Mane

The morning rant Selecting a new CEO for Yle, the Finnish broadcasting company, has turned into a comedy. Again, those responsible selecting the CEO did not find anyone else than a politician without relevant experience (and without master's degree, which is required for the CEO-job): then the other of them proposed the other one. With elections coming soon this was not a very clever move: all other parties in opposition (and even some alert politicians withing the ruling parties) smelled blood and nice opportunity to get publicity (and votes, of course). It was getting quite nasty. This morning, the proposed politician told that he is not interested anymore, because "not all the big parties are supporting me unconditionally". So fun! Now it is fun to see whether the other candidates, who the other selector described as not as competent as the politician, are still interested. Now, in the afternoon, the most competent of them has already withdrwn her application. So, w...

The rain has stopped and so have I stopped cycling, it seems. Stupid me. This lazyness in definetely not good for me. (one thing to do at the office is to go downstairs (6 floors) some 8 times every day and not use the lift. It is rather simple and efficient exercise). BTW: I have decided not to write this blog during working hours: it is too time consuming and I think I should also procude something for my employer in return of the money I am given once a month. I cannot tell how much it is, since it is a company secret. You may, of course, check it from the taxation pages, if you are so curious. Let me just say that I am laughing all the way to the bank. I stop for now and continue later at home. I improved my spam and hit statistics a little. Elections coming The local elections (city council) are getting closer. The candidates have started their advertising campaigns. I have only seen ads in the metro/subway so far and one thing is quite peculiar: most of the ads are by the...

It is still raining and I am not cycling to work. I am still reather sissy. But not cycling has some benefits: I have more time to read (in the metro and bus) and I have time and possibility to go to Rytmi and have some coffee and see other people than those hacking away (sic!) in our office. Check your phobias . I suffer from thaasophobia and something else which I do not reveal here in public. Check my initial travel-pages . Books and globalization I received a new book "Globalisation - making sense of an integrating world" by the Economist . (btw: I got it for free since I answered a survey...). It is a collection of articles and surveys previously published in the magazine. I do not have time to read it now, but it would be really interesting to read the books and other books on globalization I have at the same time and try to make up my mind about the issues. I have at least "Globalization and its discontents" by Stiglitz, "False Dawn" by Gr...

Autumn is here for good. The wind is howling and rain pours down. Iraq-links Pekka sent me some interesting links about Iraq: The dead American soldiers . See also an article about the wounded . Independent media Center tells the stories from a bit different viewpoint. It seems to be a good companion to Antiwar.com . Media ownership chart tells who owns what. It is a bit worrying. The soldier who wrote "we cannot win [in Iraq]" is getting into trouble . Human experiment I am conducting a human experiment on myself. I try to find out the correlation among sleep, stress, alcohol, excercise, and blood pressure. The findings so far indicate that stress makes my blood pressure to shoot up, but alcohol does not have that effect. I have not found that the amount of sleep and my blood pressure would have anything to do with each other. Anyway, my blood pressure is now well within the limit of normality, which is rather nice. I was a bit worried one month ago. The n...

Rather quiet day in Tampere. We celebrated my mother's 66th birthday by having coffee, cognac, and some cake. Nothing much worth public interest happened during the day. I read a few newspapers and magazines but I did not spot anything worth real discussion here. In the evening, I met Pekka, Petri, and Samuli in pub Sirdie in Kallio. As Samuli noted, the level of discussion was getting higher all the time. After midnight the level was high enough to make me a bit dizzy. Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs from September to October 2004".

Sleeping late and then playing tourist with Kössi . Art We visited the Ateneum art museum and checked out the big Edelfelt-exhibition. I have never been too much a fan of Edelft, Gallen-Gallela, and others, but the exhibition was good and I began to appreciate the art of Edelfelt. He has been really talented portrait-painter and also a documentarist: he painted many scenes of rural Finland. One of the main reasons was that pictures of rural Finland sold very well in Paris in late 19th century. Just like (or then not) some art from the Southern hemisphere sells rather well now. We were savages back then here in Finland. Trains We took the Pendolino-train to Tampere. It is 30 minutes faster than normal IC-trains, but it could well be even faster. It is a pity that the Finnish state cannot afford keeping the railways in good enough shape for fast trains. There is also something else peculiar with the railway company, the "Railways of the State", or VR. Since it does not...

Time flies: again one week less left for doing interesting things. I feel that the current situation makes me waste some 6 hours of my days for nothing. I must do something at it: maybe reading "10 thoughts about time" by one Swedish professor would be a start. Anyway, I have been really happy for the last few days. The weather has been nice, my statistics show that my health is getting better, I have met many dear friends of mine, I have started to like our home and life in Finland, and I do not have any stress of anything. I am totally relaxed. Strange, this kind of balance I have not experienced ever. But still: I could be using my time for something more useful. Brainless imitation When reading the book about lean production, I started to wonder why many well-meant improvements and initiatives fail. One reason I came up with is, that many people do not understand the purpose of initiative, they cannot express the idea with their own words. Instead, they are just repe...

Cafe life I met my old friend Jaana . She is working in Crisis Management Institute , a.k.a know the office of president Martti Ahtisaari, as a conference organiser. CMI is quite an interesting initiative for making the world safer, at least a bit. Jaana told that Ahtisaari is still extremely enthusiastic and full of energy. Really exceptional person. We had interesting discussions over breakfast in Cafe Ekberg. Old friends are just getting better over time. In the evening, I went to Rytmi. To my great but pleasant surprise S came there too with her friend Marjo . Marjo works for Kela as a system developer/tester, and she was really excited about agile methodologies and extreme programming. The cult is spreading. MIT - the ghost is haunting still MIT-preparations are getting ready: I have now more than half of the health report ready and financial explanations almost ready. I also started preparing my mind by reading the classic book about lean production (The machine that c...

Even though today is car free day , I did not cycle to work. Instead I took the bus. But other were even more arrogant and ignorant: the queue in the Turku-highway (coming to Helsinki) was not moving and was 3 kilometers long. So much for the freedom to go when and where one wants with one's private car. It is raining, and it will be raining for the next few days: I have to take my Chinese CoreTex-clothes into use. I hope they are at least waterproof - I do not complain if they do not let vapours out. MIT preparations, part N The company I work for has now offered to pay 25% of the MIT's tuition, but only after I have graduated. Of course I accept the offer, but I wonder what they are thinking: the amount is less than an avarage contract bonus (money one gets when accepting a job) in US or in central-Europe. Well, when one pays below average, one cannot expect to get above avarage goods. And by paying only afterwards they do not help financing the studies now, which crea...

I was so excited that I managed to get WLAN-working with my Zaurus, that I tried to get many other things to work too. Most failed and suddenly it was 2 am. In the morning, I did not not a) where I was and b) what day it was - I had also set alarm clock on at 8.45 am and I had a course to attend at 9am in Pitäjänmäki. What a mess! Hacking is definitely not good for social commitments. The course was quite good: surprisingly fluent lecturer, semi-interesting topic (DOORS requirements management toolset); it was also nice to meet some workmates - usually I am so alone at work. The Doors seems to work as a requirements managements systems should. However, I have not tried it yet - I am be wrong and too optimistic, both of which happen quite seldom. Bus discussions I took bus to work today. On the way back, the bus was full: mostly some woman working in television companies. I happened to listen to two woman discussing. One was young, less than 30 years old, the other about 50 years...

Mika sent me some good hints for the Brazil-trip. He can also reserve hotels in Sao Paolo and Rio. It helps a lot. Having good friend is a blessing. Now I have to visit the police station and apply for another passport. Oops, now they said that getting another passport is not so easy. Hmm, maybe I can manage with one. Zaurus is now wireless I got the WLAN-card for my Zaurus. It works very well - I tested it in Rytmi - I could surf the net as I was drinking beer there. Some problems with the terminal-program together with the SSH-client. The screen behaves oddly, which prevents blogging. Too bad. I have to fix it soon enough. Iran and the bomb The Bush administration (together with some of their Israeli friends) may be contemplating a "pre-emptive" strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. The article is quite alarming one to read. Do they ever learn? Why it always has to go so far that someone must consider a strike? Don't they ever think why so many new co...

Sunday , a perfect day to take it easy: I corrected (most) of the spelling errors in this blog using Aspell . It works reasonably well. Had a short walk around Sörnäinen and a cup of coffee at Primo , which used to be my favorite cafe in 2002. Now it is too far, and I prefer Rytmi. Reading HS left me wondering how a newspaper with such a huge circulation (and financial resources) can be so shallow, containing so much heresay and not digging deep enough behind the surface stories. It does not take any stand on most issues, and if it does, it usually back the current status-quo. I think it all boils down to not having enough competition; having a virtual monopoly is not good for any business (except moneywise, maybe). But my HS-bashing is nothing new nor original. Therefore, I shut up for good on this topic. Also, I stop wasting my time on HS for good. Or should I do as G.H von Wright did: read newspapers on standing up, not sitting down at the table? S is excited about her disserta...

No cycling this morning: instead I will take metro to Itäkeskus and participate in Attac-workshop (or just listen to the lecture and leave, most likely). I have other tasks to see to: flight tickets to Boston and Brazil, wireless CF-card to my Zaurus and visiting Akateeminen, of course. Iraq: nightmare worsens The article The week Iraq's dream of peace fell apart draws a very grim picture about the situation: at least 300 died during the last 7 days (guess who, but also a few Americans (sad): so far 52 American casualties this month), desperation is exploding, suicide attack all the more common, foreigners cannot anymore venture out of their fortresses. And still the money allocated for water, electricity etc has been reallocated to oil infrastructure and "security". And attack by both sides continue... Really depressing and deteriorating so fast: I am afraid of more desperate action by both sides. Viva la resistance! I went to listen to the Attac workshop . I ...

Winter is coming: only 7C at 8am. Even I have to wear long trousers when cycling. Just when I started to like cycling again comes the winter; as in my life in general - I am usually a bit late when it comes to important issues. Evening: cycling was quite OK, not too cold and very quiet, most cyclist had disappeared. They are even more sissy than I am. Other exercise: 75 minutes gym-training. One nice thing in gym is that I regularly feel small there, which does not happen too often elsewhere. Memos, lies, claims and all about Iraq Check Antiwar.com for the latest news about Iraq. The site is a portal to related stories in English-language newspapers worldwide. If you just want to know the number of civilians killed by USA in Iraq, check Iraq body count . Today the number is between 12721 and 14751, which is much, but much less that the number of Americans shot dead in USA during the war in Iraq. So, maybe it is just fair not to care about either of these groups of unnecessarily k...

Kofi Annan says that the war in Iraq (attacking Iraq by USA and UK) is illegal and against the UN charter. Really? As if we did not know that earlier. Attacking is almost always against the international law and the concept of pre-emptive war by US is clearly nonsense. But who could sue the biggest guy of the block? In Britain, where there is still some accountability left, this statement of Annan is going to create headache for Blair and Straw (predicts The Guardian today). No exercise today. I am totally wasted. I am afraid I have taken my get-fit-and-fast-project a bit too seriously once again. Weather would be OK for cycling: 13C, overcast, not too windy. SPAM statistics After 11 days of filtering my emails, the statistics are Total number of emails: 567 Total number of SPAM: 215 Spam percentage: 37.9100 Total non-spam emails: 352 Of which personal email: 202 list email: 150 Total SPAM in kB: 602.995KB which is quite bad, I would say. U...

This is one strange autumn: the sun is still shining, 15C, almost calm. I was hoping for rain so that there would be an acceptable reason for not cycling to the office. Now there is none. The only one I can think of is the soreness of my muscles after some excessive training at the gym yesterday, but that would be sissy. One good thing in cycling: I do not have to walk in Leppävaara, which is one of the most boring places I know of. I do not miss HS yet. After all, I can read it at work if I find I miss it too much. Cycling A new record: 30 minutes by bike from home to the office, some 11 kilometers. And I obeyed all traffic rules even. But this is so slow: when I was younger, I could cycle the same route 5 minutes faster. It seems that 20 extra kilos has some effect on the average speed. Kössi told me that an old guy like me or Kössi must cycle not too fast but for a long time. Just cycling to work and back is not enough; one must have longer exercises. I decided to apply th...

Second morning without HS feels good. I have more time for reading other newspapers and magazines, writing blog and surfing in the net. In long run, I have more time since I do not have to carry HSes to the garbage can. The question is: how much do I miss without HS? Can I still participate in discussions during coffee breaks? But I never have coffee breaks. BTW: nice weather, 15C, overcast. I cycled to the office and back. In the afternoon, my clothes (shorts, sandals, and T-shirt) were a bit eye-catching. Everyone else wore long trousers and a jacket. However, it is not cold yet and the sun shone in the evening. Trip to Brazil Try to reserve flight tickets by yourself from Helsinki to Boston to Rio de Janeiro to Manaus and from Belem to Rio to Helsinki. Not so easy, is it? I have decided that I will pay for some travel agency for reserving the tickets. It is too hard for me to do. One way would, of course, to book flights to Boston and back and trust that it is easy to find ti...

9-10.30. Discussion with BettinaWolker on Traffic Testing, which is not an easy task to coordinate as she should. there are, again, so many different boards working on this issues. TeroPeltola has established a KPI and outage forum,which should, among other issues, define the KPIs for RNC (not MGW, of course), and "support development of RNC to best of its class" (sic!). 10.30-12.00 Office work. Rather good mood and many small things to do. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Public traffic on strike The public workers of the main traffic company has gone on strike. They are against a plan, which would merge two companies owned by the City of Helsinki into one company, still owned 100% by the City of Helsinki. They claim, that after this merger and changing the legal status of the resulting company on inc, some big bad capitalist will come and kick all the employees out. I do not find their worries credible and most people (both my friends and in media) seem to be as puzzled as I am. This strike must have something to do with the coming communal elections in October. The strike does not harm me personally. Weather is still good enough for cycling: 15C, overcast, rather calm. So, I cycled to the office. The traffic jam was a bit worse than usually, but I could not see any serious problems - most drivers behaved calmly. I like cycling, but sometimes I think that 11 km is too long a distance to commute daily by bicycle. It is not so fun always. Travel p...

After 2 months of planning I finally got the energy to clean up our balcony. It is a bit late: there is no point in sitting there anymore in the autumn. The next thing is to buy is to buy a gas bottle and smoke some salmon. I have a gas burner and a smoke oven and all other necessary equipment. If our neighbors start complaining about the smoke, I will start smoking my Cuban cigars. It should take care of them. Singing in the rain The brass orchestra of the police played and sang in the Karhupuisto . Nice but unfortunately rain spoiled the music. There were also some mounted police present. Having events like this is one of the best things here in Kallio. Gym I visited the Gym for the second time this week. It is always boring, but I hope that it makes me healthier in the long run. The local gym, Silver Gym is comfortable and not too full of bodybuilders. On the way back home I met Aaro and Johanna . The had had dinner in the nest of the social democrats, Juttutupa. Food ther...

Cycling and 9/11 3 years ago I was with S, Julle and Mammu in Darjeeling, India. We were having our daily gin tonics in the hotel and then we saw what everyone else saw. It was a bit shocking and we had indeed some problems with the "war on terrorism" when trying to get back to Finland. They were trying to bomb the terrorists into oblivion in Afghanistan at the time. As we have seen, USA failed. The "war on terrorism" is still on and every day tens of totally innocent civilians get killed in vain. I do not believe that we can remove the reasons for terrorism by killing more and more people. We (everyone living on Earth) have never been as rich as we are now. We do have the means to get rid of worst poverty, to give everyone hope and reason to live, but we are clearly lacking the will. Today, while cycling around Helsinki, I ran into Peik , who had been attending a meeting about 9/11 in Vanha Ylioppilastalo. There is (in the net and also in some books) a conspi...

I gave a lecture about the characteristics of good requirements in the Friday-lectures series. See SeFridayLectures. good discussion during the lecture. Nothing much more. Alun perin julkaistu koosteessa "Diaries 2003 Q1".

Again, Friday. I wonder whether I should go to MaCondo after work. One or two pints could be fine. Anyway, I have to be at home at 6pm when somebody will deliver my new Internet connection (cable modem) to me. Life is hard: too many temptations. Lecturing and sad people I came to work before 9am since I had to give a lecture about some characteristics of good requirements. My lecture was more or less direct summary of an article in INCOSE-pages. Anyway, there were many other commuters in the railway station at 8.30am. I felt so sad looking at the men and women, who obviously have a dress code in their office and who just cannot find suits/dresses/etc which would suit them. They look so stiff, so unsure of themselves. So sad. I am sure that they have to be more serious and pretentious in the office than they would like to. They also must do their work busily, they never enough time to sit down and think deeply about the issues they are faced with. This is so sad: this hurry will y...

Having an own room in the office in both unnecessary and detrimental to the working efficiency. I spent the whole Wednesday in the library and used only common PCs for reading and writing emails and other issues. I was more productive than I have been since late April. I invented a completely new way of developing distributed gateway systems. It is a pity that only a few persons are able to understand my new method (and in general: my intuitions). Working life discussion The working life is getting sicker and sicker in all developed countries. One indication is the flood of related literature and articles coming from various countries. In Filand, Juhani Seppänen wrote his book "Hullu työtä tekee" ("only nuts work"). It is rather interesting but no so well written book. There are so many clever ideas and observations, but not so much interesting elaboration of those in Seppänen´s book. Next one in Finland was Juha Siltala , a psycho-historian, writing a book ca...