Only slightly bent

Some results from a 10-year study by Dr Vini Khurana, a respectable neurosurgeon, point to evidence that using mobile phones for over 10 years is a significant cancer risk. The most-often quoted article on this is the one at The Independent with a very alarming subject: “Mobile phones ‘more dangerous than smoking’”. Right, well, that ought to catch ones attention. And it sure caught the attention of the media; one Finnish example here.

Certainly it’s quite alarming if the results of his studies are verified. Considering it comes from a respectable source (I’m referring to the scientist here, not the Independent), I don’t think the results can be outright dismissed – but on the other hand, let’s wait until the results are peer-reviewed and actually published somewhere. But wait, what exactly did the study say? We won’t know for sure until it’s published somewhere, but from what I can tell, the key result of the study supposedly is that using cellphones can “double the risk of brain cancer”. So how does that compare with the punchline given to these results – “more dangerous than smoking”? It turns out saying that is very misleading indeed.

Let’s assume cellphones double brain cancer risk. And let’s do the numbers in order to put things into their proper perspective; figures below are based on US numbers as those were most readily available.

• Each year about 438,000 people in the United States die from illnesses related to cigarette smoking. (Source: American Cancer Society)
• Approximately 17,000 people in the United States are diagnosed with primary [brain] cancer each year and nearly 13,000 die of the disease. (Source: Oncology Channel)

Now, double the 13,000 brain cancer fatalities and you end up with 26,000 brain cancer fatalities every year. That is still a far cry from the 400,000+ that smoking kills.. So EVEN if cellphones double the brain cancer risk, smoking still trumps cellphones in terms of lethality by more than an order of magnitude. Double the brain cancer risk definitely can be called a Very Bad Thing, but compared to smoking? It’s nothing.

Update: You can find the 69-page report from http://www.brain-surgery.us/mobilephone.html and some more media links, including a radio interview as an mp3, from http://www.brain-surgery.net.au/media.html

Don’t fix it if it’s not broken!

Sampo, one of the biggest Finnish banks, did a major systems “upgrade” over the Easter weekend. They added some Java-based “security” features and revamped all their online services to get in line with their new parent, Danske Bank. Mind you, their “old” system was working quite well and had been for a number of years, so technically there would’ve been no need whatsoever to make any changes.

But change they did. When the new system opened up on Tuesday morning, well.. it didn’t really open up. It had some issues: the website was down much of the day, some customers were having problems making purchases at the store, some were unable to withdraw money from ATMs, some saw account details of other people(!), the Java application they use doesn’t improve security but collects all kinds of unnecessary data (i.e. spies on you), the new site is vulnerable to cross-site scripting attacks (an extremely elementary security blunder), the web bank had lost some information and lots of the functionality doesn’t work yet

And yet they have the audacity to call the switch a “success”. Quite a redefinition for that word.

Help protect our plastic mock-ups!

This glass showcase here on the right can be found from a mobile phone store in Espoo. I wasn’t looking for a phone, but if I had been, here’s what I’d want from a phone store: the ability to fiddle with all the models. Real, functioning models. In this store, however, all they had were plastic mock-ups. That alone would’ve been bad enough as you really, really can’t get the right feeling from those, but they were also locked in a glass cabinet! Oh come on. If you’re so worried about customers stealing your stuff that you have to lock down even useless mock-ups, maybe you shouldn’t be in retail..

Obsessed with the sun in the land of the midnight sun

This is something I’ve talked about before, too. Finland gets so little sunlight during much of the year that its scarcity power is way, way too big. After the winter darkness, it’s always grown to the point that the whole nation is obsessed with the sun – a rather ironic situation in a country that’s called the land of the midnight sun. For some reason, it’s never called the land of the midday darkness, which is true for an equally large part of the year.

Anyway, back to scarcity power. What it means is that on those rare days when the sun is out, there’s this unnatural urge to run outside and enjoy it while it lasts because you know that any minute now it could be gone. It’s like you have to get out in the sun. It’d be morally wrong to waste the precious hours. I love the sun, but I hate that feeling.

How to get a profit margin of of 95% or more

During this year, there have been multiple Finnish “cent bid” sites popping up. It’s an interesting business plan; it’s a bidding system selling a very limited number of products (a few at most) at any given time, all with a starting price of 0.00eur and a timer of a few minutes; when the timer expires, whoever placed the winning bid gets the product. Now, you can place a bid which always raises the price by just one cent – but placing the bid costs you from around €1 to €2 each and the timer is reset. So while someone can in the end get, for example, a €1,000 product for €50, whoever is running the system gets €7,500 from the bids alone.

I will not provide links to them because I think the business model from the collective consumers point of view resembles that of a lottery – an additional tax for those bad at math. It’s a system that works by attracting large masses of people to fight over a very small number of potentially very cheap products, thus quite effectively exploiting artificially created scarcity power. As far as business models go, from the surface of it, it is innovative. But when you think it, it’s also a rip-off and nothing more than gambling done in a new way.

One would think that we know a lot about electricity – we are, after all, surrounded by all kinds of electrical things. But Electric Universe by Andrew Bodanis opens up the world of electricity in a whole new light. It chronicles the history of electricity and electrical inventions & innovations, but in a very unusual way.

The book starts by laying out what would happen if there suddenly was a complete, long-lasting blackout – as one would imagine, the end result isn’t pretty and the society would very quickly plunge into a lethal crisis. Imagine everything that needs electricity; radios, the Internet and TV are a given. But monetary traffic would quickly come to quick standstill also. And all traffic, in fact – one would not immediately think of it, but even cars and airplanes are totally reliant on electricity because the underground fuel tanks at gas stations use electricity to pump up the fuel. Given the importance of electricity down to our very own cells, it’s worth understanding it and its history a bit better.

And that’s where Electric Universe starts, from the history of electricity. But it’s not boring history, not the kind of fact-listing one might find from history books. The history here is handled mainly through intimate, real-life stories of the people involved – including their hopes, dreams, aspirations and frustrations. It’s certainly not your typical approach in a science book, but it makes the book an exciting, fun and interesting read. You almost become attached to the “characters” as if they’re people in a novel – but yet all this has really happened. And honestly, the stories also rival some of the best novels out there as truth really is stranger than fiction.

This storytelling approach means that there isn’t that much “hard science”, i.e. scientific little details. Don’t get me wrong; there is science in the book for sure, but it’s definitely not a scientific handbook filled with formulas of any kind. While Electric Universe would’ve easily had room to delve into the scientific details much more than it did, skipping some of the details and sacrificing depth for breadth works well and makes for a very accessible book. It also really opens some eyes: some events – like the gripping developments surrounding radar in World War II – come to life like never before, some supposedly great innovators are exposed as nothing more than clever patent thieves and even the strange origin of Silicon Valley as an innovation center because of one extremely repulsive character becomes clear.

But when the book ends, it doesn’t really end. There are three fascinating and very welcome additions that are normally either skipped altogether or handled very differently. First comes a “What happened next”, which quickly covers what each person discussed in the book went on to do later in their life. It brings nice closure to their stories. Next is “Notes”, which includes more detailed explanations for a bunch of phrases passingly mentioned in the text – phrases such as “intruder atoms such as phosphorus” followed by the explanation on what it does and what Bardeen & Brattain thought when they found out they had inserted phosphorus into their semiconductors in late 1947. Finally, there is a “Guide to further reading”, a sort of very readably reference list which explains the additional material in just enough detail to make an informed decision on which to go read next, if any.

This is how all non-fiction books ought to be wrapped up. While I also thoroughly enjoyed the main book itself, this ending is the icing on the cake. So is the book perfect? No; there are some things which could be improved. For example, it’d be nice if the references were actually referred to in the text where appropriate – they’re not, so finding further information on something in particular requires some sifting through the further reading-section. But overall, Electric Universe is a wonderful book and is highly recommended for anyone wishing to understand a bit of background to the things we take for granted in everyday lives. It’s a fascinating read.

Frozen Grand Central (see video here) was one of the greatest flash mob moments ever. Wicked cool. So cool in fact that everyone obviously had to copy it. Nothing wrong with that of course, as still most people have no idea what flash mobs are and so forth..

Anyhow, today was Helsinki Freeze and I was there. It was a modest success, despite some pretty serious problems with the execution. Namely:

• The time, place and function got leaked to the media way in advance, and in a way that made them write an article about it before the fact. That sucks. If the traditional media has to be informed – not a bad thing as such – make it so that they don’t write a story beforehand.
• There were more spectators photographing and ogling at the event than there were participants. It was like a theater for crying out loud.
• The participants were wandering around and on the scene too much before the designated time. People should enter from random directions only just before the critical moment. As most Finns are, well, not very animated to begin with, the whole scene looked semi-frozen for a long time beforehand.
• There were too many participants – if you look at the videos, the ratio of passers-by and participants was something like 1-to-9. However, this is actually a positive problem and just means the venue was too small.

Overall, flash mobs should be executed as they were in NYC; first gather the participants – and only the participants – in a park or somewhere shortly before the event. Announce the event only there, so word on what’s going to happen doesn’t leak out. Then set out on the task. A few designated people will shoot the event.

Anyhow, thanks to all the real participants! Great to see this stuff happening here, too, but let’s execute the next one a bit better.

Links:

• What is a flash mob? Wikipedia entry.
• Improv Everywhere
• Flashmob Helsinki Facebook Group
• Check out some stories & videos of the Helsinki Freeze event; Nelonen was clever enough to include even me: Hesari, Nelonen, Youtube #1, Youtube #2, Youtube #3

Amidst concerns of a systemic failure in the global financial system and a limping, watery winter in Finland that just refuses to go away for good, it’s a perfect time to step back from the big things and think about something small and beautiful for a change. In this spirit, here are some recent photos of orchids and tulips from the past couple of weeks (click to enlarge):

It’s somehow ironic that this escape from the macro-level happenings of the world is also called macro-photography – okay so only the first photo really counts as macro, but who’s counting today? It’s depressing. Then again, here’s a great alternative view into the situation along with a cute metaphor.

A few days ago, I added another bookmark to my browser – I now have 5,473 bookmarks. As can be expected, I never visit most of the sites after bookmarking them, but at least hoarding bookmarks has no negative environmental impact other than me facing an impossible task of managing & organizing them “when I have the time”. (BTW, del.icio.us doesn’t help; it crashes when I try to import my massive file)

Anyhow, this latest bookmarked site is an interesting organization with a nice goal and fascinating studies: The Australia Institute. Their philosophy leans a little left but rings very true:

Private markets, while effective at encouraging efficiency in many circumstances, frequently fail to reflect adequately the ethical, social and environmental priorities of the community. Governments must provide the appropriate institutional framework in which private markets operate so as to ensure that they contribute to justice, equity and sustainability as well as efficiency. Market outcomes are not value free and the Institute reasserts the place of ethics in making public and private decisions.

While the institute is very active in issues relating to climate change and renewable energy, what caught my eye now was a paper called “Stuff happens: Unused things cluttering up our homes.“ It’s one interesting study – and one that is probably applicable to most or all western cultures – of a phenomenon that I believe most of us are to some extent familiar with: we have too much stuff in our homes. Stuff we never use. Stuff we’d be better off without.

There’s even a cute categorization of this clutter:

Emotional clutter – things with sentimental meaning but little financial value –
including children’s toys or drawings, (unused or unwanted) gifts, school or
university notes, and personal possessions of absent loved ones;

Just-in-case clutter – things with little or no sentimental value but that ‘might
come in handy one day’ and that are therefore kept for some time, such as old
bills or bank statements, tools and stationery;

Bought clutter – impulse purchases, often acquired recently, that end up never
being used, commonly including clothes, fashion accessories and books;

Bargain clutter – free or very cheap things acquired at sales, from friends or
family or ‘by the side of the road’ which are discarded only reluctantly
because they were so cheap

What’s interesting is that even though 66% of people agree with the statement “It makes me feel better when I get rid of some of the clutter in my home”, 88% of homes still have at least one room that is cluttered. For many Finns, the “kellarikomero” (a basement closet, sort of a storage space in apartment buildings) is one of the worst clutter dumps. We take stuff there, but we never take stuff out of there. Often they’re treated like miniature black holes.

It’s all stuff that someone could probably use and we still hold on to it. As the report points out, “spending money is now, strangely, its own form of entertainment” and even I confess to sometimes resorting to retail therapy. Why is that? It must be because all that stuff somehow matters to us, even if we never use it.

And it does. The respected State of the World report this year included a chapter on sustainable lifestyles that nicely ties in with the topic at hand. It goes on to explain that:

For a start, it is immediately clear that consumption goes way beyond just satisfying physical or physiological needs for food, shelter, and so on. Material goods are deeply implicated in individuals’ psychological and social lives. People create and maintain identities using material things.
[...]
People narrate the story of their lives through stuff. They cement relationships to others with consumer artefacts. They use consumption practices to show their allegiance to certain social groups and to distinguish themselves from others.

It may seem strange at first to find that simple stuff can have such power over emotional and social lives. And yet this ability of human beings to imbue raw stuff with symbolic meaning has been identified by anthropologists in every society for which records exist. Matter matters to people. And not just in material ways. The symbolic role of mere stuff is borne out in countless familiar examples: a wedding dress, a child’s first teddy bear, a rose-covered cottage by the sea. The “evocative power” of material things facilitates a range of complex, deeply ingrained “social conversations” about status, identity, social cohesion, and the pursuit of personal and cultural meaning.

This is all quite understandable. As one of the study respondents noted, “No one’s gonna spot you across the other side of a crowded room and say: ‘Wow! Nice personality!” But do we have to consume at the current levels to be happy? No, we don’t – and we can’t. It’s painfully clear that the world simply cannot support our “western-level” consumption levels on a global scale – we’re already consuming much more than is sustainably possible as it is. And so we enter the paradox of well-being. But if consuming makes people happy and we specifically want to consume to get physical “stuff”, is there any hope of a change in time?

There is such a thing as sustainable consumption – and there’s also such a thing called diminishing returns, luckily also in terms of consumption. The following graph (from the State of the World report) shows that while money does bring happiness to some extent, its effects soon wear off after certain threshold – after reaching a modest level of income, collective happiness does not increase with income. This, in itself, is not news. But how could we slowly converge the world towards the “happy-but-not-extravagantly-rich” middle ground of sustainable consumption?

The same thought is echoed in the report:

The paradox of well-being begs the question, Why do people continue to consume? Why not earn less, spend less, and have more time for families and friends? Couldn’t people live better—and more equitably—this way and at the same time reduce humanity’s impact on the environment?

Doing so is called downshifting and it’s actually happening – to such an extent that several studies have been made of it:

The downshifting movement now has a surprising allegiance across a number of industrial economies. A recent survey in Australia found that 23 percent of respondents had engaged in some form of downshifting in the preceding five years. A staggering 83 percent felt that Australians are too materialistic. An earlier study in the United States found that 28 percent of those surveyed had taken some steps to simplify and 62 percent expressed a willingness to do so. Very similar results have been found in Europe.

Research on the success of these initiatives is quite limited, but existing studies show that simplifiers really have less materialistic values and show greater respect for the environment and for others. More important, simplifiers appear to show a small but significant increase in subjective well-being. Consuming less, voluntarily, can improve well-being—completely contrary to the conventional model

So perhaps there is some hope.

Links:

• The Australia Institute
• TAI Report: Stuff happens: Unused things cluttering up our homes.
• The WorldWatch Institute
• WorldWatch: State of the World 2008 (ToC)
• WorldWatch: State of the World 2008, Chapter 4. The Challenges of Sustainable Lifestyles
• TAI Report: Downshifting in Australia: A sea-change in the pursuit of happiness