Month: June 2019

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

transsexualite:

Is it just me or does 90% of gendering occur at restaurants and fast food places

 

transsexualite:

petition to force restaurants to replace “sir/maam” with “mortal”

 

transsexualite:

okay but like fucjing imagine rolling up to the drive thru and a brooding cashier says “your total is $11.60, mortal”

 

shacklesburst:

who’s spreading rumors i’m mortal?!

 

dagny-hashtaggart:

In which the big golden M stands for both “memento” and “mori”

 

serinemolecule:

Come to Asia! It’s really only Indo-European languages that have gendered honorifics. In Japan, service workers always use “Honored Guest”.

If you watch anime, notice how words like “senpai” and “-san” aren’t gendered at all.

Linguistic gender was invented in Proto-Indo-European as a neat party trick to make it clearer which pronoun referred to what. And then most languages in the world came to be descended from it. But the languages that aren’t don’t make random words gendered.

My native dialect of English technically *has* sir/ma’am but doesn’t use them much†, and it weirds me out when my co-workers call customers “sir” and “ma’am”. I just don’t call customers anything: there’s really no need to add *any* word to the end of, to use OP’s example, “your total is $11.60”.

(Boss, Meta-Boss, and Boss^3 have all witnessed me talking to customers a fair bit, and none of them have ever complained about this. Boss^3 specifically complimented my customer interaction!)

—

†I’m not sure I can articulate or whether I even consciously understand what the exceptions are, but I think it’s something about the power differential needing to be *vast*. People who are only a level or two above you in the social hierarchy don’t get honorifics; those are for, like, CEOs and political leaders. (or maybe it’s about them needing to be very highly ranked in absolute terms: I poked my intuition with some more hypotheticals and it seems to feel less weird to call a barely-above-you man “sir” if you yourself are already pretty high up)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #language #death mention #gender #in which Brin has a job

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

quoms:

American currency pet peeves power ranking

3. The fact that pennies still, somehow, exist in 2019

2b. Nickels are easily mistaken for quarters, a result of American currency designers’ longstanding embrace of the idea that money looking different is somehow a deficiency

2a. All bills same size and color (cf. 2b)

1. A dime is incredibly small in comparison to a penny (in fact it is nearly the smallest coin I have ever handled, second only to a Georgian 1 tetri coin worth 0.36¢) yet worth ten times as much! Who the fuck allowed this! On what Earth!!!

 

ponteh2dhh1ksdiwesph2tres:

bad post, no mention of dollar bills

 

rustingbridges:

I’m actually going to disagree with on almost all of these points

  1. small coins are, actually, good, because they minimize the burden of carrying around all these random chunks of metal. this is the actual reason nickels are bad.

2a. color okay, but bills being different sizes is just displeasing. I get that blind people like to know how much money they have but they just fit together so nicely!

2b. this has never happened to me

  1. just because I’m able to tolerate the government putting xenoestrogens in my water supply doesn’t mean I’m gonna let them start rounding up prices to the nearest nickel. it’s bad enough that none of the “99¢” pizza shops give you a penny. $3.99 for a gyro my ass, it’s $4. anyway I’m not gonna tolerate a world where we have 96¢ pizza places. just no

 

brin-bellway:

Who said anything about rounding *up* to the next nickel? I was just talking last week [link] about exploiting round-to-the-*closest*-nickel laws to get 52c items for 50c.

(Our bills are all the same size, but different colours and marked with Braille-like dots.)

 

rustingbridges:

Exactly: the rounding will introduce an element I have to care about and track, or else be exploited for a percentage or two by people who care more or have enough volume for the marginal cents to matter.

I am not in favor of increasing transaction costs.

 

brin-bellway:

(see also this other branch)

True, although there are very few cases in which someone worried about every last percent would be paying cash at all [link]. Even most employee-discounted fast food costs enough to be cheaper with a credit card: only the *very* cheapest items are worth even *considering* paying cash for.

(Maybe somewhat more cases in a place like NYC, with more street vendors? Vendors are *starting* to take credit cards now that there are card readers that use smartphones as their infrastructure connection [link], but there are still many who haven’t done that yet. And come to think of it there’s those Chinese restaurants that give you a 10% discount for paying cash, but that would be big enough to wash out other considerations and make it worthwhile to pay cash *regardless* of whether it’s rounded in your favour or not.)

Payment optimisation is a fun game, but I get not wanting to penalise people who hate playing it: the rest of us can always get it out of our system by becoming player merchants in MMOs and stuff like that.

—

From a seller’s point of view, it’s tricky to ensure that round-to-the-closest-nickel comes out in your favour, although that might be from being a franchise (prices set by people many levels above the actual store owners). As of yesterday evening, we’d *lost* 15 cents that day on cash rounding two of which went to me. That’s an unusually large number: on most evenings that I see the figure it’s a couple of cents in one direction or the other.

 

rustingbridges:

Even most employee-discounted fast food costs enough to be cheaper with a credit card: only the very cheapest items are worth even considering paying cash for.

If there’s no fee, at what point is it worth considering? You still get your 2-3% edge by paying card if that’s what you’re after.

Firstly there’s tons of cash only food places, and the additional heap of stores and bars with high card minimums, so it’s not like you can be cash free without really limiting your options.

Secondly, I personally often prefer to make small transactions by cash. Sure, I lose a few cents, but it’s often faster. Credit card fraud also, while not costing you any money if you catch it, does cost time in catching it. Also being able to just walk out of a restaurant and not have to wait for the check to go round is often worth it imo.

It’s not about getting the absolute biggest edge, necessarily. I just don’t want to give up something more in exchange for nothing.

>>If there’s no fee, at what point is it worth considering?<<

Since the maximum savings from using cash is 2c, with a 0.5%-cashback card the threshold beneath which cash is worth considering is $4. I recently obtained a 1% card, so the threshold is now $2.

(2% cards are either not worth the fees or straight-up unavailable to someone who, as an individual, makes maybe $10k/year and spends maybe $2k. (That’s not to say that I’m saving 80% of my income: most household purchases are simply made by other household members, and in some cases I am financially backing them. If your parents are going to the grocery store and you chip in some money for it, that doesn’t get put on your card and doesn’t count towards making a high-tier card useful enough to you to be worth the annual fee. My commute has by far the fewest stores along its route of anyone in my household, so I’m rarely the most efficient choice of buyer.))

—

As for cash-only places, like I said I think I tend to encounter those less, not living in a big city. (Though I certainly do keep enough cash on hand for them, since I encounter them *occasionally* and also want to be prepared for the possibility of a card reader breaking.)

And anyway, if cash is the *only* option (or if you’re paying cash because you find it more convenient) then you don’t need to expend effort on tracking the “is this rounding up or down” variable, since it doesn’t affect your decision either way. (Unless you were willing to buy the thing for X but not X+$0.02, which doesn’t seem like it would come up much. Or I suppose if you’re trying to prepare exact change in advance, but in that case hidden sales tax is a bigger problem.)

Tags:

#reply via reblog #long post #adventures in human capitalism #fun with loopholes

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

quoms:

American currency pet peeves power ranking

3. The fact that pennies still, somehow, exist in 2019

2b. Nickels are easily mistaken for quarters, a result of American currency designers’ longstanding embrace of the idea that money looking different is somehow a deficiency

2a. All bills same size and color (cf. 2b)

1. A dime is incredibly small in comparison to a penny (in fact it is nearly the smallest coin I have ever handled, second only to a Georgian 1 tetri coin worth 0.36¢) yet worth ten times as much! Who the fuck allowed this! On what Earth!!!

 

ponteh2dhh1ksdiwesph2tres:

bad post, no mention of dollar bills

 

rustingbridges:

I’m actually going to disagree with on almost all of these points

  1. small coins are, actually, good, because they minimize the burden of carrying around all these random chunks of metal. this is the actual reason nickels are bad.

2a. color okay, but bills being different sizes is just displeasing. I get that blind people like to know how much money they have but they just fit together so nicely!

2b. this has never happened to me

  1. just because I’m able to tolerate the government putting xenoestrogens in my water supply doesn’t mean I’m gonna let them start rounding up prices to the nearest nickel. it’s bad enough that none of the “99¢” pizza shops give you a penny. $3.99 for a gyro my ass, it’s $4. anyway I’m not gonna tolerate a world where we have 96¢ pizza places. just no

 

brin-bellway:

Who said anything about rounding *up* to the next nickel? I was just talking last week [link] about exploiting round-to-the-*closest*-nickel laws to get 52c items for 50c.

(Our bills are all the same size, but different colours and marked with Braille-like dots.)

 

rustingbridges:

Exactly: the rounding will introduce an element I have to care about and track, or else be exploited for a percentage or two by people who care more or have enough volume for the marginal cents to matter.

I am not in favor of increasing transaction costs.

(see also this other branch)

True, although there are very few cases in which someone worried about every last percent would be paying cash at all [link]. Even most employee-discounted fast food costs enough to be cheaper with a credit card: only the *very* cheapest items are worth even *considering* paying cash for.

(Maybe somewhat more cases in a place like NYC, with more street vendors? Vendors are *starting* to take credit cards now that there are card readers that use smartphones as their infrastructure connection [link], but there are still many who haven’t done that yet. And come to think of it there’s those Chinese restaurants that give you a 10% discount for paying cash, but that would be big enough to wash out other considerations and make it worthwhile to pay cash *regardless* of whether it’s rounded in your favour or not.)

Payment optimisation is a fun game, but I get not wanting to penalise people who hate playing it: the rest of us can always get it out of our system by becoming player merchants in MMOs and stuff like that.

—

From a seller’s point of view, it’s tricky to ensure that round-to-the-closest-nickel comes out in your favour, although that might be from being a franchise (prices set by people many levels above the actual store owners). As of yesterday evening, we’d *lost* 15 cents that day on cash rounding two of which went to me. That’s an unusually large number: on most evenings that I see the figure it’s a couple of cents in one direction or the other.

Tags:

#adventures in human capitalism #(deliberately echoes a video-game tag!) #home of the brave #our home and cherished land #in which Brin has a job #reply via reblog

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Of Things Remembered

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

tanadrin:

“Wake up.”

The scene around me swam and reformed itself as the young man opened his eyes. The generic room was replaced by a modest stone cell. A little table appeared in the corner, where one dim candle flickered, casting a dim light over a couple of books and some parchment. An evening chill swept in from the narrow window that appeared, and outside I could see the stars, undimmed by any city lights or orbitals. I switched over to the full baseline human sense-simulation, and inhaled slowly. The evening air was fragrant and damp, like a rainstorm had just passed. Through the door I could hear voices far down the hall, rising and falling together, perhaps in prayer.

Keep reading

Tags:

#storytime #transhumanism #death tw #(ftr I approve of people doing this for me if they can’t get more thorough resurrection methods) #(though I strongly suspect that this stance could already be inferred from previous data)

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

gasmaskaesthetic:

Boss has been at the [out of state] office since last Friday, which means that they’re printing the physical checks for our weekly AP run there. And….this is really silly, but I do miss doing that part. Printing, folding, envelope stuffing. It’s an easy, pleasant, meditative task that mentally marks the end of my week.

Silly because accounts payable is definitely the most basic and data-entry-oriented part of my job, but dammit, I like having the harder stuff punctuated with pleasingly tactile admin work!

I did a lot of secretarial stuff in high school. I was very good at it, I liked it, and I got a lot of praise for it. It’s a bit nostalgic.

 

shieldfoss:

America really is a whole other country

 

argumate:

I love doing payroll, I love the way you just have to [ presses button marked “payroll” and the machine automatically transfers the appropriate amounts electronically and emails out payslips and notifies the tax office ]

 

shieldfoss:

“Oh you guys have to press a button?”

 

shacklesburst:

Usually you do, because that way you can be sure stuff like reimbursable expenses for the month (if they were filed already) are in the system and you have the ability to delay pushing the button for a few hours if there are some last-minute changes to be made (not ideal, but happens).

Having a button also makes to possible to gather around one desk every month as a team and chant “press the button, press the button” at whomever is responsible for that action currently. And then go for drinks or smth.

 

gasmaskaesthetic:

This post wasn’t about payroll but yes

Current job is more involved than some systems I’ve seen because the accounting module sucks and was clearly just pasted on top of an otherwise mostly-functional industry-specific ERP.

Takes me 1-3 hours.

 

brin-bellway:

This is a very weird conversation to me, because among my meatspace social group the ones who get paid electronically are like “it’s a nightmare, they won’t let me log in to see my pay statements, I’m just supposed to trust that they sent me the right amount, it took me two months of complaining and escalating to superiors to even get a *tax form* out of them (and then my taxes were late)”, and the ones who get paper are like “yeah, it’s fine, it was a bit annoying at first having to go to the bank every fortnight but then I learned how to use mobile cheque deposit”.

(I know that you guys are taking the perspective of the one sending out the payments rather than the one receiving them, but still.)

 

gasmaskaesthetic:

Current company issues physical paystubs as backup for the direct deposit amount, and my side business uses QuickBooks payroll, which lets you log in to see your paycheck.

Even when I worked for the state, I got a physical pay stub.

And the job after that had an (admittedly painful to use) portal that you could log in to to see your statements.

 

brin-bellway:

I think with the most recent tale of woe (two days ago, friend who works for a mid-tier Canadian grocery chain), in *theory* she was supposed to be able to log in to see her pay statements, but the portal wouldn’t accept her login credentials and nobody would fix it.

(It may be worth noting that out of the dozens of jobs various friends have had over the twelve years I’ve been here, *very* few even *tried* to obey labour laws. I think that at the moment, I’m the only person I know IRL (not counting coworkers, of course) who actually gets meal breaks.)

 

cromulentenough:

The solution to employers making it difficult to get pay statements is not…keep on using physical cheques in the year of our lord 2019.

 

gasmaskaesthetic:

You tagged it #wtf America but I think @brin-bellway is canadian

 

cromulentenough:

Huh. Interesting. I didn’t know Canada still used cheques like that. Ive heard a Canadian talking about how they never carry cash and just use their card everywhere, which I can’t get away with even in London so I thought Canada would be even further along than us with that kinda stuff.

 

brin-bellway:

Yep, I’m in Canada, and as such so are my meatspace social groups.

—

I’m not so sure that “widespread use of electronic paycheques” and “being able to make all consumer purchases with a card” are sufficiently similar things that any society with one can be assumed to have the other.

—

Whether you can get away with not carrying cash here depends on your lifestyle and risk tolerance. I work in fast food, and every once in a while the card-reader part of the system will break or glitch, and usually at least two people per outage will have to leave because without a card reader they can’t pay. A while back someone had her credit card declined and didn’t have anything else on her, and ended up abandoning the food we’d already made. (The assistant manager told me I might as well keep it, and I brought it home and fed it to Mom. (It was not a food I personally like.))

((Although to be fair, I think part of the problem in that last case was that she was embarrassed by the decline and fled. She was holding a smartphone in her other hand, and given twenty seconds to think over the options we might have been able to arrange some smartphone-mediated payment method. It would have been worth a shot, at least.))

—

We don’t have pennies here anymore and instead round cash (and only cash) transactions to the nearest 5c, which (perhaps unintentionally) actually gives you an *incentive* to use cash in some edge cases. Like, if you buy something that’s 52c and give them two quarters, you’ve gotten almost a 4% discount, better than what you’d get from credit-card cashback. I often pay cash when buying from my own workplace for this reason.

(before you ask “since when does *anything* these days cost only 52c”: the employee discount is quite large, and some of our items are quite small)

—

Note that while I routinely *receive* cheques (just got one today, in fact), I literally never *write* them. I don’t even own any.

I won a small scholarship a while ago and they wanted a void cheque in order to send me the money (it was *not* the kind where the money goes directly to the school), and I went to the bank and asked about it. The teller told me that a: cheques are extremely expensive for the lower-tier account that I have (like $50 a pack, I think she said?), and b: there’s no need for a void cheque to literally be a cheque these days, here, have a pre-authorized debit form. (The scholarship people accepted it, and so did the bank I later opened a savings account with that wanted to see a cheque in order to do cross-bank account linking.)

 

cromulentenough:

Ah ok, ‘occasionally receive cheques but never write them’ is closer to my experience too, although I don’t know anyone who gets paid for their job by cheque.

I also got a cheque for a scholarship type thing so it is still around very occasionally here.

(see also this other branch)

Tags:

#conversational aglets #adventures in human capitalism #our home and cherished land #adventures in University Land #in which Brin has a job #long post #this probably deserves some other warning tag but I am not sure what