Tästä tuli paha mieli koko loppupäiväksi

Kaks plus keskustelu: Mies perhepäivähoitajana?

Dear Motion Picture Industry

There is this film I would like to see called Food, Inc. All of the Internet is abuzz over it with bloggers recommending it to each other. I would like to take them up on this recommendation.

But I can't, because the global capitalist machine has decided that I don't really need to. According to the IMDB, the film is not even in theatrical circulation anywhere but Hong Kong, USA, Canada and Singapore (as of time of writing).

Food, Inc. was first released at a film festival in Toronto, Canada on September 7, 2008. In July of the following year, there are no screenings in Europe at all. The DVD isn't going to be released until November 2009, according to Amazon. That is more than a year after the initial release! I bet it's just going to be just the North American print with region code restrictions to try to keep people from ordering it overseas.

Dear Motion Picture Industry, why do you insist on sucking so hard? I try to play along with this stuff because I want to reward makers of interesting films by throwing money at them. I want to do the right thing. All this crap you keep pulling just makes it pretty damn hard.

This is 2009! We have global economy with efficient cargo transit systems which enable us to buy stuff from abroad and have it shipped anywhere. Even that is a little dated because there is also the Internet which allows nearly instant circulation of digital representations of stuff such as "movies" and "money". Considering this incredible infrastructure exists, why am I sitting here in front of my computer trying to exchange some of my money to some of your content, only to find it impossible? Why do you so spectacularly fail to engage me and my fellow non-North Americans as consumers?

Oh well. Like in any of life's disappointments, I try to look at the bright side: there's always BitTorrent. (The DVD will probably be leaked before November, and hey, maybe the powers that be who control what gets screened in Finnish cinemas might decide to pick up Food, Inc.)

Bacteriological Linguistics

Awesome insight into cutting edge bacteriology, epidemiology and the very fabric of multicellularity. Truly psychology is just applied biology is just applied chemistry.



Bonus points for spotting the blatantly "conventional" gender representation.

Tässäpä aihe viestinnän graduksi tai jotain

Lehtikuva on jännä genre. Tämä on aika avantgardea jo minusta.

• HS 15.6: Keskusta on saanut jättirahoitusta elinkeinoelämältä
• HS 16.6: Keskustakansanedustajien luottamus Korhoseen horjuu vaalirahojen takia

NUMERAALIDROMEDAARI

     3
   22556         3212
  1622  353     55524243
        3890   2225625932
        5488734572335684843 13
        23462899110094689104  1
        14513  45745666 1451   1
         145             490
         785              26
         45               16
         47               86

Vangitsemista jatketaan

HS: Käräjoikeus jatkoi murhista epäillyn perushoitajan vangitsemista

Lakikieli on kyllä kummallista. Eikös vangitseminen ole semmoinen momentaaninen verbi? 'Panna vankilaan, asettaa vankeuteen, riistää vapaus': se toimenpide, jonka seurauksena henkilöstä tulee vanki?

Uutisesta tulee mielikuva, että vangitseminen on myös kontinuatiivista 'vankina pitämistä'. Vai onko kyseessä jokin pitkä prosessi, jonka lopputuloksena perushoitajasta lopulta tulee vanki, ja tätä prosessia nyt sitten jatketaan?

Joka tapauksessa kummalliselta tuntuu.

– Teidän CV:ssänne on aukko keväästä 2005 syksyyn 2006. Kertokaapa siitä jotain.
– Minua vangittiin.

Customizing consumer electronics

I remember when I got my second cellphone some time in 1999, I believe. It was a Nokia 5110. One of its major selling points was the revolutionary concept of different-coloured plastic shells that you could buy for it, to make it look more "you".

Things haven't changed much since then. While you don't generally see products actively marketed as supporting changeable shells or cases, the practice of customizing your equipment is alive and well. It seems the customization practice has moved to third-party suppliers, leaving the manufacturers of the actual devices to concentrate on more important things. As such, the methods also seem to have become less intrusive compared to popping off a piece of casing and snapping in a replacement. Take a look at these "LapJacks", for instance. They're some kind of stretchy vinyl skins with a print on them that you attach to the lid of your laptop. I know what I'll be getting next time I find myself in possession of too much money! (Hint: Christmas present...)