StrangeSox

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 09:09 AM) They polled 612 New Jersey residents on the phone. This is not exactly a representative sample of media consumers.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 09:09 AM) This is exactly what I'm saying. Also, he highlights exactly what I said about this poll and who it's intended for. This poll was tailor made for HIM, and people like him. He already believes Fox viewers are dumb/uninformed. So of course he's here defending the poll. He's even going out of his way to accept the generalization of it's results based on 4 questions. Like I said, people believe what they want to believe. What articles are being written or what people say doesn't actually make the poll "f***ing stupid" or mean that they intentionally constructed it to make Fox look bad. Again, they'd have to have had precognition of the answers to those questions to do so. In which case they're really burying the lead. So, you're right in the sense that the headline is an overstatement but wrong in the sense that it was an intentionally biased poll.

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 09:05 AM) Well, that's the Yahoo headline Also headlines are going to be short generalizations. That's the point of a headline.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 09:04 AM) How is it NOT cherry picking? They used 4 questions. Why did they use THOSE 4 questions? Unless they knew ahead of time that Fox viewers were less likely to know the correct answers, I don't see how you can possibly accuse them of cherry-picking. They're not policy-oriented questions but simple knowledge-of-events questions. Why would they have a reason to assume Fox viewers knew less about those topics? If they did have a good reason, doesn't that still say something about Fox?

QUOTE (CrimsonWeltall @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 09:02 AM) Unless they (a) asked more than 4 knowledge questions and dumped the ones with results they didn't like or (b) purposefully asked questions which Fox News viewers were somehow less likely to know, how is it cherry picking? Right, and if they had a good inclination that Fox viewers really didn't know the basic outcomes of a major event like the uprising in Egypt, well, that's still an indictment of Fox. But where Y2HH does have a valid point is in the overgeneralization and overstatement of the results. This is a pretty limited range of topics, and making broad pronouncements based on four questions is pretty weak.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:58 AM) The problem is, the headline tends to read that regardless of subject matter, Fox news viewers are less informed than people who watch no news at all. Their methodology, which you posted, then shows very SPECIFIC events in which Fox news viewers were less informed. The headline is misleading. To be fair, it SHOULD read -- "Depending on the subject, Fox news viewers CAN be less informed than those that don't watch news at all." So, in essence, I was right from the get go. The poll is f***ing stupid and their "methodology" was nothing more than cherry picking. If you want to check the accuracy and proficiency of a news outlet's ability to convey accurate information, you can't poll every single subject ever. You're forced to "cherry-pick" certain major current events. And unless you have some reason to believe ahead of time that Fox News viewers are less likely to know what happened in Egypt, it's not deliberate cherry-picking to make Fox News look bad. I don't see how you were right that the poll is "f***ing stupid" because it asked basic questions on major current events or how their selection of questions was deliberately designed to make Fox News look bad.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:56 AM) I made an assumption on the "poll" and after reading the methodology you posted, it turns out I was right to make that assumption. Well I think my follow-up question on that is pretty important. When they say "watched no news at all," do they literally mean watched no news or consumed no news? Because I don't see a break-out of a "no news consumption" group in the results.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:49 AM) Edit: I was right. They're cherry picking certain "stories" or "events" and saying that on that specific story, Fox viewers were less informed than those that watched no news at all. I find this claim highly dubious because it doesn't make any logical sense. If someone watched no news, how would they know these events happened unless they heard them from someone else? If that's the case, the Fox viewer could have just as easily known that had they had the same exact conversation with someone that told them. This is just flat out stupid. Do they distinguish between watching cable news and consuming any news at all? I watch exactly 0 minutes of cable news a month, what with not having cable television, but I get plenty of information in other places.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:49 AM) I don't need to know the methodology to realize it's a purposefully biased poll. It's probably related to a single subject, so in that case Fox news viewers were uninformed. Most people tend to believe what they WANT to believe, and that's whatever they heard that jives with their beliefs. These sentences work well together. You're saying you don't need to understand what the poll is about, making an assumption as to its intentions and construction in order to get a biased result. Then you explain why you believe that.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:43 AM) 1Password. I have it on all my PC's/Mac's/iDevices and it synchs up my password lists amongst them. All I remember are my base 2 passwords (the 4 digit pin and master password), the rest of them I get from inside the app and copy/paste when I need to use it. For less important things, such as a forum, I have my browser remember the password. Do you have the problem of soxtalk logging you out if you switch to another device?

QUOTE (Rowand44 @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:39 AM) Thanksgiving is usually my least favorite holiday blasphemer.

Going to my wife's aunt's house first and then my parents house later. Luckily they're about 2 miles apart and at different times, so I get two Thanksgiving dinners with minimal hassle.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:31 AM) That's a pretty flawed/ridiculous argument at best. Here's the actual methodology if you're curious. Full disclosure I haven't read anything beyond "lol Fox News viewers are dumb!" headlines and the strange MSNBC/#OWS results http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 08:22 AM) I know 2 passwords, my 4 digit pin to unlock my password app, and the master unlock password to then read/decrypt anything in that app. I have a different password for every website I'm on, every forum, credit card, bank and every email address I own/use. This is commonly how hackers get you, if they compromise any single company you have an account on, and you use the same password everywhere else or in multiple places, they basically own you on every account you used that password on. The biggest one is having a separate email password, as with this, they can figure out what institutions you have an account on and have it send you a new password via email with the "I forgot my login/pass link". My passwords look something like this (this is just an example): hUi2FaPd39Mmk8 My password on Soxtalk even looks something like that. I have a couple of different "levels" of passwords. If someone hacks my forums accounts password, I don't really give a s***. That's different from my email password, which is different from my banking passwords and different from my work-related passwords.

QUOTE (G&T @ Nov 23, 2011 -> 07:58 AM) Truth is that partisan news isn't news. That's the part the struck me as the most bizarre. How does anyone who watches news confuse #ows with a Republican movement?

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 08:45 PM) I'm getting at the general weakness of these type of "gotcha!" articles when this technique is commonplace on both sides of the aisle. idk you didn't seem to be getting at that when you posted that terrible article.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 08:39 PM) I'm sorry, did you say if they question man-made climate change? I'm not sure what you're getting at with this post, but BEST did that recently and, lo and behold, they found the same findings that everyone else did. Anyway, that "study" used to write that editorial you linked to was dumb garbage and the author admits as much in this new Atlantic article, though he attempts to dodge responsibility for his sloppy, poorly though-out work and his hasty conclusions by a "but accounting for bias is hard!" dodge.

So apparently there was a recent follow up that found what anyone could have predicted: ask questions that challenge cons. orthodoxy and they are suddenly "unenlightened" http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archiv...o-are-you/8713/

QUOTE (mr_genius @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 07:39 PM) WHY ARE THEY LETTING HUNTSMAN TALK SO MUCH. He is getting more questions than Newt and Cain combined. f***ing CNN. I've never understood why you depose him so much.

Well I retract my previous comments because pepper spray is a food product, essentially. It just stings the eyes a little!

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 02:26 PM) See here's the thing though. Tea Party and Occupy have some similarities, but their tactics are entirely different. Tea Party has stuck more or less to law and order, their protests and get-togethers have been largely law-abiding, and they have chosen to use the political system to their gain (instead of just yelling about it). Not to say I agree with the Tea Party platform at all, just pointing out that civil disboedience has been used much more heavily by Occupy. Sure, their protests and gatherings were generally one-day events. #OWS is decidedly different from typical protest movements, left or right.

Diamond and Saez have a new paper out on optimal tax rates. I believe I've linked to their work before on income distributions and tax policy. The take-away is that, if we want to maximize revenues, we're nowhere near the optimal marginal tax rate on the top earners. We'd need to be closer to 76% for that.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 08:01 AM) ckamka Christopher Kamka Let the records show that the only guy to hit HR off Verlander & Weaver (1 and 2 in AL Cy Young vote) in 2011 was Adam Dunn. The only game I went to all year! Sox got 4 off of Verlander but still lost

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 22, 2011 -> 12:04 PM) I'll ask a stupid question here... is there really such a thing as dice-rolling skill? Other than cheating in some fashion? Yeah, I saw something several years back on Discovery on it. There's a lot of physical action involved there, and you have complete control of the dice. Preset them with certain sides facing up and, through enough repetition and practice, you'll be able to throw consistently. It's not a 100% guarantee but you can really stack the odds in your favor. They also showed how dealers (or whatever the table-runner is called for craps) try to throw people off if they see them doing it. It's not illegal.

Reality has a well-known Forte bias.