Blog and miscellaneous writings.
Mostly lately on antisemitism and other insanities in Finland (and elsewhere in Europe),
and the totalitarianism, dishonesty, charlatanism, and cult- and street-gang-mentality in academia.
More on Finnish academic insanity
It is perhaps no coincidence that the last vestiges of the trash
pseudoscientific field of
so-called intelligence differences among nations and races
found refuge in the UK, and in Finland.
The British academic charlatan Richard Lynn collaborated with his
Finnish counterpart, Tatu Vanhanen, to produce various crap
treatises well into the 2000s and 2010s.
As I described in a previous blog post from 2017, this
pseudoscientific bullshit is still very much present in Finnish
academia and so-called intellectualism; maintained by the perpetuum mobile of
Finnish provinciality, ignorance, and bigotry.
More on Finnish academic “collegiality”
Academic collegiality in Finland means referring to colleagues by derogatory nicknames, behind and not so
behind their back. But never ever using some of that time and inventiveness to actually talk to a person
about his research or work. That might lead to having to admit that one was wrong,
and that's something Finns are just utterly incapable of.
In Finland, if you are a foreigner, and even worse, non-EU (as I was back then),
that's what “valued member of a community” in practicality translates to.
In my particular case, beyond the baseline racism and contempt of Finns towards all foreigners,
there was likely also an extra element of antisemitism.
Certainly, several so-called past colleagues fit the white supremacist type, including some entitled old-money trash.
Time to escape this place!
More on Finnish academic “collegiality”
Finnish academia (and Finnish society in general) suffers
chronically and (for the moment) irredeemably from
Not-Invented-Here syndrome. I have encountered that in my
so-called colleagues in mathematical biology, in my limited and
unfruitful interactions with ecology and evolutionary biology
people here, and in trying to participate in clubs, societies,
and projects in Finland over the years. Even if one published
work in first-tier journals, if it was done with non-Finnish
collaborators or alone, it is crap. They will systematically try
to erase any mention of the Jew's work, while shamelessly
stealing one's ideas. Even if one is a researcher or an expert,
or shows willingness to contribute, or, heck, has already done the job,
the “true Finn” will always be preferred or
listened to instead.
In general, Finns are incapable of seeing foreigners as full human beings.
Foreigners' education is sub par, if it is not gained in Finland.
Finnish honesty and fairness only applies to their own kind. All
is fair in treatment of foreigners: lying,
cheating, belittling one's
work/ effort/ education/ knowledge/ experience, threatening, trying
to intimidate, using verbal violence, ignoring colleagues,
and blatant discrimination.
It is changing very slowly. In ecology and evolutionary biology,
they are willing nowadays to accept foreigners, if said
foreigners have been molded in their Finnish image, i.e., did
their PhD in Finland (because “if it's not Finnish, it's
crap!”). So they may one day progress, like American
country clubs and universities after the 1920s–60s, to accepting
Jews and Blacks. But I have no intention of waiting. Time to
escape this place!
More on Finnish academic “collegiality”
In a typically Finnish soviet-style banter about “community”, University of Jyväskylä publishes that at their institution people are “recognized member[s] of our community ”. The Finnish version uses the adjective “arvostettu”, which translates more accurately to “valued”.
As I described in the past, we are already familiar with the antisemitism
in the halls of that institution back in 2011, and most likely very much still.
Similar stuff is also advertised by University of Helsinki, in which I spent three years.
Apparently, being a valued member of a community in Finland means being utterly ignored for three years and discriminated against, combined with threats and attempts of intimidation by old-money bully, because one is simply not a member of the Finnish buddy-buddies.
Generally speaking, antisemitism, as well as racism, classism, and other prejudices, do correlate with the syndrome of being an obnoxious entitled old-money Eurotrash. Did I already mention that Finns are full of bullshit, when it comes to their self-image of egalitarianism and meritocracy?!
More on Finnish/European academic antisemitism and insanity
The hooligans that are called
“activists” (and glorified by the charlatans of Finnish media,
in YLE and Helsingin Sanomat) are just the military operative
arm. The head of the snake sits in the halls of
academia — a cult of anti-liberal charlatans, concocting crap
theories about “colonialism”, and abusing
academic freedom to pursue their personal political
vices. In a typical totalitarian fashion, they try to
apply their bullshit theories by hook or by crook. So
Jews are “colonialists”, and Palestinians are “indigenous”.
Any reminder that the Jews are equally indigenous, and
been there long before, is a
threat to their “scholarship”, and more
importantly to their cushy jobs and funding, as it may expose
them for the phonies and frauds that they are.
By the way, that American researcher was supposed to speak
about Soviet anti-Zionist antisemitism. Being a strong
and lasting influence on Finnish media, Finnish academia, and Finnish society at large, it
is obvious why the anti-liberal cowards of Finnish
universities were happy to join the hooligans. Nowadays,
being an academic means one can only (and more so, only
allowed to) have a hammer in one's toolbox, as I
described also
in a previous post.
Seascape: an experiment in standalone graphic web app
Seascape is an experiment in writing a standalone graphic web app that feels like a native app when run on smartphones and tablets.
You can install the app to the home screen on an iPhone/iPad, by choosing "Add to Home Screen" from within Safari. Similarly, from Chrome's menu on an Android device. From Firefox on Android devices, bookmark the app address and then from the bookmark's "Options" choose "Add to Home Screen". Of course, on all devices (including desktops/laptops), you can run it inside a browser window.
In all cases, it should work also when off-line, and automatically update when updates are available and the device is connected. The checking for updates and updating itself are done in the background, and there is no need for user intervention.
Finally, on desktops/laptops and Android devices you can click on the upper right corner to go to full screen mode.
Code repository for my WebGL programs
A repository for my WebGL programs is now available on my GitHub page.
The javascript library that I wrote for my WebGL apps is also available on a separate repository at GitHub.
WebGL experiments
After spending some time and effort learning OpenGL and working with its C interface, I moved to writing WebGL programs that can run in web browsers. I added today my earlier experiments with WebGL to the showcase section of this website. These programs are not particularly efficient or of production quality, but rather represent the trace of a learning curve. I have licensed all code for these programs (JavaScript, GLSL shaders, CSS, and HTML) under the Apache License, version 2.0. Have a look!
Some of the programs use a third-party minimized script for building Voronoi diagrams. The script is copyrighted (C) 2010-2013 Raymond Hill, released under MIT license, and its source code is available on GitHub.
Finally! A web presence that is entirely of my own. Not automatically generated by Google, Facebook and their like. Better late than never. (Well, it is still a little bit automatically generated using a home-brewed sort of a content management system that consists of XSLT scripts, CSS3 stylesheets, and some Makefiles and Unix shell scripts thrown in.)
This website is meant first of all as a creative outlet for myself. On the one hand, to present writings and ideas outside the traditional means of academia. On the other hand, to present them also outside the current trendy social media fads that are perhaps not as traditional, but are still similarly unimaginative and limiting platforms.
At the moment, the website only presents a summary of my professional life so far. New stuff will hopefully follow soon.
