Last summer, a little bit later than this, I went to Helsinki for a week. I stayed in a few different hostels and carried my backpack around. I took a lot of photos during this time, and I am only now getting around to sorting them.
In the first hostel I stayed in, I met a very nice South Korean guy visiting from Italy, Kim Hee Won. We chatted for a while, and then went our separate ways. I ran into him again later at the market on the waterfront, where I bought peas and blueberries.
Together we got the ferry out to Suomenlinna, one of the many small islands in the bay of Helsinki. Once a sea fortress protecting the city from invaders, it is now popular with day-trippers and artists, who live and keep studios in the buildings which were once barracks.
Kim Hee taught me how to use my camera much more carefully, and I am very grateful for his help. Here are some nice photos from the island.
The following has been re-posted from the old johnl.org:
This is a remix, of sorts, of It's Grim Up North by The JAMMs. The making of this song was almost an accident, but I think it worked out well. The JAMMs is one of the many pseudonyms for the group known mainly as The KLF, still one of my favourites, after all these years.
By clicking on the thumbnails, you can see the full album art. The art is also embedded in the MP3s.
Press the little play icon listen to a song. If you like what you hear, download the whole release in a .zip file below.
Songs:
It's Grim On The Docks
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Paul Lutus (above) has sailed solo around the world, in a 30-foot yacht, worked for NASA, designing electronics for the Space Shuttle and modelling the solar system for the Viking Mars mission and written one of the most popular word processors ever, Apple Writer.
The story of the writing of the initial version of Apple Writer is the subject of his article above, how he dropped out of college, and out of NASA, and moved into a cabin in the forest (see below). He tells us how he began developing software in almost total isolation. It is inspiring, one man's private exploration of the inner space of the microcomputer.
I was particularly struck by the third section, disputing the death of the individual programmer, who seems to have been dying since about 1965. One man can still write a program. If I wanted to, I could still write an entire operating system from the metal up. This might not be the best use of my time, by normal measures, but as Lutus says, it doesn't matter.
Programming need not just be a mechanical means to an end. It can be an almost philosophical exercise, creating something from tiny bricks of pure logic. Like the carpenter or mason, a programmer chips away at the program until only the desired form remains, sometimes surprising even its own creator.
I don't want to build atop the tottering hierarchies of libraries and objects and APIs, conforming and compromising my way to mediocrity.
I want to write my own tiny operating system, for a small computer, with a minimal programming language of my own devising, and I want to live in the mountains. Just for a while.
Beyond the tail-end of summer, we drove up to Lough Bray in the Wicklow mountains for a swim in the ice-cold water. The weather was just perfect, sitting on the rocks, swinging our feet in the water.
David played his mandolin, Ciarán his guitar. Kevin refused resolutely to get his head wet. Laura and I swam out to the other corner of the lake.
A blind dog felt his way across the boulders. The sun went down behind the mountain and we put our shoes back on.
It was an open secret among analysts during the Cold War that the two major powers used satellite and high altitude surveys to assess each others aims, intentions and resources. Indeed it was US satellite surveillance which first noted the disparities between the USSR's claimed crop yields and the reality, as Khrushchev once bitterly observed to his US adversary!
Colonel Travers carefully compares the Soviet maps with those of the Ordnance Survey, noting how the Soviets included some objects that the OS did not, but neglected others. They seem to have been oddly attracted to water-mills! More chillingly, it looks like they may have been categorising Irish roads based on how militarily viable they were, for logistical support.
I encourage you to read this article, and gain another viewpoint on our rolling terrain. Imagine plotting tank-routes and support artillery...
The following has been re-posted from the old johnl.org:
This album was created entirely using samples of my voice, or other speech sounds. Each track represents a vision of paradise, heaven or the after-life, as seen by different cultures through time.
By clicking on the thumbnails, you can see the full album art. The art is also embedded in the MP3s.
Press the little play icon listen to a song. If you like what you hear, download the whole release in a .zip file below.
Songs:
Avalon
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Jannah
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Tír na nÓg
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Gan Eden
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Shangri-La
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Aaru
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Mag Mell
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Valhalla
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"Gimme that Christian side-hug, that Christian side-hug, I'm a rough rider, filled up with Christ's love, gimme that Christian side-hug..."
Cultural appropriation by evangelical Christian fundamentalists has gone too far, again.
YouTube quotes include:
DangerCampbell: FO SHO!!!!!!!!!! lol Chris and Tim TOTALLY pull off this look! kaysee: I was siting with my youth group in the back. lol Friday really was a great night. but hard! I started crying and went to the front! BlueGreen540494: omigosh sooo true! haha whenever me and my christian friends see eachother we do the side hug!!!
"When I hug people, I leave room for the Holy Spirit"
The world's largest side-hug?
You know, suddenly rappers talking about "big-screen TVs, blunts, 40s and bitches" don't seem so bad. I think I'm going to listen to Biggie's "Nasty Girl" now.
