Category: personal diary

mostly personal, notes on the road

Day of the dead

Night ride
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

All Saints’ Day is Pyhäinpäivä in Finnish, but I like to look how the pre-Christian times resonate in this kind of celebrations. Samhain, and Day of the Dead (Vainajainpäivä) are some associations to this direction. It seems that there is some controversy around Samhain as the ‘Celtic New Year’ (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samhain ). The first day of November is nevertheless when Marraskuu starts in Finland — ‘marras’ an ancient word for death. Thus: drink well, eat well, remember the dead and be glad while you are alive!

More pics in: http://www.unet.fi/pics/2007-11-03-pyhainpaiva/ and in my Flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fransmayra/

Skellefteå teaching visit

Skellefteå teaching visit
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Air travel in practice has relatively poor effectivity ratio: for one hour of flight you might spend one hour to get to the airport, one hour in queues, suffering security check humiliations, and then perhaps spend three more hours waiting in another airport for your connecting flight. And then back through all those steps again, in reverse.
Today I have been in Sweden, as a visiting lecturer in Skellefteå, at their Luleå Tekniska Universitet’s Game Design degree programme. An interesting blend of technical university and art school, they are now moving in to provide game design education, and many researchers from our team are providing their expertise on various subjects as visiting lecturers. My offering was focused on some conceptual and theoretical fundamentals of Game Studies, and largely based on my forthcoming textbook on this subject. Now — just to be home already. Weather forecast promises snowfall to Finland tomorrow. That would be a welcome change in this darkness.

Name-giving party

Name-giving party
Originally uploaded by FransBadger

Our little boy finally got his name yesterday. Or two of them: in ‘Luka Ilmari’ the first part is rooted in the Mediterranean civilization, whereas Ilmari comes from the deep roots of Kalevala and Finnish history. “Ei nimi miestä pahenna, jos ei mies nimeä.” Nuff said.

Testing Mac Mini with diNovo Edge and Full HD

Testing Mac Mini with diNovo Edge and Full HD
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

One of my souvenirs from Tokyo was a Mac Mini (one of these new Intel Core 2 Duo, 2.0 GHz models) — my first mac ever. I plugged it in to my Full HD tv in the living room, and to get away of the wires, used Logitech diNovo Edge bluetooth keyboard to interface with it. I must admit I am pretty happy with the combo, even if (with the Netherlands trip and all) I’ve not got so much time to test it in action. It also takes time to troubleshoot the system and hack into it, as a newbie mac user. For example, it appears that when you use DVI-to-HDMI cable to connect Mac Mini, instead of true Full HD (1080p), you get interlaced video (1080i). 1080p is not available in the display menus, and even trying out SwitchResX has not solved this for me so far (see http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5504980). Also, diNovo Edge is great keyboard with lithium-ion rechargeable battery and built-in touch plate to emulate mouse, but it is not officially a Macintosh-compatible device. Almost all of its keys and functions will run just fine in any case. The Front Row media center interface is simple enough, and runs fine (as I finally got it loading, needed to use keyboard shortcut rather than the remote for that, though). Thus, it appears that even if mac is sweet and easy, there is also learning curve and some tweaking required if you really want to experience it in full HTPC glory.

Amsterdam, again

Amsterdam, again
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

The remaiming PTS2007 schedule was messed up by the chartered bus missing in the morning. I finally joined a group who made it from Haarlem to Amsterdam individually with busses and train. No longer having time to visit the Holland Casino that was in my program, I find myself making it by foot through the Amsterdam centre, towards the Rijksmuseum where our airport return trip should eventually kick off. normally I would love playing the tourist, taking a close look at the historical sights, like the Koninklijk Paleis (pictured). But I am simply tired of all this travelling, homesick to get back to Laura and our baby, and even if the remaining trip goes according to schedule (which I am starting to doubt), it will be something like 3 am in Sunday morning before I am home again. Oh dear. — Oh yes, there also seems to be something wrong with mail-to-Flickr and WordPress integration; my Tokyo and Holland posts have gone missing and I have had to repost them all from a PC. Yes, home would be a great thing.

Back home



Back home
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Sunday morning, it is raining in Tokyo. It has been great week, but now: it is time to go home.

DiGRA 2007 over

Yesterday evening the third international Digital Games Research Conference closed in Tokyo. Professor Baba, the conference chair, presented some interesting figures; if I got them right from the translation, there had been 178 presentations in the conference, and 355 conference participants. Impressive figures for a conference of an emerging field, organised in (what to a Western-dominated researcher community is) a far-away Japan. There were much discussion about how to improve the conference and about various issues that could have gone a bit better, but the overall impression was that the conference was an obvious success. Continue reading “DiGRA 2007 over”

Baby eating wiimote

Vauva ja wiimote / Baby eating wiimote
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Our baby tested the Nintendo Wii console and the final verdict was that the wiimote controller does not taste particularly good.

Our sleeping baby

Our sleeping baby
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Reading the gesture: a fighter spirit, perhaps? (I will be posting more family photos in the future to my Flickr account and to the pics folders in my own server.)

New Life


New Life
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Announcing: our firstborn baby arrived this morning. A small, thoughtful-looking boy opened its eyes to the world for the first time this morning, half past ten. Wrinkling his eyebrows, flashes of half-articulated feelings, unthought thoughts of tomorrow pass over his tiny face like quick flashes of light and shadow, clouds and the sun. New day today — a new day and a new life.