testing the ubuntu linux in web server use

I am now starting the experimental migration from Windows world to the great unknown… that is, I am trying to run my own server now in an Ubuntu Linux box. The initial impressions are that this is an awkward hybrid: half graphical OS, yet more than half needs to be done with the command line. Might suit some, but I am really a graphical UI oriented person these days. Grrrr…

Edit: tonight, I have now configured and reconfigured both the Apache webserver, SSH/SFTP services, the user accounts and associated home directories and use rights a few times, in various combinations. While also being perplexed why some directories, terminal windows or applications follow the UTF-8 character set, while others go with the old (Latin1 / ISO 8859-1) scheme, and how to get them work together, why VNC clients (Win –> Linux box) do not appear to be able to transmit AltGr keys (needed in Scandinavian keyboards to input such essential keys as ‘@’) like the Windows XP Remote Desktop… And so on and so forth. But: if you are able to read this, then this OS/application set works at least to some point, and thus Ubuntu cannot be so bad? 🙂

logitech (dis)harmony

Never repair problems caused by an excess of complex technology by adding some more complex technology. Could it be named the Occam’s razor of IT? In Saturday, I bought a Logitech programmable remote control “Harmony 525” from a campaign in Stockmann warehouse store. I had two needs: to replace my pile of remote controls with a single one, and to use a programmable remote to finally make my Sony DVP-NS92 player region free — and now it seems that this damned thing wont do in either role. It was not so bad to be requested to locate and input all brand and model codes from every device into its control scheme: supposedly, after all, you are going to do this only once. But the outcome (after spending all the free hours in my hard-earned Sunday vacation) of the configuration process was that now my TV is in whatever input every time I use Harmony, and I need to find the other, original Sony remote in any case to correct Harmony’s tracks. The problem is, as far as I can tell, that the Sony TV is not using specific codes to go directly into specific inputs, and it also does not always go into the same initial input when you press the “Next Input” remote button — so, as the Harmony does not have any feedback channel from the systems it is trying to control, it will get it almost always wrong. So, I am just unlucky? It is so shame; the advertisement of the “truly universal” remote, based on a database with over 80 000 IR devices got me. The handset appears to need manual reconfiguration through a highly unreliable web/java client interface in all cases, as it gets all its default settings wrong. Spent more than 10 hours working on it, and just got a headache. And, to top the bill, I cannot even find a way to program Harmony to do the region-free trick. Doh.

international study of games cultures

I woke up in snowy Espoo today, feeling slightly gnomish. The Finnish Cultural Fund granted support to our new initiative, International Study of Games Cultures in their annual Gala yesterday. This work will start this summer, initially looking at similarities and differences between Finnish, Korean and American games cultures. Cool!

the hitchhiker's guide – with some pics

Best things are often simple. I’d say it’s worth checking out this classic text adventure; BBC offers a 20th anniversary edition to it with a new interface. Link: BBC – Radio 4 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – The Adventure Game

time for science, fiction?


Touch of feather
Originally uploaded by Frans Mäyrä.

I took two days of holiday this week, starting tomorrow. This is to do some work, as every day that I am at “work”, will be spent on meetings, seminars, teaching or various administrative tasks, which need to be done, but which I do not consider proper work, in that deeper, more qualitative sense of the word. So, I have to get some holidays to focus on the creative aspect of science and scholarship. Perverse? Maybe, yes.

There will be a session on the relationship between science and science fiction in our university’s science fair “Tieteen iltapäivä ja yö” this year that I will be hosting. We have three professors, from different backgrounds, and from different angles, discussing the role of creativity in their work, and how they perceive fictional speculation from their own position. That should be fun enough — there should be interesting examples and discussions coming up. I just spend some wishful minutes in updating my Amazon.com Wish List to include some novels and short story collections from Neal Asher, Charles Stross, Richard K. Morgan and Dan Simmons that I wish I would have some time to immerse with.

GDC 2006 is also coming up. There will be two tutorial days (seminars) where I will be participating as one of the speakers, but happy to be in a minor role in both of them: The Social Dimensions of Gaming (DiGRA & IGDA co-operation) is coordinated by T.L.Taylor, Bart Simon and friends and will “bring together expert social scientists doing research on game design, play and culture to work with designers in generating useful vocabularies for making sense of the social dimensions of digital games”. There. And then there is the Game Curriculum Workshop, coordinated by Katie Salen and Katherine Isbister, which “brings together some of the best and brightest developers, scholars, and students to take an in-depth look at game curricula — now, and in the future”. Welcome to drop in and participate, if your road takes you either to Tampere campus, or to San Jose this year.

amputated by travel


Waiting
Originally uploaded by Frans Mäyrä.

I am one of those people (an increasing breed) whose work largely consists of maintaining processes that are based on messages, meetings and other collaboration via communication (or waiting/dysfunctionalities of that communication). In many days there is a train-trip to Helsinki (2 x 2 hours), or a flight travel to some foreign destination (anything up to a dozen hours in bus, taxi, airport and aeroplane – and then the same back again). It is an eternal frustration to get the work done with the whatever limited online time I have available. Tampere – Helsinki train trip for example should be optimum working time, particularly when you are equipped with a 3G/GPRS network card, like my laptop. But no: the connection is breaking down, the email programme is all the time jammed, and it is very hard to participate in any of those oh-so-urgent processes. (Why they are urgent, what is happening to all of our time these days…) I try to keep travels to old-fashioned reading of paper documents, but many issues are those oh-so-urgent ones, and if a full day is spent off-line, that will only mean that you need to take care of all those messages in the evening, on your “own time”. Even air travel carriers are now talking about allowing mobile communications; when shall a simple train travel stop meaning becoming an amputee, unable to hear, see or participate? (Make your refs: cyborg subjectivity, posthumanism, prosthetic and/or amputated condition, posthumanism…)

pervasive england


Shadow over England?
Originally uploaded by Frans Mäyrä.

Well after midnight yesterday I got back from last week’s IPerG pervasive games workshop in Nottingham. If you take a look at my Flickr photos, you see lots of swan, geese and other wildfowl, that I only afterwards realised are the prime candidates for getting a lethal bird flu these days. Well, the flu seems to be the same old I had even before the trip, or maybe you could mix them together, coming up with new viral combinations, then letting them fight it out in your own body? Oh, just another rather tired game idea…

tracy fullerton at games and storytelling

Tracy Fullerton was kind enough to swap sunny California for one week into arctic Tampere. She presented a lecture on her approach into experimental game design, and oversees a workshop. She is analytical with her concepts, but her real aim is to provoke or stimulate us to conceive games in new ways. A worthy goal.

experience amplifier?


Frost filigrane
Originally uploaded by Frans Mäyrä.

Out whole day today, shooting mostly landscape photos in crisp winter sun. Luckily the battery did not run out, temperature was again c. -20C. This image of frost flowers was slightly edited afterwards in Photoshop, and fine-tuning the light levels did make the shape stand out more clearly. On a more philosophical tone, I have been following the discussions of some people on how the desire to photograph, or otherwise document your life and experiences potentially alters the situation and thereby your entire life. On the other hand, you might start seeing everything you do just as a raw material for your productions, but on the other hand it is also possible that you pay more attention to the tiny details of life – your activity might be the amplifier to life experience.

the first signs of melting


Melting
Originally uploaded by Frans Mäyrä.

This picture was taken today, Sunday afternoon as the first rays of sun that actually felt a bit warm were melting some of the ice, and making water flow. There are some more shots, both outdoors and in, from Laura’s party which was yesterday evening, in:
http://unet.fi/pics/2006-01-29/