moblog – Page 12 – frans goes blog

Kuhmo Talo & nanotechnology

Kuhmo Talo & nanotechnology
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Arrived to Kuhmo today — an Eastern Finland town, close to the Russian border. Plagued by unemployment and loss of population, this place has reached some interesting results lately by focusing on culture. Chamber music festival and the academic event Ihminen & Kosmos where I will be speaking are some of the annual highlights. Kuhmo Talo is the local concert hall / event building where we today start by listening Kai Savolainen talk about nano-tech. Beautiful sun-set, clean nature, interesting programme — a nice combination.

On the road again (Espoo, Kuhmo)

On the road again (Espoo, Kuhmo)
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

This week will be mostly spend in dear Tampere, but today I am talking in Helsinki University of Technology (games as learning environments), and the entire weekend, Friday-Sunday I will be in Kuhmo, talking and discussing (and enjoying art) during ‘Ihminen ja Kosmos’ seminar (see: www.aka.fi/ihminenjakosmos).

Finncon ry established

Finncon ry established
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

It has been said that Finland is the promised land of associations — there are thousands and thousands of non-profits here, established by individuals on enormous range of serious or more light-hearted subjects. Today yet another association was created, but one could claim that this one has been in actual demand for some time. FinnCon is the major Finnish — and international — science fiction event that has been regularly organised since 1986. This is thus a historical image: the representatives from local science fiction associations signing the founding documents for the national umbrella association, Finncon ry, which will run this line of events from now on. Follow the news in http://www.finncon.org — this is a really great showcase of fandom activities, useful for academics and general audience alike. (Posted from Kaupinojan Sauna.)

New experiences in Helsinki

New experiences in Helsinki
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

I will be visiting two very different kinds of events in Helsinki today. The first is the FinNet seminar, which is focused on educational games in the context of Finnish language learning. I gave a short talk that tried to discuss the educational and cultural framework for games in rather general terms, and the rest of the seminar has more detailed experiences coming from participants of Minerva project who have been doing SanatOn the language game. Really interesting and much new stuff for me. Later in the evening I’ll participate in Pelit Magazine’s “KyöPelit Gaala”, the semi-official “game oscars” of Finland — first time of this experience for me, too. The day is otherwise exiting but since me and Laura were moving my stuff to wee hours last night, I have to battle keeping awake, which is a shame. (The shot shows how advanced city Helsinki is: they have a skating rink next to the railway station, in the city centre!)

Game design research workshop

Game design research workshop
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Janne Paavilainen, the GameSpace project manager is here getting ready to close the first of our two game design workshop days. Meeting this time at the new Helsinki headquarters of our partner Sulake (the creators of Habbo Hotel), our theme was ‘multiplayer’. GameSpace is researching the methods for mobile, multiplayer casual game design, and we got particularly strong input this time from Sumea studio of Digital Chocolate. There is much interesting research going in that project — hope we’ll get to publish some of that soon!

Water, oil and the Internet

Water, oil and the Internet
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Learning the ropes in detached house living; there must be at least a dozen contracts you need to negotiate and sign before your new house is linked with all those invisible networks this society consists of. We got water, we got electricity — but we never got the process of
acquiring and comparing competing bids from oil companies finished until the oil actually run out. In -30C nights, in an oil-heated house, having no oil is not fun at all. Happily Esso (Exxon over there) managed to deliver us this precious, soon-to-be-extinct stuff in six hours next day — with some extra cost, of course. In the evening, feeling the warmth come back, and seeing the online content (and hearing it, Last.fm is now available across the house, Wi-Fi) come streaming in, it occurred to me that with water, warmth and Internet you could probably go pretty far. Or then again, I am just being nerdy.

View into the night from the new home

View into the night from the new home
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

There were some ice chrystals in the air when I took this photo from the upstairs window of our new home. The neighborhood appears quiet, beautiful even when the Finnish winter shows its better sides. Now I just need to learn much more about boiler systems, oil heaters and water circulation piping, pressure levels and ventilations, among other things. But it is good to be this far, already. Following couple of weeks will be filled with housing work, in any case. Keeps you in a hurry.

Eric Zimmerman's workshop closes, day of ice and trains

Eric Zimmerman’s workshop closes, day of ice and trains
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Today I participated as an informal reviewer into the game design
workshop Eric Zimmerman organised in connection of our Games and
Storytelling series. I hope the week was productive for all involved —
the final day presentations at least appeared to involve several
inspired designs that also embodied some design research philosophy.
Special thanks also to Jesper Juul from Copenhagen for filling in
Thursday when Eric needed to be elsewhere. In terms of climate, this
week has been extremely cold, cars and trains stuck and frozen. I am
writing this in an evening train going to Tampere, and it appears to be
c. one hour late at the moment. But it is still moving, so lets not
complain!

The first cup in the new house

The first cup in the new house
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

A moment of rest: this Sunday was when we got the keys to our new home, and spent many hours learning its details — and cleaning it, of course.

Today: Helsinki, the future

Today: Helsinki, the future
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Today I decided to take the train rather than venture anything air-related. In Helsinki, the morning was spent in an intensive brainstorming session about the next 15 years of digital games and gaming — arranged by Pelit Magazine, which celebrates this year its 15th anniversary (congratulations!) Much visionary and/or realistic stuff by Tony Manninen, Sonja Kangas and myself, to be reported in magazine’s next issue. Now, in Messukeskus, preparing to talk to the leaders of our educational system about games in Forum Dynamo conference. Lets see how this goes…