Hi,
I was thinking about what to write to you about today, and I realised I have some small things that I'd just like to mention, but nothing big. So I figured I could do another fun facts -post, since we haven't done that for a while, and they're surprisingly interesting. Because random facts are interesting. The weirder the better. And I realise that you might already know some of these. But maybe you won't know all.
So here we go.
1. There is an ancient Buddhist statue with a preserved body inside it. The body has paper in the place of its guts. A group of Dutchmen decided to do a CT on the statue. Because, you know, why wouldn't you CT an ancient statue.
2. According to a Food Demand Survey, 80% of American adults think there should labelling for foods containing DNA.
I have a message to that 80% of American adults: All living things contain DNA. You only eat things that have once been alive. Thus all food contains DNA.
3. On the same article I linked on the last one, you can find out that 41% of both American and British adults think antibiotics treat viral infections. Which they don't. In Australia the same number is 65%.
4. Some ants build toilets in their nests.
5. The definition of spring is when the average temperature of a day stays permanently above 0°C. At least for meteorologists. So it's been spring in southern Finland for a couple of weeks now. Unless the temperatures drop again. Then this was just a warm period in the middle of a winter. Which I hope will not happen, because I really want it to be summer again. The definition of summer, by the way, is when the average temperature stays above 10°C.
6. Orlando Bloom was 23 in The Fellowship of the Ring.
I'm telling you this, because I just re-watched all the LotR movies, and my first thought was "wow, these movies are old", and my second thought was "wow, Orlando Bloom is young." Well, not actually my second thought, since Legolas isn't shown until Rivendell, but it was my first thought once they got that far.
The Fellowship of the Ring, by the way, came out in 2001. People born in 2000 are turning 15 this year. I have no idea where all the time went.
7. This is what a fox sounds like.
This one you've probably seen before, but I still think those sound are super-weird.
(In case someone doesn't know why someone is talking about what a fox sounds like, this is the reason.
8. The slaves were freed in Brazil in 1888 when the king left for Europe and her daughter who was left in charge was like "Ok, my dad's gone. I'll let you go free now before he comes back."
With that stunt she also managed to anger the slave owners so badly that when the king returned they overthrew him and founded a republic instead. So I'm pretty sure he wasn't too happy with his daughter.
9. There are a lot of animals that can see ultraviolet light, like bees and birds and I guess goldfish. May of they can't however see red at all.
10. Frogs use their eyes to swallow. Which is why they can't swallow with their eyes open.
That's all for today. I'll hear from you on Friday.
~matu
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
I don't know.
So, I don't really have anything to say.
Time has gone so fucking fast, I mean I have my first period tests after next week! I mean?? Help??
I don't know what I'm doing with my life... Mostly I'm doing nothing, and I really feel like I should do something. Everything just makes me.... anxious, I guess. I think about the future and all I want to do is curl up in bed with my laptop and watch youtube videos. This is probably a thing I should do something about.........
I'm also probably gonna move back to Kuopio? At least I really want to. The application for the thing starts on the 24th, so I can't apply yet which is really frustrating, ugh.
I wish it was summer. I feel like I need a reset.
Anyway, I was thinking, if I do move back to Kuopio, should I get my own place? Like I would like to live at our parents' house, but I don't know how much they'd appreciate me just hanging around there considering I'm 20, and the whole point of me moving to Helsinki was to not be as dependent on them as I've been. The only thing it did though was made me realize how much I like living at home, so I guess that plan backfired spectacularly. I just.... I don't know.
I need to learn how to make friends. Can someone tell me how that happens? Because I haven't really made friends since the first grade and I'm starting to think I should have other friends........
I should go eat something. My empty stomach is really bringing down my mood..
I wanna feel inspired, I wanna do create, I wanna do stuff, but I'm just really tired. I seriously need to reset but that's not happening here, and apparently I have twomath tests on the period break (what the fucking kinda break is this?????) and naturally one's on Monday and the other's on Friday. So yeeeaahh. I just really wanna skip them both and just come to Kuopio right now, but I can't, because I need to be in English class on this Monday and I don't wanna miss my creative writing class next Friday. Ugh. My schedule is the shittiest thing, the two things I can't miss are Mondays and Fridays....... I'm just gonna be in Kuopio for a week and a half when it's Easter cause we have no school on Monday and Friday.
I'm sorry this is short and dumb and makes no sense, but I honestly can't be bothered. I actually almost forgot to write altogether.
Bye.
Pie out.
Time has gone so fucking fast, I mean I have my first period tests after next week! I mean?? Help??
I don't know what I'm doing with my life... Mostly I'm doing nothing, and I really feel like I should do something. Everything just makes me.... anxious, I guess. I think about the future and all I want to do is curl up in bed with my laptop and watch youtube videos. This is probably a thing I should do something about.........
I'm also probably gonna move back to Kuopio? At least I really want to. The application for the thing starts on the 24th, so I can't apply yet which is really frustrating, ugh.
I wish it was summer. I feel like I need a reset.
Anyway, I was thinking, if I do move back to Kuopio, should I get my own place? Like I would like to live at our parents' house, but I don't know how much they'd appreciate me just hanging around there considering I'm 20, and the whole point of me moving to Helsinki was to not be as dependent on them as I've been. The only thing it did though was made me realize how much I like living at home, so I guess that plan backfired spectacularly. I just.... I don't know.
I need to learn how to make friends. Can someone tell me how that happens? Because I haven't really made friends since the first grade and I'm starting to think I should have other friends........
I should go eat something. My empty stomach is really bringing down my mood..
I wanna feel inspired, I wanna do create, I wanna do stuff, but I'm just really tired. I seriously need to reset but that's not happening here, and apparently I have twomath tests on the period break (what the fucking kinda break is this?????) and naturally one's on Monday and the other's on Friday. So yeeeaahh. I just really wanna skip them both and just come to Kuopio right now, but I can't, because I need to be in English class on this Monday and I don't wanna miss my creative writing class next Friday. Ugh. My schedule is the shittiest thing, the two things I can't miss are Mondays and Fridays....... I'm just gonna be in Kuopio for a week and a half when it's Easter cause we have no school on Monday and Friday.
I'm sorry this is short and dumb and makes no sense, but I honestly can't be bothered. I actually almost forgot to write altogether.
Bye.
Pie out.
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Thoughts on freedom
Hello to you.
Today I want to talk to you about freedom. Partly because the the freedom of speech has been on the news lately because of Charlie Hebdo and Copenhagen, but mostly because it's an interesting and complicated topic.
It doesn't make it any less complicated that the very beginning, the basic definition of freedom is tricky. This is what Google gives as a definition for freedom:
1. the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
2. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
However, this definition is quite not what people usually mean. In general people in the western countries at least see themselves and each other as free beings. But if you really think about it, you can't really act as you want. You're not free to go around killing people for example. If you do, you will be locked up. And then you won't bee free by any definition.
Even if you ignore that and think that technically you can go around killing people, you still can't go around flying. It's simply not physically possible. So you can't do what ever you want. Does that mean you're not free?
Even trickier the definition is made by the fact that freedom has slightly different definitions in different languages. I ran into this column a few weeks back. It talks about how our understanding of the world is shaped by the words we have to describe it. Basically what it says about freedom is that in Russian, for example, the word for freedom includes the meanings of anarchy and chaos alongside freedom as we understand it. They don't even have a word for freedom as we understand it. That means they don't understand freedom the way we do.
So which one of the definitions is what freedom actually is? The Russian version of freedom does have a point. If everyone really did what ever they wanted it would be pretty chaotic.
So is it freedom enough to call it freedom if people can do what ever they want to as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else? If you want to have a working society, it's really the best you can get without it being unfair in some other way.
Assuming not letting people be free is unfair, which people generally it is.
Even if people were free in a society in the way we understand it, I still wonder if people are actually free. There are so many things keeping us either doing something or from doing something. You have to keep working. You can't go on a trip around the world when ever you want. If you do want to, you need a lot of time to plan and save money. There's no one stopping you from doing it, but the society doesn't work in a way that would let you do it.
People take responsibilities at work, in school, in hobbies. You have to be in places when you've said you'd be in places even if you wanted to not get out of the bed that day. Again you can not do the things you've agreed to do, but the social construction makes it that people feel like they have to do it. Of course a lot of the responsibilities you take up you take family because you want to, in which case you're free to choose to either take them or don't, and then you just have to live according to what you chose. But once you've taken something up you're that much less free to do what you want.
And how about family? You can mostly nowadays decide to have or not to have kids, that will be a responsibility for probably the rest of your life. Kids are even more difficult to get rid of than responsibilities in the workplace, though I don't know how many people just get tired of taking care of their kids after a few years. Even if people liked it and made the decision to have kids, they will have a huge difference in what you can and can't do and when. They restrict your freedom. So does getting a kid mean that you're no more really free? And is that bad?
The rest of the family you can't even choose yourself. You can't choose if you'll have parents (which, well, you have to have), or siblings or aunts or cousins. Someone else makes that choice for you. How much does family limit one's freedom? Of course it depends on how close you are to that family. This is actually something that a couple of my characters battle with for most of the book. Whether to stay in the village with your family and chance getting killed, or go and leave behind everything and everyone you know, but stay alive.
If you feel obligated to do something for your family, then are you really free?
And, again, does it matter if you're not free, if you yourself prioritize your family over your own freedom?
I guess, like with many other things, the line between free and not free is just about how you define it. Of course, there are the clearly not-free people in the world, like all the people in prisons, or slaves, or people living in countries where freedom of speech and thought and acts is practically non existent.
But I guess who is free is completely up to the definition. If anyone is.
I'll hear from you on Friday.
~matu
Today I want to talk to you about freedom. Partly because the the freedom of speech has been on the news lately because of Charlie Hebdo and Copenhagen, but mostly because it's an interesting and complicated topic.
It doesn't make it any less complicated that the very beginning, the basic definition of freedom is tricky. This is what Google gives as a definition for freedom:
1. the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants.
2. the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved.
However, this definition is quite not what people usually mean. In general people in the western countries at least see themselves and each other as free beings. But if you really think about it, you can't really act as you want. You're not free to go around killing people for example. If you do, you will be locked up. And then you won't bee free by any definition.
Even if you ignore that and think that technically you can go around killing people, you still can't go around flying. It's simply not physically possible. So you can't do what ever you want. Does that mean you're not free?
Even trickier the definition is made by the fact that freedom has slightly different definitions in different languages. I ran into this column a few weeks back. It talks about how our understanding of the world is shaped by the words we have to describe it. Basically what it says about freedom is that in Russian, for example, the word for freedom includes the meanings of anarchy and chaos alongside freedom as we understand it. They don't even have a word for freedom as we understand it. That means they don't understand freedom the way we do.
So which one of the definitions is what freedom actually is? The Russian version of freedom does have a point. If everyone really did what ever they wanted it would be pretty chaotic.
So is it freedom enough to call it freedom if people can do what ever they want to as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else? If you want to have a working society, it's really the best you can get without it being unfair in some other way.
Assuming not letting people be free is unfair, which people generally it is.
Even if people were free in a society in the way we understand it, I still wonder if people are actually free. There are so many things keeping us either doing something or from doing something. You have to keep working. You can't go on a trip around the world when ever you want. If you do want to, you need a lot of time to plan and save money. There's no one stopping you from doing it, but the society doesn't work in a way that would let you do it.
People take responsibilities at work, in school, in hobbies. You have to be in places when you've said you'd be in places even if you wanted to not get out of the bed that day. Again you can not do the things you've agreed to do, but the social construction makes it that people feel like they have to do it. Of course a lot of the responsibilities you take up you take family because you want to, in which case you're free to choose to either take them or don't, and then you just have to live according to what you chose. But once you've taken something up you're that much less free to do what you want.
And how about family? You can mostly nowadays decide to have or not to have kids, that will be a responsibility for probably the rest of your life. Kids are even more difficult to get rid of than responsibilities in the workplace, though I don't know how many people just get tired of taking care of their kids after a few years. Even if people liked it and made the decision to have kids, they will have a huge difference in what you can and can't do and when. They restrict your freedom. So does getting a kid mean that you're no more really free? And is that bad?
The rest of the family you can't even choose yourself. You can't choose if you'll have parents (which, well, you have to have), or siblings or aunts or cousins. Someone else makes that choice for you. How much does family limit one's freedom? Of course it depends on how close you are to that family. This is actually something that a couple of my characters battle with for most of the book. Whether to stay in the village with your family and chance getting killed, or go and leave behind everything and everyone you know, but stay alive.
If you feel obligated to do something for your family, then are you really free?
And, again, does it matter if you're not free, if you yourself prioritize your family over your own freedom?
I guess, like with many other things, the line between free and not free is just about how you define it. Of course, there are the clearly not-free people in the world, like all the people in prisons, or slaves, or people living in countries where freedom of speech and thought and acts is practically non existent.
But I guess who is free is completely up to the definition. If anyone is.
I'll hear from you on Friday.
~matu
Friday, February 13, 2015
Anyway
Hello, it's Friday apparently. This'll probably be short because I don't have a lot of time to write. We're going to Desucon Frostbite today! Yaay! I have had a severe lack in conventions this past year, with only two other cons! Two! Oh well, at least it's Desu time.
Problem is that Desucon's organization skills kinda suck so we don't actually have a sleeping place in Lahti. This would be really really bad if the trip from Helsinki was at all longer, and the con wasn't open 24/7, but our plan now is to go there tonight and pull an allnighter, come home on Saturday night and sleep here and then go back for Sunday. We're taking Onnibus, so the trips aren't too expensive, but it's still kinda ridiculous that they didn't have more sleeping spaces. I don't think they even sold all their tickets! How can you have arranged more tickets than sleeping places????
Anyway.
Frostbite has an age limit of 18, which means that they don't have as many people coming there, but that it'll be a lot more focused on the content, the panels and shows and shit. You know, since there's no 12-17yr olds that mainly go to cons to hang out. It's kinda weird though, because they are a 24/7 con, but they have absolutely no content in the nighttime. Like what's up with that? The anime room and game room are ofc open and you can hang around Sibelius Hall, but there's basically nothing to do there. And you can't even sleep there. (We're still probably gonna take naps in the anime room or something.) But yeah, I think it's weird they have nothing between midnight and ten in the morning.
Anyway.
I sent the beginning of Robin to the creative writing class. I'm gonna get it reviewed and I'm so nervous ahhhhhhhhh. I'm pretty happy about how it is at the moment, but we'll see what the others think. It's something like 8 pages at the moment. Next up is the scene where Robin buys the egg and I should really write that because I think I'm gonna like the merchant and I'm really curious to see how it'll turn out huehue. There's just this stupid "Robin sulks around town for a bit" scene and I don't really know where it's going so I can't really get it going... Maybe I should just ignore that, go straight to the merchant and move the sulking bit to the next day.... Hmm, I might do that.
Anyway.
I feel like I should be doing a lot of different things, but I'm doing like nothing. It's not a very nice feeling... It makes me anxious which in turn makes me avoid doing the things that make me anxious but not doing the thing just makes the anxiousness grow which makes me avoid it even more and it's just not going very well..............
Anyway.
I'm really hungry because I didn't eat so much breakfast and I thought I'd drop by the subway in between home and school but I had about ten minutes I could've spent there and the line had like eight people in it. And I'm not sure, but I think there was only one person doing the subs. It's a pretty small place, so there usually is just one. Needless to say, I did not stand in line for 20+ minutes in the hopes of getting food, so now I'm hungry and eating all my dried fruit I was saving for the trip to Lahti. I mean, I was gonna eat some of them now in any case, but I'm probably gonna end up eating more of them that I should.
Anyway.
Our teacher is late for a change. He was also very late with the material for today's lesson, I wonder if he's okay... I had already started to come up with all kinds of scenarios where he was sick or in the hospital, or where he got ganked for accidentally revealing a nefarious smuggling ring in a piece of fiction he wrote. Maaaayybe not that one. The are other people who are kinda late as well, hmmmm....
Anyway.
I think that's all I have to say for now. Oh look the teacher finally showed up, so I guess I'll just go now.
Anyway, here's Wonderfall.
Pie out.
Problem is that Desucon's organization skills kinda suck so we don't actually have a sleeping place in Lahti. This would be really really bad if the trip from Helsinki was at all longer, and the con wasn't open 24/7, but our plan now is to go there tonight and pull an allnighter, come home on Saturday night and sleep here and then go back for Sunday. We're taking Onnibus, so the trips aren't too expensive, but it's still kinda ridiculous that they didn't have more sleeping spaces. I don't think they even sold all their tickets! How can you have arranged more tickets than sleeping places????
Anyway.
Frostbite has an age limit of 18, which means that they don't have as many people coming there, but that it'll be a lot more focused on the content, the panels and shows and shit. You know, since there's no 12-17yr olds that mainly go to cons to hang out. It's kinda weird though, because they are a 24/7 con, but they have absolutely no content in the nighttime. Like what's up with that? The anime room and game room are ofc open and you can hang around Sibelius Hall, but there's basically nothing to do there. And you can't even sleep there. (We're still probably gonna take naps in the anime room or something.) But yeah, I think it's weird they have nothing between midnight and ten in the morning.
Anyway.
I sent the beginning of Robin to the creative writing class. I'm gonna get it reviewed and I'm so nervous ahhhhhhhhh. I'm pretty happy about how it is at the moment, but we'll see what the others think. It's something like 8 pages at the moment. Next up is the scene where Robin buys the egg and I should really write that because I think I'm gonna like the merchant and I'm really curious to see how it'll turn out huehue. There's just this stupid "Robin sulks around town for a bit" scene and I don't really know where it's going so I can't really get it going... Maybe I should just ignore that, go straight to the merchant and move the sulking bit to the next day.... Hmm, I might do that.
Anyway.
I feel like I should be doing a lot of different things, but I'm doing like nothing. It's not a very nice feeling... It makes me anxious which in turn makes me avoid doing the things that make me anxious but not doing the thing just makes the anxiousness grow which makes me avoid it even more and it's just not going very well..............
Anyway.
I'm really hungry because I didn't eat so much breakfast and I thought I'd drop by the subway in between home and school but I had about ten minutes I could've spent there and the line had like eight people in it. And I'm not sure, but I think there was only one person doing the subs. It's a pretty small place, so there usually is just one. Needless to say, I did not stand in line for 20+ minutes in the hopes of getting food, so now I'm hungry and eating all my dried fruit I was saving for the trip to Lahti. I mean, I was gonna eat some of them now in any case, but I'm probably gonna end up eating more of them that I should.
Anyway.
Our teacher is late for a change. He was also very late with the material for today's lesson, I wonder if he's okay... I had already started to come up with all kinds of scenarios where he was sick or in the hospital, or where he got ganked for accidentally revealing a nefarious smuggling ring in a piece of fiction he wrote. Maaaayybe not that one. The are other people who are kinda late as well, hmmmm....
Anyway.
I think that's all I have to say for now. Oh look the teacher finally showed up, so I guess I'll just go now.
Anyway, here's Wonderfall.
Pie out.
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Portal-shirt and a bunch of other stuff
Uh...
I already had a plan about what to write about today, but then I ended up doing this:
I know it's not exactly my color, but it had to be the same color as the wall, so what are you gonna do.
And then I got hungry since it was somehow already six in the evening and I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I had to eat, and then my roommate was all "hey, I don't feel like doing anything today, let's just watch Merlin, ok?"
And then the day was gone.
Fun fact: Australia will be in the Eurovision this year.
I did know before that Australians were huge fans of Eurovision, and I think they did some performance in last years Eurovision while people were waiting for the results, but apparently this year they're let into the actual competition.
I can only imagine how excited they are about it.
Though I still don't understand how they've become Eurovision fans anyway.
Another fun fact: There is a priest in US who wants to convert robots into Christianity. Because if AIs are intelligent, they can also be religious. And because AIs can be dangerous if they get too intelligent. And he thinks if the AIs are Christians, then they'll do good things instead of everything the scientists are afraid of.
This, of course, until the robots begin to read the Bible literally, which they probably will do, because they are logical creatures unlike illogical people, who can pick a bit there and another here according to what fits them.
You know, I had to do something sensible today, since I only had two hours of classes, but then something happened. I have no idea what. It's just that the Portal-shirt is pretty cool.
On other robot related news, there will be a hotel in Japan staffed by robots. Well, there will also be people. But the idea is interesting anyway.
About something completely different: you may have seen this already, since it's a week old news, but apparently it seems more and more likely that there will be another Bush running for president in the US. I know you know he was thinking about running for president, but now I guess it's starting to seem likely.
And I agree with you (and mom-Bush): the world has seen enough Bushes as president.
Ok, I'm gonna go and write something sensible again next week.
Bye
~matu
I already had a plan about what to write about today, but then I ended up doing this:
And then I got hungry since it was somehow already six in the evening and I hadn't eaten anything all day, so I had to eat, and then my roommate was all "hey, I don't feel like doing anything today, let's just watch Merlin, ok?"
And then the day was gone.
Fun fact: Australia will be in the Eurovision this year.
I did know before that Australians were huge fans of Eurovision, and I think they did some performance in last years Eurovision while people were waiting for the results, but apparently this year they're let into the actual competition.
I can only imagine how excited they are about it.
Though I still don't understand how they've become Eurovision fans anyway.
Another fun fact: There is a priest in US who wants to convert robots into Christianity. Because if AIs are intelligent, they can also be religious. And because AIs can be dangerous if they get too intelligent. And he thinks if the AIs are Christians, then they'll do good things instead of everything the scientists are afraid of.
This, of course, until the robots begin to read the Bible literally, which they probably will do, because they are logical creatures unlike illogical people, who can pick a bit there and another here according to what fits them.
You know, I had to do something sensible today, since I only had two hours of classes, but then something happened. I have no idea what. It's just that the Portal-shirt is pretty cool.
On other robot related news, there will be a hotel in Japan staffed by robots. Well, there will also be people. But the idea is interesting anyway.
About something completely different: you may have seen this already, since it's a week old news, but apparently it seems more and more likely that there will be another Bush running for president in the US. I know you know he was thinking about running for president, but now I guess it's starting to seem likely.
And I agree with you (and mom-Bush): the world has seen enough Bushes as president.
Ok, I'm gonna go and write something sensible again next week.
Bye
~matu
Friday, February 6, 2015
Nothing big
Hello again.
Hard to believe it's Friday already. What am I even doing with my life.
I've been watching Korra for the last few days. Y'know, the Avatar (the Last Airbender not space pocahontas) sequel and yeah it's pretty solid. The animation is beautiful and the characters great and the story is a bit mediocre (in the first two seasons anyway) but I hear it gets better. I don't know if you've watched it but if you haven't, I highly recommend it.
I've been writing a lot recently. I've gotten to the scene where Robin buys the egg. I mean, I haven't written that part yet, but that's the part I'm writing next. I have like 10 pages. It's amazing. I feel so great. Also, my original plan was that the first chapter would end to Robin buying the egg and the second to the dragon hatching, but Oona said that that would be too slow of a set up and she's actually right. I don't really know what the hell I'd thought I'd add to the chapters to make them that long, because if I'd end the chapter where I'd planned it'd be like 12 pages. And I'm pretty sure that's too short. Is that too short? Also, this way I don't have to writ too much angsting between the egg buying and hatching.
I still don't know what Colin does though... Should probably figure that out soon.
I've also been playing a lot of 2048. A lot. I've gotten to 4096 with one 2048 but then I always fuck it up ugh. It's super addicting.
Don't really know what else......
Side note, I don't know if you've been watching s10 of Supernatural, but I highly recommend it. It is the best season in a long time, maybe ever. Like wow. All these brilliant women and interesting stories and important messages. I'm pretty sure all of the... 13? episodes have passed the Bechdel
test, and it's all around trying to be a better show for its fans. Just. Made me fall in love again.
So, uh. Idk, I don't really have anything else.
So. Bye.
Pie out.
Hard to believe it's Friday already. What am I even doing with my life.
I've been watching Korra for the last few days. Y'know, the Avatar (the Last Airbender not space pocahontas) sequel and yeah it's pretty solid. The animation is beautiful and the characters great and the story is a bit mediocre (in the first two seasons anyway) but I hear it gets better. I don't know if you've watched it but if you haven't, I highly recommend it.
I've been writing a lot recently. I've gotten to the scene where Robin buys the egg. I mean, I haven't written that part yet, but that's the part I'm writing next. I have like 10 pages. It's amazing. I feel so great. Also, my original plan was that the first chapter would end to Robin buying the egg and the second to the dragon hatching, but Oona said that that would be too slow of a set up and she's actually right. I don't really know what the hell I'd thought I'd add to the chapters to make them that long, because if I'd end the chapter where I'd planned it'd be like 12 pages. And I'm pretty sure that's too short. Is that too short? Also, this way I don't have to writ too much angsting between the egg buying and hatching.
I still don't know what Colin does though... Should probably figure that out soon.
I've also been playing a lot of 2048. A lot. I've gotten to 4096 with one 2048 but then I always fuck it up ugh. It's super addicting.
Don't really know what else......
Side note, I don't know if you've been watching s10 of Supernatural, but I highly recommend it. It is the best season in a long time, maybe ever. Like wow. All these brilliant women and interesting stories and important messages. I'm pretty sure all of the... 13? episodes have passed the Bechdel
test, and it's all around trying to be a better show for its fans. Just. Made me fall in love again.
So, uh. Idk, I don't really have anything else.
So. Bye.
Pie out.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Nuclear power
Hello again
Today I am going to talk about I'm going to talk to you about nuclear power. More specifically, why we should use that for energy.
My main point is this:
Right now humans are pushing 36 billion (metric) tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, so that they can use the energy that comes from burning fossil fuels.
And that's bad. It's bad for people, and bad for animals, and for plants. Simply said, it's bad for everyone.
(Well, there are species that benefit from the global temperature rising, but since we seem to be in the middle of the sixth mass extinction in the history of history, I'd say handful of creatures doing better is a pretty minor thing.)
So we need to come up with something else to fuel our everything we do. Because with China and India getting more and more advanced every year, that emission rate is just going to keep rising if we keep using fossil fuels.
And I think nuclear energy would be a good help to this. Not a complete solution or a permanent one, but it is much better than what we're doing now.
And yet, people seem to have objections. So I'm gonna go ahead and go through some of what people use when they talk against nuclear power, and try to explain why they're not exactly good arguments.
Nuclear power is dangerous.
Well, yeah, but when you do things right it's not, really.
But Fukushima.
It was an old power plant built in an area where tsunamis and earthquakes are possible. Which sounds like a terrible idea even if you don't understand much about the physics behind nuclear energy. Also the plan of the plant was idiotic. It could have been built in a way that a tsunami wouldn't do all that much damage, but instead it was built in a way that a tsunami did a lot of damage.
So just don't built the power plants in tsunami-risk areas and built them according to the newest knowledge from the last few decades, and you'll be fine.
But Chernobyl. That was even worse than Fukushima.
Yeah. Once again, an old power plant. The generators that are used today are different and way more safe than the once used back then. Also. This is an actual (translated) quote from Finnish Wikipedia about Chernobyl:
During the accident an experiment was being done in Chernobyl. The experiment was not approved by the engineer of the power plant, or even people who understood the engineering well enough, because doing the experiment involved using the reactor in a way that was specifically forbidden in the plant's instructions of use. -- For the experiment the safety systems were shut off, because they would've prevented the wrong use of the reactor.
Excuse me, I have to go bang my head against the wall now.
When experts say something is a bad idea, don't do it. Especially if you're dealing with something that is dangerous when used wrong. Especially if you don't really know what you're doing. Also, if there are security systems that prevent you from doing something, they're probably there for a reason. So if you don't know what you're doing, do not turn them off. Or even if you know what you're doing.
Anyone with any sense in their head should understand that is a terrible idea.
And thus the worst nuclear accident of history.
So as long as you new technology, don't build the power plants in a tsunami risk zone and don't let idiots near the generator, you'll be fine. Because really, the newest technology is good enough that someone has to screw up really badly for an accident to happen.
But nuclear bombs!
Yeah, those are bad. But really. You can use dynamite to blow up people or you can use it to dig a tunnel. The fact that you can use something as warfare, doesn't mean it can't be useful even if you don't want to blow people up.
Again: don't give nuclear technology to idiots.
But what if the nuclear waste leaks into the environment? You can't know what happens in the future.
Well, nuclear waste is packed carefully away, and it will be thousands of years before it's theoretically possible for there to be any leaks. And by then I think human race has advanced enough to know how to stop the leaking. Or destroyed itself. In which case we've taken so much of the rest of the world with us that it won't matter much.
And even if something did leak from the nuclear waste dump sites, it won't be that bad. From the waste site it leaks into the ground and maybe the groundwater and then maybe to the sea or ocean, where there's just so much water it gets mixed in it really just doesn't matter. Of course it harms the environment right around the waste site and where ever the water flows from there.
But if the choice is between screwing up the whole planet with greenhouse gases and having small spots in the world inhabitable for a while because of nuclear waste.
I mean, it's been thirty years since Chernobyl, and there are already animals living in the area, even though the radiation levels are still so high they don't let people there without proper precautions. Of course it's still a horrible place to live for any creature. But the area that is really bad is some tens of kilometers off from power plant, which is a ridiculously small area compared to like... the planet. And tens or even thousands of years is a ridiculously short time in the scale of the world.
The world will be fine even if some of the nuclear waste sites leaked in the future. The nature adapts. But it's a lot lot easier for it to adapt to small spot in inhabitable areas than the consequences of global warming.
Renewable energy sources don't have any risk of nuclear disasters.
Well, that's true. But they have problems too, because they all require some kind of infrastructure. Water dams make it difficult for salmons to travel up rivers, sun panels block the sun from the things living in the area, and windmills are huge and make a lot of noise that bother everyone trying to live anywhere near them.
And take Finland, for example. All the water power that can be used is already being used, and it's not all that windy. And we need the most energy precisely when the sun doesn't shine, so that's not much help. Though sure, we do have turf in Finland that is kind of renewable, though in a human time scale it takes a long time to regrow turf that has been dug out of a swamp. And it also releases CO2, and if we burn all the turf then there's no more swamps in Finland, and that would suck.
The technology and understanding of nuclear physics is so good today that nuclear power plants are actually really safe. People just have a weird notion that nuclear means inherently bad and dangerous.
Which it isn't.
It's like people in the US seem to be against everything that has the word "socialized" in it. Which is ridiculous.
It's not an ideal way to produce energy, but at least to me it seems like our best choice right now. Because we really need to stop using fossil fuels. Or at least significantly reduce their use.
Anyway, I think that's enough for today.
~matu
Today I am going to talk about I'm going to talk to you about nuclear power. More specifically, why we should use that for energy.
My main point is this:
Right now humans are pushing 36 billion (metric) tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year, so that they can use the energy that comes from burning fossil fuels.
And that's bad. It's bad for people, and bad for animals, and for plants. Simply said, it's bad for everyone.
(Well, there are species that benefit from the global temperature rising, but since we seem to be in the middle of the sixth mass extinction in the history of history, I'd say handful of creatures doing better is a pretty minor thing.)
So we need to come up with something else to fuel our everything we do. Because with China and India getting more and more advanced every year, that emission rate is just going to keep rising if we keep using fossil fuels.
And I think nuclear energy would be a good help to this. Not a complete solution or a permanent one, but it is much better than what we're doing now.
And yet, people seem to have objections. So I'm gonna go ahead and go through some of what people use when they talk against nuclear power, and try to explain why they're not exactly good arguments.
Nuclear power is dangerous.
Well, yeah, but when you do things right it's not, really.
But Fukushima.
It was an old power plant built in an area where tsunamis and earthquakes are possible. Which sounds like a terrible idea even if you don't understand much about the physics behind nuclear energy. Also the plan of the plant was idiotic. It could have been built in a way that a tsunami wouldn't do all that much damage, but instead it was built in a way that a tsunami did a lot of damage.
So just don't built the power plants in tsunami-risk areas and built them according to the newest knowledge from the last few decades, and you'll be fine.
But Chernobyl. That was even worse than Fukushima.
Yeah. Once again, an old power plant. The generators that are used today are different and way more safe than the once used back then. Also. This is an actual (translated) quote from Finnish Wikipedia about Chernobyl:
During the accident an experiment was being done in Chernobyl. The experiment was not approved by the engineer of the power plant, or even people who understood the engineering well enough, because doing the experiment involved using the reactor in a way that was specifically forbidden in the plant's instructions of use. -- For the experiment the safety systems were shut off, because they would've prevented the wrong use of the reactor.
Excuse me, I have to go bang my head against the wall now.
When experts say something is a bad idea, don't do it. Especially if you're dealing with something that is dangerous when used wrong. Especially if you don't really know what you're doing. Also, if there are security systems that prevent you from doing something, they're probably there for a reason. So if you don't know what you're doing, do not turn them off. Or even if you know what you're doing.
Anyone with any sense in their head should understand that is a terrible idea.
And thus the worst nuclear accident of history.
So as long as you new technology, don't build the power plants in a tsunami risk zone and don't let idiots near the generator, you'll be fine. Because really, the newest technology is good enough that someone has to screw up really badly for an accident to happen.
But nuclear bombs!
Yeah, those are bad. But really. You can use dynamite to blow up people or you can use it to dig a tunnel. The fact that you can use something as warfare, doesn't mean it can't be useful even if you don't want to blow people up.
Again: don't give nuclear technology to idiots.
But what if the nuclear waste leaks into the environment? You can't know what happens in the future.
Well, nuclear waste is packed carefully away, and it will be thousands of years before it's theoretically possible for there to be any leaks. And by then I think human race has advanced enough to know how to stop the leaking. Or destroyed itself. In which case we've taken so much of the rest of the world with us that it won't matter much.
And even if something did leak from the nuclear waste dump sites, it won't be that bad. From the waste site it leaks into the ground and maybe the groundwater and then maybe to the sea or ocean, where there's just so much water it gets mixed in it really just doesn't matter. Of course it harms the environment right around the waste site and where ever the water flows from there.
But if the choice is between screwing up the whole planet with greenhouse gases and having small spots in the world inhabitable for a while because of nuclear waste.
I mean, it's been thirty years since Chernobyl, and there are already animals living in the area, even though the radiation levels are still so high they don't let people there without proper precautions. Of course it's still a horrible place to live for any creature. But the area that is really bad is some tens of kilometers off from power plant, which is a ridiculously small area compared to like... the planet. And tens or even thousands of years is a ridiculously short time in the scale of the world.
The world will be fine even if some of the nuclear waste sites leaked in the future. The nature adapts. But it's a lot lot easier for it to adapt to small spot in inhabitable areas than the consequences of global warming.
Renewable energy sources don't have any risk of nuclear disasters.
Well, that's true. But they have problems too, because they all require some kind of infrastructure. Water dams make it difficult for salmons to travel up rivers, sun panels block the sun from the things living in the area, and windmills are huge and make a lot of noise that bother everyone trying to live anywhere near them.
And take Finland, for example. All the water power that can be used is already being used, and it's not all that windy. And we need the most energy precisely when the sun doesn't shine, so that's not much help. Though sure, we do have turf in Finland that is kind of renewable, though in a human time scale it takes a long time to regrow turf that has been dug out of a swamp. And it also releases CO2, and if we burn all the turf then there's no more swamps in Finland, and that would suck.
The technology and understanding of nuclear physics is so good today that nuclear power plants are actually really safe. People just have a weird notion that nuclear means inherently bad and dangerous.
Which it isn't.
It's like people in the US seem to be against everything that has the word "socialized" in it. Which is ridiculous.
It's not an ideal way to produce energy, but at least to me it seems like our best choice right now. Because we really need to stop using fossil fuels. Or at least significantly reduce their use.
Anyway, I think that's enough for today.
~matu
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