Things They Should Invent: free supply delivery for self-isolating people

People who come back from travel or otherwise may have been exposed to COVID-19 are supposed to self-isolate for 14 days, without even stopping at the grocery store!

Also, grocery delivery times are multiple days!

Solution: free supply delivery for self-isolating people

You make a list, and they bring you everything on your list. Then a few days later, they bring you another delivery of whatever else you need.

To make this work, they'll need to provide people with what they actually want. Not a pre-made kit of what you theoretically should need, not a list of "basic" foods to select from. They need to actually bring people any commercially-available item they want.  No test of "worthiness".

And it shouldn't be limited to just food. Maybe you need shampoo or socks or sauvignon blanc. Maybe if you're going to be working from home for two weeks, you desperately need a desk and chair. So that people maintain their self-isolation, they need to be promptly delivered whatever it is they might need, so they have no incentive to go to the store!

But how do we keep people from taking advantage of this and getting infinite free stuff?

Solution: everyone self-isolating gets a self-isolating allowance. A fairly generous amount regardless of their financial situation and ability to earn income in isolation - for argument's sake, let's say $1,000 for a 14-day self-isolation.

The self-isolation delivery service will give them up to $1,000 per person of stuff for free. At the end of the 14-day period, they get a cheque or direct deposit for any remaining balance. So if they had $500 worth of stuff delivered, they get a $500 cheque at the end. If they had $20 worth of stuff delivered, they get a $980 cheque at the end. If they had nothing delivered, they get a $1,000 cheque at the end.

If people need or want more than $1,000 worth of stuff delivered, they have to pay for the portion in excess of $1,000. So if you need some diamonds delivered to your home as soon as you get back from vacation because you're fresh out, that can totally be made to happen, you just have to pay for them.

The goal here is to remove any temptation to go out, and the way to do that is to give people whatever they would normally be going out for, without value judgement.

A self-psychology exercise

In the aftermath of my head injury, I stumbled upon a self-psychology technique that may be useful to some people struggling with social distancing. This isn't helpful to everyone, but I'm sharing it here for anyone who can use it.


Many people find themselves from time to time imagining what life would be like if they didn't have to go to work/school today, or at all. If they could do whatever they wanted today, or in life in general. For example, you might think about how nice it would be to have a snow day like when you were a kid. Or, in the aftermath of my head injury, I often thought about how nice it would be to be retired like my parents.

Now, I'm not suggesting that a pandemic is a snow day! But they do, from time to time, have some moments of similarity.


So when you notice one of these moments of similarity, simply take note of it. Simply pause and say to yourself "If I could do whatever whatever I wanted today, I'd be doing exactly this."

Waking up naturally rather than to an alarm? That's a moment! Playing peek-a-boo and making your baby giggle? That's a moment! Putting your feet up and tuning into your favourite TV show? That's a moment!


I know, it sounds like I'm leading up to trying to convince you that quarantine is exactly like retirement and that you should feel grateful.

But that's not what I'm trying to do here. I know full well that this will vary widely from person to person, and that people who chafe at the idea of staying home likely have a very different vision of what they'd be doing in retirement. And I'm not trying to convince you to feel anything or to change your emotions.

I'm just saying, when you have a moment, take note of it. No emotions required. You don't have to feel grateful for the moment, you don't have to savour the moment, you don't have to stop feeling any negative feelings that you might be having about the pandemic or about any other aspect of life.

Simply note to yourself: "Right at this exact moment, I am doing exactly what I would be if I could do whatever I want."


Some people will find that comforting. If it turns out you find it comforting, it may help you get through this. If doesn't add to your comfort, no harm done. (If it takes away from your comfort, you can totally stop whenever you want.)

Some people will find that there are more moments than they expected. If it turns out you do, it may help you get through this. If you don't experience many moments, no harm done - this exercise simply won't take up your headspace, you can rejoice in your self-knowledge, and life will proceed exactly as if you'd never read this.


In my head injury aftermath, this could press pause on a despair spiral. EVERYTHING IS A HELLSCAPE!!!!!!...but this shower is nice, and there's literally nothing else I'd rather be right this exact moment. And, for at least the duration of that shower, everything wasn't a hellscape. It got me through the next hour or so.

The next few weeks are going to be about getting through the hours. Maybe this will help some people get through some of those hours.

Another option for Captain Awkward #1237

From Captain Awkward:

Hi!

I am 28, she/her. My sister in law (“A”) is also 28 and my brother (“D”) is 31.
I have a question about gift etiquette.

Last year on my birthday, A and D gave me a bunch of used DVDs. They got me slightly damaged copies of a couple movies and every season of a TV show my parents liked in the 90’s that I have never expressed any interest in. They wrapped each one individually so they could watch me unwrap them and giggle. I got the joke – this is a terrible gift! Hahaha – but I wasn’t included in the joke. With each one I opened, I got more confused, which seemed to make it even more funny for them.

That Christmas, they did it again, and this time they did it to my parents as well. They got me individual seasons of a TV show that is available in its entirety on Netflix and that I have had conversations about with them in the past where I said I did not like the show. They got my parents copies of DVDs they already owned. All of these were slightly beat up from being previously owned. They giggled and said things like “That’s an important one” and “Better get on watching that soon” the whole time.

My parents pretended to like them the whole time, but as A and D had already done this on my birthday, I finally got frustrated and refused to open more presents from them, because they just kept coming. We all take turns opening gifts and every time it was my turn, it was another used DVD.

Meanwhile, I work very hard on gifts. Last year I got A, a notorious anglophile, a certificate to a years subscription to a service that gets a ton of different British TV shows she had been wanting to watch but hadn’t been able to get access to. I nestled the certificate in a box of fortune cookie fortunes I had collected throughout the year (she collects these and plans to cover a table with them someday). For D I spent months searching for a sweater that had the Coca Cola logo on it. (He loves Coke. He once wrote an essay on its history for a college history class.) These were in addition to other things – games they didn’t have (they love board games) and nice teas (they enjoy tea). I spent ages trying to find thoughtful gifts and then I wrapped each one in nice paper that’s in their favorite colors.

The Christmas before last they didn’t get me a joke gift. They got me a “gummy candy maker.” It was essentially brightly colored silicone molds and unbranded Jello to put in them. It was obviously a children’s toy, and when I opened it, it was sticky from being previously owned. I pretended to be interested and thanked them, which made them smirk at each other. They also gave me a wine-scented candle. It was branded as being from a winery A’s parents had gone to a month or two prior. (Meaning I think they regifted it.)

So they have always given gifts like this, last year was just kind of a new level.
After they left last Christmas, my mom pulled me aside and was like, “Do you know what was going on with all the used DVDs?”

I said, “I think they just thought it was funny.” She seemed a bit crestfallen. She gives gifts similar to mine. She had gotten A a rare kind of tea set.

Furthermore, I don’t think A used the gift certificate and I know D got rid of the sweater because this year Mom said we should take a family photo wearing goofy sweaters and D said he didn’t have one. I said, “What about the one I gave you last Christmas?” He said “Oh, right. I might still have that.”

This is not a money thing – they both make more money than I do and buy nice, new things for themselves regularly. They’re just giving me joke gifts and doubling down when my feelings are hurt. I guess they just don’t like the gifts I give them.

I don’t mean to seem like I’m bragging about being super great at giving gifts or I’m entitled to lots of cool presents. I only meant that I try to put a lot of thought into their gifts and save up for them for a long time. They take a long time to think of and pull off. And A and D get cheap gifts at the last second. I would rather they didn’t get me anything at all.

My question is, what is the etiquette for receiving gifts that hurt my feelings? Do I have to keep pretending they don’t? What should I feel about trying really hard to get them things they like and having them openly dislike them? I want to just get them Amazon gift cards this year, but if they decide to get me non-joke presents this year I’ll just look like an asshole. I don’t know what to do or say.
Sorry this is so long. Thank you in advance.

In addition to Captain Awkward's idea (which are definitely worth reading - a lot of interesting food for thought about what happens when etiquette no longer serves us well), I have another script suggestion:

"Let's not do gifts any more."

You might cite reasons like "We're all adults now, we can all buy whatever we want for ourselves just as easily as we can buy things for each other. We all know what we ourselves have and need, whereas we can't see what the others have or need."

If your mother is going to be disappointed by the thought of her children not exchanging gifts, you can add something about "What's really important is being together."

(If you want to keep exchanging gifts with your mother, your initial script can be "Let's not do gifts among siblings.")

This approach will achieve several things:

• If your siblings dislike the gifts you give them, this will free them from that burden!
• If your siblings like your thoughtful gifts, this will deprive them of that pleasure!
• If your siblings struggle to find an appropriate gift for you, this will free them from that burden!
• If your siblings enjoy watching your discomfort as you open an unsuitable gift, this will deprive them of that pleasure!

Basically, the worse your siblings' intentions, the more this approach punishes them, whereas the better their intentions, the more this approach unburdens them.  And all while requiring no effort whatsoever from you!

Things CRA Should Invent: automated phone system tells you whether they've actually called you

I recently had to call CRA to deal with some boring grownup stuff.

Everyone I talked to was awesome and helpful and extremely patient with my ignorance, the boring grownup stuff got dealt with, but before that could happen I had to wait half an hour on hold for someone to help me.

This is a problem in light of the ongoing telephone scam where they call you and impersonate CRA.

CRA encourages you to call their 800 number if you're unsure about the legitimacy of a call you received, but that's a problem when the hold times are so long - especially since they're only open 9-5 Monday to Friday.  Someone who also works 9-5 Monday to Friday, only gets half an hour for lunch and isn't at liberty to make phone calls while working might not ever be able to get through!

I propose a solution: CRA should have an option to automatically detect your phone number and have the automatic system tell you whether they're trying to get in touch with you.

For example, "If you've received a call claiming to be from CRA and would like to confirm whether CRA is trying to get in touch with you, press 3."

I believe this is technologically possible.  When you call Rogers, their system says something like "I notice you are calling from a phone number ending in ####. To talk about the account associated with this number, press 1."  This means an automated system can compare the number you're calling from with numbers in a database, and route your call accordingly.

CRA could maintain a database of "numbers we have called and left messages with", and have an option in their automated system to compare callers' numbers with this database.  That way, callers who are trying to check whether the CRA call they received was a scam can get a quick, automatic message saying "We have not made any attempt to contact you by phone, no action is required on your part."

In fact, since this could be done automatically, it wouldn't even have to be done during business hours!  You call whenever, press 3, and you get a message saying either "We have not made any attempt to contact you by phone, no action is required on your part" or "We have been attempting to contact you by phone, please call us back during business hours."

This way there are far fewer barriers to avoiding scams, and human telephone representatives could be freed up for work that actually requires humans.

Other organizations that are frequently impersonated by scam callers (banks, utilities, etc.) could also use this system. I just think it's particularly important for CRA given their limited business hours and long hold times.

What to do if you feel guilty about receiving an unneeded scholarship

 From the third letter in this Ethicist column:

When I was in eighth grade at a parochial school in the Midwest, I received a scholarship to the high school as the No. 1 student. This was a school tradition. For 70 years, I have felt guilty that the No. 2 student transferred to the public high school instead of continuing his Catholic education. My family was not wealthy, but I would have gone to the Catholic high school whether it was free or not. Should we have refused the scholarship so that someone more needy could use it?

A way to mitigate the guilt that has followed you for 70 years could be to pay it forward by donating a scholarship to your high school, perhaps for the #2 student from your elementary school, or for a high performing student with financial need. I'm sure the school would be happy to guide you in how to best target the scholarship.

If you can't afford to donate funds for a scholarship in perpetuity, I doubt they'd say no to a one-time scholarship to put one student through four years of high school.

If (like mine) your old high school has since closed, you could donate to another comparable school in your community of origin, or in your current community.

If there isn't a high school that's a suitable option, another possibility would be to donate the amount of a typical Catholic high school tuition towards the post-secondary education of a needy student (someone from the public high school your classmate attended?).

In any case, you'd be using the fruits of your education to make a comparable education available to someone else, thereby, at a minimum, balancing the scales.

How to calculate a personal cost-benefit analysis for the Ontario Library Service

Short version:

To calculate how much actual money you pay to support the Ontario Library Service, multiply line 428 of your tax return * 0.00003181673.

Full version:

Last year, I calculated a personal cost-benefit analysis of the tax dollars that I, personally, pay in support of my local public library.

In the wake of recent cuts, I was going to write up a personal cost-benefit analysis for the Ontario Library Service, but before I could do so, the Toronto Public Library announced that these cuts wouldn't affect their services.

However, there is much more to Ontario than just Toronto, and the differences in population and population density mean libraries in many other parts of Ontario have smaller collections (and therefore need more interlibrary loans) and smaller municipal tax bases (and therefore are more dependent on provincial funding.)

So, for everyone else in Ontario, here's how to calculate your own cost-benefit analysis of the Ontario Library Service.

Ontario's total revenue for the 2017-2018 fiscal year was $150.6 billion.

The Ministry of Tourism, Culture and Sport's 2017-2018 funding for Ontario Library Service North was $1,645,800, and for the Southern Ontario Library Service was $3,145,800.

$1,645,800 + $3,145,800 =  $4,791,600 in total funding for the Ontario Library Service.

$4,791,600 / $150.6 billion = 0.00003181673.  This is the portion of your provincial taxes that support the Ontario Library Service. (If you prefer percentages, that's approximately 0.003%)  

The amount you paid in provincial taxes can be found on line 428 of your tax return.

Therefore:

To calculate how much actual money you pay to support the Ontario Library Service, multiply line 428 of your tax return * 0.00003181673

To calculate the amount saved by the recent cuts, divide this number by 2.

Then you can look at the resulting dollar amount and see how it compares with the library services you use over a year.

You can also look at how this will add up over your lifetime, and how that will compare with the library services you use over your lifetime.

If you don't want to do the math yourself:

I, personally, pay $0.15 per year towards the Ontario Library Service, so the announced cuts would save me $0.075 per year.

A single TTC fare is currently $3.25, which is 43 years of OLS cuts. In 43 years I will be 85, and 3 of my 4 grandparents died by that age. So if I ever, even once, have to leave my neighbourhood to fetch a book because it is not available by interlibrary loan (for example, if it can only be sourced from a library that's affected by these cuts), I will not have gotten my money's worth.

Mailing a book would cost even more than that.  And buying a book would cost even more than that. 

So basically, if I am ever, even once in my life, inconvenienced by these cuts, I will not have gotten my money's worth.

Considerations:

The Ontario fiscal year runs from April to March, so the 2017-2018 numbers are from April 2017 to March 2018. I've used these because I couldn't find the 2018-2019 public accounts. The tax return numbers I've suggested using for your own salary and taxes paid are from January 2018 to December 2018 (assuming you used your 2018 return).  If anyone can provide a source for more current numbers, or for numbers that cover the exact same time period, please post in the comments.

Another scripting option for Captain Awkward #1189

Captain Awkward #1189:

Dear Captain Awkward,

I’ve met somebody lovely and we’re getting married in the summer. (My pronouns: she/her, my fiancee’s: they/them) I’m thrilled to celebrate with all my family and friends…except one person.

My uncle has mainlined Fox News for longer than I’ve been alive and has selected me, his queer, liberal niece, as a prime audience for his rants. He’s also an aggressive alcoholic who has sent me crude conservative memes on Facebook.

If it were just me involved, I’d probably invite him and assign somebody to make sure he couldn’t make trouble (or have too many drinks). But I’m marrying a Latinx immigrant, exactly the sort of person he spent my entire childhood ranting about. Our wedding is going to be catered by a taco truck. I don’t want him to say something horrible to my fiancee’s family.

I can’t invite him. My father is lecturing me on forgiveness. My mother is brokenhearted and fears this will cause a rift in the family which can never be repaired. My uncle is a proud man and will quite probably never forgive me. But the whole point of a wedding is that I’m starting my own family – and I refuse to have our first day as family marred by somebody who hates the very idea of my future in-laws.

I’m not always a forgiving person but I think this is a very reasonable boundary. Am I wrong? Is there compromise to be had? And how do I stand it throughout the months until the wedding, fighting this invitation fight over and over again with everyone my mother recruits to talk to me about it?

-Wish We’d Eloped

In addition Captain Awkward's excellent advice, another scripting option is "I'm sure Uncle wouldn't enjoy this event."

The immediate reply would almost certainly be something to the effect that you should invite him anyway and let him decide, or that they're sure he'd want to go because he (allegedly) loves you. 

And your response to this is "Oh no, I wouldn't want him to feel pressured or obligated to go to an event where he would so clearly be unhappy."

At this point, you can also enumerate evidence that he'd be unhappy.  "I mean, given X that he posted on Facebook just yesterday, and his big rant about A, B, and C last time I saw him, and . . . " (you can go on to the point of tedium here if you'd like.)

At this point, your interlocutor might say "Oh, he doesn't mean it!" Then you can get into the fact that you're treating Uncle with the basic human respect of not assuming he's constantly lying.


Should you have to make it all about Uncle's comfort and happiness? Of course not! It's your wedding, you're totally allowed to make it all about what you want and not invite Uncle solely on the grounds that you don't want to!

But sometimes it can be strategic - and harder to argue with - to frame your choices as being for the benefit of another party, so I'm putting it out there in case it's of use to anyone.

"Claim your climate action incentive!"

Shortly after I did my taxes this year, I got a flyer in the mail saying "Claim your climate action incentive!"

"Aw, crap!" I thought, "I forgot to do that!"

So I went back and pulled up my tax files in anticipation of having to figure out how to get a do-over . . . and I discovered that the tax software had already claimed it for me and the extra money was already included in my refund!

This makes me think the marketing encouraging you to claim your incentive, as though some action is required on your part, is perhaps not the best marketing strategy. 

Maybe they should say "Look for your climate action incentive rebate on line 449!"  If all you have to do is nothing, that's a good marketing point, and making it sound like some action is required when no action is in fact required makes the whole thing sound less beneficial than it actually is.

If it turns out you actually have do something if you're filling out your taxes by hand on paper, they should enclose a thing with your T1 form (or whatever it's called nowadays - I haven't done my taxes on paper since the 90s) that says "Make sure to fill out Schedule 14 to get your climate action incentive!"  Or just put it on the T1 form where you fill in your name and address and everything.

If I were a government person in charge of promoting this, I'd also instruct CRA to verify every return to make sure everyone has claimed their climate action incentive. (Q: When would they fit this in? A: In the course of whatever magic they do between receiving your return and sending out your Notice of Assessment. A computer algorithm could surely do it.)

That way, anyone who does end up somehow filing their return without claiming their climate action incentive would get some surprise bonus extra money. And that would be way better marketing than instructing people to carry out a task that's difficult to find because it doesn't actually need to be carried out.

Things Roger Should Invent: check for signal issues before dispatching a tech

Since I moved into this apartment just over two years ago (!), I've had the same problem occur with my Rogers cable several times:

I get problems with video and/or audio quality on a seemingly random selection of TV channels.  I power cycle and/or reauthorize my cable box several times, and it doesn't resolve the problem.  I call Rogers, who check various things on their end then dispatch a technician.

The technician arrives, presses a mysterious combination of buttons that causes a bunch of mysterious numbers to appear on screen, and discovers there's a problem with one of the mysterious numbers.  (It might have something to do with frequency or signal - unfortunately, it didn't occur to me until I started writing this blog post to take notes.)  This problem has to be resolved centrally, so the tech puts in a report and tells me it will be fixed within a couple of days.

And then it's fixed within a couple of days.

It seems to me that they should be able to either check these mysterious numbers remotely, or have the tech on the phone walk me through the mysterious combination of buttons needed to produce the mysterious numbers and read them aloud over the phone, so they can confirm whether there are any signal issues that need to be fixed remotely before wasting my and a tech's time dispatching a tech to read numbers off a screen.  If there aren't clear signal issues, then they can dispatch a tech to see what's happening on-site.

Advanced option, since we do live in the future: when they detect that a customer is resetting their box (which my conversations with phone techs lead me to believe they can do remotely), Rogers computers remotely check that customer's signals, and if there's anything outside the norm they flag it for a human to look at.  Then, if multiple customers in the same area have signal levels outside the norm (which, as I understand it, has been what was happening in these past signal issues), they can detect it and do their remote fix before anyone needs to go to the trouble of calling tech support

Things They Should Invent: teach students how school norms differ from workplace/adult life norms

I've been thinking lately about how school instills a set of norms that's different from workplace norms, and a recent Ask A Manager gave a perfect example:

2. Does “let me check” make me look incompetent?

I am a new grad and recently got a job interning in a teapot development company. I work closely with my boss since we’re a two-person team, and I do a pretty good job (my boss has given me positive feedback), but there is one thing that I sometimes stumble upon. When my boss asks a question that I’m like 70% sure of, which is often, is it better to say “I think it’s ____, but let me check,” or say whatever I think the answer is confidently and then maybe check later and revise if I’m wrong? I usually go the “Let me check” route, but I feel like it might be making me look incompetent. Am I overthinking this?

As Alison makes quite clear in her response, saying "let me check" and then checking is the good and correct and responsible thing to do, and actually makes the employee come across as more reliable.

And it's also the complete opposite of the norms instilled in school.

In school, if you are asked a question, you are expected to know the answer.   If you don't know the answer, you don't get the mark.  And looking up the answer is cheating.

But no one ever actually tells you that this change is a thing that happens, so many young people do foolish things in their first few years in the workforce.

There are other examples too.  As a kid, you're told "Don't talk back!"  But in the workplace, you're supposed to speak up if you see someone making a mistake, so the mistake doesn't reach the client.

When you're in school, your tests and assignment are specifically designed to be doable based on the information you've been taught in class.  In the real world, there's nothing guaranteeing that the specific task you're called upon to do will be feasible, or that you will succeed at it.  Your restaurant might get a rush that overwhelms the kitchen.  Someone might call you tech support line with a problem no one has ever heard of.  The text sent for translation might be illegible or nonsensical.

But, at the same time, in the real world you can sometimes say to your boss "It is literally impossible for me to do this task by this deadline in addition to all the other tasks.  What's my priority?"  And something might get taken off your plate or reschedule.  In comparison, in school you're expected to do all your work from all your classes even if they conflict.

At this point, you might be thinking "But the nature of a classroom is different! It's only natural for expectations to be different!"

And that is true.

The problem is that when you're a kid just beginning to enter the workforce after a lifetime in the classroom, no one tells you that expectations are different, so you end up like the Ask A Manager LW, genuinely uncertain if it's professional to verify before making declarative statements.

So they should tell students this at some point in high school, probably earlier rather than later, so as to reach students before they start getting part-time/summer jobs.  Talk about ways the classroom doesn't reflect the expectations and realities of adult life, and the reasons why the nature of the classroom makes this necessary. If possible, create some "classroom norms don't apply, adult norms apply" environments within the school experience to give students some practice.

The challenge here is that it has to be done well.  We've all our teachers tell us "This will be really important in high school/university/the work world" when it ended up being irrelevant.  And it would be a particular disservice to give students information about the adult world that ends up being outright incorrect.

But if it can be done well, it would be doing an enormous service to young people, those who will one day work with them, and those who will one day rely on their work.

Things They Should Invent: early releases in palliative care

In the world of publishing, there's something called an Advance Reader Copy (ARC), which is a very limited edition of a book that comes out before the official publication dates.  Sometimes they have contests where you can win one, although I suspect they also have some other function.

For movies and TV shows, there are advance screeners that sometimes get sent to critics and people who vote on awards, so the production can get good publicity.

These things should be made available to palliative care patients.

Some titles are highly anticipated, including beloved series where people want to know how they end.  And, when the patient's death is imminent, there's a high likelihood that they may never find out how it ends.

Which is especially tragic if the work is complete, or close enough to finalized for the reader/viewer to get the story!

I know it can be done - it has been done in the past for young Harry Potter fans with terminal illnesses.

We just need a system to make all stories in all media available to everyone who is terminally ill as soon as humanly possible.

A real-life example of how spending more money can result in better value

I blogged recently that, when looking into how to get best value for money in public services, they should study ways to add value, not just ways to save money.

Real-life has just given me an excellent example of how this can work.

As I've blogged about before, I'm truly terrible at washing my windows. I've been considering hiring someone to do it, but I have no idea how to go about hiring someone who is good.

It turns out, this year my condo decided to do a pilot project: the professional window-washers the building hires to wash our inaccessible windows would also do our balcony windows.

It was a resounding success!

It took two window-washers with just 10 minutes to wash all my balcony windows as well as the inside and outside of the glass under the balcony railing, and I can't see any streaks! 

In contrast, it takes me an hour to clean the same windows, and I always leave streaks behind.

They did have to come through my apartment to get at the balcony, but they were accompanied by a building security guard who is known to me.

In contrast, if I hired someone myself, I'd have to be alone in my home with this unvetted stranger, or impose upon someone to come sit around my apartment so I wouldn't have to be alone in my home with this unvetted stranger.

These window-washers were professionals, with professional-calibre equipment that I've never even seen available for sale in the kind of retailers where someone like me might plausibly buy cleaning equipment.  And they were hired by my building's professional property managers, who have experience in hiring workers for building maintenance tasks.

In contrast, I am a very amateur window-washer with amateur equipment, and anyone a private individual like myself can hire for a one-off job is also likely to be pretty amateur with amateur equipment - an odd-job sort of person rather than someone who washes windows 40 hours a week.  And I have no experience whatsoever hiring anyone to do anything, and haven't a clue how to tell if someone is good and trustworthy until after the fact (and sometimes not even then).

And the marginal cost to me? Zero!  It was so easily absorbed into the building's overall maintenance budget that my condo fees aren't even going up for next year!

The rental apartments I've lived in would never have done this, because they were businesses with a profit motive. Hiring window-washers to wash windows they could reasonably ask tenants to do themselves would take away from their profit.

But a condo doesn't have profit motive - the purpose of the condo's budget is to meet residents' needs.  So we were at liberty to spend more money to pay skilled professionals to do the job, which got better results far more quickly and easily than if they'd left the task up to us to do individually.

Definitely better value! And definitely the sort of value we'd want to add to our public services.

Another tool to figure out how to vote: anti-endorsements

One strategy if you're struggling to figure out how to vote for is to see if any organizations that align with your values are endorsing candidates in your ward, and why they are endorsing the candidates they choose.

I recently figured out another strategy: see who organizations that don't align with your values are endorsing.

While googling some candidates in my ward, I discovered a website I find politically abhorrent was rating various municipal candidates.

It included ratings and comments on some candidates about whom I had, until that point, been unable to find enough useful information.  And I found that knowing what politically abhorrent people think of these candidates and why is a useful information to have.

So if you're not finding enough information about particular candidates or about a particular race in your ward and can tolerate some exposure to abhorrent politics, check out who the politically abhorrent are endorsing and why. After all, just because they call it "endorsements"  doesn't mean you have to do what they say - you can systematically do the opposite, or otherwise use the reasoning behind their opinions to inform your own.

How to un-spoil a surprise party

From a recent Miss Conduct:

I wanted to throw a surprise party for my mom, and had kept it a secret. But she found out about it by looking at my messages. What do I do?

Get mad at your mother.  Get really really mad at her, yell and scream and say you'll never talk to her again, giving every impression of a permanent breach in the relationship.

The throw the surprise party just as planned.

She'll never expect it!

Demontage

As I was struggling through yet another tedious round of vision therapy, I found myself thinking that if this were a movie, it would be portrayed as a heroic training montage, jumping between Brock string beads to the beat of Eye of the Tiger.

It occurs to me that it could be creatively interesting to do the opposite - show a character going through the slow, tedious practice of practicing or building up their skills over time, until, at a crucial plot juncture, they turn out to ultimately be highly competent at the skill they're seen practicing.

This would probably be more suited to a TV series than to a movie.  The character would be seen training/practicing in the background, or as the slice of life activity they're doing when they get interrupted by the episode's main plot. (Is there a word for that concept?)  Perhaps their training/practice equipment is seen in a corner of their room.  It could be fun to show but not tell - the character is frequently seen training or practicing in the background, but there's never an expositiony "So how's your training going?" conversation.

It might even work to have the character experience the failure or setback that leads to the training early in the season - as nothing more than a subplot, perhaps even as a background event or a passing joke or the slice of life activity that gets interrupted by the episode's main plot - then they work hard at their training in the background all season with the main plot taking centre stage, and the fruits of their hard work become a crucial plot point in the season finale.

Just as all of us who are slogging through something in real life, without the ability to save time by doing it by montage, hope that it will eventually pay off at a crucial plot point.

Things They Should UNinvent: italics as default blockquote style

Many advice columns put reader letters in italics. This is a problem, since advice column letters are often multiple paragraphs long, and italics are more difficult to read than regular text.

Since my head injury, I've been finding paragraphs of italics so difficult that I need to switch Firefox into Reader View or turn on OpenDyslexic. (Or I just go "Ugh, blah blah whatever" and skip that column.)

Most often, the letters are in italics because that's what the style sheet does with blockquote.  Unfortunately, that makes the quoted matter difficult to read when there are multiple paragraphs of it.

I would recommend that style sheet designers instead have blockquote differentiate quoted matter with some combination of indentation, design elements adjacent to the quoted matter (I've seen large quotation marks or vertical bars used to good effect), or different font colour (while taking care to choose a colour that is also easy to read).

If there are special circumstances where certain devices can't render these effects, then those devices can come up with their own suitable way to render the blockquote tag.  But the default should be easily readable, and style sheet designers should be mindful of the fact that italics are not easily readable for all, especially when there are multiple long paragraphs.

Things They Should Invent: notwithstanding clause penalty box

The notwithstanding clause enables provincial and territorial legislatures to override Canadians' Charter rights and freedoms.

This is a big deal, so there should be some kind of dissuasive measure to counterbalance it. Improper use of the notwithstanding clause can be an abuse of power - placing the rights and freedoms of Canadians at the mercy of the whims of those in power - so the dissuasive measure should require those who invoke the clause to place their power at the mercy of the whims of the people whose rights and freedoms they are overriding.

A couple of preliminary ideas, to inspire further brainstorming:

- When the notwithstanding clause is used, an election must be called within a fairly brief period of time.  (Three months? Six months? One year?)
-MPPs who vote to use the notwithstanding clause are not permitted to run in the next election (at any level of government). They can run in the one after that.

The flaw of both these ideas is they suggest rights are subject to majority rule - they only incentivize politicians to make sure the majority agrees with them, which could still create a situation where the majority cheers for infringing upon the rights of the minority.

So feel free to use this as a starting point and improve upon this, to come up with something that disincentivizes use of the notwithstanding clause when it's not in the people's best interest, while incentivizing its use when it is in the people's best interest.

Things They Should Study: what would it actually cost to improve public services?

As I sat in the ER waiting room for six hours, I found myself thinking "What would it take to completely eliminate the wait times?"

And the thing is, we don't know.  Because, as I blogged about at the time of the Drummond report, governments are reluctant to do anything that could even remotely be interpreted as even thinking about giving the slightest consideration to something that could possibly lead to taxes being raised.

But, for all we know, optimal cost-effectiveness could be right there on the other side of an expenditure increase. And we'll never know if we don't study it.

They should study the cost of all kinds of different service increases, ranging from tiny incremental increases to levels of service beyond our wildest dreams.

To use the emergency room example, what would it cost to decrease wait times by 10%? 20%? 50%? 80%?  What would it cost to get the median wait time down to an hour? What would it cost to get every patient's wait time under an hour?  What would it cost to get the median wait time down to zero?  What would it cost to have hospitals so well-staffed that employees spend an average of 20% of their time with literally nothing to do, so there's extra leeway in case they get an unanticipated rush of patients?

That last example would make some people think "That would be a ridiculous waste of money - to deliberately plan for staff to be doing nothing!" And that's why it's included in the range of scenarios being studied - we need to study everything ranging from incremental improvements to drastic improvements to the point where the improvements are clearly no longer going to be adding value, to make sure we don't miss the point of optimal value.

Sometimes the optimal value for money involves spending money.  For example, adding data plan to your cell phone account costs money, and a data plan adds value. To make the decision about whether to get one, you have to look at the information about how much value it adds and how much money it costs - which includes looking at the cost of an unlimited plan, even if cheaper plans do exist.


Sometimes the optimal value for money involves deficit financing.  For example, there are situations where buying a home is better value in the long run than renting, even though you have to go into debt to do it.  To make the decision about which is best value, you have to look at all the data and run numbers for various scenarios - which includes looking at the cost of your dream house, even if cheaper housing options do exist.

Politicians like to talk about value for money, but they only ever seem to look at ways to save money.  They should also systematically study ways to add value, in order to find the point of optimal value for money.

Things They Should Invent: legally binding #StealThisIdea

TV writers on Twitter keep telling people not to tweet show ideas at them.  Apparently if you tweet an idea at them, they're not allowed to use it for legal reasons, and that could mess things up if they already have an episode using that idea in the pipeline.

As a person who has a lot of ideas but isn't equipped to actually execute them, I find that disheartening. I would be thrilled and delighted to see any of my ideas (for television episodes or otherwise) actually brought to life.

They should invent some legally-binding way of marking ideas you post on the internet as being freely stealable, so the people who can make them happen can make them happen. (BTW, that is the intention behind my Things They Should Invent, Free Ideas, and Research Ideas blog categories. Take it, implement it, and I'll be thrilled)

And, of course, if you don't want people stealing your ideas, you can just not mark them as such.

The #StealThisIdea hashtag seems to exist, and would do the job nicely.

Unfortunately, like all my ideas, I have no idea who can actually make this happen. But if they do stumble upon this post, I hereby formally authorize them to steal this idea.

What if Star Trek: Discovery could desexualize the miniskirt uniform?

I recently saw an article saying that Star Trek: Discovery should use unisex miniskirt uniforms.  The article quoted Nichelle Nichols:

“The show was created in the age of the miniskirt, and the crew women’s uniforms were very comfortable. Contrary to what many may think today, no one really saw it as demeaning back then. In fact, the miniskirt was a symbol of sexual liberation. More to the point, though, in the twenty-third century, you are respected for your abilities regardless of what you do or do not wear.”

I absolutely agree that, when Discovery inevitably runs up against the original series uniforms (which, being set about 10 years before TOS, it will if it has a full run), it should present the miniskirt uniforms as unisex/gender-neutral, like TNG briefly did before it phased them out entirely. 

But what if, in addition to making the miniskirts gender-neutral, Star Trek: Discovery could make them non-sexy?

Imagine if the most prominent occurrence of the miniskirt uniform was a person whom modern television costuming standards would not normally put in a miniskirt. Someone whose legs are hairier than average.  Someone whose thighs rub together below the hemline of the skirt.  Someone noticeably older than the rest of the cast.

For example, maybe 10% of the background cast is in miniskirts (at least 50% of whom are male), and maybe one or two characters who have "Aye, Captain" sort of lines are seen wearing miniskirts in one or two brief scenes.  And then the most prominent instance of a miniskirt is on a stout, battle-hardened octogenarian admiral, with a reputation for being a brilliant military tactician as well as a bit of a hardass (like Captain Jellico), who is called in for some particularly dire crisis where particular bravery, heroics and expertise are required. And throughout, the camerawork is done exactly the same way it would be if everyone is wearing pants, neither lingering on nor ignoring any particular character's legs.

From a production perspective, this would be difficult to carry off well.  First of all, every actor deserves the dignity of flattering, thoughtful costuming, and non-sexy miniskirts would not be perceived as flattering.  Secondly, there's a history of putting revealing female-coded clothing on performers who aren't women who meet the narrow Hollywood definition of sexy and presenting it as comedic. ("HA HA HA! Look at that dude's hairy man-legs in that miniskirt!")  It would be absolutely essential to avoid inadvertently doing this, and I don't know whether they could avoid having the less-savoury parts of the audience interpret the scene that way.

But if they could carry it off, it would disarm the unfortunate connotations of the miniskirt uniform and reclaim its original empowering intention s in a way that's consistent with woke Star Trek: Discovery values and with Federation values.