Oletus

For two days now, the world has been a duller place than it was before. Only after Steve Jobs' death I truly began to think how much I owe to him - and the impact he has had is staggering. The man brought personal computing to the masses, then helped create the movie studio that brought us the first feature length 3D animation not to mention the consistent artistic and popular successes that followed, and finally heralded the true beginning of the smartphone revolution. Calling him the CEO of the century is an understatement. Both my current job and my previous one are directly related to what he accomplished.

Jobs has been criticized for harsh treatment of employees, and Apple sure likes to put a marketing spin on things that really aren't that awesome. But Jobs truly was enthusiastic about what he did, and had unmatched commitment to design quality. I've laughed at many jokes made at his expense, but first and foremost, the man has always been a source of inspiration for me. The products Jobs left behind are something that people truly want, not only what they'll live with. Only time will tell whether Apple's success story will continue, but one thing is sure: the scope of Steve's achievements will be hard to match. That makes it even more important that we will try our hardest to do so.

I started at my new job at Nvidia past Monday, and my first thoughts are these: oh boy, there's a lot happening in the world of computing right now! Apple may have spearheaded the current wave of innovation, but Google's Android has gained ground at an unprecedented speed, and right now, there's a lot of stuff happening all at once. Steve Jobs stepped down as the CEO of Apple, and the old big players like HP are cutting down and restructuring their core business, leaving plenty of room in the playing field. HD video, 3D gaming and quad-core processors used to be what sold high-end desktop computers. Soon these will be the new hot features of mobile devices. It feels great to be closer to the center of it all, at a company with strong engineering culture and ties to everyone else in the industry.

Like all the other tech nerds seem to be doing lately, I too joined Google Plus, and third time does seem to be the charm. Google previously tried to conquer the social arena with Orkut and Buzz, and to some extent Wave, but they remained fringe products and were mostly forgotten. Plus finally has the necessary momentum behind it, and seems like it could be the next big thing.

Google should be damn happy about their success too - Facebook is clearly hitting Google where it hurts, that being the stream of ad money. In social media, people give their demographic information to advertisers on a silver platter. In contextual ads, the advertiser tries to react to what the user already wants - in social media ads, the advertiser can be much more proactive. Both kinds of advertising surely have their uses, but Facebook surely has shifted the balance of web ads. It's now advertisers pushing their products instead of clients looking for products to buy once again. Note that I don't have any hard statistics about what kind of ads really work the best on the web (I'd probably make a lot more money if I did), but the anecdotal evidence I have suggests that Facebook ads can be very effective. Now might be the last chance for Google to really strike back hard.

So, why is Google Plus any good anyway? There are a few things that strike me as pure genius:

Academy of Finland is doing a series of interviews of people who have previously placed in the top ten in their high school science competition Viksu. My interview is now up at the "Mitä kuuluu nyt Viksu" section of the Viksu site. Unfortunately for some of you the interview is in Finnish, but it's there to check out for those who can handle the moon language.

I decided to spend the last weekend in a bit of an unorthodox way - instead of celebrating May Day along with the rest of the country, it was game development time for me. I've been hanging out on the IRC channel of Ludum Dare for a long while now, so it was high time I finally gave the 48 hour game development competition a try.

Ludum Dare, which was organized for the 20th time, isn't quite as large of an event as the Global Game Jam, though the rules and 48 hour time limit are similar. And unlike the very social game jam, Ludum Dare's main event is a solo competition, a challenging test of individual skills. I think I managed okay overall, with an end result that can well be considered a complete game. I even composed a small piece of background music, something I've never done before. Oh, and don't worry, the music can also be turned off.

My game Lasers are Dangerous is in Flash, and can be played at http://oletus.fi/static/lasersaredangerous/ . Read past the break for a short post mortem.

Show Putting Fukushima in context - summary of some of the worst nuclear events in history and Chernobyl-type (RBMK) reactors still in use on a larger map.

Update: Okay, looks like the Fukushima disaster got worse after all. People still have no reason to panic in Finland, but the outlook for locals is considerably more grim than it was on Monday. The problems caused by the actual reactors still look relatively minor, but that doesn't help much if the whole chain from enrichment to waste disposal isn't handled responsibly. TEPCO will surely learn this costly lesson and improve safety in waste handling as well as improving the actual reactors. The map has been updated according to latest news, with INES level estimates hovering around 6. Original blog post in a sligthly edited form below.

The dust hasn't settled from the Sendai earthquake, but some things are certain. The tsunami has put the eastern coast of Japan in horrible shape, with a high death toll in one of the most well prepared countries in the world. Another thing is that the media is blowing the following nuclear disaster way out of proportion. Not that it wouldn't be a terrible accident, but compared to other problems Japan is facing, the nuclear incident is just a minor one.

In 1900, the remaining life expectancy for a thirty-year old male in the United States was 35 years. Thanks to advances in medicine, that number is now nearing fifty. [1] A solid 15-year increase in lifespan isn't bad at all - actually, I find it pretty impressive. A longer lifespan might mean prolonged disease and disability for many, but at least it opens the possibility for many additional active years too. If one plays his cards right and has a bit of luck, it's not unreasonable to expect to become a healthy centenarian. I'm not planning to pass up that chance.

Humans have just been beaten in our own game. Valentine's Day 2011 will go down in history, not because of the record amount of greetings sent via social media, but because of the first airing of Watson taking on two guys in Jeopardy. Like chess master Garry Kasparov, the two human contestants are famous champions in their game. Kasparov was awed in his first match against IBM's Deep Blue in 1997, because he "could smell a new kind of intelligence across the table". In fact Deep Blue merely calculated chess positions really fast and was relatively stupid, but the new Jeopardy champion Watson is something more remarkable. It's amazing how human-like the answers from a computer can seem. This is Wolfram Alpha taken to the next level.

As Gordon Moore famously predicted in 1965, the amount of computing power we can inexpensively cram in a computer has grown exponentially for quite some time now. However, after 50 years of steady doubling, there are now doubts about how long this development can still continue. We are approaching the physical limits of silicon-based integrated circuits, and some slowdown is already apparent. Making a few billion tiny transistors without a single defect isn't an easy task, and it's a small wonder we're capable of that. The complexity and scale involved are mind-boggling.

The Global Game Jam weekend is now over. 6535 registered jammers worked on 1492 games. The spirit of the event hasn't changed from last year: it's a worldwide explosion of creativity unlike anything else in my experience. People work at an unhealthy pace for two days straight, creating something new, unique and fun. The event connects people from all parts of the world, and creates a bunch of new friendships at the local level. People argue over gameplay mechanics and laugh at a slew of newly created in-jokes. The Global Game Jam is something to be celebrated.

At the FGJ Tampere jam site, the organizers' experience from last year showed: the first evening we were mostly ahead of schedule, and it would be hard to come up with a single complaint. And oh, the people were amazing, as games industry types tend to be. This goes doubly for the lone person who introduced himself as a sound designer, who consequently had a lot of work thrust upon him. I wonder why the sound guys haven't found the event, at least here in Tampere?