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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 27th, 2023

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  • From Nate Silver’s write up on this poll:

    Yesterday, I complained about how so many pollsters are “herding” by publishing results that are almost an exact tie in a way that is incredibly statistically improbable given the unavoidable sampling error from surveying a small number of voters. I also noted a handful of prominent exceptions — rouge pollsters like the New York Times/Siena College that practically exist in an entirely different universe and imply a much bigger political realignment.

    Another such maverick is Ann Selzer of Selzer & Co. (Selzer and NYT/Siena are our two highest-rated pollsters.) As my former colleague Clare Malone wrote in 2016, Selzer — like NYT/Siena — has a long history of bucking the conventional wisdom and being right. In a world where most pollsters have a lot of egg on their faces, she has near-oracular status.

    Emphasis mine. While polls were decently off in 2016 and 2020, Selzer’s were not, and reflected a significant underestimate of Trump by nearly every other pollster. This poll suggests Harris is being underestimated. If Selzer is correct, Harris wins very comfortably.

    It’s hard to explain how unexpected this result is. Harris proponents like myself were hoping for Trump +8-9 or less, which would correlate to a Harris win in the electoral college. You can still see this on r/fivethirtyeight from the bad site. I’m not optimistic and my best hope was Trump +7. People misread this as Trump +3 and were still celebrating. Headlines aren’t exaggerating here: this is a truly shocking poll. If the real result is even Trump +5, he is likely to have lost handily. If this is as accurate as Selzer has been since 2012, he will have lost in a true landslide. (Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, of course.)

    I’ll link again Silver’s article on herding because it makes a strong case that most polls are not currently reliable due to self-preservation. Selzer releasing these results is not a self preserving move and would be a large pockmark on her otherwise “near-oracular” record.

    You can scroll through my history and see that I am not an optimistic person. I initially assumed a Harris loss before Biden dropped out because RFK was still polling too well, a traditional indicator of loss when dropping incumbent status. I was pleased with her upward momentum— and still am, she deserves a great deal of credit for an excellent campaign— but she has always been the underdog in my mind. This is the most positive sign I’ve seen all season. It helps that Siena’s most recent PA poll was also quite positive at Harris +4 if I recall.

    I’m too worried to be hopeful, but this has made it harder to doom. It’s so unexpected that I take it with a grain of salt, but if she’s even half right, things are a lot better than they feel.





  • Okay so I haven’t heard about her before this but, from this thread and a quick google search, I feel like I know enough. Anyway. I’m hopeful then that the fame will pass— lots of internet fad celebrities fade and become more or less normal people again soon— but she pockets enough money to live a good life and keep paying it forward.


  • Recorded speech about engaging in crimes is often acceptable evidence. It’s probably the same with written messages.

    I guess it’s up to the accused to prevent law enforcement from acquiring what they said, whether it be preventing recording, preventing police from sifting through mail or unsecure communications, or preventing police from acquiring the accused’s copy of potentially illegal communications. Which he is currently attempting.

    I don’t blame him for trying, and would agree on a lesser extent that he is right to prevent self incriminating now. But copied communication as acceptable evidence is pretty settled in law by now.


  • Long Covid and chance of severe illness/death each time. Yeah, it sucks to feel like shit for a day or two, but I would regret trading that for long covid.

    There’s so many places to go, incredible food to try, relationships to keep, new and old experiences in general. Long covid or death impacts every single one. So I always just sigh and get it.

    Finally, it’s better societally as we could keep transmission low. There is always the chance that you get it and unknowingly spread it to someone with a compromised immune system and they die. That death impacts their family, friends, and the economy if that particularly matters to you. The social contract asks us to sacrifice a little for the sake of the greater good, but it does not demand it.

    Still, I don’t terribly fault people for skipping it these days. That kind of risk is often accepted with non-covid things. Humans don’t like discomfort for the sake of a future maybe. If I wasn’t so concerned about my own quality of life, perhaps I’d skip it too.

    Edit: I was scrolling through my calendar and realized another massive reason I always get the vaccine. It allows you to choose your own window of feeling like shit. For example, I travel a lot and wouldn’t want to miss any of it by getting covid. Choosing a couple random days to tank the shit feeling means a lower chance of feeling like shit in another country when I’m not prepared. Truly I envy those who feel fine after the shot.




  • Getting started is closer to a tenth of that— the starter kit linked is $10 pre shipping from a brand that is generally considered overpriced in locksport. Buying locks is the expensive part but you probably have a couple of padlocks to start with. And for those £20, you can get the knowledge and basic skills to open the vast majority of locks.

    I’d personally recommend JimyLong’s starter kit if you can catch it in stock but hook and turner will work. Then don’t buy anything else until you know exactly what lock you want a thinner hook or different pick for; that set would open about any lock you can find in store. Spending £200+ to start out is more lockpick consumerism than an actual on ramp since you’d likely be bogged down by too many tools.








  • While I don’t care much about the subject, I do actually care about ineffective communication and how it presents. Indeed, I have made a few comments like that— specifically putting the reason a comment failed to communicate— in the hopes that at least one person will avoid that particular pitfall next time. I don’t do it as much as I’d like to because sometimes it’s hard to condense why a comment failed, but this one was pretty easy.

    For the sake of argument though, making quips would still be better than worthless comments like your original one even if they didn’t communicate something. Among every form of discourse, quips are vastly better liked than “not true but I can’t prove it” to everyone but the guy being called out.


  • Nah don’t care, that subject itself doesn’t affect or interest me. Just saying that you convinced no one and that your comment provided no value besides a few upvotes for me, which don’t even matter on this site. I also intended it more for others who might be inclined to do the same thing rather than you yourself.

    If you actually ever want to change minds or prevent the spread of misinformation (which I’m still not convinced it is because again, you provided no evidence and I still don’t care), it’s a good idea to actually elaborate instead of just saying “not true”. The only people convinced by empty comments like yours will be convinced the other way by the next evidence-free claim.

    Btw I genuinely don’t see how the info would change my life for the better so if you are gonna start trying now, just edit it into your og comment or something, I probably won’t be back in this thread again