I'm fortunate enough not to have as yet been affected by the recent spate of ice-storm-induced power outages (knock wood), but I have been following developments fairly closely. And one thing that has come to my attention is that some of the electrical equipment that's attached to the house may belong to the homeowner rather than the utility, and therefore homeowners are responsible for getting it repaired before the utility can reconnect power.
This would piss me off if I were a homeowner. I have no power (perhaps for days!), then the Hydro people suddenly come around, only to tell me have to hire some kind of contractor I've never heard of before, and probably can't research adequately because I don't have internet. And if I've decided to go elsewhere until power comes back, I might not even find out for days that I need to get the bits attached to my house fixed by a different contractor, thereby extending the time to restore power.
Solution: allow Hydro workers to repair the equipment that's attached to the house, and bill the homeowner for this service, with the owner's consent. The owner can still hire their own contractor if they want, but if the Hydro truck is right there, you can have the option of getting reconnected immediately. If the homeowner is not present and doesn't contract Hydro within a certain period of time, Hydro reconnects and bills them. (This is to prevent homeowners who decide to leave the blackout area and go elsewhere from getting caught out because Hydro can't get in touch with them and they have no idea that they need to hire a contractor.)
If this happened, some parties would probably complain that the utility is taking business away from private electrical contractors. I think this is negligible compared with delays in restoring power, but if it does end up being a problem that needs to be addressed, Hydro could outsource this portion of the work to private contractors through a normal bidding process.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Friday, December 27, 2013
Teach me how to erase an external hard drive with a dead power supply
As I blogged about before, my old external hard drive (a Western Digital Elements) has gone through two power supplies in just over two years. I was sick of buying new power supplies for it, so I replaced it with a external hard drive that doesn't require a power supply (which I'll blog about after I've used it for a bit).
Now I'm ready to dispose of the Western Digital.
Problem: to erase it, I'd have to connect it to a computer. And to do that, I need a working power supply. And I don't much fancy buying yet another power supply to use only once just to erase a drive I no longer intend to use.
Does anyone know of a way to erase an external hard drive that requires a power supply but the power supply is dead?
Now I'm ready to dispose of the Western Digital.
Problem: to erase it, I'd have to connect it to a computer. And to do that, I need a working power supply. And I don't much fancy buying yet another power supply to use only once just to erase a drive I no longer intend to use.
Does anyone know of a way to erase an external hard drive that requires a power supply but the power supply is dead?
Wednesday, December 25, 2013
Why xmas is a downer
The problem with xmas is it creates deadlines. Even if you don't celebrate it. There are two statutory holidays and then a third for new year's, so you have to get your errands done and stock up on what you need before the stores close. Some people you deal with (clients, friends, businesses you deal with) take time off or go away around this time of year, so you have to schedule your interactions with them around this. If you want to get a gift for someone, you have to do so by xmas, or before you see them, or in time to ship it to them. If you're invited to a social event and decide to attend, you have to decide what to wear and have it clean for that day and get done up properly and get to the place in time.
Even if you don't celebrate, some of these deadlines may apply to you. My apartment building had a party and my office had a party. A friend who celebrates xmas may invite you to their party and you may wish to attend. Your office might have a Secret Santa, or you may wish to buy a present for a small adorable child of your acquaintance whose family does celebrate xmas.
There are also various areas of life that have administrative deadlines at the end of the calendar year. You might need to make a TFSA contribution or apply for CPP.
For me, personally, because my birthday is also this week, I sometimes have administrative deadlines related to my birthday, such as getting my health card renewed. My birthday also creates deadlines of its own - I spend a quiet, at-home day with indulgent food and drink, which means I need to buy the food and drink and arrange other areas of life so I don't have to go out that day. (Not to mention that the quiet stay-at-home birthday isn't by choice, it's because everyone's too busy with their peri-xmas stuff that they don't have time to give my birthday more than a cursory acknowledgement.)
And all these additional deadlines come at the darkest time of year. The sun rises so late and sets so early, and it gets truly cold for the first time since the previous winter, which makes me desperately want to curl up and hibernate.
I think this is genetic. My ancestors for many many generations were peasants in cold parts of Europe. I'm made entirely out of genes that have always survived the winter by battening down the hatches, huddling around the fire, and eating potatoes. It is against the dictates of every fibre of my being (literally) to be rushing about getting things done in the cold wind and after the early sunset.
These aren't huge stresses, to be sure, but they are additional Tetris blocks. So when the xmas decorations go up on November 1, it's just a constant reminder that these stressers, many of which I'd rather not do, are imminent.
And all this for something that isn't even meaningful to me!
Even if you don't celebrate, some of these deadlines may apply to you. My apartment building had a party and my office had a party. A friend who celebrates xmas may invite you to their party and you may wish to attend. Your office might have a Secret Santa, or you may wish to buy a present for a small adorable child of your acquaintance whose family does celebrate xmas.
There are also various areas of life that have administrative deadlines at the end of the calendar year. You might need to make a TFSA contribution or apply for CPP.
For me, personally, because my birthday is also this week, I sometimes have administrative deadlines related to my birthday, such as getting my health card renewed. My birthday also creates deadlines of its own - I spend a quiet, at-home day with indulgent food and drink, which means I need to buy the food and drink and arrange other areas of life so I don't have to go out that day. (Not to mention that the quiet stay-at-home birthday isn't by choice, it's because everyone's too busy with their peri-xmas stuff that they don't have time to give my birthday more than a cursory acknowledgement.)
And all these additional deadlines come at the darkest time of year. The sun rises so late and sets so early, and it gets truly cold for the first time since the previous winter, which makes me desperately want to curl up and hibernate.
I think this is genetic. My ancestors for many many generations were peasants in cold parts of Europe. I'm made entirely out of genes that have always survived the winter by battening down the hatches, huddling around the fire, and eating potatoes. It is against the dictates of every fibre of my being (literally) to be rushing about getting things done in the cold wind and after the early sunset.
These aren't huge stresses, to be sure, but they are additional Tetris blocks. So when the xmas decorations go up on November 1, it's just a constant reminder that these stressers, many of which I'd rather not do, are imminent.
And all this for something that isn't even meaningful to me!
Sunday, December 22, 2013
Half-formed idea: fully automated text message power outage reporting
Picture this: your power goes out, so you pick up your cellphone and text your six-digit postal code to a specific number, and doing so automatically enters in the hydro company's database that there is a power outage in your postal code.
Currently, you can report power outages by phone or internet. The problem with reporting them by internet is not everyone has internet during a power outage. The problem with reporting by phone is that there are a finite number of people who can answer phones, so during widespread power outages, wait times to report an outage can be long. In fact, as I type this, Toronto Hydro has just announced that its phone lines are overloaded and it only wants people to call for emergencies. I'm not sure if a simple power outage counts as an emergency or if that's reserved for lines down and trees on lines.
Being able to text your outage directly into the database would be faster, require less human intervention, and take up less bandwidth. It would also help you preserve your valuable phone battery if you don't have a landline, because texting takes significantly less battery power than calling.
A postal code doesn't precisely pinpoint the location of the outage, but it does narrow it down pretty well. My current six-digit postal code applies only to my building. In the suburban neighbourhood where I grew up, our postal code applied to only six houses. It's possible that the postal code will be sufficient information, especially if they're getting multiple reports from a postal code or from a set of adjacent postal codes.
But if the information provided by the postal code isn't enough, perhaps the system could record the numbers that each text comes from, and a human could call or text back for further information if necessary. It's possible no further information would be necessary because the postal code is a single building like mine, or because there's a general outage in the area, or because someone else in the postal code has already filed a full report.
In any case, automated reports by text would allow for an additional communication pathway that currently isn't available, and would let reports be made faster and more easily, with less time and battery power invested.
It seems like the technology should exist or should be creatable based on other things that already exist (like charitable donations by text message, etc.)
Currently, you can report power outages by phone or internet. The problem with reporting them by internet is not everyone has internet during a power outage. The problem with reporting by phone is that there are a finite number of people who can answer phones, so during widespread power outages, wait times to report an outage can be long. In fact, as I type this, Toronto Hydro has just announced that its phone lines are overloaded and it only wants people to call for emergencies. I'm not sure if a simple power outage counts as an emergency or if that's reserved for lines down and trees on lines.
Being able to text your outage directly into the database would be faster, require less human intervention, and take up less bandwidth. It would also help you preserve your valuable phone battery if you don't have a landline, because texting takes significantly less battery power than calling.
A postal code doesn't precisely pinpoint the location of the outage, but it does narrow it down pretty well. My current six-digit postal code applies only to my building. In the suburban neighbourhood where I grew up, our postal code applied to only six houses. It's possible that the postal code will be sufficient information, especially if they're getting multiple reports from a postal code or from a set of adjacent postal codes.
But if the information provided by the postal code isn't enough, perhaps the system could record the numbers that each text comes from, and a human could call or text back for further information if necessary. It's possible no further information would be necessary because the postal code is a single building like mine, or because there's a general outage in the area, or because someone else in the postal code has already filed a full report.
In any case, automated reports by text would allow for an additional communication pathway that currently isn't available, and would let reports be made faster and more easily, with less time and battery power invested.
It seems like the technology should exist or should be creatable based on other things that already exist (like charitable donations by text message, etc.)
Horoscopes
From the Toronto Star, although I can't find a direct link to the online version. Typos are my own:
Globe and Mail:
Last year was the first year when my birthday horoscopes didn't turn out to be true by any remote interpretation (they didn't turn out to be outright wrong either, they were just irrelevant), so it will be interesting to see what happens next. I'm definitely not going to meet anyone at work given demographics and hiring patterns. I don't (to my knowledge) know any Virgos, but I don't think it's fair that they get to be picky and I don't! And I can't imagine any clear yet realistic goals that could result in achievements that overshadow the past 12 years.
This year you often need to spend extra time at work, with an older relative or perhaps at school. Demands on you are heavy, yet meeting responsibilities opens an important door. If you are single, you could meet someone at work or out running errands. Avoid being critical and fussy. You could cause a problem in your relationships this way, which will create distance and hard feelings. If you are attached, take that special trip the two of you often talk about. The good vibes between you will help bypass a hassle or two. Virgo can get picky about details.
Globe and Mail:
You must define your goals clearly. You must also keep them within realistic bounds. If you can do those two simple things then what you achieve over the next 12 months will overshadow what you achieved in the previous 12 years. It’s your time to shine.
Last year was the first year when my birthday horoscopes didn't turn out to be true by any remote interpretation (they didn't turn out to be outright wrong either, they were just irrelevant), so it will be interesting to see what happens next. I'm definitely not going to meet anyone at work given demographics and hiring patterns. I don't (to my knowledge) know any Virgos, but I don't think it's fair that they get to be picky and I don't! And I can't imagine any clear yet realistic goals that could result in achievements that overshadow the past 12 years.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Why do they start selling xmas food so early?
I've already complained about the habit of starting with xmas decorations and whatnot at the beginning of November, but one thing that particularly baffles me is that the grocery store started with the xmas food at the beginning of November.
By "xmas food" I mean food that is intended to be served at holiday parties and food that is intended to be given as a gift - cheese platters, assorted nuts in decorative boxes, those Italian cake things, etc.
I doubt a significant portion of the population is having holiday parties in early November. And people are going to want to serve or gift reasonably fresh food (or at least convince themselves that they are doing so) so no one is going to buy pastries nearly two months ahead of time, and they're certainly not going to buy a cheese platter that early!
Who's their target audience here? Do these things even sell early on?
By "xmas food" I mean food that is intended to be served at holiday parties and food that is intended to be given as a gift - cheese platters, assorted nuts in decorative boxes, those Italian cake things, etc.
I doubt a significant portion of the population is having holiday parties in early November. And people are going to want to serve or gift reasonably fresh food (or at least convince themselves that they are doing so) so no one is going to buy pastries nearly two months ahead of time, and they're certainly not going to buy a cheese platter that early!
Who's their target audience here? Do these things even sell early on?
Monday, December 16, 2013
What to do about hanger bumps in the shoulders of your shirts
I have disproportionately narrow shoulders, so I always get bumps from the ends of the hangers in the shoulders of my shirts. Even using fat hangers doesn't solve this problem - it just makes bigger bumps.
But I've finally figured out a quick and easy solution:
While wearing the shirt, wet your hands, and smooth them over your shoulders. This only takes like 10 seconds and smooths the bumps right out. The only negative is your shoulders are damp for a couple of minutes, but if you'd rather have briefly damp shoulders than hanger bumps, this is the solution you need.
But I've finally figured out a quick and easy solution:
While wearing the shirt, wet your hands, and smooth them over your shoulders. This only takes like 10 seconds and smooths the bumps right out. The only negative is your shoulders are damp for a couple of minutes, but if you'd rather have briefly damp shoulders than hanger bumps, this is the solution you need.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Imagine if we could see why people treat us the way they treat us
I've been pondering the fact that I've been getting better customer service in recent years, and I've been wondering why this is. Is it because I'm older and could no longer be mistaken for a teenager? Does my appearance perhaps somehow reflect the fact that I have more money than I did in the past? Is it because I've been patronizing many of the same businesses for over a decade and they're starting to recognize me as a repeat customer? Or has customer service in general improved?
Then it occurred to me that this line of thinking could be extrapolated to all human interactions. Wouldn't it be interesting if we could see the reasons why any particular individual treats us well or poorly? How much of it is because of what we're contributing to the interaction? How much of it is because of how we present superficially? And how much of it is how they would have treated any person that they were interacting with at that particular time?
Then it occurred to me that this line of thinking could be extrapolated to all human interactions. Wouldn't it be interesting if we could see the reasons why any particular individual treats us well or poorly? How much of it is because of what we're contributing to the interaction? How much of it is because of how we present superficially? And how much of it is how they would have treated any person that they were interacting with at that particular time?
Saturday, December 14, 2013
To what extent is the media responsible for Rob Ford being mayor of Toronto?
Very little about this Rob Ford saga has surprised me.
I mean, I wouldn't have guessed crack and cunnilingus specifically, but, extrapolating his public behaviour before becoming mayor, I was completely unsurprised by drunkenness, drug use, sexual harassment, and anger issues. When rumours of organized crime affiliation first reached my ears (shortly after Gawker first reported on the crack video story - long before the official police reports started coming) my first thought was "That would explain everything!" When the video of him ranting and raving and threatening to kill someone came out, I was rather surprised that there weren't already similar videos in public circulation. He strikes me as having enough anger issues that this wouldn't be an unusual occurrence. (Although maybe that's why there's no video - perhaps it's business as usual Chez Ford?)
Basically, everything that has come to light has been within the range of what I would have expected of him back when he was running for mayor.
So why did so many people not see this coming?
And to what extent it this the media's fault that they didn't?
Heather Mallick has written that perhaps the media has been too polite to Ford. But I think it's eve moreo than that. I think the problem was that the media was automatically treating him as a frontrunner in the 2010 mayoral election. As I blogged about during the last Toronto election, there were some 40 mayoral candidates, but the media treated only a handful of them as remotely viable candidates. And this handful included Rob Ford.
With 40 candidates, surely any viable position must be duplicated in there somewhere. And, with 40 candidates, surely there must be a few people who are less problematic individuals than Rob Ford.
Should the media have been covering others more prominently and treating them more seriously rather than treating Ford as a front-runner (and for far longer than a municipal election even deserves to be covered for) just because, like, they've heard of him?
But they did treat him as a front-runner, which may have led some voters to think that he must be a viable and reasonable candidate. Toronto is a city with a lot of newcomers - both from other countries and from other parts of Canada. We're probably more dependent on the media to contextualize our elections than other communities with fewer newcomers would be. How many people weren't completely up on Ford's history but were led to believe that he would be a reasonable candidate because the media had placed him in the top 5 out of 40, and then in the top 30 out of 40?
Lately I've been seeing articles being tweeted into my twitter feed proposing various people as candidates for the 2014 mayoral election. I'm not happy about this, because the last municipal election lasted way too long and it's even earlier now. But this also has me wondering whether this premature coverage is leading to the same kind of premature declaration of frontrunners that may have given us Ford in the first place...
I mean, I wouldn't have guessed crack and cunnilingus specifically, but, extrapolating his public behaviour before becoming mayor, I was completely unsurprised by drunkenness, drug use, sexual harassment, and anger issues. When rumours of organized crime affiliation first reached my ears (shortly after Gawker first reported on the crack video story - long before the official police reports started coming) my first thought was "That would explain everything!" When the video of him ranting and raving and threatening to kill someone came out, I was rather surprised that there weren't already similar videos in public circulation. He strikes me as having enough anger issues that this wouldn't be an unusual occurrence. (Although maybe that's why there's no video - perhaps it's business as usual Chez Ford?)
Basically, everything that has come to light has been within the range of what I would have expected of him back when he was running for mayor.
So why did so many people not see this coming?
And to what extent it this the media's fault that they didn't?
Heather Mallick has written that perhaps the media has been too polite to Ford. But I think it's eve moreo than that. I think the problem was that the media was automatically treating him as a frontrunner in the 2010 mayoral election. As I blogged about during the last Toronto election, there were some 40 mayoral candidates, but the media treated only a handful of them as remotely viable candidates. And this handful included Rob Ford.
With 40 candidates, surely any viable position must be duplicated in there somewhere. And, with 40 candidates, surely there must be a few people who are less problematic individuals than Rob Ford.
Should the media have been covering others more prominently and treating them more seriously rather than treating Ford as a front-runner (and for far longer than a municipal election even deserves to be covered for) just because, like, they've heard of him?
But they did treat him as a front-runner, which may have led some voters to think that he must be a viable and reasonable candidate. Toronto is a city with a lot of newcomers - both from other countries and from other parts of Canada. We're probably more dependent on the media to contextualize our elections than other communities with fewer newcomers would be. How many people weren't completely up on Ford's history but were led to believe that he would be a reasonable candidate because the media had placed him in the top 5 out of 40, and then in the top 30 out of 40?
Lately I've been seeing articles being tweeted into my twitter feed proposing various people as candidates for the 2014 mayoral election. I'm not happy about this, because the last municipal election lasted way too long and it's even earlier now. But this also has me wondering whether this premature coverage is leading to the same kind of premature declaration of frontrunners that may have given us Ford in the first place...
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
How to tell if you've already read a particular library book
Sometimes I come across a book that seems vaguely familiar in concept, but I'm not sure if I've read it already or not. I don't really care to waste my time rereading something that turned out to be forgettable, but I don't want to not read an interest-sounding or recommended book just because I might have once read something similar.
The library doesn't keep records of which books you've checked out in the past - which makes perfect sense from a privacy perspective, not to mention what a huge-ass database that would end up being.
But I've just worked out a way to figure out if you've checked out a particular book before. And the solution is beautifully simple:
Search your email.
If you checked out the book by putting it on hold and having them send it to your local library branch, you'll have an email alert that it's ready to be picked up. If you kept the book until nearly the due date, you'll have an email alert that it's due soon. (Helpful hint for Toronto Public Library patrons: search your email for the call number rather than the book title, since the email notifications used to not contain the title.)
This won't work if you don't use email alerts, or if you delete your emails, or if your primary method of library use is to browse the shelves. But if your library transactions habitually pass through your email, you can find a record of what you've taken out of the library in your email.
The library doesn't keep records of which books you've checked out in the past - which makes perfect sense from a privacy perspective, not to mention what a huge-ass database that would end up being.
But I've just worked out a way to figure out if you've checked out a particular book before. And the solution is beautifully simple:
Search your email.
If you checked out the book by putting it on hold and having them send it to your local library branch, you'll have an email alert that it's ready to be picked up. If you kept the book until nearly the due date, you'll have an email alert that it's due soon. (Helpful hint for Toronto Public Library patrons: search your email for the call number rather than the book title, since the email notifications used to not contain the title.)
This won't work if you don't use email alerts, or if you delete your emails, or if your primary method of library use is to browse the shelves. But if your library transactions habitually pass through your email, you can find a record of what you've taken out of the library in your email.
Thursday, December 05, 2013
What I learned from Eddie Izzard
I've mentioned many, many, many times that Eddie Izzard is an
inspiration and a role model to me. I've previously described it as he
made me brave, insofar as I am brave, but that doesn't articulate it as well as I'd like.
Then I found the perfect articulation in this article about the Setlist Show:
This absolutely encapsulates what I've learned from Eddie Izzard. Own it. Whatever the "it" of the moment is, own it. That's what he does when he goes on stage in clothes of any or all genders. That's what he does when he messes up or gets knocked off track. And that's what I did the first time I had to supervise a practicum student and had never had a student intern before. "Congratulations, you're my first student! So if I'm going too fast or too slow, skipping over stuff you don't understand or belabouring the glaringly obvious, it's not intentional. Please do let me know and I'll adapt to your needs." And that's what I did when I bought my condo. "I've never bought real estate before and I'm mildly terrified. Please answer my giant list of questions, and then I'll probably come back in a few days with another giant list of questions, and then once all my questions are answered I'll stop being terrified and cheerfully hand over all my money." And that's the basis of my policy of making it clear how confident I am or am not in any statement I make.
It's given me a massive improvement in confidence, credibility, and quality of life. I'm able to have more pleasant interpersonal interactions and get what I want more often simply by owning whatever is making me feel awkward or nervous or uncomfortable than by being a poseur pretending to be confident in the way that I imagine the people in the situation expect me to.
Then I found the perfect articulation in this article about the Setlist Show:
BR: Another one is Eddie Izzard who we work with a lot; he's a friend. We approached him a long time ago about doing the show, and he kept saying that he just didn't work that way. But then we were doing the Altitude Festival in Austria, and he gave in and did the show...
PP: Half way through his set he just turned to the audience and went, "This is f***ing hard!" and then went back into the set. He just owned the moment. He stepped outside it for a second, but that just gave him what he needed to go back in in an even richer way.
This absolutely encapsulates what I've learned from Eddie Izzard. Own it. Whatever the "it" of the moment is, own it. That's what he does when he goes on stage in clothes of any or all genders. That's what he does when he messes up or gets knocked off track. And that's what I did the first time I had to supervise a practicum student and had never had a student intern before. "Congratulations, you're my first student! So if I'm going too fast or too slow, skipping over stuff you don't understand or belabouring the glaringly obvious, it's not intentional. Please do let me know and I'll adapt to your needs." And that's what I did when I bought my condo. "I've never bought real estate before and I'm mildly terrified. Please answer my giant list of questions, and then I'll probably come back in a few days with another giant list of questions, and then once all my questions are answered I'll stop being terrified and cheerfully hand over all my money." And that's the basis of my policy of making it clear how confident I am or am not in any statement I make.
It's given me a massive improvement in confidence, credibility, and quality of life. I'm able to have more pleasant interpersonal interactions and get what I want more often simply by owning whatever is making me feel awkward or nervous or uncomfortable than by being a poseur pretending to be confident in the way that I imagine the people in the situation expect me to.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Google Blog Search doesn't do its job properly
Being the kind of fangirl I am, I have an RSS feed of Google News and Google Blog Search results for "Izzard" in my feed reader, so I get any new articles.
And, as you might have noticed, I also have a blog, where I've mentioned Eddie Izzard in a couple of different posts during the course of my current fandom high. (I really should start blogging about something else, shouldn't I?) But my own posts have never turned up in my feed reader! (And my feed reader uses a completely separate log-in identity from my blog, so it would have no way to know not to feed me those because I wrote them.)
So I did some searching:
Here is a regular Google search for blogspot posts containing "Izzard" made within the past week, sorted by relevance.
Here is a Google Blog Search for posts containing "Izzard" made within the past week, sorted by relevance.
There are far more posts in the regular Google search than in the Google Blog Search, even though blogspot is just a subset of blogs!
So then I did a regular Google search for Wordpress posts within the past week, sorted by relevance, and it also contains some quality posts that didn't show up in the Google Blog Search.
Same with Typepad, LiveJournal and even Tumblr. Most of the posts turned up aren't quality, but at the moment, there's at least one quality post (i.e. tour performance reviews or other things I'm interested in reading) in the first page of results for each of these blogging platforms that doesn't show up in Google Blog Search results! Even if Google curates its blog search out of necessity, there are things in there that should have made it into the results.
I want to be clear, I'm not complaining because Google Blog Search isn't turning up my blog. (Objectively, it's better if it doesn't turn up my Eddie Izzard posts because they're all fangirling rather than informative content.) I'm complaining because Google Blog Search isn't turning up other people's blog posts that I would have liked to read.
How long has this being going on for? And how many other, more important, searches does this also affect?
In my post speculating whether Web 2.0 makes information less accessible, I wrote:
What if, all this time, the blog reviews I'm looking for have in fact been out there, but Google has made them less searchable or less findable?
It's kind of scary, the extent to which Google can influence our concept of what does and doesn't actually exist. But, at the same time, no other search engine finds stuff as well as Google. I just don't know if we can trust it to confirm or refute existence...
And, as you might have noticed, I also have a blog, where I've mentioned Eddie Izzard in a couple of different posts during the course of my current fandom high. (I really should start blogging about something else, shouldn't I?) But my own posts have never turned up in my feed reader! (And my feed reader uses a completely separate log-in identity from my blog, so it would have no way to know not to feed me those because I wrote them.)
So I did some searching:
Here is a regular Google search for blogspot posts containing "Izzard" made within the past week, sorted by relevance.
Here is a Google Blog Search for posts containing "Izzard" made within the past week, sorted by relevance.
There are far more posts in the regular Google search than in the Google Blog Search, even though blogspot is just a subset of blogs!
So then I did a regular Google search for Wordpress posts within the past week, sorted by relevance, and it also contains some quality posts that didn't show up in the Google Blog Search.
Same with Typepad, LiveJournal and even Tumblr. Most of the posts turned up aren't quality, but at the moment, there's at least one quality post (i.e. tour performance reviews or other things I'm interested in reading) in the first page of results for each of these blogging platforms that doesn't show up in Google Blog Search results! Even if Google curates its blog search out of necessity, there are things in there that should have made it into the results.
I want to be clear, I'm not complaining because Google Blog Search isn't turning up my blog. (Objectively, it's better if it doesn't turn up my Eddie Izzard posts because they're all fangirling rather than informative content.) I'm complaining because Google Blog Search isn't turning up other people's blog posts that I would have liked to read.
How long has this being going on for? And how many other, more important, searches does this also affect?
In my post speculating whether Web 2.0 makes information less accessible, I wrote:
When Eddie Izzard first started his last US tour in 2008, I could do a google blog search the day after each show and find multiple reviews of each gig, or at least what he was wearing and which wikipedia entry he looked up. By the time he got to Canada in 2010, internet trends had moved away from blogs more towards Facebook and Twitter, so you couldn't necessarily find comments on any given show. They were all buried in people's Facebook walls, ungoogleable to the outside world. Not the most important thing in the world, obviously, but it was information I was looking for and could no longer find.
What if, all this time, the blog reviews I'm looking for have in fact been out there, but Google has made them less searchable or less findable?
It's kind of scary, the extent to which Google can influence our concept of what does and doesn't actually exist. But, at the same time, no other search engine finds stuff as well as Google. I just don't know if we can trust it to confirm or refute existence...
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Fact-checking
Being the kind of fangirl I am, when I entered Eddie Izzard fandom I read every current and past article I could get my hands on, and continue to read every article where he's mentioned. (I have a google alert set up and everything.)
And one thing I've noticed in reading all these articles on a very specific subject with a rather narrow scope is the frequency with which they reuse quotes or statements or information from old articles, without regard for whether that information is still current.
The example of this that I find most egregious is the oft-repeated statement, most recently seen in Post City, that Eddie raised over £200,000 for Sport Relief when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in 2010.
This statement is completely true. And it is completely misleading. Because Eddie did in fact raise well over £1 million with his marathons.
I blogged about it when it happened. The now-defunct video I'd linked to in my blog (which I so wish was still alive because it would completely prove my point) was from the Sport Relief 2010 broadcast. Eddie himself also confirmed the 1.6 million number on Twitter. There's also a BBC article with the million pound number prominently featured, an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian citing 1.8 million, and an archived Sport Relief page from when the total was 1.1 million.
The fact that the number is over a million is important, because that's commensurate with the number of Twitter followers Eddie has. In my blog post linked above, I mentioned that it was more than the number of followers he had at the time. There's a huge difference between raising an amount of money commensurate with your number of Twitter followers and raising exponentially less money, especially with a feat so ridiculous as 43 marathons in 51 days. (Analogy: I have 189 Twitter followers. If I were to attempt to raise money, raising $189 is a reasonable expectation. However, raising $40 would not be gloat-worthy at all. And if I were doing multiple marathons, raising $40 would be pretty much a failure.)
Eddie deserves full credit for raising an amount of money commensurate with his feat and his audience reach, but because of citogenesis (although not necessarily through Wikipedia in this case) he isn't always getting it.
And this leads me to wonder: what other defunct or misleading statements are making it into media reports, perhaps on more important subjeccts?
And one thing I've noticed in reading all these articles on a very specific subject with a rather narrow scope is the frequency with which they reuse quotes or statements or information from old articles, without regard for whether that information is still current.
The example of this that I find most egregious is the oft-repeated statement, most recently seen in Post City, that Eddie raised over £200,000 for Sport Relief when he ran 43 marathons in 51 days in 2010.
This statement is completely true. And it is completely misleading. Because Eddie did in fact raise well over £1 million with his marathons.
I blogged about it when it happened. The now-defunct video I'd linked to in my blog (which I so wish was still alive because it would completely prove my point) was from the Sport Relief 2010 broadcast. Eddie himself also confirmed the 1.6 million number on Twitter. There's also a BBC article with the million pound number prominently featured, an article in the UK newspaper The Guardian citing 1.8 million, and an archived Sport Relief page from when the total was 1.1 million.
The fact that the number is over a million is important, because that's commensurate with the number of Twitter followers Eddie has. In my blog post linked above, I mentioned that it was more than the number of followers he had at the time. There's a huge difference between raising an amount of money commensurate with your number of Twitter followers and raising exponentially less money, especially with a feat so ridiculous as 43 marathons in 51 days. (Analogy: I have 189 Twitter followers. If I were to attempt to raise money, raising $189 is a reasonable expectation. However, raising $40 would not be gloat-worthy at all. And if I were doing multiple marathons, raising $40 would be pretty much a failure.)
Eddie deserves full credit for raising an amount of money commensurate with his feat and his audience reach, but because of citogenesis (although not necessarily through Wikipedia in this case) he isn't always getting it.
And this leads me to wonder: what other defunct or misleading statements are making it into media reports, perhaps on more important subjeccts?
That thing I do where I go to see Eddie Izzard and then brainspew disconnectedly all over my blog
Most of the times I saw Eddie Izzard material for the first time were alone, in my apartment, watching YouTube.
The last time I heard Eddie Izzard material for the first time was almost 5 years ago, lying in bed in the dark listening to an audio bootleg of one of his Stripped shows.
Today, I saw new Eddie Izzard material for the first time sitting front row centre in Massey Hall with my two very best friends in the whole world!
I highly recommend it.
I repeat: front row centre. Front row centre. Front row centre!!!
This bears emphasizing not just because holy shit front row centre, but because Eddie Izzard and Massey Hall deserve credit for having a system where an ordinary person with no inside knowledge and no connections, armed with nothing but a readily-googleable fan presale code, can land front row centre seats through normal, official channels! Since I saw tickets to some of Eddie's other shows on stubhub before the fan presale even started, I was very happy to see that Massey Hall was selling properly and aboveboard and "best available" actually meant best available.
Also, I touched the stage of Massey Hall! (Before the show, when the audience was milling around. I just stood up, took two steps, and touched it!)
The whole show went by so fast! The first half felt like 20 minutes (it was an hour and a quarter) and the second half felt like 10 minutes (it was at least an hour). I didn't even retain any of the material for future quoting purposes because it went by so fast! I've already forgotten and then re-remembered some parts, and burst out laughing in the subway because I re-remembered the sacrificial virgins bit.
About halfway through the first act, I hit this endorphin high where I was so close to full belly laughter than I couldn't even laugh big any more. The show ended 1.5 hours ago, and I'm still floating there. I've been grinning basically since 8 pm, and I'm not about to stop any time soon.
Because of the high and the rapid pace of new material and the intensity of experiencing it brand new for the first time live and in person and up close and personal, I can't even review the material! I can't even compare it to other shows! I'll seriously have to buy the DVD to figure out how I like it compared with other shows!
We still really need a way to communicate to Eddie on stage that we're listening with rapt attention. When he was talking about how we use French-derived words for meat instead of the Anglo-Saxon-derived words we used for the animals (cow = boeuf = beef) we were agreeing and listening and waiting to hear what he said next, but he read the room as not following or not entertained or something. Which isn't true! What he was saying was true and interesting and one of my favourite things about English etymology and we couldn't wait to see what else he had to say about it, it just wasn't making us belly laugh.
I normally tweet a welcome to any visiting celebrities, but Eddie arrived right at the peak of the Rob Ford gong show, so I didn't quite feel right about welcoming anyone into this mess. But perhaps it's good thing for a comedian, because it provides a wealth of material! Eddie did a bit about Ford at the beginning and then had smoking crack as a callback punchline throughout. Twitter tells me that in the earlier shows this week, he got 20 minutes of quality material out of it. Imagine walking into a city as a comedian and it hands you 20 minutes of material that didn't exist the day before! On one hand, maybe this will make him like us and come back! On the other hand, I don't want my city to still be so rich in comedy material next time!
Eddie looks absolutely fantastically gorgeous during this tour! Best I've seen him look in real time! The clean-shaven look really suits him, even when he's not going fully femme.
And my absolute favourite part of tonight was that instead of doing the stage door autograph thing, Eddie came back onstage and did a Q&A session! He sat down right on the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience! I vastly prefer that because you get to feel like you're part of a more intimate conversation even if you don't have anything to contribute! I didn't have any questions, so I just sat there and enjoyed and felt like I was getting to be a part of the conversation without the risk of making an ass of myself.
Eddie is so good at including the whole room that even though we were front and centre and really really close to him during the Q&A, we didn't feel any more included in the conversation than anyone else. He was deliberately calling on question-askers who were further back and not giving us any particular attention. All of which was very fair and equitable, of course, I'm just very impressed that he can do that! It's got to be difficult not to favour people who are nearly within arm's reach and within easy conversational distance! (We still got to enjoy proximity and skinny jeans and such, so I feel like we won.)
(I'm also happy about the Q&A in my ongoing tradition of interpreting everything as being the result of my influence as a blogger. Eddie did Q&As earlier in the Stripped tour, but didn't do them for us. I did express my disappointment on the internet that we got stage door instead of Q&A. And this time we got a Q&A! Also, last time I also expressed concern that the tickets available through Ticketmaster weren't the same as the tickets available though the Massey Hall box office, with far better tickets being available through Massey Hall (Massey Hall put us in the second row when Ticketmaster was putting us on the balcony), and this time the Toronto tickets were through Massey Hall only with Ticketmaster not involved at all!)
Next time there's an It Gets Better or Letter To Your Younger Self or similar meme floating around, this evening is something that I am totally going to tell my younger self about. This was like the pinnacle of experience for me.
Eddie did mention in the Q&A that he plans two more tours. I look forward to him topping this. Twice.
The last time I heard Eddie Izzard material for the first time was almost 5 years ago, lying in bed in the dark listening to an audio bootleg of one of his Stripped shows.
Today, I saw new Eddie Izzard material for the first time sitting front row centre in Massey Hall with my two very best friends in the whole world!
I highly recommend it.
I repeat: front row centre. Front row centre. Front row centre!!!
This bears emphasizing not just because holy shit front row centre, but because Eddie Izzard and Massey Hall deserve credit for having a system where an ordinary person with no inside knowledge and no connections, armed with nothing but a readily-googleable fan presale code, can land front row centre seats through normal, official channels! Since I saw tickets to some of Eddie's other shows on stubhub before the fan presale even started, I was very happy to see that Massey Hall was selling properly and aboveboard and "best available" actually meant best available.
Also, I touched the stage of Massey Hall! (Before the show, when the audience was milling around. I just stood up, took two steps, and touched it!)
The whole show went by so fast! The first half felt like 20 minutes (it was an hour and a quarter) and the second half felt like 10 minutes (it was at least an hour). I didn't even retain any of the material for future quoting purposes because it went by so fast! I've already forgotten and then re-remembered some parts, and burst out laughing in the subway because I re-remembered the sacrificial virgins bit.
About halfway through the first act, I hit this endorphin high where I was so close to full belly laughter than I couldn't even laugh big any more. The show ended 1.5 hours ago, and I'm still floating there. I've been grinning basically since 8 pm, and I'm not about to stop any time soon.
Because of the high and the rapid pace of new material and the intensity of experiencing it brand new for the first time live and in person and up close and personal, I can't even review the material! I can't even compare it to other shows! I'll seriously have to buy the DVD to figure out how I like it compared with other shows!
We still really need a way to communicate to Eddie on stage that we're listening with rapt attention. When he was talking about how we use French-derived words for meat instead of the Anglo-Saxon-derived words we used for the animals (cow = boeuf = beef) we were agreeing and listening and waiting to hear what he said next, but he read the room as not following or not entertained or something. Which isn't true! What he was saying was true and interesting and one of my favourite things about English etymology and we couldn't wait to see what else he had to say about it, it just wasn't making us belly laugh.
I normally tweet a welcome to any visiting celebrities, but Eddie arrived right at the peak of the Rob Ford gong show, so I didn't quite feel right about welcoming anyone into this mess. But perhaps it's good thing for a comedian, because it provides a wealth of material! Eddie did a bit about Ford at the beginning and then had smoking crack as a callback punchline throughout. Twitter tells me that in the earlier shows this week, he got 20 minutes of quality material out of it. Imagine walking into a city as a comedian and it hands you 20 minutes of material that didn't exist the day before! On one hand, maybe this will make him like us and come back! On the other hand, I don't want my city to still be so rich in comedy material next time!
Eddie looks absolutely fantastically gorgeous during this tour! Best I've seen him look in real time! The clean-shaven look really suits him, even when he's not going fully femme.
And my absolute favourite part of tonight was that instead of doing the stage door autograph thing, Eddie came back onstage and did a Q&A session! He sat down right on the edge of the stage and took questions from the audience! I vastly prefer that because you get to feel like you're part of a more intimate conversation even if you don't have anything to contribute! I didn't have any questions, so I just sat there and enjoyed and felt like I was getting to be a part of the conversation without the risk of making an ass of myself.
Eddie is so good at including the whole room that even though we were front and centre and really really close to him during the Q&A, we didn't feel any more included in the conversation than anyone else. He was deliberately calling on question-askers who were further back and not giving us any particular attention. All of which was very fair and equitable, of course, I'm just very impressed that he can do that! It's got to be difficult not to favour people who are nearly within arm's reach and within easy conversational distance! (We still got to enjoy proximity and skinny jeans and such, so I feel like we won.)
(I'm also happy about the Q&A in my ongoing tradition of interpreting everything as being the result of my influence as a blogger. Eddie did Q&As earlier in the Stripped tour, but didn't do them for us. I did express my disappointment on the internet that we got stage door instead of Q&A. And this time we got a Q&A! Also, last time I also expressed concern that the tickets available through Ticketmaster weren't the same as the tickets available though the Massey Hall box office, with far better tickets being available through Massey Hall (Massey Hall put us in the second row when Ticketmaster was putting us on the balcony), and this time the Toronto tickets were through Massey Hall only with Ticketmaster not involved at all!)
Next time there's an It Gets Better or Letter To Your Younger Self or similar meme floating around, this evening is something that I am totally going to tell my younger self about. This was like the pinnacle of experience for me.
Eddie did mention in the Q&A that he plans two more tours. I look forward to him topping this. Twice.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Things They Should Invent: leave cartons with cracked eggs open on the shelf
In the grocery store buying eggs, I picked up a carton off the shelf, checked the eggs, and discovered that one was stuck to the carton, which meant it was cracked and leaking. Since I don't want a cracked egg, I put that carton down and selected another one.
But I put the carton with the cracked egg back on the shelf, which meant that the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. And then the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. This wastes a little bit of everyone's time and interferes with the smooth flow of traffic in the egg section.
Solution: we need to standardize some way to signal to other shoppers that a particular carton contains a cracked egg.
My idea: If the carton has a cracked egg, leave it open on the shelf. Other people can then avoid it and go straight to cartons that are still closed.
This will also signal to store employees that there's something wrong with this carton, although it's possible they might just close it and put it back.
As an added bonus, if you pick up a carton of eggs and find it contains an egg that's cracked but not stuck to the carton, you could swap that out with one of the good, non-cracked eggs in an open carton on the shelf, thus consolidating all the cracked eggs and potentially reducing waste.
But I put the carton with the cracked egg back on the shelf, which meant that the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. And then the next person will pick it up, inspect it, find a cracked egg, and put it back on the shelf. This wastes a little bit of everyone's time and interferes with the smooth flow of traffic in the egg section.
Solution: we need to standardize some way to signal to other shoppers that a particular carton contains a cracked egg.
My idea: If the carton has a cracked egg, leave it open on the shelf. Other people can then avoid it and go straight to cartons that are still closed.
This will also signal to store employees that there's something wrong with this carton, although it's possible they might just close it and put it back.
As an added bonus, if you pick up a carton of eggs and find it contains an egg that's cracked but not stuck to the carton, you could swap that out with one of the good, non-cracked eggs in an open carton on the shelf, thus consolidating all the cracked eggs and potentially reducing waste.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Seeking external hard drive recommendations (signal boost)
This morning I posted a request for external hard drive recommendations, then promptly sank it with my blogathon.
If you have any external hard drive recommendations, please post them here.
Thank you kindly!
If you have any external hard drive recommendations, please post them here.
Thank you kindly!
Monday, November 11, 2013
How I became old-fashioned
There have been a lot of technological changes in recent years, and I haven't felt it necessary to adapt these changes wholesale. As a result, my overall media consumption and telecommunications patterns are starting to look a bit old-fashioned.
Here's what happened:
Newspapers
I've found that I read about three times as many articles in print newspapers than in online newspapers. Because you have to page through all the pages, more headlines and such catch my eye and I end up reading more articles, whereas when I'm reading online I tend not to dig deeper than what's linked to on the front page. It isn't readily apparent to me online whether I've looked at all the day's headlines or not, and it's important to me that I at least see what the headlines are even if I choose not to read all the articles.
I do use newspaper websites too, of course. There are columns I read regularly in papers I don't subscribe to, I look at how other media outlets are covering stories when I'm trying to get a full in-depth picture, and I often land on newspaper websites when googling things. But I continue to read my core newspapers in print so that my baseline news consumption doesn't get drastically reduced.
Books
I also mostly read books in print, because I find I focus better. I do use ebooks from time to time (when the library doesn't have something in print, when I want searchable, when I want to be able to read on my ipod), but I find I can concentrate and get into the story better when reading on paper. (I'm more likely to glaze over when reading on screen.)
I also find I like the physical switch from sitting in my computer chair and looking at my computer screen - especially since I'm now working from home so I'm in this exact same chair looking at this exact same screen for nearly all my waking hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my computer, but when I'm reading a book I sit in a different place, in a different position, facing a different direction, and escape into a different world.
Cable
When TV shows and movies are available on demand, I can watch them whenever I want. So I end up never watching them because I can always get to them later. So then, instead of being a nice break and bit of entertainment, they become an item on my to-do list.
However, if TV shows or movies are on TV at a specific time, then I'll stop what I'm doing if at all possible and watch them at that time because that's when they're on. It's a perfectly valid excuse to take a break, and it's also a clearly circumscribed break. No half-assed "I'll just game for a bit." Nope, I game for the duration of this specific TV show, and then get back to what I should be doing.
For example, I'm currently watch 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation because they're in syndication on channels I get. Twice a day, I take a half-hour break, and I'm getting through these shows at the rate of one episode a day.
However, United States of Tara, Big Love, Dexter and Arrested Development have been languishing on my "stuff I should get around to watching" list for literally years. Because they're no longer on TV or on channels I get, I'd have to get the DVDs from the library and binge-watch (because you can only take out a DVD for a week) or acquire them through unofficial channels. But I can do that whenever, so I haven't done it yet. The DVDs are languishing on my holds list and the shows are among the many things weighing down my mental to-do list.
I also don't feel any particular need to avoid television that has commercial breaks, because I have a long-standing habit of using commercial breaks to get shit done. When I'm watching something and commercials come on, I start doing housework or, if it's close to bedtime, going through my evening routine. I'm motivated because it's such a short period of time, so I get a surprising amount done. I wouldn't be anywhere near as motivated or efficient if I just though "I'll do 15 minutes of housework now for no particular reason."
There's also the fact that I use TV for exercise. The "if I can do it whenever, I'll never get around to it" thing holds here too. I'll get down on the floor and do pilates because Pilates from the Inside Out is on TV. But if I had DVDs or online videos, I'd procrastinate it. And given how much I detest exercise, anything that gets me doing it is good.
Cable is a major expense and is high on the Things I'd Cut If I Needed To Save Money list, but fortunately I don't need to cut it yet, so I keep it for the structure that it gives to my recreational habits.
Landline
I do own a cellphone, but it's a cheap phone that's uncomfortable to talk on with the cheapest plan I could find. (And for three years, I had a deal where I didn't pay anything at all for it.) I use it when I need to get in touch with someone while I'm out of the house, but I don't like it for social conversation. For social purposes, I very much prefer the landline.
The major advantage of the landline is it's in my home, not in my purse. I'm only able to chat for social purposes (and for many business purposes) when I'm at home. When I'm out and about, I've got shit to do and/or I'm already socializing with someone, so I'm simply not available for telephone conversations. I do still enjoy long, rambling, high-school-style telephone conversations when both parties have the time, but I only ever have time when I'm at home.
I think one of the factors here is that I live alone. I don't need telephone privacy from anyone else or have anyone else tying up my line (and back when these things did apply, it was the 20th century and I was a teenager, so a cellphone would have been an unattainable luxury for me at the time), so I don't have any reason not to use the landline, or any reason why using the cell would be preferable.
Email
Many people in recent years have moved towards using texting for social purposes, but I still find email more convenient for many of the same reasons why I find the landline more convenient. Again, I do use texting if I'm out and about and need to communicate with someone textually, or if I need to put textual information directly into someone's cellphone. And when people text me, I do text back (eventually, once I'm within reach of my cell and have it turned on.)
But I find it inconvenient for purely social "Hi, how's it going, how was your day?" purposes, again because I'm only up for these purely social conversations when I'm at home, and when I'm at home it's much more convenient to write textual conversations on the computer.
I can type nearly 120 wpm (my typing speed actually went up after plateauing for years!) but I can only text at about 50 on a good day. The keyboard is also more conducive to using sentences and paragraphs and punctuation and such. You don't need to press a extra button to insert a number or a semicolon or anything, you just go. Plus, if I'm at home, I'm almost always at the computer so it's just a question of alt-tabbing to another window and replying, whereas if I were to text a reply I'd have to put down/stop what I'm doing, pick up another device, and painstakingly peck out a reply.
Again, this is also informed by the fact that I live alone and in a very small apartment. I leave my computer on whenever I'm home and awake, I can hear any incoming email thanks to Gmail Notifier, and basically I'm never in a situation where using another device is more convenient for me than using my computer and I'm up for social chitchat. So, again, I don't have any reason not to use email, or any reason why texting would be preferable for casual conversation.
But apparently all these things are starting to be seen as old-fashioned, and, from what I've seen on Reddit and such, younger people in their teens and 20s hardly use them at all. But I'm well over 30 now. I hope that makes me old enough to be a bit old-fashioned.
Here's what happened:
Newspapers
I've found that I read about three times as many articles in print newspapers than in online newspapers. Because you have to page through all the pages, more headlines and such catch my eye and I end up reading more articles, whereas when I'm reading online I tend not to dig deeper than what's linked to on the front page. It isn't readily apparent to me online whether I've looked at all the day's headlines or not, and it's important to me that I at least see what the headlines are even if I choose not to read all the articles.
I do use newspaper websites too, of course. There are columns I read regularly in papers I don't subscribe to, I look at how other media outlets are covering stories when I'm trying to get a full in-depth picture, and I often land on newspaper websites when googling things. But I continue to read my core newspapers in print so that my baseline news consumption doesn't get drastically reduced.
Books
I also mostly read books in print, because I find I focus better. I do use ebooks from time to time (when the library doesn't have something in print, when I want searchable, when I want to be able to read on my ipod), but I find I can concentrate and get into the story better when reading on paper. (I'm more likely to glaze over when reading on screen.)
I also find I like the physical switch from sitting in my computer chair and looking at my computer screen - especially since I'm now working from home so I'm in this exact same chair looking at this exact same screen for nearly all my waking hours. Don't get me wrong, I love my computer, but when I'm reading a book I sit in a different place, in a different position, facing a different direction, and escape into a different world.
Cable
When TV shows and movies are available on demand, I can watch them whenever I want. So I end up never watching them because I can always get to them later. So then, instead of being a nice break and bit of entertainment, they become an item on my to-do list.
However, if TV shows or movies are on TV at a specific time, then I'll stop what I'm doing if at all possible and watch them at that time because that's when they're on. It's a perfectly valid excuse to take a break, and it's also a clearly circumscribed break. No half-assed "I'll just game for a bit." Nope, I game for the duration of this specific TV show, and then get back to what I should be doing.
For example, I'm currently watch 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation because they're in syndication on channels I get. Twice a day, I take a half-hour break, and I'm getting through these shows at the rate of one episode a day.
However, United States of Tara, Big Love, Dexter and Arrested Development have been languishing on my "stuff I should get around to watching" list for literally years. Because they're no longer on TV or on channels I get, I'd have to get the DVDs from the library and binge-watch (because you can only take out a DVD for a week) or acquire them through unofficial channels. But I can do that whenever, so I haven't done it yet. The DVDs are languishing on my holds list and the shows are among the many things weighing down my mental to-do list.
I also don't feel any particular need to avoid television that has commercial breaks, because I have a long-standing habit of using commercial breaks to get shit done. When I'm watching something and commercials come on, I start doing housework or, if it's close to bedtime, going through my evening routine. I'm motivated because it's such a short period of time, so I get a surprising amount done. I wouldn't be anywhere near as motivated or efficient if I just though "I'll do 15 minutes of housework now for no particular reason."
There's also the fact that I use TV for exercise. The "if I can do it whenever, I'll never get around to it" thing holds here too. I'll get down on the floor and do pilates because Pilates from the Inside Out is on TV. But if I had DVDs or online videos, I'd procrastinate it. And given how much I detest exercise, anything that gets me doing it is good.
Cable is a major expense and is high on the Things I'd Cut If I Needed To Save Money list, but fortunately I don't need to cut it yet, so I keep it for the structure that it gives to my recreational habits.
Landline
I do own a cellphone, but it's a cheap phone that's uncomfortable to talk on with the cheapest plan I could find. (And for three years, I had a deal where I didn't pay anything at all for it.) I use it when I need to get in touch with someone while I'm out of the house, but I don't like it for social conversation. For social purposes, I very much prefer the landline.
The major advantage of the landline is it's in my home, not in my purse. I'm only able to chat for social purposes (and for many business purposes) when I'm at home. When I'm out and about, I've got shit to do and/or I'm already socializing with someone, so I'm simply not available for telephone conversations. I do still enjoy long, rambling, high-school-style telephone conversations when both parties have the time, but I only ever have time when I'm at home.
I think one of the factors here is that I live alone. I don't need telephone privacy from anyone else or have anyone else tying up my line (and back when these things did apply, it was the 20th century and I was a teenager, so a cellphone would have been an unattainable luxury for me at the time), so I don't have any reason not to use the landline, or any reason why using the cell would be preferable.
Many people in recent years have moved towards using texting for social purposes, but I still find email more convenient for many of the same reasons why I find the landline more convenient. Again, I do use texting if I'm out and about and need to communicate with someone textually, or if I need to put textual information directly into someone's cellphone. And when people text me, I do text back (eventually, once I'm within reach of my cell and have it turned on.)
But I find it inconvenient for purely social "Hi, how's it going, how was your day?" purposes, again because I'm only up for these purely social conversations when I'm at home, and when I'm at home it's much more convenient to write textual conversations on the computer.
I can type nearly 120 wpm (my typing speed actually went up after plateauing for years!) but I can only text at about 50 on a good day. The keyboard is also more conducive to using sentences and paragraphs and punctuation and such. You don't need to press a extra button to insert a number or a semicolon or anything, you just go. Plus, if I'm at home, I'm almost always at the computer so it's just a question of alt-tabbing to another window and replying, whereas if I were to text a reply I'd have to put down/stop what I'm doing, pick up another device, and painstakingly peck out a reply.
Again, this is also informed by the fact that I live alone and in a very small apartment. I leave my computer on whenever I'm home and awake, I can hear any incoming email thanks to Gmail Notifier, and basically I'm never in a situation where using another device is more convenient for me than using my computer and I'm up for social chitchat. So, again, I don't have any reason not to use email, or any reason why texting would be preferable for casual conversation.
But apparently all these things are starting to be seen as old-fashioned, and, from what I've seen on Reddit and such, younger people in their teens and 20s hardly use them at all. But I'm well over 30 now. I hope that makes me old enough to be a bit old-fashioned.
Why try to force people to exchange gifts when none of them want to?
DEAR MISS MANNERS,
As a father of two teenagers sons (14 & 18) and step-father of two more boys (16 & 21), I am at odds with my wife about birthday gifts between the siblings.
While I understand that giving should be from the heart, I feel the teenage boys could use a "nudge" in the right direction. My idea was that sibling gifts should be at least $25, and no limit to generosity above this base level of gift card or purchase. In this way, the amount always comes back to them anyway, so it's not a big budget issue, looking at the year as a whole.
What are your thoughts about brotherly love through birthday gifts, should it be regulated just enough to encourage giving?
If they're unenthusiastic about giving each other gifts, why eliminate the option of a mutual agreement not to exchange gifts? Giving the perfect gift is awesome, but the would-be joy of giving quickly becomes an arduous chore when it's forced upon you.
If the kids have different ideas of what constitutes an appropriate birthday present, it might be an idea to make some guidelines (with their input!) But if they're all just unenthusiastic, I think it would be a better idea to let them drop it in favour of exchanging gifts with people they actually care about. The most important thing in encouraging giving is to make it a pleasure, not a chore.
Things They Should Invent: insist on Advent
On November 1, multiple non-retail sources, ranging from Weather Network polls to Reddit alien doodles, turned Christmasmas themed. As though everyone had collectively decided "It's November, therefore it's time to think about Christmas!" (In fact, one of the polls or articles on the Weather Network even said this outright.)
This is ridiculous. It wasn't too long ago that US Thanksgiving was considered the distant early beginning of Christmas shopping and such. But to stretch it out to very nearly 2 full months? That will ruin it for everyone, because everyone will be tired of Christmas by the time December rolls around. And to unquestioningly treat that as baseline human reality? Unacceptable!
I have a solution: Christians should insist that Advent be respected.
Advent is, in many Christian denominations, a period of anticipation and preparation for the arrival of Christ. In Western denominations (which includes Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist), it begins four Sundays before Christmas, which ranges from November 27 to December 3 depending on how the calendar falls that year. That seems like plenty of time for actively getting ready for Christmas. In fact, it has been decreed to be enough time by the very people who decreed that Christmas is A Thing in the first place!
Appropriately, because Christmas is a Christian holiday, this solution needs to be pushed and promoted and advocated for by Christians. There are people out there who are very insistent that Christmas should be acknowledged in public spaces, going to far as to proclaiming there is a "War on Christmas" if it isn't acknowledge to their satisfaction.
These people, especially, can do an enormous amount of good by also insisting that Advent be acknowledged, and by proclaiming and pre-Advent public display of Christmas paraphernalia to be a War on Advent.
The liturgical calendar exists for a reason. There are different seasons that reflect the trials and tribulations of the life of Christ and of the human condition. Christianity - and life itself - are not all trees and presents and food and adorable haloed babies. Advent, too, is there for a reason, and organizations that fail to respect it are failing to respect the complexity of your religion. You should protest this, like you would protest the use of a creche as an Easter decoration.
This is ridiculous. It wasn't too long ago that US Thanksgiving was considered the distant early beginning of Christmas shopping and such. But to stretch it out to very nearly 2 full months? That will ruin it for everyone, because everyone will be tired of Christmas by the time December rolls around. And to unquestioningly treat that as baseline human reality? Unacceptable!
I have a solution: Christians should insist that Advent be respected.
Advent is, in many Christian denominations, a period of anticipation and preparation for the arrival of Christ. In Western denominations (which includes Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran and Methodist), it begins four Sundays before Christmas, which ranges from November 27 to December 3 depending on how the calendar falls that year. That seems like plenty of time for actively getting ready for Christmas. In fact, it has been decreed to be enough time by the very people who decreed that Christmas is A Thing in the first place!
Appropriately, because Christmas is a Christian holiday, this solution needs to be pushed and promoted and advocated for by Christians. There are people out there who are very insistent that Christmas should be acknowledged in public spaces, going to far as to proclaiming there is a "War on Christmas" if it isn't acknowledge to their satisfaction.
These people, especially, can do an enormous amount of good by also insisting that Advent be acknowledged, and by proclaiming and pre-Advent public display of Christmas paraphernalia to be a War on Advent.
The liturgical calendar exists for a reason. There are different seasons that reflect the trials and tribulations of the life of Christ and of the human condition. Christianity - and life itself - are not all trees and presents and food and adorable haloed babies. Advent, too, is there for a reason, and organizations that fail to respect it are failing to respect the complexity of your religion. You should protest this, like you would protest the use of a creche as an Easter decoration.
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