Edited by author 05-19-2003 09:06 PM
There are homosexuals in San Francisco? Well that certainly explains the Nation-leading per-capita leather expenditure....

Hey, being an asshole all day wears a guy out, you know. Let me get some rest and I'll get my edge back. :)

Lovegravy, you forgot to talk about all the homos buying hootch to seduce little boys into thier leatherdaddy games. Come on, your not even trying anymore are you. Asshole.

Yeah, and it could be all those drunken liberals swilling gallons of cheap hooch and buying books like "How to Hypnotize Floozies" and "The Communist Manifesto"....


(We cannot agree too much, it may cause a rift in space/time)

Lovegravy: you bring up another good point, in that San Francisco, being kinda a social/party hub for the whole of the bay area, is definately going to look like it drinks more, when a good bit of that drinking is probably done by the bridge-and-tunnel crowd coming over from Oakland to see a show, or driving up from San Jose to go clubbing.

Jleader makes a great point: Data collection methods.

If they look at revenues of all local "entertainment" establishments, then divide it by the population, that number is unreliable. You'll have out of towners, corporate/government entertaining, etc. If they didn't use that method, how DID they come up with that number? It's not something reported on their 1040's, and if they stopped random people and asked them "How much do you spend on entertainment per week", how big was the sample size?

Studies" like this are great for entertainment, but when you have journalists interpreting the results loosely, that's all you can use them for.

I think LoveGravy and Rich Gibson have some good points.

For example, the fact that Chicago residents spend the most on utilities doesn't automatically mean they over-heat their homes. They might have higher utility rates, or more extreme weather, or some combination of the 3 factors.

And as for Washingtonians spending the most per capita on entertainment, HELLO! Does the word lobbying ring a bell? The main industry in DC spends _all_ of its money on "entertainment". I'm not sure how you'd seperate that out from "private" individuals' spending on entertainment.

But that's the issue I was taking up, toast. They aren't talking about per-capita consumption, they are talking about per-capita spending and making an inference about consumption that you cannot logically do.

SanFran has an extremely high cost of living, and it has an extremely high number of affluent people. One wealthy person with a large collection of rare wines can skew the figures for 1000 other residence, then you multiply that by 1000's of other collectors and the data becomes more meaningless. Give me the mean, median and mode and the standard deviation (and the data collection method/sample size) and it'll mean something, yet it will still fall short of being able infer consumption quantities.

"even if they are more for reference and not reading per say"

Which is what I said in my post.

I don't see that I said anything at all insulting to the residents of SanFrancisco. In fact, I'd KILL to live there, but real estate prices are outrageous, SanFran is one of my favorite cities. I'm simply saying that the conclusions that were made aren't supported by the data.

> Do you think that city by city spending for books and hooch
> has a large correlation with consumption?

Rich, actually yes and no. Yes, because it seems people here in S.F. are more obsessed with food than in other places. There are over 4000 restaurants in S.F. alone (which is only 7x7 miles). Also a lot of the people that move here tend to be more professional, or highly educated, and would tend to by more books, even if they are more for reference and not reading per say.

But also we're right next to the wine country, and there are some wonderful local brewerys, so booze is cheap here which probably leads people to drink more of it. Also the culture out here lends itself to it too, I think; heck we have wine here at the office every friday, every birthday, every event. The office I work at now drinks a lot, and we're not, by far, the 'worst' office that I know of. Also there are a lot of smaller publishers, and people who write on the side, out here than in other places I've been, so we're probably all buying our friend's books and such too.

It think it's like saying that people in Wyoming (where I'm from) eat more beef. Well, Duh. It's cattle country!

> Wow, saying that this has nothing to do with my posts, but
> it has to do with the fact that you think I'm an asshole?

No, Lovegravy, you just don't get it. You're right, I've never met you. I'm never said that my opinion of you was not based upon your posts, I said that it had nothing to do with your choosen political beliefs. The fact that I think you are an asshole has everything to do with your posts, and nothing to do with the fact that you have different political beliefs from me. I think *you're* the one who's having trouble sepirating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.

> How did you manage to separate the human from the text
> here, when all you have is the text to go on?

Because I've read your posts, and your reactions to other's posts when they disagree with you, and from your reactions, comments, and responcses have decided that you are an asshole. Sometimes I agree with you, sometimes I don't; but whether or not I agree with you, or think you right or wrong, has nothing to do with the fact that I still think you're an asshole.

> Thanks for conceding.

Wow! In Lovegravy land, he always wins, even when the other side decides he's an asshole, and he advoids simply asking why and/or simply telling the other person off! Who's got the thin skin now? Such a prince in tattered robes you are! Such a sad little person!

Cypher, they tried that with rabid liberals, but they escaped and holed up in Oklahoma... :P

hmmm. i think there's a new reality show for fox in this... Rabid Conservatives Gone Wild!

Edited by author 05-19-2003 04:49 PM
Wow, saying that this has nothing to do with my posts, but it has to do with the fact that you think I'm an asshole?

How did you manage to separate the human from the text here, when all you have is the text to go on? You clearly state that this has nothing to do with my views, but with me personally, so how did you manage to separate them?

When the opposition resorts to an ad hominem attack, it is the sure sign that a discussion is over, so if your only logical rebuttal is "You're an asshole", then this discussion is over. Thanks for conceding.

Oh, and Corey, if what you want is more posts like the one immediately below this one, more power to ya bother, but at least I stay within the same zipcode as the topic...

Lovegravy, it has nothing to do with political leanings! It has everything to do with the fact that I think your a major asshole, and wanted to lash out at you a little due to the fact that I think that you, personally, are an asshole. Serously. This has nothing to do with politics at all, man, it has to do with the fact that by your rantings that I've read on the boingboing discussion boards in the past have convinced me that you're a total asshole. I used to value your alternative viewpoint on things, at first, but after seeing your knee-jerk reactions and terrible trollings, flamitory crap and sad commentary, I've come to think that you are an asshole. a sad one at that. I mean, come on man, this has nothing to do with your 'repubilcan leanings'. It has to do with your personal actions leading me to think that you're an asshole, and my wanting to call you on your shit. I'm a card-carryin' NRA member, I drive a '68 Mopar, and I'm more 'Republican' that I think you'd be willing to admit someone in San Francisco capable of being, and I'm certainly no Democrat. But I think it's pretty safe to say that you're an asshole.

I mean, if you've read some of my older posts on these very same discussion boards, you'll see that sometimes I agree with you on things. But no: it's about politics, it's all about you, and you're the whiney little 'victem' now. How fucking convient that is. Geeze man. If you're gonna be an asshole, at least have some self-respect and stick with it. Just tell me off and be done with it. You're whole 'knee jerk defensiveness really makes you look bad' blah blah blah is a direct rip the very words I wrote to you, once, on this very discussion board when I still thought that you might be capable of actual debate, and not just acting like an asshole, and wanted to say to you that your frothing at the mouth made you look bad. I'm not frothing; I'm calling you an asshole! Get a clue.

Rich; this is way off topic and just has everything to do with the fact that I think lovegravy is a trolling asshole; it really has nothing to do with the article. Sorry about that.

Edited by author 05-19-2003 04:19 PM
Shhh, Secret Agent Toast is correct.

Because I have Republican leanings, everything I post MUST be a right-wing attempt to slander the Democrats.

Secret Agent Toast, you got me. Because the average SanFranciscan spends more money on alcohol it's PERFECTLY reasonable to assume that they are buying alcohol at the same prices as the rest of the country and are simply buying more of it, and consuming it instead of storing it in a wine cellar or anything. Good call!!!

For future reference, secret agent toast, knee jerk defensiveness really makes you look bad. Defending a logical fallacy to prevent a right-winger from making a valid point is transparent and really doesn't score any points.

It's also odd that Rich made the same point I made yet failed to incur your wrath. Why is that? Oh wait, wrath is determined by political alignment not by logic and reason...

secret agent toast (?)

Certainly LoveGravy posts things that offer different viewpoints...but this post about city by city spending doesn't have any of those 'colorful' characteristics.

Do you think that city by city spending for books and hooch has a large correlation with consumption?

Hey, Lovegravy: to speed and help aid you, and to cut down on your multipule postings, I've made up a quick summary of your wonderful writtings. Enjoy!

Hello, my name is LoveGravy, and I talk out my ass. All the time. I know more about San Francisco than those of you who live there, and I wouldn't live there in a million jillion years because everyone who lives there is a faggot tree-huggin' Libral freak. San Francisco, along with most of California, should simply be blown up real good. Neener neener neener. Thank you.

Lovegravy, maybe if you lived in San Francisco, you'd drink more, get laid more, and stop being such a pathetic loser. Please man; this shit is tired. It's sad that you don't have anything better to do than troll Boing Boing; I mean, shit man, at least aim higher like Slashdot or something.