I've observed with interest the recent multiplication of swing dancing analogies. Perhaps it's the rise of the swing dancing blog, or there's more people thinking about dancing but I'm beginning to think that it's getting a bit much. Some of them are cute, some of them show the nerdiness of Lindy Hoppers and yet others can get the user into hot water.
Don't get me wrong, I like analogies and they have their uses. But that's the problem. An analogy is a comparison used to explain a difficult concept, by stripping out the complexity and comparing it to something within the bounds of common experience. Back when I did science and math tutoring they came in handy to take concepts and ideas beyond experience (like electricity - electrons flow around a circuit like water in a pipe) and make them easier to understand.
But here's the catch. Dancing is something that is within the bounds of regular experience. You can see it and feel it. Even though some things can be difficult to get I can't see how trying to wrap your head around something involving boxes, springs or flashlights helps the matter. The concept being proposed can be more complex than what it's trying to explain. A writer will then spend more of their time trying to explain the analogy than they devote to the original concept.
Much of the time I feel that analogies are being used to make a point and fair enough. It can be hard to get heard in the lindysphere these days so anything to get your point across is a plus in this marketplace of ideas.
Remember, though, that analogies will always fail. There's only so far they can be stretched. This is the opportunity for real understanding. When my student asked "what happens when all the electrons (ie water) runs out of the pipe?" they can learn that the electrons don't "run out" but are conserved in the system.
That's where the true success of an analogy is: its failure.
Friday, 20 May 2011
Tuesday, 17 May 2011
Links of the week
Chris Moody in Mother Jones talks about how ideology trumps facts. He explains how people deny facts when they are in conflict with their beliefs. It's no wonder then that climate sceptics don't change their minds, but it does happen as Brian Merchant finds out at Slate.com. The key? They need to change their minds on the politics first; the facts second.
The anti-intellectual attitudes evident in the climate change debate may have a root in working class 'boganism' in our public schools as Geoff Strong explains in the National Times.
Dan Cass examines on The Drum the culture of hate speech in climate politics how this could both shut down legitimate debate and pose real physical dangers to green activists and politicians.
And ever fancied telecommuting by blimp? Tobita Hiroaki and colleagues at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo have made it possible:
The anti-intellectual attitudes evident in the climate change debate may have a root in working class 'boganism' in our public schools as Geoff Strong explains in the National Times.
Dan Cass examines on The Drum the culture of hate speech in climate politics how this could both shut down legitimate debate and pose real physical dangers to green activists and politicians.
And ever fancied telecommuting by blimp? Tobita Hiroaki and colleagues at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Tokyo have made it possible:
I want one.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
What is the new 'Middle Class'?
The post-budget articles in the newspapers are making me sick. Making out families on $150,000 a year as though they're on struggle street is pretty dirty, when folk in that situation are better off than most of us.
Matt Cowgill has written an excellent piece trying to find out what the middle class (middle meaning median, not average) actually is. It's been picked up by ABC's The Drum as well.
I've looked at how big the supposed 'working families' demographic is before, but let's explore what this 'middle class', that Government budget savings will affect, is really like.
My source - "Household Wealth and Wealth Distribution, Australia, 2005-06" from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (I know it's a little old but it's the latest issue of the product).
I'll be looking at the top 20% of households by gross income. These are households making more than $100,000 a year - including plenty of families making substantially less than those examined in the papers.
Share of Wealth and Income
Now this top 20% of households controls 45% of the income in Australia and 60% of the wealth. This is nearly double the income and triple the wealth of the next highest 20% and 10 times the income and 60 times the wealth of the lowest 20% of households. This may sound bad but it's better than the US where the top 20% controls 61% of the income and a whopping 85% of the wealth (and the top 1% of households 34% of the wealth).
The median income of this group is $130K a year, more than double the median income for all households and nearly 10 times that of the lowest group.
The median net worth of this group is $635K, double the median for all households and three times that of the lowest group.
Income Source
This group is fairly similar to the next highest 20% in that they both get their primary income from wages and salaries, although there appears to be a very small number that claim their primary source of income is government pensions and allowances - perhaps The Australian found them. However about a quarter of this group gets 1-20% of their income from pensions and allowances. Unfortunately the stats don't break down further but I'll assume the contribution will mostly be closer to 1% than 20%.
Tenure Type
Most of this group, 57%, has a mortgage the highest proportion of any income group. Makes sense - mortgages are expensive so the highest income bracket will be able to have more of them.
Family Type
Nearly half of this group (and more than twice the average) have kids under 15, the highest proportion for all income groups. Makes sense - kids are expensive so the highest income bracket will be able to have more of them.
Also less than 4% of this group are lone person households, close to seven times less than the average. To get into this income bracket you need a combined income. This is also borne out in the stats - these households have an average of 2.3 employed persons and one child under 15 (again, almost twice the average).
Location
Three quarters of these households live in capital cities which is higher than the average (about 63%).
Summary
So this group of top 20% in household earnings does fit the postcard. They're likely to have a mortgage and kids with both parents in work, get the majority of their income from work and live in a capital city. But this is a group that as a whole controls a majority of the household wealth and close to a majority of the household income.
This group does get some government benefits, less than that of the next highest income bracket, but their biggest advantage is that they earn more and possess more. If this group actually depends on government assistance then the rest of us are screwed.
Matt Cowgill has written an excellent piece trying to find out what the middle class (middle meaning median, not average) actually is. It's been picked up by ABC's The Drum as well.
I've looked at how big the supposed 'working families' demographic is before, but let's explore what this 'middle class', that Government budget savings will affect, is really like.
My source - "Household Wealth and Wealth Distribution, Australia, 2005-06" from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (I know it's a little old but it's the latest issue of the product).
I'll be looking at the top 20% of households by gross income. These are households making more than $100,000 a year - including plenty of families making substantially less than those examined in the papers.
Share of Wealth and Income
Now this top 20% of households controls 45% of the income in Australia and 60% of the wealth. This is nearly double the income and triple the wealth of the next highest 20% and 10 times the income and 60 times the wealth of the lowest 20% of households. This may sound bad but it's better than the US where the top 20% controls 61% of the income and a whopping 85% of the wealth (and the top 1% of households 34% of the wealth).
The median income of this group is $130K a year, more than double the median income for all households and nearly 10 times that of the lowest group.
The median net worth of this group is $635K, double the median for all households and three times that of the lowest group.
Income Source
This group is fairly similar to the next highest 20% in that they both get their primary income from wages and salaries, although there appears to be a very small number that claim their primary source of income is government pensions and allowances - perhaps The Australian found them. However about a quarter of this group gets 1-20% of their income from pensions and allowances. Unfortunately the stats don't break down further but I'll assume the contribution will mostly be closer to 1% than 20%.
Tenure Type
Most of this group, 57%, has a mortgage the highest proportion of any income group. Makes sense - mortgages are expensive so the highest income bracket will be able to have more of them.
Family Type
Nearly half of this group (and more than twice the average) have kids under 15, the highest proportion for all income groups. Makes sense - kids are expensive so the highest income bracket will be able to have more of them.
Also less than 4% of this group are lone person households, close to seven times less than the average. To get into this income bracket you need a combined income. This is also borne out in the stats - these households have an average of 2.3 employed persons and one child under 15 (again, almost twice the average).
Location
Three quarters of these households live in capital cities which is higher than the average (about 63%).
Summary
So this group of top 20% in household earnings does fit the postcard. They're likely to have a mortgage and kids with both parents in work, get the majority of their income from work and live in a capital city. But this is a group that as a whole controls a majority of the household wealth and close to a majority of the household income.
This group does get some government benefits, less than that of the next highest income bracket, but their biggest advantage is that they earn more and possess more. If this group actually depends on government assistance then the rest of us are screwed.
Thursday, 5 May 2011
The Canadian Election: Why they need preferential voting
I like Canada and I like elections (it's my largest tag word at the moment, which I should really do something about). Canada had an election a couple of days ago hence I shall discuss.
For a country considered fairly liberal the political system is somewhat backward. The Senate is not elected (and there have been some moves to abolish it) and they use a first-past-the-post voting system. In a country with three main parties on the left and one on the right (at the moment anyway) this is a rather daft way to go about things. I have long maintained that the Canadian electoral system gives the Conservative party more seats (or ridings as they are known) than they deserve.
This election gave me an opportunity to put that theory to the test. At the time I scraped the data off Elections Canada most of the vote had been counted and this was the results:
(A note on parties. BQ is the Bloc Québécois who campaign only in Quebec on a secessionist agenda with left leaning policies otherwise, the Liberals are liberals with a little l and formerly Canada's primary left leaning party. The NDP are the New Democrat Party, social democrats and the new opposition. The Greens also won their first seat)
This has given the Conservatives a majority government for the first time in a while (they went into the election with a minority government). This is also something a lot of my Canadian friends are unhappy about.
So would preferential voting have made a difference? I spent a couple of nights crunching numbers to find out. I'm going to assume the introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV), a form of preferential voting. There is currently a referendum on this in the UK on which there is excellent Australian coverage.
The alternative vote is also known as optional preferential voting which is used in most Australian states and territories. The BBC explains it well here. It aims to elect the most preferred candidate. Basically it works by allowing voters to express preferences for more than one candidate. You mark 1 on the ballot paper to vote for your most preferred candidate and then you can add as many more numbers as you wish (or just leave it at one).
The papers are counted on the one votes. If a candidate has more than 50% of the vote they are elected. If not then the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their papers redistributed according to preferences (if no further preferences are indicated then those votes 'exhaust'). If a candidate still doesn't have 50% of the remaining votes (the exhausted votes are not counted in this total) then then next lowest candidate is excluded and so on.
Most of the time AV will elect the same candidate as FPTP. Where it can have an impact is where votes are split between two similar candidates, as is the case in many ridings in Canada between the NDP and Liberals. Using the data I undertook a simulated distribution of preferences. First I counted up all those ridings where the candidate had won with more than 50% of the vote. In these ridings AV would not make any difference.
For the remaining 163 ridings I distributed preferences on the following assumptions:
Under AV the conservatives would only get 129 ridings with a further 12 possible. The Liberals and NDP would have at least 160 between them. 4 ridings could go to either the BQ, Libs or NDP and would be decided on Conservative preferences. 2 ridings were influenced by high polling minor parties or independents making them impossible to predict. The 24 uncertain ridings would depend on the rate preferences are exhausted (particularly in the left vs right contests) and how preferences from the Conservatives or BQ flow to the Liberals and NDP.
Under AV the Conservatives would not have won a majority. They could still have governed from minority, however unlike in the previous parliament the NDP and Liberals would have the numbers to form a coalition. Here's a list of the ridings I've predicted that would be different under AV:
Would this have been the actual result? It's very hard to predict what would have happened in reality. It's likely that the rate of exhausted votes would be higher for Conservatives and lower for voters on the left, depending on the how-to-vote campaigns of the parties. The reduction in strategic voting would also have different consequences (the Greens and other minor parties would probably have gotten higher votes) and could have led to an increase in votes for the left as these candidates would have been less concerned about vote splitting.
What does seem to be the case is that the Liberals should have the most interest in AV given the numbers of seats they'd pick up. First Past the Post would seem to be preferred by the Conservatives, while there's still only one party on the right.
What are the prospects for AV in Canada?
Some of the provinces used it in the period between 1920s-1950s, however none have used it since. British Columbia tried twice to introduce a complicated form of preferential voting similar to what is used in Tasmania, but the referenda weren't successful.
There will certainly be some discussion about it after this election but the reformists argument will be split between some form of AV and some form of proportional representation. Just like the vote on the left....
For a country considered fairly liberal the political system is somewhat backward. The Senate is not elected (and there have been some moves to abolish it) and they use a first-past-the-post voting system. In a country with three main parties on the left and one on the right (at the moment anyway) this is a rather daft way to go about things. I have long maintained that the Canadian electoral system gives the Conservative party more seats (or ridings as they are known) than they deserve.
This election gave me an opportunity to put that theory to the test. At the time I scraped the data off Elections Canada most of the vote had been counted and this was the results:
| BQ | 4 |
| Conservatives | 167 |
| Liberals | 34 |
| NDP | 102 |
| Greens | 1 |
| Total | 308 |
(A note on parties. BQ is the Bloc Québécois who campaign only in Quebec on a secessionist agenda with left leaning policies otherwise, the Liberals are liberals with a little l and formerly Canada's primary left leaning party. The NDP are the New Democrat Party, social democrats and the new opposition. The Greens also won their first seat)
This has given the Conservatives a majority government for the first time in a while (they went into the election with a minority government). This is also something a lot of my Canadian friends are unhappy about.
So would preferential voting have made a difference? I spent a couple of nights crunching numbers to find out. I'm going to assume the introduction of the Alternative Vote (AV), a form of preferential voting. There is currently a referendum on this in the UK on which there is excellent Australian coverage.
The alternative vote is also known as optional preferential voting which is used in most Australian states and territories. The BBC explains it well here. It aims to elect the most preferred candidate. Basically it works by allowing voters to express preferences for more than one candidate. You mark 1 on the ballot paper to vote for your most preferred candidate and then you can add as many more numbers as you wish (or just leave it at one).
The papers are counted on the one votes. If a candidate has more than 50% of the vote they are elected. If not then the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their papers redistributed according to preferences (if no further preferences are indicated then those votes 'exhaust'). If a candidate still doesn't have 50% of the remaining votes (the exhausted votes are not counted in this total) then then next lowest candidate is excluded and so on.
Most of the time AV will elect the same candidate as FPTP. Where it can have an impact is where votes are split between two similar candidates, as is the case in many ridings in Canada between the NDP and Liberals. Using the data I undertook a simulated distribution of preferences. First I counted up all those ridings where the candidate had won with more than 50% of the vote. In these ridings AV would not make any difference.
| BQ | 0 |
| Conservatives | 107 |
| Liberals | 2 |
| NDP | 36 |
| Greens | 0 |
| Total | 145 |
For the remaining 163 ridings I distributed preferences on the following assumptions:
- Roughly 50% of the votes would exhaust (which is the usual rate in Australia)
- Preferences from the Greens would flow to the NDP
- Preferences from the Liberals would flow to the NDP and vice versa
- Preferences from the Conservatives would flow to the Liberals
- Preferences from the BQ would flow to either the NDP or the Liberals.
| BQ | 0 |
| Conservatives | 129 |
| Liberals | 50 |
| NDP | 104 |
| Greens | 1 |
| Uncertain | 2 |
| LIB/NDP | 6 |
| BQ/LIB/NDP | 4 |
| CON vs LIB/NDP | 12 |
| Total | 308 |
Under AV the conservatives would only get 129 ridings with a further 12 possible. The Liberals and NDP would have at least 160 between them. 4 ridings could go to either the BQ, Libs or NDP and would be decided on Conservative preferences. 2 ridings were influenced by high polling minor parties or independents making them impossible to predict. The 24 uncertain ridings would depend on the rate preferences are exhausted (particularly in the left vs right contests) and how preferences from the Conservatives or BQ flow to the Liberals and NDP.
Under AV the Conservatives would not have won a majority. They could still have governed from minority, however unlike in the previous parliament the NDP and Liberals would have the numbers to form a coalition. Here's a list of the ridings I've predicted that would be different under AV:
| Riding | Province | FPTP | AV |
| Edmonton - Sherwood Park | AB | CON | ? |
| Vancouver South | BC | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| Nanaimo - Alberni | BC | CON | ?CON/NDP |
| Newton - North Delta | BC | NDP | LIB |
| Vancouver Island North | BC | CON | ?CON/NDP |
| Elmwood - Transcona | MB | CON | NDP |
| Winnipeg North | MB | LIB | ?LIB/NDP |
| Winnipeg South Centre | MB | CON | LIB |
| Madawaska - Restigouche | NB | CON | LIB |
| Moncton - Riverview - Dieppe | NB | CON | LIB |
| Labrador | NL | CON | LIB |
| Dartmouth - Cole Harbour | NS | NDP | LIB |
| South Shore - St. Margaret's | NS | CON | NDP |
| Ajax--Pickering | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Bramalea--Gore--Malton | Ontario | CON | NDP |
| Brampton West | Ontario | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| Don Valley East | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Don Valley West | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Eglinton - Lawrence | Ontario | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| Kitchener Centre | Ontario | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| Etobicoke - Lakeshore | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Etobicoke Centre | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Mississauga - Brampton South | Ontario | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| Mississauga - Streetsville | Ontario | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| Kitchener - Waterloo | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Richmond Hill | Ontario | CON | ?CON/LIB |
| London North Centre | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Mississauga East - Cooksville | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Nipissing - Timiskaming | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Ottawa - Orléans | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Pickering - Scarborough East | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Sault Ste. Marie | Ontario | CON | NDP |
| Scarborough Centre | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Willowdale | Ontario | CON | LIB |
| Portneuf - Jacques-Cartier | Quebec | NDP | ? |
| Ahuntsic | Quebec | BQ | ?BQ/LIB/NDP |
| Lotbinière - Chutes-de-la-Chaudière | Quebec | CON | NDP |
| Lévis - Bellechasse | Quebec | CON | ?CON/NDP |
| Montmagny - L'Islet - Kamouraska - Rivière-du-Loup | Quebec | CON | NDP |
| Haute-Gaspésie - La Mitis - Matane - Matapédia | Quebec | BQ | ?LIB/BQ |
| Honoré - Mercier | Quebec | NDP | ?LIB/NDP |
| Lac-Saint-Louis | Quebec | LIB | ?LIB/NDP |
| Papineau | Quebec | LIB | ?LIB/NDP |
| Pierrefonds - Dollard | Quebec | NDP | ?LIB/NDP |
| Westmount - Ville-Marie | Quebec | LIB | ?LIB/NDP |
| Bas-Richelieu--Nicolet--Bécancour | Quebec | BQ | ?NDP/BQ |
| Richmond - Arthabaska | Quebec | BQ | ?NDP/BQ |
| Desnethé - Missinippi - Churchill River | SK | CON | ?CON/NDP |
| Saskatoon - Rosetown - Biggar | SK | CON | ?CON/NDP |
| Palliser | SK | CON | NDP |
| Yukon | YK | CON | LIB |
Would this have been the actual result? It's very hard to predict what would have happened in reality. It's likely that the rate of exhausted votes would be higher for Conservatives and lower for voters on the left, depending on the how-to-vote campaigns of the parties. The reduction in strategic voting would also have different consequences (the Greens and other minor parties would probably have gotten higher votes) and could have led to an increase in votes for the left as these candidates would have been less concerned about vote splitting.
What does seem to be the case is that the Liberals should have the most interest in AV given the numbers of seats they'd pick up. First Past the Post would seem to be preferred by the Conservatives, while there's still only one party on the right.
What are the prospects for AV in Canada?
Some of the provinces used it in the period between 1920s-1950s, however none have used it since. British Columbia tried twice to introduce a complicated form of preferential voting similar to what is used in Tasmania, but the referenda weren't successful.
There will certainly be some discussion about it after this election but the reformists argument will be split between some form of AV and some form of proportional representation. Just like the vote on the left....
Monday, 25 April 2011
Links of the week
This week I wanted to share a few videos.
First is an amazing collaboration between the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and a dancer by the name of Lil Buck who does bone bending. I'll let the video speak for itself.
First is an amazing collaboration between the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma and a dancer by the name of Lil Buck who does bone bending. I'll let the video speak for itself.
A friend linked this video of Glenn Crytzer's Blue Rhythm Band at DCLX - they are swinging hard. Don't forget to check out Glenn's blog and buy his bands' CDs.
The following video is the battle between Glenn Crytzer's Blue Rhythm Band and the Jonathan Stout Orchestra also at DCLX. It's a pity the camera doesn't show the audience because they have pretty much all stopped dancing to cheer on the musicians. One of the musicians recounts his experience of it on his blog.
This video has been doing the rounds but I have to share it again. Electro-swing band Caravan Palace perform live with the Ninjammerz in front of thousands of people at the Montreal Jazz Festival:
Tim Minchin's 9 minute beat poem "Storm" has finally been turned into an animated short. Enjoy:
And finally some politics: Adam Clancy on The Drum notes that though the price of electricity and petrol are going up there's plenty of things that are going down.
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