Get The Parity Started

It’s amazing how the colour of a product makes such a difference in price. In our world where there’s often not much differentiating one product from another, the colour can make all the difference. Of course, I’m going to use examples from cars and technology, but you can find examples everywhere.

That’s the reason why cars have taken a turn for the gray in recent decades. It’s affected by what car buyers desire in their own cars, but also their concern for resale value. So they’ll prefer an inoffensive gray car that they can easily flip a few years later, not the green one that might turn off other buyers. I suspect it’s also that car companies know people are very choosy, and colour won’t win them many sales unless it’s absolutely perfect, but an offensive colour will lose them many, so they stay neutral. Personally, I think that’s a shame; I like colours, but I’m not married to any in particular. So I’d like to have a nice colour for the sake of some colour in my life, even if it’s not my favourite. But I seem to be in the minority on that, so gray it is.

I’ve also seen the colours having an effect on prices in the technology business. I’ve been looking for an external hard drive, and Samsung makes their external drives in traditional black, but also in blue and red. I’ve noticed that one colour is sometimes on sale, but not the others. They’re identical other than the colours, so I’m assuming that when one falls behind in sales, some algorithm somewhere decides it’s time for a discount. It’s hard to believe that colour can have that kind of effect on the purchase of something few others are going to see, but apparently it does.

But then I went looking for a game controller. They’re traditionally gray or black, but often available in other colours. So after my experience with the hard drives, I wasn’t surprised to find that the red XBox controller was five dollars less than the original black. I was set to order it and congratulate myself on my colourful frugality, but then I saw it: A pink controller, for fifteen dollars less than the original.

That’s ironic, because of this concept called, the “Pink Tax.” That’s the phenomenon where products aimed at women are more expensive than similar products aimed at men, even though they hardly differ. Often, the only difference is that they’re pink, hence the name. They aren’t really more expensive because they’re pink. After all, pink paint and dye is not particularly expensive. Instead, it’s factors like how much consumers want and need products. I’m assuming that because women are under more pressure to look good, their hygiene products are more expensive because of higher demand.

So in other contexts, pink might cost more, but the roles have been reversed here. You might be surprised to see them even trying to sell something pink in the world of video games, but let me remind you: 

1. Surveys show female gamers are now close to 50% of the market.
2. We are just coming out of The Year Of Barbie. 

Having said that, it appears things weren’t working out the way Microsoft marketing wanted, and the pink controllers were deeply discounted. I don’t know, maybe the Barbie-gaming crossover wasn’t as much as they’d hoped. But I suspect the real reason is that female gamers may choose the black or the pink, while the males will only buy the black.

(And if you’re wondering, I only saw one colour that was more expensive than the original black controller: a dark purple. Purple seems to be having a moment right now.)

For me, even when I put aside traditional symbols of masculinity, pink is not one of my favourite colours. I don’t mind it, as long as it’s taken in reasonable quantities. You know, less than the Barbie-aisle-at-Toys-R-Us levels. And whatever need I have to reaffirm my masculinity is tiny compared to my desire not to over-spend on electronics, so: I ordered the pink controller.

It’s not much of a consolation for high-priced women’s products, but there are times when the Pink Tax turns into, let’s say, the Pink Subsidy. And I’m pleased to be gaming with both confidence in my masculinity, and an extra fifteen dollars in my pocket.

Things The Teenage Me Would Never Have Believed About Life In The Future, #45

 You’ll read this headline and understand it:

Welcome Back, Victoria

This is Victoria Day weekend. I'm not sure how to explain this to non-Canadians. Obviously, it's a day celebrating Queen Victoria, who was the British monarch at the time of Confederation. As a few modern Canadians have pointed out, Nineteenth-Century Canadians had an unhealthy obsession with her, as you can see from the sheer number of places in Canada that have a Victoria Park. Or, just look at this inscription on a statue of her in a Victoria park near my home.

Suddenly the adoration of Elizabeth II seems tame by comparison. So it's not too surprising that those folks wanted to celebrate her with a major holiday. 

But now, Victoriamania has worn off, so we're left with a holiday with no meaning behind it. It's kind of appropriate that we often refer to it as the Two Four weekend as a wink to the amount of beer that each person consumes, and which has become the true focus of the weekend. 

Anyway, aside from beer and lapsed monarchism, the weekend is also known for fireworks. And it's a chance for me to reflect on the changing place of fireworks in our society. 

When I was a child, there were official, professional fireworks displays for major holidays, but personal fireworks were banned. Of course, that changed, and pop-up fireworks stores became a feature of summer long weekends. But now many cities are banning personal fireworks within the city limits. So I've now seen an entire cycle of changing legislative attitude. It goes like this:

• Start with a ban that seemed a little pedantic
• Ban is lifted, is a seemingly sensible move
• There's a brief interlude of reasonable use of fireworks
• One group of people realizes that there's nothing stopping them from going overboard, and another group of people realizes there's a lot of money to be made selling to that first group of people. 
• People get tired of hearing fireworks each night of the week leading up to a holiday
• Cities start banning fireworks.

Presumably this will be followed by a slow shift to enforce the ban. And then it's right back to square one. I'm kind of curious how long it will take to forget the reason for the ban and legalize fireworks again. I suddenly have sympathy for the banned and legalized things over the years. Next time you’re wondering what the Prohibitionists were thinking, just remember fireworks.

My Little Underground

It’s weird how different cities take such different approaches to transit. I recently came across the fact that my family’s hometown of Birmingham, England, is the largest city in Europe without a subway. On the other hand, my current home of Kitchener-Waterloo’s light rail system makes it the smallest city in North America with any sort of rail transit system. And some Scandinavian cities have more of a commitment to transit: Oslo has more subway stations than Toronto, despite being only about a quarter the size.

So I was curious about what city has the most subway stations per capita in the world. I Googled it, and discovered there are all kinds of complications to the question: How do you define where a city ends? What part is served by the transit system? What if the subway also runs into neighbouring communities? But then I found that none of that matters, because there’s a clear winner: Serfaus, Austria. It has a subway system with four stations, serving a town of 1000 people. 

Okay, you've probably already guessed there has to be more to it than that, and indeed there is: Serfaus is a ski resort, so it often has far more than the local population to move around. And it's not a full sized subway: more like a “people mover” you might see at an airport. Interestingly, it doesn't even have wheels; it floats on compressed air. And it pulls itself along by a cord, like a cable car. Which is fitting for a ski resort.

The idea is to get people from the parking lot at one end of town to the base of the ski hills at the other end. That allows them to maintain a car-free community, which is nice for that little mountain retreat ambiance. Though as one tourist page points out, it does mean that a lot of visitors miss out on most of the village entirely.

So, Serfaus being a ski resort means that their money and transit needs are far beyond that of a normal thousand-person town. But on the other hand, it’s not like they get a million people at a time show up to ski: it’s still a pretty bold choice given the number of people they’re moving around. This has me wondering what other formats a town can take on. For instance, could there be some universe where my hometown of Woodstock (population, 46,000) has such a system? Maybe: I also came across Aubagne, France which is approximately the same size, and has a light rail system. Though it should be noted, it’s on the outskirts of Marsaille, so it’s not totally analogous. But having said that, it’s hard to imagine a satellite community here being so concerned with public transit.

And that brings up the problem that sinks many urban planning solutions imported from Europe to North America: we have cities built around the car. You probably could have a city of that size built around public transit, but it would have to be a really densely-populated place to have everyone in range of a small transit system. It would be very expensive in the suburban wonderlands that most small towns in Canada are. Trying to imagine a densely-populated small-to-midsize city is about as hard as visualizing a village with a subway.

Somebody To Shove

I've been watching the new Professional Women's Hockey League, and it's been pretty fun. Fans have really embraced it, and given games a lot of energy. and atmosphere that comes through even on TV.

One thing that's changed since previous women's hockey is an increase in physicality. Women's hockey has generally avoided it in the past; most women's hockey bans bodychecking, and the marquee events have been international tournaments that are more likely to crack down on physical confrontations outside of the game itself.

But the PWHL has been far more permissive of things, both during and after the play. This has generally been welcomed by announcers and journalists.

I'm less enthusiastic about it: granted, I'm not a fan of hockey fights, but I can understand what people see in it. After all, fighting has been made into a number of other sports, from boxing to mixed-martial arts. So — putting aside any moral considerations for the moment — there's clearly an appetite for it. And hockey's lax rule enforcement is just asking for vigilante justice. Having said that, I've noticed that many fights come down to one of three motivations, each of which makes the fight seem irrelevant: 

• Enforcers fighting each other, not because of any beef between them or their teams, but just to justify their employment. 
• Interminable fights at the end of a blowout, as the losing team tries to "send a message," not realizing the message is, "look everyone, we just got out ass kicked."
• Revenge for a hard play that was totally legal, but pissed the team off.

Of course, the classic provocation for fighting is revenge for a cheap shot. Personally, I'd rather have a sport where the rules were enforced, but if that's not going to happen, then I can certainly understand why players often take the law into their own gloveless hands.

But hockey's anarchic nature has created one offshoot that I truly don't get: the pushing and shoving that follows so many stoppages in play. It really slows the game down, while providing little entertainment value. 

For one thing, watching people push each other is not very exciting. Fighting may have been turned into several sports, but you notice how there is no sport of pushing and shoving? Well, there's a reason for that: there isn't much pay-per-view money in the Ultimate Shoving Challenge.

But the other, even worse aspect is that the shoving is so artificial; fighting as revenge for a dirty play is at least connected of the game. But the shoving is meaningless playground-level tactics: players hit after the whistle to provoke the opposition, or accidentally-on-purpose bump into each other to start something. It's as believable as a Three Stooges routine, but treated with deadly seriousness. I got more than my fill of that on the playground back in the day.

Yet I seem to be in the minority on this one. Lots of people in the hockey world can't get enough of those post-whistle scrums. I think they see them as a substitute for the fighting which has become a rarer part of the game. But you’d think that given how important fighting is to hockey culture, and that these shoving matches are a pale imitation of fights, that they’d be seen as a wimpy, half-hearted substitute. But no, hockey culture embraces the shoving and the elementary school posturing that comes with it.

Which brings us back to the PWHL. We haven’t seen actual fights there, as the full-face masks will strongly discourage that sort of thing. But there's a great amount of the post-play shoving. Commentators tend to like this and get really excited. I can’t always tell if this is genuine enthusiasm for the scrum itself, or just the superficial assumption that this makes it more like the men's game, so it must be a good thing.

But to me, it’s a worst-of-both-worlds situation. Of all the physical aspects of the men’s game, they’ve imported the least entertaining.

Trans Ontario Express

As I've mentioned, there are an astonishing number of topics for video games these days. want to be a goose, a bird on a tiny skateboard, or Eastern European border agent? There's a game for each. (And, no, I haven’t bought all those. Well, I’ve only bought two of them.)

And there are plenty of games simulating actual jobs. For instance, there's a few truck driving simulations. Many would consider that dull, but enough people find it fun, relaxing, or challenging that it's become a genre of games.

There's also a genre of train driving simulators, where you can control a train, from your choice of various types of trains, various eras, and different locations around the world. Though the games about building the trains and running the railway are more popular, so that tells you something about the world.

I was reminded of this recently when I saw the latest selection from Humble Bundle. It's a non-profit that raises money for charity by selling bundles of older video games, software and e-books cheaply. Recently, one of their bundles was a collection of train simulators.

It also came with expansion packs that allowed you to add trains and locations from around the world. One of those caught my eye.

Yes, you can drive a Canadian National freight train from Oakville to Hamilton.

Of course, that struck me as odd. I assumed that if you wanted to drive a train, it would be one of the legendary trains of the world: the Orient Express, the Shinkansen (Bullet Train), or the Trans-Siberian Railroad. If you were going to choose a Canadian train, the Rocky Mountaineer would be the obvious choice, though you might also go with a line through Northern Ontario or Quebec, or into the far north. Or, if you wanted urban rail, you could go through a major city — hey, approaching Union Station in Toronto from the West, you go straight past the CN Tower and The Dome.

But no, they went with Oakville. It’s a chance to guide a freight train, slowly, through Canadian suburbs. Though you do get to pilot one of CN’s freight engines, which are kind of iconic in Canada. Though they’re iconic in the way a Coca-Cola bottle is iconic: so common, you barely even see them anymore. And that further contributes to the banal feeling. You’re doing a job that’s around you all the time. It would be like a taxi simulator. Oh, wait, they have those too.

Having said all this, I can kind of understand it. On the one hand, in our globalized world, what is mundane to some is exotic to others. I mean, I mentioned how the Shinkansen sounds exciting to me. But to a Japanese salaryman, it’s just a way to get to work. On the other hand, there’s something to be said for exploring your own world, but from perspective you’ve never seen. I have to admit that when I watched the preview video for the Oakville expansion, I was intrigued by the part where they show the perspective of entering the cab. Like most Canadians, I’ve seen about a million of those CN locomotives, but I don’t even know what the interior looks like.

So if this strikes your fancy, don’t listen to me condemning your fantasy. Have fun with what you enjoy, and ignore the nay-sayers. That’s what’s great about modern video games: there’s something for everyone. After all, you’re living the wildest dreams of some kid in the 1950’s watching his Lionel trains go round and round.

Wax To The Future

A few weeks ago, I was driving along when a car pulled out of a gas station in front of me. Normally, I wouldn't give such a thing a second thought, unless it pulled out right in front and was dangerous. This wasn't dangerous, but it was just annoying enough that I gave the car a second thought. In that second thought, I realized it was a Chevy Bolt, which is an electric car. Why would it have been in a gas station?

As I got closer, I could see the reason: it was covered in beads of water, despite this being a clear winter's day, and it was very clean, despite this being a Canadian winter. Evidently, it had been in the gas station's car wash.

I hadn't really thought of that before, but electric cars need washes too. Well, I'm sure Tesla is working on a system to remotely clean cars - maybe with a team of drones - but until then, it's car washes for everyone.

That must be really awkward:  To you, gas stations are fading monuments to carbon dominance, which you’re free to ignore. But now and then, you pull up at this archaic institution. No, you don't want to use this business's main purpose, you've moved beyond that. And while most customers silently use the pay-at-the-pump feature, you have to go inside and confront the employees. Tell them, no, I don't need gas; I'm one of the ones who will be the death of your industry. But before that, can you make my car shiny for me?

It's made odder by the way gas station car washes have a kind of retro-futuristic feel to them. With their many moving parts, these pseudo-robotic servants pamper your car while you wait. It's the Jetsons future Boomers imagined. Just like jetpacks and flying cars, but with way less casualties.

Drop one of your lithium-ion transit appliances in the middle of that fifties future, and it's a real anachronism. Like a Buck Rogers Subreddit, it's the future we imagined confronting the future we ended up with. And — don't tell the Boomers — but our future seems pretty dull in comparison. The inevitable jetpack accidents almost seem worth it.