When I travel I usually pick up something for my kitchen. A special
spice or something along those lines. My kitchen cupboard is bulging with various exotic food products and I fear that I wont be able to use it all up before it goes bad.

There is no doubt that we live in a society of excessiveness. We simply
have too much money to spend on things that we don't really need. Who suffers from all of this? Mother nature! Most of the things we buy need to be produced, transported, packaged, and if we then end up throwing them without first using them it was a waste from start.

I hadn't really thought that much about how excessive we are until I stood
one day in Meny (grocery store) next to my house. I had managed to forget my keys on a rainy day and with some time to spare until rescue arrived I started exploring the shelves. When standing in front of the spice shelve I noticed something odd and started counting. I realized it was possible to buy no less than 20 different types and sizes of salt...

The spice shelf with 20 different types/sizes of salt

Ok, so salt is quite basic. I remember a fairy tale when I was a kid which
recounted a story about a king that said salt was more important than his daughter. Everyone thought he was cruel until they were served meat without salt and understood...

I wont try to claim that the only spice we had when I was a kid was salt (though it would have made a better story). It was however the most prominent spice in my mom's kitchen. I can clearly picture before me my moms kitchen table with cooked lamb meat, potatoes, and a lonely worn white and blue salt shaker. On some other days the meat was substituted with some fish but those were the three basics.

Not the original salt shaker but one very similar

Salt is quite basic indeed but do we really need all these different types of salt? I will admit that having one fine and one coarse is quite handy. But buying some special White Flake salt for 665 NOK/80 EUR a kilo feels pretty wasteful. How much taste difference can there really be?

Fancy smancy White Flake Salt

If you think this salt excessiveness must have been a special case at Meny I dare you to count the types of salts in your regular grocery store. I have been making a habit of that lately and trying to remind myself that at least I don't need to have many types of the same thing no matter how tempting it is :) .

Note: this woe of mine excludes chili as it is quite essential to buy and try every type there is...

It is that time of the year again. The time when the gym all of a sudden becomes crowded by people that honestly think that this year will be different. That they will magically change and stop being couch potatoes. It is that time when there are hordes of people walking at snail speed on the treadmill for hours on end not really doing anything but watching TV. The time when every exercise equipment is decorated with an out-of-shape person resting because they are too lazy or selfish to stand up between their reps and let others get on with their exercising.

So in an effort to avoid a massive crowd at the gym I am giving you one really good reason why YOU shouldn't start exercising this January.

Exercising is not environmentally friendly!

Here are few reasons why exercising is not good for the environment:

• You need to shower more often which in turn makes you use up more hot water, more shampoo etc.
• You need to wash your clothes more often which uses water, electricity, laundry detergents and wears them out quicker.
• You use up your shoes faster.
• You burn more calories and unless you are dieting that makes you eat more, hence more food production is needed and that pollutes.
• If you build muscles you start burning more hence more polluting food production is needed.
• If you use equipment at the gym like the treadmill you use polluting electricity.

So if you care about the environment the only sensible thing is just to stay on your couch... Sure your TV uses up some electricity too but maybe you could replace it with a book? Or just sit there and stare out into the air like you do at the gym anyway.

I think I will keep destroying the environment at the gym this year though it is tempting to use this excuse myself :) . Just please people don't rest on the exercise equipment and have a Happy New Year!

Haven't we all wished for a beauty queen that didn't just want world peace?

Well it looks like we just got one and it is just scary!

The environmentalists have been accusing us meat eaters of destroying the environment. Therefore I had a very good conscience while preparing yesterday dinner which was simple salad consisting of vegetables and a little bit of tuna fish. That is until I started reading the packaging and saw where the ingredients came from.

I did a quick and dirty calculation with InfoPlease's distance calculator. Air distance between Oslo and the countries or place noted on the packages. This does not include the fact that many are probably transported indirectly by trucks/boats and/or to multiple storage areas before reaching my plate. I am also not counting in the tomatoes, the lettuce, and the eggs which were produced in Norway and would probably add few hundred kilometers to the sum. Oh and I am conveniently forgetting about the nice Spanish bottle of wine consumed with the salad...

Olive oil from Italy = 1905.9 km
Avocados from South Africa = 10062.9 km
Tuna fish from Thailand = 8534.4 km
Pepper from Indonesia = 11551.1 km
Salt from Gothenburg 254.9 km

The absolute winner was:

Onion from New Zealand = 17707.3 km

This means that my salad travelled at least 50016,5 km before it entered my mouth!

I don't know how to compare this to a slap of beef but something tells me that this isn't exactly very kind to planet earth either. While I am not environmentally friendly enough to start dropping ingredients on these basis I am making one promise. I will try to buy things grown closer when possible. I will at least try to find onion grown somewhere closer than New Zealand of all places.

So how far did you salad travel?

Did you know that if you have a pot of crabs and one tries to escape over the side that the other crabs in the pot will try to drag it down again? I didn't know this until yesterday when I found the following article about Crab mentality on Wikipedia.

I honestly thought this behavior was only to be found in humans or more specifically Scandinavians. It is better known here in Norway as Janteloven. In short, you aren't supposed to think you are or try to be better than anyone else. The law is so ingrained into people here in Norway that it is perfectly acceptable that people that have done well in life are frowned upon and considered greedy and vulgar. Even members high up in the government find nothing wrong with making statements that they are out "to get" the rich people. There are whole political parties here that seem devoted to the cause of making sure nobody does well or is allowed to enjoy the fruits of their hard work. Just like kids they are basically saying: "It is unfair that anyone has more than me. I want some too. If I don't get some, they shouldn't have anything either!"

In the blog entry I wrote long time ago a little kid got awarded for helping his grandma. His brother that hadn't done the same demanded that he would also get awarded. I think most people would simply think he was a brat and didn't deserve anything. Why we don't apply the same logic to grown-ups is just mind boggling to me.

Now lets look at this from a different angle. How many people reading this would say no if their boss came in one day and said "I think you have been doing a fantastic job and I want to double your salary"? How many in here would say no to an inheritance if they found out their eccentric grandfather was actually a millionaire? I for sure wouldn't say no :) . But if we ourselves wouldn't say no to being rich (as long as it didn't require anything illegal or unethical) how can we not let others enjoy the fruit of their hard work or luck? Might I dare to suggest we are simply jealous? Of course we all believe that if we were rich that we would do more for others that need help than the rich people today do. In reality we would probably not be any better.

I believe that everyone should contribute to society and that the ones of us that are better off then the rest should contribute a bit more towards helping people that are unable to work themselves. I however also believe that people should be given an incentive to work hard and create businesses which in hand will create jobs, income, and again tax. Success shouldn't be looked upon as a disease. The politicians would be better off trying to create a fairer tax system instead of driving a witch hunt in the media and encouraging jealousy in people. Another important task for them is to ensure there is no corruption in the system. You should never be able to buy power with money.

So why am I writing this? Because I know I would like to be rich one day. I haven't quite figured out yet how to accomplish that but that is another story. Keeping this in mind, I realize that it would be hypocratic of me to not want other to have what I want myself. Sure I am jealous just like anyone else but why not just admit that? Isn't about time to put the Jante law to rest?

To wrap up I want to quote Benjamin Franklin Fairless, president of United States Steel Corporation in 1950. "You cannot strengthen one by weakening another; and you cannot add to the stature of a dwarf by cutting off the leg of a giant.

Lets try to warm up my blogging skills with a little bit of bitching...

Have you ever heard anyone mention something called top posting vs. bottom posting? Chances are rather high that your answer is «No». That is if you live in the real world...

Did you know there is a whole little world of super geeks out there that have religious rules about what is right and wrong when it comes to how you should reply to e-mails? Did you realize that you might have made someone see red and shout at his computer screen that you are stupid because you replied to their e-mail in the "wrong" way?

I am pretty sure that when you reply to an e-mail, that you simply hit reply and type your response at the top. And that if you get a long e-mail and there is no text in black at the top that you might wonder if people accidentally hit the send button before they had written their response. You might maybe start a long, half-hearted, annoying scroll to the bottom...

The main e-mail fundamentalist commandment is: Thou shalt not post your response at the top of the e-mail but rather in between old content and at the bottom.

Just like any other "good" religious fundamentalist, the e-mail fundamentalist will try to force feed their views on you. They will first start out by making hidden condescending remarks on how stupid and ignorant you are. When that isn't understood they will tell you right out that you are pissing them off by being ignorant about e-mail manners. A normal person might at first simply lift their shoulders and respond "but it is so much simpler to just respond at the top and then I don't need to scroll". This is when the e-mail fundamentalist will give you an example that explains to you that you cannot easily read the old e-mails in order. The normal person will give them a blank look and respond "why would I want to read the old stuff again?" The e-mail fundamentalist will start explaining how much mail he gets and how many mailing lists he subscribes to and how much easier it is to read his e-mails this way. Half way through this long explanation the normal person will start rolling their eyes and thinking "what a dork, he needs to get a life!"

I know some of you e-mail fundamentalists. This might come off as being a bit harsh and rude, but I am getting a bit tired of your tyranny. Just like with any other religion I will try to be respectful and do as you wish until it becomes forced. When I see you again and again harassing other people in an impolite, arrogant manner I see no reason in respecting your wishes because you quite obviously do not respect other people's preferences. What you are demanding in the first place is a special preference that isn't particularly user friendly. Just like some other non user friendly things religion has demanded of people in the past ;)

Ronald comes running into the living room and shouts:

- Mommy, mommy grandma gave Harold a new baseball bat and I didn't get one.
* But Ronald, Harald got it for spending all weekend helping her clean out her basement. You didn't want to help.
- It is boring! I wanted to play the Wii and not drag dirty, ugly stuff around.
* Well grandma gave Harld the baseball bat because he worked hard all weekend. You can't expect to get one too when you don't help. I am
sure though that Ronald will let you play with it too.
- That is unfair! I want one too. If I don't get one, he shouldn't have one either! Take it away from him, take it away from him!!

Childish huh? Or is it unfair that Ronald didn't get one?

Yesterday I read the following in a book:

"The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read" Margaret Atwood (The Blind Assassin)

It summed up everything I have been feeling towards my blog since I started writing again. I must have either grown up or become a coward but in any case I no longer have the guts to write the things on my mind. I am not exactly sure what it is that is stopping me but I think it is a mixture of political correctness, people around me that disagree with my views or possess the flaws that I want to critizise, and/or that I find the entries I have started make me sound like an arrogant person that thinks to highly of herself. So maybe I am all that but I would hate to make it too obvious by putting it into writing :) .

So instead of blogging I upgraded my drupal installation. Hmrfm I am really becoming a boring mediumgeek.

Working with usability is just like being in politics. If you try to make everyone happy you end up with something that nobody likes. If you try to work towards the greater good there will always be a group of people that would vote for someone else :) .

Ever since I spent some hours at the Paris airports I haven't been able to forget about lines and how rude the French were sneaking in line. It wasn't really the first time this happens either. The same thing happened while waiting at the airport in Iceland few years ago. A bus full of French people barged ahead of us and conveniently didn't understand a word of English (or sign/pointing language) when you tried to point out to them that there was a line. I remember being furious and daydreaming about kicking one of the lady long time afterward, but that is another story :) .

I have been wondering how someone can actually be so horribly self-centered to think they have the right to getting ahead of people that were there before them? During lunch we discussed this a bit but there were no conclusions. Up until now I simply thought people that snug in lines were rare, rude, ignorant, self-absorbed bastards but now I have started doubting my belief. I cannot remember when I learned to stand in line but I can remember it as far back as I can remember. There was never any question, you either get there early or waited your turn. I would feel horrible pangs of guilt if I tried to sneak in line. I don't understand how anyone can do it on purpose...

That lead me to explore the option whether these people were simply so absent minded that they sneak in line unintentionally? I have seen that happen at the canteen when people are busy talking they sometimes accidentally skip a spot or two. I might have done this myself at some point. But the airport cases can't have been accidental. There was pushing and obvious sneaking. Do those people feel it is their right, that they are more important than the people in front of them? Or does the concept of lines not exist in some countries? I have heard rumors of such things, but I cannot for the life of me imagine how things can function there. It must be a major disadvantage to be polite and proper there.

Does anyone reading this come from a non-line culture society that can shed some light on this before I either got nuts, or back to thinking the French are the rudest people on Earth? :)

While I am at it, can anyone teach me how to say, "I was here first, please get to the back of the line" in French? Oh, and maybe to add "you asshole" in case the first one doesn't work well enough?