This song will not leave my head

Move Along - The All-American Rejects

Things They Should Invent (incompetent linguist edition)

1. Google should publicly post how many pages they have indexed in each language. I'm sure some computer somewhere has this information because in non-English versions of Google you get the option to search only pages that are written in the interface language. It would help in cases where I'm trying to figure out if something is idiomatic. For example, the other day I was trying to figure out if a certain word is in fact a real word in a relatively small language that I can't speak or read. I googled the word, and got maybe a hundred hits. That seems low, but it is a small language and not the most common of words. What I really wanted to know is whether a hundred hits in the other language was proportionate to the number of hits I'd get for the equivalent English word in English. If the ratio of hits in each language was close to the ratio of total pages indexed in each language, then it's likely it was a real word.

2. HowDoYouPronounceThisWord.com You post a word, people reply with an audio file of its pronunciation. They could have some kind of functionality to make it super-easy to upload an audio file - you simply press "record" on the interface rather than having to save and upload your own file, for example. And, of course, there would need to be some kind of screening and moderation to prevent it from degenerating into Yahoo Answers.

The biggest dog I've ever seen

Giant cow dog!

(I don't know the story, I have no further context, I was just sent the picture.)

How to eliminate all but the most medically necessary late-term abortions

I know, this is a boring topic, but I'm just gonna do this one real quick post with a practical solution to a specific problem that has only recently come to my attention, and then on to more interesting things. They're going through the motions of dropping it, so I'll do the same.

In reading the comment pages lately (I know, I know), I'm surprised at how many people are concerned specifically about late-term abortion. I always thought it was more of an "abortions for all" vs. "abortions for none" dichotemy, but it seems for some people it makes a lot of difference how far along the gestation is.

Strange issue that never occurred to me, but luckily I have a solution that will reduce late-term abortion specifically:

Make timely abortion easily accessible to everyone.

If you can just get on the bus one day at your convenience, go down to the local abortion clinic, get your abortion, and take the bus back home where you can recover quietly, you're going to get it within a week of peeing on the stick, possibly the same day. However, if you have to plan out-of-town (out-of-province? out-of-country?) travel, scrounge together a bunch of money, take a day off work and lose a day's pay in the process, find a sitter, convince someone to come with you because you can't drive yourself home after an abortion and the only way to get to the clinic is by car, and/or ditch your overprotective parents and find someplace to crash out of their sight while you recover, that will seriously hinder your ability to get it done in the first trimester.

So if, for whatever reason, the idea of late-term abortion bothers you, the thing to do is lobby for increased access for everyone. That will eliminate late-term abortion in all cases except those upredictable ones where the fetus just goes kerflooey (or whatever it is happens - I'm not up on the third trimester) and has to be removed.

Things They Should Invent: curling irons with switchable barrels

If you want to volumize, you need a large-barrelled curling iron. If you want tight curls or a little nest of curls at the top of your updo or those little accent ringlets, you need a small-barrelled curling iron.

But the same people often want both, either in the same intricate hairdo, or in different simpler hairdos that they have in their repertoire. So you have to own multiple curling irons.

Why not make one curling iron where you can switch out the barrels as needed?

The other reason why I don't want to reopen the abortion debate

Some MP wants to reopen the abortion debate. Here's the other reason why I don't want this to happen, apart from all the usual reasons:

Actually, that really says it all, doesn't it? "All the usual reasons." We've been through this before. They'd been through it all before I was even born, and we've been going over the same material over and over my whole life. There's nothing new, there's nothing innovative, there's nothing that hasn't been said before I was born, it's boring!

There are plenty of other exciting things going on politically. We're facing the biggest economic crisis most of us have ever seen. Such sacred cows of our capitalist system as investment in stocks and real estate are proving to have feet of clay, if that isn't too mixed a metaphor. Both our manufacturing base and our social safety net desperately need to be either rebuilt or completely revamped. Meanwhile, we might have a coalition government for the first time in most of our lives. The constitutional role of the Governor General is in the spotlight, as are the pros and cons of proportional representation. We have a governing party whose favourite method is ad hominem attacks, and a new opposition leader whose most attackable past public statements happen to be things that the leader of the governing party is likely to agree with. We might have deflation for the first time I've ever heard of, which regardless of how often economists say it's a bad thing sounds pretty tempting to me (have you seen gas prices lately?). Meanwhile, the US seems to be moving to the left while our country seems to be moving to the right, which calls into questions all kinds of core assumptions, but we might be in a stronger position economically (that seems to be the opinion of domestic media, I haven't corrobrated with international media). The local condo (I just typed "condom") market is apparently poised to crash any minute. There are a bevy of new environmental initiatives out there, some brilliant and some ridiculous.

And these guys just want to keep flogging a dead horse?

March of the Penguins drinking game

Every time a penguin falls down, take a drink.

(Yes, Poodle, this means I completely disregarded your advice. I take full responsibility.)

Powdering one's nose

"I have to go powder my nose" is a conventional euphemism for "I have to go to the bathroom."

But does anyone actually powder their nose as their primary make-up touch-up?

Personally, if I'm going to powder anything, it's going to be my forehead. I might do my nose, but my forehead gets shiny way sooner and if anything needs a touch-up it's either that or the lipstick.

Do other people's noses get shiny first?

Half-formed analogy

This one's not perfectly formed yet, but I think it might be productive so I'm posting it.

Yesterday I was kind of drained from all the xmas, plus my muscles were achy and I didn't have much of an appetite. So I spent the day alone with no interpersonal contact whatsoever, ate ridiculously little food, and went to bed way early to sleep myself better.

No one would ever dispute that it was entirely my right to spend the day that way.

However, I'm sure everyone would agree that I in no way have the right to make other people spend the day without human contact, eat no more than half a meal during the entire day, and go to bed way earlier than they usually do. It would also be exceeding my authority if I were to pressure other people into implying that they were going to spend the day this way, or set up situations where their presence or not-rocking-the-boat would imply that they were planning to spend the day this way and they'd have to make a Big Hairy Deal to ensure that people don't interpret their actions that way.

Some people say that atheists are trying to stop xians from enjoying xmas, but that's not what we're doing. We just don't want to do xmas ourselves, and don't appreciate our actions or quiet cooperation being considered part of xmas.

You don't care that I spent my day like I did, but you probably wouldn't want to spend your day the same way. You'd probably also be a little irked if every time in the two months before boxing day, if you walk past the store without buying food, people assume that this means you plan to not eat very much on boxing day.

To do next time the Canada-US exchange rate is favourable

I just thought of this now, but I wish I'd thought of it a year ago.

If there are US retailers you like to shop at, buy yourself a bunch of gift cards from them when the exchange rate is favourable. Then when the exchange rate worsens, you can use your gift cards and it will be just like spending money at the better exchange rate.

In other worse, if I had bought myself some gift cards when the dollars were at par, the $114 US purchase I just put in my cart would cost me $114 CAD instead of $138 CAD.

To find out before carrying this out: do US gift cards expire?

I'm back, I just have nothing to blog about

Here's Eddie instead:

Once more with feeling

(lyrics NSFW)

The problem with calling the police is you can't call them off

This is a bit meandering, but I do have a point eventually.

It started with poor Gregg Moynagh. The fact that the police couldn't deal with a man in crisis armed with knives without shooting him frightens me, because this means I can't ever call 911 if I should ever have a loved one in crisis.

So this got me thinking about what I would do if someone was in crisis and had knives, which got me thinking about the choreography and potential for injury in fighting someone with a knife. And after thinking about this for a while, I came to the conclusion that the risk of getting cut or killed is very real, but the possibility of talking them down or disarming them is still great enough that I'd be willing to take that risk for someone I cared enough about, especially if the alternative is them getting shot. So perhaps the police aren't as willing to risk their own lives, which isn't very Starfleet of them but they are human and that's not my point here.

My point is this: suppose I have a loved one in crisis. Suppose he has knives. Suppose I call 911 and the police show up. Suppose the police tell him to put down the knives or they'll shoot shoot. At this point, I am no longer allowed to decide I'd rather risk myself getting stabbed than him getting shot. The police would stop me. Because I'm a civilian, I'm not allowed to make that decision in the presence of the police. Because some random police officers aren't willing to risk their lives for a stranger, I'm not allowed to risk my life for someone I love.

Even if you trust the police to behave proerly in all situations, that's still not comfortable.

Why medical interpreters are important

Think about the last time you were in pain. Describe the pain. Not just "My foot hurt," but describe how exactly it hurt, the flavour of the pain.

Think about the last time you felt like something might be wrong, you weren't quite sure, and were debating whether to go to the doctor. Describe what exactly you were feeling and experiencing.

Think about the last time one of your bodily excretions was abnormal. Describe it like you would to a doctor who needs to diagnose it but doesn't get to see it.

If you've been pregnant, think about the odd feeling you got that, in retrospect, told you you were pregnant before you even noticed your missing period. Pretend it's your first pregnancy and you don't know that this feeling means pregnant. Describe the feeling.

If you've ever done fertility awareness, describe what your cervical mucus is like when you're ovulating. Not what textbook cervical mucus is like, what your own personal cervical mucus is like.

If you've ever had a panic attack or a depressive episode or anything else that can be found in the DSM, describe what you felt and experienced. Not cold textbook symptoms, where your head and your emotions were at during the episode.

Now describe all these things in your second language (or your favourite non-first language). Right now, off the cuff, without reaching for a dictionary.

You lose a lot of nuance, don't you? You can do the gross concept, but the fine details just don't turn out right.

This is why medical interpreters are important.

Learning the English you need to do your job and go about everyday life is far, far easier than describing these delicate nuanced things, especially when you don't know what aspects are and are not important for the doctor to know. I'm a language professional and I've done medical translation, but I don't even think I could describe the nature of my pain or the odd qualities of my bodily fluids in another language off the cuff. I could use my computer and my dictionaries and thesauruses the internet and come up with a decent prepared statement if I had a bit of time and was in my right mind, but if I'm in such a bad state that I'm being hospitalized I'm not going to be nearly articulate enough. I could write a formal business letter or discuss the history of coalition governments in Canada or draw up a union grievance or fake being an air traffic controller in French (not that air traffic controllers really work in French that much) better than I could describe my pain in French.

Needing a medical interpreter is not a sign of laziness or insufficient English. It's merely symptomatic of the fact that people rarely need to be able to describe symptoms in full and proper nuance in their everyday life.

Interesting horoscopes this year

From the Star:

Answers to some vexing questions will begin to arrive within the next six weeks. This will allow you to start afresh on an emotional issue. Your next year will end on a fantastic note.

From the G&M:

A sun-Pluto aspect on your birthday this year will make you assertive in the extreme. You don't have to be domineering but you probably will be.

The good news is it's a role you seem destined to play, so play it for all it is worth. It could be fun.

Too bad these things never come true.

Things They Should Invent: service to take charitable donations to charities

There are a lot of charities that will accept donations of various things. However, it's usually incumbent upon the donor to get the donation to the charity. This is problematic when the donor doesn't have a car, which happens often in urban areas.

Solution: a service where people pick up your charitable donations and take it to the appropriate charity.

What's people's motivation to do this? If pure volunteerism isn't enough, it could be done by people who need community service hours (high school students and people who have been charged with minor criminal offences). Those who have cars can do the schlepping (maybe they could swing it so their mileage expenses count as a tax-deductable charitable donation?) and those who don't have cars could answer phones, schedule pick-ups, and find charities who will take the various items people have to donate.

I'm thinking maybe it could even be done almost entirely online to minimize need for overhead. People could book pick-ups and do research online, so they wouldn't necessarily have to go into some central office. There probably would need to be a central office, but it could be small and maybe even in donated space belonging to a larger organization.

Things They Should Invent: divide "sense of humour" into two separate concepts

"A good sense of humour" can mean either of two things. It can mean that the person finds things funny easily, or finds a wide variety of things funny. (This is the definition that Laughlab used when comparing different countries, and it was the definition used in that study a while back that determined that women don't have a good sense of humour.) It can also mean that when the person tries to make a joke, it ends up being a good joke that makes most people laugh.

These two concepts are not interchangeable, and can even be incompatible. If you're in the audience watching a stand-up comedian, you want them to be able to make up good jokes. However, you don't want them to be the kind of person who finds things funny extremely easily. If they find things funny too easily, they'll just stand there on stage and say "Dude, I farted!" and expect a laugh.

If you're listening to the joke, your idea of a good sense of humour in your interlocutor is a very high standard of what's worthy of a laugh. If you're telling the joke, your idea of a good sense of humour in your interlocutor is a very low standard of what's worthy of a laugh.

These really need to be two separate concepts with two different names, because they aren't really interchangeable.

Look at the baby turtle!

Teeny!

Why I don't like this number

For reasons I can't articulate, I've always associated 28 with a certain degree of coolness. For like half my life, it's been the age I've had in mind when thinking about when I'm properly grown up and have got it all together.

While I do have one or two things going on, there's no way I'm going to hit that level of coolness by tomorrow. Which, again for reasons I can't articulate, makes me feel like I'm never going to hit it.