The year 2007 in tech world

Now it's time to make lists about the year 2007, what was good and what was bad. My first list is short and quite tech.

The good stuff:

1) Facebook

There has been a lot of hype surrounding this and it feels boring to write about this, but I have to. Let's face it, it's the first web 2.0 service to gain masses here in Finland. It's got over 300.000 users in the Finland network, which means almost half a million finnish users altogether. This was the first online phenomenon that showed how "Tipping Point" really works. It has been cool to classify your friends by being either FB savvy innovators or second wave users and so on.

A lot of hype, a lot of publicity, a lot of stupid applications, but it really proved two things:

- one of the strongest needs of humans is the need for communication
- it's not about the service it's about the people.

More important is that FB has had a permanent effect on us and on how we use online services. FB may die next year, but it's legacy will live on in more restricted social networking applications.

And it's so lame to diss FB. Really. Even if you we're using it 6 months ago :O

2) iPhone

I have tried this only once, but what makes it cool is that big companies like Nokia have had to adjust to this cool thingy by bringing touch screens to their models and such. Apple just knows how to make cool looking toys that are nice to use.

I'll get one, once it's 3G, I promise.

The biggest disappoinments

1) Second Life

"The ultimate virtual life." SL is reported to have like 20 million accounts and many businesses (like IBM) and institutions (like Harvard) and even countries (like Sweden) have presence there. Many people are making a living by selling and designing virtual stuff for Linden dollars which hade made this "world" a real economy.

So what. I don't know anyone who uses SL actively, and I haven't heard of any real good business cases where SL have been used succesfully. A lot of hype, but what is the future of this world? I guess Facebook was the answer to many peeps need for social networking and all this "virtual 3D" stuff was just a lot of hype. I tried SL once and found the interface and user experience irritating. Well see what happens to SL in 2008.


2) Joost

Don't get me started with this one. A great marketing strategy, I'll give them credit for that. Last spring all nerds were fighting for those limited beta accounts (well, with over 1.000.000 users then, it wasn't really that "limited") and this caused an effective buzz. But now the service is open to public, and don't know anyone who really uses is actively. This might me because it's more of an innovative technological platform than a service with any interesting content. And my experience is that the service is still full of bugs (it collapsed today when I tried to use it first time since june...).

Kriton Sends Them Season's Greetings

See you in 2008, homies!

Spirit of the radio

This is gonna be an ad for a small mobile operator, but what the heck, I found this a cool way to market their services. For a few more months you can put 100.0 MHZ on your FM dial and listen to a station that plays almost just hip hop. It's called Spiidi Fm and it's a temporary radio station sponsored totally by this company GSM Suomi. There are no dj's or hosts whatsoever, it's just music all day long. I really dig it, although it is a bit painful to listen to these low budget ads every ten minutes or so, that are (obviusly) solely promoting this company.

I mean Bassoradio is great, but this Spiidi Fm is like all hip hop from what I've tried it. You got some cool dirty south tunes mixed with some R Kelly and stuff - who else plays this kinda stuff here?

So big up for those guys who made this - I may not be subscribing to this particular mobile service in the near future, but at least they bring some joy to my life. That's a lot to say for a mobile operator, who usually concentrate on pushing forward the most boring message; the price, the price and the price. I mean Elisa or Sonera ain't done shit to make me feel good, but these guys have.

Swedish Disco Love. From Me 2 You.

New weeks, new tricks. And I'm not meaning those freestyle bike tricks Kanye is probably right now working hard to perfect on his Vigorelli track bike for his next video.

Anyhow, for some strange reason I'm really feeling THIS SONG right now: 
The Sounds - Tony the Beat (Rex the Dog Remix)

Of course it's good only because Rex The Dog remixed the original boring-ish power pop fake punk track into nice bouncy electro disco version.

And yeah, the singer chick sounds pretty hot too, in that special nasty way, with the heavy swedish accent, dirty voice, provocative lyrics and all. 

'Uuuuh baby, ja, ja, hej vill du festa med mig, vad, eller hur?'. She sounds like the type of chick you'd like to meet, yet be scared of meeting, in trendy bar at Södermalm when you're already drunk on mellan öl and in high on party mood. Don't even try to deny you wouldn't...

(FYI: Maybe I need to point out here that the singer is actually -unfortunately- neither of the girls on the cover of The Sounds' album  above. In fact, I remember reading somewhere that those lovely ladies on the cover shot are some fab real-life NYC scenesters...)

Kanye West Spotted in Trackstar NYC Buying a Fixed Gear Bike!

RED ALERT!  This Just in: Teh Fixed Gear Trend has reached the tipping point!

The title of the post pretty much says it all: 

Look here: "fyi, i was at trackstar today and kanye west came in and bought a track bike. which track bike u say? u want to know so u can either go out and buy it or giving up track riding all together?"

And a lil' bit more here. 

"So, my sources have told me that not only did Kanye West roll through Trackstar yesterday, but he is getting a "blinged" out Vigorelli and the guys from DQM taught him how to skid."

And for Trackstar NYC, click here. 

Oh, here's another fine photo of Kanye flying oh so high on his limited edition Vigorelli track bike... 

RIP Ike Turner - Black Man's Soul

Here we go again. More bad news. 

Our blog is starting to look like a funeral service for yesterday's stars but hey, you gotta respect these artists and entertainers, right?

Ike Turner, the official bad man died yesterday in his home in San Diego at the age of 76. R.I.P. 

What can you say about him? Apparently he was not nice dude in his personal life, had his problems with substances etc. but he certainly got the funk, and looked funky fly, always. 

Don't know about his guitar playing but his deep baritone voice kicks ass on some of those old recordings and some of his solo stuff after parting ways with Tina is pretty damn hot too. Ike and his band Kings of Rhythm and their 'Funky Mule' is a classic super breakbeat sampled countless times by hip hop producers and the 'Black Man's Soul' album is a Classic with capital C. So do yourself a favor, click the link, download the album and remember Ike. 

EDIT!

Today I just read the according to the coroners' report, Ike actually died of a cocaine overdose. Nuff said. 

Helsinki Vice corrupted

The Ministry of Interior has finished its report into the conduct of Helsinki narcotics police. The Ministry suspects narcotics police of wrongdoing in the course of their investigations. They have found 7 people who may have turned a blind eye to the crimes of their informants in order to get information from them. Even the captain of the narc-unit is one of the suspects.

If this is the case, it's typical behauvior of cops that we see on tv. Too bad that the finnish juridical system doesn't approve this kind of actions here, this aint NYC.

But there might be more to it... You know what happens when you deal with drug lords, we've all seen Miami Vice: easy money attracts weak minds. Maybe there are some cops buying speed boats on a basic cop's salary.

What makes me lose faith in the great police force is that after this was announceced two-thirds of Helsinki's narcotics investigators called in sick at the end of the week in what is believed to be a protest action.

So, when the going gets tough, the tough stay home and whine. Is this how the law enforcement institution likes to see itself?

Postcards from Russia.

After all the sad news it's maybe time to check out something funnier and more entertaining.
(Even if some of this is actually quite sad if you really think about it.)

Russia and all the countries that used to be known as the Soviet Union were and are still quite mystery to many people who have never visited any of them. Those strange vodka-drinking and melancholy people with their balalaikas and caviar and uniforms and pickled vegetables are somehow very exotic even today to us born on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

So, as a picture speaks more than thousand words, maybe a bunch of postcard-like photos from contemporary Russia will help us understand better?

Now, click this...

R.I.P. Pimp C - an Underground King is down

it's really sad to see that the Kriton Music blog is starting to look like your newspaper obituary pages.
But this one we simply cannot let pass without noticing.

Chad Butler a.k.a the legendary Pimp C from UGK has been found dead. Read the newspiece from memphisrap.com for more info. The peeps at Kriton HQ just want to remind you that Pimp C was one of a kind - a great rapper, excellent and original sounding producer plus also a very good singer (a side of him that all of his tracks always didn't show).

First "Free Pimp C" was THE international hiphop campaign, now we're just waiting for the "R.I.P. Pimp C" t-shirts to hit the streets.

And here's the news bit quoted from memphisrap.com:

"According to serveral reports Pimp C of the legendary Houston-based rap group UGK was found dead in his Hollywood hotel room earlier this morning. Pimp C, born Chad Butler, 33, who would have turned 34 this coming December 29, was found in his bed at the Sunset Strip's Mondrian Hotel after Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to a 911 call.

Currently there is not other information regarding his death except that UGK's publicist at Jive Records confirmed Pimp C's death to Billboard.com and said a statement will be issued soon.

This comes just three days after Pimp C performed with Too $hort at the House of Blues in Los Angeles.

Rumors are already spreading that the cause of the rapper's death was an overdose. "

Another one bites the dust

This blog has been focusing on body counting these last few days. The latest one to go was Evel Knievel, the motorcycling stuntman and daredevil legend. I personally remember picking up his name from some old rap song and I thought it was a cool name even before I knew what he did for living. He had some beef with Kanye West last years, but he made peace with Mr. West just before hispassing away. The beef had to do with Kanye's video:

"Knievel had sued Kanye West and Roc-A-Fella Records in Dec. 2006 after West released a video for “Touch The Sky.” In the video, West assumed the name "Evel Kanyevel" and donned several of Knievel’s staple looks, including a unique “WK” belt buckle, according to thesmokinggun.com"

Watch the vid to see Evel in action.

No more Cum On Feel The Noize! Kevin DuBrow R.I.P.

So maybe you read this sad news already but  yeah, one more 1980s L.A. Glam rocker is no more.  Quiet Riot's vocalist Kevin DuBrow was found dead yesterday in his home in Las Vegas. He was 52. 

What can I say? I used to be fan when I first started listening to metal music back in mid 1980s, he had a super cool voice. One of the first riffs I learned to play on electric guitar was Quiet Riot's 'Metal Health (Band Your Head)'. It was that easy, yet cool too. 

Click this for another and much better clip of Quiet Riot at their prime. 

I guess the real C.S.I. Las Vegas dudes get to do the autopsy and find out about the why and the what. 

Don't localize, plz

One of those little things that don't work is when online services get localized. This time it's MySpace. I mean, a cool service, still needed in the music community but now this. So when you're from Finland, you get the whole user interface in finnish. Which is cool, if all the content on the page is in the same language, but when it's not, it doesn't work. Sorry.

And think about the swedish talking minority here - it's a bilingual country, so all those swedish talking guys behind a finnish IP-address are now confused and reaching for their dictionaries. What does "ystävää" mean? Vad är det här, jag förstår inte, Staffan!!! Hjälp!

Check out. Kriton High Space

Digital Dan, the coolest guy ever

Last week I attended SIME-conference in Stocholm and one of the speakers was Dan Dubno, AKA Digital Dan . I didn't know of this guy, he's a former CBS News reporter who specialized in new gagdets and techie-stuff. He no longer works for CBS, but you can view some clips of Gizmorama here.

Anyways, this guy is the coolest dude ever. First of all he announced that his favourite hobby is blowing up things (!) and that he once set a lake on fire. And he then showed his t-shirt, that had a build in applause-o-meter that showed the audience reactions in classic VU-meter style. On the front of his t-shirt!!! How interactive and cool ist that??!!!! And among many things he introduced

- talking pill boxes
- IR binoculars
- 3d printers
- plastic forks that dissapear after you use them
- interactive newspapers / tablets (like from the movie Minority Report)

This guy is the gizmo-god. I pay muchos respect to him.

Steal This Garment.

While browsing the Turntable Lab's weekly spam email I just happened to notice that FUCT has reissued some of their classic t-shirt designs. Well, while this kind of nostalgia is of course totally lame, I simply cannot but to dig it. After all, I'm already stuck fashion-wise in the 1990s of my youth anyway.

Back in the mid-1990s and during the huge skatewear boom FUCT somehow managed to stand apart and keep a bit subversive, as opposed to every other brand. They had cool designs which, at least of them, you didn't really feel like wearing in the company of your aunties and grandparents. They were clever, and not banally tasteless and stupid like all the shitty brands that copied them later, Pornstar being probably the worst example.

I still have warm feelings for my good old "Kill People. Not Animals." -tee. 

Many (even young) people took that one surprisingly seriously at the time: 

"Are you some kind of animal rights activist, or something?" 

Suckers. It worked. 

Respect. Which is easy to say as I now can afford to pay 38 USD for a t-shirt, if I want to. But do they still have that classic "STEAL THIS GARMENT" printed in the back of the label? 

I hope they do.

I'd Rather Jack... Well Not Really

I'd rather Fleetwood Mac. Than Jack, just so you know.

And actually I did. Alhtough "Rhiannon" is by far one of my favorite Mac-tunes, i still did a remix of it. Well actually it's a completely new track that just samples Rhiannon's divine guitar riff. Anthemic spacey shit, with a slight italo vibe. Produced by Alppila of Kriton fame.

So now "Will You Ever Win" (the title is taken from the closed caption bit in FM's original Rhiannon single release... so as a single it was called "Rhiannon (Will You Ever Win)") is doing damage in the Kriton MySpace player. And if you dont tell anone, you just might be able to download it from here.

Greg On A Schwinn.

Watch out for this mean dudester!

So friggin' beautiful back then, wasn't it?

We've discussed here of some of the bands that we Kriton boys have played in. There have been quite a few different bands from Sideffect's melodic punk to Chunking Dwee & Twat Juice Dwindler's funk rock to emorock of Genius Breed and Duplo's garage rock to Down My Throat's hardcore metal to Mighty Mullet's 70's/80's heavyrock covers to name a few. But what we all share is the past in the band Belmondo. Yepp, and now it's on Youtube, check out these vids:

Big Arnie Loves Weed.

My favorite ex-bodybuilder & Terminator cum politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently publicly stated that "That is not a drug. It's a leaf," when asked about smoking cannabis.

In fact, he has already earlier admitted smoking marijuana in the 1970s but when interviewed recently by the GQ magazine he stated that he had never taken drugs. He had just smoked weed instead. This would be kinda hard for him to deny since there exists a movie filmed in his Mr. Universe Days in the 1970s in which he is getting high. There's been also stories about stoned group sex sessions and orgies during his body-building days etc.



I'd say Righ On, Conan The Barbarian!



America needs more progressive and liberal political vision now more than ever. And we better also remember that he has a strong environmental vision and California's environmental laws are most progressive in USA.

EDIT!

Lazy me! Here's the actual video of Arnold smoking The Joint, and telling about it, courtesy of YouTube, of course.
Thanks again, Giac.

'Cocaina Nella Chitarra Elettrica' & Plenty Of It!

Weeeell, we've been blogging about guitars, cocaine and traveling here, among many other things of course. Giac (thanks!) just sent a link to these 2 totally great pictures.

I cannot post the protected images here but clickclick & wonder at these:

Pic 1.

Pic 2.

Courtesy of La Rebubblica and Italian Customs.

So from what little Italian I understand, that black Stratocaster arrived from Costa Rica to Fiumicino, the Rome International Airport, and only wanted to come and play some totally sweet licks for/by someone, like Eric Clapton (who is known to have indulged more than his share in the good old days) before the evil Italian Customs interfered and blew everything...

The Soviet dumpster find fixed gear coversion bike project, pt. 2: It's Ready.

Back in early September I reported about how I salvaged a complete Soviet-made 1970s Kharkov XB3 road bike from a trash dumpster and I promised I will convert it into a trendy fixed gear bike. Well, now the bike is ready. I've been riding it for a long time already but the build was not completely finished until now.

In my original post I talked about having to get lot of new parts but in the end I found out that there was actually no need for stuff like new bottom bracket because it was just fine, then I just couldn't get the old cottered cranks off without destroying them, the double-chainring was usable as such and so on and so on. In fact, even the original tube tires, which proudly said CCCP on the sides, held air when I pumped them. As for the rest of the bike I can say that the best part is the frame-set, it's an old school classic road bike lugged steel-frame. I've no idea of what kind of steel the tubes are but the frame is very light just as it should be, and much lighter you would expect any old russian bike to be. And the size was also just right for me.

Anyhow, along the building process I decided that since the bike was free in the first place, I was not gonna use much money on it. As a result the only new things I bought for it were the funky color-coordinated kiwi green Oury BMX grips and one new inner-tube. Everything else on the bike is either original, taken from my other bikes, my parts box, scavenged somewhere or from the local recycling center bike workshop's parts pile.

The bike is intended mainly as my winter/rainy weather beater/commuter-bike and I will still put a fender on the back wheel once I find that one missing right size screw from somewhere. The gearing is kinda light (40X18), for winter use, and for the same reason the tires are of the knobby cyclocross-kind.

And no, I will not post a picture of my bike on Fixed Gear Gallery, Velospace, Pinkbike or any of those places...