Posts by David Hood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Rob Stowell,
It’s a sign of America’s weakness and decline that now it is close to impossible to change it.
I'm going to have to disagree with that- it would potentially be really, really easy to completely change the constitution in 2 or 4 years, depending on the next election results.
http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a50672/state-legislatures-republicans/
-
Hard News: The fake news problem, in reply to Farmer Green,
But seriously, were the facts being misrepresented? Was what I said that I read somewhere a blatant lie about the facts, or not?
Yes. The facts were being misrepresented. There is no question Trump won, because he one more electoral college votes due to the rust belt swing states, but the maths in the article is rubbish.
1) Clinton 62,410,968, Trump 61,248,402. The blog post systematically underestimates clintons numbers by half.
2) Winning both the popular vote and the electoral college confers a moral mandate you don't get by only winning the electoral college. This is why members of the far right, in the post-truth atmosphere, are claiming "actually, Trump also won the popular vote". He didn't, but there is value to making the claim demonstrated by the making of it. This is why the popular vote is not completely irrelevant- its relevancy is demonstrate by people lying about it.
3) States, and selective counting of them, is a genuine pointless metric. You will acknowledge that Clinton won a lot more than 6 states, which is not as you remember the article but was the misleading idea that the article successfully conveyed to you. You can see how pointless the metric is by reversing it. Taking Trumps 6 best states winning margins totals, and comparing it to Clinton's lead in the 44 other states, in Trumps 6 "bulwark" (to use the blogs made up definitions) Trump got a lead of 3686806 votes, in the other 44 states Clinton leads by a total of 4111625. By the blogs own logic, Clinton is the winner for being a representative candidate. This is why the blog is misleading bullshit. -
Hard News: #eqnz: Okay?, in reply to Carol Stewart,
Actually, Prudence, the doorway advice is outdated
When I was in central Christchurch in 2011 for the big one, my reflex action was to duck into the doorway I was standing beside, but with high glass in the corridor shattering and coming down, my thought was "No, I want to be under a table"
-
That said, I've been involved in some interesting stuff recently involving using the gravitational response of sections of the crust to determine areas in a stressed state. So there is actual science around gravity and quakes, but the phase of the moon does not have much to offer for predictable causes.
-
Another way of putting it, might be this.
Lets arbitrarily say that, in a particular region, we expect 14 earthquakes of Mag 5 or greater in 1000 years. But when the moon is closest to the earth the risk goes up 7%. The moon is only closest to the earth for about 1/7th of the time (taking a bit of time either side) so of the 15 major quakes every 7000 years that we expectant times of a close moon, one of the quakes in that period might be expected not to have occurred at that time (but might have occurred at another time).
It might be having an influence, but it is not very predictive.
-
Hard News: #eqnz: Okay?, in reply to izogi,
which she decided must have largely misrepresented the GNS comments
Part of the reason geologists can no longer completely dismiss it is that there was an article in nature a few months back that found a very mild statistical relationship with a few faults in Japan with a particular orientation to the moon. But this effect is so small as to make no difference to prediction. So there is now this easy to misinterpret area between "does it have anything to do with it" (which is a very broad "anything") and "does it have a measurable contribution" (is there anything useful we can measure). And that leaves a lot of room for dramatic reinterpretation.
-
Hard News: #eqnz: Okay?, in reply to Hilary Stace,
Is it that moon?
No, it isn't. I've actually spent the past couple of months involved in a lot of planetary geophysics calculations, and I am going to say that the amount of difference the visual fullness of the moon or the closeness of it in the monthly lunar cycle makes is so tiny it makes no practical difference to the occurrence of an earthquake.
-
I could, in theory, see Trump picking a fight with Congress, claiming that the Washington Elite are stopping him from implementing his awesome plans. Because his time is Republicans (if somewhat fringe) I don't know if that will actually happen.
But, tactically, it would give Trump someone to blame for things not being awesome, and we know some of the congressional Republicans are already on his enemies list.
-
Hard News: Be careful what you wish for, in reply to nzlemming,
Trump just announced he won’t repeal Obamacare, but will only amend it.
It is a bit more complicated than that- at the moment Trump doesn't have a plan, and what plan happens is done by congress with Presidential signify.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/gop-obamacare-rift-231272 -
Speaker: No, there isn’t a popular…, in reply to Kirk Serpes,
After all they did vote for a black man twice.
I look at it as they were voting for the least establishment character. Which they continued to do so in voting for what Trump represented.