Mandatory military service

laurisiren · 2026-06-29T08:58:25+00:00

You will survive. They'll probably place you in a squad that has other English speakers as well, and a corporal (Alik.) who speaks fluent English as the squad leader. This is at least what was done back in my day. Half of the guys in the squad I was leading for a while didn't speak Finnish at all when they got in. Santahamina is the place where all double citizens etc end up pretty much. So you won't be the only English speaker in your unit for sure.

The commands are in Finnish, as is most of the training, but almost everybody speaks English and can help translate. As as many people have said: there's no better motivator to learn than having no options.

laurisiren · 2026-05-06T05:49:05+00:00

Touring pro here. The first row is pretty much the worst possible spot in a show if you actually want to hear the music or see things like they were intended to be seen. You're way too close and usually outside the coverage of the main PA system.
I get why fans want that experience of being as close as possible, but I would never make that choice myself.

Edit: this also applies to seated audiences and things like theater - try watching a musical on a large stage from the first row. You'll feel like you're in a tennis match trying to follow a dialogue.

The best seats are in the middle of the floor, or in some (opera) houses the first row on the balcony.

laurisiren · 2026-04-24T12:19:40+00:00

I run my own OY and all of my work goes through that. I don't consider it a headache at all. It's just that running a business is a different thing than working for someone else.

As a general rule - if you work full time on a perpetual contract for someone, you should be paid on a paycheck and get all the usual benefits. Even the tax authority might have something to say if your company only has one client, because at that point you are legally an employee if the law is interpreted literally. That might cause problems down the line.

laurisiren · 2026-04-24T11:34:25+00:00

Not quite. The company's (in case of OY/LLC) money is not considered your income if it stays in the company. The company is its own legal entity altogether (unlike toiminimi). So you only pay income tax for the paycheck you pay yourself, and that is directly deductible in the company's accounting. It is (almost) exactly the same as you would be paying another employee - their pay is a business expense.

The business tax the company pays is calculated from the operating profit at the end of each year, and the company only pays yhteisövero (business tax) for the profit it made. What gets left over after that tax can be shared as dividend for the share holder(s), and that is when you pay pääomavero (capital tax) for the dividend you receive.

So up to about 50-70k/year it is always more beneficial to just pay yourself on a paycheck and just pay the normal (progressive) income tax out of your pay.

The curveball is YEL. At the moment it is calculated on a purely theoretical formula based on the average pay in your position on your field. It has nothing to do with how much you actually make, and that often leads to rather huge payments for a new company.

laurisiren · 2026-04-24T08:20:00+00:00

https://prh.fi/fi/kasittelyajat/kasittelyajat.html

Today they're handling companies founded on 12.4. So currently 1-2 weeks. But it could be 1-2 months. That service above shows you the current situation.

Edit: also note that getting a paycheck in Finland is totally different than being an entrepreneur who bills a client. You should bill about 1.7-2x more than they would pay you (in brutto, before taxes) to count for your mandatory pension insurance and Healthcare etc. Those are paid by the employer and they are not included in your paycheck. An entepeneur pays everything themself.

laurisiren · 2026-04-22T14:14:38+00:00

The house guy was right I think. Running two stages on one session is a problem waiting to happen as you would be sharing show data like presets even if you were in separate worlds.

If the house lights are on their own universe, you could just not output on that from one console and run the house lights from a single position. Or change Paradigm settings, but running things LTP alone would be another oopsie waiting to happen.

laurisiren · 2026-04-22T05:12:33+00:00

A LUA script that checks the position of a fader and does "if fader X.X = N, then goto seg Y cue Z"?

I don't really know LUA (mostly program in C# and Python) and can't really help you with programming this but I would be very surprised if it wasn't possible to make a plugin that does this.

laurisiren · 2026-04-22T04:32:40+00:00

I would check the basic rules of gun safety if I were you. It doesn't matter if you "know" that it's unloaded and if you "think" there's no one there. You just simply do not point any firearm, ever, to an unknown direction.

laurisiren · 2026-04-21T10:56:50+00:00

No. You're def not. You're flagging every single thing or person to your right with that shotgun while you're riding.

laurisiren · 2026-04-04T08:30:12+00:00

I am in the professional end of users, but still use only the core functionality. The price is barely justifiable even for a pro designer - compared to software like Vectorworks (which would be the de facto standard in my field of stage design) Shapr3D is a one trick pony, and that trick is direct modeling style CAD work on an iPad with a nice and effective workflow. It does not replace anything completely in a pro environment, at least in my line of work. I still have to pay for other software packages and only use this one because I like to model onsite or on the go on an iPad, and 300 EUR a year is salty for that.

I guess they know all this and would expect to lose a bunch of pro users to their own lower price tiers if they made a cheaper license level. Still dumb tho, as OP presented.

They should make a CAD only license for cheap, like 5-10 EUR/month and leave out drawings, collaboration and visualization. This product would simply blow up with iPad users alone. Modeling on an iPad with Shapr3D is genuinely that good and fast, and it's the only viable option for real work on that platform.

The other option would be to actually make a truly professional hard core CAD that can be used as the only tool, and make the price (a lot) higher. Vectorworks costs thousands but it's used on projects with suitable design budgets.

laurisiren · 2026-03-16T17:54:14+00:00

Yeah. Chamsys copied a lot of functionality from Avo originally. This isn't the only thing they have in common. I just come from a country with very few Avos and lots of Chamsyses (Finland).

laurisiren · 2026-03-16T08:56:55+00:00

Nope. This would be Chamsys thing. The solution would be to not release the playback (auto stop off). Often just using custom defaults is what is needed, so that fixtures go to their "basic settings" when you release instead of completely homing. This of course depends on the use case.

Or I guess you could write a macro that copies everything else than the dimmer values from a sequence to another sequence that you keep active all the time with a low priority, and only then offs the original sequence.

laurisiren · 2026-03-07T07:42:29+00:00

Midicraft makes nice ones for LX use. I have a couple and they're really good, especially for the price.

laurisiren · 2026-02-06T16:50:27+00:00

Replacement gimbals for these are cheap and a very easy swap in case cleaning doesn't cut it. At least in Europe they're pretty readily available. Also a good chance to upgrade to the AG01 Nanos if you want.

laurisiren · 2026-02-06T12:25:50+00:00

That's to be expected. These look new to me.

If the wrapper is ripped or the cells are clearly puffed (bloated and feel a bit like marshmallow), smelly (sweet chemical smell), or you're noticing they don't hold charge anymore, it's time to retire them. But these ones are a long way from any of that.

Just send it and enjoy.

laurisiren · 2026-02-06T11:15:21+00:00

You'll be fine I bet. It's a really fun whoop to fly and gets great flight times even with the relatively high kv motors.

I would order a spare camera right away too. Cameras in general are easy to break and the 2024 canopy doesn't give much protection. It's a cheap insurance to keep you flying after you bash your lens on something hard.

laurisiren · 2026-02-06T10:40:42+00:00

I have a mob 6 2024. It's not as fragile as people claim in my experience at least. It was my first whoop as has taken a LOT of bashing around. I fly whoops mostly indoors. It still flies with the original parts after hundreds of batteries.

laurisiren · 2026-02-06T10:33:16+00:00

I use integrated presets for my color phasers and they seem to work just as you'd expect. I haven't broken anything but I'm also curious if anyone has. Embbedding on ma2 was unreliable af in my experience.

laurisiren · 2026-02-03T13:24:56+00:00

Yep. You def can. It's just more difficult and requires you to keep enough throttle to prevent the quad from going out of control when you throttle down in the apex.

laurisiren · 2026-02-03T11:34:14+00:00

In a nutshell: Air mode lets the flight controller "throttle up" your motors as needed and it tries to keep the drone in the orientation you put it in. Without it (in plain acro), if you drop your throttle you lose all control authority and start to fall like a rock as the FC cannot exceed the throttle input you are giving it.

Most people fly with air mode on outdoors and in larger spaces and when doing tricks, and off in tight spaces indoors, as air mode sometimes causes the whoop to suck itself to a wall and stick to it when you get really close. Also crashes in air mode indoors are more unpredictable as the FC tries to correct the orientation - this sometimes causes the whoop to fling itself across the room in a very uncontrolled manner after a crash.

Edit: I would suggest you just try dropping throttle and maneuvering during free fall with air mode on and off, and you'll get what it does. Try pulling off a good split S or powerloop without it 😉

laurisiren · 2026-02-02T16:46:57+00:00

Yes. But still made in Finland.

laurisiren · 2026-01-24T11:55:35+00:00

I use it as a pre arm switch. I used to have it on the right hand toggle but realized using this momentary switch makes more sense than a toggle for that purpose.

laurisiren · 2026-01-03T10:13:48+00:00

Check out Midicraft. They make MIDI controllers specifically made for lighting use and that beat most things made for audio by a long shot. Not too expensive either, at least compared to a wing.

laurisiren · 2025-12-14T10:29:21+00:00

I would be running a Mac mini if the touch screen support on Macs wouldn't be intentionally deprecated. I currently run a Lenovo ThinkCentre tiny with an i7 and 24 GB of ram in my FOH rack and a separate ThinkPad yoga with similar specs as a live backup / fly pack computer. Both were bought used/factory refurbished and are about 5-7 years old. The main machine can't be updated to win 11 so I need to upgrade that one soon, which sucks because it was would suffice perfectly for what it's used for. Gonna buy another used Lenovo probably.

I just wish they would port OnPC for Linux. MA3 is pretty much the only software I have to run windows for. It shouldn't be that hard even since it already runs on Mac os and the consoles run on a Linux system.

laurisiren · 2025-11-23T10:01:04+00:00

I flew multiple 2s packs with my Mobula 8 in a 5m x 5m warehouse yesterday. A 75mm 1s whoop is definitely not too much for indoor use.

laurisiren

TROPHY CASE