Arghhh, I'm been an atrociously bad blogger! It's not because I've been busy either, in fact I've spent the past couple of weeks mostly in leisure. I got the article done and sent a couple of weeks ago (fingers crossed), and I also wrote an application for one of 12 post-doc positions at the university of Helsinki (last year only 6% were accepted, but fingers crossed all the same). Then I decided to not do any work for a while.
Lets see, what I have spent my time on then. Seeing my family members of course and photography. Went to a few exhibitions that were quite interesting - for instance one by a Finnish artist at the museum of modern art that depicts and compares the great world religions, especially from women's point of view, through photographic art and other media. Also the museum of photographic art had an interesting joint exhibition of a few artists (one French, one American but living in Finland (I think), the others Finnish) which examines the often strained relationship of people with the /their environment. I have done very little web stuff really, for whatever reason. Apart from not updating my blog, I've also not posted anything much on Twitter, haven't even got around to uploading very many pictures on Vastavalo.
This is not to say that I haven't had anything to do with computers, quite the contrary. I've done lots around Linux, for instance have sought for a way to have Windows alongside Linux in as little intrusive way as possible - I'd like to get rid of Windows entirely but I have to have it because of iPhone; if the phone goes kaputt, the only way to restore it to factory settings is iTunes, which doesn't have support for Linux. In the end I settled for setting up a virtual machine and installing XP on it (a virtual machine, for those who don't know, allows one to use a different OS from within an OS - as opposed to partitioning the hard disk and installing another OS to the second partition and creating a dual boot). I've also been checking out different Linu distros but decided that the one I have, Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), is the best. I really love Ubuntu, so much so that having to use Windows causes strong negative feelings. I think I'm going to be using it forever and eternity. At some point I was thinking that come time to get a new laptop, I'd go for a MacBook. But since I'd want to keep on using Ubuntu, it's very difficult to justify paying around 1000 euros for a laptop. You can get a very decent HP laptop for about 400 euros now. Now, if you compare a laptop with Windows and a MacBook, there actually isn't that much difference in price, because OS X comes with the programs most people usually need pre-installed, whereas for a Windows laptop you'd have to buy - if you were a law-abiding citizen - most of the software. But the picture changes if you compare MacBook with a laptop on which you ditch Windows and install Ubuntu in its place. Ubuntu also comes with everything pre-installed, all of it open source and thus free. Adding to that, I've been reading plenty of comments from people who have used both OS X and Ubuntu saying that Ubuntu is the better OS. So, is the hardware alone so much better in MacBooks as to make it worth paying 500-600 euros extra?
Alright, enough with the geek talk :-) Here are a few more pictures. Happy spring to everyone! Also happy Easter, or just happy holidays to those who are not religious!
Lets see, what I have spent my time on then. Seeing my family members of course and photography. Went to a few exhibitions that were quite interesting - for instance one by a Finnish artist at the museum of modern art that depicts and compares the great world religions, especially from women's point of view, through photographic art and other media. Also the museum of photographic art had an interesting joint exhibition of a few artists (one French, one American but living in Finland (I think), the others Finnish) which examines the often strained relationship of people with the /their environment. I have done very little web stuff really, for whatever reason. Apart from not updating my blog, I've also not posted anything much on Twitter, haven't even got around to uploading very many pictures on Vastavalo.
This is not to say that I haven't had anything to do with computers, quite the contrary. I've done lots around Linux, for instance have sought for a way to have Windows alongside Linux in as little intrusive way as possible - I'd like to get rid of Windows entirely but I have to have it because of iPhone; if the phone goes kaputt, the only way to restore it to factory settings is iTunes, which doesn't have support for Linux. In the end I settled for setting up a virtual machine and installing XP on it (a virtual machine, for those who don't know, allows one to use a different OS from within an OS - as opposed to partitioning the hard disk and installing another OS to the second partition and creating a dual boot). I've also been checking out different Linu distros but decided that the one I have, Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope), is the best. I really love Ubuntu, so much so that having to use Windows causes strong negative feelings. I think I'm going to be using it forever and eternity. At some point I was thinking that come time to get a new laptop, I'd go for a MacBook. But since I'd want to keep on using Ubuntu, it's very difficult to justify paying around 1000 euros for a laptop. You can get a very decent HP laptop for about 400 euros now. Now, if you compare a laptop with Windows and a MacBook, there actually isn't that much difference in price, because OS X comes with the programs most people usually need pre-installed, whereas for a Windows laptop you'd have to buy - if you were a law-abiding citizen - most of the software. But the picture changes if you compare MacBook with a laptop on which you ditch Windows and install Ubuntu in its place. Ubuntu also comes with everything pre-installed, all of it open source and thus free. Adding to that, I've been reading plenty of comments from people who have used both OS X and Ubuntu saying that Ubuntu is the better OS. So, is the hardware alone so much better in MacBooks as to make it worth paying 500-600 euros extra?
Alright, enough with the geek talk :-) Here are a few more pictures. Happy spring to everyone! Also happy Easter, or just happy holidays to those who are not religious!
Sunny spring day in the city. Shot in Helsinki city center, outside the museum of modern art.
Early evening shadows on a street in Turku
A view from Turku, shot not too far from the Turku castle and the harbour.
4 comments:
yes, you bad blogger you!! Pleased to read it was all about leisure for you. Have to do that once in awhile. I enjoy these black and white shots.
Hope your Easter is filled with lots of chocolate too :)
Happy Easter.
Happy Easter, Maria. I'm glad you've found some quality leisure time; everyone should be so fortunate. We're mostly packing these days. I promise to put some house pictures once we are in there, which is only about 7 weeks away. So much to do in the meantime, so I might have to take up the bad blogger mantle.
xx
AM
Hi Maria, great to see you back here. I've missed reading your blog, but like AM and grace, I'm glad it wasn't all about work and that you've been indulging in some you time. sounds as if you've been pretty busy with it too.
I like these photos very much, especially the shadows...they are still very very long in your part of the world, aren't they? Our sun is getting higher in the sky now, so the light changes accordingly.
As for your laptop thoughts, I can see your reasoning. You sound very up to date with os systems, which means your logic is unquestionable. For someone like myself who has no clue about installing or changing things, I find the Mac is perfect....and it doesn't have to be so expensive. I have recently bought a one year old, hardly used black Macbook for €700 that has more disc space than it had new, and more memory. The white ones come even cheaper now the new ones are out. Having said that, though, you are right that you can't use Linux on them, so that makes your choice easier ;-) I'd never go back to Windows now myself!
By the way, thanks so much for the offer of Spotify..sadly, when I went to look it up, it says it is not available here in the Netherlands, so we couldn't make use of it, but it sounds great! Maybe there's someone else you know in the UK, or France (I think) who could use it. I'm not sure if Germany is covered, but maybe Stefan is a thought?
Hi Grace,
I went to my brother's for Easter dinner, and for afters there was a satisfying amount of chocolate eggs. :-)
Hi Anne-Marie,
Good luck and plenty for all the things regarding the moving!
Hi Vally,
Heheh, actually you CAN install a Linux system on Macs these days - Apple has enabled it. You could install Windows as well but who would want to do it. :-) I have to say that if saving money wasn't a concern, I'd go and buy a MacBook right away, purely because it looks so damn good!
I'm surprised Spotify isn't available in the Netherlands yet. I thought it was all of Europe. Well, they started only last autumn, a Swedish thing based in Sweden and UK. So I guess they're starting slow, in small scale...
Yes, the shadows are still long in the evening. But during the day it is unbelievably bright (when it's sunny of course). And the day is getting longer - now it's still not dark at 8 pm. And it won't be long until the sun hardly sets, even here in the south. ;-)
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