There have been various people (general nerd types) who've tried living on a 27 hour cycle, and found it generally quite useful, except for the fact that you're often up at completely different times from the rest of the world.
When I lived in a large house full of slackers who did nothing we naturally migrated to something close to a 27 hour schedule except, since we had no jobs, we were all in sync, so you'd wake up at, say, 4 AM, and everybody else would just be getting up, and we could get right to the business of smoking pot for several hours.
Were you the one who linked (a long time ago) to the four hour sleep cycle guy? The catch being that you had to implement it so rigidly that no one can possibly do it correctly?
I don't think so, but that sounds truly awful.
A thirty-two hour workweek works just as well. I couldn't understand why my Fridays went by so damn fast until I realized I was doing all my chores and errands that day. Made Sunday positively leisurely.
I've mentioned previously that when I worked third shift, I had an eight-day work week of consecutive ten-hour days, followed by a six-day "weekend", and it was hands-down the best schedule I've ever had.
Given three extra hours a day, I'm pretty sure I'd blow them farting around on the internet.
Those people are nuts. I want to keep the 7-day week and have a 3-day weekend: one for sleeping/doing nothing, one for errands and chores, and one for socializing.
We have guests around at the moment. When I come downstairs from putting Gusty to bed the kitchen is clean and the house is tidy. Why don't we live in larger family groups?
Actually, summer vacation works pretty well, too.
There is/was actually a conspiracy theory which runs along the lines of: "Of course humans aren't evolved from apes - we come from another planet. You can prove this by the way everybody goes to a 27 hour circadian cycle if they're not at work, so we obviously didn't evolve anywhere there's a 24 hour day." These are not the same people who believe the ruling class are all giant lizards in disguise, but they probably drink in the same bars.
We have guests around at the moment. When I come downstairs from putting Gusty to bed the kitchen is clean and the house is tidy. Why don't we live in larger family groups?
I sincerely hope this question gets asked more and more in the next 25 years. If/when I have kids, I would want to raise them in a multi-family housing environment with shared responsibilities.
You should normally be able to catch at least three hours of rest during an average working day.
I also don't know why retired grandparents don't move back in with their children. Presumably this will happen as the generations for which pensions exist are replaced by newer generations.
13- because grandparents are cute ... at a distance.
I also don't know why retired grandparents don't move back in with their children.
Because they've spent 20 to 30 years cleaning up after their bloody children and they want some time to do what they want for a change. I'm not in that position myself, but I've had it explained to me emphatically by several people who are.
I meant once they become enfeebled and incapacitated.
You mean when they're so old they no longer want to do anything at all anymore.
11,13: Do either of you have in-laws? Irresponsible or tightly wound aunts/cousins? Guest/host is not at all the same as cohabiting, there's a clear authority division and a clear friendly exit in that case.
IMO the issue is less time management than authority management. Work that's interesting or well compensated requires responsiveness to other people about tasks that only you understand. There's competition for responsibility. That doesn't mesh well with unscheduled work/life blends. If everybody agreed to 35 hrs/week or whatever, that might work, but French colleagues all told me about how they worked around that when it was being enforced. The difficulty of task-sharing is the party line for why hospital resident work hours are crazy, fwiw.
I don't know that I'd want a 3 day weekend.
I think I'd like a 5 minute commute, but where the environment was sufficiently different to feel like I was going into an office. (Think beacon hill to MGH.)
Then I'd like to work 5-6 hour days, 5 days a week with plenty of breaks which allowed me to run errands.
19,15: It is the in-laws who are visiting. I get on fairly well with them, and fairly well with my parent(s). It would be a simple exchange: we do less housework and they get to see the grandkids more than once a year. Now, sure, in psycho families that as featured in, say, Wild Swans, this would be a world of suck.
Oh the other thing about time-- most people do what they have to do first and what they want to do second. Leisure time means being content with less.
There's middle ground between harmonious togetherness and psychosis. Sharing space brings conflicts to the foreground IME. Congratulations on a happy extended family, more of those would definitely be great.
Live the dream! Travel west slowly!
Use it as a key plot element in a classic work of fiction.
Currently I'm very tuned in to how much gender bullshit my in-laws pile on Hawaiian Punch, and so I'm happier they do not live in my house.
"Who's the most beautiful little girl?" "We've got a new princess, everybody!" Etc.
19: IMO the issue is less time management than authority management.
Yep. I wouldn't mind living with almost any adults I like other than my parents (well, other than my mother. My father could be placed decoratively in the corner of a room, dusted and fed occasionally, and brought out for light conversation. No trouble at all.) Not so much as a judgment against her, but I would constantly be butting heads with her and feeling put upon, out of a combination of reflexive childhood deference and teenage rebellion.
Except west s/b east. (You get the lost hours "back" in one big chunk.)
Somehow I've been a part of a zillion conversations among nerds where they stumble anew upon the idea of continuous time-zones, and gradually work out the humor about the logistics of meeting someone for lunch.
My father could be placed decoratively in the corner of a room, dusted and fed occasionally, and brought out for light conversation
I almost choked from a combination of laughing and eating. Though they are pretty useful in the garden none of the older generation's men in our immediate family are worth a lick around the house.
25- Look at it this way: she keeps you young!
"Who's the most beautiful little girl?"
Preferred: "Who's my little ugly duckling?"
Though they are pretty useful in the garden none of the older generation's men in our immediate family are worth a lick around the house.
I can haz a flavor.
I'm not really being fair to my dad -- he lives alone and takes care of himself fine, and is generally a helpful sort of person; I'm sure if he were living with us the kitchen would get cleaned up occasionally, and that sort of thing. Mostly I just meant that he'd be an undemanding housemate.
31: Damn you! My office mates are staring at me! :D
30: Yeah, I wonder if that's a bit overreacting. We call Gusty handsome all the time. Should we feel SWPL guilt about this?
Also, heebie, the fact that it galls you so practically guarantees that HP will be completely mesmerized by princess paraphernalia.
Though they are pretty useful in the garden
Climbing vines love them.
Why don't we live in larger family groups?
The one about being able to choose your friends (and, more to the point, spouse), but not your family, comes to mind.
34: I'm pretty comfortably braced for that one, having watched the Princess Fever attack other little girls and drag on and on. They seem to emerge unscathed from the other side.
What I really hate are the "Diva!" "Princess!" "Beautiful!" exclamations that mis-categorize her behavior into being super feminine.
36: Right, but I'm sure Megan can tell you about hippy family co-ops. That is, where you live with your friends but not your family.
The new Chat Roulette: less penii, more ennui: http://www.compassionpit.com/
I'm sure Megan can tell you about hippy family co-ops.
I was forced to hear Free To Be You & Me far, far too many times to require such instruction.
My god, if I had achieved the slacker satori described in 1, and made Sassy, I think I'd struggle to motivate myself. Further accomplishment would seem superfluous.
37: Our littlest one (who does indeed love the princess stuff) is now wearing lots of her brother's hand-me-down pajamas, but the ones she likes most of all are the Batman ones. Which, as soon as they go on her, make her raise a black power fist and run around in circles shouting "I'M BATMANGIRL!!!"
Heebie-Greeley!
I'm on some kind of weird sleep schedule, thanks to the craziness of this week. I think I just slept for about 11 hours last night, 9 hours the night before, and 4 hours each of the two nights before that.
Perhaps I've mentioned the anarcho-hippies I knew in the early 1990s who had evolved a rather specious anti-sleep ideology. They all worked in a collective cafe that was open late, and was across the street from another collective cafe that never closed, so they'd work like 2 full days in a row open/close/open, drinking espresso constantly at work, and then at the neighboring cafe, and wind up being awake for 50 or 60 hours, then crash for 18 or 20 hours. I think they managed to keep it up for about 18 months. Lunatics.
40: As long as you hit the mute button when the Target commercial comes on, you should be ok.
Which, as soon as they go on her, make her raise a black power fist and run around in circles shouting "I'M BATMANGIRL!!!"
I have been reading Batman comics since I was five years old, so you can trust me: I approve this message.
44 misunderstood 40, but it still is making a point.
13 amazes me.
42: should be "I'M BLACKMANGIRL!"
I grew up in a family where three grandparents (and an aunt) lived together with my parents and sister for a time (both sides of the family were Cuban immigrants, so this wasn't that untypical). But I was thinking more along the lines of a housing co-op of people with shared values, which I have lived in, but only without children so far.
The specter of sharing authority doesn't really bother me all that much, but I expect I would feel a lot more detachment about the "mineness" of my kids than is typical.
Sort of OT: Have people seen the Target commercials that sully my memories of Free to be You and Me? Very annoying.
52: No. But I'm kind of fond of Target, compared to the alternatives. I suppose I should get a Cosco membership, but I'm afraid I'll accidentally fill the entire house with toilet paper.
There's a Tostino's Pizza Rolls commercial that makes me hate ever having enjoyed that "We're the kids in America!" song.
52: But ari, how can I possibly be free to be me without the right implements and accessories?
But I'm kind of fond of Target
Homophobe.
49: Not necessarily. I have many family members who grew up on kibbutzim in Israel/Palestine. They were raised in a collective setting -- the "children's house" -- and yet seem perfectly connected to their parents. And vice versa. That said, the prospect of sharing responsibility for child-rearing sounds positively awful to me. It's hard enough, at key moments, working with a spouse (though it would certainly be harder, in terms of labor if not decision-making, without one); I can't imagine having to negotiate some of these issues with other people.
52: They give me flashbacks to the epoch of plaid pants and Volkswagen Bugs.
61: Most people who get flashbacks to that epoch experience it as plaid bugs & Volkswagen pants and/or plaid Volkswagens & pants bugs.
62: Even in kindergarten, I was a complete wuss kind of a prig about sport utility pharmaceuticals committed to the Puritanism of my New England forefathers straightedge.
63: I'm now imagining a toddler version of Minor Threat belting out "Bottled Paste".
I don't know that I'd want a 3 day weekend.
Heavens. I'd prefer a 4 day weekend, but I'd settle for 3. Not wanting more leisure time is as alien to me as wanting to spend it "getting things done" (where "getting things done" is something other than reading, or exercising, or creative activities). As for sleep, I've spent some of the most pleasant moments of my life asleep.
It's a shame I wasn't born rich, because I think I could be a very good idle dilettante.
yeah, when i don't have responsibilities, i pretty much do this http://xkcd.com/320/
30: My grandfather called us "meeskeit" (Yiddish: ugliness) some of the time. I've had it explained to me that it's a Jewish thing* about good things being taken away if you talk about them.
*"It's a Jewish thing...you didn't maybe understand so good?"
54: I hate that. I think it's the one where they say something to the effect of "we love our friends...and fun...and MOST OF ALL (emphasis mine) Totino's Pizza Rolls." I want to say: great, with friends like you, who needs restaurant critics?
These are not the same people who believe the ruling class are all giant lizards in disguise,
I'm not saying I believe this, but I do think it is a plausible hypothesis. Alan Greenspan, in particular, looks like he eats small mammals alive.
70: Yeah, he's like some sort of carnivorous slow lorris.
Alan Greenspan, in particular, looks like he eats small mammals alive.
Unhinged jaws all over the ruling class.
Unhinged jaws all over the ruling class.
We're gonna need a bigger boat.
"Who's the most beautiful little girl?"
I have been telling my now-5-year-old nephew that he's beautiful all his life. Recently, he has informed me that boys aren't beautiful, they're awesome! I persist in telling him he is both.
"Who's the most beautiful little girl?"
"Who must have worked really hard at creating a flattering self-presentation?'
Batman is definitely both beautiful and awesome.
78: And by "Batman", you mean "getting married", right?
I guess it doesn't matter much once you're out of school, but I wish summer vacations started in May, not June. It was great when this was true in college on the semester system. I did not like the quarter system I ran into later.
No. But I'm kind of fond of Target, compared to the alternatives. I suppose I should get a Cosco membership, but I'm afraid I'll accidentally fill the entire house with toilet paper.
Costco is great! Unionized and good benefits are just a plus. They have great multivitamins, calcium and vitamin D that are actually tested and don't contain lead. (No joke: a lot of nutritional supplements have lead in them.)
yahoo said that Target gave money to an anti-gay marriage "pro-business" Republican. Does this mean that we're supposed to boycott Target?
Oh, sorry, I wouldn't mind more leisure at all. I would just like it more broken up. Having really fascinating brain-type work (whether paid or unpaid) which required only 15 hours of work a week would be fabulous, but I'd still prefer to spread that over 3 days rather than work it all in two.
Of course the calculus changes when the commute is 1.5 hours (as mine is now) vs. a pleasant 8 minute walk.
42? 43 is awesome.
Regarding princesses, I walked out of my front door last night and immediately encountered a little girl* who yelled "I'm an...EVIL SCIENTIST!" I couldn't think of anything to say except "You're an evil scientist? That's GREAT!"
*Stereotype: glasses, toothy, unkempt blonde hair.
I hope she achieves world domination.
My niece was disturbingly into princesses from the ages of 4 to about 7. Right now, at age 8, she has decided that she is a rough-n-tough tomboy and that pink is gross. She caught more fish than anyone when we were up in the Yukon AND decided to kill one of them for dinner. Then she gutted it on an old board.
Anyway, the princess thing didn't last, thank God. I'm not sure whether I want this Lord of the Flies phase to last either, but it's certainly more fun.
84.last: Valuable training for the post-Palin presidency world.
Thirding the Costco love. Their employees are treated really well and consequently stay there forever (with opportunities for promotion!). And for you meat eaters -- lots of meat-producing plants refuse to sell to them because they insist on doing all their own testing on the meat they're sold.
86: The constant Wall Street drumbeat that Costco spends too much on healthcare and employee wages is proof that they're doing something right.
That said, the prospect of sharing responsibility for child-rearing sounds positively awful to me.
... school?
Optimum work cycle: instead of five eight-hour days and a two-day weekend, you work eight ten-hour days in a row, followed by a six-day weekend. I tend to do a lot of the first bit anyway. It would be like having a proper holiday almost every other week.
When I used to work for an ISP I used to schedule everyone's work hours, and sometimes that left me filling in all the gaps in odd ways [if some people pulled a sickie, or took unexpected leave, or whatever]. Sometimes it sucked, but occasionally it'd just work out perfectly [assuming one is forced to work a normal British working week]*, where I'd end up doing 3 x 10 hour days, and then working the guts of another full working day but leaving early, and then taking a 3 day weekend. I'd happily work 3 x 12 hour days a week, and then have 4 days off. What with all the commuting, it'd be a more efficient use of my time, and probably my employer's time.
* forced being the operative word, I can never understand people who are workaholics. Having workaholic periods when projects are interesting or important, yes, but having it as one's default setting? Sod that.