Lipstick espionage?

Iran has imprisoned people who work for Oriflame, the company that sells skin care and cosmetics products through an independent sales force.

Oriflame says ""We are a cosmetics company, we are selling direct. We are of course not involved in any political activities in the country". However, perhaps they should realize that in Iran, employing people directly as an independent sales force - consisting of women - is in itself a political, possibly even hostile act.

This reminds me of a sight that I met in China: a Tupperware store. There are no Tupperware stores elsewhere, because in most parts of the world, Tupperware is marketed through direct sales, by agents who arrange "Tupperware parties", often a gathering of women in someone's home. In China, this would create a politically unacceptable independent movement, so it is not allowed, and marketing works through stores (which are certainly luxury shops, considering the humongous price gap between Tupperware and generic plastic dishes and bowls in China). Oriflame works in the same way, and has apparently run into the same problem with Iran.

Watch out, Apple!

Across the pond, a U.S. District Judge Alan Kay has allowed a lawsuit to proceed: Craig Smallwood of Hawaii seeks $3M in damages because the game Lineage II is so addictive. This sounds like a completely frivolous lawsuit to me, but it's not the first nor the last crazy court case we hear of from the U.S.

But the aftermath? Judging by the number of Mac and iPhone users around me who appear completely addicted, they ought to be joining Cult Awaress Network and sue Apple.

I'm glad I'm not in a mine in Chile

33 miners trapped in a Chilean copper mine are suddenly, against their wishes, part of an experiment that in my opinion is more realistic than the voluntary enclosure of six men in Mission Mars, a simulated flight to Mars and back.

The difference is that if there's a true emergency, the men in a simulated Mars flight can be evacuated instantly. But with the guys in San José mine in Copiapó, there's no such luxury. If something goes wrong, there's no way out. I really wish they do get out.

The Mission Mars is like Big Brother on steroids, but without sex. Copiapó is real reality, not just a scripted show.

There's one thing I need to say about safety in mines in Chile: there are already accusations of breaking safety standards in this mine (and, hence, plans for lawsuit) but I'm pleasantly surprised by the fact that they have such high standards that shelters have been built in the mines. In most other countries (at least outside Europe and North America), a mine accident like this would have produced just 33 fatalities. Here, the miners have a room where they can wait in relative safety and comfort. We don't exactly know, but behind the collapsed tunnel and the shelter, they might even have a kilometer or two of tunnel where to move about, walk and exercise. OK, if they really have to wait until Christmas, that is a very long time. I wish the PR people of the mine company have just taken a careful stance so that if the rescue comes quicker, everyone will be pleased, and if it really takes four months, people will not be too disappointed. I, for one, will be pretty glad if the men come up alive and physically well at all.

Although the situation of the men is difficult, and such that for most of us it would be psychologically unbearable, there is one good thing for them. I don't think they will ever need to go down a mine shaft again. They'll make their living by selling autobiographies and getting royalties from movie scripts.

Consumer protection rip-off

The protection of consumers is a popular stalking-horse to protect someone's own business. The latest example is by Vuokraturva Oy, who is a rental apartment agent, and has been very visible in the media recently, possibly because they have realized how gullible journalists can be utilized for lobbying public policies (like when claiming that renting an apartment is cheaper than buying one. Yes, it is, if you don't count in that some part of the monthly mortgage payments is actually saving your own capital, while in rent there's none - cash flow isn't the bottom line).

Timo Metsola, the chairman of board, says that it should be forbidden for banks to grant mortgages to house buyers based on short-term rates, i.e. mortgages where the reference rate is 3 or 12 month Euribor. Instead, reference rates of at least 10 years should be mandatory, because this would cut down speculation and bring stability to the market.

Yeah, stability. For whom? Now, why is a rental apartment agent and owner so keen to protect the interests of consumers who are buying homes? Well, of course, there's money to be made: if those who buy their own home are forced to commit to 10-year rates - which are typically higher than short-term rates - then owning rental apartments, and the money-making chances of rental apartment agency business, are more lucrative. You see, the limitation would apply to people who buy their own homes, but it would of course not apply to investors who buy apartments for leasing out.

12 month Euribor, which is the most typical reference rate for Finnish mortgages, is currently around 1,4 %. It's been a bit lower and it's been a considerably higher, but it's almost all the time lower than the 10 year rate, which has since mid-90's been between 4% and 6 %. During this time, the 12 month Euribor has only twice peaked over 5 % but most of the time stayed below 4 %.

Now, if people who buy their own homes are not allowed to mortgage on short rates, what does it mean? It means that the investors can take the rate risk. Also, it means that the cost of investment for professional investors is lower than for people who buy their own homes. The investors can make more money. Home buyers pay more. How convenient.

So there's a good reason why the consumers should be protected: kill the competition that comes from individual home owners. Lesson to be learned: a lot of things are said to be to protect us poor consumers - and in reality, the meaning is to rip us off.

A really weird idea of totalitarianism

According to Helsingin Sanomat, Jaron Lanier warns that anonymous Internet leads to totalitarianism.

That's a weird idea. I think rather the opposite: the official tendency to require that everyone must be authenticated, everyone must be trackable - these are things I traditionally associate with totalitarian regimes. In the German Democractic Republic, typewriters needed to be registered. Not just typists. Now some seem to be willing to have a system where you give your fingerprint or iris scan or a DNA sample before you can log in. The fingerprint could then be compared against the prints collected for biometric passports (which were, when making the law require them when applying for passports, never ever going to be given away to police use.)

Is Jaron Lanier a bit nuts, or is he just being seriously misrepresented by HS? I suspect the latter.

Newsweek, PISA and Finnish schools

Newsweek ranks Finland as the best country in the world based on assessment of education, health, quality of life, economic dynamism and political environment, and this is all the rage in Finnish news. There's a lot of hot air around.

I'm a bit surprised by the outcome, considering that Finland's score in health isn't so great - if not abysmal, either. Finland is only 17th among the group of 100 countries. Still, in total score, Finland beats Switzerland, although the Swiss outperform in 3 out of 5 categories, and in health by a large margin (elsewhere, differences are minor).

The Newsweek study seems to put an awful lot of weight on education here. Anyway, good result for Finland. The PISA result, which is such a dominant factor, in turn of course results from the priorities set in determining PISA results: it's not important that you have some good students and the system make the jewels shine; it's important that the weakest students get some useful education.

There's no piece of news without a good conspiracy story: some say that the sudden urge to get Finland on top of a comparison like this is actually because the international capitalists need to find an American boss to replace Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in Nokia leadership, and something has to be done so that his family won't scare off when hearing about an idea of moving to Finland.

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So, the good result seems to come mostly from the schools. This reminds me of the story that BBC made in the spring: Why do Finland's schools get the best results?

As the BBC text mentions, the good thing about Finnish schools today (*) is that teachers really are quite well trained. They are also genuinely interested in helping the kids to learn (mind you, they're not doing it for big money). And the pre-school/kindergarten system isn't too bad, either, although actual school starts later for Finnish kids than e.g. in Britain. What amazes me with the British public discourse is that people dismiss qualification requirements for childcare professionals with sentences like "we don't need university degrees for people who change nappies". That's nonsense. The job and mission of a kindergarten teacher is far more than just changing nappies or pushing food to the mouths. It's much more about encouraging the children to learn. I suspect that the attitudes to school teachers may be similar.

The BBC story manages to put in a major inaccuracy, though. It says: Primary and secondary schooling is combined, so the pupils don't have to change schools at age 13. They avoid a potentially disruptive transition from one school to another. This is generally untrue. Most kids in Finland actually do have to change school at the time when they move to 7th grade at the age of around 13. There are a few "unified" schools that have all the grades 1-9 under the same roof, but they are a rare exception. And even there, the kids move from a one-teacher-for-class system to having a different teacher for each subject. In grades 1-6, only the foreign languages and sports (and sometimes music and art) lessons are by designated teachers for these subjects. After grade 7, this changes completely. Thus, what the BBC story implies here is not really true.

Finally, what of course matters for Finnish schools, and for the integrity of the Finnish society in general, is that the immigration has been on such levels that newcomers have mostly been able to adapt, and no parallel societies have been created in the style of many European cities (examples can be taken from Bradford, Paris, Malmö or others, where you have places where a fireman cannot go to put out a fire without having a police escort, and a police escort cannot go alone with just a policeman or two, you need a plan and reserves and riot equipment and stuff.)

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(*) Today the situation of teachers' training is good, but it wasn't so when I was in elementary school in 1970's. Our teacher was an electrician by profession, and his major academic achievement was the rank of a captain in artillery during WWII. And I can tell you that he had a good idea of how to order us to a line and perform close order drill things like Right, FACE! and Close ranks, MARCH! ("Tahdissa, MARS!"). But teach things, except the correct V angle of your feet when standing in attention? Nope. That was left to myself.

Thankfully, today's teachers seem to be far more competent, trained and sensible, as I've witnessed when dealing with my own children's teachers.

Missing Metusalehs

Japan has been known as a nation with exceptionally long life expectancy. Now a slightly embarrassing partial explanation has been found: the exceptionally old are often not actually alive. Many 100-year-olds are missing. The person who should have been Tokyo's oldest male resident at 111 years, Sogen Kato, had been dead for about 32 years. The "oldest woman" - or so thought to be - hasn't been seen by her daughter in 20 years.

There is concern that the loss of connection between the very old and their offsprings is because of loosening family ties, traditionally important in Japan. However, there is a simpler explanation: while Sogen Kato's body was mummified in his apartment, his pension payments kept coming, and they went to the family. Strict privacy laws helped this to go on for decades.

Perhaps the inverse age pyramid problem in Japan can be relieved simply by requiring old people to show up every now and then.

Note: this can't happen in Finland. We actually can do a very reliable census without hiring lots of officials to knock on every door. Here it is enough to say something like SELECT COUNT(personid) FROM vrk WHERE alive = TRUE; and there you have it. A few people of selected minorities might cause minor inaccuracies, but it'll be insignificant.