Earthquakes in Helsinki

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I am already back for a couple of days now. This Helsinki thing was going much too fast to be aware that I really have been there. Maybe I should have been a bit longer, but this was not because of the other thing. However, now I realize there were two other incidents I did not forget immediately. Both are pretty finnish, I guess.

In the area which you might consider the central shopping district I found a sign explaining the current mess of the vicinity: the pavement is about to receive an upgrade: under pavement heating. I am impressed. Of course, Finland surely has a totally different relation to snow and ice and we always wanted to have underpavement heating in our house, didn‘t we? But putting it below a pedestrian area can be considered cool.

The second pretty remarkable thing happened when I returned from Soumenlinna island (a romantic but tourist heavy spot in the Helsinki bay). I left the ferry board and walked the remaining kilometer to the Hotel. On my way, suddenly the earth shook: all the people around me stumbled and lost balance, held each other bumping against walls, no longer masters of their bodies. Unbelievable. Everybody struggeled: young girls, old men – everything out of control.

It took me second to realize that drinking in Finland is in use like mobile phones are.

Matrix Reloaded

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Hmm. I have probably looked forward to seeing the sequel to this excellent piece of art like almost everybody. When The Matrix showed up it made the Star Wars saga look pale in comparison.

What surprised me is that basically everyone of my friends told me the second part was more than a big disappointment to them and that it was an embarrassment and boring and so on. So I went to the cinema totally prepared to see the worst movie since The Phantom Menace.

What should I say? I liked it. At least, I think I did. I am confused by the loud opinions of my neighbourhood and I couldn‘t match the critique with my impressions. The action clips are pretty impressing although a bit long. Of course, there is a love story. And there is cheering crowds. And so on. I know. But I still think it is good movie.

But before I can form my opinion I guess I have to see it once more. Must focus, must focus…

READ_ME: The Yes Men

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The final session of READ_ME was a report on The Yes Men which is a loose group of people from New York that do some real world social hacking. Pretending to be the World Trade Organization and running the wto.org and gatt.org domains, they got invited to hold speeches on WTO issues at various locations. And they came.

The presented super-cool and absolutely way-out talks totally confusing the audience. The even more interesting outcome was that most people took their speeches for granted in no way doubted any of the „facts“ that are nothing but invented.

Also check out their „55 Most Wanted“ Card Deck for U.S. Regime Change!

READ_ME: The beauty of tty

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Just finished my second talk. No more talks to give. I am happy.

On the stage now is Amy Alexander as the Ubergeek performing live a wild mix of music and using a wireless computer keyboard to control extreme whitespace, a perl script popping out tons of lovely colored terminal graphics. Pretty nice to look at.

It is interesting to see how the „geeky“ design is gaining ground in the art sphere. The beauty of naked tty visuals is somehow telling a story from the mysterious and hidden depths of the electronic machines which somehow pleases the Zeitgeist.

Taxi driving in Helsinki

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When you think of Helsinki, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? For me (and probably for you as well) it is the movie Night On Earth by Jim Jarmusch. It is a great piece and tells the stories of five taxi drivers in five different cities around the world: Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Rome and – guess what – Helsinki.

The episode in the finnish capital is funny although it is by far the darkest of the five stories: three guys get a lift by a silent taxi driver. One of them is totally drunk, sleeps and his friends bring him home. During the ride, they tell the driver about his „sad story“ (got fired, his girl ran away etc. pp.) The taxi driver is not impressed and tells his personal story which is so dramatic that the passengers find the the fate of his friend no longer that moving and leave the taxi without taking care of him anymore.

Well, that doesn‘t sound funny but the perfect storytelling abilities of Jim Jarmusch make it a worthwile episode which blends in perfectly with the other (also great) international taxi rides making it one the best movies I have ever seen.

Calling a taksi in Helsinki is not without a thrill now. So far, the drivers were very responsive, helpful and even funny. I am looking forward to even more taxi rides in the remaining two days of my stay.

READ_ME: Auto-Illustrator

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Auto-Illustrator is a funny graphics tool. It is meant to produce vector graphics but it is adding some kind of unexpected features to what you do. It has got some intriguing features (like the „Penalty of death“ for refusing ugly graphics :-) and generally tends to do something else as originally intended.

Auto-Illustrator is written in Real Basic. I don‘t really like Basic (as a programming language) but it is interesting to see what people actually achieve using this specific incarnation.

Sauna Karaoke Disco

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I feel if I have never been introduced to the concept of „Sauna“ in my life at all. Just went to a party – in the context of the READ_ME festival – and apart from many people drinking a lot I also discovered a self-made hut made out of transparent plastic standing in the backyard. It had an oven inside and I thought „what a wonderful idea to have a warm room at the party“.

I called it „The Sauna“ but I didn‘t really expect it to become a real sauna at all. After some time I returned to the backyard to discover a naked crowd gathering in it (the tent was steaming like mad) singing and dancing inside following the karaoke text that was projected on a screen, k3wl.

Remote places have a tendency of being really wild. Finnland is really a part of this.

READ_ME: Paperikori

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Paperikori is an SMS based story writing system. You hook on by sending a SMS to the system and you can subsequently write SMS messages that continue the story already told by other people.

Well, at least this is how it is supposed to work. I just sent my initiation message but I did not get a reply so far. Nice project idea anyway.

Social glitches in a modern world

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Uhh. Don‘t believe the Internet!

I was clever enough to bring my own AirPort Base Station to READ_ME and to hook it up to one of the network ports on stage allowing me to liveblog from row four.

Sitting in the audience blogging about what is going on I was suddenly surprised to hear my name being announced although I was expecting to be the last speaker. What happened? Well, the organizers changed the order of the speakers and of course this change was reflected in the printed program that was given out to everybody.

But it wasn‘t changed in the online version which I was reading because I refuse diving into dead trees when I have Internet. Social glitches in a modern world.