But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
Pure FUD operation by the GOP. Trying to make people nervous about their voter and deter voting.
The problem with this, apart from trying to stop people voting not being a great look, is that if you signal that the convenient ways of voting are bad, your signal is much more strongly heard and believed by people on your own side. So even if you try to target locations that are good for the other side, you still risk suppressing your own vote more than theirs.
I think they can pull off a sufficiently nuanced argument, like, "It is unpatriotic to allow Democrats to vote", without too much risk of it simplifying to, "It is unpatriotic to vote".
Exceptionalism is a key part of the ideology, so logical consistency shouldn't be expected.
They're wrestling with the fundamental problem - which is, of course, that the flow of boat people won't stop but that the bulk of the electorate in general, and the Tory-supporting electorate in particular, doesn't want them - and thrashing around desperately for a solution.
I can only assume either that the French are sufficiently determined to be rid of the problem themselves that they're invulnerable to bribery; or that the bribes that the UK Government have offered them have been deemed insufficient; or that the Government has been too daft to offer the French Government cash and/or other sweeteners in the first place.
Leaving aside the moral considerations, I'm not sure of the practicalities of effectively capturing the boat people and sticking them all back on larger boats - but prison hulks do at least have the benefit of not having to transport those aboard many thousands of miles to a remote volcanic rock in the South Atlantic.
The fundamental problem is that they have implied for years that Brexit will magicaĺly stop the flow. It is, and always was utter bollocks.
I don't recall Boris or anyone similar saying that.
Farage did but he is a twunt and should be ignored.
Y'all won your referendum by riding that tiger.
You sold your souls.
You are stuck with it now. Don't worry though, I don't think there'll be a Nurnberg this time.
The virus is growing in England, spreading across the country and from young to older people. The new interventions are effective however in limiting the rate of increase:
R being assessed at 0.7-1.5, with a probable value of 1.1 is interesting news, indeed.
I suspect that the return of schools and universities will keep it above 1 for a month or so, but if it is barely above 1 it is probably manageable. Down a bit in November, then perhaps up a bit for Christmas and New Year.
It's weird how we're in this mindset of "Trump is some kind of evil genius" where everyone's scared of his brilliant vote suppression plan. Since he won last time against the odds it's definitely worthwhile to at least *entertain* that thought and think through what it would mean if it was true, but I think the evil genius theory is becoming less and less tenable; 60 days from now we'll be looking back and saying, "can you believe that doofus suppressed his own vote".
On the one hand what is the point, he is irrelevant. But on the other it is telling. What sort of idiot thinks it is a good idea to organise a dinner party for 9 right now? An idiot who assumes, Cummings like, that the rules simply don't apply to the likes of them. And this is much more serious. One idiot driving around the countryside in his car is not a risk to anyone. Even one family walking outside near that castle aren't really . It would have been perfectly permissible to have the same walk nearer to home. 9 people in a room for several hours are a potential cluster if any of them have it even without symptoms. And there are so many such idiots that we now have a second wave.
The increase in social distancing that is now necessary is a general requirement, not a universal one. This distinction is not widely appreciated, and never has been since the start of all this. The government has no interest in turning us into a police state and, I`d argue, neither should it. The important thing is that social distancing is increased on aggregate. That can, and is, being achieved without poking long lenses through windows or flying drones over moors and saying "ooh they are breaking the rules let`s lynch the fuckers".
Sure, you can argue that these requirements are in law, which is why I floated the idea a couple of days ago that they are really guidelines masquerading as laws, intended to achieve a overall effect rather than a means to persecute individuals.
Hence I care neither about Corbyn nor Cummings.
Good post.
Thank you Topping.
I`ve felt this throughout. The government strategy has got the "nudge unit" written all over it. I`m frustrated that others can`t see the wood for the trees and seem intent, revelling even, in demonising individuals.
Same here.
My post from yesterday morning:
The govt is nudging us (we have had debates previously about whether a legal requirement is a nudge or not) and nudges work on us overall, not individually. What they should but for obvious reasons can't do - because it would negate the message - is say something along the lines of:
"Listen, our aim is to reduce the incidence of Covid while maintaining certain activities that we all value, such as the ability to socialise, and the maintenance of our children's and young people's education. However, this means that we must rein in other parts of the economy. Much of this won't make sense but please do try to adhere as much as possible to our laws and guidelines as you understand them because overall, it will make a huge difference".
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
If it is a case of "classical liberal arts innumeracy", why on earth are they publishing an article about the chances of winning/losing an election. It would be like me publishing a newspaper article on the relevance of the Canterbury Tales to life in modern Kenya.
Reckon the good folk of modern-day Kenya would be enthralled by stories of cuckolding and rasping farts.... Publish and be damned.
MarqueeMark: Clifden Nonpareil spotted and photographed in my village last week. (Not by me unfortunately.) Is that rare?
The Clifden Nonpareil (aka the Blue Underwing) was until recent years the Holy Grail for moth-ers. Partly because it was all but extinct in this country and only seen as an occassional migrant, partly because it is a very, very impressive moth. Recent years have seen a sharp uptick in numbers along the south coast, where it is clearly breeding again. This year has been an event because it has moved well inland, and people have been recording it for whom it was previously a hopeless dream. So much joy in its wake.
It might be global warming. Might just have got bored of Europe. And it might be a very temporary phenomenon - a harsh winter and they are gone again. (That said, it has survived the Beast from the East in recent years, so must be quite tough.)
An occasional migrant? Hopefully it will be stored in a jam jar offshore until its claim is processed.
Pure FUD operation by the GOP. Trying to make people nervous about their voter and deter voting.
The problem with this, apart from trying to stop people voting not being a great look, is that if you signal that the convenient ways of voting are bad, your signal is much more strongly heard and believed by people on your own side. So even if you try to target locations that are good for the other side, you still risk suppressing your own vote more than theirs.
I think they can pull off a sufficiently nuanced argument, like, "It is unpatriotic to allow Democrats to vote", without too much risk of it simplifying to, "It is unpatriotic to vote".
Exceptionalism is a key part of the ideology, so logical consistency shouldn't be expected.
Well, that's what they've been doing successfully for years, but Trump doesn't do nuance, and the messages they're putting out now have immediate, practical consequences. Dems are locking in votes, the GOP isn't.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
With the exception of the BBC, the prime purpose of a media company, like any company, is to make money. Everything else is of secondary importance, including accurate reporting, so who can blame them for dramatising their stories? The fault lies with those who actually believe without question the guff they produce rather than the storytellers themselves.
On the one hand what is the point, he is irrelevant. But on the other it is telling. What sort of idiot thinks it is a good idea to organise a dinner party for 9 right now? An idiot who assumes, Cummings like, that the rules simply don't apply to the likes of them. And this is much more serious. One idiot driving around the countryside in his car is not a risk to anyone. Even one family walking outside near that castle aren't really . It would have been perfectly permissible to have the same walk nearer to home. 9 people in a room for several hours are a potential cluster if any of them have it even without symptoms. And there are so many such idiots that we now have a second wave.
The increase in social distancing that is now necessary is a general requirement, not a universal one. This distinction is not widely appreciated, and never has been since the start of all this. The government has no interest in turning us into a police state and, I`d argue, neither should it. The important thing is that social distancing is increased on aggregate. That can, and is, being achieved without poking long lenses through windows or flying drones over moors and saying "ooh they are breaking the rules let`s lynch the fuckers".
Sure, you can argue that these requirements are in law, which is why I floated the idea a couple of days ago that they are really guidelines masquerading as laws, intended to achieve a overall effect rather than a means to persecute individuals.
Hence I care neither about Corbyn nor Cummings.
Good post.
Thank you Topping.
I`ve felt this throughout. The government strategy has got the "nudge unit" written all over it. I`m frustrated that others can`t see the wood for the trees and seem intent, revelling even, in demonising individuals.
Same here.
My post from yesterday morning:
The govt is nudging us (we have had debates previously about whether a legal requirement is a nudge or not) and nudges work on us overall, not individually. What they should but for obvious reasons can't do - because it would negate the message - is say something along the lines of:
"Listen, our aim is to reduce the incidence of Covid while maintaining certain activities that we all value, such as the ability to socialise, and the maintenance of our children's and young people's education. However, this means that we must rein in other parts of the economy. Much of this won't make sense but please do try to adhere as much as possible to our laws and guidelines as you understand them because overall, it will make a huge difference".
Yes, we are on the same page - I honestly hadn`t seen your post of yesterday before posting mine this morning.
It's weird how we're in this mindset of "Trump is some kind of evil genius" where everyone's scared of his brilliant vote suppression plan. Since he won last time against the odds it's definitely worthwhile to at least *entertain* that thought and think through what it would mean if it was true, but I think the evil genius theory is becoming less and less tenable; 60 days from now we'll be looking back and saying, "can you believe that doofus suppressed his own vote".
He's trying to conspire in the open. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent election?"
They're wrestling with the fundamental problem - which is, of course, that the flow of boat people won't stop but that the bulk of the electorate in general, and the Tory-supporting electorate in particular, doesn't want them - and thrashing around desperately for a solution.
I can only assume either that the French are sufficiently determined to be rid of the problem themselves that they're invulnerable to bribery; or that the bribes that the UK Government have offered them have been deemed insufficient; or that the Government has been too daft to offer the French Government cash and/or other sweeteners in the first place.
Leaving aside the moral considerations, I'm not sure of the practicalities of effectively capturing the boat people and sticking them all back on larger boats - but prison hulks do at least have the benefit of not having to transport those aboard many thousands of miles to a remote volcanic rock in the South Atlantic.
The fundamental problem is that they have implied for years that Brexit will magicaĺly stop the flow. It is, and always was utter bollocks.
I don't recall Boris or anyone similar saying that.
Farage did but he is a twunt and should be ignored.
Y'all won your referendum by riding that tiger.
You sold your souls.
You are stuck with it now. Don't worry though, I don't think there'll be a Nurnberg this time.
Yes we used and discarded Farage and now he is a talking head sacked by the media trying to find relevance instead of an elected politician representing Britain in a Parliament as he would have been if you got your way.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
waves - I remember it clearly from the mid 90s as it was the economist and it was about something called the World wide web. At the time there was about 10 people in London who knew about it (and all were easy to find) and the UK based journalist posted rubbish which any of us would have corrected and no one had been asked.
I cancelled my subscription then and I don't think I've even glanced at it since. Now I watch news with a filter of where can I find what is actually going on - twitter and google are actually good at that but twitter is inevitable an echo chamber of my views.
Pure FUD operation by the GOP. Trying to make people nervous about their voter and deter voting.
Makes perfect sense. There is a MASSIVE FRAUD going on when people who aren't the Trumps vote by mail. SO clearly it MUST be fraud for the city officials to validate that these ballots are legal and admissible as they aren't legal and admissible. A giant conspiracy against the President by people who have the gall to try and have an election to overturn the people's mandate from the last election. As with Brexit people cannot be allowed to vote in case they have changed their minds.
If it's just in one place in the state it is a bit weird, though, isn't it?
Imagine if Southwark had launched a massive participation drive in the 2016 referendum, safe in the knowledge that their borough is strongly pro-Remain?
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
Oh, very much so. The 5% of their output I know something about, I can see that they’re talking bollocks - yet they still expect me to trust them to inform me about the other 95%, and not think that’s total bollocks too!
It's weird how we're in this mindset of "Trump is some kind of evil genius" where everyone's scared of his brilliant vote suppression plan. Since he won last time against the odds it's definitely worthwhile to at least *entertain* that thought and think through what it would mean if it was true, but I think the evil genius theory is becoming less and less tenable; 60 days from now we'll be looking back and saying, "can you believe that doofus suppressed his own vote".
Voting suppression has been a thing, for portions of the Republican party, for a long time. They are not all as stupid as Trump.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
The media always convey the impression that gavels are used in British courts, which they are not, or at least not in England and Wales.
Thats a great article. Once again, The Atlantic covers the virus very well and without sensation. The bit on the importance of backward tracing is particularly worth a read.
Not only is backward tracing effective in disease suppression, it can usefully inform policy at to what restrictions are likely to work.
That is an utterly superb article, which itself needs to be superspread.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
We could do sanctuary cities, but with surplus cruise ships. Refugees bob around in international waters near a reasonably lucrative market until the ship has developed a sufficient self-sustaining economy to be a clear revenue earner, then its residents should be able to buy some land and get permission from a government to live on it.
International waters? I expect when I get back home there’ll still be a sheaf of empty cruise ships bobbing about offshore, and there are further batches in Weymouth and Torbay. It isn’t far to swim.
Not to mention the need to supply them with food and water and take off the sewage. And the risk of mutiny. https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/Convict_Hulks [edited - previous URL was insecure, sorry]
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
It's weird how we're in this mindset of "Trump is some kind of evil genius" where everyone's scared of his brilliant vote suppression plan. Since he won last time against the odds it's definitely worthwhile to at least *entertain* that thought and think through what it would mean if it was true, but I think the evil genius theory is becoming less and less tenable; 60 days from now we'll be looking back and saying, "can you believe that doofus suppressed his own vote".
He's trying to conspire in the open. "Will no one rid me of this turbulent election?"
That's absolutely right.
But why does he have to do it in the open? Because he doesn't have the power to do it himself. All he can do is broadcast his hope that someone will rig the election for him, and hope they somehow do. Hope isn't a plan.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I believe the industry phrase is "Nuclear fusion: it's the energy of the future, and always will be."
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I feel like you're overestimating our energy storage technology at present, at least on a macro level.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
With the exception of the BBC, the prime purpose of a media company, like any company, is to make money. Everything else is of secondary importance, including accurate reporting, so who can blame them for dramatising their stories? The fault lies with those who actually believe without question the guff they produce rather than the storytellers themselves.
I am a fan of the BBC, BUT the BBC very often produce rubbish which with a bit of common sense of challenging the figures quoted in the journalists brains would tell them that a bit of fact checking might be appropriate. The wasp story came from the BBC and they are also very prone to not understanding 'relative velocity'. I believe it is just a lack of science/maths background.
With regard to believing stories in the media, my Dad is a fan of the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Believes every word published. Except one!. Many decades ago he read a story that he was in fact involved in. He got very annoyed that it was factually rubbish. It hasn't stopped him believing every article he has read since.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
Pure FUD operation by the GOP. Trying to make people nervous about their voter and deter voting.
Makes perfect sense. There is a MASSIVE FRAUD going on when people who aren't the Trumps vote by mail. SO clearly it MUST be fraud for the city officials to validate that these ballots are legal and admissible as they aren't legal and admissible. A giant conspiracy against the President by people who have the gall to try and have an election to overturn the people's mandate from the last election. As with Brexit people cannot be allowed to vote in case they have changed their minds.
If it's just in one place in the state it is a bit weird, though, isn't it?
Imagine if Southwark had launched a massive participation drive in the 2016 referendum, safe in the knowledge that their borough is strongly pro-Remain?
I'm not say necessarily illegal. But weird.
What is weirder is that the Republican party is so morally bankrupt that its main focus in this election is trying every trick in the book to stop its opponents from voting. They deserve to lose heavily for that reason alone. As RCS and others have pointed out we have never had a president before that is intent on wrecking the democratic system.
Not in favour of the recent Government action, but the political impact of the EU's legal announcement will be to shore up the imbecile in Downing Street. That's not of advantage to this nation.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I feel like you're overestimating our energy storage technology at present, at least on a macro level.
I don't think energy storage technology at present is that great but it is improving continuously and incrementally. Our storage potential in a decade will be much better than today - and a decade after that even better still. Since fusion is always a couple of decades away supposedly, storage needs to be taken seriously as an alternative I think.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
I guess there are some but what would be some good recent examples of a country reneging on a treaty its current leader had just signed, only 9 months before? Even the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact lasted twice that long.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
Really? When?
We've had infringement procedures launched against us by the EU very, very frequently over the decades, as has every single EU member state to my knowledge. They have over 800 infringement procedures active at the moment as it stands.
We've simply refused to grant votes to prisoners regardless of what the ECtHR says. Quite rightly too IMO.
As for it being a newly signed treaty . . . we once broke a Geneva Treaty literally 15 days after ratifying it.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
The problem is that, like much of business or politics, specialist knowledge is looked down upon. Generalists re supposed to get the big jobs, not dirty handed oiks who know what a logarithm is.
So a political reporter can do ok - because he/she might well know about politics.
But a space reporter will either not know about space, or be edited to drivel by editors who don't know or care.
The exceptions to this are news organisations that employ specialist reporters, and don't mangle the pieces before publication.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
I guess there are some but what would be some good recent examples of a country reneging on a treaty its current leader had just signed, only 9 months before? Even the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact lasted twice that long.
Off the top of my head the Geneva Treaty on the Sea was reneged on 15 days after ratification.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I'd tend to agree with you. Controlled fusion is fiendishly difficult to maintain for any significant length of time and any commercial use remains a distant dream, whatever the claims of various starry-eyed start-ups. In addition, as you say, the advent of increasingly viable renewable technologies is making the business case for fusion power ever more tenuous.
Jesus! I loathed Thatcher when she spoke like this about the miners and now the Tories are doing exactly the same to public servants. Anyone who doesn’t bow down before the cult is an enemy. This is just a blue-rinsed version of Corbynism.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
No, it's the journalists who are actually running the country that I object to. I think that journalists obviously have a hard job in terms of gathering information quickly and putting it into a format that is interesting, entertaining and understandable to the general population, a good proportion of whom are functionally innumerate and have a low reading age. So yes it is a hard job. And there are severe financial constraints, especially in print journalism. On the other hand, the sheer extent of misinformation, spin and outright lies, not to mention borderline hate speech, pedalled by parts of the press, is a disgrace. You wouldn't have had Brexit without decades of lies about the EU. Look at Cameron's bewilderment when the full force of the Tory press was turned on him for a change in 2016. It was like a man getting bitten by his own dog. So while many journalists do a difficult job well, I think as a group they have probably failed in their core purpose more than any other profession.
Pure FUD operation by the GOP. Trying to make people nervous about their voter and deter voting.
Makes perfect sense. There is a MASSIVE FRAUD going on when people who aren't the Trumps vote by mail. SO clearly it MUST be fraud for the city officials to validate that these ballots are legal and admissible as they aren't legal and admissible. A giant conspiracy against the President by people who have the gall to try and have an election to overturn the people's mandate from the last election. As with Brexit people cannot be allowed to vote in case they have changed their minds.
If it's just in one place in the state it is a bit weird, though, isn't it?
Imagine if Southwark had launched a massive participation drive in the 2016 referendum, safe in the knowledge that their borough is strongly pro-Remain?
I'm not say necessarily illegal. But weird.
This is America we are talking about. Where the people who organise and certify elections are party apparatchiks. Literally everything about their process is not only weird but utterly perplexing.
We could do sanctuary cities, but with surplus cruise ships. Refugees bob around in international waters near a reasonably lucrative market until the ship has developed a sufficient self-sustaining economy to be a clear revenue earner, then its residents should be able to buy some land and get permission from a government to live on it.
International waters? I expect when I get back home there’ll still be a sheaf of empty cruise ships bobbing about offshore, and there are further batches in Weymouth and Torbay. It isn’t far to swim.
Not to mention the need to supply them with food and water and take off the sewage. And the risk of mutiny. https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/Convict_Hulks [edited - previous URL was insecure, sorry]
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
waves - I remember it clearly from the mid 90s as it was the economist and it was about something called the World wide web. At the time there was about 10 people in London who knew about it (and all were easy to find) and the UK based journalist posted rubbish which any of us would have corrected and no one had been asked.
I cancelled my subscription then and I don't think I've even glanced at it since. Now I watch news with a filter of where can I find what is actually going on - twitter and google are actually good at that but twitter is inevitable an echo chamber of my views.
If only ten people in London knew about the technical details of the web, it would have been the early 90's.
When I finished my Master's in 90, international email and ftp seemed impressive. When I returned to uni in Autumn 94 to do a PhD, though, the web was already well estalished, it was just that most people did not have access. By that time the text based browser (I think it was called Lynx) had already died as the graphical browser Mosaic was the obvious way to go.
What now seems crazy, is that most of the private sector was thinking "it's free"="it's a gimmick" and could not see the potential to make a profit using the internet.
Since there's little doubt Cameron would have resigned if the Scots voted Yes it is an interesting counterfactual to guess what would have happened since in British politics. There would still have been less than a year until the next election, would a new Tory leader have been able to win it or not? Would we still have had a Brexit referendum and would it still have gone to Leave?
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
With the exception of the BBC, the prime purpose of a media company, like any company, is to make money. Everything else is of secondary importance, including accurate reporting, so who can blame them for dramatising their stories? The fault lies with those who actually believe without question the guff they produce rather than the storytellers themselves.
I am a fan of the BBC, BUT the BBC very often produce rubbish which with a bit of common sense of challenging the figures quoted in the journalists brains would tell them that a bit of fact checking might be appropriate. The wasp story came from the BBC and they are also very prone to not understanding 'relative velocity'. I believe it is just a lack of science/maths background.
With regard to believing stories in the media, my Dad is a fan of the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Believes every word published. Except one!. Many decades ago he read a story that he was in fact involved in. He got very annoyed that it was factually rubbish. It hasn't stopped him believing every article he has read since.
Oh, I'm not disputing the fact that the BBC frequently gets it wrong, but they are at least trying, or are supposed to be trying, to get it right. The newspapers have no such motive - their prime purpose is to entertain rather than to reflect reality.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
The problem is that, like much of business or politics, specialist knowledge is looked down upon. Generalists re supposed to get the big jobs, not dirty handed oiks who know what a logarithm is.
So a political reporter can do ok - because he/she might well know about politics.
But a space reporter will either not know about space, or be edited to drivel by editors who don't know or care.
The exceptions to this are news organisations that employ specialist reporters, and don't mangle the pieces before publication.
Surely the problem is that scientists, engineers and mathematicians rarely write well for a general audience. There are exceptions, but writing well and concisely is not an easy skill to acquire.
The closest we got to that in this country was the ignored people that Cummings/Cambridge Analytica found who rarely voted but were persuaded to do so on one occasion. And people still go on about how unfair and illegitimate that was. But it is still a pale shadow of what we see in the US.
There is also the slight issue of the majority of our votes not counting...
The virus is growing in England, spreading across the country and from young to older people. The new interventions are effective however in limiting the rate of increase:
The closest we got to that in this country was the ignored people that Cummings/Cambridge Analytica found who rarely voted but were persuaded to do so on one occasion. And people still go on about how unfair and illegitimate that was. But it is still a pale shadow of what we see in the US.
There is also the slight issue of the majority of our votes not counting...
All votes count. Some just lose.
The Liverpool v Chelsea opening game of the season was 4-3 meaning Liverpool won and Chelsea lost.
Did the Chelsea goals "not count" or were they counted they just lost?
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
Really? When?
We've had infringement procedures launched against us by the EU very, very frequently over the decades, as has every single EU member state to my knowledge. They have over 800 infringement procedures active at the moment as it stands.
We've simply refused to grant votes to prisoners regardless of what the ECtHR says. Quite rightly too IMO.
As for it being a newly signed treaty . . . we once broke a Geneva Treaty literally 15 days after ratifying it.
You are talking about infringement. I am talking about the rejection of a treaty you have just signed. No-one does that. It is a grotesque act of bad faith.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
With the exception of the BBC, the prime purpose of a media company, like any company, is to make money. Everything else is of secondary importance, including accurate reporting, so who can blame them for dramatising their stories? The fault lies with those who actually believe without question the guff they produce rather than the storytellers themselves.
I am a fan of the BBC, BUT the BBC very often produce rubbish which with a bit of common sense of challenging the figures quoted in the journalists brains would tell them that a bit of fact checking might be appropriate. The wasp story came from the BBC and they are also very prone to not understanding 'relative velocity'. I believe it is just a lack of science/maths background.
With regard to believing stories in the media, my Dad is a fan of the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Believes every word published. Except one!. Many decades ago he read a story that he was in fact involved in. He got very annoyed that it was factually rubbish. It hasn't stopped him believing every article he has read since.
Oh, I'm not disputing the fact that the BBC frequently gets it wrong, but they are at least trying, or are supposed to be trying, to get it right. The newspapers have no such motive - their prime purpose is to entertain rather than to reflect reality.
The virus is growing in England, spreading across the country and from young to older people. The new interventions are effective however in limiting the rate of increase:
R being assessed at 0.7-1.5, with a probable value of 1.1 is interesting news, indeed.
A range of 0.7 to 1.5 suggests they haven't really got a clue.
No - it suggests large error bars, mainly because the actual number of positives in the survey are small. This produces a distribution with a high probability that actual number is toward the centre.
That week of self doubt followed by an in the end reasonably comfortable victory may have been one of the most significant contributors to the downfall of the pro EU cause. A life time of self confidence temporarily pierced by a moment of fear, yet still Dave won through: a double helping of complacency to reward myself please.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
Really? When?
We've had infringement procedures launched against us by the EU very, very frequently over the decades, as has every single EU member state to my knowledge. They have over 800 infringement procedures active at the moment as it stands.
We've simply refused to grant votes to prisoners regardless of what the ECtHR says. Quite rightly too IMO.
As for it being a newly signed treaty . . . we once broke a Geneva Treaty literally 15 days after ratifying it.
You are talking about infringement. I am talking about the rejection of a treaty you have just signed. No-one does that. It is a grotesque act of bad faith.
We haven't rejected the treaty we are infringing upon it.
But as for rejection of a Treaty absoluteyl the UK has done that. Literally 15 days after ratification the UK has done it before, did you not know that?
The virus is growing in England, spreading across the country and from young to older people. The new interventions are effective however in limiting the rate of increase:
R being assessed at 0.7-1.5, with a probable value of 1.1 is interesting news, indeed.
A range of 0.7 to 1.5 suggests they haven't really got a clue.
I don't want to get at you personally, but while we are talking about numeric illiteracy amongst journalists, this comment is typical. We need to bear in mind the audience for those journalists isn't necessarily able to absorb these subtleties.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
No, it's the journalists who are actually running the country that I object to. I think that journalists obviously have a hard job in terms of gathering information quickly and putting it into a format that is interesting, entertaining and understandable to the general population, a good proportion of whom are functionally innumerate and have a low reading age. So yes it is a hard job. And there are severe financial constraints, especially in print journalism. On the other hand, the sheer extent of misinformation, spin and outright lies, not to mention borderline hate speech, pedalled by parts of the press, is a disgrace. You wouldn't have had Brexit without decades of lies about the EU. Look at Cameron's bewilderment when the full force of the Tory press was turned on him for a change in 2016. It was like a man getting bitten by his own dog. So while many journalists do a difficult job well, I think as a group they have probably failed in their core purpose more than any other profession.
I remember reading a serious article a few years back criticising "professions" and "profession" was defined as a type of closed shop, defining your own rules and determining from within the profession itself who could and could not enter that profession. The main culprits were doctors/dentists, lawyers, university reseachers, accountants and a few others. I personally did not like the strong free market message he was pushing, but nonetheless I thought it was a thought provoking article.
Viewed at it in that light, journalism is not a "profession". There is no code of conduct and no entrance requirements. As you put it, there is no agreed core purpose to journalism. Over half of the journalists work in print media, where owners consider how much money is pulled in rather than factual competence of what is published. In broadcast media the expected standards are usually a bit higher than in print media, but contracts and promotion are still highly skewed towards presentation rather than content.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
The problem is that, like much of business or politics, specialist knowledge is looked down upon. Generalists re supposed to get the big jobs, not dirty handed oiks who know what a logarithm is.
So a political reporter can do ok - because he/she might well know about politics.
But a space reporter will either not know about space, or be edited to drivel by editors who don't know or care.
The exceptions to this are news organisations that employ specialist reporters, and don't mangle the pieces before publication.
Surely the problem is that scientists, engineers and mathematicians rarely write well for a general audience. There are exceptions, but writing well and concisely is not an easy skill to acquire.
I agree. I used to write for newspapers and magazines - fairly regularly for certain publications - on my specialist subject. It takes a completely different mindset - partly to decide, is there a clear story/message on which I could focus and structure the piece? And partly to try and achieve accuracy with economy of wording and minimum of jargon. Not always easy.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
The problem is that, like much of business or politics, specialist knowledge is looked down upon. Generalists re supposed to get the big jobs, not dirty handed oiks who know what a logarithm is.
So a political reporter can do ok - because he/she might well know about politics.
But a space reporter will either not know about space, or be edited to drivel by editors who don't know or care.
The exceptions to this are news organisations that employ specialist reporters, and don't mangle the pieces before publication.
I hadn't thought about the 'edited to drivel' point. I can see that a lot of light fun science stories having the boring referencing stuff chopped and consequently making them meaningless with the added downside of getting me to have a rant about it to my wife, who just doesn't care.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I feel like you're overestimating our energy storage technology at present, at least on a macro level.
I don't think energy storage technology at present is that great but it is improving continuously and incrementally. Our storage potential in a decade will be much better than today - and a decade after that even better still. Since fusion is always a couple of decades away supposedly, storage needs to be taken seriously as an alternative I think.
Energy storage is near a tipping point. At the moment most of the wind energy can be accommodated onto energy grids by dialling down and up the thermal capacity, so the economics isn't there for large-scale storage.
But as we keep adding wind capacity the economic opportunity for storage increases and one of the competing technologies may well become better than batteries and win itself a lot of business.
Since there's little doubt Cameron would have resigned if the Scots voted Yes it is an interesting counterfactual to guess what would have happened since in British politics. There would still have been less than a year until the next election, would a new Tory leader have been able to win it or not? Would we still have had a Brexit referendum and would it still have gone to Leave?
On the last point, more likely to do so sans the pro-Remain Scots, surely?
YES - Stockton excluded from the latest pox lockdown. Does that mean that Boro pox people will come across the A66 to drink in our pubs?
The evidence of Wigan and Bolton is yes. In droves.
The NE laws are based on residency I believe? So even if I travelled down to Stockton from Newcastle and met up with some friends there, I would still be breaking the law.
We could do sanctuary cities, but with surplus cruise ships. Refugees bob around in international waters near a reasonably lucrative market until the ship has developed a sufficient self-sustaining economy to be a clear revenue earner, then its residents should be able to buy some land and get permission from a government to live on it.
International waters? I expect when I get back home there’ll still be a sheaf of empty cruise ships bobbing about offshore, and there are further batches in Weymouth and Torbay. It isn’t far to swim.
Not to mention the need to supply them with food and water and take off the sewage. And the risk of mutiny. https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/Convict_Hulks [edited - previous URL was insecure, sorry]
Mutiny? Is Priti in danger of getting Keelhauled?
Historically it was the commander of the ship in question rather than the Lords of the Admiralty who used to catch it in the neck - sometimes literally, of course.
They do which is why they're relying upon impotent threats of legal action and can't just override us or enforce anything.
They have to take action. Not even the tin-pottiest of despots pulls a stunt like this on a treaty that it has just signed. As you say, no immediate effect, but at some point the UK will have get out of this newest hole that it has dug for itself.
All countries have the right to do what the UK has done and the UK has done it before.
Really? When?
We've had infringement procedures launched against us by the EU very, very frequently over the decades, as has every single EU member state to my knowledge. They have over 800 infringement procedures active at the moment as it stands.
We've simply refused to grant votes to prisoners regardless of what the ECtHR says. Quite rightly too IMO.
As for it being a newly signed treaty . . . we once broke a Geneva Treaty literally 15 days after ratifying it.
You are talking about infringement. I am talking about the rejection of a treaty you have just signed. No-one does that. It is a grotesque act of bad faith.
We haven't rejected the treaty we are infringing upon it.
But as for rejection of a Treaty absoluteyl the UK has done that. Literally 15 days after ratification the UK has done it before, did you not know that?
Merseyside and Warrington now part of the NE restrictions. Hartlepool and Middlesborough too.
Hopefully the restrictions will work and not need to be there long.
Boro and Stockton are a long way apart. Here in Stockton we definitely won't be seeing Boro refugees from its lockdown coming across to enjoy our bars and steal our women.
Seriously - Boro and not Stockton makes no sense. Hence my sarcastic YES! reaction. We are clean, they are dirty. Or something.
That week of self doubt followed by an in the end reasonably comfortable victory may have been one of the most significant contributors to the downfall of the pro EU cause. A life time of self confidence temporarily pierced by a moment of fear, yet still Dave won through: a double helping of complacency to reward myself please.
Do you know, this makes me realise that one thing I had never thought about is the potential impact on LABOUR of a Yes win in 2014, given its importance in fronting the anti-indy coalition. It still thought of Scotland as its birthright (before the 2015 election kicked them in the teeth), and relied on those Scots . Would the party leader and LOTO have had to resign too, alongside Mr Cameron? And Mr Darling for fronting it all?
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
With the exception of the BBC, the prime purpose of a media company, like any company, is to make money. Everything else is of secondary importance, including accurate reporting, so who can blame them for dramatising their stories? The fault lies with those who actually believe without question the guff they produce rather than the storytellers themselves.
I am a fan of the BBC, BUT the BBC very often produce rubbish which with a bit of common sense of challenging the figures quoted in the journalists brains would tell them that a bit of fact checking might be appropriate. The wasp story came from the BBC and they are also very prone to not understanding 'relative velocity'. I believe it is just a lack of science/maths background.
With regard to believing stories in the media, my Dad is a fan of the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Believes every word published. Except one!. Many decades ago he read a story that he was in fact involved in. He got very annoyed that it was factually rubbish. It hasn't stopped him believing every article he has read since.
Back when the world was a very different place, many years ago I was an official in a Technical College Students Union. We had students of all sorts of ages, from 16 year old potential secretaries to ex-apprentices who had transferred to degree courses, and others doing vocational external degrees some of whom had, (this was the 50's), if they were men, done their National Service. As a Tech the local Borough Council 'ran' the place. One day a councillor decided he was concerned by students out and about after 9pm. Students, he declared should be off the streets by then. We pointed out the illogicality of trying to treat 21 year olds who had just come back from being shot at in Malaya like that, but the councillor wouldn't be quietened and created a noise in Council, and consequently the local press. Eventually the story was picked up by the Express who sent a couple of reporters along to the Union Office. They wanted us to say we resented being treated like children. We were trying to defuse the row so made statements such as 'well meaning, but you really can't expect ex soldiers' etc but the reporters pressed and pressed until eventually one our team agreed that 'you could say that'.
Headline in the Daily Express next day 'We're being treated like children say angry students!'
Took another couple of weeks to calm the councillor, who by then had recruited allies, down.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
With the exception of the BBC, the prime purpose of a media company, like any company, is to make money. Everything else is of secondary importance, including accurate reporting, so who can blame them for dramatising their stories? The fault lies with those who actually believe without question the guff they produce rather than the storytellers themselves.
I am a fan of the BBC, BUT the BBC very often produce rubbish which with a bit of common sense of challenging the figures quoted in the journalists brains would tell them that a bit of fact checking might be appropriate. The wasp story came from the BBC and they are also very prone to not understanding 'relative velocity'. I believe it is just a lack of science/maths background.
With regard to believing stories in the media, my Dad is a fan of the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Believes every word published. Except one!. Many decades ago he read a story that he was in fact involved in. He got very annoyed that it was factually rubbish. It hasn't stopped him believing every article he has read since.
Back when the world was a very different place, many years ago I was an official in a Technical College Students Union. We had students of all sorts of ages, from 16 year old potential secretaries to ex-apprentices who had transferred to degree courses, and others doing vocational external degrees some of whom had, (this was the 50's), if they were men, done their National Service. As a Tech the local Borough Council 'ran' the place. One day a councillor decided he was concerned by students out and about after 9pm. Students, he declared should be off the streets by then. We pointed out the illogicality of trying to treat 21 year olds who had just come back from being shot at in Malaya like that, but the councillor wouldn't be quietened and created a noise in Council, and consequently the local press. Eventually the story was picked up by the Express who sent a couple of reporters along to the Union Office. They wanted us to say we resented being treated like children. We were trying to defuse the row so made statements such as 'well meaning, but you really can't expect ex soldiers' etc but the reporters pressed and pressed until eventually one our team agreed that 'you could say that'.
Headline in the Daily Express next day 'We're being treated like children say angry students!'
Took another couple of weeks to calm the councillor, who by then had recruited allies, down.
Never trusted the Express since.
When the Bullingdon Club stories popped up, suddenly every pub in Oxford had journalists trying to buy/sell/invent stories.
Given my hobby of yanking the chains of the gullible, I just missed out on some big money. They were offering fortunes for evidence..... or anything that would hold up until publication time....
Merseyside and Warrington now part of the NE restrictions. Hartlepool and Middlesborough too.
Hopefully the restrictions will work and not need to be there long.
Boro and Stockton are a long way apart. Here in Stockton we definitely won't be seeing Boro refugees from its lockdown coming across to enjoy our bars and steal our women.
Seriously - Boro and not Stockton makes no sense. Hence my sarcastic YES! reaction. We are clean, they are dirty. Or something.
There will always be a boundary somewhere. It doesn't have to "make sense" because whatever boundary is chosen wouldn't "make sense".
Why Liverpool and Warrington but not Wigan or Greater Manchester?
You can drive from Liverpool through Widnes, Warrington, into Leigh and on into Manchester without ever leaving residential roads.
Jesus! I loathed Thatcher when she spoke like this about the miners and now the Tories are doing exactly the same to public servants. Anyone who doesn’t bow down before the cult is an enemy. This is just a blue-rinsed version of Corbynism.
It is why I have given up on Westminster. Until very recently, both main parties were cults. Brexit on one side and Corbynism on the other.
I am clearly unusual in thinking journalists in general do a skilled job reasonably well.
Yes I think you are. It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
Are most journalists really claiming they are running the country and do readers believe that they are?
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
The problem is that, like much of business or politics, specialist knowledge is looked down upon. Generalists re supposed to get the big jobs, not dirty handed oiks who know what a logarithm is.
So a political reporter can do ok - because he/she might well know about politics.
But a space reporter will either not know about space, or be edited to drivel by editors who don't know or care.
The exceptions to this are news organisations that employ specialist reporters, and don't mangle the pieces before publication.
Surely the problem is that scientists, engineers and mathematicians rarely write well for a general audience. There are exceptions, but writing well and concisely is not an easy skill to acquire.
That is only partly true. People like Brian Cox, who can continue professor level research and be a good quality TV/Radio celebrity, are very rare. There are a whole host of great scientists who are regularly interviewed eg. on the Infinite Monkey Cage who would make good journalists. The problem is that most would have to comprimise their research in order to become proper journalists. The decision time for a young scientst interested in journalism is usually well before they would be at the peak of their research career.
USC Dornsife has Trump at 45.33, which is the highest score he's had so far. Part of it's just their oscillations because of this thing with the two-weekly panel but only part. (Go to All Graphs -> Traditional Voting Question): https://election.usc.edu/
Comments
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
Exceptionalism is a key part of the ideology, so logical consistency shouldn't be expected.
You sold your souls.
You are stuck with it now. Don't worry though, I don't think there'll be a Nurnberg this time.
My post from yesterday morning:
The govt is nudging us (we have had debates previously about whether a legal requirement is a nudge or not) and nudges work on us overall, not individually. What they should but for obvious reasons can't do - because it would negate the message - is say something along the lines of:
"Listen, our aim is to reduce the incidence of Covid while maintaining certain activities that we all value, such as the ability to socialise, and the maintenance of our children's and young people's education. However, this means that we must rein in other parts of the economy. Much of this won't make sense but please do try to adhere as much as possible to our laws and guidelines as you understand them because overall, it will make a huge difference".
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
I cancelled my subscription then and I don't think I've even glanced at it since. Now I watch news with a filter of where can I find what is actually going on - twitter and google are actually good at that but twitter is inevitable an echo chamber of my views.
Imagine if Southwark had launched a massive participation drive in the 2016 referendum, safe in the knowledge that their borough is strongly pro-Remain?
I'm not say necessarily illegal. But weird.
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
It's OK as long as they stick to journalism. When they have delusions that they are capable of running the country, like Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, then things really go tits up.
https://www.digitalpanopticon.org/Convict_Hulks [edited - previous URL was insecure, sorry]
But why does he have to do it in the open? Because he doesn't have the power to do it himself. All he can do is broadcast his hope that someone will rig the election for him, and hope they somehow do. Hope isn't a plan.
With regard to believing stories in the media, my Dad is a fan of the Daily Mail and Daily Express. Believes every word published. Except one!. Many decades ago he read a story that he was in fact involved in. He got very annoyed that it was factually rubbish. It hasn't stopped him believing every article he has read since.
https://twitter.com/alexmassie/status/1311587865726418944
Obviously you get bad journalists as well as good ones, but as a class I think they do a not particularly easy job* reasonably well.
* ie a job that you and I might think, we can do better than that.
Edit. I didn't address the point of your post. The issue isn't Johnson and Gove's journalism, although I think the Telegraph wasted its money on the former. It's what they do in government that's the problem.
https://twitter.com/AngusRobertson/status/1311592198966849537?s=20
https://www.thenational.scot/news/18761797.tory-plan-turn-old-oil-platforms-asylum-centres/
We've simply refused to grant votes to prisoners regardless of what the ECtHR says. Quite rightly too IMO.
As for it being a newly signed treaty . . . we once broke a Geneva Treaty literally 15 days after ratifying it.
So a political reporter can do ok - because he/she might well know about politics.
But a space reporter will either not know about space, or be edited to drivel by editors who don't know or care.
The exceptions to this are news organisations that employ specialist reporters, and don't mangle the pieces before publication.
15 days < 9 months.
https://twitter.com/GerryHassan/status/1311360354988032006?s=20
Jesus! I loathed Thatcher when she spoke like this about the miners and now the Tories are doing exactly the same to public servants. Anyone who doesn’t bow down before the cult is an enemy. This is just a blue-rinsed version of Corbynism.
I think that journalists obviously have a hard job in terms of gathering information quickly and putting it into a format that is interesting, entertaining and understandable to the general population, a good proportion of whom are functionally innumerate and have a low reading age. So yes it is a hard job. And there are severe financial constraints, especially in print journalism. On the other hand, the sheer extent of misinformation, spin and outright lies, not to mention borderline hate speech, pedalled by parts of the press, is a disgrace. You wouldn't have had Brexit without decades of lies about the EU. Look at Cameron's bewilderment when the full force of the Tory press was turned on him for a change in 2016. It was like a man getting bitten by his own dog.
So while many journalists do a difficult job well, I think as a group they have probably failed in their core purpose more than any other profession.
"self-appointed MPs who have never gotten over the result of the referendum"
In any case, it's good to have an Attorney General upholding justice and the objective truth and not at all pursuing partisan and paranoid agendas.
When I finished my Master's in 90, international email and ftp seemed impressive. When I returned to uni in Autumn 94 to do a PhD, though, the web was already well estalished, it was just that most people did not have access. By that time the text based browser (I think it was called Lynx) had already died as the graphical browser Mosaic was the obvious way to go.
What now seems crazy, is that most of the private sector was thinking "it's free"="it's a gimmick" and could not see the potential to make a profit using the internet.
https://twitter.com/DomWalsh13/status/1311596678428975104?s=20
The Liverpool v Chelsea opening game of the season was 4-3 meaning Liverpool won and Chelsea lost.
Did the Chelsea goals "not count" or were they counted they just lost?
Which newspaper do you write for?
But as for rejection of a Treaty absoluteyl the UK has done that. Literally 15 days after ratification the UK has done it before, did you not know that?
Bolton in line with rest of GM
Hallelujah to the last one.
Viewed at it in that light, journalism is not a "profession". There is no code of conduct and no entrance requirements. As you put it, there is no agreed core purpose to journalism. Over half of the journalists work in print media, where owners consider how much money is pulled in rather than factual competence of what is published. In broadcast media the expected standards are usually a bit higher than in print media, but contracts and promotion are still highly skewed towards presentation rather than content.
But as we keep adding wind capacity the economic opportunity for storage increases and one of the competing technologies may well become better than batteries and win itself a lot of business.
If only I could predict which one!
Hopefully the restrictions will work and not need to be there long.
Seriously - Boro and not Stockton makes no sense. Hence my sarcastic YES! reaction. We are clean, they are dirty. Or something.
As a Tech the local Borough Council 'ran' the place. One day a councillor decided he was concerned by students out and about after 9pm. Students, he declared should be off the streets by then. We pointed out the illogicality of trying to treat 21 year olds who had just come back from being shot at in Malaya like that, but the councillor wouldn't be quietened and created a noise in Council, and consequently the local press. Eventually the story was picked up by the Express who sent a couple of reporters along to the Union Office. They wanted us to say we resented being treated like children. We were trying to defuse the row so made statements such as 'well meaning, but you really can't expect ex soldiers' etc but the reporters pressed and pressed until eventually one our team agreed that 'you could say that'.
Headline in the Daily Express next day 'We're being treated like children say angry students!'
Took another couple of weeks to calm the councillor, who by then had recruited allies, down.
Never trusted the Express since.
Given my hobby of yanking the chains of the gullible, I just missed out on some big money. They were offering fortunes for evidence..... or anything that would hold up until publication time....
Why Liverpool and Warrington but not Wigan or Greater Manchester?
You can drive from Liverpool through Widnes, Warrington, into Leigh and on into Manchester without ever leaving residential roads.
The country as a whole does not seem to mind.
https://election.usc.edu/