I am more convinced today than I was....

[Crackpot]

You'd think the morons would get the hint that what the country wants is spirited debate and compromise instead of demonization demonization gridlock but they just can't take the hint.

[Gob]

Only 70-30 Jim? Last I saw, Nate Silver, the internet's girlfriend, was giving Obama a better-than 83% chance of winning.

Oh hai, today it's 91.4%.

The political emperors have no clothes, stripped bare by a big-data wizard named Nate Silver who showed dispassionate maths was more reliable than pundit intuition and cherry-picked polls.
Silver, 34, a statistician who previously predicted the career trajectories of baseball players, accurately tipped 49 out of 50 US states (with the 50th, Florida, highly likely to be accurate as well as Obama is ahead with 97 per cent of the votes counted) and most Senate contests.

This puts a check on the traditional pundits and the state of punditry in general. It makes me wonder if we have a changing of the guard.
Clifford Young, managing director of polling at firm Ipsos

It's either better than or a repeat of his performance in the 2008 US presidential elections, when he accurately predicted 49 out of 50 states and all Senate races.

As right-wing pundits attacked him and his “voodoo statistics” for failing to see that the election was on a knife edge – and in the case of some conservative wingnuts, for being openly gay and “effeminate” – Silver held his nerve and for the entire election cycle maintained that the data always pointed to an easy Obama victory.

Advertisement Sales of his book, The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail - But Some Don't, have rocketed 850 per cent on Amazon during the past 24 hours and it is now the second best-selling book on the site.

His Twitter following has ballooned to 374,954, and there's even a Chuck Norris-esque meme, with trending hashtag #natesilverfacts.

Several blogs and news sites dubbed him the real winner of the election. “Data is vindicated ... So who's an embarrassment to journalism now?” tweeted the Poynter Institute.

The day before the election, 20 per cent of visitors to the New York Times website went to Silver's blog, Five Thirty Eight.

Even after Obama's dismal first debate performance, Silver's probability of Obama winning never dipped below 61.1 per cent, rising to more than 90 per cent on election day.

Rather than focus on data from individual polls, Silver developed a complex algorithm that analysed hundreds of state and national polls, weighted the results based on various factors including past accuracy of the polling firms, and then added other data such as candidates' history and how much money they had raised. It simulated hundreds of thousands of elections, spitting out predictions as new data came in.

"Ultimately, what he's done is take a lot of the mysticism out of politics. This puts a check on the traditional pundits and the state of punditry in general. It makes me wonder if we have a changing of the guard," said Clifford Young, managing director of polling at firm Ipsos.

The Australian big data pioneer Anthony Goldbloom yesterday said big data techniques such as the ones Silver used were “starting to replace expert knowledge”.

On Thursday he reiterated those remarks but said Nate's perfect score was “less impressive than it seems at first blush”. “It turns out that for this election, a simple average of the polls also predicted all 50 states correctly,” he said.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/techno ... z2Bb4OFRa7

[rubato]

I posted Nate Silver's predictions here several days ago.

He became famous for predicting, with very precise state by state granularity, the outcome of the last presidential election.

For those paying attention.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

Wonderful, well done you...

But can I just point out that posting someone's predictions is totally worthless, until those predictions are proved either correct, or false, to some degree.

You thick twat.

[rubato]

Yes, some are famous for making predictions, after the fact.

He made them before (and the last election too). And apparently you didn't notice enough to note the fact afterwards.

Late to the dance. The musicians all paid and gone home. And you're reading us the program .

yrs,
rubato

[Big RR]

You heard it here first; over the next 2 years, I predict further erosion of civil liberties in the name of securities, further spending funded by deficits with no (or only a modest) rise in taxes, and a lot of saber rattling with iran. That and the economy will get slightly better over the next 2 years. You heard it here first--2 years froom now post this as a great example of my prescience if it comes true, and just bury it if it does not. The way of true fortune tellers.

[Sue U]

over the next 2 years, I predict further erosion of civil liberties in the name of securities

Prisoners of Wall Street!

[Big RR]

I guess that suffices as well.

[oldr_n_wsr]

All the politico's need to understand is that capitalism means MAIN STREET, not Wall Street. Let the small businesses (who may become big businesses) create their jobs. Get the feds, the states and the locals get out of the way. I know a number of small business owners who cannot or will not expand/hire because of boookooo regulations/taxes/fees (aka hidden taxes).

If Wall Street fails, let it fail, Main Street will go on.

[Scooter]

That's easy enough to say, but Main Street can't run on barter, if the financial system collapses.

[Gob]

Yes, some are famous for making predictions, after the fact.

He made them before (and the last election too). And apparently you didn't notice enough to note the fact afterwards.

Late to the dance. The musicians all paid and gone home. And you're reading us the program .

yrs,
rubato

So rather than accept that predictions are worthless until proved true or false, the retard continues to make himself look stupid. Do carry on dear boy, it's your only skill, and role here, after all!

[dgs49]

Silver's notoriety stems mainly from the stupidity of the masses when it comes to statistics. He was not predicting the percentage of votes that Barry would get, merely the result. The pollsters were measuring percentages, which change by the hour, but every one of them could have provided the same worthless prediction as Silver did (an Obama win), two years ago.

Everyone who posts on this board knew that Romney had only a slight chance of winning, even on his apparent best day of the campaign. Still, one hopes, and the dialog goes on.

[Scooter]

Everyone who posts on this board knew that Romney had only a slight chance of winning, even on his apparent best day of the campaign.

And yet that is what you have been consistently predicting since the day he was nominated. Sucks to be you, I guess.

[RayThom]

Everyone who posts on this board knew that Romney had only a slight chance of winning, even on his apparent best day of the campaign. Still, one hopes, and the dialog goes on.

Good on you. I feel you are making great strides. It appears that you have already made it to step three. Take your time, you'll work at this at your own speed. Step four, however, may be your undoing. You'll either go deeper into darkness with few ways out or, with proper help, start to understand these troubling events that may very well haunt you for the rest of your life. That choice is yours. And then just one more step and you'll be back -- for good or bad -- to your old self. A breakthrough is on the horizon, don't squander your chances.

BO=303, MR= who cares: God Bless America

[Gob]

[Scooter]

He made himself sound like a complete idiot (what else is new). He made it absolutely clear that he had no concept of how those making the projections analyze where the remaining votes are coming from and how they are expected to split. And he sounded like a whiny sore loser.

[Grim Reaper]

And he sounded like a whiny sore loser.

Spending $390 million (via Super PAC) with almost nothing to show for it probably added some soreness.

[Scooter]

Yes, I imagine he has lots of 'splainin' to do to a lot of donors.

[Andrew D]

The Democrats did not have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate after the 2008 election. They won 58 seats.

Two independents were allegedly going to caucus with the Democrats. In fact, however, each of them actually filibustered Democratic legislation. If a member of your party filibusters your legislation, then what you have is an internal discipline problem. But if a Senator who is not a member of your party filibusters your legislation, then what you have is proof that you do not have a filibuster-proof majority.

And, of course, the Republicans did not have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate after the 2005 election. They won 55 seats.

Neither of those elections constituted an "[a]ll-out win."

[liberty]

If 49 is a sorer loser, I must be sorer winner because I don’t see anything changing. Perhaps we bought some time, but that is it. We are headed for the cliff and there is no change in direction. Until we deal with our fundamental problems nothing will really change.