Thursday, November 1

 

 

I walked to Puotila this morning again, thinking about how I would move the static website over to WordPress. I had deliberately done the static site without thinking ahead because I want to simulate the students’ likely process of thought. This way, when I demonstrate it all next Tuesday, it should have a ring of familiarity about it.

I began by checking the exact layout of the fundamental divs in the jointsWP theme that the students will use as their starting point. I then produced a second version of the static site with the divs renamed according to the structure used in jointsWP.

I then had a brief meeting with Jutta and Mirko which involved walking tothe coffee room and filling the coffee machine with milk.

It took me two hours and forty minutes to produce a working WordPress site that looked identical to the static site. This included the time I spent figuring out what I wanted to do in terms of entering and automating the data.

In the afternoon I met Sophie in Zoom. We had intended to record the next episode of the podcast but we both had had too much to do and felt under-prepared. Instead we decided to rehearse and discuss and plan. This we did, and agreed to meet again next Monday when we will actually record an episode looking at the history of the ideas that various people have termed cultural democracy.

At 16:10 I made it to Kamppi and moved Irma’s mother’s big wicker swing chair from the balcony down to the basement. I then sat with her for almost two hours talking about various things which have bothered her recently. Among these: a bill from HS:Works for an anti-virus software called Eset that she allegedly installed in June.

I checked her computer and, bingo, I found it happily installed. She, of course, denied even knowing how to install software. What had happened? My best guess: Arto or Kim installed something else on Leena’s computer in June and it piggybacked along. Perhaps it threw up a “Would you like your computer to feel safe?” dialog box at some point and Leena clicked “yes”.

I suspect legal but interesting business practices at work here. The software did not ask for credit card details and it did not issue any receipt. Instead a paper invoice arrived by post, the details gathered by the software phoning home. How did these details include Leena’s name and postal address?

That I intend to find out.

When I get home I find Irma having a Skype call to some consultants in California, so I stay quiet until she finishes. I have a shower and Irma decides to make me supper. I get some fish sandwiches, a pot of tea and a huge banana, cut into pieces and smothered in cream and hundreds and thousands.

I don’t ask questions. I just eat.