Board games for which I am thankful

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On Thanksgiving, I’ll take this opportunity to highlight some board games I enjoy and some I wish to explore further. On a sociological note, these games are great ways to both enjoy time with friends and family as well as have structured competition. To the lists:

Games I enjoy the most (in rough order starting with my current favorites):

  1. Agricola. My favorite game set in Germany several centuries ago in an agricultural setting. This game has its complications but if you play with the card decks (which provide occupations and minor occupations), there is a lot of variety even as you try to acquire the same elements each game. In other words, it has some predictability alongside intriguing variation. And with the Farmers on the Moor expansion we recently acquired…
  2. Diplomacy. Awesome game, difficult to actually finish since you need seven players and lots of time. It is like Risk but there are no dice: your armies can only advance at the beginning by either cooperating with other players (who support your moves or don’t block them) or fighting them. There is a lot of negotiation. I’ve played a few complete games via email – a round per week – and this involved hundreds of emails.
  3. Race for the Galaxy. It took us forever to read the instructions and understand all the different symbols but the payoff has been really good.
  4. Innovation. This card game is like pursuing the technology tree in the game Civilization but with each player seeing different cards and paths from the Stone Age to now each time. There is a nice mix in the cards allowing actions you can take against other players, things you and other players can both do, and things you can do with your own tableau.
  5. Puerto Rico. Even though the rough idea is similar – build your own social group – to Settlers of Catan, I prefer this one much more. Perhaps it is because you can be a different role each turn? Perhaps because they are no numbers on your hexes deciding your fate?
  6. Trivial Pursuit. Yes, it is often seemingly random knowledge. Yes, the games can take forever – in recent years I have been part of several family games that took over three hours. Still, where else can people who know all sorts of “trivial” information come together?
  7. Stratego. In my mind, the key to this game is that you don’t know what pieces your opponent has across from you until you risk an attack. Few games have this much secrecy.
  8. Suburbia. I’m a sociologist who studies suburbs. The board game does a nice job simulating suburban growth (and the recent expansion pack we purchased adds some new elements). See my earlier quick review.
  9. Carcassonne. The building aspect plus seeing random tiles adds up to fun.

Games that were close to the favorites list: Guild Hall, 7 Wonders, Bohnanza, Chess (a game I am not very good at but is still alluring).

Games I would like to explore further/play for the first time:

  1. Memoir ’44. I haven’t played many war strategy games but this one consistently receives high marks.
  2. Splendor. This is on my Wish List for this year.
  3. Patchwork. It is hard to find good two player games and even though I have only played this once, I think this one could have a lot of replay value.
  4. For Sale. I’ve played this a few times and it is a rare filler game I would want to play a lot.

Games I used to like more but would still be happy to play:

  1. Monopoly. Still fun at times. However, too many family games of this ended in predictable ways.
  2. Scrabble. I like the game. However, different people want to play with different variations (i.e., not using a dictionary at all, using the latest official dictionary, looking up words in said dictionary).
  3. Careers. Lots of fond memories of playing this as a kid. But, if I only played once every years now, that would be enough.
  4. Settlers of Catan. The game that may have introduce Euro games to the United States. I generally like it but it is not a favorite and would almost always prefer a game from the favorite list above.
  5. Pandemic. Cooperative games can be interesting and this one, particularly with some of the expansions, offers some fun opportunities. But, it is almost too hard: even on the easiest levels, those epidemics break out too often.
  6. Ticket to Ride. This game always plays out the same way for me: I reject the long routes early on because I’m not sure I can complete them, I build a lot of short routes, and few points result. Still, the concept is fun.
  7. Risk. Somewhere between my notes above on Diplomacy and Monopoly.

Perhaps I tend to like longer building games with structured variety. These can take up a lot of time but they do require both more attention (with the player often thinking they alone hold their fate in their hands) as well as prolonged interaction with other players. I’m not entirely convinced that Euro games are more enjoyable for everyone just because they get to build something but most of the favorite games I listed above do allow for multiple strategies for winning.

To close, a quick peek at our main game storage area (though other games, both classic and new, are scattered elsewhere):

gameclosetnov2316

 

The infrastructure devil is in the (financial) details

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Here is an interesting argument: generally, people like the idea of improving infrastructure until the details about finances and completing the project come up.

But beyond the potentially divergent approaches looms the question of how the expansion and improvements will be paid for. Abernathy’s colleague Eric Harris Bernstein pointed to an infrastructure proposal released by the Trump campaign in October that would rely on public-private partnerships, tax credits, and other private-sector incentives, which would likely require toll roads and bridges to entice investment. Bernstein characterized this approach as “a huge departure from this sort of populist message Trump ran on.”“They’re talking about having it all be financed by private investment, which is essentially the opposite of targeted [investments],” Abernathy adds. “It’ll go to the communities that have the potential to pay user fees and have the highest profit and ultimately reduce access and equity and basically turn our highway system into a bunch of toll roads.”

Richard Geddes, a professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University and a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says that there is harmony across the political lines on “the notion that overall spending on infrastructure has been inadequate.” He suggests that the best way forward is to eschew the moonshot in favor of a more “surgical” approach to improving infrastructure quality. “The spending really has to be targeted on better, more efficient maintenance and operation of what we have, plus targeted expansions in the system,” he says. “We’re not going to rebuild the entire highway system, we’re going to add capacity—meaning a lane here, a lane there, expand facilities, particularly in urban areas as people move there.”

To pay for it, Geddes suggests there is some bipartisan consensus  for public-private partnerships, but he also believes the private sector will be instrumental in funding the work ahead. One solution he encourages would include making tax-exempt municipal bonds, which citizens buy to help communities pay for local projects, available to the private companies to incentivize them to renovate infrastructure. Another possibility he offered would be to update the gas-tax system to collect revenue from drivers based on miles traveled rather than gallons purchased, which would generate more revenue from hybrid or electric cars…

Of course, many Democrats and the Roosevelt Institute suggest that some infrastructure projects be financed by tax increases, be it on the wealthy or by closing of corporate loopholes or instating carbon taxes. These suggestions are anathema to Trump and many Republicans, some of whom have vowed not to raise taxes and not increase the debt. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said that she would oppose an infrastructure bill that banked heavily on tax breaks and privatization.

This is where finishing under budget and ahead of schedule would be helpful. I don’t know if there is much hope that any large infrastructure project (especially for the huge projects like major bridges or tunnels) can do this these days.

Perhaps infrastructure could also be a leading indicator in current American society regarding a lessened ability to plan for the long term. Infrastructure is not a very sexy topic yet people will complain vehemently if it ends up falling into disrepair.

Older Americans with growing amounts of mortgage debt

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One impediment to retirement for many Americans will be what they owe on their home:

The proportion of homeowners over 55 with housing debt has climbed, the Boston College group recently reported. Dr. Sanzenbacher provided the numbers: 50 percent still had mortgages, home equity loans or lines of credit in 2013, compared with 38 percent in 1998.

An Urban Institute study published this month, based on data from the national Health and Retirement Study, found a similar pattern among homeowners over 65. The proportion with housing debt rose to 35 percent in 2012 from 23.9 percent in 1998.

Moreover, the median amount they owed nearly doubled, to $82,000 from $44,000…

Her work has shown that older people with mortgage debt tend to stay in the labor force longer, and to delay receiving Social Security benefits.

In other words, the consequences of the burst housing bubble are still working their way out. If older Americans owe more money on their homes, they are likely to work longer and stay in their homes longer, making it more difficult for younger Americans to move into the work force and purchase a starter home. And if both older and younger Americans are still struggling in the housing market, who is actually coming out ahead? The truly wealthy who aren’t as hampered by mortgages.

A working life hints at the connections between sociology and marketing

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An obituary for a pioneering female in the advertising industry provides a reminder of how sociology and marketing can be related:

A sociologist with a knack for market research, Ms. Ziff, who died on Nov. 11 at 92 in Jupiter, Fla., spent nearly four decades working her way up the ranks at big ad agencies.

Her work contributed to one of the most famous campaigns of the 20th century, the “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin” toilet paper commercials of the 1960s featuring the fictional supermarket manager Mr. Whipple.

Ms. Ziff, then a vice president at Benton & Bowles, conducted research suggesting that consumers were more likely to buy toilet paper if they could touch it. Using her insights, her colleague John Chervokas developed the Mr. Whipple campaign…

Ms. Ziff earned a Ph.D. in sociology from the City University of New York, while continuing to work at Benton & Bowles.

Is the primary difference between these two fields that one aims to sell more products while the other hopes to better understand and explain social life? The two fields can use similar research methods and both want to know how people and groups operate.

I’m guessing it would be frowned upon in many sociology departments to make this suggestion but a number of students might be interested to know that training in sociology could be a great background for going into marketing.

Your McMansion is so big, you need a wifi mesh

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Coming soon to a McMansion near you: a wifi mesh from Google.

Google Wifi is available for pre-order in the US at retailers like the Google Store. A single Wifi point retails for $129, and covers homes up to 1,500 square feet. The three-pack, at $299, covers homes up to 4,500 square feet. Google Wifi ships on December 6th, just in time for fast Wi-Fi for all of your holiday guests.

All the Wifi points are connected to each other. Data can take several paths toward its destination — and Google uses their Network Assist technology to ensure that Google Wifi points always choose the fastest route from your device to the internet. This means that you get faster Wi-Fi speeds for things like streaming and gaming.

Because it would defeat the purpose of having an impressive McMansion if you and your guests couldn’t enjoy a wonderful wifi experience…

I’m waiting to see more McMansions and regular homes build around the all-important wifi as the central feature. Forget all of this about open concept living, great rooms, separate spaces for men, women, and the kids; homes should start with great wifi and build around that. With the Internet of Things supposedly just around the corner, this may happen soon.

UPDATE 11/20/16 at 1:16 PM: This is no joke. I keep hearing Comcast ads pushing their faster Internet. The reason you need it? So all of your holiday guests can do all they need to do on the wifi at the same time. Aren’t all those holiday guests supposed to be interacting or spending time together as a family?

Dutch cycling culture aided by 1970s protests against kids killed in car accidents

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The Dutch are known for their bicycling. How exactly this happened includes some interesting tidbits, such as the 1970s protests against cars (as told by Wikipedia):

The trend away from the bicycle and towards motorised transport only began to be slowed in the 1970s when Dutch people took to the streets to protest against the high number of child deaths on the roads: in some cases over 500 children were killed in car accidents in the Netherlands in a single year.[10] This protest movement came to be known as the Stop de Kindermoord (literally “Stop the Child Murder” in Dutch).[10] The success of this movement — along with other factors, such as the oil shortages of 1973–74[11] — turned Dutch government policy around and the country began to restrict motor vehicles in its towns and cities and direct its focus on growth towards other forms of transport, with the bicycle being seen as critical in making Dutch streets safer and towns and cities more people-friendly and liveable.

In the United States, over 32,000 people were killed in car accidents in 2015. The number was over 40,000 less than ten years ago and deaths in accidents peaked at over 50,000 a year in the early 1970s and late 1970s. (See the data going back all the way to 1899 here.) So where are the protests in the United States? A few reasons why the experience of the Dutch may not be replicated here:

  1. Americans love to drive. They have since the car was introduced. We have designed our lives around cars (think single-family homes with garages, highways, fast food, the vast system of gas stations, etc.). Could people protest about something they like?
  2. Mass movements in the United States where people turn out to protest in large numbers are relatively rare.
  3. Americans are willing to take risks in areas that other people in the world are not. Maybe it is due to a love of driving, perhaps it has to do with emphasizing individual freedoms.

It is fun to imagine Americans taking to the streets against cars…what exactly would it take? For some reason, I suspect they might protest more because of really high gas prices rather than high number of deaths by car accident.

A fortified skyscraper to house telecommunications hub, shield NSA spying

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AT&T owns a unique skyscraper in Manhattan that may also serve as a key node in the government’s snooping into phone calls:

They called it Project X. It was an unusually audacious, highly sensitive assignment: to build a massive skyscraper, capable of withstanding an atomic blast, in the middle of New York City. It would have no windows, 29 floors with three basement levels, and enough food to last 1,500 people two weeks in the event of a catastrophe.

But the building’s primary purpose would not be to protect humans from toxic radiation amid nuclear war. Rather, the fortified skyscraper would safeguard powerful computers, cables, and switchboards. It would house one of the most important telecommunications hubs in the United States — the world’s largest center for processing long-distance phone calls, operated by the New York Telephone Company, a subsidiary of AT&T.

The building was designed by the architectural firm John Carl Warnecke & Associates, whose grand vision was to create a communication nerve center like a “20th century fortress, with spears and arrows replaced by protons and neutrons laying quiet siege to an army of machines within.”…

It is not uncommon to keep the public in the dark about a site containing vital telecommunications equipment. But 33 Thomas Street is different: An investigation by The Intercept indicates that the skyscraper is more than a mere nerve center for long-distance phone calls. It also appears to be one of the most important National Security Agency surveillance sites on U.S. soil — a covert monitoring hub that is used to tap into phone calls, faxes, and internet data.

Three quick thoughts:

  1. Telecommunications equipment and other vital infrastructure has to go somewhere in major cities. It is often covered up in a variety of ways. But, a 500+ foot building is difficult to disguise completely.
  2. Americans tend not to spend much time thinking about how many features of modern life happen. That such a large building is needed to house a “large international ‘gateway switch'” hints at what is needed behind the scenes when people use a phone to dial people outside the country.
  3. The article may be suggesting that the architecture of the building matches its sinister use. This sounds like post hoc theorizing. When construction started in 1969, the architecture fit what was needed: a protected building. I don’t know if it is possible to make such structures more beautiful or appealing. On the other hand, perhaps some can see past the functional approach used in the design of many infrastructure housings and admire such particular designs. Chic infrastructure?

Count sociologists among the most liberal Americans – at least for one humorist

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Imagining the exodus of Americans for Canada, here is who one humorist depicted as most distraught over the recent presidential election results:

Canadian border farmers say it’s not uncommon to see dozens of sociology professors, global warming activists, and “green” energy proponents crossing their fields at night.

“I went out to milk the cows the other day, and there was a Hollywood producer huddled in the barn,” said Southern Manitoba farmer Red Greenfield, whose acreage borders North Dakota . “The producer was cold, exhausted and hungry.  He asked me if I could spare a latte and some free-range chicken. When I said I didn’t have any, he left before I even got a chance to show him my screenplay, eh?”

Given all the academic content the 2016 election is likely to generate in the years to come, someone has to examine which groups had the strongest negative emotions about the results as well as which groups felt this pain the longest. Would sociologists rank up there?

When urban non-profits represent residents better than local government

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A sociologist suggests the role of non-profit organizations has changed in urban areas:

To Levine, the incident illustrates something he’s been tracking over four years of monitoring the interactions between neighborhood nonprofits, city leaders, and private organizations in Boston. Based on his observations, he argues in the journal American Sociological Review, the role of nonprofits in disadvantaged city neighborhood has been changing. They’re no longer just extensions of the state or representatives of a few interest groups. They’re “legitimate representatives of poor urban neighborhoods,” and in many cases, “supersede” elected officials…

What’s happening now is that these organizations are directly negotiating for resources from public and private sector entities that hold the proverbial purse strings. Community organizations are now authoritative voices at the table, and often regarded by both private companies and bureaucrats as more invested and deeply knowledgable representatives of the neighborhoods. In Boston, “district-based elected officials, by contrast, attended ribbon cuttings and groundbreakings but were largely absent from substantive discussions of redevelopment planning,” Levine writes.

The phenomenon is particular to low-income communities for a reason: These communities have very specific needs for services. But also, these are the places where voices of residents can be easily unheard by politicians. Think about neighborhoods in Detroit left to fend for themselves for basic needs in the city’s worst days. It’s community organizations that are transforming them into livable spaces. In Flint, where residents’ concerns about poisonous water were essentially ignored for the longest time, it’s nonprofits that are stepping in to address the damage done. “There’s a political vacancy in these poor neighborhoods that these organizations can fill.”…

Obviously, this phenomenon has a lot of positives. For one, it’s a “victory for the motivation of the war on poverty,” Levine says. Empowered community organizations present a stronger front against displacement, environmental racism, and transit inequity. They can be more consistent than elected officials, because they don’t suffer from political turnover. But the good stuff only happens if these organizations know what the entire neighborhood actually needs. Sometimes they don’t. And in those cases, it’s not possible to vote them out or hold them accountable. If a nonprofit dissolves, it’s hard to pick up the pieces quickly, because the infrastructure for a new organization has to be rebuilt from scratch.

I’ve recently heard or read several critiques of national and local urban policy in the United States that suggest much of what has been tried has been ineffective. At the same time, this doesn’t necessarily mean that government needs to be completely eliminated from the equation. At times, only a larger government body can access certain resources or leverage certain opportunities. But, this new analysis suggests perhaps the best conduit between government (with the resources) and the people is a non-profit. Perhaps government can’t do everything, particularly in responding to local needs when politicians need to answer both to local voters as well as politicians and leaders above them.

Of course, we want to know whether the role of non-profits leads to better outcomes. National and local governments have been fighting a war on poverty and/or trying to address the issues present in poor urban decades for roughly half a century now.

The seven American counties where there is no black-white income gap

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Pew looks at the seven places in the United States where black residents have higher median incomes than whites:

Yet, a tiny number of places exist where black household income is greater than that of whites. Of the 364 large U.S. counties whose populations are at least 5 percent black, there are seven, according to a Stateline analysis of U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey data for 2010-14…

The greatest similarities may be their proximity to core urban areas and high-paying corporate or government jobs, as well as their supply of affordable, albeit expensive, homes and good schools.

Valerie Wilson of EPI said affluent black families may have had to move farther from cities to find the good housing and schools they seek because the black middle class, with less net worth, cannot afford rising housing prices in the cities or private schools.

The article stresses that there are no lessons to be learned here even as there might be some patterns. The seven places do raise a number of interesting questions worth exploring:

  1. The emphasis here is on the movement of black households to these counties. At the same time, what traits do the white residents of these counties have (that they are not living in areas with more inequality)?
  2. Did the counties or local governments do anything to help promote these trends? I’m guessing these are largely the result of the “free market.” Yet, just because it happened in seven counties suggests this is a pretty rare outcome of the this free market.
  3. What are the levels of residential segregation in these counties? Simply suggesting that blacks and whites have similar incomes doesn’t necessarily mean that the two groups regularly interact.
  4. That this kind of equality can only be found in suburban areas likely would not please many suburban critics. However, many large cities and closer suburbs have a range of issues – from concentrated poverty to a lack of affordable housing – that can limit the opportunities for non-whites to succeed.

These places would be worth watching in the coming years.