Thursday, February 20, 2014

Helpful household hints

1. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is good for degriming shower tiles

Based on the colour, the grime seemed to be related to my hair conditioner, and normal cleaning products plus elbow grease wouldn't budge it.  But the Mr. Clean Magic eraser wiped it right off with only slightly more than the absolute minimum of effort humanly possible.

2. How to declog a paper shredder

The problem: the shredder wouldn't "grab" the paper, not even when set on "Forward" (i.e. run regardless of whether you think there's paper poised to be shredded.)

 First I ran the shredder forward and backwards like the instruction manual said, but that didn't work.

After switching it off and unplugging it, I tried manually removing the bits of paper I could see stuck between the blades, but I couldn't get at all of them.  I then tried blowing at it with compressed air (i.e. this sort of thing), but that didn't get rid of all the bits.

The ultimate solution: take the long, skinny straw-like thing on the compressed air can, and stick it down the slot of the paper shredder where I could see the bits of paper still stuck in there.  (Making sure the shredder was still turned off and unplugged, of course!)  It's skinny enough to get into the slot, flexible enough to get in between the blades without damaging them, and inconsequential enough that it didn't matter if I damaged it in the blades (which I didn't).  And it got all the cloggy bits of paper out of the way, and now the shredder works more enthusiastically than ever.

3. How do get rid of bird poo without touching it (and without a hose)

The problem: bird poo on the outside of the glass outer wall of my balcony (i.e. the bit under the railing.)  I can see its ugliness, but I'm too vertiginous to reach over the railing to clean it off (and would be too squeamish to touch it even indirectly with paper towels and rubber gloves even if I could reach it).

The solution: first, wait for a rainy day when the rain is beating rather heavily against the surface to be washed.

Spray some OxiClean Spray on the surface, above the bird poo.  It will drip down, cover the poo, and the enzymes will get rid of a lot of it.

Next, after the OxiClean has either all dripped down below the mess or the rain has washed it away, squirt a dab of dish soap (the hand-washing kind, not the dishwasher kind) above the poo.  It will drip down and cover the poo, and the rain will make it into a lather, which will wash the rest away. 

The last step is to take some Windex, and spray a generous amount over as much of the area as possible, focusing on the top so it can drip down.  This will clean off the build-up left by the Oxi-Clean and dish soap, so once everything is dry you won't even be able to tell anything happened there.

If you have a bird poo problem somewhere where you have access to a hose, you obviously don't have to wait for it to rain.  But the approach I've described here works in cases where a hose isn't possible.  As an added bonus, if you're very careful to spray the stuff only directly on the wall, it won't land on any passers-by who might be walking below.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Things They Should Invent: a way to save non-stressed feelings for later

As I've mentioned before, my stress levels have been really low (and quite often zero) since I started working from home.  However, my lease renewal recently came up, which reminded me that in a bit over a year I'm going to be moving into my condo, which is surely going to be stressful - not just from the moving but from the stuff related to the condo purchase, some of which, I'm sure, I haven't anticipated at all.

Despite the fact that, at condo time, I will have had nearly two years of a zero-stress day-to-day, I'll still get stressed then.  It's just not possible to bank non-stress for when I need it.  I can save money for when I need it, I can eat sparingly today so I have room for a good pig-out tomorrow, but stress is Tetris pieces, and no matter how good you are at Tetris, you can't move the bottom of the playing area any lower, even though you know the pieces will start coming too fast to handle when you reach Level 9.

Someone should really come up with a workaround for that.  (Or, barring that, a Tetris cheat that moves the bottom of the playing area lower if you clear lines well enough.)

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Why would police have to search a hospital patient?

From The Ethicist:
My emergency unit handled a man who had been shot in the leg in the early hours of the morning. The trauma surgeons refused to have him transferred to the ward for wound management because they believed the victim would be pursued by his assailants, thereby posing a safety risk to staff members and patients. The police in the E.R. declined to pat down the injured man for weapons, as they were not legally empowered to do so. The man was retained in emergency for 12 hours. The emergency unit, which has an open-door policy for all comers 24/7, would most likely be the first place that assailants would look for an injured man. Are there ethical ramifications with the transfer of violent risk?
I was surprised that the letter-writer was focused on whether the police could pat down the injured man, because it seems to me like the medical professionals could undress him (and thereby disarm him) or otherwise determine what he's carrying in the course of medical care. I don't know how medically ethical this is (which is probably why it wasn't mentioned in the Ethicist column), but from a purely logistical perspective it seems perfectly feasible.

He's been shot in leg, so it's perfectly reasonable to remove his pants. And people usually remove their footwear as part of removing pants. They could then put him in a hospital gown so he's not sitting around undressed, and logistically they'd probably have to remove, at a minimum, all but his bottom layer of shirts - perhaps all his shirts.  If the hospital gown isn't necessary, they could also ask him to take his jacket/sweater/everything but t-shirt off  to take his blood pressure or something.

Once he's down to a t-shirt and undies they'll probably be able to tell if he's carrying a weapon.  And if they can't, they could do the "put the stethoscope on the patient's chest and have the patient breathe deeply" thing, which will allow them to lift the patient's shirt enough to see if there's anything underneath.

And all that's before we even get into the possibility of checking the patient's body for more wounds, which seems like something you might do when treating a patient who's been in a gunfight! Or x-raying a gunshot patient to verify the location of all the bits of bullet.

If the patient isn't searched by police officers and instead simply receives medical care from medical professionals, he's more likely to perceive the hospital as a safe place where there's no threat to him.  And the police in the ER would hopefully be able to keep out the people who are trying to kill the patient, so the patient would have no reason to draw any weapons he might have on him.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Downton Abbey thoughts (up to S04 E06)

Spoilers:  This post contains spoilers for Downton Abbey up to Season 4, Episode 6 (i.e. the one with the pigs).  However, I haven't watched any further (I'm watching along with PBS) so please do not spoil me about future episodes.

When it was revealed that Edith is pregnant, my first thought was "Did they have abortion in England in the 1920s?"  I knew that if it existed it was illegal, but I wondered if it was an option at all and, if so, how it worked.

So I was very disappointed that she just changed her mind at the last minute.  That simply wasn't a good, interesting use of this plotline, given the setting and the era.

Given the setting and the era, it would have been really interesting to cover how abortion worked.  I know they couldn't actually show it (even Call the Midwife had to do it by symbolism) but they could have taught us something about the reality of this era.  But by having Edith ultimately choose not to go through with it, they missed that opportunity, and rather wasted precious limited screen time setting us up for it.  If they need her to stay pregnant for long-term plot purposes, they could have her leave after the doctor explains the procedure to her, perhaps because she's afraid to go through with it or because the doctor wants to be paid in sexual favours or something.

Given the setting and the era, it would also have been interesting to see Edith attempting to procure the abortion, by which I mean attempting to find a place to have it done.  Perhaps she first asks her doctor, who is shocked and appalled that she should suggest such a thing.  Then she has to explore different and shadier avenues, providing us with a lot of interesting historical insight along the way.  It's a time-sensitive secret mission!  If they need her to stay pregnant for long-term plot purposes, they could simply have her not be able to figure it out in time.  It's certainly not implausible for a sheltered upper-class lady of her era living in a country house not to be able to figure out how to obtain something illegal.  But instead they just had the information fall into her hands offscreen (more telling rather than showing!)

But if Edith is going to have the baby, they could also simply not present abortion as an option.  It's illegal, and Edith is a sheltered upper-class lady who lives in a country house.  It's perfectly plausible she wouldn't even know abortion is an option.

If it's necessary for plot purposes to make Edith deliberately choose to have the baby, they could simply have someone discreetly mention to her that there are things you can do (Isobel would be a good candidate for this), and have her say "Oh no, I could never do that."  Done and done, in one 30-second conversation, then we could get into the interesting part of what she'd actually do with the pregnancy and with the baby.  (Hide it?  Own it?  Be disowned?)

But setting up all this intrigue and using all this screen time on a shady illegal abortion only to a) change her mind and walk out and b) do so without giving us any interesting historical details is just a waste of our valuable screen time. And our screen time is in fact valuable, because there are so few episodes and each season covers years.  I'd much rather have it used on something other than "Look a plot...no, wait, no, we're just going to walk away from that." Like they did with "Patrick Crawley might be alive or it might be an imposter...but he just wandered off so never mind." Or with "Downton is dying, no wait Matthew inherited money, no wait he won't take it because he left Lavinia for Mary, no wait she was okay with that."  Or with "Mary's infertile...no, wait, fixed it." Or with "Sybil is getting a new and interesting life in Ireland...but we're not going to show it to you."  All this taking plotlines away rather than resolving them, and telling rather than showing.

Which makes me think this is all going to go away with a soap-opera miscarriage.  (And if they wanted to do that, why not have it simply be a pregnancy scare?)  If they can't resolve big, live-changing plots, why not just stick to smaller stories?  Stories on par with Mrs. Hughes's old beau turning up at the fair or the courtship of Anna and Bates or Lady Mary saves the pigs are the kind of thing  Downton does well, so just keep doing them!

***

This will never happen on the show, but I think the ideal person to solve all Edith's problems is Sir Anthony Strallan.

In the setting and era of the show, the way a lady secures her future is with a good marriage.  Edith did everything right in that respect by getting Sir Anthony to the altar.  Moreover, she was (given the reality of her era) very sensible in her choice.  She wasn't holding out for a knight in shining armour or a handsome young duke with no war damage or Rudolph Valentino.  She chose someone she gets along well with, who makes a good match pragmatically, and didn't blink an eye that he's older and disabled. 

By the standards of her era and setting, she did everything right.  So, by the standards of her era and setting, she deserves to be married - and, by extension, to be able to honourably have sex and have a baby.

But Sir Anthony left her at the altar - not because of anything she did wrong, but because he thinks, in a sort of romantic idealization - that he's not good enough for her and her life would be worse married to him.

But now she's in a situation where she would clearly and by all standards be better off being married to him.  Being married would allow her and her child to live comfortably and respectably.  It has already been established that Sir Anthony doesn't have children so this arrangement wouldn't be stealing any rightful inheritances from anyone (with the possible exception of some distance male cousin à la Matthew Crawley - and not even that if Edith's baby ends up being a girl).  Yes, his estate would be inherited by someone who isn't his biological child.  Fair penalty for abandoning Edith without thinking about her actual, practical, real-life needs and wants.  And he still gets companionship and sex and caregiving and family connections with an earl and all the other benefits of an attractive younger wife. All he has to do is provide respectability for a woman he cares about and her child

Sunday, February 09, 2014

How to see the number of results with Google verbatim search

I previously blogged about how Google's Verbatim search function would be more useful if they showed the number of results.

I just figured out how to see the number of results.

First, a review of how to do a Verbatim search:

1. Do your search normally.
2. On the results page, click on Search Tools
3. Under All Results, choose Verbatim

To see the number of results, simply click on Search Tools again.  The results page won't change, but the menus that dropped down when you clicked on Search Tools will pull back up, revealing the number of results.

Saturday, February 08, 2014

How Google is making me not want to use Chrome

When they cancelled Google Reader, I wrote:

Google Reader and iGoogle are my primary gateways to the internet, and now Google has cancelled both of them.  This makes me fear for the future of Gmail and Blogger.  (Or search, for that matter).

Google just cancelled another thing that I use: Gmail Notifier.  It's a tiny, harmless little program that runs in your tray and alerts you when you have an email.  And the other day, it just randomly stopped working, and googling around the problem told me that Google had discontinued it.


The internet tells me they apparently sent out a message telling people about this discontinuation, but I didn't receive anything!

However, the part that annoys me is:
If you want to continue to receive notifications, you can use any of the following alternatives to Google Notifier Beta, using the Chrome browser. To see the number of unread messages in your inbox at a glance, install the Gmail Checker Chrome app. To preview new messages on your desktop, go to Gmail's settings and enable Desktop Notifications.
So basically they killed Gmail Notifier in an attempt to force people to use Chrome if they want to be notified when they have new email.

Originally I started using Firefox instead of Chrome because at the time the Chrome interface looked kind of "wrong" to me.  No big attachment or anything, I just tried two and I found one a wee bit visually irksome, so I went with the other.  However, since then, Google has been killing off things I use in an attempt to get me to switch to Chrome.  They killed the Google Toolbar for Firefox in an attempt to make us use Chrome exclusively if we wanted that kind of toolbar interface.  They killed iGoogle and suggested a range of Chrome apps as a replacement.  And now they kill Gmail Notifier and suggest a Chrome app as a replacement.

And every time they do this, it makes me more determined not to use Chrome.  I don't want them win!   I've found Firefox add-ons and websites to replace everything Google has killed, and I'm determined not to let this strategy of theirs be successful.  Before they started doing this, I had no objection to Chrome, I just chose to use Firefox.  But every time they kill something to get me to switch to Chrome, I dig in even more so they won't win.

Tuesday, February 04, 2014

Things They Should Invent: "if you like...you may like..." for beauty products

I use Beautypedia, but I don't always agree with their reviews.  For example, they give my favourite eyeliner a poor rating, saying that the long skinny brush is hard to control.  But I find that the brush is easier to control specifically because it's long and skinny, and I vastly prefer it to every other brand I've tried, whose applicators are all too thick for the look I'm going for.

This means that when I'm in the market for eyeliner, Beautypedia is useless for me.

And it might also be less than perfectly useful for other products, and I'm just unaware of it.  The perfect product for me might be sitting under some pile of average reviews on Beautypedia and Makeup Alley etc., because it isn't optimal for most people in the world but is perfect for my non-standard needs.

So I'd like to see a beauty product review site that compares products to other products.  If you find Product A and Product B very similar, you say so, and perhaps articulate how they differ from each other.  If you find Product C far superiors to Products A and B, say so and explain why.  If you find Product D far inferior, say so and explain why.

If they can get a critical mass of reviews, they could even match up users with similar skin types or other similar makeup needs.  For example, if several people have the same favourite masacara and the same favourite eyeliner, it might be helpful to know what each other's favourite eyeshadow is.  Or, if a product gets discontinued, you could find out what other people who liked that discontinued product also like and dislike, and avoid some irritating trial and error.

So how do we get all these people to write all these comprehensive and detailed reviews? My idea is: what if this website was sponsored by a retailer that sells a wide range of brands of cosmetics, like Shoppers Drug Mart or even Amazon?  Users could earn points for writing reviews, and the points could be redeemable for free cosmetics at that retailer.  To encourage users to populate the site quickly, the first X reviews (where X is the number of reviews they need to make the site useful) can get exponentially more points.  They could also have easy one-click links on the review site to buy reviewed cosmetics from the retailer.

Friday, January 31, 2014

Books read in January 2014

I recently realized that I read more books than I thought I did.  So, for 2014, I'm going to keep track of the books I read each month. Might be interesting to see how many I get done or if any patterns emerge. (Although which books I read when is really a function of the library's holds system rather than any deliberate choice.)

New books (i.e. read for the first time):

1. Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey by the Countess of Carnarvon
2. The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag by Chol-Hwan Kang and Pierre Rigoulet
3. To Marry an English Lord by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace
4.  How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman

I'm also doing an ongoing comfort-food reread of the In Death series. I don't really think of this as "books I've read" because they're not new, but nevertheless they are books and I did read them. This month I read:

1. Purity in Death
2. Portrait in Death

Hmm...that's fewer than I expected when I tweeted excitedly about how many books I'd read earlier this month...

Saturday, January 25, 2014

Why did serving sizes get big?

Conventional wisdom is that food serving sizes are bigger than they used to be, particularly in restaurants, and that this is a leading cause of obesity. You can google up all kinds of articles and graphics and such giving examples.

What I don't understand is why restaurants and other food sellers would have started increasing their serving sizes in the first place.  You're running a business selling people food.  Your customers are accustomed to getting a certain amount of food for the money they pay.  If you increase the amount of food in a serving, you're shrinking your profit margins for no reason.

A quick google turns up explanations of how large sizes at fast food restaurants came to be - they worked out that people aren't going to order two servings of fries even if they could eat more, but they'd feel that a large is good value because it costs less than two standard sizes, and the additional mark-up in retail price was significantly more than what the restaurant paid for the ingredients.

But that doesn't explain why serving sizes also increased in non-fast-food restaurants that don't have multiple size choices, or why restaurants with multiple serving sizes keep phasing out the smaller size (which was once upon a time the "regular").

Friday, January 24, 2014

My earring storage solution

I previously asked for advice on how to store my earrings.  I've now found a solution.

In addition to the jewellery tree for my necklaces, I've got a second jewellery tree for earrings.

The metal butterflies on this stand have dozens of little holes in them, which are perfect for putting earrings in. Hoop earrings and dangly earrings can also be hung on the hooks and the arms.

I like this method because there aren't carefully circumscribed slots for the earrings to fit into (so I'm not going to run out of spaces any time soon) and because it allows my jewellery (i.e. pretty/interesting things that reflect my taste and character and that I already own through the normal course of life) to serve as a decorative element in my bedroom, rather than having to go seek out other decorative elements that reflect my taste and character.

The only flaw in this particular jewellery tree is it's too short for necklaces (and my necklaces aren't particularly long), so I had to get another one for necklaces.

If you're in the GTA, you can buy this and many other jewellery trees at Kitchen Stuff Plus.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

In which I dream my way into a starring role in a Community spin-off

Last night I dreamed I was a student at Greendale Community College (where the TV show Community is set) and I had to take a chemistry placement test.  The chemistry prof was a crotchety old man (who, in retrospect, bore a striking - but not perfect - resemblance to the criminology prof who's been introduced this season) and, during the placement test, he led me to believe I was nowhere near good enough to be in his class.

Towards the end of the dream, I was in the chemistry lab, and I mentioned to someone "I'm not going to be taking any classes in this room.  Well, probably not."  The crotchety prof, without letting his facade of crotchetiness drop an inch, said something like "Don't be so sure about that" and lifted the piece of paper he was holding so I could see I'd gotten an A- on the placement test.  (For those of you who don't watch it or aren't caught up, this season of Community has established that an A- is the grade professors give to students they don't like who have done work worthy of an A.) 

I gave the crotchety prof a knowing smile and said "I look forward to it," knowing in that instant that I was setting myself up for multiple seasons of respectful antagonism à la Leslie Knope and Ron Swanson.

Then I woke up.

It will be interesting to see if I ever dream my way back there for further adventures.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

itunes lyrics efficiency

As I've mentioned before, I'm lyric-deaf, meaning I can't always clearly hear all the words of a song I'm listening to.  As a result, often when I'm going about my everyday life, I feel the need to stop and google up the lyrics to the song I'm listening to.

But this morning my shower gave me an idea:

Every time I find myself googling up lyrics, I'll paste them into the "Lyrics" tab for that song. (Right-click the song, click on Get Info, choose the Lyrics tab.)  Then they'll be available for me on my ipod, and apparently you can also download plug-ins that will show the contents of the Lyrics tab in itunes as the song plays.  So if I keep doing this, every song with incomprehensible lyrics will eventually display its lyrics automatically when it plays.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Things They Should Invent: PBS donations conditional upon changing how Masterpiece is listed

I've been rather baffled and slightly irritated that PBS insists upon listing Downton Abbey as Masterpiece Classic in TV listings, when we all know that people are looking for Downton Abbey.

Wil Wheaton recently had the same complaint about Sherlock, which is listed under Masterpiece Mystery.

I don't understand why PBS does this or what they think they gain by listing popular TV shows under a less popular generic name, but I have an idea for how to stop them:

Everyone contact their local PBS station and promise to pledge money next pledge season if they start listing these things in a normal way. Then, as soon as we see our favourite programs being listed under their actual title, donate.  If they don't, don't donate (even if you normally do).

What I learned from my 2009 New Year's resolution

My 2009 New Year's resolution was "shut up and buy it".

I did this because in the year or so leading up to my making that resolution, I found myself wanting various things that were significantly more expensive than I was accustomed to spending, and this wanting kept sitting in my brain and yelling at me.  I felt so guilty and conflicted about it - I can't just spend money!  Then I'm going to want to keep spending money! - but it kept sitting there in my brain nagging me.  So I decided that for a year I'd permit myself to buy whatever I wanted as long as I didn't have to go into debt or tap into my condo fund, and I'd use it as a learning experience.  If it started to hurt or I regretted it, then that's where the dividing line is.  If buying things didn't make me satisfied and instead just upgraded my wants, then I'd learn that that's how I operate.  In any case, instead of sitting there feeling deprived and guilty, I'd be doing something about it.

That was three years ago, and I didn't end up stopping the "shut up and buy it" at the end of the year.  But, I just realized, my wants didn't upgrade.  I bought the things I was wanting at the beginning of the year, they made me feel happy, and no new wants came in to replace them.

This did still increase my ongoing spending.  One of the things I wanted was better hair, and now I spent far more than I care to admit on natural shampoo and conditioner that achieve significantly better results than what you get at the drugstore. I started wearing more expensive bras (to fantastic effect!), and, while they don't need to be replaced quite as often as hair products, they still do need to be replaced from time to time.

But I bought the things I was originally wishing for when I started my resolution, and then didn't feel the need to buy any other things that I didn't have in mind going in.  I didn't get caught up in some endless treadmill of materialism, it turned out I just wanted some nicer things.

Which supports my ongoing theses that I know my shit better than I think I do and I can buy happiness.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

An alternative to Rimmel nail polish in Crushed Pearl

My previous go-to nail polish was Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Crushed Pearl.  It's a subtle pink that alludes to the natural pink of my nails, but is a bit lighter and has a pearly finish, thereby making it more forgiving to my quickly-chipping nails.

Unfortunately, I can't find it anywhere anymore.  I'm not sure if it was discontinued or what, but it isn't in any stores or on ebay.  So this sent me on a mission to find an alternative.

After much trial and error, I landed on the following:

1. One coat of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant in "Pink-finity"
2. A second coat of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant in "Perma-pink"

Pink-finity is a matte baby pink.  It's very boldly baby pink in a way that's not nearly as natural as Rimmel Crushed Pearl and, because it's a shiny matte, isn't nearly as forgiving.

Perma-pink is a far more natural pink with a forgiving pearly finish, but it finishes somewhat sheer when used on its own (which I dislike).

However, in combination, these two colours produce a natural, forgiving, opaque pearly pink that's very close to Rimmel Crushed Pearl (a wee bit lighter and without that tiny drop of purple, but I doubt you're going to get close with what's currently commercially available.)  Although I'd really still prefer Rimmel Crushed Pearl.

Added bonus factoid: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in "Pink Satin" is not a suitable substitute for Rimmel Crushed Pearl.  Even though it does have that drop of purple and appears similar in colour to the natural pink of my nails, it's far brighter and bolder, not subtle at all.  It can't even be tamed with a layer of Cover Girl Perma-pink over it.

Update:  If you don't want to combine colours, Revlon Colourstay Gel Envy in "Beginner's Luck" is also very similar.  It does have a tiny tiny amount of glitter in it though - it's extremely subtle on the nail, but is more difficult to remove like glitter polishes tend to be.

Thursday, January 16, 2014

The real problem in the York University religious accommodation case

I first heard about the York University religious accommodation story through Twitter, so I got all the outrage before I got a straightforward reporting of facts.  It wasn't until I read Friday's Toronto Star editorial that I saw the missing piece that pointed to the real problem, which has gotten buried in all the debate and outrage and sensationalism.  But, I'm pleased to report, the real problem is much simpler, less fraught, and more easily resolved.

The real problem is that this is an online course, but it includes a group project that apparently needs to be done in person, and this in-person component is not mentioned in the course calendar.

When this story first made the news, my first thought was "Well, what did the student expect?"  The answer is he expected an online course. So he was actually conducting himself perfectly reasonably, given his limitations and the information available to him at the time, by enrolling in a course listed as online. 

There are plenty of other situations where it might be disproportionately inconvenient to have an in-person requirement sprung on you.  Maybe you have medical issues that preclude going to campus and are trying to keep chipping away at your degree while you convalesce. Maybe you're pregnant and on bedrest.  Maybe you're a caregiver and can't get away for long periods of time but can occasionally find a moment to go online.  Maybe you live somewhere car-dependent but recently lost the ability to drive and haven't yet been able to reorganize your life accordingly.  I'm sure you can think of a few examples that you'd find perfectly reasonable.

So the solution is simply to accurately represent the course location in the course calendar.  I'm not saying they have to pinpoint the specific room number way back when the course calendar is published, I'm thinking more in general terms.  If it's on campus, say so.  If it's on campus but not in a fully accessible location, say so.  If it's on a different campus, say so. If it's an online course with an in-person requirement, say so.  If it mostly takes place on campus but students will occasionally have to travel to other locations, say so.  Are these locations in the city or outside of it? Accessible by transit or not?  Whatever it is, say so.

This will allow students to make informed decisions about the courses they take. Students who would find a particular course unduly inconvenient can opt out ahead of time, without having to lose money by dropping the course or involving the administration in an attempt to get an exception.  And only a very small number of professors and instructors would be inconvenienced by the need to edit the course calendar entries, because the vast majority of courses do in fact take place in the stated location and only the stated location.

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Not letting it bother you vs. not being bothered by it

The following is a quote from from Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon.  As usual, any typos are my own:
A peculiar arrogance accrues to people who cannot recognize the diversity of human impulses, and who feel superior because they do not lapse into behaviours that don't tempt them in the first place. People disgusted by sexual predators say smugly that they don't pursue the sexual favours of children, without acknowledging that they don't find children sexually attractive. Those who do not tend toward chemical dependency express disdain for addicts; people with small appetites patronize the morbidly obese. A hundred years ago, my homosexuality would have landed me in jail, and I am fortunate to live in a place and an era that allow me to be true to myself. If I'd had to deny my longings, it would have been a different experience from that of straight people who have no such longings to deny. Spending time with criminals, I have seen that while many have poor impulse control or are weak or stupid or destructive, many others are driven by a compulsion. Some manifest enormous courage by refraining from theft although the wish to steal burns in them every minute, and their restraint of emotions they cannot eradicate is categorically different from the lawfulness of people who find the idea of thievery distasteful.
This quote seems broadly applicable to many things in life and I expect to be referring back to it many times in the future, but the first thing that comes to mind is to wonder if it applies to "Don't let it bother you."

Example: one day last year, I was walking down the street when some random lady walked up to me and said "Where did you get such ugly shoes?"  When I was a preteen or teenager, this would have devastated me, but now that I'm older and wise, I simply don't let things like that bother me.  Not letting things like this bother me is a much better way to live life!  Everyone should do it!

Except, as you'll recognize if you've been reading me for a while, this isn't an example of not letting something bother me.  Rather, this is an example of something that never bothered me in the first place.  As I blogged about when it happened, Shoe-Hating Lady's comment didn't bother me because she clearly had no fashion credibility, I've received a critical mass of external validation for those particular shoes, and she phrased her comment in a way that set me up perfectly for a bright and witty comeback.  In comparison, when people would make negative comments about my appearance when I was young, they were people with more fashion credibility than me, I hadn't received any external validation, and I couldn't come up with a good comeback.

There was no skill or effort or virtue involved in my not being bothered by Shoe-Hating Lady's comments.  I didn't transcend any bad feelings or will myself into some positive or zen emotional place, it's just that the bother never happened.

Sometimes, especially in advice column forums but in other places as well, I've noticed a certain soupçon of smugness/arrogance from some people about not letting things bother them.  Rather than helping brainstorm specific solutions or alternate approaches for the letterwriters, their contributions are always "You shouldn't let it bother you" or "You should get past it" or "You shouldn't allow yourself to feel that way."  But if you ask them for specifics on how to do that, they have nothing useful to contribute, or they just tell you to not let it bother you.

So I find myself wondering if some of the people who say they don't let things bother them are rather simply not bothered by those things.  They're not actually actively doing anything to make the thing not bother them, it just simply happens to be a thing that doesn't bother them.

It also occurs to me that something similar might be happening with some of the cases where people think they've matured and outgrown feelings or priorities they used to have. 

For example, when I was in middle school, it was very important to have a circle of friends who are near you at all times.  It was very important not to wear the wrong clothes.  It was very important to be familiar with the correct aspects of pop culture. I put a lot of time and energy into meeting all these criteria and never being seen to set a foot wrong.  However, now that I'm older and wiser, I know that these things aren't really important and I do as I like rather than follow trends.

Except that this change has nothing to do with me and everything to do with how people treat me.  In middle school, people would actively work to make my life miserable of they saw me without friends near me, or in the wrong clothes, or indulging in the wrong pop culture.  And, because of the school setting, the people who did this were able to make my life miserable for seven hours a day, five days a week, and I couldn't walk away from them.  Now in adult life, the vast majority of people simply don't care, and those who do can be easily avoided.  This has nothing to do with my own maturity or wisdom, and everything to do with my day-to-day context.

So I find myself wondering if other people who say the same things did in fact become more mature and wiser, or if they're just removed from the situation where the importance of these things was artificially inflated.

Friday, January 10, 2014

Wherein I answer all the question in today's Ethicist

From The Ethicist:
I received an envelope that was addressed to my home but did not include a name. I recognized the last name on the return-address label. I opened the envelope and realized it was intended for my neighbor, a woman I have known, along with her husband, for many years. The letter chronicled the dates and locations of an affair the sender claimed his wife was having with my neighbor’s husband. I regret reading the letter. Upon looking more closely at the envelope, I was able to discern my neighbor’s name (the wife) and the words “private and confidential,” but these were obscured by the postmark. It seems the sender intentionally sent the letter to my home to keep the husband from intercepting it, counting on me to deliver it to the wife. Now that the envelope is open, the neighbors will know that I have read the allegations. What is my obligation: To deliver the letter or to inform the sender that this plan didn’t go as intended? NAME WITHHELD
Unlike the Ethicist, I think the optimal solution is to write "return to sender - no one by this name at this address" (in whatever the official wording for your postal system is).  The the sender knows that the intended recipient hasn't seen it and can take whatever action they consider appropriate.

In the depths of my mother’s closet, shrouded in a black garment bag, hangs her fur coat from the 1970s. And in the pocket of that fur coat, wrapped in a silk jewelry bag, is her ivory collection. “I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing any of it,” she says. “But I don’t know how to get rid of it.” Is there an ethical way to dispose of unethical waste? STEVEN FRANK, LOS ANGELES
I have no idea what to do about the ivory, but the fur coat is still a coat, and therefore an item of which people have genuine need. It should be donated to the homeless or other people who genuinely need it to stay warm.  I believe this approach is even considered acceptable in animal-rights circles, since it deglamourizes fur.

I just noticed that the letter-writer lives in Los Angeles, so perhaps it isn't appropriate for his local homeless shelter.  But I'd suggest googling around the idea to see if you can find a way to donate it to people in colder parts of the world who need coats.

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Pirate synchronicity

The following two comics were next to each other on yesterday's Globe and Mail comic page:




















I like to think they're both the same pirate, getting all his medical exams done in in a row on his one day of shore leave.