What is the appeal of long showers?

I was reading a story about a parent who was concerned that his 13 year old son was taking showers that lasted for an hour or so and that the cost involved in heating so much water was becoming considerable. Allowing for a bit of exaggeration, it still seems likely that the showers were pretty long. And I too know of people who take quite long showers.

I find the appeal of long showers baffling. For me, a shower is a way of becoming clean and that is achieved by getting completely wet, applying soap, and then rinsing off the soap. The whole process takes less than five minutes. I try to make my showers as quick as possible, not so much to not waste water (though that is a concern in the drought-ridden California) but mainly because standing in the shower is boring. I took very quick showers even when I was back in Ohio where there was plentiful water.

Even though I do not take baths in the tub (being immersed in the same water used to clean oneself is something that we did not do in Sri Lanka, preferring flowing water), I can understand that soaking in warm water can be soothing and restful and a stress reliever, though I am bemused when I see depictions in TV and films of people in the tub smoking, reading, eating, drinking, using their phones, working on their computers etc, and so on. Isn’t it easier to do all those things outside the tub, which has the added benefit of not risking them becoming wet?

But back to the original topic, I can understand showers taking longer if a person’s daily activities result in them getting covered in dirt and grime but for many people like me that reason does not hold. Clearly some people get pleasure from taking long showers for reasons that elude me.

Self checkouts are to be avoided

My local grocery store has self-checkout lines. These were introduced about three decades ago but I almost never use them. This is partly because I do not like to feel that I may be contributing to the elimination of jobs for cashiers and partly because while it is fine for reading bar codes for items, it is a nuisance when I buy unpackaged fresh produce that requires me to weigh the item and then press the correct code identifying the item. The cashiers do this much more efficiently. In addition, over time you get to know the cashiers and can engage in pleasantries with them. But I sometimes wonder whether I am some kind of closet technophobe and should use them more.

But this article says that self-checkouts are not good for the workers nor the stores nor customers.

In 2018, just 18% of all grocery store transactions went through a self-checkout, rising to 30% last year. Walmart, Kroger, Dollar General, and Albertson’s are now among retail chains testing out full self-checkout stores.

That’s not something we should get excited about, says Christopher Andrews, a sociologist who examined the kiosks in his 2018 book, The Overworked Consumer: Self-Checkouts, Supermarkets, and the Do-It-Yourself Economy. Despite what grocery stores and kiosk manufacturers claim, research shows self-checkouts aren’t actually any faster than a regular checkout line, Andrews says. “It only feels like it because your time is occupied doing tasks, rather than paying attention to each second ticking away.”
[Read more…]

The invention of the table knife

One tends to think of everyday objects that are not technologically advanced as if they had somehow more or less accidentally come into being, not that they were designed by someone. Take for example the common table/dinner/butter knife. It appears that it was invented by Cardinal Richelieu in 1637.

Perhaps weary of watching dinner guests picking their teeth with the points of their daggers, Cardinal Richelieu orders the blades of his dinnerware to be ground down and rounded off. Et voilà, the modern dinner knife is born.

Prior to Richelieu’s flash of inspiration (or simple revulsion at bad manners), diners typically used hunting daggers to spear their morsels, which were then conveyed to the mouth by hand or with the help of a spoon. The fork, the implement that really revolutionized chowing down, had existed since biblical times. Despite its utility, however, the fork remained a relative rarity in the West until the 17th century, even among the French royals whom Richelieu served with unswerving devotion.

Richelieu’s knives became the rage among the court, and soon everyone who was anyone in France had a set. The dinner knife became commonplace throughout France after Louis XIV — who, like most kings, had his own reasons for not wanting sharp blades and pointed tips around — decreed its universality. Soon afterward, the dinner knife found its way throughout continental Europe to England and, eventually, the American colonies.

So there you are. An answer to a question that you may have never thought to ask.

Get rid of penalty shoot outs in soccer

Argentina beat France in the World Cup final earlier today. The game was decided by a penalty shoot out after the score was tied at 3-3 after extra time. Five of the 15 games in the knockout round were decided by this method: Croatia v. Japan and Morocco v. Spain in the round of 16; Croatia v. Brazil and Argentina v. Netherlands in the quarter-finals, and the final. This was the most number of shoot outs in the knock out rounds in World Cup history.

I think the penalty shoot out is an unsatisfactory way of deciding games. I think this system does not adequately reflect the merits of the competing teams. Each of the five losing teams (Japan, Spain, Brazil, Netherlands, and France) may feel that they should not have lost. I wrote about this back in 2021 (revised slightly here) after Italy beat England on penalties in the European Cup, describing what I think might be a better system.
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How to deal with the holiday season if you are an introvert

We are in the holiday season when parties seem to be obligatory. Getting together with family and friends can be enjoyable but for introverts like me, too many functions with too many people that last too long can be tiresome. It is not the case, as is commonly assumed, that introverts do not like the company of others. They do and they often have many friends. It is that introverts feel drained by the company of others and need solitude to recharge, while extroverts get energized by the presence of others and get drained when they are alone. So the problem for introverts is that parties can come thick and fast in the holiday season and they have too few times when they can be alone.
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Strategies for solving Wordle

The popular daily puzzle game Wordle requires one to identify an unknown five-letter word selected from a pool of around 2,300 common words. One tries to guess the word in as few tries as possible, with a maximum set at six. After each guess, you get three kinds of feedback: a letter is highlighted green if it is the right letter in the right location; yellow if it is a letter that is used in the word but appears in the wrong location, and grey if the letter is not used at all. I wrote about this a few weeks ago.

Some enthusiasts were not happy about the recent news that the word of the day, rather than being randomly selected, had begun to be curated by a human. (This may have been prompted by the fuss that occurred when the word of the day during the abortion crisis was FETUS.) This had resulted in some recent words being connected to a current event, so that the word last Thursday (Thanksgiving day) was FEAST and the day before that (the busiest driving day of the year) had been DRIVE. As a result, some people who were aware of this change had managed to guess the word on the first try. But it did not make them happy. I can understand why, because it shifts the puzzle from one involving logic to one in which you try to guess what is in the mind of the editor based on some current event, which is much less interesting. I had not been aware of this change, and there is some ambiguity as to whether, due to the criticisms, the puzzle has gone back to being random. I hope it has.
[Read more…]

Tough turkeys

I am always interested in news reports of aggressive turkeys, like this one about a town in Massachusetts where some aggressive turkeys have made residents fearful.

People in Woburn, north-west of Boston, have been subjected to a barrage of attacks and intimidation by a group of five wild turkeys, with the situation forcing some to take up improvised weapons and residents reporting being trapped in their homes.

The turkeys, led by a male bird nicknamed Kevin, arrived two years ago. Initially the birds were docile, but as time passed they have become ever more pugnacious, leaving Woburners fearful for their safety and forced to adapt their behavior.

“They don’t let you out of your house,” said Meaghan Tolson, who lives in Woburn and has named the turkeys.

“They peck at cars, they stop traffic. They go after kids on bikes. If you’re walking or jogging, or anything like that, they come for you.”

Another article describes how this is a growing problem in many towns as the wild turkey population grows.

The reason for my interest is because of my own bad experiences with wild turkeys that I described here, here, and here. My actions in the face of those turkeys were, to put it charitably, less than heroic and so it made me feel better to realize that my own cowardly behavior when confronted with what are essentially overgrown chickens was not that uncommon. It appears that wild turkeys can cause serious injuries so avoidance and defensive behavior is advised.