Interesting Links for 23-8-2011

[andrewducker]

• The Zero-Carbon House: It’s Just Around the Corner
  (tags: housing energy)
• Spain decides that the US deadlock was so much fun it ought to limit its borrowing too!
  (tags: spain finance)
• Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not - anyone got more info on this?
  (tags: iceland finance)
• Boys believe discussing problems is a waste of time
  (tags: men conversation)
• Judge OKs Unlicensed Cloud Music-Storage Service
  (tags: music law usa EpicWin technology)
• The people that check benefit claimants to make sure they're ill (and have a 40-70% error rate) are shutting down dissenting websites
  (tags: welfare benefits uk atos EpicFail)
• Astronaut Suicides
  (tags: space astronauts suicide art photos)
• Fox’s 8-Day Delay on Hulu Triggers Piracy Surge (114% for one show, 189% for another)
  (tags: piracy tv usa)
• Vodafone Germany looks to migrate its internet customers from phone lines to 4G
  (tags: adsl internet mobile germany)
• Why The Hugos Should Have A “Best YA Novel” Award
  (tags: awards scifi hugo fandom writing books)
• Woman jailed over her friend's looting freed on appeal
  (tags: crime law uk riots)
• Happier youths commit less crime. Also, the Pope is apparently Catholic.
  (tags: happiness crime psychology)

Comments

[matgb]

That Iceland article? All the stuff that's factually accurate I knew. But most of it, unfortunately, is the opposite of accurate.

And it even missed stuff under accuracies that would've made the whole "thou shalt pay everything" demands of UK and other Govts even more ludicrously stupid, they had no obligation to pay everything, but did have an obligation to pay up to a set amount, I don't know how far that got though due to the useless hyperbolic rhetoric emanating from our side.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I'd love an overview from people that aren't rabidly anti-bank.

Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

It does rather seem seem that the psychoanalytic culture of the last century is proving to be mostly BS. Wasn't there a study showing that trauma counselling immediately after a Bad Experienceis simply fixes it in the mind, thus increasing the chance of PTSD?

I wonder how many other caring industries are simply rent-seeking parasites?

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

The article just says that boys don't like it, it doesn't say it doesn't work.

From my understanding, blocking stuff inside you as "Must Not Talk About" causes issues, but "Talking all the time about stuff" also causes issues. The best approach seems to be to talk about stuff when you need to, but not to dwell on it.

I'd also like to know more about the feeling "weird" actually was. If they meant "this isn't what I think boys are supposed to do, so I feel abnormal doing it" then that's interesting in and of itself.

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Agreed. My initial reaction was possibly stronger than intended.

However, given that consciousness and subjectivity are looking more and more like restrospective narratives, and how so many responses to situations appear to be culturally scripted, I wonder whether the default option should be "Let's get on and do positive stuff", rather than, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Does articulating feelings really help very much? Isn't usually it better to identify goals and objectives, and gather facts in order to select which ones to try for, and how?

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

Does articulating feelings really help very much? Isn't usually it better to identify goals and objectives

My goals and objectives are very much based on my emotions.

If I can't articulate them, and they are tied in knots, then I can't identify what I want, and thus identify my goals.

Past that stage, absolutely. Once I understand what it is I want, then working on how to get it is more useful than going round in circles!

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Yes, but unanchored emotions don't mean very much either. Better to test them against possible goals.

For example, today I feel sad. Am I better going through the things that might cheer me up and picking one, or trying to articulate that sadness and then derive a fix?

It's just that I've noticed that most of the unhappy people I know are well above average intelligence and I'm wondering why...

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

What proportion of the happy people you know are of above average intelligence?

Checking the literature, there doesn't seem to be much of a negative correlation between intelligence and happiness. And this seems to indicate a small bias the other way.

And I think there's a big difference between "I am sad today, what shall I do to cheer myself up?" and "I have been depressed for months, and do not know what to do with myself, what should I do?"

The former is probably easily solved by distraction, the latter probably needs some deeper sorting out.

Some of the depressed smart people I've known have been either deeply unmotivated, or massively understretched. Those ones usually just need a big project to believe in. But believing in things is tricky when you're smart, because it's much easier to understand the context and have a larger sense of perspective. Without sorting out that problem finding fun things to do counts as a minor distraction, but doesn't do much in the longer term.

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't hang out with anybody below average intelligence, so I suppose my sample is skewed.

However, perhaps it's to do with how much a person first and foremost identifies with being clever/intellectual above what they do with it.

The unhappy intelligent people I know are mostly there because they've used their intellect to talk themselves into foolish things or out of good things; or because they've focussed their intellect inwards and never come out.

They see themselves as being analytical, cynical or introspective, but increasingly I see a cleverly constructed smokescreen to justify being risk averse and/or lazy.

The unmotivated or understretched aren't going to be cured by talking about how unmotivated or understretched they are. They need to pull their fingers out, try out new long term goals, or get a change of scene.

For example:
"I have been depressed for months, and do not know what to do with myself, what should I do?"

A few years ago I'd have said, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Nowadays, I'd select from the following: "Get off the damned PC and get more fresh air and exercise. Try some new hobbies. Take a break and do something different for a few weeks. Consider different careers or a new job. Read something different. Listen to different music. Go to some gigs. Revisit old hobbies. Stand up to your partner or parents. Dump the toxic friendships. Get out of the rut. Stop wallowing. Move on. Take responsibility for your self and your happiness."

Does that make me a better or a worse friend?

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

Yup - if the problem is simply that they've become too inwardly focussed then they probably do need to do more physical stuff.

Does you method tend to work well? If so, then that's great! Personally, I needed to be persuaded into it, intellectually, with graphs. Just telling me to go out and do exercise, if anything, pushed me away from doing it.

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

Does it work on our children? Ask me when Kurtzhau is a teenager! But of course it's already in motion, since we have lots of rough housing, and he does judo.

Does it work on me? Yes. Taking a break to swing a sword in the back garden helps.

Telling you to go out and exercise is pointless. How about saying, "Hey, let's go for a walk between two castles?" or "Would you like to take up a martial art?"

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

These things sound useful when people are a bit down, and as coping mechanisms. I use them myself on friends sometimes. I'm not so convinced that they're useful when people have actual problems to deal with, or when they're messed up by things.

Numerous people told me to leave a toxic relationship, but it took time in counselling for me to work out that it _was_ toxic, what I was doing to enable it, and how I should be reacting to it. Without that talking it through I wouldn't have changed my whole approach to relationships.

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

As a note, I don't really believe in the existence of "laziness". I see people who don't want to do things, but then that's everyone, when it comes to some things. What some people see as laziness I tend to see as "Not believing that you will get a lot out of doing something that's not fun to start with."

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

If it has to be done - is inescapable - then it is laziness.

If it can be escaped by changing job or role in some way, then the person is balking escaping, and it is also laziness, albiet possibly emotional laziness.

So, to me, what you describe is *how* laziness works. Being able to describe how the car works doesn't make it not a car...

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[andrewducker]

Ok. I don't understand what you mean by "laziness" then. Can you explain without using the word "lazy"?

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

In this context, the inability to muster up the energy to do something that needs doing.

The meaning as in "Too lazy to get out of bed on a Saturday morning" really refers to a question of priorities; perhaps lying in bed is more fun than shaving, or resting more important than non vital tasks.

Re: Stiff upper lip after all?

[zz]

If it has to be done - is inescapable - then it is laziness.

nothing is inescapable. death is always an option.

(which is partly why i don't do anything, because i operate on the fallacy that i'll kill myself $tomorrow so there's no point. :>)

...

well, i know it's a fallacy enough to keep going to work and do a few other basic maintenance tasks to stop things getting worse, at least.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Iceland: Numerous factual errors in the article. I have been recommended the following by someone of Icelandic family.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/08/iceland-referendum-deal-idUSLDE73721Z20110408

http://www.icenews.is/?s=icesave&x=0&y=0

http://www.vi.is/english/status-report/

[andrewducker]

Thanks! Will look in more detail later.

[drplokta]

Every house in Norway is already zero-carbon, but you never read about that. Or in other worlds, the carbon status of a house is inextricably linked to the power grid it's connected to, and the very concept of a "zero-carbon" house is meaningless.

[andrewducker]

Sounds interesting. Got any more info?

[drplokta]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Norway#Electricity_generation

Norway's electricity is 99% hydro-electric, and the remainder is thermal and wind. Therefore, it generates no CO2, and therefore nor do any houses in Norway (as long as they're taking energy off grid and don't have a diesel generator in the back garden). The exact same house in the UK would add lots of CO2 to the atmosphere, since our grid is predominantly gas, coal and oil, so having "zero-carbon" be an attribute of the house instead of the electricity grid makes no sense at all.

[andrewducker]

Surely it's an attribute of both? If the goal is not to give off CO2 into the atmosphere then this can be carried out by
1) Reducing the energy the house uses
2) Producing the energy locally in a non-carbon-producing manner
3) Producing the energy centrally in a non-carbon-producing manner

Where (3) is viable then going with that makes life easier, otherwise (1) and (2) are used.

[zz]

is the carbon-ness of the building process taken into account in all of this, or is that regarded as just a sunk cost that any house has, regardless of its specifications?

[andrewducker]

I think they're working on improving concrete, but at the moment it's very nasty on CO2.