Mane

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. John Cage First rain Today the rain finally came and caught me cycling. It was quite nice rain, warm and light. I enjoyed my ride from our office to home, some 35 minutes. I did get wet but happy. More rain, please, tomorrow. Decent weather is not good for spirit, inclement weather is: it makes one feel alive, close to the elements. Normal days Not too bad, some bouts of stress and anxiety for not being able to work with full speed, force and intensity. I am so work dependent, cannot just take it easy. But when I just do something, I feel better. Thus, I will have to continue blogging daily. At least. On Tuesday, we went to listen to Ethiopian jazz. There was a band with one Ethiopian member, but they played some elevator jazz. Boring. Standard, not dangerous. Fortunately we did not pay anything for the music. We invested our money in drinks and food outside the venue (we equals to...

iI think we have had a bad habit, as a species, of thinking of ourselves in our separate little pods. Now we have to think in terms of a global outlook. Maya Lin Interesting times coming The US housing market bubble is bursting. It is blowing forcefully enough to drive away the early hurricanes. It will be interesting to see, whether the floor really falls off from the market. If it does, Americans have to stop spending, for they cannot any more re-mortgage their houses. This could have some nasty consequences: maybe a refreshing period of recessions is just around the McMansion. According to Long emergency , the natural gas supply almost failed to meet the demand in the USA in the winter of 2003. The authorities had a clever plan: first shutting down some industries (plastics etc), then shutting down power plants, and only them cutting off heating of homes. The idea was that citizen would be happier while sitting in the warm darkness than in the illuminated cold. Accordign to the...

We are no longer, like Job, struggling with God, but struggling in a network of our own godlike powers that we have not mastered. Elting Morison, MIT Some new books — again Life has been busy and good. Some new books have also joined our library. New books are always welcome. Since the last entry: Jasenovac and the holocaust in Yugoslavia: analysis and survivor testimonies edited by Barry M. Lituchy — a very important book about the torturous past of the Balkans. Mr Lituchy, spouse of Riitta , has done a great favour both to the Balkan community and to the writing of history in general. I have read parts of the book and it is really interesting and shocking. There are two copies of the book in Finland. The other is in the Library of the University of Helsinki - check it out! Human-built world: how to think about technology and culture by Thomas P. Hughes — another great book by professor Hughes. The books tells how public intellectuals, engineers, scientist, philosophers, and nov...

He will sit here and he will say "Do this! Do that!". And nothing will happen. Harry S. Truman Hurricanes are coming The annual hurricane season is starting in the USA. According to NASA, there is an oppressive heat wave moving accross USA . As the wave moves, it will heat the surface water of the ocean. But the water is already warm enough for hurricanes . Brace yourself. The federal government is fully occupied by its wars of choice and by its obsession of hunting a few terrorists. The levees of New Orleans have not been repaired properly and will never be. Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs July to September 2006".

You can never plan the future by the past. Edmund Burke Random links for wasting time Some links, just for wasting free time etc. Thunder radar of Finland Rain, temperature, etc in the Southern Finland The biggest power plants How to talk in California, dude Grizzly bears in their own webcam 100 best books - a list 100 best books - another list 100 best books - still another 100 best books - 4th list 100 best books - 5th list Top-10 technoculture books for killing some extra time in a bar Rain Today it rained for the first time in about 45 days. Quite a relief, the air is clearer now, one can smell the vegetation, grass is growing. Maybe we could even get mushrooms, if we get some more rain soon. Murders and their places As we can see the terrorists have mostly attacked other places than airliners . Do not tell this to the security theater manager at the airport though. He will not be too amused. No fun In a TV-shop advertisement of a new training machine, the...

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. Richard P. Feynman Smoke It has not rained for a month now. The whole area is a tinderbox. In Russia, large areas are burning. We are getting the smoke, it is even getting inside our office and we cannot smell the sweet smell of inspiration and self-started motivation anymore. Check the location of fires yourself. Oil shortage in USA The US department of energy is about to open the strategic oil reserve, because BP's oil pipe broke in Alaska. The pipe transfers 8 percent of oil produced in the USA. USA does not produce all oil it uses, so we can estimate that the pipe will have an impact of at most 5 percent on the US oil supply. There is a simpler and safer solution for the shortage. Just enforce the existing...

No wife, no life. Indian proverb Support Antiwar.com Please, consider donating a few dollars to Antiwar.com . It is an excellent, independent news-site and collect news and commentary on the growing militarism. By reading antiwar.com one will stay uptodate with the latest developments and also find fresh ideas how to oppose the dark force, and stand up for the rights of us all. Telecommuting and fair housing One of the themes of the housing fare was telecommuting. Several apartments and houses had separate rooms for the home office. Does this development make any sense? Let us calculate. Assume that the home office has 10 square meters. It is a small one, but bigger than most cubicles. The average price in the fair was about 3000 euros per square meter. Thus the home office costs about 30000 euros, which is about (or above) annual net salary of an average office clerk. The average price of office space for a cubicle is maybe 500 euros a month, or even more. So, the more telecom...

There is a difference between being busy and being productive. Kristen Lippincott Standard humans In the Soviet Union, they attempted to create a "new Soviet man", who would be ideal for communism and the progress of the human kind. Of course, they failed as humans are varied and stubborn. In the capitalistic world, an attempt is ongoing to create a standardized man, kind of "new market-economy man". This attempt is going well and succeeding mainly because of limited scope: the standardization of human bodies, not minds. Humans should, to qualify as members of the new species, come in two shapes: obese & round or lean & gym-trained. If this succeeds, the advantages are huge. Not only does all logistics become easier, but political activity will cease as humans strive to perfect their bodies. Job hunting I have decided to apply for at least 5, but maybe up to 10 jobs today. I have collected job ads for two weeks now. Now I have enough of them to start ...

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule." Friedrich Nietzsche Studying new languages OK, I have now decided to study a few new programming languages. It seems that I am not taken seriously as a systems architect, unless I can claim knowledge of Java, C#, Ruby on Rails, Php, and maybe something else. Knowing C, Perl, Awk, Prolog, ML, Haskell, and SDL, is of no value in the current job market. It does not even prove ability to learn, say, Java. So, I have a question for my readers. Could you, please, refer me to the best books on Java, C#, Ruby, and Php? I will then read the books and write some programs in each of them, maybe even for mobile phones and the holy environment of Symbian. As it took me 12 hours to learn Perl back in 1997, this project should be doable. Brompton broken, extra energy, confusion Yesterday, I took my Brompton-bicycle to its first (complimentary) service. It was about the right time, for the rear ...

Keep on raging - to stop the aging. Dale Carnegie The joy oging To joy of aging is simple: presents. This year, my brother gave me different bottles of Bushmills whiskey, which is always necessary to have during the darkening nights of Finnish Autumn. It does not hurt to have warm clothes, which is something my mother seems to know well enough. And S knows that no present is more welcome than a book on military history. So, she gave me Poisoned Peace — 1945 the war that never ended by Gregor Dallas . It tells what Europe was like after the fighting ceased and how scores of people still died. The same is happening today in Lebanon, Iraq, Kongo, Sri Lanka, etc. So, I am now 38 yeards old, about half-way down to grave, but still raging and ranting. Weekend It was the first weekend in Helsinki in a month. Not too bad. Or not bad at all, although cleaning up our home was tedious, but well worth the result and nice words by mother and brother. It is surprising how messy a home becom...