|
wonteechoi
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Won
Country: United States
State: Illinois
Gender: Male
Interests: raising piranhas, eating, organizing my closet, giving stuff away, watching the history channel, keeping up to date on new gadgets but never buying them...
Expertise: responding to emails within 10 seconds, cheating at go-stop, completing to-do lists, nagging my mom, sarcasm, shopping on the internet, studying at borders...
Occupation: Executive
Industry: Computers (Software)
Message: message me
AIM:  wonteechoi
Member Since:
4/16/2003
|
|
| break
one of the things I look forward to when I travel alone and long distances is reading... sadly in my normal routine, I really don't get much, if any reading in... it seems like a challenge even to get through the weekly newsweek...
I went to barnes last week to pick up a couple books for my trip... I usually end up picking up some "junk food" type fiction books... you know, grisham, stephen king, robin cook, etc. I guess I usually do that since those types of books suck you in and is an escape from the real world, similar to how movies draw you in... they are equally addicting as TV and equally superficial... I looked at those types of books but didn't find any that sounded interesting... so next I started looking at other new paperbacks... I think years of listening to NPR has taken it's toll on me, but suddenly all these non-fiction books seems intriguing... I browsed for a long while, and ended up picking up two: "made to break" and "the new kings of non-fiction"
I got through "made to break" and am a good way through "the new kings...". "made to break" talks about the idea of "designed obsolescence"... it argues that the entire concept is an american creation, invented from the early automotive industry and the great depression... basically, there was Henry Ford and the model T... GM was trying to compete but realized that they could not beat Ford in designing a more reliable car... so they decided to try a different tactic... make superficial exterior style changes to their cars and use advertising to tell consumers that their cars were better and more desirable. furthermore, they decided to slightly change the style of their cars every year so that consumers would learn to want the newest models, regardless of whether they are actually better cars or not. the american consumers totally bought this strategy and GM took off, eventually outselling Ford and later forcing Ford to adopt the same strategy. the genius is that people started buying new cars even though their existing cars were perfectly fine... people wanted newness for the sake of newness... this eventually swept across all industries, especially consumer products... companies started inventing disposable products - purposefully designed to last a short time - rather than reusable products and used advertising to make people want them...
anyways, I don't want to retell the whole book, but the conclusion is that we are now stuck in an ever-growing cycle of waste... more and more of what we use are disposable - e.g. all those swiffer type products that replaced reusable ones, cell phones that seem to get replaced once a year, computers that go obsolete in a couple years, etc. the scary thing is that we all buy into and fuel all of this... we are the ones making the choice to buy these products and do the disposing... our cell phones work perfectly fine but we want the new thinner one or one with a larger screen or more memory... so we throw away something that will work for several more years, long before it breaks... these items all go into our landfills and most won't get recycled because it costs too much... I admit I'm a huge contributor to the problem... we all are, especially if you live in the US... it's scary to think about the consequences... it's scary to think how easily we are sucked in by the advertising and have been conditioned since birth to inherently want the newest thing with more features... "new and improved"... we laugh at those labels but subconsciously, we can't resist...
so what can we do? I guess it starts with being aware of the problem and believing that it's a problem... it's also related to the green movement since all our disposing contributes to pollution... landfills leak toxic chemicals into our water supply... or burning them will cause global warming and air pollution... for me, I'm going to think really hard before buying something new to replace something that's working perfectly fine... I already feel lured by new models of my cell phone, even though the one I have works fine and does everything I need... I actually feel that I've been restrained since I've had it for almost 2 years now... also, another thing is to try to find a reusable home for whatever you're replacing... many things can be donated or sold... it's a pain, but worth more than the tax deductions or the small bit of cash you might receive...
oh yeah, the book is an interesting read, though most of you will probably find it a bit dry... I recommend it to anyone who likes to watch "modern marvels" on the history channel or "how it's made" on discovery... 
| | |
| papa-sanA papasan chair is a large rounded bowl-shaped chair with an adjustable angle similar to that of a futon. The bowl rests in an upright frame made of sturdy wicker or wood. The cushion of the chair is typically thick velveteen material filled with cotton fluff. In traditional papasans, the cushion can be removed and used outside of the sturdy frame, though is hand-wash only. Now you know what one is, do you want this one??? 
First person to post that they want it gets it... you must pick it up from me... sooner the better...  | | |
| temptationevery day when I get into work, I check the same websites... one of them is woot.com. if you don't know this site, check it out... basically, there is one deal every day... the really good ones sell out within minutes... most times, the items are useless to me but every once in a while, there are some really good deals that tempt me... a few months back, I was tempted by a refurbished dyon for $250 including shipping... I couldn't resist given that the same dyson brand new sold for $450 at costco... in hindsight, it was a good buy for me... I love the dyson and it performs mostly as advertised... much improvement over my leaky, messy hoover... today, I saw a 30GB microsoft zune on sale for $129... I hemmed and hawed about it for a while... decided against it... an hour later it was sold out... I think it was a great deal... but I'm now glad I resisted... only time I would use it would be for airplane flights and I don't think I travel enough... I heard an interesting story on NPR about china... the story was about chinese farmers rushing to the city and fighting for low wage factory jobs at factories... conditions are horrible and they work 7 days a week, 14 hours a day... I was shocked at what they were willing to do for so little... then I got thinking that if the white collar workers in china and india are working equally as hard, it's only a matter of time for us... either we need to step it up and work even more or we have to accept lower wages... only thing we can hope is that increased prosperity will make them just as soft as us... think about how soft many of us are compared to recent immigrants or our immigrant parents... I know I'm a marshmallow compared to them... when push comes to shove, I wonder what choice I would make... work 60+ hours a week or take a lower standard of living... | | |
| planningnot much going on these days except that we're in the midst of wedding planning... so far so good... I can't say that it's overwhelming or anything like that, but it is a bit tiring in the fact that there seems to be always something that we need to do for it... I suppose it will be never ending until the day comes and passes... for vendor selection, we only need to find a DJ... much of the honeymoon is planned and all the crazy airplane tickets have been purchased - for our trips to LA before the wedding, korea during christmas, LA for the wedding, and honeymoon... and yet again, it seems like summer is passing me by with few of my plans accomplished... I tuned up my bikes (moto and mountain) but haven't really ridden them... haven't really rollerbladed or played tennis... haven't really been very active... I could say that it'll be different next year, but it always seems to be "next year"... life is busy people... if you want to do something, just do it... there will never be the "right" time for it... now I just need to learn to live by those words...  | | |
| old boyI'm starting to realize what it feels like to be old... this past saturday, I worked out in the morning, then helped C pack some boxes for a couple hours, and then went to home depot to buy paint and tile for my condo... there were a total of 17 boxes of tiles... I think they weighed about 50 pounds each... anyways, I moved them into my car and then later from my car into my garage... for the past several days now, I have been in a complete state of exhaustion... I usually never have any back issues but my lower back has been sore for days... at night I fall asleep at 10am... during the day I'm groggy and weak... been running around and not getting enough sleep... but this never used to be a problem... now I understand when my parents used to say they were too tired to do something when to me, they hadn't done anything all day long... anyone else feeling this??? | | |
|
