Sami Serola (inactive)'s articles

I decided to start a new article, which I will update every now and then. I collect here useful online services discovered on Web. ➽ Coblis — Color Blindness Simulator Useful tool for testing your images and graphs, to see how they look for someone who has some color vision handicap. ➽ Linguee A very useful service to find out how different words and phrases translate into other languages. Linguee gives examples of various contexts. Here's an example how English expression "o…

Ipernity uses UTF-8, which does not support all latest Unicode symbols. The followings should at least work: ▀ ▁ ▂ ▃ ▄ ▅ ▆ ▇ █ ▉ ▊ ▋ ▌ ▍ ▎ ▏ ▐ ░ ▒ ▓ ▔ ▕ ▖ ▗ ▘ ▙ ▚ ▛ ▜ ▝ ▞ ▟ ■ □ ▢ ▣ ▤ ▥ ▦ ▧ ▨ ▩ ▪ ▫ ▬ ▭ ▮ ▯ ▰ ▱ ▲ △ ▲ ▵ ▶ ▷ ▸ ▹ ► ▻ ▼ ▽ ▼ ▿ ◀ ◁ ◂ ◃ ◄ ◅ ◆ ◇ ◈ ◉ ◊ ○ ◌ ◍ ◎ ● ◐ ◑ ◒ ◓ ◔ ◕ ◖ ◗ ◘ ◙ ◚ ◛ ◜ ◝ ◞ ◟ ◠ ◡ ◢ ◣ ◤ ◥ ◦ ◧ ◨ ◩ ◪ ◫ ◬ ◭ ◮ ◯ ◰ ◱ ◲ ◳ ◴ ◵ ◶ ◷ ◸ ◹ ◺ ◻ ◼ ◽ ◾ ◿ ☄ ★ ☆ ☇ ☈ ☊ ☋ ☌ ☍ ☎ ☏ ☐ ☑ ☒ ☓ ☔ ☕ ☖ ☗ ☘ ☙ ❧ ☚ ☛ ☜ ☝ ☞ ☟ ☠ ☡ ☢ ☣ ☤ ☥ ☦ ☧ ☨ ☩ ☪ ☫ ☬ ☭ ☮ ☯ ☰ ☱ ☲ ☳ ☴ ☵ ☶ ☷ ☸ ☹ ☺ ☻ ♧ ♨ ♰ ♱ ♲ ♳ ♴ ♵…

When trying to define what is ambient music, I discovered there is actually no clear definition for it. It is easier to say what is not ambient music than to say what goes under it. When I was trying to find out bands and music going under ambient genre, I discovered plenty of surprises there. One of big the surprises, and yet rather obvious one, was to find out Pink Floyd listed as an ambient music band. But on the other hand, Pink Floyd defined my musical taste when I was a teen . I si…

For me music has always represented a storyline and trip through time and space. And that is why especially ambient music works so well as a soundtrack for videos, slideshows, movies, or somewhat any kind of presentation. And that is why I give you two different train journeys. Ulrich Schnauss - Train Journey from Jackbox on YouTube Reham - This Thirst from Francois Vogel on YouTube Second one is maybe not exactly ambient music, and the song is not long e…

Because there are so many options to listen music online, I have not much bought albums anymore. Last one I did bought as a CD, was Opalescent by Jon Hopkins . And because it has collected dust in the bookshelf, I had almost fogotten it. But lately I have rediscovered it thanks to SoundCloud and Deezer. Jon Hopkins - Singularity from Khalid Mohtaseb on Vimeo . And once again, such music gives food for the thought: Open Eye Signal - Jon Hopkins from AOIFE MCARDLE…

After discovering SoundCloud, I next found my way to BandCamp . It is a place where artists share their music to buy and download, sometimes also for free under Creative Commons license. In practice it does not much differ from other similar services, but once again, one can find there something different than from elsewhere. In this case, and for me, Spunkshine seems to offer a lot at BandCamp. FREE Spunkshine debris by Spunkshine Spunkshine - debris album available for fr…

Few years ago I got very fond of SoundCloud . They provided free use without nasty advertisements. During time, I collected a wonderful ambient music playlist there. But somewhat all wonderful things eventually comes to their end. Also SoundCloud started to play advertisements every now and then. However, SoundCloud still is a good place to find and listen interesting music. And if one can afford to pay for yet another online service, then ads of course gets removed. My favorite amb…

I give you great French gift for the world. Air is one of the most wonderful French ambient music bands there has ever been, in my opinion. As compared to Jean-Michel Jarre , who is maybe more famous, Air has manage to make their music more emotionally appealing. Jarre I used to like in 1990s, but today his music just sounds too busy, like stuffed with too many sounds and elemenst. One could even say that Jarre is too "electronic". Here's a nice sample for you to watch and listen.…

Because it can be super relaxing, as it was claimed in case of Weightless by Marconi Union . There are of course also so called meditation music and soundscapes, like sounds of nature , Tibetan singing bowls and binaural beats . Marconi Union - Weightless Part 5 from JustMusicTV on YouTube And if that is not long enough, you can also try the 10 hour version of it. But music in general can of course stimulate or put the mind in rest. And what works for human mind can…

Around 2008, soon after discovering SomaFM internet radio station, I also found Magnatune . It is a pretty neat concept of giving a "lifetime" access to a wide range of music not available anywhere else. I was pleased to find out Magnatune still exists. What makes it special is their detailed bios on artists and their works. Around 2008 I often went there just to listen a specific ambient music gem, Stargarden , aka Bobby/Robert DeVito . His amazing albums are made with care and thou…

According to my email correspondence, it must have been year 2008 when I discovered SomaFM internet radio station that broadcasts a wide range of music on number of playlists. And my favorite playlist ever since I discovered SomaFM, has been their Groove Salad playlist, which consists of ambient and downtempo genres of music. The best part of SomaFM is that they do not advertise. Only the more or less obligatory broadcast call sign becomes mentioned every now and then. But to run su…

Challenged by Luc Martin at Facebook, I will write a ten post "review" on web sites, artists, albums and musical pieces that has made me as a big fan of ambient music . I also give you a chance to find out more via my old image uploads made here at ipernity. First I of course need to define what ambient music is. I recall Brian Eno saying something like it is a " music that does not disrupt ambient sounds, and which does not become disrupted by the ambient sounds. ". So, one can listen t…

Yes, you read right! A very annoying dust particle appeared inside my Canon G5x camera lens. And since it is a compact camera, there is no way to remove the lens to get it cleaned by my own. Or so I thought... I was desperate, because sending it to service to get it cleaned would very likely cost several hundred euros. Luckily we have Google... I searched with string " dust particle inside canon g5x ", and found out an Youtube video showing how to clean pretty sim…

Below the comment editing boxes you may have noticed the ( options ) -link opening a pop up window for some formatting tips. Instructions given there try to be as simple as possible, but there are plenty of "nerd terminology". Unfortunately there are no step by step instructions how they are supposed to use. The most unclear part is the code for creating a clickable text link. Here I try to help especially with that. 1)…

During the IGA2020 meeting it became clear that "old fashioned" image captures is not quick and reliable way to take backups. Retrospectively it was realized that there already is a great software to do in time snapshots of any basic computer program that allows one to print the page/file/work. And that is the PDF-XChange . Here I give a short introduction to the old paid version of it , when used together with Chrome browser . Unfortunately I later on discovered the new PDF-XChange L…

Yes, please! =)

My friends have probably noticed that I like ambient music. Years ago I used to listen to it on SomaFM . Then I discovered SoundCloud , and started to collect and listen my own playlist there. But now SoundCloud has also started to harash people with advertisements. Currently they only advertise their own paid plans, but probably it is the first sign of them to get rid of the "free riders". Just as we have done here at ipernity. I have nothing against paid services, if the quality meets t…

Here are some useful sources to understand what all can be protected by copyright laws, and what copyright is about: Copyright rules by subject matter explained at Wikimedia Commons. And the same in French . Intellectual property wiki People often take the copyright lightly, ignores it, or simply don't know it very well. We easily refer to fair use , which more or less covers only cases in United States, but should not be stretched to cover publications globally shared on Inte…