What am I on about?

[ciphergoth]

Just calibrating my posts - here's a poll about my last post - if you haven't seen it yet, wait 'till you've stopped reading your friends list before you come back. I promise this poll has no wrong answers.

Update: I am overjoyed to learn that as of just now, no less than 14 people have some idea what I'm on about. That last chart is the most complex I've produced, I wasn't sure how to explain what it was and I was pretty sure I hadn't done a good job of it, so that even one other person gets it is really nice. All ideas on how to set out the meaning of that chart welcome.

[Poll #1185737]

Comments

[lovelybug.livejournal.com]

I already saw it on your laptop :)

[silverclear.livejournal.com]

I would likely find your diagrams interesting, but like the first time I posted asking for an explanation of what they show, generally I just don't understand what they are representing without more labelling and notes. So I've sort of opted for the lazy option of not reading! I'd like it if your charts contained more visual prompts on the meaning of the lines, placement of circles, size of circles etc.

[marnanel.livejournal.com]

I didn't see it because my kid has friends staying over and my LJ reading has been down to my "ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL MUST READ" filter. But I understand it and it interests me.

[alexmc.livejournal.com]

I didnt read it - but that was more about my own spare time rather than the post...

[eqe.livejournal.com]

I only hit about 20% of cut tags, because I frequently load /friends/ and read it on the train.

Now that I went back and read, it's an interesting model but I'd like to see some more analysis. For example, do the results vary if different polls have different margins of error.

[redcountess]

I'm still catching up on LJ so missed your last post, although I clicked on the link above. While I'm interested in the primaries, I really don't understand your charts.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

previous entry is further down my friends list so i haven't got to it yet...

Why, you've hit my subject area precisely!

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

I think you could easily be getting a PhD in Political Science in the US.

That said I have a hard time understanding the bubble charts - the graph is much easier for me to understand.

[lovingboth]

In the bubbles, the size of the bubble shows how many electoral college votes the state has and the position shows who an average of recent polls show winning - the more towards the top left, the better placed Obama would be, the more to the bottom right, Clinton. The colour is blue - Dem regardless, Red - Rep regardless, yellow - it depends.

So Clinton would do much better than Obama in Kentucky (towards bottom right), but McCain would still win it (red).

[webcowgirl.livejournal.com]

I recognize that that is what it means intellectually, but there's something in my brain that can't parse the picture correctly. I have to tell myself the story of what it means but then the bubbles just turn into nothingness in my head.

[heptadecagram.livejournal.com]

The trick is to completely ignore one dimension. Just look left-to-right, and view it as "the amount to the left is how much the state goes for McCain, the amount to the left is how much it goes for Clinton", and ignore verticality. Then do the reverse McCain v. Obama.

[shevek.livejournal.com]

I know this might be out of the blue, but ... would you consider giving an invited talk on this material (or, for that matter, anything else that interests you?) We're aiming to bring new ideas to an intelligent, technically literate audience.

It will be on the 28th July, in Bristol, and there will be a number of interesting things going on. Event title and details not yet announced. My last event was called a "Linux Fest", but in 2008, I think that would be putting the cart before the horse. The interesting problem has to come first, what technology is used to solve it is a secondary question. Any other ideas?

Perhaps I'm trying to read too much between the lines here, but I thought I'd say: I find that although my rubbish "hey, the cat is purple today" entries get the most comments, I find that the ones people talk to me about most are the more literary ones, that don't get many comments. I think, from reading your political entries, that I learn a tremendous amount, and it's hard for me to add anything to what you have presented - please keep doing things like this!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That sounds fantastic. I can probably even persuade my work to pay the tickets.

Man, now I'm going to obsess about what I'll present. How long do I get? I take it I can project from my (VGA-out only) laptop? Is there a website with more details of the event?

Thanks!

[shevek.livejournal.com]

I think we're going to try to keep the talks short, because it's a general-public event, so up to 30 minutes is our current guildeline. We're trying to make sure that there's always something interesting coming along. We may have a general track and a deep-technical track, so there is probably an opportunity to talk to each. I certainly enjoy the way you make a lot of this material very accessible. :-)

Technically, there's an excellent stage-crew, so anything you ask for, you can have. We don't have an official web site yet, but it'll come in the next couple of days, hopefully with a more formal email.

*panic mode on* eep!

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

when you say 30 mins, you mean 25 mins per talk and 5 mins between talks? That's what I'm used to in the crypto world, seems to work very well.

[shevek.livejournal.com]

I'll take your advice on that, if those figures work. :-) We're planning separate explicit social spaces where people are encouraged to meet up after talks they enjoyed, and chat more. I think invited talks will get 30 minutes, and we're going to have an on-the-day "unplanned talks" track which is limited to 10 minutes, but lets people talk about things they only just thought up.

This is actually the first concrete day of planning, and the last event I did wasn't anything on this kind of scale. :-) We're also brainstorming "fun" walk-in-walk-out sessions, perhaps physical puzzles, and hardware mods, and stuff like that.

[shevek.livejournal.com]

http://www.techadventure.org/ - we are now organized! Formal programme is gradually happening! :-)

[aster13.livejournal.com]

I have had very sporadic 'net access over the last few days, so haven't had the chance...i now live in London, and am at uni!

[battlekitty.livejournal.com]

I must admit that the Clinton vs Obama thing lost my interest a while ago - real world politics only has a limited attention span for me at any time and my attention span in the last couple of weeks is comparable to that of a raspberry pip (there is a reason for this, mind you!).

(Either way, my general impression is that the outcome of that competition is fast becoming irrelevant - it's been conducted in such a way that there is going to be a percentage of democrat voters who will vote not-winner rather than democrat-winner. If that makes sense.)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

It seems inevitable that McCain will stitch it up and be just as bad as the current bunch.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

That doesn't seem inevitable to me at the moment - say more?

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Stitch it up - if Bush could win (including voting irregularities, let's not get into who _really_ won) even after 4 years of Bush, McCain should be able to do at least as well. And whoever he's running against, it won't be a tall rich white man, and I have a nasty suspicion the floating voters aren't going to go for anyone who isn't a tall rich white man.

[Edited to add; hm, but just possibly you have looked at this in more detail. :-]

Just as bad - well, that's cynicism, but I really don't think a "fresh" Republican administration is going to be any less full of nasty crooks.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a case of liking/disliking for me, it's a case of simply not understanding what you're trying to say. The particular form of graph/chart you were using isn't one I'm very familiar with so all I really saw was a bunch of coloured blobs on a foursquare, which didn't actually inform or entertain.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

These charts are pretty subtle stuff, so I'm always keen to work out ways to make them clearer. Clearly, I should write an epistle on the virtues of the scattergram!

[kissmedeadly.livejournal.com]

I got it after a bit of thought, but I'm a psychologist by training, so I had a head filled with statistical methods for years and have been known to read articles about how to present stats in the most accessible way for fun. I'm not sure the vast majority of the population understand the concept of a standard error. You seem to have a well eductaed readership though ;)

[kaet.livejournal.com]

I am interested in the Clinton/Obama thing from a psehphological point of view, and so your posts. But I'm royally bored of the blogosphere talking about nothing else for months that I've developed a kind of subconscious filter to skip antything mentioning either, :). If it had said A, B and C, I'd have read it right away, but Clinton/Obama are kind of in the same spot as "Cheaper Car Insurance" and "Online Poker" right now, :). Keep on posting it, though: I just have to remember that your stuff is the exception to ther rule, :).

[ludy]

i've been skimmimg everyhting lately because of limited netacess. But in genral i find your graphs facinating but just can't get my head around them becauseim very much not a visual thinking. I don't particulary "get" US politics either (inspite of the huge influence it has pn the rest of the worl) so i pay a bit more attention when you are posting about UK ploitics

[ergotia.livejournal.com]

I find the charts mildly interesting and I think I understand them if I make an effort. I am always interested in anything that interests you, o beloved partner, but it is all divination really innit?