Quality doesn’t matter

I find that a lot of people are concerned (some even obsessed) with the quality of the items they purchase.

Ofcourse, there is nothing wrong with that. It’s a good thing to want the best money can buy, but therein lies the catch: yóur money cannot always buy the best. And why would you want to?

 

Take for instance Smartphones. I’ve long put it off buying one, because a phone is meant to call people, so if it does that, I’m happy. Plus, all the extra gadgets drain the battery and I hate running out when I’m not done calling people yet. I’ve used the Nokia 6310i for years on end for that very reason – it was like having a small nuclear powered phone in your pocket: It had a dim blue glow and the battery never seemed to run out. But alas, Nokia decided that such a good product was indeed bad for business, people stopped switching phones every year, so they ditched it in favor of less efficient models.

But now I have joined the smartphone bandwagon, and even with a pretty recent invention: A Nokia N8. And the looks I get! Not very happy looks mind you, I get Blackberry and iPhone users questioning my motivation. Why did I not buy <insert competitors model> instead of that old thing without instant messaging and speech recognition? Well, it was the cheapest phone I could get at the moment that did not bind me in any way. I was not obligated to create an online account to use it, register it with my credit card to unlock it or obligate myself to a matching subscription so as not to lose half its functionality.

I take pictures, send e-mails, browse the internet while shopping so as not to get ripped off and I can drop it on the floor without injuring nearby people with glass shrapnel. Even my wife comments on me using the ‘camera’ ability of my phone because ‘the pictures aren’t as good as with our digicam’. No, of course not but who cares? I take pictures to remember what happened, not to search for forensic evidence or check the exact RGB colour value of my shirt that day. iPhone users comment on my OS as being ‘old’ and ‘unstable’. I have no extended user experience with the iPhone OS but I’m willing to live without it if it means spending twice as much on the phone and it’s power requirements afterwards. Blackberry users (the closest ones being my sisters and her boyfriend) even dared commenting on my phone’s reliablity on the day the Blackberry network went down for a whole day.

So no, apparently I did not buy the best phone money can buy, but only by other people’s standards. I recorded a video of my son minutes after birth, I got that discount at the Mediamarkt because I found their stuff online for half the price and people can just send me an email instead of calling, which is far cheaper anyway.

Who cares about specifications, I’m getting my money’s worth out of this phone, are you?

They grow up so fast…

A lot has happened over the last few months. Haven’t wrote as often as I wanted to, and this post isn’t going to vent any issues I have with some of the crooked logic people display sometimes. It’s about my life just having entered a new stage.

Last friday, 13th of Januari 2012 at 18:08 my first child was born, a little big bear of a son weighing in at 8 pounds (and I’m only diverting from the more sensible metric scale for the sake of the international readers I aspire to have one day), his name is Mattís. My wife picked the name from a book she used to read when she was little. I added the acute on the ‘i’ because I’m a tad worried people will mispronounce his name without it, this happens a lot in Holland where we have so many foreign names going around.

First thing most people notice about it though, is the religious meaning. It’s supposed to mean ‘gift from god’ in its original form. They notice this, because my wife and I are fanatical Atheïsts. I knew this when we decided on the name, but I didn’t care. I think most names you can find have at one point descended from a name with a religious meaning simply because in historical times most people were either religious themselves or had to keep up the appearance of being so, for the sake of their social life or the off chance to be burned at the stake for being an infidel.

So, Mattís then. He’s 4 days and one hour old now, as I’m writing this post. He’s lying in his crib besides our bed, my wife resting from all the exictement over the last few days, plus one heavy plate of Nasi with Fried egg and Saté-sauce, happy that she can once more eat spicy food without her stomach acting up because there is a baby underneath it, kicking it all around.

He’s been a peach over the last few days. He hasn’t yet cried over anything much, other then his milk being overdue or the occasional burp bothering him. He was a lot tougher than his dad would’ve been when the nurse took a blood sample out of his heel today for testing. He’s very strict, too. His baby-biorythm demands he has his milk every 3 hours and you can count on him letting you now in time to warm up the next bottle. The bottle is preceded by a nappy check and/or change if necessary, sometimes a temperature check and lots of talking-to and hugs.

My wife usually feeds him holding him in one arm and feeding him the bottle with the other. I usually go for the more practical approach of arching my legs while sitting on the bed and resting him against my upper legs. This way I have both my hands free for the occasional spill or burp. It’s going to be like this for a few months, before he is ready for anything other than milk. Unfortunately I have only until the end of this month to witness most of these moments, because I start my new job the first of Februari. Until then I help out around the house, fix everything that needs fixing and try to get as much time with my family as I can.

I’m convinced most aspiring and/or upcoming parents have lots of ideas about how they want to raise their children. I’m no different. As I’m sure more people do, I hold at this point the illusion that I’m going to do so much better than all the other parents I’ve met, with maybe the exception of my own parents. As much as I complained growing up, I have a whole lot to thank them for.

Ofcourse, I want Mattís to think the same about me some day. And for all the plans I have, there is no certainty at all that he will like any of them. Maybe he will hate camping trips, music, cooking or computers. Maybe he will want to join a ballet school or become a salesman in the fish stand that frequents our supermarket from time to time.’I'm pretty sure my parents never thought me to become an IT consultant one day, although it became clear at a very young age that my future occupation would involve a lot of talking. All I can do is give him everything I can, teach him what I claim to know and hope he does something useful with it.

Impatient as I am, I cannot wait until he starts smiling, crawling, pulling my beard and throwing food at us. At the same time I know that I have to savor everything that is now, because it will soon be over.  I can’t really sit still for extended periods of time, but I have managed to have him sleep on my chest for hours and just watching him, feeling his tiny lungs go up and down, mumbling and snorting. Sometimes he grabs hold of my shirt and holds me real tight. The scientific part of me knows it’s just a reflex at this point which fill fade with time, but as a father I’m endeared to see my son wanting to lie so close to me, safe and warm. Even when he wakes us in the middle of the night because he’s hungry, even though I’m groggy with sleep deprivation and reluctant to leave the warmth of my bed, I have this urge, this drive to instantly get up and make sure he’s ok. It’s a good thing, because normally you can fire a cannon in my bedroom without me even flinching.

As a fulltime working dad I will have a rough life but then again thousands of people do, and they all manage one way or another. I’ve taken this month off in between jobs to make sure I would have the time to be a dad when mommy and son needs me most. As of today I’ve picked up my ADHD medicines again to get me settled in ahead of time. We have a nurse slash help-around-the-house for 6-hours a day, lasting until friday, so I add to that by preparing for next month, when my unlimited free time ends. I will have to start waking early again because nothing less will be expected of me by then, although Mattís is making sure I wake at least 3 times a night so I’m sure I’ll have the hang of it again in two weeks time.

From now on my every waking moment will be dedicated to providing for a family. It’s a scary thought, having something so little and fragile depending on you for its life, its nourishment, warmth, safety and education. At the same time I am proud I am given the chance to prove I’m able to do so. I understand now why being a parent is going to be so hard, but at the same time so rewarding, so I will never stop doing my best for them.

I love you Mattís!

Oh my #!

Oh my what?

Well, for a large part of the human population this expression is normally completed with the inclusion of a deity of some sort.

I’m an atheïst, but that does not necessarily make me a non-believer. Like most people, I too believe that a certain chain of events has led to the world being what it is today, it’s just that my explanation does not involve the hand of (the) god(s). This isn’t to say I am 100% sure that there was once a big bang and that we all descend from microscopicly small creatures inexplicably formed by sheer luck out of a primordial soup.

To me, at the moment, it seems that the big bang theory is the least nonsensical explanation. According to a large collection of acquired data and conclusions drawn from that by scientists we have a still expanding universe which adheres to certain laws which we have not been able to disprove so far. There was a brief moment of suspense at CERN where they thought they saw some particles travel faster than light but that turned out to be a measurement inaccuracy, so I read. In this universe, we have at least one planet currently containing intelligent (one could argue that adverb, but lets go with it for now) life, this being our own ‘mother earth’.

Up to this point, a lot of the theories and conclusions drawn from the collected data seems to make a lot of sense, given the facts we have been able to verify so far. The universe is expanding much like an explosion would if viewed in slow motion, so logic would dictate there was once a point of origin to that expansion.

Religion, on the other hand, never ceases to make non-sense to me. Why does ‘god’ only exist by grace of our belief? I could believe I can fly all day long but if I’d jump out of a trans-continental flight without a parachute I would very soon find out that my belief failed to save me and just before I’d hit the ground/water (at that speed the material you are about to hit makes little difference) I would probably realise there isn’t much hope on an afterlife either.

Sadly, there is no more ’proof’ a religious person can give you. They will say you have to believe in it, yet I think very few religious people would believe themselves a pair of wings.

So believing something does not make it true, except for dreams. When you dream, anything is possible. You can think up the most weird situations (and based on my own experiences, people who dream usually do) and it will seem normal to you. I have read that this is because the part of your brain which handles logic is turned off when you sleep, just like motor functions. Some people though, have their motor functions (partially) turned on when sleeping. This is abnormal, and can lead to sleepwalking for instance.

So, the brain then. I believe the human brain is a pretty damn powerful thing. People can think themselves sick up to the point where they actually suffer from it, they will vomit or have headaches, stress, etcetera, just because they THINK they are sick. Vica Versa: people can also ‘think’ themselves better, especially when they weren’t sick to begin with, by using placebo’s for instance.

So, if the human brain is able to switch certain parts on or off and thusly control actual bodily functions and/or thoughts, I suddenly have a theory on how religion is true for some people! There are numerous known cases of people with visual, hearing or other problems, why could there not be such a thing as a logic impairment? People who have their logic button turned off, just like when you are asleep and dream about pink elephants flying through your garden drinking tea with pixies and gnomes…

Because everyone has a different logic threshold (I still have to come up with a catchy name for that) everyone has a different ‘proof level’ at which they are convinced of the truth on any given subject. That means my theory on logic impairment is already defunct on the analogy I made with a button, insinuating that it is either on or off. It’s a sliding scale, much like becoming senile, but mankind has not found the cure for either of these conditions yet.

I had a discussion with my friend this weekend on the topic of religion. He stated that although he does not adhere to a single deity, he does believe there is ‘something’. There is a kind of entity somewhere which steeres mankind into a certain direction but not too much, just enough to survive as a species. (I pity the animals now extinct who obviously had to do without such a guardian). He admitted that he hadn’t really thought his theory through yet so a lot of my questions had to remain unanswered there and then, but I challenge him to do so. I really look forward to his theory of the somethingness, so that I might expand my theory on logical impairment with a little real life test subject data .

It all boils down to logic.

Yes!

And of course I will enlighten you to the reason behind this bold statement, even only to explain why I named my blog such as it is.

I think everything is logical. It gives me a feeling of peace and calm knowing that there is an explanation for everything. And I can already hear (well, not really of course, but in my head I do) some of you think: “Surely there must be room for mysticism, luck and sheer coincidence?” and/or “Isn’t there such a thing as fate?”

Well no, I don’t think so, but let me explain why I’m inclined to think so.

When confronted with normal everyday situations very little people think things the work of supernatural beings, ghosts, or fate. When I throw my phone in the air, it will eventually come down and if it hits something hard, it will probably break. The same goes for a lot of action-reaction scenario’s in the everyday world. If I tailgate and brake too late I will rear-end the person in front of me, and if I eat too much jalapeños I will regret this the next morning.

Again, very little people will contest this. But why?

Because they see the logic behind it. Most people know what goes in must come out and that certain moving objects are harder to stop than others. Sometimes though, they just don’t stop and consider.

The tailgate scenario for instance, can be extended to large ships,  say oil carriers. They can weigh in excess of thousands of tonnes and even though their speed is limited when compared to a car, they often need several kilometers (or miles, if you will) to stop. They don’t turn on a dime either. A lot of people never consider the agony of being an oil carrier because the never been on one but when confronted, a lot of people will start considering the facts given and agree with you that a ship that large must also weigh a lot. When they match this knowledge with their own experiences in swimming they will agree that maneuvering in water is harder than on land, so yes, it’s a plausible claim that oil carriers need a lot of brake distance.

There is however a line, which differs from person to person, where a lot of people start diverting from using simple logic. This line is not straight and not very thin either. It’s more akin to the border area between the Netherlands and Belgium. It’s only vaguely visible, no one is guarding it and only when you’ve gone too far without noticing the warning signs, the poor driving conditions and those stupid above-ground power grid poles that you realize you’ve entered the land of the mad (no offense intended to people who have actually been diagnosed with madness).

So, I’ve established so far that every person must have a threshold where, when crossed, they start abandoning logic, just like the people in Belgium abandon road maintenance, power safety and a functioning government system.

My goal is to stretch that threshold as far as possible. I know I cannot save everyone like some religious cults hope to do some time in the future, but I can at least try to get as far as possible (a man can dream right? ) by making my philosophy public, hence this blog. I can now share with anyone willingly my view on things and hope they embrace seeing the logic behind everything.

And because you volunteered to read it, chances are you are open to suggestion, too.

So why is the blog called ‘my’ logic? Surely logic is universal?

Yes, strictly speaking, it is! Logic is a way of arriving at the truth and/or reason behind a certain fact or situation so one could define logic as a tool, just like hammers are a tool of getting a nail into a piece of wood. There are other tools available of course; people sometimes use nail-guns, the back of a screwdriver of even a flat rock to get the job done. I do think that there is a perfect tool for every sort of job, and just like rocks and screwdrivers are rather inefficient ways of hammering and nail-guns use external power which can fail, the hammer is a tool one easily carries with him or her that never fails you when you need to hammer in a nail.

But like any decent carpenter will tell you (and a lot of philosophers as well) – if your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts looking like a nail. So I will concede that logic is not all-powerful. Logic alone will not end a civil war any more than hammer can build a house but when you do reach your destination, you will see that logic was used in the process, just like hammers were used erecting your house, and it would’ve been pretty damn hard without one.

So why then is it called ‘my’ logic?

Because it’s been used. Just like my hammer has seen better days (specifically, the days before it met me) it now carries the scars and marks of our various jobs around the house and under the hood of many a car I owned. It still works as good as any hammer, but this one is mine not only because I paid for it, but because I used it. And when you borrow my hammer it will do exactly the same as any old hammer but you will know it’s mine for all the grease marks, scratches and paint decorating its surface.

Not everyone owns a hammer, but everyone cán get his or her own and practice how to use it.

And until you figure out how to use logic efficiently yourself, I invite you to borrow mine!

Hello you.

Hi.

Welcome to my first blog post.

On this humble and small piece of the big bad Internet I will try and entertain myself and (hopefully) other people with my thoughts, stories, advice and wisdom (this last part is, of course, subject to observational relativity). To this purpose I will post on this blog whenever I have a rare moment where free time, inspiration, willpower and a stable internet connection coïncide.

The main reason I’m starting this blog is because I can. Secondly, I have a lot to tell the world, albeit sometimes trivial, not welcome or just plain stupid. I realize that millions of voices are trying to be heard on the Internet and every one of them is bound to have his/her (or its) own opinion, so I will have no illusions that I will become famous, solve world hunger or achieve world peace.

Especially because other non-famous people tell me that being famous is not what it’s cracked up to be. There is a Belgian saying (or curse, if you will) “I wish you a lot of employees” – insinuating that have staff means having a lot to worry about. And I have hate having to worry about stuff, because that takes up brain-time I could use for fun stuff!

But why oh why would it be a nice idea to keep reading my blog? To be frank: I haven’t a clue, really. For years I loathed being ‘online’ through social media but then my mother started a Facebook page to keep in touch with people and my wife (then girlfriend) seized this opportunity to convince me to do the same, and now my bearded mug is out there for the world to see.

I’ve raged against Twitter often enough, because while I understand that some fans just drool at the idea of knowing everything their celebrity of choice is up to at any moment of the day (or night), I can hardly imagine that every soul on Twitter has something worth mentioning to the world and yet here I sit writing my first blog post.

So as to the reason for reading from or about me? There is none that I can think of, because everyone rationalizes things their own way. You might like the way I write, have the same views on some of the stuff I will rant about (oh yes!) or just because you think me a moron and laugh at everything I say or do.

Nevertheless, if I enjoy you in any way, please keep on reading.