Socio/psycho-illogical something or other

I bumped into a hilariously offbeat opinion piece online last week.

"Your Refusal To Date Conservatives Is One Reason We Have Donald Trump"

https://thefederalist.com/2017/09/19/refusal-date-conservatives-one-reason-donald-trump/

Yes, on The Federalist.

It's reasonably short, so you should read THAT before reading THIS.

Skip the OkCupid aspect, which isn't actually relevant, other than as a convenience facilitator.

The question underlying this whole silly idea, is whether you want to be married to someone with whom you find some fundamental attitudes totally abhorrent. When you come home from work (or whatever) do you want to be getting into a verbal battle with your spouse?

I certainly don't. We occasionally have some serious disagreements here at work about technical details of this or that, often about someone's not knowing something. I wouldn't want to go home and have another argument about something or other. 

Eventually you'd stop talking to your spouse. It'd be too much work. Of the few couples I've heard of with seriously opposing political views, home life sounds...tricky. 

How much do you want to tiptoe around topics that are going to anger your spouse?

How much should you sacrifice of your own personal "security" to prevent the possible rise of another Trump? Would it even work? How?

There's a hint in that "headline" that conservatives are malleable, and that dating non-conservatives will change them enough that another Trump will be avoided. Is that even possibly true?

Would it take an Advanced Degree(tm) to figure this out? Hmm. No. It won't. 

But it's not going to happen. Who's going to specifically go looking for that kind of difficulty?

"Will you go out on a date with me so I can change your political persuasion?" 

The only way I'm changing my voting for someone else is if its Scarlett Johannson, and she's having sex with me every day. And I'd find out in advance what her politics are, just so I could say mine were different, if I thought that'd work out that way.

Assortative mating is when members of a group specifically seek other members of that same group as mating/family partners. Group membership can be defined however you like. This is as opposed to completely random selection. We have always behaved this way, usually based on skin color, but ultimately it is related to your ability to even meet other people. That aspect leads to economic sorting--you meet/mate with someone of similar economic background because that's who you can meet. Meet a woman at work? She likely has similar financial situation. Grow up in a big enough area, and the kids you meet at school all likely have approx the same economic status.

If you're a really pretty female, you can escape a lower economic status based on that alone. Probably true for males, altho I'd guess to a lesser extent.

Just Cause games...

I've played these...all 4.

Good fun, but eventually I reached a point in the first three where I lack the skill to go any farther.

Didn't feel like I didn't get my money's worth for them, took long enough to reach a required mission that I simply couldn't do that I didn't mind.

Just Cause 4, however...

Repeated annoyances, almost from the very beginning. 

Timed missions. I hate timed missions.

No difficulty adjustment.

Checkpointed game saves. Random respawn points.

Really awkward UI. Way too complex.

It runs weirdly slow. I think it is stuck on the 4K settings somehow. I changed resolution down to regular HD, with medium textures, but it didn't seem to help much, if any.

They did at least get rid of the "collect the little white boxes monkey-biz".

Played about 12 hours. Haven't figured out what some aspects are even about. Squads? What are they for? Looks like I won't be going back to this one...

Fallout 76, one final time.

So the updates a weeks ago...well, I'm done with this game.

Why? They are ratcheting up the issue about carry weight, having already bungled it more than once.

Now, while they aren't forcing you to drop stuff immediately in order to walk at all, you cannot eat anything to solve the hunger need. Food level low? Previously: eat dog food. Now? Eating only destroys something, it doesn't boost your food level. Solution: Drop everything you are carrying. Now eat. Next: decide what all you are taking with you, and leave 90% behind.

No thanks.

So today, when Bethesda email'd me to take a survey, I ripped em a new one.

I was a B.E.T.A. participant, but now FO76 is first on the chopping block when I need disk space.

Maybe if Linda Carter calls me personally and says they changed the weight stuff the right way I won't...

----

Later, Spring 2020.

So finally Bethesda released an FO 76 update that is in fact the game they should have released originally.

A friend and I agreed we would do the update and start over. There was clearly no way I was recovering the old character.

This is better, they are a number of newly interesting things going on. My character is approaching level 100, but I feel like i've more or less run out of interesting, and have reached repetitive. It's not clear where anything is going that is changing, probably because that can't happen.

My friend went with the "First" upgrade, but I can't say that's necessarily exciting, other than you aren't bumping into any other players who are either going to murder you and take your stuff or cause weird side-effects.

Where is it all going?

Why is there still trash everywhere?

Why is there a limit on the size of my stash?

Deep Fake Photos...

While I agree that there's a problem here:

WaPo story on them

It also means that we will be able to make and watch the movie sequel to The Maltese Falcon.

THAT is something I do want to do.

What's the plot, you ask? Well, think about where the original leaves off...they don't have the Falcon, and Sidney Greenstreet is going to continue looking.

So, a few years later, Bogey is in his office, fiddling with some paper clips. The phone rings.

Bogey: "Oh. It's you, fat man. What's this about?"

SG: "Ha ha. So you are still there. I must tell you, I have a lead on the Falcon. But I am the wrong man to retrieve it here. You must come to Vienna. Immediately. I will have a car meet you in Paris. You can be here in two days."

Bogey (while fiddling): "I'm kinda busy here. Two cases today."

SG: "Do not worry about the money. This is far more important that--this is THE FALCON. I shall expect you on Thursday. I have already bought your tickets."

click.

Bogey holds the phone handset out and looks at it, cocks his head slightly, smiles that smile, and puts it down. "Well."

The door opens, his secretary comes in and says "a courier just left this envelope for you."

Quietly in the background, a few notes of the theme from "The Third Man" play as the light fades out.



Yeah, I want to see that.

Star Trek Discovery

Got the DVD set for xmas. I think the first episode (2?) were on regular broadcast back in the beginning, some of it felt familiar...

So finally did a binge watch of the entire first season.

This is probably the best that Star Trek has ever been.

And I say that as a guy who watched TOS as a kid. AND the cartoons 5 years later. AND the movies. AND the other shows (TNG started way too slow/weird, etc). Have seen all the TOS episodes more than once. The other shows, well, not so much.

I would argue that none of the prior series had an entire season that was a good as Discovery's entire first season.

And Discovery may not be able to repeat that. Season two doesn't start as strong, but I've only seen two episodes so far. So we shall see.

But S1 is fabulous. TV Sci Fi may never have been quite this good (although I need to rewatch Farscape for comparison). I've seen a lot of tv sci fi over 50 years, none of it was this good.

S1 has a coherent story line (well, multiple, really) that advances every episode. In addition, if you've seen TOS and know your lore, the tie-ins are clear.


I don't normally stay up all night for something like that, but damn that was good.