Why does textspeak still exist?

My cellphone is five years old, and it still has predictive text (T9). Today's phones are equipped with full keyboards and autocorrect, which is even better. These technologies both make it easier to write real words than to write fake words. If you type a real word, it will guess the word for you and you don't even always have to type all the letters. But if you want to type a fake word, you have to teach the device the word.

More and more communications are being typed on phones as opposed to keyboards, which means that more and more communications are being written with a device that makes it easier to type a real word than a fake word.

So what's up with people who still use textspeak for everything?

I know that sometimes you need to shorten things to keep it under 140 characters for platforms like twitter or SMS, but on sites like Failbook or Damn You Autocorrect I keep seeing people who are using textspeak systematically, for everything, even on platforms that don't have a character limit.

Why are they putting in all the extra effort?

Why are we resistant to the idea that we might have privilege?

Reading Scalzi's Lowest Difficulty Setting and the follow-up got me thinking. People are generally quite resistant to the idea that they have any sort of privilege. Their (and my) automatic, knee-jerk response tends to be "What? No I don't!"

But why is this?

I can tell you why I'm resistant to it. I'm resistant to it because for the vast majority of my life I was being given the message that I'm lucky about and should be thankful for things I didn't care about, many of which I didn't even like. For example, my parents would take us on stressfully long family vacations - whole summers lost to fighting off carsickness while having zero privacy - and tell me that I should be grateful that I get to travel. When we were travelling, my parents tried to save money by never eating at restaurants, instead taking us to a supermarket and telling us to pick out what we wanted to eat for dinner. But we never had a fridge or a stove or a microwave (and often not even a kettle), or even dishes or utensils. I'd ask if we can go to a restaurant because I'd been yearning for days for a nice big salad and a steaming plate of pasta, and they'd tell me I should be thankful we have food at all. My father went through this phase where he calculated that if they hadn't had kids they could drive a Mercedes instead of a Honda so he told us that we should be thankful they made that sacrifice and decided to have us. But, on top of the fact that I'm intrinsically nihilistic, this was during the worst of my bullying; I, and everyone else involved, would have been far happier if they'd gone for the Mercedes instead. (Even now, if I hadn't been born I obviously wouldn't be around to care, and I seriously doubt my parents would be postmenopausally regretting not having an overly-introverted, socially-awkward daughter with a non-lucrative career path and a lifestyle that rejects their values.)

So, because of all this, any sort of hint or insinuation that I have some sort of privilege or advantage or some other thing I should be thankful for evokes this feeling of all this stressful shit that I didn't even want to deal with in the first place piling up my tetris blocks and if they'd just left me alone I could go be alone in my room with a book and be much happier.

But these are all my own personal neuroses, stemming directly from specific feelings and experiences in my own life. None of this is broadly applicable to the general population.

So where's it coming from for everyone else?

Plot hole in my childhood

All too often, my parents dragged us along to do boring grownup stuff like shop for new windows for the house or pick out appliances. There was nothing for us to do - we wouldn't have known how to participate even if we'd wanted to - so we just had to stand around for hours and hours while they had boring conversations we didn't understand about stuff we didn't care about.

So why didn't they tell us to bring a book?

You've got two kids who don't get along with each other, being dragged along for time-consuming boring grownup stuff, both of whom are voracious readers. We would have been quite content to sit quietly and read. In fact, the reason why I resented being dragged along so much is because I really just wanted to be alone in my room with a book.

What is gained by having your kids be bored rather than quietly amused?

Recommendations

I'm filling out a customer satisfaction for a grocery store, and it asks me how likely I am to recommend the store to family or friends.  And, of course, the answer is "highly unlikely".  Not because there's anything wrong with the store, but because why would I recommend a grocery store?  I go there because they're near me and sell groceries.  If you're nearby, I'll say "That's where the nearest grocery store is."  If you're not nearby, I'll assume you want to go to one of the multiple comparable stores that's closer to you.

A website that sells undergarments contains very detailed descriptions of its bras, and solicits user reviews. The reviews include a checkbox for whether you'd recommend that bra to others.  But why would I recommend a bra to others?  Even if it works fantastically for me, that's meaningless to other people.  It's such a person item that I would never presume that my experience is in any way applicable to others, or vice versa.

This is something I've been noticing an awful lot lately - reviews and feedback asking you if you'd recommend the thing in question to others, without any regard for whether recommending that genre of thing is even appropriate or relevant.  What's up with that?

How does the Crown have access to people's mental health diagnoses?

A series of cases occupying the country’s highest courts has cast a spotlight on Crown attempts to probe the personal backgrounds of prospective jurors, potentially undermining the sanctity of the jury system.

[...]

The most contentious case involves a 2007 murder trial in Barrie, Ont., where the Crown was privy to private, background information about the mental health, age and driving records of many of the 280 citizens in the jury pool.  

Important question: how did the Crown come about information about people's mental health? That's medical records.  Does the Crown also know that I have GERD?  Does it know that I had strep throat at xmas?

And here's why everyone should be worried about it, even people who have never sought mental health care: in my experience with mental health care, I didn't just talk to my mental health care provider about the specific issues that are in the DSM.  I also talked to them about my parents' personality traits and my partner's sexual proclivities and the pros and cons of being friends with my friends.  So if mental health information is somehow available to the Crown, any information about your interpersonal relationships with anyone you might know who has sought mental health care should logically be available by the same means.

Why would you throw puppies in the garbage, even if you are cruel and heartless?

In the news today, some guy put a bunch of puppies in a suitcase and threw them in the garbage. (Happy ending, adorable pictures.)

I don't understand why a person would do this. And by that I don't mean that I can't imagine being cruel to puppies (although that's true too). What I mean is, even if you take disrespect or hatred for puppies as a given, I don't understand why you'd do it this particular way.

If you're too lazy to take them to a proper shelter and don't care if the dogs survive, why not put them outside and close the door, leaving them to their own devices?

If you want to kill them, why not kill them? Why abandon them somewhere where you won't be able to get whatever pleasure killers get of watching them die yourself?

If, for whatever reason, it is important to you to throw them in the garbage, why go to all the trouble of putting them in a suitcase first? Putting six puppies in a suitcase sounds difficult.

If you're trying to avoid other people finding out that you're getting rid of puppies, why not let them loose? They might wander off or chase a squirrel or be picked up by someone who's in the market for a puppy, and end up somewhere where they can't be traced back to you. Or, if they do hang out near your home even though you've let them loose, you can claim that they could have come from anywhere and chased a squirrel over here, and you don't know anything about them.

Or, as my co-worker pointed out, why not post an ad on Craigslist saying "Puppies for sale"? People actually pay significant money for dogs!

Putting them in a suitcase in the garbage is a sub-optimal way of achieving whatever the goal of someone who would do that sort of thing might be.

Why would you want to spend advertising money to encourage people to pray anyway?

Recently in the news, TTC ads telling a (fictional) child of drug users that they should pray as a solution to their problems.

I have to assume that the people placing these ads think they're altruistic, because whether or not people pray have no possible impact on the advertisers or their church. They must think that praying will help people, so they're taking out these ads encouraging people to pray.

But people who are able to pray - which probably includes everyone for whom invoking Jesus would be effective - are already aware that prayer is an option. And those who aren't aware that prayer is an option (and are open to a new religion) wouldn't know how or why to pray.

Therefore, this ad doesn't tell anyone anything they don't already know, while not telling those who it wishes to take action how to take action.

Why would you spend money on that?

***

I also just noticed that the "child" in the ads is saying "Dear Jesus" and "Thank you for hearing my prayer". Which means that they're already praying! So the ad responds to a prayer by telling the kid to pray? That's a wee bit assholic.

Bad (and inconsiderate) condo sales strategy

There's a specific pre-construction condo I'm interested in. I recently received floor plans, but no prices. However, googling around for prices per square foot, I found unofficial information suggesting that the units I'm interested in will be out of my price range. So I mourned my condo and waited for official word.

On Thursday, I received an invitation from a broker whose list I'd signed up for to a VIP preview to be held today. I asked if he had prices, so I wouldn't waste both his time and mine on something I'm priced out of. He said the builder was releasing them at the VIP preview.

So this morning I set an alarm, put on make-up and nervously went off to a place I've never been before to make a major purchase that I've never made before.

I walked in, was handed a price list, and discovered I was priced out of the units I'm interested in.

That was a waste of time! Why on earth didn't they just release the prices with the floor plans so people who can't afford it are selected out? Who is served by making people who can't afford it come all the way in to the sales office and tie up the time and attention of brokers and sales reps before they can learn that they can't afford it?

This was especially annoying for me because, being a shy and awkward sort of person, I get very nervous about doing new things where I don't know what to expect, to the extent that I feel it in my bowels and my acne and my dreams. The two days' warning they gave me was enough time to spend being nervous, but not enough for the nerves to dissipate and for me to come to terms with what I may or may not have been about to do. So I spent the past two days carrying these nerves, having fretful and interrupted sleep, with my cystic acne and my digestive system in overdrive, and all this during the busiest time at work. The tetris lines kept piling up until I was jumpy like a shy puppy on a subway. And I could have been spared all that if they'd just released a price list with the floorplans!

My first thought was that this model is really inconsiderate to introverts, shy people, aspies, the socially awkward, bullying victims - anyone for whom going into a strange place likely to be staffed by slick strangers and not knowing what awaits you is an ordeal. So at first this blog post was going to be about how energetic, extroverted real estate people for whom going somewhere new and meeting new people and making big money deals is a fun adventure (because, if it weren't, they probably wouldn't have gone into real estate) are making it unduly difficult for the rest of us.

But, on top of that, it's also inconsiderate to anyone who works or has other specific obligations or already-made plans on Saturdays, anyone who needs to arrange childcare if they're going to go do something grownup like buy a condo, anyone who lives a significant commute away - basically anyone who doesn't keep their Saturday wide open or full of easily-cancellable plans.

So all these people have to go through the stress and inconvenience of being in a specific place in a specific time on very short notice not even to buy a condo, but just to find out whether or not they can afford it.

It serves no one to make people who simply do not have enough money and mortgage space come into the sales centre. It would be far more convenient for all involved to let those who can't afford it select themselves out. So why not do that? What can possibly be gained by forcing people to schlepp all the way to your location just to find out your prices?

Teach me about the internal logic of Catholic school dress codes

Thursday was a day to break records and rules. With the temperature in the GTA within a smidgen of an all-time high, students at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School were excited to wear shorts on one of the few days of the year they could ditch their uniforms.

But around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, vice-principal Paul Perron’s voice crackled from the speakers: no shorts, no khakis and no ankle socks on Thursday.

The article focuses on the shorts ban and the hypocrisy and asshattery of banning shorts on a civvies day when it's going to be hot out, but I'm more interested in why on earth they'd ban khakis and ankle socks. Within the school's internal logic, what on earth would their reason be for banning khakis or ankle socks?

Khakis are conservative, non-trendy long pants that are maybe a shade dressier than jeans, and in fact many schools and other organizations include khakis as part of their uniforms. I'm not even sure if teenagers today would wear khakis unless they're trying to dress more grownup. (They were trendy when I was a teenager, but now even my peers don't wear them that much and I feel a bit frumpy and out of it when I wear them.)

The kind of socks being worn are utterly irrelevant if you're already wearing long pants (which they must be, given the prohibition on shorts), so I cannot fathom why the administration even thought of this.

I'm not saying the shorts ban is reasonable, but it's not an uncommon rule for a dress code so, apart from the act of declaring a civvies day and then giving it a dress code, it doesn't particularly surprise me. But the ban on khakis and ankle socks completely baffles me and I can't even begin to speculate what their intention is. Any ideas?

What's up with midnight strike deadlines?

Talks between the union representing library workers and the city’s library board continued Sunday afternoon, as bleary eyed teams of negotiators worked to hammer out an agreement and avert a work stoppage.

Late Saturday night, both parties decided to extend their 12:01 a.m. deadline to 3 a.m., then 6 a.m., then 12 noon, and then until 5 p.m., according to a Toronto Public Library spokesperson.

It sounds like they've been negotiating for well over 24 hours straight, and it sounds like this is at least partly because of the midnight strike deadline. The midnight deadline impels them to negotiate right up until midnight, and then past midnight, and then keep going and going...

But negotiation is delicate, nuanced, interpersonal work. It doesn't seem very compatible with sleepless nights. People who are tired get cranky and are more likely to snap at people, and are also more likely to miss nuances and fine details. It really seems in everyone's best interest to be well-rested. And yet, every strike deadline with which I'm familiar has been at midnight.

Why do they do it this way? Why not set the strike deadline for 6 pm, and, if they feel that progress is being made but they aren't done at 6 pm, extend the strike deadline to noon or 6 pm the next day, leave at a natural stopping point, and have some dinner and sleep. Yes, there'd be some dead time in between. That would enable the employer to stay open for another half-day or full-day, and the workers to earn another half-day's or full day's wages. It sounds like a win-win-win situation. So why don't they do this?

Journalism wanted: why are sitting politicians allowed editorial platforms in commercial media?

With the news that the Ford brothers have a radio show, I'm reminded of something I meant to blog but never got around to months ago when Josh Matlow (my city councillor) had a newspaper column and, later, a radio show:

Why are sitting politicians allowed to write newspaper columns and host media shows? My gut feeling is that it should be some kind of conflict of interest, but I can't quite explain why I think it should be. The newspaper column seems less objectionable to me because they have more control over the topic and can keep it from straying into unethical areas, but again this is purely a gut feeling.

If they get paid by the media outlet (I don't know if they do or not - I asked Josh Matlow but haven't received an answer yet) [Update March 3: I have received a response saying he did neither received payment for the show nor paid for the airtime], then it seems like it would be a conflict of interest for a politician to be on a media outlet's payroll, just like it would be a conflict of interest for a sitting politician to be on any outside body's payroll. It also seems kind of wrong that a politician would promote a media outlet (which they will end up doing in the course of the completely reasonable act of telling their twitter followers "Hey, I'll be on the radio in this place and time"), but they'd be doing the same thing if they were the interviewee instead of the host and that doesn't seem as wrong to me. There's also the question of the advertisers for the radio show. What if one of the advertisers is something that it's inappropriate for a politician to be endorsing?

Of course, despite my gut feeling that this is wrong, it's probably perfectly permissible. It's so high-profile that if it were wrong, someone authoritative would have stopped it, or at least loudly announced it.

So I'd like to see someone write an article explaining to us ordinary citizens why sitting politicians are allowed the additional platform of hosting radio shows and writing newspaper columns. Since journalists for reputable news outlets would be trained in media ethics they already know the answer to this question, so it's an easy article, little research needed, just type it up and you'll have done a public service.

Journalism wanted: why are burqas made from synthetic fibres?

Over the past decade or so, I've read several different articles by different journalists visiting Afghanistan who described their respective experiences wearing a burqa. (Most recently here.) And most, if not all, of these articles mentioned that the burqa was made of some synthetic fibre that doesn't breathe.

How did that come about?

Conventional wisdom is that Afghanistan doesn't have much in the way of infrastructure. A lack of infrastructure should make manufacturing synthetic fabrics difficult, so I would expect people to wear natural fabrics made in traditional ways - whatever it was that people did in the centuries and millennia before industrialization. Synthetic fibres also seem inconvenient for burqas (something that breathes would be better), and more convenient for other things. So why are they using it for burqas? This would suggest that synthetic fibres are more readily available than natural fibres. How did that happen in a country with so little infrastructure?

Obviously not all burqas are made of synthetic fibres. Some of the burqas available for sale on the internet in English are available in cotton and sometimes even silk, although I'm certainly not assuming that what I can google up in English is representative of the general burqa market. I've also seen a number of newspaper articles mentioning in passing (for the purpose of explaining to readers what a burqa is) that they're made of cotton; it's quite possible the people writing these articles have no first-hand experience with burqas or are just repeating what they've googled up. But every article I've read by a journalist who actually wore a burqa in Afghanistan has them describing it as made of synthetic fibres that don't breathe. (Unless they're purposely giving synthetic ones to journalists for some reason?)

There's a story in there somewhere. Even if it turns out to be obvious to those familiar with the Afghan garment industry, there's a story in there for ignorant westerners like me.

Whatever happened to cable shows on regular TV channels?

A couple of years ago, TV shows that normally only play on the movie networks were showing old seasons on normal basic or extended cable channels. For example, the first two seasons of Dexter were on Bravo, and the first two seasons of Big Love were on Showcase.

Then they stopped doing that. Why didn't they continue doing that? Both these shows reached five seasons (and Dexter is still going on), but they never showed more than the first two on the channels that I get.

I know they're available on DVD (as well as all the usual unofficial methods), but I find it very easy to procrastinate TV and movies when I know I can watch them any time. If they're on at a specific time, I'll tune in and watch; if they're on DVD or on my computer, I always feel "Meh, I can watch that any time."

Teach me how arts donations work

From The Ethicist:

I was excited to take my granddaughter, Rachel, to see a local production of “The Nutcracker.” But this season, the production was being underwritten in large part by David Koch, a billionaire who supports numerous political causes that I think harm our nation. He also supports many worthy medical, educational and arts organizations, but I think those good works buy the complicity of the institutions in question. I’m sure my granddaughter would have liked to see the show, but rather than validate this patron’s actions and beliefs, I boycotted it. Should those who feel as I do have joined me?

Does the donor get anything out of higher ticket sales? I was under the impression that he's out of pocket the same amount regardless of whether the tickets are sold or not, and I can't see how boycotting would have any impact on him. What am I missing?

What if your boss goes undercover but you don't want to be on TV?

It seems TTC Chair Karen Stintz went undercover as an ordinary TTC worker as part of a reality TV show called Undercover Boss.

Stintz was introduced to her TTC co-workers as Ruth Bear — her middle name and her mother’s maiden name. To explain the cameras, the TTC employees were told that Stintz/Bear was the subject of a documentary about a woman re-entering the work force.

But what happens if you actually are an ordinary TTC worker (or an ordinary worker in some other workplace) and your boss decides to do something like this, but you don't want to be on TV? Suppose you're assigned to work as part of their team, or you're the person whose job it would normally be to supervise the newbie? If one of your team members is being filmed, it might not be logistically possible to stay out of camera range.

Do they even take this into account? Are people given the option of another assignment if they don't want to be on TV? Or are people forced to be on TV just because someone near them is being filmed?

Problems with Bluefire Reader

I switched to Bluefire Reader in November, when the upgrade to iOS 5 killed Stanza. Most of the time it works, but sometimes it will just cease to be able to read a certain file. Sometimes this presents as, when I search through the file, the spinner will spin and spin and it will never find anything or stop searching. Sometimes it presents as, after I switch to another app then go back to Bluefire, it will show me the library instead of the page I left it on and then spin and spin when I try to open the book I was reading. On the "info" page, the current page for these books shows up as page 1 instead of whatever page I was actually on.

Every file that this has happened with has been a DRM-free epub. It's happened with three separate files out of a total of somewhere between 10 and 20 files.

Following the instructions for when a spinner won't go away listed on this page doesn't help. Deleting the book from my ipod and then putting it back on doesn't solve the problem. Converting the book to PDF and then back to epub does make it openable by Bluefire again, but it messes with the formatting so it's not as easy to read. (Converting them just to PDF also works, but makes them even harder to read.) I can't find any way to look at the back end of either Bluefire or the epub files either through my ipod or through my computer.

I haven't been able to google up any evidence of anyone else on the internet having this problem, so I'm blogging it. If you google your way here and are also having this problem, I encourage you to post your findings in the comments. (Anonymous comments welcome.)

Fortunately, Stanza has since updated for iOS 5, so I'm back to using it. It should be noted that Stanza is able to open and search the epub files that made Bluefire freeze and crash, so the problem lies in something Stanza can do that Bluefire can't.

Wholesale and retail

Wholesalers sell products at lower prices and in larger quantities to retailers, who sell them at higher prices and in smaller quantities to customers. Customers usually can't buy wholesale - you have to be a business to do so.

I wonder how this system came about? Because if you think about it, it's really weird and arbitrary. If such a system didn't exist, could you imagine being the first person to invent it? "Okay, you can buy my widgets at very low prices, but you have to buy at least a thousand of them, and you can only do so if you have a store set up to sell them to other people." That would never work! But somehow it has worked, and it adds this whole extra layer to the economy.

And why do you have to be a business to buy wholesale anyway? If an individual wants to buy a whole pallet of toilet paper, why on earth would a wholesaler care?

Things that took a year to make it into the news

1. G20 jail photos raise alarm bells for police chair.

Why were these alarm bells not raised day of? Reports of jail conditions were making it into my twitter feed while it was still going on, and I'm not even particularly connected.

2. Getting a buried Eglinton Crosstown line across the Don River would be difficult and expensive.

Why did it take them a year to notice this? The Don River has always been there!

Teach me how union finances work

There is clear choice in this election, said Hudak from Dundas on Saturday. Taxpayers can’t afford to pay big union boss salaries anymore or pay for their ad campaigns, he has said.

Does Tim Hudak not understand how union finances work, or do I not understand how union finances work?

My understanding, extrapolated from conversations with union members and observations from having worked in a unionized environment, is that union members pay union dues out of their salaries, and the expenses of operating the union (including advertising and any pay the union leaders receive for doing their union leader duties) are all funded from the union dues. My understanding is that the employer does not pay into the union (wouldn't that be a heinous conflict of interest?) So the amount of money a union spends on various things is between the union and its members.

Extrapolated to the provincial government, this means that the money union leaders get for their work as union leaders and the money unions spend on ad campaigns come out of the pockets of provincial public servants, in their role as the employees. The taxpayers, in their role as employer, aren't paying for any of it. And what the unions spend money on is between them and the public servants - the taxpayers and the government, in their capacity as employer, have no say in it or authority to change it.

Am I understanding this correctly? If not, please correct me in the comments.

The Ontario voter list mystery

I'm not on the Ontario voter list this election. I'm never on the Ontario voter list. Every single Ontario election since I was 18, I didn't receive a voter card and had to register on election day.

I have voted in (and registered at) every Ontario election since I was 18. Last election, I lived at the same address as I do now, so my registration from last election should be valid.

I was registered federally for, and voted in, the election this past May, and I'm pretty sure both federal and provincial get their voter's lists from the tax rolls. I recently got a jury duty questionnaire, which means provincial does know about me. But I'm not on the voter's list. And the same thing happens every election. Weird.