I have a problem with the halftone patterns that appear everywhere: They are not made “correctly”. (I will write about this…)

Here are some examples on how different halftone patterns can look when applied to an image:

Kekkonen with a sinusoidal halftone pattern

Kekkonen with honeycomb halftone pattern

I have started eperimenting with natural dyes to be used in a CD cover art project. The first one of vegetable dyes is bilberry juice (Vaccinium myrtillus, maybe you know it as mustikka or blueberry). It seems quite versatile!

Bilberry juice test prints on yellowish non-acid-free cardboard. I used a screen from a previous project.

I knew from beforehand that the color of the juice depends on pH. When I handle the berries without breaking them, I get a bluish shade onto my fingers. But if I manage to break some of the berries, releasing the acidic juice, the shade tends towards red. And when I wash the bucket that I use to collect them, there is a shift from red to blue as the residual juice is diluted and pH approaches neutral. So I tried screen printing with both plain bilberry juice and with bilberry juice mixed with plenty of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate, NaHCO₃) that raises the pH to around 8. I also tried heat-treating the dry print in the oven, until there was a change in the shade, and ultraviolet ligth (UV) irradiation for 6 hours. See the above picture for results. I think there is quite a nice selection of colors achievable by different treatments! Plain juice gives a bluish-purple shade, and sodium bicarbonate shifts the color towards cyan. Heat treating gives a caramel color, but with the added sodium bicarbonate, heat treating gives a greenish brown “darkened leaf” shade. The colors seem quite UV-resistant, unlike the cardboard, which yellows a bit.

Printing was done without any resist, so I will press more juice from last year’s bilberries and add some resist. Hopefully the print will then have sharper edges.

For this experiment, I let 0.5 dL of the juice boil briefly, added 5 ml of potato starch, let boil briefly again, cooled down, and optionally added 1 ml of NaHCO3. The results:

Test prints with bilberry on grayish white cardboard

Either it was the boiling or the method of juice extraction that made the least treated test print more red than before. Potato starch seems to work quite well to make a nice printing paste. The burned colors each seem to match their unburned counterpart  to make a nice color scheme. Now I’ll just have to pick with, or without, NaHCO3, for the CD cover art project. I’ll go with.

OK. Don't add all baking soda at once! Sodium bicarbonate reacts with the acids in the juice to produce CO2. Also, by gradually adding more, one could adjust the shade. This went a bit too far from blue to cyan. It may not be a good idea to keep boiling after adding sodium bicarbonate, because it will convert to sodium carbonate that causes pH to go to around 11.

Filtering out the inevitable gooey starch lumps. This stuff tastes a bit sweet, bilberry-ish and has a dominating baking soda flavor...

For the CD cases, we want to use natural materials, and recycled materials, and to have them hand made so that there is added value to the purchase of a CD.

Material for CD covers, old office supplies. The Mercantil file pile on the right is enough for about 35 covers.

The image to be printed. The resolution of the image is 254 dpi. Width of the dark rectangle is (2.5 + 135 + 3 + 135 + 2.5) mm and height is (2.5 + 135 + 2.5) mm. First the image is transferred onto a silk screen using photo resist and ultraviolet light. I used an exposure time of 1 hour, which was too little as I had to keep the large screen at quite a distance from the UV lamp. Parts of the photoresist peeled off, and I had to fix those spots of the screen by painting photoresist with a paint brush.

Silk screen print on discarded office supplies. Yes, this was printed with that dark goo, and heat treated. It has a pleasant burned sugar smell.

Text for the cover, at 254 dpi.

I could not reach the other guys for comment on the title etc. yet. But I will try out the above anyhow. The way I did the script was by first writing by hand, taking a photo of the writing and then following the traces in Inkscape using the calligraphic pen tool, with a width of 15 and a mass setting of 11. The procedure to make the wavy background was slightly complicated, and I will probably write another article about it, as the process gives such nice results. I first tried without the background but thought it looked too empty.

2010-09-06

Two ink layers, or actually three. The text (not the waves) is double-printed so it is a bit darker than how it will probably be in the final mass-produced version. Also there is a slight misalignment between the two inks because of the double print.

Next up: surprise webcap (Cortinarius semisanguineus, verihelttaseitikki). It is a very common mushroom in Finland, but only yesterday did I learn to recognize it. I collected a bagful, and cooked it to extract juice, which I then boiled to concentrate it.

A potfull of colorful Cortinarius semisanguineus mushrooms

Fake antique?

After tinting, there’s more of a feeling of holding a treasure in your hands… :) Also the color of the bilberry ink got shifted away from cyan to dark blue, which is a good thing. The mushroom juice may be slightly acidic, or the shift may be simply due to color mixing.

Roasted! Just fooling around, but I kind of like it! Perhaps I will try again and roast the text and waves properly and then the trees only slightly.

Tricks of light. There's kind of an emboss effect from the thick, charred ink layer.

I became very annoyed by the reoccurring disturbances to Internet connectivity by the overly sensitive master control for wireless radios switch of my ThinkPad X200 laptop. So I superglued it to ON position.

The master control for wireless radios switch. Glued to ON position.

No help. The glitches were still there, shutting down WLAN randomly and whenever I pressed my palm against the palm rest. So it wasn’t just me accidentally pushing the switch, although I admit doing that too. I endured the nasty Windows message boxes and WLAN dropouts for quite a long time, until I finally decided to get rid of the problem once and for all by electrically hard-wiring the switch to ON position. A very good decision, one which I should’ve made much earlier!

Inside the laptop. That dreaded switch... In ON position, the outermost terminals were, or should have been, connected. In OFF position, the two rightmost (from this viewing angle) terminals were connected.

Removing the switch was easy. A firm grip with pliers, and a rolling motion towards the upper part of this image worked fine. I tried turning on the computer like this, with all terminals disconnected, but the state of the switch was detected as OFF. In my opinion, other than having no software disable for the switch, this was the design error made by Lenovo engineers. The switch should work so that the state is switched only when a connection is made.

A jump wire was soldered between the outer terminals. This did the trick!

And the light stays on! The end of my troubles.

If you want to void the warranty and blah blah, either have a look at the ThinkPad X200 and X200s Hardware Maintenance Manual, or follow this pictorial guide:

Remove the power cord and battery. Remove all screws from the back, except for the four screws that keep the screen hinges in place, and the RAM slot cover screws.

This is how many screws you should have at this point. Let me count... 10 with red tips and 1 smaller one. The screw holding the hard disk slot cover is not here. I broke the thin plastic cover long ago.

Pry open the wristrest with your fingernails

The wrist rest and keyboard should now come off nicely. (If not, you should have removed more screws!) Pull off their connectors.

With the keyboard and wrist rest away, this is how it looks in there

Now let's start removing screws from the inside. We need only to remove the ones that hold down the mainboard. Let's start with these two. Note that the screws down here are different, so sort the screws according to where you took them from so that you know where to put them back later.

This ribbon cable must be detached from the mainboard

Flip open the connector and you can simply lift up the end of the ribbon cable

Remove the two black screws (the other is already removed in this image) holding down the WLAN card. If you have a different model, you may have some other stuff here, so act accordingly.

Remove the WLAN card (or whatever you have there, that might hold down the mainboard)

Remove this screw

Remove these three screws (two black ones and one silver)

Remove the screws holding down the display connector

Lift up the display connector to detach it

Remove the hard disk. Could've done this much earlier...

Pry off the plastic strip that goes around the left, upper and right part of where the keyboard was. Start from either end.

Lift up the metal coverings so that you can pull out the mainboard underneath. You may have to detach some small pieces of adhesive tape first

When pulling out the mainboard, be careful not to injure this ribbon cable

When the mainboard has come loose, flip upside down the computer with the screen slightly open, so that you can allow the mainboard to rest on it. Now the culprit of all the troubles is nicely accessible... Remove the switch and solder a jump wire connection between the outer pads. (See the first three images of this article!)

When you have done the deed that had to be done, it is time to put everything back together again. Start by putting the mainboard in its correct place.

When putting back in the mainboard, again, be careful not to injure this ribbon cable

Push in the wireless LAN card (or whatever you have there)

Attach these three black screws

Attach these two black screws and the silver screw

Put the WLAN antenna cables under this ribbon cable

Lay the ribbon cable down into the connector

Close the connector

Make sure the WLAN antenna cables are properly connected to the WLAN card

Attach these two screws

Push down the display ribbon cable connector into its slot

Attach the two screws that hold the connector in place

Put back the hard disk

Reattach the large plastic strip

This is how the insides look at this point

Attach the keyboard connector

Attach the wristrest connector

Put the keyboard in place and snap the wrist rest in place

Reattach the screws in the back

The smaller screw goes here

Ahhhhh... the bliss.

I proclaim: I know how everything operates. Not at full detail, but at deep enough a level to be able to answer all the important questions. As 99 % of people have no clue at all, and as a demonstration of my humble character, I’d like to share this insight. Read on!

Questioning the existence of a god

You were probably brought up in a society in which believing in a deity, a creator of everything, a god, is the norm. I was brought up in mostly a Christian society. The Christian god, or God for short, is described much as a person. And by this I don’t mean a description of what kind of a person God is. What I do mean is, God is attributed with will, feelings such as anger and love, interest in earthly things, the might to affect those, and a capability to communicate. This is not any kind of an exhaustive list; I’m making these up as I go. If we were talking about a human being, and not God, these traits would be quite easy to explain by evolutionary grounds. Will is the capability to make decisions to guide one’s actions. This is obviously advantageous from an evolutionary standpoint. Feelings share much the same purpose, guiding our thought processes. Having an interest in for example self-preservation is highly beneficial. Might over other beings, such as small bugs that continuously pester us, is essential for survival. The ability to communicate makes a population more successful. That all these things provide clear benefits to an individual or a population, hints to that they may be products of evolution. For humans, this appears to be the case, as backed up by a lot of scientific evidence. God, in religious stories, appears to limit themselves to causal actions, just like a human, when there is no reason why an all-mighty god should play by the laws of the physical world.

So, there are two possibilities, either there is a god that happens to be extremely similar to something shaped by evolution, or, the more likely alternative, that there is no god and that the concept of god is a product of human imagination, limiting itself, especially in earlier times, to absorbing elements from the immediate environments of the people making up and adding to the stories and scriptures. For the first alternative, there is no proof. Not even the smallest influence by a god has ever been positively detected, even with the advent of precise scientific instrumentation, and no recorded communication by a god has ever given us prior knowledge, not open to interpretation, of things to come.

Origins of the Universe

Even if one accepts that it was evolution that gave rise to humanity, and that the god, if one exists, does not communicate with us or interfere with the physical world, there will still be the open question about the origins of the Universe. A popular answer is that God made it. I assert that existence of the Universe is a misconception brought about by our conception of how objects in the every-day world operate. The conflict arises when we think of the pre-Universe nothingness and the sudden appearance of  the Universe in it. We think, such an abrupt and purposeful change must be by someone. All the matter and energy, stuff, must have come from somewhere! Where we go wrong is in thinking that there is an event by which the universe appeared. An event is always associated with a point in time, but time is an inner quality of the universe. Concepts and expressions that hint to time include “to come to be”, “to appear”, “create”, “beginning”, “before”, and “birth”.  Stuff might appear, but not the Universe. There is no such thing as before the existence of the Universe.

Let us think about existence for a moment. I am going to claim that existence itself is also an inner concept of the Universe. By inner, I don’t mean anything like the air inside a balloon in contrast to air outside the balloon, where in and out share some ….., but something like the letters of a literary work. Letters don’t exist in our every-day world. They are confined in writings. Letters are the stuff of literature. If I were to make multiple copies of a book, and also copy the book onto a computer, where I would store it in all kinds of formats, would the work of literature still exist.

If letters were able to ask neighboring letters what they see, they would become pretty convinced of their own existence. But there is a catch. If we were to destroy the book, there would be no more letters to ponder upon the question of existence. But what if I was to save the book on a computer, would the . You could say that as the two are equivalent,   So we might as well quit discussing the existence of the Universe.

Let us take a step back, as this might seem

Here is a method for generating a sine look-up table in case you have little (a few kilobytes of) program memory. The idea goes like this: Let’s say you have a sine wave lookup table of length 1024 with a 24-bit amplitude range. If you take the difference between successive samples, the range of the numbers is reduced. If you repeat the process a total of 3 times, the data will be dominated by the 3rd differential of the quantization noise and will have a range of -4 to 3, which can be conveniently stored in 3 bits only. This program below does the reverse, it generates the sine table from the 3-bit values, and also takes advantage of the symmetry properties of sine. So, instead of wasting 1024 program memory words for storing the original sine table, in the c-language implementation below, the compressed data takes only 35 words and the decompression code hopefully not too much more.

/* Multiplierless 1024-sample, 24-bit sine table generator
 *
 * by Olli Niemitalo in 2010-03-07.
 * This work is placed in the public domain.
 */

#include <stdio.h>

/* Sine table with one extra sample to enable interpolation
 *
 * Sine with amplitude -0x800000 .. 0x800000 was rounded to
 * nearest integer and truncated to -0x800000 .. 0x7fffff.
 * int data type must be at least 24-bit.
 */
int sineTable[1025];

void generateTable() {
  int i, j, k;
  const int magic[33] = {
    0x691864, 0x622299, 0x2CB61A, 0x461622,
    0x62165A, 0x85965A, 0x0D3459, 0x65B10C,
    0x50B2D2, 0x4622D9, 0x88C45B, 0x461828,
    0x6616CC, 0x6CC2DA, 0x512543, 0x65B69A,
    0x6D98CC, 0x4DB50B, 0x86350C, 0x7136A2,
    0x6A974B, 0x6D531B, 0x70D514, 0x4EA714,
    0x5156A4, 0x393A9D, 0x714A6C, 0x755555,
    0x5246EB, 0x916556, 0x7245CD, 0xB4F3CE,
    0x6DBC7A
  };
  k = 0;
  for (i = 0; i < 33; i++) {
    for (j = 0; j < 24; j += 3) {
      sineTable[k++] = ((magic[i] >> j) & 7) - 4;
    }
  }
  sineTable[1] = 51472;
  for (i = 3; i > 0; i--) {
    for (j = i; j <= 256; j++) {
      k = sineTable[j - 1];
      sineTable[j] = k + sineTable[j];
      sineTable[513-j] = k;
      sineTable[511+j] = -k;
      sineTable[1025-j] = -k;
    }
  }
  sineTable[768] = -0x800000;
}

int main() {
  int i;

  generateTable();

 /* Printout */
  for (i = 0; i < 1025; i++) {
    printf("%d\t%d\n", i, sineTable[i]);
  }

  return 0;
}

Here is a spreadsheet that illustrates the algorithm: sinetable.xls. The above implementation additionally embeds the seeds 0 and -3 in the magic data

1.4.2006 ja kello löi 8 aamulla. Neljä (takaisin) luontoon haluavaa miestä saapui oulun bussiasemalle. Tästä siis lähdettiin ja mukana oli Antti (möylä), Mursu, Aarni (Junnu) ja Olli. Bussi oli ihan täynnä porukkaa ja tavaratilakin oikein odotti meidän rinkkoja ja ahkioita kyytiinsä..eli sai survoa niin p****leesti.

9 tunnin bussimatka, mitähän sitä. No rollossa ainaki läpsystä vaihto (lue: nopea bussinvaihto), naurettiin junnulle kun se ei saanut bussin vessaa vedettyä ja muoniossa (essolla) juophastiin kaffet.

Lopultakin kilpisjärvi näkyvissä.

Antti keksi kilpiksen parkkipaikalla että äitillekin vois ilmoittaa että on vaeltamaan menossa :D.

Sukset jalkaan, kamat kantoon ja ylämäkeen. Pahimmat ylämäet olikin reissun alussa <3. Myöhemmin myös tajuttiin että ahkion vetäminen kolmestaan ei oikein toimi kovin hyvin monin paikoin kapeiden reittien takia,okei ylämäissä se oli kyllä ihan hyvä ratkaisu..huh..oli raskasta.

Yöllä hiihtäminen on hauskaa kuin lasimurska p**seessä. Siis oikeesti, ei siellä nähnyt yhtään mitään ja sitten kun vielä väsyttikin. Siis meillähän meni 7 tuntia eka kämpälle hiihtäessä kun piti alkaa jotain v**un lepakkoreittiä testailemaan. Sääntö 1) Älä ikinä hiihdä yöllä, sääntö 2) älä ikinä hiihdä päivällä =P ja 3) älä käytä lepakkoreittiä ilman batmobiilia. Todellakin ..tuossa viimeisessä kuvassa olevaa kiveä luulimme joksikin liikkuvaksi olennoksi (poro?/ihminen?/suohirviö?)..siis niin hyvin siellä näki ja tajus asiat yöllä =).

Eilisyön hajotus on ohi ja taas jaksaa. Minä ja olli peloteltiin muita asukkeja nukkumalla sängyn (laverin) alla (oli vähä täyttä). Siis c-vitamiini poretabletit…priceless. Ja mursu taas selkeesti tutki kartasta uusia lepakkoreittejä p**kele.

Ahkiosta oli yön aikana hävinnyt hieman lihaa, pohdimmekin aamulla kuka meistä oli syyllinen. Rikos jäi mysteeriksi =(. Matka jatkukoon eli sivakoiminen saarijärveltä kuornarjoelle alkoi. Sää oli pilvinen ja leuto eli ihan jees. Tosin koko matka ylämäkeä. Jokainen aste ylöspäin maastossa vie miestä asteen etukenoon ja persettä asteen ruvelle!!

Ollin ja Junnun ennen reissua kokema hilpeä oksennustauti iski Möylään yllättäenpyllättäen ja vielä kesken hiihdon ja ylämäen…(vähän meni mehut). Kuornarin mökille päästiin kaikki silti perille. Mökissä möylä tutustui herra ämpäriin muiden imiessä hymyä.

Mursu totesi GPS:stä taas kerran että olemme pieni piste keskellä ei mitään.

Möylän elimistössä olevat substanssit leikkivät hissillä, mikä tuottikin mairean hymyn Mursun (=sadisti) naamalle :C. Ensimmäinen ilta tuvassa meni hengaillessa (mulla täristessä ja oksentaessa). Meitä hieman myöhemmin tuvalle yöpymään saapuneet kaksi vanhempaa rouvaa varmaan nauttivat yön kiihkeistä äänistä jotka loin taidokkaasti ruumiini ja ämpärin saumattomalla yhteistyöllä.

Kuornarin vessassa oli kesäinen meininki =D. Tiesittekö että nokkosperhosen toukille kelpaa ravinnoksi ainoastaan nokkonen ja että…

Ahkio yritti piiloutua yön aikana :(. (Ensimmäisenä yönä tuuli aivan tajuttomasti.)

Kolme pilkki yksi “ryynäs”, eli möylä mökissä ja muut kalalla. Tosi huonosti oli kuulemma vettä järvessä ja kalaa ei tullutkaan. Eikun, saipa Olli minari-mateen, minkä vetikin pottujen kera naamariin.(Jaa empä kyllä tiennytkään että näissä veisissä on mateitakin). Iltapäivällä mökkiin lepäämään saapui kolme nuorta ja komeaa hesalaista palomiestä <3. Ilta sujuikin leppoisasti poikien naukkaillessa minttuteetä ja palomiesten nauttiessa jallukahvista. Kynttilät paloi ja musiikki soi (hesalaisilla oli cd-soitin mukana)..eli tunnelma oli loistava. Ei edes edelleen jäytävä kuume ja kolotus saanut mieltäni alas stairway to heavenin soidessa.

Kuutamo yöllä <3.

Aamu -> herääminen -> ‘mitähh söikö Antti jottain’ -> hhiiiihtääääääääääään !! Eli sain syötyy jopa aamulla, olo oli silti aika heikko ja kuume oli laittanut selän jumiin. Abbout puolenpäivän aikoihin lähettiin kuitenkin suuntaamaan porojärven suuntaan. Pointsit pojille mun kamojen raahaamisesta. Ilma oli tyyni ja aurinkoinen.

Päätettiin jäädä pilkkimään Jogasjärvelle (järvi ennen porojärveä), saatiin pari “kalaa”. (4cm eli tollasia munan mittasia…ei, ei mun munan). Mursu kekkas että laittaispa parit madekoukut yöksi pyyntiin (syöttinä toimi ne sintit).

Romanttinen yö Jogasilla. Jäätiin siis sittenkin Jogasin tuvalle (kummitustupa) yöksi nähtyämme ison ranskalaisporukan kikkailevan porotuvan suuntaan. Jogasin tupa on muuten porno. Se on erittäin pieni neljän hengen tupa, missä on eteinen,takka ja pöytä ..ei mitään muuta. Vanhin ja varmasti vetoisin tupa tällä alueella, mutta tosi kodikas. Varsinkin kun takassa oli tuli, kynttilät ja suitsuke paloi, neljä miestä ja konjakkia…

Aamulla Mursu kävi pyytämässä madekoukut ja molemmissa oli made…pieniä ne oli mutta kiva ylläri silti. Jogasilta hiihto porojärvelle meni todella hyvässä kelissä (Sää: hot&sunny). Reissun ehdottomasti paras ilma olikin tällä hiihtoreissulla alkaneena päivänä.

Pilkittiin koko päivä porojärvellä. Reissun paras päivä…ei tarvinut hiihtää juuri yhtään, sai pilkkiä monta tuntia, sää oli loistava (hot&sunny), läheinen mökki oli valmiiksi vallattuna, naamat paloi, kaloja ei tullut, kaira osui kiveen…nosiis mut oli silti ihan oikeesti kiva päivä.

Madeansan laitossa…jännää (6kpl laitettiin). Syötteinä siis toimivat ne muutamat sintit mitä pilkeillä ylös saatiin. Mökissä päästiin kalasopan makuun pottujen, voin, sipulien, kahden mateen ja usean kokin suotuisalla avustuksella. Harmi että Mursu ei päässyt kalasoppaa maistelemaan “jojo-efektin” iskettyä häneenkin illan hämärtyessä. Juuri kun ajateltiin että nyt se ei enään keneenkään tartu.

Mies (Junnu) ja laskeva aurinko.

Aika kesy kettu bongattiin porojärvellä. Ahkio ja varsinkin sen lihaisa sisältö houkutteli. Kannettiin siis lihat turvaan mökkiin ja ajateltiimpa että tulevat(?) kalanrippeet voisi ketulle antaa.

Yöllä pakkasen (~ -20C) paukkuessa, mökki oli lämmin ja konjakki myös. Pöydän ääressä luotiin suunnitelmia tulevan päivän koitoksista. Kuvissa siis näkyy porojärven mökki ja revontulet. Reissun ehdottomasti kaksi hienointa maisemakuvaa ikuisti Olli.

Mursu kuumeessa :(. Vieressä sen hetken parhaat kaverit herra ämpäri ja termarillinen vettä.

Aamulla saatiinkin nukkua pitkään mursun sairastaessa (ei alkanut 7 aamulla möykkään). Joskus 10 jälkeen ylös pompattuamme aloitin aamutoimet halkojenhakkuulla ja sitten Ollin kanssa madeansoja kokemaan. Madeansat olivat jotakuinkin menestys 6 ansan tuodessa 4 madetta jään paremmalle puolelle. Mitat olivat 69cm, 47cm ja pari rääpälettä. Aamun madeansan komeimmat saaliit päätyivät nälkäisiin suihin herkullisen sopan muodossa (kuvassa vielä raakaa) ja saipa kettukin muutaman kilon kalanrippeitä. Suunnitelmiemme mukaan tänä samaisena päivänä olisi pitänyt käydä Poroenolla (joki) pilkkimässä, mutta sakea lumisade + kova tuuli esti aikeemme. Ei nimittäin ole terveellistä lähteä huonolla näkyvyydellä heikoille jäille. Toivo joelle pääsemisestä siis siirtyikin hieman kauemmaksi.

Siis ei helv…tuo jätkä (mursu) oikeesti nukkuu tossa.

Ja taas kolme pilkki ja yks ryynäs (no okei ei se enään ryynänny mut kuumeessa nukku ainakin). Käytiin siis hämärän rajamailla (klo 19.40 –>) pilkkimässä tunteroinen kovassa lumituiskussa. Tulos = ei mitään havaintoa mistään kalasta.

Antti + Junnu + konjakkia. Molempina porojärven öinä nautittiin hieman konjakkia ennen nukkumaanmenoa. Eihän sitä poiskaan jaksaisi kantaa (grammanviilausta!). Oli mukava tapa viettää iltaa lämpimässä mökissä. Puheenaiheina toimivat ainakin kalastus ja jalkapallo :).

Antti ylläpiti “captain’s logia” reissulla. Eli siis pitäähän itsetoteutettua reissujournalismia aina hieman olla.

Piti lähteä siirtymään hiljalleen kohti kilpparia, eli matka porojärveltä meekolle. Ilma oli edelleen huono (tuiskutti lunta) ja edellisenä päivänä satanut lumi oli peittänyt edelliset “ladut” vaikeuttaen hieman hiihtoa. Noh Meekolle päästiin. Meekon tupa olikin “freshhi”…2005 keväällä peruskorjattu. Meidänhän PITI jatkaa piteempäänkin, mutta iski niin paha ilma ettei viititty lähteä nousemaan ylemmäs, minne olisi jouduttu menemään jos meekolta eteenpäin olisi jatkettu. Viimeisessä kuvassa näkyy joessa ollut vedenottopaikka, mikä saattoi olla aikalailla ansa, jos ei osannut varoa.

Hienoja maisemia, Olli kävi sooloilemassa lumivyöryvaara-vyöhykkeellä. (Huomatkaa viimeisenä oleva Ollin herutuskuva).

Kova tuuli, lumisade ja lumi suksen pohjissa…ahhh. LUMI ON HIENO ELEMENTTI! Eli matka meeko->kuornarjoki->saarijärvi ei todellakaan ollut helpoin mahdollinen. Matka alkoi mukavalla 4-6km? ylämäellä ja ilma oli surkea (tuiskutti edelleen lunta ja kovaa). Pari lämpöastetta takasi sen että lumi tarrasi ikävästi suksen pohjiin. Itselläni jopa niin pahasti että jouduin kävelemään loppumatkasta muutaman kilometrin. Loppupeleissä matka meni silti ihan mukavasti ja saavuimme melko täyteen saarijärven tupaan iloisin mielin.

Kuuraparta ja ninja (kiai!).

Klo 5.00 aamulla, viimeinen hiihto edessä…hyvin jaksaa vaikka yöllä ei tullutkaan nukuttua (vanhukset päätti lämmittää mökin hieman kuumaksi). Onneksi aamuyöstä oli sen verran pakkasta että suksi luisti taas, jopa minulla.

Kohta parkkipaikalla. Paskat naamassa on helppo hymyillä.

Viimeiset alamäet, vielä ehtii pannuttaaaaaaaaa! Alamäet ahkio persiissä on hilpeä kokemus varsinki jos mäki on jyrkkä ja mutkikas.

Lopultakin perillä. Päätettiin että tänä talvena ei enään hiihdetä ja että kunnon safkaa on saatava..tai etes karkkia ja kaljaa. Bussissa karkki, olut ja kylmä makkara maistuivatkin taivaalliselta. Jotku nössöt myös nukkuivat.

After the first snow had fallen, me and my colleague Fumi were given permission to pick the apples of the botanical garden at our university. There were about 30 kg of them. That yielded 14 half a litre bottles of cider (batch 2009/1). I used a centrifuge-type juicer from Lidl, but it died after about 10 kg of apples, the rest were juiced with a steam juicer (Mehu-Maija). Juice from the centrifuge was significantly better tasting. The cider turned out pretty good, but had a nasty taste of yeast or homemade alcohol. Perhaps because it was brewed in room temperature (21-22 °C) . Next time I’ll try the refrigerator (7-8 °C). The alcohol content was 5.4 % from the sugar of the apples alone. Inspired by the moderate success, I started to think of a better way to juice, and found some nice “apple scratter” videos from youtube, and building instructions from web. I bought some supplies:

• Wooden rolling pin, 3.5 EUR
• 230 V hammer drill, 10 EUR
• 12 V cordless drill, 15 EUR
• 200 pcs of 30 mm stainless steel nails, 12 EUR

Total: 40.5 EUR.

I also used:

• Plywood, MDF, lumber (all dumpster-dived)
• A croquet mallet (from my father, who had bought a set for its strong wood), for the shaft
• 10 mm iron shaft, for connecting the wooden shaft to the drill chuck.
• A piece of copper tube, glued and bolted around the connection of the iron and wood shafts to prevent the wood from splitting.
• Wood glue and Araldite glue
• Screws, a bolt and a nut
• Power switch (for changing rotation direction)

The drills:

I demolished them. This is what was left after removing the goodies:

I proceeded to build a motor for the scratter, using the gear from the hammer drill and the motor and transmission from the cordless drill:

I also recycled the female DC connector from the battery charger. I have a regulated 70 W 12 V DC power supply, which I use to run the motor. Sometimes it has difficulties starting (words “inductive load” ring in my ears), or stops if there is too much resistance to torque; the power supply is apparently protected from over current. In practice this is not a show-stopper. The motor is very powerful, does not heat much, and the rotation speed is just right. It makes noise, but not too loud.

I used this kind of a screw pattern in the roller:

Here is the scratter in action:

Some thoughts:

The diameter of the rolling pin is not large enough. The apples don’t like that the passage goes so narrow so fast. But assisted with a plank, in the apples go. After relieving my right hand from its cinematographic duties, things progressed much faster than in the video.

Yield is around 50 % w/w juice, when pressed with a 150 EUR Palumbo 4.5 L press (from Myllyposti) that I co-own with another work mate of mine, Silke.

I sampled the (imported) apple varieties that are sold locally here in Oulu. Expensive! The most suitable one for cider making was Granny Smith, costs about 1.50 EUR/kg. Cheap polish apples, 0.50 EUR/kg, were no good as they lacked the crispy, acidic taste. The second best was Jonagold, 1.30 EUR/kg or so.

2009-12-02

I bought 41 kg of Granny Smith apples from Prisma at 1.40 EUR/kg, but got a discount and they also made some mistake in the weighing (to my advantage), so I paid only for 22 kg. Thanks to Marjo for helping out with a car.

I scratted the apples and pressed them. That took 2 ½ hours, not including cleaning up. The scratter worked well and atomized at best 4 apples per minute. The screw pattern I had used on the roller worked wonders, always leading the apple to the middle. I ended up processing one apple at a time, sometimes two.

I got about 23 L of juice. The price of the juice turned out 1.30 EUR/L, only half of what I had been prepared for. The taste was really nice and crispy (sour, tart), not exceedingly sweet though. I think the cider will be excellent with food if it turns out successful.

Some pictures of the action:

I divided the juice into two times 10 L parts for making cider, let’s call them batches 2009/2 and 2009/2k where k stands for cooked (keitetty). This will be a comparative experiment to find out whether the juice should be cooked, which also sterilizes it. To both batches I added 2.5 ml of brewer’s salt. I cooked batch 2009/2k until it boiled, and then let it to cool. I added 0.5 ml of wine yeast to batch 2009/2 and put it on the top shelf of the refrigerator, which is at 7-8 °C. Tasting the yeast, I recognized the bad taste from batch 2009/1. That’s why the minimal amount of yeast this time. It might be a good idea to do what some people do if the bad taste is in the dry yeast: cultivate some yeast (with sugar?) and use that instead of dry yeast.

Have to remember to add yeast to batch 2009/2k tomorrow, when it has cooled. (I did.)

Having tasted the juice now a few times, I’m starting to think that maybe it was even too sour. Mixing in some other apples might have been a good idea. Time will tell!

2009-12-04

I measured the sugar content of the juice using a hydrometer, the result was +50 degrees Oechsle, or 50 °Oe * 2.5 g / L / °Oe = 125 g/L of sugar. If all sugar is fermented, that should give 125 g / L / (17 g / L / %) = 7.4 % alcohol by volume. Whoa! I guess I was wrong about the juice not being that sweet. Must’ve been all the acidity.

2009-12-14

The bucket 2009/2 was leaking somehow, so I moved both batches 2009/2 and 2009/2k into new buckets, at the same time trying to avoid pouring the sediment at the bottom into the new container. From the taste, it seemed there was already at least some fermentation going on, but not much alcohol yet.

2009-12-26

I tasted 2009/2k, it was definitely fermenting. It was bubbly. But still very sweet. No bad taste, which is a good sign.

2009-12-29

I tasted 2009/2. Was the same as 2009/2k. No peculiarities in the taste, so it seems pasteurization was not necessary (note: later, this conclusion will be shown to be incorrect…) .

2010-01-26

Batch 2009/2  had fermented further than 2009/2k. Also, it was less cloudy, more yellow and had a somewhat sulfurous, rotten stench. So, pasteurization is good, after all. I liked the batch 2009/2k more. I hope tasting 2009/2 won’t give me stomach problems. (No stomach problems ensued.)

2010-02-08

Tasted 2009/2k, was good, and quite sweet still, and bubbly, so it is still fermenting.

2010-02-19

Tasted 2009/2k, it was good. The sweetness was now less, meaning that fermentation is approaching the finishing line…

2010-03-26

Tasted 2009/2k, the sweetness was now about right for cider, there was a somewhat dry taste emerging. Transferred to another bucket, stopped fermentation by adding sulfite, and also added a clarification agent. Shook, and left in the refrigerator to clarify. There was plenty of carbon dioxide. On the next day, added the second clarification agent.

2010-04-02

Bottled and carbonated the cider. It turned out pretty good! Plenty of acidity, could be a slight bit less. Sweetness was quite ideal. This is not a dry cider. Hydrometer reading was +20 degrees Oechsle, which is 30 °Oe less than in the beginning, corresponding to 4.4 vol% alcohol, according to my calculations. An on-line fermentation calculator gave a different estimate, 4.1 vol%, which is, by taste (and by the level of induced intoxication), closer to the truth. The dreaded yeast taste that I wanted to avoid was minimal, but still there somewhere. For the next batch (if I shall make one) I would use the sediment from a previous fermentation, to get rid of the dry yeast taste. I have now saved some of the sediment, in the refrigerator. Also, I would try to avoid tasting the cider while it is fermenting. Now I know that with these parameters it takes about 4 months to finish. The final yield was 14 half-a-liter bottles, or 7 L of cider. I would not hesitate to try this with something like smoked salmon salad. I’m quite happy that I did not add any extra sugar, it is all from the apples

2010-04-14

I have started another batch, but could not use yeast from the last batch. It had turned into vinegar… So I simply used 0.5 ml of dry yeast per 10 L bucket. An interesting thing to note is that Granny Smith apples bought early in the spring yielded less juice (less than 50 % by weight) than “new ones” in the autumn. I guess they are slowly drying. Also, they did not appear as sour. These might be positive things for the quality of the cider, but also increase the cost. I’m not absolutely sure how sweetness was affected, so I’d better not comment on that.

2010-05-05

Here is the cider making process that I have used, with some additional observations:

1. Get some apples. 2 kg of apples will give 1 L of juice. Sour apples are better, like Granny Smith or local varieties. Bitter apples are also a good addition, as they give more taste of the cider. These are not sold in supermarkets, but can perhaps be found locally. Small garden apples are often bitter. It is also good if the apples have plenty of sugar, as that will give a stronger cider. You can mix a few varieties to get the best of all worlds. It is OK if the apples have darker spots and bumps, as this will only contribute to the authentic “slightly rotten” cider flavor.
2. Wash the apples, just to get rid of bird poo and such. If you bought your apples from the supermarket, then this is not so critical, as the apples have been washed and waxed in the production chain. The juice will be boiled anyhow, so no matter if there’s little something growing on the apples.
3. Grind the apples into pulp. For this you can build a scratter similar to what I have. Because my scratter does not automatically suck in the apple, but requires me to assist with a plank, I found it the easiest to grind one apple at a time. No need to peel the apples or to remove seeds, as they are so dry that not much juice comes out of them to affect the quality of the cider. Do not allow the pulp to aerate too much, work in smaller batches (the size of the apple press) and press them immediately after scratting.
4. Press the juice out of the pulp using an apple press. If the press has a sieve, then you don’t need to use a cloth, but it will anyhow make it easier to remove the dry pulp from the press, and it keeps the sieve clean. Any cloth that is clean should do, but be aware that an older cloth might rip in the process, so have a spare one ready. Discard the dry pulp as bio-waste.
5. Measure the specific gravity of the juice using a hydrometer. This will tell you the sugar content, which can be used for estimating the amount of alcohol when compared to the sugar content after fermentation. If there’s not enough sugar, you can add some. The cider, when ready and bottled, should be about 20 °Oe (or a bit less for a dryer cider), so if you are not going to add sugar afterwards, you need about 50 °Oe now to get at least 4.4 vol% of alcohol.
6. Boil the juice. Do not boil for too long, as you will not want to affect the taste, but only to kill whatever microbes that might be growing in there. There will be some foam forming on top. It can be removed using a small sieve.
7. Pour the juice into the fermentation container while it is still hot. The fermentation container should have a one-way valve on top of it. You can use one of those air locks that have water in them. I find it adequate to have a hole in the lid and a piece of plastic bag taped on it. Seal the sides of the lid carefully. For a long fermentation it may be sensible to use adhesive tape for extra sealing.
8. Let the juice cool down to room temperature overnight or longer, depending on the size of the batch.
9. Buy a wine kit that is intended for a longer fermentation, not one of those 48 h kits. All the further ingredients will be from the kit. The wine kit will also have a sheet of instructions and it will be good to follow them, to the extent that they are compatible with the cider making process.
10. Add 0.5 ml of the dry yeast / 10 L of cider, and 2.5 ml of brewer’s salt / 10 L of cider and mix. The smaller the amount of yeast, the better, as dry yeast has a bad taste. It will be a better idea to grow some yeast beforehand and use a part of that. It will have less of the original bad taste. Brewer’s salt provides nutrients for the yeast, enabling it to grow faster and longer. The yeast will not produce alcohol or carbon dioxide if it is not growing. It is incapable of “wasting energy”. I’m now experimenting if the yeast grows long enough without the salt.
11. Ferment the cider for 4 months at 8 °C. If you have a different temperature, then things might progress faster (warmer) or slower (colder). I use the upper shelf of the refrigerator, and it just so happens to be at that temperature. I’m quite sure a shorter fermentation in a warmer temperature would be OK, but don’t have it above 16 °C.
12. Follow the instructions of the wine kit for the clarification step, but keep the cider refrigerated during the process. You can allow the clarification to continue for a couple of extra days to get a cider free of floating gunk. After clarification, the yeast will be dead and forms a sediment on the bottom of the fermentation container.
13. Have a taste and decide whether you want to add sugar to sweeten the cider or not. If you do sweeten the cider, use a sugar solution instead of crystalline sugar, as it will be hard to dissolve the sugar into cold cider. Measure the specific gravity for your notes.
14. Use a siphon to bottle the cider. Carbonate the cider using  a carbon dioxide tank, a pressure reducer and a bottle cap adapter. You can use a larger bottle first, allow the carbon dioxide to dissolve for an hour or so, and then pour the cider into the final bottles.
15. The cider will be ready for drinking. Enjoy! Storage of a couple of weeks may improve the taste. I keep my cider refrigerated at all times.

When I had my dreadlocks made, I had little idea how to take care of them. I tried different things. By now, I have a routine. I wash the dreadlocks with water every morning and after sports. Once a week, I wash them with hand dish washing liquid, twice at a time, and make sure there will be no residual dish washing liquid in my hair at the end. Additionally, I spend on average maybe 10 minutes a day fixing them using a tool that I devised:

The tool is simply a metal wire loop with a handle. It works like this:

1) Push the loop through a dread near its root, stuff any loose hair that you think "belongs" to that dread into the loop, and pull the loop and the hair through the dread. 2) & 3) If the loose hair sticks out from the other side of the dread, you continue working towards the tip of the dread in a zigzag fashion.

The above cartoon misses a couple of important points: When you push the loop through the dread, make sure it comes out at the same spot as does the loose hair, so that you won’t be leaving funny loops of hair on the surface of the dread. Also, hold on to the end of the bunch of loose hair with fingers, while you are pulling the tool through the dread. It takes a bit of force to pull the hairs from your grasp, resulting in a tighter weave.

Instructions for building the dread tool

Go to your local guitar store and ask for the thickest electric guitar string that they have that is a simple metal wire, not a wound string. You can tell them you will use it as metal wire for non-musical purposes. If you have access to stainless MIG welding wire, that will also do. Normal iron wire is too soft, don’t waste your time with it. Guitar string that I have used were 0.4 mm (26 gauge) and 0.56 mm.

Cut a 20 cm piece of the wire. Fold it like this:

It should look like this when the two ends are held together:

Tie a cotton string to it:

The cotton string will form a handle on the straight parts of the wire ends. Cut off the loose end and wind the cotton string around the straight part of one end of the wire, then continue winding it around the other, so that the two are pulled together.

Hide the protruding wire tips by flattening the small hooks at the tips using pliers. Apply some super glue on the wound part of the cotton string, and wind the cotton string around the whole handle:

Quickly apply another layer of super glue, wrap the string once more around the handle, and squeeze the handle with pliers to flatten it. This will be of help when you use the tool as you will know its orientation by touch alone.

Apply super glue once more on the shaped handle. When the glue is dry, cut off the excess cotton string. Now the tool should look like this:

Apply some contact glue on the handle, and fit a piece of heat-shrink tube on it, making a nice rubber-coated handle:

Now the tool is ready.

2008-08-08

"NED", a fluorescent & phosphorescent patch

This was sold along with tickets for Histoni’s NED parties. The stuff in the tube is a combination of glue and a phosphorescent powder intended for fish lures.

2008-01

A shirt

For the shirt I used a coat as a model for the pieces.

2007-09-19

Fingerpaint on canvas, with Hilla Mattus

2003-12-25

Spooky mansion gingerbread house / Hexenhaus / piparkakkutalo, made together with my brothers

Detail of the gingerbread house