Mikko>

Prize Pony Open!

2009-06-22T11:53:00.001+01:00

A long side project has finally seen the light of day - the Prize Pony store is open and churning orders (hopefully at some point :)) at www.prizepony.com. The long story of how things happened is on the Prize Pony blog.

Any and all feedback massively appreciated!

Google's regression toward mediocrity

2009-06-04T09:34:00.003+01:00

I have found that the user experience with Google has deteriorated over the past two years. In the past couple of months, it has worsened considerably.

First, Google started introducing more and more aggressive spell-checking and correction in the queries. Often, especially with obscure languages like Finnish, Google decides to correct the query, even if the correct spelling would yield numerous results. I remember either Brin or Page (or maybe it was Marissa?) saying that the ideal use case of Google would be that it only returned one result - the one that answers the user's query exactly. What happened to that notion? The "Did you mean"-function has been very useful and moreso with the advent of two panes of results, one for corrected spellings and one for sic - as it was spelled. Forcing repeated corrections, especially when it broadens the results set, can lead to regression towards the mean. With search results, can lead to mediocrity.

The more worrying new feature has in fact lead to a completely new use behaviour on Google. In the past, one could be fairly confident that the best possible results served to meet the query would be the top results, and rarely had to scroll to the bottom of the page. The new feature of omitting words from the query leads to the user having to scroll to the bottom of the page to make sure no words have been omitted. If there have been, they will discover a line of text: "Tip: These results do not include the word..." There the user is offered a link which leads to the query the user originally wanted to make. Here is an example, where the word "among" has been omitted by Google: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=aggression+among+diabetics (odd example, but relevant to research I was conducting recently).

This is incredibly contrived behaviour and arrogate development from Google. I completely understand that the feature has been extensively tested and proven to improve various problematic use cases, but it has also lead to an unforeseen difficulty in using Google. The strength of the search engine that I remember got me using it, was that it included all the typed words in the query, without having to resort to operators like '+' to force a word to appear. In fact, Google even told you that the '+' operator was unnecessary, since all the words were included by default.

There is very little difference in terms of actual experienced quality between the results of major search engines. Studies are divided as to whether there is perceived difference in quality (i.e. where the user knows the results have been generated by Yahoo! or Google), (Bailey, Thomas 2008).

I think Google has more to lose, and while it will be marginal, there are early abandoners as well as early adopters, and the margins will go first. Sheryl Sandberg had us read the Tipping Point as the first Google Book Club (yeah, we had one) book, and the simplistic learnings from there would be good to bear in mind when considering the importance of marginal users' marginal search results.

EDIT: just got a really good example where Google corrects my query making it useless:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=atlas.ti+variable+playback+speed&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

EU elections in Finland to hit an all time low?

2009-04-12T19:01:00.004+01:00

While we in Finland managed to motivate ourselves to break the 40% mark in the EU elections of 2004 (41.1%), we are seeing possibly the worst, most uninspiring and obscure candidate line-up in the history of the elections. The best-known candidate even says he'll only stay in Strassbourg for a maximum of two years (Soini's blog in bad Finnish). The major parties have had trouble filling the candidate lists by the deadlines, and the layman will just have to wonder why should he be interested in the election if even the candidates are reluctant.

In 1999, we dipped almost to 30% (or 31.4% to be exact), but I wouldn't be surprised if the general voting percentage figure started with the number two in 2009. It may in fact be Soini's massive prospective protest vote that will push the voter activity in Finland over the watermark.

Here's the historical tables in Finnish.

EDIT: Jyrki Katainen of Kokoomus forecasts 50% activity, and the general buzz over the election has increased during the last two weeks before the election. Maybe we won't fare badly. Maybe the odd lists have in fact challenged people to find a candidate they could endorse. Let's wait til Sunday.

Kitewing on Lake Saimaa

2009-03-26T08:42:00.003Z

The kitewing is probably the most fun toy I've had in a long time. I got a Rage 55 - wingspan 5,5 meters - earlier this year and have had a few good runs both on the Espoo/Helsinki coast and Lake Saimaa in Lappeenranta at my dad's house. The below video from my second time out on ice doesn't feature any big jumps or other antics (as the wind had already dissipated in the afternoon by the time I got the videographer up from bed), but it goes to show how it's just a matter of picking the wing up up and riding it (well, it took a sec to get started again...). While it isn't quite as versatile and is more dependent on a steady wind than a kite, it's a breeze to put together and to disassemble. You'll be out on the ice (or sand) long before the kite-fellows have untangled and powered up their fliers. You can get one from the UK here of in Finland here (note again, the pound's cheap, even if you're not in the UK...).

Cityvice.tv and Kauko Röyhkä

2009-03-18T13:01:00.002Z

Teppo, a friend of mine, has gotten a creative and exciting venture nicely started. Called Cityvice.tv, the site will offer high-quality video content for syndication partners based on various custom channels. I love video so I wanted to help out, and this far I've done a few interviews you can see below. More to come, I hope!

Meeting Kauko Röyhkä for the interview last Thursday (posting this late, courtesy of Blogger sucking again), below, was quite exciting, and the gig with Röyhkä ja Rättö ja Lehtisalo an amazing smuggle-load of kraut-chaos and primordial noise. Yes yes. Still reverberating...!

Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo interview at Nosturi

2009-03-03T09:47:00.002Z

Despite being high on painkillers and muscle relaxants, I went to Nosturi to do a quick interview with Jussi Lehtisalo from Circle. I would've gone even if my legs were cut off. The interview was done for my friend Teppo's CityVice.tv, which seems to be picking up nicely. I think he liked my style, so I'll be doing more of these - once I get better and have the time for reporting like this.

Check out the Circle-video at CityVice.tv, should be one of the top results (no embedding support yet, I think they're in beta :)).

From a hospital bed

2009-02-27T19:00:00.001Z

I'm on some pretty groovy painkillers right now and this comes from
the tender care of Maria Hospital in Helsinki. Having come back from
skiing, I went to the gym even though my back wasn't cooperating and
got totalled in the early sets of my squat (only 80 kg on the bar, the
day's heaviest was to be 115 kg). I have a pretty solid technique and
in the past the deep squats I do have actually alliviated my chronic
back pains. But this was acute. I can't walk quite yet, so they've
doubled the dosage here. Talk about treating the symptom. But I'm
grateful. If this is what my taxes get me, I love paying my taxes.

I was planning to start blogging actively about weightlifting. Now, I
may need to change the sport.

Cheers,
Mikko
(Sent from my iPhone)

Pepsi Redesign Leak Making People Distrust Each Other, Hate The World

2009-02-13T08:06:00.005Z

This should be a joke, but it doesn't seem to be. The bigger the advertising account is, the more shit you can push. Yes, it's about the Pepsi rebranding. Maybe the whole rebranding travesty is a viral campaign in itself and I'm just another fool pushing it, but here goes.

From Reddit:

During the initial treatment, the advertising agency which won the Pepsi contract for the re-design sent over the design guidelines and a presentation on the design process of the new logo...

Here is the document in question: Pepsi Gravitational Field.

Worth reading the comments to gauge a general reaction towards the document and the advertising world in general. It's surprisingly tolerant. My favorite is:

Wow. Just . . . wow. Every page is, quite literally, more insane than the last. Someone got paid to put this steaming pile together? Someone actually earned money to compare the Pepsi logo to the earth's magnetic field while claiming that "Emotive forces shape the gestalt of the brand identity"?

I swear that I've never seen such concentrated bullshit. This is bullshit so dense that not even light can escape.

EDIT: Holy fucking shit. Did they just invoke Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity in at attempt to compare Pepsi to fucking gravity?! A soft drink is now comparable to one of the fundamental forces of physics?!?! And this puts my "this is bullshit so dense that not even light can escape" comment in a whole new perspective.

Only Treasure to Carry

2008-12-20T12:37:00.002Z

Finally, the book is out. It went through an unintentional rewrite after a classic hard-drive failure, and a coffee spill on a couple of maps drawn earlier. But now it's out. Take a look below - there's a limited preview there as well.

Here's what I wrote in the description:

A chronological personal account of a journey into the world and deeper still, from the outside in. Only Treasure to Carry contains 40 pieces of freeform writing and 15 maps from six continents over 14 months. Contains "adult themes", I was told to add as a disclaimer. There.

If you don't want to buy the book but want to read it anyway, email me for the PDF.

Another lesson in Letting Go

2008-12-04T13:51:00.002Z

An email this morning on a pending job:

We know how important your data is to you but Unfortunetely, and on this occassion, your data is Unrecoverable.
This is due to the Severe head crash of the drive.
This means all data has been destroyed due to platter damage, caused by the heads coming into contact with the disks.
litterally the data is wiped off the drive.

This is Unfortunate, Im sorry to have to tell you this.

Do you want us to dispose of the drive,? (destroy)

There is no charge for the evaluation however all we ask is for you to pay for the return if needed .
The cost for this is £13.80

Whatever I meant to do is now undone. Time for new plans, then.

A spring soliloquy

2008-11-18T22:28:00.002Z

Not being able to sleep, with the hell-weather outside and the coldness now creeping inside too, I'm reminded of something I wrote exactly a year ago, when and where it was spring.

Grown inside a tree here
The lemons sweet as, plums, as sweet as cherries
Accepting the extending light through a door ajar
to step out like the ginger cat in the very early
morning
When the dew is still

Love in small shrugs and in passing the salt
In picking up the worst dustballs behind the door
adding some coffee when the grind is low
Love in all these things that
happen immediately one after the other:
Incessantly love in very small steps
and quietly.

There. Remember to be happy.

School massacres and moral demands

2008-11-05T19:12:00.005Z

Right now, I'm watching the interview of the parents of Pekka-Eric Auvinen, the first school mass murderer in Finland, who killed 8 of his classmates and then himself in November 2007. I was in Australia then and it didn't really sink in. This phenomenon repeated in Kauhajoki just over a month ago, and the police just released information yesterday that they thwarted a nearly finalized plan to undertake the same in a new school. Looking at the world that kids have to make sense of, having been a kid not too unrecently and now seeing the way this is publicized in the country, I won't be surprised when it happens again.

Interestingly and importantly, the Finnish media never really judged what had happened in Kauhajoki. Blame was found in the school, in the police, in the gun salesman, in the internet (YouTube, again of course) and in the man's lack of friends. He was 22 years old, and all of his behaviour mirrored closely that of previous school shootings in the US and Finland. He may have been immature, but the event certainly enlarged the scope of school killings. And he was victimized. He was "driven to do it", he had "lost his faith in humanity" he was "depressed and lonely". Fuck. Sounds like a lot of people I know, or at least knew in school. And that includes high school and college.

The media in Denmark and Sweden, for example, called him a "lunatic" or "mass murderer". This rhetoric was never entered into in Finland. There was very little value judgement. It was a tragedy - it was lamented, but not really condemned.

And now, watching the parents speak of the first event a year later, the whole act of senseless violence, this attack against everyone's lives and our way of life, is rationalized, explained and put into place. The parents described the ways he was bullied in school (shot with airsoft guns of his way home, made fun of in front of the class...) and how he had in tears asked his mother why he had no friends, "no-one to even play Playstation with". While the parents say they still can't really comprehend what happened, to a detached observer it perversely sounds to make sense. How many 15-year olds read the papers and watch these documentaries (this one was widely promoted on Channel 3 in the past two days), feel confused, uncertain and abandoned by the world, and place their lives in the category of the school killer - the person who "was driven to do it"?

The documentary closed with an analysis of children's psychological disorders and potential risk groups, commented on by an expert closer to 70 years of age than 60, and who said that all behaviour that deviates from the norm should be intervened. How does that sound to the teen who is just forming his or her view of the world and their own place in it? Do they accept an intervention where the choices are made for them? This young person is at a stage in their life where they are just starting to taste the freedom of making their own choices, at the same time seeing that the array of choices available to them is bewildering. Instead of facing the burden of endless choice, do they drive themselves to a situation that ends all pressure of having to choose, where the only choice is the one that they have positioned to themselves as inevitable?

School massacre is not a choice that should be on anyone's list of options for the future. But like with suicide waves among youths (one seems to be at a tipping point in Finland in Piikkiö, a municipality of 7,500 people where three suicides and one attempt have occurred among youths this fall), there seems to be a need, or at least a tendency to rationalize this behaviour. This is a typical Finnish trait - we need a reason, we refuse to not understand, and this reason needs to be as objective and detached as possible. A reason like that can also be accepted by more people as the truth, no matter how perverse it might be.

Maybe we should understand less, accept more, and aim for sympathy instead of the truth? But along with sympathy to the suffering youth, there must be a value judgment made against the most radical of choices, and this is a practical moral demand, not a theoretical one. While we can argue for (and I often do) and against moral relativity, ending extreme symptoms of suffering is a practical necessity, unless we succumb to absolute nihilism. Do we really believe it is wrong to kill others, no matter how much suffering they have caused us? Yes? No? If not, what is the limit of suffering, and how do we make sure we don't reach it - the point of no return? The shootings are a symptom, not the illness. There is much to be done to heal the nation.

The Brokers With Hands on Their Faces

2008-10-20T19:08:00.003+01:00

How would you look like if you just lost $700 million (of someone else's money)?

Innovation in the style of 1+1=2

2008-10-06T19:53:00.002+01:00

I love finding stuff like this: innovative, at the same time giving you an immediate insight into how it was thought of, and how the same way of looking at other things might yield more innovations. It's called Replug, and it does to your headphone cable the same thing the Apple did to their laptop charger. Keep making the world better.

Introducing Gemic

2008-09-21T17:11:00.003+01:00

Now that things are nicely underway with the business, I feel it's a good time to update on my latest serious endeavour. I was asked to join a consulting outfit called Gemic as the managing partner earlier this year, and given the other people in the project, I'm very happy about the prospect. Johannes and Sakari are the smartest guys I've worked with. It's also incredibly rewarding to be able to apply hard theoretical, scientific research, problem-solving and pattern recognition methods to the amorphous world of business and human behaviour.

Gemic - name taking root from Emic and Gem, with resulting pronunciation - is a management consulting company concentrating on what we call people-centric problem solving. We apply methods from social sciences, particularly anthropology and social psychology, to business problems that often revolve around product development and innovation. Having worked on a few projects now, it's amazing to see how well this works: instead of trying to come up with ideas in brainstorming sessions or other traditional top-down methods of innovation, going to the field to study people in their everyday life and behaviour is an unfailing source of relevant innovations. Tall order, perhaps, but we have applied it successfully time after time. No wonder there's a bit of a business buzz around ethnographic methods right now.

To add to us being a happy little company (and growing), Sakari just tied the knot yesterday. Hooray!

Gigs: Om w/ Pharaoh Overlord, Enslaved, Opeth

2008-09-10T07:45:00.004+01:00

Long time since I've done a music post, so here comes the noise. I just bought some club gig tickets for about €150, for experiences immeasurable. First, Finland finally, finally gets to welcome Om (site is down ATM), Southern Lord's finest duo, who beach here November 3rd. With absolute poetic and artistic justice, they are accompanied by Pharaoh Overlord, the uncanniest hypno-heavy-bands ever to come out of the North. To scare you out of it, here's a short video. Otherwise, Tavastia, 03.11.08.

In a move closely matched in evil-unleashing potential, Enslaved, the godfathers of progressive black metal, hit the same stage in mid-December. It has been long since we've had them in Finland, and there's a rather fanatic following around. They're here 14.12., and immediately after them, 15.12., we're seeing Opeth here for the third time this year. They are, of course, a billboard-topping act, but, knocking on wood, they are yet to lose their genius drive. Reminds me, I still haven't checked if you can see me in the front at the Roundhouse in London where they filmed the last DVD material. There's something familiar here...

How to Travel

2008-08-08T19:44:00.003+01:00

Pack slowly
over several days
but always as an afterthought
         and if not sure
         when you'll depart
         if at all
have a 30-litre backpack
always packed, next to the door
ready to go
         then, when departing
remove one third of everything you've packed
leave a note
and close the door softly
At this moment of departure
renounce an addiction:
Anything you may think you have
this will pave your dedication for the road

Your small backpack will be on you
ceaselessly
be quick to love it
stuff the rest of your minimal possessions
in a seaman's sack
         they are rarely stolen
         and if so
         difficult to run away with
Accept that two pairs of shoes
is the absolute maximum
(and that includes the ones you're wearing now)
         and unless you deliberately pit yourself
         against the elements
nothing
in your luggage
is essential

Always carry a book with you
and choose it diligently
if you finish it in isolation
you just may read it again
A quotable classic should thus serve you well

But eschew guidebooks
instead carry highly detailed, recent maps
of everywhere you go
         and a small pocket atlas
         to maintain perspective
the maps from info booths and reception desks
you'll only use to find out
         where they end
         and yours continue
being keenly aware
of the authenticity lying without

Ask for directions:
keep asking for directions
even if not going anywhere
this will help you understand connections

Talk with the locals:
keep talking with the locals
even if you speak no language
pull out your maps to share their territory

Listen to all advice
even if you take none
ask for alternatives
and always write the first and the last one down
Especially seek out the advice
of people who are
not intimate with the area
you are covering
but who can read your maps
they understand the big picture
thank them, but do not linger

Take all opportunities
to approach the local population
as your equals
         even if you've had
         the luxury of a shower
When travelling in areas of misery
wear dirty, ill-fitting clothes
Shave at night, if you do at all

Learning to recognise warnings and signs of danger
will lead to a more relaxed journey
These include (but are not limited to):
         groups of idle young men
         seagulls gathering in a static formation to face
           the wind
         the arbitrary uniqueness of a natural feature
           turned tourist trap
         a smiling cabbie staring right through you as
           you give directions

Avoid other travellers who seek out other travellers:
otherwise, appreciate the crossing of paths
and the mixture of knowledge, but
Don't expect an experience
based on another's journey
Your mileage will vary

Make all your small choices
based on whim alone
         continue increasing
         the importance of these choices
         as your intuition develops
but remain aware of any rising desire:
         This is of past things
         yet your path now lies ahead
         Don't stare at your feet
         when taking a corner

Don't be perturbed by boredom
or second-guess a turn already taken
Sit it out
Do nothing
         and see what happens
         to the boredom
Embrace randomness
be aware of coincidence
         and be wary of pattern
         breaking any before it breaks you

You may feel fear as you lose
         a path in the darkening jungle
         with the congregating insects
         above singing like a motorway
You may find yourself edged out
         between the lines of a
         tight metropolitan grid
You may succumb to a silent panic
         as the desert continues
         to all horizons and the air freezes up
Yet in the face of all this
every choice and sensation
the solution most likely
is to do less
         To stop, breathe, and do the right thing
         You know what it is.

Wordle, summer, happiness

2008-07-04T17:44:00.002+01:00

I quite like the way Wordle sees my blog. Nothing much more to say, will keep the bliss and quiet. Happy July!

Bonnevilles in Belgium

2008-06-04T09:35:00.002+01:00

The Trip: Israel

No rest for the restless! I just paid a quick visit to Israel - Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea - spent time in London meeting friends (thanks Jon, Teppo), bought a motorcycle and started off with my friend Juha towards Finland. I'm writing this in Gent, Belgium, where Tijs and Noemi, last seen in Southern Australia, were very kind to offer us room and board in their beautiful new house.

The Trip: Bonnes

The bike is one that I didn't think I'd buy at first: a Triumph Bonneville from 2001, taken well care of with lots of chrome and sound. Juha rides a later model, so it made sense to put together a Rat Pack and head off on the same models. With my riding style a classic style bike might be a better choice than a sportsbike anyway (knock on wood).

Right now, we're heading east, dodging rain mostly. Berlin maybe, Poland at some point, Baltics then, quite likely. We'll see.

Migrated!

2008-04-30T09:07:00.004+01:00

Ok, the domain seems to work again. This is a bit of a test post. Godaddy did get the DNS's mixed up for a sec and didn't let me update them for a few hours resulting in about 5 hours of downtime. Luckily this is not a mission-critical site, although I was already told my email is bouncing. Thank goodness for Facebook there.

A boring post? Let me close with this personal summary of Nietzsche's epistemology:

All absolute truths are paradoxical. All relative truths are approximations of a paradox.

There, much better. Happy May 1st!

Relocating hosting & Turnleft

2008-04-24T09:19:00.004+01:00

There might be a small glitch in the pages as I'm rationalizing my hosting packages (GoDaddy gets everything, they're just too good).

In the meantime, we just launched a revamped site for Turnleft Guides with a newsletter, blog, a simple Google Checkout module for getting guides in the mail (they are free when picked up and will stay that way) and links to Turnleft's Facebook presence. Intentionally not trying to reinvent the wheel, I like picking existing services and adapting them to my uses. That's pretty 2.0. More of that to come!

Homing

2008-04-20T19:31:00.002+01:00

Three weeks back in Finland today. Doesn't feel too bad at all, and it looks good too - here is the view from my window right now, at my dad's house that is. The days are long already and I seem to fill them with even more to do than I planned. Prioritize, not procrastinate, is the answer of course. And what comes to next trips - it could be it's one on wheels in the west instead of sand in the east...

(Sent from my iPhone)

"When the Student Is Ready, a Teacher Will Appear"

2008-03-26T00:56:00.002Z

Warning: contains 80% introspection and 20% retrospection.

This is me on my last week, in NYC right now. Yes, I've been here before, as I of course had in SF where I hung out just before this, but it's a good soft landing, I'm learning. Instead of rushing off straight back to London or Helsinki and seeing the streets and scenes for the umpteenth time and risking snapping back into my old jaded self, this kind of a semi-familiar setting in between helps me keep up the curiosity and immediateness of the free exploration I've found so invaluable during the last year. If I can keep that up as I go back, good. There's so much to discover right outside the front door. In addition, my brother came over for a week, we drove around New England a bit and went to check out the Niagara Falls and had a blast although bad weather barred further voyaging into Canada (and our Dodge Charger was having electric problems).

Yet, here we are, at the threshold of heading home. It's time to look back a bit, though not conclusively, certainly: I'm putting together a collection of experiences from the trip in a different medium as we speak and hope to have something in a publishable order by summer (yes, I can always dump it online and count that as publishing).

Looking back, the steps I've taken form a logical path. The geographical progress was roughly dictated by my RTW ticket of course, but the introspective progress is at least as logical, and that wasn't planned out in anyway. I think it's fair to say now I left travelling in order to have an excuse to quit my job. Not the other way around. The Google job was a great thing indeed, so I needed something bigger to be able to leave it. A grandiose dream of a round the world trip was the ticket, and I started off with just those - a ticket and a dream, but no plan other than the immediate externalities.

After the month-long rock'n roll tour, the first countries, Mauritius, Madagascar and South Africa were exercises in randomness and extremes from all ends. Finally I was able to just go like I'd wanted and do weird and wonderful things. And I did. One of my favourite images from the whole trip is a hike in the nightly jungle in Northern Madagascar from a main road I'd bummed a ride to with an American tourist heading to a better hotel. I was to follow a road that soon turned into a bumpy spool of dirt paths to a hotel on the beach on a small peninsula, but I was risking getting hopelessly lost. There was no moon, and I couldn't turn my headlight on without attracting hordes of moths and mosquitoes, all headed for my head from above. After a while, I started to see candles and small fires through the trees of the surrounding jungle and saw people pass me in the darkness, some against me, some going the same way. I called out to some of them but got no reply at first. By this time, I was in the middle of a small village that consisted mainly of concrete hurricane shelters constructed by a UN agency where the locals had only open flames as their sources of light. There was not electricity on the island at night and there were no generators in the village. Just as I was about to get worried, someone replied to my questions phrased in (very) broken French and told me that yes, this was indeed the road, but that the hotel was far, but that the lights in the distance behind me were of a taxi that could take me there. Sure enough, there was a car - the smallest Renault I've ever seen, and possibly the oldest, already holding a family of five, who gave me a ride to the hotel itself, another 20 minutes away. It wouldn't have been bad to walk, I thought, but was later happy that I took the cab as the driver helped me translate from my imaginary French to the old nightguard who came out to meet with a stick and a stone. It was a weird week and a bit with many other adventures. I'd lost my bearings and I was playing it by ear.

Thereafter, South Africa was a testing ground. It tested my attitude, patience, persistence, prejudice and fear and taught me much of myself. I loved it, being able to space out in the African vastness as much as I wanted, but at the same time I was starting to get anxious for more meaningful things to do. I revisited my idea of a novel and shelved it after a few chapters, wrote a verbose short story to prove I can finish something, worked on a couple of business ideas and started pursuing one of them. The anxiety was a familiar beast and I was happy to have the energy to be able to tackle it doing creative things, but even these were external responses to an internal condition (existentialist crap which I'll strive to not name). So I got busy, again, and thought I was happy for a while. Which I guess I was, until a combination of hangover and a caffeine-overdose rips down the curtains and you look at yourself again in your essence. Well, something like that can happen to me at least.

I flew to Hong Kong, worked and snooped and shopped around first there and then in Bali, made my way to Bunaken to dive for a week and met my friend Ville for surfing (which I mostly didn't do) in Bali again. I was moving from wifi to wifi at this point, but I did a lot of creative work. By the time I got to Japan, it was getting clear that even the creative work wouldn't help me. I felt stranded in Tokyo and Osaka, the massive foreigness of everything in my face and stomach. Kyoto with it's temples in the woods were a breath of fresh air therefore and I stopped other things to breathe there for a while. I wasn't keen on going to India for the short time I could afford there, and the experience wasn't too pleasant (including people vomiting on our car) and certainly much less interesting and stimulating than Japan had been. South East Asia then I embraced.

Here, there's the long time on the ground in cities and beaches and ruins, dissected by riverboat trips and night trains. By the time I got to Singapore, I wanted to head to Australia already, thinking the land to paved with gold to say the least. I'd seen amazing things and met great people, yet I wasn't comfortable in my own skin. With horror, I thought of a moment 20 meters underwater in the most beautiful waters in Indonesia among amazing fish and corrals - thinking to myself: "This should be the greatest thing in the world I'm doing. Everybody would want to do this. Why am I not having fun?"

Australia wasn't exactly golden, but the people were. I stayed with Tammy and Melissa in Coolum, Mike and Kate in Sydney and Jan, Karen and Jarrod in Melbourne. This was also a much-needed breather from the constant packing and unpacking, though I felt like I stayed in the country for too long. I didn't know what I was doing on the trip, keeping myself busy with externalities and pretty likely getting on the nerves of the good people who had opened their homes to me. My persistence was rewarded when as the result of a chain of coincidences a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend recommended a meditation retreat he had done. As if in a gesture of desperation, I signed up, did my 10 days of silence and meditation for 11 hours per day and whaddayaknow - it's all been uphill since then. I haven't changed my beliefs (haven't generated any, that is), my lifestyle or my attitude in a conscious way but my goodness if I don't feel better than I did a few months ago. This purification, a catharsis of a kind, helped me enjoy the rest of trip immensely more and I think it's the combined benefits of the internal voyage combined with the external progress I've made that are now ripening. I won't go into the details of the meditation technique because telling about it is irrelevant. Only experience can bring wisdom. Without experience, you must choose whether or not to take my word for it. Yet, with curiosity, anyone can develop experience and ultimately even wisdom.

Since then, New Zealand, Fiji, beautiful South America and North America now have been full of surprises and I've been handling them happily. It is strange - as if every day is better than the previous one. If that isn't progress, I don't know what is. It seems I had a goal after all, and it is the one that I have reached.

Peru: Lima, Machu Picchu, Nasca lines

2008-03-10T20:51:00.003Z

Finally, here are my thoughts on Peru: Lima, Nasca, Machu Picchu and the last leg of the full-time trip.

The Trip: Machu Picchu

After Buenos Aires and Santiago, Lima felt like a pit. The squander was much more visible, and the country looked like a war zone in some places. Which it has recently been in some places, some would say. Otherwise, the effects of recent earthquakes were the major contributor to the atmosphere.

I spent a couple of days in Lima, nosing around and indulging in the wonderful seafood that forms the foundation of Peruvian cuisine's fame. In Lima I had lunch with Kukka, a friend from my hometown who has covered a lot of socio-political issues and developments in Central and South America in the last couple of years, and she was able to shed a lot of light on the country and put my contrasting observations of the continent in perspective. Here is her blog (in Finnish).

The local buses certainly added to my impetus to conclude this bit of the trip. Seven hours to Nasca, quick fly-over at the Nasca lines and then 14 hours in the bus to Cusco overnight, then the four-hour train to Aguas Calientes. We flew over the Nasca lines in a tiny plane which gave me serious motion sickness which carried over to the bus and the train, but not having slept in a couple of days I was too tired to do anything about it. The lines themselves were cool to see and there's a couple of photos in the album. I don't think I made any reward miles on that flight, though.

The Inca Trail was closed for upkeep during February which was also the reason I meant to skip Machu Picchu entirely. Then I thought that it would fit my contrarian sight-seeing attitude to go there now, hoping that the crowds be smaller, and so I did. Even the three-hour hike (or climb, really) up from the town to the ruins was taxing enough, not to mention climbing the sheer stone steps of Wayanapicchu, so I don't feel I missed a whole lot not attending an overcrowded jungle-walk.

Up in the ruins, the mists persisted until about 11 am, after which the whole mountainside revealed it's glory for two hours until the rains descended again. It was a great - one of the highlights of the trip certainly, and rivaling Tikal for my number one ancient-civilizations-experience. I was sore in a big way the next day, and slightly worse the next. I can still feel my calves. Stretching would've been a much better idea than two beers in an Irish Pub harassed by drunk English teens and crashing for 12 hours. Very tired, but very happy.

And this I'm writing from San Francisco. Part work, part friends & fun, I'm here until next weekend, after which my brother Markus and me will throw a little New England / Canada road trip and spend the Easter in New York. What work, say you? There's a bold little venture called Turnleft Guides that I'm very proud to be a part of. We're in the process of launching the very first guides with a busy publishing schedule for the year. There will be a sign-up form on the website soon so you can stay tuned with the developments.

Rambling on the Ruins

2008-03-02T00:07:00.003Z

I've gotten on average five hours of sleep per night in all of South America. It's starting to show through. Here are my heartfelt from Machu Picchu. Rubbish quality courtesy of Nokia N80. More photos and a proper report on Peru (Machu Picchu, Nasca Lines, Lima) coming up!