Saturday, February 27, 2010

Peep Show and ice hockey

Finland's quite extraordinary ice-hockey loss made "Finland" the top worldwide trend on twitter. So something good came out of that.
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I've been watching Peep Show on youtube. It really is the most observant sitcom I'ven seen. And it is better than any version of the Office. If you haven't seen it I suggest that you do. It will be worthwhile.

Friday, February 26, 2010

The ironing is delicious

Saw a poster advertising an upcoming gig by a band called "Ironica". It's the worst band name I've ever seen.
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Oulu has fancy electronic timetables for busses, and in busses the electronic screens showing which bus stop is next. The problem is that they rarely work, so you really can't trust them to help you knowing where you are.

Helsinki has a low tech solution instead. They have painted the name of the bus stop to every bus stop, so you can just look out the window and you know which bus stop you are at. And they don't have electronic timetables showing when the next bus is coming, but they just have a printed out timetable that tells when the bus should be at this stop. And it works and is reliable.

P.S. I went to a Greek restaurant today. They seemed to have the soundtrack from the Cheese Shoppe sketch on repeat for their backround music.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

National differences in testicle size and IQ are meaningful

My fourth day of daily blogging.

Finland won Czech Republik in Ice Hockey olympics and made it's way to semifinals. The rest of the games are important, because already Finland has beaten our hated neighbors Russia and Sweden, because they didn't make it to the semifinals.

One of the explanations of finnish Ice-Hockey success is that we have bigger balls than our baltic neighbors: Why do Danes have smaller nuts than Finns—are toxins to blame?
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I've been listening to a lot of econtalk podcasts. Often they talk about growth and development, and why some countries do better than others. It's depressing that they don't even bring up the hypothesis of Lynn and Vanhanen, that average IQ's might explain a lot of differences in wealth. There is of course many factors and many possible explanations, but shying away from this quite important one, when considering all kinds of other things is just not good.
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I'm considering to start some kind of small business as a hobby. I'm open to any ideas as to what value to produce and sell easily with small capital investment. I think it could be great fun and educational. Barriers are low if I keep my business small and revenue under 10 000 €

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Tuhannen vuoden päähän on turha olla huolissaan

En ole huolissani, siitä, että ydinvoimalaitosten jäte on radioaktiivista pitkään (muistelen kyllä, että joku olisi väittänyt, että tuhannen vuoden jälkeen ei radioaktiivisempaa kuin luonnossa esiintyvä uraani), koska tuhannen vuoden päästä elämä on erilaista, ja tuskin perustuu samoihin yhdisteisiin. On tietokoneet ja singulariteetti ennen sitä.

Edistyksen viivästyminen on pelottavampi asia. Ydinvoiman pelottavuudesta en todellakaan ole vakuuttunut, vaikka monet fiksutkin ihmiset ovat. (Tokikin taisi ydinvoiman vastustus korreloida alemman älykkyyden kanssa, jossain tutkimuksessa. Lähteitä en jaksa etsiä, ehkä jos joku kovasti kyseenalaistaa, niin etsitään, että mistä nämä käsitykseni ovat kummunneet.)

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Err on the side of caution

"Ei vara venettä kaada", mies selitti pelastusveneeseen pyrkijöille.

Monday, February 22, 2010

No one buzzes

I got the inspiration to write, when I heard ( from econtalk ) that Tyler Cowen has blogged daily n years. So now I'm deluding myself, that I will do the same. Starting now.

And now I need something to daily write about. Listening to Econtalk podcast with Paul Buchheit (who invented Gmail and friendfeed) inspired check out friendfeed. I was hoping I could check friends facebook updates, but seems like it is not the case. I would rather be using Buzz, but there is no-one there. Gmail isn't as popular as I thought. My Buzzfeed is anyway the best way to follow me and my various activities in the internet.

But I need more friends to get something out of social networking. I think I also need to take a closer look at twitter and see if I can find something useful in it for me. And if I can get my buzz to receive the twitterers I'm following. (My twitter)

And Yes. That was my day. Econtalk was the most interesting and memorable experience. Tomorrow I plan to listen one ricochet podcast. Let's see if they have anything worthwhile.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

se kepistä ja porkkanasta tunnettu porkkana

Porkkana roikkuu ongessa hevosen edessä. Porkkanan toivossa hevonen menee eteenpäin. Tarvitaan, että porkkana on tarpeeksi lähellä, että väsynyt hevonen ajattelee sen tavoittelemisen arvoinen. Ei auta selittää hevoselle, että porkkana on kuudentunnin kärrynvetämisen takana. Sitten hevosen pitää olla jatkuvasti niin tyhmä, että se unohtaa, ettei lähesty porkkanaa yhtään, vaan jatkuvasti uskoo porkkanan olevan ihan lähellä

Ihmisille kehitettyjen porkkanoiden pitää olla vastaavia. Jotain, mikä on lähellä, mutta se saavuttaminen ei koskaan tapahdu.