Sixteen Volts

Don't you find it stunning how few bright fools compare their prescriptions to 4,000 years of actual human experience?

We don't usually even have to back 40 years, let alone 4000. When I first heard about those little PlayStation Portables and that there was some new disk format that enables users to play movies on those nifty little machines, I was somewhat skeptical of the underlying assumption that people would want to watch movies on a screen that is not much bigger than a postage stamp. Apparently somebody in the company has now come to his senses, since "Sony Kills Off UMD Movies".

Dennis Mangan seems like a guy that I would like to be in twenty years or so. I will probably not be wearing a lab coat, though. Dennis has put up three posts about the phenomenon of "woman shortage" (part one, two, three), and as he points out, once we get to the fortysomethings and up the original shortage has reversed, for the simple reason that a lot more men fall through the cracks and simply die off, compared to women. Just go take a look at the nearest homeless shelter. The stark reality actually starts to hit in at the big three-oh, when it turns out that some lifestyle choices were simply better than some other ones, and those guys who were so exciting at the age of twenty start looking stupid or a bit scary when they just sit around the pub unemployed at thirty (Europe) or pump gas (USA).

Other interesting new posts by Dennis are "How Much Do You Need for Retirement If You're Going to Live a Very, Very Long Time?" and "Methuselah's Retirement Plan", concerning the question of how much to save for retirement in light of increasing lifespans and life extension and rejuvenation treatments becoming available in the future.

I remember watching some news program a few months ago about the crisis in American public schools. When the reported explained how poor some school is and how it lacks certain things so that, for example, during the gym class kids run outside, I had to wonder what exactly is supposed to be wrong with that school, since it didn't seem that different from the elementary school I went for the first six years when I was a kid. Had no problems there and I remember how in the end of the sixth year, the principal in the end-of-the-year ceremony announced that there had been no need to give even one detention during that year. Well, things certainly turned out to be different when I went to the junior high next year at the next block, but anyways. Fred Reed has a new essay "Reflections On The Boy Crisis" in which he reminisces about his school days back in the day.

Last, Psych Central offers us "List of ethnic slurs". I can't speak any other language than English or Finnish, but I bet that you could pick pretty much any language and it will contain as many racial and ethnic slurs as either of these two.

Posted by Ilkka Kokkarinen on Friday, July 14, 2006 at 5:37 PM