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Second week (Friday 12th July 2019) about to finish on my new job as Head of Spatial for Zag - a great new adventure!
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I am IT not GIS (note) and believe it to be a great differentiator in our (geospatial) industry.
I've worked with geospatial
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New Job, New Adventure, AI promoted? (1st July 2019)
You can call me vain if you want to but I have a reason to share these 3 articles on my recent move from e-Spatial to Zag - all of them are similar, but still somewhat different. My point on sharing them is I'm pretty sure a lot of articles nowadays are already produced by AI (Virtual Journalists) rather than real live journalists.
This is word-to-word the original article we wrote in Zag and shared with some selected online news entities, but these two; from iStart and from Reseller News are different, even including photos different to the original source. The text brought into them is from older articles and news (as are the photos), but almost word to word the way they were originally written. Yes the journalist might have just copy-pasted the text over, but usually this is not human nature - people tend to want to put their own stamp on the text and change is somewhat, as it sounds different to all our ears so we want to change it to feel familiar to us.
So call me not vain but paranoid if you want, but I am curious whether these two articles are actually created by AI entity rather than a human - as that technology for sure is already available and could in theory do that. Is this a disrupting technology for the news/journalism industry?
This is word-to-word the original article we wrote in Zag and shared with some selected online news entities, but these two; from iStart and from Reseller News are different, even including photos different to the original source. The text brought into them is from older articles and news (as are the photos), but almost word to word the way they were originally written. Yes the journalist might have just copy-pasted the text over, but usually this is not human nature - people tend to want to put their own stamp on the text and change is somewhat, as it sounds different to all our ears so we want to change it to feel familiar to us.
So call me not vain but paranoid if you want, but I am curious whether these two articles are actually created by AI entity rather than a human - as that technology for sure is already available and could in theory do that. Is this a disrupting technology for the news/journalism industry?
In the Beginning - Short Synopsis
I was born 23rd July 1966 in Kalajoki, North Ostrobothnia, Finland (red marker on the map), but my official birthplace is Haapajärvi where we were living at the time. To my knowledge I am either 1/8th or 1/16th part Sami (Laplander) from my mother’s side (a circle way up north in the map - Sodankylä). If you were wondering the dotted line is Arctic line - night-less nights in summer, day-less days in winter.
I had a great childhood, loving parents who were also reasonably wealthy, working as merchants (supermarkets) and because of that we moved a lot. In other words I've lived in various places in Finland (marked in map with yellow circles), but most of my childhood / teenhood (from 12 years onwards) I've lived in in Laihia (also known as Finnish Scotland). I was musically talented enough to get accepted to music school at age 10, but unfortunately my parents had to move us again only after 2 years. I believe my love of music comes from music school as music had no great part in our family, I also learned to play piano and cello there - both that I can play today. I am the oldest of 4 siblings (2 brothers and a sister); I have 2 years younger brother Jukka who is also my best friend and the only one of the family who was financially successful, a 9 years younger sister Hanna-Mari who is a nurse, a lovely person and probably the only wise one of us siblings and a 14 years younger brother Antti-Pekka, who I dropped when he was a baby ... not on his head though, just broke his leg - actually he is probably cleverer than me but I will never admit it to him. I like sport, but was only ever averagely skilled at sports, however I am very competitive and as such have trained a lot. So much so that I managed to win a Bronze medal in junior Finland Greco-Roman wrestling championships (62kg) when I was 16 (1982), only losing (12-4) against a guy who ended up winning Olympic Gold only some 5 years later. When I still cared about hair style ... I had a long hair and perm when I was 16, black hair and pony-tail in University and blond stripes when I came to NZ. I was a singer on a heavy metal band at 16, our band even made as far as a warm-up band for a Finnish legendary band Mamba (we almost broke their gear) - they came up with this hit at the time. I love heavy metal and hard rock to date. |
Early Days Summary
I knew what I wanted to do since early childhood - games, computers, technology and future tech; I started playing games with Mattel ColecoVision when I was 6 (pong & hockey) - my dad brought me that from a conference in US, Florida in 1972.
I wrote my first program when I was 8 for Commodore Vic-20 – and I ended up writing altogether 5 programs for it (self-taught). On my school holidays I project managed Nokia MikroMikko system setup for my dad's supermarket when I was 15 (with 3 other people working with/for me). I was also one of the lead developers for a Student Management System for Laihia High School (with 4 others with me) - and we never got paid for this work!
I finished “university preparing school” (lukio) with Laudatur in mathematics (and with Cum Laude in English - sorry guys). I managed to get to Joensuu university straight from the compulsory 11-month army training (Oulu) - I'm currently ranked Lieutenant within the “food preparation” side (yes, this fat man is a cook). BTW, I was a real bastard to the soldiers there (I was 19 and the rank got into my head a bit) and ended up getting beaten up by some 100+ (a lot of) guys in Kalajoki mid-summer party :)
I studied in Joensuu from 1986-1990 – and graduated one year early. I have Masters Degree in Computer Sciences and also 2-student-year degrees (graded Bachelors degrees here) in Mathematisc, Statistics and Economics. Additional to this in my professional life I have also certified myself in project managemnt (Prince), databases and modeling with Progress, Oracle, SQL Server, Informix and Mapinfo SpatialWare plus some dubious certificates like Microsoft Certified Professional (it's a sales certificate) and a Business Analysis certificate in PRUD.
Below is a picture of some of the development languages I have worked with (on purpose I left out new scripting languages as I feel they are not "real" languages requiring same kind of methodologies and principles as 4GL languages do):
I wrote my first program when I was 8 for Commodore Vic-20 – and I ended up writing altogether 5 programs for it (self-taught). On my school holidays I project managed Nokia MikroMikko system setup for my dad's supermarket when I was 15 (with 3 other people working with/for me). I was also one of the lead developers for a Student Management System for Laihia High School (with 4 others with me) - and we never got paid for this work!
I finished “university preparing school” (lukio) with Laudatur in mathematics (and with Cum Laude in English - sorry guys). I managed to get to Joensuu university straight from the compulsory 11-month army training (Oulu) - I'm currently ranked Lieutenant within the “food preparation” side (yes, this fat man is a cook). BTW, I was a real bastard to the soldiers there (I was 19 and the rank got into my head a bit) and ended up getting beaten up by some 100+ (a lot of) guys in Kalajoki mid-summer party :)
I studied in Joensuu from 1986-1990 – and graduated one year early. I have Masters Degree in Computer Sciences and also 2-student-year degrees (graded Bachelors degrees here) in Mathematisc, Statistics and Economics. Additional to this in my professional life I have also certified myself in project managemnt (Prince), databases and modeling with Progress, Oracle, SQL Server, Informix and Mapinfo SpatialWare plus some dubious certificates like Microsoft Certified Professional (it's a sales certificate) and a Business Analysis certificate in PRUD.
Below is a picture of some of the development languages I have worked with (on purpose I left out new scripting languages as I feel they are not "real" languages requiring same kind of methodologies and principles as 4GL languages do):
As you can see I have highlighted 3 languages:
One thing to note though on Java - it is a powerful language and there are a lot of people who can develop quality code with it. And as a matter of fact, I know a lot of developers who (and have been involved on a lot of successful projects) are really good with Java and who can create real magic with it - and I would not want them to use any other language. For some reason Java just does not work for me ...
- VarPas - when Object-Orientation was brand new (C++ just emerged) - I came up with an idea of building a brand new language on variable-orientation - it made sense as developers build "variable-centric" systems all the time - and managed to convince my Professor in university that this was a good idea. I designed and built this language from scratch and believed it was GOOD! Well, reality was that it was practically impossible to develop with this language as it demanded your mind to bend into impossible angles - remember the early days of AI languages Prolog and LINQ - similar kind of mind shift was required. But it was a great experience to gain understanding on how a development language is built and what some f the issues around supporting (and not just using) a language are.
- Progress - I was really good at Progress, and internationally recognised to be one of the best with it. It covered some 7 years of my life and even today it still occasionally pops up (last time I was asked to do some work on it was on 2018!).
- Java - was the reason I decided to stop developing code. What a mess it was compared to C, C++ and any of the 4G languages I was familiar with. Funnily enough I have done some work afterwards with C#.NET and that was not too bad (even though it was "cloned" from Java). It was actually good enough to have a go with Java again - end result: I still play with C#.NET - to me Java has no soul. To be fair it was 2012 the last time I really tried to play with Java - nah, too hard.
One thing to note though on Java - it is a powerful language and there are a lot of people who can develop quality code with it. And as a matter of fact, I know a lot of developers who (and have been involved on a lot of successful projects) are really good with Java and who can create real magic with it - and I would not want them to use any other language. For some reason Java just does not work for me ...
Matti Seikkula: "Short" biography / Story
I am a Finn; I was born in a small village 300km south of nordic circle called Kalajoki (Fish River) at 1966. All my dad's family comes from there, we are one of the only two family Seikkula's in Finland. My mom's side is from Orajarvi, suburb of Sodankyla (Village of War), some 100km north of nordic circle. I have some 17 uncles and aunts from my mom's side, and all of them had 2 kids or more, so a lot of cousins (that I never met).
I am oldest of 4 siblings; my brother Jukka is 2 years younger than me, father of two and a successful businessman in the gym-industry. My sister Hanna-Mari is 9 years younger than me, mother of two and a nurse. My youngest brother Antti-Pekka is 14 years younger than me, father of two and a co-owner of my brother Jukka's company. I Have no children of my own, but via my (civil) marriage to Merja, I do have a step-daughter Liisa, who I was happy to help raise from year 10 onward. She lives in Finland and is a mother of two, so I became a "step-grand-dad" within my mature age of 46.
My dad Aarre is retired now, my mom Kati died 2017 suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. Mom and dad used to manage and own supermarkets in various Finnish cities, and were quite successful on what they did. My dad also managed an ice hockey team in Vaasa called "Vaasan Sport", which (if you are a Finn or a Canadian) is a big thing - they are nowadays in Finnish League and doing real well.
I have always liked computers - my dad believed it was important for us kids to learn all we could on new technology and the best way to do this was via games. So he bought us one of the first Atari Pong consoles in Finland around 1972 (I was 6), which we played to death. Actually a year later you could buy a second game into it called Ice Hockey, which introduced a second set of bats and huge improvements on game play; lots of great memories there.
Not all my dad's educational plans worked well; 1979 he brought us Mattel's Intellivision from US, and all we could do with it was to salivate on the color screenshots of 10 COLOR! games you could play with it on the backside - as it did not work on Finnish TVs.
I started working in my dad's supermarket around summer of 1980 (when I was 14 years old), my first salary was used on buying a Commodore VIC-20 and 3 months later I was a serious gamer and had built my first (Javeling Throwing) game for it using BASIC. And a 6 months after that I had figured out the secrets of ASSEMBLY and built a clone of Space Invaders. When Commodore-64 came out I of course had to buy that, and Commodore Amiga after that (with Atari ST on the side). Gaming, gaming, gaming and a couple of games developed on the side.
There are 2 commercial ventures I remember I did when in my teens; in college when we were 17, five of us students/friends were asked to build a student management system for our school in our summer holidays. We were supposed to get paid for it, or at least compensated someway (better marks maybe?), but I do not remember we ever got a cent for it even though we built the whole thing using DISASSEMBLER - which is probably the most painful thing you can do.
Second venture was that my dad bought Nokia MikroMikko for his supermarket around 1982, and I spent the whole summer on setting it up. For those of you who do not know, it used an OS called CP/M and was used for managing ordering, inventory, financial and payroll for supermarkets. It was ahead of it's time for sure and actually quite sophisticated using barcodes for ordering and a simple online banking interface.
I joined army on summer of 1985 for 11 months as it was compulsory at the time and retired from there as a sergeant. I have taken part on 2 civilian training sessions after that and currently hold the rank of Captain. Straight after army I applied (and successfully passed exams) for computer sciences studies in university of Joensuu.
My gaming was followed with the first Amstrad PCs (still remember Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards at 1987), which I also used for my studies.
I graduated from university at 1990, with Masters Degree and joined with a company in city of Vaasa called UnikkoSoft (company changed it's name from Waasoft int he first year I was in) in a role of junior developer. Work consisted of building/developing various IT products; an Ordering System for Magazine/Newspaper Circulation, Stock/Inventory System for Retail, Financial/Payroll system etc. I worked on various roles including project management, team lead development, customer relationships (technical), configuration/setup/support manager to name a few.
I moved to New Zealand in 1993 (I was invited by a friend from Unikko-Soft Stefan, nowadays I believe still a lead consultant at Idiom in Auckland) and joined a company called QED (Auckland). A month later I moved to QED Wellington (as they had more work on at the time and I had difficulties with the hot Auckland temperatures) ending up working under great guys Garth Hamilton (now CEO of Assurity) and Mike O'Connor (now owner of Catalyst-ID). I worked with them in various roles (mostly management) covering testing, development, management, projects, business analysis/user requirements and design.
QED Wellington eventually discontinued and I decided to join Critchlow Associates, which was the start of my geospatial career on 1996. There I met my pal/mentor Simon Jellie (who teached me the "Spatial" ropes) so finally 1998 we (Simon and me) started up e-Spatial (originally Spatial Solutions). The first year was interesting as I was the sole developer in our company (and Simon did the selling) - it was great times!
We grew steadily and at a time were 25 strong, today e-Spatial are 20 strong, in New Zealand this is large for a specialized systems integrator company. To my knowledge e-Spatial are the largest in NZ market. I left e-Spatial on mid-2019 and Simon retired at the same time, so e-Spatial is now under a very different management than what we had. I left because I did not like the way the vision, culture and values changed in e-Spatial with the merger with Harrison Grierson. Luckily I think I found a new home in Zag - where I am Head of Spatial Services - a brand new Line of Business for them and a great new adventure for me.
As always I would like to hear your feedback.
I am oldest of 4 siblings; my brother Jukka is 2 years younger than me, father of two and a successful businessman in the gym-industry. My sister Hanna-Mari is 9 years younger than me, mother of two and a nurse. My youngest brother Antti-Pekka is 14 years younger than me, father of two and a co-owner of my brother Jukka's company. I Have no children of my own, but via my (civil) marriage to Merja, I do have a step-daughter Liisa, who I was happy to help raise from year 10 onward. She lives in Finland and is a mother of two, so I became a "step-grand-dad" within my mature age of 46.
My dad Aarre is retired now, my mom Kati died 2017 suddenly from a brain hemorrhage. Mom and dad used to manage and own supermarkets in various Finnish cities, and were quite successful on what they did. My dad also managed an ice hockey team in Vaasa called "Vaasan Sport", which (if you are a Finn or a Canadian) is a big thing - they are nowadays in Finnish League and doing real well.
I have always liked computers - my dad believed it was important for us kids to learn all we could on new technology and the best way to do this was via games. So he bought us one of the first Atari Pong consoles in Finland around 1972 (I was 6), which we played to death. Actually a year later you could buy a second game into it called Ice Hockey, which introduced a second set of bats and huge improvements on game play; lots of great memories there.
Not all my dad's educational plans worked well; 1979 he brought us Mattel's Intellivision from US, and all we could do with it was to salivate on the color screenshots of 10 COLOR! games you could play with it on the backside - as it did not work on Finnish TVs.
I started working in my dad's supermarket around summer of 1980 (when I was 14 years old), my first salary was used on buying a Commodore VIC-20 and 3 months later I was a serious gamer and had built my first (Javeling Throwing) game for it using BASIC. And a 6 months after that I had figured out the secrets of ASSEMBLY and built a clone of Space Invaders. When Commodore-64 came out I of course had to buy that, and Commodore Amiga after that (with Atari ST on the side). Gaming, gaming, gaming and a couple of games developed on the side.
There are 2 commercial ventures I remember I did when in my teens; in college when we were 17, five of us students/friends were asked to build a student management system for our school in our summer holidays. We were supposed to get paid for it, or at least compensated someway (better marks maybe?), but I do not remember we ever got a cent for it even though we built the whole thing using DISASSEMBLER - which is probably the most painful thing you can do.
Second venture was that my dad bought Nokia MikroMikko for his supermarket around 1982, and I spent the whole summer on setting it up. For those of you who do not know, it used an OS called CP/M and was used for managing ordering, inventory, financial and payroll for supermarkets. It was ahead of it's time for sure and actually quite sophisticated using barcodes for ordering and a simple online banking interface.
I joined army on summer of 1985 for 11 months as it was compulsory at the time and retired from there as a sergeant. I have taken part on 2 civilian training sessions after that and currently hold the rank of Captain. Straight after army I applied (and successfully passed exams) for computer sciences studies in university of Joensuu.
My gaming was followed with the first Amstrad PCs (still remember Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards at 1987), which I also used for my studies.
I graduated from university at 1990, with Masters Degree and joined with a company in city of Vaasa called UnikkoSoft (company changed it's name from Waasoft int he first year I was in) in a role of junior developer. Work consisted of building/developing various IT products; an Ordering System for Magazine/Newspaper Circulation, Stock/Inventory System for Retail, Financial/Payroll system etc. I worked on various roles including project management, team lead development, customer relationships (technical), configuration/setup/support manager to name a few.
I moved to New Zealand in 1993 (I was invited by a friend from Unikko-Soft Stefan, nowadays I believe still a lead consultant at Idiom in Auckland) and joined a company called QED (Auckland). A month later I moved to QED Wellington (as they had more work on at the time and I had difficulties with the hot Auckland temperatures) ending up working under great guys Garth Hamilton (now CEO of Assurity) and Mike O'Connor (now owner of Catalyst-ID). I worked with them in various roles (mostly management) covering testing, development, management, projects, business analysis/user requirements and design.
QED Wellington eventually discontinued and I decided to join Critchlow Associates, which was the start of my geospatial career on 1996. There I met my pal/mentor Simon Jellie (who teached me the "Spatial" ropes) so finally 1998 we (Simon and me) started up e-Spatial (originally Spatial Solutions). The first year was interesting as I was the sole developer in our company (and Simon did the selling) - it was great times!
We grew steadily and at a time were 25 strong, today e-Spatial are 20 strong, in New Zealand this is large for a specialized systems integrator company. To my knowledge e-Spatial are the largest in NZ market. I left e-Spatial on mid-2019 and Simon retired at the same time, so e-Spatial is now under a very different management than what we had. I left because I did not like the way the vision, culture and values changed in e-Spatial with the merger with Harrison Grierson. Luckily I think I found a new home in Zag - where I am Head of Spatial Services - a brand new Line of Business for them and a great new adventure for me.
As always I would like to hear your feedback.