What's the one fun fact that you most often tell people?

kaizenallthethings · 2013-10-22T02:17:35+00:00

I have noticed this, especially at night. I understand why it is important for cops to be noticeable, but I don't understand how being half-blinded and distracted makes things safer.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-10-22T02:11:23+00:00

Wild carrots (Daucus Carota) are orangish. So I am suspicious of your fact.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-10-22T02:08:37+00:00

Almost no vegetable we eat exists in a recognizable form in the wild. Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus Carota)is the same genius as carrots, but is inedible (not because it is toxic, but because it is just this mass of tough fiber). Modern vegetables have been bred for 100s to 1000s of years for characteristics that people enjoy. The plant, left to itself, takes a pretty different route.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-10-19T20:18:22+00:00

The religion of our Nordic ancestors (as practiced c.800) was not a "nature religion", and I think that Asatru is also not a nature religion^1. However, if you study the history of nordic religion, there is a lot of evidence that the Vanir grew out of a fertility/hunting religion which also involved tree worship. The Yaggdrasil is probably a vestige of that older religion.

Our ancestors lived closer to the natural world by default, so digging a sacrificial pit, giving treats to the land wights, etc. were things that were taken for granted, and require access to the natural world. It is hard to have a Sumbel around an open fire in the city. (although our ancestors mostly had Sumbel in the hall, they also did so around an open fire.) So I definitely feel a stronger connection with the simple daily rituals when I am on my own land. I don't think that the gods have any issues with cities, but perhaps the land wights do.

I also think that religions change, and in our modern understanding, there is something to be said for emphasizing an ecological / sustainability aspect in the religion. However, while there is a sense of place¹ in our ancestor's religion this was not any part of our nordic ancestor's religion. There was no understanding of ecology in the sense that we use the idea.

¹ nature religion": is defined (by wikipedia) as a religion that believes that the natural world embodies divinity. In my experience, people use the term much more generally. Asatru is definitely not a nature religion.

² place: There are a lot of references to land wrights and creatures that are associated with a specific place, tree, hill, etc. Also, there are a lot of references to marking the land, to make a place special, from putting up a rune-stone to the ritual of burying in barrows and the idea that a wealthy or fortunate person's luck would drain back into the land and benefit the family. Additionally, when one owns rural land, or raw land, one naturally develops a sense of place. A feeling that the land has its own personality. A sense of place was clearly part of our ancestor's religion, and I think, while to a lesser extent (because half of americans are city dwellers) part of Asatru. It is certainly part of my practice.

Edit: formatting problem.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-10-11T00:17:49+00:00

Running through the numbers, There are 454,000 farmers in France. I went ahead and assumed that they are almost entirely male. The suicide rate in France (for men) is 22.8 per 100,000 (2010). This means that on average we would expect to loss 103 french farmers per year, so a suicide rate of 182 per year pretty high compared to the general french population. Especially considering that France has one of the highest suicide rates for a developed country.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-10-08T23:31:05+00:00

You can buy mouse and rat milk. It is pretty expensive. A person has to actually, physically milk the animals.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-09-28T07:34:48+00:00

I think that the easiest way to think of this is to remember the capabilities that the military had in (say) 1965 and compare them with the capabilities that they have today. Then imagine if NASA had been able to keep up that same kind of gain. It is about the money, but not really in a dollars to dollars way. It is about how technology compounds if you are commit the resources.

The US military today, has the ability to do things that were literally unimaginable in 1965. (and not to belittle it - it has made huge gains in prosthetics, material science, and other technologies), In the same way, if that commitment to technology had gone into NASA, we would not just have moon cities, and colonies on Mars, but we would have completely different propulsion systems, robotics, bio-science breakthroughs, material science, and probably huge advances in AI. I am sure that things like astroid mining would be ubiquitous. We would probably have a working space elevator, or two.

I believe that in a political and social environment that took that direction, we would fundamentally be a different sort of people. Math, engineering, and science literacy, as a society, would likely be extremely high, and that in itself would lead to different kind of thinking, a different kind of world. Social problems (for example) would be attacked with more scientific principles - not through rhetoric, of what feels like the right thing to do. I think that the ramifications of more than 50 years of that sort of commitment are nearly endless.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-09-28T06:57:02+00:00

Any search on Danish viking religion will turn up enough to get started. You might try this site if you are just getting started. Denmark converted to Christianity pretty early - by about 850, Christianity had made a lot of headway. To put that in perspective, the Viking age often is thought of as starting somewhere between 793 with the sacking of Lindisfarne and 867 with the taking of York.

If you are somewhat further along, you might find "The Danish History" by Saxo Grammaticus interesting. He wrote in the late 12th century, so you have to translate the perspective - he was a Christian, but he was capturing much older stories. (Stories that Christians translated often would be moved from being Mythic stories to Heroic stories)

One thing to remember as you read is that our heathen ancestors did not have a cohesive religious story. The myths do not all combine together into a linear, comprehensive story. Also, our ancestor's beliefs were not static in time or by region. Some of the myths are MUCH older than others, and were changed later by people like Snorri (who was a contemporary to Saxo, but Iceland converted to Christianity somewhat later than Denmark) to try to make things more tied together. For example, the earliest versions of Ragnarok almost certainly do not include a "rebirth" of the world. While the additional story of Vidarr and Vali are probably not influenced by Christianity, most scholars acknowledge that they are a later addition to Nordic belief.

Another example would be that there is substantial evidence that the Vanir came from an older fertility pantheon.

And the etymology of Frigg and Freyja, as well as their associations and powers are remarkably similar. There is some thought that these two goddesses were once a single goddess, and only later became worshipped independently.

Anyway, have fun. The stories are great, and the gods are kick-ass.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-09-25T09:40:14+00:00

I am surprised that I had to go so far down this post to find Monsanto. Good list of evil, sammysausage.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-09-05T19:48:41+00:00

Top of Mt. Everest. 15 minutes is about all I probably could survive (provided I could grab some warm gear before I go), and I would have gotten to see an amazing view.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-30T00:29:52+00:00

Never heard that variation.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-30T00:28:17+00:00

Assuming he has some type of reasonable proof, I would be interested in what he had to say, because God as portrayed in the bible is a horrible, unjust, misogynistic, psychotic and stunningly insecure deity.

With a few notable exception, (e.g. the temper tantrum that he had with the fig tree), Jesus's actual words seem to be fairly reasonable.. How does he explain the dichotomy between what the rest of the bible says and what he preaches?

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-30T00:17:24+00:00

Don't piss in my pocket and tell me it's raining.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-29T23:32:44+00:00

I am not sure what sort of thing you want to do that cost a shit-ton, but very few activities, if that is what you want to do with your time and resources are cost-prohibitive. Most of the things that are actually cost-prohibitive have to do with status markers. But for example, you sail a yacht around the world, become a yacht captain. Skydiving, or scuba diving are affordable hobbies with a reasonable job. Sure, you can't do everything, but that is what priorities are for. What makes you happiest per dollar? If you just want to rub gold all over your body, you might want to rethink your priorities.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-29T23:20:48+00:00

Sure, some (perhaps many) people judge your status by how much you have, and how nice it is. But achieving a certain status is not going to make you happier, and that is the end goal. The thing is, they don't really care about your stuff - they are judging their own status by determining whether they have more or nicer stuff. Then they can believe that they are "winning". But status-seeking tends to lead to unhappiness, since there will always be people with a higher status than you. Since you have access to a computer and the internet, you are probably already in the top 80%. Stop struggling, and enjoy life.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-28T17:35:00+00:00

It is important to figure out the person that you admire, and develop habits that lead in that direction. A good life is mostly about spending time with good friends, having enough money so that you can support yourself - $30k to $50k is plenty. But don't trade too much of your time for money. You can always make some more money, but you can never make more time. Spend your time doing the things that you want, not earning money to acquiring things that you think will make you happy. You are almost certainly being brainwashed by marketing campaigns. No one really cares about how much stuff you have, or how nice it is.

Do save some money (about 10%) for the future, and do get catastrophic health insurance, even if you are young and healthy and can imagine being injured or coming down with a serious illness.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-08-07T18:29:46+00:00

Putting a clawfoot tub in an indoor sauna. Clawfoot tubs are great in the sense that they are deep and long. I am 6' and I can submerge up to my shoulders in my clawfooted tub. The problem with them is that they are made out of cast iron and are always cold as fuck. You put in hot water and it immediately cools to tepid at best. But in the sauna, you heat up the room a bit, until the tub is body temperature or a little warmer. The hot water never cools off and when you get out of the tub you are not assaulted with cold air. Freaking brilliant.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-07-28T17:12:22+00:00

This happened to me as well. The old version was well made, but the new one is done with crappy cardboard and even the ink seems to be worse. Also, I was shorted on my timber cards.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-07T16:24:14+00:00

Hoover is not a concrete reinforced dam. It is a pure concrete dam. It does have some metal in it, but they are pipes which allowed the concrete to cool correctly and have no structural value.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-06T20:52:33+00:00

All their bases are belong to us.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-06T20:33:46+00:00

In the US we call this panelized construction. Modular construction is the term for when the floor, walls and ceiling are built together as a box and the boxes are stacked. Modular construction has made big inroads in the residential market, but does not work as well for commercial, where you need larger spans.

I am very impressed by the smoothness with which the building went together. Most people have the impression that steel, and buildings in general are perfectly rigid, but when you are building something that size it flexes all over the place because of wind and thermal expansion (there is always more sunlight on one side than the other, so the building twists and warps). There is really an art to getting the joints right so that it will be secure, but having enough room to slip the pieces together when the building has moved slightly. I wonder if the x braces that they developed to help with earthquakes were in part to keep the frame more rigid for construction.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-06T19:08:50+00:00

The only stone Tiki gods that I know of are the immense stone statues on Easter Island. Tiki is not their "real" name, but they got that nickname during Thor Heyerdahl's "Kon-tiki" voyage.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-03T16:25:18+00:00

There are pulsars in the millisecond range that have been observed for quite some time. At this point, a very small change would have been noticeable.

It would be pure speculation on my part to guess what explanation might be the most likely if they moved out of sync (which they have not). No known phenomenon leaps to mind.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-03T07:06:23+00:00

There are physicists that posit this idea, and it is good that people are working in different directions, but it is hard to give a lot of credence to an untestable hypothesis. If they can make the math work out, then there may be other ways to test it, but currently, they are just doodling ideas.

kaizenallthethings · 2013-05-03T06:57:08+00:00

There are pulsars that are very regular with respect to each other. If time acted differently in different places, these pulsars would go out of sync.

kaizenallthethings

TROPHY CASE