Appropos of Dirty D's post, there were a few major developments on the DNC/organizing front today.  First of all, WaPo reports that Virginia Governor Tim Kaine will head the DNC; he will work part-time from Richmond until January of 2010, with day-to-day operations being overseen by Edwards and Obama staffer Jennifer O'Malley-Dillon.  Secondly, Marc Ambinder has a post that lays out an expanded role for the DNC in field organizing ("the fifty-state strategy on steroids") as well as some staffing changes for the future iterations of Obama for America.  Both are worth reading in their entireity.

It's the most...wonderful...time...of the year.  That is, the time when the data for the 2008 elections finally comes in.  There's more...

Via Slashdot, investigative journalist John Mecklin lays out a way that the Internet revolution is actually helping journalism (crazy, I know):

Now, in the post-Google Age, Allison sees the possibility that computer algorithms can sort through the huge amounts of databased information available on the Internet, providing public interest reporters with sets of potential story leads they otherwise might never have found. The programs could only enhance, not replace, the reporter, who would still have to cultivate the human sources and provide the context and verification needed for quality journalism. But the data-mining programs could make the reporters more efficient — and, perhaps, a less appealing target for media company bean counters looking for someone to lay off.

IMHO, the part about investigative reporters not getting laid off seems increasingly far-fetched.  There are problems in the news business that a few new reporting techniques won't solve.  But still, increasing the efficiency with which the public can gain from its own data is something worth cheering.  As I've tried to stress throughout my posts, the ability to search through massive databases of material like this is still in its infancy.  Our ability to collect information has outstripped our ability to make sense of it, and we're still growing into all the things we can do with this data.

(I meant to do this last week, but I was visiting family in Asia, and damn it, Firefox ate my post again. Sorry about that. - DD)

We left off talking about how important it is to know your client:

When you are doing research for someone, they are entrusting you to discover what they need to accomplish their goals. It's an incredible responsibility, and not one that you should take lightly.  In order to understand their needs, you have to understand them.  You have to understand their organizational mission, their history, their resources in addition to the parameters of your specific project.  Unless you know your client, all the time and resources you put into it will be for naught.

The goal was to leave off and use the absence to see what we could find.  We'll see what we found out under the flip.

When will they have 2008 on the file? With any luck, early in 2009!

Happy New Year from the guys and girls of Overdetermined!

Admin

When we started this site, we never meant to let our partisan identification get have anything to do with what we wrote about. After all, when writing about data, voter files, polling, journalism, microtargeting, Linux and other such things, you'd think that there would be plenty of material to write about.  And, well, there is, but to my eyes, the perpetrators of stupidity in polling are mostly on the otherside.

Today's lesson comes from that bastion of truth-seeking and truth-speaking integrity, the Editorial Pages of the Wall. St. Journal.  Known parrhesiast Stephen Moore decides to show us how not to read a poll.

There's more.

So now you've had a while to use your new Linux system. If you're like many others, you may have been initially surprised by how many things just work. But even so, it is useful to know how to deal with any problems that may arise. That's what we'll be covering today.

In my last entry, I discussed matching lists when they did not share a common, persistent and unique identifier.  Basic conclusion: challenging! In this week's entry, I'll share a common technique for making the job a little easier--one which has a number of uses beyond list-matching.  Read more...

Disclaimer: I don't know why we Americans make New Year's Resolutions. When I asked my personal guru, all I got was this lame article. So, if anyone can tell me where, when, and why this tradition was started I would really appreciate it.

There's more.