Wednesday 31 May 2017

BBC debate my thoughts about performance.

Introduction

This post is not intended to be, in any way, partisan, and I will, instead, try to give an objective view on the performance of the speakers. My own political persuasion will not affect this review and I will, instead, try to rate the speakers on how persuasive they are to the undecided voter rather than whether or not I personally agree with their points.   

Audience view

Firstly a measure of how the BBC audience viewed  the speakers. It was suggested that the audience was selected by an independent polling company, obviously I am unable to verify the veracity of this so I suggest these results be taken with a healthy but not paranoid level of gentle skeptism.


The above chart is a quantitative perspective on how the speakers performed in the eyes of the BBC audience. Muted applauses (where individual claps were clearly evident) were awarded 0.5 points, clear audible applauses were awarded 1 point and audible unappreciative noises caused a point to be docked. Clearly Labour and the Green party come out ahead here, this is partly due to, I think, the straight forward, coherent, and at times aggressive nature of their arguments but also because they tended to dominate the debate; greater time speaking obviously means a higher chance of receiving an applause! Amber rud, by contrast, was not well appreciated by the audience and only received one muted applause during the entire two hour debate, significantly less than even UKIP which managed 6 applauses (of which 5 were muted). Notably UKIP and the Conservatives were the only parties to be mocked during the debate.       

My personal thoughts    

Jeremy Corbyn (Labour):  

There was a certain popular appeal to Corbyn's arguments. His points were simple, straightforward and came across as hard hitting when it came to the economy, healthcare and housing. Corbyn was clearly very well briefed during the debate managing to deflect the 'gotcha' moment concerning voting against anti terrorism legalisation very effectively. While Corbyn's performance has been mixed in the past, he clearly learned from mistakes made on Women's Hour. Corbyn was also on the offensive for much of the debate, targeting the conservative record on the deficit, inequality and corporation tax which came off quite effectively. There was a definite ambiguity on brexit and immigration but Corbyn was very effective in drawing attention away from these weaknesses. Corbyn also knew when to choose not to engage, Nuttal's point regarding Hamas could have been very effective but instead he simply let the moderator drown it out. Overall a very solid performance, Corbyn came across as well briefed but not over rehearsed. Regardless of what you think of him he has the potential to be a strong debater if he is well prepared.

My rating: 8/10

Caroline Lucas (Green):

In many ways very similar to Corbyn. Caroline was effective in presenting the left wing argument and the audience response reflected that. Comments regarding food banks and poverty effected were appealing and emotive while attacks on the conservatives were quite convincing. Lucas was less inclined to attack Rudd directly than Corbyn was, I think this resulted in a few missed opportunities but equally allowed her to present a calmed and more measured demeanour. However she was assertive enough to dominate much of the debate which, I think, will reflect well on her.

My rating: 8/10

Angus Robertson (SNP):

What Angus said, when he said it, was quite effective. But honestly, I actually forgot he was even there for much of the first half of the debate! Angus came across as quite neutral in style (neither aggressive or defensive) and obedient; mostly only speaking when he was spoken too. That's not to say he came across as shy or reserved, but unobjectionable and occasionally even forgettable. Frankly I think he could really have elevated his performance if he only spoke more. Regardless, like Lucas, he did spent a significant amount of time attacking conservative policies and easily deflected attacks from Rudd.

My rating: 7/10

Tim Farron (Liberal democrat):

Tim Farron clearly wants to add his own personal touch to his arguments which is fine, but he would do well to go easy on the anecdotes which are overly long, are only about 75% relevant and occasionally come across as self aggrandizing. And these anecdotes somehow come across as less sincere as Jeremy Corbyn's more populist tone which should not be the case. Another problem I have is that Farron often seemed to be the echo in the room; Lucas made the point (to applause) that May had failed to turn up quite eloquently. When Farron repeated it a few seconds later it just fell flat. Farron also lacked a clear direction like Lucas and Corbyn had with a quantity of arguments (such as somewhat out of place single market advocacy) sometimes prioritized over quality. Farron made some strong points against Rudd and the conservatives but I feel these may even be falsely attributed to Labour or the Greens who made a more consistent case. Not a disaster though, Farron didn't make any major mistakes either; the performance was wooden but it was polished wood.

My rating: 4/10

Natalie  Leanne Wood (Plaid Cymru)

Like the SNP, Leanne was quite forgettable at times and did not appear to have much speaking time. When she did speak her argument just seemed like the weaker sister of Corbyn's and Green's relentless case against the Conservatives. One problem regional parties tend to have is that they need to fully acknowledge that they are only campaigning from within their region without appearing apathetic towards the rest of the UK. I think Angus got the balance right, but I think Leanne beat the welsh drum a little too much. Her attack on Welsh Labour was one of the few instances where Corbyn was on the defensive, yet Corbyn was able to bat it away as a triviality. There was also a somewhat bizzare moment when Leanne seemed to suggest that Wales was against immigration which she then immediately contradicted by attacking Nuttal on immigration.

My rating: 4/10

Paul Nuttal (UKIP):

Paul's arguments often come across as quite rehearsed, he has a lot of catch phrases he likes to use (how many times have we heard about the city the size of hull). Although during this debate he seemed to have cleared his act up somewhat and presented a more targeted opposition to the mostly left leaning panel members. There were a few moments when he presented quite confident albeit very polarizing counters on terrorism, immigration and foreign aid but equally he took along time to get going having to prefix his rebuttals with 'Let me tell you what it is' e.c.t which causes a loss in momentum. Overall though Nuttal did better than I expected striking a mostly confident albeit hesitant tone.   

My rating: 5/10

Amber Rudd (Conservative):

There is no way to sugar coat this, it didn't go very well for the conservatives tonight. Rudd is a very aggressive debater and that tends to come at a price. If there is significant substance behind the aggression then I think the viewer enjoys the tenacity of breaking down an opponent like a brick wall but if the argument lacks substance it can come across as being 'shouty'. Unfortunately I think many people will see the later rather than the former today. Not all of this was Rudd's fault, firstly she was in a very hostile environment deflecting blows from five sides (with even UKIP occasionally kicking while she was down) and having to implicitly defend the seemingly indefensible, why was she even there in the first place! The 'money tree' sound byte came across as quite clichéd when some hard numbers might have been more appropriate (in fact I think Corbyn's argument was more quantitative than Rudd's which doesn't do her any favours). At times Rudd became quite intellectual which didn't seem to work that well with her very aggressive style. To be honest, I didn't feel like I got much in the way of clear arguments so much as simply an attack on Corbyn and Labour. Rudd, when placed on the defensive, at times struggled; notably the audience found her proclamation of an effective conservative record to be self evident quite amusing. However, again, this must be tempered with the inherently hostile atmosphere of the debate; I feel it would have been hard for even the most proficient debater to have done well in her shoes.

My rating: 3/10

Overall I mostly agree with the Audience applause index rankings, although I would rate the liberal democrats and Plaid Cymru as far more forgettable and UKIP as more mediocre than dysfunctional. However to the undecided voter I am sure that Corbyn and Lucas will be seen as the winners and Rudd as the looser.








Friday 23 September 2016

Medicane season 2016

The 2016 season is upon us! I unofficially take September as the first month of the medicane season, and this will last all the way through until January. So far the month has been unremarkable (and September usually sees the highest frequency of tropical like systems) with one exception which I will talk about. Below is a copy of the description from last year. Please enjoy.


Please comment (can be done anonymously) with any suggestions to improve these entries. It would be great to get some discussion going on an unofficial medicane record.

Since there is no official monitoring of the tropical storm like cyclones in the Mediterranean, here is an unofficial record with some amateur comments. Names are chosen randomly and alphabetically. The medicane season would probably start in September and end in January. Once again I emphasize I am an amateur, and there is nothing official about these thoughts below.

The designations I will use are

           Inspec: Disturbance with the potential to develop into a tropical system 

Medistorm: Maximum sustained wind-sp0eeds below 39mph (equivalent to tropical depression)
Medicane: Maximun sustained wind-speeds between 39mph and 74mph (equivalent to tropical storm)


Major Medicane: Maximun sustained wind-speeds above 74mph (equivalent to cat1 hurricane)


Inspecs will be documented as they occur, but will not form part of this summary. I can make no promises that these storms are tropical-like, as I have limited means to do so. In the tropics the weakest tropical cyclone (tropical depression) simply needs to show closed circulation and deepening. For the Mediterranean this is inadequate because there is no guaranteed a cyclone is tropical-like, further baroclinically fueled storms are every bit as capable of producing strong winds (if not more so) than tropical-like systems. The difficult part is separating the mid-latitude storms from the tropical like systems. The following criteria will be taken into account:

1) Whether or not the cyclone has a warm core: cyclone phase diagrams from the following source are especially useful: moe.met.fsu.edu/cyclonephase/

2) Evidence of lack of frontal systems. Cloud patterns associated with cold, warm and occluded fronts strongly oppose a tropical like nature. However occluded fronts may sometimes, unfortunately, mimic tropical like cloud patterns

3) Characteristic features, especially eye-wall and eye.

4) Absence of significant lightning, lightning implies strong vertical motion; in cyclones we would expect more horizontal motion. This might be a useful way to distinguish organised thunderstorms from cyclones.

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Medicane (Subtropical storm) Stephanie

Duration: (September 15 - September 16th)
Maximum sustained wind-speed (estimated): 50mph
Minimun pressure: 999mb















Background   

To begin with I feel I have to justify including this storm here since it technically didn't occur in the Mediterranean. Some useful background context first of all: I feel that the mediterainian 'basin' has three sub basins; the west (generally easy of Italy), the east (east of Italy), and the black sea. Medicanes may form in all three of these subbasins but more than 90%  form in the west, and black sea 'medicanes' are exceptionally rare. The formation of this storm encourages me to add a 4th subbasin, the bay of Biscay which has the lowest frequency of tropical like systems. My justification for this is as follows: the system was very similar to medicanes forming in waters with a SST of 23 degrees centigrade (highly typical of medicanes which only require SSTs of 15C, yet highly atypical of atlantic tropical storms), it formed during the peak of the medicane season and during meterological conditions that are characteristic of medicanes (such as very cold 500hpa temperatures). I think given that this storm fits the characturistics of a medicane to a tee, it is not unreasonable to call it one and by extension include the bay of Biscay as a sub basin.   

Nomenclature

I usually name my own medistorms/medicanes unless a name has already been assigned. I'm not sure subtropical storm Stephanie is official although it was being floated by some official sounding sources. As with medicanes the stronger storms may attract more attention (keeping in mind medicanes are not monitored officially by anyone), and I do not wish to cause any further confusion by using my own name. As such I am taking the name  Subtropical storm Stephanie for this storm but am also using my own 'Medicane' identifier; I personally believe that althrough subtropical storm may be a better descriptor than 'tropical storm', medicanes are in themselves a unique breed of storms and I think this descriptor works even better.

History and development

Medicane subtropical storm Stephanie started out life as a extratropical depression which formed over the bay of Biscay on a trailing cold front on the 13th September. The large warm sector of this depression  was dominated by exceptionally warm south easterly winds (which actually brought record warmth to south east England). By early on the 14th the depression had matured and filled out a little, sitting over NE france. The frontal system had started to occlude with the cold front moving in a NErly direction over the continent, the warm front stagnated over Irelandand Scotland. Meanwhile the low moved back out to sea and started to deepen. Significant vertical advection occurred ahead of the cold front and thunderstorms broke out widely across southern parts of France. During the early hours of the 15th the main frontal system started to become decoupled from the low level circulation of the system (see sequence below), indicating perhaps the beginning of tropical-like development
Sat 24 images with fronts overlayed by myself. Note the frontal system becoming increasingly decoupled from the LP. Normal midlatitude depressions have associated frontal systems, however for this system these frontal boundries become less well defined and unrelated to the low pressure centre.


Even as early as 8UTC convective activity was evident SW of the low pressure centre. By 11UTC there is some evidence of convection both west and south of the low pressure centre. Tropical like intensification rapidally occurs by 12UTC , with a very swift transition to a warm core symmetrical system and the development of an eyewall. It reaches its peak strength just an hour later with a clear well defined circular eye and what looks like a feeder band to the NW. From this point onwards there is a slow decline in the storm's strength, however it does not undergo extratropical transition; the storm remains tropical like. Stephanie makes landfall in spain (basque region) at 17UTC bringing rain and gusty winds but moving lethargically. Stephanie only begins to decline rapidaly at 20UTC when the LP centre itself moves over land. From then on the decline is rapid; as the mountainous terrain quickly destroys what is remaining of Stephanie. Stephanie is completely absorbed by 6UTC on the 16th.

Track of Stephanie in 6 hr intervals starting at 13UTC






In total Stephanie was a tropical like system from 12UTC on the 15th to 1UTC on the 16th (although its a bit arbitrary deciding when Stephanie becomes and ceases to be a tropical like system). The very short life span is another characteristic feature of medicanes; it is very rare for a medicane to be tropical-like for more than 24 hours. I think this further justifies including this system.

Concluding thoughts

The first medicane of the 2016 season didn't even occur in the meditaranian sea, but because she possessed so many features typical of a medicane I think it is justified to include her. Either way a beautiful system that would be a shame to ignore.


Wednesday 9 December 2015

Free speech - why we must protect this value, now, more than ever

In light of recent repugnant comments made by both Donald trump and the boxer Manny Pacquiao, the censoring chorus once again is being sung. In particular a UK petition calling for the banning of Donnald trump to the UK has been written and will now be discussed in parliament. This is not the first time free speech has been a contentious issue in the UK, Kate Hopkins frequently makes headlines for expressing her ultra conservative views, and there have been many (albeit unsuccessful) attempts to have her prosecuted .

Here is why we need to defend free speech when people express their abhorrent views, not attack it:

Censorship only prevents the expression of these views, it will never prevent these thoughts from existing. Ironically making unpleasant comments illegal allows perpetrators of these comments to feel like victims of state oppression (and if ideas are legally sanctioned they'd be correct), and with perceived victim-hood, in their eyes, comes a twisted form of vindication that their views must be a 'truth that is too dangerous for them to hear'. The ironic paradoxical legitimization by censorship allows these ideas to propagate faster in private circles than they ever would have in public circles because rather than people basing an idea on its merit they can be fooled into basing an idea on how it is censored by the state. It is worth, also, drawing analogy to the Streisand effect which basically boils down to 'forbidden fruit tastes sweeter', censorship of ideas provokes curiosity and can in some cases result in an exposure that would never have happened if the idea had been allowed to wallow in its own irrelevance. "There is no such thing as bad publicity" is an adage that holds true to ideas more so than any other entity.

So we must ask ourselves, what is a more effective way of challenging views we consider repulsive? Do we let them fester in the hearts and minds of bigots, who, feel ever more legitimized in their world of perceived victim-hood? Or do we allow stupidity to exist, if only so that it may be challenged strongly in the "free market place of ideas"*. In fact, by censoring unpopular views we must accept that it also means that viewpoints are not directly challenged either. An argument cannot be torn down with the elegance of a water-tight rebuttal if it is not even allowed to exist because a rebuttal expressed on its own is not a rebuttal at all, but a monologue. And monologues will always look one sided to those that strongly disagree, why not allow the other idea be expressed and demonstrate the superiority of the good argument for all to see including fence sitters and those holding opposing views. That way, you might actually convert people with these unpopular views!

There is also an economic argument behind aggressive anti-free speech legislation. The budget of the state is not unlimited, and revenue comes from the taxes of wealth creators and workers. In wasting public resources on trivial matters of unpleasant views we are wasting tax payers money. Therefore, in order to practically achieve a society with more intrusive free speech laws we either have to raise taxes or divert resources from elsewhere. Keep in mind tax law is unlikely to change because of a minor amendment to free speech legislation, and that those political wheels tend to turn slowly anyway. So practically more aggressive anti-free speech law means police and legal resources diverted from elsewhere, and that potentially means we could see an increase in non-trivial crime. We must always remember there is no such thing as a free lunch, more resource allocation in one place inevitably comes at the expense of others.

Does that mean free speech should be limit free? No. Clearly we need laws to protect enticement of criminal activity, especially violence. Thiny veiled threats on individuals and collections of individuals of course should be banned as should malicious destruction of an individual's reputation. How do we draw a distinction? I admit it isn't always easy; however one must recognize the distinction between someone encouraging acts of violence on women and merely sexist viewpoints (for example). The former needs to result in prosecution, not because an unpopular idea is being expressed but because it is expressed in a way that may result in harm to individuals or groups of individuals. Think of it as the difference between a peaceful protest and a protest which encourages violence on political groups (and remember even peaceful protests can express very unpleasant ideas such as that of the Westboro baptist church).

I would also like to say that all too often people attack those that defend free speech by saying they condone such distasteful ideas. This could not be further from the truth, part of why I want free speech is so I can condemn bad ideas far more effectively than I ever would were the idea not be allowed to be expressed. Think of the almost awe inspiring moments in debate when a rebuttal is so strong and so well expressed that the opponent is left floundering in their own ineptitude (and that of their argument). Tell me glimpsing the genius behind a strong argument is ever done so well in a monologue! Incidentally, whenever a call for censorship is made you are turning an argument on that issue into one on the limits of free speech (and noting that a civil tone also is selectively favored in debate as it makes the argument seem more appealing) . The intellectual resources of mankind are just as finite as the economic ones, if one has to spend time defending the free speech then that is less time being spent attacking bad arguments (case and point this article).

We need to understand that freedom of speech really means freedom of unpopular speed. Popular speech is not at risk of being censored by the state (obviously that doesn't mean it should be), that is why as individuals we should be most vocal about the free speech of those we disagree with the most strongly.


*Quotation attributed to the youtube user Thunderf00t in his frequent defense of free speech.

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Medistorm Bessie

Note, this page will become unavailable after the event has occurred. A summary of the 2015 season is at: 
http://quantumoverlord.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/medicane-season-2015-to-be-updated.html


15:07 21st October


There is potential for medicane development over the next few days














(Visible satellite of the region of interest; sat24.com)

A large scale trough moving eastward over the Mediterranean is expected to interact with an upper level cold pool as the system approaches Sicily or the southern part of mainland Italy. There are two scenarios suggested by the high resolution models where a warm cored tropical like system could either form in either the Tyrannian sea (west of the mainland) or alternatively in the Ionian sea which would likely be a threat for Albania or perhaps Greece. There is also a negligible possibility of development in both regions, although I am unaware of any record of two medicines coexisting concurrently.























(Possible tracks of the trough, with red arrows indicating tracks as a tropical-like system, these two possible paths represent the most likely development avenues with the orange areas the most likely places to be directly affected should a medicane develop)

17:24 22nd October

I think there is enough evidence to classify this system as a medi-storm (albeit potentially briefly). At roughly 12pm today a clear eye was visible, although it quickly diminished after interacting with the Albanian coastline. As it is, the system still resides in the Adriatic with maximum sustained windspeeds of about 30mph (below medicane threshold). The UKMO model suggests that a warm core has at the very least started to develop although the GFS does not concur (however given the size of the storm this is perhaps understandable). The location of the storm is a little dubious; the adriatic is a rather narrow stretch of water; indeed the outer rain bands penetrate well into Albania, Greece and Itally. Nevertheless, as long as the centre of the storm is over water, in theory it can develop (note the Lake Huron 'hurricane' which managed it in far more claustrophobic conditions) and the southern Adriatic is relatively deep water which does help.










(The eye visible just off the coast of Albania at around 12pm; courtesy of sat24.com)

Bessie is now moving slowly west on course for Italy and lies in the mediteranian, however does not appear to have recovered from its earlier encounter with Albania. The system is currently disorganized and its status even as a medistorm is very much borderline.

Saturday 3 October 2015

US presidential 2016 free speech index (YT channel proxy)

The methodology is identical to that used for the UK parties (see: http://quantumoverlord.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/uk-political-party-free-speech-index.html)


RankCandidate NameScore
=1 (most tolerant)Ben Carson9
=1Bernie Sanders9
2Jeb Bush8
3Hillary Clinton5
4Marco Rubio3
5Donnald Trump2
-Joe BidenN/A

Or as a pretty graphic:



Detailed information (see previous blog post for explanation of this).  


Hillary Clinton (UCLRYsOHrkk5qcIhtq033bLQ)
Trailer: 1/3 (test failed, evidence of heavy moderation. There are actually only 2 comments, and one is surprisingly negative. I  feel reluctant to award a point for this because I suspect this is ironically done to try and diminish the credibility of genuine critics; 1/3 is very generous) 
Most popular video: 3/3
Most recent video: 1/3

Free speech index: 5/9 

Donnald Trump(trump) 
Trailer: 0/3
Most popular video: 1/3
Most recent video: 1/3

Free speech index: 2/9

Jeb Bush(UCxuef1vrlJMjZRrFmYyGSeQ)
Trailer: 2/3
Most popular video: 3/3
Most recent video: 3/3 (no negative comments, benefit of the doubt given due to small number of views)

Free speech index: 8/9

Joe Biden (no analysis - no obvious official channel)

Marco Rubio(UCS3pMFB7C_BujEG5xaQIZzw)
Trailer: 1/3
Most popular video: 1/3
Most recent video: 1/3

Free speech index: 3/9

Bernie Sanders(UCD_DaKNac0Ta-2PeHuoQ1uA)
Most popular video: 3/3
2nd Most popular video: 3/3 (there is no trailer)
Most recent video: 3/3

Free speech index: 9/9

Ben Carson(realbencarson)
Trailer:3/3 (no negative comment, benefit of the doubt given due to small vieweship)
Most popular video:3/3
Most recent video: 3/3

Free speech index: 9/9





Friday 2 October 2015

Medicane season 2015 (to be updated)

Please comment (can be done anonymously) with any suggestions to improve these entries. It would be great to get some discussion going on an unofficial medicane record.

Since there is no official monitoring of the tropical storm like cyclones in the Mediterranean, here is an unofficial record with some amateur comments. Names are chosen randomly and alphabetically. The medicane season would probably start in September and end in January. Once again I emphasize I am an amateur, and there is nothing official about these thoughts below.

The designations I will use are

           Invest: Disturbance with the potential to develop into a tropical system 

Medistorm: Maximum sustained wind-sp0eeds below 39mph (equivalent to tropical depression)
Medicane: Maximun sustained wind-speeds between 39mph and 74mph (equivalent to tropical storm)


Major Medicane: Maximun sustained wind-speeds above 74mph (equivalent to cat1 hurricane)


Invests will be documented as they occur, but will not form part of this summary. I can make no promises that these storms are tropical-like, as I have limited means to do so. In the tropics the weakest tropical cyclone (tropical depression) simply needs to show closed circulation and deepening. For the Mediterranean this is inadequate because there is no guaranteed a cyclone is tropical-like, further baroclinically fueled storms are every bit as capable of producing strong winds (if not more so) than tropical-like systems. The difficult part is separating the mid-latitude storms from the tropical like systems. The following criteria will be taken into account:

1) Whether or not the cyclone has a warm core: cyclone phase diagrams from the following source are especially useful: moe.met.fsu.edu/cyclonephase/

2) Evidence of frontal systems. Cloud patterns associated with cold, warm and occluded fronts strongly oppose a tropical like nature. However occluded fronts may sometimes, unfortunately, mimic tropical like cloud patterns

3) Characteristic features, especially eye-wall and eye.

4) Absence of significant lightning, lightning implies strong vertical motion; in cyclones we would expect more horizontal motion. This might be a useful way to distinguish organised thunderstorms from cyclones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Medistorm Christopher

Duration: 21st November - 22nd November
Maximum sustained wind-speed (estimated): 35mph
Minimum surface pressure: 990mb

















Above: track of tropical-like system in 3 hour intervals from 8pm UTC

Cold air, originally from the arctic, flooded south on the 21st behind a cold front which stretched across central and southern parts of Europe. At this time of year cold air, particularly at upper levels can be a catalyst for tropical-like development. In this case, cold air in the upper atmosphere but relatively mild air at the surface interacted in the wake of the cold front allowing the formation of a short lived system. One interesting property of this system was how rapidly it developed, with an approximate 20mb deepening in only a few hours, given its very close proximity to land one can theorize that if the system had a less enclosed environment it could potentially have developed into a major medicane; indeed at its peak intensity it arguably obtained sustained winds of 40mph (meriting full medicane status). 

The system moved due SE impacting Italy after only 5 hours, however due to its small size the disruption caused by this storm was extremely limited. The remnants of Christopher moved quickly over Italian mainland, with some regeneration actually happening in the Adriatic. However this was short lived and the system once again dissipated on becoming flush with the land to the east. 














Above: 1) Reformation of Christopher in the Adriatic (visible image), 2) Christopher at peak intensity, note the eye wall encircles most of the centre with the exception of the SE quadrant despite being so close to land. Note also the cold front lying to the south east that introduced upper level cold air that catalysed the formation of Christofer. Images courtesy of sat24.com


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Diary entry: http://quantumoverlord.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/invest02.html 

Medistorm Bessie

Duration: 22nd October
Maximun sustained wind-speed (estimated): 30mph
Minimum surface pressure: 998mb

Above: track of tropical-like system in 6 hour intervals

Unusually moist air moving out of Tunisia interacted with the Mediteranian sea on the 21st of October. Thunderstorms were particularly widespread and a frontal based system aided the development of storms on both sides of the Adriatic. Cold air at the 500mb level also provided a good environment for tropical-like development, however it was not until 10am on the 22nd of October that evidence of said development had occurred. Convective clouds started to rotate around a centre of circulation in the south Adriatic sea and deepening of the cyclone occurred (presumably due to non-baroclinic means). An eye marking the centre of the cyclone was visible at about 12pm, although very quickly diminished after the system moved close to the Albanian coastline. The system did, however, return westward and moved towards Italy making landfall at around 5pm UTC. During this journey the system became disorganized and dissipated completely after making landfall. The biggest hazard associated with this system was the 'feeder' storms on its periphery which were tempestuous (a tornado was even spotted close to Athens). Overall this system was fairly underwhelming and could only be marginally considered a medistorm for a period of 7 hours. 

Medistorm Bessie at 11:55 at her peak strength (courtesy of sat24.com)

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Medicane Alison

Duration: (September 30 - October 2)
Maximum sustained wind-speed (estimated): 45mph





(left: track of alison at 6hr intervals, right: alison at peak intensity from sat24.com)

An invest moving north out of Africa on the 30th quickly developed tropical characteristics later that morning, with a very strong convection affecting the Spanish balearic islands. During the afternoon of the 30th Alison became far less organised, and seemingly affected by strong wind sheer with the majority of convection limited to the northern flank. Overnight the system became slow moving and intensified with banding features not untypical of a dvorak T3.5 system, however the system was asymmetrical with most of the thunderstorm activity well to the north and west. During the early hours of the 1st October Alison encountered an upper trough, and wind sheer fell substantially allowing significant intensification from medistorm to medicane status at approximately 3am. Sustained windspeeds of up to 45, possibly 50mph may have occurred early on the 1st when Alison reached peak intensity. Just after noon on the 1st Alison hit Sardinia. Heavy rain and flooding was associated with this system particularly on the western side of the island. As Alison made landfall she weakened significantly and opened out into a trough like system more typical of a mid-latitude depression. Nevertheless corsica saw rainfall totals exceeding 100mm. During the 2nd Alison lost most of her tropical characteristics, becoming highly asymmetrical and orientated from NW to SE. However shortly after noon and after having left Corsica, Alison briefly regained tropical characteristics and medistorm status once again, however this brief burst of new convection did not last and within hours alison had completely dissipated. The remnants of Alison encountering the relief of the alps caused further heavy rain on the mainland including severe flooding in Cannes. 17 people unfortunately lost their lives due to to floods in the south of France.
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Tuesday 29 September 2015

UK political party Free speech index (Youtube proxy). My rankings.

For those that just want the league table here it is:


Rank Party Name Score
=1 (most tolerant) Green 9
=1 Liberal Democrats 9
=1 UKIP 9
2 SNP 8
3 Labor5
4 BNP 1
5 Conservative 0


Or as a nice pretty graphic.








Credit goes to thunderf00t for giving me this idea. Thunderf00t made the point in a 2012 (US) election video that essentially the management of a Youtube channel gives a crude proxy into the attitudes of the political parties  attitudes  towards free speech. In the UK I think this is even more relevant, since political parties play a bigger role than they do in the states (conversely the president is more important than our prime minister). Thus, I am going to rank the UK political parties by how they choose to manage there channels; after-all why should a party whose policy it is to ban comments be anymore tolerant to free speech where it actually matters?

For each YouTube channel I will select 3 videos; the 'trailer/default' video, the most popular video, and the most recent video. I will select them in this respective order, and if it happens that the most popular video is also the trailer then I will select the 2nd most popular video (similar logic is also used in the case of the most recent video). Each video will be allocated points on the following basis.

Comments are enabled. +1
Ratings are enabled. +1
There is at least one negative comment posted: +1 (this is a crude test for post-hoc comment moderation)

Also in the event that comments are enabled I will perform a test with a 2nd account to see if despite comments being enabled, they are selectively being moderated (the comment I will leave will be neutral and non-inflammatory but not supportive in nature*). If the test is passed then there is no penalty. However if the test is failed then a penalty is applied:


If the moderation is not excessive: -1
If there are relatively few and only positive comments (typically with very large ratings): -2

A further one point penalty will be applied to the final score if anything else about the channel is disabled (for example #subscribers or stats on any video). This is far less serious than disabling comments or ratings and is arguably more about transparency (however I have noticed it is a fairly good proxy for censorship on Youtube channels in general). Thus a maximum of 1 point only may be deducted in this way.

Therefore the maximum score a party can achieve is 9, if everything is enabled and there is no evidence of selection. The lowest score a party can achieve is -4, if ratings are disabled and comments are manipulated to portray everything in a positive light.

*It doesn't really matter what the comment is, since this only tests for automatic comment restriction. However I made sure my comments were constructed such that they wouldn't get caught in YouTube's spam filter.

Finally this analysis is limited only to primary YT channels, i.e the most popular and most viewed and the ones I expect most reflect party policy. Obviously this is not perfect, but it is really the best of a bad situation as a party might have a large number of minor secondary channels.

Format: Name of party (name of YT channel)


The Conservative Party (webcameronuk)
Trailer: 0/3
Most popular video: 0/3
Most recent video: 0/3

Free speech index: 0/9

The Labor party (theuklabourparty)
Trailer: 3/3
Most popular video: 0/3 (test failed and evidence of excessive moderation)
Most recent video: 2/3

Free speech index: 5/9

The liberal democrats (LibDem)
Trailer: 3/3
Most popular video: 3/3
Most recent video: 3/3

Free speech index: 9/9

The Green party (greenpartyew)
Trailer: 3/3
Most popular video: 3/3
Most recent video: 3/3 (no negative comments but the benefit of the doubt has been given due to the small number of views)

Free speech index: 9/9

The UKIP party (ukipofficial)
Trailer: 3/3 (only 1 negative comment and it was borderline, benefit of the doubt given due to small number of views.)
Most popular video: 3/3
Most recent video: 3/3


Free speech index: 9/9

The SNP party (TheSnp)
Trailer: 3/3
Most popular video: 3/3
Most recent video: 3/3

Free speech index: 8/9 (the subscriber number is hidden).

Finally the BNP who are little more than a joke party these days. However they are the far-right extreme nationalist party of the UK so it will be interesting.

The BNP party (bnptv)
Trailer: 1/3
Most popular video: -1/3 (test failed and heavy moderation very evident. There is one *borderline* negative comment, however given that it also contains strong praise for the video and in light of the test being failed I cannot count it).
Most recent video: 1/3 (test failed and heavy moderation once again obvious. There is one negative comment that merits a point as it is not borderline this time. However 1/3 is a very generous score considering).

Free speech index: 1/9