Creating value out of thin air

Not that I have anything against washing my hands with normal soaps, but this foam stuff provided by Lindström makes me choose my coffee places according to it's availability!

The foam form also decreases it's consumption and impact to the nature.
Unfortunately the positive green effect is on later builds destroyed by removing the mechanical lever and making the container battery powered.

Trend of adding more and more electronics and batteries to simple gadgets is really unfortunate and saddening. The more sustainable way would be to make robust enough constructions and provide good aftersales support.

Perfect combination - Tsokka

Sometimes nature and technology create a perfection.
Tsokka, Pyhä.

I have to say that Tsokka is a refreshing exception on the Lappish service scene. (Not the typical ripping your money on your holiday) Really good food, great selection of drinks and dedicated staff.

Hating wet weather - no wonder!

Found one possible reason for me hating these current wet weathers.
My dear old boots seem to be in the end of their journey. These boots have walked on Copacabana, hiked on the Scotland highland, been carried on a tray by security woman in Tokyo airport and in almost every other place I've been in last 7 years -year around.
Since I'm from Laihia, I should understand that these are still in perfectly good shape othervice than the soles, and repair these or at least start using these only on dry weather. Or propose these to the Museum of stingyness in Laihia, where there's bunch of interesting items that has been used to the very end. But these are bit too normal for the museum, so I'll drop them to the bin with good consciousness. But for certain, my next boots will also be made by Jalas!

Todays work challenge

Adapting to high altitudes, before weekends downhill.

Ceramics

Since our design school was a bit stingy to arrange courses in ceramics, I've tried to fill the gap on my own time.
This piece is roller bearing inspirated bowl for Fazer's Green balls (my christmas time favorite).
It's all about learning the basics, but I just love the fact that my sketch book is filling with ideas far quicker than I'm able to try anything in real life :)

Directional indicators doing their job too well

Is there a standard which is defining that turn signal lights have to be so bright that they will blind you every time you wait at traffic lights?
It's like car industry version of tv add, which will blow your mind after tight concentration of a movie like "NOLLA SATA SATA, MITEN VOIN AUTTAA"!!! Luckily they tuned it down to the level of normal adds. And why is it necessary to have higher volume on adds than on actual tv content - really?

Legos - after long time

The christmas came early this year. I ended up to toy shelves and bought a box of technic Legos.

It seems that the prices have gone down, which is nice :) Competitive pricing is necessity for Lego, after they have lost the competitive edge what they used to have 15 years ago. Now after some years and seeing some rationalizing actions in companies it is interesting to see how profitability crisis in Lego has affected to the product itself.
-First disappointment was the package. No change of peeking in and looking all the interesting new parts. This one was glued closed. To open the box, I had to brake the front. Although this probably saves several cents, I personally would have considered different direction. One of the problems with legos is that you might want to keep them safe and possibly in boxes. In this respect the old boxes were more trustworthy.
Update 1) Actually markings on the package led me tear away the Hinge of the package. The tape which was closing the package on the front wa not marked clearly. And attached illustration about the rip seal was lightly dubious.
-Another eye catching thing was that instead of separating different sized part into pits on a box, the package included several plastic bags, including various parts, possibly coming from different plants or lines, but including parts not considered to belong with each other.
-But the best part is that there's a huge amount of new parts which I wanted to create already when I was ten (still dreaming to be a lego designer some day;)

This also creates a sociological test. -For kids, building legos is considered to be way more constructive than playing video games. When a grown man leaves battle on the tv-screen and starts to play with legos as recreation it will be interesting to see how people around value the change.
Update 2) Legos are not considered important for grown person, thus building those is considered as escapism in a relationhip ;)

Guitar Hero goes cycling

There are times that even a open minded guy like me feels himself like old fart. There is a possibility that you've felt it already when you saw somebody playing Guitar Hero.You know the game, where a player is trying to press right buttons in right order based on music. -Despite of the fact that it's super popular it somehow reminds me of of late Spede Pasanen.
After seeing this video we can share the feeling of being old farts. Oh my what new-school keeps bringing to us; Bike Hero!

Improved Google Reader for mobiles

I'm actually not sure did Google update the whole mobile reader or is the browser on my Nokia 5800 able to use the site better than N95-8GB.
Anyway it looks like the whole format has been made for iPhone, since the layout and button graphics are identical.
Anyway, the best thing is that now mobile reader comes with full features, not only with long list of random feeds. =)

Minimalism in presentation

I have to admit that I love the minimalistic presentation of finnish people. The tendency is to keep it in mere minimum and the actual issue. When mediterrainean (or swedish) culture collides with ours, it's usually getting annoying to have conversations about the topic, just to spend some time around bending some facts.

Timer for engine heating

Time to plug your Toyota into winter-AC.
My first encounter with my current heating timer was filled with amaze. Is this the most perfect example of design and mechanics not working together or is this the example of what happens when R&D hasn't used any UX-input.

Is it really so that nobody figured that I most probably want to toggle the power for NEXT few hours, and not for the past.
Secondary scenario would be that I come from work at afternoon, and want to set the heating on for the next morning. This would mean that the mysterious opening should be a bit wider, to reach times at the range of 15 hours. Now the hours available for settingare between 18-24 hours.

Pohjanmaa - or how do you call it?

I was reading a Blue1 Dream magazine where there was the attached story about a costume from my neighbourhood, Pohjanmaa.
The problem is how to translate it to english.. Direct translation would be bottom-land. Many people call the area like in the article, as east botnia, or even use the swedish word österbotten (as it was any easier to get), both meaning "east bottom". This refers to the time when Finland was part Sweden, and Pohjanmaa was the old sea bottom on eastern side of the bay. This is a similar type of geocraphical relict as East Indian Islands in Caribian.
I often use the phrase west coast, which might be more easy to comprehend without the knowledge about the finnish history.