I write in margins

I remember my first encounter with illustrations of Science Fiction and Fantasy landscapes. It was in a library in Eastern Carelia near the Russian border. I had found these huge American illustrated books presenting architecture, vehicles and landscapes of the worlds which did not exist - but which made me wish they would. Today I saw some images of Asian concept architecture on my Facebook friend's wall. Suddenly, I had a dejavú and started an hour long journey to the worlds which do not exist. I have travelled beyond stars, to our unknown past and our frightening future - and again these fantastic drawings got me out Science fiction and fantasy has always presented images of something unexisting or presenting a dream where our world should be heading to - or dystopy of a future we are heading with our current lifestyle. Most of the Art Critics doom these paintings and illustrations as a pulp art. Figurative painting, even of fantasy worlds, has not been taken seriously by...

Petteri Järvinen kirjoitti tänään, kuinka Twitter toi vuosi sitten aivan uudenlaisen ulottuvuuden linnanjuhlien kättelyseremoniaan. YLE mahdollisti sen, että katsojien twiitit näkyivät televisiokatsojien ruudun alareunassa, mikäli he olivat aktivoineet tietyn teksti-tv-sivun. Tänä vuonna twiittausten suosio kasvoi. Järvisen lähteiden mukaan #linnanjuhlat twiittaajia oli 2640 kappaletta ja he lähettivät yhteensä 10827 viestiä. Puolet viesteistä tuli aktiivisimman kymmenen prosentin näppäimistöltä. Järvinen kertoi suurimman osan viesteistä olevan hauskoja ja informatiivisia. Toivottavasti omat twiittini lukeutuivat tähän kategoriaan.  Itse seurasin linnanjuhlien aikana eri lähteistä, nouseeko #linnanjuhlat tägi Twitterissä maailman suosituimpien keskusteluaiheiden joukkoon kuten tapahtui vuonna 2011. Tällä kertaa listoille pääseminen teki tiukkaa, sillä kansainvälinen uutispäivä oli muheva: Metallica ilmoitti julkistavansa levynsä Spotifyissa, Paramore kertoi neljännestä levyst...

Last weekend I was searching some statistical data for my lecture on social media. I popped in to many so interesting sites and news stories about the internet that I got an inspiration to create my second Infograph ever. The major sources I used were AllTwitter, AllFacebook, Wikipedia, Techcrunch & The Huffington Post which I judge to be relatively trustworthy sources in the subject matter. The figures mirror the status in the internet in December 2012. This is what happens in internet. In every minute. If you wish to use the image in your presentation you might find the high resolution image of it helpful. You'll find it in my Flickr-account . If you want to have this also in Finnish, just leave a commentary below. It does not take much time since all the bits and pieces are in place.

Table and Chair shelter for horses was a troll. Yesterday I asked my students whether they had seen the fake Facebook postings of "Facebook copyright disclaimer" and "lottery winner giving 1 million $ away for a random liker" . Everyone had seen these and many had seen those distributed by their friends. Many had been trolling. There has been three big trolls out there within just a week. Generating millions of repostings and thousands of blog postings. Most of them believing the fake story behind them. The third one was the posting of horses sheltering under a giant table and chairs claiming that horse owner built them because he was denied the building permission to build a traditional horse shelter by a city council. Sorry to say but the posting was untrue. The photograph is real, these chairs and tables do exist, but they were originally built by a German furniture manufacturer in order to advertise their products. The photo was first published by TIM...