uncertainty
38 posts
xkcd referenced the ever-so-loved forecasting needle. I’m so not gonna look at it this year. Maybe. Tags: humor, needle, uncertainty, xkcd
It’s getting hotter around the world. The New York Times zooms in on your hometown to show the average number of “very hot days” (at least 90 degrees) since you were born and then the projected count over the next decades. Then you zoom out to see how that relates to the rest of the world. I’ve always found it interesting that visualization and analysis are typically “overview first, then...
The Upshot has used a needle to show shifts in their live election forecasts, because many readers don’t understand probability. Nate Cohn and Josh Katz: This was evident before the result of the 2016 election, and as a result we tried something new: a jitter, where the needle quivered to reflect the uncertainty around the forecast. Although many readers disliked it, the jitter reflected an earnest attempt to give tangible...
Data is an abstraction, and it's impossible to encapsulate everything it represents in real life. So there is uncertainty. Here are ways to visualize the uncertainty. Read More
During the election last year, The New York Times ran an uncertainty dial to show where the vote was swaying. Not everyone appreciated it. Many people hate it. The Outline disliked it enough to troll with an uncertainty dial of their own. Personally, I like the dial, but I think it does require a certain level of statistical knowledge to not lose your marbles watching it. Tags: uncertainty
During the election, The New York Times showed a live gauge to show the current forecast for Clinton and Trump. It moved to show a 25th to 75th percentile band of uncertainty: A lot of people didn’t get it, and it seemed to upset plenty of people too. Gregor Aisch, an NYT graphics editor, explains what they tried to accomplish with the gauges. [W]e thought (and still think!) this movement...
Nate Cohn for the Upshot provides a statistics lesson in the context of election forecasts and why they differ so much. [P]ollsters make a series of decisions when designing their survey, from determining likely voters to adjusting their respondents to match the demographics of the electorate. These decisions are hard. They usually take place behind the scenes, and they can make a huge difference. To make the point, the Upshot...
With election season in full swing, as far as the news is concerned at least, we get to see poll after poll in the beginning of a voting day and then reports the next day about which ones were wrong. Based on the news alone, it feels like almost every poll is just plain wrong. Maarten Lambrechts shows what’s going on here with Rock ‘n Poll. It simulates a poll...
As we know, there are various outcomes during election season, with uncertainty in each round. The Upshot is currently using a simulation to show the expectations of tonight. These estimates, which include states that have not yet reported all their votes, are based on several factors: Our expectations of every candidate’s performance, the voting results in other states and the demographic makeup and historical voting patterns of voters in each...