Interesting Links for 14-11-2024

[andrewducker]

1. I no longer trust opinion polls

(tags:polls fail )

2. Secret Level - an anthology TV series based around various computer games

(tags:games TV animation viaSwampers )

3. The First Virtual Meeting Was in 1916

(tags:communication history USA engineering )

4. AOC Shares Reasons Why Her Supporters Voted for Trump

(tags:voting usa doom )

5. Sure, I Voted for Someone Whose Policies Might Kill You, but Now's the Time to Put Aside Our Differences

(tags:politics satire funny doom )

6. Baby red panda dies from firework stress, says Edinburgh Zoo

(tags:panda fireworks death )

Comments

[mountainkiss]

The opinion polls article is arrant nonsense.

[andrewducker]

I would appreciate a little more detail on why.

[mountainkiss]

Pollsters have repeatedly called out the limits of the polling process and described as features exactly what she claims to be bugs. Nothing has gone wrong with the polling in either the UK or US elections beyond what pollsters have identified as well within the expected range of errors.

I’m not actually sure what you think about this article but if you subscribe to it and if I wanted to pick a fight with you (which I don’t; usual bandwidth rules apply) then I’d be horrified at the relative standards of scientific rigour and validity that you appear to apply to this and to psychological research. If you think the latter provides any meaningful insight then I think it would be wildly inconsistent not to give credence to polling on the grounds of the limitations of available methodologies.

[andrewducker]

Aaah, yes.

Sorry - I thought it was interesting because it was the host of Newsnight saying this. I think that polls are useful/interesting - it's just that a lot of people people are asking them to do something they aren't actually going to help that much with, and aren't paying any attention to the information that pollsters make available about levels of accuracy, etc.

So
a) I think that laypeople are likely to continue to be dissapointed by polls a fair amount of the time
b) I'm dissapointed that Victoria Derbyshire is surprised at poll performance because I'd hope she'd be more informed on their limitations
c) I think they're useful for giving a big picture, so long as you remain aware of their limitations

[mountainkiss]

(b) is a better way of phrasing what I was going after. Thank you. This is an unhelpful intervention on her part and does not advance the quality of discourse on this important topic.

[channelpenguin]

For elections and anything else they actually cover, I would trust the big bookies more than polls. Because they make their living being good at odds.

[bens_dad]

Mostly true.

However punters money and votes are not equally distributed, so bookies aren't optimising for exactly the same thing as elections.

[channelpenguin]

True.

But maybe it balances out? don't poor folks gamble more? (at least at bookies as opposed to the stock markets). I don't know, but it is an amusing thought.

[bens_dad]

Does Edinburgh have a law and order problem ?

I am sorry to hear about the pandas, but Edinburgh seems to have it in for fireworks.

I've read a couple of things suggesting fireworks are being misused in ways that sound like lawlessness to me.

If fireworks were silent and used appropriately there would not be a problem.
Last time I tried to by meths you had to be over 18 and sign for it; we could do the same thing for fireworks. That way it would be easier to trace misuse.

[andrewducker]

Edinburgh has some areas of severe deprivation, and people from those areas have rioted on Fireworks night for the last few years. I think that banning them for personal use is on the way.

[channelpenguin]

I hope it works. I have wanted this in Germany for a decade.

It's crazy here, not really so many riots, but bigger nastier fireworks and often bought in from Poland. (Yes, A&E is very busy on those nights and everyone knows someone who got hurt holding or handling fireworks when they were kids).


Ah Germany, where they berate you for crossing an empty road on a red man but happily let children throw fireworks!

[andrewducker]

A very odd approach to safety!

Polls

[lsanderson]

At some brief shining hour, we decided polling could give better answers to what the future was going to be than the Oracle of Delphi. Then along came cellphones, and suddenly we're back to reading chicken bones fresh out of the fire. (If people really need to know the future, they can contribute to repairing my time time machine.)!

Re: Polls

[andrewducker]

Bring back Oracles!

I mean, there are so many methods of divination, everyone can find one they love!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_divination

Re: Polls

[hilarita]

At least opinion polls are easier to clean up after than tea-leaf reading, or especially entrails reading.

Re: Polls

[channelpenguin]

It's actually interesting that taking auspices to decide where or what to do actually has a mechanism that CAN work ... as it's a much better "random number/direction/location generator" than humans are (we are pretty rubbish).