Are we all just big babies? / List of books read / Misc links / Local businesses /…

Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life. Bertolt Brecht

Are we all just big babies?

Michael Bywater has written a book called Big Babies or why can't we just grow up. In the book, Bywater discusses whether our civilization is becoming more and more infantile, whether most of us never become adults. It is about ads, abs, etc. The book is getting good reviews e.g. by the Telegraph. The Telegraph quotes Bywater on how to be an adult.

• Don't be affronted Being affronted (or offended, or complaining about 'inappropriateness') is no response for a grown-up. Only children believe the world should conform to their own view of it: a sort of magical thinking that can only lead to warfare, terrorism, unmanageable short-term debt and the Blair/Bush alliance
• Mistrust anything catchy, whether it's the Axis of Evil, advertising slogans, or blatant branding ('New Labour'). Catchiness exists to prevent thought and to disguise motive. Grown-ups can think for themselves
• Ignore celebrities, except when they are doing what they are celebrated for doing: acting, playing football et cetera. Skill does not confer moral, political or intellectual discrimination. (Except in the case of writers. Writers know everything and can lecture you with impunity.) If a celebrity is not celebrated for doing anything but being a celebrity, smile politely but pay no notice
• We should not assume that market forces will decide wisely. The market is rigged by manipulation and infantilisation
• Consider our own motivations. We may rail about being treated like children, ordered about, kept from the truth, nannied and exploited… but are we complicit in it? Could the reward actually be infantilisation itself?
• Autonomy is the primary marker of being grown up. Babies, children and adolescents don't have any. We don't want to be in their boat
• Suspect administration Its purpose is to free the organisation to do what it's meant to do: but the triumph of the administrators - the lawyers, the accountants, the professional managers - means that too many organisations now believe that what they are meant to do is administer themselves. This is a profoundly infantile attitude
• Do not love yourself unconditionally. Such love is for babies and comes from their mothers. Ignore fashion, particularly in clothes. You don't want to look like a teenager for ever
• Never do business with a company offering 'solutions' as in 'ergonomic furniture solutions which minimise the postural strain associated with sitting' (chairs) and 'Post Office mailing solutions' (brown paper). The word suggests we have a problem, but since we are grown-ups, that is for us to decide
• Denounce relativism at every turn. Shouting 'not fair' is childish. Demanding respect without earning it is childish. Don't fear seriousness. Babies aren't allowed to be serious
• Watch our language. Is there really much difference between a six-year-old in a fright-wig and his father's waders shouting 'I'm the Mighty Wurgle-Burgle-Urgley-Goo' and an ostensible grown-up demanding to be called 'Tony Blair's Respect Tsar'?
• Hide Grown-ups are not required to be perpetually accountable, while the instincts of government and big business, both of which are, almost by their nature, great infantilisers, are to keep an eye on everyone all the time
• Eat it up There is nothing more babyish than having dietary requirements
• Never vote for, do business with or be pleasant to anyone who uses the words 'ordinary people'

Good advice, worth considering.

List of books read

A list of books I have read lately. Not that long yet, but I try to read a few books every week. I seem to be reading too few Finnish novels, a failure I need to address.

Later, I will start adding reviews and commentaries and links. Now, just a plain list of books.

Misc links

• Planespotting — CIA's secret flights exposed ...
• Spaceship earth — ecological writings, some of them quite interesting.
• Finnish industrial ruins — interesting photography
• Peak oil primer — tells why oil is going to get more and more expensive.
• Global voices online — a global weblog.

Local businesses

Some good businesses I make richer every week. Rytmi is an excellent place to have coffee or beer and see/meet nice people from all walks of like and of all ages. Cafe Sapusca is the best lunch place in Kallio: great food, entertaining chef. In the Hakaniemi markethall has many great shops and also Soupkitchen, which has simply the best soups in town. All these are just a 10-minute walk from my home. Not too bad...

Cover letters

A job application has two parts: the CV and the cover letter. The trick is just how to write them. Here is what I have learned. Although the web is full of advice on how to write both of them, my experience tells that following the web advice is not enough.

Writing a good CV is quite simple and most sites offer the same advice: reverse chronological, exact, measurable claims, honest. Following these rules seem to be quite enough.

Not so with the cover letter. The wed tells that the cover letter should be very polite, tell why one wants the job, flatter the reader about their company, etc. I followed these rules and never got replies. Thus, after some experiments (with about 100 applications), I have concluded that the following template works best for me.

 
  Sir,

  I am interested in the position.

  I have worked as SW and systems architect in Nokia Networks for the last 8
  years.  I am one of the main systems architects behind the Nokia WCDMA (3G) radio networks.
  RAN systems are about as demanding as any.

  In addition to my work experience (both in Finland and China), I boast
  "MS in engineering and management" from MIT, 2006. In my MIT-studies, I
  concentrated in systems architecting.

  Make no mistake, interview me.

  See my CV at http://www.helsinki.fi/~mjkinnun/MattiKinnunenResume.pdf

  Yours,

    Matti Kinnunen
 

No BS, no excuses, no false modesty, just the facts, the attitude, the personality. Seems to work much better than anything else I have tried so far.

Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs October to November 2006".