1. Instant soup was on sale, 2 for $3, multiples of two only. Unfortunately, it happened to be on the top shelf, and the frontmost boxes had already been bought, leaving the remaining items a ways back from the front of the top shelf. Therefore, they were diffiult to reach if you aren't tall. The lady in front of me tried and failed to reach them, so she moved away and started looking around for a store employee to help her. Despite the fact that I'm only a bit taller than her, I decided to try to reach them. Holding onto my cart for balance, I stood on my very tippy-toes, far higher on my tippy-toes than you'd expect someone without ballet training to be able to stand, and blindly flailed my arm in the general direction of the boxes I wanted. I stretched out my hand and managed to curl my disproportionately-long fingers over some boxes. I pulled them down, unable to see what they were from my precarious position, and it turned out they were the ones I wanted.
Unfortunately, they were also the ones the lady in front of me wanted, and she was standing there expectantly. I tried to reach some more boxes, but they were all out of my reach. I had just grabbed the last two that I could reach. Fortunately, a very tall man came by and helped us a moment later, and everyone went home with two boxes of soup.
This makes me wonder what the etiquette would have been if no one had come along to help us. The sale was multiples of two only, so there would be no point in sharing the bounty. The other lady wouldn't have deserved to have to go soupless just because she happens to be a couple of inches shorter than me. However, neither should I have had to go soupless when I did all the work. It's quite the ethical dilemma.
2. Despite the fact that I went grocery shopping at 3 pm on a Monday, the lines for the checkout were crazy. There were so many people waiting to be checked out taht you couldn't always tell where a line ended. I spent like twice as much time standing in line as I did walking around the store. The dreadful irony of all this is that my grandparents emigrated for the express purpose of not having to wait in line for food. "Hi, Babcia? Guess what? Your struggle to immigrate and years of hardship were all in vain!" I do realize the difference is that the food is available, but functionally it seems to be a difference between standing in line before you have the food in hand, and standing in line after you have the food in hand. I still think there should be a rule that if you can eat all the food before you get to the checkout, you should get the food for free.
3. There are these people canvassing on the sidewalk for Sick Kids, and I always seem to encounter them when I have a particularly heavy load of groceries. Regardless of how worthy a cause Sick Kids is, I can't really just sit there and listen whiel carrying loads and loads of bags. It occurred to me a few minutes too late that I should ask these Sick Kids people to help me with my bags in exchange for a donation.
Monday, December 05, 2005
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Cataclysm: The First World War as Political Tragedy by David Stevenson
I picked up this book because I know very little about WWI, but I'm afraid it did not meet my needs at all. The only reasion I finished it is because I make an effort to finish every book I start.
I was hoping to find out in general historical terms why and how the war started (but more specifically than "the Archduke was assassinated"), plus some human interest details on everyday life during the war for the soliders and the people back at home. Unfortunately, this book falls into a middle ground that completely missed what I was hoping to get out of it. The best way I can describe its focus is that it is similar to what I'd imagine the focus of the newspapers at the time to be. It was smaller than the general historical context because they didn't yet know the historical context at the time, but it ignored the details of human interest because people at the time didn't need their newspapers to tell them what they wore and how they occupied their time and what kinds of shortages there were. The book does a battle-by-battle play-by-play, name-dropping generals and politicans left and right. All of which is perfectly valid, but not what I hoped to get out of it.
This problem is exacerbated by several annoyances introduced by the publishers and editors. The typeface is slightly smaller than usual, so there are more words on the page than in most books. This discourages me from reading further; it is rather disheartening when you've only finished five pages in your 13-minute subway ride. I also found the copy-editing conventions hindered readability. I don't know whether it was a matter of author or editor preference, but the book ended up using commas only when strictly necessary, as though commas were a non-renewable resource, thus causing me to have to reread sentences and make a concerted effort to parse them. They also had the annoying habit of writing "nevertheless" as "never the less," thus making me want to stop reading, fish for a pen in my purse, and insert proofreader's marks indicating that I think it should be written as a single word.
Overall, I would say that this book is not worth the aggravation unless you already have a good understanding of WWI and need the book for academic research.
I was hoping to find out in general historical terms why and how the war started (but more specifically than "the Archduke was assassinated"), plus some human interest details on everyday life during the war for the soliders and the people back at home. Unfortunately, this book falls into a middle ground that completely missed what I was hoping to get out of it. The best way I can describe its focus is that it is similar to what I'd imagine the focus of the newspapers at the time to be. It was smaller than the general historical context because they didn't yet know the historical context at the time, but it ignored the details of human interest because people at the time didn't need their newspapers to tell them what they wore and how they occupied their time and what kinds of shortages there were. The book does a battle-by-battle play-by-play, name-dropping generals and politicans left and right. All of which is perfectly valid, but not what I hoped to get out of it.
This problem is exacerbated by several annoyances introduced by the publishers and editors. The typeface is slightly smaller than usual, so there are more words on the page than in most books. This discourages me from reading further; it is rather disheartening when you've only finished five pages in your 13-minute subway ride. I also found the copy-editing conventions hindered readability. I don't know whether it was a matter of author or editor preference, but the book ended up using commas only when strictly necessary, as though commas were a non-renewable resource, thus causing me to have to reread sentences and make a concerted effort to parse them. They also had the annoying habit of writing "nevertheless" as "never the less," thus making me want to stop reading, fish for a pen in my purse, and insert proofreader's marks indicating that I think it should be written as a single word.
Overall, I would say that this book is not worth the aggravation unless you already have a good understanding of WWI and need the book for academic research.
Fun with election predictions
First, go to the Globe and Mail's Poll Tracker to get the latest split numbers.
Then, plug those numbers into the Hill and Knowlton Election Predictor to see how they affect each riding and the total number of seats.
Then, plug those numbers into the Hill and Knowlton Election Predictor to see how they affect each riding and the total number of seats.
My Sims can't seem to wrap their brains around the concept of death
Dina and Nina Caliente started out in the same fully-furnished house.
While playing another house, I got one of my own Sims to marry Nina, thus moving her out of the Caliente house.
Then Dina died of some illness while at a party in a third house.
This should leave the Caliente house unoccupied but fully-furnished, right?
The problem is the neighbourhood screen seems to think that the house is still occupied, so I can't move a new family into it - but if I enter the house from the neighbourhood screen, it is fully furnished but unoccupied.
I suppose I could go into the neighbourhood screen and move the non-existant Caliente family out of the house, but I really want to move a new family into a fully-furnished house so I don't have to bother with furnishing it myself.
Did the EA programmers really not consider the possibility that all the members of a family might die outside of their own house?
While playing another house, I got one of my own Sims to marry Nina, thus moving her out of the Caliente house.
Then Dina died of some illness while at a party in a third house.
This should leave the Caliente house unoccupied but fully-furnished, right?
The problem is the neighbourhood screen seems to think that the house is still occupied, so I can't move a new family into it - but if I enter the house from the neighbourhood screen, it is fully furnished but unoccupied.
I suppose I could go into the neighbourhood screen and move the non-existant Caliente family out of the house, but I really want to move a new family into a fully-furnished house so I don't have to bother with furnishing it myself.
Did the EA programmers really not consider the possibility that all the members of a family might die outside of their own house?
Friday, December 02, 2005
Tax cuts
I have been asked for my opinion on cutting the GST (as proposed by the Conservative party) vs. cutting income tax.
Extrapolating from my own experience of being at the very bottom of the taxation scale, I think cutting the GST would put more actual dollars back in the pockets of the very poorest. However, I do not know whether this would be enough money to be significant - I suppose it depends on the individual situation.
GST cuts, like income tax cuts, would save disproportionately more money for the very richest, because they have more disposable income to spend on GST-taxable items. However, I don't think this disproportionality can be avoided when you're doing tax cuts.
In my current situation, the maximum amount of money I could save with the proposed GST cuts is about $400 per year (calculated with the assumption that all of my net income that is not earmarked for savings is spent on GST-taxable purchases; IRL this is not the case).
In my situation in 4th year university (not my poorest year, but the one for which I can best remember the specifics of my financial situation) the maximum amount of money I could have saved with the proposed GST cuts is about $30 per year (working with the assumption that there is no GST in tuition or res fees).
$30 was more significant to me in 4th year uni than $400 is now, because I have more job security now. (I wouldn't say, objectively, that I have job security, but my current position is permanent, while in uni my job ended when I graduated, so I knew for sure that and when it would end). However, in both cases I would be more comfortable with the money being in government coffers, where it could be spent on income security programs. I don't know if it will be used for income security, but I know that it cannot be used for income security if it's in people's pockets, and I know that an extra $400 will not provide me with any meaningful additional income security.
I have become accustomed to paying the level of taxes that I am currently paying. They do not present any sort of hardship in my current incarnation as a middle-class professional, and they did not present a hardship in my previous bouts with unemployment and student life. I would rather continue paying taxes at my current level, and if the government finds it's collecting more money than it needs, have the government use the money to improve pensions, employment insurance, social assistance, etc. I fully expect to be unwillingly unemployed at some point in my life, and I would very much rather have enough income support in my unemployment that I don't have to live somewhere infested than have a few hundred extra dollars in my pocket now.
So, in summary, I do think a GST cut is more beneficial than an income tax cut.
However:
- this does not necessarily mean a GST cut would be a good idea
- this does not mean that a GST cut would be more beneficial than investing the money in income security
- this does not necessarily mean the Conservative platform as a whole is good.
I will be reviewing the party platforms this weekend if they've been posted on the websites, so I may come back to this later.
Extrapolating from my own experience of being at the very bottom of the taxation scale, I think cutting the GST would put more actual dollars back in the pockets of the very poorest. However, I do not know whether this would be enough money to be significant - I suppose it depends on the individual situation.
GST cuts, like income tax cuts, would save disproportionately more money for the very richest, because they have more disposable income to spend on GST-taxable items. However, I don't think this disproportionality can be avoided when you're doing tax cuts.
In my current situation, the maximum amount of money I could save with the proposed GST cuts is about $400 per year (calculated with the assumption that all of my net income that is not earmarked for savings is spent on GST-taxable purchases; IRL this is not the case).
In my situation in 4th year university (not my poorest year, but the one for which I can best remember the specifics of my financial situation) the maximum amount of money I could have saved with the proposed GST cuts is about $30 per year (working with the assumption that there is no GST in tuition or res fees).
$30 was more significant to me in 4th year uni than $400 is now, because I have more job security now. (I wouldn't say, objectively, that I have job security, but my current position is permanent, while in uni my job ended when I graduated, so I knew for sure that and when it would end). However, in both cases I would be more comfortable with the money being in government coffers, where it could be spent on income security programs. I don't know if it will be used for income security, but I know that it cannot be used for income security if it's in people's pockets, and I know that an extra $400 will not provide me with any meaningful additional income security.
I have become accustomed to paying the level of taxes that I am currently paying. They do not present any sort of hardship in my current incarnation as a middle-class professional, and they did not present a hardship in my previous bouts with unemployment and student life. I would rather continue paying taxes at my current level, and if the government finds it's collecting more money than it needs, have the government use the money to improve pensions, employment insurance, social assistance, etc. I fully expect to be unwillingly unemployed at some point in my life, and I would very much rather have enough income support in my unemployment that I don't have to live somewhere infested than have a few hundred extra dollars in my pocket now.
So, in summary, I do think a GST cut is more beneficial than an income tax cut.
However:
- this does not necessarily mean a GST cut would be a good idea
- this does not mean that a GST cut would be more beneficial than investing the money in income security
- this does not necessarily mean the Conservative platform as a whole is good.
I will be reviewing the party platforms this weekend if they've been posted on the websites, so I may come back to this later.
Thursday, December 01, 2005
Pathos
Seen on the subway: a man, wearing a suit that he clearly bought when he was at least 30 lbs. lighter, carrying an old, worn-out briefcase straining at the seams with documents, holding an pair of cheap geeky glasses that are completely out of date yet entirely without retro irony, weeping silently and openly.
Poor guy.
I spent the rest of the day thinking up his backstory.
Poor guy.
I spent the rest of the day thinking up his backstory.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
How to Vote
In honour of the upcoming election, a review.
1. Of the parties running candidates in your riding, decide which one has the best platform that comes closest to meeting your needs and your vision of the country (hereafter the Best Party). Then decide which one has the worst platform that is furthest from meeting your needs and deviates the most from your vision of the country (hereafter the Worst Party). You are judging the parties as a whole, not the individual candidates in your riding. Assess each party individually without regard to possible strategic voting - that comes later.
2. Based on your own needs and your own vision for the country, decide whether it is more important to you that the Best Party win, or that the Worst Party does not win.
3. If it is more important to you that the Best Party wins, vote for the Best Party. If not, continue to the next step.
4. If it is more important to you that the Worst Party does not win, assess the Worst Party's chances of winning in your riding.* Not in the country as a whole, just in your riding. If you feel that there's too great a risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding, vote for the party most likely to defeat the Worst Party. If you feel the risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding is acceptably low, vote for the Best Party.
*Here are some suggestions for ways to assess sentiment in your riding:
- The Election Prediction Project
- Lawn signs
- General sentiment gleaned from talking to people
- Letters to the editor, if there's a local newspaper which has the majority of its leadership living in the same riding. This won't work in major cities, but it will work in smaller towns and cities
- Historical election results in your riding.
- Contact your local reference librarian and have them help you find out if any polls have been done for your specific riding.
- Extrapolations from seat predictions. This depends on the kind of predictions available, but sometimes it works. During the last election, the Toronto Star predicted X Liberal seats in Toronto, Y Conservative seats, and Z NDP seats. By looking at a riding map and using the process of elimination, I was able to determine which way my riding was predicted to go, and that prediction was correct.
Remember: do NOT use national polls to inform your strategic voting. Your vote is only effective in your riding. No matter how earnestly you vote, you cannot cancel out votes in another riding. Vote strategically only if the situation in your very own riding demands it, regardless of what the rest of the country is doing.
1. Of the parties running candidates in your riding, decide which one has the best platform that comes closest to meeting your needs and your vision of the country (hereafter the Best Party). Then decide which one has the worst platform that is furthest from meeting your needs and deviates the most from your vision of the country (hereafter the Worst Party). You are judging the parties as a whole, not the individual candidates in your riding. Assess each party individually without regard to possible strategic voting - that comes later.
2. Based on your own needs and your own vision for the country, decide whether it is more important to you that the Best Party win, or that the Worst Party does not win.
3. If it is more important to you that the Best Party wins, vote for the Best Party. If not, continue to the next step.
4. If it is more important to you that the Worst Party does not win, assess the Worst Party's chances of winning in your riding.* Not in the country as a whole, just in your riding. If you feel that there's too great a risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding, vote for the party most likely to defeat the Worst Party. If you feel the risk of the Worst Party winning in your riding is acceptably low, vote for the Best Party.
*Here are some suggestions for ways to assess sentiment in your riding:
- The Election Prediction Project
- Lawn signs
- General sentiment gleaned from talking to people
- Letters to the editor, if there's a local newspaper which has the majority of its leadership living in the same riding. This won't work in major cities, but it will work in smaller towns and cities
- Historical election results in your riding.
- Contact your local reference librarian and have them help you find out if any polls have been done for your specific riding.
- Extrapolations from seat predictions. This depends on the kind of predictions available, but sometimes it works. During the last election, the Toronto Star predicted X Liberal seats in Toronto, Y Conservative seats, and Z NDP seats. By looking at a riding map and using the process of elimination, I was able to determine which way my riding was predicted to go, and that prediction was correct.
Remember: do NOT use national polls to inform your strategic voting. Your vote is only effective in your riding. No matter how earnestly you vote, you cannot cancel out votes in another riding. Vote strategically only if the situation in your very own riding demands it, regardless of what the rest of the country is doing.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Thoughts on the eve of the government falling
As a voter, I don't feel that it's necessary to make the government fall right now. The decision to make the government fall today feels completely arbitrary to me - the opposition leaders are acting like it's extremely necessary, but to me it sounds like they're just randomly saying that. I'm equally disappointed in all parties for their lack of consensus-building, so as a voter I'm back at square one.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
Pain
If you go to a doctor with a complaint of pain, the doctor asks you to rate it on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the worst pain you've ever experienced.
There are many problems with this, and I think I might have blogged about some of the problems before. But another problem that just occurred to me is that we experience pain differently at different points in our lives.
I've never given birth or had a kidney stone. I have broken a bone, but my only memory of the experience is overwhelming terror - I don't remember the physical pain itself. The worst pain I can remember experiencing is a bout of menstrual cramps at the age of 11 that left me curled up on the floor in the fetal position. If I experienced those same cramps today, I would still go to work and do whatever else I needed to do. I would be watching the clock and popping Midol and thinking lustful thoughts about heating pads, yes, but I wouldn't be curled up in a ball. This is because I've become accustomed to menstrual cramps, plus I can duck out of my office at any time if the cramps start to feel slightly digestive instead of having to wait until the end of my class.
So if I go to the doctor and am asked to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, is my ten hardcore cramps as I experienced them at age 11, or is it hardcore cramps as I experience them as an adult? I haven't really experienced that much pain as an adult. I can produce pain equivalent to the worst I've experienced as an adult with impractical shoes and too much walking, but it's still pain I can work through. So how would some arbitrary number be helpful to a doctor?
There are many problems with this, and I think I might have blogged about some of the problems before. But another problem that just occurred to me is that we experience pain differently at different points in our lives.
I've never given birth or had a kidney stone. I have broken a bone, but my only memory of the experience is overwhelming terror - I don't remember the physical pain itself. The worst pain I can remember experiencing is a bout of menstrual cramps at the age of 11 that left me curled up on the floor in the fetal position. If I experienced those same cramps today, I would still go to work and do whatever else I needed to do. I would be watching the clock and popping Midol and thinking lustful thoughts about heating pads, yes, but I wouldn't be curled up in a ball. This is because I've become accustomed to menstrual cramps, plus I can duck out of my office at any time if the cramps start to feel slightly digestive instead of having to wait until the end of my class.
So if I go to the doctor and am asked to rate my pain on a scale of one to ten, is my ten hardcore cramps as I experienced them at age 11, or is it hardcore cramps as I experience them as an adult? I haven't really experienced that much pain as an adult. I can produce pain equivalent to the worst I've experienced as an adult with impractical shoes and too much walking, but it's still pain I can work through. So how would some arbitrary number be helpful to a doctor?
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Things that rock!
1. Cover Girl TruBlend Powder Foundation. I know I'm probably too old to be wearing Cover Girl, but this makeup works as advertised and I feel good wearing it. It would, however, benefit from having a wider range of colours available, and more colours available within the existing range. I wear a blend of two different colours, neither of which matches my natural skintone, but together they create a pleasing third colour that is a sort of idealized artistic allusion to my natural skintone. This works for me, but it would be better if they could match my natural skintone exactly.
2. Parissa 2-in-1 Roll-on Hair Removal System. Finally they combined the convenience of a roll-on applicator with the quick clean-up of a sugar-based hair removal system! Makes annoying hair removal much faster and easier, and even a little bit fun! The only problem is it comes with these weird sort of wax paper-ish strips, and I find unbleached cotton strips work better. So I use the cotton from an older sugaring system, and it's all good. You can buy cotton strips separately as refills for other sugaring systems.
2. Parissa 2-in-1 Roll-on Hair Removal System. Finally they combined the convenience of a roll-on applicator with the quick clean-up of a sugar-based hair removal system! Makes annoying hair removal much faster and easier, and even a little bit fun! The only problem is it comes with these weird sort of wax paper-ish strips, and I find unbleached cotton strips work better. So I use the cotton from an older sugaring system, and it's all good. You can buy cotton strips separately as refills for other sugaring systems.
Friday, November 25, 2005
How to make people paranoid
If you're ever near people having a conversation in another language, stare at them as though you're following along. If they look in your direction, quickly look away. If they start laughing, you laugh too. Then cover your mouth as if to hide your giggles and avert your eyes as if to say "No, I'm not eavesdropping! Who, me?"
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Free political advice!
One piece of political advice for each party that runs in my riding. In alphabetical order:
Conservatives: You seem to be trying to promote yourself by dissing the Liberals, but a lot of people are saying something along the lines of "I don't want the Liberals to win, but I can't in good conscience vote Conservative." You might want to be looking at why people feel they can't in good conscience vote Conservative, and change your policies accordingly.
Greens: Many people see you as a radical sort of party, but you are actually more fiscally conservative than most people think. You might want to emphasize this in your campaign.
Liberals: This is tricker, because, as the centremost party, people are complaining about your policies from both sides, and the fallout from the sponsorship scandal can only be healed over time. The best I can think of here is to distance yourself from Conservative policy on dealbreaker issues.
NDP: Many people want to vote NDP, but vote Liberal instead because they don't want the Conservatives to win. To counter this you should sponsor riding-by-riding polls at several points during the campaign. If people can see that the Conservatives aren't likely to win in their riding, they'll be more likely to throw a vote your way.
Conservatives: You seem to be trying to promote yourself by dissing the Liberals, but a lot of people are saying something along the lines of "I don't want the Liberals to win, but I can't in good conscience vote Conservative." You might want to be looking at why people feel they can't in good conscience vote Conservative, and change your policies accordingly.
Greens: Many people see you as a radical sort of party, but you are actually more fiscally conservative than most people think. You might want to emphasize this in your campaign.
Liberals: This is tricker, because, as the centremost party, people are complaining about your policies from both sides, and the fallout from the sponsorship scandal can only be healed over time. The best I can think of here is to distance yourself from Conservative policy on dealbreaker issues.
NDP: Many people want to vote NDP, but vote Liberal instead because they don't want the Conservatives to win. To counter this you should sponsor riding-by-riding polls at several points during the campaign. If people can see that the Conservatives aren't likely to win in their riding, they'll be more likely to throw a vote your way.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Advice
I've said this before, but I think it bears repeating.
IF you own a business or are in charge of a public space or institution, and
IF your business or public space or institution, for whatever reason, does something to mark a religious occasion, and
IF members of the public, especially of that religion, complain that your method of marking the religious occasion is not religious enough,
THEN I would recommend not doing anything at all to mark the occasion next time it rolls around, if not to save yourself some trouble, then at least for the amusement if seeing if anyone notices that you haven't gone to any effort.
IF you own a business or are in charge of a public space or institution, and
IF your business or public space or institution, for whatever reason, does something to mark a religious occasion, and
IF members of the public, especially of that religion, complain that your method of marking the religious occasion is not religious enough,
THEN I would recommend not doing anything at all to mark the occasion next time it rolls around, if not to save yourself some trouble, then at least for the amusement if seeing if anyone notices that you haven't gone to any effort.
How to build the perfect website for an eyewear store
Eyewear is a tricky business. It's expensive, serves both fashion and medical purposes, and has to be worn on one's face at all times. While eyewear does need to be sold in bricks-and-mortar stores so people can try it on and get second and third and fourth opinions and have it properly fitted and get adjustments when necessary, retailers could add so much value by having a useful, informative, interactive website that will help people do their initial research at home.
Seven steps to the perfect eyewear retailer's website:
1. Have a website, with hours and locations. Sounds obvious, but some stores don't.
2. List your prices for lenses and coatings, as well as the full terms and conditions of any deals you might have. I want to be able to walk into the store, look at a price tag, and mentally calculate what I'll have to pay. Come to think of it, list your prices for lenses and coatings in the store too! (And have price tags on the frames in stores too, *coughHAKIMcough*).
3. Show me your frames. All of them. Have an online catalogue like those online eyewear vendors do. You don't have to sell online, but show me pictures and prices. If the frames happen to come in different sizes and colours, tell me! I want to have the option of walking into the store with a list of style numbers, colours and sizes that I want to try on.
4. Let me search through your inventory effectively. With a click of the mouse, I want to be able to see all the oval frames, or all the oval wire frames, or all the oval wire frames with a lens size between 46 and 50 and a nose size 18 or 19. If there are only two frames in your inventory that meet my needs, let me find that out in 2 minutes on your website instead of by trekking all the way to The Big Mall and browsing through your entire inventory. Then, of course, show me which stores these specific frames are available at, and give me the option of having them sent to my local store for me to try on if they aren't there already. I know some chains' internal computer systems already allow store employees to do this. Now just make it available to the customer!
5. Have a price calculator on your website. I want to be able to enter the price of the frames and my lens requirements, and see how much I'll have to pay before I even leave the house. If you have promotions, set up the calculator that will automatically apply the best promotion to my purchase. For bonus points, have a reverse calculator, where I can enter my lens requirements, prescription, and the maximum I'm prepared to spend, and it tells me how much frame I can afford. For double bonus points, then let me select my frame preferences, and generate a list of the frames in that price range that match my preferences.
6. Let me enter my prescription too, so the computer can automatically exclude lens-frame combinations that are not compatible with my prescription. I would much rather find out that my hideously myopic left eye prevents me from ever being able to wear big frames before I get my heart too set on those big movie-star sunglasses that seem to be the fashion right now.
7. As an added bonus feature, set up a price-watch system, especially if you have ever-changing promotions. Let me enter my requirements (e.g. oval; wire-rimmed or frameless, amber, brown, bronze or tortoiseshell, single vision with anti-glare, plus a pair of sunglasses, oval, plastic, same prescription, all for under $X) and email me an alert when something like that becomes available. If I'm asking the impossible, give me a notice saying "The product combination you requested has never been available for less that $Y. Click here to proceed with this alert. Click here to modify your preferences."
I don't need to point out that the technology to do this already exists. Every online retailer works this way. Several online retailers have already applied this technology to selling glasses. If a bricks-and-mortar eyewear store picks up on this idea, and they will have my unquestioning loyalty. If I could do all the annoying preliminary browsing online, going to the store only to try frames on, show them to trusted friends for second opinions, and get properly fitted, I would not even consider going to a competing store that didn't have the online option.
Seven steps to the perfect eyewear retailer's website:
1. Have a website, with hours and locations. Sounds obvious, but some stores don't.
2. List your prices for lenses and coatings, as well as the full terms and conditions of any deals you might have. I want to be able to walk into the store, look at a price tag, and mentally calculate what I'll have to pay. Come to think of it, list your prices for lenses and coatings in the store too! (And have price tags on the frames in stores too, *coughHAKIMcough*).
3. Show me your frames. All of them. Have an online catalogue like those online eyewear vendors do. You don't have to sell online, but show me pictures and prices. If the frames happen to come in different sizes and colours, tell me! I want to have the option of walking into the store with a list of style numbers, colours and sizes that I want to try on.
4. Let me search through your inventory effectively. With a click of the mouse, I want to be able to see all the oval frames, or all the oval wire frames, or all the oval wire frames with a lens size between 46 and 50 and a nose size 18 or 19. If there are only two frames in your inventory that meet my needs, let me find that out in 2 minutes on your website instead of by trekking all the way to The Big Mall and browsing through your entire inventory. Then, of course, show me which stores these specific frames are available at, and give me the option of having them sent to my local store for me to try on if they aren't there already. I know some chains' internal computer systems already allow store employees to do this. Now just make it available to the customer!
5. Have a price calculator on your website. I want to be able to enter the price of the frames and my lens requirements, and see how much I'll have to pay before I even leave the house. If you have promotions, set up the calculator that will automatically apply the best promotion to my purchase. For bonus points, have a reverse calculator, where I can enter my lens requirements, prescription, and the maximum I'm prepared to spend, and it tells me how much frame I can afford. For double bonus points, then let me select my frame preferences, and generate a list of the frames in that price range that match my preferences.
6. Let me enter my prescription too, so the computer can automatically exclude lens-frame combinations that are not compatible with my prescription. I would much rather find out that my hideously myopic left eye prevents me from ever being able to wear big frames before I get my heart too set on those big movie-star sunglasses that seem to be the fashion right now.
7. As an added bonus feature, set up a price-watch system, especially if you have ever-changing promotions. Let me enter my requirements (e.g. oval; wire-rimmed or frameless, amber, brown, bronze or tortoiseshell, single vision with anti-glare, plus a pair of sunglasses, oval, plastic, same prescription, all for under $X) and email me an alert when something like that becomes available. If I'm asking the impossible, give me a notice saying "The product combination you requested has never been available for less that $Y. Click here to proceed with this alert. Click here to modify your preferences."
I don't need to point out that the technology to do this already exists. Every online retailer works this way. Several online retailers have already applied this technology to selling glasses. If a bricks-and-mortar eyewear store picks up on this idea, and they will have my unquestioning loyalty. If I could do all the annoying preliminary browsing online, going to the store only to try frames on, show them to trusted friends for second opinions, and get properly fitted, I would not even consider going to a competing store that didn't have the online option.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Open letter to white supremacists
While searching to see what the blogosphere had to say about the Cardinal McGuigan incident, I noticed that some white supremacists were citing it as an example to support their white supremacist ideas.
To those white supremacists: DON'T
It's already bad enough that some people are trying to make this about race rather than about the fact that a high school student was harassed and assulted and threatened for more than a year. By using it to forward your white supremacist agenda, you are simply providing more fodder for the unfortunate idea that it was all about race and not a valid sexual harassment/assault copmlaint at all.
This is not helping the victim.
If it really is strictly necessary for you to go around being white supremacists, do it in a way that doesn't make live even more difficult for victims of sexual assault.
To those white supremacists: DON'T
It's already bad enough that some people are trying to make this about race rather than about the fact that a high school student was harassed and assulted and threatened for more than a year. By using it to forward your white supremacist agenda, you are simply providing more fodder for the unfortunate idea that it was all about race and not a valid sexual harassment/assault copmlaint at all.
This is not helping the victim.
If it really is strictly necessary for you to go around being white supremacists, do it in a way that doesn't make live even more difficult for victims of sexual assault.
Bullying Roundup
The thing that really shocks, outrages, and confuses me about the Cardinal McGuigan case is something mentioned by a CBC radio reporter at the bail hearing for the accused (unfortunately I can't find a cite online, but I'm certain I heard this on Metro Morning). The reporter mentioned in passing that the only ones among the parents who had any sympathy/empathy for the victim were those who have daughters, because they could imagine how horrible it would be for this to happen to their daughters.
But why can the parents only put themselves in the victim's parents shoes? Why can't they put themselves directly in the victim's shoes?
Does something happen when people become parents that they can no longer directly empathize with members of a younger generation, and can instead see them only through parental eyes? Frankly, I find that kind of creepy. Empathy is "Wow, I can only imagine how hellish it would be if people were doing that to me." To say "Wow, I can only imagine how hellish it would be if people were doing that to my daughter" is kind of, I don't know, possessive and almost selfish. They aren't empathizing with the victim, they're really empathizing with her parents, and the empathy is fraught with touches of the same distasteful archaic ideas that lead to such unpleasant traditions as the bride's father "giving her away." It's coming from the same place that leads critics of war to say I don't see the warmongerers' kids in combat without even considering that the warmongerers' kids are in no way responsible for their parents' warmongering, or leads people to think "You'd better lock up your daughter and buy a shotgun" is a compliment, without even considering that the daughter is a human being with thoughts and feelings and doesn't deserve to be denied basic human liberty or social contact (and even some dabbling in romance if she so chooses) because her father is possessive and paranoid.
If I were the victim in this situation, I would feel even more dehumanized by people saying "I can empathize, I have a daughter." That isn't empathy - that's the kind of attitude that leads me to use the word "parental" as an insult. If you want to empathize, you empathize because you're a human being with thoughts and feelings, and have probably experienced at least a touch of bullying and/or sexual harassment in your life, and can extrapolate from your experience to perhaps begin to imagine the hell the victim is going through. If you've led a charmed life where you have never experienced bullying or sexual harassment and seriously cannot imagine being in the victim's shoes, the correct expression is "I can't imagine what you must be going through."
~***~
By sheer coincidence, I was on kind of a bullying theory kick before this incident even occurred, so I just finished The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander by Barbara Coloroso. Overall it was quite interesting and would probably be useful to parents, but there were a few flaws that really jumped out at me.
1. The author puts huge emphasis on the idea that bullying is not sibling rivalry, thus strongly implying that bullying cannot take place among siblings. She offers no solutions to the problem of sibling bullying, which is a different issue because the victim cannot escape the bullying even in the privacy of their own home, and basically does not even acknowledge the existence of the issue. Perhaps she doesn't acknowledge this because it goes contrary to her basic thesis that bullying behaviour can be parented away, but it leaves a very real problem completely unaddressed.
2. She states several times that sometimes bullying is exacerbated when the victim does not fight back or stand up for themselves (although she doesn't recommend telling the victim to stand up for themselves - she does have other practical recommendations). However, she never acknowledges that one reason victims might not stand up for themselves is because they were told by well-meaning grownups to "just ignore it." The author does not recommend telling kids to just ignore the bullying, but neither does she emphasize that this is an ineffective, yet common, tactic. I've even seen it put forward on websites specifically dedicated to stopping bullying, with no advice given on what to do if ignoring it doesn't work (or, at least, doesn't work within a reasonable time - ignoring it will work eventually because everyone will graduate and move away, but asking someone to ignore abuse and humiliation for years and years is not reasonable or feasible advice). I would expect an expert in bullying to know that this is frequently-given and ineffective advice, and to at least mention the fact that it is ineffective. She does once quote a bullying survivor as saying that she was told to just ignore it, with the implication that this is ineffective advice, but the author never once says this herself or explicitly states that it's ineffective.
3. The author emphasizes many times the need to build up children's self-esteem, but doesn't say anything about how exactly this is done. If I were in charge of a child, I certainly would not know how to build up their self-esteem! People need to be told these things! Nor does she really address the fact that even if the parents treat the child in a self-esteem-building manner, this isn't necessarily going to build their self-esteem if no one else is treating them with basic human respect. If their parents are saying "You don't deserve to be treated like that," but everyone else is treating the kid "like that," then the kid will simply assume that the parents are wrong because they're parents and they're clueless. This is exacerbated if the ostensible reason for the bullying is because of something that originates from the parents. If the kid is being bullied because they are wearing the wrong colour jeans, and the parents bought them those jeans, then the kid is likely to be mad at their parents for buying them jeans that would get them bullied. So, from the kid's perspective, on one hand the parents are saying the kid doesn't deserve to be treated badly, but on the other hand they're furnishing the kid with possessions that the bullies use to treat the kid badly. This makes parents as a whole untrustworthy, so the self-esteem-building messages need to come from other sources.
These shortcomings make me doubt the usefulness of the methods described in the book as a whole. I'm not in a position to test the methods, but the fact that the book doesn't address some of the major issues from my own time as a victim of bullying does raise some doubt in me.
~***~
It occurs to me that there might be some value in sensationalizing all bullying.
(Forgive me if I've blogged this before - I thought I had, but I can't seem to find it in my archives).
The word "bullying" itself is rather unfortunate in that it trivializes what is in fact physical and psychological abuse. Use of the word "bullying" makes it sound like some everyday part of childhood - only one or two levels above "teasing" (which is not always even a negative thing). The word "bullying" itself is inherently negative, but I don't think it's negative enough. Legally and semantically, the activities that comprise bullying are, in fact, abuse, assault, torture, extortion, harassment, maybe even bordering on rape in some cases.
I think people in general, and the media in particular, need to take this up. Instead of using the word "bullying", we should use the worst word possible to describe the occurrence in question. For example, instead of saying "I was bullied as a child", I would say "I was threatened, harassed, abused, tortured and assaulted as a child." Instead of saying that someone was a bully, I would say that he was guilty of sexual harassment or she was guilty of psychological abuse. See the difference?
So why are we doing this? First of all, it will emphasize the seriousness of bullying. Assault is still assault even if it can also be categorized as bullying, and is no less devastating to the victim. In fact, it might be more devastating if the bully is punished for "bullying" instead of for "assault".
Secondly, it will give victims of bullying the vocabulary to describe their experiences. At the age of nine or 11, I didn't know how to describe the concepts of psychological abuse, sexual harassment, or uttering threats of violence in words that would make them sound like the misconduct they are. "He is sexually harassing me!" is much better than "He's saying things to me!"
Thirdly, (and this is the part I don't have the expertise to be sure about), it may decrease bullies' motivation to bully. Being a bully is one thing; having your name publicly associated with the words "abuser", "assailant" and "torturer" is another thing. This would be particularly effective if cases of bullying were reported sensationally in news media. The only problem here is I'm not sure if a bully would thrive the attention, even when it's such strong negative attention. I've heard theories that bullies just want attention, but there are holes in these theories. The other thing it may do, if this is doable, is make parents more likely to want to stop their kids from becoming bullies, for fear of having the kid's name (and maybe even the parent's name) publicly associated with the words "abuser", "assailant" and "torturer". Again, the problem here is that I don't know if bullying can be parented away. Some people say it can, but I have seen families where one sibling is a bully and the other isn't, so I don't know if it's 100% parenting.
Finally, I think the media should take it upon itself to demonize bullies as much as possible - both individually and collectively. Create an environment in which angry talk-radio caller types are only capable of pronouncing the word "bully" by spitting it, like certain factions in the US used to do with the word "France."
If anyone reading this happens to be a bully, I'd appreciate any feedback on whether this would actually work. Anonymous comments are welcome, and, for the purpose of this post, we won't judge you for being a bully as long as you keep your bullying out of this blog.
But why can the parents only put themselves in the victim's parents shoes? Why can't they put themselves directly in the victim's shoes?
Does something happen when people become parents that they can no longer directly empathize with members of a younger generation, and can instead see them only through parental eyes? Frankly, I find that kind of creepy. Empathy is "Wow, I can only imagine how hellish it would be if people were doing that to me." To say "Wow, I can only imagine how hellish it would be if people were doing that to my daughter" is kind of, I don't know, possessive and almost selfish. They aren't empathizing with the victim, they're really empathizing with her parents, and the empathy is fraught with touches of the same distasteful archaic ideas that lead to such unpleasant traditions as the bride's father "giving her away." It's coming from the same place that leads critics of war to say I don't see the warmongerers' kids in combat without even considering that the warmongerers' kids are in no way responsible for their parents' warmongering, or leads people to think "You'd better lock up your daughter and buy a shotgun" is a compliment, without even considering that the daughter is a human being with thoughts and feelings and doesn't deserve to be denied basic human liberty or social contact (and even some dabbling in romance if she so chooses) because her father is possessive and paranoid.
If I were the victim in this situation, I would feel even more dehumanized by people saying "I can empathize, I have a daughter." That isn't empathy - that's the kind of attitude that leads me to use the word "parental" as an insult. If you want to empathize, you empathize because you're a human being with thoughts and feelings, and have probably experienced at least a touch of bullying and/or sexual harassment in your life, and can extrapolate from your experience to perhaps begin to imagine the hell the victim is going through. If you've led a charmed life where you have never experienced bullying or sexual harassment and seriously cannot imagine being in the victim's shoes, the correct expression is "I can't imagine what you must be going through."
By sheer coincidence, I was on kind of a bullying theory kick before this incident even occurred, so I just finished The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander by Barbara Coloroso. Overall it was quite interesting and would probably be useful to parents, but there were a few flaws that really jumped out at me.
1. The author puts huge emphasis on the idea that bullying is not sibling rivalry, thus strongly implying that bullying cannot take place among siblings. She offers no solutions to the problem of sibling bullying, which is a different issue because the victim cannot escape the bullying even in the privacy of their own home, and basically does not even acknowledge the existence of the issue. Perhaps she doesn't acknowledge this because it goes contrary to her basic thesis that bullying behaviour can be parented away, but it leaves a very real problem completely unaddressed.
2. She states several times that sometimes bullying is exacerbated when the victim does not fight back or stand up for themselves (although she doesn't recommend telling the victim to stand up for themselves - she does have other practical recommendations). However, she never acknowledges that one reason victims might not stand up for themselves is because they were told by well-meaning grownups to "just ignore it." The author does not recommend telling kids to just ignore the bullying, but neither does she emphasize that this is an ineffective, yet common, tactic. I've even seen it put forward on websites specifically dedicated to stopping bullying, with no advice given on what to do if ignoring it doesn't work (or, at least, doesn't work within a reasonable time - ignoring it will work eventually because everyone will graduate and move away, but asking someone to ignore abuse and humiliation for years and years is not reasonable or feasible advice). I would expect an expert in bullying to know that this is frequently-given and ineffective advice, and to at least mention the fact that it is ineffective. She does once quote a bullying survivor as saying that she was told to just ignore it, with the implication that this is ineffective advice, but the author never once says this herself or explicitly states that it's ineffective.
3. The author emphasizes many times the need to build up children's self-esteem, but doesn't say anything about how exactly this is done. If I were in charge of a child, I certainly would not know how to build up their self-esteem! People need to be told these things! Nor does she really address the fact that even if the parents treat the child in a self-esteem-building manner, this isn't necessarily going to build their self-esteem if no one else is treating them with basic human respect. If their parents are saying "You don't deserve to be treated like that," but everyone else is treating the kid "like that," then the kid will simply assume that the parents are wrong because they're parents and they're clueless. This is exacerbated if the ostensible reason for the bullying is because of something that originates from the parents. If the kid is being bullied because they are wearing the wrong colour jeans, and the parents bought them those jeans, then the kid is likely to be mad at their parents for buying them jeans that would get them bullied. So, from the kid's perspective, on one hand the parents are saying the kid doesn't deserve to be treated badly, but on the other hand they're furnishing the kid with possessions that the bullies use to treat the kid badly. This makes parents as a whole untrustworthy, so the self-esteem-building messages need to come from other sources.
These shortcomings make me doubt the usefulness of the methods described in the book as a whole. I'm not in a position to test the methods, but the fact that the book doesn't address some of the major issues from my own time as a victim of bullying does raise some doubt in me.
It occurs to me that there might be some value in sensationalizing all bullying.
(Forgive me if I've blogged this before - I thought I had, but I can't seem to find it in my archives).
The word "bullying" itself is rather unfortunate in that it trivializes what is in fact physical and psychological abuse. Use of the word "bullying" makes it sound like some everyday part of childhood - only one or two levels above "teasing" (which is not always even a negative thing). The word "bullying" itself is inherently negative, but I don't think it's negative enough. Legally and semantically, the activities that comprise bullying are, in fact, abuse, assault, torture, extortion, harassment, maybe even bordering on rape in some cases.
I think people in general, and the media in particular, need to take this up. Instead of using the word "bullying", we should use the worst word possible to describe the occurrence in question. For example, instead of saying "I was bullied as a child", I would say "I was threatened, harassed, abused, tortured and assaulted as a child." Instead of saying that someone was a bully, I would say that he was guilty of sexual harassment or she was guilty of psychological abuse. See the difference?
So why are we doing this? First of all, it will emphasize the seriousness of bullying. Assault is still assault even if it can also be categorized as bullying, and is no less devastating to the victim. In fact, it might be more devastating if the bully is punished for "bullying" instead of for "assault".
Secondly, it will give victims of bullying the vocabulary to describe their experiences. At the age of nine or 11, I didn't know how to describe the concepts of psychological abuse, sexual harassment, or uttering threats of violence in words that would make them sound like the misconduct they are. "He is sexually harassing me!" is much better than "He's saying things to me!"
Thirdly, (and this is the part I don't have the expertise to be sure about), it may decrease bullies' motivation to bully. Being a bully is one thing; having your name publicly associated with the words "abuser", "assailant" and "torturer" is another thing. This would be particularly effective if cases of bullying were reported sensationally in news media. The only problem here is I'm not sure if a bully would thrive the attention, even when it's such strong negative attention. I've heard theories that bullies just want attention, but there are holes in these theories. The other thing it may do, if this is doable, is make parents more likely to want to stop their kids from becoming bullies, for fear of having the kid's name (and maybe even the parent's name) publicly associated with the words "abuser", "assailant" and "torturer". Again, the problem here is that I don't know if bullying can be parented away. Some people say it can, but I have seen families where one sibling is a bully and the other isn't, so I don't know if it's 100% parenting.
Finally, I think the media should take it upon itself to demonize bullies as much as possible - both individually and collectively. Create an environment in which angry talk-radio caller types are only capable of pronouncing the word "bully" by spitting it, like certain factions in the US used to do with the word "France."
If anyone reading this happens to be a bully, I'd appreciate any feedback on whether this would actually work. Anonymous comments are welcome, and, for the purpose of this post, we won't judge you for being a bully as long as you keep your bullying out of this blog.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
A Poll: Mental Arithmetic
When is the last time you had to do any kind of math (or arithmetic, for the purists) in a situation where you didn't have the option of using a calculator, or using a calculator would have been an inconvenience? Please post in the comments and describe the situation. Feel free to post anonymously.
I can't think of any situations myself. The reason I'm wondering about this is that I've noticed people getting outraged that Kids Today can't do arithmetic in their heads*, and I find myself wondering whether that would actually be a hindrance in real life?
*I don't know enough kids to tell whether or not this is true, but I do know that people were making the same complaint about my generation, and I've found that my mental math skills have always more than met my needs.
I can't think of any situations myself. The reason I'm wondering about this is that I've noticed people getting outraged that Kids Today can't do arithmetic in their heads*, and I find myself wondering whether that would actually be a hindrance in real life?
*I don't know enough kids to tell whether or not this is true, but I do know that people were making the same complaint about my generation, and I've found that my mental math skills have always more than met my needs.
Sunday, November 13, 2005
Maybe I'm becoming a synaesthete?
It has just occurred to me that the word umami is onomatapoeic. I don't think tastes are supposed to be onomotapoeic.
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