Blogs November 2005

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A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days.

(Goethe)

November

Current blog - click!!

No elephants or Elephantiasis or elephantitis here — Google cheats you! Shame on Larry! 

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Wednesday, 2005-11-30

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty. Henry Ford 

Dubious record 

According to the local yellow press, a Finnish man made tried to deliberately make the world record in drunkenness. He was quite successful, was admitted to the emergency care with 0.83 percent blood alcohol content. When he woke after some 5 hours, his first words were: "Did I break the record?". Such is the life in the winter in the Finnish countryside. Wise men stay away. 

Dark ages

The yearly dark age has descended over Finland. It is not too dry nor it is too much light. It is the prime time for all light sensitive pursuits, the thugs are roaming the street. Very exciting, almost scary. Fortunately I can stay inside and take naps. I have taken 3 naps today, so I am very much awake now that I should not be. This is a strange place. It is very hard to find energy to do anything. Or is it just the jet lag?

Getting tested

I am getting tested. Now we will finally find whether Mr. Kinnunen is as clever as he thinks and claims. He has not been doing that well in the test so far. Maybe he has to learn certain self-humbling modesty tonight. Seriously, I am not sure whether tests like today's really reveal anything, which would not be apparent to anyone who would spend a few hours discussing with me. But I may be arrogant now. Not for long, for sure. 

Self-exalting modesty

Self-exalting modesty (itseäänylentävä vaatimattomuus) is one of the things I really cannot stand in the Finnish culture. It is quite OK to modest, not being a braggart, but being modest and exalting oneself for it is just infuriating. And it is all over here. All rich people make a point of doing their own laundry, leading politicians boast about their low-class hobbies and shopping in malls, and impost themselves as men of the street. Of course, most of them are not that special, just ex-beauty queens and totally average persons. I think leading politicians must not be average, artificially modest persons. They must be exceptional, and aware of it. And certainly not too shy to show it. 

Tuesday, 2005-11-29

I manage only big things. Nobody may bother me with private things. I do not even bother myself with private things. J. K. Paasikivi

Politics

I will become a member of the Finnish Parliament in the next elections, whenever they may be. It is clear that politics in this country need a healthy dose on intellectual rigor and that the current economic policy is not opportunistic enough. Finland is not taking advantage of globalization. Nor is the Finnish state investing in area, which are going to bring a lot of money in the future. The current political climate would not allow trade with Soviet Union, if it would exist, and that would a big mistake. Stay tuned, my political pamphlet is coming out sooner than the incumbent dare to think. 
Now, the political parties may start bidding for my candidacy. It will not be cheap, especially in terms of intellectual firepower and its devastating effects in their bureaus. 
Paasikivi would turn if his grave in he would see the timidity of current politicians. I will let him rest in peace. Vote me!

Too quiet

I already miss the chatty Americans. Yesterday, I took a bus with some morning commuters. They were really boring, reserved, quiet. And they looked so depressed. I tried to chat with some of them, and they gave me the look. I understood, and continued reading my books. In Boston, I like the way many people chat in busses, sometimes some dance and sing. Not here, here commuting is like a trip to funeral. 
But I had great fried pike-perch yesterday. I like the Finnish cuisine of fish. Not that Boston would be all meat place, but fish is so different here. 

Deformed faces

I walked down the streets in rain and wind yesterday. Some other Finns were there as well. How sad did they look, oh boy. Many of them had permanently deformed faces by the sad, angry, reserved expression they wear most of the time. I think they should cheer up! I have decided not to deform my faces just because the crowd is sad. 

Monday, 2005-11-28

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! Albert Einstein

Back in Finland 

I traveled to Finland. It is about zero C, raining, and very dark not at 7am, just as I expected it to be. No pleasant surprises, from weather's side, but meeting S and others is as nice as, or even nicer than, I expected. 
The trip went well. I tried to smuggle 45 kg of books in one suitcase to the airliner. I made an effort to make the bag seem very light, lifted it on the scale at check-in with no apparent effort, and almost got away with it. The young clerk did not notice, but unfortunately there was an experience lady, who called my bluff. I had to buy a new bag, transfer some books to it, and pay $100 extra. Cheap, the books are worth several thousand dollars
The security personnel were very friendly. They even cleaned my laptop with some machine sterilized textile. They also check that my jacket was not explosive, but not my trousers. I assume it would be possible to smuggle some explosive in seams of trousers to the airliner. But they only check shoes, as nobody has tried the trouser trick. Of course it is wise only to try to prevent well-known plots. 

I got two whole exit row from Boston to Frankfurt. So nice. In Frankfurt they checked my laptop again, but did not clean. So lousy service can one only get in Germany.
On Sunday, we visited Olli and his family. Olli made some sushi and excellent fish soup. 

Saturday, 2005-11-26

Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experience Otto Von Bismarck

Traveling 

I like to travel, but every time I am about to leave home for some adventure, I get cranky and listless and unwilling to leave. I do not know it is so, but it happens every time. Nowadays, I have learned to expect this mental state, which makes it a bit easier to handle. Once I leave, I am happy and full of energy.

GM and other are killing themselves 

According to NY Times carmakers are against stricter pollution standards. They are setting up court cases against the NY state, which tries to mandate new standards. This would be funny, if it would not demonstrate how seriously the management of car companies is out of touch with reality. It is only less than a month since customers very clearly demonstrated, what they will do if gasoline prices increase. They will buy smaller, more efficient car. And now the industry is using court case to avoid the need to build such cars. How stupid can the management be? The only clever move comes from Tokyo again. Some Japanese car companies are joining Americans in the court case. If the court case is successful and there will not be stricter standards, GM and Ford will not invest in efficient car. Toyota, Honda, etc will continue investing even more, despite their support to the court case. They realize, that gasoline prices will increase in the future and their customers will require efficient car. By supporting GM and Ford in their deliberate corporate suicide, Toyota and others will prosper. 

Prime minister of Finland has a blog 

But he is a very poor writer. His blog read like a middle school students diary. What a waste - why cannot we have prime minister who could write, whose blog would really deal with the hard political and value questions, which are essential. But it may be because of the wholesale listlessness of Finnish politics. I have to go back there and kick their asses. I can hardly wait to do so. Oh, I ma so cranky. I need to get some coffee and breakfast. 

Friday, 2005-11-25

Such as possess the gifts of fortune are easily deprived of them: but when learning is once fixed in the mind, no age removes it, nor is its stability affected during the whole course of life. Vitruvius

Blogs and mental health 

I have been browsing several blog directories. I do not know, whether I have some unconscious selections bias, but I seem to find way too many blogs written by depressed, bipolar, schizophrenic, or otherwise rather non-stable persons. I assume that writing is a good therapy, but still it makes me sad to realize the amount of suffering even in Western countries, and especially the amount of mental suffering. But it may well be that I just click on those blogs for some reason and that they really are exceptions. I am not sure. Antti said once that internet is the largest open mental hospital in the world. It may well be true. At least internet and blogging is cheaper and safer than many other things sick people might try in order to get better. 

I surrender to the winter 

Now, the winter is really here. The temperature at my writing desk dropped below 15C, which starts to be a bit too low even for me. So, for the first time since March, I switched the large hairdryer (or heater) on. I just cannot understand how I managed here with the broken window in January. Rather poorly, I assume. Now I sit in front of the hairdryer, wrapped in a quilt. No more energy saving for the next few hours. 

Fierce competition 

Two fashion magazines were sitting on a self next to each other. The first one screams at me: "lose 30 lbs before Christmas". The other raises the bets: "lose 43 lbs before Christmas". Competition is hard here where fat of the land roam the street freely. But is it possible to lose such an amount before Christmas? It is now 30 days to Christmas. 43 lbs is about 20 kg. To lose 20 kg, one has to spend 20*7000 kcals more than one gets. So, one would have to lose about 4500 kcals per day, which is about twice the amount a woman, even 20 kg overweight, uses per day. So, to really lose 43 lbs in 30 days, just stopping eating would not be enough. One would also have to start doing some exercise for at least 3 hours per day (while not eating anything). I am sure some fat people will have the will-power to commit to such a diet&exercise. So, we will see many fat people running before Christmas. So funny it will be to watch them.

Chavez vs. Bush 

The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is a funny guy. He likes to one-up Mr. Bush. His latest trick was to sell discounted home heating oil to chilly residents of Massachusetts, while Bush and the Congress decided not to increase heating subsidies for the poor. I am not sure, how much good Mr Chavez is doing for his own citizen (meaning that I have not read anything about Venezuela lately, please provide some info, link, opinions), but his opposition is at least entertaining, if not useful or necessary. Check some more discussion from The Guardian by Simon Tisdal. Note also, that Mr. Chavez has understood geopolitics well, and tries to stop selling oil to USA, and instead sell Venezuelan oil to China. There we go - another occupation is brewing, if Chavez gets his oilpipe before US get a new administration. Or, maybe the times of using muscle instead on brains is over now. Hope so.

Education vs. preparedness 

Fil Hearn in Ideas that shaped buildings:

Many employers take for granted a familiarity with CAD - computer aided design. What they do not take into consideration is that education is not the same things as job preparedness, and that the more beginners are educated in analytical thinking, the more readily the acquire practice skills and become effective in office procedure.

This applies quite well to IT-industry as well. Many employers are looking for narrow skills in some specific (commercial) tool, not educated persons. And they are making grave mistakes. No fit, my ass, with a tool.

Urban development in China

NY Times runs an interesting article on urban development in China. Their example is from Harbin, the city hit by the toxic spill a few days back (by the way, before Europeans get too much schadenfreude up and going, just remember the leak that killed all life from the rive Rhein not that long ago, and the poison leak in Italy). In Harbin, they are building a new city center north of the current one, on the other side of the river. Since the authorities have unlimited powers, and sources of corruption money, this kind of projects get permissions easily. I am not sure at all, whether the project will be of any use - Harbin is not that tempting place for companies. Even in Hangzhou, where they did the exactly same thing, built a new area of offices etc, on the other side of the river, the effort failed. The buildings were empty and companies were not willing to relocate there even with promises of tax-breaks and rent subsidies. It seems that the Chinese way of mixing dictatorship and capitalism does not work that well in urban planning. 
I definitely need to visit China soon. I want to see some things and check how it is going there. I just need some holiday, money is not a problem.

Paul Krugman on GM 

Paul Krugman writes in his column (subscription, NY Times got greedy and is shooting itself and its columnists in their feet) on the plight of GM: G.M.'s woes are yet another reminder of the urgent need to fix our health care system.. It is really pathetic, that everyone who has even some sense, realizes that the current US health care system is broken and makes each and every US citizen pay extra, and still the government is totally unable to even start any kind of effort to fix the system. It seems, that political systems are, for the most part, unable to change/renew themselves short of total catastrophe. And when the catastrophe hits, it will be many time harder and more expensive to fix than it would be earlier. 

Blogging as creative writing 

Not that I know much about creative writing, but I have found blogging an excellent means for improving my writing skills. Quite often I just decide to write something, decide a topic and then, in the next 5 minutes, just write something on the topic. It is remarkable how writing guides itself, how words call forward other words, how arguments fight each other for publication. I think that writing, as so many other skills, can only be learned and mastered by continuos practice. So, bear with me while I practice. Anaway, people flock theaters for dress rehearsals as well.

Winter is here 

It is 6.10 am, I have been awake for an hour, written something, packed my luggage (one large suitcase full of books), had fish and bananas (separately) for breakfast, and now I am starting to do some systems architecting. I got some good ideas while sleeping - it is the method of Crawley: load your brain with problems before going to bed and the answers will be ready by day break. But I will break for coffee and NY Times in some cafe in the Charles Street after 7am, when Deluga's open and I can buy my daily newspaper. Maybe it makes me rant a little later. But it is cold out there, -6C, and windy. Should I stay put hacking in here, where it is now 16.5C. 

Thursday, 2005-11-24

A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. Alexander Hamilton 

Thanksgiving diary 

Idling at home until noon, then lunch at the Tamili-restaurant far away (with Kumar and Ashok, great food as always), , where there were snow and cold wind, back at home at 3pm, reading, napping, and then escaping internet. I took the T to the Boston college, as it is the longest route (measured in time) and back. I was reading Ideas that shaped buildings by Fil Hearn, which seems to ge a great history of theory to civil architecture. It is one of the most interesting topics I can imagine as it combines history, sociology, politics, architecture and engineering. Later, a free dinner with a couple of beer in the Crossroads pub (at Mass av/Beacon) with Kumar. A lazy day, but I assume that's how thanksgiving is meant to be: all shops and most restaurants were closed. 

Shortage of goods 

When I was a child and Russia was called the Soviet Union, we used to joke about the queues in front of store there. Now, I do not know whether I should joke, laugh, or cry when I hear that tomorrow, on the days after thanksgiving, great mobs gather in front of Wal-Marts, Best-Buys, Stapleses, Toy'R'uses, etc, even hours before they store open, which they do at 6am. Is there such a lock of goods in this society, that people are willing to wake up at 3am, drive tens of miles, queue in freezing rain just in the (vain) hope of getting some cheap goods? If there is, I think the economic system is not functioning properly, in the sense of satisfying the basic needs of citizens. If there is not, we need to start worrying of the mental state of this country. Really scary, I think. And we know, that buying more and more, is just making people less and less happy (cf "High Price of Materialism" by Tim Kasser). 

Thanksgiving 

Let me give some thanks, then. Thanks to S for all support and encouragement and wise advice this year. Thanks to Kumar for friendship, and encouragement which made this year in MIT nice and easy, and for completing 81 units in the spring semester with me. Thanks to all my friends from Finland for keeping in touch, and for visiting me. Thanks to all my readers for reading and commenting and giving me a reason for writing. And thanks to my mother for support and loving care, and to brother too for just existing. Thanks also to all great professors in MIT for teaching and mentoring. And to other class- and course-mates for making up nice atmosphere in classes and in doing the homework. Thanks to Milton and Mirja for helping me in settling down in Boston and nice dinners. 
I assume the next thing to do today, as it is Thanksgiving, is to have some great food! 

Wednesday, 2005-11-23

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him discover it in himself. Galileo Galilei

Thesis progress

I finally managed to meet my thesis advisor, professor Edward Crawley. He is such a busy man. We talked on my thesis for maybe 30 minutes (minus the time other people came and talked with him about other things). After I had explained my work on the thesis so far, he said that the results are definitely useful for his needs in thinking and teaching systems architecting. He said that I should just go on writing and finish the thesis. Great. I will do that during the next 2 weeks or so. The writing is so easy, and has been very easy for the last few days. 
To celebrate, I had a cup of coffee at the Miracle of Science and played some pinball (Two Towers). Now, it is back to working in the systems architecting homework. Or it will be once our team convenes. 

Be unreasonable in doing everything

If one tries to do everything unreasonably much, one ends up doing everything in reasonable and balanced amount. This is my way of living. I try to study too much, write blog too much, read books too much, drink wine too much, etc. The end result is a pleasant balance in my life. I really do recommend this way of living to everyone else. Moderation is a direct way to ruin and misery. 

The next court case

The next big court case will be some class action against manufacturers of energy drinks. First, they all know, and even admit, that their products are addictive. Second, it is just too tempting for lawyers not to sue the companies at the first hint that some teenager had a few too many energy drinks (and some guns, but gun companies have been exempted from any liabilities) and do some nasty things. Or, for some people just loose their sleep after drinking too many energy drinks. After all, why should such drug dealing be allowed to continue while the war on drugs is still on? Just sue them and send some proceeds to me.

How to save GM

Some UAW-official told in NPR how to save GM. "Just run all the factories at 100% capacity. Retire 2000 employees. Make cars that sell". Simple! At Delphi, things are going just great. The management is trying to cut more than 70% of the salaries of the employees. That would save some money, for sure. The management has also negotiated itself some $100 million per year in recurring bonuses for the simple reason that if they do not get the bonuses, they will leave the company, which they have just managed to run in to near-bankruptcy. I think it is just fair to pay them the $100 million annually for such a spectacular level of continuos achievement. And when Delphi really goes down, the management will leave for very well earned retirement and it will be all employees fault for they did not agree to cut their salaries in time. Unemployment and food stamps will serve them just right. 

Free ideas for extra revenue for airlines

Ok, let me then provide some further revenue ideas for the airlines. 

• $1 for washing hands, $5 for actually using the toilet 
• $5 for using the reading light. 
• $5 for headphones (rent)
• $5 per inlight movie 
• $7 for using the air blower 
• $2 per piece of check-in luggage 
• $5 per piece of hand (cabin) luggage 
• $0.5 per one kilogram of passenger over 50 kg - let the fat pay more 
• $8 dollars for permission to bring own food or drink to airliner
• $2 for bringing own newspapers to the airliner
• $2 per newspaper (rent, not selling)
• $200 for a personal lifevest - it is unnecessary anyway

Now, this could easily make some tens of extra dollars of revenue per each passenger. Of course, introducing such fees cannot happen at once. Instead, the airlines must take them in to use one by one. We have already seen, that once the first airline is courageous enough to introduce new fees, the other are compelled to follow. There is such a huge want of competent managers in the airline industry that copy-paste management is the order of the day. I am sure they will implement some of my ideas in the very near future. 

Of course, most of the new fees would have innovative names and justifications. For example, luggage handling fee (a tip for the hauling personnel, which would also eliminate the need for paying them any salaries), passenger weight management fee (includes free emails from the "Airline chapter of weight watchers"), infection prevention fee (toilet related), clearing support (for newspapers, and again eliminating the need for paying the cleaning personnel), etc. Such names and justifications are available for $100000 per item from the "MJK-advertisement and management strategy consulting" (incorporated). Interested airlines can contact by email.

Tuesday, 2005-11-22

Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. Vaclav Havel 

What a day

I woke before 5 am, which is earlier than I used to fall asleep a week ago. I am not sure, whether this kind of rhythm changing is wise or healthy. Interesting it is, tough. I wrote a few pages more to my thesis, then had lunch at the local Chinese (they make extra-large portions for me, as I used to ask for more rise), worked on Systems Architecture homework with Bill and Wilfried (this time it is if not hard then at least extremely tedious and confused - take so much time to figure out the professor asks us to do), back home for a nap, writing more for the homework, writing blog, having a walk, reading newspapers. Thus, not an ordinary day, so no mental problems or such. 

On airlines

The airlines are trying to save their way out of loss. I think they will not make it. The naive strategic consultant's idea of decreasing losses by increasing revenues by inventing new accidental fees will not work. For the first, the accidental fees (like charging $2 for having a pillow in airliner, or $1 for a small bag of pretzel) are not really generating enough revenue. There is no market for them - the passengers will not buy them, while the systems and workforce for handling the transactions will be expensive. For the second, running an business by not thinking the value-chain will not work. The thinking should start from the benefit the customer is getting out of the business, not from how the customer can be made to pay more. It is just insane! 
I would have some ideas how to really improve the business of airlines, but I think I will not reveal them here. They may well turn out to be valuable things later. 
But I do like the idea of charging extra $30 for an exit-row seat. I wonder whether they will fly with empty seats at exit-rows when the flight is full and nobody is willing to pay. Or, can one from now on get an exit row seat just by being late?

On General Motors (and Ford)

So, General Motors is in deep trouble. They have been losing about $1 billion per quarter year lately, they sales are going still down, their salary expenses are going up, they have huge legacy expenses in health care and pensions, and Toyota and others are beating the bejesus out of them. All this does not bode well for them. Today, they announce closing a number of factories and firing some %10-20% of the personnel. 
I agree with some GM employee, who said in today's WSJ (and NY Times and Boston Globe) that GM cannot shrink itself back to profitability. So, what should GM do? My recipe would be the following (this is basically the lean stuff). First, decide how large a company GM wants to be. Fire enough people to get to this size, close all the factories necessary. Pay the employees to go away, fight the unions if necessary. After all, a company must be able to fire employees when its troubles are the size of GM's. Then, promise every remaining employee, that they will have their jobs, and start rescuing the company. If the employees are not promised, they will be worried and looking outside. No company can remake itself with worried employees. Second, try honestly figure out what kind of cars American customers really want (by e.g looking what they are buying). Then, do not try to copy anything they are buying, because by copying GM would be late still. Skip the current generation of hybrid cars, and make sure that in 3 years (GM has enough money to survive even longer) GM is building cars, which customers wants and which are really good. Third, start lobbying for sensible health care system in USA. The current system will bleed American businesses dry. Finally, make sure that GM operations are at least as efficient as those of Toyota and other Japanese. It is possible, requires just honest and clear thinking, a lot humbleness and patience. 
This is basically what Ericson did in late 1990s and early 2000. It cut itself in half, or even less, had the patience to develop somewhat selling products. Maybe GM could do it, too. 
Hmm, I was thinking that I could write a better and simpler argument. Maybe I will try again in a few days, once I have read a little more about GM. And written my thesis. 

On SW-business

Some notes on SW-business. Today's WSJ runs an article saying that Microsoft is trying to get to HW-business, first with the new Xbox and later with other HW. Some other article I read last week pointed out that Apple, Sun, Nokia, IBM, Ericsson etc are HW-companies. They make money by selling HW and if necessary give SW for free. Then in some class I heard a CEO of a SW-business company saying that selling SW is not profitable: the customers are not willing to pay for it (due to open source and free SW) and due to competitors from India and China. And then I realized, that for most of the systems we buy, we do not really care of pay for SW. SW is everywhere, but we just want to get functionality and value, and do not care whether is is due to SW, HW, or some minute midgets inside the machine. Anyway, this all tells me that selling SW is not the business to be in. It is much better to sell either HW or services. Nothing new here, but I just realized this myself, almost clearly. Oh, and I do not think that Microsoft can enter the HW business. They have tried before and failed. Their culture is somehow not adaptable to non-SW business. 
The next big thing is going to be open-source HW. 

The "China and oil"-article - updated 

Guardian's article on China and oil has the title China's scramble for African oil. Maybe reading it may entice you into commenting my thinking below. Another interesting article in NY Times. Thanks to Peter Elk for the hint. 

So much to write, so little time

Hmm, now I am getting ready for writing some of my thesis. It is 7.40 am. But I intend to write about SW business, airlines, and GM later today in this blog. I have so much to say and nobody to talk to. My brains are in overdrive. And I read Wall Street Journal for 5 minutes...

China, US, and oil

The Guardian Weekly runs an interesting article on China and oil. China has been quietly buying oil drilling and refining rights in Sudan and other not-so-well-behaving African countries. Those are places, which are very corrupted, do not value human life and rights too much, and which are desperately poor. So, they are very eager to receive any investments and later running revenue from any sources. And also places in which most Western countries/businesses either do not dare, either for public outcry or unstable/risky business propositions. 
It seems, that oil is really getting scarce, the demand is and will be higher and supply. Thus countries, or blocks of countries are maneuvering to get some of the remaining oil. The new great game is starting for good. It seems that there are basically four ways to get oil. First, one can have oil domestically as USA and Europe have. This is a good proposition, but would require limiting demand to domestic supply. Second, the free market. One can bid for and buy oil from the oil market as long as there is oil available. The price may be getting high, but rich countries can afford it. Third, there is the US way of invading countries and trying to get to control the oil. This way seems to be very expensive, even in terms of human lives and also rather unpredictable: if the invasion/occupation meets stubborn resistance, it is all in vain. Fourth, there is the Chinese way of bribing one's way to the oil wells. This is very good since one can get exclusive rights to the oil, take it from the market, and it seems to be much cheaper, in any measure, than military occupation. 
So, what should the Western countries do? First, they should cut down their oil consumption, try to get by with their own reserves - the best way is to develop new energy sources. Second, they should see if they could copy some of the Chinese way - instead of attacking, try bribing/seducing. I think there are ways to bribe with some concern of human lives and rights. Third, they definitely should stop attacking - it has turned out to be counterproductive. In short, when some resource is getting scarcier, it is better to find a substitute, and let those who do not suffer more from the scarcity: the Western countries could easily cut down their oil consumption, while China definitely cannot do so. And China has more or less no domestic oil - unless they steal some from the Japanese.
I forgot to mention Russia, which has a lot of oil. They are eager to sell their oil to anyone paying enough, in general, but for some geopolitical reason they prefer to sell to Japan instead of China. Or at least they decided to build the oil pipe not through China, but though Russia to the Sea of Japan. Well, it makes sense: they can control the pipe themselves. But how long are the Chinese going to stand idle or are they going to invade/bribe their way to the Eastern Siberia. The Chinese dictators are formibadly clever and professinal in their business. 

Monday, 2005-11-21

And life is about learning, about grabbing every occasion. And art is about that; art is robbery in the noblest sense. It is taking things. Art! Art! In every sense ... Yes. Architecture is about robbery. About taking, taking, taking, and about giving back. Renzo Piano

Thesis progress today

Today's total progress: about 4 pages, some pictures, lots of corrections to earlier chapters, very much thinking of new stuff, which is not yet ready to be written down. Not bad. Total length now: 59 pages, of which own 38 own text, rest stucture, 8 figures, no tables. Tomorrow's goal: 4 more pages, at least 4 new figures, no tables. 
In other development: we got again 5 out of 5 in the Systems Architecture homework, this time the "small project". We are good and consistent. But it is thanks to Wilfried and Bill, not to me. 
A short crono: 30 minutes walk in the morning, thesis work for 3 hours, lunch and coffee with Kumar, visiting MIT, playing pinball, back home thesis work until late, then dinner with Kumar and Robbie in the mall and more coffee, and back home some more thesis. Now really late, better to call it a day and read Guardian Weekly for a while. 

Hacking and moving 

I have found that if I sit for an extended period, like 30 minutes, at my desk, my thinking stalls, and I have a terrible urge to surrender to the pleasures of surfing. Instead, if I manage to lift my ass from the chair and walk to the other end of the room and back, I will always get new ideas, and hacking can proceed gleefully. Strange. An additional benefit: my back/shoulder never get tired and sore since I move so much. 

Hacking music 

While hacking my thesis, I have been listening to Bleed like me by Garbage, International superhis by Green day, and Dirty and Sister by Sonic Youth. I have also listened to punk from Rantradio.com. No classical music, just for reasons like those of Vesa Sisättö.

Nuking Iran 

At Antiwar.com a discussion has started on whether USA is going to nuke Iran or not. Jorge Hirsch claims in his newest column that it is just a matter of time before USA (and Israel) will attack Iran, and that they will use nuclear weapons in the attack (for protecting American lives, as the excuse will be according to Hirsch. I do not know what to make out of this. Somehow I feel that even Cheney, Bush and other draft averters will not be crazy enough to do that. But when one looks what they have do so far, one cannot really know what kind of murderous fantasies they are brewing at the moment. I just hope Hirsch is wrong! Read for yourself. By the way, Dwight D. Eisenhower said:

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

It is a pity that the Bush and others were able to avoid the draft. 

Thesis progress 

My thesis now has 55 pages as a whole, but only 34 of own writing, the rest is cover, contents etc. I have 31 references and I assume there will be about 10 more to come as I am not quite ready yet. I assume I will still write 20 pages and call it a thesis. Should not be too hard not that I have really started. 
Update at 5.30pm. Two more pages ready. Now for a short walk and then a few pages more. I am not running out of ideas yet. 

Splendid week ahead 

This week is going to be excellent. I will write my thesis as a man possessed by the gods of science. I will even meet professor Crawley to discuss what I have come up with. In addition, the weather is going to be rather nice, so I can go for walks in morning and evening. Also, friends are still here, so we can have dinners together. What else? Nothing much, but I am happy with what I listed. Now I do feel possessed!

On materialism 

I spent most of Sunday reading The high price of materialism by Tim Kasser. It made me, again, rethink some of my pursuits. More about them later. If you cannot read the book, read the review (link above). The books is quite important one and makes one think about the future of our societies quite deeply. 

Sunday, 2005-11-20

Materialistic values are associated with low self-actualization and well-being, as well as antisocial behavior and narcissism. Tim Kasser

Best cafes in Boston

The best cafes (of those I have visited) in Boston are: Epresso Royale (any location), Trident Bookstore and Cafe (Newbury Street), Diesel Cafe (Davis Square), the cafe at T-terminal at Boston College, and 1369 (any location). Also Sonsie-bistro is OK, but hard to get in just for a cup of coffee. The Boston College cafe is nice, since taking the T from here to there is always a small adventure. 
All these cafes serve coffee in real porcelain or glass cups, not in those paper cups meant for retarded savants. Except that the Boston college cafe does not. But since it is in the countryside, we will forgive them. For now, but not for long.

Changes

Sometimes, I am told that it is hard to keep up with my changing pursuits and goals. It may well be true, for I am not stable in the sense of having have decided early on, or even now, what I want of my life. I try to keep options open, to have intellectual and other adventures, and to not hurt other people or nature. Sometimes I realize, that I need to change direction, or that some opinion/stand of mine is not anymore valid or defensible. Then I have to change, even opportunistically. But a life predetermined would be a life pre-lived. 

An epidemic

A strange epidemic is aloof in USA. It seems to infect mostly young men. The main symptom is some kind of painful swelling in the groin, which forces the infected person to sit legs widely spread and take the space of two passengers in public transportation. The infection also leads to lower tolerance of cold, and thus to the need to wear baseball cap inside. It must be a variant of elephantitis. I just wonder how it has become so epidemic in USA. 

Saturday, 2005-11-19

We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right. Nelson Mandela 

A symposium

I went to a symposium with some philosophers. It was arranged in honor of my friend Mirja, who is leaving for Finland because of some visa regulations. Very nice party. More later, now too tired to write anything, or drunk.

Punk and work 

The punk-rocker in me seems to be alive and well. I so enjoyed the concert on Friday and I so much get energy when listening to all punk (and ska, and speed metal) while working on any literary project. I need to get a room in my next work, so that I can listen to punk. Or maybe I have to be happy with nice headphones. Or not even that, since systems architects must not hide, they work as servants of other stakeholders, thus they must be always available (not that they will be disturbed so often, for as Gerrit Muller says: "people do not come to the systems architect for no reason, and when they come, the architect must take them seriously". I remember that it used to be like this, and most probably will be, thus maybe no punk at office).

War crimes

I think bombing civilians with white phosphorus in an illegal war constitutes a crime, a war crime at least, if not a crime against humanity. Doing so after blaming others for similar deeds, and even after using the deeds as an excuse for the illegal war, constitutes record breaking hypocrisy. See Mark Kerr's blog. 

I feel so sad, when USA, a country, which has done so much good and used to be the beacon of liberty and hope in the world, is degrading and defacing itself deliberately. I feel so sorry for the good, honest, and decent people in USA. They must suffer so much for having to put up with the current administration. I have seen the suffering in my friends here; I have never seen so strong political sentiments as I have seen and heard lately in Boston. Hang on guys, and do whatever you can to get a better administration after three years. 

Friday, 2005-11-18

Chase after money and secury
And your heart will never unclench. 
Care about people's approval 
And you will be their prisoner.
Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity. 
Lao Tzu 

Great day

Friday was indeed a great day. I woke up early, ran some errands, worked on my thesis and blog, went to Systems Architecture-lecture, which was very good as always. Some sissies chickened out from the lecture as always. Most of them have sissied away from almost all lectures. Poor them! They will find, that system architects will command them later. It may even by a certain Mr Kinnunen commanding them. That will serve them just right! After the lecture, some pinball (I cannot play anymore, I cannot concentrate, questions about complexity slow down my reflexes), then back to home, writing something. Later, concert at Avalon: Pennywise, an old punk-band from LA. Excellent music, nice crowd, and very much anti-Bush speeches and songs. As always in punk-concert; punks have always been liberalists or leftists. The crowd went totally nuts, and "the pit was alive", huge mob-like thing circling around the floor. I chickened out. Still later, griller shark and some beer at Boston Beer works. How nice. 
Before Pennywise another punk-band (from NY) played. It is interesting that there is still so large difference between East and West coast punk-rock. 
I think life is getting better by the day. I am just so happy, have so much energy, and feel that things are getting easier as I learn more and more. I definitely would not like to be any younger, I honestly enjoy my age and life as it is. And I assume things and life just continue getting better for decades to come. 

Pictures of American cities in 1940s

Via a Finnish blog a a collection of pictures of Boston, Baltimore, ect in 1940s. Really interesting! How narrow the bridges were back then, how low the buildings. (The pictures on the left and right are from the site.) There was only one skyscraper in Boston downtown back then. 

Remapping Apple keyboard shortcuts

I hate when I hit "Apple-Q" instead of "Apple-W" and close the application instead of one window. But there is a way to avoid this. Check the instructions. Great. Now my computer is even more useful. 

Heating oil mystery

Winter is approaching quickly. Today the temperature has been below few centigrade. It is getting colder inside, as well, and so many house owners are buying heating oil. I have seen several tanker trucks delivering oil to Back Bay houses. They all seems to come from different, small companies. That seems strange. Back in 1970s, when we still used house-specific furnaces and oil in Finland, the oil used to come from the large oil companies. Is that different in USA? If yes, what is the reason for existence of small oil distribution companies. Intuitively, they make no sense at all. 
On a separate note, the price of natural gas (which is the source of heating energy for 50 percent of USA homes) has tribled. The price of coal has doubled. Both are in short supply: gas because of not having enough production; coal because of lacking railroad capacity. The government/senate/congress also decided yesterday not to increase heating subsidies for the poorest. So, the poor will get sick, or sicker, and eventually fill in the emergency rooms (they have no health insurance, so they cannot go to regular doctors, so they get very sick and have to get emergency care). This is the right way to run a country. Maybe the pandemic will come and finish off the poor.

Insulation and market

Yesterday's NY Times ran an article on heating. It turned out that even house build in early 1990s lack proper insulation. There is no insulation in the walls, only some in the attick/roof, and windows have only one or at most 2 panes. No wonder it is expensive to heat and cool the houses. This is again a good example of how the builder wants to minimize the building costs and the shortsighted buyer does not realize, that he will end up paying the price of missing insulation many times over the lifetime of the house. Thus, both do not really want to insulate the house - especially if the buyer of the house is going to rent the house and the tenant (rentee) will pay for heating. So, the market does not work. The only real solution is government regulation. Mandating minimum (and increasing) level of energy efficiency for houses would fix the market and save huge amoung of energy and money in the future. 

Scripted dreams

I had a strange dream. As usual, the dream consisted of a written script, written by me, of course, and then the script acted out as a movie. This time the theme was "to scare the fricking bejesus out of them" (sic!), but it was not clear who they were. But I did concoct some really devilish plots, I think. It is too bad I do not remember them anymore. I could sell them to the bad guys on the black market of devilish plans. And get rich fast. (It is so funny to see a book getting written word by word by myself in a dream, so nice). 

Men at work

I like to watch men at work. Their joy of flexing their muscles. The trophy of increased entropy. The relief of the growing relief. Back in my study, I attend to my duty. 

Extreme liberal wing

A democratic senator, John Murtha, who is a war veteran called for withdrawal of US troops from Iraq. The White House called his requirement "irresponsible" and said that only someone from the "extreme liberal wing" could say something like it. At the same time, the not-so-liberal wing passed budget cuts in food-stamps, Medicare, etc programs, which help the poor. The same wing will do its best to pass much bigger tax cuts for the extremely rich next week. And then they will go to the church and call them Christians. They are blasphemous beyond comprehension. The only reason they can do this, is because they have never seen a camel and do not not how hard it is for a camel to pass through the needle eye. End of morning rant. 
Read Juan Cole's comments too. They are a bit more educated. Also Mark Derr's comments are interesting, maybe even entertaining. He is really angry, almost totally pissed off by what he calls "the Bushbuckers". Interesting reading. 

Water problems in Boston

There are at least 4000 private property water service lines, which are still made of lead, or at least joints made of lead. Now there is a growing concern that the lead will dissolve and cause some health problems. And now they are looking at the problem, and ask the private people to change the pipes. Interesting. Maybe it is time to get out of this house. Or then not. The news did not tell, which parts of Boston have this problem. 

Thursday, 2005-11-17

Patience: A minor form of despair, disguised as virtue. The Devil's dictionary 

Editing text

On a normal day, I use Apple's TextEdit to edit my blog (pure html), vi on Solaris to edit my blog, vi to edit some scripts (perl, sh, awk, sed) on my Apple, TexShop to write my thesis (LaTex), Safari browser to write comments to discussion forum (ascii text, usually). Sometimes I have to use Word to write some homework assignments. It is strange how one can get used to so many different editing environments and be fluent in all of them - not to mention Emacs, which I also used every now and then. 

Cars only 

The signs over the entrances of Sturrow and Memorial drives say: "Cars only". I do not know what they mean. I have not seen any large trucks (but many pick-up trucks) nor busses there. I have seen many motorcycles there. And I have been cycling there. Have I broken the law? Should I turn myself in? Get a ticket?

On temperature

While cycling today I came to wonder how non-linear (stepwise) my response to temperature is. Consider cycling. When temperature is over +14C, wearing only shorts and T-shirt is enough. Between +10C and 14C I need to wear long socks and long-sleeved shirt. When temperature falls below +10C, I need to put a windproof jacket on (with no lining). I do not yet know, at which temperature I need to switch to long trousers, or start using gloves. I assume the jacket, shorts, socks, and a long sleeved shirt will be enough until the temperature drops below +2C or so. In total, very stepwise and non-linear response to temperature. 
The weather was incredibly nice today: sunny, rather calm, +7C. It was really a pleasure to cycle for an hour around Charlestown, Cambridge and Boston. 

On hiring, firing, loyalty, and management 

Anonymous has a good point in his comment:

Ten years ago companies were more interested to have the "employees commit themselves to the company", and if you have indeed committed employees the companies wouldn't mind letting them be a little less productive while just learning something new, and the employees wouldn't mind a little dirty work if they had hopes for a better next task.
Then the bubble burst, companies fired scores of previously their "committed" employees purely based on budgets aimed to maximize the dividend, and unsurprisingly the employees would never be fooled to "committing themselves" again. So, instead of committed employees you nowadays can only hope to find professional employees. They may be industrious and competent, but they are also fast to leave immediately when they here of a better job or a higher salary. Therefore the companies don't believe or hope to find committed people and give them time to learn, but instead they hope to find the "hit the ground running"-professionals that hopefully finish their task before disappearing again.

I was there, when this change happened. I remember, that I was saying this at the time and even before the firing-parties. I still think that all employees would do better if they would consider themselves mercenaries: working for the party, who pays the most and is in some kind of agreement with mercenary's ethical and political beliefs (sic!). Having said this, I must say that I do believe the new situation to be much worse than the previous. It is much harder to develop certain types of systems, if one cannot be reasonably sure that some (high) portion of key personnel will be there for years. It just takes time to develop certain systems and much of the knowledge and skills needed are tacit. But what can one do? If companies only look at their quarterly results, employees are totally disillusioned, we need to adapt and change our management ways. I just do not exactly know how. 
The lack of commitment (loyalty) on both sides of employment will lead to lower importance of corporations. More and more professionals will become independent contractors, in the same way film-actors, directors, and other workers in the in film industry, have been for a long time now. To make this happen, and to provide for a good life, governments must provide health care and a basic social safety net. It would make the market more efficient and predictable. And it is the right thing to do anyhow. (See also The future of work by Thomas W. Malone. He has some deeper discussion on this issue, written in more than 10 minutes)

Talking to a robot

Try talking to a robot. Add "MovieFone" to your AIM-buddy list. It tells you about movies. Rest of the robots are available atAOL-site.
Here is my discussion with the AOLSafetyBot:

Me: Osama!
AOLSafetyBot: Excuse me?
Me: Yes, osama!
AOLSafetyBot: Good.
Me: Really!
AOLSafetyBot: Mm Hm, now we are getting somwhere.
Me: Osama comes and bombs you!
AOLSafetyBot: We keep running into the same problem. I'm trying to learn but you've lost me there.
Me: Really?
AOLSafetyBot: Without a doubt.
Me: Bush!
AOLSafetyBot: Hey, I'm new at this. Is that something safety related? That's really my main aread of
expertise.

Peter Elk on "European model"

Peter Elk does not blog too often, but when he writes, he has something very well-thought to say. If you can read Finnish, do yourself a favour and read his newest entry. He should publish it in some Finnish magazine.

Systems - when are they equal

Let's say we have two systems S and T. When do we say they are equal? I assume we have to use extensional definition of equality. The systems are equal if they produce the same output with the same input. Intensional definition of equality does not work. If we would use it, the systems would have to have the same implementation in order to be equal. In my thesis, I intend to compare several models of equal systems in terms of their complexity. Clearly it does not make sense, if we require the systems to be intensionally equal - we would be comparing two modelling schemas, which is not out purpose. Even with extensional equality we will have some hand-waving to do: for just looking at input and output is a bit constrained. At least we have to count external interfaces (those crossing the system boundary) as inputs or outputs. Hmm. I need to think of this a bit more. Some progress, though, still today. Feels good!
Hmm, even given equal systems we still need to fix the level of abstraction (detailedness) of the models. If the models do not have equal levels of abstraction, comparing them in terms of complexity does not make much sense. At the moment, I have no real idea how to define equality of abstraction levels. It must have something to do with the main functions/processes in the model. They have to be the same (or of similar abstraction level). This is getting hard. 
Click the picture on the right and you can see which wine I was drinking!

Wednesday, 2005-11-16

An eye for an eye makes us all blind. Mohandas Gandhi 

Authentic Chinese food

The Chinatown eatery (44-46 Beach Street - Chinatown, Boston) is really authentic (as S pointed out earlier). I just had dinner there, some fried rice with mango and tofu. Good. The other day they were serving stinky tofu. I have not smelled it since leaving China, so it immediately recalled some nice memories. I do not like to eat it, though, except a very small piece with a huge bowl of Chinese rice-wine. The Eatery is definitely worth visiting for a quick lunch/dinner.
You will have hard time to find the Eatery. It is in run-down building, entrance is from Beach Street, look for a sign (usually at the front-door) saying "Gourmet Seafood Restaurant". I do not know where the seafood place is, but the Eatery is where the sign points to. Walk up one flight of stairs, even if the place would remind you of Blade Runner. 

Pictures on my writing desk 

Many people have pictures on their writing desk. Usually of their loved ones. I do not. I have picture of Joseph Brodsky on my desk. He is my idol. When I was working in Nokia, I used to have picture of Churchill, Stalin, and Truman at my desk. The reasons have mostly to do with the Sartre-argument (not wanting to lose my memories in pictures - if one looks too much at pictures, one forgets one's past as it was) I wrote earlier, and also due to they reminding me of bigger and important things: art and politics. I must never forget either of them. Those who forget/ignore art or politcs, are not alive in the sense of living worthy lifes. 
Who do you keep on your desk? Nobody?

Shortage of engineers 

Today's WSJ runs an article on the (apparent) shortage of engineers. The employers are saying, that it takes increasingly long to find a suitable engineer for an open position. The engineers, looking for jobs, and recruiters, helping the engineers, say that the employers are becoming increasingly picky. For example, they want to hire some engineer proficient in program X, version N. An engineer who has used versions N-5 to N-1 is not suitable. The employers say, that they do not want to pay for learning, they want the new engineer to "hit the ground running". I think they are totally wrong. If they would hire some intelligent engineer today, and let him walk and learn, the engineer would be so far that the "hit the ground running"-engineer hired 6 months later would never catch the walker. So, it seems that the employers are confusing two things: the cost of hiring someone (including salary) and the revenue a person can bring. Waiting a long time before hiring is hurting their business. As a practical example, if Nokia would have been that picky, it would still be producing paper and rubber. There simple was not enough experienced cell-phone (system) engineers in Finland, when they were needed. So, Nokia hired engineers, and non-engineers like me, taught them some skills, trusted their intellects. But maybe things are different in USA. Maybe the US companies can wait, maybe their competitors are even slower. Or then not. 
I think this "hit the ground running"-hiring is just another example of simple minded accounting taking over businesses. Another example is the insistence on cubicles. 

Phone discussion 

My fixed phone rings. Me: "Osama bin-Laden". A long pause. She: "Hi, this is Claire. I called you to let you know that your cable-TV....". 

Oppose censorship 

In addition to harassment in the web, the traditional censorship is still doing alarmingly well. Many authors, poets, and journalist are paying a high price for their work and profession. A good way to follow what is going on and to find ways to help, is to subscribe to Index on Censorship. It also gives you an opportunity to read new literary work around the world. I used to subscribe to Index for 15 years, but somehow my subcription has expired while I have been in USA. I need to renew it. 

Join EFF 

Support Bloggers' Rights! Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF ) has started a campaign of defending the rights of bloggers. There are many cases, in which companies and states have been trying to destroy, or at least severely limit, the extent of free speech online. It is partly natural: the amount of blogging and the influence blogging seems to have, is likely to make those in power a bit afraid. But blogging is just another new media and with each new media we have always seen an effort to censor the new media. All efforts have failed, and this one will fail too. So, let's support EFF in defending our freedoms. For if there is no freedom of expression, there is soon not going to be other freedoms either. A democracy works only to the extent citizen are able and willing to express their opinions, no matter how outrageous the opinions are (well, maybe short of exciting violence and issuing personal fatwas). So, click on the sign on the left. 
While thinking about technology and freedom, check out also the Technology liberation front. It is an extremely interesting blog/news-site. 

Tuesday, 2005-11-15

In the elder days of art / builders wrought with greatest care / each minute and unseen part, / for the Gods are everywhere Wittgenstein quoting Longfellow

Things I miss in USA, next part 

Getting a bit harder to find more, but I still try for a week or so.

• Total care laundry service 
• Meringue - from Trader Joe's 
• Barking crab restaurant 
• Key lime pie 
• St Mark's bookstore in New York 
• Punk-rock karaoke at Continental, NY 

Drawing OPMs 

It is a pain to draw OPM-graphs. I do not like Powerpoint, so I got EasyDraw for 20 dollars. It seems decent. The OPM-book comes with some SW for drawing pictures, but the SW is really bad and old, runs only on Windows (I tried it on my old laptop, both suck), cannot save in any sensible format, etc etc. So, I will draw with EasyDraw and try to maintain my sanity. On MaC I can save pictures easily as .pdf, which is then directly usable with LaTeX. Not bad. Now I just have to write and draw. 
A new principle: any design notation, which does not have excellent computer support, is next to useless. OPM is such a notation: great, well-thought notation, but totally useless for anything else but classroom use (due to lacking SW-support). This must be one of the reasons, why tools and methods from the academia fail so often. There should be a way of getting them out: more enterpreneur training?

Prices 

Sometimes I would like to remember, what things cost in the past. Thus, a list of prices in Boston, 2005. 

• Rent: 780 
• T-token: 1.25 
• Lunch in Chinese: 5 
• Food in Vietnamese: 7-9 
• Beer in bar: 4 or 5 per pint 
• Beer to-go from bar: 11 per half a gallon 
• CDs: usually 12 
• Coffee: 1 (bad, in bad place), 3 (latte, in nice place) 
• Newspapers: 0.5 (B GLobe), 1 (NY times), 4.5 (NY times, Sunday) 
• Books: paperbacks less than $15 
• Fish and chips, brewery pub: 10 
• Bus to NY: 15 
• Hotel in NY (2 persons, total): 76 
• Rock/punk concerts: 12-20 
• Truing wheel: 12 
• Pinball: 1 (two games, 3 balls each) 
• Soda: 1.7 (2l), 1.5 (1l), 1.3 (0.5l) 
• Pistachios: 13, 2 pounds 
• Bread: 2-3 
• Soya milk: 3 (1.5l)
• Wine: 6 or more 
• Beer: 7 per six-pack 
• Flight to Finland: 600-900 
• Renting sofa, 2 tables, chairs, etc: 130/month 
• Cellular per month: 50, fixed: 25, electricity: 20, adsl: 30
• 256MB USB-stick: 20
• Laptop (iBook): 1000 
• Tivoli Audio (radio, extrea speaker, CD): 379 
• T-shirt: 5 at cheap shop, 15 at COOP 
• Taxi to MIT 5, from South Station: 6 
• Lobster: 12-20 depending on place
• Foreign Affairs, students: 18 per year 

New features 

At the top of the page, two new features. Fist, the small picture on the left links to a graph, which shows the number of visitors and page views at my site during the last 30 days. Then, the semi-mandatory "blogs of note", a list of blogs I read regularly. 

Who is Matthew Jackson? 

They are calling me several times a day. After a pause, they ask for Matthew Jackson. Who is this guy? Why are they looking him at my place? Should I play impostor and claim his identity? Maybe they would send me a check or something. 

Food and drink in America 

The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America is a book, which I should have read/browsed before moving to Boston. It would have prevented some surprises. Maybe I can read it later - in some library, it is too expensive even for me. But did you know, that the first frozen TV dinner was created by the Swanson brothers in 1953. They had a surplus of more than 250000 kilograms of fresh turkey after their sales failed at Thanksgiving. Creative guys!

USA boycott 

I have seen calls for boycotting products from USA, for Bush refuses to prohibit torture. Maybe such a boycott would be appropriate. There is no justification for torture, ever. And since Bush says "we do not torture", he may as well sign a law prohibiting torture. As we know, he is not a man, whose words we can trust. (Similar reasoning also in the editorial of the Economist this week). 

Monday, 2005-11-14

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. Bertrand Russell

Penguins

I am very fond on penguins, have always been. I think it is quite normal. If you are like me, you will like to read My life as a penguin by Tim Dowling in the Guardian. Since I most likely will never been able to sit among penguins, I must use my imagination while reading stories about them. ( On the right, the penguin roller coaster, of which I have dreamt now for more than 18 years! I never dare to buy it. Last time I saw it live in New York in September 1998. Sigh. I assume it is healthy to have unfulfilled dreams. )

Tram-trip

The trip became a longer one. Partly because I bought On Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt and wanted to read it. It lasted all the way to Riverside, back to Government Center, and to the Logan Airport. It is an excellent book, well written, clearly reasoned, and on an important topic. In short: a bullshitter is a person, who does not care whether he is telling truth or lies. He is agnostic to truth and false, just speaking whatever seems appropriate. In a way, bullshitting is much worse than telling lies, since bullshitting dulls our moral instincts, or at least bullshitter's. Buy the book and read it. I can also lend my copy, if geographically possible. 
I also read most of the Dori's OPM-book. It is an excellent book, presents the OPM-method in a clear manner, but also has some interesting insights to systems architecting in general. Recommendable for all systems architects and their managers. (I also found, that Dori has thought a little about complexity, but even he stays in very simplistic level - or am I just keeping the topic too abstract. We will see soon.)

Comments from Finland 

I noticed that Mikko Moilanen from Mikkeli Polytechnic, Finland, has commented my blog in his. I am flattered. Mikko find the price of studying in SDM@MTI very high. That is very much true, and I do agree with Mikko, that providing free education is essential, especially for countries like Finland - we cannot waste any talent, no matter how rich or poor parents. That said, I personally do not regret spending some money on studying in MIT. I am not sure how fast the investment will pay itself back in strictly financial sense, but I do honestly think and feel that studying here has been worth every dollar. The program has already paid itself in terms of learning and experience. Money is just money, and the most important thing is to have enough money, not to collect it. I would be extremely unfortunate, if I would not have an opportunity to get a job, which will pay enough for me not to worry about money, at least given my somewhat modest way of living.

Out from the cave

My cave is too quiet and dark. I moved my ass to Trident Booksellers in Newbury Street. They play jazz here, serve the best coffee I have got in Boston, and I am not the only one reading/writing here. Later, I will make a $2.5 dollar tram-ride to Riverside and back. 

Bank surprised me again

The Wainwright-bank never ceases finding new ways to surprise me. Today, I cycled there to get some dollars. One teller was doing nothing, so I walked to her. She said "I can only take money, not give money". So, I had to wait for the other teller, who was authorized to give me money. Then it was easy: with my new Massachusetts ID, the process is much simpler. I just have to write a check to myself and I get the money. Earlier, when I used my passport (which, by the way, I used to get the Mass ID), they had to get signature sample from another branch by fax. Not anymore. Great. I consider the bank as a free museum of technology and management processes, well worth visiting every two months. 

Delays in phones

Is it normal, that when I reply to my ringing fixed phone, there is usually some 6-10 second delay before the caller says anything? It is this kind of feature in the US telephone system? Has FBI/CIA/NSA/DHS/DOD wire-tapped my phone and the tapping system causes this delay? Or is it that some telemarketers have slow tape-players, which take some 10 seconds to start? Anaway, if the caller does not talk in 5 seconds, I consider the caller dumb and hang up. 

Telemarketers

I just love telemarketers. They provide me a legitimate reason for slamming down the receiver (i.e. hanging up abruptly) and thus a nice to vent any frustration I may have. Actually, I think the government is paying them: they are the cheapest way of preventing mental disorders. Today, at 10am, already I have been offered this excellent service three times. I am so relaxed now.
Telemarketers also wake me up before 10am, for which I am eternally thankful. 

Sunday, 2005-11-13

I sit at my desk / my life is grotesque. Joseph Brodsky

Things I miss, part 3

• Burritos - beans and rice (too much food on this list!)
• MIT student center and busy students. 
• Simpsons-pinball 
• Charles street at night
• Extremely variable weather

Systems architecture day

I woke up late (I was awake until 5.30 am, for I was reading blogs (e.g. Angry professor's)), rushed for lunch to the local Chinese, then to MIT to work on SA with Bill and Wilfried. In about 8 hours we got most of our "small project" done. It is about NASA's Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS). Very interesting, I learned a lot about space systems again today by discussing with Bill and Wilfried. We have about 12 pages now, maybe 1 or 2 to come still. It is too much, but we just cannot help ourselves. Then, back at home. Definitely, not an ordinary day, but a bit short for I slept too late (1pm). 
Lots of helpful comments on driving across USA in the comments. Thanks! Let's see what happens in December/January. I have to find out where there is snow at that time - I do not want to drive in snow in USA. 

Driving across America - advice needed

I have a long-standing dream to drive across America (or USA). I had forgotten it for a while, since MIT (my other long-standing dream) has been good enough to be true. Now, I was looking at Peter Elk's pictures and realized, that I could have time and money to make the dream true in January. So, I need some advice. Some questions bother me. Is it better to drive from Boston to San Francisco or the other way? Would three weeks be enough? What is the cheapest way to get a vehicle? Renting? Which company? What cities and natural places should be visited? Advice like that would be very much appreciated by me, the dreamer. 

Saturday, 2005-11-12

A Mentor is someone whose hindsight can become your foresight. Chinese proverb

Daily crono

Lunch with Kumar at Pho Pasteur. There was a huge mobile crane dismantling another non-mobile crane in Chinatown. Very interesting. Kumar went to movies, I went to the park for coffee and then home writing thesis. My thesis On complexity measures for systems architecture models has now 30 pages of text and 22 bibliographic references. Not bad. Another 30 pages will be enough for finishing it. I have the information in my head already. Now, I think, might be a good time to cycle to MIT and play some pinball.

You are what you read

I heard, that there is a program called You are what you eat in the Finnish television. The idea is to show fat and unfit people how they can lose weight and become healthier and fitter by changing their eating habits. I think there is a need for such a program, as obesity is epidemic. But depression is also epidemic, and changing diets will not cure it. I think there would be a market for a program called You are what you read. In this program the depressed would be given hints about great books and advice how to read the books. The depressed would then go about their lives while reading as prescribed. I am sure, that they would become much happier and less depressed. Not reading, or just reading the yellow-press and simple, entertainment novels, is one of the main reasons for depression (not the deep, clinical one, but the less severe feeling of being down). Reading nourishes soul, gives hope, enhances imagination, and feed utopian thinking. 
So, where should I submit a proposal for this kind of TV-program? Anyone willing to work on this idea?

Results from the human experiment

Preliminary results. It seems, that working in the night is productive but very problematic. When I stay awake until 3am, I cannot get up before 11am. Then, after having lunch etc, I am ready to start writing at 2am or later. The problem is that I seem to be either sleeping or working. Not good. All work and no fun is not good for me. Or anyone. So, I will start another experiment: waking up latest at 7am, and working until 6pm or so. Then I could go to movies or whatever. Let's try this schedule for a few weeks. 
Anyway, writing thesis alone at home is not the intellectual activity I really excell at. I am way too extroverted, I need to suck energy from intellectual discussion, or just from being amoung people. I wonder whether I should take a pen and some paper and take a tram somewhere and write. 

WSJ: Greed and hatred

Wall Street Journal has an attitude problem. Today's editorial discusses (factually quite OK) the problem of managing internet: ICANN or UN. But the text is infuriating as it reads: "The Saudi-Arabias, Chinas, and Frances" and "France, Iran, Cuba". I do not know what it means, but the only thing I can figure is that any country, which has ever opposed e.g. illegal wars waged by the USA, are of equal value. If this is the level of argumentation and reasoning, why should I believe any business articles of WSJ? Maybe they have no more sense, no more intellectual honesty. Writing sloppy editorials does bring down the value of the whole newspaper.
They also support the use of torture - the only problem, according to WSJ, is that the Bush administration is so bad in defending the practice of its (modest, when compared to Saddam's, says WSJ - I wonder why they do not mention things the French did in Algeria!) torture and secret prisons. 

Getting colder

Yesternight, when I returned from the bar, the temperature was just +1C. Not, at 11am, it is +7C. I seem to have forgotten the window open when going to bed at 3pm. Inside my cave, I have now 15.5C. Rather refreshing, woke me up fast enough. Again, here is one benefit of not being tiny: one does not cold too easily. 15.5C is OK for me, but when S arrives, I have to get used to higher temperatures. 
The temperature seems to stay above 16C without any extra heating. Old-fashioned light bulbs are enough to keep this place warn enough. Any warmer and I will loose me remaining edge.

US-things I miss, part 2 

• National public radio 
• Food-truch in the MIT campus
• Acccess to MIT-library etc databases
• Wall Street Journal's opinion pages - naked greed 
• Vietnamese restaurants: Pho Pasteur 
• Blossoming magnolias in Back Bay 
• Enjoying picnic in cafe - liberal use of disposable dishes 
• Saying/hearing: thank you, excuse me, sorry, please, how do you do, bless you 
• Being outsider, an alien, and thus seeing things in a different light

to be continued....

Friday, 2005-11-11

Books should be written only for truly compelling reasons. Vaclav Smil

On the loss of utopia

Dylan Evans writes very wisely on the loss of utopia in the Guardian. 

But if idealism without a dose of reality is simply naive, realism without a dash of imagination is utterly depressing. If this really was the end of history, it would be an awful anticlimax. Look at the way we live now, in the west. We grow up in increasingly fragmented communities, hardly speaking to the people next door, and drive to work in our self-contained cars. We work in standardised offices and stop at the supermarket on our way home to buy production-line food which we eat without relish. There is no great misery, no hunger, and no war. But nor is there great passion or joy. Despite our historically unprecedented wealth, more people than ever before suffer from depression.

The whole article is well worth reading. It does not take long, you still have time to shop. 

Individualism

Today's Wall Street Journal had an article, which claimed that because Americans are "rugged individualists" they do not use public transport. I am not so sure about the level of individualism in USA compared to e.g. Europe, but I have to say that expressing one's individualism by not using public transport is pathetic. 

US-things I miss

I may leave USA soon. It is time to list thing I am going to miss (I miss my friends, but that's obvious).

• MIT - the academic instution, intellectual freedom, clever people 
• Chinese restaurants: Hsin Hsin
• New York Times
• Green line T in Boston
• York mint-chocolate
• Affordable taxis 
• Maples
• Indian restaurants: Masalaa Boston
• Dr Pepper 
• Arrogant bastard ale
• Cycling in Boston
• Great bookstores: MIT press, Harvard bookstore, Strand
• Some museums
• Expresso Royale
• Sonsie-bistro
• Chipmunks 
• Fat people running - so funny 
• Local microbreweries 
• More Dr Pepper 

to be continued....

Thursday, 2005-11-10

Even truth, repeated, loses its charm, but an error repeated is altogether revolting. Goethe

A good day

Again, an interview to kick off the day. Some celebration seemed appropriate - a lunch at the local Indian restaurant, followed by a nice cup of coffee. The magical nap and some writing. Dinner at the mall (all meals with Kumar and Ashok), back home writing and reading. I got 4.5 pages ready (first draft). Not bad, quite happy man I am now. I intended to work until early, but not even Dr. Pepper could not keep me awake. In short, not an ordinary day. 

Shortage of money

UN is asking world governments for $550 million for rescuing and helping the victims of the Pakistani-quake. So they have got some 20% of it. This is too bad. $550 million is really small money for saving such a large amount of people, and also for preventing the area to deteriorating to total anarchy (as has happened in the Pakistan-Afgan border, where the Pakistani government has no say whatsoever anymore). And giving the money to/via UN would not help the rather criminal government of Pakistan, which, I was told, has refused some help from India. 
In addition to ranting, I made a small donation to Oxfam for helping the quake victims. 

For new SDM@MIT-students: a studio to rent

I will graduate and leave my small studio by the end of Jan. It is a decent small place in Beacon Street, Back Bay. It is about 20 sq meter (230 sg foot), has a kitchenette, bathroom, and a large loft. It takes 23 minutes to walk to MIT, 7 minutes to cycle. The T is also close by, it takes 30 minutes by T to Sloan/MIT. Newbury Street with cafes is 5 minutes away, Sturrow Drive Park is 3 minutes away, the local Chisese (authentic food for $5) is 10, a sushi-bar is 3 minutes away and the local source of Dr Pepper is 3 minutes away. All times are by foot, the way of civilized people move. And the closest liquor store is 5 minutes away and they sell Arrogant Bastard. 
The rent is $780 per month. The apartment is unfurnished, but I can sell you my futon and other small stuff (like lamps, vacuum, toaster, kitchen stuff, HP printer, fans, etc) for 50% of their original price. Buy them from me and save time. You will have better use for your time in MIT than to shop for lamps. Believe me! I have rented some furniture from Putnam Furniture, which I will have to return when I leave. You will anyway want to have new furniture.
Check pictures in my blog in January, 2005, and on the right. 
If you are interested, contact me for more information. You have to apply via Paul Gleason at Fairfieald Realty, though. 

Subway vs highway and scenery

A politician said in a Finnish newspaper, that the subway from Helsinki to Espoo should be underground. If it were above ground, it would destroy the scenery. The picture on the left shows the scenery as it is now. There is a 3+3-lane higway, built on a landfill, with bikelanes etc. I just cannot really understand, how either adding a subway next to them would make the scenery any worse or replacing 2 lanes of the highway by the subway would do that either. A subway is equivalent to more than 20-lanes of highway, so adding it (and removing the busses and some car traffic) would be quite OK. Maybe the politician was just against the subway and wanted to create some argument to support his stand. But he definitely should be able to do better, even being a local politician in Espoo. 

Wednesday, 2005-11-09

Only dull people are interesting at breakfast. Oscar Wilde

My goal: to become a great systems architect 

I have come to realize, that I just passionately love systems architecting. I want to become as good as possible a systems architect, hopefully one of the best in the world. Not because of getting money, fame, or prizes (although some of it may follow or then not), but just because I consider systems architecting very important, and fun too. The better one becomes, the funnier it is to do SA. So, whatever I do after SDM (this stint at MIT, another is coming soon) has to help me in getting better in my trade, to widen my experience, to learn new systems, new things about managing SA, get to know great systems architects everywhere in the world. I do think I am quite a decent SA already, but I need to get much better, if only to be able to live a life which I consider good and worth living. I am a very simple-minded man. 

Daily crono and defeating bad guys

An interview was the first thing today. Then, to celebrate, cycling to the cemetery, having lunch in the local Chinese (a'la Glenn Gould: always the same or mapotofu), continuing celebrating by reading, writing some more applications, then getting positive feedback, getting even jollier, leaving for MIT with Kumar and Ashok for a RFID-presentation, later dinner/coffee in the mall. American style. Now listening to the news Rammstein-CD. It is not as good as their older ones. 
In the RFID-presentation they were talking so seriously about the movie-plot threat of "bad guys" sending a nuclear bomb in a container and then detonating it somewhere in USA. To prevent this they have designed a way of detecting automatically (using RFID) if a container has been opened and, maybe, a bomb placed inside. When they detect such a container, they inspect it. Now, what prevents the bad guys installing their own "container-opening" detector and detonating the bomb right there? At that point, they would know that the bomb is in USA, and any harbor is close enough a major city to cause sufficient level of panic. Causing panic and terror is the goal of terrorists, not maximizing casualties or damage. Just exploding one (even the only one) and telling that more are on the way would be quite enough to stop the international trade. Anyway, all these are just movie-plot level, but the RFID-solution is not valid. But using the argument may well be a clever way of getting some federal money - which is always very good business. 

A strange proposal

Some opinion writer had the most strange proposal in today's Boston Globe. He proposed, that bar owners should be made responsible for accidents their patrons have while driving under influence. Since this would cause huge liabilities for the small bars, the proposal also required a mandatory liability insurance for all bars. And the proposal also went further: everyone throwing a party and serving alcohol should be made similarly responsible. To make the legislation really good, the host should be responsible even if the guest would have brought their own bottles. 
I am sure the write must be working for either some layer lobbying association or for some insurance company. The proposal is the most idiotic I have read for a while. Reading pays off, entertainment is free.

The art of starting 

Well started is half done and will be well done. Thus, how to start a task is of utmost importance. Let me give two examples: cycling and writing. 
One would think, that one can just take the bike and go riding. Not so. One has to dress in appropriate clothes, walk around the house several times, read some random books, chat in the phone and do all kinds important things. Only when all things are done, or attended to, one can start and the ride will be pleasant. Sometimes, there is no time left for riding, but tomorrow will come soon.
Writing an article/essay/thesis requires some preparations as well. First, one has to think about the subject for a few minutes, maybe even for 5 minutes. Then one has to find the sofa and take at most 20 minutes nap. During the nap, the text will appear like a mirage in the desert. After waking up, the mirage is real and can be easily turned into words. This method never fails. 

Cemetery mystery 

Why is cycling prohibited in the Mt Auburn cemetery while driving cars is quite OK as long as one keeps cars away from lawns? I wonder whether one could ride motorcycle in the cemetery. Trying that could solve the mystery. Maybe one must not use non-gasoline powered vehicles in the cemetery. 

Holiday season 

Holiday season is starting soon. Somehow, it changes everything. People are not active in real estate market, shopping changes, interview process slows down. It seems people are busy with the holiday season itself. The term "holiday season" is bit an oxymoron, though. Most American workers have only two weeks of holiday per year. I am quite sure, that they do not spend it over Christmas. So, where is the holiday in holiday season?

Tuesday, 2005-11-08

Humiliating to human pride as it may be, we must recognize that the advance and even the preservation of civilization are dependent upon a maximum of opportunity for accidents to happen. F.A. Hayek

Some networking 

Some Sloan club arranged a networking happening in Hotel@MIT. Networking happenings are strange. One goes to some place, has some wine, some canapes, and discusses with others who happen to be there. I talked to one older manager form the World Bank, a manager from UN, and some people from energy industry. Interesting. Maybe UN would be a nice place to work. I sent them an application (using their websystem), but they have effectively ignored me so far. 

No drugs - the market has failed 

The current market system does not guarantee sufficient supply of new drugs. It is simply not economically sensible to try to find new antibiotics, since it takes a lot of money and the sales will not be as high as with Viagre, Lipitor, etc. The other reason has been the price regulation by the US government. It has simply not paid to produce flu vaccines. So, now there is a shortage of flu vaccine. But this is bigger problem. Should the states somehow finance development of new, essential drugs? Like new antibiotics, new vaccines (e.g. AIDS-vaccine, which does not make economical sense to develop - the AIDS drugs are a better and continuos business - a vaccine would only be a temporary business). I thin they should. They could do it by promising to pay (collectively, via U.N or WHO) certain billion of dollars for the company, which develops the next antibiotics. By doing so, there would be economic incentive for the R&D and there would constantly be enough new antibiotics in the pipeline. The U.N or WHO would then own IP for the new drugs and license production to drug manufacturers. This kind of system could work. I know it has been proposed earlier, but I just wanted to rant a little. 

Clever novelists 

The big booksellers order new books based on the sales of the previous book by the same author. If the sales were not good, they will not order many copies. This has forced authors (novelists especially) to assume pseudonyms, when sales of one novel have not been too good. Today's Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about this. 

Business Miscellany 

I just received Business Miscellany from The Economist. It contains all kinds of interesting, if not useful, statistics about businesses. For example, that BASF stands for Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, that average French person works for 1453 hours per year, a Finn 1713 hours, and a American 1792 hours. But in Norway they only work for 1337 hours per year. Having oil does not hurt. The highest salaries in 2003 were in Germany, not in USA. And in 2003 euro was not as strong as it is now. So, those who want to make a lot of money shoudl apply for jobs in Germany, not in California. There are 719 billion dollars worth of dollar notes in circulation, but only 186 billion euros worth of euro notes. And so on, a very entertaining book. And it was free, gratis! 

Cycling and thinking 

Now I will leave for Watertown and Mt Auburn cemetery on my bike, the weather and foliage are too nice for spending whole day here inside. Not even thinking of complexity is better than cycling in autumn...
It was a good rire. I took many photos of the River Charles Waterfall, but I did not make it to the cemetary. Good anyway. I also had a lot of time to think about complexity, and the general structure of my thesis. 
One can only fish 25 herrings per day by the waterfall. And one must not fish any on Tuesdays, Thursdays, or Sundays. The herrings have other things to do than entertain fishermen those days. 

Some clarity on complexity 

I am getting seriously interested in my thesis topic. I am sure that there is much new, and quite easy, research for me to do, and that doing it will be very blissful. At least if things are going as well and enjoyably as they did on Monday. I also think that about 1 month is just right time to devote for a SDM-thesis. Not much more anyway. 
The way I now think about complexity is more or less this. Let us have two systems M' and N'. Then, have a coding function c of systems using a language L. Let's define c(M') = M and c(N') = N. We call M the model of M'. Let's us then denote l(M) the length of the minimum program t(M) in some Turing machine T, which produces M in L, and l(N) similarly. Now, if l(M) > l(N), then K(M) > K(N), where K(M) is the complexity of M. 
Since a system does not contain any information, we cannot compare two systems in terms of complexity. But we can compare their codings, and we can use the above definitions (or something similar, there may be some errors still) to order systems in terms of the complexity of their codings in L. A practical problem remains, though. At least in my thesis, I have no way of defining the methods of getting from c(M') to l(M). Thus, I have to use some proxy methods. This is actually what all other papers are doing, but no paper I have seen so far gives any theoretical reasoning for the approach used. I gave here one possible theoretical reasoning. I assume this is what writing a thesis is about. 
Of course, in my thesis I will write the argument above in much more detailed manner. I omitted several important steps, definitions, and assumptions above. But I am happy with the progress I made on Monday. 

Monday, 2005-11-07

"You may not be interested in strategy, but strategy is interested in you."  Leon Trotsky

Anti-war information sources 

My two favorite sources of information are Antiwar.com, which is about to go bankrupt if we do not support it again, and Informed Comment by Juan Cole. Anti-war is more biased, Informed Comment more academic. Read both. 

Complexity problem 

I have a small problem. I just read an article by Panu Raatikainen, which quite is convincing in saying that one cannot go from the measure of complexity (in terms on Kolmogorov and Chaitin) to the measure of information. Thus, going from information to complexity may not work either. This would be bad, since I was thinking of using that kind of approach. My thesis is getting too close to philosophy and logic. But I was asking for this trouble. Now I need to get some Dr. Pepper for clearing my thoughts. 
Dr Pepper did not help, but Dr-to-be S lent me some philosophical help. It seems, that one can go from amount of information to complexity as follows.

I(M) > I(N) => K(M) > K(N)

where M, N are models, I(M) is the amount of information in M, and K(M) complexity of M. Now, is it necessarily so, that the more complex the the model, the more complex the system.

Krugman on health care 

Paul Krugman writes on health care in today's NY Times (the link requires subscription to NY Times "Times Select", which come free with the newspaper). He points out, once again, the simple fact that US is paying for the health care more than double the amount other western contries pays, and that the health care is still worse in USA than in Canada or Western Europe. 

In 2002 the United States spent $5,267 per person on health care. Canada spent $2,931; Germany spent $2,817; Britain spent only $2,160. Yet the United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than any of these countries.

Do the math: USA could easily save $2500 per person on health care and get better care. That would save some $675 billion (more or less the amount used in defence and offence). 
According to Krugman, Taiwan provides a good example how easy and cheap it is to fix the system

Taiwan, which moved 10 years ago from a U.S.-style system to a Canadian-style single-payer system, offers an object lesson in the economic advantages of universal coverage. In 1995 less than 60 percent of Taiwan's residents had health insurance; by 2001 the number was 97 percent. Yet according to a careful study published in Health Affairs two years ago, this huge expansion in coverage came virtually free: it led to little if any increase in overall health care spending beyond normal growth due to rising population and incomes.

I completely agree with Krugman on his points, and especially on his conclusion

The economic and moral case for health care reform in America, reform that would make us less different from other advanced countries, is overwhelming. One of these days we'll realize that our semiprivatized system isn't just unfair, it's far less efficient than a straightforward system of guaranteed health insurance.

In Massachusetts, there is a health care reform going on, which would, if accepted, move the MA health care system towards a sensible system. I read an article on the reform yesterday and today, but could not really figure it out. Need to read it again some day, if it is accepted. 

Daily crono 

Up late, no breakfast, getting my bike for the shop, cycling to Chinatown for lunch (in Hong Kong eatery - not good, something wrong with the food), back to home, some anxiety, then writing thesis until I got stuck, getting humble and reading some philosophy, getting some clarity in my thinking, dinner with Kumar, back home thinking and writing a few pages, ready at 1am. Not a bad day at all. 

Sunday, 2005-11-06

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion. Karl Marx

Tamil food again 

The Tamil-place in the suburbs is absolutely the best restaurant in Boston area. The food is absolutely authentic. The best time to go there is weekends for lunch. The lunch buffer is just fabulous and one even gets a dosa and papadams (fresh). Their house-made icecream is excellent. If I would stay in Boston, I would have my weekend lunches always there. In the summer, the place is within cycling distance. 

Leaving Boston 

Now it really seems that I will leave Boston and USA by the end of January. It makes me feel a bit sad. I am not quite sure yet, but I am most likely going back to Europe. One year here in USA and I have become much more European. 

The great hissing sound 

Do you hear it? I do, it is the sound of real estate bubble bursting. I just heard a credible story about Boston real estate market. In one place here a house has lost $300k (25%) of its value during the last 3 months. The same source (a real estate professional) told that the housing market is stopping, buyers are not buying even at lower prices. Also Boston Globe run a story about this today, though they were a bit less apocalyptic. And, as usual, they closed the story by letting a real estate agent say: "Buy now, the prices are not going down more". A few months ago they would have said that prices would go on rising. Anyway, for a long time already it has been cheaper to rent than buy, which means that real estate prices are too high. 

Excessive advertisements 

Jaguar had a 16-pages advertisement in Saturday's Wall Street Journal. Quite an overkill. Either they are doing too well and have unnecessary money to spend, or they are doing really bad and this is one of the last ways to try to recover. Let's follow the situation. 

Floating Islands 

Today's NY Times has a story about a floating island in Springfield, Mass. There is an floating island in the Island Pond. The island moves around and stops by each neighbor in turn. We used to have such an island in Vaakkolampi in Epilä, Tampere, Finland. Ours was moving very easily, it needed just a little stronger wind to take off and move to the other end of the pond quite fast (a few hours at most for the 500 m or less). It was fun to watch. Once, some young boys went fishing on the island. The wind came and the island took off only to stop in the middle of the pond. The fire squad had to come to rescue them.
Actually, there were three floating islands in Vaakkolampi in the beginning in 1980's. It took me a while to remember this. 

A miracle 

A miracle took place in my home today. I woke up, made a few calls, picked up NY Times from the front stairs of my house. This is normal. But I did not start reading the newspapers. Instead, I started to write my thesis. What a miracle! Am I losing my mind or what? Note that some criminal right-winger had again stolen my Wall Street Journal. Cannot they afford their own newspapers?

On beauty standards 

I came across a website on beauty standards. I especially like the "Hall of Fame" and "Hall of Lame", which rank beauty authorities according to their attitude towards standardization of beauty. It is sad (but interesting) how much suffering such standardization causes. Also, the degree at which we all are affected is scary - there is a standard for men too: why else would there be so many men whose biceps are much thicker than their calves. It is not natural!

Saturday, 2005-11-05

When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. Jean-Paul Sartre 

Wal-Mart 

NY Times is having kind on Wal-Mart bashing week going on. It publishes stories about the retailer almost every day. Of course, there are some bad practices as I have written earlier (and today it was reported that the senior managers of W-M were advising their cleaning personnel suppliers in how to employ illegal immigrant below minimum vage). But Wall Street Journal had a good point. Namely, if Americans would think that W-M is a bad thing/company, the solution would be easy: just stop shopping there. Instead, Americans seem to value the low prices more than the other side of the coin. 

Low calorie food 

I bought a packet of non-sugar chewing gum. The package has a warning saying "Not low calorie food". Does it mean that chewing gum is not food, or that this specific chewing gum is not low calorie? It has 5 calories per piece - so chewing the whole package would add 60 calories to the daily diet. 

Trouble in France 

Some bad trouble is festering in France. For 10 nights now, some desperate young people in poor suburbs have rioted, burned cars, shot the police etc. They are angry as they cannot feel part of the French society. Some of them are even third generation African or Middle-Eastern immigrants, but still they are outcasts, unemployed and without hope. The solution would be to give them hope, opportunities, employment. This would integrate them in the society. But instead, the interior minister has declared "a war on violence", which is an oxymoron. It is strange: if the farmers riot in France, the government takes notice and changes its policies (even if it cost huge amount of money in term of subsidies and international status in terms of opposing reduction of farm subsides, which are hurting both Europeans and everyone in poor countries). But when the young riot, the solution is a war. 

Now it is the time 

As Goethe puts it: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it". I can dream of writing my thesis before the end of semester. So, I will just start writing after taking my bike to the shop and after having some vegetarian food in Buddha's delight. And after reading today's newspapers. The goal is to get 5 more pages by midnight. I am quite sure I have to write some blog at the same time just to keep myself on. 

Friday, 2005-11-04

One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done. Marie Curie

Still on suits 

Most men wear a suit which does not suit them. The suit makes them look even fatter than they really are. This is partly due to bad cutting of the jacket and too tight trousers, and partly due to the tie, which emphasizes the curvature of their potbellies. But mostly it is due to the peculiar rule, which requires us to stuff our shirt inside our pants. This way of wearing shirt is OK only for fit and thin persons. The rest of us should check how Nelson Mandela wears his shirts. 

The other side of not being tiny

Not being tiny has some disadvantages too. First of all, I have to visit several restaurants daily. It takes time. Second, my bicycle breaks down often. Third, all kinds of seat tend to break down, not to speak of Ikea-futons. I once tested one in a Ikea-store. It broke down with a loud noise. Most seats are too small. In China, I cannot fit in bus-seat. Surprisingly also the Viking-airline Icelandair's seats are kind of small. And I do hit my head on all kinds of hard objects. Then I have a small horn for a while. 

A lecture on systems archictecting embedded systems

A systems architect from Xerox gave a lecture on embedded systems. It was a good lecture, very practical stories of the way of doing the work. I did realize, that in Nokia I was systems architecting larger, and at least as complex, systems. So, I could easily give a lecture as well. And there is no reason whatsoever to apply for some entry-level, consulting, or product manager positions. All of them would be waste of my talents. 

Chains of recruiting companies

Since writing a cover letter and a resume is way too difficult even for a MIT-educated engineer, not to speak of lesser mortals, an very complex industry has sprung up to help poor white-collar job applicants. First of all, there are recruiting companies, which help job applicants and employers to find each other. But this is not enough: find a suitable recruiting company is not to be left on the cleverness of the job applicant. No, there are companies, which help the poor applicant to find a recruiting company suitable for getting to the interview. I am still trying to find a company to help me to choose from several recruiting company finding companies. Please, let me know if you know a good one!

Daily crono

Two visits to restaurants. For lunch to the local Chinese with Kumar. The boss of the restaurant whispered to me: "No order fish now. Only one chef working". I did not order. For dinner to the Buddha's delight alone. It is extremely nice place for having real vegetarian food. After dinner, a trip to Boston College, but the cafe there was closed. During the day, two lectures, some pinball (Simpsons) and visiting an exhibition of Vietnamese art in MIT. Very colorful paintings. 

Thomas Friedman on USA vs China

Thomas Friedman's column in today's NY times addresses the rise of world-class research coming from China. His uses the Microsoft's research center in Beijing as an example. The center seems to be able to outperform MIT in number of papers in certain conference. Good for them. 
I need to get back to China, but in a bit higher up position. China is just too interesting place to ignore. 

USA vs China: Western hemisphere summit

BBC news made an interesting point. They were reporting on the America-summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. All other presidents of Americas but Castro are there. The point was that the Latin-American increasingly see US policies as cynical and hypocritical; USA is losing its credibility. And when USA loses, China gains: both because the increasing trade and thus increasing international political clout. I think US should think a bit further ahead and make more friend and fewer foes. Maybe joining the rest of the humanity by joining the International Criminal Court or Kyoto protocol etc would be a start. Furthermore, a leader must always obey his own rules and regulation. A leader, who exempt himself is very soon a leader with no followers - and this is not a sustainable situation. Mohamed ElBaradei emphasized this in his lecture yesterday. 

Thursday, 2005-11-03

If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done. Ludwig Wittgenstein 

The joy of not being tiny

The joy of not being tiny is indulgence. It is rather nice to be able to drink wine as one pleases, not to be wary all the time. I like to buy a bottle of wine, chat with friends while sipping wine. The bottle ends up being empty and recycled. The other joy is to be able to eat somewhat much without getting overly full or much bigger. Or so I think. Maybe that's why I am not tiny. Making virtue out of reality. As we say in Finland: "Anyone less than 100 kg has no say in business (of large scale product development).`" This does not apply to women, who always have a say. 

Last time on tribes

I talked to a friend of mine, who also had an interview with the consulting tribe on Wed. He did not get a free trip to Chicago either. He is very much like me in terms of experience etc. He got feedback, which I assume applies to me as well, saying that he is too well molded, has too strong predefined opinions, and cannot really be looking for a consulting job: anyway he should be the guy the consultants are working for (CIO or CTO or so). So, the puzzle has been solved. The consulting companies are not willing to recruit experienced professionals for self-evident reasons. Instead, they want to hire young, inexperienced guys, as I have been thinking all along. The main puzzle still remains: why are the corporations willing to pay the consulting companies for the services of the inexperienced persons? Is it just that consultants are secretaries with a bit higher salary? (but wait, the consulting business is not going that well - the stock of the tribe in Chicago trades at its all time low). Anaway, a business which deliberately hires not the most knowledgeable, most experienced people is a bit weird in my mind. 
The other puzzle is why I and my friend were called for the interview in the first place. 
I decided with my friend, that we are not going to talk or worry about job search anymore. We will revert back to talking about science and systems architecture. As I have threatened/promised many times, but this time it is final. The tribe-stuff has taken way too much time. 

Flu worse than terrorists

From Reuters AlertNet

"An influenza pandemic has the potential to cause more death and illness than any other public health threat," the Health and Human Services department says in its new flu plan, posted on the Internet at http://pandemicflu.gov.

The flu may kill up to 2 million Americans. So, why is the goverment using 1.65 billion dollars per day in arms in the name of "defense", when the real threats are not solvable by guns, bombs, and killing other people in far-away countries? It is strange, that the CEO-president and his cronies are so unaware of normal risk assessment and risk management. I assume it is wiser to leave this country for the relative safety and sanity of Finland and Europe in general. 
Well, I have to acknowledge that the US government has decided to invest some 500 million dollars in flu prevention in Asia. 

No trip to Chicago 

I was not accepted to the second round of initiation rites of the Chicago-based consulting tribe. Somehow their telecom practice is so strong, that they can ignore one of the system architects behind 3G networks. It is very surprising, the tribe is very strong. I just wonder what I did wrong? Was it the not wearing a tie, the official omen of good fortune? Or was it the lack of prefab answers? Or was it my honest way on answering questions; avoiding second guessing what the initiation officials would like to hear? Or, simply, am I not so smart and good as I think I am? Or, maybe I am simply just too old, and they know from experience that it is better to get new young members?

2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient at MIT 

The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Mohamed ElBaradei, gave a speech today in MIT. He was invited before he got the prize, or so they say. It was a good speech, and made me reconsider my opinion on increasing use of nuclear energy as source of electricity and heat. I will write more about this once my opinions settle down a bit. Meanwhile, listen to the speech, if you are interested in the future of the world, and have time. The speech is about 45 minutes, followed by 15 minutes questions, answers, laughter, and applauds. 
The last time I saw a Nobel peace laureate in real life was when I saw Nelson Mandela in Helsinki in 1992. He received the prize in 1993, so in the strict sense this was the first time. Clearly, I am not too old yet. 

On case interviews

Mikko put it much better I could ever: The gift to give prefab solutions to inadequately explained problems, truly a special one. I think I do not have that. Mainly because I think that prefab solutions are of no interest and value. Having to solve any problem twice, which is what prefab is about, is insulting and waste of life. 

Today's 30 minutes 

I used today's 30 job-search minutes by agreeing an interview, applying for a couple of jobs. I also made a list of open applications. I can remember at least 8 (still open) applications I have submitted. In addition, I have applied for many jobs in UK - I was careless enough not to keep track of all of them. But it seems, that I may still get a chief architect job - maybe there is some demand for my skills after all. Not anyone can get such a job, let's see if I can. 

Wednesday, 2005-11-02

This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put. Churchill 

Daily crono 

Just to keep track of the fleeting days, my life. In the morning, the interview. I decided to play to part to the full, so I donned a nice tailored suit and took a taxi to MIT. I felt so CEO. I also bought a coffee in a paper cup, stirred it with a straw, and covered it with a plastic lid. I felt so American. I read Wall Street Journal while waiting for the interview. I felt so all set. And I was.
Thinking now, 12 hours later, the interview was great fun. I think one should have one interview per week, or maybe two. I have now learned to like them, to take them as sociological (or cultural anthropological) field experiments. Like visiting some remote, strange tribe and trying to figure out their ways. And if I am lucky enough, have the right magical things with me, do the right things, use the right words, and keep my facial expressions serious, maybe I will be accepted to one of the tribes. They reward their members so well! (But I am not withdrawing my decision. I will limit the time I waste on job search to the absolute minimum, just enough to get some additional field study opportunities.)
The rest of the day was also interesting. I had lunch with Pia in her regular lunch place (and breakfast too). It is always nice to talk Finnish, and European. Later, back at home, napping, hacking, then walking around Back Bay and talking with Mirja on the phone. Still later, trying to find and finding the nest of FedEx-trucks with Kumar and Ashok, and celebrating who knows what in the great South-Indian place in the middle of dark suburban wilderness. Scary surroundings, but delicious food. 

Napping 

Taking a nap is the best way of breaking the spell of procrastinating and lack of creativity. Every workplace should have plenty of coaches (sofas) for napping. Just having small cubicles practically guarantees not having too much creativity around. This is not something the share-owners really like. Or do they?
Back in 1998-2001, I used to have a couch in my office in Nokia. I used it for taking naps, but it was also practical when somebody wanted to discuss with me. I could stay in my chair and he would sit in the couch. Cosy atmosphere. Then some accountant convinced the management that the creativity/productivity loss from stuffing employees in cubicles is less than the rental savings. I think it has turned out to be a bad miscalculation. But running a business means, among other things, following current accounting and management fashions. Sometimes it is very hard not to get physically wounded by all silver bullets flying from above.

An interview 

I had an interview with a consulting company. I am rather uncomfortable with the case interview methods. Most likely it is just due to lack of experience, but it may also be due to my innate honesty and straightness. So, I tend to do not that well. For example, today I was supposed to tell how an insurance company can increase their customer royalty. In the end, I managed to come up with some semi-sensible recommendation. But the road there was fraud with stumbling, difficulties and worse. The interviewer was interesting in something called strategic technology roadmap, which I really could not understand. So, I said that I do not know what such a roadmap is and what it should contain; that I have never seen such a beast. It seems that the strategic roadmap is something like the high level goals of the system, which, of course, I can define. But it may well be something fuzzier. I hope I get a change to learn later. 
The company has a telecommunication practice. I think that despite my ignorance of some fuzzy things, they would do themselves a favor by hiring me. They cannot really find a better person for serving their customer. Not brighter and more experienced anyway. Stay tuned for results. 
I think I am going to write an essay on job search in USA later this fall.

Tuesday, 2005-11-01

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.. Richard P. Feynman 

Tens of kids? 

Wallace & Gromit was very good, made me laugh so many times. Highly recommended by me. Before the movies we were shown several trailers of new movies for Thanksgiving and Christmas (a.k.a Happy Shopping Seasons). Two of the movies were about a huge family, with at least a dozen kids. In one of the movies, all kids were of same parents. In the other, a divorced man met a divorced woman. Both of them had at least 8 kids. I have nothing against kids, or even large families, but having so many kids seems to be a bit too much. What is the reason for producing such movies? Are bigger families getting back in fashion (due to conservative ideologies) or what?

Something fun 

and I went to see the new Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I need to get this job stuff away from my head. Then I will just concentrate in my thesis for the rest of November. 

A decision 

I have now decided to stop active job search in USA. It takes too much time. Based on my experience so far (together with experiences of others), the probability of me getting a job, which corresponds to my education and experience, is less than negligible. It seems, that only consulting companies are recruiting aliens. So, from now on, I will go to interviews if for some reason I can get invited to any by using at most 30 minutes of my time per day. And this 30 minutes includes any possible interviews. In short: I am not likely to get even closely as interesting and responsible job here as I had in Nokia for many years. Why bother, then? Of course, it may happen, that I get a nice job here - in that case, I need to revisit this decision. 
Intellectually this year has been very good. Also, I have had great time in MIT, and I have learned to know many interesting and nice new friends. But I starts to become very clear, that investing in SDM will not pay back in terms of money or career progress (for me, that is). Not that I regret coming here: I can always make more money, I do not have significant debts; I have also found that somehow "Matti's career progress" is an oxymoron. So, not having any career benefit from SDM does not matter - I would not be able to go up the corporate ladder no matter what I did, or what I studied. Not everyone is, no matter how bright and well educated they are. 

Past and pictures 

Ilana wrote an interesting note on the happiest days of her life. She also wrote, that she would like to have videos of her parents (relatives, friends, etc) so that she can remember them more easily when they are not around any more. 
But is it really so? My experience tells me, that the more I see pictures/videos of my past, the more I forget what I do not have pictures/videos of. In the end, I am afraid, that I will only have pictures/videos, and no real memories of the past. I think J.P. Sartre made similar observation in Nausea. I should check it, when I get the book in my hands again. 

Procrastinating 

I should be writing my thesis, but I am writing job applications. And I even know, that I write them in vain. Nobody will read my applications. I am not sure how many would and will read my thesis, but most likely it will have wider readership than all my job applications together. 1 reader will suffice. 
All opinions are mine and do not reflect opinions etc of my current or future employers as far as I am aware. Similarly, all opinions on SDM at MIT are mine only. The official at SDM-homepage gives the other view.

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