Posts by James Green
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Feed: Saints Preserve, in reply to Thomas Beagle,
Damn all Aucklanders and their oh-so productive feijoa trees!
If I can get buckets and buckets of feijoas off two small-ish trees in Dunedin*, then I can't see why Wellington should be a problem.
*They do seem to ripen a month or two later though
As for your feijoas, I do enjoy them fresh, but apart from giving them away, the answer must surely be feijoa sorbet!!
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Hard News: Polls: news you can own, in reply to Russell Brown,
Being asked to quantify my feelings from 1-7 on 20 minutes’ worth of repetitive, barely distinguishable questions is not at all my idea of a good time.
Though presumably at least one person suggested that "Spark" sounded "dynamic" and "innovative" ...
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Hard News: Polls: news you can own, in reply to Russell Brown,
I blame brand perception surveys. Being asked to quantify my feelings from 1-7 on 20 minutes’ worth of repetitive, barely distinguishable questions is not at all my idea of a good time. The dropout rate during those surveys must be huge.
They are certainly part of the problem, along with sales calls, donation soliciting etc. There are periods of the day where it is almost not worth answering the phone. The other issue, that you highlight there, is that the response of some to people not taking part is to make the surveys longer and continuing to try to bother more people until you achieve your desired sample size, both of which jade more people and make response worse.
And then there are all the other surveys, for students, for your car repairer, for the community organisations you belong to. Many of which are too long, too ambiguous, or don't involve any actual sampling, and are sent to every person they can... </rant>
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I’d also point out that political polling has grown up around trying to predict two horse races, with relatively little interest in those dwelling in single digits. In contrast, in New Zealand, we have a very great interest in the results of our small parties.
A second important issue in play here is that in certain respects MMP makes political polling “easier”, but probably less accurate. In an FPP system you need to be able to predict the outcome of each race. This then means that you’d need to know which races were so blue/red that they effectively didn’t need polling, but would need to be able to poll individual seats to understand their outcome to forecast an overall result. In contrast, because MMP is proportional, there is no great need to understand voter patterns in anything less than the whole country.
So to contrast polling in NZ with say Nate Silver’s 538 forecasts, Silver has far, far more polls to work with, as the pollsters try to understand each senate race and electoral college seat and congressional district. And not just more polls, but much better resolution. This brings me back to my initial point, that in New Zealand we are really interestd in the fate of the small parties, but our National polls have quite low resolution, as well as being less numerous.
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In my academic (and non-political) research, we've also found non-response to be an enormous issue. It's clear that people are increasingly sick of answering cold calls. The political pollsters clearly have some tricks up their sleeves, as their reponse rate is higher than we've been able to get, but in our experience, upward of 50% aren't even interested in talking.
I'd also recommend Andrew's best estimate of the actual methods of the five public polls.
http://grumpollie.wordpress.com/nz-public-poll-methods-grid/ -
The Talking Head's remix was sounding a bit Thicke, but after I ran my lappy through my office stereo, I no longer hear this. Phew!
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Hard News: Friday Music: Little, but…, in reply to Stephen D. O'Hoy,
2003?? Surely that was only a few years ago...
Though one thing on my list before I come back next week is to walk out and take a photograph of a sign for the 'D4' road.
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Excellent timing. We'll be in Edinburgh on Monday, and in need of a good playground!
(Geoff - is the museum of childhood for adults to reminisce, or does it appeal to small people as well?)
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I don't engage well with video. Too impatient, perhaps. I've always despised video tutorials, and finally crystallised my objection when I realised recently that I'd rather google for a transcript than watch a Ted Talk. Reading is faster, you can skip over the bits that are less of interest, and easily re-read the bits you need to read again. You can highlight and share salient sentences with others.
Media 7 was the only current affairs television that I watched, but not every week. Suffice it to say, I'm really loving that you're back. I used to be here several times a day, but need to get back in to that habit.
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Hard News: Dressing for the Road, in reply to BenWilson,
I’d believe it. Occasionally I’ve rambled around like this for 3-4 hours without feeling noticeably tired at all – it’s less effort than concerted walking for the same amount of time, and 50km slips behind you.
We did 40 something kilometres of the Central Otago Rail Trail yesterday at this sort of pace (~13km), and it's achievable for someone who hasn't been on a bike in months. Of course helped by the fact that we were also heading mildly downhill most of the way.