Only slightly bent

See this water here on the right? It should be hot. Not that you could tell, but it’s not. I’m not sure if you can even tell it’s water, but it is. Anyway, it’s not hot. In fact it’s freezing cold.

And that, it turns out, is rather inconvenient once one is used to having running hot water.

On Friday evening, we noticed problems with hot water delivery. Namely there wasn’t any. The maintenance company said that the hot water pump (or whatever) had failed in the condo complex – and that we’d have to wait until Monday to get it repaired because it needs some parts. Right. Incredibly, this happened last year also with the same excuse, so it seems we have since switched from one inept maintenance company to another inept maintenance company.

While there are 24/7 plumbers, apparently there are no 24/7 plumbing equipment stores where you could actually buy stuff from. That, in a word, sucks. Are we really such a retarded country that we can’t get a stupid part until some store mercifully decides to open somewhere?

Going without hot water for a few days may not sound like a big deal, and it really isn’t. Until you want to (or need to) take a shower or wash up otherwise – which happens, like, every day, thus making it a big deal. Or at least a major inconvenience.

The government had an idea to equip all elementary school students with a computer. Not a bad idea, considering computer skills are pretty much necessary already today, let alone in 10-20 years.

Now OAJ (Trade Union of Education) has apparently decided that it’s impossible and basically tries to proclaim the idea DoA. The reasoning, as is often in such hastily made statements, is pretty interesting in its shallowness. Let’s see how we could help Anne Kolehmainen out with some of the issues (translations mine):

…seurannaiskustannukset, kuten langattomien verkkojen virittäminen ja lisääntyvä it-tuen tarve olisivat kestämättömiä.

…consequential costs, like setting up wireless networks and increasing IT-support would be unbearable.

First off, who said anything about wiring (or is that wirelessing?) all school properties with Internet coverage? Second, setting up WLAN networks is seriously not that expensive. And how about co-operation with operators or the likes of FON for the connectivity part?

Lisäksi opettajat tarvitsisivat pedagogista tukea.

Additionally teachers would need pedagogical support.

So we would actually need teachers tuned into todays challenges and issues? They would also need to learn to use the machines, learn about netiquette, online security, privacy and all that? This needs to be done with or without a one-laptop-per-child-policy. Someone please explain to me how having technologically competent teachers would somehow be a problem. And what about voluntary work to help out with this?

Pelkillä koneilla ei vielä paljoa tehdä, vaan niissä pitäisi olla ohjelmistoja. [...] Softalle ei jää kummoisia rahoja.

One can’t do much with just the machines, they need to have software [...] There’s not much money left for software.

How true. But how’s free, is free a good price for you? Ever heard of Linux? How about OpenOffice? GIMP? All the other free, excellent-quality software out there? And if that’s not good for you, how about corporate sponsorship? I’m sure companies like Microsoft would love to help out here to imprint whole generations as future users of their software.

In the end, of course it would cost money to do this. But to just flat-out dump the idea by stating that it costs too much without even trying to figure out solutions to get it funded is, to put it mildly, shortsighted. And this attitude, as much as I wish it would be, is certainly not limited to this case. It’s as if our country is saying that the hailed goal of an information society is only okay as long as nobody has to put in any effort or money on actually implementing it – as long as it remains a powerpoint-exercise, as long as nobody needs to learn anything.

I say let’s not get dismissive or desperate, let’s get creative. Again, this applies to so many other things than just this computer-issue.

For years in Finland, there has been a way to pay for stuff with your mobile phone. That is, if you a) find yourself cash-strapped at one of the nine (count ‘em – 9) merchants and b) if you happen to be one of the approximately seven subscribers that at some point signed up for the service.

Unsurprisingly, this service (Mobiiliraha) now bites the dust – I received the official account discontinuation letter a couple of days ago. Why is it not surprising? Well, for one, it broke my rules for a successful mobile payments system.

A hint to those running the website: update the site to reflect the real situation. Having the bank logos sit around on an aging website, associated with a payment solution that’s no longer in use is not exactly good PR.

Besides mass transport tickets, a plethora of premium-SMS services, parking tickets and other single-purpose mobile payment systems, does anyone know whether there are any active mobile multipurpose payment systems working in Finland anymore? I would love to see a Felica-type of a solution (i.e. credit card RFID chip embedded in the phone) to be taken into use over here, too, but I don’t see anyone pushing it.

It’s starting to feel like there isn’t a single big construction project that would not experience spiraling costs or take way longer than it was supposed to. Or both. We have plenty of recent examples right here in Finland. For one, the new Vuosaari harbor has had the cost estimate raised by about 65 million euros, some 20% over the original budget. Then we have the infamous Olkiluoto nuclear plant that was supposed to be delivering electricity in 2009. After numerous delays, it’s now looking more like 2011 and my guess is that it’ll be delayed even more. Plus I’m sure they’ll uncover at least a few hundred million additional costs somewhere, too.

Even smaller construction projects seem to be overwhelmingly difficult to get done properly. Everyone in Helsinki has heard of the tram debacle I’m sure. And the downtown tunnel that is under planning in Helsinki is now estimated to cost about 500 million euros, up from 270 million five years ago. Most people have heard of the years and years of Airbus delays and the billions (and jobs) that it’s costing to the stakeholders.

Of course in the US everything is bigger, including budget miscalculations. One of biggest budget “mishaps” in construction was the Big Dig in Boston; originally estimated to cost around $2.8 billion, the final cost was over $14 billion – and that’s not with the repairs that needed to be made once the ceiling starting falling down on cars.

What is it with construction companies and cost estimates? How is it possible that such absurd overruns are possible?

Yet, all of these are peanuts compared to war costs. In 2003, the US government came up with “a number that’s something under $50 billion” when figuring out the cost of the Iraq war. Already a year ago figures like two trillion were were deemed more accurate.

And is anyone willing to say as much as “oops” for this slightly overdrafted budget? Even I could think of one or two better ways to spend that money.

(Click on the thumbnails for the full photos)

Idiotic ads work

That’s quite frankly the only conclusion I can come up with for what seems to be the ever-continuing ad campaign by Forum, a small shopping center in downtown Helsinki. They’ve been milking the same concept for years. I didn’t find it funny the first time, and it’s becoming increasingly less funny as years go by – seriously, it’s got to be one the worst ad campaigns I’ve ever seen.

This one says, freely translated: “Buy a talking point. You get a mini-skirt for free.” If I frequented them to begin with, I’d be willing to boycott them just over their incredibly stupid ads. But over the years they’ve had countless variations of this same idiotic inverted theme, so it must work – I doubt shopping centers engage in charity for ad agencies.

One funny simulator

Talking about charity, there was one funny simulator earlier today near the Kamppi center in Helsinki: a queuing simulator. With just €1 (or €3 for two queuings) one could get in the line and “experience the fascination of queuing”. Hilarious.

The proceeds went to charity.

Swedish-speaking households are smaller than Finnish-speaking?

The image on the right is of fridge magnets, with a recipe for pancakes on them. The one on the top is in Swedish, the one on the bottom is in Finnish. The ingredients list is the same, only the Finnish version is dimensioned for twice the size of the Swedish version. Eh?

Why? I guess that’s one of the small mysteries of life.

Welcome to Holiday Inn Munich South – and the 20th century

All hotels these days should have Internet access. And by Internet access I mean broadband – in the US most self-respecting places have offered it for free for some time already, but especially in Europe they want to charge an arm and a leg for that. But still, almost invariably hotels provide you broadband access, wired and/or wireless.

Almost invariably. Some – like the one mentioned – are apparently still stuck in the 20th century, as witnessed by the “Internet Guide” of the hotel in the title. For Internet, they provide modem access. Excuse me, modem access?! Who uses a modem anymore!? My phone (networks willing) is five times faster than a frigging modem and it’s still slow!

Years after the WAP debacle, the collective hangover seems to be coming to an end. Operators elsewhere have for long pushed mobile data usage via browsing etc, but now that trend is finally coming to Finland, too, thanks to Elisa. They’ve recently launched a campaign to advertise what one can do with a phone, specifically helping users find the browser on their phones and point it to wap.elisa.net.

Ads like this one here: “How to access Google in your pocket? Press zero.”

Or this one with the text “Excuse me, but how do I get to web bank from here? Press zero.” (For those who don’t know, at least Nokia phones open up a browser when you press zero for a while)

The ads are good. I like the fact that operators are trying to educate consumers as to what they can do with their phones. But why WAP? Using WAP creates a couple of catches and both the device vendors and the operators are to blame for them.

Catch 1: Must use the WAP browser. Now, the most likely target group for these services are people with rather advanced phones like the Nokia N-series devices. These nowadays come with a wonderful web browser. Yet when you try to access wap.elisa.net with that browser you’re greeted with a rather impolite error message stating “Web: unsupported content type”. This is thanks to a) the Nokia “main” browsing not supporting WAP and b) Elisa portal not recognizing the device and offering it some more suitable content. For the N-series terminals, there’s a separate browser for WAP. While this has been purportedly fixed in N95, for the majority of N-series terminals out there this split combined with the fact that operators do not offer mobile-optimized web portals is a major drag.

Catch 2: Must use the WAP AP. In addition to the WAP browser, you’re forced to use the WAP Access Point also. If you make the mistake of using the Internet AP to access the WAP site, you’re again greeted with an unfriendly error message. Having to deal with two different browsers is bad enough, but two access points makes it even worse. Try using the Elisa TV services over a WLAN connection – no can do, even though everyone would benefit from that being possible. This is annoying especially when you consider that normal people have no clue whatsoever as to what an “access point” really is. Plus it’s even more bizarre considering there’s no technical limitation of using just one access point for both web and WAP traffic (so it’s a little bit more work for the operator to configure things but hey, is it really better to expose these problems to all of your customers?!).

And when you do use the WAP browser and the WAP AP, you’re restricted to the, well, WAP world. Which is, in a word, pathetic compared to what the entire web has to offer – all of which would be available on the other, better browser. All of this is less of an issue for people whose terminals only support WAP, but like I said, I don’t think they’re the #1 target group of this campaign. After all, Finland now has lots of 3G terminals that people are not using up to their capabilities – THEY are the #1 target group.

So while the campaign and the awareness it creates are good things, why do operators still seek to push WAP only? Before somebody whines that it’s about billing, well, it isn’t – with the campaign, Elisa is in fact selling people their flat-rate data packages. The services they’re pushing are free of charge and thus, there is no need for the WAP billing infrastructure to begin with.

Seriously. Do the operators really want to create another WAP disappointment?