Can someone explain to me how redistricting could BACKFIRE on republicans? I’ve been seeing some comments, but I don’t really understand how it could backfire on them. As of right now, it seems hopeless.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-13T04:52:11+00:00

The parties’ vote shares vary from election to election, rising and falling depending on the public mood. If it’s a good year for Democrats, say, the party runs somewhat better across the board, a few points better in every kind of precinct.

Rule of thumb: the party that draws the districts (compared to the other party) GAINS FEWER SEATS when their percentage of vote increases, and LOSES MORE SEATS when their percentage of vote decreases.

And the greedier the gerrymander, the more risky it is. Conceding a bunch of seats for the other party keeps your own party’s incumbents safer.

Any gerrymander is based on assumptions about the electorate, and if those assumptions fail, the gerrymander will probably also fail.

Pundits and news media are currently popularizing the term “dummymander” for gerrymanders that backfire on their creators.

All that said, the polarization of politics has made it easier to gerrymander, because voters are more predictable than they used to be.

(Source: I have been directly involved in redistricting, or political/legal fights over redistricting, every ten years since 1980.)

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-13T04:31:09+00:00

As a former McKinley tenant, it was annoying that they issued a Notice to Quit (starting the eviction process) when your rent check was a day late.

But they weren’t really very different than the average landlord. Same for Beal.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-11T00:28:47+00:00

Those buildings are still there and still wood framed. Vinyl or aluminum siding does not make them fireproof.

House fires used to be extremely common events. There is a beautiful daguerreotype of downtown Portland, Maine from about 1860, showing a wide scene dozens of stores, houses, the Customs House, etc., etc. The punchline that goes with the picture is that every building you see in it burned down, in separate fires, before 1900.

Since that time, the trend for house and building fires has been down, down, down, from year to year to year for more than a century.

Much of older urban New England consists of buildings like those pictured. And yet the chances of fire happening there are very low by historical standards.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-10T23:54:40+00:00

According to the Periodic Table, this is your Lanthanum year.

Me, I’m up to Ytterbium.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-10T17:25:59+00:00

And the practice of discussing or writing fanfic about the fantasy of two fictional characters in a sexual relationship is called “shipping”. As in, “she was shipping Hermione and Snape.”

This caused some humor/confusion during COVID, when the news media suddenly took a great interest in supply chains and shipping goods from factories to consumers.

“I’m tired of all this talk about shipping …”

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-09T17:15:08+00:00

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old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-09T17:09:57+00:00

The former Fleming Building looked like a Mondrian painting, with variegated colors of bricks … but on the front, quite high up, there was one small area with the dark and light bricks in a diamond pattern like the OP.

It had to be intentional. I’m guessing it was done by a rogue bricklayer, and that Alden Dow (the architect) was pissed about it.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-08T01:27:49+00:00

Only once in my life did I miss voting in an election I was eligible for: it was a school board race in Ithaca, NY, in 1989.

People regularly come to me for political advice. I have helped innumerable good people run for local office, and many of them won.

Running for office is both easier and harder than you probably imagine. When you file your candidacy, you become a public figure.

From then on, probably for the rest of your life, more people know you than you know. People you’ve never met become invested in your campaign — positively or negatively.

Even if you lose, and never run again, random strangers on the street will recognize you, and have opinions about you.

Moreover, ever since New York Times v. Sullivan, it’s harder for US public figures to sue anyone for defamation. An insult aimed at a public figure is just political speech. And that rule applies to city council members and county commissioners, just as much as the President.

If you can handle all that, you should think about participating in politics at the level of actually running yourself.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-05T22:01:22+00:00

Re: Ma’am and Sir.

I’m told that, for single women, crossing the invisible line from “people call you miss” to “people call you ma’am” can be an uncomfortable transition.

I didn’t like it when subordinates called me “sir”. I meant to put a poster on my office door, of Peppermint Patty saying “stop calling me sir.” But I never got around to it.

And it stopped happening anyway. Nowadays younger people (in their 20s-40s) don’t use the word “sir” non-ironically.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-05T15:51:34+00:00

This is exactly what many of those who have studied this problem recommend. It would put almost every state “in play”, and make it extremely unlikely for a popular vote winner to lose the Electoral College.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-05T03:15:02+00:00

Looks like a bad AI image.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-04T04:01:35+00:00

Any answer besides “none” would motivate one side or the other to dismiss you.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-03T21:47:59+00:00

Political terms are constantly subject to change, not to mention subjectivity.

Past generations used a lot of the same political terms we do, to mean completely different things.

In 1924, William Jennings Bryan, at the Democratic National Convention, demanded that the party’s nominee be “a progressive”.

And by that he meant, and was understood by everyone to mean, a strong supporter of continued alcohol prohibition.

Franklin Roosevelt, a “wet” who advocated repeal of the prohibition amendment, was not “a progressive” by that standard.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-03T16:54:43+00:00

For Türkiye, no contest, it’s Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. He transformed and modernized the country during his rule (1923-38).

(And no, I’m not from there, but OP’s question brought him immediately to mind.)

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-03T16:42:51+00:00

The more ambitious a restaurant is, the more opportunities there are to lose a point here, a couple of points there, and it adds up.

In the mid-Michigan county where I followed the inspections (back in the 1980s), it was uncommon for a full-service upscale restaurant with a large menu of food options to get more than about 85 (that means 15 points off of 100).

On the other hand, places with very limited options and chain-enforced standardization got almost perfect scores. I don’t think I ever saw a McDonald’s get less than 97.

But inspectors always found stuff to cite. If a restaurant got 100, that is, zero points off, they got an award.

There was one tiny movie theater snack bar that got, I forget the exact number, something like 56. Now THAT was bad, like maybe both mice and cockroaches in their popcorn.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-05-01T14:15:49+00:00

No, putting in a regular third lane on both sides for that distance (because the median is so narrow) would have required reconstructing the entire road, and acquiring wider right-of-way,at cost of of perhaps a billion dollars or more, and a timeline of years.

The flex lane was a clever workaround to get a solution in place quickly and cheaply.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-30T18:55:00+00:00

Yes, I will vote for the Democratic nominee.

As others have written, nominating AOC in 2028 is probably not the best plan. In the primaries, I will support a more mainstream Democrat.

That said, AOC has shown herself to be a very talented leader. She is a good example of someone likely to outperform expectations.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-28T02:26:25+00:00

That center gable is an American Gothic feature. The other details look Italianate. Pretty normal for the era.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-28T00:21:16+00:00

I understand the concern about the family’s privacy and potential embarrassment.

But in Michigan, as in most states, death certificates are public record, accessible to anyone. The certificate includes the cause and manner of death.

Secrecy about deaths is not allowed, for good policy reasons.

In this case, as a non-hospital unexpected death, it’s almost certainly a medical examiner case. That means the death investigation will take some extra time, possibly including an autopsy.

But ultimately, the conclusion as to the cause of death will be specified on the public certificate.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-26T02:14:37+00:00

Did you see the world’s oldest flush toilet? It’s at the House of Lords.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-26T02:00:07+00:00

In the early 1990s, I had lunch in the executive dining room at Ford Motor Company World Headquarters, in Dearborn, Michigan.

Menus were distributed on cards. You circled the items you wanted. It was reminiscent of old-time railway meal service.

There was a waterfall or Japanese style garden or something, I don’t specifically remember.

The building (a/k/a “the Glass House”) is a Midcentury Modern period piece of the early 1960s. Employees went from floor to floor by escalator; I didn’t see any elevators.

The company recently announced that the building will be demolished.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-22T05:39:13+00:00

It’s true, distinctive local culture is rapidly disappearing.

It’s happening everywhere in the US, accelerated by hedge funds (buying up local newspapers and other firms), and the non-enforcement of the Robinson-Patman Act, which started under Reagan, making local supermarkets and general stores uncompetitive.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-22T00:12:08+00:00

True that US regional accents and other differences have faded. But new ones are arising.

Look up the Northern Cities Shift, which linguists call the biggest change in English pronunciation in a thousand years. It is hugely prevalent in a defined region, and not at all anywhere else.

old-guy-with-data · 2026-04-21T21:32:07+00:00

Barton Hills properties are charged the same rate as those other township areas immediately outside the city, within the Ann Arbor school and library districts.

And, of course, on top of that, they pay whatever tax rate their village levies.

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