"In March, he introduced FiveThirtyEight.com, and it quickly became a go-to site for readers whose interest in raw numbers had grown after the close (and miscalled) elections in 2000 and 2004. As his reputation grew online — there’s a Facebook group called “There’s a 97.3 Percent Chance That Nate Silver Is Totally My Boyfriend” — the mainstream media he disparaged for sloppy reporting came calling.
...Between his live TV appearances on election night, Mr. Silver updated his model and determined around 8 p.m., after New Hampshire went to Senator Obama, that Senator McCain had no way of winning. By the end of the night, Mr. Silver had predicted the popular vote within one percentage point, predicted 49 of 50 states’ results correctly, and predicted all of the resolved Senate races correctly."
Full article here.
FiveThirtyEight.
.
Thursday, 13 November 2008
Monday, 10 November 2008
Unknown Structures "Tugging" at Universe, Study Says
"Something may be out there. Way out there. On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.
Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.
Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.
The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger—a multiverse—and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland."
More at National Geographic.
Some sanity returns to the U.S.
Pity about Prop 8 but at least some sanity prevailed.
Ballot Initiatives: States decriminalize pot, nix abortion limits... voters also okay doctor-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research and more...
Ballot Initiatives: States decriminalize pot, nix abortion limits... voters also okay doctor-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cell research and more...
A Butler Well Served by This Election
"For more than three decades Eugene Allen worked in the White House, a black man unknown to the headlines. During some of those years, harsh segregation laws lay upon the land."
Nice story. Teary ending.
Full article here.
Courtesy of @niubi.
Nice story. Teary ending.
Full article here.
Courtesy of @niubi.
Friday, 7 November 2008
MarsPhoenix Twitter epitaph winner
I came, I saw, I dug.
"Our top prize winner, Graham Vosloo of South Africa, is also going to get an official Polo shirt and we have to say that he is a deserving recipient.
"The old maxim, 'Quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur' (anything said in Latin sounds profound) certainly applies!" Vosloo wrote in an e-mail to Wired.com. "I'm super chuffed about this because I've been following the Phoenix Twitter since the landing — I even got up at 3 a.m. my local time to experience it."
We're pretty sure that chuffed translates to "psyched" or "pumped" or the like, but if it's actually some sort of South African curse word, we apologize profusely in advance."
Heh heh :D
More details on the best entries here.
Follow @MarsPhoenix and check out her guest blog stint at Gizmodo.
Nice one on Barry's Leo McGarry
"Barack Obama once joked at a charity dinner that when Rahm Emanuel severed his middle finger, it almost rendered him mute.Rahm Emanuel: Chief of Staff
Change.gov
"a website launched by the Obama team's Presidential Transition Project which documents the transition into power and solicits ideas from the public."Nice!
Courtesy of BoingBoing.
Thank you, America. We knew you could.
"She was a stranger, and she kissed me. Just for being an American.
It happened on the bus on my way to work Wednesday morning, a few hours after compatriots clamoring for change swept Barack Obama to his historic victory. I was on the phone, and the 20-something Austrian woman seated in front of me overheard me speaking English.
Without a word, she turned, pecked me on the cheek and stepped off at the next stop.
Nothing was said, but the message was clear: Today, we are all Americans."
Complete article here.
Courtesy of Dan Washburn.
See also, The World's View.
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
Monday, 3 November 2008
Top NASA Photos of All Time: Star Trek cast and the real Enterprise
Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine posted their picks for the 50 most memorable images from NASA's half-century history.
Shuttle Enterprise with cast of Star Trek, 1976 NASA’s prototype space shuttle was to have been named Constitution, but fans of the Star Trek TV show mounted a write-in campaign that led to it being named Enterprise. Here the show’s cast (minus William Shatner) poses with the test craft.
Courtesy of BoingBoing.
See more beautiful and amazing photos at top NASA pics of all time.
Dean Kamen Q&A: American culture needs a geek overhaul
"What do you think is the most important science and technology issue to be addressed by the next president? What's the biggest issue he should take on?Courtesy of BoingBoing.
Is it energy? Genomics? Is it bird flu? Is it the polar caps—are they really melting? Is it terrorism? You pick the crisis du jour: The answer to all these issues is going to be an educated, competent global society. This country ought to lead the world, for lots of reasons. And we ought to help the rest of the world get educated, because if they are educated, their impact on the environment is actually way less. If they are educated, they'll have better ideas than killing each other or killing you and me.
The next president should recognize the power of technology. Technology is how we create wealth, how we cure diseases, how we'll build an environment that's sustainable and also gives people the capacity to pull more out of this world and still leave it better than when they found it. You know, people always talk about rights in this country—I wish we had a bill of responsibilities. So I think the president has to stop thinking of the crisis du jour and say, "In this race between education and catastrophe, we need education to win." The next president better make sure that all kids are part of the solution, not part of the problem. And with 50 percent of the kids in the 20 largest school districts in the country not graduating high school, they're part of the problem. This is unsustainable. It has to change.
More here: Robots Can Save America from Britney Spears.
More inventor goodness from Kamen on the way
Dean Kamen is working on building a Stirling Engine - efficient electrical energy from heat."Now he and his engineers have built and tested a range of Stirling engines suitable for mass production that can be run on anything from jet fuel to cow dung. The one in the boot of the small blue car is designed to extend its range and constantly recharge its batteries to make a new kind of hybrid vehicle: one fit for the roads of the 21st century. A Stirling-electric hybrid, Kamen tells me, can travel farther and more efficiently than conventional electric cars; it generates enough power to run energy-hungry devices such as heaters and defrosters that are essential for drivers who, unlike those he calls the 'tofu heads' of California, must cope with a cold climate; and even using petrol, the engine runs far cleaner than petrol-electric hybrids such as Toyota's Prius.
However, Kamen confesses, his new creation isn't quite finished yet: 'The Stirling engine's not hooked up. Which really pisses me off.'
But it could work?
'It will work,' he says. 'Trust me.'
*fingers crossed*
Courtesy of BoingBoing.
More here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
