Onkia - disconnecting fish
Since I started working at Nokia a few years back I have become convinced of one thing; the inventor of the ringtone should be stuffed into a padded room with 500 phones each programmed with a uniquely annoying and loud ringtone whereupon I would wardial them all with giddy pleasure of watching him writhe in the pain of ringtonitis. mmm...I get goosebumps just thinking about it. I thought of this today when I was in a meeting and one of the taller, darker and more imposing quiet Finns suddenly had his hip break out into a ringsong, Stayin' Alive by the BeeGees. While distracting and annoying I must admit it was hilarious. I've seen teenage girls in Helsinki who look perfectly normal walking down the street with a furry cat stuck to their ear while they talk to it, though seeing a stoic man suddenly start playing a 70s disco tune is high on the list of TMI. :) Maybe SMS with txt2msg and smileys could replace the ringtone fad with a nice quiet message. :)
In spite of the fact that Nokia sold much of us IT folk to HP in a fit of fiscal vision I still love the company and may have to read The Nokia Revolution about the history of the company. Perhaps it will supply me with some ideas on how to go about my ringtone to IM subversion. :)
permalink Ω 31 January 2002, Helsinki
Bigger is not always better
The drama around the HP merger continues to grow and it's somewhat amusing to watch the internal executive email missives to us employees cheer it on attempting to make it seem that the merger and the subsequent 30,000 jobs lost in the process will be an exciting event for everyone involved. There's even a website for the merger to get shareholders to Vote the HP Way. Noone has actually said what actual good will come of the merger but many seem convinced, even the EU, that change is good in spite of the fact that HP has fallen well behind in markets it once dominated and is going into the services market which Compaq isn't really known for. Walter Hewlett has been very vocal is opposing the merger with his website Vote No, but he will probably be silenced in the march to conglomeration in the very near future.
permalink Ω 30 January 2002, Helsinki
St. Fuchs of Latex?
One would think that with all the bribery and corruption surrounding the Salt Lake City Olympic Selection committee that people would be outraged by some of the criminal activity but, no, they are protesting condoms being dispensed to the olympic athletes on the grounds that they promote casual sex. Perhaps some of the athletes are married and condoms are their only option for contraception. I guess they aren't aware that there is a disease called AIDS that is epidemic in proportion in Africa where most people die from it due to pharmaceuticals not being affordable and that telling people they may not have sex outside the confines of marriage and it's amoral to use condoms sounds like a reasonable solution. I guess that's what happens to you when you live your entire life in suburbia.
Finland should send the karelian condom fairy along with their olympic team to liven things up a bit. Perhaps the Preparation-H guy from Late Night with Conan O'Brien could team up with the Condom Fairy so they can treat the clearly hemorrhoid afflicted condom protestors at the same time. I guess that puts my "Joy of Sex" Olympic Village bookstore I had planned right out the window. Damn.
permalink Ω 30 January 2002, Helsinki
Forget the Hoover, think Black Hole
The Economist has an interesting article this week about Artificial Black Holes the immediately reminded me of an excellent book titled As She Climbed Across the Table where Alice, a physicist, creates what she comes to call "The Lack", a rather punctilious little desktop black hole. Theories about black holes have been around for quite sometime, even inspiring The Black Hole credited with the very first instance of CGI. It's an interesting field of physics and maybe they'll succeed so that in 30 years we can have our very own desktop black hole metaphysical rubbish bin that will put the entire sanitation industry right out of business. :)
permalink Ω 29 January 2002, Helsinki
Think Hard™
New Englanders like to think they know how to barbeque but since I'm a transplant here I am often sorely disappointed at the culinary offerings in the name of pilgrim barbeque [ exceptions being East Coast Grill in Inman Sq. and Blue Ribbon BBQ in Arlington ]. I am already salivating at the thought of being back home for YAPC so I can go out and have a beer and pile of real barbequed meat and then have breakfast at Uncle Bill's Pancake House at 4am for a good home cooked heart attack on a platter since it will probably be the last time I'll see such food for a long, long time.
It could have been the subconscious longing for grilled meat smothered in sauce that prompted me to look at a book with a bottle of BBQ sauce on the cover, Secrets of the Wholly Grill: A Novel about cravings, barbecue, and software. The publisher Carroll & Graf have one of the most ecclectic catalogues I've ever seen so after reading the flap I took a risk and bought it. It was an excellent purchase :) It's an amazingly well crafted satire on the current shady practices of the computer/software industry. It's hilarious and sharp, an unexpected find in a sea of rather boring fiction these days. The author is an IP lawyer in the valley so he's got the whole scene pegged and possibly a bit cliche in parts. The first chapter is online which may convince you to go get a copy :)
The February Issue of Harper's this month contains a fun list of new trademark applications since 9-11 on page 25...a few of the funnier ones:
- Bin Laden to Rest™
- Bin There Bombed That™
- Bum Laden™
- Fight Terrorism: Go Shopping™
- High on America™
- Hero Hanky™
- Osama, Yo Mama!™
- Terrorists Suck™
- Trash bin Laden™
- T.U.R.D. Terrorist Under Restrained Discipline™
- We're Our Own Enemy™
and the best one is....God Bless America!™.
I guess it's time I applied for use Perl; get laid();™.
n.b. - I decided to go hunting for who might be trying to register "God Bless America™" and was rewarded with several including GBA Fireworks and America Bless God!™ Ephemera and did you know that Perl& has been trademarked by Perl, Inc.? TESS is sure to give hours of umitigated horror and delight. :)
permalink Ω 28 January 2002, Helsinki
Hey, he's got a gun!...oh, wait....
It has always been my understanding that Academia only revokes degrees already conferred upon a graduate in extreme circumstances nearly always in situations of questionable academic integrity. Well, apparently, Penn State revoked the degree of a guy who ran in his undies down East Beaver Avenue as the crowd dubbed him "mullet man". Let that be a lesson to all you co-eds; drink, smoke, screw like bunnies just don't dare go running into a riot with your boxer shorts on lest you wind up like the mullet man. Pranks will not be tolerated and the beatings will continue until morale improves.
permalink Ω 27 January 2002, Helsinki
Get your wordrobe on
The NYT had a nice article today about George A. Thompson, a word sleuth who spends his days combing 19th century New York newspapers. This sounds like an awfully interesting and fascinating job. John McWhorter has a new title The Power of Babel: A Natural History of Language that explores the history of language in an enjoyable and accessible manner, controversial or not.
The Word Spy has already started collecting newly minted words for the Enronigate debacle that is sure to grow only to be forgotten with occasional historical references in short order. OUP has recently released Dictionary of the Internet which is full of words that you wouldn't find in a mainstream dictionary and may not be in common use in 10 years.
It would be nearly impossible to do but it would be interesting to make a gantt chart of 'words of the times' along with the events and plot the average amount of time the words they gave life to die out from popular usage. So many words, so little time.
permalink Ω 27 January 2002, Helsinki
Draping Justice
I'm sure you've heard of the Six Million-dollar Man but have you heard about the 8 Thousand dollar boobie? Ironically the statues are the Spirit and the Majesty of Justice who won't be seen again for quite a long time. There is a rumour that the Spirit of Justice will be replaced by a statue of Janet Reno. How sad.
permalink Ω 26 January 2002, Helsinki
Just call me Flipper the Syswallah
In these times it is always good to know the lingo to improve communication with your intended audience, e.g. if you write financial applications knowing a little bank slang is helpful. Interestingly enough Schwab has compiled Weird Words of Wall Street, More Weird Words of Wall Street and Son of Weird Words of Wall Street as a casual lexicon of the Wall St. set. I'm certain that Enron will add a few new words to this growing list. :)
And the ADS listed a few of the unlucky contenders in the word of the year vote, a few of them are really funny;
- Assoline -methane used as fuel
- Netwallah - website admin.
- EC - emotionally corrrect, i.e. 911
- desk rage - cube tantrum
- dot-orging - bailing from the .com to go .org
- annoyicon - those stupid network icons on the lower right side of your TV screen
- sneakers-up - yet another way to say dot bomb
This makes me wonder if there are words outside of JAPH, etc. that are unique to Perl. Drop me a line if you think of any and I'll make a little Perl lexicon for grins.
permalink Ω 25 January 2002, Helsinki
Ozymandias
As Enron executives resign and cop the 5th I was so touched by the Despair, Inc. receipt for my recent order that I have to share it since this kind of honesty is hard to find these days.
I'd like to personally welcome you to our growing body of Dissatisfied Customers(tm), but to do so might evidence some actual concern for service and protocol. This might then lead to customer satisfaction, which would defeat the purpose altogether. That is why you have received this generic, form-generated email, written by some nameless lackey in our marketing department.
Having established that any pretense of consideration for *your* needs would be counter-productive to our raison d'etre at Despair Inc, let us now ponder a subject of greater interest to those among us who are worthy of both of our collective attentions - that person being me.
While you sit there wincing in disbelief at these bon mots of authentic insincerity and vexed by the intrinsic contradictions, I find I am beside myself with awe at the spectacular Despair 2002 product line. It is an astonishing collection of wit and insight, beautifully realized and so perfectly timed for a nation, nay, a world facing the uncertainties of a darkening economic climate. It is without irony that I can honestly state that the only products I can imagine being *more* depressing would be motivational posters themselves. And THAT is saying something.
I will cherish this always. Wouldn't it be cool if MS or other software companies cut to the chase like this? I wonder if I can buy stock :)
permalink Ω 24 January 2002, Helsinki
Acid-free pixels
Since I recently joined the ranks of the digital camera owners I found Love in the Age of Digital Photos to be an interesting column from Stewart Alsop as he makes the same sort of bossa nova pining I've been having over the medium which is so loveworthy yet so lamentable. I've not tried any of the online services he mentions but I did install OS X on my iBook to optimistically try iPhoto only to be left somewhat unimpressed.
Film cameras remove much of this workload since you can have the film processed and, after a few days, get back prints and a CD with digital copies. Also, noone seems to be thinking about archival problems that may arise in the future since, at this point in the technology lifespan, I'll choose paper for longevity well before digital media. Digital cameras are cool but I hope there will be an easier way to manage the volume of pictures soon as well as more thoughts for archival qualities of storage formats.
permalink Ω 24 January 2002, Helsinki
Through a mirror, darkly
Discovering America: Travels in the Land of Guns, God & Corporate Gurus is a interesting read that I happened to see at the local bookshop recently. It's a sort of travelogue cum expose written by a Canadian who spent several years looking for America in places few natives would ever dare go. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a similar book in the 1800s, Democracy in America which a surprising number of Americans haven't read. He interviews the Michigan Militia, takes a gun class at the Smith & Wesson factory, follows an abortionist in her mission, visits Huntsville Texas for an execution among others.
While he hits all the hot spots there are parts that sting, even for me, in his observations about America so I give the author much credit in doing his homework and being quite observant. It's not a balanced look at the country but then that's pretty evident in the title. Even so, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in exploring how the rest of the world sees the US and are interested in beginning to understand why. It is not unbiased and it will piss you off in places but sometimes the truth hurts.
permalink Ω 23 January 2002, Helsinki
Vos vestros servate, meos mihi linquite mores
There's a Saint for everything, even the internet, St. Isidore of Seville. The Pope even sent his first e-message via the internet today and declared that the internet needs to be regulated to reduce depravity in the world. Hey, I like the online depravity of use.perl and #perl and such. Of course, the net is impossible to fully 'regulate' but I guess he's obligated to say it even if it'll never happen.
"He said the Catholic Church had adapted to every discovery through the ages, from the Renaissance to the invention of printing and the Industrial Revolution, and must now learn to reach the masses via cyberspace. "
Somebody better wake up Galileo and Kepler! :) That's funny. The Holy See has one of the most attractive web sites out there though it's a pity they don't have the library online. For those of you who can't wait for the church to 'adapt' and 'reach the masses' you can use The Internet Confssional which is powered by Perl :)
Perl: Powering Absolution. The Pope would make one hell of a spokesma n :)
permalink Ω 23 January 2002, Helsinki
Squeaka bin Mousen
geoff's diatribe against squirrels reminded me of one of the funniest things I have ever seen on the net, Harvey the Mouse Must Die!. Safe for work but not advisable for those who love rodents. :)
And, after some searching, I found the bicycle I want since I can't really commute on my old Specialized Sequoia which is like the Luxobarge of touring bicycles. Unfortunately, I can't get it in the US and have to order it from a shop I used to frequent in Covent Garden. It's weird that the US makes the bike only for the EU market and none of their US models have things like fenders or chain guards.
permalink Ω 22 January 2002, Helsinki
The Lord of the Onion Rings
Someone at ABC must have read my journal yesterday as today there's an article about the obese suing the fast food industry for making them fat. It's only a matter of time.
permalink Ω 22 January 2002, Helsinki
I'll bet that flight sucked! :)
The attack of the terrorist sucking toilet!.....overwhelmed with schadenfreude I can just picture the warning notices that will appear in airplane loos in the next few months; "Please remove ass from seat before flushing as you could be stuck here for 6 hours" or "Not to be used as a flotation device but has been shown to make an excellent ass vacuum"....
permalink Ω 21 January 2002, Helsinki
Honk if U *heart* CPAN
/. recently had a blurb about the main linux kernel mirror going offline due to some hardware errors followed by a range of sad and amusing comments by people who have probably no idea what it takes to run a service like that for free. In spite of all the criticism CPAN seems to receive it is now in it's 7th year of nearly continuous service. Andreas König and speed-link in .de run the PAUSE and Jarkko Hietaniemi and FUNET in .fi run the CPAN which is, in turn, propagated by over 200 public mirrors and countless private mirrors around the globe. All of these people and institutions who supply the box, power and bandwidth do so for nothing more than a smile and a thank you now and then. Love it or hate it we should be glad it is rather than is not in this world of sites being forced into subscriptions and ads to support such sorts of services.
permalink Ω 21 January 2002, Helsinki
G&T. Supersize!
NBC recently began airing commercials for alcoholic beverages breaking a long standing taboo against such ads in spite of all the sex, drugs, drinking and violence in the programs the TV networks air alongside such advertisements. Now a Virginia Congressman is lobbying to force NBC to cease the display of such ads since it's a health risk. So, if one uses the same logic as the congressman, et. al. then due to the epidemic of obesity which is also a serious health risk we should ban all advertisements for food or, at the very least, restrict the networks to only air commercials of healthy low-fat food that promote a well balanced diet since taunting a nation of obese people with commercials featuring supersize Big Mac and fries is negligent.
permalink Ω 21 January 2002, Helsinki
Disco Inferno....
There is nothing like reading an article in Fortune that mentions your employer is in the same tank as Enron right after the company gives you a chunk of stock. Mmmmm, yeah. I guess I should keep a shredder handy.
permalink Ω 18 January 2002, Helsinki
Break out the old CueCat
As you might have guessed by now, Jarkko and I have a rather large accumulation of books/treeware. In Ex Libris , there is a part titled "Marrying Libraries" where the author explains that after years of marriage and children that they were possibly ready to finally merge their libraries :) Over a year ago I purchased a bar code scanner to use the ISBN barcodes on each book in conjunction with Perl to get the book info off of Amazon.com or bn.com and shove it all into a db.
Today I dusted off my little bar code wand as there is a new bit of software, long available for windows, now available for Mac OSX users, Readerware. You just install the software, scan your bar codes, run the autocatalog and there it is. You can customise it and export it to your palm as well. I guess I know what I'll be doing all weekend :)
permalink Ω 18 January 2002, Helsinki
Should it be porngrammatist instead?
I have the 'Forgotten English' word-a-day calendar in my cube and yesterdays word was pangrammatist which is someone who writes sentences containing every letter in the alphabet, e.g. "John P. Brady, give me a black-walnut box of quite a small size." This made me think it would be a perfect sort of thing for Lingua::Pangrammatist to check a document for pangrammatism. So, off I went to google to see if anything interesting was out there for pangrammatist and other than a few dictionary entries the rest of the results were porn related. Now I'm left wondering what in the heck pangrammatist has to do with porn...how very odd.
permalink Ω 18 January 2002, Helsinki
Be careful what you wish for...
darobin recently wished for more Perl songs and this one was mentioned on the Boston.pm mailing list today. My lightning talk submission this year will be a song as well though I may have to have it videotaped since I don't think I'll be able to sing it without laughing :)
permalink Ω 16 January 2002, Helsinki
Honey, did the toaster just call me a *$&#^?
I'm always up for a good clean sort of prank especially when it involves a bit of a hack. The attack of the hacked talking scale got me thinking about how many consumer products have IC chips in them and the wide range of fun one could have in the average household by reprogramming them...especially homes with wireless and X10! The potential for good cheap and clean fun is limitless :) The first rule about Hack Club is that noone talks about Hack Club *mwwhahaha*.
Also, for those who skipped school the day MLK was discussed....James Earl Jones is the voice of Darth Vader. James Earl Ray was the guy who allegedly shot and killed MLK. Who said irony is dead?
permalink Ω 16 January 2002, Helsinki
If this guy is right then why do I have a moustache?
Apparently wishing that people would not treat women any differently in school or work than men merits the label of 'feminist' or the more endearing 'feminazi' but when I see books like The Wonder of Girls it makes my blood boil since it, once again, returns to the gender stereotypes so programmed into the brain by western civilisation. USA Today had a small article about the book, no doubt to drum up publicity, which is no more repellent than The Rules since both send the same message that girls should do everything they can to get a man to marry them, start having babies and not have other expectations in life since that's not in your hormonal programming. I guess someone forgot to tell the Navajo and other matriarchal cultures.
I'd rather see books for how to keep your kid from taking a gun to school or how to recognise if your kid is making bombs in their bedroom since that seems more pressing than telling girls what they should be instead of letting them be whatever they want to be.
permalink Ω 15 January 2002, Helsinki
The Big Picture™ writ large
When I was working at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the largest botanical research institution in the US with an extensive herbarium, I had the joy of getting to sit in on a lecture by E.O. Wilson who is a friend of the director of mobot, Peter Raven. If you aren't familiar with him you should be as he is the Jacques Cousteau of the biosphere. Aside from some of his more controversial research he has a lot to say about the loss of biodiversity. The average suburbanite probably doesn't care much about the loss of rain forest any more than global warming but when you go through the herbarium with him choosing specimens at random with half of them being extinct you start to get the idea that we're in big trouble. Groups such as the Applied Research Group who find new uses for plants, including such things as cures for cancers, etc. since plants manufacture compounds we can't replicate, are in a race for species before they all disappear.
The Future of Life is his latest book and Salon has an interesting interview with him. Let's hope someone pays attention to him as living in a tin can cruising around the cosmos as an alternative to living on earth doesn't really hold a lot of appeal.
permalink Ω 14 January 2002, Helsinki
And I thought a parking ticket was bad...
The first time I went to Finland I read an article in the FinnAir Magazine about a guy getting a speeding ticket to the tune of $45,000USD or ~300,000FIM. I thought it was a joke since how could speeding down a city street warrant such a fine. Well, the by-product of being a completely digital/wired society is that the cops have access to not only your record of previous violations but also your fiscal records and ticket you accordingly. Apparently this guy was a dotcom prick who drove a bright red Ferrari around town like a jerk making most of the city cheer that he got nailed. At least, that's the impression I got after a few people around the table at the pub thought it was funny. Well, move over Jaakko as Anssi Vanjoki just one-upped you on the speeding ticket hall of fame.
Now, what I want to know is why do we still manufacture cars that a) can go over 130mph when the maximum speed anywhere in the US is 75mph in parts of the west and b) cars that are completely stupid and don't have the intelligence to mind the speed limit in the zone the car is in? Yes, I hear you say "Because noone will buy them!"...but, hell, why make speed limits if you're going to break them and if you save $100k in tickets you've already saved lots of money :)
I think we should organise the "Helsinki Gran Prix" where 10 of the richest people in Helsinki are given a fast car and a directive to drive through Helsinki as fast as they can and the one who gets the most expensive fine wins :)
permalink Ω 14 January 2002, Helsinki
Billboard Non Sequitur
In the Fens last night we noticed a huge billboard along a stretch of the Mass Pike that was a black hulking tribute to 11 September with the names of the victims in white. Next to this was another billboard, also in black with white type that simply stated "Respectfully, stop handgun violence"....apparently a gun control group altered their message to match the sombre tone of the ones next to it. It seems like a giant non sequitur so I think it might be more interesting if someone made a giant airplane out of white vinyl to place over the word 'handgun' and in smaller type "and handgun violence too".
permalink Ω 14 January 2002, Helsinki
Ambrosia Arcade
I am part of the arcade game generation and now I am completely and utterly addicted to Maelstrom [ Asteroids ], Apeiron [ Centipede ] and Swoop [ Galaga ]. I am afraid to download Deimos Rising but my network connection is sucking today so I have been saved :). Ambrosia Software has been around for a long time and have created such indispensible utilities like SnapzPro for Macinstosh users. I love Ambrosia Software and I hope they will never release an Atari Tempest clone lest I be lost in a dark room for several months.
permalink Ω 13 January 2002, Helsinki
Fark.com You!
In St. Louis when you hear someone say "Take the fark in farty-far" you know they mean "Take the fork in Interstate Highway fourty-four". Now there is Fark.com. I'm not sure what it means but it's pretty funny anyway :). I found The Jesus Museum, Bat Boy in Love and Welcome to America! excellent comic relief to a long week.
permalink Ω 11 January 2002, Helsinki
The bureaucracy of being alien
I'm a warm weather person so it is somewhat cruel that fate sent me a man from a country where reindeer roam and Santa spends the off season. In one year I will be following Jarkko back to Finland to live.
After 11 September I started working on some of the paperwork for Jarkko's green card since I was a little worried about the potential for non-citizens to be deported and wanted to make sure that in a worst possible scenario that all would be well. The forms were numerous, the questions remnants from the Cold War [ Are you a communist? ] and downright retarded in places. I was both amused and embarassed by much of it and didn't finish the paperwork since, after the immediate panic passed, there didn't seem much point.
So, now it's my turn to be the alien and, while Finland is much more restrictive in their immigration than the US in some ways, it would appear that they do not ask a single question about communism even though they are next to Russia and went to war with them or ask if I'm planning to commit espionage during my stay in Finland. It would seem someone is on the ball in The Directorate of Immigration. What is most impressive though is their definition of 'family ties';
"Multiple marriage is not recognised by Finnish legislation. For this reason, a residence permit can be granted to one partner only. The sex of the partner does not affect the granting of a residence permit, so that a permit may be obtained by a partner of the same sex."
On the US forms one of the questions is about bigamy and don't *even* bother applying if you have any kind of relationship that doesn't embrace good old fashioned American family values and the church. Finland also doesn't mandate that you be married, just that you have cohabitated and survived each other for 2 years and have some documentation to prove it. I'll probably still get the rectal probe that is Immigration but I must say this is such a comforting sign to me that Finland will be a nice place to live ..especially in a time where the US is not doing anything comforting with regard to respecting human life in this so called war on terrorism.
permalink Ω 11 January 2002, Helsinki
An improbable enterprise of thorns
While reading the Salt: A World History I was reminded of an obscure detail in history that few have ever heard of; the East India Company hedge in India that was 2,500 miles long, which would stretch from London to Constantinople, manned by 12,000 people and its purpose was to prevent smuggling of salt among other things. Recently, a library conservator ran across a mention of the hedge. Intrigued, he started researching this seemingly outlandish idea that somehow had gone completely missing from history. He wound up writing a book about the hedge and one of the greatest British follies of all time: The Great Hedge of India: The search for the living barrier that divided a people. History certainly does always seem to repeat itself in a species that never seems to learn from it.
permalink Ω 10 January 2002, Helsinki
Room for Squares
It's not very often I gush over newly discovered music or musicians since I find my old reliables from the 70s and 80s still churn out excellent music but....I recently saw a guy on the Conan O'Brien show who caught my attention. No small feat since the TV is usually just white noise that I easily ignore. I heard the same song on the radio not long afterwards and remembered his name so I could order the album online. His name is John Mayer and the album is as amazing to me as my first Elvis Costello album in 1978. The lyrics are terrific too. From No Such Thing:
"So the good boys and girls take the so called right track
Faded white hats
Grabbing credits
Maybe transfers
They read all the books but they can't find the answers
And all of our parents
They're getting older
I wonder if they've wished for anything better
While in their memories
Tiny tragedies
They love to tell you
Stay inside the lines
But something's better
On the other side
His voice is luscious. He's a superstar.
permalink Ω 9 January 2002, Helsinki
It must be the opium
I'm not sure which is more disturbing; Aghanistan talking about reviving tourism in a country where millions are starving in a war zone or that Pat Buchanan's latest neo-Nazi rant has been on the Amazon.com top 5 list for the last week. There must be some good drugs going around that I missed out on.
permalink Ω 8 January 2002, Helsinki
Lemony Snicket. Buy Now.
This morning Sarah mentioned a Lemony Snicket and that his books are much like Edward Gorey. I have been an avid collector of Gorey for most of my life so, after doing a little research on the net I stopped by the local B&N to look at the books. After 30 mins of reading through The Bad Beginning and The Austere Academy I immediately grabbed a copy of all 8 books in the "Series of Unfortunate Events". I haven't been this excited by an author in ages. Maybe this is old news to people with kids but you simply must buy these books as they are the most delightful stories for any age I've chanced upon in a long time...and I include the, to me, rather dull HP series.
The American Dialect Society has voted and chosen the word of the year for 2001: 9-11. I'm bitterly disappointed as 9-11 is not a word and part of me really would like life to just move on. "In America it is now the way of referring to the most horrendous event of the century" according to the article. I bristle at the suggestion. Maybe the Bells will change the 911 emergency phone number due to the psychic trauma of the nation to 910 or something. Well, if we don't all get nuked off the planet due to rampant nationalism and fundamentalism maybe we'll have a better word next year.
permalink Ω 8 January 2002, Helsinki
Or There and Back Again for a Dragonleather Jacket
Last night TorgoX asked me if Jarkko had first read the Lord of the Rings in Finnish or English. Last August Jarkko purchased a copy of LOTR for his sister and commented how the Finnish translation of Taru Sormusten Herrasta [ and available for 20€ at Akateeminen Kirjakauppa in Helsinki ] was far superior in some ways to the English as much care was taken by the translator to capture the essence of the story. Tolkien also studied Finnish at some point in his education before settling on English which may have helped the translator somewhat in communicating with Tolkien.
In my quest to find the Finnish edition online for TorgoX I happened to come across The Snobbit and Lord of the Legos which needs no translation at all for those who can't be bothered to read the rather lengthy tome. :)
permalink Ω 8 January 2002, Helsinki
Waiting for Jar Jar
Since 90% of the people whom I used to call 'users' have been laid-off these days, I often find myself rather bored since users tend to keep things more lively than I ever could muster alone. I feel pretty guilty about wasting time around the office so I've started doing Finnish vocabulary drills on my Mac with the Finnish parts of 101 Languages of the World, a workbook I picked up in Helsinki and making up old fashioned low-tech flash cards for rote memorisation.
Or, at least I felt guilty until I read that 2 guys are waiting for Star Wars from 1 January until 16 May at a theatre they aren't even certain will be showing the flick and are calling it ART. How can two grown slacker guys sit out in front of a theatre for 5 months waiting for a movie and call it art?
"Waiting for Star Wars is an art project designed to capture the evolution and journey of one person's wait for a single event (Star Wars Episode II). It will be captured by time-indexed photographs taken every hour as well as pictures and video of the people we interact with.
This project also explores the issue of the pursuit of happiness. It asks how much will a person sacrifice for a temporary acquisition, and questions whether a person can be happy with just food and shelter in pursuit of that acquisition. It also asks, will society as a whole fear or accept people for not desiring the things they desire, or for desiring things they consider frivilous or ridiculous. Finally, as we move into the next millennium, I wonder if our fast-paced society has become unwilling to slow down and wait for the things that bring us the greatest joy. This wait will test my mettle as I attempt to do just that."
These guys are straight out of the Man Show. "Both men are single", the article says...wow, what a shocker! What woman or employer wouldn't beat a path to these guys? Well, at least you'd know where they were all night and the dates would be regular if a bit dull. :) It might be art if they created 'clones' of themselves and left them out to hold their place in line but, wow, now I can slack on IRC, eat chips, scratch my ass and do utterly pointless things for an hour or three completely guilt free henceforth. It's art!
permalink Ω 7 January 2002, Helsinki
Get a hammer, pound your genitalia
Tomorrow is the big day when Steve Jobs will announce something that, in the wake of all the hype, will be horribly disappointing. At least a few people like the Joy of Tech and another are having a blast making fun of the inevitably retarded earth shattering event that Apple is about to announce. I'd like to see the return of the Newton but the rumours about iPhoto software and a new LCD version of the iMac are probably more realistic. Exciting? Maybe, but certainly not worthy of all this hype. Well, we will know in about 16 hours.
permalink Ω 6 January 2002, Helsinki
Midnite Movie Madness
A couple of years ago the MNW.pm was formed and its inspiration came from a movie that was so bad it was good. Now it would seem that MGM has released a new series of B-Movie Classics on DVD they call Midnite Movies. Yes, now you can own Mars Needs Women, Morons from Outer Space, Killer Klowns from Outer Space and, my personal favourite starring native St. Louisan Vincent Price, Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine for around $14 each. Wahoo! perl monger gatherings with popcorn and beer on a Friday night will never been the same again :)
permalink Ω 5 January 2002, Helsinki
Drowning in pixels...
The upside of a digital camera is that it takes nice pitures with immediate gratification, the down side is that you suddenly find yourself swimming in hundreds of 1.5mb+ sized filles. The old way of shooting film limited you to 36 shots or so per roll which cost anywhere between $8-$20 to have developed...so it cut down the volume and you had something physical to either file away or put in a scrapbook, etc. With 500 JPEG files in a week or so it quickly transforms into a much larger problem of how to organise them and how to manage them.
The software that comes with the Canon D30 is nothing to write home about but does an adequate job of extracting the photos from the CF card and transferring it to, in my case, the iBook. I quickly found that the Microtech ZiO! comes in very handy for hoovering off the photos without having to have the camera around. I've also started using Image::Info along with MacPerl [ thanks to Matthias and Pudge :) ] to bypass the Canon software altogether and gather all the EXIF information in a far more convenient manner than I would otherwise be able to do with the vendor software. Translating the Canon MakerNotes into useful information is not quite as clear and simple as one might hope though.
I've got lots of original files from the camera, a bunch of resized files for the web and, now, a whole lot of data relating to each. So, I'm thinking it needs a database, something small and simple but even with all the data that is extracted from the picture there is value added data such as location, type, comments, etc. which really make the data useful yet takes a lot of time since it cannot be automated.
And, of course, the logistics of sharing them becomes something of a task as well. The elderly couple who lived next door to my family when I was growing up would usually take an exotic holiday 2 or 3 times a year and invite us over for dinner and a slide show of photos with colourful stories afterwards and mail us picture postcards from their destinations too. Sharing pictures over the web removes all of the personal elements...I usually feel like a dirty old man looking at other peoples photos of family and such online without the personal commentary that would normally accompany such pictures. How do you share photos that are meaningful to you or meaningful enough to want to share while removing the personal? Well, I've looked at a lot of photo album software for the web and I figure if the personal can't be present then at least a certain amount of simplicity and utility should be. Pekka Saarinen is about to release his newly named exhibit engine which he's spiffed up in the last few weeks but the list feature is something I've not found in any other software. Pudge also has a nice photo gallery plugin but, at least on the boxes I use for photos, I can't install slash 2.x yet due to software conflicts. I'm hopeful that EE won't have any such issues.
And now I have to figure out the best way to send print orders to the photo shop so I can get physical copies to send to Mom :) Digital cameras are great if you can avoid drowning in the sea of pixels and info....
permalink Ω 4 January 2002, Helsinki
Synergy I banish thee
Lake Superior State University has been issuing a List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness every New Years for nearly 30 years. I am brimming with joy that my submission of synergy made the list as well as Nine-eleven and others deserving banishment.
permalink Ω 1 January 2002, Helsinki
Happy Frigidaire New Year
I've always thought the whole New Year's thing as a rather dull and cold event. Why can't we celebrate midsummer when it's warm out with drinking and debauchery as a national holiday instead? :) I've done the Times Square celebration and others so this year we gave the Boston First Night celebration a whirl.
When we arrived we were promptly greeted by an array of inflated figures of a clown, the Temple of Been Here, and a group of weird creatures one of whom had killer boobies even Madonna would envy.
Ice sculptures were a very popular attraction as well. There was one where easy rider complete with steamy exhaust represented the old year with a child on a tricycle as baby New Year. A lovely scene of Bears and salmon with an amazing backdrop of trees was a big hit. The Snow Queen sculpture in Copley Square with the queen herself on a gryphon sleigh and a buck and child while the artists completed the bears with chainsaws was also pretty stunning. I wanted to ask what the creature in the center of the snowflake was but couldn't get close enough. Another sculpture in front of the library appears to be made of metal but is made of ice. I think it was a ring of people joining hands around a blazing white dove that Jarkko suggested was a grouse ( The Grouse of the New Year or of Peace? :) but there were TV news crews next to it making it impossible to get a photo.
Walking towards the parade route an ecclectic mix of public art was on display. Next to the public toilets this shamanistic creation gave even the most urgent bladder pause. A wood frame in the shape of a house with paper flames in the windows was a curious item and the cryptonite constellation made me chuckle.
My toes nearly froze off while waiting for the parade to begin but things finally started moving with cops on bikes, segways and horseback. Father Time made an appearance on a high wheel bicycle. A fife and drum corps dressed in costume, a scary dragon, cranes and a giant gold puppet were a small selection of the parade events before the cold and crush of people drove us in search of hot coffee nearby.
Before we left downtown to go sit on the nice warm couch with nice hot tea in the nice warm house we watched the fireworks display over the Common.
Next year at this time we'll be preparing to go to Finland so maybe we'll have to try Greece or somewhere very warm for the New Year instead :)
permalink Ω 1 January 2002, Helsinki
