Malthus

Thomas Malthus was a scholar who, back in the 19th century, dedicated some of his time into thinking about population growth and decrease. Some of his ideas, known as the core principles of Malthus, are:food is necessary for human existence;

Human population, if not checked, tends to grow faster than the Earth’s capacity to produce subsistence;

the effects of these two unequal powers must be kept equal;

misery is the mechanism that balances human requirements and available resources;

Nature's requirement that the imbalance between demand and supply be resolved forms the "strongest obstacle in the way of any very great improvement of society," and thus makes "the perfectibility of man and society" a theoretical and practical impossibility;

The Principle of Population, i.e., the inevitability of misery due to the power of a population to overwhelm resources, provides the mainspring behind the advance of human civilization by creating incentives for progress.

For those that have a lazy brain, let me translate this into a picture:

Essentially, a population can’t grow without resources. A bit like this:

This last picture represents bacterial growth. In optimal conditions, as long as bacteria have resources available (aka nutrients) they tend to grow exponentially. After some time, the resources start to be depleted, toxic metabolic biproducts also accumulate in the medium, and growth slows down, eventually stabilizing (the number of dividing bacteria equals the number of dying ones). Inevitably, unless new nutrients are added, death follows.

Y, you may ask, am I writing all of this? Simple. The trend of bacterial growth is easily applied to Human population growth. This isn’t new, this is something that any biologist learns. Unfortunately, this knowledge isn’t given in every school, to every kid. Nor do the kids search for this kind of knowledge. And so, Humans go about their lives thinking that they have a great and sustainable way of life and that they can keep this up indefinitely, without thinking of potential consequences.

Can someone live without knowing the basic and essential biological principles? Yes. But that makes life so much harder for those that follow.

A5

Por que razão há sempre tanto trânsito do tipo "pára-arranca" na A5?
Para começar, é uma auto-estrada. Não tem semáforos. Tem 3 faixas em cada sentido (embora para muitas, quiçá a maioria, das pessoas, tenha apenas 2 faixas, e para uma minoria, existe unicamente a faixa do meio). Não tem cruzamentos.
Logo, não há razão para um qualquer carro parar na A5. A não ser que tenha um acidente à sua frente. Mas não há acidentes na A5 todos os dias. E os que têm, geralmente, um motivo idiota e são sempre nos mesmos sítios.
Mas voltando à questão... O próprio trânsito tem origem nos mesmos locais, geralmente subidas. No Verão é fácil explicar, o rebanho vai em direcção ao Sol. O Sol interfere com a visibilidade. A pessoa leva com o Sol na retina e o instinto absurdo de carregar no pedal do meio assume o controlo corporal. Segue-se batida por trás, ou num dia bom, um carro parado atrás, e começa assim um longo tormento automobilístico.
Mas num dia de Outono/Inverno, já com pouco ou nenhum Sol na "hora de ponta", o que é que acontece? Pois, é o supra-citado eclipse aberrante de faixas que ocorre. É isso, e o saltitar constante que muitos fazem de faixa para faixa, pois a dos outros parece que anda sempre mais depressa. E quando realmente anda, não serve de nada ir para lá. Os outros vão fazer exactamente o mesmo, o número de carros nessa faixa vai aumentar, e ela passa a ser a mais lenta.
Portanto, conselhos:
- de Monsanto até ao alto de Linda-a-Velha, a faixa mais rápida é a da direita.
- quando começarem a descer, há dias em que a da esquerda é a que flui melhor, noutros dias continua a ser a da direita.
- depois do desvio para Queijas, a regra da direita aplica-se.
- o viaduto entre o Estádio e Oeiras é sempre um ponto de extrema desaceleração para muitos carros, que teimam em não ocupar a faixa da direita, e aqui origina-se grande parte do trânsito. Por isso, optem pela direita.

Notas finais:
- ultrapassar pela direita é proibido. Mas segundo o código da estrada, a ultrapassagem consiste na mudança de faixa onde nos encontramos por forma a passar um veículo que impedia a nossa circulação na faixa em que nos encontrávamos. Logo, se forem sempre pela direita, não estão a infringir nenhuma regra e chegam mais depressa ao destino.
- será que a polícia já reparou que todos os dias milhares de pessoas cometem uma contra-ordenação muito grave na A5? É que o limite mínimo de velocidade permitido é 50 quilómetros por hora...

Toilet paper

Y do we use toilet paper?

The answer is simple, I guess... But better yet, who came up with the idea? Obviously, this crucial existential question overwhelmed me while I was taking a crap...

Doing some research (after washing hands), one can quickly find out that, apparently, the use of toilet paper was invented by the Chinese. Does this mean that if Chinese people wouldn't have been fleeing from their country for the last decades, dispersing all over the globe, we wouldn't be wiping our asses with paper? Maybe not...

Also interesting is the fact that, in some parts of the world, wealthy people once used other materials, like wool, for the same shitty job. Not only could they clean their ass, but it would also be warm and cozy.

As for the Romans, they stretched their empire using a sponge on a stick and a bucket of saltwater. No wonder the Roman empire fell...

As for people in India, they seem to find that using water is a more clean and sanitary practice. Of course it is! But not in India...

So, choose your method and wipe your ass.

Possession

Y do most Portuguese people feel the need to own their own house/flat?

Let's look at some facts:

To buy a flat, you seldomly (if ever) have all the necessary money. Thus, you go to a bank and ask for a loan - the process, by itself, is a pain in the ass. By the time you finish paying off the loan, the house/flat cost you around 10-20% more, or even higher. Also, you'll also be paying that loan over the course of 30 to 40 years. Although life expectancy is increasing, there's a big chance that the flat will never trully be yours. Hence, the argument that buying is better than renting, because at least you're paying for something that will be yours, may not be true.

A big advantage of renting is that you can move out whenever you want, if you get tired of living in the same place. Selling the flat, on the other hand, can be troublesome, unless you own a penthouse in the center of a cosmopolitan city. Also, you don't have to play all the sort of taxes that ownership implies.

You can always argue that, at least, you'll leave something for your kids (if you have any). Hello? If you're buying your own house/flat, you didn't get it from your parents. If your kids want some place to live in, they must work to get it.

Suffice to say I won't be convinced to buy a flat anytime soon.

And this serves only as an example, since most people feel the need to own everything that they surround themselves with. A theme for a future discussion.

ASFV TopoII

Y does the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) encode its own type II topoisomerase?

It's a really interesting question, and while I don't know the answer to it (yet!), I'll let you know when I find out! In about 3 year´s time...

Just a curiosity: ASFV is one of the few viruses that encode their own topoisomerase II, and of those few, it's the only one capable of infecting mammalian cells.

It's probably best for me to go to work, then...

Spring cleaning

Y do most people do what is called as "Spring cleaning"?

Simple answer: to really clean what is obviously dirty. Or at least not extremely clean.

Although this is mainly related to one's house/apartment, I guess the term, and the process, can also be applied to one's life. If needed, one should seize this wonderful opportunity to clean all the filth that is running around in one's social and professional environments. If dirty beyond any sort cleaning method, the best procedure is to discard and renew.

I'm glad to say I've done my share of Spring cleaning. Now everything is shining.

This drug called love

Y do we love?

Why do we have this intense feeling for someone or something? Is it exclusive to the human species, or do other animals also feel it and we just don't (can't) know it? I surely don't know the answer to these questions, and it is not my intention to dwell on this (not today, at least).

I'm just here to say that love is like a drug, very addictive. And I'm yet to discover an addiction that isn't bad for one's health, either physically, mentally or both - often the latter. Like for drugs, you can try to replace love with other shitty supplements - chocolate, for example. But they don't get the job done, and the side-effects aren't even remotely worth it. Also, like for drugs, too much love can kill you (almost quoting Queen), or at least leave you with a broken heart. Yet, some simply don't care about love, as they don't care about any other drug, and some just like to try different sorts of drugs, without having a real interest for them. Some are too scared to try it, afraid they might end up getting hurt. And there are those that go to rehab, either because they overdosed on love, or simply because they don't want to be addicts anymore.

And love rehab is as difficult as any other type of rehab (this is me guessing, of course). While some succeed, there are those who just can't go through with it and those that relapse on the loved one.

Finally, like for drugs, unfortunately, the amazing and pleasureful sensation isn't everlasting. It weakens with every fix, and it fades with time... By then, you can either stay faithful to the drug that brought you so much pleasure in the past, even though it brings you ephemeral satisfaction, or you can change drugs and discover new sensations.

That, my friend, is a choice I leave to you.

Déjà vu

Y do we have déjà vu?

Although I find this feeling strangely pleasant, I've always wondered the reason for it to happen. Several theories have been formulated to explain it, with some being more plausible than others. The fact is that nobody can say what a déjà vu truly is.

Some argue it may be a recollection of a past experience that is remarkably similar to the present experience that triggers the déjà vu sensation. Although it has some logic, I tend to feel that my "memory" of the event is precisely identical to what I'm experiencing at the time of the déjà vu, and not just similar. Also, I can sometimes say when that past experience has occurred - does this mean that my brain is making stuff up to fill the gaps created by the déjà vu?

Another, but less plausible explanation, refers to a delay between what is perceived by both eyes, thereby creating the recollection effect. I say this is less plausible because my déjà vu are often triggered by what I hear and feel, and not only what I see. Also, I don't like the idea of having a lazy eye :)

My favourite explanation, that I came up with some years ago and got amazingly disappointed when I found out that it wasn't original (right about when I discovered I wasn't alone in the world...), although it is definitely the least realistic of them all, is that during a déjà vu we perceive something that is happening as something that already happened, because in fact it has already happened (confused?). And at this point I can't quite choose the explanation to why it has happened before:

- hypothesis 1: it already happened to us, but in previous lifetimes; why? because we (we, the universe and all that it contains) are stuck in an endless loop, and everything happens exactly the same way over and over again. And sometimes along the way we recall past experiences while we are experiencing them (again!). This loop is explained by the limited expansion and subsequent contraction of the universe, leading to an infinite number of Big Bangs and Big Crunches. Of course, this implies that the universe is not expanding indefinitely, which has yet to be proved - just a minor detail...

- hypothesis 2: it already happened to us, but in a parallel universe; imagine that an infinite number of universes exist, in which we made different choices somewhere along our lives; still, sometimes we experience the same exact situation in both universes, although not necessarily at the same time. This creates an overlap between the different realities, thereby leading to the déjà vu sensation.

Science fiction always gives the best answers to life's most important questions, doesn't it?

Mind and body

Y is the body a mere servant of the mind?

I find truly amazing the ways in which the body is affected by the mental state. If I'm really happy, motivated, or even in love, I find that I possess an unlimited source of energy. I can do almost everything without getting tired. However, if I'm sad, depressed or broken-hearted, just the action of getting out of bed is tiresome... I become exhausted just by thinking of doing it.

And it's of no use to rationalize these things. Knowing your mental condition does not change your body's response, which in some cases is a crying shame. Wouldn't it be great if we could just snap our fingers and everything would return to normal? Whatever normal is...

And what if you can't control the things messing with your mind? You can't control love. You can't control your boss, who's a pain in the ass. You can't control the fact that everything you do just turns to shit. But you can try to find positive things in all the bad ones, even if it's very very hard. Because, like I've said before, you're just pilling up experience. Maybe if you gather enough of it, you'll get an extra-life. Or at least be allowed a Force upgrade. Damn, life is not Jedi Academy...

And if some people just seem to pleasure themselves by breaking you into tiny pieces, all you got to do is gather all those pieces together and reassemble yourself, and you'll come out stronger than ever before. Both mentally and physically. Sometimes it may be extremely hard, but that's what friends are for. The real ones aren't just phone numbers or Facebook avatars. They're there for when you need them, so please feel free to use them.

Fortunately, I didn't need mine. I got beaten down, I got bruised. It took me a while to heal, and had almost done it when I got a second beating. Strangely, it wasn't nearly as bad as the first one, although it should have been. It should have been worse. I don't know why it wasn't, maybe the wounds I already had made me insensitive to new ones. All I know is I've healed, now, and I didn't even get scars [since I got to heal over a nice big cup of chocolate mousse, perhaps chocolate has magical healing powers :)].

I'm ready for the next match. Both mentally and physically. Bring it on!

Chess

Y play chess?

Imagine life like a very long chess tournament. In every game, your pieces are choices that are presented to you. With every move, you gain experience. In every game, you'll probably make the choices that worked best in previous games, and avoid those that have lead you to failure.

Thus, if despite all your efforts, life just slaps you in the face... Don't turn the other cheek, but don't walk away either. Keep your posture, remain calm, and plan your next move. Life is made of change and choices. Change is always good, it gives you perspective. And there are no bad or wrong choices. Every choice you make gives you experience, it allows you to learn something, it allows you to experience life as it is. So don't regret what you choose, or have chosen to do, but be sorry for those opportunities that you were to scared to seize. Happiness is for the brave, not the cowards.

And in the end, hopefully, checkmate will be yours.

Desire

Y do I crave that which I cannot have?
Why do I waste time wishing, hoping, wanting, if I already know that it will be useless? If nothing I do can change the course of things, why is my desire just increasing uncontrollably?
I know how things are meant to play out... The board is set and the pieces are in place. But instead of being in control, I'm just the pawn, heading right into the slaughter. Can this be what they call fate? Is what I do already predefined?
I refuse to believe so, I refuse to be the pawn. I will not sit back and go along for the ride. I'll drive. I'll choose the path. I'll do anything to fulfill my desire.

Masochism

Y do we repeat some mistakes over and over again?
Aren't we supposed to learn from our experiences? If we recognize we've made an error, somewhere along our lives, why do we sometimes recur in it? Is it because deep down we need the pain of failing to let us know we're alive? Or are we just stupid people, unable to learn? Or maybe just masochists?
Perhaps some things are just too valuable to let them pass by without taking a chance. Even if it's probably a huge mistake, and if it's likely you'll get hurt in the process. But going back to a previous post, if you fall you can always get up. But not trying... That is much worse.

Taça de Portugal

Por que razão ganhou o CCO (Clube de Corfebol de Oeiras) a Taça de Portugal?
Simplesmente porque é o melhor clube nacional!!!
CCO allez, CCO allez, CCO allez!!!

Fotos da vitória, é no Facebook!

To hate

Y is it so hard to hate someone you cared about?

It may have been a lover, a close friend, a not-so-close friend, even someone from your family, but it was someone for whom you cared about, somewhere along your life. And that someone did something to you that you really hated, that really pissed you off, that you considered disrespectful given the feelings you had.

You decide to sever the ties that connect you to that person. If possible, you will not speak to him/her. You will have no interaction whatsoever.

You are really hurt and you hate that person. Not the person per se, but his/her action(s). But aren't people defined by what they do?

Still, hate is very different from love. You cannot choose who you love, even though sometimes it would be great if you could. But you can choose to hate someone. And maybe the answer to my question lies here. When you choose to hate, you dedicate yourself to doing that. But how committed are you in doing so? For how long? If you cared for the person, do you really want to hate him/her? And what if you still bear those feelings? Are love and hate compatible?

If you are a normal, regular, sane person, no, they are not compatible. And love will always win, whether it takes one day, one month or one lifetime.

So, don't waste your time hating someone you care(d) about, because in the end all that hatred will disappear and you'll end up realizing you wasted your time and maybe lost the opportunity to have a good relationship with someone.

The fall

Y are most people so afraid of falling?
Yes, falling, and not failing. You fall, you may or may not get hurt, but at least you took the chance. Isn't it better than just thinking "what if?"?
Besides, pain is good. It means you're able to feel it, that you're alive and have the will to live. Also, the body is able to heal.
So, next time you think about trying something, stop thinking about it and just do it. Safely. :D

Truth or dare

Y can't we understand each other?
The Human species uses dozens (is it hundreds?) of different languages to communicate. Still, two people speaking the same language may well misunderstand each other completely. Why is this? Why can't all people just say what's on their mind? Why can't everybody just be straightforward? You may say some things that are hard to hear... You may hurt some feelings... But at least your honest. Is it better to lie? To hide? To deceit? Maybe, for the person who's listening. But what about the one who's saying it (or not saying it)? Perhaps that person is missing out on something big, something important... The opportunity to be happy, and/or to be loved.
Life may be easier avoiding conflicts and not saying certain things, but I'll have it plain, complicated, as it is. I'll say what I have to say, when I have to say it, to whoever I have to say it. With one exception.

Life, or something like it

Y do we live like this?

Why do we spend the best years of our lives dwelling in stressful tasks, immersed in work, doing stuff that guide us down the path of precocious aging?

Where does that lead us? Does it mean that if I work hard until I’m 50, I can expect to live until I’m 70-80 years old? Great, I’ll have enough time to develop several types of cancer, as well as some autoimmune diseases.

Wow, nowadays we have 20 or 30 more years of life expectancy, when compared to the 19th century. Amazing! Instead of dying after having a stroke, I can spend some decades stuck to a wheel-chair, eating through a straw! Isn't this something to live for!? Ironically, I’m likely to have that same stroke when I finally retire, thereby ruining the period of my life that I could dedicate all to myself.

Shouldn’t we spend the best years of our lives trying to, I don’t know, live the best years of our lives? Not that we shouldn’t work and/or study, and just lay back and enjoy the sunny weather. But why rush things? Why are of obsessed with having everything finished yesterday? If we can expect to live until we’re 65, do we need to accomplish all that is futile before we’re 30?

Evolutionary biologists profusely use the term fitness to, in leigh terms, define the ability of an organism to produce offspring, in a given environment. If the fitness is high, then that organism will almost certainly produce offspring and transmit its genetic information to the following generation. Simple, right? Then why do people in the so-called “developed countries” have fewer children? Or why do they have children at an older age, with an increased risk for their progeny of having genetic anomalies?

An increased life expectancy doesn’t imply an increase of our fitness. In most cases it doesn’t even stand for better quality of life. It’s just delaying the inevitable. Because we keep forgetting that we are not special, nor are we divine. We are just animals and, like all other animals, we die.

Our accomplishments may bring us remembrance, but we can only live through our children.

Sample size dilemma

Y keep rowing in one direction, if everyone else keeps going the opposite way?

It makes me wonder who’s wrong. Is it the majority, or maybe just me? To be truthful, recent history has shown me that a big majority can be completely mistaken. But can this be a recurrent event, or a mere fluke of chance?

I have to admit it, chance is a bitch… You can flip a coin 10 times, and even though the probability of getting heads is the same as getting tails, it’s not unlikely to get 8 or 9 heads, maybe even 10. That’s why you need big samples (>1000, if you aim low), because the values obtained when you sample lots and lots of times tend to match more accurately those that theory predicts.

Does this mean, assuming that the probability of a person being right is the same of it being wrong, that in a small group of people it is likely that the majority is wrong more often? Perhaps. But how can one say what’s wrong and what’s right? In some cases, only time will tell. In others, however, right and wrong are defined a priori. One already knows what must and mustn’t be done, which goals one should have and what to aim for. And if, after knowing all of this, one still goes with the flow, maybe it’s because that person agrees with what was defined.

Then why do some people enter the current but then start going upstream just like salmons in their way to spawn? News flash: salmons spawn, and then they die.

Guilty

Y do people have this incredible need to blame someone for something that has gone wrong?
Whenever shit happens, either a boy that left school earlier than he was supposed to and ended up floating on a river, or a man that slipped on a banana peel and fell into the ground, most people urge to point blame at someone. Why is that? Why can’t accidents just… happen? Of course they must have a cause, but that doesn’t necessarily involve someone that wasn’t harmed in the process. It can even be stochastic!
Going back to my first example, that actually is a real one, it seems that the guilty part in this case is a school-employee that shouldn’t have allowed the boy to leave the school. Come on, did he push the kid onto the river? Did he tell him to throw himself into the water? No, he just didn’t stop the kid from leaving the school. Why does that make him guilty of something?
We can’t go around punishing people just because others do stupid things. I mean, we can (we do it!), but we shouldn't. Instead, why not try to understand why it happened, and try to prevent it from happening again? Or even just try to repair the consequences.

Under construction

Y do old people linger around construction sites?
To be precise, I should say "old men" and not "old people". I seldom see old women in this kind of situation.
But it's a sure thing. Whether a hole is being open, or a stadium being built, you'll find old men just staring at it. And it's not for a couple of minutes... No, some stay there for hours! Just watching... I'd really like to understand  this phenomenon...
Maybe it's related with a return to childhood... Since we Portuguese call old-age "a segunda infância", and given that lots of kids (boys) are hugely fascinated by construction toys (cranes, bulldozers, etc.), perhaps the passage of time brings that past allure to the surface of an aged mind.
Or maybe there's just lots of old men with nothing to do but sitting around watching some machines in action. It surely surpasses watching the afternoon TV programs...

The Y

Y "The Y"? For 3 reasons.
First, the sound effect. Y is pronounced in the same way as "why", and it looks waaaayyyyy cooler in a blog title than "The Why". Ok, maybe not, but I prefer it like it is.
The second reason, and maybe the most important of all, is "why". It is not a mere word. And not just another question, when used in combination with "?". "Why?" is the question! "Why are we here?"; "Why are cancer cells a pain in the ass?" (I apologize to those of you who suffer of rectal cancer); "Why did the chicken cross the street?"... These are just some of the most important question posed by Man, and I could be here all night long mentioning some more... But you can also use a simple "Why?" to question everything. And with that, you search for the reason behind things, you try to understand why things are what they are, or/and how they came to be. Or maybe you're trying to understand the motivation of someone for doing something. For example, why does a girl spend a whole afternoon with a guy, having a good time, knowing that he likes her but having absolutely no interest in him? More than asking "Who?", "Where?" or "When?", you first need to ask "Why?".
And that leads me to the third and final reason. Like a child, I still ask "Why?" all the time. To everyone. To everything. Because of everyone and everything. And usually, I don't get an answer, but I won't quit just because people are curious or because they don't know what leads them to do what they do.
Thus, no other name would be more appropriate to this blog than "The Y".
And with this, I'll stop posting for today. Why? I have to take a shower...

Castelo de São Jorge

Y spend 5€ to go to Castelo de São Jorge?
This question bothered me for some time, recently... And after going there, I still think I don't have a good answer for it...
By itself, the castle is a bit disappointing... You get the usual stone walls (although these have been extensively repaired) and high towers, but not much more than that on the inside...
There's also a archaeological site that's been opened recently, but it's a small thing and not very enlightening. Some artifacts found there are interesting, namely coins and currency metals, with some history lessons, but nothing spectacular.
The plus side is the view of Lisbon. You get a wonderful view of the center of  the city and of Tejo, which combined with a sunny day almost makes up for the 5€ (I'll put up some pictures later...).

And then you get curiosities: you've got cats and peacocks, if you like animals; you've got tourists doing idiotic things, namely almost falling from castle walls just to take pictures, if you're a people-voyeur; and you've got a whole bunch of stairs leading to nowhere, just in case you're a fitness freak.

In summary, are the 5€ worth it? I have no regrets. But the best thing to do is to spend them and check it out for yourself.

Here are some pictures:

Friends with benefits

Y open with boring stuff? No use in that...
Friends with benefits... What does this mean? Does a "normal" friendship have no benefits "attached"?
And why is sex a benefit while, for example, companionship is not?
I'd say that a friendship is full of benefits. Or, in other words, a friendship is beneficial for those people involved.
The so-called friends with benefits have sex (some don't, ahahah). Maybe the occasional meal together. They do have some benefits. But probably not those of a real friendship.
So Y not call it "Sex with benefits"? I mean, it's usually more than just casual sex. It's something that lies in that grey area where everything that we can't put a name on goes.
As for me... I'll just leave a word of advice: don't mix friends with sex. No benefits in that!!!