Something I see from time to time in advice columns is a situation where one partner is ready to get married, and the other partner isn't. This is often presented as a Serious Relationship Problem, and surprisingly often talked about as a Reason to End the Relationship.
But one of the things that might happen in a relationship is that one partner is ready to marry before the other partner is. This doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. Two people may well have different emotional arcs that end up in the same place. Everyone who becomes ready to marry was at one point not ready to marry (although, obviously, not being ready to marry doesn't necessarily mean that one day being ready to marry is inevitable), so for one person to be ready to marry before the other isn't necessarily a sign of long-term incompatibility.
There are some people in advice column forums who respond to anything about a partner who isn't proposing with "Well, then you should propose to them!" But that isn't necessarily going to solve the problem. If the other party isn't yet ready to get married, that creates the awkward situation where they have to decline the marriage proposal, which could be a blow to the relationship. In general, a declined marriage proposal is seen as a setback in a relationship, whereas no marriage proposal yet is seen as a relationship progressing (perhaps normally, perhaps slowly), or perhaps stalled. Declining a marriage proposal is seen as backward movement, whereas not having proposed yet is neutral or slow forward movement.
So I suggest a two-step system:
When one party in the relationship (whom we will call "First") is ready to marry, they inform the other party (whom we will call "Second") through a standardized system/script/ritual. Under the generally-accepted rules of this system, Second is not required or expected to give any response to the news that First is ready. It's the in-person equivalent of a facebook status update.
However, this means that Second is responsible for making the formal marriage proposal at such time as they are ready (like Penny and Leonard in Big Bang Theory). Second knows they'll get a yes (because First has already given them a yes), so there's no stress or worry about whether the proposal will be accepted. It becomes a 100% guaranteed positive thing.
I don't really have a good idea for what form the first half of the proposal should take. It could be as simple as First saying to Second "You're hereby responsible for marriage proposals in this relationship." Extrapolating from my new favourite Polish expression (which I am totally appropriating into English, BTW), First could give Second a toy monkey. It doesn't really matter, it just needs to be standardized. And it shouldn't count as an official Phase of the Relationship (like Living Together or Engaged), it's just a notification.
And, of course, if First finds themselves in a position where they want to end the relationship if an engagement isn't forthcoming (which apparently is a feeling some people do have sometimes), they are still allowed to propose to Second. They just go in knowing they have a higher than average chance of getting a no and having to make difficult decisions from there.
Showing posts with label free ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free ideas. Show all posts
Monday, April 07, 2014
Thursday, February 20, 2014
Helpful household hints
1. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is good for degriming shower tiles
Based on the colour, the grime seemed to be related to my hair conditioner, and normal cleaning products plus elbow grease wouldn't budge it. But the Mr. Clean Magic eraser wiped it right off with only slightly more than the absolute minimum of effort humanly possible.
2. How to declog a paper shredder
The problem: the shredder wouldn't "grab" the paper, not even when set on "Forward" (i.e. run regardless of whether you think there's paper poised to be shredded.)
First I ran the shredder forward and backwards like the instruction manual said, but that didn't work.
After switching it off and unplugging it, I tried manually removing the bits of paper I could see stuck between the blades, but I couldn't get at all of them. I then tried blowing at it with compressed air (i.e. this sort of thing), but that didn't get rid of all the bits.
The ultimate solution: take the long, skinny straw-like thing on the compressed air can, and stick it down the slot of the paper shredder where I could see the bits of paper still stuck in there. (Making sure the shredder was still turned off and unplugged, of course!) It's skinny enough to get into the slot, flexible enough to get in between the blades without damaging them, and inconsequential enough that it didn't matter if I damaged it in the blades (which I didn't). And it got all the cloggy bits of paper out of the way, and now the shredder works more enthusiastically than ever.
3. How do get rid of bird poo without touching it (and without a hose)
The problem: bird poo on the outside of the glass outer wall of my balcony (i.e. the bit under the railing.) I can see its ugliness, but I'm too vertiginous to reach over the railing to clean it off (and would be too squeamish to touch it even indirectly with paper towels and rubber gloves even if I could reach it).
The solution: first, wait for a rainy day when the rain is beating rather heavily against the surface to be washed.
Spray some OxiClean Spray on the surface, above the bird poo. It will drip down, cover the poo, and the enzymes will get rid of a lot of it.
Next, after the OxiClean has either all dripped down below the mess or the rain has washed it away, squirt a dab of dish soap (the hand-washing kind, not the dishwasher kind) above the poo. It will drip down and cover the poo, and the rain will make it into a lather, which will wash the rest away.
The last step is to take some Windex, and spray a generous amount over as much of the area as possible, focusing on the top so it can drip down. This will clean off the build-up left by the Oxi-Clean and dish soap, so once everything is dry you won't even be able to tell anything happened there.
If you have a bird poo problem somewhere where you have access to a hose, you obviously don't have to wait for it to rain. But the approach I've described here works in cases where a hose isn't possible. As an added bonus, if you're very careful to spray the stuff only directly on the wall, it won't land on any passers-by who might be walking below.
Based on the colour, the grime seemed to be related to my hair conditioner, and normal cleaning products plus elbow grease wouldn't budge it. But the Mr. Clean Magic eraser wiped it right off with only slightly more than the absolute minimum of effort humanly possible.
2. How to declog a paper shredder
The problem: the shredder wouldn't "grab" the paper, not even when set on "Forward" (i.e. run regardless of whether you think there's paper poised to be shredded.)
First I ran the shredder forward and backwards like the instruction manual said, but that didn't work.
After switching it off and unplugging it, I tried manually removing the bits of paper I could see stuck between the blades, but I couldn't get at all of them. I then tried blowing at it with compressed air (i.e. this sort of thing), but that didn't get rid of all the bits.
The ultimate solution: take the long, skinny straw-like thing on the compressed air can, and stick it down the slot of the paper shredder where I could see the bits of paper still stuck in there. (Making sure the shredder was still turned off and unplugged, of course!) It's skinny enough to get into the slot, flexible enough to get in between the blades without damaging them, and inconsequential enough that it didn't matter if I damaged it in the blades (which I didn't). And it got all the cloggy bits of paper out of the way, and now the shredder works more enthusiastically than ever.
3. How do get rid of bird poo without touching it (and without a hose)
The problem: bird poo on the outside of the glass outer wall of my balcony (i.e. the bit under the railing.) I can see its ugliness, but I'm too vertiginous to reach over the railing to clean it off (and would be too squeamish to touch it even indirectly with paper towels and rubber gloves even if I could reach it).
The solution: first, wait for a rainy day when the rain is beating rather heavily against the surface to be washed.
Spray some OxiClean Spray on the surface, above the bird poo. It will drip down, cover the poo, and the enzymes will get rid of a lot of it.
Next, after the OxiClean has either all dripped down below the mess or the rain has washed it away, squirt a dab of dish soap (the hand-washing kind, not the dishwasher kind) above the poo. It will drip down and cover the poo, and the rain will make it into a lather, which will wash the rest away.
The last step is to take some Windex, and spray a generous amount over as much of the area as possible, focusing on the top so it can drip down. This will clean off the build-up left by the Oxi-Clean and dish soap, so once everything is dry you won't even be able to tell anything happened there.
If you have a bird poo problem somewhere where you have access to a hose, you obviously don't have to wait for it to rain. But the approach I've described here works in cases where a hose isn't possible. As an added bonus, if you're very careful to spray the stuff only directly on the wall, it won't land on any passers-by who might be walking below.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
itunes lyrics efficiency
As I've mentioned before, I'm lyric-deaf, meaning I can't always clearly hear all the words of a song I'm listening to. As a result, often when I'm going about my everyday life, I feel the need to stop and google up the lyrics to the song I'm listening to.
But this morning my shower gave me an idea:
Every time I find myself googling up lyrics, I'll paste them into the "Lyrics" tab for that song. (Right-click the song, click on Get Info, choose the Lyrics tab.) Then they'll be available for me on my ipod, and apparently you can also download plug-ins that will show the contents of the Lyrics tab in itunes as the song plays. So if I keep doing this, every song with incomprehensible lyrics will eventually display its lyrics automatically when it plays.
But this morning my shower gave me an idea:
Every time I find myself googling up lyrics, I'll paste them into the "Lyrics" tab for that song. (Right-click the song, click on Get Info, choose the Lyrics tab.) Then they'll be available for me on my ipod, and apparently you can also download plug-ins that will show the contents of the Lyrics tab in itunes as the song plays. So if I keep doing this, every song with incomprehensible lyrics will eventually display its lyrics automatically when it plays.
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Half-formed idea: fully automated text message power outage reporting
Picture this: your power goes out, so you pick up your cellphone and text your six-digit postal code to a specific number, and doing so automatically enters in the hydro company's database that there is a power outage in your postal code.
Currently, you can report power outages by phone or internet. The problem with reporting them by internet is not everyone has internet during a power outage. The problem with reporting by phone is that there are a finite number of people who can answer phones, so during widespread power outages, wait times to report an outage can be long. In fact, as I type this, Toronto Hydro has just announced that its phone lines are overloaded and it only wants people to call for emergencies. I'm not sure if a simple power outage counts as an emergency or if that's reserved for lines down and trees on lines.
Being able to text your outage directly into the database would be faster, require less human intervention, and take up less bandwidth. It would also help you preserve your valuable phone battery if you don't have a landline, because texting takes significantly less battery power than calling.
A postal code doesn't precisely pinpoint the location of the outage, but it does narrow it down pretty well. My current six-digit postal code applies only to my building. In the suburban neighbourhood where I grew up, our postal code applied to only six houses. It's possible that the postal code will be sufficient information, especially if they're getting multiple reports from a postal code or from a set of adjacent postal codes.
But if the information provided by the postal code isn't enough, perhaps the system could record the numbers that each text comes from, and a human could call or text back for further information if necessary. It's possible no further information would be necessary because the postal code is a single building like mine, or because there's a general outage in the area, or because someone else in the postal code has already filed a full report.
In any case, automated reports by text would allow for an additional communication pathway that currently isn't available, and would let reports be made faster and more easily, with less time and battery power invested.
It seems like the technology should exist or should be creatable based on other things that already exist (like charitable donations by text message, etc.)
Currently, you can report power outages by phone or internet. The problem with reporting them by internet is not everyone has internet during a power outage. The problem with reporting by phone is that there are a finite number of people who can answer phones, so during widespread power outages, wait times to report an outage can be long. In fact, as I type this, Toronto Hydro has just announced that its phone lines are overloaded and it only wants people to call for emergencies. I'm not sure if a simple power outage counts as an emergency or if that's reserved for lines down and trees on lines.
Being able to text your outage directly into the database would be faster, require less human intervention, and take up less bandwidth. It would also help you preserve your valuable phone battery if you don't have a landline, because texting takes significantly less battery power than calling.
A postal code doesn't precisely pinpoint the location of the outage, but it does narrow it down pretty well. My current six-digit postal code applies only to my building. In the suburban neighbourhood where I grew up, our postal code applied to only six houses. It's possible that the postal code will be sufficient information, especially if they're getting multiple reports from a postal code or from a set of adjacent postal codes.
But if the information provided by the postal code isn't enough, perhaps the system could record the numbers that each text comes from, and a human could call or text back for further information if necessary. It's possible no further information would be necessary because the postal code is a single building like mine, or because there's a general outage in the area, or because someone else in the postal code has already filed a full report.
In any case, automated reports by text would allow for an additional communication pathway that currently isn't available, and would let reports be made faster and more easily, with less time and battery power invested.
It seems like the technology should exist or should be creatable based on other things that already exist (like charitable donations by text message, etc.)
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
My schoolwork/studying technique
Since I've posted my essay-writing technique, I thought I'd also post my approach to schoolwork and studying.
I spent a designated amount of time on schoolwork per day per class. Extrapolating from guidelines in my high school student handbook, I started with 15 minutes per day per class in Grade 9, and gradually increased it to 30 minutes per day per class in university.
Note that I worked with the total amount of time, rather than distributing it evenly among all my classes. This means that, for example, in a university semester where I was taking 6 courses, I'd do a total of 3 hours of schoolwork each day, but I wouldn't necessarily do an equal amount for each course, or even do work for every course every day.
I'd decide what to work on by simple chronology. I wrote down every deadline (reading, assignments, tests, projects, exams) in my calendar, and would spend my designated hours of schoolwork on whatever was due next.
If the next thing due was a test to be studied for (as opposed to an assignment that can be definitively completed), I'd do one round of studying for the test, then go on to the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, then do the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, and so on and so forth until I wrote the test. What a "round of studying" actually was would depend on the nature of the test. It could be reading through all the relevant parts of the textbook, it could be quizzing myself on the material that would be on the test, it could be doing practice exams.
If the next thing due was a group project and my group hadn't yet sorted itself out enough for me to know what exactly I needed to do for the project, I'd work on it anyway. I'd just open up a Word document and start typing up reasonable content for the project. Then, at the end of the day's session, I'd email what I had to the rest of the group. I'd frame it as "I've been thinking about the project, and I think better by actually writing stuff down, so I threw together a partial, very rough draft. Feel free to critique whatever you don't like, or appropriate anything you do like, and we can maybe use it as a basis for discussion and planning for the rest of the project." I didn't think of this approach until university, and by then my classmates most often appreciated my work (as opposed to earlier grades, where they'd reject my work because I'm not cool, even though my work was objectively correct), so the end result of this was a not-insignificant chunk of the project was done, anyone who was worse than I am could see what needed to be done to get the project up to my level, anyone who was better than I am could catch anything I needed to improve early on, and the entire group would be nudged into a "time to do the project" mindset without having to actually schedule a meeting.
The most important thing about this method is to always do the designated hours of work, starting on the day you receive your course syllabus and every single day until you've finished your last project or exam, even when you don't have any imminent deadlines. What would usually happen is I'd get way ahead on my reading in the first couple of weeks when there weren't many assignments yet, which would pay off when assignments picked up later on in the semester, when deadlines started catching up with me and I spent most of my time working on the next day's deadlines. I'd pull ahead again during reading week, where I'd make some progress on final projects and studying for final exams, which had the added advantage of letting the material fester in my head for a bit once classes resumed and I was getting more imminent deadlines.
What was most valuable about this technique for me personally was that it gave me a definite point at which I could stop studying guilt-free. I'm naturally inclined to feel the burden of everything I have to do ever ("OMG, I have to pay off my mortgage! And save for retirement! Right now!"), so it's beneficial to me to have a system where all I have to do is study for three hours, regardless of how much or how little I get done in that time, and after the three hours are up I'm Officially Done for the Day.
I spent a designated amount of time on schoolwork per day per class. Extrapolating from guidelines in my high school student handbook, I started with 15 minutes per day per class in Grade 9, and gradually increased it to 30 minutes per day per class in university.
Note that I worked with the total amount of time, rather than distributing it evenly among all my classes. This means that, for example, in a university semester where I was taking 6 courses, I'd do a total of 3 hours of schoolwork each day, but I wouldn't necessarily do an equal amount for each course, or even do work for every course every day.
I'd decide what to work on by simple chronology. I wrote down every deadline (reading, assignments, tests, projects, exams) in my calendar, and would spend my designated hours of schoolwork on whatever was due next.
If the next thing due was a test to be studied for (as opposed to an assignment that can be definitively completed), I'd do one round of studying for the test, then go on to the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, then do the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, and so on and so forth until I wrote the test. What a "round of studying" actually was would depend on the nature of the test. It could be reading through all the relevant parts of the textbook, it could be quizzing myself on the material that would be on the test, it could be doing practice exams.
If the next thing due was a group project and my group hadn't yet sorted itself out enough for me to know what exactly I needed to do for the project, I'd work on it anyway. I'd just open up a Word document and start typing up reasonable content for the project. Then, at the end of the day's session, I'd email what I had to the rest of the group. I'd frame it as "I've been thinking about the project, and I think better by actually writing stuff down, so I threw together a partial, very rough draft. Feel free to critique whatever you don't like, or appropriate anything you do like, and we can maybe use it as a basis for discussion and planning for the rest of the project." I didn't think of this approach until university, and by then my classmates most often appreciated my work (as opposed to earlier grades, where they'd reject my work because I'm not cool, even though my work was objectively correct), so the end result of this was a not-insignificant chunk of the project was done, anyone who was worse than I am could see what needed to be done to get the project up to my level, anyone who was better than I am could catch anything I needed to improve early on, and the entire group would be nudged into a "time to do the project" mindset without having to actually schedule a meeting.
The most important thing about this method is to always do the designated hours of work, starting on the day you receive your course syllabus and every single day until you've finished your last project or exam, even when you don't have any imminent deadlines. What would usually happen is I'd get way ahead on my reading in the first couple of weeks when there weren't many assignments yet, which would pay off when assignments picked up later on in the semester, when deadlines started catching up with me and I spent most of my time working on the next day's deadlines. I'd pull ahead again during reading week, where I'd make some progress on final projects and studying for final exams, which had the added advantage of letting the material fester in my head for a bit once classes resumed and I was getting more imminent deadlines.
What was most valuable about this technique for me personally was that it gave me a definite point at which I could stop studying guilt-free. I'm naturally inclined to feel the burden of everything I have to do ever ("OMG, I have to pay off my mortgage! And save for retirement! Right now!"), so it's beneficial to me to have a system where all I have to do is study for three hours, regardless of how much or how little I get done in that time, and after the three hours are up I'm Officially Done for the Day.
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Things They Should Invent: public birthday parties
Sometimes people can't celebrate their birthday on their actual birthday, because the people they most want to celebrate with aren't available on that day.
Solution: public, meet-up style birthday parties for anyone who has a birthday that day. I'm picturing the parties being held by a group of bars or pubs - the kind of place where any random person can walk in and have a good time - that would rotate among themselves so each one has to throw a birthday party only every couple of weeks or so.
You go in, show ID showing that it's your birthday, and you're entitled to one free drink and a piece of cake and maybe all the nachos you can eat over the course of the evening (or whatever else they can give away without wrecking their margins). The employees (and, hopefully, other customers and birthday people) congratulate you and wish you happy birthday and generally make a fuss over you. Maybe there could also be bonus freebies for people celebrating a milestone birthday. There would also be a general discount for people whose birthday it isn't on birthday party days, so there will be other people around to wish happy birthday to the birthday people.
The bars get attention, publicity, drink sales (because few people are going to limit themselves to the one free drink on their birthday), and maybe some new regulars who remember how this bar made them feel happy and welcome and celebrated on that birthday when they were all alone.
The bar's regulars get a discount and a bit of a party atmosphere on that particular day, and the possibility of attracting new and interesting regulars to the bar (if the birthday people are made to feel happy and welcome and celebrated.)
The birthday people get something fun to do on their birthday that makes them feel happy and welcome and celebrated, plus they get to meet other people who have the same birthday and thereby make friends who will totally be into celebrating their birthday on their birthday next year!
And, because the birthday people will meet birthday buddies, they might be able to make it just a one-year project. This would eliminate any "Meh, I'll go next year" sentiment among the birthday people, and thereby increase attendance and popularity.
Solution: public, meet-up style birthday parties for anyone who has a birthday that day. I'm picturing the parties being held by a group of bars or pubs - the kind of place where any random person can walk in and have a good time - that would rotate among themselves so each one has to throw a birthday party only every couple of weeks or so.
You go in, show ID showing that it's your birthday, and you're entitled to one free drink and a piece of cake and maybe all the nachos you can eat over the course of the evening (or whatever else they can give away without wrecking their margins). The employees (and, hopefully, other customers and birthday people) congratulate you and wish you happy birthday and generally make a fuss over you. Maybe there could also be bonus freebies for people celebrating a milestone birthday. There would also be a general discount for people whose birthday it isn't on birthday party days, so there will be other people around to wish happy birthday to the birthday people.
The bars get attention, publicity, drink sales (because few people are going to limit themselves to the one free drink on their birthday), and maybe some new regulars who remember how this bar made them feel happy and welcome and celebrated on that birthday when they were all alone.
The bar's regulars get a discount and a bit of a party atmosphere on that particular day, and the possibility of attracting new and interesting regulars to the bar (if the birthday people are made to feel happy and welcome and celebrated.)
The birthday people get something fun to do on their birthday that makes them feel happy and welcome and celebrated, plus they get to meet other people who have the same birthday and thereby make friends who will totally be into celebrating their birthday on their birthday next year!
And, because the birthday people will meet birthday buddies, they might be able to make it just a one-year project. This would eliminate any "Meh, I'll go next year" sentiment among the birthday people, and thereby increase attendance and popularity.
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
By request: my essay-writing technique
Conventional wisdom is that, when writing an essay, you should decide what your thesis is, determine what points best prove that thesis, use this information to prepare an outline, and then flesh it out into a full essay.
This was never particularly good for me, because either I had no idea what my thesis should be, or I had a brilliant idea for a thesis but couldn't quite pull the essay together.
So in university, I came up with another technique.
I started by opening a blank Word document and typing out everything I knew that was remotely relevant. Some if it would be in nice sentences and paragraphs, some of it would be in point form, some of it would be a list of questions to answer. I'd usually also have stray analogies and turns of phrase that I wouldn't mind working in there somewhere. I'd just braindump until my brain emptied, then put it aside.
The next day, I'd open it up again, read it over, add anything that occurred to me, and then figure out what thesis was most naturally proven by all this stuff I'd written.
Then I'd drag all the stuff on the screen around until it landed in the order that best proved the thesis, marking any gaps with "[...]" or "[talk about widgets here]" or whatever. Then I had my outline. And over half my essay.
If I had time, I'd put it aside overnight again, and then fill in those blanks I'd left the next day. After letting it sit overnight, filling in those blanks always seemed like a remarkably easy task. Just a few sentences here and there, no biggie! (If I didn't have time to let it sit overnight before I did this, I'd do all I could by brute force.)
Then another overnight, a fresh morning edit, and we're done!
If I didn't have time for more than one overnight, I'd do the braindump and determine the thesis on the same day, but with a break in between and in two different locations. (For example, braindump at home, spend an hour gaming, get dinner, then determine my thesis in the library.)
The result was an essay that does its job as well as possible. Because my thesis was supported by the points I knew most about, it was (very nearly by definition) the best-proven thesis I could come up with, and proven to the best of my ability. Essays written this way always got As, many of which were high As (at the university level), whereas essays written by choosing my thesis first more often got Bs, occasionally low As.
This was never particularly good for me, because either I had no idea what my thesis should be, or I had a brilliant idea for a thesis but couldn't quite pull the essay together.
So in university, I came up with another technique.
I started by opening a blank Word document and typing out everything I knew that was remotely relevant. Some if it would be in nice sentences and paragraphs, some of it would be in point form, some of it would be a list of questions to answer. I'd usually also have stray analogies and turns of phrase that I wouldn't mind working in there somewhere. I'd just braindump until my brain emptied, then put it aside.
The next day, I'd open it up again, read it over, add anything that occurred to me, and then figure out what thesis was most naturally proven by all this stuff I'd written.
Then I'd drag all the stuff on the screen around until it landed in the order that best proved the thesis, marking any gaps with "[...]" or "[talk about widgets here]" or whatever. Then I had my outline. And over half my essay.
If I had time, I'd put it aside overnight again, and then fill in those blanks I'd left the next day. After letting it sit overnight, filling in those blanks always seemed like a remarkably easy task. Just a few sentences here and there, no biggie! (If I didn't have time to let it sit overnight before I did this, I'd do all I could by brute force.)
Then another overnight, a fresh morning edit, and we're done!
If I didn't have time for more than one overnight, I'd do the braindump and determine the thesis on the same day, but with a break in between and in two different locations. (For example, braindump at home, spend an hour gaming, get dinner, then determine my thesis in the library.)
The result was an essay that does its job as well as possible. Because my thesis was supported by the points I knew most about, it was (very nearly by definition) the best-proven thesis I could come up with, and proven to the best of my ability. Essays written this way always got As, many of which were high As (at the university level), whereas essays written by choosing my thesis first more often got Bs, occasionally low As.
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Building a Better Senate redux
I previously blogged some ideas for improving the Senate, building on the advantages of the existing model by making it less partisan.
While reading this article (although not directly related to its content), I came up with a simpler way to do the same thing.
First, we make senators non-partisan. They can't be members of a party, they don't identify themselves as "Conservative senators" or "Liberal senators", there are no Senate party caucuses. They're just senators.
Then comes the important part: government of the day cannot appoint any senators who are or have ever been members of its political party (or any of that party's predecessors). It can appoint people who are or have been members of other political parties, it can appoint people who have never been a member of any political party, but it can't appoint from its own party.
Possible corollary, depending on what percentage of the people who are good senate candidates have ever been members of political parties: each government must appoint a minimum number of senators who are or have been been a member of another political party. I can see pros and cons of this.
But, either way, it would be the political equivalent of having one sibling cut the cake and another choose the slice.
While reading this article (although not directly related to its content), I came up with a simpler way to do the same thing.
First, we make senators non-partisan. They can't be members of a party, they don't identify themselves as "Conservative senators" or "Liberal senators", there are no Senate party caucuses. They're just senators.
Then comes the important part: government of the day cannot appoint any senators who are or have ever been members of its political party (or any of that party's predecessors). It can appoint people who are or have been members of other political parties, it can appoint people who have never been a member of any political party, but it can't appoint from its own party.
Possible corollary, depending on what percentage of the people who are good senate candidates have ever been members of political parties: each government must appoint a minimum number of senators who are or have been been a member of another political party. I can see pros and cons of this.
But, either way, it would be the political equivalent of having one sibling cut the cake and another choose the slice.
Sunday, June 02, 2013
Diluting shredded paper
They make paper shredders that shred paper to different sizes, and the smaller it shreds the paper, the more expensive the paper shredder. Presumably this is because it would be harder to reassemble the paper if it's shredded smaller.
I find myself wondering if you could also make it more difficult for someone who wanted to reassemble the paper by diluting the shredded paper. What if only 10% of the paper you shredded was important documents that actually needed to be shredded, and 90% of it was random unimportant documents?
What if you physically mixed up the shredded paper before dumping it in recycling? What if you put shredded paper from the same batch of shredding in multiple recycling containers?
Before I owned a paper shredder, I'd rip up sensitive documents and put parts of them (usually the parts with my name) in with my kitchen garbage. I figurde if someone is going to dig through the dumpsters and try to reassemble my documents, I can at least make it as unpleasant as possible. What if you put a portion of the shredded paper in the green bin? (Apparently paper in the green bin is allowed - my parents use newspapers to line their organics garbage can, then throw the whole piece of newspaper in the green bin with the garbage enclosed.)
I don't know if the additional security gained from doing any of these things would be worth the effort, but it's fun to think of ideas.
I find myself wondering if you could also make it more difficult for someone who wanted to reassemble the paper by diluting the shredded paper. What if only 10% of the paper you shredded was important documents that actually needed to be shredded, and 90% of it was random unimportant documents?
What if you physically mixed up the shredded paper before dumping it in recycling? What if you put shredded paper from the same batch of shredding in multiple recycling containers?
Before I owned a paper shredder, I'd rip up sensitive documents and put parts of them (usually the parts with my name) in with my kitchen garbage. I figurde if someone is going to dig through the dumpsters and try to reassemble my documents, I can at least make it as unpleasant as possible. What if you put a portion of the shredded paper in the green bin? (Apparently paper in the green bin is allowed - my parents use newspapers to line their organics garbage can, then throw the whole piece of newspaper in the green bin with the garbage enclosed.)
I don't know if the additional security gained from doing any of these things would be worth the effort, but it's fun to think of ideas.
Saturday, March 02, 2013
How to organize hair accessories
I was sorting through a drawer, and I noticed it contained a lot of loose hair clips, and a lot of loose hair elastics. I was considering getting some kind of container or organizing device, and then I had a brainstorm:
I grouped all the like clips together, then I wrapped all the like hair elastics around each bundle of clips. The elastics keep the clips together in bundles, and the clips provide something to wrap the elastics around without stretching them out, so they won't rattle around loose and sink to the bottom of the drawer.
This takes up less space than any organizing device, the hair accessories are far more readily visible in the drawer than when they're loose, and I can tell what I own at a glance.
I grouped all the like clips together, then I wrapped all the like hair elastics around each bundle of clips. The elastics keep the clips together in bundles, and the clips provide something to wrap the elastics around without stretching them out, so they won't rattle around loose and sink to the bottom of the drawer.
This takes up less space than any organizing device, the hair accessories are far more readily visible in the drawer than when they're loose, and I can tell what I own at a glance.
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Things the Library Should Invent: subscribe to author or series
A while back, I read and enjoyed Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I
then googled it and learned that a sequel was in the works, but the
title and release date of the sequel hadn't been announced yet. Then I
forgot about all it.
Fortunately, the sequel (entitled Days of Blood and Starlight - I
haven't read it yet so no spoilers please) turned up on some of the Best
Books of 2012 lists, so I was reminded of its existence and added it to
my holds list. However, if it hadn't been
mentioned in an article I read, I would never have thought to look it up
again and would miss the opportunity to spend more time with the
characters.
The same thing keeps happening with the Dexter series. I forget to
look for new books and discover two have been written since I last
checked, or I check for new books and find that there aren't any. I'd
also be interested in reading whatever Malcolm
Gladwell happens to write next, but he hasn't published in 3 years. I
also think I'm going to keep reading the Inspector Gamache series once I
catch up, but I don't know whether it's on a predictable publication
schedule.
I don't want to subscribe to all the authors' newsletters, because
in many cases I’m not actively involved in the fandom so I don't want
all the promotional material about book signings and paperback release
dates and media appearances. I just want to
be informed when there's a new book to add to my holds list.
I think the library would be able to help me with this.
I'd like to be able to select an author or series out of the
library catalogue, and have it automatically add any new title from that
author or series to my holds list. Users who subscribed first get
placed on the holds list first, and users would have
the choice whether to add the title in active or inactive mode. That
way I don't need to keep googling every author I'm interested in, then
keep searching for upcoming titles until they show up in the library
catalogue, and perhaps the library would have better
data on interest in upcoming titles.
If this is all too complicated, maybe the library could just send
out automated email alerts when a new title from an author or series you
subscribe to has been added to the catalogue, and users could add it to
their holds list themselves.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Things They Should Invent: computer program for choosing condo finishes
Apparently the way you choose finishes for your new condo is you actually go to a place and look at swatches and choose them that way.
That's so 20th century!
They need instead a computer simulation where you can click on each finish and see what it would look like in your actual unit. You could view different combinations at a click of a mouse, save them and revisit them later, and even share them.
In my particular case, nearly everyone I've ever met is inexplicably enthusiastic about the possibility of choosing finishes, so I was giving very serious consideration to crowd-sourcing the whole thing. (The part of my brain that finds randomness satisfying would appreciate that.) Unfortunately, that's not very feasible if you have to make an appointment and be at a specific place at a specific time. However, if everyone could log in to a website and save their preferences, I could choose my finishes by pure democracy, or have everyone put together a look they like best, or have everyone put together a look and then put it to a general vote to pick the best look.
If this were sharable by social media, it could even help create buzz for the condo builder - people might start tweeting and facebooking their gorgeous future kitchens. Plus, it would certainly be more affordable to build a real-life version of the Sims' build function (maybe it could even be done IN the Sims' build function?) than to rent and staff physical space for people to go look at swatches for every single condo a given developer builds.
That's so 20th century!
They need instead a computer simulation where you can click on each finish and see what it would look like in your actual unit. You could view different combinations at a click of a mouse, save them and revisit them later, and even share them.
In my particular case, nearly everyone I've ever met is inexplicably enthusiastic about the possibility of choosing finishes, so I was giving very serious consideration to crowd-sourcing the whole thing. (The part of my brain that finds randomness satisfying would appreciate that.) Unfortunately, that's not very feasible if you have to make an appointment and be at a specific place at a specific time. However, if everyone could log in to a website and save their preferences, I could choose my finishes by pure democracy, or have everyone put together a look they like best, or have everyone put together a look and then put it to a general vote to pick the best look.
If this were sharable by social media, it could even help create buzz for the condo builder - people might start tweeting and facebooking their gorgeous future kitchens. Plus, it would certainly be more affordable to build a real-life version of the Sims' build function (maybe it could even be done IN the Sims' build function?) than to rent and staff physical space for people to go look at swatches for every single condo a given developer builds.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Coping tips for a young introvert
From a recent Dear Prudence chat:
In addition to Prudie's answer, I have some ideas:
- First of all, don't worry about the fact that she's fading into the background! That's not a problem. She doesn't need to be the star. She's there, she's doing her duty, she's not being rude to anyone, that's sufficient. Work with her on managing the situation so she doesn't get overly drained and melt down, work on giving her options for respites and recharging, protect and advocate for her within the family, but don't worry that she isn't the star of the family dinner table. Civil and emotionally neutral is sufficient.
- In terms of specific strategies, is there a job she could do that would take her away from everyone else? A dog that needs walking? A sleeping baby that needs to be checked on? Something that needs to be fetched from the garage?
- Is it possible for her to spend a small amount of time (like 10 minutes) in the car alone while everyone else is in the house? You could have a code "I need to get something out of the car", give her the keys, and let her get in the back and decompress. If anyone comes out to check on her, she could be rummaging through a bag that's in the car. (Besides, anyone who catches an 11-year-old girl secretively getting something out of the car is just going to assume that she got her period.)
- Set a schedule, tell her what it is, and stick to it. "We're going to Auntie Em's for dinner at 6, and we'll leave by 10." It's much more bearable when you know when it's going to end.
- If the house is big enough to have multiple bathrooms, when she needs a break she could use the upstairs bathroom. The two-storey suburban houses in my family have a small powder room downstairs, and a full bathroom upstairs that's the family's primary bathroom (for showering, brushing teeth, etc.) but isn't in any of the bedrooms. (There's often also an ensuite in the master bedroom.) Usually guests use the downstairs bathroom, but when there's a lot of people in the house and it's family, you might use the upstairs bathroom if the downstairs bathroom is occupied. This would be quieter and give you a moment alone. You can pretty much stay in there until you hear someone coming up the stairs, and then you have the excuse "Oh, the downstairs bathroom was occupied and I couldn't wait." (Again, they'll just assume that she got her period.)
- If there is an unoccupied "public" room of the house (i.e. not someone's bedroom), she could go hang out there and, if someone comes and asks her what she's doing, she could say "Oh, I was just admiring this picture on the wall. What's the story behind it?" Practise plausible scripts with her, so she can turn being "caught" being alone into a pleasant sociable conversation-starter.
- If the trip involves overnight stays, can you stay in a hotel rather than with relatives? Since the letter mentions the introvert daughter as having "brothers", that would mean she's the only girl, so she should at least be able to get her own bed. If you can manage a suite instead of a room, maybe she could get her own room (girls going through puberty do start needing privacy from their brothers, after all), or sleep alone in the living-room area of the suite. If you have to stay with relatives, think about how to give her her own space to sleep. Maybe she'd prefer sleeping on the couch in the den rather than on her cousin's floor?
- Can you host, maybe every other year or so? That would spare your daughter the driving time and give her the option of retreating to her own room.
- Does she have a smartphone? (Or will she within the next couple of years?) Since she likes to read, maybe she could put an ebook reader app on her phone, and, when she gets a chance to duck into a quiet room, read that way. It gives the appearance that she's just sending a quick text or something, whereas sitting with an actual book implies that you've settled in for a while. People might still think she's rude for ducking into another room and texting during a family event, but I think if she can give the impression that she's just finishing up when someone notices her, it shouldn't go over too badly.
- Try to give her at least one day off during the weekend. I always find going straight from an action-packed weekend to a full week of work (or, worse, school) is practically unbearable. I need at least one day to sleep in and lounge around at home doing nothing. If it's not possible to have a day off during the weekend, maybe let her stay home "sick" on the first day back. (You could tell her brothers she really is sick if they're likely to want a free sick day too. Again, they'll just assume she has her period.)
- Depending on the personalities involved, you might consider strategically outing her as an introvert to key family members. Don't make it a big "We need to talk" with undertones of shamefulness. Break the news with enthusiasm for the revelation and sympathy for your daughter. "I was just reading this book, and I realized that Daughter is an introvert. You know how we love seeing the whole family over the holidays and get energized and recharged from it? Turns out all this time this has been draining to her, poor kid!" If one key member of each household you're visiting is aware of her needs (and isn't going to use this information to give her shit), maybe they can help with things like letting her walk the dog or giving her more private sleeping arrangements, or at the very least not meddle and nag if they ever spot her catching a moment's privacy.
- Prudie recommends the book Quiet by Susan Cain. It is useful, bit I found Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney even more useful. It includes a technical (but understandable) description of the neurology behind introversion, and specific strategies for introverts in extroverted families.
Hi Prudie, My family is rather large (45 people on average for Thanksgiving) and my husband's parents are divorced and we try to see both of them at some point over the weekend. Our kids are 13, 11, and eight and in the past have seemed to enjoy spending the holiday weekend this way. Yesterday my 11-year-old daughter told me that she wants a "quiet" holiday. We have noticed that she is getting increasingly introverted over the past year or so, more likely to read by herself than play with her brothers and cousins. She told me that there are "too many people and too much driving." My husband and I are party-loving extroverts, so house hopping and driving six+ hours over the weekend is no big deal to us. But my daughter doesn't complain often and I know if she brings something up it is legitimately important to her. In small groups, and especially one-on-one, my daughter is a delight: creative, funny, and very smart. But in big groups she just fades into the background, possibly counting down the minutes until she can read by herself again. How do I balance my daughter's request that we tone things down with a) reasonable expectations from family to see us, b) the rest of my immediate family's love of going all-out, and c) not making the holiday all about her. My daughter's personality is so different from the rest of us that I don't know how to meet everybody's needs at once. Any advice? Any introverts want to chime in?
In addition to Prudie's answer, I have some ideas:
- First of all, don't worry about the fact that she's fading into the background! That's not a problem. She doesn't need to be the star. She's there, she's doing her duty, she's not being rude to anyone, that's sufficient. Work with her on managing the situation so she doesn't get overly drained and melt down, work on giving her options for respites and recharging, protect and advocate for her within the family, but don't worry that she isn't the star of the family dinner table. Civil and emotionally neutral is sufficient.
- In terms of specific strategies, is there a job she could do that would take her away from everyone else? A dog that needs walking? A sleeping baby that needs to be checked on? Something that needs to be fetched from the garage?
- Is it possible for her to spend a small amount of time (like 10 minutes) in the car alone while everyone else is in the house? You could have a code "I need to get something out of the car", give her the keys, and let her get in the back and decompress. If anyone comes out to check on her, she could be rummaging through a bag that's in the car. (Besides, anyone who catches an 11-year-old girl secretively getting something out of the car is just going to assume that she got her period.)
- Set a schedule, tell her what it is, and stick to it. "We're going to Auntie Em's for dinner at 6, and we'll leave by 10." It's much more bearable when you know when it's going to end.
- If the house is big enough to have multiple bathrooms, when she needs a break she could use the upstairs bathroom. The two-storey suburban houses in my family have a small powder room downstairs, and a full bathroom upstairs that's the family's primary bathroom (for showering, brushing teeth, etc.) but isn't in any of the bedrooms. (There's often also an ensuite in the master bedroom.) Usually guests use the downstairs bathroom, but when there's a lot of people in the house and it's family, you might use the upstairs bathroom if the downstairs bathroom is occupied. This would be quieter and give you a moment alone. You can pretty much stay in there until you hear someone coming up the stairs, and then you have the excuse "Oh, the downstairs bathroom was occupied and I couldn't wait." (Again, they'll just assume that she got her period.)
- If there is an unoccupied "public" room of the house (i.e. not someone's bedroom), she could go hang out there and, if someone comes and asks her what she's doing, she could say "Oh, I was just admiring this picture on the wall. What's the story behind it?" Practise plausible scripts with her, so she can turn being "caught" being alone into a pleasant sociable conversation-starter.
- If the trip involves overnight stays, can you stay in a hotel rather than with relatives? Since the letter mentions the introvert daughter as having "brothers", that would mean she's the only girl, so she should at least be able to get her own bed. If you can manage a suite instead of a room, maybe she could get her own room (girls going through puberty do start needing privacy from their brothers, after all), or sleep alone in the living-room area of the suite. If you have to stay with relatives, think about how to give her her own space to sleep. Maybe she'd prefer sleeping on the couch in the den rather than on her cousin's floor?
- Can you host, maybe every other year or so? That would spare your daughter the driving time and give her the option of retreating to her own room.
- Does she have a smartphone? (Or will she within the next couple of years?) Since she likes to read, maybe she could put an ebook reader app on her phone, and, when she gets a chance to duck into a quiet room, read that way. It gives the appearance that she's just sending a quick text or something, whereas sitting with an actual book implies that you've settled in for a while. People might still think she's rude for ducking into another room and texting during a family event, but I think if she can give the impression that she's just finishing up when someone notices her, it shouldn't go over too badly.
- Try to give her at least one day off during the weekend. I always find going straight from an action-packed weekend to a full week of work (or, worse, school) is practically unbearable. I need at least one day to sleep in and lounge around at home doing nothing. If it's not possible to have a day off during the weekend, maybe let her stay home "sick" on the first day back. (You could tell her brothers she really is sick if they're likely to want a free sick day too. Again, they'll just assume she has her period.)
- Depending on the personalities involved, you might consider strategically outing her as an introvert to key family members. Don't make it a big "We need to talk" with undertones of shamefulness. Break the news with enthusiasm for the revelation and sympathy for your daughter. "I was just reading this book, and I realized that Daughter is an introvert. You know how we love seeing the whole family over the holidays and get energized and recharged from it? Turns out all this time this has been draining to her, poor kid!" If one key member of each household you're visiting is aware of her needs (and isn't going to use this information to give her shit), maybe they can help with things like letting her walk the dog or giving her more private sleeping arrangements, or at the very least not meddle and nag if they ever spot her catching a moment's privacy.
- Prudie recommends the book Quiet by Susan Cain. It is useful, bit I found Introvert Advantage by Marti Olsen Laney even more useful. It includes a technical (but understandable) description of the neurology behind introversion, and specific strategies for introverts in extroverted families.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Journalism wanted: how can people who find themselves in Amanda Todd's position get their tormenters in trouble without getting themselves in trouble?
Amanda Todd was coerced into exposing herself on a webcam when she was 12 years old. She was a legal minor and she was below the age of consent, so surely that was illegal on the part of the coercer. And, of course, having the pictures in his possession would have counted as possessing child pornography.
Then, when she was 15, someone tried to convince her to expose herself again, threatening to distribute her previous pictures if she didn't. Blackmail is illegal (it's covered in the Criminal Code under "Extortion"), plus he was trying to coerce someone who is underage and under the age of consent to appear in child pornography, and threatening to distribute child pornography if she didn't comply.
It sounds like it should have been quite easy to report the blackmailer to police and put an end to Ms. Todd's troubles.
However, according to the story, the police knocked on Ms. Todd's door at 4 a.m. to tell her that her photo had been distributed.
If I were a teen in Ms. Todd's position, that fact alone would be disincentive to going to the police. The knock at the door at 4 a.m. would lead me to conclude that I couldn't expect the police to have compassion for me as a victim. (At the absolute bare minimum, if the victim doesn't yet know they're a victim, why not do them the small decency of letting them get a full night's sleep?) It would lead me to conclude that the police wouldn't care about protecting me from the wrath of my parents (because a 4 a.m. knock at the door would result in my parents being tired and cranky and frightened, which would mean emotions are running high), which could be a reason to actively avoid police involvement if I had abusive parents.
Therefore, I think it would be helpful if some of the media coverage told teens in Ms. Todd's position how they could get help without getting into trouble. Can you report it to the police without involving your parents? Can they investigate it if you report it anonymously through Crime Stoppers? What kind of evidence do they need? Screen shots? How can you avoid the 4 a.m. knock on the door?
Similarly, what should you do if you're an adult and a kid comes to you with this kind of problem? How can you get the perp in trouble while minimizing the awkwardness and humiliation to the kid?
I also think, if they haven't done so already, the police should come up with a way for minor victims to report their victimization without the involvement of their parents, if they prefer not to involve their parents. Victim Services counsellors should also be trained and available to help minor victims tell their parents if they want, but parent-free reporting should still be possible. And if it turns out that it is in fact possible to report that you've been a victim of a crime without involving your parents, police and media need to publicize this fact and give specifics.
Then, when she was 15, someone tried to convince her to expose herself again, threatening to distribute her previous pictures if she didn't. Blackmail is illegal (it's covered in the Criminal Code under "Extortion"), plus he was trying to coerce someone who is underage and under the age of consent to appear in child pornography, and threatening to distribute child pornography if she didn't comply.
It sounds like it should have been quite easy to report the blackmailer to police and put an end to Ms. Todd's troubles.
However, according to the story, the police knocked on Ms. Todd's door at 4 a.m. to tell her that her photo had been distributed.
If I were a teen in Ms. Todd's position, that fact alone would be disincentive to going to the police. The knock at the door at 4 a.m. would lead me to conclude that I couldn't expect the police to have compassion for me as a victim. (At the absolute bare minimum, if the victim doesn't yet know they're a victim, why not do them the small decency of letting them get a full night's sleep?) It would lead me to conclude that the police wouldn't care about protecting me from the wrath of my parents (because a 4 a.m. knock at the door would result in my parents being tired and cranky and frightened, which would mean emotions are running high), which could be a reason to actively avoid police involvement if I had abusive parents.
Therefore, I think it would be helpful if some of the media coverage told teens in Ms. Todd's position how they could get help without getting into trouble. Can you report it to the police without involving your parents? Can they investigate it if you report it anonymously through Crime Stoppers? What kind of evidence do they need? Screen shots? How can you avoid the 4 a.m. knock on the door?
Similarly, what should you do if you're an adult and a kid comes to you with this kind of problem? How can you get the perp in trouble while minimizing the awkwardness and humiliation to the kid?
I also think, if they haven't done so already, the police should come up with a way for minor victims to report their victimization without the involvement of their parents, if they prefer not to involve their parents. Victim Services counsellors should also be trained and available to help minor victims tell their parents if they want, but parent-free reporting should still be possible. And if it turns out that it is in fact possible to report that you've been a victim of a crime without involving your parents, police and media need to publicize this fact and give specifics.
Tuesday, October 02, 2012
How to conduct a garbage audit for plastic bags
From time to time, news coverage of discussions of plastic bags contains the results of various garbage audits, where they look at a sample of garbage and see how many plastic bags are in it. These numbers are often used to support the author's thesis about which measures do and don't help, but I find that the garbage audits I see cited tend to be less thorough - and therefore less useful - than they need to be.
Here are the questions a plastic bag garbage audit needs to answer in order to be truly informative:
- How many shopping bags are being used as garbage bags? These would likely be replaced with garbage bags if shopping bags were banned, and therefore would not be eliminated from the total landfill plastic.
- How many garbage bags are there in total (including shopping bags being used as garbage bags)? If the audit counts shopping bags being used as garbage bags, it also needs to count garbage bags being used as garbage bags. If there's a reduction in the number of shopping bags but a corresponding increase in the number of garbage bags, banning shopping bags didn't change anything.
- How full are the garbage bags? I empty my kitchen garbage every day, for a minimum of 365 garbage bags a year. They aren't always full, I just don't leave food waste overnight for sanitary reasons. If a significant percentage of garbage bags aren't full, the smaller shopping bags would actually be a better choice because there would be less plastic.
- What is the total quantity of plastic? Remember how plastic grocery bags got bigger when they introduced the five cent fee? Suppose I was using 400 bags a year for my garbage before they got bigger (because I occasionally have more than one bag of garbage). Then suppose the new, bigger bags are always big enough for my garbage needs, so I'm using 365 a year. If the new ones are 20% bigger, that's actually the equivalent of 438 of the old bags, so I'm throwing out more plastic. If, in the future, I'm forced to use the even-larger kitchen catchers, that's even more plastic being thrown out.
- How many plastic bags are in the recycling stream? Sometime after we started talking about plastic bags, I became aware that plastic bags are recyclable. I don't know offhand if they first became recyclable then or if they were already recyclable and I just found out then, but the fact of the matter is that awareness of their recyclability has increased in recent years. If there are, say, 100 fewer bags in the landfill but 100 more bags in recycling, nothing has changed in terms of what we throw out. Obviously it's better for things to be recycled than to go in the landfill, but you can't claim a reduction in usage if the same things are just being recycled now.
- What is the condition of plastic bags that are in the landfill or recycling but not being used as garbage bags? I have heard some people complain that they hate plastic bags because they rip. This is not my experience. However, regardless, it would be informative to see how many of the plastic bags not being used as garbage bags have ripped. If, for example, 87% of the thrown-out bags have ripped, that suggests we have a high reuse rate and people aren't throwing them out as trash unless they can't be reused normally. It might be worth investigating whether it would be more efficient to manufacture higher-quality bags. (Obviously they take up more resources to manufacture and have more plastic in them so there's a tipping point in here somewhere, but it should be looked into if it turns out to be applicable.)
Here are the questions a plastic bag garbage audit needs to answer in order to be truly informative:
- How many shopping bags are being used as garbage bags? These would likely be replaced with garbage bags if shopping bags were banned, and therefore would not be eliminated from the total landfill plastic.
- How many garbage bags are there in total (including shopping bags being used as garbage bags)? If the audit counts shopping bags being used as garbage bags, it also needs to count garbage bags being used as garbage bags. If there's a reduction in the number of shopping bags but a corresponding increase in the number of garbage bags, banning shopping bags didn't change anything.
- How full are the garbage bags? I empty my kitchen garbage every day, for a minimum of 365 garbage bags a year. They aren't always full, I just don't leave food waste overnight for sanitary reasons. If a significant percentage of garbage bags aren't full, the smaller shopping bags would actually be a better choice because there would be less plastic.
- What is the total quantity of plastic? Remember how plastic grocery bags got bigger when they introduced the five cent fee? Suppose I was using 400 bags a year for my garbage before they got bigger (because I occasionally have more than one bag of garbage). Then suppose the new, bigger bags are always big enough for my garbage needs, so I'm using 365 a year. If the new ones are 20% bigger, that's actually the equivalent of 438 of the old bags, so I'm throwing out more plastic. If, in the future, I'm forced to use the even-larger kitchen catchers, that's even more plastic being thrown out.
- How many plastic bags are in the recycling stream? Sometime after we started talking about plastic bags, I became aware that plastic bags are recyclable. I don't know offhand if they first became recyclable then or if they were already recyclable and I just found out then, but the fact of the matter is that awareness of their recyclability has increased in recent years. If there are, say, 100 fewer bags in the landfill but 100 more bags in recycling, nothing has changed in terms of what we throw out. Obviously it's better for things to be recycled than to go in the landfill, but you can't claim a reduction in usage if the same things are just being recycled now.
- What is the condition of plastic bags that are in the landfill or recycling but not being used as garbage bags? I have heard some people complain that they hate plastic bags because they rip. This is not my experience. However, regardless, it would be informative to see how many of the plastic bags not being used as garbage bags have ripped. If, for example, 87% of the thrown-out bags have ripped, that suggests we have a high reuse rate and people aren't throwing them out as trash unless they can't be reused normally. It might be worth investigating whether it would be more efficient to manufacture higher-quality bags. (Obviously they take up more resources to manufacture and have more plastic in them so there's a tipping point in here somewhere, but it should be looked into if it turns out to be applicable.)
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Solving ethical dilemmas with helpful kitchen tips
I recently had a party and afterward had quite a few large bottles of leftover wine (they were opened and wouldn’t keep). There is a particular corner in my neighborhood where benign “drunkards” hang out and drink. They have done so for years, and everyone accepts this as part of our neighborhood. My question is, Should I drop this mother lode of wine off on their perch for them (because who am I to judge their choices?), or pour it down the drain (which would be a “waste”)?
Solution: pour the wine into ice cube trays and put them in the freezer. Then you can defrost it in easy and manageable portions next time you want wine. If the wine is red and the idea of drinking red wine that has been cold offends your delicate sensibilities, you can use it to make sangria. (Or to cook, of course, but I'd assume that people who are savvy enough to cook with wine would already do so as a solution to leftover wine.)
Sunday, April 29, 2012
How to cool the Ontario housing market without hurting ordinary people
Recently in the news: Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney wants to cool the housing market.
This made me think of subsection 6(2) of the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, which states:
So to cool the housing market, they should either remove this exemption, or place a time limit on it like there was in 1992.
From the point of view of an ordinary person hoping to break into the housing market simply to purchase a place to live in, the problem with the housing market is investors. They have lots of money and go in buying up condos en masse to rent out and perhaps later flip, taking them away from those of us who need to be prudent and evaluate a unit from the perspective of "How would I feel about pouring my life's savings into this and living here for the rest of my life?"
If the exemption from the guideline rent increase is eliminated, rental properties will be less attractive investments. It wouldn't make them completely unattractive investments, but a limit in how much you can increase rent where no such limit existed before should cool the market a bit by making investors more cautious.
But this will not make condos any less appealing to ordinary buyers looking for a home for themselves. It will simply take some of the investors out of the market and leave more units for the rest of us.
It will also have the advantage of improving long-term affordability of newer (and therefore better-quality and more energy-efficient) rental housing, thereby making better housing more accessible for everyone.
This made me think of subsection 6(2) of the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, which states:
(2) Sections 104, 111, 112, 120, 121, 122, 126 to 133, 165 and 167 do not apply with respect to a rental unit if,Section 120 of the ORTA applies to the guideline rent increase, which means that properties that were built or started being rented out after 1998/1975/1991 (as applicable) are exempt from the rent increase guideline, and the landlords can raise the rent by however much they want.
(a) it was not occupied for any purpose before June 17, 1998;(b) it is a rental unit no part of which has been previously rented since July 29, 1975; or(c) no part of the building, mobile home park or land lease community was occupied for residential purposes before November 1, 1991. 2006, c. 17, s. 6 (2).
So to cool the housing market, they should either remove this exemption, or place a time limit on it like there was in 1992.
From the point of view of an ordinary person hoping to break into the housing market simply to purchase a place to live in, the problem with the housing market is investors. They have lots of money and go in buying up condos en masse to rent out and perhaps later flip, taking them away from those of us who need to be prudent and evaluate a unit from the perspective of "How would I feel about pouring my life's savings into this and living here for the rest of my life?"
If the exemption from the guideline rent increase is eliminated, rental properties will be less attractive investments. It wouldn't make them completely unattractive investments, but a limit in how much you can increase rent where no such limit existed before should cool the market a bit by making investors more cautious.
But this will not make condos any less appealing to ordinary buyers looking for a home for themselves. It will simply take some of the investors out of the market and leave more units for the rest of us.
It will also have the advantage of improving long-term affordability of newer (and therefore better-quality and more energy-efficient) rental housing, thereby making better housing more accessible for everyone.
Sunday, April 01, 2012
How to teach literary analysis: don't let students read ahead
As I've blogged about before, I hated and was terrible at literary analysis when I was in school. Despite getting respectable grades in lit classes in three languages, I just didn't feel that analysis added anything to the reading experience or understand what on earth it achieves apart from giving us fodder for academic essays. I'm done the story, why dissect it so tediously?
I didn't start to truly grok literary analysis until I entered the Harry Potter fandom. I started reading Harry Potter shortly before the fifth book, and people on fan sites were using literary analysis to figure out what would happen later in the series. That made far better sense to me: we're looking for clues to solve a mystery!
Back in school, as a diligent student and a voracious reader, I'd always read ahead in the books we were studying. But my Harry Potter experience made me realize that this actually made learning how to do literary analysis more difficult for me. I'd be far ahead of the chapter we were discussing in class and simply wouldn't care about dissecting it, I was more interested in finding out what would happen next. Or I might even be finished the book and on to the next while we're still discussing the early chapters, at which point I most often simply didn't care. I'm done the story, let's move on!
But in my Harry Potter fandom, we couldn't move on - the books we needed to move on hadn't been written yet! So we'd analyze instead. And it was fun! It was my happy place for years!
So how could this be duplicated in the classroom, to not only teach literary analysis but convey the purpose and pleasure of it?
My idea: don't let the students read ahead. Earlier on, in grades 9 and 10, this could take the form of not allowing the books to leave the classroom, and doing the actual reading (or perhaps listening to an audiobook and reading along) in the classroom as part of class time. Then, at the end of every chapter or at every logical break, go over discussion questions that are geared towards using analysis to figure out what happens next. The teacher would have to make it clear that you don't get points for guessing or knowing what will happen next, but rather for having a logical analysis. A thesis that turns out to be factually incorrect but is impeccably argued with the information on hand should get just as many points as a thesis that perfectly predicts the outcome. (This is a problem I had in school - some teachers liked it when departed from the standard interpretation and backed it up with cited evidence, but other teachers docked points for not coming up with the standard interpretation.) Once they've finished the book, the teacher could go back over what clues in the book should have made it possible to guess what was going to happen.
After doing one or two books manually in the classroom so students can learn what they're looking for, they wouldn't have to do all the actual reading in the classroom. Instead, they could move to a system where you simply have to answer some questions at the end of each chapter before reading the next one. This could even be achieved electronically - answer the questions on an online form that emails the answers directly to the teacher, and doing so unlocks the next chapter. This would enable diligent students and those who are enthusiastic about the subject matter to work ahead at their own pace rather than being held back by their peers. (I didn't have this option in high school. While I had the book and could read ahead - and, being a diligent student, did so - I had no idea what we'd be discussing in class so I couldn't keep an eye out for it. Then I had to go back over something I'd already read to look for symbolism etc., which made an already uninteresting process outright tedious.)
If they do this with several books over a period of years, gradually loosening restrictions on reading ahead, by the end of high school the students should get to a place where they're automatically noticing and questioning the right things as they read through, the same way that people notice clues and try to guess whodunnit when reading a mystery novel.
I know that literary analysis is not limited to figuring out what's going to happen, but focusing on what's going to happen next makes the subject matter far more interesting, relevant and compelling to those who aren't already interested. "Remus and Tonks are totally going to hook up - look at all the parallels in the scenes where they were introduced to Harry!" is far more interesting than "Let's compare and contrast the scenes where the supporting characters were introduced to Harry." It's the English-class equivalent of using casino games to teach concepts in stats class.
I didn't start to truly grok literary analysis until I entered the Harry Potter fandom. I started reading Harry Potter shortly before the fifth book, and people on fan sites were using literary analysis to figure out what would happen later in the series. That made far better sense to me: we're looking for clues to solve a mystery!
Back in school, as a diligent student and a voracious reader, I'd always read ahead in the books we were studying. But my Harry Potter experience made me realize that this actually made learning how to do literary analysis more difficult for me. I'd be far ahead of the chapter we were discussing in class and simply wouldn't care about dissecting it, I was more interested in finding out what would happen next. Or I might even be finished the book and on to the next while we're still discussing the early chapters, at which point I most often simply didn't care. I'm done the story, let's move on!
But in my Harry Potter fandom, we couldn't move on - the books we needed to move on hadn't been written yet! So we'd analyze instead. And it was fun! It was my happy place for years!
So how could this be duplicated in the classroom, to not only teach literary analysis but convey the purpose and pleasure of it?
My idea: don't let the students read ahead. Earlier on, in grades 9 and 10, this could take the form of not allowing the books to leave the classroom, and doing the actual reading (or perhaps listening to an audiobook and reading along) in the classroom as part of class time. Then, at the end of every chapter or at every logical break, go over discussion questions that are geared towards using analysis to figure out what happens next. The teacher would have to make it clear that you don't get points for guessing or knowing what will happen next, but rather for having a logical analysis. A thesis that turns out to be factually incorrect but is impeccably argued with the information on hand should get just as many points as a thesis that perfectly predicts the outcome. (This is a problem I had in school - some teachers liked it when departed from the standard interpretation and backed it up with cited evidence, but other teachers docked points for not coming up with the standard interpretation.) Once they've finished the book, the teacher could go back over what clues in the book should have made it possible to guess what was going to happen.
After doing one or two books manually in the classroom so students can learn what they're looking for, they wouldn't have to do all the actual reading in the classroom. Instead, they could move to a system where you simply have to answer some questions at the end of each chapter before reading the next one. This could even be achieved electronically - answer the questions on an online form that emails the answers directly to the teacher, and doing so unlocks the next chapter. This would enable diligent students and those who are enthusiastic about the subject matter to work ahead at their own pace rather than being held back by their peers. (I didn't have this option in high school. While I had the book and could read ahead - and, being a diligent student, did so - I had no idea what we'd be discussing in class so I couldn't keep an eye out for it. Then I had to go back over something I'd already read to look for symbolism etc., which made an already uninteresting process outright tedious.)
If they do this with several books over a period of years, gradually loosening restrictions on reading ahead, by the end of high school the students should get to a place where they're automatically noticing and questioning the right things as they read through, the same way that people notice clues and try to guess whodunnit when reading a mystery novel.
I know that literary analysis is not limited to figuring out what's going to happen, but focusing on what's going to happen next makes the subject matter far more interesting, relevant and compelling to those who aren't already interested. "Remus and Tonks are totally going to hook up - look at all the parallels in the scenes where they were introduced to Harry!" is far more interesting than "Let's compare and contrast the scenes where the supporting characters were introduced to Harry." It's the English-class equivalent of using casino games to teach concepts in stats class.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
What Facebook should do about employers who demand prospective employees' Facebook passwords
Facebook should put a clause on their terms of service stating that users may not share their password with anyone else without first informing Facebook that they intend to do so. They should create a special form you can fill out for the express purpose of informing Facebook that you intent to share your password with someone. This form should request enough data that Facebook will be able to find that individual's Facebook account.
Then Facebook should use this information to either a) ban all employers reported through this mechanism, or b) set all their privacy to the lowest possible setting without the option of raising it back up.
Fair warning would be set out in the terms of service ("By using this service, you agree to.."), and they could use selective publicity to very loudly announce that you have to report to Facebook if your employer requests your password while being more discreet about the consequences for the employer. Facebook already has a reputation for changing privacy settings and terms of service on its users, so it may as well use this precedent for good.
Then Facebook should use this information to either a) ban all employers reported through this mechanism, or b) set all their privacy to the lowest possible setting without the option of raising it back up.
Fair warning would be set out in the terms of service ("By using this service, you agree to.."), and they could use selective publicity to very loudly announce that you have to report to Facebook if your employer requests your password while being more discreet about the consequences for the employer. Facebook already has a reputation for changing privacy settings and terms of service on its users, so it may as well use this precedent for good.
Sunday, March 04, 2012
What if you could join other people's pension plans?
Given the trend away from defined-benefit pension plans and the resentment by some people who don't have defined-benefit plans to those who do, I wonder if it would be possible to create a mechanism for anyone to join any existing pension plan.
Outside members would pay in however much they wanted to (and perhaps could use the contributions from their defined-contribution plans), and get returns commensurate with those contributions on the same scale as employee members. They'd be charged a management fee for this (akin to mutual funds), which would cover the cost of administering their membership plus a small profit. The employer would not pay anything towards the outside members, of course, they'd just be along for the ride.
Here's an example of how it would work, using numbers that make the math easy and don't reflect the ratios of actual pension plans:
An employee of Acme Inc. who earns $50,000 a year contributes $5,000 a year to the pension plan and the employer also contributes $5,000 a year to the pension plan, for a total of $10,000 in contributions a year. The employee then gets a pension of $1,000 a year for each year of service when they turn 65. So if they have 35 years of service, they get a pension of $35,000 a year.
If an outsider joins the Acme Inc. pension plan and contributes $10,000 a year for 35 years (plus the management fee), they'll also get a pension of $35,000 a year when they turn 65. If they choose to contribute only the $5,000 that the employee would be paying in, they'd get a pension of $17,500. If they choose to contribute $20,000, they'd get a pension of $70,000.
Possible variations: employees can also choose to pay more in and get a bigger benefit. So if the employee in the first example chooses to pay in $10,000 instead of $5,000, the employer would still pay in the same $5,000 for a total contribution of $15,000, and, after 35 years, a pension of $52,500.
This would be advantageous for everyone who doesn't have a defined benefit pension plan, because they could buy into a professionally-managed pension plan instead of having to figure out how to manage their retirement planning themselves.
It has the potential to be slightly advantageous for the employees, because they have more money being paid into their pension plan, plus they have outsiders who are now invested in not cutting back their pension plan. If they're public sector, they also have the advantage of less resentment from the public, because anyone can just join in.
It has the potential to be slightly advantageous for the employer, because they would be making a small additional profit from the management fees. In addition, people would be more likely to seek out pension stability during difficult economic times, and work tends to slow down during difficult economic times, so the employer would get this extra income (and a bit of extra work processing applications for its employees) when things slow down. The employer would also be seen to be providing a valuable public service and could probably swing some tax writeoffs from their pension management expenditures (if there isn't already some provision for that, it seems like the sort of thing that would be implemented shortly after joining other pensions became possible.)
It would be advantageous for the plan itself, since there are more investment opportunities and better rates if you have more money to invest.
It would be advantageous for employees who are downsized from the employer, since they'd have the option to keep building up their pension even if they can't find equally pensionable work.
And it would be advantageous for all workers everywhere, because it would lessen the idea (among those very loud people who have this idea) that providing a defined-benefit pension is wasteful and irrational, and call the bluff of people who think that it shouldn't be provided to some workers because it isn't provided to all workers.
Potential pitfall: it might dissuade employers from providing new defined benefit plans.
Potential mitigation: a) Is anyone even providing new defined benefit plans? b) Would it matter if you could just buy into an existing plan?
Potential pitfall: Would it give outsiders control over the plan? I've read that some employers won't let the employee proportion of the contributions exceed 50% (even when they employees offer to pay more to keep the plan afloat, the employer says no) because that would mean they'd have to turn control of the plan over to the employees.
Potential solution: Outsiders sign a contract saying they don't get a share of control over the plan, they're just along for the ride.
Outside members would pay in however much they wanted to (and perhaps could use the contributions from their defined-contribution plans), and get returns commensurate with those contributions on the same scale as employee members. They'd be charged a management fee for this (akin to mutual funds), which would cover the cost of administering their membership plus a small profit. The employer would not pay anything towards the outside members, of course, they'd just be along for the ride.
Here's an example of how it would work, using numbers that make the math easy and don't reflect the ratios of actual pension plans:
An employee of Acme Inc. who earns $50,000 a year contributes $5,000 a year to the pension plan and the employer also contributes $5,000 a year to the pension plan, for a total of $10,000 in contributions a year. The employee then gets a pension of $1,000 a year for each year of service when they turn 65. So if they have 35 years of service, they get a pension of $35,000 a year.
If an outsider joins the Acme Inc. pension plan and contributes $10,000 a year for 35 years (plus the management fee), they'll also get a pension of $35,000 a year when they turn 65. If they choose to contribute only the $5,000 that the employee would be paying in, they'd get a pension of $17,500. If they choose to contribute $20,000, they'd get a pension of $70,000.
Possible variations: employees can also choose to pay more in and get a bigger benefit. So if the employee in the first example chooses to pay in $10,000 instead of $5,000, the employer would still pay in the same $5,000 for a total contribution of $15,000, and, after 35 years, a pension of $52,500.
This would be advantageous for everyone who doesn't have a defined benefit pension plan, because they could buy into a professionally-managed pension plan instead of having to figure out how to manage their retirement planning themselves.
It has the potential to be slightly advantageous for the employees, because they have more money being paid into their pension plan, plus they have outsiders who are now invested in not cutting back their pension plan. If they're public sector, they also have the advantage of less resentment from the public, because anyone can just join in.
It has the potential to be slightly advantageous for the employer, because they would be making a small additional profit from the management fees. In addition, people would be more likely to seek out pension stability during difficult economic times, and work tends to slow down during difficult economic times, so the employer would get this extra income (and a bit of extra work processing applications for its employees) when things slow down. The employer would also be seen to be providing a valuable public service and could probably swing some tax writeoffs from their pension management expenditures (if there isn't already some provision for that, it seems like the sort of thing that would be implemented shortly after joining other pensions became possible.)
It would be advantageous for the plan itself, since there are more investment opportunities and better rates if you have more money to invest.
It would be advantageous for employees who are downsized from the employer, since they'd have the option to keep building up their pension even if they can't find equally pensionable work.
And it would be advantageous for all workers everywhere, because it would lessen the idea (among those very loud people who have this idea) that providing a defined-benefit pension is wasteful and irrational, and call the bluff of people who think that it shouldn't be provided to some workers because it isn't provided to all workers.
Potential pitfall: it might dissuade employers from providing new defined benefit plans.
Potential mitigation: a) Is anyone even providing new defined benefit plans? b) Would it matter if you could just buy into an existing plan?
Potential pitfall: Would it give outsiders control over the plan? I've read that some employers won't let the employee proportion of the contributions exceed 50% (even when they employees offer to pay more to keep the plan afloat, the employer says no) because that would mean they'd have to turn control of the plan over to the employees.
Potential solution: Outsiders sign a contract saying they don't get a share of control over the plan, they're just along for the ride.
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