Humanity collectively has a mind-blowing range of sexual proclivities, so I've always operated under the assumption that every imaginable proclivity or variation must exist within the full scope of human experience.
But what if some things that we would expect to exist don't and never have? And what if some of the proclivities that have never existed are really unremarkable or benign compared to other proclivities that do exist?
For example, what if no one in human history has ever been turned on by the idea of their partner wearing a hat during sex? What if no one has ever gotten off on having the back of their knees licked? Not these specific examples per se (I thought of them, so they probably aren't good examples of things no one has ever thought of), but what if there are things that are comparably unremarkable but no one in human history has ever found them sexy? Even though there are people who get off on the idea of being eaten alive (Savage Love column, no graphic images but textual content NSFW).
Wednesday, January 04, 2017
Tuesday, January 03, 2017
Things They Should Invent: put buildings on the internet before they tear them down
In my neighbourhood, there's a group of row houses that's going to be torn down for condos, and I'm extremely curious about what they look like inside - so much so that I've even pondered attempting to break in engage in some urban exploration, which isn't something I've even considered before.
The reason why I'm curious about these houses as opposed the many other buildings that are being torn down for condos is that I can't figure out their history just by looking at them from the outside. I'm not savvy enough about architecture to tell when they were built. I can't tell if they're single family homes or apartments. I can't tell if they're middle-class or working-class. I can't tell if they're middle-class single-family homes that latter got subdivided into working-class apartments. They clearly have a story, and I can't even begin to speculate what that story is.
Every building that is torn down has a story, and you never know when or to whom that story will be of interest. So to preserve our stories, they should document buildings before they tear them down, and post all the information on the internet.
On a single comprehensive website, interior and exterior photos, floor plans, and all known history should be posted for every building that is torn down. Maybe the public could also add to it, so someone idly googling their grandparents' old house could come along and add the interesting factoid "My grandparents bought this house for $10,000 in 1952 and raised four children here on a steelworker's salary."
I'm not a person who objects to development (as evidenced by the fact that I keep insisting on living in new buildings), but there's no reason why the stories of what was here before should be lost in an era when everything can be so easily archived and indexed.
The reason why I'm curious about these houses as opposed the many other buildings that are being torn down for condos is that I can't figure out their history just by looking at them from the outside. I'm not savvy enough about architecture to tell when they were built. I can't tell if they're single family homes or apartments. I can't tell if they're middle-class or working-class. I can't tell if they're middle-class single-family homes that latter got subdivided into working-class apartments. They clearly have a story, and I can't even begin to speculate what that story is.
Every building that is torn down has a story, and you never know when or to whom that story will be of interest. So to preserve our stories, they should document buildings before they tear them down, and post all the information on the internet.
On a single comprehensive website, interior and exterior photos, floor plans, and all known history should be posted for every building that is torn down. Maybe the public could also add to it, so someone idly googling their grandparents' old house could come along and add the interesting factoid "My grandparents bought this house for $10,000 in 1952 and raised four children here on a steelworker's salary."
I'm not a person who objects to development (as evidenced by the fact that I keep insisting on living in new buildings), but there's no reason why the stories of what was here before should be lost in an era when everything can be so easily archived and indexed.
Monday, January 02, 2017
Girl colours and boy colours
I currently have four baby cousins: three boys and one girl. (They aren't all so much babies - the oldest one is 3 - but old nomenclature dies hard. And it's not like they can read this blog to complain that I'm referring to them as babies.) I bought xmas gifts for all of them (I don't celebrate xmas myself, but my family does and it's an awesome excuse to look through all the adorable children's books at Mabel's Fables), and since all the gifts would be going under the same tree I put gift tags on them.
I managed to find a package of non-xmas-themed gift tags in all different colours, one of which is pink. So I put the pink tag on the girl's gift. Because pink is for girls.
Of course, I myself don't actually think pink is exclusively for girls and not for boys at all. If any of my male baby cousins expressed interest in pink things or things that are culturally marked as for girls, I'd be the first to make sure he had all the girly things he wanted.
But, because on a broader cultural level pink has connotations as "for girls", some boys might not like it. Some boys might find it insulting to be given the pink thing. It might be problematic to give one brother pink and the other brother a colour without gender connotations. (The inverse is true too - I remember once feeling very humiliated and insecure in my femininity when my sister got a Judy Jetson toy and I was given smelly old George Jetson.)
If I had multiple pink tags, I wouldn't hesitate to give every child a pink tag. But I only had the one, and I only ever use gift tags for the baby cousins, so the one pink gift tag went to the one girl.
And so, out of consideration for connotations that these small children may or may not have yet picked up from the prevailing culture, gender stereotypes of colours are perpetuated for another generation.
***
Another similar issue is that I'm very mindful of making sure the boys get books with male protagonists (insofar as the books have protagonists and the protagonists have gender - with children this young, sometimes the books are about animals or shapes or colours, and sometimes they don't have enough of a plot to have a protagonist), but I don't put the same thought into making sure the girl gets books with female protagonists. This is because I have the idea, absorbed from the ether, that boy are more likely to be reluctant readers, and that boys are more likely to be disinclined to read books with female protagonists.
In real life, none of these kids are reluctant readers, simply because they're too young for anyone to make that determination. In real life, I'm not even sure to what extent children that age do or don't perceive gender. But, nevertheless, I've decided to pre-emptively address this Thing That People On The Internet Say Might Happen, and, as a result, might be perpetuating the stereotype that books about girls aren't for boys.
Part of it is the fact that I can testify from my own first-hand experience that even a girly girl whose gender identity and expression is wholly feminine can totally enjoy books about a male protagonist, and therefore would feel confident in getting a girl a book with a male protagonist. But I have heard anecdotes of boys being disinclined to read female protagonists, and I only have a self righteous "Well, it shouldn't make any difference!" to counter that. (I don't actually know whether my male baby cousins as individuals care about the genders of their protagonists - I'm never able to have as comprehensive a conversation with their parents as I'd like because we keep getting interrupted by the presence of babies and toddlers.)
But ultimately, I think it's more important (in terms of both gift-giving and child development) to maximize the likelihood that the kidlets will enjoy the books put in front of them. And so I resort to gender stereotypes unless I have further specific information.
I kind of wish I could switch off that portion of my knowledge of self and culture, and choose books cheerfully unaware of what gender (and other) stereotypes might exist and need to be addressed.
I managed to find a package of non-xmas-themed gift tags in all different colours, one of which is pink. So I put the pink tag on the girl's gift. Because pink is for girls.
Of course, I myself don't actually think pink is exclusively for girls and not for boys at all. If any of my male baby cousins expressed interest in pink things or things that are culturally marked as for girls, I'd be the first to make sure he had all the girly things he wanted.
But, because on a broader cultural level pink has connotations as "for girls", some boys might not like it. Some boys might find it insulting to be given the pink thing. It might be problematic to give one brother pink and the other brother a colour without gender connotations. (The inverse is true too - I remember once feeling very humiliated and insecure in my femininity when my sister got a Judy Jetson toy and I was given smelly old George Jetson.)
If I had multiple pink tags, I wouldn't hesitate to give every child a pink tag. But I only had the one, and I only ever use gift tags for the baby cousins, so the one pink gift tag went to the one girl.
And so, out of consideration for connotations that these small children may or may not have yet picked up from the prevailing culture, gender stereotypes of colours are perpetuated for another generation.
***
Another similar issue is that I'm very mindful of making sure the boys get books with male protagonists (insofar as the books have protagonists and the protagonists have gender - with children this young, sometimes the books are about animals or shapes or colours, and sometimes they don't have enough of a plot to have a protagonist), but I don't put the same thought into making sure the girl gets books with female protagonists. This is because I have the idea, absorbed from the ether, that boy are more likely to be reluctant readers, and that boys are more likely to be disinclined to read books with female protagonists.
In real life, none of these kids are reluctant readers, simply because they're too young for anyone to make that determination. In real life, I'm not even sure to what extent children that age do or don't perceive gender. But, nevertheless, I've decided to pre-emptively address this Thing That People On The Internet Say Might Happen, and, as a result, might be perpetuating the stereotype that books about girls aren't for boys.
Part of it is the fact that I can testify from my own first-hand experience that even a girly girl whose gender identity and expression is wholly feminine can totally enjoy books about a male protagonist, and therefore would feel confident in getting a girl a book with a male protagonist. But I have heard anecdotes of boys being disinclined to read female protagonists, and I only have a self righteous "Well, it shouldn't make any difference!" to counter that. (I don't actually know whether my male baby cousins as individuals care about the genders of their protagonists - I'm never able to have as comprehensive a conversation with their parents as I'd like because we keep getting interrupted by the presence of babies and toddlers.)
But ultimately, I think it's more important (in terms of both gift-giving and child development) to maximize the likelihood that the kidlets will enjoy the books put in front of them. And so I resort to gender stereotypes unless I have further specific information.
I kind of wish I could switch off that portion of my knowledge of self and culture, and choose books cheerfully unaware of what gender (and other) stereotypes might exist and need to be addressed.
Sunday, January 01, 2017
"Excuse me, are you Jewish?"
For several years now, there have been young men (they appear to be Orthodox Jewish students to my semi-informed eyes) who stand around on the corner of Yonge and Eglinton and ask passers-by "Excuse me, are you Jewish?"
While I'm flattered to pass for potentially-Jewish, the fact of the matter is I'm not at all, so I've always just said "No, sorry" and left them to their business.
But I've always been super curious: what happens if you are Jewish?
So this year I decided to ask one of them. When he asked me "Excuse me, are you Jewish?" I replied "No, but I'm super curious what would happen if I said yes!"
"We give you a free menorah if you don't have one already," he replied.
So there you go! Free menorahs!
I'm not knowledgeable enough of the nuances of Judaism to be able to speculate whether the free menorah comes with evangelistic strings attached. (I don't even know if Judaism has evangelism, but, coming from a Christian background, that's what my concern would be if they belonged to some Christian denomination and were giving out, like, free Advent wreaths or something). But that's a mystery solved!
While I'm flattered to pass for potentially-Jewish, the fact of the matter is I'm not at all, so I've always just said "No, sorry" and left them to their business.
But I've always been super curious: what happens if you are Jewish?
So this year I decided to ask one of them. When he asked me "Excuse me, are you Jewish?" I replied "No, but I'm super curious what would happen if I said yes!"
"We give you a free menorah if you don't have one already," he replied.
So there you go! Free menorahs!
I'm not knowledgeable enough of the nuances of Judaism to be able to speculate whether the free menorah comes with evangelistic strings attached. (I don't even know if Judaism has evangelism, but, coming from a Christian background, that's what my concern would be if they belonged to some Christian denomination and were giving out, like, free Advent wreaths or something). But that's a mystery solved!
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Books read in December 2016
New:
1. Birdie by Tracie Lindberg
2. A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
Reread:
1. Midnight in Death
2. Conspiracy in Death
3. Loyalty in Death
1. Birdie by Tracie Lindberg
2. A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin
3. The Right to Be Cold: One Woman's Story of Protecting Her Culture, the Arctic and the Whole Planet by Sheila Watt-Cloutier
4. Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection edited by Hope Nicholson
5. The Idiot Brain: A Neuroscientist Explains What Your Head Is Really Up To by Dean Burnett
6. Belgravia by Julian Fellowes
Reread:
1. Midnight in Death
2. Conspiracy in Death
3. Loyalty in Death
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Horoscopes
Toronto Star:
IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: This year you find that others count on you and want you to take the lead. Though you might need to adjust to handling what they ask of you, you will make it your pleasure to take on the responsibility. If you are single, romance will knock on your door. The person you meet through your work or a community commitment could become a long-term relationship. If you are attached, the two of you move to a new level of understanding. Both of you enjoy going out on the town together. LIBRA appreciates your leadership skills and would like to learn from you.Globe & Mail:
The lesson you need to learn over the coming year is that there is good and bad in everyone – yes, even in you. That does not mean you should never be judgmental but you do need to move away from the idea that some individuals are evil – they’re not
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Wifi
When Eddie Izzard was running marathons across South Africa and periscoping his progress, I repeatedly saw people in the comments asking how he gets wifi way out in the middle of nowhere.
I've recently seen people call into question the authenticity of civilian tweets from Syria by saying that wifi couldn't possibly be working with all the war constantly knocking out power and infrastructure.
In both these cases, it's glaringly obvious to me that they aren't using wifi, they're using their data plan. They don't need a wifi hotspot (or electricity if their phone is charged), they're using...I don't actually know - satellites or towers or whatever it is that transmits cellular data.
My first thought was to wonder if people are now using "wifi" as a synonym for any type of wireless internet, even when it's clearly not actual wifi.
But another thing I hear about from time to time is the possibility of introducing free wifi in public places as a public service. And when I think about it, the number of places that offer free wifi as an amenity seems to be increasing - restaurants and stores and malls and even the TTC have introduced it, and the trend seems to be towards more rather than less public wifi.
All this time I've been assuming that everyone has a data plan (except me, because I'm frugal with my cellphone use). But could it be that far fewer people than I expected have data plans and far more people than I expected are dependent on wifi - to the extent that it doesn't even occur to them that people might have another method of connectivity?
I've recently seen people call into question the authenticity of civilian tweets from Syria by saying that wifi couldn't possibly be working with all the war constantly knocking out power and infrastructure.
In both these cases, it's glaringly obvious to me that they aren't using wifi, they're using their data plan. They don't need a wifi hotspot (or electricity if their phone is charged), they're using...I don't actually know - satellites or towers or whatever it is that transmits cellular data.
My first thought was to wonder if people are now using "wifi" as a synonym for any type of wireless internet, even when it's clearly not actual wifi.
But another thing I hear about from time to time is the possibility of introducing free wifi in public places as a public service. And when I think about it, the number of places that offer free wifi as an amenity seems to be increasing - restaurants and stores and malls and even the TTC have introduced it, and the trend seems to be towards more rather than less public wifi.
All this time I've been assuming that everyone has a data plan (except me, because I'm frugal with my cellphone use). But could it be that far fewer people than I expected have data plans and far more people than I expected are dependent on wifi - to the extent that it doesn't even occur to them that people might have another method of connectivity?
Saturday, December 17, 2016
Shitty relatives cannot be persuaded. That's why they're shitty relatives.
From this week's Savage Love (emphasis mine):
The thing about shitty relatives is they cannot be effectively reached out to. If they could be effectively reached out to, we wouldn't know them as shitty relatives because they would have been effectively reached out to (and therefore ceased to be shitty) long before we became politically aware.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that LW should continue to have sex with people she doesn't want to have sex with, regardless of the reason. (And Dan Savage also stresses this point in his answer.) If recent political events have brought LW to the realization that she's only interested in partners who can effectively persuade their relatives towards acceptable politics (or whose relatives all had acceptable politics to start with), that is entirely her prerogative.
However, my point here today is that some people cannot be effectively reached out to. (Can you? Could a straight white cis man* effectively reach out to you and change your vote?) And if your partners' shitty relatives were people who could be effectively reached out to, they would have been effectively reached out to long before their relative's partners became aware of them, and therefore wouldn't have fallen under your mental category of "shitty relatives" in the first place. In a world where there are people who cannot be persuaded on a particular point, I don't think failing to persuade should be seen as insufficient diligence.
*I didn't learn about the English order of adjectives until well into my translation career - and learned about its existence from my Francophone colleagues! But I'm still struggling to figure out what the order of adjectives should be in the phrase "straight white cis man". LW lands on "cis white man", which is counterintuitive to me, but I can't objectively assess which is right/wrong/better/worse.
Perhaps you're not the best person to ask, being a cis white man, but as a queer woman of color, the election had an extremely detrimental effect on my relationships with my white partners. I love and care for them, but looking at those results has me wondering why the fuck they didn't do better in reaching out to their shitty relatives? I'm sick of living at the whim of white America. I'm aware this is the blame stage of processing, but it's left me unable to orgasm with my white partners. I'm really struggling with what Trump means for me and others who look like me. I know my queer white partners aren't exempt from the ramifications of this, but I wish they had done better. Respond however you like.
The thing about shitty relatives is they cannot be effectively reached out to. If they could be effectively reached out to, we wouldn't know them as shitty relatives because they would have been effectively reached out to (and therefore ceased to be shitty) long before we became politically aware.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that LW should continue to have sex with people she doesn't want to have sex with, regardless of the reason. (And Dan Savage also stresses this point in his answer.) If recent political events have brought LW to the realization that she's only interested in partners who can effectively persuade their relatives towards acceptable politics (or whose relatives all had acceptable politics to start with), that is entirely her prerogative.
However, my point here today is that some people cannot be effectively reached out to. (Can you? Could a straight white cis man* effectively reach out to you and change your vote?) And if your partners' shitty relatives were people who could be effectively reached out to, they would have been effectively reached out to long before their relative's partners became aware of them, and therefore wouldn't have fallen under your mental category of "shitty relatives" in the first place. In a world where there are people who cannot be persuaded on a particular point, I don't think failing to persuade should be seen as insufficient diligence.
*I didn't learn about the English order of adjectives until well into my translation career - and learned about its existence from my Francophone colleagues! But I'm still struggling to figure out what the order of adjectives should be in the phrase "straight white cis man". LW lands on "cis white man", which is counterintuitive to me, but I can't objectively assess which is right/wrong/better/worse.
Thursday, December 15, 2016
What to do when you never have an opinion
An excerpt from a recent Captain Awkward question:
I have seen this sort of situation ("my partner asks what I think and I genuinely don't have an opinion") mentioned various times in various relationship advice forums, and I have an idea for how to handle it:
If you genuinely don't have an opinion on a multiple-choice question and, for whatever reason, you don't want to respond with "I genuinely don't have an opinion," pick the choice that is presented to you first.
If the other person objects, cheerfully go along with whatever they prefer.
If you find yourself viscerally objecting to whatever the first choice is, congratulations, you've just developed an opinion!
And if this is something that happens repeatedly within a particular relationship, the other party will eventually (consciously or unconsciously) start to notice that you always pick the first option, and will begin to (consciously or unconsciously) list their own (conscious or unconscious) preference first. Then they'll feel like you're both perfectly in sync and everyone will be happy.
And now, here I am, 42 years old. My BF wants to know if I think our new bookcase should be dark wood or light? And guess what, I don’t care! It’s still a novelty that I can buy a bookcase! It could be puke green for all I care. So I tell him that he can pick, I have no preference. Or the ever popular “what do you want for dinner?” Who cares? It’s all food! As long as it’s not something I actively dislike, I don’t care what I’m shoving in my face.(I recommend clicking through and reading the whole question with all the background before commenting on LW's specific situation.)
This isn’t relationship-ending levels of stress, but I can tell it’s bugging him. He thinks that he is “getting his way all the time and I never do”. But I have literally had that happen to me, and trust me, this isn’t it. I’ve tried explaining that I’m going to be happy no matter what color the bookcase is, and I promise that I don’t secretly have a preference and one day 10 years from now I’m going to explode because I WANTED LIGHT WOOD YOU ASSHOLE!
So… How do I go about re-learning how to have opinions? Should I just fake it, and randomly pick crap and say it’s my “preference”? It feels like lying but if it gets the job done I suppose. What do you think?
I have seen this sort of situation ("my partner asks what I think and I genuinely don't have an opinion") mentioned various times in various relationship advice forums, and I have an idea for how to handle it:
If you genuinely don't have an opinion on a multiple-choice question and, for whatever reason, you don't want to respond with "I genuinely don't have an opinion," pick the choice that is presented to you first.
If the other person objects, cheerfully go along with whatever they prefer.
If you find yourself viscerally objecting to whatever the first choice is, congratulations, you've just developed an opinion!
And if this is something that happens repeatedly within a particular relationship, the other party will eventually (consciously or unconsciously) start to notice that you always pick the first option, and will begin to (consciously or unconsciously) list their own (conscious or unconscious) preference first. Then they'll feel like you're both perfectly in sync and everyone will be happy.
Sunday, December 11, 2016
The bizarro universe of new home construction
So when you buy a new home, the expectation is that there will be problems. (They call them "deficiencies".) I've had a number of them, ranging from the superficial (paint on a lighting fixture) to the more problematic (a draft caused by my balcony door being misaligned).
The developer has a system all set up to handle this. I report the deficiencies to this office, and they coordinate having people come in to repair them. Since I work from home, they just give me a ring to let me know when someone is coming, and a nice tradesperson swoops in and solves a problem for me, often answering any questions I might have along the way. (If I weren't home during the day, property management could let them in for me.) Every individual I have dealt with throughout this process has been awesome, and no one has batted an eye at the number of things I have reported.
Everyone I know who has bought a new home (condo or detached) says they've gone through this. Even my parents, who bought a new home back when I was still a fetus, went through this. And everyone tells me it's normal.
What's weird to me is that it's normal! Imagine in your own job, if you could turn in work with about at least a dozen mistakes! I'd get fired for that kind of error rate! And imagine if this was considered fine and normal, to the extent that your employer had a whole infrastructure set up for your clients to report the mistakes you made, and then you'd resolve them in batches over the next several weeks. And your employer was considered a good service provider on the grounds that the mistakes were resolved promptly and cheerfully, and it would be completely unreasonable for your clients to expect you not to make mistakes in the first place!
And the bizarre thing is it's been like this for decades! It was like this 36 years ago when my parents bought a new home, and no one has fixed it yet!
Don't get me wrong, I'd still rather have a newly-built home that only I have ever lived in than an older one that has the leavings of other people's different housekeeping priorities in it, but it blows my mind that for decades and decades this entire industry has just been okay with the fact that there are multiple deficiencies in the product delivered to the customer - especially when it's the biggest purchase of the customer's life and one that affects every aspect of their day-to-day happiness.
The developer has a system all set up to handle this. I report the deficiencies to this office, and they coordinate having people come in to repair them. Since I work from home, they just give me a ring to let me know when someone is coming, and a nice tradesperson swoops in and solves a problem for me, often answering any questions I might have along the way. (If I weren't home during the day, property management could let them in for me.) Every individual I have dealt with throughout this process has been awesome, and no one has batted an eye at the number of things I have reported.
Everyone I know who has bought a new home (condo or detached) says they've gone through this. Even my parents, who bought a new home back when I was still a fetus, went through this. And everyone tells me it's normal.
What's weird to me is that it's normal! Imagine in your own job, if you could turn in work with about at least a dozen mistakes! I'd get fired for that kind of error rate! And imagine if this was considered fine and normal, to the extent that your employer had a whole infrastructure set up for your clients to report the mistakes you made, and then you'd resolve them in batches over the next several weeks. And your employer was considered a good service provider on the grounds that the mistakes were resolved promptly and cheerfully, and it would be completely unreasonable for your clients to expect you not to make mistakes in the first place!
And the bizarre thing is it's been like this for decades! It was like this 36 years ago when my parents bought a new home, and no one has fixed it yet!
Don't get me wrong, I'd still rather have a newly-built home that only I have ever lived in than an older one that has the leavings of other people's different housekeeping priorities in it, but it blows my mind that for decades and decades this entire industry has just been okay with the fact that there are multiple deficiencies in the product delivered to the customer - especially when it's the biggest purchase of the customer's life and one that affects every aspect of their day-to-day happiness.
Friday, December 09, 2016
How I'm making my new home uninhabitable to anyone but me.
I blogged before about my filing system, where I sort things in order of when I received them after years of failing to sort stuff and just sticking it in the front of the file drawer.
As I've been setting up my new home and finding myself have to organize things, I've been coming up with more unique ways to organize things:
- I organized my desk drawer full of office supplies and other miscellany in order of "How likely am I to look for it?" Stuff I think I'm going to look for all the time goes in front, stuff I don't expect to look for goes in the back.
-In my file drawer, I made a folder for "stuff I can never figure out where to put and then can't find it and then panic". Now I'll never need to panic about not being able to find something again!
- In a bathroom drawer, I made a "stuff I use every day" section. Once I get drawer dividers figured out, I'll also add a "stuff I use regularly but not daily" section.
- My new place has a den. I'm used to living without a den and didn't deliberately seek one out (the suites that met my other requirements all came with dens). So I'm putting all the stuff that I can't figure out where to put it in the den, some of it in moving boxes, some of it in random piles. I'm going to leave it like this for several months to see what makes its way out of the den, the I'm going to simply use the den as a storage room for everything else. In theory, I'll eventually acquire some kind of storage furniture or boxes that look more permanent than moving boxes, but who knows if this will actually happen in practice? Meanwhile, my desk is still in the living room like it's always been - previously because I didn't have a choice, but now because my den doesn't have windows and I don't want to spend the vast majority of my waking hours in a windowless nook.
In short, where my limited skills enable me to impose an organizational paradigm, I'm setting things up so they meet my own eccentric needs perfectly. But, in the process of doing so, I seem to be creating a space that won't make sense to anyone else.
As I've been setting up my new home and finding myself have to organize things, I've been coming up with more unique ways to organize things:
- I organized my desk drawer full of office supplies and other miscellany in order of "How likely am I to look for it?" Stuff I think I'm going to look for all the time goes in front, stuff I don't expect to look for goes in the back.
-In my file drawer, I made a folder for "stuff I can never figure out where to put and then can't find it and then panic". Now I'll never need to panic about not being able to find something again!
- In a bathroom drawer, I made a "stuff I use every day" section. Once I get drawer dividers figured out, I'll also add a "stuff I use regularly but not daily" section.
- My new place has a den. I'm used to living without a den and didn't deliberately seek one out (the suites that met my other requirements all came with dens). So I'm putting all the stuff that I can't figure out where to put it in the den, some of it in moving boxes, some of it in random piles. I'm going to leave it like this for several months to see what makes its way out of the den, the I'm going to simply use the den as a storage room for everything else. In theory, I'll eventually acquire some kind of storage furniture or boxes that look more permanent than moving boxes, but who knows if this will actually happen in practice? Meanwhile, my desk is still in the living room like it's always been - previously because I didn't have a choice, but now because my den doesn't have windows and I don't want to spend the vast majority of my waking hours in a windowless nook.
In short, where my limited skills enable me to impose an organizational paradigm, I'm setting things up so they meet my own eccentric needs perfectly. But, in the process of doing so, I seem to be creating a space that won't make sense to anyone else.
Monday, December 05, 2016
Things They Should Invent: computer program to automatically design custom-made organizers
There are all kinds of organizer-type products out there that purport to help you organize your clutter by putting it into compartments. The problem I always find is that the compartments are never a good fit for my clutter. For example, a drawer organizer might divide your drawer into nine tidy compartments, but I always end up in a situation where the contents of the drawer can logically be sorted into seven categories, one of which is too big for a single compartment, plus about 20% of the contents of the drawer are the wrong size or shape for any of the compartments.
As I've blogged about before, I own a beautiful wooden jewellery box full of tidy, velvet-lined compartments for organizing jewellery, and a significant portion of my jewellery doesn't fit in there because the shapes and sizes of the compartments don't correspond with the shapes and sizes of the jewellery. #FirstWorldProblems
It occurred to me that with 3D printing, people could make organizers that fit the actual stuff they're organizing. I googled around the idea, and found that such a thing does in fact exist, except you have to input into a program the exact dimensions of the organizer you want to print. For someone like me who's terrible at organizing tangible objects, that's very near impossible.
But that gave me an idea: what if you could input the dimensions of the items you want to organize and the space you want to organize them in, and a computer program would design the optimal organizer for you?
You could also input leeway for expansion, so the organizer will be able to hold items you might acquire in the future. (In other words, your jewellery organizer would allow you the option of acquiring more jewellery in the future, as opposed to being 100% full and your whole system is stymied when you get another pair of earrings.)
Advanced option: you take a photo of all the items you need to organize and the space you need to organize them in, with some baseline reference item in the photo for scale, and the computer measures everything itself and designs the organizer automatically.
As I've blogged about before, I own a beautiful wooden jewellery box full of tidy, velvet-lined compartments for organizing jewellery, and a significant portion of my jewellery doesn't fit in there because the shapes and sizes of the compartments don't correspond with the shapes and sizes of the jewellery. #FirstWorldProblems
It occurred to me that with 3D printing, people could make organizers that fit the actual stuff they're organizing. I googled around the idea, and found that such a thing does in fact exist, except you have to input into a program the exact dimensions of the organizer you want to print. For someone like me who's terrible at organizing tangible objects, that's very near impossible.
But that gave me an idea: what if you could input the dimensions of the items you want to organize and the space you want to organize them in, and a computer program would design the optimal organizer for you?
You could also input leeway for expansion, so the organizer will be able to hold items you might acquire in the future. (In other words, your jewellery organizer would allow you the option of acquiring more jewellery in the future, as opposed to being 100% full and your whole system is stymied when you get another pair of earrings.)
Advanced option: you take a photo of all the items you need to organize and the space you need to organize them in, with some baseline reference item in the photo for scale, and the computer measures everything itself and designs the organizer automatically.
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Books read in November 2016
New:
1. The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon
2. Fatty Legs by
1. The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon
2. Fatty Legs by
Monday, November 28, 2016
Status report
So remember how I bought a condo four years ago? I just moved in today. Too soon to tell how I feel about it.
I'll be blogging more about the process as time passes. (The process isn't yet complete - final closing is still at some indefinite point in the future.)
In the meantime, I have a job for you all: if I start nimbying now that I'm a homeowner, call me out on it!
I'll be blogging more about the process as time passes. (The process isn't yet complete - final closing is still at some indefinite point in the future.)
In the meantime, I have a job for you all: if I start nimbying now that I'm a homeowner, call me out on it!
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Laptop battery progress report
In April 2013, I blogged about mixed messages I was receiving about laptop battery management.
I just realized enough time has passed for a progress report.
In April 2013, my laptop battery died at the age of 28 months, during which I'd been using the computer primarily plugged into the wall but with the battery still installed and active.
After I replaced that battery, I decided to try disabling battery charging when the computer is plugged in, meaning that the power cord is not charging the battery but is rather providing power directly to the computer, although the battery is still physically present. I've been doing that for 42 months, and it still seems to be working well. The battery does gradually lose power over a period of many months (I have to charge it an average of twice a year) but it has lived for significantly longer than it did with the computer plugged into the wall.
I intend to proceed this way for the rest of the life of this battery. I doubt this computer has the life expectancy to also test it with removing the battery, but if it it turns out it does, I'll test that and report back.
I just realized enough time has passed for a progress report.
In April 2013, my laptop battery died at the age of 28 months, during which I'd been using the computer primarily plugged into the wall but with the battery still installed and active.
After I replaced that battery, I decided to try disabling battery charging when the computer is plugged in, meaning that the power cord is not charging the battery but is rather providing power directly to the computer, although the battery is still physically present. I've been doing that for 42 months, and it still seems to be working well. The battery does gradually lose power over a period of many months (I have to charge it an average of twice a year) but it has lived for significantly longer than it did with the computer plugged into the wall.
I intend to proceed this way for the rest of the life of this battery. I doubt this computer has the life expectancy to also test it with removing the battery, but if it it turns out it does, I'll test that and report back.
Sunday, November 20, 2016
Teach me about people who hand out flyers and coupons
Living in a neighbourhood with a lot of pedestrian traffic, I see a lot of people standing on the sidewalk handing out flyers and/or coupons.
My natural inclination is to politely decline anything I'm not in the market for. But it occurred to me in the shower that I might be making their job harder, depending on how they are incentivized and/or rewarded by their employers.
Are they incentivized to get rid of all their flyers, or are they incentivized to have a high conversion rate? If they have to stand out in the cold until they get rid of all their flyers, or if their employer looks more positively upon them for handing out more flyers, I'm doing them a kindness by taking a flyer regardless of whether I'm in the market for what they're selling. But if they're incentivized based on conversion rate, i.e. their employer looks more positive upon them for people actually coming into the business and buying something after receiving a flyer/coupon, I should keep rejecting things I have no intention of using.
Anyone know which approach would be the kindest to the people in this thankless job?
My natural inclination is to politely decline anything I'm not in the market for. But it occurred to me in the shower that I might be making their job harder, depending on how they are incentivized and/or rewarded by their employers.
Are they incentivized to get rid of all their flyers, or are they incentivized to have a high conversion rate? If they have to stand out in the cold until they get rid of all their flyers, or if their employer looks more positively upon them for handing out more flyers, I'm doing them a kindness by taking a flyer regardless of whether I'm in the market for what they're selling. But if they're incentivized based on conversion rate, i.e. their employer looks more positive upon them for people actually coming into the business and buying something after receiving a flyer/coupon, I should keep rejecting things I have no intention of using.
Anyone know which approach would be the kindest to the people in this thankless job?
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Moving stress braindump
I'm moving into my condo at the end of the month, and I'm really disproportionately stressed about it. And I'm trying to figure out why.
I think part of it is that this doesn't have the potential for any immediately-appreciable increase in my quality of life. Every move I've ever done at least had that potential. When I moved out of my parents' house into res, I got to live away from prying adult eyes! Every new res room gave me more privacy than the previous (apart from that one awful summer in summer res, but that was outweighed by actually working grownup jobs all summer for the first time in my life). Then when I moved into my first apartment, I got a whole apartment with a living room and a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen, just like a real adult! Then when I moved into my current apartment, I also got a dishwasher and washer/dryer, plus the decrease in panic attacks that comes with living in a brand new building. But the condo is comparable to my current apartment, so there's nothing to get excited about.
There are benefits to the condo, but they're dull, pragmatic long-term benefits. It's better for aging in place, it increases the likelihood of retirement being feasible in 20-30 years if retirement is still a thing then, etc. That's the sort of thing that it's hard to work up a visceral positive emotional reaction about, but the work and uncertainty of moving still elicits a visceral stress reaction.
***
I don't remember getting this stressed with my previous moves, but I do think I got a lot more stressed about other things. I was less secure in most areas of life, I hadn't yet discovered Entitlement, couldn't cope with my phobias as well, had far less experience with getting problems solved, and had far less cumulative empirical evidence that people will help me solve my problems when they arise. I mean, today alone I made two phone calls and sent several emails to people who may or may not be the right person to solve my problem. This past week at work, I solved three different problems caused by other people under extremely tight deadlines and even communicated with two of the clients myself without blinking an eye. I regularly patronize stores and restaurants that are way cooler than me, and often go in with specific needs or special requests. And I do all this with complete sangfroid. but I wasn't anywhere near as stressed about moving as I am now. What's going on?
Unsubstantiated theory: I'm out of practice with feeling stressed. The combination of working from home and having nearly all aspects of my life arranged just the way I like them means my baseline is zero stress. I previously blogged that it would be awesome if I could save my day-to-day non-stressed feelings. But what if it's actually working the other way and my coping muscles have atrophied?
Another unsubstantiated theory: I have a finite capacity for stress, so it's all manifesting itself in this one stressful thing as opposed to being distributed among multiple things like it was in the past. I read a while back about a concept called the "psychological immune system", which suggests that the brain protects itself during times of high stress by limiting the amount of stress you experience. I found this concept difficult to believe when I first read about it. But what if it had been working all along, and even the high stress I experienced back then was being limited by my psychological immune system? And now that I'm not stressed in my day-to-day life, I'm feeling the full impact of the stress that I'm capable of handling?
***
Thinking back to when I was younger, I would never have said that my day-to-day stress is zero, but neither would I have said that I'm particularly stressed. Things like the rush of the daily commute, getting frantic at an urgent text, getting nervous about making business phone calls, etc. were all part of baseline human reality for me.
Putting aside for a moment the current and (hopefully temporary) stress of moving and dealing with the condo purchase, I wonder if, in the future, I'll look back at the baseline that I currently perceive as zero-stress and wonder how I ever coped with that much daily stress?
I think part of it is that this doesn't have the potential for any immediately-appreciable increase in my quality of life. Every move I've ever done at least had that potential. When I moved out of my parents' house into res, I got to live away from prying adult eyes! Every new res room gave me more privacy than the previous (apart from that one awful summer in summer res, but that was outweighed by actually working grownup jobs all summer for the first time in my life). Then when I moved into my first apartment, I got a whole apartment with a living room and a bedroom and a bathroom and a kitchen, just like a real adult! Then when I moved into my current apartment, I also got a dishwasher and washer/dryer, plus the decrease in panic attacks that comes with living in a brand new building. But the condo is comparable to my current apartment, so there's nothing to get excited about.
There are benefits to the condo, but they're dull, pragmatic long-term benefits. It's better for aging in place, it increases the likelihood of retirement being feasible in 20-30 years if retirement is still a thing then, etc. That's the sort of thing that it's hard to work up a visceral positive emotional reaction about, but the work and uncertainty of moving still elicits a visceral stress reaction.
***
I don't remember getting this stressed with my previous moves, but I do think I got a lot more stressed about other things. I was less secure in most areas of life, I hadn't yet discovered Entitlement, couldn't cope with my phobias as well, had far less experience with getting problems solved, and had far less cumulative empirical evidence that people will help me solve my problems when they arise. I mean, today alone I made two phone calls and sent several emails to people who may or may not be the right person to solve my problem. This past week at work, I solved three different problems caused by other people under extremely tight deadlines and even communicated with two of the clients myself without blinking an eye. I regularly patronize stores and restaurants that are way cooler than me, and often go in with specific needs or special requests. And I do all this with complete sangfroid. but I wasn't anywhere near as stressed about moving as I am now. What's going on?
Unsubstantiated theory: I'm out of practice with feeling stressed. The combination of working from home and having nearly all aspects of my life arranged just the way I like them means my baseline is zero stress. I previously blogged that it would be awesome if I could save my day-to-day non-stressed feelings. But what if it's actually working the other way and my coping muscles have atrophied?
Another unsubstantiated theory: I have a finite capacity for stress, so it's all manifesting itself in this one stressful thing as opposed to being distributed among multiple things like it was in the past. I read a while back about a concept called the "psychological immune system", which suggests that the brain protects itself during times of high stress by limiting the amount of stress you experience. I found this concept difficult to believe when I first read about it. But what if it had been working all along, and even the high stress I experienced back then was being limited by my psychological immune system? And now that I'm not stressed in my day-to-day life, I'm feeling the full impact of the stress that I'm capable of handling?
***
Thinking back to when I was younger, I would never have said that my day-to-day stress is zero, but neither would I have said that I'm particularly stressed. Things like the rush of the daily commute, getting frantic at an urgent text, getting nervous about making business phone calls, etc. were all part of baseline human reality for me.
Putting aside for a moment the current and (hopefully temporary) stress of moving and dealing with the condo purchase, I wonder if, in the future, I'll look back at the baseline that I currently perceive as zero-stress and wonder how I ever coped with that much daily stress?
Friday, November 11, 2016
Survival bias
Think about everyone you have known personally who was in the Second World War, either as a member of the military or as a civilian who happened to live in an area affected by the war.
They survived the war, didn't they?
Because WWII ended 71 years ago, and, unless I have readers who were alive during WWII themselves (if so, pop in the comments and say hi!), the people we know personally must necessarily have survived WWII because they lived long enough for us to know them personally.
And, because of this, I think we might have the subconscious impression that WWII was more survivable than it actually was. Even though we know the death rates in raw numbers, we hardly ever have the stories of or from those who died. This is both because you most often have to live to tell the tale (the only exceptions I can think of are Anne Frank and Irène Némirovsky), but also because the vast majority of war deaths don't make interesting stories. If you're walking down the street and a bomb falls on your head, that's not an interesting story. If a soldier goes charging onto the battlefield and is promptly shot by the enemy, that's not an interesting story.
So we don't hear those stories, and because of that we are less inclined to think we would die instantly and unremarkably. And this is even if we aren't envisioning ourselves as the hero of the story. I know that when I think about what would happen if I ended up in a war, I'm certainly not under the impression that I could be a successful soldier or a hero of the resistance. But I'm imagining deprivation, suffering, rape and torture, being sent to a concentration camp - unceremonious instant death isn't even on my radar.
I think this extends to other areas of life as well. I've blogged before about gun people who think a good guy with a gun will necessarily beat a bad guy with a gun. They don't seem to be thinking of the possibility that when the good guy pulls out his gun, the bad guy will just shoot him.
I think we also hear it in narratives about serious illness. We hear about survival stories. Sometimes, especially when people are trying to sell something, we hear about people who defeated serious illness with traditional medicine or prayer or a very specific regimen of positive thinking that can be yours for three easy payments of $29.99. Sometimes narratives about serious illness do involve death, and impose meaning on the patient's life or on the patient's death. But you never hear stories where a person gets diagnosed with something, does everything right, and dies meaninglessly.
I've seen cases where this survival bias affects public discourse. I've seen people making public statements that in WWII, various countries being invaded should have just fought back against the Nazis, when the countries in question did in fact have active resistance organizations. In one of the recent US mass shootings, someone commented that the shooter wouldn't have succeeded if someone else present had had a gun, when in reality there were armed security guards present.
When I was first educating myself about WWI, a recurring theme was that they didn't know what they were getting into. The countries eagerly declaring war on each other and the young men rushing to enlist all seemed to think they were off on a jolly good adventure, none of them imagining just how many people would end up uselessly dead in the middle of no man's land.
Was survival bias a thing 100 years ago? And could it lead us into a similarly tragic situation again in the future?
They survived the war, didn't they?
Because WWII ended 71 years ago, and, unless I have readers who were alive during WWII themselves (if so, pop in the comments and say hi!), the people we know personally must necessarily have survived WWII because they lived long enough for us to know them personally.
And, because of this, I think we might have the subconscious impression that WWII was more survivable than it actually was. Even though we know the death rates in raw numbers, we hardly ever have the stories of or from those who died. This is both because you most often have to live to tell the tale (the only exceptions I can think of are Anne Frank and Irène Némirovsky), but also because the vast majority of war deaths don't make interesting stories. If you're walking down the street and a bomb falls on your head, that's not an interesting story. If a soldier goes charging onto the battlefield and is promptly shot by the enemy, that's not an interesting story.
So we don't hear those stories, and because of that we are less inclined to think we would die instantly and unremarkably. And this is even if we aren't envisioning ourselves as the hero of the story. I know that when I think about what would happen if I ended up in a war, I'm certainly not under the impression that I could be a successful soldier or a hero of the resistance. But I'm imagining deprivation, suffering, rape and torture, being sent to a concentration camp - unceremonious instant death isn't even on my radar.
I think this extends to other areas of life as well. I've blogged before about gun people who think a good guy with a gun will necessarily beat a bad guy with a gun. They don't seem to be thinking of the possibility that when the good guy pulls out his gun, the bad guy will just shoot him.
I think we also hear it in narratives about serious illness. We hear about survival stories. Sometimes, especially when people are trying to sell something, we hear about people who defeated serious illness with traditional medicine or prayer or a very specific regimen of positive thinking that can be yours for three easy payments of $29.99. Sometimes narratives about serious illness do involve death, and impose meaning on the patient's life or on the patient's death. But you never hear stories where a person gets diagnosed with something, does everything right, and dies meaninglessly.
I've seen cases where this survival bias affects public discourse. I've seen people making public statements that in WWII, various countries being invaded should have just fought back against the Nazis, when the countries in question did in fact have active resistance organizations. In one of the recent US mass shootings, someone commented that the shooter wouldn't have succeeded if someone else present had had a gun, when in reality there were armed security guards present.
When I was first educating myself about WWI, a recurring theme was that they didn't know what they were getting into. The countries eagerly declaring war on each other and the young men rushing to enlist all seemed to think they were off on a jolly good adventure, none of them imagining just how many people would end up uselessly dead in the middle of no man's land.
Was survival bias a thing 100 years ago? And could it lead us into a similarly tragic situation again in the future?
No Remembrance Day blogathon this year
For the past several years, I've been blogathoning on Remembrance Day. Unfortunately, this year I'm very overwhelmed with all the stuff I have to do to prepare for my move and my condo purchase, and something's got to give. Hopefully by this time next year life will be calm enough that I can resume the tradition.
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