Buying a camera

As you may have gathered, I bought a new camera. It works splendidly.

However, when I started pondering about buying one, it occured to me that I know very little about what's important in a good camera, about how to read the statistics, what to look for or even how much do the cameras cost. Here's a short list of things I found useful.

The digicameras can be roughly divided into three categories; the very cheap ones (from €50 to €120 or so) the small pocket-cameras (from €150 to €400 or so) and more professional models, with changeable lenses and so on (from €400 upward).
This is not very clearcut. Imporant factor in the size-question is how the camera is powered; rechargeable batteries or a lithium cell. The latter are smaller. This is a question of preference; smaller cameras fit easier to pockets but on the other hand, bigger cameras are easier to take a good grip of and have more space for buttons.

The things you should know about the camera are;

• how well does it photograph in less than optimum lightning conditions
• how easy it is to switch the settings for these
• how sensitive the lenses are to light (apparently most even little more expensive cameras claim to go from ISO 64 to all the way to ISO 3000 or more, but in essence, in the two first categories anything over ISO 400 looked bad and pixely)
  
• how well does it replicate the colours
• how fast does it power up and how long does it take to save the picture after taking one (before you can take the next)
• how long does it take between pushing the shutter and the shutter actually opening (my mobile reaches whopping 2 seconds!)
  
• what's the exposition-time (too long causes blurry pictures as hand shakes) and
  
• does the camera compensate for shakiness, and if so, how

I used web reviews to compensate for my lack of knowledge. If you are pondering between two particular models, make sure you use the same website for both models. Otherwise there's a distinct possibility that the reviewers are writing for different audiences.

My favourite website is C|net. My impression of the site has been (with cameras as well as with mobiles) that they aren't happy with anything. Long reviews that seem to be - so I feel - written with the mentality that the product is crappy and the reviewer's mission is to find exactly how. I failed to find a camera that got a grade higher than 8 out of 10. Of course, I'm under the impression that reaching 7,5 grades for "very good". You can see how such attitude would be welcome.
I used some less critical websites to balance C|net. If you just read the site in question, you will easily forget that you aren't buying the camera to go shooting in the Mariana Trench.

I myself settled on Fujifilm FinePix F50fd. C|net says; "the camera is sluggish between shots, shows minor noise even at its lowest ISO, and doesn't include a full-manual exposure mode".
C|net recommended different cameras, but that happened to be most along the lines of my budget, needs and the store's inventory. As you may have gathered from the picture I posted earlier, I'm very happy with it.

Netscape is finally dead

The unquestioned king of browsers in the 90s has finally come to it's end; AOL is announcing that it shall no longer support the browser.

In mid90s, Netscape had nearly 80% marketshare and it was bundled with Windows till version 98.

After Windows 98 (when Microsoft only packaged Internet Explorer with the OS) the market share started to fall. People didn't really care what browser they used, just as long as it worked.
It didn't help that Internet Explorer wasn't standards compliant, and as soon as it's market share got to around 50% they announced their own modifications to the HTML-template, which Netscape for understandable reasons didn't support.
The end-result was that Netscape's browser showed some of the pages incorrectly. Thus we got those "Designed for Internet Explorer" buttons of the late 90s, and to the steady drop of userbase (in the diagram on the right, taken from Wikipedia).

In -99 Netscape was bought by AOL, after which the development of the browser was given to the newly-created Mozilla Foundation. Netscape still published a new browser more or less every other year, but it was just reskinned, skimmed Mozilla (without popup-killers etc.).

I used Netscape products loyally to around early 2002 or so, when a friend of mine introduced me to Opera. At that point, I was really disgusted with Netscape, and only the fact that I wanted to have total control over my surfing experience (I didn't have my own computer andthe rest of my family used IE) stopped me from jumping the ship.

I was kind of surprised to learn that after Netscape 6 (which was the last version I used) they still produced new numbers, going as far as to release Netscape 9 last October (being actually just Mozilla Firefox 2 with a new skin and few extensions).

But all in all, it used to be a king, and a king needs a proper burial.

Rest in peace.

Maps of Europe

Here's a link to several maps of Europe. It's coloured accoarding to interesting tidbits of information, such as the hair colour, eye colour, legal drinking age or when it's legal to have abortion.

Tells something about the differences between the European states.

Doctor Who Christmas-story

Daily Telegraph has a three-page long Doctor Who Christmas-story, which you can read even if you know absolutely nothing about Doctor Who.

A man's head was sticking out of the chimney, looking at him upside-down. The man's face was covered in soot, he didn't have a beard, and his hair was very untidy. His glasses had nearly slipped off his nose. "Ah," he said, "Now. This is not what it looks like."

Tom went over and peered at him. "Are you a burglar?" he said.

"Okay. Right. This is not either of the two things it looks like. I'm -"

He looked suddenly horrified, then with a great blast of soot he fell out into the fireplace, and rolled to his feet. He was in what might have been a very fashionable suit if you were what Mum called a bit of a waster.

It's very good. Do read it. Link.

The new camera just paid itself

One of the best pics I have ever taken. Helsinki around 16:00, but I'm sure the JPG itself has more detailed numbers. I haven't edited the colours. At all.

Isn't this depressing.

This is from Deus Ex, a computer game about dystopian future, made in 2000;And this is from Chicago Police Department, about seven years later;

Depressing, isn't it? If I just saw those texts without logos, I couldn't tell which was a game and which was reality.

Neuros OSD Media Center

Entry in the company wiki.

I'm going to buy this. As soon as I'll get a telly (which I'm going to do inside the next two months).

It records, plays, understands and browses everything, starting from USB-sticks with no DRM. It's basically a small computer made to be used with a TV.

It costs in ThinkGeek store (with shipping from USA) about €160. Plus tax.

[ this is my first "wishlist" tag, which will probably see some heavy use in the near future]

EDIT: no HDTV support, so it seems I have to wait for the next model.

Some random photos

I bought a new camera. It's smaller and capable of bigger images (up to 12 Megapixels (or 4000x3000) with sharper lines. Here are some photos I took in the train and metro this morning (around 8:00-8:30). As well as few photos from the metrostation during evening. I hope to get some photos of the long stairs to the metro - they are fairly impressive..


Also: hoping to get better handle of the camera yet. As much as I liked the photos, I think I could do better - I got some fairly sharp ones at home but the ones I took outside (albeit quite fast as I didn't want to disturb people) got a bit blurry.

Reviews.

Published something at kvaak.fi. Check if you can read Finnish.

Also: I finally get to write something to Sarja-info, something I have been hoping and treading for two years now!

Walking away from church

Today, I finally did something I had been pondering for five years or so.

I filed my resignation papers from church today (handily done via online-form. Thanks modern age!) and started thinking about the repercussions. Nothing too serious, but let me walk you through;

The things that have mostly kept me in this long were (1.) the idea that I believed in something, (2.) that church did Samaritan work both in Finland and abroad and (3.) that I wanted to upkeep the church buildings themselves as historical artefacts.

In turn, the biggest reason why I filed the papers was the (1.) sobering realization that I don't need outside-confirmation for my beliefs. I can read comics without belonging to Comics Society (but I belong anyway, because I enjoy the company and the perks); similarly I can choose to believe in things without belonging to Believing Society. I'm not using the perks and services that come with the membership, so why should I pay for them? Particularly as the membership is something 15 times more than in Comics Society.
Other reasons (less important) include the fact that (2.) while church does Samaritan work, this work consists of only 10,6% of the yearly budget. For every ten euros I pour in, only one goes to help other people. I could better use my money to give it to some other organisation(s), that only have one objective instead of several dozen.
I'm also not comfortable with the fact that (3.) while some of the the priests are very comfortable with the society we live in (as I have doubtlessly mentioned in the past) some are not. This particularly goes for the higher hierarchies and the northern provinces of the country.
Every time I hear about a priest refusing to work in the same church as another priest - because the another priest happens to be a she - I get a bit uneasy.
The final reason was missionary work. Thinking that I pay for something that sends people to Amazon, Africa etc. to talk about God and thus is a direct reason for vanishing nature religions tens of thousands of years old is just wrong. Even though I know it isn't what it was a century or or (perish the thought) millenium ago.


But here I am. Now I have to think where to give money - Red Cross? Some organisation that works against mental illnesses? It used to be so easy, just giving church money.. of course, explaining my belonging to church just because of its convenient nature (and with 90% of my money going to somewhere else) is not morally right either.

Shame about the buildings thought.

The picture is taken from Wikipedia, attributed to Creative Commons and can be found here.

Linux, here I come!

One of the biggest reasons why my laptop isn't running linux is that I use it to make video calls. Linux has notoriously bad trackrecord for video (or audio)-conversations. Even commercial applications with Linux-ports usually lack video-support.

Well, no longer.

Thank you Skype!

Well... just great...

I wanted to comment on a MSN blog, so I had to enter my Live id (there was no Anon or non-certified alternatives) and a minute after posting, this appeared on my mailbox.

1. "Windows Live Spaces" - horrible name, isn't it? For one thing, the branding thing - this really doesn't have anything to do with the operating system, now does it? At least I hope it doesn't. Vista is such a clusterfuck (beg your pardon) that I wouldn't wager either way.
"Live" - what?
"Spaces" - seeing as how they keep saying "my space", "your space" etc, "my page" was probably copyrighted or something. Anyway, this seems artificial way of trying to create a new word.

2. "Now it's time to have fun with you space" -- what?!

3. "Express yourself". How about with a finger? Stop sending me spam everytime I comment on someone's blog... I'm sorry, space.

4. "Connect and share anywhere.." - is this even grammatically correct?

Journeyman

This show must have one of the best themes ever.



I love the way the guitar seems to be trying to break away from a loop, eventually successing.
The visuals are also great; they really bring out San Fransisco as a mythical place, where everything is possible. I really love stuff like that; a right picture taken at a right time is greater than life itself, and more real than the original ever were.

That's why I love photography; it's from around us, but magically when you take the picture, it becomes an artefact of more magical reality.

Another sunset

Hey, remember this? It was taken at 23 -- this is around 1530 at Lauttasaari. I didn't have anything to hold the camera on, and the exposure rate is terrible (around two seconds) for pictures in bad lightning. Also, it doesn't capture the light that well, so I have to adjust them afterward on the computer.

Sigh.

I hope to buy a new one sometime in the very near future. I just have very little knowledge what's important in a great camera. Obviously the amount of pixels is not the only important thing.. ability to take damage would also be important, as I carry it in my backpack. As is the ability to capture light in different conditions. But can somebody help put this up in numbers? Maybe recommend a good camera?


Lauttasaari about 23 hours earlier.

News not broadcasted

One of the more annoying things about our times is that interesting and important are not the same thing, in news.

Which brings me to the list of most important stories of the past year or so gone unreported. I choose to believe this is not because of some conspiracy, they have just fallen through the cracks. The page doesn't really have any nutshell-versions (maybe they think everything is important?), so I thought to write them and give some comments if I can - those would be in italics.
The stories are really American centric, and I can't help but feel that there are more important stories untold in the old world. I don't even understand why some of them are important. Writing this took several hours and afterwards it occurs to me that I could have just concentrated on the ones important to *me*.

#1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person”
Anyone judged to be an enemy of the state - even US Citizen - may be hold infinitely without questioning or chance to prove innocence, thanks to new law by Bush. Apparently the media at large has been reporting this as "even though this is possible, it will never be applied on USA citizens".
I know I should probably be more interested and/or outraged, but I can't help but think what makes US citizens "better" or less dangerous than one having a passport from Finland, Britai or Egypt. Dangerous people - or one viewed as such - is dangerous no matter where he hails. That being said, I think this law should never have been passed in the first place. It invites abuse.

#2 Bush Moves Toward Martial Law
Bush has the right to station military anywhere in USA without say from local authorities or governor.
Again, I should be interested but all I can see is material for the eventual "I told you so!" when the coup d'etat happens. And I'm not really sure it will.

# 3 AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources
"...Oil companies and the Pentagon are attempting to link these resistance groups to international terror networks in order to legitimize the use of the US military to “stabilize” these areas and secure the energy flow. No evidence has been found however to link the Niger Delta resistance groups to international terror networks or jihadists...."
I don't really see the bad thing here. Sure, it's not exactly moral, but nobody wins if the regions stay unstable and lots of people lose their lifes. In the past countries trying to do good there have given up quite easily. Long term agenda might be just what the doctor ordered. USA trying to push their own forces in the area long term might stabilize and democratize.
It seems that far too often the African liberation movements are just new dictators and one-party systems waiting to happen. But maybe this is just me and "white man's burden" talking.

# 4 Frenzy of Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements
USA and EU are making trade agreements with developing countries which leave the partner in very bad position financially, leading all the way to slave labour.
Can't really say anything to this. I suppose that as a citizen of EU I'm part of the problem here, but... well... It would be nice if things were a bit more fair. These things are written and signed in cabinets and situations that don't really have that much to do with democracy..

#5 Human Traffic Builds US Embassy in Iraq
The US Embassy in Iraq was built with slave labour.
No comment. This would be like shooting fish in the barrel.

#6 Operation FALCON Raids
I don't really understand anything about this. I think it has something to do with USA becoming a police state.

#7 Behind Blackwater Inc.
This was largely old news. Blackwater is led by a right wing Christian-supremacist, it's the largest mercenary organisation in the world and makes big campaign contributions to Republics. It's also expanding its operations inside USA itself, and has lots of support from people in places of power.
I'm not sure if all this was in the article, but I find the topic interesting and have done some of my own reading.

#8 KIA: The US Neoliberal Invasion of India
In a pact between USA and India, India has given its whole farm sector insecure for American take-overs.

#9 Privatization of America’s Infrastructure
The states sell roads to private companies, who then make profit with tolls and lobby the states not to build any new roads that might be in competition.

# 10 Vulture Funds Threaten Poor Nations’ Debt Relief
Apparently loans taken by poor nations that would otherwise be forgiven are bought by vulture funds, which then go on rob the little money the states have left.
In other words, taking even the ash from the fireplace, after everything else has gone. Thus far, this is the story that shocked me the most.

# 11 The Scam of “Reconstruction” in Afghanistan
Most of the money sent to Afghanistan never gets to it's destination. Of all the aid from USA, maybe 14 cents of every dollar end up where it's supposed to, other circling back to corrupt politicians or corporations in America.
These help-projects never seem to work. They always crash and burn, for one reason or another. Doesn't mean we shouldn't keep on pushing.

# 12 Another Massacre in Haiti by UN Troops
"Eyewitness testimony confirms indiscriminate killings by UN forces in Haiti’s Cité Soleil community on December 22, 2006, reportedly as collective punishment against the community for a massive demonstration of Lavalas supporters in which about ten thousand people rallied for the return of President Aristide in clear condemnation of the foreign military occupation of their country. According to residents, UN forces attacked their neighborhood in the early morning, killing more than thirty people, including women and children. Footage taken by Haiti Information Project (HIP) videographers shows unarmed civilians dying as they tell of extensive gunfire from UN peacekeeping forces (MINUSTAH)..."
That was the gist of it. Doesn't really have anything as far as punishments go. It's just hanging there. Unbelievable.

Journalism and Civil Society in Haiti: The Acceptable and The Unacceptable
Lots of corruption, scandals etc. In Haiti, this time from the rulers, and nobody in USA or EU is giving a damn.
This story could have used a nutshell. Apparently they are just quoting news-pieces that aren't repeated otherwise.

# 13 Immigrant Roundups to Gain Cheap Labor for US Corporate Giants
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) flooded Mexico full of subsided American food products, leaving the Mexican farmers who can't compete seeking badly paying and dangerous jobs in other industries (at USA), rolling the clock back hundred years in the factories. The visas on which they arrive make sure they stay second-class citizens.

I'm pretty sure similar things happen with EU and Africa (with the difference that Africans aren't in fact employed somewhere else). I don't really understand why it's so important to grow sugar in Finland (apparently the farmers in Finland are earning in general €5 (NOT a good wage) per hour thanks to subsidies, of which €3 is government money). Same thing goes, of course, for France. Who cares where the wheat comes, as long as it's baked near? It's important to keep us somewhat non-dependant of foreign nations, but some of the subsidies are just vanity, and a money hole, besides.

# 14 Impunity for US War Criminals
Thanks to last-minute change in the language of one particular law in USA, torturers and their bosses are now safe from law if the deed was done after November 1997. So long as they stay at USA, they don't have to concern themselves with war crime-charges.
Meanwhile, some human rights groups brought these charges against Rumsfield while he visited Paris recently. The France law makes it mandatory to research the charges, but chances are that nothing will happen because it would sour the relationships to USA.

# 15 Toxic Exposure Can Be Transmitted to Future Generations on a “Second Genetic Code”
This is just what it sounds like. You are not just endangering your own health, but possibly the health of your descendants to Nth generation. This is not just about living next door to nuclear power plant, but also about all those untested chemicals we have ingested or lived with (or our parents, grandparents lived with).

#16 No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11
The guy is still wanted by FBI et al, but not because of WTC. Apparently they never found anything to connect him there, expect, obviously, the tapes he made.

# 17 Drinking Water Contaminated by Military and Corporations
While there are laws against this sort of things, apparently they aren't enforced and the waters are in awful condition. 40% of American water is unsafe for fishing or swimming.

# 18 Mexico’s Stolen Election
In short; American government and companies broke repeatedly Mexican laws about presidentian elections to get the "right man" to the big seat. When the research on the elections was finished, most Mexican TV-stations refused to broadcast the findings.
Apparently this has all to do with the fact that in Mexico the president is in control of energy resources, such as oil fields.

# 19 People’s Movement Challenges Neoliberal Agenda
Apparently countries in Central and South America are walking out of World Bank and IMF who try to rule the way the countries do business (and are very powerful tools of influence). The World Bank is traditionally led by an American, and IMF by an European, even though in theory the whole world has a say in the subject.
I'm a bit unsure about this topic. Every time I read "agenda", my tinfoil-sense starts tingling. That being said, World Bank has done some really poor moves lately, and I can't fault the nations wanting more independence in these areas. I do wonder can they do better on their own, under populist politicians than under trained economists?

# 20 Terror Act Against Animal Activists
In gist; they apply terror-laws on areas where they were not planned to be used, because they are more convenient to the law-enforcers. Another example of USA turning into a police state.
In addition to animal right activists, similar strategy has been used against street gangs in NYC, at least.

# 21 US Seeks WTO Immunity for Illegal Farm Payments
Basically, against problems rised by #13. The WTO agreement is going really badly, mostly because all negation-sides are blaming each other of illegal subsidies. Because each nation/federation/conferedation (or whatever EU is) handles these things differently, they can try to forbid them from the other sides while keeping them themselves. Of course this doesn't really fly with the others, causing the negotiations crash and burn time after time.
Which arguably is a good thing.

# 22 North Invades Mexico
After all the anti-immigration speeches in USA, it is Americans who plan to retire to Mexico to spend their pensions. In warmer climate, where dollar streches farther. The article is mostly about double-standards.

# 23 Feinstein’s Conflict of Interest in Iraq
Some American congress-woman voted for billion-dollar contracts to company owned by her husband.

# 24 Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President
Apparently the president of Iran didn't say “Israel must be wiped off the map", but "regime occupying Jerusalem must come down”, apparently meaning the Israeli government policies, not the nation as a whole. The whole thing was a translation error, which hasn't stopped the wrong translation being circulated in the media and hostilities from the side of USA government.
The piece also talks about the Iran president's open letter from May 2006, where he asked for open talks from clean table, without past history. The letter was disregarded because Bush was still doing pretty well in Irak and thought he might be able to attack Iran sometime soon.

# 25 Who Will Profit from Native Energy?
Many Indian reserves in America are situated so that they can be harvested for wind, natural gas, oil energy. Lots of talk about what aspects should be developed and companies finding convenient loops in laws to exploit. I didn't really understand this story.

Facebook

Little over month ago I promised I might write about this.

Beginnings
I have been an Facebook user for six, eight weeks now. I don't really remember why I originally joined; probably it was just a moment's fancy. I did comment on MySpace. And, in case you happen to have forgotten, I disliked it immensely. So maybe I wanted to do similar piece on Facebook; this is entirely inside the realm of possibility.

I did get an invite months ago, but as it ended up being one of those accidentally sent ones - Facebook asks if it can sent an invite to everyone on your address book - I didn't join and even complained to the sender that you shouldn't allow companies to endorse their products on your name. And if you believe in a product, you should believe in the product enough to write your own endorsement, invitation... and not just use the default one.
Never trust an default invite. It's probably fake or accidentally sent. If you ever find one from me, I didn't send it voluntarily. But I digress.

Background
The first thing I learned about Facebook, nearly a year ago was this; in Iraq, the privates use MySpace... and the officers Facebook. In civilian life, MySpace is used by the young, the alternative crowd.. in other words, people who value experimentation, "their own terms" over standards or "the way found best". I don't particularly like this definition, as it leaves me in the non-alternative crowd - a demographic I'd rather not belong to.
Where MySpace is known for its individuality, customization - with very poor tools, as mentioned - Facebook in turn believes in standards. MySpace has flashy colours; Facebook has some blue on white. MySpace handles the whole page as a single entity; Facebook uses java to arrange the information and layout (inside assigned grid, with limitations) so whatever you do with your profile, it looks at least semi-professional. And while Facebook doesn't allow you to change your background colour, add music or bling.. what it does allow to do is far easier to do than anything on MySpace. All in all, I would say the difference is that of the personal homepages of last century to a profile on a company page - this is not a perfect analogue, but gets pretty close.

What is it good for?
There are several ways to handle your profile, I suppose. I hear that many IT-professionals use it to create contact networks for viral advertising and job prospects, some use it to play some sort of minigames with each other (I saw rock-paper-scissors in one profile).. I mainly use it to stay in contact with my friends, keep track of interesting events and so on.
On longer term, it's also excellent for contact information. You can enter your contact names, phone numbers, home addresses.. and then limit who will see it. Therefore, I can allow my "true friends" to see all the above information, but my "friendsters" only one email and instant messenger-id. The rest will have to be satisfied to my name, mugshot and location.
It's very handy if you happen to need to send a postcard, lose your phone or format your computer... or need a reminder when the birthdays are coming up (I, at least, can never remember those). But daily? I see what my friends are up to, share photos I have taken and paste recommended pages to other profiles. Small things that say that I remember you, you are still my friend even if we haven't met lately due to distance or time constraints.

In the end
But all in all, I find Facebook to answer a need I didn't know I had (aren't the best innovations like that, really?). I have used several networking sites (starting with IRC-Galleria and MySpace) and they often work only vanity-pages - look at my face! Look where I am! Facebook (while nodding to the mentioned things) has the focus on actually contacting other people and keeping touch.

It does what MySpace does, in the same way as business suits and jogging clothes are both basically there to keep you from being naked - but there is a difference, now isn't there?

Photos from Espoonlahti

Went with mum and sis to Espoonlahti to walk today. In case you don't know, it's at south-Espoo, next to sea. When we came, sun was still up, by the end the sun was setting. I tweaked the photos a bit to give them the colours that didn't properly copy themselves to the film [memory card?].

Click on the photo to view them all (six, this one included).

The Sea During Winter

This photo is four years old. I was working as "research assistant" in Tapiola, a district in Espoo. From there it was about five kilometres to Lauttasaari [Ferry Island] where my grandmother lived. I walked there few times after work, and once took the photo while crossing the bridge.

It is quite amusing that now, nearly half decade later I find this on my hard drive, when I'm nearly on the same situation again; pondering about future. Then I had just graduated from High School and was weighting the options where to continue my studies (just stopping there didn't really occur to me) and what army would be like (next summer).

As far as I can recall, that is Espoo on the right and Sea on the left. Hundred years ago, you could just walk to Tallinn from here; now the Ice Breakers that keep the waterways open make this impossible.

Buffy Season 8: Long Way Home

Buffy Season 8: Long Way Home (#1-#4)
Script: Josh Whedon
Pencils: Georges Jeanty
Inks: Andy Owens
Colors: Dave Stewart
Letters: Richard Starkings & Comicraft's Jimmy

I just finished this. And I have only one thing to say; wow.

Before I start to talk about the comic, a brief monologue on the background should be in order; Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired seven seasons from 1997 to 2003, created a spin-off Angel which ran five seasons till 2004. Apparently TV-film about yet another character would be currently in production and come out sometime next year.
The show was ground-breaking in many ways; and to this day many of the more popular shows use plot-points and characters created here; Veronica Mars and Chloe Sullivan (Smallville) come readily to mind.

Background
The premise is pretty simple; the world is full of evil things, and vampires are pretty much the low end as far as the threats go. Slayer - always a female - who is armed with super strength, damage resistance and combat skills was created to keep humanity safe. When she falls (usually only after few years), a new Slayer awakens somewhere to continue the mission.

The TV-Show
Buffy is the Slayer. During the TV-series she and her friends went thru the education system (high school, university), had few relationships, tried to find their place in the world,, grew to be adults and finally got things working pretty well for them; at least as well as things can go when people around you die more or less frequently.
The thing that made the series great was in showing how mundane supernatural is when you are forced to live in the middle of it year after year. Even the demons have bars and have to sleep and get money somehow. And it might not be very good idea to go to the graveyard during night-time. Oh, and a looming apocalypse more or less annually, usually around May. Better leave the calendar open.

The Comic
It has been few years since the season seven ended. And as Buffy notes, the problem with changing the world is that once you do it... the world is all different. You have more responsibility, and there is nobody to tell you how things should be done. Because everything is new. The book has a nice balance between returning to the characters of the TV-show and telling how they are doing after we last saw them. And even as we follow combat training and assault to military installation, there is still time to catch on how the characters personal lifes have been going, why Lando Calrissian's outfit bode bad for the future (Ewoks!) and wonder who in the cast was harbouring true, unrequired love towards Buffy..


The goodness
If you didn't guess, I'm a huge fan of Buffy (and I don't use that word lightly), so I was a bit unsure how to aproach the comic. On the other hand, it doesn't have the facial expressions, background music or other techniques available in television, and on the other there also aren't any budget limitations for what you can and can't show.
And then there's the one limitation I was most worried off; 40 minutes of TV every week isn't the same as 22 pages of paper once a month. On top of it all I was quite worried about the deconstruction; the style of the later years to tell as little though text as possible to give more space for the art. The books look amazing, but you also read them in five minutes. This isn't the case here; text fills the space, confident that it's needed. And when a truly shocking sight comes up, it is given the space necessary. But all in all, the pages are used very economically, with only few boxes carrying minutes of conversation.
And speaking of the art; there's a certain amount of talent required to make the characters look like the actors that once did the roles, without making the art look stiff and unnatural. Save few panels with Andrew (above), the artist has avoided this in an excellent manner. Good old-school art with realistic yet simple style; no photorealism and no manga, both of which would probably ill-suit the series.

All in all; Buffy is back. With new direction and without the limitations that seemed to strangle the show sometimes during the later seasons. I confidentially wait for the new issues and the TPB's; the first one should come out in just few days.

I'll be waiting for it at the door.

I had forgotten I had taken this...

"Happiness"

Taken at Loch Lommond, during late May. I'm so satisfied with it that I actually gave it a name.

I wish that will be me in 40 odd years.

About religion

Boing Boing-post that shows the unbelievable stupidity of humanity. On the comments there is this line, the reason I wrote this post;

But why is it so hard for people to accept that maybe, just maybe, the people who compiled the Bible and told stories over six thousand years ago were possibly trying to just figure it out, just like we are today?

It is attributed to AndrewJC, who is the author of post #19. This pretty much sums my views on religion, and thus deserves a post of its own. It's far better said than anything I did in the Jehova's Witnesses-post a while back.

Buzzing in my mind

I have so many things I would like to write about, but can't seem to get anything together! I'm going to throw them up here, and if I ever develop them further, change them into links. How does that sound?

Comics Festival.
It's great to meet new people and old ones, but it's so hard to make people stay in contact afterwards (because of the whole "your a girl and I'm a guy and I kind of like you.."-factor). Which is a bugger, because not all the girls I like talking to I would like to bed.
Also; the hectic timetable and not sleeping enough.

Instant messaging etiquette.
1.) When you start talking to someone the first time ever, after greeting establish where you know each other from or where did you get the address. There's lots of idiots out there and you can't expect the other to do research to identify you.
Also: the person to start the conversation also has to establish the topic.
2.) If you are going to leave the computer, you are doing something else and can't answer - let the other party know. It's not nice to wait five to fifteen minutes for answer to a question or to carry on the conversation - IM's are not just about keeping boredom at bay. It's also legitimate way of conversation, and you have to take precautions for the fact that the other person is giving you his undivided attention.
3.) When the conversation ends, let the other one know - don't just leave it hanging.
4.) Remember, when you IM, you are talking to another person and not to a computer with limitless patience.

The connection between personality and the work the personality creates.
You love somebody's art, stories or jokes, and then find that your political views are almost opposite. Does it make the creations any less likeable? Many people seem to think so..

Facebook.
Unlike MySpace, it rocks.

Graduation paper
My "maturity sample", what I'm going to create to graduate from my "University of Applied Sciences". I was mostly thinking logistics, software, piracy and how copy protection is a see-saw between limiting too much and too little.

How organizations survive
Thinking about comics festival. None of the original founders are around anymore, but somehow it's still the same event. Why? Because of the same name? The feeling? Or just that it has been "passed on", like set of dinner plates, from one one generation to another?

11th of September 2001

It was about 15:30 when my mother called me away from computer to tell that WTC had been hit in New York. At the time I was only vaguely clear of the whole existence of the Twin Towers. Even so, after watching the news broadcast only few minutes, I got tired of it and returned to computer.
Not long after, my mother called me back - another tower had been hit.

I don't think I understood then what that meant.

I didn't understand it well the next day either. A friend of mine - who made a point of being anti-American - said something about them asking for it.

Now, six years later, it leaves me wondering. I wasn't terribly taken by USA myself. I had learned of the contras and the toppling of democracies not long before, and couldn't quite grasp the difference between nation as an entity, the person at the helm of the state ship and the people who voted him to power. It all blurred together, into a fairy tale creature called America who didn't care about the rest of the countries and was on pollution spree (Bush had not long before announced of not taking part in Kyoto).

During the following months and years, USA launched two wars, openly ridiculed Europe and threw away all the credits they had gotten in the tradegy. Carrying stuff thru airports became more difficult - they still didn't find the Swiss army knife forgotten in the backpack, but now you couldn't carry any water and I had to remove shoes before getting to the tax free zone. I read about USA abusing records of EU citizens when they entered on American soil and stories of a reporter who got jailed at JFK for a week and then turned back because ten years earlier she had overstayed her visa by a day.

I begin to realize the difference administration does to a country, and how well Clinton arranged his foreign policy.

I feel like something is happening, now. Something monumentous, something with a solid date that starts a new era. It is often so that every decade has an event that characterizes the following decade; WTC, Berlin Wall, invasion of Czechoslovakia and Apollo 11...

I feel something like that is coming. I don't know what, and I might be wrong, but somehow it all seems so very omnious. And, as so often these days, it has something to do with USA. And I don't think it's anything joyous, like Apollo 11 and Berlin Wall was. I think it's still becoming worse.

I'm scared. At some point future changed from something that one looks forward to to something you are vaguely scared of.

And back in September 2001 they had a moment for silence for the people who died, at 10 o'clock, in the beginning of the history period. I was late for the class and while sitting down I wondered why everyone was silent and what the hell was going on. In a way, I'm still wondering.

You take things for granted and..

I was quite happy just a hour ago, surfing net, reading comics. Then I checked my Inbox and found mail from my dad, who is currently vacationing in Mexico and living with a friend of his;

Hi,
I was the weekend, till Saturday, at San Antonio, where the heat was 40 degrees. Then we drove to Durango through Piedras Negras. We had to change our course, when we found a burning lorry in front of us (100m). We waited a while, but when the driver came by and told that he was shipping 22 tons of dynamite.
They springled water over the lorry and the fire seemed to be under control. We still decided to leave for safety's sake, and while we were eating 5 km's away we heard a loud explosion; 30something died and 70 got hurt. The group included firemen, police, reporters and inhabitants of nearby houses.

The crater was 4m deep and 10m wide.

We drove the motorway through the night to get here. Tomorrow we are going to Mazatlan to beach vacation, where I'm going to teach Jaime to fish.

I was quite disoriented after reading this, but decided to check if maybe there was something about this in Google News. This was the first entry with the searchword "dynamite";

Mexico Dynamite Truck Explosion Kills 34

By JUAN MONTANO – 3 hours ago

PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico (AP) — A dynamite-laden truck exploded after colliding with another vehicle on a busy highway in northern Mexico's coal country, killing at least 34 people, including three reporters at the scene, state and federal officials said.
[...]
Shortly after the crowd arrived, the wreckage caught fire, and the dynamite exploded, sending a ball of fire into the sky that consumed nearby cars and left a 10-by-40 foot crater in the concrete, said Maximo Alberto Neri Lopez, a federal police official.

He said more than 150 people were injured.

My dad was there. He could easily have been one of the 150 people, if he wouldn't have wandered off (mostly out of boredom, I would say, more than from safety.. but I may judge him too harshly). It doesn't make it much better that the email starts with a nice tidbit about weather and ends in the plan to teach fishing. Like this incident was nothing..

I might be in shock. It's 1:15 and I should be sleeping, but my heart is racing. I wonder how the other people in my family will react, when they check their Inboxes.

I sent dad a reply and told how happy I was that I still had him. You take these things for granted. And I can't think that last Wednesday, the last time I had proper time to spend with him, I dismissed him to go watch telly...

Some songs I've been listening to

Three songs that I have played quite often on my iPod recently.

The first one is from a free concert in Helsinki in -92, and that is the genuine choir, and not some pretenders. This is the version of the song I most like;

Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Choir - Knocking on Heaven's Door


Juice was a groundstone of Finnish pop/rock for decades till he died a year or two ago. He had (among other things) very bad diabetes, and his living habits left much to be wanted. It's a surprise he lasted as long as he did.

Juice Leskinen - Musta Aurinko Nousee


Some Swedish band that was the representative of the previously mentioned country in Eurovision Song Contest this year. I heard this song at local music TV while idly waiting for something to happen.

The Ark - Prayer for Weekend


Listen if you care to.

Glasgow

I spent little over four months in Paisley, about 30 kilometres from Glasgow. It was great time, not only because I made new friends and (I think) learned something new about life and institutions..

While I was there, I felt myself somewhat caged in how everything possible was barred off, making many streets into labyrinths, where you could only move to one direction hundreds of metres without chance to turn left or right. When streets went like that to every direction, you started to get a bit claustrophobic. Even though the civilization-free hills were always on sight, in practice Paisley - and by extension, Glasgow - were like maps in first person shooters, the hills being unreachable background decoration.

The food was expensive even by Finnish standards. I disliked the crowds, the social injustice, and some aspects (such as the glorification of past military victories and the fact that sometimes the city looked more like a giant gravestone) quite disturbed me ...

..but I notice that, even after all those things, I miss it.
I miss the small alternative cafes where I felt like in a friend's living room.
I miss those small speciality stores in the very centre of the city.
I miss how people dressed more sharply than in here.
I miss those abandoned spaces in the middle of the city which everyone has forgotten.
I miss gardens that were built hundreds of years ago and relentlessly tended ever since.
I miss the fact that it was always chilly enough to wear a nice warm coat, but never so freezing that you wouldn't go outside without it.
I miss the feeling that Glasgow mattered, that it was worth of special notice compared to Helsinki or (ha ha) Kerava.
I miss the freedom to choose between many quality papers and some really trashy yellow ones.
I miss the donuts in grocery stores.
I miss the friends I left behind.

I miss Glasgow.

I think I might very well be homesick. Only four months there and I'm homesick. Will it ever rub off?

What I watch now

I wrote this last October. Since then I have discovered new shows and abandoned old ones. Lets see where we are, maybe you will find this interesting or not. If you are hooked on good shows like I am, it might be interesting to drop names and recommendations.

OLD SHOWS
Shows that have been cancelled, ended or otherwise will not be returning, but I will always keep close in my heart
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER - You know the drill. Beautiful blonde girl in the graveyard during night time. Vampire attacks. But the girl had a stake ready. Nice mix of comedy, horror, soap opera (I like my shows with soap) and good plot and acting. I tried to watch this years ago but left with impression of cheap morning action for teenagers. I couldn't have been more wrong. The show is about vampires in the same way as, say, police is about issuing speeding tickets. The hostile list goes from military to nerds and from witches to cafeteria workers.
Seven seasons long, it's a coming-of-age story where the main characters personalities develop and plots run their courses over years. I would maybe say this is very similar to X-Men/Spider-Man circa 1985, with added humour and no masks. Surprisingly, the series was very good (and sometimes amazing) from beginning to end. The worst parts were, imho, large chunks of the first and some of the fifth. But even at it's worst, it's still very interesting.

ANGEL - Buffy spin-off. Where Buffy is about building your own life, Angel is about getting your life back together. When Buffy lives in a world where everything is black and white, Angel is about shades of grey. About group of people who try to do good when they don't really have a reference point where to belong to - be it a goody vampire, failed demon researcher, street thug or former cheerleader-turned-office manager. Rather grim, the main characters betray, cheat and kill each other without much warning.. And still succeed in being likeable people.
Detective-series which morphed into heroic fantasy series and again into corporate politics series. The first two seasons were very good, the third season good, the fourth...well..watchable.. and the fifth is amazing.

FARSCAPE - When experimenting a new type of shuttle for inter-solar system flights, astronaut John Crichton flies through a wormhole to another part of the universe, where he is stuck on a living cargo ship with three escaped criminals. The show is very original Star Wars without epic "let's destroy the Empire"-plot. Most of the series is (at least in the beginning, I'm still in the middle of this show) about travelling from planet to planet and the developing relationships between the main characters, with the main characters trying to find a way home.. but without having any maps.

FATHER TED - Three Catholic priests are exiled to Craggy Island near the coast of Ireland. One for being demented, hostile and alcoholic, another for being unbelievably dumb ("He-Man is a fictional character?") and Father Ted for embezzling church-funds. The show is half-an-hour comedy about interaction with other priests, with their parish - most of who seem to be insane - and their personal differences.

HARVEY BIRDMAN - ATTORNEY AT LAW - Birdman was a hero of Hanna Barbera-animation in the sixties. D-class at best, he is now an attorney in a law firm which represents Jetsons, Flintstones and other Hanna Barbera-characters in lawsuits. Very funny in crazy "WTF is wrong here?!"-way.

JUSTICE LEAGUE [UNLIMITED] - Superman, Batman and other powerful heroes of the DC-Universe band together to fight battles that they wouldn't win alone. Exellent animation, this show had nice humour and the feeling of epic things going on.

VERONICA MARS - in Neptune High, the student body are the children of millionaires and their servants. Veronica Mars is the daughter of the town's former sheriff-come-detective, and focal point and go-to girl when things go wrong and you need someone to put things straight, even if that something involves hidden mics, video, stalking, scamming etc. Good plot, good acting and a sense that things are going somewhere. I once dismissed this as uninteresting. I am happy to be wrong. This would probably have been coming-of-age story, but it was cancelled after three seasons.

Shows I have dropped during the past year
HOUSE - Unlikeable, but genius doctor solves medical problems too complicated to anyone else. He is the guy to whom specialists turn to. The first two seasons were excellent, and I quite liked it. The third and most recent one were quite disappointing. Apparently the network moved off many of the writers of the shows and replaced them with new ones, maybe figuring that once established, show doesn't need as much talent as to launch it. The end result was that the mysteries didn't make any sense and that the character of House himself turned from sarcastic and unfriendly to hateful and unpleasant.
The show is retooled for fourth season, but I guess I will not be watching it. I might take a look at the first episode to find out how they changed it.

SMALLVILLE - Superman as a teenager in a small town. This is basically dumbed down Buffy without the character development, good plot or direction. I stop watching this every year, and then check the few episodes that are relevant to my interests. Every season is about 70% crap, the sixth less than the earlier five.

Shows that I will continue watching once the season starts
AVATAR - THE LAST AIRBENDER - Aang is the Avatar, who is tasked to keep peace in the world with his elemental powers. He is also 12 years old and can't take the responsibility. He escapes and is stuck in ice for hundred years. When he wakes up, one of the nations has taken over the world and is fighting against the remnants of the others. He has to set things straight.
This show has an epic plot, good characters and the third season should tie most of the plot points. It amazes me how this children's animation (look, I have no illusions) really encompasses the term "for all ages" in the original meaning, and not in the "suitable for kids"-way.

DOCTOR WHO - The third season was AWESOME. The first season was very good, and the second was almost as good as the first, but the third one? Awesome. I had a vision how the Doctor should act, which often came short in the second season... I mean, we are talking about character who -given time- can do almost anything, but chooses to limit himself to make things more interesting. The third season really nailed this side of the character, and I can't wait till the show returns.

EUREKA - In a secret government think-tank town, where everybody is a genius and holoprojectors, robots and virtual reality is part of the everyday life, the new average-IQ sheriff has to solve town problems and regular doomsdays due to careless research and button pushing.
TORCHWOOD - Immortal man heads a task force of specialists to stop alien/supernatural things from affecting daily life too much. Spin-off of Doctor Who, for adults. The first season disappointed me repeatedly, but I'm still hoping that the creators will push the concept through next season. It has much potential.

THE IT-CROWD - A very succesful company where the toilets are unisex, clean and well decorated, the view from the windows is amazing -- and it's all owed to the unapriciated tech-support, which works from the basement, answering repeated calls that go along the lines of "Your computer doesn't work? Have you tried turning it off and on again? Are you sure you have it plugged in? It works now? Great." From the creator of Father Ted. This is an UK-show, currently broadcasting it's second season. US-version is in the works for January.

HEROES - People find they have super powers - what happens? The characters are more or less international, and on background there runs premonitions of hellish futures, mass deaths and goverment conspiracies. The first season was good, it would have been amazing if not for the fact that some of the plot-points were spinned to spin-off comics series you could download from the show website. The comics were regularly pretty amateurish and contradicted the show itself, leaving a bit skitsofrenic feeling.

FUTURAMA - This should be pretty self-explanatory. The show gets 13 new episodes/four tv-movies next year.

NEW SHOWS
That I will quite possibly love..I hope
BIONIC WOMAN - After very bad accident that left her without legs and right arm, eye and ear, Jaime Sommers is given new military, top secret prostethics that let her run 60 miles an hour and other very nifty things. What will life be like now? A reworking of a 70s series, with promised new plot-direction, this should be interesting at least.

CHUCK - A nerd who works in a department store's tech help. Then he unwillingly absorbs (in a MacGuffin-way) all the information of NSA and CIA databanks, just before the databanks and their backups have been destroyed. Suddenly he's very important, and he notices that his customers often have guns hidden under jackets and earpieces on ears... Basically James Bond/Mission Impossible action on nerd-habitat. Should be interesting.

TERMINATOR: SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES - Name says it all. Takes place after T2, and I quite think that T3 is no longer in continuity. Good riddance. This can't help but be awesome, no matter what.

PUSHING DAISIES - A fairy tale like show about very introverted piemaker who can bring dead back to live, but only for a minute or somebody else has to die. Suppliments his income by giving hints on murder cases. Think the film Series of Unfortunate Events, but less grim.

REAPER - A 20something slacker finds out that his parents have sold his soul to the Devil. If he wants to keep it from being collected, he has to work as a bounty hunter for souls that have escaped hell. The gick gomes with mental powers, insight about supernatural and regular chatting sessions with very charming and pleasant (but ruthless) Lucifer himself. A Kevin Smith series.

Shows I will not be watching
FLASH GORDON - A reworking of a concept from 30s (50s, 70s and 80s) this very low-budget scifi-series lacks everything that makes it Flash Gordon.

Living extraordinary lives

During the past few days I watched (again) The Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain and continued reading One Palestine, Complete, among other things. While doing this I again thought about how interesting and almost magical life was in the movie, or as descripted in the book (not talking about the violence). This led me back to my old thoughts about what interesting - or special - life essentially is. And while it should have been always readily apparent to me, it only now really hit home; life is [almost] never extraordinary; it's either normal or miserable. And I'm talking about judging your own life, here and now, and not someone else's.

Let me explain.

What makes life extraordinary, special or otherwise noteworthy? How someone lives, what he does or who he meets. This means riches, achievements or relations. The problem is, that in the first case we judge someone's living conditions compared to those of someone else; we are always ourselves the standard. Rich people see poor people living extraordinarily, if miserably. And poor people in turn see rich people living...well..extraordinarily happy.
The problem with the second is that while things sound glorious while told as a story or anecdote (for example, living abroad due to father's work), the experience of going through with it is actually quite tedious and mundane. The long flights, living in a country with high language barrier, no friends etc. The extraordinary parts get buried under the pile of daily problems.
And the third? Well, knowing great people does bring some light into your life, but I feel that it also lights the misery of your own life in comparison.

Now, after saying all this I admit that there are people who feel like they live extraordinarily; I expect most of them are people who's living conditions changed dramatically (and suddenly) after childhood, usually due to some singular feat (like winning in Olympics after years of practice) or because someone else did something big (distant relative died and left his considerable fortune to your disposal). But in normal life? There was a person in my classroom few years ago who had used two years to hitch hike around the world. I remember overhearing him talking about dancers in Brazil, about holy places in Jerusalem and the rush hours of Japan. I'm sure he felt he had done something nice and cool, but while telling you have been to all these places (and visualizing to others how you did it) seems grand, in practice I bet the grandiose is lost in his mind under the nights in flea-ridden hostels and days walking in rain.

The only people who in practice ever think that their life isn't normal are those who are chronically depressed and want to get better or find a way out.

And Amélie? She walks in Paris where nuns cross the streets in flocks, a man with glass bones and artistic tendencies lives under the same roof and everyone you meet is a strong personality, worth a book by themselves. And she never realizes it, or wonders about it; I'm sure she thought about it briefly when she moved to that area, but in practice; this was her life, right? And life is normal, no matter how extraordinary it actually is.

Friends and emotional attachments

How do we define people around us? Unknown, people we know by name, people we spend time with (but don't actually know), friends? Particularly the last two categories fascinate me. You get from category #1 to category #2 just by introducing and maybe sitting in the same class room. To number #3 by going for a beer together. But to #4?
Is there an universal definition? Some people say that once you let people into your home you are friends. Or that you can spend time together without actually doing anything. Are mutual interests expected? Trust? Love? Respect? Something else?

I'm asking this because while there are many people I happily declare my friends in all the above definitions of the word, there are some that I don't. Or, to put it less bluntly, don't think if it's proper to call them friends. I'll get back to this shortly. Bear with me.

I remember that at the age of 12 an adult asked me who my friends (ystävät) are. I responded by listing my few mates (kaverit). After that, the adult in question was careful to call them as such. The distinction was that "mate" is a #3 while "friend" is a #4. I notice that some people are more relaxed with these terms. I have often wondered do they do so just out of courtesy, or are they so quick to forge the emotional bonds that friends have between each other? Or imagine that such bonds exist? Or maybe they just have a definition that allows #3's to be called #4's.

I wonder.

To go on; is there a proper way to make a friend? I have never been very good at this. A person is an occasional distraction at school... and few years later you notice its four in the morning and you have spent forty-odd hours in the "distraction's" apartment watching television, telling poor jokes and talking about life. Obviously, at some part between these two scenes the relationship changed.

Back to the definition. I hear that people who use MySpace and MSN to forge social contacts make a distinction between "friend" and "friendster". By definition, the latter are not real friends, but #3's. It comes to me, can one forge real, lasting relationships through the Internet, without actually ever meeting the other face-to-face.
I remember reading last year in newspaper about a Finnish guy who had entered exchange of letters with American girl in the 1950s (when both of them were still in middle school) and only met the week the newspaper came out. They had written each other letters for over 50 years, diligently and without fail. And while the Finnish guy had been to America - indeed, only few score kilometres from the girl, he hadn't had the opportunity to see her. And she had travelled Europe but had likewise been unable to visit Finland.
Were they friends? I imagine they wrote on paper everything that happened in their lives. I imagine, that over the years they told each other secrets they didn't tell anyone else, not even their spouses. But they had never met. They didn't know how the other laughed, how the other smiled. Didn't know how the other liked to form sentences or what syllables they give weight when talking. Or how the other has curious way of bending head when checking the time.

Are such things important for friendship? Is it strange, pathetic or otherwise improper to call people you have talked daily for years friends? Even if you have never met, even if it's only through IRC or instant messenger?

Where do you draw the line? What's the definition?

Learning about Israel

Ponte Corvo sent me One Palestine, Complete, a book about Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate. Heavy book, it seems to equal in page count with one of the later Harry Potter-books.

As I don't have that much knowledge about Israel (beyond that which was teached on the ninth grade of compulsory school (age 15), in high school (age 17) and newspapers thereafter) this is bound to be interesting read. If nothing else, it will afford a new perspective not mentioned in Finnish history books and media obsessed with the current events.

As I was thinking of my education, I remembered that my mother asked me to take my old school books with me when I left after the last visit. I therefore had my 9th grade book easily at hand, and decided to see what it said about Israel. I was somewhat surprised by the clunkiness of the text, but I should probably understand that not all people of that age were really comfortable with books. I decided to translate the chapter to show Finnish view on Israeli history looks like.
I have tried to make the translation easy to myself by keeping many Finnish turns of phrase that might not be entirely at home with the English language - I'm in a bit of a hurry with this text, as I'm leaving home for the weekend and I want this out of the way first.

My history book was called Horisontti - Napoleonista nykypäivään (Horisont - from Napoleon to modern day) and was written by Lappalainen et al, published by Otava in 1995.

The political situation of Middle-East in the mid1980s. The map shows the political areas of influence and local crisis points. A constant threat was that the small clashes on the area might develop into wars between the superpowers. Full fledged war was on between Iraq and Iran. There had been islamic revolution in Iran, where ajatollah Khomeini had ceased power from shaah [?] Riza Pehlevin. Iran was left in discord, which Iraq leader Saddam Hussein tried to take advantage of. The countries had arguments over borders and waterways. Hussein failed, but the war lasted nearly the whole 1980s.

Chapter 73: Middle-East in world politics
Area and its problems
The area shown in the map is called Middle-East. The area's belonging to it range from Egypt to Iran and also include Kypros and Turkey. Middle-East is a political, not geographical term. It is one of the focal points of world politics, and local skirmishes tend to unfold into international matters. The background of the problems is a mixed bag of religious, economical and geographical factors. Middle-East is the cradle of three world religions - judaism, Christianity and Islam. Of the 200 million people on the area the majority are muslims, who have divided into Sunni and Shiia-factions. Of Christians, there are also many factions. The different religious groups have often tried to force their own views with violence. The steepest differences are between the Jews and and arab-muslims.
[About the different nations on the area. ]

The Palestine Question
At the beginning of our recounting of time, Palestine was Judea-named province of Rome, where the majority of people were Jewish. When the Jews rose into rebellion, the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in the year 77. The name of Judea was switched into Palestine, and for Jews diaspora began, the scattering to different parts of the world.
After Romans Palestine has been under the control of Arabs, European crusaders and- after 16th century- Turks. When the Turkish realm started to weaken in the 19th century, a powerful Arab kinship was born, which was first targeted against Turkish control but also against European nations. They too started to be interested of the lands in control of the ebbing Empire. England and France took Egypt under their control when the Suez Channel was built. The First World War meant the final strike to Turkish control, and vast arab-areas were thrown under European control under mandates granted by League of Nations. Great Britain got Palestine, which it hand occupied during the war from Turkey.
During the World War Great Britain promised Jews national home in Palestine and assured that this move would not stamp the rights of Arabs. The promise was the beginning of Jews' exodus to Palestine. It was hastened in Europe - specially in Hitler's Germany - by persecution. On the year of 1918 84 000 of the people in Palestine were Jews - 11%, but by 1948 they were a third of population of two million. This led into clash of interests and violent incidents with Arabs and proceeded to situation where the Brits could no longer contain the situation. On the year 1947 Great Britain decided to subject the future of Palestine to UN to solve.

The birth of Israel and enlargement
The UN had two suggestions. The Arab states suggested proclaiming Palestine as independent nation, where both Arabs and Jews would live. The other suggestion maintained that the area should be divided into Arab and Jewish nations. The second suggestion got the favour of majority vote, and so the Brits left the country and Israel declared itself independent nation in May 1948. Immediately after Israel's neighbours attacked the young nation with the help of Iraqi and Saudi Arabian battalions from every side.
Israel won the war and expanded its area. This happened three times later, as the maps of the next page shows. In 1956 Egypt nationalized the Suez Channel, which led to Israel attacking with France and England against Egypt. In 1967 the president of Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser closed Israel's access through Akaba Bay to Harbour of Eilat. This led to so-called Six Day war, during which Israel invaded the whole Siinai, strip of Gaza, West Bank and Golan's Heights as well as Arab East-Jerusalem. In 1973 Egypt tried again. Its forces crossed the Suez and dug into defensive lines. At the same time Syria attacked Golan. Israel got weaponry assistance from the United States and blocked the attack. UN tried to instill cease fire and sent to the area peacekeepers, which Middle-East already had had.
In addition to peace negotations UN insisted Israel to leave the occupied areas, but for no effect. On the other hand, peace offering from Egypt led to President of Egypt signing a peace treaty with Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin at Camp David in United States. Accoarding to the pact Israel forfeited in 1982 Siinai to Egypt and evacuated the settlements. Egypt in turn recognized the Israeli state and stopped making demands for the independence of Palestine. Arabs declared the Egypt president a traitor.

Refugees and terrorism
When Israel became independent in 1948, most of the Arabs on the area fled to neighbouring states, where they were relocated on camps designed as short-term solution. The amount of refugees was then 700 000-800 000. Similarly over half million Jews moved to Israel. When Israel in 1967 invaded West Bank, the amount of refugees rose to 1,5 million. Today there are over two million on Israeli occupied areas, and the same amount as refugees on Arab countries. All of them have dreamed of founding their own nation.
On the refugee camps people are uneasy, and on them many terrorism using Palestinian resistance organisations have gained support. The operation of these organisations was centred specially in Lebanon, when other border neighbours of Israel had extorted the guerilla fighters from their area in fear of revenge strikes. In 1982 Israel attacked Lebanon, invaded its capital Beirut and finally forces Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to leave Lebanon.

Surprising pact
In 1987 started on Israeli occupied areas Palestinian uprising, intifada, to which Israel answered with force. The uprising seriously disturbed peace negotiations, which United States as middleman had been able to be initialized between Israel and and the Arabs. In the negotiations Arabs demanded Israel to leave the occupied areas, which Israel saw as important for its security. In September 1993 these negotiations surprisingly led into a pact which has been thought as historical: Israel and PLO recognized each other. At the same time Israeli cabinet agreed on pact which gave Gaza and the town of Jericho autonomy. This pact happened in 1994, when Israeli occupiers left Gaza and Jericho. The pact opened a door for the continued peace progress in the Middle East. In October 1994 Jordan as well did a peace treaty with Israel and in November of the same year Jordan and Syria tied peace between each other as well.

Jewish elder stepping to "promised land". Arabs feared Jews would gain majority in Palestine. They got the Brits to limit immigration as early as 1939. After Germany's surrender the limit was pushed down to 1 500 per month. This led to rampant illegal immigration, that Brits tried to stop even by shooting illegal crossers.