Today is the "don't buy anything" day, when people are encouraged not to shop but instead to think about whatever causes are dear to the organizers. I usually celebrate it by shopping.
The kind of people who believe that everything should be free and nobody should work and goods and services should appear out of nowhere or at least be made or performed by somebody else have an alternative event, "steal something" day.
In conjunction with the above I think it would be nice to have a "catch a thief" day. The citizens (and also alien residents and visitors, of course) would have a chance to think about shoplifting and the way all the consumers get to pay for it in the end, improve their hunting skills and possibly perform a valuable service to the communtity.
Today I encourage everyone who goes into any store to be on the lookout for the shoplifting anarchists, and to call the security guards as soon as somebody tries to steal something.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Lenin-setä asuu Helsingissä...
A few dozen fucking morons, I mean differently sane celebrities, want to get a Lenin monument from somewhere and install it in Helsinki in Lenininpuisto, whose existence is also a WTF in and of itself.
The differently sane celebrities in question include, among others, Jouko Ahonen, Sinikka Sokka, Jussi Raittinen, Sulevi Peltola, Pentti Linkola, Vesa Vierikko, Mika Kaurismäki and Jouko Turkka.
Why don't they put Hitler up as well, at least if the sculptors happen to have a two-for-one special? Or they could do a whole row of monuments: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Khomeini, Niyazov, etc. Hell, they could ask every country that ever deposes a dictator to donate one of his monuments to our city.
If this actually goes through I'll buy some laxatives, so that I could honor the late leader of the Russian revolution in the most appropriate way.
The differently sane celebrities in question include, among others, Jouko Ahonen, Sinikka Sokka, Jussi Raittinen, Sulevi Peltola, Pentti Linkola, Vesa Vierikko, Mika Kaurismäki and Jouko Turkka.
Why don't they put Hitler up as well, at least if the sculptors happen to have a two-for-one special? Or they could do a whole row of monuments: Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Khomeini, Niyazov, etc. Hell, they could ask every country that ever deposes a dictator to donate one of his monuments to our city.
If this actually goes through I'll buy some laxatives, so that I could honor the late leader of the Russian revolution in the most appropriate way.
A mean thought
The "suburban youths" (that's the politically correct French term for "thugs of a mostly North African origin"; simply "youth" is a term for a generic thug) have been rioting for the third night now.
Apart from the usual suspected reasons (religion of peace, gross misuse of amphetamines, the aesthetics of suburban architecture, the city's failure to build enough libraries for the thugs to read Nietzsche in, low IQ, and the employers' unexplicable reluctance to hire employees whose CV starts with "went to some school until I burned it down" and ends with "set a neighbor's car on fire"), can one of the reasons be simply a desire to be famous?
I mean, in a country where a convicted cop shooter (Mumia Abu-Jamal) becomes a honorary citizen of the capital and gets a street named after him in one of the "sensitive" suburbs is it inconceivable that some of the "suburban youths" might want to have a street named after themselves too?
Maybe I shouldn't have laughed at their Prime Minister yesterday when he said that people who shoot at cops are criminals. There really are a lot of people there who don't know it. The mayor of Paris, for example.
Apart from the usual suspected reasons (religion of peace, gross misuse of amphetamines, the aesthetics of suburban architecture, the city's failure to build enough libraries for the thugs to read Nietzsche in, low IQ, and the employers' unexplicable reluctance to hire employees whose CV starts with "went to some school until I burned it down" and ends with "set a neighbor's car on fire"), can one of the reasons be simply a desire to be famous?
I mean, in a country where a convicted cop shooter (Mumia Abu-Jamal) becomes a honorary citizen of the capital and gets a street named after him in one of the "sensitive" suburbs is it inconceivable that some of the "suburban youths" might want to have a street named after themselves too?
Maybe I shouldn't have laughed at their Prime Minister yesterday when he said that people who shoot at cops are criminals. There really are a lot of people there who don't know it. The mayor of Paris, for example.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
In other news, Pope is Catholic
The newsflash of the day: French Prime Minister said that people who shoot at cops are criminals.
Who would have thought...
Who would have thought...
Anti-Darwin riots in France
15-year-old Moushin and 16-year-old Larami were riding a moped in Villiers-le-Bel, a suburb of Paris, last Sunday. The moped was stolen and not autorized for the public roads to begin with, the guys were not wearing helmets, and they were not much into various rules of the road, so at some point they ran into a police car and died.
Kind of sad, because IMO people don't really deserve to die for driving like shmucks, even on a stolen bike. But shit does happen, and this is as clear-cut a case of a Darwin award as any. Among any normal people this would have been an occasion to reflect upon human mortality, use of motorcycle helmets, and the uncomplicated relationship of these two things. The parents would have used this as an occasion to remind their children about the dangers of not using the helmets, the parents in better families might have reminded the children that stealing mopeds is not nice either, the brighter kids would have even googled to find out whether the cars have priority when they are coming from the right or from the left. Somebody would have possibly sued the manufacturer of the bike, just in case.
Not so in Villiers-le-Bel and the rest of Maghreb-sur-Seine. The local thugs, I mean "youths", decided that everything was the police's fault, that the police did it on purpose, and that the police left the boys without any medical help. The police are saying that firefighters came to help the boys but were unable to do so because the situation was too tense (about 50 hostile bystanders). One can of course say that it's the police's job to secure the area from the hostile bystanders, and rightly so; it does, however, sound a bit corny if said by the very same hostile bystanders. "Oh dear! We stone the fucking pigs every time we see them and the selfish bastards never stop to help us! Boys, get those Molotov cocktails!"
Anyway, during the two nights that followed 82 police officers were injured, 4 of them seriously, one police station was burned and another one robbed, the local library was also burned, as well as a number of businesses, cars and trash cans.
Inquiring minds want to know:
1. How many people were out there rioting? It would seem like it would take quite a lot of folks to do all of the above. The town has about 25000 inhabitants.
2. How does one burn and rob two police stations? What were the police doing at the time? (This is not an accusation: I am just curious whether there were too many rioters, not enough police, police not adequately armed, police not allowed to shoot, etc.)
3. Am I the only person who has serious trouble thinking of the rioters as fellow humans? I mean, I realize that they are, technically speaking, human beings, and should be recognized as such in a court of law (the sooner the better) and be presumed innocent and entitled to a lawyer, etc., but it's just very hard to imagine what is going through their minds, or that anything is in fact going through their minds.
Kind of sad, because IMO people don't really deserve to die for driving like shmucks, even on a stolen bike. But shit does happen, and this is as clear-cut a case of a Darwin award as any. Among any normal people this would have been an occasion to reflect upon human mortality, use of motorcycle helmets, and the uncomplicated relationship of these two things. The parents would have used this as an occasion to remind their children about the dangers of not using the helmets, the parents in better families might have reminded the children that stealing mopeds is not nice either, the brighter kids would have even googled to find out whether the cars have priority when they are coming from the right or from the left. Somebody would have possibly sued the manufacturer of the bike, just in case.
Not so in Villiers-le-Bel and the rest of Maghreb-sur-Seine. The local thugs, I mean "youths", decided that everything was the police's fault, that the police did it on purpose, and that the police left the boys without any medical help. The police are saying that firefighters came to help the boys but were unable to do so because the situation was too tense (about 50 hostile bystanders). One can of course say that it's the police's job to secure the area from the hostile bystanders, and rightly so; it does, however, sound a bit corny if said by the very same hostile bystanders. "Oh dear! We stone the fucking pigs every time we see them and the selfish bastards never stop to help us! Boys, get those Molotov cocktails!"
Anyway, during the two nights that followed 82 police officers were injured, 4 of them seriously, one police station was burned and another one robbed, the local library was also burned, as well as a number of businesses, cars and trash cans.
Inquiring minds want to know:
1. How many people were out there rioting? It would seem like it would take quite a lot of folks to do all of the above. The town has about 25000 inhabitants.
2. How does one burn and rob two police stations? What were the police doing at the time? (This is not an accusation: I am just curious whether there were too many rioters, not enough police, police not adequately armed, police not allowed to shoot, etc.)
3. Am I the only person who has serious trouble thinking of the rioters as fellow humans? I mean, I realize that they are, technically speaking, human beings, and should be recognized as such in a court of law (the sooner the better) and be presumed innocent and entitled to a lawyer, etc., but it's just very hard to imagine what is going through their minds, or that anything is in fact going through their minds.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Work search visa
The Ministry of the Interior has apparently decided that there is a need for a work search visa.
I don't think it's a bad idea on general principle. There are some people who want to come and work here, there are some jobs for them, and matching a potential employee to a job is usually kind of hard without an interview. Hence, people need visas to go to the job interviews.
The whole different question is whether or not they will fuck up the implementation.
1. These people won't be eligible for any social security, apart from the emergency medical help, right? Right? Inquiring taxpayers often want to know, and a lot of Finnish people tend to assume everybody who steps on Finnish land is. This is not always the case, but I wouldn't assume anything either way until I hear it from the people involved in that project. And what I want to hear is that they will only be eligible for the emergency medical help until they find a job, and after that have the same perks as any other foreign workers.
2. Will they be required to prove they can afford their stay here, and a ticket back if they don't find a job? (I can see arguments for and against.)
3. Once they are here, what is gonna prevent them from, say, going to Sweden and applying for the asylum there? OK, Sweden's problem, but still...
4. Is 6 months really necessary? We are hopefully talking about more or less skilled workers, such as send their CVs to employers, get or don't get invited to interviews and need to come to Finland to go to those interviews. IMO, and I am speaking from experince, this is done by reserving a ticket about a month and a half ahead, sending a lot of CVs to different companies at the same time, informing them all of the time you are gonna be in the country and hoping some of them would interview you. Doesn't take 6 months. On the other hand: my experience is very much influenced by my own field, in other fields things might be different, and as long as they want to be here for 6 months on their own money, there isn't any problem.
5. What's with the country list? (Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia.) I know that I have said many times that one should carefully select the countries one takes large groups of immigrants from; I really did not mean that we should specifically select the ones where the religion of peace is practiced. Why not, say, Ukraine, Armenia, India and China?
Turkey's educated classes are not much into the religion of peace and there is in fact some skilled labor there. As for importing their unskilled labor, one should probably study Germany's experiences first.
6. In general if they feel a need to test the system on small numbers (which is a good idea IMO): why the particular countries, rather than the particular fields that need labor the most?
7. What's the point of the quotas later on, unless they are per-country quotas? We are talking about the numbers of people who come here for the interviews, not the number of people who come here to work.
8. What would be the criteria for giving or refusing the visas? Would there be something like filtering by profession?
9. Would some kind of a point system be worth considering? People would get some points for their education, some for being in the right field, some for being from a country whose citizens tend to integrate well, some for language skills, etc.
I don't think it's a bad idea on general principle. There are some people who want to come and work here, there are some jobs for them, and matching a potential employee to a job is usually kind of hard without an interview. Hence, people need visas to go to the job interviews.
The whole different question is whether or not they will fuck up the implementation.
1. These people won't be eligible for any social security, apart from the emergency medical help, right? Right? Inquiring taxpayers often want to know, and a lot of Finnish people tend to assume everybody who steps on Finnish land is. This is not always the case, but I wouldn't assume anything either way until I hear it from the people involved in that project. And what I want to hear is that they will only be eligible for the emergency medical help until they find a job, and after that have the same perks as any other foreign workers.
2. Will they be required to prove they can afford their stay here, and a ticket back if they don't find a job? (I can see arguments for and against.)
3. Once they are here, what is gonna prevent them from, say, going to Sweden and applying for the asylum there? OK, Sweden's problem, but still...
4. Is 6 months really necessary? We are hopefully talking about more or less skilled workers, such as send their CVs to employers, get or don't get invited to interviews and need to come to Finland to go to those interviews. IMO, and I am speaking from experince, this is done by reserving a ticket about a month and a half ahead, sending a lot of CVs to different companies at the same time, informing them all of the time you are gonna be in the country and hoping some of them would interview you. Doesn't take 6 months. On the other hand: my experience is very much influenced by my own field, in other fields things might be different, and as long as they want to be here for 6 months on their own money, there isn't any problem.
5. What's with the country list? (Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia.) I know that I have said many times that one should carefully select the countries one takes large groups of immigrants from; I really did not mean that we should specifically select the ones where the religion of peace is practiced. Why not, say, Ukraine, Armenia, India and China?
Turkey's educated classes are not much into the religion of peace and there is in fact some skilled labor there. As for importing their unskilled labor, one should probably study Germany's experiences first.
6. In general if they feel a need to test the system on small numbers (which is a good idea IMO): why the particular countries, rather than the particular fields that need labor the most?
7. What's the point of the quotas later on, unless they are per-country quotas? We are talking about the numbers of people who come here for the interviews, not the number of people who come here to work.
8. What would be the criteria for giving or refusing the visas? Would there be something like filtering by profession?
9. Would some kind of a point system be worth considering? People would get some points for their education, some for being in the right field, some for being from a country whose citizens tend to integrate well, some for language skills, etc.
My dear reader
(I am addressing a specific one who knows who he is, but anyone else with similar inclinations should probably also read it):
It is generally a bad idea to contact bloggers by phone. My phone numbers are on my homepage so that my real-life friends and acquaintances don't have to search for them if they need them; they are not there because I would like to discuss my blog on the phone.
Not that I always mind discussing my blog verbally, but anything like that really should be either in the context of a larger blogger meet, or preceded by some kind of an earlier Net contact, and I mean a two-way one: you'd have to exchange some email with me, or hang out on the same forums, or be a regular commenter on my blog, or be someone whose blog I read. Remember that you know who I am, but I have no idea who you are.
It's not advisable to call total strangers at 22:30 on their home phone to discuss their views on multiculturalism. If you do, however, decide to do so, it would be quite polite to introduce yourself, and not to block my caller ID from seeing your number. "Suomalainen mies" is not a very useful answer to a request for an introduction: first of all, there are about 2.5 million of them, and then, I can sort of hear that you are a Finnish man from your voice and pronunciation.
You said, also in response to an introduction request, that you are shy. Me too, fairly shy with strangers. That's why I don't call them on the phone to have a chat about their political views.
If you don't feel ready to introduce yourself you should really consider not making the call.
There is another bad thing about anonymity: it awakens a hunting instinct in a person. If you had introduced yourself as Joe Shmoe and had a real phone number to go with it, I would most likely have not bothered checking; since you were all mysterious, I was quite curious. I'd rather not post any uniquely identifying details here, but AFAIK you are in Tampere, you are a first-time visitor to my blog, and you have searched it on a search term that was definitely not "multiculturalism".
In the unlikely event that I am wrong and you are in fact someone I would have recognized if you just introduced yourself, you are being very silly. I hardly ever eat people.
If you really do want to talk about multiculturalism in private and more or less anonymously, just take it to email. The address is on the beige strip near the top of the blog's front page. Again, I won't eat you, this post nonwithstanding.
It is generally a bad idea to contact bloggers by phone. My phone numbers are on my homepage so that my real-life friends and acquaintances don't have to search for them if they need them; they are not there because I would like to discuss my blog on the phone.
Not that I always mind discussing my blog verbally, but anything like that really should be either in the context of a larger blogger meet, or preceded by some kind of an earlier Net contact, and I mean a two-way one: you'd have to exchange some email with me, or hang out on the same forums, or be a regular commenter on my blog, or be someone whose blog I read. Remember that you know who I am, but I have no idea who you are.
It's not advisable to call total strangers at 22:30 on their home phone to discuss their views on multiculturalism. If you do, however, decide to do so, it would be quite polite to introduce yourself, and not to block my caller ID from seeing your number. "Suomalainen mies" is not a very useful answer to a request for an introduction: first of all, there are about 2.5 million of them, and then, I can sort of hear that you are a Finnish man from your voice and pronunciation.
You said, also in response to an introduction request, that you are shy. Me too, fairly shy with strangers. That's why I don't call them on the phone to have a chat about their political views.
If you don't feel ready to introduce yourself you should really consider not making the call.
There is another bad thing about anonymity: it awakens a hunting instinct in a person. If you had introduced yourself as Joe Shmoe and had a real phone number to go with it, I would most likely have not bothered checking; since you were all mysterious, I was quite curious. I'd rather not post any uniquely identifying details here, but AFAIK you are in Tampere, you are a first-time visitor to my blog, and you have searched it on a search term that was definitely not "multiculturalism".
In the unlikely event that I am wrong and you are in fact someone I would have recognized if you just introduced yourself, you are being very silly. I hardly ever eat people.
If you really do want to talk about multiculturalism in private and more or less anonymously, just take it to email. The address is on the beige strip near the top of the blog's front page. Again, I won't eat you, this post nonwithstanding.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Talking about self
This blog has been all about me-me-me lately. This will probably pass soon, don't worry. A couple of things about writing about myself:
1. I mentioned a few things that I don't like, and some of my real-life friends who read my blog tend to worry about whether or not they have said or done those things. Don't worry: if you hang out with me in real life and tend to often say the particular things that highly annoy me, I will eventually discuss (or, more likely, have already discussed) this with you in person. If you only do it rarely, it's not worth worrying about at all.
2. I keep wondering about the safety of mentioning the things that annoy me. Some people will just do them on purpose.
In general I am very much with Ice from the West Side Story: "No matter who or what is eatin' at you, man you show it and you are dead. You are cuttin' a hole in yourselves for them to stick in a red hot umbrella and open it. Wide."
Nowadays I hang out with very nice people, but when I was younger I used to know a lot of people whose first reaction to the fact of anyone's, say, frog phobia, would be to find a frog to scare the person with. They tended to do it even, and especially, if the person in question was known to shove the frog up the ass of whoever was threatening him/her with it. The observation of such incidents taught me that the things that annoy me exceptionally strongly should not be mentioned to general public. The annoyances I mention here are fairly mild. (Here "mild" means that I might say something rude, but will at least try not to.)
1. I mentioned a few things that I don't like, and some of my real-life friends who read my blog tend to worry about whether or not they have said or done those things. Don't worry: if you hang out with me in real life and tend to often say the particular things that highly annoy me, I will eventually discuss (or, more likely, have already discussed) this with you in person. If you only do it rarely, it's not worth worrying about at all.
2. I keep wondering about the safety of mentioning the things that annoy me. Some people will just do them on purpose.
In general I am very much with Ice from the West Side Story: "No matter who or what is eatin' at you, man you show it and you are dead. You are cuttin' a hole in yourselves for them to stick in a red hot umbrella and open it. Wide."
Nowadays I hang out with very nice people, but when I was younger I used to know a lot of people whose first reaction to the fact of anyone's, say, frog phobia, would be to find a frog to scare the person with. They tended to do it even, and especially, if the person in question was known to shove the frog up the ass of whoever was threatening him/her with it. The observation of such incidents taught me that the things that annoy me exceptionally strongly should not be mentioned to general public. The annoyances I mention here are fairly mild. (Here "mild" means that I might say something rude, but will at least try not to.)
Superstition
Kind of expanding on the previous post here.
Superstition is a fairly common phenomenon. I am not sure whether it is universal or not; if any of my readers are not superstitious at all, please tell me. I count religion as superstition too.
The whole thing is probably some consequence of lacking control over the outside world, or at least the groups of people who live and work in the less predictable environments seem to be a lot more superstitious than those who live and work in the more predictable and controllable environments. Pissing off the Spirits of the Stormy Open Sea is a lot more dangerous than pissing off the Spirits of Ubuntu Dist-Upgrades.
I grew up in a fairly superstitious environment, with my friends, relatives and classmates believing god knows what. That ranged from various omens (usually promising bad luck, and sometimes needing some kind of action to counteract them) to different kinds of "magical" actions, which were usually aimed at summoning magical creatures and were widely reputed to be extremely dangerous to the summoner, and which a lot of people nevertheless tried with no result whatsoever.
Some of it did rub off on me a bit. The things related to luck, mostly, because even at my most childish and superstitious I did not really on any level believe that three people in a dark using a mirror and some incantations can generate a Queen of Spades who would come and strangle them all.
The thing is, for me supersition is a burden. Not a very heavy one, because I am not very superstitious, but without any redeeming qualities. It feels very much like the obsessive-compulsive impulse to check whether or not the stove is on several times even when I know it's off. I feel pretty much the same way about religion, except less, because I wasn't raised in a religious environment.
I sometimes see "omens" around me, little things that seem to predict good or bad luck or something. I find this rather unpleasant in that why-don't-I-check-the-stove-again way. I would never think of sharing those with anyone else, or seeking any new ones, and I am quite annoyed when people tell me "don't do that, it's a bad sign" about anything; in fact this makes me feel like doing exactly the thing they asked me not to do, just to piss them off. (I sometimes used to succumb to this temptation, too; hopefully not anymore.)
What seems very strange to me is that there clearly exist people who enjoy being superstitious and doing those little superstitious things like reading horoscopes, etc. There are even people who pay all kinds of psychics to predict the future, and the reason this surprises me is that I certainly wouldn't want to listen to their predictions for free.
It would be interesting to hear exactly what kind of enjoyment people derive from those things. I am not sure I am capable of understanding, but it would be at least good to try.
Superstition is a fairly common phenomenon. I am not sure whether it is universal or not; if any of my readers are not superstitious at all, please tell me. I count religion as superstition too.
The whole thing is probably some consequence of lacking control over the outside world, or at least the groups of people who live and work in the less predictable environments seem to be a lot more superstitious than those who live and work in the more predictable and controllable environments. Pissing off the Spirits of the Stormy Open Sea is a lot more dangerous than pissing off the Spirits of Ubuntu Dist-Upgrades.
I grew up in a fairly superstitious environment, with my friends, relatives and classmates believing god knows what. That ranged from various omens (usually promising bad luck, and sometimes needing some kind of action to counteract them) to different kinds of "magical" actions, which were usually aimed at summoning magical creatures and were widely reputed to be extremely dangerous to the summoner, and which a lot of people nevertheless tried with no result whatsoever.
Some of it did rub off on me a bit. The things related to luck, mostly, because even at my most childish and superstitious I did not really on any level believe that three people in a dark using a mirror and some incantations can generate a Queen of Spades who would come and strangle them all.
The thing is, for me supersition is a burden. Not a very heavy one, because I am not very superstitious, but without any redeeming qualities. It feels very much like the obsessive-compulsive impulse to check whether or not the stove is on several times even when I know it's off. I feel pretty much the same way about religion, except less, because I wasn't raised in a religious environment.
I sometimes see "omens" around me, little things that seem to predict good or bad luck or something. I find this rather unpleasant in that why-don't-I-check-the-stove-again way. I would never think of sharing those with anyone else, or seeking any new ones, and I am quite annoyed when people tell me "don't do that, it's a bad sign" about anything; in fact this makes me feel like doing exactly the thing they asked me not to do, just to piss them off. (I sometimes used to succumb to this temptation, too; hopefully not anymore.)
What seems very strange to me is that there clearly exist people who enjoy being superstitious and doing those little superstitious things like reading horoscopes, etc. There are even people who pay all kinds of psychics to predict the future, and the reason this surprises me is that I certainly wouldn't want to listen to their predictions for free.
It would be interesting to hear exactly what kind of enjoyment people derive from those things. I am not sure I am capable of understanding, but it would be at least good to try.
Horoscopes
Some people read horoscopes, compare horoscopes, ask about each other's signs, talk about the compatibility on the basis of horoscopes, etc., in a way that gives me an impression that they really believe in what they are saying.
I sometimes ask them whether they really believe in the horoscopes. The answer is almost invariably "no, it's just for fun".
Can anyone explain to me what kind of fun is there? (The people in question never do.) it's not that I disapprove of the kinds of fun that other people have and that I myself don't enjoy, it's just that I find this particular kind of fun very hard to understand.
I sometimes ask them whether they really believe in the horoscopes. The answer is almost invariably "no, it's just for fun".
Can anyone explain to me what kind of fun is there? (The people in question never do.) it's not that I disapprove of the kinds of fun that other people have and that I myself don't enjoy, it's just that I find this particular kind of fun very hard to understand.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
You surely meant "sweet and innocent"?
A person commenting on another blog said about me: "Your smile also has this peculiar quality of appearing both evil and gleeful at the same time."
Evil and gleeful! And here I thought I was looking all sweet and friendly.
Evil and gleeful! And here I thought I was looking all sweet and friendly.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The credit history in Finland
A couple of years ago there was a day when citizens could check whatever various databases had on them for free. I decided to check my credit history, and all I got was a piece of paper saying that I have never defaulted on a loan. I was quite surprised, because in the US one's credit history carries information on the loans that have been taken and successfully repaid, and the ones in the process of being repaid. I'd always assumed that the same was the case in Finland.
I asked the lady that gave me the paper about it, and she said that this is normal, this is what an unproblematic credit history always looks like, they don't carry any info on the loans that were repaid without a problem.
I took that for an answer, but now I am wondering: how could that be? Because various financial institutions who might be interested in one's credit history seem to be able to clearly distinguish between the people who don't have any credit history and the people who have a positive one.
On a related note: I hear a lot of other foreigners say that they were denied credit cards, and that GSM operators have demanded deposits from them. This has never happened to me, and I have assumed that the reason for this has been the credit history (or the lack thereof in the case of the new arrivals), and not that I am so damn cute. But now that I have thought more about it: how do the GSM operators even know who is a foreigner and who is not?
I asked the lady that gave me the paper about it, and she said that this is normal, this is what an unproblematic credit history always looks like, they don't carry any info on the loans that were repaid without a problem.
I took that for an answer, but now I am wondering: how could that be? Because various financial institutions who might be interested in one's credit history seem to be able to clearly distinguish between the people who don't have any credit history and the people who have a positive one.
On a related note: I hear a lot of other foreigners say that they were denied credit cards, and that GSM operators have demanded deposits from them. This has never happened to me, and I have assumed that the reason for this has been the credit history (or the lack thereof in the case of the new arrivals), and not that I am so damn cute. But now that I have thought more about it: how do the GSM operators even know who is a foreigner and who is not?
"Your mission, should you be fucking insane enough to accept it..."
workStress++
Bugger that, more like workStress*10.
I have accepted an assignment which is way beyond my area of competence, going to take a lot of my time, also outside the working hours, scares the shit out of me, and I know I'll totally suck. The only reason anyone has asked me to do it is that nobody else here can do it at all, and the only reason I agreed is that they made it clear that even pitiful partial results are better than no results. Also, it is a Valuable Experience That Will Help Me Grow As A Person. What the fuck was I thinking?
Bugger that, more like workStress*10.
I have accepted an assignment which is way beyond my area of competence, going to take a lot of my time, also outside the working hours, scares the shit out of me, and I know I'll totally suck. The only reason anyone has asked me to do it is that nobody else here can do it at all, and the only reason I agreed is that they made it clear that even pitiful partial results are better than no results. Also, it is a Valuable Experience That Will Help Me Grow As A Person. What the fuck was I thinking?
Friday, November 16, 2007
Winding up, winding down
When I am feeling energetic and feel like doing something (anything that takes energy: going out, going to a store to buy groceries, working out, washing dishes, complaining to the customer service, whatever) and somebody else (somebody who will not be directly affected) tells me to calm down, not to do it, not to bother, etc., my reaction is extremely hostile. Same if people suggest that I need rest or sleep when I really don't.
I don't normally express this hostility, because people rarely mean anything bad when they do it, but it is there. "Fuck off, shut your fucking trap and don't tell me what to do!" is a very mild version of what I usually leave unsaid.
I never thought much about it, because, hey, nobody likes being told what to do, etc., but thought about it today and realized that first of all, this reaction is quite excessive, and second, it only works for me one way: if I don't feel like doing anything and people are trying to get me to be energetic and do stuff, it does not piss me off in any way whatsoever.
And the question is, as usual, WTF, and have other people noticed anything similar, or maybe the opposite? Is telling people to calm down always counterproductive?
I don't normally express this hostility, because people rarely mean anything bad when they do it, but it is there. "Fuck off, shut your fucking trap and don't tell me what to do!" is a very mild version of what I usually leave unsaid.
I never thought much about it, because, hey, nobody likes being told what to do, etc., but thought about it today and realized that first of all, this reaction is quite excessive, and second, it only works for me one way: if I don't feel like doing anything and people are trying to get me to be energetic and do stuff, it does not piss me off in any way whatsoever.
And the question is, as usual, WTF, and have other people noticed anything similar, or maybe the opposite? Is telling people to calm down always counterproductive?
Which dong did that come from?
It's icky enough that used condoms are being recycled as hair bands in China in the area of Pearl River Delta, especially since I own a number of hair bands purchased in that area, but is it a coincidence that the whole thing is being announced by Dr. Dong?
Not nearly as funny as when WHO chose Dr. De Cock to speak about the benefits of circumscision, but still...
Not nearly as funny as when WHO chose Dr. De Cock to speak about the benefits of circumscision, but still...
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A swim cap
Does anyone know where to buy a large swim cap? I mean the kind not designed for tiny-headed masochistic bald people.
I've never seen one that would actually fit. When I try to put one on, it perches on top of my head like one of those tiny hats they had sometime in the thirties. When I try to forcefully pull it on it pulls my hair and hurts like a gas mask.
Also: do any of the swimming pools in Helsinki require them? I remember the time when Yrjönkatu swimming pool sort of did, or at least it said so somewhere, but nobody tried to enforce it.
I've never seen one that would actually fit. When I try to put one on, it perches on top of my head like one of those tiny hats they had sometime in the thirties. When I try to forcefully pull it on it pulls my hair and hurts like a gas mask.
Also: do any of the swimming pools in Helsinki require them? I remember the time when Yrjönkatu swimming pool sort of did, or at least it said so somewhere, but nobody tried to enforce it.
Insulting population groups
Mikko Ellilä got accused of incitement against a population group for this blog post.
The post is racist, in bad taste, and IMO wrong about biology being destiny, but what I haven't found there is any actual incitement (explicit or implicit) to do anything illegal against black people, or anyone else.
Yes, I know, the law also prohibits insulting a population group. Question is, what's an insult? Does it depends on the truth of the matter? Does it depend on somebody being insulted? Where are the limits of the free speech? Is it desirable to have a law that prohibits saying the truth about some group? How about speculation about things that might be true but not necessarily are (for example, scientific theories)? How about the things that are obviously untrue but presented as if they might be true?
The whole free speech vs. insulting a group issue is very complicated here in Finland (probably also elsewhere). During the whole Lynn-and-Vanhanen scandal a friend who knows more about the law than I do told me that one important factor is the medium: an article saying that ethnic group A is less intelligent than ethnic group B is quite acceptable in a scientific journal but can be considered incitement against an ethnic group if it is placed in a big popular newspaper like Helsingin Sanomat. The accusation that Ellilä got and posted somewhere (can't find it now) also mentions the pictures he uses in his blog as an aggravating circumstance, I am not sure why (the text is in bad taste, but the pictures are just pictures, none of them particularly insulting or tasteless).
Considering that the number of people writing in public has greatly increased and is still increasing, and so are various ethnic and religious tensions in Europe, isn't it time to have a public discussion about the limits of free speech and insulting population groups, and possible need for a new law, or for clarifying the old one? Lest we end up in a world where "Jos siihen sisältyy samalla ulkomaalaisten arvostelu, sekin on hyväksyttävä, jos sitä ei ääneen lausuta." ("If it contains criticism towards foreigners, his is acceptable, as long as it is not pronounced out loud.")
The questions I'd want answered are:
1. Do people really want to have a law that bans insulting groups of people? (Personally I don't, as long as they don't contain any actual incitement.)
2. Can the truth be considered an insult? If yes, to what extent does it depend on the particular words used?
3. What about the speculation, theories, etc.?
4. What about the obvious lies presented as speculation? (I might say "it is still being discussed whether or not Italians eat babies", but it is not AFAIK in fact being discussed by anyone in their right mind, and Italians do not in fact eat babies.)
5. To what extent does the whole thing depend on the venue? Do bloggers, writers of scientific articles, and people who call Americans stupid on Finnish web forums have to be just as careful as editors of HS?
6. When does the insult expire, and does it ever? Should all the racist writings of the old times be held to the current standards, and forbidden?
7. How about using them now? Can you read them in public and quote them in the current writings?
8. The whole issue with religions, insults and respect is deeply problematic: on one hand people are supposed to pretend to give some respect to other religions' writings and holy books, on the other hand the religious writings and holy books in question tend to be deeply disrespectful of other religions and atheists. But I think this should mostly be discussed in connection with another law, the one on blasphemy (ok, nowadays it's "religious peace").
The post is racist, in bad taste, and IMO wrong about biology being destiny, but what I haven't found there is any actual incitement (explicit or implicit) to do anything illegal against black people, or anyone else.
Yes, I know, the law also prohibits insulting a population group. Question is, what's an insult? Does it depends on the truth of the matter? Does it depend on somebody being insulted? Where are the limits of the free speech? Is it desirable to have a law that prohibits saying the truth about some group? How about speculation about things that might be true but not necessarily are (for example, scientific theories)? How about the things that are obviously untrue but presented as if they might be true?
The whole free speech vs. insulting a group issue is very complicated here in Finland (probably also elsewhere). During the whole Lynn-and-Vanhanen scandal a friend who knows more about the law than I do told me that one important factor is the medium: an article saying that ethnic group A is less intelligent than ethnic group B is quite acceptable in a scientific journal but can be considered incitement against an ethnic group if it is placed in a big popular newspaper like Helsingin Sanomat. The accusation that Ellilä got and posted somewhere (can't find it now) also mentions the pictures he uses in his blog as an aggravating circumstance, I am not sure why (the text is in bad taste, but the pictures are just pictures, none of them particularly insulting or tasteless).
Considering that the number of people writing in public has greatly increased and is still increasing, and so are various ethnic and religious tensions in Europe, isn't it time to have a public discussion about the limits of free speech and insulting population groups, and possible need for a new law, or for clarifying the old one? Lest we end up in a world where "Jos siihen sisältyy samalla ulkomaalaisten arvostelu, sekin on hyväksyttävä, jos sitä ei ääneen lausuta." ("If it contains criticism towards foreigners, his is acceptable, as long as it is not pronounced out loud.")
The questions I'd want answered are:
1. Do people really want to have a law that bans insulting groups of people? (Personally I don't, as long as they don't contain any actual incitement.)
2. Can the truth be considered an insult? If yes, to what extent does it depend on the particular words used?
3. What about the speculation, theories, etc.?
4. What about the obvious lies presented as speculation? (I might say "it is still being discussed whether or not Italians eat babies", but it is not AFAIK in fact being discussed by anyone in their right mind, and Italians do not in fact eat babies.)
5. To what extent does the whole thing depend on the venue? Do bloggers, writers of scientific articles, and people who call Americans stupid on Finnish web forums have to be just as careful as editors of HS?
6. When does the insult expire, and does it ever? Should all the racist writings of the old times be held to the current standards, and forbidden?
7. How about using them now? Can you read them in public and quote them in the current writings?
8. The whole issue with religions, insults and respect is deeply problematic: on one hand people are supposed to pretend to give some respect to other religions' writings and holy books, on the other hand the religious writings and holy books in question tend to be deeply disrespectful of other religions and atheists. But I think this should mostly be discussed in connection with another law, the one on blasphemy (ok, nowadays it's "religious peace").
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Netiquette and etiquette: the public and the private
(Sometimes I feel like playing Miss Manners. Oh, the irony of it! Must be the old age...)
Bad-mouthing fellow human beings is kind of fun, and tends to reinforce group bonding or whatever. When one is in the company of one's fellow Democrats (Republicans, atheists, Jews, women, polyamorists, RPG players, urban people, university students, programmers, humanities students, whatever) people tend to make stronger statements about the outside groups than would be strictly polite, and stronger than they actually believe in.
It's OK. As long as you don't everdo it, people usually understand that you don't really mean anything bad. Sometimes people fuck up, and say something like that in the presence of somebody who should not be hearing it. In this case they are usually embarassed and apologize, and the apology is usually accepted. Happens to most people sometimes, I guess.
What I want to know is what makes some people think that things like that are OK to say on a public forum?
I don't mean the people who just genuinely think that for example all Republicans are assholes, and want to say so everywhere they go. I mean the people who would normally not say so in mixed company, but somehow just don't realize that public Internet forums usually constitute mixed company.
I have always been amazed at the number of people who seem to have problem understanding such concepts as "public", "private" and "acquaintance" when applied to the Internet. It's not exactly rocket science, people. Here are a few points:
1. Usenet newsgroups and open web forums often have regular participants, and feel like they are some kind of a living room where people who know each other just talk about things, but they are not. Anyone can read them. This not only means stalkers, your employer, your grandma and other dangers that media often warns us about, but also just a whole bunch of strangers who do not know you. Same goes for blogs, personal webpages, Youtube profiles, etc. You have to be careful what you say.
When I say to my real-life friends (either in person or on our own IRC channels) that I would like to sodomize some particular person with a hot poker, they have a reasonably good idea of whether I a) am totally kidding, b) find the idea of sodomizing the person with a hot poker emotionally pleasing, but absolutely do not intend to do it for a number of legal, moral or logistical reasons, or c) am heating the poker up right now. If they don't, they can ask me and I'll answer. If I post anything like that in my blog or in a newsgroup, I have to be very clear that I don't really intend to do it, or else somebody really will take me seriously. And if they will, it's not their failure. It's mine.
2. When you read some forums, the regular participants start seeming like you know them. If you are not a regular or even occasional participant, however, they don't feel the same way about you. You are a total stranger to them, and it will take some time and some posting to become known to them.
3. If often feels like you know the people with whom you hang out on some Net forum like your real-life friends. You really don't. Or rather sometimes you do (sometimes they are in fact your real-life friends whom you know in person, sometimes you get to know them so well on the Net that they become your real-life friends even if you've never met in person), but usually you don't.
They are people with whom you talk, usually on some particular topic. They tend to be a much more heterogenous bunch than the people you know in real life, even if those are a rather heterogenous bunch as well. Don't assume anything. The overly-strong statements meant as a group-bonding thing are a really bad idea there, especially if they are not closely related to the topic of the forum. That path leads to flame wars and general yelling.
4. If you do say something improperly strong in the presence of people who should not have heard it, and they pointed it out to you, the right thing to do is backpedal and apologize, at least if that's what you'd normally do in real life. (If that's not what you'd normally do in real life you are probably not the target audience of this post anyway.)
Bad-mouthing fellow human beings is kind of fun, and tends to reinforce group bonding or whatever. When one is in the company of one's fellow Democrats (Republicans, atheists, Jews, women, polyamorists, RPG players, urban people, university students, programmers, humanities students, whatever) people tend to make stronger statements about the outside groups than would be strictly polite, and stronger than they actually believe in.
It's OK. As long as you don't everdo it, people usually understand that you don't really mean anything bad. Sometimes people fuck up, and say something like that in the presence of somebody who should not be hearing it. In this case they are usually embarassed and apologize, and the apology is usually accepted. Happens to most people sometimes, I guess.
What I want to know is what makes some people think that things like that are OK to say on a public forum?
I don't mean the people who just genuinely think that for example all Republicans are assholes, and want to say so everywhere they go. I mean the people who would normally not say so in mixed company, but somehow just don't realize that public Internet forums usually constitute mixed company.
I have always been amazed at the number of people who seem to have problem understanding such concepts as "public", "private" and "acquaintance" when applied to the Internet. It's not exactly rocket science, people. Here are a few points:
1. Usenet newsgroups and open web forums often have regular participants, and feel like they are some kind of a living room where people who know each other just talk about things, but they are not. Anyone can read them. This not only means stalkers, your employer, your grandma and other dangers that media often warns us about, but also just a whole bunch of strangers who do not know you. Same goes for blogs, personal webpages, Youtube profiles, etc. You have to be careful what you say.
When I say to my real-life friends (either in person or on our own IRC channels) that I would like to sodomize some particular person with a hot poker, they have a reasonably good idea of whether I a) am totally kidding, b) find the idea of sodomizing the person with a hot poker emotionally pleasing, but absolutely do not intend to do it for a number of legal, moral or logistical reasons, or c) am heating the poker up right now. If they don't, they can ask me and I'll answer. If I post anything like that in my blog or in a newsgroup, I have to be very clear that I don't really intend to do it, or else somebody really will take me seriously. And if they will, it's not their failure. It's mine.
2. When you read some forums, the regular participants start seeming like you know them. If you are not a regular or even occasional participant, however, they don't feel the same way about you. You are a total stranger to them, and it will take some time and some posting to become known to them.
3. If often feels like you know the people with whom you hang out on some Net forum like your real-life friends. You really don't. Or rather sometimes you do (sometimes they are in fact your real-life friends whom you know in person, sometimes you get to know them so well on the Net that they become your real-life friends even if you've never met in person), but usually you don't.
They are people with whom you talk, usually on some particular topic. They tend to be a much more heterogenous bunch than the people you know in real life, even if those are a rather heterogenous bunch as well. Don't assume anything. The overly-strong statements meant as a group-bonding thing are a really bad idea there, especially if they are not closely related to the topic of the forum. That path leads to flame wars and general yelling.
4. If you do say something improperly strong in the presence of people who should not have heard it, and they pointed it out to you, the right thing to do is backpedal and apologize, at least if that's what you'd normally do in real life. (If that's not what you'd normally do in real life you are probably not the target audience of this post anyway.)
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Barleywine
Just bought a bottle of barleywine from Alko and tried it. Was well worth trying. Sort of bittersweet in a good way (both quite bitter and quite sweet).
It was called Criminally Bad Elf, and I think this is the only barleywine in Alko.
BTW, Alko webpage lists all the kinds of data on beers nowadays: wort strength, color, bitterness, energy, you name it. Now that's what I call good service!
It was called Criminally Bad Elf, and I think this is the only barleywine in Alko.
BTW, Alko webpage lists all the kinds of data on beers nowadays: wort strength, color, bitterness, energy, you name it. Now that's what I call good service!
Blade of the Immortal
Whoever was the anonymous person who recommended that I try Blade of the Immortal: thanks! Just finished the fourth album, and I like it a lot.
The guys are quite cute, the violence sufficiently violent - although drawn in rather mysterious ways - and the whole thing even appeals to my sense of humor.
The guys are quite cute, the violence sufficiently violent - although drawn in rather mysterious ways - and the whole thing even appeals to my sense of humor.
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