Archive for September 2008
- In: Election '08 | Internet
- 1 Comment
Listening to/watching/reading election coverage, we’re constantly bombarded with polls. There are 7,490,000 results on google just for searching “election polls 2008.” A few examples:
CNN Politics Page: “Poll of Polls” on front page: Obama 49% McCain 44&, no margin of error.
MSNBC Politics Page: “National NBC/WSJ Poll” on front page: Obama 47%, McCain 46%, no margin of error listed.
CBS News Politics Page: National Poll from RealClearPolitics.com: Obama 47.9%, McCain 44.4%, no margin of error listed.
Yahoo Elections: Also national from RealClearPolitics, however: Obama 47.8%, McCain 44.1%, still no error margin.
AOL Elections: “Washington Post/ABC News national poll”: Obama 52%, McCain 43%, error margin +/- 3%
Okay. Now all 5 of these were accessed online, they were all the front page poll of each respective site, and they were all accessed within half an hour of each other. While each poll does show Obama in the lead, one shows the lead as 1%, while another shows it as 9%! The poll on AOL was the only one that gave an error of margin, and I had to click through to another story just to get that.
If you want a lot of fun with polls, you can go to USAElectionPolls.com. They have all sorts of polls: each state, national, various dates, various tv stations, you name it.
Here’s the thing about polls. Well, things.
1) Obviously not every political poll can be labeled scientific, especially seen in that just the 5 I listed gave a 5 point range for Obama and a 3 point range for McCain.
2) We are never told what the question was. We just hear “Obama pulled ahead of McCain in the latest polls.” As most people who have ever administered/taken a poll can tell you, the way you phrase the question can really affect the answers you receive.
3) There’s a lot of different polls out there. There’s also a lot of different ways you can combine those polls, and a lot of different numbers you can get by doing so. Who’s to say that someone can’t find the combination of pollls that gives them the numbers they want, and broadcast them?
This all being said, I’m going to do a little experiment. I’m going to take my own poll and see how my answers compare.
Be careful what you post…
Posted on: September 22, 2008
- In: Amusing | College Life | Internet
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Everyone has heard the “be careful what you post online” warning. Most of the time, it refers to avoiding internet predators and not avoiding losing your job.
Buy did you ever think it would also refer to avoiding a heavy income tax? Apparently neither did some kids in Oaklahoma.
Reading the AOL Weird News, I came across this story. Basically, some OK college students were bragging on MySpace about how successful their party hosting business was. Apparently, other students weren’t the only ones reading. The business got slammed with $320,000 in taxes.
According to the article, the students say that the claims of “over 1 billion served” on the website were overexaggerations purely designed to draw in more customers.
Either way, it still goes to show that you never really know who’s reading what you post.
Wake up, drive, work, class, lunch, class, work, drive, sleep, repeat.
When does life become the directions on a shampoo bottle? Probably around the same time you realize that whoever invented the Day didn’t schedule enough hours for it.
Image Source: http://www.smart-kit.com
Walking around the Quinnipiac campus, you see evidence of this everywhere:
-“yeah I had to schedule my lunch in my planner today”
-“I was up until 3am writing that paper”
-“sorry, I didn’t have time”
Our society capitalizes on the concept of having no time. Google “no time to exercise” or “no time to eat” or even “time management” and see how many results you get. Time management tutorials, seminars, books, videos, websites, etc are everywhere, banking on the idea that people take on too much, and therefore have no time.
But what can be done about this epidemic? The Internet houses many different ideas, from the literal 28 hour day to the theoretical 36 hour day. Personally, I feel that there are two solutions. One is that we convince Congress to pass a law adding four to eight hours to the day. The other is that we take a look at our typical day and scale back what we’re doing to a more manageable level.
I’ll get started on that letter to Congress.
Miscellaneously Yours 