Archives for "Recommendations"
Nice Guys Finish Last
Couple of photos from Grand One digital media awards last Thursday in Apollo:
Antti & me – guess which one the photographer liked more… 
Or perhaps I am just blurring out from the photo Back to the Future style, eventually disappearing for good.
Our contest entry, the Habbo Xmas Campaign didn’t win, but we still had great time in the jacuzzi where you can leave your hat on…
The last photo of the evening taken from the dance floor shows how nice guys finish last AND in style. Natsku and Jaffa are in the zone, Mario & me in the back are admiring the mysterious hand Jaffa is carrying on his shoulder.
Afterwards we conquered Redrum dance floor. And yes, Friday morning sucked big time.
Watchmen, Stormtroopers and Pon Farr
Stormtroopers + Prince Charles + Companion Cube + Admiral Ackbar = a motivated designer
I have been really looking forward to the film adaptation of Alan Moore’s and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. I first read the graphic novel masterpiece back in 1998 when visiting Chema’s home in Villamartin, Spain, and it immediately rocked my socks off. Chema has had a massive influence in my life; he also introduced me to Preacher and Sandman and I ended up doing my MA thesis about the narrative personas of Sandman comics. I remember sitting on Chema’s couch in Sevilla reading the complete Sandman saga in one go. This took several days, which he spent programming (the bizarre preference of old-skool green text on black screen) and listening to Pi soundtrack. I won’t ever forget crying uncontrollably, when I realised Morpheus was going to die. 
I also transferred from graphic design course to multimedia design in Uni after meeting Chema’s mate Syncro, who showed me how fun making computer graphics can be. Shortly put, Chema has changed my life in more than one occasion.
All this leads to recent fantastic news: Congratulations to Chema & Laura for their first child! Lovely baby girl Angela was born 18th of February 2009. I hope to come and visit you soon!
Back to Watchmen. The film was finally out in Finland last week. After a marathon of changes and delays in production, it was directed by Zack Snyder, previously known for directing Frank Miller’s 300. I was expecting the film to be done in similar style slow motion with limited colour palette, but was I wrong, the film felt nothing like 300 at all!
In the comic book Rorschach had been my favourite character, partly because the story narrative is told through his diary. However, in the film I really enjoyed the love story between the Nite Owl II (Dan) and Silk Spectre II (Laurie). They both had had predecessors they felt inferior to (Hollis Mason being the first Nite Owl and Laurie’s mum Sally Juspeczyk being the first Silk Spectre). In the comic book I merely saw them as weak dorks and sidekicks everyone was bossing around, but my favourite part in the film turned out to be them fighting their way together skillfully into the prison to free Rorschach (in the comic book they didn’t fight to get in, but I am glad they did that in the film).
A big reason why I didn’t relate as deeply to Rorschach in the film was that much of his character development had been left out of the story. Hopefully the extended version shows how Walter Kovacs really became Rorschach. In the film he felt harsh and a bit too much of a sociopath; the comic actually shows his reasons to get a new face – as he calls the mask – and the reader sympatises and understands why he left his old character behind. Another reason for me to look forward to the extended version is that it also contains the animated storyline The Black Freighter. And this is not all: the dvd will also include a documentary-style film called Under the Hood, which will reveal more of the character back stories. I am definately getting the extended dvd the first minute when it is out.
The film succeeded in changing my thinking without giving the feeling that the changes were wrong; the costumes had been upgraded and modernised to look sexy and that made the characters feel more cool. I wonder if Alan Moore would like this feature, since in his comic the characters were deliberately broken and faulty and very human. But then, Moore has said numerous times that he is not going to watch the film anyway, so doubt he will lose any sleep over the matter.
The squidless ending has seriously disturbed some people (see this hilarious video), but I can live with it. I will buy a pint for Zack for a job damn well done, if I ever meet him in person.
Another film I am looking forward to is the new Star Trek, which will be released in May. This new trailer was played before Watchmen and looked great on big screen!
More spice to my forthcoming Star Trek experience was added today by Chicago Tribune – this spring will be all about Pon Farr for me: three Star Trek-themed scents will be released on April 24. Two fragrances are for men, but the third one is where it gets good:
…it’s the Pon Farr perfume that may require a double take. That’s right, it’s for the ladies. Perhaps a great gift for mom for letting you crash in the basement for 50-some-odd years? Maybe not. It actually refers to the Vulcan mating ritual that occurs every seven years. So maybe this one’s only for special occasions?
Yay! I am definately up for some Pon Farr! I don’t even care what it smells like – I will order three bottles of it immediately when it is out. 
That should be enough for both special and not-so-special occasions to come.
Legocam, Floobs, The Witcher, Piratebay & Lex Nokia
Most of my friends know about my years old plan for 24/7 livestream Lego house, but so far I have struggled with both the bandwidth and the platform. Now that there is the brilliant new Finnish streaming tool Floobs (YAY ^^), I can finally do it. Since all my Legos are neatly packed in a storage box in London 
I opted for Huuto.net, the Finnish alternative for eBay. It only took a minute of ‘Buy it now‘ magic, a short train ride to Puistola to get the bounty and here is a photo of my weekend to come…
Now how much FUN is this going to be!
I will participate in Valentine’s party Saturday evening, because of the tiny voice in my head reminding me that I have to socialise more to meet guys that are not made of polygons. Blah blah yawn, but at least I got the whole Saturday morning for the ultimate coolness of building a Lego house from the scratch.
Talking about other fun things to do during the dark Finnish nights, I bought me a copy of a computer game based on Sapkowski’s best-selling book The Witcher – Thanks Bohdan for introducing it to me last year in Sydney . The stories are far from the typical fantasy-for-kids genre and at least the following review hints that the style has been maintained in the game:
If so desired? Hmm. Who wouldn’t so desire?
The Last Wish book cover
Even more cool stuff: this morning it was published that Google bought an old paper mill in Hamina from Stora Enso and will turn the empty factory to a full blown data centre. I first thought that the story was an April fool leaked too early, but it all started to make more sense when the news revealed that the real reason behind the deal was Google’s interest in Russia. Previously the Russian data traffic has been managed from Sweden, but the new FRA law, a Swedish legislative package that was launched in January, angered the Russians. Can’t blame them, since the FRA law “authorizes the state to warrantlessly wiretap all telephone and Internet traffic that crosses Sweden’s borders” (Wikipedia). What an idiotic law is that, and furthermore, why would anyone ever vote for it… This is madness
Now that Sweden was mentioned, I actually did recently ordered me a Piratebay T-shirt for support: the court case against four TPB related people begins next Monday charges being ‘assisting copyright infringement’. Several copyright holders are claiming over $100 million in damages. Phew, that is a lot of money. TPB will stream the audio of the trial online from their übercool bus a.k.a. TPB Media Center.
Enough for slagging off Swedes, Finland currently has its own ongoing legislative issues with the proposed Lex Nokia:
The so-called ”Lex Nokia” – also known as the ”snooping law” – would allow employers to investigate the log data of employees’ e-mails, if the company has reason to suspect that corporate secrets are leaking out of the company or that the employer’s communication networks are being misused.
It is a dorky proposal indeed, because it doesn’t only allow employers, but also schools, universities, libraries, councils etc. a greater authority than the police currently have. To gain access to similar information, the police need to get a warrant from a court if it has reason to suspect that a crime has been committed. It has been hinted that Nokia has been putting pressure on the legislation. In a country this small, the company the size of Nokia has a huge influence. I will keep my fingers crossed that the politicians do not vote for it: I have joined Pysäyttäkää Lex Nokia (Stop Lex Nokia) Facebook group and signed the online petition Pysäytetään Lex Nokia. Please, do the same, it is for a good cause.
Gratz: Nobel Peace Price for Martti Ahtisaari! Happy Global Anti-Piracy Day!
The former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his long lasting international diplomatic work for peace 10 December in Oslo. Yesterday Associated Press revealed a nice bonus prize for the job well done:
Scarlett Johansson will co-host the 2008 Nobel Peace Concert on Dec 11 in honor of this year’s laureate, Finnish peace mediator and former President Martti Ahtisaari, organizers said Monday, Oct 20, 2008.
I know many people who would choose hanging out with Scarlett over winning a Nobel Peace Prize any time. Dear Mr. Ahtisaari – make the best out of these two fab things coming up this December!
Last week saw the release of Max Payne film. It is based on the film-noir style third-person shooter computer game developed by the Finnish company Remedy Entertainment back in 2001. It was the first big major hit for a Finnish computer game industry, so I went to see how Mark Wahlberg passes as Max.
Max Payne computer game cover
Even though I am not a massive fan of action films, the film wasn’t actually that bad. I had completely forgotten about the game’s bullet time feature, which was used several times in the film. After The Matrix introduced the style it was the cool thing in special effects for several years. I very much enjoyed the visuals that are kept faithful to the game: rain, snow, shadows, darkness, corruption and dirt. The ambient pumping soundtrack rocked, too. It felt funny to step out from the cinema to a darkness and rain very typical for Helsinki in October. Extended film experience indeed.
Finally, Micosoft wishes all you little pirates and ninjas out there a Happy Anti-Piracy Day!
REDMOND, Wash., Oct 21, 2008: Microsoft Corp. today announced Global Anti-Piracy Day, a simultaneous launch of education initiatives and enforcement actions in 49 countries on six continents to combat the sophisticated, illegal trade of pirated and counterfeit software.
Piratebay, the largest BitTorrent tracker on the Internet also celebrated the event in their homepage:
Bill Gates made me do it.
Humanity, tolerance and the beautiful unnecessity
All the apples have been picked and processed, the real life harvest moon is over and Kaija’s cauldron is back in the box. Bet the dark matter would have been solved already, had Newton chosen to have his nap under this tree.
Information overload.
A view to the young pine forest
Kalle opts for a brand new Stihl 1D10 bush saw for maximum damage.
Everything but the pines must go.
This autumn I have finally had plenty of time instead of money and can do things I haven’t done before. Picking mushrooms is great fun – no joke. Whilst Chef Kalle prepares our daily 1000+ kcal lunch in his Trangia, I run around looking for mushrooms Mario style.
Chef Kalle
Look at the size of that thing!
The evenings I have burned a vainovalkea by the lake. Remember the scene in Return of the King, where Pippin lights up the Minas Tirith beacon? Similar signal fire system used to exist in Finland / Scandinavia warning people about the approaching invader fleets. Those were the times, my signal fire only burns for enjoyment.
The beacons of Amon Din are lit!
Let me stand next to your fire.
Kuusisto, Pornainen
) were familiar to him, too: According to the locals, he had a secret signal system warning him about approaching reporters that gave him enough time to sneak out to the nearby forest before they were able to get to his house.
Kieku & Kaiku comics colored by kids in Pornainen
Tässä maailmassa on paljon loistavia näyteikkunoita ja vaaditaan huomattavaa kasvamista yksinäisyyteen ennen kun voi kohtalaisen vilpittömästi huokaista itselleen: Noin paljon on sellaista mitä en tarvitse. Tällä en tietenkään tarkoita vain esineitä. On olemassa muunkinlaisia turhuuden markkinoita. Itse annan suuren arvon kauniille turhuudelle. Se helpottaa ja tekee elämän siedettäväksi. Mutta se ei koskaan saa kädä itse tarkoituksekseen. Tällaisenkin kiusauksen voittaminen, jos sen pystyy voittamaan, on suojelevan yksinäisyyden ansiota.This world has plenty of bright display windows and it takes a lot of personal growth to loneliness, before one can say without any hesitation: There are so many things I do not need. With this I do not mean only objects. There are also other kind of markets for unnecessities. Personally, I give credit to the beautiful unnecessity that releases the pressure and makes life bearable. But it must never become the reason. Winning the temptation, if one can do it, happens through protective loneliness.
Laukkoski and Jokimäki schools combine forces
Brelo live.
Wikipedia: There can be found some similarities between Väinämöinen and wizards in fantasy literature, first and foremost among them Gandalf in J. R. R. Tolkien‘s The Lord of the Rings. Both are unearthly sages of divine origins, both in possession of unearthly knowledge. Another wizard of Tolkien’s, Saruman the White, possessed a great power of voice and persuasion, which also somewhat mirrors Väinämöinen’s (who was able to charm all manner of woodland creatures with his song and kantele). Tolkien indicated that his stories of Túrin Turambar were a retelling of the Kullervo myth from Kalevala so it is possible that similarities between Gandalf and Väinämöinen were intentional or unconscious rather than coincidental.
A view to my room
The fire is crackling in the fireplace. I will go and enjoy it for as long as it lasts.
Congratulations, Thankyous and one Millennium Falcon
13 September at 4:34am Becks gave birth to a baby boy Joshua – congratulations Becks, Dan and Isaac! Emma and Garry are tying the knot 19th September in Belfast and as Herbs is the best man, it will definately be a party like no other. And even more great news – Lovely Spaniards have spent their summer celebrating the victorious Euro 2008 and the results will be visible next spring: Laura and Chema will have their first baby in February and Macarena and Jose-Maria become parents in April. Here’s a message from no less than God: “Breed and reproduce in great numbers” (Genesis 8:17). Congratulations to everyone involved – the world is definately heading to right direction.
Some are born, some are getting older… I turned 34 on Thursday and was congratulated first in the morning by Captain Picard. Andrew C spotted our favourite French space ambassador in Paris. In Andrew’s own words:
Spending a lot of time in Paris too, saw this shop while I was over there last weekend (it’s like a really upmarket iceland!) and thought of you
Shopping's done, beam me up!
Shortly after followed Simon’s and Andy’s collaboration; a remarkable showcase of cutting edge design and Javascript:
Hello Venla,
Simon and I have discussed in detail and we are both very very proud of you. Therefore we have made you this birthday card to celebrate how lovely you are. Bye!
Andy
Screenshot for those with Javascript (WOW!) turned off.
That interactive magical piece seamlessly combines all my interests and also reminds us about the not-enough-celebrated fact of XML turning five years in 2003. Simon and Andy have spent numerous sleepless nights to create such a harmony. Thank you everyone, being 34 has never felt so good.
___
For added entertainment, my niece Aino and nephew Oiva joined me for a green birthday cake. Their words of wisdom left me both bemused and puzzled:
Venla: Did you know that if you eat green birthday cake, your skin will turn to green like Hulk’s?
Oiva: Who’s Hulk?
Venla: The alter ego of Bruce Banner – Stan Lee’s Marvel comic hero, who involuntarily transforms into the giant, raging monster Hulk!
Oiva: (spitting cake with excitement) Yes, yes, I know that! It is the one with the transparent glass and little men inside him flying in space with the hundred eyes and wings!
___
Aino: You are not coming out to play with us?
Venla: Not today, I feel a bit ill.
Aino: Will you die of it?
Venla: Healthy young people usually do not die that easily. One gets ill only to get better.
Aino: (puzzled) But you are not young! You are much older than mum and dad!
___
Oiva: Your Lego character has a light sabre!
Venla: Yes she does, but she is not as good as Yoda. I’ll show you some proper epic battles from Youtube, so you get to see how the real pros fight.
First we watch Yoda fighting Count Dooku and Darth Sidius followed by classic Episode 1 scene where Darth Maul kills Qui Gon.
Venla: What did you think. Cool huh?
Oiva: My dad doesn’t allow me to watch these at home.
___
Oiva: Do light sabres exist?
Venla: There are some, but they are made of plastic and not laser. They are well cool, they have different colours, they make sounds and you can fight your friends…
Oiva: …can you cut heads off with them?
___
Oiva: Look what happened in the Star Wars game!!!
(Hands over a slimy, drool-covered DS)
An unexpected customer
Millennium Falcon fills the whole starting room of Mos Eisley Cantina and can’t be removed or pretty much moved at all. Wonder if Amaze Entertainment ever had any game testers capable of achieving similar havoc, they should hire my nephew right at this point.
I now know Millennium Falcon FITS in the Star Wars, Star Wars cantina…
Cheap Gatwick – Helsinki Flights and other stories
Great News: In the beginning of November Easyjet starts to fly between Gatwick and Helsinki and the prices are cheap. A return flight costs around fifty quid, when booked in advance. If you’ve ever thought about a trip to Finland, this autumn is good time to do that. You might even get a native guide to show you around 
Nintendo DS bought from Bangkok has turned to a huge hit with my four-year-old nephew Oiva. Hours pass by and the little guy just can’t get enough of Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy and Lego Indiana Jones, The Original Adventures. The strength of both games is that these cute Lego characters have unlimited lives in their puzzle adventures. Once a story (level) has been played through, it gets unlocked and can be accessed again and again. Nimble auntie is still needed to unlock the stories the first time, but it looks like she won’t be needed much longer… I watch in awe how quickly a kid learns; Legos, Star Wars and gaming combined, I support this hobby full heartedly.
Learning the basics of Nintendo DS
Sudoku and Spanish language games on DS will be tested with my 60-year old mum Kaija some time soon.
Talking about mum, all the apple trees in Laukkoski are bursting and she has become proper hardcore in the neverending process of juice making. When passing the kitchen and her bubbling cauldron, I witnessed these labeled bottles and couldn’t stop laughing:
Liian makea omppumehu
Liian makea omppumehu, ‘Too sweet apple juice’. I pointed out her peculiar labeling, but she didn’t find it funny at all. Instead, she informed that
When I mix the content of these bottles with the previous set of liian hapan omppumehu ‘too bitter apple juice’, the resulted combination will be just perfect.
(Yes, she did a degree in chemistry in the University. One of her wisdoms is: “Everything is chemistry”, which seems to answer pretty much every question I’ve ever asked her.)
Another wise Finnish woman, a priest and journalist Hilkka Olkinuora was recently interviewed in Teema for her new book Elä Ihmeessä! Her revolutionary idea of “On OK olla tavis“, ‘it’s ok to be average’ is refreshing; Western culture emphasises people’s uniqueness and individuality and even though it is encouraging to think that everyone is special, it also increases the pressure to succeed and the fear of failing. Olkinuora’s viewpoint is both comforting and merciful.
Less comforting are the results of a research by Professor Adrian North of Heriot-Watt University that link music tastes to personality. “The aim of this survey is to investigate the importance of musical preference in different aspects of everyday life. We also would like to see if it can have an influence on one’s significant relationships.” Go here to participate in the online survey.
Roi recently defined my favourite music genre as nynnymetalli, ‘wimp/loser metal’. The research defines metal fans (rather accurately to Roi’s definition) as:
Low self-esteem, creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, at ease
No one has ever called me ‘not hard working’, ‘not outgoing’ ‘gentle’ or ‘at ease’. I am very much the opposite of all those attributes. I go through the results looking for a more suitable music genre for the hard working and outgoing people and the result is – country and western! Curse and damnation!
P.S. The task took couple of years to complete, but I finally finished watching the whole seven seasons of Deep Space Nine: 176 episodes, 45 minutes each adds up to 132 hours or five and half days of Star Trek. Time well spent – I might not qualify as a Trekkie, but you can call me Niner anytime:
Star Trek fans who believe Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the best series of the franchise adopted the title of Niner following the episode “Take Me Out to the Holosuite“, in which Captain Benjamin Sisko formed a baseball team “The Niners”. (Wikipedia)
Nerdy and nice. Wonder where I should proceed next? Captain Picard beware…
A rogue night-elf
WOOT! The Sword of Azeroth!
IE7 is giving me a headache
Favicons work great in every other browser, but after a long pointless fight IE7 (www.ie7.com still makes me smile.) still refuses to view it. This is rather odd, since .ico file is a windows image file format to begin with.
I have this simple one liner in the header.php file, so there is not that much margin for error:
<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.venla.net/favicon.ico”/>
The latest Flock, Firefox, Opera and Safari are all happy with it. I have checked all the forums, but still can’t get it to work in IE7. Anyone, any ideas – I’ve started to think that ignoring IE7 might be a good general rule.
Flock, Opera and IE7. One of them is wrong.
Tomb Raider: Underworld is released in the UK on 21 November. Time flies, it’s already 8th game in the Tomb Raider series, I haven’t bothered after the 3rd one, but I admit Lara was fun when she first appeared in what…1996! BBC is showcasing some pics of the new marketing face of Lara, and damn, she looks scary.
A weekend of ripe apples, Kalkkijazz and The Guild
The days are rainy, nights are getting darker and the apples in the garden get bigger by day. Last weekend we were picking Valkea Kuulas apples in Laukkoski.
There are still plenty of apples left, but I need to start quickly experimenting with apple recipes. Does anyone know how to make cider?
A modern Eve and a web-monkey
I am trying to re-establish my relationship with the nature after the years in London. The coming weekend I plan to go to look for mushrooms.
Last Saturday we drove to Kalkkijazz, a one-day-one-stage jazz festival taking place in a random but interesting setting outside a Nordkalk, a chalk factory in Sipoo in South coast of Finland. Sipoo is the rebellious countryside neighbour of Helsinki that has been in the news in negative light the past year or so. The capital area getting densely populated (in a Finnish scale and Helsinki needs more land to house the new inhabitants. Sipoo was not willing to give much demanded land, so it was taken by force. Wikipedia describes it:
Helsinki announced plans to annex a part of the municipality in order to respond to population growth pressures. The Finnish state council voted in favour of the annexation on June 28, 2007
Sipoo couldn’t live in the past forever. The capital area is growing and Sipoo is now finally having to face the facts. Its eternal love for countryside and green meadows is at the same time amusing and painful to watch, but the times are changing nevertheless.
Few empty chairs make a typical Sipoo festival
The jazz was great and program varied remarkably; a four-piece harmonica band Sväng, Iiro Rantala trio featuring saw-playing Irina Björklund, funky Tuomo Prättälä band, Claes Andersson’s jazz trio (Finnish MP and previous Culture Minister) and talented singer/piano player Anna-Mari Kähärä. I really enjoyed the variety of music styles.
The weather was cold but sea breeze and live jazz make good for the brain. It was actually so cold that the bar ran out of coffee instead of beer, which is not the usual thing to happen in Finland.
Kalkkijazz was held in this charming setting
The chalk covered the soil
Another great discovery of the weekend (thanks to Lorry) was The Guild:
The Guild is a independent sitcom webisode about a group of online gamers. It is written for gamers, about gamers by a gamer. Episodes vary from 3-6 minutes in length, and follow the Guild members’ lives online and offline. The Guild is the winner of the YouTube and Yahoo 2007 Video Awards for Best Web Series, as well as recipient of the SXSW/On Networks 2007 Greenlight Award for Best Series.
It is genius and so painfully and adorably accurate. I recommend it for all you fellow gamers out there.
The climax boss fight is about to begin… spot the rogue, anyone?
(a screenshot from The Guild final episode)
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