WORLDWIDE STUPIDITY from the US Embassy, Helsinki

The US likes to drone on about technology and how it's 'revolutionizing' the way people communicate. Indeed, the State Department sent out an email to US citizens in Finland about how yankees in the hinterland are at risk with all of their email addresses in plain view. How very revolutionary as now some terrorist could possibly identify many of us without much trouble at all. Now that's what I call innovation. If those who bungled this are reading, c'mon over to the house as you know where I live and I can show you how not to be an email idiot terrorist. I think a Finnish toddler knows more than you do about email and computing.

From: "Helsinki, ACS"
Date: pe touko 23, 2003 14:58:33 Europe/Helsinki
To:
Cc: several hundred email addresses in plain view removed
Subject: WORLDWIDE CAUTION from the US Embassy Helsinki, Finland

The U.S. Embassy in Helsinki would like to call your attention to the following announcement posted by the Department of State on April 21, 2003 and available at its website, http://travel.state.gov.

WORLDWIDE CAUTION
April 21, 2003

This supersedes the Worldwide Caution dated March 19, 2003. It is being issued to remind U.S. citizens of the continuing threat of terrorist actions that may target civilians and of the need to remain vigilant. The U.S. Government remains deeply concerned about the security of U.S. citizens overseas. U.S. citizens are encouraged to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness. This Worldwide Caution expires on September 20, 2003.

Tensions remaining from the recent events in Iraq may increase the potential threat to U.S. citizens and interests abroad, including by terrorist groups. Terrorist actions may include, but are not limited to, suicide operations, bombings or kidnappings. Possible threats include conventional weapons such as explosive devices or non-conventional weapons, including chemical or biological agents. Terrorists do not distinguish between official and civilian targets. These may include facilities where American citizens and other foreigners congregate or visit, such as residential areas, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, hotels, outdoor recreation events or resorts and beaches. If such facilities cannot be avoided, U.S. citizens should increase their security awareness at such locations.

U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert. These facilities may temporarily close or suspend public services from time to time for security reasons. In those instances, U.S. embassies and consulates will make every effort to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens. Americans are urged to monitor the local news and maintain contact with the nearest American embassy or consulate.

As the Department continues to develop information on any potential security threats to U.S. citizens overseas, it shares credible threat information through its Consular Information Program documents, available on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov. In addition to information on the Internet, U.S. travelers can get up-to-date information on security conditions by calling 1-888-407-4747 in the U.S. and outside the U.S. and Canada on a regular toll line at 1-317-472-2328.

permalink Ω 24 May 2003, Helsinki

Perl Poetry without the Fridge

If you use OmniGraffle and aren't always near a fridge when you get a hankering to wax poetic with Perl don't despair as there is a Perl magnet stencil to plug into your OmniGraffle to entertain yourself with for hours.

Note: when you download the file it appears to be a .txt file. Rename the extension to .graffle and relocate it to your /Library/Application Support/OmniGraffle/Palettes folder.

permalink Ω 22 May 2003, Helsinki

Zippy the Finnhead

Rocco Caputo pointed out a Zippy comic sporting some Finnish and asked me to translate the text.

• Frame 1: The men are in the street.
• Frame 2: I bought this book last summer in London. [ typo as Täm än should read Tämän ]
• Frame 3: We got firewood from the forest in the evening.

It is not Finnish of any great portent, but Zippy always gives you the feeling like there is more than meets the eye. People who aren't from the US won't get the Big Boy reference, home of the original double-decker hamburger, as part classic icon of American pop culture and part roadside attraction. I think Zippy is being misled by a fat little boy holding a tray of food since it is learning Finnish, not a remote deity speaking Finnish, that is hard. :)

permalink Ω 18 May 2003, Helsinki

Stephenson Goes Baroque

Since I'm a bit of a crypto and crypto history enthusiast, I have been eagerly awaiting Neal Stephenson's new book, Quicksilver, ever since I read Cryptonomicon. Quicksilver will be set 300 years in the past. I don't read much fiction anymore since the vast majority of it is disappointing and not worth the rather steep prices, which are even more frightful overseas, but I always anxiously await new works from a few authors like Tom Wolfe [ who, from what I've read lately, is currently writing a campus novel I'm just itching to read ], Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, Jonathan Franzen, Jane Smiley and Neal Stephenson. Quicksilver's pub date had been pushed back a few times so I signed up for a mailing list to notify me when the book would be forthcoming. I finally received an email and the end of the wait is near; The Baroque Cycle pre-publication hype has begun.

permalink Ω 11 May 2003, Helsinki

Vappu photos

I survived Vappu and managed to take a few photographs of the melee. A Helsingin Sanomat article I found helps to explain the origins of Vappu which noone seems to remember or care about anymore. It's a giant drunken street carnival everyone seems to enjoy regardless of where it came from. :)

The tradition is to have a group of university students winched up by a crane over a rather voluptuous fountain statue whereupon they place a cap on her head at 6pm on Vappu Eve. They dangle in the air waiting for the time to arrive and discuss how many beers they've had already while drowning out the din of the bad, drunk brass band playing on top of a van nearby.

Once the cap is on the statue named Manta, everyone puts on their own caps, regardless of age, and the festivites officially begin. The harbor area is full of balloons, typical carnival fare, and a few food vendors selling sausages and pancake/crepe-like pastries with jam to help keep a few people sober or liven up the sidewalk vomit, depending on how you look at it. :)

People hang around while drinking champagne and wearing goofy hats. One girl had a giant grinning flower balloon in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other with a curious look on her face while the friend next to her is saying somthing like 'you didn't need him anyway'. I really like that photo. I also caught Sammy Hagar amidst the crowd.

After about 2 hours of this, people wander to private parties or to pubs, leaving the empties for the clean-up crew.

permalink Ω 4 May 2003, Helsinki

A little bit of history repeating...

I've been reading the new From Airline Reservations to Sonic the Hedgehog: A History of the Software Industry by Martin Campbell-Kelly and I have been impressed with both his approach and his analysis of the subject matter. He notes the fleeting and mostly disappearing bits of computing history from even as recently as a decade ago. I have also noticed this just by the culling of bits from the Perl history project which are few, far between and often lacking a public interest in preserving for posterity. I save what I can in hopes that it may someday be useful and appreciated. Much of the book owes its research to corporate archives which aren't public but which the author was able to obtain access to.

The book stops at 1995 for various good reasons so those looking for an open source software history will have to wait, but he does mention open source in the very beginning which immediately gives him credibility as a historian with a clue:

"A second limitation of this book is the cutoff date of 1995. Naturally historians have a professional reluctance to write about very recent events on which they lack a proper perspective, so I have no fear of criticism from other historians on that score. However, any self-respecting industry analyst or software journalist would bring the story up to date and would, for good measure, project a few years into the future. This involves a set of skills different from that of the historian. It is not mere pusillanimity that makes me reluctant to attempt to do the same, but the fact that such projections are often wrong and therefore that contemporary obsessions often miss the real drama and turning points. For example, in the last 5 years there has been an enormous amount of press coverage of the Java programming language, the Linux operating system, and open-source software. I have no idea whether these will turn out to be turning points in the industry or not, and my opinion is certainly no better than the average pundit's. On the other hand, I find it quite fascinating that in the business press of the early 1990s the Internet was one of the least-written-about subjects, getting perhaps one-tenth the column inches devoted to Microsoft Windows or the tribulations of WordPerfect. I don't know what it is, but I bet there is something much more important going on right now than Java, Linux or open-source software, and that it will be 2010 before it becomes fully apparent."

The book is full of interesting little tidbits such as the Computer Usage Company [ CUC ], the first software contracting firm, was a start-up whose first four programmers were all women who were recent science or math grads. His style is a wee bit dry but that's understandable when you're working with this kind of project where there are lots of facts, big gaps in information and few personal accounts of the subject matter to give it a more human dimension. Every story in this book has a much larger story to tell, you can feel it, but people die and their story dies with them unless they have made an attempt to preserve it. Perhaps this will be a wake-up call to some whom history is important.

The author is also working on The History of Mathematical Tables: From Sumer to Spreadsheets which is due out by August and should be very interesting to read as well.

permalink Ω 2 May 2003, Helsinki

No more dreads

When you move to somewhere completely new it takes a long time to build up the usual cadre of things you know about wherever it is you live such as where the best grocery is and which movie theatre has the best popcorn, etc. I needed to get my hair cut as the last time I had an appointment for hair removal was 9/11 which I skipped out on. So, after more than 2 years my hair was long, too long, and dry to the point of taking half a bottle of creme rinse to even think about getting a comb through the matted mess.

I was afraid to just drop-in on any random salon in the city for fear of getting a bad haircut due to the language barrier or just by not knowing which salons are not that well regarded. Jarkko finally made an appointment to have his hair trimmed and made one for me too at the salon he usually frequents. I felt a little goofy for wimping out but the visions of edward scissorhands were unrelenting :) The stylist did a very nice job after asking me three times if I was sure I wanted to remove all that hair. I would have considered a marine buzz cut at that point so badly did I want to be free of the dry, unmanageable nest of hair on my head. Of course, the universal law of hair cuts apply even in Finland; your hair will never look as good as when you leave the salon. :)

permalink Ω 2 May 2003, Helsinki

Today we talk small Finnish

The main Helsinki daily newspaper, The Helsingin Sanomat, has an ad on the cover page every day but today it carried an exceptional ad. Above the type "Today we talk small Finnish" the page had several colourful illustrations each with a caption in English:

• WEATHER: Sunlight is damaging and makes you old. In Finland the dangerous period lasts only a couple of months.
• NATURE: There is a magical silence in Finnish nature. It can only be interrupted by a loud "WROOOOOM". Don't be scared, it is just another forthcoming Flying Finn.
• TECHNOLOGY: Finland is not blessed with riches, so we have to be innovative. No wonder we are known as Europe's Silicon Valley.
• SUPERSTARS: Santa Claus is Finnish. Do not trust fakes.
• DEMOCRACY: Finnish women are the most beautiful in the world. Our prime minister is a woman and so is our president. And the men are....Yes, we do have men.

It's always a good sign when people still have the ability to poke a little fun at themselves :)

permalink Ω 1 May 2003, Helsinki