Found: a form of studying that works (for me)

Finally, a weekend spent merely at home. It feels like I've been running around like a blind herd of sheep again, both due to private and leisure matters and to working more or less, like the weekend course in Biological Psychology I attended (as I run tests with psycho fysiological measuring at work, I consider it to be work related, al though I've always been fascinated by the human brain).

The creative result of the weekend is portrayed in the picture, one pillow and 6 christmas cards for relatives (hope they're not reading this blog, otherwise, the surprise will be spoilt for them!). And while sitting with my feet on the desk, cross-stiching and sewing, I decided to listen to some of the podcasts I subsribe to. I decided not to go with the more entertaining ones but rather scientific ones, like Vetenskapsradion (science radio) and Forskning och framsteg (research and progress). Et voilà, I discovered a great way to learn new things. The combination of listening to a story on what current computer and programming trends a Head of Research at Microsoft sinks and systematic cross-stiching was brilliant for me. There's no point in simply listening to pod casts as I get way too restless to be able to follow the discussions. I've tried to work at the same time, but that's too distracting. Working steals my attention away from what's being said. But this, creative handicraft work combined with analysis and reviews of research conducted around the world, is a winning combination for me.

Do we overestimate our genes?

“As if our destiny is written in our genes. It’s a remarkable idea, but its continuous strong existence in our society and in debates on different issues is interesting."

Veikko Launis, Finland’s first and only Professor of Medical Ethics, on the general opinion that increased knowledge about our genes will not only liberate us from diseases but also reveal who we are and where we came from as human beings. He’s interviewed in the news paper Åbo Underrättelser today.

Squirrel mobile phone

Here's a cool project. MIT Media Laboratory graduate student Stefan Marti has built a Cellular Squirrel, a cellphone embodied in a small portable animatronic, Bluetoothenabled device.

Use your illusion

"Use your illusion" Guns' N' Roses urged us, twice even, in 1991. You can start using it here.

New Kent ep

Just got hold of the new ep from Kent, "The hjärta and smärta ep". Beautiful (and self bibliographical it seems) as always, especially the track Vi mot världen (We against the world). The lyrics go "Mina tankar är så klara nu, ni kan släppa den där bomben nu" which roughly means "My thoughts are so clear now, you can drop that bomb now.", sounds promising. It's a shame I don't have time to really listen to it until late tonight.

An adventure blog

My colleague Tommy at iDTV Lab is off to New Zealand for a month next Saturday. He and his team mates blog about their adventure here. Be sure to enjoy your stay down there!

First snow has arrived!

I had earmarked Sunday - today that is - for sitting by the computer. I planned on finally paying this blog some attention, and play Sims 2 and WoW. I still have some wild boars to take care of before my mission is done. But I woke up this morning by an sms chanting "Oh look it's snowing, oh look it's snowing". Indeed it is and that's great! This, and the fact that the temperature is -0.2 degrees celsius, means that I'll replace the blogging and game playing with changing the tyres of the car to winter ones and getting my car ready for winter.

Susanno?

In many of the Swedish blogs I read, one theme of discussion lately has been blind men and the always attentive women. The question why men don’t see that the trash needs to be taken out, or that the laundry needs to be done while the female part of the household drudges on as a martyr without any help has been pondered.

I’m not sure whether I should be affended, as the above description of the Man suits me perfectly. I rarely see and thus attend to the layers of dust on the shelves; neither do I realize that the flowers need watering until all that’s left in the pot are beige straws (happened last night to my pot of chives… I’ll try some first aid after writing this.). To prevent this, I figured I’d have my pda calendar notify me for instance every Sunday night that the green lives in our household could do with some attention. I wonder if that would help.

The answer of one female blogger to why men don’t see things as well as women do, is that way back, men hunted and women nested. Our ways of thinking are fundamentally different, strictly biologically. This is pretty much saying that I, since I’m obviously blind when it comes to householding matters, am not a woman but rather a femalish man. That does not match my own view.

I guess these bloggers write in a provocative or light, entertaining manner, and the only thing proven here is that I absolutely lack a sense of humor. But still, wondering why men as a group don’t see things that need to be done in a household (and thereby why women as a group do see them) is a bit single-tracked.

Research results on iTV

The press conference we had yesterday regarding our 77-pages long report on the first digital interactive tv-format in Finland, Enigma, caught gladly enough attention. Our results are cited in many papers and radio news broadcasts. I hope to get the time to translate the summary into English some time soon, as I believe the results could interest many. I noticed there's an ongoing discussion about the future of mobile iTV on the aoir-mailing list. I'll definitely write an article about the study of iTV and the results I got to the EuroITV conference in Athens next spring.

News

We were in the news last night, regarding the drama series NDA that was shot here in our tv-studio at MediaCity. The first episode aired last night on YLE, the public service broadcaster in Finland. The news clip is found here (in Finnish only). As a note, I'll mention that YLE is not airing any radio or tv-shows between 2 pm and midnight today. The staff is protesting against the plans on dismissing about 200 workers.

While I'm at it, I'll point you to a blog by the company DirectNIC. The blog's become known as "The survival of New Orleans blog", according to the author Michael Barnett, writing from New Orleans.

Nokia report on mobile tv released today

The results from the mobile TV pilots conducted in Helsinki this spring is out today. There's a press release at Nokia's website here.

Pilates and science

I just had a few delicious bruchetta sandwiches and mozzarella salad. Exercising really gets you hungry. A new class for the season started at my gym today, fitness pilates. Starting us off, the instructor gave us a word of warning: "This may come as a surpise, but the less you've exercised fitness pilates, the easier will it be." Thus, the more you work out, the harder will it be, which is not the case with regular work out. I think I can handle it though, as so is science. The less you know, the easier everything seems. The more you know, the more complicated the world and the structures in it seem and the questions you ask are more complex.

Reiki

I'm off to a Reiki session now. A colleague at work convinced me to join him and try out this controversal method of gaining energy. I must admit, I'm pretty curious to see how it will affect me, beyond the placebo effect...

Up date: When heading home after the session, I saw a woman, walking in the sidewalk, whose posture suggested fatigue and dejection. You could tell that she wasn't about to rank this one as one of her best days ever. Up til that moment, I had had a hard time defining my state, labelling what I had experienced, as I felt almost nothing during the Reiki. But then I realised that "light" was the best word to describe the condition. I felt light. Not healed, not cured, not energetic, not decompressed, just "light". I didn't feel spirited either, al though I had high spirits. That was probably a herd of endorfins dancing around in my cells and molecules due to the skin contact and the resting.

But what about the Reiki session itself? my colleagues ask. The word that comes to mind is the musical term "largo", which means that you play in a very slow tempo. Too slow for me.

3D tv that tickles your senses

Japan plans to take tv viewing to a whole new level.

7.2 earthquake struck Japan

An earthquake shook northeastern Japan earlier today, causing massive damage in the areas around Sendai city. A tidal wave warning has been given in Miyagi. The Blog From Another Dimension blogs about the quake.

Kvarken Archipelago stands a good chance of becoming a world natural heritage site

This weekend was the best one so far this summer. I spent the most of it at our cabine out in the archipelago and the weather was beautiful, even at night. We went chanterelle hunting (we found quite a lot actually, thanks to all the rain we've had recently.) and fishing and while sitting in the small boat, I realized that the archipelago and nature here truly is outstanding. As it's around me every day, I keep forgetting that. For instance, have a look at the rocks in the picture. They are very unique, but that's not something I think of a lot. And if I dedicate them thoughts, it's mostly concerning me not hitting them with my boat as they're quite numerous below water surface as well.

That's why I'm truly delighted to read in Vasabladet (article in Swedish here) that Kvarken stands a good chance of becoming a world natural heritage site. This past week, a Canadian expert by the name Jim Thorsell has been inspecting and reviewing the surroundings and his views are of great importance when it is decided if Kvarken will become a world heritage site or not. According to the article in Vasabladet, he was impressed by the new land emerging (the islands and parts of the Finnish coast are rising out of the sea at the rate of approximately eight millimetres per year), the clean air and water and the rich fauna. It sounds promising as I really hope Kvarken could be Finland's first world natural heritage site.

we're getting warmer

Finally, the sun is out, after days of pouring rain. According to a WWF analysis of the climate in Europe, the cities are getting warmer due to increased use of energy and climate changes. As an example, the average temperature in Europe rose by 0.95 celcius during the last century. Specifically for Helsinki, the mean daily summer temperature in 1970-1974 was 15.2 degrees celcius. In the years 2000-2004, it rose to 16.0 degrees.

If this worries you, I suggest you check this out.

Political blogs appeal to Americans

Interesting survey on what interests American blog readers. According to comScore, 43 % visit blogs about politics and news. Life style-blogs and tech blogs were also popular.
[via digi.today]

wiki on the visual aspects of social life

A wiki on visual sociology is born.

Metaphores

If there's something I loathe, it's vague wordings and great numbers. If I come across the like, I usually pose embarrassing questions like "But what does that mean?" or "What concrete consequences does it impose on my life?". If possible, I want it explained visually or as metaphores as I seem to think in an image mode. Some get uncomfortable when being asked to translate the abstract into the concrete, but I think it's essential.

Therefore, I absolutely love to read "A short history of nearly everything" by Bill Bryson as he exemplifies like there's no tomorrow. (I doubt he acually did all the calculations himself, but rather is he citing someone who's done it before him. But still). In the part where he discusses the vast universe, he states that astronoms today believe that there may be up til 140 billions of galaxies in the visible universe. It is pretty hard to imagine that figure. Therefore, Bryson illustrates it to the reader. If galaxies were deep frozen peas, there would be enough to fill a music hall, such as Royal Albert Hall in London. Spot on!

Bryson also illustrates the Avogrado's number that is 6,0221367 times 1023 (23 raised). This is also a figure, rather hard to fully grasp. Thus, Bryson lets us know that it equals the amount of soda cans it takes to cover the entire globe, the layer being 320 kilometers thick (i.e. hight). And it equals the amount of unpopped popcorn it takes to cover the US with a 15 kilometer thick layer.

See? It's much easier to grasp the width of the figures now!

Berners-Lee on blogs and the web

Here's an excerpt from the interview with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, aired last night on BBC 2 (Newsnight). Berners-Lee ponders what the web will be like when it turns 30 and he says that he hopes it will be "more stable, something that people don't talk about." I've noticed that it's starting to be that al ready. Many around me say "I read it in Aftonbladet" for instance, and very few mean that they actually read the paper version of the evening paper. Everyone means the net version and it's understood that this is the case. Berners-Lee continues: "My goal for the web in 30 years is to be the platform which has led to the building of something very new and special, which we can't imagine now."

Also worth mentioning here, Berners-Lee feels that blogging is close to his original idea of a read/write web and he states that "When you write a blog, you don't write complicated hypertext, you just write text, so I'm very, very happy to see that now it's gone in the direction of becoming more of a creative medium.".

Thanks Masse for the link!

Vacation of music

What a great way to start off my first ever vacation with full salary: Iron Maiden's gig in Helsinki last Thursday, and finishing off with a 3 day rock festival in Åbo. About 22 000 people came to see Rammstein play last Friday, and it was well worth while, although their show was almost exactly the same as their concert in Helsinki last October. At the Maiden gig, Bruce Dickinson dedicated one song for the victims of the London bombing earlier that day and swaying lights where everywhere in the crowd.

Now back out in the heat (it's 27 degrees) and off to the concert, Hanoi Rocks, the Hives and Within Temptation are yet to come!

Ruisrock festival blog

Hufvudstadsbladet, which has the widest circulation of the newspapers in Swedish in Finland, has just launched what seems to be their first blog (though the blog lacks certain features like comments and the like but the author calls it a blog) and it's theme is... Ruisrock, a great rock festival in Åbo where I used to live. Super! I just got tickets to it and I'm counting the days to go there. I'll definitely keep up with this blog.

The Finnish dream

I must be getting old. Never before have I even considered listening to a radio talk show where two people sit and dissect the world for half an hour. Now, I’ve even looked it up, twice, at the internet (radio on demand).

I’ve been playing around with ideas about creativity and creative economy lately so I decided to browse around for interesting references. One of the radio talk shows I found starred Pekka Himanen (who obtained his PhD in Philosophy at the age of 20 from the University of Helsinki) who has been giving much appreciated speeches about the creative capital at conferences around the world lately (the radio interview in Finnish here).

Over lunch with the reporter, Himanen explained his theory on how Finland will keep up with the rest of the world. He said that just as the Americans have their own dream (the American dream which is about personal success, according to PH), the Finns should have their dream, i.e. the Finnish dream. This implies a society that is creative but caring. Like a creative welfare state in the midst of the information age. If a creative and caring society is what bodes for a boosting economy then Finland has every reason to smile. Welfare and caring is our middle name and industries like culture and information technology are strong here.

After a bit of googling, I found this account (in Finnish only) of the challenges of the information society that Himanen wrote for the future committee of the Finnish Parliament. I’ll read it as soon as possible, seems interesting.

Nokia Sensor out today

Nokia released "Sensor" today, a phone software app with which the user can create personal pages on the phone. He or she can also scan the surroundings (up to 10 meters away) for other Sensor users, and exchange fotos or messages with them. Could be pretty cool to try this out but the application is not available for my antique phone (demo of the application here).

The blog leads the way

Timo Tuovinen, an adviser at DOORStories Media Content Solutions, was talking at a seminar I attended today about how important it is to know where you’re going, if you want to manage out there in the big, big world. He referred to a Finnish driver who started doing business in Europe about 40 years ago. Back then, the driver didn’t know any other languages than Finnish. Well, in a recent magazine interview, the driver with 4 decades of experience of doing business abroad concludes that you get by fine out there as long as you know where you’re going.

Tuovinen posed the question about the functions of blogs: Blogs, do they tell stories about persons [who keep them and of others] or are the bloggers rather trying to get a grasp of a fragmented world?

In other words, one could ask if a blog is a means and tool in the quest of knowing where you’re going? I’d say definitely. It’s a great way to sort thoughts, and store threads of thoughts. Once written down and visible on the screen, I get a better perspective. Therefore, I’m easier off targeting where I’m going. And if this bodes well for the ability to manage and survive, then all the better! But not to forget, the first part of the twofold question is also correct, that blogs tell stories of persons, perhaps mostly of the one tapping the keyboard.

Interactive movie

This is rather old piece of news but still interesting to me. The audience of an interactive movie prefers having their individual choice taken into consideration (instantly and at several times during the film) over having the audience's majority vote decide the direction of the movie. At least, this is the experience of the writers, Ali Bali and Violaine Meunier. The 19-minute long episode is found here.

Getting back behind bars

I'm taking up my old summer job as a bartender tonight. I realise now that I've missed mixing flavours to the joy of others, and not just for me and some friends. I feel so inspired, actually, that I just might trade the summer beer for drinks this summer. A speciality tonight will be the Japanese Slipper, add a cherry on bottom and voilà, a treat for both eye and taste buds!

And what's the occasion you might ask. Well, just anything you could imagine. That summer's in the air, for instance, or that it's been 50 years and one day since the first public tv broadcast took place in Finland. A reason as good as any to raise a toast. Or that it's only one year until the 50th anniversary of more or less regular tv-broadcasting, both in Finland and in the UK (the first widely available tv broadcast took place in November 1936 from Alexandra Palace in the UK). Or that it is about 830 days left until the switch from analogue to digital tv-broadcasting in Finland. There are thousands of occasions worth attention.

CfP for the 4th Euro ITV

The first call for papers is announced for the fourth European Interactive TV conference. The theme for next year's Euro ITV is "Beyond Usability, Broadcast and TV".

The conference is taking place in Athens May 18-19 next year, which suits me absolutely perfectly as the preliminary date for the final of the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens is the 20th May. Man, I'd love to get tickets to that musical feast!!

Blogs are all around me...

The titel makes me think of the version "Christmas is all around" (a cover of the Trogg's Love is all around) sung in the movie Love actually. It makes me smile goofily everytime I think of it, what a feel-good movie :)

It is true though, blogs are all around me it seems nowadays. Blogs have been a buzz in the news and perhaps therefore, quite a few people have asked me what's the deal with blogs (to mimic Jerry Seinfeld...), why do you write them, for whom and about what topics? Some have also started their own blogs, like Emmi and my former boss, member of parliament Astrid Thors. Welcome to the world of blogging, my friends!

Finland gets bronze medal in IT use

Finland gets the bronze medal in internet use in the EU. According to a recent study by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European communities, the highest level of internet usage in the EU in 2004 was found among Swedes, followed by the Danes and the Finns.

According to this study, the proportion of men using the net is higher than for women. This does not however apply to the Baltic countries and Finland where the surfing is more equal.

theme of the day

The subject of today has definitely been peonies. I woke up and turned on the telly and found myself watching this season's first programme of the gardening tv show Pioni (apparently, the show's been running since 2002 but I've never come across it. Perhaps because I rarely watch tv early Sunday mornings.). In the afternoon, I went to the trade fair that's hit town this weekend. Although the main attraction on the gardening side was orchids, the peonies did a good job in getting people's attention. And half an hour ago, part of the lifestyle tv show Strömsö dealt with a garden where peonies grow.

It is such an appropriate theme for a day like this, as it feels like spring's finally here. The sun's beaming down through the trees and the mercury decided to break through and stopped at 10 degrees. This time of year leaves me bubbling of energy and inspiration and I truly believe that there's nothing I couldn't do. It's a similar situation as when the first scents of your chocolate muffins baking in the oven hit your nostrils. You know that you're in for a good treat (=the summer) after some hard and dirty work (=the winter) and it's only a couple of more moments away (=it's only spring). And according to me, watching the muffins rise through the oven glass is more rewarding than the actual eating.

Baudrillard and Malta

I’m back home from the vacation in Malta, and I keep thinking about what Jean Baudrillard said about hyper reality and simulation. He claims that the images we see in the media seldom represent reality. They are rather phantom images of a reality that gets lost on the way through the media channels to the consumer. What we see is therefore a hyper reality.

The reason why this comes to mind is that in my quest of useful information about Malta before I left, some websites encouraged me to explore the islands by bicycle:

"Put on walking boots, hire a mountain bike and head out from the village squares on the narrow farmers’ tracks."

and

"Highlight: hire a bicycle and explore the Maltese Islands."

Since I’m fond of biking, I thought to myself that “yeah, that’s a good idea, I’ll look into that once I get there.”. But once I got there, I realized that it probably isn’t such a good idea. Why? Because the traffic was chaotic! Few pedestrian crossings, very few bicycle roads, narrow roads and loads of cars passing you by in high speeds. Perhaps I’m over sensitive because I’ve been in two traffic accidents but there’s no way I’d get into the Maltese traffic on a bike. Therefore, the image I got of the conditions of the bicyclist on Malta on the tourist sites and what I finally saw when I got there did not match. I saw only one person biking during the whole week and the Maltese themselves seem fond of their cars, as there are more than 200 000 cars on the island, and about 350 000 habitants. But it's great fun to find out that things are completely different than what I thought. It’s healthy and educational.

Despite the trouble of crossing the roads, I really enjoyed Malta. There were lots of things to do for a film buff like me. There’s the Popeye village, built for the shooting of the movie Popeye, and the Mediterranean Film Studios with two large circular water tanks, where movies like The Count of Monte Cristo, Revelation and The league of Extraordinary Gentlemen were shot. It was pretty cool to visit the places you see in the movies. (This is a picture from the movie The Odyssey and this is my picture)

Unizon conference streamed

For those of you who are interested in the mobile phone as a tool for co-operation and education, I recommend the virtual part of the conference "Crossborder Networking and Learning - Unizon Conference" that's taking place here in Vasa today and tomorrow. Today, at 14.00 - 15.10 (CET), Gunnar Wranne at Ericsson and Riitta Vänskä at Nokia are talking (in English) about mobility and work. The sessions are streamed here.

TV viewing

Last week I enjoyed Aalborg, Denmark, where the euro itv conference was held. While at the university, I visited VR Media Lab, one of Europe's largest virtual reality installations, and played around in its cave. The cave is a small room where continuous images are projected onto side walls, floor, and ceiling and when experienced through lightweight glasses, it felt like a 3D-world. In this picture, I had a go at basket ball game. It was quite tricky so I only scored 4 points… It was pretty cool but I felt quite sick afterwards so I don’t recommend this as an alternative for dessert.

During the conference, it seemed to me that every discussion at least touched upon two topics: 1) social TV viewing and 2) active vs passive TV viewing. The first issue deals with the question: is the TV viewing mostly a collective action or not? Are the TV programmes mostly watched by groups of people, e.g. families or friends or are there loads of single individuals sitting alone in the TV couch? Because the nuclear family is no longer given and the number of singles living alone is quite high, the old notion of TV being a media product consumed in a group has changed.

The other topic that the debate quite often boiled down to is whether TV viewing is a passive or an active action. And if it is a passive one, is that so bad? We’re active and engaged almost all the time in almost every area of life, then would it be so bad if we relaxed in front of the telly? This makes me think of a Swedish stressresearcher, Aleksander Perski, who says that there’s a new addiction around in the modern Western civilization today, namely time addiction. We are time addicts because we are too active and we don’t allow ourselves to recover from stressful events or a couple of hard days at work. Since he takes up the cudgels for recuperation and rest every once in a while, the new word on my mind (in the sidebar to the right) will be time addiction. I’ll think about it when I’m enjoying my vacation on Malta next week.

Curio: There are only two countries in the world that don’t allow divorces by law: The Philippines and Malta, where I’m spending my holiday in two days.

Written Swedish is not threatened by the web

There are great variations in language and communication in discussion groups on the net, just as is the case offline as well. The variations are contextual, meaning that if the writer wants to chat, the written language might vary from the one used when (s)he for example searches for information. Therefore it's difficult to draw any general conclusions such as a presumed, ongoing decline in the quality and correct use of written Swedish, says a researcher colleague in Åbo, Lotta Collin.

She's not however worried about the written language deteriorating due to discussion groups on the web as she believes that people can tell apart "web language" and more formal language. She defends her doctoral thesis, where she linguistically analyzed 1000 Swedish postings in a discussion forum for diabetes, tomorrow in Åbo.

There's an article in Swedish about her here and here.

Red whortleberry birth and pochard eggs as world origin

Finland celebrates Kalevala Day today, to honour Finnish culture and the old folk poetry recorded in Kalevala by Elias Lönnrot on his collecting journeys in Karelia. The stories these songs tell are swollen with magic. There's the story about Ilmatar (the Virgin of the Air) who descends to the waters. A pochard lays its eggs on her knee and when the eggs break, the world is formed from their pieces.

Also, there's Marjatta who conceives a child from a red whortleberry. Being fatherless, her son is condemned to death, but the child speaks out against the sentence and is christened King of Karelia. And the whereabouts of the miracle mill Sampo are fascinating as well. A national epic truly worthwhile reading. For a resumé of the poems in English, go here.

The paradisegate won the International Ice Sculpture Competition

A duo from Czech Rebublic who has made an incredible peace of art called Paradise gate won the International Ice Scultpure competition in Vaasa.

Even though it's freezing cold outside (although the sun is warming quite a bit already) the interest in the competition and voting for the best sculpture was so great that the organizers ran out of voting ballots. The sculpture with the snake by the gate to paradise was both the audience's and the jury's favorite.

If you want to have a look at the sculptures who came in second and third, and at a selection of the masterpieces in the competition, go here.

Oscar delay

While getting in the mood for tonight’s glamorous Oscar gala, you might want to check out the blog posts by the producer of the show, Gil Cates. “I think it's wrong to have a tape delay because we run the risk of infringing upon the right to free speech.” is his comment to the fact that there will be a network delay this year as well, as a consequence of “Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl halftime show”.

Be a champ at wife carrying!

The registration for the wife carrying world championships in Sonkajärvi, Finland is now open, although the participation form in English is not yet updated. How cool wouldn’t it be to participate!

The event takes place 1-3 July this summer. For information, go here and choose “Wife carrying” to the left.

Article on the lab

There's an article in Finnish on us and iDTV Lab in the latest issue of Puhelin, an information technology magazine.

Banner ads do catch our attention

In my quest to find some information on news paper reading behaviour, I found something surprising. Researchers at Stanford University found in their study of on-line newspaper readers that 45 % of all banner ads were read and fixated an average of 1 second. That’s a much higher figure than I thought. In my own on-line reading, I would have guessed that 10 % of the banner ads succeed in getting my attention. But perhaps I’m glancing at them for such a short period of time, that I don’t actually perceive and remember it.

Cool weekend

The square in Vasa is a cool place to be nowadays, as it is covered with 2 times 1,2 meter fresh water ice blocks. They’re untreated yet, but not for long as the 5^th International Ice Sculpture Competition is taking place this weekend. With a little help of a chainsaw and a couple of chisels, the ice blocks turn into masterpieces. I heard that competitors from about 10 different countries are participating in this event, and the audience can cast their vote on the most magnificent piece of art on Sunday night. Can't miss that.

The actual competition starts at Friday, which is two days away from now. But there’s no need to worry about the ice melting. The temperature here in Vasa was -17 this morning.

Reactions to strong scenes on TV

I got the hardbound copy of the master’s thesis by two students, who conducted their study for the Master’s degree in our iDTV Lab, yesterday. I read it at a stretch last night as they, Klas Backholm and Sebastian Lindqvist, had chosen a fascinating theme.

The purpose of their study was to see whether there are differences in how people with different characteristics react to strong (violent, emotional and scary for example) film scenes. In order to find out, they showed 20 scenes from movies, documentaries and news features to about 60 persons, who started off the test by filling out the NEO Five-Factor Inventory personality test. While the viewers watched the scenes, psycho-physiological tests were conducted. The skin conductance, i.e. sweating, was measured, as was the viewers’ pulse with the help of a photopletysmograph. Backholm and Lindqvist also used video surveillance, self-reports and questionnaires in the study.

The conclusion that the guys come to, based on the questionnaires, pshycho-physiological results and self-reports on the scenes, is that emotional scenes in a film do invoke physiological effects in human beings, at least in short term. And what’s more, we react differently to programmes on television or to film scenes. One of the findings is that “nice”, caring persons (scoring high on agreeableness) tend to react physiologically stronger to television and film scenes in general. They also tend to react in a more negative manner to unpleasant scenes than persons with other personalities.

Furthermore, extrovert and social persons (scoring high on extroversion in the personality test) liked documentaries and scenes from real situations (such as sports and news) more than the other participants. And intelligent persons (scoring high on openness to experience) got frustrated with romantic and harmonic scenes. Backholm and Lindqvist suggest that these persons have a high degree of imagination and guts, and thus demand more of a film than mere romance and harmony.

Another finding in the study is that women rated romantic scenes higher than men, who tended to like scenes with eroticism, humour and violence more. This comes quite close to traditional, stereotypical roles of the sexes, where women are supposed to be into romance and men supposedly dig violence and action. And naturally, I seem to belong to the standard deviation in this matter. Last weekend, I saw a romantic comedy that my boyfriend picked out, Girl fever, and I fell asleep while watching it. The only romantic movie that has passed my test yet is Love actually.

Passion for TV

I gave TV activists at Malax TV, a small, voluntary community TV-station from the small village I'm from, a tour around our TV-studio and iDTV Lab tonight. And I feel absolutely lyrical, almost high, as the group's enthusiasm and passion for tv-production was so obvious and "contagious". They genuinly seem to love what they do although it's a lot of unpaid work in their sparetime. They posed lots of questions and they brought up many thoughts so I've learned loads tonight.

I had a look at Malax TV's website and I found a great collection of links. Among many other interesting things, I found a database of Swedish newsreels and short films from way back. I've had a look at something similar in the UK but I didn't know about the Swedish one. I loved the commersials, especially the animated one about the bank dating back to the 1920's. Definitely worth a look!

Science transparency and the origins of aids

Yesterday at Göteborg Film Festival, I saw an interesting and controversial documentary suggesting that someone else than God or homosexuals is the originator of aids, namely the West. The movie "The origins of AIDS" pictures the 1950's, when there was a race going on in the laboratories in Western countries. Many doctors and researchers wanted to find a cure for the disease that affected millions of people at the time, the polio. With the purpose to develop medicine with the help of tissues from chimpanzee kidneys, a laboratory is built in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo. The vaccine against polio that is developed here, 10A11, was distributed to hundreds of thousands of people in the region. Shortly after this, in 1959, the first cases of HIV and aids are found in these exact regions. This could imply that HIV and aids is the result of the human being's fight against another disease, the polio.

As I'm no virologist, I can't say whether this hypothesis – that the origin of aids is mass vaccination - is likely to be true or not. But being fond of conspiracy theories, I like the message in the movie. The idea that it was Western doctors that transplanted HIV from monkeys to human beings is not new though. Journalists have written about it before, for instance in the Rolling Stone. But their findings and hypothesises were dismissed by scientists. They didn't take the theories very seriously and thus, the Rolling Stone was made to publish an excuse for including the article in one of their issues.

This troubles one of the directors of the documentary, Catherine Peix, who stopped by for a short Q & A session after the film. According to her, the science society dismissed the book containing this theory and upon which the documentary lies (The River by Ed Hooper) in 3 minutes. Researchers didn't even bother to look at it, let alone to challenge the notion that the polio vaccine that was given to people in large scale had its origin in chimpanzee tissues, and thus being a possible carrier of HIV. Neither did the minister of public health in France when the documentary was about to be broadcast on national television. 2 hours before the documentary was to be aired, the minister called the head of the broadcasting channel to stop it, according to Peix.

The obvious ”backing each other up” among researchers bothers Peix. So does the hush-hush around the research for a polio vaccine and the insufficient procedures. An obvious way of testing the hypothesis of the film would be to analyze the vaccine, 10A11, to see if there are traces of SIV and S40 that chimpanzees carry. But, according to Peix, there were no notes taken at all at the laboratory in Leopoldville. Nor are there any samples left of the oral polio vaccine. What is left however is the testimony of villagers that worked in the lab. In the documentary, several former employees say that the vaccine was made out of monkey kidney tissues and thus being a possible carrier of SIV and HIV. But the doctors and researchers from the West who worked there deny this. That's why the director Peix states "Science needs to be transparent. We need to think for our selves, and be careful." She's worried that these same non-transparent procedures, with risk taking, no note-taking and sneaking around, may be employed again, when it comes to organ transplantation to human beings from pigs, for example.

Unfortunately, I missed the debate with Ed Hooper, Catherine Peix and a professor in virology yesterday. I heard that it was far from a dull one.

Off to Gothenburg

I'm off to Göteborg Film Festival now. If you're around, do come and listen to and discuss with us. We're talking at the seminar series Cinemix 2005 about audience research and filmmaking, tomorrow Friday at noon.

Menstrual cramps? Have a paeonia

As I've updated the description of the blog and my presentation etc., I contemplated the name of the blog I once chose. I still think the peony reflects who I am but I got curious about the role of it so I decided to look into it. And it turns out that - as is often the case with flowers - the function of the paeonia has not been restricted to being a fair decoration, hair accessory or perfume. In Japan, peony root was used as a treatment for menstrual cramps, asthma and convulsions.

A bit of googling lets me know that peony root also releaves: jaundice, kidney & bladder problems, gout, asthma with cramps, and epilepsy. Furthermore, The Peony Formula which includes peony is believed to be one of the classic psychospiritual formulas first mentioned in the Imperial Grace Formulary of the Tai Ping Era. This formula "releases constraints and encourages the free-flow of Liver qi, allowing for open-mindedness and a free or rambling spirit." I like that!

Also: it is commonly used for irregular menstruation, PMS, breast distention and lumps, leukorrhea, menopausal disorders, uterine bleeding and chronic hepatitis.

39 beautiful, brave, bruised and battered women

I'm going to Åbo, the city where I studied and lived for 6 years, tomorrow. I'm returning my key to the local office of National Women's Line in Finland. I used to do volunteer work there, supporting women facing domestic violence who called our help-line. Numerous are the nights I've thought about the stories I've been told and the women telling them. Sometimes I've wondered how I can help them getting away from a life with an ultra fine line between love and pure rage, from limited life space, control and violence way, way beond my comprehension. I often realized though that once she, often all battered and bruised, finally dared make the phone call to the hot line (four out of ten women never ever tell anybody what they're exposed to), a non-judging, caring and listening human being did wonders.

Numerous are also the nights I've thought about what's inside the head of someone, who feels that a woman is something you own and is to be controlled. Where would someone get the idea that it's ok to hit her or hurt her verbally? To rob her her freedom, her selfesteem and individuality, and completely disempower someone?

As I've moved away from Åbo, and thus not working for the Women's Line anymore, I'm turning in my key. And in Vasa where I live today, there are no such voluntary movement or organization helping and supporting women experiencing violence. It's truly itching inside as I still want to contribute to this enormous global social problem, but my channels are quite limited! I've noticed that I talk about domestic violence a lot more nowadays, perhaps that's my unconscious way of doing my share.

The government is also trying to do something about the profound problem. A proposition (in Finnish here) for a national program for reducing violence in Finland was just put forward. According to the report, the Finns are not more violent than others but significantly more die due to violence here than elsewhere in Europe. Between the years 1999-2003 134 Finns died due to violence, which equates 2,6 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. The average in EU is 1,3 per 100,000.

As for violence directed at women, 39 women were killed every year 1999-2003 as a direct consequence of violence. Often by their boyfriends, husbands or exes. This equates 1,4 deceased per 100,000 women in Finland, where as the same figure for the EU is 0,75. Sad, so sad, figures. We have such a long way to go. Such a long way.

Tar and feathers

A one of a kind law suit has been filed in Finland and the outcome of it will be interesting. Five seriously ill Finns are suing the two tobacco giants Philip Morris and BAT for misleading consumers over so-called light cigarettes. They feel that the tobacco companies lied and didn't acknowledge the potential health hazards of these cigarettes. According to the Cancer Society in Finland, even health experts recommended the light cigarettes to the Finnish smokers in the 1970's.

So far, 20482 persons thank Poland

So far, 20482 persons have decided to thank Poland, and especially Wlodzimierz Marcinski who is Poland's undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Science and Information Technology, for withdrawing the The EU's controversial directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions (COM 2002/0047 (COD)). About two and a half weeks ago, the directive was due to be formally adopted without discussion (as a so called A-item) at the meeting of the Agriculture and Fisheries Commission but Marcinski put a stop to this fishy way of decision making.

You can still submit your signature to the thank you letter.

plain language please

I've plunged into an assortment of goodies lately: ambient intelligence, usability testing and interactive digital tv. I'm lying in our raspberry red couch in the lab, reading articles and papers, and thinking that ICQ inc could use a copy of the ten rules for user interface design by the web page usability guru Jakob Nielsen. In particular, I'm thinking of number 9:

"Help users recognize, diagnose and recover from errors: Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes)".

I'm using icq v 4.1 and increasingly more often while instant messaging; I'm suddenly unable to send off messages. The error message that appears explains the problem only by a code. That’s not what I want, I want a brief, easy to understand message that explains what happened. Therefore, the word on my mind right now is heuristics.

According to Nielsens website, new findings on usability guidelines for websites is to be presented at the Usability 2005 conference, in Stockholm among other places.

Blog readership explodes but not all know what a blog is

According to the latest (January 2005) Pew Internet & American Life project report, 7 % of the Americans say they have created a blog or a web-based diary. In springtime 2002, the figure was 3 %. Furthermore, 57 % of these more than 8 million bloggers are male. This surprises me as according to the figures I've seen (here and here), the majority of bloggers are women. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Pew Internet report only looks at adult Americans, and therefore overlooking the numerous teenage female bloggers.

Another interesting finding is that though blog readership increases (growth in 2004 alone: 58 %), not many know what a blog is (62 % don't).