Lavonardo

That’s right, a large group of italians have put together a knitted bunny whose length is over 60 meters.

Probably the world’s only soft toy visible from the orbit.

Dr. Pepper aims to stand by their promise. Back in March, with Chinese Democracy firmly in limbo, the company announced that it will provide a can of its soda to all americans if the record ships this year.

With the announcement of the awkward licensing agreement with Best Buy, it looks like the soda pop-quaffing public is going to indeed have a free can.

This week’s Photofriday challenge is freeze frame.

My take is the attached close-up of water droplets splashing on the surface of a waterfall pool. Even at 1/1600, the motion is pretty well frozen.

One more free science/fiction (yeah, the use of slash is entirely intentional) magazine is born with the release of its first issue on the web.

H+ (seemingly abbreviated from Humanity +) explores transhumanist themes and convinced me to have a look on basis of having Charles Stross amongst the writers.

A “Model” Fenway Day by B Tal (CC)

Faking the tilt-shiftness of a photograph definitely has ended up on the things to learn properly.

This image of Boston’s Fenway Park shows how well real life imitates model railroad aesthetics.

Episode 2 of Forumwarz is out.

Mr. Tucson Lepht: How do you plead to the charges of Haxx0ring and Blowing the Fuck Up of a Nuclear Power Generation Facility?

The second episode of the world’s finest massively single-player online game is not free, but at 10$, it’s still more than reasonably cheap.

Iso Suomen Kielioppi is now available for free on the web. I haven’t read a single thing about the finnish grammar since high school, but now there’s no hurdles on the way of learning.

This week’s photo thursday takes its inspiration from a seventies’ thriller: Desmond Bagley’s Tightrope Men, translated as Suomalainen nuorallatanssi (Finnish tightrope dance) back in the day.

Decided to go for a concrete image this time, and chose the closest high wires around - a very visible part of the power grid over Pikkuhuopalahti. Haven’t seen any aspiring artists atop the pylons, and certainly no-one in their right mind would attempt to cross the bay using the wires.

This week’s thursday challenge is appropriately autumn.

My participation in the gathering is the attached image of a brightly colored rowantree.

Metallica has announced back-to-back concerts in Hartwall Areena in mid-June next year. Sweet. Apart from the fact that the gigs will be sold out in minutes.

A far more mysterious entry in the calendar is a brand-new outdoor event planned for 80000 attendees. Of the artists, there’s nothing beyond wild speculation at this time.

I bought a new toy today.

A CCD-based barcode-reader that hooks up to the USB-port.

“Why on earth”, I hear the collective cry of perplexed millions.

The answer is simple, I’m going to catalogue my books.

Indeed, I’ve been a paying member of the fabulous librarything for a while now. The social network / collection site boasts a decent interface and easy means to export the data (one of my main beefs with the otherwise interesting Delicious Library).

Even when the site boasts a very nifty ISBN-based book adding mechanism, typing the ten+ digit numbers is both a chore and error-prone. Hence the reader, which emulates an external keyboard perfectly.

It will be a while before the contents of the shelves have been fully documented, and I’ll definitely keep up commenting both the site and the progress.

The Marson reader itself is a solidly built piece of plastic, whose only unfortunate feature I’ve discovered thus far is its eagerness to let out a piercing beep upon successfully deciphering a set of parallel bars.

Loosing Cry by Brit. (CC)

Got swept for the first time this season, both teams lost their games. Neither with a worrisomely big margin, but even a single point counts, that’s been seen before. Both teams are now 4-2-0, which is not a bad place to be, considering that there’s still eight games left in the regular season.

The loss for Hakkapeliitat was dealt in Monday Night Football. Browns’ offense finally got going, and Braylon Edwards had his first good game this season - 150+ yards and a touchdown do not bode well for a tight margin. Hakkapeliitat executed themselves unevenly - Aaron Rodgers and Greg Jennings continued the Green Bay’s unexpectedly good aerial attack. Sadly, last week’s hero, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, was very subdued - that’s easily explained by working in front of a substitute quarterback, though. The worst managerial decision of the week was benching Cowboys’ Marion Barber, after a quiet game last week, his output would have guaranteed a victory. Oh well, next weeks he’ll definitely be on the gridiron, since the Dallas Cowboys’ Tony Romo will be sidelined with a broken finger and it’s likely that the ground game will be featured a lot more heavily.

Niners lost to a winless team, stumbling to a halt behind yet another well-executed game of Drew Brees. Neither the receivers nor the running backs mustered much of a game. Especially the thus far productive rookie squad (Tim Hightower and Jonathan Stewart) did not pound the ground much. I traded for Brandon Stokley last week (upon hearing how thin the Broncos’ receiving corps had been pruned), but stupidly forgot to slot him in. He scored once, but suffered a concussion, thus making the job for the offensive coordinator even harder. LT’s scoreless days continued. And while Nick Folk kicked a mighty 52-yard field goal, his scoring was lower than expected, as was the ball-capturing ability of the usually reliable Bears.

Bring on week seven.

The first week of hockey turned out to be a nova-bright start for Hakkapeliitat.

The opponent was swept off his feet - 10-0, a solid victory in all categories, propelling the team to the very top of the standings.

The groundwork for victory was laid by the duo of goalies, behind the five victories, one shutout and an excellent stopping percentage, the first three points were pretty much lowest-hanging fruit in a good while. Offensively, the greatest damage was done by Coyotes’ Shane Doan, but the week was a low-scoring affair on both sides.

Bring on week two, and inevitable fall from grace.

The brightest scoring prospect of the Hakkapeliitat defensive line, Marek Židlický seems to be suffering from a mysterious ankle ailment. Considering that the entire scoring power rests on rather meek shoulders right now, I’d certainly want him back on the bench and on the ice, subsequently, as soon as possible.

I just subscribed to my first ever blog written in swedish.

No, I don’t have a sudden need to have a meaningful discussion using Finland’s second official language. Just felt like a good idea to get exposed to swedish more often than accidentally once a year.

And yes, my swedish is indeed hopelessly rusted up, and it takes considerable effort to make sense of the entries.

And there’s probably something seriously wrong with the title of this post, but I couldn’t let a perfectly good Balle Ramstedt-impression go to waste.

This week’s Macro Day challenge is spice.

My take is the pile of indian saffron. It’s a bright red spice, that turns dishes yellow.