Pictures of January

Yesterday. The pictures have been taking starting from around 17:00 and the last around midnight.

Replacing Ipod Touch

Few weeks ago I was careless and put my Ipod Touch (Gen 1) into the washing machine. It's now really clean. Also - really dead.

My Ipod Touch - sleeping with the fishes.

Well, things could be worse. My insurance paid most of the money back (they were surprisingly generous), so I'm not weeping myself to death. This does leave me with a problem - how should I replace the machine? Please understand; Touch wasn't just mp3-player for me (as such, it might even have been inferior to the Gen 5 Ipod Video I had ordered in 2006). However, the machine had several redeeming qualities. First and foremost, a big screen that was suitable browsing the Internet with WLAN, watching Youtube and pre-downloaded video-files while on a train. It was also shockingly thin, and as such, I loved it.

I however didn't have much love for the way Apple ran the game behind the curtains. Mainly, that I couldn't install programs freely, but had to use the App Store. Sure, you could jailbreak it (and I frequently did ), but the hazzle to keep the thing both up-to-date AND usable was getting on my nerves.

But, that's all water under the bridge. My point, however, is that I'm not running to buy a new Touch (Gen 2), no matter how much I loved the previous version. This brings me back to the stated question; how to replace it? I could get a mp3-player fairly cheap, but the thing I find I'm mostly missing about is the ability to look up facts on the go (and amuse myself with videos, ebooks etc.).

My phone is also getting up there with the years, and I was thinking that maybe I would do a coup and buy a new machine that takes care of both of the problems at one go. The thing is, I dream of a device with;

• a long battery life
• thin (easy to pocket)
  
• big screen for internet browsing and video
• mp3-player
• hazzle-free
• easy to use
• maybe QWERTY
  
• compatibility with Mac and Linux
  

You don't really have to be a technology-adept to see that the thing I'm descripting is actually two phones. Of course, there's available multiSIM-service from several operators, but let's save this option for later, and not only because it would cost me about 4 euros more per month.

About some of the phones I've been considering;

The pinnacle of human civilization.

The Iphone. Yes, I'm a hypocrite. But as it is the standard for the moment, I suppose I have to consider this before I can objectively look at the rest of the alternatives. Otherwise, the whole post would be just a knee-jerk reaction of "I don't want to be like everybody else! And in any case, this phone doesn't do [something I will never use]!"

So, I hear the battery life is getting better. There's a new model coming in few months, and it might actually be something to see; however, I feel that as a phone, it has been really standing still ever since it came out in 2007. Sure, back then it had a big headstart to every other phone out there, but the competition has been gaining, and Apple has been essentially standing still. After everything is said and done, however, it's a solid phone. It synchs with a Mac and should be "hazzle-free".

And it has all the same problems that the Touch had; I'm not sure how comfortable I would be with this alternative. And that's to forget the two year contract I would have to sign (this being the only contract-only phone in Finland).

+I know how this works.
+Compatibility with Macs (if not Linux)
-The two year contract
-No QWERTY
-I would feel like I'd be buying a three-year old phone
-The amount of features isn't really dazzling.

Three options for easier colour-coordination.

The N97 Mini. It has the QWERTY-keyboard and I love how it slightly pops up when in use. And the phone comes with a year's contract of "Comes With Music". It's being marketed as "Buy a Nokia Comes With Music handset and get millions of tracks for free, yours to keep". The thing is, the tracks are in WMA and tied to only one Windows-computer. And I don't own a Windows-operated computer. And of course; keep till I switch the computer or the authorization server goes offline.

Plus this is Symbian-operated phone. Symbian is solid enough, I suppose, but if Iphone is 2007, this is 1995. And I've never really liked it, though I understand it has been getting better lately. So this is a bit knee-jerk reaction, I suppose. I also hear that the processor isn't quite up there.

+QWERTY
+the music
-symbian
-the processor
-compatibility

The thing is more powerful than some home computers.

Nokia N900. Well, this is hard to look at objectively. It's the heir to the Nokia's Internet Tablet-line, and as such isn't really a phone-that-can-get-to-internet as it is an Internet-Tablet-that-allows-you-to-phone. Nokia has also been very frank that this isn't for the average user; that it doesn't quite get there as a phone. It has about every technology they could try to fit into a handheld device, such as an infrared-port (last seen in a phone around 2004). In short; it's a high-tech Swiss army knife. One of the more expensive ones, with fifty functions. And that's why it's 6 mm thicker than Iphone and 50 grams heavier (181 g as opposed to 133). But you can do almost anything with it.

And it runs Maemo 5 Linux. So, compatibility should be excellent.

All this is to say, of course, that the battery life is threatful. One reviewer wrote that with nightly charging, you can make it through a day (all that pretty tech consumes a lot of energy). Not to mention, that Internet Tablets aren't actually meant to be on 24/7, unlike phones.

+has everything and the kitchen-sink
+compatibility!
+Maemo is future
-battery
-thickness

Even as a clamp, the phone is thinner than some of my pens.

Nokia 6600 Fold. Well, the screen is about fourth of the size N900 has, there's no QWERTY and the compatibility is reduced to moving the microSD card to computer and back. But it's small, the operating system (S40) works well and battery should last well over a week. And it has an mp3-player (and FM-tuner). Design-wise it's the best of the lot. Can connect to 'Net, but the experience should be rather modest.

On a plus, this one is so cheap, that I can afford to buy a netbook to go with it. Or buy a new Touch.

+battery
+size
+solid operating system
-Internet-experience nothing to write home about.


Well, let us see how the wind blows. The engineers promised a new and improved version of N900 even before the original model was out (showing once again how Nokia is ran) and Iphone should be updated before Summer is here. And even if updates are coming, should I lock my answer now and then faithfully expect for the new generation to fix the problems of the current one?

Swimming across the Atlantic

Google Maps celebrated Benoît Lecomte's success, back on the day.

Direct copypaste from Wikipedia;

Benoît Lecomte (born 1967) is a French long distance swimmer who was the first man to swim across the Atlantic Ocean without a kick board in 1998. He did this to raise money for cancer research as a tribute to his father. During his 3,716 mile journey in 73 days, he was followed by a support boat that had an electromagnetic field for 25 feet to ward off sharks. He did, however, still encounter sea turtles, dolphins, and jellyfish.

The feat took him 72 days, with 6–8 hours spent swimming each day in sessions of about two hours' length. He was accompanied by associates in a boat, where he could rest and eat between each swimming period. The swim extended from Hyannis, Massachusetts to Quiberon, Brittany, France. He stopped for 1 week in the Azores, a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean.

Which is nothing compared to Guy Delage;

Guy Delage claims he is the first person to swim solo across the Atlantic Ocean (with the help of a kick board, from the Cape Verde Islands to Barbados). 16 December 1994. Logging six to eight hours a day behind a 15-foot raft that carried his communications gear and food supply, Delage ate and slept on the craft when not in the water. After 55 days he had covered 2,100 nautical miles.

Which Wikipedia considers the easier trip as he had a raft with a propulsion system; however, he did it alone and without any "electromagnetic fields", which marks him as the better guy in my books.

Paintings

I've been thinking about desktops. Everybody needs a good one, be it a cuddly kitten or Metallica album cover. I've have had some good ones in the past, but lately I've been trying to find paintings I've liked in suitable high resolution. I dunno, maybe I'm getting snobbish. Wikia Commons was a great place to get started, but the search engine was not exactly sophisticated and it has proved to be impossible to cull out the smaller images. On the other hand, Google Image has gotten a lot better since sometime in the recent past they added the possibly to eliminate pictures of less than certain amount of megapixels (as opposed to "less than big", which was too vague or "less than 1024x800" which in turn was too strict).

Today I hit the mother load - so to say - with the flickr-stream of Freeparking. 19th century art is one of my favourite things, and I was thus happy to find such an amount in good resolution. What joy!

Some of my favourites follow. Alas, blogger makes them so small and insignifant; clicking helps but they are still not on the resolution to be found on my hard dirsk. Maybe you are able to locate them somewhere else again (or you can always hit me with an email, I suppose!).

Andrew Wyeth - Christina's World

Frank Dicksee - The Confession

Jeffrey Jones - Blind Narcissus (detail)

Mary McKenzie - A Nude Study

Viktor Vasnetsov - The Flying Carpet

Romaine Brooks - The Cross of France

Next I probably have to hit the library. I'd really like to find a good high quality scan of Gallen-Kallela's At The River of Tuonela or of Henri Gervex' Rolla. Apparently none exist in the Internet today. I suppose I wish to give something back and produce one.. Gallen-Kallela's work is easy enough to find, I think.

American in Scandinavia

Got the following email from a friend living abroad;

Here: http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2009/08/denmark_and_swe_1.html

Thought I'd share this with you to get your input.

In short, the writer critiques Scandinavian (and Danish and Swedish in particular) living standards from those portrayed in the popular media. He claims that Scandinavian people are poorer, less happy and have blinds concerning their surroundings and taxation general.

My first reaction was amazed disbelief: surely this is a text from The Onion? After thinking about it a moment, I can see he has some good points, but ultimately they are all drowned by his inability to see the achievements and advantages of the Nordic model from its failures and differences to the American model.

Before going further into his points, I'd like to talk about his text as a whole. The important part of mr. Caplan's argumentation stems from the question of values. To understand his text, we must see that he is comparing what's good in America into how Scandinavia rates in comparison - but not vice versa. This of course is fair, if we are talking about certain singular datapoints - which has the fastest cars, for example? Cheaper gasoline? I'm sure you have seen this to be used in marketing texts: our product compared to competitor's mark X! Seeing the technique used in a text written by a professor into something I assume to be prestigious website with a high-brow reputation.. well, it is to be seen!

Of course, there are some things we simply can't argue with; how Scandinavia looks compared to Swizerland or New Jersey, for example. Apparently Caplan travelled the countries extensively and can make such arguments. I've never been to Denmark or New Jersey; I remember very little of my trip to Switzerland. Obviously Caplan has been to all these places, and feels that he can, with authority, say that this is indeed so.

What I find particularly amusing is his claims about the things that make life worth living; living space, car ownership, and meat consumption (instead of time spent with family/friends). He writes with sneer about people biking to work in rain, apparently ignoring several observations that you can make from this;

First, that a person who has stable income can surely afford a car of some condition.
Second, that biking to work is possible in the first place.
Third, that the biker assumes he is still in presentable condition once he gets to the workplace.
Fourth, that a people who regularly exercise tend to be healthier and thus, happier (that I'm actually linking to Fox should tell you how well-known fact this is!).
Fifth, the biker calculates that he can still fill all his social obligations even though his commutation time increases. In other words; even though he has less time to spend with friends after work, he will find a way to make up to it in other ways. Maybe he works shorter days or his friends are available at weekends

Meat usage seems somewhat strange on the list; surely this is a question of taste, values and history rather of money?

And so on. Caplan makes lots of assumptions that are understandable as personal opinions from a private individual (after all, we seldom form our views from "fairly balanced" pool of information) but rather less so from a professional blogger, who, I assume, was hired for his interesting and in-depth vision. This blog-post is a collection of knee-jerk reactions - mostly ones he had even before he left the States. He would have been interested in confirming these solely based on his earlier journal entries. There was no initiative to actually deny any of them...that is to say, contradict himself. Even though he might have walked in with an idea to go where the wind would take him, his hypotheses would have fast blinded him to any advantages to American system he may have seen, maybe even presenting them to him in negative light.

After all, few of us work very hard to make ourselves look like idiots.

A hint into his psyche can be found in this quote;

[About Human Development Index];

I can see giving equal weights to GDP per capita and life expectancy. But education? [...][I]n terms of the actual if not professed values of normal human beings, televisions and cars are a lot more important than books.

All

Political views

Just did a test of my political views, with the results on the left.
The nice thing about the test was the ability to check how certain groups, divided by age, nation and/or self-announced political groups answered the same questions. I note that I'm a bit farther away from the centre than my age group or the generation of my parents.

I was interested in the views of my own age group from natural reasons.. and of my parents' generation as these are the views from which the newspapers are edited, laws are made and from which moral arguments that the youths challenge usually stem from.

I wonder though - am I on the left (and down) of my generation and my parents' generation because of my views.. or because the control group, the other people who answered the quiz happen not to represent a good average Finn of that age (and to admit, 11 people in the older group does seem a rather small sample)? This would have to do with where the link has spread, and who have thought to click on it, or do the test (which was fairly long). Also would have been interested to see the views of people in larger towns compared to countryside, but this was apparently not possible.

But I have long suspected that the people that write opinions to news stories on the Internet ("niggers go home! finland is to white people! pure race!") may be closer to "average citizen" than those well-phrased texts in the daily paper's Letters-section. I am not entirely comfortable with this idea.

Political Spectrum Quiz

My trip in Sweden

Two weeks ago I left for a biking trip. I took the ferry for Stockholm and two weeks later I was in Rostock looking a way home. Attached is the route as mapped by my GPS and the markings I did to my notebook. The text will go from present to imperfect, hopefully it's easy enough to follow.

15.7.2009 - Wednesday
Backed the last of my stuff, took the train to the harbour, bought a ticket and left for Sweden. Planning to bike to Helsingborg, take a ferry to Denmark's main island, cross it and from there take a ferry to Rostock.

16.7.2009 - Thursday
distance covered 122,5 km/ av. speed 15,4 km / in 7:55 hours

Got out of the ferry around ten, biked to the motorway to Helsingborg. Found out that the road is - despite publicity - not good for biking. Have to backtrack and start using older roads.

Traveled quite the distance. I decide to not go for a camping site because it would have meant sidetracking at least 7 kilometres, instead went forward for another 20 and slept on an untended farmland, behind some trees.

17.7.2009 - Friday
99,6/16,3/6:04
After biking four kilometres there is the county beach. I spent there few hours washing my hair, eating food etc.

Because of the wind direction, traveling seemed slow and I had to keep breaks quite often during the first 40 kilometres. After reaching Katrineholm, I went for the south, with wind somewhat on my back. I see a map with a camping site marked inside the city borders of Norrköping. Travelled thru beautiful Åby and reached Norrköping around 21; trouble finding the camping site and had to ask directions from a cop, who decided to drive the patrol vehicle to the camping ground, so I could follow him.

Reception closed, but I'm assured I can just build the tent, use the showers et al and pay in the morning.

18.7.2009 - Saturday
91,1/14,1/6:25
Payment in the morning was successful. The price was 120 crowns (around 10 euros) for the night and 130 crowns for purchasing Scandinavian Camping Card, which is apparently required for most camp sites. I also get a a magazine with all the Swedish camping sites marked on a map. Looking at the map, I feel overwhelmed by the distance I have yet to cover.

Spent the better part of the day walking about Norrköping. Left for South around 14, but again against opposite wind. Decide to follow unpaved roads toward West, in hope of getting the wind of my back. Somewhat success, but the roads are not straight and inadvertently circle back toward itself. High point was following a road that slowly dwindled into nothing and I had to carry the bike over a hill to reach another road - only to find hundred metres later it blocked by barbed wire, to make it part of a cow pasture. While carrying the bike and the bags one at a time over the fenced area (and crawling under the wire myself), it started raining, which thankfully lasted only for an hour.

Found out that not all the smaller places marked on the map actually have a store or other places where refreshments could be found. Started to travel toward Kisa, but found a pleasant camping site on route, by a lake, and decided to build the tent there.

19.7.2009 - Sunday
47,5/16/???
Woke up to the sound of water hitting the canvas. Decided to stay in the tent till the rain would end. It continued till 16, with feeling that this would be temporal break. Calculated that I didn't have enough cold food till tomorrow (couldn't very well use the cooking equipment in the rain) and decided to push forward. I did have some canned beans, but for some reason didn't have a can opener.

Got to Kisa after biking most of the day in rain. Found a camping site, where the land owner said I could pay when I was leaving, at which time I would know the total of my bill.

20.7.2009 - Monday
71,1/15,8/4:38
The rain continued till 16. I settled my account and went forward. Only after few kilometres the rain continued, but thankfully didn't last long. It returned frequently for short bursts thru the evening.

Found a kebab-restaurant, the first I had seen after leaving Stockholm. The owner was from Macedonia, and observed that while business was good in the village where the restaurant was located, it had no social life and the only entertainment was the frequent fist fights the farmers started on pub nights.

Continued toward Eksjö through some beautiful scenery, which didn't easily copy itself to a film. Did try, though. Reached Eksjö quite late at night, but for lack of sleeping place pushed forward. After about ten kilometres, found a good spot in the forest.

Heard some loud, strange voices from the forest that didn't seem to belong to a human. While loud and seemingly coming from a large body, didn't see anything and slowly the voices faded away.

21.7.2009 - Tuesday
73,9/14,4/5:06
The opposite wind became even worse. I had to walk for kilometres at a time because the wind changed direction every other minute, making the bike difficult to drive. Sometimes the wind pushed me to the gutter, sometimes in front of the cars. Thankfully nothing happened, but I chose to walk for kilometres instead of risking it.

The weather continues to be bad otherwise as well. Rain keeps falling sporadically.

The battery of the camera seems to be running low. I have been taking too many pictures; over 200, though it felt like less.

It is hard to push forward. I don't really get to talk to people with whom I have history, and the lack of human contact depresses me. The road ahead seems far, and while I'm certain I can do it, it seems long and thankless journey. I was hoping for more effortless journey; the wind robs 5 to 10 kilometres per hour from my speed. At one point of the day I was going downhill, pushing for more speed and still had trouble passing 15 km/h.

22.7.2009 - Wednesday
86,0/19,4/4:23
Before going to sleep last night I called my mother. The call must be somewhat expensive, but it lifted my spirits. I also decided to go for Malmö and Trelleborg instead of Helsingborg and Denmark (the route would have taken me farther north). This allowed me more space on which to plan my journey.

The day was exellent in other ways as well. For most of the day the wind was behind me and went speeds of 25km/h even uphill. While the pace slowed down as the dark neared, I still covered most of the distance that day in less than four hours.

I stopped to visit county museum, which was mainly centred around nostalgia toward bygone Sweden. I also saw huts on which military used to live on the area.

Slept on camping site. I'm nearing Malmö, only about 150 kilometres as bird flies. As I still have two weeks before I have to get back to work, I'll take some sidetracks to see some of the bigger towns.

23.7.2009 - Thursday
76,4/16,8/4:31
I woke up in the rain, which lasted till 13, when I started biking. The trip to Kristianstad on smaller roads was was rather uneventful, though I did get to photograph a (Swedish) mile-stone, which I had seen through the whole week. This was the one in the best condition thus far, and I'm happy to finally gotten one. The stones for full miles (and one fourths, two fourths and three fourths) have followed me the whole trip. Apparently the miles (which equal ten kilometres) are still used for longer distances, as I few times heard people referencing to living "ten miles north" or traveling "180 miles to Lapland". With the milestones being so common, I would well see why this habit would continue when all the modern signs are in kilometres...

I reached Kristianstad soon enough, but found the outskirts disappointing. This was the first time in Sweden that I saw things being run-down. Thus far, no matter the construction costs, the houses (if not abandoned) were always in good condition and the people living in the houses seemed to have pride in them.

I had forgotten one my bikelocks at the camp site, and was advised to seek a new one from Biltema. Had troubles finding the place, and when I did, the store had already closed, at 19 o'clock. Thankfully, there was a camping site not half a kilometre away. The place was in the middle of the industrial area, which apparently had grown around the old vandrarhem. The price for a tent place and shower was the cheapest on the whole trip - 75 crowns, which included everything.

The staff was quite helpful and likeable, but when asked about the condition of Kristianstad, they reinforced my view of the place as run-down town with no future.

I started feeling regrets for doing the detour for Kristianstad, instead of heading straight to Malmö.

24.7.2009 - Friday
70,7/14,9/4:44
Bought the lock from Biltema and headed for the town centre, which ended up being a lovely old town. Spent time in town museum and then wrote some postcards.

Left toward Malmö around 16, when it promptly started raining again - while I stayed put, it had been all sun. Again I drove against wind, and for some unknown reason there was no way to reach Malmö directly by bike, thanks to the road being part of the European road network, on which biking is forbidden. I had to use old tractor roads, and the (very poor) road went like letter "S" on both sides of the motorway. I didn't do much distance that day, but I did tire myself to the largest extend during my trip.

Reached a camping site, where I met friendly people. Decided to rest for a whole day, the first since I got to Stockholm.

25.7.2009 - Saturday
Stayed put. The camping site was rather expensive (180 crowns for a tent place), but as the weather stayed abysmal I had no rush to get back on the road. Spent time with the campers and surfed the internet on my ipod.

26.7.2009 - Sunday
108,1/15,6/6:55
Today I biked to Malmö through Lund. The trip was, again, against wind. This is apparently a common occurrence as the trip saw me crossing several wind power plants that were busy grinding energy.

Lund had a beautiful old town, and soon after I left it I came to the outskirts of Malmö, which was, again, a bit of a disappointment; it was very similar to Kristianstad. Only the very centre with its houses from middle ages were worth seeing. After touring a while, I left for Trelleborg, from where I hoped to catch a ferry to Germany.

After getting only ten kilometres away from Trelleborg, the biking road ended and E-road started. While it had a sign forbidding bikers, there was a good paved 2 metre distance on the other side of the outer white line, on which I could travel far safer than on some other parts of Sweden. Reached Trelleborg and found that the ferry to Rostock would leave in four hours - at 23:00. Got tickets to it. Slept very badly on board.

27.7.2009 - Monday
69,5/13,2/5:13
I set my wheels on German ground at five in the morning. Was surprised to notice that there was a nuclear power plant right next door to the harbour.

I biked a while and slept in the forest waiting for the TallinkSilja's offices to open. When they did, I found out that the next boat to Finland would only leave at Wednesday and it would be full.

I tried to find alternatives on the city library's computer, but alas, the computers were from the 90s and still ran Windows 2000 with Internet Explorer 5.5. Most of the webpages I were depending on didn't open. In the end I called my mother who was able to secure me a place in the ship.

She also urged me to go get the ticket from the office as fast as possible, and to sleep "at least one night" in a proper bed.

Thus far I have probably not mentioned that the roads in Rostock were abysmal for biking. While the car roads were in good condition, the biking/walking roads were rised and seldom were the needs of bikes observed. Also, these roads were not paved but plated with cement squares, which were not even. This made travelling quite uncomfortable. The roads were also filled with unused tram-lines, which made it important to look down in order for the wheel to not get stuck. When we also add that on certain crossing there was only one pedestrian light, which had been situated thus as biker's eye would not reach it, it became understandable that I didn't see a car gaining speed from a crossing (apparenty the driver figured that green light was enough of a moral high ground to drive a biker to the ground). Thankfully he was turning and not going ahead, or I would probably not be here writing this.

Long story short, he hit me (apparently thinking that a bike could easily avoid a car if properly motivated, not counting on the quite tired driver or the additional weight of travelling gear). The car's bumber got some scratches. The driver insisted on calling the police, which after some problems (nobody understood English) ended with me fined (for 120 euros) and my insurance details being written down.

I got the ticket, and went on to try to find a sleeping place. Alas, all the hotels were full, and even the local camping site had only one spot left, of which they asked 43 euros. I didn't accept, and instead slept in the woods.

28.7.2009 - Tuesday
20/???/???
Woke up and went to long and beautiful beach which was the whole seafront of the area. Spent there several hours. Lost my glasses in the sea, and found it rather tricky to bike back to TallinkSilja offices, at which the ship would be boarded on midnight for departure in 5 in the morning on the following day.

29.5.2009 - Wednesday
Spent sleeping at the ship.

30.5.2009 - Thursday
Mother fetched me from the harbour and drove home. Feeling pretty ok, but as the hours passed the trip starts to get me down, with my knees and hands aching in particular.
..

If I would have to do the trip again, I would perhaps more closely follow the seacoast, instead of so readily biking west. I have a feeling that the roads would have been better suited for bicycle travel there, but this theory will have to go untested. All in all the trip was quite satisfactory, though maybe a tad too long by myself. In the future, I would probably either find a friend to accompany myself, or limit the trip to 500 kilometres. Longer than that seem to cause depression for lack of human contact.

The people in Sweden were surprisingly friendly. In towns, the people readily and cheerfully helped me when I didn't understand how some machine worked (such as the card-readers in stores), and while on the road they gave me a good girth, so not once did I feel I was in danger, even when I was driving with the cars. Indeed, when I was driving late at night, the cars slowed down, honked and showed me a thumb in support, for having the stamina to continue after sun had set.

This all changed at Rostock. The people were, by and large, quite unpleasant. The cars seemed to try to intentionally make my life miserable and did not take me into consideration when plotting the courses. This went to such lengths that one hit me rather than tried to avoid me. But of that I have already told you enough!

All in all, the trip was quite satisfactory, and I will endeavour to do something similar next year.

Mitä löydän kun tulen kotiin viikon pyöräretkeltä:

"Ohhoh, miksi tuo kirja on lattialla? No heitänpä hyllyyn.."


No.. se siitä sit.

Tutkimusretki Pornaisiin II

Jatkoa edelliselle viestille.

Hylättyjä pikkutaloja nyt löytyy vähän jokapuolelta;

Hylätty parin huoneen talo lähellä Keravaa.

Mutta isompia yksiköitä ei niinkään. Siksipä yllätyin kun törmäsin kokonaiseen hylättyyn maatilaan Järvenpään itäpuolella;

Päärakennus oli rakennettu kivestä ja näyttää vanhemmalta ja huolellisemmin rakennetulta kuin varusmies-talot yleensä. 1900-luvun alkuvuosilta?

Sisältä talo oli epäsiisti, mutta suurin osa ikkunoista oli yhä ehjiä ja talossa oli vain kaksi grafiittia.

Pitkin rakennusta löytyi oppikirjoja. Ne oli sijoitettu kuvan osoittamalla tavalla, aivan kuin joku olisi vain laskenut ne hetkeksi.

Pari esimerkkiä. Varsinkin saksankirja oli melkein priimakunnosta. Vanhin kirjoista oli vuodelta 1958 ja viimeiset 1970-luvun alusta.


Hellan päällä on useita tyhjiä lasisia säilytyspurkkeja. Niitä löytyy myös muualta asunnosta.

Osa hylätyistä tavaroista tuntui todella oudoilta, kuten nämä 80-luvulta peräisin olevat sukset (ruokahuoneessa).

Pitkin taloa näkyi merkkejä siitä kuin siellä olisi aloitettu remontti juuri ennen talon hylkäämistä.

Kalenteri joka näyttää elokuuta 1990 on tuorein talosta löytyvä esine; valtaosa on 60-luvulta ja 70-luvun lopulta. Lisäksi muutama esine 80-luvulta.


Talo sijaitsee aivan tien vieressä ja siitä on näköyhteys puiden läpi naapurustoon. Se lienee alueen vanhin talo; muut ovat paljon myöhempää, ehkä 80-90-luvulta.

Yläkerrassa osa lattialaudoista on irroitettu. Arvelen että se on tapahtunut jo ennen rakennuksen hylkäämistä. Nurkassa on toinen talon televisioista.

Yläkerrassa oli ilmeisesti talon pään työhuone.

Pöydällä kahden atache-salkun vieressä.

Vaatehuonetta ei ole täysin tyhjennetty.

Talon kummatkin hellat toimivat puulla. Talossa oli kuitenkin sähköt.

Ulkoa talo on todella massiivinen.
Kuva ei täysin kohdistettu, sillä kamerasta alkoi loppua akku.

Maatilan työhuoneet ja mylly(?)

Kenties jonkinlainen autotalli? Rakennus ei koskaan valmistunut; toiselta puolelta puuttuu seinä ja katosta on pystytetty vain runko. Tukirunko on hyvässä kunnossa ja rakennus ei näytä siltä kuin olisi hylättyä hajonnut.

Jonkinlainen autotalli? Kuvittelin että rakennus oli vielä käytössä - maali ei ollut halkeillut. Ovet oli kuitenkin murrettu auki. Vasemmanpuoleinen johti kapeaan varastotilaan ja oikeanpuoleinen autotalliin.

Klappikone(?) on ison varastohallin ainoa esine.
Kuvan ottamisen jälkeen kameran akku tyhjeni.

Uskomattoman suuren, mutta tyhjän autotallin perällä oli puuhaketta. Klappikone oli ainoa huoneen esine.
Kuva otettu puhelimella.

* * *

Miksi maatila oli hylätty? Kummatkin talon hellat toimivat puulla, vaikka talossa oli sähköt asennettu jo (kytkimistä päätellen) 60-luvulla tai aikaisemmin. Siellä täällä oli merkkejä siitä, että kaminaa olisi oltu irrottamassa ja lattiaa vaihtamassa; en näe syytä miksi vandaalit haluaisivat hajoittaa yläkerran lattian, kun kaikki muu on jätetty ehjäksi!

Kenties talo oli toiminut kesä-asuntona, mökkinä? Mutta miksi sitten rakentaa uusia rakennuksia, jotka on hylätty lähes käyttämättömänä? Missä talon viljelymaat olivat? Pihapiiri rajoittuu metsään ja omakotialueeseen, joista jälkimmäinen samalta ajanjaksolta kuin miltä uusi moottoritalli.

Tutkimusretki Pornaisiin I

Yksi Keravalla asumisen parhaista puolista on sen sijainti YTV-alueen reunalla; toisaalta pääsen Helsingin keskustaan 20 minuutissa, toisaalta maaseutu alkaa kymmenen minuutin kävelymatkan päässä itään.

Ostin taannoin itselleni maastopyörän. Tarkoitus olisi päästä tänä kesänä tekemään kunnon lenkki, jonka aikana nukkuisin teltassa tai hostellissa useamman yön.Tämä retki oli 65,4 kilometriä (kiitos Google!) ja ensimmäinen kerta elämässäni kun kävin Pornaisissa ja Mäntsälässä.

Yksi maaseudun parhaista puolista on siellä oleva tila. Käytöstä poistuneelle rakennukselle ei ole samanlaista purkutarvetta kuin pääkaupunkiseudulla, minkä ansiosta välillä vastaan tulee isojakin rakennuskokonaisuuksia, jotka on vain hylätty paremman idean puutteessa (klikkaa kuvaa suurentaaksesi);

Vanha huoltoasema

Irti revittyjen bensapumppujen luona kasvaa jo puita.

Rakennuksen takana on vanha rekka 60-luvulta (?) täydessä puulastissa. Sitä ympyröivästä romusta päätellen autoa ei ole liikutettu lähivuosina.

Vanha laituri. En tiedä mikä sen käyttötarkoitus oli, mutta se oli tarpeeksi tärkeä että yksityiselle pihalle johtavalle tielle kannatti rakentaa liikennevalo. Laituri kuuluu ilmeisesti vieressä olevan omakotitalon alueeseen.

Tämä siis menomatkalla, kuvat Pornaistentieltä. Takastulomatkalla törmäsin suureen hylättyyn maatilaan, jota tutkin lähemminkin. Kuvia seuraavassa viestissä.

Health care

Sometimes I find it amusing (and sometimes disgraceful) that the Americans don't have "free" health care. Of course, health care isn't free -- in 2006 it cost little under 2600 euros per citizen of Finland (how much people actually paid depends on their income, of course). The newspiece portraits this as expensive, maybe it is. How much do Americans pay for ther for their health plans (how much companies have to pay to cover their employees)?

On top of the above mentioned government safety web I have health insurance that costs me about 30 euros per year.

But all in all, what do you think of the safety web? Is it a great thing, or a bad thing?

Leningrad Cowboys

I never saw the original movies, but the concerts at Helsinki were something people will talk to their kids about. I didn't know they had so many music videos, though!

Where's the moon?


Thru the wire


Those were the days


I quite love all three of them.

Firefox in Europe, at the start of February 2008

I think I wrote about this few years back in the old Gulag-blog (I can't seem to find the url). I thought to take a fresh look;The average is said to be 28% (IE has 66%), which is quite high; +5% in one year, and I think closer to +10% since I last posted this graph..

I've noted the trend in my own family. One of my brothers decided to run with Firefox few weeks back after heroically defending IE6 since it came out (I never used the browser, I'm proud to say). My mother avoids IE like disease and I think that even my sister (age 12) is preferring this to IE.

The last 50%, I expect, are company computers and few hold-outs that just don't care. I think, apart of some system admins getting the whole company into converting, this would be it.

(Source)

Finnish political system

Based on my previous post and ifireball's answer, an (long waited) explanation on certain curiosities regarding the Finnish political system.

Parties
Finland has eight political parties with enough popularity to reach parliament seats. The biggest three have a popularity of about 20-25% (Social Democrats (slightly left), Centre and National Coalition (slightly right)), two midsized (Green League, Left Alliance (a bit farther to left)) and another three with popularity around 5% (Christian Democrats, True Finns (a bit farther right) and Swedish party).


This means that one party can't form a cabinet by themselves. The votes have also spread so generally over the field (with leftish tendencies) that the "winner" of the elections can't form a coalition with the smaller parties (greens, reds, swedes etc). The biggest party always needs the second biggest to gain Prime Minister's seat. To buy the competitor's co-operation, they are bribed with Foreign Minister's and/or Finance Minister's seats (the most powerful specialisation seats).

Exambles
Before I go any farther, I should note that Prime Minister is the person in charge of the state affairs. President stays out of the daily events.

In 2003 the then-Prime Minister (Social Democrat, who had ruled for eight years with the help of National Coalition, to the point that Coalition wasn't even pushing for their own pm-seat but supported Social Democrat) tried to make the elections about who will be the next Prime minister. As Coalition was only aiming for Finance Minister's seat, they lost votes, ensuring that "the bloody enemies" formed the cabinet together, leaving the trusted younger partner into opposition.
To make it even more fun; thanks to a political scandal the Prime Minister was a person nearly nobody had voted for.

Anyway, to go on: the system means that the cabinet has to be a constant consensus between two parties who are ideologically quite far from each other. To make this even more fun, neither of the big parties usually have enough steam to form cabinet by themselves, so they need smaller parties to bring up the count. Thus, who-gets-to-be-in-the-cabinet-game is very like Musical Chairs, with the expection that of the eight players about five get to be in the cabinet..

And to make things even more fun, you can't even poke fun at the main opposition party, because in less than four years they might be the leading party and trying to make a judgement call for which of the two big parties they want for the Finance Minister's seat.

What this means
The advantage of this system is that nobody gets to do any big moves without considering how it affects the whole population; people (and opposition) will accept changes to taxation, for examble, because that is what the party is about (and they can always change it back, and this is good ammunition for the next election). This means, of course, that one representative can't push agenda of special interest groups. Alas, this doesn't work on areas where the main body doesn't have any experience on - usually these fuck-ups have something to do with technology. See; Lex Karpela and the current Child-porn/Freedom of speech-scandal.

The side-effect of all this is that Finnish politics is very boring; nobody dares to argue against anything if they can't be sure of that the vast body of the parliament (and the citizens) isn't behind them. While they might be able to keep their seat in the cabinet (even over the elections) the feedback from the other parties would make ruling and forming consensus more difficult.

Similar system is in in use in all Nordic countries as well as in Germany (AFAIK). Depending on the opinions of the citizens and the power-balance (what is the normal support of parties from election to election, how many parties there are in all and what do they stand for) the "holy cows" may differ. Because in Germany it is nearly impossible to form a coalition without the Greens, the cabinet's views on many subjects may differ but nuclear powerplants are always going down..

Blogs and Internet

Follows a fast, free (as in "done in haste") extended quotation from one of my favourite reporters.

In my opinion we can well call the communication and cross-linking between bloggers as citizen journalism. Especially if this conversation gains critical mass and explodes into the public conciousness. This is one of the results of phenomeon known as "the wisdom of crowds".
[...]
Even in Finland we have had occurrences where blogs have affected public conversation.
[...]
The new copyright law which has gotten the name "Lex Karpela" is [an] examble of this. The feedback on the law and its preparation process was so massive, so clearly cut out of the same cloth -or, in other words, based on past conversations- that the minister Karpela took it to be "astroturfing"*.

The child porn-filtering conversation hasn't even been worth following on the official level. The "experts" and all other politicians, with the expection of Jyrki Kasvi and Kimmo Sasi have been -so to say- "lost in the field".

Much smarter conversation has been had in the blogs. Essensial is that from blogs these opinions have made their way thru editing process and into the [traditional] mass media.

The quotation serves two agendas; first, it shows that traditional media doesn't always know best (several magazines happily spread the minister's view in the child porn/censorship-scandal even thought the previous day 500 people had been rallying in front of the parliament house -- in the middle of workday!) and that traditional media tries to use the blogs as sources when the crosslinking reaches certain stage.

Second, it brings worth once again the sad fact of reality that the people in power are not always the best suited for it - and for some reason in Finland the same people usually have a pet project which involves limiting or making use of Internet difficult.

I know some of the references might be hard for foreigners, but they are pretty easy to google -- or just ask in the comments. It's not like they are in use.


*in this context, from few individuals, and not from the people as a whole.

Success with Ubuntu!

After the previous post, I just had to show the Ubuntu (in it's half-installed state) to a friend of mine. Even not working properly, it looked so damn cool!

So, while I was sitting on his couch and he was tinkering with something I idly started doing some google-searches and found a document that solved my WLAN-troubles.

I also had problems with the BEEB-sound the computer did once in a while. A person on irc referred to his blog.

The sound-problem -- my last big problem -- was solved by finding this forum thread and the post by m94mni.

Now the computer works 100%. I wrote this post in case I ever screw this up again and end up doing the same drill again.. I know what I did wrong and where to find the help.

Trying to install Linux, 2nd documented case

The following post is pretty much written one person in mind. Bear with me.

I tried to install Ubuntu to my laptop (last try was three versions ago, when nothing seemed to work properly). I still had the CD from my last try (a month or so ago), and figured the reason it didn't work on that computer was because of my uncommon configuration of parts, and not to blame on the operating system itself. Heck, as I think about it, even Windows had some trouble with the drivers of the graphic card!

Anyway, installation itself went dandily. Year ago, when I tried this on the then most recent version, the installation process screwed up my Windows XP partition as well, and I had to reinstall that as well.
Not this time.

Everything loaded perfectly (last time even the resolution was wrong).
I did experience some troubles;

• For some reason Firefox threw up some errors everytime I tried anything even little more complicated with that. but I found them pretty easy to fix with some Google-searches [REINSTALL].
• I couldn't get the WLAN working. When I did some googling I noticed that I wasn't the only person with this problem. nVidia had some drivers that Linux (very grudgingly, I hesitate to add) gave me, but they were no good. I tried few solutions, but they didn't do it.
  
• My sounds didn't work. Again, Ubuntu got me some drivers and recognized the integrated card but it didn't work. After literally hours of working, I found a solution, which included about 15 sudo-commands in the terminal.
  I tried to follow them, but I noticed that even with a map it was too much for me (how do I get past PAGE BREAK or something in terminal, for examble?). I think I screwed up the blacklist thing, and couldn't figure how to destroy the dublicates (how do I get root-access on Nautilus?).
  The end-result was that afterwards Ubuntu didn't even THINK it had found my soundcard. On hindsight, I think there might have been an easy solution, but I don't think I can backtrack my way to it.
  Someone who is as experienced with Linux as I am with Windows would probably do it, but I don't know anyone like that.

Excluding these two problems that were outside my skill-level, I really loved the GUI and the solutions. The graphical user-interface really blasted my eyes wide open; it looked better than Windows Vista or Mac OS X!
The ability to make virtual screens finally worked in an impressive way (thus far I had always found it a bit gimmicky) and the ability to skin the OS and mod the taskbars really blew my mind. [ Yes, things like this really matter to me ]
The fact that I could add my favourite folders to the "what folder would you like to use"-list (which isn't possible after 15 years in Windows) made me feel all farm inside.
The login-screen just radiated friendliness and professionalism; the same screen in Windows just looked fake and teenagery.

And the biggest surprise of them all; I downloaded a video with Bittorrent (just to check if I could) and was amazed to found that it went about eight times faster (2200 kb/s) than it ever did under Windows (I have 24 Mb cable, but Bittorrent has never gone over 500kb/s, usually not over 400 kb/s).

Should somebody solve my two big problems (eg. help me play youtube-video without any cables going to my laptop) in a way that I don't have to write sudo comments for one and half hours to terminal, I would not only thank him kindly, but ask him to destroy my Windows partition and -against promise to help me in the future- throw money at him. Like, 50€.

And that's what I think of Ubuntu today. It was very impressive, and the two final big problems I had with it seemed like they might be fixed (finally) in the next Ubuntu version, which is due in.... three months? This is the first time I have gotten so close to making everything work out-of-box that the fact that I failed really hurts me heart.

*sigh*