Alberto Nardelli

Ever wondered why phones must be switched off during flights? Here’s why.

A ridiculous myth is destroying rhino populations.

China’s latest scam: fake condoms. 

Social networks as evolutionary game theory.

Britons aren’t too fond of statistics.

Analysis comparing the financials of the NYT and the Washington Post. 

The battle for Castle Itter - the only time Americans and Germans fought together in WWII. A fascinating story. 

Harleys are a symbol of status and freedom in China.

The science behind Facebook’s emoticons. 

On the pros and cons of empathy.

Chancellor Merkel is by far Europe’s most popular political leader.

Across Europe’s main economies one political leader is by far the most popular among voters: German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Why?

(Both charts via Pew)

The economy. Focus on substantial reforms that lead to lasting and tangible results.

I can’t imagine Angela Merkel introducing a 75% tax rate or debating a euro referendum with the AfD any time soon.

African expats in Guangzhou. 

Calculating Jay Gatsby’s wealth.   

UKIP at 18% in latest ICM poll - the highest the party has achieved with any pollster.

How a Brazilian embezzler tried to pass an $8 million Basquiat as a $100 painting: art as a money laundering tool.

The number of micro-businesses in the UK is up 40% since 2000. 

Auchan now has as many hypermarkets in China as in France.

The collapse of Spain’s mainstream parties in one chart.

(via El Pais)

Support for ruling Partido Popular has nearly halved since the general election of November 2011, the Socialist Party is polling at all time lows too. Izquierda Unida is now only handful of points behind in third place.

87% of voters doesn’t have confidence in PM Rajoy, and only 5% has confidence in opposition and PSOE leader Rubalcaba (coincidentally, 66.9% believe Rubalcaba should resign as PSOE leader, 58.3% among PSOE voters).

These are extraordinary figures reflecting a collapse in trust towards mainstream parties that goes significantly beyond the current economic crisis and, in different ways, is taking place not only in Spain. 

PD only leads among pensioners, and among voters aged 18-54 lags behind Monti, Grillo and Berlusconi in terms of the composition of the party’s support.

PD needs to go beyond its (shrinking) core vote.

ht @SimoneSpetia.

Mainly as a way to archive them, when I have a few spare minutes I’m going to start summarising the most interesting links I read.

Here is today’s list:

The UK burrito market.

Daily happiness averages from September 2008-present using Twitter data.  

What half a second of trading in one stock looks like.

The history of nachos.

The quality of streets in L.A. mapped.

A story from the corner of Florida and 6th NW, Washington DC.

Smart Dutch innovation: city guides based on what is trending on social media and last minute holiday bookings based on weather forecasts.

The convention for institutional and constitutional reforms announced by Enrico Letta seems to be dead on arrival. Reforms will go through the parliamentary process and relevant commission. In practical terms, this means that reforms, if any, will take a long time. This includes voting law change.

Next week, the government is expected to announce legislation for its first measures, including freezing property tax until a definitive solution is found.

All this though is besides the point of what is the biggest story in Italian politics right now - the division within the PD party.

Guglielmo Epifani, former leader of Italy’s largest trade union, is set to be announced as interim leader ahead of the party’s convention (which is likely held in the Autumn). Epifani, who supported Bersani during the PD primaries, is a man of the left. The equivalent of the UK Labour Party electing a former-Unite head as leader.

PD continues to be split between the hard-left; the “anti-Berlusconi everything else is irrelevant” camp; and reformists. Given recent electoral failures, the division is a paradox, yet it is real and most importantly it is an issue the party needs to deal with definitively - this may mean short-term fractures, but in terms of longer-term success modernising and reforming is essential. 

Meanwhile, the centre-right’s lead in the polls is growing:

#Italy - average of polls, 7-day change: centre-right 34.6%(+0.3), centre-left 29%(+0.2), M5S 24.4%(-0.5), Monti/centre 7.8%(-0.2)

— electionista (@electionista)

May 10, 2013

I had an interesting chat yesterday evening on how polls are reported by the media. Badly, in most cases.

A good example of this from the FT (surprisingly) came yesterday:

More accurate would be: slips in one poll by one firm. RT @ftworldnews: Merkel slips in polls after tax scandal on.ft.com/13MbhV9

— Alberto Nardelli (@AlbertoNardelli)

May 1, 2013

Angela Merkel’s party falls a couple of points in one poll by one polling company (that tends to overestimate the CDU/CSU) becomes a full story on slipping in the polls.

The chat I had yesterday was specifically about Italian polls and how they performed during the last election. The post-election consensus was that they did poorly, but in reality on closer inspection (overestimating the centre-left PD by 4-5 points aside) many of the figures and trends weren’t that poor. The real issue was how they were interpreted (by myself included in some cases) - but, lots of the data was there and should have been emphasised more:

- see Tweet here and final pre-election figures.

- points 4) 5) and 6) here

- this on regional polls - the narrow gap nationally meant that these went to the centre-right, and what should have also been clear pre-election is that even had there been a 5-point gap nationally this wouldn’t had been sufficient to swing several historically centre-right regions to the centre-left.

- 54% chance of no majority emerging in the Senate.

In short, the polls had one clear shortcoming which had a significant impact on the election outcome due to Italy’s voting system (other than the fact that while there were quite a few national polls, the regional coverage of data is very scarce making predictions the more complicated - there were clear limitations within the polling data when looked at post-vote) - yet, many trends were evident but weren’t adequately interpreted by most analysis and coverage.

I’m confident everyone will have learnt a lot and will apply these learnings in time for the next Italian election.

p.s. on this topic I went to a great talk by Nate Silver at the RSA yesterday afternoon which you can listen to here.

Germans are drinking less beer, fast food sales in France overtake real food restaurants, hummus is conquering America.