Miksi Led-lamppuja ei saa laittaa sekajätteisiin hehkulamppujen tavoin?

Tämä tuli tänään postissa. Se on hienoa, kun Tietokapulan ("Kiertokapula Oy:n asiakaslehden") toimitus osaa näin auttaa asiakkaitaan kierrätykseen liittyvissä kysymyksissä. Toimitus ei myöskään ollut varma LED-lampun kirjoitusasusta.

Political views

Just did a test of my political views, with the results on the left.
The nice thing about the test was the ability to check how certain groups, divided by age, nation and/or self-announced political groups answered the same questions. I note that I'm a bit farther away from the centre than my age group or the generation of my parents.

I was interested in the views of my own age group from natural reasons.. and of my parents' generation as these are the views from which the newspapers are edited, laws are made and from which moral arguments that the youths challenge usually stem from.

I wonder though - am I on the left (and down) of my generation and my parents' generation because of my views.. or because the control group, the other people who answered the quiz happen not to represent a good average Finn of that age (and to admit, 11 people in the older group does seem a rather small sample)? This would have to do with where the link has spread, and who have thought to click on it, or do the test (which was fairly long). Also would have been interested to see the views of people in larger towns compared to countryside, but this was apparently not possible.

But I have long suspected that the people that write opinions to news stories on the Internet ("niggers go home! finland is to white people! pure race!") may be closer to "average citizen" than those well-phrased texts in the daily paper's Letters-section. I am not entirely comfortable with this idea.

Political Spectrum Quiz

What the hell is wrong with organized religions?

I have been thinking of religions lately. Partly because of this entry (I was linked by my friend Vlad, who apparently has rather good grasp on things I like), partly because couple of Jehovah's Witnesses came to visit the Residence the other day. I was not around, but apparently they knocked on each flat door and asked from which countries the inhabitants are from. They then gave Watchtowers and Awake!-magazines in the languages of the countries mentioned. So now I have religious magazines in Finnish and English on the kitchen table.

I don't much base for organized religion. I trust the scientific approach as far as our normal life goes, and I quite agree with the idea of evolution and Newtonian physics (yes, I know they only apply as long as the objects travel slower than 10% of speed of light). When we step outside the area that can be observed and verified directly by our senses, I get a bit unsure. They say that it all started with a Big Bang, which seems like a sensible conclusion from the known facts. The same goes for post-Einstein physics. They say it allows pretty much everything from time travel to reaching distant stars in days. This may very well be so, and I do know that CD-players would be impossible to manufacture without Einstein's theories.

But when you start to think about it, REALLY think about it; the universe is so huge and big and infinite. There are no borders but it expands all the time. And every material is coming from the same spot and has just spread around. There may be evidence to support it - and I do want to believe - but it's too big. And the same goes for the religious alternatives.

But to be honest, I'm not very concerned. Some days I feel that there might be something out there, and on some days I don't. In general, I feel that it's more important to know what's inside than outside. And whatever you believe, they are your beliefs and don't really belong to anyone else. If I discover something that works to me, the last thing I want to hear is that I'm wrong. Incidentally, Lutheran church (at least in Finland) is pretty cool with the subject. Apparently they (we?) have priests who don't believe in Hell. And priests that only believe in God as a symbol for human goodness. And priests that don't believe that women can be priests, which pretty well shows the other side of the tolerance-argument, but I digress.

I do read about other religions; believes often tell something important about the culture and the person itself. And so I was reading Finnish Awake! at the kitchen table, while I was eating my breakfast müsli. I admit that I dont know much about Jehovahs Witnesses, other than they go from door to door and nobody seems to like them. It's all very vague.

There was a longish article in Young people ask-series titled Why is it wrong to date in secret?. It was basically the moral story of Jessica, with additional quotes and explanations from the Bible. Jessica's story goes as follows;

Jessica had to do a choice. Everything started when one of her classmates, Jeremy, told he was interested in her. Jessica says: "He was very good looking, and my friends said that you will never find a guy as honourable as him. Many girls were interested in him, but he only had eyes for me".

After a time, Jeremy asked Jessica out. She tells: "I explained to him that I am a Jehovah's Witness, and that I could not date anyone who was not a Witness. But then Jeremy got an idea; we could date without telling my parents.

[...] Surprisingly, Jessica accepts Jeremy's idea. "I was sure that if I dated him, I could make him love Jehovah", she says. [Then] Jessica [...] heard about another Christian girl in the same situation. "When I found out that she had ended her relationship, I knew what I had to do", Jessica says. Was ending the relationship easy? No! "He was the only boy who I had ever truly cared about", Jessica says. "I cried every day for weeks."

Jessica also knew something else: she loved Jehovah, and even if she had gotten sidetracked, she genuinely wanted to do what was right. In time, the pain went away. Jessica tells; "my relationship with Jehovah is now better than ever. I am really thankful that he gives to us at the right time the kind of guidance we need."

(From Herätkää!, June 2007)

The girl cried for weeks and imagine what the boy felt like. I don't really know what the teaching of the story was - other than "cults are bad for you, mmkay?" - But I'd like you to imagine what it would be like if there is no Witness community on the area. The article also mentions that dating is forbidden altogether if the people aren't old enough to marry and prepared to do so after relatively short dating.

Religion is what you make of it, what you believe in. You can try to convince others to believe in the same way, but it's rather inhuman to make people live in a way that makes them unhappy. Denying something purely because somebody says you should does sound a bit perverse for me, just because somebody may have probably said something against it, possibly, 3 000 years ago. As such I really like the relaxed attitude of the ground-level Lutheran church; the higher ups are not as much fun (few years ago they fired an employee for being gay).

I am, of course, a product of my society, and of my generation. People talk about traditions, values and history. Personally I think that for them to carry on, they should have some other things for going for them than just age. And not everything old is bad, but that story sends chills down my spine. Actually, I felt pretty bad for few days. The worst thing is that they didn't even think Jeremy's feelings were worth exploring. The only important thing is that Jessica had gotten closer to God!

About dogs.

While I was coming back to home from my mother today, I saw a woman with very interesting hair-do, with very short hair expect just in top of her eyes, where she had big patch, greased to go upwards. It had also been dyed yellow (rest of her hair was brown). She was dressed in wierd jacket, pants and boots. She wasn't very slim, but not fat either; she looked like she had bought that chocolate bar few times too often, but not like she would have been swimming in it.
She also had a dog. I dont know much about dogs, so I cant well identify it; but it was about three fourths of meter high, it was very brown, very slim and very agile looking. In other words, it didnt look much like it's mistress.

From seeing this, I remember the old saying about dogs and their masters (or mistresses, as it is), and about how they end looking like each other. And I started thinking, if this was so, why was it? Was it because, after having had a similar lifestyle for years they started to look like each other? Or maybe it was only the company?

And from this, my train of thoughts jumped to the obvious conclusion; what if people actually bought dogs, to make themselves LOOK like dogs? "I would like to look little more masculine, I think Ill get a bulldog." "I wanna look little more official, I think I take the wolfhound." "I think I want to look cute, Ill take the pudel." And so on.

While writing this, it occured to me that people really do this. They take animals they want to highlight they lifestyle, or give certain image; dalmatians, for examble, are animals that can and should run 100 kilometres each day (read this from somewhere), so they are perfect animals at farms; but people who want to look avantgarde (and thus live in urban cities) get them. Not good for the pet, is it?

So, maybe I wasn't so genius as I thought, eh? But it's a nice thought. To get slim and younglooking by getting one of those dogs that chase bunnies at competitions..

Comicbook logic!

Comics are a great thing. There are several reasons, and one of the most coolest thing about particular brand of them is the continity. Yes, Im talking about superheros.

Continity - that is, things from past storylines affect the future ones - is a cool thing. Sometimes it also causes problems. Things are made for one particular storyline, that become obvious hinderstones in later ones. Or some machine (usually weapon) has some really obvious beneficial uses, but the heroes (even if they have resources, and even if they themselves are in need of the beneficial use) never get around doing it.

The most obvious examble, of course, is Professor Charles Xavier, the founder of X-Men. As you might remember from the movies (in case you dont read comics), the man is a cripple; he moves around while sitting in a wheelchair. This is quite strange, while we remember that the man teaches and houses people of great healing power under his roof. Several times, these healers have been shown to cure battlewounds that would cause death inside minutes; mending bones, removing holes thru the stomach and what have you. And still, Xavier has not asked, nor has of the healers suggested, that Xavier himself could be healed.

Or Cyclops. The man can shoot conclusive rays from his eyes (eg. he shoot beams that have the same effect as by being hit by cannonball). Thanks to brain damage as a kid, he can never turn his rays "off", and therefore he has to use visor that makes his rays harmless when not fighting people. He could be healed, as detailed above, but there are other solutions. X-Men have fought villains, and sometime they have lost. And the villain has chosen to imprison them by using "Inhibitor Collars". In short, it makes using superpowers impossible; shorts them out. They are well tested - in Marvel Universe, there were a whole islandnation full of mutants who were made to use them - so research in the technology is well betatested, and quite safe for users. So, why hasn't some company reverse-engineered the technology and built, for examble, bracelets with on/off switch? Cyclops wouldn't need those glasses, Rogue could touch people without taking their memories and so on. And thats just in the X-Men. Worldwide, there must be thousands, if not hundred of thousands, who look pretty normal and would like the comfort of knowing they dont accidentally, say, level a house. And people whose powers make normal life impossible. Naturally, it wouldnt help always, but it would help SOMETIMES. And even if the bracelet would cost tens of thousands of euros... goverment might help with the fees (it would limit damage to buildings), and even if it wouldnt - how much would you pay for item that would let you touch people without killing them? It should cost very much indeed that I wouldnt get one. There are loans, you know, and item like this would probaply have lifetime waranty.

Other things well known in Marvel U, but not used by anyone outside hero/villain community: time machine (with "ghost mode", where you can observe past but not affect it - ideal christmas present for any archeologist or historian!), alien civilisations with very advanced technolgoies and benevolent mindset (eg. ready to share, not trying to invade), Asimovian robots, force fields, 3D-technology, VERY advanced computers, flying cars, get-superpowers machines (several, most quite safe for the user) and so on. Seeing as some superheroes and villains are also involved in business, not seeing these things in the market is quite amazing (Fantastic four is financed by patents, Iron Man and Iron Fist own tech companies, Black Panther is the head of state, X-Men has several millionares and company owners and Batman is one of the richest people in the world).

Then there are those very absurd things, such as in DC's Flash. One of the villains is Dr. Alchemy. "Ha Ha Ha! After years and years of research, I have finally invented the Alchemist's Stone! With it I can change any material into another! Let's go rob some banks, instead of making copper, silver, iron, platinum, aluminium or some other very valuable and/or rare metal that is used in machines!" And of course, the men who just happen to discover how to make power armours, freeze guns, stilt legs (allowing you to rise to hundreds of meters, while keeping your legs on the ground), power sources and what have you. They could make millions if they started selling their inventions instead of trying to rob the bank down the street!

Oh, and it is shown that Batman's company, Wayne Enterprises, had in the middle eighties a machine that allowed people with broken backs to walk again. Problem was, back then the machine weighted 20 kilos or more, and must have been used all the time. It was 20 years ago, and surely the tech has evolved. And/or, Batman could have pushed more money in the technology, seeing as his friend, former Batgirl and current hacker and manager of Batman's information, happens to suffer from just this condition. Pretty indifrent, isin't he?

While, obviously, some of these things may have violent uses, and some heroes may want to keep their heads out of the workings of humankind - such as Superman - I cant really see why Iron Man, who owns a high tech company with army contracs, would hesitate to put into the market such things as 3D-projector (seeing as he wants to develope the company more to the high tech, consumer market). And time machines (which cant be used in Marvel U to change present) could and should be owned by at least several universities, however ridiculously expensive they were.

So many heroes could help so many more people than they do, if they just would think a moment more of the technology they smash and broke in every issue of their comic books. Sure, they are malevolent, but cant the underlining technology (and applications of physics) be used for GOOD? And why wont villains, that are are shown to be only concerned with money (and not say, world domination) sell or licence their patents instead of robbing banks?

But of course, these are comic books. But some technology could be incorporated into the the universe without making it look very foreign from our own; and that which cant could easily be explained away. But they dont do either, and this makes the heroes look very stupid indeed. Even if some of them are Nobel-winning scientists or supergeniuses.

UPDATE!

OK, first post in a while. This time, we have a moral dillema. This url was in topic of one irc-channel I frequent: Spamusement. The pic of interest is posted here:
.
EDIT: Here was a picture of a form you have to fill in Hell; who would you want as your room mate; Hitler or Paris Hilton?

OK, so you are in hell, and you should select a roommate between these two. Obviously we disregard the question of gender, because we assume that no sex between roommates in hell could be expected (ms. Hilton is very goodlooking female individual, and in case the reader happens to be female... well.. I guess Eva Braun thought Hitler was cute).
So, whats the problem? I mean, sure, Hitler killed millions, but people who personally knew him said he was pretty nice and entertaining fellow. Artist by profession (and not a bad one either), he could decorate our flat to be nicer in style. Probaply pretty neat person (obsessed people usually are), he would be ideal roommate.
Paris Hilton.. dunno why she would be here, but shes spoiled rich kid. Probaply would expect me to do all the chores.

Plus, we have to remember that were in hell, so we probaply werent saints either, while alive. So, I'd personally choose Hitler, and it wouldnt even be difficult choice. What do you think?

On other things, somewhat bordering on my personal life; what's wrong with people? I just had the oportunity to meet a person who has been disliking, maybe even hating me for the past three years for something I had very little to do with (in a nutshell, he aproached a girl, who said she wasnt interested. Just a few days later I had better luck. Been hating me ever since). It wouldn't bother me otherwise, but we have several friends in common, and he seems to be trying to make sure they are HIS friends and not mine. From what I gather, this guy has a (very beatiful) girlfriend, is engaged to be married (at least he had golden ring in his finger), he has his own place in big town/city, he has studyplace, friends.. apparently everything he was lacking or dreaming of when I knew him better and called him a friend. So, life has been good to him. And hes holding a grudge?

Visit on my personal life; having a date today with a girl. Were going to movies. I also got part-time job; for now, its only for a month or so till the regular comes back. If she dosent, the place is mine for good! Anyway, it's easy money, and Im awfully happy.

Having problems with my Windows-installation. Mostly fixed now, but I need more permanent solution. Will not go into details here; just thought to inform you.

What Will You Drive When Petrol Costs One Mark Per Litre?

"Millä ajat kun bensa maksaa markan litra?"

The translation above. These words were in some old add, probaply in seventies. I remember seeing it scanned and in net, about year ago. I know I dont really have any readers, but in case I have one, and you know of this, and have the url, please paste it in the comments.

Anyway. Thanks to some world-market thingy that I fail to understand, Huricane Katrina, that leveled New Orleans the past week, causes the petrol price to up. This is pretty wierd, as America (USA/Mexico) dont import gasoline to Finland, and the problem is, anyway, in the fact that Katrina also leveled the docking bay of the oil tankers. So, Americans can't get all the petrol they need. Logically thinking, this should mean that one market for petrol is closed and there would be surplus of oil, that has to be sold somewhere else in the world, effectively pulling the price down.

But thanks to world economics, the price just climped to 1,5 euros per litre. That's nine old marks, fellows.

And the Americans dare to whine when they have to pay one dollar per gallon.

So, what will you drive when petrol costs ten old marks a litre? Thats what the question would be, if the add would be published today in the backcover of Tekniikan Maailma, or some other magazine of similar inclination. And the answer would be, of course, "bicycle".

EDIT: I remember there would have been one mark version, but this popped in net few hours ago:

Walking the Blogosphere

Today, I was bored. Really bored. I had just finished a book I bought (will talk about it later on - as you were really interested), and I was spending time by clicking that "Next Blog" you can probaply see even now hanging from the uppermost right corner of your webpage-window. I don't know how that button works - clearly it dosent throw me to the 'next' blog (as "each blog is numbered, and your's is 4 and the next is 5"). I could go back to the previous page and push "next blog", and go to page that wasnt the one from where I backed off. Also; by pushing the button, I sometimes got the same blog again. This happened so frequently, that it should not be probaple, with all the thousands (millions?) of blogs in the world, and in the blogger alone.
So, how does the "next blog" thing work? Anyone want to explain?

Also, when scrolling trough the blogs, I found several curious things. First, most of them were really inane. Several blogs had just "asfhagash" posts every few days. WTF? Im pretty sure that they dont mean anything, on any language. Then there were lots of blogs with really, REALLY narrow interest. Like "Blog about bolts", and then there really were posts after posts of bolts, where you can use them, where you can buy them and so on. OK; they were not bolts, but several as worthless objects, with no usage in everyday life.

Then, there were several "buy my stuff" blogs. And "this blog is just for google adds" pages. As someone would visit them without anything to read of, only the adds.. There were two blogs that only had quotes from the bible. Maybe that might have interest to someone... I guess.. new quote for new day, and all that. Might be popular in some circles.
There were blogs with so many pictures (there was even some young teacher in USA who had put several videos to his profile - the pages loaded for eternity). Some blogs just spoke of bad design, having been broken into several smaller windows that made you scroll everything..

Then there were several blogs with actually interesting text, on language I can read (there were several with neither). They were suprisingly few and far apart. I commented on few. In case youre one and traced me down, hello.

The one that really stuck to my mind was blog of some missionary with big link to "needgod.com". After some sort flash animation, there were eight questions, that by answering you would find if you would get to Heaven. "Great", I thought, "I so love quizes! And this might be amusing.". Well, proved that it wasnt. The eight questions were on the lines of "Have you ever lied? For any reason, however small?" "Have you stolen? Anything, however nonimportant?" Anyway, questions that made you give the "bad" answer. Who of us hasnt lied? Who of us, over twelve year old, has not watched 'lustfully' either man or woman (depending on your preferences)?

Anyway, of these eight questions, two brought some thoughts to my mind. "Have you cursed in God's name?" And then there was examble: "Oh G-d!" My question is, is that a curse? And I thought God's name was Jahve, or Jehova, or something along those lines, depending on your language. Or is that just one of his names? If God would be in phonebook, would there be something like this:

Gobard, Donald / Bird Street 12 A, Espoo / 853 3566
God, Jahve / Heaven / 124 7687
Gregory, Edward / Sea Lane 4 A 3, London / 114 689


Just a thought. I always though that 'God' was written on big letter same as President. Because, in each country, there's only one of them.. and there's only one God in Christianity. There are other gods, and the big letter dosent really go thru while cursing...

Playlists on radio

I used to have office job. I wrote stuff from papers to computer - for easier data handling and storage. It was pretty easy, routine stuff, that after a while started to be boring. Was cool to put the radio on and listen to some music.

Im pretty sure that around Finland I was not the only bored employee to do so. This was the first time I truly realized what 'playlists' meant on radio. They are pretty ok, I guess, as long as you only listen to radio that 20 minutes on your way to shopping, or listen on background while waiting for something. But when you start to listen it more or less regulary eight hours a day, five days a week, you start to notice that there are three songs that are playing the whole time. Sometimes the songs are good, sometimes.. not. But even a song most awesome and exellent becomes annoying after listening 50 times in a week (thats ten times a day during workweek, if you suck in maths).

Now Im in outdoors work. I have MiniDisc, so not really listening to radio, expect while moving from one place to second. Thats about 1,5 hours each day. Listening to Radio City (Rock and Sport - I still dont understand why the "and sport" is part of the description, dosent go well with the imago, imho), mostly because it means no Britney Spears and friends. There are several good songs going on. Sometimes the playlist plays older music, sometimes even decades old. But mostly it plays three songs over and over again. I dont feel that 1,5 hours of radio a days is that much - not compared to the eight to ten hours many people do. If I get annoyed, what do other people feel?

Read somewhere that there are over 50 000 songs in the world. I think thats underestimated number, but even if its about right... why does radio only play about 50 songs a week? Surely they know that listeners dont care to hear everything all over again - and change channel. Maybe Britney Spears is smaller evil, sometimes, if it means you get to hear 200 songs a week (by swapping channels every few hours), instead of 50.

Considering how many people hate playlists, it would be natural to assume that there would be a channel without playlist or with playlist that has hundreds - thousands - songs playing and which circles those songs more or less evenly. It might suprise you to know that there isint one. Even Radio Helsinki, which was long against playlists, and trusted into the ear of the person in duty at the moment, recently went to playlists. Or so I have been told (I have not seen this on print).

I have been further told that creators rights with playlists are much smaller than with "independent" selection. That using playlists is many times cheaper. Maybe true. But who gains from this? Not the listeners. Not the advertisers - if you are going to swap channel anyway, you can as well do it at the beginning of commercial break. Not the channel - people are leaving the boat. Maybe artists - people will buy CD's instead of listening radio. But somehow I doubt this.

Please, enlighten me.