Only slightly bent

We spent the day with our “bearded dragon club” (i.e. a group of Bearded Dragon owners who too rarely meet up) – mostly at the Helsinki Zoo and Tropicario. All in all it was a very nice day but rather than bore you with details, here are some photos. Click on the thumbnails to open the full photo:

I’m annoyed. I’ve complained earlier about the lack of “global” in global commerce and I just hit another bad example with moneybookers.com. Without getting into details, Moneybookers is sort of like PayPal – they act as an intermediary between merchants and customers in financial transactions.

How did I end up dealing with them? Well, the warranty policies of a certain camera company forced me to get a camera from within EU instead of getting it from the US with a reasonable price. So here I was, having finally located a store within EU to sell what I want for a not-too-outrageous price, trying to buy a camera from a merchant that uses Moneybookers to process their transactions. Everything went well until I had to pay for it which turned out to be impossible. Why? Because Moneybookers has a limit of 500eur for new customers. 500eur doesn’t buy much of a camera, so I called their customer service.

Customer service my @$%. While they weren’t as bad as HP in this completely unrelated case (seriously, it’s amazing what companies can call “customer service” and still get away with it nowadays!), it soon became apparent that they were equally unhelpful. The limit was there for my security, they told me. My security. And then they continue with a hypothetical case that if someone hacked into my account, they would be able to make purchases and they (Moneybookers) were going to be held liable and all that. So after eloquently telling me who exactly would be on the line of fire if there was a security breach, explain to me again how it was my security that was protected by this arrangement?

At this point I didn’t know what to think. But okay, I’m sure the limit could be raised somehow.

Like maybe by further identifying myself. To this end, after failing initial queries of possibly raising the limit, I offered to fax in every imaginable identification detail – to no avail. So how about a temporary raise? Not possible. They did offer to raise the limit if I sent them a recent bank statement with my address. Raise it to a whopping 750eur, that is! Alternatively I could also wait for six months(!) to get it raised – again to 750eur. Well whoop-e-doo, instead of an absurdly too low a limit I would then have, well, an absurdly too low a limit. More than that was apparently “impossible” as their system was “automatic”. Unbelievable. In essence they resorted to blaming the computer, so I called up a manager in an attempt to find some reason. But no. Even the manager blamed their “system” and that “nobody in the office can change these amounts” – if that is indeed true, it’s one pathetic system.

In any case, as it stands, Moneybookers is 100% useless to me and I hope by now they have deleted my account. So instead of getting some significant business, they managed to a) lose a customer for one of their merchants, b) get one disappointed ex-customer of their own and c) lose out on all the revenue my transaction would’ve brought them.

Way to go.

PayPal, fear not – your competition is not trying too hard on the “competing” part. I only wish the merchant in question would switch providers and all would be well in this particular case.

Do urban planners care about natural patterns? The immediate answer, when looking around at the designs or the “designs” of pathways, walkways and crosswalks is of course that in most cases they don’t. More often than not the paved paths are complemented with paths trampled on grass, more often than not masses of people cross the street where they shouldn’t and so on. But jaywalking is not really always the fault of the individual doing it, nor are the self-organized paths through the grass really the fault of the individuals. They’re the results of faulty urban planning.

One obvious mistake is trying to force people to use ludicrously long detours to a destination that is clearly visible and reachable much more easily.

Let’s take a simple example of this from near our home: in the map on the right, B marks the entrance to a building and A is the bus stop, an obvious place where a lot of people go to / come inside from. On the map, the green path is the “official” one that people should take to walk there. Is it any wonder that they instead take the red path?

To get a better idea of the distance, the photo on the left below is from the bus stop looking at the direct self-made path; the one on the right below is the official, paved route (click on the thumbnails to see the full photo).

But curiously, people do not always take the most direct route. In fact that rarely happens when larger systems are looked at. But still, when designing paths for masses, their behavior can actually be predicted. Crowd dynamics is a fascinating subject that I won’t get into here. The bottom line is that a lot of research has gone into the swarm movement, group motion and how masses of people behave and it turns out it’s actually quite predictable. It could be predicted with a fair degree of accuracy how people will want to move.

So why isn’t this being done, at least as far as I can tell? Don’t urban planners know that such modeling is possible, feasible and even recommended? Of course one option when planning a large park would be to cover everything uniformly with grass at first. Then wait a few weeks to see where the paths start forming, then pave (or build otherwise) the paths to their newfound natural locations. I wonder if this low-cost, ultra-natural approach has been tried anywhere.

In any case, next time you’re out and about, check out how many corners you cut – or would want to cut – outside the prescribed paths.

References

• For a short introduction to the topic, see the chapter 6 of Critical Mass by Philip Ball, titled “The march of reason”. For some further information, check out the links below:
• Transport and Planning Department at the Technical University of Delft
• Chair of traffic modeling and econometrics at Dresden Technical University (lots of interesting information, videos, simulations etc)
• Helbing, Dirk: Traffic and Related Self-Driven Many-Particle Systems
• Helbing, Molnar: Social Force Model for Pedestrian Dynamics

Earlier this week, we had a micro-vacation and went to Stockholm for a day. As it has probably been like 10 years since I last visited Stockholm properly, I was looking forward to the short visit. (note: click on the thumbnails for the full photo)

Stockholm as a city is not bad; it’s actually even pretty cool. The city is a nice, of compact size, quite clean, the old city is charming, there are plenty of good stores & restaurants to choose from and all that. To top it off, the weather was also benevolent so the day there was quite pleasant. Even fun.

Now that we’ve established that Stockholm is a cool city, we can turn our attention to how we got to Stockholm. As people know, many cruise ships run between Stockholm and Helsinki. We had a gift card for Viking Line for one of the better cabins (i.e. above car deck, with a window etc). These ships are advertised as “luxurious”, but tourists be forewarned: at least the Viking Line ships are far from luxurious.

Everyone knows the inconveniences that hoards of drunken Finns – and there’s no shortage of those on these ships – cause. But once you realize that there’s little else to do on the ship than to get drunk, you sort of start to understand them on some level. To me, the most exciting part of the cruise was watching Finland beat USA in hockey – and everyone who knows me understands perfectly how dire the situation has been when a sports event tops the list as a most exciting event. Nevertheless, the drunks were expected and manageable.

Unlike what started to materialize around 1am when our toilet drain thought some variety is the spice of life and instead of downwards movement, started gushing god-knows-what stuff upwards into our bathroom. Unsurprisingly, we weren’t entirely happy with our toilet being in this condition:

No problem, we got a new cabin. Though judging from the bathroom floor of the other cabin, a similar phenomenon had taken place there also not too long ago. By that time we were too tired to do anything about it, but needless to say one doesn’t come home feeling particularly clean after such experiences. And that’s when the poor condition of the cabins really hit me, too – not only did the sewer system apparently not work, the bed linen was dirty and torn, paint was missing here and there, switches broken…

Luxury my @ss. It was the newest ship in Viking Line’s fleet and it was sorely in need of a total overhaul, starting from the 80′s color world to the infrastructure on the brink.

I’m so flying next time. And probably to somewhere like Paris – Stockholm’s nice but not that nice that I’d be filled with unstoppable desire to visit it more than once a decade. In normal situations, I would file a complaint with Viking Line, but they would most likely offer a free cruise as compensation which, well, … let’s just say I don’t want one.

PS. Octoshape is now officially cool – it delivered the Eurovision song contest perfectly over the Internet with practically SD-TV quality. Very nice. I can hear the death bells ringing for traditional TV.

(No, this time around you can’t click on the thumbnails for a bigger photo.)

And the top search term is..

I guess everyone knows the Internet is half-filled with sex. Now, the New York Times is generally considered to be a good-quality newspaper. Interestingly, on their website they display what are the most popular & most e-mailed stories – as well as the most-often used search terms. The list from today is on the right here. All the others make some sense, except the first one.. sex?

Who searches for sex on NY Times?!? Wow. That’s just… weird.

How fast could they build if they actually did some work?

To a layman, most construction sites look like not much is happening on them most of the time. Equipment stands still, men are nowhere in sight. I’m sure there’s some hidden stuff going on that I can’t identify, but I’m also sure that many (if not most) construction sites idle for far too much of their existence.

What if people actually worked at construction sites in, say, two shifts, 16 hours a day, 7 or 6 days a week? I’m sure building time could be cut in half, equipment put into more efficient use, shortening the nuisance they cause to the surroundings and a lot of other positive stuff.

Going surfing?
Not in that outfit you’re not.

Surfing seems to be “in” these days, at least if you look at the ads around you. A lot of stores seem to be running campaigns featuring surfers – or, more accurately, the ad agencies view of surfers.

Or, more accurately still, models stuck posing with a board. The trouble is they’re grossly unrealistic. But hey, what can you really expect from generic ad agencies?

Like this great example from H&M on the right. As anyone familiar with the sport knows, there’s no surfing to be done in that outfit.

(And to those who don’t see a problem with this outfit.. well, after the first wipeout she’d be wearing a lot less than she is now. And lose the headband. And probably be cut by the necklace to top it off.)

The past few months have been very quiet on the movie-front, so gathering this review round took quite a while. Again a few great movies but they unfortunately came balanced with a few downright disappointments.

As a sidenote, I’m constantly annoyed by a couple of things: the terrible Finnish translations in both movie titles and subtitles and the fact that DVDs sold and rented here typically don’t include English subtitles. Why? It wouldn’t cost them anything to put them there, so I can’t figure out why they’re always left out..

Accepted

Accepted tells a story of getting accepted to a college or a university – and the problems if one is not. The plot was believable enough, at first anyway: like many Americans, Bartleby worries about getting to a good college after high school. The only problem is that a) he’s a slacker and b) he isn’t getting into any. And I mean any. With everyone on his case on what he’s going to do after high school, he comes up with a plan that’s not so far-fetched these days: invent a college. So he fakes an acceptance letter from “South Harmon Institute of Technology”, their website and things go smoothly at first – but then his parents want to see the place. And meet the dean. Just how far can he take the scam?

A slightly below average, funny-at-times, comedy at 2½ out of 5.

Little Miss Sunshine

Olive is a little girl with a dream – and a member of a rather dysfunctional family. When she gets to the Little Miss Sunshine final competition in California, the family must try to find the means to get her there; and the only one they can afford is to drive there in a beat-up old VW. Strange things happen and tempers flair up when you put even a normal family inside a small vehicle for extended periods of time, but the Hoover family is far from what one would call normal..

Kind of off-beat especially towards the end, Little Miss Sunshine was nevertheless a delightful road-movie and one that definitely deserves the critical acclaim it has received. There’s some hidden and not-so-hidden criticism at many cultural oddities in US and many of them hit right on the mark. 4 out of 5.

The Devil Wears Prada

A comedy/drama with at least some elements based on reality; the movie is based on a book by Lauren Weisberger that tells of working in an international fashion magazine. Andy (Anne Hathaway) gets a job as an assistant – against all odds – for Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep), editor of Runway, one of the hottest fashion magazines. Little does she realize that the job will soon enroach into her private life in a fundamental way with not exactly happy consequences. Free time becomes an illusion as Miranda’s quirks need to be fulfilled immediately. The Devil Wears Prada is a good combination of comedy and drama and manages to pull off a thoroughly believable story with good flow and great performances. The critical acclaim came for a reason; 4- out of 5.

Angel Eyes

A man, “Catch”, is involved in fatal car accident and is saved by a police officer; later, he becomes obsessed by his savior and starts following her (Jennifer Lopez as Sharon), eventually ending up saving her life also. The two develop an odd relationship with Catch’s past blocked from his mind, too painful to remember. Sharon slowly and patiently tries to build up an image of what happened and tries to help Catch come to terms with it also – but it’s a painful journey, one that he’s not willing to take.

A much better movie than I had anticipated, Angel Eyes is a somewhat slow-moving thriller with solid performances by the lead cast. 3½ out of 5.

Children of Men

I had high hopes for this movie, as it touches a somewhat topical subject: the setting is Britain in 2027; it has been 18 years since there was a birth and the world has been flung into a chaos. Tensions are high after the death of the youngest person in the world and with illegal immigrants facing a crackdown. An ex-activist is semi-reluctantly recruited to what becomes a difficult and dangerous but crucial mission – to deliver a pregnant women, an illegal immigrant, to a secret safe have of “Human Project”, the existence of which nobody seems quite certain about.

The mood of the film captures the general despair, apathy and violence very well and the performances by all lead characters are very good. However, it suffers from a somewhat slow-moving plot and plunges at times into irrelevant-seeming scenes of pure war. IMO, the ending also leaves a lot to be desired from, but might appeal to some people. Nevertheless, Children of Men is a depiction of future that’s almost believable and is a quite powerful in that. I don’t know whether to give it a 4 or 3 out of 5, so I’ll settle for 3½/5.

Helmiä ja Sikoja

A Finnish movie about four small-time criminal brothers whose father is thrown into jail and they’re left with not only the task of getting by themselves but also to take care of their fathers young daughter, suddenly dumped on them by her mother. The girl, Saara, turns out to be a talented but reluctant singer, so the guys set their eyes on the sorely-needed price money of a talent competition.. The movie suffers from a beginning that’s too damn slow, but once it actually gets going it’s quite ok. Offers some funny moments but nothing spectacular in terms of performances or storyline. 2½ out of 5.

Flicka

Katy comes home for summer to the ranch from her boarding school – which isn’t going to well – to find that her home farm is also in some trouble, not doing too well financially. Then one day, she helps catch – what she thinks is a wonderful training target – a wild horse, Mustang. Unfortunately, her father considers Mustangs be purely bad news and is planning on selling the horse. Flicka is a nice family movie but one that never really manages to get off the ground. There’s also the straightforward, slowly-moving plot that contributes to its score of 2½ out of 5.

Hooligans

Matt (Elijah Wood) is expelled from Harvard as he takes the blame for an incident where the true guilty party is “too important” to be expelled – in essence accepting a bribe from him, he finds himself in London at her sisters place. Unfortunately for him, her sister’s husband doesn’t want him around on the night of his arrival and bribes his brother, Pete, to take him to a football game – and that’s where trouble begins. Turns out Pete is pretty intimately involved with football hooligans and after some reluctance on both his and his friends’ parts, he takes Matt in as a sort of a apprentice. Trouble soon finds Matt from more than one direction and it begins to look like he’s in over his head..

The plot of the movie is good, but I was bothered with how fast Matt gets into the “firm”. Also, Elijah Wood’s performance as Matt is mostly quite mild and unenthusiastic which doesn’t fit the role he’s leading at all. Nevertheless, Hooligans manages to bring out a couple of new viewpoints to the issue and present the story in an emotional, gripping way. Therefore a good movie at 3½ out of 5, but not as great as I had expected from the reviews.

Imagine Me & You

Rachel and Heck, best friends and lovers for a long time, are – finally – getting married. Especially Rachel is a bit unenthusiastic about it and her father’s attitude doesn’t help brighten the mood. To add to the mix, something that begins with an innocent single glance at the wedding slowly starts developing into something more serious over time. What does Rachel do? Does she follow her newfound spark with someone else – even though really, nothing could happen as she’s married – or does she settle for being safely together with Heck?

The movie very nicely portrays that sometimes, there need not be a “bad guy” (or a girl) in case a relationship doesn’t work; as the plot unravels, you don’t end up hating any of the lead characters. A very nice romantic movie with good performances. 4 out of 5

The Departed

Critically acclaimed, The Departed tells the story of two people on two sides of the law – or, actually, both on both sides of the law.. William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) is assigned to work undercover at Costello’s (Jack Nicholson) mafia-style organization, while Colin (Matt Damon) is working for the police trying to bust the operation – and for Costello. As both sides start to understand there’s a mole in their organization, the hunt for them begins. Who finds who first and how do the undercovers on each side face this challenge?

The plot is by no means crystal clear or simple and it’s not laid out in a way that would make it easy to follow for the viewer; chances are you’re left wondering at some point as to what is going on, which in my books is a good thing. The seasoned cast performs brilliantly, as expected. This is a movie that probably would survive another viewing easily, one with an interesting and complicated story but one that still didn’t feel as good as I was expecting it to be. But the expectations were set so high that even with the disappointment, I’ll give it 4 out of 5.

Pretty Persuasion

The idea is a good one, one that I’m sure has been tried in real-life somewhere: a bright female student decides to accuse her teacher of sexual harassment, and manages to draw in a bunch of other people in her plot for revenge.. but revenge for what? And just who is she playing?

While the plot could’ve been good, the production spoiled it. There are problems with the acting, the directing, the cast and pretty much everything else too. First, the acting was at times downright bad and at best a bit wooden. The storytelling wasn’t too hot either with the “flow” missing from most of the movie. As a whole, maybe 2 out of 5 and a definite disappointment.

Hard Candy

The idea is certainly equally timely and disturbing: girl meets boy. Online.

Oh wait, there’s nothing disturbing there so far. The disturbing part is that the girl, Hayley, is 14 years old while the “boy” is a 32-year-old man, Jeff, who works as a photographer. Hayley meets Jeff in a cafe, they seem to get along well, and she ends up going to his house and maybe pose for a couple of photos..

At this point you think you can already tell much of the rest of the plot, but Hard Candy is something different.. The movie is upsetting, even shocking, thought-provoking and surprising. Highly recommended but not for the faint of heart. 4 out of 5.