Reply All: #58 Earth Pony
March 17, 2016 10:30 AM - Subscribe
This week we learn the truth behind Carl Diggler, the internet's most successful election forecaster. And a special Yes Yes No featuring comedian/actor/podcaster Jason Mantzoukas.
Every single time I listen to the credits, I think he says "Mixed by Raekwon".
posted by selfnoise at 1:23 PM on March 17, 2016
posted by selfnoise at 1:23 PM on March 17, 2016
Was there an explanation for how/why Jason Mantzoukas appeared on the podcast? I thought he was fantastic, and that segment was as good as it's ever been. I'm just curious how that happened. I accidentally saw #thetriggering on twitter, so for once, I counted myself as a yes, no matter that I didn't understand the rest of it.
I loved the Carl Diggler segment too. The explanation of how Minnesota Nice & Conservative ends up as a vote for Rubio sort of sounded reasonable.
posted by gladly at 6:16 PM on March 17, 2016
I loved the Carl Diggler segment too. The explanation of how Minnesota Nice & Conservative ends up as a vote for Rubio sort of sounded reasonable.
posted by gladly at 6:16 PM on March 17, 2016
We love his work, and we heard a rumor he was into our podcast, so we reached out, and he enthusiastically agreed to do it. It was a ton of fun.
posted by Alex Goldman at 5:42 AM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Alex Goldman at 5:42 AM on March 18, 2016 [5 favorites]
Jason Mantzoukas is a beautiful, hairy Internet baby and should sporadically take over your Twitter forever until the end of time (or Twitter).
posted by Tevin at 7:44 AM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Tevin at 7:44 AM on March 18, 2016 [1 favorite]
Great episode, and despite being Aware of All Internet Traditions, I still barely get the infinite recursion meme*, although I do get the LUV2MEME™.
* Mostly because I'm not sure it's a funny/good meme.
posted by General Malaise at 6:16 PM on March 18, 2016
* Mostly because I'm not sure it's a funny/good meme.
posted by General Malaise at 6:16 PM on March 18, 2016
This episode is a lot of fun. And the line, "there's no way to tell whether Paul the Octopus was a prophet or not," is beautifully placed and adds a lot to the piece.
If you're looking for more SuperForecasting-related podcasts, there are recent programs at both LongNow SALT and econtalk. While I've not read their papers, all the public talks related to the research show a surprising lack of attention to quantitative significance tests or repeatability. That the author responded to the question about a prediction criterion in this episode with "ask a statistician" rather than "here's why that's a hard question and here's what we'd need to consider" was pretty disappointing. I realize this is the professional writer co-author rather than the business school faculty co-author. But he's still spent several years becoming an expert on exactly the question that was asked. This may well be legitimate science, but if so they sure are making it hard to tell by the way they discuss it in the media.
The recursion tweet is one of the first yes/yes/no questions I feel like I actually understood before the explanation. I've never heard of the "starter kit" meme, but it's easy to infer from context. (Having looked at around a hundred of them now, this one is definitely the shining jewel among them. Yikes.) The construction of sunglasses + goofy dog -> missing punchline replaced by recursion seems far more straightforward than anything else that's been featured on the show. It makes sense without having to know any outside information. Am I missing deep references and not getting half the joke, or are the hosts looking for references that don't exist?
posted by eotvos at 2:47 PM on March 19, 2016
If you're looking for more SuperForecasting-related podcasts, there are recent programs at both LongNow SALT and econtalk. While I've not read their papers, all the public talks related to the research show a surprising lack of attention to quantitative significance tests or repeatability. That the author responded to the question about a prediction criterion in this episode with "ask a statistician" rather than "here's why that's a hard question and here's what we'd need to consider" was pretty disappointing. I realize this is the professional writer co-author rather than the business school faculty co-author. But he's still spent several years becoming an expert on exactly the question that was asked. This may well be legitimate science, but if so they sure are making it hard to tell by the way they discuss it in the media.
The recursion tweet is one of the first yes/yes/no questions I feel like I actually understood before the explanation. I've never heard of the "starter kit" meme, but it's easy to infer from context. (Having looked at around a hundred of them now, this one is definitely the shining jewel among them. Yikes.) The construction of sunglasses + goofy dog -> missing punchline replaced by recursion seems far more straightforward than anything else that's been featured on the show. It makes sense without having to know any outside information. Am I missing deep references and not getting half the joke, or are the hosts looking for references that don't exist?
posted by eotvos at 2:47 PM on March 19, 2016
Two words oddly absent from this episode: Nate Silver.
That said, Pete the Octopus did get a literal PJ Vogt style laugh from me. Luckily I was alone in my car at the time!
posted by bq at 7:50 AM on March 29, 2016
That said, Pete the Octopus did get a literal PJ Vogt style laugh from me. Luckily I was alone in my car at the time!
posted by bq at 7:50 AM on March 29, 2016
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posted by dinty_moore at 11:34 AM on March 17, 2016