Eat.fi - Restaurants guide
Monday December 7th, 2009. 11:51 AM.[helsinki].
I found a couple of interesting places in Ruoholahti for the work break in Rouoholahti: Eat.fi
Good as reference, specially real time features like is easy to find which ones are open just now (in green). But I have to say that not all the scores represent so much what I think about some restaurants I know. Some good ones I know have only 2 or 3… and McDonalds have a 4 out of 5.! O_o
1 CommentA data center under Uspenski Cathedral
Monday November 30th, 2009. 12:42 PM.[Photos, Winter, helsinki].
From January, Excess heat from hundreds of computer servers to be located in the bedrock beneath Uspenski Cathedral, one of Helsinki’s most popular tourist sites, will be captured and channeled into the district heating network, a system of water-heated pipes used to warm homes in the Finnish capital.
Credit: Photo from secondpicture.com and btw, a great tutorial about HDR.
Helsinki transport & Finnish Punctuality
Monday November 23rd, 2009. 12:39 PM.[Finland culture, Music, Photos, Videos, helsinki].
Finnish people are punctual. If they say 11 o’clock, is 11′oclock. Even between friends more than 10-15 minutes delay is considered rude. In Spain… how could I say… we take time in a more relaxed way generally 
This photo is the bus schedule from a City Bus in center of Helsinki. 3 main sections: Ma-Pe (Monday-Friday), La (Saturday), Su (Sunday). First row (in bold) you see the hour (18 for example), and the column under represents the minutes (18:10, 18:24, etc.)
Besides of the strange way of representing the timetable, it amazes me its accuracy . If it says there that the bus number 20 is going to be at 18:52 in that stop… it will be there (90% of times). Spanish urban buses timetables normally only say tells frequency (for example “every 15 minutes”).
In Helsinki every year is sent to home a small book containing all routes and timetables of urban transport (bus, metro, tram).
All this is nice, but in the end is paper, very 20th century thing. Is it not supposed to be Finland a high-technology country? (more…)
4 CommentsSpanish Manchego cheese in Finland
Saturday November 21st, 2009. 12:56 PM.[Photos, Spain, helsinki].
Ouuch! 3x times more expensive than in Spain.
Bing: Bird’s Eye View of Helsinki
Tuesday November 10th, 2009. 12:15 PM.[Photos, helsinki].
Bing’s Maps have a cool feature that Google Maps not: Bird’s Eye View. Photos are made from with Hot Air Ballons with a 40º angle so you can have better perspective of the city than Satellite’s straight down view.
You can see many main cities of Europe. These are two examples:
Bing’s Bird’s Eye View of Helsinki
Bing’s Bird’s Eye View of Tampere
Also, related to this is the project 360º Cities, panoramic views from street level of many cities.
3 CommentsHelsinki - Mannerheimintie Street
Saturday November 7th, 2009. 03:13 PM.[Photos, helsinki].
Mannerheimintie is the main street of Helsinki.
This picture is from the 70’s. Ok, not true.. pass the mouse over the picture to see in real color
If you want to get same point of view, I will tell you the tip: go to the corner of 5th floor of Sokos.
3 CommentsFirst snows in Helsinki
Thursday November 5th, 2009. 12:17 PM.[Photos, Winter, helsinki].
5th of November. Yes! Powdered-sugar-snow cover the streets of Helsinki… that soon pedestrians walking transform into slippery ice. In north of Finland days ago there is snow already.
Photos were so plain, that I forced them with Photoshop help to give more texture and colors:
Yes! Selling ice-cream in winter, why not? XD
Did you know that Finland is the country with the highest annual ice cream consumption in Europe. 14 liters per person/year
3 CommentsBenchmarking IT 2009 by The Economist
Tuesday November 3rd, 2009. 02:51 PM.[Computer stuff, Finland culture].
IT Industry 2009 at glance thanks to this report of The Economist [.pdf Sept 2009] (via Martín Pérez blog)
More interesting points of the research, who compares 66 countries in the IT industry field.
- With economic global recession even bigger IT firms are cutting back investments in R&D
- USA remains the world’s most conducive environment for the development and growth of IT firms, despite a tougher business environment and the emergence of protectionist impulses. Canada and west European countries such as Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands are also prominent in the index top tier, owing to their robust IT infrastructure and strong support for technology R&D, among other factors.
- Broadband networks are becoming increasingly essential to IT firms’ competitiveness. Broadband’s importance will grow as more IT services and applications are delivered over the Internet. Technology producers in broadband-rich countries in western Europe, North America and developed Asia are clearly at an advantage in this respect. Conversely, the slow march of broadband in emerging markets, including those with large IT sectors such as India, Brazil and Russia, could impede their IT firms’ growth.
- Finland has risen to 2nd in the index based mainly on its strong performance in the R&D environment category, particularly patents, and improvement in its overall business environment.
- Spain with score 47.4 went down 2 positions, from 25 to 23 respect last year.
- Without a good supply of local talent, countries are unlikely ever to develop competitive IT sectors. For all the IT graduates being churned out of Asian economies, there are still concerns that education systems in the region put too much focus on pure IT skills and not enough on IT in a business context. Top schools in the US and Europe do better in this area. On the other hand, the US and Europe each face long-term challenges in cultivating the science and technical engineering skills of its younger students.
- As more applications move off individual sites and into the “cloud”. The efficiency gains that will result from this development could benefit entire economies, but countries—and national IT sectors—that lack the broadband infrastructure needed to access these services will be left behind.
Bonus.This is related to broadband infrastructure in the world. It’s a world map of the cost of broadband Internet connection. The whole image here.
Persistence.
Friday October 23rd, 2009. 11:05 AM.[People, Quotes].
No Comments“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.”
El País in Finland
Tuesday October 20th, 2009. 11:13 AM.[Finland culture, Spain, helsinki].
El País (in English: The Country) is the most widely-circulated daily newspaper in Spain. Price in Spain: 1.20 €, Price in Helsinki: 2.75.
BTW. You can check the most important today’s front pages in the world in Kiosko.net and even more (838 newspapers in the world) in Newseum. From Finland only Iltälehti.
Iltalehti is a tabloid newspaper (sensational newspaper) and it translates directly as “Evening paper”. And ¿What? Wikipedia says that Iltalehti.fi is the most popular website in Finland as of November 2008. 0_o I didn’t expect this.
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