So called great comet

Comet McNaught over Montevideo Bay. Photo by femuruy.

I had no idea that the brightest comet in 30 years was sweeping across the sky, before it already was beyond the horizons of the northern hemisphere. Luckily, fellow gazers in the south keep on
posting amazing photos to Flickr.

A comet discovered in August 2006 by Robert H. McNaught became the “Great Comet of 2007″ a bit of a sudden. Comets this spectacular are tricky snowballs on extreme orbits (McNaught is not expected to return for thousands of years), so every visit is unique on human timescale – and almost every visit unprecedented in recorded history.

The legendary Halley’s Comet is the best known exception. With an orbital period of 75 years, it is the only comet “guaranteed” to appear within a lifetime. Since its first predicted fly-by in 1758, it has become a “cultural event that links generations”.

Mark Twain had special connection to Halley’s Comet, his lifetime took place exactly between two appearances of the comet:

I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.”

The last visit took place in the winter of 1985/86. Freezing on a hilltop the eight-year old me managed to crosshair the “cultural event” into the binocular’s field of view for about three point fourteen seconds. That visit of a lifetime coincided with the birth of my kid brother and the death of a grandfather. Later in the spring, Chernobyl exploded.

Unlike many other celestial events – a passage of a comet couldn’t be predicted by the wise of ancient cultures. Or even today’s – McNaught was discovered only five months before it went spectacular. Either this, or their eternity grazing quality has made them prime harbingers of doom. Numerous disasters have been attributed to the comets.

Even Halley’s arrival in 1910 caused panic, why? Astronomers had earlier found cyanide in another comet’s tail. As Earth was expected to pass through Halley’s poisonous tail, we all were to die. Comet Pills sold like candyfloss. Of course nothing happened – except Mark Twain died.

The first great comet of the age of www arrived in 1997. Again, it was chilly, but the sky was dark and clear. I walked down to the ice of the lake Kuortane and laid down on my back. No fear of accidentally falling asleep, because overhead loomed the spectacular Comet Hale-Bopp. Its separate dust and gas tail were clearly visible and the sky so transparent, that one could easily unlearn gravity and just fall into the stars.

Meanwhile, the cult of Heaven’s Gate had their own plans for the comet. For them Hale-Bopp was a camouflaged spaceship and its passage a solitary opportunity to reach afterlife. After 25 years of workings – they brought it all to a terrifying end, as 39 members of the cult committed a methodical mass suicide. The event shocked media internationally, President Clinton reacted on it and speculation spread in the internet. The cult had itself had used the web to recruit people and its members had built websites professionally to fund their cause.

It’s only been ten years since those events. Promisingly, so far it seems that McNaught has been received, as it is, the greatest comet for decades – nothing more, nothing less.

The funniest joke in the world

Yes, it’s Monty Python! And don’t forget International Philosophy: Germany vs Greece

“Yes, they have to move the town a little bit”

Strange Harvest reports on extraordinary proceedings in the Arctic mining town of Kiruna:

“We have to cut it into six pieces. And then we find somewhere to put it for another 100 years,” said Karl Wikstrom, a spokesman for the state-owned LKAB iron ore company, in a manner that suggested City Hall dissection was an everyday matter.

Kiruna was established hundred years ago atop a rich iron ore deposit, which developed into the world’s largest underground mine. As illustrated above, the town is now in danger of sliding into the cracks created by the very reason for its own existence.

The decision to move parts of the town was made in 2004 and recently the plan how to do it was introduced. In the next 30 years, about 1000 apartments need to be lifted on special trailers and carried onto new grounds.

From the start on, Kiruna was planned with the ideals of a “model community” in the mind. Social planning and architecture were trusted to the foremost experts. One of their innovations was “climate adapted town plan”. That means building along the contours the terrain in order to hinder cold winds. I’ve not been there yet, but reports from the field indicate that it’s not a pretty sight. Nevertheless, because of cultural value, hauling a couple of houses over isn’t a trivial matter.

Wilhelmson Arkitekter were trusted with the relocation plan. They will present the project New Kiruna at the Swedish Museum of Architecture next month. If someone happens to be in Stockholm on 13th February, of course.

Update 29/01/07:

Virgin Galactic and Spaceport Sweden have started a joint venture in Kiruna. It’s a part of Richard Branson’s effort to open space for tourism. Sub-orbital flights are planned at the moment, with the unique opportunity to fly through the northern lights. — Via ursa.fi

About doing one’s thing

During Christmas holidays a couple of dear friends encouraged me to start writing a book. At least to start with something, small… put down thoughts, consistently. Coincidentally, I had just got started with gardening this blog. I don’t know if it counts, because I’m not writing here in my native tongue.

However, languages shouldn’t be a problem, “The world is full of means of translation and delivery. One needs first to have something weighty enough to say,” I was told. Surely the world has not become complete.

Consider ‘translation’, in the wide meaning of the word here. Where does the ‘weightiness’ come from? As many of us in creative branch factually work in the universe of ‘translation’ business on constant growth – finding that sweet gravity well of weighty weightiness might become an odyssey.

Now, at this point a Prozac regimen was also suggested, but let’s try another solution first – call in the business coach!

I’ve noticed an e-learning company I used to work for in 2001 – now called Tieturi Vision – has recently collaborated with ice hockey trainer and match pundit, coach and executive Juhani Tamminen a.k.a. ‘Le Roi Soleil’. I remember him once saying, “Success always calls for discipline”.

As I dug a bit deeper into the website I found a slide in 10 Steps to Become a Winner, that I felt elaborated on that stray one-liner:

Confidence is a matter of consistently doing three things:

• be reliable

• commit to excellence

• take care of others

Then, there’s a lot of stuff about winning, becoming a winner, winning principles, the culture of winning and so on. I’m not interested in that, but that’s not to say my relationship to competitiveness weren’t complicated.

Pulled out of context Tami’s three bullets don’t sound too bad at all: be reliable, commit to excellence, take care of others. Simple and beyond most of the ‘leading the right kind of life’ chatter. But let’s not blow this out of proportion…

In the beginning, I was talking about writing a book. How the matter is to find something reasonably weighty to say. Then, about the (seeming!) ease of translation versus creating the original. This all this might apply, yet I’m not writing a book here. Instead, I’m gardening a blog.

Based on principles originating from ice hockey rink.

Omega Massif

One indie record I’m looking forward this year comes from W

Perpetual design

It’s not uncommon to pay attention to sustainability and sustainable design these days. Fair enough, but what could then be perpetual design? Does such a concept exist or did the movement reach its pinnacle already when Pyramids of Giza were erected?

I ran across an advertisement from IWC, Swiss clocksmiths. The Portuguese Perpetual Calendar is an all mechanical watch with its dials programmed until year 2499. Part of the array is a moon phase display that deviates one day in 577 years. It’s all very impressive – just take a look at their demonstration video (Quicktime, 22 MB).

What I don’t get is, how does the use of crocodile leather in the wristband get along with the idea of half-millennial watch. Unless there’s no idea beyond showing off, which would be a pity. Then again, what were the pyramids for?

Recently scientists figured out the workings of the
Antikythera Mechanism, a 2000-year-old Greek analogue celestial computer – dragged from the Mediterranean in 1900.
If an owner of IWC watch threw it into floodtide after its calendar had run out in 2499, how much could the archaeologists of 4499 recover and make out from its remains? Probably more than from his iPod’s.

Picture from www.iwc.ch

Eight books to start the year with

Some books, that lay on my bedside table at various states of advance.

Paavo Arhinm

Helsinki Central Railway Station

If you look for a cigar lounge in Helsinki, you very likely need to go to the Central railway station. Actually it’s not so unheard of, Bertolt Brecht went there too. In 1940-41 he fled Nazis to Finland. Before moving on to the countryside, he used to spend time at the station and leisurely ponder on.
His novel “Conversations in Exile” (d. Fl