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.

Facebook jamming emails with nonsense

I'm a regular user of Facebook and rather untrendly consider it as a good service. I have been complaining earlier about the security issues in article Contradictions and safety in Facebook. Fortunately they made some changes and provided more options as article Facebook makes improvements for privacy describes, but unfortunately there is too many options now. There is basicly three levels of friends in Facebook users, friends who you keep contact to also other vice, friends that you want to maintain but are not so close to you and then the ones that you wish to add, because you know them, but don't want to open your life to. -Why not make ready made options based on these three groups?

Another thing which is bugging me (and probably millions of others), is that I need to have a dedicated email account to direct the amazing amount of spam which coming from Facebook when my friend comments on my picture or changes his status.
-Why can't I turn of this function if I already visit the service twice a day and have the update RSS feed coming to my intranet page?!
-I would imagine that that kind of mass posting is already doing something for global use of data transfer statistics ;D

CORRECTION: There actually is an option to turn off the email notifications. Actually 2 pages of option where to choose the occasions you wish to be notified. (See PIC) -How PC can you go?

It's smelling like winter

Nice sun shiny autumn is turning into winter. First morning frost was visible this morning.

Portable navigation

I follow a blog called Strange maps after being somewhat map-addict. Today I found a article originally from Ananova; World's first sat nav - from 1920.

A great item! =) -I let the picture do the speaking.
The Plus Fours Routefinder is currently shown at British Library in London, along many other similar products, which just quite didn't rock the markets the way their inventors wanted..

Chocolate -out of the- box experience

High quality chocolates are often packed into a cardboard boxes. The orientation of the chocolate bar might be a relevant factor in paper packaging, but box offers a possibility to improve the user experience.
These boxes are often opened from the bottom. And after the opening, the bar lays on the premium looking folio -upside down.
Manufacturer could turn the bar around, thus facing up for customers delight and to show the high quality surface of the chocolade instead of the bottom..

A brief moment at the printer

Checking the paper on tray 2 can end up spending slightly longer time at the printer -waiting it to restart.

Then again, using the power switch occasionally seems to make these technology wonders work better..

Houses and apartments still selling well?

The message the real estate dealers want to give these days is that properties are still selling well. How ever this flyer is celebrating one sold property on the neighbourhood a bit too loudly not to be really desperate..

I have always considered that every organization should have a person totally without a responsibility of what so ever. -This person could spend ones time looking for details that are left uncared and make the corrections. Unfortunately I've come to the conclusion, that this kind of activity would be useless to the companies because they already know most of the problems. So finding the uncared details is not the problem, but having the resources or willingness to correct all the problems is.
Picture: bathroom detail from Hilton Metropolitan, London.

Unbelievable unboxing experience

Unboxing experience seems to be a mind blowing part of user experience to some. I know it is important, but this goes slightly beyond.. XD
This clip is that far from having phone content and that close of having good entertainment about some random commercial, that I will post this anyway.

Temporary traffic guidance

There's a little interest -if all- to arrange traffic guidance properly during road maintenance operations. Usually you end up slowing your speed down to 30 kmph for some kilometers to ensure safe working conditions to the workers who are at home spending their sunday although the signs have been left to bug the law obeying public. This is also creating the inflation for the traffic signs, which I have written also before.

These pictures however present the guidance for alternative routing for bicycles on a construction site in Oulu. The first picture shows the starting point guidance and the second shows the guidance back to the original route. The first sign creates an assumption that following signs will also be visible and trustworthy. In the next available situation this customer trust is trashed.
-Remember to take a map with you..

Stop water boarding

There is still no right for US government to keep prisoners in Quntanamo without prisoner of war status or without accusing them of civil crimes.
Still although US is acting agains all international agreements, they should at least retain from torture.
Waterboading is a official CIA technique. Read more from waterboarding.org, or see the video from Vanity fair.

Earlier post: Guantanamo and Low carbon economy

VR bicycle transport -getting even worse

I'm on holidays. One of the best ways to travel around is to use train and have a bike with you. The weakest point of this plan is public transport and VR. (Earlier post here)
At the moment I'm waiting for the train to leave from Turku to Helsinki. I placed my bike to the holder, which is clearly not designed for the comfort of the bike handles. And the situation is not going to get better when two other bikes are put by mine.
This time the situation differed in that sense that conductor was standing right next to me, also during the phase when I inserted my 50 cent to lock the bike, didn't succeed and didn't get my coin back. He just commented that bikes do not need to be locked because they need reservations..
This bike rack is an perfect example of design for public use, where too little time and consideration is used. By doing bad design into investment products like trains, the design stays there bugging users (public and staff) for tens of years! -The problem is partly related to sourcing of design and tight budget policies. There should be good understanding on both sides to create side budgets and schedules if certain problems require special attention.

I have been commenting about VR also earlier:
VR - green image of rail transportation vs. bikes
VR and how to wash your face vs. floor
VR ja uusi uljas juna-aika


This is an example how to fit my bike and the one of an crampy old drunken finnish outdoor-enthusiast and the one of german middle aged bike tourist.
-At some point I decided to leave two others and the commanding officer to do the dirty work and check the damages later..