How to study the impact of gender imbalance on future generations.

I previously came up with the idea that they should study how gender imbalance (in this case, resulting from heavy wartime losses of the male population) affect future generations.

I think I have an idea about how one might actually study this.

For pre-21st-century wars, compare countries with heavy military losses with countries with heavy civilian losses. The US and Canada, for example, did not have combat happening within their country.  So we would have lost a greater proportion of men, whereas countries like Germany and France and Poland would probably have had more gender-balanced losses.

So if someone wanted to study this phenomenon, they could look at military and civilian death tolls, put countries in order of postwar gender imbalance (perhaps with the help of postwar censuses), and then look at various outcomes over the course of generations.

Things They Should Invent: multiple customizable email alerts

I have visual and audible email alerts for both my personal and my work email.  In general I'd rather have the alerts than not, but what I'd really like is to get alerts only for emails that are important.

For example, in my personal email, I'd like to get alerted about personal communications from family and friends, ebay auctions that I've won or been outbid on, and anything from my banks, my apartment building, or my condo that require immediate action.  I don't need to get alerted about "Here's our newsletter!" or "Sign this petition!" or "This is to confirm that you made the paypal purchase that you made literally 2 seconds ago."  I'll look at those things later, but I don't need to interrupt what I'm doing to look at them.

Similarly, in my work email, I'd like to get alerted about new assignments, emails from clients, and specific personal communication from my team.  I don't need to be alerted about "Here's the employee newsletter!" or "This is just to let you know that I will be away Friday." Again, I'll look at them later, but they don't require my immediate attention.

Gmail has a function where they automatically mark certain email threads as more important, and it works reasonably well if you put in the effort to train it (I did briefly and was happy with the rate at which it was learning, but then I got lazy and stopped using it.)  So why not pair this up with Gmail Notifier so it notifies you only when you get an email that meets "important" criteria?  Or perhaps give you a different kind of beep for the more important emails?

Outlook allows you to create all kinds of finicky rules, so why not allow you to create rules defining what kind of alert the program gives you?  You could tell it to give you the "important" alert if you get an email from certain senders or in reply to an email that you yourself have sent.  If you can convince your colleagues to use good subject lines, you could get one kind of alert for "FYI" emails and another for "For Action" emails.

Properly implemented, this would allow people to have all the benefits of email alerts with none of the disadvantages.  So why don't we have it already?

Thoughts from advice columns

My husband and I are preparing our wills. We have two adult children: a daughter who is more successful than we are, and a son, who has been down on his luck for years. He also has three young children to educate. Everyone, including our lawyer and close friends, tells us that we should leave our money to them in equal shares to avoid hurt feelings. But that doesn’t seem right. Our son needs the money. Still, we don’t want to hurt our daughter. What would you do?

An option would be to leave everything to your grandchildren, perhaps in trust for their education if you should pass away when they're still underage.  This would be perfectly just, it would (if you die relatively soon) spare your son the expense of educating his children, and it would help mitigate any negative impact for the children of having a father who is down on his luck. If the daughter should have children, they'd inherit too, but if she doesn't I can't imagine a more-successful-than-her-parents childless auntie begrudging her nieces and nephews an inheritance from their less-successful-than-her grandparents, unless she's the sort of person to begrudge anything and everything, in which case you're no worse off.

Dear Miss Information,

I dated a guy about two years ago pretty seriously, and at the time we were on track to be engaged. Blah blah blah, it ended really badly. We haven't spoken since, even though I found out through mutual friends that he has been asking about me for months if not years. Finally, that has died down, and we've both moved on with our lives, I think. Here's the problem: I'm now dating a woman (oh, I'm a girl, if that wasn't already clear.) She and I are really happy together. I guess I've always identified as "bi," but it never came up when I was dating the guy. So this isn't that surprising to me, but apparently it is to him. I think one of our mutual friends told him I'm with Anna now, and supposedly he's been really freaked out about it.

A very close mutual friend is getting married in about a month, and my girlfriend is coming as my plus-one. I know he will be there with his new girlfriend (The friends who told me he was freaked out also filled me in that he's dating someone from his work), and I want to avoid hurting him further. How do you tell someone, "I'm gay now, but I wasn't when I was with you"? And really, we haven't spoken in about two years, so how much responsibility do I even need to take for "letting him down gently"? I'm just really, really, REALLY dreading this wedding because of having to see this ex. What do I do?

 (This letter is from the Miss Information column in Nerve.  The column itself is fine, but Nerve sometimes has NSFWish ads and pictures around the column text.  You can see the original here, or see a fully SFW version in CF Abby here.)

Anyway, as to the actual question, I think if I were in the guy's position, I'd find it something of a relief if it turned out the person I love who left me did so because they had come to the realization that they wanted a same-sex relationship.  That would make me confident, more than anything else I could possibly imagine, that it wasn't anything I did wrong and that there wasn't any diligence on my side that could have saved the relationship.

Individuals can face criminal charges when they pose as nurses or policemen. But what about people posing as meteorologists? A B.S. in meteorology is a science degree. But many broadcast meteorologists are not meteorologists at all; they hold a mail-order certificate offered by some schools instead. Is it ethical for TV stations to give just anyone the title “meteorologist”? NAME WITHHELD

Before we even get into the question of whether a certificate from an education institution should be completely disregarded as credientials, I don't think anyone is actually under the impression that the people on TV are actually doing the forecasting.  Weather forecasts are made using data from Environment Canada (or, since this is a US column, whatever the US equivalent is), and then they either reiterate the Environment Canada forecast or input the data into their own computer model that they bought from somewhere.  The people on TV are just reading the forecast, and I don't think anyone thinks otherwise.

Talking to children

Introducing myself to babies

The first time I met my new baby cousin (technically my first cousin once removed - his mother is my cousin) I formally introduced myself.  I told him my name, explained how we're related, and told him that I'm very pleased to meet him and hope we can become friends.  My parents laughed at me for doing this, but I do it anyway because it only seems polite.  I see part of my role as a non- parental adult as modeling normal and healthy interpersonal interactions for kids, and the normal adult world, people don't just walk up to you and start touching you apropos of nothing.  I figure I should do my bit to normalize this standard of behaviour.

I'm cheering for my baby cousin.  I want him to grow up to be strong and smart and happy, and have an easier and more pleasant life than I have.  It's possible that I might not always like Baby Cousin.  He's going to grow up to be a little boy, and little boys aren't my very favourite demographic.  At various points in his life, he might think farts are funny or think an appropriate response to the presence of a spider is to keep it in a jar as a pet, all of which is the kind of behaviour I prefer to avoid.  But even if I do end up not liking him for a period of time, I will still be cheering for him.

My baby cousin has many many adult cousins (his mother and I have 12 mutual cousins, and she also has cousins that aren't related to me, plus his father has his fair share of cousins as well), and I'm absolutely certain that all of us are cheering for him, as are his grandparents and great-grandparents and great-aunts and great-uncles and the other random people in this new family's orbit. If he finds himself in the same room as an adult by virtue of that adult's relationship with his parents, that adult will be cheering for him.

My parents also have many many cousins.  I met quite a few of them at various family events when I was a kid, but I didn't understand who they were.  I don't know if it wasn't explained to me or I just didn't retain it, but I didn't understand that they were my parents' cousins the same way my cousins are my cousins.  I didn't understand who they were or why they were talking to me - they just felt like strange grownups, so I was wary of them the way I'm normally wary of strange grownups.  The thought never once crossed my mind that they might be cheering for me.  Why would they be?  They're just strange grownups.

But maybe if some of them had taken a moment to speak to me directly and tell me their name and how we're related,  to shake my hand and tell me they're happy to see me, maybe I would have felt that I was in the safe presence of loving adults rather than surrounded by strangers.

Elevator buttons

One thing I've learned from living in highrises is that small children love to push elevator buttons! You can push them and they light up and they make the whole elevator move!  So I play along.  If I find myself in an elevator with a small child, I ask them if they can do me an enormous favour and push the button I need for me.  Then I thank them for being helpful.

I don't claim any child development knowledge beyond having been a child and basically I'm doing this because it entertains me.  But I'm wondering whether or not it's actually a good idea.

On the positive side, I'm engaging them as human beings in their own right rather than talking over their heads to their parents, I'm modelling "please" and "thank you" and general polite discourse, and, of course, I'm giving them an opportunity to press more buttons!

On the negative side, perhaps it's a bit condescending to gratuitously give someone a job to do that I can just as easily do myself on the assumption that they'll enjoy doing my menial tasks. (I've been in situations where I suspect people were doing that to me during my adult life, and I didn't appreciate it.) And, on top of that, I am a stranger. I know children do have to learn to interact with strangers and I am a harmless stranger so perhaps I'm a good person to for them to practise on (although I shouldn't go barging into interactions on the assumption that I'm harmless - I must continue to recognize that I'm a stranger), but I'm not sure if I should be setting the precedent that they should be doing unnecessary favours for strangers just because it amuses the stranger.

I've encountered kids who were absolutely delighted when I asked them to press a button for me, but that doesn't mean it's right.  My child-self would have wanted to curl up in a ball and hide, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

Things They Should Invent: needs-based telecommunications technology funding for seniors

As I've mentioned before, I'm watching my grandmothers age and deteriorate and become more dependent on their children and caregivers.  And, as I watch this happen, I'm thinking about how I'm going to handle the same situation without anyone to take care of me.  And one thing that strikes me is that I could handle it better in some respects because I'm comfortable with technology.  If I couldn't manage grocery shopping for myself, I could order from grocery gateway.  If I couldn't remember to take my meds, I could set up a series of alerts.  My grandmothers aren't up on using today's technology, so they're dependent on their children to do these things.

However, it's not just interest and technological aptitude that keeps them from using technology, it's also cost.  My grandmothers retired in the 1980s, calculating their expenses based on expenses that existed in the 1980s.  They couldn't have anticipated the eventual need for $40 a month for internet or a data plan, plus the major capital investment of a new computer or device every few years.  Even if they'd be interested, they probably couldn't afford it.

If retirement still exists when I'm a senior, the same thing will probably happen to me.  If I retire when I'm in my 60s, I couldn't possibly budget for the evolution and cost of technology over the next 30 to 40 years.  (And if retirement doesn't still exist when I'm a senior, I'll have to hoard money even more because I have to assume 20 years of incompetence based on my family history of Alzheimer's, so I won't be able to afford to keep up to date.)

So I propose that all senior citizens should get a needs-based financial supplement of some sort (a discount or a rebate or free services or something) to keep them in up-to-date telecommunications technology, by which I mean both devices and data/internet plans. I don't have specific dollar amounts in mind at the moment, but the funding should be enough that it's an absolute no-brainer to keep up to date.

I also think the program should start at age 65, even though 65-year-olds are perfectly capable of keeping themselves up to date if they have any interest in doing so.  The reason for this is that elders seem to lose their ability to learn new things as they deteriorate and lose their faculties.  They need to form habits and keep current before they start losing their faculties, so they can coast along on their existing knowledge once they lose the ability to learn.   For example, my one grandmother lost the ability to learn about 10 years ago.  If she had computer skills that were current to 2003, she wouldn't be able to  use an iphone, but she could still order her groceries online. 

I'm sure it would be an expensive program, but it would help keep people living in their own homes and independently for longer.  By any standard, tech is cheaper than housing.

A better way to schedule preventive medical care?

Today my doctor told me that pap smears are no longer included in annual physicals.  This isn't the thing where pap smears are now once every three years, it means that they're apparently now considered a completely different test.  Because doctors aren't allowed to bill for more than one issue per appointment, this means that if I want an annual physical and a pap smear, I have to make two appointments.  Apparently OHIP is kind of cracking down on multiple issues in one appointment, and auditing doctors to make sure they don't treat patients for what they weren't booked in for.

I was googling around the idea, and apparently the intention is to cut back on the tests and examinations done during annual physicals because they've found that the tests have little to no benefit for healthy people.   Apparently studies have found that the people who diligently go in for annual physicals tend to be a healthy demographic for whom the tests don't turn up anything because they're healthy. Meanwhile, the less healthy people are already going into the doctor regularly for all their various health problems, so there's little benefit to a schedule physical this month if they just saw the doctor last month and are going to see the doctor again next month.

Which I'm fine with.  Because I don't actually want an annual physical.  Or a pap smear.  What I actually want is my birth control pills.

For my entire on-the-pill life, an annual physical and/or pap smear has been the gauntlet I have to run to get my birth control prescription renewed.  This doctor books physicals far in advance, which I didn't know at the beginning, so I called when I had a month of birth control left and was told it would be six to eight weeks.  When I told them I was running out of birth control, they booked me in for an appointment, where they gave me a three month prescription and then scheduled me for a physical, which I had to have before I could get a whole year's worth.

I don't think this is unique to my doctor.  At various times I've read discussions about whether birth control pills should be available over the counter, and in them doctors have said one of the reasons they like them to be prescription is it gets a sizeable proportion of their patients in for their annual physicals.  (You may remember we discussed how 1/3 of all Canadians use prescription contraception.)

Without getting into the (important) question of whether a physical is in fact necessary for birth control, this gave me a broader idea of how they can make the health system much more user friendly for patients and doctors.

Step 1:  Completely abolish annual physicals
Step 2:  Completely abolish the one issue per appointment rule
Step 3:  Create a system where whenever you come into the doctor for a specific issue, you also get all the preventive tests and examinations you're due for, based on your specific medical situation, and any other care your doctor feels you need.

So, in my case, I'd call the doctor when I'm running low on birth control pills.  The receptionist (perhaps with the assistance of a computer program designed to track these things) would see that it's been 12 months since I had blood work so I should probably get it done again, but it's only been 34 months since I had a pap smear so I'm not due for that.  Then it would book appointment length accordingly.  (Perhaps it could also add some extra time to the appointment if the patient hasn't been to the doctor in X months.) 

The doctor then sees me to renew my birth control pills, and also offers all the tests and examinations for which I'm overdue, and offers any other care that he feels would be appropriate.  And I am permitted to decline tests and care that are unrelated to the birth control pills and still receive my pills.

This will make things easier for the patient.  No more having to keep track of your preventive care schedule and call the doctor and make the right kind of appointment.  You just call the doctor when you need to go to the doctor, and they'll give you all the care you need, not just for this one issue but for everything.

It will also make things easier for the doctor.  You treat the patient in front of you for everything they need treating for, without worrying about whether it falls under the issue for which they made the appointment.  You can use your professional judgement without worrying about administrative matters.

And it will save the health system a little bit of money by creating a scenario where patients get their preventive tests and examinations sometime after their due, rather than right on the button of when they're due.  The current system normalizes coming in every 12 months for various examinations.  But if it's 12 months plus whenever the patient has an issue for which they need to see the doctor, some patients will be coming in after 14 months, some patients will be coming in after 2 years.  The healthier the patient, the bigger the interval between when they come in.  But it's self-selecting, so the patients are still getting care whenever they request care.

Of course, doctors can still have patients with chronic issues or high risk factors come in on a regular basis for monitoring.  And they'd still have the option of influencing the frequency with which patients come in with the length of the prescription they issue.

This leaves the question of whether anyone would slip through the cracks.  Under this model, anyone who wants to see the doctor for a specific issue will see a doctor when that specific issue arises.  Anyone with a chronic issue or high risk factors or complex needs who needs regular monitoring will get regular monitoring as required by their doctor. Anyone who takes medication on a regular basis will see the doctor whenever they need their prescription renewed. 

So that leaves people who don't have any specific issues for periods of over a year, don't have any ongoing medications, and don't have any conditions that need monitoring, as well as people who don't go to the doctor when they have an issue they need to go to the doctor for.

I think the people who don't go to the doctor when they have an issue aren't going to go for preventive annual physicals, so this wouldn't affect them.  So that just leaves people who don't have any specific reason to go to the doctor during periods of over a year.  Things They Should Study: is there anyone who's healthy enough to fall into this group but unhealthy enough that they have something just waiting to be caught by their annual physical?

A tale of two Google searches

1.  I had a song stuck in my head, but I didn't know the words.  It dated back to childhood, most likely from Sharon, Lois & Bram, and the lyrics as I remembered them were "My mother need to tell me that you omungowah."

Clearly, I had misheard it or was misremembering it, and was jamming a bunch of phonemes together to make "omungowah".  And whatever the omungowah really was, it was probably the crucial word in googling up this song.

Expecting nothing, I started typing my mother need to tell me that you omungowah into Google, and before I even got to the omungowah, the suggestion feature gave me "My mother didn't tell me that you go mango walk".  Which is exactly the song I was looking for!   Well done Google!

 (Here's an example of the song, although I have no idea what the source is.)

2.  In 2009, they had a public art project where people could stand on an empty plinth in London's Trafalgar Square and do whatever they wanted for the audience of whoever happened to be in Trafalgar Square and as a live real-time webcast audience.  In the middle of one of these plinth performances, Eddie Izzard finished his marathons, also in Trafalgar Square, and the crowd and cheering of his marathon finish interrupted one of the performances and distracted the camera operator.

I was looking for this video, so I googled eddie izzard plinth. Not only did Google not find the video, but it gave me one of those despised "Results for similar searches."  And the "similar search" that it proposed was eddy izzard!

Yes, they not only eliminated the key search term, they introduced a spelling error!  (Interestingly, the results for eddy izzard were Eddie Izzard's website, IMDB page and wikipedia entry, all of which spelled his name correctly.)

It seems like Google's algorithms missed a few crucial points. First of all, "Eddie" is a far more common spelling than "Eddy". How do they end up "correcting" away from the more common (and correct) spelling?

Second, Eddie is a celebrity with an unusual surname, which means that a disproportionate number of instances of the word "Izzard" on the recorded internet will have the word "Eddie" next to them.  Surely their concordance function should have figured this out - at least enough not to change what I entered!

And third, if your search contains something general (a celebrity's name) and something specific (the word "plinth"), the specific thing is probably there for a reason.  It is in no way helpful to completely eliminate the specific and give the user only general information about the celebrity!  If Google is going to insist on using this "Results for similar searches" function, they should use synonyms of the most specific search term, or use words that correlate with the specific search term ("Trafalgar" might have been helpful, for example.)

How is it possible that Google could fuck up this badly while still being capable of finding my "omungowah"?

(The video of Eddie Izzard finishing this marathons in Trafalgar Square and interrupting the plinth performance can be found at 31 minutes here.)

The many benefits of working from home

- I go to bed later, wake up later, start work earlier, and finish work earlier.  I've had a minimum of seven hours' sleep every night since I started working at home, and about 40% of the time I wake up naturally.

- I wake up at a time that is after sunrise year-round. I finish work at a time that is before sunset year-round.

- When I need to step away from a text or take a mental break, I can exercise. I have exercised 25 days out of the last 30, whereas when I'm going into the office I normally end up exercising only 2 or 3 times a week despite my intention to exercise every day.

- You know how I get inspiration in the shower?  When I need inspiration, I can have a shower!!!

- I can eat when I'm hungry.  When I'm working at the office, I feel the need to eat breakfast before I leave so I won't be hungry in the office, then to eat lunch during my lunch break because if I don't I won't have a chance to eat until after work.  When I'm at home I can eat whenever I want.  So I eat when I'm hungry, and exactly as much as I'm hungry for.

- Because I'm using things like exercise and showering as my work breaks, I no longer have a massive to-do list to get done before I go to work.  There's no inkling of stress or racing the clock.  I just boot up and sign on right at the start of my work day, and I still get all my morning stuff plus my work done before I need to actually leave the apartment.

- I enjoy peace and quiet, without having to hear other people's chitchat.  But, at the same time, I don't have to be quiet.  I can read my texts aloud when I need help focusing.  I can orate. I can sing. I can spout off profanity when my computer doesn't work.  I'm an auditory learner, so it's quite helpful to have access to this dimension.

- My stress level is zero the vast majority of the time.  This one time a client used a pun and my stress level went up to 2, but then I had a shower and figured out what to do with the pun so my stress level went back down to zero.

- I feel like a part of the neighbourhood.  Out my window, I see the rhythms of the day, kids going to and from school, the schedules of the mailman and couriers, my building's cleaning people.  There a lady who goes to this little parkette in a wheelchair, then gets out of the wheelchair and walks around and around the parkette, obviously working very hard to regain her walking or retain what mobility she has left.  She didn't show up for a couple of days, and I started worrying.  But then she came back.

- Speaking of the mailman and couriers, when I have something delivered, it's now no inconvenience whatsoever even if it comes by UPS!  I had a Dell technician come to look at my computer, and it was no trouble whatsoever.  When I'm at home, couriers and repair people can come by whenever.  I can do my work while I wait on hold with a bank.  If I need to make a phone call that includes personal financial information or the name of a gynecological procedure, I don't need to worry about being overheard.

- I don't feel the need to wear makeup while working at home or while doing errands in my immediate neighbourhood (unless they're fashion-related), so my skin gets to rest.  And, when I do go out in makeup, I look better because I've only been wearing it since just before I left the apartment, not since early in the morning.

- When I was in university, on days when I didn't have work or class I'd wake up, shower, make coffee and sit down at the computer, and the next thing I'd know it would be 4 pm and I'd still be in my bathrobe and hadn't accomplished a thing, which I found depressing.  When I'm working at home, some days I am in fact still in my bathrobe at 4 pm.  However, I have completed a full day of paid work, so there's no need to feel guilty or unaccomplished.

New Rules: Natural Consequences Edition IV

(Previous editions can be found here.)

Inspired by Sir Anthony Strallan on Downton Abbey and by the boyfriend of the first letter-writer here:

8.  If someone deprives you of something with the excuse "You can do better", (without taking into consideration whether you actually can do better, or whether you want whatever it is they consider to be "better"), you're allowed to deprive them of something.

So if the person you love pulls a Sir Anthony on you and abandons you with the excuse "You deserve better than me", you can say "Okay, you deserve better than cheese.  You aren't ever allowed to eat cheese again."

Reversing the glass analogy

In a common English figure of speech, someone who "thinks the glass is half full" is an optimist, and someone who "thinks the glass is half empty" is a pessimist.

As I've mentioned many times before, I'm a pessimist.  This means I tend to expect things to turn out terribly.  An employer didn't hire me, so I expect that I'll never be able to get a job.  A person was mean to me, so I expect that everyone ever will be mean to me.  I saw a bug, so I expect that everywhere I ever live will be infested.  I can never see any good reason why things wouldn't turn out worst case scenario, so that's what I expect.

However, things don't always turn out as poorly as I expect.  Sometimes I get a job.  Sometimes people are nice to me.  Sometimes there aren't any bugs.  And this always makes me very pleasantly surprised.

I was recently in a conversation where I was talking about something that turned out better than I expected (it was about the joys of adulthood, and how when I was a kid I had no idea that the problems of childhood would go away in adulthood), and an interlocutor said to me "You're really a glass half full person, aren't you?"

My first thought was to deny it because I am intrinsically pessimistic, but then I realized in this particular situation, I was seeing the glass as half full.  But that's only because I was expecting it to be empty.

Meanwhile, my interlocutor's child-self was expecting adulthood to be all glamorous and awesome and it turned out to be mundane.  So they saw the glass as half empty.  But that's only because they were expecting it to be completely full.

Maybe the figure of speech should go the other way around?

Are children really unfamiliar with pregnancy?

I was very surprised to see that some people thought the word "pregnant" shouldn't be used in an elementary school yearbook for fear that the kids might ask what it means.  My experience was that children were familiar with pregnancy essentially because they were children.

When you are born, your parents are, by definition, part of the cohort that's getting pregnant and having babies.  It's therefore very likely that many of the adults around you - your parents' friends and siblings and cousins - are also at this stage of life.  This means that there's a good chance that within the first few years of your life, one or more babies will be born to the people around you.  It might even be your own younger sibling!

And it's most likely that your parents will explain the concept of the new baby to you.  They won't just one day go "Hey, look, a baby!"  They'll probably tell you that Mommy or Auntie Em is pregnant, which means she's going to have a baby.  And they'll probably even tell you the baby is growing in her belly so that's why her belly is getting fat.

And if this doesn't happen to you, it will probably happen to one of your friends, who will then announce to you "I'm going to have a baby brother and he's growing in my mommy's tummy!"

Myself, I don't remember a time when I didn't know what the word "pregnant" meant.  My first cousin was born when I was 1.5, and my sister was born when I was a few months short of 3. I have memories of the cousin being a baby and I have memories where I knew that my mother was going to have a baby, but I don't ever remember actually learning what "pregnant" means.  For as long as I've known, it's just meant that a baby is growing in a mommy's belly.  It didn't seem sexual or adult (because I didn't know what sex was), it was just a point of fact.

So I'm very surprised that parents would think that elementary school children need to be protected from the concept of pregnancy.  In my corner of the world, children were familiar with pregnancy by virtue of the demographic realities of being children.

Receiving welfare while on a terrorist watch list

From Snopes, one of the accused Boston marathon bombers had apparently received welfare benefits while on a terrorist watch list

I'm rather surprised at the tone of outrage, because it seems to me that continuing existing welfare payments to someone you want to watch is a good way to help keep track of them.

 It means they have to tell you where they live.  It means you'll know at least some of their banking information, either from direct deposit or from them cashing cheques, and with bank records and stuff you might be able to track what else they're doing with their money.  It means they have a strong incentive to be where they told you they'll be at least once a month.  If you're trying to track them physically, you can stake out their mailbox on the day that cheques arrive, or track where the debit card affiliated with their bank account is used to get a sense of their usual haunts.  If your jurisdiction has social workers monitoring or assisting welfare recipients, you've got a known person who is not a criminal associate but has spoken to them regularly and perhaps asked them some more personal questions.  Plus, the fact that they're receiving government benefits might lead them to led their guard down - they might think "Surely they wouldn't be paying me welfare if they thought I was a terrorist!" 

In contrast, if you discontinue their benefits, they know you're watching them.  They now have no incentive to ever be where they told you they are, or to maintain any bank accounts that the government knows about.  It also decreases their overall contact with public authorities, and increases their incentive to earn money through illegal means, which might put them in touch with a broader range of criminal element.

All in all, from a purely strategic viewpoint, I'd say it's worth the pittance.

Why not have books in solitary confinement?

From a Toronto Star article about solitary confinement (emphasis mine):

The woman she saw that day looked humiliated and defeated, Pate says, adding seclusion is “complete sensory deprivation.”

“It’s no wonder so many people develop bizarre behaviours and mental health issues when they’re in those conditions, because where else can you go, but into your mind?

Whether it’s called seclusion, isolation, segregation, “therapeutic quiet” or solitary confinement, lawyers at the Ashley Smith inquest representing Elizabeth Fry, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Smith family say the terms amount to the same thing: a prisoner locked in a bare room with no stimulation and basically no interaction with others.

But, later in the article:

a Corrections Canada spokesperson said segregation is used as a last resort for the shortest period of time necessary to manage the serious risk posed by an inmate’s association with other inmates.

If the stated problem is the inmate's association with other inmates (either to protect the solitary confinement person from the others, or to protect the others from the solitary confinement person), then there's no reason not to give them a couple of books.

If the inmate is in solitary for their own protection, there's no reason to deny them something to pass the time.  If they have mental health issues, it would help keep them from getting stuck in their head.

Even if you feel they don't deserve sympathy or entertainment, good could still be achieved by giving them reading material that reinforces the goals of their correctional plan.  In addition to educational materials, they could be provided with works of fiction that address the themes that correctional programs are trying to teach.  It would also make things easier from an inmate management point of view - the most entertaining thing available to them would involve sitting quietly.

Right now we have a system where inmates who shouldn't be near other inmates are locked into a room to go, quite literally, stir-crazy.  Put a few books in the room, and you've turned it into a system where best case they're working towards their correctional goals without interruption or negative influences, and worst case they're quietly passing the time.

Gambling and positive thinking

The following is a quote from page 264 of The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg.  As usual, any typoes are my own.

In 2010, a cognitive neuroscientist named Reza Habib asked twenty-two people to lie inside an MRI and watch a slot machine spin around and around. Half of the participants in Habib's experiment were “pathological gamblers” — people who had lied to their families about their gambling, missed work to gamble, or had bounced checks at a casino — while the other half were people who gambled socially but didn’t exhibit any problematic behaviors. Everyone was placed on their backs inside a narrow tube and told to watch wheels of lucky 7s, apples, and gold bars spin across a video screen. The slot machine was programmed to deliver three outcomes: a win, a loss, and a “near miss,” in which the slots almost matched up but, at the last moment, failed to align. None of the participants won or lost any money. All they had to do was watch the screen as the MRI recorded their neurological activity.

“We were particularly interested in looking at the brain systems involved in habits and addictions,” Habib told me. “What we found was that, neurologically speaking, pathological gamblers got more excited about winning. When the symbols lined up, even though they didn’t actually win any money, the areas in their brains related to emotion and reward were much more active than in nonpathological gamblers.

“But what was really interesting were the near misses. To pathological gamblers, near misses looked like wins. Their brains reacted almost the same way. But to a nonpathological gambler, a near miss was like a loss. People without a gambling problem were better at recognizing that a near miss means you still lose.”

Two groups saw the exact same event, but from a neurological perspective, they viewed it differently. People with gambling problems got a mental high from the near misses— which, Habib hypothesizes, is probably why they gamble for so much longer than everyone else: because the near miss triggers those habits that prompt them to put down another bet. The nonproblem gamblers, when they saw a near miss, got a dose of apprehension that triggered a different habit, the one that says I should quit before it gets worse.

The mindset that makes the problem gambling problematic sounds an awful lot like positive thinking, doesn't it?

Things They Should Invent: check supermarket stock and prices online

My mother's Loblaws has Macintosh apples, but mine doesn't.  This means, should my current source of Macs dry up, I may be able to find them at another Loblaws, but it isn't a certainty.  Since I'm now on tokens, I don't much fancy the idea of running around the city in search of the kind of apples I like. 

Why can't I do a search on supermarkets' websites to see which locations have Macintosh apples in stock?  Unlike practically every other retailer, supermarkets' websites don't even have the items the chain sells and the prices, to say nothing of individual store stock.

A computerized database of stock must exist because they've used scanning check-outs for decades, so surely they have scanny check-in of inventory as well at this point.  Why not just put it online where we can find it?

Laptop batteries: WTF?

I'm very frustrated by the mixed messages I'm getting about laptop batteries.

My recent computer troubles turned out to be due to my battery being dead (which involved a weird and roundabout diagnosis!).  All three Dell techs I spoke to in the process told me that you shouldn't keep your laptop plugged in all the time (which I normally do because most of the time I'm using it at my desk), you should instead allow your battery to discharge fully and then recharge it.

However, Dell's laptop battery FAQ says this is unnecessary and the battery will behave nicely even if you leave it plugged in all the time.  But their Alienware battery FAQ says the opposite. 

I did start charging and discharging the battery once I got my new battery, but I find it very inconvenient. I also noticed that there's a "Disable Battery Charging" setting, so I was wondering if using this setting and leaving my computer plugged in would save my battery from any negative effects of having it fully charged and still plugged in.  I asked Dell's twitter account, but they directed me back to the FAQ that said this was unnecessary.  And this right after they posted the Alienware FAQ that said the opposite.  (My computer isn't an Alienware, but I believe it has the same kind of battery.)

I also had the idea of just taking the battery out completely and using the laptop on AC power only until I need to move it.  One of the Dell techs I talked to told me this would work, another told me it wouldn't work.

The internet contains arguments supporting and opposing every possible approach, including things like "maintain a battery charge of 70% at all times" or "take your battery completely out of your laptop for normal operations, but discharge and recharge it once a month." All of these arguments can be found from credible sources and backed up by scientific explanations.  I could write a paper with quality citations in support of any possible approach to battery management.

And I still haven't the slightest idea which approach is actually correct.

My intention when writing this blog post was to put the question out to my readership, but that will just be more sensible people giving soundly-reasoned explanations on the internet.  I seriously don't know what to do.

Opinions are welcome, even though I'm tired of opinions.  I'm particularly interested in:

- What is your own battery management approach, and what kind of battery lifespan do you get?  (By "battery lifespan" I don't mean "how long until your battery drains and you have to recharge it?", I mean "how long until you have to buy a new battery?")

- Would using the "disable battery charging" function while leaving the battery in the computer and the AC adapter plugged in eliminate whatever harm might potentially be caused by leaving the AC adapter plugged in when the battery is fully charged?

- Any experience with just taking the battery out?

Update:  I have since learned that the "disable battery charging" function gets better battery lifespan.

More information please

Mentioned in passing in an article about the 65th anniversary of Israel:

Nor will many of Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jews participate in the celebrations. They regard the establishment of the Jewish state ahead of the advent of the Messiah, who alone can and will redeem his people, as an affront to God.

So if they think it's an affront to God, why do they live there?

Things They Should Invent: private bath facilities in long-term care homes with controlled access to water

Apparently many long-term care homes have private washrooms with a toilet and sink in the residents' rooms, but bathing facilities are in a separate room down the hall. The reason for this is allegedly that many residents are unable to bathe themselves safely, and, if they had bathing facilities in their own rooms, residents who can't bathe themselves safely but have cognitive impairments might attempt to bathe themselves anyway and end up hurting themselves.

However, I think not having your own bathroom is a bit less dignified and needlessly lowers your quality of life.  You have to walk down the hall in a bathrobe carrying your toiletries in a bucket rather than just walking into your own private bathroom.  I know, we all did this in university, but in adult life we become accustomed to a greater level of privacy and dignity, and I don't think it's right to take this away from our elders.

Proposed solution: every room in a long-term care room has a full private bathroom, complete with bathing facilities.  However, the bathing facilities require a key to turn on the water.  It could be an actual key, or one of those magnetic beep cards like we have on office security passes, or some other sort of tangible object.  Staff members whose job involves bathing residents would have a key to the bath water.  Residents who are competent to bathe themselves safely would have a key to the bath water.  Residents who are not competent to bathe themselves safely would not.

This way, all residents would get to enjoy the privacy and dignity of a private bathroom, while still controlling access to the slippery, fall-inducing environment of bathing facilities to those who can handle it or situations where there is proper supervision.

Things They Should Invent: dictionary of connotations

I recently had a disagreement over a word.  I thought that it was neutral, linguistically unmarked, and derived directly from the verb in question (analogous to how a cook is a person who cooks, or a grave-digger is a person who digs graves).  But my interlocutor  thought it was negative, and wanted us to use a less negative word, but couldn't actually suggest one.  I wasn't able to suggest one either, because I didn't feel that the original word was negative (or positive), and it's very difficult to come up with a synonym that has a different degree of a characteristic that's absent in the original word.  It would be like if someone asked you to provide them with a cake recipe that's less extroverted, or a career path that's not quite as purple.

In any case, the problem was that we were at an impasse over whether this word had this connotation, and there was nothing either of us could to to prove our position to the other.

Proposed solution: a dictionary of connotations.  You look up a word, it tells you all the positive and negative connotations.  In this situation, we could have looked up the word to see definitively if it has the connotations in question, much like how you'd look up a word in the OED or the Petit Robert if you're disagreeing on the meaning.

It would also be useful in preventing inadvertent racism.  Most of the racist things I've uttered in my life have been because I didn't know they were racist, because I don't spend much time around people who are being racist so I don't know all the slurs and stereotypes.  (The remaining times I've been racist have been when I learned some non-neutral words for concepts without having learned the neutral words, so I didn't have the vocabulary to express what I wanted to neutrally.)  It would be enormously helpful to have a reference where we can check these things without having to google for racism.

Why is a single provider for chaplaincy even an option?

Headline in the Globe and Mail: Corrections Canada seeks a single provider for prison chaplaincy services.

Why is this even an option?  By which I mean, before we get into matters of religion or philosophy or principle, does an organization that's capable of serving as a single provider for nationwide prison chaplaincy services even exist?  If so, why?  Given that Corrections just started doing this, who are their other clients?

They'd essentially have to be a multidenominational temp agency for clergy. Is there such thing?  Or is someone going to scramble to put one together as the result of this announcement?

Why don't you get the bends when you ride the subway?

From an article about digging the tunnel for the Eglinton LRT:

The tunneling crews that built New York City’s subways and sewers around the turn of the last century only spent part of their shifts digging tunnels.

Half their workday was devoted to decompression, so the urban miners working beneath the earth wouldn’t die from “the bends,” the atmospheric pressure-related illness that afflicts deep sea divers if they surface too quickly. It meant that every shift had to have two crews on at once — one digging, one decompressing.

So why don't people have to go through decompression to ride the subway?

The day I did surgery on a lamp

I was sitting curled up on the couch, reading by the light of the lamp on my end table.  I finished my chapter and got up to make dinner, pulling the cord of the lamp to switch it off.

And the cord came right out of the lamp and ended up in my hand.

Since the lamp was new and I'd have to buy a new one anyway, I figured I'd try to fix it.  Nothing to lose, right? So I unplugged it, took out the lightbulb, and started unscrewing anything that would unscrew and tugging anything that would tug.  Eventually, I had a nice little row of lined-up lamp parts, and I could see where the string had come from.  There was a bit of string still in there and attached to the switch, so I tried to tie the broken-off end to the remaining bit.  However, it was a bit of a tight squeeze and I couldn't get my fingers in, or manoeuvre it with tweezers.  So I tugged and twisted some more until I could see where and how the remaining bit of string was attached to the lamp, and then realized that it was a relatively simple matter to pull it out and replace it with a new and longer piece of string.

By this time, my neat little row of lined-up lamp parts had gotten disorganized, so I had to go through some trial and error and logic to figure out how to put it back together.  But my efforts were ultimately successful, and the lamp now turns on and off when I tug the new piece of string!  Now I just need to figure out how to reattach the decorative little dangly piece that normally hangs from the string, but that's easier because it's outside the lamp and the lamp is still functional even with the decorative little dangly piece.

This was absolutely amazing to me, because it was literally the first time in my entire life that I've fixed something without either having instructions or having first been in some way taught how to do it! Even my tech support skills, which include figuring out software from scratch, are based on a broadly-applicable methodology.

I blogged before about my experience figuring out how to assemble and disassemble a desk chair (for which I did have instructions, mediocre as they were).  This was similar - I looked at it, fiddled with it a bit, stepped away, came back with new inspiration, all over the period of a couple of days.  This is especially amazing to me because I literally could not figure things out like this when I was younger (e.g. in my teens).  I either would or wouldn't know how to do it, but no further enlightenment was forthcoming.

I had no idea that it was even a possibility for these kinds of cognitive skills to actually improve with age after adulthood is reached!  This gives me a lot of hope for the future that I may still have the ability to improve and gain skills in areas I never before thought possible.

Router update

In follow-up to my previous questions about routers, I ended up getting a Linksys N300 for no especially good reasons, and I discovered a few things:

- Nearly all, if not absolutely all, of the routers currently commercially available are wifi-capable
- You can turn off the wifi from the software
- You can also limit the number of users who connect to the router in the software.  The default setting was 50, but I limited it to 2 since I'm only connecting two computers. 

These last two things mitigate my wariness of having a wifi router.  I don't particularly need wifi, so I didn't really want to deal with having to secure an unnecessary wifi network.  But being able to turn it off and to limit the number of users makes me feel more secure.

One thing I haven't figured out: I can change router settings via software by going to a specific 192.*.*.* IP address.  However, this only works on my primary computer (i.e. the one I used to set up the router.  It doesn't work on my secondary computer, even though it's connected to the router too.  Is it supposed to be this way, or should I be able to reach the 192.*.*.* address with my secondary computer too?

Buying happiness: resilience

I was going to close out my Buying Happiness series by writing about how money buys resilience, but the fourth letter-writer in this Carolyn Hax column: does it much better than I ever could.

People with plenty of money have crummy luck all the time, too, but it’s just an inconvenience for them. My parents are millionaires. Last week their heater, car, and garage door broke. So what?
If they were poorer, each problem would’ve caused two more problems. People living on the edge are vulnerable to every mishap in a way that is catastrophic. It’s very hard to break the cycle. You need a string of good luck that lasts for years.

By the way, I’ve always tried to live within my means and got hit with the housing crisis in a perfect storm that reduced me to zero. So I’m not saying here that poorer people are doing something wrong; it’s just about having more than enough money to be able to recover.

The first time I ever had serious computer problems was terrifying. I was in university, I needed the computer for work and play and social life, and I couldn't possibly afford a new one.  Fortunately, Dell's warranty support saved my ass, but the prospect of being computer-less was terrifying.

I'm having computer problems again (I'll blog about them more fully once they're resolved) and they're now far less terrifying.  Even if I can't coax the desired behaviour out of my computer, I have my work computer, I have my old computer (which doesn't work super well, but can still do safe mode with networking), and I have my wifi-capable ipod and an open wifi network in my building's lobby (plus one in my very own apartment as long as I can keep my personal computer alive for long enough to turn on the wifi on my router). I can research my problem, I can access my comforts and my friends, and, if absolutely necessary, I can swallow the cost of a new computer that will meet my needs for at least a year.  So what was an ordeal when I was in university is, at best, an item on my to-do list.  Surely a huge step towards happiness!

Things Google Should Uninvent: "results for similar searches"

I've noticed a new thing on Google search results lately, called "Results for Similar Searches".  If it doesn't think my search query has a lot of results, it comes up with other similar combinations of keywords that would get more results, and puts them on the bottom half of the first results page.

The problem is, this feature has never once been helpful to me.  For example, I was searching for an individual. I won't use the real name here, but my search was analogous to jon smythe toronto.  So Google, under "Results for Similar Searches", kept giving me results for things that were analogous to john smith toronto or john toronto or even john smith.  Which is not what I needed.  I spelled the individual's name correctly.  I put "Toronto" to limit results.  I chose my search terms quite deliberately.  Cluttering up my first page of results with similar terms that produce unrelated results just pisses me off.

As another example, in an attempt to clarify Reddit's April Fool's joke, I googled reddit what do all the hats mean.  The "Results for Similar Searches" contained what do all caps mean and what does many hats mean (the latter in the context of wearing several hats in one's job, i.e. fulfilling many roles.)  Neither of these were remotely relevant.  I was looking for a chart that would give me a meaning of each of the little hat flare icons that you could put on people's Reddit usernames.  But even if you didn't know what I was looking for, it should be clear that the presence of the word "reddit" in my search was important.  Even if I had meant one of those two similar searches and had misspoken "caps" into "hats" or "many" into "all the", I wouldn't have typed "reddit" unless I meant it for a reason.

I've complained in the past about how Google's attempts to "help" me interfere with  my attempts to use it as a corpus for linguistic research, but this is worse because they're interfering with searches for actual information. Usually Google's predictions are helpful (I don't even worry about typoes when I'm searching, and I actually use their autocorrect system when I'm doing medical translations and can't read handwritten medication names - I just type what I think I'm reading, and Google tells me what I really need), but this one is useless and disruptive, taking up valuable space on my first page of results that could otherwise go to actual results of my actual search.

I hope Google will eliminate this alleged feature, or at least fix its predictions so they're as useful as its usual autocorrect.

Things They Should Invent: use the names of companies as synonyms for their bad employment practices

The pinnacle of branding is when your brand is used as a generic, like kleenex or xerox or google.

So let's leverage this and start using the names of companies as the generic for their most famous bad employment practice.

Got screwed out of your pension?  You got nortelled.  Got your telework status suddenly revoked?  You got yahooed.

Things Google Should Invent: unclick that link

Google tracks click-throughs.  You can see this when you right-click on a link in search results.  Rather than the link of the target page, it gives you http://www.google.ca/url?[insert alphanumeric sequence here]. 

The problem with this is when you click on a link that looks promising, but it turns out not to be what you're looking for.  Google still counts that as a click-through, even though it's an unhelpful result.

I'd like to have the option of, when I go back to the search results to find something more useful, clicking a little checkbox next to the unhelpful link that says "This isn't what I was looking for with this search," so Google can learn from this.

They did once have a thing where you can ban certain websites from your personal search results, but that's way more drastic than what I'm thinking of.  For example, perhaps a search for "Jon Doe" "University of Toronto" turns up the Facebook page of a Jon Doe who lives in Toronto, but it isn't the Jon Doe who's a prof at U of T. That doesn't mean I never want to see search results from Facebook again.  That doesn't even mean I never want to see this particular Jon Doe again.  It just means that this is not the Jon Doe I'm looking for with those keywords. 

It's also possible that Google might be able to track when we return to the search results and select another result.  The problem is that doesn't tell them if the first thing we clicked on was unsatisfactory, or if we're just looking for further information. (If I'm researching/hiring/stalking Jon Doe, I'm not going to stop at one search result.)  Allowing us to inform Google when individual results aren't what we were looking for will clarify this ambiguity.

Can you mail a package to a baby in Australia?

I really wish Not Always Right had a comments section after reading this story, where a plot point is an apparent Australian post office rule that only the person whose name is on the package is allowed to pick up the package.

I've sent My Favourite Little Person a number of things in the mail over the course of her life, and I always put her name on the package and address her in the second person in the enclosed note. Her parents have told me they appreciate this, because it respects her humanity.  She's small and preverbal, but still deserves to be addressed as a person.

However, she would not be able to pick up a package.  She can't sign for it, and she doesn't even have photo ID.  So if she lived in Australia and I addressed the package to her, would it be forever caught in limbo because she's a baby?

Can you recommend a Google Reader replacement with visual notification?

One function I really like about Google Reader is that, when I'm signed in, the Google Reader icon on my Google toolbar turns green when there are new posts waiting for me in Reader.  Because this exact functionality was not available in Chrome when the Google toolbar stopped being compatible with Firefox (which was also a dick move on Google's part, BTW), I stopped upgrading Firefox at version 10.

I'd really like to duplicate this functionality in whatever I end up replacing Google Reader with, i.e. I'd like a visual cue when there is new reading material waiting for me.  I don't need (and would prefer not to have) something that pops up every single time a new post arrives, I just want to be able to know when something new is present so I don't have to keep checking back.

I use Firefox as my primary browser.  I'm willing to upgrade my Firefox, but I don't want to switch to Chrome because I'm losing trust in Google.

Can you recommend anything?  Or, conversely, have you tried any Google Reader alternatives that don't have this feature so I can avoid them?

Post your router recommendations here

I am looking into buying a router for the purpose of connecting two computers to my (Rogers) cable modem at the same time. I intend to connect them by ethernet, not wi-fi. I have no objection to the router being wi-fi capable, but I'd like the option of disabling its wi-fi so I don't have to worry about securing a wi-fi network that I don't even need. I don't anticipate needing to connect more than two computers at once.

I'm asking about routers because that's what the internet tells me I need to connect two computers to the cable modem at once, but if you know of another, better way to do it, please let me know.

Also, if there's a particular router that you recommend not using, I'd appreciate knowing that as well.

Anonymous comments welcome.

Google Reader cancellation braindump

Silos

I use RSS feeds to follow websites, newspaper columnists, webcomics, blogs, comment threads, livejournals, tumblrs, fanfiction, and YouTube channels all in one convenient place.  Before I joined Twitter, I also used it for Twitter feeds.  This saves me the trouble of having to go to each website separately to check for updates. By nudging the internet away from RSS feeds, Google is encouraging the siloing of the internet.  Each of these things has its own mechanism for following within the website.  We use RSS to follow them all in one convenient place.  But weakening RSS and creating the perception that it's obsolete might drive websites to neglect it and move towards a more siloed approach, trying to force you to follow each website only from within that website.  (I've actually noticed that with YouTube lately - if I use youtube while logged into a google account, it has suddenly started acting as though that's a youtube account and encouraging me to make a channel, even though my youtube use is entirely passive and I have no interest in having an actual account. The few youtube channels I do follow, I follow with RSS.)

Social media

Some of the commentary I've read suggests that RSS is less necessary now that we have social media.  I don't understand this line of thinking.  The people I'm connected to on social media do often provide interesting links, but they're a supplement to, not a replacement for, my own Google Reader.  My Google Reader contains the things I want to read - specific bloggers and websites and columnists and communities and comics and fic authors that I've decided I want to read to completion, and be informed as soon as they update. I'm not just looking for something to read, I have specific things I want to read.  So how does it happen that someone thinks having self-curated reading material is inferior to just reading whatever their friends happen to link to? Do they not have their own preferences?  Are they really bad at determining what will be interesting to them?

Novelty

Google's decision to kill both Google Reader and iGoogle seems to be because newer things exist.  I blogged about this before regarding their decision to kill iGoogle, where they seem to think people are going to stop using the Web because apps exist, and stop using regular computers because tablets exist.  I dislike this because the newer things don't meet the same needs. (Even if I had a tablet, I wouldn't use it to translate or blog or play Sims.)  I've also noticed this reflected in search results themselves.  Google searches seem to prioritize newer information over older information, even when you're not searching by date, which can be irritating if you're trying to determine the origin of something. They don't even have the option of reverse sort by date, so you can quickly and easily find the origin or the first recorded occurrence of something.

Permanence oblige

Google is 15 years old, which is massive in internet time.  (I myself have been using the internet regularly for under 20 years.) It has been the best search engine for all this time. Gmail is 9 years old, which is also a significant period in internet time, and it has been the best webmail provider for all this time.  Even for people who are supposed to be techy and of the moment, a gmail address is perfectly respectable in a way that a hotmail address never quite was.  Because Google has been the very best for so long, it is the closest thing the internet has to permanence, stability, longevity.  And, because of it's permanence, stability and longevity, it has a greater duty of reliability and dependability than some random startup.  If you want to be an essential part of people's internet experience, you have to create enough stability that people can feel safe taking the risk of making their internet experience dependent on you.  Google is losing some of this credibility.

Evil?

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

There is a petition to save Google Reader here.

Buying happiness: quality housing

My apartment was brand new when I moved into it, nearly six years ago.  It has many improvements over my previous apartment (which was built in the 1970s).  I have big windows (and I face east and am above the building next door), so I enjoy direct sunlight that helps my circadian rhythms. I have a washer and dryer in my actual suite, which means I don't have to schlep down to the basement three times per load of laundry, or hoard quarters and loonies, or worry about what I'm going to wear while I do laundry. I have a dishwasher, which means that my least favourite chore (apart from exercise and pest control) is completely eliminated.  And, speaking of pest control, I average one bug a year here, compared with one bug every two months in my old place and several bugs a month in student housing.  Since a bug equals a panic attack, this is a revelation.  Making rent is always tight, and I can't think of anything I'd rather be spending it on.


This is why I will never be convinced that money can't buy happiness.  I've bought a near-elimination of panic attacks, and of the tedium of two major chores, as well as a sunlight pattern that helps adapt my circadian rhythms to the realities of everyday life.

All of this sounds disgustingly privilegey, but this is why I'm so opposed to the N2 rent increase exemption - it puts the quality of life I enjoy further and further out of the reach of more and more Ontarians (which might include me eventually if I hadn't bought a condo - my rent has always increased at a greater rate than my salary).  I've benefited so much from buying this happiness that I want to to be affordable to everyone.

Complaints about baby toys: alphabet blocks

A while back, I had the idea of getting My Favourite Little Person some alphabet blocks.  That way, when she begins to approach literacy, they'll have a toy in the house that people can use to make words and demonstrate phonetics whenever the spirit moves them. And, in the meantime, she can make towers and knock them down, which is always entertaining.

So I went to a toy store and looked at their alphabet blocks, but I was very disappointed to discover that the picture on each the block didn't correspond with the letter on that block.  So I went to another store and looked at more blocks, and, again the picture didn't correspond.  Eventually I decided to put off the alphabet block purchase until she was older (she was under a year old and completely pre-verbal when I was looking at alphabet blocks), and she ended up getting some alphabet blocks form someone else in the interim.  But the ones she owns don't have pictures that correspond with the letters either.

Why do they even make alphabet blocks where the pictures don't correspond with the letters?  Someone at some point in the design process has to decide which pictures go on which blocks, so why not choose something that starts with that letter?

The first block should have the letter A, the number 1, and an apple. The second block should have the letter B, the number 2, and a ball.  And they should continue with this pattern all the way to Z, with duplicates of the more common letters so people can use them to make actual words.

This isn't complicated.  It probably takes more thought to come up with another system.  So why not maximize their educational value?

My experience with Staples

I needed to replace my desk chair and Staples was having a good sale  I went into the store and tried out a chair that looked promising, and I didn't perceive any problems with it so I decided to buy it.

Because their delivery times coincide exactly with my normal work hours, I called their 800 number to ask if it was possible to schedule a delivery for a specific day (i.e. an upcoming day when I was schedule to work at home).  The very nice man who took my call told me that it was, and took my order right then and there.  I was very impressed that I could just call them up and ask for what I want and get it, and thought that their "Easy!" advertising was actually true.

The delivery happened as scheduled, and the delivery people were super nice. The chair came in a box, disassembled, and I found the assembly instructions were less helpful than they could have been.  They told which pieces to attach to each other and where to attach them, but they didn't always make it clear how. (More about the assembly and disassembly experience here, framed as a cognitive experience.)  I assembled it over a period of several days (I could have done it in an hour or two if I'd had to, but I would have gotten extremely frustrated), but the assembly was ultimately a success.

But once I got it assembled and sat in it for a couple of hours, I realized it was ergonomically unsuitable.  The arm rests were higher than my elbows on their lowest setting, and the bulge in the seat back that's meant to support the lumbar spine was taller than my lumbar curve, so it was forcing my back to curve forward not only in the lumbar spine where it naturally curves forward, but also in the bottom portion of the thoracic spine where it naturally starts curving back towards my back.  (I'm 5'7", with long legs and a short torso.) I didn't notice this in the store because I was just looking for whether lumbar support is present - it never occurred to me it might be too big.

So I called the 800 number again to ask about the possibility of returning the chair, and I was very happy to hear that not only was I allowed to return it, but they could pick it up from me and schedule the pick-up on the day of my choosing.  So I chose my next day off work (which was close to the end of the 30-day return period), and disassembled and repackaged the chair, again over a period of days.

On the day of the scheduled pick-up (a Friday), I pushed the box containing the chair over to the door of my apartment (it weighed about 50 pounds, so I couldn't lift it in the box - I could easily roll the chair on its wheels and lift and carry it short distances when it was assembled in chair form, but the box was too big and unwieldy), made sure my phone line was not in use all day so I'd be able to buzz the pick-up guy in, and settled down to wait.  But he never came.

I called the 800 number, and the very nice lady who answered verified that they did have a pickup scheduled, told me that this very rarely happens, and rescheduled the pickup for the following Tuesday.  (I was very, very fortunate that my boss let me work at home on the Tuesday on such short notice.)

On the Tuesday I worked at home, again keeping my phone line clear, again not leaving the apartment even for a second between the 9-5 window.  But the pick-up guy never came.

I called the 800 number again.  The very nice man who answered empathized with my situation, gave me a $20 credit for my trouble, reassured me that I would still be allowed to return it even though we were going beyond the 30-day return period because they had a record of the saga and it clearly wasn't my fault, and rescheduled my pick-up for the Friday of that week.  (Again, my boss went above and beyond by allowing me two short-notices work-at-home days in a week.)  I also reported the problem to Staples via Twitter, and got a voicemail from another very nice lady confirming that my pickup had been scheduled for the Friday and giving me a different 800 number to call if there should be any problem.

Then, just to complicate things, I got home from work on Thursday to find a voicemail from the pick-up guy, saying he was there to pick up my chair and would come back the next day.  This caused a brief panic that the pick-up had been scheduled wrong, but a very nice person at the 800 number confirmed that it was in fact schedule for the Friday.

On Friday, I worked at home, one again kept my phone line clear and stayed in the apartment, and the pick-up guy came as scheduled.  He was super nice and took the box away with no fuss even though it was packaged less perfectly than I'd received it.

So here's what I've learned:

- I do not recommend using Staples if you're going to be dependent on their delivery and/or pick-up service and being at home on a weekday is difficult for you. I get the impression that the delivery service is more intended to serve businesses, where there's someone in during business hours every day anyway and if they come the next day instead of the scheduled day it isn't a huge deal.  I should add that Staples would also have accepted my return if I brought it into a store, but that was logistically impossible for me because I don't have a car and couldn't lift the box.  If you normally have someone home during the day, this problem won't affect you. If you can handle the transportation for the product in question yourself, this problem won't affect you.  But if you're not normally home on weekdays and the combination of the nature of the product purchased and the transportation options available to you makes it impossible for you to get the product to or from a store, you might want to look into other stores to see if there are better options out there.

- I do not recommend this Staples Multifunction Task Chair if you're under maybe 5'9".  The armrests were too high on their lowest setting and the lumbar spine support was too tall/long for my 5'7" short-torsoed body.

- If you struggle with assembling Ikea furniture, you will probably find it difficult to assemble Staples chairs. The instructions are less detailed than Ikea instructions.  The pieces are also rather heavy.  I could handle it, my grandmother wouldn't be able to handle it. My parents could probably handle it, but someone with back problems could hurt themselves.  However, you might also look into whether the store provides an assembly service.  I seem to remember from my initial research a thing where you can pay an extra $10 or $20 and they'll assemble it for you, but I can't currently confirm its existence, and I'm not sure whether I found it on a US or Canada Staples site.

I should add that throughout this ordeal, every single customer service person I dealt with was awesome, and the delivery people were super nice as well.  It's just the customer service people in their call centre had no way of making the delivery truck actually come to me, so it caused me quite disproportionate inconvenience.  I really appreciated how I could call their 800 number and, with minimal to no hold time, talk to a human being, asked for what I wanted in words, and have them arrange for it to be done.  I didn't have to make a special request or game the system, I just asked and they what they do to make it happen.

Except that it didn't always end up actually happening.  And that unfortunate disconnect between the superb customer service in the call centre and whatever was going on with the truck is the only reason why this isn't a glowing review and is instead an epic saga.

Things Foodland Ontario Should Invent: "If you like...then you might like..."

My very favourite apples are Cortlands, which aren't available all year, and my second-favourite are McIntosh, which are available nearly all year. I make do with Paula Reds and Ida Reds during the summer gap, but I don't like those ones nearly that much.  I actively dislike Red Delicious and similar varieties. I find Granny Smith too tart and Honeycrisp too crisp.

Currently, the Loblaws I usually go doesn't have either Cortlands or Macs. Metro had Cortlands up until this week (although they were the kind in the bag rather than the kind in the bin), and now they still have Macs. (This is an interesting reversal - usually Loblaws more reliably has produce I like better.) 

However, I've noticed in both supermarkets a sudden influx of apple varieties I don't recognize.  There may well be apples I like among these new varieties, but I have no way of knowing which ones, and I don't much fancy the idea of buying and eating a bunch of apples I don't like just in case one of them meets needs already met by existing varieties.

I think Foodland Ontario could help me with this.

Foodland Ontario's mandate is to encourage people to buy local produce.  Surely helping us discover new things we like falls within this mandate!  Foodland Ontario is also basically the "official" source of information about produce varieties.  If there's such thing as tasting notes for apple varieties, they'd be the ones who have them.

So they should take the information they have about all the different apple varieties, and use it to make a grid, or a flowchart, or a nifty little interactive website where I can input the fact that I like Cortlands and Macs and dislike Red Delicious, and it would tell me what other varieties I'm likely to enjoy. The more varieties you can give your opinion on, the better results it could get - so if you do find yourself going through the produce section doing trial and error, it can help you pick better next time.

"It's just gas."

There exists the idea that newborn babies don't really smile to show that they're happy, it's just their face happens to land in that position sometimes.  A common explanation is "It's just gas."

I can't tell you if this is true or not.  There are people on the internet who confirm this statement and saying that it's a common misconception that babies really smile, and there are people on the internet saying it's a common misconception that babies don't smile and they totally really do.

But the pervasiveness of this idea that babies don't smile means that once upon a time someone discovered it or thought they discovered it, and then they - and many other people - perpetuated the idea.

Why would someone do this??

If you, as the adult, think the baby has smiled at you, you're happier.  You feel "Awww, she likes me!" and that brightens your day.  Your happiness may make the baby feel happier, safer, or more relaxed, or it may be neutral, depending on how well the baby can read your moods and how much they affect her moods.

If you think the baby likes you in general, you're more likely to want to engage with her, and more often, so you can see her smile again.  Engaging with the baby is good for her social development and her language development, and will probably help her get to know you better and build trust with a loving adult.  Plus, if you genuinely feel that the baby likes you, you're more likely to respond sympathetically to her.  When she's crying, you're more likely to go "Awww, poor baby!" rather than "Shut up, you ungrateful little brat!"  This will make her feel safe and secure and loved, which is good for her long-term social and psychological development.

In short, thinking that the baby has smiled at you makes life a little happier for everyone and, even if it's not true, there's no downside. Conversely, if you think any sign of affection from the baby is just instinct or fluke or gas, the best possible outcome is neutral, and the worst is neglect.

So why would someone do science with the goal of proving that the baby doesn't really like you?  Or, if they discovered this by accident, why would people work so hard to perpetuate it?  Even if the truth is that the baby doesn't actually like you because she's too young to like you, there's nothing lost and a certain amount gained by being deluded into thinking she likes you.

How to organize hair accessories

I was sorting through a drawer, and I noticed it contained a lot of loose hair clips, and a lot of loose hair elastics.  I was considering getting some kind of container or organizing device, and then I had a brainstorm:

I grouped all the like clips together, then I wrapped all the like hair elastics around each bundle of clips. The elastics keep the clips together in bundles, and the clips provide something to wrap the elastics around without stretching them out, so they won't rattle around loose and sink to the bottom of the drawer.

This takes up less space than any organizing device, the hair accessories are far more readily visible in the drawer than when they're loose, and I can tell what I own at a glance. 

Thoughts from advice columns: assuming panhandlers have a kitchen

DEAR ABBY: I spent the afternoon running errands. As I left the shopping center, I saw a young couple with a baby and a toddler holding a sign requesting help with food, as the husband had just been laid off. I drove past, then considered the children and circled back.
I had no cash with me, so I stopped and offered them our family's dinner -- a jar of premium spaghetti sauce, a pound of fresh ground beef, a box of dried spaghetti, fruit cups that my children usually take to school for treats, and some canned soups I occasionally have for lunch.
Imagine my surprise when the couple declined my generosity. Instead, the man strongly suggested that I should go to a nearby ATM and withdraw cash to donate to them because they preferred to select their own groceries and pay their phone bills. What are your thoughts on this? -- GENUINELY PUZZLED IN AUSTIN, TEXAS

What surprises me most about this letter, and Abby's response, and all the comments I've seen made on it in the places where people normally comment on advice columns, is no one seems to notice that she gave a family who's panhandling a bunch of food that requires a kitchen to prepare it.  You can't assume that panhandles have a kitchen! Everything but the spaghetti sauce and the fruit cups is inaccessible without cooking equipment, and the spaghetti sauce and the fruit cups cannot be eaten in anything remotely approaching a dignified manner without utensils.  (And that's before we even get into possible medical issues - if I were to eat enough straight spaghetti sauce to assuage my hunger, I'd require medication that costs $3 a day to keep my body from destroying itself.)

This family may or may not have been in genuine need, it may or may not have been a scam, and they may or may not have an actual home.  But I'm very surprised that LW was so taken aback that panhandlers would decline an offer of raw meat that she felt the need to write in to Dear Abby, and I'm very surprised that no one else seems to have glommed onto this fact.

Spoilerrific Downton braindump

Warning: this post contains spoilers for all of Downton Abbey to date.

- So why did O'Brien have it in for Thomas all this season anyway?  If the show told us, I've forgotten.

- I think making Robert basically incompetent at his job of being Earl of Grantham is a good and interesting direction for the show to take.  In the first two seasons, many people criticized the character for being too perfect - kind and benevolent to everyone.  But having him be incompetent (and a wee bit out of touch) while continuing to be kind and benevolent makes him far more interesting.  It's also an interesting contrast with Ethel: Robert is incompetent but gets to retain his position and will live in luxury for basically the rest of his natural life; Ethel made one mistake, and is socially deemed unemployable and reduced to prostitution.

- Although I'm surprised that Ethel didn't just take off for some other part of the country and claim to be a widow. They'd just had a war and an influenza outbreak, I'm quite sure there were many young widows with small children.

- I'm disappointed that we'll never get to see Sybil's everyday life in Ireland. It would have been so interesting to see how she adjusted.  Even with her nurse training, she probably would have had her own "What is a weekend?" moment.  For example, she's probably never done laundry (it was time-consuming in that era, and I doubt they would have had trained nurses doing hospital laundry when any untrained person could have done it) and she's probably never gone grocery shopping.

- I really don't get why Robert and the Dowager Countess were so put off by the prospect of Edith marrying an older man and therefore having to nurse him through his dotage.  So what if she does?  Basically, she'd be earning her pension.  It's the early 20th century British nobility equivalent of taking some tedious administrative job in a university so your kids will have drug coverage and a dental plan.  And, I just realized, Robert had his own marriage of convenience, which worked out splendidly!

- (Speaking of, they should make a Downton prequel that covers the early days of Robert's and Cora's marriage.  A benign marriage of mutual convenience has got to be an interesting interpersonal dynamic, and not something we often (if ever) see in fiction.)

- This means Sir Anthony Strallan's "I'm leaving you at the altar for your own good" thing was a triply dick move.  First, because Edith gets to decide for herself what her own good is, thank you very much.  Second, because he's denying her the opportunity to earn her pension. As of the time of the wedding, Downton was broke and the family was going to downsize.  Sir Anthony still had his fortune.  His refusing to marry her because he thought she could do better would be like that university administrative job refusing to hire you because they unilaterally decide that this job wouldn't be your passion.  And third, he's leaving Edith dependent on her family.  Which doesn't just mean she's dependent on her parents, it also means that, once her parents die, she'll be dependent on Matthew and Mary.  Imagine being financially at the mercy of your least favourite sibling for the rest of your life!  Leaving someone in that situation is certainly not noble, Sir Anthony!  In fact, the noble thing for someone in Sir Anthony's position to do for someone in Lady Edith's position would be to marry her even if he isn't attracted to her but they get along reasonably well enough for a marriage of convenience.

- At the very very least, Edith should have gotten breakfast in bed the morning after she was jilted at the altar!

- I really want to know the internal logic of this "married women get breakfast in bed" rule!  How did they come up with it and why?  Surely getting dressed and going downstairs is just as difficult for an unmarried woman!  Also, why don't they share with their husbands?  We saw several scenes of a woman eating breakfast in bed and chatting with her husband while he gets dressed to go down and eat breakfast.  I don't know about you, but if my spouse were right there with food while I was getting ready to go get food, I'd certainly stop getting ready and start eating off their plate!  I also wonder if women who have been married but now aren't (widows and divorcées) get breakfast in bed.  Maybe we'll learn next season...

- I think we needed a bit more "show, don't tell" about how many men of the daughters' generation died in WWI.  Sybil mentioned once that it seems like every man she's ever danced with is dead, and Edith told Robert that it's ridiculous to object to her marrying someone older because so many of the men of her generation died, but we haven't actually seen this.  William (the footman who married Daisy) died, the father of Ethel's baby died, and...that's it for named characters, I think. Maybe a scene where they're organizing some major social event for the first time since before the war, and a huge chunk of their guest list is dead?  Too bad they jumped right from 1918 to 1920 at the end of season 2, so now they can't really address this any more.

- I really do think they've had time moving too quickly in this show.  We've had 9 years in three short seasons!  I kind of get why they didn't want WWI to last more than 1 season, and they had to make the last xmas special take place nearly a year after season 3 for obvious plot reasons, but if we keep up this pace they'll have to kill off the Dowager Countess from old age in a season or two!

- I really want to know what Mary's medical problem was!  A "small operation" that restores female fertility and could be successfully diagnosed and carried out in the year 1920. And, whatever the problem was, it presumably didn't interfere with the mechanics of sex, because if it had then Matthew wouldn't be worrying that the problem might be him.  Anyone have enough medical knowledge to figure out what this was?  Theory: maybe it isn't a real condition at all and is just a plot device.

- I had the misfortune to learn that the actor who plays Matthew was leaving the show before I even started watching Season 3, so the whole plot of the Season 3 xmas special seemed glaringly projected to me.  I knew where they had to end up, so the foreshadowing and such seemed completely unsubtle.

- Why oh why oh why did they have to name the latest new maid Edna?  We already have Edith and Ethel for me to get mixed up.  Why introduce yet another two syllable old lady name that starts with E?  (I know they're probably old lady names because of the era, but we also have names like Mary and Anna and Matthew.)

Things They Should Invent: track your delivery truck online

I spent Friday waiting at home for Staples to come and pick up the chair I'm returning.  (They never did, and they won't be able to find out what happened until Monday.  I'll be posting a full review of my experience once it's over.)  I was told that the truck would come sometime between 9:00 and 5:00, and they couldn't give me a narrower window.

Because of this, I had to spend the whole day ready for the truck to come.  I couldn't use the phone because I had to keep it free for when they buzzed me.  I took the phone into the bathroom when I had my shower and rushed through my shower as quickly as possible so as not to get caught in the shower when they arrived.  I wanted to run down to the corner store to pick up more milk, but I couldn't in case I ended up not being home when the truck came.

GPS technology exists, and tracking GPS location via internet exists, so why don't they use this to  make a website where we can log on with our tracking number and they'll tell us where the truck we're waiting for is?  If it's out in Scarborough, I probably have time to have a shower or run to the store.  If it's 2 blocks away, I might want to wait.

Apart from privacy issues, I do see how this might cause some customer relations problems.  People might be sitting there watching their truck get closer and closer and then make an angry phone call to customer service if it make a turn that takes it in a direction away from them, even if it's following its route normally. So I also have some alternatives in mind:

- Tell customers the minimum estimated time for the truck to reach them.  For example, if the truck would reach you in 10 minutes if it dropped everything and drove straight to you, the website would tell you that.  This would be phrased in a way to make it clear that it may be way more than 10 minutes, and it would come with a big loud disclaimer to that effect.

- If the truck has a regular route, tell customers how far into the route they are and how far into the route the truck is.  For example, "You are 75% of the way through the truck's normal route.  The truck is currently 20% of the way through its route."

- Show customers the truck's normal route on the map.  So if it goes all the way down the south side of the street and then comes back up the north side of the street later, the map would show that.  Might reduce angry calls from customers who just saw the truck on the other side of the street and then it drove away.

- Give a time estimate, based on the scheduled route and the truck's current location, and include a loud disclaimer to the effect that this is about as reliable as the estimated download time on your computer.

In any case, some information either already exists or would exist if they'd put GPS on the trucks.  Giving us whatever information is available would make the prospect of an eight-hour delivery window far less tedious, because even if we couldn't tell when delivery is imminent, we could at least tell when it isn't imminent.