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.