dbroockman

10 ms·

31.
by dbroockman 11y ago
It's standard practice for states to salt their voter lists with fake names. If, e.g., a non-political solicitation shows up to the fake name, the sender is caught. Same thing with FEC data -- politicians have to list their donors publ
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by dbroockman 11y ago
What's funny is the best study would involve picking some people at random and giving them a basic income -- something YC could easily do. Theory can only get you so far on this one (although would be necessary to interpret the results
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by dbroockman 11y ago
Full transparency could have negative unintended consequences. For example, if surgeons knew their success rate were public, they would be incentivized to take easier cases. Who would take a difficult case if they knew it would constitute a
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by dbroockman 11y ago
Here are some guesses. On (1), the mental model I have is more like an understanding of who the super-intense supporters are. 90% of people might say they support background checks for gun purchases, but it's the 10% who support it who
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by dbroockman 11y ago
There's two assumptions many in the civic tech space seem to share that I don't think are so obvious (not that I think they are wrong, just that I think they're not obvious): A1: The world would be better if politicians paid
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by dbroockman 11y ago
Their age doesn't predict their accuracy. With that said, I like the idea of asking how they think various age groups think. Maybe they think their district is not as young as it is, maybe they think younger voters are more similar to
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by dbroockman 11y ago
This is my personal favorite interpretation of our results -- they could know if they cared to know, and so the fact that they don't know suggests that they don't care. With that said, this paper is at odds with that: https:&#x2F
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by dbroockman 11y ago
Author here. Not sure why this is showing up today but happy to answer questions! FWIW, we have data from 2014 across many more issues and the basic story is the same. Haven't finished writing that up.
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by dbroockman 11y ago
None of these studies are randomized trials. All we've learned is that aggressive kids prefer violent video games to non-violent ones. It's useless.
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I Am the Most Important Public Relations (#PR) Thought Leader(medium.com)
2 points by dbroockman 12y ago|0 comments
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by dbroockman 12y ago
The question is whether the lack of competition reflects a natural monopoly (i.e., something inherent to this market given spread out suburban geography), like for electricity service, or other forces. It's probably some of both. At th
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by dbroockman 12y ago
When Uber re-launched quasi-legally in Austin, TX, some drivers there told me Uber promised to pay any fines they incurred. Whether the German government fines Uber and/or the drivers, maybe they're just hoping to throw money at t
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by dbroockman 12y ago
Or maybe just "the kind of employees who get paid less also are the kind of people who have a harder time getting new jobs." Correlation != causation.
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by dbroockman 12y ago
In Hawaii all beaches are public property and maintaining public access routes (and parking!) to all beaches is required by law. If rich Californians keep up this crap, they might just inspire a voter initiative that would make things even
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by dbroockman 13y ago
I assume most of the people who go to that review page are the ones with bad experiences? Otherwise, who would review a power adapter? Listen in on the phone conversations a plumber has and you'd get the impressions that no one's
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by dbroockman 13y ago
The author subsequently scored a gig at the WSJ with multiple columns.[1] Funny how the ability to accurately comment on industry is not a useful qualification for being employed to comment on industry. :) (Written somewhat tongue-in-cheek
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Cosmologists capture gravitational waves(wired.com)
2 points by dbroockman 13y ago|0 comments
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Congress to constituents: "Show me the money"(washingtonpost.com)
1 points by dbroockman 13y ago|0 comments
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by dbroockman 13y ago
Should we change our beliefs based on this post? Based on Dorian's denials today, isn't this post just as likely in the world in which Dorian is Satoshi and the world in which Dorian is not? I don't have a strong belief one w
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by dbroockman 13y ago
The "regression to the mean" and "novelty" effect is getting at two different things (both true, both important). 1. Underpowered tests are likely to exaggerate differences, since E(abs(truth - result)) increases as the
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by dbroockman 13y ago
There's a big (and common) error in statistical reasoning Google is making with the decision to down-weight GPA based on their data: That GPAs do not predict performance among those it hired does not imply that Google should not use
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by dbroockman 13y ago
We know from randomized trials on legislators that calls do work in changing their positions. http://themonkeycage.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/berganco... 89k is actually a very large number.
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Restaurant fable explains everything wrong with San Francisco housing right now(washingtonpost.com)
31 points by dbroockman 13y ago|28 comments
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by dbroockman 13y ago
On #1: If the TSA didn't frisk 80 year old men, any smart terrorist would begin recruiting 80 year olds. You can't have gaps in enforcement by policy or they will be exploited (sadly).