seikatsu

A dinner to celebrate the SkypePrime launch 2 weeks ago (better late than never!) led to a surprise discovery of a Korean beer named correctly just for the occasion. Hite Prime.

(I'm cheating with the picture here - it is from MJ's phone, because it is far more artistic in composition than the ones I made.)

Skype Prime is the way to share advice, knowledge or services over Skype to anywhere in the world... and make money in the process. Get the Skype 3.1 for Windows client or later and call me for deep thoughts at just 1 EUR a minute! Or become a provider yourself.

I attended today's OpenCoffeeClub event, the one in London. It is a loose framework of entrepreneurial meetup events that Saul Klein recently kicked off, as part of his recent broader initiatives to encourage interaction between and raise the confidence of European entrepreneurs.

The 90 minutes I was able to spend at the event included a grande latte and a series of quite interesting talks with several people. As I was wearing a Skype t-shirt, most of the contacts evolved around startups wanting to work with Skype so I have quite some business card passing to do internally to see if anything will come out of it. I've now also asked the guys from our Software Developer Program to attend some of the future events once in a while so that the ecosystem interest can fall into right hands more directly.

The energy level in the room was surprisingly high and enthusiastic entrepreneurs wooing and sharing ideas really seemed to dominate the group. As opposed to a pool of thirsty nametagged VC sharks circling around rare prey, the direction some of these type of events can easily turn into. Maybe it is just because of the excess of capital available these days. Most of even the very early stage startups I talked to had already raised the money they need.

On more personal immediate takeaways, I now have joined Hakon Haugnes' .name space (sten[ät]tamkivi.name and www.sten.tamkivi.name setup took less than a minute!). And Mobyko's approach to mobile phone contents backup to web sounded quite cool, I'll take time to check out their implementation later.

Kuulujutt, mida siiani veel ebatõenäoliseks pidasin hakkab saama ametlikku kinnitust.

"Soodustuse andmisega on Tallinn propageerinud keskkonnasäästlike sõidukite suuremat kasutuselevõttu, et vähendada mootorsõidukite negatiivset mõju keskkonnale ja tõsta liiklejate keskkonnateadlikkust. Parkimissoodustuse kaotamise võimalust on kaalutud, kuna hübriidmootoriga sõidukitele väljastatud parkimislubade arv on aasta-aastalt kasvanud," ütles Mutli.

2002. aastal (kas keegi leiab uuemad andmed?) oli Tallinnas registreeritud kokku 160 420 sõidukit. 27. märtsi 2007 seisuga on antud parkimissoodustus 140 hübriidmootoriga sõidukile. See teeb siis meil kuipalju... 0,08% Tallinna sõidukitest?

2001. aastal (jällegi, ei leia kiirelt värskemat infot) parkis Tallinna "linnakeskuses" 15739 autot. See on siis umbes 9% linna autopargist. Sama proportsiooni alusel kesklinnas parkivaid hübriide oleks... 13 autot. Isegi kui neid on paar-kolm korda rohkem korraga väljas, mahuks kogu meie hübriidipark lõdvalt suvalisele vanalinna tänavale ja jääks ruumi ülegi.

Ma saan aru, et härra Mutlil on põhjust paanikaks.

Huvitav oleks võrdluseks näha ka mitu parkimisluba on linnavalitsus väljastanud oma ametnikele, parteikaaslastele ja nende sõpradele?

"Roheline pealinn Tallinn" tähendab täna valitseva partei logovärvi, ei muud.

Ma olen põhimõtteliselt nõus, et hübriid on liiga kitsas määratlus, mis annab ilmselt eelise liiga väikesele ringile autotootjatele (täna Eestis saadaval vaid Toyota Prius, 2 Lexuse mudelit ja Honda Civic). Soosima peaks kõigi säästlikumate tehnoloogiate (vesinik, elekter, ...) kasutamist. Soodustusi teatud mõtteviisile laiendama, mitte ära kaotama.

You can be able to converse with people and write to audiences in two languages, have a mobile and upload the pictures on the go through flickr, and all these other neat things. But it all doesn't matter if you just learn to walk.

The traffic over last two weeks to this blog and Kusti's, respectively. Handover moment to the next generation.

Inspired bt wolli's recent revelation I'm publishing my personal strengths as well.
Read more about the thinking on why should I care, but in a nutshell:

People progress more rapidly in their areas of greatest talent than in their areas of weakness. Yet too many training and development approaches focus on making improvements in areas of weakness.

So here we go:

I have owned an iPod for a couple of years now and rarely use it. First, there are not that many moments in the daily life in Tallinn when I could encapsulate myself from the world with headphones. Secondly, I have been too busy/lazy to get a proper iPod connector installed to my car. Being a bit on the hifi enthusiast side, I'd prefer proper cabling + charger dock to entry level FM transmitter.

iPodding hasn't even really worked for me in flight with the exception of catching up with some Kuku radio shows. I usually sleep or read on planes.

Koduleht.eu genereeritav Eesti blogide pingerida näeb päris üllatav välja.

Mis täpselt on "eesti blogi" kriteeriumiks, jääb topi puhul küll pisut lahtiseks. Blogi "olulisuse" kriteeriumiks on seekord aga võetud PageRank, ehk siis indeks skaalal 0..10, mis arvutatakse vastavalt sellele, kui palju mingile lehele viidatakse ja kui palju omakorda viidatakse neile lehtedele, kust viited tulevad. Sergei & Larry teadustöö Stanfordist, mis on Google otsingumootori aluseks relevantsete tulemuste leidmisel. See selleks.

Tänaste masendavate uudiste valguses tundus, et midagi peaks tegema. Õhuke e-riik nagu meil on - kirjutasin delegaadile, kes mind parlamendis esindama hakkab. Olen temaga paar korda töises olukorras kohtunud, aga seekordne sõnum läks teele täiesti isiklikust vaatenurgast:

Hea ....,

ma olen mõnda aega Eestist ära hetkel ja jälgin uudiseid vähem, aga praegu kuuldu koalitsioonikõneluste koha pealt teeb erakordselt murelikuks.

Seega mõtlesin, et oleks ehk paras hetk rakendada osalusdemokraatiat ja kirjutada oma murest oma rahvasaadikule. Andsin nimelt Sulle valimistel oma hääle. Loodan jätkuvalt, et sellest oli kasu ja tulemuseks ei ole mingi kavala kombinatoorika tulemusena jälle Keskerakonna või Rahvaliidu ministrid, korruptsioon ja laiutamine ning -- kõige kurvem -- nende koalitsioonipartnerite vaikiv heakskiit.

See oleks järjekordsel juhtumisel teie praeguselt jõupositsioonilt mitte enam lihtsalt pettumust tekitav vaid lausa isiklikult solvav.

Jaksu ikkagi parempoolse valitsuse äramoodustamisel,

Sten,
seekord lihtsalt kodanikuna

Lihtsalt, et kui keegi veel tunneb, et ei taha toimuvat pelgalt pealt vaadata: ka sinu hääle saanud isiku e-mailiaadress on vaid kiire guugeldamise kaugusel, juhul kui sa temaga varem suhelnud veel ei ole.

UPDATE: Sain täpselt 24h pärast vastuse, mis lühidalt toimuva taustu avab. Julgustav, proovige ka.

From today to April 13th (that would be 4 weeks) I am working from our London office. Partly it has to do with my new team which is dominantly based in London. But no less important reason has been the strain my weekly back-and-fourth bouncing has put on my family. So they've come along.

The only thing to suffer from my extended stay here is the rapid growth of frequent flier miles, really.

Looking forward to the long-postponed catchups with Kalm, Kristi, Catherine, Saul, Eileen and others. I hopefully make one of the OpenCoffe Clubs, likely the one next Thursday. You never get time for these things when coming over for 1.5 days a week.

The high life quality standards in even the darkest alleys of Zürich, Switzerland lead to arguably the poshest trashcan branding on the planet.

I've always considered one of the coolest things about working for Skype the deeply international group of people. About a fifth of our Tallinn staff of almost 300 have moved to Estonia from elsewhere in the world to work with us. And that group of happy expats has over 30 nationalities. In Skype globally, the unique nations count must be something in higher fifties, I think.

I very strongly believe into the cultural, linguistic and human diversity this setup has brought to our products and the company overall. We could never continue to delight people in almost every single country in the world if we didn't have a sample of them working with us.

My freshest personal experience is my own eCommerce team. On our first team offsite meeting in Tallinn earlier today we did a round of introductions and after some intriguing personal stories shared about ... oh well, let it be... there was the bit on where everyone has their roots: Australia, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, United States. Not bad at all for a group of 20 present.

This fellow does look a little sad about all this stuff going on in his nostrils.

Amazingly enough these very realistic wax statues at the Ahhaa, Panoptikon anatomy exhibition date back to as early as 1856. The worn-down buildings of Tartu University's Old Anatomical theatre provide the exactly suitable ambiance.

A bit morbid but educational way to spend one's sunny Sunday. Recommended.

Even though the numbers seemed funny at the time, it is obvious now that DS is a much more balanced person than I am. As of last night, my physical age is 75 and my brain age 33.

Apparently the lust for (next-gen) gaming does not drop with age and Nintendo does a great job with bringing some appropriate sense into this as a good excuse to find time. (Not an issue with DS [edit: aha, confusing, meant the Nintendo DS Lite this time, as opposed to the DS person linked above], given the extensive flying on European routes with shrinking seat space often prohibiting you to open a computer).

Thanks a lot for the b-day gifts!

A door of a power box on a street in Tartu, Estonia, morning of the election day. Probably both candidates (left one in black and right one in orange color) wanting a parliament seat. Danger of high voltage in any case.

Ecologically sound citizens of Tartu, Estonia gathering on thin ice to turn the coating of hometown river Emajõgi into Swiss cheese. And see if the fish care to surface alongside them.

Seth has written a great piece on the differences between what is "very good service" organizations provide to consumers versus to other businesses.

I'd like to add another twist to this.