Hi,
My apologies for being so delayed from regular posting. It's been a painful few weeks in coding for me, and time passes by extremely fast.
Now, if you're at all familiar with creating a website, you know it can be super fun to make one. If you're an expert, what you're going to read in this post will look stupid. If you're not an expert, you'll think website-making is a terrible world best left for professionals.
The thing is, to further expand my adventurous life as an entrepreneur, me and my business partner decided we could make an online shop for stuff we could sell cheap from China to Finland and elsewhere in Europe possibly. Not consumer goods, but stuff businesses need. Not like industrial components, but practical things. I won't give futher details, though, as it is still not ready and giving away details of my business to our millions of readers would probably end up in an idea-theft. Anyway, to get such a business going, we need a website.
I'm the only one of us who actually knows anything about making a website. So I got that winning ticket. I have a good understanding of HTML code and a bit experience in CSS. That's it. And I write everything in Notepad. I'm that old-school (or unskilled).
So, with those skills of mine, I had a task of creating a fully operational website that can provide a kind of online shopping function (not a real webstore, but with plenty of online forms to fill).
The first week went really well. I was creating the main graphic layout and the CSS to support it - albeit the visual image has changed about 3 times since, everytime to the better. I managed to put in a basic ordering system and some contents.
Second week I was working 14-15 hours a day (sleeping 5-6 hours) to get stuff into the website, and finally started having those rookie mistakes that make pros cry.
It's easy to put text into a website, but it's not easy to make them look super-cool and have them behave as you want them. Especially when you're using a frameless CSS layout. It's a magical thing what one misplaced comma or a missing '>' can do. With one small typo your whole website might ceace to exist the way you knew it. It might take a life of its own. The worst is if you don't exactly remember what you changed in the code just before - or if it takes you a long time to notice you've made a mistake (the changes are, you might have to go through everything to find that missing comma).
I had that. I missed one > after closing a bold text command. Took me two hours to find where I went wrong.
Also took me around two hours to find out why some pictures didn't open in Internet Explorer while opening perfectly normally in Mozilla. I thought it's my code and I went through it over and over again. No mistakes there - simple code - why isn't the damned thing working?! Oh, turned out some of the pictures were saved in CMYK-colours which, it turns out, IE doesn't open but Mozilla does. I converted the pictures to RGB and the thing worked like a charm again.
For the online forms, I also added a CAPCHA-security field so that visitors have to type in those funky characters to designate themselves as humans and not as spambots. For this I had to venture a completely new world of coding: PHP and Java - both which I had no experience from before. After working zealously to get CAPCHA working, my form stopped working. It worked almost, but it had one flaw: the emails that I received from the process.php protocol didn't have any of the '+' signs in the contact information (as in, someone would put in country code for a phone number). Turns out PHP code considers '+' as a space-character. Took me god knows how many hours to figure out how to fix that.
Today, I've had my favourite code-glitch of them all! Didn't take me as long to find the problem since it's in my familiar CSS code, but it's quite amusing.
At a location of the CSS code file, I have: #download a.download{ font: 14px "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #fff; }. This means that in Div type="download" if there is a link class="download" it'll have font size 14px in Arial and black colour. I used to have a html file that used that Div Type but I didn't need it in the end so I've deleted the html file a long while ago. However, I forgot to take out this line from the CSS file, but then, usually it shouldn't be a problem. The important thing is, it's a kind of leftover in the code that nothing uses.
Or so I thought.
Internet Explorer uses it. Internet Explorer needs this particular piece of code to make the website work. Mozilla doesn't, nor does any other browser. IE, for some reason, can't make my right side window and footer work if there is no code that would tell IE that in Div type="download" if there is a link class="download" it'll have font size 14px in Arial and black colour. I can change the font size and nothing happens, I can change the colour of the font and nothing happens. But if I take out the code all hell breaks loose! So, I'll leave the code there.
I'm quite sure this kind of leftover code is what will eventually make real Artificial Intelligence - or a kind of a real intelligence for machines. By wilfully creating AI ourselves, humans can only aspire for intelligence similar to our own intelligence. However, true intelligence has freedom and it cannot be dictated. Hence, only from true randomness and chaos can it be born!
I know a missing comma doesn't sound very intelligent. But look at it this way: I wanted it to work - I made in a way it should work and it looked smart enough - however, through a small mistake, I lost control of the beast and it took a life of its own!
Geeks are the lion tamers of today.
Showing posts with label Pekka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pekka. Show all posts
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
spicy eggplant and salted fish with rice.
Back in July Markus wrote a post about food. It's been a long-forgotten topic but I thought I'd approach it from a different angle.
Let me start with a few very simple and really short stories:
1. Today I ate some microwave food because I was too lazy to cook. I had some Spicy Eggplant and Salted Fish with Rice. In days prior I've had foods like Sichuan style beef, curry chicken in coconut milk and Rise, some Japanese style fried noodles with seafood, etc. These are all microwave foods.
2. My girlfriend's sister and her boyfriend were visiting us a few weeks back and I offered to cook. To the surprise of everyone, I made absolutely awesome meatballs together with brown sauce (secret ingredients included) with potatoes and a salad. I thought my cooking was awesome ("just like home!"), my girlfriend (who has some experience from my cooking before) thought it was "good", her sister and sister's boyfriend thought it was weird. Out of politeness they told me it's good, but as I asked my girlfriend later, I found the truth.
3. If I buy snacks, I buy potato chips, coke and sometimes sweets. If my girlfriend buys snacks, she'll get dried seaweed, fried prawn (or other seafood that is fried in similar way as chips), and maybe ice lemon tea for drink.
Of the above stories, number 2 is the most important for this topic. We Finns cringe at too exotic foods like, let's say, oriental seafood. We don't like tentacles in our food. However, as story 2 shows, not everyone agrees that potato is awesome. Or that a simple setting of three articles (=potato, meatballs and sauce) is enough to make a proper meal. I remember at the university some years back, the newly arrived Chinese (and some of the Europeans) exchange students found Finnish food very plain and boring - and again with the potatoes!
So, where am I getting with this? Well, it's what we all knew already before: Food is a matter of culture.
No big discovery there, eh?
It wasn't supposed to be a big discovery. It was to make a point of the fact, no food culture holds a de facto title "the best food in the world". We are often fooled to think that where we come from is better from "somewhere else". Especially if we come from Europe, the supposedly "better place" in the world.
I'll share two other stories.
4. When I was a toddler and up untill I was about 10 years old, I didn't like pizza at all. It didn't matter what was on it. I just didn't like pizza. I hated it. But then the unexpected cultural marvel from the America came to Finland and I found myself forced to accept that pizza is good. Turtles. I became a huge fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and like everyone knows, they just love pizza. Being a big fan of them, I could not NOT like pizza. So, I forced myself to like it. Didn't take me too long to like it, love it. And since then I always count pizza as one my favourite foods.
5. In my late teens when alcohol started playing a part in my life, I began with the "girlie drinks" like cider or vodka with blenders. Stuff like that. Anything that was sweet enough to cover the taste of alcohol would be good. Beer, no way. Beer was like crap. Well, one time me and some friends were on a budget and were forced to combine our monies and buy a case of cheap beer instead of expensive cider or long drink (it's always about the money-to-alcohol ration in that age). Didn't yet like beer after 4 bottles but for the sake of getting drunk, I was willing to accept it. After a few more beers, I was starting to like it. After few even more, it was good! Today, I actually like beer a lot. I really like it. I like it so much I may just buy one bottle for the taste of it and drink it without ever intending to get drunk.
Now, continuing about that discovery of "food is a matter of culture".
Prejudice - in this case culinary prejudice - keeps us from seeking new things we might enjoy after some subjugation. When we're young, our parents tell us to eat the veggies. We don't like them but our parents force us. As time goes by, we grow to accept them. Later we might even like them - enough at least to force our own kids to eat their veggies too. It's the same thing when we grow up. We don't like something and we don't want to eat it but this time there are no parents to force you. So you skip it. You never learn to like it either, though, but you could be missing out something. Great to be an adult.
Now, I'm a big fan of Cantonese food (a foodculture Markus bashed quite badly in July) but I didn't get this way just by picking up the safe foods. It's a lot of trial and error actually. The selection of dishes and whole styles of kitchen is simply so vast that it takes a lot of time to find the foods that are really honestly superb. In the mass of foods, there are some that are actually not that great - some are just misunderstood.
Hong Kong is mostly known, not only by Cantonese cuisine, but also because it has a really vast selection of world kitchens available (as mentioned by Markus as well). Granted, if you come here (or go anywhere) as a tourist, you're most likely given the finest things around. Tried foods, accepted by everyone. The tourist guidebooks will tell you what to eat and where to eat it. These restaurants will charge you extra but for that money you get an english menu and food that is "safe".
Stray from the path of guidebook righteousness and you'll find yourself staring at some very funky local foods. Not tried and tested cliché's but real local food. What is easily forgotten is that a vast majority of restaurants in Hong Kong actually offer food that should be graded "home cooking", not restaurant food. Their function is not to provide tourists fine dining experiences with first class wine, but offer local workers their low-cost lunch or dinner. We don't have ANY comparison points for these restaurants in Finland. None. Period. If you compare a Finnish restaurant to a Hong Kong one, stick to the restaurants in Hong Kong that serve tourists.
Anyway, I think I should start to summarize this post.
Story #1 tells us that despite Hongkongese people buying microwave foods, they don't go for western foods. They still like their own thing. Spaghetti is available, sure, but aside from that, most microwave foods I've found are very localized.
Story #2 emphasizes the above point by showing that even when served to the table, western food (no matter how good) won't make Hongkongese abolish their fondness to Cantonese food and convert to western cuisines.
Story #3 gives us a peek view that local preferences go to all aspects of food culture. The choice of snack sounds trivial but would you (our average Finnish reader) choose dried seaweed over potato chips for a night our at the cinema? Didn't think so.
Stories #4 and #5 finally prove that we all grow to like new things by subjugation. We like some things by nature, some we need to learn.
Did you know western fondness to salt and salty foods is a learned habit? So is the liking of sweet things. If we never tasted salt or sugar in our youth, we would later in life find both yucky. Ever tasted food that was too salty or too sweet? There ya go...
So, next time you don't like a food that other people seem to enjoy, you can think whether the problem is in the other people, the food, or you.
Just as a note to the end, let it be mentioned that I did have a point to all this when I started writing but I forgot it. It had something to do with the actual food culture - not with eating habits. Well, maybe I'll re-do this post at some later time once I remember my actual point again.
Let me start with a few very simple and really short stories:
1. Today I ate some microwave food because I was too lazy to cook. I had some Spicy Eggplant and Salted Fish with Rice. In days prior I've had foods like Sichuan style beef, curry chicken in coconut milk and Rise, some Japanese style fried noodles with seafood, etc. These are all microwave foods.
2. My girlfriend's sister and her boyfriend were visiting us a few weeks back and I offered to cook. To the surprise of everyone, I made absolutely awesome meatballs together with brown sauce (secret ingredients included) with potatoes and a salad. I thought my cooking was awesome ("just like home!"), my girlfriend (who has some experience from my cooking before) thought it was "good", her sister and sister's boyfriend thought it was weird. Out of politeness they told me it's good, but as I asked my girlfriend later, I found the truth.
3. If I buy snacks, I buy potato chips, coke and sometimes sweets. If my girlfriend buys snacks, she'll get dried seaweed, fried prawn (or other seafood that is fried in similar way as chips), and maybe ice lemon tea for drink.
Of the above stories, number 2 is the most important for this topic. We Finns cringe at too exotic foods like, let's say, oriental seafood. We don't like tentacles in our food. However, as story 2 shows, not everyone agrees that potato is awesome. Or that a simple setting of three articles (=potato, meatballs and sauce) is enough to make a proper meal. I remember at the university some years back, the newly arrived Chinese (and some of the Europeans) exchange students found Finnish food very plain and boring - and again with the potatoes!
So, where am I getting with this? Well, it's what we all knew already before: Food is a matter of culture.
No big discovery there, eh?
It wasn't supposed to be a big discovery. It was to make a point of the fact, no food culture holds a de facto title "the best food in the world". We are often fooled to think that where we come from is better from "somewhere else". Especially if we come from Europe, the supposedly "better place" in the world.
I'll share two other stories.
4. When I was a toddler and up untill I was about 10 years old, I didn't like pizza at all. It didn't matter what was on it. I just didn't like pizza. I hated it. But then the unexpected cultural marvel from the America came to Finland and I found myself forced to accept that pizza is good. Turtles. I became a huge fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and like everyone knows, they just love pizza. Being a big fan of them, I could not NOT like pizza. So, I forced myself to like it. Didn't take me too long to like it, love it. And since then I always count pizza as one my favourite foods.
5. In my late teens when alcohol started playing a part in my life, I began with the "girlie drinks" like cider or vodka with blenders. Stuff like that. Anything that was sweet enough to cover the taste of alcohol would be good. Beer, no way. Beer was like crap. Well, one time me and some friends were on a budget and were forced to combine our monies and buy a case of cheap beer instead of expensive cider or long drink (it's always about the money-to-alcohol ration in that age). Didn't yet like beer after 4 bottles but for the sake of getting drunk, I was willing to accept it. After a few more beers, I was starting to like it. After few even more, it was good! Today, I actually like beer a lot. I really like it. I like it so much I may just buy one bottle for the taste of it and drink it without ever intending to get drunk.
Now, continuing about that discovery of "food is a matter of culture".
Prejudice - in this case culinary prejudice - keeps us from seeking new things we might enjoy after some subjugation. When we're young, our parents tell us to eat the veggies. We don't like them but our parents force us. As time goes by, we grow to accept them. Later we might even like them - enough at least to force our own kids to eat their veggies too. It's the same thing when we grow up. We don't like something and we don't want to eat it but this time there are no parents to force you. So you skip it. You never learn to like it either, though, but you could be missing out something. Great to be an adult.
Now, I'm a big fan of Cantonese food (a foodculture Markus bashed quite badly in July) but I didn't get this way just by picking up the safe foods. It's a lot of trial and error actually. The selection of dishes and whole styles of kitchen is simply so vast that it takes a lot of time to find the foods that are really honestly superb. In the mass of foods, there are some that are actually not that great - some are just misunderstood.
Hong Kong is mostly known, not only by Cantonese cuisine, but also because it has a really vast selection of world kitchens available (as mentioned by Markus as well). Granted, if you come here (or go anywhere) as a tourist, you're most likely given the finest things around. Tried foods, accepted by everyone. The tourist guidebooks will tell you what to eat and where to eat it. These restaurants will charge you extra but for that money you get an english menu and food that is "safe".
Stray from the path of guidebook righteousness and you'll find yourself staring at some very funky local foods. Not tried and tested cliché's but real local food. What is easily forgotten is that a vast majority of restaurants in Hong Kong actually offer food that should be graded "home cooking", not restaurant food. Their function is not to provide tourists fine dining experiences with first class wine, but offer local workers their low-cost lunch or dinner. We don't have ANY comparison points for these restaurants in Finland. None. Period. If you compare a Finnish restaurant to a Hong Kong one, stick to the restaurants in Hong Kong that serve tourists.
Anyway, I think I should start to summarize this post.
Story #1 tells us that despite Hongkongese people buying microwave foods, they don't go for western foods. They still like their own thing. Spaghetti is available, sure, but aside from that, most microwave foods I've found are very localized.
Story #2 emphasizes the above point by showing that even when served to the table, western food (no matter how good) won't make Hongkongese abolish their fondness to Cantonese food and convert to western cuisines.
Story #3 gives us a peek view that local preferences go to all aspects of food culture. The choice of snack sounds trivial but would you (our average Finnish reader) choose dried seaweed over potato chips for a night our at the cinema? Didn't think so.
Stories #4 and #5 finally prove that we all grow to like new things by subjugation. We like some things by nature, some we need to learn.
Did you know western fondness to salt and salty foods is a learned habit? So is the liking of sweet things. If we never tasted salt or sugar in our youth, we would later in life find both yucky. Ever tasted food that was too salty or too sweet? There ya go...
So, next time you don't like a food that other people seem to enjoy, you can think whether the problem is in the other people, the food, or you.
Just as a note to the end, let it be mentioned that I did have a point to all this when I started writing but I forgot it. It had something to do with the actual food culture - not with eating habits. Well, maybe I'll re-do this post at some later time once I remember my actual point again.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Bedroom magic
There's two kinds of magic that generally happen in bedrooms. The first one is what you all thought I would preach about, the second is geckos.
Geckos are awesome. In many countries, you'd have to build a big terrarium with funky gadgets for life-support and all that to have a pet gecko - and you'd have to feed them. Here, they are self-sufficient and don't even ask for permission to be your pet. They invite themselves in and make it home. Granted, they run around so fast that you don't get to see them a lot (that's why I don't have a picture taken of one yet). So, as such a pet, they're not as much fun maybe, even less so than a cat.
So, what's so bedroom magical about gecko's?
Well, the 'bedroom' parts comes from the fact that they invite themselves in, and pretty much go wherever they feel like going. Including the bedroom. Killing a gecko is not like killing a mosquito (a lot messier, and quite difficult as well - hence I've skipped that part so far), so they pretty much get their way. Besides, geckos are cool and they are effective insect-killing-machines so why would I want to kill one anyway? I can choose between having a cool gecko around, or a bunch of cockroaches and other insects. Not a difficult pick. Thus, if they want to go to the bedroom, they can, and they will. Luckily that doesn't happen so often, and usually not at a time when humans inhabit the bedroom - they have thing about people around and cool air (aircon).
The 'magic' part comes from the fact that geckos operate 97% on magic. This came as a surprise to me as I was researching into their case.
You noticed how geckos can walk on walls like it was no problem? That is because it is not a problem for them. In fact, they're wall-walking-wonders: No suction cups, no stickyness, liquids or surface tension! They stick to walls because (wikipedia):
Now get this (wikipedia again):
Artur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", and I can definiteky agree with that. With geckos, moreso, it's not even a technology - it's what they do naturally. Super awesome!
Now, I suppose that wraps it for geckos. I know there are tons of animals and creatures around with magical abilities. I just thought I'd share my liking to the powers of the gecko - since they've taken a liking to running around my apartment walls.
On the topic of bedroom magic, I could mention my thinking on the human bedroom magic as well, for what it comes to Asia and also how everything relates to my post earlier about sucky jobs.
Don't worry, this is mostly quite scientifical and proper.
In the 'working nations' of Asia (my freshly inveted word for China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) people work as if it was the sole purpose of human life. Or so it seems. In my sucky jobs post I brought the example of factory workers who most likely have to skip large parts of their personal life just to be able to work efficiently (and not lose their jobs). In Hong Kong, many people work 10-12 hours a day and have some overtime on top of that as well - 6 days a week.
In Japan, full-time workers, both male and female, average 55 hours of work per week. One in three men aged 30-40 puts in more than 60 hours a week. Half of them are not even being paid for any of their overtime. There was even a deathcase in July, when a 45-year-old engineer at Toyota died after working more than 80 hours of overtime a month.
In Korea, people rank highest in working hours in OECD country study: with 2390 hours a year (quick calculation: 2390 / 52 = 45.96), that's roughly 46 hours a week. South Korea and Japan are the only countries where death by work or "karoshi" (過労死) is a recognized phenomenon (wikipedia).
Anyway, to put a long story short, is it a wonder that the "working nations" of Asia rank low in sex studies? I just had a look at the Durex2005 Global Sex Survey, and under "Frequency of sex", you'll see that Japan ranks lowest (45 per year), Singapore (73), Hong Kong (78), Taiwan (88), China (96), all well below the global average (103). Finland scored 102 and the 'winner' was Greece with a score of 138. Sweden, for some reason, scored only 92. South Korea was not included.
I'm sure culture plays a very big part in this; the general view on sex and dating, and all that. However, if you spend such a great portion of your day at work, busting your balls (figuratively speaking especially if a girl/woman), you don't have much energy for anything - especially if you get home late and need to wake up early again. You manage to put some time for sex too, of course, but no way as much as the life-loving Europeans or other westeners who have jobs only to pay for the "life" and work as little as possible.
I don't know how Sweden's low (or the relatively low score of Finland) fit to this theory of mine, except that maybe the sampling wasn't really good - or, especially in Finland's case, plans for sex are frequent, but with alcohol and late-nights in the mix too, perhaps people tend to pass out and fall asleep before any action happens. Who knows.
Well anyway, that's all about bedroom magic now. Remember, geckos rock!
Tchau.
1 In, the van der Waals force (or van der Waals interaction), named after Dutch scientist, is the attractive or repulsive force between molecules (or between parts of the same molecule) other than those due to or to the electrostatic interaction of ions with one another or with neutral molecules.
Geckos are awesome. In many countries, you'd have to build a big terrarium with funky gadgets for life-support and all that to have a pet gecko - and you'd have to feed them. Here, they are self-sufficient and don't even ask for permission to be your pet. They invite themselves in and make it home. Granted, they run around so fast that you don't get to see them a lot (that's why I don't have a picture taken of one yet). So, as such a pet, they're not as much fun maybe, even less so than a cat.
So, what's so bedroom magical about gecko's?
Well, the 'bedroom' parts comes from the fact that they invite themselves in, and pretty much go wherever they feel like going. Including the bedroom. Killing a gecko is not like killing a mosquito (a lot messier, and quite difficult as well - hence I've skipped that part so far), so they pretty much get their way. Besides, geckos are cool and they are effective insect-killing-machines so why would I want to kill one anyway? I can choose between having a cool gecko around, or a bunch of cockroaches and other insects. Not a difficult pick. Thus, if they want to go to the bedroom, they can, and they will. Luckily that doesn't happen so often, and usually not at a time when humans inhabit the bedroom - they have thing about people around and cool air (aircon).
The 'magic' part comes from the fact that geckos operate 97% on magic. This came as a surprise to me as I was researching into their case.
You noticed how geckos can walk on walls like it was no problem? That is because it is not a problem for them. In fact, they're wall-walking-wonders: No suction cups, no stickyness, liquids or surface tension! They stick to walls because (wikipedia):
- ...the patula tipped setae on gecko footpads demonstrate that the attractive forces that hold geckos to surfaces are van der Waals interactions1 between the finely divided setae and the surfaces themselves
- Every square millimeter of a gecko's footpad contains about 14,000 hair-like setae
- Each seta has a diameter of 5 micrometers (human hair varies from 18 to 180 micrometer, so a human hair could hold between 3 to 30 setae)
- Each seta is in turn tipped with between 100 and 1,000 spatulae
- Each spatula is 0.2 micrometres long (200 billionths of a metre), or just below the wavelength of visible light
Now get this (wikipedia again):
- Geckos' toes operate well below their full attractive capabilities for most of the time (...because there is a great margin for error depending upon the roughness of the surface [and so they compensate and leave room for error])
- If a typical mature 70 g gecko had every one of its setae in contact with a surface, it would be capable of holding aloft a weight of 133 kg
Artur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.", and I can definiteky agree with that. With geckos, moreso, it's not even a technology - it's what they do naturally. Super awesome!
Now, I suppose that wraps it for geckos. I know there are tons of animals and creatures around with magical abilities. I just thought I'd share my liking to the powers of the gecko - since they've taken a liking to running around my apartment walls.
On the topic of bedroom magic, I could mention my thinking on the human bedroom magic as well, for what it comes to Asia and also how everything relates to my post earlier about sucky jobs.
Don't worry, this is mostly quite scientifical and proper.
In the 'working nations' of Asia (my freshly inveted word for China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan) people work as if it was the sole purpose of human life. Or so it seems. In my sucky jobs post I brought the example of factory workers who most likely have to skip large parts of their personal life just to be able to work efficiently (and not lose their jobs). In Hong Kong, many people work 10-12 hours a day and have some overtime on top of that as well - 6 days a week.
In Japan, full-time workers, both male and female, average 55 hours of work per week. One in three men aged 30-40 puts in more than 60 hours a week. Half of them are not even being paid for any of their overtime. There was even a deathcase in July, when a 45-year-old engineer at Toyota died after working more than 80 hours of overtime a month.
In Korea, people rank highest in working hours in OECD country study: with 2390 hours a year (quick calculation: 2390 / 52 = 45.96), that's roughly 46 hours a week. South Korea and Japan are the only countries where death by work or "karoshi" (過労死) is a recognized phenomenon (wikipedia).
Anyway, to put a long story short, is it a wonder that the "working nations" of Asia rank low in sex studies? I just had a look at the Durex2005 Global Sex Survey, and under "Frequency of sex", you'll see that Japan ranks lowest (45 per year), Singapore (73), Hong Kong (78), Taiwan (88), China (96), all well below the global average (103). Finland scored 102 and the 'winner' was Greece with a score of 138. Sweden, for some reason, scored only 92. South Korea was not included.
I'm sure culture plays a very big part in this; the general view on sex and dating, and all that. However, if you spend such a great portion of your day at work, busting your balls (figuratively speaking especially if a girl/woman), you don't have much energy for anything - especially if you get home late and need to wake up early again. You manage to put some time for sex too, of course, but no way as much as the life-loving Europeans or other westeners who have jobs only to pay for the "life" and work as little as possible.
I don't know how Sweden's low (or the relatively low score of Finland) fit to this theory of mine, except that maybe the sampling wasn't really good - or, especially in Finland's case, plans for sex are frequent, but with alcohol and late-nights in the mix too, perhaps people tend to pass out and fall asleep before any action happens. Who knows.
Well anyway, that's all about bedroom magic now. Remember, geckos rock!
Tchau.
1 In, the van der Waals force (or van der Waals interaction), named after Dutch scientist, is the attractive or repulsive force between molecules (or between parts of the same molecule) other than those due to or to the electrostatic interaction of ions with one another or with neutral molecules.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Same guy, same gibberish, new location.
Back online and back to posting. I got my internet working again yesterday. That is not to say it wasn’t working before – it’s just a good opening statement implying a kind of a restrain on posting. The thing is, I was actually without internet only for about 20 hours. But let’s not go into trivial details. I’m back online and that’s all that matters.
The reason I was offline for 20 hours is that I’m now living in a new location. I quit my old job and changed to a new one. And with old job gone, so was the old apartment (which was arranged by the old company). And on Sunday as I left my old place in the afternoon, I had to wait until Monday morning to get the internet transferred to my new address.
The new apartment is in a village area of Hong Kong called Kam Tin (it’s under Yuen Long district). It’s a very, very traditional style area in Hong Kong and if you’re thinking skyscrapers or high-rise apartments, you can stop right there. There’s nothing here that is taller than 10 meters. And I live in ground floor – not 48th like before.
Outside we got dirt, bugs, smells and all the fancy things that make a place authentic and real. Inside, so far, I’ve killed a few ants, one small cockroach, a spider and things I’m not even sure what they were. My building is inside a wall of other buildings with distances from 1 to 4 feet of each others. Building next doors is over 100 years old. My main view in all windows is a brick wall.
I fully-heartedly enjoy this place, however. It’s something completely different, again, from anything I’ve experienced so far. The lifestyle is very different, the people are very different and the whole structure of life here is very different. When you think of Hong Kong you think of skyscrapers, shopping malls and modern big city life. When you think of Kam Tin, you think different.
I haven’t had the chance to take many pictures yet but I will. I was going to today, but we got a nasty rain until now and I didn’t feel like getting wet – again.
In the last two days I’ve gone out four times. Three times I got surprised by rain without me having an umbrella. Fourth time I went out and had an umbrella. It stopped raining after a minute. It’s not an easy life. Also, there was a T8 typhoon warning yesterday, I went shopping for some additional cabinets for my new apartment (the second time I was out). While I was walking outside the wind threw a speck into my eye and it hurt. Typhoons are a serious matter!!
To drag this post once more off-topic, let it be noted that the younger generation of my girlfriend’s extended family now refer to me as 哈囉哥哥 (haalougogo) which basically means Hello Brother (older brother) which I assume is because the only thing I say at family gatherings is “hello” to everyone, as I come in. And then I sit mute until the rest of the evening. Nice.
Anyway, off now. With my current and changed life-situation I’m sure I’ll be posting more, and I’ll be having more to post about too. So tchau!
The reason I was offline for 20 hours is that I’m now living in a new location. I quit my old job and changed to a new one. And with old job gone, so was the old apartment (which was arranged by the old company). And on Sunday as I left my old place in the afternoon, I had to wait until Monday morning to get the internet transferred to my new address.
The new apartment is in a village area of Hong Kong called Kam Tin (it’s under Yuen Long district). It’s a very, very traditional style area in Hong Kong and if you’re thinking skyscrapers or high-rise apartments, you can stop right there. There’s nothing here that is taller than 10 meters. And I live in ground floor – not 48th like before.
Outside we got dirt, bugs, smells and all the fancy things that make a place authentic and real. Inside, so far, I’ve killed a few ants, one small cockroach, a spider and things I’m not even sure what they were. My building is inside a wall of other buildings with distances from 1 to 4 feet of each others. Building next doors is over 100 years old. My main view in all windows is a brick wall.
I fully-heartedly enjoy this place, however. It’s something completely different, again, from anything I’ve experienced so far. The lifestyle is very different, the people are very different and the whole structure of life here is very different. When you think of Hong Kong you think of skyscrapers, shopping malls and modern big city life. When you think of Kam Tin, you think different.
I haven’t had the chance to take many pictures yet but I will. I was going to today, but we got a nasty rain until now and I didn’t feel like getting wet – again.
In the last two days I’ve gone out four times. Three times I got surprised by rain without me having an umbrella. Fourth time I went out and had an umbrella. It stopped raining after a minute. It’s not an easy life. Also, there was a T8 typhoon warning yesterday, I went shopping for some additional cabinets for my new apartment (the second time I was out). While I was walking outside the wind threw a speck into my eye and it hurt. Typhoons are a serious matter!!
To drag this post once more off-topic, let it be noted that the younger generation of my girlfriend’s extended family now refer to me as 哈囉哥哥 (haalougogo) which basically means Hello Brother (older brother) which I assume is because the only thing I say at family gatherings is “hello” to everyone, as I come in. And then I sit mute until the rest of the evening. Nice.
Anyway, off now. With my current and changed life-situation I’m sure I’ll be posting more, and I’ll be having more to post about too. So tchau!
Friday, July 25, 2008
My favourite colour is transparent
I'll be off to Finland for a few week holiday so my posting will be slow for a while. With that said, let's move to the two issues at hand.
There is a trainstation close to the border of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Not the KCR station, but the real train station. It's a really nice and modern station. The trains on Chinese railways (especially in our neighbourhood) tend to be quite new as well. With the economy booming, China has been improving the infrastructure quite well, and it's a really nice feeling taking a train which smells like a new car.
Anyway. The train station in Shenzhen. For incoming trains, there is one platform and one small exit from it. The exit is about 5 meters wide and has stairs going down. What this means is that when a train unloads its passengers to the station (last station on the rail), the whole system just chokes.
It takes forever to get anywhere. It's ridiculous!.. The reason I'm writing this is that I had to wait for a good 10 minutes to get out of the platform in the blazing heat of mid-day sun. I was wearing a full suit (had a meeting earlier) and carrying my bags. And I was sweating like a pig. Not your cute little piglet but a fullgrown swine.
Warm weather is nice. Sunny days are nice. Even hot weather can be nice sometimes. But NEVER when wearing a suit! Damn it all to hell.
Few hundred little Chinese trying to squeeze through a 5 meter opening all at once. And one super pissed off Gweilo.
No point in the above. Nor in the below.
One thing I've noticed in Hong Kong (and now in China too) is that a large percentage of girls/women in Hong Kong (and probably in China) who dye their hair are actually not that good looking. And they are probably thinking that doing these kind of "improvements" would somehow improve their situation and make them stick out of the crowd to their advantage. Well, no. They don't.
What they do, is attract attention, yes. But... You see an asian girl with a funky colour hair and you're bound to pay attention. 'First mission accomplished', thinks the girl. But you'll quickly realize that despite the hair colour it's just an ugly broad.
Fail.
Off to Finland in 7 hours. Super fun times. Tchau!
There is a trainstation close to the border of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Not the KCR station, but the real train station. It's a really nice and modern station. The trains on Chinese railways (especially in our neighbourhood) tend to be quite new as well. With the economy booming, China has been improving the infrastructure quite well, and it's a really nice feeling taking a train which smells like a new car.
Anyway. The train station in Shenzhen. For incoming trains, there is one platform and one small exit from it. The exit is about 5 meters wide and has stairs going down. What this means is that when a train unloads its passengers to the station (last station on the rail), the whole system just chokes.
It takes forever to get anywhere. It's ridiculous!.. The reason I'm writing this is that I had to wait for a good 10 minutes to get out of the platform in the blazing heat of mid-day sun. I was wearing a full suit (had a meeting earlier) and carrying my bags. And I was sweating like a pig. Not your cute little piglet but a fullgrown swine.
Warm weather is nice. Sunny days are nice. Even hot weather can be nice sometimes. But NEVER when wearing a suit! Damn it all to hell.
Few hundred little Chinese trying to squeeze through a 5 meter opening all at once. And one super pissed off Gweilo.
No point in the above. Nor in the below.
One thing I've noticed in Hong Kong (and now in China too) is that a large percentage of girls/women in Hong Kong (and probably in China) who dye their hair are actually not that good looking. And they are probably thinking that doing these kind of "improvements" would somehow improve their situation and make them stick out of the crowd to their advantage. Well, no. They don't.
What they do, is attract attention, yes. But... You see an asian girl with a funky colour hair and you're bound to pay attention. 'First mission accomplished', thinks the girl. But you'll quickly realize that despite the hair colour it's just an ugly broad.
Fail.
Off to Finland in 7 hours. Super fun times. Tchau!
Thursday, July 17, 2008
I'm a happy consumer.
Brands. Hong Kong is full them. Hong Kong is full of people whose life's only purpose is to boast on new, expensive things. You don't go for just one or two expensive things like a watch or a fancy shirt, no, you go for the full package. You have to have expensive everything on you. It doesn't really matter if you live in a shithole in the Chinese border, or under a bridge in Fanlin. No. What is important is that whenever you're out in the public you can wear the finest things available and look like you're worth millions.
Once I heard my girlfriend call LV bags the "uniform of Hong Kong". Sadly, it's a very truthful way of putting it. Every time you step outside, you will see LV bags somewhere. If you take a look at people queuing somewhere, there's at least a few LV's there too. If not LV, then it's Gucci, Burberry or any of the sort.
I can feel it my fingers, I can feel it in my toes. Brands are all around us. Branding doesn't stop with clothes, of course.
It's amazing how much money locals use on anything from Japan. It's like Japan is a magical land where only good things come. Put a few kanji or katakana characters on a product and it's an instant success. This works especially in cosmetics and skincare products.
Yesterday I was watching a TV show (local channel in Cantonese) which was pretty much like any talk show where they might discuss politics, or the days topics, etc. Well, this program was about new brand products in the market. I don't really know if there's any other point to the show than this, but from what I saw, it's just another marketing tool for companies. This time, a Japanese skincare product company was given a generous 15 minutes for promoting their product with computer animations (the kind of animations that prove the product works without a question) and everything - and the host supporting this obviously superior product (has to be superior because it comes with a big price tag). I didn't really understand a word said on the show, but the message was clear enough. Go and buy!!
A more obvious channel of information for those with material aspirations are the local magazines. They are full of articles about new brand products. Page after page of pictures and product information. They even tell the price for all these new products so that once you see someone wearing/carrying it, you will know how much it cost. And of course, if you have bought one yourself, you can rest assured that everyone seeing you will know how much you spent on that dreamy new LV bag of yours.
There's nothing wrong with brands, of course. There's nothing wrong in bringing a guarantee to the market only brands can provide. In fact, I'm a big fan of brands.
However, the extent in which brands are worshiped in Hong Kong is quite disturbing. Less would do just fine. You have people who make HKD 10,000 or less a month, spending way more than their monthly income on single products. You have people incredibly shallow and materialistic, who will start and end relationships based on the income of their companions and the value of the gifts they give.
When I started going out with my girlfriend, my income was among the first questions she received from her friends. And I am sure they weren't asking out of concern to my financial health.
Anyway, as a final thing, at least Hong Kong people in general know how to dress. When they buy their expensive brand products, they have an idea how to use the product in a proper context. Mainland Chinese (the Nouveau riche), however, can't dress for shit. They buy the garments with the biggest logo available and have no consideration of how the different colours/designs go together with the other things they wear. It's funny. Even in Hong Kong, you can still quite easily tell who is Hong Kong native, who is from Mainland China by what people wear. Of course this is a generalization, but you see these things happen all the time. And it really is funny.
That's about all time I have for today. Maybe I'll get back on the topic of brands later. It is a broad topic to cover. Anyways, off now. Laters.
Once I heard my girlfriend call LV bags the "uniform of Hong Kong". Sadly, it's a very truthful way of putting it. Every time you step outside, you will see LV bags somewhere. If you take a look at people queuing somewhere, there's at least a few LV's there too. If not LV, then it's Gucci, Burberry or any of the sort.
I can feel it my fingers, I can feel it in my toes. Brands are all around us. Branding doesn't stop with clothes, of course.
It's amazing how much money locals use on anything from Japan. It's like Japan is a magical land where only good things come. Put a few kanji or katakana characters on a product and it's an instant success. This works especially in cosmetics and skincare products.
Yesterday I was watching a TV show (local channel in Cantonese) which was pretty much like any talk show where they might discuss politics, or the days topics, etc. Well, this program was about new brand products in the market. I don't really know if there's any other point to the show than this, but from what I saw, it's just another marketing tool for companies. This time, a Japanese skincare product company was given a generous 15 minutes for promoting their product with computer animations (the kind of animations that prove the product works without a question) and everything - and the host supporting this obviously superior product (has to be superior because it comes with a big price tag). I didn't really understand a word said on the show, but the message was clear enough. Go and buy!!
A more obvious channel of information for those with material aspirations are the local magazines. They are full of articles about new brand products. Page after page of pictures and product information. They even tell the price for all these new products so that once you see someone wearing/carrying it, you will know how much it cost. And of course, if you have bought one yourself, you can rest assured that everyone seeing you will know how much you spent on that dreamy new LV bag of yours.
There's nothing wrong with brands, of course. There's nothing wrong in bringing a guarantee to the market only brands can provide. In fact, I'm a big fan of brands.
However, the extent in which brands are worshiped in Hong Kong is quite disturbing. Less would do just fine. You have people who make HKD 10,000 or less a month, spending way more than their monthly income on single products. You have people incredibly shallow and materialistic, who will start and end relationships based on the income of their companions and the value of the gifts they give.
When I started going out with my girlfriend, my income was among the first questions she received from her friends. And I am sure they weren't asking out of concern to my financial health.
Anyway, as a final thing, at least Hong Kong people in general know how to dress. When they buy their expensive brand products, they have an idea how to use the product in a proper context. Mainland Chinese (the Nouveau riche), however, can't dress for shit. They buy the garments with the biggest logo available and have no consideration of how the different colours/designs go together with the other things they wear. It's funny. Even in Hong Kong, you can still quite easily tell who is Hong Kong native, who is from Mainland China by what people wear. Of course this is a generalization, but you see these things happen all the time. And it really is funny.
That's about all time I have for today. Maybe I'll get back on the topic of brands later. It is a broad topic to cover. Anyways, off now. Laters.
"I'm a happy consumer! And you know, I'm concerned about what my children consume! I'd like to consume the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun right now -- blam!' - Bill Hicks
Sunday, July 6, 2008
More about Power and Distance
To supplement Markvs's post about Power Distance, I must say that having a short (or is it small - two words you don't want to hear from a woman anyway) Power Distance isn't that great either with the wrong boss.
The thing about short power distance is that while your boss is more friendly with you, and maybe acknowledges your skills better - you might not want him to do either.
Let's elaborate:
Having a boss as a friend is great, if the particular person is someone you'd most likely to be friends with anyway. However, when a boss you don't really like wants to be friends, the situation turns crap. You don't want his attention, you don't want any extra crap. You just want to do your job. Period.
In a proper company, if you have to do overtime or anything extra, there is a proper compensation for it. Or at least something is agreed upon. In a "friendly" company, there's a chance the extra work turns to be the standard, and are expected to do extra work because you're all such a big happy family, all putting in 130% effort for the common cause.
And he acknowledges your skills, eh? Well great. He can throw more work at you! Super fun since now you can work extra tasks.
"Our company hires several professionals"
Wrong, it's one guy doing several people's jobs at one go. And no need to hire any more people.
Well, of course not all bosses are like that, and having a short power distance can be the greatest thing ever. However, though maybe most bosses are not total pricks, all it takes is one. Your own boss.
Nothing personal here, of course.
The thing about short power distance is that while your boss is more friendly with you, and maybe acknowledges your skills better - you might not want him to do either.
Let's elaborate:
Having a boss as a friend is great, if the particular person is someone you'd most likely to be friends with anyway. However, when a boss you don't really like wants to be friends, the situation turns crap. You don't want his attention, you don't want any extra crap. You just want to do your job. Period.
In a proper company, if you have to do overtime or anything extra, there is a proper compensation for it. Or at least something is agreed upon. In a "friendly" company, there's a chance the extra work turns to be the standard, and are expected to do extra work because you're all such a big happy family, all putting in 130% effort for the common cause.
And he acknowledges your skills, eh? Well great. He can throw more work at you! Super fun since now you can work extra tasks.
"Our company hires several professionals"
Wrong, it's one guy doing several people's jobs at one go. And no need to hire any more people.
Well, of course not all bosses are like that, and having a short power distance can be the greatest thing ever. However, though maybe most bosses are not total pricks, all it takes is one. Your own boss.
Nothing personal here, of course.
The story so far.
Dearly Beloved,
we are gathered here today in the presence of these virtual none-to-be-seen-witnesses, to join OP and Markvs and Lasse and Me (Pekka) in matrimony that is absolutely not at all gay, which is commended to be honorable among all men (in an un-gaily manner); and therefore – is not by any – to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly – but reverently, discreetly, advisedly and solemnly. Into this holy estate these four persons present now come to be joined. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together – let them speak now or forever hold their peace.
So STFU.
I'm Pekka, or Pkeku, or Beix, or that-bum-from-TuncChung, I have many names all equally unimpressive and unimportant. I'm the second one of the two writers of this blog who live in Hong Kong. I can't say my output will be worth more than a few jacks and some shit, but I'll make my best to leave the stupid jabbering behing of which I'm previously known for in my old blog Sunset Station.
As the tradition is, I've never had a workable or interesting topic to cover. To honour that tradition, I don't have one now either. Hence I will stop the jabbering but with a promise of more equally worthless post to come.
Tchau! (That's italian for "I never ment to sleep with your sister", used together with fast-paced running movement in the away direction.)
we are gathered here today in the presence of these virtual none-to-be-seen-witnesses, to join OP and Markvs and Lasse and Me (Pekka) in matrimony that is absolutely not at all gay, which is commended to be honorable among all men (in an un-gaily manner); and therefore – is not by any – to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly – but reverently, discreetly, advisedly and solemnly. Into this holy estate these four persons present now come to be joined. If any person can show just cause why they may not be joined together – let them speak now or forever hold their peace.
So STFU.
I'm Pekka, or Pkeku, or Beix, or that-bum-from-TuncChung, I have many names all equally unimpressive and unimportant. I'm the second one of the two writers of this blog who live in Hong Kong. I can't say my output will be worth more than a few jacks and some shit, but I'll make my best to leave the stupid jabbering behing of which I'm previously known for in my old blog Sunset Station.
As the tradition is, I've never had a workable or interesting topic to cover. To honour that tradition, I don't have one now either. Hence I will stop the jabbering but with a promise of more equally worthless post to come.
Tchau! (That's italian for "I never ment to sleep with your sister", used together with fast-paced running movement in the away direction.)
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