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*

A fast comment on piracy

Lately several people have mentioned that the failing music industry/artists should get slice of the monthly fee of Internet subscription, in a similar way that the industry gets money from empty VHS- and C-tapes and CD- and DVD-ROMs.
I had some troubles with this - particularly with the last one - I know I downloaded lots of questionable material on CD's back on the day, but today most CD-R's and DVD-R's of mine are full of photos, game-saves and other things I wouldn't hesitate to show to police. Mostly because the actual questionable material can safely be stored on hard drives and deleted after use. And then downloaded again, if need be.

Yeah, I'm not really making much of a case against, now aren't I? Well, this is the punchline;

When people talk of Internet, piracy and monthly compensation, how do we divide the money between the right parties? I mean, the number one legal way of using Internet is to browse web pages - why don't they get a share? What about porn? I have a feeling that porn is at least as big part of the traffic as Hollywood-movies or music from the big cartels.

Instead of trying to keep their stuff illegal, they could try to develop ways to get money out of Internet legally - for the U2 manager even iTunes was piracy against artist*. Radio seems to have worked well for the industry for decades. Over the past ten years, the music industry has done everything it could to shoot net radios down with fees that far outweight their income.

I'm not saying I'm opposed to subscrition system (I would be happy to get the whole copyright question sorted out, so we could concentrate on some real questions) - I just think that paying one group of people who claim their property is shared illegally isn't very good while people who provide their stuff for free on Internet get nothing - nor does game, film, porn or software industry. In the worst case scenario, each of them will be knocking at the door for their own $5. And in the best case scenario -- well, that's just fucking lazy, innit? If I were to forget a keg of beer at busy junction and then notice it empty afterward, I can't really ask the police to take $5 from every person in the neighbourhood who has alcohol on his breath. Or everyone else (he might have just hidden it for later consumption!).

Advertisements work as a model for webpages, for flash, blogs, even amateurish doodles - the Swedish procecutor is claiming that the owners of Piracy Bay are raking millions (YouTube certainly does) and Last.fm is doing fairly well as far as I know.

And the music industry is saying that they, armed with the best artists in the world can't do as well as a 14 year old kid with a pen and a scanner?

And if not advertisements, then maybe subscription -capitalistically chosen between competing alternatives, mind you... or just a dollar per song. I understand it's working very well. 2007 was -again- a record year for digital music transactions.

*and I bet he doesn't mean the fact that the artist gets 5 cents of the dollar, because the rest goes to printing and spreading the CDs. And of course manager will take his 20% out of that 5 cents as well. Plus taxes.

References; U2 manager blames Microsoft et al, Canadian songwriters propose legal music sharing, Music-industry tries carrot after years of stick, Internet radio may face crippling fees, Digital sales up worldwide.

Average IQ of nations

Found this map somewhere, didn't believe it and found it uploaded at Wikipedia. However, I have not been able to find the source for this map. I understand it's based on some tests or something.

I find it quite interesting that the IQ seems to change by zones - would think there would be difference between Israel and surrounding nations, or some difference between North and South America.

Why should this be so? I don't really think about correlations between race and nation (heck, aren't Australians and Canadians mostly mostly from Britain, with some Chinese and Japanese thrown in for spiciness?) but something sure looks wacky.

What I bought and did I like it and what next?

I wrote this one and half years ago. Go on, take a look, I'll wait.

Done? OK. I have pretty much done ("bought) everything in that list. Here's what I think of them today.

1. I bought a Gen5 iPod just before the price dropped over 100 euros. Depressed me a bit, but on the other hand, the product itself has worked for me like a charm. There are some problems with DRM and pulling music out of the instrument. I also wish for mini-USB port to replace the current non-standard one (makes charging the gadget or transferring files easier while visiting). Both of those needs are fairly small problems though, and seldom occur me. Maybe I have grown to live with them.
Since then, Apple has pushed new iPod nano's and iPod touches to market, but they don't really do anything to me. I hear the DRM has gone up and not down, even on the level of hardware. When the time leaves my player, I wonder with what I'm going to replace it with. All the competitors look so very plastic, and I feel a product should be both stylish and able. Most of the competitive things on the market are either/or.

2. Eyeglasses. Bought them, you can probably see them on the right. Heavier than my old frames (which date back to year 2001 or so) the new ones are more angular and look less "geekish". I wanted glasses that didn't seem to be shamed of themselves; my last glasses were almost round and seemed to say; "I need glasses, these should do". Now I wanted (and still want) glasses that say "even if my eyesight were perfect, I might still wear these". The glasses cost over 400 euros, as I recall. Partly because my eyesight is far from perfect, partly because glasses made from titanium alloy are not cheap.
I would really wish to own a second good-looking pair. As the EU has brought new competitors to the field, the price of optics has started to fall. I should be able to get glasses for little over 200 now. But this is really on the backburner. Not because of money, but because stores don't really carry a good collection of titanium frames.

3. I bought a laptop, a HP Pavilion. This was a difficult one, the technology was again going through a new paragrim shift, from 1024x800 to 1280x800, and from one core to dual core. The laptops had also started to move from necessary business tools and toys for geeks to "my personal, only computer" class. There was also a pressure to bring the prices down plus get the hardware ready for Vista. Back when I finally did the selection (October 2006) Vista was already late (and brought out four months later). The maker of the laptop was HP, but I notice myself thinking Sony (I seem to connect non-working pieces of shit with the company thanks to the MiniDisc).
To be fair, the computer doesn't really have one big fault that makes it unusable. More like a big selection of small problems that pile up and make the gadget annoying to use.

• The cover is plastic and looks good. However, it's not sturdy and doesn't protect the screen components on the inside. Thus my screen now has some colouring faults, particularly on the right side of the screen.
• The screen and keyboard don't open up to 180 degrees, but only to 140 or so. Perfectly OK if you use the computer on a table, but if support the PC on your legs, you can't get your eyes to the optimum angle.
• The volume, playback options and media buttons are touch-operated (and only work when the OS is running). This means that if you are booting your computer at a library or in some other HUSH-place, you can only turn the sounds off only after Windows has executed the quite loud TADAA!-sound.
• The loudspeakers seem to have interface, and sometimes emit metallic SCREECH-sound on the background. The maximum volume is barely over the "I can't hear you"-level.
  
• MovieDVD's etc. seem to have problems running. Also the (quite standard with all drives, I hear) regional coding with only five switches is quite annoying particularly as DVD's of other regions seem to wander in libraries etc. quite freely.
• Integrated graphics card seems to mean that all 3D-animation (as in games) comes with a half-second lag.
  
• Of the 80 GB hard drive, 15 GB is taken by the quite useless restore-partition.
  
• Naturally, HP is so cheap as not to ship the computer with DVD's, but makes you burn them yourself.
• If you HAVE to reinstall windows using the DVD, there is no chance of saving files on self-made other partitions, but the windows-installation starts with custom-made "wiping and redoing all partitions" function. Also quite common, I hear.
  

I would wish to buy a new one, but the current one isn't "that bad", only annoying. I can't justify using about 1000€ for something I don't currently even much need. Incidentally, HP is still using the upgraded Pavilion-design as it's flagship for consumer-laptops. Don't buy it.

4. 23" flat monitor. It was 22", it cost 300€ (because I didn't choose the cheapest model) and I'm very happy with it. I think I shouldn't have gone with plasma, but that's mostly because of the energy consumption, not because of the product itself.

5. I repaired the old electric grill my dad gave me (he got it as a wedding gift, and it was ready to garbage when I got it). After that it looked almost new and is good for another 25 years or so. It makes quite excellent toasts.

What then?
Like one and half years ago, I'm still wondering about TV's. I notice that the price of 42" Full HD has dropped to around 1200-1500€ (when year ago it was over 2500€ for HD Ready 40"). I can afford one now, but don't really have the space (or need) for one. Apart of television (and maybe console of some sort) there isn't really any consumer goods I would wish to have (I don't judge clothes, glasses or books/comics to be "consumer goods" as used in this post).
It does depress me a bit that after years of living comfortably with "after necessities, I have 50€ left for fun!" , I can safely ponder buying TVs without feeling too guilty about it... only to realize that TVs, like so many other consumer goods, aren't really for me. Half of the fun of thinking about these things was that they were so far outside your comfort-range. Like computer games that become boring after you learn how to use money-cheats or after defeating the Big Boss but still having option to wander the world.

I suppose that I'm not the only person in the world with this problem. Money doesn't get you happiness, and I never thought it would.. but I always thought that by the time I would get to this point (somehow I thought it would be later in life) I would have found something else to funnel time, interest and money to. Alas, this hasn't happened.

Q.E.D. I need a drug habit.

Aaand another sunset

I should really stop posting these. They start to get pretty predictable. The sun sets and there's lots of red.

Lauttasaari last Monday (14.1.2008)

Finnish race, ethnology

Originally nomads (hunters and fishers), all the Finnic people except the Lapps and Ostyaks have long yielded to the influence of civilization, and now everywhere lead settled lives as herdsmen, agriculturists, traders, &c. Physically the Finns (here to be distinguished from the Swedish-speaking population, who retain their Scandinavian qualities) are a strong, hardy race, of low stature, with almost round head, low forehead, flat features, prominent cheek bones, eyes mostly grey and oblique (inclining inwards), short and flat nose, protruding mouth, thick lips, neck very full and strong, so that the occiput seems flat and almost in a straight line with the nape; beard weak and sparse, hair no doubt originally black, but, owing to mixture with other races, now brown, red and even fair; complexion also somewhat brown. The Finns are morally upright, hospitable, faithful and submissive, with a keen sense of personal freedom and independence, but also somewhat stolid, revengeful and indolent. Many of these physical and moral characteristics they have in common with the so-called "Mongolian" race, to which they are no doubt ethnically, if not also linguistically, related.
-Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, 1911
Article on "Finland", p. 387.

The article on Finland can be found here, here and here.

EDIT: As people seem to think this holds water, let me paste here the text I wrote in the comments;

This theory was popular hundred years ago - if it was researched, I can't tell how. The "theory" served the same purpose as those written of Africans - that due to "submissive" nature, the Finns should be ruled by a a more dominative race. Namely, by Swedes and Russians.

The view of Finns as Mongolians was well spread, however, and till around World War 2 foreign reporters writing about Finns could be expected to remark how that particular specimen under observation - were it a politician, athletic or a businessman - was "uncommonly European for his race".

This all changed starting in the 40s. First Winter War, then Continuation War fought along Adolf "Pure Race" Hitler followed by Olympics in 1952 buried this theory well into the rubbish bin to which it deservedly belongs.

It is, however, good to remember stereotypes like this and how absurd they are, as most likely some of the ones we hold today are as idiotic as the one above.

Trying to install Linux, 1st documented case

I have gone into record saying that I have troubles getting Linux working for me. I have tried Ubuntu (twice), Mandrake and MEPIS, over the course of four years.

Well, I tried Ubuntu (7.10, x64) again. The files loaded from the LiveCD splendidly, but this is how the desktop looked;

[Sorry for the messy table.]

Well, that's "installing linux"for few months. Say what you want about Windows, but at least you can get the desktop to show up after given time.

The past year in pictures, first part

During the past year, I took over thousand photographs. Without inspecting them in any detail, I had just nonchalantly dumped them to /random/photos/. Last weekend, I browsed them through in an effort to find the pictures I loved enough to want developed.

During the following weeks, I'm going to some select pictures of that stash - most of it buildings and places I found especially charming, sad or moving. Here's the first;


This picture was taken at graveyard in Stirling. Build on a hill between the town castle and a Victorian prison, the centuries old (and still used) graveyard had beautiful statues erected by rich corpses as well as modest graves. Many of them were covered in moss, and some were just broken, presumably by vandals.

I don't know how they did things at Scotland, but in Finland the church decides 20 odd years back that "resting place for all eternity" meant actually "about 50 years"*. If after 50 years no relatives would be found (and ready to pay rent), the gravestone would be removed and the land given to someone recently passed away.

Seeing as how many of the gravestones were over 100, 150 years old, in bad condition and covered by plants, it should be safe tosay this is not so in Scotland. One has to wonder, though, how do they find places for new graves? Land is an expensive commodity, particularly near population centres.

*You could probably write something sarcastic about this.

Sunshine at Helsinki

Helsingin Sanomat International Edition reports:

December in Helsinki was unusually dark
As anyone who lives here will confirm with alacrity, it was grim up north in December. During the 31 days of December 2007 the sun shone for a total of just 20 hours in the Greater Helsinki area.

I don't really have anything insightful to add to this. Lets us just conclude that it is all very depressing and cold as well (but not apparently cold enough for snow). If I had money, I would flee Finland every late September only to return with the birds around mid-March.

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!