Ask Alex - May 26, 2017

Tribalist Twitter Gang Member

Welcome back to "Ask Alex", where I answer all of your stupid questions with even dumber answers.  Have a question you need answered? Tweet it, email it or submit it here and I will get to it (maybe) next week.

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Welcome to this week’s Ask Alex! Daryl has some questions about Good Will Hunting landmarks, which leads to a wholly unrelated discussion on Brookline, Massachusetts and the history of American urban planning. And Jimmy is worried about the apocalypse. Timothy Miller has some more Star Wars questions, John Phipps is worried that the NSA operates Safeway, and Rex is pretty pissed about the status of his favorite TV show.

And then I am going to gush about my favorite member of the Class of 2017 before I make an announcement about next week’s #AskAlex that I think will be really fun! But you will have to read until the end!

Submitted by: Gringo Suave
Have you ever gone drinking at the bah where Will got Skylar's numbeh?
Have you ever gotten coffee at the Bow Street Dunkin' Donuts?

Daryl has been watching Good Will Hunting, for anyone who hasn’t picked up on this yet…

There are several things I need to clear up before we start.

1. Damon>Affleck, this is non-negotiable
   
2. Minnie Driver: Smokeshow, in 1997 and in 2017.
   
3. This is the best scene in that movie and it’s not close (and remind me sometime to tell you about my best friend Travis).
   
4. The bench that Robin Williams and Matt Damon sat on in the Public Garden was already dedicated to someone, so when they put a plaque there to commemorate Robin Williams in 2015, they put it on the bench next to that one. Lame.
   

Literal answers: no and yes. I have never been in the bar, because that scene was filmed at a bar in Toronto, not Boston. I have, however, been in the Bow Street Dunkin Donuts in Harvard Square, although not to get coffee since coffee is rancid vile swill unfit to even rinse the grease off of the axles on a 1986 Zastava Koral. Sadly, it is no longer a Dunkin Donuts...the lease ran out and they moved that franchise further up Mass Ave.

I have, however, been in the L Street Tavern in South Boston, or “Southie”, for those of you who have been paying attention, which is not to be confused with the South End, which is in many regards the exact opposite of Southie.

Boston has some weird geography, to be honest, and not just because of all of the one way streets (good news, though, since the Big Dig is finished, the one-way streets don’t change directions weekly anymore!). There is a South Boston and a South End, two totally distinct places, neither of which is anywhere near the southern boundary of the city (which runs from Dorchester on the eastern edge through Mattapan, Hyde Park and West Roxbury.

Speaking of West Roxbury, it does not geographically touch Roxbury, they are separated by Roslindale and Jamaica Plain. They are also not remotely similar places, despite sharing a name. There are two distinct ethnic groups in West Roxbury: St. Teresa’s Irish Catholics and Holy Name Irish Catholics. Do not get them confused! There are a lot fewer Irish Catholics in Roxbury.

No, Southie is, in fact, in the Northeast quadrant of the city. It is right across the Harbor from East Boston, which is only semi-appropriately named - it is the Easternmost part of the city, but it is also the Northernmost part. The North End, most noted for its often overrated Italian food (DM me, I’ll tell you where the good spots are), is certainly towards the northern end of the city, but it sits to the south of both parts of East Boston and Charlestown (or “The Town” as Ben Affleck called it. Spoiler alert: there are no townies who look like Blake Lively).

There is also a West End, although no one calls it that...it is usually considered a part of Beacon Hill (Mass General Hospital and the Boston end of the Longfellow Bridge are the most notable landmarks.) True to form, the West En is nowhere near the western edge of the city, which is Brighton. Brighton is often lumped together with Allston into a single place name, although they are in fact different places. Just don’t ask where one starts and the other ends, because no one knows.

This leads to another real oddity, and some history that none of you care about (and that I feel like I wrote about once before...hey, @jholmsted, we need a search function on the website!) If you look at a map of Boston, there is a giant wedge on the western border that looks like it should be a part of the city but for some reason is not. This is Brookline, a six-square-mile suburb surrounded by Boston on three sides that can lay reasonable claim to being one of the nicest places in America.

Getting in the way back machine, we arrive on October 7, 1873 and the citizens of Brookline are going to the polls to cast a vote on whether to be annexed into the larger neighboring town of Boston. Several other suburbs - Roxbury in 1868, Dorchester in 1870 and Charlestown, Brighton and West Roxbury in 1873 - have all recently voted to join into a single political entity, and now Brookline faces the same decision. The motivations of those towns have been different, ranging from water and sewer access to issues of esteem and unity, but in the end the inexorable march of Boston, like that of cities across America, has proceeded without a hitch.

This would be the end of the consolidation movement, however. On the banks of the Muddy River, Brookline’s residents (who, even then, were commercial, government and academic elites confident in their ability to succeed without Boston’s help) rejected this national wave by a resounding vote of 707-299.

As Kenneth T. Jackson notes in in his book Crabgrass Frontier, "the first really significant defeat for the consolidation movement came when Brookline spurned Boston." This was the starting point for the suburbanization of America. "After Brookline spurned Boston, virtually every other Eastern and Middle Western city was rebuffed by wealthy and independent suburbs-Chicago by Oak Park and Evanston, Rochester by Brighton and Irondequoit, and the city of Oakland by Piedmont.”

Meanwhile, while Brookline birthed the modern suburb, it is likely the least suburban suburb in America. It’s racially and ethnically diverse, dense, devoid of gated communities and McMansions and heavily built around public transit. There is nothing “small town” about it.  It’s got a traditionally large Jewish population, it is the residence of choice for many of Boston’s super-wealthy, it is a popular place for large numbers of doctors cycling through the city’s many hospitals and professors at the colleges. It is also home to a lot of students (mostly BU north of Coolidge Corner, BC in Cleveland Circle) and recent graduates.

In many ways, it is the anti-suburb, while still retaining the safety, outstanding public schools and municipal services that make suburbs nice. (Bad news: you’re gonna pay for that. Good news: if you have a spare $75 million laying around, I bet they’d come down off the asking price for this gem!)  I often tell people that it is the only place outside of Boston that I could happily live, and I strongly considered moving there when I came to Boston with my little sister. Had her school situation not worked out otherwise, we would most likely squeezed into a one-bedroom there and I would have been perfectly happy.

All of which is, of course, wholly unrelated to the question, but sometimes I get off on tangents;-) Just watch this instead.

Submitted by: Space Ghost Jimmy
Is it time to move to my apocalypse/doom scenario in rugged, rural Texas with my apocalypse food and weapons?

I’d probably hold off on bugging out just yet, since the apocalypse doesn’t seem totally imminent this week and you probably still need to draw a paycheck for a little while longer. I will admit that it looked bad on Sunday when Lebron James only scored one point in the second half of a playoff game, but that thankfully turned out to be a false alarm.

Certainly, there are a lot of things that seem to be threatening the onset of the collapse of society: global warming, nuclear war, pandemics, implosion of the fiat currency system, alien invasion, mega-earthquakes and, of course, Sharknadoes. Any one of those seems like it could turn us into The Road in pretty short order.

And let me tell you, if and when that happens, I will immediately take back my mocking of the people on Doomsday Preppers. Boy, will I have egg on my face! Although, frankly, I am not sure that I want to survive the apocalypse. What is the point of living if you can’t get a decent meal or find a comfortable hotel? If the future is Mad Max or Waterworld, I’d rather just die in the giant asteroid strike and be done with it.

I am, however, always amused by the precise theories of the people on Doomsday Preppers. They seem to be preparing for only very unlikely and very specific events. “Joe is an accountant by day, living comfortably in Lovely Spring, TN with his wife of 20 years, two teenage sons and three dogs. Joe  fears that the Treasury Department is over-leveraged and the coming economic collapse will lead to global chaos highlighted by the release of zoo animals infected with experimental government mind control drugs that will cause rapid mutations and the formation of a new hybrid human-gorilla race of super predators infused with the powers of Geb, Egyptian God of the Earth, to trigger an eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano, killing off millions of birds of prey and removing any check on the spread of vermin population who will now overrun the western states, spreading bubonic plague and decimating agriculture, sending the price of avocados and almond milk through the roof.”

Can you imagine spending your whole life building a secret, off-grid house in the mountains complete with years of food, fuel, arms and other provisions only to realize that you’ve been planning for a supervolcano, but it turns out that the apocalyptic event was really a nuclear war? “God dammit, Joe! I told you to not be so obsessed with the supervolcano. Now we have no plan...NO PLAN, JOE!!! We’ve practiced the supervolcano drill for years, but now I literally have no fucking idea what to do! I’m freaking out here. Do our canned goods even work for this kind of event? I packed all my winter stuff planning for an ash cloud, and now it is going to be hot, not cold! My mother was right, I should have married Billy Bob Thomas, he was the one with the radiation suits.”

And how long into the eventual bug out ride before you start to think of all the stuff you forgot. I’m pretty sure that, by about mile 10 of your 200 miles journey, you’ll already have the list going “Coffee filters, cocktail napkins, a belt…”

Submitted by: John Phipps
Dear Alex. Am I the only one who knows that the Safeway card is EVIL ? It should be called the NSA card. In case You wonder why Your healthcare insurance dumped? Your doughnut count. Hello!

If you think the Safeway Card is evil, why don’t you stop and think about the stuff that your credit card company knows about you! They have the world’s biggest FourSquare, only every time you check in, they know exactly what you’re going through. You want to do a fun experiment? Be a thirty year old woman and use your Target card to buy a book about pregnancy. Over the next 36 months, you will get precisely timed offers for pre-natal vitamins, and then nursery furniture and strollers, then formula, diapers, baby food and baby clothes, then toddler stuff. Their hyperactive analytics engines look for certain cues to uncover life changes, and then they tailor their marketing practices accordingly.

I would like to point out that Wegman’s has yet to start sending me ads for weight loss products or heart medications despite my obviously abnormal Nutella buying patterns. I’ve actually considered asking them if they can ban me from buying it...you know, like compulsive gamblers who can put themselves on a list to be kept from a casino for their own good?

A couple of years ago, I worked on the acquisition of a company that provided a predictive analytics engine to credit card issuers. Since credit losses represent the biggest non-funding expense in running a credit card portfolio, lenders are constantly seeking better methods of predicting delinquencies and defaults before they happen. This company had built an engine that used about 100 pieces of data to re-assess the likelihood of default after the very first transaction that a new credit card holder made.

There are two amazing things about this...first, that they can determine, based on a single purchase, how likely you are to default several times more accurately than a credit score can. And second, that there are 100 pieces of data to analyze in every credit card transaction you make. {If I recall, the most important factors were how quickly you used the card after receiving it, what time of day, what kind of merchant it was and, interestingly, how far from home you were.}

To your point, if Citibank can make a snap judgement on your creditworthiness after a single transaction, and Target can infer your family planning intentions, the power of any of this data in government hands is potentially horrifying. This is why a lot of futurists will tell you that data is everything (by the way, I have no idea if that is true and I don’t even know a single “futurist” but it sounds cool, so I wrote it. If they are not saying that, they should.)

Don’t worry, though, the creeping intrusion of the surveillance state will start with only the best of intentions. “We’re trying to spot health problems before they happen!” or “We are looking for suspicious transaction patterns to uncover money laundering!” or, most likely under a Trump Administration, "We're catching terrorists!"

So, now you have been warned.

Submitted by: Timothy E Miller (2 Questions)
What are your thoughts on lightsabers?

Honestly, like a lot of Star Wars, you kind of have to suspend some basic belief to buy into their effectiveness. Yes, I know that there is the inherent “Jedi are super-human and therefore their relationship with the light saber is ultra-special and can block lasers and yada yada.” I get that (although I notice that Finn and Rey seemed to be the equal of the powerful and well-trained Kylo Ren within about three minutes of first picking up a light saber, which kind of throws into doubt the entire point of Jedi school at all.)

It’s just not a super effective weapon, certainly not an attacking weapon, if you have to be within a couple of yards to deliver any kind of an offensive blow. And don’t give me any nonsense about Jedi being only defenders and not inherently aggressive. That is a) ridiculous and b) ignorant of the usage by less noble people of light sabers.

My question, really, is “Why can anything effectively block a light saber?” If the blade can be turned on and off, why does it not just strobe so that it turns turn off and back on to avoid being parried by another light saber, reappearing on the other side and cutting into whatever it was that you were aiming for? And don’t give me the “Oh, it needs to stay on to block the other guy’s!” because Jedi have senses to tell them when something is coming and easy just get themselves out of the way of that guy’s attack.

Light Sabers would make much better stabbing weapons than they do swords, which is how they are used. They're small and discreet and you don’t have to activate the blade until the very moment it is needed. It’s most effective attacking use would seem to be sneaking up behind someone and activating the blade just in time to kill them.

All of that said, I definitely want one. And it should be pink.

What is the secret to running a stable interstellar empire with good cash flow?

Ball bearings.

No mystery here, really. Economics are universal (I assume), so the rules are as well. The secret to running the empire effectively would be policies and institutions that encourage trade, investment and innovation. That means a consistent, fair and transparent rule of law with a respect for private property, contracts and intellectual property rights. The role of the governing body is to provide safety and security of that commerce from internal and external threats, fair arbitration of disputes with consistent application of law, public utilities and infrastructure (spaceports and transportation administration and whatnot) and market intervention only to correct obvious unpriced externalities. And around all of that, the lowest tax rate possible on the broadest set of activities and taxpayers needed to fund those initiatives.

The empire will succeed when its denizens have the greatest incentive and opportunity to reap the maximum reward from their own intelligence, creativity and initiative.

Submitted by: Lunatic Rex
Edd China quit Wheeler Dealers. What reason do I have to continue mucking through this nightmare we call life?

This is an outrage of the most enormous proportion, made no less tolerable by the fact that I had no idea who Edd China was until you asked this question. Get the pitchforks!!!

You know what, though? I am pretty sure that you will be able to muddle through this. First, maybe you will find that you like new host Ant Antshead just fine...he seems like a good guy. But beyond that, there are so many wonderful reasons to keep mucking through life.

Let’s start with one particularly charming, diminutive and positively divine Welshwoman of whom I know you are particularly fond. Not only does she pose questions to #AskAlex (which I either didn’t recognize or didn’t get...so resend it if I never answered it!) but she miraculously finds all of your “quirks” thoroughly endearing. Do you have any idea what the odds of that are?!! I mean, I don’t actually believe in god, but this may make me reconsider…

Or how about that beautiful daughter of yours that I just realized I don’t follow even though I thought that I did (btw, I am not tagging either wife or daughter at first pass here, but I will change that if they are OK with it)? You’ve made your heartfelt pride and admiration of her pretty clear (and, um, if he doesn’t say it to you, H, he says it to us in private:-)) and we all know you are pretty crazy about being a Grandfather. I mean, c’mon, you need more reasons that being a Grandfather?!?!?

OK...how about beer? You like beer, right? And barbecue? Ribs and brisket and chicken thighs and a whole hog if you are having a party. Baseball! I know you love baseball! And football season starts in three months...I bet Alabama is pretty good this year! Also, you have to finish your memoir before you totally give up, too.

Do you know what makes ME happy today? This morning I watched my baby sister - my favorite person, my hero, my role model and the most important thing in my life - graduate from a college that I couldn’t have gotten into in a million years. The skinny 10 year old orphan that came with me on this great adventure 12 years ago is a full-fledged adult with poise and intelligence and charm and maturity beyond anything I could have ever dreamed. She’s the coolest chick I know, and I can’t wait to see what she does next!!! Whatever it is, it’s gonna be pretty amazing, and that is reason enough to keep watching. And, she is gonna look really good doing it, too;-)

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OK...announcement time! I am not going to have time to write a whole column next week, so we are going to flip the script and I’m going to be asking the questions around here! I’m going to think of the witty questions and my fellow Misfits are going to answer them:-) I’ll then put them together, maybe with a few sidebars, and I’ll post it all next Friday. In the meantime, any questions you send to me will get answered on the following Friday, unless it is specifically for one of the other Misfits.

Have a great long weekend, everyone!!!