Online fasting.

Last Wednesday I was on a bus and I decided to not get on the internet anymore for a time. So for the last week I've been rather diligently keeping away from here. In this time I finished reading "The Diary of a Nobody", the play "Abraham Lincoln", Jane Austen's "Temptation", a 12-story collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (I forget which collection it was, I'll check later) and started "Moby Dick" and am absolutely loving it so far. I've made progress in my black-out poems, in the adaptation of Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Hamlet Are Dead (that shall be the title I think), helped my mum and aunt to put threads in the loom again, helped the missionaries, and have come across a book called "The Eternal Woman" which is a culture-historical research about the roles of women written by some pre-1950s German man (and it's delightfully insanely politically incorrect and old-fashioned and I'm not sure if it can be read as science at all but it's just... delightful). Oh and went to work too, of course. And knitted. And I think I drew Jason Isaacs during this time too.

Anyway, my point is, I'm loving my freewheelin' ways of not logging in that much, so if I seem scarce again, this is why.

Also, it is way too hot in here. I hate summer, please to be autumn now?

Amg more awesome science :O http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?2018

Excerpt:
"But what our work demonstrated first and foremost is that you don't need to shoot a chemical up someone's nose, or have sex with them, or even give them a hug in order to create the surge in oxytocin that leads to more generous behavior. Fortunately, all you have to do to trigger this Moral Molecule is give someone a sign of trust. When one person extends himself to another in a trusting way, the person being trusted experiences a surge in oxytocin that makes her less likely to hold back, and less likely to cheat. Which is another way of saying that the feeling of being trusted makes a person more ... trustworthy. Which, over time, makes other people more inclined to trust, which in turn ..."

Wait. It's mathematics but not arithmetics? >.< Consistency, dammit!

Here's some real science for you: http://iopscience.iop.org/0143-0807/33/5/1321/article

Do you have a flag? >:P

Have you seen the new Batman yet?
I have to make a comment, I can't keep it in. Don't necessarily look if you haven't seen it yet.

The awesome folks over at Planet Money also decided to play "imagine a new system of taxation" and they did it much better than I did.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/07/18/156928675/episode-387-the-no-brainer-economic-platform

My suggestion for the bumper sticker: "Don't vote with your wallet. Vote with sound economic principles. Vote for {Planet Money's fake candidate}!"

It's so interesting that Britain is not in the euro (and therefore not as much in trouble because of the Euro crisis as the rest of us) but still managed to have their own banking crisis at the same time. So the City is losing its face and the trust of the public at the same time as the Eurozone gets more and more distrustful of each other. I dunno, it just seems kind beautiful, sort of a "we're in this together, and if you try to avoid our problems, you'll have your own." By beautiful I of course mean scary and sad. But beautiful nonetheless.

So hey you know how there was a point when everyone was doing those questionnaires in their diaries? Here's a really cool list of questions though it isn't quite like those questionnaires.
http://www.marcandangel.com/2011/12/04/95-questions-to-help-you-find-meaning-and-happiness/

I'll probably try to answer them all eventually, they're kinda hard questions.

Homigash! http://zoom.it/l3dq
And then another homigash! at the service that website provides! A really easy way to access humongous images? :D

Dear junkforumites: I had no forum replies at all when I logged in today. This is a worrisome thing considering I have a lot of the threads on watch and I wasn't here at all on Sunday. You guys are getting lax. Except Viking, because he doesn't like fish.

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Tate Modern has just become even cooler :O They have that astonishing Turbine Hall turned into an exhibition space of ginormous proportions, and now they have started using the underground oil tanks for performance/installation/stuff in dark space. And while the tanks are huge too, they have an intimate feel.
http://www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/24069906-tate-oil-tanks

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Weird: today I looked up the etymology of 'egads' (in case it's too rude to use - it's not) and ended up in the Wikipedia article of minced oaths, and then few hours later on the radio was the Thought for the Day and the person talking did his entire bit on minced oaths. o.O I go from not knowing anything about this concept of minced oaths to learning it twice within 3 hours.

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Imagine if the government would adopt the kickstarter approach to taxes. You choose yourself what you want to support and by how much, and according to that you get the services. So in order to get a library card, you need to donate amount to the library tax, in order to get your bin emptied you donate amount to that tax. If you support the subsidies for the farmers, you get cheaper food at the shop, if you support the railroad tax, you get cheaper travel. Maybe the fire fighter tax would have to be non-optional, seeing how letting your house burn down might make the fire spread to other houses... <_< But the police tax would work, if you want help from the police if you get crimed on, you need to pay your tax. Even if that Kickstarter approach was combined with a tiny basic tax percent from which money can be put towards important things that don't get their funding through their kickstarter.

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The second issue of the Racket is up. http://theracket.com/ Its theme is exile. The first one's was Self-improvement. I think they are following me... >_> Anyhoo, will link to specific articles if I come across some that need specific linking.

Also, Kimbra's new video Two Way Street: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SH0pVVBmN0
I love her. She puts to music and words the things that I feel.

My aunt gave me a violin. Noise is about to follow.
And I know violin is one of those instruments that you need to start young in order to get anywhere blabla. My mum was really surprised when I said yes when my aunt offered it to me. But it's not really so much about that I want to learn to play the violin in any kind of serious way. It's more the fact that I want the object to be near me. I want to be surrounded by objects that live. Musical instruments do this very much so. People touch them and they come to life. Art does it too, except not by touch but by sight. Books come to life, they are imbued with life through and through. I don't even care if a book is written in a language I can understand, it breathes, that is enough. Machines live, even parts of machines. Clothes live, especially second-hand ones (everything second-hand is more alive than new things). Things made out of bone, out of wood, out of stone. Some things made out of glass, some things made out of paper. Very few things made out of plastic. Is it selfish to want to live amongst living things, even if I can't make them come alive? Maybe it is.

I want to live in a house where there are as few plastic things as possible. Also, wanting the violin was a little bit selfish, in a future kind of sense. If/when I have kids I want them to be able to try everything. Every instrument, every sport, every art form. Try all the things! So having an old violin in the house, that the kid can look at, touch, be charmed by and eventually say "mum... I want to play the violin". That's the point, I guess. My house never had a violin. We had a piano. I ended up playing the piano as a kid. I want to provide options. And if at the time we are too broke to buy the kid a kid-violin, then s/he'll just get to learn on a hundred-year-old one :P

I also have been watching a lot of Sherlock. So maybe an appearance of the violin was a little bit too serendipitous to let just slide :P

Aamg amg lololol :D <3
http://youtu.be/Ai287ZvU8a0

Today on the BBC4 they've talked alot about the worries about the airports getting really clogged at Heathrow etc because of the Olympics bringing massive amounts of people into the country. I really can't help but point out that if you'd joined the Shengen deal, this border control problem wouldn't exist: you wouldn't need to check passports for anyone coming through the other Shengen countries. Thinking of how Paris, Amsterdam, many German cities etc... are important air travel hubs, you could easily spread out the passport checking stuff for people outside the Shengen area/Europe and only the people flying straight in to London from the outside would need to queue up.

I'm just irritated by the rise of isolationism in the UK :/ Play along (because I love you and it sucks to see you be all "rah rah we're not European" -_-)

Some cats just prefer radio.

Awesome quote from an old episode of This American Life
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/19/rich-guys?act=1

"No... No, Jack. The proper medium for this story, as for any story, Jack Hitt, is radio."
-Ira Glass

<3

The proms start on Friday :)
And in August 17th they will have a John Cage prom :D Not sure how well that would work over the radio...? :P I wonder if...? No, no more trips to England until Septeber.

Guysdudes-Silvie! :O You know how people have the Olympic craft projects? I want to do a proms project! That I work on while listening to the proms stuff on the radio :O Amg amg amg :D

Posh guy on the radio pronounced "fans" and "pants" as "fahns" and "pahnts". Spongebohb SquahrePahnts. I kid you not, that's the word he said with that post accent :D

The radio also asked "what does Andy Murray have to do to win a grand slam?" -Not play Roger Federer >_> 

Remember how much we love Ron Perlman? Remember how much we love HellBoy? Yes.
http://io9.com/5924190/good-guy-ron-perlman-reprises-his-hellboy-role-for-a-very-special-audience-of-one

Nobody helped with the exchange rates thing :/

"The continuing struggles in Arab countries are seen (by many Russians) as a battle by those who wear neckties against those who do not wear them. Russians have long suffered from terrorism and extremism at the hands of Islamists in the northern Caucasus, and they are therefore firmly on the side of those who wear neckties."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/opinion/why-russia-supports-syria.html

Well darn, when you put it that way... I know I like people who wear neck ties... :/


This is pretty giggly :3 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/opinion/our-political-black-hole.html


I'm really really interested by the LIBOR scandal, and finally yesterday learnt how to write it (I've been listening to BBC and heck, it sounded like they were saying "the liable rate" - y'know, because it's... liable? And now it's not anymore? >_> No? Just me then?
"Britain and America have reacted to the Libor scandal in completely different ways. Britain is in an utter frenzy over it, with wall-to-wall coverage, and the most respectable, pro-business publications expressing outrage."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/opinion/libors-dirty-laundry.html



And one more, this one really kind of sad: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/
The blog of the author of the new novel Redshirts which I really really want to read.
(This one http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/07/books/in-redshirts-john-scalzi-gives-expendables-a-life.html )

Colloquial Finnish 101

Talviturkki (talvi = winter, turkki = fur coat). Used to refer to the change in colouring that some animals (hares, squirrels, weasels etc...) experience between winter and summer 
Heittää talviturkki = to throw or cast off the winter fur coat.

To throw off one's winter coat, a colloquial expression for the first swim of the year in a natural body of water, during which the swimmer dives or is at least one point fully immersed in water and the so-called winter coat is fully washed away.

Examples:
iippo: I threw off my winter coat this morning!

This is a big deal because I haven't actually swam in any kind of body of water in over ten years.

Yes, it was kind of cold :B

I'm struggling with one of these practical everyday things that seem to be so impossibly difficult for me: exchange rates. So I want you to tell me if I've got this wrong.

If the pound is 1,25 euros, and/or the euro is almost 0,80 pounds... That means that if I get paid in euros and then change them over to pounds, that is a good rate for me? Given that the pound has been like... 1,40 euros before? I understand better how this works if the euro was 75p and is now 80p, then that is good because the pound is the stronger currency, so getting more of the stronger stuff for less euros is good, yes?

I was good at this in Sweden, because we were given our allotment in dollars, everything was in Swedish krona, and my personal monies were in euros and pounds. :P

Payday's two weeks away anyway, so I'll keep an ear out how the rates go.

"Have a nice trip. Welcome to the United States."

^_____^

A headline in the New York Times today was "A Clear Declaration of Intent Is Now Even Clearer". The NYT has started to speak lolcat.