In Louisiana, we state that if no candidate receieves a majority, it goes to runoff between the top two (or something like that
Yes, that is what LA law says. But WA law does not say that, to arbitrarily have a runoff just because it is close would be a rejection of the election, yes.
If you're talking about changing the law for next time, that's a different thing.
Rejecting a legally held election is necessarily a big problem. You're invalidating the stated will of the people. Plus, it would cost many millions of dollars.
Just because a law is not a 100% solution does not mean it is not worthwhile. If you have ideas for making it work better, by all means, I'm sure the governor would love to hear them.
How will it also stop the many parents who just give in?
It doesn't. It's not meant to. This proposed law -- and every one like it -- is IN NO WAY meant to take away the rights of parents to allow their children to do whatever it is they want their children to do. You're just entirely off-base here.
And how have these "violent" games actually hurt society?
That's beside the point I was making, which is that the proposed law is not a ban on the video games.
It's very clear that what kids see influences them. Less at 15 or 17 than at 9 or 12, but still. The question is what to do about it. You obviously think there should be no laws restricting certain graphic materials for sale to children; most people in this country, including me, disagree with you.
What must be made clear is that the headline is incorrect. There is no proposed ban on violent video games. What is proposed to be banned it the SALE of the video games TO MINORS.
FWI, my server runs off a PowerBook G3/400. The internal HD was dying, and it always made way too much noise anyway. So I partitioned one of my FW drives and moved the OS out to that. Works great, except the built-in "UPS" (i.e., laptop battery) is less useful, since the HD goes down when the power does.:-)
Yeah, and it scares me, because I have Mac OS X Server installed ON a third-party FireWire drive. The only way to follow the directions and update it would be to pull it from the enclosure and connect it directly to the computer... and I am not just about to try that.
I have most things backed up... so I guess I'll just disconnect the other FW drives, leave this one connected, and give it a try...
I love my Harmony remote. I have a DirecTiVo, VCR, multi-disc DVD player, amp/receiver, tape deck, PS2, laptop (for MP3s etc.), and more and I control it all and the TV with the one Harmony remote, and my wife uses it flawlessly too, which is a big deal.
Yeah, sorry, you're right. I was trying to be brief and build on previous articles and shared knowledge... I only meant to imply that hand recounting is a waste of time given the current state of lack of a real paper trail.
What actual ballots? They do not exist. This is the inherent problem with a lack of a paper trail. That's the problem. If they had actual ballots to count, they would do that.
Presumably -- and all evidence I've seen points this direction -- the totals each machine prints up would be identical to the number of "ballots" for each candidate the machines would print up, if done individually.
The idea is simply that printing and adding the votes by hand would be a. a waste of time, b. a waste of money, and c. less accurate than printing up the totals of each machine, which would be the exact same count.
True. But I would argue that the weight of evidence strongly suggests that current models are usably accurate if not entirely so.
Depending on what the use is, of course, sure. I mentioned several posts ago that I was willing to concede pretty much all the claims for practical purposes.
You are certainly entitled to believe this, but remember that whilst a lot of these experiments will require expensive equipment etc, a lot won't...
That's beside the point. You said there is no contrary evidence. There is.
And you ignore lots of other factors, beyond the boolean bias vs genuine interest in truth. There's peer pressure (note that I merely mention I am skeptical, and I get attacked viciously), there's censorship by some of the mainstream journals themselves that were used in the study, etc.
Look, science has been confident of many things over the years that the "scientific community" generally accepted, but could not prove, that turned out to be false. It should be the default position of everyone to be skeptical without actual proof. I shouldn't have to defend that position.
But it is not the current mean temperature of the Earth that is the issue, it is what the mean temperature will be for the next $n years. So I see what you mean, but it is not interesting: the point is not the data, it's the theories about what caused it and the predictions about what it will lead to.
That there is no real evidence to the contrary seems to be the entire point of this story
No, the point of the story is that many scientists accept it as fact, not that there is no contrary evidence.
So when you called me and many other people either propagandists, shills, or duped, that wasn't an insult? Huh. You're funny!
My criticism stands. You attack people who are skeptical, and yet you admit that it might not be true. That's inherently contradictory, and you can hypocritically dismiss me if you like, but it won't change that fact.
We used to think lots of things would happen that never did. Maybe you're right, and it's probably prudent to pretend you are for practical purposes. But we can't know you're right unless it ends up happening.
What I want to know is why it is OK to be a skeptic, unless you are a skeptical of modern scientific theory, in which case you're a nutjob?
The problem is that he was using the phrase to have the same meaning as it has with sampling. His first post on the subject said 42 votes is "within a margin of error." That usage is nonsensical in this context. If he had said the margin of error of the first vote was 219 votes, that would have been fine, but saying 42 is "within" some margin of error is nonsense.
But you admit that you were wrong when you said "Right, because it just concluded" to my statement "There isn't a mandatory hand recount being done now." (I assume you merely skipped over the word "hand" before replying to me.)
If that is what you said, that I replied to, then yes, I was wrong, and most likely did indeed just miss the word "hand."
I'm sure you acknowledge that in especially close races a hand recount is mandatory, so do you think that law should be changed too?
I think it should be reexamined, studied, etc. to come up with the best rules we can come up with. That may include eliminating hand recounts, or expanding them. A hand recount may be more reliable under some circumstances, while it is clearly less so in others.
For example, where the law says that the WILL of the voter is the important determinant, and punch cards are used, we know that overvotes, undervotes, and rejected ballots can be more reliably examined by a human. But this is not necessarily the case for other types of machine-tabulated votes, and certainly is not the case for electronic voting machines, where there is no physical ballot to examine, except that which the machine generates after the fact.
My argument would be that the first count shouldn't be certified as complete until all votes come in if it is so close that those votes could decide the race.
Right. Pushing the primary back will allow more time for the general, which will allow the deadline for postmarks to be pushed back. Still, this is imperfect, when you are dealing with human beings carrying votes from place to place, including provisional ballots (oops, we found another box under the table!).
Either we should accept the second "precise" and "all-inclusive" count as definitive or we should say it is just as good as the third count & shouldn't give the third count ultimate weight. I'd opt for the later.
Well, the second is for precision, and the third is for uncovering possible anomalies, at the discretion of the parties, who have to pay for it. If they uncover such anomalies, more power to them. I don't have a big problem with this.
And again, if they do uncover anomalies, then of course that count should be given more weight. But maybe we could make it so that specific problems need to be identified in the third count, instead of just doing a retabulation. Which is I think kinda what you were saying.
I was just responding to your post using the same maturity you offered. I was just more succinct.
There should be a study conducted of how much votes swing with recounts. This may also help us find (and therefore compare) the errors in elections.
We should do whatever it takes to uncover and fix errors, yes.
There is no guarantee we will have a voter-verifiable audit trail. Most think it is a good idea, so we will hopefully have one.
Yes.
The handling of provisional ballots isn't completely dictated by federal law, but perhaps it should be for the sake of uniformity
No, it shouldn't be. It should only be loosely governed by federal law to the extent of protecting the rights of individuals in that state (such as the privacy provision that the King County judge ignored).
A hand recount wasn't mandatory in this case, but perhaps it should have been.
No, it shouldn't have been. There's no reason to think a hand recount is more accurate (and in certain cases, such as the voting machines in Snohomish County, would certainly be less accurate).
Voting isn't perfect now, but is being improved.
They are working to improve it. It's hard to say if it has been improved.
Error analysis can and should be used in vote counting, in the same way it is used in the physical sciences for any measurement
I never disagreed with this. I disagreed with the idea that you can use statistics to conduct that analysis. You can only make actual measurements to measure error.
The law should acknowlege that the precision of the vote isn't perfect. If there is a procedure for ties (such as sending it to the legislative branch), perhaps there should be a procedure to handle cases where the lack of precision could undermine accuracy.
No such condition can possibly exist, so there's no need to have a procedure for it.
All counts should be done at a high enough level of quality that there'd be no reason to implicitly trust a later recount over an earlier count.
That ignores the reasons why the recount is considered to be more accurate. It's not because it is later, it is because it includes ballots that were excluded the first time around. That was the overwhelming majority of the difference between the first count and the recount: ballots that were excluded because they were late in coming in (postmarked in time, but not delivered in time), or lost, or the machines did not count them properly, etc.
No doubt we should work to improve those, but that is what the recount is *for*: to find those errors and fix them, and as long as errors exist -- that is, forever -- recounts will be given greater confidence than initial counts.
You're saying I'm creating arbitrary meanings for phrases.
Yes, I have used those words.
If you need the definition for "margin" of error, these might help
I know you know the meaning of the words. But you do not know the meaning of the phrase. For example, the phrase "cult of personality" takes on a new meaning if you define it by its discrete components.
And yes, Google shows many people using this phrase incorrectly. You expect me to be surprised? Although gratefully, most of them are not using it incorrectly. All the ones talking about sampling and predictions are using it, more or less, properly. Those using it to refer to actual counting, as you did, are not.
What you are here for is of no consequence to me. That you choose to invent arbitrary meanings for phrases is also of no consequence to me, but I will correct you if I deign to.
Slashdot Mirror
Rejecting?
In Louisiana, we state that if no candidate receieves a majority, it goes to runoff between the top two (or something like that
Yes, that is what LA law says. But WA law does not say that, to arbitrarily have a runoff just because it is close would be a rejection of the election, yes.
If you're talking about changing the law for next time, that's a different thing.
Uh, Rossi won Snohomish.
Rejecting a legally held election is necessarily a big problem. You're invalidating the stated will of the people. Plus, it would cost many millions of dollars.
...and how will this stop on-line sales?
Just because a law is not a 100% solution does not mean it is not worthwhile. If you have ideas for making it work better, by all means, I'm sure the governor would love to hear them.
How will it also stop the many parents who just give in?
It doesn't. It's not meant to. This proposed law -- and every one like it -- is IN NO WAY meant to take away the rights of parents to allow their children to do whatever it is they want their children to do. You're just entirely off-base here.
And how have these "violent" games actually hurt society?
That's beside the point I was making, which is that the proposed law is not a ban on the video games.
It's very clear that what kids see influences them. Less at 15 or 17 than at 9 or 12, but still. The question is what to do about it. You obviously think there should be no laws restricting certain graphic materials for sale to children; most people in this country, including me, disagree with you.
What must be made clear is that the headline is incorrect. There is no proposed ban on violent video games. What is proposed to be banned it the SALE of the video games TO MINORS.
FWI, my server runs off a PowerBook G3/400. The internal HD was dying, and it always made way too much noise anyway. So I partitioned one of my FW drives and moved the OS out to that. Works great, except the built-in "UPS" (i.e., laptop battery) is less useful, since the HD goes down when the power does. :-)
Yeah, and it scares me, because I have Mac OS X Server installed ON a third-party FireWire drive. The only way to follow the directions and update it would be to pull it from the enclosure and connect it directly to the computer ... and I am not just about to try that.
... so I guess I'll just disconnect the other FW drives, leave this one connected, and give it a try ...
I have most things backed up
I love my Harmony remote. I have a DirecTiVo, VCR, multi-disc DVD player, amp/receiver, tape deck, PS2, laptop (for MP3s etc.), and more and I control it all and the TV with the one Harmony remote, and my wife uses it flawlessly too, which is a big deal.
Yeah, sorry, you're right. I was trying to be brief and build on previous articles and shared knowledge ... I only meant to imply that hand recounting is a waste of time given the current state of lack of a real paper trail.
What actual ballots? They do not exist. This is the inherent problem with a lack of a paper trail. That's the problem. If they had actual ballots to count, they would do that.
Presumably -- and all evidence I've seen points this direction -- the totals each machine prints up would be identical to the number of "ballots" for each candidate the machines would print up, if done individually.
The idea is simply that printing and adding the votes by hand would be a. a waste of time, b. a waste of money, and c. less accurate than printing up the totals of each machine, which would be the exact same count.
If the totals don't match, then there's obviously a problem, and they can investigate further.
You make it sound like scientists aren't often wrong, even when they overwhelmingly agree with each other.
You should not make such obvious mistakes.
True. But I would argue that the weight of evidence strongly suggests that current models are usably accurate if not entirely so.
...
Depending on what the use is, of course, sure. I mentioned several posts ago that I was willing to concede pretty much all the claims for practical purposes.
You are certainly entitled to believe this, but remember that whilst a lot of these experiments will require expensive equipment etc, a lot won't
That's beside the point. You said there is no contrary evidence. There is.
And you ignore lots of other factors, beyond the boolean bias vs genuine interest in truth. There's peer pressure (note that I merely mention I am skeptical, and I get attacked viciously), there's censorship by some of the mainstream journals themselves that were used in the study, etc.
Look, science has been confident of many things over the years that the "scientific community" generally accepted, but could not prove, that turned out to be false. It should be the default position of everyone to be skeptical without actual proof. I shouldn't have to defend that position.
It's clever to quote you directly contradicting yourself?
You have low standards.
But it is not the current mean temperature of the Earth that is the issue, it is what the mean temperature will be for the next $n years. So I see what you mean, but it is not interesting: the point is not the data, it's the theories about what caused it and the predictions about what it will lead to.
That there is no real evidence to the contrary seems to be the entire point of this story
No, the point of the story is that many scientists accept it as fact, not that there is no contrary evidence.
Me: You attack people who are skeptical, and yet you admit that it might not be true.
You: I make no such claim.
You, from earlier: sure, it might not be true
Me: now you are proven both a hypocrite AND a liar. Kudos.
It is wise to act 'as though it were true' even if it doesn't show the whole picture.
That's a separate issue.
You can be sceptical about the theory in its entirety. This does not mean you should not accept that there is a demonstrated causation effect.
So I can be skeptical about it, but I should accept it? Huh?
You can say, 'OK, this might not be the whole picture' but you can't ignore the fact that it might be
I never said it might not be.
and there is no real evidence to the contrary.
That's just plain deceitful.
So when you called me and many other people either propagandists, shills, or duped, that wasn't an insult? Huh. You're funny!
My criticism stands. You attack people who are skeptical, and yet you admit that it might not be true. That's inherently contradictory, and you can hypocritically dismiss me if you like, but it won't change that fact.
So you admit it may not be true, AND you still impugn people for being skeptical.
It takes a lot of effort to be so self-deluded: sir, I commend you!
Will it?
How do you know?
We used to think lots of things would happen that never did. Maybe you're right, and it's probably prudent to pretend you are for practical purposes. But we can't know you're right unless it ends up happening.
What I want to know is why it is OK to be a skeptic, unless you are a skeptical of modern scientific theory, in which case you're a nutjob?
The problem is that he was using the phrase to have the same meaning as it has with sampling. His first post on the subject said 42 votes is "within a margin of error." That usage is nonsensical in this context. If he had said the margin of error of the first vote was 219 votes, that would have been fine, but saying 42 is "within" some margin of error is nonsense.
But you admit that you were wrong when you said "Right, because it just concluded" to my statement "There isn't a mandatory hand recount being done now." (I assume you merely skipped over the word "hand" before replying to me.)
If that is what you said, that I replied to, then yes, I was wrong, and most likely did indeed just miss the word "hand."
I'm sure you acknowledge that in especially close races a hand recount is mandatory, so do you think that law should be changed too?
I think it should be reexamined, studied, etc. to come up with the best rules we can come up with. That may include eliminating hand recounts, or expanding them. A hand recount may be more reliable under some circumstances, while it is clearly less so in others.
For example, where the law says that the WILL of the voter is the important determinant, and punch cards are used, we know that overvotes, undervotes, and rejected ballots can be more reliably examined by a human. But this is not necessarily the case for other types of machine-tabulated votes, and certainly is not the case for electronic voting machines, where there is no physical ballot to examine, except that which the machine generates after the fact.
My argument would be that the first count shouldn't be certified as complete until all votes come in if it is so close that those votes could decide the race.
Right. Pushing the primary back will allow more time for the general, which will allow the deadline for postmarks to be pushed back. Still, this is imperfect, when you are dealing with human beings carrying votes from place to place, including provisional ballots (oops, we found another box under the table!).
Either we should accept the second "precise" and "all-inclusive" count as definitive or we should say it is just as good as the third count & shouldn't give the third count ultimate weight. I'd opt for the later.
Well, the second is for precision, and the third is for uncovering possible anomalies, at the discretion of the parties, who have to pay for it. If they uncover such anomalies, more power to them. I don't have a big problem with this.
And again, if they do uncover anomalies, then of course that count should be given more weight. But maybe we could make it so that specific problems need to be identified in the third count, instead of just doing a retabulation. Which is I think kinda what you were saying.
I love it when people resort to this childishness
I was just responding to your post using the same maturity you offered. I was just more succinct.
There should be a study conducted of how much votes swing with recounts. This may also help us find (and therefore compare) the errors in elections.
We should do whatever it takes to uncover and fix errors, yes.
There is no guarantee we will have a voter-verifiable audit trail. Most think it is a good idea, so we will hopefully have one.
Yes.
The handling of provisional ballots isn't completely dictated by federal law, but perhaps it should be for the sake of uniformity
No, it shouldn't be. It should only be loosely governed by federal law to the extent of protecting the rights of individuals in that state (such as the privacy provision that the King County judge ignored).
A hand recount wasn't mandatory in this case, but perhaps it should have been.
No, it shouldn't have been. There's no reason to think a hand recount is more accurate (and in certain cases, such as the voting machines in Snohomish County, would certainly be less accurate).
Voting isn't perfect now, but is being improved.
They are working to improve it. It's hard to say if it has been improved.
Error analysis can and should be used in vote counting, in the same way it is used in the physical sciences for any measurement
I never disagreed with this. I disagreed with the idea that you can use statistics to conduct that analysis. You can only make actual measurements to measure error.
The law should acknowlege that the precision of the vote isn't perfect. If there is a procedure for ties (such as sending it to the legislative branch), perhaps there should be a procedure to handle cases where the lack of precision could undermine accuracy.
No such condition can possibly exist, so there's no need to have a procedure for it.
All counts should be done at a high enough level of quality that there'd be no reason to implicitly trust a later recount over an earlier count.
That ignores the reasons why the recount is considered to be more accurate. It's not because it is later, it is because it includes ballots that were excluded the first time around. That was the overwhelming majority of the difference between the first count and the recount: ballots that were excluded because they were late in coming in (postmarked in time, but not delivered in time), or lost, or the machines did not count them properly, etc.
No doubt we should work to improve those, but that is what the recount is *for*: to find those errors and fix them, and as long as errors exist -- that is, forever -- recounts will be given greater confidence than initial counts.
You're saying I'm creating arbitrary meanings for phrases.
Yes, I have used those words.
If you need the definition for "margin" of error, these might help
I know you know the meaning of the words. But you do not know the meaning of the phrase. For example, the phrase "cult of personality" takes on a new meaning if you define it by its discrete components.
And yes, Google shows many people using this phrase incorrectly. You expect me to be surprised? Although gratefully, most of them are not using it incorrectly. All the ones talking about sampling and predictions are using it, more or less, properly. Those using it to refer to actual counting, as you did, are not.
What you are here for is of no consequence to me. That you choose to invent arbitrary meanings for phrases is also of no consequence to me, but I will correct you if I deign to.