Boot camp is over / Religion and politics / Light up and you will get fired! / The…

Boot camp is over

January session is now over. Nothing really to do today, tomorrow, and on Monday. I came to MIT only at 11 am, had a free lunch (yes, there are such things here), and finalized the last assignment with Cenkhan. Now, I have done everything required, but I have not read enough. The only real problem so far has been lack of time for reading. I have to gather some more self-discipline, and maybe I have to start reading while walking to MIT. I did read while walking to my office in Finland, so I know it is possible, even in the dark with certain arrangements. Now, it is time to go to Muddy Charles Pub at MIT for the last cohort building event. There is another pub too in the Stata-building selling beer for $3 per pint. Nice.

Muddy Charles is a nice place, a student hang-out without anything fancy. One can buy drinks, but no food. But one can order food from the local take-away places. We had nice time, said temporary goodbyes to those distance students who must face the normal life on Monday. Poor them.

Religion and politics

Some religious man is talking on the radio on the US internal politics. He is clearly against the interpretation of the Bible that the White House represents. He says, White house should deal with justice, not compassion. He also says that more than half of the religious Americans are for some kind of legal protection of same-sex marriages. He is also, as you can guess, against (he is Jim Wallace) the war in Iraq and accuses Mr Bush defying the pope, who was against the war. And he thinks that the most important thing would be to reduce the poverty in US, even according to the Christian belief, and that the current administration in not doing anything at poverty. Interesting discussion. I think listening to public radio really pays off.

Light up and you will get fired!

Be careful! Even using legal drugs may endanger your career. According to story in BBC, 4 employees were fired because they refused to participate in test whether they were smoking outside office hours. Next, the fat will be fired - the same company will fire the fat, since they are so expensive to insure! So, what about speeding? Or drinking alcohol, or not doing any exercise? This is really interesting: a new prohibition is coming - free markets are better in enforcing it than governments. Just wondering where and when the idea of freedom disappeared. Joking aside, if the governments are not able to come up with any lean approaches to health care, this kind clearly fascist company policies will become more and more common. There will be a lecture about lean health care in MIT (E40-298) on 9th of February, noon to 1pm. Free pizza, very good for one's arteries, is available for free.

The least corrupted civil servant in the world

According to the corruption index, Finland is the least corrupted country in the world. A South-Korean television company got curious about the fact and sent some reporters to Helsinki to find out, what is so special in Finland (their country ranks 47th). The reporters arrived in Finland, went to the town hall and requested to see the least corrupted civil servant in the city (and thus in the world). The officials told them to visit Matti Kaijansinkko, who is S's brother in law and my good friend. Mr Kaijansinkko is responsible for the design and implementation of a new district in central Helsinki. Mr Kaijansinkko is extremely honest, straight, and clever man, and incredibly competent in urban design and civil architecture (but when I asked for some advice on DC2, he told that our scale is way too large.) The moral of the story is: Finns are honest, and you cannot bribe them. Strange country, strange people.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs January 2005".