There is a memorable dialog in Gladiator that contains a wealth of wisdom.

Marcus Aurelius: Will you accept this great honor that I have offered you?
Maximus: With all my heart, no.
Marcus Aurelius: Maximus... that is why it must be you.
Maximus: And Commodus?
Marcus Aurelius: Commodus is not a moral man. Commodus cannot rule. He must not rule.

I hate this phrase. Not because I have a problem with it per se, but because people always use it wrong. They read it in some article, decided to use it themselves, and even though they know what it means, they use it incorrectly.

The likes of introduces a comparison. You wish to describe a set of elements by exemplifying a couple of them. It's exactly like a mathematical series. Do you remember those problems from school?

1, 4, 9, ...

The first three numbers describe this series uniquely, it can only have one possible solution. The solution for a_n is n². That is, if you apply the formula n² for every n, then you get

1², 2², 3², 4², 5², ...

equal to

1, 4, 9, 16, 25, ...

and hence the series is solved.

And this is exactly what the likes of means as well. It defines a set more or less uniquely (without mathematical rigor, of course), so that the set does not have to be stated in its entirety. So what's the problem? There are two ways in which this phrased is misused.

Stating the full set

Why? I have no idea. It's a symptom, haven't found the cause yet. The transformation is practically asymptotic, that's for sure. :D

Suppose you want to buy an mp3 player. Your local electronics store only has 3 different mp3 players. So the choice is pretty clear, it's easy to compare the 3 models and find the one that suits you much better than the other 2. But then you learn that abroad they have hundreds of them. So although you're limited to just the 3, *theoretically* there is much more choice. Would that not detract from your satisfaction of choosing the best one of the 3 you can get?

There is compelling talk from TED by Barry Schwartz about how having a lot of choice ruins your experience, because you have to take your pick out of an enormous set of possible choices, which leaves you agonizing over whether you made the right choice or not. There are so many choices, which means that whichever you pick, there is a chance that some other option would have been a little better still. Whereas if you only had a few options to choose from, you would choose the one best for you and know that none of the others could possibly make you any happier, because they weren't as close to your preferences as the option you chose.

So that makes me think about people who work in job agencies. I mean these guys must see tens of jobs everyday, thousands of jobs every year. And it's not so much that they are in a position to choose between all of these, but just *knowing* about them must make you think. Many other jobs may not be as enjoyable, but where else are you constantly confronted with a ton of other jobs out there?

Å bestille bonusreiser på Internett er gratis

Da vi innfører et servicegebyr for å bestille bonusreiser via Medlemsservice den 21. mai, lønner det seg å bestille via våre nettsider. Basic-medlemmer må fra 21. mai betale et servicegebyr på 150 kr. Se linken for mer informasjon.

How bout that. SAS Braathens has my email address, because I book all my flights online. Periodically they send me this spam, which is "great offers" included in "important membership information". Today they sent me an update on my bonus miles (along with a host of "great offers", of course), including this paragraph, which I find completely incomprehensible.

Booking flights online using air miles is free

Since we are about to introduce a service charge for booking flights out of air miles through our Membership Service, from May 21, we encourage you to book them on our website. Basic-members will incur a charge of 150kr from May 21.

Well that's an interesting way of telling you that 5 days from now you'll be paying money for booking flights from air miles you've saved up. So something that's not supposed to cost you anything now will, meanwhile you can avoid paying the service charge if you book online. Which is exactly what you expected to hear based on the headline, isn't it?

It almost reminds me of Orwell's 1984. First the weekly quotum for chocolate is 30 grams. So first they announce it is lowered to 15g, and the a week later, as if nothing happened, the "increase it" to 20g, to demonstrate how generous they are.