Only slightly bent

I recently joined City Car Club, a sort of a hybrid of a co-ownership and car rental agency. The idea is that you join the club, pay a small monthly fee and basically get the kind of car you need delivered near you whenever you need it, paying reasonable rates for only what you use. The service is awesome for people like us who don’t really need to own a car but still occasionally need a car. Not to mention it’s ecologically much better than everyone having their own car.

So how does this have anything to do with a mobile service? Well, it’s a mobile service at least in the wider interpretation of the term because it wouldn’t have been possible (or would’ve been vastly more difficult) without mobile phones. Another great thing is that it uses such basic enablers like voice calls and SMS that it works from any phone.

Here’s how:

1) Reserve the car you want on the net and choose which pickup point you want to use. One hour before the start of the reservation, you get the car details – like the license plate # – as an SMS.

2) Walk up to the car and call the automated reservation start number; punch in your PIN code and the numerical part of the car’s license plate. In 10 seconds, the doors will automagically open.

3) Step in and drive away. The keys are in the car and off you go.

4) Return the car to the designated spot, call the end number, press #, doors will lock in 10 seconds and you’re done.

Why is this so great? There is no need for anyone to be there when you pick up or return the car, saving operating costs. It’s very convenient and fast for the users. Lots of things are automated, again saving costs. And yet it relies on very basic technology.

(Btw, YTV travel card customers get a 150eur credit when joining CCC)

I know it’s uncharacteristic of me to have two posts on snow, but it’s such a rare phenomenon in Southern Finland nowadays that it’s warranted. You can click all the photos here to get a bigger version – my apologies for the lousy quality though, I only had my cellphone with me last night.

First, as much as the energy company Fortum is disparaged for their executive pay and price hikes, there’s one nice thing they do: bring some light.

As most people know, light is in extreme short supply in Finland during the winter months. Hence, I was glad to see Fortum once again installing their bright light lamps on selected bus stops. On the right is what the sign says, roughly translated as “Bright Light 3500 lux – recharge some energy from here in the midst of the darkness”. The bright light lamps have actually been proven to help in the seasonal affective disorder which most people suffer from to some extent.

The relative brightness of the light is better represented in the photo below:

Snowfall of 30cm or more during a 24-hour period is, perhaps surprisingly, quite rare in Finland. This situation on the streets and the cars hiding under piles of snow – see below – reminded me more of Boston than it did of Finland. From where I’m now looking at this, it’s so unfair that both summers AND winters were better (i.e. more sunlight and warmth during the summer, more snow in the winter) in Boston.

But that shouldn’t detract us from the beauty of the current situation. Last night Helsinki looked like a winter wonderland, which it rarely does anymore. Even though the melt has already started, it was nice to see this anyway:

Isn’t that pretty? Yes it is. And it’s also enough to fulfill my winter quota for a year, so bring on the summer!

Huh? What do you mean “maybe in six months”?

*sigh*..

Winter has temporarily arrived to Helsinki. As was expected on these days (“these days” being the days when everyone in Southern Finland has forgotten that we actually do get a winter every now and then), a mini-chaos ensued. Everyone braving the outdoors had better be prepared for slight inconveniences.

For example VR, the railroad operator, earlier today said in an interview that they expect there to be little or no impact from the snow storm – now that statement seems to be well in line with their public relations communications as of late as many or most of their trains are either delayed or canceled.

Yeah, looks nice now. Wait ’til Friday when +5C temperatures turn all that stuff into slush.

A while back, our ex-neighbor gave us an interesting book called “100 Social Innovations from Finland“, which catalogs some of the social innovations that Finland has made. At first it sounds like a pretty self-righteous book but it’s actually quite interesting – at least after you realize and accept the fact that many topics covered are not, in fact, originally from Finland and many are not innovations at all. In short, it’s a good read though probably not for the reasons the authors envisioned.

Each of the 108 topics gets two pages, written by numerous semi-well-known Finns. The topics are incredibly wide-ranging. Some of them actually deal with genuine innovations from Finland – like Linux, SMS and Xylitol. Xylitol for one is very good stuff in terms of dental health so one would hope it gained wider global acceptance as a sweetener. Some, on the other hand, more describe the society than any innovation therein – topics like Sámi people, NGO proliferation, ice fishing, ice swimming and bilingualism would go into this category.

Some topics are just weird, like “Eroticism in everyday life”. Qué? In Finland? Luckily there are some everyday topics that are rather honestly seen as having a significant cultural impact, like Salmiakki Koskenkorva (from all foreigners’ point of view, interestingly flavored vodka), mämmi and HK Blue Sausage (both food products that, by many accounts, should not be classified as such) as well as Liquorice.

Then there are some topics that must have required some quite creative thinking in order to put a positive spin on them. For example, it is presented in unquestionably positive light that the amount of psychiatric hospital beds was reduced by 51% in just ten years along with increases in outpatient care. I don’t know about you, but I think there are far, far too many patients in outpatient “care” than is good for the country.

Given the messy nature and wide variety of the topics, what is the book good for? Well it’s an interesting collection of stuff about Finland – I myself found it informative, amusing, appalling and interesting. For foreigners the book provides a nice window into the Finnish society, or at least the official truth of it, as a lot of the basic features making up the fabric of the society are discussed. I’m sure it also includes some new tidbits of information for most Finns as well. On the other hand, it does contain some pretty self-righteous material, some of which is funny and some much less so. While you need to take it with a grain or two of salt, it’s worth flipping through.

Welcome to the worst part of the Finnish climate; it has now rained in Helsinki for what at least feels like weeks. If last winter was any indication – and I hope it wasn’t – we’re looking at similar weather for another three or four months. That’s about three or four months too long and I hereby promise that I will not complain about lack of rain in this decade, regardless of where I am.

The adage of when it rains, it pours, seems to hold in other ways too – thanks to some restructuring measures from my current employer, it looks likely that all or most of our division is going to be, how should I say, deemed as being misaligned with the corporate strategy early next year and thus subject to being eased out.

We’ll see what pops out of the YT process, but it already seems that merely the threat of not being in the box to begin with helps to think (way) outside of the box. Something that I knew before but that has also become even more apparent now is that we have an awesome team – unfortunately there are few companies in Finland who would require such world-class strategic & innovation competencies in the mobile services area on such scale so as to take in the whole lot.

So interesting times ahead, again in more than one way. In every end there’s a new beginning, and it’s even possible that the exciting developments and the potential of new challenges allows me to transcend the gloominess of the non-winter winter.

But I will not promise to refrain from complaining about the rain

Sticky tape makes x-rays

This has got to be one of the coolest things I’ve learned recently. According to a recent Nature article (see e.g. the ABC story here or last week’s Economist):

One of the more unusual things you can do with a roll of adhesive tape is to take an X-ray photograph of your finger.
[..]
Peeling take from a reel results in a phenomenon called triboluminescence. The breaking of intermolecular bonds that hold the layers of tape together releases energy in the form of light. As the tape peels, the sticky acrylic adhesive, on the back of the tape, becomes positively charged, while the polyethylene roll becomes negatively charged, according to this hypothesis.

How extraordinarily weird.

Speak UP!

What is it with Finns and their sparing of words? I know I’ve brought this up before, but it just never seizes to amaze me how people here consider the following completely normal:
• Elbowing your way through crowds in a bus, a grocery story, department store etc without saying a word. Not a single word.
• Whizzing 1cm past you from behind on a bike without ringing the bell or yelling “on your right!”
• If a bus goes past your stop despite having pressed the stop-button, what do most people do? Nothing, that’s what. Rarely does anyone speak up and ask the driver to, like, stop when he’s supposed to. No, people just continue to ride to the next stop or wherever, resigned to their fate.

Seriously. One would be forgiven to think that most Finns are mute altogether. But unfortunately what it really is is bad manners and disrespect.

The most-broken law in the country

For some years now, it’s been illegal in Finland to speak to a cellphone when driving if you’re not using a hands-free kit. However, there is nothing anywhere to make you think this would be forbidden. If you take a look at the traffic, you’ll soon notice that 10-20% of the drivers are breaking this particular law at any given point in time.

This includes everybody from the hockey-moms to the busy businessmen and road “professionals” like taxi drivers, truck drivers, bus drivers etc. There is conclusive evidence that speaking on the phone while driving is dangerous, though I’m not sure there is evidence that hands-free systems help significantly. In any case, it’s blatant disregard for the law. Kind of like red lights, which don’t seem to mean a thing – or at most, means “hit the accelerator” – for some drivers in Helsinki.