Friday, August 31, 2007

HDR - Second Try

Again had a chance to use a decent camera.
The tonemapping used here makes the photo really....aggressive.

Above is the original version made of 3 photographs, without a tripod.
Tonemapped with Gradient Domain High Dynamic Range Compression

Below is an easy picasa edit.


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Wednesday, August 29, 2007

One more week

One more week and I will be on the plane to Tokyo.

My flight will go through, the oh so lovely France, after which I will fly again over Finland over to Siberia, pointless indeed, but cheaper than a straight flight.

Then I will arrive to Tokyo on an early Thursday morning, 6:30 AM or something.

Ah, exciting times.

Finland has certainly been in a depression this week, cold as hell and not a trace of sunlight.

I changed my banner, the characters in the middle 上京 (jyoukyou) is a convinient word reserved for going to the capital (Tokyo at the moment)

bonus:

Dragon Ash, a band I like has recently released a new single it seems.
This is not their usual style, but the kind that the masses like, that's what marketing does to ya.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Shinjuku


Shinjuku, Tokyo shot from my friends motorcycle, summer 2005

Monday, August 27, 2007

CM

興味のある方に。これはあの悪名高いCMの続きだそうです。
なんか・・・お洒落。

東大へ来るAnttiに感謝。


Tea

picasa edit
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Sunday, August 26, 2007

よお!

Greetings from the CAT


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Saturday, August 25, 2007

The Garden

And here's something I managed to take with my grandfathers camera.




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HDR

Inspired by Daniel, and by getting a chance to visit my grandfather who has a nice dSLR, with AEB (Auto Exposure Bracketing), I decided to give HDR a try...

well it failed.

But I'm still posting it as a learning experience. As you see the picture below kinda hurts your eyes. The biggest problem in making the HDR was that it turned out blurry. Camera didnt shake as I was using a tripod. Problem was the wind. Wind was shaking the scenery...And I decided to take a photo of a scene that's just full of shaking green things.

Well better luck next time.
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Friday, August 24, 2007

Finnish YMCA Cover

Here we go, the pinnacle of Finnish cultural innovation....

I'm so proud of my country

(video contains totally hilarious cover of YMCA)

Hangings in Japan

Although Japan is one of the most advanced industrialized nations in the world, they still prefer to sentence people to death by hanging
An age old method, originating somewhere in America or Europe, who knows.
Same method is in use in countries such as Iran, Iraq and Pakistan.

Three people executed in Japan yesterday

Some facts from the article and wikipedia:

  • Japanese as a majority support death penalty
  • The executions are carried out during parliamentary holidays or New Year, so that it is more hard to raise discussion on the matter
  • The person executed will spent years highly isolated (up to 30 years!) and will not know when the execution will be carried out except on the morning of execution.
  • The family of the person to be executed will not when the execution is and therefore has no chance to meet before. The body is returned to the family after the execution
  • The current Japanese minister of Justice said: “I’ll do [execute] double figures in my term [as minister].” (The previous minister was Buddhist and refused to sign executions)

Thursday, August 23, 2007

damn dawg

Again time for the animal stuff....







source

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Sailing outing


Went to a sailing outing for summer interns. The theme was "sitsit" & crayfish party (rapujuhlat). We were taken out on a fabulous old sail boat and fed with great food and free alcohol (beer, wines, vodka).

Good stuff




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Monday, August 20, 2007

Summer security guard


As some might know, at the moment I am working at a major global consulting company with around 140,000 employees worldwide. As far as I know the Finland office though consists of less than one percent of that global manpower :)

Some might think that working at such a company is interesting (or some might think the opposite), and that there must be some good stories to tell. I don't deny that, but still those stories are kind of shallow in comparison (in a certain sense) to some of the experiences I had when working as a summer security guard summer 2006.

Overall considering the time I worked as a guard, 99% of the time nothing happened, but the one percent when something happened was interesting to say the least.
I won't tell the name of the company I worked for, but it's probably the world's largest company in the security business and has even more employess than the consulting company I work for. This company is also Swedish :)

One rememberable thing was my first day at work. The job was a 16 hour night shift (4PM to 8AM) at a local art museum. The first day at the job we work with someone who is used to work at the particular place, for showing us the routines and how to use the surveillance devices, who to call during each situation and for telling the special circumstances at the work place.
(All that was really needed to done was doing a check at night, that all the doors are locked).

The person who taught me was a usual Finnish older guy, who had apparently done odd jobs for his whole life. Kind of a normal kinda guy. He told me how his daughter had gone married and recenly got a child and so on. Everything seemed like I would have a normal night working with him. It was then however around 2AM maybe, that he started surfing the internet. First he surfed some normal message boards, although he seemed to like topics that had something to do with sex. Then around 3AM the sites he surfed started to change, there started to be some pretty graphic pictures, naked women in strange positions and the like. I was wondering if it's really ok to do that at the work, while at the same time trying to ignore him doing it. He didn't seem at all bothered I was there though.

Then around 4AM he switched to downloading porn movies from the internet and watching them on the work computer. I was trying my best to not look at his direction and kept reading my magazine to stay discreet of course :) Didnt want to get in the middle of him and his enjoyment. Around 4:30AM though he seemed to start having some technical problem with the computer. Anti-virus software reported multiple infections (that's what you get for downloading free porn off the internet...). I couldn't ignore him anymore, and as an elderly guy he wasn't too good with computers, so I had to help him. Luckily the anti-virus software took care of everything, and forced a reboot (which probably wasn't very good for security reasons).

Now you'd think this man would learn and not watch porn anymore, but alas, no.
After the reboot, he went on back to downloading more porn. And he wasn't downloading any soft-core stuff either, oh no, it was the toughest hard core and some of the craziest stuff I've seen, was right then, during my first day at work there.

Around 5AM he couldn't hide his habit from me, although I did my best ignoring him and reading the same magazine for hours. No he just couldn't keep himself from telling me about the porn he just got his hands on. It was a clip of machine-porn. Machine-porn you ask? Yeah it's apparently a type of entertaiment where you show the most imaginative machines, doing the most imaginative things you could imagine to a poor (yet, enthusiastically screaming) woman.

The old man was so happy by this new discovery, that he felt the urge to ask for my opinion.

With my most talented poker face i said, "Yeah....that's...interesting".

Yeah, that was a long night.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Tak Matsumoto - Sunset cover live (gary moore)

Show's Tak Matsumoto, the most famous guitarist in Japan (and Asia). Doing a cover of "Sunset" by Gary Moore

I especially like the part in the end where some announcer says something like:

ギタリスト松本孝弘の書いた音楽、音楽創造への限りない情熱と自信。
それは時に松本自身に恍惚(?)と不安与えながらも、彼は新しいサウンドフィールドを旅立たせる。

something like:
Music written by guitarist Matsumoto Takahiro, no end in passion and confidence in creating music. Sometimes even for Matsumoto himself although it brings uneasiness, he goes on finding new sound fields.

Friday, August 17, 2007

日光


My favorite shot from Nikko, Japan, summer 2005
(Thank you Hiroshi for driving me there)
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Thursday, August 16, 2007

Self



Another play with Photoshop.
My biggest enemy is really, that I'm too impatient to really tweak the pictures carefully
Thanks to Tuomas for the picture

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

University Rankings


University rankings are always something to talk about. Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) where I'm going to exchange got into place no. 99 (99 is also the name of a great song by Tak Matsumoto ;) ).

In Japan TIT is thus Uni no. 6 and loses to of course Tokyo (20) and Kyoto(22) universities, but also to suspicious places like Osaka (67), Tohoku (76) and Nagoya (94) Universities. Oh boy I'm not impressed.

Finlands top is of course Helsinki University at no. 73 between the UK Sheffield University and USA Arizona University :P
My own beloved Helsinki Uni. of Tech. is somewhere in the last hundred 400-500 (Waseda is almost as bad) I don't even care, I know my uni sucks.

This study was made by a Shanghainese University and it ranks top 500 universities based mostly on quality of research and also things like Nobel prices (finland has ever got only a few), considering that Finland doesn't have so much funds for research we do pretty well it seems.

source

Saturday, August 11, 2007

携帯電話使用に対するユーザ態度と満足感に関するフィンランド・日本の比較文化研究

やで。


By the way, today I had a chance to see real geisha (actually 1 geisha and 2 maiko) in Finland. My cousin invited me to an event, that was by invitation only, that means you cannot buy tickets there, you had to be invited.

The geisha were great I have to say, but the person who was giving explanations and hosting the event was a fat canadian (this guy), who somehow had gotten himself involved with the geisha world, he made the experience diluted to say the least.

Hard to describe the geishas performance, I can just say it was refined, beautiful.

Although the event was invitation only, the small theater (savoy theather, helsinki) was extremely tightly packed (someone said 700 people). After the performance free sake and sushi was offered, but the some of the sushi had still raw rice (horrible) and the sake was california made Gekkeikan (horrible) and it was so crowded that it was more packed than the last train to saitama on a friday night. Still the brave geisha came and mixed in with the people and allowed them to take pictures of them and chat, all while wearing the hot and heavy kimono. (Well I guess Kyoto is still more hot than helsinki around now).

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Tak Matsumoto - Koi Uta [PV]

Everyone in the world should learn about Tak Matsumoto (of B'z), the legendary guitar virtuoso. This is the first song in his album "Hana"(華), that has been my favorite for a year already.

Watch the seasons change in this beautiful vid. There is also the humor of watching the ultra cool Matsumoto in his suit in the middle of it all.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Heppa


Horse at Mt. Fuji, 2006 (blind?)

Monday, August 06, 2007

Self-Potrait

In Ahvenanmaa, summer 2007


In Helsinki, 2006, wearing girlfriends glasses

Photography

in Suomenlinna, 2007


Since I started working my internship I've had quite alot of time for my interests and hobbies since I don't have homework taking my time at night. Lately I've been reading on some photography books and playing with photoshop. Still have a lot to learn.

in Ikebukuro, 2006 (Actually this was just a quick edit with picasa)


in Shibuya 2006


Sunday, August 05, 2007

Sushi Conveyor

This is really interesting, experience being kaiten sushi

(embedded youtube video)

Kaiten sushi

This is good for learning

(embedded youtube video)

Ero Eero's Goodbye party

Eero going to Hong Kong did it again!


Featuring:
  • Buckets full of alcohol
  • A POOL
  • BBQ
  • Food
  • and a failed trip to the club

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Me pojat halutaan vain juoda viinaa

I was recommended a new name yesterday when drinking Vodka and Rum.

華 - hana, splendor, gorgeus, shine
志 - kokorozashi, intention, resolve, motive

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Cannons




たっしゅん In Åland, Around Midsummer, June 2007


On a cannon in Kalmar, Southeast Sweden, May 2007


Aimed by a cannon, Suomenlinna, Helsinki, July 2007