[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:48:46 GMT ]
Sleeping rocks.
That said, let's go on to a pet peeve.
I utterly frigging hate watching when people bang their heads into stone walls.
I mean; if you have tried doing or accomplishing something in a particular way for five times, and it has never worked, how realistic is the assumption that this time, if you just concentrate hard enough and invest enough willpower, or whatever, it will magically start working? If you have tried getting people to do something in a particular way five times, and it has not worked, how likely it is that if you just motivate them well enough or assume that this time, everyone will play nice with each other and do their part, they'll suddenly pull through?
Personally, I think the probability of the stone wall suddenly magically collapsing if you bang your head to it the sixth time is pretty close to zero.
So why oh why is it so hard for people to sit down and think what they could do differently next time to make it at least a bit likelier?
Grh.
Posted in Plain English | Tags ei näin, I dont want to play anymore | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:42:08 GMT ]
Lately, I have wanted to scream every time I hear the term “healthy food”, or see a food or nutrient pushed as healthier than something else. (And you see it all the time, which makes me want to scream way too often.)
Here’s a newsflash to all you intellectually challenged victims of health crazes: food is healthy, by definition. If it is bad for you, it is not food. If you do not believe me, try going without for, I do not know, say a month. If you after that still refuse to eat something that is generally considered food on the grounds of it not being healthy, I will do my best to have you admitted to a psychiatric institution and they can inflict an anorexia diagnosis on you.
And no, particular foods are not healthier than other foods, either. An apple is not by some absolute default healthier than a piece of chocolate. If you eat only apples you are likely to feel like crap, just as you are if you eat only chocolate. (I do not recommend trying either, but if you do not believe me, a month is probably a good length for an experiment, again.)
Particular diets are healthier than some other diets, I have to give you that. But even there, the effect is probably less than you think. Your body is brilliantly good at transforming things into other things, with just a couple of notable exceptions (the major one being vitamin C, the metabolism of which in humans, or rather the lack of essential parts there-of, is one of the best arguments there is against intelligent design). Sure the transformation might be somewhat more inefficient than eating everything in the exact required amounts, but last I checked lack of fuel for their bodies was not a problem for most Western humans. It is also crucial to understand that just because a diet consisting of nothing but pizza, fries, and sugared soft drinks is unhealthy, pizza, fries, or sugared water are not unhealthy as such. They are food. Foods are not unhealthy. Diets are. If you generally eat your veggies and so forth, eating a pizza every now and then is very likely going to do exactly nothing to your overall well-being (if anything, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy and adds to your mental health).
And no, we did not evolve to survive on a particular diet. I know, I know, in the stone age we ate berries and meat and not roots and grains and all the carbohydrate crap (says you), but evolution is not about what you do in your everyday. You can do a hundred sit-ups every day and your daughter will still be born the exact same abs she would have been without you taking all that trouble. Evolution is about whose offspring survives. And while I dislike making far-gone conclusions about the effects of our evolutionary history to our current day, if I believe one theory about the evolution of human nutrition, I believe the one that says there has been a huge pressure towards being able to effectively use whatever food happens to be available. If the diet of a nation consists of potatoes and gravy for a couple of hundred of years, the people unable to utilize the potatoes will die off and the rest of us will rule the Earth. If the diet of a nation consists of whatever hell is available and occasionally nothing for a couple of tens of thousands of years, how the hell did the stone age folks who need a carefully balanced diet of carrots and beef to feel good manage to spread their genes to all of us?
There is two major ways to construct an unhealthy diet (given that you have enough to eat in the first place, which we should not forget is still the major problem about food today): eat too much, or do not eat enough veggies. Do both of those, and you end up spherical and feeling like shit. Do not overdo it, and eat your rabbit food like mom told you, and you will in most cases be just fine. Yes, there are cases where special diets and special attention to diet are needed. Some people have actual diseases that kill them off or seriously disable them if they eat the wrong things. Some people are competing athletes who train for full weekdays and compete on the weekends. Pregnant women are recommended to take certain supplements. The likelihood that most people reading this who are very conscious about their diet have any of those conditions is not very great, however.
The ones who really need the special attention should keep on paying it. The rest of us need to stop fussing about it and eat some but not too much of what’s put in front of us, and be grateful.
(I could also use this post to rip apart the YLE newspiece about how “Finns eat healthier, but get fatter” (in Finnish, sorry), but commenter Ari T. did it for me already in the comments. The gist of it is this: 1) the results of the study cited probably mean that some Finns (say) they eat healthier, while some, very likely at least partly other Finns get fatter, and 2) even if point number one does not hold, if your diet makes you fat, it is an unhealthy diet, no matter what you eat, and 3) the questionnaire used in the study does not even ask about the amount of food consumed, so using it as any sort of indicator for the general unhealthiness of anyone’s diet is plain stupid.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags ei näin, I dont want to play anymore, ruoka, unsolicited advice | no comments
[ Posted by Janka
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:17:00 GMT ]
Lately, it has happened a couple of times that a friend has mentioned a party, and it has turned out that the likeliest reason I was not invited was that I am not on Facebook. It has also happened that I have missed some interesting discussion, because it was on (Q/J)aiku, and just a couple of days ago I missed the information about the birth of a new daughter to a colleague, because the event was only announced on Twitter, the new parents understandably too busy to blog or email.
Whenever this happens, there is a momentary panic: HELP! Everything Important™ happens elsewhere! Right now too, something might be happening and I don’t know about it! It is just a question of time before everyone forgets about me!
Then I try to make it pass. I have my contacts, I have my presence, and there is no way in hell I can maintain contact to everyone I know or have known. I already have a blog, and I am on various IRC channels, and follow various community-specific forums, and I have an email address. As is, with all of those I cannot even maintain as much contact as I would like to all of those I would like to—my dearest friends, my family, some interesting people I would like to know better but never get around to. Would screaming my presence into the internet in the hope that others have more time to follow all that help? I find this unlikely.
If anything, I feel my social life needs less idling on IRC and forums, less places to poll to see if anything is happening Right Now, and more time to make things happen at leisure.
I remember that some years ago in one university students’ club we were, in all seriousness, very concerned that if we stop sending the announcement of society meetings to the student newspaper, students without email might be excluded. And yes indeed, if any students continued to not use email and web, by now they pretty much are excluded. Are there any such cases? I don’t know. I wouldn’t know. Are they less happy for it? Do they have difficulties passing time? Do they indeed have no friends left? I doubt it—but again, I wouldn’t know. Is Facebook or Twitter the new email? Will I disappear into obscurity without it? Is Everyone Else there discussing something Important right now? Why is no one saying anything on IRC? Where are they talking that I am not hearing?
Breath.
Theory: I will notice if I at some point have too much time and too little social life. Probably at that point I still have some friend left who can tell me where to find the rest of the guys.
Relevant:
* Am I still here? by Anthony Doerr. Also available as audio on QN.
* John Naish: Enough: Breaking Free from the World of More
Posted in Plain English | Tags elämä, I dont want to play anymore, yhteiskunta | 7 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Thu, 19 Mar 2009 17:23:18 GMT ]
Huomio Suomen nuoriso (ja kaikki te nuorekkaat mieluummin-iso-kuin-aikuinen tyypit): teille valehdellaan.
Teille valehdellaan jatkuvasti ja joka paikassa antaen ymmärtää itsestäänselvänä totuutena, että aikuisena on tylsää. Te luulette tietävänne, että leikinlasku ja hauskanpito eivät kuulu aikuisille, että tätien ja setien leikki on irvokasta ja jotenkin noloa ja erityisesti poikkeustapaus (ja että itse ette ole täti ettekä setä, vaikka olisittekin nelikymppinen). Te ajattelette vakavissanne, että sitten kun on aikuinen, ei enää tykkää juoda viiniä kuutamossa, lähteä spontaanisti mökille lämmittämään rantasaunaa, tai kokeilla rullaluistelua ensimmäistä kertaa elämässään. Ja ylitse kaiken te halveksutte ja kartatte kuin kuin ruttoa vakaata toimeentuloa, rivitalonpätkää, kultaista noutajaa ja yhtä pilkku seitsemää lasta, uskoen vakaasti, että jos sellaiset joskus joudutte saamaan, elämästänne tulee helvettiä, kaikki ilo siitä kuolee, ja mikään ei koskaan enää tunnu niinku oikeesti miltään.
Mutta mietitäänpä nyt hetki, mihin tämä käsityksenne muka perustuu. Itse te ette voi tästä mitään tietää, kun ette ole kokeilleet. Kukaan jolla on asiasta oikeasti kokemusta ei luultavasti ole sitä teille kertonut. Havainnoistakaan tuskin on kyse, sillä luultavasti aivan monet tuntemanne tädit ja sedät juovat ihan mielellään viiniä kuutamossa, menevät flamenco-tunnille kuusikymppisinä, matkustavat tuntemattomaan maahan, laulavat rivoja lauluja mökkilaiturilla, ja niin pois päin. Ja vaikka se teistä olisikin hiukan irvokasta niin arvatkaa mitä: tädeillä ja sedillä on hauskaa, eikä heitä voisi vähempää kiinnostaa mitä te asiasta ajattelette.
Toisin kuin te, minä olen kokeillut. Minulla on aviomies ja oma paritalon pätkä ja kolme kissaa ja kaksikin työtä, ja kuulkaapa lapset, kyllä se on niin, että kaikki näistä tekevät minut varsin tyytyväiseksi. Kavereillani on lapsia ja kultaisia noutajia (tai mitä lie koiria, en minä niitä erota toisistaan), eivätkä hekään näytä asiasta suunnattomasti kärsivän. Tylsää ei vaikuta olevan juuri kenelläkään, vaan sama ongelma on kuin nuorempanakin: liikaa tekemistä, liian vähän aikaa. Osoittautuukin, että tavalliset asiat ovat tavallisia ei vain siksi, että ihmiset tuppaavat tylsästi matkimaan toisiaan, vaan myös siksi, että ne ovat ihmisistä mukavia asioita.
Hyvä nuoriso! Älkää uskoko mainosmiehiä vaan kuunnelkaa kokemuksen ääntä. Hankkikaa kunnon työ, vakituinen asunto, hyvä puoliso, koira tai kissa, ja pari lasta. Ryhtykää vastuullisiksi kansalaisiksi, noudattakaa lakeja ja tapoja silloin kun ne eivät ole selvästi epäoikeudenmukaisia, ja äänestäkää oikein. En takaa, että elämästänne ei tule tylsää, mutta takaan, että jos tulee, se johtuu yksinomaan teistä itsestänne eikä siitä, että olette aikuisia.
Posted in Sama suomeksi | Tags I dont want to play anymore, neuvoja nuorisolle, yhteiskunta | 11 comments
[ Posted by Janka
Wed, 21 Jan 2009 17:43:29 GMT ]
In a discussion following my rant (in Finnish, sorry—this is in English because the follow-up discussion was) on how schoolbooks are currently being bought (or, rather, not) by Finnish highscools I said something like "well, the book publishers then just have to get their hair cut and get a real job". Of course, someone saw that chat log later and asked later whether I seriously think book publishing is not a real job.
Of course I do not.
For me, a real job is not about what you do, it is why you do it, and what does it accomplish. Book-publishing can be a real job, if it is about publishing quality editions of good books and getting them for people to read, or about publishing textbooks cheap and getting them to those who cannot afford extra, or about trying to reduce the use of dead trees by publishing more ebooks, or whatever else that is actually useful to and needed by someone other than yourself needing the money they pay you for it. It is not a real job if what you do is publish new editions of textbooks where the subject matter has not changed every two years and make your living out of cheating people into believing they need those new editions.
Science is not a real job if you do it for your career or as a nice way to get a salary while allowed to idle around and read about and play around with interesting things. It is a real job if you do it out of a genuine interest to further our shared understanding or because some specific problem needs a solution that does not exist yet (idling and playing around might be a good tool for finding that solution, of course). Marketing is a real job if it is about informing people about advances or opportunities in things they feel they need; it is not a real job if it is about inventing needs that people do not yet have and doing propaganda to make people believe they have them. Living alone as a hermit in the forest and growing your own food is not a real job, though it probably is a whole lot of work; keeping a farm to raise your family on is a real job. It is easier to have a real job being a doctor or a teacher or an artist or indeed a farmer—but it is also possible to be any of those without it being a real job, because real jobs are not about your job description, they are about whether you contribute.
Some people do not want a real job. That is fine, as long as they are happy and someone wants to pay to them for the unreal ones, or they can grow their own food, or are rich enough.
Some people cannot get a real job even if they want to, but need to finance their food and housing and clothes by wage-slavery to imaginary purposes. That is not fine.
(No, I do not really have anything against long hair, either. That part is a joke, or rather, a lyrics quotation.)
Posted in Plain English | Tags I dont want to play anymore, työ, yhteiskunta | 2 comments
