence, different approaches organising human society and depicting the life of human individuals in such realistic fashion in only one book, and do that in the most wonderful way.

I've all ready read the three Foundation novels and did enjoy them tremendously. Asimov does not seem to ever fail my expectations.

P.S.

Do you think that 10 degrees centigrate is a proper temperature for summer? I don't. It sux.

Summer Memories

2009-06-30T22:35:00.000+03:00

Bicycle wheels on rolling on tarmac. Sun is high up there in the sky and air feels warm and thick and feels like it is sticking to your skin. All around you hear birds and your nose is bombarded with sweet smell of summer flowers. It is the best time of the year.

There is just something magical in summer. Particularly the early mornings. Somehow nature just seems to on overdrive after the winter. Also you tend to notice that the world really does not need us humans to survive. We should not be that selfish. We should appriciate this world more.

Go out there and stop for a moment. Try and feel the colors and the beat of nature. It will change you.

The Tonight Show with Conan "Coco" O'Brien

2009-06-21T00:35:00.000+03:00

Now that Conan's new show has been runnig for couple of weeks and I've seen more than one show I want to share with you what I think about The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien.

First of all I was really excited about the new show and my expectations were really high. However I knew that the new show would not have as much of the dark humor and dirty jokes as LNWCO that I grew up with. The first couple of shows were clearly not that funny. They were trying to do a more cleaner version of Late Night but it was not working. Sometimes I felt that they were trying to replace the dirty jokes with just being silly and that is what they ended up with, something silly that was not at all funny.

I think that the show has been working a bit better for the last five shows mainly because they have brought back the same kind of comedy as in Late Night. The show will propably loose some of its older viewers but what can you do. Interview with William Shatner was the same kind of over the top humor as in Late Night and it was one the first times since the new show started airing that I have been really laughing.

But still I think there are lot of things they need to improve. The monologue is too long and the stupid pre-filmed jokes they show are not that funny. I also hate the Twitter Tracker bit, its totally brainddead joke. I do not see what part of it should be considered funny. I just hope that the show starts to feel more real. Now it looks like all the jokes are written in advance and have been approved by the network executives.

Anyhow I hope all the best for Conan's show and that they get their act together.

Rotten Apple.

2009-06-16T23:39:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I faced a terrible crisis. I dropped my ipod touch on the floor. I picked my ipod from the floor and started to check that nothing got broken. Luckily nothing got seriously damaged however the home button seemed, at first, to be totally shot. I started to pushing the button and tried to fix it with various methods. Nothing worked.

In slight state of panic I started to browse the net for some instructions for how to fix the problem and found lot of people with same problem. So at this point it seemed that Apple can not equip ipod touch with two buttons that would last more than a year in normal use.

After I had rebooted my ipod to its factory settings and the home button still was not working I was pretty sure I would need to part ways with my dear ipod. Then I thought that maybe the button and it its contact surfaces were full of dust and decided to blow some air in and around the button. This meant that I gave my ipod its first "kiss". This was the only way to get enough air pressure to blow out all the dust under the home button. (yes, yes, i could have bought a can of pressurised air)

And hey presto , after blowing the dust out my home button was working normally once again. Well normally is a bit too much, the button still has some problems, but it works most of the time.

Anyway I felt like a genius for the rest of the day. And I did not have to spend 299€ getting a new ipod touch.

Philosophy of actively doing nothing

2009-06-15T11:21:00.000+03:00

For the past month i've been in situation where I have not been able to do anything since the communication in place where I work has completely broken down. Therefore I have had to seek ways to spend eight hours a day by actively doing nothing. It is harder than you think. Usually you have read all the news by 9.30 and then you have to resort into playing online games.

You might ask why don't you try and fix things in your working place. The answer is that my status and position in the power hierarchy does not allow me to that. I would just have to step on too big toes.

It just shows when there is no communication(atleast I do not notice it or happens through unofficial channels) between the leaders and subordinates the goals of the organisation get blurred and causes waste of resources in the organisation.

Okay. Enough of me complaining. I'm of to spend another day doing nothing.