“I don’t eat “light” or “diet” products, generally — if something’s bad for me, I just eat less of it.”
Marco Arment — Lead Tumblr developer
Reassuring to see that people in the Web world aren’t all Edamame–eating health/organic nuts and that some can actually manage their eating habits like grown ups (or not).
Marco Arment has a very interesting blog where he discusses the Web and other interesting things.
Today I had four hours of sleep, forgot my laptop’s charger in class, had a car accident and lost my house keys. Yet, I’m happy and I even have a smile on my face.
Why? People.
I didn’t have a lot of sleep and came in class sleepy headed enough that I almost fell asleep during an interesting (for me) lecture on HTML forms. But after half a bottle of Moutain Dew and some micro napping I finally woke up to the part where my instructor was explaining the <fieldset> and <optgroup> HTML tags. Most people wouldn’t care or even know what those even mean but put it simply I always wondered how people achieved a certain look and feel in their online forms and thought it was through complicated styling. Nope, they just read and followed the rules, and then simply embellished the result. That little knowledge made me happy, because I knew I could count on it later and that it would serve me well.
Later on during lunch I overheard a voice that I recognized as the eloquent George’s. George is a smart fellow I met randomly while while discussing Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds right after the movie with a group of friend. He was one of the friends of that group of friends. And we started talking about stuff. If you’re a little bit like me you probably recognize a certain type of people that — while they might not agree with you on every subject — apply the same critical standards to a lot of things they are interested or passionate about. For George, it was movies (in that case) and Video Games (if you like the topic, check out his interesting blog about games, ideas and stuff) and you could see right away that he too was a stone turner. A little metaphor that just came to my mind for people with little to no taboo topics, who like to talk about stuff when others just give up because things are the way they are. We just talked a little bit before going back to our respective groups, and I almost forgot (because of what happened later, oooh foreshadowing!) that I told him I’d try to get people together to go see Where The Wild Things Are.
The rest of the class (lab) was uneventful enough, I made plans for the evening and got a call from a friend that prompted me to leave early to go back to East Orlando. But he gave me a raincheck so I eventually sat down and got some work done outside before leaving in much less of a hurry.
I took University Boulevard eastbound which is about the only direction you can take from Full Sail and drove down while listening to This Week In Tech (recommended to anyone interested in Web/Tech news). I remember thinking once again that this 9am to 5pm schedule really doesn’t suit me it follows precisely the heaviest traffic possible in Orlando (a walk in the park compared to the lightest traffic in Paris, but still). Then I remembered that I needed gas, I had noticed my gauge was almost all the way down the night before but thought there was no rush. There was also a lot of traffic on the left turning lane when I passed the Race Track gas station on Alafaya Trail, so I thought it would be for the best.
So instead of following the calmer, less dense middle lane of Alafaya Tr southbound, I took the left lane shortly after the University Bld, intersection. The topic at hand on TWIT was a lawsuit involving YouTube (Google) and Viacom. I remember that the discussion started to be very interesting when the existence of internal emails proving that YouTube knew about copyright infringement (and didn’t care) was discovered.
Then I saw a car slow down in front of me, I slowed down. But the car slowed down more sharply still. And I had to slam on the breaks pretty hard. It sometimes happens in such a traffic, especially when many people turn at the same spot. I checked my rearview mirror. The guy behind me was close, but managed to stop in time too. A little closer to me than I was to the car in front of me (about 2 or 3 meters). Then I heard a screeching tire sound. A slight rain had just started, so I thought it might be my own tires going to a full stop somehow. I know automatic cars do that sometimes. And even though it’s usually when starting the car or turning, the thought made sense to me at that instant.
One instant later, I realized that it didn’t quite made sense after all. And I was pushed forward.
I saw the rear bumper of the car in front of me get closer and bounce. I think I said something like “Oh, come on!”. I had my foot firmly on the brakes, but I think I remember the pedal reacting a little bit before the car stopped moving again. I check my mirror to see if any cars were planning on joining the party. It seemed safe enough. I got out, and saw that the man in front of me had already gone out of his car. He looked fine, I was relieved and then turned around to check on the guy behind me. He wasn’t straight behind me, but at an angle. And that angle caused damage. The hood of his car (a Lexus) had sunk below the rear bumper of mine (a higher set Nissan Rogue). The guy seemed a little buzzed so I asked him on a grave tone of voice if he was OK. He read the gravity and gave me a firm positive answer. Then I saw the last car. The shock had been straight on for that one. The front of the hood was bent at an almost 45 degree angle. But not high enough that I couldn’t make out the driver. It was a young woman. Again I wanted to make sure she was OK and started walking in her direction. Then I saw that she was sobbing. I wondered for half a second (yes, I counted) but quickly realized it was simply emotional distress. She either realized she was in trouble or she simply got really, really scared. From the screeching rubber, she must have been driving a little faster than all of us, and the shock must have been that much scarier.
I won’t put too much detail into what happened next (because it’s late, and I have another long day tomorrow), but let me simply say that it proves my point. The three people in the front of the accident (including me) quickly started talking and defusing the situation together. One of them was a little tense because he didn’t have his license on him (he also suffered the most visible damage on his car). And most of all, everyone was relieved that no one was hurt. I talked with the man that was in front of me (who’s car was luckily still in working condition) for probably more than an hour, called a few friends to explain the situation and let them know everything was OK and ask for some advice for the insurance and general procedures since it was after all my first car accident ever. Not including a minor bump, interestingly also in Florida, in Cocoa Beach. A woman who was concentrating very hardly on her lap thought she felt the light turn green and decided to bumb the back of my car, but not a scratch — doesn’t count. We all waited a bit, none of us exactly sure what to do first. Eventually someone called his insurance, I called 911 to report the accident, have a dispatch sent in and explain the basic situation. The patrol car that came over took a little while but she was simply here to protect us from traffic and see if everyone was indeeed OK.
She was very nice and gave us as much information as she could and asked for a Florida Highway Patrol car to be sent with an officer who could properly block traffic, write an incident report, take depositions and have the undrivable cars towed away (mine, the one behind me and the young woman who remained in tears for what seemed like 30 minutes while calling her family or friends I assume. She then eventually came to see us to introduce herself. She was shaking and it reminded me that for the first 5 to 10 minutes, even though I wasn’t scared at all, my legs were also shaking. Simple chemical reaction to a dangerous situation I suppose. She shook our hands I think and having jotted down the two other drivers’ info on my iPhone, I asked her if I could have her number. She gave was obviously very sorry and gave it to me, then tried to spell her name and ended up simply handing me her driver’s license.
I felt bad for her at that point. It would have been rude to point it out to her, but the two other drivers’ version of the events converged with mine in the conclusion that she was clearly the physical cause of the accident. Morally, it’s hard to blame her, because in her situation, I have no idea whether I could have stopped in time or not. But still, the officer cited her for Careless Driving. What it means for the rest of us is that all of our insurances will ask to be compensated be her insurance, which should take care of it. But it probably means much higher insurance fees for her, and doesn’t exclude a raise in ours as well. I sort of understand the economic reason for this, but I don’t see the sense in an insurance company that receives regular payments, sees the insured are not in the wrong (i.e. were victims) but still raises the prices (as I was told, I have no knowledge on the subject). As a consumer, I would never agree to such a policy, but it probably implies lower recurring fees upfront, which would explain why most people choose such policies (they see the short term gain, as human beings are evolutionarily advantaged to).
The rest of the night included waiting about an hour more for the officer to complete his report and the tow trucks to arrive (almost in perfect synchronicity). Then I walked to a gas station to get a refreshing Sweet Tea, glad to be OK and that everyone else also was, and hoping (from what transpired) that the owner of my car (that I rent) wouldn’t have to suffer the cost of this accident too much. I was picked up from the gas station and realized when I arrived home that I had of course given my car keys to the tow truck man. And for many (usually) good reasons I always keep my car keys attached to my house keys. I eventually had to do one more stop before one of my roomates could pick me up. And after some trial-and-error, I managed to reach someone at the insurance company. Quite simply the nicest telephone rep I’ve ever talked with. I understand it’s her job to provide a good customer experience, especially in these situations, but she played a large role into how good this day eventually turned back to. There is still material uncertainty ahead and complications — biggest of which is the lack of car for a while, but I was told I was probably entitled to a loaner car paid by the person responsible for the crash — but what I get out of it is that this day finished on a higher note than it started on.
And really, what else can you ask for?
PS: I feel I haven’t driven my point to the ground yet. I like people for what they are, what they think, how they think (be it good or bad), what they look like, what they feel, what they make me feel. I like them for who they are, not for what I wished them to be. I like them because they’re complex and so extremely simple to understand. I like them because they’re all like me, in a very different way.
You may not know about him.
Borlaug’s discoveries have been estimated to have saved over 245 million lives worldwide
Do learn.
How did he do it?
By improving Nature and using Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs).
Meanwhile Greenpeace was doing this.
I’ve never understood the coffee phenomenon. I tasted coffee as a kid at my aunts house I think. My cousin Émilie was crazy about it even as a kid and I always thought it smelled like burnt tire and smoke. Well it tasted exactly like that too. Everyone around me always drank coffee and touted it as a “grown up” drink.
I didn’t have many arguments to ridicule this at that age, but just like many “grown up” things it implies pretending that you like something repulsive just because everyone else tells you its good. At the time I just didn’t like it. It wasn’t a contrarian point of view. For me it simply felt like all those things branded as “adult” for some random reason: smoking, drinking wine or liquor, eating spinach, fish, snails (bet you most young Frenchies can’t stand that either) and seafood. Very few people actually like eating or drinking these things. But if you don’t, you must be a close-minded baby who’s too scared to try anything new and who’d rather drink Chocolate Milk — yes, I do.
If you’re an old economics major like me or have a general interest in how stuff works you probably have a general understanding of how a Market with a big “M” functions. That doesn’t mean you understood a single thing about the Subprime collapse or why printing money is bad, why people sometimes choose to default on their mortgage or why banks took such amazing risks.
All those tedious little questions most people toss aside when they decide to rant with one another about those evil Wall Street people and those silly homeowners who didn’t think twice about buying a house they couldn’t possibly afford.
If you only read one book about this whole ordeal, it should be Johan Norberg’s. Let me warn you from the start, Norberg is — like me — a libertarian. One of those insane people who like to step back from the rhetoric and actually look at the impact that both the Left and the Right had on the things they so nobly tried to “Change” with “Hope” or “God”.
Despite his clear point of view on the matter, Norberg spends half of his book without even bothering to give his opinion. A rare fact, that when telling a story so enraging as this one, feels like a breath of fresh air. The main timeframe of the book from the 1980’s to 2008, without any clear linear storytelling. We jump back and forth following the cause and the effect of one inane underthought policy after another. It’s frustrating, it’s annoying, it’s exactly what we usually don’t see about political interventionism: the results.
You can find it on Amazon for around $15.
