Where can I buy space-money?

With little babysteps, the space age does indeed seem to be coming closer. And now they have already come up with space money - the QUID or Quasi Universal Intergalactic Denomination. In addition to the fact that they look cute, I think they are also quite a symbol of progress. So I'd be happy to make my little bow to the inventors and producers, and show my belief in the possibility to visit space before I die, and buy some of that fabulous new space money. Its just that Travelex (the producer) does not seem to be promoting the sales yet or maybe its only to the targeted audience of today's space travellers.

But if anyone knows where to actually legally buy them, please let me know! I'd seriously consider buying some :)

PS. Ah, yes, and if you wonder why the earth money is no good in space, then they explain that in detail in the press release.

küll tagasihoidlik, aga siiski märk maas Tartu 1. rulluisumaratonil

Hoolimata viimase nädala ühele tagasihoidlikule trennikorrale seadsin ka mina hea ergutamise peale end Tartu 1. Rulluisumaratonile. Distants oli küll pikem kui ma varem korraga sõitnud olin, aga tee hea ja suurema kambaga on alati tore sõita. Kuna varasemast märkimisväärseid uisu- või maratonitulemusi maas polnud, siis sain alustuspositsiooni tagaotsas koos teiste harrastajatega. Ja tulemuste põhjal oli see positsioon ka adekvaatne - lõpetasin ajaga 2.26.49,5 üldarvestuses 435. kohal ja naistest 90. kohal.

Tagapool sõitja kogemustest rääkides peab esiteks muidugi möönma, et meie otsas oli suureks miinuseks see, et me ei oska tõhusalt ära kasutada tuules sõidu nippi. Pühapäevase meeletu tuule juures oli see kriitiline ja tagaotsarahvas sai selles osas kiire õppetunni. Juba esimesel ringil oli tagasitulekul näha, et inimesed said puht-praktilise kogemuse varal kiirelt selgeks, et kõva vastutuulega on teise inimese selja taga ikka parem sõita. Grupisõidu komme eesolijat kergelt seljast edasi lükata aga jäi ikkagi võõraks. Kui paar korda üritasin, siis inimesed ehmatasid kangesti ära.

Maratonirada oli tegelikult psühholoogiliselt hea sõidurada. Esiteks on alati parem sõita siis, kui peab vähe sama distantsi kordama (see on nt. Stamina sarja miinus, et 10 korda ühte ringi sõita ja selle käigus 3 ringiga võitjatelt pähe saada ei motiveeri eriti lõpuni venitama) ja 2 ringi on täitsa ok. Teiseks vedas ilmaga selle poolest, et tuul oli minnes seljatagant. See tähendas, et kui esimene ring sai täis, siis teadsid, et nüüd on 5 km mõnusat taganttuulega sõitu ja mõnus inglimäe laskumine. Seal tagaotsas keerasin otsa ringi ja oli muidugi hirmraske, aga siis mõtlesin kogu aeg, et nüüd on ainult veel kojuminek ja no kui see viimaseid sõitjaid üleskorjav mikrobuss ka järgi jõuab, siis võib ju kergema vaevaga ka lõpuotsa koju minna :)

Minule mikrokas päris järgi ei jõund ja hoolimata lõpus pealetikkuvast lootusetusest vantsisin ikka lõpuni ära. Peale 30ndat kilomeetrit hakkasid uisud kangesti hõõruma ja viimased 5 km sai sõidetud juba ilmselgelt veriseks hõõrutud kandadega. Siit tähelepanek iseendale - Kristi, investeeri korralikesse uisusokkidesse!

Kokkuvõttes tunnistan, et minusuguse harrastaja-uisutaja kohta oli maratoni lõpuni sõitmine täitsa saavutus. Ise ikka pidevalt kartsin, et katkestan mingi hetk. Nüüd on isegi mõningane usk, et äkki õnnestubki septembri lõpus Berliini maraton ka ära lõpetada ilma et mind poole raja pealt liialt aeglase tempo pärast maha võetaks. Aga noh, seal on seltsiks ka oluliselt suurem rahvamass ja ei pea pidevalt jälgima, et kas mõni jäi veel selja taha. Ja lisaks muidugi on nüüd ikkagi märk maas - vähemalt on mul ka nüüd üks maraton kirjas :)

weather and motivation

It is hot and sunny out here around the DC area. The normal weather for this time of the year - real warm, but not yet intolerably hot and humid. As a classic Estonian who is used to see weather this warm for about a total of maybe 20-30 days in a year, the temptation to drop everything and storm into the sun is irresistable. So I took a stroll, grabbed a coffee and headed back home - 2 more weeks of schoolwork to push myself through.

But time and again, when I happen to be in an area with really nice warm climate I find myself coming back to a thought I first developed on a trip to Portoroz, a small Slovenian town on the shore of Adriatic sea. Me and my friends were walking down the seaside and bought that Italian type of delicious ice-cream. When we sat down on the lawn and enjoyed the gorgeous view on the sea and the sunny warm weather, I started contemplating whether I would have been ever motivated to work that hard and get where I am now if I had been born and raised in this place. Because if you have a constantly enjoyable weather, warm sea and good friends, you could just as well simply sell the ice-cream and enjoy life. Not that I would change my life for that now, but I have certainly developed a better understanding of why many people in California prefer surfing to school :)

Up in the north, a much better paid job is needed to live an enjoyable and comfortable life. And with half of the year rainy, muddy, cold and windy, it was much easeir to stay inside and dig yourself into the world of books.

So at the end of the day, I still stand by my view that it is good to be born up north. I bet the weather has also at least some role in why the Protestant work ethics works so much better in the Northern half of Europe than it does, say, in Italy or Spain :D

missing office life

Albeit I love the long mornings and the freedom of studying/working at home, I still miss having an actual office to work at - the need to wake up early and be productive in the mornings, get a good start to the day and lots of work done - so you can feel good about going out at 9pm to grab a drink with friends before you head home and plunge into the bed only to get up at 7am again.

Freedom is good, but requires way more self-discipline. I get my work done, but usually at the expense of staying home in the evenings and weekends to get the work done that would have been finished had I not taken longs showers in the mornings and spent two hours reading news. School can be chill, but it also tends to work in waves of very intense effort. And like all my friends in gradschool say .... we want our weekends back!!!

Well, I think I needed to write this down here, so that when I start my job in a month and a half and want my lazy mornings back I will have a reminder of why it is good to start work bright and early :D

Estonia in the Economist

And once again - damn those Economist journalists are good. I have to admit that it never stops surprising me as an Estonian how well and adequately the Economist journalists manage to portray the situation in Estonia. Part of this is probably the advantage of having a third party perspective, but they are remarkably perceptive to the general opinions in the country as well as insightful of the true nature of things. The latter is something that most Estonians know, but might not want to talk about. Current turmoil about our Bronze Soldier is one example - this is the notorious Second World War memorial that Estonians see as a memorial to our occupation, and Russians see as a basic commemoration of Soviet soldiers that died in the Second World War.

So if you want to see a really good and concise analysis of the situation in post-election Estonia, definitely read the Economist article "Floreat Estonia". You can find more good analysis on Estonia in their other arcticles you will see in the left hand corner of my blog under "Interesting Readings".

.....

Yes, one correction. As I was just reminded by a friend of mine, indeed, the Economist and all other Western commentators seem to have an overly positive image of Mr Mart Laar. Not to say that he did not do good things as a Prime Minister, but some of these things were not his personal achievements as much as those of a good team and good advisers. In addition, his party is also known to have supported many controversial issues, and some of them not so progressive and innovative at all. It is sad that the Reform Party refused Mr Laar the position everyone expected him to take, yet by the same token, I think in some ways Mr Laar was lucky to stay out of the Cabinet, because at this point the West appears to have clearly exaggerated expections for him.

.....

And for the local interpretation of the Economist article see (those that can read Estonian) "Economist: Ansip oleks pidanud Laarile võimaluse andma"

and the votes are in

Estonia had parliamentary elections this past weekend, although living abroad I voted a while go already. In terms of results, I think the votes are getting increasingly concentrated with a couple of parties. This is understandable since the two winning parties - the Reform Party and the Center Party are the two oldest parties in the newly independent Estonia, and their stable presence probably gives more confidence to people over the other parties that split and merge, and rise and fall in their size and political activity.

The really good news, I think, is actually the high level of voter turnout - 62% of the voting population actually gave their vote. This gives a pretty good feeling about the broad-based legitimacy of the mandate the parliament and the cabinet will enjoy. If I am not wrong, then in the past decade already, the turnout has been dwindling slightly above 50%. e-voting certainly had its part to play, but only a 3.5% of voting population part, which does not really explain the whole increase in turnout. It is pretty common for citizens of a fairly developed democracy to become lazy about voting - people are usually happy enough with whatever they get anyhow, so there is not much of a drive to peel your ass off the comfy coach and go perform your civic duty.

It also doesn't really seem to be a protest vote type of election, since the two dominant parties currently in the government received a majority more dominant than in any previous year. As surprising as it seems considering that the second half of the term cabinets are usually more of the filler type and not very active, people seemed to go with it.

So what else made people go out and vote? Is it really money. As Raiko says, this year's elections saw the most expensive campaigns ever, and maybe the campaigns really reached more people than usual. Could be, though I still think that most campaigns are more focused on designing the preferences of the already active voting population than targeting the passive population. Then again, I was not in the country for most of the campaigning period, so I cannot say for sure, what the campaign tactics was.

Well, to make the long story short - I am pleasently surprised about the high voter turnout, but I haven't quite figured out what caused this. Once I find someone with a good analysis and explanation, I will enlighten you too :)

snow cancellations

This post is really for all people like myself coming from up North where snow and ice are the norm in winter.

After having successfully managed to catch a nasty cold after two nights of clubbing and two days of touristing in the wintery Washington, DC, I am out and down trying to get back on track within a week. Yet the fun part about this all is that I didn't really miss out on much, sinc almost everything I had on plan was cancelled and postponed anyhow. Why? Oh, no, not just because of me :D

The reason is, instead, a thing called SNOW. Well, I am not exactly sure how this works around here, becaus I have seen it snow a few times around here before, and I knew that primary and high schools were cancelled every time it snowed. But this time, they also cancelled school in universities, receptions, meetings and the like. They say this is because there was some ice on the roads along with snow. And apparently no such things as winter tyres have yet been discovered in these areas.

The one thing that always gets me confused here is when they talk about snow blizzards, which I have never seen here, but apparently everyone else has. I guess this is because I always thought that was just a light snowfall. And I wonder, what would they call a true snowstorm where visibility is about 1m maximum and the snow is half a meter or more thick. A snow tornado?

Well, I guess winter is still a surprise aournd here. On my part, regardless of the cough and cold, I do enjoy the sight of a nice and fluffy snow outside. I just hope it won't be all gone by the time I finally get out of the house.

Eesti majandus- ja börsielu küpsusest ning ajakirjandusest

Avastain täna Postimehest üllatuslikult hästi kirjutatud artikli, mis selgitas mõistlikult ja kõigile arusaadavalt ära, mis siis Tallinna börsil viimastel päevadel toimus. Paraku polnud aga tegemist sugugi mitte Postimehe ajakirjanike näputööga, vaid Tallinna börsi juhi Kaidi Ruusalepa arvamuslooga "Tallinna börs: Uued õppetunnid börsil".

Pr Ruusalepa kompetents börside hingeelu ja käitumise osas on loomulikult konkurentsitult kõrgem kui ühelgi Eesti ajakirjanikul, kuid sellegipoolest soovitaksin igal endast lugupidaval ajakirjanikul antud kirjatüki just kirjutamisstiili nurga alt põhjalikult läbi uurida. Varasema kahe päeva artiklid börsiliikumistest tekitasid tunde, et juba jälle puhutakse tühja koha peal jaanika-paanika üles ning Postimees suudab taaskord tõestada oma kollasust ja ajakirjanike kompetentsi piiratust ..... mõtlemiskoht Postimehele ja teistele ajakirjanduväljaannetele!

Kangesti tahaks näha ka Eesti ajakirjanduses mõstlikku analüüsi ja otsejoonelist selgitust olukorrale, mis kirjutatud lihtsas keeles ja rahulikul meelel. Sellist ajakirjandusstiili tuleb vist aga jätkuvalt kvaliteetsetemast välisajakirjandusest otsida. Tänuväärt siis seegi, et Eestis leidub vähemalt häid eksperte, kes vaevuvad meeldivas vormis ka Eesti rahvast keerulistest asjadest valgustama.

roheline tuli riskikapitalile Eestis

Umbes kuu aja eest võttis Riigikogu vastu huvitava seaduseparanduste kogumi, mis võimaldab ametlikult riskikapitali fonde luua. Ehkki äriühingu ja muul kujul on Eestis juba mõned riskikapitali tüüpi fondid loodud, on antud seadusparandused siiski väga teretulnud ja minu arvates suhteliselt hästi ajastatud just riskikapitali valdkonna arengu startietappi.

Üheks eriti huvitavaks paranduseks on aga punkt, mis sätestab, et pensionifondid võivad nüüdsest samuti kõrge riskitasemega ettevõtmistesse investeerida ehk teisisõnu paigutada oma raha ka riskikapitali fondidesse. Antud punkt äratas erilist tähelepanu seoses sellega, et viimase aasta jooksul olen korduvalt sattunud lugema kirjatükke, mis väidavad, et USA riskikapitali tööstuse üheks peamiseks alustalaks on sarnane seadusemuudatus USAs 1979ndal aastal. Ehkki ilmselt olid mängus ka muud mõjud, siis väidetakse ikkagi, et just pensionifondidel oli suur osa selles, et USA riskikapitali kogumaht järgneval kümnendil kasvas terve suurusjärgi võrra paarilt miljardilt dollarilt aastas kümnete miljardite dollariteni aastas.

Raske oleks väita, et Eesti pensionifondide investeerimisseadusandluse muudatusel saaks olema sarnane mõju, sest praegune riskikaptali fondide hulk ja kogemuste pagas on hetkel veel pea olematu. Ent kui pensionifondid neile antud võimalusest kinni peaksid haarama, siis igatahes suurendab see riskikapitali fondide jaoks võimalikku saadaval olevat kapitalimahtu päris märkimisväärselt.

playing with numbers

Within the past couple of weeks, two outstanding organisations have published reports on R&D spending by major corporations. And though they roughly see the same names, somehow the two organisations have reached fairly diverging conclusions.

First to come out was UK's Department of Trade and Industry "The R&D Scorecard 2006" (if you need detailed company R&D information, I strongly recommend this one - the whole database is up on the web as well as available on hard copy free of charge). DTI's report concludes that R&D investment by companies is one of the major drivers of company success.

Yesterday's Financial Times, on the other hand, is touting the supposedly opposite conclusions Booz Allen Hamilton has reached in its freshly published "Smart Spenders: The Global Innovation 1000" (also available online). Booz' study claims that most of the R&D spending is waste of money and only few heavy R&D investing companies are actually making profit out of these investments.

There is certainly some truth in both statements, and I was happy to see the arguments on both sides strongly outlined. There was but one problem that kept scratching my eye in the Booz report. Namely, it compares the R&D spending growth to revenue growth over the past 4-5 years, but does it by comparing R&D spending growth to the revenue growth in the same year - for instance, if R&D spending grew by 15% in 2005 but the revenues of that company grew 10% in 2005, Booz's conclusion is that this company was wasting money and not exploiting its R&D investments in a sensible manner. Now, if you go to the DTI report, then they used a little bit different approach to draw conclusions on the profitability of R&D investments - they looked at the R&D investments in 2001 and then compared these to reveneu and profit indicators in 2004-2005.

When you think for a second, what is the specific nature of R&D spending as compared to other oprational business investments and what is causing all that fuss around the R&D spending - aah, yes, though potentially leading to remarkable profitability, it takes longer to kick in; thus, the profitability results would be revealed with a considerable lag. Granted, 3-4 year lag that DTI used might not be quite sufficient, but it certainly a more adequate indicator than what the Booz has come up with. While Booz' recommendation that companies need to pay more attention to focusing their R&D investments and maximizing their profit potential sounds reasonable, its choice of indicator construction is not really the most convincing way to prove the argument. Right now, it looks a lot like Booz has tried to pull out some explanation to justify their numbers rather than the other way round.

Other than proving that playing with numbers can help you prove any point you want to make, I think both reports are interesting readings. Those fond of number games and having better insights into manipulating them will have good material for a textbook case study.

back to government

With all the talk about how US's economic and technology success draws on the private sector initiative and how government is really playing but a minor role, it is fascinating to discover bit-by-bit, in the midst of all other talk, how at the end of the day, government still appears to have played major role at critical turning points.

The most recent discovery of mine was from Josh Lerner and some other Harvard Busines School folks that mention in their book "Venture Capital and Private Equity" that, indeed, during the early evolution years of venture capital industry federally guaranteed risk capital pools called Small Business Investment Companies (SBICs) constituted a significant sources of venture money.

I am not taking this as a sign to claim that the US private sector initiative and energy is any less important than we thought. I am just noting an interesting tendency here to somehow downplay the role of government, and avoid admitting that many good things come out of reasonably balanced collaboration between private and public sectors.

And I do still think that in both mature environments and in places where the venture capital industry is still evolving, private sector initiative is critical. By the same token, however, a little friendly push from the government would seem to help a lot - Israel and Finland being the prime evidence along with the US. Those same examples also indicate, though, that this help can come in various forms as long as it is free of political manipulation.

commoner's security update from DC

Just about a week ago I caught myself pondering, how surprisingly optimistic (for Americans) the new slogan of DC metro warnings was - "Let's be prepared, not scared". It has been so calm around here for the past year that I have lived in the DC area that it didn't even feel like living in one of the prime terror target zones.

Well, thanks to those dummass schemers in London, that's all gone now. Got a fresh reminder yesterday on the metro. Instead of the happy slogan reminder, they now keep banging every 60 seconds how you should look out for bags and weirdows. Btw, I am not exaggerating, I timed them, and the announcements did go about every 1 minute. And ... they have added a bonus - they even have started announding their warnings in Spanish now :) And that was all just quiet Saturday night, I'll see how it all looks during Monday morning rush hour.

Well, I guess at least some good has come out of the overflow of information - the news reporters claim that people are so well informed of the new flying rules, that the DC area airports are quite decently functional. They say 3 hours should be enough to get on your flight :)
Well, I will go and check it out on Friday on my way to Estonia.

blokk

See on nii ebaaus - avastan end jälle mõttelt, kui vaja miskit paberile panna ja pole viimane kuu või enam intensiivsemat kirjatööd teinud.

Ma ei ole mingi eriline grafomaan, aga pidevalt lühemate ja pikemate kirjatükkide kirjutamisharjumuses olemisel on see eelis, et võid iga kell kiirelt mõned read kokku visata ja jutt jookseb nagu iseenesest. Lihtsamast lihtsam, 10 lk päevas nagu üle õla sülitada. Ja siis kui mõtled, et peale 5 kuud intensiivset kirjatööd teed väheke puhkust ja õpid ja teed muud tööd, siis kuu aega hiljem ei tule enam üldse välja. Mitte et ei oskaks, aga lihtsalt ei jookse. 2 lk strateegilist plaani kokku kirjutada võtab nii palju imemist ja inspiratsiooniotsimist, et läheb vähemalt terve päev selle nahka. Ja siis tundub selline ajaraisk - kuu aja eest olekse sellele kulutand maksimaalselt 2 tundi.

today I found my soulmate

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful."
Marie Curie

officially English

So guess what, apparently it is only now that I am finally staying in an officially English-speaking country once the Senate has voted English as the official language of the USA.

I bet there are good reasons for opposing this, and once you live in US you kind of get the mindset, but for all practicality reasons I think its a pretty wise decision. I meant its not like other languages are not used anymore, but it is better on an international scale to know the terms of conduct. Then again, looking at how much Spanish is being used in everyday conversations, I would not be surprised at all if this country soon also became bilingual. Have even contemplated multiple times that if I only took a beginners course in Spanish, the rest of the environment would probably be enough to get me fluent in the language.

blogs vs orkut

Blog-reading is slowly but steadily taking over the lead position from orkut in my procrastination habits. I wonder it this is an evidence of some major global behavioural trends - I have noted myself to be a mid-follower, namely (not among the first, but neither among the last ones).

lynx economies :D

Since Eastern Europe does not have tigers, Economist has now decided to call us lynxes :D
Pretty witty parallel.

The online version is unfortunately lacking the cute purr lunx picture.

hmmmm ... Valton

ma arvan, et Valton võttis oma veidi veidralt hüpleva jutustuse "Roheline rügement" viimase kolme lausega kokku mõtted, mis minu ja ilmselt paljude peas keerlevad:

"Tulevik ei jää tulemata. Milline see on, eks näis.
Seni tuli tegutseda."

Ikka ja jälle tekib omagi elus toimetades mõte, et ei tea milleks ja mis sest tolku - lõppkokkuvõttes ju nagunii ei tea, et mis tulevikus tuleb, ehkki tuleb ta nii ehk naa. Aga tegutsemisvajadus on küll - hea, et on tegevus, muidu tuleb masendus, et ei tea mille nimel see kõik :D

eile tuli meil suvi ...

eile algas õhukonditsioneerihooaeg ja vihm ei tulnud enam maapinnale maha, vaid jäi õhku rippuma. Ja öösel kell 12 metroo pealt koju jalutades näitas temperatuur 73F, mis vist meiekeeles on midagi 23C kandis.

Hommikul avastasin, et päike on jooksmiseks juba liiga palav ja et nokatsit on kangesti vaja. Potomoaci peal käisid juba 4-mehe paadi trennid ja muud süstalised ja paadilised hulpisid ka ringi.

Ja kool hakkab ka selleks õppeaasaks läbi saama. Esimene eksam on juba vähem kui kahe nädala pärast. Nii et rabamine käib täie hooga.

presidenditeema jatkuks

no vot see mees pani alles asjaliku paugu. Myts maha! Leiduks vaid Eestis heade soovituste jargimiseks kellelgi tahtmist ja jaksu.

P.S. Ei ole veel taielikult hea emakeele tahestikku minetanud. Lihtsalt arvuti streigib Eesti tahestiku peale ja pole veel valja nipitanud, kuidas tagasi panna - ja ei ole nii rumal, et ei oskaks ingliskeelse klaviatuuri funktsioonilt eestikeelsele lylitada. Miksit p6hjalikumat on mada.