There were no new federal polls this week, but we did get repackaged old ones in the form of quarterly state breakdowns from Newspoll and Ipsos. I only have full results from the former at this stage, but am hopeful of acquiring the latter next week. So all that’s happened in this week’s BludgerTrack update is that the new Newspoll data has been used to recalculate state breakdowns, with the national results exactly as they were last week.
As is often the case, the big hit of Newspoll state data has made little difference in the larger states, but quite a bit in the smaller ones, where samples are smaller and results less robust. This puts the Coalition solidly up in both Western Australia and South Australia, where they gain one seat apiece on the seat projections. While the changes in Victoria and Queensland are small, they have put the Coalition up a seat in Victoria and down one in Queensland. So the net effect of the changes is a two-seat gain to the Coalition, with Labor now projected to win 86 seats nationally to the Coalition’s 60.
Full results through the link below.
Wake me for the second reel…
New indictment reveals top Trump surrogate was in regular contact with Russian hackers in 2016 — including Guccifer 2.0
On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced the indictment of Russian nationals who hacked Hillary Clinton campaign email addresses in an effort to sway the 2016 US election.
The indictment noted that Guccifer 2.0—a persona invented by the Russian officers—was in regular contact with a person close to the Donald Trump campaign.
The passage in the indictment unleashed speculation that the Trump campaign surrogate was none other than Roger Stone, a political operative known for injecting himself into controversies.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/new-indictment-reveals-top-trump-campaign-official-regular-contact-russian-hackers-2016-including-gufficer-2-0/
Russia tried to steal Hillary Clinton’s emails ‘for the first time’ hours after Trump asked if they were listening
The indictment shows that Russia first tried to hack into Clinton’s email system the same evening that Trump publicly asked them to during a July 27, 2016, news conference.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said at the time. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/russia-tried-steal-hillary-clintons-emails-first-time-hours-trump-asked-listening/
Does anyone on here agree with Albo re cuts to immigration? He reckons the Dutton inspired drop in numbers is a good thing.
‘Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears’: Michigan farmers who supported Trump blast tariffs destroying their livelihoods
According to David Williams, a fifth-generation soybean farmer in Elise, Michigan, the 25 percent tariff imposed by China in retaliation for the president’s tariffs is killing the agricultural sector.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/07/pleas-fallen-deaf-ears-michigan-farmers-supported-trump-blast-tariffs-destroying-livelihoods/
Lynchpin
Anything “inspired by Dutton” must be detrimental.
I am not getting any clear messages from Albo atm.
Good Morning Bludgers 🙂
Tick tock tick tock:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/2018/07/14/russian-intelligence-officers-indicted-hacking-democrats/?utm_source=Adestra&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%2020180714
Trumpovic should ask Putin for asylum when he meets him, I think. 😉
Listening to Trump in the UK… what an oaf that man is. A great blundering egotist.
Not an original view, I know, but I just needed to get it off my chest.
lizzie @ #6 Saturday, July 14th, 2018 – 6:48 am
I suspect that’s because the kompromat that the Murdorcs have on him is being thrown into the wood chipper in a
lastdesperate attempt to killBill. They must be panicking, ’cause Richo isn’t dead yet.lizzie @ #7 Saturday, July 14th, 2018 – 7:00 am
They’re Reactionary Conservative Anarchists now. Winning is all that matters. Power is all that matters. A corporate culture overlaid across nations and the globe is all that matters. Hiding their ill-gotten gains in tax havens is all that matters.
They are the Robber Baron Mercantilists.
The media, that which isn’t owned by Trump cronies, should decide not to cover Trumpovic any more.
This is the sort of detail the bombastic blowhard, and his constellation of treasonous media, will find it hard to refute:
Vladimir is now trolling us, granting an exclusive interview to FoxNews…
MONDAY: Chris Wallace will conduct an exclusive interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin following the summit with President @realDonaldTrump. bit.ly/2LaXCpR
I would like to know why the NSW government is not “in lockdown” and “crisis mode” due to a minister being caught soliciting under-the-table payments in relation to development applications.
This is especially as rampant over-development is one of the greatest areas of concern to voters in Sydney electorates.
While ordinary people in the street have to put up with endless construction, traffic gridlock, compulsory land resumptions, destruction of amenity and just the plain ugliness of the ubiquitous concrete weed growth, laughingly called “apartment developments”, here we have a Liberal minister caught red-handed doing dirty deals with Chinese developers and nary an outraged SMH editorial or a snarky column from its ace investigative reporter, Kate McClymont.
This is not the first time NSW Liberal MPs and ministers have been sprung in this regard, but do we get a probing series of revelations exploding the ugliness at the heart of a corrupt government? No. The most we can probably expect is an op ed on whether ICAC is too zealous, or another Obeid scandal to divert the punters’ attention.
Good morning Dawn Patrollers. A bit of weekend reading for you.
Ross Gittins explains the ins and outs of electricity price rises in the past decade.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/how-naivety-caused-monumental-power-prices-stuff-up-20180713-p4zrap.html
Nick Miller reports on Trump’s “diplomacy” in the UK.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/nasty-one-day-nice-the-next-donald-trump-woos-theresa-may-after-bashing-brexit-20180714-p4zrg2.html
Peter Hartcher reports how China’s biggest challenge to the supremacy of the US Navy will come within the year, a well regarded Australian strategic analyst predicted in Washington this week.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/china-will-challenge-us-naval-supremacy-within-a-year-20180712-p4zr6e.html
A back-pedalling Donald Trump has offered an apology to British PM Theresa May after his extraordinary attack on her.
https://outline.com/mRfVfK
Michael Koziol reports that Bill Shorten has accused the Turnbull government of “stacking” the public service by appointing Treasurer Scott Morrison’s former chief of staff to the plum job of Treasury secretary. In an attack which raised doubt over whether Labor could work with incoming Treasury boss Philip Gaetjens if the party wins office, Mr Shorten said the appointment was part of a “worrying trend” of the Treasury being used for political purposes.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/bill-shorten-says-treasury-appointment-shows-liberals-addicted-to-stacking-government-with-their-mates-20180713-p4zrco.html
Paul Kelly writes that Australia, like other partners, faces in Trump a situation without precedent since World War II. So far Trump has been a positive president for Australia. Yet the framework he champions is contrary to our national interest.
https://outline.com/7nLNu3
Tony Wright has a good outline of how things are unfolding in Mayo. I think he has worked it out quite well.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-hills-of-mayo-where-the-downer-dynasty-is-fighting-to-survive-20180712-p4zr16.html
John Quiggin lets fly in saying that the ACCC on energy report is a mishmash of cognitive dissonance and half-baked suggestions for fixing the unfixable. It needs more than a few Bandaids, he says.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/13/australias-failed-energy-policy-needs-more-than-just-a-bandaid
And Michael West tells us that there is not a gas market. There is a gas cartel. Ergo the nosebleed price rises. Four players dominate production in Australia and exports of liquid natural gas (LNG) too: Santos, Origin Energy, Shell and Exxon/BHP. The latter are effectively one player as they enjoy joint-marketing arrangements.
https://www.michaelwest.com.au/nine-lies-how-the-gas-cartel-clouted-australia-with-price-rises/
Julie Szego writes that she fears Hanson-Young’s law suit is misguided, and could potentially set back the cause of “women everywhere”, perpetuating the sexual double standard that enables “slut shaming” in the first place.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hanson-young-s-lawsuit-could-set-back-the-cause-of-women-everywhere-20180713-p4zrar.html
Latika Bourke wonders who would challenge Theresa May for Brexit’s poisoned chalice.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/who-would-challenge-theresa-may-for-brexit-s-poisoned-chalice-20180712-p4zr71.html
More lenders are slugging borrowers with “out of cycle” mortgage rate rises, heightening speculation all borrowers will soon have to pay more on their home loans.
https://outline.com/AcxJ9Y
Adele Ferguson and Nassim Khadem explain how a report from the Inspector General of Taxation takes aim at the ATO over its handling of a joint Fairfax Media and ABC Four Corners investigation into the tax office. The report, obtained under Freedom of Information, says the ATO’s media strategy, as exposed in its response to the investigation, fell short of public expectations and could cause wider problems.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/watchdog-s-secret-report-lashes-ato-for-weakening-trust-20180713-p4zrem.html
The chief critic of Education Minister Simon Birmingham’s schools funding policy has been secretly threatened with jail by a commonwealth regulator warning it will cut his organisation’s charity status and tax concessions for campaigning against flawed government policy. Nice.
https://outline.com/c6GW3U
Birmingham’s got his hands full with this guy.
https://outline.com/8px6ue
The spivs are on parade again as Croc’s Playcentres is under pressure from centre operators who have accused the franchise of a culture of bullying, misogyny and cronyism in a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into franchising.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/small-business/the-environment-is-toxic-croc-s-playcentres-under-scrutiny-20180706-p4zpx7.html
And on the subject of spivs financial incentives based on short-term targets are driving bad behaviour and shortcuts, and the government should increase fines for breaching consumer laws to deter such bad behaviour, says the competition regulator.
https://outline.com/E9XSz
Remember Plutus? Another four men, including TV reporter Steve Barrett, will be charged over the $144 million tax fraud case that brought down former Australian Tax Office executive Michael Cranston.
https://outline.com/mC8LAx
The Prime Minister’s department has sanctioned staff and will overhaul its security as a federal police inquiry found “human errors” were to blame for its embarrassing leak of cabinet documents that ended up in a second-hand shop.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/pm-and-c-staff-sanctioned-for-cabinet-files-leak-20180713-p4zra8.html
Regional Australia and smaller metro areas are the “victims” of the “populist sentiment” that has driven the reduction of Australia’s migration intake by more than 20,000, the head of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/14/regional-australia-victim-of-populist-migration-cut-key-industry-figure-says
How do we teach our teenagers about good sex, not just safe sex?
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/how-do-we-teach-our-teenagers-about-good-sex-not-just-safe-sex-20180711-p4zqx8.html
Karen Middleton has a good look at Canavan’s rather inactive NAIF.
https://outline.com/rTvkRy
Crispin Hull declares that regulation is the core issue for Brexit and Trump and then moves his argument to Australia. An excellent contribution!
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/regulation-is-the-core-issue-for-brexit-and-trump-20180713-p4zr97.html
The Australian government awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in foreign aid contracts to a company that was found to have been systematically bribing high-level Vietnamese officials.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jul/13/australia-handed-out-millions-in-aid-contracts-to-company-accused-of-bribery
Sean Kelly writes about Australia’s political attention seekers coming to the fore.
https://outline.com/KCkZUh
Nicole Hasham tells us that methods used to pledge at least $1.15 billion in taxpayer-funded emissions cuts are under a cloud as officials probe whether the environmental benefits credited to the Coalition government’s flagship climate policy are genuine. C ritics say a lack of probity in the $2.55 billion Abbott-era policy mean it is impossible to know how much carbon reduction has actually occurred, casting doubt on the integrity of Australia’s contribution to international climate action.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/serious-questions-over-whether-australia-s-emissions-cuts-are-real-20180710-p4zqln.html
In a well-aimed contribution Richard Dennis says Australia’s culture warriors need to read up on the history of the “Western civilisation” they talk so much about.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/symbolic-fights-make-sense-when-you-re-losing-the-real-ones-20180713-p4zrck.html
NSW Liberal MP Daryl Maguire he really come unstuck as he admitted trying to earn payments by setting property developers up with investors, particularly large Chinese firms.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/liberal-mp-quits-party-after-admitting-seeking-property-payments-20180713-p4zreu.html
While the NSW government has announced a review of sexual consent laws, many believe the system that deals with sexual offences and their prosecution is in need of a complete overhaul.
https://outline.com/6NsXhu
Why the ABC, and the public that trusts it, must stand firm against threats to its editorial independence.
https://theconversation.com/why-the-abc-and-the-public-that-trusts-it-must-stand-firm-against-threats-to-its-editorial-independence-99784
The Saturday Paper says that the new head of the government’s ABC efficiency review is not as right-wing as some may fear. Still, his appointment suggests an agenda to further muzzle the broadcaster’s independent voice.
https://outline.com/rLrL2s
Henrietta Cook reports that selective-entry schools only marginally improve students’ ATARs according to new research that questions whether elite state schools boost academic performance. Students at selective-entry high schools achieve ATARs that are at most two points higher, on average, than similar students elsewhere.
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/woolworths-and-coles-shoppers-to-get-extra-points-for-bringing-own-bag-20180713-p4zrce.html
In a stunningly-timed announcement just three days before Donald Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 12 Russian intelligence officials for conspiring to influence the 2016 US election by stealing emails from Democratic Party officials and hacking into voter registration files.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/mueller-indicts-12-russian-officers-for-hacking-democrats-emails-20180714-p4zrg5.html
What this Australian company learnt from giving its staff unlimited paid leave
https://www.theage.com.au/business/workplace/what-this-australian-company-learnt-from-giving-its-staff-unlimited-paid-leave-20180712-p4zqzg.html
The Saturday Paper’s editorial is about bad eggs and Mark Latham.
https://outline.com/6AjNCf
Canberra Hospital emergency department is one of three in the country where deteriorating conditions were putting the health and safety of patients at risk.
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/act/canberra-hospital-ed-one-of-three-putting-patients-at-risk-20180713-p4zrds.html
For the “Arsehole of the Week” file.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/celebrity/2018/07/13/george-calombaris-hellenic-republic/
Elizabeth Knight has a good look at the Woolworths-Coles battle.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/fun-and-games-at-the-checkout-as-coles-toys-with-its-rival-20180713-p4zrcx.html
A very small Cartoon Corner
Two crackers from David Rowe.
Broelman goes to London with Trump.
Lots of good ones in here, especially a half a dozen from Matt Golding.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/best-of-fairfax-cartoons-july-14-2018-20180713-h12o2n.html
BB, It’s not only crickets at the SMH, but the Daily ToiletPaper is front paging kids rugby league, which nobody plays anymore, and the venerable SmearStralian is silent – with a grudging rehash of AAP item in online ‘latest news’. Mind, you the AAP story nails the Wagga Wagga crook..
‘Maguire was secretly recorded on several occasions trying to strike a deal in 2016 with then Canterbury City councillor Michael Hawatt, who is at the centre of an ICAC investigation.
The secretly recorded conversations were played during an ICAC hearing on Friday.
Soon after, the Wagga Wagga MP stood down from the Liberal Party and quit his role as parliamentary secretary for counter terrorism, corrections, veterans and the Centenary of ANZAC.
Mr Maguire told the inquiry he’d never done any business with Mr Hawatt and didn’t remember much from their “occasional” meetings.
Moments later, he was heard telling Mr Hawatt he had a client with “mega money” who would be interested in a site in Canterbury which had been approved for 300 units.
He asked the councillor what “margin” he would get from the “quick sale”, worth up to $51 million.
Mr Maguire denied he was an agent for the Chinese developer – Country Garden – but conceded he had “certainly sought to assist” them in purchasing sites in Australia and had become “great friends” with Country Garden’s Australian chief executive’
So it may well be the case that the Wagga Wagga Door Opener ™ – who had already perfected the craft in 2016 – has been involved in corruption accross Sydney with the apartment boom. As a Minister of the Crown. How many other prime sites were made available to Chinese developers with kickbacks?
C’mon Gladys. Surely an inquiry into how long the scam with the Wagga Wagga Door Opener ™ has been going on?
Big effort, BK. Thanks. 🙂
Bushfire Bill @ #9 Saturday, July 14th, 2018 – 7:15 am
BB
His blundering about is so unreal that it makes groucho Marx seem like a superior diplomat (as would be Larry, Mo and Curly).
I still have a nagging feeling that it is more play acting than real. The guy is a racist, semi sexist (he likes Ivanka and some others), elitist snob. That much is clear.
Trump Defects to Russia?
The turmoil caused this week by US President Trump among NATO allies is approaching surreal. Time to indulge in some satire…
Helsinki was always famed for its Cold War intrigues and secret exchanges between the Americans and Soviets. But no-one imagined this delivery. The 45th president of the United States handed himself over to the care of Mother Russia, renouncing American citizenship and seeking asylum.
While Trump has reportedly gone into hiding somewhere in Russia, the US and its European allies are in uproar over the “sellout of the century” – to borrow the property tycoon’s phraseology.
His detractors in Washington’s political and media establishment are in paroxysms of condemnation and, strangely, relieved self-righteousness. “We always knew it. That Trump was a Kremlin stooge, a Putin puppet. Now, finally, we have proof,” fumed one pundit.
Trump’s last words explaining his actions were more prosaic. “I’ve had it with this Russia collusion fake news screwing up my life for two years,” he told reporters before being whisked away. “I’m outta here. I got my eye on some nice beach property on the Black Sea.”
…Trump took his earpiece out and leaned into Putin, knowing that the Russian President has fairly good English language skill. Besides, what he had to say was rather straightforward, albeit astounding.
“Look Vlad, I’ve had it, just had it, with these bozos back in the US and Europe. I signed up to make America great again, not to have my life tortured by people who don’t know how to make deals. The whole Russia collusion thing has gone beyond a joke. It’s impossible to get anything done to make America great or to make peace with your country.”
Putin’s face at this point had relinquished the initial smile. He knew The Donald was serious. Ever the attentive listener, Putin knew to let the American continue.
“So, here’s my bottom line Vlad,” said the soon-to-be ex-president, proffering a portfolio of bank accounts. “Let me seek asylum in your wonderful country, become a Russian citizen, and if you secure my assets with Russian gold I am only too willing to invest in that fabulous Black Sea area.”
And that was it. Air Force One was left idling on the Helsinki airport runway while Donald J Trump, formerly US president, was given a spare seat on President Putin’s aircraft on their way back to Moscow.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/13/trump-defects-to-russia.html
I think those dreadful Chinese Safety Deposit Boxes, aka apartment towers in Sydney, are the very opposite of ‘Country Gardens’. What a misnomer of a business name. You’d be lucky to fit a couple of pot plants on the balcony of most of them.
Morning all, thanks BK for today’s wrap.
Putin may be in denial about his country meddling in the 2016 election, but the usual Friday Mueller investigation dump tells a different story.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/rod-rosenstein-expected-to-announce-new-indictment-by-mueller/2018/07/13/bc565582-86a9-11e8-8553-a3ce89036c78_story.html?utm_term=.48b4bb949c27
One day after telling Theresa May that her Brexit plan was incompatible with a US trade deal, Trump changed his mind.
Yesterday: “If they do a [Brexit] deal like that, we would be dealing with the European Union instead of dealing with the UK, so it will probably kill the deal,” he told the Sun. “I would have done it much differently. I actually told Theresa May how to do it, but she didn’t listen to me.”
Today: Trump vows ‘great’ trade deal with UK, abruptly changing tack on May’s Brexit plan.
Yesterday: Trump hails Boris Johnson as future Prime Minister
Today: Trump said the British leader was doing a “fantastic job”, added it was up to her how to conduct Brexit, and that a free trade deal was very much on the table. Relations had never been more special, he said, and any criticism was “fake news”.
Yesterday: Donald Trump accused the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, of doing “a bad job” on terrorism and said there had been too much immigration in Europe in an incendiary interview that raised questions about the decision to invite him to Britain.
A day before the US president was due to have bilateral talks with Theresa May, Trump used an interview with the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sun to endorse her principal Tory rival just days after he resigned from the cabinet in protest at her Brexit policy.
The president – who has said he would like to see Johnson during his UK trip – added that Johnson “obviously likes me, and says very good things about me.
https://www.themaven.net/mishtalk/economics/trump-reverses-course-promises-great-trade-deal-with-uk-0-27zL7Dck2QdPsVZkr9uA/
Crikey can reveal that Optus is monetising the websites its Australian customers visit by sharing them with an advertising-technology firm that Optus’ parent company Singtel Group acquired for US$321 million in 2012, called Amobee. Demographic information such as gender and age are also tied with the browsing histories shared, according to Amobee’s website.
While companies such as Facebook have “like” buttons or other plugins embedded on many of the world’s popular websites, which reveal a user’s browsing history and send it back to Facebook so it can target ads at those users on behalf of advertisers, these do not give Facebook as full a picture of a user’s browsing history — something Amobee is able to provide, thanks to Optus.
— Ben Grubb
‘Downer, 38, an articulate lawyer….’
Aha! Obviously Tony Wright has never actually heard her speak….
From a year ago, but bearing out in reality today.
http://observer.com/2017/08/russia-white-house-disinformation-seth-rich-hr-mcmaster/
And Trump is trying mightily to just blow it all off. What a weasel!
Whatever happened to Louise Mensch!?!
Morning
Thanks BK for today’s reports.
Delusional Trump continues to show what a dangerous buffoon he is.
Not surprising the 12 indictments are timed to coincide with his meeting with Putin.
As said many times as all becomes revealed, people will be disgusted and shocked by the enormity of the betrayal.
As Rick Wilson coined, everything Trump touches dies. It also means so much of his decisions will be reversed.
LOL!!
The full text of the Mueller indictment
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4598901-Netyksho-Et-Al-Indictment.html#document/p2/a437743
C@t
Mensch still commenting on Twitter.
RNC statement on the Mueller indictment. No Trump-like prevarication over Russian guilt there.
Is TMay leadership going to survive the Brexit saga?
It is looking very shaky indeed.
Fess
So many Reps and Senators are going to be caught up in this saga. You can see why they are doing their best to push back. It won’t work.
Why does anyone have faith in this President? His apologists say things like “Take no notice of his words, look at his deeds.” I am, you deluded people. For Presidents, words equal deeds.
Vic:
Yep you can sense the desperation in that RNC statement, plus the unhinged and totally OTT questioning of Rosenstein the other day.
Sorry, not Rosenstein, I am getting him mixed up with Strzok.
Have a look at paras 49 onwards regarding Organization 1 (Likely to be Julian Assange)
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4598901-Netyksho-Et-Al-Indictment.html#document/p2/a437743
Assange knowingly aided and abetted the Russians in perverting the US election campaign
And para 44 regarding the Russians communicating with an unamed person close to the Trump campaign – rumoured to be Roger Stone
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4598901-Netyksho-Et-Al-Indictment.html#document/p2/a437743
Morning all. Thanks BK. Well the news as a whole makes a grim read. Proof Russia corrupted a US election. A NSW Liberal MP confesses to corruption but stays in parliament. Federal energy policy and the NBN are corrupted to appease wealthy coal and media interests. And at least one State opposition leader has already met with organised crime figures to agree who knows what on the chance he gains office. No corruption there…
Cat is right. This is not capitalism or conservatism. It is a retreat from democracy towards some neo-feudalism where corporate robber barons run the country through their elected puppets. Its Time … for a clean out.
After the UK effort I wonder if Turnbull will be so keen to have trump ( does not warrant a capital T) show up on Australian shores.
I’m sure he would love to have trump tell us Abbot would make a great PM. ROFL.
I wonder is Sarah Henderson will still venture to tell us all she would be honored if the pussy grabbing misfit addressed the Australian parliament
What a bloody joke.
sprocket_ @ #26 Saturday, July 14th, 2018 – 8:30 am
I’m currently reading, “Outnumbered Exploring the Algorithms That Control Our Lives'” by David Sumpter.
He is Professor of Applied Mathematics at the University of Uppsala, Sweden.
Originally from London, but growing up in Scotland, he completed his doctorate in Mathematics at Manchester, and held a Royal Society Fellowship at Oxford before heading to Sweden.
David Sumpter takes an algorithm-strewn journey to the dark side of mathematics. He investigates the equations that analyze us, influence us and will (maybe) become like us, answering questions like:
Who are Cambridge Analytica, and what are they doing with our data?
How does Facebook build a 100-dimensional picture of your personality?
Are Google algorithms racist and sexist?
Why do election predictions fail so drastically?
Are algorithms that are designed to find criminals making terrible mistakes?
What does the future hold as we relinquish our decision-making to machines?
Featuring interviews with those working at the cutting edge of algorithm,
Outnumbered explains how mathematics and statistics work in the real world, and what we should and shouldn’t worry about.
Regarding Facebook he says –
We are clicking our personalities into Facebook, hour after hour, day after
day. Smileys, thumbs ups, ‘likes’, frowns and hearts. We are telling Facebook
who we are and what we think.
We are revealing ourselves to a social media site in a level of detail that we usually reserve for only our closest friends.
And unlike our friends – who tend to forget the details and are forgiving in
the conclusions they draw about us – Facebook is systematically collecting,
processing and analysing our emotional state.
It is rotating our personalities in hundreds of dimensions, so it can find the most cold, rational direction to view us from.
Facebook’s researchers have mastered the techniques of reducing our
dimensionality. In the study I made of my own friends, I reduced 13
dimensions of posting by 32 people to two dimensions using an algorithm that
took less than a second to execute.
Michal used a similar algorithm and took about an hour to reduce 55,000 different likes by tens of thousands of people to the 40 or so dimensions required to predict their personalities.
Facebook is working on a very different scale. Its current methods take less than a second to reduce one million different like categories, chosen by 100,000 different people to a few hundred dimensions. 4
The methods employed by Facebook build on the mathematics of
randomness. Rotating the data for one million different like categories one
million times – which is the method that worked relatively quickly for my 15
categories – takes a long time.
So Facebook’s algorithm starts instead by proposing a random set of dimensions with which to describe us.
The algorithm then evaluates how well these random dimensions perform,
allowing it to find a new set of dimensions that improves its description. After
only a few iterations, Facebook can have a pretty good idea of the most
important components that describe its users.
The pdf can be downloaded here –
http://oceanofpdf.com/pdf-epub-outnumbered-exploring-the-algorithms-that-control-our-lives-download/
Plenty of other pdf’s on the site as well.
Oh – Just imagine what posts on PollBludger are telling William and the rest of the world. 🙂
Sprocket
I look forward to Roger Stone, Sean Hannity and Julian Assange getting their just desserts. Oxygen thieves, the lot of them.
Would be interesting to see the new Victorian probabilities with the new boundaries – which were formalised and gazetted yesterday. This would seem to put Dunkley well beyond reach for the Liberals and makes Corangamite look really hard. So Libs are down two before we’ve even begun.
Don’t know if others have noticed. But if you are having a discussion with people, and you happen to have your phone in your jacket or pocket. Check out and see what adverts and notifications pop up.
You could be discussing something obscure and next thing you know, the item pops up on your phone
It is creepy
The great pimple that was developed in 2016 with bRexit and Trump’s ascendancy looks like it is getting ready to burst