Saturday, August 31, 2019

Books read in August 2019

New:

1. Waiting 'til the Midnight Hour: A Narrative History of Black Power in America by Peniel E. Joseph
2. The Ghost and Lone Warrior by C.J. Taylor
3. Point Your Face at This: Drawings by Demetri Martin
4. Stolen from Our Embrace: The Abduction of First Nations Children and the Restoration of Aboriginal Communities by Suzanne Fournier and Ernie Crey

Reread:

1. Holiday in Death
2. Midnight in Death

Friday, August 30, 2019

Things the City of Toronto Should Invent: natural gardens as of right

When I read this recent story about how the City of Toronto doesn't allow lawns made of artificial turf, my first thought was to wonder if there are City by-laws unintentionally incentivizing artificial turf, perhaps by having strict aesthetic standards for lawns.

So I went a-googling, and discovered that if you want to have a natural garden (as opposed to a lawn), you have to apply for an exemption.

I think that's bass-ackwards.

In addition to the drainage issues that the ban on artificial turf is trying to address, a natural garden would help with pollinators, native species, and biodiversity. Growing food in residential yards would also boost the city's food sovereignty and sustainability (as well as urban biodiversity, and probably pollinators too.)

In contrast, a lawn is...green and flat.  And that's about it.

It's monoculture, it doesn't contribute to biodiversity or pollination, I think it might even be an invasive species. 

If the City's priority is green and flat, they should allow artificial turf.

If the City's priorities are environmental, they should allow natural gardens as of right, so people don't have to apply for an exemption, they can just go ahead and have a natural garden - including by neglecting their lawn and letting it revert to nature in its own time.

But let's be brave and bold and take this a step further: what if we make natural gardens the default, and require an exemption for lawns?

"But lawns are important!"

Then it shouldn't be too difficult to get an exemption - just apply for an exemption telling them about why it's so important.

"How do you propose we transition existing lawns to natural gardens?"

I'm a huge fan of benign neglect myself. But when it comes to designing actual policy, a good starting point would be to look at how transitions are normally handled when there's a change in property standards, identify weaknesses in past transitions, and adjust to eliminate those weaknesses.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Age of majority

In the English-speaking world at least, ages of majority are weird.  It tends to be 18, 19 or 21.  But never 20.  Why are they avoiding the only round number in the general range?

I know the age of majority of 21 originally comes from England centuries ago - it was the age of majority for the purposes of marriage without a parent's consent in Jane Austen - but it's not easy (and certainly not readily googleable) to find how they landed on that particular age.

People's instinctive answer is going to be "because that's when you stop being teenage-like and start being adult-like," but I wonder about the actual cause and effect there. It's a lot easier to actually be adult-like when you are legally and socially permitted to! Fifteen-year-olds may well be sufficiently adult-like within a social structure that allows them adult roles, and doesn't require them to be in child roles (e.g. in school) by default and/or to achieve long-term success.

The other interesting thing about 21 as an age of majority (at least in historical England) is people under the age of 21 could easily fulfill adult roles in a society where formal education was far from the norm and there were no other obligations specific to teenagers. A 20-year-old, or a 17-year-old, or probably even a 13-year-old, would have been doing work that is comparable to their parents' work. I wonder why societal structures kept them legally dependent for what seems like an awfully long time?

As someone who was a legal adult for years before I was an adult economic actor (I was a full-time student until the age of 22, but a legal adult at 18) I wonder what it would have been like to be an adult economic actor but not a legal adult?

I'm going to have to find a book on this or something - there's a lot of interesting stuff in here, and I'm sure some of it has been documented as history and/or sociology.

And I still wonder why the age of majority is so rarely the nice round number of 20?

Sunday, August 18, 2019

Loving your child is necessary but insufficient

In a recent Twitter thread where people were discussing why they wouldn't tell their fathers if they were raped, one commenter made a reply to the effect of "This is why I make sure my kids know that I'll love them no matter what."

(I'm not linking directly to the thread or quoting the comment directly because I don't want to pile on to this individual. You frequently hear this kind of comment from a wide range of parents, and my thoughts in this post apply in most, if not all, of these cases.)

Loving your child is important. Loving your child no matter what is the right thing to do.

And, in my capacity as my parents' child, the question of whether they love me is completely irrelevant to the question of whether I'd go to them in an emergency or tell them about a traumatic experience.

My parents' love for me is internal to them. They feel it inside themselves.

What's relevant to me is external to them - their words and actions as I perceive and experience them (which, unfortunately, includes their failed attempts to hide their emotional response).

If I believe my parents' response to a situation will be useful to me, I will go to them for help and support. If it isn't useful to me - for example, if it frustrates me or requires additional emotional labour from me or even just doesn't contribute anything that I can't already contribute myself - I won't go to them.

It is possible for a parent to love their child and also be unhelpful.  It is also possible for someone to not love you but be supremely helpful.

If it is important to you for your kids to come to you in an emergency, be a person who is helpful in that kind of emergency, and provide your kid with a lifetime's empirical evidence that you're a person who is helpful in that kind of emergency.  Not just that you will feel the right feelings, that your words and actions will be what they actually need.

Saturday, August 17, 2019

Brown corduroy pants

The very first piece of clothing I ever owned that made me feel good in my post-puberty body was, weirdly enough, a pair of brown corduroy pants.

It was the mid-90s and I was in my mid-teens. I didn't feel good about corduroy on principle (it's what the frumpiest adults of my acquaintance wore, and in Grade 1 my elementary school classmates had laughed at the noise my knock-kneed legs made in my red corduroy pants), but these were different.  They were what I now know to be called a finer wale, almost like velvet. They were on-trend for that time and place - either boot-cut or flared (my teenage self didn't know the different), low slung and a bit baggy.

This shape was both flattering to my curves and comfortable to sit in. (The first time I had experienced both since Mother Nature had seen fit to give me adult curves as a preteen!). With sandals and a tank top, it evoked a sort of hippy look (something I admired and aspired to, although I've never been cool enough). With boots and my new awesome peacoat, it evoked a sort of retro 70s look (which was what the kids who were cooler than I could have ever imagined were going for).  Both these looks worked well with my long straight hair - the first time in my life my natural hair has actually helped an aesthetic, given that my life thus far had taken place in the era of big 80s hair!

In short, this was the first time either "flattering", "comfortable" and "fashionable" were ever within reach for me - and I got all three for one!

I wore them so much they eventually got holes in undignified places and I couldn't wear them any more. But those pants opened the door: I could feel good about myself in clothes! I could achieve looks that I aspired to!  I learned more about what shapes and colours are flattering to the particularities of my body, I bought more clothes that make me feel good about myself, and I grew up to be a well-dressed grownup lady - something my preteen self never dared dream of!

The other day, I saw a poster outside a mall store where the model's outfit included brown corduroy pants that appeared to be boot cut.  They didn't have them in store, but I hope they come in as part of the fall collection and they fit me.  I still think brown and corduroy are both objectively frumpy, but I would love to have something in my closet that reminds me of feeling good about myself for the very first time.

Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Things CRA Should Invent: automated phone system tells you whether they've actually called you

I recently had to call CRA to deal with some boring grownup stuff.

Everyone I talked to was awesome and helpful and extremely patient with my ignorance, the boring grownup stuff got dealt with, but before that could happen I had to wait half an hour on hold for someone to help me.

This is a problem in light of the ongoing telephone scam where they call you and impersonate CRA.

CRA encourages you to call their 800 number if you're unsure about the legitimacy of a call you received, but that's a problem when the hold times are so long - especially since they're only open 9-5 Monday to Friday.  Someone who also works 9-5 Monday to Friday, only gets half an hour for lunch and isn't at liberty to make phone calls while working might not ever be able to get through!

I propose a solution: CRA should have an option to automatically detect your phone number and have the automatic system tell you whether they're trying to get in touch with you.

For example, "If you've received a call claiming to be from CRA and would like to confirm whether CRA is trying to get in touch with you, press 3."

I believe this is technologically possible.  When you call Rogers, their system says something like "I notice you are calling from a phone number ending in ####. To talk about the account associated with this number, press 1."  This means an automated system can compare the number you're calling from with numbers in a database, and route your call accordingly.

CRA could maintain a database of "numbers we have called and left messages with", and have an option in their automated system to compare callers' numbers with this database.  That way, callers who are trying to check whether the CRA call they received was a scam can get a quick, automatic message saying "We have not made any attempt to contact you by phone, no action is required on your part."

In fact, since this could be done automatically, it wouldn't even have to be done during business hours!  You call whenever, press 3, and you get a message saying either "We have not made any attempt to contact you by phone, no action is required on your part" or "We have been attempting to contact you by phone, please call us back during business hours."

This way there are far fewer barriers to avoiding scams, and human telephone representatives could be freed up for work that actually requires humans.

Other organizations that are frequently impersonated by scam callers (banks, utilities, etc.) could also use this system. I just think it's particularly important for CRA given their limited business hours and long hold times.

Sunday, August 04, 2019

The Segoe UI font is easy to read with convergence insufficiency and accommodative insufficiency resulting from head trauma

Recently, for the first time since my head injury, I received a text to translate that I could actually read effortlessly!

I immediately checked what the font was, and it turns out it's called Segoe UI.  I changed my default Firefox font to Segoe UI, and now life is so much easier!

So if you're ever looking for a font that's effortlessly readable with convergence insufficiency and accommodative insufficiency resulting from head trauma, Segoe UI fits the bill!

I'm working on adding Segoe UI to my blog's style sheet so everyone can enjoy its effortless readability (just plugging it in turned out to mess up the font size, so I need to do some tweaking).

However, I'm not the audience of my blog - in fact, I am the one person in the world who has the least need to find my blog readable! - so if at any point you find the font has become less readable, leave me a comment to let me know, ideally articulating the specific problem (too big? too small? too fat? too skinny? too much of some other characteristic that I can't even fathom?)