Things They Should Invent: concordance tool with a Boolean NOT function

Many words, terms and phrases have a common go-to translation, but also have scope of meaning that doesn't fall under the common go-to translation.

 

If the common go-to translation is extremely common, it can saturate concordance tool results, completely burying alternative translations. This can lead inexperienced translators to conclude there is no other possible translation (even if the go-to is inappropriate), and can even stymie experienced translators ("I know there's another translation, but I'm completely blanking on it!")

To remedy this, I want to be able to apply a Boolean NOT function to the target-language results, to eliminate the common go-to translations and see what's left.

Examples:

 

- Show me translations of porte-parole that are not "spokesperson".

- Show me translations of intervenant that are not "intervener" or "responder".

- Show me translations of animateur that are not "animator" or "facilitator".

 

With the common translations that I know are not suitable out of the way, the tool can better do its job of giving me options to pinpoint le mot juste for my particular translation needs.

I have no idea how feasible this would be from a programming perspective. I know a Boolean NOT can be used in user input, I know that you can filter output by selecting and unselecting attribute tags from a given list (like you often find in online shopping), but I have no idea about the feasibility of filtering output with user-provided Boolean operators.

If it would in fact be unfeasible, I have an idea for an alternative: sort results in alphabetical order by how the word/term/phrase in question is translated in the target text.

This would group all the translations I know I don't want to use together, making it easier to find other options.

For example, if all the instances of "spokesperson" are together (with variants like "spokesman" nearby), I can start at the beginning of the alphabetically-sorted results and scroll through until I hit "spokesperson", seeing all the available options. Then, when I hit "spokesperson", I can jump to the last result and scroll through in reverse order until I hit "spokesperson" again, thereby quickly getting an overview of all the non-"spokesperson" results.

Concordance tools do tend to provide a sentence or a snippet as output, but they "know" what the matched term is, so it seems like it should be feasible to sort alphabetically by matched term but still show snippets.

Books read in June 2021

 Reread:

1. Origin in Death

Magic Words: "or . . . ?"

A thing that exists in the world: well-intentioned people who have innocent questions that they want to ask for a good reason.

 

Another thing that exists in the world: assholes who are cruel and malicious under the guise of asking innocent questions for a good reason.

If you're a well-intentioned person who has a good reason for asking an innocent question of the sort that cruel, malicious assholes might weaponize, you can often disarm your question with one simple conjunction: "or".

Scenario:

Cousin Dorothy has just announced her engagement! Congratulations, Dorothy!

Traditionally, you've been invited to your cousins' weddings, but you know that event planning isn't exactly Dorothy's thing, so she might have a smaller wedding that doesn't go as far as inviting the cousins. (After all, if you invite one cousin you have to invite them all, and there are just so many cousins!)

 

You happen to own a wedding-appropriate dress, but it has long sleeves. You'd get overheated if you wore it in the summer. 

 

So you want to find out when Dorothy's wedding is going to be, without being seen to presume that you'll be invited.

 

Normally, this could be achieved with a simple small-talk question: "So have you set a date yet?"

 

The problem is your family also includes Auntie Em. Auntie Em is very vocally judgmental about many things, and one of the things she's vocally judgmental about is "you're only engaged if you have a wedding date set."

So if you were to ask "Have you set a date yet?" you could come across as being judgmental like Auntie Em, as though you're setting up to gotcha Dorothy for not having a date set yet.

You can avoid giving this impression with one simple word: "or . . . ?"

Instead of simply asking the question that might come across as judgmental, add at least one alternative, and deliver them verbally with a rising and trailing "or".

"So have you set a date yet? Or are you just enjoying being engaged? Or . . . ?"

 

Presenting a perfectly reasonable alternative that is no less positive creates the impression that you think it's perfectly valid not to have set a date. You're making it clearer that you're not being judgmental like Auntie Em.

The function of the final "Or . . . ?" is, explicitly, to avoid setting up a false binary (assholes like Auntie Em often set up false binaries as gotchas) and, implicitly, to make it clearer that you understand there are a wide range of situations in life and you're open to whatever they might say here in response.

The final "Or . . . ?" also help with tone. Sometimes, the tone and delivery of "A or B?" can come out as judgey. (Imagine the tone that would be used for "Want a cup of tea? Or do you think you're too good for tea?") Ending with a rising and trailing "Or . . . ?" reduces the risk of producing this tone.

Some other examples:

Compare asking your host "Do you want me to make the bed?" vs. "Do you want me to make the bed? Or strip the bed? Or . . . ?" With the second option, you're acknowledging that different options are convenient for different people and you're absolutely open to doing whatever is most convenient.

Compare asking your boss "What do you want me to do if Important Client comes in while you're in the meeting?" vs. "If Important Client comes in while you're in the meeting, do you want me to come get you? Or take care of them myself? Or . . . ?" You recognize that there are nuances, you've taken the initiative of thinking of a couple of ideas yourself rather than making your boss come up with solutions, you're showing that you're open and amenable to doing whatever your boss thinks best.

At this point, some people might be thinking "Instead of all this strategic conjunction use, why not just be direct and ask Dorothy whether you'll need a summer dress for her wedding?"

And sometimes you can do that! In which case, you don't need me! Go forth and say whatever you want!

But sometimes that causes interpersonal problems. And, in these cases, you can often smooth things over with the judicious application of one simple word: "or . . . ?"

Health and labour: a mini-braindump

A weird thing about the way we talk about health in our society is that the notion of "being healthy" has an intrinsic element of labour to it, in that you aren't seen as "healthy" if you don't work at it.

 

Example: imagine someone who eats whatever they want without regard for nutrition, doesn't engage in any intentional physical activity beyond what occurs naturally in the course of their life, and doesn't see a doctor for preventive medical care.

They'd be seen as unhealthy.

 

Even if their body does whatever they need it to. Even if their numbers are good. People who like to opine on such things would look at their (lack of) regime and go on about how they're unhealthy and need to add weight training and kale smoothies to their routine.

 

We just don't have a paradigm for being considered healthy without working at it.

  

***

I just realized as I was writing this that this is what really bugs me about alternative medicine (or, at least, the subset of alternative medicine that reaches me) is that it always calls for more work. You're never done, it's never good enough. 

Even in contexts where I'm not seeking advice. If I mention in passing that, for example, every few years I get strep throat and have to take a course of antibiotics, the alternative medicine aficionados in my vicinity come swooping in recommending additional task (a food to eat, a supplement to take) that they want me to do every single day for the rest of my life to supposedly prevent this horrific fate of having to take a couple of pills a day for a week every few years.

While I don't have any theoretical objection to alternative medicine and do in fact incorporate aspects of it into my life, I simply have less and less room for a paradigm that demands such ceaseless work.

***

 

On a personal level, I'm finding more and more that the labour isn't worth the benefit. Putting in the work that it takes to get optimal health outcomes is like studying 6 hours a day to get an A when, if you didn't study at all, you'd get a B. 

 

It inches my numbers down to just inside the range of what's officially considered healthy, as opposed to their natural state of just outside the range of what's officially considered healthy, but doesn't change a thing about how I feel or function. 

 

Exercise makes me better at exercise, and doesn't change a thing about the activities of daily life. When I started doing yoga 20 years ago, a side plank was torture. Now, it's boring. And it hasn't changed a thing about how I feel or about my ability to do anything other than side planks. It hasn't even improved my physical appearance.

***

 

I've also noticed an awful lot of health labour is kind of . . . consumerist? Buy this, eat this, just a dollar a day to solve a problem you can't even perceive!

And there's also this sense that keeping yourself healthy is some kind of . . . responsibility to society, maybe? I'm not really sure how to articulate this part. But I get this vibe from the way some people talk, that if you aren't seen to be doing the labour, and if you aren't seen to be engaging in the "correct" consumption patterns, it's like you aren't doing your duty as a citizen.

I don't think that's, well, healthy.

 

***

 

It would also be interesting to study how the labour of health has evolved over time (and, probably, varied by society). I can't immediately point to any data, but I feel like the expected labour has increased as my life has gone on. 

In the time before nutrition labels, people couldn't possibly have been expected to monitor their nutrition in such minute detail. In the time before gyms, people couldn't possibly have been expected to engage in weight training.

There was a time when it was socially unacceptable for women to be seen engaging in athletic activities. There was a time when it would have been socially unacceptable for anyone, of any gender, to jog down the street.

(There have also been many other times when many other combinations of activities were socially acceptable or unacceptable in historical cultures I'm unfamiliar with.)

People for whom food is scarce eat what's available. If you've always lived in this kind of context, the idea of deliberately limiting your caloric intake would be laughable.

People for whom life requires constant physical labour would find the idea of doing additional exercise to meet a standard of fitness that never comes up in real life laughable. 

I wonder if there has ever been a time and place in history were people were expected to do more health-related labour (on top of the labour of simply staying alive) than they are now?

Magic Words: "human being"

I've discovered a neat trick: you can intensify any sentence by replacing "person" (and similar synonyms) with "human being".

 

Compare: "I haven't hugged another person since before the pandemic" vs. "I haven't hugged another human being since before the pandemic."

The second one sounds a lot more dire, doesn't it?

Compare: "You used straight apostrophes in last month's newsletter and smart apostrophes in this month's newsletter. But no one else is going to notice." vs. "You used straight apostrophes in last month's newsletter and smart apostrophes in this month's newsletter. But no other human being is going to notice."

 

The likelihood of being noticed sounds a lot lower in the second one, doesn't it? (Even though, if you're really pedantic about it, "no other human being" is narrower in scope - "no one" could plausibly include dogs and aliens and AI.)

 

I love things like this, where minor changes in wording have clearly discernable changes in connotation, even though no one can explain why no human being can explain why!

Food storage containers with clip lids are extremely difficult to open and close

Latest pandemic malfunction: the container I use to store my cooked pasta broke!

When shopping online for an appropriate-sized replacement, the option I found was a "Clip It" container - a glass container with a plastic lid that has clips along the side, as shown in the image.

Clip It food storage containers

Unfortunately, it turns out they're extremely difficult to use.

It takes a lot of force to push the clips down in a way that will allow them to clip over the lip of the glass containers, and therefore to seal the lid. If I handle it like a normal container with a normal amount of force and strength, I can get a maximum of one (1) clip to clip. If I use my body weight and gravity, I can get a maximum of two (2) clips to clip. I have never, not once, been able to get all four to clip. 

I know I'm not especially strong, but it really shouldn't be at all difficult to operate a food storage container!

If you are considering buying this style of food storage container, I strongly recommend trying it out before you buy it - or, at least, keeping it in returnable condition until you're certain you can make it work - so you don't end up paying for a container that's difficult to operate.  (I made the mistake of removing the labels, throwing out the receipt, running it through the dishwasher, and filling it with food before I discovered that the lid was difficult to close, because, like, it never occurred to me that a food container could be difficult to operate!)

And if, like me, you are stuck with this style of container, I found it's less difficult to put the lid on if I do so on a table rather than on the counter. The table is lower than the counter, so I can press downwards and use my body weight, which gives me enough leverage to get two of the clips to clip and therefore for the lid to be reasonably closed.

However, it shouldn't be this hard! I shouldn't need leverage and body weight and strategy to operate a food container. And, for that reason, I strongly recommend avoiding them.

Book read in May 2021

1. Golden in Death by J.D. Robb

2. Go Show the World: A Celebration of Indigenous Heroes by Wab Kinew

3. If I Ever Get Out of Here by Eric Gansworth

In which I do literally nothing for 4 weeks and then start doing stuff again

In April and May, I took 4 straight weeks off work, the longest vacation I've taken in my life.

I didn't accomplish a thing.

It was glorious!

I knew I could very easily fall into the trap of "Ooh, time off work! Time to get productive and catch up on stuff!" and then get stressed out because I didn't achieve enough. So I made a rule that there is no productivity obligation whatsoever for this time off. And I certainly lived up to that expectation!

I learned that, if left to my own devices, I sleep 9-10 hours every night and become extremely nocturnal.

I learned that, if left to my own devices, the amount of stuff I get done in a day is about equal to the amount of non-work stuff I get done on a work day.

I learned that it is literally impossible for me to keep up with all the Good Omens fanfiction being written, even if I do nothing else all day.

I learned that my system is in fact unsustainable - even if I weren't working, I would fall behind. I don't yet know what to do with that or how to change it.

 

I also learned that, in the absence of obligations or when I otherwise don't know what to do with myself, I default into following my system, so it would probably serve me better to come up with a replacement system than to just go systemless.

I learned that, emotionally and intellectually, I don't need to work. I didn't find myself missing employment or productivity or translation. I didn't end up translating random internet texts just to scratch that itch. I'm perfectly fine being completely unproductive and contributing nothing to society. (It would certainly have been interesting to do this experiment before my head injury and see if the results were the same! But I didn't know my head injury was coming - if I had known, I would have just stayed in bed to avoid fainting in the first place).

But, unfortunately, money is irritatingly finite and the most reliable way for me to make the money I need is with the job I currently have, so back to work I went.

I found that working is not particularly difficult, but it is irritatingly time-consuming. Every day there's some soupçon of frustration that it takes a non-zero amount of time to do my day's work. 

However, my experience with doing so little in a day when I was on vacation makes me less frustrated with how little non-work stuff I get done on a work day. Why on earth should I get more done on top of a full day's work than I do in the middle of a month off work in the middle of a pandemic when I have literally nothing else to do? I guess now I'm just . . . a person who doesn't get much done.

And maybe eventually I'll figure out how to work that into a new system.

My COVID vaccine experience

I signed up for the Rexall and Shopper's Drug Mart vaccine waiting lists in early April, then signed up for the waiting lists every other local pharmacy offering the vaccine on April 20, when the province extended availability to age 40 and up.

On April 24, I received an email from Rexall offering me an appointment for AstraZeneca at the Yonge Eglinton Centre location, which is right across the street from me. There were appointments available during the next two days, so I booked an appointment for April 25.

The store was not crowded at all and there were no other customers in the pharmacy area when I arrived. The pharmacist was right there at the counter when I arrived. He checked my health card, then took me into a small consultation room beside the pharmacy counter. The room was small enough that I'm not sure whether or not we were six feet apart. The room had a door that closed, but the pharmacist didn't close it and I didn't ask him to. We were both wearing masks. I didn't ask the pharmacist if he was vaccinated himself, but pharmacists I know socially who are administering vaccinations are vaccinated themselves.

I had a lot of questions (about the vaccine, about what happens next, about the statistically-low but highly-mediatized risk of blood clots) and the pharmacist very patiently answered them on my intellectual level, using his own professional knowledge and insight rather than simply parroting talking points. 

One of the screening questions was whether I was allergic to polyethylene glycol and I'd never knowingly encountered it, so we had some discussion about where I might have encountered it before. The pharmacist's research aligned with mine, concluding that I've almost certainly encountered it somewhere but it's difficult to pinpoint where exactly. I asked the pharmacist about what would happen if I did have an allergic reaction (it would happen during the 15 minutes that I was supposed to sit and wait in the pharmacy and he was equipped to take care of me if it happened), so I made the informed decision to get the vaccine despite not knowing for certain that I wasn't allergic. The pharmacist did not pressure me either way.

The needle itself was unremarkable. There was a bit more blood than usual on the bandaid when I removed it the next morning, but it wasn't disproportionate. 

I sat in the waiting chair for 15 minutes, during which the couple after me in line had their vaccinations. I could hear their conversations with the pharmacist from my seat, the content of which was a subset of the content of my own conversation with the pharmacist. No one involved made any effort to close the door or otherwise give them privacy from me. We then had a bit of a socially distanced "YAY, we're vaccinated!" squee at each other, and I left when my 15 minutes were up with a hard-copy vaccine receipt in hand.

Rexall didn't automatically schedule me for a second dose appointment (they said they'd only be guessing at scheduling and availability given the 16-week dose interval and would likely have to reschedule anyway), but they said they'd email me with information about my second appointment closer to the time in question.

I went to bed 7 hours after receiving my vaccination, but didn't fall asleep right away. One hour later (i.e. 8 hours after my vaccination) I started shivering violently, to the extent that my hands were shaking as I tried to retrieve an extra blanket and drink a glass of water.

My body then started alternating between fever and chills, as though I was in a whirlpool tub where every individual jet randomly switched between producing water that's too hot and water that's too cold. 

I tossed and turned all night, sleeping no more than 6 hours over a total of 11 hours spent in bed. Then I got out of bed and had a slow, unproductive day, treating myself as though I had a flu while alternating between fever and chills. My temperature ranged from 35.1 to 38.1, on an oral thermometer that normally gives me a reading of 36.2.

About 20 hours after the vaccine, I tentatively felt like I might be improving. I went to bed and slept 12 hours that night, then woke up feeling very close to normal. My neck lymph nodes were very active in the second day post-vaccine, and my armpit lymph nodes were very active in the third day post-vaccine.

As I'm writing this, I'm 26 days post-vaccine, and have no signs of blood clots.

 

***

Because so many people have reported menstrual effects after their vaccine, I'm going to describe my first menstrual cycle after the vaccine in some degree of detail. If you're not here for that, skip to the next row of three asterisks.

I'm 40 years old and take birth control pills. My periods are like clockwork on the pill, so any change, however minor, is normally medically significant. When I'm not on the pill, my periods are heavy, debilitating and unpredictable.

I didn't menstruate in the immediate aftermath of my vaccine, but I'd just finished my regularly scheduled period so my uterus would have been empty. I did feel moodier than usual in the approximately 2 weeks that followed the vaccine in a way that's comparable PMS, and it's possible that my bowel movements were like those I'd experience during my period. 

In the days that led up to my next period, I was more bloated than I've ever been in my life. Even when I was hungry and my stomach was grumbling, my belly was visibly protruding and I had a feeling of fullness unlike anything I'd ever experienced before.

In the few days that led up to my period, my discharge had a reddish tinge. This wasn't the same as spotting; with spotting there are random bits of red or brown, whereas this was more like if a small amount of red had been evenly distributed in the white/clear discharge.

Also in the days leading up to my period, I experienced what might have been menstrual cramps in various places in my abdomen. It was difficult to tell whether the feeling was menstrual or digestive, but it's always been difficult for me to tell during unregulated periods whether what I'm feeling is menstrual or digestive. (This is exacerbated by the fact that I often do in fact have a bowel urgency during my period.)

On the Sunday of my period week (I'm on a Sunday start cycle) I started spotting. I started menstruating full-out on Monday. It was heavier, redder and chunkier than usual, although not so heavy I needed more pads. By the end of Monday, the bloating had mostly deflated. By Thursday, there was only a the tiniest bit of red on my pad and I could have even done without a pad. 

(Normally I start menstruating on Tuesday without any spotting in the days leading up, have steady flow on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, light flow in Friday, and only a few drops on Saturday).

This period was nowhere near as heavy and debilitating as my unregulated periods, but it was also the heaviest and most uncomfortable period I've ever had while being on the pill. 

I have no indication that I ovulated during this cycle, but I didn't learn about fertility awareness until well after I started on the pill, so I have no way of knowing if I can actually reliably detect ovulation.

***

After I got vaxxed, I removed myself from all the other vaccine waitlists except Shopper's, which didn't have the option. Shopper's sent me an email offering me an appointment on May 1, and then another on May 11. I didn't click through on either email so I can't tell you about their process, but the May 11 email contained a link to remove myself from the list, so I did.

On May 12, after the Ontario Minister of Health paused AstraZeneca, Rexall sent me an email telling me that I'm still on their list for a second dose, they're still looking at a 16-week dose interval, and they'd contact me with information about scheduling and about which vaccine I'll receive for my second dose once that information is available.

Books read in April 2021

 1. Collected Tarts and Other Indelicacies by Tabatha Southey

What to do if you're concerned about someone's health

A thing that exists in the world: kind, well-intentioned people who are concerned about others' health.

 

Another thing that exists in the world: assholes who go around nagging, judging and generally making life unpleasant for other people whose lifestyle they deem suboptimal and, when called out on it, say "But I'm just concerned about their health!" 

So, if you are not an asshole at all and are in fact a kind, well-intentioned person who is genuinely concerned about someone else's health, here's what to do:

Lower their stress.

 

High stress is bad for people's health. Lowering stress is an excellent way to improve health. Stress is often caused or exacerbated by externalities, thereby making it a prime candidate for external solution.

So when you're worried about someone's health, give them a discount! Let them pet your puppy! Deliver your portion of the project well in advance of your deadline so they have more time to do their portion of the project before their deadline!

Basically, do whatever is within your power that will actually, IRL lower their actual real-life stress. 

Here's the tricky part: you have to do what will actually lower their stress. Not what you think should theoretically lower their stress, not what would lower your stress if you were in their situation. 

And you also have to be careful not to put any additional burden on them. For example, for some people, a gift of a spa day would lower their stress. For others, it would be one more thing to juggle into their schedule.

And if, upon reflection, you don't see anything you could do that would actually lower their actual real-life stress and definitely would not place any additional burden on them, this is likely a sign that you aren't close enough to them to see the whole picture. And advice given by people who aren't close enough to see the whole picture is disproportionately likely to come across as assholic.

The big stuck boat as an analogy for political disagreements in relationships

In reference to whether it's possible to have relationships with people with different politics, someone much smarter than me (and I wish I remembered who so I could give them credit) once said "You can disagree about what the solutions are, but you have to agree about what the problems are."

Sarah Gailey's excellent article "I Like That The Boat Is Stuck" provides a perfect analogy for this.

There's no debate over whether or not the big boat is stuck: it is a big boat, and it is stuck, and we are all aware of those facts, even those of us who are currently located in outer space.

Furthermore, most of us share the opinion that it's disagreeable, logistically, for the boat to be stuck. The boat being stuck is inconvenient. It's a big disruption! Nobody can say it isn't a big disruption. None of my distant relatives will get into arguments on The Face Website about whether or not the stuck boat is making a nuisance for lots of people. I like that.

We all agree that it's stuck, and we all agree that this is a bad thing. We might disagree about how best to get it unstuck. We might disagree about the amount of sacrifice that is reasonable to get it unstuck.  We might disagree about whether the other ships waiting to use the canal should keep waiting patiently or should detour around Africa. We might disagree about how to prevent similar problems in the future.

 

And we can have a civilized disagreement about that. We can, in fact, agree to disagree and go about our lives. If any of us are actually involved in unstuckening the ship, we can use the approach that we think is best, or pitch the approach that we think is best to our bosses. We can use multiple approaches in parallel. Ultimately, we're all on the same side.

 

But imagine that there's someone out there arguing that the ship isn't stuck. Or that the ship should be stuck. Or that more ships should be stuck. Imagine that, instead of discussing whether we should bring more diggers to dig the ship out or more tugboats to tug the ship out, they're bringing in diggers and tugboats working to get the ship even more firmly stuck.

That person is harder to get along with, aren't they?

Now imagine if, instead of a ship on the other side of the world, the problem is something more immediate, something that threatens your survival or safety or bodily integrity, or that of people you care about.

To use the example that's at the forefront of everyone's mind, you're trying to keep people safe from the virus, and but there's someone insisting the virus doesn't exist and advocating for activities that will spread the virus. 

They're just . . . in the way, aren't they?

If they're someone you already care about, you might feel it's worth keeping them in your life despite the fact that they're in the way. Or you might not. But if they're a new person, there's really no point in bringing them into your life if all they're going to do is get your boat more stuck.

"She bought a house" vs. "We bought a house"

This blog post discusses a non-sex-related letter from a sex advice column. The text of my blog post is perfectly G-rated, but the linked advice column contains NSFW textual content.  

From a recent Savage Love:

If my fiancé bought a house, do we say, "We bought a house"? I got laid off at the start of the pandemic, but her career has taken off and she's proud of being able to afford a house all on her own. So how do we keep things respectful while still honoring her accomplishment? She wants the house to feel like mine as well. (I'm a dude.)

This is something you should discuss with your partner. See what kind of external messaging she would prefer, see if it aligns with the kind of external messaging you'd prefer. Work together as a team to develop a joint external comms strategy. (Developing a joint external comms strategy is a fantastic couple's activity!)

While some people do value the accomplishment of being able to afford a major purchase all on their own, another thing that some people value is having a partner who is openly and publicly committed to them.

"She bought a house" could come across as you not yet being all in about building a future together, whereas "We bought a house" is a public statement that you're a team and that you're committed to each other. Some people (myself included) would find the public statement that we're a team far more desirable!

Also, some people don't want to disclose how much money they make, especially if they make more money than people around them. Obfuscating whose money went into the house in what quantities would help your fiancée keep information about her salary more private, if that's of concern to her.

Of course, I'm a random internet stranger and have no idea what's of interest to her. You have a better idea than I do, and your fiancée knows better than either of us. So check in with her, and keep things respectful and honour her accomplishment and your relationship by leading with the message that she (and you) want to convey.

Another idea for Captain Awkward #1323

Dear Captain Awkward,

 

There is a word people use all the time as filler in their speech. I first noticed it about 8 years ago and thought it was a quirk of my local progressive scene. (This is similar to someone hating “like” although I think my word is less common than that.) It has metastasized and is now popping up all over. I want to listen to podcasts where smart people talk about policy and cultural issues but sometimes I just shut them off because the word is driving me up the wall. I feel like I’m not old enough to hate a word used by young people but unfortunately I do.

 

I don’t want to miss out on people’s wisdom (delivered for free via podcast or radio) over a silly word! Do you have any ideas for not caring about this anymore? 

My idea: think of a treat - something you absolutely, genuinely enjoy, but aren't "allowed" to indulge in as much as as you'd like.

Every time you hear the filler word, you're allowed one (1) treat.

 

The challenge with filler words is you'd have to pick a small enough treat. (For example, I'd normally choose a glass of wine as the treat, but with filler words you'd be passed out after one conversation!) 

 

My immediate ideas:

 

- one jellybean

- one minute of additional fanfic reading

- remove one minute from your next workout

The rewards could be bankable, so you can save up minutes and skip your whole workout one day, for example. Adjust to your own realities and temperament.

 

The ultimate goal is to create a situation where your visceral reaction to this filler word becomes "YAY, a treat!"

Books read in March 2021

 New: 

 1. No Place to Go: How Public Toilets Fail our Private Needs by Lezlie Lowe

Reread:

1. Survivor in Death

Things They Should Invent: filter online shopping products by weight

Latest pandemic malfunction: my 18-year-old TV finally gave up the ghost.

I bought a new TV easily enough, but it's a bit too big for my existing TV stand. So I'm shopping for some kind of TV stand or table or cart or something to put it on. 

Problem: the products that catch my eye keep being heavier than I can lift. 

Under normal circumstances this isn't so much of a problem. Normally, we can have furniture delivered. Normally, it's not a huge imposition to ask someone to pop by and help me move or assemble something. 

But during a global pandemic, this isn't an option. My building's pandemic rules prohibit delivery people from coming up to apartments, instead telling them to leave the deliveries at the concierge desk and residents will bring them up. My building's pandemic rules also prohibit visitors, and public health rules are also telling me not to have contact with other households. (Sometimes public health rules let single people bubble with another household, but there are zero people in my life whose risk factors permit visiting me and aren't already bubbled with another household.) So during the pandemic, I'm limited to what I can lift myself and assemble myself.

Online shopping sites could help me with this by letting me filter products by weight, so I only see those that are light enough for me to bring up to my apartment myself and assemble myself.

The websites already have this information - it tends to be listed right under dimensions.

The websites already let you filter by various variables, such as price and size. I can already tell the website "show me all the TVs under 35 inches", so why not "show me all the TV stands under 40 pounds"?

Building on this, they really should let you filter by any characteristic that is listed on the site. Country manufactured, inseam length, number of USB ports, anything. People have all kinds of oddly specific requirements, so, especially in this pandemic era where more shopping is being done online than ever before, why not let us pinpoint exactly what we need?

The Toronto Star should print URLs next to QR codes

During the pandemic, I've been reading the epaper versions of the my newspapers rather than getting my usual home delivery, and I've noticed an annoyance: links to further information on the Toronto Star site are provided as a QR code, without a corresponding URL provided.

This is an annoyance by itself in the print version, because it only gives you the option of opening the link on a mobile device, even if you'd prefer to read on a computer.

But it's all the more annoying in the epaper version, because epaper readers are already reading on their preferred device for reading a newspaper electronically! If I'm reading on my computer like I usually do, I could, theoretically, grab my phone and scan the QR code. But what if I was already reading on my phone? Surely there are many households that don't have extra mobile devices just sitting around unused for every time you want to click a link!

If the Star would simply print URLs next to (or instead of) QR codes, everyone could access the links by the means most convenient to them, thereby maximizing the number of eyeballs on the Star's website. Using the QR code alone is inconvenient to many and impenetrable to some. There's no reason not to continue printing URLs, like they have since the advent of URLs.

The mystery of the semantically null Amazon reviews

I was recently researching a potential purchase and reading a lot of Amazon reviews to do so, because Amazon had the most reviews for the most different products.

 

And I discovered something really weird: five-star reviews that aren't actually positive reviews of the product, and very often provide no information whatsoever.

 

Examples: "I bought it as a gift from someone else." "I haven't received it yet." "I haven't tried it yet but I'm sure it's fine."

 

Why would you write a review like this when you could just . . . not?

 

 

Then the universe provided me with what might be the answer!

 

I try to avoid Amazon whenever possible because of their labour conditions, but I ended up ordering a couple of products there because I couldn't find them anywhere else. 

Each of these products had a card inserted in the packaging saying the seller would give me an Amazon gift card if I wrote a review of the product, and sent them an email with the order number and a link to the review.

One offered me a $10 gift card for a review of a $25 purchase, and the other offered me a $15 gift card for a review of a $35 purchase.

 

I can certainly see how this might incentivize people to leave a review even if they have nothing to say!

I didn't leave any reviews so I don't know if they actually send you the promised gift card. (Apparently my sense of "I don't want them to win!" is worth more than $25 to me.) I don't know if they only give the gift card for a five-star review (the cards didn't say anything to that effect) or if these semantically null reviewers think Amazon is like eBay and sellers will be penalized for reviews that are less than five stars.

But, in any case, there's something very, very wrong with the system if sellers are incentivized to turn over 40% of the purchase price in exchange for a review!

Things They Should Study: would replacing property tax with a municipal income tax meet our needs better?

The pandemic is adding to the cost of delivering Toronto's city services, while some residents and businesses find their incomes drastically reduced as a result of pandemic-related shutdowns. (And a small number of other businesses find their revenues increasing!)

So our property tax rates are being debated, and city council finds themselves in a catch-22.

It's time to very seriously and thoroughly study an alternative: replacing property tax with a municipal income tax, which would make a point of including  (but not being limited to) rental income, business income, and revenues from selling real estate.

 

The primary concern expressed about property tax is that the value of your home can go up while you're just quietly living in it, even though your income and budget are unchanged - even if your income decreases!

 

Replacing property tax with income tax would address this. If your income suddenly decreases, your tax would decrease commensurately, regardless of what's going on with local property speculation. 

 

 

At this point, some people point out that if a home has appreciated significantly, the owner is sitting on a high-value asset and should be taxed on this.

 

Replacing property tax with income tax would address this. It would totally tax property owners on the money they make from their high-value asset, it would just take the more user-friendly approach of levying that tax at the moment they actually have that money in hand.

 

People also point out that real estate can be a revenue generator, because you can rent it out.

Replacing property tax with income tax would address this by taxing landlords on their rental income. But, at the same time, landlords wouldn't be incentivized to raise rent to cover taxes, because they'd be taxed a percentage of whatever rent their charge, rather than being taxed a specific number.

These two factors converge to address the the so-called "condo tax", where commercial property owners are taxed on "highest and best use" - i.e. what their property would be worth if redeveloped - and then that tax is passed on to the business that rents the property as a rent increase. 

 

Replacing property tax with income tax would address this by taxing property owners on any money they make selling their property to developers, but would take the more user-friendly approach of taxing them at the moment they actually have the money in hand, and the taxation burden would not be passed on to small businesses because a building that's being sold for redevelopment wouldn't be occupied by tenants.

 

 

Another argument in favour of property tax is that it's intended as a wealth tax, but property ownership provides an incomplete picture of wealth. Jeff Bezos could buy the condo next to me, which is absolutely identical to mine, and would owe the City of Toronto exactly the same amount of taxes as I do. Meanwhile, I'm fully leveraged whereas he could buy the condo outright with the money he made in the time it took me to compose this paragraph.

 

Replacing property tax with income tax would address this inequity, by taxing this hypothetical Jeff Bezos on the billions that he makes, while taxing me on the tens of thousands that I make.

 

 

Speaking of rich people buying condos, another problem that exists in the Toronto real estate market is absentee owners buying up condos as investments or a place to park assets, sometimes not even living in them or renting them out! (This has often been covered in the media as a "foreign buyers" problem, but the real problem is that they aren't living in the home, not that they are from another country.) 

 

Replacing property tax with income tax might address this issue. Perhaps people rich enough to casually buy real estate that they aren't even using would be disincentivized if they had to pay income tax in a whole nother jurisdiction? (It doesn't seem like enough of a disincentive to me, but the way money people tend to talk about taxes makes me think they find taxes more of a disincentive than I do.) And if they don't find it a disincentive, it's more money for city coffers.

 

 

Q: But don't you know that municipalities aren't legally permitted to levy income tax?

 

A: Yes! That's why we need to very thoroughly study it, so that if it does turn out that income tax is more appropriate, we have a compelling case for the levels of government with the power to change those laws.

 

Q: But don't you know that rich people rarely pay taxes?

 

A: Yes! That's why we need to very thoroughly study this, so it can be executed in a way that doesn't leave any loopholes to wiggle out of.

 

Q: What about sales tax?

 

A: I have no objection to studying sales tax too, and it may even have already been studied because I do hear people talking about it from time to time. But it seems to me that income tax is more likely to address the flaws in the property tax model, while also being closer to its original intention as a wealth tax.

 

 

Property tax is the oldest surviving form of taxation, dating back thousands of years. It's quite possible that, like many things dating back thousands of years, it isn't the very best way to meet 21st-century needs. 

The pandemic only magnifies the flaws of the property tax model. As we plan our pandemic recovery, it's time to seriously study an alternative to property tax.