Best music of 2021

No recap of lessons learned this year. Instead, here is a collection of some of the best music from 2021. Proud to say that I succeeded in my goal of listening to more Finnish records! Shoutout to Radio Helsinki and its feature programs for keeping me on that path.

Albums and EPs

Handshaking - Garden Clogs

Seeing Fedja Kamari perform live was one of the most memorable experiences this summer. The song "Näin kai taas lankesin" even in a formidable seven-and-a-half minute length, is a masterwork in tension-building and incidentally my most listened tune of the year.

Richard Dawson, Circle - Henki

Dawsons falsetto started to catch my ear while listening to the Finnish indie Spotify list. Slowly it began to grow on me. The rough, unpolished sound of the Circle with its unbridled energy makes me grin.

Ichiko Aoba - Windswept Adan

The soothing voice of Aoba's gives me the chills. Her impressive upper range combined with a dreamy flute produces a powerful emotional experience.

Timo Lassy - Trio

Front-row seats. Timo Lassy and the Ricky-Tick big band. Hand to heart, that was the first time when a two-hour gig kept me engaged for the whole time, and the encore was genuinely welcome. I recommend this record for anyone as a jazz starter pack. The more advanced listeners will derive pleasure from the virtuoso's intricate saxophone licks.

Ocelot - Unelmoi (EP)

The stabbing chords of the song "Unelmia" got me here. The perfect record to listen to on an evening bike ride.

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders, The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises

I listened to this a lot on my headphones while coding. The tracks explore a short refrain with diverse piano tones. Mix that with Sanders' gentle saxophone, epic strings, and the stress levels are bound to approach zero.

Highlighted tracks!

Helado Negro - There Must Be a Song Like You

Nala Sinephro - Space 4

Angel Olsen - Eyes Without A Face

Mogwai - Dry Fantasy

Black Country, New Road - Instrumental

Leon Wynehall - Mothra

Bobby Oroza - I Got Love

Trevor Deep Jr - Satisfied

Eevil Stöö - En luota mun koirii

James Blake - Say What You Will

Comments

I'm not a passionate developer

A family friend of mine is an airlane pilot. A dream job for most, right? As a child, I certainly thought so. Now that I can have grown-up talks with him, I have discovered a more accurate description of his profession. He says that the truth about the job is that it is boring. To me, that is not that surprising. Airplanes are cool and all, but when you are in the middle of the Atlantic sitting next to the colleague you have been talking to past five years, how stimulating can that be? When he says the job is boring, it is not a bad kind of boring. It is a very specific boring. The "boring" you would want as a passenger. Uneventful. Yet, he loves his job. According to him, an experienced pilot is most pleased when each and every tiny thing in the flight plan - goes according to plan. Passengers in the cabin of an expert pilot sit in the comfort of not even noticing who is flying. As someone employed in a field where being boring is not exactly in high demand, this sounds pro

Extracting object properties from an IFC file with IfcOpenShell

Besides the object geometry information, IFC files may contain properties for the IFC objects. The properties can be, for example, some predefined dimension information such as an object volume or a choice of material. Some of the properties are predefined in the IFC standards, but custom ones can be added. IFC files can be massive and resource-intensive to process, so in some cases, it helps to separate the object properties from the geometry data. IfcOpenShell is a toolset for processing IFC files. It is written mostly in C++ but also provides a Python interface. To read an IFC file >>> ifc_file = ifcopenshell.open("model.ifc") Fetch all objects of type IfcSlab >>> slab = ifc_file.by_type("IfcSlab")[1] Get the list of properties >>> slab.IsDefinedBy (#145075=IfcRelDefinesByType('2_fok0__fAcBZmMlQcYwie',#1,$,$,(#27,#59),#145074), #145140=IfcRelDefinesByProperties('3U2LyORgXC2f_hWf6I16C1',#1,$,$,(#27,#59),#145141), #145142

Hubristic developer

Almost half of any Finnish generation goes through a shared experience: the conscript army. An integral part of that experience is learning military slang, a set way people in the army talk. The stories told with said jargon often spread outside of the barracks. It is not uncommon to hear strangers bonding together over beers reminiscing and feeling nostalgic about freezing cold nights spent in tents. There is a similar phenomenon detectable among us coders. To be part of the coder tribe, there is at least one type of story that one must master. That is - of course - ranting about legacy codebases. "Can you believe how much of a mess the previous coders left? Hear, hear!" There is no better way to onboard a new team member than to blame some previous B-team for all the murky parts of the system at hand. This can be seen as harmless, a subject for a good meme . Rarely do we hold real grudges against "the legacy folk" and can be the best of friends in a social gather

Koodihommia

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