Jury Nullification

Missoulan

Jury nullification is a situation in which a jury purposely reaches a verdict that is contrary to law and evidence. This is generally done when a law or it's application is considered to be unjust, so the jury acquits a defendant that is clearly guilty, effectively rendering the law null and void. There is an estimate that 60% of trials dealing with alcohol control during prohibition ended with nullification.

The case in the linked article is a situation wherein, if the case had gone to trial, jury nullification would have taken place. However, it ended up not going to trial because despite the other charges the defendant faced, only five people during jury selection were willing to convict a man of the charge of possessing 1/6 of an ounce of marijuana.

Joining the Euro

Currently 11 of the 27 EU countries have not yet adopted the Euro. Estonia will be joining the Eurozone in January. Of the the remaining 10 countries two (UK and Denmark) have opt-outs that allow them to never join and one (Sweden) just found a loophole that allowed it to delay joining indefinitely. The remaining 7 countries presumably all want to adopt the Euro, however they're being held back by requirements set by the EU. Other than the necessity of being a member of the ERM II for at least two years (this is the loophole Sweden found, they never joined), the countries have to maintain low inflation, low interest rates, a low deficit, and a low debt. Estonia currently meets all those measures, which is why it's joining now.

I decided to take a look to see how far off target the other non-Eurozone EU countries currently are by coming up a formula to measure the difference between the ideal and the current situation using the numbers available on Wikipedia. Ever value at or below target, got a 0, while those above target got a score that was the current value divided by the ideal minus one. So a country with 3% inflation instead of the ideal 1% or lower would receive 2 points. In case you haven't figured it out, a higher score is bad.

Scores
Estonia 0.0
Bulgaria 0.9
Czechia 0.9
Denmark 1.1
Sweden 1.1
Latvia 3.0
UK 3.5
Lithuania 3.8
Poland 4.4
Hungary 4.9
Romania 6.2

Surprisingly, Bulgaria, which joined the EU relatively recently, got the second best score due to having surprising little debt. It got points for having a slightly higher than ideal inflation and interest rate.

Romania, which joined at the same time as Bulgaria, is fairing much more poorly. This is mostly due to the country having a high inflation rate, but the current deficit and high interest rates aren't helping.

This isn't to say that Bulgaria will be the next country to join the Eurozone, these conditions can change very rapidly. Lithuania came very close to adopting the Euro back in 2008, but is now falling behind in meeting the criteria.

Even though Czechia got a good score, the current government is opposed to adopting the Euro and will likely take advantage of the loophole Sweden uses.

As for Denmark, Sweden, and the UK, it seems unlikely that they will adopt the Euro anytime soon. Since 2010, support for the Euro has dropped a lot in these three countries, although, it was always low in the UK (33% at it's peak in 2003 and rarely above 25% since). Support for the Euro in Sweden had a plurality in polls for the first time back in 2009, but has dropped precipitously since. Most polls in Denmark since 2007 have shown the Euro as being supported by a majority or at least a plurality. However, nearly all these polls are by the same company. Every poll done by a different company shows those opposed to the Euro having a majority or plurality.

Just for fun, I decided to see if the US would meet the criteria. The US got a score of 1.8, all due to the current budget deficit. The US meets all the other requirements except the obvious one of being a member of the EU.

Faulty Separation

Etymology Dictionary

Faulty separation is a concept I was introduced to a few years ago thanks to a Something Awful linguistics thread. In the context it was introduced, it was in reference to how certain words have changed due to how English uses two different indefinite articles depending what the first sound of the following word is.

The example used was the word "apron". This word used to be "napron", but over time there was a shift as "a napron" was misheard as "an apron".

I was curious as to how often this has happened in English. I found six cases, including "apron" through the Etymology Dictionary, although one word is no longer in use.

Apron from Napron
Auger from Nauger
Adder from Nedder
Umpire from Noumpere
Umble from Numble (umble is the edible part of animals that isn't meat)
Nickname from Ekename (went the opposite direction)

Other than the Etymology Dictionary, I can't find any other reference to faulty separation. I wonder if these are actually all the cases or if there are similar faulty separations caused by other word combinations.

Free Music

Grooveshark

Since I haven't posted anything in a while, I figured I would share this. Grooveshark is a music website that lets you create your own playlists from any music in it's collection, which is quite extensive. It's not perfect, for instance, many albums listed have tracks missing and sometimes the site can be slow, but I've found it very useful when I'm at work. Since it's all online, I can hop on any computer in the office and access my music while I work.

NASCAR Chase: The Cup

Tomorrow is the last race of the season. The points for the top three drivers are rather close so there's a chance any of them could win. I wanted to use a different method of determining who had the best chances of winning since it's down to just the last race. While Johnson has a good record during the Chase, his record at just the Homestead race is not as strong, and Hamlin and Harvick have very good averages there. Unfortunately, the method I chose was very labor intensive, so I never completed it, but based on the general trend I was seeing, this are the averages I'm giving for who has the best shot at winning the cup.

Hamlin 62%
Johnson 27%
Harvick 11%

Hamlin's chances are probably lower and Harvick's chances are probably higher as Hamlin has a wider variance of scores, but I didn't get that far in my analysis. However, it wouldn't mean much. Hamlin is by far the favorite and Harvick is the underdog.

China Takes Top in Top 500

Top 500

The November Top 500 Supercomputers list came out a few days ago. It looks like the supercomputer industry is finally out of the doldrums, with China introducing what is now the fastest computer in the world, Tianhe 1A, calculating 2.57 PetaFLOPS, leaving the 1.76 PetaFLOPS Jaguar in the dust. It is faster than all 500 supercomputers from November 2005 combined. Back in June, a Chinese computer, Nebulae, debuted as the second fastest computer, so now the first and third fastest computers are both Chinese.

The overall FLOPS calculated by all the Top 500 Supercomputers increased by 35% in six months, just below the 36% average. There are just under 200 new computers on the list. If the epically named Earth Simulator (top computer from 2002 to 2004) were still around, it would only be 348th on the list.

NASCAR Chase: Texas

Johnson 61%
Hamlin 37%
Harvick 2%

Yesterday's race was fascinating. Kyle Busch got in trouble for flipping off a NASCAR official, Burton and Gordon got into a fight after Burton wrecked Gordon during a caution lap. Knaus, Johnson's crew chief, got so fed up with the pit crew that he replaced them with Gordon's pit crew. I don't think that has ever happened before.

In terms of the Chase, Hamlin won the race and is now the points leader. I still have him as the underdog as Johnson has a better record. However, if Johnson isn't able to close the points gap after the next race, Hamlin will have the advantage. Harvick is still hanging in there, but he's going to have to pull off a major upset next week if he's going to have a chance for the Championship.

Why Racist Parties Can't Have Nice Things

The Local.se

The press secretary for the Sweden Democrats was kicked out of a bar in Iceland after yelling racial slurs and throwing a glass at a Palestinian bartender. The Sweden Democrats are an anti-immigration party and like any good anti-immigration party they claim to not be racist, but things like this keep undermining them. There is a certain irony in his first insult, "fucking foreigner", giving that he was a Swede visiting Iceland at the time.

Kind of reminds me of when a racist Italian party brought down their far-right coalition in the EU Parliament after their leader made some insulting comments about Romanians. Unfortunately, one of the largest parties in the coalition was Romanian, so when they left, the coalition was not longer large enough to continue by EU rules.

NASCAR Chase: Talladega

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 79%
Hamlin 20%
Harvick 2%

Johnson increased his points lead over Hamlin by finishing two places ahead of him at Talladega. However, Harvick managed to narrow the gap with a second place finish. Johnson is still the favorite, but Hamlin and Harvick are hanging in there.

NASCAR Chase: Martinsville

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 77%
Hamlin 23%
Harvick 0.3%

Both Hamlin and Harvick were able to makes gains on Johnson at Martinsville. Hamlin is only 6 points behind Johnson, but Johnson still has a much better chance of winning as he has a better record. Harvick is still just hanging in, but next week's race is at Talladega. While Talladega is pretty much a crapshoot, Harvick has a better average at superspeedways than Hamlin and Johnson.

NASCAR Chase: Charlotte

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 79%
Hamlin 14%
Gordon 7%
Harvick 0.3%

Poor finishes by Kurt Busch and Stewart take them out of contention, leaving only four drivers left with a chance for the championship. Johnson came in third, but first place went to a non-Chase driver, McMurray, and second place was Kyle Busch, which only succeeded in giving him enough points to be currently tied with Stewart. So Johnson was able to increase his points lead slightly. The next race is at Martinsville, which is a good track for both Johnson and Hamlin, so they may very well be the only contenders left after next week. In order for Harvick to stay in contention, he will have to beat Johnson by nearly 60 points at Martinsville, whereas Gordon has a chance of staying on as long as Johnson doesn't gain more than 20 points than him.

NASCAR Chase: Fontana

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 65%
Gordon 15%
Hamlin 9%
Kurt Busch 6%
Stewart 2%
Harvick 2%

Fontana was apparently a rough track for many drivers as four dropped out of consideration: Edwards, Biffle, Kyle Busch, and Burton. Johnson managed to improve his points lead and thus his chances of winning. Johnson is likely to improve his position again this weekend as the next race is at one of his best tracks, Charlotte. Stewart and Harvick are going to have to do well if they're going to stay in contention.

NASCAR Chase: Kansas

Johnson took the points lead today, but only by 8 points. Based on current points, anyone could win, but accounting for last year's results, Johnson is picking a massive lead.

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 55%
Gordon 14%
Kurt Busch 11%
Hamlin 9%
Biffle 3%
Kyle Busch2%
Harvick 2%
Burton 2%
Stewart 1%
Edwards 0.3%

Even though Biffle won the race, he didn't make any gains in terms of the chances of winning the Cup. Johnson came in second, but received the same number of points as Harvick and Stewart as he didn't lead any laps but they both did, with Stewart leading the most laps today. Despite this, they also didn't make gains in their chances of winning. Bowyer and Kenseth are now out of contention.

Local Swedish Elections

At the same time as the national election, Sweden holds its more local level elections. I wasn't planning on making a post about them, but something about them intrigued me. While the Social Democrats did poorly during the national election, they seemed to hold up pretty well in local elections, even gaining seats in many cases. So I decided to look more closely.

Sweden is divided into 21 län (plus Gotland which doesn't count as a län because its population is too small). Each län has its own government called a landsting. Looking at the results for the landsting elections, I found that on average the Social Democrats lost 1.1% of the vote, which isn't great, but is far better than the 4.3% they lost in national elections.

The Moderates gained the most in the landsting elections, averaging a 3% gain in each län, but their victory is tempered by the fact that their partners in the Alliance lost a huge share of the vote. Notably, the Center Party and the Christian Democrats lost voters in every single län while the People's Party only made modest gains in 3, losing voters in the other 18. As a whole, the Alliance only managed to make gains in 4 län despite the Moderates' success.

On the other hand, while the Social Democrats and the Left didn't do well, the Greens made gains greater than both of their loses, so the Red-Greens made gains in 11 län. Like the Moderates, the Greens increased their share of the vote in every single län.

Change in share of the votes:

Län	Alliance	Red-Green
Blekinge	-2.09%	-2.74%
Dalarnas	-2.55%	0.44%
Gävleborgs	-2.31%	0.16%
Hallands	0.05%	-1.29%
Jämtlands	-3.29%	0.80%
Jönköpings	-1.86%	-0.44%
Kalmar	-2.57%	0.93%
Kronobergs	-1.56%	-0.84%
Norrbottens	-1.92%	1.34%
Skåne	-0.24%	-1.92%
Stockholms	-1.26%	0.95%
Södermanlands	-0.99%	-2.35%
Uppsala	-3.26%	2.35%
Värmlands	0.43%	-0.17%
Västerbottens	-3.07%	2.44%
Västernorrlands	0.90%	-2.69%
Västmanlands	-3.39%	2.72%
Västra Götalands	-1.44%	-1.13%
Örebro	-2.21%	1.20%
Östergötlands	0.01%	2.79%

You may notice that in many of the län, both coalitions lost votes, this is largely because of the Sweden Democrats, which doesn't belong to either coalition, gaining a greater share of the votes. Also, many of the län have local Health Care Parties. health care in Sweden is handled at the local level, so these parties do not operate at the national level. Most of them did poorly this election, but some did make gains.

Relative to each other, the Red-Greens made gains over the Alliance in 14 of the 21 län. So at a local level, the election was a victory for the Red-Greens.

NASCAR Chase: Dover

While last week's race gave some hope that the Chase would be competitive when Johnson finished 25th while Bowyer made a surprise win, recent events have worked out in Johnson's favor. First, Bowyer had 150 points deducted for cheating. This plus a bad result at Dover have come close to ending his chances of winning the cup. Johnson won at Dover plus led the most laps, taking him from 7th to 2nd in points.

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 48%
Kurt Busch 12%
Gordon 12%
Hamlin 10%
Kyle Busch 5%
Burton 4%
Biffle 3%
Harvick 2%
Stewart 2%
Edwards 1%
Kenseth 1%
Bowyer 0.4%

Sweden Gets an 8th Party

Val.se Swedish Election results in Swedish

World Elections Analysis of the election in English

Swedish elections were last week. I waited a bit to post about it until official results were in. Given my interest in the nation, I seem almost required to post about it. During the elections in Germany, I made a pretty detailed post about all the parties in Germany, however, I can't really do the same for Sweden as despite my interest, I'm not terribly well aware of the political situation and the divisions between the parties. The 4 right-wing parties, known collectively as the Alliance all seem basically the same to me.

The Social Democrats managed to stay the largest party, but just barely, winning only 30.66% of the vote compared to the Moderates 30.06%. While they are the largest party, this is actually their worst result since 1914. It is also the best result by the Moderates since 1914. The World Elections site points to the fact that because the Moderates have largely embraced the welfare state, they have undermined the Social Democrats by giving them less to attack them on. To me, it's kind of sad to see the Social Democrats in such a weakened position as I really came to admire what they achieved while I was studying there.

Up until recently, it really seemed like the Social Democrats were going to win the election. They had largely lost the 2006 election due to an unpopular leader, however, once he resigned they retook a strong lead in the polls. As the election neared, support began to drop off as the new leader, Sahlin, has been rather ineffectual and conditions under the Moderates has been pretty good. Sweden is one of the few western nations with a solidly growing economy.

Prior to the 2010, it seemed likely that one of the minor parties would drop below the 4% threshold needed to get a seat in the Riksdag. As I mentioned before, the 4 parties that make up the Alliance have little to distinguish themselves from each other, so the more dominant Moderates were starting to take votes from the three smaller parties. Also, the Sweden Democrats, a far-right party not yet in the Riksdag, were gaining in the polls, reducing available votes to the established seven parties. Polling prior to the election showed the Christian Democrats dropping below 4% on a few occasion, but they managed to hold on to 5.6% of the vote in the end, even with the Sweden Democrats entering the Riksdag with 5.7%.

Even though there are now 8 parties in the Riksdag, it seems that the there is some concentration of votes happening. Of the the 8 parties, only 3 increased their share of the vote. The People's Party and the Left gained votes, but due to high turnout, they lost in relative terms. Of the 4 right-wing parties, only the Moderates increased their number of seats. Similarly, of the 3 left-wing parties, only the Greens gained seats (as predicted in my post about green parties, they are now the 3rd largest party).

The big controversy this election was the Sweden Democrats entering the Riksdag on a rather xenophobic platform. None of the other parties are willing to work with them, which creates kind of a problem in that the Alliance is two seats short of a majority. However, unlike most countries that require a government to have a majority, governments in Sweden can have a minority as long as a majority doesn't vote against them. Given that the alternatives are to have the Sweden Democrats be in government, have the Greens leave the Social Democrats coalition, or hold new elections, it seems unlikely that the Social Democrats will block the continuation of the Alliance government. Minority governments are actually the norm in Sweden. The Social Democrats rarely received more than 50% of the vote, but were able to form governments on their own as the Communists, now the Left, would not vote against them.

Here's a map of the largest party in Sweden by län back in 2006. Red is Social Democrat and Blue is Moderate.


Compare to 2010.

Even though the Social Democrats only have a 0.6% edge over the Moderates, the Moderates' votes are concentrated in the population centers of Stockholm, Göteborg, Malmö, and Uppsala. The Social Democrats managed to get 51.86% in the northernmost, but sparsely populated, län of Norrbottens.

Another map of interest is how the coalitions as a whole did in each län. This back in 2006, Red is the Red-Green coalition led by the Social Democrats, blue is the Alliance led by the Moderates.

Even though the Moderates were only the largest party in Stockholm, together with the rest of the Alliance, they managed to get over 50% in much of southern Sweden.

The 2010 map is a bit different. Gray is where neither Red-Green nor Alliance hold majority due to the presence of the Sweden Democrats.

As the the Red-Green and Alliance received similar shares of the vote in the gray areas, the map basically show what by Swedish standards are swing län.

In case people are wondering, the Pirate Party increased their share of the vote, but only from 0.63% to 0.65%. In 2006, the district where the Pirates received the largest share of the vote (3.63%) was the district where my dormitory was located when I attended Uppsala. This year, the Pirates best district was one near Lund University that gave them 4.72%.

NASCAR Chase: Loudon

Johnson actually did poorly this week, giving everyone else a better chance of winning the Sprint Cup. He's still the favorite, but right now he's seventh in points, so he'll have to do well these next few races to take the top spot.

(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 37%
Gordon 14%
Kurt Busch 11%
Hamlin 9%
Bowyer 7%
Kyle Busch 5%
Biffle 4%
Burton 4%
Stewart 3%
Harvick 3%
Kenseth 2%
Edwards 1%

The biggest loser was of course Johnson who had the most to lose to begin with (47% to 37%). The biggest gainers were Bowyer and Hamlin, who finished 1st and 2nd and both increased their chances by 3 percentage points. The fact that Johnson has falling behind in points means this could be a competitive Chase for the Sprint Cup.

Green Politics' Day in the Sun

I was reading an article on TheLocal.de about a recent poll showing that Germans think that the CDU is too conservative. However, also mentioned in the article is that recent polls show the Greens with 18% of the vote. This isn't just a notable high, this massive. In the last election, the 2nd largest party, the SPD, only managed to get 23%. During the last election, the Greens were 5th with just under 11% (their best result ever), now they are 3rd, by a wide margin.

This reminded me of the upcoming election Sweden, with polls showing record support for the Green Party (Miljöpartiet). While they have fallen from their record 10% over the summer, they are still on track to become the 3rd largest party, up from 7th, as support for the other minor parties have waned in recent years.

This further reminded me of the recent election in Australia where the Green Party won its first seat in the House of Representatives and made large gains in the Senate.

It seems that Green Politics are starting to catch on. It appears to be connected to flagging support for traditional labor parties. While many green parties nominally maintain a centrist stance, their support largely comes from leftists. With 3 examples of green parties gaining support, I decided to see if the trend holds true for other countries. The table below shows support for the greens during a past election compared to support during the most recent election or a recent poll. I only included green parties that received more than 1% of the vote.

Country	Past Election	Recent Election/Poll
Iceland	14.3%	21.7%
Germany	10.7%	18%
Denmark	13%	17.5%
Australia	9%	13.1%
Luxembourg	11.6%	11.7%
Latvia	16.7%	11.3%
Austria	11.1%	10.4%
Canada	6.8%	10%
Switzerland	7.4%	9.6%
Belgium	9.1%	9.2%
Finland	8%	8.5%
Sweden	5.2%	8%
Hungary	N/A	7.5%
Estonia	N/A	7.1%
New Zealand	5.1%	6.7%
Netherlands	4.6%	6.7%
Brazil	1.4%	3.6%
Vanuatu	N/A	3.4%
France	4.5%	3.3%
Andorra	3.5%	3.2%
Colombia	N/A	3%
Greece	1.1%	2.5%
Czechia	6.3%	2.4%
Cyprus	2%	2%
Malta	0.7%	1.3%
Israel	1.5%	1.2%

Somes notes on the numbers above. The "green parties" in Denmark and Hungary are not traditional green parties, they are respectively socialist and liberal parties with strong environmental platforms. While the French green party lost support in the last parliamentary election, they did really well during the more recent European Election (16%). Unfortunately, I couldn't find any polls of current support. The Irish green party was left off the table because current polls are highly inconsistent, with support ranging from 2% to 6%. The numbers for Belgium and Israel are of its two green parties combined. For Estonia, Hungary, and Colombia, "N/A" means that the party had not run in a prior election and there are no available polls from after the most recent election. For Vanuatu, "N/A" it means the information isn't available, however, the green party lost a seat, so presumably their support was down.

It appears that green parties are largely gaining support. The only major exception is the green party of Czechia (I like this name better than Czech Republic, so I'm using it). I'm curious as to what happened there, but not really sure where I would find that information in English. One other thing of note, all the countries with a high-level support for Green parties are either in Northern Europe or are countries where the majority of the population are of Northern European ancestry.

NASCAR Chase Begins

No real surprises from the Richmond race. We now have our 12 Chase drivers, so let's take a look at who are the top contenders for winning the Sprint Cup. Their chances are based on their current points and their record from last year's Chase.

Johnson 47%
Gordon 12%
Kurt Busch 11%
Hamlin 7%
Biffle 4%
Bowyer 4%
Kyle Busch 4%
Stewart 3%
Burton 3%
Kenseth 2%
Harvick 2%
Edwards 1%

Johnson averaged 162 points a race last year, compared to everyone else that averaged between 146 and 112. This makes him far and away the most likely to win the Sprint Cup. There's still a 53% chance that someone else could win, it's just very uncertain as to who can really challenge Johnson. At the beginning of the Chase, everyone's points are reset to 5000, with an extra 10 points for each race won earlier in the season. The extra points are known as the "Kenseth rule" as they were created in order to stop a repeat of the time Kenseth managed to win the Cup with only one win all season. This makes Hamlin the current points leader, having won 6 races so far. These extra points have little effect in terms of their chances of winning right now, but could prove essential towards the end of the season.

Given some the drivers tenuous chances, it's very likely that if Johnson does well Loudon, drivers like Edwards and Harvick will see their chances evaporate. However, if Johnson does poorly, it could throw everything wide open.

Looking back at the pre-Chase races, I wanted to point out some notable events.

Best Season
Harvick, started the season with only a 21% chance of making the Chase, lower than Casey Mears, only to become the points leader for the majority of the season. He's chances of making the Chase increased every single week.

Worst Season
Martin, started the season with a 55% chance of making the Chase, the highest for someone that eventually didn't make it. By the Charlotte race, he had a 69% chance, but he fortunes quickly reversed, leaving him 15th in points.

Best Reversal
Bowyer, after Watkins Glen he had only a 30% chance, but only two races later, he had an 82% chance.

Most Tenacious
Earnhardt, never had a more than 28% chance, but managed to hold some hope of making the Chase for almost the entire season.

Most Secure
Stewart, his chances never fell below 85%.

NASCAR week 24

Another strong finish for Bowyer has pretty much guaranteed him a spot in the Chase. My model currently gives Bowyer a 100% chance of making the Chase. However, it's still technically possible for Bowyer to not make it. If he finishes worse than 27th next week, there's a chance that Newman and McMurray could take the final spot, but they'd have to finish in the top 5 to do that. Martin still has a chance, but he would have to win the race and have Bowyer finish 39th or worse.

Starting next week, we'll see who has the best chance at winning the Chase (hint, it's Johnson).

Have you seen this centenarian?

BBC News

Several weeks ago, the city of Tokyo decided to honor the oldest-living man in the city on his birthday only to discover that he had been dead for 30-years. They then decided to look for the oldest-living woman in Tokyo, only to find she had gone missing years earlier.

This has led to a massive investigation throughout Japan to to determine the whereabouts of the over 40,000 centenarians in the country. As of August 20th (after the article above was written) 281 turned out to be dead or missing. In many cases it appears that their families do not report the deaths in order to continue collecting pension payments.

I happened to come across the first article about the missing old man three weeks ago, so it's fascinating to me to see how this whole situation has unfolded.

NASCAR week 23

12th place contenders.
Bowyer 82%
Martin 13%
Newman 5%
Kahne 0.2%

Despite strong finishes by McMurray, Reutimann, and Montoya, they were unable to stay in contention. In fact, of the top 7 drivers at Bristol, 6 were still contenders for the 12th spot as of last week. Unfortunately, only one get it and Bowyer has opened up a 100-point lead over his nearest rival. Looks like we know who's making the Chase this year.

Gendered Papers

The Gender Genie

I think I may have posted about this years ago, but I was thinking about it again recently as I was writing a bunch of papers. The Gender Genie tries to guess the gender of a person based on a sample of their writing. Men and women have words that they tend use more often than the other gender. So the Gender Genie looks for these words and gives points for each one. Which ever group of words ends up with more points is likely to correspond to the gender of the writer.

So I decided to run all the papers I had to write for classes this summer and see what their scores were. What I'll be giving is a "masculinity rating", which is, the percentage of points that went to manly words out of the total.

Small States in Contemporary World Markets - 68%
Inequality and Democracy in America - 67%
Another Chance for Kyrgyzstan - 64%
International Political Economy Mid-Term - 63%
Untitled Paper About Bulgaria - 63%
International Political Theory Final - 61%

The gender of my papers is surprisingly consistent. Or more likely, my writing style is really consistent regardless of what I'm writing about. Looking over the list of words, I noticed that the female word list contains words like "we, you, me, etc." I try to avoid using first and second-person when doing formal writing, which would explain a bit.

NASCAR week 22

Top 19 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Harvick 100%
Gordon 100%
Stewart 100%
Johnson 100%
Hamlin 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Edwards 100%
Burton 100%
Kenseth 100%
Biffle 100%
Bowyer 38%
Martin 33%
Newman 14%
Kahne 10%
Montoya 3%
McMurray 1%
Reutimann 1%
Earnhardt 0.1%

The gap in points between Biffle and Bowyer is quite substantial now. The chance that Bowyer or anyone else with fewer points could pass Biffle before the Chase starts is less than 1%. This means that the top 11 drivers are locked in for the Chase. The battle for 12th is still largely between Bowyer and Martin, but they haven't been able to shake-off the other remaining drivers.

Music Needs to be Shared

The Arcade Fire
This post was prompted by the fact that the Arcade Fire has a new album out. Apparently their next music video will be directed by Terry Gillian. They did a free online concert, so there's quite a few really good live recordings of their new songs available on YouTube.

Cadillac Sky
Their song "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" is pretty well-known, but I like this song better.

Nneka
Nigerian-German R&B artist. Very retro. Very cool.

Miike Snow
This song got played a bit on WNCW. Took this particular song awhile to grow on me, but now I really enjoy it.

Friendly Fires
This came out awhile ago, but I only recently heard it, so I figured I should share.

Kele
Solo project from one of the guys from Bloc Party.

And... oh no! No Swedish bands!

NASCAR week 22

Top 19 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Harvick 100%
Gordon 100%
Stewart 100%
Johnson 100%
Hamlin 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Edwards 100%
Burton 100%
Kenseth 100%
Biffle 89%
Martin 49%
Bowyer 30%
Newman 19%
Kahne 8%
Reutimann 2%
McMurray 2%
Montoya 1%
Earnhardt 1%

Montoya's win today managed to keep in the running, albeit his chances remain slim. Ten drivers are now guaranteed to make the Chase, with Biffle very likely to be the 11th driver, and Martin increasingly likely to get the 12th spot.

The biggest gainer this week was Burton, who has now secured a spot in the Chase. The biggest loser was Bowyer (46% to 30%). So even though Martin didn't do that well this week, his position improved as his biggest competitor is falling behind.

NASCAR week 21

Top 19 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Harvick 100%
Hamlin 100%
Johnson 100%
Stewart 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Edwards 95%
Kenseth 92%
Burton 90%
Biffle 88%
Martin 50%
Bowyer 46%
Newman 19%
Kahne 13%
Reutimann 3%
Earnhardt 3%
McMurray 1%
Montoya 0.1%

The top 20 has become the top 19 as Logano now has no chance of making the Chase at this point, but Montoya is still hanging in there. This race just served to reaffirm what I noticed last week. The top 11 spots are pretty well secure and it's going to be a fight between Bowyer and Martin to get that 12th spot.

For once, the biggest gainer was the race winner, Biffle (67% to 88%). He's been running well all season, so it's good to see him win. The biggest loser was Kahne (26% to 13%). I don't think he finished all that poorly, it's just that his rather lackluster season is finally catching up with him.

NASCAR week 20

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Harvick 100%
Johnson 100%
Hamlin 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Kenseth 93%
Edwards 79%
Burton 77%
Biffle 67%
Bowyer 51%
Martin 48%
Newman 28%
Kahne 26%
Reutimann 13%
Earnhardt 11%
McMurray 3%
Montoya 2%
Logano 2%

As we get down to the final few races, the divide between whose got a chance and who doesn't has really widen. Seven spots in the Chase look pretty well solidified, and another five appear very likely to make. It's really just down to who's getting the 12th spot, with Bowyer and Martin having an even chance. However, Newman and the rest of them aren't out of the game yet. Earnhardt is only a few points behind martin, he's chances are just low because of his record last year.

McMurray won, but as you can probably tell, it didn't help him a lot, it basically just kept him in the game. If he had finished 21st or worse, he would no longer have a chance. The biggest gainer was Burton (65% to 77%) although he only finished 6th. He actually has more points than Kenseth, he just has a poor record from last year keeping him down. The biggest loser was Reutimann (25% to 13%), erasing the gains he made when he won at Chicago.

McDonald's and Condoms

I keep seeing this story pop up on various blogs and forums. The reason I wanted to comment on this is because this is the original source of the story: CAP News. Notice anything about the site? It's a satirical site like the Onion. This fact is pretty obvious once you visit the site, but few people are.

The post on Failblog is where most people have seen the story now, but it provides no information on the source, plus the story has a less tongue-and-cheek tone so it's obviously not from the original website. Instead that image is taken from Opposing Views which in turn uses Terra as it's source (or more correctly, just copies it), which doesn't provide any source information at all.

This brings up something about blogs that I've really grown to dislike, it seems nobody is capable of sourcing where information originally came from. If they cite at all they just cite the blog they read it from until you just end up with a chain of blogs posts about an article that none of them of actually read.

NASCAR week 19

Top 21 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Johnson 100%
Hamlin 100%
Harvick 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 99%
Kenseth 88%
Edwards 71%
Burton 65%
Biffle 56%
Martin 49%
Bowyer 43%
Newman 34%
Kahne 31%
Reutimann 25%
Earnhardt 20%
Montoya 13%
Logano 5%
McMurray 2%
Truex 0.2%

Saturday's race was kind of insane and led to lots of weird results, the most notable being Reutimann winning. Despite winning though, he was not the biggest gainer as his chances of making the Chase still remain low (19% to 25%). The biggest gainer was second place finisher Edwards (59% to 71%) who has been shaky ground for a long time, but now looks very likely to make the Chase. The biggest loser was Biffle, who used be pretty safe, but is now on shaky ground (71% to 56%).

NASCAR week 18

Top 21 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Johnson 100%
Harvick 100%
Hamlin 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 97%
Kenseth 84%
Biffle 71%
Edwards 59%
Burton 56%
Martin 52%
Newman 42%
Bowyer 36%
Kahne 30%
Earnhardt 25%
Reutimann 19%
Montoya 17%
Logano 8%
McMurray 2%
Truex 1%

Switched to the top 21 drivers as there are only 21 drivers left that can make it. Harvick hit the 100% mark, so despite winning the race, he was not the largest gainer. Instead it was Burton, who finished 5th, who was the biggest gainer (44% to 56%). The biggest loser was Newman (49% to 42%), who like many of the drivers, got involved in one of the many wrecks this race.

NASCAR week 17

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 100%
Gordon 100%
Hamlin 100%
Stewart 100%
Kurt Busch 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Harvick 97%
Kenseth 79%
Biffle 70%
Martin 58%
Edwards 53%
Newman 49%
Burton 44%
Bowyer 37%
Kahne 25%
Montoya 23%
Earnhardt 19%
Reutimann 19%
Logano 13%
McMurray 7%

Half of the Chase drivers are now more or less decided and Harvick will likely join them soon. Harvick was once again the biggest gainer (84% to 97%) as he points lead continues. The biggest loser was Kahne (35% to 25%) which is especially tragic as he led much of the race, but his engine blew.

Only 22 drivers have any chance of making the Chase now. Allmendinger, the 22nd driver, has a 3% chance.

NASCAR week 16

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson 100%
Gordon 100%
Hamlin 100%
Stewart 100%
Kyle Busch 98%
Kurt Busch 93%
Harvick 84%
Kenseth 79%
Biffle 71%
Martin 63%
Edwards 59%
Newman 45%
Burton 41%
Kahne 35%
Bowyer 34%
Montoya 32%
Reutimann 22%
Earnhardt 18%
Logano 12%
McMurray 8%

Harvick only finished third at Sonoma, but he picked up a commanding points lead, leading to the largest gains I've seen so far. Harvick's chances of making the Chase jumped 15 percentage points, from 69% to 84%. Because of Harvick hogging most of the potential gains, few other drivers made gains this week. Four drivers dropped 5 percentage points, Edwards, Bowyer, Logano, and Truex. Now only 23 drivers have a chance of making the Chase. Ambrose managed to maintain a 0.4% chance, but he should have done match better if he hadn't made a stupid mistake right at the end of the race.

NASCAR week 15

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Hamlin 100%
Gordon 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Johnson 100%
Kurt Busch 96%
Stewart 95%
Kenseth 81%
Harvick 69%
Edwards 64%
Biffle 63%
Martin 60%
Newman 45%
Burton 43%
Bowyer 39%
Montoya 31%
Kahne 31%
Reutimann 24%
Logano 17%
Earnhardt 16%
Truex 11%

With race winner Denny Hamlin already at 100%, the top gainer this week was Kurt Busch who finished third (88% to 96%). While Kahne finished second, he is very much an underdog now and it's going to take a lot of good finishes to get him into the Chase. The biggest loser was Newman (55% to 45%), who has been teetering on the edge of making the Chase since the beginning. He cannot afford bad finishes.

Currently only 25 drivers have a chance of making the Chase. Menard is last with a 0.3% chance. Vickers still has a 0.4% chance if he's ever able to return.

I just noticed that Edwards' and Logano's chances haven't change in four races. I wonder why.

NASCAR week 14

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Hamlin 100%
Kyle Busch 100%
Gordon 100%
Johnson 97%
Stewart 91%
Kurt Busch 88%
Kenseth 79%
Harvick 68%
Edwards 64%
Martin 62%
Biffle 62%
Newman 55%
Bowyer 44%
Burton 40%
Montoya 34%
Kahne 28%
Reutimann 27%
Logano 17%
Earnhardt 15%
Truex 11%

Two more drivers join Gordon with a 100% chance of making the Chase. For the first time, the biggest gainer wasn't the race winner. Harvick went from a 59% to a 68% chance thanks to being the current points leader. The only reason Hamlin's chances didn't increase more was because he can't go over 100%. The biggest loser was Vickers once again. Of people actually racing, Martin was the biggest loser (68% to 62%) due to a crash at the end of the race. Truex managed to overtake McMurray, but just barely, and his chances still remain very low.

Only one driver outside the top 15 saw their chances of making the Chase improve and only 26 drivers have any chance of making the Chase, with Ragan having a 0.1% chance.

An Eary Top 500

Top 500

The June Top 500 list usually comes out in, well, June, so I was surprised to find out that they actually released the list a few days ago. This is probably the most disappointing update so far. The number of FLOPS calculated by all 500 top computers in the world only increased by 16% these past six months. This is the slowest increase ever and well below the 36% biannual average. There are only about 140 new computers listed, in the past there were usually 200 to 300 new computers on each list.

The top computer remains Jaguar, although Nebulae, a Chinese made computer, debuted at number two. The current slowest computer would have been a top 10 computer back in 2005 and is faster than all 500 computers from June of 1998 combined.

NASCAR week 13

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Hamlin 94%
Kyle Busch 93%
Johnson 92%
Stewart 87%
Kurt Busch 82%
Kenseth 79%
Martin 69%
Biffle 68%
Edwards 64%
Harvick 59%
Newman 56%
Bowyer 42%
Burton 37%
Kahne 34%
Montoya 33%
Reutimann 29%
Logano 17%
Earnhardt 16%
McMurray 16%

The last few weeks have been really good for the Busch brothers. Kyle won at Dover as well as the last two Nationwide races, while Kurt won this week and at the All-Star Race. They also happen to be the two biggest gainers this, Kurt increased his chances of making the Chase from 72% to 82% while Kyle went from 84% to 93%.

The biggest loser is once again Vickers (25% to 13%), who will likely remain out until much later in the season. He has dropped out of the top 20 drivers, making this the first change since Martinsville. McMurray, who came in 2nd, managed to get back in the top 20 after a long absence. The biggest loser who was actually in the race was Montoya whose car was damaged after getting a flat early in the race. Apparently the Charlotte track doesn't like foreigners, as soon after Ambrose also wrecked.

Currently, only 26 drivers have a chance of making the Chase, with Menard having a 0.5% chance.

Eurovision Week

Eurovision.tv
Mu Cow's YouTube Channel

Next week is Eurovision, woohoo! There's not been much noise leading up to this year's Eurovision as there aren't any controversial or flat out insane acts. It seems that the new judging system, half televote half jury, has lead to much safer entries, still there are plenty of stunning entries that deserve some attention.

Last year 42 countries competed, but due to bad financial situations in a number of countries, the number is down to 39. Liechtenstein was hoping to make its debut this year, but did not make the deadline, but there's still a chance they will participate next year. If it does so, the only European countries left that have never competed will be Kosovo and the Vatican City. Qatar is also considering competing next year, which should be fun.

For your enjoyment, here are my top ten picks for this year's competition:
10. Latvia - Winner of the "English song written by non-English speakers for non-English speakers" category.
9. Netherlands - Judging by the song and the audience, I think the Dutch are catering to an older crowd. This will not work in their favor.
8. Finland - The fact they're in Eurovision doesn't surprise me, the fact that they won the Finnish national competition does given their history.
7. Moldova - Apparently they decided to keep the sax solo.
6. Romania - Hit the high note and FIRE TO THE FACE!
5. Germany - Odd accent, catchy song.
4. Serbia - I think he got his haircut backwards.
3. Russia - "What are you doing, man?"
2. Estonia - Radiohead meets Giantpapiermachehead. I actually really like the song.
1. Lithuania - By far the best entry. Watch for a cameo appearence by a "bald maniac".

You may be wondering why I linked to my YouTube channel at the top of my post. That's because on Monday I will be starting Eurovision week where I will do a cover of a past Eurovision song every day until the Final. For the day of the Final, I will learn the winning song. I just have to hope that it's in English.

The Eurovision final will be broadcast live over the internet at ESCTV on Saturday, May 29th at 9pm CET (that's 3pm for us on the east coast). You can also watch the semi-finals live on May 25th and 27th, also at 9pm CET on ESCTV.

Nationalist Ireland

World Elections

World Elections is one of my favorite websites. The writer does great analysis of recent elections and providing interesting information. The post I'm linking to is the results and his analysis of the recent UK election.

I had made an earlier post about the prospects of a hung parliament and the inconsistencies of "first-past-the-post" elections. This election certainly exhibited a number of the problems with FPTP. Despite gaining more votes, the LibDems lost five seats, while Plaid Cymru lost votes but gained a seat. However, an element I found intriguing that "World Elections" pointed out was that this was the first year that the majority of Northern Ireland's representatives weren't Unionist.

Politics in Northern Ireland are much different than in the rest of the UK, where parties are defined by their stance on Northern Ireland's status, so instead of a battle between Conservatives, Labour, and Liberal-Democrats, it's between Unionists and Nationalists. Northern Ireland has long been dominated by Unionists, but the last few years have garnered victories for Nationalists. Over the last few Westminster elections, there has been a steady trend:
2010 - 9 Unionists, 8 Nationalists, 1 Other (18 Seats)
2005 - 10 Unionists, 8 Nationalists (18 Seats)
2001 - 11 Unionists, 7 Nationalists (18 Seats)
1997 - 13 Unionists, 5 Nationalists (18 Seats)
1992 - 13 Unionists, 4 Nationalists (17 Seats)
1987 - 13 Unionists, 4 Nationalists (17 Seats)
1983 - 15 Unionists, 2 Nationalists (17 Seats)

For comparison, here is how people actually voted.
2010 - 44% Unionists, 42% Nationalists, 14% Other (18 Seats)
2005 - 51% Unionists, 42% Nationalists, 7% Other
2001 - 51% Unionists, 43% Nationalists, 6% Other
1997 - 49% Unionists, 40% Nationalists, 11% Other
1992 - 56% Unionists, 34% Nationalists, 10% Other
1987 - 54% Unionists, 35% Nationalists, 11% Other
1983 - 57% Unionists, 33% Nationalists, 10% Other

Despite a steady change in seats, there have only been two major shifts in voting patterns in the last 7 elections. There was a big shift from Unionists to Nationalists in 1997, and a big shift from Unionists to Other (namely, Alliance, a non-sectarian party) in 2010. Until 2001, FPTP had kept the Nationalist minority from gaining proper representation, leading to Unionist domination in politics. In such an environment, it is not all that surprising that many Nationalists turned to violence as they were shut-out of the political process. I find it somewhat fitting that now that the Nationalists have overcome the electoral obstacles placed against them, that Alliance, the main non-sectarian party, gains its first Westminster seat.

NASCAR week 12

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 100%
Johnson 98%
Hamlin 93%
Stewart 87%
Kyle Busch 84%
Kenseth 75%
Biffle 73%
Kurt Busch 72%
Edwards 64%
Martin 63%
Harvick 55%
Newman 53%
Montoya 42%
Burton 39%
Bowyer 39%
Kahne 35%
Reutimann 26%
Vickers 25%
Earnhardt 19%
Logano 17%

A late race speeding penalty put Johnson a lap down, so while he finished a respectable 16th, it is Gordon that breaks 100% this time. The biggest gainer was race winner Kyle Busch (74% to 84%). The biggest loser was Vickers who sat out this race due to a medical condition. This combined with a rather lackluster season has dropped his chances of making the Chase from 37% to 25%.

Almost halfway through the pre-Chase races, I've noticed that current points are starting to matter more than individual race results. Despite a 10th place finish, Logano saw his chances of making the Chase decline as he went into the race fairly low in the points. On the opposite end, Harvick is finally seeing his chances improve as he's been sitting in the top of the points most of the season and any poor results at this point probably won't greatly alter his chances.

At the moment only 27 drivers have any chance of making the Chase, with Sadler having a 0.2% chance.

NASCAR week 11

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Gordon 98%
Johnson 96%
Hamlin 87%
Stewart 85%
Kyle Busch 74%
Kurt Busch 72%
Biffle 69%
Kenseth 68%
Martin 63%
Edwards 61%
Newman 53%
Montoya 50%
Harvick 49%
Bowyer 40%
Kahne 38%
Vickers 37%
Burton 34%
Reutimann 25%
Earnhardt 23%
Logano 18%

I keep thinking Johnson will hit 100% and stay there, but a poor finish at Darlington puts him behind Gordon. The biggest gainer was race winner Hamlin (79% to 87%). The biggest loser was Bowyer (46% to 40%). Bowyer seemed to be well on his way to making the Chase, but this week will be hard to overcome. Overall, it was a good race for the top 17 drivers, only one driver below 17th actually improved their position, McMurray, who is 21st and came close to passing Logano. There are currently only 27 drivers with any chance of making the Chase. Hornish brings up the rear with only a 1% chance.

NASCAR week 10

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson - 100%
Gordon - 92%
Stewart - 88%
Hamlin - 79%
Biffle - 71%
Kyle Busch - 70%
Kurt Busch - 67%
Kenseth - 67%
Martin - 64%
Edwards - 61%
Newman - 52%
Montoya - 47%
Bowyer - 46%
Harvick - 44%
Kahne - 41%
Vickers - 37%
Burton - 32%
Reutimann - 26%
Earnhardt - 25%
Logano - 22%

Johnson is back to 100% with Gordon likely to join him soon. The biggest gainer this week was race winner Kyle Busch, 62% to 70%. He pretty much dominated the race yesterday, leading over half the laps and came close to putting the entire field a lap down if it weren't for a mysterious, and rather timely, caution. I felt like the caution was just a big "screw you" to Busch, so I was glad he still won the race.

The biggest loser was Mark Martin, 67% to 64%. He isn't doing too badly though. He finished 25th and is tenth in points. He's basically the biggest loser only because every one that did worse than him don't have 4 percentage points to lose.

Only 30 drivers have any chance of making the Chase. Speed is the 30th driver, with a 0.02% chance.

Hanging Parliament

BBC

The BBC website has this neat little seat calculator that predicts which parties will win which seats in the coming election. While there are numerous fails with predicting elections this way, it's fun to play with. Also, it's a great example of how unrepresentative the British system and first-past-the-post voting are. When all parties are the same percentage of votes, the Lib-Dems' share of seats is much smaller than both Labour's and Conservatives' share. The following are some numbers I found interesting:

(Assuming 8% Other)
Fewest votes needed for majority:
Labour: 31%
Tories: 38%
Lib-Dems: 41%

Fewest votes needed to be largest party:
Labour: 25%
Tories: 31%
Lib-Dems: 38%

Labour has a huge advantage going into this election. There are a large number of Labour strongholds that the other parties have very little support in, so it takes an inordinately large swing to change Labour seats. Technically, with 8% going to "other", the largest party should be whichever one gets 31%. However, Labour can gain the most seats with far fewer votes while the Lib-Dems require much more.

This has become a major issue this election as Labour is polling behind the other main parties, but is likely to remain the largest party in Parliament, while a few polls have shown the Lib-Dems in the lead, but still receiving fewer seats than the other main parties. It is unlikely that any party will receive a majority this election, which in a way makes the Lib-Dems the most powerful party as they could potentially form a coalition with either the Tories or Labour. Whoever they end up working with, they will very likely force them to agree to electoral reform, as the current system hurts them the most.

NASCAR week 9

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson - 99%
Stewart - 91%
Gordon - 86%
Hamlin - 78%
Biffle - 73%
Kurt Busch - 68%
Martin - 67%
Kenseth - 66%
Kyle Busch - 62%
Edwards - 58%
Newman - 50%
Bowyer - 46%
Montoya - 45%
Kahne - 44%
Vickers - 39%
Harvick - 39%
Burton - 29%
Earnhardt - 28%
Reutimann - 27%
Logano - 22%

Finishing 31st was just enough to bring Johnson down from 100%, any higher position would have left him at 100%. The biggest gainer was race winner Kevin Harvick, going from 32% t 39%. He is now second in overall points, so it is likely his chances will continue to climb. The biggest loser was Ambrose. He did well last season, but a bunch of poor finishes this season are starting to take its toll. He went from 22% to 15%. There are still 31 drivers with a chance of making the Chase. Robby Gordon brings up the rear again this time with only a 0.02% chance.

The Jury Effect

Eurovision

Over two months after the 2009 competition, the EBU revealed both the jury and televote results separately. I wasn't paying attention at the time, but with the next Eurovision a month away I became curious as to how differently the jury and the viewers voted. The following is a list of the difference in points each country got.

Country	Televote	Jury	Difference
Azerbaijan	253	112	141
Turkey	203	114	89
Norway	378	312	66
Greece	151	93	58
Albania	81	26	55
Russia	118	67	51
Armenia	111	71	40
Bosnia	124	90	34
Romania	64	31	33
Sweden	59	27	32
Spain	38	9	29
Finland	30	12	18
Lithuania	38	31	7
Estonia	129	124	5
Ukraine	70	68	2
Croatia	55	58	-3
Portugal	45	64	-19
Moldova	66	93	-27
Germany	18	73	-55
Malta	18	87	-69
Denmark	40	120	-80
Iceland	173	260	-87
Israel	15	107	-92
France	54	164	-110
United Kingdom	105	223	-118

Despite the relatively wide gap in the number of points, Norway did incredibly well with both the viewers and the jury. Oddly enough, Norway's final score was higher than both it's televote and jury vote score, 387. This happened because it was one of the few entries that both the viewers and juries agreed on, so its average score was higher than the average score of most other entries, and it was whatever country that had the highest average that got the coveted 12 points.

While the biggest gap is over Azerbaijan's entry, the difference over Israel's entry is probably the starkest. It got a respectable 9th place finish among the juries, but the viewers totally dismissed it, leaving it in last place.

As the only finish that really matters in Eurovision is who comes in first, it appears that jury voting had little impact other than making the UK, France, and Germany feel better about themselves and ensuring that the entries for this year will be bland and boring.

NASCAR week 8

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Johnson - 100%
Stewart - 91%
Gordon - 87%
Hamlin - 74%
Biffle - 72%
Kenseth - 68%
Kurt Busch - 65%
Martin - 64%
Kyle Busch - 59%
Edwards - 57%
Newman - 56%
Kahne - 46%
Bowyer - 43%
Vickers - 42%
Montoya - 41%
Harvick - 32%
Burton - 31%
Reutimann - 27%
Earnhardt - 27%
Logano - 26%

Johnson hits the 100% mark with a second place finish. It will take some pretty bad finishes to bring him down. The biggest gainer was race winner Hamlin, going from 66% to 74%. The biggest loser was Vickers who had some trouble early in the race, going from 48% to 42%. There are now only 31 drivers that have any chance of making the Chase. Robby Gordon still has a 0.1% chance.

Next week is Talladega, which should provide some interesting results.

NASCAR week 7

I changed the model again, this time to one that's a bit less conservative in its predictions. Now it shows Johnson, Stewart, and Gordon as almost certain to make the Chase, which I think is a good guess.

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
Johnson - 95%
Stewart - 94%
Gordon - 90%
Biffle - 68%
Kenseth - 68%
Hamlin - 66%
Edwards - 61%
Kurt Busch - 60%
Martin - 59%
Newman - 54%
Kyle Busch - 54%
Vickers - 48%
Bowyer - 48%
Montoya - 46%
Kahne - 43%
Reutimann - 32%
Burton - 30%
Harvick - 30%
Logano - 28%
Earnhardt - 25%

The biggest gainer this week was the winner of the race, Newman. He had fallen below the 50% mark, but is now back on top. The biggest loser was Kahne. An accident early in the race left him over 100 laps down, and he dropped below the 50% mark. One thing that the new model allows me to do is figure out how many drivers have any chance of making the Chase. At the beginning of the season, 36 drivers had at least a greater than 0% chance, it has now dropped to 32. The 32nd driver is Mears, with only a 0.04% chance.

Who loves Eurovision?

YouTube

Apparently I'm not the only one who thought the 1965 Eurovision winning song was brilliant. Here is the Arcade Fire doing a cover.

NASCAR week 6

That was a pretty brutal race today. Usually Martinsville is pretty predictable, but tire problems kept things interesting.

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Stewart - 72%
Biffle - 67%
Johnson - 67%
Kenseth - 63%
Gordon - 62%
Martin - 61%
Hamlin - 60%
Vickers - 59%
Newman - 57%
Kurt Busch - 57%
Edwards - 55%
Kahne - 50%
Montoya - 49%
Kyle Busch - 46%
Bowyer - 42%
Reutimann - 41%
Logano - 40%
Burton - 36%
Harvick - 35%
Ambrose - 35%

It seems like it was a good week for all the top drivers, however it's a bit misleading. As we get through more races, the gap between the top and bottom will begin to grow, so the top drivers' chances of making the Chase will go up even when they have a mediocre week. Also, there was a larger than normal rounding error this week, so everyone's score is inflated by about 1 percentage point. The biggest gainer this week was Vickers, jumping 7 percentage points. The biggest loser was Allmendinger, dropping 3 percentage points. He started out this year stronger than usual, but a poor result this week really hurt him.

Start and Park

Front Stretch

Found this article through a Something Awful thread about NASCAR. Start and Parkers are drivers that set-up their car for qualifying and once they qualify, they run a few laps and then park their car once they need fuel or new tires. I became aware of this practice when I became interested in Morgan Shepherd, as he was sponsored by Jesus and formerly Cheerwine. He didn't have the money to run a full race, so he would run what he could and then park.

The article touches on just how profitable this practice is and the declining incentives to run a full race when Start and Parkers are making just as much money and not having to spend it on a crew or extra fuel and tires.

While it does go against the competitive nature of the sport, unless a driver is capable of finishing in the top 10, they might as well not even bother as they're not going to get any attention anyway. In fact, there are so many Start and Parkers now, that it's basically become its own competition to see who can and can't qualify. For example, Morgan Shepherd eventually moved to Nationwide as he continuously failed to qualify for the Sprint Cup races.

One solution to this, if one even considers it a problem, would be to reduce the financial incentives. Simply reducing the payout for poor finishes though would equally hurt Start and Parkers and teams with few resources and would just lead to fewer cars in the race. A better method would be to increase the difference in pay based on final position to encourage drivers to stay on the track. As it stands now, there's little financial difference in finishing 43rd or 23rd. Another idea would be instead of giving the teams just cash, give them extra fuel and tires that they have to use at that race. This would be incredibly beneficial for teams that want to to run full races, but find themselves parking in order to save money. If the tires and fuel are already provided for them, they don't have to worry about it.

Majority-Minority

Similar to my interest in population decline, another demographic trend that fascinates me is the growing diversity of the US. So far four states (CA, HI, NM, and TX) and DC are what are called "majority-minority" states, wherein non-Hispanic whites make up less than 50% of the population. I keep hearing that more states will soon join them, but I never hear of estimates of how soon that could possibly be. So armed with Census population data from 2005 to 2008, I made rough estimates of which states will be next.

What I found somewhat surprised me. Although my estimates say that non-Hispanic whites will no longer be the majority in the whole US by 2041, only eight more states will be considered majority-minority states by that time. So how could it happen that non-Hispanic whites will no longer be the majority across the country, but still be majority in 38 states?

You may have noticed that the two most populous states, California and Texas, are already majority-minority. By 2041, less than a third of their populations will be white. Many of the other 10 are either already very large or very quickly growing, while many of the states that will retain a white majority are small or have slow or negative growth.

Majority-Minority States by 2041:
Nevada - 2016
Arizona - 2020
Georgia - 2021
Maryland - 2022
Florida - 2024
Mississippi - 2026
New Jersey - 2030
New York - 2038

Only one state, Hawaii, and DC are going against the trend. Hawaii currently has the lowest proportion of whites in the US at less than a quarter of the population. However, all of the reversal trend is related to a massive jump in the white population between 2005 and 2006, after which there are no farther increases. DC, on the other hand, is becoming whiter, and at a very rapid pace. The white population gains one percentage point every year. By 2025, DC should have a white majority.

Fastest changing states (percentage points annually):
Nevada - 0.9
Wyoming - 0.7
Arizona - 0.7
Utah - 0.6
Idaho - 0.6

Slowest changing states (percentage points annually):
South Carolina - 0.2
Rhode Island - 0.2
Michigan - 0.2
Ohio - 0.3
Minnesota - 0.3

For comparison, the US is changing at a rate of 0.5 percentage points annually. So as of 2008, 65.4% of Americans were white, but in 2009, 64.9% should have been white.

NASCAR week 5

Finally got a statistical model that I've stuck with. The top twenty contenders haven't changed, but the order has changed a little.

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Stewart - 72%
Johnson - 67%
Biffle - 62%
Martin - 61%
Gordon - 61%
Hamlin - 59%
Kenseth - 59%
Kurt Busch - 55%
Newman - 53%
Vickers - 52%
Montoya - 51%
Edwards - 50%
Kahne - 48%
Kyle Busch - 44%
Bowyer - 41%
Reutimann - 40%
Logano - 36%
Harvick - 36%
Burton - 35%
Ambrose - 34%

The biggest gainer this week was Biffle. With a fourth place finish, his chances jumped 6 percentage points. The biggest loser was Sorenson, but given that he no longer races in the Sprint Cup, it's not really surprising. Of guys actually in the Sprint Cup, Kahne saw a loss of 4 percentage points and is now behind Edwards. Despite still being the points leader, Harvick's chances barely changed.

And They're Ready

Wikipedia

All entries for Eurovision 2010 are set with Ukraine making its final selection earlier today. Ukraine had actually held a final back on March 6th, but due to some controversy surrounding the selection, an emergency second final was held, wherein another candidate was selected. Ukraine technically broke Eurovision rules by holding the second final, but I think they'll be lenient since they managed to get it finished before the deadline.

Since the contest isn't until the end of May, I'm going to try to keep myself from listening to any of the entries before May to keep from spoiling it. I did listen to the Albanian entry already, but that was back in January and I've already forgotten it.

Uppsala Gets an Airport

The Local

An environmental review has determined that the military airport, Ärna, in Uppsala is suitable for commercial use. This means that low-cost carriers may begin offering flights from there. It would have been amazing if this airport had been open when I was there. It's less than 10 km from the dorm I stayed in. I could have biked to the airport.

The plan may not come to fruition as the Social Democrats and Greens, who are currently in opposition in the regional government, are saying they will reject the plans if they win this year's election. Uppsala is "conservative" (as much as any region in Sweden can be considered such), so it's unlikely they'll win, but they are polling well, so we'll see what happens.

NASCAR Re-cap

Since there's no race this week, I decided to do an update on how much the drivers' chances have changed as a result of the last four races. I never posted what their chances were prior to the beginning of the season, so they didn't have to go through tons of changes to make them comparable as I've changed my model 5 times.

The top 12 originally were the guys that made it to the chance last year, unsurprisingly. After four races, Kenseth has moved into the top 12, replacing Edwards.

Stewart remains the guy most likely to make the chase, going from a 67% to 70% chance. He is currently 8th in points.

Martin has seen the biggest improvement in his chances, jumping 12 percentage points (53% to 65%). He had a poor start last year and was only 34th in points by this time last year, compared to 7th this year.

The biggest improvement for a guy that didn't make the chase last year is 5 points (48% to 53%) for Kenseth.

There are a number of drivers whose chances have dropped dramatically. However, most of them are people that raced near full schedules last year, but aren't racing this year for various reasons, such as Waltrip, Stremme, and Sorenson.

Of people actually trying to make Sprint Cup races, Mears has seen the biggest drop. He had a 28% chance at the start of the season, but due to moving to a new team, he has failed to qualify for a single race and his chances have dropped to 13%.

Among those that have made all four races, Robby Gordon chances have dropped the most, from 18% to 11%. Mears has a better chance of making the Chase.

The largest drop for someone that made the Chase last year was for Edwards, who has dropped 5 percentage points to the 13th position. He will likely drop farther as I've heard that he has be suspended for several weeks.

Despite being the current points leader, Harvick's chances have barely changed, going from 34% to 35%. The main reason for this is that he did really well early in the season last year (was 8th in points), but dropped off later on.

NASCAR week 4

You'd think by now I'd be happy with the statistical model I'm using, but no, I decided to change it again. When I updated the numbers for this week, Kvapil's numbers shot up, giving him a 44% chance of making the chance because the only race I was basing his average on was the Bristol race where he did fairly well. So the model no longer assumes everyone is driving a full season.

(Update 3/9/10: fixed a mistake I made)

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Stewart - 73%
Johnson - 69%
Martin - 67%
Gordon - 64%
Hamlin - 63%
Newman - 60%
Biffle - 59%
Montoya - 58%
Kenseth - 57%
Kurt Busch - 56%
Kahne - 55%
Vickers - 53%
Edwards - 52%
Kyle Busch - 51%
Bowyer - 45%
Reutimann - 44%
Logano - 40%
Ambrose - 37%
Burton - 39%
Harvick - 35%

The biggest loser is Keselowski because including all the races he didn't run in last year dropped him to 1%. The biggest gainer was Newman, going up 10 percentage points, as I finally fixed a problem I was having with his numbers.

NASCAR week 3

So I decided to change my model again to make it more consistent. This change affected all the drivers, generally increasing the odds of drivers that previously had better than even odds of making the chase and decreasing the odds for everyone else. I think this one makes more sense as previously the model showed Casey Mears with a 30% chance of making the chase despite not being in a single race so far. Now he only has an 8% chance.

NASCAR week 3
Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Stewart - 73%
Johnson - 69%
Martin - 67%
Gordon - 66%
Hamlin - 63%
Biffle - 57%
Edwards - 56%
Kurt Busch - 55%
Kahne - 54%
Vickers - 54%
Kyle Busch - 51%
Kenseth - 51%
Montoya - 50%
Newman - 50%
Bowyer - 46%
Reutimann - 44%
Logano - 33%
Keselowski - 33%
Burton - 32%
Harvick - 30%

Despite being the points leader, Harvick is still ranked really low due to his poor results from last year. Only 3 out of 26 races have been completed so far, meaning that 88% of his score is still based on last year's results. The biggest gainer this week was Kenseth, moving up 6 percentage points. The biggest loser was the aforementioned Mears.

NASCAR week 2

Last week I put up a list of the drivers most likely to make the Chase. Well here's an update following the results at Fontana. I made a slight adjustment to the model, it only affected a few drivers, but it's why Newman's chances went up despite a poor finish this week and Kenseth's chances went down despite a decent finish.

Top 20 Chase Contenders:
(red means they're down from last week, green means they're up)
Stewart - 68%
Johnson - 64%
Gordon - 63%
Hamlin - 61%
Martin - 61%
Kurt Busch - 57%
Biffle - 55%
Kyle Busch - 54%
Newman - 54%
Edwards - 53%
Vickers - 53%
Kahne - 51%
Montoya - 50%
Bowyer - 48%
Reutimann - 47%
Kenseth - 45%
Burton - 43%
Logano - 43%
McMurray - 38%
Earnhardt Jr - 37%

Ambrose dropped out of the top 20, letting Earnhardt Jr gain a spot, just barely edging out Harvick. The biggest gainer was Mark Martin, increasing his chances by 5%. The biggest loser was Waltrip, dropping 8%. Of course, he didn't even race at Fontana as he's not running a few schedule this year.

New Music for 2010

Thought I would share some music with you that I've discovered since returning from Germany. But first I want to say Lala is a great site that will let you preview a whole album, has cheap music downloads, and an impressive music library.

Lost in the Trees
A local NC band that I got to see perform in Asheville. Last month they performed with the orchestra at NCSSM.

The Heavy
You've probably heard this song before if you've been watching TV lately. It's being used in a Kia commercial. I first heard of them thanks to David Letterman. He liked them so much he had them play the song twice.

Adiam Dymott
You can never escape Swedish music.

Rain Machine
I was so happy the first time I heard this song. I thought it was a new TV on the Radio song, but it's actually for a side project one of the members.

Brandi Carlile
Paste Magazine said her last album was one of the best of 2009. I had never heard of her before, but I agreed with their assessment after hearing this song.

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes
First heard this song on WNCW and thought it was brilliant. I know how to play it, but I don't have anyone to sing it with.

Yeasayer
They've been playing this song a lot on the World Cafe. An appropriately odd video for an odd song.

Chances in the Chase

Similar to what I did last year, I'm doing predictions on how NASCAR drivers will perform this year, only this time I'm starting before the Chase. I've set up a model for predicting who will make it into the Chase. The numbers I use are based on last years results, but I'll update them after each race this year.

Top 20 Drivers:
Stewart - 68%
Gordon - 65%
Hamlin - 63%
Johnson - 63%
Biffle - 57%
Kurt Busch - 57%
Kyle Busch - 57%
Martin - 56%
Edwards - 55%
Kahne - 54%
Vickers - 54%
Kenseth - 51%
Montoya - 51%
Newman - 50%
Bowyer - 47%
Reutimann - 47%
Logano - 41%
Burton - 40%
Ambrose - 38%
McMurray - 38%


McMurray just barely makes the top 20 cut-off despite winning the Daytona 500. In fact he's ranked only slightly higher than Casey Mears who didn't even run in the Daytona 500.

One oddity of the prediction model is that it assumes that all drivers will run a full season, so Bill Elliott has a 29% chance of making the Chase.

Facebook Divisions

PeteSearch

This guy did an analysis of Facebook users and created a map based mostly on where users' friends lived. For example, in the Northeast users' friends tend to live in whatever cities are closest, whereas in the Southeast there are more connections to nearby large cities, like Atlanta. The West is probably the one that is most different as it seems they have friends all over the place.

Latvian ghost town sold

BBC News

Celeste shared an article about a ghost town in Latvia that was up for sell in Google Reader last night. Apparently she was a bit too late in telling me as it has already sold at auction for $3 million. I never even got a chance to bid. One thing that surprised me though, I figured they would only sell to someone who had an idea of what to do with the property, but the company that bought it did not say.

I tried looking up the company, Aleksejevskoje-Serviss, but the first 100 results are just re-postings of this article in various languages.

Another reason to change copyright laws

BBC News

Men at Work have lost a plagiarism case over similarities between the flute solo in "Down Under" and the classic "Kookaburra". "Down Under" has been around for 27 years, and this case was not brought forward until last year. It's not like the song is obscure or that the similarities are vague, so why now?

The case can be made that copyrights exist so that people can continue to gain profit and recognition for their work, but at what point does one stop? "Kookaburra" was written in 1934 and the writer, Marion Sinclair, died in 1988. So she obviously no longer cares about profits and recognition. The case was brought forward by Larrikin Music who has owned the publishing rights to the song since 1990. So a company that neither created the song nor owned the song when "Down Under" was released is now enforcing the copyright after almost 20 years of neglect. They want 60% of the all the money "Down Under" has made, even from before 1990, when they didn't own the publishing rights.

The best part is that the tune for "Kookaburra" is based on a Welsh folk song.

Corporate Candidates

Think Progress

Murray Hill, a PR firm in Maryland, is planning to run a satirical campaign for congress as a response to the recent Supreme Court decision. Their argument is that if a corporation can be considered an entity, then they should be allowed to run for public office. They will be running in the Republican primary in Maryland's 8th district. So Robert, move back to Bethesda so you can vote for them.

Global Population Decline

I got really interested in population decline while in East Germany, so I've been doing some research into causes and patterns. I had a file on my computer that included population estimates for 122 countries since 1950, so I've been doing some estimates on future population change. The current shift in population is a surprisingly global phenomenon. Half the countries in my sample will peak in population prior to 2060, and they represent a huge variety a nations, not just industrialized western nations.

I did notice a few patterns in doing this project. The current wave of decline started in eastern Europe, beginning with East Germany. Decline in East Germany was accelerated by the loss of the younger population who fled to West Germany prior to the Berlin Wall's construction. Later, Hungary started to decline with the rest of eastern Europe soon to follow after the fall of Communism.

I originally used a model that incorporated all the years from 1950 to 2008 (59-year model), but I noticed there was a major shift around 1989. Most of this can be attributed to the fall of Communism, but there were a number of nations that showed this shift that had nothing to do with Communism. Using just the years from 1989 to 2008 (20 year model), I found a huge change in my numbers, showing there has been a definite deceleration in population growth in recent years. Many countries that showed continuous growth in the future using the 59-year model showed eventual decline using the 20-year model.

Only a handful of countries buck this trend: Denmark, France, Iceland, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Using the 20-year model, all these countries either show continuous future growth or at least a delay as to when they will reach peak population. They are also all industrialized countries. The reasons as to why this reversal has happened is likely different for each one, but it is probably related to increased immigration or policies that encourage more children. These examples show that not all countries at destined to decline once they industrialize.

I made a table of all the countries that already have peaked or, according to my estimates, will peak by 2100. They include 72 out of the 122 countries in my sample. The dates beyond 2020 are probably way off as anything can happen. Most signs point to the fact that population growth is decelerating faster than most models predict, but a few countries might be able to delay it. All countries listed at peaking in 2010 are countries that the 20-year model predicted should have already peaked, but haven't.

1968 - East Germany
1981 - Hungary
1988 - Armenia
1989 - Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Trinidad and Tobago
1990 - Georgia, Romania
1991 - Lithuania
1992 - Kazakhstan
1993 - Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine
1994 - Croatia, Czech Republic
1995 - Russia
1998 - Poland
2001 - Zimbabwe
2003 - Slovenia
2005 - Germany, Japan
2007 - Italy
2010 - Austria, Greece, Iran, Macedonia, Slovakia, Sweden
2011 - Finland
2012 - Cyprus
2013 - South Korea, St. Lucia
2014 - Malta
2015 - Belgium
2016 - Taiwan
2018 - China
2019 - Uzbekistan
2021 - Albania
2022 - Thailand
2023 - Azerbaijan, Cambodia, South Africa
2027 - Tunisia
2028 - Switzerland, Singapore, Vietnam
2029 - Canada, Mozambique
2031 - Algeria
2034 - Bahrain, Israel
2037 - Ecuador
2039 - Chile
2041 - Turkey
2045 - Mexico
2052 - Zambia
2055 - Jordan
2056 - Venezuela
2058 - Peru
2059 - United States
2063 - Norway, Uruguay
2069 - Costa Rica, India
2070 - Myanmar, Saudi Arabia
2071 - Bolivia
2076 - Serbia, Montenegro (combined)
2094 - Cote d'Ivoire
2096 - Argentina