MIT / SAS and email / On working attitudes / Siltala / Oil / Daily crono

Back in business after short break . I even feel that my overexposure to world politics has healed and I can start reading newspapers again. More later.

MIT

I sent the medical report to MIT today. It took 4 weeks, 5 doctor visits, 4 lab visits and some 70 euros plus some working hours. Now I know that I am quite healthy and there should be no health related reason for not letting my into US. Funny thing is that they recommend taking copies of all material sent to MIT medical. Do they usually lose some of the material?

SAS and email

SAS contact pages tell us that

Important notice The increasing amount of incoming e-mails has made it impossible at present time to give you the best service possible and has forced us to close the e-mail service. Instead please contact SAS Internet support by telephone on the numbers stated below.

That is how the internet/information-society develops. I have noticed already earlier, that many companies do not reply my emails. I wonder when others have the courage to do what SAS did.

On working attitudes / Siltala

In his book "The short history of deterioration of working life" (in Finnsh) Juha Siltala categorizes employees: workers, contract workers, deaconess, and realizers of self. For myself, the categories of "workers" and "realizers of self" are the most important ones. In short, "workers" try to do the minimal amount of work and spare their energy and initiative for after-work activities: they also go on strike when necessary to defend their hard-won territory in office/factory. "Realizers of self", on the contrary, see work as a way of developing themselves, as essential part of their life-line: they also cannot make so easily distinction between work and free-time and may also work for smaller compensation etc. Now, I have noticed that this is really true and reality at office. I also think that I belong to the category "realizers": I try to make things better, to make work more and more efficient and enjoyable. This causes some friction since most others are "workers" and my initiatives are not always so welcome: they would, in the beginning, suck the energy of "workers".

Consider how this compares to categories of "rule makers", "rule takers", and "rule breakers" (by Maunu). Are the realizers usually "breakers"?

Oil

In today's Economist: a book review of three new books on America and oil. Title: "Crude argument: the problem with oil is not its shortage, but rather its concentration". According to the books, the world is not going to run out of oil anytime soon. The real problem is that just 5 countries in the Gulf have 66% of all known oil, and Saudis alone have 25%. This is the problem, and this is why USA has promised to give its full military support to Saudis (already in 1945 when Roosevelt met the king of Saudis, King Ibn). So, what needs to happen is to make USA (and the rest of the world) less dependent on oil: this is how the price will go down, which in turn will force Saudis etc to modernize/democratize their countries. Now they are just too rich, they can bribe they way out of political reforms (even though this is getting harder since the population in Gulf is exploding, likely to double in the next 20 years or so; they also have dangerously many unemployed young men there, not a good situation in any county). One way to decrease dependency is to take steps towards hydrogen economy. This would also be a possibility for Finnish innovations, new Nokias so to say.

This argument is not new. Gray presents similar ideas in "Heresies".

Daily crono

Morning: visit to the doctor's, coffee with Flexi-friends (nice to meet you guys). Afternoon: sending snail-mail to MIT, working. Late afternoon: trying to have coffee at university and refresh memories (too late), coffee in Rytmi, discussing with S and disturbing her at her office, blogging and reading (IHT, Economist, Siltala) at home, drinking some alcohol, watching some bad movies in TV, surfing in the net.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs November 2004".