written in anger or despair

A Day in a Life

2008-11-21T08:02:00.007+02:00

Some people have asked me why I don't update my blog anymore. I too started to wonder where my time actually vanishes. So one day, I decided that I will record down every single little thing that I do. I tried to write down everything faithfully, but there were many occasions that I just simply forgot -- especially when two or more people were in my office at the same time. In addition, many

Setting the Record Straight

2008-02-18T07:19:00.008+02:00

I've received quite some emails about this matter, and I must inform you that the reports of my death are (about 46 years) premature.Yes, I was in a car accident in Tanzania. No, none of us got hurt badly. Yes, my car is a wreck. What happened was that me and three of my friends were driving the 290-km motorway from Mbeya to Iringa. About 40km from Mbeya there was one of those big potholes

Editorial Correspondence

2008-01-11T09:38:00.001+02:00

An email to the editor of a book on innovations in IT education (who invited me to contribute an article on the philosophy of computer science):Dear editor,I am a professor in a small university in a developing country, and after your kind invitation in November I asked you whether authors in developing countries can get a discount price when publishing in your book (originally US$110 per page.)

Censoring the Net

2007-10-29T05:10:00.001+02:00

I've always had an issue with censorship in the Internet. Now my issue became a practical problem. I'm currently at Dubai, and wanted to see how the Finnish health care union salary debate proceeds. However, someone in Dubai thought it's in my best interests to not see that page (what "information security"?). The image below shows how I was caught red-handed:Now this problem brings me to my

No Problem with Laplace's Computer

2007-08-22T09:16:00.000+03:00

The idea behind Laplace's Computer is that in principle one can predict the future exactly and accurately. Only a couple of small things are needed. First, the universe must be deterministic. Second, one should know all the forces and laws of nature and be able to model them precisely. Third, one should know all the positions and velocities as well as other properties of each and every item that

Computer Science, Boring?

2007-08-15T11:48:00.000+03:00

I just heard a prominent computer science educator say that the reason for the decrease in the numbers of CS students is that computer science is boring. His solution? Make it easier.Well, if computer science is boring, it is because it's been trivialized and banalized beyond recognition. 'Making it easy' usually means ignoring the hard parts -- but alas, those parts are, at the same time, the

Dictionary Definition

2007-07-28T08:00:00.000+03:00

IronyNoun: Amusing incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.Usage example: At the point when you've spent 6 years writing scientific articles, you find out that your most oft-quoted article is the nerd joke you wrote two years ago when you were bored with your research. You find that tens of people in places like StumbleUpon and del.icio.us have tagged and shared it,

A Rally Against Global Warming

2007-04-11T10:02:00.000+03:00

I don't know who organized this thing, but in the park next to my home there was a rally of snowmen. Tens of those silent, deadpan protesters showed up.The demonstration was against global warming, as one of their signs says:

Word Police Returns

2007-04-09T09:01:00.000+03:00

Dear Educational Technologists,don't you agree with me that the word context should be erased permanently from the vocabulary of our researchers and students? That word is, for reasons unknown to me, both overused and misused. My English isn't flawless but the sloppy use of the word context just drives me mad nowadays.Let me take some examples of misusing the word context. These examples are

It's a Beautiful Life

2007-04-02T06:20:00.000+03:00

Life's been good to me lately, but the greatest news just came out this morning: my long-time crush Cecilia is single again.Now it's my golden opportunity. Got her phone number, anyone?

Anyone With an X is a Y

2007-03-30T08:09:00.000+03:00

Have you noticed a strange trend: Some technoenthusiasts have begun to tell us, "Anybody with an Internet connection is now a publisher", "Anyone with a keyboard is an author", "Anybody with a computer is a producer", "Anybody with a digital camera and a laptop is a reporter", and "Anybody with Photoshop is an artist". I'm sure you recognize the slogan.What's all that about?We never said, "

Matti's Uncertainty Principle

2007-03-13T10:26:00.000+02:00

It is time to present my latest scientific breakthrough: Matti's Uncertainty Principle:It is impossible to know exactly how much money there is on one's bank account.There are, however, some things that we know about the behavior of bank accounts (in addition to Matti's First Law on Income, which deals only with non-negative "classical" balances). Most importantly, when one looks at the bank

Physical Cosmology, Shortly

2007-03-12T16:15:00.000+02:00

Hydrogen is a light, odorless gas, which, given enough time, turns into people.

A Worthy Alternative to Wikipedia

2007-02-27T17:36:00.000+02:00

The latest great news: Conservapedia is here! Finally we have the chance to abandon Wikipedia's liberal and anti-American articles and get the Real Facts. For instance, the 'hippiepedia' has concealed a lot of information about Cacti / Cactuses that I didn't know before I consulted conservapedia! I've actually always thought the wiki-prefix indeed sounds like 'wicked'.

A Generic Joke

2007-02-16T08:08:00.000+02:00

The e-mailman brought me a joke I liked:"How many members of a certain demographic group does it take to perform a specified task?""A finite number: one to perform the task and an additional number to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question."

Matti's Law on Universal Attraction

2007-01-29T09:01:00.000+02:00

In my empirical tests, conducted with a relatively large sample and with a large number of controlled variables, I have come to a conclusion that a body of organic matter ("man", denoted by M) attracts each body of organic matter ("woman", denoted by N) with a force:where i>=0 stands for how much interest M shows towards N, c>=0 stands for how much consideration M shows for N, and n>=0 stands for

Feminism in Politics, Round 2

2006-12-19T11:35:00.000+02:00

Again in Helsingin Sanomat someone called for the Finnish political parties to include the term feminism in their political manifestos. And in the very same article the very same person wrote, "there are as many feminisms as there are feminists".I'm dying to ask her, "What good would it do to include in official party politics another term that no-one can really define? Don't we already have

Crisis of Leadership

2006-12-18T17:28:00.000+02:00

Today's Helsingin Sanomat wrote about the "crisis of leadership" in Finnish enterprises: regular employees (who hold non-managerial positions) are increasingly reluctant to assume responsibility and leadership roles in teams.Come on now! That "crisis" is a direct outcome of growing salary gaps. As long as companies hire ridiculously high-paid people whose job is to lead and manage, how can

Academic Ideals

2006-12-06T22:25:00.000+02:00

I'm getting tired with the factory called academia, and especially its marriage with the myopic rich man called industry. Is there much difference between them anymore? What I'm looking for now is a multidisciplinary place that has only one aim; to civilize people. Maybe someone can help me find one.I mean no industrial funding, no internships. No syllabi, no compulsory attendance. No tests,

Problem-Solving Using Pascal

2006-12-05T08:25:00.000+02:00

Roman, who is a brilliant computer scientist, wrote an intriguing blog entry about problems and solving them. There's indeed a dizzying number of books in computer science named "Problem Solving Using X" *.Apart from computer science, very few academic fields consider practical problem-solving as their task. Other scientists say that problem-solving is not a scientific endeavor at all--they say

PG

2006-11-24T11:08:00.000+02:00

Why do TV and movie guides warn:21:00 Schindler's List (R-15: some sexuality, strong language)Why do they not warn:21:00 Schindler's List (R-15: historically accurate account of genocide, inhumanity, ruthlessness, and despair)Children under 15 ought to be disturbed by the historical factuality of the film rather than nudity or cursing in the film.

Two PhD Degrees

2006-11-14T09:15:00.000+02:00

Getting your PhD degree means that you should know how to do stuff in your niche. It means you're ready. However, there seems to be a trend towards doing more than one PhD degrees.I too thought I might do a second PhD, but luckily a professor from South Africa intervened. When I told him I'm thinking of a second dissertation he asked me, "Why? Is there something wrong with your first one?"

Burden of Proof

2006-11-05T19:40:00.000+02:00

There's something in the discussions about global warming that I don't get.The opponents of emission regulation ground their argument almost solely on the fact that scientists can't agree whether global warming will have disastrous effects or only mild effects on the life on planet Earth. The question that puzzles me is, "How on earth have industrialists and politicians succeeded to market the

Being Modern

2006-11-04T21:37:00.000+02:00

When you listen to technologists talk, you often end up confused about their use of the term modern. The same people can easily use the term modern in both pejorative and exalting manner. I've heard technologists urge modernizing "backwards" countries, yet, almost in the same breath, romanticize "good old times" of "lo-tech".Technology was the very symbol of modernism, and technolust is a

Methodology Bout (Round Three)

2006-11-01T09:38:00.000+02:00

The discussions about the value of methodological training don't seem to cease.I overheard an argument that asking important questions is more important than whether you can approach those questions with methodological rigor. I fully agree. We (qua scientists) shouldn't be afraid of asking difficult questions even when rigorous methods for answering those questions might not exist.But we

Two Lessons

2006-10-30T22:08:00.000+02:00

Two lessons I learned during my doctoral studies.You should listen to your supervisors. They're smart and they know a lot.Sometimes, rarely though, you should trust yourself and ignore your supervisors. You are also smart, and supervisors don't know everything.

Progress of Computing Technology

2006-10-14T01:36:00.000+03:00

Incompatibilities between 7-bit and 8-bit character sets used to be a royal pain in the ass some 20-30 years ago.Computing has progressed immensely since those days......as witnessed by today's frequent incompatibilities between the sophisticated utf8 and utf16 character sets.

Why Did It Take So Long to Discover Zero?

2006-10-11T09:58:00.000+03:00

I believe that the answer is simple. Zero is a very unnatural thing.I think that the only number naturally attributable to physical objects is one (1). The number zero (0) indicates nothingness, and there exists no "no physical object": Physical objects can only naturally exhibit their existence (“I am a brick”). They cannot exhibit their non-existence (“I am a no-brick”). You can show me one

먼 후일

2006-10-05T03:45:00.000+03:00

먼 후일 당신이 찾으시면그 때에 내 말이 '잊었노라'당신이 속으로 나무라면'무척 그리다가 잊었노라'그래도 당신이 나무라면'믿기지 않아서 잊었노라'오늘도 어제도 아니잊고먼 후 그때에 '잊었노라'김소월

Outsourcing

2006-09-30T22:37:00.000+03:00

I've been thinking about why companies nowadays try to outsource as many things as they can.I think that the answer is simple. By outsourcing, companies get to work with companies instead of employees. Unlike employees, companies don't get depressed, they don't take maternity leaves, and they don't take sick leaves. Companies don't stay home when their kids catch a flu, companies don't have

Open Source is Deteriorating

2006-09-26T17:48:00.000+03:00

The roots of open source software are in the early days of computing when organizations like USE, DUO, and SHARE were founded to help researchers to share their programs. Despite the gradual commercialization of software, open source has continued to appeal to people, perhaps beacuse of its higher, noble motives.But I am afraid that the most spirited open source preachers are damaging the

Matti's First Law on Income

2006-09-20T11:00:00.000+03:00

I think this is exactly the forum where to publish my First Law on Income:No matter how much money you make, at the end of the month your balance is always zero.1st Corollary: Unexpected income is always neutralized by unexpected expenses.Practical corollary: If you thought you could save some money this month, at the end of the month you will notice that you have no money left to save.

Tabloids on Computing and Research

2006-09-18T10:59:00.000+03:00

I'm fed up with tabloids talking about people I'm not familiar with, like Kate Moss, Tom Cruise, wives of soccer players, and so forth. I think that the yellow paper publishers have forgotten important groups of buyers like computer people and academic people.I'd like to see interesting news like, "Steve Jobs going out with a spectrometer!", "Gates with Mac!", and "A Scandalous Love Affair:

No More Miss Universe

2006-09-07T13:32:00.001+03:00

I plead to all my fellow Finns: Let's start acting like a civilized nation and stop sending our yearly sacrifice to that repressive and objectifying meat-market called the Miss Universe Competition. We should show the world that we're better than that.We're way past the 1950s patriarchality and gender stereotypes that the Miss Universe competition represents. The shallowness of the Miss

Mind-body Problem

2006-09-04T08:06:00.000+03:00

A surprising number of conscious computer scientists believe that computers reproduce the mind-body problem in the form of software-hardware. I don't think so -- mainly because there is no "problem" with hardware-software.In the case of computer systems we are able to express and explain the continuum from hardware to software into the minutest detail. Theoretically, no feature of software

Rogue Scientists in Edtech

2006-08-31T11:46:00.000+03:00

I've often come across a misbelief in our field that methodology and rigor are the antitheses of innovativeness and freedom of research. Quod non.Ungrounded opposition of methodology is not revolutionary. It is just pointless rebellion (but against whom?) or merely laziness. Those researchers who are not fond of doing rigorous empirical research but who still wish to call their work "

Language Fascist Speaking

2006-08-28T11:07:00.000+03:00

My fellow purists! Join me to save specialty words from banalization! (Poets, don't bother to reply)As much as I dislike specialized terminology, I concede that sometimes in science some special terms help to make one's point clear and precise. For instance, context denotes the part of a text that surrounds a text passage. Ontology refers to studies of being. Agency refers to the capacity to

We Need Overlapping Technologies

2006-08-19T12:04:00.000+03:00

Ilkka wrote earlier about his worries about integrating IT in cars.I'm even more afraid of the visions in which phone, TV, radio, and all other kinds of communication work over the Internet. Internet goes down every now and then - sometimes due to faulty hardware, sometimes due to worms, viruses, and such. I don't want that my phone, TV, and radio stop working every time there are problems with

Our Footprints in History

2006-08-15T21:43:00.000+03:00

Historians in the future will hate us for our digital technology. Unlike writing on paper, magnetic blips fade away quickly.Yet I think we're being very wise. We really wouldn't want to carve in stone all the filth in the Internet. It's a good thing that future generations won't witness our decadence.

Novelty is not a Value

2006-07-06T23:03:00.001+03:00

I'm regularly amazed by the titles of articles in computer science. And I'm regularly troubled by the fact that those titles actually reflect the content of those articles. The kind of titles I'm talking about are those advertising the novelty of the thing described in the article.I think that we all agree on this: in computer science novelty is not a value as such. That some construction is

Computational Chauvinism

2006-07-05T09:17:00.000+03:00

It seems to me that many computer scientists aren't content with using the methods, models, and theories of computation just in computer science, with computers. Success of computational modeling in multifarious areas has lead some computer scientists to a delusion of generality and universality of computation.Those lured into the delusion of generality want to see the whole world through the

Church and State

2006-07-01T15:40:00.000+03:00

Some weeks ago the Finnish supreme court found the Lutheran church guilty of gender discrimination, and the court ruled that the Lutheran church cannot appoint parsons who refuse to work with priests who are women. Afterwards, the spokeswoman for the christian democratic party complained in TV that lawmakers should not interfere with matters of church.But hey, remember that the same christian

What Feminism?

2006-06-29T11:20:00.000+03:00

There is a fundamental problem in speaking about feminism. That is the number of feminisms there are. There are the three waves; there are Black feminism, socialist feminism, and queer theory; there are different shades of radical feminists; and so forth. And I'm not sure if they all agree on -- anything.Recently Veronika Honkasalo (the speaker for Unioni, The League of Finnish Feminists)

Strange thieves

2006-06-28T12:46:00.000+03:00

Last week some punks stole my car in Helsinki. Three days later the police found the car, abandoned in Mellunmäki (famous for Kaurismäki movies).My friend went to move the car to a safer location and he called me that strangely enough, the little thieves had opened my gym bag and spread my boxing gear around the car but apparently none of my boxing stuff was stolen.What's that all about?

Too Smart Supervisors

2006-06-21T23:21:00.000+03:00

A thought for my student peers;if you understand all the articles and books written on your topic but don't understand what your thesis supervisor tells you, then it's about time to think about changing your thesis supervisor.The reason why you don't understand what your supervisor says is irrelevant. It doesn't matter why (s)he isn't able to help you. It only matters that (s)he isn't able to

A Job is not Action Research

2006-05-22T15:33:00.000+03:00

I just finished reading yet another study by some computer scientists. I need to refer back to my earlier entry about "Unfair to Qualitative Research", and make a note:That you've been working with a project doesn't mean you've done action research.That you've talked with a number of people doesn't mean you've done interviews.That you've gradually begun to understand something doesn't mean it's

Progress of Philosophy

2006-05-15T15:52:00.000+03:00

Marcus Tullius Cicero wrote that there is nothing so absurd as not to have been said by a philosopher; Nihil tam absurdum quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum*I'll have to disagree with my dear namesake. Since the times of Cicero, philosophers have blurted out an impressive array of new absurd claims.I argue that there will always be more absurdities that philosophers can turn into fame,

Q&A

2006-05-13T18:35:00.000+03:00

A note about questions that we pose to our peers about their work:If you wish to get a good answer to your question, spend some time honing the question. This is for the simple fact that the quality of the answer cannot transcend the quality of the question.If you can't come up with a clear and unambiguous question, you can't expect a clear and unambiguous answer.

Science, the Herald of Bliss

2006-05-08T16:42:00.000+03:00

I've lately been amused by a fiery debate between Finnish medical doctors and proponents of alternative medicine. The MDs have delivered a broadside against all forms of medicine that are not sanctified by the Western science. Even intuitive, commonsensical forms of therapy such as aromatherapy, acupuncture, and yoga have been dragged to mud. I don't know about others but the smell of dung

(D)evolution of Thought

2006-04-27T09:42:00.000+03:00

When I started toying with computers, programming was programming and it was fun.In the university I began to see that programming was not only programming, but programming was intertwined with and a constituent of a world of meaning-creation, knowledge construction, pragmatic inference, concept negotiation, local contingencies, and other exciting stuff. Seeing this stuff makes me a researcher

Technoenthusiasm

2006-04-24T10:17:00.000+03:00

I thought we had seen TV advertising to appeal to everything from need to functionality to usefulness; from masculinity, feminity, and superficiality to humor; from status and self-esteem to image.I was wrong, again. Now TV ads appeal to shame. Because it's hard to convince us that we need a new cell phone again, the new Elisa TV campaign markets phones by telling us that Finns have "almost

Old-Boy Networks in Academia

2006-04-19T15:56:00.000+03:00

A colleague of mine urged me to apply for a certain open position in a certain polytechnic. I was thrilled -- I would've met the requirements, and the job would've been really interesting.Then I found out that they had already chosen someone, but they just had to make the choice look formal by announcing the position to be open.What are those people afraid of when they don't play it fair? That

Agenda [sg. Agendum]

2006-04-17T12:00:00.000+03:00

The other day I held up focus mitts for this 17-yr old kid at the boxing workout. Between the rounds we talked about age and I told him that he shouldn't listen to anyone over 28 because they always have hidden agenda. Immediately he asked, "why are you saying that?".Pretty smart guy.

Simple and Clear

2006-04-16T14:11:00.000+03:00

I often struggle for an hour with reading a new article or book, just to find out that the author's message was actually really simple and could've been said in two paragraphs. That is frus-trat-ing. But then I remember my own writing, and I have to concede that those lengthy, complex texts are long and complex because simplicity and clarity are so damn hard.It's hard to write clearly about

Vicious Circle

2006-04-06T14:11:00.000+03:00

The more you work to do the things that are "expected" of you (by the formidable anonymous 'them'), the higher the expectations grow.As your to-do-list grows, at one point or another you'll fail to meet the expectations.Whether you're still sane after your failure or not depends on how early you bail out. Actually, if you bail out early enough, the only things they expect of you is that you

Unfair to Qualitative Research

2006-03-22T14:27:00.000+02:00

I think that some natural scientists are a bit harsh on qualitative methods.If you do something awfully stupid and call it scientific method -- like climb the tower of Pisa, drop down balls with different colors, and conclude that "the acceleration of the ball dropped is a function of the color of the sunrise" -- nobody blames the scientific method for the stupidity of your study.But if you do

Opportunism Par Excellence

2006-03-20T19:41:00.000+02:00

Working with computer scientists has taught me that There is no Methodology of Computer Science. Computer scientists are methodological anarchists, opportunists, using whatever tool they find necessary to get the task done. Nevertheless, computer science has been extremely efficient during the last 60 years.I believe that computer science is effective not despite anarchism, but because of

Non-Competition Clauses

2006-03-13T09:25:00.000+02:00

I can't believe that some universities actually enforce non-competition clauses such as "The author [lecturer] agrees not to use the same or similar material in a competing institution".I would like to believe that the university mission is threefold: to promote education; to promote research; and to serve society. These are the educational, academical, and societal functions of university (

The Crisis of Science

2006-03-05T11:58:00.000+02:00

Maybe science isn't that much of an activity, a method, an institution, or a discipline, but also a mindset, a way of thinking.And maybe the biggest reason for the crisis of Science is that Science is done by scientists?

Conferences for Grown-ups

2006-03-04T09:02:00.000+02:00

A lot of papers presented in conferences are quite preliminary or incomplete (at least mine are). I think that many instructors send us students to conferences to get experience and to practice. I like that.However, I suggest that there should be two kinds of conferences. There should be (1) conferences where students like me can gain experience and get to practice; and (2) conferences for real

Publish or Perish

2006-03-01T09:25:00.000+02:00

It's a researcher's duty to tell others about new interesting findings. Opening new intellectual doors contributes to our common knowledge.It's also a researcher's duty to not write when he or she doesn't have anything new to say. Don't waste everybody else's time.

Gift Authorships

2006-03-01T09:10:00.000+02:00

...on the difference between acknowledging, citing, and co-authoring.If you think that I gave you a good idea, a nifty term, a nice concept, or some other small spark, and if you think I should be acknowledged for that, then do exactly that: acknowledge me.If you think that some of the stuff I've published is useful in your work, then cite my stuff.If you think that we can together write about a

The Man Competition

2006-02-28T10:04:00.000+02:00

I just read it in the Internet that at their birth all men are signed up for a secret competition. The competition is,"Who dies with most toys wins."Although I got a lousy start, I'm gaining on my competitors.

Simply Complex

2006-02-21T14:25:00.000+02:00

In the face of the immense and rich, yet impenetrable beauty of the world, most of us "scientists" fall back to our second line of defense, to trenches of tractable abstractions and logic. It's easy to defend your lines when you can choose the armaments.But boys and girls, we wouldn't last for a second out there if we had to surrender our cherished formalizations.My dear friend Jen once wrote, "

Secular Extremists

2006-02-20T13:56:00.000+02:00

Roman asked me the other day if I can come up with anything that would make me so angry that I would go and burn another country's embassy. No, I don't think so. I said that I'm not that extreme in my beliefs.On the second thought, people like me, people who are between Christian extremism and Muslim extremism, can be extremists too.That nothing is sacred for us, that anything can be ridiculed,

The Quasimodo of Words

2006-02-19T12:23:00.000+02:00

I thought Porsche was an ugly word. 2 vowels and 5 consonants.Then I found Schwarzenegger.But now I spotted, in my thesis, a new champion: strengths -- 1 vowel and 8 consonants; 5 consecutive consonants. Hard one to beat, except for Germans. Schnodderlöffel!

The Real Jokes About Finland

2006-02-18T15:14:00.000+02:00

Conan O'Brien is now filming in Finland. I'm eagerly waiting for his program to air.I hope Conan will find the Real jokes about Finland. Such as our claim to be in the vanguard of human rights although we are the only EU country with prisoners of conscience. Or that we criticize countries that don't agree to nuclear disarmament, but we won't sign the Ottawa Treaty. My generation, including me,

Information Society Party

2006-02-15T12:55:00.000+02:00

I've been following some quasi-political discussion lately. Angered by the new law that restricts people's rights to make copies of their cds, some people have founded a new political party, information society party.It is a bit saddening that these people didn't get angry about some real problems such as alcohol and drug problems, domestic violence, or students' low income.

We Must Protect Thinking from Computer Scientists

2006-02-06T18:17:00.000+02:00

Computational sociology? Computational models of culture? Computational Universe? WHAT!?!Sciences, humanities, social sciences -- all thinking indeed -- needs to be protected from the zealous computing missionaries! Act now before it's too late.

...And Down Goes Google!

2006-02-05T15:16:00.000+02:00

You'd think that huge companies like Google would take good care of their services.Well, 99.999% reliability means, "Don't trust your important files to no-one". This weekend Google's blogger (this service) had a number of major problems, a lot of downtime, and at least my last posts are gone.

Myths in Academia

2006-02-04T18:38:00.000+02:00

No self-delusion in the academia, boys and girls! Good things do not usually come to those who wait. Act. Grades do not matter, connections do. Socialize. Diligence doesn't pay, opportunism does. Push in. Deal with it. Toe the line or perish.

Common Sense, Inc.

2006-01-28T21:05:00.000+02:00

I want to start a company. I think that businesses, universities, institutions, and especially governments are in dire need of common sense. So, my business idea is to start selling common sense by the gallon. The customers would call me and ask me to bring some common sense to their project, process, business, or whatever.Just take a look at the world today; I'd make my first quazillion in no

Teachers Who Are Fun

2006-01-22T19:32:00.000+02:00

Being funny is a deception that leads students away from asking difficult questions. Instead of the students asking you to define postmodernism, categories of being, or other ambiguous things, they ask you to join their barbeque party.I like it like that.

Academic Proofreading 101

2006-01-16T13:34:00.000+02:00

If the author does not give examples, write unsubstantiated.If the author gives examples, write digression.If the author helps the reader with a term, write redundancy.If you cannot remember a term, write define this.If the author uses a complex sentence, write rephrase.If the author uses simple sentences, write naïve.

Empirical Verification

2006-01-15T11:53:00.000+02:00

The problem of empirical verification is not that much how to verify something, but what to verify and why to verify it.

General Knowledge

2006-01-11T21:58:00.000+02:00

I refuse to know anything about the contestants of the Apprentice, or the names of the people in Big Brother, or who the hell is Dr. Phil.I also refuse to know or care what our presidential candidates think about anything. It's all about media circus and party politics. Media killed democracy.

A Boy Band

2006-01-06T22:58:00.000+02:00

At Harri's birthday party Pasi convinced me that we need to reconsider an old idea about a boy band boyZ. Now we have a kick-ass concept of a zuper c00l boy band. Just wait and you'll be amazed.

A New Home in Thailand

2006-01-06T00:17:00.000+02:00

A sad day for the friends of limericks. They told in TV that the man from Nantucket got tired of people laughing at him and moved away.I heard he's nowadays living in Phuket.

Masculine Sensibility

2006-01-05T13:25:00.000+02:00

After watching the development of serious alcoholism for almost twenty years, I have become to understand that alcohol abuse is a manifestation of male sensibility. We Finns live in an oppressive culture, in a tough culture of strong men.

University of Applied Sciences

2006-01-04T15:40:00.000+02:00

The Finnish institutes of technology, or polytechnics, adopted a nice new term for their schools. All the polytechnics in Finland go after 1.1.2006 by the name University of Applied Sciences. With my colleague we deduced that this makes vocational schools Universities of Concrete Sciences and elementary schools Universities of Basic Sciences."I'm a car mechanic from the North Karelia University

New Year

2005-12-31T23:57:00.000+02:00

I have fifteen years of experience that the New Year's Eve is a bad time to be out partying.Crowded with amateurish drinkers who have way too many expectations for one single night, the early hours of the new year always witness sudden sublimations of frustration and aggression.A bad time to be out.

Beauty and Boat Making

2005-12-30T15:05:00.000+02:00

A friend of mine, who is a boat maker, told me that when you're building a sailing boat, you need to calculate a lot of stuff. "But", he added, "if the calculated lines do not please the eye, it is wiser to trust aesthetics instead of mathematics."

Fun and No Fun

2005-12-29T13:54:00.000+02:00

In parties and such I sometimes find it necessary to explain why I prefer Sprite to booze. It boils down to two reasons:1) I can easily have fun without alcohol.2) I can easily have alcohol without fun.No further explanations are needed.

Criterion of Successful Teaching

2005-12-23T23:21:00.000+02:00

A teacher has succeeded if and only if the student becomes better than the teacher.If the teacher does not succeed, regress occurs -- something is lost. After a large enough number of generations with teachers who failed, humankind would be back to Stone Age.

The Holocaust vs. a New Holocaust

2005-12-19T18:56:00.000+02:00

Funny how European leaders are now getting agitated about an Iranian leader who argues that the holocaust did not happen.It's funny because the same European leaders never got agitated about the same Iranian leader when he earlier called for a total destruction of Israel, i.e., a holocaust.

Feyerabendians

2005-12-18T12:52:00.000+02:00

Paul Feyerabend was an anarchistic thinker. He was called the worst enemy of science and a betrayer of the truth. But he made his point clear and unambiguous: The only methodological advice that does not shackle thinking is "anything goes".I can but imagine the regret of poor Paul when, on his death bed, he was told about the numerous scientists who had become his followers.The history of

Ban Torture Now

2005-12-17T19:18:00.000+02:00

I just read from the cageprisoners.com that the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are tormented in a number of horrendous ways. They are flown to Cuba; they can just lie flat and not work; they are forced to listen to Meatloaf, Aerosmith, and Eminem; they are forced to take drugs, drink alcohol and eat pork; they are made to watch pornographic films, dirty magazines, and sometimes live naked women.This

Boring and Uninteresting People

2005-12-17T10:01:00.000+02:00

Two things that I keep on hearing connected with drinking are "Let's go have fun" and "I met a lot of interesting people at the bar."I deduce that alcohol is for boring and uninteresting people who hope to be fun and interesting. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong.

Two Cultures Revisited

2005-12-08T10:19:00.000+02:00

When I think about it again, I believe C.P. Snow got it wrong; Why two cultures?Does it mean that a psychologist would appreciate an anthropologist, that a philosopher and a historian would speak the same language, or that linguistics and social policy would pull together? It's hard to even tell which disciplines belong to which culture. "Psychology?"Does two cultures mean that a mathematician

Dear Katie

2005-12-03T10:23:00.000+02:00

I've been wondering what do you mean when you sing "There are nine million bicycles in Beijing; that's a fact - It's a thing we can't deny, like the fact that I will love you till I die."I've been thinking and thinking about the words fact and deny, the exact figure 9,000,000, and the logic of your sentence, and I've come to a firm conclusion that it's better for the lucky guy or girl not to

The Crux of the Two Cultures Debate

2005-12-02T15:09:00.000+02:00

In science and mathematics, an argument starts "Let n <> 0", and ends with "Q.E.D." ("which was proven" [sic]).In humanities and social sciences, an argument starts "N.N. writes that ...", and ends with "I believe that this viewpoint can be fruitful for further studies on the topic."You don't see an argument in physics starting "In this thesis I offer a new point of view to the Second Law of

Zero, One, Two

2005-12-01T08:05:00.000+02:00

Lately I've been thinking of why did it take so long for mankind to come up with number zero. I believe the reason is that number one is the only natural number.You can give someone an apple and say, look, here is one apple. But you can't give someone a non-apple and say, look, here are zero apples. And when you give someone two apples, you are actually giving one apple and one apple. Two is just

Unfair to Computer Industry

2005-11-28T16:42:00.000+02:00

There's plenty of jokes about "if software companies made cars", but I think they're a bit unfair. If people demanded the same things from car manufacturers that they demand from software companies, they'd want cars that need no registration, filling up, or maintenance; they'd want to choose their engine, brakes, transmission, and windshield manufacturer freely. They'd want to bolt and weld 79

Proportionating Things with Disproportionate Things

2005-11-22T19:34:00.000+02:00

How is it supposed to help people understand proportions better when one writes that the U.S. Atomic Audit is $5.5 trillion, which means a stack of $1 bills from here to the moon and back. Or that the size of Africa is 11,357,866,667 football fields. "Oh, of course, now I see; it is so very big."Why not say, "the size of Africa is as many football fields as the number of cucumbers piled on top of

Sentiments about Writing

2005-11-20T22:26:00.000+02:00

The tediousness of writing anything even remotely philosophical comes from that if the author doesn't take the reader as an idiot and protect the text against every inane and obvious argument, the reader takes the author as an idiot because there are inane and obvious holes in the text.