23 Comments on “Reader Request Week 2020 #10: Short Bits”

1. I didn’t have a question until this morning. I’ll ask anyway. My wife and I are considering getting (finally) a digital DLSR camera. Which would you suggest as a good for someone someone getting one for the first time? We can take niceish pics with our iphones and we have a low end Canon with a fixed lens and are wanting to upgrade. Any thoughts? Thank you.

2. Would you be willing to share your Twitter muted words/phrases list? I suspect it would be a gift and time saver for many of us.

3. To Kate M. with the question on two cats/kittens vs. one: Go for it, preferably from a nearby rescue group. It’s kitten season and if the group is on the ball, they’ll have plenty that need good homes. We did this about twenty years ago after many years as a single cat household. It’s great. Adult and senior cats are also wonderful as adoptees and need forever homes just as much if not more. (Disclosure: if I had the space and wherewithal, I’d be the male equivalent of a crazy cat lady, so I’m somewhat biased.)

4. Regarding cats entertaining each other: Define “entertaining”. In my house, that would only be a wearily sarcastic synonym for “fighting with”. It! depends! on! the! cats!

   One brother (Gz) and sister (W) were born under my front stoop; they mostly ignore each other, with the occasional faint growl or swipe from one if the other is in the way. Another cat (J) showed up hugely pregnant and had two surviving girls (S and Gr), and the two girls were inseparable as babies; now Gr haaaaaaates S and snarl-growls if she even catches sight of her. (W and Gr despise each other and fur flies if they end up too close. Big boy Gz loves to torment S by slow-walking at her until she flees in terror.) And then I adopted a little boycat (A) who desperately wanted to be friends with the first pair, but W hates everybody, and his idea of a good time is chasing the mom-and-daughters around.

   Cautious detente is what counts as a good day around here, and I have the benefit of a lot of space to let them spread out.

   Some cats bond in shelters, whether as babies or as adults. Some kittens bond early but then grow apart. It’s really hard to predict, and I strongly recommend having a plan for what to do if things don’t work out.

5. Bryan:

   If you’re going to go DSLR (rather than a mirrorless or something like that), try the Nikon d3500, which is pretty inexpensive and will give you a good start experience with the format:

   https://www.techradar.com/reviews/nikon-d3500-review

6. You do not need a constitutional amendment to change the two party system. Voting is done at the state level. Some (perhaps most) attempts at voting reform target the states first.

7. Just FYI, you don’t need a constitutional amendment to change the two-party system. There is at least one organization working to change the voting system in the US so that the government better reflects the way people vote. I’m involved with a different organization that’s advocating for something similar in Canada, and can confirm that it’s a good cause to give your time and money to.

8. To KateM. If you adopt kittens, it’s better to get a bonded pair. Single kittens do not become properly socialized by other kittens, so they frequently end up in shelters because they bite, claw, and play too rough with their humans, a condition called “Single Kitten Syndrome” (you can look it up). Older cats who were single kittens also can be rough players. On the other hand, their individual personalities are set, so you can get a cat that suits your preferences. If you go to a shelter, one that supports the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match program will have tested any cat over nine months old to determine its personality type.

9. Just finished the Last Emperox. You wrote that before the pandemic. Having now watched masses of people panic, would you change things?
   I was struck by how rational people were – self-interested, evil even, but not the crazies of say protesters who really are killing themselves to protest that they think the virus isn’t real.
   (Calhoun’s studies with rats showed society breakdown caused by population pressure. Seems to me climate change -or the disappearance of the Flow- causes similar self-destructive behavior?
   Thanks for writing a book that entertains as well as makes me think.
   (Looking forward to [spoiler snipped — JS] …. 😊)

10. Although it’s not universally accepted, the idea that two-party systems tend to be a consequence of, or at least related to, first-past-the-post voting (and some other similar systems) is well-known enough to have its own name: Duverger’s Law. There are some notable exceptions on both sides, but the tendency still seems to be there.

    But I’m not aware of anything in the US Constitution saying that states have to use FPTP to choose their electors. And, given that the Constitution says that Senators are supposed to be chosen by the state legislature, I think there may be some flexibility there too. :)

    So, yeah. Yay ranked voting! It’s already being done at the city level in several places in the US, and I see no reason why it can’t or shouldn’t be encouraged in more places. (Aside from the fact that both parties hate and fear it.) And I also don’t see any real reason why it can’t take over from grass roots, spreading to the state level, and thus automatically to the federal.

11. Regarding Amysrevenge’s question about swearing in front of children.

    I never swore in front of my mom until I was a teenager. Doing so was an instant weeks grounding or loss of some privilege. Once I was a teen my parents didn’t really care about swearing so long as I didn’t direct them at people.

    My old man was another matter. Helping dad in the wood shop (at 10 yrs old in 1980) and making a bad cut with the saw or banging a thumb with a hammer it was perfectly acceptable to yell out “shit”. If in public or ladies were around it was still worth a grounding, however.

    Call someone an ass in front of him when we were alone and I’d get a slap on the back of the head from my dad a la Gibbs (from the TV show NCIS) – not hard – just got my attention that I messed up.

    The Gibbs slap was also earned at anytime, in front of anyone, including my mom, for not saying please or thank you, or other politesse. And also, since my dad was from Illinois and my mom was from Dorchester (Boston) he wanted me to speak proper English. So he would also slap me for not pronouncing my R’s.

    “Its Library – not Liberry” – SLAP

    To this day I pronounce my R’s – except when I’m deep in my cups. Which, if you know me well, is how you can tell how much I’ve had to drink.

12. As an adult I don’t swear around my parents because they never swear. In fact, when my father read us the funny papers to us he would skip the Li’l Abner because of swearing such as “you bum.” (I forget what other words that strip has) Dad was a war veteran and penitentiary guard, so yes, he knew swearing.

    Maybe he didn’t want to disappoint Mother. Even when I was an adult in army uniform my dad wouldn’t tell any traveling salesman jokes around me, probably so as not to betray Mom.

    Around my nieces, as regards swearing, I copy my (and their) parents.

    I suspect swearing is the social default, and lack of swearing shows self-discipline. Or honesty. Like the character Fix-it Felix, in the movie Wreck-It Ralph, who’s lack of swearing may have impressed the tough army sergeant he liked. She swore like Shakespeare.

13. https://www.fairvote.org/ are working on changing the US voting system to make it possible for more than two parties to be viable.

14. Ammend the constitution to change first past the past to require instant runoff, or, have every state independently change to instant runoff.

    If one state did it, they might give their EC votes to a Green party candidate. And at the federal level with all the other states voting red or blue, that one green state would be a spoiler vote. The vote for Nader that helped Bush defeat Gore.

    To avoid the spoiler effect, you’d have to get 270 electoral votes worth of states to agree to do this. It could be like the NPV initiative, where states can sign up, but the initiative doesnt activate until.enough members agree.

    The other issue then is the ranked ballot initiative has to have ALL signatory states use the same ballot for presidential elections so that the winner can be evaluated based on all the ballots in all the signatory states.

    There is a algorithm for taking a box full of ranked ballots and determining a single winner. There is no algorithm that i know of that takes different kinds of ballots because states have different ballots, then each state evaluates the ranking withing their state and decides the state winner, and then somehow the 20 winners decided by each state signatory somehow gets reduced to a single winner.

    Ranked ballot evaluation puts all the ballots in one box. So all the states would have to agree to the same presidential ballot, and who gets to be on that ballot has to be agreed to between every state.

    Actually, this might have more chance of success being adopted than the currently stallled NPV initiative.The problem with npv is there is no advantage for small rural states to surrender their EC advantage. But if the initiave included a ranked ballot system agreed on by all members, then small states would stilll be giving up their EC advantage, but they would be getting something in return: a viable multiparty system.

    North Dakota might not want to sign up for NPV cause the cost/benefit is cost=lose ec advantage. Gain=nothing. Whereas a ranked ballot multistate initiative cost/benefit analysis for north dakota would be cost=lose ec advantage. Benefit=break 2 party system and gain viable multiparty solution.

    It could be done. You just might have to convince the NPV states to renegotiate to a ranked ballot approach. Maybe make it tier-two of the NPV system. Keep existing npv signatories. And add a bonus unlock level with ranked ballots.

    NPV has been trying since 2006 to get enough states. Adding a ranked ballot shared between all states might be enough incentive to get 270 votes.

15. In Australia preferential voting really helps minor parties.

    Politics is still dominated by a few main parties but the minor parties and independents get much more influence. Occasionally even having a big influence when a minority government occurs.

    This goes both ways with farther left and right parties both having higher profile.

    Overall I think it’s a good addition to voting.

16. Re swearing, we have explained to the 8 year old it’s something adults get to do because you need to know how to do it properly, and in context. Just like mommy and daddy drink the occasional beer/wine. And its not “NO!” it’s “when you are older”. And he’s pretty good about it (he did get in trouble for using the finger at school which he swore up and down no one had told him was bad, and I actually do believe it because I don’t think he’s seen it at home).

    Just to show how it’s not just swearing, the one big thing we had to have a TALK with him about was that after he saw Raiders of the Lost Ark, he REALLY REALLY shouldn’t draw the flag of the Bad Germans, even as baddies. (Especially sitting next to his best friend who’s mother was, ah, from Isreal).

17. Also swearing is fascinating (see also the awesome book The F Word by Jesse Sheidlower which we have on the shelves and I’m sure he’ll find someday, but there’s honestly worse stuff there). My wife and I at one point joked we should switch to Québécois swearing (“Tabernac!”) because it’s so fascinating (sorry Québécois but you know it’s weird right?). But then hilariously he ended up going to a bilingual French school with students from guess where :-)

18. Xtifr: “And I also don’t see any real reason why it can’t take over from grass roots, spreading to the state level, and thus automatically to the federal.”

    The NPV compact has states sign up to award the EC votes to whoever wins the popular vote at the national level. Part of the compact is that it doesnt kick in until at least 270 EC worth of states sign the NPV compact.

    If just one state did ranked ballot voting for president, they might end up.giving their ec votes to a green party candidate. With all the states doing straight ballots, they would go red or blue. And then with the federal.rules requiring first past the post, that one state voting Green is a spoiler vote. The federal government wont rank vote the ec results. They’ll just count ec votes in first past the post fashion. The green votes have no impact on which red of blue candidate would be second choice. Standard spoiler vote issues apply. The vote for Nader helps Bush win over Gore.

    Worse, if the lone ranked ballot state somehow prevented both red and blue candidate from getting 270 votes, then all EC votes are thrown out, and congress decides who is prrsident.

    And in a system tbat has 2 senators per state regardless.of population and gerrymandered house districts, do not think for a second that congress choosing the president that they would do anything representative of the people.

    Untilat least 270 EC votes worth of states do ranked ballot voting, any number less than that can only add the potential for spoiler votes. If you do it from individual states up, the first election where a blue state ends up throwing its ec votes away to a green candidate, you will guarantee no other state will follow ranked ballot voting for president.

    If you approach it like the NPV compact, where states agree ahead of time, but the agreement doesnt kick in until 270 votes of states sign, then you could avoid spoiler vote effects.

    The one thing ranked ballot intitiative would be different from npv is that i think you have to get every state to agree to the exact same ballot. The system to take a box of ranked ballotz and determine the winner is wonky but mechanical. You follow a process and it produces a winner. There is no process I know of where California uses one ranked ballot and New York uses a different ballot and somehow you reduce all thise ballots to a single winner. If the new york ballots has a candidate that is not on the california ballot, those rankings would have to be ignored.

    As an added bonus, the more states who agree to a unified ranked ballot system, the less the bias inherent in the EC system has any effect. By evaluating all ranked ballots from all states together, the electoral college is ignore. You would be determining the winner based on person votes only, one ballot one person one vote. No “weighting” from the EC to give wyoming 4x the vote power of california.

    So if you could do a rank ballot initiative in the same vein as the NPV i itiative, it would keep all the benefits of the NPV initiative, and add ranked ballots on top of it. It fixes 2 fundamental problems with the current system, and it avoids spoiler votes while we wait for enough states to sign up for it.

    You’d also have to come up with an extremely robust computer ballot system because you need something that can evaluate 120 million ranked ballots into a single.winner. and you have to do it all at once. The straight ballot system, districts tally their results, counties tally district results, states tally county results, and then someone adds up all.the states. You cant do that with a unified ranked ballot system. All ballots have to be evaluated and reduced to a single winner in one big pile. There is no division of labor possible. You need a reliable trustworthy computer system to do it.

    If you simply have states evaluate ranked ballots, (1) there is no straight forward way to rank-reduce those results at the federsl level, (2) simply awarding the state ec votes to the state winner means spoiler votes are much more likely, with the potetial for congress deciding who is president, and (3) worst case, you end up REINFORCING the biases inherent in the electoral college. W Bush and Donald Trump both lost the popular vote but won the election because of the bias of the electoral college. The NPV initiative has been trying to fix that for years. If you push a ranked ballot system that reinforces the electoral college, you would get a lkt of resistance from states that have already signed the npv.

19. Thank you sir!

20. Regarding the two party system. I think that the current voting methods more or less forces us into a 2 party system. I believe that Ranked Choice Voting might allow the acceptance of a broader political spectrum.
    Personally, I would prefer that parties be eliminated altogether. I would prefer that we selected our leaders and governing management just like any other job. We get a bunch of candidate resumes, do background checks, and then select the most qualified person. But realistically that is pure fantasy.

21. Two minor comments:

    “If we’re colonizing Mars to save the human species, it’s doomed. If you want to save the species, work on this planet. It’s that simple.”

    Yep. Sad, but yep.

    WRT sad, strange, old men who produce(d) great works of art:

    Dude, average, normal people seldom produce great works. Offered for your consideration: Harlan Ellison. He was never nice.

22. As for art, did one of the Italian artists, who the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are named after, get funding from the evil Borgia family? You know, those poisoners?

    I guess it’s not politically correct for me to judge another time-space location; I realize the artists were of a time when an artist would starve without a patron.

    Rather than research this burning issue, I merely think of my favourite painter, Renoir. When asked why he still painted when he had such horrible arthritis, he said, “The pain passes, the beauty remains.” I feel no pain from viewing an artist who believed in the Borgias, not while I focus on the beauty.

23. Two (hopefully) quick thoughts about cats and birds and lousy people.

    For Kate M — if you do get multiple cats, make sure to spay or neuter them young. In my experience, that seems to make a fairly significant difference in how the cats interact as adults. For example, our last two (indoor) cats were pound kittens from the same litter that we had spayed at a very young age and they remained the best of friends until they passed at the ripe old ages of 17 and 19. On the other hand, our current (indoor) cats were feral rescues that were gifted to us when they were relatively young. For a variety of reasons, they weren’t spayed until they were about 18 months old. They were great friends as kittens, but became mortal enemies after their first heat. Even now, several years later, they only barely tolerate each other.

    In regards to the dumpster fire that is Twitter and the sad old men, I see some serious overlap between the two. I think today that is is much easier to spread the news of who the problematic individuals are through things like Twitter. When I was still actively attending cons in the mid to late 80s, there were certain authors that fans knew you didn’t let your female friends be alone with for any length of time. There were other authors that you knew not to let any barely pubescent males be alone with for any length of time. Some of those individuals have only been relatively recently been outed for their behavior and are being reassessed in light of that. Today, I’d like to think, but I’m probably wrong since I no longer attend cons, that the individuals committing those kinds of behaviors are more likely to be publicly called out through Twitter and other resources and shamed into behavioral changes and thus are less likely to be blending the kinds of behavior and quality of works that would require reassessment.

    On the other hand, Twitter is a dumpster fire that allows and encourages individuals to quickly self-identify as the north end of a southbound mule because of the performative nature of outrage. Witness the dogpiling of a college student for having the audacity to suggest that one of a best selling author’s works might not be the best choice for a required freshman reading. The politics and performativity of outrage ensured that other authors would join the 2 minute hate. If, like me, you knew little of several of the authors involved in the dogpile, you’d simply assume they were assholes and ignore their work in the future just as I’m more and more likely to do with those who’ve been already outed. The speed of modern communication and the increased polarization of the body politic also encourages this kind of behavior.

    Pardon the disjointed thoughts, but it has been a very long day with students.
    Tim