Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Crucial questions to answer in your Zoom meeting invitation
Monday, October 02, 2023
"And also" is the key to appreciating the little things in life
Saturday, September 30, 2023
Books read in September 2023
New:
1. Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers
Reread:
1. Dark in Death
Monday, September 25, 2023
Where I'm at on social media (literally and philosophically)
Saturday, September 09, 2023
The perfect closet organizing business model
Then, when they're done, you have more closet space and 100% of the clothes in your closet fit your body.
You don't have to see which of your favourite clothes are too small for you, or go through the upsetting experience of trying on favourite clothes that ended up being too small.
They can take away the box of too-small clothes and donate them appropriately, or they can leave it with you, closed and sealed, for you to either revisit when you can cope with it or completely disregard.
Updated with a bonus round:
The closet organizer is paired up with a personal shopper, to whom they provide your measurements and the quantity and characteristics of the clothing that was removed from your closet, and the personal shopper finds suitable replacements that fit your current body.
Those lovely blouses in jewel tones that you bought years ago are now too small? Here's a selection of flattering blouses in jewel tones!
You have to give up your twirly sundress? Here are a few twirly sundress options!
Thursday, August 31, 2023
Books read in August 2023
Saturday, August 19, 2023
Translating Good Omens subtitles: "Bildad the Shuhite! Need any shoes?"
This post contains exactly one (1) line from Good Omens Season 2, which technically makes it a spoiler that should be tagged under the fandom's robust spoiler tagging policy.
At one point in Episode 2, Crowley introduces himself as "Bildad the Shuhite," then adds "Need any shoes?"
A pun, with half the pun unchangeable! (Bildad the Shuhite being the name of a specific biblical character who would already have an established name in the target language.) How do you translate this?
I've recorded the content of the subtitles here but haven't drilled down into them yet. Additions, analysis, commentary, and transcriptions of the languages I can't do myself are more than welcome!
Languages I know:
French (both Canada and France): souliers. This is a direct translation and doesn't really work as a pun.
German: Schuhe (direct translation, works as a pun)
Spain Spanish: suéteres (sweaters, works as a pun)
Latin American Spanish: jesuita (Jesuit. Works as a pun with "el suhita")
Polish: buty (direct translation, doesn't work as a pun)
Languages I don't know: (I'm just transcribing them from now, might dabble in looking them up later)
Bahasa Melayu: "Perlukan kasut?"
Catalan: xulla
Dansk: sko
Euskara: "Surik nahi?"
Filipino: Sapatos
Indonesia: Bildad, orag Suah. Butah Sepatu?
Italian: Servano scarpe?
Nederlands: schoenen
Norsk Bokmal (Norwegian): sko
Brazil Portuguese: suar
Portugual Portuguese: suínos
Romanian: cizme
Suomi (Finnish): "Onko kengän tarve?"
Swedish: Schack
Turkish: "Ayakkabi lazim mi?"
Cestina (Czech): Buty
Russian (my transliteration): "Savany sh'yu"
Ukrainian (my transliteration): shurupi
Greek, Arabic and Hebrew are also available, but I'm not able to translate or transliterate them.
Monday, July 31, 2023
Books read in July 2023
New:
1. The Body under the Piano by Marthe Jocelyn
Reread:
1. Apprentice in Death
Good Omens subtitle translations: "They are toast: T-O-S-T...E!"
At one point in the second season of Good Omens, the demon Shax, who is already established as a poor speller, says "They are TOAST! T-O-S-T-...E!"
Naturally, I started thinking about how you might translate that.
Fortunately, there are subtitles in 29 different languages, so I decided to write them down.
(I originally braindumped this on Twitter, but given that it's no longer reliable or googleable, I'm also putting it here.)
Additions, analysis, commentary, and transcriptions of the languages I can't do myself are more than welcome!
Canadian French: "fichus: F-I-S-H-U"
France French: "cuits: C-U-I-S"
German: "töte: T-Ö-H-T-E"
Latin American Spanish: "fritos: F-R-I-T-O-S" (no error )
Spain Spanish: "muertos: M-U-R-T-O...S"
Polish: "po nich: P-O N-I-C-H" (no error)
Bahasa Melayu (Malay): "mati: M-A-T-E" (I think - I'm not certain about the morphology)
Catalan: "Fregits: F-R-E-J-I-T-S"
Dansk (Danish): "kaput: K-A-P-U-D"
Euskara (Basque)): "akabatu: A-Q-A-B-A-T-U"
Filipino has her spell out "P-A-T-A...I", but I don't see that combination of letters in the preceding sentences. I don't know enough about the language to provide more info.
Indonesia: "celaka: C-E-L-A-G-A"
Italian: "fritti: F-R-I-T-T..I:
Magyar (Hungarian): "kampec: K-A-N-P-E-C...Z"
Nederlands (Dutch): "klos: C-L-O-S"
Norsk Bokmal (Norwegian): "ferdige: F-R-E-D-I-G...E"
Brazilian Portuguese: "fritos: F-R-I-T-O...Z"
Portugal Portuguese: "ares: A-R-E-S...E" (the whole segment is "vão todos pelos ares" - I have a hunch "ares" might not contain all the meaning)
Romanian: "praf: F-R-A-P"
Suomi (Finnish): "mennyttä: M-E-N-Y-T-A"
Swedish: "döda: D-Ö-D-D-A"
Turkish: "kizartirium: K-I-Z-A-T-T" (the letters I've transcribed as "i" are actually the dotless Turkish I, but I don't know how to type that)
Cestina (Czech): "napadrt: N-A-P-A-T-R-T" (There's a diacritic on the T that I don't know how to make)
Greek is available, but I don't know how to transcribe or transliterate it.
Russian (my transliteration): "kayuk: K-O-YU-G"
Ukrainian: the word is (my transliteration) "kinets" with a soft sign at the end, and she spells it out as (my transliteration "K-I-N-E-TS" without the soft sign at the end.
There are also Hebrew and Arabic subtitles, but I can't read, transcribe or transliterate them.
Friday, June 30, 2023
Books read in June 2023
New:
1. Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
Reread:
1. Brotherhood in Death
Thursday, June 01, 2023
New Twitter personal best
NBD, NBD, just Neil Gaiman taking a moment out of his busy day to personally reply to my tweet so I can make safe and informed media consumption decisions
Only in the Title credits.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2023
And, on further reflection, for a little bit in Episode 4. Avert your eyes when Furfur uses the clicker.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 2, 2023
Tuesday, May 02, 2023
Things I Don't Understand: people who value health labour but don't value COVID protections
Sunday, April 30, 2023
Books read in April 2023
Saturday, April 15, 2023
Advice for the Ask A Manager letter writer who found scales in the break room
Friday, March 31, 2023
Saturday, March 18, 2023
Saving for a down payment is not the only barrier to housing affordability
Toronto in 2021Time to save for down payment: 20+ years
What is Toronto’s starter home of this decade? In short, it’s further from the core, harder to attain and requires decades’ worth of savings.
Looking at properties that fell around 20 per cent below the average cost in 2021, there were still some bungalows in the mix, such as a raised bungalow that hit the market in the Scarborough neighbourhood of Birchcliffe-Cliffside. A property listing describes the house’s interiors as “well maintained but dated.”
It was offered in as-is, where-is condition, meaning the seller wouldn’t be making any repairs for the new buyer. “Buy to renovate or rebuild,” it suggested.
Like so many properties across Toronto last year, it sold for well above its listing price. Four days after records show it was listed for $699,900, it went for nearly $200,000 more, with a sale price of $875,000.
To reach a 20 per cent down payment, an individual or family would be tasked with tucking away a whopping $175,000. The median household income across the city last year was $84,000 — meaning this “starter” home would take more than 20 years of savings.
This is all true, but let's also look at the mortgage situation.
Median household income last year was $84,000.
Using Tangerine's "How much can I borrow?" calculator (because that's the one I find most user-friendly), with an income of $84,000, the $175,000 down payment calculated above, and all the other settings left to default, we get a total mortgage of $432,946.
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Books read in February 2023
Thursday, February 23, 2023
The need for workplace accommodations is a failure of the workplace
In a recent Globe and Mail article:
Researchers estimate that approximately one in eight Canadian women are likely suffering from an unrecognized brain injury related to domestic violence.
I have an undiagnosed brain injury (not resulting from domestic violence, so you don't need to worry about that on my behalf) and I have to adjust all kinds of aspects of life to adapt to it. I have systems and backup plans for if I can't cope with my usual lightbulbs, or I wake up and my eyes won't open, or any one of the countless irritants of post-head-injury life.
And, essentially, the reason why I'm able to do this is that I work from home.
It occurred to me recently that if I still worked in the office, every one of these little adjustments to post-head-injury life would need to be a formal accommodation.
Even just the light thing - I'd need to get a doctor's note, perhaps specifying what kinds of lights bother my eyes and what kinds I need instead. This would require a testing rabbit-hole, because I don't actually know the answer! I can point to certain places where the lights bother me all the time and other places where the lights bother me some of the time, but I haven't figured out exactly what types of lights do what.
This is exacerbated by the fact that employees of businesses and other spaces where I'm not in charge of the lights often don't know what kinds of lights they have either. One example is actually my doctor's office: the lights used to bother me, now they don't. I asked the doctor if they'd changed the lights, and he said that the landlord had changed the lights, but he has no idea what kinds were used before or are used now.
This is also exacerbated by the fact that I didn't meet the diagnostic criteria for a concussion. Because the medical profession told me I'm fine, I didn't immediately seek the help of the medical profession when I realized I wasn't fine. So I'd be seeking a note confirming a problem where the only thing on my file is that I don't have that problem, and I never followed up further. Not the best for my credibility - especially when it requires a bunch of paperwork from my doctor!
Then, if I did manage to get a doctor's note, I'd need to get it approved by management, who may or may not send it back for more information. Then they'd have to figure out what adjustments can be made to the lights in the office, and send facilities people in to make the adjustments. (I've seen this done for others - they have to send a guy up a ladder to make adjustments to the lighting fixtures high on the ceiling.)
In contract, when I'm at home, I just flick a lightswitch. If it gets really hardcore, I change a lightbulb.
This has me thinking about how many people need to jump through hoops just to function at work as a result of domestic violence.
And also has me thinking that if employees need to seek formal accommodations in a workplace, that means that the workplace is flawed.
Employees should be able to navigate and operate their workplace without having to ask permission or go through red tape for every little thing.
If you're an employer - especially if you're an employer who's worried about losing employees to work-from-home jobs - think about how your employees can and can't navigate and operate their workplace independently, without asking for permission or approval, and how that would compare with working from home.
If you can close that gap, you'll build a better workplace.
Monday, February 20, 2023
Advice for "Worried" in a recent Carolyn Hax column
From a recent Carolyn Hax:
The dog is cute. I like the dog. But we are thinking of marrying, and I worry that the way she treats this dog will set a precedent for how she might treat our children. I think as much as she loves the dog, if she treated a child this way, it would be too much. Too much hovering, too much spending, too much controlling.
She is a great girl in every other way. Even in this way, even if that sounds weird, because boy is that dog loved. But I still worry because I am less hands-on with my pets. They are fed, walked and cuddled, but they are not treated like royalty. Would it be a mistake to marry this wonderful girl?
— Worried
You do need to tell her specifically that you think the way she loves and cares for her dog is too much and you're concerned that she might love and care for children in a similar way, because you might have a fundamental parenting incompatibility here, and you both need to be aware of it to decide whether the relationship should proceed.
You mention that you yourself have pets, and you love and care for them in a way you feel is appropriate.
How would you feel if your girlfriend looked at how you take care of your pets and said it's too much and you're spoiling them? What about your potential future children? Would you want your children to be in the care of and dependent on someone who thinks they should receive less love and care than you think is appropriate?
Or would you want to protect them from someone who's trying to create a situation where they receive less love and care than you think is appropriate?
Your girlfriend would also want to protect her potential future children from situations where they receive less love and care than she thinks is appropriate, and that may well mean protecting them from having you as a parent.
This is a critical impasse you're at, and not to disclose it to her would be deception.