6 November 2022 — 1401 mst

Sunday short notes

By James Conner

Expect a slow vote count in the Flathead Tuesday. Jack Fallon is running a major write-in campaign for county commissioner. That will slow the count in Montana’s fourth most populous county, probably extending it well into Wednesday.

Why I rooted for the Phillies. I have family in the backyards of Philadelphia and Houston, and attended college in Houston, but I rooted for the Phillies in the World Series because Houston’s roster still includes cheaters from the 2017 team. That said, congratulations to the Astros. They had better pitchers and batters, and this time they played a clean game.

No good independent polling for Montana’s congressional elections. There has been only one poll (MSU Billings) for the eastern district, and just three (MSU Billings, Victoria Research, Impact Research) for the western. The MSU poll sampled just 183 adults in the eastern district, and 143 in the western district. MSU’s sample was too small, was not of likely voters, and thus has no predictive value. The Victoria and Impact polls were partisan in origin, and did not provide full disclosure of the methodology and crosstabs. We’re flying blind.

Montana’s universities should pool political polling. MSU conducted its survey by live telephone and is best considered a student project. Still, it needs to do better. Its managers should consider switching to online methods, asking fewer questions, and trying for samples of 750 or so in each district. And MSU Billings, MSU, and UMT should consider forming a consortium to conduct a single Montana poll that can survey the voters several times after the primary election.

A poll’s margin of error should include design effects. The standard MOE is for sampling only. It does not include design effects. Here’s the explanation from the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll.

Here are that poll’s sample size numbers.

The sampling MOE for 708 LV is ±3.68 percent. Dividing 708 by the design effect’s 1.5 coefficient yields an effective sample size of 472, for which the standard MOE calculation yields ±4.51 percent. An acceptable back of the envelope formula for the MOE is 1.96/(2 * square root sample size).

The Flathead experienced very low barometric pressure yesterday. From 0415 through 0450 MDT, the station pressure was 26.08 inches of mercury. That corresponded to a sea level pressure of 29.07 inches of Hg. Normal sea level pressure is 29.92 inches Hg. Glacier International Airport (KGPI) is at 2972 feet. But the equivalent altitude at the barometer’s low point was approximately 3700 feet. Under standard conditions in the Flathead, water boils at approximately 206°F. During yesterday’s low, its boiling point was a degree lower.

Here’s a graph of the boiling point of water as a function of altitude under standard conditions.

Measuring the boiling point of a pot of water on the kitchen stove and comparing it to local barometric pressure is a good household science project. Use a calibrated bulb or a good digital thermometer.

The daylight saving to standard time changeover. This morning, I reset six clocks, two watches, and six cameras. I found that my Citizen diving watch had gained just three seconds since being set to Universal Time Coordinated at the March changeover. That’s chronometer level timekeeping. I like the extra hour of evening light that DST provides. I’ve never experienced ill effects from the changeovers, and doubt that most people do. But, predictably, the DST scoffers were at it as they are at it at each changeover, predicting a deadly dystopia if we are not rescued from that extra hour of evening light. To hell with them.

A fountain pen for the dry west. In college in the upper Midwest and the deep South, I used fountain pens almost exclusively. But when I moved west in the mid-seventies, my fountain pens dried out and clogged up overnight, forcing me to switch to rolling ball and later gel pens. Last month, I bought a sixpack of Pilot Varsity disposable fountain pens (three black, three blue, $14 from Amazon). An amazing value. They write smoothly, as only fountain pens can, and have neither dried up, clogged, nor soaked through the paper. And yes, I still use pencils for writing notes in below freezing weather.