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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • From Nate Silver’s write up on this poll:

    Yesterday, I complained about how so many pollsters are “herding” by publishing results that are almost an exact tie in a way that is incredibly statistically improbable given the unavoidable sampling error from surveying a small number of voters. I also noted a handful of prominent exceptions — rouge pollsters like the New York Times/Siena College that practically exist in an entirely different universe and imply a much bigger political realignment.

    Another such maverick is Ann Selzer of Selzer & Co. (Selzer and NYT/Siena are our two highest-rated pollsters.) As my former colleague Clare Malone wrote in 2016, Selzer — like NYT/Siena — has a long history of bucking the conventional wisdom and being right. In a world where most pollsters have a lot of egg on their faces, she has near-oracular status.

    Emphasis mine. While polls were decently off in 2016 and 2020, Selzer’s were not, and reflected a significant underestimate of Trump by nearly every other pollster. This poll suggests Harris is being underestimated. If Selzer is correct, Harris wins very comfortably.

    It’s hard to explain how unexpected this result is. Harris proponents like myself were hoping for Trump +8-9 or less, which would correlate to a Harris win in the electoral college. You can still see this on r/fivethirtyeight from the bad site. I’m not optimistic and my best hope was Trump +7. People misread this as Trump +3 and were still celebrating. Headlines aren’t exaggerating here: this is a truly shocking poll. If the real result is even Trump +5, he is likely to have lost handily. If this is as accurate as Selzer has been since 2012, he will have lost in a true landslide. (Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, of course.)

    I’ll link again Silver’s article on herding because it makes a strong case that most polls are not currently reliable due to self-preservation. Selzer releasing these results is not a self preserving move and would be a large pockmark on her otherwise “near-oracular” record.

    You can scroll through my history and see that I am not an optimistic person. I initially assumed a Harris loss before Biden dropped out because RFK was still polling too well, a traditional indicator of loss when dropping incumbent status. I was pleased with her upward momentum— and still am, she deserves a great deal of credit for an excellent campaign— but she has always been the underdog in my mind. This is the most positive sign I’ve seen all season. It helps that Siena’s most recent PA poll was also quite positive at Harris +4 if I recall.

    I’m too worried to be hopeful, but this has made it harder to doom. It’s so unexpected that I take it with a grain of salt, but if she’s even half right, things are a lot better than they feel.





  • Okay so I haven’t heard about her before this but, from this thread and a quick google search, I feel like I know enough. Anyway. I’m hopeful then that the fame will pass— lots of internet fad celebrities fade and become more or less normal people again soon— but she pockets enough money to live a good life and keep paying it forward.



  • Yeah. I started working out pretty heavy way back to stop being underweight but I still go multiple times a week to upkeep. I hate it but it keeps me from this shit.

    Staying fit keeps most of your body working way better for longer. You can feel bodily discomfort in the gym on your terms, or at random on nature’s terms.


  • Recorded speech about engaging in crimes is often acceptable evidence. It’s probably the same with written messages.

    I guess it’s up to the accused to prevent law enforcement from acquiring what they said, whether it be preventing recording, preventing police from sifting through mail or unsecure communications, or preventing police from acquiring the accused’s copy of potentially illegal communications. Which he is currently attempting.

    I don’t blame him for trying, and would agree on a lesser extent that he is right to prevent self incriminating now. But copied communication as acceptable evidence is pretty settled in law by now.


  • I can see that you haven’t been through pain and helplessness at the whim of government, and that’s how you think death is worse. Looks like you also believe they give us options and rights the way they tell you in school.

    This? This says nothing about the proposed solution— which should satisfy you— or policy as a whole. Just personal gripes.

    If you think someone is bad enough to kill, you should kill them yourself and don’t drag it out.

    That’s exactly what they did to Marcellus Williams.

    Let me guess the next comment: bleak worldview, we only know what school told us, personal gripe.


  • Where? I reread this thread and all I see is the same complaining about your personal situation. You only replied one time to that comment, and there was no attempt at justifying anything.

    It seems like you suffered significant trauma and it’s affected your worldview heavily. You saw a story about someone being executed despite evidence of their innocence and came in here not to suggest a better path but to say death > imprisonment and keep bringing up your situation. And yeah, that genuinely sucks and we all wish it didn’t happen. But your contribution here is based on your feeling of misery and helplessness which isn’t useful because the man who actually was executed didn’t want it.


  • You completely ignored the most important part to continue harping on your personal qualms.

    hey cool, then you can request the judge for the death penalty instead of life (people have done that before). But you don’t get to make that decision for other people.

    That is a perfectly reasonable compromise. I too feel that life imprisonment is worse than death, but most people being wrongfully executed do not. You can acknowledge the superior solution then continue on your personal experience.

    I can see that you haven’t been through pain and helplessness at the whim of government, and that’s how you think death is worse.

    Not to diminish your experience, but Marcellus Williams went through far, far more than you have. He disagreed. So since you haven’t been through pain and helplessness at the whim of government as he had, is your opinion worth nothing next to his?

    Of course not. Everyone can have an opinion on the death sentence. I’m sorry for what happened to you, but it doesn’t automatically make you right.



  • Getting started is closer to a tenth of that— the starter kit linked is $10 pre shipping from a brand that is generally considered overpriced in locksport. Buying locks is the expensive part but you probably have a couple of padlocks to start with. And for those £20, you can get the knowledge and basic skills to open the vast majority of locks.

    I’d personally recommend JimyLong’s starter kit if you can catch it in stock but hook and turner will work. Then don’t buy anything else until you know exactly what lock you want a thinner hook or different pick for; that set would open about any lock you can find in store. Spending £200+ to start out is more lockpick consumerism than an actual on ramp since you’d likely be bogged down by too many tools.


  • I couldn’t read the article because of the paywall but I’ll speculate myself. I am a fan of the franchise and enjoyed the movie.

    Sadly, I don’t expect it to see much box office success. The first trailer was truly atrocious (I actually wrote it off myself and only came back during the positive WoM), competition is looking strong, and marketing was dogshit. It looked too childish and undercut the compelling story of the actual movie. And loathe as I am to admit, appetite for Transformers content seems poor.

    Since The Last Knight failed, general audience interest has not been good. The last of the Bay movies performed horribly and RotB underperformed, so the heavy action and violence doesn’t seem to be selling. Then the “good” stuff like Bumblebee and TF: One doesn’t attract the people there to turn off their brains and watch robots smash each other, and doesn’t pick up enough others to be largely profitable.

    But I really think the marketing screwed it. Looked like a kids’ movie but was targeted at older fans. Kids don’t really care about Transformers while older fans didn’t want to watch a kids’ movie. Either way, I’m really sad to see how it’s going.


  • I mean, the title is entirely accurate. From the Wikipedia page about sleeper hit:

    In the entertainment industry, a sleeper hit refers to a film, television series, music release, video game, or other entertainment product that was unpromising on release but eventually became a surprise success. A sleeper hit may have little promotion or lack a successful launch but gradually develops a fandom following media (including social media) attention, which in turn increases its public exposure and public interest in the product.

    The movie has had a very much disappointing opening and the sequel looks suddenly in peril. If things continue like this, and it’s wrecked by Wild Robot, it will fail and be a sign of a “franchise in decline” as per the title— exactly because it’s number 10ish in a series that started 40 years ago. If it somehow succeeds from here, it is a sleeper hit per the definition.