Berkman Buzz: November 2, 2012

Pollsters can’t project but statistical models can and do—and they do some predictions very well. We rely on statistical models for many decisions every single day –-including, crucially, weather, medicine, and pretty much any complex system in which there is an element of uncertainty to the outcome– and dismissing them is not only incorrect, it is politically harmful for two reasons in the case of electoral politics.

What does sharia say about the issues that are relevant? What about voters who are interested in whether Islamic law could actually be relevant to the most pressing issues in this year's presidential election? For the most part, there has been little in the way of authoritative, accessible information. Now, a newly published guide from islawmix offers one expert's opinion on what Islamic law could have to say about the economy, healthcare, reproductive rights, same-sex marriage and more.

Listen to @berkmancenter friend & associate @reyjunco, commenting on NPR about misinformation on Twitter http://tinyurl.com/cg8ahnn #infoquality
—Urs Gasser (@ugasser)

Asked to contribute to the recent Digital Book Summit at Olin College, metaLAB struggled to come up with something novel to offer. Held on a brisk fall day at Olin’s Needham campus, hosted by Olin library director Dianna Magnoni, the summit convened librarians, technologists, and publishers to reflect on publishing ventures that offer ebook technologies to academic audiences. Presentations from representatives of O’Reilly and Credo Reference regaled the audience with broad, ambitious narratives of state-of-the-art products and services.

What was left for metaLAB to do? We don’t have a product to demo; our technological work is intimate and propositional; we tend to favor projects that have a higher likelihood of failure than commercial ventures can sustain. Yanni Loukissas and I, the metaLAB participants in the summit, felt at loose ends: we’re hacks and makers, critics and humanists; our favorite class was Physics for Poets. What could we offer such a forum?

GV bloggers were disappointed with the Guardian's list of African politicos on Twitter, so they're crowdsourcing one: https://t.co/CIzKyg7U
—Ethan Zuckerman (@ethanz)

We expect that a number of individuals, including many journalists, plan to report from the polling place on November 6th. Photography and video can be critically important to document the election process and to preserve a record of any procedural improprieties and interference with voter rights. At the same time, however, voting is a very private matter, and attempts to record at the polling place are subject to strict regulation to safeguard voter privacy, protect against voter intimidation, and to ensure the proper functioning of the voting process.

In order to protect voters from interference and intimidation, state governments have enacted a complex array of election laws that regulate what activities are permitted at polling places on Election Day. These laws can affect your ability to shoot video or take photographs at a polling place, even if your purpose is just to document your own voting experience.

Tall, blue-eyed and wrapped in a blanket while roaming the streets of Curitiba in the south of Brazil, Rafael Nunes, a former Brazilian model (now known as the photogenic beggar of Curitiba) has gained international attention after his picture and story went viral on Facebook and Twitter.

Rafael, aged 30, ended up on the streets because of crack cocaine addiction and his story was only revealed after Indy Zanardo, a tourist, was approached by Rafael and asked if his picture could be taken