mostly personal, notes on the road
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).
The Inauguration Day, March 9th, 2007
Originally uploaded by FransBadger.
Friday was when the inauguration lecture to the new professorship took place, followed by a great party in the Hypermedia Laboratory. Million thanks for everyone involved, this was a really memorable day. Photo shows some of the gifts (the other one is an axe, something every professor needs, but who recognizes the other, round object? 😉
More photos in: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fransmayra/tags/inauguration/
Tomorrow will be the day when I’ll have my inauguration day, with all its rituals, as I officially step to the chair of hypermedia professor, digital culture and game studies as my defined field. I think this is the first time game studies (pelitutkimus in Finnish) is part of the definition of a full professorship in Finland — a symbolic moment. See: http://www.uta.fi/ajankohtaista/tapahtumakalenteri/ilmoitus.php?v=2007&kk=3&id=9279
There are various “rough edges” in our house still, and I am currently testing the power of social media in getting help in fixing them. If you are a professional in the hardware aspect of home IT cable connections, check out my ad in Urakkamestari service.
It would of course be nice to be able to dedicate weekends just for resting, but since there are always various deadlines that require an academic to work also during weekends, you might as well dedicate all mornings and late evenings to house repair or building projects — logical, isn’t it?
I have been spending some hours lately downstairs doing my “media cave”. This is essentially just a small home theatre room, located at cellar level, but it should offer us rich opportunities for enjoying that DVD or HD movie in the dark, or playing games in the big screen. Looking some high resolution digital photos in this scale would be nice to try out, too.
The starting point was to build a tech centre at the back of the room; this is still half-finished, but I aim for a sturdy table fixed to the back wall, and on top of that there will the ‘equipment tower’: a rotating cabin filled with amplifiers, media players, computers and game decks. It is build for rotation and to such a height since I am too fed up to plugging and unplugging cables that lie among piles of dust somewhere at the back of some heavy piece of furniture. This time, every connection is planned to be accessible at the comfortable, working height. And since I am building it on top of large, round bearing, it rotates easily to show all those connectors and cables (the bearing is one I got from Isku’s “Multiplan” tv furniture, it claims to be able to handle max 100 kg mass). Near the ceiling there is the new video projector, Sanyo PLV-Z5; a nice, moderately priced thing with sharp and colourful image. (I wanted mine in black, and ordered it from Germany where prices are a bit lower.)
The actual projection surface has taken most of work so far: the front wall was uneven fibreglass wallpaper which needed to be whet, dusted and then covered with another, special wallpaper (a smoothing wallpaper, ‘tasoitustapetti’, made by Sandudd; see the link: http://www.sandudd.fi/fileadmin/kuvituskuvat/Tasoitetapettiohje.pdf).
Now I am having a break after one round of painting. The entire back wall will be painted several times with Tikkurila’s Harmony indoor paint, hue H499. It has non-reflective matta surface and as light grey it will give better dark levels on LCD projectors than an entirely white wall would had done. More on its use: http://www.tikkurila.fi/kotimaalarit/index.jsp?cid=valkokangas_edullise&hid=01.01.06.01.
There are still several steps remaining on this, and there are half-a-dozen rooms (and the garden, the courtyard and the garage) with several other projects waiting after this, but — you need to start with the essentials, after all! 😉
Tonight was one of a rare cultural experience. Tapani Jämsen invited us to the consert of his band, Doina Klezmer, in the Tampere Hall. Not knowing anything about klezmer music in advance, I was surprised by its emotional range and simultaneous rhytmic, dance-like qualities. You can learn more about klezmer from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klezmer and below is link to the band’s home page, where are also mp3 samples available.
See: Doina Klezmer website
Carrying loads and loads from the old home to the new, I decided it is time to get rid of some of this stuff. Much of the furniture went to local second hand/recycling shop. Some things I simply gave away. But there are couple of nice home electronics items, so I decided to make them my first Huuto.net objects: a big (=huge) 32 inch Sony Trinitron flat-tube television set, and a Sony midi stereo series. If interested, take a look at these links: Sony TV, Sony stereo set.
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
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
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!
frans goes blog 
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