Most of the times I saw Eddie Izzard material for the first time were alone, in my apartment, watching YouTube.
The last time I heard Eddie Izzard material for the first time was almost 5 years ago, lying in bed in the dark listening to an audio bootleg of one of his Stripped shows.
Today, I saw new Eddie Izzard material for the first time sitting front row centre in Massey Hall with my two very best friends in the whole world!
I highly recommend it.
I repeat: front row centre. Front row centre. Front row centre!!!
This bears emphasizing not just because holy shit front row centre, but because Eddie Izzard and Massey Hall deserve credit for having a system where an ordinary person with no inside knowledge and no connections, armed with nothing but a readily-googleable fan presale code, can land front row centre seats through normal, official channels! Since I saw tickets to some of Eddie's other shows on stubhub before the fan presale even started, I was very happy to see that Massey Hall was selling properly and aboveboard and "best available" actually meant best available.
Also, I touched the stage of Massey Hall! (Before the show, when the audience was milling around. I just stood up, took two steps, and touched it!)
The whole show went by so fast! The first half felt like 20 minutes (it was an hour and a quarter) and the second half felt like 10 minutes (it was at least an hour). I didn't even retain any of the material for future quoting purposes because it went by so fast! I've already forgotten and then re-remembered some parts, and burst out laughing in the subway because I re-remembered the sacrificial virgins bit.
About halfway through the first act, I hit this endorphin high where I was so close to full belly laughter than I couldn't even laugh big any more. The show ended 1.5 hours ago, and I'm still floating there. I've been grinning basically since 8 pm, and I'm not about to stop any time soon.
Because of the high and the rapid pace of new material and the intensity of experiencing it brand new for the first time live and in person and up close and personal, I can't even review the material! I can't even compare it to other shows! I'll seriously have to buy the DVD to figure out how I like it compared with other shows!
We still really need a way to communicate to Eddie on stage that we're listening with rapt attention. When he was talking about how we use French-derived words for meat instead of the Anglo-Saxon-derived words we used for the animals (cow = boeuf = beef) we were agreeing and listening and waiting to hear what he said next, but he read the room as not following or not entertained or something. Which isn't true! What he was saying was true and interesting and one of my favourite things about English etymology and we couldn't wait to see what else he had to say about it, it just wasn't making us belly laugh.
I normally tweet a welcome to any visiting celebrities, but Eddie arrived right at the peak of the Rob Ford gong show, so I didn't quite feel right about welcoming anyone into this mess. But perhaps it's good thing for a comedian, because it provides a wealth of material! Eddie did a bit about Ford at the beginning and then had smoking crack as a callback punchline throughout. Twitter tells me that in the earlier shows this week, he got 20 minutes of quality material out of it. Imagine walking into a city as a comedian and it hands you 20 minutes of material that didn't exist the day before! On one hand, maybe this will make him like us and come back! On the other hand, I don't want my city to still be so rich in comedy material next time!
Eddie looks absolutely fantastically gorgeous during this tour! Best I've seen him look in real time! The clean-shaven look really suits him, even when he's not going fully femme.
And my absolute favourite part of tonight was that instead of doing the stage door autograph thing, Eddie came back onstage and did a Q&A session! He sat down right on the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience! I vastly prefer that because you get to feel like you're part of a more intimate conversation even if you don't have anything to contribute! I didn't have any questions, so I just sat there and enjoyed and felt like I was getting to be a part of the conversation without the risk of making an ass of myself.
Eddie is so good at including the whole room that even though we were front and centre and really really close to him during the Q&A, we didn't feel any more included in the conversation than anyone else. He was deliberately calling on question-askers who were further back and not giving us any particular attention. All of which was very fair and equitable, of course, I'm just very impressed that he can do that! It's got to be difficult not to favour people who are nearly within arm's reach and within easy conversational distance! (We still got to enjoy proximity and skinny jeans and such, so I feel like we won.)
(I'm also happy about the Q&A in my ongoing tradition of interpreting everything as being the result of my influence as a blogger. Eddie did Q&As earlier in the Stripped tour, but didn't do them for us. I did express my disappointment on the internet that we got stage door instead of Q&A. And this time we got a Q&A! Also, last time I also expressed concern that the tickets available through Ticketmaster weren't the same as the tickets available though the Massey Hall box office, with far better tickets being available through Massey Hall (Massey Hall put us in the second row when Ticketmaster was putting us on the balcony), and this time the Toronto tickets were through Massey Hall only with Ticketmaster not involved at all!)
Next time there's an It Gets Better or Letter To Your Younger Self or similar meme floating around, this evening is something that I am totally going to tell my younger self about. This was like the pinnacle of experience for me.
Eddie did mention in the Q&A that he plans two more tours. I look forward to him topping this. Twice.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Things They Should Invent: leave cartons with cracked eggs open on the shelf
In the grocery store buying eggs, I picked up a carton off the shelf, checked the eggs, and discovered that one was stuck to the carton, which meant it was cracked and leaking. Since I don't want a cracked egg, I put that carton down and selected another one.
But I put the carton with the cracked egg back on the shelf, which meant that the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. And then the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. This wastes a little bit of everyone's time and interferes with the smooth flow of traffic in the egg section.
Solution: we need to standardize some way to signal to other shoppers that a particular carton contains a cracked egg.
My idea: If the carton has a cracked egg, leave it open on the shelf. Other people can then avoid it and go straight to cartons that are still closed.
This will also signal to store employees that there's something wrong with this carton, although it's possible they might just close it and put it back.
As an added bonus, if you pick up a carton of eggs and find it contains an egg that's cracked but not stuck to the carton, you could swap that out with one of the good, non-cracked eggs in an open carton on the shelf, thus consolidating all the cracked eggs and potentially reducing waste.
But I put the carton with the cracked egg back on the shelf, which meant that the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. And then the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. This wastes a little bit of everyone's time and interferes with the smooth flow of traffic in the egg section.
Solution: we need to standardize some way to signal to other shoppers that a particular carton contains a cracked egg.
My idea: If the carton has a cracked egg, leave it open on the shelf. Other people can then avoid it and go straight to cartons that are still closed.
This will also signal to store employees that there's something wrong with this carton, although it's possible they might just close it and put it back.
As an added bonus, if you pick up a carton of eggs and find it contains an egg that's cracked but not stuck to the carton, you could swap that out with one of the good, non-cracked eggs in an open carton on the shelf, thus consolidating all the cracked eggs and potentially reducing waste.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Seeking external hard drive recommendations (signal boost)
This morning I posted a request for external hard drive recommendations, then promptly sank it with my blogathon.
If you have any external hard drive recommendations, please post them here.
Thank you kindly!
If you have any external hard drive recommendations, please post them here.
Thank you kindly!
Monday, November 11, 2013
How I became old-fashioned
There have been a lot of technological changes in recent years, and I haven't felt it necessary to adapt these changes wholesale. As a result, my overall media consumption and telecommunications patterns are starting to look a bit old-fashioned.
Here's what happened:
Newspapers
I've found that I read about three times as many articles in print newspapers than in online newspapers. Because you have to page through all the pages, more headlines and such catch my eye and I end up reading more articles, whereas when I'm reading online I tend not to dig deeper than what's linked to on the front page. It isn't readily apparent to me online whether I've looked at all the day's headlines or not, and it's important to me that I at least see what the headlines are even if I choose not to read all the articles.
I do use newspaper websites too, of course. There are columns I read regularly in papers I don't subscribe to, I look at how other media outlets are covering stories when I'm trying to get a full in-depth picture, and I often land on newspaper websites when googling things. But I continue to read my core newspapers in print so that my baseline news consumption doesn't get drastically reduced.
Books
I also mostly read books in print, because I find I focus better. I do use ebooks from time to time (when the library doesn't have something in print, when I want searchable, when I want to be able to read on my ipod), but I find I can concentrate and get into the story better when reading on paper. (I'm more likely to glaze over when reading on screen.)
I also find I like the physical switch from sitting in my computer chair and looking at my computer screen - especially since I'm now working from home so I'm in this exact same chair looking at this exact same screen for nearly all my waking hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my computer, but when I'm reading a book I sit in a different place, in a different position, facing a different direction, and escape into a different world.
Cable
When TV shows and movies are available on demand, I can watch them whenever I want. So I end up never watching them because I can always get to them later. So then, instead of being a nice break and bit of entertainment, they become an item on my to-do list.
However, if TV shows or movies are on TV at a specific time, then I'll stop what I'm doing if at all possible and watch them at that time because that's when they're on. It's a perfectly valid excuse to take a break, and it's also a clearly circumscribed break. No half-assed "I'll just game for a bit." Nope, I game for the duration of this specific TV show, and then get back to what I should be doing.
For example, I'm currently watch 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation because they're in syndication on channels I get. Twice a day, I take a half-hour break, and I'm getting through these shows at the rate of one episode a day.
However, United States of Tara, Big Love, Dexter and Arrested Development have been languishing on my "stuff I should get around to watching" list for literally years. Because they're no longer on TV or on channels I get, I'd have to get the DVDs from the library and binge-watch (because you can only take out a DVD for a week) or acquire them through unofficial channels. But I can do that whenever, so I haven't done it yet. The DVDs are languishing on my holds list and the shows are among the many things weighing down my mental to-do list.
I also don't feel any particular need to avoid television that has commercial breaks, because I have a long-standing habit of using commercial breaks to get shit done. When I'm watching something and commercials come on, I start doing housework or, if it's close to bedtime, going through my evening routine. I'm motivated because it's such a short period of time, so I get a surprising amount done. I wouldn't be anywhere near as motivated or efficient if I just though "I'll do 15 minutes of housework now for no particular reason."
There's also the fact that I use TV for exercise. The "if I can do it whenever, I'll never get around to it" thing holds here too. I'll get down on the floor and do pilates because Pilates from the Inside Out is on TV. But if I had DVDs or online videos, I'd procrastinate it. And given how much I detest exercise, anything that gets me doing it is good.
Cable is a major expense and is high on the Things I'd Cut If I Needed To Save Money list, but fortunately I don't need to cut it yet, so I keep it for the structure that it gives to my recreational habits.
Landline
I do own a cellphone, but it's a cheap phone that's uncomfortable to talk on with the cheapest plan I could find. (And for three years, I had a deal where I didn't pay anything at all for it.) I use it when I need to get in touch with someone while I'm out of the house, but I don't like it for social conversation. For social purposes, I very much prefer the landline.
The major advantage of the landline is it's in my home, not in my purse. I'm only able to chat for social purposes (and for many business purposes) when I'm at home. When I'm out and about, I've got shit to do and/or I'm already socializing with someone, so I'm simply not available for telephone conversations. I do still enjoy long, rambling, high-school-style telephone conversations when both parties have the time, but I only ever have time when I'm at home.
I think one of the factors here is that I live alone. I don't need telephone privacy from anyone else or have anyone else tying up my line (and back when these things did apply, it was the 20th century and I was a teenager, so a cellphone would have been an unattainable luxury for me at the time), so I don't have any reason not to use the landline, or any reason why using the cell would be preferable.
Email
Many people in recent years have moved towards using texting for social purposes, but I still find email more convenient for many of the same reasons why I find the landline more convenient. Again, I do use texting if I'm out and about and need to communicate with someone textually, or if I need to put textual information directly into someone's cellphone. And when people text me, I do text back (eventually, once I'm within reach of my cell and have it turned on.)
But I find it inconvenient for purely social "Hi, how's it going, how was your day?" purposes, again because I'm only up for these purely social conversations when I'm at home, and when I'm at home it's much more convenient to write textual conversations on the computer.
I can type nearly 120 wpm (my typing speed actually went up after plateauing for years!) but I can only text at about 50 on a good day. The keyboard is also more conducive to using sentences and paragraphs and punctuation and such. You don't need to press a extra button to insert a number or a semicolon or anything, you just go. Plus, if I'm at home, I'm almost always at the computer so it's just a question of alt-tabbing to another window and replying, whereas if I were to text a reply I'd have to put down/stop what I'm doing, pick up another device, and painstakingly peck out a reply.
Again, this is also informed by the fact that I live alone and in a very small apartment. I leave my computer on whenever I'm home and awake, I can hear any incoming email thanks to Gmail Notifier, and basically I'm never in a situation where using another device is more convenient for me than using my computer and I'm up for social chitchat. So, again, I don't have any reason not to use email, or any reason why texting would be preferable for casual conversation.
But apparently all these things are starting to be seen as old-fashioned, and, from what I've seen on Reddit and such, younger people in their teens and 20s hardly use them at all. But I'm well over 30 now. I hope that makes me old enough to be a bit old-fashioned.
Here's what happened:
Newspapers
I've found that I read about three times as many articles in print newspapers than in online newspapers. Because you have to page through all the pages, more headlines and such catch my eye and I end up reading more articles, whereas when I'm reading online I tend not to dig deeper than what's linked to on the front page. It isn't readily apparent to me online whether I've looked at all the day's headlines or not, and it's important to me that I at least see what the headlines are even if I choose not to read all the articles.
I do use newspaper websites too, of course. There are columns I read regularly in papers I don't subscribe to, I look at how other media outlets are covering stories when I'm trying to get a full in-depth picture, and I often land on newspaper websites when googling things. But I continue to read my core newspapers in print so that my baseline news consumption doesn't get drastically reduced.
Books
I also mostly read books in print, because I find I focus better. I do use ebooks from time to time (when the library doesn't have something in print, when I want searchable, when I want to be able to read on my ipod), but I find I can concentrate and get into the story better when reading on paper. (I'm more likely to glaze over when reading on screen.)
I also find I like the physical switch from sitting in my computer chair and looking at my computer screen - especially since I'm now working from home so I'm in this exact same chair looking at this exact same screen for nearly all my waking hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my computer, but when I'm reading a book I sit in a different place, in a different position, facing a different direction, and escape into a different world.
Cable
When TV shows and movies are available on demand, I can watch them whenever I want. So I end up never watching them because I can always get to them later. So then, instead of being a nice break and bit of entertainment, they become an item on my to-do list.
However, if TV shows or movies are on TV at a specific time, then I'll stop what I'm doing if at all possible and watch them at that time because that's when they're on. It's a perfectly valid excuse to take a break, and it's also a clearly circumscribed break. No half-assed "I'll just game for a bit." Nope, I game for the duration of this specific TV show, and then get back to what I should be doing.
For example, I'm currently watch 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation because they're in syndication on channels I get. Twice a day, I take a half-hour break, and I'm getting through these shows at the rate of one episode a day.
However, United States of Tara, Big Love, Dexter and Arrested Development have been languishing on my "stuff I should get around to watching" list for literally years. Because they're no longer on TV or on channels I get, I'd have to get the DVDs from the library and binge-watch (because you can only take out a DVD for a week) or acquire them through unofficial channels. But I can do that whenever, so I haven't done it yet. The DVDs are languishing on my holds list and the shows are among the many things weighing down my mental to-do list.
I also don't feel any particular need to avoid television that has commercial breaks, because I have a long-standing habit of using commercial breaks to get shit done. When I'm watching something and commercials come on, I start doing housework or, if it's close to bedtime, going through my evening routine. I'm motivated because it's such a short period of time, so I get a surprising amount done. I wouldn't be anywhere near as motivated or efficient if I just though "I'll do 15 minutes of housework now for no particular reason."
There's also the fact that I use TV for exercise. The "if I can do it whenever, I'll never get around to it" thing holds here too. I'll get down on the floor and do pilates because Pilates from the Inside Out is on TV. But if I had DVDs or online videos, I'd procrastinate it. And given how much I detest exercise, anything that gets me doing it is good.
Cable is a major expense and is high on the Things I'd Cut If I Needed To Save Money list, but fortunately I don't need to cut it yet, so I keep it for the structure that it gives to my recreational habits.
Landline
I do own a cellphone, but it's a cheap phone that's uncomfortable to talk on with the cheapest plan I could find. (And for three years, I had a deal where I didn't pay anything at all for it.) I use it when I need to get in touch with someone while I'm out of the house, but I don't like it for social conversation. For social purposes, I very much prefer the landline.
The major advantage of the landline is it's in my home, not in my purse. I'm only able to chat for social purposes (and for many business purposes) when I'm at home. When I'm out and about, I've got shit to do and/or I'm already socializing with someone, so I'm simply not available for telephone conversations. I do still enjoy long, rambling, high-school-style telephone conversations when both parties have the time, but I only ever have time when I'm at home.
I think one of the factors here is that I live alone. I don't need telephone privacy from anyone else or have anyone else tying up my line (and back when these things did apply, it was the 20th century and I was a teenager, so a cellphone would have been an unattainable luxury for me at the time), so I don't have any reason not to use the landline, or any reason why using the cell would be preferable.
Many people in recent years have moved towards using texting for social purposes, but I still find email more convenient for many of the same reasons why I find the landline more convenient. Again, I do use texting if I'm out and about and need to communicate with someone textually, or if I need to put textual information directly into someone's cellphone. And when people text me, I do text back (eventually, once I'm within reach of my cell and have it turned on.)
But I find it inconvenient for purely social "Hi, how's it going, how was your day?" purposes, again because I'm only up for these purely social conversations when I'm at home, and when I'm at home it's much more convenient to write textual conversations on the computer.
I can type nearly 120 wpm (my typing speed actually went up after plateauing for years!) but I can only text at about 50 on a good day. The keyboard is also more conducive to using sentences and paragraphs and punctuation and such. You don't need to press a extra button to insert a number or a semicolon or anything, you just go. Plus, if I'm at home, I'm almost always at the computer so it's just a question of alt-tabbing to another window and replying, whereas if I were to text a reply I'd have to put down/stop what I'm doing, pick up another device, and painstakingly peck out a reply.
Again, this is also informed by the fact that I live alone and in a very small apartment. I leave my computer on whenever I'm home and awake, I can hear any incoming email thanks to Gmail Notifier, and basically I'm never in a situation where using another device is more convenient for me than using my computer and I'm up for social chitchat. So, again, I don't have any reason not to use email, or any reason why texting would be preferable for casual conversation.
But apparently all these things are starting to be seen as old-fashioned, and, from what I've seen on Reddit and such, younger people in their teens and 20s hardly use them at all. But I'm well over 30 now. I hope that makes me old enough to be a bit old-fashioned.
Why try to force people to exchange gifts when none of them want to?
DEAR MISS MANNERS,
As a father of two teenagers sons (14 & 18) and step-father of two more boys (16 & 21), I am at odds with my wife about birthday gifts between the siblings.
While I understand that giving should be from the heart, I feel the teenage boys could use a "nudge" in the right direction. My idea was that sibling gifts should be at least $25, and no limit to generosity above this base level of gift card or purchase. In this way, the amount always comes back to them anyway, so it's not a big budget issue, looking at the year as a whole.
What are your thoughts about brotherly love through birthday gifts, should it be regulated just enough to encourage giving?
If they're unenthusiastic about giving each other gifts, why eliminate the option of a mutual agreement not to exchange gifts? Giving the perfect gift is awesome, but the would-be joy of giving quickly becomes an arduous chore when it's forced upon you.
If the kids have different ideas of what constitutes an appropriate birthday present, it might be an idea to make some guidelines (with their input!) But if they're all just unenthusiastic, I think it would be a better idea to let them drop it in favour of exchanging gifts with people they actually care about. The most important thing in encouraging giving is to make it a pleasure, not a chore.
Things They Should Invent: insist on Advent
On November 1, multiple non-retail sources, ranging from Weather Network polls to Reddit alien doodles, turned Christmasmas themed. As though everyone had collectively decided "It's November, therefore it's time to think about Christmas!" (In fact, one of the polls or articles on the Weather Network even said this outright.)
This is ridiculous. It wasn't too long ago that US Thanksgiving was considered the distant early beginning of Christmas shopping and such. But to stretch it out to very nearly 2 full months? That will ruin it for everyone, because everyone will be tired of Christmas by the time December rolls around. And to unquestioningly treat that as baseline human reality? Unacceptable!
I have a solution: Christians should insist that Advent be respected.
Advent is, in many Christian denominations, a period of anticipation and preparation for the arrival of Christ. In Western denominations (which includes Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist), it begins four Sundays before Christmas, which ranges from November 27 to December 3 depending on how the calendar falls that year. That seems like plenty of time for actively getting ready for Christmas. In fact, it has been decreed to be enough time by the very people who decreed that Christmas is A Thing in the first place!
Appropriately, because Christmas is a Christian holiday, this solution needs to be pushed and promoted and advocated for by Christians. There are people out there who are very insistent that Christmas should be acknowledged in public spaces, going to far as to proclaiming there is a "War on Christmas" if it isn't acknowledge to their satisfaction.
These people, especially, can do an enormous amount of good by also insisting that Advent be acknowledged, and by proclaiming and pre-Advent public display of Christmas paraphernalia to be a War on Advent.
The liturgical calendar exists for a reason. There are different seasons that reflect the trials and tribulations of the life of Christ and of the human condition. Christianity - and life itself - are not all trees and presents and food and adorable haloed babies. Advent, too, is there for a reason, and organizations that fail to respect it are failing to respect the complexity of your religion. You should protest this, like you would protest the use of a creche as an Easter decoration.
This is ridiculous. It wasn't too long ago that US Thanksgiving was considered the distant early beginning of Christmas shopping and such. But to stretch it out to very nearly 2 full months? That will ruin it for everyone, because everyone will be tired of Christmas by the time December rolls around. And to unquestioningly treat that as baseline human reality? Unacceptable!
I have a solution: Christians should insist that Advent be respected.
Advent is, in many Christian denominations, a period of anticipation and preparation for the arrival of Christ. In Western denominations (which includes Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist), it begins four Sundays before Christmas, which ranges from November 27 to December 3 depending on how the calendar falls that year. That seems like plenty of time for actively getting ready for Christmas. In fact, it has been decreed to be enough time by the very people who decreed that Christmas is A Thing in the first place!
Appropriately, because Christmas is a Christian holiday, this solution needs to be pushed and promoted and advocated for by Christians. There are people out there who are very insistent that Christmas should be acknowledged in public spaces, going to far as to proclaiming there is a "War on Christmas" if it isn't acknowledge to their satisfaction.
These people, especially, can do an enormous amount of good by also insisting that Advent be acknowledged, and by proclaiming and pre-Advent public display of Christmas paraphernalia to be a War on Advent.
The liturgical calendar exists for a reason. There are different seasons that reflect the trials and tribulations of the life of Christ and of the human condition. Christianity - and life itself - are not all trees and presents and food and adorable haloed babies. Advent, too, is there for a reason, and organizations that fail to respect it are failing to respect the complexity of your religion. You should protest this, like you would protest the use of a creche as an Easter decoration.
The best thing about having bought a condo
So it was just over a year ago that I bought my condo. It's currently under construction, and my strongest feeling about the whole thing is relief that I don't have to buy a condo!
I've never felt it's strictly necessary to buy a condo, but I have felt that it's strictly necessary for my decision to rent to be the best choice, which meant that I needed to keep running numbers and researching prices and basically working on buying a condo even when I wasn't buying one.
But the numbers and the situation turned last year, and I managed to buy the exact unit I wanted, which means that for the past year this omnipresent chores has been off my to-do list!
Condo people are always asking me if I'm excited about the new place, and I'm not. I have no negative feelings about it, but my positive feelings aren't as strong as excitement. However, I have been incredibly relaxed and stress-free for the past year because it's no longer up in the air. The complex multivariable equation of what/when/where/if has been turned into something simple: hoard money and throw it at the mortgage.
That I can do.
I've never felt it's strictly necessary to buy a condo, but I have felt that it's strictly necessary for my decision to rent to be the best choice, which meant that I needed to keep running numbers and researching prices and basically working on buying a condo even when I wasn't buying one.
But the numbers and the situation turned last year, and I managed to buy the exact unit I wanted, which means that for the past year this omnipresent chores has been off my to-do list!
Condo people are always asking me if I'm excited about the new place, and I'm not. I have no negative feelings about it, but my positive feelings aren't as strong as excitement. However, I have been incredibly relaxed and stress-free for the past year because it's no longer up in the air. The complex multivariable equation of what/when/where/if has been turned into something simple: hoard money and throw it at the mortgage.
That I can do.
Scientific approaches without critical thinking
I blogged before about the guy on the GO bus who was trying to convince me that I shouldn't use my anti-carsickness wristbands because he believed their effect was purely psychosomatic and had no scientific basis.
This is an example of something that's been irritating me for a while: people who are so dedicated to the scientific method that they don't think critically about whether it's necessary to approach a particular problem or situation from a purely scientific perspective. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of science. It's just that it isn't absolutely necessary to limit oneself to a strict, solely evidence-based, clinical, experimental approach to absolutely everything in the world at absolutely all times.
Here are some of the problems:
Unwillingness to make educated guesses
Sometimes, if you ask an evidence-based expert's opinion on something, they'll just say "There haven't been any studies conducted." But, as someone who doesn't know much about a number of subject areas, I'd very much like their educated guess.
Using a blatantly fake example so as not to accidentally create googleability on something I don't know anything about, suppose I've read on the internet that jumping out of a second-storey window will cure your cancer. They probably haven't done any studies on this. But we can still use our basic knowledge of how cancer and gravity and the world work to conclude "No, it doesn't work that way." But suppose I say that I've read on the internet that if you jump out a second-storey window, you'll most likely survive but might injure the part of your body that you land on. Without conducting any studies, we can look at our basic knowledge of the world and say "Seems about right."
This comes up and annoys me most often in websites dedicated to scientific analysis of beauty products. They'll say something like "The product claims to do X, Y and Z. There have been no studies conducted on whether these ingredients would do X, Y or Z." And then they leave it at that. Okay, but is the claim plausible? Is the claim ridiculous? In the absence of clinical evidence, use your education and make an educated guess! I'm reading you for expertise, not just for you to google up other people's studies so I don't have to.
The assumption that untested = harmful
When I was having my dysphagia incident, at one point during the long, scary weekend when I was waiting to see my doctor, I googled up the reflexology points that correspond with the esophagus, and massaged them. It helped a little. If my esophagus was functioning at 10%, it felt like it was functioning at 15% after I did my little experiment in self-reflexology.
I don't know if reflexology has been clinically tested (the internet tells me it has and the internet tells me it hasn't). But even if it hasn't been tested, it's reasonable to assume I'm doing myself no harm by rubbing my own feet. If reflexology did serious harm, someone probably would have noticed by now. (In fact, if it could do harm, it's better for me to google up the correct reflexology points and operate under the assumption that I'm doing a medical treatment on myself than to just rub my feet willy-nilly.)
The assumption that ineffective = harmful
When I was a teenager, I read or heard somewhere that duct tape can cure warts. In the early 2000s, I had an opportunity to try it, and it worked fantastically where drugstore treatments had no effect. Sometime later, someone did a study of duct tape as a wart treatment (although they used clear duct tape and I used silver) and they found that the results for duct tape were no different than the results for no treatment.
What I have a problem with is people who use this study to conclude that you shouldn't try to treat your warts with duct tape. The study found that the results were no different from doing nothing. So why not give it a try if you want to do it? Basically the study proved that putting duct tape on your foot has no effect. So if you want to do something silly-looking that the evidence found has no effect, why shouldn't you?
When it doesn't matter if it's scientific
As I've blogged about before, I found significant, life-changing inspiration in the concept of Entitlement, which I learned about in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. A number of times I've mentioned this in discussions about things that inspired you, and been told that I shouldn't be inspired by that because Gladwell's methods aren't scientific.
But it doesn't have to be scientific for me to be inspired by it. The book introduced me to a concept I needed in a way that made it clear to me why I needed it and how I could make it work for me. So I tried it out, got good results, kept using it, and it was life-changing. No science required. It's like if someone says to you "You'd look good in red," or "Here, taste this food." They don't need to prove scientifically that you'd look good in red or that the food is yummy, you just try it out and either it works or it doesn't. And if it turns out you do look good in red or the food is yummy, these positive qualities are not negated by their not having been proven scientifically.
When it doesn't matter if it doesn't work
Shortly after my GERD diagnosis, in an informal conversation with someone with naturopathic training, I learned that apples are thought to be effective against GERD. The pectin in their peel is thought to form a protective barrier on top of the contents of the stomach, making it more difficult for it to reflux back up into the esophagus. To get the most out of this protection, I was told, an apple should be the last thing you eat at each meal and at the end of the day.
So I immediately started doing it.
Is it scientifically proven? I have no idea. Does it work for me? I have no idea - my GERD is silent so I don't feel heartburn.
But it doesn't matter. I love apples and I eat at least one (and 2-3 during peak season) every day anyway. Even with all the contradictory information I received from conventional and alternative medicine, apples were not contraindicated anywhere. So I took something I eat anyway and started eating it at specific points in my day rather than whenever the hell I want (although I'm also free to have them whenever the hell I want too.) If it doesn't work, nothing has changed and no harm has been done. So why wait around for someone to do a study?
The right to self-experimentation
One thing I hear quite often from people who are opposed to alternative medicine on the basis that it hasn't undergone clinical testing is that people shouldn't be experimenting on themselves or using themselves as test subjects for things that haven't been proven.
But why not? Experimentation and test subjects are necessary for things to become proven. So if you feel it's promising or would rather be doing something than doing nothing, why not experiment on yourself?
Weirdly, because this comes from nearly an opposite place, I've also seen this from people who think prescription medicines are overused. For example, when I had my dysphagia incident, my doctor offered me the option of taking a medication (Dexilant) while we waited for testing and referrals to go through. His reasoning was that most things that could be hindering my swallowing had reflux as the root cause, and Dexilant would help with reflux and help heal any damage to my esophagus caused by reflux. If reflux was a factor, it would help. If reflux wasn't a factor, it would be informative.
At that point, I really wanted to do something proactive, so I decided that yes, I want to try the medication. I noticed an improvement within an hour of taking the first pill, and I was able to eat normally in three days (i.e. before any tests results had come back or referrals had gone through.) It was an unmitigated success. But I've gotten static from a surprising number of people for taking a prescription medication without being 100% certain it was necessary.
One thing I learned when I got sick was that being proactive is helpful for me. I'm far less stressed when I feel like I'm doing something to make myself better. I left the doctor's office that day with a to-do list: go to the lab and give them some blood; go to the pharmacy, take the pills they give you, monitor what happens; go to this address at this time and drink some barium; when the hospital calls you, do what they tell you.
Similarly, when I get a cold, I bring on the home remedies. Vitamin C and echinacea and garlic and Cold-FX and zinc and juice and water and tea and broth and 12 hours of sleep a night. If I'm not asleep, I'm intaking some kind of fluid literally at all times. I have no idea if all of this stuff is proven (they keep coming out with studies changing what has been proven), I have no idea if all (or any) of it is necessary. For all I know, the 12 hours of sleep a night is doing all the work for me. But I feel far better when I'm doing something about it, so I do something about it.
Why would you want to deny someone the relief of being proactive if that's what works for them?
Anecdotal = empirical when it happened to you
Sometimes when I mention something that worked for me in my own firsthand experience, people point out that this is just anecdotal, not experimental data, and therefore I shouldn't rely on it.
But it actually did work for me. That's empirical evidence. Duct tape did cure my warts, so I will use duct tape next time I get a wart. Even if for some reason it doesn't work for anyone else in the world, I already know that it worked for me, so it will be the first thing I reach for next time. My home remedy bombardment when I have a cold has worked for me for the past 20 years, so next time I get a cold, I will reach for it. Even if it doesn't work for others, I know it works for me.
Everyone is their own best test subject for determining whether things work for themselves. If someone is willing to take the risk of playing guinea pig for themselves, why deny them that option?
This is an example of something that's been irritating me for a while: people who are so dedicated to the scientific method that they don't think critically about whether it's necessary to approach a particular problem or situation from a purely scientific perspective. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of science. It's just that it isn't absolutely necessary to limit oneself to a strict, solely evidence-based, clinical, experimental approach to absolutely everything in the world at absolutely all times.
Here are some of the problems:
Unwillingness to make educated guesses
Sometimes, if you ask an evidence-based expert's opinion on something, they'll just say "There haven't been any studies conducted." But, as someone who doesn't know much about a number of subject areas, I'd very much like their educated guess.
Using a blatantly fake example so as not to accidentally create googleability on something I don't know anything about, suppose I've read on the internet that jumping out of a second-storey window will cure your cancer. They probably haven't done any studies on this. But we can still use our basic knowledge of how cancer and gravity and the world work to conclude "No, it doesn't work that way." But suppose I say that I've read on the internet that if you jump out a second-storey window, you'll most likely survive but might injure the part of your body that you land on. Without conducting any studies, we can look at our basic knowledge of the world and say "Seems about right."
This comes up and annoys me most often in websites dedicated to scientific analysis of beauty products. They'll say something like "The product claims to do X, Y and Z. There have been no studies conducted on whether these ingredients would do X, Y or Z." And then they leave it at that. Okay, but is the claim plausible? Is the claim ridiculous? In the absence of clinical evidence, use your education and make an educated guess! I'm reading you for expertise, not just for you to google up other people's studies so I don't have to.
The assumption that untested = harmful
When I was having my dysphagia incident, at one point during the long, scary weekend when I was waiting to see my doctor, I googled up the reflexology points that correspond with the esophagus, and massaged them. It helped a little. If my esophagus was functioning at 10%, it felt like it was functioning at 15% after I did my little experiment in self-reflexology.
I don't know if reflexology has been clinically tested (the internet tells me it has and the internet tells me it hasn't). But even if it hasn't been tested, it's reasonable to assume I'm doing myself no harm by rubbing my own feet. If reflexology did serious harm, someone probably would have noticed by now. (In fact, if it could do harm, it's better for me to google up the correct reflexology points and operate under the assumption that I'm doing a medical treatment on myself than to just rub my feet willy-nilly.)
The assumption that ineffective = harmful
When I was a teenager, I read or heard somewhere that duct tape can cure warts. In the early 2000s, I had an opportunity to try it, and it worked fantastically where drugstore treatments had no effect. Sometime later, someone did a study of duct tape as a wart treatment (although they used clear duct tape and I used silver) and they found that the results for duct tape were no different than the results for no treatment.
What I have a problem with is people who use this study to conclude that you shouldn't try to treat your warts with duct tape. The study found that the results were no different from doing nothing. So why not give it a try if you want to do it? Basically the study proved that putting duct tape on your foot has no effect. So if you want to do something silly-looking that the evidence found has no effect, why shouldn't you?
When it doesn't matter if it's scientific
As I've blogged about before, I found significant, life-changing inspiration in the concept of Entitlement, which I learned about in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. A number of times I've mentioned this in discussions about things that inspired you, and been told that I shouldn't be inspired by that because Gladwell's methods aren't scientific.
But it doesn't have to be scientific for me to be inspired by it. The book introduced me to a concept I needed in a way that made it clear to me why I needed it and how I could make it work for me. So I tried it out, got good results, kept using it, and it was life-changing. No science required. It's like if someone says to you "You'd look good in red," or "Here, taste this food." They don't need to prove scientifically that you'd look good in red or that the food is yummy, you just try it out and either it works or it doesn't. And if it turns out you do look good in red or the food is yummy, these positive qualities are not negated by their not having been proven scientifically.
When it doesn't matter if it doesn't work
Shortly after my GERD diagnosis, in an informal conversation with someone with naturopathic training, I learned that apples are thought to be effective against GERD. The pectin in their peel is thought to form a protective barrier on top of the contents of the stomach, making it more difficult for it to reflux back up into the esophagus. To get the most out of this protection, I was told, an apple should be the last thing you eat at each meal and at the end of the day.
So I immediately started doing it.
Is it scientifically proven? I have no idea. Does it work for me? I have no idea - my GERD is silent so I don't feel heartburn.
But it doesn't matter. I love apples and I eat at least one (and 2-3 during peak season) every day anyway. Even with all the contradictory information I received from conventional and alternative medicine, apples were not contraindicated anywhere. So I took something I eat anyway and started eating it at specific points in my day rather than whenever the hell I want (although I'm also free to have them whenever the hell I want too.) If it doesn't work, nothing has changed and no harm has been done. So why wait around for someone to do a study?
The right to self-experimentation
One thing I hear quite often from people who are opposed to alternative medicine on the basis that it hasn't undergone clinical testing is that people shouldn't be experimenting on themselves or using themselves as test subjects for things that haven't been proven.
But why not? Experimentation and test subjects are necessary for things to become proven. So if you feel it's promising or would rather be doing something than doing nothing, why not experiment on yourself?
Weirdly, because this comes from nearly an opposite place, I've also seen this from people who think prescription medicines are overused. For example, when I had my dysphagia incident, my doctor offered me the option of taking a medication (Dexilant) while we waited for testing and referrals to go through. His reasoning was that most things that could be hindering my swallowing had reflux as the root cause, and Dexilant would help with reflux and help heal any damage to my esophagus caused by reflux. If reflux was a factor, it would help. If reflux wasn't a factor, it would be informative.
At that point, I really wanted to do something proactive, so I decided that yes, I want to try the medication. I noticed an improvement within an hour of taking the first pill, and I was able to eat normally in three days (i.e. before any tests results had come back or referrals had gone through.) It was an unmitigated success. But I've gotten static from a surprising number of people for taking a prescription medication without being 100% certain it was necessary.
One thing I learned when I got sick was that being proactive is helpful for me. I'm far less stressed when I feel like I'm doing something to make myself better. I left the doctor's office that day with a to-do list: go to the lab and give them some blood; go to the pharmacy, take the pills they give you, monitor what happens; go to this address at this time and drink some barium; when the hospital calls you, do what they tell you.
Similarly, when I get a cold, I bring on the home remedies. Vitamin C and echinacea and garlic and Cold-FX and zinc and juice and water and tea and broth and 12 hours of sleep a night. If I'm not asleep, I'm intaking some kind of fluid literally at all times. I have no idea if all of this stuff is proven (they keep coming out with studies changing what has been proven), I have no idea if all (or any) of it is necessary. For all I know, the 12 hours of sleep a night is doing all the work for me. But I feel far better when I'm doing something about it, so I do something about it.
Why would you want to deny someone the relief of being proactive if that's what works for them?
Anecdotal = empirical when it happened to you
Sometimes when I mention something that worked for me in my own firsthand experience, people point out that this is just anecdotal, not experimental data, and therefore I shouldn't rely on it.
But it actually did work for me. That's empirical evidence. Duct tape did cure my warts, so I will use duct tape next time I get a wart. Even if for some reason it doesn't work for anyone else in the world, I already know that it worked for me, so it will be the first thing I reach for next time. My home remedy bombardment when I have a cold has worked for me for the past 20 years, so next time I get a cold, I will reach for it. Even if it doesn't work for others, I know it works for me.
Everyone is their own best test subject for determining whether things work for themselves. If someone is willing to take the risk of playing guinea pig for themselves, why deny them that option?
Is anyone teaching young people how to drink?
In Grade 12, the student council president was in my homeroom, so a lot of posters and swag and propaganda and stuff got delivered to our classroom for her to use for student council purposes.
One day we got a package of anti-drinking posters. We opened them up and looked through them, and some of my classmates thought that one poster was inappropriate and shouldn't be used.
The inappropriate message? Guidelines for safer social drinking. (For example, the one part I remember was "No more than one drink per hour, no more than four drinks per occasion".) People thought this was inappropriate because the vast majority of the students in our school were under the legal drinking age, and they felt this poster was giving students permission to drink as long as they did so responsibly. So it didn't go up.
However, I saw the poster and internalized the message. Then, that summer, when I took up drinking, I followed those rules. One drink per hour, four drinks per occasion. Water in between, start on a full stomach.
And I've never had a hangover. Or a blackout. And the last time I vomited was four years before I started drinking.
This all came to mind when I saw a headline in Salon refuting the premise of another article that apparently alleges that no one is telling young women not to drink. (The article is not important to this blog post, it's just the headline that triggered this train of thought.)
My experience is consistent with the Salon headline: everyone is telling young people not to drink.
But is anyone teaching young people how to drink? Is the information about timing and spacing and what constitutes moderate consumption and what constitutes safe consumption and what the threshold is for binge drinking being provided? Or are they just being told not to do it or not to overdo it?
Quantitative guidelines fell into my hands a few months before I had my first beer, and as a result I've always been in control of my inebriation. But these guidelines were kept from my peers for fear they might imply that it's possible to drink responsibly.
How many of my peers didn't learn how to drink responsibly as a result? Or perhaps even that drinking responsibly is an option?
One day we got a package of anti-drinking posters. We opened them up and looked through them, and some of my classmates thought that one poster was inappropriate and shouldn't be used.
The inappropriate message? Guidelines for safer social drinking. (For example, the one part I remember was "No more than one drink per hour, no more than four drinks per occasion".) People thought this was inappropriate because the vast majority of the students in our school were under the legal drinking age, and they felt this poster was giving students permission to drink as long as they did so responsibly. So it didn't go up.
However, I saw the poster and internalized the message. Then, that summer, when I took up drinking, I followed those rules. One drink per hour, four drinks per occasion. Water in between, start on a full stomach.
And I've never had a hangover. Or a blackout. And the last time I vomited was four years before I started drinking.
This all came to mind when I saw a headline in Salon refuting the premise of another article that apparently alleges that no one is telling young women not to drink. (The article is not important to this blog post, it's just the headline that triggered this train of thought.)
My experience is consistent with the Salon headline: everyone is telling young people not to drink.
But is anyone teaching young people how to drink? Is the information about timing and spacing and what constitutes moderate consumption and what constitutes safe consumption and what the threshold is for binge drinking being provided? Or are they just being told not to do it or not to overdo it?
Quantitative guidelines fell into my hands a few months before I had my first beer, and as a result I've always been in control of my inebriation. But these guidelines were kept from my peers for fear they might imply that it's possible to drink responsibly.
How many of my peers didn't learn how to drink responsibly as a result? Or perhaps even that drinking responsibly is an option?
Post your external hard drive recommendations here!
Just over two years ago, I bought a Western Digital Elements external hard drive. I didn't put a lot of research into this - I just had to reimage my computer so I needed something immediately for backup.
It served me well for nearly two years, but then the power supply died. I bought a new one on ebay, but it died just now, after only a few months' use. The internet suggests that this is not an uncommon problem with Western Digital external hard drives.
So I've decided it's time to go for quality. Can anyone recommend an external hard drive that has given them worry-free reliability and longevity?
I don't necessarily need anything with its own backup software or anything, I just need an external hard drive that will work and keep working for years without my having to worry about it.
Suggestions?
It served me well for nearly two years, but then the power supply died. I bought a new one on ebay, but it died just now, after only a few months' use. The internet suggests that this is not an uncommon problem with Western Digital external hard drives.
So I've decided it's time to go for quality. Can anyone recommend an external hard drive that has given them worry-free reliability and longevity?
I don't necessarily need anything with its own backup software or anything, I just need an external hard drive that will work and keep working for years without my having to worry about it.
Suggestions?
Interesting Canadian place names
I was slightly surprised to see Thunder Bay in the list of Eddie Izzard's Canadian tour stops. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy for the people of Thunder Bay that they get to see Eddie, but it is a bit of a "one of these things is not like the others" on the list of cities he's visiting.
So I was amused to see, in Eddie's interview in the Ottawa Citizen, “I’m excited to play Thunder Bay because I assume it’s an exciting place where Thunder happens.”
So here's a few more Canadian place names about which one could draw similar conclusion:
So I was amused to see, in Eddie's interview in the Ottawa Citizen, “I’m excited to play Thunder Bay because I assume it’s an exciting place where Thunder happens.”
So here's a few more Canadian place names about which one could draw similar conclusion:
- Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador
- Happy Valley, Newfoundland and Labrador (like the German Monty Python sketch!)
- St-Louis-du-Ha!-Ha!, Quebec
- Moose Factory, Ontario
- Medicine Hat, Alberta
- Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, Alberta
Saturday, November 09, 2013
Things They Should Study: what kinds of wear and tear are and aren't avoidable with quality manufacturing?
Conventional wisdom is that good-quality products last longer and cheaply-made products wear out faster.
But this isn't necessarily going to apply for every single kind of wear and tear.
For example, because my gait is uneven, the outside back corner of my shoe heels wears out long before anything else. I've owned shoes at a wide range of price points, and this has happened with every pair that I've worn enough times. It therefore stands to reason that it's going to happen regardless of the quality of the shoes. (Unless shoes with 4-digit or higher prices, which I can't afford, won't wear out from uneven gait.)
A lot of my things that wear out seem to be from similar causes. The fabric of my coats gets threadbare where my purse hangs. My rug gets threadbare under my desk chair. Would better quality products not wear out in these ways (or wear out slower?) Or would everything wear out unevenly from an uneven application of friction (and therefore it's not worth it to buy more expensive if this is the first thing that wears out)?
As I've mentioned before, I buy cheap earbuds and treat them with no care whatsoever. And my earbuds always die within a few months. But are do they keep dying because they're cheap, or because I treat them with no care whatsoever? In other words, if I bought high-quality earbuds and continued to treat them with no care whatsoever, would they last me years and years?
It would be really useful if someone could study different kinds of wear and tear in different quality levels of products and determine for us what kinds of wear and tear can be avoided by buying better-quality products, and what kinds are unavoidable regardless. Then, if our possessions wear out from unavoidable wear and tear before avoidable wear and tear kicks in, we'll know that we're buying at a sufficient quality level for our needs.
But this isn't necessarily going to apply for every single kind of wear and tear.
For example, because my gait is uneven, the outside back corner of my shoe heels wears out long before anything else. I've owned shoes at a wide range of price points, and this has happened with every pair that I've worn enough times. It therefore stands to reason that it's going to happen regardless of the quality of the shoes. (Unless shoes with 4-digit or higher prices, which I can't afford, won't wear out from uneven gait.)
A lot of my things that wear out seem to be from similar causes. The fabric of my coats gets threadbare where my purse hangs. My rug gets threadbare under my desk chair. Would better quality products not wear out in these ways (or wear out slower?) Or would everything wear out unevenly from an uneven application of friction (and therefore it's not worth it to buy more expensive if this is the first thing that wears out)?
As I've mentioned before, I buy cheap earbuds and treat them with no care whatsoever. And my earbuds always die within a few months. But are do they keep dying because they're cheap, or because I treat them with no care whatsoever? In other words, if I bought high-quality earbuds and continued to treat them with no care whatsoever, would they last me years and years?
It would be really useful if someone could study different kinds of wear and tear in different quality levels of products and determine for us what kinds of wear and tear can be avoided by buying better-quality products, and what kinds are unavoidable regardless. Then, if our possessions wear out from unavoidable wear and tear before avoidable wear and tear kicks in, we'll know that we're buying at a sufficient quality level for our needs.
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
My schoolwork/studying technique
Since I've posted my essay-writing technique, I thought I'd also post my approach to schoolwork and studying.
I spent a designated amount of time on schoolwork per day per class. Extrapolating from guidelines in my high school student handbook, I started with 15 minutes per day per class in Grade 9, and gradually increased it to 30 minutes per day per class in university.
Note that I worked with the total amount of time, rather than distributing it evenly among all my classes. This means that, for example, in a university semester where I was taking 6 courses, I'd do a total of 3 hours of schoolwork each day, but I wouldn't necessarily do an equal amount for each course, or even do work for every course every day.
I'd decide what to work on by simple chronology. I wrote down every deadline (reading, assignments, tests, projects, exams) in my calendar, and would spend my designated hours of schoolwork on whatever was due next.
If the next thing due was a test to be studied for (as opposed to an assignment that can be definitively completed), I'd do one round of studying for the test, then go on to the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, then do the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, and so on and so forth until I wrote the test. What a "round of studying" actually was would depend on the nature of the test. It could be reading through all the relevant parts of the textbook, it could be quizzing myself on the material that would be on the test, it could be doing practice exams.
If the next thing due was a group project and my group hadn't yet sorted itself out enough for me to know what exactly I needed to do for the project, I'd work on it anyway. I'd just open up a Word document and start typing up reasonable content for the project. Then, at the end of the day's session, I'd email what I had to the rest of the group. I'd frame it as "I've been thinking about the project, and I think better by actually writing stuff down, so I threw together a partial, very rough draft. Feel free to critique whatever you don't like, or appropriate anything you do like, and we can maybe use it as a basis for discussion and planning for the rest of the project." I didn't think of this approach until university, and by then my classmates most often appreciated my work (as opposed to earlier grades, where they'd reject my work because I'm not cool, even though my work was objectively correct), so the end result of this was a not-insignificant chunk of the project was done, anyone who was worse than I am could see what needed to be done to get the project up to my level, anyone who was better than I am could catch anything I needed to improve early on, and the entire group would be nudged into a "time to do the project" mindset without having to actually schedule a meeting.
The most important thing about this method is to always do the designated hours of work, starting on the day you receive your course syllabus and every single day until you've finished your last project or exam, even when you don't have any imminent deadlines. What would usually happen is I'd get way ahead on my reading in the first couple of weeks when there weren't many assignments yet, which would pay off when assignments picked up later on in the semester, when deadlines started catching up with me and I spent most of my time working on the next day's deadlines. I'd pull ahead again during reading week, where I'd make some progress on final projects and studying for final exams, which had the added advantage of letting the material fester in my head for a bit once classes resumed and I was getting more imminent deadlines.
What was most valuable about this technique for me personally was that it gave me a definite point at which I could stop studying guilt-free. I'm naturally inclined to feel the burden of everything I have to do ever ("OMG, I have to pay off my mortgage! And save for retirement! Right now!"), so it's beneficial to me to have a system where all I have to do is study for three hours, regardless of how much or how little I get done in that time, and after the three hours are up I'm Officially Done for the Day.
I spent a designated amount of time on schoolwork per day per class. Extrapolating from guidelines in my high school student handbook, I started with 15 minutes per day per class in Grade 9, and gradually increased it to 30 minutes per day per class in university.
Note that I worked with the total amount of time, rather than distributing it evenly among all my classes. This means that, for example, in a university semester where I was taking 6 courses, I'd do a total of 3 hours of schoolwork each day, but I wouldn't necessarily do an equal amount for each course, or even do work for every course every day.
I'd decide what to work on by simple chronology. I wrote down every deadline (reading, assignments, tests, projects, exams) in my calendar, and would spend my designated hours of schoolwork on whatever was due next.
If the next thing due was a test to be studied for (as opposed to an assignment that can be definitively completed), I'd do one round of studying for the test, then go on to the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, then do the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, and so on and so forth until I wrote the test. What a "round of studying" actually was would depend on the nature of the test. It could be reading through all the relevant parts of the textbook, it could be quizzing myself on the material that would be on the test, it could be doing practice exams.
If the next thing due was a group project and my group hadn't yet sorted itself out enough for me to know what exactly I needed to do for the project, I'd work on it anyway. I'd just open up a Word document and start typing up reasonable content for the project. Then, at the end of the day's session, I'd email what I had to the rest of the group. I'd frame it as "I've been thinking about the project, and I think better by actually writing stuff down, so I threw together a partial, very rough draft. Feel free to critique whatever you don't like, or appropriate anything you do like, and we can maybe use it as a basis for discussion and planning for the rest of the project." I didn't think of this approach until university, and by then my classmates most often appreciated my work (as opposed to earlier grades, where they'd reject my work because I'm not cool, even though my work was objectively correct), so the end result of this was a not-insignificant chunk of the project was done, anyone who was worse than I am could see what needed to be done to get the project up to my level, anyone who was better than I am could catch anything I needed to improve early on, and the entire group would be nudged into a "time to do the project" mindset without having to actually schedule a meeting.
The most important thing about this method is to always do the designated hours of work, starting on the day you receive your course syllabus and every single day until you've finished your last project or exam, even when you don't have any imminent deadlines. What would usually happen is I'd get way ahead on my reading in the first couple of weeks when there weren't many assignments yet, which would pay off when assignments picked up later on in the semester, when deadlines started catching up with me and I spent most of my time working on the next day's deadlines. I'd pull ahead again during reading week, where I'd make some progress on final projects and studying for final exams, which had the added advantage of letting the material fester in my head for a bit once classes resumed and I was getting more imminent deadlines.
What was most valuable about this technique for me personally was that it gave me a definite point at which I could stop studying guilt-free. I'm naturally inclined to feel the burden of everything I have to do ever ("OMG, I have to pay off my mortgage! And save for retirement! Right now!"), so it's beneficial to me to have a system where all I have to do is study for three hours, regardless of how much or how little I get done in that time, and after the three hours are up I'm Officially Done for the Day.
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Do silica gel desiccant packets get used up?
After the Infamous Rogers Centre iPod Drowning Incident of 2012, I started collecting everyone one of those little silica gel desiccant packets that crossed my path. I put them in a ziploc bag with some rice, just in case I should ever have a similar incident in the future.
That paid off this week, when I accidentally overturned a glass of water onto my ipod. I stuck the ipod straight into this bag and left it there for 24 hours, and it came out fully operational (and I think the moisture indicator didn't even turn, knock wood!)
My question: do I need to throw out all these silica packets, or are they still good for further use? I intend to keep adding packets to the bag as I encounter them, but can I keep the "used" ones in there or should I throw them completely out and start over?
That paid off this week, when I accidentally overturned a glass of water onto my ipod. I stuck the ipod straight into this bag and left it there for 24 hours, and it came out fully operational (and I think the moisture indicator didn't even turn, knock wood!)
My question: do I need to throw out all these silica packets, or are they still good for further use? I intend to keep adding packets to the bag as I encounter them, but can I keep the "used" ones in there or should I throw them completely out and start over?
Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Nanoblur
I recently tried Nanoblur, which claims to instantly reduce the appearance of skin by changing the way light reflects off skin.
Many internet reviewers have said that they experienced instantly noticeable results. However, on me, it did basically nothing. I could see maybe a 2% improvement on my forehead wrinkles when I was wearing makeup, and nothing perceptible when I wasn't wearing makeup. Also, when I applied with with makeup, my eyes somehow looked smaller afterwards.
I also tried it on my elbows and on the backs of my hands (to duplicate tests I've seen people do on the internet), and there was no perceptible difference.
It didn't do anything to mitigate the dark skin around my eyes or my acne scars, which are my primary beauty concerns at the moment. (I suspect it might not be intended to address these issues, although the advertising didn't rule it out.) It also didn't do anything about my large pores, which the advertising did specifically mention.
One thing I did notice is Nanoblur is very matte. Which might be helpful if you don't have your shine under control, but is less useful if you do have your shine under control (which I didn't even realize I do until I tried Nanoblur!) My usual foundation regime (a combination of Cover Girl TruBlend liquid and powder foundations) usually gives me a tiny bit of a good shine - a certain luminosity, for lack of a better word - and Nanoblur slightly suppressed this.
I found it was compatible with makeup when used as directed (other online reviewers reported having difficulty combining it with makeup), and I didn't find it drying (other online reviewers did).
But I didn't find it worth using either. I'm not even planning to keep it for my special occasion makeup arsenal, instead I intend to pass it on to someone else who's interested in trying it to save them the expense.
Many internet reviewers have said that they experienced instantly noticeable results. However, on me, it did basically nothing. I could see maybe a 2% improvement on my forehead wrinkles when I was wearing makeup, and nothing perceptible when I wasn't wearing makeup. Also, when I applied with with makeup, my eyes somehow looked smaller afterwards.
I also tried it on my elbows and on the backs of my hands (to duplicate tests I've seen people do on the internet), and there was no perceptible difference.
It didn't do anything to mitigate the dark skin around my eyes or my acne scars, which are my primary beauty concerns at the moment. (I suspect it might not be intended to address these issues, although the advertising didn't rule it out.) It also didn't do anything about my large pores, which the advertising did specifically mention.
One thing I did notice is Nanoblur is very matte. Which might be helpful if you don't have your shine under control, but is less useful if you do have your shine under control (which I didn't even realize I do until I tried Nanoblur!) My usual foundation regime (a combination of Cover Girl TruBlend liquid and powder foundations) usually gives me a tiny bit of a good shine - a certain luminosity, for lack of a better word - and Nanoblur slightly suppressed this.
I found it was compatible with makeup when used as directed (other online reviewers reported having difficulty combining it with makeup), and I didn't find it drying (other online reviewers did).
But I didn't find it worth using either. I'm not even planning to keep it for my special occasion makeup arsenal, instead I intend to pass it on to someone else who's interested in trying it to save them the expense.
Sunday, October 20, 2013
Things They Should UNInvent: banners that overlap the body text section of a website (or web browsers that can't handle this)
Some websites (such as Twitter and Salon) have banner-style headers that overlap the body text area.
The problem with this is if you press the spacebar to page down one screen, the browser behaves as though the area covered by the banner is visible, which means you miss a line or two every time you page down, and then have to page back up with a mouse. This is very irritating, and also bad ergonomically - pressing the spacebar to page down is basically the minimum amount of ergonomic strain, and having to mouse could cause problems for people who have or are prone to RSI.
Web design and browser design need to fix this. Pressing the spacebar should show the next page of text, with no text missed (and, in fact, with the last line of the previous page visible at the top, just to reassure the reader that they haven't missed anything.)
The problem with this is if you press the spacebar to page down one screen, the browser behaves as though the area covered by the banner is visible, which means you miss a line or two every time you page down, and then have to page back up with a mouse. This is very irritating, and also bad ergonomically - pressing the spacebar to page down is basically the minimum amount of ergonomic strain, and having to mouse could cause problems for people who have or are prone to RSI.
Web design and browser design need to fix this. Pressing the spacebar should show the next page of text, with no text missed (and, in fact, with the last line of the previous page visible at the top, just to reassure the reader that they haven't missed anything.)
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Things They Should Invent: public birthday parties
Sometimes people can't celebrate their birthday on their actual birthday, because the people they most want to celebrate with aren't available on that day.
Solution: public, meet-up style birthday parties for anyone who has a birthday that day. I'm picturing the parties being held by a group of bars or pubs - the kind of place where any random person can walk in and have a good time - that would rotate among themselves so each one has to throw a birthday party only every couple of weeks or so.
You go in, show ID showing that it's your birthday, and you're entitled to one free drink and a piece of cake and maybe all the nachos you can eat over the course of the evening (or whatever else they can give away without wrecking their margins). The employees (and, hopefully, other customers and birthday people) congratulate you and wish you happy birthday and generally make a fuss over you. Maybe there could also be bonus freebies for people celebrating a milestone birthday. There would also be a general discount for people whose birthday it isn't on birthday party days, so there will be other people around to wish happy birthday to the birthday people.
The bars get attention, publicity, drink sales (because few people are going to limit themselves to the one free drink on their birthday), and maybe some new regulars who remember how this bar made them feel happy and welcome and celebrated on that birthday when they were all alone.
The bar's regulars get a discount and a bit of a party atmosphere on that particular day, and the possibility of attracting new and interesting regulars to the bar (if the birthday people are made to feel happy and welcome and celebrated.)
The birthday people get something fun to do on their birthday that makes them feel happy and welcome and celebrated, plus they get to meet other people who have the same birthday and thereby make friends who will totally be into celebrating their birthday on their birthday next year!
And, because the birthday people will meet birthday buddies, they might be able to make it just a one-year project. This would eliminate any "Meh, I'll go next year" sentiment among the birthday people, and thereby increase attendance and popularity.
Solution: public, meet-up style birthday parties for anyone who has a birthday that day. I'm picturing the parties being held by a group of bars or pubs - the kind of place where any random person can walk in and have a good time - that would rotate among themselves so each one has to throw a birthday party only every couple of weeks or so.
You go in, show ID showing that it's your birthday, and you're entitled to one free drink and a piece of cake and maybe all the nachos you can eat over the course of the evening (or whatever else they can give away without wrecking their margins). The employees (and, hopefully, other customers and birthday people) congratulate you and wish you happy birthday and generally make a fuss over you. Maybe there could also be bonus freebies for people celebrating a milestone birthday. There would also be a general discount for people whose birthday it isn't on birthday party days, so there will be other people around to wish happy birthday to the birthday people.
The bars get attention, publicity, drink sales (because few people are going to limit themselves to the one free drink on their birthday), and maybe some new regulars who remember how this bar made them feel happy and welcome and celebrated on that birthday when they were all alone.
The bar's regulars get a discount and a bit of a party atmosphere on that particular day, and the possibility of attracting new and interesting regulars to the bar (if the birthday people are made to feel happy and welcome and celebrated.)
The birthday people get something fun to do on their birthday that makes them feel happy and welcome and celebrated, plus they get to meet other people who have the same birthday and thereby make friends who will totally be into celebrating their birthday on their birthday next year!
And, because the birthday people will meet birthday buddies, they might be able to make it just a one-year project. This would eliminate any "Meh, I'll go next year" sentiment among the birthday people, and thereby increase attendance and popularity.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Double candy buyback?
From The Ethicist:
The first Google result tells me that the average kids gets 10 pounds of Halloween candy, which means the food bank may well end up with a few hundred pounds of candy. So if they split it up among several dentists, they could get a few hundred dollars, which would buy a decent amount of food (especially since food banks can apparently buy food wholesale.)
I don't know if this would bring their clients as much happiness as getting some candy for a treat, but that's where my mind went.
Several dentists in our area offer to purchase candy during Halloween from their young patients for $1 per pound. Presumably they do this to reduce the risk to their patients of developing cavities. Unfortunately, the dentists then give the candy to the local food cupboard. There is little doubt that most (if not all) the clients who use the food cupboard can little afford proper dental care. I believe such behavior is thoughtless, unethical and unprofessional. I am a retired dentist.Unrelated to the question being asked and without claiming that this is actually a good idea, I find myself wondering if people could get candy from the food bank and have the dentist buy it from them from a dollar a pound? Or if someone from the food bank could just take it back to a dentist and get it bought out and use the donation to buy food?
The first Google result tells me that the average kids gets 10 pounds of Halloween candy, which means the food bank may well end up with a few hundred pounds of candy. So if they split it up among several dentists, they could get a few hundred dollars, which would buy a decent amount of food (especially since food banks can apparently buy food wholesale.)
I don't know if this would bring their clients as much happiness as getting some candy for a treat, but that's where my mind went.
Thursday, October 17, 2013
Thankful without a "to"
I've blogged before about my non-thankfulness policy. But it occurs to me that the things I'm thankful for are those for which there is no one to be thankful to.
For example, I'm thankful that I don't feel the need to seek out adventure and am perfectly content at home with books and TV and internet and gaming.
I'm thankful that I'm introverted enough that I don't get lonely, functionally speaking (i.e. the frequency with which people pay attention to me in the natural course of life is sufficient to keep me from getting lonely).
I'm thankful that, through a series of flukes, I found my optimal career path and my optimal neighbourhood.
All of these are things for which I'm truly thankful, but there's no one to be thankful to. They're just how things turned out.
I want to make it clear: this isn't any sort of deliberate exercise in gratitude. This isn't the result of a philosophy or a self-help system. The purely internal things for which I'm thankful aren't the result of any attempt to master my emotions or become zen or otherwise self-improve. This is just how my naturally-occurring emotions landed: thankful without a "to".
For example, I'm thankful that I don't feel the need to seek out adventure and am perfectly content at home with books and TV and internet and gaming.
I'm thankful that I'm introverted enough that I don't get lonely, functionally speaking (i.e. the frequency with which people pay attention to me in the natural course of life is sufficient to keep me from getting lonely).
I'm thankful that, through a series of flukes, I found my optimal career path and my optimal neighbourhood.
All of these are things for which I'm truly thankful, but there's no one to be thankful to. They're just how things turned out.
I want to make it clear: this isn't any sort of deliberate exercise in gratitude. This isn't the result of a philosophy or a self-help system. The purely internal things for which I'm thankful aren't the result of any attempt to master my emotions or become zen or otherwise self-improve. This is just how my naturally-occurring emotions landed: thankful without a "to".
Sunday, October 13, 2013
Things They Should Invent: standardized "I'm about to smoke on the balcony" warning
I habitually keep my windows open when the outdoor temperature is comfortable. I find it's more effective (and cheaper) at regulating the indoor temperature, especially at this time of year when apartment buildings are switched over to heating mode but it's nowhere near cold enough to need heat.
Unfortunately, one of my neighbours smokes, and whatever it is they smoke is truly disgusting. It's worse than cigarettes, it's worse than pot. (I'm wondering if it might be cigars, since it really has a strong stinky old man smell.) I can't tell when they're about to start smoking, so my living room gets filled with stinky stinky stink before I can even get the window closed.
But smoking on one's balcony is a reasonable thing to do, so I can't exactly complain. I just wish I had some kind of warning so I could close my windows before the stinky stinky stink gets in.
Solution: some kind of standardized, audible "I'm about to smoke on my balcony" signal. A bell or something, loud enough to be heard when the windows are open but not when the windows are closed, with the same sound for everyone so everyone could recognize it. If you're going to smoke, you ring the bell, wait a minute or two, then light up.
One benefit of this approach would be that it retains some anonymity. Smokers could inform their neighbours they're going to smoke without actually having to converse with them (and risk having to deal with being yelled at or otherwise deal with attempts at dissuasion). The neighbours might not even know who it is who's about to smoke, just that it's someone nearby or downstairs or whatever. But we could still get fair warning so we could close our windows and not be disturbed by the smoke.
Unfortunately, one of my neighbours smokes, and whatever it is they smoke is truly disgusting. It's worse than cigarettes, it's worse than pot. (I'm wondering if it might be cigars, since it really has a strong stinky old man smell.) I can't tell when they're about to start smoking, so my living room gets filled with stinky stinky stink before I can even get the window closed.
But smoking on one's balcony is a reasonable thing to do, so I can't exactly complain. I just wish I had some kind of warning so I could close my windows before the stinky stinky stink gets in.
Solution: some kind of standardized, audible "I'm about to smoke on my balcony" signal. A bell or something, loud enough to be heard when the windows are open but not when the windows are closed, with the same sound for everyone so everyone could recognize it. If you're going to smoke, you ring the bell, wait a minute or two, then light up.
One benefit of this approach would be that it retains some anonymity. Smokers could inform their neighbours they're going to smoke without actually having to converse with them (and risk having to deal with being yelled at or otherwise deal with attempts at dissuasion). The neighbours might not even know who it is who's about to smoke, just that it's someone nearby or downstairs or whatever. But we could still get fair warning so we could close our windows and not be disturbed by the smoke.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Beware of calls from 1-877-974-2547 allegedly from RBC
I recently received a phone call from 1-877-974-2547, with the call display saying "RBC". I bank with RBC, so I answered. On the other end was a young woman in a very noisy call centre asking me if I wanted to switch to paperless statements. I've been on paperless statements for years, so this seemed suspicious to me.
So I asked RBC on Twitter, and they replied that it doesn't appear to be an official number:
So beware of any call you get from 1-877-974-2547. Remember: if you get a questionable call, you can always call the customer service number listed on the bank's website and ask them if there are in fact any problems with your account that require attention.
So I asked RBC on Twitter, and they replied that it doesn't appear to be an official number:
@impstrump We've chked into it, and this doesn't appear to be an RBC ph #. If u have concerns, reach out http://t.co/DnnQCHwk7B or DM us ^DH
— Ask RBC (@AskRBC) October 5, 2013
So beware of any call you get from 1-877-974-2547. Remember: if you get a questionable call, you can always call the customer service number listed on the bank's website and ask them if there are in fact any problems with your account that require attention.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain
In my readings about neuroplasticity, I came across a mention of a book called Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, which is a drawing course that uses neuroplasticity principles to improve your drawing skills by strengthening your right brain. I have no interest in drawing but I did want to see neuroplasticity happen, so I decided to try it out. (This is also why blogging has been particularly slow lately - I've had to spend a lot of time drawing!)
Here's what I discovered:
Using my right brain only literally makes my brain hurt! One of the earlier exercises is copying a line drawing upside down. Because it's upside down, it's far more difficult to recognize what you're drawing, so instead of thinking "This is a leg that I'm drawing now" you think in terms of "How do the length and angle of this line relate to the line I just drew?" Because your left brain can't name the parts of what you're drawing, it stops participating in the exercise, leaving it to the right brain only. My poor, underused right brain was not accustomed to this, and the exercise gave me the worst headache I've had since the first day I tried going coffee-free on weekends. If I hadn't known about the neuroplasticity benefits, I would have given up right then and there.
My left brain quickly adapted. When I did that first, painful upside-down line drawing, the exercise was a success in that I couldn't recognize what I was copying so I copied the actual lines far more accurately. However, by the time I got to the second (which was on another day, with at least one sleep in between), rather than my right brain being stronger, I found my left brain had adapted to the exercise and I could recognize what I was drawing far more readily, which defeated the purpose of the exercise and resulted in a less realistic drawing.
My drawing did improve, but not as much as I had hoped. The last pictures I drew were significantly better than the first ones. However, they weren't nearly as good as I had hoped they would be based on the description of what the book was meant to achieve. I wasn't able to enjoy my clear, obvious, significant improvement because the drawings still didn't come out nearly as well as I wanted.
This book helps you see, but doesn't help you actually draw. The core function of the book is to make you see what's actually in front of you - how the lines and spaces and light and shadows relate to each other - rather than letting your left brain fill in the blank. The problem - as with everything physical and tangible - is that I can't always make my hand make the pencil do what I want it to. I draw a line, and it looks wrong. Using the principles taught in the book, I am now able to think "That should be on a steeper slant." But when I erase it and try to redraw it on a steeper slant... it comes out exactly where I put it in the first place! This book doesn't do anything to help with that, and it's currently the biggest obstacle to my drawings coming out the way I want them to.
I'd also hoped that it might give me drawing skills that enable me to do a quick, semi-realistic sketch, the sort of thing I could bust out as a parlour trick. I was picturing sitting and colouring with my fairy goddaughter, and while she makes me a page of crayon scribbles that I will keep forever, I make her a recognizable picture of her dog or something. But instead the process is slow and technical, and requires a subject or model that stays still (which my fairy goddaughter's dog most definitely does not.) It gets results with time invested and hard work, but doesn't give you the ability to improvise delightfully. Much like my music skills, actually.
Turns out I don't like drawing. I never got to the point of enjoying the drawing exercises. Every time I got to one, I'd be like "Aww, man, I have to draw now!" I found it tedious and time-consuming and got no pleasure out of it. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it - I was in this for neuroplasticity, not for art skills - but because of this I found it a bit annoying when the book suggested that I was probably pleased with my drawing or I probably found this particular exercise enjoyable. In fact, the exercise I found most enjoyable was the pure contour drawing, where you try to visually copy the contours of what you're drawing without looking at the paper. This is a visualization exercise rather than a drawing exercise - it isn't intended to produce an actual drawing and most often just produces a scribble - and I found I enjoyed it specifically because there were no expectations of the end result.
I don't know if this actually had any neuroplasticity effects. I noticed my left brain compensating, and I noticed that after the first couple exercises my brain stopped hurting during the right-brain-only work, but I don't know if that's my right brain getting stronger or just that my left brain figured out a way to barge in and help. Other than that, I didn't notice anything, but the fact that I don't perceive it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Here's what I discovered:
Using my right brain only literally makes my brain hurt! One of the earlier exercises is copying a line drawing upside down. Because it's upside down, it's far more difficult to recognize what you're drawing, so instead of thinking "This is a leg that I'm drawing now" you think in terms of "How do the length and angle of this line relate to the line I just drew?" Because your left brain can't name the parts of what you're drawing, it stops participating in the exercise, leaving it to the right brain only. My poor, underused right brain was not accustomed to this, and the exercise gave me the worst headache I've had since the first day I tried going coffee-free on weekends. If I hadn't known about the neuroplasticity benefits, I would have given up right then and there.
My left brain quickly adapted. When I did that first, painful upside-down line drawing, the exercise was a success in that I couldn't recognize what I was copying so I copied the actual lines far more accurately. However, by the time I got to the second (which was on another day, with at least one sleep in between), rather than my right brain being stronger, I found my left brain had adapted to the exercise and I could recognize what I was drawing far more readily, which defeated the purpose of the exercise and resulted in a less realistic drawing.
My drawing did improve, but not as much as I had hoped. The last pictures I drew were significantly better than the first ones. However, they weren't nearly as good as I had hoped they would be based on the description of what the book was meant to achieve. I wasn't able to enjoy my clear, obvious, significant improvement because the drawings still didn't come out nearly as well as I wanted.
This book helps you see, but doesn't help you actually draw. The core function of the book is to make you see what's actually in front of you - how the lines and spaces and light and shadows relate to each other - rather than letting your left brain fill in the blank. The problem - as with everything physical and tangible - is that I can't always make my hand make the pencil do what I want it to. I draw a line, and it looks wrong. Using the principles taught in the book, I am now able to think "That should be on a steeper slant." But when I erase it and try to redraw it on a steeper slant... it comes out exactly where I put it in the first place! This book doesn't do anything to help with that, and it's currently the biggest obstacle to my drawings coming out the way I want them to.
I'd also hoped that it might give me drawing skills that enable me to do a quick, semi-realistic sketch, the sort of thing I could bust out as a parlour trick. I was picturing sitting and colouring with my fairy goddaughter, and while she makes me a page of crayon scribbles that I will keep forever, I make her a recognizable picture of her dog or something. But instead the process is slow and technical, and requires a subject or model that stays still (which my fairy goddaughter's dog most definitely does not.) It gets results with time invested and hard work, but doesn't give you the ability to improvise delightfully. Much like my music skills, actually.
Turns out I don't like drawing. I never got to the point of enjoying the drawing exercises. Every time I got to one, I'd be like "Aww, man, I have to draw now!" I found it tedious and time-consuming and got no pleasure out of it. I wasn't expecting to enjoy it - I was in this for neuroplasticity, not for art skills - but because of this I found it a bit annoying when the book suggested that I was probably pleased with my drawing or I probably found this particular exercise enjoyable. In fact, the exercise I found most enjoyable was the pure contour drawing, where you try to visually copy the contours of what you're drawing without looking at the paper. This is a visualization exercise rather than a drawing exercise - it isn't intended to produce an actual drawing and most often just produces a scribble - and I found I enjoyed it specifically because there were no expectations of the end result.
I don't know if this actually had any neuroplasticity effects. I noticed my left brain compensating, and I noticed that after the first couple exercises my brain stopped hurting during the right-brain-only work, but I don't know if that's my right brain getting stronger or just that my left brain figured out a way to barge in and help. Other than that, I didn't notice anything, but the fact that I don't perceive it doesn't mean it isn't there.
Tuesday, October 08, 2013
Things Torrent Trackers Should Invent: let people with invitations search
My favourite torrent tracker recently closed, which sent people scrambling for an alternative. I was able to secure an invitation to one of the trackers touted as an alternative, so I accepted the invitation, created an account, visited the tracker...and discovered there was nothing there of interest to me. None of the things I'm currently looking for are there, none of the things I got from the old tracker were there. Even though its description sounded like it would meet my needs, it didn't.
So my much sought-after invitation was wasted. Other people were still after invitations to this tracker, but I couldn't give my account to them.
Solution: set up torrent trackers so that people with invitations can conduct a limited number of searches before accepting their invitation. You put in your invite code, then you're allowed to conduct maybe 3 to 5 searches, then you have to either accept or decline your invitation. If you accept, you create an account and can start torrenting. If you decline, the invitation reverts to the person who gave it to you, so they can pass it on to someone else.
Private trackers are private for two reasons: to limit themselves to quality users, and to protect themselves from parties who want to get people in trouble for torrenting. Letting people with invitations search won't hinder these objectives. People who turn out not to be as interested in the content of the tracker as they expected aren't going to be high quality users, because they have less of an incentive to participate and keep their ratio up, while taking up a space that could otherwise be occupied by a more enthusiastic user. And people who want to get the users in trouble would simply accept the invitation and get in.
I don't know how easy or difficult allowing searches to invitation-holders would be from a technical perspective, but it would create a better torrenting experience for everyone.
So my much sought-after invitation was wasted. Other people were still after invitations to this tracker, but I couldn't give my account to them.
Solution: set up torrent trackers so that people with invitations can conduct a limited number of searches before accepting their invitation. You put in your invite code, then you're allowed to conduct maybe 3 to 5 searches, then you have to either accept or decline your invitation. If you accept, you create an account and can start torrenting. If you decline, the invitation reverts to the person who gave it to you, so they can pass it on to someone else.
Private trackers are private for two reasons: to limit themselves to quality users, and to protect themselves from parties who want to get people in trouble for torrenting. Letting people with invitations search won't hinder these objectives. People who turn out not to be as interested in the content of the tracker as they expected aren't going to be high quality users, because they have less of an incentive to participate and keep their ratio up, while taking up a space that could otherwise be occupied by a more enthusiastic user. And people who want to get the users in trouble would simply accept the invitation and get in.
I don't know how easy or difficult allowing searches to invitation-holders would be from a technical perspective, but it would create a better torrenting experience for everyone.
Monday, October 07, 2013
Things They Should Invent: standardized, legally-binding DNR tattoo
Today's Toronto Star ethics column discusses some issues surrounding Do Not Resuscitate orders. In the final paragraph, the columnist raises an idea I've come up with independently in the past:
The design should be as small and as simple as reasonably practicable, to minimize the time and discomfort of getting the actual tattoo, but distinctive enough to be easily recognizable and to be distinguished from any other tattoo a person might have.
There should also be a standardized and easily-recognizable way to cancel it, perhaps by tattooing a big X through it.
When I started writing this, my idea was that tattoo artists can only give people a DNR tattoo if they see DNR documentation. Then it occurred to me that getting a tattoo is such a serious act that maybe it should simply count as DNR documentation.
I'm also going back and forth about whether you should have to prove you're of sound mind to get a DNR tattoo. On one hand, a DNR is serious business and you should have to be of sound mind to do serious business. On the other hand, how much quality of life is possible if you're in a situation where you can end up in a tattoo parlour asking to get DNR tattooed on you when you don't actually want it? I don't know the answer to that question, so I'll leave it to the experts.
But, in general, the problem with DNR orders is the paperwork might not always be readily available at a time when a decision on whether to resuscitate needs to be made. So why not standardize a way to have the order literally on one's person?
I floated one more suggestion by Godkin. “Perhaps,” I mused, “this lady should get the letters DNR tattooed on her left breast — then no one could miss it at the critical moment.” Godkin responded that she’d heard the same suggestion from several nurses. She doubted, however, that such enigmatic ink would stop a zealous paramedic.Solution: we need a standard design for a DNR tattoo that is widely publicized and universally understood to mean DNR. Its location should be standardized so responders know where to look (like with dog microchips.) The presence of this tattoo should provide first responders and medical personal with all the ass-covering they need to not be held liable for not treating a person who has the tattoo.
The design should be as small and as simple as reasonably practicable, to minimize the time and discomfort of getting the actual tattoo, but distinctive enough to be easily recognizable and to be distinguished from any other tattoo a person might have.
There should also be a standardized and easily-recognizable way to cancel it, perhaps by tattooing a big X through it.
When I started writing this, my idea was that tattoo artists can only give people a DNR tattoo if they see DNR documentation. Then it occurred to me that getting a tattoo is such a serious act that maybe it should simply count as DNR documentation.
I'm also going back and forth about whether you should have to prove you're of sound mind to get a DNR tattoo. On one hand, a DNR is serious business and you should have to be of sound mind to do serious business. On the other hand, how much quality of life is possible if you're in a situation where you can end up in a tattoo parlour asking to get DNR tattooed on you when you don't actually want it? I don't know the answer to that question, so I'll leave it to the experts.
But, in general, the problem with DNR orders is the paperwork might not always be readily available at a time when a decision on whether to resuscitate needs to be made. So why not standardize a way to have the order literally on one's person?
Wednesday, October 02, 2013
By request: my essay-writing technique
Conventional wisdom is that, when writing an essay, you should decide what your thesis is, determine what points best prove that thesis, use this information to prepare an outline, and then flesh it out into a full essay.
This was never particularly good for me, because either I had no idea what my thesis should be, or I had a brilliant idea for a thesis but couldn't quite pull the essay together.
So in university, I came up with another technique.
I started by opening a blank Word document and typing out everything I knew that was remotely relevant. Some if it would be in nice sentences and paragraphs, some of it would be in point form, some of it would be a list of questions to answer. I'd usually also have stray analogies and turns of phrase that I wouldn't mind working in there somewhere. I'd just braindump until my brain emptied, then put it aside.
The next day, I'd open it up again, read it over, add anything that occurred to me, and then figure out what thesis was most naturally proven by all this stuff I'd written.
Then I'd drag all the stuff on the screen around until it landed in the order that best proved the thesis, marking any gaps with "[...]" or "[talk about widgets here]" or whatever. Then I had my outline. And over half my essay.
If I had time, I'd put it aside overnight again, and then fill in those blanks I'd left the next day. After letting it sit overnight, filling in those blanks always seemed like a remarkably easy task. Just a few sentences here and there, no biggie! (If I didn't have time to let it sit overnight before I did this, I'd do all I could by brute force.)
Then another overnight, a fresh morning edit, and we're done!
If I didn't have time for more than one overnight, I'd do the braindump and determine the thesis on the same day, but with a break in between and in two different locations. (For example, braindump at home, spend an hour gaming, get dinner, then determine my thesis in the library.)
The result was an essay that does its job as well as possible. Because my thesis was supported by the points I knew most about, it was (very nearly by definition) the best-proven thesis I could come up with, and proven to the best of my ability. Essays written this way always got As, many of which were high As (at the university level), whereas essays written by choosing my thesis first more often got Bs, occasionally low As.
This was never particularly good for me, because either I had no idea what my thesis should be, or I had a brilliant idea for a thesis but couldn't quite pull the essay together.
So in university, I came up with another technique.
I started by opening a blank Word document and typing out everything I knew that was remotely relevant. Some if it would be in nice sentences and paragraphs, some of it would be in point form, some of it would be a list of questions to answer. I'd usually also have stray analogies and turns of phrase that I wouldn't mind working in there somewhere. I'd just braindump until my brain emptied, then put it aside.
The next day, I'd open it up again, read it over, add anything that occurred to me, and then figure out what thesis was most naturally proven by all this stuff I'd written.
Then I'd drag all the stuff on the screen around until it landed in the order that best proved the thesis, marking any gaps with "[...]" or "[talk about widgets here]" or whatever. Then I had my outline. And over half my essay.
If I had time, I'd put it aside overnight again, and then fill in those blanks I'd left the next day. After letting it sit overnight, filling in those blanks always seemed like a remarkably easy task. Just a few sentences here and there, no biggie! (If I didn't have time to let it sit overnight before I did this, I'd do all I could by brute force.)
Then another overnight, a fresh morning edit, and we're done!
If I didn't have time for more than one overnight, I'd do the braindump and determine the thesis on the same day, but with a break in between and in two different locations. (For example, braindump at home, spend an hour gaming, get dinner, then determine my thesis in the library.)
The result was an essay that does its job as well as possible. Because my thesis was supported by the points I knew most about, it was (very nearly by definition) the best-proven thesis I could come up with, and proven to the best of my ability. Essays written this way always got As, many of which were high As (at the university level), whereas essays written by choosing my thesis first more often got Bs, occasionally low As.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Secularism: ur doin it wrong
At first I wasn't going to blog about Quebec's Charte des valeurs. I've already written many times about how
assholic it is to force people to expose more of their bodies than
they're comfortable with and was weary of having to cover the same
ground again, and most of the media coverage of this story has already
taken that approach so I was weary of having to repeat myself and didn't think I had anything to add.
But in the shower, it occurred to me that it's interesting to look at it from from the other side: instead of looking at what's banned, let's look at what's allowed.
Here's an English-language version of the visual aid that's been circulating.
Look at the "banned" items in the bottom row. Apart from the giant cross in the left-most picture, all these items have a practical and/or theological function. They all have the practical function of covering a part of the body that the wearer wants to be covered (with the possible exception of the yarmulke - I'm not clear on whether covering that part of the head is necessary, or whether it's the yarmulke itself that's necessary.) They all also have the theological function of being something the wearer needs to do to avoid going to hell, or whatever the equivalent in their religion is. (I have heard that the hijab per se is not necessary, just that covering the head is necessary. And I have heard that the hijab per se is necessary. So let's split the difference and say that some people believe it is theologically necessary.)
Now look at the "allowed" items. They're all small pieces of jewellery that display the wearer's religious affiliation. They have no theological function, and they have no practical function other than displaying the wearer's religious affiliation. They aren't a part of the actual practise of the wearer's religion, they aren't going to help send the wearer to heaven or prevent them from going to hell (or whatever the equivalent in their religion is). They are simply a gratuitous display.
If Quebec wants to create an image of secularism, the place to start is by eliminating gratuitous displays of religion that serve no purpose. Banning the functional while permitting the gratuitous eliminates all credibility.
Analogy: Suppose I have a car, and suppose you have a baby. We have an awesome, supportive friendship full of mutual assistance, which includes me lending you my car on those occasions when you need a car. But then one day I tell you "You aren't allowed to put your baby's carseat in my car. As you know, I am a Voluntary Human Extinctionist, and displaying the carseat would come across as promoting breeding." But, before you can even open your mouth to protest, I add, "But it's okay if you want to put your Baby On Board sticker on the car, because that's just small."
Update: I was so caught up in imagining how awful it would be to be forced to expose more of my body than I'm comfortable with in order to keep my job that I failed to notice two very important things pointed out in this article:
The Charte wouldn't (my emphasis):
So let's revisit the analogy. I own a car that I lend out to my friends in a spirit of mutual assistance, but I forbid people to put their children's carseats in my car because "displaying" the carseats would counter my stated Voluntary Human Extinctionist principles. However, I permit the "Baby On Board" sticker on the basis that it's small.
But now, with this new information, it comes to light that I have a gaudy, brightly-coloured children's playground in my front yard. Because, like, it's always been there.
Also, since I lend out my car to my friends so often, I'm gathering together a circle of friends to give me their input on the next car I purchase. However, if you want to be part of this circle, you have to donate gametes to help me in my attempt to conceive a child of my own.
But you still aren't allowed to put your baby's carseat in the car. Because that would promote breeding.
Not so very good for the credibility, is it?
Mme. Marois suggests that the Charte will unite Quebecers. I believe it will, against her. You don't win over the secularists by allowing gratuitous displays of religion in the name of secularism.
But in the shower, it occurred to me that it's interesting to look at it from from the other side: instead of looking at what's banned, let's look at what's allowed.
Here's an English-language version of the visual aid that's been circulating.
Look at the "banned" items in the bottom row. Apart from the giant cross in the left-most picture, all these items have a practical and/or theological function. They all have the practical function of covering a part of the body that the wearer wants to be covered (with the possible exception of the yarmulke - I'm not clear on whether covering that part of the head is necessary, or whether it's the yarmulke itself that's necessary.) They all also have the theological function of being something the wearer needs to do to avoid going to hell, or whatever the equivalent in their religion is. (I have heard that the hijab per se is not necessary, just that covering the head is necessary. And I have heard that the hijab per se is necessary. So let's split the difference and say that some people believe it is theologically necessary.)
Now look at the "allowed" items. They're all small pieces of jewellery that display the wearer's religious affiliation. They have no theological function, and they have no practical function other than displaying the wearer's religious affiliation. They aren't a part of the actual practise of the wearer's religion, they aren't going to help send the wearer to heaven or prevent them from going to hell (or whatever the equivalent in their religion is). They are simply a gratuitous display.
If Quebec wants to create an image of secularism, the place to start is by eliminating gratuitous displays of religion that serve no purpose. Banning the functional while permitting the gratuitous eliminates all credibility.
Analogy: Suppose I have a car, and suppose you have a baby. We have an awesome, supportive friendship full of mutual assistance, which includes me lending you my car on those occasions when you need a car. But then one day I tell you "You aren't allowed to put your baby's carseat in my car. As you know, I am a Voluntary Human Extinctionist, and displaying the carseat would come across as promoting breeding." But, before you can even open your mouth to protest, I add, "But it's okay if you want to put your Baby On Board sticker on the car, because that's just small."
Update: I was so caught up in imagining how awful it would be to be forced to expose more of my body than I'm comfortable with in order to keep my job that I failed to notice two very important things pointed out in this article:
The Charte wouldn't (my emphasis):
1. Remove religious symbols and elements considered "emblematic of Quebec's cultural heritage." That includes: the crucifixes in the Quebec legislature and atop Mount Royal in Montreal, the thousands of religiously based geographic names (e.g. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!) and the names of schools and hospitals.
[...]Yeah. So they're forbidding people to wear as much clothing as they'd like to in government buildings because it might be interpreted as a religious symbol, but they're allowing actual religious symbols actually on display in government buildings. They're forbidding individuals who happen to work for the government in one capacity to practise their own religion with their own body, but still permitting situations in which individuals who work for the government in another capacity are forced or coerced or pressured to participate in the collective practise of a religion to which they may or may not subscribe in order to do their jobs.
4. Ban opening prayers at municipal council meetings, which was recommended by the 2008 Bouchard-Taylor Commission report into cultural accommodation. The Quebec Court of Appeal ruled in May that such prayers do not necessarily violate Quebec's current human rights legislation.
So let's revisit the analogy. I own a car that I lend out to my friends in a spirit of mutual assistance, but I forbid people to put their children's carseats in my car because "displaying" the carseats would counter my stated Voluntary Human Extinctionist principles. However, I permit the "Baby On Board" sticker on the basis that it's small.
But now, with this new information, it comes to light that I have a gaudy, brightly-coloured children's playground in my front yard. Because, like, it's always been there.
Also, since I lend out my car to my friends so often, I'm gathering together a circle of friends to give me their input on the next car I purchase. However, if you want to be part of this circle, you have to donate gametes to help me in my attempt to conceive a child of my own.
But you still aren't allowed to put your baby's carseat in the car. Because that would promote breeding.
Not so very good for the credibility, is it?
Mme. Marois suggests that the Charte will unite Quebecers. I believe it will, against her. You don't win over the secularists by allowing gratuitous displays of religion in the name of secularism.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Why is Facebook crawling blogs?
Shortly after I post each blog post, I get a hit from something called Facebook Bot, which statcounter says is a bot crawling my site, presumably to index it.
Why does Facebook care about indexing my blog contents? I know they have a web search function, but that's powered by Bing, so it would show up as a Bing crawlers. I don't have any Facebook widgets or anything, my blog isn't connected to any Facebook profiles (unless I have an imposter out there), so why would Facebook care about my existence enough to index my every update?
Why does Facebook care about indexing my blog contents? I know they have a web search function, but that's powered by Bing, so it would show up as a Bing crawlers. I don't have any Facebook widgets or anything, my blog isn't connected to any Facebook profiles (unless I have an imposter out there), so why would Facebook care about my existence enough to index my every update?
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Trading lives to cure jealousy
There's a theory that if you're feeling jealous of someone, you
should ask yourself if you'd trade lives with that person. (For example
here's Carolyn Hax
recommending this thought experiment.) The idea is that when you think
about whether you'd trade whole lives with them, your answer will be "Of
course not!", and then your envy will be cured.
However, apart from the fact that there are cases where the answer is going to be "Hell yeah! Of course I'd love to trade whole lives with them! I didn't know that was an option!", this approach simply isn't logical. Not every aspect of the person's life has a causal relationship with the aspect you're jealous of, and suggesting that they do undermines the credibility of the whole approach.
For example, suppose you're jealous of my long gorgeous hair. So, in an attempt to assuage that jealousy, you tell yourself "Yeah, but her rent is atrocious." That's absolutely true. And absolutely unrelated to my hair. My hair would be just as long and gorgeous if I lived somewhere cheaper - maybe even more so, because I could afford to spend more money on it.
It is true that there are negative characteristics of my life that have direct causal relationships with my long gorgeous hair. I do spend more than I care to admit on it, and the same genes that produce my hair also caused me to start going grey at 19 and start getting acne at 9 (and the acne will persist for the rest of my life.) Someone who wanted to make themselves less jealous of my hair might be able to do so by thinking about these aspects.
But the fact that my rent is atrocious, or the fact that I'm not married, or the fact that my feet are larger than standard women's shoe sizes are all completely unrelated to my hair. I could still achieve the same hair if these aspects of my life were different.
What interesting is sometimes you see this in political discussions. Someone points out a positive aspect of a different jurisdiction or political system, and someone else says "Yeah, but they have [negative aspect] too!" even though the negative aspect is unrelated.
For example, one person says "Quebec has $7 a day daycare! We should do that here!" And another person replies "Yeah, but they get weirded out when people play soccer wearing a hijab. Do you want that?" But the two aren't related! You can totally implement a daycare policy without touching soccer uniform codes.
How do they land on the idea that you must necessarily appropriate every aspect rather than picking and choosing what works best?
However, apart from the fact that there are cases where the answer is going to be "Hell yeah! Of course I'd love to trade whole lives with them! I didn't know that was an option!", this approach simply isn't logical. Not every aspect of the person's life has a causal relationship with the aspect you're jealous of, and suggesting that they do undermines the credibility of the whole approach.
For example, suppose you're jealous of my long gorgeous hair. So, in an attempt to assuage that jealousy, you tell yourself "Yeah, but her rent is atrocious." That's absolutely true. And absolutely unrelated to my hair. My hair would be just as long and gorgeous if I lived somewhere cheaper - maybe even more so, because I could afford to spend more money on it.
It is true that there are negative characteristics of my life that have direct causal relationships with my long gorgeous hair. I do spend more than I care to admit on it, and the same genes that produce my hair also caused me to start going grey at 19 and start getting acne at 9 (and the acne will persist for the rest of my life.) Someone who wanted to make themselves less jealous of my hair might be able to do so by thinking about these aspects.
But the fact that my rent is atrocious, or the fact that I'm not married, or the fact that my feet are larger than standard women's shoe sizes are all completely unrelated to my hair. I could still achieve the same hair if these aspects of my life were different.
What interesting is sometimes you see this in political discussions. Someone points out a positive aspect of a different jurisdiction or political system, and someone else says "Yeah, but they have [negative aspect] too!" even though the negative aspect is unrelated.
For example, one person says "Quebec has $7 a day daycare! We should do that here!" And another person replies "Yeah, but they get weirded out when people play soccer wearing a hijab. Do you want that?" But the two aren't related! You can totally implement a daycare policy without touching soccer uniform codes.
How do they land on the idea that you must necessarily appropriate every aspect rather than picking and choosing what works best?
Saturday, September 07, 2013
Is there a name for the opposite of the Dunning-Kruger effect?
In one of my very first translation classes, the prof asked us to think about how we'd translate a short English sentence into French. The sentence was grammatically simple and contained three words that rhymed. (I'm not posting it here because it will become googleable and ruin my prof's whole lesson plan.) The point of this lesson was to discuss the various factors that many need to be translated. Are we after the meaning of the sentence? Are we after a rhyme? Do we need to convey its brevity and simplicity?
My classmates seemed to find this a reasonably easy request and immediately began discussing it. But I was panicking, because I didn't even know how to say one of the three key words in French! I felt in over my head and desperately out of my league! It was only the first or second classes ever, and already I couldn't handle it even though every else could!
So I frantically and stealthily looked up the word I didn't know in the dictionary, and discovered that if I used the first word in the dictionary entry and the most straightforward translation of the two other key words, I could have two out of the three key words rhyme. And if I replaced the third word with another word that would fit nicely into the sentence and create a similar image, I could have all three rhyme.
(As an analagous example, suppose looking in the dictionary led me to "Bite the red kite." If the rhyme scheme was more important than the meaning of the actual words, I could use "Bite the white kite.")
It seemed so glaringly obvious! This was quite clearly the correct answer!
But why weren't any of my classmates coming up with the same thing? They were coming up with all these things that were way different and no one had even touched on the words I had in mind...this must mean there's something wrong with my idea! So I said nothing the whole class and felt in way over my head.
This memory came to mind in the shower the other day, 13 years after the fact, with 10 years' professional experience under my belt. And I realized: my idea was perfectly good! It may well even be the optimal translation! It was more effective at rendering both the meaning of the original and the rhyme scheme than what my classmates were suggesting, even after 10 years' experience I can't think of anything better, and, even if something better exists, any competent translator would agree that my idea was a perfectly valid attempt. And I was still a teenager at the time!
I was so afraid at that time. I was surrounded by people who had been to immersion and on exchanges and could use slang and real-life accents, and I felt so hideously incompetent in comparison. But I knew my shit, way better than I could even have imagined.
(Which makes the conventional wisdom that teenagers and young adults think they know everything all the more frustrating.)
My classmates seemed to find this a reasonably easy request and immediately began discussing it. But I was panicking, because I didn't even know how to say one of the three key words in French! I felt in over my head and desperately out of my league! It was only the first or second classes ever, and already I couldn't handle it even though every else could!
So I frantically and stealthily looked up the word I didn't know in the dictionary, and discovered that if I used the first word in the dictionary entry and the most straightforward translation of the two other key words, I could have two out of the three key words rhyme. And if I replaced the third word with another word that would fit nicely into the sentence and create a similar image, I could have all three rhyme.
(As an analagous example, suppose looking in the dictionary led me to "Bite the red kite." If the rhyme scheme was more important than the meaning of the actual words, I could use "Bite the white kite.")
It seemed so glaringly obvious! This was quite clearly the correct answer!
But why weren't any of my classmates coming up with the same thing? They were coming up with all these things that were way different and no one had even touched on the words I had in mind...this must mean there's something wrong with my idea! So I said nothing the whole class and felt in way over my head.
This memory came to mind in the shower the other day, 13 years after the fact, with 10 years' professional experience under my belt. And I realized: my idea was perfectly good! It may well even be the optimal translation! It was more effective at rendering both the meaning of the original and the rhyme scheme than what my classmates were suggesting, even after 10 years' experience I can't think of anything better, and, even if something better exists, any competent translator would agree that my idea was a perfectly valid attempt. And I was still a teenager at the time!
I was so afraid at that time. I was surrounded by people who had been to immersion and on exchanges and could use slang and real-life accents, and I felt so hideously incompetent in comparison. But I knew my shit, way better than I could even have imagined.
(Which makes the conventional wisdom that teenagers and young adults think they know everything all the more frustrating.)
Monday, September 02, 2013
The lunch money mystery
Conventional wisdom is that you should pack your lunch from home to save money. I've never done this. There are enough lunch options near my office that I've always just gone out and bought whatever I happened to be craving every particular day.
However, I've been working from home since April, so I'm not buying lunches, and I think I'm spending slightly more money.
I don't keep track of money super closely, but I know that I typically use cash for groceries, household and personal care items, and buying my lunch when I'm at work. I always withdraw the same amount when I go to an ATM, and I find I'm going to an ATM an average of one more time a month since I started working at home, which means I'm going through cash faster.
I have a certain core set of groceries that I always keep my kitchen stocked with, and a few other core items that I keep in stock under specific conditions. I'm still doing this the same. I have a system to determine what my "main" meal will be most days, to be purchased either in the form of groceries or take-out, and I still follow the same system. I'm actually impulse purchasing less now that I'm working at home, because I'm never hungry or cranky when I do my grocery shopping.
When I worked in the office, I had a standard breakfast at home before I left for work, bought whatever I wanted for lunch, had my main meal when I got home from work, and grazed from the other food I had on hand if I was still hungry.
Now I start my day with the standard breakfast (which I end up eating later in the morning), don't eat a lunch per se, eat my main meal in the early evening (earlier than when I worked in the office), and grace from the other food I have on hand if I'm still hungry. As far as I can tell, I'm eating either less food or the same amount of food depending. And yet I'm spending a bit more on food.
Apart from the fact that I like eating exactly what I'm craving that particular day, I also theorized that I wouldn't save any significant amount of money
by packing my lunch, because I spent so little on lunches. It was very rare for my lunch bill to exceed $5 and often it was under $3, and I figured that even if I packed my lunch at home, I'd still have to pay for that food. (Not to mention that it's not worth it under a time=money calculation.) I guess that turned out to be right.
However, I've been working from home since April, so I'm not buying lunches, and I think I'm spending slightly more money.
I don't keep track of money super closely, but I know that I typically use cash for groceries, household and personal care items, and buying my lunch when I'm at work. I always withdraw the same amount when I go to an ATM, and I find I'm going to an ATM an average of one more time a month since I started working at home, which means I'm going through cash faster.
I have a certain core set of groceries that I always keep my kitchen stocked with, and a few other core items that I keep in stock under specific conditions. I'm still doing this the same. I have a system to determine what my "main" meal will be most days, to be purchased either in the form of groceries or take-out, and I still follow the same system. I'm actually impulse purchasing less now that I'm working at home, because I'm never hungry or cranky when I do my grocery shopping.
When I worked in the office, I had a standard breakfast at home before I left for work, bought whatever I wanted for lunch, had my main meal when I got home from work, and grazed from the other food I had on hand if I was still hungry.
Now I start my day with the standard breakfast (which I end up eating later in the morning), don't eat a lunch per se, eat my main meal in the early evening (earlier than when I worked in the office), and grace from the other food I have on hand if I'm still hungry. As far as I can tell, I'm eating either less food or the same amount of food depending. And yet I'm spending a bit more on food.
Apart from the fact that I like eating exactly what I'm craving that particular day, I also theorized that I wouldn't save any significant amount of money
by packing my lunch, because I spent so little on lunches. It was very rare for my lunch bill to exceed $5 and often it was under $3, and I figured that even if I packed my lunch at home, I'd still have to pay for that food. (Not to mention that it's not worth it under a time=money calculation.) I guess that turned out to be right.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Poo(p)
I was googling about various digestive-related things, and, since Google generally knows what I need and I don't always act like a grownup when no one is watching, I was phrasing my queries very childishly. For example, "How long does it take food to turn into poo?" (Answer: an average of 2 days)
I soon noticed that Google's autocomplete was always using phrases that contained the word "poop", not "poo". For example, if you type "My poo is" into Google, you'll get a drop down full of autocompletes saying "My poop is" every colour of the rainbow.
People who have done more research than me suggest that "poop" is USian, and "poo" is more British. A site:.ca google (which, I realize, is not the most precise research method ever) gives 298,000 hits for "poo" and 198,000 for "poop", so it seems that "poo" is more preferred in Canada.
However, even if you go to google.co.uk, the autocomplete still suggests "poop" when you type in "poo". "Poop" also turns up in the google.fr and google.pl autocompletes. (Google.de and google.es retain "poo".)
Which one do you use?
I soon noticed that Google's autocomplete was always using phrases that contained the word "poop", not "poo". For example, if you type "My poo is" into Google, you'll get a drop down full of autocompletes saying "My poop is" every colour of the rainbow.
People who have done more research than me suggest that "poop" is USian, and "poo" is more British. A site:.ca google (which, I realize, is not the most precise research method ever) gives 298,000 hits for "poo" and 198,000 for "poop", so it seems that "poo" is more preferred in Canada.
However, even if you go to google.co.uk, the autocomplete still suggests "poop" when you type in "poo". "Poop" also turns up in the google.fr and google.pl autocompletes. (Google.de and google.es retain "poo".)
Which one do you use?
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Reconstructing Shakespeare
Dear Prudence,
My girlfriend and I are having a disagreement. I posed to her the following hypothetical situation: Would you rescue from fire and certain destruction the last surviving copy on earth of the complete works of Shakespeare or a single puppy? My girlfriend says that she would rescue the puppy because the puppy is a fellow living being. She is highly educated and claims to have great respect for Shakespeare. But I think my girlfriend’s choice is the wrong one. I would rescue the Shakespeare, not just because of the aesthetic enjoyment we get from his work but also because of all the moral insight it provides us (including possibly the insight that enables the concept of animal rights in the first place). We’ve argued a lot about this. I cannot take her answer seriously, but I find it rather disturbing nonetheless. She never rejected the hypothetical question out of hand or said that the two things aren’t even comparable. She says that preserving a living conscious thing is more valuable than preserving Shakespeare. My girlfriend loves animals, especially her poodle, and is a die-hard vegetarian. I am, on the other hand, obsessed with Shakespeare and rather neutral toward animals. What is the best way for us to diffuse this situation?
A silly letter, to be sure. But this got me thinking: if we lost all written copies of Shakespeare, could we reconstruct it?
Of course we could. There are enough people wandering the earth right this minute with bits of Shakespeare memorized that we could get it back within a matter of hours. Just reassemble all the most recent casts of every play, have them perform their parts, record and transcribe it, you'll be done before last call.
So let's make this harder: we've lost all written copies of Shakespeare, all living people have lost any knowledge or memory we've ever had of Shakespeare (to the extent that we don't even remember that we've lost it), and we've also lost all academic and educational works dedicated to the study and analysis of Shakespeare. Could we reconstruct it?
We could certainly get a lot, because Shakespeare is everywhere. The plot of Hamlet was reiterated in the Simpsons, Archie comics namedrop "wherefore art thou" and "to [verb] or not to [verb], that is the question", and Shakespeare is specifically mentioned in many works in all different kinds of media.
I even once read a young adult novel that explicitly stated that West Side Story is a modern adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. So from that one book that I read in elementary school alone, the people of this mythical post-Shakespearean people will learn that there was once a play called Romeo and Juliet with a plot vaguely resembling that of West Side Story. Surely there must be other works that specifically mention that something is from Shakespeare too.
This post-Shakespearean population would also quickly catch on to the fact that "wherefore art thou" and "to [verb] or not to [verb]" sound like they come from something, and that a guy talking to a skull and a guy with some kind of disability saying "my kingdom for a horse" are somehow existing tropes, and scholars would try to trace their origins. I wonder how much they could reassemble?
Friday, August 23, 2013
A public apology to Eddie Izzard
Dear Eddie Izzard,
During one of your May 2010 shows at Massey Hall in Toronto, you asked the audience who or what Massey Hall was named after. Various people shouted out various things, and, to our utter delight, you picked up on our answer of "Vincent Massey." You asked who he was, we replied "Governor General", you asked what that was, we replied "Queen's representative", and then you segued neatly into your thoughts on the monarchy, pausing only to remark that some guy on the other side of the audience kept randomly shouting out "Tractors!"
I've only just learned we gave you completely incorrect information. Vincent Massey was in fact Governor General of Canada, but in the 1950s. Massey Hall was built in the 1890s, before Vincent Massey was even born. Its construction was funded by Hart Massey, Vincent Massey's grandfather, with a family fortune made by, among other things, manufacturing tractors.
I apologize unreservedly for giving you incorrect information and causing you to repeat it publicly as though it were fact. All I can say is that it simply never occurred to us that Massey Hall might not be named after the most famous Massey, after whom so many other things are named. Obviously I should have been more careful. When we see you again in November, if you should choose to pose any questions to the audience, I promise to only answer if I'm certain, not if I just think I have a logical extrapolation from common knowledge.
I would also like to apologize profusely to the people who were saying "tractors". You were completely right and we were completely wrong, and yet we stole your moment from you and made your Eddie Izzard experience less perfect. I truly do hope you'll be able to get your own moment in November. Maybe Eddie will ask the same question again (it seems like the sort of thing that might be part of a standard show-opening arsenal), and you can give your answer and we'll all get a different choose your own adventure.
During one of your May 2010 shows at Massey Hall in Toronto, you asked the audience who or what Massey Hall was named after. Various people shouted out various things, and, to our utter delight, you picked up on our answer of "Vincent Massey." You asked who he was, we replied "Governor General", you asked what that was, we replied "Queen's representative", and then you segued neatly into your thoughts on the monarchy, pausing only to remark that some guy on the other side of the audience kept randomly shouting out "Tractors!"
I've only just learned we gave you completely incorrect information. Vincent Massey was in fact Governor General of Canada, but in the 1950s. Massey Hall was built in the 1890s, before Vincent Massey was even born. Its construction was funded by Hart Massey, Vincent Massey's grandfather, with a family fortune made by, among other things, manufacturing tractors.
I apologize unreservedly for giving you incorrect information and causing you to repeat it publicly as though it were fact. All I can say is that it simply never occurred to us that Massey Hall might not be named after the most famous Massey, after whom so many other things are named. Obviously I should have been more careful. When we see you again in November, if you should choose to pose any questions to the audience, I promise to only answer if I'm certain, not if I just think I have a logical extrapolation from common knowledge.
I would also like to apologize profusely to the people who were saying "tractors". You were completely right and we were completely wrong, and yet we stole your moment from you and made your Eddie Izzard experience less perfect. I truly do hope you'll be able to get your own moment in November. Maybe Eddie will ask the same question again (it seems like the sort of thing that might be part of a standard show-opening arsenal), and you can give your answer and we'll all get a different choose your own adventure.
An idea for "Bad Guy Trying to be the Good Guy" in last week's Carolyn Hax chat
From last week's Carolyn Hax chat:
If The Ex is still in some way hung up on LW, seeing LW with a date will make the event more difficult for The Ex. Not bringing a date will eliminate that difficulty.
If The Ex in is an emotional place where they would get some schadenfreude out of seeing LW dateless, especially if The Ex has a date, then not bringing a date will give The Ex the gift of coming away from the event feeling that they won.
At this point, people usually point out something to the effect that other people's relationships aren't about you and it would be unhealthy for The Ex to be having any of these feelings. But, be that as it may, they are feelings that do sometimes occur in some people. If The Ex is having them, LW can give The Ex the best possible experience by not bringing a date. And if The Ex isn't having any of these feelings, then LW's actions are irrelevant either way. In any case, not bringing a date will have either a positive or neutral effect on The Ex, without imposing on them in any way.
On top of that, not bringing a date will attend to LW's emotional needs as well. LW seems to feel the need to do some sort of penance. Going to the event solo would do that, and it would be generally in line with a natural consequences penance too. One of the impacts of LW's decision to abruptly and unilaterally leave The Ex is that The Ex was suddenly deprived of the benefits of having a date to wherever they'd normally go with a date. In addition to the various logistical inconveniences of going solo, it's publicly visible, and often feels like a humiliation when you're in mourning for the relationship and can't even answer the question of "What happened?" So, by not having a date with them, LW experiences that inconvenience and public visibility, perhaps even that sense of humiliation depending on their emotional state. Then they will come away feeling they have done penance without ever actually bothering The Ex.
In short, if LW doesn't bring a date to the event, any emotional needs that can be affected by LW's actions will be affected positively. Anyone who has no emotional investment in LW's actions will not be affected either way. Positive or neutral impact, no imposition or unwanted contact.
Several years ago, I abruptly and unilaterally ended an 18-month relationship. I stand firm with my reasons, but my (kind and lovely) ex was understandably upset. We haven't spoken since. I still feel guilty, but that's my cross to bear. Despite a happier relationship since then, I'm pretty sure that The Ex hates my guts. Here's the problem: in a few months, I expect to see The Ex at a mutual friend's event. Being in proximity will be unavoidable. I want to send The Ex an email, saying that I'm sorry how things ended and that I'd like us to be at least cordial at this event, and that I'm willing to keep my distance if they don't want to talk to me. Part of me thinks this is sensible and will allow both of us to enjoy this event without apprehension. The other part of me thinks this email will just sound condescending and melodramatic. What is the kindest way to approach this situation?I have an idea for something LW can do to be kind to The Ex without imposing on them: don't bring a date to this event.
If The Ex is still in some way hung up on LW, seeing LW with a date will make the event more difficult for The Ex. Not bringing a date will eliminate that difficulty.
If The Ex in is an emotional place where they would get some schadenfreude out of seeing LW dateless, especially if The Ex has a date, then not bringing a date will give The Ex the gift of coming away from the event feeling that they won.
At this point, people usually point out something to the effect that other people's relationships aren't about you and it would be unhealthy for The Ex to be having any of these feelings. But, be that as it may, they are feelings that do sometimes occur in some people. If The Ex is having them, LW can give The Ex the best possible experience by not bringing a date. And if The Ex isn't having any of these feelings, then LW's actions are irrelevant either way. In any case, not bringing a date will have either a positive or neutral effect on The Ex, without imposing on them in any way.
On top of that, not bringing a date will attend to LW's emotional needs as well. LW seems to feel the need to do some sort of penance. Going to the event solo would do that, and it would be generally in line with a natural consequences penance too. One of the impacts of LW's decision to abruptly and unilaterally leave The Ex is that The Ex was suddenly deprived of the benefits of having a date to wherever they'd normally go with a date. In addition to the various logistical inconveniences of going solo, it's publicly visible, and often feels like a humiliation when you're in mourning for the relationship and can't even answer the question of "What happened?" So, by not having a date with them, LW experiences that inconvenience and public visibility, perhaps even that sense of humiliation depending on their emotional state. Then they will come away feeling they have done penance without ever actually bothering The Ex.
In short, if LW doesn't bring a date to the event, any emotional needs that can be affected by LW's actions will be affected positively. Anyone who has no emotional investment in LW's actions will not be affected either way. Positive or neutral impact, no imposition or unwanted contact.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
How spanking hurts
My parents spanked me when I was a child.
I haven't admitted that before because I'm painfully ashamed of it. (So ashamed of it I can't bring myself to open comments on this post. If you circumvent this by using other posts, you will be banned.) I've been sitting on this post for years, and could never bring myself to actually post it.
But yesterday, I saw a lady spanking her child.
I wanted to run over and stop her. I wanted to run over and tell her how it affected me, the unintended consequences that coloured my whole relationship with my parents and could have been disastrous if bad things had happened in other areas of my life.
But I was too chicken.
So, as penance for not stopping that lady's destructive habits, I'm going to lay bare my shame. Here is what I learned from being spanked by my parents:
First, I learned that if someone is doing something you don't like, you should hit them. Seemed logical. But then I'd get in trouble if I hit someone else. So what I learned from that is that my parents are great dirty hypocrites (although I didn't know that word yet).
One problem with spanking specifically is that it's a smack to the bum. Your bum is a private part - I learned that very early on. People aren't supposed to touch your private parts, and if they do you're supposed to respond with "It's my body and I say NO!" I learned that from a little orange book my parents read to me when I was probably under three years of age. So the next time my parents wanted to spank me, I said "It's my body and I say NO!" But that didn't stop the spanking. From this, I learned that the rule about private parts being private wasn't actually true. There was some kind of secret other rule that I didn't know and they wouldn't tell me.
For the majority of my life, I've had a sense that the actual rules of society aren't what I'm being taught they are or shown they are - there's a secret other set of rules that I'm left to guess without any guidance. This feeling has hindered me for decades - sometimes to the extent where I'd receive clear, specific instructions from teachers or employers and automatically assume that wasn't actually what they wanted - and I'm quite sure at least part of its root is in spanking.
Because spanking violated at least two of the major rules I was taught, I concluded that my parents' rule system was inherently injust. Therefore, I decided that whenever they issued a punishment that I considered injust, it was logical to punish them for it. I would sabotage things in the house, return to the prohibited behaviour when I wasn't going to get caught, or otherwise stealthily do things that made life more difficult for my parents. The possibility of punishment being a natural consequence of my actions never occurred to me - it was quite clearly an injustice that I had to counter.
More importantly, because spanking violated at least two major rules, I concluded that my parents either enjoyed doing it, or enjoyed seeing me hurt and humiliated. This meant I didn't tell them when someone else was hurting me or humiliating me. The people hurting and humiliating me were my peers, but this statement would have held even if it was a teacher or other authority figure. Because my parents had shown me that they like to engage in violent, unwanted, humiliating physical contact with my private parts, if another adult - or anyone at all, for that matter - had tried to touch my private parts in a way that was violent, unwanted, and/or humiliating, I would have assumed that my parents thought I deserved it (and perhaps would punish me even more for being someone who deserves it) so I would never have dared tell them and in fact would have taken active steps to keep it secret from them. Fortunately, I never found myself in this situation, but, if I had, they results would have been disastrous.
In short, spanking completely eliminated my parents' trustworthiness and credibility in my eyes. It never once even occurred to me that they might want to protect me from outside threats. It never once even occurred to me that they might have my best interests in mind. It never once even occurred to me that there might be a good reason for any rules they set out. It never once even occurred to me that if I was having a big problem with other adults I could go to them. I never saw them as an ally, always as a threat or an obstacle. All in the name of...what? I don't even remember what the alleged infractions were that I was being spanked for in the first place!
I've told all this to a few people before, and one response I often get is "Kids don't think that way or draw such far-fetched conclusions." So I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: this is what my actual child-self actually thought and concluded, in real life, based on the input available. It's articulated here in more adult terms than I could express at the time to make it clearer, but it is the absolute truth of my child-self's thoughts, feelings and conclusions. This isn't child psychology, this isn't parenting theory, this isn't social engineering, this isn't political correctness. This is what an actual, real-life child actually learned, in real life, from being spanked.
Dear lady spanking your daughter on Roehampton Avenue, in front of the construction site, between 2:30 and 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 17: are these the lessons you want to teach her?
I haven't admitted that before because I'm painfully ashamed of it. (So ashamed of it I can't bring myself to open comments on this post. If you circumvent this by using other posts, you will be banned.) I've been sitting on this post for years, and could never bring myself to actually post it.
But yesterday, I saw a lady spanking her child.
I wanted to run over and stop her. I wanted to run over and tell her how it affected me, the unintended consequences that coloured my whole relationship with my parents and could have been disastrous if bad things had happened in other areas of my life.
But I was too chicken.
So, as penance for not stopping that lady's destructive habits, I'm going to lay bare my shame. Here is what I learned from being spanked by my parents:
First, I learned that if someone is doing something you don't like, you should hit them. Seemed logical. But then I'd get in trouble if I hit someone else. So what I learned from that is that my parents are great dirty hypocrites (although I didn't know that word yet).
One problem with spanking specifically is that it's a smack to the bum. Your bum is a private part - I learned that very early on. People aren't supposed to touch your private parts, and if they do you're supposed to respond with "It's my body and I say NO!" I learned that from a little orange book my parents read to me when I was probably under three years of age. So the next time my parents wanted to spank me, I said "It's my body and I say NO!" But that didn't stop the spanking. From this, I learned that the rule about private parts being private wasn't actually true. There was some kind of secret other rule that I didn't know and they wouldn't tell me.
For the majority of my life, I've had a sense that the actual rules of society aren't what I'm being taught they are or shown they are - there's a secret other set of rules that I'm left to guess without any guidance. This feeling has hindered me for decades - sometimes to the extent where I'd receive clear, specific instructions from teachers or employers and automatically assume that wasn't actually what they wanted - and I'm quite sure at least part of its root is in spanking.
Because spanking violated at least two of the major rules I was taught, I concluded that my parents' rule system was inherently injust. Therefore, I decided that whenever they issued a punishment that I considered injust, it was logical to punish them for it. I would sabotage things in the house, return to the prohibited behaviour when I wasn't going to get caught, or otherwise stealthily do things that made life more difficult for my parents. The possibility of punishment being a natural consequence of my actions never occurred to me - it was quite clearly an injustice that I had to counter.
More importantly, because spanking violated at least two major rules, I concluded that my parents either enjoyed doing it, or enjoyed seeing me hurt and humiliated. This meant I didn't tell them when someone else was hurting me or humiliating me. The people hurting and humiliating me were my peers, but this statement would have held even if it was a teacher or other authority figure. Because my parents had shown me that they like to engage in violent, unwanted, humiliating physical contact with my private parts, if another adult - or anyone at all, for that matter - had tried to touch my private parts in a way that was violent, unwanted, and/or humiliating, I would have assumed that my parents thought I deserved it (and perhaps would punish me even more for being someone who deserves it) so I would never have dared tell them and in fact would have taken active steps to keep it secret from them. Fortunately, I never found myself in this situation, but, if I had, they results would have been disastrous.
In short, spanking completely eliminated my parents' trustworthiness and credibility in my eyes. It never once even occurred to me that they might want to protect me from outside threats. It never once even occurred to me that they might have my best interests in mind. It never once even occurred to me that there might be a good reason for any rules they set out. It never once even occurred to me that if I was having a big problem with other adults I could go to them. I never saw them as an ally, always as a threat or an obstacle. All in the name of...what? I don't even remember what the alleged infractions were that I was being spanked for in the first place!
I've told all this to a few people before, and one response I often get is "Kids don't think that way or draw such far-fetched conclusions." So I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear: this is what my actual child-self actually thought and concluded, in real life, based on the input available. It's articulated here in more adult terms than I could express at the time to make it clearer, but it is the absolute truth of my child-self's thoughts, feelings and conclusions. This isn't child psychology, this isn't parenting theory, this isn't social engineering, this isn't political correctness. This is what an actual, real-life child actually learned, in real life, from being spanked.
Dear lady spanking your daughter on Roehampton Avenue, in front of the construction site, between 2:30 and 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, August 17: are these the lessons you want to teach her?
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Pictures of text
I recently clicked on a trending topic hashtag related to some drama or another in teen pop music fandom (#beliebersareherefordirectioners - I didn't bother to look into what exactly happened to trigger the creation of that hashtag), and I noticed an interesting phenomenon. A huge percentage of the people using this hashtag were writing out fairly long messages in the Notes function on their iphone, then tweeting a screenshot of the message. Here's the first example that came up when I searched for it just now.
This is fascinating. This fandom is so entrenched in a medium that only allows for short textual messages that they use images of text to convey longer messages rather than switching to a more conducive medium.
We've seen this before, with the "we are the 99%" signs. At the time I saw it described as a faster and easier alternative to videos, but it's still longer to produce and no less easy to read than actual text. And some people seem to use it quite often on facebook, sharing images of text - even if it's just a brief saying - rather than typing out the text as a whole, which in most cases would totally fit in a facebook status.
The beliebers obviously chose this method so they could share longer-form messages while achieving their goal of trending on twitter. And I suspect the sharing mechanisms of facebook and tumblr are more conducive to sharing photos than straight-out text. I also suspect some of the 99%ers were deliberately trying to add a human face to their stories, although others chose to obscure their faces. In any case, the goal of sharability within the technical limitations of the social network seems to be great enough that it leads people to engage in the objectively ridiculous act of posting a picture of text rather than just typing out the text.
This has me wondering if someday someone is going to invent a new social media network with robust sharing functions that positions its niche as allowing you to share long-form text.
This is fascinating. This fandom is so entrenched in a medium that only allows for short textual messages that they use images of text to convey longer messages rather than switching to a more conducive medium.
We've seen this before, with the "we are the 99%" signs. At the time I saw it described as a faster and easier alternative to videos, but it's still longer to produce and no less easy to read than actual text. And some people seem to use it quite often on facebook, sharing images of text - even if it's just a brief saying - rather than typing out the text as a whole, which in most cases would totally fit in a facebook status.
The beliebers obviously chose this method so they could share longer-form messages while achieving their goal of trending on twitter. And I suspect the sharing mechanisms of facebook and tumblr are more conducive to sharing photos than straight-out text. I also suspect some of the 99%ers were deliberately trying to add a human face to their stories, although others chose to obscure their faces. In any case, the goal of sharability within the technical limitations of the social network seems to be great enough that it leads people to engage in the objectively ridiculous act of posting a picture of text rather than just typing out the text.
This has me wondering if someday someone is going to invent a new social media network with robust sharing functions that positions its niche as allowing you to share long-form text.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)