mandarine

I promise this is the last of my software / household improvement metaphors.

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Do you remember my ‘mirror of justice’? I say that justice is when you’d gladly swap for the symmetrical position in society. Let us apply this tool in a very specific and very illustrative case, but first, let us start with a story.

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Today, I’ll be voting for a woman.

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Dorothy and Quilhill managed to make me one of their slaves. Apparently, to be a member of this sect, you have to vote for a book, read it, and then comment on it. The last read was Jane Austen’s Lady Susan. Here is what I have to say about it. Warning — spoilers ahead.
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My dsl modem melted monday evening, ruthlessly smitten by a mighty thunderstorm. I am back to slomo blogging. Please apologize my modest publishing, reading and commenting for the next few days, until I manage to have the box replaced.

Meanwhile, I give you my gardening shoes — and a detail of my lawn labyrinth attempt, inspired by healingmagichands.

Une fois n’est pas coutume, here is a short thinking post.

Lemma 1

Have you ever been astonished by how children can be sweet in the morning and then turn gradually obnoxious as the day wears on? How a tired kid becomes an irrational yelling tyrant, switching back and forth between crying tantrums and exalted naughtiness so that an external observer could hardly tell it was the same person?

Would you not agree that fatigue carries the same sort of influence over our personality as adults, by eroding our best traits and leaving only the sharp angles? When we are tired, we are more shortsighted, less patient, more selfish, less optimistic, more agressive, less calm …

Lemma 2

When electricity was not even science fiction and candles were so expensive, only the rich could wake late at night. Everybody else went to bed shorty after nightfall, and rose shortly before daybreak. In Europe, this meant at least 10 hours of sleep in winter, and probably a little over 7 hours around the summer solstice, complemented by a good two hours of siesta, as there was no air conditioning to allow any work done during the hot afternoon hours.

The XXth century successively introduced electrical lighting, coffee, TV, and stress, the four ingredients of our shrinking sleep time. Between 1960 and nowadays, the average duration of sleep in the US has shrunk by 2 hours. Just in the past twenty years, TV programes have delayed the average bedtime in France by at least thirty-five minutes. I remember when the evening movie would start at 8:30, when now it seldom starts before 9:05. Apparently, our average sleep duration has plummeted from 10+ to 7- hours in less than a century, and the trend is sharper in urban areas.

Theorem

Technology-induced sleep deprivation is turning us all into irrational yelling tyrants, switching back and forth between crying tantrums and exalted naughtiness — especially in urban areas.

Proof

Trivial from Lemmas 1 & 2

Corollary

Dump your TV, do not turn on the lights when it’s getting dark, and go to sleep — now. You’ll thank me tomorrow.

A few references

http://www.sante.gov.ma/Leministre/Communique/2004/article/obesite.asp
http://morphee.biz/article-5374545.html#nogo
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/university/publications/research/issue-8/sleep.pdf
http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/89/5/2119

PS: researching references, I have realised that this sleep deprivation issue has gone so far that it is now also a public health emergency.

Blogs are the perfect place to show one’s best traits and hide the rest. I am concerned that mandarine is gradually painting a deceptive portrait of me. I am not Mr Nice. I try to be. But I fail. Here is why.

Below are five major flaws of mine. Not the make-believe double-edged semi-flaws that are custom-made for job-interviews, but real inexcusable flaws. The ones that will make me burn in hell.

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Remember how I once claimed I felt the happiest person in the world? Well, apparently I am. As I was trying to figure out google page ranks and SEO optimization indicators for one of Lorelle’s challenges, for want of better keywords I googled: “the happiest person in the world”.
And tadaa: mandarine came out first! That’s right. Of all the hundred thousand million zillion web pages around. My personal helper for language checking becomes my personal happiness oracle. This must be a sign, don’t you think?

Google, oh google on the wall, who’s the happiest of them all?

Now I guess I should be taking drastic actions to live up to this worldwide fame. If I seem to post or comment less frequently, you’ll know I am busy fedexing poisonous apples to all aspiring happiest people lest I should be overthrown.

Read on

Changing the world in half a minute
Mellow moments
The same flower bed in late December

Update: everything is back to normal. If you want to have a feeling of how things looked like on April 5th, try to disable the stylesheet from your browser (I know at least Firefox can do it: view/page style/no style).

No, your browser has not gone berzerk. No, reloading will not change the result. Today is CSS naked day. I have turned the stylesheet off. It will be back tomorrow (if I do not mess it up in the process).

I am learning CSS at the moment, so I can tweak my theme (or maybe build a new one from scratch) without the dreadful consequences of ignorant tampering, and I really must aknowledge how powerful it is.

CSS naked day is a way to pay tribute to web standards.

I have started reading Three Men in a Boat, enjoying it much more now than when I was ten. Adults often think that just because you can read and understand the words in a classic, you’ll understand and like the book — I think of Huckleberry Finn, of Le Grand Meaulnes, of Romeo and Juliet, of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea… Force one of the ‘easy’ classics onto the knees of your young readers and more often than not, you’ll know your defeat. Fortunately, everyone has a second chance — here ends my digression.
I was enjoying the wit and the story, when a short passage plucked my romantic fiber with Shakespearean acuity:

Slowly the golden memory of the dead sun fades from the hearts of the cold, sad clouds. Silent, like sorrowing children, the birds have ceased their song, and only the moorhen’s plaintive cry and the harsh croak of the corncrake stirs the awed hush around the couch of waters, where the dying day breathes out her last.

From the dim woods on either bank, Night’s ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear-guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by the pale stars, reigns in stillness.

But then it goes back to normal:

Harris said:
“How about when it rained?”
You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris - no wild yearning for the unattainable.
[…]
Rainwater is the chief article of diet at supper. The bread is two-thirds rainwater, the beefsteak-pie is exceedingly rich in it, and the jam, and the butter, and the salt, and the coffee have all combined with it to make soup.

I am going to love this book.