New books / Read books / Paying for a pint of beer

Back online and at home in Helsinki. It feels strange to be here in the dark, cold, and windy Helsinki. Not as bad as I was lead to expect by someone somewhere: I saw some smiling commuters in the metro on my way to the office in the morning. But the office is still close to the midpoint of nowhere, and, unfortunately, here and there I see nowheres. And it is indeed simply wonderful to be at home with S. Even though I did, to my great surprise, find travelling alone quite pleasant and not too lonely, I must admit, that I am no hermit.

The day was quite ordinary: commuting, working (mainly reading some emails, talking to workmates, sitting in a meeting, which I would like to comment, but NDA still binds, commuting, having dinner with wine, and then reading and writing. Nothing wrong with this. In Suomen Kuvalehti 46/2004 Kalle Kultala worries that we Finns only document our festive occasions. I will prove him wrong, even on the expense of slight inconvenience for my readers. So, bear with me, please.

New books

I have got some new books.

• Wassily Kandinsky's "Concerning the sprititual in art". The pioneering work in the free art movement from 1911. I have only read the first half of it, but it seems quite interesting in addition to its historical importance. I bought the book in the store of the Guggenheim museum, in New York. I was about to buy several others, especially a great, large book about the history of conceptual art, my special interest, but then I though of carrying it around NYC for the rest of the day and decided not to.
• Three books by Joseph Brodsky: "Watermark" - an essay on Venice, "Less than one" - a collection of earlier essays "On grief and reason" - another collection of essays, more recent. Brodsky is my all-time favourite essayist and poet. His command of language, especially the English he uses in his essays, is really exceptional. I try to save "Watermark" for my coming trip to Venice with my brother. It would be nice to read at least part of it there. A quote from "On grief and reason"

  Nor does one become any younger by reading one [book]. Since this is so, our natural preference should be for good books.

  And this is how "Watermark" opens:

  Many moons ago the dollar was 870 lire and I was thirty-two. The globe, too, was lighter by two billion souls, and the bar at the stazione where I'd arrived was empty. I was standing there waiting for the only person I knew in that city to meet me. She was quite late.

  Wouldn't you like to read the rest of it ? The books is yours for just $12, go the Amazon.
• Work and study related book "Lean software development by Poppendieck. I have just browsed this book, but it seems to contain some interesting ideas on how to apply lean ideas to SW development. If nothing more interesting turns up, I will write my thesis in MIT on how to make large scale computer system development lean, which would include quite a bit of leaning the old-fashioned V-model crap etc. Let's see.

Read books

Some books I read during my vacation

• "Stray dogs" by John Gray. The backcover boast that " this is one of the most important books of the year, and will prove to be one the whole century". Normally, I scorn these praises, but time it turned out to be true. The book is full of interesting ideas and arguments, but the main point is that humans are not different from other animals, but they are governed by the same evolutionary laws. Gray also argues quite convincingly, that since the fall of Christian faith and the great utopian political movements of 1900's, we tend to turn to science in our search of progress. But, even though there is clearly unreversable progress in science, exemplified by the continuing techinical development, there is no progress in politics, or in ethics. What is gained in one generation, may well be lost in the next one. (the happenings in USA, Brazil, Russia, and many other parts of the world seem to prove this claim.). Gray traces the development of the idea of progress to the Christian faith and claims that (most of) the current scientists, not to speak of others, are making the cardinal error of Christianity: thinking that humans are in charge of history and that there is a purpose of history, and that history has any meaning. I will come back to Gray's ideas later, I need to clarify some ideas. Meanwhile, get the book, read it, think, and your life will change forever. It is simply one of the best books I have ever read. See also advertisement in Granta.
• "Lean thinking" by Womack and Jones. This is a continuation to their "Machine that changed the world, and contains more detailed ideas and advice (supported by a range of case histories across different industries) on how to make any industry, or service for that matter, lean. Essential reading for anyone working in any industry. Or in health services: it seems that by applying lean principles we could solve all the problems plaguing our health services, maybe almost for good. This is another topic which I would like to explore in MIT. Furthermore, if we could here in Finland make our health services really lean, we could then import this knowledge and ultimately turn it in really profitable industry. Let's see what I can come up with.
• "Rough guide to Brazil". The difference between Rough Guides and Lonely Planets is that RGs contain more about culture, architecture and similar, whereas LPs contain more practical information about accomodation, food etc. I have used LPs up to now, but I could manage with RG this time. Ideally, one could carry both, but they are too heavy. I run out of reading matter during my trip (after reading the "Straw Dogs" twice), so I did end up reading most of the RG. Now I know a lot of many place in Brazil. Maybe I need to return there sometime.
• "Healthy travel: Central and South America" by Lonely Planet. This book consoles one when the body or mind gets tricky, Montezuma takes his revenge, or one just gets an acute attach of hypochondria. I always carry this book (or its sister dealing with Asia) with me on my travels. It makes me feel better, quite simply.

Paying for a pint of beer

One would think that selling beer, delivering it to to customer at the table, and charging the bill would be simple and that there would not be so many ways to go about with it. Well, my extensive experience as customer of this business tells otherwise. Here are some examples, from simple to complex, I have experienced:

• The simpliest way is to give beer for free. For obvious reasons, this does not happen so often. So, I consider the Czech methods the simpliest possible: the drinkers sit at tables, one man pours the pints, the waiters carry them to the drinkers, and add one line to a piece of paper per each pint. In the end, the customer pays to waiter according to the number or lines/pints. One could, perhaps, make this simpler by charging everyone based on the long term avarage consumption per drinker. Since people tend to think they drink more, this might even be profitable. The Brazilians use the same method, but instead of the line on paper, they simply pile the empty bottles in the sand next to the table (but only in beach bars, see later for other examples).
• The Finnish way: one gets and pays the drinks one by one at the counter. No credit. Basicly, the customer does the work of the waiter. Boring, I like to be served, and sit down, not run about in bars.
• The "normal" way: the customer orders, the waiter delivers, someone keeps the bill somewhere and at the end of the night one pays the bill. There are, of course, several ways to keep track of the bill, some of them not so simple.
• The Italian or east European way: one pays at one counter, takes the receipt to another one and gets the drinks. Quite common in railway statios etc, where centralizing the handling of money to one place makes some sense.
• Brazilian way, simple. More or less the Finnish way, except that sometimes one must not pay every pint at once, only at the end.
• Brazilian way, more complex: one sits at the table. The waiter delivers the drinks, and give a token with a number. At the end, one takes the tokes to the cashier, pays and gets another token. Outside, at the street, there is one guard, who takes the latter token. One must not sneak out without paying.
• Brazilian way, excessively complex. This happened in the modern microbrewery in Belem. One sits at the table, the waiter comes. One orders, the waiter keys the order into a wireless terminal, which then transmits the order to the counter. After a while, another waiter delivers the pint. This waiter also makes a note in a slip of paper (like the the Czech way). Paying is also complex: one asks for the bill, the first waiter uses his terminal, and after a while still another waiter comes with the bill. If one does not have exact change, the waited must go the the cashier. Can you figure anything more complex way to do this? And can you tell me what value did the wireless terminal add in this example?

Sometimes, I find excessive use of computers quite irritating. I go the some place, try to order or buy something, and the salesperson uses more time typing with the computer than to talking to me. It is strange, that this happens so often. It seems that most of the user interfaces are simply broken: it usually takes too many keystrokes and mousemoves and clicks to complete the simple transaction. Consider e.g. buying tickets to a museum. The traditional way is to have a bunch of tickets (or maybe several bunches, if there are reductions, group tickets, or similar), give a ticket to the customer together with the change. This takes about less than 10 seconds per customer. Nowadays, for example in the Guggenheim-museum, the salesperson must enter something to the computer, with quite many moves/clicks, and then the computer prints out the ticket. It easily takes 30 seconds or more. Keep your eyes open, you will find similar examples where the use of computers yields just more manual work. In addition, these systems sometime collect unnecessary information about the customers. I believe that quite soon they start asking for ID and entering names to computer systems when going to museums. ( the excuse being deterring e.g. terrorists )

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs November 2004".