I live in an old, huge house.
It is more a building than a house.
It is three stories and 500 square meters.
I love it in Summer and hate it in Winter.
Because in Summer you can always choose between melting on the last floor and cooling down in the cellar, while in Winter it is icy cold on all the three floors (including the fourth which is the cellar).
We have a central gas heating which is getting so dearly expensive that the moment you switch it on is already a few minutes too late for shutting it down completely.
That is, there is the moment you feel so desperately cold that you forget the price, but as soon as your limbs get warmer you remember the last bill and you decide that a little bit of cold never killed anybody and certainly it won't kill you.
They said Pellets heating is much cheaper also because the State, which is always late when it comes to progress, hasn't realized yet the growing number of users.
So, said and done.
On Monday we'll get a brand new pellet stove and this morning we got 150 bags of 15 Kg of nice, good smelling pellet.
It already began to warm us.
Those 150 bags were delivered on the first floor, while the stove will be active on the last floor.
The reason being that this is "just" mt.2,70 ceiling compared to the mt.3,70 of the other two floors and so easier to warm.
So, the 150 bags, each of 15 Kg. have to be moved up three floors, 34 steps for floor, that makes 74 steps, easier to say than to do.
After the first 17 you already feel much warmer, when you reach the top you are terribly hot.
They were right, this pellet business will keep us comfortably warm...
Saturday, October 21, 2006
The humanization of technology.
The worker of the industrial revolution has participated in the economic progress of capitalistic society, profited from it, and, indeed has a great deal more to loose than his chains.
The social machine works more efficiently if individuals are cut down to purely quantifiable units.
In order to reach this result men must be de-individualized and taught to find their identity in the corporation rather than in themselves.
To enhance the company's efficiency may mean endanger feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and frustration in the employees which may lead to either indifference or hostility.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
A high standard of living doesn't make people happier, on the contrary, makes them passive, depersonalized and manipulated.
This modern society gave birth not only to goods, but to expectations and needs as well.
Man has always had needs, but they came from his inside, now they are created from the outside.
"If you want to be the best, you must have the most."
Man sees himself not for what he is, but for what he has.
The increasing dissatisfaction with our present way of life, its passiveness and silent boredom, its lack of privacy and its depersonalisation and the longing for a joyful, meaningful existence, which answers those specific needs of man, which he has developed in the last few thousand years of his history and which make him different from the animal as well as from the computer.
This tendency is all the stronger because the different part of the population has already tested full material satisfaction and has found out that the consumer's paradise does not deliver the happiness it promised.
The poor of course, have not yet had any chance to find out, except by watching the lack of joy of those who "have everything a man could want".
At the moment, one of the gravest symptoms of the American system is the fact that their economy rests upon arms production (plus maintenance of the whole defence establishment) and on the principle of maximal consumption.
They transform the individual into a total passive consumer and this deaden him, and they created a bureaucracy which makes the individual feel impotent.
Must we produce sick people in order to have a healthy economy?
Must people be passive and dependent in order to have strong and well functioning organizations?
The dehumanized society won't be the victor, the people sooner or later will fully be aware of the thread the technological world poses to man's personal and spiritual life, and they will assert their freedom by upsetting the course of this evolution.
People seek a new orientation, a new philosophy, one which is interested on the priorities of life, physically and spiritually and not on the priorities of death.
This new fact is a movement which combines the wish for profound changes in our economy and social practice with its most general form, its aim is the activation of the individual, the restoration of man's control over the social system, the humanization of technology.
The social machine works more efficiently if individuals are cut down to purely quantifiable units.
In order to reach this result men must be de-individualized and taught to find their identity in the corporation rather than in themselves.
To enhance the company's efficiency may mean endanger feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and frustration in the employees which may lead to either indifference or hostility.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
A high standard of living doesn't make people happier, on the contrary, makes them passive, depersonalized and manipulated.
This modern society gave birth not only to goods, but to expectations and needs as well.
Man has always had needs, but they came from his inside, now they are created from the outside.
"If you want to be the best, you must have the most."
Man sees himself not for what he is, but for what he has.
The increasing dissatisfaction with our present way of life, its passiveness and silent boredom, its lack of privacy and its depersonalisation and the longing for a joyful, meaningful existence, which answers those specific needs of man, which he has developed in the last few thousand years of his history and which make him different from the animal as well as from the computer.
This tendency is all the stronger because the different part of the population has already tested full material satisfaction and has found out that the consumer's paradise does not deliver the happiness it promised.
The poor of course, have not yet had any chance to find out, except by watching the lack of joy of those who "have everything a man could want".
At the moment, one of the gravest symptoms of the American system is the fact that their economy rests upon arms production (plus maintenance of the whole defence establishment) and on the principle of maximal consumption.
They transform the individual into a total passive consumer and this deaden him, and they created a bureaucracy which makes the individual feel impotent.
Must we produce sick people in order to have a healthy economy?
Must people be passive and dependent in order to have strong and well functioning organizations?
The dehumanized society won't be the victor, the people sooner or later will fully be aware of the thread the technological world poses to man's personal and spiritual life, and they will assert their freedom by upsetting the course of this evolution.
People seek a new orientation, a new philosophy, one which is interested on the priorities of life, physically and spiritually and not on the priorities of death.
This new fact is a movement which combines the wish for profound changes in our economy and social practice with its most general form, its aim is the activation of the individual, the restoration of man's control over the social system, the humanization of technology.
Friday, October 20, 2006
America's lifestyle
"Islam does not hate freedom, democracy or even the "American way of life". It is the price other people have to pay for America to have that way of life - that is what has everybody so pissed off.
I have for years tried to tell anyone interested in discussing the subject this very thing against reassurances to the contrary by every single person. They insist that foreigners love Americans and everything American.
I believe it to be irrelevant in either case as it will and has been decided at the macro-economic level. When goods stop crossing borders Armies do. When western hegemony can no longer be enforced and it is no longer in China's interest, that is when U.S. consumption becomes detrimental to their growth and development decisions will be made regardless of what ordinary citizens think."
NO COMMENT.
I have for years tried to tell anyone interested in discussing the subject this very thing against reassurances to the contrary by every single person. They insist that foreigners love Americans and everything American.
I believe it to be irrelevant in either case as it will and has been decided at the macro-economic level. When goods stop crossing borders Armies do. When western hegemony can no longer be enforced and it is no longer in China's interest, that is when U.S. consumption becomes detrimental to their growth and development decisions will be made regardless of what ordinary citizens think."
NO COMMENT.
About pay-blogging
The insidious effort to buy bloggers’ voice and credibility in the name of buzz just won’t stop. So I want to make my own blogger’s pledge to you:
1. No one can buy my editorial voice or opinion.
2. No one can buy my editorial space; if it’s an ad it will clearly be an ad.
3. No one should be confused about the source of anything on my pages.
4. I will disclose my business relationships whenever it is relevant and possible.
Jeff Jarvis
Everything you say is wonderful and I am sure it would be difficult to find somebody who disagrees.
But there are several points which you do not mention.
First: you can blog as a hobby and you can shout whatever you like.
But then you need a real job and may be you do not have so much time left for blogging.
Second: is it so important to know if you really like or enjoy something or you say it because you are paid?
There are millions on this earth who like things I do not, and I usually do not buy something because Madonna says it is great.
Every idealism is wonderful on the paper, but the moment it reaches reality is not as shiny as it looked.
Because it doesn't consider the humanity as it is.
It is wonderful to be honest, to pay the taxes till the last dollar (or euro) not to cheat your wife, not to drink, not to swear, not to eat too much, to do exercises every morning and so on...
Ideal life should be like that.
But life is usually lived by human beings who have to make ends meet, yes also the ends of their need to be a little less perfect and a little more human.
All this to say:
How many of us would like to be offered 5000 dollars to write a post on a blog...
Why do they always ask the ones who are too honest to accept...
Do not misunderstand me, I am just trying to be a little more understandable, a little less God...
1. No one can buy my editorial voice or opinion.
2. No one can buy my editorial space; if it’s an ad it will clearly be an ad.
3. No one should be confused about the source of anything on my pages.
4. I will disclose my business relationships whenever it is relevant and possible.
Jeff Jarvis
Everything you say is wonderful and I am sure it would be difficult to find somebody who disagrees.
But there are several points which you do not mention.
First: you can blog as a hobby and you can shout whatever you like.
But then you need a real job and may be you do not have so much time left for blogging.
Second: is it so important to know if you really like or enjoy something or you say it because you are paid?
There are millions on this earth who like things I do not, and I usually do not buy something because Madonna says it is great.
Every idealism is wonderful on the paper, but the moment it reaches reality is not as shiny as it looked.
Because it doesn't consider the humanity as it is.
It is wonderful to be honest, to pay the taxes till the last dollar (or euro) not to cheat your wife, not to drink, not to swear, not to eat too much, to do exercises every morning and so on...
Ideal life should be like that.
But life is usually lived by human beings who have to make ends meet, yes also the ends of their need to be a little less perfect and a little more human.
All this to say:
How many of us would like to be offered 5000 dollars to write a post on a blog...
Why do they always ask the ones who are too honest to accept...
Do not misunderstand me, I am just trying to be a little more understandable, a little less God...
Sunday, October 15, 2006
About TV
Once television was a kind of entertainment and not a widespread disease.
There was even a period in which it was considered something belonging to the lower orders.
The middle class was almost proud of not possessing a television set.
Television however, has slowly conquered-in varying degree- all layers of society and, whether we like it or not, it has come to stay.
The main and most glorious achievement of television is that is killing the art of conversation.
If we think of the type of conversation television is helping to kill, our gratitude must be undying.
The trouble is that it has not yet killed enough of it.
On the whole I like television very much indeed.
The reasons for my devotion are these:
1) Television is one of the chief architect of prosperity.
If you are able to scratch your left ear with your right foot blindfold and watched by ten million giggling spectators, then you are practically certain to be sent to Majorca for a three weeks' holiday.
2) Television has united the family, by keeping the family at home, gaping at it round the family heart.
3) Television causes more friction in family life than any other single factor by offering unique scope for quarrels as to which programme to watch.
4) Television is of great educational value.
It teaches you how:
a) to kill
b) to rob
c) to shoot
d) to poison
5) Television puts a stop to crime because all the bulglars and robbers, instead of going to burgle and rob, sit at home watching TV.
This is valid for the national language speaking bulglars and robbers, that is why it is of the utmost importance to broadcast programs in multilanguage.
6) Television has undeniably raised the general level of culture throughout the country.
Some people allege that it has killed the habit of reading and thinking, but there is no truth in this.
I have yet to meet a person who gave up his methodical study of, say, Early Etruscan civilisation in order to be able to watch more of the "Big Brother".
There was even a period in which it was considered something belonging to the lower orders.
The middle class was almost proud of not possessing a television set.
Television however, has slowly conquered-in varying degree- all layers of society and, whether we like it or not, it has come to stay.
The main and most glorious achievement of television is that is killing the art of conversation.
If we think of the type of conversation television is helping to kill, our gratitude must be undying.
The trouble is that it has not yet killed enough of it.
On the whole I like television very much indeed.
The reasons for my devotion are these:
1) Television is one of the chief architect of prosperity.
If you are able to scratch your left ear with your right foot blindfold and watched by ten million giggling spectators, then you are practically certain to be sent to Majorca for a three weeks' holiday.
2) Television has united the family, by keeping the family at home, gaping at it round the family heart.
3) Television causes more friction in family life than any other single factor by offering unique scope for quarrels as to which programme to watch.
4) Television is of great educational value.
It teaches you how:
a) to kill
b) to rob
c) to shoot
d) to poison
5) Television puts a stop to crime because all the bulglars and robbers, instead of going to burgle and rob, sit at home watching TV.
This is valid for the national language speaking bulglars and robbers, that is why it is of the utmost importance to broadcast programs in multilanguage.
6) Television has undeniably raised the general level of culture throughout the country.
Some people allege that it has killed the habit of reading and thinking, but there is no truth in this.
I have yet to meet a person who gave up his methodical study of, say, Early Etruscan civilisation in order to be able to watch more of the "Big Brother".
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