Showing posts with label free ideas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label free ideas. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

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.

Tuesday, October 06, 2015

Compromises from this week's Ethicist

When I read this week's Ethicist, I kept coming up with ideas for compromises.

My husband’s sister died recently, after a short, unhappy life. In her will, she asked that her ashes be scattered in the ocean near a place she lived during one of the brief happy times of her adult life. Instead, my mother-in-law interred the ashes in a family plot near her home, saying that she needed a focal point for her grief. I realize that life is for the living, and none of us believe that my sister-in-law is watching the proceedings from on high. But I nevertheless feel viscerally appalled by this cavalier contravention of her last wishes. Am I right to be upset? Do we have ethical obligations to the dead? NAME WITHHELD
I wonder if a reasonable compromise if a survivor wants to keep ashes but the deceased wanted them scattered would be for the survivor to keep them for the time being and to provide in their will for the disposition of the ashes in accordance with the deceased's wishes.  Interring them wouldn't be appropriate, but what if the mother kept them in an urn on the mantelpiece for the rest of her life, and then stated in her own will that they were to be scattered in the ocean per her daugther's wishes?

I am a librarian at a large public university. Our library administrators, following a current fad, plan to radically ‘‘downsize’’ the library collection (i.e. throw out a lot of books). Essentially, anything in the general collection that hasn’t been checked out in the past few years is going straight to the trash-hauling bin. I believe that this poorly planned weeding project will do serious damage to a very valuable public resource and that if local researchers knew the scope of devastation underway, they would have strong objections. I have been outspoken enough about my opinion to be in hot water with said administrators. Do I have an ethical responsibility to persist in whistle-blowing? How much personal trouble am I ethically obliged to cause for myself in order to oppose an administrative decision that I believe is not just damaging to our organizational mission but stupid and wrong? NAME WITHHELD
What if, before throwing out the books, they attempted to give them away?  Inform the university community and any other networks of local researchers, and let them salvage whatever they want before it goes straight to the dumpster.  That's not to say that doing this would completely mitigate any detrimental impact, but, from a purely pragmatic perspective, LW's employers may well be more receptive to "Here's a zero-cost way to improve the optics of our plan while better fulfilling our mandate!" than they would be to "No, your plan is bad and wrong! Don't do it!"

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Things They Should Invent: different heating/air-conditioning by-laws for different kinds of buildings

My apartment retains heat.  It holds onto the heat generated by appliances and electronics and me, and heats up as the morning sun shines through the windows.  In the summer, temperature gets warm enough for the thermostat to turn on the air conditioning turns every single day when there's morning sun (and many days when there isn't).

However, because it retains heat so well, in the winter the temperature gets cool enough for the thermostat to turn on the heating an average of one day per year.  Last year it was zero days.  And it only gets that cool if we have the confluence of two sunless mornings plus strong easterly wind plus I don't use the stove during those days.

Because of this, I feel quite strongly that air conditioning is far more important than heating, and would like residential tenancy by-laws to be rewritten so that they don't prioritize heat over air conditioning.

However, not everyone feels this way.  Quite often when I mention it on the internet, someone complains most vehemently that heating is clearly far more important than air conditioning! People would freeze to death if they had to be in a building with no heat, they argue.  I've never been in such a building myself, but they must exist to lead people to feel that way.  If everyone was warm, it wouldn't occur to them that could could be a problem

I previously blogged that they should study whether heat or cold is a problem for more buildings.  But now that I think about it some more, that's actually a red herring.

What they should really do is give buildings a rating for how likely it is to get too warm vs. too cold, and have different by-laws for buildings with different ratings.  Ratings would be determined by an inspection of the building in the summer and in the winter, or some other similarly reliable method. Repeat inspections may be required every X years if buildings evolve or deteriorate enough to justify this.

It could be a simple system with only two ratings ("air conditioning priority building" vs. "heat priority building"), or three ratings ("air conditioning priority building" vs. "heat priority building" vs. "neutral building"), or there could be a more nuanced scale where buildings are given a rating between 1-5 or 1-100 or whatever makes sense.

Using an extremely simple example, suppose buildings are rated "air conditioning priority" or "heat priority", and suppose they continue to use the current calendar-based by-law system rather than switching to a temperature-based system as some recommend.  Heat priority buildings would continue with the current system where the landlord is required to provide heat between September 15 and June 1.  But in air conditioning priority buildings, the landlord would only be required to provide heat between, say, November 1 and April 1.  Or, perhaps, the landlord would be explicitly required to provide air conditioning between May 1 and September 15 (with no explicit requirement of heat, as an analogue to the current lack of explicit requirement of air conditioning).

Basically, the by-laws should be flexible enough to take into account the fact that different buildings of different construction may require different courses of action to provide a comfortable home for tenants.  A one size fits all rule won't work in a city that ranges from Victorian detached houses to glass highrises.

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Ideas for the Damage Control LW who wants to avoid disclosing her surgery

I didn't notice this Damage Control column when it first came out, but I have an idea for the letter-writer:

I am in my early 30s. As a teenager, I was quite obese (300 lbs), but I am very grateful to say that I have been slim now for several years. But my body still “bears the wounds” of my previous weight: lots of loose skin, a sagging chest, etc. Special garments were needed to hold it in. I recently underwent the first of two surgeries to correct my loose skin, a procedure called a body lift. I took a month off work, and was paid through the company’s short-term disability plan. Though I did say it would be the first of two surgeries, I did not tell people at work the exact nature of my surgery: I think there is a stigma attached to cosmetic procedures. I did get the odd “soft inquiry,” but kept mum. My dilemma is that my second surgery involves a lift and augmentation of both my bum and breast area. How do I handle telling my boss and co-workers without revealing too much or coming off as cold and closed off? Also, how do I respond should I get comments about my new appearance? While I fear negative judgment about being “paid to get a boob job,” this is a private issue that has a long history.
 The columnist recommends sending a mass email with an explanation, which I strongly disagree with.  Sending this email might give the impression that your private parts are open for discussion, not to mention that people could feel sexually harassed if they started receiving unsolicited emails about their colleagues' private parts. It might be appropriate in certain cases to tell the whole story to one or two selected colleagues one on one, if the subject should come up in an informal private conversation (depending greatly on context and the nature of the specific interpersonal relationship).  It's even plausible that in some offices, with some specific combinations of interpersonal relationships, it might even be appropriate to tell everyone at happy hour or around the water cooler.  But this isn't a subject for an email. I never thought I'd say this, but email's too formal.  If you disclose, it should be in an informal context that's marked as outside the scope of Business.

But as I read the letter, an idea occurred to me for a two-tiered sneaky approach that could be used if she chooses not to disclose the actual nature of her surgery.

Basic sneaky approach: come up with a cover story about how recovering from an unnamed surgery might cause your body to change shape.  For example, "My doctor recommended Pilates to help me regain strength in various areas after my surgery." True but secondary would be best (e.g. if you don't eat as much when recovering from surgery), but false but plausible would work too. Think about this very carefully, so it's consistent with any observable changes to your body after your first surgery and the changes that will be observed in your body after your second surgery, and script a delivery that will allow you to segue away from the topic of your surgery onto other topics (e.g. "But I've only ever tried Pilates mat work, I've never been to a gym where they use those machines. Does your Pilates class use the machines?  What's it like?")  Once you've worked this out, drop it into conversation with a co-worker or two next time the opportunity arises.  Then, if the rumour mill starts discussing the change in your body shape, an explanation straight from the horse's mouth is readily available.

Advanced sneaky approach: do some research and find another kind of surgery that could plausibly require two procedures and have similar recovery time and other observable effects to what your colleagues can observe about you.  I don't have the medical knowledge to come up with a real example, so I'll use a fake example: boneitis.  Suppose you do some research and discover that boneitis surgery can require two procedures, at similar spacing, with similar recovery times, and can result in a similar change in physical appearance.  Now, if you're ever in a situation where people are inquiring about your medical situation, you can hint in the direction of boneitis.  Don't explicitly say you have boneitis! Instead, present as someone who has boneitis and wants to be discreet about it, so that if people google the hints you're dropping, boneitis will come up near the top of the results.

Obviously this is a bit complex, and whether you actually want to do it will depend on how secret you want to keep your medical situation and your own capacity of subterfuge. But it is an option if you're finding it difficult to say nothing, but don't want to actively disclose.

Friday, April 03, 2015

Improving upon the parking space management company idea

I previously came up with the idea of a parking space management company, for people who own parking spaces for their condos but don't actually use them.

This morning the shower gave me a much simpler solution: the condo corporation should fulfill this function as a service to residents.

If you own a parking space that you don't need, you sell it to the condo corporation, which buys it at assessed value.
If you want a parking space, you can buy one from the condo corporation at assessed value (if there are any available). 
If you're selling a condo and your buyer doesn't want to buy the parking space, you can sell it to the condo corporation at assessed value.
If you're buying a condo and it doesn't come with a parking space, you can buy one from the condo corporation at assessed value (if there are any available).

The condo corporation can rent out any unused parking spaces at a profit, with the revenues going into general coffers.  When I ran the numbers on my own condo, I determined that renting out a parking space at the going rate in my neighbourhood would pay for itself in 20 years, which would provide an influx of revenue just as the building comes up for major repairs.  Until then, it should be revenue-neutral.

Residents would, of course, be free to sell or rent out their own parking spaces, but if they don't want to do the work themselves, the condo corporation would provide the service.

At this point, you may be thinking "Wouldn't it be simpler for the condo to just own all the parking spaces and rent them out to residents?"  I agree, but, based on the complaints I've read when googling about condos that do this, many car + condo people don't like this approach.  Having the condo corporation manage parking spaces if there is demand for such a service would maximize options for everyone. 

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Idea for a new economic indicator

This post was inspired by, but is not directly related to, this article.

When talking about whether the population as a whole is making economic gains or losses, people often talk about middle class vs. low income vs. high income, or they look at average or median incomes for the population as a whole and for various demographics.  Less often, but sometimes, they talk about the ratio of income to tuition to housing prices. (The Globe and Mail has a useful comparison tool.)

It occurs to me that another useful indicator would be to look at changes in income over time with people who bring various levels of education, skills and experience to the table.  For example, how has the income level of a person with an undergraduate degree and 10 years of work experienced evolved over the years?  What about a newly-minted Ph.D.?  What about a student working their way through college?  What about people who have been freelancing for 5 years?

It might be useful to get somewhat specific (Is the person with an undergrad degree and 10 years of work experience a translator or a teacher or a computer program?), but the data would cease to be comparable if you got too specific (I don't know how informative it would be to track the income of social media specialists or FORTRAN programmers over decades).

If the data is available, it would also be interesting to track negative factors.  How has the income of people who were laid off one year ago evolved?  (i.e. were they more or less likely to get new jobs within a year in previous decades?)  What's the situation of people who started a business within the past two years?  What about people who are involuntary entrepreneurs (i.e. they didn't want to start a business, but couldn't get hired)?

I think this would fill in some blanks, and it has the potential to draw attention to certain problems that may be hidden by the other, more commonly used indicators.

Friday, January 09, 2015

Dell needs to empower its employees to keep the company's promises

As I've mentioned before, every computer I've owned has been from Dell, and I've been completely loyal to them my entire adult life, but I've been losing my trust in them during the life of my current computer.

I just realized that this loss of trust can be boiled down to one thing: the employees aren't fully empowered to keep the company's promises.

Here are two recent examples of lack of employee empowerment, how they made me lose trust in Dell, and how they would have won back my loyalty if the employees were fully empowered.

The Warranty Extension Problem

About 2 months before the four-year on-site service warranty I purchased with my computer expired, I got a mailing from Dell offering me the opportunity to extend my warranty.  The mailing was customized, with my name, computer type, purchase date, existing warranty details, and even my service tag number.  I called the number provided, and spoke to a gentleman who was prepared to sell me a warranty extension for a reasonable price.  I agreed, and as he verbally reviewed what I'd just purchased, he mentioned that this extension was for mail-in service.  "Wait," I objected, "My warranty is for on-site service!"  He insisted that there's no such thing as on-site service for laptops, even though that's what I have and I had successfully had a technician dispatched to my home for a previous issue with this computer. So I told him I had to think about it before paying that amount for mail-in service, and hung up.

Then I reached out to @DellCares on twitter.  When I told them the situation, they told me there's no such thing as an extension of a four-year warranty, even though I had a customized mailing offering me just that and the gentleman on the phone had just offered to sell me one, just not with on-site service.  I showed them a picture of the customized mailing, and they told me I must have received it by mistake.

Since @DellCares thought warranty extensions didn't exist, I figured I should take what I can get and called the phone number again. But the gentleman I spoke with this time told me this wasn't the number for Canadian service (even though it was printed on my customized mailing sent to my Canadian address and they'd offered to sell me a warranty not an hour earlier) and gave me another number to call.  I called that number and got what sounded like a US television provider (I forget the name), saying that they can't accept toll-free calls from outside the US.  So I called Dell back and, weirdly, got the same representative. He gave me another phone number that was one digit off what I'd written down.  I repeated it back to him and got it confirmed, but when I called it I got what sounded like a fax machine.

I went to the Dell website in an attempt to find the correct phone number and, as I was logged into my account, discovered I had the option to buy the warranty extension online!  Awesome!  The price was higher than the first gentleman I'd spoken with named, but it included on-site service and was available at the click of a mouse! I bought it, immediately got a confirmation email, and that was that!

Or so I thought.

A month later, when my hard drive began failing, I called tech support, and they mentioned that there was only about a month left on my warranty.  Wait, what?  I just bought an extension!  Long story short, my warranty extension somehow didn't go through.  It didn't appear on my account, and my credit card wasn't billed.  If the hard drive problem had come just a few weeks later, I would have been out of warranty without even knowing it!  Unfortunately, the warranty representative I spoke to wasn't able to sell me the same warranty I thought I'd already bought.  She could only sell me mail-in service.  I offered to send her the email showing that I'd bought it through the website previously, but she had no mechanism to receive emails from clients.  Nor could she put me in touch with someone who could fulfill this promise - the best her supervisor could do was reduce the price on the mail-in service.

So despite the fact that Dell twice promised me the opportunity to buy an extension of my on-site warranty, both times entirely on its own initiative with the promise generated by its computer systems that were well aware of the age and nature of my computer system and my geographical location, I couldn't get in contact with a person who could sell me this promised warranty, even though the price I was willing to pay was more than the cost of an entry-level laptop at a Boxing Day sale.

The On-Site Service Dispatching Problem

As I mentioned before, I'm currently going through some very mysterious technical problems. I've been through extensive troubleshooting over a period of weeks, and had every hardware part that could possibly be involved replaced, yet the problem persists.  The technician I've been working with says all that's left to be done is send it to the depot.


The problem is that this technician is not sufficiently empowered.  The entire process has been completely logical, and I totally understand from a diagnostic perspective that having it looked at in person is the next logical step, but he has no mechanism to dispatch an on-site technician to make a diagnosis.  They can only dispatch on-site technicians to install specific replacement parts that are dispatched as a result of remote diagnosis.

On top of that, he also has no mechanism to dispatch a different brand of hard drive.  This is an issue because the boot-up failure only happened with Western Digital drives, not with the previous Samsung drive, so it's a variable that hasn't been eliminated.  (Also, it's the only remaining variable to eliminate that either I or the telephone tech can identify.)

So, despite the fact that I cheerfully paid a premium for on-site warranty service back when I purchased the computer, I still have to send it in to the depot (and therefore be computerless for two weeks).

What would have happened if these Dell employees had been empowered

If these employees had been empowered, I would be singing Dell's praises and they would have won back my blind loyalty.

For the warranty issue, if either the warranty rep or the @DellCares person had been empowered to extend my on-site service warranty, I would have been thrilled.  It never occurred to me that a warranty could be extended before I got the mailing in the first place, and when I got the mailing I thought "This is the solution to all my problems!"  (My problems being that the early signs of hard drive failure were manifesting themselves without my recognizing them, and I don't really want to buy a new computer this year, hoping instead to wait for Windows 10.)  If I'd gotten a warranty extension, I would have blogged and tweeted enthusiastically about how awesome Dell is for anticipating my needs.

But because they weren't empowered, I feel tricked and abandoned, and have lost trust in them since a transaction just somehow didn't go through despite my being sent a confirmation email, I got no notice whatsoever that it had failed, and resolving the problem was simply not possible.

For the tech support dispatch issue, if the telephone rep had been empowered to dispatch a different brand of hard drive to rule out that variable, or to dispatch a tech to diagnose on site when it became apparent that we'd eliminated every avenue for remote support, I would take this as a reminder of why I was loyal to Dell in the first place. Even if it took multiple tech visits to solve, I'd be delighted that they're taking such good care of me. Dell's on-site warranty support has saved my ass with every computer I've owned, and if they'd been able to do the same with this one, they'd have completely won me over. I'd be totally loyal to them once again. I'd be blogging and tweeting their praises. When buying my next computer, I'd go to the Dell site without even considering comparison shopping and buy the best gaming laptop available with the best warranty possible.  When people are discussing what kind of computer to buy, I'd say "I always go with Dell because their warranty service is so awesome!"

But because the tech wasn't empowered to do anything except have me send my computer to the depot and therefore spend at least two weeks computerless, I'm stressing out, I'm googling for information about Dell's depot service and finding horror stories, and I feel betrayed and tricked and abandoned that I have to send my computer out despite having purchased on-site service.
 

One Dell innovation that I appreciate is after you call tech support, the tech you speak to is assigned ownership of the issue.  You get an email with a tracking number, and you can email the same tech back if you  have further problems.  They'll give you further support by email or arrange a callback at a convenient time.  I love this because it means you only  have to wait on hold and explain your problem once.  After that, it's just a continuation of the same conversation, occurring at your convenience.

And the telephone tech I've been working with is awesome. He's perfectly polite at all times and above-and-beyond patient.  I have no objection to his technical skills - his initial pre-googling knowledge is greater than mine, and there was nothing I could google up that he didn't already suggest.  Thanks to Dell's system of having a single tech take ownership of the issue, he's gotten back to me promptly every time I've emailed him, and I've been notified of his expected return on days when I've emailed him while he's out of office. Dell just needs to extend this to its logical conclusion, so my awesome tech has the authority to do everything necessary to solve my problem rather than being forced to leave me with the stress and uncertainty of sending my computer into a void.

Sunday, December 21, 2014

What to do if you're offended at being offered a senior's discount


DEAR ABBY: I was at the hairdresser yesterday, and when I went to the register to pay, the receptionist asked me if I was over 65 "so I could get the senior discount." Abby, I am only 55! I found her question insulting, and several of my friends have had this same experience. I appreciate the young woman trying to save me a couple of dollars, but I'd rather pay full price than be asked if I want the discount.
Why don't businesses that offer senior citizen discounts just post a notice near the register? That way, if a customer is entitled to it, she or he can ask for it when they check out rather than have to hear that they look older than they are. -- INSULTED IN PEORIA, ARIZ.

I suggest that if you are offended by being offered the discount, you should say yes to the discount. Even if you aren't old enough.

By accepting the discount, you are disincentivizing the business from proactively offering the discount, by creating a situation where the more they offer the discount, the more money it costs them.  You're also getting yourself some compensation for your hurt feelings.

Some people will object to this on the ground that it's lying, and if you do object on those grounds you are, of course, free not to do this.  But since some people are apparently so insulted at being offered the discount that they feel moved to write to Dear Abby, I feel that accepting the discount is proportionate retribution.

Saturday, July 05, 2014

How to illustrate articles about dying bees

Lately, there have been quite a few articles in the media saying that bees are dying out because of pesticide use, with the general thesis that this is a bad thing.

Problem: some articles are illustrated with giant zoomed-in pictures of bees, far larger than life, where you can see all the yucky details like hairs and antennae.

And, given my phobias, my immediate visceral reaction is "AAAAH!!!! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!!"

Which isn't quite the reaction the article is going for!

I do understand how ecosystems work so I know on an intellectual level why bees dying is a bad thing.  But the visceral phobia-based reaction is faster and louder, so the "KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!!" comes to mind before I even notice what the article is about.  And then, if I can bear to look at the headline, it's telling me about how this thing is being killed.

I know my reaction is not within the range of normal, but the fact remains that, in the culture of these articles' target audience, bugs are culturally considered yucky.  If I see a bug and I say "Eww, gross!" more people would think that's a "normal" reaction than if I see a bug and I say "Aww, isn't it cute!"  Bigger bugs are considered yuckier, and the details like legs and hairs and antennae are seen as grotesque. Fear of bugs is one of the most common specific phobias, many people are afraid of bees because they sting, and it's culturally considered normal and a valid choice to kill bugs because they're yucky (c.f. the existence of flyswatters and Raid).

In short, even among non-phobic readers, these enormous, grotesque pictures of the bees are far more likely to inspire revulsion than sympathy, which is contrary to the intention of the article.

A far better strategy would be to illustrate these articles with pictures of honey looking delicious and flowers looking beautiful - which is, in fact, the end result that you want people thinking about. If it is in fact necessary to portray bees, they should under no circumstances be zoomed in on so they appear larger than life! Features like legs and hair and antennae should be de-emphasized, and the image positions and camera angles should be such that people don't even for a second think there's an actual bee on their paper or screen. In appropriate contexts, perhaps cartoons of anthropomorphic bees could be used - more of a friendly food brand mascot and less of a creature that escaped from the gates of hell.

Zoomed-in pictures of bees are not going to change anyone's opinion from "meh" to "Save the bees!" People who think bees are fascinating up close already want to save the bees, people who are indifferent will react with indifference, and people who are grossed out will, even if only briefly, react with "Kill it!"  But pictures of honey and flowers might turn a "meh" into "Wait, I like honey and flowers, this is important!"  And, in any case, they're far less likely to inspire "Kill it!"

Monday, June 23, 2014

How the library can improve its automatic return system

I should be happy about my library's automatic return system, since it's yet another example of one of my inventions materializing in real life, but I'm seeing some problems that can make it very inconvenient from time to time.  Here's how I'd improve it:

1. Let it accept more than one item at once. The self checkout and scan multiple items at once (my personal record is six large hardcover books), but the return slot can only handle one at a time.  This is irritating when the person in front of you is returning a lot of things at once.  The other day I was behind a lady with two small children who were returning a total of 20 items.  This is a reasonable number of children's picture books to check out for two children over a 3-week loan period, but it takes for-fricking-ever to scan them all in one at a time. A massive line formed behind this family, and there was nothing that could be done to expedite the process.

2. Continue to have a manual return slot. I've seen manual return slots at other libraries that have automatic returns, but mine doesn't have one.  So if there's a line for the automatic return or the automatic return is malfunctioning, there doesn't appear to be any alternative.  (I recently learned that you can also hand the book to the person at the circulation desk, but there's no signage or anything to that effect. And if the automatic return is malfunctioning, the circulation desk person is probably in the back room trying to fix it.)  If we could just pop books into a manual slot, we wouldn't be getting stressed and frustrated when the automatic return malfunctions or the person in front of us has 20 items.  (Or maybe they wouldn't even be in front of us because they'd just pop their 20 items into the  manual slot and be out of there in 30 seconds.)  I think most people would continue to use the automatic returns because they verify that your item has in fact been checked in - plus, they're fun! - but simply making them optional would vastly reduce frustration.

Monday, April 07, 2014

Half-formed idea: standardized two-step marriage proposal

Something I see from time to time in advice columns is a situation where one partner is ready to get married, and the other partner isn't.  This is often presented as a Serious Relationship Problem, and surprisingly often talked about as a Reason to End the Relationship. 

But one of the things that might happen in a relationship is that one partner is ready to marry before the other partner is.  This doesn't necessarily have to be a problem.  Two people may well have different emotional arcs that end up in the same place.  Everyone who becomes ready to marry was at one point not ready to marry (although, obviously, not being ready to marry doesn't necessarily mean that one day being ready to marry is inevitable), so for one person to be ready to marry before the other isn't necessarily a sign of long-term incompatibility.

There are some people in advice column forums who respond to anything about a partner who isn't proposing with "Well, then you should propose to them!" But that isn't necessarily going to solve the problem.  If the other party isn't yet ready to get married, that creates the awkward situation where they have to decline the marriage proposal, which could be a blow to the relationship. In general, a declined marriage proposal is seen as a setback in a relationship, whereas no marriage proposal yet is seen as a relationship progressing (perhaps normally, perhaps slowly), or perhaps stalled. Declining a marriage proposal is seen as backward movement, whereas not having proposed yet is neutral or slow forward movement.

So I suggest a two-step system:

When one party in the relationship (whom we will call "First") is ready to marry, they inform the other party (whom we will call "Second") through a standardized system/script/ritual.  Under the generally-accepted rules of this system, Second is not required or expected to give any response to the news that First is ready. It's the in-person equivalent of a facebook status update.

However, this means that Second is responsible for making the formal marriage proposal at such time as they are ready (like Penny and Leonard in Big Bang Theory). Second knows they'll get a yes (because First has already given them a yes), so there's no stress or worry about whether the proposal will be accepted.  It becomes a 100% guaranteed positive thing.

I don't really have a good idea for what form the first half of the proposal should take.  It could be as simple as First saying to Second "You're hereby responsible for marriage proposals in this relationship." Extrapolating from my new favourite Polish expression (which I am totally appropriating into English, BTW), First could give Second a toy monkey.  It doesn't really matter, it just needs to be standardized.  And it shouldn't count as an official Phase of the Relationship (like Living Together or Engaged), it's just a notification.

And, of course, if First finds themselves in a position where they want to end the relationship if an engagement isn't forthcoming (which apparently is a feeling some people do have sometimes), they are still allowed to propose to Second.  They just go in knowing they have a higher than average chance of getting a no and having to make difficult decisions from there.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Helpful household hints

1. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is good for degriming shower tiles

Based on the colour, the grime seemed to be related to my hair conditioner, and normal cleaning products plus elbow grease wouldn't budge it.  But the Mr. Clean Magic eraser wiped it right off with only slightly more than the absolute minimum of effort humanly possible.

2. How to declog a paper shredder

The problem: the shredder wouldn't "grab" the paper, not even when set on "Forward" (i.e. run regardless of whether you think there's paper poised to be shredded.)

 First I ran the shredder forward and backwards like the instruction manual said, but that didn't work.

After switching it off and unplugging it, I tried manually removing the bits of paper I could see stuck between the blades, but I couldn't get at all of them.  I then tried blowing at it with compressed air (i.e. this sort of thing), but that didn't get rid of all the bits.

The ultimate solution: take the long, skinny straw-like thing on the compressed air can, and stick it down the slot of the paper shredder where I could see the bits of paper still stuck in there.  (Making sure the shredder was still turned off and unplugged, of course!)  It's skinny enough to get into the slot, flexible enough to get in between the blades without damaging them, and inconsequential enough that it didn't matter if I damaged it in the blades (which I didn't).  And it got all the cloggy bits of paper out of the way, and now the shredder works more enthusiastically than ever.

3. How do get rid of bird poo without touching it (and without a hose)

The problem: bird poo on the outside of the glass outer wall of my balcony (i.e. the bit under the railing.)  I can see its ugliness, but I'm too vertiginous to reach over the railing to clean it off (and would be too squeamish to touch it even indirectly with paper towels and rubber gloves even if I could reach it).

The solution: first, wait for a rainy day when the rain is beating rather heavily against the surface to be washed.

Spray some OxiClean Spray on the surface, above the bird poo.  It will drip down, cover the poo, and the enzymes will get rid of a lot of it.

Next, after the OxiClean has either all dripped down below the mess or the rain has washed it away, squirt a dab of dish soap (the hand-washing kind, not the dishwasher kind) above the poo.  It will drip down and cover the poo, and the rain will make it into a lather, which will wash the rest away. 

The last step is to take some Windex, and spray a generous amount over as much of the area as possible, focusing on the top so it can drip down.  This will clean off the build-up left by the Oxi-Clean and dish soap, so once everything is dry you won't even be able to tell anything happened there.

If you have a bird poo problem somewhere where you have access to a hose, you obviously don't have to wait for it to rain.  But the approach I've described here works in cases where a hose isn't possible.  As an added bonus, if you're very careful to spray the stuff only directly on the wall, it won't land on any passers-by who might be walking below.

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

itunes lyrics efficiency

As I've mentioned before, I'm lyric-deaf, meaning I can't always clearly hear all the words of a song I'm listening to.  As a result, often when I'm going about my everyday life, I feel the need to stop and google up the lyrics to the song I'm listening to.

But this morning my shower gave me an idea:

Every time I find myself googling up lyrics, I'll paste them into the "Lyrics" tab for that song. (Right-click the song, click on Get Info, choose the Lyrics tab.)  Then they'll be available for me on my ipod, and apparently you can also download plug-ins that will show the contents of the Lyrics tab in itunes as the song plays.  So if I keep doing this, every song with incomprehensible lyrics will eventually display its lyrics automatically when it plays.

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.)

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

My schoolwork/studying technique

Since I've posted my essay-writing technique, I thought I'd also post my approach to schoolwork and studying.

I spent a designated amount of time on schoolwork per day per class.  Extrapolating from guidelines in my high school student handbook, I started with 15 minutes per day per class in Grade 9, and gradually increased it to 30 minutes per day per class in university.

Note that I worked with the total amount of time, rather than distributing it evenly among all my classes.  This means that, for example, in a university semester where I was taking 6 courses, I'd do a total of 3 hours of schoolwork each day, but I wouldn't necessarily do an equal amount for each course, or even do work for every course every day.

I'd decide what to work on by simple chronology.  I wrote down every deadline (reading, assignments, tests, projects, exams) in my calendar, and would spend my designated hours of schoolwork on whatever was due next.

If the next thing due was a test to be studied for (as opposed to an assignment that can be definitively completed), I'd do one round of studying for the test, then go on to the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, then do the next deadline, then do another round of studying for the test, and so on and so forth until I wrote the test.  What a "round of studying" actually was would depend on the nature of the test.  It could be reading through all the relevant parts of the textbook, it could be quizzing myself on the material that would be on the test, it could be doing practice exams.  

If the next thing due was a group project and my group hadn't yet sorted itself out enough for me to know what exactly I needed to do for the project, I'd work on it anyway.  I'd just open up a Word document and start typing up reasonable content for the project.  Then, at the end of the day's session, I'd email what I had to the rest of the group.  I'd frame it as "I've been thinking about the project, and I think better by actually writing stuff down, so I threw together a partial, very rough draft.  Feel free to critique whatever you don't like, or appropriate anything you do like, and we can maybe use it as a basis for discussion and planning for the rest of the project."  I didn't think of this approach until university, and by then my classmates most often appreciated my work (as opposed to earlier grades, where they'd reject my work because I'm not cool, even though my work was objectively correct), so the end result of this was a not-insignificant chunk of the project was done, anyone who was worse than I am could see what needed to be done to get the project up to my level, anyone who was better than I am could catch anything I needed to improve early on, and the entire group would be nudged into a "time to do the project" mindset without having to actually schedule a meeting.

The most important thing about this method is to always do the designated hours of work, starting on the day you receive your course syllabus and every single day until you've finished your last project or exam, even when you don't have any imminent deadlines. What would usually happen is I'd get way ahead on my reading in the first couple of weeks when there weren't many assignments yet, which would pay off when assignments picked up later on in the semester, when deadlines started catching up with me and I spent most of my time working on the next day's deadlines.  I'd pull ahead again during reading week, where I'd make some progress on final projects and studying for final exams, which had the added advantage of letting the material fester in my head for a bit once classes resumed and I was getting more imminent deadlines.

What was most valuable about this technique for me personally was that it gave me a definite point at which I could stop studying guilt-free.  I'm naturally inclined to feel the burden of everything I have to do ever ("OMG, I have to pay off my mortgage! And save for retirement!  Right now!"), so it's beneficial to me to have a system where all I have to do is study for three hours, regardless of how much or how little I get done in that time, and after the three hours are up I'm Officially Done for the Day.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Things They Should Invent: public birthday parties

Sometimes people can't celebrate their birthday on their actual birthday, because the people they most want to celebrate with aren't available on that day.

Solution: public, meet-up style birthday parties for anyone who has a birthday that day.  I'm picturing the parties being held by a group of bars or pubs - the kind of place where any random person can walk in and have a good time - that would rotate among themselves so each one has to throw a birthday party only every couple of weeks or so.

You go in, show ID showing that it's your birthday, and you're entitled to one free drink and a piece of cake and maybe all the nachos you can eat over the course of the evening (or whatever else they can give away without wrecking their margins).  The employees (and, hopefully, other customers and birthday people) congratulate you and wish you happy birthday and generally make a fuss over you.  Maybe there could also be bonus freebies for people celebrating a milestone birthday. There would also be a general discount for people whose birthday it isn't on birthday party days, so there will be other people around to wish happy birthday to the birthday people.

The bars get attention, publicity, drink sales (because few people are going to limit themselves to the one free drink on their birthday), and maybe some new regulars who remember how this bar made them feel happy and welcome and celebrated on that birthday when they were all alone.

The bar's regulars get a discount and a bit of a party atmosphere on that particular day, and the possibility of attracting new and interesting regulars to the bar (if the birthday people are made to feel happy and welcome and celebrated.)

The birthday people get something fun to do on their birthday that makes them feel happy and welcome and celebrated, plus they get to meet other people who have the same birthday and thereby make friends who will totally be into celebrating their birthday on their birthday next year!

And, because the birthday people will meet birthday buddies, they might be able to make it just a one-year project. This would eliminate any "Meh, I'll go next year" sentiment among the birthday people, and thereby increase attendance and popularity.

Wednesday, October 02, 2013

By request: my essay-writing technique

Conventional wisdom is that, when writing an essay, you should decide what your thesis is, determine what points best prove that thesis, use this information to prepare an outline, and then flesh it out into a full essay.

This was never particularly good for me, because either I had no idea what my thesis should be, or I had a brilliant idea for a thesis but couldn't quite pull the essay together.

So in university, I came up with another technique.

I started by opening a blank Word document and typing out everything I knew that was remotely relevant.  Some if it would be in nice sentences and paragraphs, some of it would be in point form, some of it would be a list of questions to answer.  I'd usually also have stray analogies and turns of phrase that I wouldn't mind working in there somewhere.  I'd just braindump until my brain emptied, then put it aside.

The next day, I'd open it up again, read it over, add anything that occurred to me, and then figure out what thesis was most naturally proven by all this stuff I'd written.

Then I'd drag all the stuff on the screen around until it landed in the order that best proved the thesis, marking any gaps with "[...]" or "[talk about widgets here]" or whatever.  Then I had my outline.  And over half my essay.

If I had time, I'd put it aside overnight again, and then fill in those blanks I'd left the next day.  After letting it sit overnight, filling in those blanks always seemed like a remarkably easy task.  Just a few sentences here and there, no biggie!  (If I didn't have time to let it sit overnight before I did this, I'd do all I could by brute force.)

Then another overnight, a fresh morning edit, and we're done!

If I didn't have time for more than one overnight, I'd do the braindump and determine the thesis on the same day, but with a break in between and in two different locations. (For example, braindump at home, spend an hour gaming, get dinner, then determine my thesis in the library.)

The result was an essay that does its job as well as possible.  Because my thesis was supported by the points I knew most about, it was (very nearly by definition) the best-proven thesis I could come up with, and proven to the best of my ability. Essays written this way always got As, many of which were high As (at the university level), whereas essays written by choosing my thesis first more often got Bs, occasionally low As.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Building a Better Senate redux

I previously blogged some ideas for improving the Senate, building on the advantages of the existing model by making it less partisan.

While reading this article (although not directly related to its content), I came up with a simpler way to do the same thing.

First, we make senators non-partisan.  They can't be members of a party, they don't identify themselves as "Conservative senators" or "Liberal senators", there are no Senate party caucuses.  They're just senators.

Then comes the important part: government of the day cannot appoint any senators who are or have ever been members of its political party (or any of that party's predecessors).  It can appoint people who are or have been members of other political parties, it can appoint people who have never been a member of any political party, but it can't appoint from its own party.

Possible corollary, depending on what percentage of the people who are good senate candidates have ever been members of political parties: each government must appoint a minimum number of senators who are or have been been a member of another political party.  I can see pros and cons of this.

But, either way, it would be the political equivalent of having one sibling cut the cake and another choose the slice.

Sunday, June 02, 2013

Diluting shredded paper

They make paper shredders that shred paper to different sizes, and the smaller it shreds the paper, the more expensive the paper shredder.  Presumably this is because it would be harder to reassemble the paper if it's shredded smaller.

I find myself wondering if you could also make it more difficult for someone who wanted to reassemble the paper by diluting the shredded paper.  What if only 10% of the paper you shredded was important documents that actually needed to be shredded, and 90% of it was random unimportant documents?

What if you physically mixed up the shredded paper before dumping it in recycling?  What if you put shredded paper from the same batch of shredding in multiple recycling containers?

Before I owned a paper shredder, I'd rip up sensitive documents and put parts of them (usually the parts with my name) in with my kitchen garbage.  I figurde if someone is going to dig through the dumpsters and try to reassemble my documents, I can at least make it as unpleasant as possible.  What if you put a portion of the shredded paper in the green bin?  (Apparently paper in the green bin is allowed - my parents use newspapers to line their organics garbage can, then throw the whole piece of newspaper in the green bin with the garbage enclosed.)

I don't know if the additional security gained from doing any of these things would be worth the effort, but it's fun to think of ideas.

Saturday, March 02, 2013

How to organize hair accessories

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

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

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