The game itself is very simple; you’re a blob of energy or somesuch, and you grow bigger by consuming blobs smaller than you. You can move around by expelling small pieces of your mass, this makes you smaller and more vulnerable to other blobs.

Sounds maybe too simple? Well! Not quite, the blobs have inertia, there is repulsing blobs and so on.

Also, the presentation is simply so wonderfully calm and beautiful. Set on an ambient music background, playing the game has some sort of tranquilling effect on me. It’s kind of like watching a lava lamp, and playing it too.

Check out the Osmos demo, and if you like it, buy it. It’s only $10. I bought it and I think it’s well worth the money.

PS. See item 63 for description why 239 is a nice number.

Check out a quite interesting/entertaining/sad article in the Rolling Stone magazine. It’s a story about corruption on so many levels.

It’s like gambling on the weather. If your bondholders are expecting you to pay an interest rate based on the average temperature in Alabama, you don’t do a rate swap with a bank that gives you back a rate pegged to the temperature in Nome, Alaska.

Not unless you’re a fucking moron. Or your banker is JP Morgan.

(Cheers to Global Guerrillas for the link.)

The good news is that this is super simple to fix.

As for bad news… well, there is none, this time. With these instructions, and the ones from part I, I was able to do a complete tax e-deklaration in Skatteverket’s page, including signing the final submission.

The Problem

You can’t sign things (with the non-repudiation certificate), at least not with the version 4.10.2.16 of Nexus Personal.

The Reason

This is because Firefox lacks the plugin. The Nexus Personal installer copies it into a weird place.

The Solution

Fix the situation by copying the browser plugin to a proper place:

cp /usr/local/lib/personal/libplugins.so ~/.mozilla/plugins/

Then restart Firefox.

Write “about:plugins” to the address bar and ensure Nexus Personal is there. The plugin should claim to accept MIME types such as “application/x-personal-signer”, and all of those should be enabled (all rows have “Yes”).

Now you can fill your skattedeklaration online, AND sign it too. Enjoy!

You need the “pocket calculator” cardreader (I used Todos NCR1), a suitable USB cable and a card with an EMV chip. If you have Nordea-issued bankkort or VISA you’re OK.

Note: These instructions are Debian-specific but they should work with other distros too with appropriate, slight changes.

Update: Signing will most likely be broken for you, but you can fix the signing too.

Step 1. Get the driver + Nexus personal

Go to this Nordea page to download.

Interestingly, I could not find the page from within Nordea’s web page. Also, the information on that page was not in the same place as for the other OSs (Windows, MacOSX). No pain, no gain!

Step 2. Activate e-Legitimation on your card

Log in to Nordea’s web site. Then go to Vardagsärenden, e-legitimation, kort and choose activate. Sign with the Todos box as usual.

Click the link to go back to cards page. You should see your cards in Inaktiv status.

Click Aktivera. Tick the box for Uttag activation, and proceed.

Now you need to go to an ATM and make a money withdrawal. This will finally activate e-legitimation in your card by downloading some data from the bank.

Step 3. Install the software

Yeah, I wish it were all open source, in case of problems… but it’s not. Take a deep breath and prepare to install some Chinese driver binaries, plus a binary-only browser plugin, etc.

But first verify that you get printout like the following when you:

• attach the USB cable to your Todos box
• issue “dmesg” command


[4332544.912080] usb 2-3: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
[4332545.162128] usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=0b0c, idProduct=002e
[4332545.162142] usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
[4332545.162151] usb 2-3: Product: Nordea E-code
[4332545.162158] usb 2-3: Manufacturer: Todos Data System AB
[4332545.162369] usb 2-3: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice


If that was OK, proceed. Otherwise make your USB work :)

Next, you need pcscd and libccid.

apt-get install pcscd and libccid

Unzip the Nexus and do as root:

./install.4.10.2.16.sh i

Unzip + install the driver:

unzip NCR1_Linux.zip

The zip contains a .deb so you’ll need to install it too:

dpkg --install NordeaDeb_1.0.0_i386.deb

Now the software part is done.

Step 4. Test drive

Restart Firefox.

Start Nexus application. Attach Todos reader NCR1 with USB cable. Insert your card. You should see something other than “Unknown” in it.

Nordea’s own test page is broken – they expect Microsoft Internet Explorer (maybe some ActiveX control too) for some totally screwball reason, I did not investigate this further. So it’s best to try e.g. Skatteverket’s page where you can check your Skattekonto.

Note: When prompted for a certificate, choose the certificate with “Basic PIN” in it. The other option did not work for me.

Enter your card PIN in the Todos box when prompted.

The web page should open properly, now you’ve got e-Legitimation!

The marketing slogan used for it is “Our most advanced technology in a magical and revolutionary device at an unbelieveable price”. Indeed, it is revolutionary in the business model it represents.

The hit products which Apple has made recently include the music player iPod, the smartphone iPhone, and now the table computer iPad. What do all these have in common? Snazzy UI, yes, but also the closed hardware and the tight lock-in with the Apple App Store (and iTunes for media content).

On a more abstract level, every single one of those devices give the vendor more or less exclusive control over what you can and cannot run or view in your device.

Is this the magical and revolutionary new way of the future? If so, count me out.

This one is slightly thai-influenced in its taste, and extremely quick and simple to do.

You need:

• 2 cans asparagus
• 1 paprika
• 1 yellow onion
• 200-300 g frozen prawns
• vegetable broth (1 bouillon cube)
• 5 dl water
• 2 dl cream
• salt, pepper, chili powder, sumac
• fresh coriander

Rinse the canned asparagus in a strainer until no foam appears. Wait until the water drizzles out, then dump into a pot.

De-seed the paprika. Slice it into big chunks. Then dump into the pot.

Peel and roughly hack the onion, throw it into the pot.

Put bouillon cube and 5 dl water into the pot. Heat it up and boil for some time, until paprika has softened and the cube has completely dissolved.

Take the pot off the stove and use a wand blender aka. immersion blender to puree the vegetables to make a fluid paste.

Pour in the cream and mix well. Put the pot back to the stove and use medium-high temperature.

Let heat up for a while, add pepper and salt. TASTE before adding the salt as the bouillon cube can be salty! Also mix in chili powder and sumac to taste.

Next, dump in the frozen prawns. Mix well, bring to boil.

Soup must be hot but do not overcook the prawns.

Take about 3 palm-fulls of coriander leaves, and hack them into small pieces. Dump the hacked coriander into the soup. Mix well.

Done!

Enjoy with some fresh white bread and (cold) butter over the bread.

For drinks, if you want to be fancy for this ad-hoc soup, try white wine or lager beer. Maybe a nice Riesling for the wine, and Red Stripe for the beer.

The asteroid in question is 99942 Apophis, which currently stands at 1:250000 odds of smashing into Earth on 2036. 99942 Apophis also has a close fly-by on Friday, April 13th, 2029.

I am delighted that such a high-level instance is speaking so strongly in favor of asteroid protection.

Indeed, Apophis could be a good candidate to practise deflection, since we already know it’s coming and know the orbit relatively well too. Plus, there is enough time to act.

Some previous posts about the asteroid threat and why it is important to do something about it are here and here.

For Finns 6th of December is a very important day. Flags fly, and there’s a traditional military parade in some city. People light (usually blue-white) candles to remember the independence and most importantly the people who died defending the independence.

Another big tradition is the President’s Independence Day reception at the Presidential Castle in Helsinki. They air that on television, and most of the nation (something like nearly half!) sits and watches who is invited, how the movers and shakers are dressed, and who, if any, will cause a scandal this time.

A nice thing is that the reception is streamed on the Internet too, and therefore can be seen from abroad too. So my plans for today are to make some nice food, tuna fillets with leek-onion white wine & parsley sauce and mushroom-leek risotto, open a white wine and watch the reception via Internet!

They gave me a freebie to go, a little bag of potato chips.

Normally, potato chips are made of 1. potatoes, 2. oil, 3. salt. That’s it. How boring.

Luckily this one was barbeque flavored one!

Here’s the list of stuff contained in the barbeque flavor – a handy list if you wish to barbeque-flavorize your morning yoghurt or your living room rug, although it might be wisest to not try to make it at home, unless you possess a meth lab in the basement:

• sugar
• whey powder (from milk)
• rusk (from wheat)
• flavour enhancer (monosodium glutamate, aka. MSG)
• flavourings (contains wheat, soya, lactose)
• colour (paprika extract, caramel)
• sweetener (aspartame)

How could they fit all that into that tiny 27,5 g bag? Well, it was tasty, though.