New:
1. The Marvels by Brian Selznick
2. Euphoria by Lily King
3. The Fame Thief by Timothy Hallinan
4. Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (a.k.a. J.K. Rowling)
Reread:
1. Portrait in Death
Monday, November 30, 2015
Saturday, November 21, 2015
The 35% minimum
An article about the Catholic school board introducing a minimum mid-term report card grade of 35% gave me a lot of questions, despite the fact that it's completely irrelevant to me
First, I found myself wondering how common this situation even is!
How many students are actually getting a mark of under 35%? How many of them are going to be able to pull their mark up to a pass by the end of the semester? And why 35%, of all numbers?
Also, when I was in school at least, teachers entered the mark for each assignment into a spreadsheet, which weighted them accordingly and calculated the student's overall mark. The overall mark was not subjective; it was the mathematical result of the mark one each test and assignment. Because of this, you could figure out how many points you needed to get on an assignment or exam or during the rest of the semester to reach a certain grade. (During bouts of senioritis, this was also used to calculated where you could slack off.)
So if a student's real total is under 35% but their report card shows 35%, they might use the 35% to calculate how well they need to do in the second semester to pass the whole course. But if they really have some unknown number less than 35%, they won't get the mark they expect when all the numbers are plugged into the teacher's spreadsheet. Is there some mechanism in place to address this problem?
I'm labelling this post "journalism wanted" because, even though the situation has nothing to do with me, I left the article with way more questions than I went in with. And if I have all these questions, surely the people affected have even more.
First, I found myself wondering how common this situation even is!
How many students are actually getting a mark of under 35%? How many of them are going to be able to pull their mark up to a pass by the end of the semester? And why 35%, of all numbers?
Also, when I was in school at least, teachers entered the mark for each assignment into a spreadsheet, which weighted them accordingly and calculated the student's overall mark. The overall mark was not subjective; it was the mathematical result of the mark one each test and assignment. Because of this, you could figure out how many points you needed to get on an assignment or exam or during the rest of the semester to reach a certain grade. (During bouts of senioritis, this was also used to calculated where you could slack off.)
So if a student's real total is under 35% but their report card shows 35%, they might use the 35% to calculate how well they need to do in the second semester to pass the whole course. But if they really have some unknown number less than 35%, they won't get the mark they expect when all the numbers are plugged into the teacher's spreadsheet. Is there some mechanism in place to address this problem?
I'm labelling this post "journalism wanted" because, even though the situation has nothing to do with me, I left the article with way more questions than I went in with. And if I have all these questions, surely the people affected have even more.
Friday, November 20, 2015
Toilet plungers
I was in a Home Hardware (where I don't shop very often, because it's less convenient than many other stores), and one of the items I was looking for was Draino. (An occupational hazard of having long hair!) I looked on the shelf with all the other household cleaning products (which is where it always is in supermarkets and drug stores), but couldn't find it. So I asked an employee, and he took me to the very, very back of the store, where there was an assortment of drain decloggers alongside a wall of toilet plungers.
Which raises the question: why are the toilet plungers at the very, very back of the store? The items at the very, very back tend to be those that you need the help of expert employees for (i.e. the middle-aged full-timer with half a dozen DIY renovations under their belt, not the teenager stocking the shelves), and toilet plungers don't seem to fall into that category.
So why are they at the very, very back? Walk of shame? Or are they frequently shoplifted by people trying to avoid a walk of shame?
Or are they just trying to make sure people don't think it's a poo shop?
Which raises the question: why are the toilet plungers at the very, very back of the store? The items at the very, very back tend to be those that you need the help of expert employees for (i.e. the middle-aged full-timer with half a dozen DIY renovations under their belt, not the teenager stocking the shelves), and toilet plungers don't seem to fall into that category.
So why are they at the very, very back? Walk of shame? Or are they frequently shoplifted by people trying to avoid a walk of shame?
Or are they just trying to make sure people don't think it's a poo shop?
Thursday, November 19, 2015
New Rules: Natural Consequences Edition VIII
I was trying to brainstorm this one a while back, but a simple, elegant solution came to me in the shower.
12. If you lie to someone about their own thoughts, feelings, motives or experiences, you have to shut up for 24 hours. You are not allowed to talk in the presence of the person to whom you lied about themselves during this time. If the lie was communicated by mass media or another non-verbal medium, you're not allowed to use the medium in question in a way that will enter their sphere of awareness for the next 24 hours. So if you tweeted the lie, you can't tweet for 24 hours. If you mentioned it in a TV interview, you can't talk on TV for 24 hours. (So if you're a politician campaigning, be careful when you say "Torontonians want X")
For every subsequent offence, this 24-hour period is doubled (e.g. 48 hours for the second offence, 96 hours for the third offence, etc.)
The person to whom you lied about themselves is has the discretion to permit you to respond to a direct query on a case by case basis, but if you lie to them during this time it counts as a subsequent offence, and the punishment for the subsequent offence is doubled. Sentences are served consecutively. (e.g. If, during the 24-hour period following your first lie, they give you permission to respond to a direct query and you lie to them about themselves in your response, you have to serve another 96 hours after the first 24 hours expires.)
13. Sometimes, people who say assholic things claim that they're the only one brave enough to express that opinion, when in reality no one else is even thinking those assholic thoughts.
People who do this should be treated like they're too cowardly to do every single thing that it has never occurred to them to do, with whatever the attendant social consequences of not being brave are in their circle.
12. If you lie to someone about their own thoughts, feelings, motives or experiences, you have to shut up for 24 hours. You are not allowed to talk in the presence of the person to whom you lied about themselves during this time. If the lie was communicated by mass media or another non-verbal medium, you're not allowed to use the medium in question in a way that will enter their sphere of awareness for the next 24 hours. So if you tweeted the lie, you can't tweet for 24 hours. If you mentioned it in a TV interview, you can't talk on TV for 24 hours. (So if you're a politician campaigning, be careful when you say "Torontonians want X")
For every subsequent offence, this 24-hour period is doubled (e.g. 48 hours for the second offence, 96 hours for the third offence, etc.)
The person to whom you lied about themselves is has the discretion to permit you to respond to a direct query on a case by case basis, but if you lie to them during this time it counts as a subsequent offence, and the punishment for the subsequent offence is doubled. Sentences are served consecutively. (e.g. If, during the 24-hour period following your first lie, they give you permission to respond to a direct query and you lie to them about themselves in your response, you have to serve another 96 hours after the first 24 hours expires.)
13. Sometimes, people who say assholic things claim that they're the only one brave enough to express that opinion, when in reality no one else is even thinking those assholic thoughts.
People who do this should be treated like they're too cowardly to do every single thing that it has never occurred to them to do, with whatever the attendant social consequences of not being brave are in their circle.
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Paternity and participation
Just a few of the many thing that exist in the world:
1. People who think that a good sense of humour means not holding back when it occurs to you to make a joke, and that uttering every potentially-humorous thing that occurs to you, no matter how worthy or advisable, is laudable.
2. People who think that being present in your children's lives is sufficient to constitute good parenting.
3. People who think it's disgraceful that Kids Today allegedly get trophies for participation.
I've noticed that Category 1 seems to correlate with fatherhood, to the extent that really pathetic jokes that aren't even worth the breath it takes to utter them are called "dad jokes"
I've noticed that Category 2 seems to correlate with fatherhood, to the extent that people think the character of Cliff Huxtable is an exemplar of fatherhood solely on the grounds that he's seen on screen interacting with his children.
And, in my own experience, the majority of people (or, at least, the loudest segment) in Category 3 are men. I don't know how many of them are fathers, but most fathers are men.
So I find myself wondering how many people fall into all three categories, wanting kudos for mere participation in humour and/or fatherhood, but complaining when the same thing is offered to their children.
1. People who think that a good sense of humour means not holding back when it occurs to you to make a joke, and that uttering every potentially-humorous thing that occurs to you, no matter how worthy or advisable, is laudable.
2. People who think that being present in your children's lives is sufficient to constitute good parenting.
3. People who think it's disgraceful that Kids Today allegedly get trophies for participation.
I've noticed that Category 1 seems to correlate with fatherhood, to the extent that really pathetic jokes that aren't even worth the breath it takes to utter them are called "dad jokes"
I've noticed that Category 2 seems to correlate with fatherhood, to the extent that people think the character of Cliff Huxtable is an exemplar of fatherhood solely on the grounds that he's seen on screen interacting with his children.
And, in my own experience, the majority of people (or, at least, the loudest segment) in Category 3 are men. I don't know how many of them are fathers, but most fathers are men.
So I find myself wondering how many people fall into all three categories, wanting kudos for mere participation in humour and/or fatherhood, but complaining when the same thing is offered to their children.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Help write the next New Rules: Natural Consequences Edition
Last week's Carolyn Hax chat mentions in various places parents scolding adult children with variations on "That's not how I raised you!" (They're scattered throughout the chat - easiest way to find them is by doing a Ctrl+F for "raise".)
This statement does a lot of things. It disregards the adult child's very selfhood by treating their choices like nothing more than the result of the parent's input rather than being a function of their own personality and decisions and humanity. But then it turns around and, with tone and delivery blames and scolds the adult child for the input not having been adequate to produce the desired output.
If you point out this logical fallacy by pointing out that, within that framework, it's the parents fault that they didn't get the desired outcome and therefore not something to scold the adult child about, you're accepting the parent's premise that the adult child isn't a human being with their own selfhood and is instead merely the result of the parent's input. If you point out that when you have a human child the result is an autonomous human being, that simply intensifies whatever they're scolding about in the first place.
It's dehumanizing and based on a logical fallacy that feeds upon itself. I think it needs a natural consequence but can't think of one at the moment.
Ideas?
This statement does a lot of things. It disregards the adult child's very selfhood by treating their choices like nothing more than the result of the parent's input rather than being a function of their own personality and decisions and humanity. But then it turns around and, with tone and delivery blames and scolds the adult child for the input not having been adequate to produce the desired output.
If you point out this logical fallacy by pointing out that, within that framework, it's the parents fault that they didn't get the desired outcome and therefore not something to scold the adult child about, you're accepting the parent's premise that the adult child isn't a human being with their own selfhood and is instead merely the result of the parent's input. If you point out that when you have a human child the result is an autonomous human being, that simply intensifies whatever they're scolding about in the first place.
It's dehumanizing and based on a logical fallacy that feeds upon itself. I think it needs a natural consequence but can't think of one at the moment.
Ideas?
The Toronto Star ipad app problem
The Toronto Star recently came out with an ipad app, and they seem to be pushing it pretty hard, perhaps even prioritizing it over everything else.
The problem is that this renders some content inaccessible to people who don't have ipads.
If an ipad user tweets an article from the Star, it provides a link to the ipad version. If you're reading on a computer, it doesn't autodetect that and direct you to the web version, or provide a link at the bottom to the full version like many mobile websites do. The ipad link doesn't always provide the full text of the article, and (so far, at least) when I've searched the Star website for the headline or the lede, it hasn't turned up anything.
There have even been one or two times when an article is teased in the print version of the newspaper, and they tell you to go to the ipad version for the full story!
So it seems that there are Toronto Star articles that can't be read in the print newspaper, on a computer, on a non-ipad tablet, or on a non-ipad i-device. They can only be read on an ipad.
Which is not a negligible inconvenience for people who don't need or can't afford ipads!
An ipad costs several hundred dollars. (Currently, the prices in the Apple Store range from $329 to $1429.) My experience with other Apple products has been that I can only get a few years of use out of them, and I see no indication that this would be any different for ipads.
So the Star is creating a situation where, to get access to all the journalism in your local daily, you need to pay at least $100 a year to another, unaffiliated corporation for a device that you may well have no other need for.
Do the owners of the Toronto Star own Apple stock?
I'm also wondering how this will affect googleability and archivability. Since I can't seem to get at them via web, it seems they aren't googleable. Can you access old articles in the app, or does it give you solely today's content? (I have no idea, because I don't have an ipad.) Do they turn up in library periodical indices so they'll be available to people doing historical research in the future? If the Star writes an article about your kid's awesome science project or gives your play a glowing review, is there a way to save the article for posterity? Even after the ipad is obsolete?
The problem is that this renders some content inaccessible to people who don't have ipads.
If an ipad user tweets an article from the Star, it provides a link to the ipad version. If you're reading on a computer, it doesn't autodetect that and direct you to the web version, or provide a link at the bottom to the full version like many mobile websites do. The ipad link doesn't always provide the full text of the article, and (so far, at least) when I've searched the Star website for the headline or the lede, it hasn't turned up anything.
There have even been one or two times when an article is teased in the print version of the newspaper, and they tell you to go to the ipad version for the full story!
So it seems that there are Toronto Star articles that can't be read in the print newspaper, on a computer, on a non-ipad tablet, or on a non-ipad i-device. They can only be read on an ipad.
Which is not a negligible inconvenience for people who don't need or can't afford ipads!
An ipad costs several hundred dollars. (Currently, the prices in the Apple Store range from $329 to $1429.) My experience with other Apple products has been that I can only get a few years of use out of them, and I see no indication that this would be any different for ipads.
So the Star is creating a situation where, to get access to all the journalism in your local daily, you need to pay at least $100 a year to another, unaffiliated corporation for a device that you may well have no other need for.
Do the owners of the Toronto Star own Apple stock?
I'm also wondering how this will affect googleability and archivability. Since I can't seem to get at them via web, it seems they aren't googleable. Can you access old articles in the app, or does it give you solely today's content? (I have no idea, because I don't have an ipad.) Do they turn up in library periodical indices so they'll be available to people doing historical research in the future? If the Star writes an article about your kid's awesome science project or gives your play a glowing review, is there a way to save the article for posterity? Even after the ipad is obsolete?
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