Sexy tune

Temptation - Diana Krall

Things They Should Invent: karmameter.com

I spent my childhood in catholicism and my adolescence and adulthood on the internet. As a result, I want a website to keep track of my guilt for me.

I'm always justifying my vices by my virtues. If I don't exercise one morning, I justify it by the fact that I had two salads the previous day. If I fail to take an opportunity to do something generous, I justify it by other instances of generosity. If I buy expensive shoes, I justify it by the fact that I haven't been to a movie in theatres in ages whereas some people go every week.

But I have no idea if I'm justifying things fairly. I want a website to keep track of it all for me. Like one of those weightwatchers tracker thingies. I enter my virtues and vices at the end of the day, and the site tells me how much karma I have stored up. The I can make the next day's decisions accordingly.

Today I set a record

Today I did absolutely nothing correctly. Every single thing I did I fucked up, at least a tiny little bit. From washing my hair in the morning to typing this post just now.

Things They Should Invent: job security as economic stimulus

You are not going to lose your job in this economic crisis.

Wouldn't that get you spending money? No reason to put of any purchases, go ahead and splurge on those awesome shoes, your next paycheque will still be there.

If the gov't could guarantee no one will lose income for the duration, consumer confidence would be 100%.

I wonder why I can't adjust my glasses

I've been wearing glasses for 15 years, and I still can't figure out how to do my own adjustments. It seems like it should be logical. The left pad is giving me a bit of an owie, so I need less weight on the left and more weight on the right, so I need to move them just a skinch this way, but it never actually works.

I wonder if there's some kind of class I could take or something.

Things They Should Invent: "dry as efficiently as possible" dryer setting

Yesterday I washed a load of big, fluffy, brand new towels. Being big, fluffy, brand new towels, they soaked up a lot of water in the wash and therefore took a long time to dry. I set my dryer on the same energy-efficient settings I always use, low temperature and "Rotary Iron" (which means that it will dry until 20% of the moisture is left - I hang them up to dry the rest of the way). The dryer ran for 2 hours and 20 minutes on these settings, which is a really long time (I've hardly ever seen a dryer run for more than an hour).

I have been told by a number of sources that dryers take more energy generating heat than just tumbling, so it's generally better to use low heat even if the dryer runs for longer. But this incredibly long drying time made me think that perhaps there's some threshold, some point where it's more efficient to apply a certain amount of heat so the motor doesn't have to run for 2.5 hours. I don't know how to work that out, but perhaps the dryer with its internal moisture sensors could be programmed to do so.

I'd like to have the option of setting the dryer to dry in whatever way is most energy efficient, using heat or not, whatever needs to be done. I don't want this to be the only setting - with certain clothes you don't want it to use heat at all - but I'd like to have the option for things like big towel loads or bedspreads.

Privilege?

When we're told we have privilege based on our demographics, we tend to immediately respond "No I don't!"

But it occurs to me that maybe we just don't see it because it manifests itself as everything going smoothly and normally.

This train of thought started with this article from last month about why some taxis refuse short trips. This surprised me because I had no idea short trips were less profitable. I'd assumed they were more profitable because the base fare made up a greater percentage of the total fare (therefore the driver earned more $ per km). It also surprised me because I use taxis for very short trips when I buy something big, and I have never - not once - got even the slightest sign that it was a problem. It's usually only a few blocks, costs me $4 which I've been tippin up to $5 or $6 if I have a loonie (although seeing in that article how little money they make, I plan to increase that), and since I thought the economics of the trip were different I've always brightly reassured the driver as I flagged him down that it was just a short trip, only a couple of blocks, would only take a minute of his time. And every single time not only has the first cab I spotted stopped for me and accepted my short and unprofitable fare, but every single time he was actively polite and gracious about it.

So why the gracious and polite 100% success rate? It would be ungenerous for me to assume it isn't because the vast majority of our taxi drivers are good and ethical and will take every fare. But I can't help but notice that I'm a white girl (perhaps an attractive and/or well-dressed white girl, depending on how together I am that day and the cabbie's standards of what constitutes attractive and well-dressed), in one of Toronto's better neighbourhoods, with a bit of a damsel in distress vibe going on (skirt, heels, scrawny arms, big heavy box to carry home).

If it is a privilege thing, it was completely invisible to me. When you flag down a cab and it stops and drives you home on what you thought was a quick, easy, and profitable-per-km trip, you don't think that you've just received privilege. That's just life happening normally and unremarkably.

Which makes me wonder what else I'm not noticing.

A childhood classic, updated

This is genius. They've taken a classic from our squeaky-clean 80s childhood and updated it for our darker and more adult 21st-century sensibilities.

Why Metro is not a good name for a supermarket

They've renamed a bunch of supermarkets (Dominion, A&P, The Barn, and maybe others) to Metro. This name change doesn't work for anyone. We're all just obstinately continuing to call it Dominion, and when we do have to say Metro we have to clarify - "Metro, you know, the grocery store that used to be Dominion".

At first I was saying this is because Metro is already used for several other things. It's a free subway newspaper. It's the subway in Montreal and Paris. It's a now-defunct-but-still-remembered level of government. In some newspapers it is or was the name of the local news section. And I do think this is part of the reason why the new name doesn't work.

But the rest of the reason why it doesn't work is because Metro doesn't sound more like a supermarket than the previous names do. It doesn't necessarily sound less like a supermarket (Dominion and A&P don't especially sound like a supermarket) but we're used to our supermarkets having those names. There have been supermarkets called Dominion and A&P and The Barn since I was a kid. But we aren't used to our supermarkets being called Metro, so it has no particular supermarket associations for us. So now our supermarket sounds no more supermarkety objectively, and less supermarkety subjectively. It's not a useful change.

Helper Monkeys!!!

Why can we still see youtubes that have been taken down?

When a youtube is embedded, you can see a still from the video. Then you click on the Play symbol and it starts playing.

However, if the embedded youtube has been removed from YouTube (like this one - sorry, I cannot remember what that clip actually was) you can still see the still to start with.

I wonder why?

I seem to have somehow inadvertently become posh. In a bad way.

The mission was simple: try on every pair of red heels in Yorkdale. (It's not as onerous as it sounds - there's only a few per store, some are ruled out automatically based on their pencil-thin heels or other characteristics that I can tell at first glance are unworkable, many aren't available in double-digit sizes. I think only about half a dozen pairs got as far as my attempting to squeeze my feet in.) As I'm doing that, I see a number of other interesting shoes, but I really don't feel like trying them on. Why? Not because trying on is annoying (which is my usual reason) but because being in the crowds is annoying. There were just so many people around - loud people, slow people, people with kids, tourists - and I was frustrated with navigating through these annoying crowds who seemed to want to do everything but efficiently shop for one specific item.

As I dodged my 12th stroller-pushing cellphone-talker who had decided to come to a full stop right in front of me, I found myself thinking of a time earlier this year when I had ventured into a small designerish store on Queen West. The store is quite clearly several orders of magnitude cooler than anyone I've ever met will ever be, the prices are really pushing the topmost limit of what could be at all justified (even under my new Shut Up And Buy It Already policy), and it was the kind of place that's set up so you have to have to get personal attention and can't just casually browse. But one item they had really intrigued me and was actually reasonably priced (for good reason - it turned out it didn't fit) so I went. I really had to muster up every ounce of bravery and go in emoting a "Fuck you, I am SO cool enough to be in here" vibe (it was so cool I can't even put together a single outfit that's cool enough - I had to aim for "I'm so cool I don't even need to make an effort to dress cool"). So I went in, inquired knowledgeably about the one item I was looking for, and was assisted by some very attractive and perky gay men who were incredibly knowledgeable about the products.

So as I was making my way through Yorkdale, it occurred to me that I could go back to this little store, tell them what specific characteristics I need, and sit back and relax as they brought me every shoe in the store that might meet my specifications and used their expert knowledge of the products to find something that will work for me. And the thought did cross my mind that it might be worth the extra money just to not have to deal with the crowds and the frustration of constantly explain no, really, I do want to try it on in the largest size you have, seriously, my feet are that big and probably bigger, and no, an 8 won't do, I haven't fit into an 8 since I was like 9 years old.

So it seems I've somehow become the kind of person who is willing to spend extra money to be waited on hand and foot and not have to deal with the proletariat. This is not good. I don't want to be that kind of person.

What luck has to do with it.

Someone in the Toronto Star writes about how people keep telling her she's lucky when really it's because of her hard work. That's interesting to me, because my professional success is entirely due to luck, but people keep telling me that it's not luck, it's because I'm smart and talented and work hard and learn quickly. A lot of people seem really invested in believing this, but it simply is not the reality I've experienced.

It is true that I work hard and learn quickly (can't speak to whether I'm smart and talented because my smarts and talents, whatever they may be, are all that I know), but that's not why I have a good job. From the fact that it took four years for me to convince an employer to hire me for a minimum-wage food-service job because no one wanted to hire someone who had never had a job, to the prospective employer just after my graduation who wouldn't hire me because I have a degree and the (bilingual tech-support) job didn't require one (still don't know why I got as far as the second interview), the vast majority of my job-seeking life has been characterized by employers who were unwilling to hire me for a job I am perfectly capable of doing. Being smart, talented, hard-working, and quick-learning has never been enough; what success I've had has been all about luck.

Here's all the luck it took me to get here:

In Grade 12, the first OAC French class (which was traditionally taken in Grade 12) conflicted with Grade 12 Music. Since technically you don't have to take the two OAC French classes in order and I was top in the class at French, they put me in the second OAC French class (which was traditionally taken in your OAC year (i.e. Grade 13 for the young'uns and the non-Ontarians)). Since you don't do your university apps until your OAC year, when people from the French-language and bilingual universities would come to talk to my class, I'd ignore the presentation and sit quietly reading the literature they handed out. It was in one of these booklets that I saw that you could major in translation. If I hadn't been in the "wrong" French class, I would never have learned that translation is a job that people can do.

In OAC, I finally got my first paying job. Why? Because it came up in the interview that I wanted to study translation, and the business owner's sister-in-law is a translator. If it hadn't been for that coincidence, I probably would never have gotten a paying job before university (which would have hindered my ability to get a paying job after starting university).

There was an entrance exam to enter the translation program. I applied to the program and was accepted pending a successful entrance exam, but I was never informed of the date and time of the exam. I happened to wander onto their website one day and found that the exam had taken place two weeks prior. I contacted them in a panic, and they very kindly let me come in and write the exam privately. If they hadn't extended that kindness (despite the fact that the number of candidates was already 10 or 20 times the number of available places) I would never have gotten into the program.

Once in, I managed to get an on-campus job doing tech support. I'm good at tech support, but people tend not to believe me on this because I've never formally studied computer science. So how did I swing the job? Because I was a translation student who had been on exchange to Germany, and the person doing the hiring was a translation grad of German descent who was self-taught in her own tech support skills. It was a good student job, well-paying as such jobs go, awesome people to work with and good opportunity to network with profs and staff. If tech support was being run by some comp sci grad, my resume probably would never have gotten looked at twice.

In the hopes of finding a full-time paying summer job, I applied for every paid work-experience and internship program I could find even if it wasn't translation. I also applied for a translation practicum, which are generally unpaid. So imagine my surprise when I was offered a paid practicum! It wasn't until I started working that I learned this paid practicum fell under one of the other programs I'd applied for - I'd had no idea they had translation placements! If I hadn't applied for this seemingly unrelated program, I would never have gotten my practicum.

However, despite this offer of a paid practicum, I was seriously considering declining it. It was for only a month, and my on-campus job had offered me a full-time paid summer position. I mentioned this to the person who had originally hired me at my on-campus job, and she insisted that I should go and take the practicum because it was such a good and important experience, and arranged things so that I could do the practicum for one month and keep my own job for the other three. I hadn't understood how important the practicum was, but because she had studied translation she'd seen how important it was to her classmates. So if I hadn't had a boss who not only knew better than I did how important this was, but was also kind and generous enough to let me take this long-term career development step at the expense of making her summer staffing issues more complicated, I would never have done my practicum.

On my first day at my practicum, I got my first text to translate with an administrative workflow sheet attached that included a translation time estimate. I was told to ignore the translation time estimate because I was just a student, I wasn't expected to work that fast. But I decided, just for the hell of it, to try to translate the text within the allotted time. I was at a stage in my professional development where I wasn't sure when to stop poking at a text, so I decided I'd work on it for the allotted time and see what happens. If it wasn't nearly good enough, it was only my first text and I had a whole month to improve. So I translated my text in the allotted time, and it was perfectly fine. The only things that needed changing were a result of my inexperience, which I couldn't have improved by poking at it longer. So I did the same thing for the next text. And the next one. And so on and so on for the entire month I was there. Some texts were especially difficult and took me longer than the allotted time, but the vast majority of them I did complete within the allotted time, basically because it was as good a method as any of telling when to stop poking at a text. Unbeknownst to me, they were on a huge push to improve productivity, and they were so impressed by a student who could meet professional productivity levels that ultimately they decided to hire me. (Although it wasn't that simple, it took a year and some other random behind-the-scenes drama before that became solidified, so I didn't have the luxury of doing my fourth year secure in the knowledge I had a job waiting for me.) If I hadn't decided on a whim to try to race the clock, I would never have been offered a job.

This wasn't my entire job search arc, of course. There were hundreds of resumes unanswered, years spent unable to even get a job at Tim Hortons, one prospective employer unwilling to even consider me because I hadn't finished university while another prospective employer for what appeared to be an identical job unwilling to hire me because I had a degree, people unwilling to hire me part-time during school because I mentioned I'd be interested in doing full-time in the summer, all kinds of completely arbitrary decisions I don't understand. That's how far brains, talent, hard work and quick learning got me. But what I've listed above is literally every single time I have made any sort of advance in employment and career, and literally every single one was because of luck.

Things They Should Invent: Klingon translation of La Marseillaise

It occurs to me that the sentiments of La Marseillaise are rather Klingon. Someone should do a Klingon translation. Surprisingly, I can't seem to google one up.

My fangirling skills fail me

Eddie Izzard has just raised the bar for awesomeness everywhere.

My new goal in life is to one day find a way to do something equally awesome.

Are 58% of Canadians really partisan über alles?

Via Silver-Powers, 58% of the Canadian public is opposed to the "coalition if necessary but not necessarily coalition" policy.

Admittedly I am kind of biased in favour of this policy, but I still cannot imagine why that many people would be opposed to it.

I see why some are. Some people want the Conservatives to stay in power no matter what. Some people want the Conservatives to be overthrown no matter what. But 58% seems really high. "Coalition if necessary..." means the opposition parties will allow the government to govern if it governs adequately, and cause it to fall if it does not govern adequately. Surely 58% of Canadians don't prefer blind partisanship to that?

Hopefully this is just a symptom of the flaws in the poll that Mr. Powers and the commenters point out.

Ebay feedback

I was just looking at my ebay feedback, and it's so effusive! People are enthusiastically extolling my virtues as a buyer and giving me A+++++++++++++++++++, as far as I can tell on the basis that I pay within 24 hours of winning. I really haven't done anything exceptional.

Not realizing that this is the convention, I've been giving non-effusive feedback. Stuff like "Item exactly as described, fast shipping, everything went perfectly smoothly" Positive feedback that would be encouraging to future buyers who may have some doubts, but not at all effusive.

Now I'm wondering if in the world of ebay, non-effusive feedback reads as negative. You know how on an evaluation, "Good" or "Satisfactory" isn't actually a good result if the scale goes higher? I wonder if I've been inadvertently doing the same thing to my ebay sellers?

Things Google Blog Search Should Invent: hide duplicates

On Google News, we have three sorting options: sort by relevance, sort by date, and sort by date with duplicates included. This means that duplicate articles aren't shown unless you specifically ask for it.

Google Blog Search should have the same option. That would reduce interference from spam posts and multiple blogs linking to and quoting each other, thus giving our search results a better proportion of new and unique information.

Another reason why Do Unto Others doesn't work for introverts

We already know that because introverts don't get energized by interpersonal interaction and do get energized by being alone, doing unto others as we would have them do unto us doesn't work when socializing with the other 75% of the population.

It just occurred to me that it also doesn't work in the basic art of conversation.

A general rule of making conversation is that you should ask the other person about themselves, because people like talking about themselves. But this doesn't work on me. I mean, it will do for keeping the conversation going, but I get no particular pleasure from telling someone I just met that I live in Toronto and I work as a translator, yeah, straightforward French to English, but I also speak Spanish and German and Polish to varying degrees. So because I don't get anything out of telling them about myself, it doesn't occur to me that they'll get anything out of telling me about themselves so I keep forgetting to ask. Conversely, when it does occur to me to ask someone about something it's generally because I am genuinely interested, so I tend to subconsciously assume that if someone asks me about something it's because they're genuinely interested, so then I prattle on. So as a result, I come across as a standoffish egomaniac, when I am in fact just forgetting myself and doing unto others. I am working on answering inquiries about myself in a cursory manner and then reversing the question to the other person, but it doesn't come naturally and right now I've sort of got a "Oh, right, I'm supposed to ask about you too!" vibe going on.

In real life (as opposed to artificial small-talk interactions) if I have something to tell, I only get pleasure out of telling it to someone who's close to me, and with people who are close to me I can generally just walk up to/call/email them and launch into a story. You can totally go to your mother or partner or best friend and just dive right into what happened at work today. If it's a small anecdote that isn't of particular interest or particularly personal, I just blog it and people either read it or ignore it, no big deal. But it's not like I'm sitting on a supply of stuff that I'd get pleasure out of telling to a stranger or random acquaintance if only an opportunity would present itself. I suppose if I didn't blog my random anecdotes I would be, but my random anecdotes don't like to sit quietly inside my brain and tend to blurt themselves out at inappropriate moments if I don't get them blogged.