Blog Title: first thoughts, last train (frans mäyrä’s pe

Sony MDR-EX85LP/BLK

I have written before about the Sony wireless, bluetooth headphones I can use with an adapter with my old trusty iPod. Bluetooth stereo works also fine with my new work laptop (Vaio Z31), which was a bit surprising (e.g. with Lenovo the sound was snapping/breaking; must be related to the way bluetooth stereo works for read more..

Building media room ventilation

This is probably the ugliest cooler casing ever, but when finished and properly installed, it should help with the fresh air flow to my media room in cellar. (Built around SilverStone FM121 cooler fan, some wooden and aluminium parts added, fitted together with liberal use of Super Epoxy…)

Terrace and pergola project finished

Last summer, I wrote about our terrace and pergola project; and in May this year I mentioned that we are continuing with the paint layers next. After that, most of May and June free time was spent adding a couple of layers of paint to every surface of the construction. The rafters (or laths) supporting read more..

Nordenstreng & Sipilä farewell lectures

The farewell lectures of professors Kaarle Nordenstreng and Jorma Sipilä are now available also as a video recording. Only in Finnish, I am afraid, but providing long perspectives and much insight to the development of Finnish university system, as well as our university and its certain disciplines. Flash video is here: http://www.uta.fi/ajankohtaista/yliopistouutiset/0509/2705/jaahyvaisluennot.html PDF version of read more..

Default html editor in Vista

Another small tip, in case someone else wonders about this: it appears that you cannot change the default html editing program through the “Default Programs” tool in Vista (if you select e.g. MS FrontPage, it will also use FrontPage to open and show all html files, not only to open them for editing). I did read more..

Syncing three kinds of calendars

There are three main types of calendars that I need and use: the standard desktop calendar app (the one with the best interface, accessible also when offline) the mobile calendar (handy when making notes in the meetings, on the road etc.) the online, shared calendar (essential for groupwork, accessible from any webtop) The challenge currently is that there is read more..

Mia Consalvo’s visit

Mia Consalvo visited us today, and gave an interesting talk on the casual games, players and game cultures — something that relates directly to much of the work that our team has been carrying out in similar areas. We also had an opportunity to continue with coffee and cinnamon buns afterwards, discussing about the similarities read more..

Vaio Z31

Ok, my new workhorse, Sony Vaio Z31WN has finally arrived. (Will post more about it after some test runs…) Edit: here is a photo showing also the Z series dock:

Forthcoming: The Player Barometer 2009

Here is a snapshot from our games researchers’ rooms — Juho Karvinen, the research assistant of Player Barometer/Pelaajabarometri 2009 is here faced with the grim reality of manually handling a survey sample size of 4000 in the form of traditional mail survey forms & envelopes. (Results from the survey hopefully will be coming in the read more..

Pergola project continues…

As you might remember, I spent the entire last summer vacation building a terrace and pergola into our garden. As these things take their time, this job continues this summer, including some additional constructions to support vines and other plants. The entire thing also needs to be painted (you cannot paint fresh preservative-treated wood as it read more..