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George Osborne argues that the way Trump’s been constrained shows that democracy is working – politi

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  • Don't worry, trans info isn't the website you think it is.

    In a letter sent to the UK Government’s cabinet office, the Road Haulage Association has said that Northern Ireland’s supply chain could totally collapse in just a few days from now.

    https://trans.info/en/hauliers-say-northern-ireland-s-supply-chain-could-collapse-within-days-217181
  • eristdoof said:

    isam said:
    That gave me a scare - for a moment I was afraid we were vaccinating the dogs by accident.

    EDIT - Francis got there first!
    I really don't see what that map means to say - it just looks like various shades of fuchsia? (I am red green colourblind, not sure if that's where the issue lies).
    If you look at full scale, the legend is supposed to say "per Hundred blah blah"

    it actually says "per Hund" - got cut off by the autosizing of the legend.
    I see that now, but we appear to be the same shade as France? I thought that they had vaccinated far fewer people as a percentage. I am sure I'm being very stupid, but a map posted with a one word accompaniment, I would expect to be fairly self explanatory.
    Probably is your colour blindness affecting how you see it, the UK is a lovely shade of verdant green while the rest of Europe, (Denmark aside) is various shades of red/pink.
    You missed out Switzerland and Belaurus and Ukraine and Morocco and Algieria and ...
    Sorry, yes, but I assumed they were white(ish) because they didn't have info on them?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528
    eristdoof said:

    MaxPB said:

    eristdoof said:

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Well it's not good that NA seems to be the same colour as the mid-point. It is also well know in data visualisation to avoid a red green colour scale as 5% of males are Red/Green colour blind.

    P.S Feel free to used Red/Green though if the graphics for your own use or you know your target audience is female only!
    Yeah, it's not colours I'd use. Even the scale I'd probably set to percentages of population vaccinated with a different shade of a single colour rising in intensity until say 5% or above. Probably a some kind of blue.
    blue is bad on maps because people expect water bodies to be blue.
    There are easy to find off-the-shelf colour blind friendly colour pallates. I'm not colourblind, but some of my Students are, so I use them.
    There is a colour scheme inbuilt in Tableau and Looker.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,598
    eristdoof said:

    MaxPB said:

    eristdoof said:

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Well it's not good that NA seems to be the same colour as the mid-point. It is also well know in data visualisation to avoid a red green colour scale as 5% of males are Red/Green colour blind.

    P.S Feel free to used Red/Green though if the graphics for your own use or you know your target audience is female only!
    Yeah, it's not colours I'd use. Even the scale I'd probably set to percentages of population vaccinated with a different shade of a single colour rising in intensity until say 5% or above. Probably a some kind of blue.
    blue is bad on maps because people expect water bodies to be blue.
    There are easy to find off-the-shelf colour blind friendly colour pallates. I'm not colourblind, but some of my Students are, so I use them.
    A decent GIS will allow you to view the colour palette as if you were colour blind (and have various types of colour blindness to select).

  • kle4 said:

    I think if a system holds up under pressure it is working, but that it came under such pressure may be a sign it is unhealthy, and might have revealed cracks where next time the pressure will cause a break unless fixed.

    George Osborne CH was a big fan of stress tests in the financial sector, they were informative, so that's what is the reasoning behind his logic.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    You could, and they'd tell a different but also true story. Just because the viz is telling a story you don't like, doesn't make it not true.
    The numbers are that extreme - for example, the UK is vaccinating at 5 times the rate per day, per head that Germany is. Double the rate Italy is.

    Some raw data - I've put in 2 days because she counters haven't reported for the 11th yet.

    Entity Date new_vaccinations_smoothed_per_million
    Israel 11/01/2021 8249
    United Arab Emirates 11/01/2021 5745
    Bahrain 11/01/2021 2602
    United Kingdom 11/01/2021 2500
    United States 11/01/2021 1909
    Italy 11/01/2021 1209
    Spain 11/01/2021 988
    Estonia 11/01/2021 908
    Ireland 11/01/2021 897
    Hungary 11/01/2021 873
    Romania 11/01/2021 740
    Poland 11/01/2021 575
    Greece 11/01/2021 544
    Portugal 11/01/2021 543
    Saudi Arabia 11/01/2021 450
    Netherlands 11/01/2021 344
    France 11/01/2021 340
    Finland 11/01/2021 273
    Oman 11/01/2021 198
    Israel 10/01/2021 9330
    United Arab Emirates 10/01/2021 5263
    Northern Ireland 10/01/2021 3300
    England 10/01/2021 2711
    United Kingdom 10/01/2021 2500
    Bahrain 10/01/2021 2398
    United States 10/01/2021 1651
    Denmark 10/01/2021 1566
    Wales 10/01/2021 1455
    Italy 10/01/2021 1248
    Scotland 10/01/2021 1141
    Slovenia 10/01/2021 1004
    Spain 10/01/2021 1000
    Estonia 10/01/2021 887
    Ireland 10/01/2021 770
    Canada 10/01/2021 765
    Hungary 10/01/2021 758
    Romania 10/01/2021 703
    Lithuania 10/01/2021 656
    Cyprus 10/01/2021 610
    Germany 10/01/2021 572
    Portugal 10/01/2021 571
    Poland 10/01/2021 565
    Greece 10/01/2021 551
    Norway 10/01/2021 450
    Saudi Arabia 10/01/2021 450
    Netherlands 10/01/2021 365
    France 10/01/2021 349
    Latvia 10/01/2021 312
    Finland 10/01/2021 259
    Oman 10/01/2021 218
    Bulgaria 10/01/2021 174
    Mexico 10/01/2021 46
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,361

    Bloody famous people queue jumping...

    Sir David Attenborough has become the latest well-known name to receive a Covid-19 vaccine, his representative has confirmed.

    Given his age and location, surprised it has taken this long for him to get a jab.

    Shouldn't that be "his representative on Earth has confirmed"?

    And anyway, after his interest in all the wildlife of this planet, it would be really bad form for one of its viruses to do for him. Very rude.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,873

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    Still, helpful to see that Hunt has joined the ranks of the Covid nationalists despite his efforts to portray himself as a sensible alternative to the cocktail of incompetence, venality, and ideology that is the Tory party nowadays.
    People should not crow too much about the position especially early on, and things will need to be seen in the round, as a big picture.

    On the other hand it is possible to get a tad too uptight about people celebrating what is currently a good news story for the UK. We will need to take lessons on a lot of things over this, others may need to take lessons as well, possibly even from the UK on some aspects despite a pretty bad response bad overall.
  • Mary_BattyMary_Batty Posts: 630
    edited January 2021
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    eristdoof said:

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Well it's not good that NA seems to be the same colour as the mid-point. It is also well know in data visualisation to avoid a red green colour scale as 5% of males are Red/Green colour blind.

    P.S Feel free to used Red/Green though if the graphics for your own use or you know your target audience is female only!
    Yeah, it's not colours I'd use. Even the scale I'd probably set to percentages of population vaccinated with a different shade of a single colour rising in intensity until say 5% or above. Probably a some kind of blue.
    blue is bad on maps because people expect water bodies to be blue.
    I mean, how stupid do you have to be to think that Germany or the UK has suddenly turned into water because a viz has them shaded in as some type of blue?
    Probably fairly stupid, but try the same trick with US states or maps that include the Caucusus and you end with some oddly large lakes on your map.

    Good visualisations will avoid things that people will confuse for something other than intended.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    Pulpstar said:

    When do the case and deaths numbers come out again ?

    Tuesday numbers so always look dire even if the true picture is improving.

    When Wales wasn't reporting - 4pm. When they are reporting, sometime after that.

    This was interesting to observe over the Christmas break.
  • Pulpstar said:

    Good on Arnie for calling out the cowardice of the GOP establishment in all this. I wouldn't be shocked if Pence's words were "Please, forgive me master for what I have done" when he allegedly met Trump again.

    I would like to see Arnie run for president – not least because he is an interesting and charismatic voice on the sane wing of the GOP – but it would require a change in the rules as he was born outside the United States.
    I can see a logic to it if Trump remains active as he has the charisma to take him on in primaries.

    He wasn't a very effective Governor of California, though. The story of his time was of profligacy and tax cuts in his early years, necessitating much deeper and more painful cuts after the financial crisis. Whilst that wasn't unique in the financial crisis, and California was hit particularly hard, he handled it more poorly than most and left the state government in a pretty dire position. He left with terrible approval ratings.

    He's not a bad bloke in many ways, but I think GOP moderates could do better in terms of choosing somebody who'd do well in the job. He was out of his depth as Governor in truth.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,873
    Pulpstar said:

    Good on Arnie for calling out the cowardice of the GOP establishment in all this. I wouldn't be shocked if Pence's words were "Please, forgive me master for what I have done" when he allegedly met Trump again.

    I doubt Pence is that obsequious, but I'd bet he told Trump not to worry so long as he looked out for him.
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    For lovers of all things Sweden they have now beaten their first wave single day death figure with 116 deaths on the 17th of December.

    Or as David Patton would say, "flat possibly trending downwards"
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,873
    Looks like they found some barn doors to close.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    Pulpstar said:

    When do the case and deaths numbers come out again ?

    Tuesday numbers so always look dire even if the true picture is improving.

    When Wales wasn't reporting - 4pm. When they are reporting, sometime after that.

    This was interesting to observe over the Christmas break.
    Wales is definitely the most disorganised of the four nations, their test/case data still has 4-6 days of lag while England, Scotland and NI run with just 2-3 days of lag. Everything is being bungled very badly in Wales.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 41,947

    Sheldon Adelson has died, Trump's biggest donor.

    Don't blame him one iota.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,706

    DavidL said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    DavidL said:

    Good common sense from Osborne.

    I'd give it another week before crowing, actually.

    Prediction: the inauguration itself will go off fine, but there's gonna be the odd nasty lethal incident at the odd state capital while it's happening.
    The risk of some nutter doing something nutty can never be ruled out but there is no question that Trump's last days in office have been neutered, mainly by his own stupidity and delusions. That wasn't always a given but as Arnie pointed out democracies like swords should get stronger when they are tempered. The strength of the system has been demonstrated by those who have done their jobs, whether Republican or Democrat, in counting the votes, certifying the results and resisting dishonest attempts to have them set aside.

    What the Americans need to make clear now is that there is a heavy price to be paid by those who inflicted that tempering, whether that is by the impeachment of Trump, the exclusion of elected officials who incited lawbreaking and the disbarment of lawyers who lied to the courts along with a sufficient number of muppets from last Wednesday to make it clear that this should never happen again.
    This what happened when Biden won by a typical winning margin if not above average winning margin. Who do you think would be the upcoming President if Biden had won by a single state and 5000 votes?
    The US electoral system is not fit for purpose. Between gerrymandering, voter suppression, restrictions on voting booths, bizarre rules about the delivery of postal votes long after the event, the interference of political partisans in the process, the absurd level of political advertising, the ridiculous rules re the Electoral College, the insane amount of time taken, the length of time a defeated candidate is left in office with full executive power, it really goes on and on. I very much hope that Biden tries to put through a new voting rights Act to eliminate as many as possible of these flaws.

    But none of these many flaws means that Osborne is wrong. When push came to shove the system worked in producing what people had voted for and we should welcome that. Would it have withstood a harder test under this challenge? I think so but I wouldn't be completely confident.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    The reason seems to be that that many, many countries took the position -

    - This is a vaccine
    - So we should try and jolly along production
    - We should try and get approval as quickly as possible
    - We should then let the conventional medical system deliver it. With a bit of help and extra money.

    The result is what you see. No malice or real stupidity. Just that it was assumed that the vaccine will kind of make it's own way into people's arms.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 61,700
    F1: more calendar confusion. This time over Interlagos:
    https://twitter.com/LucasdiGrassi/status/1348988825863938049
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,456
    Nigelb said:

    Back with masks, the most comprehensive review yet just published.

    https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1348771993949151232

    Nigel, thanks for posting this. That chart on efffcacy of masks is into my slides on IPC already.
  • Don't worry, trans info isn't the website you think it is.

    In a letter sent to the UK Government’s cabinet office, the Road Haulage Association has said that Northern Ireland’s supply chain could totally collapse in just a few days from now.

    https://trans.info/en/hauliers-say-northern-ireland-s-supply-chain-could-collapse-within-days-217181

    Are the Road Haulage Association in any way what might be loosely described as...experts?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    MaxPB said:

    Pulpstar said:

    When do the case and deaths numbers come out again ?

    Tuesday numbers so always look dire even if the true picture is improving.

    When Wales wasn't reporting - 4pm. When they are reporting, sometime after that.

    This was interesting to observe over the Christmas break.
    Wales is definitely the most disorganised of the four nations, their test/case data still has 4-6 days of lag while England, Scotland and NI run with just 2-3 days of lag. Everything is being bungled very badly in Wales.
    I was surprised that no-one else noticed that over Christmas, the updates to the full data set were coining out at 4pm promptly. A couple of time before 4pm....

    Then Wales came back and....
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,695
    On Topic: I think George is being too relaxed. What happened in America was too close for comfort. It worries me also that it is possible here because of our voting system which with a populist could result in a freak result. That combined with our adversarial parliament, based upon 2 party politics of 'us' and 'them' and inexperience in working together.

    I have mentioned before we seem to run a type of elected dictatorship most of the time. I would like to see more working together by MPs (we did during the Brexit debate fiasco, which showed how inexperienced MPs were at it).

    Those in favour of the current system often argue it results in strong Government and it is true that it is more decisive than just shuffling the pack about after an election, but is that a good thing? Those on either side tend to disagree, but they might not with a dose of fascism.
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 4,363
    edited January 2021

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
  • This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904
  • Don't worry, trans info isn't the website you think it is.

    In a letter sent to the UK Government’s cabinet office, the Road Haulage Association has said that Northern Ireland’s supply chain could totally collapse in just a few days from now.

    https://trans.info/en/hauliers-say-northern-ireland-s-supply-chain-could-collapse-within-days-217181

    Are the Road Haulage Association in any way what might be loosely described as...experts?
    Perish the thought.

    Also...
    perish the eggs, fish, milk, and the just-in-time manufacturing.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831

    Pulpstar said:

    When do the case and deaths numbers come out again ?

    Tuesday numbers so always look dire even if the true picture is improving.

    When Wales wasn't reporting - 4pm. When they are reporting, sometime after that.

    This was interesting to observe over the Christmas break.
    Daily Wales figures come out at noon, so I'm not convinced it's much to do with that. Both Wales and Scotland with substantial drops compared to last Tuesday today: 2069->1332 for Wales, and 2529->1875 for Scotland, following on from more modest drops in previous days. May it continue as back-to-work last week gets reflected in the figures.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    eristdoof said:

    TimT said:

    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    You're a numpty. You're actually willing and hoping the vaccination scheme fails. Why?
    Because he doesn't believe Covid is real.
    Doesn't make sense though. If Covid isn't real, we can roll out the vaccine, declare victory then move on. How will the vaccine fail?
    Why aren;t ministers committing to dates for roll backs of lockdown then? what's stopping them?
    Because the rollout hasn't happened yet. 🤦🏻‍♂️

    They've committed to a date for a review, when they expect the first stage of the vaccine rollout to be done. Prior to the rest of the rollout happening.
    And supply is unpredictable, hence a review rather than a commitment to ending the lockdown measures.
    Rule 1 of adaptive risk management - keep planning horizons short, adapt to real data as it comes in, rather than create elaborate, inflexible, long-term plans based on expectations from your model.
    That first rule of adaptive risk management, is not as snappy as the first rule of Fight Club.
    Or Assumptions make a ass out of You and I.

    So as soon as an assumption looks wrong remove it and handle the required changes.
  • Don't worry, trans info isn't the website you think it is.

    In a letter sent to the UK Government’s cabinet office, the Road Haulage Association has said that Northern Ireland’s supply chain could totally collapse in just a few days from now.

    https://trans.info/en/hauliers-say-northern-ireland-s-supply-chain-could-collapse-within-days-217181

    Are the Road Haulage Association in any way what might be loosely described as...experts?
    Indeed, I'm sure the Brits won't make the Irish starve, because we have no history of that.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,231
    TimT said:

    Nigelb said:

    Back with masks, the most comprehensive review yet just published.

    https://twitter.com/jeremyphoward/status/1348771993949151232

    Nigel, thanks for posting this. That chart on efffcacy of masks is into my slides on IPC already.
    It's an interesting project, but it does rather fall into where bears do their business cateogory. If the disease is spread by little droplets, and mask wearing is a physical barrier to those droplets coming in (a bit) and getting out (a lot), it would be impossible for them not to help.

    Very silly that mask avoidance became a badge of honour for some people, and that Trump (and Boris to an extent) failed to become early champions.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
  • This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    kjh said:

    On Topic: I think George is being too relaxed. What happened in America was too close for comfort. It worries me also that it is possible here because of our voting system which with a populist could result in a freak result. That combined with our adversarial parliament, based upon 2 party politics of 'us' and 'them' and inexperience in working together.

    I have mentioned before we seem to run a type of elected dictatorship most of the time. I would like to see more working together by MPs (we did during the Brexit debate fiasco, which showed how inexperienced MPs were at it).

    Those in favour of the current system often argue it results in strong Government and it is true that it is more decisive than just shuffling the pack about after an election, but is that a good thing? Those on either side tend to disagree, but they might not with a dose of fascism.

    The problem with cross party working in this country is the (carefully cultivated) cult of hatred between the main parties.

    Quite a bit of cross-party stuff actually goes on. But it has to be kept in the background, otherwise the zealots would have the pitchforks out.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,678

    The Prime Minister's spokesman has responded to these images of tiny food parcels sent out to families in place of free school meals:

    "We’re aware of those images circulating on social media and it's clear the contents of those food parcels are completely unacceptable."

    PM's spokesman says the Department for Education is looking into this urgently and the Minister for Children Vicky Ford is speaking to the company responsible.

    "They will be making it clear that boxes like this should not be given to families.”

    Much better than the bollocks written by the Tory MP for Middlesboro and Clevelend.

    Whatever the truth of the story, the optics are terrible - especially for Tories - and the instant reaction should be UGH
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    You could, and they'd tell a different but also true story. Just because the viz is telling a story you don't like, doesn't make it not true.
    Well, no. The point is that such a graph would be equally deceptive. The colour scale has been specifically chosen to make the UK stand out rather than according to any objective criterion. And it only works if Israel is omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be just as red as the rest, as LostPassword has mentioned.
    And the thing about that is it shows how bad the colour scale is, because it would be wrong to hide the difference between the UK and Europe in vaccination rates.

    But fragile nationalists apparently find it hard to create a map that doesn't show the UK doing best, so they had to omit Israel.
  • kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,678
    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Yes, so this is very concerning
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    It's a little misleading as we're at the start of a long roll-out process and everyone in Europe has vaccinated a negligible proportion of the public. So it has a scale running from "sod all" to "very few" and makes it appear that the UK is in a qualitatively completely different position to everyone else.

    Look - I applaud UK regulators for approving promptly, and the Government for acquiring doses including of a vaccine which is somewhat easier to roll-out. But it's very early days and we're in a situation where anything encouraging complacency is quite dangerous.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    edited January 2021
    Gaussian said:

    Pulpstar said:

    When do the case and deaths numbers come out again ?

    Tuesday numbers so always look dire even if the true picture is improving.

    When Wales wasn't reporting - 4pm. When they are reporting, sometime after that.

    This was interesting to observe over the Christmas break.
    Daily Wales figures come out at noon, so I'm not convinced it's much to do with that. Both Wales and Scotland with substantial drops compared to last Tuesday today: 2069->1332 for Wales, and 2529->1875 for Scotland, following on from more modest drops in previous days. May it continue as back-to-work last week gets reflected in the figures.
    I was referring to the feed at https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ - they release after the data from all four nation sources is in the database.

    The probable cause is that the Welsh data supplied needs manual intervention to get it into the system.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,231

    kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
    Exactly. Jabs in arms, same for everyone, don't need subtlety, patient care, or curing people of illness - all the things the NHS struggles with. Large scale vaccine campaigns are exactly what the NHS can and should do well.
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    Last time I looked Israel wasn't in Europe. If I am doing a mag survey of a site I don't include the data from a site on the other side of the village.

    Stop looking for reasons to trash data just because you don't like it.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Yes, so this is very concerning
    The "Herd Immunity" headlines were based on assuming the very outer edge of the probability range that the study had done for percentage of population infected.
  • This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Immunity worn off? Or not effective for whatever strain they might have there now?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,456

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    I liked that story of the hacker getting into Parler to capture over a million video incriminating video files before people scrubbed their accounts.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2021/01/11/parler-hack-platform-archived-hackers-capitol-riots/6629772002/
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,678
    Alistair said:

    Leon said:

    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Yes, so this is very concerning
    The "Herd Immunity" headlines were based on assuming the very outer edge of the probability range that the study had done for percentage of population infected.
    My concern comes from a friend, who has some expertise here - a scientist - and she said she was watching Manaus closely, and anxiously.

    I hope you are right, of course
  • FeersumEnjineeyaFeersumEnjineeya Posts: 4,363
    edited January 2021

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    Last time I looked Israel wasn't in Europe. If I am doing a mag survey of a site I don't include the data from a site on the other side of the village.

    Stop looking for reasons to trash data just because you don't like it.
    I am honestly surprised that you can't see why this is a bad representation of the data.

    Also, you have my motives completely wrong. I am naturally very pleased that we are doing so well with vaccinations, not least because my partner is booked for one on Thursday. What gets my goat is deliberately deceptive data representation.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 42,753
    Leon said:

    The Prime Minister's spokesman has responded to these images of tiny food parcels sent out to families in place of free school meals:

    "We’re aware of those images circulating on social media and it's clear the contents of those food parcels are completely unacceptable."

    PM's spokesman says the Department for Education is looking into this urgently and the Minister for Children Vicky Ford is speaking to the company responsible.

    "They will be making it clear that boxes like this should not be given to families.”

    Much better than the bollocks written by the Tory MP for Middlesboro and Clevelend.

    Whatever the truth of the story, the optics are terrible - especially for Tories - and the instant reaction should be UGH
    We shall soon find out the truth of this but the response here on PB would make a great case study on how people react to social media. We have everything from @Rochdale pricing it up from Tescos, adamant that the government willingly sent out a four quid's worth of food for which it paid £30 (or £23) to its mates, to @BigBadPhilThomson saying we don't know yet we need to wait for proof and there's no way it was £30 (or £23). And then there's Marcus Rashford and now No.10 weighing in.

    Beautiful.

    I look forward to the "truth" emerging.

    I hate meta-posts on PB but coming back after a few hours away it seems to be a perfect example.

    My own view? More @Phil than @Rochdale. Let's wait to see what actually happened rather than go to war over one tweet.
  • This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So what passwords are you using now?
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,456
    Gaussian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Immunity worn off? Or not effective for whatever strain they might have there now?
    Or herd immunity was never reached and other factors led to the abatement of the first wave. Or a combination of many factors, including natural infection not providing either the strength or duration of immunity conferred by vaccination.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
    Exactly. Jabs in arms, same for everyone, don't need subtlety, patient care, or curing people of illness - all the things the NHS struggles with. Large scale vaccine campaigns are exactly what the NHS can and should do well.
    To point 1) There is staggeringly little acceleration in many countries. I had assumed that Germany would be up there - anyone got a link to decent article on what is going on there?

    This is the German data

    Germany 28/12/2020 227
    Germany 29/12/2020 366
    Germany 30/12/2020 469
    Germany 31/12/2020 464
    Germany 01/01/2021 443
    Germany 02/01/2021 458
    Germany 03/01/2021 434
    Germany 04/01/2021 482
    Germany 05/01/2021 494
    Germany 06/01/2021 490
    Germany 07/01/2021 520
    Germany 08/01/2021 558
    Germany 09/01/2021 565
    Germany 10/01/2021 572
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302
    edited January 2021

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So what passwords are you using now?
    I alternate between 'AVisthebestvotingsystem' and 'DieHardIsNotAChristmasFilm'

    You have to get very creative when you have to generate 144 unique passwords a year.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,598
    edited January 2021

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So you've ended up with a single password for your password manager that never changes?

    I thought that the thinking now was that enforcing frequent password changes led to simpler passwords, passwords with incrementing numbers or passwords written down.

    Our policy changed to one complex password that does not have to be changed frequently.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,609

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    It's a little misleading as we're at the start of a long roll-out process and everyone in Europe has vaccinated a negligible proportion of the public. So it has a scale running from "sod all" to "very few" and makes it appear that the UK is in a qualitatively completely different position to everyone else.

    Look - I applaud UK regulators for approving promptly, and the Government for acquiring doses including of a vaccine which is somewhat easier to roll-out. But it's very early days and we're in a situation where anything encouraging complacency is quite dangerous.
    Iraq, Belarus and Ukraine are doing amazingly well, slightly less surprised at Turkey and not surprised Denmark is well on top of it :wink: That's why it's a bad chart, because the colour scale includes colours that are used for countries with no data - seriously, I assume Iraq, Belarus, Ukraine and Turkey are not included, but I've no idea whether Denmark is not included or sitting in the middle of the scale (I guess the latter as they were doing quite well and no obvious reason to exclude Denmark).

    Personally, I'd also use more colours in the scale to make the differences clearer in the sea of red, but if you want a UK good/others bad chart (which is not a completely unreasonable point to make at this moment) then the scale choice makes sense.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    TimT said:

    Gaussian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Immunity worn off? Or not effective for whatever strain they might have there now?
    Or herd immunity was never reached and other factors led to the abatement of the first wave. Or a combination of many factors, including natural infection not providing either the strength or duration of immunity conferred by vaccination.
    I think there was some evidence that people go into effective, instinctive lockdown when thing het really bad.

    So when things got better there, perhaps that was just the effect of everyone locking themselves away?
  • This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So you've ended up with a single password for your password manager that never changes?

    I thought that the thinking now was that enforcing frequent password changes led to simpler passwords, passwords with incrementing numbers or passwords written down.

    Our policy changed to one complex password that does not have to be changed frequently.
    I'm not allowed to use a password manager.

    But I cannot use for example 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza' then change it to 'PineappleDoesNotBelongonPizza1' it detects similar passwords and puts the kibosh on them.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,873

    kjh said:

    On Topic: I think George is being too relaxed. What happened in America was too close for comfort. It worries me also that it is possible here because of our voting system which with a populist could result in a freak result. That combined with our adversarial parliament, based upon 2 party politics of 'us' and 'them' and inexperience in working together.

    I have mentioned before we seem to run a type of elected dictatorship most of the time. I would like to see more working together by MPs (we did during the Brexit debate fiasco, which showed how inexperienced MPs were at it).

    Those in favour of the current system often argue it results in strong Government and it is true that it is more decisive than just shuffling the pack about after an election, but is that a good thing? Those on either side tend to disagree, but they might not with a dose of fascism.

    The problem with cross party working in this country is the (carefully cultivated) cult of hatred between the main parties.

    Quite a bit of cross-party stuff actually goes on. But it has to be kept in the background, otherwise the zealots would have the pitchforks out.
    I think that's true, and frequently party reps get on well and work well together in local government as no one pays attention. No not universal. But away from headline stuff I dont see the hatred that party members generally have being shared by the elected, not as often.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 14,114

    kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
    Exactly. Jabs in arms, same for everyone, don't need subtlety, patient care, or curing people of illness - all the things the NHS struggles with. Large scale vaccine campaigns are exactly what the NHS can and should do well.
    To point 1) There is staggeringly little acceleration in many countries. I had assumed that Germany would be up there - anyone got a link to decent article on what is going on there?

    This is the German data

    Germany 28/12/2020 227
    Germany 29/12/2020 366
    Germany 30/12/2020 469
    Germany 31/12/2020 464
    Germany 01/01/2021 443
    Germany 02/01/2021 458
    Germany 03/01/2021 434
    Germany 04/01/2021 482
    Germany 05/01/2021 494
    Germany 06/01/2021 490
    Germany 07/01/2021 520
    Germany 08/01/2021 558
    Germany 09/01/2021 565
    Germany 10/01/2021 572
    Is that jabs, or tens of thousands of jabs?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    DavidL said:

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    Such systems are completely insane. They force you to have a record of all your passwords on at least 1 and probably more devices which immediately become a weakspot for the entire system.
    Yep - that really isn't the solution to that problem.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,774

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    I agree. It's silly by using two different dimensions (amount of green and amount of red) for a single continuous variable (with no logic for the point at which one colour is replaced by another), for using white for the midpoint when this is also the colour for having no data, for not working for colour blind people, and - I bet - using data collected on a whole variety of different dates.
  • I post this mainly to show that there are people out there who think Truthseeker1984 is a good twitter handle.

    https://twitter.com/Truthseeker1985/status/1348732322871468036?s=20
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077
    Leon said:

    The Prime Minister's spokesman has responded to these images of tiny food parcels sent out to families in place of free school meals:

    "We’re aware of those images circulating on social media and it's clear the contents of those food parcels are completely unacceptable."

    PM's spokesman says the Department for Education is looking into this urgently and the Minister for Children Vicky Ford is speaking to the company responsible.

    "They will be making it clear that boxes like this should not be given to families.”

    Much better than the bollocks written by the Tory MP for Middlesboro and Clevelend.

    Whatever the truth of the story, the optics are terrible - especially for Tories - and the instant reaction should be UGH
    Yet there were people on here defending them earlier today...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    TimT said:

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    I liked that story of the hacker getting into Parler to capture over a million video incriminating video files before people scrubbed their accounts.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2021/01/11/parler-hack-platform-archived-hackers-capitol-riots/6629772002/
    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/parlers-amateur-coding-could-come-back-to-haunt-capitol-hill-rioters/

    has better reporting, I feel.

    But yes, hence my jibe....
  • A couple in Canada have been fined for breaking Covid curfew rules after the woman was caught "walking" her husband on a leash, according to local media.

    The woman reportedly told police that she was just out "walking her dog" near their home in the city of Sherbrooke, in Quebec.
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    Last time I looked Israel wasn't in Europe. If I am doing a mag survey of a site I don't include the data from a site on the other side of the village.

    Stop looking for reasons to trash data just because you don't like it.
    It is for Eurovision song contest purposes. It's close to Australia.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,873

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    No one will remember all those passwords when they also change so often. Talk about an unnecessarily complicated approach, who came up with it, the Riddler?
  • eekeek Posts: 28,077

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    I do hope that dongle had a confirmation check when it asked for the pass phrase.
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    Last time I looked Israel wasn't in Europe. If I am doing a mag survey of a site I don't include the data from a site on the other side of the village.

    Stop looking for reasons to trash data just because you don't like it.
    I am honestly surprised that you can't see why this is a bad representation of the data.

    Also, you have my motives completely wrong. I am naturally very pleased that we are doing so well with vaccinations, not least because my partner is booked for one on Thursday. What gets my goat is deliberately deceptive data representation.
    I agree the colour is wrong. But the style of presentation - usually as a grey scale - is one I use practically every day of my life and is standard form for a whole range of scientific studies across huge numbers of disciplines.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    Carnyx said:

    A couple in Canada have been fined for breaking Covid curfew rules after the woman was caught "walking" her husband on a leash, according to local media.

    The woman reportedly told police that she was just out "walking her dog" near their home in the city of Sherbrooke, in Quebec.

    Dogging, evidently.
    Shit, have they banned that as well?
  • kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
    Exactly. Jabs in arms, same for everyone, don't need subtlety, patient care, or curing people of illness - all the things the NHS struggles with. Large scale vaccine campaigns are exactly what the NHS can and should do well.
    To point 1) There is staggeringly little acceleration in many countries. I had assumed that Germany would be up there - anyone got a link to decent article on what is going on there?

    This is the German data

    Germany 28/12/2020 227
    Germany 29/12/2020 366
    Germany 30/12/2020 469
    Germany 31/12/2020 464
    Germany 01/01/2021 443
    Germany 02/01/2021 458
    Germany 03/01/2021 434
    Germany 04/01/2021 482
    Germany 05/01/2021 494
    Germany 06/01/2021 490
    Germany 07/01/2021 520
    Germany 08/01/2021 558
    Germany 09/01/2021 565
    Germany 10/01/2021 572
    This is the link I look at for German data:

    https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Daten/Impfquoten-Tab.html

    It's updated every workday by midday Euro time. They managed just over 60,000 jabs yesterday, a new high for Germany, but still pretty small beer compared to the UK.
  • DavidL said:

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    Such systems are completely insane. They force you to have a record of all your passwords on at least 1 and probably more devices which immediately become a weakspot for the entire system.
    Look, I've not been responsible for any data leaks/hacks for a multi billion company for the last decade, I consider that an absolute win.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,873

    kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
    Exactly. Jabs in arms, same for everyone, don't need subtlety, patient care, or curing people of illness - all the things the NHS struggles with. Large scale vaccine campaigns are exactly what the NHS can and should do well.
    To point 1) There is staggeringly little acceleration in many countries. I had assumed that Germany would be up there - anyone got a link to decent article on what is going on there?

    This is the German data

    Germany 28/12/2020 227
    Germany 29/12/2020 366
    Germany 30/12/2020 469
    Germany 31/12/2020 464
    Germany 01/01/2021 443
    Germany 02/01/2021 458
    Germany 03/01/2021 434
    Germany 04/01/2021 482
    Germany 05/01/2021 494
    Germany 06/01/2021 490
    Germany 07/01/2021 520
    Germany 08/01/2021 558
    Germany 09/01/2021 565
    Germany 10/01/2021 572
    This is the link I look at for German data:

    https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Daten/Impfquoten-Tab.html

    It's updated every workday by midday Euro time. They managed just over 60,000 jabs yesterday, a new high for Germany, but still pretty small beer compared to the UK.
    They started well after. Assuming supply is ok 60k seems on the face of it well set up for acceleration.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,460
    edited January 2021

    TimT said:

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    I liked that story of the hacker getting into Parler to capture over a million video incriminating video files before people scrubbed their accounts.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2021/01/11/parler-hack-platform-archived-hackers-capitol-riots/6629772002/
    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/parlers-amateur-coding-could-come-back-to-haunt-capitol-hill-rioters/

    has better reporting, I feel.

    But yes, hence my jibe....
    A key reason for her success: Parler’s site was a mess. Its public API used no authentication. When users deleted their posts, the site failed to remove the content and instead only added a delete flag to it. Oh, and each post carried a numerical ID that was incremented from the ID of the most recently published one.

    Did they never think / look at why YouTube videos have the random looking ID tag for the link to it. There is a good Tom Scott video about it.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,302
    edited January 2021
    Stocky said:

    Carnyx said:

    A couple in Canada have been fined for breaking Covid curfew rules after the woman was caught "walking" her husband on a leash, according to local media.

    The woman reportedly told police that she was just out "walking her dog" near their home in the city of Sherbrooke, in Quebec.

    Dogging, evidently.
    Shit, have they banned that as well?
    Seems odd, in Canada they encouraged the use of glory holes during the first wave.

    https://globalnews.ca/news/7204384/coronavirus-glory-holes-sex/

    (Again I'd advise all of you not to google glory hole(s) if you already do not know what they are.)
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,231
    Carnyx said:

    A couple in Canada have been fined for breaking Covid curfew rules after the woman was caught "walking" her husband on a leash, according to local media.

    The woman reportedly told police that she was just out "walking her dog" near their home in the city of Sherbrooke, in Quebec.

    Dogging, evidently.
    A friend's aunt who used to enter their dogs into various competitions nationwide, used to tell people frequently that she and her husband were going 'dogging' in their winnebago. Someone had to tell her the phrase was already taken in the end - she was mortified.
  • A couple in Canada have been fined for breaking Covid curfew rules after the woman was caught "walking" her husband on a leash, according to local media.

    The woman reportedly told police that she was just out "walking her dog" near their home in the city of Sherbrooke, in Quebec.

    We observe a more traditional gender hierarchy in the West of Scotland, men do the dogwalking.

    'Glasgow man pulled over by cops after walking woman on leash wearing dog mask

    Shocked locals couldn't believe their eyes as the couple took an early morning stroll through the south side of the city in the pouring rain.'

    https://tinyurl.com/y5zu9cl5
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,678
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    The Prime Minister's spokesman has responded to these images of tiny food parcels sent out to families in place of free school meals:

    "We’re aware of those images circulating on social media and it's clear the contents of those food parcels are completely unacceptable."

    PM's spokesman says the Department for Education is looking into this urgently and the Minister for Children Vicky Ford is speaking to the company responsible.

    "They will be making it clear that boxes like this should not be given to families.”

    Much better than the bollocks written by the Tory MP for Middlesboro and Clevelend.

    Whatever the truth of the story, the optics are terrible - especially for Tories - and the instant reaction should be UGH
    We shall soon find out the truth of this but the response here on PB would make a great case study on how people react to social media. We have everything from @Rochdale pricing it up from Tescos, adamant that the government willingly sent out a four quid's worth of food for which it paid £30 (or £23) to its mates, to @BigBadPhilThomson saying we don't know yet we need to wait for proof and there's no way it was £30 (or £23). And then there's Marcus Rashford and now No.10 weighing in.

    Beautiful.

    I look forward to the "truth" emerging.

    I hate meta-posts on PB but coming back after a few hours away it seems to be a perfect example.

    My own view? More @Phil than @Rochdale. Let's wait to see what actually happened rather than go to war over one tweet.
    We certainly don't have proof that Chartwells are directly responsible for this one package.

    However, the whole social media storm HAS proved a lot of other interesting stuff. Inter alia:

    1. Chartwells (as part of Compass) have a track record of under-delivering and overcharging for their catering, to the point of fraudulence. They were convicted and fined $18 million dollars for defrauding NYC schools. They have caused controversy multiple times. They were also guilty of this same particular sin, sending out crap "free meals" for absurd prices, at the very beginning of the pandemic, in Bristol.

    Why the F did they get ANOTHER fat contract?

    2. There are enough photos of terrible free meal boxes, on Twitter, to persuade me that this is an ongoing problem, across the country (they cannot all be faked; maybe none are faked). And HMG needs to sort it out pronto

    3. Twitter can be quite useful, sometimes, in raising awareness, despite its many flaws and drawbacks
  • Carnyx said:

    A couple in Canada have been fined for breaking Covid curfew rules after the woman was caught "walking" her husband on a leash, according to local media.

    The woman reportedly told police that she was just out "walking her dog" near their home in the city of Sherbrooke, in Quebec.

    Dogging, evidently.
    A friend's aunt who used to enter their dogs into various competitions nationwide, used to tell people frequently that she and her husband were going 'dogging' in their winnebago. Someone had to tell her the phrase was already taken in the end - she was mortified.
    https://youtu.be/5u4hAxi5b6o
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    It's a map of Europe. Israel isn't in Europe. No non European countries are coloured in, if they were I would agree with you but they're not. So it is simply showing the genuine Min/Max scale for Europe.

    Should the UK only be compared with Europe? Probably not. I prefer global comparisons. I think people are too obsessed with just Europe which isn't healthy. But that's another story.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,456

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So you've ended up with a single password for your password manager that never changes?

    I thought that the thinking now was that enforcing frequent password changes led to simpler passwords, passwords with incrementing numbers or passwords written down.

    Our policy changed to one complex password that does not have to be changed frequently.
    I'm not allowed to use a password manager.

    But I cannot use for example 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza' then change it to 'PineappleDoesNotBelongonPizza1' it detects similar passwords and puts the kibosh on them.
    But, presumably, PineappleDoesBelongOnPizza is so completely different in concept as to be permissible?
  • Sandpit said:

    Actual vaccine stats, with no misleading colours.

    UK is genuinely head and shoulders above every G20 and EU27 country.

    In vaccines/population, only Israel, UAE and Bahrain are ahead - two small countries and one tiny one

    In absolute vaccine numbers, only USA and China are ahead.

    It’s THAT good.



    Hopefully we might break 3 million on todays nunbers.
  • TimT said:

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So you've ended up with a single password for your password manager that never changes?

    I thought that the thinking now was that enforcing frequent password changes led to simpler passwords, passwords with incrementing numbers or passwords written down.

    Our policy changed to one complex password that does not have to be changed frequently.
    I'm not allowed to use a password manager.

    But I cannot use for example 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza' then change it to 'PineappleDoesNotBelongonPizza1' it detects similar passwords and puts the kibosh on them.
    But, presumably, PineappleDoesBelongOnPizza is so completely different in concept as to be permissible?
    No, it would know I've been hacked or am under duress.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586
    kle4 said:

    kjh said:

    isam said:
    The more the days go by, the more these vaccination numbers looks like East German tractor stats.
    Why? Do you have evidence we are fiddling the figures? Even though I am very pro European and anti nationalism the obvious question is not why are our figures so good (unless there is evidence to the contrary) but what the hell are the Europeans doing? Why aren't they getting it out? Is there a good reason, if so what?

    I have seen nothing so far to suggest we are making numbers up. On the contrary there has (as would be expected) comments asking why isn't it faster?
    Two factors spring to mind:

    1) Our early approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine gave us a 3-week (or thereabouts) head start.

    2) The centralised nature of the NHS is extremely well suited to vaccine distribution.
    Exactly. Jabs in arms, same for everyone, don't need subtlety, patient care, or curing people of illness - all the things the NHS struggles with. Large scale vaccine campaigns are exactly what the NHS can and should do well.
    To point 1) There is staggeringly little acceleration in many countries. I had assumed that Germany would be up there - anyone got a link to decent article on what is going on there?

    This is the German data

    Germany 28/12/2020 227
    Germany 29/12/2020 366
    Germany 30/12/2020 469
    Germany 31/12/2020 464
    Germany 01/01/2021 443
    Germany 02/01/2021 458
    Germany 03/01/2021 434
    Germany 04/01/2021 482
    Germany 05/01/2021 494
    Germany 06/01/2021 490
    Germany 07/01/2021 520
    Germany 08/01/2021 558
    Germany 09/01/2021 565
    Germany 10/01/2021 572
    This is the link I look at for German data:

    https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Daten/Impfquoten-Tab.html

    It's updated every workday by midday Euro time. They managed just over 60,000 jabs yesterday, a new high for Germany, but still pretty small beer compared to the UK.
    They started well after. Assuming supply is ok 60k seems on the face of it well set up for acceleration.
    So that would add another row to the table above

    Germany 11/01/2021 722
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,428

    Don't worry, trans info isn't the website you think it is.

    In a letter sent to the UK Government’s cabinet office, the Road Haulage Association has said that Northern Ireland’s supply chain could totally collapse in just a few days from now.

    https://trans.info/en/hauliers-say-northern-ireland-s-supply-chain-could-collapse-within-days-217181

    Don't worry. I'm sure @Philip_Thompson will agree that this is simply Boris keeping his promise on there being no border in the Irish Sea and that this is exactly what the Northern Irish people want.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 14,281
    edited January 2021

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    Don't worry my passwords are much more secure.

    A few years ago at work we did a security review and it turned out I was a potential risk.

    Because of the job I do have, I have access to all parts of the company software, systems, and servers and it was deemed me having a single login was a risk, so instead I was given 12 different logins and needed 12 different passwords which needed to be updated after every 30 days.

    And I cannot use any password that I've used in the last year.
    So what passwords are you using now?
    I alternate between 'AVisthebestvotingsystem' and 'DieHardIsNotAChristmasFilm'

    You have to get very creative when you have to generate 144 unique passwords a year.
    If it's an american system the word Bollocks can be usefully applied because it is not recognised as foul language. So Bollockstobrexit is just perfect.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    edited January 2021
    Anyone posted this? (Maybe I`ve completely missed it.):

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55626818
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,895
    What do people think vaccine takeup is like ?
    I reckon it'll be into the nineties personally.
  • GaussianGaussian Posts: 831
    edited January 2021

    TimT said:

    Gaussian said:

    Nigelb said:

    Wasn't Manaus supposed to have reached herd immunity (along with a massive death rate) last year ?
    https://twitter.com/InfectiousDz/status/1348975416225247232

    Immunity worn off? Or not effective for whatever strain they might have there now?
    Or herd immunity was never reached and other factors led to the abatement of the first wave. Or a combination of many factors, including natural infection not providing either the strength or duration of immunity conferred by vaccination.
    I think there was some evidence that people go into effective, instinctive lockdown when thing het really bad.

    So when things got better there, perhaps that was just the effect of everyone locking themselves away?
    That makes sense. Let's hope it is that rather that immunity not lasting.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,147
    In Spain - only registered nurses are allowed to give the jabs and thet are holding doses back to give the 2 injections. Meanwhile the figures are rising relentlessly and it is unlikely that anyone under 65 will receive anything possibly before the summer. I have to say the EU has not covered itself in glory on this one - and there seems no real sense of urgency. Quite bizarre.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,456

    MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    It's a map of Europe. Israel isn't in Europe. No non European countries are coloured in, if they were I would agree with you but they're not. So it is simply showing the genuine Min/Max scale for Europe.

    Should the UK only be compared with Europe? Probably not. I prefer global comparisons. I think people are too obsessed with just Europe which isn't healthy. But that's another story.
    On the other hand, if your comparing stats for something epidemiology-related, comparing stats across the relevant geographical epidemiological unit makes sense for a constrained set of issues.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    Pulpstar said:

    What do people think vaccine takeup is like ?
    I reckon it'll be into the nineties personally.

    I think you`ll be disappointed. 75% tops.
  • logical_songlogical_song Posts: 9,898

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Pay those Israeli Guys $1,000,000 to unlock it?
  • MaxPB said:

    FPT:

    isam said:
    Indeed. Extraordinarily bad use of colour scale.
    Min/Max - Red/Green with the mid-point as white. It's not unfair, just shows how badly the continent other than Denmark and (IMO) Italy are doing.
    Oh, come off it. I've see less deceptive Lib Dem bar charts. Using the same method of carefully choosing the scale and midpoint, one could equally produce a map of Covid deaths per capita in which the UK, Belgium and Italy are bright red islands in a sea of green.
    It is not in any way deceptive. It is a perfectly way of displaying a range of data - in this case vaccinations.

    You would use exactly the same system in any number of different disciplines - indeed I do for greyscale plots for geophysical surveys. Or for population concentrations. Or pretty much anything.
    As has been mentioned, the UK is a very different colour to the others only because Israel has been omitted. If Israel were included, the UK would be a similar shade of red to the rest of Europe using this scale.

    Do you deliberately omit data from your plots and carefully chose a colour scale specifically in order to artificially highlight a particular point? I would hope not.

    Edit: Anyway, the colour scale is stupid for other reasons. Aside from the colour blindness issue, a two-colour scale like this is more suited to data that varies about zero, with red for negative and green for positive. It makes little sense to use it for data which has only positive values.
    It's a map of Europe. Israel isn't in Europe. No non European countries are coloured in, if they were I would agree with you but they're not. So it is simply showing the genuine Min/Max scale for Europe.

    Should the UK only be compared with Europe? Probably not. I prefer global comparisons. I think people are too obsessed with just Europe which isn't healthy. But that's another story.
    Israel is included on the map. No other country for which we have data is included on the map and not coloured accordingly. It is quite obvious to any rational thinker why the colouring for Israel has been omitted despite its presence on the map.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,456
    felix said:

    In Spain - only registered nurses are allowed to give the jabs and thet are holding doses back to give the 2 injections. Meanwhile the figures are rising relentlessly and it is unlikely that anyone under 65 will receive anything possibly before the summer. I have to say the EU has not covered itself in glory on this one - and there seems no real sense of urgency. Quite bizarre.

    But the EU as a whole overtook the UK yesterday in total number of jabs given, so that's something ...
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,586

    TimT said:

    This is why all my passwords are 'PineappleDoesNotBelongOnPizza'

    https://twitter.com/ObsoleteDogma/status/1348996141069819904

    Are you the SysAdmin at Parler?
    Please tell me that was one of the passwords?
    No, I believe not. But the style of security that you embrace is somewhat familiar.
    I liked that story of the hacker getting into Parler to capture over a million video incriminating video files before people scrubbed their accounts.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2021/01/11/parler-hack-platform-archived-hackers-capitol-riots/6629772002/
    https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/parlers-amateur-coding-could-come-back-to-haunt-capitol-hill-rioters/

    has better reporting, I feel.

    But yes, hence my jibe....
    A key reason for her success: Parler’s site was a mess. Its public API used no authentication. When users deleted their posts, the site failed to remove the content and instead only added a delete flag to it. Oh, and each post carried a numerical ID that was incremented from the ID of the most recently published one.

    Did they never think / look at why YouTube videos have the random looking ID tag for the link to it. There is a good Tom Scott video about it.
    My favourite bit - the failure to remove embedded data from video and photos. Quite a lot of cameras embed time, GPS, and a while raft of other information.
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