Blogs from September to October 2004

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Manen elämää/The life of Mane a.k.a Matti Kinnunen

October

Friday, 2004-10-8 

I had a meeting in our other office in Ruoholahti. I woke up at 8am, had breakfast etc, and took metro to the office. Total commuting time was less than 10 minutes. If I ever come back from MIT and continue working in the same company or any company whatsoever, I will definitely insist in having office in along metroline (Ruoholahti (or Keilaniemi if Espoo comes to its senses and there is a metro to Keilaniemi)). Other advantage of having office in civilized parts of the city is, that one can have sushi for lunch. I had, I am a happy camper now. 

Confiscation

This is rather worrying: FBI took the hard drives of IMC servers in the UK. I wonder how they can do that? I also wonder where this is leading to if FBI starts to confiscate (without even needing a court decision) servers around the world. Police state is coming? More later...

Indymedia looks like site worth following every now and then. Viva la resistance, even weak one! Thanks to Pekka for the link. 

Check also the blog of Bruce Schneier

Hometown tourism

I tried to be a tourist in Helsinki for 1.5 hours: took tram to Cafe Ekberg, read books there (finished "Heresies"), took tram 3T the whole loop to home. Riding public transport to the endstop in different cardinal points is a good way to get to know a city and get an understanding of its size. I have done so quite thoroughly in Helsinki, Tampere, Berlin, Taipei, Singapore, Paris, and Sydney. Nice habit. 

Evening

Friday evenings are like weddings: something old, something new, something borrowed. Today old was the bar, Rytmi. New was meeting my old friend Ruurik, who is a logician, but now works in the university administration organizing the evaluation of the whole university of Helsinki. Nice meeting him, and discussing university etc. Also Pekka joined us later. He is quite a nerd: a sysadmin in one environmental NGO. However, I do not remember borrowing anything, so there the analogy breaks. Now I think I will still read a few pages of Pussikaljaromaani, a novel which happens here in Kallio. Thanks to Kössi for letting to  borrow the book. 

Thursday, 2004-10-7 

It seems Iraq did not have any WMDs and that Mr Bs were wrong. See the key findings of the recent report. The report also claims that some miniters in France and Russia received bribes/money from Iraq in hope that they would influence the UN. The discussion starts and will be fun to follow. Say tuned to e.g. this channel. Some discussion has already started: Independent has interviewed several leading politicians. Everyone, or al least almost everyone, says that Mr Bs lied about the WMDs and Irag. Still they are governing their countries. It would be about time either to reveal the real reasons for the war (getting rid of dependence on Saudi oil and utopian neo-conservative dream of democratic Middle-East, for example) or step down (or be kicked down). 

Day and torture

Nice day, sun shines, 10 C. I will take the bus anyway, so that I will have time to read Gray's book. One of his claims is that history has now (after an interlude of 10 years) resumed its normal course. The wars we see now are old-fashioned wars waged over natural resources, ethnic issues, and religion. He seems to be right. His book is one of the most important ones I have read for quite a while. And one of the most fun, too. In one essay, Gray propose legalising torture and claims that it is the only way of countering terrorism in certain situations. He has quite eloborate legal framework to propose for applying torture permits, supervising torture etc. I will have to discuss this proposal at lenght later, since it is against what I wrote on torture a few days ago. I am really puzzled at the moment. 

Iraqis - dead ones 

Check the unnecessarily killed Iraqis. It will make you sad. After that you can read home page of Elfriede Jelinek, the Nobel laureate in literature this year. It will make you happy again. I have not read any of her works yet. Shame on me!

A new book

I received Straw Dogs by John Gray from Granta. I have still some 50 pages to read from "Heresies" before I can move on the new book. I will be able to read those 50 pages today, I hope. 

Misc notes

I met my friend Lauri, who is a layer, and will defend his PhD dissertation soon. He used to work for EU in Brussels and has noticed, that coming back to Finland is harder than expatriating: it seems that most Finnish institutions do not know how to utilize inpatriating experts, who have gained in competence and experience. I have noticed the same, which makes me wonder why so many business leaders are complaining that they cannot hire enough competent persons, while they are underusing existing competences within their own firms. Or maybe it is just the middle management who is to blame for this...

I had some exercise at the gym. I am getting stronger also in physical sense. But I am not especially strong yet. 

Wednesday, 2004-10-6 

Rainy day, hilarious mood, no hangover. I am full of thoughts and arguments, which I need to write down later today: entry-level jobs, governments and surveillance (cf Schneiders article in IHT), local politics. But writing feels hard today, my brains are a bit stiff still. It must be because of the heated discussions last night. 

Mobile horror

We (S, Aaro, Jukka, Olli, Kari, Mikael, Ville, Asko) enjoyed the play quite much. The script is really funny, characters are credible and the acteurs (3) and the actress are skillful and well chosen for the play. The play tells about one week in one start-up IT-company. The first half concentrates more on the business side, while the second half deals more with intra-personal issues, which of course, are the strong undercurrent in all human groups. I bought the script and read it later in the evening and found that it is not so funny by itself. One needs to see the play. The problem with the script is (as S and Mikael pointed out), that it does not develop the business side enough. Some parts of the human-relations side of the play are a bit too predictable and not original. Good play, anyway. 

Tuesday-meeting

The rain had scared almost everyone from coming to Sea Horse. In addition to our theatre company, there were only Lassi, PG, and Tappi, but that did not make our evening dull at all. We had interesting discussion about space travel, philosophy, work etc. Lassi posed a good question: why is there no analytic philosophy of culture? Is it impossible? We tried to dig our brains and find out what Wittgenstein has written about this issue, but at least my brains were too hard to dig. I need to start reading Wittgenstein again. 

MIT

Having nothing else to do at the office at one time today, I browsed the Wikipedia and found the article on MIT. It seems to be the place to study systems engineering and management. Some characteristics I will certainly cherish are

The school has a powerful anti-authoritarian ethos in which it is believed that one's social status should be determined by raw intellectual prowess rather than by social class or organizational position. 

and

truth is a matter of empirical reality rather than the result of popular belief or management directive

It will be so refreshing to study and work in such a culture. 

Security issues

Bruce Schneier discusses the proposal of adding RFID (radio frequency identification) chips to passports in US (and of course, later, elsewhere). Even though they might be helpful in spotting terrorists (see also my earlier note), the problem is that they can be read by any suitable reader machine. Furthermore, the reading can happen from quite a long distance: Schneier tells about tested 20 meter distance. Scheier's conclusion is that the government itself wants to have the RFIDs in passports so that it can easily monitor its subject. Now this is interesting: the usual story tells that the republican ideology is for minimal government: the less the government interferes the life of citizens, the better. Actually, the Bush government advocates this view too in social security, pensions etc. But here they are for greated intrusion and surveillance. Scheier writes "this seems like a clear case of the Bush administration putting its own interests above the security and privacy of its citizens, and then lying about it". Of course, we could just shrugs our shoulders and think that this is a problem local to USA, but we have seen that stupidity like this thrives quite well in EU too. (by the way, Schneir's book Beyong fear is really good and helps in putting threats in their proper contexts.)

Entry-level jobs/businesses

What are the entry-level jobs and business in Finland today? I came to think about this this morning in subway. In China, a common entry-level business was selling fruits. I followed how the business of one fruit shop keeper developed over 1.5 years in Hangzhou: first he (with his wife and kids) sold only fruits, the they started to sell mobile phone calls, then cigarettes, then beer and then some preserved food. He seemed to do quite well. It would be fun to travel to Hangzhou after some years and find out how he is doing then. But what about Finland? Are there some simple businesses one can start and the enlarge? I do not know: the conservatives are always saying that we do not have enough small businesses here. But what is the reason? Is our society and economy such that it prevent most from establishing small, entry-level businesses? The only really entry level, thriving businesses I know of are the etnical grocery stores here in Kallio. Hmm, maybe I do not have anything sensible to write about this issue. All seemed so clear in the morning, but now everything is messy. 

On economical press in Finland

For some reason I have been reading several business newspapers almost daily for some time now. Now I am getting enough, because the quality of intellectual argumentation in those newpapers is so low. It is as if the journalists were not thinking at all when they type in their stories: most of the stories are concocted from ad-hoc cliches and knee-jerk right-wing thinking. I do understand, that this kind of journalism is their duty (and nature of those newspapers as Thurow describes in Fortune Favors the Bold), but I feel that the low level of business press is dangerous for the future of the Finnish economy. I am afraid, that many rather high level decision makers in both private firms and government/parliament take the arguments and stories seriously. This will lead to a situation where the inexperienced, not-so-clever or educated business journalists use considerable power in our society. This is not in the interests of the society as a whole. However, I do not know how to get better journalists to those newspapers. The only hope I have is that the decision makers would read some other newspapers and magazines and that they would at least try to think things through themselves. I hope my hope is not in vain. 

Tuesday, 2004-10-5 

Today will be a great day, full of fun, culture, and friends. We will go to Teatteri Jurkka to see the "Mobile Horror" (the author/director I have known for about 30 years), then we will have dinner in restaurant Sea Horse (the official monthly Tuesday-meeting), and who knows how interesting things and topics will turn up. I can hardly wait! It is a pity we cannot get any sahti today. I would like to have some. 

I updated my travel pages. Depending on the criteria used I have visited 40 to 47 countries. Not bad at all. I will get 1 or 2 more still this year, if everything goes as planned. 

Tero, the publishing boss at Otava, gave me the "Työelämän huonontumisen lyhyt historia"-book by Juha Siltala. Excellent, I think I will be able to read it during next weekend if I drop some other cultural activities. I read it for some minutes in the bus and it is interesting indeed. Big thanks to Tero!

Daily politics

I just noticed that even Rumsfeld dares now admit that all public reasons for the absurd Iraq war are void. Has he forgotten to take his morning pills or what? He said that Saddam and Osama did not work together. Also CIA has come to the same conclusion. I just wonder the political system in USA: the government can tell any lies it comes up, change them whenever it suits them, get caught and still nothing happens to them. But let some president tell semi-lies/half-truth about his sex-life, and they are trying to dismiss him at once. It just cannot get. Not that I would assume full rationality in politics, but enough is enough, I would say. Nothing new here in this, no new argument, just venting my anxiety. And then there is all those things happening in Israel, blaa blaa. 

Depressed

I checked the news from several sites and papers, and then I read J. Gray, and now I am totally down. It is hard to keep the spirit up, when the international politics disintegrate, wars get nasties, and one really cannot do much at it. On obvious option would be to opt out, just stop following, kick out all emphaty towards other people out there and just dive in the endless stream of entertainment. But I can't, it would make me feel even worse. Day is great, but reality is bad and I am torn in the middle. 

To cheer myself up, I listed my all time 10 best songs. Here we go: 

• Sonic Youth: Schitzofrenia 
• New Model Army: Vengeance 
• Pixies: Rock Music 
• Iggy Pop: Passanger 
• Ramones: Blitzkrieg pop 
• Patti Smith: Land 
• Black Flag: Rise above 
• Roy Harper: Drugs for everybody 
• Dead Kennedys: Too drunk to fuck 
• Cramps: Garbageman

Hmm, not so hilarious songs. Did not help much. I wonder if binge drinking would me feel less miserable. 

Preventive strikes

A few years ago, many experts warned that the US policy on pre-emptive strikes will backfire, that others will emulate it and adopt similar policies. Now this has happened. First, after Beslan, Russia copied the policy. Second, Al-Queda has now declared that its members/supporters must strike USA (and its allies, the "coalition of willing") before USA strikes them. Sometimes a little bit of legalism would do no harm. 

Monday, 2004-10-4 

I gave up cycling due to intolarable laziness and bought a 14-day busticket. The fastest way to travel from home to office is by metro and bus #205. It takes less than 30 minutes, which is really OK. Metro and train takes more, because this stupid office is not near the Leppävaara trainstation. Instead, we are near forests and highways, which are the most typical features of the collection of suburbs called Espoo. Espoo is not a place of civilized human beings, definitely not. 

I am afraid this is the last nice day this fall. Sun shines, ro rain. I need to get out of the office: I must go the the forest for a short walk. There are ghost-houses with broken window panes, worn-out cars in the forest. And about 750 meters from the office there are the grain fields. So romantic...

I added the official email-rules. Obeying them will save your own time, not the speak of others. You will also get more friends, power, influence and happiness just like I have got. Trust me! Do not hold your breath, though.

Great food

I tried the traditional bourgeois food: maustekala (spicy fish or sprat with spicies), saaristolaisleipää (black bread), votka (vodka). Oh, it is delicious, almost divine. I need to get some more maustekala from the silakkamarkkinat. 

We had a short evening walk (me and S). We walked to restaurant Carelia and reserved a table for four on Saturday. It is time to have "moules marinière". Another great dish. 

Daily politics

A few days back I noticed that the ads of the green party were missing from metros and trams. I considered it quite peculiar. Now everything has changed: all trams and metros are full of ads of the greens. So, even though I do not see my friends in the real life, face-to-face, I can enjoy their beautiful/handsome faces when I travel in public transport. The only problem is that it is a little difficult to concentrate in books when all of them are watching. Anyway, the real problem is whom should I vote for. I have tried several election machines in the net and got different results. Let's wait and see. 

I read a few newspapers, but I do not feel like discussing international politics today. I will just quote John Gray

It may well be true that we cannot cure the worst evils by political action: if an absurdity like the Iraq war cannot be prevented, what hope is there of governments eradicating hunger?

I will discuss Gray's arguments later after reading the whole book.

Sunday, 2004-10-3 

A way to waste time 

Try the Sex and the city quiz if you really do not have anything better to do. Since I do not have, I am Miranda. And if you still did not invent anything to do, Qiuzilla will take care of you. Beware!

I am a far-left libaral according to the US-politics quiz. As if I did not know that. Read this and you may turn left, too. I stinks elsewhere...

Practical philosophy

A common exercise in the basic course of ethics is the discuss whether it is justified to torture somebody who knows where a bomb due to explode in few moments is hidden. So far, especially in the countries of EU, this has mostly been a topic of academic exercise. Or so we thought: tomorrow, in Britain, a special panel of nine Law Lords will "will also consider whether the government is entitled to rely on evidence obtained by the torture of people abroad". See the article in the Guardian. This not boring theory anymore, this real, concerning real human beings and the basic values on which we have built our European societies for the last 50+ years. It makes me rather desperate that there a need for the law lords to convene to discuss. I would prefer having this discussed only by philosophers. 

Everyone pondering this question of torture will quite soon find one basic question: what guarantees do we have that the information obtained by torture is true. We have now, again, some practical evidence that the truth will not come out by torture. A senior US intelligence officer tells in this story that the US army has not got any real, true information out ot the detainee in Guantanamo Bay camp. 

It is about time to join Amnesty International. Remember also The medical foundation. 

India, caste system, etc

India got its independence in 1947. One of the first things the new government did was to ban the caste system, a system in which people are born into some social class and cannot move up and in which jobs, priviledges etc depent totally and solely on caste. As usaul, law is one thing and practice is another. The caste system is still alive and kicking. University graduated dalits cannot get any jobs. See an article. 

If you want to know more about the caste system and not read too much, I can recommend "The interpretation of caste" by Declan Quicley (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1999), which is rather technical but otherwise nice: compares a few theories of caste and proposes another. Or then you can read the "The god of small things" by A. Roy, or you can ask Clusty. Or read one of the best novels I have ever read: Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand. I have it somewhere, if you would like to borrow it. 

Some bombs went off in Nagaland in northeartern India. So, there are other areas in addition to Kashmir wanting to be independent. It seems that both India and China are today maybe a bit too large and etnically complex, which together with great differences of wealth amoung provincies bring along hopes of independence. 

Art, fish, politics

Even though I have read my Danto and seen some modern and contemporary art, the exhibition in Kiasma left we rather indifferent. Of course, I had seen most works earlier, but even, when seeing them for the second or third time, they leave me wondering what conceptual ideas there are, if any. 

I visited the annual Silakkamarkkinat (Herring market) and bought some delicacies. Earlier, herring was one of the most important staple food in Finland. Today, most Finns, the barbarians, do not eat herring at all. But those with well-developed gourmet sense eat herring. Also all large political parties had noticed this and were doing their really quiet campaign work in the market place. Only the greens were missing, pity, since I might have met a few friends at the green tent. But I found the knee-jerk concervative I was looking for yesterday: a young man who thinks that dealing out needles for the junkies should stop. This confirmed what I read from "Heresies": progress in politics is an illusion.

Friends?

Am I a stranger in this town? How else can you explain that I have seen just one friend of mine in two days walking around the centre and sitting in cafe? Possibilities are: everyone lives in suburbs with their kids (acceptable), everyone is as burned-out as I was in 2002 (unacceptable, unfortunate), everyone is shying away when they see me (unacceptable, unlikely), I do not know my friends anymore from the crowd (unlikely). Anyway, we will have the monthly Tuesday-meeting in Sea Horse on Tuesday 5th of October. See you there! (hopefully)

Saturday, 2004-10-2 

Morning

Really nice autumn day. I think I will walk to the center, have coffee while reading some books or newspapers (maybe the September issue of Foreign Affairs has finally arrived to Akateeminen!), and then later in the afternoon I will go for 1.5 hours cycling fun in the eastern suburbs. The human experiment continues: it now seems that alcohol has, after all, something to do with higher blood pressure: I think it is the fact that drinking a few beers several days in a row prevents exercise and makes me to eat more than necessary. 

Learning by doing 

Yesterday, while installing my new router (D-Link DI-604), I noticed that I am not fluent in IP-network/devide-terminology. Now, after browsing the net for a while, I think I am quite well up to date. I have been designing so deep layers in distributed gateway systems, that network level issues have not bothered me too much. Well, there are fewer who know what I know than those claiming to know IpSec or similar. Strange anyway. Now the system works well in our home; I have no need for WLAN at the moment. 

US elections

An analysis of the TV-debate by Sifney Blumenthal may be biased, but still makes interesting reading. See also what the Independent has to say except that "According to a CNN poll immediately afterwards, the Massachusetts senator was a clear winner, by 53 per cent to 37 per cent. Other network instant polls produced similar results." Also IHT writes about the debate. Some more European commentary by Die Zeit seems to agree with the others. I think this is enough on this this morning. Or then not quite: see Terrorism, Justice and You, which, by the way, contains a link to the 9/11 Comission report (I have not read it, have better things to do). 

What makes me to follow US-politics so closely and omit some other important issues in other countries? I think part is due to the unevitable new-bias: there are just more to read about US than about some other places. The other reason is that I try to get ready for moving to US in 3 months. I need to be quite well aware what is going on there by the end of this year. Some 7 years ago, when I was about to move to Sweden, I followed Swedish politics much more closely that today (and read Hufvudstadsbladet daily). See also what HBL has to say about the debate. All the newpapers I read and referred to this morning (above) agree quite well on the result of the debate. 

Finnish politics

No cycling today. Instead I went to the Hakaniemi market, where the conservatives were feeding to poor with salmon soup. That's how times change and then not. Anyway, it is really hard to know a concervative from certain greens: all of them are so culture-friendy, like trams, libraries etc. Fortunately, there are still some conservatives, who think that most of the 300000 unemployed are just slacking and be removing all subsidies they will go the some work, e.g. cleaning the houses of the well-off concervatives. Then we also have, even more fortunately, some real left-wingers, really brainless out-of-date communist, who are great fun now that they really do not possess any political power. What we do not have is serious political debate; nobody is out there making passionate speeches. Even in Japan there were fierce speeches on top of campaign vans in July before elections. It is a pity that we have lost the tradition here in Finland. 

S tasted the soup and found it OK but a bit watery. 

Philosophy

I visited the University library, which is to me the holiest place in town. I used to spend long hours there in 90's reading some thich books (always in the southern reading hall, 3 floor, so romantic over there and quiet). There used to be a cafe downstairs, where my late father also used to have breakfast in the 50's. Now they are both gone but not forgotten. They have replaces the cafe with a exhibition room, which is not so bad idea. Now they are having an exhibition telling the history of philosophy in Finland: really nice one, indeed. Some rather rare books are on display. Recommended!

S had found Philosophers' Magazine, which has even some games. I tried one game and found that I did not learn philosophy during the long hours in the library. 

Books

I bought "Suuri latinakirja" ("Large Latin book"), which has some 1000 Latin phrases and their Finnish translations. Soon I will be able to fake my way in the cultural circles. 

Again, there is a new guide book to Helsinki: Helsinki: A Cultural and Literary History (Cities of the Imagination). I read it for 45 minutes in Akateeminen and it does look good. I contains a wealth of interesting information about history, culture and current affairs of Finland and Helsinki. There are occasional errors "Lappua movement", but mostly it seems to be reliable. 

Foreign Affairs and Iraq

I got the September issue of Foreign Affairs. As always, I went to Cafe Engel to read it, or at least some articles. The front page article "The Vulnerable Home Front" is quite interesting. It claims that the Bush administration has neglected to take care of the security of domestic USA. The administration uses more in three days in Iraq than it has used in enhancing the security of USA harbours/ports. The article points out that USA (as all modern societies) is very vulnerable to attacks on commercial infrastructure: if someone could explode a nuclear device in a container in some commercial port, the likely result would be a total paralysis of commercial traffic, which with current just-in-time production systems would have rather devastating effects on the life of us all. The article then goes on the propose new approaches to make the home front less vulnerable, but I will not explain them here (it consist of establishing something corresponding to the Federal reserve etc, but that was a bit too technical for me today).

Other reading today

I used most of my time today reading: Helsingin Sanomat, Iltasanomat, Vihreä Lanka. I love Saturdays and Sundays, when I have enough time to read all I want. I also started reading "Heresies" by John Gray. It starts very promisingly. I hope to finish it tomorrow. 

Friends

I met Aaro today in Rytmi. He showed me some photos from Ireland. I did not know how low and cute Dublin is. I should visit it sometime. A few days back, I visited Roopeand Aija in Porvoo. They are old and good friends of mine from the times we (me and Roope) were students of theoretical philophy. Now he is layer working for the city of Porvoo and I, well, anyway, neither of us is a philosopher. By the way, I missed the last bus and took taxi back Helsinki. Quite posh!

Friday, 2004-10-1 

A new, rather promising search-engine has surfaced. Check Clusty. It can make some kind of automatic categorisation of the results, which makes the user interface easier to use than that of Google. I have not yet tried it seriously and do not know how wide part of the net it covers at the moment. My workmate Matti L told that he has find several articles, which he could not find with Google, with Clusty. Nice thing to notice is that there is still lots of room for improvements in the area of search enginers (and definitely a need, too). 

YLE

The current YLE-farce is not over for a while. The current CEO will continue for one extra year and search for new one continues. The other old-man was forced to resign from the post of chairman of the board. Heh! Maybe there is still some slight hope in this country, but some cynical theories have already appeared: that the central/agrarians set the social democrats up and now the sosdems looks like the biggest wrong-doers here. I do not think that the agrarians would be clever enough. 

Iraq

Mr Kerry and Mr Bush met for the first time in a televised discussion. At least BBC thinks that Kerry was slightly better (and that this discussion would have made Mr Kerry more popular). Hope so! Or then not: if Mr Bush win, dollar will dive deep, which would be good for my financial problems in MIT. But wtf, money is not that important, is it. See what the Guardian says about the debate. The whole transcript is available at International Herald Tribune if you want to check it yourself. I may not. Meanwhile, a series of blast in Iraq have killed at least 35 persons, and an attack on Samarra by USA has left at least 95 dead. Another bomb went of at a mosque in Pakistan; Israeli tanks and helicopters etc have attacked Gaza for a second day in a row. I wonder how all this somehow is leading to peaceful, democratic, etc Middle-East? I would say that those with power and will should do something at the Israeli-Pakistan conflict. A quick look at the transcript shows this is not a topic in US-debates. Pity. 

Electronics

Now we have 3 laptops (all old and crumpy), 1 Zaurus 860 with WLAN card, 1 IP-telephone, 1 router, 1 rice cooker, 2 printers, 1 TV, NAD DVD-playr, 2 amplifiers, LP-player, Paradigm loudspeakers, some mobile phones, microware, washing machine, levitating globe, a short-wave receiver, electric tooth brush, digital camera, SD-memory cards, SD card reader, several bike computers, an old electric tube based radio, many types of electric clocks, lamps of course, electric oven and stove, fridge, an old two-processor desktop computer, a large 19"-display, an old Mac-computer, several different battery chargers, and then some things, which I do not even remember. I think it starts to be quite enough, for now at least. 

September 

Thursday, 2004-09-30 

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, whatever happens, YLE will not get the most competent CEO possible. Really well done, old-men-without-brains!

Yesterday, the ruling party representatives, not-so-young men were on TV and tried to justify the mess with extremely patronizing speeches. I have had enough of these kind of semi-talented, full of authority, older men, who cannot admit that they may have been wrong and try to talk themselves out of the hole. It is so stupid: the times when one could behave like that and still remain credible are well over. I cannot see how this country could do well in the future, if those in power, even those older men, do not start behaving decently and honestly. We simply cannot afford such politician. This country is too small for unhonest, stupid, lazy, patronizing politicians. But with the current primeminister, one patronizing clown, I think we do not have any hope.

Luckily, the sun is shining. Otherwise I could take this too seriously...

Pandemic in our time?

There are widespread worries about the bird flu. I think this is one thing to follow in the coming months. Use Google to subscribe news alerts, if you are too busy to follow the papers yourself. I will also cover the news as they break. Stay tuned! Send any suggestions/proposal of interesting global news to me by email.

New books

I received some new books from 

Granta:

• "Florence, Venice & the Town of Italy" by Robert Kahn. This book is for preparing for the coming trip to Venice with my brother in November. 
• "The view from the ground" by Martha Gellhorn. I have already a collection of war reportage by Gellhorn, and I have even read parts of it. Gellhorn is really fascinating person: journalist, adventurer, etc. 
• "Heresies - againts progress and other illusions" by John Gray. I enjoyed a lot Gray's previous book "False Dawn", which tells about globalisation (and which I btw read in Orvieto and Cortona, Italy, in 2002)

Wednesday, 2004-09-29 

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 green candidates. There are a few ads by the countriside-party (Keskusta) and some by the conservatives (Kokoomus). Can one draw any conclusions of this observation? I think one can: passangers in the metro have a certain political distribution, which is well known to the political parties. What is strange is the relative absense of left-wing ads. Are all left-wing voters travelling by private car (or bus or not at all)?

I did some pre-election tests on the candidates. It seems that some of the Green candidates share my opinions/attitudes quite closely. Sometimes someone from the conservative party pops up too, but never anyone from any left-wing party. I am shifting ...

Alternative newsfeed, again, and news

I found a rather good looking alternative newsfeed oneworld.net. It is a network of several web-sites in different countries. Well worth following every now and them. 

In and concerning Iraq, things are getting worse. First, even CIA is saying Iraq is worse than portrayed. The article repeats the old stand that CIA, military, and even parts of the state department are "at war against the Bush admisnistration". It is really interesting to see how this internal war turns out. Then, USA is comtemplating attacking Syria. Last week it was Iran. More later. I would like to read Le monde diplomatique, but I am afraid I do not have enough time. It would cost 54 euros per year (monthly). Would it be worth it?

USA immigration

USA will now (or quite soon) start taking finger-prints (of index fingers) and photographs of every tourist/anybody travelling to the USA. The spokesman from the ministry/office of internal/homeland security reasoned that "the tourist accept this as they sense that we are doing the utmost to make their trip safe". Wrong! So wrong! If they really cared of the safety or the tourists (or their own citizen for that matter), they would get rid of the handguns now so widely available. At least they would not remove the ban on semi-automatic assault rifles. At least 10000 killed by shooting every year... and it does not even raise a single eyebrown in the "ministry". 

Blogging systems

Those who are sissy use some commercial or otherwise ready-made blogging systems. The rest of us will code the systems themselves. I just coded a system, by which I can send blog entries to myself and they will automatically appear in my blog. Hah!

Tuesday, 2004-09-28 

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 Grey, "Up the down escalator" by I-do-not-remember-who and lots of NGO material and I have even read most of them!

Lean production

Anyway, understanding globalisation is also a key issue, if one tries to improve large scale product development (as I do). So, I may well read the book next year. I have been reading about lean production lately and I think one of the problems in most industries is that while adopting the basic lean production in manufacturing is rather straightforward (well, it has been done several times, requires mostly honesty and hard work), adopting lean development/research is much harder. However, I am sure that by adopting and further developing lean development and research would cut development cost (measured by time, calendar time, number of employees) at least to half, maybe even to one fourth. The company/country that first succeeds in this, will have quite an advantage over the others. If I were the leader of Sitra or Tekes, trying to develop lean development is what I would finance. But since it is hard and one cannot do it in few years, it may well be too hard for those offices and in current short-sighted company management even for companies. Let's see if I can do something at it in MIT next year. 

Iraq

Tony Blair has spoken. I do disagree on the fact that world is a better place without Saddam. At least Iraq seems not to be a better place. I just read from International Herald Tribune that Hepatitis spreads in 2 Iraqi districts. It is really worrying. I do not support any dictators, but I think that getting rid of a dictator and creating a mess (and killing tens of thousands of civilians in the process) is not worth it. Or if it is, then it would be even more worth it to make sure that there would not be any new dictators on the rise. Since this is not happening, I do disagree with Mr. Blair on this issue. About his domestics politics I have not so much to say - I have not been following British politics lately - anyway his politics are not so much "labour party" anymore, but I do not mind. 

Monday, 2004-09-27 

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 next part of the experiment is not the drink any alcohol for a few days, do some vigorous gym-training and take it easy at work. I will report later what happened. 

PowerPoint and information society

The idea is to make Finland an information society, whose competitive advantage in the global marketplace would be high level of education, innovativeness, and economy concentrated on design, not on mass-producing goods. Good idea. What I am afraid is the widespread use of Microsoft PowerPoint both in private and public sector. It seems to be so, that in many place thinking, innovativeness and originality is nor required anymore. Just coming up with a few PowerPoint-slides (prefrably with animations, colors etc) in few hours is enough. These slides will then be shown to others in meeting and distributed by emails to unsuspecting audience. The required level of brain work really makes mockery out of the whole idea of information society: the quality of information is so bad that one could not pass even the elementary school with the methods and quality-level on which both industry and government work today. If you think that I am alone ranting about this, check an article in Wired. I will write more about the way of working later.

Sunday, 2004-09-26 

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. 

Saturday, 2004-09-25 

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 face any direct competition, its marketing and trains are a bit amateurish. It seems that VR does not so much care what the customers think. But privatising railways is not (always) good: in Britain privatization caused total loss of safety and even service. In US, the railways have only marginal role in public transport. 

In continental Europe, the sitution is also strange. Busses are always cheaper to use than trains. I cannot understand why this is the case. It must have something to do with externalizing some expenses. 

All this a great pity, since when the price of oil will continue to rise, the need to use public transport becomes greater. Trains are the most energy efficient way of tranporting both humans and goods. 

Friday, 2004-09-24 

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 repeating what they have been told by some guys up there. Just like they were doing in the school: learning by hearth, not by brain. This then lead to half-baked implementations of the initiatives, since the implementors cannot know whether the result is good or not. It is just like you were trying to draw a church with only verbal instructions and without ever seeing one (replace church with mosque, if it helps you imagination). I have seen this kind of aping too much, it is so boring, so stupid waste of human lives. And it is happening everywhere: I think the problems in the academia Siltala was talking about are results of aping some well-meant quality ideas wihtout really understanding the reasons behind them. So sad.

Sauna-party

We had a sauna-part at Kotiharjun sauna (use google, if you want know more). It is nice place, one of the few public saunas left in Helsinki and certainly the biggest and fired up with real birch. The sauna can take some 30 men at the same time. And it gets fiercely hot, too. We (Kössi, Olli, Lauri, Aaro, Jyrki). After sauna the going was getting tougher but a fuzzier: dinner at Cella, then a few beers in Heinähattu and Roskapankki, and some junk-food for the most hungry ones. And we even had some Vecchia Romanga at home with Kössi. 

Thursday, 2004-09-23 

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 changed the world). It opens with startling claim: 

And how we make things dictates not only how we work but what we buy, how we think, and the way we live.

which reminds me of mr Marx. The whole concept of lean production (as opposed to mass production) is fascinating.

Politics

The Economist claims that accepting Turkey into EU would be a good way of supporting democracy in Middle East. I tend to agree: it seems that forcing democracy is not possible. At least it has failed totally in Iraq and it seems to fail also in Russia, where the former presidents tried to force democracy (against far stronger forces of huge industries and security apparatus/army). 

I have not read so much newspapers today, which makes my current daily musing a bit short today. Stay tuned, I will start reading again. 

Daily links

Just as rapid economical growth and migration to cities brought with it wholesale destruction of old buildings and neglect of aesthetic values, the same is now happening in China. BadArchitecture.org documents the misery almost daily. Even though the Chinese have a saying "If the old does not go away, the new cannot rise" (or something like that), I think they will have some regrets later on. 

Some Finnish blogs I like to follow: Hämärää länkytystä, which is sometimes just hilarious and Kallioblogi , which tells about our life here in Kallio, Helsinki.

Wednesday, 2004-09-22 

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 creates acute problems for me now. 

Great service / USA,Brazil

I visited MrTravel again and I got even better service than last time. The clerk, Katarina, was really friendly and professional. She found even better flights than Nora on Saturday. I will now fly directly to Boston. I will also have 10 hours in Bogota, which is nice. Please send any ideas what to do in Bogota! The whole trip will be: Helsinki - Boston - New York - Bogota - Sao Paolo - Rio de Janeiro - Belem - Santarem - Sao Paolo - Bogota - New York - Helsinki. Excellent - a real adventure coming. It is already 3 months since my last adventures in China and Japan. Time to go, I would say. 

Blogging round the world

Check NewsBlog by the Guardian. See also Bloggin on. 

Tuesday, 2004-09-21 

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 old. They managed to discuss whether to get artificial eye lashes and finger nails done. This lasted for over 5 minutes. The result was that the older claimed that she lives alone and it is not a sin to use 30 euros for artificial eye lashes. I was a bit at loss: not that discussing the sinfulness of artificial eye lashes is worse than discussing the sinfulness of Compact Flask WLAN-cards, but the language the women used was so predictable. I just cannot understand the purpose of such talk, those totally predictable opinions and laughter. I do not actually know what it is that irritates me, but it really does. Sometimes I miss my time in China, where I did not understand anything they talked about in the bus. 

Daily political musings

Coming later - stay tuned. 

Ok, I am getting a bit tired of Iraq. Or any other country with seemingly unsolvable problems. Instead of reading my not-so-ingenious ranting, please consult Paul Krugman. Also John Kerry has woken up to the reality and spoken his mind. See comments in NY Times. May require registration, but is worth it. Also Kofi Annan has been speaking up. And check the reasons why "we cannot win [in Iraq]" by one experience soldier fighting there.

MIT preparations

Now this is getting personal and exhausting. I need to visit two doctors, altogether at least 4 times. I need to get lab tests taken in several labs, visit the optician etc. And all this is unnecessary. Take for example the required Mantoux-tuberculosis test. According the the best Finnish experts, the test does not prove anything - results correspond to the reality as much as those you would get by just tossing a coin. But the US-authorities demand such strict a documentation, that I have to get the test taken in one of the really few place in which they still do this flawed test. And since I was vaccinated against TB when I was 1 or so, I am immune as everyone in Finland. At least this is what I understood. Whatever. The TB test will cost me 65 euros. 

Dinner 

Maunu visited us for a late dinner. We have wineleaf rolls, olives, cold smoked salmon and chevre risotto, and halva. We had exceptionally pleasant discussions. It is always nice to meet Maunu. 

Monday, 2004-09-20 

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 countries are willing to spend huge amount of money for developing nuclear arms? I think just looking at the reasons why US itself (and Israel, too) developed their bombs in the first place would be sufficient. The end of the article is rather funny:

[...] quickly challenged the provision's legality. Some members of President George W. Bush's own party are throwing up their hands at such clumsy doings. "This administration's nonproliferation strategy consists of flailing around with a two-by-four," says one disgusted Republican elder statesman. And even the administration must realize that its Iran options are limited now by the chaos already overtaking Iraq.

I just love this "flailing around with a two-by-four". In Finnish "huitoo ympäriinsä kakkosnelosella". Check also the history of G.W.B and the National Guard. 

MIT

The poor and the sick do not need to bother to apply to MIT (or any university in Massachusetts)! I need to send lab reports stating that I have had measles, rubella, and mumps or have vaccinations agains them. Then I need to send another report stating that I do not have TB. And prescription for my glasses. I also have to tell them whether I use seat belt or not (strangely enough, they do not ask whether I use bikehelmet...) and whether I have harmed myself or tried to do that (does binge drinking and drunken cycling qualify?). Etc, etc, but no HIV-test! On financial side, I have to prove that I have certain, not so small, amount of money in my bank account. Fortunately, I do have that amount. Now I start to understand how foreign students must feel when trying to get into Finland...

I got some coursebooks: 

• "The machine tha changed the world - the story of lean production" by Womack, Jones, and Roos
• "Lean thinking - banish waste and create a culture of wealth in your corporation" by Womack and Jones
• "Product design and development" by Ulrich and Eppinger

It does seem that lean is the way to go. 

Cycling in the countriside

.

I cycled in the countyside (a.k.a Espoo) for 1.5 hours. It is surprisingly nice if one loathes cities, but far too un-human for me. Fortunately, there is reason why I should move to the countriside. The weather was really nice, and vies by the sea are really worth the countryside visit: 15C, sun, no strong wind. 

Sunday, 2004-09-19 

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 dissertation and works almost 24/7 on it. I read a few pages of it some days ago and I have to say it was very well written and fun to read. And not only fun: it also contains some serious philosophical discussion. Hold on your to seats when the dissertation comes out! 

Lots of exercise today. In the morning I walked half an hours, in the evening I cycled to Viikki, Itäkeskus, Roihuvuori and along the cost to the new suburb Herttoniemenranta. The scenery was more delightful than I had imagined - and the route is going to be one of my favorite ones from now on. I also did some 80 minutes something at the gym. Raging at the gym is not so boring anymore than it was 2 weeks ago. 

Iraq again and more

The British are pulling out some of their troops from Iraq. They say that the security situation has improved so much that cutting down their involment is possible. See the article. In another story Blair and Allawi claim to "defeat the evil". There seems to be no limit in their not-so-deep thinking.

Finally, the UN security council adopted a resolution, which threatens Sudan with "immediate action - oil embargo " if Sudan does not stop the killing in Darfur. The dictatorships (China, Russia, Algeria, and Pakistan) in the council abstained. They claimed that the resolution is too harsh to Sudan. So, killing tens of thousands civilians is not enough - it is actually quite OK. Well, considering the recent history of the mentioned countries, this may well be how they think. Worrisome in any case. See for example article in the Independent. 

In China, Mr Hu has now all the power in his hands. Let see how he is going to solve the problems his country now faces (pollution, unemployment, economical slowdown/crash, corruption). An older hippie claimed in the Attac-meeting yesterday that there will a revolution in China soon. He justified his claim by his experiences in China during the last two years. I would not be so sure now that Mr Hu also controls the army - but dictatorships are quite fragile as we know from e.g. former Eastern Europe. 

I am a bit afraid that something serious is happening elsewhere now, when we all focus our attention to Iraq (and Sudan). What happens in North-Korea, Afganistan, Congo, etc? I have to read more. 

Iraq again 

The newest New York review of Books contains some interesting articles about Iraq. Check at least The making of a mess, and How Bush got it wrong. I have not yet read them. Help me, read the articles and email me a short summary. The articles are rather long as they always are in this magazine. 

Some fun, too

Check the personal advertisements of the London review of books. You will find British humor at its best. 

Saturday, 2004-09-18 

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 shied way from the real workshop part and just listened a few lectures.

• First, Heikki Patomäki told what Attac is all about etc. Not so interesting, I knew all this before and if you do not, just read the newest Hiekanjyvät, the Attac-magazine, if you can get hold of it somewhere.
• Second, Ville-Veikko Hirvelä talked at length about the silent (muzzled) majority of the world: how their voice is not heard in big WTO-conference; how it cannot be heard, since we (inhabitants of the minority world) do not know their cultures and cannot thus figure out what they are saying (Wittgenstein would says that we do not play the same language games) etc. I did not really catch the point any further than this.
• Third, Folke Sundman talked about the initiative Helsinki Process on Globalisation and Democracy initiated (or participated) by foreign ministers of Finland and Tanzania (Tuomioja and Kikwete). Nothing much interesting in the talked, but the Helsinki Process seems to be important one and may raise awareness among the political elite (Wallgren considered this important and a sign that the Finnish politician, together with their Nordic colleagues are trying to keep the Nordic civil society, development support, conscience etc alive. This may well be true. Patomäki was a bit more cynical: in his view the process will not reach anything interesting since it works using consensus and contains some representatives from British Petroleum: a classical veto-problem). Anyway, getting to know the Helsinki Process might not be such a bad idea. 
• Fourth, Sari Varpama talked about Citizen's Global Platform. I did not follow this talk so much for some reason, not because a woman was talking. She talked a lot about a meeting which took place in Tanzania sometime ago and which was important in that it gave a possibility to the local NGOs to meet the foreign minister (ministry?) for the first time.
• Fifth, Thomas Wallgren wanted to point out something small, but went on speaking (well and interestingly) for quite a while. Referring to Hannah Arendt he made distinction between the amount and quality of power. Most NGOs (also Attac) are, according to Wallgren, concentrating too much on redistributing the existing amount of power, on giving a small portion to the majority world people. This is important, but not sufficient, partly because it will fail: those having the power will not give it up easily, if at all. Therefore, it is important to also consider the quality of power. By this Wallgren seems to mean creating new power-structures by which we can then change the world (e.g. consider the difference between attempting (by European NGOs for example) to renew the rules and practices of WTO to attempting to destroy the whole WTO as the not-fixable source of the problem (by India NGOs). This is a good point in general too, I think. Maybe I should read Arendt. In short, Wallgren claim that we should not be satisfied with new distribution of power in a zero-sum game. Instead, we must create new forms and sources of power. Well put!
  • Wallgren also proposed a way to get the voices of the majority world heard in Finnish politics: whenever the Finnish Parliament is about to decide on some security/trade/human rights issue, gather a global set of commentators (e.g. from India, Brazil, Pakistan), get their comments, document and publish them. This sounds interesting and Wallgren promised to elaborate it in some forthcoming article/book.
• Sixth, Juha Siltala talked about his current worries, which were quite closely related to his new book. See earlier discussion in this blog for some background information. He wanted to get history back to the people from the companies (or big players). I was left to wonder this: when has there been time, when the people has been decisive force in the history. Is it not so that kings, feudal lords, etc have always rules. As Siltala is a historian, I think he knows what he is talking about, but I just could not follow. It happens. Siltala made some good remarks. He said that the so called inflexibilities in the work market are there for a purpose: they bring predictability to the human life, which is, of course, a good thing considering e.g. raising children (or paying the mortgage...). He also pointed out that having an own flat is a traditional way of gaining some independence from the market forces: the less one has to pay regularly, the less one has to work just for getting money. 
  • There was some lively discussion after Siltala´ talk about the state of work environment in the universities. It seems that universities have taken the quality issues both too seriously and naively. Highly educated creative persons have to use lot of their time to development discussions, reporting, filling in forms etc. Patomäki told that their are some dissidents in the academia, but they are a bit not so brave. At this point the discussion started to get a bit too personal, too much complaining about the particular problems everyone has had and has. 
  • Siltala was referring to books by John Gray ("The false dawn"), Thrurow ("Fortune favors the bold"), Ehrenreich ("Nickeled and dimed") several times. They are good books and most of us should read them (instead of Reading this blog too, or then not). 
  • I came to think my rather old personal survival strategy in the current working life. I consider myself a mercenary, who sells his skills to the warlord who has a cause worth most fighting for. And who pays a decent pay (if all other things are equal). This attitude helps. No unnecessary loyalty, not binding commitments on either side of the contract. Consider this and you feel free!
• There were some old friends present: Lassi, Jaana. I did not have too much time to talk with them - and I was a bit depressed by the whole meeting: great talks, but them some so low level addresses. I just cannot stand that and this is why I do not (cannot) participate in NGO-work anymore. It is a pity and I may have to get rid of this attitude.
• Strange thing. When I was younger and still participated in many NGOs, I tend to remember that in all meeting there were many young persons. Today, I still was much younger than the average person in the meeting. The question is: is this really true (that there are not so many young persons anymore) or is it so that I did not see the older persons, when I was myself young (yes, I remember seeing so many young, beautiful girls back then. Was I so perplexed by their presence back then, and why am I not anymore? What is this all about? Does this explain my not wanting to participate anymore?)

On service

The service in MrTravel was as good as always. They maneged to find flight Helsinki -i New York - Sao Paolo - New York - Helsinki for less than 1000 euros. This was something for which I am glad to pay something extra, since trying to arrange the same thing by myself using the web-services would have been too much for me. The service in Verkkokauppa.com was non-existent. Maybe not having any service is a way to keeps prices down (or profits up), but it is really irritating. I did not get the wireless CF-card I went there to buy. In China, I got used to good, even too good, pushy, service. I am glad to pay some extra for service, but it seems that in many place even paying does not help. For example, in Picnic cafeteria, I had clean the table before I could fit my cup of coffee on it: they just did not have enough personnel to take care of the cafe. Too bad. Is this the future? No service, do it yourself. Boring, no style!

Fortunately, in Cafe Aalto they still serve the coffee to the table. I had a cup of coffee there with Aaro and Johanna. I also bought some guidebooks to Brazil. 

Barflies

I went for a short (just 5 hours) bar crawl with Petri G and Pekka S around cheap places in Kallio. Our route today was: Heinähattu (excellent music, but a crazy girl from the bank), Mambo (young, funny clientele with strange gifts), Exodus (we were so old...), Roskapankki (they cheat with 0.4 liter pints). And then we were quite ready to go home, at last. I heard some rumors, but I am not suicidal enough to write them here....

Friday, 2004-09-17 

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 killed civilians. (In Finland, the number of murders/manslaughters during the same time is a few hundred, which is one of the highest in EU (per capita, of course)).

A top-secret intelligence memo was leaked to the media (at least to Financial Times). It has been written by several US intelligence agencies and it states clearly that there is no easy way out of Iraq: it is likely that there will be a civil war in 2004. See e.g. article in Guardian. Bush and his staff of course deny everything and claim that US is winning, democracy in Iraq is just around the corner etc. I have read about several cases in the last 100 years, where intelligence and the army were saying that they have lost the war, that situation is getting worse by the hours, but the president and his staff refused to listen. What is most interesting is really that the US military is turning against the president. Is does not happen so often. Let's see how the Americans solve this kind of disputes - in some developing countries a military coup would surely follow soon enough.

But do not forget Sudan, Kongo, and some other countries where people are dying in droves. I will have to focus my attention outside Iraq too. Stay tuned!

New books

I received the book "Managing for the future" by Ancona and others. It is a used as a textbook in MIT. The book seems to be really interesting, but awfully thick! I will never have enough time to read it before MIT. I wonder how we are going to go through the book in MIT: it contains some exercises, so there may be some group work waiting for us. Really exiting!

Blogging and gadgeting 

The semi-official collection of blogs by Finnish people Pinseri now also contains this blog. Great! Maybe I get more readers and even some email comments. So far the number of readers (=how many time someone has loaded this page) has been between 30 and 110 daily.

I start to understand how my Zaurus works. Today I installed a few handy applications and started to use it seriously as calendar, notebook, etc. 

SPAM statistics, part 2

Check my new, daily spam and access statistics. Automatization rules! Selling drugs on-line seems to be quite profitable judging by the most common SPAM-headers. 

Thursday, 2004-09-16 

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. Using spamassasin really pays off. The statistics have been calculated from procmail.log and are not 100% accurate due to incomplete and developing .procmailrc. Some SPAM has passed through and gets counted as personal email. The most common SPAM-subjects have been

  20  Subject: Buy cheap Viagra through us.
  15  Subject: We sell regalis for an affordable price
  14  Subject: E-postikorti!
  13  Subject: Want to lose up to 19% weight. Try Adipren!
  13  Subject: Get viagra for a great price.
  13  Subject: Buy Regalis, also known as Superviagra or Cialis
  10  Subject: Get great prices on medications
   9  Subject: V1AGKRA 80% DISCOUNT !!
   8  Subject: Get discount drugs without prescription
   6  Subject: Get a longer member
   5  Subject: The first NATURAL male enhancement product

where the number tells the number of occurrences. 

Depressing gadget

I tried to connect my Zaurus to Internet via USB. I just cannot figure out how to do it and it makes me feels so stupid. I got infrared working, which is better than nothing. I think I have to ask for help but I have no idea where from. Or then I install the OpenZaurus kernel and applications. They look fancier than the original - they also seem to be easier to configure. 

A new game

When I have some extra time (e.g. waiting for bus or tram) and no energy to read and no company to talk to, I often play the faces-and-ages-game. It is really simple: take a look at a young person and try to imagine how (s)he will look much older. Or take a look at an old person and imagine him/her as twenty-something. Take a quick look, do not stare (it is not polite in Finland) and use your intuition. Consider taking your glasses off, it helps intuition. The game helps you to develop your visual intuition.

DVD vs TV

It is more fun to watch movies from TV than from DVD: I cannot pause a TV movie, I must watch from the beginning to the end without extra breaks. This make me concentrate on the movie, not on books, newspapers or even blogging. I assume going to the movies would be even better. Blaa blaa. 

Wednesday, 2004-09-15 

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 this wisdom and cycled 1h15 minutes after work. It was really fun: I even saw some suburban places I have never seen before in Helsinki. 

Optical illusion

When I beard long and bushy, my hair looks thinner. When I shave, my hair starts to look thicker. Anyway, it is time to face the truth: I am getting balder every day. It will, however, take a few years before I start to really look bald. 

Emotional illusion

The more one reads about atrocities in Sudan, Iraq, Kongo, about problems of human rights in China and USA and elsewhere, about environmental problems everywhere, the less one feels. I feel that there would be too much to worry about, too many things to be sad of. What is worse is that I start to feel total powerlessness, I do not know what to do. Just donating money to some NGO does not help (my bad feeling). What should I do? Have I become a cold-blooded IT-zombie? Should I admit my new careless myself and move to Espoo, buy a Volvo and start to worry about I do know what. This is really bothering me. 

International Herald Tribune tells that the number of war in the developing countries has decreased steadily during the last 10 years. The reason is mainly the fall of communism, which gace rise to (during the cold war) some regional conflict. The number of deaths is still rising, though. And if one counts famines etc as deaths in a war, the picture is even worse. 

I spend a few hours in Rytmi with Soili. It is surprisingly nice to meet old friends and hear the freshest rumors etc. And Rytmi is a nice place: good music, decent coffee and lots of light. 

Tuesday, 2004-09-14 

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 tickets e.g. in New York (and with reasonable prices). That would, however, require spending a few days in NYC, which is not something I want to do this time. Hmm, there might a travel agency with a web-service in NYC. Let´s try! If you have better idea, please send them by email .

Art

I have not been active in the Helsinki art scene for a long time, but now I am starting to visit art exhibitions. Today I visited the opening of "Smaller talk" by Anssi Pulkkinen in Galleria Jangva. The exhibition consist of some four sculptures, some drawings, and (of course) a video. One sculpture was impressive: a small equestrian sculpture was cut in half and placed in two different fridges, which were on top of each other. The other work, especially the video, were not so good. 

Last week I visited another opening in Töölö. It was a exhibition by two painters. The audience was really posh, but the paintings were rather indifferent. 

Monday, 2004-09-13 

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 preparations

I called the passport office in the police station and they told me that it is possible to get two passport at the same time. I need two because I need to have one all the time (I intend to travel a lot this autumn) and I need to give one to the US embassy, which may not return it right away. Other things to do still are: 

• Get some money: grants, loans, etc 
• Buy flight tickets to Boston and to Brazil 
• Read the books 
• Get the visa 
• Arrange moving: send books by mail 
• Figure out a way to pay the tuition to MIT 
• Meet all friends - arrange a party ? 
• Buy a computer (Mac)? 
• Health check - dentist? 

A quote

By Kalle Isokallio (with whom I do not agree too often): 

"Suomalaiset poliitikot, ministeri etunenässä tuntuvat uskovan kiven kovaan siihen, että jos Jumala antaa viran, antaa hän myös sen hoitoon tarvittavan viisauden. Minä en moiseen usko. Eikä kannattaisi ministerienkään uskoa."

IP-telephony

Now that I have cable modem at home, I was also able to buy an IP-telephone. Olli recommended the services of Laajakaistapuhelin, and now I have ordered a phone, router, and connectivity from them.i At least our wifes can now call each other for free. Calling to USA is also only 11 cents per minute, which is good when I will move to Boston. If you now decide to buy IP-telephone from Laajakaistapuhelin, please tell that I have recommender them to you. I will get some money id you do so. This is the modern, male Tupperware!

Property markets

Discussion on whether another property bubble is about to burst does not prevent my friends from taking considerable mortgages and buying homes. Many do that alone. I wish I would be as daredevil as their are. Last weekend´s Taloussanomat run a front page story about property prices which are getting close to all time high. I started to wonder why the property prices do not go down as prices of all other durable goods go (compared to the quality, cf cars for example). Another thing is that old houses are as expensive as old ones: wear and tear does not show in their prices. This is strange and I am sure there is a really nasty conspiracy behind all this. 

Sunday, 2004-09-12 

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 there is better than their current politics. 

Daily politics

Parliamentary elections in Hong Kong: first information suggest that the democrats are winning as much as they can. I am afraid that China can declare the results void, if they are not what Beijing wants. Let us wait and hope for the best. In any case, I do not believe in democracy in China in near future, since all necessary institutions are missing: independent judiciary, NGOs, free press, etc. It will take time to establish these (BTW: this is also why things will fail apart in Iraq). 

Tomorrow the workers of the local traffic company, HKL, will go on strike. Chaos will ensue! I think I will have to cycle tomorrow even if it rains. 

Saturday, 2004-09-11 

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 conspiracy theory: it was the US government, who blew the WTC into pieces. Sounds a bit too far fetched for me. See the pages and decide what you think. There are English pages somewhere in the net - use google. 

Helsinki is quite an empty city. There are countless parks and small forest for one to cycle almost alone. In some places, not far from the center, one can cycle several kilometers without seeing anyone else. After cycling 1.5 years in China this feels odd, but nice. Most streets are also empty: no cars, no kids, nobody, nothing. I would find it hard to live in any of the countless suburbs, not to speak of Espoo or Vantaa. I really need to see, hear, and even smell people around me. In Kallio it is easy and natural!

This was most likely the last summer day this year. I had to get out, cycle around (Viikki, Mellunmäki, Marjaniemi, Kauppatori, Pitkäkoski, Kannelmäki etc). I had lunch with S in Kauppatori: deep fried herrings and small white fish (muikku). This is Helsinki at its best: sunny, quite many happy people in the center, having lunch outside, meeting friends. I met also PG with his kids in the Prisma supermarket in Kannelmäki. The kids are nice! 

Traffic

I thought for some time about the traffic policy both here in Helsinki and also in other places. One of the main difficulties here in Helsinki seems to be, that Helsinki and Espoo cannot decide whether to build a subway from Helsinki to Espoo or not. Most people in Helsinki support expanding the current subway network, some people (and most politicians) in Espoo are against it. This has led to a situation in which we have several alternative ways of solving the Espoo-Helsinki traffic problems: subway, trams, busses, or wider streets for private cars. Now they are making some studies about the different alternatives. It today occurred to me, that one of the fundamental lessons we have learned in systems engineering (in which I am a kind of expert) is that the first thing to agree on is the set of requirements. If we skip the requirements phase and start to define and debate different solution alternatives immediately, we will encounter serious problems. For example: how could one compare subway to trams, if one does not have a set of requirements? I am really puzzled: why have I never seen any requirement for the traffic system here in Helsinki, or elsewhere? I think I could define a general set of requirements for any traffic system. It could be fun. Actually, I have been toying with the idea for the last 3 years and have some ideas, but I have not had time/energy to write them down. Let see if I have time now. 

Dinner and poetry

We had late dinner at home. I cooked Italian risotto with truffles and olives - it was surprisingly good, but it did look a bit dubious: as if there would be some poppy seeds in rice porridge. The best risotto I have cooked so far contained cold-smoked salmon and cherve-cheese with a hint of basil. I might start cooking risotto in some restaurant during weekends. Weekends are sometimes so boring. Especially when it is raining and I am too tired to read or write. 

I tried to cultivate my literary skills and knowledge by reading some poems by Joseph Brodsky, my favorite poet. S told me that I should read also poems by Lauri Otonkoski and Raymond Carver. I obeyed, of course, and found both men quite good. And alcoholic. Brodsky was no alcoholic, but he was chain-smoker. There is a price to pay for being a poet, I assume. By the way, the favorite city of Brodsky (not counting Leningrad or Peter as he called it) was, I think, Venice, which is also my absolute favorite. I wonder if I ever have a possibility to stay one year in Venice. 

Friday, 2004-09-10 

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 yield substandard results, which in the end will not be so much of use for their employers either. But this is how the working life revolves today: too many meetings, too little time, too many power-point-slide shows without any content and intellect. 

MIT at 5th place in university ranking

According to a study, MIT is the 5th best university in the world. The University of Helsinki is best in Finland but only 72nd in the world. It seems that I made a good decision to join the SDM@MIT. By the way, I will be in MIT (Boston) from 18th to 22nd of October. Really exciting to go there. 

Sushi again

Olli invited us to their home. He was making sushi for the first time. He is a great cook and his sushi was delicious. We (us, them, Olli´s brother and his wife) were all very happy and at 1.30 am drunk enough. We took taxi home. It is always a pleasure to ride taxi. 

Thursday, 2004-09-09 

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 called "Työelemän huonontumisen lyhyt historia" (A short history of the worsening of the working life). I have not yet read it (cannot get it from the publisher), but I took a quick look at it in Akateeminen yesterday. It seems to be well written and contains a lot of research data. In France, one woman working in some electricity company wrote a survival guide to the modern office ("always take a folder when walking idly around office"). I am waiting for translation into English, Finnish, Swedish, or German. There was also an article by Alain De Botton on the same topic in the International Herald Tribune yesterday. See Worker´s of the world, relax. This is getting interesting. See also the Idler-magazine. Aaro gave me the link. 

Sushi

I had sushi for dinner with S in Ichiban. All the food was as good as it usually can get here in Finland. We even dared to have some sake, which was good but sinfully expensive. So, I recommend this place also to Lavonardo, a great lover of good food and especially sushi. 

Keskiviikkona, 2004-09-08 16:00 (EEST)

Tiistaitapaaminen oli hauskempi ja kiinnostavampi kuin edellinen. Paikalla 3 Mattia, Satu, Maria, 2 Paivia, Tappi, Pekka, Otto-Ville, Kari, Jaana, Thomas, Kirsi, Antti ja Ylva. En ollut monia heista nahnyt pitkaan aikaan (skanditon paateohjelma) ja nyt sitten oli kiva tavata. Vaan en jaksa referoida keskustelujamme - koska en niita kaikkia muista. O-V kertoi rapujen syonnin tarinan alkaen feodaaliajan ruokavaliosta ja Napoleonin sodista Egyptissa. Mielenkiintoista.

Venaja on ottanyt Amerikasta mallia ja julistanut maailmanlaajuisen sodan terrorismia vastaan. Lupaavat iskea "terroristien" pesapaikkoihin kaikin keinoin kaikkialla maailmassa. Onneksi Venajan tavanomainen armeija ei kovin kauas (Suomeen toki) ylla. Huonommaksi onneksi heilla on liikaakin epatavanomaisia aseita. Nyt ei kylla maailman turvallisuustilanne kovin mukavasti kehittyvalta nayta. 

Lukemista sodasta: Antiwar. Lukemista noin yleisemmin Granta, josta tilasin taas muutaman kirjan tanaankin.

Huomenna jatkan kirjoittamista englanniksi.

Tiistaina, 2004-09-07 15:00 (EEST)

Normaali työpäivää saavuin toimistoon viettämään vasta kello 11. Nautin aamusta rauhassa - ei ole kiirettä mihinkään. Työt eivät karkaa, toimisto ei kaatune tuulessakaan. Aamukahvia on kivempaa juoda kuin toimiston automaattikahvia. Seurakin on viehättävämpää kotosalla ja parempaa luettavaakin: Economist. Ihmettelen suuresti Economistin ja Suomen Kuvalehden laatuero: SK on kuin Valitut Palat - yltiöyksinkertaistettua, kristillistä roskaa. Pitää perua tilaus ja tilata jotain fiksumpaa tilalle.

Eilen kävin punttisalilla. En tiedä onko siitä mitään hyötyä vai olenko minä vain ajan hengen ja mainosten uhri. Aika tylsää puuhaa punttien kanssa temuaminen kyllä on - ja vielä kun on niin huono kunto, ettei palautumistaukojen aikana pysty edes lukemaan. Pah. Jalat ovat pysyneet vahvoina: jalkaprässissä menee yhä 170 kg, 4x12 toistoa. Ja sitten on aika pönkkänä koko ukko.

USA:n sotilaita on nyt saatu hengiltä 1000 kpl Iraksissa. Tätä ilmeisesti pitävät kovin suurena määränä. En ymmärrä. Samoja köyhiä, tulevaisuudettomia kavereitahan kuolee erilaisissa ampumisharjoituksissa USA:ssa yli 20000 vuodessa eikä heitä kukaan sure. Sen nyt ymmärtää, jos kalliita kommandoja kuolee ja sitä armeija harmittelee. Mutta sodassa on tarkoitus tappaa ja samalla siinä kuolee omiakin aina. Ihme pehmoilua. Ja sumutusta kuten Chris Hedges kirjoittaa esseessään War is what gives a meaning. Sain tämän linkin Paul Krugmanin kolumnista New York Timesissa. Krugmanin kirjoituksia kannattaa seurata - siinä voi oppia paljonkin. Varmaankin kannattaisi lukea myös G.W. Bushin porukan kirjoituksia, mutta kaikkeen ei aika riitä - ja sitten sitä on aivan vääristyneen tiedon varassa tai ainakin osittaisen. 

Illalla Tiistaitapaaminen ravintola Sea Horsessa. Espoossa ukkosti, en voinut pyöräillä ravintolaan - olisi ollut ikävää märkänä siellä istuskella vaikka illassa varmaankin on tulossa kosteahko. 

Aaro antoi minulle eilen Ska-kokoelman. Se on loistava. Ollinkin tapasin eilen: kävimme fillarikaupassa. Ollilla on uusi projekti: hän rakentaa fillaria. Lavonardo lainasi minulle Bostonin kartan. 

Illalla eilen luin kirjaa Stalinista. Se on opettavainen.

Maanantai, 2004-09-06 11:00 (EEST)

Tuomari Nurmio tavoin vietin viikolopun huolella: kännissä ja viihteen puolella. Hauskaa oli, tottakai.

Perjantaina illalla Make-veljeni kanssa Kalliossa kiertelimme halpoja kapakoita. Mambossa oli aika synkkä tunnelma: tyypit aivan kännissä ja lasinsiruja joka puolella. Ilmeisesti 2 euron iloiset tunnit olivat houkutelleet paikalle riehakasta sakkia, josta tuntia aikana innokkuus ja riehakkuus oli valunut pöntöstä alas. Heinähatussa oli hauskempaa: paikalla toimittaja-Vesa, joka oli päättänyt juoda viimeiset 35 euroaan kerralla ja miettiä sitten mistä rahaa ruokaan. Suunnitelma oli hyvässä vauhdissa. Pöydällinen Sonic Youth-faneja oli valloittanut jukeboxin. Kivaa. 

Ruuaksi kylmäsavulohi-chevre-risottoa. Se onnistui paremmin kuin odotinkaan.

Lauantaina Tallinnassa. Menomatka laivalla (Noorlandia, Eckerö Line) oli sosiologisesti ja antropologisesti mielenkiintoinen. Ihmeellisen suuri on juoppouden määrä: koko kööri oli ihan kännissä tunnin matkan jälkeen kello 9 aamulla. Kiskoivat kaksi käsin viinaa, nöykyttelivät päätää, vetivät leukaa sisään näyttääkseen uskottavilta epäonnistuen surkeasti. Oli myös kaksi orkesteria, jotka saivat juoppojen suosion soittamalla "viilaten ja höyläten" yms. Läskit liikkuivat - tunsin itseni siinä porukassa hoikaksi, mikä oli sangen miellyttävää. Muuta miellyttävää ei sitten ollutkaan. Osa porukasta osti 10 litraa viinaa, vuokrasi hytin eikä aikonutkaan käydä maissa. 

Me kävimme maissa. Normaalia Tallinnan-turisteerausta. Ensin kävellen Toompealle katselemaan maisemia ja vierailemaan hienoissa kirkoissa. Yksi kaveri yritti myydä meille "osta hjyvä kaasunaamari ja koppalakki". Ostamatta jäi vaikka olisihan noista syntynyt kelpo naamiaisasu. Kello 12 juoppojen esimerkkiä ei voinut olla noudattamatta. Panimoravintolaan juomaan olutta ja syömään alkupaloja. vastapäätä on sikaarikauppa, jossa walk-in humidori ja tupakointisalonki viskeineen ja kahveineen. Ostin Cohiba Robuston, 16e, ja se oli suurenmoinen. Poltin sen vasta Suomessa Kallion William K:ssa. Sain osakseni vihaisia katseita, kun savustin ankarasti 80 minuuttia.

Illalliseksi hyvää kotiruokaa "Isoäidin luona". Ihmeellista, että hyvää palvelua saa niin paljon helpommin Virossa kuin Suomessa. Osaavat vielä tavat: eivät tule kysymään tilausta, kun ruokalista on avoinna. Eivät yritä hakea lautasia pois, jos aterimet eivät ole oikeassa paikassa. Mutta sitten toimivat nopeasti. Make söi sillilautasen ja villisikaa, minä sienisalaattia ja kuhaa sampanjakastikeessa. Ruuat juomineen maksoivat 50 euroa eli nautinto oli halpa. 

Sunnuntaina hauskanpito jatkui: aamiaista Ekbergillä, kävelyretki Krunikan läpi Kallioon, hyvien kirjojen lukemista ja illallista Cantina Westissä Basin, Jyrkin, Kisun, Lyn ja Laurin kanssa. Ruoka oli hieman pettymys: sellaista halpaa buffettimössöä eika tarjoilu ollut mistään kotoisin. Piti toipua juomalla vielä 3 tuoppia Erottajassa, jossa ei olekaan tullut aikoihin notkuttua. Joskus tuli notkuttua liiaksikin. 

Perjantai, 2004-09-03 14:00 (EEST)

Ajoin taas fillarilla töihin. Aikaa kului 32 minuutti ja siihen päälle suihkuun yms 10 min. Fillarilla ja bussille/junalla pääsen siis perille aivan yhtä nopeasti. Työmatka Kalliosta Säterinporttiin on kuitenkin liian pitkä, enkä MIT:stä mahdollisesti Hesaan palattuani kyllä tänne maaseudulle töihin suostu. Ihan pelleilyä rakentaa toimistoja tämmöisiin paikkoihin. 

Töissä paljon periaattellista keskustelua tuotekehityksen johtamisesta ja orjanisoinnista. Ajatukseni kirkastuvat keskustellessa, mutta en ole varma johtaako keskustelu sen enempää koskaan. 

MIT:stä tuli lomakkeita täytettäväksi. Nyt pitää allekirjoittaa sitoumus, että todellakin aion osallistua SDM:äään ensi vuonna ja maksaa $18000 dollaria kolmesti ensi vuoden aikana. Nyt sitten vain sormet ristiin ja toivomaan dollarin arvon romahtamista. Siitä olisi ny t silkkaa hyötyä. Kiinassa siitä oli vain haittaa. 

Torstai, 2004-09-02 17:00 (EEST)

Uuden blogin aloitin. Nyt sitten kaikki vain seuraamaan minun vilkasta elämääni. 

Aika normaali päivä. Heräsin myöhään työssäkäyväksi. Unohdin kulkukortin ja kukkaron ja muutakin kotiin ja jouduin palaamaan Meilahdesta takaisin kotiin. Töissä sitten kello 10.30. Töistä ei voi julkisesti kirjoittaa, mutta eipä olisi paljon mistä kirjoittaa. Hiljaista on, mutta onpahan aikaa valmistauta MIT:ssä opiskelemiseen. 

Kirjalista MIT:ä varten luettavaksi 

• Product Design and Development, Third Edition, Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger, McGraw Hill Irwin, 2004
• The Art of Systems Architecting, Second edition, Mark W. Maier and Eberhart Rechtin, CRC Press, 2002
  • this I have read several times already
• Organizational Behavior and Processes, Ancona, Kochan, Scully, Van Maanen, Westney, MIT, 1999
• "The Machine That Changed The World - The STORY oF Lean Production", James P Womack, Daniel T Jones and Daniel Roos, 1990. 
• INCOSE handbook of systems engineering
• Systems engineering by Stevens and others 
• The mythical man month by Brooks
• The art of computer systems performance analysis by Jain
• The Cathedral and the bazaar by Raymond
• Systems architecting organizations by Rechtin
• Software architecture by Shaw
• Mathematics and plausible reasoning by Polya
• Beta - mathematics handbook by Råde
• Why buildings fall down by Levy
• What management is by Magretta
• First, break all the rules by Buckingham 
• How to solve it by Polya

Ja vielä muutamia Economistista saamiani kirjoja

• Dealing with financial risk
• Business strategy
• Essential finance
• Guide to business planning

Illalla aion käydä punttisalilla ja lukea jotakin kirjaa. Jos en lue kirjaa, niin luen tilaamaani Internation Herald Tribunea, joka on huomattavasti Hesaria parempi lehti. Tai sitten masennun ja katselen telkkarista jotain roskaa. Niin kuin yleensä. 

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All opinions are mine and do not reflect opinions etc of my current or future employers as far as I am aware.

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