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Today is the last day of my time off and we have taken it pretty easily, with a little sledding, some shopping and a few hours visiting friends for a coffee and a chat. It was a nice way to spend the last day, especially since last night I was up doing the shelving for the wardrobe until the wee hours. 

One of the benefits of having our own house is that there are no curfews on making sound, which means I can use a drill at anytime of the night. One of the drawbacks of owning a house is that I can use a drill at any time of the night and often have to. However, things are progressing slowly. 

This cat looks to be getting impatient though. 

![OI001174.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/tE1ONnMc-OI001174.jpg)

It visited the slope as we were making some runs and was actually really friendly. I haven't owned a cat since I was a kid and I like them a lot. They are my kinds of animals, socially skilled, but are quite capable of looking after themselves and working alone. 


![OI001166.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/P2srhovh-OI001166.jpg)

It has been really nice over the last few days with my daughter sledding though, as she is far more confident, daring and far less fearful of crashing out of the sled. She also learned to turn it by herself today. I enjoy her getting so excited over learning new things and am amused at how quickly it becomes rote, just another ordinary thing she does, as if she has been doing it forever.

![OI001158.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/Ubc4pGVP-OI001158.jpg)

It gives a glimpse into the nature of human and our fascination with the new and how quickly we can become bored with it, relegating it to the old. Yet, when it comes to skill development and refinement, as well as specialization and spread of skill - there really is no end. When it comes to the things that we love, we can improve forever, yet the better we get, the harder it is to improve upon.  Increasing investment required, diminishing returns on the investment.

![OI001160.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/jyUIycUg-OI001160.jpg)

Yet, when it comes to the things we love to consume, we also want to consume the best - we don't want to watch the 100th fastest in the world run a race, we want the fastest - even though there is only a fraction of a second between them. We like firsts, we like to be the first, even if it is the first with information.   

![OI001169.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/cQ52Twlx-OI001169.jpg)

The news media leverages this desire, which is why they can repeat the same thing hourly all day, having people check in several times a day, even though there it contains nothing directly relative to their live. Interject a few useless pieces of information to provide the sense of "new" and the reward feedback loop is triggered and people can feel like they are the first - even though millions of people are receiving it simultaneously.

![OI001164.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/9tYRWiqF-OI001164.jpg)

It is a psychological hack, making each individual feel special through tailored content, while providing the same generic material to large amounts of people. Because people are made to fee special, the information provided becomes more important, more scarce, more personal and therefore, more likely to be acted upon in some way. 

![OI001144.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/Sa8jOzPA-OI001144.jpg)

We bought a chair I had found in a small chain store before Christmas. Yesterday, I showed it to my wife and she said that she would prefer to buy the Finnish version of it, as while the Finnish version was 70% more expensive, it would support locally. I agreed, as long as it was actually made in Finland to an acceptable degree. 

So, my wife checked the website and read the story of the company and how they started in the 1960s. It was a cute story, personal and local, family orientated. But with a little more digging, the company hasn't made anything in Finland since the mid-80s and not only that, they are essentially drop-shipping everything so they don't even employ people in Finland. 

The problem I find with this is that people talk about this "brand" and speak of the Finnish-made quality. They are buying the story, not the reality of it - They are indeed buying the brand, the label alone. It is quite likely, the one we bought and the one that is 70% overpriced, were made in the same factory, came in on the same boat and then the shipment was split apart for branding. 

The world is globalized and benefits from global supply chains. This allows us to have access to a lot of things that we wouldn't have access to otherwise. But I think preying on the perception of local is disingenuous and makes the cutesy story engineered, calculated and far from the kind of company that I would want to support locally. 

It isn't uncommon of course and I have likely been and will be fooled many times - but, this time, I got the right information at the right time and made my decision accordingly. At least the company I bought from pay their staff here.

The funny thing about new information is that while we want it, we tend to get upset if it goes against what we already believe and are more likely to reject it. My wife was very disappointed in the outcome of the search and felt "cheated" in some way - after all the information leading up to that point had made a point of it being Finnish. 

In today's world, what constitutes being local?

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]

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