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From scratch

I'm fine doing diy stuff that is possible to be done by existing things that just need a little bit of modification to fit my needs. Sometimes my projects are just combining a few things that weren't meant to work together, but create something new when joined in a correct way.

Taking time

Writing every day feels like a lot. But spending minimum amount of time on it isn't really enough to give the attention so.e topics deserve. So I don't write about them and instead just keep postponing them for "better time".

Sometimes it's about my lack of proper background knowledge of the topic. I want to make sure I get the facts right and try to do my background checks before writing anything. For these the better time usually comes. I can study the subject at my own pace and come back to it when I feel I'm ready.

Gone too soon

I have always been a Linux user (save the first few years of my computerized life before the first version of Linux came out). The first Linux installations were whatever I managed to get my hands on. There were no public internet yet to download whatever you wanted back then.

After getting connected the things got interesting. There were so many options and the technology was moving so fast it was hard to keep up. Especially if you resorted to the stable releases.

Time flies relatively

Today we are having a farewell party for our temporary local hr person at our company in Finland. It's amazing how somebody can become such an integral part of the company in such a short time.

It feels sad to see him leave even though it was known from the beginning that he would be with us only for a set amount of time during our "own" hr lady during her maternity leave. The little over a year went so fast but it feels like he has been with us much longer.

More missing bricks

Couple of weeks ago I wrote how I started building my old Lion Knights castle LEGO set and how, after going through my inventory I found a few missing pieces. Yesterday my order from Bricklink arrived and I was thrilled to continue the build.

Two different angles

Seeing the same concert twice on consecutive nights sounds like only the biggest fans would do for a band. I wouldn't say I'm quite there with Rammstein. I mean I like their music and especially their shows, but I wouldn't either mind missing them. This just happened to be a special coincidence having the opportunities to see them twice.

Lightshow without the dark

Many bands but out great shows but nothin I have seen compares to Rammstein. Even without pyrotechnics their shows are mesmerizing and the fires just puts them in a whole new level. The problem is, those kind of shows work best in the darkness.

There isn't real darkness here anymore at this time of the year. It barely gets dim at the middle of the night. And when we have the famous darkness it's not really suitable for an outdoor event. There also isn't a venue big enough that could contain their spectacle indoors.

It's starting to get Heavy

Today will be the first of many concerts and festivals which all are on the heavier side of the music genres. The first (and the second one tomorrow) will be Rammstein. It's the fourth (and fifth time) for me seeing them live.

After that there is one weekend in between before our "home" festival, the Rockfest will kick of from Thursday till Saturday. There isn't any must see bands there for me, but several good ones none the less. It's more about having it just there around the corner, about a kilometer away from where we live.

Summer is over?

We had nice couple of weeks of warm and sunny weather. Even if it's still considered springtime it felt like summer. Unfortunately the good weather seems to be over. For now.

We Finns always like to complain, or joke how our summer is short and cold, but that's not true. Even the coldest summers I can remember have had plenty of those warm and sunny days.

Impossible compliance

EU is rather strict and protective over its citizens privacy and online safety. For a web services consulting agency it can be a nightmare to try to comply with all the regulations.

Most of the services to provide things to websites are produced by companies based on the USA. Even if those companies are "multinational" many of their core functions operate only "back home". It's challenging to use services based within the EU, but if there is any data transferred outside the EU it becomes nightmare.

Keep it simple

It's easy to get carried away when designing new things. Adding more things means adding complexity and keeping things somewhat reusable and maintainable requires multiple layers of abstraction. This can lead to systems that aren't either and on top of that become over bloated.

It's always easy to add complexity. It doesn't really require any additional effort. Just keep adding things on top of all the previous ones. Nobody benefits from such burden.

Cost of doing business

Meta, the parent company of Facebook had been ordered to pay EU 1,2 billion euros fine for not respecting EU privacy regulations. This is not the first time they, or other US based companies have been fined for such practices, but it's the biggest one time payment so far.

Modern day genie

From thousand and one night to all the later adaptations of stories about habe pretty much been warnings about being careful what you wish for. In those stories the genie tries to twist the wish in ways that are not what the one making the wish was intending, but something far more sinister. The only way to get what you wish for is being modest and really, really carefully crafting your wish.

Missing pieces

After I got my old LEGO bricks sorted out and identified most of the sets I should own it was time to pick the first set to build. I picked the original King's Castle (6080-1) as it was one of the greatest sets I have owned.

Productive day

Today has been extremely productive day for me. It's a stark contrast to last Thursday when, after dropping wife to the train station in the morning, I did absolutely nothing. Thursday was a public holiday and wife left to see her family taking the Friday of for a long weekend. So I have enjoyed being alone. I didn't take Friday of so then I was working.

But having taken a full day doing nothing I was bursting energy. Yesterday I didn't have time to put that energy into use as I was working late and there wasn't that much time to start doing anything around home.

Dependency hell

I've been working on a proof of concept product whenever I have had some spare time at work (which isn't much). Going through and learning new tools and concepts is always fun and I have been testing out various new AI related tools and services to create something we could use internally or to sell to our customers.

The problem is the industry is moving really fast. There are new services and versions out constantly and the libraries are struggling to keep up. Even the libraries themselves are developing rapidly.

Link to the past

Nintendo launched their latest Zelda game The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom last Friday. The release was exclusive to their hybrid Switch console and won't be available to other platforms (as usual).

Despite being available only to one gaming platform it sold a massive 10 million copies during the first three days. Only a few hit games, most of them published on multiple platforms, has sold as many copies on the sme time period. Not many games sell that many copies during their entire life.

Free electricity

Just a few months ago we were struggling with historically high energy prices. At it's peak the fixed long term contracts were going at the rates above 50 cents per kWh. Even our average price on spot pricing when we were able to optimize the biggest power usages was over 10 cents.

Now, the situation is completely different. Last night the spot price dropped below zero and this night won't be different. Even accounting for the comission our electricity company adds on top of the spot pricing it the price will still be negative during the off-peak hours.

Midnight sun

Today is the day of the year when the endless day arrives to Finland. From this day onward until 29th of August the sun doesn't set in the northernmost part of our country. At it's peak, on summer solstice one fourth of our country will be experiencing the midnight sun. Yeah, that's how north we are, one quarter being above the polar circle.

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