The source text was poorly written. Strictly speaking it did not say what the author actually intended, although realistically it was one of those "Meh, you know what I mean anyway" situations. So my co-worker and I were verbally hashing it out, lobbing it back and forth, waving our hands around, trying to clearly articulate the meaning that was intended but not said.
We were stuck on one particular concept that was entirely non-tangible. It was a purely abstract idea. There is no physical element to it. It did not involve shape or size or motion, not even symbolically or metaphorically.
But when we were trying to articulate this concept, we both waved our hands around in gestures that involved shape, size, and motion. And we both, independently and simultaneously, landed on exactly exactly the same hand gestures, with exactly the same shape, size, and motion. The gestures did nothing to actually clarify the concept. If we'd been trying to explain it to an onlooker who couldn't read the source text, they would have no more information with the gestures than without. And yet we landed on exactly the same gestures.
Someone needs to study this. Get people to explain intangible concepts that cannot be communicated more effectively with gesturs than without, and videotape them doing so, then see if there's any consistency in the hand gestures used.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Things They Should Study: are subway mice universally cute?
I think the little black mousies that live in the subway tracks are cute. So does everyone else I've ever discussed subway mice with.
Which is really weird if you think about it. They're mice. They live in the subway tracks. Technically they're an infestation, and they're probably covered in unspeakable filth. I've been living here for nearly nine years(!), someone should have expressed revulsion about subway mice in my presence before. But no one has, everyone thinks they're cute. I'd say a good half the time I see a mousie on the tracks, some random person on the platform goes "Oooh, look, mice!" (in an OMG CUTE! voice) or goes for a closer look or is otherwise watching them with pleasant interest. I've never seen anyone squick, although surely some people somewhere must.
It would be interesting to do a comprehensive survey and see what percentage of the population thinks the subway mice are cute, and how that compares with the population's feelings about mice in general.
Which is really weird if you think about it. They're mice. They live in the subway tracks. Technically they're an infestation, and they're probably covered in unspeakable filth. I've been living here for nearly nine years(!), someone should have expressed revulsion about subway mice in my presence before. But no one has, everyone thinks they're cute. I'd say a good half the time I see a mousie on the tracks, some random person on the platform goes "Oooh, look, mice!" (in an OMG CUTE! voice) or goes for a closer look or is otherwise watching them with pleasant interest. I've never seen anyone squick, although surely some people somewhere must.
It would be interesting to do a comprehensive survey and see what percentage of the population thinks the subway mice are cute, and how that compares with the population's feelings about mice in general.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Things They Should Invent: serious/urgent only breaking news feeds
Some news media have RSS or Twitter feeds that give you breaking headlines as they happen.
The problem is the vast majority of headlines you don't need your day interrupted for. I want a feed only of things a person might plausibly need their day interrupted for, things that might be actionable, things that might not wait until you get home. Things where you have to reschedule or check that your loved ones are okay. Things like "OMG, giant propane explosion in North York!" or "The whole subway is closed and your commute is going to be seriously fucked up" or "Giant earthquake somewhere with tens of thousands dead." This feed shouldn't be constant, there shouldn't necessarily even be a post every day. Just as needed and when urgent and requiring action.
I don't twitter, but I would totally join and sign up for text messages if I could get only the truly important things.
The TTC has a thingy where you can get text messages when there is a subway delay. They don't send them every day, they don't send you reassurances that the subway is fine, they don't send you fluffy little fun facts on days when the subway is running smoothly and there's nothing to tell. They just inform you when there's a problem and leave you alone otherwise. I want the equivalent for news feeds. Existing news feeds, even "breaking news" feeds, are like receiving an hourly text message telling you the subway is running smoothly.
The problem is the vast majority of headlines you don't need your day interrupted for. I want a feed only of things a person might plausibly need their day interrupted for, things that might be actionable, things that might not wait until you get home. Things where you have to reschedule or check that your loved ones are okay. Things like "OMG, giant propane explosion in North York!" or "The whole subway is closed and your commute is going to be seriously fucked up" or "Giant earthquake somewhere with tens of thousands dead." This feed shouldn't be constant, there shouldn't necessarily even be a post every day. Just as needed and when urgent and requiring action.
I don't twitter, but I would totally join and sign up for text messages if I could get only the truly important things.
The TTC has a thingy where you can get text messages when there is a subway delay. They don't send them every day, they don't send you reassurances that the subway is fine, they don't send you fluffy little fun facts on days when the subway is running smoothly and there's nothing to tell. They just inform you when there's a problem and leave you alone otherwise. I want the equivalent for news feeds. Existing news feeds, even "breaking news" feeds, are like receiving an hourly text message telling you the subway is running smoothly.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Extreme sheep
You MUST watch this. Seriously. If you only ever watch one youtube that I post, make it this one.
(shamelessly yoinked from Antonia Zerbisias)
(shamelessly yoinked from Antonia Zerbisias)
Useless mnemonic
I already have a useful mnemonic for entomology vs. etymology: ent is close to ant, so that's the one with the bugs.
But I just randomly thought of another:
eNtomolgy: N for NO
etYmology: Y for YES
But I just randomly thought of another:
eNtomolgy: N for NO
etYmology: Y for YES
Google makes me look like an idiot
Google appears to have postponed voting on Project 10^100 again. This is a bit frustrating for me, because in the interim one of the ideas I submitted has become obsolete.
Intellectually I realize there was hardly any chance of my submissions making it as far as the voting anyway. Like 90% of the other submissions I've seen people post publicly are better than mine, and a lot of people submitting ideas were professionals, whereas I'm just some random who takes long showers. And intellectually I realize that even if my idea had made it as far as voting and made the top 20, Google wouldn't have chosen it since they would have the resources to figure out that it was only a few months away from obsolescence.
Back in October, my idea looked new and interesting and innovative. Best case it was a solution to a major problem that only needed a functional prototype, worst case it was a perfectly valid and rather clever idea, especially seeing as it came from someone completely uninvolved in related research.
But now it looks like it's coming from some idiot who doesn't keep up on current events.
Intellectually I realize there was hardly any chance of my submissions making it as far as the voting anyway. Like 90% of the other submissions I've seen people post publicly are better than mine, and a lot of people submitting ideas were professionals, whereas I'm just some random who takes long showers. And intellectually I realize that even if my idea had made it as far as voting and made the top 20, Google wouldn't have chosen it since they would have the resources to figure out that it was only a few months away from obsolescence.
Back in October, my idea looked new and interesting and innovative. Best case it was a solution to a major problem that only needed a functional prototype, worst case it was a perfectly valid and rather clever idea, especially seeing as it came from someone completely uninvolved in related research.
But now it looks like it's coming from some idiot who doesn't keep up on current events.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Putting in a requisition a crystal ball
I want a crystal ball that will tell me whether something will go smoothly or not. I don't even need to know precisely how it will go wrong if it's going to go wrong, just whether it's going to go smoothly or go wrong.
If I walk into a situation with the assumption that it's going to go smoothly (which I don't usually do) and then it ends up going wrong, it messes me up. Introvert brain prevents me from recovering gracefully, and I get a wee bit paranoid about everything in the future until I gather enough empirical evidence to suggest that life in general will go as predicted.
But if I'm assuming a situation will go wrong, I'm carrying around a lot of stress and more often than not I psych myself out.
I just want to know ahead of time which things are going to go wrong and which things I don't have to worry about. Is that so much to ask?
If I walk into a situation with the assumption that it's going to go smoothly (which I don't usually do) and then it ends up going wrong, it messes me up. Introvert brain prevents me from recovering gracefully, and I get a wee bit paranoid about everything in the future until I gather enough empirical evidence to suggest that life in general will go as predicted.
But if I'm assuming a situation will go wrong, I'm carrying around a lot of stress and more often than not I psych myself out.
I just want to know ahead of time which things are going to go wrong and which things I don't have to worry about. Is that so much to ask?
iTunes Genius has lost its memory
Earlier today I was playing with iTunes Genius, and it only gave me a 13 song playlist for Amy Winehouse's You Know I'm No Good, even though I asked for 100 songs. (It didn't even bother to pad out the playlist with the rest of my Amy Winehouse.)
I hadn't updated iTunes in a long time, so I decided to do that and see if it helped. After the update, it didn't recognize You Know I'm No Good at all, as though it's not in the database any more!
WTF?
I hadn't updated iTunes in a long time, so I decided to do that and see if it helped. After the update, it didn't recognize You Know I'm No Good at all, as though it's not in the database any more!
WTF?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
My only problem with the plot of today's Simpsons
How did Lisa know which key to play Heart and Soul in?
More information please
According to a nearly-unrelated article in the Star: "just a third of Canadians set to retire in 2030 are saving at levels needed to meet basic household expenses."
Interesting! I wonder if I'm one of those one third of Canadians? (I'm not set to retire in 2030, but that's the year I turn 50 and my parents retired around that age so it gets me thinking.)
Guess what, I have no idea if I'm saving enough, because I have no idea what kinds of savings are required today to meet basic household expenses decades from now. I have a nice little system that sounds all impressive and organized and some nice numbers that look pretty on paper and I could convince just about anyone that I'm being all good and diligent, but I have no idea how to actually extrapolate whether this will be sufficient decades in the future.
Since someone seems to be able to do the extrapolations, it would be helpful if they'd share this with us.
Interesting! I wonder if I'm one of those one third of Canadians? (I'm not set to retire in 2030, but that's the year I turn 50 and my parents retired around that age so it gets me thinking.)
Guess what, I have no idea if I'm saving enough, because I have no idea what kinds of savings are required today to meet basic household expenses decades from now. I have a nice little system that sounds all impressive and organized and some nice numbers that look pretty on paper and I could convince just about anyone that I'm being all good and diligent, but I have no idea how to actually extrapolate whether this will be sufficient decades in the future.
Since someone seems to be able to do the extrapolations, it would be helpful if they'd share this with us.
How to communicate
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.
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.
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.
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