Arto's Blog

A few months ago I wrote about meeting Päivi and Santeri in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. They describe themselves as homeless loiterers and claim not to be doing much anything, but they've turned out to be quite active in writing books. They started with La Habanera (available in Finnish, in English and even in Hebrew) which tells their story of quitting their jobs and leaving Finland to escape the rat race. More recently published Platinainen pilvenreuna (in Finnish) describes Santeri's life as an entrepreneur in more detail through the rise and fall of Finnish Software Engineering SOT Oy, his open source software company.

Platinainen pilvenreuna was particularly interesting for me as during the good days of SOT I was the press secretary of the Finnish Linux User Group FLUG ry, collaborating with Santeri quite often. This is also mentioned in the book. Our relationship obviously changed when he left but friendship stayed. I helped a little with the book by reviewing draft versions of it during spring 2007. It was actually quite fun to read about familiar events in the recent history of information technology in Finland, while relaxing at a bamboo hut by the Indian sea.

Many bits and pieces of information in Platinainen pilvenreuna are in public for the first time. Facts are at least mostly correct. The story is told from Santeri's point of view, which may raise some different opinions on how the more private events actually went — the relations between him and some other main players were rocky at times. The main author of the book is actually Santeri's wife Päivi, which was probably good both for the balance and fluency of the text.

If you'd like to check out the book without buying it, it should be available in some libraries in Finland and I have two copies which I'll be happy to borrow (one of them is out right now). At least I personally liked the book and can therefore recommend it. See also Päivi's and Santeri's other books (in English | in Finnish) and Päivi's blog (in Finnish) about literature, reading and writing.

CSC announced last week the collaboration between Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP) and CSC to build the Finnish part of the data storage and computing environment required to observe what happens to minuscule particles when they hit each other really hard. Digitoday also picked up the story (in Finnish).

I worked for HIP during summers 1999-2002 (the first two being physically located at CERN) and additionally part time along with my studies during 2001-2002. After my exchange year in Japan 2002-2003, I joined CSC. Now, my task there is setting up the data storage system of this experiment — with the help of a couple of colleagues of course. In other words, I'm again working for HIP, although not directly employed by them. Funny how you always end up doing pretty much the same things... :)

I was recently invited in a panel discussion about open source, organized by Tietokone, the largest IT magazine in Finland geared towards business users. An article about the discussion appeared in the latest issue (Tietokone 13/2007) and the full recording is available online (in Finnish).

The discussion focused around commonly heard claims, such as "Open source is socialism", "One cannot make money with open source", "There is no innovation in open source" and "Open source software is difficult to use". The starting point wasn't that the claims would all be true, rather the idea was to debunk some common false assumptions and present a more balanced view on the topic.

One of the invited participants didn't make it, so eventually it was only me and Janne Pikkarainen, one of the admins of the MBnet web site, with Tietokone magazine editor Kari Haakana throwing the claims questions from the other side of the table. It still made a good discussion, so if you're interested in Free / open source software (and can understand Finnish), I can recommend listening to the interview.

I have a job again. My employer is CSC, the same where I worked before my year on the road. The contents of my work is also similar to what it used to be. However, there is one important difference: my contract is for 80 hours per month. In other words, roughly half the hours, half the pay compared to full-time employment.

Work is divided unevenly in the society. Some people are frustrated about being unemployed and unable to find a job, while some others are spending virtually all their time working, stressed, living on the verge of burnout. The number of working hours per week tends to increase the higher one climbs up on the hierarchy ladder, or in some cases reaches a peak on the middle management level. It has long been preached that new technology, development and prosperity would make life easier and reduce the amount of work, but it doesn't seem to generally happen that way.

If work is really a passion and one truly wants to focus on it, working long hours is fine. But how often is that really the case? I've had the privilege to have jobs I've found interesting and even enjoyable, but I couldn't really call them passions or at least not something I'd want to invest all my time on. I have many parallel interests and find it difficult to stay fully focused on any single topic for a long time. I need a balance between different activities in order to continue liking each of them.

The proper balance varies between individuals, and less work than before but still some work sounded just right for me now. Committing to 80 hours per month I will be able to alternate flexibly between days in the office and days out, in average working about 2.5 days per week. Sometimes I'll probably work for a full week and then have a full week off. I will have more time for my Chinese language studies and volunteering in clubs and societies. I have a few projects in mind in that area, but I'm not setting any exact goals. If it happens that I just end up spending more time cycling, traveling, watching movies, surfing the net, going to parties and enjoying life, let it be so.

My main reason for going back to CSC were the people. Being surrounded by intelligent colleagues I can learn things not only related to work but about the world at large. The project I'm working on, large scale data storage in a grid environment using the dCache software, is interesting but I would have been able to find other good ones too. I considered for example working as a freelance journalist like I did during my student years, learning interesting topics and then writing articles about them. In the end, CSC won because I had got on well there before and they were willing to hire me even after listening to my slightly unusual requests.

I do realize that this is not the way to go towards a shining career and promotions to higher positions. However, that doesn't feel like the most important thing now. I'm currently not willing to commit into anything for a very long time, and wanted to be open about that: I signed up only until the end of April 2008. I need to be good in what I do and at the same time be happy about the job — the contract will be extended only if both parties want it.

It'll be interesting to observe for the next six months how I'll feel about this new arrangement and what kind of comments I'll hear from others around me. At least based on the first three weeks I think I've made the right choice again.

Having settled down in Helsinki at least for a while, I've had time to think what my long tour in Europe and Asia has given me and what I want to do next. Here are a few thoughts about travel and life in general after spending a year on the road.

Enjoy the unexpected, trust the unknown. Little by little, I learned to plan less and to enjoy uncertainty. I had traveled without a detailed schedule and hotel reservations before, but this time I went one step beyond that. I took roads not marked on the map, arriving in unknown villages just before sunset and got invited in to local homes. Even when I had made plans, I often changed them based on new encounters or feelings about a place. I certainly wasn't the craziest traveler out there and tried to avoid unnecessary risks, but also wanted to get rid of being a control freak. The balance shifted a bit towards adventure, and I enjoyed it.

Traveling alone is not lonely. It was never difficult to find people to talk with, and without a group of friends around I was spending more time with the locals. Of course, the majority of those encounters were rather superficial. To have deeper discussions, one usually needs to spend more time with the person and share experiences. That's the best part of having a travel partner: you can compare thoughts about an event or situation, or just start a topic which is completely detached from traveling. Having traveled both alone and with friends, I still cannot say which is better. I do know that a big group is not the way to go for me.

Travel gives new perspective for ecological living. Environmental protection might not be part of their everyday thoughts, but most people in developing countries live a fairly ecological life. Many environmentally unfriendly habits are also expensive so they simply cannot afford them. Traveling through poor areas shows that hot water is a luxury, air conditioning is rarely really necessary, and that it's easy to live by following the daily cycle of the sun, minimizing the need for artificial light (at least when the days and nights are approximately the same lenght). It can be a culture shock to come back home in a rich country where climate change is in the headlines but a lot of energy is being wasted everywhere. On the other hand, proliferation of plastic packaging and other non-biodegradable goods in the developing world produces another kind of shock. In the absense of proper waste management, residential areas are turning into big landfills and waterways getting polluted. People are used to throwing waste simply to the backyard — it didn't matter earlier but with the new materials it does.

Free software remains one of my passions. I didn't keep myself very well up to date with world news during my trip. To avoid spending all the time in Internet cafes, I dropped many mailing lists and web sites which I used to follow regularly. However, I continued to read the weekly editions of LWN.net during the whole year. That was the best way to keep an eye on what was happening in the free software world. I love the freedom, the community involvement without excluding commercial activities and the good match with mobile lifestyle. I can carry a virtually unlimited amount of interesting applications, information and art in digital form without possessing many material goods, and free licenses guarantee I can share what I have with my friends too.

A full-time job is not the only possible choice. A long break from work gives a good opportunity to think what kind of role should work have in one's life. Before my trip I had a well-paid full-time job, something which is respected and even envied in the society. Now I'm not so sure I want to continue the same way. I'm not alienated from work, but managing my own time as a freelancer sounds tempting. A normal full-time position is not out of the question, but if something is going to take the most of my time five days a week, eleven months a year, I'd better really like it. The standard five weeks of vacation per year may be enough to rest before getting back to work, but it's not long enough to focus on any other big project.

Changing the environment from time to time is good for me. Since I got my first job abroad in summer 1999 (in Geneva), I've never stayed very long in one place. The longest was almost three years in Finland before my bicycle tour — and it was starting to feel too long. I have a tendency to get involved with various volunteer activities and to pick up other hobbies, which are interesting but gradually fill up all my free time. Moving to another country provides a natural cut-off point to leave some of them behind and be ready for new challenges. It's already a way of life for me and it's difficult to say when, if ever, I'll settle down somewhere permanently.

A month, a year or undefined time for travel — all very different. It was obvious already when I left that traveling for a year was going to be different from the short trips I'd done before. I had time to stop for days or even weeks when I wanted, and I created the route plan on the way. What I didn't think about was that traveling for a year is still very different from traveling for an undefined period of time. I met many who were on the road for at least several months but rather few who were roaming around with no end in sight. Those who did, had often given up the notion of considering any single place in the world as their home, which made a big difference. I didn't have my return date set in stone, but it was still clearly a plan for one year. I had rented my flat out for one year, taken travel insurance for one year and, more importantly, it was a one year plan in my mind. I did consider continuing, but decided it was good time to stop for a while. Being constantly on the move is liberating but also tiresome, I need breaks from traveling too. However, it's not a given that those breaks would necessarily be in Finland.