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!