Archive for November, 2008

Time to Change

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Not too long ago, I attended a cinematic event. Now that I can actually afford them I’ve grown to dislike them more and more. My biggest gripe are the advertisements. I’ve payed dear money for the priviledge and then they see it fit to show me probably the finest concentration of tripe known to man. Some of the ads are obviously mean’t for radio. Thats multimedia for you.

In that sea of meaninglessness something caught my attention as I was hoping to see Tropic Thunder instead. It was an ad for some jewelry which was apparently an improved version. Thus it had “2.0″ added to its brand name.

Internet, I’ve known since my Blog began in it’s present form that the name was already a tired joke and that there would be a time when even Stephen Colbert would announce that it’s done. At that moment, in that movie theatre, when that deep voice claimed the reason for naming that jewelry something + “2.0″ it was clear to me that now was that time. It’s time to get back to basics.

Ladies and Gentlemen, får jag presentera… Kimmo’s Blog (classic)!

Posted in Current Matters, This Blog, personal | 2 Comments »

On Greeting

Saturday, November 22nd, 2008

I have a vague feeling of déjà vu that I’ve written this post already, but the subject bears repeating.

I’m working with a few preconditions of human nature with one of them being that humans like to see that they have some kind of effect on and in the world that they live in. This explains the subtle enjoyment one gets from cracking the ice of small ponds on a cold morning or why some people build models or any of the huge number of human endeavours that exhibit this idea.

Being social creatures that we are, we also like to see that we have an effect on other humans. We like to be acknowledged by them and recognized by them. I honestly think that you could drive anyone mad by just everybody not paying any attention to him/her or engaging in any interaction with them apart from the smallest possible amount. For example, if you tried to talk to people at work, they wouldn’t respond with anything meaningful, just grunts or shrugs. No matter what you said. Any questions at the supermarket would be met with I-don’t-know’s and I-guesses.

It is exactly because of this need for recognition that makes people greet each other. It is the assumption that if I acknowledge you, you will acknowledge me in turn. It is because of this fundamental link with basic human needs and traits that makes greeting an activity in need of as little as possible of reasons. Greeting should be acceptable in any situation. You should never have to explain why you greeted someone.

For any number of reasons, listed in this post or otherwise, I genuinely think that the world would be a bit better place if people greeted each other more often.

Posted in Concepts, Inquiry, Social | 2 Comments »

I’m Officially Certified!

Friday, November 14th, 2008

Certified ScrumMaster that is. I took a two-day course, led by Jens Østergaard and James O. Coplien, both outstanding lectureres. It wasn’t an impediment that the subject matter hit my local repository of human experience and values with good matches. Which means to say that I agreed on the explicit and implicit values and preconditions within Scrum.

It is kind of ironic but I recognize that the characteristics of Scrum that speak the most sense to me probably make it also incredibly difficult to wield in practice. For example, in Scrum, no-one and I mean no-one, can come and tell the development Team what they should be doing. The Team selects and co-ordinates itself, what it is going to do. But the Team itself is not responsible for the process and results, the ScrumMaster is. The ScrumMaster owns the process, i.e. is responsible that everything is running smoothly, including doing any- and everything to remove obstacles from the Team.

If there’s anyone wondering what’s the point of majoring in Philosophy in the Real World(tm), acquiring and assimilating different ways of thinking is probably a lot easier. I feel that I have at least one new one in my toolbox now.

Posted in Beginnings, Current Matters, personal | No Comments »

Ninja Skill: Acquired!

Tuesday, November 11th, 2008

I went bouldering for the first time in my life. This is the practice of climbing (in this case) walls with artificial holds, arranged to put up problems of most physical in nature. Since the climbs are only up to 5 metres tall, theres no safet equipment involved apart from common sense and cushions. To my surprise it’s not my arms that were the most to suffer but my hands. The skin in my hands and fingertips feels quite tender at the moment.

There’s always the problem of how much abuse are you going to subject yourself to when you are trying something physically demanding the first time. I think I did well. I expect to find myself a bit difficult to fist my hands in the morning and probably also my wrists will feel tense but probably nothing too bad to avoid me from operating a mouse.

Now I’ll just have to get to know the lingo involved.

Posted in Current Matters, personal | 5 Comments »

Complete Peanuts

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

Every now and then, some things happen that make you take note and remember when you have one of those why-does-everything-always-not-go-well -moments. Fantagraphics books are printing all the Peanuts comics in the existence. They have been for a few years actually, but only last year those books started to appear in Finnish. The pace is two books per year, with each book containing two years of comics. Even at this pace it will take 10 years to reprint them all. This pace is much more moderate in Finnish though, one book last year and so far, one book this year. Impatient as I am, I have opted to collect the originals.

I have been a friend of the Peanuts for a long time. At some point I noticed that the pocket books they were printing here in Finland didn’t contain all of the strips, not to mention none of the Sundays either. The existence of which I didn’t come to learn until much later.

Therefore I find it a priviledge to get to read all of the strips in order, to get to see Snoopys transformation from a yipping dog to an “internationally renowned hockey-player” and “the first beagle on the moon”. Not to mention how ‘the bird’ turns into ‘Woodstock’ and how Lucy cultivates her bitchness and how the whole universe of Peanuts builds up. I also enjoy reading about Charles M. Schultz himself.

There’s far too little of Complete anything in the universe. Especially in comics. The works of Carl Barks are re-printed in dozens of different packages and when they do reprint the whole of it, the print is limited. But as I implied at first, I feel I am lucky to exist in the same universe as the Complete Peanuts.

Posted in Nostalgia, personal | 2 Comments »