Oh my, oh my. Who would have thought that earning while studying wouldn’t pay off. As I began calculating my earnings for this year - I ended up in a pretty sad situation.
My tax rate will be higher for the rest of the year and I will have to pay back around 1000€ to the government. Now that sucks big time.
ps. If I would have earned some 50€ less, I would have had to pay back only 800€… where’s the logic?
Nokia Lifeblog 1.0 is now available for download. There is a trial version which you can install, but you can only store up to 200 items and then you have to buy the license if you wish to go past that. The license costs a mere 30$.
The only downside of this is the compatibility issues(or more accurately, issue) - the software only works with Windows PC and Nokia 7610.
On another note, I also found out that Russell Beattie and co. have created Lifeblogger. A software that can send your lifeblog items to most blogs on the web. I think this will be an open source competitor to Lifeblog’s future additions as they have signed a deal with SixApart - seems like they have something in mind.
Check out this photo! The nigerian guerillas are negotiaing with the government. That’s cool - but check it out what it says on the bandanna of one rebel - look familiar? Ring any bells George? :P Hah.
As of today I am employed again. I am an assisstant researcher in a Telephone Business Research Center project. I’ll be working on the project until february, which means more or less when I’m going to Australia.
More on this on my Master’s Thesis blog.
What the - people were sending me a message around Messenger that if I had a person with a certain e-mail address added to my friends list, all my friends will receive the virus as well. No harm done, but what is this thing? I prank put forward by someone? I had like 5 windows opening up in 20 secs…. so you know how connected people actually are nowadays.
Or, is the virus infact the message that gets replicated by people when they are sending it. I don’t see the virus (ie. the message) being any different from going round manually when people send you it :)
Read an interesting article today on O’reilly’s books in Business 2.0. It stated that especially college students would benefit from this phenomenon of custom printing.
Professors could add up different text from a number of text books, then add some essays, articles and possibly midterm exams into the “to-come” book. Then the book will be printed and shipped to the school’s bookstore. Sounds pretty useful to me. I definitely could have used this kind of service in Mikkeli, when I was in the BBA program. We studied in 3-week modules and were made to buy books almost in 3 week intervals. For a program that cost over 3,500€ (I know it’s not a lot, but it’s one of the few programs in Finland that cost) and spending 50-60€ per each 3 weeks on a new book was too much.
But what amazes me here is that why not take this a step further - enable the students to buy a digital version of the book as well. I know this might become a problem with people sharing the copies of the books, but the cost of each book could be brought down even more. Making them buyable would seriously cut down on copyright infringements. Ultimately, you would only be paying the copyrights in the book, isn’t that after all the ideal situation for a student? He or she could print the required pages on the school printer that she does not want to read off the screen.
I would have definitely been reading more e-books if I’d had the chance…
An old joke made into a film - works well. Especially in these times of extreme stupidity :) See the USS Montana film (2,5 Mb).
This is something interesting I found today. The 3 tracks of the hurricanes that hit Florida plotted on a map. Check out the path and how they hit the counties that voted Bush in 2000.
Stora Enso is one of the leading paper producers in the world. It has been a dominant employer in the Lappeenranta region and for this the students like the company as well (not to mention the paper workers of Finland have one of the best union contracts possible).
I read from our newsgroups that Stora Enso opened their student pages to the public today. I remember talking to an AIESEC representative regarding the pages. They were recruiting beta testers for the pages who were to give feedback on the development. I thought of going, but didn’t manage to create the time available for it though.
I’m not that keen towards the paper industry, although I see its importance to Finland. Regardless, I’m going to register with them as I might have some use for the PowerBook that will be given out in the registration draw!
ps. I hope they’re better in the paper business then they are in designing websites - the draw is posted under a ton of links and you have to go to the Finnish page to take part in it.
I went to the movies yesterday to watch Lapsia ja Aikuisia, a Finnish movie. In the beginning of the movie they had a statement warning of copying movies with a camcorder and also advicing people to report such things if they see someone doing it. Later on - just before the movie there was a commercial spreading the message.
I managed to record the commercial (300kb) with my phone without anybody telling on me :) I hope I’m not going to be prosecuted for this!
The quality isn’t that great but you still get the point. The video is in .3gp format and should be playable by any Quicktime viewer.
