NL41 - A happy new year

Hello and happy new year! I am still in Matinkylä and this is still NordLetter. This is edition #41 of NordLetter, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

Previous editions can be found here. You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Threads and Mastodon.

Work continues on 'A year of mornings', my poetry collection. I continue working on the book. Self-publishing involves a lot of these admin types of tasks, getting the ISBNs, figuring out the description, getting things ready on KDP, creating the cover, formatting the book for the different formats, and so on and on and on.

I am mostly there. I should have more to share in the next NordLetter.

Prerna and I completed our yearly review. We started this practice last year. We mostly look back at the year that was, some of our favourite memories from the year gone by, the places we visited, the things we did.

And, simultaneously looking ahead. Setting some goals for the coming year.

It is also a time to review. I looked at some of my professional goals from last year and thought, wow was I hopeful. I had hoped to complete AZ-104 by February, 2023 for example. That, did not happen.

I think the benefit of these things comes after doing these for a few years. Then, you get the patterns.

I do recommend it. It is fun, when you find out how long a time a year can be. And how short!

We spent the new year visiting the ISKCON temple in Helsinki. This was our third time visiting the temple. We had visited once during Janmashtami and once earlier than that. The temple is open during 5-7 PM on weekdays. We left home aboard the M1 till Sörnäinen and then too the #73 bus to the temple.

It had snowed in the morning and there was snow everywhere. It was snowing as we got off the bus. We left our boots and jacket outside, which made everything super cold when we left the temple.

A lot of other people, had the same idea that we had as there were many people at the temple. The priest acknowledged the same while wishing us all a happy new year, after reading a few verses from the Bhagavad Gita.

We sat, meditated, listened and chanted for a bit. It was peaceful, being in the space. I like temples like that.

We went to Ravintola Parikar after that. It was a brisk 1.5 km walk from the temple. We were cold by the time we reached the restaurant.

We ordered momos, Kadhai paneer and veg kofta. The naan was good.

/five things to share

1. Wired - Healthier cities will require a strong dose of nature.

when we directly interact with nature, biochemical pathways are triggered in our bodies that result in significant beneficial health impacts.

Clinical experiments show that something as simple as having a vase of unscented roses on your desk, for instance, can significantly lower your blood pressure and bring about physiological and psychological calming. So too can having leafy plants in your home and office, particularly those with green and yellow foliage.

2. Chuck Nelson compares early stage Google and OpenAI search

If Open AI goes the way of Google with tons of choices and mental fatigue, it can still be successful, but will be battling to be king of the hill.

But if it can keep it simple and trustworthy, it can own the most valuable digital real estate as the sidekick with the single answer.

3. Financial Times - Are we becoming a post-literate society

A culture does not have to force scholars to flee to render them impotent. A culture does not have to burn books to assure that they will not be read . . . There are other ways to achieve stupidity.”

Proficiency improved significantly in only two countries (Finland and Denmark), remained stable in 14, and declined significantly in 11, with the biggest deterioration in Korea, Lithuania, New Zealand and Poland.

4. Bad year for IT professionals

The Verge - Volkswagen had a massive data leak exposing location data

For months, the location information of around 800,000 electric Volkswagen vehicles was available online due to a data leak, according to a report from the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The leak reportedly stemmed from the software running inside Volkswagen vehicles and could've allowed a bad actor to trace a driver’s exact movements, as noted by Electrek

And, The register - Salt typhoon breach for AT&T

5. A few end of the year roundups

Wired - 24 things that made the world a better place in 2024
Few highlights for me:

Routine Childhood Vaccination Against Malaria Began
SpaceX’s Starship Completed a Stunning Vertical Landing
Los Angeles Showed the Benefits of Becoming a Sponge City
A Startup Unlocked a Way to Make Cheap Insulin

Simon's roundup of LLMs in 2024
Some highlights:

LLM prices crashed, thanks to competition and increased efficiencyThe environmental impact got betterThe year of slop

/new posts

These are the posts I’ve written this week. Click the links to read them.

1. Poem - Rain, like mist
2. Build a bridge to your corner of the web
3. Hard work trumps talent every time
4. You get accustomed to things, how to use that to your benefit?
5. Rethinking what and how I write
6. Followed by, knowing how to write

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.