The life and times of a fallen hacker
Archive for the ‘helsinki’ Category.
Woo, beginning right after new year, entry to museums owned by the city of Helsinki will be free of charge.
Nice. Should lower the barrier of entry somewhat. And probably bring huge crowds to the forthcoming Pixar exhibit in Tennispalatsi.
Älä Kailota is a public awareness campaign worthy of props on account of two reasons:
Their domainname boldly uses umlauts.
And the far bigger aspect is that lots and lots of people on mobiles in public transport are completely unaware that they’re spilling sordid details of their lives to their benchmates, if not the whole bus.
Anything that cuts down on such noise pollution deserves a round of applause.
Presso, by far the freshest newspaper in Finland is to be cancelled after three years.
Too bad - it was adamant in its quest for better existence for the capital region, “Pääkaupunkiseudun Tulevaisuus” was indeed an appropriate epithet, and a nice counterweight for the zillions of rural papers across the country.
Helsinki enjoyed the annual no car-day yesterday, which was much appreciated.
But the future doesn’t seem too bright - instead of adding “congestion charges” on city limits like Stockholm, Helsinki is creating yet more parking spots. And that certainly isn’t going to cut down on the vehicles on streets.
Indeed. Hell must be freezing over. Saw five Ferraris (two Testarossas and one Mondial among them) back to back at a traffic light in Töölö.
Helsinki now officially beats Geneve in the luxury car-moment competition.
Of course - following the bright red quintet was a typical aging rustbucket, shattering the illusion immediately.
(Should have photographed the cars, but was in a bus with a dirty windows, and not very quick to even think about it).
My my. How badly Helsinki coped with a minor weather incident.
Radio broadcasting interrupted for hours. Municipal traffic ground to a halt. A stern warning to remain indoors issued by the meteorological institue.
All this from a short (but suitably intense) thunderstorm, and accompanied with an overture of a general alert signal howling in the background.
Perhaps we ought to be careful that this is as violent as the conditions get, or otherwise Finland, as a nation, would have either learned to cope, or been eradicated a long time ago.
At a 3.60€ a trip I’d say that we are allowed to assume that drivers know the routes, and do not need constant navigation assistance from passengers.
Seems that the bus company has changed following the switch to winter schedule, and after two navigationally challenged trips (on the 362) the training methods (if any) of the new company ought to be questioned.
Patvinsuo by Hannu Vallas
Noted that this summer’s outdoors photo exhibition at the old bus station was shut down earlier than scheduled.
Indeed, Hannu Vallas, the finnish equivalent of Yann Arthus-Bertrand (whose show I raved about back in 2004 and 2005), had two dozen or so images displayed, a lot of the selection taken from the archipelago.
Walked through the exhibition a couple of weeks back, and was impressed enough to consider buying Vallas’ book, after all, Arthus-Bertrand’s doesn’t have a single image from Finland in his sizable tome.
elsinki is gearing up for the festivities next week.
Haircare product-sponsored rickshaws patrol the streets, attempting to trap unwary tourists with an expensive ride. Of whom only the most fanatic have already arrived, and several mongolian hordes more expected to descend in the next few days.
Bookstores are brimming with either travellers’ guides to the city, or books that attempt to convey the image of Finland as one of the eccentricest nations of the world.
City squares large and small have been festooned with screens that bleat out the contestants’ songs non-stop.
Haven’t consciously heard a single entry yet (but probably been exposed to quite a few).
Pop. 7.
Elevation 1069′.
The russian forest fires have been spewing smoke for a couple of weeks now.
The smoke’s not really that noticeable. The first few breaths on the outside do provide a slight nuance of smoke, and there’s a visible haze in the air that’s easily spotted in sunken areas.
Helsinki has smoke related activities today - the national championship in sphere-barbecuing and a short test run by a formula 1 car in the downtown. These shouldn’t the affect the situation much one way or the other.
Took the camera out for a test ride on a traditional Seurasaari-trip. Turns out that the 12x zoom is good indeed, and able to cause even distant subjects to fill out the frame. Unfortunately the local fauna seemed as dumb-struck by the heat as the visitors. Squirrels were nowhere to be seen, and the ducks were exhibiting seriously non-photogenic moods. So a couple of closeups of seagulls were the cream of a rather fallow crop this time around. But as the camera is quite carriable; not compact by any means, but definitely smaller than the G3, expect a lot more images of unwary subjects soon.
The ice cream kiosk next to the entrance still sells the oldskoolest ice cream available locally. The “vanilla stick” by Helsingin Jäätelötehdas is exactly as it was 25+ years ago. Should definitely snap a photo of one, next time.
Noted that the Arboretum in Meilahti is undergoing a rather severe update, with vast tracts of land being reworked. Have to find another oasis for this summer, it seems.
Just to contrast how decent the new camera actually is, here’s a picture of an oyster eater (that’s meriharakka in finnish) I saw the other day - image snapped with the 6680, whose lack of zoom definitely shows… The bird was surprisingly tame - walking to a distance of ten feet or so did not spook it at all.
Italy took the biggest prize of them all in the cup late last night.
And it wasn’t a bad game at all. Both teams played active offense, and both had several scoring chances throughout the two hours. But it was the goalies’ skill that finally turned the game into penalties, and not the usual (and expected) extra-careful play by the teams.
The penalties were impeccably shot - just one miss in ten. For the french this time, this was actually the first time Italy won a penalty contest in the World Cup. Ever. And Trezeguet’s shot was a good one, and an inch off a score. But an inch off, in the end.
However, it’s not the penalties that will be remembered from this game, but Zinedine Zidane’s ugly exit from international football. After all, he was not really expected to go out on a red card following a cruel headbutt on Materazzi.
But then again, it’s not his first violent outburst on the field. He got redcarded for stomping on a saudi-arabian defender in 2002 Cup, and has previous experience from a long head-butt-related ban from the champions league.
Materazzi (in addition to ever-present Cannavaro) was clearly the man of the game. After all, he caused the french penalty, scored Italy’s goal off Pirlo’s corner, trashtalked Zizou out of the game and finally scored in the penalty contest. Quite a show from someone who was supposed to be just a substitute - but Nesta’s injury changed all that. Cannavaro, on the other hand, just mastered the italian defense - challenging whoever he could, and instructing others whom he couldn’t. No wonder Italy was the least-scored-against team in the whole cup.
Watched the game in Vltava, in downtown Helsinki. And ran into a huge crowd of celebrating Italians after the game (including all three I’m on a first-name-basis). The local cops took rather a bright view on the folks. And I’m sure that we saw just a palest possible image of what was actually going on all across Italy.
The pages of the movie theatre confirm that the seven-screen miniplex has ceased to function.
“For the time being”.
Finnkino, the biggest cinema company in Finland just bought its biggest competitor, Sandrew-Metronome. Which means that Helsinki is yet poorer when it comes to choice.
And with the independents (Engel, Bio City, Rex) reeling due to various reasons, it looks like that the finnish film archive is pretty much the only alternative in town.
Attended the official celebratory reception for the Eurovision winners on Kauppatori.
An occasion that probably overshot any estimates of attendees - the few video screens were inadequate as was the PA.
Missed the beginning, spent the first two bands in good company and took off when it was an hour till the main event.
Managed to catch a couple of songs by PMMP and Egotrippi on the very crowded square. Probably the biggest finnish gathering I’ve ever been to (surpassing the ‘93 Leningrad Cowboys neatly). The attached picture doesn’t really show the masses, arrived late and was thus near the edges of the area.
Listened to a couple of songs - usually taking a very long time to identify them (bad PA, remember). The president of the country put in a brief appearance (unlike the prime minister who’s been absolutely gushing about the band), and the band launched into their biggest hits.
Which was our cue, started walking away before the masses had the same idea. And heard the winning song while walking and got to Base well ahead of the crowds - a definite win-win situation.
Some Lordi-imitators were present in the audience, but all in all the mood was more expectant than participatory. By far the coolest attendee was a guy dressed up as a construction worker and carrying a poster of Vesa-Matti Loiri.
And that’s the magazines (old storage houses as opposed to weekly newspapers) smack dab in the middle of the town. The ones that were in severely worn condition. The ones that were slated to be demolished next week.
Looks like someone beat the official demolition team to the show.
And nope, didn’t see the fire - the flu has taken a sudden surge upwards, which sure isn’t nice. Didn’t even see the smoke, proving that there’s a serious dead angle between Haaga and downtown.
The incident is considered to have been an arson, according to witnesses there was a loudish bang and the fire spread unnaturally quickly within the southernmost house.
Citizen journalism was very much in action as well - there’s plenty of images available on the web - view them through the likes of pinseri.
Seems that a busdrivers strike is a semi-annual event now. Slated to begin today at 1800, the strike would mean that almost all companies jointly handling the municipal traffic in the Helsinki metroplex area would stop.
Originally the strike was set to begin already two weeks ago, but that date, being the start of kids skiing vacation, would have not been disruptive enough. Tomorrow will be, considering that mr. weatherman has promised an ample supply of snow for the beginning of the week.
As collateral damage to the bus drivers, also the grabagemen go on strike. Of which the Lavonardo HQ gets to enjoy the benefits sooner than most - sometimes it’s not advantageous to share the house with a grocery store. And no pied piper of Haaga has yet shown up to take care of the local rat population.
Had a bit of time to kill yesterday before the movie. And the time taken was worthy, since the theatre was almost sold out and having first row seats next to the screen is never pleasant.
So, had a bit of time in my hands, and went to see the newly opened second phase of the Kamppi mall located pretty much next door.
As expected it was crowded, but not to the point of claustrophobia. However, must have been the fresh paint or some otherwise absent factor that caused the roiling masses to totally forgot how to use escalators. Crowds gathered on both ends oblivious to others wishing to step on or disembark. Seriously, it’s not that hard, folks - and you can practice at your leisure even with regular stairs.
Browsed a couple of stores in semi-interested fashion. The much-touted Niketown (first in Scandinavia, supposedly) was very much on the small side. The Quiksilver outlet had a thin selection of t-shirts and the ones available were ugly, expensive and usually both.
The mall seemed to be entirely without a record store, and the resident petstore looked very generalistic - the fishtanks were newly set up, so the cloudiness has a natural explanation.
The twelve-lane bowling alley seemed packed to the gills, and if nothing else, that arena is a worthy addition to the services offered by downtown Helsinki. To add to the big chunk of floorspace in the basement devoted to feeding customers, a couple of new establishments had been opened. Spotted one bar - big, dutch-style pub; and there’s supposedly a brewery at another location. Time to investigate when the crowds have thinned out.
