Invitation for Spotify
Monday January 12th, 2009. 09:33 AM.[Music].
I have one invitation for Spotify, a beta program for listening music online (for Windows and Mac). Simply search the song that you want and play it (but doesn’t let to download it). Also it offers you the possibility of play similar songs and artists, so it’s a way to discover new bands.
- Really good quality sound,
- easy mac-style-user interface,
- radio that you can customize.
- Legal and free.
Bad things:
- Not for Linux
- Mainly mainstream music,
The first one to comment, will recieve the invitation (put a valid email).
46 CommentsTiny Finland with Tilt-Shift Maker
Saturday January 10th, 2009. 10:15 AM.[Uncategorized].
I found out today this online service TiltShiftMaker that allow you to apply to your photos the Tilt-Shift effect. It’s awesome how it changes the pictures only manipulating the focus of the photographies. Give a try!, here is the result of one of my photos. You can see more examples here (good selection) and this flickr group.
Snow in Madrid: Chaos
Friday January 9th, 2009. 04:12 PM.[Finland culture, Photos, Spain, Winter].
Snowing is not usual in Spain in winter, except in mountains and some areas, but most of the cities is not often to see snowing and rarely snow stays on the streets. That’s why these days Spanish people go to the streets to make photos to have a memory of this weird city landscapes. You can see a gallery here and other one here.
And Spain, sorry to say, it’s not prepared for that. With the words of Enrique Belda, sudirector of the Traffic Department of Spain “(spanish) roads are not designed for snowing”. There has been a lot of traffic problems, even in main highways of Madrid, delayed trains and planes, etc. Kids don’t go to school and authorities they recommend not to use the car.
Here In Finland it amaze me that people is so used to snow, that they don’t see any problem in having snow everywhere. Because it’s a country prepared for it. Finland doesn’t stop for snowing, they keep their normal life in the long winter even with hard weather conditions and icy roads. I wonder what kind of snow storm is necessary for Finnish people stay in their house without going to work / school. These are some habits of finnish people in winter, that still surprise me :
- All Finnish car owners are required by law to equip their cars with winter tyres. Winter tyres must be used between December 1st and February 28th but they can and must also be used outside those dates when weather conditions make driving hazardous. Juan Llaneza has a photo in his blog of this special tyres.
- To get a drive license you receive training to improve you slippery driving skills and nighttime driving lessons too.
- An engine-block electric heater is a great boon for winter drivers who do not have a garage and leave their cars outside overnight. The bock heater makes the car easier to start and reduces fuel consumption. Drivers normally plug their cars into electric sockets in the parking areas.
- Weather reports always includes warning about slippery roads, something that I’ve never seen in Spain.
This hard conditions can be he secret of such a good drivers in Finland, a country of just 5.3 million people and 77 billion trees, has produced more formula one world champions per capita than anywhere else: Heikki Kovalainen, Mika Salo and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen, Mika Häkkinen (more) … and other day I’ll talk about rally’s drivers.
But still my favourite one is Fernando Alonso 
Sliimy’s Womanizer song cover
Monday December 29th, 2008. 05:02 AM.[Music].
Although I don’t like the original, and probably you neither, and I honestly never thought I would be mentioning Britney Spears on here, give a try to this cover of Britney Spears - Womanizer, made by the french Sliimy. Watch in Youtube. Extract the mp3 youtube videos with this tool, www.listentoyoutube.com
No CommentsIncredible snow storm yesterday night
Sunday December 28th, 2008. 03:30 AM.[Photos, Winter].
Amazing snow storm in Parkano.. we haved to get out trough the window and just now we are getting out all the snow that we can. Internet conection doesn’t work very well, is intermittent. I hope you can see the photo.
EDIT. Yes.. this was a prank. 
Yesterday 28th of December is in Spain the equivalent of April’s fools day.
Christmas Wallpapers
Saturday December 27th, 2008. 09:23 AM.[Photos, Winter].
My wallpaper in these days. You have 16 different ones here in high resolution.
360º Cities and the Helsinki Central Railway Station
Tuesday December 9th, 2008. 05:30 AM.[Photos].
I would like to present 360º cities where you can see the most important cities of the world in panoramic photographies. They immerse you in the space giving you almost the same experience as if you were actually standing there in the street. Here you can see an example, the Helsinki Central Railway Station, click over the photo to try!
I have interest in this panoramic views long time ago, before that were so popular and I’m tried by myself with programs that stitch your normal photos, building a panoramic view (Horizontal panoramic, not 360º)
Cottages in Korvala, Lapland, in a trip I made in 2007. Download high resolution Quicktime file .mov (2 Mb)
The beach of Estepona, my home town in Málaga, Spain 2006. Download high resolution Quicktime file .mov (2 Mb)
By the way, I didn’t know that the Railway Station is quite old building, made en 1919. This is a photo of 1948 of the Railway Station, found on the LIFE Photo Archive hosted by Google.
Click the photo for more information and wikipedia too.
Cartoons in El País
Sunday December 7th, 2008. 11:14 AM.[Spain].
by El Roto.
by Erlich.
> … and I will love you, Rosalia, until the real state property recover their real price and the banks get back the confidence of the people.
> Ay Roberto, I’m going to cry.
Often I have a look to the sharp point of view of the cartoons in the Spanish newspaper El País.
No CommentsSpanish Constitution Day & Finnish Independency Day
Saturday December 6th, 2008. 12:09 PM.[Finland culture, Spain].
6th of December.
30 years of Spanish Constitution.
91 years of Finnish independency.
Finland and Spain are celebrating today importants events and is a festive day in both countries. Better source is the Wikipedia, or this article in Helsinki Times, so I will not go deep in details.
Finland gained independence from Russia on 6 December 1917 when the Finnish Declaration of Independence was signed, changing its status from an autonomous Russian Grand Duchy to an independent sovereign nation state.
In Spain this day simbolyzes the culmination of the Spanish transition to democracy after the death of dictator Francisco Franco.
In Finland just now (in the evening) YLE is broadcasting the gala reception for approximately 2000 invited guests at the Presidential Palace. This event, known as Linnan juhlat (”the party at the castle”) is really popular, and during next days all media will analyze this party, especially gossiping the dresses .
Documentary: Finland, a paradise close by
Thursday December 4th, 2008. 10:15 AM.[Finland culture, Videos].
Spanish national TV (RTVE) is starting, since this year, to offer many TV programs, series and shows directly from their web page, so you can see them whenever you want. I feel lucky to have this service due to the fact that I can’t access other way to Spanish TV channels.
Päivi when was in Spain was not so lucky, even YLE offers many TV programs throught their webpage, they don’t let connections from outside of the country.
So the clip of video I want to show you it’s this documentary that I will watch tonight: Finland, a paradise close by, (55 min) made recently by RTVE (so is in spanish). I’m sending this video to all my relatives in Spain so they can know a little more about Finnish costumes, culture and geography. There is more info here, and you can access to more Spanish documentaries “A paradise close by” here.
You can download it too in .flv format
Hope you like it. Tomorrow I will edit this post with my opinion about it.
EDIT
It was interesting, but almost nothing new that I didn’t know. The documentary was from a touristic point of view, so I think it gives a general picture of Finland but doesn’t go deep inside of Finnish culture or costumes. They talk about Lapland, Rovaniemi, Ice Hotels, Santa Claus Park, Turku and Helsinki, given quite detailed information about architecture in these two last cities.
I think the documentary was filmed in the Spring, when still is snow and daylight is increasing. That gives the “typical” picture of snowed Finland, but Hello!, Finland has summer too and different activities. Finland landscapes change totally during summer, so the documentary gives only one side of Finland in this aspect.
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