May 172009
 

Triptropping New YorkTriptropnyc is a new service that shows how long does it take from place A to place B in New York using the subway.

While a similar service (tied to subterranean transport alone) would be useless in Helsinki, in properfly metro-infested cities like London or Paris this would be very useful indeed.

Metro used to reign over this ecological niche. The curious omission of an iphone version seems to be rectified soon.

Geek Atlas

 books, maps  Comments Off
May 152009
 

Geek Atlas-coverO’Reilly is about to publish a geek atlas.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a few of the featured sites (no doubt heavily concentrated in California between San Jose and San Francisco): CERN ought to be there on multiple accounts, Linus Torvalds’ crib on Pietarinkatu might be.

Aug 312008
 

Old school paper maps have been badly sidelined by the constant innovation in the electronic realm.

Panamaps brings in multilayering.

Looks nifty in the ads, obviously – but the techology’s worth in real life remains unproven.

Nov 272007
 

Do not attempt to locate a hidden message in the selection.

There isn’t any.

Jun 182007
 

Why, certainly!

teh

  • One more great map from strangemaps, this one showing which US state matches with which country size- and GDP-wise. Finland = Colorado, which ain’t bad at all.
  • Photographs of speed. Some seriously great snaps.
  • The end is nigh: multicore programming is hard.
  • With candidates like these, the seven new wonders are bound to be boring. Where’s teh internet from the list?
  • Been a happy google reader user for quite a while, but with their recent data loss issues, having another RSS-reader might be worthwhile. Or not. Anyway, seems that there’s quite a selection of the tools available.
  • Sushi books.
  • Editing CSS isn’t exactly the best fun available, a good editor makes it less of a chore.
  • Airlinemeals, just the thing to check before a transatlantic crossing in the cattle section of a 757.
  • The 65 million dollar pants-case makes it to the court. By the description the session was high on surreal, and fortunately low on understanding the accuser.

[ image nabbed from goopymart's photoset on flickr. ]

Mar 142007
 

Abba the HuttNo rhyme or reason, just things to poke and click.

[ Abba the Hutt image from studio muscle. ]

Jan 162007
 

The license and registration, please.

Jan 042007
 

For those about to click.

Jason Kottke has listed the cream of the crop of his 2400 links remaindered last year. Most still as interesting as on the day of posting.

Oct 042006
 

Big Bug in GermanyGermany is under martial law, following the appearance of a gigantic insect on the countryside, as shown on the attached image from Google Maps. Fortunately the critter has been very docile, and has not moved since the initial sighting.

Seriously, though, this is old hat, and the insect has been identified as a thrips that got squished during the scanning of aerial (as opposed to satellite) photography.

Link x n

 art, comics, games, history, links, maps  Comments Off
Aug 252006
 

Where n is 9.

Jun 282006
 

snippet of Helsinki in google mapsSo, all of a sudden the street-level map of Helsinki (and probably of many other places) is available in google maps. Missed the addition of non-satellite map data completely. And the satellite map data seems to have vastly increased in clarity.

Looks good, apart from some names that persist in swedish (like Berghäll in the attached image). I’m sure someone has already complained.

May 062006
 

Not all six shots expended here.

  • ASCII maps renders google maps through a slightly lossy pipeline. The site seems to have lost colour in the maps since the first visit.
  • Not all the depictions of the “Internet” in the movies have been truthful – a decent WSJ article exposes some of the good, bad and the ugly.
  • Woo. Warren Ellis is a guest of honor in the Helsinki comic festival
  • Been looking for a new camera recently – the G3 is good, but a bit slow and definitely a bit bulky. The good old dpreview.com seems to be the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to analyzing equipment.
  • Rob Hubbard was the composer in 8-bit days, now his output has been carefully collected and catalogued.

EDIT 30.8.2008: Neither the Sarjakuvafestivaali nor the Hubbard links have survived to this day.

Destination Red Planet

 maps, science  Comments Off
Mar 132006
 

Overlaid maps from MarsGoogle expanded their mapping service to cover Mars.

But it seems to be missing the canals, and I couldn’t find Dejah Thoris’ palace either. Perhaps she’s just getting ready for Jon Favreau’s movie adaptation of the ERB classic.

And the famous face in Cydonia (at 40.75N, 9.46W, and available as a tagged object) seems less prominent on the maps than in the theories spouted by those convinced that it is a monument of extraterrestrial nature.

Feb 202006
 

Sweet!

  • The Believer/McSweeney crowd will publish the first issue of Wholpin, a dvd-zine filled with short films. I want, especially when it includes unpublished bits by Spike Jonze. But am denied purchase by Amazon, it would seem, as “Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S”. Well, this is where ebay will come in useful, certainly.
  • FNORD. A classified sequel to the classic game of world-domination and losing friends.
  • Chuck Norris, meet U-15, the last man you’ll ever challenge to a staring contest.
  • Yet more funky lego-constructions. This time it’s Babbage’s difference engine.
  • Ok, ok. Joss Whedon’s Firefly was vastly better than the average show, and untimely cancelled. But this attempt shooting for a second season seems a tad optimistic. Considering that Serenity didn’t exactly break the box office.
  • Google Earth, the nighttime version. Images have ugly watermarks, but squint hard, and the world’s a better place for sure.
  • Museum of Hoaxes. This will spruce up a boring meeting. Something to visit again and again. And when the museum’s no longer enough, it’s time to take a plunge into the wild world of urban legends. The real thing, not the D-class teen slashers of yesteryear.
  • What do you get when you mix up an ancient Nintendo classic, the chorus of an Aerosmith song and a vice-president with quail-shaped friends: Cheney’s got a Gun. This is less safe for work than the previous. At least mute the laptop before clicking.

What does mine say?

Nov 192005
 

Things that have impressed or stupefied this week. Entirely Sony Rootkit-free, that subject has been discussed and dissed to the death already.

  • A remake of the classic Prisoner show has been proposed. With most of the cool/unique bits removed with surgical precision.
  • Sam Peckinpah’s marvellous ode to the end of the western era, The Wild Bunch, finally gets a decent dvd treatment. The current version is an ancient flipper, and this update is much appreciated.
  • Hell must be freezing over: an interesting Microsoft Blog.
  • The third Ben Schott’s Miscellany book will soon be out in finnish.
  • A finnish google maps blog. Now the question on where a hole drilled from Helsinki through the centre of the Earth would surface on the other side can finally be settled.
  • A definitive list of 100 best board games ever. Backgammon and go are present among the commercial games, but chess is conspicuously absent. Or my search-fu is weak.
  • Someone with a decent amount of time in his hands has implemented a UNIX-lookalike virtual machine in Javascript. It even has a functional vi in it. Redirection seems to be misbehaving, but it’s a hack-y achievement nonetheless.
  • Risto Isomäki’s Sarasvatin Hiekka is shortlisted for the Finlandia-award. But with the decision done by our ex-prime minister and all around master grouch, I don’t think that a science fiction book has no chance of success. But who knows, maybe Paavo is a recovering trekkie, now on a serious B5-binge.
  • Google analytics started working, but clearly the launch capacity needs were vastly under-estimated.
  • The search terms that reach the Lavonardo HQ are lame, when compared to those of benrope.

Ok, so it’s NOT rootkit free, but this image is way too clever to miss out on. Sue me.

Sep 132005
 

A random selection of things that have tickled my fancy one way or the other.

  • The collective death of the angry young man as a concept has indeed been misreported.
  • The uncyclopedia entry about Finland is chuckle-inducing, but only if you can spot the references. Or at least the majority thereof, quite a few are on the obscure side.
  • V for Vendetta is out in finnish. Quite a nice hard cover edition. Ought to get, just to entice the publisher for continuing the good work.
  • Never knew there were so many Taschen books around. Will get the “Movies of the $DECADE” one of these days. After the bookshelf-capacity has been increased.
  • PopOut Maps rule as a tourist accessory. The official site manages to suck in several interesting ways (like the utter inability to provide a decent catalogue of the range), so it’s better to check amazon for the locations the maps are available. Collection thus far: Boston, Dublin and Barcelona. All bought on location, used and appreciated.
  • Surprisingly vocal endorsement of the 770. Which has its own watchblog, so there’s clear pent-up interest. And the release ought to be imminent, with 3Q/05 ending in just two and a half weeks.
  • A big collection of Hello, World-programs in tons of different languages.
  • boingboing has been wallowing in post-Katrina-Bush-hatefest, but still occasionally contains gems. Like this scrabble-set in 1337-speak
  • Perspectives on the inevitable Google vs. Microsoft battle: Phil Wainewright, Tim O’Reilly.
Aug 242005
 

Google has gone on a regular release spree lately.

Haven’t yet given their desktop a spin, but will at work where the disk (and especially Outlook’s myriad folders) are just cluttered with hard-to-find nuggets.

Google Earth is nothing short of fabulous, and an incredible timewaster. Even though I do think that the Golden Gate pylons are upright as opposed to reclining on the surface of the bay…

However, the most immediate impact is felt from their brand-spanking new (and still beta) Google Talk, their interpretation of IM. Eschews bells and whistles and concentrates on what’s really useful, talk itself.

Of course, such a closely spaced bunch of releases (though Earth is old news) always raises questions about where the company is heading. Jason Kottke crafted a well-thought out piece on potential future of no less than the entire operating system domain. His analysis preceded the talk-release, but is thought-provoking to say the least. And despite the hopelessly speculative nature of the article, it’s an enjoyable read – and a head and shoulders above the site’s usual fare. While the remaindered links are interesting – the capacity for thorough analysis on various matters is definitely more to my taste.

And while on topic of these next-gen desktop thingamabobs, I finally got around to checking out konfabulator. And nifty it is indeed. Coding-wise as well, so it’s probably time to hoist the sleeves and get cracking. Even though it’s in javascript which I don’t really like – but the choice of an interpreted language means that any interesting widgets can be dissected to atoms. Which bodes well for shallowing out the learning curve…