1. If you can't think of the word, instead of going "um, um, um" or "What's it called again?" give your interlocutor some kind of a hint - whatever kind of word association is currently going on in your brain. "That actress, that blonde lady who was married to that really ugly guy…" or "not mitigated, like the opposite of mitigated - like reducing positive impact the same way that mitigate means reducing negative impact". Then your interlocutor can help come up with the word or might arrive at the right answer instead of the whole conversation being stalled by um um um. It works - we've all been in a conversation where one person goes "That guy who made that other movie with the skinny guy" and the other person knows EXACTLY what they're talking about.
2. The answer to "Where can I buy something like that?" is never "Anywhere!" You need a narrower definition of "anywhere," since your interlocutor clearly has no frame of reference. A productive answer is "I got mine at Winner's, but I've also seen them at Shopper's or even some of the bigger Loblaws." Then they have some specific places to work with plus a general idea of the range of places that will sell the thing in question.
3. If the name of something has changed, you need to mention what it's best known as in collective consciousness, and you need to do this in the headline or the lede. People recognize Skydome even when they don't recognize Rogers Centre. People recognize Stelco even when they don't recognize U.S. Steel. People recognize Dominion or A&P even when they don't recognize Metro. If they recognize the thing being talked about, they'll read your article. If they don't, they'll skip over it.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
We live in a bloody swamp, we need all the land we can get
I really wish I had situations in my life where it would be appropriate (or at least not inappropriate) to wear this shirt.
Wherein being dishonest and assholicly literalist would have saved me a lot of money
My building has a thing where they give you a significantly lower rent increase if you sign another lease instead of going month to month. So when I went to sign another year's lease, there was a typo on the form and it said 2009-20010 instead of 2009-2010. I pointed it out, we all had a giggle and crossed out the extra zero, and I signed a lease until 2010.
It just occurred to me that if I hadn't pointed it out and we'd all signed the document with the typo in it, I'd have in hand a legal document signed by my landlord locking in my rent rate for my lifetime and beyond. Now it's true I might not want to live here for my entire life. However, the rule is that if you leave in the middle of your lease, you don't take any penalty if you can find someone to take over your lease. And I'm sure I could totally find someone who would want a locked-in-for-life rent rate in a rather nice building. They wouldn't have to worry about the excessively long-term lease, because the more time went by the more desirable it would be to pay 2009 rent. Imagine if today you had the opportunity to rent an apartment locked in at 1999 rates! Actually, if I waited 10 or 20 years, I could probably get away with subletting it at a profit, and everyone (except the landlord) would feel like they've won!
But partly because I was honest, partly because my first thought was "OMG, I don't want to sign a legal document with a mistake in it!", we corrected it and I completely missed an opportunity to screw over my landlord and save enormous amounts of money in the long term.
It just occurred to me that if I hadn't pointed it out and we'd all signed the document with the typo in it, I'd have in hand a legal document signed by my landlord locking in my rent rate for my lifetime and beyond. Now it's true I might not want to live here for my entire life. However, the rule is that if you leave in the middle of your lease, you don't take any penalty if you can find someone to take over your lease. And I'm sure I could totally find someone who would want a locked-in-for-life rent rate in a rather nice building. They wouldn't have to worry about the excessively long-term lease, because the more time went by the more desirable it would be to pay 2009 rent. Imagine if today you had the opportunity to rent an apartment locked in at 1999 rates! Actually, if I waited 10 or 20 years, I could probably get away with subletting it at a profit, and everyone (except the landlord) would feel like they've won!
But partly because I was honest, partly because my first thought was "OMG, I don't want to sign a legal document with a mistake in it!", we corrected it and I completely missed an opportunity to screw over my landlord and save enormous amounts of money in the long term.
Friday, March 13, 2009
The grocery store renovation conspiracy
When my Dominion was renovated into a Metro, the aisles were made a bit narrower. Now to get two carts and a pedestrian through the same space is a slow narrow squeeze, where before it was completely neutral. This means that every display that protrudes into the aisle, every party with two or more children, every pile of boxes of stuff to be stocked onto the shelves, every couple debating what kind of soy sauce to buy, everyone to stands next to instead of in front of or behind their cart to pick something off the shelf, they all cause minor gridlock. It's extremely frustrating because I could totally finish my shopping in half the time if they had reasonable traffic flow.
It occurred to me that maybe they're doing this on purpose so people will spend more time in the store. Once upon a time I read somewhere that the muzak in grocery stores was specifically chosen to make people walk slower so they'd spend more time. Maybe they're doing the same thing with their aisle width. Problem is, it raises my blood pressure. If there were another equally convenient grocery store with wider aisles, I'd go there in a second. Unfortunately, this is one is literally right on my way home - not even a step out of my way.
It occurred to me that maybe they're doing this on purpose so people will spend more time in the store. Once upon a time I read somewhere that the muzak in grocery stores was specifically chosen to make people walk slower so they'd spend more time. Maybe they're doing the same thing with their aisle width. Problem is, it raises my blood pressure. If there were another equally convenient grocery store with wider aisles, I'd go there in a second. Unfortunately, this is one is literally right on my way home - not even a step out of my way.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Colargol!
YES! I knew this existed! (His name was Jeremy in English. I've seen both, but I remembered the French better but didn't know how to spell it.) No one else seemed to remember it, but I knew I didn't imagine it!
Added: and here he is in English
Edited to add again, two more:
Dr. Snuggles:
The Green Forest:
Added: and here he is in English
Edited to add again, two more:
Dr. Snuggles:
The Green Forest:
Refining the quick fertility test
I previously came up with the idea of a quick general fertility test. Here's a thought on how it might work: test the menstruation for the presence of an ovum. If you've ovulated, the ovum should be somewhere in there, right?
Problems: the ovum is only one cell, so you'd have to go through ALL the menstruation to find it rather than just taking a sample. (Unless it leaves some sort of residuals behind?)
It wouldn't confirm the viability of the ovum, just the presence. That could help - if there's no ovum you've got your answer - but it wouldn’t be a definitive one-shot yes or no.
The test would have to be taken multiple months, because some people ovulate unreliably.
Nevertheless, if they could come up with a simple at-home method to test for the presence of an ovum in one's own menstruation, that would give us considerably more information.
Problems: the ovum is only one cell, so you'd have to go through ALL the menstruation to find it rather than just taking a sample. (Unless it leaves some sort of residuals behind?)
It wouldn't confirm the viability of the ovum, just the presence. That could help - if there's no ovum you've got your answer - but it wouldn’t be a definitive one-shot yes or no.
The test would have to be taken multiple months, because some people ovulate unreliably.
Nevertheless, if they could come up with a simple at-home method to test for the presence of an ovum in one's own menstruation, that would give us considerably more information.
Things They Should Invent: signs indicating which crosswalk has the longer light
At intersections with an advance green, one of the crosswalk has a longer green light than the other. It would be helpful to know this, especially if your ultimate goal is to cross kitty-corner and especially if the other street is easily jaywalkable. There should be signage to this effect. Yes, sometimes you can extrapolate from the advance green signs, but the advance greens don't always have signs.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Things They Should Study: what day does it feel like?
It doesn't feel like Tuesday today. It feels more like Wednesday or Thursday. This would be unremarkable, except that a number of people hve also independently told me tthat it doesn't feel like Tuesday.
Someone should study this phenomenon. Interview random people walking down the street and see what day it feels like to them. See if there's a general consensus about what day it feels like, and try to identify factors that affect people's perception thereof.
Someone should study this phenomenon. Interview random people walking down the street and see what day it feels like to them. See if there's a general consensus about what day it feels like, and try to identify factors that affect people's perception thereof.
I wonder how copyright works in the world of fashion
Does Jean-Charles de Castelbajac have to pay royalties to Jim Henson's estate (or whomever now owns the Muppets?)
Monday, March 09, 2009
Seen on Yonge St.
Walking one way is a toddler holding a cookie. Walking the other way is a doggie that has almost, but not quite, grown out of being a puppy. The two are exactly the same height.
The toddler wants to pat the doggie.
The doggie wants the cookie.
The doggie's humans and the toddler's grownups all tell the toddler that she can totally pet the doggie, but he's going to try to steal her cookie. Nevertheless, the toddler surges bravely forward.
The toddler's grownups try to take the cookie out of her hand, but she's having none of that! They're not going to trick her into giving up her cookie! The doggie's humans try to get him to sit, but he's having none of that! There's a cookie right there!
The toddler reaches the doggie and pets him. The doggie licks her face. She bursts out crying - and drops the cookie. The doggie snarfs it up.
I move along so as not to be seen laughing at what what the poor kid will one day be telling her therapist was the turning point in the development of her lifelong fear of dogs.
Unrelated bonus: a whole herd of puppies
The toddler wants to pat the doggie.
The doggie wants the cookie.
The doggie's humans and the toddler's grownups all tell the toddler that she can totally pet the doggie, but he's going to try to steal her cookie. Nevertheless, the toddler surges bravely forward.
The toddler's grownups try to take the cookie out of her hand, but she's having none of that! They're not going to trick her into giving up her cookie! The doggie's humans try to get him to sit, but he's having none of that! There's a cookie right there!
The toddler reaches the doggie and pets him. The doggie licks her face. She bursts out crying - and drops the cookie. The doggie snarfs it up.
I move along so as not to be seen laughing at what what the poor kid will one day be telling her therapist was the turning point in the development of her lifelong fear of dogs.
Unrelated bonus: a whole herd of puppies
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Responsibility seems to be subjective
James Bow on whether helping foreclosed home owners is promoting irresponsible behaviour.
It's interesting to me that some corners are now considering buying a home with perhaps an over-leveraged mortgage irresponsible, because for my entire life up until this economic crisis I have been immersed in the conventional wisdom that not buying a home is irresponsible.
All the grownups in my family own houses. They also invest their money. I was raised with the idea that this is the responsible thing to do. As I progressed through live and learned more about finances and met more people, all my elders, everyone who knows more about money than I do, everyone I know who is financially set for life, has agreed that the thing to do is buy a home and invest your money. I've been told from all corners, by my elders and my betters, by family and friends and even random people I'd just met, that it's irresponsible - not just suboptimal, but actively irresponsible - to rent in the neighbourhood I want to live in instead of buying in the outer reaches of 905, and to keep my savings in a bank account instead of investing in stocks and mutual funds.
I didn't take any of these financial risks because I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to avoid losing money. However, I was always told - by people who know more than me, by people who are (even still today) financially secure - that I don't need to worry, housing prices always go up and the stock market goes up in the long term. But I'm not brave enough to take those risks, so I kept on renting and kept my money safe and liquid. And because of that, I haven't lost any of my savings, and my housing situation is not at risk unless I face long-term unemployment.
So I'm relatively safe because I disregarded years of advice from everyone who knows better, and because I'm too chickenshit to take risks I don't fully grok. If I were the kind of person to heed the advice of my betters and if I were willing to take on a generally-acceptable adult level of risk, I would not be nearly as safe.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to treat people like they're irresponsible and need to be punished just because the economic crisis blew up their mortgage. It's not just desire to improve one's lifestyle, it's not just unscrupulous bankers, it's an entire lifetime's and an entire society's worth of conventional wisdom.
It's interesting to me that some corners are now considering buying a home with perhaps an over-leveraged mortgage irresponsible, because for my entire life up until this economic crisis I have been immersed in the conventional wisdom that not buying a home is irresponsible.
All the grownups in my family own houses. They also invest their money. I was raised with the idea that this is the responsible thing to do. As I progressed through live and learned more about finances and met more people, all my elders, everyone who knows more about money than I do, everyone I know who is financially set for life, has agreed that the thing to do is buy a home and invest your money. I've been told from all corners, by my elders and my betters, by family and friends and even random people I'd just met, that it's irresponsible - not just suboptimal, but actively irresponsible - to rent in the neighbourhood I want to live in instead of buying in the outer reaches of 905, and to keep my savings in a bank account instead of investing in stocks and mutual funds.
I didn't take any of these financial risks because I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to avoid losing money. However, I was always told - by people who know more than me, by people who are (even still today) financially secure - that I don't need to worry, housing prices always go up and the stock market goes up in the long term. But I'm not brave enough to take those risks, so I kept on renting and kept my money safe and liquid. And because of that, I haven't lost any of my savings, and my housing situation is not at risk unless I face long-term unemployment.
So I'm relatively safe because I disregarded years of advice from everyone who knows better, and because I'm too chickenshit to take risks I don't fully grok. If I were the kind of person to heed the advice of my betters and if I were willing to take on a generally-acceptable adult level of risk, I would not be nearly as safe.
So yeah, I don't think it's fair to treat people like they're irresponsible and need to be punished just because the economic crisis blew up their mortgage. It's not just desire to improve one's lifestyle, it's not just unscrupulous bankers, it's an entire lifetime's and an entire society's worth of conventional wisdom.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
Playing dumb
I'm considering doing business with a place I've never done business with before, and that is either out of my league or just at the very topmost border of my league. So, as with all new interactions with an unknown quantity, I'm writing myself a mental script.
I've been spending some time on their website, so I'm in a position to walk in there knowledgeably and start making declarative statements. "Hi, I'm here to A, B, and C." I have enough information that I could even do it without upspeak. Unless there's an egregious disconnect between website and reality, I'm in a position to show as much confidence as I do when ordering a large double double at Tim Horton's.
However, I found in my mental script I kept landing on less confident-sounding constructions. I'm either hiding my knowledge ("Hi, I was wondering if you had anything like [insert description of thing that will lead me to A, B or C]") or making excuses for it ("Hi, I was looking at your website and...").
But why am I doing this? Why is my social instinct to hide the fact that I've looked at their website, to hide the fact that I have some basic knowledge of what they do and what they offer?
After thinking about this for a while, I'm wondering if maybe my childhood bullies are making me use these less confident constructions. In between time in school and time spent working customer service, the majority of my life was spent in contexts where demonstrating knowledge was discouraged. In school I'd be punished socially for uttering a five-syllable word or for showing prior knowledge of something we were being taught in class, and when working front-line customer service the customers would react poorly if my speech patterns or banter revealed that I was perhaps in their league intellectually. I ended up dropping my register by about 1.5 prestige levels just to get through the day smoothly.
So maybe because of all this, my social instincts are now telling me to walk into situations pretending to be ignorant?
Writing this, I thought of something I read somewhere on the internet once. A parent was writing about how they caught their teenage daughter playing dumb when discussing math homework with a boy, and basically told her it was unacceptable for her to do that. At the time when I read it, it occurred to me that perhaps she wasn't playing dumb specifically so he'd think he was smarter than her (with the assumption that he wouldn't want a girl who's smarter than him) but rather perhaps she was playing dumb as an icebreaker. She asks him for help, he can help her just to be nice and they have an excuse to sit together alone somewhere that's quiet with their heads bent over the same book. Then once he's explained the math, she has an excuse to give him a hug or a minor kiss to express her gratitude, and to do him a favour sometime later. Makes me wish I'd had that in my repetoire as a teenager! (Since I've always wanted prospective lovers to want or at least appreciate my brains, it never occurred to me to play dumb even as an icebreaker.) but now that I actually write about how playing dumb has been helpful socially in various scenarios, I wonder if this poor girl's social repetoire was hindered by her parent's insistence that she never play dumb.
I've been spending some time on their website, so I'm in a position to walk in there knowledgeably and start making declarative statements. "Hi, I'm here to A, B, and C." I have enough information that I could even do it without upspeak. Unless there's an egregious disconnect between website and reality, I'm in a position to show as much confidence as I do when ordering a large double double at Tim Horton's.
However, I found in my mental script I kept landing on less confident-sounding constructions. I'm either hiding my knowledge ("Hi, I was wondering if you had anything like [insert description of thing that will lead me to A, B or C]") or making excuses for it ("Hi, I was looking at your website and...").
But why am I doing this? Why is my social instinct to hide the fact that I've looked at their website, to hide the fact that I have some basic knowledge of what they do and what they offer?
After thinking about this for a while, I'm wondering if maybe my childhood bullies are making me use these less confident constructions. In between time in school and time spent working customer service, the majority of my life was spent in contexts where demonstrating knowledge was discouraged. In school I'd be punished socially for uttering a five-syllable word or for showing prior knowledge of something we were being taught in class, and when working front-line customer service the customers would react poorly if my speech patterns or banter revealed that I was perhaps in their league intellectually. I ended up dropping my register by about 1.5 prestige levels just to get through the day smoothly.
So maybe because of all this, my social instincts are now telling me to walk into situations pretending to be ignorant?
Writing this, I thought of something I read somewhere on the internet once. A parent was writing about how they caught their teenage daughter playing dumb when discussing math homework with a boy, and basically told her it was unacceptable for her to do that. At the time when I read it, it occurred to me that perhaps she wasn't playing dumb specifically so he'd think he was smarter than her (with the assumption that he wouldn't want a girl who's smarter than him) but rather perhaps she was playing dumb as an icebreaker. She asks him for help, he can help her just to be nice and they have an excuse to sit together alone somewhere that's quiet with their heads bent over the same book. Then once he's explained the math, she has an excuse to give him a hug or a minor kiss to express her gratitude, and to do him a favour sometime later. Makes me wish I'd had that in my repetoire as a teenager! (Since I've always wanted prospective lovers to want or at least appreciate my brains, it never occurred to me to play dumb even as an icebreaker.) but now that I actually write about how playing dumb has been helpful socially in various scenarios, I wonder if this poor girl's social repetoire was hindered by her parent's insistence that she never play dumb.
On word choices
Antonia Zerbisias objects because some people on US TV talking about abortion chose and/or landed on the word "people" instead of the word "women."
This is really interesting to me, because I tend to say "people" instead of "women" in the same place for exactly the opposite motive attributed to the speakers here. It's something I started doing a long time ago in response to two things.
First, to avoid creating a Someone Else's Problem field, I don't specifically mention gender unless it's a case of causation as opposed to correlation.
Then, after reading some Deborah Tannen where she articulated how male tends to be linguistically unmarked and female tends to be by default Other and observing a number of interactions IRL where this manifested itself absurdly (example: a woman mentioned that she had just moved into the gaybourhood, and a man in the conversation made a stupid "don't drop the soap" type joke) I decided to deliberately make the female unmarked whenever it could be smoothly incorporated. So instead of saying "This is really dangerous, someone could fall down the stairs. If it's pregnant woman she could have a miscarriage and if it's an old lady she could break a hip!" I would say "...If they're pregnant they could fall down the stairs, and if they're postmenopausal they could break a hip!" I know it doesn't actually do anything - no one is going to think for a moment that it's a pregnant or postmenopausal man - but I'm doing it on principle and as an intellectual challenge. So far no one has noticed that I do this (or perhaps they have and just haven't said anything - in my line of work people tend to notice).
I don't really have a point here, I just think it's interesting.
This is really interesting to me, because I tend to say "people" instead of "women" in the same place for exactly the opposite motive attributed to the speakers here. It's something I started doing a long time ago in response to two things.
First, to avoid creating a Someone Else's Problem field, I don't specifically mention gender unless it's a case of causation as opposed to correlation.
Then, after reading some Deborah Tannen where she articulated how male tends to be linguistically unmarked and female tends to be by default Other and observing a number of interactions IRL where this manifested itself absurdly (example: a woman mentioned that she had just moved into the gaybourhood, and a man in the conversation made a stupid "don't drop the soap" type joke) I decided to deliberately make the female unmarked whenever it could be smoothly incorporated. So instead of saying "This is really dangerous, someone could fall down the stairs. If it's pregnant woman she could have a miscarriage and if it's an old lady she could break a hip!" I would say "...If they're pregnant they could fall down the stairs, and if they're postmenopausal they could break a hip!" I know it doesn't actually do anything - no one is going to think for a moment that it's a pregnant or postmenopausal man - but I'm doing it on principle and as an intellectual challenge. So far no one has noticed that I do this (or perhaps they have and just haven't said anything - in my line of work people tend to notice).
I don't really have a point here, I just think it's interesting.
Parting your hair with a ruler
I have no control over the part in my hair. It goes wherever and however it wants. One day a while back it ended up in a perfectly straight line. Someone said to me that day "Did you part your hair with a ruler?" Seemed to me a really strange thing to comment on, but some people are like that.
But it just occurred to me: can you even part your hair with a ruler? How would that work?
But it just occurred to me: can you even part your hair with a ruler? How would that work?
Friday, March 06, 2009
Wanted
Wanted: a continuous loop of the "I got soul but I'm not a soldier" part of All These Things That I've Done, maybe a couple of minutes long. Downloadable or embedded online is fine. I just wah wah whine don't want to have to edit an audio file myself.
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