Category: Measurement

Assessing Kamala Harris’ running mate choices

On the evening of July 22, 2024, Vice President Kamala D. Harris secured enough endorsements from delegates to the Democratic National Convention to become the de facto 2024 Democratic presidential nominee. Three days later, Harris announced she would choose a vice-presidential running mate by August 7. During the early summers of 2016 and 2020, I … Continue reading Assessing Kamala Harris’ running mate choices →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 7 (My 100 Favorite Artists and Conclusion)

Having spent four essays detailing how difficult it is to rank one’s favorite music with both objectivity and methodological rigor (here, here, here, here), then using one such method to rank my 100 favorite tracks and albums, I conclude this series with an examination of my favorite artists and some final thoughts. As with every … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 7 (My 100 Favorite Artists and Conclusion) →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums)

In five previous essays (here, here, here, here, here), I detail how I used appearances on 434 mixes (August 1981 to November 2023) and total plays to calculate a score for 9,560 tracks. Using these Track Scores (“TS”), I ranked my favorites from a tie for #7,529 (2,032 tracks with one play and no mix … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 6 (My 100 Favorite Albums) →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 5 (My 100 Favorite Tracks)

In the first four essays in this series (here, here, here, here), I detail the evolution of the 434 music “mixes” I have created since August 1981. These mixes migrated from cassette to CD to 150-GB flywheel iPod, with a handful of videocassettes added along the way. As of April 2024, I have put 3,625 … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 5 (My 100 Favorite Tracks) →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 4

In the first three essays in this series (here, here, here), I detail the evolution of the 434 music “mixes” I have created since August 1981, when I recorded 14 current favorite tracks onto a 60-minute cassette, calling it “My Stuff,” by putting a speaker from my stereo turntable next to a hand-held tape recorder, … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 4 →

My 100 Favorite Films…Probably

[Ed. note: This essay was updated on April 1, 2025] On December 1, 2022, Sight and Sound Magazine released the results of its decennial Greatest Films of All Time Critics’ Poll (“SS Poll”). The key result is that Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles dethroned Vertigo as the “greatest film of all time.”[1] … Continue reading My 100 Favorite Films…Probably →

2022 Elections Update: Should I adjust my adjustments?

On September 26, 2022, I published an updated set of projections for who will have the majority in the United States House of Representatives (“House”) following the 2022 elections, as well as who will win the 35 elections for the United States Senate (“Senate”) and 36 elections for governor. Since then, an additional 14 generic … Continue reading 2022 Elections Update: Should I adjust my adjustments? →

2022 Emerson College polling: A story in three tables

I first observed an arithmetic Republican lean in Emerson College (“Emerson”) polling in November 2019. Specifically, Emerson College polling of hypothetical 2020 matchups between leading Democrats (Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren) and President Donald J. Trump had shifted 4.7 percentage points (“points”) Republican since September 1, using the Democratic percentage minus the Republican percentage … Continue reading 2022 Emerson College polling: A story in three tables →

Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 3

In June and September of 2021, I wrote the first two essays in a series on the evolution of the methods I use to rank my favorite tracks (a term I prefer to “songs”). These essays presented the history of the 309 individual “mix” cassettes, videocassettes and CDs I constructed between August 1981 and August … Continue reading Measuring the Unmeasurable: Ranking One’s Favorite Music, Part 3 →