Things They Should Invent: Set it and forget it emergency kits

Years ago, I bought one of those solar crank emergency radios. The instructions said that the battery will charge in sunlight, and if it isn't charged you can charge it by cranking it. So I sat it in an area that gets sunlight and forgot about it.

Years passed before I had a power outage, and when I did, the radio didn't work. Sunlight didn't power it. Cranking it didn't power it. It seems that, in the years that elapsed, the battery lost its ability to hold a charge.

 

 

When I first heard of 72-hour kits, I bought a bunch of bottled water and canned food. I put it all in the cupboard and forgot about it.

 

When I next moved, I dug out my supply of bottled water, and discovered that the water bottles were all kind of soft and collapsed. It turns out the plastic in the bottles wears out even if it's just sitting around doing nothing!

 

Googling around the idea, I also learned that canned food can go bad. People on the internet speaking positively of the longevity of canned food are like "Oh, it lasts forever! Like, maybe even as long as 5 years!" 

Okay, but my life expectancy is far longer than that! Am I supposed to keep throwing out and replacing my emergency kit???

 

 

Googling around the idea, I discovered that the idea is that you use up the canned food and bottled water for your naturally-occurring everyday use before it goes bad, and replenish it. But the thing is, I don't really use canned food and bottled water in my regular life - I'd have to go out of my way to eat and drink it when I don't even want to!

 

Similarly, you're supposed to test your emergency radio regularly and replace it (or replace the battery if, unlike me, you've stumbled upon the convergence of a radio where you can get at the battery and a battery where you can find an actual replacement, not just something that claims on Amazon to be a replacement but is the wrong size)

 

 

Someone really should come up with an emergency kit with actual longevity, where you can set it and forget it without adding "constantly monitor your emergency kit" to your ever-growing to-do list!

 

 

One thing I have tried is storing water in glass bottles. I used screw-top wine bottles that I washed in the dishwasher in a sanitation cycle, and specifically chose bottles that had contained red wine in the hopes that it they didn't get perfectly clean, it would be visible. 

 

I drank some of the water after a few months and it seemed fine, no ill effects or weird tastes, but obviously I have to wait multiple years to see if it lasts multiple years.

 

Another thing I realized during my last power outage is, canned food aside, I normally have 72 hours of food in my home anyway. 

 

I usually have one or two perishable meals of leftovers in the fridge, which could be eaten cold right away before they go bad. I keep a couple of loaves of bread in the freezer that could be taken out and thaw, I usually have a variety of fruits and vegetables that are kept at room temperature in the supermarket (even though I keep them in my fridge for space and health reasons), I have a few bottles of meal replacement shake for if I get a reflux flare-up - basically, with no particular effort, I have 72 hours worth of food that's within the scope of what I'd eat anyway.

 

Last power outage when I realized my emergency radio had died, I looked around for if I had another radio around, and realized I still have my high-school walkman in a drawer. It takes AA batteries (which I keep on hand anyway, and could easily take out of a remote control during a power outage), and gets a better signal than my emergency radio or my bedside clock radio. So I'm not replacing my emergency radio, and instead just using my walkman for as long as it survives.

 

 

Thinking about what I already have around the house that would serve me well in an emergency gets far better results than making an artificial emergency kit, not keeping up on the additional chore of maintaining it, and then finding myself without an emergency kit in an emergency. Maybe advice surrounding 72-hour kits should focus on this?

 

But it would also be useful if there was a way to make universally set it and forget it 72-hour kits, so anyone, regardless of their needs, can just buy or assemble the kit and never have to think of it again.

Things They Should Invent: library book sale queue

Sometimes, people are willing to pay a small amount of money for a book, but not retail price.

 

A place you can buy a book for a small amount of money (usually smaller than second-hand book stores) is the library book sale. 

 

What if you could sign up to be automatically notified when a book you're interested in is added to the library book sale, so you can get the books you're interested in owning at an extremely affordable price? 

 

Depending on how their computer system works, you could either get a notification when a book is added to book sale inventory, or when it is removed from the catalogue because it's being weeded from the collection. 

 

Also depending on how the system works, maybe they could put books aside for people who signed up for notifications rather than putting them directly into the general book sale. (I feel like putting a book aside for the person who requested it is already within the library's skill set).

 

The book sale could charge more for this priority - maybe $2 or $3 or a book that would normally be $1 - thereby raising more money for the library while still being a fantastic deal on a used book. Win-win!

Steal This Idea: stealth crossover mystery

Two or more TV shows (or other works of fiction) are set in the same location at the same time, with different, unaffiliated characters solving mysteries.

 

Except, unbeknownst to any of them, they're solving the same mystery!

 

Each show has the characters find a different set of clues that lead them to the same person having committed the same set of crimes, although perhaps each show emphasizes a different crime. (For example, one show is solving "Who stole the MacGuffin?" and the other is solving "Who was the hit and run driver?", when it turns out the driver committed the hit and run during their getaway from the MacGuffin theft.) If it's the kind of mystery that has to end with the police arresting the bad guy, it's shown in screen in a way that's vague and non-specific enough to avoid any awkward questions (e.g. montage with uniformed officers and dramatic music while the main characters have an emotional discussion that resolves their respective B plot.

 

Just once or twice in the season, we see actors from one series as background characters in a scene in the other series. For bonus points, we see them both in the same scene in the different series - e.g. one cast walks by the window as the second cast eats in the restaurant. 

 

For added authenticity, both series could share background actors, so they both have the same older lady in a statement hat and enormous man walking a tiny dog walk by in the background.

 

 

The most important part: they must not promote this crossover in advance! Wait for the internet to notice, and be careful with your IMDB curation until the internet does notice! This should be posted by some small Tumblr (yes, I said what I said in this the year 2025), then reblogged by some big-name fanfic writer, which leads to it being screenshotted on Reddit and then someone makes a TikTok post about it that doesn't get traction until some influencer duets it. By the time the information becomes general knowledge, the season is already over, and the ensuing buzz saves at least one of the serieses from cancellation.

 

I theorize that there's a 63% chance someone's already done this and no one has noticed. 

Bring back the Canada Post Comparison Shopper to help Canadians buy Canadian

In 2010, Canada Post introduced a tool called the Canada Post Comparison Shopper, which let you compare prices and shipping costs from a huge range of different online retailers.

 

Here is a news release from when the Canada Post Comparison Shopper was first launched, and here is my blog post from when I discovered it.

 

This tool helped me discover all kinds of new stores I never would have come across on my own and get amazing deals that I never thought possible. I mourned the day it was discontinued - I've never found a replacement that's anywhere near comparable!

 

As Canadians work together to disentangle ourselves from the United States of America, the time has come to bring back the Canada Post Comparison Shopper.

 

It could be a quick, easy way to search Canadian retailers for the specific product you're only been able to find on Amazon, or for a Canadian alternative or non-US alternative to the American product you've been using for ages. 

They could provide options to filter for Canadian-made products, or filter out US-made products, or filter out foreign-owned retailers.

 

Currently, the comparison shopping tools available to us are controlled by American oligarchs and run on algorithms designed to enrich them.

 

The Canada Post Comparison Shopper was a public good designed to benefit Canadians and Canada. In this, our moment of need, it's time to resurrect it.

Magic words: "come across as"

Sometimes you want to guide people away from a particular word choice because it sounds racist or otherwise hateful. But if you say "Dude, you can't say that, that's racist!" they'll start arguing that they're not racist. Which distracts from the issue at hand of adjusting word choice.

I've found a more effective way to convey this can be "That could come across as racist," especially if you add "[other word choice] would come across better." 

The benefit of "come across as" is it doesn't even get into what the thing is. It's simply the impression that it gives. If your interlocutor is someone who feels that they are good and well-intentioned and people just keep misinterpreting them, this aligns with their self-concept.

When writing alt text, answer the question: "What am I looking at here?"

A common piece of advice when writing alt text is "How would you describe it to a friend?"

Building on this, a variation I've found useful is to imagine your friend responds to your post with "What am I looking at here?"

 

For example, suppose your post is:

What an asshole!

[img]

 

Your friend replies with "What am I looking at here?"

The answer might be "The white truck somehow managed to take up four parking spaces!" or "That guy's hat is ridiculous!" or "Remember Jim who used to beat me up in middle school? That's him walking down the street!"

Suppose your post is:

I had a visitor today!

[img]

 

Your friend asks "What am I looking at here?"

The answer might be "A tiny little floofy bird perched on my window ledge and let me get super close to take a picture!" or "My friend who's been living in England came over to visit!" or "I'm babysitting my baby cousin!"

The phrasing of the alt text wouldn't be precisely the same as the phrasing of your response to "What am I looking at here?", but your answer to that question helps you pinpoint what needs to be included and emphasized in your alt text.

How to buy a gift for someone whose love language is gifts

From a recent Carolyn Hax chat:

My MIL’s love language is gifts. I have begged her to stop giving me/the kids so many presents - to no avail. To make matters worse (for me), when she asks what I want for Xmas/bdays/any other holiday, I tell her exactly what I want (size, color, brand, etc)….and have discovered she will then refuse to buy me what I really want “because then it’s not a surprise.” So I’m stuck with her riff on whatever it is that I truly wanted and end up with something that I didn’t ask for, want, or need.

Anyway. My question is: she REFUSES to tell me what she wants and then is hurt and sometimes offended when we are left buying gift cards. She is honestly impossible to buy for (you know the type) and every.single.year. my spouse and I are confounded by what to get her. I’ve tried everything to get her to understand that I will either have to buy her a book or just give her money/gift cards. She swears up and down, “it’s fine!!” and then is disappointed. I’m at a loss. We especially struggle because my “least” love language is gifts so I genuinely can’t even empathize.

Please help. Or give me the best idea for her.

I absolutely agree with Carolyn's response that OP's spouse should be doing the work.

But, in terms of what to get someone whose love language is gifts, think of it as giving them the experience of opening a gift. Don't worry about whether the item inside is practical for her or is something she will actually use. Give her something to unwrap, with some element of surprise, that you can impose some narrative of thoughtfulness on.

 

One way to do this is to go indie. Pick some quirky local shop that you walk past sometimes or that comes up when you google "unique gifts in [city]." Walk in, tell them "my mother-in-law is impossible to shop for. I need something unique that will surprise her." Buy whatever they point you to, have them wrap it if they do gift-wrapping, and as she unwraps it give her the narrative they gave you about what it is and why it's special.

Another way to do this is to get her a bunch of smaller things. Get something unique or indie from a category of products that she uses (e.g. if she drinks tea, get her a sampler from a local indie tea shop). Look in the fancy bath item aisle of the non-cheap drugstore and buy something in a fancy-looking package with something about stress-relieving or energizing on the label. Get some of her favourite candy, and some interesting candy that you've never heard of before. Wander through the dollar store and buy about half a dozen mildly interesting or funny things. If you pass a craft fair, grab the first pair of earrings that jumps out at you. If you pass a place that sells plush toys, look for a unique animal ("Look, it's a platypus! OMG, that's intrinsically hilarious!") 

Don't stress about any of this, just grab a bunch of small items that attract your attention, especially if they're mildly nifty or they tangentially remind you of her. If you have children, enlist them in your quest and buy random items on the basis that a small adorable child picked them out.

Wrap each item in colourful or shiny paper (doesn't have to be wrapped neatly or tightly - think "gift bag with decorative tissue paper" vibe) put them all in a shiny gift bag or perhaps a dollar store christmas stocking if it's a christmas gift, and, voila, gift experience!

 

MIL's refusal to stop giving gifts and insistence on not buying the precise thing you've asked for because then it wouldn't be a surprise show that the values the experiences of "gift" and "surprise" above actual practicality and utility. So this is your permission to disregard practicality and utility and simply focus on giving her something that looks exactly like "gift" and "surprise".

How to get a wax cork out of a winged corkscrew

A while back, I had a bottle of wine (I forget the brand) with a wax cork.

The internet told me to open it with a corkscrew just like I would a regular cork, which worked nicely.

Problem: the wax cork got kind of smushed and misshappen and stuck in my winged corkscrew, and the internet had no useful advice on how to remove it.

So, for future googlers, here's the solution: hot water.

I boiled some water in the kettle, put the corkscrew with the stuck cork in a glass measuring cup that I knew could handle boiling water, and poured the water over it. This softened the wax cork enough that I could easily manipulate the shape and get it off the corkscrew. 

 

You might be able to do this with your hands or you might need whatever tools you have around to grab/pull/cut/manipulate, but in either case make sure you wear oven mitts or something similarly heat proof on your hands, since metal corkscrews and metal tools conduct the heat from the boiling water.

The perfect closet organizing business model

 A kind, compassionate, trustworthy, non-judgemental person with excellent EQ comes to your home with a measuring tape, a dressmaker's mannequin, and a box.

They measure your body, perhaps even without telling you what the measurements are, and set the dressmaker's mannequin to match your measurements.

Then they go through your closet and try every single item of clothing on the dressmaker's mannequin. You don't have to be in the room while they do this.

Every item of clothing that is too small for your body goes into the box, which they close and seal.

Then, when they're done, you have more closet space and 100% of the clothes in your closet fit your body.

You don't have to see which of your favourite clothes are too small for you, or go through the upsetting experience of trying on favourite clothes that ended up being too small.

They can take away the box of too-small clothes and donate them appropriately, or they can leave it with you, closed and sealed, for you to either revisit when you can cope with it or completely disregard.

Updated with a bonus round:

The closet organizer is paired up with a personal shopper, to whom they provide your measurements and the quantity and characteristics of the clothing that was removed from your closet, and the personal shopper finds suitable replacements that fit your current body.

Those lovely blouses in jewel tones that you bought years ago are now too small? Here's a selection of flattering blouses in jewel tones! 

You have to give up your twirly sundress? Here are a few twirly sundress options!

Advice for the Ask A Manager letter writer who found scales in the break room

 A while back, Ask A Manager ran a letter where someone had placed scales in the break room next to the vending machines (#4 at the link).

 

There was a lot of discussion of this in the comment thread and in other parts of the internet. Some people thought that it was clearly judgmental passive-aggression about people's weight. Other people thought that weight loss is important and if you think there's something wrong with encouraging people to lose weight you have Issues. And other people thought that, regardless of who put the scales there or why, they must be someone's personal property so it would be wrong to mess with them.

My shower recently gave me an approach that would address all these possibilities and more.

 

If your office has a culture of people leaving stuff in the break room for anyone who wants it to take (for example, if someone baked cookies or got a free sample they don't need), you could ask "Are these scales here free to take?"

 

(In fact, you might even be able to ask this if you don't have a "freebies in the break room" culture.)

If the answer is yes, you can take the scales away away and they won't be there any more. Or leave them there, knowing that they're just an innocent giveaway.

And if they're there for some other reason, this creates an opening for the person who put them there to explain.

And if no one speaks up and says "I put them there for this very specific reason," then there's no reason not to get rid of them, since apparently they don't belong to anyone.

As an added bonus, this approach would also avoid making you come across as someone who has Issues About Weight Loss, which sometimes is detrimental to your credibility when you're surrounded by people who think Weight Loss Is Important. In fact, it might even make the Weight Loss Is Important people think you're one of them, because you come across as wanting a free scale. (Should you have to appease the Weight Loss Is Important people? Of course not! But sometimes it's a better decision not to throw away capital when you don't have to, even if the basis is silly.)

I suppose it's possible that someone might have put them there for a reason and not speak up when prompted to do so and subsequently complain when you take the scales away, but that seems vanishingly likely.

Explicio via absurdum

There is a logical fallacy called reductio ad absurdum, meaning attempting to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.

Sometimes I find that the opposite of reductio ad absurdum is actually helpful - using an utterly absurd or extreme example to explain a concept.

With my complete lack of Latin knowledge, I've been calling this "explicio via absurdum", but I welcome any corrections to my Latin!
 

This is particularly useful when trying explain something mathematical by a solely verbal medium, where you can't put numbers in front of your interlocutor's eyes and doing the math with plausible numbers would get you bogged down in arithmetic.

 

It's also useful when you don't know how the real numbers work, but you're trying to make the point that there's a range in which the numbers would work.

 

 

For example, I recently saw a discussion where some people seemed to think that interest rates were the major barrier to housing affordability, and didn't seem to recognize that housing prices themselves could be a barrier regardless of interest rates.

 

So here's how I would explain this via absurdum:

 

 

Imagine the house you want costs $1, and interest rates are 1000%. Can you afford the house? (Probably! You almost certainly have a dollar, and therefore could buy the house outright without a mortgage, thus rendering interest rates irrelevant.)

 

Imagine the house you want costs $1 billion, and interest rates are zero. Can you afford the house? (Probably not! Your monthly payment would be in the millions, which is well outside the scope of anyone who might be paying attention to me)

Now, I am well aware that there aren't any houses costing $1, there aren't any 1000% interest rates, there aren't any 0% interest rates, and if there are any houses costing $1 billion they're irrelevant to our reality.

However, these absurd examples help illustrate how it's possible for a price to be so cheap that interest rates are irrelevant, and to be so expensive that interest rates are irrelevant. Once people see this, they can see that there is in fact a range at the top and bottom of the scale (Could you buy the house outright if it cost $2? $50? $1,000? $10,000?  Would the house be unaffordable even without interest if it cost $500 million? $50 million? $5 million?)

 

Then you gradually move from absurd to reality, with the point made.

The generic "you" is a useful tool for writing inclusively

With reproductive health in the news lately, I'm seeing a lot of people diligently endeavouring to make their statements about bodies and anatomy as inclusive as possible, including inclusive of trans and non-binary people. This leads to phrases like "birthing parent" and "uterus-havers", which sound awkward, and can make the cause of inclusive language seem less credible to people who aren't already on side.

 

This makes me think of the 90s, when adults around me would often express contempt for inclusive language by performatively making it conspicuously unwieldy. "Firemen? No, wait, that isn't politically correct...firewomen? Firepeople??" Making a big noisy fuss of how inclusive language is OMG SO HARD while completely disregarding the perfectly cromulent word "firefighters". 

I think the attempts to use inclusive language for reproductive health might sometimes come across this way. 

 

In the specific case of recent inclusive reproductive health discourse, I can tell that the speakers' intentions are benign and they genuinely want to be inclusive. Sometimes they're deliberately aiming for conspicuousness, but sometimes they can't think of a less awkward way to phrase it, and the awkwardness might distract from or detract from their important point.

 

In these situations, where you want to be inclusive but can't think of a simple way to do so, a useful tool can be the generic "you".

 

Example:

Original: "Masks are mandatory in our birth centre. Mothers can remove their masks while in labour."

Attempt to make it inclusive: "Masks are mandatory in our birth centre. Birthing parents can remove their masks while in labour."

With the generic "you": "Mask are mandatory in our birth centre. You can remove your mask while you are in labour."

This is clear. It's inconspicuous. And it's inclusive - by which I mean not just that it includes anyone who might be in labour and while not being a woman or a mother, but also it specifically includes the reader (and, thereby, includes everyone). 

 

One objection to gender-inclusive language that I hear, most often from cis women, is that they feel that excluded when women are not specifically mentioned. Using the generic "you" helps mitigate this by addressing the reader directly. How could you feel excluded if I'm talking directly to you?

 

Of course, there are cases where the right communication strategy is to be conspicuously inclusive, even if the phrasing is awkward. Sometimes the situation does in fact call for a big showy show of the fact that not everyone who gives birth is a woman.

And sometimes the right communication strategy is to be inconspicuously inclusive, to make it no big deal that someone who is not a woman might be giving birth. The generic "you" can help you do that.

Building a better Sunshine List

1. Remove all names.  

 

Lately, I've been seeing people talk about expanding the Sunshine List to include all public servants at all pay levels, or even all jobs in all sectors of the economy, arguing that this would be good for equity.

 

One major problem with this plan is privacy. You can google a person - not even looking for their salary! - and you'll find their sunshine list entry. I googled the couple who bought my parents' house, and the first thing that came up was the husband's salary. Surely there's no reason for the daughter of the people you're buying your house from to know how much money you make! More importantly, your abuser or your stalker can also find your pay information!

 

Listing position titles without names will help keep private personal information private and, at the same time, remove much of the arguments and incentives against expanding the Sunshine List to include all jobs. 

 

I'd also be okay with including equity information if equity-seeking groups think this would be helpful.

 

2. List all information that goes into determining compensation. 

 

What is the position title and classification? How much education and experience does this person have? How much overtime did they work? How many people do they supervise? How consequential is their work? Do lives depend on them? Maybe also provide a link to their job description (what even is a "systems analyst"??)

In addition to making it clear that the jobs actually involve, this would also help with the Sunshine List's actual stated intent of determining whether good use is being made of public funds. For example, if a particular department is paying the equivalent of five full-time jobs in overtime, maybe that's a sign they need to hire more people? If everyone in a particular department has over 30 years of experience, maybe it's time to start recruiting some new trainees before everyone retires?

It would also be useful to include temporary and contract workers working for or on behalf of the government. How much do the outsourced office cleaners make? How much do substitute teachers make? How much do the extra nurses brought in to staff the ER during the pandemic make?

 

3. Include thresholds for how much housing each salary can buy.

 

Many people (including me in an old blog post that I now can't find) have pointed out that the Sunshine List threshold hasn't changed since its inception in 1996, and it really should be indexed.

 

But I have a bolder option in mind: include multiple thresholds on the list corresponding with how much housing that salary would buy in the current market, local to the location of the job.

 

For example, "This job makes $X per year in a location where you can buy an average 1 bedroom if you earn $0.8X and an average 2 bedroom if you earn $1.2X." 

If a job doesn't pay enough for a home big enough to raise a family in, or even for a 1 bedroom apartment, that information needs to be front and centre.

As an example of why this is important, a 1-bedroom in my decent but unremarkable condo building in my decent but unremarkable Toronto neighbourhood recently sold for 150% of the mortgage amount you could get for $100K in the current market. So someone could be on the Sunshine List and, at the same time, not be able to afford a 1-bedroom condo just like mine! (If you're just tuning in, I'm not on the Sunshine List - I bought preconstruction a decade ago when prices were drastically lower.) 

 

Conversely, if the job pays so much you can afford, like, multiple detached houses, that would also be highly informative - far more informative than just a big number!

Magic words: "and also"

We live in a complex and imperfect world. This sometimes results in having complex and imperfect thoughts, feelings and opinions that aren't absolutely consistent with each other, and sometimes means we have to make imperfect decisions.

But when we talk about these things, it can sometimes come out sounding like we're justifying or excusing our imperfections, when in fact what we're trying to do is simply state that they exist.

In these situations, a useful little phrase is "and also". 

Compare:

 

1. "Amazon's labour conditions are appalling, but they're the only place I can find that sells this very specific item I need."

2. "Amazon's labour conditions are appalling, and also they're the only place I can find that sells this very specific item I need."

 

Example 1 could come across as defending or justifying or excusing their labour conditions, whereas Example 2 doesn't really do that. It more acknowledges the tension of the situation, without presuming to give a definitive resolution.

More examples:

- "That big strange dog that ran up and jumped on me was really poorly trained, and also that was the best thing that happened to me all week!"

- "Monty Python's Argument Clinic sketch is a work of genius, and also Monty Python's Chinese Embassy sketch is appallingly racist."

- "I'm glad they're keeping safe by taking more precautions than are required by government policy, and also I'm disappointed that I won't get to meet the baby any time soon."

 

Both things can be true. We contain multitudes. We don't have to decide. We can acknowledge it and sit with it. 

"And also" helps us do that.

All about my Good Omens OC named Muriel

I was amused to see that season 2 of Good Omens will include an angel named Muriel, because the Good Omens sequel fic that lives in my head also includes an angel named Muriel. My fic is almost certainly going to stay in my head because I can't figure out enough of what the plot needs to be even to put together all the good bits as a tantalizing series of vignettes, so instead I'm going to post what I know about my Muriel character, so when the actual Good Omens season 2 comes out I can delight in any resemblance to the canon Muriel.

 

My premise, inspired by Aziraphale's "Just imagine how awful it might have been if we'd been at all competent" line is that Heaven and Hell have replaced Aziraphale and Crowley respectively as their agents on Earth with people who are actually competent, by virtue of having been actual humans before they died and went to Heaven and Hell respectively.

Muriel is Heaven's new agent on Earth. I chose her name because it's an actual human name that also sounds like it follows angelic nomenclature patterns. (A quick google as I was writing this blog post finds an actual angel named Muriel, but I didn't know that when I chose the name.) Depending on Good Omens theology and the needs of the story, she might be an actual angel, or she might be a human soul who was sent to heaven but doesn't count as an angel.

In her human life, Muriel was a frumpy older woman, easily overlooked and underestimated, and used these characteristics to her advantage in her actual human career as a highly skilled secret agent. (This was inspired by an article I read long ago about how the best secret agents are actually nondescript, unassuming people.)

 

Her dress and grooming are reminiscent of a Monty Python pepperpot, and she has an extensive range of hidden skills and talents. (Whatever the plot requires!) It's possible that she's the older lady who lives downstairs from Crowley, but I'm not sure if the timing on that works.

 

Muriel isn't actually an especially good person, and got into Heaven on a technicality. (Perhaps the Catholic church's pandemic plenary indulgence, but I'd have to understand the nuances in greater detail to see if that would work.)

 

Muriel has angelic powers like Aziraphale, but, because she's lived as a human for most of her conscious existence, she keeps forgetting about her powers and doing things the human way. This is played for laughs throughout the story, and then ends up playing a key role in the denouement.

Muriel's assignment as Heaven's agent on Earth includes spying on Aziraphale and Crowley. However, she sympathizes with them - she'd rather just be left alone to live on Earth too!

Muriel has a Hellish counterpart, whose name I haven't decided yet. Her Hellish counterpart is also a highly-competent former human with a complementary extensive range of hidden skills and talents resulting from their life as a human. (These skills and talents, and therefore the specifics of the Hellish counterpart's human life, are what the plot needs them to be, and I don't know enough about the plot to fill in the blanks.) The Hellish counterpart isn't actually a bad person, but rather got sent to hell on some kind of technicality. (I like the idea of them being an unbaptized infant, but I don't think the theology works out, plus I don't have an explanation for how they gain the ability to function as an adult on Earth.) And, obviously, the Hellish counterpart would rather be left alone to leave peacefully on Earth as well.

If Muriel and her Hellish counterpart fall in love (which would be an elegant parallel to Aziraphale and Crowley, but I haven't figured out how to make it happen without feeling forced - probably because I haven't figured out what kind of person Muriel's Hellish counterpart needs to be), they would address it with Heaven and Hell by cleverly writing "posing as a couple" into their scope of mission.

 

The actress who's been cast as the real Muriel in the real Good Omens appears significantly younger than my headcanon Muriel, so I strongly doubt the actual Good Omens character will in any way resemble mine.

 

But if there were any resemblance, I would be nothing but delighted. And if someone wants to use elements of my Muriel in their own fanfiction, I would be similarly delighted. #StealThisIdea

Things the Library Should Invent: lend out external media readers

While rummaging through my box of 20 years of accumulated spare cables, I found some random unmarked floppy disks. I have no idea what's on them, and no longer have any computers with a floppy drive.

 

I pondered what might be on the disks, and tried to brainstorm ways I might get at a floppy drive. I wondered whether you can rent an external floppy drive. There doesn't appear to be any such thing. They're fairly cheap to buy, but I'd only need it for a few minutes to read and possibly copy the contents of the disks, and then I'd be done with it forever.

 

Then I wondered if the library computers still have floppy drives. Doubtful. Apart from the fact that floppy disks haven't been in common use for quite a while, I doubt the library wants to make it easy for people to run random programs on their computers.

Then I realized, this is a problem that the library could solve by making external media readers available to borrow - floppy drives, CD drives, maybe even cassette players and record players that can be plugged into computers to convert music to MP3s, if such a thing exists.

Surely I'm not the only one with some obsolete media that I'm no longer equipped to read or back up. Surely I'm not the only one who just needs a floppy drive briefly, with no need to own one.

An external USB floppy drive costs less than the retail price of a hardcover book, so it seems like the library should be able to afford a few to lend out. And if the library lends me a USB drive that I plug into my own computer, my computer bears the risk of whatever the contents of my mystery disks might be - the library's disk drive is just a conduit.

 

Q: But if you let people borrow electronic equipment, they might wreck it! 

A: Yes, just like if you let people borrow books, they might wreck them! I suspect libraries are accustomed to budgeting for eventual wear and tear on their items.

 

Part of the library's mission statement is to provide universal access to a broad range of information. Perhaps that could include the information that we have stored on outdated media?

Another option for Captain Awkward #1352

Captain Awkward #1352:

Dear Captain Awkward,

I (they/them) am single, live alone, and have been working from home throughout the COVID situation – the long-term isolation has been really hard. During the last year I took up fishkeeping, which has been really great for my mental health.

But then I developed something known in the hobby as “MTS” – multiple tank syndrome – in which I, well, started to go a little overboard with new fish tanks and fishes. In addition to the assortment of tanks in my actual apartment (basically one in every room, each with different types of fish), I set up a “balcony tub” with floating plants and rosy red minnows.

Last week new neighbors moved into my building and I guess they must have seen my balcony tub because they asked if I had fish on my balcony and…I truly am not sure why…but I impulsively lied, like, “No! Of course I don’t have fish on the balcony! Ha ha ha…”

But the thing is: I do have fish on the balcony.

The fish are very healthy and happy and I don’t think it’s against the rules (I did check the lease) – although that might be because no one ever thought to make a rule against it…

Anyway, I have no idea why I lied other than like…maybe the built-up isolation of the last year and a half, and some internal sense that keeping fish on your balcony was Too Much, and therefore in order to not seem Super Weird to my new neighbors I should keep that under wraps? (Don’t ask, don’t shell!)

But now I feel even *more* awkward and way weirder than if I’d just been like “oh yeah those are my minnows!”

I lied about having fish on the balcony, and I clearly do have fish on the balcony.

In the past I’ve had good relationships with my neighbors. Is there any way I can salvage this truly awkward introduction??

Thank you in advance for your advice. I don’t think this question has been addressed before.

All best,
A Fishy Neighbor

 

As Captain Awkward points out in her answer, there's a strong likelihood that the neighbour has already forgotten or written off the interaction.

Also as Captain Awkward says:

Fortunately,  “I was trying so hard not to come off as weird that I overcorrected and did something objectively weird”  is an extremely relatable and common predicament, and being able to laugh at yourself (“I didn’t want you to think I was obsessed with fish, good job, me, now you think I’m a liar who is obsessed with fish! Welcome to the building!)  is the best remedy I know.

In this vein of a relatable and common predicament and being able to laugh at oneself, another option, if someone should directly inquire about the fact that you specifically said you don't have fish even though you clearly have fish, is something along the lines of "Sorry, it was an attempt at a joke that clearly didn't work. My alleged sense of humour misfires more often than I'd care to admit!"

(Q: What is the attempted joke? A: The very notion that your fishy self would not have fish on the balcony is laughable!)

Benefits to this approach:

• You aren't admitting to lying, or mentioning that you lied as if it's no big deal. Some people are extremely prescriptivist about lying and think that if someone lies at all ever, they're intrinsically untrustworthy. There are also people who are wary enough of lying that they'd see "I told a lie because I panicked" as a red flag suggesting that you're untrustworthy. 
• Having a joke misfire is also a relatable and common predicament
• When assholes make a joke that misfires, they tend to double down and/or blame the audience for not getting/liking the joke. In contrast, admitting that your joke misfired - and that your sense of humour doesn't do the job as often as you'd like in general - is a sign of humility and strength of character. Wouldn't you think positively of someone who genially admits that their joke didn't land and moves on?
  

Things They Should Invent: people who left this job went on to work at...

I recently had a new idea, inspired by an Ask A Manager column and my own job-hunting experience:

New rule: if you reject someone because you think they're going to leave for a better job, you have to tell them where to find this better job.

— "Impudent Strumpet!" (@ImpStrump) August 4, 2021

Today, my shower gave me an improvement on this idea: a "people who left this job went to work at..." website, or perhaps a LinkedIn functionality.

Scraping LinkedIn data (and other data if other useful sources are available), track which employers people went to after leaving a previous job, and look for patterns.

For example, if many people left Acme Inc. to work for Roarke Industries, and a comparable number left Roarke Industries to work for Acme Inc., that tells one story. If many people left Acme Inc. to work for Roarke Industries but there was no pattern of traffic in the other direction, that tells another story.

People can use this information to find better jobs and find employers who are likely to hire them based on their previous experience. Conversely, they might also be able to use it to plan their career path - for example, if Roarke Industries requires 5 years of experience and a lot of people go from university to Acme Inc. to Roarke Industries, then Acme Inc. might be the place to get the experience you need to be hired by Roarke Industries.

Things They Should Invent: concordance tool with a Boolean NOT function

Many words, terms and phrases have a common go-to translation, but also have scope of meaning that doesn't fall under the common go-to translation.

 

If the common go-to translation is extremely common, it can saturate concordance tool results, completely burying alternative translations. This can lead inexperienced translators to conclude there is no other possible translation (even if the go-to is inappropriate), and can even stymie experienced translators ("I know there's another translation, but I'm completely blanking on it!")

To remedy this, I want to be able to apply a Boolean NOT function to the target-language results, to eliminate the common go-to translations and see what's left.

Examples:

 

- Show me translations of porte-parole that are not "spokesperson".

- Show me translations of intervenant that are not "intervener" or "responder".

- Show me translations of animateur that are not "animator" or "facilitator".

 

With the common translations that I know are not suitable out of the way, the tool can better do its job of giving me options to pinpoint le mot juste for my particular translation needs.

I have no idea how feasible this would be from a programming perspective. I know a Boolean NOT can be used in user input, I know that you can filter output by selecting and unselecting attribute tags from a given list (like you often find in online shopping), but I have no idea about the feasibility of filtering output with user-provided Boolean operators.

If it would in fact be unfeasible, I have an idea for an alternative: sort results in alphabetical order by how the word/term/phrase in question is translated in the target text.

This would group all the translations I know I don't want to use together, making it easier to find other options.

For example, if all the instances of "spokesperson" are together (with variants like "spokesman" nearby), I can start at the beginning of the alphabetically-sorted results and scroll through until I hit "spokesperson", seeing all the available options. Then, when I hit "spokesperson", I can jump to the last result and scroll through in reverse order until I hit "spokesperson" again, thereby quickly getting an overview of all the non-"spokesperson" results.

Concordance tools do tend to provide a sentence or a snippet as output, but they "know" what the matched term is, so it seems like it should be feasible to sort alphabetically by matched term but still show snippets.

Another idea for Captain Awkward #1323

Dear Captain Awkward,

 

There is a word people use all the time as filler in their speech. I first noticed it about 8 years ago and thought it was a quirk of my local progressive scene. (This is similar to someone hating “like” although I think my word is less common than that.) It has metastasized and is now popping up all over. I want to listen to podcasts where smart people talk about policy and cultural issues but sometimes I just shut them off because the word is driving me up the wall. I feel like I’m not old enough to hate a word used by young people but unfortunately I do.

 

I don’t want to miss out on people’s wisdom (delivered for free via podcast or radio) over a silly word! Do you have any ideas for not caring about this anymore? 

My idea: think of a treat - something you absolutely, genuinely enjoy, but aren't "allowed" to indulge in as much as as you'd like.

Every time you hear the filler word, you're allowed one (1) treat.

 

The challenge with filler words is you'd have to pick a small enough treat. (For example, I'd normally choose a glass of wine as the treat, but with filler words you'd be passed out after one conversation!) 

 

My immediate ideas:

 

- one jellybean

- one minute of additional fanfic reading

- remove one minute from your next workout

The rewards could be bankable, so you can save up minutes and skip your whole workout one day, for example. Adjust to your own realities and temperament.

 

The ultimate goal is to create a situation where your visceral reaction to this filler word becomes "YAY, a treat!"