Books read in October 2024

 1. Abandoned in Death by J.D. Robb

Things They Should Invent: handyman service as a condo amenity

One benefit of living in a well-run rental apartment building is the on-site superintendent handles home repairs for you. However, in a condo, you're responsible for your own repairs, which means you have to hire someone if the repair is out of your skill set.

But there are hundreds of units in a condo building, all of which started out with the same appliances and plumbing fixtures and door frames. 

What if they all pooled their resources and hired an on-site handyman-type maintenance person who would do in the in-suite repairs and odd jobs that are normally the resident's jurisdiction?

Some quick back-of-envelope math: if a maintenance makes $100,000 a year (nice round number) and there are 500 residents in the building (like there are in my building), it would cost everyone $200 a year - or $16 a month - to have on-site on-demand maintenance service for all the things that would normally be the resident's jurisdiction. Not bad, considering there's usually a minimum charge of about $100 for a tradesperson to even come out to see you, not to mention the peace of mind of knowing who to call (and not having to figure out who's a competent tradesperson and who's a scam, and not having to figure out what kind of tradesperson to call for your specific problem when it's not glaringly obvious - I mean, whose job is "my blind won't open" or "my soft close hinges no longer close softly" or "the handle fell off my window"???)

One benefit of living in a condo rather than a rental building is that there isn't a profit motive - they can spend condo fees on things that are convenient for residents, solely on the grounds that they're convenient for residents. For example, my condo hires professional window washers to wash the balcony windows, which is a marginal cost for each household but makes everyone's life significantly easier by taking away an irritating chore.

This would also make everyone's quality of life easier, by taking away all kind of irritating chore.

The first arch

There's a conspiracy theory that aliens taught humans to build pyramids, but I find that unlikely, 

because making a big pile of rocks that's narrower at the top than at the bottom seems super intuitive to me.

But something that humans have built since before recorded history that's much less intuitive is the arch.

It is well known that an arch is the strongest structure, but making one seems like it would be particularly difficult - you'd have to take straight things and shape them somehow into a consistent, load-bearing curve! It seems like that would take a lot of extra work and a lot of expertise that wouldn't necessarily exist if no one had ever done it before.

Added to that, it doesn't seem to me like it would be intuitive that arches would be strong, especially if no one has seen one before. I can't think of any examples of load-bearing arches that occur in nature. I've seen some of those things where water ran under a rock and then receded, but they've always looked to me like they might fall down any second, not that they're an architectural tool that should be emulated.

So who first thought of the idea of building an arch? How did they figure out how to do it? And did they think it would be strong and therefore build it, or did they build it just for fun/art/bragging rights? If they didn't realize at the outset that it would be strong, how did they figure out that it is strong?

(Might there be some other, stronger shape out there that hasn't occurred to us yet?)

Books read in August 2024

1.  Forgotten in Death by J.D. Robb

2. 21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph

Analogy for being in a fandom where the creator turns out to be harmful

Being in a fandom where the creator turns out to be harmful is like being a smoker.

 

First it's just something you see around, you see other people engaging with, so one day you think "I'm seeing that around a lot, I think I'll give it a try and see what it's all about."

 

And then you're hooked.

 

And then you find out about the harm.

 

At this point, some people are strong enough to quit cold turkey and walk away forever.

 

Some people aren't strong enough to quit immediately, but will eventually break the habit.

 

And some people will never manage to break the habit.

 

 

Some people don't like to admit that they aren't strong enough to break the habit, so they go around belligerently blustering or making excuses or telling each other it's Good, Actually. 

But the important thing, once you learn about the harm, is to keep the habit contained in designated areas, so those who specifically want to avoid it can easily do so, and so your inability or unwillingness to break the habit doesn't harm other people who are just trying to go about their lives.

And it's also important to avoid indulging your habit in a way that, intentionally or not, promotes it, glamorizes it, makes it trend, or otherwise leads unsuspecting people who are unaware of the harm to think "I'm seeing that around a lot, I think I'll give it a try and see what it's all about."

Books read in July 2024

Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey

Books read in June 2024

1. City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty

2. Coronation Year by Jennifer Robson

Magic words: "come across as"

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

For example, suppose your post is:

What an asshole!

[img]

 

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

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

Suppose your post is:

I had a visitor today!

[img]

 

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

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

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

Things They Should Invent: web interface for Too Good To Go

I recently learned about an app called "Too Good To Go", which lets you buy food that's close to expiry at a discount, to help reduce food waste.

Problem: it's only an app. There's no web interface whatsoever.

This means you have to download the app not just to place an order, but also to see what restaurants are on it and what they charge for the discounted food - basically to find out whether it even has the possibility to be useful to you!

This is an accessibility issue for some people (browsers can be more easily customized with accessibility tools), a pain point for me personally (whenever I'm ordering food I'm already at a computer, so having to dig out a smaller, less user-friendly device is an additional layer of inconvenience), and also makes me suspicious.

Generally, when companies try to push you towards an app for something that can easily be done with a website, it's because they're trying to collect user data or prevent users from blocking ads or tracking. 

Given that everywhere I order food from has a web interface, I can't imagine any technical reason why this would need to be app only. Which makes me wonder if there's an ulterior motive.

Even if there is some technical reason why Too Good To Go wouldn't be able to make a web interface, they should at least let participating restaurants include Too Good To Go bags on their own online ordering web interfaces, so existing customers don't have to switch devices to take advantage of this very useful initiative!

Things They Should Invent: "What should I grow in my garden?" calculator

The question of what to grow in your garden is complex. 

What foods do you like? What quantities of them are you feasibly going to use? What kind of land and/or planters are available to you? What can grow in your local climate? What's your skill level? How much time can you realistically invest? There might also be questions of cost-effectiveness, if that's a decision factor for you.

Someone should invent an online calculator that works this out. You input all the variables, and it tells you the optimal balance of different plants to grow. Maybe you can even adjust it for results year to year, i.e. "Last year you told me to plant 3 tomato plants and I had way too many tomatoes"

Books read in April 2024

 New:

 

1. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

2. Pyramids by Terry Pratchett

 

Reread:

 

1. Faithless in Death

How I excised dessert forks from my life and from my memory

I was recently pondering why a standard silverware set has two sizes of spoons, but only one size each of forks and knives.

Googling around the idea, I discovered that commercially-available silverware sets do in fact have two sizes of forks - regular forks, and smaller dessert forks.

But why doesn't mine have those?

Then I remembered why I swore off dessert forks...

Once upon a time, back when we were small children, my sister was setting the table. She put a regular fork at every place setting except mine. At my place setting, she put a dessert fork, saying it's a smaller, baby fork because I'm a baby.

I didn't want to be a baby! I didn't want the humiliation of eating with a small baby fork when everyone else is eating with proper grownup forks!

So I stopped using them.

When one appeared at my place setting, I'd swap it out for a normal fork. When we were having cake, I'd use a normal fork. I never once touched or even thought about dessert forks.

 

Fastforward 15ish years.

I was preparing to move into my own apartment by appropriating kitchenware from my parents' kitchen. I took some forks and some knives and some big spoons and some little spoons, and didn't take any of the other irrelevant objects in the cutlery drawer.

I start out with what I appropriated from my parents, building my cutlery drawer over the years with a trip to Kitchen Stuff Plus whenever I ran out of something before the dishwasher got full. I never sought out new types of cutlery because I never had any reason to, just kept buying more of the same.

 

 

And after approximately 20 years of proceeding this way (and, perhaps, with the help of a head injury), my brain at some point deleted and overwrote the very existence of dessert forks.

All because one time my sister wanted to mock me via the medium of silverware.

Hotel Hollywood (elementary school play)

When I was in elementary school (so sometime between 1985 and 1990), my school put on a school play called Hotel Hollywood.

I wasn't in the play, but it really stuck with me - I even mentally wrote what I didn't yet know was called fanfiction about it.

However, I'm not able to find any evidence of its existence on the recorded internet.

So here is everything I can remember about the elementary school play called Hotel Hollywood, which I encountered in the 1980s, but might be older than that.

- There was a character called Quiggley and a character called Quiggy. I remember them as being unaffiliated with each other, although in retrospect that seems less likely. (Although I also remember experiencing the emotion of being surprised that Quiggley and Quiggy were unaffiliated with each other, so perhaps it was a deliberate red herring.)

- One of the characters was a Shirley Temple expy with her hair in ringlets.

- One of the characters was a girl whose father made her dress up as a boy so she could be a partner in his business. (The play was set in the non-specific (to my child self) Olden Days when a girl couldn't be a partner in a business.)

- When the girl dressed as a boy comes out as a girl, she sings a song that starts with "I'm a girl, I'm a girl, I'm a girl, I'm a girl, I'm gonna let my hair flow free."

- The only other song I remember from the play:

We're gonna be in the movies

We're gonna be in the movies

A Hollywood motion picture show

We're gonna be in the movies

We're gonna be in the movies

A Hollywood star that everyone will know

I want to sing the latest love song

Step the latest dance

Be a hero! Be a clown!

Comedy or romance

We're gonna be in the movies

The glitter glamour movies

A Hollywood motion picture show!

Books read in March 2024

 1. How She Read by Chantal Gibson

Another approach for Captain Awkward #1422

Dear Captain Awkward,

I’m in a relationship for the last year. We started out as best friends for two years and it slowly evolved into a relationship. We have similar interests and he started hanging out with my son early on and doing fun things together. We never labeled anything and just sort of let it happen. My son just turned 12 and his father passed away when he was young and he has no memory of him. My boyfriend is the first man I have ever trusted around my son and if it didn’t work out there would be no new men in our lives and my boyfriend (CJ) would always play a role in his life.

My son just asked me if he can call CJ dad and said he’s tired of being the only kid without a father. I told him we can discuss it but that CJ is in our lives and loves us both regardless of what they call each other. I also explained that some moms have lots of boyfriends over the year and being a boyfriend doesn’t automatically make men a dad. He said that CJ does dad things with him and loves us both very much so that makes us a family. CJ said he would do whatever my son wants to feel happy but I want to make sure we do the right thing. CJ’s family adores us and his parents treat him the same as their grandchildren from their other son, and they treat me equally (better actually lol) than his brothers partner.

Should we let him call CJ dad??

Thank you.

One thing to consider, which may or may not be the right decision for your family for any number of reasons: what if CJ gave your son permission to call him "dad" in front of other people to simplify things, regardless of what you do internally within your family?

Your son says he’s tired of being the only kid without a father. That might mean that the problem (or a portion of the problem) is he wants to be able to say "my father" in a sentence to his classmates without having to mitigate or explain, and without having to worry that you or CJ or someone will come swooping in and say "OMG you liar CJ isn't your dad!!!"

Sometimes in life, it's easier to apply a simpler label to relationships when talking to someone to whom the relationship isn't actually relevant. 

For example, you might say "my boss" when telling a workplace story about your old boss who is now in charge of the another department and still has indirect authority over you in some hyper-specific contexts that make sense within your organizational structure but would take longer to explain than the story would take to tell.

You might say "my niece" when talking to the salesperson while you're buying a birthday present for your cousin's daughter, who you think might be your second cousin but you'd have to google it to be certain.

You might say "my partner" to the doctor treating your partner's partner, who isn't actually your partner but you're the only person in the polycule who makes logistical sense as an emergency contact person.

Similarly, it might be easier for your son to say "my father" rather than "my mother's boyfriend who she promises loves us and is in our lives but is making a big showy show of not labelling the relationship" to his classmates, teacher, etc., regardless of what you say and do behind closed doors.

Think about it, talk about it, see if it's a helpful approach for your family.

"Movie star, gonna drive around in a fancy car"

 I have a song in my head and the internet is failing me. 

The line I remember is something very similar to "I'm gonna be a movie star, gonna drive around in a fancy car"

I've made an approximate rendering of the tune here, although it doesn't make sense from a music theory perspective so one or both of the higher notes might be a semitone off.

I remember first hearing this song in childhood (so sometime between 1980 and 1990, although it's possible it's older). I remember the singer as being female. It may have been a song in a cartoon.

I have a vague impression that it's from Jem and the Holograms, but none of the titles on Wikipedia's list of songs from Jem and the Holograms match this song.

 

It is not "Drive my Car" by The Beatles or "I’m Stoned in Love with You" by The Stylistics (or any cover thereof).

Does this ring a bell for anyone?

Wanted: a shared experience that makes it feel like life is getting better

When our library accounts finally came back online, I could feel a frisson pass through both Internet Toronto and Real-Life Toronto. The news ricocheted through the city, we all dropped everything and ran to be reunited with our holds lists...and promptly crashed the site!

Still, the spirits were high - "We hugged it to death!" squeed one redditor - and millions of Torontonians spread the news, rejoiced, and did a happy dance while they waited their turn for the 503 error to go away.

I hadn't felt that very specific emotion in quite some time, and, after some thought, I realized what it reminded me of: vaccine hunting.

When COVID vaccines first became available, everyone rushed to sign up and promptly crashed the site. But we spread the news enthusiastically, shared tips for finding an appointment, and squeed at each other as we got in.

It's a very specific emotion: a shared experience that makes you feel like life is getting better.

I haven't felt that in so long - not since I was queued up for a mass vaxx clinic at the community centre - and I didn't think I'd ever feel it again.

In the first year of the pandemic, I was confident I'd feel that feeling again. Everyone was working to make things better, we were all in this together, surely one day we'd delight in the shared experience of things being better again!

Except...they never got better again. Those in power just stopped addressing it, and in fact took away some of the tools we can use to address it individually.

So I wasn't expecting to experience this solidarity of life getting better ever again, which made it a particular delight to experience when the library came back online!

But...the only reason we got to experience this feeling of something getting better is because someone did harm by cyberattacking the library!

Is there any hope for things to get better for everyone without getting worse first??

***

Some people are able to experience this feeling of a shared experience of life getting better through activism, but that just doesn't work for me and hasn't for a long time. Activism seems more and more about desperately fighting to stop things from getting worse. It feels like victories aren't even improvements any more, just temporary respites.

When I try to think of examples of activism resulting in things actually getting better rather than just stopping them from getting worse, the most recent thing that comes to mind is the legalization of same-sex marriage, which was over 20 years ago.

Is stuff getting better for everyone without first getting worse even a possibility any more? Because I sure wouldn't mind experiencing that emotion again!

Books read in February 2024

Reread:

 

1. Golden in Death

2. Shadows in Death