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Forbidden colours

Listening to David Sylvian and wondering about the probability of the success of our software architectures course work. The team includes TseiTsei, Ari and me.

Tue 2003-09-30 18:38 in diary No comments #link

planko

Spent nearly 15 minutes in a market economy lecture.

In the main hall of the university a smile brightened up my day. A few minutes later the same one walked by again and seemed to steal it back, the good feeling.

It seems I'm incapable of understanding what's going on around me right now. And it sucks that the degree in which I'm obliged to make my writing an altered version of reality, is on the rise.

If in doubt, leave it out, said the English teacher in high school about the usage of commas. I spent a couple of hours with The New Media Reader in the course book reading room and not understanding that much. Now beginning to doubt whether that Laudatur (the best possible grade) in the English language matriculation examination proves anything after all.

47 minutes before an introduction to information sciences lecture will begin. I'm not getting much out of that, either.

Ada and Alex are going back to Romania tomorrow morning. We didn't spend half as much time with them as we thought we might, but it was not more their fault than ours. We're just inclined to think we don't ever have time for anything.

Writing really helps to frustration. And writing publicly helps to pretend that the writing is not in vain - and that someone actually understands a word I'm saying.

There are an awful lot of foreigners in this computer class. They're all waving their hands and sounding funny all the time. Somehow I'm a bit intimidated.

This entry's grammar was programmatically chacked, but no changes were made on the basis of the suggestions, since I'm a stubborn bastard.

Mon 2003-09-29 15:34 in diary No comments #link

black slimy mesh

Location: uni computer class

Another day of academic incomprehension and frustration in everyday tasks.

Someone has put French language porn site links in my guestbook and I don't carry the guestbook password with me so that I could erase them immediately.

Yesterday I completed all of the GUI programming exercises so no I don't need to think about that in a while.

Mon 2003-09-29 14:07 in diary No comments #link

carrots

The weekend has passed figuring out PGUI exercises, reading a Windows API book and just being, with Elina.

Managed to negotiate with my roommate and he promised to "make the flat fume-free". We'll have to see. Also, the kitchen looks somewhat tolerable, for once.

Some more autumn leaves. This time, still in the tree.

Sun 2003-09-28 22:41 in diary No comments #link

extravagantismicalities.

Minä olen sinun kaikkialla
olen housuissa ja paitas alla
minä olen siellä joka päivä
olen sinun riippumatto
peruskorjattu ja harjakatto
minä tiputtelen lunta keväisin

Sinä olet minun toiveeni ja
haaveeni ja
kaikki anteeksi

Sinä olet minun
keinonahkaturkki, akrobaatti sirkuksen
seinäkellon viisarit ja ryijy keltainen
sinä olet minun alkuilta loppupäivä
yöni kiireinen

sinä olet minun


-Zen Café: Tuulensuoja

I liked it much better when I thought it says "keinonahkaturkkiakrobaattisirkukset seinäkellon viisari ja ryijy keltainen".

Pissed pissed pissed off by the fact that Nikolay still smokes in our appartment. I'm going to give him one last warning and then ask the flat rental association to do something about it.

Oh yeah, I got milk a decent DNS entry under pilpi.net (thanks to avaruus.net, my ISP) so if I move out from the flat I live in now, the address of milk need not change.

Thu 2003-09-25 12:22 in diary No comments #link

to make you crappy

University computer class.

The lyrics of Britney Spears' Born to Make You Happy seem harshly cynical.

It pisses me off just a bit that .NET-C# is arguably faster and more advanced as a language, than Java.

Lots of things. Took some nice photos this morning. Went to the cafeteria half an hour before it opened, but they still gave me food. Lemon-topped fish, or something. Go Amica.

Supposed to install the .NET framework somewheree in order to practice for my GUI course. It's not compulsory though. I'm just afraid I'll have to install my OS again if I try to get .NET.

It looks awfully stupid to have the full stop on both sides of that word, .NET.

I've forgotten my computer science department Linux class password.

Somehow I'm certain that most people fail to understand even the simplest of sencences I put here, just to annoy me.

No, I'm not really sad and down anymore, I'm just enjoying being childishly cynical for a while.

Tue 2003-09-23 11:04 in diary No comments #link

papa

Playing around with milk in my extreme boredom. Had an information sciences basics lecture, but the contents were mostly trivial. Dad keeps tormenting me about his RTLinux installation.

Tomorrow school starts at eight but I'm happy to wake up; it's pretty much the only _really_ interesting course I have.

Running around.

Mon 2003-09-22 18:18 in diary No comments #link

Your smile is not the same now (you've drawn your hands away)

The weekend passed. Yesterday, I finally got a chance to see Katja's new flat. A studio quite near the centrum, cozy.

The rest of the time I've been battling with a usability book and doing random things. Nothing much.

My roommate has started smoking in the appartment again. It seriously pisses me off. Can't make up my mind whether I should report to TOAS (the student housing association).

On Friday I met Gabriel Michel from the University of Metz, which is in cooperation with the University of Tampere. Thinking about going for exchange to France.

Dreamed many dreams last night. One about a castle which was a great game platform of some kind. One about a job interview in a trendy IT corporation. The last one about a luxury house in the middle of nowhere. The owner had to close the swimming pool from the public because there were too many "Teekkari"s (tech students).

Laa laa.

Mon 2003-09-22 01:25 in diary No comments #link

you reckon it's broken down

Today it seems the world's there to get me. Continuosly. I've taken two naps today - the first one in a university computer class.

I was shocked to notice that the Nucleus Support Forum seemed to have banned me and removed all of my postings, but evidently their ISP has just screwed up seriously, losing everything posted since the beginning of the month.

I'm still a bit tired of it all. Nothing *that* serious though.

Lately, I've also been reading C.S. Lewis' The Pilgrim's Regress...

Thu 2003-09-18 20:58 in diary No comments #link

scrambled blue

Location: University computer class

Frustrated. Bored. Itchy. Dwelling in the fact I know not where to continue. Sleepy.

I spent a couple of hours in our department's library, studying an introductory chapter on XSLT.

In theory I wasn't supposed to have been allowed to be there. In practice I was.

Going home, I guess.

Thu 2003-09-18 15:07 in diary No comments #link

Autumn leaf

A modified photo of mine, an autumn maple leaf:

Autumn_leaf

Thu 2003-09-18 00:29 in visual No comments #link

toistaiseksi ei käytössä

(title translation: not in use, for now)

It says that in a clock in the university's new TietoPinni building. It seems to describe the state of the entire university somehow. It's not that bad though, actually it's a laugh to see a lecturer try to get a video connection to another university for fifteen minutes after the lecture was supposed to have begun. And the atmosphere was certainly amused in the class room, both when it came to the lecturer and to the students.

I finally managed to meet Hankku, as well. I bumped into her in a university stairway. We managed to find the philosophy lecture she was looking for, after a while of dedicated searching. (=

It always confuses me that although I'm supposed to have kazillions of courses I currently can't think of many things to do. I don't have that many lectures and the group gatherings of the courses I'm taking are yet to begin. I guess I'm supposed to do something by myself =P.

By the way, that term group gatherings is one of those things that are supposed to be funny, and after they repeat it and laugh at it themselves a few times too many, it suddenly seems funny to other people, too. They used it in the OSCu course Programming graphical user interfaces - which so far seems very interesting. The course just started two hours ago, though.

Tue 2003-09-16 10:28 in diary No comments #link

viaton

Early wakeups give me strange satisfaction. About six hours of sleep behind me, after a while I'll take off to school.

Listening to a Zen Café song Älä tee. The lyrics go something like: "Don't do anything such with me, that you could save up for the man that you truly love / ... whom you're truly looking for / ... who'll recall your name in the morning / ... who'd make the mornings gentle". Now how many men actually have the balls to say that? I'm not sure if I would in all cases, though I wish I did.

There's a funny thing about that letssingit.com site structure, by the way. I can load any site I want into the frame =P. No, it's not actually that interesting, but I would consider it a security flaw.

Kaatopaikka, a promising, though seemingly utterly useless, portal.

Off to school, I guess.

Tue 2003-09-16 06:57 in diary No comments #link

täällä on jo liikaa sellaisia (jotka tekevät niin)

I've had an urge to write for a few days now.

But, as always, there's this problem of having nothing much to say.

Katri has been in Austria for a few weeks now. Today she called me, to catch up on things.

Still haven't managed to meet Hankku =/.

Tomorrow school will start at eight in the morning.

I have some cola in my fridge, a life saver.

I wish so many things.

Smiles in the university corridors.

Mon 2003-09-15 23:31 in diary No comments #link

reflection

Barbecued with Ada, Alex, Iikku, Elina, Elina and Nikolai, plus some French people including Nikola.

Saw the movie The Man Who Wasn't There.

Fine tuning my blogging system.

Sun 2003-09-14 01:51 in diary No comments #link

take me anywhere you want to baby now

Photos.

Roses-1
Roses-2
Roses-3


We bought some roses in the weekend.

Sat 2003-09-13 13:48 in diary No comments #link

By protracting life, we do not deduct one jot from the duration of death.

Juha called an hour or so ago. He's at work. He works in a hospital, drives around with beds and wheel chairs. He had done 49 transports so far. He found it amusing that I'm IRCing.

Sat 2003-09-13 03:42 in diary No comments #link

jout il as

02:34 <pilpi> piksu piksu kuuk. naka naka kuksi. laa puu. kihvi.

Sat 2003-09-13 02:35 in diary No comments #link

Anywhere pickles

No stars in the sky.

Chatting with Salla. (=

In the earlier evening me and Elina went to a Lutheran youth evening of a kind. I don't quite remember the name of it, but everybody calls it 'kräsä'. It was very nice, the atmosphere was warm and I didn't need to be afraid of the people. To our surprise, Iikku, Elina and Paavo were there, too. (=

I'm confused about my university degree... I quite don't know where to specialize. All the directions seem inappropriate for me. Perhaps I'll just waste my time another year and then see whether I'll know better.

This was supposed to be another fuzzy-goofy entry but I guess it ain't.

For some strange reason, I'm anxious to meet Hankku, now that I know she lives nearby.

Oh how I would like to be capable of reading people's thoughts.

Sat 2003-09-13 01:19 in diary No comments #link

tällä puolella yön

I'm walking around the university with my mind lost elsewhere, and someone walks by me and smiles.

Several photographs of the campus area with a shade of autumn... I would post some here but I don't have the camera cable with me.

I'm supposed to have some lectures soon. Wonder if I'm going to fall... as leep, inlo ve, ap art.

Just one smile can make me feel like I own the place.

Oink, oink. What's the use of having a reality if we can't strive to never ever perceive it again?

Oh, freedom. Appreciate it, even if it means losing everything! Oh, bummer.

Clouds.
You see, in the sky?

Thu 2003-09-11 14:11 in diary 2 comments #link

mustailta

Kuka kulkee tuolla
sateisella kadulla
näyttää surun, tuskansa
tai on kuin ei
siinä olisikaan

En minä pelkää
katson katuun vakain katsein
otan tyynyni ja
jatkan matkaa
syön evääni

ja katoan menneisyyteen
katoan, vaikken olekaan unohtunut
siivet allani sulan aikaan
eikä minua voi enää siitä erottaa
valkoista vahaa vain

Thu 2003-09-11 13:02 in poetry No comments #link

Tread

Makes me sick that they are still making such a noise about the World Trade Center, whereas it's just accepted cynically that everyday there is way more suffering, for example, in the third world countries.

After a couple of mostly worthless lectures I spent the afternoon writing a documentation about pilpi.net - I'm going to use it as my hypermedia course work.

I'm happy.

Thank you Lord.

Thu 2003-09-11 02:00 in diary 2 comments #link

chicken water soup

So I got up this morning. In fact, I woke up 10 minutes before the alarm clock buzzed. While I was in the shower, the 'snooze' -feature of the alarm clock was triggered and my roommate had to stand the noise for a minute or two at half past six in the morning.

At eight: hypermedia basic course I. My first rather inspiring lecture it was. Entertaining even, perhaps. Now I have a couple of dozen pages of historical articles to read about the subject.

I still am not quite clear on which courses I'm going to actually finish, but I guess that will sort itself out after a week or so.

No, nothing much but school on my mind right now. The smells, the light, the atmosphere.

Tue 2003-09-09 10:46 in diary No comments #link

Lentement

Not surprisingly, my longing to go to school was extinguished after three hours of lectures today. Tomorrow, school starts at 8 a.m. I haven't waken up that early in a while.

The new building Uusi Pinni (?) on our campus looks nice, although it's not quite finished yet. There was a new diner, and the food was above average - although it cost some 30 cents more than usual.

I'm not sure whether this looks like spring? It was taken today, anyway, about 100 m from my flat.

There's an awful pile of dishes to wash in the kitchen. But first, I'll enjoy Isänmaan toivot, a Finnish comedy series. And I'm supposed to go to sleep, too. =/

Mon 2003-09-08 21:08 in diary No comments #link

The last day of the summer

I've had quite a few blog content management systems at pilpi.net. First was blogger, where the software resided on someone else's server and was a security risk as such (using FTP). Then came Movable Type, a Perl thing, which seemed perfect - but that impression then turned wrong. My ISP's servers really couldn't handle it, Internal Server Errors once in a while, and I couldn't get it to work totally right even on my own Debian server.

So this is the first entry of the third blogging system in use at pilpi.net: Nucleus. It's written in PHP, and although the application logic isn't as clear as it was in MT, it works. Some parts of the interface even work more intuitively than in MT.

Unfortunately there was no finished MT to Nucleus conversion too, so I had to write one. I don't know what to think about myself when it comes to feeling really alive while coding PHP. =P

Otherwise: school starts tomorrow. A week ago I couldn't wait, but now I'm not so sure. But in the end, I like the thought of not having to worry about what to do next all the time.

Yesterday there were two parties: olaus' and Stickieee's. We missed them both', Elina's having a bit of a flu. =/

Tux Racer on Linux rocks (=.

Sun 2003-09-07 16:14 in diary No comments #link

Re: decommercializing

An additional note to the previous post: I do realize that it probably wouldn't be hard to get the aforementioned features to work in other distributions, and that some of them probably do already. Still, SuSE was the first one I got installed without hassle on my desktop box.

Second, I am evaluating the out-of-the box functionality of the operating systems, since I'm in the opinion that Linux should someday be an usable system for non-nerds. Also, I'm still a bit of a newbie in Linux-land myself.

Wed 2003-09-03 00:04 in diary No comments #link

decommercializing

A few days back I got SuSE Linux 9 installed, and it's been one huge positive surprise from there - considering that I've already tried RedHat, Mandrake and Debian.

What SuSE does better:
-Both my NTFS drives were mounted during the installation, ready to use
-When I plug in my digital camera into the USB port, it appears on the desktop as a drive
-Successful installation-time soundcard detection
-Successful installation-time monitor detection
-The clipboard in X actually works between all the apps

For the first time, I'm actually thinking about starting to mainly use Linux in desktop use. I still can't get the TV-out of my graphics card to function, though.

Also, got phpOpenTracker installed on this web site - meaning, that I can better see what my visitors are doing on my site.

About the rest of my life... school will start within a week. Although I've accomplished much during the summer, my Bible reading plans haven't become anywhere close to reality. I'm still trying, though.

Mon 2003-09-01 22:56 in diary No comments #link

What is this?

A Christian student writing about life, faith, software etc. both in English and in Finnish. Some photos and poetry, too. Not thinking much about whether I'm being interesting or not. See also my work blog: Moodle Quiz UI

Please comment. Anything :).

Helsinki time, GMT+2.

My favourite music for you

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