This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon

Categories

Calendar

@abulsme Updates from 2012-05-31 (UTC)

  • Reading – Obama the Warrior (Glenn Greenwald) http://t.co/Kmy3Dxgx #
  • Reading – Once Deemed Evil, Google Now Embraces "Paid Inclusion" (Danny Sullivan) http://t.co/eXetBHA5 #
  • Reading – Secretive X-37B Space Plane Will be Landing Soon (Nancy Atkinson) http://t.co/rxASYqa8 #
  • MT @FHQ: .@BYUfan @Bencjacobs Bachmann did not gain a del from MN. She IS the delegate & presumably a Romney vote at the convention. #
  • Reading – On Reasonable Pluralism and Being Mean (Kevin Vallier) http://t.co/HutCIda7 #
  • Reading – First They Came For My Big Gulp, And I Said Nothing (John Cole) http://t.co/aXv5CMhn #
  • Run!!! MT @BreakingNews: NASA predicts our galaxy will collide with the nearby Andromeda galaxy in 6 billion yrs – @TPM http://t.co/e2uLbVKd #
  • Reading – Secret ‘Kill List’ Tests Obama’s Principles (Jo Becker and Scott Shane) http://t.co/IHRIxQIJ #
  • Reading – State-by-state vote swings are more uniform than they used to be (Andrew Gelman) http://t.co/FVubs4Aq #
  • RT @ModeledBehavior: Decline in US government is just mind blowing http://t.co/MLqkgpWB #
  • MT @fivethirtyeight: In deep-dive in past poll data. Finding: state polls often tell you more about the national trend than national polls. #
  • MT @SamSeder: If one can be removed from a secret kill list w/out being killed, there's a wee bit of problem w/generation of that list. #
  • MT @DanaPerino: something about government banning huge sugary drinks that makes me want to chug a mountain dew. #
  • MT @zunguzungu: In 2012 or 2016, odds are pretty good that a Repub will inherit the "right to kill people whenevers" that Obama established. #
  • Reading – Did The Party Decide? The Best Candidate Who Can Win (Hans Noel) http://t.co/Fokrc5gs #
  • Reading – Presidential Polling in June: Flip a Coin Instead? (Larry J. Sabato) http://t.co/HRuLir6l #
  • Reading – Why Mitt Romney’s sabre-rattling on Syria signifies nothing (Heather Hurlburt) http://t.co/mTYsI2kI #
  • Reading – RIAA wants to issue unlimited takedowns to Google (Nate Anderson) http://t.co/vv4lIEjG #

@abulsme Updates from 2012-05-30 (UTC)

  • RT @ppppolls: 38% of MI voters think the trees are the right height. 8% think they aren't. 55% aren't sure: http://t.co/ygRATCCc #
  • By my own Green Papers plus DCW SuperDel count Romney just passed 1144. Will wait for my daily update until GP counts seem stable though. #
  • Reading – Tim Cook at D10: Hints at Facebook Integration, and Siri Improvements (Arnold Kim) http://t.co/98xIFFPh #
  • Reading – Ghostly Jets Haunt the Milky Way’s Black Hole (Nancy Atkinson) http://t.co/3zmshZZ7 #
  • Reading – Mitt Romney clinches GOP presidential nod (Ginger Gibson) http://t.co/xvERD0O2 #
  • Reading – Romney Condemns Obama’s Syria Policy (Mark Landler) http://t.co/6xFD0YKo #
  • Reading – British Court Clears Way for Extradition of WikiLeaks Founder (Ravi Somaiya and John F. Burns) http://t.co/pn71vdAM #
  • Reading – Where’s All The Internet Money? (Andrew Sullivan) http://t.co/gqeo6vUk #
  • Reading – This Is the Way Facebook Ends
    (Alec Liu) http://t.co/FTgcDjvB #
  • Reading – Syria: How to Do “More good than Harm” (NSN) http://t.co/JhGfJ5sg #
  • RT @FHQ: It is still on. Expect Jeb Bush to jump in before CA next week or UT on 6/26. RT @RyanLizza: Wait, so no brokered convention? #
  • RT @wilw: I bet there is some furious shaking of the Etch-a-Sketch in Camp Romney right about now. #
  • Reading – Apple CEO Tim Cook: Steve “taught me that the joy is in the journey” (Jacqui Cheng) http://t.co/0h1LLTdV #
  • Today’s replacement flgt for yesterday’s cancelled flgts already delayed mult times. Waiting to hear if more delay. Maintenance issue now. #
  • As is, only 22 minutes for connection in Philly. Which might not be enough depending on gates if other flight not delayed or held. #
  • Reading – Clintons Make ‘Great Neighbors,’ but for How Long? (Peter Applebome) http://t.co/E7Fa40ey #
  • MT @fivethirtyeight: LOESS regression is overrated unless you have an empirical way to det what the smoothing param should be. #nerdtweets #
  • Reading – Flame Malware Mostly Smoke And Mirrors, Say Security Experts (Carl Franzen) http://t.co/i6bwgPto #
  • Boarding for cle->Phl finally started. Almost certainly too late for Phl->sea flight unless that is delayed too. #
  • Now scheduled to get to Philly about 30 minutes after next flight is supposed to leave. In my seat, so will deal with rebooking at PHL. #
  • Reading – Google Co-Founder, Sergey Brin Finally Lets a Non-Googler Try on His Glasses on (Hillel Fuld) http://t.co/dN2L5lCz #
  • RT @BuzzFeedBen: Not sure why @barackobama called @mittromney when he could have DMd him. Do they not follow one another? #
  • Well, got to Philly. Seattle will have to wait for tomorrow. #
  • They rebooked me in air, but that flight was also gone by the time we landed. Unlike yesterday, delays today not weather, so free hotel. #
  • @jonsevern They booked me at the Ramada, which I presume is nearby. Dinner? Warning: In same dirty clothes since Tuesday morning. :-) #
  • MT @FHQ: right. RT @Bencjacobs: @FHQ will correct me if I'm wrong but I think Michele Bachmann won her first delegate in Texas last night #
  • @jonsevern Won’t be at the terminal though. Already at the Ramada. #
  • @BYUfan Do you have a source for the MN Bachmann del? @TheGreenPapers soft count has Paul 32 Sant 2 Ging 1 Uncom 2 TBD 3 @fhq @bencjacobs #
  • Reading – Fussy 3-year-old kicked off Alaska Airlines flight (KIRO) http://t.co/2AaIEs9U #
  • @usernamenuse @BYUfan @FHQ @Bencjacobs But Bachmann endorsed Romney on May 3rd, so wouldn’t she be a Romney del? Is she officially uncomm? #
  • @usernamenuse @byufan @fhq @bencjacobs Think @TheGreenPapers has her unc. But Romney wld b reasonable gvn endorsement. Not that it mattrs. #

Electoral College: Michigan Weakens for Obama (plus New Hampshire Correction)

Chart and map from the Abulsme.com 2012 Electoral College Prediction page. Both assume Obama vs Romney with no strong third party candidate. Both show polling as it currently exists. Things will change before election day. On the map red is Romney, blue is Obama, gold states are too close to call. Lines on the chart represent how many more electoral votes a candidate would have than is needed to tie under several different scenarios. Up is good for Obama, Down is good for Romney.

One state changes status today, and it is a move toward Romney:

Michigan was in my “Strong Obama” category starting on April 10th. Today the five poll average drops to only a 9.7% lead for Obama, so the state drops to “Weak Obama”. As I’ve described this category many times before, this means that while Obama has a healthy lead, it is not so strong a lead that he can ignore the state. He has to play defense here, otherwise strong efforts from Romney (or big mistakes on his part) could make the state competitive again. As recently as February the five poll averages were such that Michigan was categorized as a swing state. It could go there again.

Since this does not change the inventory of swing states, the summary remains the same:

Romney Obama
Romney Best Case 269 269
Current Status 206 332
Obama Best Case 159 379

In addition to the change in Michigan today, I have a correction to the historical timeline for New Hampshire. Based on data provided by Darryl from HorsesAss I found a typo in one New Hampshire poll from March, and a few older polls from 2011 that I had missed when booting up these charts in January. The end result is that New Hampshire’s timeline changes slightly.

Prior to today I had this timeline:

  • Jan 1 – Apr 19: Lean Romney (Swing State)
  • Apr 19 – May 16: Lean Obama (Swing State)
  • May 16 – Now: Weak Obama

With the corrections, the timeline should have been:

  • Jan 1 – Feb 4: Weak Romney
  • Feb 4 – Mar 31: Lean Romney (Swing State)
  • Mar 31 – May 16: Lean Obama (Swing State)
  • May 16 – Now: Weak Obama

These changes only effect the historical timeline, the current position remains the same. The chart showing the race over time has been updated with this correction starting with today’s update.

2012 Republican Delegate Count: Texas pushes Romney over the Top

Charts from the Abulsme.com 2012 Republican Delegate Count Graphs page. When a candidate gets down to 0%, they have clinched the nomination. If they get above 100%, they have been mathematically eliminated. The first chart is by date, the second is by “% of Delegates Already Allocated”. These numbers include estimates of the eventual results of multi-stage caucus processes which will be refined as the later stages occur.

This is what we have been waiting for seemingly forever. By the beginning of March it was clear that no other candidate than Romney had the ability to get to 1144 absent a miracle. By the beginning of April it was clear that the non-Romney’s also were not going to be able to collectively block Romney absent a miracle. But Romney still needed to actually get to 1144. Slowly but surely he did so through April and May. Today he finally goes over the top. (At least with the count I use, which uses the Green Papers soft count plus the DCW Superdelegate Count. Other counts may differ.)

Since this is “the end” lets include a couple of additional graphs with two other views of the race:

All of these charts show how Romney completely dominated this race from the very beginning. There was NEVER a point in the entire campaign where Romney was not ahead in delegates. It was only even close for a few days after Gingrich won South Carolina. The rest of the time, this whole campaign has just been a story of Romney slowly but surely pulling further and further ahead.

Now lets look specifically at today’s results from Texas.

Prior to today, none of Texas’s 155 delegates had been allocated. As of this update we have Romney 105, Paul 18, Santorum 13, Gingrich 7, Bachmann 2, TBD 10. Yes, that is right, at this late state, Michelle Bachmann mounts a comeback it seems. In any case, an overwhelming Romney win.

Romney also picked up two super delegates from Colorado today.

So net for the day: Romney +107, Paul +18, Santorum +13, Gingrich +7, Bachmann +2. Romney gets 72.8% of the delegates awarded today. This is way more than the 12.9% of the remaining delegates he needed to be on track to get to 1144 before “the end”. This was actually enough to push him over the edge.

My count now has the totals as: Romney 1159, Santorum 268, Gingrich 150, Paul 143, Bachmann 2

Now, by the Green Papers “hard count” that only counts delegates that are officially bound to Romney and theoretically have no discretion or ability to change their mind, we have Romney 1012, Santorum 245, Gingrich 143, Paul 93, Bachman 2, Huntsman 2… so by that count Romney still has a little bit further to go. The soft count also includes estimates for how delegates with discretion will vote and for how the remaining processes that are not yet final will play out. I also add in the super delegates who have publicly stated a preference. This is all reasonable. So I feel confident having using the count we have used all along, and considering Romney to have gotten to the 1144 magic number as of today.

Since we are hitting this major milestone today, I’ll take advantage of this time to highlight the comparisons with the 2008 races. More comparisons with 2008 can be found here.

First, to make comparisons easier, the 2012 race on a full 0%-100% scale:

Then what the equivalent graph looked like in 2008:

Looking at these two, in 2008 McCain had two non-trivial opponents compared to the 3 Romney had this time. In 2008, McCain pulled away from the other candidates starting around the 10% mark. In 2012 Romney was ahead from the very beginning. By the the 5% of delegates awarded mark (after Florida), Romney opened up the gap and none of the others ever came close again. Both Romney and McCain got to the “40% of remaining needed to win” mark at almost exactly the point where 50% of the delegates had been awarded. These two years look pretty similar.

Another view comparing Romney 2012 to McCain 2008 looks at % of total delegates earned by the eventual winner vs % of total delegates allocated. This was originally prompted by a post at Enik Rising. Looking at both candidates on the same chart we see this:

Despite all the talk at various points in time about Romney having problems closing the deal by comparison to 2008, this shows clearly that no such thing was happening. Any perception to that effect was due only to the fact that the calendar was more spread out this year than in 2008. Comparing the two curves, sometimes Romney was ahead, sometimes McCain was ahead, but for the most part these two lines tracked each other closely.

Finally, just for completeness, here is what an actually close race looks like on the “% of remaining delegates needed to win” chart… specifically, the Democrats in 2008:

With that, we wrap up the regular coverage of the Republican delegate race for 2012. There may be additional updates for specific milestones… if Paul manages to pass Gingrich in the delegate count… the final totals once all the state delegate selection processes are actually over… or the final roll call count at the convention… but as for regular updates this is it.

Thanks for everybody who has been reading and enjoying these updates over the last five months.

From here on out, it is all about the Electoral College

Edit 2012 Jun 5 12:49 UTC: Fixed affect/effect typo.

The King’s Speech

Released: 2010 Sep 6
Watched: 2011 Jan 17

OK, this movie I remember. Brandy and I did one of our not all that often trips to actually see something in the theater.

Bottom line, I loved it.

It of course won a bunch of awards too.

I like this sort of historical “based on a true story” type of movie though. They are never exactly true to the history of course, as things are changed for dramatic effect and all. So what do I do as soon as I get home from the movie?

That’s right, I spend the next several hours reading Wikipedia pages about the characters in the movie, and that moved on to related events and people, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Anyway, great story about a king with a speech impediment and how he overcomes it to make a critical speech at the beginning of World War II.

And now, while writing this post, I find myself once again reading Wikipedia articles, so I should stop and move on.

But hey, if you haven’t seen this yet, and like this sort of historical drama, go rent or buy it or whatnot now. K?

Emma

Released: 1996 Aug 2
Watched: 2011 Jan 16
Queue: Brandy
Format: DVD

Another bit of catching up since I am not at home.

I have no memory of watching this movie at all. So I guess I thought a lot of it. I really should write these things less than a year and a half after I watch something. Oops.

Reading the description on Wikipedia rings a few bells though. I now remember a few bits and pieces of the movie.

It was OK I guess.

But obviously it left no lasting impression on me.

After this, we’ve actually only had two more family movie nights in the intervening year and a half. We obviously got out of the habit with everything else that has been going on in that time.

We should get everything set up again and start doing it again someday.

Maybe this summer. We’ll see.

Kindle Ratio as of 2012 May 30

Sigh, once again I let things go way too long. I’ve been busy with other things. But since I’m stuck at hotel after a cancelled plane flight, I’ll maybe catch up on some old stuff.

So, months after I should have… the chart of how many of the last 20 books I have reviewed that are available on Kindle… now up to 80%:

I actually got my Kindle after that ratio hit 50%. So here also is the ratio of how many of the last 20 books I’ve read (not necessarily reviewed yet) that I’ve actually read on Kindle. This is up to 75% now.

I’ve said I’ll continue doing these posts until each of the charts hits 90%.

Tuesday at Oberlin

20120530-003017.jpg

Cathy and Dad walking at night.

20120530-003900.jpg

Dad and me.

20120530-003654.jpg

Cynthia and Cathy.

And then it was time to go to the airport to head home.

@abulsme Updates from 2012-05-29 (UTC)

  • Just completed a 1.35 km walk – Walk with Cathy, Jim and Dad. http://t.co/7jEZzFn7 #RunKeeper #
  • Reading – 8th World Wonder in the Works: Tunnel from Russia to USA (WebUrbanist) http://t.co/wkF9uubK #
  • Reading – A Dive Into the Digital Deep (Andrew Blum) http://t.co/JLGBpyNk #
  • RT @natsecHeather: +1 RT @MarkLGoldberg Key diff tween Libya & Syria: Libyan dips did not have to be expelled. They defected on their own. #
  • First flight out of CLE canceled due to weather. 2nd canceled a couple hours later. They put me on one leaving at 7 AM tomorrow morning. #
  • I didn’t want to get up that early, so now on flight leaving 11something local time tomorrow. Staying at an exciting Days Inn tonight. #
  • Will end up home about 21 hours after originally planned, assuming no more delays. Air travel is so awesome! #
  • Reading – 2 years, no verdict on Paine Field passenger flights (Bill Sheets) http://t.co/u4cNTnR6 #

Monday at Oberlin

20120529-005008.jpg

Illumination. (I do UTC days, so this WAS on Monday…)

20120529-005458.jpg

OSteel plays to a crowd.

20120529-005639.jpg

Carnegie at night.

20120529-010438.jpg

Dad upset at something.

20120529-010932.jpg

Dad, Grandfather Sunshine and Cathy.

20120529-011744.jpg

Cynthia waiting to walk.

20120529-013316.jpg

Getting her degree. As best as my iPhone could capture it.

20120529-013606.jpg

Right after getting her degree.

20120529-013811.jpg

The proud graduate.

20120529-014327.jpg

Grandfather Sunshine, ready to take pictures.

20120529-014647.jpg

Proud Grandfather.

20120529-015035.jpg

Dad, Cynthia and Cathy. And the degree.

20120529-015316.jpg

Cynthia and her grandfather.

20120529-015523.jpg

Cathy and Dad.

20120529-021415.jpg

Grandfather Sunshine and Cathy.