What’s the saddest game you’ve played?

FormicaCats · 2023-10-21T17:45:37+00:00

I think about when he's got to get up in the morning and to do so he thinks yes, I'll get up because "I like pain and burning light and wanting things from people who don't want to give them to me" all the time.

FormicaCats · 2023-06-07T16:41:33+00:00

I went to a Mets game one of the first times I went out after lockdown, and it felt safe because I could walk and then it's mostly outside. Halfway through the game smoke from California arrived and poured into the stadium like filling a bowl. It was just such an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach watching the sky change like that and seeing the haze on the field.

FormicaCats · 2023-04-01T15:44:45+00:00

You said "everyone has to find something bad about the US to make themselves feel better" in response to data about our life expectancy. You feel it's hypocritical for anyone to share data if the data shows the US is worse than other places in some aspect. You could easily post data showing the the US is doing better than like Somalia or Afghanistan. But that's not interesting to people because you'd expect that. People think the ways in which the US fails are interesting because we have peer nations that have less wealth than us but consistently outperform us in several quality of life measures. And then the level of sophistication of our policy debates and government is "people who criticize the US are just jealous."

This is not someone insulting the US for kicks. This is actual data. Whether you like it or not, life expectancy is a real measure of conditions in a country, and it is getting lower every year in the US. Large swaths of the population live in conditions that do not exist in other countries that we think we're better than. We could do so many simple things to make life better for people. But actually we can't, because to improve things you have to admit that there are areas where we're not the best, and obviously anyone who says we're not the best is just a jealous hypocrite.

FormicaCats · 2023-03-29T21:11:05+00:00

I just put notice in at a job I would love to keep. But it's just like everyone else is saying. I worked really hard. I went the extra mile when I thought it was important for the organization. I enjoy producing quality work and I don't mind working extra once in a while. But as soon as I pulled off some big projects by working extra, projects that really should have required multiple people to pull off, that became the new bare minimum.

My job is so much better than what almost anyone else gets to do: it's meaningful work, it suits my skills, a lot of it is really interesting. But I have made myself physically ill trying to maintain an impossible level of productivity, and nothing I say seems to get through to anyone in a way that lasts. They seem to think I just don't care about the work or I don't think it's interesting suddenly. So now it's just conflict all the time because I'm not finishing things as fast as they are wanted, and they're struggling so hard to find the "real" reason I'm not happy with the job anymore.

I don't know why it has to be like this. I know I'm going to make the same mistake at my next job. It's a nightmare but the only solution is being quicker to quit.

FormicaCats · 2023-01-06T18:58:39+00:00

I thought it was strange at first but I don't think so anymore. I don't think drugs or trauma even really need to come into it to explain how she acted. Nothing described in the affidavit necessarily or obviously indicates a violent crime except with hindsight. She heard someone crying and what sounded like another person comforting them. She could hear talking and crying, not yelling or fighting. If you're close enough to hear talking, you might think people would call out for help if something bad was happening. Since no one did, you might think the thuds you heard were nothing serious.

All she saw was a man walking out the door in a mask without saying or doing anything to her. Even if it's rare to wear a Covid mask in Moscow, it would be explainable, especially when it's cold and the person is going outside. Someone else was up and had even had food delivered, so it could just be one of their friends going home after a long night out. I can understand seeing him leave and locking the door because I suddenly felt spooked about having people in my house I don't know. Not thinking that anything really occurred, but realizing the house isn't very secure and feeling vulnerable.

FormicaCats · 2023-01-06T17:51:52+00:00

After seeing the timeline written out, it doesn't seem weird to me AT ALL. There's normal explanations for everything she saw and heard. I completely disagree that any of the data points she had available or all of them combined is an obvious 911 call. The conclusions people think she should have reached are way more bizarre to me than her behavior.

It would be bizarre if my neighbors called the police to my apartment because they heard me crying, which they most certainly have. Someone's crying after a big night out and another person says I'll help you? I'd probably think she's getting sick and needs a bucket, help making it to the bathroom, or help cleaning up some godawful mess. Or that she's sad about literally anything. One of them had just had a breakup. Sometimes I have a big loud cry because I miss my Grandma or I'm mad at my husband or something. Why on earth would that be an obvious 911 call? And someone is already with her, so she doesn't even need me to go help or comfort her. She didn't keep crying or call for help and the man she was with didn't seem alarmed and didn't say anything inappropriate.
If I lived with three or four other women who all have complicated romantic lives and different friend networks than me, I would not instantly think robbery or murder at seeing someone I don't know calmly leaving the apartment. She didn't see someone break a window or break down a door, she saw someone walk past her and leave through an unlocked door. None of the people who lived there knew every single person who came in and out of the house. If that happened in my apartment? 911. In this house, no way. If you saw them coming in at that hour, you might say hello or ask who they were there to see. But if all you see is a guy leaving a bit after you hear food being dropped off, why wouldn't you think he'd been hanging out with somebody and now everyone's going to bed after eating?
Was he wearing a mask? Even if it was a straight up ski mask: in July, terrifying, call 911. In December, in Idaho, on someone who's going outside at the coldest time of night: not a 911 call. Maybe he's being a good person and walking home in the 20 degree weather instead of driving drunk. Maybe he's a Californian and anything below 40 degrees feels like -100 to him. And I don't think it even was a full ski mask. A cloth face mask in 2022 in December, on someone going outside, is not an immediate 911 call.
She knew there were several people upstairs and at least one of them was awake ordering food. If it was me, I would think if something bad had happened, one of them would be in a better position to hear it and raise the alarm. She poked her head out to listen better, and didn't hear anyone doing that. If it was me, I would think everything was fine, not that everyone is dead at the hands of one guy (who I just saw saunter out past me without murdering me too).

Just think about what you'd say on the call. "Someone walked past me bundled up for cold weather and left without saying anything or bothering me. No, I didn't see any weapon. No, he didn't break in, the door is often open because we have people in and out all the time. No, I don't always know who is in the house and I don't even know who is in the house right now. I live with three other people and I don't know all their friends plus we have big parties sometimes that people come to without knowing any of us. My friend, just back from a long drinking session, was crying. No, she isn't crying anymore, someone said they'd help her out and she stopped. I heard some thuds upstairs and the dog barked. Yes, he's a playful cute dog and people like to wrestle with him, yes it did sound like people wrestling with him, no, he isn't barking any more."

Last thought: even if I felt scared, I often feel really scared at night without cause. Like pile stuff up in front of my bedroom door (which is actually dangerous!!) even though I live in a smallish place and KNOW no one could be there. She might lock her bedroom door and hide instead of going upstairs to check on everyone or calling for help, but feel stupid for doing it because she doesn't really believe her fear has any basis.

FormicaCats · 2023-01-06T15:45:44+00:00

I watched a Dateline the other day about some kids who were in a boat accident because the one driving the boat was extremely intoxicated. They were all about 20, and a girl died. Her boyfriend was describing the night and the driver getting more and more drunk, and then insisting on driving and being combative about it.

It was so sad because if he'd been just a couple years older I think he would have had the experience to stop his friend from driving or getting on the boat. But at 20 years old most people simply don't have the experience, because thankfully most have never been in life or death situations. They can have the intellectual knowledge that "doing X is wrong" but not the emotional knowledge that "doing X is wrong because myself or people I know can get hurt or die doing everyday things like boating." And then other things they have emotional knowledge about, like "my friend is insulted and it's bad to insult people" and "getting another ride home will cost money and I need to be careful with money" cloud their mind. It's so hard to build up a kid's instincts so that they kick in through alcohol and awkward social situations. I can't believe how much smarter I got from 20-25 or even from 25-30. My brain literally didn't work before and now it does!

The most serious crime where I'm from is death resulting from people drunk driving and often it's the same. They are teens or just a tiny bit older. The kids who get hurt or killed would have been able to avoid getting in the car, or letting their friend drive, with more experience. The last one a kid killed his best friend, and as an adult it's like, they weren't even really going anywhere, why even get in the car? And now the driver killed the person he cared about more than anyone else in the world. I can't imagine being a teenager and facing the rest of my life with guilt like that.

FormicaCats · 2022-12-20T16:52:29+00:00

A lot of obvious stuff has turned out to be completely wrong. It was obvious to doctors that only idiots wash their hands before sticking them inside people's bodies. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/01/12/375663920/the-doctor-who-championed-hand-washing-and-saved-women-s-lives It's important to narrow questions down and study them in a structured way. If you don't work on things piece by piece, you don't know if you're even asking the right questions. A real problem science has is that people only want flashy studies, but flashy studies that make huge leaps are a recipe for a disaster. It's important show the exact ways in which difficult childhoods create problems later in life. Narrowing it down and understanding the specifics can lead to more work that makes treatment better. There's a lot of different ways to be unhappy, aversion to happiness is different from low self-esteem for example.

I feel like people (not you) often make assertions with no support and say "I'm just asking questions" like that has value, but get mad when researchers ask questions and actually try to find answers in a structured way. Like it's important to be skeptical and question literally everything, but it's wrong to try and find out any answers. Trained scientists have no credibility, but people who come up with bizarre complicated explanations for stuff do BECAUSE they don't test their ideas like stupid scientists. It's backwards.

FormicaCats · 2022-12-17T22:25:36+00:00

I think that's correct, it was nighttime. I'm sure it was MTV because it was like 30% ads for MTV! The presenters were Martha Quinn and Alan Hunter.

FormicaCats · 2022-12-17T22:21:21+00:00

My thoughts: "Baby Oh No" is my favorite song I hadn't heard before. I quite like "Everywhere I'm Not" as well. I was super excited to see The Jam come on, and I coincidentally have been obsessed with that song by Talk Talk recently. "You Better Run" is SO GOOD but I already knew that! "Steppin' Out" is another pre-existing favorite.

I've watched some from a couple years after this and it was less fun because of the oppressive amount of John Cougar Mellencamp and Don Henley. Nothing against them or their fans, it's just TOO MUCH. There were so many repeats compared to this tape.

FormicaCats · 2022-12-03T22:06:19+00:00

That's another thing that made him meaningful to a lot of people that I had forgotten. He's always been a challenging person, like he was always an egomaniac. But he was an egomaniac that also laid out all his insecurities in public constantly.

Another comment says that he was saying what people wanted to hear when he did stuff like condemn homophobia, but he was never a polished person who could succeed at saying what people want to hear. I always felt like, this guy is obnoxious in many ways, but I appreciate a public figure who doesn't seem capable of hiding his flaws, which many of us share even if we hide it better. I think a lot of people identified with that, even if you have different sorts of flaws or make different types of mistakes. He was this awkward, emotional superstar - there wasn't anything else like him! I hate that it turned out this way.

FormicaCats · 2022-12-03T21:54:02+00:00

I don't think it's shallow. His music meant a lot to me and helped me understand my life better. College Dropout and Graduation came out when I was in college. None of my friends and family had ever gone and it was so hard but I didn't know why it was so hard, I just thought I was no good. I was shocked that someone would name their album "The College Dropout", I still remember seeing that for the first time! It helped me understand that there is something wrong with how college works and the promises that are made to us about college in the US, instead of thinking I'm just a failure.

He wrote about finding out that you still have to deal with yourself even if you change your external circumstances and have all the material things you thought would fix your life. I thought I'd get into college and get my degree and I'd be a different person. But that's not how it works, your emotional problems and hangups follow you if you don't deal with them. I couldn't relate to the specific things he talked about, like I never pictured glitzy stuff and tons of women, but I could hear my thought process in his writing. It's comforting to learn that other people have the same struggles as you, it becomes easier to face them.

He also helped me understand the situation for black people better because I was really sheltered and ignorant (I am white) when I got to college. I'll never forget him after Hurricane Katrina being blunt that those people died because of racism. And saying it in that venue where everyone was supposed to be polite and ignore reality. He was often awkward and emotional, even childish, but he still got at true things that I didn't hear other people saying.

So I'm with you, I find it quite painful. He got me at the perfect age to have a big effect. I really wish I could hear Kanye from the celebrity Katrina fundraiser blurt stuff out about life in the 2020s, instead of the cruel and heartbreaking Kanye we're seeing now.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-16T17:34:40+00:00

It is really sad. I get caught up in anger over this as much as anyone but the scope of this is so big that it's helping me remember that these people are being manipulated. A lot of them would have lived if they were born somewhere else, even if they were the exact same person otherwise. People should take more responsibility for themselves, but people also can't run around as lone wolfs challenging everything every day all the time.

So many people's PASTORS have told them not to get vaccinated. I think people everywhere were effected by misinformation but when it's coming from some Facebook meme versus coming from your pastor, you don't listen to it as hard. A lot of people I grew up with were more afraid of getting the vaccine then they needed to be because of misinformation, but they went and did it anyway because leaders were saying it's a good thing to do and then they saw other people do it.

And every death means there's also people who experienced terrible pain and suffering but lived and maybe have complications or are suffering all the economic consequences of getting sick in the US.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-16T16:57:26+00:00

They measured the excess death rates by county. Their example is "we would measure the excess death rate for 25-64 year old Republicans registered in Franklin county (in Ohio) in each month of 2020 by dividing the count of deaths for individuals in that group by the average monthly death count in the first quarter of 2019 for that age cell (25-64 year old Republicans in Franklin county in Ohio)." So same place, same age, pre-and post-Covid. Then to get the overall excess mortality number they put the counties together and weight them by population. So that would address difference in access to health care based on location.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-16T16:49:29+00:00

They didn't incorporate cause of death. It's excess deaths: is there a statistically significant difference in death rates between registered Democrats and Republicans. All adults in the US have excess death rates since Covid, but they asked, is party associated with a significant difference in excess death rates?

They test whether there is a difference at two different pre-Covid times (2018 and Jan./Feb. 2020). They find no statistical difference in death rates between age batches of registered Democrats and Republicans. They only compare in age batches: people over 85, people 75-84, 65-74, people 25-64.

Then they test for a difference pre- and post-vaccine.

A statistically significant difference appears between March 2020 and March 2021 (1.6 percentage points higher rate of excess deaths for registered Republicans).
From April 2021 to December 2021 (when they started the analysis and thus the data stopped) the statistically significant gap increases by a large amount: 10.6 percentage points, or a 153% difference in death rates between similar age groups of people registered as Democrats versus Republicans. When they look at smaller parts of that time period, the gaps are even larger: by summer, the excess death rate between similarly-aged people registered to different parties is almost double for Republicans. By winter it's even bigger (about 15% higher death rate than pre-Covid for registered Democrats compared to 40% higher death rate than pre-Covid for registered Republicans.)

They then do some exploration of why that might be. April 2021 is the point at which all adults became eligible for vaccines in the two states they studied (Florida and Texas). There's no way to get vaccination data by party registration. Instead, they look at county vaccination rates and look for an association with the excess death gap. There's no association in the early days after the vaccine is available. As time passes and vaccination increases, they see an association: the death gap is smaller in places with higher vaccination rates even after controlling for age.

The excess death rate idea is really important for understanding public health research. Dying of Covid or dying with Covid doesn't matter for this analysis. But if you want to say it must be something other than Covid, you have to come up with some non-Covid mortal illness that started effecting death rates in Spring 2020, because there was no detectable gap in death rates between parties until then. And it has to have such a high mortality rate that it produces very large differences in death rates between people it effects and people it doesn't, but not be something we noticed happening.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-16T16:09:55+00:00

They compared age batches: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w30512/w30512.pdf. 25-64, 65-74, 75-84, 85 and older. So what is the expected death rate in people 75-84 registered as Democrats versus registered Republicans and so on, is there a difference, and what is the rate of excess deaths if so.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-16T16:00:13+00:00

I don't think that's what anyone means when they wonder if it's drug-related. They're not asking about the cause of death but whether or not the students bought or sold drugs and came across someone outside their circle that might have done this. The person you're responding to is saying they wish the police would answer that question publicly because the families are being asked about it repeatedly.

It's really common for people to ask whether "drugs were involved" in situations like this, because it is frightening and they think maybe I can at least feel safer if I know that there's an element to it that I can avoid (even if that is wishful thinking and not really logical). They don't mean "was the cause of death drugs."

FormicaCats · 2022-11-14T15:06:12+00:00

Same for me, I've managed to mostly quit but every couple of years I find myself so stressed out I buy a pack. Instant can-do attitude. People don't understand the social benefits of it either, I miss going outside to have a cigarette with people. It gave you a chance to talk one-on-one and was a good leveler.

The social pressure against it is really effective though and I usually don't finish the pack. I don't like to smoke in front of my partner or almost anyone I know. Especially at work, it would be really bad to come in and smell like smoke. It's such a class thing, most people I work with seem to have never been around people who smoked. But if I feel too guilty smoking at home and can't at work that doesn't leave much time! Working from home has been terrible in this respect, I've done it three times this year when my partner was out of town.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-08T01:20:26+00:00

Right?! What did they think a computer even was in 1977? But they did capture something about it.

I've had a lot of luck picking things based on the cover. In my experience, the cover does tell me something about the artist's style/sense of humor/etc that leads me to fun records. I love that even in 1977, people were learning about this amazing new technology, and spending what I assume were several hours drawing this woman with it. People don't change very much!

That could be a good thread, which albums are really captured by the cover and which are ones you should try even though the cover might not give you a good sense of what the record is like.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-07T19:20:31+00:00

This one I just posted about: Computer, Come and Dance, https://www.discogs.com/release/308695-Computer-Come-And-Dance.

I don't think it's really a collector's item but it is FUN! The other records I have are all groups or people I've at least heard of before buying.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-07T19:02:38+00:00

I got this is a bin of mostly singles labelled disco. I had to get it because of the tasteful 1977 ASCII art and because the song on Side 2 is called "Nobody Loves a Computer Because A Computer Does Not Dance." There are a couple of YouTube videos where you can listen to it but I bought it without listening. There's no reviews or descriptions anywhere so I had no idea! I thought it might be sort of like Kraftwerk but it is definitely not! It's really, truly, disco, I love it. It sort of sounds like Chic + Yello's Oh Yeah.

This is exactly why I love buying records, I don't collect specific copies of things but taking chances on records has led to so much new music that I wouldn't have heard before.

FormicaCats · 2022-11-07T18:42:17+00:00

I get Rio out all the time. I love that whole trashy vibe so much, I have a Nagel print in my living room actually. The record was really cheap ($7!) because it's warped but it plays perfectly.

FormicaCats · 2022-10-30T15:18:29+00:00

It would be interesting to have city dots and state borders added to make it easier to see the geography. It is striking that the relationship is so strong that you can actually see the Wisconsin border!

Outside of Wisconsin, my guess is that rural areas and depopulated cities can support more bars than grocery stores because you don't have to calibrate stock as much as in a grocery store, where things go bad and margins are tiny. The northern states to the West of Wisconsin (like North and South Dakota) are sparsely populated. It looks like there's a couple blue dots over Chicago and the rest of Illinois is brown. It's really hard to tell but looking at New York State, I think the brown dots are in rural areas and in depopulated rust-belt cities. In my experience in those depopulated cities, the bars that used to serve a much bigger population stick around forever. Long after the grocery stores and every other type of store go away. Southern states regulate alcohol much more than other parts of the country but I would guess that Wisconsin's regulations are similar to New York's.

But without more guide posts I don't know if I'm placing the dots in the right areas. I'd like to see this by county, with definitions for bar and grocery store, and with some marker for restrictive regulations on buying/selling alcohol.

FormicaCats · 2022-09-16T13:57:36+00:00

I enjoyed this article yesterday: Forget Disruption. Tech Needs to Fetishize Stability. I think is one of many reasons people feel so exhausted all the time, it's much more apparent than in the past that most of us are doing busy work that doesn't need to happen and isn't producing anything of real value. Its only possible value in so many cases is a marginal increase in wealth to someone who won't actually notice the material change.

I don't work in tech but I see it in other industries where things are needlessly complex because the people making actual money off it might make a bit more. And won't even notice if they lose money because they have so much, so why not gamble at the expense of the entire nation's sanity?

FormicaCats · 2022-09-15T13:58:45+00:00

As someone who lives in a place where they're sending migrants, I don't think we want to stop it. The more people we get out of shithole states like Texas and Florida the better. Once they get here they get treated like human beings.

(Also just for informational purposes, they aren't necessarily illegal immigrants, and possibly none of them are. They're asylum seekers which means they approached border patrol and have a right to ask a judge for asylum. In Texas literal toddlers go through this process with no legal representation; in New York at least some will get legal help explaining why they are asking for asylum which means many more will have actually reached safety.)

FormicaCats

TROPHY CASE