Banana flavoured candy doesn't really taste like banana. Or anything artificially banana flavoured for that matter.

Except they actually do. It's the banana that doesn't taste real. Or at least what was used to be the real banana until 1950s. 

Before that, the cultivar called Gros Michel was the main type of banana grown and sold. But during fifties it was almost completely wiped out by the fungus based Panama plague. But not before it had already found it's way to candies in the form of artificial flavour that is still used today in candies.

After owning and driving a car with advanced driver assistance technologies I'm becoming worried about the implications getting accustomed to such technologies. They make driving so easy that driving without them feels too difficult.

Trying to fit my posts into about 200 words requires leaving out all the unnecessary. There is barely room for the facts. It can be challenging as a writer to do that. But there is also another issue with such posts.

Stripping out everything extra is like extracting out the flavour. Without all those additional little tidbits od information the text becomes dry and boring. It also makes it more impersonal.

Doing background study on something to write about can be fun. But, unlike when you have actual set goals to achieve there is the danger of getting carried away. There is always something more to learn, or just some interesting side tracks to explore. It's just so much more fun than actually writing about it.

Learning new skills is fun. But the problem with most of the skills you can learn quickly is that there is only rare opportunities to use them. By the time you finally have a chance to use one you have probably already forgotten the whole thing.

Or maybe that chance never comes. There are skills that would be nice i wouldn't ever need to use. Like some survival skills for the worst case scenarios. Is it worth learning those if they are not supposed to ever become needed. And if they do, will I remember them anymore when needed.

It's hard to write about anything else when you have a certain topic in mind. No matter how hard I have tried to write something today, the one I want to write about, but which is not ready to be written constantly comes to my mind instead.

It's funny how the problem is not having nothing to write about. Or that I wouldn't want to write at all. It's almost like an opposite of a problem to me, unlike for those who struggle to write.

It's December, finally. The year is about to come to an end. And not just the year, but the decade as well. But more about that closer to the end.

December, the month of Christmas. Quite literally here in Finland as it's "Joulukuu" in Finnish. Joulu meaning Christmas and kuu month. So direct translation would be Christmas month. But  actually nothing to do with Christianity originally here.

From the start I have been using this site to write my daily posts. About a year ago I started cross posting the text to the 200wad site as well.

Along the way I have done few improvements. But at it's core it has remained the same. A self hosted Drupal site. There is nothing wrong with it, it just works. Still, I would like to do something new. Something more modern, cutting edge even.

I don't get to code much anymore at my work. So I need to find these hobby projects to satisfy that itch. There might not be the need for it. I just want to do it.

It seems that scientist have finally managed to solve the black hole information paradox. Or at least they believe so. While they can prove their theory they admit they too, don't understand the solution.

The paradox, formulated by Stephen Hawking states that while special relativity says nothing can escape from a black hole, quantum mechanism on the other hand implies no information can completely disappear. But, in the form of Hawking radiation, black holes evaporate over time leaving nothing behind. And the radiation itself is proven to be completely random.

We recently introduced competence guilds in our company. The idea is to function as a home for people with similar skills to have a home to grow and share knowledge when our teams are ever changing and composed of people with different skillsets.

We don't have much of a places to go surfing here in Finland. And even those few are viable options during our very short summer time. If you want to go surfing you basically need to head down to Mediterranean, or even further.

Still, I just went surfing yesterday with my colleagues. Well, flowbosrding to be exact, so not the real thing. But I'm sure it's close enough. I don't really know as I haven't gone surfing ever. Some say it's abit of a mix between surfing and snowboarding.

I remember when over seven years ago I joined my current company. There was many exciting perks we had. Things that I hadn't even dreamt of having as a work benefits. They felt great and special. It was easy to appreciate such things.

Today, after all these years enjoying such benefits they don't feel that special anymore. I take them as granted. Back in the days I wouldn't have missed any chances for those. But today I find myself pondering whether it's even worth it going.

I have to admit I got it all wrong in the past. All the arguments that we might be living inside a simulation. The thing is not to explain why we are here or what created the universe. That still wouldn't make any sense.

But the whole point is the so called ancestor simulation scenario. The assumption is that we (or the ones running the simulation to be more exact) at some point reached the point where running such simulation is computationally possible. Assuming the human level curiosity such computational power would eventually be used to run some simulations of the past.

Nothing seems to be designed to last these days. There are lot of disposable single use items and even those that are supposed to last longer have limited time of uses before they start to show wear.

Just received the latest addition to my modest boardgame collection today. A Kickstarter campaign by Awaken Realms delivered it's first wave of shipments, the game Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon.

Upon opening the package I was already impressed. A lot of material with a nice added bonus for the backers. Everything seems to be of good quality, and the game itself appears to be interesting as well.

It's that time of the year again when everybody is asking the same question: what do you want for Christmas? Every year the same question and the same answer too. I don't know.

I acquire what I need, or want. What I can't is usually so expensive I doubt anybody would afford to get one of those for me as a present. And nobody seems to be willing to pitch in some money towards such things anyway so I could save up for them in the long run.

In Finnish there is the word "tuima". In general it can mean something along the lines of grim, stern or severe.

But when talking about food it has two different meanings. In some regions it can mean the food is too salty. In other regions it however means the exact opposite: saltless.

I don't know why, but it just popped into my mind earlier today while I was just lying down on the couch. It came so out of the blue I had to actually stop there and look around. But there was nothing reminding about them anywhere on sight. I wasn't either thinking anything related. Wasn't thinking much of anything really, just resting there.

I try to write down all the topic ideas I get. Sometimes I forget, sometimes it's already there. Sometimes I even forget I have already written about it before.

It's hard to remember all the things I have written already. And having written so many posts it's not even realistic to go back and check them all.

With all the posts and ideas I'm not sure how many times I have also skipped writing a topic down. Thinking I must have already written about it.

Writing, or doing anything else competitively has it's merits. While I try to improve my writing every day, having a competition in mind gives that urge to improve a bit more weight.

If I'm participating in a competition why not try to give my bests. Why else even bother? It gives more incentive to put some extra effort to the writing.

It's also not just trying your best. Often times even that is not enough for the win. What matters is the feedback and learning opportunities you get from it.