Wednesday 29 December 1999

Pic of the day: Me eating yoghurt. This milk product is transformed by friendly bacteria, and as such probably qualifies as "living food" with a higher vibrational energy. In the past, yoghurt was assumed to be one reason why many men in Georgia (USSR) lived for more than 120 years. Later it was discovered that the reason for the unusual lifespan was the transfer of identity from fathers or uncles, for the purpose of avoiding military draft. But the yoghurt is still a tasty little thing, especially with fruit.

Another strange dream event. Tonight I dreamt that my old comrade SEVJ asked me to help him: The creditors were after him, and they were not playing nice. We looked into ways to get him a new identity, and I trained myself to copy handwritings to make fake signatures for him. The last part of the dream took place in an underground city with high spires in the gloom. The top of the spires were near the entrance to the outer world. I tracked him and a coworker there by the tracks of sand after they had tangled with the sandchild. They were in one of the spire restaurants. At the end of the dream I was paying a moderate bill with my Visa card and found that I was drawn for a much larger amount, virtually all I had on my account. Turned up that I was also paying for the previous customer, who must have had a jolly good time. As there was no other way of reversing the transaction, I decided to wake up. I did, and looked at the alarm watch in disbelief. It was one minute before the time I had set it to wake me.

It's two days to new year's eve. People at work are casually asking me about the risk for Y2K disturbancies. What I say is that I do not expect a worldwide catastrophy. But since humans are well known to goof up, it is a safe bet that some things will go wrong some places. And one of these places just might be where we live. So it is a good idea to have a bit of water and a heat source and some food. I am not going to take a lot of extra cash out from the bank: If the banks don't work in the new year, neither will the shops. The banks are probably the best prepared of all, as they met the Y2K problem earlier.

Another reason for Norwegians to store some wood or a propan heater or another heat source: The supply of electricity is no longer enough to handle a nation-wide deep cold. Part of the problem is that the use of electricity has grown, while the supply has not. The physical network for distributing electricity is also near bursting. The national utility infrastructure company is warning that they may resort to controlled outages if a sudden deep cold sets in. A gradual deep cold will be met with extreme pricing that will force power-based industry to close down in an orderly manner.

I use only electricity for heating, I don't even have a chimney. (This is probably a good thing so I don't attempt to climb down it.) Luckily the apartment is very well insulated. Even so, I would have problems if electricity was gone for more than a few days. I have loads of candles, enough to heat and light a couple of rooms for hours or days, but not for weeks. Perhaps I ought to test this out sometime when it is not critical, and note how long it takes for the electric floors to cool down and heat up again. Stuff like that.

I was out in the lunch break buying lots of candles. Two bags of candles. On my way to the counter I met my boss. She stared. I had earlier in the day tried to assure her that no major problems would arise with the year 2000 thing, only minor glitches some places. I am not sure she believes me any longer...

On IRC yesterday I met one of the journalling Tims, in this case Tim the social reformer. He has started to make a hypertext biography site of his entire life to date. This is an ambitious project. Even more ambitious is his hope that other people will do the same, so the various bios can be linked to each other and make a continuum. A shared understanding of the past. Sadly, this is not even remotely realistic.

Even if people had the time, they would not dare to expose themselves such. Most people are afraid. They do not react to rejection by adjusting their self-image and find ways to improve themselves. Rather they close themselves off from anything that feels threatening, and seek refuge in whatever confirms their feeling of being normal and safe: Family, church, political party, workplace, hobby. People outside the barrier are dangerous and should not have access to knowledge that might weaken us. I can certainly understand this mindset.

And even if some large scale divine intervention made people feel safe, there is still the problem that our memories are not objective chronicles of the past. Not even our current observations are anything near objective. We see not the world as it is, but the world according to each of us. We interpret things differently. We notice selectively. And it only grows worse. Over time, our memories change. Some fade, other twist, and now and again a fake memory is added. Studies show that old people often incorporate in their memories scenes that were vividly described in books (fact or fiction) which they read when they were young. Other studies show that suggestions from trusted people like relatives or therapeuts become embedded in the form of memories.

Question of the day: Why do female butts radiate so much more heat than ours? How do they do it, and can the seat heat be turned off and on at will?

I've noticed for years that when I take a chair after a woman, the chair is often surprisingly hot. (I do this regularly in my job, where I try to sort out the computer problems of my coworkers.) Today as I was shopping, there was a thin young female worker arranging some items on a lower shelf near me. My scientific nature gained the upper hand, as I carefully placed my hand parallel to the surface of her jeans at a distance of approximately 1 cm. And sure enough: She was actually radiating heat, like a slightly warm oven. How do they do it?

(Note that after the end of the trial, I carefully removed my hand without touching the subject. The renowned primate researcher Desmond Morris has written that human males often signal sexual intent by placing their hand on the female's buttock. Dr Morris being a darwinist, it shines through that this action is seen as a residue from the past when our apelike ancestors copulated front to back. I would certainly not want the innocent working girl to mistake me for an apelike ancestor.)