Mika Tuupola

Helsinki – Tallinn line gets new ship. No more looking at weather forecasts. This ship can go out with bad weather. It can go go out even when there is ice!

For people traveling often between Tallinn and Helsinki this is good news. Problem with fast ferries is you never know will they go. If there is storm ferries will be canceled. This happened to me three times last year. Fast ferries also do not go during winters. In winters you can travel only cruise ships. Problem with cruise ships is the time. Travel with cruise ships takes over 3 hours.

This is exactly what M/S Star fixes. It is a big ship which can drive even in storms. Still it has speed of fast ferries. Travel time to Helsinki is only two hours. This combined with onboard wifi makes it perfect for business travelers. How well wifi actually work we will see tomorrow morning.

It is not advertised but M/S Galaxy also has onboard wifi. It only works in some parts of ship. Just check where all the people with laptops are. Internet connection works all the way to Finland. Maybe not the fastest. Still enough to read your mails and hang in IRC or MSN.

Igglo has a fresh aproach to real estate business. In addition it puts together vast amount of information collected from various sources but in a comprehensible way.

Igglo is a project whose start I got to follow quite closely. Personally only thing I did I was to help find people to do it. We were lucky to hire one of the best PHP coders available. Even though it is late from the original schedule and released as beta the guys did amazing work.

If you are interested in buying an aparment you can mark a building a street or neighbourhood you would be interested in. To help you find the building you want Igglo has photographed every building in Helsinki. More towns will follow. Other people and potential sellers can see if people are interested in their house.

In case you consider selling your apartment but don’t want to make a final decision yet, you can tag your bulding apartment for sale anonymously. Soon you will see if there is any people interested in your house.

One of the most interesting part is the combination of different databases and the fact that Igglo actually photographed every house. They also have satellite pictures and aeroplane pictures. All which can be pinpointed to specific builgings.

I got a bit sentimental looking at pictures of all my old addresses in Helsinki: Anianpellontie 4, Opinkuja 6, Liisankatu 16, Vuorimiehenkatu 4 and Ruusulankatu 18.

Joi Ito will be visiting Helsinki 14th of October. The event will be at Korjaamo which is almost next door to my apartment. I will definetily be there.

Aula klubi, discussions with shapers of contemporary lifestyle, continues with Joichi Ito on ‘The Future of the Music Business’ on 14 Oct 2004 at Korjaamo in Helsinki. The event will be held in English and is free and open to the public.

You are invited to an open discussion with Joichi Ito on Thursday 14.10. at 17.30 at Korjaamo, Töölönkatu 51 b in Helsinki. Joichi “Joi” Ito will speak on “The Future of the Music Business” followed by a discussion with the audience. The event will be held in English and is free and open to the public.

The event is organized by Aula (http://www.aula.cc). Aula is an open network that promotes the exchange of ideas across boundaries.

Korkeasaari has announced it will kill all of the baboons currently living in the zoo. The “baboon castle” where the animals live needs restoration and the zoo does not have alternative place for the animals to go. To add to the the What The Fuck factor the second reason given to the killing of the animals is that they don’t like cold weather. Since Finland is pretty damn cold in winter the baboons will be spending the snowy season indoors and people won’t be seeing them. The zoo feels people won’t be having as much value for their 5€ tickets during wintertime and will replace the baboons with monkeys who can withstand cold weather.

This has caused a bit of an outrage in Helsinki. Advertising agency Bob Helsinki has taken the most visible stand for saving the baboons. They announced they will hire a project manager whose sole mission will be to find a plan and financing to rescue the animals.

Yesterday the city of Helsinki experienced a blackout which lasted for an hour. Trains could not depart. People were evacuated from inside metro tunnels. Other people were stuck in amusement park rides. Fire department got lots of false alarms. Something you could call saturday night excitement. Everything was restored into normal state in few hours except…

...except Eunet network. Couple of hours after power was restored routes to and from Eunet network still seemed to be all messed up. It took almost 24 hours before routes to our company network were working again. Everything is fine now since I am able to write this entry. Thanks to Toni for spending the sunday afternoon at the office fixing our Internet.