Drifting diary (musings)

Last weekend I took a few days off from the computers and set off to enjoy a few days in the countryside to enjoy the summer and to test a buggy build of Hoodo ;P.

As the point of hoodo is to be able to look at things from a different perspective, I tried to get into a different frame of mind when I hit the start button and put the phone in my pocket. Game on. Forgetting about the game is the name of the game.

I rode along on the Hasturped (the groovy summer moped), heading north for our Juhannus (Finnish midsummer) party. So there was the definite goal for the trip, to go there and come back again, the premise. Normally I would drive up there on a car.

Thinking carefully, the car trip doesn't bring anything new on the table, it's just a repetition of a thing I've done a million times that triggers nothing and there's no time to observe anything and in case you observed something, you already passed it on 120km/h speed and it's too boring to turn back. The moped is great, it's fast enough and it's slow enough for this kind of rural area exploration.

At one point I discovered a riverbank that I could ride. The road took me to an abandoned facility, I noticed the top windows had been smashed in and some kids had piled a shaky stack of these huge cable reels so you could climb up and get in. Brilliant. The stack was very shaky indeed but in I got. Exploration!

I took my time inside the abandoned building. It completely took me away from my premise of going to the party, I got into this exciting breaking and entering mindframe. Well, the place was abandoned for a reason. Anyway, interesting time was had and I took a few pictures too. Moving on, the party happened and we talked about the place I had found, my cousin said you're too cool for such and old geezer. =)

Maybe somebody else could elaborate on many details about the trip and the tripper and so on but I tend to look at things pragmatically. For the purpose of this blog anyways. So the observation was that the discovery and being able to share it was important. My movement and time and so, the stats hoodo client keeps track of, were quite irrelevant to me but are fun to watch later. The premise is everything.

I had an external premise with the party happening. With hoodo, the game will become the premise at one's convenience. The main deduction.

Riding back after 2 nights, I took a different route (hoodo encourages that) and discovered another interesting abandoned place. Won't go into too much detail here but there was a field with many sheep near it. I had to stop and just watch these sheep. It was bizarre, they were all staring at me. It had been many years since I had seen a flock of sheep and now I got my Jeff Minter moment, it was pretty cool. Another memorable moment and a life lesson, sheep stare at people.

detritus inside abandoned building

graffiti probably written by a teenager

the sheep

it's all about the human aspect and sharing

There's a big topic of fusing art and technology to be dealt with at a later point. I'm quite pleased with the range of experiences one can have thru hoodo. You can play it on a very superficial level or dive right down on the deep end and use the game as a tool to confirm or disconfirm surrealist theories.

We've got something special here.

Doubleback kickback!

Last week was crazy again with gazbillion business related things. As a grande finale, we met with Mr Ilkka Immonen, the dude who hangs out with almost everybody in Finnish game business. I had to wake up at 6am, do-this-do-that, drive off to Rovaniemi to meet Mr Ilkka.

I had the most interesting mindspace about going to Rovaniemi. The previous night, I noticed that it has been exactly 20 years since I, as a youngling, threw my crayons and pens on the back seat of an old Volksvagen Golf and drove out from my home town to study a bit of Japanese on a two months course. I remember I left my atari ST behind on purpose so as to not to code or do anything computer related.

The plan worked, after two months I was perfectly capable to get frustrated with my japanese. Then in september, our sensei, Mr Kina, asked if i'd like to come over to his family home in Okinawa for a while. Said yes, fast forward 20 years and i'm still perfectly capable of getting frustrated with my Japanese. I was thinking of the wild ride Japan has been for me (turned my life over a number of times) and got a bit emotional too.. one of those things.

Anyway, our meeting with Ilkka was really great, lots of good information and advice about what to do next and so on. The drive was well worth it. While I was waiting for the man, a reporter from local radio station paged me and said she'd like to do a small feature about Camp Hastur. I said yes! Also Ilkka asked me if I'd agree to be included in an article about startups in Lappland (the northernmost and biggest part of Finland is called Lappland). Another Yes! So Camp Hastur is getting some groovy publicity, fantastic.

At the camp we've had the Kulttuurivoimala group gathering, that one is about building a space for artists and creative enterpreneurs here in Tornio inside an old beer factory. Very guerrilla, very exciting.

Team Voimala! Johanna brought a lovely plant to Camp Hastur =)

KristaMaarit soundcheck city at 3"

After a week of hard pushing with a number of things, it was time to drive down to Oulu, pick up my friends who were playing a live in Raahe that night. Lots of driving, free food, being a roadie/stage tech/sound engineer, going places to drink vodka, waking up early to go and set up the next venue followed. The gigs were really great, 3" kuppila in Raahe was a really nice venue and the reception was awesome again. Our co-op musician Olli plays bass in the band (called KristaMaarit) and the stuff is totally awesome. Go see them live if you're around Oulu or Rovaniemi this summer.

Another fun little thing is that for the opening of the culture power mill (voimala) we're continuing the tradition of HASTUROCK rock festivus. It's vol2 this year and the date is 31.8.2013. Yup, KristaMaarit will be headlining there. So, that's the time to discard any nerdiness and hop on a train to Tornio to feel the noise. There Will Be An Osuuskunta Hastur special afterski lounge! Ping us at our facebook page and tell us you're coming, special arrangements will be made for our guests.

This week, back to filling forms and riding the moped. The finnish midsummer, Juhannus, is closing in and we're trying to find a secluded spot in the forest to go skinny dipping. Finland, Finland, Finland, the country where I like to be. ;P

Have a nice midsummer folks!
Sami
Hastur

Identity is the issue

A timely topic about the thing: Stop to think about your identity.

What things in your identity identify you? Take a quick look at the mirror. Here we go:

The striped, seen many battles coat of many colors. The beard. The 'Never Grow Old' T-shirt. Flared trousers. Topknot.

That's what I see in the mirror. The perceivable interface into the person that's me. Yesterday Rush.com did a wall post of Rush's gig in Helsinki, a group of people with rush T-shirts shot through a fish eye lens. A snapshot of a collective identity of a Rush fan. Hmm.

Recently I've been talking to a LOT of people about what we are doing and what to do next and the funding and so on. One of the questions that was brought up was making Osuuskunta Hastur a limited company entity instead of a co-op. The Man explained to me that this will happen sooner than you might think.

I got a bit argumentative (in a nice way tho) and asked what's wrong with having a co-op?

The Man said that co-op's have a bad reputation when it comes to finding investments. Co-op's are seen as badly managed, volatile little creatures, basically like a group of gossiping ladies who hand craft felt hats, make 60€ revenue per year and go defunct after bitter arguments about where to buy the felt.

But badly managed corporations are equally badly managed, I argued. Only the scale is different.

The Man looked at me and said: hmm.

'Now that you said it, Osuuspankki (big bank in finland), S-group (big retail organization that's a co-op), this and that, there's all these big co-ops out there for sure. Legally speaking the co-op structure is very similar to a limited company and you can play all the same moves. Hmm'.

'Anyway I would recommend preparing to file a few forms to become a limited company', he concluded.

'But I've read that there's no harm in showing a bit of color towards your investors. Separate yourself from the others. Have you own flag of sorts. Our co-op even has it's own song' I argued.

The Man frowned in deep thought. Hmm..

'Definitely there are many players out there that don't distinguish themselves at all. It's all a very transparent looking package designed to lure in investment. How can it hurt you when it looks so good.'

grumble grumble. His mental elevator rises. 'Maybe you should stick to your idea about your company and how to present it. But i'd advise not to be unreasonable about things, in any case the main thing is to get the game done'. Solid advice.

On the way home I thought about the importance of having this co-op. My identity of being the guy who runs this boat with these people and it's little flag with obscenely fluorescent purple 8-bit Hastur character, sailing away on the seas of cheese. I felt I'm doing well. I felt very comfortable about my position on the ship and how this ship relates to the world and what we're doing. It felt very good indeed.

When I meet creative people and tell I'm running a co-op, people in general say 'Sweet! That's awesome, is there something I could do to help you out?'.

Running a 'proper' company provoked a very different response. I know because I did that. People felt that what i'm doing is very exclusive and driven by self interest only. Co-op however, makes people feel that there is some kind of sharing and caring going on. Legally it's the same. But it's about the image.

What kind of people do I need to meet. The ones who shut down when they hear about my limited company and immediately get dreaming about sending me a bill. This guy has a limited company, he must be rolling in dough, How could I get a piece of that.

For the Co-op enterpreneur guy the response is more like: this guy is trying to do something with his friends that are equally cool. Maybe I could join the fun and get something done. How about it.

So I resolved to keep my flag. I'm convinced that we're well managed and that we can produce something great even tho we're a co-op and we have an awkward Finnish name.

Who's with me?


Sami
Hastur

Hastubuzz - the buzzword!

Things have been really Hectic at camp Hastur. We've been setting up our dev environment with web dude Zergius Zirkus, cursing at erica getting massive timeouts from Iriscouch, got familiar with the blissful thing couchbase and getting deeper into geospatial JSON in an attempt to build a primeval back-end to hoodo. And moving the lawn of course.

I personally found that the more I'm getting involved with this project, the less time I actually have to code which is a bit of a bummer. I've been running around talking about the project and securing some cash flow to keep us freewheelers on daily potatoes, internet and refreshments. Importantsy stuff.

A few interesting people came over to Camp Hastur last week, on thursday we had Elina Stoor from Innorooms, we had a long meeting (lots of coffee out of a pot - oldskool Finnish stuff, no crappy machine coffee served here ever!) and discussed Elina's game, our business model and a bigger cultural project here in Tornio that's going to change things in a big way. Reclaim the streets!

Elina from Innorooms. Promised to bring sweetbread for the next meeting =)

Elina left and it was time to head for the mall to buy some plan B materials (Sergiusz erlang installation was borked and he couldn't push his couchApp, time for a plan B) and we bumped into a guy on a Jinbei, a japanese summer costume. This guy and his students were working on a sand sculpture, long story short, he came to visit us the next day.

As did another friend from the theater world. Turned out that the jinbei man, Janne, was a set designer and the theater friend needed to commission somebody to build a set for a small play. Winning synergy happened. Janne also told he's an avid LARP person (live action roleplaying) and we had the most interesting talk about the larp-elements of hood-o. So it's like the dude's rug, it ties the room together.

Sculptor Janne Aldberg!

A proper meal! Probably the first time somebody ever cooked anything that didn't say Saarioinen in it at camp Hastur. It was awesome!

Both Elina and Janne absolutely loved our space at the camp. I absolutely loved the flow of energy of these people brought in. We've been getting stuff done on many levels and keeping the doors open, it's been great!

This week is going to be busy with lots of admin stuff for me and more geocouch study for Zergius, there's a new build of hoodo to test courtesy of Lukasz and heaps of ideas to process and people to meet. Plus we're getting a few guests on Camp Hastur, it's going to be one whirlwind of a summer =)

If you happen to be around Tornio, contact us thru our Facebook Page and inform when you might be coming over. Join the creative buzz people. There's a ton of things to do together, a ton of things to get inspired at Camp Hastur!

That's it for now =)
Sami
Hastur

First week at Camp Hastur!

Some light entertainment here. It's been a week since I flew back to Finland and set up camp Hastur for everybody to get together to code, bounce off ideas or just relax in the evening.
Here's a few pictures from our camp with people who came in during the first week (there was more but I've yet to get everybody's permission =)

The cool camp Hastur 2013 signboard

Zergius the web dude with the Moomin coffee mug!

Guest from Japan, RF engineer extraordinaire, Mr Daido. Yes, there is a sauna at the house and we're using it!

The external screen experiment. Why this lady is holding her tummy is anybody's guess

Therapeutic after-work art session. It's not a cake, it's a beacon

And many more to follow. We're getting a slew of international professionals to visit our camp this summer, lot's of fun. Want to pop by? Page us on Our Facebook Page and like us too!
Back to geoCouch now. =)

Cheers,
Sami
Hastur