March 16, 2016
Almost exactly 50% of the votes have been cast in the Democratic Party primary and caucus process. I've been updating a model to predict primary and caucus results all along, and the model has done fairly well. The most recent update, however, was a bit off. That update involved separating states…
March 15, 2016
I'm starting this post before any primary results are in, and I'll add the outcome of the primaries below, where I will also compare the results to my predictions and discuss what I think this means for the overall process of the Democratic primaries. But first, I wanted to get some thoughts down…
March 15, 2016
Rotavirus vaccine is very effective in preventing this diarrhea inducing stomach illness in children in developed countries. But it appears that in certain poorer regions, i.e. Bangladesh, the same vaccine has a reduced effect, inducing sufficient immunity in fewer than half of the children who…
March 15, 2016
The latest National Geographic Roundtable Question: Survivor-style television has grown increasingly popular over the years and done a great job of illustrating our brain's fascinating built-in survival instinct. What role do you think our ancestral instincts play today in helping us survive,…
March 13, 2016
Speech by a famous feminist on the importance of empowerment of women in the business world:
March 12, 2016
I was chatting with a friend the other day about the whole Bernie Sanders vs. Hillary Clinton thing, and it occurred to me that there might be a pattern of independent office holding in the US, especially in Congress. I had the impression that the Northeast and Minnesota, together, had the lions…
March 12, 2016
Most polls and FiveThirtyEight predict a Clinton blow-out on Tuesday, with her winning all five states, in some cases by a large margin. My model, however, predicts that each candidate will win a subset of these states, but with Clinton still win the day.
I’ve been working on a model to predict…
March 9, 2016
I have been presenting various versions of a model to predict the outcome of upcoming Democratic primaries. The earlier version of the model worked like this: Make some assumptions about the ratio of voting preference (for Sanders vs. Clinton) among the different major ethnic groups, and using the…
March 7, 2016
Climate Hawks Votes is running a primary in which you can chose either Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, or No Endorsement.
The web page where you can vote is here. You are required to enter some identifying information in order to eliminate or significantly reduced gaming of the poll, so the…
March 7, 2016
I developed a predictive model for the Democratic primaries that was designed to have the following features:
1) It does not rely on polling;
2) It does use exit polling and other information to set certain parameters;
3) It mainly uses prior primary or caucus results to predict the future, and…
March 7, 2016
Climate Change: A Wicked Problem: Complexity and Uncertainty at the Intersection of Science, Economics, Politics, and Human Behavior, by Frank Incropera, is a textbook suitable for use in advanced high school or college classes, but also an excellent primer on the topic for anyone interested in it…
March 6, 2016
Yesterday, the Democrats held three contests, in Louisiana, Nebraska and Kansas. I had predicted a Sanders win in Nebraska and Kansas, and a Clinton win in Louisiana, using my ever-evolving ethnicity-based projection model. Those predictions came to fruition. Like this:
Predicted on top, Actual…
March 5, 2016
This weekend there are Democratic Party primaries or caucuses in Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Maine and Puerto Rico. The model I developed for predicting primary and caucus outcomes indicates the following results as most likely:
Sanders is losing the primaries, so far, and Clinton is on the path…
March 4, 2016
I don't really want to write a blog post about Trump's junk. But I did feel a responsibility to get this image, the one at the top of this post, out there. If you want to know more about penis size, including the large vs. small hand as indicator of large vs. small penis idea, I've got you…
March 4, 2016
Wildlife of the Galápagos: Second Edition (Princeton Pocket Guides), by Julian Fitter, Daniel Fitter, and David Hosking is both a field guide and a travel guide, focusing on the Galapagos Islands. It includes basic information about each island and each town or tourist destination, and a…
March 3, 2016
There wasn't a "pause" in global warming. The rate at which the plant's surface warms because of human greenhouse gas pollution varies over time. Sometimes the warming is quicker, sometimes it is slower.
There are multiple reasons for a temporary slowdown in the temerature curve, including the…
March 3, 2016
A lot of people don't like the Minnesota presidential "caucus" (which is really a somewhat dysfunctional primary, not a caucus). Here is a discussion of that problem and suggestions as to how to fix it, over at Minnesota Progressive Project where I sometimes blog (but not enough, I should do more,…
March 2, 2016
As you know, I developed a simple model for projecting future primary outcomes in the Democratic party. This model is based on the ethnic mix in each state, among Democratic Party voters. The model attributes a likely voting choice to theoretical primary goers or causers based on previous…
March 1, 2016
The Great San Francisco Earthquake(s)
On October 8th, 1865, the "Great San Francisco Earthquake" hit south of the city of San Francisco, magnitude 6.3.
On October 21st, 1868, the 'Great San Francisco Earthquake" hit near Haywards, east of the city, across the bay, magnitude 6.8.
On April 18th, 1906…
March 1, 2016
Put your stuff in the comments!
Also being discussed on my Facebook page.
Here's my predictions, by the way:
Tuesday evening, 10:45 central:
February 29, 2016
They even have a short list of candidates. Unfortunately, the only available copy of the secret internal report on running a third party candidate has the list blacked out (see above).
According to Scott Bland at Politico:
Conservative donors have engaged a major GOP consulting firm in Florida to…
February 28, 2016
You may be asking yourself the same question, especially if, like me, you vote on Tuesday, March 1st.
For some of us, a related question is which of the two is likely to win the nomination.
If one of the two is highly likely to win the nomination, then it may be smart to vote for that candidate…
February 26, 2016
The latest episode of Ikonokast, the science podcast Mike Haubrich and I do, is now up. This is an interview with Pacific Institute's Peter Gleick. We talk about the California drought (past, present, and future), Syria, virtual water, El Nino and climate science denialism.
You can hear the…
February 24, 2016
The Arctic Sea freezes over. The Arctic Sea melts. This happens every year. The average date for the maximum extent of Arctic Sea ice, based on a period of 1981-2010, is March 12. The minimum extent is reached, on average, about September 15h.
Every year for the last several years, the minimum…
February 24, 2016
Texas has adopted a law that allows students to bring a handgun to class, or to meetings with professors.
As a response to this policy, the president of the Faculty Senate, Jonathan Snow, gathered a group of faculty and gave a powerpoint presentation that included the slide at the top of the post.…
February 24, 2016
I recently developed a model of how the primary race will play out between Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
That model made certain assumptions, and allowed me to produce two projections (well, many, but I picked two) depending on how each candidate actually…
February 24, 2016
A new paper (commentary) on the so-called "pause in global warming" puts it all together.
First let's establish this as a starting point. When climate science contrarians refer to a "pause" or "hiatus" in global warming, they usually mean that the process of warming of the Earth's surface caused…
February 23, 2016
Human caused greenhouse gas pollution has locked us into a situation where the global sea level will rise, at an unknown rate, high enough to inundate most major coastal cities and vast areas of agricultural land in low lying countries, and wipe out thousands of islands. Entire countries (small,…
February 22, 2016
It is all about the honest conversation. And the dishonest conversation.
Corporate Funding of the Research Endeavor: Good
Corporations have an interest in research. They use this research for profit or to minimize liability. Some corporations have their own researchers, some provide grants to…
February 22, 2016
One of the Great Crises we face in today's world is the stability and security of the water supply. In America, most people don't have any problems getting water, to the extent that we tend to waste it, and few people even know where there water comes from. Every now and then there emerges a…
