My musical interests
My main genre is metal music but in addition I listen various genres like:
- hard rock
- rock
- blues
- ambient
- modern folk
- world music
- a little bit jazz
I am not too interested in pop, electronic or classical music. Maybe some day, though.
My own music
To listen my music go to ReverbNation:
My "studio"
Here are my hardware, software and books:
Item |
Comment |
iMac 27" |
Quad Core 2, 32 GB RAM, 3TB Fusion drive, Mac OS X 10.10.x |
Duet |
A portable audio interface by Apogee. |
POD xt Live |
A guitar effect by Line6. |
Variax 300 |
The modeling guitar. |
Takamine |
Acoustic guitar. Bought around 20 years ago and still going strong. |
Raimundo mod. 128 |
Acoustic guitar with nylon strings. |
Yamaha BB414 Bass |
Yamaha's 4 string electric bass. |
sE2200a |
Condenser microphone. A very good microphone with a reasonable price. I don't know is it a merit or not but Amy Winehouse has recorded some of her albums using this microphone. |
AKG C 3000 B |
Condenser microphone. |
Beyerdynamic DT770 |
Closed headphones for monitoring. |
Genelec 8020A |
Monitor speakers by Genelec. |
Keyboard |
Keystation 88es. Full-size keyboard by M-Audio. |
Hammer action keyboard |
Keystation Pro 88. Another full-size keyboard but with hammer action keys by M-Audio. |
Trigger Finger |
Drum control surface by M-Audio. |
Logic Pro |
A sequencer software by Apple. |
Reneissance Maxx |
Effect plugins by Waves. |
EZDrummer |
Sampled drum library by Toontrack. I also own all the expansion packs. I think this is the best piece of software for mouse drummers. |
S2.0 |
A newer version of sampled drum library by Toontrack. I'll say this plug-in re-created standards for sampled drums. Absolutely faboulous. And it supports EZDrummer libraries also. |
GearBox plug-in |
Use your POD guitar effect as a plug-in. |
Trilian |
Sampled bass plug-in. Very good sound and pretty easy to use. |
Ivory Grand Pianos |
If you want great piano sounds then this is the plug-in for you… at least it works for me. |
Ivory Upright Pianos |
Very nice upright pianos. Especially I like the barroom upright. |
Vienna Instruments Special Edition |
Very good symphony orchesta sample library with reasonable price ticket on it. |
Melodyne |
Great vocal editing tool by Celemony. |
Mixing Engineer's Handbook |
(Publisher: Thomson Course Tecnology, ISBN: 1-59863-251-5) A good book which describes all secrets of mixing. The real value is hidden into this book in the form of interviews with the real mixing professionals. |
Mixing Audio; Concepts, Practices and Tools |
(Publisher: Focal Press ISBN: 978-0-240-52068-1) The book of mixing, if you ask me. In addition to teaching how things should be done, this book explains all the theories behind it. Also, a DVD with samples is included. Gives a very good value of money. |
Hope to have my CD collection here some day.
My movies in IMDB.
The list is currently totally incomplete.
I have riding on snowboard for several years and only one lesson learnt:
Burton sucks!!!
No matter how inventious and legendary they might have been in the pass their company policy sucks. Everything must be done differently than everyone else is doing. For example, only two screws to hold bindings on the board. I am not a mechanical engineer but its for sure that two-screw construction is not as durable as their competitor's constructions with four screws and to me the safety has the highest priority.
And how about the "joint" in highback now-a-days? There is no joint. I just wonder how durable that is?
I used to use Burton's step-in bindings but the durability was incredibly poor. Seven (7) bindings during five (5) years. And the conditions? Well, extraordinary according to Burton standards. I have an average of 20 riding days per year mainly in Finnish hills which are not too high or too deep. No street riding, no boxes. Just normal downhill riding at cruising speed.
Also, it is next to impossible to get spare parts because Burton re-implements their stuff every year.
Oh, and one more thing. How the hell you are going to put your board in the bag (bindigs on) when the highback is folded down?
So, avoid Burton at all cost. It can be dangerous to your health!
One exception, though. Before I changed to my new board in 2010 I used BMC66 board and it gave me many wonderful rides. I have no bad words about BMC66 at all, absolutely vice versa. However, it is an old board and it was time to look for a new one. After comparing two boards I finally ended up bying Ride's Yukon 172. A brilliant piece of work. Goes like a train, except it is much easier to turn :) By the way, the other board was Nitro's Panthera Wide 169. I wanted the longer one.
Bindings have been changed to Flow bindings a few years ago.
I am a "fanatic" boardgamer… or maybe I am more like a "fanatic" boardgame collector. I have about 200 board and card games and I have played about 80 % of them at least once. Here are be my favourite games categorised by complexity:
Very Easy games, good introductory games (rules can be explained under 15 minutes). |
Pengwin |
A funny fish cathcing game. Very quick to play and requires some planning. Luck factor is next to zero. |
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation |
A very good Stratego variant. Has also a fine LOTR feeling. The deluxe version (Lord of the Rings - The Confrontation: Deluxe Edition) is even better because it has more characters and different winning conditions thus creating more variations. |
Lost Cities |
A card game by Reiner Knizia. Very simple but suprisingly deep. Do not underestimate this after reading rules or after a few games. |
Winner's Circle |
Horse racing game where players bets for the result. |
Easy games, good for beginners and casual gaming (rules can be explained in 15 - 30 minutes). |
Tickect to Ride Europe |
Rail road building where the whole family can participate but can offer a challenge even for a hard core gamer. |
Tichu |
A partnership climbing (or trick) game for four (4) players. Very exciting and full of hard decisions. The best card game with an almost normal card deck! |
Stone Age |
A nice game of resource management. This game has several paths to victory so the replaying value is pretty high. If you are a kind of person who cannot tolerate the dice luck but can easily live with the card luck then you should try this game because this helps you understand how dice actually works in well designed game. |
Memoir 44 |
Card driven Second World War game in very simple and light format. Some scenarios are pretty unbalanced, though. |
BattleLore |
Similar game than Memoir 44 but with the fantasy world. Also, battle mechanics is a little bit different. |
Acquire |
Business investment game. Very simple, yet interesting and suprisingly deep. |
Babel |
Nice two-player card game where player build temples. |
Mississippi Queen |
Paddleboat racing game. Very good and fun game especially with the Mississippi Queen: The Black Rose expansion. The only downside is that this game could be difficult to get. |
Manouevre |
Nice little two-player card driven game in Napoleonic era. This is not a simulation game but for casual gaming. |
Moderate, for regular gaming with more challenge (rules can be explained in 30 - 60 minutes). |
Advanced Civilization |
My all time favourite. An ancient civilisation development game. Not too complex rules but playing time is pretty long. Despite of that this is really enjoyable game. One funny thing is that the more players you have the quicker the game flows. Absolute minimum number of players is four (4). I recommend it for 5 - 8 players. There is also the expansion project for even more players here. |
Brass |
A game of Industrial Revolution in England. One of the master pieces from Martin Wallace. Highly recommended. |
Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization |
A civilization building game with cards. Very good game and works nicely with two (2) players too. So, if you would like to play Advanced Civilization but have only four (4) players try Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization instead. |
Cuba |
Pretty good resource management game where players have lots of different (and equally good) strategies to victory. El Presidente expansion makes the game even better. Combines Caylus and Puerto Rico pretty nicely (which are good games by themselves, also). I highly recommend Cuba especially with the El Presidente expansion. |
Mexica |
An ancient city development game. One of the Mask Trilogy games. |
Java |
A city development game. One of the Mask Trilogy games. |
Tikal |
The game of Central America exploration. One of the Mask Trilogy games. |
Le Havre |
Economy and resource management game in harbour environment. A longer than an average game but this is actually good because built buildings can be used several times. |
Twilight Struggle |
A card driven game of cold war. |
Axis & Allies |
WWII, the whole world strategy level. Simple game mechanics but still pretty historic. I recommend this as the first WWII startegy game. |
Tide of Iron |
WWII, tactical level war game with card events. Good game and nice components. |
Conflict of Heroes |
WWII, fast-paced tactical level game where are all the necessary twists but not 1000 pages rules. Very elegant game system. I highly recommend this. |
Galaxy: the Dark Ages |
A sequel (or variant) of Titan: the Arena. In this game players "bet" on races who you think will survive till the game end. |
History of the World |
Guide your empires through the history from ancient to modern times. A little bit oldish game but still very good. Good value for your money. |
Tigris & Euphrates |
Lead your people through ancient civilisation. |
Struggle of Empires |
Politcal struggle in 18th century. Multiplayer game where allies and enemies plays the key roles. |
Complex, for hobbyists (rules cannot be explained, they must be studied). |
ASL |
A very good tactical level board game in WWII era. A complex system with lots of compnents. One of the best games ever played. See also VASL |
Europe Engulfed |
WWII, startegic level game of the war in Europe. Complex and versatile but still only about 20 pages of rules. This game uses an area movement mechanism which really simplifies the rules (i.e. now complex movement and terrain rules). Also, the block playing pieces creates the fog-of-war quite well. |
Twilight Imperium: 3rd Edition |
Civilization development in the space. Different races have different advantages and disadvantages. The map is build differently every time increasing replayability. |
Turning point: Stalingrad |
WWII, strategic level area movement game of the battles for Stalingrad. |
Breakout: Normandy |
WWII, a strategic level area movement game of D-Day. |
Paths of Glory |
WWI, strategic level card driven game of WWI in Europe. There is not too many WWI games in the market but this is a masterpiece. I highly recommend this. |
Napolenic Wars |
Card driven, multi-player game of Napoleonic era. |
Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage |
The first card driven game. Concentrates of political control of the Mediterranean area. Battle resolving mechanics is very exciting. |
Up Front |
A very clever card game in WWII era. Unfortunatly this game is next to impossible to get anymore. Hopefully Multiman Publishing will make a reprint some day in the future or sells the license to GMT Games. |
And finally here is my hatelist:
- Catan, this is the one of the poorest games ever made. I have to admit that I used to like this game when I started boardgaming. The truth however is that during the opening (or in the beginning of the middle game) it is clearly seen who are the two players that can win the game. Others are just playing for frustration… and far too long.
- Monopoly, not worth of commenting
- War of the Ring, nothing to play (i.e. no real decisions to be made) for the good people.
- Trivial Pursuit
- Alias
- Pictionary
- and all the other so called social games
See also VASSAL, which is a game engine for playing board and card games online. It is written in Java and thus run on every system.
Photo management
Hobbyists are considerably ignorant about photo management which actually is the considerably important feature of any photo processing software. When the library has tens of thousands of pictures the folder based systems are simply not enough. The key is to have a keyword (label) taxonomy that corresponds to your needs. See My taxonomy as an example.
There are good open source software for photo editing but the photo management are usually folder based or, as in Picasa for example, album based which is an improvement but still not enough. I understand that 100 € is lots of money but put some price to your own time, let's say 30 €/h, and you'll soon realise that waisting your time has some value, too. So, I recommend you to invest some money to a good photo management software just to save your time and nerves.
My selection for photo management is Adobe's Photoshop Lightroom (see the list below for more information).
Gadget |
Comment |
iMac 27" |
Quad Core 2, 32 GB RAM, 3 TB Fusion drive, Mac OS X 10.10.x |
Intuos3 |
An A4 pen tablet. A must with Photoshop (and pretty useless with Lightroom). A word of warning, the bigger is not necessarily better what comes to pen tablets. The bigger the pen tablet is, the larger movements you need to make and for menu selections this can be annoying. Actually, I would seriously consider A5 size pen tablet and recommend that for others, too. |
Photoshop Lightroom 5 |
The one and only software for photo management and adjustments. This is just a brilliant piece of software. It has very intuitive and easy to use tools for all image adjusments like exposure, contrast, tone curves, color enhancment, split tuning, etc. And all this without destructing the original picture. However, it must be remembered that Lightroom is not a pixel manipulation software and if that is needed then Photoshop (or similar) is a necessary tool. But after I started using Lightroom I rarely have opened Photoshop. |
Photoshop |
The pixel manipulation software. |
Canon EOS 5D Mark II |
My first digital SLR. I have been waiting for this camera for 25 years. Why? When I started photographing I, of course, had to learn some dark room techiques as well. To me it was boooooring mainly because it took so much time (yes, I am not famous of my patience :) ). As an software engineer student at those days I figured out that some day the whole process must be much easier with a similar or better quality and with reasonable price. Meanwhile I shot slides but now is that day. This piece was a worth of waiting. |
PowerShot G7 X |
Absolutely a brilliant pocket camera. 20 Megapixels, RAW, all the control you need and 60 fps video shooting with stabilizer. What else do you need? |
|
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM |
A very good general zoom with image stabiliser. |
Canon EF 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5 USM |
A jack of all trade. |
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM |
The lens I mostly use. Adidas-zoom rules. |
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM |
A very good lens for shooting people but has also great macro shooting capabilities. |
Canon Speedlite 580EX II |
I was amazed of the direct flash capabilities. A very good piece of work. |
Accessories |
A remote controller, filters, cleaners, a tripod, a pack, etc. |
My taxonomy
My taxonomy may seem too complex at first sight but is actually maybe too simple especially if compared to taxonomies of professional photographers. However, an inclusive taxonomy pays off when you are looking for a specific picture later on. The more there are pictures in the library the more time is saved.
One thing to notice. Pictures with Other photographer label should be marked with some other means also, so that it is easy to see them when you are browsing your library. As I use Photoshop Lightroom, I use one color for other photographers.
- Animals
- Insects
- Domestic animals
- Wild animals
- Pets
- People
- Location
- Not known
- Geographical
- Australia
- Europe
- Finland
- Switzerland
- Estonia
- Social
- Home
- My home
- Name1
- Name2
- Name3
- …
- Restaurant
- Work
- Societies
- Celebration
- Mid-summer party
- Birthdays
- X-mas
- Theme parties
- Other parties
- Landscape
- City
- Countryside
- Outdoors
- Design language
- Anatomy
- Shape
- Cone
- Spiral
- Square
- Sphere
- Cross
- …
- Texture
- Rock
- Glass
- Snow
- Metal
- Wood
- Rust
- Water
- Ice
- Fire
- …
- Color
- Black
- White
- Red
- Green
- Blue
- Yellow
- Orange
- Purple
- …
- …
- Season
- Winter
- Spring
- Summer
- Autumn
- Other photographer
- Other
- Funny
- Games
- Buildings
- Food
This tab maybe should not be here because I stopped practicing karate (or any other fighting sports) around 2007. I started karate 1983, so it was almost a quarter of century.
Why I stopped practicing? The main reason was that I got bored. I had no competitive motives (at later ages) and practicing for self-defence sounds somehow, how to put it nicely, unnecessary. But maybe the greatest reason was the unrealistic approach to a fighting situation and practicing methods which seems to be common to all (traditional) budo (i.e. japanese martial arts). For example, kata is complete non-sense (in fighting perspective). It has nothing to do with fighting. The other thing that makes me wonder is that budo students go at the dojo (gym) to practice their art alone together. Yes, you read it right. Practicing their art alone together. I just don't get it. Common time together should be used to practice together, not alone. You can practice alone at home, in the forest, in the park, etc. but at the dojo you have lots of different types of partners. Use that for your advantage.
I am not saying that every budo student has an unrealistic approach, far from that, but I think that those individuals who are great budo fighters would be great fighters no matter what the name of the system is. Nor I am saying that karateka who practice kata is a looser. Not at all. What I am saying is that kata does not prepare you for the fight. Practicing kata can be a good physical exercise and it sure is good for your coordination but kata does not teach you how to fight. As a side note, here are two very good examples of great kata performance:
- French Team Kata WKF 2006 Finals
- WKF World Karate Championships 2006 - Japan Female Team Kata
But to me:
If kata is fighting then wanking is fucking.
What then prepares you for the fight? Well, the answer should be obvious; fighting, of course. If you are not prepared to hurt somebody or more importantly if you are not prepared to get hurt then you'd better not to fight at all. There are several things that can go wrong in the real fight as well as in the competetive fight also. The difference is that in the real fight there are no other judges than the fighters themselves. This is not necessarily a bad thing but if there is lots of hate between combatants then the result will be devastating.
But how to practice so that it prepares you for the fight. This is two-fold thing; physical and mental. The physical part is pretty easy. To me there are only three things:
- Physical laws (How to produce force? How to reduce force? What is the correct direction of body movement? etc.)
- Human anatomy (Weak body parts? Strong body parts? Flexion and extension. etc.)
- How to produce force out of your body the most effective way
By keeping these simple facts in mind all the time when practicing you eventually will have only the tools that really are useful.
The mental part is much more complex for an average person. The most important things are:
- Accept that you can get hurt (seriously)
- Be prepared to hurt your oppenent (seriously)
- Look for fighting situations
These are not simple things because in the modern society these are not (widely) accepted nor actually even necessary attitudes. And what should be noticed is that first two are bad for you. The first one for obivious reasons and the second one for (possible) legal reasons. The third item can be problematic also. Only two things come to my mind; competition or street fights. The latter one can have serious (legal) consequences.
So, to be a good fighter you should be a mean mother fucker who eats steal and shits chain. :-)