Hmmm I don't know that I have an escapade story but I'm an import so I have only had a dozen fairs or so. Younger me didn't properly appreciate the state fair.
But I heartily approve of your excellent taste in fairs.
Very slightly spoilerish:
A) It’s enormously lower stakes than cultist simulator. In the former you’re an ambitious aspirant seeking to accrue power and storm the gates of the heavens itself with hidden lore and relics of power. In Book of Hours you’re not quite a state functionary but you’re basically an NGO employee and, while you deal in hidden lore and relics of power your goal is to catalogue and store them, and occasionally helpfully reference them for various visitors.
B) It’s deliciously charming and clunkily obtuse. It has that same “discover the mechanic” element as Cultist Simulator but you’re also basically inheriting the sprawling estate that is a legacy of what can only be described as a long line of occult hoarders. The estate is huge, every room is packed full of… stuff… and all the stuff can be examined to get, at a minimum, juicy fun tidbits of lore and, sometimes, powerful repeatable game mechanic elements.
C) The game will treat you best if you act like a librarian. You will want to maintain a spreadsheet. You will want to organize the clutter. I have a room full of food I offer guests to buff them up. I have a room full of drink for the same. I have a room for my tools of power. I have a room for fishin, candles. I have a room for MY KITTY (he purrs)!
D) The mechanic is very square around the edges. You zoom and scroll back and forth over the board occasionally looking for things you need. It’s best to think of it as a bit like RPing. You are this odd hermit scholar who runs, wild haired, back and forth through your sprawling, stuff filled estate looking for that exact rock or candle or what have you to take back to your endless pouring over odd tomes. You occasionally emerge from seclusion to do odd jobs or lure visitors to your house to deck them out in odds and ends and then send them into a room to shoo spectral snakes out the window so you have more room to keep your books.
I think it’s brilliant. The music is nice and the sound effects are good- especially the ambient weather (which is, itself, an important mechanic). If you like Cultist Simulator you’ll find this both less gruelling but also much more “work” than the original. And if you liked the CS world building then you’ll LOVE the world building here. 5/5 strongly recommended.
I heartily endorse this message. State fairs rock.
The Twin Cities have the largest State Fair in the country. Now, some wags may point out that Texas allegedly has a larger one on paper but I would retort that said fair also is amalgamated with a rodeo and a football game and thus is dirty pool. Texans would, no doubt, disagree (they’d be wrong).
Anyhow, husband and I always go opening day which is a Thursday and has both discounted tickets and smaller crowds than the rest of the fair days. Also the staff is absolutely fresh as are the products and food. Trust me, it’s the best time to go and well worth taking a day off to do so.
The milkshakes at the MN state fair are insane. They taste almost like butter- they’re so rich! Likewise the grilled corn is nuts- the kernels are so big you can sink your teeth into them and barely reach the cob. Where the fish do they get that corn?!?
I’d also strongly recommend the fair coupon book. At our fair it costs 5 bucks and if you use 2 coupons from it (trust me, you will, odds are you’ll use a dozen and turn a fat net gain) you’ll have made that back plus it serves as an impromptu guide around the whole fair.
Kevin Drum offers a curious counterpoint
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-joe-bidens-job-approval-at-the-end-of-august/
Though I suppose we on the left count retort that Bidens' administration is suffering neither the slow recovery difficulties that Obama suffered or the rampant corruption, scandal and chaos that Trump brought in with him so he should have a higher rating? But I think that Drums' point is that, at our current level of political polarization, high approval ratings should be considered rather unusual.
Yes I suppose you have a point that, despite the fact that deflation most commonly occurs as a handmaiden of major economic contractions, it's far from assured that deflation and economic contractions are inextricably paired.
Heh, yeah if someone had a magic wand they could wave to make broad scale productive based deflation occur it'd be a fascinating exercise for economists to study. Barring someone rolling out a cheap effective android laborer or fusion or something I don't see it happening.
We were talking about the green line tracking people, Jay me lad, and the only reason they would "not remember" it is because they would prefer not to remember how astronomically and consistently wrong they were.
I'm very dubious those entities consider their media organ branches major profit centers. Bezos most assuredly didn't buy the Wapo in pursuit of lucre- he was after prestige.
Nope. Can't work. "Vote for the crook, it's important" was on a state level rather than national level. Also the choice was between a generally recognized crook and a generally recognized racist. The racist label has been too degraded both by overuse by the identarian left and by constant attack by the right to have a uniform nationally agreed upon definition.
And for media elites to create something like the example you give they'd need to be able to understand the gettable right wing/leaning voters enough to do so. I see no reason to believe they do/can. Far more likely we'd get some focus grouped mishmash of a media campaign that'd, at best, do nothing and, at worst, would energize Trumpkins while embarrassing leftists and turning off right leaners.
I don't know if I'd blame it predominantly on the profit motive directly. Assuredly clicks/eyeballs do equal both attention and revenue (though I hesitate to use the word profit when talking about the dessicated husk that make up our current mainstream media businesses). I think it's just as easily cultural, part of the very self serious mental image of themselves that mainstream media organizations have and also part of the ridiculous defensive crouch they assume in the face of perennial right wing claims of bias.
Yes, as usual you and I don't disagree on much. I feel a certain gratification in that I predicted that Biden would be hands off regarding interest rates, that sharp Fed rate increases would sort inflation out and that matters then proceeded as I had assumed they would.
Yes, well the "this inflation is transitory" people have the same egg on their face that the "this inflation will require double digit unemployment to whip" inflation hawks have on theirs. And when one factors in that most inflation hawks also have a tractor trailer load of eggs that should be applied to their faces for saying "Hyperinflation will happen any minute" every since 2008 or so I know who I respect more among the prognosticator green line studying crew.
Yes, and we also should keep in mind that Biden doesn't win or lose in a vacuum. It won't be Biden vs Johnny Unbeatable. It'll be Biden vs whomever the GOP nominates (seemingly Trump at the moment).
Well... ok... maybe... but... a lot of people have had their wages go up by the same amount, or more. Especially in the lower income quintiles. For example, one of the lowest tiers of earners — people making an average of $12.50 per hour nationally — saw their pay grow nearly 6 percent from 2020 to 2022, even after factoring in inflation.
The people who got the inflation oar across their faces were more the higher earners who happen to also be a lot noisier.
I love your writing in general Eric but I fear you have missed the mark here. I cannot imaging many things less helpful than for the media/cultural elites to try and focus group a large media push to promote Bidens' candidacy.
I wish I had some better alternatives to offer but I don't think ol' Joe is young or nimble enough to try and take on the politically unpopular and right wing signal boosted left wing tropes the keep getting strapped onto his administration. Likewise I don't see any way that the mainstream medias' incessant need for false equivalency or a close race can be tempered. The worse the right looks and the more under water their candidate ends up being the harder the "liberal" media will pump them up.
I think Joe just has to soldier through- focus on the productive things he's been focusing on, by and large, for the last two years and hope that the same adults in the room portion of the electorate that nominated and then elected him in 2016 are paying attention and are appreciative.
Well the rub here is that prices going down across the board, aka deflation, is typically an economic catastrophe. People (and businesses) put off buying and investing until later hoping prices will continue to decline. Unemployment skyrockets. Economies contract and generally everyone has a bad time.
So you can't very well make the prices go back down.
Oh you're preaching to the choir there, but those 20-100 universities include all the elite selective ones so their cultural and political cachet is enormously magnified. To say nothing of the fact that the rights' dedicated media apparatus is extremely eager to signal boost their, shall we say, more indulgent ivory tower-isms. So my core point stands.
This is also the main challenge for educational funding and student debt problem issues in a nutshell. University administration has ballooned enormously over the decades. I grant Philips' comment upstream that the people who work in university administration mostly mean well- I am willing to believe they have no ill intent- but that doesn't change that a lot of them are likely mostly deadweight on their institutions regardless of whether they mean well or not.
As long as higher ed is a black hole of inefficiency and money diversion on one side bracketed by corporatism, elitism and endowment servicing on the other there'll never be a strong constituency in favor of throwing more money at it or in favor of paying off student debts (which is simply throwing money at higher ed in a more convoluted manner). That'd remain the case even if higher ed wasn't also strongly partisanly sorted, but it is strongly partisanly sorted, so it'll be even worse.
I suspect/fear it's going to take a proverbial forest fire to clear the deadwood out of higher ed though. The current demographic shift could do it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/28/2023”
It is simple selection bias.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Doing the Fair”
Hmmm I don't know that I have an escapade story but I'm an import so I have only had a dozen fairs or so. Younger me didn't properly appreciate the state fair.
But I heartily approve of your excellent taste in fairs.
"
Very slightly spoilerish:
A) It’s enormously lower stakes than cultist simulator. In the former you’re an ambitious aspirant seeking to accrue power and storm the gates of the heavens itself with hidden lore and relics of power. In Book of Hours you’re not quite a state functionary but you’re basically an NGO employee and, while you deal in hidden lore and relics of power your goal is to catalogue and store them, and occasionally helpfully reference them for various visitors.
B) It’s deliciously charming and clunkily obtuse. It has that same “discover the mechanic” element as Cultist Simulator but you’re also basically inheriting the sprawling estate that is a legacy of what can only be described as a long line of occult hoarders. The estate is huge, every room is packed full of… stuff… and all the stuff can be examined to get, at a minimum, juicy fun tidbits of lore and, sometimes, powerful repeatable game mechanic elements.
C) The game will treat you best if you act like a librarian. You will want to maintain a spreadsheet. You will want to organize the clutter. I have a room full of food I offer guests to buff them up. I have a room full of drink for the same. I have a room for my tools of power. I have a room for fishin, candles. I have a room for MY KITTY (he purrs)!
D) The mechanic is very square around the edges. You zoom and scroll back and forth over the board occasionally looking for things you need. It’s best to think of it as a bit like RPing. You are this odd hermit scholar who runs, wild haired, back and forth through your sprawling, stuff filled estate looking for that exact rock or candle or what have you to take back to your endless pouring over odd tomes. You occasionally emerge from seclusion to do odd jobs or lure visitors to your house to deck them out in odds and ends and then send them into a room to shoo spectral snakes out the window so you have more room to keep your books.
I think it’s brilliant. The music is nice and the sound effects are good- especially the ambient weather (which is, itself, an important mechanic). If you like Cultist Simulator you’ll find this both less gruelling but also much more “work” than the original. And if you liked the CS world building then you’ll LOVE the world building here. 5/5 strongly recommended.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Of course not. Their JOB is to be working this.If Biden was polling at 95% I'd want them scrambling for that missing 5%.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Doing the Fair”
I am entirely lost in Book of Hours.
"
I heartily endorse this message. State fairs rock.
The Twin Cities have the largest State Fair in the country. Now, some wags may point out that Texas allegedly has a larger one on paper but I would retort that said fair also is amalgamated with a rodeo and a football game and thus is dirty pool. Texans would, no doubt, disagree (they’d be wrong).
Anyhow, husband and I always go opening day which is a Thursday and has both discounted tickets and smaller crowds than the rest of the fair days. Also the staff is absolutely fresh as are the products and food. Trust me, it’s the best time to go and well worth taking a day off to do so.
The milkshakes at the MN state fair are insane. They taste almost like butter- they’re so rich! Likewise the grilled corn is nuts- the kernels are so big you can sink your teeth into them and barely reach the cob. Where the fish do they get that corn?!?
I’d also strongly recommend the fair coupon book. At our fair it costs 5 bucks and if you use 2 coupons from it (trust me, you will, odds are you’ll use a dozen and turn a fat net gain) you’ll have made that back plus it serves as an impromptu guide around the whole fair.
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Kevin Drum offers a curious counterpoint
https://jabberwocking.com/raw-data-joe-bidens-job-approval-at-the-end-of-august/
Though I suppose we on the left count retort that Bidens' administration is suffering neither the slow recovery difficulties that Obama suffered or the rampant corruption, scandal and chaos that Trump brought in with him so he should have a higher rating? But I think that Drums' point is that, at our current level of political polarization, high approval ratings should be considered rather unusual.
"
Yes I suppose you have a point that, despite the fact that deflation most commonly occurs as a handmaiden of major economic contractions, it's far from assured that deflation and economic contractions are inextricably paired.
"
Heh, yeah if someone had a magic wand they could wave to make broad scale productive based deflation occur it'd be a fascinating exercise for economists to study. Barring someone rolling out a cheap effective android laborer or fusion or something I don't see it happening.
"
That's amusingly incoherent even by the high bar you set for yourself DD.
"
We were talking about the green line tracking people, Jay me lad, and the only reason they would "not remember" it is because they would prefer not to remember how astronomically and consistently wrong they were.
"
I'm very dubious those entities consider their media organ branches major profit centers. Bezos most assuredly didn't buy the Wapo in pursuit of lucre- he was after prestige.
"
As far as I recall, though I'm not perfect on American history, the Bern never ran for Governor of Louisiana.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/28/2023”
So much beef!
On “How to Make People Care About Democratic Achievements”
Nope. Can't work. "Vote for the crook, it's important" was on a state level rather than national level. Also the choice was between a generally recognized crook and a generally recognized racist. The racist label has been too degraded both by overuse by the identarian left and by constant attack by the right to have a uniform nationally agreed upon definition.
And for media elites to create something like the example you give they'd need to be able to understand the gettable right wing/leaning voters enough to do so. I see no reason to believe they do/can. Far more likely we'd get some focus grouped mishmash of a media campaign that'd, at best, do nothing and, at worst, would energize Trumpkins while embarrassing leftists and turning off right leaners.
"
I don't know if I'd blame it predominantly on the profit motive directly. Assuredly clicks/eyeballs do equal both attention and revenue (though I hesitate to use the word profit when talking about the dessicated husk that make up our current mainstream media businesses). I think it's just as easily cultural, part of the very self serious mental image of themselves that mainstream media organizations have and also part of the ridiculous defensive crouch they assume in the face of perennial right wing claims of bias.
"
Yes, as usual you and I don't disagree on much. I feel a certain gratification in that I predicted that Biden would be hands off regarding interest rates, that sharp Fed rate increases would sort inflation out and that matters then proceeded as I had assumed they would.
"
Yes, well the "this inflation is transitory" people have the same egg on their face that the "this inflation will require double digit unemployment to whip" inflation hawks have on theirs. And when one factors in that most inflation hawks also have a tractor trailer load of eggs that should be applied to their faces for saying "Hyperinflation will happen any minute" every since 2008 or so I know who I respect more among the prognosticator green line studying crew.
"
Yes, and we also should keep in mind that Biden doesn't win or lose in a vacuum. It won't be Biden vs Johnny Unbeatable. It'll be Biden vs whomever the GOP nominates (seemingly Trump at the moment).
"
Well... ok... maybe... but... a lot of people have had their wages go up by the same amount, or more. Especially in the lower income quintiles. For example, one of the lowest tiers of earners — people making an average of $12.50 per hour nationally — saw their pay grow nearly 6 percent from 2020 to 2022, even after factoring in inflation.
The people who got the inflation oar across their faces were more the higher earners who happen to also be a lot noisier.
"
I love your writing in general Eric but I fear you have missed the mark here. I cannot imaging many things less helpful than for the media/cultural elites to try and focus group a large media push to promote Bidens' candidacy.
I wish I had some better alternatives to offer but I don't think ol' Joe is young or nimble enough to try and take on the politically unpopular and right wing signal boosted left wing tropes the keep getting strapped onto his administration. Likewise I don't see any way that the mainstream medias' incessant need for false equivalency or a close race can be tempered. The worse the right looks and the more under water their candidate ends up being the harder the "liberal" media will pump them up.
I think Joe just has to soldier through- focus on the productive things he's been focusing on, by and large, for the last two years and hope that the same adults in the room portion of the electorate that nominated and then elected him in 2016 are paying attention and are appreciative.
"
Well the rub here is that prices going down across the board, aka deflation, is typically an economic catastrophe. People (and businesses) put off buying and investing until later hoping prices will continue to decline. Unemployment skyrockets. Economies contract and generally everyone has a bad time.
So you can't very well make the prices go back down.
On “The Maleficent Gordon Gee and His Malfunctioning Money Machine”
Oh you're preaching to the choir there, but those 20-100 universities include all the elite selective ones so their cultural and political cachet is enormously magnified. To say nothing of the fact that the rights' dedicated media apparatus is extremely eager to signal boost their, shall we say, more indulgent ivory tower-isms. So my core point stands.
"
This is also the main challenge for educational funding and student debt problem issues in a nutshell. University administration has ballooned enormously over the decades. I grant Philips' comment upstream that the people who work in university administration mostly mean well- I am willing to believe they have no ill intent- but that doesn't change that a lot of them are likely mostly deadweight on their institutions regardless of whether they mean well or not.
As long as higher ed is a black hole of inefficiency and money diversion on one side bracketed by corporatism, elitism and endowment servicing on the other there'll never be a strong constituency in favor of throwing more money at it or in favor of paying off student debts (which is simply throwing money at higher ed in a more convoluted manner). That'd remain the case even if higher ed wasn't also strongly partisanly sorted, but it is strongly partisanly sorted, so it'll be even worse.
I suspect/fear it's going to take a proverbial forest fire to clear the deadwood out of higher ed though. The current demographic shift could do it.
On “Slack Tide of the Slack Jawed Also-rans”
We'll see if any of them decide not to vote for said #1 candidate.