One of the most universal aspects of various subcultures in the Western civilization is appreciation and pursuit of everything that is “cool”. There are dozens of different kinds of cool: Steve McQueen cool, Miles Davis cool, Snoop Dogg cool, James Bond cool, Bjork Cool, Steve Jobs Cool, Kaurismäki Cool etc. The difficulty to precisely define what makes something cool is in fact one of the most certain signatures of all cool things.

A lot of people devote countless hours in trying to improve their personal aura of coolness. There are two factors that usually work in all scenarios and many people concentrate on them. First of all you need to have some sort of secret and hard to obtain knowledge that can be shared with your peers as valuable drops of trivia to be used in their own quest for coolness. The second important thing is to appear to maintain your composure and remain under control in all situations. Freaking out, messing around, raising your voice or waving your limbs uncontrollably will likely make you “lose your cool” in the eyes of your peers.

The pursuit of coolness may hinder your learning process in other elements of life. Sometimes people who have plenty of cool do not have much else. The willingness to make a fool out of yourself and let yourself make mistakes will help you obtain other individual and valuable characteristics. Embrace erros and failures as an integral part of success.

Even if you don’t initially enjoy a new style of music, a new art form or the way that some people interact or lead their life, do not condemn them and put them in a mental wastebasket just for not being cool. By doing that you will gradually lose your understanding of the big picture and drown in your own increasingly shallow pool of approvable ways of doing things. It is an ever present danger for all connoisseurs of subcultures.

On the 16th of November in 1974 an crude 1679 pixel image was broadcast to space from the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico. It included simple, low resolution images of human beings, solar system and the formula of DNA.

After 34 years another message is being broadcast towards an earth like planet called Gliese 581C. The transmission is being sponsored by Bebo, a social networking site. The content of the message is a collection of the most popular images from their users based on a vote.

Please observe how the increased resolution of imaging technologies and our magnificent advances in the understanding of the universe and life itself are present in the content of this new message.

In 1982 Steven Spielberg bought the Rosebud sled used the film Citizen Kane

Substance:
That which underlies all outward manifestations; substratum; the permanent subject or cause of phenomena, whether material or spiritual; that in which properties inhere; that which is real, in distinction from that which is apparent; the abiding part of any existence, in distinction from any accident; that which constitutes anything what it is; real or existing essence.

Cathexis is a Freudian term referring to the process of investment of emotional energy to an idea, object or a person. Although I’m not a big fan of Freud (and who is?), I do think that he is onto something with this particular concept. People do, more or less consciously, invest serious amounts of time in contemplating about their favorite thoughts. Whether they are about ideas, physical objects or persons is really irrelevant.. you become more and more emotionally attached to your “pet thought” as you pet it by thinking about it. This is a mental mechanism that enables advertising to work so well. It enables products to be sold for much higher exchange value than their actual use value is. A beauty product is not only some cheap mixture of chemicals in a jar, but a symbolic vessel of an entire lifestyle carefully constructed by the manufacturer and the marketer of the product. A heirloom signet ring of a family is a circular, metallic concentration of generations of memories and traditions. A special photograph or a letter can be the most valued possession of a millionaire. Emotionally speaking, objects like this are worth thousands of times more than a seemingly similar, but a “non-authentic” e.g. copied or pirated object. Even if it has the exactly same signature, logo or picture on it, a non-authentic object may fail to satisfy the emotional desires of the observer.

As technology proceeds and memories are more and more frequently stored in digital form, an interesting dilemma with emotional attachment is bound to emerge. When a particularly meaningful photograph is originally stored only as a digital file only, are the identical, bit-for-bit copies indeed as good as the original? Will people store and cherish old e-mails, screen shots, text messages and chat transcripts with as much care as people used to store their love letters? How about the cloning of pets and, who knows, perhaps even children in the future? The insurance companies sure are careful to include a clause to not compensate for the “emotional value” of anything.

Cathexis is often a pro-active process. An individual’s hopes are sometimes projected and concentrated onto a single target. It might be their family or a business venture or a piece of art they are creating. The more time we spend thinking about a single subject, the more dependant we become on it. In the film Citizen Kane, the word Rosebud written on a sled is a token for poor, but happy childhood. It is sometimes worth to stop and think over what are the most valuable Rosebuds in one’s own life. They are often much more vulnerable and fragile than you might initially think. If you do not prepare for it, suddenly you realize that you’ve lost some of them only when it’s too late. A loss of inspiration or dignity can be just as devastating as a loss of a friend or, to some extent, even health. To quote another great film, Fight Club…

You’re not how much money you’ve got in the bank. You’re not your job. You’re not your family, and you’re not who you tell yourself. You’re not your name. You’re not your problems. You’re not your age. You are not your hopes. You will not be saved. We are all going to die, someday.

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.

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.

(Update December 16th, 2009: As J pointed out, this image is indeed a digital manipulation. The clinic seemed authentic enough so I didn’t notice it myself.)

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.

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

*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!

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”.

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

cbs5.com – Bush Marks Earth Day Mountain Biking In Napa

President Bush marked Earth Day with a lung-busting mountain bike ride high above Napa County wine country, dodging ruts that sent several of his riding partners crashing into the mud.

The president spent Saturday morning with a small pack of riders in a foggy redwood forest about 90 minutes north of San Francisco. He relished the swampy conditions on parts of the trail in this remote state-owned tract, leading his partners repeatedly through huge puddles and streams running high after weeks of heavy rain.

“I still ride the mountain bike primarily to help settle the soul and to burn off the excess energy one gets when you’re living life to its fullest,” Bush told an Associated Press reporter who accompanied him on the ride.”We’re able to enjoy the beauty without really disrupting the pristine nature of the place,” the mud-splattered president said after the 65-minute ride.

“It’s a classic way for mankind to enjoy God’s gift. Plus, we get some exercise.”

Ahem, I believe the news piece above needs no additional comments.

Speaking of pristine nature, the Banff Mountain Film festival show here in Helsinki was a big success. The films were very well chosen and represented a wide variety of viewpoints ranging from a documentary of a 79 year old polish paraglider to mindblowing big air powder film “Person as a projectile” and extremely entertaining and informative “Parallelojams” which was about crack climbing at Indian Creek, Utah.

15 euros well spent.

“Viral” and “contagious” advertising campaigns are no longer just a buzzword at the cubicles of trendy and youthful ad agencies. Sometimes agencies are just slapping a viral component to compliment an existing, more traditional campaign. It seems like they did something like this with the Sony Bravia advert web site. Well, even that approach works occasionally, as you can see by this blog entry itself.

Stimorol Kiss Off on the other hand, has obviously been designed from the ground up as a viral campaign. Kudos for the great idea and execution.

(EDIT: well, I’m ready to take my words back. After seeing the actual battle, I must say that the execution was a bit chaotic and messy after all)

For the last week I’ve been doing all kinds of security related maintenance duties on my computing environment (read; laptop, desktop, web server), but I also found time to read the classic steam punk novel, Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. It won a Hugo award way back in 1996. It’s hard to believe that it was a decade ago. Anyway, it features an interesting mix of futuristic technology and cultural concepts combined with a strong influence of Neo-Victorian “decorative” elements: robotic mounts, cylinder hats, ink pens and all that.

Neo-Victorian fashion has been a sleeper trend in many subcultures such as the goths and the japanese underground street styles. I decided to google around a bit and try to find some images of people going all out with this Neo Victorian thing, but it wasn’t such an easy task. All I really found was a band called Rasputina.

Some of the recent big media names more or less related to this subject are:

• Wild Wild West
• Madonna
• Sleepy Hollow

Do you look like your dog?

Someone is making a book on the subject and is accepting entries from dog owners around the world.

I’m not exactly sure how this metamorphosis works, but obviously it’s a real and universal phenomen.

Simplified Sign System

Abstract
A simplified system of 500 signs is proposed to enhance the communication abilities of hearing, but nonspeaking, autistic, mentally retarded, and aphasic individuals, as well as their caregivers. The system contains formationally modified signs originally collected from more than 20 formal sign language dictionaries, and invented signs for the specific needs of the special populations. To evaluate the sign’s iconicity and ease of formation, each sign was presented to undergraduate student participants unfamiliar with sign languages. The simplified signs were presented together with their English translation equivalents in 6 lists of 20 word-sign pairs. The students were cued for sign recall by the English words immediately after each list was presented. The students’ sign recalls were scored as perfect, essentially correct, wrong sign, or no response. All signs recalled perfectly by at least 70% of the participants became part of a simplified sign lexicon. Signs with more than 30% non-perfect scores typically were either formationally modified, redesigned, or discarded.

When was the last time you had to talk with your hands, because the person you were talking to couldn’t understand your speech?

It’s relatively easy to get by without speaking in environments such as hotels, taxis and restaurants, but trying to handle more complex communication tasks without knowing the language can be really challenging.

Often it is easier to draw what you mean instead of trying to talk with your hands. There are also “visual dictionaries” that have drawings or photographs of common objects and situations which can make the task much easier. Playing games such as Cranium is good practice for trying to get other people understand what you mean. I think that games like that should be an integral part of modern basic education. Some things are just so much easier to learn when you do it in a playful way and enjoy what you are doing.

Obviously there is also the engineer’s point of view to this dilemma. I’m not sure if computer assisted real-time translation systems are ready for prime time, but Sony has released an interesting Sony PSP title called Talkman to bridge the language gaps. It is basically a real-time translation software with a multilingual virtual bird called Max. The software comes with a special microphone.

“Bring the art of language to your gestures, put words behind the shrugs, turn Spanglish into perfecto Espanol, make the move on the girl or guy in that foreign bar who catches your eye – in short, become a jetsetter able to communicate in six languages with more than 3000 crucial phrases at your fingertips,”

I spotted this warning sign on the Interislander ferry from Wellington to Picton.

Here’s a news story that’s completely unrelated, but goes well with the picture.

Hell’s Angels rumble with Disney

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) – The Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Corp. is suing a division of Walt Disney, Buena Vista Motion Pictures and a film production company for infringing on its trademark in the development and production of “Wild Hogs,” a comedy about middle-aged bikers.

The motorcycle club says in the suit that it never approved Walt Disney Motion Picture Group’s use of its trademark, and that the film studio has repeatedly exploited the Hell’s Angels name as well as its trademark design featuring a helmeted, horned and feathered skull while publicizing the “Wild Hogs” movie.

Disney (Research) and Tollin/Robbins Productions have repeatedly referred to “Wild Hogs” as a movie about a “group of middle-aged wannabe bikers look(ing) for adventure out on the open road, where they soon encounter a chapter of the Hell’s Angels,” according to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

“We believe the suit is without merit,” Disney spokesman David Caouette said.

Yesterday while I was doing some grocery shopping I spotted a couple with matching windbreakers. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so the simulated mug shot will have to do. This is a unique Finnish fashion phenomen. Couples with exactly matching windbreakers are not that hard to find. What made this mid-class couple special was that both the man and the woman were wearing a similar ear ring, they both bought a package of similar sausages and top top it off, they both bought a pack of LM cigarettes. Their only shared purchase was a 10-pack of beer.

It is essentially a mini-team that consists only of a husband and a wife that share similar sneakers, windbreakers, walking sticks… anything that can be worn or used in the everyday life and isn’t gender specific. I’m not sure what makes all this happen, but I suspect it has something to do with the female partner being a bit of a control freak, general lack of stylishness and a passion for saving pennies. It reminds me a bit of parents who have kids with mullets.

Technology, like beauty, is sometimes only skin deep. Our minister of culture recently bought a fake Prada from Italy. I don’t really think there is any excuse for such a high level official to make a mistake like that. Her only comment on the matter was: “In that case I shouldn’t have paid so much for it.” Would it have been OK if she had paid less?

I don’t think she fully understands the concept of intellectual property. She is a former beauty pageant and has made an impressive career as a politician, but she has recently stepped on a lot of toes by promoting the new strict copyright law that comes into effect on 1st of January, 2006. It forbids, among other things, the importing of pirated media from abroad. Each individual is responsible for finding out if an item he or she purchases is genuine or not.

The creation on the right was apparently sold to someone as a Dlink USB Wi-Fi adaptor.

Pepsi has a campaign here in Finland that allows you to exchange 1000 points to a Vaio Laptop prize. Each bottle has a code printed on it and one code is worth one point. I’ve heard of a lot of people who have gone all out and bought 1000 bottles just for this specific purpose. What will all this do to Pepsi consumption graphs during the next few months? I bet they will plummet like a Stuka.

EDIT: Incidentally, there is plenty of Pepsi for sale at the local eBay copy cat site: http://www.nodium.com/articles/264_a-slippery-slope/

From the series "Stop Your Fighting" by street artist ELBOW-TOE. Acrylic on vintage army hat and toy soldiers and wood blocks, epoxyed to loading dock.

Matti Nykänen in Wikipedia

Matti Nykänen (born July 17, 1963 in Jyväskylä, Finland) is a Finnish ski jumper, and inarguably one of the greatest in that sport, winning five olympic medals (four golden), 15 world championships medals (six golden) and 22 Finnish championships medals (13 golden).

Since the 1990s, however, his status as a celebrity has not been fueled mainly by his sport achievements, but instead by his colourful personal relationships, his career as a singer, and various incidents often related to heavy use of alcohol and occasionally violent behaviour. Nykänen has been in the headlines of tabloid newspapers more often than any other person in Finland.

The never-ending interest in his escapades speak volumes about the national character of Finns. A two tone pixellated photograph of him was featured next to portraits of Kekkonen, Jorma Ollila and Andy McCoy in the Finnish Heroes series in the museum of contemporary art a couple of years ago. The picture of Kekkonen, our former mythical president, was made of Sisu sweets and white velvet of the graduation hats. Hanoi Rocks guitarist Andy McCoy, a figure not too different from Nykänen, was made of white and brown sugar cubes. Jorma Ollila, the head honcho at Nokia, was made of black rubber (in their industrial congloremate days, Nokia used to be known for their rubber boots) and bee wax. Matti Nykänen was made of Eucharist wine and bread. Those materials were chosen because no matter how much he “sins”, the media and people will always forgive him. In the process, they also purify themselves.

Myth (noun) : A popular belief or story that has become associated with a person, institution, or occurrence, especially one considered to illustrate a cultural idea

Here’s the Quicktime trailer of the movie about him.

I haven’t seen a mullet in ages. I’m sure that it will become fashionable again at some stage. Let us not forget that it was indeed the Hairstyle of the Gods. Surprisingly, you can find this hair style on some old statues in museums.

Mullets Galore

ASLSP – John-Cage-Orgelprojekt Halberstadt

The pace indication “as slow as possible” for the organ piece “Organ 2/ASLSP” by John Cage poses this question. John Cage, born in 1912 in Los Angeles and died in 1992 in New York, was a student of Henry Cowell and Arnold Schoenberg. After Schoenberg, there are only a few composers in the history of the modern music with a similar meaning, not only in the development of the new understanding in music but also beyond the border of the acutal music producing. John Cage was a philosopher, a painter and a man of letters. Behind all of his work one can feel the need to “create awareness” for music, for behavior pattern and for our own ability to think. In 1985 ASLSP was created as a version for the piano but in 1987 John Cage changed it for the organ at the suggestion of the organist Gerd Zacher. 10 years after that, in 1997, on a symposium for organs in Trossingen, the question how one can understand “as slow as possible” and how one should perform the piece came up. Organists, musicologists, organbuilding workers, theologians and philosophers talk about the technical, the aesthetic and the philosophical aspects that can meet the title and the piece.

You can support the project by sponsoring individual years of this 639 year long organ piece. The last year, 2639, is unfortunately taken already.

First Class Isn’t What It Used to Be

We know how frustrating air travel can be. That’s why we offer comforts that bring out the best in business passengers, like our on-board massage therapy. With five amazing treatments to choose from, it’s no wonder why more of our passengers arrive rested, relaxed, and dare we say, smiling. So, go on, fly Virgin Atlantic Airways and see why Upper Class is rubbing everyone the right way

And if you can’t get enough pampering in first class, you can always buy a private jet or two and build your own airstrip at home, like Mr. Travolta

Emirates Airlines has fully enclosed private suites in their planes. The price of a flight from New York to Dubai is a mere 8999 US dollars.

We used a bunch of colored lights to decorate the living room for a
seventies theme party. They create a rather pleasant atmosphere. I
have feeling that they’ll stay in place for quite some time.

Osram Partylux

The biggest “trade show” of alternative and hippie culture, Burning Man festival in Nevada desert is over for this year. This year they had a huge maze-like installment called Funhouse which featured a number of art projects.

Contemporary art sometimes takes itself too seriously, but it sounds like these art pieces are all very approachable and easy to get.

2005 Funhouse Installations

Glow Theatre
by Amy Shapiro

Participants stand and pose against the glow-in-the-dark walls of Glow Theatre while 500-watt lights are briefly turned on, charging the paint with light so it glows. Step away, turn around, and your shadow is frozen onto the wall. The image fades in a few minutes and the next pose automatically erases the previous pose. Groups of people can use the Theater to create descriptive tableaux which tell stories or to create abstract patterns. The glow paint walls can also be drawn or written on using flashlights.

A lot of the pieces in the Funhouse deal with the “inner self” and other Zen stuff in true hippie tradition. I wonder if there is a festival like this in Europe as well.

Young George Washington, Art student living off girlfriend, Billy Idol, Wili the former skinhead… a few of my alter egos kindly created by Synecdoche.

We’ve outdone ourselves with this Halloween prop: completely realistic alligator will lunge forward and attempt to eat your guests.

Frightcatalog.com is selling a variety of Animatronics props. The prices range from a few hundred dollars all the way to 14900 dollars for Hot Seat Extreme

Maybe they are mostly catering to amusement parks and other such attractions, but I’m sure there are plenty of rich, eccentric rock stars and other individuals who buy their stuff as well.

If you are interested in Animatronics in general have a look at this link:

Animatronics Resource Site:Gallery

Mark Jen’s blog

on january 28th, 2005, i was terminated from google. either directly or indirectly, my blog was the reason. this came as a great shock to me because two days ago we had looked at my blog and removed all inappropriate content – the comments on financial performance and future products. for my next entries, i was very cognizant of my blogging content, making sure to stay away from these topics. i mean, as much as i like to be open and honest about communicating to users and customers, i’m not insubordinate. if i was told to shut down this blog, i would have.

Find your target, dive in, do a little disclosure blog stunt by criticizing your employer in your personal blog, explode in a brilliant flash of publicity.

Then perhaps cash in with a a book deal like Washingtonienne or just use the publicity to your advantage in some other ways like Mr. Jen. See the feature story at Simplyfired.com

From what I can gather, his blog is obviously damaging to the company and I am not surprised that he got fired. Some of the other employees had probably complained about it as well:

Quote at Outer court

I regret to inform you that Mark Jen was fired from Google on Friday, January 28th. I don’t have any details, but I can tell you that he was quietly let go. An e-mail was sent out to the entire company, letting us know that the matter many had written to management expressing their concerns about, had now been taken care of. I initially thought that this meant that Mark had been told to be more careful about discussing company financials, but it soon became apparent that Mark had left the company. I can only assume that his silence since that date means that they either threatened him or cut him a sweet severance deal. Whatever happened, it’s a sad day when you can’t speak openly about both the good and bad at your chosen place of work without getting silenced.

I think every country has had one or two of their own miniature “leaked through a blog” scandals by now.

I do appreciate free speech, but to me Mark Jen’s incident seems like a case of cash in Kamikaze blogging. I don’t think it was intentional, but after the fact he did squeeze every bit of publicity out of it that he could.

The Zen of Sports

In Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Csikszentmihalyi identifies a self-surpassing dimension of human experience that is recognized by people the world over, regardless of culture, gender, race, or nationality. Its characteristics include deep concentration, highly efficient performance, emotional buoyancy, a heightened sense of mastery, a lack of self-consciousness, and self-transcendence. Csikszentmihalyi calls the experience “flow”; today’s athlete calls it being in “the zone.”

The zone. All athletes know it, strive for it, prize its attainment. It is that realm of play in which everything-skill, training and mental discipline-comes together, and players feel themselves lifted to a level of peak performance in which limits seem to fall away.

The schools around here in Helsinki are starting tomorrow. I just read that there are about 1000 students less (finnish link) than a year ago. Where are all those missing students going? I have no idea.

Nodium looks pretty much like the blog that is being criticized in this article. Oh well, at least I got rid of the “BOAT FOR SALE” ad.