How does the United States of America continue to function with insurance premiums like these?

Via David Olive, a chart of US health insurance premium projections.

The general thesis is "OMG, they're going to get so high!" But my first thought was "OMG, they ARE so high!" $13,000 a year. Thirteen thousand!

Imagine having an extra $13,000 in necessary expenses, on top of your existing necessary expenses. To put that in perspective, that's more than I paid in taxes last year. Could you fit that into your budget? Because I certainly couldn't!

When I run the numbers on finding another $13,000, I've got a two-hour commute and bugs crawling out of the walls, and even then it's hella tight. I've got no savings, I'm wearing cheap men's runners for everyday and improperly-fitting bras, rationing cheese and internet access, hairdressing is not an option, and even then it might not work out. And that's without children, without a car, without travel.

But when you go to the states, you see people with children and cars and vacations. You see people wearing clothes that look like they were purchased new. People have had their hair done. It's normal to have wedding rings made of gold and diamonds. They have tivos and people buy books and DVDs and go to movies and out to dinner...how on earth do they make it work? Seriously. I cannot grok at all how their society as a whole can function with insurance premiums like that.

St. Paul's by-election roundup

1. I don't appreciate this by-election being made into a referendum on the HST. The HST simply isn't important enough to me to make or break my vote. Yes, I very much want them to correct the oversight in the transition benefit, but as for the tax itself? Meh. Any protest vote against the Liberals that I might choose to make would be about their habit of introducing poorly-thought-out legislation (banning plastic bags at the LCBO, restrictions for new drivers that are based on age rather than driving experience, breed-specific legislation against pitbulls when they can't even define the breed well enough). Any vote for the Liberals I might choose to make would be a combination of because they haven't fucked things up, because their candidate is admirable, and because I don't want my riding to turn blue. The HST doesn't come into it, and I don't appreciate my vote be interpreted solely as commentary on this issue that I don't care about.

Normally, elections are my favourite sport. This is the first time that voting felt like a duty rather than a privilege.

2. If this were a "Who has the best advertising?" contest, Eric Hoskins would totally win in my corner of the world. I got multiple flyers from him, all well-targeted to renters' issues. (A couple did dig at the other parties, which I don't much enjoy, but overall they were positive.) From Sue-Ann Levy, I got one flyer with the general thesis of "OMG, the HST is going to raise the prices of [insert list of things I don't even buy ever]." From Julian Heller, I got one flyer with the general thesis of "Hi, I'm not a Liberal and I'm opposed to the HST!" From the other candidates, nothing.

3. Weirdly, I wasn't on the electors' list. I lived at this address the last provincial election (the one with the MMP referendum) and voted then, but this time I didn't get a voter's card. Still voted without a hitch (luckily they accepted my G1 - my new health card (the one with two pictures) doesn't have my address on it!). AND I saw the awesome greyhound that I saw last election was there again! I still didn't pet him, but maybe I should have. We could be election buddies!

Wherein I nag you for the last time to sponsor Eddie Izzard

September 15 (which is just starting right about now in the UK) is the last day of Eddie's run. He's going to end up in Trafalgar Square, where he left way back on July 27.

Donations are still being matched, Eddie's still injured, Eddie's still going for a personal best tomorrow, the kitten still has a home. In just a few hours this complete act of lunacy will be a fait accompli.

Eddie has over a million Twitter followers. If he doesn't manage to raise 100,000 pounds with this incredibly excessive act of human endurance, that will be a blemish on the honour of humanity. Now is the time to stop procrastinating and donate.

You can follow the adventure on Twitter, the blog, the Eddie Izzard forum, and this running forum.

Godspeed Eddie!

Donate here.

Update: HE DID IT! 43 marathons in 51 days, personal best on the last one, and totally upstaged the plinth lady on the way in (here at 31:15). Congrats Eddie!!! Hope you can sleep well soon.

In case you're thinking "Crap, I meant to donate but I missed it!", as of right this minute they still seem to be accepting and matching donations here.

Things They Should Invent: a blank on ballots for the reason for your vote

Some people vote for the Yellow Party because they like their Widget Policy. Other people vote for the Yellow Party because they don't want the Purple Party to come into power and raise import tariffs on three-handled family gredunzas.

But sometimes I find myself voting for a party for reasons that aren't as common or aren't something listed in campaign literature. For example, suppose the Yellow Party is really focusing its campaign on the widgets and the gredunzas, but I don't actually care about that. I'm more interested in the fact that they want to require all shoes to be available in sizes up to 12. But us large-footed girls are considered a fringe special interest group so the big shoes issue isn't getting a lot of media play. My Yellow vote will be interpreted - by the politicos and the media - as pro-widget and pro-gredunza.

I normally email any newly elected representative with a friendly congratulations and touch on a couple of the issues that are most important to me (credit to one of my early clients for giving me that idea), but a) I doubt that has any significant effect, b) I doubt most people take the time to do that, and c) that has no effect on media interpretation of the election results.

I want a blank on the ballot where voters can (optionally) write their reason for voting the way they're voting. Then, after the votes are counted (so as not to delay election results) they can tabulate who's voting how and why, and this information could be made available to the media.

It would also be interesting to what proportion of the population is voting misinformedly. We all know that some people are, but it would be interesting to see how many.

I just need to gloat for a minute

An astronaut tweeted at me!

Translation In Death

Eve Dallas wouldn't be entirely comfortable with the fact that she's inspired me in a number of ways, but I'm sure she'd be completely baffled to learn that she helped me with a translation.

To protect my client I'm going to change the words involved, but my example is pragmatically analogous to the actual problem. The subject of the text was something that the organization was committed to providing to various people in various quantities, and the text was trying to figure out how they were going to afford this. Unfortunately, the author referred to the items being given away as trucs. Trucs is a very casual, very indefinite word, the sort of word that people use every day but might not actually be approved by the Académie française. Its most accurate translation given the context is "thingies", which is ultimately meaningless. And, to make matters worse, the word truc didn't appear anywhere on the client's website, reference texts, or texts we'd previously translated for the client.

The author knew what precisely these trucs were, the audience knew what precisely these trucs were, but I had no clue. It was an overnight turnaround, so the author of the text was unavailable - they sent us the translation and went home for the day, expecting it in their inbox when they arrived at the office the next day. While "thingies" was a perfectly valid translation of trucs and would probably stand up in court, it sounds funny, especially when used repeatedly like in this text. There was sentence after sentence of "We need 700 trucs in January and 300 trucs in June. Past presidents of the organization get 2 trucs each as a courtesy, and we need an extra supply of trucs should the media express interest." You can't say "thingies" there every time. There's also the problem that we don't know if the Anglophones involved in the organization call the trucs "thingies". They might call them "things" or "thingamabobs" or "whatchamacalits" or "snapping turtles". I don't know because I don't know what they actually are. If I use the wrong word, my text will be completely and hilarious meaningless to its audience, even if the word I choose is a valid translation of trucs. I really needed to know what, precisely and tangibly, they were talking about so I could make a meaningful translation.

Eve Dallas often solves her cases by following the money. More than once, the key to cracking the case has been that the timing and quantity of deposits to the victim's account corresponds with the timing and quantity of withdrawals from a person of interest's account (or vice versa). So, inspired by this, I decided to follow the numbers. So I started searching for 700, January, 300, and June all appearing in the same document, and turned up something about event tickets. I then went to the part of my text that talked about the total cost of giving away all these trucs, and extrapolated the cost per truc. I then looked up the cost of a ticket to the event in question, and lo and behold it was an exact match. So the trucs were tickets to this event, of which the client was a major sponsor, but the number of free tickets being given away was cutting into the event's revenues. Suddenly the whole text made sense and I was able to clarify a couple of other points that were questionable.

Translation by financial extrapolation. I think Roarke would approve.

I'm probably the last person in the world to realize this

But I just realized that this song would totally work as a round, and very flexibly (2, 3, 4, or 6 parts if I'm working it out right).

Things Google Should Invent: gcourriel (or would that be courrig?)

I was verbally giving someone my email address in French, and without thinking I simply uttered "gmail" exactly like I pronounce it in English, without bothering to spell it out.

Not a huge problem since most people are aware of gmail. However, as we all learned in Grade 4 French, the way we pronounce the English letter G sounds closest to the French pronunciation of the letter J, so it could have been misinterpreted as "jmail."

The inherently English name of gmail is a problem for non-English speakers who nevertheless wish to use this very convenient email system. In English, we just say "gmail" and it's obvious how to spell it, but in other languages it might be less instinctive.

So what Google should do buy a bunch of domains that serve as translations of the word "gmail." For example, the French would be either gcourriel.com or courrig.com, whichever sounds better to the Francophone ear. This would increase the number of gmail addresses available and give people the option of having multiple addresses to accommodate multiple languages. The ideal implementation would be to give the owner of each gmail.com address right of first refusal for the equivalent gcourriel.com address (et cetera for each language), but most likely having multiple parallel email addresses in different languages would only be of interest to a very small proportion of users.

Y.E.T.A.N.O.T.H.E.R. reason to sponsor Eddie Izzard

To recap: Eddie Izzard (who is hilarious and generally above and beyond) is engaged in a ridiculously epic feat of human endurance to raise money for charity. And rescuing lost kittens along the way.

In case you needed just one more reason to donate, there's now an anonymous donor matching the next £43,000 of donations. If you've been putting it off, now's the time.

You can donate here and follow Eddie's adventure here and here.

Update: Plus, Eddie now has a rather serious-sounding ligament injury.

Are ballet dancers richer than I think, or is housing in New York more reasonable than I think?

Or has Brooke McEldowney not fully considered the economics of his universe?

Seth and Edda have a spare room. That means they have a three-bedroom apartment. They're both ballet dancers.

Not only that, but the apartment was originally just Seth's. He was already living there, and Edda moved in when she first joined the ballet. This means that Seth was managing a three-bedroom apartment on a dancer's salary singlehandedly.

I don't actually know anything about ballet dancers' paycheques or New York City rents. But conventional wisdom is that the arts don't pay particularly well, and conventional wisdom is that housing in NY is exceptionally expensive. So something is missing somewhere.

New words: anglotypical and francotypical

In English, if you search for something using the search engine Google, you say "I googled it." This construction is anglotypical.

In French, you'd say "J'ai effectué une recherche Google." This construction is francotypical.

These words aren't completely unknown (a few dozen google results each - "dozen" being an anglotypical word choice, with the francotypical counterpart being "quelques dizaines") but they're useful and ought to be more widely used. I went through translation school and half a dozen years as a professional translator, and have never heard them used.

They, of course, can be modified as appropriate for other languages.

New Rule: announce yourself as you knock on the door

In my old building, when the supers knocked on the door, they'd announce "Super!" Then I'd know who it is and open the door for them. I've had some delivery people do this, but not all. I think everyone should do it. Yes, I have a peephole, but peephole gets darker as you look through it so the person at the door can tell if you look and then choose not to answer the door. Also, you can't always tell by looking who it is. I once had enumerators come to my door, and they just looked like regular people (as opposed to UPS, who's in uniform). As a rule I don't open my door unless I'm expecting someone and I had no way of knowing they were enumerators, so I didn't get enumerated.

If everyone announces themselves as they knock at the door, then you'll get better results from your knocking on doors. And if announcing yourself will make people not answer the door, then you shouldn't be knocking on doors.

I can't stop listening to this

Into The Mystic - VAN MORRISON

I went down to the Chelsea drugstore to get your prescription filled

As anyone who cares already knows, this is a line from the Rolling Stones.

But why do they call it a drugstore? Wouldn't "chemist" be more idiomatic in their dialect?

Perhaps my job is safe after all

Translation Party translates any English phrase you give it to Japanese and back until it reaches equilibrium.

Like this.

Still trying to find out: why is it using a mixture of two Japanese alphabets?

Why can't I find Campbell's Hearty Noodles in Thai flavour?

Yes, they're full of sodium and preservatives. No, they aren't particularly hearty. Yes, they're a rather pathetic excuse for noodles. Yes, I can get better Thai food in half a dozen places between my office an my home.

But they're a comfort food for me. In university they were my favourite no-dishes, just-add-water noodle soup, and they were always there for me, hot and filling, when everything in the caf sucked or I was just too tired for anything that would require washing dishes.

These past couple of days I've been wanting to revisit that flavour, but I can't find them anywhere! Every store I visit has all the other flavours, but not Thai. They're still on the website, but I'm not finding them IRL.

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates

It is possible to not be aware of the extent of your knowledge/ignorance. It is also possible to be fully aware of the extent of your knowledge/ignorance. So you can know very little and not be aware that you know so little, or you can know very little and be aware that you know so little, or you can know a lot and be aware that you know a lot.

But is it possible to know a lot and not be aware that you know so much? Is it possible to know literally everything about a given topic and not be aware that you've got everything?

What to do if your TTC Metropass doesn't arrive in the mail

If you don't get your Metropass, go to the Metropass office at Davisville station (during business hours, 8:30-5 weekdays I think), show them ID, and they'll issue a replacement. They ask you to return the original if it subsequently arrives in the mail.

Blogging this because I couldn't google up the information.

How to decommercialize christmas without sacrificing anything

But after a disastrous Christmas last year and lacklustre sales most of this year, many retailers are desperate to make up the shortfall in the final four months.

Holiday sales can account for as much as 40 per cent of annual sales, more for those who specialize in giftware.

So that's the problem. That's why retailers are so aggressive with the music and the decorations. They've associated huge sales with this season.

So what we as consumers have to do as consumers is make xmas sales unremarkable, and this without fucking up the economy.

Here's how:

In 2010, don't give your xmas presents on xmas. Instead, give your xmas presents (to your family and friends, as well as any employees and service providers to whom you give a xmas tip) on your own birthday. To dissuade retailers from responding by instituting year-round xmas decorations, do not purchase any xmas presents from retailers who have decorations up before November 28, 2010, which is the first day of Advent 2010. Because people tend to give you presents on your birthday, the result will be multiple opportunities to exchange gifts and good wishes throughout the year.

Santa will bring kids their presents on their half-birthday. Q: Why not their birthday? A: As people born in December and early January can attest, when your birthday coincides with xmas you tend to get less than your rightful share of presents (rightful share being determined by observing siblings and peers). This will maintain the common standard of two annual gift-receiving occasions, which is particularly important when you're a kid and can't just buy stuff for yourself. This will also enable Santa to have more consistent workflow management, with elves specializing in different parts of the production process being more steadily employed year-round, and to save in overtime costs. Mrs. Claus also looks forward to spending a quiet Christmas at home, drinking eggnog in front of the fire and reflecting on the true meaning of the season, for the first time in over two millenia.

Santa assures all good little boys and girls that they will receive their presents on their half-birthday regardless of whether a tree and/or stockings and/or milk and cookies are present in the home.

December 25 (or 24 or January 6 or whichever day you use in your particular culture) can, of course, still be used as a religious feast day, a family gathering, and/or a statutory holiday. But the only socially mandated gift-giving that will occur on or marking that day is xmas gifts from and birthday gifts to individuals whose birthday is December 25, and xmas gifts from Santa to children whose birthday is June 25.

In summary, in 2010:

- Give your xmas gifts on your own birthday
- Santa brings kids their xmas gifts on their half-birthday
- Don't buy xmas gifts from retailers who have decorations up before November 28
- Your religion's, culture's, and/or family's customary celebrations can continue to be held on the customary date, but without the exchange of gifts.

Let's all work together to decentralize xmas 2010 and bring some sanity back to what should be a happy occasion.