I usually try to avoid talking about politics here really because I don’t want this to be a political blog. I am going to make an exception right now to talk about a concept. I’m going to try to stay out of the party/candidate discussion, but just want to make a question on this idea. I’ve been bothered though the last few weeks about some things I’ve heard said that no one, NO one I’m hearing on EITHER side disputing. It bothers me because I think it runs contrary to just WHAT we should be voting for and what elections are about. Now, I’m trying to make this discussion not about one candidate or the other, but to the concept behind this argument.
Tag: politics
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Polls, politics, elections, turnout and sampling, or Why polls really don’t make a bit of difference
I’ve stayed away from politics on this site, the main reason is I figure the surest way to offend visitors is politically, these days so many people seem so starkly divided into one political camp or the other, that it seems very easy to step on peoples political sensibilities. I am, however going to talk about politics, but mainly in the general sense to illustrate something I’ve thought about for quite a while and something that is grossly absent in most news coverage of polls and elections. With all science there are assumptions, things that you “assume” to be true so you can proceed with evaluating everything. In the science of polling, the words Sampling and turnout are quite relevant. (What?) In regards to polls, sampling is deciding what the makeup of your poll sample is, (percentage makeup by party affiliation) and trying to match that to expected turnout. But how do you predict turnout? Let’s take the following example of cartoonia….
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Federal requirement to disclose database security breaches?
Fines and prison time are among the penalties envisioned under a proposed house bill. The requirement would be that businesses with database holding information on more than 10,000 people (or federal employees) would have to inform either the Secret Service or the FBI of a data security breach. (The maximum sentence would be five years.) Now, on my first read of this, I thought, well sure – any company should disclose the possible loss, theft, or breach of a database holding customer data. I still think that… but I don’t know that the focus of penalty is on the right shoulders.
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Google News feeds politics and free speech
One of the topics I plan to steer clear of most of the time here is politics. I don’t want this site (essentially for my business), to be engulfed with national political, conservative, liberal, etc… debates. It doesn’t fit with the structure I have in mind. However, at the intersection of political debate and technology there is room to touch on the topic. I’ve found an article which brings Google News into this mix.
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