Wouldn't you be a cheerleader for competition?

You know how the new BMW 7-series was designed? Teams WITHIN the company competed on individual design elements. Makes sense... (via BMWBlog.com)

Rebiana from Stevia is Coke's New Sweetener

Something big is going on if Coke replaces a key ingredient, huh? Diet Coke is now going to be sweetened with an extract from the Stevia plant.

I read up a little on the Diet Coke sweetener history (courtesy of Wikipedia) and learned that Coke had started using Nutrasweet in 1983 but used to blend it with saccharin to reduce cost. Apparently, saccharin is still used in Diet Coke in drink fountains to make it last longer.

Coca-Cola Light outside of the US may contain different sweeteners (and hence does indeed taste different, as Americans living abroad like to complain) such as cyclamates, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium. I'd rather not know what those things are.

In my Brandeis years I went through a Diet Coke binge period - used to buy 1.5l bottles on sale for $0.79 (and sometimes even cheaper) at the Waltham Shaw's. I am glad to say I have gotten over this but nonetheless, I look forward to taste-testing the new Stevia-sweetened Coke.

By the way, there is a political angle to the story: stevia supporters say there is an Aspartame lobby, which had worked hard to delay FDA approval of stevia's safety.

Towel battle looms

I've only ever read about the battles for sun beds taking place at holiday resorts around Europe. Apparently older German holiday makers are willing to get up way early to stake out their bed by placing a towel, even if they never use it later in the day. The English are usually their arch enemies in this arena.

No idea where Slovaks stand in these but should get a chance to try in Mallorca later this month, according to the hotel reviews. We are by no means early risers so our only chance may be to use our cute baby to befriend an older German couple who would then claim sun beds for us when they get up at 6:30.

UPDATE: A middle-aged Swedish couple (the woman was topless the the hotel pool) helped us. She commandeered her husband to move the sun umbrellas around for the baby. Bliss.

Surely they ARE crazy - Slovakia's Price Board before euro adoption

For personal and business reasons I try not to follow current Slovak news in detail. But occasionally a detail passes through the filters...

The Slovak government is excessively concerned about businesses abusing the currency change to increase prices.

In comes the price board. They will clamp down on them Euro-introduction profiteers! The Minister of Finance will report to the board monthly and the board will take action should a business try to increase its prices around the end of 2008.

At least the government gave up on trying to make price manipulations during switch to the euro a criminal offense.

Slovakia will officially adopt the Euro on January 1, 2009. For two weeks both the Slovak crown (koruna) and the Euro will be used. The exchange rate was fixed in July to SKK 30.126 to the Euro.

Markets are tough, Slovak bank clients learn

Before the Slovak crown's exchange rate to the Euro was fixed (to 30.126 crowns per euro) two major Slovak banks offered clients deposit instruments with high guaranteed interest rate.

Of course there was a reason these deposits carried rates over 5%, well over one percentage point above any other similar guaranteed deposit. The deposits included a speculation on the Slovak crown's eventual fixed rate to the Euro.

In July the exchange rate was revealed. The crown ended up stronger to the Euro than most had expected even a few months ago. Suddenly, Slovenska Sporitelna bank Grand deposit clients are finding out that they will be making their 5+ % interest but their deposit will be converting at the fixed rate of SKK 32.5 per EUR (the same rate applies to clients of the "Premiovy vklad" at Slovak Volksbank).

At Slovenska Sporitelna a 100,000 Sk in the Grand Vklad (which also drew a 500 Sk fee at the start) will become EUR 3,231. Had they kept their cash under the mattress they would be converting to EUR 3,319 (via eTrend). Aside from the fact that these deposit reportedly attracted about 3 billion crowns, a 2.65% loss is not a bad price to learn a bit about how the markets work.

People and companies are coming forward claiming they were not properly shown or explained the fine print. The obvious lesson: if it sounds too good to be true (or is so much more attractive than the competition in a relatively competitive market) there is a risk. And risks sometimes do materialise.

When you get sick in Croatia, do as the Croats do?

Once on a trip to Croatia one of the group needed treatment for a sore throat. A friendly seaside town pharmacist matter-of-factly recommended propolis drops. Croats take them and apparently experience relief.

In Slovakia we use an aluminium acetate and tartrate ointment (a vinegar and wine-related substance, judging by name) to treat swelling. Fair enough, except the internet only contains some 20+ references to the compound by its Latin name, all coming from Czech pharmacies. Does not seem to be used anywhere else.

I am not talking grandmother's recipes rakija compresses here (traditional wine brandy compress used in Croatian homes to reduce fever) but the kind of stuff a doctor prescribes and pharmacist recommends.

You can only dream of what health benefits would come from interchange of these guaranteed-to-work 'national' remedies.

Tatra Banka, careful about any single-sided moves!

I have complained about Tatra Banka's new, secure but user-unfriendly "solution" for logging into its Internet Banking: the Tatra Banka Card & Reader (I have even had to apologise for insulting Tatra Banka's PR agency, because I had thought anyone writing favourably about the card & reader must have been paid off).

I never activated my card & reader after learning I would never be able to deactivate it again - I will not let my bank force me to lug around a calculator that doesn't fit my wallet just because they think it's secure.

Things have been pretty quiet on the Card & Reader front since the initial campaign introducing the ugly device. I sort of hoped the bank had backed down after learning customers were not all that excited about the new "solution". I noticed they started putting the calculator inside their branches in a glass case on a marble pedestal, which was exactly where I thought the device belongs.

Suddenly, in language reminiscent of orders from the politbyro I learn that Tatra Banka is going to force clients onto the new solution: they have issued "binding procedures" with the threat of "unilateral automatic changes by the bank" (that's my translation, their translator says "the mentioned settings can be changed automatically by bank single-sided." - their bold)

Here is my pledge: once you try this on me I will automatically and single-sided close my current account, move my mortgage to mBank (which can authenticate me pretty well without any stupid devices), return my credit card and never look back.