NL54 - Election time

Hello from my home in Matinkylä! This is NordLetter #54, a weekly newsletter on living and walking in Finland. Each week I share some of the interesting things I found on the web.

Previous editions can be found here. You can reach out to me by replying on this mail or adding a comment on this. I am also posting on Mastodon.

/election stories

When I moved to Finland in 2021, I was initially staying at a Forenom in Kamppi. I loved living there. It was a cozy one room apartment, fully furnished. For someone new to the city (country) it was great. I had to move out of the place eventually, because it was costly to live there. I moved to Merihaka eventually and started living in a flat there. Unlike homes in India, you get a standard set of equipment (refrigerators, oven, stove, furnishings, cupboards, etc.) standard with all apartments. What you don't get is any thing else.

The first thing I did, after moving to this apratment was go to Ikea with my friend. We had to get everything, including our beds from Ikea. We realized we could not carry the beds with us, but we picked up a bunch of other stuff with us. We booked a cab, and were told by the sikh gentleman driving the cab that carrying luggage will cost extra. He asked for ten euros extra. We were not in a position to haggle. I do not know till this day if we were duped.

Anyway, the gentleman driving the cab told us that there were elections going on, and he himself was a candidate. He spend the rest of the ride talking about how he hated Mr Modi.

Now, it's 2025. I happen to be eligible to vote in this year's local elections, which is such a welcome change from a certain other country whose leader thinks that immigrants should have no rights. Finland is nice that way.

I received a letter informing me of my eligibility to vote in this year's local elections (municipality and county). I was mostly going to ignore it, but eventually as the elections drew closer and the streets began filling up with mugshots of different politicians, I got interested.

who do you vote for?

Back home, this is how it went:

1. You have a party, your party. It does not matter who is standing on your party's ticket, you vote for them. Or,
2. You look at each candidate's credentials, and decide no one is good enough and vote for NOTA.

Here, I had not talked to any of the candidates. I do not watch news. There were no politicians screaming their heart out on news channels in any case.

On my walks, I would see these posters, and think should I vote for you? Mind you, there is nothing other than the candidate's picture, their party's name and their number on the poster.

As the election dates got closer, many candidates started appearing at Iso Omena, with their tents, handing pamphlets, talking to people. I mostly ignored them whenever I walked past. I was not interested till this point.

Finally, I talked to a gentleman outside Aapteeki. He explained to me about the elections, about how things worked here, and what he stood for. It made sense to me.

There is also the YLE election compass which based on the answers that candidates have submitted, and based on the things you say you want, shows a list of candidates, whose views align with your views.

I found that interesting. That is the logical way of doing things. But, just as in so many other things in life, we are not logical beings. We are emotional beings. And so, I will be voting for the gentleman I talked to.

/five things to share

1. Everyone knows all the apps on your phone

Please remember the next time you casually install an app on your Android device, this information is being broadcast to the whole world. Data brokers will use it to profile you, cross-reference it with data about you from other ad networks and eventually it will be used to decide how much you’ll be asked to pay the next time you order a samosa.

2. Apple’s AI isn’t a letdown. AI is the letdown | CNN Business

I got Apple Intelligence with iOS 18.4. It's OK. AI itself is not super useful outside of its code generating capabilities.

There’s a popular adage in policy circles: “The party can never fail, it can only be failed.” It is meant as a critique of the ideological gatekeepers who may, for example, blame voters for their party’s failings rather than the party itself.

That same fallacy is taking root among AI’s biggest backers. AI can never fail, it can only be failed. Failed by you and me, the smooth-brained Luddites who just don’t get it. (To be sure, even AI proponents will acknowledge available models’ shortcomings — no one would argue that the AI slop clogging Facebook is anything but, well, slop — but there is a dominant narrative within tech that AI is both inevitable and revolutionary.)

3. The Reality of Working in Tech: We're Not Hired to Write Code

I later realized that in the fast-paced tech industry, companies prioritize delivering products and features above all else. Managers are responsible for delivering results to higher-ups. As such, it is crucial for developers to work on building and maintaining the company's products and features, regardless of their coding specializations.

4. The 20 Settings You Need to Change on Your iPhone

Setting up shortcuts (macros) is useful, as is playing with image playground.

Forget about typing out your whole email address every time. Go to Settings, General, and choose Keyboard. Tap Text Replacement and then the plus icon at the top right to set up text shortcuts, such as “eml” for your full email address, or “addy” for your mailing address. This can also work for any other text you type out frequently.

5. Rivian spins out a new micromobility startup called Also with $105M from Eclipse | TechCrunch

All I want is a cool electric bike which does not cost too much. A good 1K e-bike. Somebody please make it.

/new posts

I wrote about technology, yoga, Temu, Apple Intelligence and surprisingly, elections in Finland. Go give these a read!

1. It does not matter how many times I do surya namaskar
2. All new technology needs to be tested out in the world
3. Balancing new tech and its maintainance
4. Temu as a form of soft power
5. The three places where I noticed Apple Intelligence
6. Elections in Finland

If you enjoyed reading this, and know someone else who might, please consider forwarding this to them. It would help this grow and make me happy. 😄

Until next week.