Thursday, December 31, 2015

Books read in December 2015

New:

1. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
2. The Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
3. The Trouble with Brunch by Shawn Micallef
4. After the War is Over by Jennifer Robson

Reread:

1. Imitation in Death
2. Remember When

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

Things They Should Invent: streetlights with time-sensitive variable brightness

I was walking down a residential side street at about 5:30 pm in the bleakest depths of December, and I found it uncomfortably dark.  The street did have perfectly normal streetlights at perfectly reasonable intervals, but I found myself wishing the lights were significantly brighter.

Of course, the problem with making the lights significantly brighter is that they're right in front of people's houses.  No one wants a giant floodlight just metres from their window in the middle of the night when they're trying to sleep.

But what if they could program the streetlights so they start out brighter in the early evening and get less bright as we transition towards bedtime? We could have a safe, well-lit rush hour even in bleakest midwinter, while still making it possible for people who have a streetlight in front of their house to sleep comfortably at midnight.

In the summer, when it doesn't get dark until 9 pm, the streetlights wouldn't have to start out as bright as they do in the winter, but they could still dim as the hour gets later.  In other words, the streetlights are the same brightness at 9 pm in June and at 9 pm in December, they're just brighter at 5 pm in December (but completely switched off at 5 pm in June because it's still bright and sunny out.)  They wouldn't ever get darker than they are now, they'd just get brighter during hours when no one is anywhere near ready for sleep.

We already have the technology. Dimmer switches have existed for decades (I was originally going to title this "dimmer streetlights" but that would make it sound like I just want the streetlights to be less bright), and programmable dimmers already exist in household products such as the Phillips Wake-Up Light.  If they can deploy this technology on a large scale in streetlights, our streets would be safer and more user-friendly for the vast majority of users.

Monday, December 28, 2015

The real fantasy of Pemberley is the servants

I've fallen down a bit of a Pride and Prejudice rabbit hole lately, exploring fanfictions and historical background information.

While I do enjoy poking around in the Jane Austen universe from time to time, unlike many Pride and Prejudice fans I never found Mr. Darcy particularly dreamy.  He proves to be kind and honourable and madly in love with the protagonist, all of which certainly come in handy, but doesn't have the je ne sais quoi that it would take to make me fantasize my way into Elizabeth's place.

However, in my recent revisitation, I realized the actual fantasy of being mistress of Pemberley isn't having Mr. Darcy for a husband - it's having Mrs. Reynolds for a housekeeper.

Mrs. Reynolds has been serving as Pemberley's housekeeper since back when Mr. Darcy's parents were still alive, and has kept it running smoothly even after his mother died.  This means that Pemberley can run smoothly without a lady of the house, but also knows how to accommodate a lady of the house.  So the position of mistress of Pemberley can be as much of a sinecure as its incumbent wants, and as much of an apprenticeship as she wants.

Being the mistress of a well-run estate is pretty much the most prestigious role in life that someone in Elizabeth's position could reasonably dream of. So imagine you end up in the most prestigious role in life that you can reasonably dream of, and the support team is in place to ensure that you will succeed. Even if you do nothing, the endeavours under your responsibility will succeed and you will get credit for it.  If you want to actually do the work, they can train you up so you can do it independently, and if you want to introduce your own ideas, they know how to adapt to that.

On top of that, the presence of Georgiana means that, despite the absence of a "lady of the house" for many years, the estate is equipped for there being a lady in the house.  They no doubt have a maid who knows how to do hair, an existing business relationship with a local dressmaker, a horse who is accustomed to a sidesaddle rider - all kinds of things that it would be convenient for Elizabeth to have in her home and less convenient to have to acquire from scratch.  On top of that, Georgiana probably knows a little something about being the lady of the house at Pemberley, but, since she isn't out yet, she doesn't officially hold the role (and would never expect to hold it in the long term since she'll likely get married and be mistress of her own household) so she wouldn't feel usurped by Elizabeth.  Mrs. Annesley probably also knows a thing or two about being mistress of a household since she's an upper-class lady and a "Mrs." herself, and part of her role is likely to prepare Georgiana for her future. But, at the same time, Mrs. Annesley is an employee, so she is incentivized to help Elizabeth succeed as well.

Compare this to the situation of Jane and Bingley, who are going to buy an estate of their own and start the Bingley dynasty from scratch.  Neither of them has ever run a large estate before (except for Bingley's time leasing Netherfield, which doesn't entail running the whole thing.)  Probably neither of them has ever hired a whole staff of servants before, and the servants they do hire won't necessarily know how to run the place optimally since no one has run that estate before (or, at least, not for the Bingley family). Caroline Bingley is around and has been mistress of the Bingley household (formally, because she's out), but because of that (and what we know of her character) she's likely to feel usurped, so she's less likely to be a useful resource for Jane.

None of this is hideous hardship, of course, because they are rich, but Jane does have to put in effort and diligence to succeed in her role as Mrs. Bingley, whereas all Elizabeth has to do to succeed as Mrs. Darcy is nothing. As long as she doesn't insist on overruling her experienced household with subpar ideas, she will succeed gloriously.

Friday, December 25, 2015

Shamy

This post contains spoilers for the most recent episode of Big Bang Theory. If you follow the show but haven't been spoiled for this episode yet, I highly recommend not reading this post.


***


I got spoiled for last week's Big Bang Theory, so I knew going in that Sheldon and Amy were going to have "coitus", as Sheldon likes to put it.  I had some speculation about this that didn't end up getting blogged because life got in the way, but there was one thing I didn't see coming, and actually didn't realize was even possible: the writers created a situation in which the sex was actually better for both people because one party wasn't actively into it.

Mayim Bialik (who portrays Amy) has blogged about how people keep asking her "Is Sheldon good?"  But the first thing that popped into my head when I got spoiled is "Is Amy good?"

As we know, Sheldon is a finicky person with a tendency towards self-absorption. If he's half as particular about his sex as he is about his meals, it's quite possible that an inexperienced partner like Amy won't be able to meet his expectations first time around - especially if, like nerdy virgins since time immemorial, he's been getting ideas from the shadier parts of internet.  What would that do to the relationship? What would that do to Amy's self-esteem?

I was also contemplating whether the writers would hand-wave this by making them both end up being surprisingly good together. (They're intelligent people, they would have researched, if they used good sources instead of porn and happen to have certain physical compatibilities, it might just work out fine the first time.)  Then I was hoping the writers wouldn't overdo it and make it a joke that awkward nerds might be good at sex.

I was also pondering the situation from the other direction: what if they're not able to have good sex together at the outset, but the show chose to explore that?  Not every couple can always have good sex together the very first time, and the likelihood of it not going perfectly increases it when it's a first time for both. But this isn't something you often see depicted in media or fiction, so it would be an interesting approach to take. Then I was hoping that the writers wouldn't overdo it and make it a joke that awkward nerds have awkward sex, or make it cringingly horrible with Sheldon's finicky nature.

However, the Big Bang Theory writers did something that I didn't know was coming: they had Sheldon come up with the idea of having sex with Amy as her birthday present.

Normally I dislike the dynamic of a sex act being a gift and it's certainly not something I'd want in my own private life.  But, by making it a gift from Sheldon to Amy, they eliminated the problem of Sheldon's finicky nature.  He doesn't actively want sex for himself, so he doesn't have highly specific needs and preferences like he does with seating arrangements and bathroom schedules and take-out food. He's simply interested in making the experience work for Amy - kind of the sexual equivalent to accompanying your partner to a high-school reunion or something (which is quite an emotional/interpersonal milestone for Sheldon!)

The fact that Sheldon (as the person who's less enthusiastic about sex) came up with the idea of having sex on this particular occasion himself, without any pressure or suggestions from Amy or anyone else, goes a long way towards mitigating the any potential distastefulness of the "sex as a gift" dynamic.  It's also somewhat mitigated by the fact that both parties are nervous and tentative beforehand, and that we learn that the experience ultimately exceeded expectations for both of them.

Another fantastic choice by the writers and producers is that the combination of script, editing and choreography gave us no indication of exactly what sex acts they engaged in, or whether they were perfectly successful or it was a trial-and-error kind of situation. This was an excellent choice because it attends to the audience's emotional needs.  Certain people have certain feelings about certain sex acts, including feeling that certain sex acts are degrading or humiliating or other negative emotional baggage. It would probably ruin the heart and sweetness of the scene to see a likely-asexual character engaging in a sex act you consider humiliating or degrading as a birthday gift for his partner. As it stands, all we know it that Sheldon was at peak emotional generosity, both parties were nervous beforehand, and both parties were happy afterwards. And every viewer can fill in the blanks with whatever fits those criteria in their own worldview.

Despite the fact that I still think it would be helpful for sexual novices if the spectrum of media portrayals of sexuality included occasional (and sympathetic) depictions of  unsuccessful first-time sex, I think the writers did right by Sheldon and Amy.  And I hope that the physical part of their relationship can now fade into the background where they can explore it in private, much like the show did when kissing was introduced into their relationship.

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Horoscopes

Star:

IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY: This year you will greet some positive changes in your life. You’ll need to learn to look at the big picture more often. Your ability to learn comes out as you adapt to new ideas, cultures and perhaps new developments in your chosen field. If you are single, you might connect with someone who is very different from the type of suitor you have chosen in the past. This experience will be a real eye-opener for you. If you are attached, you find that more acceptance and trust builds between the two of you. Your in-laws could play a significant role in your life. GEMINI might wear you down with his or her constant chatter.
G&M:

IF TODAY IS YOUR BIRTHDAY
Don't aim for the top of the tree, aim for the stars. Your potential is limited only by your imagination and your imagination is limited only by your willingness to dream. What is it you want most from life? Go out and get it over the coming 12 months.

Saturday, December 05, 2015

Names

I've decided to adopt the French usage of Daesh to refer to the organization that recently committed terrorist attacks in Paris.

This article gives a good English-language explanation of why.  In short, they're not actually Islamic and they're not actually a state, so we shouldn't give them an importance they don't have.  Plus, the word "Daesh" (which is an acronym of the group's Arabic name) can mean "a bigot who imposes his view on others" in Arabic, which is appropriate.

I find each of these points sufficiently compelling in and of itself, but, on top of all that, we have the fact that Daesh dislikes being called Daesh but France prefers that usage. Under the circumstances, I think it's especially appropriate to disregard Daesh's preference in favour of France's.


It occurs to me that it would be interesting to extend this principle. What if there was a general rule that the victim of any offence gets to choose the name or terminology used to define and/or address the perpetrator?

This would be optional (so the victim isn't in the situation where now they have to decide on a name for the perpetrator on top of everything else!), and perhaps there would have to be limitations, like the name you give the perpetrator can't be worse than the offence they committed (so you can't insist that everyone address the guy who blocked your car in the driveway as Pedophile) and they get to resume their own name after the consequences of their offence have ended (so if they kill someone the name change is permanent, but if they fixed your shoes wrong and you had to go back and get them redone, the name change only lasts until you get your properly-fixed shoes back.)

Assholes have been known to use names and forms of address to insult, belittle, or otherwise disrespect people (e.g. calling a grownup woman "miss", misgendering transpeople, insisting on addressing people by their birth name even though they changed it, addressing people by their spouse's surname even when they didn't opt to take their spouse's surname.)  So why not use this power against the assholes?

Unless, of course, that would just make us no better than the assholes...

Friday, December 04, 2015

Things They Should Invent: open source all discontinued products

Sometimes, for various reasons, companies decide to discontinue a particular product, because continuing to manufacture it is no longer an optimal business choice.  Perhaps it's not profitable enough to be worth manufacturing any more, perhaps they prefer to focus their business efforts on other things and it's just not worth continuing to put resources into that particular thing.

The problem with this is that the product is no longer available to any consumers who may still want to buy it.  We're completely at the mercy of manufacturers to continue manufacturing the products that work best for us, and we're left in the lurch when they decide to change their business direction for whatever reason.

Solution: whenever a company discontinues a particular product, they should be required to make the source publicly available for free.  The "source" c\would be the recipe for a food product or beauty product, the pattern for an item of clothing, the technical specifications for a piece of technology, etc. - whatever information is needed to reproduce the product.

This kind of information is usually proprietary, because if the source were available anyone could just make the product themselves and the company wouldn't make any money.  Which is a reasonable rule within the framework of a capitalist society.  However, if the company chooses not to make the product available any more (and, therefore, opts out of making money on it), they shouldn't get to hold it hostage and prevent anyone from ever using it again.


If the company's decision to discontinue the product was in fact advisable - because there isn't demand, because their other products are superior, because the revenue generated by the product doesn't make up for the expenditure and trouble of producing and selling it - then it shouldn't make any difference if they release the source.  But if their decision to discontinue the product was inadvisable, the rest of us shouldn't be punished for their inadvisable business decision.


Variation: if a company alters a product rather than discontinuing it, they have to release the source upon request to individual customers who contact them.  So, for example, the pattern for the my old, beloved Victoria's Secret underwear wouldn't be posted online because they still make the product, but I could email them and say "Your new cotton panties don't work for me - they're itchy wedgie machines! Please send me the pattern of the previous style," and they would be required to send me the pattern so I could make them or have them made myself.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Books read in November 2015

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

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.

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?


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.

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.

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?

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?

Puddle-proofing crosswalks

In the winter, big slushy puddles tend to form in crosswalks, making things difficult for everyone. Pedestrians crossing at the crosswalk have to attempt a grand jeté or ruin their boots, people walking near the intersection get splashed by passing cars, it's just no good at all.

So what if they put the storm sewers actually in the crosswalk, where the water seems to want to be?

If it would cause accessibility issues, they could put the sewer grates at the apex of the corner, where it would be directly in your path if you were trying to cross diagonally but easily avoidable if you're crossing within the crosswalk. 

Another option would be to raise the corner of the road slightly.  Maybe instead of having a cutaway on the sidewalk, they could raise the level of the road and create a ramp within the gutter zone rather than within the sidewalk zone, or maybe they could meet each other halfway.  Then water would have no reason to accumulate right where people are walking. 

Another option would be to have the entire gutters be lower than the road but covered with a grate at road level.  So instead of the water flowing along the road until it reaches a storm sewer (and causing puddles if it reaches an impasse), it flows along below road level, and has a lot more leeway before it causes disruptive puddles.

It's time for a more realistic First World War narrative

A while back I read an article (which I'm kicking myself for not bookmarking!) postulating that the people of Great Britain were so psychologically traumatized, individually and collectively, by waste and horror and pointlessness of the First World War, that society collectively imposed a meaningful narrative upon it. They just couldn't cope with the idea that all this waste had been for nothing, so over the "Never Again" message intended by the creators of Remembrance Day, they superimposed glamorous sepia-toned Dashing Young Heroes, Fighting For Our Freedom.

That explains so much!

But, while I do thoroughly empathize with the need to control your narrative to get through the day, it's getting to be time to retire that narrative.  The last surviving WWI veteran died in 2012, at the age of 110. If there are any WWI survivors left in the world, they're pushing the century mark and, because they were so young at the time, may not even remember the war.  We're either approaching or have already passed the point where there's no one left whose psychological trauma needs to be attended to with this more-meaningful narrative.

The 100th anniversary of the end of WWI is coming up in a few short years.  Think pieces will be written. All we have to do is not include the sepia-toned heroism in the think pieces.  Talk instead about waste and tragedy. Talk about how it didn't even need to be a war, even by the standards by which things sometimes need to be a war.  Talk about how the ignorance of eager young recruits and the short-sightedness of governments led them to charge in, expecting a Jolly Good Adventure, with no idea what they were getting into. Talk about how this all destroyed individuals and families and communities and societies and physically broke Europe and created the conditions that gave rise to nazism.  Maybe even talk some more about how people at the time had to impose a narrative of meaning and purpose to cope with their psychological trauma.

The unfortunate side effect of this imposition of a narrative of meaning on WWI has been that the waste, horror and pointlessness are not as much at the forefront of subsequent generations' minds as they should be. This creates a situation where subsequent generations are just as ignorant as the WWI-era recruits and governments who charged in expecting a Jolly Good Adventure and ended up in hell. And this ignorance may well affect decisions about whether to get involved in future warfare - thinking that WWI had purpose affects our mental ratio of "purpose vs. pointlessness of war", so we might be more likely to see purpose (or assume there must be purpose even though we can't see it) in a potential future war.

By restoring a more accurate narrative of pointlessness and waste, we'll reduce the chance of making the same mistakes in the future, which is the best way to honour all those who were killed or destroyed in or by the First World War.

What if some copies of popular library books didn't have a space on the shelf?

If you follow me on twitter, you know I've been getting irritated with the Toronto Public Library having only ebooks and no print copies of certain titles. I find reading electronically inconvenient, and the app you have to use to read library ebooks extra inconvenient. So far, if a book hasn't been available in print, I just haven't added it to my list.

But I was quite baffled to find that Down the Rabbit Hole, the anthology containing the latest In Death novella, is not available in print at all!  In Death is a long-running series with over 50 titles, and every single title, including the anthologies containing the other novellas, is available from the library in print. But not this one.  Even the next book, Brotherhood in Death, which isn't due to come out until February, is already on order and holdable in print.  There's certainly precedent!

This is especially mysterious since the library has publicly spoken out against unfairly high ebook prices, so you'd think with ebooks being unfairly expensive they buy more print copies and fewer electronic copies.  (Or, since libraries are given a limited number of uses for each copy of an ebook they buy, they'd at least give customers the option of reading on paper if that's what they prefer.)  In the press release, the Chief Librarian is quoted as saying "Ensuring universal access to information in all its forms is key to public libraries’ mandate."  Surely ensuring access to information in all its forms includes in print!

But a comment conversation here made me think that the reason for not getting paper copies of everything might be lack of physical shelf space! Which gave me an idea...

If the problem is in fact shelf space, what if, for books where the library acquires a large number of copies and anticipates many times that number of holds, a certain number of copies aren't assigned a space on a shelf in a branch?  They just circulate throughout the holds system and are sent to the next customer in the holds queue. These kinds of titles rarely make it to a library shelf in the first few months of their life anyway - they're either checked out, on a hold shelf, or in transit.  Perhaps the computer could be programmed to prioritize these "non-shelf" books when allocating which book will respond to the next hold.  This would also increase the likelihood that "shelf" books (i.e. those that are assigned a space on a shelf in a branch) will be found by customers who are browsing the shelves, rather than being off circulating in hold land.

Once the ratio of holds to available copies gets below a certain threshold, the non-shelf books are pulled from circulation and sold, as already happens eventually with a certain number of copies of books with high initial demand.

So what does this achieve?  If not all copies of high-demand, high-circulation books need a space on the shelf, there's more space on the shelf for other books.  So titles that are perhaps less important and have less demand can have just a few spaces on the shelf, thereby making it possible to have a non-zero number of print copies and for customers to enjoy the book in their preferred medium.

For example, the library currently has 138 copies of Devoted in Death, the full-length In Death novel that comes before Down the Rabbit Hole. Currently, there are 45 holds on this title, but almost all the copies are checked out (and those that aren't are on the Best Bets shelf), so if some of the copies of this book were non-shelf, they'd still be doing their job, two months after release date, and probably for at least another month (assuming no new holds).

When Down the Rabbit Hole was first released, there were 80 holds for the 20 available copies, which means it will take 4 lending periods (12 weeks) for everyone to get a chance to read it. Let's use a conservative estimate that 10% of those holds are people who would prefer to read in print but are putting a hold on the only version available. (I suspect it's far more given the hold patterns on previous anthologies, but for the moment let's assume the library has a good sense of where the demand is.)  If the library had just 2 print copies of Down the Rabbit Hole, these hypothetical 8 people who would rather have print copies could also get a chance to read the book in their preferred format within 4 lending periods, thereby providing equitable access in all formats.

If the library designated just two copies of Devoted in Death as non-shelf books, there would still be at least one copy for the shelves of each branch, and there'd also be room on the shelves for two print copies of Down the Rabbit Hole. The non-shelf books would be in full circulation for several months and then could be put straight into the used book sale - where maybe they could even charge a bit extra for them because they're still recent bestsellers.

If this were done on a larger scale, with a small number of non-shelf copies of high-demand titles, then perhaps the library could have one or two print copies of every book, so that everyone could access every title in their preferred format with no negative impact on the availability of high-demand titles.

Good morning!

Here's what I'm doing today and why.

Saturday, November 07, 2015

What if one day they'll accommodate intellectual disabilities like they do physical disabilities?

One of the reasons why I'm so obsessed about pensions is, if my grandmother's trajectory is any indicator, I'm looking at nearly 20 years between when dementia makes it impossible for me to work and when I finally die. 

In the shower this morning, it occurred to me that, with the aging population and declining economic security and employment quality, I'm not going to be the only person in this situation.  And, since the baby boomer generation will pass through this before I do, I'm not even going to be one of the first people in this situation.

What if all these factors align to create a society where dementia (and other intellectual disabilities) are seen as disabilities to be accommodated in the workplace, and the mechanisms for accommodation become common knowledge.

It sounds impossible now, but, (at least to those of us who aren't up on such things) most disabilities sound impossible to accommodate until someone figures out how and people get used to seeing it in action.  (How many of us would have thought of a seizure response dog, or running blades?)

With today's technology, I could continue to work as a translator if I lost my eyesight or if I lost my hands. And society is moving on a trajectory from less accommodation to more accommodation. Maybe one day they'll figure out a way to let me continue to work if I lost my mind.