More son's photos

 
 

Here are two photos (well, one, really) taken by my son. As you can see, the original is in color, and only three simple effects were applied using Picasa from Google. Converted to B/W, increased the contrast (using the shadows and highlights effect) and the adjusting the focal point.

Enjoy! 

For those that wondered...

 

Apparently my appearance, and information about me, has become an issue. Here's my picture, and I have now added information to my Profile. Enjoy! 

What links should I add?

I have added a couple interesting blogs to the links section, as well as started a new section for links to informational sites.

I am wondering, dear class, what you think I should add as links? Any favorite blogs you think I should point to? Should I, out of shear magnanimity, add our dear, eloquent friend the "new American Patriot" to the list? (Remember him? He is the owner of A Liberal Dose that, if I remember correctly, wants to kick me in my nuts...)

Just leave your comments here with your suggestions, and your votes!

The Professor

More Attacks on Bad Surveys

I know, I know, I can't stay away from this topic.  Any wonder why though?  We not only have sites like "A Liberal Dose" mis-citing accurate statistics¹ we also have, as The Numbers Guy points out, bad surveys and polls being conducted.

Again, many of you will remember my discussions (here and elsewhere) on the importance of carefully developed question development as well as care in interpreting and drawing conclusions, without over-reaching.  While I have recently criticized the interpretation of published results, The Numbers Guy in his article points out that the American Association for Public Opinion Research is tackling the problem of poor surveys making it into the media--and the media unquestioningly accepting the results.

Two relevant quotes:

Faulty survey data takes many forms. Sometimes the questions are loaded, as with a survey about online gambling I wrote about in April. Other surveys have very low response rates, like a poll about the value of mothers' work; or pollsters don't disclose all of their questions nor results, raising fears they've cherry-picked those responses that reflect best on the polls' sponsors. Also, many polls you may read about have been conducted online, usually among a panel of volunteers lured by online ads -- considered a less-representative sample by most pollsters than respondents who are found by random-digit telephone dialing.

and:

Polls with pitfalls shouldn't be discarded automatically. But often they are accepted automatically by the press and rendered indistinguishable from polls conducted by more standard means.

So there you have it.  More criticisms of bad polling, bad data, and blind acceptance.  And from a reputable source, to boot!

The Prof

1.  And most recently in a fit of "hyper-'bowl'-e" misrepresenting students' putting marijuana in muffins as "spiking a punch bowl," two very different things, to be sure!

Survey and Media Distortions

Greetings once again class.  Those of you that know me personally (well, at least know me in person academically) will know I am  a stickler for survey research being done correctly, and that correctly done surveys should be interpreted in the narrow way in which they are constructed.  Those of you that have been reading my blog for a while may remember that I have a few times taken to task other sites, studies, or blogs, that have mis-represented information gathered from surveys (try here  and here), or for that matter have just run roughshod over facts (here, and here) reaching conclusions simply from the long extension of their arm rather than the close reliance of reality (yeah-long way of saying they had to stretch to get there!)  

Imagine my joy when I saw that one of my favorites blogs, the Language Log, decided to tackle another mis-reported survey.  Of course, this one is particularly juicy since the log-ers are chastising the press for getting it wrong in reporting about how stupid the American people are.  Perhaps the best point made is after listing the question asking people essentially to name the freedoms of the first amendment.  In critiquing the analysis they write: "If you're hip to the rhetoric of survey spin, you'll guess at this point that the survey asked people to enumerate first-amendment rights by free recall." 

Yup, they could stop there, but they don't!  They then go on to mention how challenging that sort of question is.  Asking someone to list off something very specific without any hints is quite difficult.  Remember essay questions in school?  The dreaded "What are 3 of the freedoms identified in the First Amendment, and explain the circumstances that caused their specific addition to the Bill of Rights?"  (Actually, when you think about it, this particular essay question is replete with hints!)

Cheers for the Language Log!

Now, for what for me was truly ironic.  Many of you remember the gracious treatment I received from the (apparent) owner of the A Liberal Dose blog (go back if you wish and read his witty comments, if your foul language detector is appropriately in place!)  Well, not only is the author of that blog a great distorter of facts (or perhaps, just a tremendous prevaricator) he is a great distorter of images.  To see what I am writing about, just go see the posting for Memorial Day weekend.  As they say, context is everything.  In this instance, we are provided a caption, and a picture of the President smiling.  Of course, we are to quickly conclude the President may well have expressed deep remorse but by his smile, he must not have "meant it."  Hmmmm... Was the picture taken at the same time as the statement? (or even within seconds, or a minute?)  Was the picture taken before the speech began?  Who was the President looking at while smiling?  (In the interest of fairness, this is the same sort of gross mis-representation that Rush Limbaugh did with the video of President Clinton laughing when leaving following the funeral of his former Secretary of Transportation.  Of course, in THAT case the clip showed Clinton crying, laughing and then crying again, in the span of 10 seconds...)

As you can see, the picture doesn't actually convey anything other than a man who can, at times, be quite "warm" most likely to a person in the crowd.  It is mis-representations like this that lead one to conclude that "A Liberal Dose" is a person with an agenda, and perhaps not much else. 

But that's alright. 

To steal from an old "Greyhound Busline" commercial "Just relax, and leave the thinking to us!"

The Prof

Gospel Music

Sometimes I just have to put a weblink out there, like this one:

Gospel Music Podcast

Charles and Matt Brady have a website, and a podcast. Interesting...