Things They Should Study: most essential petroleum derivatives

I previously theorized that we should stop using petroleum for fuel so that our planet's limited petroleum reserves will be available for plastic. After all, lots of important things (computers, sterile medical equipment, hygienic food packaging) are made of plastic.

Someone should study and quantify this. Which things that are made of plastics and other petroleum derivatives most need to be made of these non-renewable materials? Do we even have a way to manufacture computers or keep syringes sterile without plastic? Is it possible but unwieldly? Is it possible and reasonably user-friendly but expensive? Or are there whole functionalities that we'd lose out on without plastic?

Now that I think about it, they could do this with fuel too. Electric cars are possible, renewable power generation is possible, but do we even have a renewable option for jet fuel? If so, how feasible is it?

Once they've done all the research and quantified everything, they can put it all in order of the importance of petroleum to the product and the importance of the product to society, and we'll have a better idea of whether we're really making the best use of our non-renewable resources. They could also use this information to target research into finding renewable replacement for petroleum derivatives. If, for example, there's some key medical application for which we don't yet have any alternative, maybe they should work on that first.

Random thoughts on Downton Abbey and noblesse oblige

1. Some people have criticized Downton Abbey for having the nobility be kindly and decent towards their servants, saying that this didn't reflect real-life conditions for many servants at the time. However, the Crawleys' sense of noblesse oblige does have an enormous advantage in this work of fiction, in that it allows other stories to be told. A cruel relationship between the nobles and the servants would be the primary conflict, and therefore that story would insist upon being told. And this story would have to be told at the expense of the smaller stories we all enjoy like the courtship of Anna and Bates, Gwen's attempts to become a secretary, or the day Mrs. Hughes' old beau came back and proposed. It wouldn't be Downton Abbey then, it would be Dickens. And if we wanted Dickens, we'd read Dickens.

Harry Potter wouldn't work the way it does if Hogwarts was an abusive boarding school or if Harry hadn't promptly made good friends. Ugly Betty wouldn't work the way it does if Betty's family wasn't supportive. And Downton Abbey wouldn't work the way it does if the Crawleys were cruel to their servants.

2. I previously came up with the idea of teaching noblesse oblige in school. Because presenting it as a Thou Shalt isn't going to work, I suggested that it should be explained as background information to a novel read in class. Downton Abbey isn't a novel, but it is a work of fiction where noblesse oblige could be presented as background information. Of course, the questions remain of how it would fit into the curriculum, and whether there are any characters that would be appealing enough to students for them to want to emulate.

3. The village of Downton has a small hospital, which is funded by the Crawleys. But the Crawleys' estate would be broke if it weren't for the fact that the Earl married a rich American. So if he hadn't been able to find a rich wife ~30 years ago, the people of Downton wouldn't have a hospital today.

There are some people in real life who think public services shouldn't exist and charity should fill the need instead. This is a good example of the flaws in that plan.

Fishing with bait in Sims 3

Since a game update a few months ago, it's been impossible to fish with bait in Sims 3. The Sim will walk up to the water, and the fishing action will just end without any fishing happening.

I've just discovered that, if your Sim is capable of fishing in a swimming pool (i.e. they're a child or have the childish or insane traits), they can fish with bait in the swimming pool. However, I still don't know how to make them fish with bait in regular water, or to get the people in charge of game updates to fix this problem.

Socially awkward penguin moments

1. Guy behind the counter hands me my pizza. "Enjoy your lunch," he says. "Thanks," I reply, "You too!"

2. The guy in the elevator is small-talking me, in a way that makes me think he's practising his English. However, his dog is adorable, so I take it as price of admission for petting the dog.

"What do you do?" he asks me, as the dog sniffs my hand.
"I'm a translator," I reply, scratching the dog behind the ears as her tail wags furiously. "What do you do?"
"I'm a dog-walker," he answers.

I think that's the first time I've ever asked anyone what they did while they were actually doing their job before my very eyes!

Why would you throw puppies in the garbage, even if you are cruel and heartless?

In the news today, some guy put a bunch of puppies in a suitcase and threw them in the garbage. (Happy ending, adorable pictures.)

I don't understand why a person would do this. And by that I don't mean that I can't imagine being cruel to puppies (although that's true too). What I mean is, even if you take disrespect or hatred for puppies as a given, I don't understand why you'd do it this particular way.

If you're too lazy to take them to a proper shelter and don't care if the dogs survive, why not put them outside and close the door, leaving them to their own devices?

If you want to kill them, why not kill them? Why abandon them somewhere where you won't be able to get whatever pleasure killers get of watching them die yourself?

If, for whatever reason, it is important to you to throw them in the garbage, why go to all the trouble of putting them in a suitcase first? Putting six puppies in a suitcase sounds difficult.

If you're trying to avoid other people finding out that you're getting rid of puppies, why not let them loose? They might wander off or chase a squirrel or be picked up by someone who's in the market for a puppy, and end up somewhere where they can't be traced back to you. Or, if they do hang out near your home even though you've let them loose, you can claim that they could have come from anywhere and chased a squirrel over here, and you don't know anything about them.

Or, as my co-worker pointed out, why not post an ad on Craigslist saying "Puppies for sale"? People actually pay significant money for dogs!

Putting them in a suitcase in the garbage is a sub-optimal way of achieving whatever the goal of someone who would do that sort of thing might be.

Notes on comments

1. Some people were unhappy that the email follow-up comments option disappeared. It seems to have re-appeared for me when I enter the comments already logged into my Blogger account. Is it back for you too? (I didn't actually do anything, it just showed up).

2. Blogger's spam filter has recently sent a couple of perfectly legitimate anonymous comments into my spam folder. I restored the comments in question, and I'll have a look at my spam folder whenever I'm looking at my comments (although I don't check comments every day). However, I'm reluctant to turn off the spam filter, because it catches huge quantities of actual spam. Anonymous comments are still welcome, but you might have better luck getting through with one of the other options. If you check "Name/URL" (which is right above "Anonymous"), you can enter the name of your choice, including Anonymous.

Why would you want to spend advertising money to encourage people to pray anyway?

Recently in the news, TTC ads telling a (fictional) child of drug users that they should pray as a solution to their problems.

I have to assume that the people placing these ads think they're altruistic, because whether or not people pray have no possible impact on the advertisers or their church. They must think that praying will help people, so they're taking out these ads encouraging people to pray.

But people who are able to pray - which probably includes everyone for whom invoking Jesus would be effective - are already aware that prayer is an option. And those who aren't aware that prayer is an option (and are open to a new religion) wouldn't know how or why to pray.

Therefore, this ad doesn't tell anyone anything they don't already know, while not telling those who it wishes to take action how to take action.

Why would you spend money on that?

***

I also just noticed that the "child" in the ads is saying "Dear Jesus" and "Thank you for hearing my prayer". Which means that they're already praying! So the ad responds to a prayer by telling the kid to pray? That's a wee bit assholic.

Further analogy for why "demisexual" is problematic

I blogged before about why I dislike the term "demisexual". The analogy I made in that post (what if parents of only one child were described as semi-parents?) is likely effective for communicating why the term is problematic to people to whom the term doesn't apply, but today in the shower I realize it isn't quite apt for those of us to whom the term does apply, because of its focus on the idea of having fewer partners than average. The number of partners is less important (to the analogy and to the concept) than the nature of the relationship.

So here's another analogy that reflects that:

Some people really like to have home-made, sit-down meals. They like to choose fresh, organic, high-quality ingredients, prepare multiple dishes from scratch, set the table, sit down, and savour.

Not everyone does that. It takes work and it takes time. You aren't going to get your dinner as quickly or multi-taskably as someone who is content to scarf down whatever's handy while catching up on Twitter. For those of us who are happy to scarf down whatever's handy, it sounds downright tedious and rather old-fashioned, and we bristle if anyone suggests we should change our perfectly contented lifestyle and start preparing full sit-down dinners when prepared foods and pre-made salads and take-out are readily available.

But no one would ever suggest that the people who like to prepare full sit-down meals have any less interest, enthusiasm, or passion for food.

When Google is very good at its job

1. There's a bacterium whose name reminds me of the phrase "helicopter pilot", but I couldn't remember its name. So I googled helicopter pilot bacteria. Second search result: helicobacter pylori.

2. They invented a new musical instrument recently, but I couldn't remember its name. All I remembered was that when I first saw it, I thought "That looks like a keytar mated with a bassoon." So I googled looks like a keytar mated with a bassoon. First search result: Eigenharp.

How to teach literary analysis: don't let students read ahead

As I've blogged about before, I hated and was terrible at literary analysis when I was in school. Despite getting respectable grades in lit classes in three languages, I just didn't feel that analysis added anything to the reading experience or understand what on earth it achieves apart from giving us fodder for academic essays. I'm done the story, why dissect it so tediously?

I didn't start to truly grok literary analysis until I entered the Harry Potter fandom. I started reading Harry Potter shortly before the fifth book, and people on fan sites were using literary analysis to figure out what would happen later in the series. That made far better sense to me: we're looking for clues to solve a mystery!

Back in school, as a diligent student and a voracious reader, I'd always read ahead in the books we were studying. But my Harry Potter experience made me realize that this actually made learning how to do literary analysis more difficult for me. I'd be far ahead of the chapter we were discussing in class and simply wouldn't care about dissecting it, I was more interested in finding out what would happen next. Or I might even be finished the book and on to the next while we're still discussing the early chapters, at which point I most often simply didn't care. I'm done the story, let's move on!

But in my Harry Potter fandom, we couldn't move on - the books we needed to move on hadn't been written yet! So we'd analyze instead. And it was fun! It was my happy place for years!

So how could this be duplicated in the classroom, to not only teach literary analysis but convey the purpose and pleasure of it?

My idea: don't let the students read ahead. Earlier on, in grades 9 and 10, this could take the form of not allowing the books to leave the classroom, and doing the actual reading (or perhaps listening to an audiobook and reading along) in the classroom as part of class time. Then, at the end of every chapter or at every logical break, go over discussion questions that are geared towards using analysis to figure out what happens next. The teacher would have to make it clear that you don't get points for guessing or knowing what will happen next, but rather for having a logical analysis. A thesis that turns out to be factually incorrect but is impeccably argued with the information on hand should get just as many points as a thesis that perfectly predicts the outcome. (This is a problem I had in school - some teachers liked it when departed from the standard interpretation and backed it up with cited evidence, but other teachers docked points for not coming up with the standard interpretation.) Once they've finished the book, the teacher could go back over what clues in the book should have made it possible to guess what was going to happen.

After doing one or two books manually in the classroom so students can learn what they're looking for, they wouldn't have to do all the actual reading in the classroom. Instead, they could move to a system where you simply have to answer some questions at the end of each chapter before reading the next one. This could even be achieved electronically - answer the questions on an online form that emails the answers directly to the teacher, and doing so unlocks the next chapter. This would enable diligent students and those who are enthusiastic about the subject matter to work ahead at their own pace rather than being held back by their peers. (I didn't have this option in high school. While I had the book and could read ahead - and, being a diligent student, did so - I had no idea what we'd be discussing in class so I couldn't keep an eye out for it. Then I had to go back over something I'd already read to look for symbolism etc., which made an already uninteresting process outright tedious.)

If they do this with several books over a period of years, gradually loosening restrictions on reading ahead, by the end of high school the students should get to a place where they're automatically noticing and questioning the right things as they read through, the same way that people notice clues and try to guess whodunnit when reading a mystery novel.

I know that literary analysis is not limited to figuring out what's going to happen, but focusing on what's going to happen next makes the subject matter far more interesting, relevant and compelling to those who aren't already interested. "Remus and Tonks are totally going to hook up - look at all the parallels in the scenes where they were introduced to Harry!" is far more interesting than "Let's compare and contrast the scenes where the supporting characters were introduced to Harry." It's the English-class equivalent of using casino games to teach concepts in stats class.

Bad (and inconsiderate) condo sales strategy

There's a specific pre-construction condo I'm interested in. I recently received floor plans, but no prices. However, googling around for prices per square foot, I found unofficial information suggesting that the units I'm interested in will be out of my price range. So I mourned my condo and waited for official word.

On Thursday, I received an invitation from a broker whose list I'd signed up for to a VIP preview to be held today. I asked if he had prices, so I wouldn't waste both his time and mine on something I'm priced out of. He said the builder was releasing them at the VIP preview.

So this morning I set an alarm, put on make-up and nervously went off to a place I've never been before to make a major purchase that I've never made before.

I walked in, was handed a price list, and discovered I was priced out of the units I'm interested in.

That was a waste of time! Why on earth didn't they just release the prices with the floor plans so people who can't afford it are selected out? Who is served by making people who can't afford it come all the way in to the sales office and tie up the time and attention of brokers and sales reps before they can learn that they can't afford it?

This was especially annoying for me because, being a shy and awkward sort of person, I get very nervous about doing new things where I don't know what to expect, to the extent that I feel it in my bowels and my acne and my dreams. The two days' warning they gave me was enough time to spend being nervous, but not enough for the nerves to dissipate and for me to come to terms with what I may or may not have been about to do. So I spent the past two days carrying these nerves, having fretful and interrupted sleep, with my cystic acne and my digestive system in overdrive, and all this during the busiest time at work. The tetris lines kept piling up until I was jumpy like a shy puppy on a subway. And I could have been spared all that if they'd just released a price list with the floorplans!

My first thought was that this model is really inconsiderate to introverts, shy people, aspies, the socially awkward, bullying victims - anyone for whom going into a strange place likely to be staffed by slick strangers and not knowing what awaits you is an ordeal. So at first this blog post was going to be about how energetic, extroverted real estate people for whom going somewhere new and meeting new people and making big money deals is a fun adventure (because, if it weren't, they probably wouldn't have gone into real estate) are making it unduly difficult for the rest of us.

But, on top of that, it's also inconsiderate to anyone who works or has other specific obligations or already-made plans on Saturdays, anyone who needs to arrange childcare if they're going to go do something grownup like buy a condo, anyone who lives a significant commute away - basically anyone who doesn't keep their Saturday wide open or full of easily-cancellable plans.

So all these people have to go through the stress and inconvenience of being in a specific place in a specific time on very short notice not even to buy a condo, but just to find out whether or not they can afford it.

It serves no one to make people who simply do not have enough money and mortgage space come into the sales centre. It would be far more convenient for all involved to let those who can't afford it select themselves out. So why not do that? What can possibly be gained by forcing people to schlepp all the way to your location just to find out your prices?

What Facebook should do about employers who demand prospective employees' Facebook passwords

Facebook should put a clause on their terms of service stating that users may not share their password with anyone else without first informing Facebook that they intend to do so. They should create a special form you can fill out for the express purpose of informing Facebook that you intent to share your password with someone. This form should request enough data that Facebook will be able to find that individual's Facebook account.

Then Facebook should use this information to either a) ban all employers reported through this mechanism, or b) set all their privacy to the lowest possible setting without the option of raising it back up.

Fair warning would be set out in the terms of service ("By using this service, you agree to.."), and they could use selective publicity to very loudly announce that you have to report to Facebook if your employer requests your password while being more discreet about the consequences for the employer. Facebook already has a reputation for changing privacy settings and terms of service on its users, so it may as well use this precedent for good.

Wherein I receive an astounding act of social generousity

Something funny happened to me the other day.

It was warm and sunny out, and I was walking down Yonge Street wearing a simple black outfit and these shoes.

A lady standing with a group of people nearby left her group, headed over in my direction, walked up to me, and said:

"Where did you get such UGLY shoes?"

This was hilarious for a few reasons.

First, she left her group to come tell me my shoes are ugly. Rather than just pointing and laughing with her group or taking a stealth photo to share on facebook, she interrupted her day and sought me out to tell me my shoes are ugly. If the sight of someone walking down the main street of a major city in mildly unconventional footwear so vexes you that you have to stop what you're doing and intervene, I don't think you're going to make it in the city.

Second, her dress and appearance had no particular redeeming qualities. She was a poster girl for the concept of "she's let herself go". She was probably a poster girl for this concept ten years ago. Her clothes were ill-fitting and poorly made walmart-wear of the sort that you can't tell if they're from last summer or last decade, her shorts were riding up between her legs exposing her cellulite, and her hair was cropped short and plastered flat against her head with no hint of having been washed or combed in the past 24 hours. Normally when I see someone who takes so little care with their appearance I think nothing of it, simply assuming they have better things to worry about. But this lady had proven that she clearly doesn't.

Third, these shoes have gotten me the more compliments than anything else in my life, and by "anything" I mean not just fashion choices but actual achievements as well. Even if you do think they're ugly (and that's entirely your prerogative), they are a clear fashion win, moreso than anything else I've ever worn.

Between my bullies and my judgmental family members I've received more than my fair share of disses in my life, but I've never received one that was so off-target from someone who was so very clearly less cool than me. That made the whole thing utterly hilarious and not at all hurtful, and I left the interaction with a smile on my face.

I didn't blog about this when it first happened because I've been getting great mileage out of it. I've told it to all different people, and it gets a laugh every time and we all leave the conversation with smiles on our faces. But this morning in the shower I realized that this random shoe-hating lady has actually given me a very generous gift: a hilarious story!

The story works fantastically because it makes me look good ("My shoes are so awesome they offended some frumpy judgey lady, and I handled the situation with complete sangfroid!") and it makes whomever I tell the story to feel good about themselves ("At least I'm nowhere near that awful!"). If I were the kind of person who liked to brag about my personal possessions, this would give me the perfect opportunity to show off my awesome red shoes.

In fact, every decision that lady made pertaining to our interaction improved the story. By opting not to make any effort with her appearance that day, she made certain that I wouldn't feel any insult and added humour to the story, bolstering my audience's feeling good about themselves upon hearing the story. (It wouldn't be nearly so effective a story if she had been more conventionally attractive.) And by cleverly phrasing her question as "Where did you get such ugly shoes?" she gave me the perfect set-up for a good reply (a big smile and the name and location of the store). If she'd chosen to phrase it "Your shoes are ugly," I probably wouldn't have been able to immediately come up with an appropriate reply (something along the lines of "Thanks, you too!") She was generous enough to sacrifice her appearance, face (in the sociological sense), and dignity so that we may live in a world that contains amusing anecdotes.

So thank you, shoe-hating lady, for your noble sacrifice. It has brought amusement to dozens of people.

Teach me about the internal logic of Catholic school dress codes

Thursday was a day to break records and rules. With the temperature in the GTA within a smidgen of an all-time high, students at St. Mary Catholic Secondary School were excited to wear shorts on one of the few days of the year they could ditch their uniforms.

But around 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, vice-principal Paul Perron’s voice crackled from the speakers: no shorts, no khakis and no ankle socks on Thursday.

The article focuses on the shorts ban and the hypocrisy and asshattery of banning shorts on a civvies day when it's going to be hot out, but I'm more interested in why on earth they'd ban khakis and ankle socks. Within the school's internal logic, what on earth would their reason be for banning khakis or ankle socks?

Khakis are conservative, non-trendy long pants that are maybe a shade dressier than jeans, and in fact many schools and other organizations include khakis as part of their uniforms. I'm not even sure if teenagers today would wear khakis unless they're trying to dress more grownup. (They were trendy when I was a teenager, but now even my peers don't wear them that much and I feel a bit frumpy and out of it when I wear them.)

The kind of socks being worn are utterly irrelevant if you're already wearing long pants (which they must be, given the prohibition on shorts), so I cannot fathom why the administration even thought of this.

I'm not saying the shorts ban is reasonable, but it's not an uncommon rule for a dress code so, apart from the act of declaring a civvies day and then giving it a dress code, it doesn't particularly surprise me. But the ban on khakis and ankle socks completely baffles me and I can't even begin to speculate what their intention is. Any ideas?

What if buses stopped at every other stop?

This idea was inspired by the comments thread here (but is unrelated to the post itself). People were discussing how some transit routes have stops relatively close together, which slows things down because the vehicle has to stop so much. Some suggested spacing stops further apart, others thought that this would place too much of a burden on people with mobility issues.

But what if we kept all the stops, but had each vehicle only service alternate stops. The first bus of the day would stop at the first, third, fifth etc. stops, the second bus of the day would stop at the second, fourth, sixth etc. stops. Each individual bus would travel the route faster (which would make this technique useful for bus routes that are most often used to travel all the way across town or connect to the subway), and any user who carries a cellphone (to check NextBus) and for whom walking to the next bus stop is feasible would not be inconvenienced at all.

Just visualizing it in my head, it also seems like it would reduce bunching, although I can't actually prove that to you. For this reason, it also occurred to me to apply it to streetcars, but I don't think they can pass each other on the tracks. Transfers would be a problem under current policy, but the transfer policy could be easily changed.

This wouldn't work with infrequent bus routes, but if you've got a bus every 10 minutes it should increase convenience for the majority of users without too much inconvenience for the remaining users. Of course, the question is whether we want to be conveniencing the able-bodied on the backs of those with mobility issues, even if overall it is for the greater good.

Clever detail in the latest Dexter book (spoiler-free)

In the latest Dexter book (Double Dexter), Dexter is shown a picture of himself, and thinks to himself that he's rather handsome-looking, as though he's noticing this for the first time.

I appreciated this little detail, because when they first started making the Dexter TV series, I thought that Michael C. Hall was entirely too attractive to play Dexter. He's way more handsome than my mental image of Dexter based on the books. So I like how the author wrote in the possibility that Dexter has always been as attractive as Michael C. Hall and just hasn't noticed or mentioned it before. This could have been hand-waved as a function of the two different continuities, but instead the author fixed it. I appreciate that.

What's up with midnight strike deadlines?

Talks between the union representing library workers and the city’s library board continued Sunday afternoon, as bleary eyed teams of negotiators worked to hammer out an agreement and avert a work stoppage.

Late Saturday night, both parties decided to extend their 12:01 a.m. deadline to 3 a.m., then 6 a.m., then 12 noon, and then until 5 p.m., according to a Toronto Public Library spokesperson.

It sounds like they've been negotiating for well over 24 hours straight, and it sounds like this is at least partly because of the midnight strike deadline. The midnight deadline impels them to negotiate right up until midnight, and then past midnight, and then keep going and going...

But negotiation is delicate, nuanced, interpersonal work. It doesn't seem very compatible with sleepless nights. People who are tired get cranky and are more likely to snap at people, and are also more likely to miss nuances and fine details. It really seems in everyone's best interest to be well-rested. And yet, every strike deadline with which I'm familiar has been at midnight.

Why do they do it this way? Why not set the strike deadline for 6 pm, and, if they feel that progress is being made but they aren't done at 6 pm, extend the strike deadline to noon or 6 pm the next day, leave at a natural stopping point, and have some dinner and sleep. Yes, there'd be some dead time in between. That would enable the employer to stay open for another half-day or full-day, and the workers to earn another half-day's or full day's wages. It sounds like a win-win-win situation. So why don't they do this?

Why does Actors' Equity work, and what can we learn from it?

A while back I read an article about how the Toronto production of In The Heights was non-unionized, and that got me thinking and googling about how unions work in show business.

Every union with which I'm familiar is specific to an employer - you work for the employer, you join the union. But actors' membership in Actors' Equity does not seem to be tied into their employer, probably because the nature of acting is multiple temporary jobs. They join Equity, then any production that hires them has to give them the employment conditions set out in the collective agreement.

Wouldn't that be awesome? Wouldn't life be so much better if other jobs worked that way? You don't have to negotiate your salary half-blind (How much do other people get paid for this job? What's the employer's budget?), you just have to do your job well.

But, as the article about In The Heights describes, there are also some shows that don't use unionized performers at all.

But why does the union still work? Why don't all producers just use non-unionized performers and refuse to use unionized performers? A bit of googling suggests that all the best performers are in the union, but what factors are leading the producers to conclude "The best actors are in the union, therefore we should hire unionized actors" rather than concluding "We'll just hire non-unionized performers until the unionized performers give up. Even the best performers have to eat - they'll give in eventually. And if they don't, how will audience know what they're missing if the best performers aren't working?" Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that it does work, but why does it work?

And how do we recreate this phenomenon in other fields, so people could enjoy the benefits of a union even in today's precarious employment environment?

Why everyone should be worried that bankers are worried about smaller bonuses

Via wmtc, bankers worrying that their bonuses are smaller than in previous years.

This has been circulating because it's kind of tragically hilariously tonedeaf, but this is actually something that everyone should be worried about.

Bankers have types of income: predictable income (i.e. their salary) and unpredictable income (i.e. their bonuses). The problem is that some of the people quoted in this article are relying on their unpredictable income to pay regular, recurring, important expenses, like tuition and housing.

A responsible way to manage money in this kind of situation is to keep your regular, recurring, important expenses within the budget of your predictable income, and treat your unpredictable income as found money. Pay tuition with salary and use bonus money for a vacation. Get a mortgage that you can afford on your salary, and dump the bonus into the principal every time you renew to pay it off sooner. If you'd like to take on more regular, recurring, important expenses than your salary can handle, then the responsible way to do this is to invest your found money in an annuity or something similar so it provides you with regular income. Which they should totally be able to do, being bankers.

And that's the point here: they're bankers. Their job is to manage money. Collectively, they manage basically all the money. And here they are making poor decisions about what kinds of expenditures to use salary for vs. what kinds of expenditures to use bonuses for, and loudly announcing it to the media.