Societal Rage
So i was heading up the escalator at Pasila train station here in Helsinki.. The custom here, is that if you don't want to walk up the escalators, you stand on the right and ride it up. If you are in a rush, you take the left "lane". Simple things, nobody gets hurt.
Enter fat fucker. A woman walks up next to me on the left side, taking a few steps and then stops, blocking the left lane. So people, supposedly in a hurry, walk up to her, and ask (and i'm not shitting you) politely if she could let them pass. Her reply? "No. And you're not allowed to pass people on the left!". I start giggling like an idiot, and she starts giving me the evil-eye, which i promptly ignore and continued laughing. People pass her anyway, which was a feat on its own, because she was a fat bastard. I bet she does this every morning, and gives everyone the same old reply, just to.. i don't know? Make someone elses day just a little bit more difficult? Channel your own rage about being fat on other people? Maybe a little of both. I just find it hard to believe why someone would intentionally just try to piss people off. Makes no sense and just causes a stir.
Had someone been extra stressed out that morning, that fattie might have accidentally tripped and fallen down 10 meters of escalator. And i will add a picture here of my probable emotional reaction to that hypothetical scenario:
Sufficed to say, if you act like a prick, you deserve what's coming next. I'm not encouraging violent acts, by any means, but i'm also not saying i might not enjoy them. Convoluted enough? Good.
The Failure of Politics (updated)
In Finland we now have a record six party rainbow coalition government. I wish rainbow would imply certain things, but alas, it does not. I basically had three points that were very important to me during the last parliamentary election:
- We don't stop building nuclear power (if needed), but also don't stop developing alternative energy.
- Women retain the right to abortion
- Same sex couples allowed to marry and adopt children if they want to
And let's see, yes, all of these are now scrapped and fucked over. Basically, during the negotiations that took place in order to form the new government, the Christian Democratic party imposed some terms, that needed to be accepted for them to enter into the new coalition. Now, as a reminder to my esteemed readers, the Christian Democratic party (henceforth CD) has a 4.03% share of the votes (6 representatives in the parliament, out of a total of 200), which is the lowest they have had since the 1995 elections (when they had 2.96% of the votes). This is pretty much one of the smallest parties in the entire parliament, which is how it should be in my opinion. So how come they get to make demands? Basically they said that they will enter the coalition as long as discussion on same-sex adoption rights and marriage rights are put on hold at least for the next four years, and that abortion-laws are reinspected (and supposedly made stricter).
Yes, welcome to the 1950's.
I wonder what kind of deals were made behind closed doors that made the other five coalition parties agree to these draconian deals. I am amazed that anyone could feel these issues are unimportant or minor! They are, in my opinion, some of the defining points of a modern, western society. And since do minority beliefs dictate majority rules? I am just shocked.
I honestly wonder, if the had of the CD party wasn't a woman (Päivi Räsänen), would they want to remove women's right to vote? Or maybe they could try to get stoning as a valid legal punishment?
And what is the problem with gay people? People, this is the 21st century! Honestly, Räsänen, IIRC, pulled the "i have a lot of gay friends"-card when the issue was brought up, which of course makes her exempt from critique. After all, how can a person who has gay friends have anything against them! I have a black friend, therefore i can't be racist no matter what i do! What a can of worms. As an aside, a poll conducted last year shows a majority of us Finns support same rights for same-sex couples. So i stress again, when the majority of the people are of a certain opinion, how do the opinions of 4% factor in?
So until this government is dissolved (fingers crossed), or four years passes, we're stuck with these fucking 19th century views of the world. It never seizes to amaze me how in 2011, we're still making government policy based on ~1800 year old writings that have been redacted, translated, re-translated, re-redacted, and ultimately, probably written by a bunch of goat-herders who just enjoyed a really good batch of mushrooms, or a nice big spliff.
I wish Räsänen would just sit down and take a nice big hit, and stop being dumb.
Edit Seems like, after the negotiations were done, the adults stayed in the room and made a deal of their own, ignoring the views of the CD. Of course, not long after, CD chairperson Räsänen came out saying "No, we were not duped". Whatever dudes, whatever.
Edit 2 - Added the poll about same-sex rights.
I don’t like Estonia – My review of our trip to Saaremaa
Last week the company went out for a small kickback session to Saaremaa, which is an island north of the Estonian coast. "Small" is a bit of a misnomer, because we were away for three days. As with any trip with Finns, the trip involved copious amounts of alcohol and shenanigans.
So a short background blurb here: The last time i was in Estonia was .. 10 or more years ago. And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming.
The trip started on Wednesday morning with me waking up at seven, returning the keys to the old apartment, then rushing back home to leave the car at the parking lot, then taking the train downtown, then the bus to the terminal. Luckily i made it with time to spare. Board the ship, which left at.. 10? Anyway. The trip's to Tallinn have been getting shorter and shorter, but none the less, the ride felt agonizingly extended. We were seated in the Business Lounge, which is *barely* ..bearable. With bears. The ship was a Superstar by Tallink. A fairly decent sized boat for such a short trip. The Business Lounge consisted of rather comfortable booths, Satellite Internet-access (which resulted in a funny message that was like from a movie. get to that later), and an open bar + buffet (with a decent selection of spirits, i might add!). So if you do find yourself traveling to Tallinn (too bad for you), at least book in the Business Lounge. It's not that much more expensive and worth the money.
The shitty part about traveling by ship to Tallinn, is that you have to sit in line and deal with the drunk schmucks that make up most of the traveling populace. See, in Finland, alcohol is by alcoholic-standards rather expensive. If you were to work a regular job, and not spend all your money on drugs, alcohol and tobacco, you could maybe afford to buy your drinks here. "Booze-tourism" is what drives the Helsinki-Estonia "tourism", for the most part. The other part is, i guess, business men of all sorts and your occasional recreational (*cough* whores *cough* ) traveler. These people are in addition to drunk, rude, inconsiderate and in my fucking way. They act like traditional Finnish travelers in that they block all corridors, talk loudly and act like a general nuisance to the rest of us. And if you have the audacity to question or oppose them, you will get your head smashed in or a knife in your neck.
Once in Tallinn, we had a chartered bus take us to Saaremaa; a four hour drive. We arrived at a very nice looking manor in a rural area. Cows and sheep in the backyard, all very nice and calming. The following days included lots of drinking, some recreational games, lots of drinking and a 8 km walk to the coast where we had some salmon soup on the beach.
The way back felt even longer. I slept part of it on the bus floor. We got back and hit a spa to chill until the ship leaved. This was probably the best part of the trip. There was a bar that served drinks straight to the jacuzzi. This was pure win, and it cost next to nothing. The best part of Tallinn seems to be that the prices are consistently cheap (although rising all the time, since Estonia joined the EU).
Back at the terminal i am once again confronted with typical Finnish stupidity. The boat leaves in over an hour, and there are 200 idiots standing in line. THE BOAT IS NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU UNLESS YOU ARE CONSIDERABLY LATE!
This same fucking phenomena repeats at airports as well. As soon as there is even a whiff of a plane closing in on the terminal (even if it's still two hours away), these stupid fucks will line up even when they have a numbered seat and a guarantee that the plane is not leaving without them.
FUCK.
While this kind of behavior is nothing unexpected from this idiot population who votes for a populist right-wing POS party, i'm still annoyed. I mean.. i can understand if you have a train or something to catch. But half the boat can't be late for public transport. And on top of that, who among these has anywhere important to be anyway. Oh yeah, i guess they have to sample the forty gallons of booze they are carting home. Time is of the essence!
I bloody overheard conversations of how to get the maximum amount to fit in a certain model of car, or how many cents they could save by getting this brand as opposed to that brand of some liquor. Two hints: Cut your hair, and get a god damn job.
Ok so rant mode is almost over. There are a few essential details which annoy me (tongue-in-cheek):
1) The country is still a disorganized mess, trying to find some direction to go to. They now have the Euro, which is nice and all, but it is not a saving argument. The general attitude is "eh, let things roll and don't bother with details". While this may suit some people, it doesn't suit me.
2) The language is an incomprehensible mess (like Finnish), and i'm not sure who copies who, since the two languages are very close
3) They have the same national anthem as we do (why?)
4) Finnish people go there en massé to get booze, which annoys me to no end, and makes me not want to go there
So in conclusion, i don't like Estonia, and i won't be going there any time soon again.
Pseudo-Review of “Zero Day” by Mark Russinovich and other stuff
I'm currently reading "Zero Day" by Mark Russinovich, and to sum things up: for the first time in a very very long time i'm actually considering abandoning the book before reaching the end. I'll try to explain here what i mean by this. Even though i have not reached the end, i can safely say that i can't recommend this book to anyone interested in a *solid* techno-thriller. But anyway, spoilers ahead.
I bought the book based on..what? Maybe a tweet? Maybe it was Amazon who recommended it to me or something. I'm not entirely sure. But i had just finished Bret Easton Ellis' latest book "Imperial Bedrooms" which was.. well rather bland as well, and i was looking for a good read.
Zero Day starts out fast, exciting, like a real techno-thriller. But very soon, the reader will become aware that the book is written with a very very specific audience in mind: A person who is male, young and unaware of the ways of "hackers" and computer crime. Reading this book i feel almost insulted at times. I could for instance not recommend this to anyone who is easily offended by the objectification (is that even a word?) of women. The book reads like something written by and/or for horny teenage boys. Almost every (it may even be every) female character in the book is portrayed in a flirtatious manner. Like all women are raucious perverts, just looking to be fucked. Almost every "scene" describing a female character, no matter how minor, includes descriptions of things like men oogling the woman's ass, breasts, how she looks, or she may talk in a flirtatious manner, proposing sex or just generally acting like sluts.
I thought it'd apply to just one or two characters, but this has to be a god damn joke, because i have never seen such horniness in any description of the IT industry. Where are all these big-breasted, ample-assed always-horny IT-expert women? I need to know, now.
Seriously.
Another annoying thing, that drives me mad, is the chapters where the protagonists are discussing on instant messenger, irc or whatever. The language is silly, and made up and not how people talk, anywhere! Christ! Do you have to put up a big sign saying "this is how hackers talk!!" by making the characters talk like fucking language-impared imbecilles? Sure, sometimes people talk in leet-speek, but this has become kind of an in-joke at this point. I've seen 14 year-olds express themselves quite clearly, and i find it very difficult to believe that 30-something IT-industry experts would sit in a chatroom writing sentences that lack most vowels or are otherwise compressed to the point of utter annoyance. It would actually take a concentrated effort to write like the characters in this book.
I have about 70 pages to go, and i'm so tired of these repeating themes. Oh and one can't forget the continuous references to 9/11 (that's September the 11th for people who write dates in a way that makes sense). I get that it's a central plot point, and Al Qaeda is the pseudo-boogey-man, and how arabs are evil and the towers fell and the planes hit and oh the humanity. I don't think it's a very effective plot point at this point anymore, but then again, i'm not a US citizen. I don't have the lifelong emotional scars.
This just.. doesn't work for me. I might recommend this to someone who is entirely outside this industry, this scene if you may. But under no circumstances would i recommend this to anyone who has spent more time in front of a computer, or who would like to read something about like cool cyber hackers (the word cyber also appears on nearly every page, which means, if you're playing the Pauldotcom drinking game, you'd be dead by page 100), about criminals and terrorists and Osama Dead Laden, and how horny the girls are in the IT industry (not). But if you for some reason wish to read about this stuff, by all means, pick it up. A casual reader looking for a sure-flowing thriller might enjoy this book. I'm not sure i can finish it, because i find it so insulting to my intellect. And i write this without even a hint of arrogance, trust me.
The other stuff
Another chapter of miscellania. Most of the stuff is now in boxes or bags. Keys will be picked up on Friday. We're on the waiting list to buy Assembly 2011 tickets (me and H, P, M and O, at least). The other people, well.. they don't seem too interested, as nobody has contacted anyone about tickets. But i guess that's for the better.
This will probably be my last year. It's a fitting end too. It's the 20th aniversary Assembly, and i'll get to show H what the fuzz is about. I also realize i've said this for the past three years. But you can't trust me!
We're rewatching Twin Peaks, and we just saw the episode with David Duchovny as Dennis, sorry, Denise. A brilliant episode, and a brilliant portrayal by Duchovny, keeping in mind that this was before The X-files started. Wonderful.
With B, we've discussed multi-dimensional objects, probabilities of intersection in finite and infinite spaces. Standard stuff.
Also wrapping up Mad Men Season 3, which is a great series to watch. Looking forward to the 4th season on DVD, whenever i can get that for a reasonable price. Also, Flash Forward, though i have only seen the first half of the series. The box is a bit pricey in Finland at the moment, so maybe i'll wait to get it. I'm not sure they showed the entire thing on TV, and considering the fact that i don't watch TV anymore (haven't watched more than an hour a week for the past two years), it's unlikely i'll see the remaining episodes there.
More assorted ramblings for week 21/2011
So this past week has kind of sucked ass in multiple ways, most of which i will describe as this post grows longer.
This week was spent learning about Horde 4, which was kind of a good start. But i dunno the rest of the week has been so-so. Yesterday i was going to attend a meeting that was supposed to start at 14:00, according to the mail the meeting organizer sent out the day before. So, a colleague drives me downtown, and since we were in a bit of a rush, we took the subway to the end destination. The problem? I had no more time on my "metrocard" which i thought i did. I figured, two stations, i can't be so unlucky as to be ticket-inspected.
Oh how wrong i was.
When i get to the station, and get off, i see the row of inspectors checking everyone getting off the subway, making sure they all have valid tickets. Most of them did. I did not. My own fault. Using my quick intellect (sarcasm here), i order a mobile ticket and walk up to the inspectors. My ploy failed, as the ticket has a timestamp, and the rule is that you need to have a valid ticket when you enter your departing station. So i was fined 80 bucks. This is the first time i've messed up, and the first time i've been fined. And i've been using public transport since i was seven!
Slightly miffed, i walk, fine in hand to the office where the meeting was supposed to take place. And then they tell us we are half an hour early. And we are like "Bitch, the mail you sent out says 14:00, not 14:30". And inside, i'm hurting, because i figure, if i came half an hour later, i would not have been fined.
Aaaand to top things off, the meeting was a total commercial bust, with scarcely anything worth my time. So a total fucking waste of time and money.
Today was time for the annual inspection of my car, which is mandatory in Finland. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to pass, since it already has about 160 000 km on the meter, and it has had it's share of problems. And oh how right i was. Turns out i have to fix three different items, then have it re-inspected within a month. And all this will cost me about 300 euro in all. Wonderful.
I just also paid the 1000 euro security deposit on the new apartment, so i'm not exactly swimming in cash. This sucks.
On the other hand, this time next week i should be typing away at the new apartment, all nice and clean and with fast connectivity. Bliss.
Oh also, my MRI results came back "negative". No, to everyone's shock, turns out i do have a brain! But nothing of concern. Two minor structural "differences" from the perfect theoretical brain, but nothing that merits any action, further inspection or concern. So i'm fine. Which is kind of a relief for me. I was kind of concerned, but then i'm a hypochondric of some degree.
Don’t push me now cause I’m close to the edge
Ok so today was one of those days. I figured writing about today's events would help ease the fucking throbbing pain and dull suffering feeling that I am experiencing.
First i woke up at like 6 AM because my girlfriend noticed her bus-card was .. lost.. at work or somewhere and she needed a ride to work, which starts at 7 AM. So i get up. Drive her to work. And since i'm a fucking retard, i decide to drive to work early. Get to work.Someone else is there too, in-fucking-credibly. And there's freshly brewed coffee! This day may yet be saved!
The morning is spent doing various administrative tasks, more or less routine stuff, nothing too exciting. Change a backup tape here, check on a storage system there..
Noon rolls around, and suddenly, a task which was supposed to have two weeks left, has to be done on friday. "On friday is good enough, it doesn't have to be "before friday", one of my bosses assures me. Great. Calendar already swamped, i desperately try to delegate. Then i come across a Solaris problem. I'm showing a new LUN to a server, and it's simply not seeing it. Google is full of "Oh run cfgadm -al and all your problems will be gone!". Well listen pal, they are not. devfsadm, devfsadm -C, devfsadm -c disk, luxadm probe.. whatever i do, the LUN is simply not showing up. And every god damn page is the same, try this fucking magic, it'll work, i promise! I would like to do a boot -r but as we all know, that's not always an option.
I try removing some un-used LUNs. That works fine! So it must be talking to the SAN! Re-add the same LUNs i just removed? Not showing up. Na-ha. So i guess i have my work cut out for me.
Don't get me wrong, i love a good conundrum. But sometimes these things just accumulate and fuck up your day.
Ok so, i leave the problem, which i hate doing, because i have to make it to the bank. The bank, which is supposed to serve the fucking working population, is open only between 8 and 16:30. This is when regular fucking people are at work. I guess physical banks are for pensioners and fucking bums, eh? The problem is, i had some cash that needed to be deposited, and there's no other way to do that, than to visit an actual physical bank, and talk to some dude, who will look at you funny because you walk in with a wad of cash, thinking you've stolen it from somewhere. "Where did you get this money, sir?". And i'm trying to think of something witty to say, but end up giving him the real explanation: it was just my birthday. I know it's their job to ask when the deposit is over a certain sum, so uh... terrorists i guess? can't deposit money to fund their illegal activities. And if i were a terrorist, i'd be sure to say "Oh these? They came from various drug deals and illegal arms trade"
So i deposit my cash, and go to the store, which i already know will end in fucking tears and disaster. Everyone and their grandmother is out shopping because it's a special fucking day: Monday! So i do my shopping, trying my best to avoid human contact, weaving and ducking inbetween the unwashed masses. I make it to the check-out where, to my dismay, the fat lady infront of me is trying to pay for her shopping with a piece of paper. So i shoulder-surf the paper and see that it's from the welfare bureau. I look at the check-out lady, who is ready to commit suicide because she has no idea on how to handle this as a payment method, clearly. I sympathize. I sold household appliances for two-and-a-half years when i was studying, and saw my fair share of those notes. They are a bureaucratic nightmare to handle.
So then, as the check-out lady finally figures it out, the fat customer-lady has the audacity to ask if she can swipe her bonus-card as well, and the check-out lady tells her she can't. So let me get this straight: She gets my money from the welfare bureau and then she wants bonus for her shopping too? I was nearing the breaking point.
I pay for my shoppings, which come out at less than i had expected; just about the only positive piece of news i've had all day. I pack my stuff. Prepare to leave. And then i see him: The Shadow.
The Shadow was an infamous nutcase from when i sold electronics back in the day, in East-Helsinki. He would drop by every now and then, wearing the same clothes, and an old casette Walkman (which i doubt played anything). He'd walk into the store, and find a customer who was discussing with one of our sales guys. He'd then smooch up real close to the customer, uncomfortably close, so that they get disturbed, and he'd say things like "That TV is cheaper in this other store!". He never bought anything, and we always threw him out, because we were not allowed to resort to physical violence.
So there he is, in the flesh: The Shadow. Wearing, probably, the same clothes, the same motherfucking walkman, and muttering to himself. I overheard just one sentence, which was nearly enough to throw me into a homicidal rage: "There's so many people here because they are playing hockey today on the TV!". He said this to nobody in particular, and walked at this unnaturally fast pace toward the exit.
I swear i just stood there with my groceries, staring blankly. I hope i wasn't drooling uncontrollably, but that may not have been far. I made it home, and after ranting about all this to my girlfriend, i had to come and write this down.
Assorted updates, week 18
This week has been mostly about preparing for the move, which will take place at the end of the month. The new apartment is hopefully ready at this time (the day it is supposed to be ready is 16.5). If not, well, then we have 100 square meters of stuff with no place to go. Maybe i'll dump it at the office....
Speaking of the office, there's been a lot of cool stuff happening there as well. New hardware coming in, new stuff to learn. It doesn't seem to be slowing down toward the summer just yet. Lately, i've mostly been learning more things about IBM hardware, VMWare and installing a very cool piece of IBM Power7 hardware. Work is more interesting than it ever was!
But back to the other stuff. Moving is arduous business. There are papers to be filed, documents to be signed. And the packing of the god-damn boxes. So far i've:
- Canceled the old rental agreement
- Signed the new rental agreement
- Sent in a paper to the maintenance company to take our names off the door etc. by the end of this month
- Sent in a paper to the new maintenance company to put up our names at the new place
- Arranged for the transfer of my power contract
- Arranged for the transfer of the home insurance to the new apartment
- Official moving announcement to the magistrate
- Ordered 30 boxes to put our stuff in
- Arranged for a van (thanks B)
And i'm stressed out of my mind.
On top of this, i'm participating in a research on early detection of psychoses (as a control patient. don't worry, i'm not that crazy just yet..), which included an extensive neuropsychological questionaire and test, an MRI scan, and some labwork. The MRI was fascinating business. The device was a 3 Tesla scanner, by General Electric. That's a pretty powerful magnetic field it can generate, there. The scan took a little over an hour, and consisted of one anatomical "classic" scan, at a high resolution and different angles, and then two different fMRI's (functional MRI), which measure brain activity during (in this case) answering questions, and watching a 10 minute clip of a movie. The scanner takes one (quite low resolution) image every 2.3 seconds, and then makes a "gif" out of the activity, which can be correlated to whatever question or thing you were watching at the time. This was then processed by a very powerful HP workstation (an xw8400 if i'm not mistaken), and then burnt on a disc and sent to a radiologist. I was allowed to look at some of the images, and boy was that cool! Turns out i do have a brain in there!
I sold my aquarium, and it's being picked up on saturday. This means i won't have to move it ever again. It's kind of sad at the same time, but i'm glad to get rid of it. It's been with me since 2005, and i've had an aquarium for the past.. what.. 15 years or so? The last original fish, an armored catfish, had survived for about that time, died a few months ago. It was probably more than 15 years old.
I came into posession of a Linksys WRT54G last week, but to my dismay, it was a version 7, which has the Atheros chipset, instead of the Broadcom, and is therefore about as useful as a cock-flavored lollipop. It's not supported by any of the major distributions of "router linux", openwrt or dd-wrt, and there are i think no plans to add support either. A bit sad. But maybe it'll get a good home somewhere, or i'll figure out a way to put it to good use. My OpenBSD router/pf machine crashed last weekend, i think due to a faulty secondary hard drive. I didn't spend too much time debuging it; instead i just took out the drive (a Western Digital Green-series 1TB drive..my second of this type to break), and put in a smaller drive. Since 4.9 just came out, i decided to upgrade to that while i was at it. Install went well, and pf config was mostly intact from 4.8. I think they corrected some feature with the built-in egress-macro (?) , because it now worked better than in 4.8, where i decided to use my own macro instead.
Ubuntu 11.04 is also out, but i clicked "Don't upgrade". Unity can suck my ballsack, and i don't think i'll ever upgrade to that. It's very possible that 10.10 is the last iteration of Ubuntu i will ever use, unless they somehow magically decide to backtrack to a sensible UI. KDE isn't an option, and well, while i like XFCE, i don't think i would run that as an everyday WM. I have been looking into Arch, and it seems like a solid choice. I have been using Linux for 12 years now, so maybe it's time to take the training-wheels off anyway..
I got my Sony fail-mail last friday along with, oh, 77 million other people. I don't own a PS3, but i have used PSN on a console, and registered for an account. I didn't use a credit card though, luckily, so at least i won't have to cancel that. And i'm lucky in that i very, very rarely use the same password anywhere, so i won't have to worry about that either. But still, it's nice to be a part of something bigger than me! Sony started blaming Anonymous a while ago, due to, alledgedly, a file left on a system that has the words "Anonymous" and "We are Legion" in them. That qualifies as proof i guess. And hey Sony, maybe if you play the blamegame long enough, nobody will notice that you (alledgedly) had an unpatched box on your fucked up network that enabled the attack in the first place!! I mean, if it was Anonymous, then who the hell cares about anything else, right? How about this instead: You man the fuck up, and say: Hey, we had an unpatched box, and we stored and trafficked data in an unsecure manner. We're sorry, and we'll work to create a better system. And try to be open about that new system, so people can test it, and point out flaws while you're at it. Instead, i'm hearing that they are "fixing problems and coming out with a "new and improved PSN" very soon!". Which means, they are spending didley-squat on security, audits and whatever, and just concentrating on getting back online ASAP. Which means, sooner or later, you are going to get fucked over again. But maybe that's someone elses fault as well, and it won't matter that you just lost the personal information of like half of the worlds console-gamers. Wake up, Sony. This alone is a good excuse not to buy one of your shitty, propietary consoles. If only it weren't such a good bluray player..
There's a 2600 meeting happening everywhere today, so go there. I'm going.
Saving Google Video and other assorted gimmicks
Google Video is shutting down as of the end of this month. Video's will be available for download for some time after that, but then it gets the big shift+delete over at the Goog. The Archive Team sprung into action once again to save this potential treasure trove of digital information that would bite the binary bullet if not saved in time. Currently, there is an effort to save all the material at Google Video before they pull the plug. I decided to join in on the fun, since i have a metric shitload of bandwidth and storage to the point of sheer irrelevance. The amount of material is estimated to be between 100 and 200 TB (or more if some sources are to be believed) There are some guestimates, but i'm not sure we can accurately say yet.
To help out, first read this page: http://archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Google_Video, and then decide how to help out. You can use almost any operating system imaginable, and there are people working on improved instructions and scripts all the time. Personally i've used both ubuntu and windows to do some downloading.
You can:
- Help index videos (if you have lower bandwidth and/or storage
- Help download videos and later upload them to archive.org
- Help people out on IRC (#googlegargle #archiveteam and #boincgoogle on the EFNET network)
- Help improve or test scripts and methods
It has been awesome watching the community at work. Within a matter of hours, multiple people were downloading videos, and we have hundreds of gigabytes down already. People were working day and night (thanks to timezones) developing scripts and helping people out. Jason Scott of textfiles.com fame is also an active with Archive Team, and is on IRC helping out as well and organizing things on different levels. There are people buying time and storage from the Amazon cloud to help with the effort. The dedication and friendliness of the people is simply amazing. People just show up and help with the effort without any personal gain. On the contrary, people are willing to offer their own personal time, storage and bandwidth for such an altruistic cause. Sure, most of those videos are probably irrelevant, but then, who can say what is going to be interesting to see in 10, 20, 30 years? Local news from Malaysia? "Real life Mortal Combat" ? Who knows. That's kind of the point behind all this. Saving stuff that would otherwise be lost forever.
The Archive Team have so far dished out like 140TB of storage, with more promised as we start filling that up.
So anyway, if you feel like this is something you could get into, go read the page and see how you can help out. Personally i'm downloading videos and putting them on my fileserver that has a (mostly) empty 1TB drive. And what the hell else would i use my 200/10 Mbit bandwidth for if not this? Sheesh.
--
In other more generic news, we think we may have found an apartment. A three room place, not far from here. It should be fully renovated, and the rent is cheaper than in our current (too large) apartment. We're going to go look at it tomorrow, but it's already reserved for us, if we choose to take it. I have a good feeling about this.
I'm still trying to get rid of the aquarium, and i'm also in the process of selling my 2003 Nissan Primera stationwagon. I need to clean it out a bit first, and get it checked out so it's street-legal.
Work is busy as ever, and i am very thankful to all Christians who have kindly provided us with the four-day weekend this week. And all this because of the death of an imaginary jewish carpenter zombie. Imagine that.
Cleaning House
Let's do a recap of the last few days, weeks, whatever.
Last week i was in the Czech Republic, in Prague. I was there for a conference, and stayed at the Hilton. In all it was a great conference, the hotel was superb, and the food, drinks etc. was totally awesome. The city was great. I had somehow connected what i saw in Poland last year to how it would be like in Prague, but oh boy was i wrong! I was confronted with a very modern city, not unlike Helsinki. The cars were modern (sometimes even luxurious), the infrastructure and the buildings were in good shape etc. I can't speak for the country side, but Prague looked great!
Some notables was the Networking Dinner at Zofin Palace, a sort of mansion, maybe?, by the outskirts of downtown. A stately old building which had big ballrooms, stages and a great garden. The food was so-so, but the location was superb. There was a view of the river (Vltva i suppose?), and since there was no snow, everything was beautiful.
The hotel i stayed in saw some action on Thursday when the prime minister of Israel decided to drop by. This caused great commotion to the tune of armed gunmen, dogs, and an entire closed 8th floor (which was in use as the executive lounge during the conference). Local law enforcement were patrolling the outside of the building, mostly armed with MP5K's and an alarming amount of spare magazines (also they had the taped magazines-deal going on, so you can just flip the mag and keep shooting), each guy carrying like 5 mags. I suppose the prime minister had his own security detail, because these guys were of an entirely different caliber. Huge refridgerator sized fuckers with translucent earbuds and black Pelican-cases, probably containing even more alarming weaponry and equipment.
The last evening we spent up in Cloud9 (i chuckled at the various pop-culture references), where i enjoyed an excellent Romeo y Julieta Short Churchill, along with a glass of fine Martell X.O. cognac. It had been a while since i last smoked, and even a longer while since i smoked inside, what with the new smoking laws in Finland. It was great looking over the city, the river and the nightlife while puffing my cigar and sipping my cognac. Felt luxurious. Then i noticed the sniper.
On the rooftop was a sniper, maybe police, maybe Israeli security, no idea. He was peering through a rather powerful scope, probably looking at other buildings, doing counter-sniper duties. That kind of freaked me out at first, but then it became cool.
Any time the prime minister left the Hilton, he was followed by a huge entourage, consisting of a dozen cars or more. You could probably see that convoy from fucking space. I guess he is not the most popular man on the planet, and as i understood, no Israeli prime minister has visited the Czech Republic since 1948. But i guess all was well.
One of the Israeli guys had a Pelican 1510, which is a carry-on sized Pelican case, which was tested on Tekzilla a few episodes ago. It took 8 hits from an 8 pound sledge-hammer to trash the contents inside, and even then the case itself sustained only minor damage. The case retails at over 200 euro here, (it's sold by Verkkokauppa at least under the "Peli" brand), but i'm thinking of getting one. You can get it with- or without the foam padding inside. If you get it with the foam padding, it comes in small cubes, so you can put in just the amount you need for your gear, and keep everything in place. The fact that Israeli (probably) security trusts the thing makes me even more eager to get one..
Other mentionables from the trip include the Airbus A321 that Finnair used to fly us back on friday. The plane looked fairly new, and the 321 is basically an extended 320. Anyway, the pilot announced the plane was experiencing "minor" avionics issues, and that our takeoff would be delayed. A moment later he announced that he had to "take down the electrical system and then put it back on", but the inner geek in me started laughing, because i could imagine the situation in the cockpit:
- This god damn diagnostic check will not complete!
- Well just reboot it, that usually works!
- Okay, i'll do the anouncement...
Shortly thereafter we were able to taxi and take off, our issues apparently resolved by the reboot. Another cool new feature i haven't seen on any plane before was the nose camera. During taxi, take off and landing, they showed video from a camera, mounted somewhere in the nose-cone, or beneath it. This was very cool, seeing the acceleration on the runway etc.
On the home-front...
We're considering moving to a smaller place with H. S moved out due to some internal conflicts of personalities, and the 100 sq. meter apartment is simply too big (and therefore too expensive) to keep for the two (sometimes three) of us. We're looking at 60-70m² apartments, but the outlook isn't good at the moment. Either it's a shitty location ont he east side of Helsinki (basically this is mostly shitty ghetto), or it's too expensive. But something will happen on this front in the coming months. I've begun giving out hardware and throwing out shit that i don't need. I'm probably going to keep doing that in the coming weeks to trim down the amount of crap that we have to move.
We are selling our 250 liter aquarium, so if you know anyone who would be interested, give me a heads up. It's in good shape, but the filter makes an annoying sound, so you may want to replace it at some point. It's not a nice thing to move around, and the current apartment is the last one i will have moved it to. Even when emptied, the fucker is heavy as hell and clunky to move, because you have to watch the glass everywhere you go. You can get it cheap if you want it.
Ah, this is getting long. And i'm getting tired, so i'll continue in a later post. Maybe.
Nuclear Rage!
I've ranted about a number of things, and you might think i'm quite the cynical bastard. And you'd be right! Today's target is the big boogey-man of the month: Nuclear Power! Yes! Good old Mr. Atom!
The events in Japan following the M9.0 earthquake and the consequent tsunami caused major issues at the Fukushima nuclear powerplant. Radiation has been released. Water and soil in the local area has been contaminated. Meltdown has occurred. So should this be the end for nuclear power? Not if you ask me.
First of all, all of these words sound really scary to Joe-Average. Radiation! Meltdown! I'll add the echo effect in post-production. But if one has even a cursory concept of how nuclear power, or radiation works, it should calm you down somewhat. Meltdown is simply the process in which the fuel in the reactor is overheating, and causing the fuel to literally melt. This releases radiation. Radiation on the other hand comes in many different shapes and sizes. Elements that are radioactive are not stable and they have a half-life. For instance, the isotope of Iodine released from the reactor core was 131 if i'm not mistaken. This isotope of Iodine is very dangerous to humans because it gets stored up in the thyroid gland and causes issues. But this particular isotope also has a very short half life; 8 days. Which means that the isotope will not stay dangerous for long. That's not to say it can't cause damage, but it is to say that people on the other side of the fucking globe will not be affected.
What people can do if there is a release of Iodine-131 is to eat iodine supplements. The thyroid gland in the human body can fit an x-amount of iodine, be it of a stable or a (dangerous) unstable isotope. "Filling up" your thyroid gland makes sense if you are in the area that has a high chance of getting elevated doses of dangerous Iodine isotopes. It does not make sense to eat them in say Finland, or most other place in the world. Yet, we had people stocking up on iodine pills "just in case". And i'm willing to bet a number of people started eating them too, as soon as the news of the accident broke.
I'm not belittling the accident at Fukushima. I am belittling once again the idiots of our world. But i dunno.. does stupidity based on ignorance count? I vote yes.
A meltdown does not equal a nuclear explosion either. A meltdown sounds really bad, but all it really is, is elevated temperatures in the fuel rods which cause the fuel containers and finally the fissile material to melt, and release radioactive isotopes into the surrounding areas (usually still inside the core containment structure). The elevated temperatures were caused by failure of the cooling and redundant cooling systems due to the tsunami and earth-quake. The Fukushima plant was designed to handle up to 18 foot ( 6 meter ) waves, and the tsunami of the M9.0 earth quake exceeded this, thereby causing the facility to fail. Failure of the cooling system prevented water from cycling in the system, thereby increasing temperatures, melting zircaloy surrounding the actual fuel, creating hydrogen gas, and thereby pressure (which resulted in some spectacular releases of that pressure in the form of smokey puffs, partially destroying the building). Correcting this was accomplished using seawater pumped in with hoses and dropped from various aircraft.
But again, it's easy to also blame the media. Fear sells. Nuclear fear sells better. In this video (thanks BoingBoing for the link), a CNN news anchor goes apeshit on a meteorologist (who goes "oh boy here we go again.."), when the weatherman firmly asserts that no harmful levels of radiation are or will reach the US West-Coast. The news anchor tries desperately to keep the atmosphere of fear going. Sure, measurable increases in radiation are reaching the continental US, but measurable does not mean dangerous. Measurable means that you can detect if a fucking radioactive mosquito farted on the south pacific and the wind carried it to the general direction of the US. The type of technology used is so incredibly sensitive, and because of this fact we have good time to move people out of affected areas, when the increase in radiation is upcoming. It does not just happen. It's physics. There are rules for such things. No matter how afraid you are, the magical radiation will not enter your home, unless there are conditions that warrant that. There are distances, half-lives, dissipation, weather, and countless other factors that are all of critical importance. This is not guesswork.
Although, shit-points also go to Tepco, the power company responsible for Fukushima. In one report of radiation levels, they apparently misplaced a comma somewhere, and ended up reporting ass-crazy results. People who have problems dealing with numbers should not be involved with nuclear reactors. Media outlets who are speaking out of their assholes should not be on the air spreading fear. I don't want to suppress freedom of speech, but this kind of fear-mongering is fucking rediculous.
Should we stop using nuclear power because a power company failed to put in adequate measures of protection for their stuff? Hell no!
Out of the viable methods of producing power, nuclear power is still the safest, and provides us with the most power to fill the needs of industry and increasing urbanisation. Sure we can go back to coal only, but do you want to have a look at the number of people who died of fossil-fuel based pollution world wide last year for instance? While i don't have the numbers with me, coal production, logistics, handling and combustion is a major cause for concern world wide. Sure, no radiation, but killing people? Oh hell yes.
Ok, so the alternatives then. We have wind, which is cool. But to provide the amounts of energy that even a small western country such as Finland needs (we have a lot of industry, in proportion), we would need to fill up a vast space with wind power. Wind is also not predictable, and the initial costs vs. the amount of power derived from the finished product is not a happy number to look at.
Solar power then? Ok, let's just pick a state and fill that with panels and we'll be all done. Oh wait, that will cost insane amounts, and is not nearly suited for every place on the planet. Take Finland for instance. We have maybe three actual months of real summer and sunshine, and while new solar panels are better att charging from ambient light even when it is filtered through clouds, it does not make it effective by any stretch of the imagination. I think current solar panels are able to get a 20-25% conversion ratio of sunshine hitting the panel -> power. When we can up that just a bit, and make it suitable for places that do not have fucking sunshine, then we'll talk again.
Other alternatives include tidal- and other water based power generation methods, geothermal, even looking at making power out of magma (Iceland i think was looking at this), the fact is that at the current state, we do not have the technology and/or the money to just magically switch off our nuclear power plants and move to something green. It's just not feasible.
I'm not saying we should stop looking at alternative power, infact i encourage it. But what we can't do is make a five year phased plan and just shut all our reactors down, because 5 years is not enough time to do jack shit in terms of widespread development and deployment of alternative, renewable power sources. Period. 20-40 years, perhaps. But tomorrow? Keep dreaming. We keep using the still safe nuclear power, focus on securing our reactors against possible risks (everything can't be accounted for in any system, but we can at least try (I'm looking at you Tecpo!), and also focus on better ways to handle nuclear waste. On the side, energy companies commit to researching and developing *feasible* solutions for producing the amount of power that a country needs. Either that, or we shut down 50% of our industry, and then make a law that you can watch TV for one hour a day, no dishwashers and laundry can be done once a week. See how that feels for the average voter, who spends most of his life in front of the fucking televison. I'm not arguing that we can't make power using alternative techniques, but i'm saying we're just not there for the kind of large scale deployments that we need to support our industry and residential power usage.
End of rant.