Category: personal diary

mostly personal, notes on the road

Media room project, part 3

Media room project, part 3
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Among all the other stuff, the media room project has progressed, too. During the Easter weekend, we finally got the cables into their canals and fixed to the corners of walls, and after carrying in the chairs the project reached some sort of temporary finale. There must be over 50 meters of medium-heavy loudspeaker wiring alone in the room. The most critical point currently is heat: few people, computers and a powerful video projector can easily transform a small home theatre into a sauna. Moving the server and printers into the storage room helped a lot, though. After a couple of movies (Happy Feet, Pirates of the Caribbian) I am actually rather impressed by the quality of audio and images. But there is always something to improve, of course. (Note the custom-made projector logo: “Mäyrän mediakellari”.)

Easter 07

Easter 07
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

This is the first Easter in the new home. We have been working hard on everyday things like trying to find all the clothes and other necessities for daily life. Most of these few days and nights when there are no work related appointments have been used on organising and reorganising the house. But: a quiet, peaceful moment when there is no other need than just to be silent and enjoy life — this is what Easter is at its best. And to eat some Mämmi, of course!

Moving stuff

Moving stuff
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

We only have two days to move all Laura’s stuff in, after selling her apartment, and after one day we both feel pretty much like someone would have beaten us with sticks and stones. Many things go into contemporary living, many of them big and heavy. Oh, did I mention the aquarium?

Morning flight

Morning flight
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

High above the sleeping land, you can still see snow on the ice-covered lake shores, as white crescents, circling the northern rims of thousands little ponds.

The Spring Lätty 2007

The Spring Lätty 2007
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

The spring is officially here: the time of fairs, people selling their goods, the time of Lätty (muurinpohjalätty version), the Finnish version of sweet crepes.

This week on the road (& in media)

This week on the road (& in media)
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

After arriving home late last night from Kuhmo (where the seminar was interesting and music good), I had time to vote in the Finnish parliamentary elections with Laura, trouble-shoot more the Linux Ubuntu upgrade which went wrong (see a previous post), and then get up before 6 am to catch the morning train to Helsinki. YLE1 radio station will air a long interview/discussion between me and Sonja Kangas from VTT around 1pm this Thursday (we talk about games and gender in programme called “Kaapin Paikka”). Me and Sonja were also interviewed for Helsingin Sanomat for a story discussing the “next next generation”, a piece related to Sony PlayStation 3 arriving to Finnish markets. We were joking that we soon learn each others views by heart, if this continues. Tomorrow will also be a “Helsinki day”: travelling into the Nokia HQ to listen Christy Dena from Australia talk about pervasive games — hopefully there will be some interesting discussions also. We recently were given a grant by NiCE to expand the study of pervasive games into Mobile Learning Environments project, something that we will work on with our Nordic partners. Wednesday will surprisingly be a day in the office, but Thursday will again be travel, as the GameSpace steering group will be in TeliaSonera’s rooms in Helsinki. A pretty typical week. Train trips will be the moment to do the work, reading, writing and doing review wor for journals and conferences, the usual stuff. Sometimes it feels good to stop for a minute, look at the snow-covered landscape, trees, an old building, and think about time, life, passing of generations, all this human humdrum. And then: continue, tracks taking from the past, into the future.

Kuhmo, Finland

Kuhmo, Finland
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.

Ice melting, winter passing.

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.

Upgrading Ubuntu for printer support

My server moved today from its short-term temporary place in upstairs floor to the medium-term temporary place in downstairs media room corner. I would very much prefer to have it in cool, air-conditioned room where its noices would not disturb movie or gaming sessions, but at the moment there is no such room available. This time I attempt to have Ubuntu box to function as file and printer server as well as backup/web/Wordpress one, but lets see how it goes. Of my two HP printers, the multi-functional PSC 1210 seems to print just fine under Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, but HP Laserjet Series 1000 would not print anything, even if it is recognised and the driver appears to install. Well, there was some talk in the forums that upgrade into Ubuntu 6.10 might help, so here we go — this might be the last message going out, of course… See: EdgyUpgrades – Community Ubuntu Documentation

Data-cables ready

Ok, last night was a long one, but thanks to Miska from JettVision, who did good work late at night and tested that all rooms of my house now have a functional Internet connection. Yes, I now, I could have achieved this much easier with Wi-Fi, and that is what I’ll be mostly using, but our house was internally Ethernet cable-ready, so it would have been shame not to make use of this. Now, lets see when we can plug in our fridge to the connectors in kitchen, and see what groceries we need to bring home from the supermarket today…