dragontamer @ dragontamer @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

The #1 pain point for pollsters is the prediction of the election demographics.

Polls and statistics are such that a general simple random sample has too little power / weak error bounds (I'm talking like +/-10%, nearly useless).

The easiest way to improve your error bounds is to make assumptions about the electorate makeup. IE: if you know the election will be 50% male and 50% female, you can poll 50 men and 50 women (rather than 100 random people, which might end up as 60 men and 40 women due to randomness).

Lather rinse repeat for other groupings (Latino, Asians, black, 18Y olds, 55Y olds, Rural, Urban, etc. etc.) and you get the gist of how this all works.

Alas: the male / female vote this year is completely worked because abortion is on the ballot. All pollsters know this. Their numbers are crap because the methodology is crap this year. It's impossible to predict women turnout.

20+ out of 34 Senate for Democrats and narrow lead in the house.

That'd normally be exceptionally good news for the Democrats nominee. So I'm with the big theory that something funky is going on with the polls.

We are about to see the most split ticket voters of all time (Vote Democrat for Senate and House.... But vote for Trump in the Presidency), or people have been lying to pollsters somehow.... On a mass scale.

And I don't believe that split ticket voters exist in this election.

I'll be happy enough if its "just" Elon who loses out.

Pascal programmers are confused.

American voting game is one of turnout.

For Republicans, they are in the minority. But their will to vote is much higher. Pandering to his own supporters encourages the get out the vote effort in ways that Democrats are simply unable to do.

Puerto Rico has no electoral votes. But everyone born in Puerto Rico is a US Citizen.

Meaning Puerto Ricans who are currently living stateside (ex: studying at a university and staying enough months of the year to qualify for residency) can vote.

Similarly, a.... Californian.... who is living in Puerto Rico has no electoral votes. Because USA assigns votes by land.

Every Puerto Rican is a USA citizen who has the right to vote. As long as they're living in the correct area (ie: inside the 50 fully accepted states).

Haitian migrants were legal btw.

Puerto Ricans likely remember the more racist times decades ago. And secondly, they are a much larger group than Haitians. So this is a much bigger mistake than the Haitian thing a few weeks ago..

No offense to any Haitians around here. Just talking about sizes and demographics. It's awful that we have a candidate who is so openly racist. But I'm happy that they're showing their colors while we can still defeat them at the ballot box.

The endorsements come from the writers, not from leadership.

If a conservative owner owns a liberal set of writers, muzzling your writers and stopping endorsements is to the conservatives advantage.

Florida also has the Abortion ban on its ballots, so Women are likely going to vote in huge numbers.

Kinda sad that the Presidential election is riding on the coattails of other issues, but that's the nature of today's politics.

Florida is considered solidly red though. But all elections in the USA are a turnout issue.

So yeah. LA Times, Washington Post and now Gannett conglomerate all made the same decision at roughly the same time.

This was preplanned.

I don't think this media takeover strategy is going to go as they hope. This makes the Democrats cause more real and heightens the stakes.

Oil futures were down. Not actual oil.

An oil future in WTI makes you legally obligated to pickup the oil in West Texas or along its pipe network (most common pickup point is Arkansas IIRC).

So let's say you bought an oil future for $0 at $0 a barrel. And now 10,000 barrels of oil are waiting for pickup. And let's say you are a New York speculator and not actually someone with storage.

How do you get rid of the contract before you are penalized? Well, you sell it at -$10. But the guy who bought it for -$10 was also a New York speculator who thought the price couldn't go any lower.

By the end of the day, the speculators were selling the contract for -$40 a barrel, because the penalty for missing the pickup date is very heavy.

Eventually, some trucker 'Bought' the contract at -$40 and made free money as the trucker just had to go there and pick up the oil.

J Lo and Bad Bunny?

At least I hope they helped. The Latino vote is stubbornly in the middle right now. Encouraging their vote looks like it'd help....

The 2nd largest community of Ukrainian immigrants lives in Pennsylvania as well. Remember, 'Feivel Goes West: An American Tale' is about a Jewish Ukrainian mouse family.

Trump team is fucking up with a lot of immigrants stories. I hope they all come out to vote this year....

https://lemmy.world/comment/13137003

I started this discussion here. AP, NPR, The Guardian, Economist are on my shortlist. I'm still looking.

Honestly? Amazon's really crap these days. Its basically Alibaba as its mostly a chinese-knockoff / no-brand location.

All the good brands (ex: Nike) have moved onto their own websites (order direct from Nike). There's also a myriad of specialty stores (Jetpens.com, Microcenter, Digikey, classicpokerchips.com, apachepokerchips, https://all-aboardgames.com/) where you can now order direct from the manufacturer... or actually have a storefront that cares about you as a customer. (Seriously, checkout Jetpens.com, they obviously care about good reviews and how pens feel).

Once you've had the taste of specialty stores, Amazon.com feels like cheap crap. I rarely shop at Amazon anymore, though its taken me many years to find all these specialty shops that I trust.

The few "everyday essential" items I get these days are from Target, Costco, and Walmart, as well as my local grocery store. Its very rare that I ever need a purchase from Amazon anymore.

I'm pretty sure Jeff Bezos was pushing out the old editor-in-chief and making room for him in 2023. Naming him the next head is part of Jeff's actions from last year.

Articles that announce these intentions in Nov 2023 are proof that the plans are already made.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/media/2023/11/04/william-lewis-publisher-ceo-washington-post/

2023

Except when Jeff Bezos installed Sir William Lewis and got rid of Sally Buzbee last year.

Among other changes. But the number of right-wing stories have increased since then.

I'm not part of that group. I watched the debate a day later on YouTube so I wasn't counted.

Ah yeah. There's this highly respected local paper around here called The Washington Post....

Shit.