Merry Christmas!

Helsinki by midnight

Michaelmas term (Cam-talk for autumn term) officially ended on 1st December. For me, however, it only ended today. Or yesterday, to be exact. I'm not sure what the exact moment was when it ended, but I'm sure it did.

I'm sure it wasn't when I sent off the latest version of my part of the article we've been writing, because I had some errands to run and Christmas shopping to finish.

I'm sure it wasn't when I got home, because I hadn't packed my suitcase yet.

I'm sure it wasn't when we got on the train to the airport, as it was so fully packed we couldn't find places to sit together.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't when we got through the check-in and security, although it was surprisingly simple and quick, because we had still a couple of hours of waiting to do and Heathrow had already been paralysed due to the fog.

It could have been when we finally boarded the plane, because we were greeted happily in Finnish and there was a nice, holiday-like relaxed mood around the whole plane and its passengers.

It probably was when we sat down on our seats, breathed a long breath out and let our shoulders drop a couple of inches. At least that's when I kissed L and wished us Merry Christmas.

It definitely had ended before we got to Helsinki and made our way through the long corridors of virtually empty airport hoping not to miss the bus. At least by that time I wasn't thinking about work but calculating which would be the quickest passport queue (smartly (we thought) we went to the one without the rasta-haired bloke in baggy camo-trousers).

I was definitely out of term when I saw L to her bus and then went to get two riisipiirakka and a cup of tea at the only cafeteria that's open at this hour.

Now, sitting in Terminal 1 of Helsinki airport and waiting for the first flight out, I'm not only out of term but somehow extremely far away from it. Feels like - well, at least 1133 miles...

The first flight of the morning will take me to the arctic circle in about two and a half hours. I know that it will add even more distance between me and the term, the thesis that is not yet ready and (here's hoping) the nagging consciousness and guilt that piggybags every phd student.

(Pic: Björn Stabell)

I've been referenced!

I was reading a new book, a collection of articles published by Oxford University Press, and I found that one of the authors was referring to my presentation at a conference a couple of years ago! It's silly, but i was very excited, it felt like the research has been officially recognised and it's now on the map. The author of this article is also a sort of a guru in my field, and that made it even more special. It gave me a boost of confidence which is very good as I'm up for a final cruch of work before Christmas holidays.

(he said my name... *blush*)

Procrastinaddiction

I've discovered the most addictive brain-resetting game so far. The person I got this from commented the link by saying "don't start this if you need to get something important done in the near future". Thesis, schmesis, thought I, and started the Funny Farm.

It's a game of words and word associations. It's actually like a giant crossword, only organised in a mind map rather than a grid. The sense of accomplishment you get when a new map opens and the empty boxes start to fill, is immense. A bit like finishing a chapter of your thesis. Or how would I know... :-)

The parts of the map that are completed make perfect sense. Yet getting any new words in seems like a struggle. And that is the enchantment of this - it's at the same time totally impossible and perfectly attainable. Some of the associations are very, very difficult, while some are easier, and there can be long times when there is no progress at all, and then at other times a few boxes fill in very quick succession. It has all the addictive elements, and I'm afraid this will keep tormenting me for a good while, now... But with my loyal lieutnants, messieurs Google and Wikipedia, the battle goes on...

Pan's Labyrinth (with spoilers)

There are songs and albums that grow on you. When you hear them for the first time they don't really seem to work, but after a while you begin to like them. Some earlier Sting-albums go to this category, and I've also been very slow to warm up to U2 in general. It's as if you didn't understand them at first, but after getting used to the sound the message opens up. Perhaps there are layers of meaning that need to be understood before the sheer appreciation of the layeredness and complexity wins you over. Or perhaps the context was simply wrong the first time around - you can't listen to soothing evening-music on the gym or in the car, and sunshine-music doesn't really work under cover on cold winter nights.

Mostly it's not so much about deep messages, layers or any other cerebral complexities. There are simple and stupid pop songs that are just somehow irresistible, and there is a lot of pseudo-deep rubbish and intolerably snobbish artsy-fartsy gunk that is simply irritating.

It's perhaps easier to give music a second chance than to go and see a film again, or to read a book multiple times. I never read books again, even if i like them, and pretty much the only films I see again and again are the Bond films, since they are pretty much just as good on the first and the tenth time. Emphasis on the term "just as good".

Pan's Labyrinth is one of the films that might benefit from second viewing, but I have no intention to see it again. The problem is, it has symbolism, layers and all that stuff, but I think I "got" most of it the first time around and it didn't really do it to me.

It's a film by a Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, about 1944 Spain and a girl whose mum remarries an officer in Franco's army, moves to his post, an old mill in the middle of a forest. While the fascist army is controlling all resources and trying to uproot all resistance guerrillas that have fled to the surrounding forests, the little girl escapes to the fantasy world and starts a quest to fulfill the tasks that the faun gives to her to unlock the gates to the underworld, so that she, a missing princess, could be reunited with her father, the king of underworld. Fantasy and the girls' tasks intertwine with the struggles in real life; the guerrillas against the army, rebels among the staff in the fort, army's efforts to maintain control, and the girl's mother's problematic pregnancy and the girl's refusal to accept her new stepfather.

It has layers, symbolism and all those things, but unfortunately the symbolism is just as direct and in-your-face as in the best Spanish tradition of Pedro Almodóvar and Bigas Luna, but without the heart-warming humour or self-irony of it (remember Jamon Jamon and those balls of the silhuette Toro...).

It's the end of the great war, but also just a beginning of the oppressive fascist regime in Spain. Food was scarce and under lock and key, and everyone was looking for a way out of the misery. No surprise then that the little girl's fantasies have to do with eating, keys and doorways, or both. There is a fat toad who lives in the roots of the tree, eating bugs and killing the tree. Perhaps he was Franco himself, perhaps the commander of the fort. She feeds the toad golden balls as cockroaches, and he explodes. Later she tries to poison her stepfather by spiking his drink. Then there is the child-eating monster, another stepfather-figure for the girl, who has a lavish table of delicacies just to attract victims. Not too far removed from the dinner party the commander organises just before. There's also the issue of obeying the rules - be they those that the commander sets at the fort, or the ones that the faun makes, perhaps the ones the girl's conscience gives and the discord of what she feels is right and what she sees at the fort.

We have lots of keys in the film, one uncovered in the stomach of the toad, one that the commander holds opens the food and medicine storage, and then there of course is the whole thing about unlocking the gateway to the underworld by doing the deeds that the faun sets.

There are also some pretty graphic and "unnecessary" scenes of violence, in my opinion there just for the shock effect. Yes, the world the film depicts is violent and bad, there is torture etc., but showing it in closeups is not actually making it any more "real", just more revolting, and it takes away some of the effect of the film.

My first comment coming out of the cinema was that it was OK, but I found it a bit pointless. I think the only "point" the film made (perhaps it was just me, not the film?) was that when the rest of Europe started breathing more freely and began reconstruction after the WW2 and the fall of fascism in Germany and Italy, in Spain the nightmare was just beginning. Never really thought about it that way, but imagine someone growing up during the war; they wasted most of their lives living under Franco's rule, had to make do under a fascist regime for another 30 years...

The film has a gory, dark tone to it and it is of the Grimm-tradition rather than (recent) Disney. Pan's Labyrinth had integrity and style, it all fit together, the actors were good, there was originality in the story, and the visual effects were cool, but I didn't like it. I think it took itself too seriously. The fairy-world wasn't enchanting or fantastic enough. Perhaps it was del Toro trying to say that even a gory fantasy like that was for the girl better than the reality, and death the best possible option, but especially since the film opens with the main character dying, some glimmers of light would have been good along the way.

OK, I can't really completely trash any film that makes me write about it. So if fantasy is your cup of tea and you like dark things, by all means go see it. It's done well. Guillermo del Toro, the director / screenwriter (so, should we call him auteur?) has a fascination in fantasy and fascism, as he is also the father of Hellboy, a fantasy series about a demon that the Nazis arise. I have no more intention to get to know Hellboy than I have to watch this one again.

Independence Day

Happy 89th birthday, Finland! There's of course a party tonight, starting quite early, which cuts the working day short - we need to get the venue set up and most importantly set up the weblink so we can watch President's Reception from Helsinki. It's one of those traditions that seem perfectly normal, until you go abroad and try to explain it to someone.

"Well, yes, so we don't actually celebrate independence ourselves, we just watch a party on TV. Or, not so much a party but a queue of 3000 people in their white ties and ball gowns making their way to shake hands with the president. Then there will be interviews and lots of photos are taken and the ball gowns are being discussed and rated etc. And yes, there's a military parade and we light some candles."

Yet, it's one of the most important days of the year and something we are all very proud of.

***

So, some progress at work: the research centre report is ready. The student project brief isn't, as I ended up revamping some analysis protocols (or re-writing them, rather), as this new version can then be copy-pasted to the thesis almost as it is. Time well spent, I think, as it will hopefully form a part in our library of teaching modules that we are developing as well. This also ensures that there's some continuity in this line of work, even after I relocate myself to a less rainy environment. :-) Or, it could be yet another cunning plan to put off having to go through that data...

***

Spam. Funny thing that. 80% of the email traffic of the world is spam. Luckily my spam filters are pretty good. There's one layer of defence at the university server, it probably kills 90% of what tries to get in. The second layer is in Thunderbird, my email program. I have no clue how much gets filtered by the first layer, but I can see the stuff being caught by the second. And sometimes it is too eager. For instance our student association was sending so much email in the beginning of the term that it decided it was spam. (which was mostly true, luckily they now took my advice and are compiling daily newsletters instead of sending everything bit by bit.)

There has been an evolution in spam, and while loads of it endorses generic viagra and body part enlargements, the majority is now about stock. The so-called pump-and-dump -schemes. Someone has bought cheap shares, and are now trying to get other people to buy them so that they can then sell their lot with a profit. And when they dump their shares, the value falls through the roof, and the brilliant investment only materialises for those who initiated the scam. Another new development is that the actual spam messages are more often pictures. The text in the message is copypasted from a book or is just random, legitimate words to fool the filters to think it's legit. Also, the topics and headers are made to look like the message is actually a reply to a message you sent. But, the filters are kept up to date, and so the amount of spam actually making it through to the inbox is very small.

Why an earth, then, did a message that was sent by "Satan" from the email address "wzcxcqxzcw@freemail.com" get through? Mind boggles...

***
(Pic: sauna.org)

Neck 2

Sorry, couldn't update yesterday, as the computer crashed as I was closing things down to see a film.

So, supervision reports and feedback were done. The brief I needed to write about the other student project didn't materialise, as I needed to start putting the equipment together, only to find out that we will actually probably need to buy a new laptop to get the experiment portable. Going through all other options first, including taking a Mac Mini, a screen and all the paraphernalia, and ruling them out one by one, took some time.

Also, the yearly report was bounced to today's to-do, as we had a lengthy discussion about methodology with a colleague of mine, who is going to present a new project in today's seminar. I'm convening the seminar, and quite interested in the project, so I had to take interest. Also, I find it almost impossible not to take interest on other people's projects, it seems to give the perfect escape from thinking about my own...

Anyway, today I'll finish the stuff on yesterday's list and in addition try to get the re-analysis of my latest data on the way. This was done for the conference in the summer, and now needs to be turned into a paper, and eventually into a chapter in my thesis. But first I need to add some data to it, and as I'm also adding a factor to the analysis, I'll need to reshuffle the old variables around etc. Very tedious, and that's why I've been putting it off. No more.

Sticking my neck out

OK, it's a new week, the term has ended, and there are now two and a half weeks to get a lot of work done. The thesis isn't finished, in fact the writing "proper" hasn't really started. These Michaelmas terms are always crazy and it's hard to get anything proper done. So, now it's time to get the big guns out, bar no holds, bypass all safety valves and start brewing some plus-strength coffee. And enforce some new deadlines with possible (small) public humiliation, as it is probably the only viable threat that's going to get me going.

So, Monday, and here are the things that need to be done:

- write and file supervision reports for the 6 students I had
-> the issue with these is that it's sometimes so difficult to say anything but "just fine" or "nice", even though that is the stupidest feedback you can get. Well, these will only be read by their directors of studies and are simply instrumental so that they see I've done the work I was supposed to and they can now pay me. Would be different if there'd be massive problems with one or more of the students, as I could use this channel to flag them up and get the college to act.

- write feedback for the last essays the students wrote
-> this is more important than the previous thing, as good feedback is pivotal for improving in the future.

- draft the experiment plan for another student project
-> this just needs to be put on paper so that she can get on with her writing-up and I can get on with preparing the setting and equipment.

- finalise and send out the yearly report of the research centre
-> this is ready bar one little section that needs to be copy-pasted in. Then needs to be proofread and made pretty, then the pdf-version can finally be sent out, only half a year delayed. I'm thinking of adding myself as the editor of the thing, as it has taken much more work than I thought it would.

As you can see, no research today, but I'm hoping to clear my desk today so that tomorrow I can get to real business. And there shouldn't be anything else coming up before Christmas, apart from the one article I've apparently promised to co-author, that we'll start writing next Friday and has a deadline at the end of the year. Joy to the world...

***
Edit 1: lunchtime. Have now submitted the reports. Will get lunch now and finish writing the feedbacks on essays. It seems to take ages to try to put my words right. How do I give constructive feedback in a positive way, especially when there are only a few hundred characters you can use. It's like doing it over an SMS... And if I say something slightly negative, would it stick out? And if I only say positive things, will that be just too bland? Where's the value of the feedback if you can't use it to improve what you are doing? Am I overtheorising this and making it more complicated than it is? Probably. At least I'm hungry now.

Bond reborn

The genre was supposed to be as dead as the cold war. Battling for world domination against a communist regime but having to do that in the dark provided a great setting for Bond and other agent heroes. After 1990, it was the former Soviet generals gone AWOL, rogue media moguls and assorted terrorists, but none really had the same potential for developing saving-the-world -stories than the combined threat of Soviets and SPECTRE used to.

While covert action seems to be taking the spotlight again, the new Bond film has taken the story back to its beginnings.

Let's face it, Bond was tired. Lack of ideas led to forgetting the character and just focusing on the brand: Bond cars, Bond girls, Bond theme tunes, Bond gadgets, the Bond storyline with the evil genius and his plot to take over the world, his underground lair that gets blown to bits in the end. The main character just needed to deliver the witty and chauvinistic lines, introduce himself in a trademark way and go through the moves looking suitably blazé.

While Bond was going through a midlife crisis or perhaps was sitting at a desk at Vauxhall Cross filing inter-departmental performance reports for meeting government guidelines on transparency and accountability, another hero was revived: Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne was brought to big screen. The focus was in the man himself, a trained superagent with special skills but a hazy purpose. As he was fished out of the sea, there were no gadgets or cars to begin with. He couldn't introduce himself in a trademark way because he didn't remember his name. But there was a story, turns in the plot, and you didn't know how it would end and there was at least some ambiguity as to who the real bad guys were.

In Casino Royale, Bond returns to the head of the main table in agents dining hall and dwarfs every other secret agent out there.

If you haven't seen the film yet, go now. Go see it on big screen, it's worth it. If you don't think Daniel "The Blonde" Craig makes a good Bond, go see the film before judging him, you're going to like him. If you saw the trailer and didn't like it, don't worry, go see the film anyway - it's much more than the trailer suggests. If you usually don't like Bond films, go see this one, it's a proper film with a proper plot and all those kinds of fancy things. They even hired a director who directed the actors and made them act, not just some bloke to coordinate the explosions and car chases.

Most importantly, Bond is not just a shell, they've made him a real character. As the story is based on Ian Fleming's first Bond-novel, and it follows him through the first missions as double-0 agent (you know, they are the ones with licences to kill), there's more scope to make him vulnerable, fallible and human. This doesn't mean he's not every bit as charming, self-assured, efficient and strong. It's not the Bond for the emo-types, au contraire. It just makes the whole thing more believable, more unpredictable and more exciting. If anything, Bond is more hard and tough, but only partly because of the job, and partly because he doesn't want to show his weaknesses. That's at least two dimensions of a character, and it's one more than we've used to seeing in agent thrillers.

Best Bond ever.

(Pic: © imdb.com)

Sunshine

For the record, the weather is wonderful today. Just so that I wouldn't be blamed for constantly dissing the local ambience. East of England is the driest part of Britain, and there are several sunny days every year.

There. Positive posting about the English weather. I'm wondering how many times I'm now allowed to complain about wetness, coldness or fogness... or maybe there's a time limit, I get a free trial period like with cable tv: three months of free weather complaints, absolutely no charge! And like with the cable tv, there's probably a section in the small print that explains how "absolutely no charge" translates to £49.99 per month and how you've actually signed for 3 centuries and not three months as you thought.

So, how's work? Slow. There's a lot of inertia around this week, and everything seems to take a lot of effort. Getting up in the morning (this is not surprising) and everything during the day and even going to bed in the evening (this I can't explain at all). Perhaps there's something in the air. They should add this to the weather forecasts, just like they do with pollen and UV radiation. "Stronger than average inertia can occur in the East of the country, with occasional showers of procrastination and indecision. This will clear by next week, as more proactive air flows in from the South."

This is the week when teaching stops. It's been a ridiculously busy 8 weeks of term, and now it all comes to an end. For me, this means that supervision reports need to be typed, final essays marked, and schedules and plans made for next term. Also, I'd need to come up with some "holiday work" for my supervisees, and I'm not at all sure if spending much time in coming up with interesting and well-framed tasks is worth the while, as they probably won't even look at their books before they come back in the new year, and then scrape something together in the 3 hours before the next supervision. Me cynical? Slowly but surely. :-) Anyway, given that there's an odd chance that at least one of them might do some work during the 6 week break, I'll try to come up with something challenging and interesting.

World's slowest Monday

As I've mentioned, Monday is my new favourite day of the week. The full working week ahead, and so much that can be done and so many things that I can dream of finishing by the end of the week.

Well, today's been so slow that I don't even dream of anything, and definitely not about finishing it. There has been absolutely no brain activity today, I can only read two rows of text before I totally drift away, and I remember nothing of what I've read. I'm struggling to write understandable sentences and therefore put off any email writing I'd have. I'm not alone: out of 6 students that I have, only 2 returned their essay in time, which means that rather than marking them today in time for tomorrow's supervision, I'll need to spend time on them later this week, or whenever they get around to writing the bloody things. It seems that everyone is getting totally drained by the dark, miserable, wet, gray and annoying weather, and the demands of the last week of the term.

At least I managed to help a colleague of mine who had a data analysis issue. That made me feel somewhat useful, even though the problem was a clitch in software and shouldn't have been there in the first place.

Not my day

It's just not my day. Usually you'd say "I wish I never got out of bed". But, in my case, I wish I'd got out of bed earlier.

Sometimes I sleep in. Today I did. Not only do I feel guilty about it, but I have great difficulty to get the day started at all if it doesn't start properly. And today it doesn't. As my girlfriend is visiting Finland, I'm left to my own devices. The device that didn't work this morning was the alarm clock.

So, it was late (almost 11) when I managed to get up. A bowl of porridge, my usual breakfast, would hopefully get me going. Well, it did, but in a wrong way. It got me cursing as it boiled over and messed up the microwave.

I'm not going to mention the horrible weather, because predictably it was raining this morning. So, after struggling to wake up, having burned my fingers in the scalding hot water when trying to wash the porridge off the bottom plate of the microwave and in- and outsides of the bowl, I headed out to the refreshingly moist and invigoratingly cool outdoors. Our bike shed is under renovation. As it's now two months old, they need to replace all the sideboards, doors and drains. Quality building work. It has 5 compartments, and the builder had decided to set up shop at the one where I keep my bike. After a bit of a wrangle, I managed to get the bike out, carefully lifting it over the debris, table saws, axes, hammers and power cords.

And then the typical Cambridge traffic. Men in their white vans, speeding and trying to knock over as many Chinese students swaggering on with their low-ride bikes as they can, taxis loading and unloading at junctions, pedestrians crossing streets at a whim, without looking, buses too large for the lanes powering through the ranks of students plodding from a lecture to another. The usual stuff.

Finally at work, and going through my normal routine of news- and blogreading before starting work proper, I found this. I found it at MusicThing, and liked it a lot, and decided to link it here. I went to the YouTube site, logged in, and already wrote a cheery entry about how this saved my day as I found it both witty and skillful, not to mention original (perhaps the best compliment you can make these days). Then I found out that since I changed to Blogger Beta, the link between my YouTube account and blog that allows me to embed videos with just a couple of clicks doesn't work anymore. So, I needed to delete the old association and add a new one. Then I found out that Blogger has a huge delay and signing in doesn't work at all, and so the association can't be built.

Now, finally, Blogger works, but the YouTube-association doesn't. So, you'll need to follow the link to see the video.

Meanwhile, I'm starting my work proper, and hope that me having a bad day means that Nick is having a great one, as his viva voce examination is today and he will pass the final hurdle in becoming a PhD. Balance of karma, or something. Not that he would need any luck, he's our star.

Edit: just went to a library to return two books. And of course, what started as a loan had again turned into a rental, and I had to fork out £6 in overdue fees. £6! That's ridiculous, this library has probably the highest overdue fees in the country, and of course the online-renewal system most libraries here have, doesn't work in this one.

As I was heading back, my bike key broke in the lock. So, I had to get a janitor with a wrench to bend and twist the keystub in the lock to open it. Of course, now I can't relock it, so the inevitable errand-running thing I have to do this afternoon will take about an hour longer as I must walk everywhere. Even locked bikes are stolen en masse in Cambridge, I don't even want to think what would happen to an unlocked one. Especially if it's mine, especially today. I've now put my bike indoors at the faculty, of which I'm going to get told off, as that of course isn't permitted.

Edit2: So, I went to run the errands. The rain has picked up, and now it's pouring, and so I'm soaking wet. The main reason for having to go out now was that I needed to renew a prescription. There were two items I had asked for, insulin and test slips for my blood sugar meter. The insulin, which the pharmacy had plenty, was just so I don't need to go again before Christmas. The slips, which the pharmacy had none, were the original reason for the renewal as I will run out of them during the weekend. So, after completely soaking myself and waiting for about an hour, I need to go back tomorrow morning to actually get the bleeping slips.

I don't know who wrote the hideous Christmas song that has the most annoying chorus that says something like: "we're all having, a wonderful Christmas time". It doesn't have a verse at all, as the song consists of repeating this chorus-bit about 154438 times. I wish that whoever wrote this and everyone who has ever recorded this song would be slowly disembowelled with a blunt and rusty penknife and then chopped to minuscule pieces starting from their toes. And whoever decided to play the extralong live version of this song while I was queuing for the non-existent slips at the pharmacy should be made to perform this operation, as s/he clearly has the sadistic tendencies required.

Supervising

What makes Cambridge education special is the amount of individual attention each undergraduate gets, in one-on-one or small group supervisions and tutorials. As the more senior academics are responsible for the courses and papers, it's often the graduate students or junior researchers who supervise the learning in between the lectures, make student write essays, check that they do the required reading and in general keep up to speed with the courses that usually cover huge amounts of material and issues.

The supervision system reflects the dual structure of the university, as the papers are organised and lectured (and eventually examined) by the university department, while the supervisions are paid for and organised by the colleges. There's no fixed method or content, or even a set amount of work you need to do in the supervisions, and so two students taking the same course might end up doing very different amounts of work and focusing on different issues in the course. Of course within the theme of the paper and the main content, set by the lecturers.

Tuesday is supervision day for me. I try to get all the supervisions done on Tuesday so that it frees the rest of the week for the infamous writing up. It works ok, apart from days like this when the supervision goes spectacularly wrong and manages to ruin the whole day.

I had three groups of 3, or actually one group of 4 and another of 2, as one student needed to switch because of other things. While one of the groups was ok and the discussion lively and dynamic, the other meeting was just a drag. For some reason, I didn't manage to explain anything properly, got messed up into nitty-gritty details that have almost no significance in the big picture and in the end I felt I had just confused people rather than being helpful at all. And I felt all drained afterwards, and have no energy whatsoever to read, write or do anything.

So, now I'm off to a seminar where I'm just going to focus on the wine and pringles (the other special component of Cambridge education), as I didn't manage to read either of the two texts we are supposed to discuss. And I actually liked one of them. The other paper I didn't like, the problem being that it's difficult to relate it to anything as the authors almost exclusively quote their own earlier work rather than anything anyone else might have read. They've created a bubble of their own and are happily within it, just replicating their own work and finetuning the experiments etc. Good luck, let me know if you decide to link it to anything in the real world.

Freedom of speech

As a follow-up of the previous slightly messy post on web debates, today's post is about the Reporters Without Borders and their annual list of countries that violate freedom of speech online. In these countries, bloggers, online journalists and activists are harassed or imprisoned. The list is shrinking - it's size is down to 13 from 15 last year. Check out the online freedom of speech campaign site and show your support.

The list (in alphabetical order):

• Belarus (151)
  
• Burma (-)
  
• China (70)
  
• Cuba (66)
  
• Egypt (70)
  
• Iran (105)
  
• North Korea (-)
  
• Saudi Arabia (70)
  
• Syria (93)
  
• Tunisia (51)
  
• Turkmenistan (142)
  
• Uzbekistan (151)
  
• Vietnam (111)
  

Egypt is the only newcomer to the list, so while other countries have improved their ways (Nepal, Maldives and Libya were removed from the list this year), others adopt questionable policies. The violations are usually either limiting access to internet, filtering content (like for example China does on a large scale, with help from Western companies interested in getting to the Chinese market without concern about human rights), or more "traditionally" threatening and/or imprisoning people because of what they have to say.

On another but related note, Transparency International published their ranking list of countries according to perceived levels of corruption. Finland, Iceland and New Zealand top their Corruption Perception Index, and are therefore the countries that people see as being the least corrupt. In the Finnish news this is usually taken as an ego massage, and passed on as the good news of the day, but without really thinking about what this means. As I've said, I'm really proud of this Finnish achievement, much more so than any medals we've amassed in the driving-cars-fast-around-a-circle-until-bored-to-death -championships.

Freedom of speech and low corruption go hand in hand, although they are different animals. Corruption can be said to be a result of lack of freedoms of expression. The numbers in brackets after the list of freedom of speech violators are the Transparency International CPI rankings. "Lack of transparency" as a concept sums it well, and transparency is provided not only by having clear policies and rule of law, but also by having journalists and bloggers around to expose those who have wronged. The best way to reduce bribes, lubrication money and gifts with strings attached is to make the risk of getting caught high enough, and the punishment public enough.

Another, even more significant factor fueling corruption is poverty. The poorest country of the world, Haiti, is at the bottom of the list, while the countries on the top of the CPI list are all very rich. If public administrators are skint and there's no money to pay proper wages for the police etc., they are likely to abuse their position of authority and supplement their income by charging extra for their services.

But, it's not that simple. Russia, where freedom of speech has recently been hit hard by concentration of media ownership, harassment and even murders of journalists, has a strong tradition of corruption as well, but has enjoyed strong economic growth for a while. Even with a boom in economy and relative stability of government, the brown envelopes still change hands often enough to merit a dubious 121th position in the rankings. The Finnish-Russia border has been dubbed as the largest economic gap in the world; it's also the largest contrast in terms of corruption - a challenge for the border routines. In China as well, the economic boom has first resulted in increase of corruption, and now they are getting measures in place to curb it, and even very high party officials have been indicted. The problem is, at the same time freedom of speech is still going downhill, as if those in power were afraid that bad press would damage the economy.

One problem is that freedom from corruption is taken for granted in most European countries, so is freedom of speech. They usually only appear in speeches and policies, mentioned when you need some really high principles to associate yourself with. Unfortunately, it's much easier to praise one's own country for doing well on these than it is to start concrete action to improve the situation in places where problems arise. Short-term economic and political gains far outweigh the moral loss of dealing with corrupt regimes. I guess someone should calculate the value for freedom of speech and clean reputation, just like Stern et al. have calculated the value of environment.

Take Belarus for example. A country twice the population of Finland, located about as far West as Finland, except for being 500 kilometers more southern. Minsk is closer to Berlin, Paris or Brussels than Helsinki. Its area is almost the same as that of the Great Britain. Yet, we know nothing of it, and most Belarusians only know of us what the Lukashenko regime tells them. A country that is at the center of Europe is a reject, backwater black hole of a country, due to totalitarian and corrupt rule, without any transparency or freedom of expression. And we've been unable to do anything about it. I think we haven't wanted to, not enough.

(Pic: thanks to Khalidah Mufleh, found it on her blog entry about freedom of speech)

Teaching

Ahh, dreams... I had one last night. I was teaching a class. It started as a relatively advanced class, as I was giving people essay topics. Or actually, I was trying to match each student with a topic they know most about. As the lesson progressed, we moved from writing essays to me teching them the alphabet... And still, I was explaining to someone how I liked teaching very much as seeing your students learn and progress is so rewarding!

Web debates

The social dimension of the internet is getting more and more important. Even the "old media", newspapers etc. who publish their news and other "print" material in the web, have adopted interactivity and are combining the traditional editing/publishing models with "new" interactive possibilities of the web. This means, that in addition to printing the news you'd otherwise read in the newspaper, you can now discuss in the forums operated by the publishers. So, in addition to organising information in a web-sensitive way (by interlinking documents and sources of information) these services now allow different ways of social engagement with the information, in addition to the traditional transmitter-receiver -model.

This is not just an extension of the good old "letters to the editor" -function that most newspapers have provided and still do, it's more about having a social way of making sense of the events and news provided by the service. The same news can be covered in so many different ways, depending on your "ideology", background and opinions. In Britain, your choice of newspaper tells quite a lot about your political views (or lack thereof if you read pretty much any of the tabloids). For example, whether tax cuts are good news or bad news depends on your political views.

Social networking is the hot thing right now. MySpace, Facebook, Orkut and countless other sites are growing at an insane pace, as people sign up and create their own pages and then link them to their friends' pages, join communities and discussions etc. There's a very "teeny" sense of competition, as the number of contacts serves as a quantifiable measure of your site credibility, but these sites have real importance as well, Orkut seems to be popular among young professionals especially in India and in Brazil, while MySpace has been used as a promotion channel for musicians and bands. Facebook has focused on college students and has lately been used more and more as a recruitment tool by companies.

All these websites and other forums (and of course online games) allow you to connect with people from around the world, and that obviously can have positive effects. But, I have grown very skeptical about these lately.

This could just be phd-angst, but I'm annoyed by discussion forums, most comments on some of the blogs I occasionally read (TechCrunch, for instance), and the behaviour of people on these places in general. It seems that the option to comment or to interact has increased people's willingness to talk, but nobody is listening anymore. It's not rare to have 5 people say exactly the same thing in comments to any post on TechCrunch, for instance. Also, these discussions tend to get more polarised than ever in real life, so rather than bringing about compromise and understanding they tend to just "radicalise" people or at least their internet personae.

In the Helsingin Sanomat website the new feature is to link news with discussions on the HS forums, and the first comments are shown underneath the news. And from those you'd think that most readers of the paper are cynical right-wing bigots. I try to think of them as sad unemployed bald little men sitting in front of their computer writing their little rants here and there, but they still can ruin your day. If there's something in addition to prejudice and racism that I really hate, it cynicism. People so often confuse it with being analytical and critical, and it often blends with incessant and equally intolerable smugness.

Anonymity is an opportunity, as many people couldn't openly share their views under their real name. It can also act as the great equalizer, you can be respected based on your opinions and argumentation rather than title or status. The former issue is actually very important for freedom of speech and development towards (hopefully) democracy in the otherwise oppressive countries. But, the good idea of having a freedom from status and personal history and benefit of being judged by actions not appearance is spoiled by people who don't know what these freedoms are for and why they might be important. Being anonymous is for some people the same as being irresponsible. Most of these people spoiling other people's fun or even useful projects are probably American or European teen-aged boys testing their limits.

Wikipedia is a good/bad example. Allowing anonymous editing has resulted in bitter editing wars in most political or politically sensitive topics, or topics that are related to religion. There's a parallel project now, called Citizendium, where anonymous editing would not be allowed and there would also be editors who would have decision-making powers on what to edit and how. I heard somewhere that wikipedia was contemplating disallowing anonymous editing as well, not sure if I was dreaming or if it is happening or has happened already. It seems that the idealistic paradise of an open and universal, socially, racially and economically "blind" internet is never going to happen (even within the societies that can afford mass-access to web), and balancing control with freedoms seems to be important.

Great sport

I thought this was a joke. But it seems that they are at least taking the joke seriously.

(Pic: wcbo.org)

Is this loud and clear enough?

The Stern review report on climate change was published today. Undoubtedly it will be discussed a lot, its message will be understood as well as misunderstood and as always, what will be done in the end is a whole other question.

The review was commissioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister in the rest of the world, one of the coolest titles you can ever have) Gordon Brown, and the purpose of the report was to look at climate change from the economical perspective. The review group tried to answer the following five questions: what are the risks and costs of the impact that climate change has; what are the options for reducing greenhouse gases and how much they cost;what policies and strategies should be developed for mitigation of climate change; how should we adapt to the inevitable changes and how should this adaptation be financed; how do the processes of mitigation and adaptation work in the international level.

In short: what's going to happen, what should we do, who should do what, and how much is it going to cost and who's footing the bill.

Where this report is successful is that puts things in terms that all politicians and business managers will understand - money. It's hard to put a price tag to your lifestyle, especially if that lifestyle involves the countryside in any way. Also, it's difficult for a consumer in England to see a link between their car driving habits and Bangladeshi floods. So far, putting things in terms of how many degrees the temperature will rise has failed as spectacularly as in my recent example on effects of bad diet to life expectancy. Just as people prefer to party hard when they are young and not to worry if they live one or two years less, people generally think that if temperature rises a few degrees it is actually a good thing. Both are dangerous fallacies, as the report reiterates, and putting things is more direct and concrete terms works. The doctors should have said that so many thousands of people more die at the age of 40-50 rather than 60-70 due to their diet and lifestyle in North of England than in the South. Similarly, the Stern report says that if we do nothing now, the cost could be up to 20% of global GDP by 2050, whereas if we act successfully, the cost will be as low as 1%.

To illustrate the 1% cost, it would mean that the economy would continue to grow, but at a slightly slower rate, so that the level we'd reach in 2050, we reach in 2051. Putting it this way and it doesn't feel like an insurmountable cost. Of course this way of calculating doesn't take into account the "finding" of the Stern report that the business-as-usual model would actually end up being so cataclysmic and costly that constant economic growth would be impossible.

There are of course caveats, and they have to do with the huge variance in the predictions of different climate models, and the natural inertia of the atmosphere, which means that any change now will take a long time to take effect. What this report is successful in doing is that it says that we need to act now, and we need to do it internationally, and the costs are not that big compared to the risks we face with inaction. Also, the report states that economic growth can still be sustained even

So, switch off those computers and TV's for the night, unplug your cell phone charger when not in use, and take a train instead of a plane at least once. It's the least we all can do, no statistics needed.

Weekend

Turning the clocks back... Already, how can that be! I thoroughly enjoy this day, as it gives one more hour before having to get up. The bad news is, it is now practically the end of the year. As it says up there, the final year of the PhD... Well, it is, the problem being that the thesis is nowhere near being ready. I know a lot can change in a short time, but I'm beginning to think I'm counting on it too much.

Am I waiting for a miracle to happen, and the thesis to write itself over a couple of all-nighters? Not really. Am I progressing steadily towards completion by writing a little each day? Definitely not. The truth lies in between those two extremes, the miraculous crunch and the sensible smooth. I think I will be spending more and more time in front of my computer, binging here and there, and after a while there will be something to show for it. Meanwhile, days are running past faster than ever.

Tomorrow it's Monday, my new favourite day of the week. The new beginning, the new "now". It'd better be good...

Veiled faces

The biggest issue at the moment in Britain seems to be the integration of muslim communities to "mainstream" population. The threat of home-bred terrorism materialised in the 7/7 attacks, and ever since then everyone has been balancing on a tight rope between prejudice and safety, tolerance and segregation.

Just like many times before, as the discussion moves from abstract principles to concrete proposals, the focus is be turned to something relatively irrelevant, but visible. This time it's the veils some muslim women wear. They come in many forms, but the discussion is now about the niqab, the full veil that covers everything but the eyes. There was a big controversy in France a few years back about veils in public schools, and now the issue is being hotly debated here. Jack Straw, the speaker of the commons and former foregn secretary opened the game by insisting that people who attend his surgeries at his constituency office will need to reveal their faces. Other ministers soon showed support, Tony Blair for instance admitted that he thought the veil is a sign of separation and thus it is understandable that it will make other people feel uncomfortable. One substitute teacher was suspended for refusing to remove her niqab when teaching English, and the school claimed this was depriving the pupils of proper education, as seeing the mouth when learning languages is essential. The court supported her, awarded her damages for victimisation and instructed the school to remove the suspension.

Here's my 5 pence to the discussion. Perceiving faces is special. We have specialised brain regions for perceiving faces, and latest research shows that so do chimps. Infants show preference for faces over other shapes very early. In a way, one could say that faces have a prioritised shortcut in our perception, just like human voice does, and all this is part of our fine-tuned primacy for social relations and sociality. We are social by nature and nurture, and our faces are the most significant part of the system of communication and mutual understanding we have. Hiding your face is a very strong statement, as it renders all these systems obsolete. Darwin was a frontrunner on this field as well. In his 1904 book, 'The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals', he drafted a theory about emotions, their links to physical states, and how they are communicated via postures and facial expressions. He drew similarities between animals and humans, but also showed differences. Paul Ekman followed up with this work, and even today many psychologiests still use the same set of faces in their emotion studies that Ekman used in his ground-breaking studies. (BTW, you should check out the new edition of Darwin's EEMA, which is annotated by Ekman - fascinating read).

Also, it is no coincidence that the Big Thing in artificial intelligence at the moment is expression ' of emotions. The Japanese have done this for ages, their idea of 'kansei', or emotional engineering, has given them the lead in AI and interactive bots. Human communication and interaction is not just about exchanging information, large part of it is about emotions, expressions, and so called phatic communication, keeping the channels open, ensuring that the two conversants are "on the same page". Facial expressions, nods, grunts etc. are important when determining if the other has understood what we are saying and we can then move on in the discussion.

I'm not saying that there is scientific proof that you cannot communicate properly with a veiled person. I'm just saying that it is not a wonder that people feel they are lacking a dimension when talking to a veiled person. It's rather like discussing with someone over a telephone, and we all know there's a difference. I haven't ever tried to communicate with someone with a veil, so I don't personally know how much is missing. Also, I need to emphasise that to understand the problem is not the same as to agree with the proposed means to overcome it. Also, I see a huge difference between asking a muslim woman employed by a publicly run school to reveal her face to the pupils she is teaching and the request by "random" men to remove it in front of them. The first is reasonable and can be enforced, the latter should only be seen as a kind request which the women should be allowed to turn down. Common sense and sensibility, one would think.

Personally I feel that the full veils, niqabs and burkhas, could be banned from those holding public jobs, and schools could have the right to ban them from their pupils. Headscarfs and various other kinds of "modest" dressing up on the other hand should be accepted, even though some people would like to go so far as to forbid all kinds of religious symbolism. Sikhs wear their turbans and that's fine (even the armed forces give them the provision to do so), some catholic nuns wear their habits, which again is fine (understandably no need for the army to say anything about this :-) ), and some muslims wear headscarfs, which again should be ok, just as is jewish people wearing their bangles or kipas. I think freedom of religion should mean that you can accommodate to both the customs of your faith, and the customs of the society at large. But there seems to be a need to draw line somewhere. It's the uncomfortable difficulty of drawing the line that has put people off, and so instead made them favour the full ban of any religious symbols. One BA flight attendant was forbidden to wear a minute cross visibly. Political correctness gone mad, I think, and any full ban will just propome segregation, and make integration impossible.

I realise in the case of the veil there is a problem for some people, as they see the hijab as a sexist thing, a form of oppression, and I recognise the need for everyone to give in and help finding a middle ground. For instance, I am not fully comfortable with the full veil either, as I resent the notion of being stereotyped an being a sexual predator jus for being a man. The origins of the hijab are of course in Quran, a book I know precious little about, but what I've understood from my friend Wikipedia, the idea is that as a muslim you (men and women) shouldn't dress so that it draws the sexual attention of the opposite sex. Again, times and fashion changes, and what is needed for drawing sexual attention with it. What was considered modest a century ago would be overdoing it nowadays. While I wouldn't mind someone getting some sense to the heads of those young girls that go around wearing practically nothing, or those boys who go around playing pimps and gangstas and groping their own crotches, I also don't accept the notion that the only way to hide from my or anyone else's predatory eyes is to wear a burkha. We need more communication, not more walls, not even as thin as silk, to prevent it.

(Pic by Jon Heras and Lakshmi Harihar, www.bluesci.org)