Things They Should Invent: combined dental and manicure services

I went to the dentist today. As I was sitting there getting my mouth poked at, I mentally went through my to-do list for the rest of the day, and remembered that I really should redo my nails today. Then I realized, I'm already sitting still, doing nothing, and being poked at for an hour, so why not have a manicurist poke at me too? It would certainly save me some time! I don't usually get my nails done professionally, but once every six months during time when I'm already doing nothing? I'd splurge for that!

Hezbollah has a lot of rockets

Hezbollah and Israel have been throwing rockets at each other for, what, a couple of weeks now? That's a lot of rockets. It doesn't surprise me that Israel has a lot of rockets because they're a whole country, but how did Hezbollah get all these rockets? Do they have their own arms factories? Do they buy them? If so, how do they get through customs? Or are they all smuggled in? Where do they keep them? What would they do with them if they ever decided to disband? This all never occurred to me before, but after all these days it's obvious that it's not an insignificant number of rockets, and that raises all kinds of questions.

What are your linking etiquette preferences?

I usually use target=_blank in my links, so they'll open in a new window. I do this because it's my personal preference when I'm clicking on a link from a blog. However, I recently read an article saying that's poor etiquette because it takes control away from the user. As a user, I often tend to click blindly without thinking to open the link in a new window before it's too late, but I don't know if that's typical behaviour. So do you prefer your links to open in new windows, or in the same window?

I'm planning a post that will have quite a few links - anywhere between 5 and 20 - and the links will probably be of more interest to most of you than the things I usually link to. It occurs to me that it could be annoying to have 10 different windows open, especially since some of them might be multimedia. But at the same time, it might also be annoying to have to click back to the blog to see the next link (and it's more likely than usual that you will be interested in looking at all the links.) So what which would you prefer: a) target=_blank, which opens every link in its own window; b) target=_new, which opens the links in a separate window from the blog, but all in the same window, so you have to use your browser's back button to page through all the links, or c) no target, so the links open by default in the same window as the blog unless you intervene?

For the purposes of this link-heavy post, which will probably get put together sometime this weekend, I'll go with any votes y'all have left in the comments here by the time I get around to putting the post together. As for my general linking policy, I'm going to mull it over, taking any comments into consideration.

Note: I use IE and am not terribly familiar with the other browsers as it's been a few years since I've had to keep my web design or tech support skills current. If any of these linking practices have different results in whichever browser you're using, feel free to let me know, along with your preferences.

Something I wish I had thought to do earlier

I wish that, when I was a kid and one of my parents was complaining about work or the Damn Goverment or Those People, I wish I had thought to look at them smugly and say "Well, life isn't fair!" with that self-satisfied "Look at me, I'm imparting wisdom, give me a standing ovation!" look that parents get when they're saying something particularly unhelpful to their children.

Unfortunately the idea didn't occur to me until just now.

Stupidest act of falsification ever!

So apparently some pictures of bombed-out Beirut were doctored before they were sent to Reuters.

The Star has before and after pictures.

What's really sad about this is that, to my civilian and unartistic eye at least, it doesn't change the impact of the photo that much.

My first reaction upon seeing the real photo: "OMG, the whole city is up in smoke"
My second reaction upon seeing the real photo: "Oh wait, it's only coming from that one building and kind of drifting around."

My first reaction upon seeing the doctored photo (without comparing it with the real photo): "OMG, the whole city is up in smoke"
My second reaction upon seeing the doctored photo: "Oh wait, it's only coming from that one building and kind of drifting around."
My third reaction upon seeing the doctored photo: "Funny pattern that smoke is travelling in..."

I wouldn't have identified it as a photoshop job myself, I would have just assumed it's some property of bombed-building smoke that I don't know about, but I'm far from an expert. The only people in the world who would be less skilled at identifying a photoshop job than I am would be people who have never used photoshop. (I've only dabbled unsuccessfully, and casually lurked around Fark and Worth1000.)

But the big issue is that the photoshopping doesn't add anything to the picture. It doesn't make it worse, it doesn't change the impact or lack thereof, it's not going to change anyone's opinion or emotional response. It's just more smoke added to a picture that already shows a lot of smoke. So why do it in the first place?

Thoughts from Enterprise

1. Vanishing Point resolves by stating that Hoshi has lost her fear of using the transporter, based on the fact that she stepped on the alien transporter platform at the end of her hallucination.

But that doesn't prove anything! From Hoshi's perspective, she has already died and demolecularized, plus now the ship is about to blow up. The transporter cannot possibly make things worse! However, since this didn't really happen and was all a vivid and horrific hallucination, she now has a tangible reason to fear the transporter IRL - she might get stuck in the pattern buffer and in a psychological nightmare again!

2. Whenever they find a promising-looking uninhabited M-class planet, the crew always wants to go have R&R on it. They want to go camping and rafting and climbing and who knows what else. That's really bizarre if you think about it - imagine if the aliens came to earth with the goal of going scuba-diving or something!

Question I am currently pondering

It's 1929. You are 30 years old. At the very nadir of the Great Depression - the very bottom point in that big economic chart I'm sure we've all seen - you invest some money in the stock market. Your stock choices are typical and representative - you have no particular great insight except that you're sure the economy has no where to go but up. You sit on your portfolio for 35 years until you retire at age 65, when your portfolio provides you with enough income to live at an average middle-class standard of living until you die at age 100.

Is this a feasible situation? How much money would you have to have invested initially? How much would that be in today's dollars?

Annihilated

I've been familiar with the word annihilated for years and years, but I only just now associated the pronunciation with the spelling. I always mentally read the I's as short instead of long, and sort of subconsciously imagined them as two separate words.

Attn: Toronto municipal candidates

If you're a candidate in the Toronto municipal election, listen up! Here's how to optimize your chances of getting my vote:

Somewhere on your website, state explicitly and neutrally how exactly your platform differs from that of your opponents, and do this without dissing your opponents.

I'm neither particularly supportive of nor particularly opposed to my current city councillor. I agree with about half of what he does, and disagree with the other half. As a challenger, you could be better or you could be worse. However, both of your platforms sound pretty much the same right now, so that just isn't helpful to me at all. I don't feel that it's imperative to overthrow the incumbent, but none of you have shown me any particular reason why you deserve my vote over and above the other candidates.

Federal and provincial politics are party-based, so I can make my decisions based on the values demonstrated by each party. However, municipal candidates are not associated with any parties. You're just random individuals and, unless you're an incumbent, I have no basis on which to judge you except the information on your website. So tell me why you're different! I don't want to hear you defaming the other candidates, I can do that myself. I just want to know why your platform is better, what you have to offer me that the other guys don't. Then I can decide for myself whether that corresponds with my priorities or not. Don't be vague and indefinite in an attempt to not lose my vote. Be bold, be specific, tell me what you stand for!

Last time around, I was not able to vote for a city councillor because I could find no information on one of the two candidates' platforms. I would very much like to vote for a councillor this time around, but I don't know what I'm going to do if I don't see any difference between the platforms.

Any media people reading this? If so, I'd love to see a comparison of all the candidates' platforms that emphasizes the differences!

New word!

I hereby coin the word Doppelnamer, to mean someone who has the same name as you. (Yes, I have checked, and it doesn't require an umlaut, unless I've forgotten some rule of German.)

A note on body language

I can't find a picture of this leg crossing position, so you'll have to act it out yourself (unless you're wearing a short skirt and there's someone else in the room): Put your left foot flat on the floor. Now rest your right ankle on top your left knee. Your right calf should be perpendicular to your left thigh and parallel to the floor.

I just read that crossing your legs in this position means you're feeling competitive and argumentive.

I would like the world to know that, even though I sit like this all the time, it is not a sign of being competitive and argumentive. Rather, it's a sign that I'm knock-kneed and have snapping hip syndrome, and this position is the most comfortable way for me to sit for long periods of time without my joints getting stiff.

Open Letter to the Globe and Mail's David MacFarlane

Dear Mr. MacFarlane:

As, apparently, a member of your target demographic, I feel qualified to respond to your column.

First, I want you to ask yourself a question - seriously reflect on it: What, exactly, do you hope to accomplish by complimenting strangers? Because I can't imagine it achieving anything except making the lady in question uncomfortable. You claim you want to say something nice, but you do seem to be aware that it will likely make the subject of your attentions uncomfortable. So why do you still want to say it? Instead of saying something nice, why not do something nice and not make her uncomfortable? What is it that compels you to completely disregard the fact that you do not think she would appreciate your compliment, and instead barrel away on the cocky presumption that she should appreciate your compliment because...because you think she should? I'm not sure why. Seriously, why, in any social interaction, would you so callously disregard your best guess at how the interlocutor would respond, and why would you persist in labelling a statement that you anticipate would make her uncomfortable as "nice"?

Speaking as a member of your target demographic, when I am beautiful (which I sometimes am and sometimes am not), I know that I'm beautiful. I am perfectly aware of it. And when I am not beautiful, I am also perfectly aware of it. Telling me I'm beautiful will not make me feel any better about myself under any circumstances. If I am beautiful at the time, it will not give me any new information but might make me feel uncomfortable. If I am not beautiful at the time, I will know you're bullshitting me, and I will also feel like strange old men read me as someone so pathetic and desperate that she'd be grateful for any compliment. This, in turn, will make me feel uncomfortable and insecure, and I will raise my shields even higher so as to avoid coming across as an easy target.

Compliments on my appearance are only worth anything to me when they come from people who see me regularly and are familiar with my range of appearance. My base appearance is something over which I have no influence, so compliments on it are meaningless. However, I can influence my appearance with clothing and cosmetic and hairdressing choices, so a compliment from someone who sees me regularly on a specific aspect of my appearance is appreciated, because then I know what I'm doing right. The opinions of strangers who have never seen me before simply do not make me feel good, under any circumstances.

So how can you be "nice" to a strange young woman? The single best thing you can do is respect my reality. You seem to be aware of it, because you are aware that your attempt to compliment could be taken the wrong way, so now respect it. You know that I get unwanted attention, you know that you're most likely not my first choice of person I want attention from, you know that I have the burden of not leading anyone on and there are a significant number of men who are extremely easily led on, so simply respect and understand that that's where I'm coming from. Backing off at the first sign that your attentions are unwanted or that you're making me uncomfortable is an excellent way to show goodwill. If you don't back off, you leave me no choice but to assume your motives are impure. And don't sit there saying "But I'm just trying to be nice!" You are, by your own admission, old enough to be my father, you are a columnist for a major national newspaper, so you are obviously worldly enough to know that a common tactic of cads and predators is to try to make their target feel guilty for not obeying her instincts. As the initiator of an unnecessary and likely unwanted social interaction, the onus is upon you to make it clear to your interlocutor that your intentions are pure, and you don't do that by trying to guilt her into accepting unwanted and uncomfortable attention. Even Miss Manners will attest to the fact that it is rude to try to force anything upon anyone when they have attempted to gracefully opt out.

Let me give you some examples of middle-aged men with whom I came into contact involutariliy, but who I still thought were nice. Perhaps you can see the common thread:

- The guy who came into my apartment to replace my kitchen floor. He moved the stove for me (building management had told me that I was responsible for moving it, but I'm not strong enough) and told me that it was no problem, even though that wasn't part of his job and I'm sure his union would have encouraged him to refuse. Then he went about replacing my floor in a perfectly businesslike manner, allowing me to go about my morning routine without interruption. He put the stove back, made sure the floor was perfectly clean, and left my apartment in a timely manner. He was perfectly polite but never once acted the slightest bit entitled to my attention. He never once gave my body or any part of the apartment except the floor that he was fixing an assessing glance. I felt comfortable enough with him in the apartment that I would have changed clothes behind a closed bedroom door if necessary (albeit standing next to the door so that my body would have prevented it from opening.)

- The backup superintendant, who had to come to my apartment on an urgent basis because of a leaking pipe. Again, he went straight down to business, explained things to me, never once looked at me anywhere but in my eyes or at my apartment anywhere but the toilet (which he was fixing), accepted my inexperience with plumbing as a reasonable basis for my possibly calling him for a non-emergency but didn't use it as a tool to make me feel stupid (in fact, he treated me like my actions were laudable when we found that the leak was in fact something that could have developed into an emergency). I felt comfortable around him that when we needed to move two packages of feminine hygiene products to access the toilet tank, it didn't make me feel awkward or embarrassed at all.

- My supervisor at my previous job. It was clear to me that he was well aware that I was an attractive female university student in an otherwise all-male office and that this made the office's dynamics different than if it had been gender-balanced or all male, but he handled the situation admirably. There were a couple of instances where I had to be treated differently because of my realities (in one case, I didn't want to do a resnet installation in the private residence room of a (male, extremely tall, extremely strong, no sense of personal space) student who creeped me out, and in other cases there was some equipment that I simply could not lift, but all the guys could) but he didn't make a big deal of it, he just assigned me to different work and in no way used it as an excuse to question my overall competence. He was perhaps a touch too chivalrous at times, but he made up for that by recognizing that I had been in the office longer and knew How Things Are Done, and I returned this respect by giving him the information he needed to make decisions, but deferring to him for the actual decisions.

In none of these cases did any of these gentlemen ever comment on my appearance, and there has never been a situation in my life where a strange man has commented on my appearance and it made me think that he's nice.

My morning adventure

I woke up this morning to a bizarro noise. I looked out the window, and saw that there were pigeons on my balcony. This is unusual because I have a bird net, and these guys had somehow gotten BEHIND the bird net and were now trapped on my side. There were two on the balcony, and a third on the outside of the bird net squawking frantically at the other two. They were obviously quite scared, so I figured I had to something about it.

So I grabbed a piece of bread (to distract the pigeons) and a stick (to wave them away if necessary), and went out on the balcony fresh out of bed: ugly sleepwear, greasy hair, bad breath, dirty glasses, maybe a trace of yesterday's mascara around my eyes - the pigeons were terrified! I threw a piece of bread to the far end of the balcony to keep them away from me, but I needn't have - they ignored the bread, huddled closely together, alternating between looking fearfully at me and looking longingly through the small space between the front and side balcony wall. I'm alternating between feeling sorry for them and desperately wanting them not to poo.

So I speak soothingly to them while trying to lift up a section of the bird net. However, I am faced with the conundrum that they don't want to go near me, but the bird net can only be lifted if I'm near it. I briefly consider pushing them through the small space through which they are desperately peering, but I figure that would be dangerous since they can't spread their wings while going through that space. So I take my stick and try to use it to lift up a section of the net that's above the pigeons' heads.

Apparently this was the scariest, most threatening thing I could possibly have done. The pigeons looked at me, briefly conferred among themselves, and then decided that rather than spend any longer in this horrifying situation, they'd take a life-or-death leap through the too-small space where they'd have to jump without being able to spread their wings. They cooed at each other briefly, possibly saying something along the lines of "If we don't make it, please know that I'll always love you," and made the leap. They swooped, spread their wings, soared, and ended up on the roof of a nearby building. I collected my stick and untouched bread, and decided that I'll tied down the bird net better after I've gotten myself less terrifying-looking.

If this happens again, I'm just pushing them off through that little space.

Why do people live in the suburbs?

I was reading a chat on the Globe and Mail site about the suburbs, and was somewhat surprised to see all the focus on making them less car-dependent and giving them more amenities like stores and doctors. Don't get me wrong, I like car-free living and convenient local amenities. That's why I moved to Midtown. But do suburbanites actually value those things?

When I was a kid, I once heard my father said, in response to a proposal to run a bus line near our house, that it was a waste to do so because people who lived in our area obviously aren't going to take the bus - if they had wanted to take the bus, they wouldn't have moved somewhere that required a car. (That's an extremely disheartening thing to hear when you're in your early teens and just starting to like the idea of maybe going places without your parents having to drive you!) This makes me think that the people who choose to move to the suburbs (as opposed to their dependent children and aging parents) might not value other lifestyles.

So let's think: why would you move to the suburbs?

1. Because you like the lifestyle
2. Because it's not your lifestyle of choice, but it's the best you can do with the resources you have

The people who fall under category 1 obviously aren't going to want public transit or the amenities that come with density, or, like my father said, they would have chosen to live elsewhere. As for category 2, there are two possibilities: (a) instead of the suburbs, they value a rural environment, and (b) instead of the suburbs, they value an urban environment.

If they value a rural environment, what would drive them to the suburbs? Not money, but possibly convenience - the commute from the countryside to wherever they have to work (statistically more likely to be in an urban area) is just too far. So would someone in this situation appreciate more amenities and transit? It's likely that they wouldn't, since it would make their environment even less rural. (I know that sounds strange, but it was long a cornerstone of urban planning that housing should be separate from commercial areas, so there must be people out there that value that.)

And if they value an urban environment, what would drive them to the suburbs? Money, pure and simple, as urban property values are especially ridiculous. These people, I can see why they would enjoy more transit and amenities. But I can't really see why people in the other categories would.

So the big question: what percentage of suburbanites would rather be urbanites?

I have a new skill

Take something softish and handfull-sized, like a beanbag or a foam ball or a koosh or a wadded-up facecloth. Toss it gently from hand to hand.

Dead easy.

Now do the same thing with your eyes closed.

Can you do it?

I can!

I have no idea whether this is a normal thing to be able to do or not. From a purely logical perspective, it seems like it shouldn't be humanly possible. Although if I can do it, most people probably can. In general I'm spectacuarly uncoordinated.

Smells like piano lessons

5:25 p.m. on the hottest day of my life so far. I'm sitting in my office finishing up some quality control work when one of the cleaning people comes in. This is normal for this time of day, so I pay little attention, going about my business as she goes about hers, until she walks past my cube and suddenly I smell something I haven't smelled in a good seven years: piano lessons.

The cleaning lady smells like piano lessons.

She must be wearing the same perfume as my piano teacher did.

I took piano lessons for 12 years, and never realized that my piano teacher actually wore perfume. The whole time I thought that was just what her house smelled like. I haven't seen her at all in the 21st century, but I can still instantly identify her perfume.

That makes me want to wear perfume. It would be kind of cool if, years later, random people suddenly caught a whiff of something and thought it smelled like me. Wait, that didn't come out quite right...

Interesting demographic phenomenon

With the baby boomer population reaching retirement age, we're going to have an interesting phenomenon in the next 10 years or so: a generation of seniors that (for the most part, using the gross generalizations that are necessary to demography) did not live through hardship when they were young.

It's sort of a cultural touchstone that Seniors Suffered Through Hardship. The 1930s were the Great Depression, the 1910s and 1940s were World Wars, so anyone who lived through those decades was (at least during my lifetime) generally considered to have Been Through Hardship. But the boomers? Nothing so all-encompassing. Individuals went through hardships, sure, but the generation as a whole was born and raised in an era that is, by general cultural consensus, idealistic and propserous. Their childhood is the touchstone that people harken back to when they want to evoke A Better Time or The Good Old Days.

I wonder how that's going to effect society as a whole, to have elders who are not considered to have been through hardship - and, with the economy and employment patterns being what they are, to have possibly enjoyed more security and propserity than their children and grandchildren ever will?

One more point about gym class

An addendum to my explanation of why gym class should not be mandatory:

Think of all the things you were forced to do when you were a kid, but hated doing.

How many of those things do you actively seek out as an adult?
How many of those things do you actively avoid as an adult?

What do people enjoy about being an adult? Ask around, google the blogosphere, bring it up as a "getting to know you" question, and you'll get comments on eating cookies instead of brussel sprouts, staying up as late as you want, not being dragged to churches you don't believe in and smelly bigoted relatives' houses, seeing something you want in a store and simply buying it yourself.

Essentially, the joy of adulthood comes down to being able to choose not to do the things you hated doing as a kid. Except in cases of psychological abuse or brainwashing, I've never heard of someone who hates to do something suddenly starting to love it because they were forced to do it for even longer, and I've never in any case heard of a grown adult suddenly starting to love the things they were forced against their will to do as a kid.

Frankly, I'm rather surprised that so many people seem to think more mandatory phys. ed. is a solution. Obviously these aren't he people who hated phys. ed. as kids, but can't they draw just one simple parallel with their own memories of things they hated as a kid and see that this isn't going to work?

Dual citizenship: points to keep in mind

With the recent evacuation of Canadian citizens from Lebanon, there has been some debate on Canada's policies on dual citizenship. Coincidentally, I recently did some research on dual citizenship, and learned a number of interesting things that I haven't seen mentioned in this debate:

1. Some countries don't have a mechanism for renouncing citizenship. It simply cannot be done. There is no enabling legal statute, their computers simply do not allow a citizen to be deleted from the database, basically you can't renounce your citizenship any more than you can walk into city hall and buy a fish licence for your pet fish, Eric. Some people have brought up the idea of requiring new Canadian citizens to renounce any other citizenships. But what would happen if the other country didn't recognize the renunciation?

2. In some countries, citizenship is automatically hereditary. Any child of a citizen is also a citizen. This means that there may be some dual citizens walking around who don't even know that they are dual citizens. From a more pratical perspective, it is quite possible for someone to be born in Canada and inherit a citizenship from an immigrant parent, but not speak the language of the old country since they have lived all their lives in Canada. Since not all countries publish their citizen information in English or French, these unwilling dual citizens would not even be able to do the research to learn whether they are dual citizens and how or if they can renounce their other citizenship. (Realistically, the parent may well be able to help, but we can't make policy that assumes everyone's parents are living and willing and able to help them.)

3. Parents deal with citizenship issues on behalf of their minor children. I don't know the details here, but if a couple with young children immigrates, no one is going to ask, say, a six-year-old to take the citizenship exam and the oath. Teenagers maybe, I'm not sure, but simple logic dictates that parents must be able to act on their children's behalf for citizenship as with any other legal matter. If the whole citizenship thing happens when the kid is too young to understand, and they've been a Canadian citizen as long as they can remember, they may well not think to look into their old country citizenship status. I myself know some people who immigrated as children, have been Canadian citizens for decades, and only recently learned that they still hold old country citizenship after being informed that they might by someone else in the same position.

These sound like minor exceptional cases, but we need to take them into consideration when making dual citizenship policies - especially since they can occur in combination.

Picture this: a family immigrates and becomes Canadian citizens when their children are young. The children grow up and have children in Canada, with these children automatically being Canadian citizens. The children grow up, the grandparents (i.e. the original adult immigrants) pass away. However, unbeknownst to any of the survivors (and perhaps to the grandparents, since they didn't have internet when they immigrated), the old country has hereditary citizenship with no way of renouncing it. So one of the Canadian-born generation travels to the old country on a classic 20-something journey of self-discovery, when disaster strikes and they need to be evacuated. But guess what? They can't be evacuated because it turns out they're a citizen of the old country, even though they're born in Canada, in Old Country for the first time in their life, and hardly even speak the language!