Arto's Blog

My web site has a new home on a server of a friend of mine. The main reason for the change was that I needed more disk space and my previous provider didn't offer it for a reasonable price. Moving away from a commercial provider will mean that downtime might be longer in case of a software or hardware failure, but on the other hand it will be more flexible to install new services if I need to.

The blog software was also upgraded from a two year old version to a more recent one. The new version has a bunch of new features, but I decided to keep things simple and just move my data and layout without any major changes. However, I did a little bit of fine tuning trying to make navigation in the blog easier. If you notice that something has broken, please contact me.

Eight months ago, I made a contract for working 80 hours per month at CSC. Back then, I signed up until April 2008, and it was extended by one month because the project I worked on had an important testing phase in May. Now I'm off again to enjoy the summer and it's time to review how everything worked out. In short, it has been a good experiment.

My working hours varied between 49 and 105 per month, the average being 82. There was occasionally an urgent task to finish or a problem to fix, but never too much pressure or stress. I was able to put a little bit of effort into a couple of side projects while focusing more than 80% of the hours on my main task, setting up the Finnish part of data storage for the CERN LHC particle accelerator. It has been exciting to have a tiny role in one of the largest projects ever undertaken by humans. The real test will come when the accelerator will start in August, but the data storage installation project reached its goals with positive feedback, so I'd call it a success. A big thanks for that goes of course to my colleagues who did their parts of the job competently and were great to work with.

I generally went to the workplace on Mondays and Thursdays and more randomly on other days, in particular skipping most Fridays. Whenever I had activities in the clubs I belong to or just didn't feel like working, I could cut those days short or stay out of the office. Compared to my previous full time employment, I'd say the hours I spent at work were more efficient. While working half time I probably got about 60% of the work done compared to being a full timer. On the other hand, further cutting down the number of hours per month would have probably lowered efficiency again, because there is always some overhead due to meetings, company events, emails and administrative work.

On the hobbies side, I had time for more or less what I planned to do in Finnish Linux User Group: no major new projects but at least helping to get the group back in life after a couple of problematic years. I also continued going to Chinese lessons, although I didn't progress too much. If I really want to learn to communicate in Chinese I'll have to go to China or at least put much more effort in studying it than I've done now.

In Japania ry, a Finnish-Japanese friendship society, I didn't get done nearly as much as I wanted, so most of the things which would need my computer skills are still hanging in the same state they were 8 months ago. A few more personal projects I had in mind also didn't progress at all which annoys me a bit. However, most importantly, I had time to go out with friends, enjoy concerts and parties, read a few books, relax and get enough sleep. April and May were a bit on the busy side, but overall it has certainly been more balanced than a few years ago when I tried to do all the same while being employed full time.

Compared to life before my one year on the road, surprisingly little changed. Same employer, mostly same hobbies, only taking a bit more time through a non-standard work contract. However, that was an important difference. It was like being inside the rat race but looking around and observing instead of rushing full speed to win the race. I could compare the situation before, during and after my year out. There were some interesting discussions with colleagues and friends which would have never taken place had I stayed away for good.

As I wrote in the beginning, I'm again without a job following my own decision not to extend the fixed term contract. This time the leave is less about desire to travel and see the world, although I plan to do a bit of that too. It's more like a step out of the routine leaving room for new ideas.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Internet censorship in Finland. On Tuesday March 4th there was a public demonstration against the censorship law. I was there in front of the parliament house with about 500 other demonstrators.

Lack of interest from the parliament members was rather disappointing. Out of the three big political parties only one (Kokoomus) was represented, with SDP and Keskusta not having sent any representative to hear what we had to say. A few representatives from smaller parties were there, but most of them still didn't seem to understand what the whole thing is about.

Luckily, the journalist who wrote the article about the demonstration in Helsingin Sanomat, the biggest daily newspaper, did get the point. The article is not available online free of charge, but if you can read Finnish and have access to the March 5, 2008 issue of Helsingin Sanomat, check out page A-5. That gives some hope.

Freedom is important for me. Freedom of movement, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, freedom of speech, right to receive information. The two last ones have been recently violated in Finland. The Finnish police has been maintaining a blocklist of web sites allegedly containing child pornography. Now they have added a Finnish site criticizing the censorship on the same blocklist.

Instead of trying to describe the matter further, I'll point to an excellent summary of what it's all about.

My Internet operator doesn't use the blocklist, at least not yet. However, it's a sad moment when censorship is seen as the official way of silencing critical voices. I certainly hope this farce is going to end soon and the law which originally enabled the creation of the blocklist will be overturned.

You can read my Christmas and New Year haiku in English, in Finnish or in Japanese. A haiku is a poem consisting traditionally of a pattern of 5, 7 and 5 Japanese language sounds, or syllables. More recently poets have taken liberties of deviating from the pattern, especially in languages such as English which are not so clearly based on syllables. Finnish, on the other hand, fits rather nicely in the traditional format.

In addition to the electronic card, I did send a fair number of Christmas and New Year greetings also in old fashioned paper format. Otherwise I rarely send letters — email has replaced them quite completely in my life — but at the change of the year I still find it nice to send and receive some, especially hand-made or otherwise personalized ones. Mine were variations on two simple origami (paper folding art) themes, photos, plus a few commercially sold cards which were still lying around from previous years. I didn't buy any new cards this year.

I hereby wish all the readers of my blog happy festivities, in whichever way you celebrate them. May peace be with you in 2008!