Peter Norvig, Director of Research at Google, provides an FAQ on the election. I haven’t finished reading it, but the analysis appears worth reading.
DATE ARCHIVES : October 2012
Oh me oh my o, Ohio
I suspect this song could have interesting metaphorical interpretations in the next few weeks.
Dog & Cat
Persimmon Harvest
Native persimmons are much smaller than the Japanese varieties, but they are every bit as tasty. I just picked these in my backyard.
Listenin’ to the Pickin’
If you’re looking for a new artist to get to know, get to know Tom Brosseau. He opens for the Punch Brothers on their current tour.
If you don’t know the Punch Brothers, get to know them too. They brought the house down at UNC Memorial Hall last night, especially with their unplugged tribute to the great North Carolinian, the late Earl Scruggs.
Spatial Data, Rocks, and Voting
Image via Matt Stiles @ NPR.
Why the blue line across the South in the sea of red? Plankton may be the answer. Read the story at Krulwich’s blog:
These same counties went mostly blue in 2004 and 2000. Why? Well, the best answer, says marine biologist Craig McClain, may be an old one, going back before the Civil War, before 1776, before Columbus, back more than 100 million years to the days when the Deep South was under water.
Stats and Fats
Here’s a good read on the science (and politics) of soda and sugar. For researchers, a key point is:
“If you looked at the secondary endpoints in these studies, said Allison, then yes, each of the studies found one statistically significant result: but they were all for different things and so provided no evidence of consistency that might adduce causality. What was troubling—what the field of obesity research had to avoid—was spinning these secondary endpoints into major findings. You just can’t do this when they weren’t the endpoints you built your study to examine.”
When Politics and Statistics Collide
Most of the increase in unemployment rate happened before Obama took office in January 2009. I’m not a policy expert, so I won’t comment on why that might be. However, I do think that at least in this one case (I haven’t checked others), the statement on Mitt Romney’s flyer mischaracterizes the whole picture.
You can go to http://data.bls.gov and explore this data for yourself.