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Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight Relaunches As Data Journalism Website
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "After a parting of ways with the New York Times after calling 50 out of 50 states right in the 2012 elections, Nate Silver has relaunched FiveThirtyEight as a website dedicated to data journalism under the auspices of ESPN. Silver has expanded his staff from two full-time journalists to 20 and instead of focusing on politics exclusively FiveThirtyEight's coverage will span five major subject areas — politics, economics, science, life and sports. According to Silver, his team has a broad set of skills and experience in methods that fall under the rubric of data journalism including statistical analysis, data visualization, computer programming and data-literate reporting. 'One of our roles will be to critique incautious uses of statistics when they arise elsewhere in news coverage. At other times, we'll explore ways that consumers can use data to their advantage and level the playing field against corporations and governments.' The site has launched with a variety of stories including 'Many Signs Pointed to Crimea Independence Vote — But Polls Didn't,' 'Building a Bracket Is Hard This Year, But We'll Help You Play the Odds,' 'Toilet Seat Covers: To Use or Not to Use,' and 'Three Rules to Make Sure Economic Data Aren't Bunk.'
The story that caught my eye was 'This Winter Wasn't the Coldest, But It Was One of the Most Miserable' with some good data visualization that showed that although average temperature may not have set records in the Northeast Corridor this winter, the intensity of the cold when it did hit was impressive. According to Matt Lanza although most statistics cite the winter of 1978-79 as the coldest in U.S. history, the winter of 2013-14 brought a rare combination of miseries that many of us hadn't seen in years, and some had never seen. It was colder than usual, it was extremely cold more often than usual, and it snowed more than usual in more places than usual. Traditionally, big snow winters occur in a couple regions. The East Coast might have great snows, while the Midwest is quiet. Snowfall this winter didn't discriminate; it blanketed just about everybody (outside the dry West and icier Mid-South). Look how many cities had not just a little more, but way more, than their normal snowfall."
The story that caught my eye was 'This Winter Wasn't the Coldest, But It Was One of the Most Miserable' with some good data visualization that showed that although average temperature may not have set records in the Northeast Corridor this winter, the intensity of the cold when it did hit was impressive. According to Matt Lanza although most statistics cite the winter of 1978-79 as the coldest in U.S. history, the winter of 2013-14 brought a rare combination of miseries that many of us hadn't seen in years, and some had never seen. It was colder than usual, it was extremely cold more often than usual, and it snowed more than usual in more places than usual. Traditionally, big snow winters occur in a couple regions. The East Coast might have great snows, while the Midwest is quiet. Snowfall this winter didn't discriminate; it blanketed just about everybody (outside the dry West and icier Mid-South). Look how many cities had not just a little more, but way more, than their normal snowfall."
Oh, for fucks sake now even statistical analysis articles have to come with these retarded click grabber buzzfeed style headlines. Next election we'll have a series of "You won't believe... what a Republican said", "Amazing facts that'll blow your mind about... the democratic party", "4 secrets that... Libertarians don't want you to know" :(
I didn't use my mod points on..
Nate Silver aims to become Hari Seldon.
So he is really working for Disney. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Passionately Indifferent
I guess no one's ever heard of auto correlation. If enough people say something is what everyone else believes then it becomes the truth.
Errr, it's just disappeared. What's the statistical chances of that happening after being highligted on /.?
Choose your allies carefully, it is highly unlikely you will be held accountable for the actions of your enemies
He's becoming a bookie..
After a parting of ways with the New York Times after calling 50 out of 50 states right in the 2012 elections
I don't think it's nitpicking to point out that he actually called 49/49 states right. He had Florida as a toss-up, with a statistically insignificant lean towards Obama. This is an important distinction as it's one that constantly burns statisticians - that element of randomness is always there and eventually he's going to be wrong about something important, especially when people read a minuscule lean in one direction as a prediction. People are going to use that as a opportunity to dismiss him, since there's a political motivation there to do so, just as they dismissed him prior to the last election.
He had on interview on Colbert just before the Superbowl and I thought it was interesting to see just how careful was being not to make even the suggestion of a call about how the game was going to go.
Regarding the winter-misery point: the data may certainly show how unusual or extreme the winter was (as a 40-something in MN, it really wasn't that big a deal), but isn't it particularly sad how hard we're working to prove that we're miserable?
Of course, like everything in 2014, there's a political context (because at least in the West, we have pretty much eliminated every other serious danger that humans have faced, so we obsess over minutiae that would have been lost in the static to any other generation) in proving how severe the weather has been, right?
Yep, it was a long winter. For the bulk of human history, that's pretty much all anyone would have said, and moved on.
Not in 2014. In March 2014, as the days start to get longer, warmer, and sunnier...we're busy analyzing (proving, justifying) just HOW UNHAPPY we were?
That's...pathological.
-Styopa
I much prefer the XKCD "What If" variety of footnotes to the ones that scroll you down the page to the end like they're currently using at this new 538. I hope they make the switch, checking sources in data driven analysis shouldn't be time consuming and tedious.
This. He's not the only one though.. People like V. S. Subrahmanian looking at Computational Analysis of Terrorist Groups are only going to go deeper into this field, and it's only a matter of time before they apply this work to us. We're well on our way to a whole second foundation of them. (I leave it to the reader to draw parallels between various world governments and the old galactic empire, because it'll be different governments depending on your viewpoint.)
Looking at the articles its just another news site. The headlines are emotional which suppose a bias. To me, data journalism means provide statistical analyze without the bullshit of human opinion, emotion. Data is a measure of reality, which is good. Always, good to know whats real. But since every single human has a different opinion and emotional perspective, as soon as human emotion and opinion are added to data, it's no longer reality. It's delude, cloaked sources opinionated emotional interpretation. And worse, this new data, that is only weakly tied to reality, is strongly revelant to those who respond to the article's opinion and emotion, positive or negative. And many will take a positions based on this non-reality. This is how anti-vaxxers, climate change deniers are born and ignorance is spread under the guise of having been informed.
"It’s time for us to start making the news a little nerdier."
Woo ha!
Especially for the TV comment.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The scientifc moron Algore who loudly declared 'the debate is over' and showed he knows ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about Science or the way REAL SCIENCE works.
SO I guess the Warmists these days are still going with ' It has to get Colder to show that its getting Warmer' ???
That Algore-like logic some have spouted?
Some of the brighter ahderants suddenly mutated the name of their belief to 'Climate Change' which unfortunately on one side of the coin all their carbon-whatzits control and poisonous CO2 stuff is the opposite of what you want to do (lets make sure THEY get only to use solar and windmills while we are burning coal to stay warm in that next potential iceage.)
Not to worry, they (as thgey always do) will think of some other hoax to perpetrate and avoid the truth before their eyes.
Like the one entitled, How to Eat at McDonald’s When You’re Monumentally Broke. Of course, this requires that you have an Internet connection and browser-capable system to read it, while being "monumentally broke"...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .