Sulka's Game

Blog

  • Dragonflies take flight in Finland

    Sympecma paedisca, originally uploaded by sulka.

    The year’s first dragonfly sightings were done yesterday. This is quite exceptional – we beat the old record for the fist sighting by nearly a month. That is to say, we can really feel the global warming in Finland right now.

    The species is Siberian Winter damselfly (or Sympecma paedisca) which is quite exceptional as a dragonfly species in that it hibernates over the winter as an adult. The other species are sitting down in frozen ponds as larvae. The early flight is the result of this way of hibernation, the adults take flight immediately when the temperatures reach 12-13 degrees celsius. Other dragons have to wait until the water temperatures go up which takes considerably longer.

  • Apple TV hacked

    Seems that some people have found how to add value to Apple TV. I’ll become interested in the device when I can record and play TV with it with less hassle than I have with the crap Handan digital TV received I have now and it just looks like this might become reality. I guess this is again a lesson about the collective intelligence of the Internet – if you put modifiable hardware or software out there, there’ll be a lot of hacks, quickly. (via /.)

  • Scariest building ever

    Check this building out. Some mad scientist has created a plan for a new Singaporean apartment block. I’m sure the view must be nice but I’m not sure if I could ever enter the building due to a slight fear of heights. I have no issues most of the time but being in there would be a major OMFG-I’m-standing-on-nothing style experience. Kudos for making the world look more sci-fi though.

    Wonder who’ll actually purchase a flat there. link (via Boing Boing)

  • User Community and ROI

    A truly excellent write-up about why to engage users. I tried to inject some of this in my GDC speech but didn’t do nearly as good a job as Kathy does in this post.

    (via Raph)

  • My most popular shot in Flickr

    Disneyland Paris castle, originally uploaded by sulka.

    Someone just commented on this shot again so felt like blogging the photo. I’m feeling pretty mixed about this shot being the most popular one I’ve posted to Flickr. On the other hand, I can understand why certain people like it but then I’d rather see one of my nature shots being favorited by a bunch of people.

    FYI, it’s the Disneyland Paris castle. Wonder if Disney would like to purchase the shot. :D

  • PS3 in Finland: $930 US

    PS3 is coming out this Friday so there’s probably going to be discussion about how it’s selling in Europe. To add more insanity to the Playstation 3 pricing discussion, here’s a funny detail: PS 3’s 60GB version will cost

  • Excel: The MMO

    I guess I should be happy to work in Helsinki. I mean, if there’s enough of sad, clueless pitches for new MMOs in the US games industry that someone actually finds time to create a (funny) parody like this video, I must have been spared of a lot of crap. Enjoy. :)

  • YouTube Video Awards 2006

    You still have a couple days to vote in the YouTube Video Awards 2006. It’s going to be interesting to see what content rises to the top and especially interesting to see how the media publicizes the winners.

  • MapleStory doing well in US

    Nabeel Hyatt blogged about microstransactions doing well in the US. In particular, it seems MapleStory is doing particularly well in the States, probably due to the Viacom deal they’ve made. Interesting stuff.

  • P2P killing piracy?

    There’s a story up on TorrentFreak about P2P killing the classic piracy industry. Sounds logical to me. If this is indeed true, I wonder what the actual monetary change in piracy has been, when “classic” forms of piracy are counted out. Let the speculation begin!

    Tony is very clear about why his rags to riches story has gone back to rags again. ‘File-sharing, P2P – call it what you like. When you asked a customer why he wasn’t buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was BitTorrent this, LimeWire that …’ P2P is a very powerful machine and although Tony could see that his operation was feeling its effects, he admits that he sat back and did nothing about it and consequently, his business has paid the ultimate price. Other industries affected by P2P should take note: Don’t be a Tony. Overhaul your business model. Quickly.

    (Via Boing Boing)