petrituononen.com

I have been working with pkg-config support for Eclipse CDT as a plug-in during the summer. This work is part of the Google Summer of Code 2011. The plug-in provides automation of compiler and linker flag configuration for projects using pkg-config such as GTK+ and gtkmm.

The project will soon be finished. Beta version is available through Eclipse marketplace for free. Documentation for end-users and developers is already made available.

Project development website:
http://code.google.com/p/pkg-config-support-for-eclipse-cdt/

Documentation:
http://pkg-config-support-for-eclipse-cdt.googlecode.com/files/Pkg-confi...

LLVM (Low-Level Virtual Machine) back-end in co-operation with LLVM 'native' Clang front-end can compile e.g. C and C++ code faster in most cases than old and somewhat stagnant GCC compiler. Especially time needed for parsing, type checking, semantic analysis and building AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) seem to be reduced drastically. In addition lower memory use is achieved and generated executable code runs faster and is smaller in size. Therefore we can conclude that LLVM speeds up both developers and end-users work.

LLVM infrastructure is highly modular. The benefits are that e.g. linker, optimizer, code generator, assembler and archiver are separate tools in the toolchain. This makes implementing further improvements to them easier. LLVM's modular design also features compile-time and link-time optimization.

Due to modular architecture LLVM infrastructure also consists of LLVM-GCC front-end which features GCC (GNU Compiler Collection) front-end but uses LLVM optimizer and code generator. Both Clang and LLVM-GCC front-ends generate object files that are compatible with object files compiled with GCC. The added benefit of LLVM-GCC is that it supports more programming languages than Clang but the disadvantage is that it is not quite as fast as Clang. Clang has also many impressive features such as expressive diagnostics.

The LLVM's highly modular code library is easier to understand and maintain than GCC's. This allows creation of new compilers e.g. to support other languages. One of the reasons for the simpler codebase is that LLVM is still rather new compiler architecture compared to GCC which codebase has become very large during the years and continuously more complex. The LLVM codebase is also well documented.

The reusable codebase has allowed creation of many interesting projects. One of these is Clang static code analyzer build on top of LLVM and Clang. It analyzes source code in order to find bugs. The tight IDE integration allows visual means to display suggestions how to improve code. Another great project is LLDB which is a new debugger which is faster than GDB.

LLVM is likely to have a bright future because it is modern, efficient and has an easily hackable and reusable codebase. The many benefits of its will lure more and more developers and companies to use it. Applications that already benefit from LLVM are e.g. separate implementations of OpenGL and OpenCL which performance is improved using LLVM's JIT (Just-In-Time compiler).

Lately I have shown some interest towards creating music. I have always liked the idea but it is hard to find enough time, because creating music is quite a time consuming process.

I have tested multiple music making programs and noticed that they all have pros and cons. There are programs more aligned towards 'professionals' like Fruityloops with huge amount of features. Just learning this program can take a lot of time. After the learning period there's not much that can disrupt creative music producer. I also tested Magix music maker 17 and found that immediately easy to use and was able to make a demo track in 1-2 hours. However it lacks some of the advanced features of Fruityloops and doesn't contain as many plug-ins and instruments. For some reason the program was pretty unstable and crashed constantly which was very annoying to say the least.

I try to make music in different music genres. The most common genres at the moment for me however are dubstep, drum and bass; and melody trance.

Here's some samples of my latest creations:

Space Invaders by tuonp

Alien Invasion by tuonp

The Beauty of Nature by tuonp

Chill Invasion by tuonp

Party in a desert island by tuonp

Dubstep demo 01 by tuonp

Smash that guitar by tuonp

I spend the best part of the winter 2011 writing my thesis in computer engineering field. The actual project took considerably more time than typing. Here's a short introduction to my thesis. I also though that this topic is important enough to have it's own page and link on the upper-right side corner.

Abstract:

The mission of the thesis was to develop LLVM toolchain support as a plug-in for Eclipse CDT. There are multiple reasons why such a plug-in was worth to make. First, it is proven that LLVM with Clang front-end can compile C/C++ and Objective C program code faster than GCC. Secondly, currently LLVM tools are mostly run on command prompt and the commands tend to need option flags. The newly created plug-in integrates the LLVM toolchain tools with readily configured default option flags. The plug-in allows users to create C/C++ projects in Eclipse which use LLVM toolchain with Clang or LLVM-GCC compiler, among others. Building a project becomes a one click operation via graphical user interface.

The main point of the plug-in is the pure easiness of building C/C++ projects with one of the industry’s most efficient C/C++ compiler. Eclipse was chosen as IDE, because it is one of the most popular open-source IDEs available. Eclipse provides a full-blown software development environment for even the most conscious developers and now it is available in LLVM based development. Although the LLVM tools are pre-configured by default, they can be configured easily in Eclipse.

Using LLVM from Eclipse is efficient and user-friendly which saves valuable time and thus money. The LLVM toolchain and Eclipse IDE complement each other by creating a coherent C/C++ development environment with advanced and modern features. The environment is fully open-source and operating system independent.

Another research topic was to find out how to contribute to Eclipse Foundation.

To download and read my thesis see the attachment.

Getting to study at Sungkyunkwan University was one thing, getting a year long Korean Visa the second thing and registering to courses the third major thing. They mentioned in advance from the SKKU International Office that probably some courses are full of Korean students before I get chance to register online and it was true with every interesting course. Also some courses taught in English were not even choosable via Internet and I found out that they were post-graduate courses. Moreover I originally listed some interesting courses amongst those taught in English and four of them appeared to be post-graduate courses. However they allow exchange students to take post-graduate courses if they manage to get professor's approval.

Yesterday I was quite happy to get a professor's approval for the first course I had time to attend which was Microcontrollers which is a part of my Major which is Computer Engineering. Today I were even happier that I got approvals for two post-graduate courses which are System-on-chip Architectures and Embedded Software. It wasn't too hard to get approval from the professor with a good explanation, although the major concern on SoC Architectures course seem to be that the professor said he will only speak Korean. There was still hope though, because I asked if the course material was in English and it sure was and he was kind enough to let me attend. Later on another exchange student arrived and the professor promised that he might be able to use half English half Korean starting from the next lecture which was great news. The course itself and all the materials were very professional and interesting. The second course was right after the first course lasting three hours which is quite a long time for a processor architecture course. Embedded Software course was even spoken in English from early on, but now the professor was concerned about the difficulty and effort this post-graduate level course includes. He mentioned that the course contains many difficult embedded software related programming assignments. Got an explanation for him also that I specialize on embedded software and I have quite a lot of programming experience so I was again able to get him to approve me to the course. Sure the both professors made sure that if I'm going to take the courses I should better pass them. Well these are both great courses with motivating challange at last what I have been waiting for. The last battle will be held next Monday with two other post-graduate courses.

Sure with six courses with four of them being post-graduate courses a tough studying might be ahead. Even the real post-graduate student are not allowed to take more than three courses and I have double of that. We also have a midterm exam and it's not much more than a month to it so better start studying hard right from the start.

There was quite a many things I had to do during the first week of my stay in South Korea. The first thing was common orientation and gaining general knowledge how everything works here. Getting a student ID card is a necessity to access library and to identify you as a SKKU student in general. That was handed in the Seoul campus International Office as well as a form for Alien Registration Card that has to be submitted withing 90 days of arrival. In reality the Alien Registration Form had to be handed to IO in a couple of days notice to avoid going to the Immigration Office by yourself and wait around 5-7 hours. It's handy to have some prints of the passport, because you can get it back after around two weeks when you receive your Alien Registration Card.

One of the major difficulties was to pay the dormitory rent. They only gave a sheet written in Korean with a Korean bank account number and the amount you need to pay in two days. I doubt that anybody achieved to pay the rent in time. However they gave us more time, because International transfers take around 3 days and without a SWIFT code or sufficient bank details it's not possible to use Internet bank for transferring the money. Tried to ask from the Management Office multiple times but they just didn't give the necessary information. This leaves two viable options and the first is to have enough local currency or to transfer foreign currency to local cash and the second and usually only option is to open a Korean bank account. I also noticed that Korea seems not to be part of the IBAN system so perhaps the payment could have been done if someone could have translated the bank details in English. I doubt if somebody carried over thousand euros or 1.7 million Korean Won with them, because you need to pay four month rent in advance. Anyway it's more economical to transfer Euros in Korea than in advance in Finland. Well there's also another option to widthraw money using foreign bank cards, but it's highly unlikely that all ATM's will accept them and there's a limit how much you can widthraw at a time therefore not a best solution. For getting a bank account in Korea you must have a phone number and a passport. I'm not really sure about all phases in opening a bank account, because a Korean translator buddy was quite literally needed, because all forms that were handed to me were written in Korean. The bank's policy was that only a passport is accepted as an ID and photocopy wasn't enough, therefore I had to get it back from the International Office, because I had already submitted it to get an Alien Registration Card. Luckily it was still there and the distance between the places wasn't long. However I had to give my passport back to IO and before I can transfer money from my own Korean account to another Korean account I need to show my passport. And here it gets even more complicated as ever. I don't know when I can get my passport back and when I do get it I have to get it from the Immigration Office which might take many hours, because of the long queues I have been told. Moreover the rent should have been paid this week and that was already an extended time as they first gave just three days. It is to be seen if I'm able to pay my rent next week. At least I can now transfer money to it from a Finnish account.

Getting a phone is a different matter. Only prepaid phones can be sold without yet having a Alien Registration Card and even after having it you have to get at least a year long contract and most exchange students stay only for four months. I'm staying for 11 months, but as the Korean SIM card didn't seem to work in my current phone I was better off with a prepaid phone as I could get it right a way and it was quite cheap and they can't charge more than I have paid in advance so it's rather safe. Korean buddy was again very helpful, because the phone shop salesman didn't seem to speak English at all. The address had to be written in Korean as well. After choosing the phone the process was pretty straightforward and I had a fully working phone on my hands in 15 minutes. I could even choose the four last numbers on the phone number by myself and the first three seem to always start with 010. So at least it's very easy to remember the phone number. Getting a phone was pretty much a necessity in order to call Korean friends or other exchange students. It's also needed in opening a bank account.

The rent in the most modern Suwon campus dormitory isn't really that expensive. It's under 300 euros, but includes water, electricity, Internet, two meals per day etc. In Britain when I lived in a privately rented house I also had to pay for gas, sewer, recycling etc. It's way much better to know how much the actual rent will cost you per month. The accommodation level is much better in Suwon compared to Seoul while costing less. Also the campus is bigger in size and has better facilities to take advantage of.

Restaurants are quite cheap in Suwon. The meals cost around 3 euros. However in Seoul they can be twice as that I have noticed. Of course it also depends on how fancy restaurant meal you are after for.

Getting to Seoul can be achieved either by metro or by bus. Both uses T-money electronic payment card. It's rather cheap to visit Seoul once in a while costing some euros and taking around 1 to 2 hours depending on which part of the Seoul you want to visit.

First thing when I got into my room was of course to unpack my suitcase and place every item in a suitable place. You would guess that getting the Internet connection to work is quite a straigthforward task. Wrong big time! I was clever enough to take a Cat-5 RJ45 cable with me, but after connecting it between the RJ45 port on the wall and laptop, nothing seemed to happen. Stange enough there was also a weird phone on the table. It had also PC LAN ports and was connected to power outlet. I knew I was meant to insert the ID and password written on the sheet of paper on the wall. However the written instructions in Korean didn't help at all. It came to my mind that the Internet connection must be related to that phone somehow but none of the buttons nor text on the display was in English. At this point I was quite clueless what to do nexy and just tried to press some buttons on the phone and see if I can make any sense of it but it was clear to mr that there was no point even trying. Dormitory Office is quite useless when it comes to get any information, because they don't really seem to be able to communicate in English. There were not many people except some exchange students that already lived in the dormitory, but at least my floor accommodates quite a many exhange students. Well I walked down the corridor to find someone I could ask for help. I found a one Korean guy from the public area and he was kind enough to come to help. He could say that I need another RJ45 cable to connect the phone to the wall. At this point I had to get someone to show me where to buy another cable. Strangely the phone had to be connected from phone's PC LAN port to T1 port found totally opposite side of the room from where the desks where located and the phone originally situated. For me it made not much sense to place the phone on the floor in front of the cabinet. Finally got a connection and opened a web browser that welcomed me with a Korean page. Alright now I wrote my ID and password and was again greeted with a page written in Korean with three options. Luckily had a Korean guy to translate those options to choose the right one on the bottom. Voilà! From now on the connection was working perfectly and was pretty fast. Oh hold a minute! In fact the Internet was down for the whole floor (probably whole dormitory) for a Saturday and neighbours got an English deficient guy to look at the problem. He said it would work not until Monday but was surprised to find it working on the late evening. It's quite obvious that after the regular SKKU Korean students arrived on Sunday the Internet speed reduced somewhat.

My flight plan was from Helsinki to Beijing and from there to Seoul Incheon International Airport. The total travelling time was quite long, because it also included a bus ride from Turku to Finland and from Incheon Airport to Suwon. Luckily there was only a two hour wait between the flights.

After I arrived to Incheon Airport I didn't have to worry how to get to Suwon where my Sungkyunkwan University Natural Sciences Campus is located. I had applied for a HI-club (Help and Information) pick-up service beforehand, where the voluntary HI-club 'buddy' assigned to me by the SKKU International Office was waiting for me. Incheon is quite a busy Asian airport but I had absolutely no problem to find my buddy, because there she was holding a sign with SKKU initials and my name.

When we arrived to the Suwon campus she walked me to the modern Shin-Gwan dormitory and after some signatures at the Management Office I had keys on my hand. All the rooms at the dormitory are shared by two persons.

I have spent this summer mainly working in an information technology field programming certain applications. I have also fixed some Eclipse IDE bugs and created some new features. Alongside my work it's also becoming like a hobby of mine to contribute to the open source community.

However the latest news are that I will be studying Computer Engineering next year at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea. Surely good times are waiting for me. My mission is to accomplish my degree and will probably spend my summer there.

I will continue writing these blog entries from my adventures in Seoul (and beoynd) although probably not as much as in England.

I found out that it's possible to drive some of the best supercars in multiple track circuits in the UK. There was one track near Windsor so not far away from Portsmouth. I chose to drive Lamborghini Murcielago LP640 and Ferrari 599 GTB. They were the most powerful cars to choose from and that's exactly what I was looking for from this experience. The Lamborghini has 6.5L V12 engine with 633hp and Ferrari has 6.0L V12 engine with 612hp. So they both have utterly amazing performance. They both share similar performance figures but it's easier to shift gears fast with Ferrari's semi-automatic 'flappy pedal' gearbox when you get familiar with them. I have to say I enjoyed the Murcielago more because of the engine sound coming from the back, more extreme general feeling and four-wheel drive. Ferrari wasn't bad at all being extremely fast, but I'd have enjoyed F430 cabriolet a bit more I guess. Although massive V12 engines are good to be experienced now, because soon they are replaced with V8 double turbo engines or similar. Corners on the track were very tight and they even had 40 mile speed limit on those corners. However they had quite a long straight, but they had put some cones that reduce out of the corner speed. It was still possible to reach around 130-140 mph (210-220kmh) with those blazing fast cars if kept pedal to metal from as early as possible and as long as possible. It felt that acceleration was quite linear and cars would have been happy to keep accelerating over 130mph. After all Lamborghini has six gears (+reverse) and I used only four of them. In my opinion these cars have to be driven on a track to be fully enjoyed. They are way too fast for public roads but after all they're meant to be raced on a track.

I went to see Pendulum which is drum and bass and rock genre band. They're getting quite popular and I especially like their second album In Silico. As they came to play in the nearby city I had to get involved. Pendulum is pretty energetic on stage and so was the crowd of Southampton University students.

King's Nationals is ski and snowboard slalom National competition in a dryslope. It was held in Brentwood which is just North-East from London. Competition started as early as 9am and that meant an early start for as Portsmouth racers, because we had to leave Pompey 5am to get there in time. In our Uni only snowboard team qualified to the Nationals and that meant only four of us were competing including me. Still we had about 20-30 spectators to have fun from our Uni's ski&board club. It was sunny and hot day so weather wasn't that bad either. Our board team is pretty good and has all chances to even win if everything goes right. But it didn't. Well from four qualification runs we won two so we also lost two. Well mistakes happen. Still we had a chance to compete from the final race position later on and it looked promising but unluckily on of our riders fell but that happens and could have happened to the other team as well. Snowboarders don't take these racers too seriously though and we'd definitely as much fun as the winner team if not more. There were also an individual slalom on a much more difficult slope. I had the best time from our team but still there were some faster from other Universities. After the competition the team drove their minibus to London were they went to party nevertheless the results. I had to take a couch back to Portsmouth though, because of my schedule.

Bungee jumps are something that people are thinking of experiencing in some time of their life. Maybe they try to overcome their fear or just do something extreme. Some can enjoy it some don't. My reason to do it was pure curiosity what it would feel like and partly test myself. After all I had done a freefall skydive earlier from 12000 feet so I thought that 300 feet (~90m) 'Biggest Bungee jump in the UK' can't be that bad. But the truth is that you are lifted to 300 feet and during that you'll see quite clear how high it is. From the plane you can only see the clouds and you just jump without thinking too much. Although it's very windy when jumping out of the plane. From the bungee cage I could see the ground and landscape very clearly as it was a very sunny day. If you have ever jump to the water from 30 feet (10m) and thought that's high you can only imagine how it feels to look down from 300 feet (~90m). The performance itself isn't that difficult. Just nice and steady jump. But that's theory. It very easy to get locked up feet when you're supposed to jump. Forcing yourself to jump and overpower the instinct to protect yourself is by far the most hardest thing during a Bungee jump. The four second freefall itself doesn't feel too terrifying so to speak but gives a nice adrenalin rush while my eyes were wide open. The Bungee rope bounce is quite unexpected though and you get a weightless feeling for a moment. Must be one of the best Bungee experiences in the UK in the beautiful Windsor landscape.

I went to Rome to spend the latter week of my Easter break. I have always wanted to go to Rome. In my opinion it is the city to visit in Europe. It's full of ancient history, has great food, warm climate and that relaxed and fun Italian atmosphere. My visit ended up being even better than I could have expected. Partly because my hostel roommates were quite awesome. Could not have hoped any better roommates. I was lucky enough to have two Italian, 6 German, 4 American, 2 Australian and 6 Irish roommates. As can be seen from the numbers there was quite a lot of change during a week. Nevertheless, good times.

I like to walk and took only two metro journeys during a week. Public transportation is quite cheap in Rome. Only one Euro per 75 minutes and you can travel with metro and bus. On average I spend 12 hours outdoor per day and I estimate I must have walked around 30 km per day which makes a grand total of almost 200 km.

I'm pretty sure I saw most of the popular sightseeing spots in Rome. I saw at least 70 places marked on the map and much other that weren't included on my map. The fact is that whole Rome is a one big sightseeing area. Most of the residential buildings in Rome are also pretty old. There's so much to see in Rome that week goes quickly.

I would like to share some advices that came into my mind.

Eating

Pizza is best eaten in a proper pizzeria restaurant if you're not in a hurry. Those other places can sell factory made frozen pizzas or the pizzas are priced by weight which actually makes the pizzas more expensive than restaurant prices. Average pizza price is 8-9 Euros. It's obvious that pizzerias in Piazza Navona can cost even 14 Euros.

Proper late night restaurants and pizzerias are situated e.g. around Piazza Navona surroundings and central Rome e.g. near Pantheon. They are extremely busy though so better to reserve some time for it but that's how Italians spend their evenings. The dinner time in Italy seems to be around 9pm-12pm so if you'd like to avoid the rush time I would suggest to eat around 7pm or 8pm.

Quality of pizzas I encountered were very good. Some of the best pizzas I have ever eaten. Quality can vary though.

Places to see

It maybe worth to buy the Roma Pass or other kind of multiple entrance pass. Roma Pass costs 25 Euros, but you get free use of the public transport, discounted ticket prices, map etc. Although I didn't buy the Roma Pass and still I paid less than 25 Euros for Colosseum, Roman Forum, Palatino, Castel Sant'Angelo entrances and public transport. It's pretty close though so if you're planning to use metro or bus every day and visit some museums then it's probably worth it. Colosseum is likely a must visit for most tourists and right next to it are Palatino and Forum Romano and you can get multiple pass for all of those. With multiple pass you don't have to wait an hour to get tickets to another place. So better to buy a ticket that entitles you to all of these.

Castel Sant'Angelo is worth to visit. There's not much to see, because it's not that big castle. However the castle has an elliptical shape and you can walk round the castle. There's observation spots everywhere and you can go even to the terrace. You can get quite a good view from the top.

Vatican is probably one of the busiest tourist areas so better to get there as early as possible. The queue lines are massive but at least they moved quite fast. To get inside the St. Peter's Basilica you must go through a security control. Very similar than the airport security check.

Other great places to see are Monumento a Vittorio Emanuele II, Fontana di Trevi and Trinità dei Monti. Fontana di Trevi is probably the most spectacular fountain in Rome, because it's the largest. Trinità dei Monti is good, because you can get a very good view when you walk up the Spanish Steps.

From the surroundings of Faro al Gianicolo (lighthouse) and Monumento a Garibaldi you can see almost the whole central Rome, because the area is on a hill.

Hostel to stay in

I stayed a week in the Mosaic hostel near Termini train station and it was a very nice hostel being so cheap. However they didn't have a microwave oven and they had a TV but TV cable wasn't even connected and they had no plans to get it working. They also had only one power outlet per a room of eight people so you need to take an extension cord with multiple sockets with you. People there were nice but that you can't know beforehand but being nice yourself you have a better chance that people are nice to you. Overall a very nice hostel but fixing those humorously tiny issues could make it even better. The hostel location is very convenient. If you don't want to walk there's a train station nearby. However I didn't mind walking. Central Rome is just 2.5 kilometers away and even distance to the Vatican is under 5 kilometers. At least there's always something to see when walking and discovering new things.

Avoid drinking tap water. I drank a liter on the second last day and had a mild diarrhea the day after. So a fair warning. Bottled water is cheap in Rome when you buy e.g. 6x1.5l bottle pack in bulk.

In my opinion Rome is a place everyone should visit. There's something for everyone was it food, historical, warm climate, taking photographs or just the overall Italian atmosphere. I enjoyed everything in Rome.

Photos

I went to Avoriaz ski resort in France with Portsmouth University's Pompey Snow club on Easter holiday. The nearby 12 towns in France and Switzerland make up one of the largest interconnected ski areas in Europe. The area is called Les Portes du Soleil. The area is located in the border of France and Switzerland so you literally ski from one country to another.

The area was slightly suffering from the lack of snow in March but luckily during our stay we had about 20 cm of fresh snow every day for four days. During that time visibility was quite bad or even close to horrible when combined with heavy wind in Switzerland. Weather conditions changed dramatically fast. Sometimes you couldn't see through the fog but a minute later the fog was gone.

Snow conditions on the slopes very quite good overall. There were a lot of soft snow. At times the slopes were like mogul slopes. First days were very warm and the snow started to melt so the moguls were quite heavy. Luckily the last days were much colder although sunny and even the most mogul style slopes were easy to ride because the snow felt like soft powder. The days were very enjoyable at Avoriaz but like always on the Alps the weather conditions can change suddenly.

All photos are taken during sunny days. Especially the last day was very bright. It is to be said that although the weather looks absolutely perfect, it's because most photos are taken after four days of heavy snowing.

Photos

I went to see the legendary 90's band Suede in the oldest concert hall in London that is the Royal Albert Hall. The first performance in RAH was as early as 1871. It's spectacular looking from inside. It's quite small compared to the massive O2 arena so from every seat there's a good view. My seat was the fourth row very near the stage. The performance was amazing even after seven years from the last Suede performance. It was meant to be one-off show in RAH and that's it. It was definitely one of the best concert performances what I have seen during this year. They really did their best, nothing spared but after all they aren't doing six month tour performing every second day like some artists. It was just a privilege to be there. They over-performed all my expectations. They still rock.

When I found out that one of the most famous and successful Finnish band includes Bournemouth in their UK tour list I had to get a ticket. Bournemouth is just two hours from Portsmouth and tickets were just 20 pounds when in Finland they would probably be close to 40 pounds or more. Also the Brixton Academy in Bournemouth is comparatively small so it was very easy to get a great standing place with a good view. HIM played quite routinely but before this gig they have played dozens of shows all around the UK. The song list included pretty much all the hits from their first album to the just released one. Well they are not short of hits so the show didn't become boring at all. Not my favourite bands really but it's nice to see that Finnish band can perform that well and they have achieved so much.

I have always wanted to see a movie in BFI IMAX Cinema which is the biggest in London with a screen size of 20x26 meters. It fills the wall all over. It's an experience which makes 3D movies a justice. I recommend the upper rows and of course a seat as middle as possible, because the screen is so tall and 3D effects are more visible in the middle. I went to see two movies consecutively and they were Alice in Wonderland and Avatar. They show movies all day and I chose latest shows. Before Alice, they showed mainly Avatar but now they show mainly Alice and two times Avatar a day. Because of my schedule and the fact I wanted to see both movies the same day I chose the latest presentation times. Alice started at 9.00pm and Avatar 23.45pm. Avatar is such a long movie that it ended 3.00am. Both movies were good but Avatar is one of the best movies in recent time. Coaches are such an economical solution to go to London from Portsmouth, because I was lucky enough to get a one pound ticket from Internet sales. However to get back to Portsmouth in the middle of night the only method was to take a train from London Bridge at 4.05am (the oldest railway station in London) and change train in Brighton. Long night but was totally worth it.

I went to see Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band Show concert in Portsmouth's Guildhall. As the name implies it was a Beatles cover show. It was much better than I thought beforehand. The looked like Beatles and sounded like Beatles so not bad at all. They played all tracks from the Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album and after that they played an hour worth of other popular songs. I was lucky enough to get probably one of best seats from the fifth row in the absolute middle. Strangely the row was otherwise empty, although rows in front of me and behind me were packed. Advertising of the event wasn't probably the best of a kind, because the hall was pretty empty over all. The show was quite awesome for the ticket price.

I decided to go to the capital of Wales which is Cardiff. Welsh language was something I couldn't understand at all. It's totally different than English and still I heard a lot of it. However I'm pretty sure most of them speak English too. Everything interesting is near Central Rail Station. The main attraction must be the Cardiff Castle so I went there. It's not as big as Windsor Castle and that's easy to notice at first sight. The best part of it was that you could go to the top of the Keep and that's the highest place of the Castle. Landscape in every direction was clearly visible. Other than that the Central Cardiff has lots of restaurants and stores.

Photos

I participated in British Universities Indoor Ski Championships on 24th February. I competed in individual slalom and team dual slalom. The event was held in Milton Keynes Snow Dome. It was quite a long trip as we were there 12 hours and spend another 6 hours in minibus. I could snowboard there quite a lot during the day before, between and after my competition rides. It was all fun although luck wasn't really on our side in the competition. Our team dual slalom ended up shortly, because our team of four just wasn't fast enough and our opponent reached the finish line couple of meters before. Even so I was quite happy with my ride as I didn't make any mistakes and speed was pretty fast. However my individual slalom wasn't even near as good as my team ride, because my toe edge slipped once and lost a good amount of speed. I could always blame the rent board I got which was too flexible and couldn't get bindings even near as tight as I would have liked. My aim was to be as fast as possible and not try to make a safe run so possibility of mistakes become far greater. Oh well, better luck in British Dryslope Championships in the 1st of May. Dryslope slalom is far more riskier, because of the metal tube honeycomb and people make more mistakes, because it's more difficult to turn and feels totally different compared to snow.

I went to visit London again on 4th-7th February. The main reason to go there was to see Rammstein at Wembley Arena. I had finished my exams so I had the remaining of the week free. The Rammstein gig was certainly unforgettable. For those who don't know, Rammstein is the most famous German band and their style is a mix of industrial metal, hard rock and electronica. Rammstein is one of those bands who really invest in staging. Lots of lights, lasers, pyrotechnics including flame throwers, fireworks, explosions, smoke and bubble machines. Fire balls are so hot that you don't have to be in the first row to feel them. The lead singer even set himself into a fire and spend some time head-to-toe in flames. Stage art wasn't that bad either but the music was still the best part of the show. Guitarists really know how to play and vocalist was very convincing. In simple terms the show was easily one of the best I have ever seen. This concert was played in London's Wembley Arena on 4th February. It can fit 12500 people and I'd say it was pretty packed. I was lucky enough to get a seating ticket very near the stage although couldn't get standing tickets. Standing area was so elbow-to-elbow crowded that good seat can be a better choice if not keen on getting in the first row.

After the Rammstein concert on Thursday I had three nice days left in London. As I have been in London many times before I was first a bit of short of ideas what to do. As I'm a technologist I decided to go to the Science Museum which was very good indeed. It displays one of the first computers in the world including those mechanical ones not just those that need electricity to run. There's also a showcase of airplane motors, steam machines, Apollo Module and all sorts of scientifically important inventions. They even have a huge IMAX cinema inside the museum now. I went to see one 3D animation film and because it was my first 3D experience it sure was a magnificent experience. The screen was as tall as 5 double decker buses I was told. The screen filled pretty much the whole field of vision. Those objects in the film seemed to come very close and the 3D effect really worked for me. Depth impression was really something I couldn't expect to be that realistic. Even the image quality was state of the art. The experience felt even better than seeing hugely acclaimed Avatar film afterwards in Portsmouth's 'normal size' cinema. Maybe it would have been better in London's BFI IMAX cinema which is the Britain's biggest.

On the other day I visited the Museum of London which wasn't that great to be honest. It only displayed ancient London and they were renovating at the moment resulting to a quick visit as there weren't that much to see. However this spring the modern London section should be ready and there's probably much more to see by then.

The last museum I went to see was the British Museum which I believe must be one of the biggest museums in the world as there's 7 million objects to see at. It sure is quite a massive building and it takes some time and dedication to walk through every room. Most of the museums in London are free so at least there's something to do that doesn't cost as most things do.

As I have learned to use London Underground system pretty effectively I had lot's of spare time every evening after museums. Therefore I bought two theatre tickets for two separate evenings. The shows I went to see were Queen musical We Will Rock You and more formal theatre show Oliver which is based on Oliver Twist. WWRY musical is based on the songs of Queen which is one of the most successful rock bands from 70th's to 80th's. Both were pretty good as West End musicals seems always amaze.

Weather was nice overall, but on Sunday evening it started to drizzle a bit. At the moment I was wondering in Chinatown and Leicester Square so I ended up watching two films in a row as it's been a long time I went to cinema and couldn't think much else to do at that very moment. The films I saw were Nine and The Road. I have seen much better films but I guess they were sort of all right, not bad but not that good either.

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Yesterday it snowed so heavily that now all roads are covered with snow. This is quite rare in Portsmouth and happens only once a year or so. University of Portsmouth's Vice-Chancellor decided to close University for a day, because of the snow. There's a good chance weather isn't much better tomorrow. It's clear that nobody was prepared for this kind of weather. At least they extended coursework hand-in deadlines. It's very slippery and slushy outside, but it's nothing new to me as the weather is same in South Finland during warmer winter days. People still find enjoyment from the snow even though it's just an annoyance for others. I was lucky enough to get a week's worth of food yesterday so I might just finish my coursework inside without worrying about the weather.

Update: University remained closed the remaining week. Other University facilities and services are also in hold and that means University Library is also closed during weekend. That starts to affect my research work of wired and wireless TCP protocols, but hopefully Uni can open on Monday although streets are still very icy but not as slippery.

I made a snowboarding trip to the largest ski area in the world with University of Portsmouth's ski and snowboard club called Pompey Snow. Les Trois Vallées can be translated as three valleys and it literally means that you can ski in three different valleys in the French Alps. Actually there's even fourth valley called Maurienne. Les Trois Vallées is a huge area and you can access all lifts and slopes with just one ski pass which is very practical. All slopes are connected so you never have to catch a bus. Trail map is very useful indeed as the area is so large you really have to take a look from time to time to keep on track. The area consists of the following resorts: Courchevel, Meribel, La Tania, Brides-les-Bains, Saint-Martin-de-Belleville, Les Menuires, Val Thorens and Orelle. Area has 335 ski slopes (600 km) and 183 lifts in total. The longest run is 5 km from Cime de Caron which has a magnificent view from the top. Cime de Caron lift takes you to 3200m and even the Val Thorens town where I stayed was 2200m above sea level which makes it the highest ski resort in Europe.

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As I have earlier written, I have taken Accelerated Freefall level 1 training at Netheravon, UK. Last time (month ago) I didn't have actually time to skydive as it was too dark and cloudy when my training ended. This time I got only a very quick revision early in the morning (~15 min in total) and after that I got into the first plane. The plane flew to 12000 feet (4km) that's a common freefall height. I got two instructors with me giving hand signals during skydive if I needed to correct my position or to do something else. They also judged my skydive and gave comments afterward. One of the instructors had a video camera attached to his helmet and filmed my skydive.

AFF1 skydive consist of maintaining proper arch all the time, checking altimeter regularly, responding to the instructors signals, 3x practice pulls, deploying the canopy, canopy check (in case of malfunction cut main and release reserve), canopy control checks, observing, turning and moving to the holding area and staying there, downwind leg at 1000 feet, turning into wind at 400 feet and flaring at 10 feet while keeping feet and knees together.

Link to the video

Calvin Harris, one of the most notable DJs in the UK at the moment came and played his latest hits at the Liquid & Envy nightclub in Portsmouth last Sunday. Liquid is probably the biggest nightclub in Portsmouth (although there are quite a few of them) as it can hold at least thousand clubbers. It's usually very crowded in special nights like this one. The club has a modern audio equipment and the latest visual effects including laser cannons. Good time.

Portsmouth is one of the most popular destinations for international students to come to study. Much like in London you can find a wide variety of nationalities from Portsmouth. I have personally met people from Sweden, Norway, Russia, Germany, Italy, France, Sicily, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey, Switzerland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Holland, India, China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. I'm only aware of one other Finnish person living in Portsmouth so Finnish people are very minority group here to say the least. It's always good to experience other cultures and what would be the best way than get to know people from different countries.

While being in Portsmouth I had to see a Premier League game. Only an half hour walk to see home team Portsmouth FC against Manchester United FC which is one of the most successful teams in the Premier League history. The first half of the game started low paced, but it wasn't a long time before ManU achieved it's first goal from a penalty shot. Although Portsmouth somewhat dominated the first half with very good passes and offense they only managed to do one goal from penalty shot. Pompey's game looked for a while very convincing and gave hope even for a win. Of course this seems a bit unrealistic, because of the fact that ManU is 2nd in the Premier League table and Portsmouth FC is the last (20th). The second half was totally different. The Field became ultimately wet as it rained whole half (and lasted whole evening) and may have an affect to game performance. ManU was powerful and dominated the game. They made two more goals, but could have made more. All goals were shot at very close distance from the goal. Finnish goalkeeper Antti Niemi has a contract with Portsmouth for this season, but he wasn't goalkeeper in this game. It was funny watching the game while very enthusiastic football fans shout if the referee was even a bit unfavourable to the home team Pompey. The atmosphere was once again truly British so to speak.

Yesterday I went snowboarding to Milton Keynes Snow Dome which is an indoor hall with artificial snow. Although the snow isn't real it's very similar so not bad at all. It's a bit softer in my opinion. The slope was a bit narrow, but at the same time made possible to have two slopes one being normal slope and other for rails and kickers. The slope was steep enough as well as length and in the end it's an indoor hall. The dome looks massive from outside, but apparently the investment has paid of in the area were approximately 10 million lives as it was quite busy. It may be a bit more expensive than snowboarding outdoors, but at least it's possible everyday from morning till midnight even in summer. The fact that there are no real snow areas anyway near London makes this place very attractive for Londoners. In other words this is the only way to ski near London. All in all not a bad place to practice for upcoming Val Thorens trip.