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

(Goethe)

December

Friday, 2005-12-30

War is the worse than you can ever imagine. Air Force propaganda movie, IMAX, Smithsonian air and space museum

The Chinese ripped us off by selling great and cheap (hand made) noodles, but then asked $4 for a bottle of beer. Rip-pff, but the food was really good. The restaurants seems to be famous for their hand-pulled noodles, which are always nice and fresh.

National air and space museum

The main reason for me (us) to visit Washington was to visit the National air and space museum (part of the Smithsonian institute). More later.

Thursday, 2005-12-28

I just want to have something to do Ramones

Burmese food

We got lucky and dined in the Burma Restaurant (740 Sixth Street, N.W, Washington DC), in the local Chinatown. I had eaten Burmese food never before - not good, since the food was very good. S had fish cake salad, which was very fresh and the cakes were delicious. I had "tamarind fish", which tasted somewhat similar than would fish with raisin-onion sauce. Surprisingly good.

Transit rules!

We just arrived in Washington DC. We left Boston for NYC at 8 am by the Chinatown bus, which took us to Chinatown, NYC, in 4.5 hours, no problems there. The next Chinatown bus was supposed to leave NYC for DC at 1.30pm, but for some reason we needed to change busses, after which the driver started his lunch, etc, and then we got a free Downtown and Midtown sightseeing tour: from East Broadway to 42 street, then to 38th, to Port Authority, and Lincoln Tunnel. It took a while, but finally we were driving south a 7+7 lane turnpike. And we drove, drove, drove, and there were too many private cars filling the lanes. It took us 6 hours to DC, but who cares when one does not have to drive: one can read, sleep, discuss. I just do not get why anyone would want to drive himself, it would not make any sense. Only stupid sissies do not take the bus. And by the way: renting a car would cost $70/day + gas + parking, while taking bus Boston-DC-Boston is $65 per person.

Wednesdays, 2005-12-28

I just want to have something to do. Ramones

Strange economy

For the last 4 years, the GDP of USA has been increasing while the median income has been decreasing. So much for the trickle-down effect of the tax cuts and economic growth. There is something wrong or at least hard to justify in the the economic model: it is not that economy would serve the citizens but the other way round.

DIY sucks

I (or we) have experimented in doing household duties ourselves. Instead of using the Total Care Laundry, I walked to the nearest launderette. It took 90 minutes and cost $7 or so. Letting the professionals to do the jobs would have taken 5 minutes and cost about the same. Services rule! We also cooked some food ourselves: it costs some 40% of the cost of the local Chinese and takes a long time (shopping, cooking, doing the dishes). So cooking does not make any sense.

Favorite restaurants in NYC

Some of my current favorite restaurants in New York are

LaSani (on 29th St, close to the 5th av ) a Pakistan-Indian restaurant for eating nice fish, fresh nan, and great chick-peas. Very authentic. Large enough portions, all of them $7 or less.
Yummy-house (on the 3rd Avenue, about 12th Street ) a Chinese restaurant for eating pineapple curry fried rice and normal Chinese fare
Kenka a Japanese restaurant for eating great Japanese and indulging $1.5 pints.
A pizzeria ( under the Brooklyn-bridge, on Brooklyn's side) an Italian restaurant for eating decent pizza.
Grand Sezchuan (on Canal Street, next to the bridge ) a Chinese restaurant for eating very spicy Sezchuan-food.
Anonymous Vietnamese (at Chrystie/Hester in Chinatown ) a Vietnamese hole-in-the-wall for eating the best summer rolls imaginable.
Lotus Lounge (at Clinton/Stanton in the lower East-side ) an American cafe for cheap coffee, bagels, free Wi-Fi, artists, etc.

A limbo

I live in pre-middle-age-limbo. I do not have acne, nor any wrinkles. I do not like this. I would like to have some signs of my age. I need to get some anti-botox.
But at least I need to get a demonstrator protection suit shown on the right, for I do not want to get bruised by police batons during anti-war demonstrations. The problem is that I do not where to get the suit. The picture is from MOMA's Safety-exhibition.

Good schools

Newspapers tell us, that middle-class (and mostly white) people are moving away from, say, urban New York city to some small towns two-hours commute away. The movers invariable cite two reasons: the need for having 4000-sq feet houses for their large (2-kid) families and good schools. For some reasons the schools in the small towns are, still, much better than in NYC. I just wonder why this is so? Is it just the fact that the clientele of the schools is more uniform (in terms of race, income, religion, sexual orientation, choice of drugs, etc)? Why cannot the NYC have good schools? Is it just about money? And how long are the small town schools going to be good?
By the way, commuting for two hours each way, 5 days a week, adds up to 80 hours a month, or some 900 hours per year. Should the commuter use that time for earning some money and not for commuting, he might be able to get a larger house/condominium in NYC. Or, a smaller place but some time to spend with the priceless kids, whose well-being the whole big-house-business is meant to serve.

Saturday, 2005-12-24

Driving is for servants, not for gentlemen. Hannu Visti

Christmas, part II

At Strand's bookstore on Broadway. Books looking for new owners, owners looking for their wallets, clerk calling for next customer, total chaos. Booklovers looking for gifts for their loved ones. Fortunately, I was told not to buy any books. Otherwise I would have lost my money or mind. So, onwards toward the Lotus Lounge, our favorite cafe in the Lower East side (corner of Clinton and Stanton), but it was closed. Downsides of religion, closed cafes. Later, Christmas dinner in the Yummy-house, the closest decent Chinese restaurant to our hotel. They serve rather special curry pineapple fried rice.

Aging

The TV is full of advertisement promising instant removal of all signs of aging. Why should one get rid of the signs? Are the frequent vodka-ads part of the same strive for youth and ignorance? Why would it be better to look young and ignorant even at 50?

Free Wi-Fi

Free Wi-Fi is becoming more common in NYC. Both the Union Square park and in the Madison Square park have free and fast access. Excellent. One can read newspapers and books, check facts from the net and blog at the same time. I did not spot any bad guys sending spam or bomb threats using the free access, as the established telecom operators claim they would do. Who knows?

Christmas

Christmas in New York. Outside 10C, sunny, calm. Shop are full of shoppers, CNN is reporting from Walgreens in Texas on the turn-out of shoppers. Very good, says the manager. Those, who have done shopping already, are on the move. 51 million people will drive somewhere else, 9 million will fly, 3 million will take bus or train and at least 1 million Santa Clauses will ride their chariots around the skies to the smoke outlets of exurban homes in Texas and Alabama. What a traffic!
I have spent most of my Christmas Eves in Finland with my parents and grandparents. Since all of them but my mother are not present anymore, spending Christmas abroad does not feel so bad anymore. But a bit, anyway. This is not, however, the first time I am away from Finland during Christmas. In 1988 I was in Paris with Kössi, in 1996 alone in Paris on my way to South-Africa, in 2003 in Hangzhou with S, Maunu, and Heikki and now here. Interesting.

Daily-notes

On Thursday: taking early bus to NYC, having nice lunch in the taxi-driver, construction workers, Pakistani-Indian, halal eatery (29 Street, close to 5th Avenue). Great food, generous portions and rather authentic atmosphere. In the evening, hanging around, taking in easy, etc. Oh, and having nice Chinese food in the Yummmy-restaurant on the 3rd Avenue.
On Friday: visiting MOMA in the early afternoon, later then wondering the blatantly insane "Christmas"-decorations in Brooklyn (gigantic Mickey mouse, 3m tall napoleonic soldier etc) Later, dinner with Pekka and Anna in some nice Lebanese restaurant on the 3rd Avenue in Brooklyn, close to the sea.

Wednesday, 2005-12-21

After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life. Joseph Brodsky

On time

Every day has the same amount of time, yet every day feels different. Sometimes time is not enough for anything, sometimes there is nothing to waste time on. Today is one of the latter days. S left for New York, my thesis advisor preferred presence of NASA's JPL to my presence. I left the thesis at his desk. Some discussion with Paul and Bill, then some pinball (but the Sopranos-machine is out of shape already, someone should fix it), and now, at 1.30 pm I have next to nothing to do. What a strange feeling, I am totally free to do whatever I please, but I can only think of taking the green line T to Boston College. How boring can a man be? I have a book with me, so that I will survive if this gets any worse.

Daily-notes

For the record. Monday and Tuesday were very similar. Waking up, discussing, lunch at the local Chinese with S, playing pinball, working on the thesis for some 5 or 6 hours, then reading something.
At the local Chinese, on Tuesday:

The owner: Menu no menu?
Me: No menu, thanks.
The Owner: Same, same?
Me: Yes, please!

Book-list for holidays

So many books, so little time. At the top of the list are

Shake hands with the devil by Romeo Dallaire on the Rwandan massacres
Tipping point by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Energy at crossroads by Smil
Regarding the pain of others by Susan Sontag
I, etcetera by Susan Sontag

Most books I have tried to find time to read, but failed, earlier this year. In addition, I want to read NY Times daily and maybe some other newspapers as well.

Daily doomsday

As always, the end of the world is coming. Today, Dylan Evans has read, among other books, Jared Diamond's Collapse and discusses whether the collapse will come in a century from now. Read the column, read the book, and then do something.

Tuesday, 2005-12-20

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power. Marcus Tullius Cicero

Thesis is done!

I have now completed my thesis. I will give a copy to my adviser tomorrow. If he has some corrections or new ideas, I will add them to my thesis in January. Now, the holiday season (= reading books and drinkin coffee) starts. Maybe a pint or two of beer is appropriate as well.

Brainwashing by cars

George Monbiot claims in his column in the Guardian that

The car is slowly turning the British, like the Americans and the Australians, into a nation that recognises only the freedom to act, and not the freedom from the consequences of other people's actions. [...] The slowly shifting consciousness of the millions who spend much of their day sitting in traffic makes interventionist government ever harder.

Quite a claim, but it may have some truth in it.

Torture - evidence

Khaled El-Masri tells in LA Times how how he was kidnapped and tortured by USA. But, he must be a liar, as "we do not torture". I assume it was not the US administration, it must have been some aliens who abducted Mr. Masri. Just be carefull out there, they may be coming for you soon.

On torture

Human rights watch claims that the CIA ran secret torturing centers in Afganistan for years. But, remember, Mr. Bush and Ms. Rice say that "we (USA) do not torture". Human rights watch is a bunch of terrorists; spying and shame on them. See HRW's press release.
By the way, the HRW-traitors are telling us that Torture Ban is Undercut by adding an amendment refusing the terrorists in Guantanamo rights to complain and defense themselves.

Monday, 2005-12-19

Sometimes I seem to see a difficulty, but then again I don't see it. Gottlob Frege

Bad engineering

It really seems, that most so called software engineers, who are designing web-services for rental car agencies, Verizon, etc are totally incompetent. The response times of services are outrageous, the process flow counter-intuitive and error handling lousy at best. I think the main reason is that anyone who can pronounce Java and spell HTML can declare himself or herself software engineer. I just hope they will outsource all this work to India, where it is easy to find decent and professional and educated software engineers. This current bunch sucks big time.

Beware of Mao, part 2

I may have jumped the gun. The whole thing may well be a hoax. Let's follow it and see whether I am a fool. As if there would be some doubts about that...

Beware of Mao

According to an article, just borrowing Mao's little red book may earn you a visit by the federal agents, and you will not even get the book. I am sure using federal agents in this way is making everyone much safer. And sacrificing some personal freedoms (like borrowing books without the FBI getting to know it) is a small price to pay for the fact that the terrorists are not going to find out what Mao's said in 1950s or so. Of course, the terrorist are stupid enough not to look here or elsewhere in the net. Oh, who are those men in sunglasses in outside MIT's Hayden library?

A plan, a note

Since I am short of time and my main goal in life is to learn as much as possible, I have to cut down drinking. Not only is drinking quite time consuming, it may also have negative effects on brain. Feynman quit drinking for similar reasons - maybe I should follow his example, but not quite; just not bingeing would be fine and enough for me.

High price of all those clothes

Madeleine Bunting has written an interesting article on how clothing has become almost disposable. By 2002 USA was importing 48 pieces of clothing per person per year, mostly from China. According to Bunting this and other rivers of clothing from China and India to USA and other industrialized countries and further to African second-hand markets has some social and environmental negative side-effects: high level of herbicide use, destroying industries, use of maybe too-cheap (slave like) labor, etc. I think just buying the clothes one really needs and not following any fashion trends, which would require wardrobe renewal up 8 times a year, is a good and civilized way to do. Maybe I should start also fixing broken clothes more often.

A plan

Since the odds are that I may not live past 50, I will try to accomplish more than most do before 80 by 50. Furthermore, I do not count hierarchical advancement in the corporate ladder as accomplishment. I only count amassing more knowledge and understanding, and some academic credentials. That's the plan! The only reason to work is to get money for spending on academic joys. Like books and tuition. And as pointed out by an anonymous reader, traveling and other similar experiences surely count as accomplishments. But traveling requires being somewhat healthy, thus I cannot wait until I retire.

Change of plans

We did not get the free flight (using the frequent flyer miles) to California. And all cheap flights have been sold out as well. Thus, change of plans in necessary. The next idea was to rent a car in New York and drive it to Miami and eat some key lime pie over there. But it takes a bit too much stubborn driving spirit to accomplish that. Not for me, actually. So, scaling back and smaller: first NY, then meeting with the president at Washington DC, and seeing some space ships and memorials of dead heros and later traveling somewhere closer to Boston, in MA. Or just walking down to Tremont Street could be brave enough for us.

Sunday, 2005-12-18

We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done. Alan Turing

Beer cures bird flu?

The Kirin Brewery has developed an antibody, which protects from catching flu and also helps in recovering from flu. Now they just have to add it to their beers and I can guarantee huge commercial success.

On animation

While we were having coffee in the small cafe in Chinatown, S pointed out that Americans are actually not that animated, when they speak. Americans tend to make similar faces as the soap opera stars do, but otherwise they do not animate that much. Chinese are different: their do not make that much faces, but they use their hands and voice to give mphasis to their speech. Interesting observation.

In Chinatown

A demonstration broke through the busy life of Chinatown. Some hundred demonstrators were voicing their opinions against the Chinese communist party and claiming that a book called "9 commentaries" is bringing the party down. Maybe - definitely I would hope for the dictators to go away and some kinds of democracy to appear. Just how likely both of these wishes are to come true, I do not know.
Before the demonstration, a nice lunch in the Taiwan Cafe with S. Very authentic food and busy atmosphere. Then coffee in the corner cafe, we being the only non-Chinese. I so much like the Chinatown. I miss living in China.

Helping the poor - suspicious?

Recently, I have read several articles (in NY Times, Wall Street Journal etc) telling that Venezuela's president Chavez has "showered the nation's oil profits on government projects aimed at the poor" (as NY Times put it today). The papers hold this activity against Chavez, but they never tell why. Helping the poor is something that most people consider a duty of governments, so it cannot be the reason. I think the real reason must be, that just giving money to the poor is not going to help them in the longer term - it is well know that only a few countries (e.g. Norway) has really benefited from oil profits. I think it would be prudent to be more verbose in blaming Mr Chavez, though.

Saturday, 2005-12-17

If we kill play, we kill culture. Alexander McCall Smith

Tv on the Radio - song

Check out and listen to the Dry Drunk Emperor by TV on the Radio. They wrote it just after the hurricane Katrina blew the covers from the naked emperor....

 

 baby boy
 dieing under hot desert sun,
 watch your colours run.
 
 did you believe the lie they told you,
 that christ would lead the way
 and in a matter of days
 hand us victory?
 
 did you buy the bull they sold you,
 that the bullets and the bombs
 and all the strong arms
 would bring home security?
 
 all eyes upon
 dry drunk emperor
 gold cross jock skull and bones
 mocking smile,
 he's been
 standing naked for a while!
 get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!
 and bring all the thieves to trial.
 
 end their promise
 end their dream
 watch it turn to steam
 rising to the nose of some cross legged god
 gog of magog
 end times sort of thing.
 oh unmentionable disgrace
 shield the childrens faces
 as all the monied apes
 display unimaginably poor taste
 in a scramble for mastery.
 
 atta'boy get em with your gun
 till mr. mega ton
 tells us when we've won
 or
 what we're gonna leave undone.
 
 all eyes upon
 dry drunk emperor
 gold cross jock skull and bones
 mocking smile,
 he's been
 naked for a while.
 get him gone, get him gone, get him gone!!!
 and bring all his thieves to trial.
 
 what if all the fathers and the sons
 went marching with their guns
 drawn on washington.
 that would seal the deal,
 show if it was real,
 this supposed freedom.
 
 what if all the bleeding hearts
 took it on themselves
 to make a brand new start.
 organs pumpin on their sleeves,
 paint murals on the white house
 feed the leaders L.S.D
 grab your fife and drum,
 grab yor gold baton
 and let's meet on the lawn,
 shut down this hypocrisy.

Daily notes

For me and the curious. On Saturday: (with S): reading NY Times in some nice cafe in Beacon Hill, lunch in Buddha's delight (great mango-coconut shakes, by the way), shopping warm clothes, hacking in the Hayden library (one of the nicest places in greater Boston), late dinner at the Crossroad-pub in the Beacon Street. On Friday: writing PhD-proposal, the last SA-lecture, taking taxi to home, lunch in the local Chinese with S and coffee at Trident's, later dinner with S and Kumar in the Tamil-restaurant in Billerica.

Strike coming!

MTA employees are going on strike in New York next Tuesday unless something strange happens. It seems that their union is now deadly serious and cannot back off anymore. The MTA seems to have some extra money, but declines to raise the salaries as much as the workers demand. Stopping all subways and busses will totally paralyze New York. And we are going to travel to New York on Wednesday or Thursday. Rather exciting: such a strike would be an interesting thing to experience. See e.g Yahoo's report on the negotitations.

No fear, my dear!

Mr. Bush admitted, that he has authorized spying on Americans. As usual, he also blamed those, who brought the case in public. They are not patriots! But we all may take it easy, as the president vowed:

"This authorization is a vital tool in our war against the terrorists. It is critical to saving American lives. The American people expect me to do everything in my power, under our laws and Constitution, to protect them and their civil liberties and that is exactly what I will continue to do as long as I am president of the United States,"

Now, someone please remind Mr Bush, that hurricanes etc are also threatening American lives, and he, as the supreme commander and president, has to power to improve infrastructure and save lives. And that, by fixing the health care system, he could save at least 10 times more Americans every year than terrorist killed on 9/11. Or, are different ways of unnecessary and preventable of dying of different value?
And, maybe, he really should walk his talk and obey the laws as well.

Challenges

Andrew Liveris, the CEO of Dow Chemical on the reasons for locating a plant in Oman instead of Texas:

Other issues - health care costs, litigation, lack of tort reform - spur us to locate elsewhere, too, but 80 percent of the reason is the availability of natural gas.

Friday, 2005-12-16

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. Groucho Marx

Progress in Capitol

The Senate has filibustered renewal of Patriot Act and it may expire on 31th of December. There are now (at least) enough democrats and republicans, who want to have more oversight, checks and balances, and not let the administration run rampant over civil rights. As it has done: according to news, Bush has authorized spying on American citizens, which amounts to authorizing criminal acts. Let's see if calls for impeachment are to be heard soon. See also Mark Derr's comments on the mess. And, of course, Bruce Schneier has something to say.

Salt, again

So the main purpose of the salt is to make walking easy and safe. So, why is it that the salt water gathers in ponds in intersections. One cannot ever know how deep the bonds, or whether there is ice on the bottom making the bond slippery. So, I have to conclude that using salt is just a bad way of moving problems arounds - while at the same time creating all kind of environmental havoc. Using salt on sidewalks and streets is simply a very bad idea.

Q & A

Q: What is happening in Davis Square tonight?
A: Crack sales

Boston.com advertisement and anonymous with with a felt-tipped pen in the red-line T.

Thursday, 2005-12-15

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything. Alexander Hamilton

At the airport

Waiting for S, who should have arrived yesterday, but was delayed by some technical difficulties, which made her stay overnight in Reykjavik. Now she should come any minute. I wait here, where I sometimes come to see people meeting each other. They are always so happy. Today is my turn to be happy.
The airport has a Wi-Fi-network, sponsored by Comcast, which costs $8 for 24 hours. I wonder what Comcast is really sponsoring as the price is extremely high. The portal is full of advertisements by Nokia and others. Cannot they run their infrastructure with the ads and Comcast's sponsorship. I bet that by making the WLAN free, they would make a lot of money.

ESD's holiday party

Engineering Systems Division threw a holiday party today in the Sloan faculty club. As usual, they had rather good food and dangerously delicious cakes. And I got to meet a few professors: Mindell, and Joel Moses, to whom Mindell introduced me. I have been hearing that professor Moses is very sharp and friendly and that turned out to be true. What a nice opportunity to discuss with him on systems and enterprise architecting for a short while. It reminded me, that I really have to come back to MIT to do my PhD later, after a few years. Professor Mindel also agreed to be my mentor/supporter for the PhD application and studies. I am loooking forward into working with him.

McCain abolished torture by USA

According to the NY Times Bush Relents on Detainee Policy, Backing McCain's Proposal, which is very wise from him. Especially, since the House of Representatives voted 308 to 122 in favor of McCain's proposal. Great. Some sense. Now, let us wait and see, whether this law will either prevent torture or be enforced when necessary.

A good essay on torture

Michael Kinsley has written a good essay on torture in Slate. Worth reading.

Banknote mystery

Every time I pay my groceries with a 50-dollar bank-note, the clerk marks the note with a yellow felt-tipped pen. I wonder what is the reason for doing so? Does the pen somehow indicate if the note is counterfeit? Or is it necessary (due to security reasons) to mark all the notes? If so, why do not they mark to note when printing them? There must be a reason, but I am just too stupid to figure it out.

Weather notes

Yesterday the Charles river froze. It was very sunny and beautiful. Today morning temperature -11C. Tomorrow, a storm of sleet, snow, ice, and whatnot plus a little thunder. Not boring here at all.

Wednesday, 2005-12-14

How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress. Niels Bohr

War on the cheap!

The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may soon hit half-trillion dollar mark. It is actually very cheap, a bargain for increased safety and security: only less than $1700 per each American (kids included). So, the famous 2 kid household in exurbia has so far, in the last 4 years, paid a very paltry amount of about $6800 for the wars. Money well and wisely spent. It is, indeed, hard to imagine any better use for such insignificant sums of money.

The war on Christmas

The fiery conservatives are imagining a "war on Christmas" as Wal-Mart employees wish them happy holidays instead of of merry Christmas. Some people just have too much time on their hands and ways too little sense of proportion. Anyway, I could start a war on Christmas songs, as they are so terrible, ultra-sweet. "The most wonderful day of the year" - after spending more and time on buying gifts.

A fast awakening

I woke up, talk to S on the phone for a while (her flights are late due to broken and then fixed airliners). When getting down from my loft, I was met with a pleasant surprise: my room was down to 15.1C, and after I let some fresh air in, it was down to 14.3C. Just the right temperature for taking a hot shower and then switching the heating on. How much I like this way of living close to the nature! It is so nice.

Tuesday, 2005-12-13

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public. Noam Chomsky

Writing thesis

Writing thesis is quite fun and interesting most of the time. I have just found that I cannot really write or otherwise work on my thesis for more than 6 hours per day. Thus it takes longer to complete than I was expecting. The moral of this is: always have several projects going on, or otherwise the one and only will get fat. And fat projects are much worse than lean ones. I thought I knew better, but I clearly did not.

Opportunities

Funny, now that I more or less have decided which job I will take (more about that once all details are clear agreed on), I have started receiving calls from recruiters and start-ups, asking whether I would be interested in certain systems architect positions - all of them in wireless telecom industry. What to do? By the way, this recruiting companydoes not look too bad.

Practice helps

I used to think that OPM is a bad method for designing and that Powerpoint simply sucks, but now that I have tried both for a while, I have to say that OPM has a point and it is quite possible to draw things with Powerpoint. I know that OmniGraffle (or something of similar name) is much better, but right now I am willing to take the pain of using Powerpoint. What a spineless, un-pricipled wimpy I have become.

On IT-outsourcing

I heard, that most of Intel's new patents are from their R&D-centers in India. I also heard that Google, Microsoft and others are investing billions in India and setting up huge centers. This is very good for India, but I am really surprised why the protectionist wing of the Congress is so quiet. It is one thing to lose manufacturing bras and thongs to China, and quite another, and much more serious, to lose IT-engineering to India. And once one remembers, that it is very hard for Indians to get visas and green cards in USA, the trend is going to get more speed: the Indians have less incentive to come to USA. Imagine then gradual, and fast, movement of IT-jobs from USA to India. It means that there fewer well-paid such jobs in California, which means that the amount of money coming into economy is smaller. Put this together with the demise of the US car industry, the irreversible loss of manufacturing to China, and I think the US government should wake up and try to figure how to run the economy without these jobs. The right answer is not to cut taxes of the very wealthy, nor setting up custom barriers (and how does one put customs barriers against SW??). If the Bush administration would really care about the economic well-being of Americans, they should focus their attention to real problems and challenges ahead and cut military spending by 80%.

Nice weather

Today's weather is really nice. It is sunny, almost clear skies, -9C, not too windy. Bright sunshine is good for me - I am less moody and cloomy. I do not mind cold that much, for I am well insulated.

Failing American infrastucture

The American Society of Civil Engineers have published its evaluation of American infrastucture. The grades, even allowing for some grade deflation, are dismall. For example, as everyone sees and feels daily, roads get only a D. Wastewater gets a D-. Furthermore:

America faces a shortfall of $11 billion annually to replace aging facilities and comply with safe drinking water regulations. Federal funding for drinking water in 2005 remained level at $850 million, less than 10% of the total national requirement. The Bush administration has proposed the same level of funding for FY06.

BY the way, $11 billion is about two months of killing in Iraq.
USA has some challenges ahead: infrastructure is failing, deficits are soaring, jobs (both manufacturing and R&D) are leaving to China and India leaving less and less money distributed to non-filthy-rich portion of Americans, car companies are going under. It is hard to understand that there is no bigger feeling of urgency, and the administration continues shoveling money away from the needs of US-citizens.
For some reason, the ASCE-site returns an error when trying to access the card. I got it at 9am EST, but at 9.30am EST it was not there anymore. Very strange. I have a printed copy, though. And Google has fortunately cached a copy of the card. (I got the link to the card via Technopolis.)

Monday, 2005-12-12

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause. Mohandas Gandhi

Daily crono

Notes for me. Long phone-call with S in the morning, then running errands (mailing checks, and visiting bank etc), lunch in the local Chinese ("Same, same?", asks the owner) reading NY Times, working on my thesis, late dinner with Kumar in the Quality Indian. Quiet day.

Murtha talks again

Rep John Murtha has given a press conference and attacked Bush's lies in detail. This man has guts. It seems that the other democrats are quite a bunch of sissies - why cannot they start a powerful campaign now that majority of Americans are available for becoming their voters in 2006 elections?

Cancer walk

I saw an advertisement on the street calling people to join some cancer-treatment support walk. It made me wonder two things. First, we is it necessary to walk, run, or otherwise get something in return of giving some money for cancer-patients? Why is just giving money for a good cause not enough - why to be so selfish and want something in return? Just giving money would be more efficient - the cancer tumors do not really care about people walking on street, so the spending money on organizing such a walk is a waste. And, second, of course, why is there a need to gather money using walks etc in a country which uses 14.6 percent of its GDP on health care?

Viva la resistance

Enough is enough, say an increasing group of Americans. In yesterday's NY Times a group of ex-federal bankers, senators, and treasurers are asking the administration to put all options on the table and share the sacrifices. They have establised The Concord Coalition for informing the public about the need for generationally responsible fiscal policy. They published a whole page advertisement. In today's NY Times, again in a whole page advertisement, The world can't wait is asking everyone to stand up and push Bush away. They are not shy in their propaganda:

Your government, on the basis of outrageous lies, is waging a murderous and utterly illegitimate war in Iraq, with other countries in their sights.
Your government is openly torturing people, and justifying it.
Your government puts people in jail on the merest suspicion, refusing them lawyers, and either holding them indefinitely or deporting them in the dead of night.
Your government is moving each day closer to a theocracy, where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule.
Your government suppresses the science that doesn't fit its religious, political and economic agenda, forcing present and future generations to pay a terrible price.
Your government is moving to deny women here, and all over the world, the right to birth control and abortion.
Your government enforces a culture of greed, bigotry, intolerance and ignorance.
People look at all this and think of Hitler - and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come. We must act now; the future is in the balance.

When NY Times starts to publish this kind of stuff, the situation is ripe for a change. We are living interesting and dangerous times, my readers. Stay tuned, and if you live in USA, read what the website has, donate money, and join the demonstrations. It is your future, and your kid's too.

Bananas, prisons, and fear

For some interesting background discussion for the WTO-meeting in Hongkong, read Gary Younge's article on how we will pay for cheap bananas with prisons, fear and fragmentation . EU's chief negotiator Peter Mandelson said before the meeting that no agreement is possible. EU is the main culprit here: it should abolish its agricultural subsidies. It is not willing to do that, for fear of some small number of rich French farmers. How much do I shame to be European in this context. EU is still too much a colonialist, not willing to do what would be best for the whole world, not for EU's politicians short them election success.

Sunday, 2005-12-11

That thing that is sometimes called the responsibility of intellectuals is the responsibility of every decent person. Georg Henrik von Wright

I need a drink

I invented a new concept called "interface complexity multiplier", but I cannot figure out how it gets inherited from one abstraction level to the next (lower, more detailed). Most likely it does not: each level has its own set of multipliers. Anyway, Matti L is throwing a party, which I will honor with my presence. And I need some thought lubrication or detergent.

Rss-feed fixed

I fixed the rss-feed. Now the "read more"-links really take you to the correct place in the page. Great, is it not. Sorry that the fix may have messed up your rss-readers accounting of read entries.

Another case of torture

According to a (graphic details, do not eat while reading the story) a story in the Guardian, an Ethiopian, apparently innocent if it makes a difference, claims to have been tortured by MI6 and CIA in Morocco. I do not know, what is the truth, but I suspect the worse. As an interesting sideline, the CIA is suffering too:

A senior US intelligence official told The Observer that the CIA is now in 'deep crisis' following last week's international political storm over the agency's practice of 'extraordinary rendition' - transporting suspects to countries where they face torture. 'The smarter people in the Directorate of Operations [the CIA's clandestine operational arm] know that one day, if they do this stuff, they are going to face indictment,' he said. 'They are simply refusing to participate in these operations, and if they don't have big mortgage or tuition fees to pay they're thinking about trying to resign altogether.'

Maybe George Soros should pay their tuition fees and mortgages?

New Orleas: Death of an American City?

Today's leading editorial of NY Times on death of an American City, namely New Orleans, is disturbing reading. The learder claims that the administration has left New Orleans on its own devices, ignored the promised by the president and it is just a matter of time that the city will no longer be. Quotes:

Total allocations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terror have topped $300 billion. All that money has been appropriated as the cost of protecting the nation from terrorist attacks. But what was the worst possible case we fought to prevent?
Losing a major American city.
If the rest of the nation has decided it is too expensive to give the people of New Orleans a chance at renewal, we have to tell them so. We must tell them we spent our rainy-day fund on a costly stalemate in Iraq, that we gave it away in tax cuts for wealthy families and shareholders. We must tell them America is too broke and too weak to rebuild one of its great cities.
Our nation would then look like a feeble giant indeed. But whether we admit it or not, this is our choice to make. We decide whether New Orleans lives or dies.

A feeble giant, not strong enough to take of its own country and citizens. And the democrats are still quiet, they cannot voice their opinions. Or maybe they do not have any, maybe they agree on the current policies.

Quarreling and information

Have you ever wondered, why we raise our voices when we quarrel? I have. Now I know, as we made an experiment with S using Apple's iChat. When she raised her voice, the amount of bits needed for transporting her voice to my computer raised by 50%. So, people shout when quarreling, because they have a need to get more information through (as the recipient has proved to be incapable of getting the message earlier). And no, we were not quarreling, we were just experimenting.

The duty of a decent person

I take participating in political discussion to be a duty of every decent person. This duty is one of the reasons I want to return to Finland for a while. Namely, just writing this blog in a foreign country does not change anything much. In Finland, on the other hand, I can write articles in newspapers and magazines, and maybe even write a pamphlet on the future of Finland. The title of it will be "Onko maallamme malttia vaurastua edelleen?" in homage to a late president of Finland. (In English "Has our country the patience to get still wealthier?"). Let's see. At least I have plans, which is a bit more than most of us have - and I think I have the capability to turn plans into reality.

A dream or a nightmare

I had a dream, in which a very senior manager (C-level), who wants to remain anonymous, was trying to convince me to work with him in selling certain networking equipment. I would have received 12k euros per month, 5% of sales as bonus and whatnot. Too bad the dream ended before we had time to sign the contract. I was very hesitant, as there was something suspicious in the proposed deal.

Saturday, 2005-12-10

Right now, Islam is portrayed as a terrorist religion. Because a few terrorists are Muslims, the whole religion has that image. If there ever was a religious war full of terror, it was the crusades. But you can't blame Christianity because a few adventurers did this. That's my message. Moustapha Akkad

Daily crono

Nothing much: landlord visited in the morning with a couple interested tenant candidates. Lunch at Buddha's delight, walking to the North Station, back home, desperation, back to MIT, good amount of work done, dinner in the Student center, back home. Quite an ordinary day. Definitely, writing thesis all alone is not for me. I suffer greatly. And the amount of work I get done is so small, when compared with team work situations.

A slow transport

I decided to move my lazy ass to the library. Being lazy, and the sidewalks being submerged in salt-water, I decided to take the T. But the red line is out of service between Park and Kendall. There is a shuttle bus. It took the bus exactly 30 minutes to make the trip. How lucky is Boston to have the T!

A decent proposal

If it's not torture, then it's OK to use it on Cheney and

Stick Karl Rove on the water board and we can see who really leaked what in just a couple of minutes. That would be fair, wouldn't it? After all, his boss says it's not torture, right?

Come on, let's take them by their words, as they are never telling lies!

Naomi Klein on USA and torture

Naomi Klein writen USA and torture in her column in the Guardian. Her main claim is the embrace of torture by US officials has been integral to US foreign policy since the Vietnam war. and that the only difference now and then is that the Bush administration has brought torture in the open, admitted it, and required laws to justify it. Read the column and decide for yourself. Really disturbing. If what Klein writes is true, USA is really a country of uncivilized barbarians, or at least run by such people.

Some climate links

So, Bush's boys do not play with others. They walked out. Guardian tells that 150 countries signed the deal and that

USA is diplomatically more isolated now than at the start of the talks. Friends like Saudi Arabia and Australia have distanced themselves from the administration. Britain and other countries tried to find a way to bring the US in but failed. A consensus is growing in rich countries that it is impossible to work with the Bush administration on climate change.

But, according to NY times

The United States dropped its opposition early Saturday morning to nonbinding talks on addressing global warming after a few words were adjusted in the text of statements.

This is becoming hard to follow. Anyway, it is good that besides USA and China, most other countries are starting to take global warming seriously. In USA, individual states and cities are also waking up and introducing mandatory cuts of greenhouse gases. Let's see, whether the Supreme Court will tell them not to, due to such mandates interfering with inter-state commerce.

Friday, 2005-12-09

Happiness lies in good health and a bad memory. Chinese proverb

Daily crono

Again, for me: waking up, having a walk (snowing, salting, prisoners shoveling), writing a couple of pages of thesis, taking taxi to MIT (was too wet, etc, or lazy), SA-lecture (not that good this time), wonders of snow and thunder, playing pinball unsuccessfully, working in the Barker library until it closed at 7pm, meeting classmates in the SDM-office, then meeting Pia, who is leaving USA for Finland in the Boston Beerworks, nice to discuss in Finnish with a nice person, back home a bit drunk, reading the energy books.

Technical question

Consider an interface, which transmit either energy, mass (like physical connections), or information. Is it so, that if the amount of information,energy, or mass becomes either very large or very small, then designing and implementing the interfaces becomes harder. In other words, is there a designer (human) and time (technological) history dependent nominal value, and everything far away from it is hard to design and implement. I tend to think so, as I cannot come up with any real counter examples right away. If you have a counter example, leave a comment. This is not directly related to my thesis, as I try to keep my thesis observer independent (complexity of a system does not depend on the capability of the designer).

Criminals aloof

The US government is playing Russian roulette with the world as it breaks away from the climate talks in Montreal. See also an article in NY times. It is said that is by explicit request of Dick Cheney, who, as an old oil boss, thinks only his own money and his remaining life, not of future of his kids. This is a sad day. Cheney and his puppet Mr. Bush claim that cutting CO2-emissions would hurt US economy. I think the eventual higher average temperature of the world is hurting US economy much more, but after these ingorasmuses have left the office. For example, if the Golf-current weakens, it means more energy will remain in the hurricane area, which will increase the number of strong hurricane. This may render huge areas of USA next to inhabitable or at least unsuitable for industrial purposes, like oil-drilling. Not to speak what will happen to other Caribbean countries. And, at some point even the USA must acknowledge global warming. At that time, the European industry has taken over the market of efficient energy systems, and the US economy will suffer further. Too bad that the whole world is suffering from stupidity and irresponsibility of handful incompetent "leaders".

Snowing and thundering

It is snowing very heavily, they call this weather a blizzard. When I walked out of building 9 ten minutes ago, I heard the sound of thunder. I have never before understood, that thunder and snow can co-exist. Very nice to learn new things even today. Of course, it does not matter whether the water moves as water or as swow. Both of them are able to create electricity in the air. And we do not know where water turns into snow - it may be rather low in the athmosphere. Weather statement reads:

This includes the Boston to Providence corridor and nearby towns. A band of heavy snow with embedded thunder will move across the area through 4 PM... resulting in very heavy snow with a quick additional 2 to 4 inches by 4 PM. Thereafter... snow will begin to taper off. Strong northwest winds will create near white out conditions.

Snowing and shoveling

It snows. Men in orange overalls are shoveling the snow away from Sturrow Drive overpasses. Some other men in plain clothes are supervising the shoveling. The whole group arrived in a large van. Who are these men? Why there are so many supervisors? Why are all shovelers so well built? Why 9 out 10 of them are young black males? I have seen them doing similar work of park maintenance many times. Are they prisoners at work? If so, the high incarceration rate of USA is a blessing: just incarcerate enough young males and make them do the public maintenance work. Remember, that the president has claimed himself a sovereign right to declare any US citizen an enemy combatant. The supply of strong park maintenance personnel is not limited by the actual crime rate or its fluctuations. I would suggest also commuting prison sentences for one or two tours in some ongoing war. This is a tried and proven way of recruiting enough manpower. And since they already are combatants, one can skip training as well.

Britain says no to torture

Evidence obtained by torture is not usable in British courts. The law lords reinforced this old tradition unanimously. I just hope, that American would follow the suit and would stop torturing human beings. Doing so would enhance security of each and every American citizen. If would be in their interests, too, as, according to NY Times "Officials said an inmate in Egyptian custody made up details about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda in order to escape abuse"., at least if one considers the reasoning for the Iraq something more than a bunch of excused for a war that was decided before - but why the need for abuse in that case? What kind of sissies need to abuse others for lack of spine to stand openly for their decisions?
I may hoping in vain for abolishing torture from the toolbox of American politics, though, for Dr. Rice gave no guarantees that detainees would not be abused again. She added, though, that "The president of the United States is not going to ask American citizens to violate U.S. law or to violate our international obligations.", whatever that means, as so far he seems to have very little to do with anything going on, and he cannot take responsibility of anything, for he is a saint, or enfant savant.

Thursday, 2005-12-08

You cannot win a War on Terrorism. It's like having a war on jealousy. David Cross

Lazu on programmer survival skills

Lazu ( Lars Wirzenius) has written an interesting set of slides on programmer survival skills. Very much recommended to anyone interested in SW and programming.

Daily crono

Just to remember, for me. Waking up early, chatting with S, taking care of some bills etc, bananas for breakfast, blogging, starting to work on my thesis at 9am, working with some success until noon, lunch in the Chinese, a short walk along the Esplanade, a nap, working or drawing picture, painfully slow, visiting Deluga's in the Charle's Street for drugs, still working, dinner with Kumar, some wine, trying to work until late. Yesterday was basically the same except that I was working in the Barker Engineering library.

Stupid heater

The hotair blower, which is supposed to heat my cave, is just stupid. It has more or less broken thermostat: on/off. If it is on, temparature near it raises to 22C. If I turn it off, temperature drops by 1.5C/hour or more, all the way down to 16C or lower. And the hot air it blow is not fresh, it is stale. Well, in 40 days I am out of here. I could work in the library, but I am too lazy to move my ass there. I can listen to punk here, if I want.

Drugs and thesis

My thesis progress is totally dependent on drugs: chocolate, coffee, cola, alcohol. I could not work without those drugs. Some day I will try whether the so-called illegal (which means non-taxed) drugs are even more effective. In some enlightened country, in which they are legal (= taxed).

Which party to choose?

I have decided to become a member of the Finnish parliament. I think I have the skill, knowledge, education, experience, and ideas to make a difference and make Finland a better place for everyone, or almost so. Now, I just need to find a political party, which will a) accept me as a candidate and b) provide a opportunity to really get in the parliament. Any ideas? Greens are maybe closest to my views, but only beautiful (or not) women get elected from the Greens. Or should we start a new party just for the next elections? A liberal and strict party.

Me-too management

The easiest way to start a business is to apply the "me-too"-principle. Simply copy a business idea from someone else, set up a shop and try to drive the other shopkeeper out of business, or at least capture a large share of the market. This simple principle applies to bigger businesses than shops. Today, the rumor has it that Ford is going to close 10 factories and fire 30000 employees. Surprisingly the same number that GM just announces. Me-too rules. Bowling alleys will be deserted, and since Ford is firing white-collar clerk as well, golf-clubs are not that well of anymore either. Stay tuned for more corporate entertainment.

Thesis

Thesis work is going fine today. I think I will be able to finish my thesis in a week or so. At least it will be read enough for giving it to my advisor. Then I will just fix what he likes me to fix and I will be all set. Good. My year in MIT is coming to end very fast. I wonder whether I should write a book about it?

Good question

In his column in the Guardian, Richard Norton-Taylor asks a very important question: Why is the US flying terror suspects to secret camps if it has nothing to hide? I think the answer is simple: they have something to hide, they are really torturing and killing people whom they have kidnapped against their own and international laws. It is a pity that the criminals responsible for this torture will never be brought to justice. Well, unless their own citizens can convince the congressmen of the necessity of civilized and lawful behavior.
By the way, the Nobel acceptance speech of Harold Pinter is very much worth reading.

Wednesday, 2005-12-07

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The safest restaurant in Boston

The safest restaurant in Boston is the Chinatown Eatery, because the local Chinatown cops use it as their other office. They are always hanging in there and making sure that no criminal steals rice or behaves in bad manner. Besides, food is always fresh and one can see in the kitchen.

Innocents

According to the Sydney Morning Herald an innocent German was beaten by US jailers. This is the same case I wrote earlier. What really bothers me here is the emphasis put on innocence. Is it really so, that it is quite right to kidnap anyone, fly them to some secret place, torture, even kill provided that the unfortunate person is guilty of some crime? Just like that, with no system of justice determining the case, no opportunity for the person to defend himself. I am really worried about this mentality. It is not the way the Western societies have traditionally worked, not the way we ask other countries to respect human rights. What kind of barbarians are we becoming? We cannot win the terrorist, or any criminals, by abandoning our fundamental justice systems, our fundamental values, and by thinking that ends justify whatever means become handy. If we go down that road, we will have a war of everyone against everyone, the justice of the strongest, and that will not be a world most of us really want to live in.

Windy

A freak was standing on the Harvard Bridge. He had a wind-speed meter, which he hold proudly in the wind. I asked for the reading: "25 mph, 30 in gusts", which is 15m/s. Most pedestrians have sissied away into busses. Temperature is just -2C.

Soda, money and sense

There is a lawsuit going on soda vending machines at schools. Consumer activists claim, that soda from machines makes kids fat. The soda companies says that it is not the case. And even if it would, they could start selling diet sodas. Problems solved. The soda vendors also say that soda vending is good source of revenue for cash-poor school districts even though 70 percent of revenues go the soda companies. I have a simple solution: kick the wending machines out of schoold, get some cheap diet soda from the local Sam's club and sell it to the kids. The kids will stay lean and all proceeds will go to the schools. Or, even better, tell the kids to drink water and get money for teaching from somewhere else.

Gaping security hole at airports

There is a gaping security hole at airports. It is easy for the terrorists to smuggle bombs to airliners, actually way too easy, so easy that I wonder why they do not do so daily. Remember how one terrorist put explosives in his shoes, but was stupid enough not to explode them in the restroom. For this reason we all have to remove our shoes at airports. Let's take this idea further and hide explosives in push-up bras! I have not, yet, seen mandatory removal of bras or manual inspection of bras at airports. So, the plot is easy to carry though! Also, I have not seen any airport security inspector manually checking groins of people. They should, since it is way too easy to replace a sanitary napkin with a explosive one, or maybe one could put explosives in tampons. Even men could use them, as they use similar methods for smuggling drugs in prisons. I certainly think, that these threats are serious and the department of homeland security should make sure that they will never succeed. Let's make everyone strip butt-naked at the airport! And bras should be banned in airliners. Back to the sixties!

Still on salt

If salting the roads is such a good thing to do, why are the ramps to the Esplanade not salted? I think it matters more if steep slopes are slippery than if level sidewalks are. And for some reason no authority bothers to clean the sidewalks of the Harvard bridge (even though the "commissioner of parks and bikelanes" explicitly promised to do so back in October).

Torture and lies

Dr. Rice has promised, that from now on USA will not torture or abduct anyone. Yesterday she was saying that they have never done that despite widely known evidence. For example, a German man was abducted, flown to Afganistan, and tortured, by CIA. They were stupid enough to let him walk and he has now sued the boss of CIA. But he cannot really sue, because he cannot enter USA. Clever, but also a confession by the US government.
Dostoyevsky would roll in his grave if he would see the state of the American civilization. It is deplorable, to say the least.
What would happen, if a country X would simply abduct an American, fly him to a secret place and torture him in the hope of getting information of the next illegal war Bush and his cronies are about to start. If cronies are consistent, they should not protest!

Tuesday, 2005-12-06

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Chinese proverb

Kulfi

"India Quality"-restaurant on Commonwealth Avenue serves very authentic (north) Indian food. Most importantly, they serve kulfi for dessert. I have not got kulfi before in Boston. Now I know one place where to get it.

Path of rats

There is a small garden in the corner of Beacon Street and Gloucester Street. The garden has a conifer and a very narrow, well trodden path leads from the tree to the stairs of the basement. I was wondering, which animal creates such paths, when a huge rat appeared blow the tree and slowly walked to the basement. The rat's body was at least 20cm long. Quite a rodent, clearly the biggest one have seen so far here in Boston.

Ice and salt

According to Ice by M. Gosnell: "North-Americans put 10 to 15 million tons of salt on their roads - that's 10 percent of all the salt used in the entire world for all purposes combined". That's quite an amount of salt. If an average truck can move 15 tons of salt, moving the mountain of salt to the roads will take one million trucks. All this just to get rid of ice on roads. Interesting. I just wonder where all that salt disappears; hopefully it somehow avoid salting the groundwater.

Snow emergency coming

City of Boston distributed a guiding leaflet for coping and surviving snow storms (emergencies) this year. The leaflet tells how to shovel snow away, how to prepare for power outages, whom to call if the landlord does not provide enough heat, etc. Very kind of them. By the way, the leaflet mandates that the sidewalks must be passable within three hours after a snowstorm. It does not mandate salting the world.

Next year's reading diet

Next year I will write more about European politics even though following US-politics is a must in today's world. In order to be able to think and write, I need to read some newspapers and magazines. I plan to subscribe to (at least)

In addition, I will follow professional magazines (Wired, Systems Engineering, ...) wherever I work, using employer's libraries. And I will also follow some Finnish magazines by visiting the local library next door to our home. This diet of magazines (plus numerous books) should be quite enough for me to get somewhat comprehensive view of the world, at least if I buy some German magazines and newspapers every now and then. The whole purpose of this diet is to be aware, which is necessary for any systems architect worth the title.

Torture

In NY Times, Gene Oishi writes:

There was a time when the United States, using our prestige and moral authority, could join other nations in trying to help victims of cruel and inhumane treatment everywhere in the world. Not anymore.

It is really sad that things are as they are now. The UN just published a report telling, that torture is still rampant in China. In the past, US could have pressured China in this respect. Now, any such attempt is really hollow - and becoming even hollower as Dr. Rice travels around stating that "shut up, we (USA) do what is good for you, do not ask questions about torture, secret prisons etc". Too bad. The world really needs a sensible and responsible USA.

Monday, 2005-12-05

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene Descartes

Pedestrian crossings in Sweden

The Swedes have made a study and found out that it is twice more dangerous to cross the street using the the pedestrian crossing ("zebra") than elsewhere. They concluded that "zebras" give pedestrians false feeling of security, as the car drivers do not really give a damn about "zebras". So, the Swedes have decided to remove pedestrian crossing. Clever. What next? I remember that a study showed that ABS-brakes and automatic stability systems cause drivers take additional risk and thus get in more accidents. Ban them too! I also think airbags should be banned - they give drivers a false feeling of immortality.

On icecubes

Whenever I order a drink or just a glass of water in USA, I get it with ice-cubes. I understand, that ice is cheaper and selling it instead of Coca-cola increases profits, but I do not understand service ice with water, at least not in the winter. Tapwater is cold enough without ice and ice just makes drinking harder. It may be a historical relic: back in 1800s ice was a luxury item and getting it with water meant that the drinker was well-off, it was a status issue. Now that anyone can have any amount of ice (and cold), there is no need to show off.

On software and systems

One often reads that software industry does this, develops that way, is booming, is failing, or whatever. I think looking at and talking about just SW is really shortsighted. One must always look at systems at hole, especially at the value the systems provide, and how the system delivers the value, and how delivering the value benefits different stake-holders (users, producers, etc). For example, iPod contains SW, but nobody really cares of the SW. Also, Google runs some SW on some HW, but they provide value by letting us search information. Also, mobile phones have SW (lots of it, I think), but even I do not really care about the SW. I just want to make calls, keep track of contacts, get woken up in the morning, listen to music, etc. A good systems architect does not have SW fetish.

On nationalism

It seems, that those who are overly proud of their nationality, do not have anything else to be proud of. If one's life is miserably, one does not have any joy of achievement, one does not feel important, then being proud of one's country/nationality is a way of escaping. And from excessive nationalism there is all too short a jump to supporting wars. Thus, one of the best ways is to arrange society in a way, which allows all citizens peaceful ways of feeling proud. If everything else fails, supporting team sports is a good way of keeping nationalism at bay - or is it?

New pinball

MIT student center has a new pinball machine: The Sopranos. I played it today. It is rather entertaining, some loops are extremely fast and the ball comes back almost too fast. One has to concentrate or else the ball will be lost. The main thing to do is to crack the safe by shooting it, but since the safe is in the middle of the board, hitting it directly will send the ball back and out. It got 45 millions, free game limit was 50.

Ben Harper scared the sissies

Ben Harper's new record was not released because his record company is full of spineless sissies. They think that his lyrics are not suitable for US citizens to hear. Listen to the Black Rain and decide for yourself. (I got this via Circulus Vitiosus, a new rising blog.)

Moving UN away from New York

In the weekend edition of International Herald Tribune someone proposed moving UN away from New York. He claimed that selling the current plot of land would yield enough money to build a brand new UN-city with embassies, shops, schools, etc, in Montreal, Canada. I like the idea. It would also guarantee, that all head of states could visit UN, for the Canadians are less paranoid that the Americans.

No jet lag - rambling

I have no jet lag. I slept more than 12 hours, waking only at 11am today. Not bad. Now I have no excuse for not writing my thesis. Except that I must visit the local Chinese restaurant for my combined breakfast and lunch, get some money to pay my tuition and run some errands. Then I will stay in some library at MIT - this cave is too dark, cold, and, well, dirty for humans to work in. Yes, I will need to clean up before she arrives, but there is still some time.
By the way, we got again 5 out of 5 from the last Systems Architecting homework. It is such a pleasure to work with Bill and Wilfried. Kind of pity that we do not have any more HW to do - I think I have to find other things to work on with them later.

Sunday, 2005-12-04

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless. Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi

Snow and salt

It snowed maybe 3 cm today. Snow is the enemy number one in Boston, and must be removed and melted away by liberal use of salt. I just do not get it: why is it not enough to shovel the snow away, why is it necessary to melt all the snow and make all places wet? If the reason is some stupid law, which makes the property owners responsible for all accidents the snow causes (??), I have a simpler solution. Just place those "wet floor"-sign on the sidewalk. If there is such a sign, the property owner has no responsibility. Actually, just attach such a sign to all fences and there is no need to buy any more salt.

Black coats

I came to wonder why so many people wear black coats (long ones) in the winter. It seems stupid, since it is dark anyway and having a little color could cheer us all up a bit. Then I remembered, that in the past, when more coal was burned and there were no filters in the powerplants etc, wearing dark coat was a clever move - or, actually, any coat would have become dark in no time. So, I think that wearing dark coats is a tradition. All traditions are meant to be broken. Now I just have to find an orange coat with black seams. That would cheer up other commuters in Finland.

On WLAN

Using WLAN at the Helsinki airport costs 8 euros (10 dollars) per hour. It is way too expensive. It seems that the traditional telecom operators (Sonera in this case) are again pricing their services in such a way, that there will not be any real opportunities for creating novel business models on top of their bit-tranfer. I do not understand, why the airport does not provide free WLAN for passengers. They could develop service on top of the WLAN and make a lot of money. But maybe creativity is not in vogue.

Notes from Finland

Boring notes for myself, for the future use.
Sunday: at Olli's.
Monday: an interview. Later, meeting with Maunu. Discussing work and life. Way too much coffee.
Tuesday: visiting Aaro in his office, later visiting Masse, Merja, and the kids. Discussions on architecture and other important issues.
Wednesday: the intelligence etc test. I did it, once again, in 5 hours instead of 7 while reading 80 pages of a book on the cultural history of coal. Great fun, but more or less useless test - no need to really take it.
Thursday: another interview. In the evening, Thai-food with Tuula and S at Kok-Thai. Surprisingly good food, nice company, as it is always such a joy to meet Tuula.
Friday: train to Tampere at 11am. Selling my investments to get money for tuition. Visiting my father's grave, later having some beer and others intellectual detergents with my brother and watching Dirty Harry at his garage/clubhouse, until 4am.
Saturday: at my mother's with my brother. Idling, chatting, and of course eating smoked fish. Later, meeting Kö and foor beer and coffee at Cafe Europa, train back to Helsinki (napping until Kalkamo woke me up). At home, S cooked way-too-spicy fish balls.
Sunday: flying back to Boston. The taxi was waiting me, as they always are, outside my door. It takes 20 minutes from Helsinki to the airport. No queues at the airport, normal security checking, but they did not clean my laptop. Waiting, reading Energy at crossroads by Smil.

How to stay enthusiastic?

I have been so full of enthusiasm, joy, happiness and energy this year. I know that much of it has been because of living in a new environment, studying, not having to obey any empty authorities, and having had freedom to do things when pleased. Next year, I have to go corporate again. I like to do so: I can apply my new skills to new things, and I need to get my financial situation a bit better. But I am worried, though, whether I can manage to remain joyful, happy, enthusiastic when working full time. I need to develop some strategies for coping. Some simple things: not watching too much TV, not reading the yellow press or similar materialism enticing BS. Having enough exercise, and limiting working hours. Being unreasonable in everything, participating in politics, opera, theater, concerts, all these will keep me in good mood and surprisingly productive and happy. Or so I hope.

Friday, 2005-12-02

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true. J. Robert Oppenheimer

Lack of benches

I waited for the train for 30 minutes. I noticed, that the Helsinki railway-station does not have enough benches for the waiting passengers. Why not? What is the reason for not having benches? Are they so expensive? Is sitting down somehow a bad thing to do? Are they afraid of loitering? Whatever the reason, there is no valid excuse for not having benches. It is bad customer service, pure and simple.

Pricing of train tickets

The Finnish railway monopoly has a simple pricing scheme. The newer (and arguably faster) the train, the more expensive the ticket. All tickets in a single train (or train class) are the same. Most of the trains go at most half full. Since the operating expense of a train is almost independent from the number of passengers, it would make sense to have a pricing scheme, which would try to fill in the empty seats. After all, selling seats even for a few euros makes more money than not selling them at all. The airlines have used such schemes for a long time with great success. I do not understand, why the state monopoly cannot copy the ideas. Maybe it is because it is a monopoly, or maybe the upper management is just incompetent/nonambitious or something. Being a monopoly or state owned is not an excuse for being stupid.

Extra energy

Now matter it is dark outside, no matter the rain, the wind. I woke up, I was and still am too full of energy. Am I going nuts or is life just getting better while I get older? I think life is getting better, I always has, and it is definitely getting more interesting. So, today is again a great day, so many things to read about, so many new things to learn. Great!

Thursday, 2005-12-01

To create architecture is to put in order. Put what in order? Function and objects. Le Corbusier

Lock mystery

The front door of Our house (block of flats) is always locked. Before 9pm one can use a combination lock to open the door, so that we can key our way in. After 9pm the code lock does not work and we have to use our key. It does not bother me much, but it makes me wonder. Is it really so, that the thugs roaming the street after 9pm know the code and that's why the code lock is not on after 9pm? I have seen similar things earlier, and they have always been as mysterious.

Good marketing

According to Kössi an Italian shop in Tampere gives 10 percent discount to every customer, who is able hit the eye of Mr. Berlusconi with a dart. Quite a stand!

Not much happening here

Today's Helsingin Sanomat, the leading newspaper here, runs an article with the title "Two cars crashed each other head-on in Espoo". Well, I would have thought that having two cars doing so is the normal thing. If one or three would do so, that would really be news-worthy.

A plan

It is so dark and miserable here, that I am seriously considering having my holidays from mid-November to mid-January in some southern place. I think one could have 2 months of holiday by working some overtime in the autumn and spring. It would be just fine.

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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Blogs December 2005

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

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