Mane

Maaliskuussa 2004 kävin Hongkongissa tekemässä GMAT-kokeen, ostimme huonekaluja Cixistä ja aloin valmistautua lähtöön Kiinasta. Teksti on alkuperäistä englantia, ja hakasulkeissa ovat omat lisäykseni. Perjantai 5.3.2004 It took less than 7 minutes to pack my things for the trip. I am professional traveller. Lauantai 6.3.2004 I am getting careless: I needed to wake up at 6am to catch the plane to Hong Kong, but I had not set the alarm clock on! For some reason I woke up 5.59 am and managed to get to the airport in time. The flight was OK. Some arrogant lao wai tried to use his phone during take-off, but I busted him. I am a legalist as you know, when it suits me. Hong Kong is just as fascinating as last time. I had lunch in vegetarian Indian restaurant (bread, malai kofta and biriyani, all as they should). Then I decided to do some sightseeing and took the Star Ferry to Hong Kong island and back. It was fun, the weather was nice and the ferry rolled nicely over the waves. For din...

9-12 HSDPA workshop. Interesting and good explanations. This is the way to work. 12-13 Finally a lunch with BasVodde. Rather lively discussion on the need to write documents. 13-14.30 Emails about the future. Also discussions etc. later flying to Beijing. More about that later. I sent an email a while ago about a task T. I said that a) the persons doing the task do not have the necessary skills and knowledge and thus we cannot expect to get a correct solution, and b) that the current documentation is of so low quality that it cannot serve as basis for decisions. Now, I got complaint everywhere that I am unconstructive. I think I am the contrary. I think it is very constructive productive for the product and the company that I point out that the necessary people are not working on the task T and that the quality is not good enoug. I think not to say this would be extremely unproductive and unconstructive just let things go as they are going. Actually, I think it is everyone duty ...

Rather long day: 9 am to 9.30 pm. I will ... By taxi, some 18C, sunshine. 9-10 Discussions with MaunuHolma, emails and such. 10-12 HzSeMinutes2004x03x30xOnTesting 12-13 Walking and having a lonely lunch. 13-13.30 Meeting on statistics 13.30-15 Discussion with MikaLehmusto on the tool manager position. Rather interesting. Let's see what Mika thinks of me. 16-19 Discussion with MaunuHolma on HSDPA 19-21.30 Emails, discussion with TeroPeltola on PipingTask, HSDPA etc. Home, exhausted, some dinner, brains going off. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Now, by bike. Some 12C and no rain! Nice. I met one partner company guy on the way, but cannot write his name. 9-9.30 Meeting on CPM overload generation 9.30-12 Discussion with MaunuHolma on HSDPA. We have two principle solutions, which we should check. We have rather good understanding of the problem. Now, we need one small, dedicated group and some people to lead them. Then it would take 2 months to get the solutions. Lunch with PetriJappila at ChinChin. 13-13.30 Meeting about HSDPA workshop. 13.30 - 15 HZ A43 architecture project plan inspection. Both the projector and conference phone were broken in QuYuan. Bad! And the phonelines are terrible. Is it really impossible to get the infrastructure correct How can we pretend that we are number 1 in this industry, when we cannot even buy decent phones Incredible! Stupid! Irresponsible. I came to think about the role of NRC in our R&D. It seems that they have been studying e.g. HSDPA for at least 7 years now. They have even m...

It was really a positive surprise to find a large enough spring-jacket for me in some shop nearby our home. The winter-jacket was becoming a bit hot. The weather is nice: about 18 C, sun is shining, mild breeze. Late lunch in a Sichuan place in the corner of Moganshan Lu and Wener Lu. Really good "kum bo chicken" and something else too. I was working on MattiDraftCV. I need it for the other application . Applying is definitely not fun at all. It is terrible. But I am not yet both famous and good enough to get invitation to interesting jobs. I am sure that will change in the next 3 years. My dream is the be a university research (e.g. assistant professor) and industrial system architect at the same time. I will do my utmost to make the dream come true. It is not that far away, after all. I was quite happy about my draft CV. So, I took it easy at home in the evening and read a little more about "Fortune favours the bold". I came to think that we in NET should be...

Lazy day, mostly at home until afternoon. We tried to take some textiles to the clothes-maker/tailor, but the "lao ban" was not there. So, we left the textiles there and promised to return "mingtian". Some nice sushi at the Japanese in Bao Chu Lu. HeikkiAholo was there too. I also took one stabilizing beer. The sushi is very good in this place. It is a pity that Sirkku will not join me there more than once a week. I could have sushi every evening. Some shopping: one new bag for laptop (which I do not have, yet). Evening: at home worrying about the other application. Nothing but worrying. Then I gave up and joined Sirkku in watching old Sex and the City DVDs, which are rather fun. I was, of course, reading a book at the same time: "Fortune favours the bold" by Thurow. Good and interesting book it seems to be. The application has been received by the right officials in the right place. Now I am waiting for an invitation to the interview. Alun perin...

9-10 I wrote about system archictecture process concernign HSDPA DO etc: MattiOnProcess 10-11 The IS-meeting. The material is in QuickPlace somewhere . The meeting was good. QuickPlace does not work with Opera. Stupid to implement tools which require some specific browser. Too common, though. 11-12 I proofread the Fire rescue plan. Rather rare words in there - the Chinese are really using the dictionary. Lonely lunck - fried rice. I bought again a few pens. The Parker pens are almost free in China. And they are so good. They are pens just made for system architecture work. Everyone should have at least 5 of them - one needs to have pen always at hand. Working on documentation. Little, but still 15-17 SD GPA meeting. This meeting was much better that I expected. Really nice to be positively surprised sometimes. I really lack these positive surprises. HSDPA discussion got out of hand. But then it stopped. Mr. Bush is making bad jokes about WMDs. He is both stupid and has bad ...

Motto: " Do not try to solve problems for or with people who have no sense of humour!". Are there such people in Nokia Again by taxi. I am turning into a lazy middle-aged man. What a sorry state of affairs! Again no electricity at home. It will be rather fun to be here in the summer. I predict 3 days/week without electricity. Quickplace usage in Helsinki RNCd is rather stupid. They write minutes in Word and attach even Powerpoints to these Word docs and then save the resulting Word doc to Quickplace. The Word doc even contains links to Quickplace. I think that writing the minutes directly to QP would be more efficient (both for the author and especially for the readers). QP seems to be rather good tool, even though it is not as easy to use as Twiki. 9-11: emails etc. Discussions! 11-13: working on documentation. Also working on MattiOnProblemSolving. Lunch in ChinChin with PetriJappila. Now, we had gum bo chicken imitation. It was not too special. We did have about app...

Again: bad weather, or at least not too warm. By taxi, but returning by bike. No electricity at home. Sirkku could come to office, but she will go to the hotel instead. It is easier to concentrate in the hotel. 9-12 Emails: on the future, on sending emails (MattiOnEmail), on meeting practice (MattiOnMeetingPractices) etc. 12-12.30 Lunch in the opposite building. Now, after 9 months of lunching on spring rolls and fried rice, I am fed up with them. I am also fed up with the tofu sticks I ate for 6 months. What next Where to have lunch now Maybe I start going to the cafeterian in the 3rd floor. 13-14 See HzSeTeamDiary2004 . 14-18 I made major updates to our SystemEngineering pages. I got TOEFL-test place from Hongkong on 13.4. I also reserved a hotel. Now, I just need flight tickets. Israel, Palestina etc are just getting more and more nuts. I am a bit worried - this will not end well. MaunuHolma is in Beijing on Focus-course. I did not understand to insist for this course. I ...

Again by taxi. I am too lazy. Weather has not changed: 8C, overcast. 10-12 Piping meeting: HzSeMinutes2004x03x23xPipingMeeting. HSDPA is taking speed. Some 15 emails last night. Now, someone should a document about it. Starting from requirements, business case, current IPA/RNC architecture. Then proposing some alternatives and comparing them. Yes, I know SinikkaSarkkinen has written this kind of document, but at least I cannot parse her document. I may be just not clever enough, but anyway. Lunch with PetriJappila in ChinChin vege place. We ordered too much. Last time we ordered too little. We are using binary search to find the right amount of food - but are we always having the same amount of hunger Is this possible 13-14 HzSeMinutes2004x03x23xReplanningWithChenGuodong. Strange: no changes in PQII traffic unit document due to PipingTask. We have done great work here! Travel plan quite ready (thanks to ChenGuodong and YanDezheng). I sent it to JariSimolin and MarkoAntikainen f...

I woke up early due to the whisky. It is so refreshing, is it not. Is was not thristy, nor miserable. I shaved away my tournament beard since the tournament is now over. For now. The 2nd tournamanet is starting. It will be going on with full speed tomorrow. I took taxi to the office. Mistake. The traffic is so bad and the Chinese music in the taxi is even worse. yesterday the taxi driver jumped away from the car in traffic lights and went behind a pillar for taking a leak. 9-10 Meeting on HzSeMinutes2004x03x22xPipingRealSytemSimul 9-12 The weekly team meeting: items to do, discussions on the future of the team. On the future in IPA-framework new PIUs (1-2 / release) performance problems will continues as requirements go up many new features (as the framework stabilizes) more IP/data traffic QoS-issues will continue to be serious. cost reduction (R&D should be much cheaper). I am not so confident that the current GIGA-RNC will be there after 6 moths at all. Neither...

Rainy day and not too hot either. I decided not to have a walk in the morning. Instead, I took a taxi to the office (actually, the first taxi did not know QingChun Lu at all. So, I had to take another. Strange ignorance. I managed to finish the application . I think it is quite a good one. I should get into the interview at least. Do I deserve a beer now I think I do. Some attachments are missing. TOO BAD. They were at home. Luckily. My heap-archive system never fails. We had a few beers and excellent Sichuan food in Baochuo-lu (the restaurant which is always full, with yellow outer wall). We means I, Sirkku and Heikki. Especially the chili-musroom pot was excellent. afterwards, some whisky (John Walker Gold-label) at Heikki's. I also smoked one pipe tobacco-cigarette. The other application is then next. The third application comes then in summer. do not ask where I apply to. It is still secret . I had fried rice lunch, as I do too often. Then I had a gallon of insta...

Straigth from bed to the textile markets. Terrible, I have shopping angst. Or phobia. Anyway, I managed (with much patient support from Sirkku) to buy some nice textiles, from which I hope someone can sew some jackets and trousers. Then lunch at Ajisen Ramen, where the quality of the food seems to be constant or high. Fried rice with some eel (my absolute favourite) and some sea fish. No beer, I try to teetotal for a few weeks now, which is utterly pointless. One week OK now. I feel like having a beer, but I try not to. The week was quite exhausting and I had not had enough sleep. Thus I slept for 4 hours in the afternoon. This is my normal Saturday-routine. After naps, I tried to do something useful, but found myself just surfing the net. The Friday's accident (23 dead when a bus and a truck smash into each other) has raised a lot of discussion in Finland. We have never had such an accident before, which is fortunate. In some other parts of the world, notably India, such misha...

I am running out of steam. No energy left anymore. Fortunately weekend is coming soon. 9-10.30 HzSeMinutes2004x03x19xReplaningWithMaoWeiqiang. I want to learn to make simulations, they look fun. 10.30-11 Idling, thinking, emailing, diarying,.... 11-12 HzSeMinutes2004x03x19xReplanningWithChenGuodong 12-15.30 Preparation and giving a course on IPA to project managers. Real fun, good questions, active audience. 16.30 -18.30 DIMUTI inspections - good work by the team. 18.30 - 19.00 Emails etc. 10 hours. Too bad. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Now the winter is back. Only 5C in the morning. And we do not have electricity at home. Too bad. 9-10.30. Meeting with HongqiangHuang on the new DIMUTI-structure. Great discussions! 10.30-12 Preparing the course on architecture for the project managers. What an earth am I to tell them! They are so clever. My preparation did not lead anywhere. I must improvise! Afternoon: checking the DIMUTI code changes for IWS1. Our team has done good work. Quite magician they are. Evening: cycling back home. It was freezing, but fun. Working on the application and reading the newest Economist. It has good surveys of technology and poverty. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Terrible rain in the morning. It did not rain when I left for office by bike. After 1 km torrential downpour forced me to seek for cover. After 30 minutes waiting I decided to go back home, change some dry clothes. Then I did not get a taxi. And the bus was full. I almost started to cry, really. In the morning, we wrote a statement on the future of SE in HZ for some Helsinki managers. Not the thing we are most interested in. I starts to seem that I am definitely not a manager, at least not in RNCd/NET since the bureaucrazy is just too bad for me. I would prefer a much lighter approach to organisations and ways of working. And more professionalism and adult way of working and managing. Somehow, our (mine and Maunu's) efficiency somehow dropped a lot when A43 really started and we had to start to work according to some official ways. Also, there are so many small and almost insignificant issues (managerial) to take care of. So, no management for me. The tool manager position could...

Even nicer weather. Too nice. Makes me cry. We bought a new kitchentable with 6 chairs. It cost 1900 RMB, which I consider cheap. It will just fit in our new kitchen. I hope at least. Network all but down at the office. We could not use TWiki at all - so we cancelled some meetings. I came at 10.15. Flexible hours rules! I read/browsed the HSDPA-study by SinikkaSarkkinen . I got something out of it. The language was a bit hard to parse. Afternoon: working with DIMUTI. Discussing with several persons on SE and also on technical issues. Again, discussions on May workshops. Again, staying too late in the office. When do I have time to prepare the application. I must write a few essays today, some tomorrow and maybe the rest on Thursday. I really must. I must get out of this career. I tried to find some nice fresk baked muslin bread in the evening, but I could not. So, we had to cook our own dinner. Or Sirkku did that. I cycled to the Monkey-park and did some exercise. There were ...

Again nice weather. I felt like a king checking my kingdom from my rooftop terrace in the early morning. It was so nice. I cycled to work. The number of cyclists is increasing - it is already hard to pass by everyone at traffic lights. I cannot do it anymore, which means that I have ride in the peleton, which is - as everyone who has followed Le Tour - dangerous. 9-10 Meeting about DIMUTI: HzSeMinutes2004x03x15xReplanningWithHuang 10-12 Weekly meeting: HzSeMinutes2004x03x15xToDoWeekly 12-13.15 team lunch in the XinXiang-restaurant across the street. Rather good, even though I do not eat so much meat. 13.30-14 Meeting on Piping 14-17 Working on diverse issues e.g. HzSeMinutes2004x03x31xHSDPA (and HSDPA in general) 17->20 Discussion with MaunuHolma on May workshops etc. Dinner with Sirkku at Mao-restaurant. Idling. Now it is sure that my friend will travel to China in April/May. Great. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Idling at home after having a 1-hour walk in the morning. I bought a new winter jacket. Long sleep in the afternoon. Later, preparing some applications. Nice day. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

We set off at 8 am for CiXi. There is the place to buy Chinese furniture. Buying furniture is terrible, there are just too many from which to choose. We managed to buy some small items (a closet, a bench, some night-tables etc), after which I was ready to have a cup or two of ShaoXing-wine. I turned out that I had four of them, which made me quite a happy camper. We stayed for two hours in the pub/restaurant at Lu Xun-library. The food there is not so good, but the warm wine is excellent - actually it is for sure the best warm wine in the world. There were some groups of Chinese and I "gam bei"ed with them. Sirkku filmed the happening. The videos are rather funny (or just sad examples of drunken hilariousness ). Anyway, I find it nice to be among the Chinese. Everyone is so happy and friendly. I will miss the Chinese a lot back in Finland. Maybe I have to travel to China every now and then (just make sure that Nokia pays the flights) We (I, Sirkku, Heikki and Tuula (Maun...

Raining in the morning, 7C at 7am. Where did the summer go I took taxi to work. It is strange that all taxidrivers want to drive the length of Qing Chun Lu even if that takes some 20 minutes. It is much faster to take almost any other route. 9-12 Meetings: HzSeMinutes2004x03x12xReplanningWithLiNa and HzSeMinutes2004x03x12xReplanningWithChenGuodong 12-12.30 Working lunch (so called shadow information sharing meeting) with BasVodde. I finally got DeC working. It could turn out to be useful. The HzIpTt has also started to use Twiki. Nice! Good luck and ask for help when necessary. We will go to buy some furniture tomorrow. Shopping Is it the purpose of life or meaning or just a curse We have been in contact with our coming landmadame (a female landlord). So, we really have got the apartment. I am so happy. This is one of the best records even recorded: Damaged by Black Flag . It has been one of my absolute favourites since early 1980's. Buy it and "enjoy" if you d...

Suddenly, the summer is over. Only 10C in the morning, but I cycled to work anyway. I forgot my phone at home - so I had to make calls from the florist's! One call of 3 minutes cost 0.5 RMB. 9-10 Meeting on Piping etc: HzSeMinutes2004x03x11xReplaningWithMaoWeiqiang. 10-11 Emails etc. I told MikaLehmusto how competent I am! Let's see if he believers. He should. 11-13 Working with MaunuHolma on the future plans of HzSeTeam. Also JyrkiInnanen has got active on this issue. Nothing to worry, anyone! 13-15 Working on MattiOnTwikiMaintenance and other issues. HeikkiAhola proposed writing guidelines for timer values. Since our team does not have time for this, we proposed this to Maikki, who is overseeing any possible free resources. Main.Hongqiang told me that AIGENE seems not to use so much CPU-time as we have thought. Strange. More testing is necessary. We may have got a new home in Helsinki. It would be a small 1-bedroom apartment in Kallio, which is the most densely popula...

Summer is here now. Even now (at 5pm) the temperature is 25C. In Finland this would be in the news, even in July. It is so arctic place. I picked my Chinese bike from Commons Place (or actually nearby). Nobody wants to steal it - it is too Chinese even for the criminals. I was reading my Feyerabend in the lobby of the office building and started to laugh aloud. The Chinese gave me that look. They do not know how fun philosophy is. They should try. 9-12 Meeting on Piping: HzSeMinutes2004x03x10xPipingPEMeeting. 12-13 The normal working meeting or lunch with BasVodde (fried noodles today...) 13-14 Meeting on Dimensioning with LiNa, JunruLi, HongqiangHuang, MaunuHolma. 14-15 Discussion on optizing FU rates automaticly with MaunuHolma. Now we know how to do that too. It seems to require some human intervention, but if we had a free mathematician here around, we could even do it automaticly. But unfortunately we do not have a free mathematician. Or have free - apply ! 15-18 Meeting a...

I cycled to work. Nice. about 22C. I was really tired after my trip to HongKong. I could not really think at all during the whole day. But something happened still 10-11 We had a meeting on projecting: HzSeMinutes2004x03x09xProjectForB2. 11-12 Discussions and checking emails. 12-13 Working lunch with BasVodde (fried rice ...) 14-15 Rescue team meeting. 16-17 Meeting on traffic use cases. I promised to work on them in December, but I have not had time to do anything. SamuliKenttamies knew to expect this and was not too disappointed or angry. I left the office at 17. We (I, Sirkku, and Tuula) had dinner at Ajisen Ramen (mackarel and tepanyaki fried rice with smoked ell and coffee float for dessert - all but the float were good). At home I took it easy by reading the new Feyerabend books, which is rather fun and exiting. I am so happy that I studied philosophy since it would be hard to learn at work, whereas system architecting etc are rather easy to learn once one know enough l...

I did not get too much sleep - I was so afraid and in panic and having terrible stress because of the GMAT test at 9am. I woke up at 4.30. After having a short walk (and talking to Sirkku over phone, several times (also before 9am)) and having breakfast, I set off for the test place. It turned out to be a terribly ugly industrial building somewhere in the suburbs. And I was having this stress. It was terrible! Some notes about the test itself: * There were 14 others taking the test in the same room with me. All were young and Chinese and small. I was the only old, foreign and large. The essay were quite easy, but I could not get really going - the text did not flow easily. I just tried to get rid of the panic, which succeeded quite well. After writing the essays, I was quite cool and full of confidence. The level of concentration was getting higher. The quantitative part was quite hard for me. I had to use my intuition several times - I just did not feel like doing all the calcula...

HongKong is quite peacefull on Sunday, at least between 9 am 10 am. I had a long walk to calm my nerves. I do not know if it helped, not for long at least. After doing some exercise I panicked totally. I thought that I cannot do any of them correctly, but then a bit later I could. Somehow I am most afraid of the mathematics even though the exercises are in fact quite easy. I must be the time limit. Too bad. Talking with Sirkku helped a lot. Also visiting the history museum (quite OK, very much worth the 1.5 hours and $10 it costs). I had late lunch in the Vietnam and Thai village - some curry this time. It is strange that I seem to have examination phobia. When I was younger I did not - I always took it quite easy and usually everything went really well. I hope that everything will go well tomorrow. I just have to get some deep sleep. Last night I had terrible nightmare. We (I and my brother and someone else) were taking care on JyrkiInnanen 's dog. Jyrki was abroad or somethi...

I am getting careless: I needed to wake up at 6am to catch the plane to HongKong, but I had not set the alarm clock on! For some reason I woke up 5.59 am and managed to get to the airport in time. The taxi cost 100, with meter I would have cost 85. I was too tired to argue. The flight was OK. Some arrogant lao wai tried to use his phone during take-off, but I busted him. I am a legalist as you know, when it suits me. HongKong is just as fascinating as last time. I had lunch in vegetarian Indian restaurant (break, malai kofta and biriyani, all as they should). Then I decided to do some sightseeing and took the Star Ferry to HongKong island and back. It was fun, the weather was nice and the ferry rolled nicely over the waves. Then it was time to practice a little for the GMAT on Monday. All exercises went well. I just have to take it easy on Monday. For dinner some vegetarian spring rolls and spici seafood fried rice in "Vietname and Thai spice village" opposite to my hote...

Sunday 7th HongKong is quite peacefull on Sunday, at least between 9 am 10 am. I had a long walk to calm my nerves. I do not know if it helped, not for long at least. After doing some exercise I panicked totally. I thought that I cannot do any of them correctly, but then a bit later I could. Somehow I am most afraid of the mathematics even though the exercises are in fact quite easy. I must be the time limit. Too bad. Talking with Sirkku helped a lot. Also visiting the history museum (quite OK, very much worth the 1.5 hours and $10 it costs). I had late lunch in the Vietnam and Thai village - some curry this time. It is strange that I seem to have examination phobia. When I was younger I did not - I always took it quite easy and usually everything went really well. I hope that everything will go well tomorrow. I just have to get some deep sleep. Last night I had terrible nightmare. We (I and my brother and someone else) were taking care on Jyrki Innanen's dog. Jyrki was abroad...

Dinner with MaunuHolma and Sirkku in the Japanese in QingChun lu. It was the 4th time this week in some Japanese. It took less than 7 minutes to pack my things for the trip. I am professional traveller. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Meeting, just meetings. Evening: dinner at Ajisen Raimen (me, Sami, Maija, Philippe and Patte). Just like in Shanghai: good. Some shopping in He Fang Jie. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Quite noisy meeting with furious passion about Dimuti in the morning. In the afternoon some hot discussion about project practices. Team building: walking by the lake and having a dinner in the Snake restaurant. The owned complained that I always order the sama dishes. Well, we asked him to bring 3 surpise dishes. They were not as good as the standard set of dishes. Too bad! Sami, Jari, Philippe and Li Junru visited our home after dinner. It was nice. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Really long day. It seems that the revolution continues well. A43 is adopting our structures. In the past the delay used to be 2 years. Now 2 months! What on earth is happening Discussions about HSDPA continued in the Japanese in Qing Chun Lu with MaunuHolma. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

We managed to finalize the new documentation stucture. It is revolutionary and everyone will obey just because they cannot resist the revolutionary forces. Take care. In the evening we (me, JariSimolin, MarkoAntikainen, SamiTilander and BasVodde) had dinner in the Japanese in Qingtai Lu. The food was excellent as always. Sake was deceptive as always. I had some of it, which led me to propose us to go to Commons Place. There we had what we always have there. And it got late. My bike was still standing there. Everything was fun. Bas was a bit fast with his criticism of the way of working in RNCd. I tend to agree, most parts at least. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".