As a follow-up to the article below about “low” and “high” culture, I decided to write a few words about the relationship between fashion and art. I visited the Espoo Museum of Modern Art last Sunday. The main reason for the visit was the Claude Monet exhibition which is on show over there, but I did take a good, long look at some of the more contemporary stuff that was on show over there. Although some of it was thought-provoking and interesting, I sometimes can’t help but wonder if some of the most creative people are not working as artists after all. There is a huge amount of creativity and depth in modern advertising landscape. Diesel is one of the big brands that has a long tradition of mixing art and fashion in their advertising, but after seeing a blog post about this Viktor & Rolf store in Milan, one can hardly blame them for lack of courage either. Sure, it’s a gimmick, but you have to give them props for actually building that space with that degree of accuracy and commitment. But.. just to put my personal view of art in perspective and for the record, I thought that the Borat movie was a great piece of concept art as well.

Posted by api at 14:37 - 1 Comment »

Modern Plasztikai Sebészet

The philosophy and technics of the operative procedure was developed only a few years ago, but our experiences on more than one thousand ears revealed the fact, that the operation is safe and well-tolerated by patients. We perform the operation as a one-day-surgery, mostly under local anaesthesia.

The procedure itself means a very careful dissection of the structures at the upper pole of the earlobe. The required reshaping is achieved by modellation of a specially designed chondro-cutaneous flap (a flap containing the own cartilage and skin of the patient). The new shape is fixed by means of absorbable sutures, skin closure is made with unabsorbable uninterrupted sutures.

Postoperative care is very important. The bandage protects the new ear for one week. Suture removal is performed after the second postoperative week. The result is seen immediately after the removal of the bandage, but total resoption of the soft tissue swelling and appearance of the very final shape usually needs three or four weeks.

I’ll be participating in a LARP conference this weekend. Upon researching the subject I found out that some people have actually commissioned pointy elf-style ears as a cosmetic surgery. This is a totally novel and exciting genre of body modification.

My own personal experiences with larping are limited to a few games of Steve Jackson’s Killer in the 1980’s. At the kick-off party I learned that there are still groups actively playing it.

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It is that special time of year again. Here’s a collection of images from my archives to enhance your holiday spirit.

If that didn’t help, try one of the Christmas radios

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RISCON Tokyo: Security and Safety Trade Expo 2007

*RISCON：A word coined from “Risk ( Danger, Crisis )” and “Control ( Administration, Management )”. This word connotes our aspiration to: “Control risk to the fullest despite unavoidable difficulty.”

Seriously, how far can you go with this anti-terrorism thing? It seems to me that in many historical periods there has been an external threat that has kept the society more or less organized.. keeping busy to keep the threat at bay.

Wrath of Gods, neighbouring nations, dragons, terrorist cells.. there is always something to keep an eye for.

Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but the it’s practically impossible to avoid this subject matter while keeping up to date with the modern media. I stumbled upon this picture while browsing China Daily!

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Bruce Schneier, dubbed as a “security guru”, has written a great article draft about the psychology of security.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SECURITY

Security is both a feeling and a reality. And they’re not the same.

The reality of security is mathematical, based on the probability of different risks and the effectiveness of different countermeasures. We can calculate how secure your home is from burglary, based on such factors as the crime rate in the neighborhood you live in and your door-locking habits. We can calculate how likely it is for you to be murdered, either on the streets by a stranger or in your home by a family member. Or how likely you are to be the victim of identity theft. Given a large enough set of statistics on criminal acts, it’s not even hard; insurance companies do it all the time.

…

You might feel that you’re at high risk of burglary, medium risk of murder, and low risk of identity theft. And your neighbor, in the exact same situation, might feel that he’s at high risk of identity theft, medium risk of burglary, and low risk of murder.

Or, more generally, you can be secure even though you don’t feel secure. And you can feel secure even though you’re not. The feeling and reality of security are certainly related to each other, but they’re just as certainly not the same as each other. We’d probably be better off if we had two different words for them.

This essay is my initial attempt to explore the feeling of security: where it comes from, how it works, and why it diverges from the reality of security.

I am a very security conscious person. I’ve had a few accidents with motorized and non-motorized vehicles and they were real eye openers in both literal and metaphoric sense. These days I always wear a helmet while snowboarding or riding a bike. I also spend extra cash on insurance, fire extinguishers, floatation devices and all kinds of gear and practices.

But this article did make me think… Am I investing all this time and money and effort just to increase the feeling of security or is it for a real, tangible, mathematical increase in safety? Like Mr. Schneier notes, it is true that people often exaggarate rare, but spectacular risk and downplay common risks.

One of the reasons that I’ve been pondering this theme is that I’ve recently been considering about getting a mortgage for the second time in my life.

The photograph above is of a Japanese “capsule hotel”.

Posted by api at 10:36 - 2 Comments »

Although I am not playing DAOC anymore, I was shocked to hear that Sanya Thomas is leaving EA/Mythic. There is an exclusive interview with her on WarCry Network. It is an interesting read although she doesn’t reveal much about the reasons for her departure. Good community management is indeed an incredibly important ingredient in creating a succesful MMORPG. I agree with her that her biggest contribution to the game industry was to demonstrate that you can be friendly, transparent and truthful while still maintaining a completely professional and official attitude. She is a great creative writer too. It’s a pity she doesn’t tell the names of her characters in the game, because I am sure that many of the players have talked with her in-game in incognito as well and would die to know who she really was.

Interview with Sanya Thomas

WarCry: When you began at Mythic, prior to Dark Age of Camelot’s launch, you were one of the - if not the - first community managers. Now it’s a full blown profession people can get an education for. Tell us about how you see community management, its evolution and your role in it.

Sanya Thomas: Oh, I wasn’t the first. Jon Hanna was the Ur-CM. And Gordon Wrinn was already famous before anyone ever heard of me. But I definitely have the title of longest-lasting. It would have been six years in June.

Somewhere, I have a copy of a message board post that says “she won’t last six months.”

Originally, community work was reactive. Something happened, and some poor schmuck was assigned to hit the boards and respond. Or worse, it was considered marketing, and not even GOOD marketing - carefully controlled information leached of all life by someone who wants to “control the message.” And either way, the community manager was to blame if players didn’t like what they heard. At a lot of companies, it’s still no different. Even companies that start well sometimes morph into a more marketing/reactive pose.

I think my greatest contribution was I demonstrated that it doesn’t have to be that way. I used my real name, and shared actual information. I felt that a community is a living entity that cannot be controlled, and deserves respect.

If you hire someone off the board who “seems really nice” and pay him minimum wage, you will get what you deserve. Community work is a professional specialty, with standards of communication, turnaround time, media responsiveness, and more. There are known benchmarks for message board personnel requirements, beta cycles, and professional behavior. There are techniques that can be mastered, assuming the basic skills are in place.

Good community is a little marketing, a little CS, and a little old-fashioned mud-wrestling on behalf of your players. It’s important to work with the whole team to achieve a consistent message, of course, but at the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the community weenie to stand up for players, for player feedback, and for realistic expectations. If that means a few bruises (from all sides), so be it.

Posted by api at 12:40 - 1 Comment »

• Almdudler is the second most popular drink in Austria after Coke
• Empress Elisabeth a.k.a. Sisi had a cocaine bottle the size of a salt shaker in her travel medicine case
• The max speed the GPS recorded at Ischgl was 76,6 km/h
• The canned sparkling wine is actually pretty decent!
• Flesh wounds take a lot longer to heal at high altitude
• TVTV has a widget for local tv programme. The local tv programme generally sucks.
• Alphaville has a free rental on your day of birth
• Remember to check out Ulrich Seidl’s other earlier work.
• Musik Kiosk has a “Sitzdisco” or “Sitting Disco” on Tuesdays. Dancing apparently forbidden.
• Aromat
• The banks act as ticket outlets for concerts.
• Remember to cover the flesh wound on head for today’s Nouvelle Vague concert so other bossa nova fans won’t get scared.

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iCarta-Atech Flash Technology

Now you can Enhance your Experience in any room with your favorite music from your iPod.

Features:

• 4 Integrated high performance moisture-free speakers deliver exceptional clarity and high quality sound
• Charges your iPod while playing music
• Audio selector allows you to play iPod shuffle or other Audio device
• Integrated Bath tissue holder that can be easily folded as a stereo dock
• Requires AC Power (AC Adapter included)
• Easy to remove from Wall Mount

For your information… the item above is a genuine “Made for iPod” product.

Posted by api at 20:38 - 2 Comments »

Suddenly the title, phone number and e-mail on your business card seem more familiar than the ones you used to have before the job. You know your colleagues better than your neighbours or relatives. All of a sudden you are forty years old and there is a reputation, a family and a mortgage to take care of. No more art projects, no more eccentric acquaintances, no more risky business.

Universal declaration of human rights

Article 1.

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

A career is a path, but so is life. Sometimes they are parallel, but sometimes they seem to split into different, unknown directions and you can’t really see into the hazy future to see if they are about to join again. It is at moments like that when you have to ask yourself: Do I really believe in the values of the organization I am working for? What is the difference between being a human being and a human resource? Will my final bottom line be written on my tomb stone or on my last tax report?

As you can see, I’m slowly emerging from a mid-thirties crisis and smoothly transitioning to a pre-forties crisis. I’ve once again been dreaming about a number of alternative, hippier lifestyles.

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After having found the excellent Hel Looks Helsinki street fashion site, I’ve been increasingly interested in the fashion scene. Our flat in Barcelona was located near the artisan area with several designer stores and I couldn’t resist the temptation to buy a new blazer by Modern Amusement.

I don’t like ties and I practically never wear them. Cufflinks are another one of those strange, useless fashion accessory inventions that I never fully understood. Out of curiosity (and a desire to upgrade my style), I decided to google around for a pair to complement the suit.

Fortunately there seems to be a good selection of cufflinks that are geeky enough for programmers.

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I can’t believe there are International Championships in Rock, Paper and Scissors

The expanded or extended version of the game pictured above is rather intriguing.

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Disco Stu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Disco Stu is a fictional, secondary character from The Simpsons. He is a disco aficionado and is usually featured wearing a rhinestone-encrusted leisure suit. He often refers to himself in the third person (putting a big emphasis on “Stu” and then pausing before saying anything else) and is noted for being mentally stuck in the Disco Era.

He first appeared in the episode Two Bad Neighbors, during a neighborhood yard sale day. Near the beginning of the episode Homer and Marge search their attic for items that might sell. Marge suggests Homer’s old Rhinestone Night’s Fashion Gun. Homer protests, “…I need it to rhinestone up my old clothing!”. Marge then holds up Homer’s old leather jacket complete with rhinestone lettering. “Who’s Disco Stu?” Marge asks, referring to the words on the back. Homer explains, “I wanted to write ‘Disco Stud’ but I ran out of space” then mutters to himself “Not that Disco Stu didn’t get his share of the action”. Disco Stu becomes a character later in the episode as part of a callback gag. Homer solicits his jacket to patrons of the rummage sale; One of them calls out “Hey Stu! You should buy that!”. Disco Stu is revealed and says, “Disco Stu…doesn’t advertise”. He was probably intended to be a throwaway character but he turns up in many later episodes.

We had a little house party last night. After dinner, an obligatory Sing Star session and a few cocktails we were ready to hit the local hot spot, Kaivohuone. It is owned by Sedu Koskinen, a well known restaurant mogul here in Helsinki. He operates a whole bunch of restaurants under the corporate umbrella of SK-Ravintolat. Just like Disco Stu, Kaivohuone or Kaivo as it is sometimes more affectionately referred to, is mentally stuck in a forgotten era. It’s well worth visiting if you are interested in seeing a big crowd of all kinds of pumped up people preying for a one-night affair or preferably even shorter relationships.

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Trixe Tracker

The daily sleep chart visually shows awake, transition and asleep periods on a 24-hour scale.
Sleep Telemetry breaks the sleep cycle into three parts: Putting your child down for a nap, falling asleep and waking up. Recording the transition time is optional, but it can be useful when setting up a sleep schedule. By tracking the nap start times, you can see if there are patterns in your bedtime and naptime routines.

I never realized how much scientific and statistic fun you could have by having a baby!

How Does Milk Inventory Work

Part 1. Creating Milk Inventory
When you record a pumping session, you have the option of tracking the milk as virtual inventory. To do this, you assign milk to different storage containers (bags or bottles) and indicate how much milk you are putting in each container.

Sleep Telemetry Tables! Virtual Milk inventories! Predictive Diaper Management!

Recording diapers is easy. You can either record diapers as they are changed, or you can input the information at the end of the day.

Anyone remember how home computers were marketed with recipe databases in the 80’s? I mean, how could you possibly cook anything without a computer based recipe database? How on earth could you take care of a real, live baby without a computer?

I find the Sleep Probability Chart especially fascinating.

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There were about 70000-80000 people at the Eurovision celebration party that was held three blocks down the street at the Market Square. I saw a lot of blood, some of it fake, some of it not. I also saw several stampedes about to start and someone who had passed out so bad that it looked like he might suffocate in his own bodily fluids.

All in all, it was a monstrous event in all respects.. the scale, the style, the crowd. A fitting end to this crazy Eurovision victory week I suppose. I have no complaints though. Lordi rules.

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I’m a returning visitor to Explodingdog. I’ve actually thought of buying one of his t-shirts, but the t-shirts are not as cool as the actual illustrations.

People send him title suggestions and he illustrates them. Here is some additional information about the process.

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