The article makes some strong claims about the statistical validity of their results. However, 1,000,000 observations is not always better than 3,000 observations. If the data are not representative, then a Gallup poll (which is) of a order of magnitude smaller sample is much more powerful.
Counterintuitively, if the sample is truly randomly distributed, you gain very little additional information as you go beyond 300 samples. This is why every political poll has an error margin of + or - 3%.
Right, but that doesn't mean that 300 (or 3000) samples total is enough. You can't make the detailed map about burning the national flag with 3000 samples. More data is helpful until you have 300 samples per pixel.
The real problem is most samples are not random. So, you are bound by the bias of your methods and you can't really get all that accurate. In theory when you double your sample size you do reduce your margin of error by a reasonable degree, but reality does not mesh until you start taking a large percentage of the population.
Think of it like a coin, that has a 1% bias you want the percentage to some accuracy (say 4 digits) how many flips do you need?. Now what if the problem is not the coin but the person doing the flipping. At some point more testers help more than more flips.
And a word about statistical validity: the best questions on OkCupid have been answered over a million times. Therefore we have unique insights into the American mindset
Yeah, so OKCupid users aren't representative of the average American, but somehow I don't think a post titled "Rape Fantasies and Hygiene By State" is meant to be a serious exercise in statistics.
Whether or not the data is statistically valid across the general populace may or may not be relevant to people who are concerned with the sample that is represented.
Arguing that OKC data is better than Gallup's (as the article implies) isn't a strong claim of statistical validity, it's ignorance of the basic principles of statistics.
Volunteer polling is about as un-scientific as you can get. Did it not occur to them that people who are willing to answer poll questions about sex are probably going to have different opinions about sex than someone who isn't willing to seek out the poll?
Selection bias doesn't explain the inter-state difference, which is what the visualizations are attempting to display.
For that to be an issue here, you'd have to argue that there's something about living in Nevada as opposed to New York, independent of your attitude towards sex, that would affect whether or not after seeing this question, you chose to answer or pass.
I have this tragedy-of-the-commons thing going on with the other tenants in the building. The water is "included" in the rent and so I sometimes shower 3, 4 times a day for the hell of it. I've seriously considered heating the place by running the shower nonstop in winter, but someone would probably catch on.
Right out of college, dirt poor, I had a place alone, and would turn the water heater on 45 minutes before I'd shower, then turn it off again.
I had a similar situation. During a heat wave I filled up the bathtub and sinks with cold water to absorb some of the heat. A few days later they sent someone to check for water leaks in my apartment =).
The interesting thing is that almost everyone believes that flag burning ought to be totally legal; the argument is just over the circumstances.
As is routinely pointed out, burning a flag is the approved way of "retiring" one when it's no longer fit to be flown. If you fly a flag every day, this will be about once a year or so. In my area, the American Legion or Boy Scouts do "flag retirements" as a fund raiser once in a while; you turn in your old flags and they respectfully burn them. (Maybe they play Taps at the same time or something.)
So the argument isn't over flag burning per se, and it never was. It's over flag defacement or "desecration," i.e. burning the flag in the context of a political demonstration, or as an overtly political act.
Technically you don't burn a flag during a retirement. It is cut into quarters first. Or at least it was when I was doing these ceremonies with the Boy Scouts.
Don't. Unless you are a gay guy, or a girl. Your numbers are against you. (a lot of guys and few girls), especially in the Bay Area. That green thing is probably a lot of guys skewing that result.
From a personal anecdote evidence, I have had much better luck in the East Coast for casual stuff.
It's not nearly as bad if you're willing to be open and try non-conventional ways of meeting people, e.g. online. Sites like OKCupid have many women who are either intellectually inclined themselves (i.e. "nerdy") or are looking to meet a guy who is; this way, you are much more likely to find someone who appreciates and likes you for who are you than at a sports bar or a night club (whether in Bay Area, or elsewhere).
I think the problem here is "startup", not "Bay Area". I also worked at startups for 4 years, and there were a grand total of 5 women in them (only one of whom was unmarried, and she was the founder's niece). But that was in Boston.
Both teams I've been on at Google have been about 40% female (one was 42%; the other was 40%). My cubicle is 3 women and 4 men. Most of the social outings have been fairly well-balanced; a few have even been majority female. I lived with 2 girls in my old apartment, and I see mostly women around at my new apartment. This is all South Bay, not San Francisco.
Really??? I need to get a job at Google, apparently. :)
I've found that the difficulty in dating in the Bay Area isn't necessarily the shortage of women, but the overwhelming majority of men. The numbers probably dictate that they're equal, but this is an disadvantageous situation when the South Bay self-selects older, wealthier men and less young, single women.
Realistically, if you live in a large city, you really have nothing to complain about. Farmers, people in rural areas actually do have a case to make in this respect.
From my experience, guys who can't meet girls (or the opposite) still complain no matter what city they're in, no matter how stacked the odds are for them. I think that straight guys should consider themselves lucky -- imagine if you were gay and could only date 4% of the population. Not only that, but gay guys can't even tell who else they could potentially date and who would be offended by them asking!
> Not only that, but gay guys can't even tell who else they could potentially date and who would be offended by them asking!
Uh... the same is true for straight guys (and for women). The odds might be better, but not every woman wants to date a man, and not every woman (regardless of orientation) is open to being hit on at a particular moment.
The odds are much better but I think the far more significant difference is that a man asking a woman is socially accepted whereas a man asking a man is not (in most places).
Given the tech-savviness of the Bay Area, I actually think how well OKCupid works out here almost makes up for the fact that it seems to be harder to meet girls in the real world here than anywhere else. Given, you won't always "spark" with someone you meet online, but if you do, at least it means you probably get along with them on a deeper level than just "you're at the bar and look cute."
