FOLDING BIKES DON'T HAVE TO BE DULL

On 1/7/2021 6:40 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

snip

I would have little difficulty predicting the answer to any of these
questions as long as I had some details on the responders background.
Of course, all these questions would be labeled "Poll shows that
voters will likely reject public transportation project funding".

I have a lot of experience dealing with Santa Clara County Transit (VTA)
and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC).

MTC, to their credit finally has realized that remote-working is going
to be a big factor in solving transportation issues in the Bay Area. But
it's bad news for transit agencies, commercial real estate, apartment
building owners, and restaurants. So much so that the mayors of San
Francisco and San Jose went non-linear and came out against MTC's
proposals, and MTC backed down. Not that MTC can really do anything to
stop remote-working, that ship has sailed.

The Bay Area has spent a fortune building Lexus Lanes (Express Lanes)
where single occupancy vehicles can pay to avoid traffic in the free
lanes, and they've just been opening in the past couple of years. But of
course no one is going to pay to use those lanes when traffic moves just
as fast or faster in the free lanes. A single slow vehicle in the
Express Lanes holds everyone up with no way to get around them. Bridge
toll revenue is also way down of course. The much higher bridge tolls
have also caused people to alter their routes. It's 3 miles for me to go
to Sacramento on 580 and 5 than on 680 and 80, but it saves $6-7 in the
outbound direction, and is also less stressful.

In Southern California they built several toll roads which were supposed
to be popular routes to bypass traffic on freeways but the high tolls
discouraged use and they were a financial disaster even before the pandemic.

On 1/7/2021 7:52 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Thursday, January 7, 2021 at 3:49:59 PM UTC-8, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 1/7/2021 3:43 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Wed, 6 Jan 2021 16:30:52 -0800 (PST), Tom Kunich
wrote:

When they get this state rolling again the commute would be absolutely
impossible. It would probably be faster to commute on a bicycle
than in a car and it is some 40 miles.

Car pooling might be useful.
I know this is a repeat, but I still like it:
https://www.theonion.com/report-98-p...ans-1819565837
So your entire cash of knowledge is Fake News articles on the Internet?

WHOOSH! :-)


--
- Frank Krygowski

On Fri, 08 Jan 2021 07:54:35 -0600, AMuzi wrote:

On 1/7/2021 11:43 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Fri, 08 Jan 2021 09:56:37 +0700, John B.
wrote:
A good friend, no longer with us, built a business here on market
surveys and did quite well with it. He once commented "tell me what
you want to prove and I'll design a survey to prove it"

That's almost exactly what a former employer demonstrated to me. I
found a summer job with an advertising agency turned marketing
research company. What he did was generate a survey with each
question asked at least twice, but in different ways. Methinks there
were a total of 20 questions. He was good enough at writing questions
that I didn't even notice the duplicated questions. Very
embarrassing. He was able to successfully predict my answer for
almost all the questions.

And, based on some of the survey's I've seen he must have told his
secret to others :-)

It's not a big secret. It is taught in most marketing classes. The
methods are easy enough to demonstrate as I tried to do with a few
random examples. What's difficult is finding a writer with sufficient
writing skills who can prepare questions without introducing any
spurious interpretations or unintentional biases. To do it correctly
requires some understanding of psychology, motivation, cultural
differences, statistics, etymology, etc. My skill level is nowhere
near what is required to write properly biases and targeted surveys.

"Wording Bias"
https://www.statisticshowto.com/wording-bias/

More examples:
https://www.google.com/search?q=biased+survery+questions

Here's one I haven't seen in print. While reading, what do you do
when you encounter a spelling error? By tracking eye movements, it
was found that most people stop reading and try to figure out what
went wrong. If you ask a two part question, you can prevent the
reader from reading the 2nd part by merely introducing a spelling
error where the two parts join. Odds are that the reader will answer
the question based mostly on the first part.


"While reading, what do you do
when you encounter a spelling error?"

Girlfriend, who gets the newspapers after me, complains
about all the circles, strikeouts, corrections and editorial
comments in the margins.

Perhaps you missed your calling and should have been born an editor
;-)
--
Cheers,

John B.

On Friday, January 8, 2021 at 1:54:50 PM UTC, AMuzi wrote:

Girlfriend, who gets the newspapers after me, complains
about all the circles, strikeouts, corrections and editorial
comments in the margins.

I know how you feel, Master Muzi. When I wrote a syndicated column, I would often be exceedingly surprised at which broadsheets of anglo record (this remark is for those who comprehend the importance of all three terms) managed to mangle my English worse than any self-respecting Indian paper. And you'd be surprised about who frequently you can't do anything to among the fools who think they know everything because they're members of the union. One sub-editor, whose sole task on the evening was to copy a piece of my text under the photo of a ravishingly beautiful and talented singer, instead decided to write his own, and labelled her "unprepossessing". The Personnel Director himself called me at home on Sunday to explain why they couldn't fire the culprit. "You just got unlucky, Andre, after years and years on a roll. In future X [a heavyweight no one ****ed with] will see to it that Y is on duty any night when you're expecting late make-up." It happened less than a mile from the gate of the school where the BBC Pronunciation Unit earnestly assures us the best English in the world is spoken. -- AJ