Samuel’s Blog

Samuel’s Blog (not quite weekly) Poll: Proper English In Text Messages

As tempted as I am to run a guaranteed vote-grabber poll along the lines of “How interested are you in the Olympic Games”, I will restrain myself and run a more interesting poll.

In the last few days I’ve been wondering whether I am alone in my quest to use proper English in text messages and instant messaging. With a few minor exceptions, I tend to use full sentences and words, plus punctuation, in text messages and instant messaging. I’m fairly certain that, in doing so, I’m placing myself in a very small minority, but I’d be interested to see whether this is true. As such, the poll for this week:

The last poll’s results:

I can’t be bothered going through the logs to check, but I’d say that it’s a fairly good bet that somebody was having a bit too much fun finding ways to vote multiple times in that poll.

Results of previous polls can be seen by clicking here.

Samuel

Add comment August 18th, 2008 at 07:48am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: The effect of aeroplane issues

Another feature returning to Samuel’s Blog from a lengthy absence is the weekly poll.

This morning one of the top news stories is an unfortunate story about a plane crash in Minnesota claiming at least eight lives. The news comes while stories of Qantas’ recent problems are still fresh in the minds of most Australians and still doing the rounds in the media. As somebody who has only flown a couple times, it got me thinking:

Personally, it makes me less inclined to fly, although it’s entirely possible that is simply because I’m not a huge fan of flying anyway. I’d be interested to see how this poll turns out…and if you’d like to provide a more detailed response, please feel free to leave a comment below.

A list of previous poll results can be seen here.

Samuel

August 1st, 2008 at 06:19am

Samuel’s Blog Weely Poll: Involving The Police

Last week I mentioned a peculiar incident involving traffic cones scattered across one of Canberra’s busier streets at night and how I called the Police for assistance with moving the cones off the street as they, with their flashing lights, would be able to make the job much safer, and this would avoid any chance of me being blamed for the problem if the Police turned up half way through me moving the cones off the road.

I believe calling the Police was the right thing to do, but others have argued that I wasted police resources. So, my question for you this week is as follows:
See http://samuelgordonstewart.com/weekly-poll-results/ for results

Last week’s poll was:

February 26th, 2008 at 04:52am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Living in Natural Disaster Zones

At the time of writing this, Western Australia’s Pilbara coast is preparing for yet another cyclone. Cyclone Nicholas, currently a category three storm, is getting closer to the coast, and people between Mardie and Exmouth, including those in Mardie, Onslow and Exmouth are bracing for impact. It has me wondering why anybody would want to live there as it seems to get a cyclone every few weeks.

So, with that in mind, this week’s poll is:

1 comment February 18th, 2008 at 03:31am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Results

I let this poll run for a few extra days as I couldn’t see the point of cutting it off half a week before Kevin Rudd apologised. Now that the text of the apology has been released to the public and we are 13 hours away from the official apology, it seems like an appropriate time to close the poll.

I am very surprised. Despite my own answer of “no” (which have only become more adamant now that I’ve seen the apology), I was expecting at least 80% of respondents to answer “yes”. Obviously I’m not as alone as I thought on the matter, and I seriously underestimated the public sentiment.

There will be a new weekly poll on Thursday which will also go for about a week and a half.

Samuel

February 12th, 2008 at 08:05pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Sorry

Next week on the 13th of February, Kevin Rudd plans to apologise to the stolen generation, so before we get there, a question:

Kevin Rudd is adamant that his apology will not lead to compensation, although you can be guaranteed that it will be tested in court at some stage, especially seeing as Bruce Trevorrow, the first stolen generation Aborigine to receive compensation, received an additional quarter of a million dollars last week. Compensation is only part of the issue though, there is also the debate over whether the current government should apologise for the acts of a previous government, whether a blanket apology or a selective apology is appropriate, and whether or not we even need to apologise.

The issue is undoubtedly a minefield of controversy, hence the reason for keeping the question simple. If you want to elaborate on your answer, please feel free to do so in the comments below.

Last week’s question was:

Whilst the majority say “yes”, 41% is still an awful lot of opposition. I would be interested to know what method the 41% would use to stop the whaling, if they want it stopped at all.

Samuel

February 4th, 2008 at 03:44am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Whaling

Despite last week’s drama in the Southern Ocean, the whaling continues. The debate over what we should do about it also continues (albeit a bit quieter than last week).

As usual, please feel free to leave a comment below if you would like to elaborate on your answer.

Results from previous polls can be seen by clicking here.

Samuel

January 21st, 2008 at 07:30am

Samuel’s Blog Election Poll Results

Here are the results from this week’s election poll.

Interestingly it more or less mirrors the result of a lot of larger polls, especially when you compare the two major parties. It also, much like some larger polls, noticed a swing back to the Liberal party towards the end of the week, but not enough to get them over the line.

When you turn that in to a 150 seat figure, you get the following results:
Labor: 56.89655172
Liberal: 51.72413793
Greens: 20.68965517
Democrats: 15.51724138
Other: 5.172413793

Obviously you can’t have partial seats, so the numbers then get wound back to:
Labor: 56
Liberal: 51
Greens: 20
Democrats: 15
Other: 5
Total: 147

This leaves three seats to fill, so we use the original figures and see which three groups were closest to reaching another full seat, and give them those seats. Those groups are Labor, Liberal, Greens.

So, the Samuel’s Blog Election Poll final result says this will be the makeup of the new House of Representatives.
Labor: 57
Liberal: 52
Greens: 21
Democrats: 15
Other: 5

Samuel

November 24th, 2007 at 01:07pm

The Election Poll is Closed

As it has now passed midnight, the election poll has been closed.

I will post the results and some analysis in the next few hours.

Samuel

November 24th, 2007 at 12:16am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Federal Election 2007

You may recall that in May I ran a two party preferred poll to see who people thought they might vote for at the federal election. The results showed a first preference win to the coalition, 49% to 41%, over Labor, with the 10% of people voting “other”.

This time around, with the election just a week away, I’m doing much the same thing, except this time the poll names the four major parties. The results will be announced on election day.
(Results)

I was going to name the parties in double-randomised order, much like the Australian Electoral Commission do with candidates on ballot papers, however I decided to go with alphabetical order as there is too much room for accusations of bias if I list certain parties ahead of others.

If you would like to explain your decision to vote for your chosen party or “other”, then I would be most interested in hearing your point of view in the comments.

It will also be interesting to see how close the results of this poll are to the make-up of the next House of Representatives.

Last week’s poll result was fairly expectable.

Over two thirds of people agree with compulsory voting…I suppose the remaining 29% can lodge their protest on November 24 by lodging informal votes (not that I condone such behaviour).

Samuel

November 17th, 2007 at 05:14pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Compulsory Voting

As you’ve probably noticed, over the last few weeks I have been running politically themed polls. Next week I will be running a poll in the lead-up to the election to find out who people will be voting for. That poll will start on Saturday and finish late on Friday November 23, so that I can publish the results on election day. As such, the poll for this week will be a bit shorter than usual, and for that reason I’m not going to throw an election issue at you…instead I’m going to ask you a question which seems to pop up before just about every election:

I like the idea of compulsory voting simply because government policy and law affects everyone, and I believe that everyone therefore has both the right and responsibility to shape the government.

Last week’s poll was as follows:

I think that was fairly conclusive. The majority of people believe Mr. Garrett was joking, but there is still quite a decent percentage of people who believe Mr. Garrett was being truthful.

Samuel

2 comments November 13th, 2007 at 12:06am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Labor’s Policies

On Friday at an airport in Melbourne, Labor’s environment spokesman told 2UE’s Steve Price that Labor will change their policies if elected. Channel Nine’s Richard Wilkins has confirmed that Peter Garrett said this to Price, and Charles Wooley had a similar tale to tell on his national Macquarie Regional Radioworks morning show “Across Australia” on the 8th of October:

I know what Peter (Garrett) is saying, he’s saying to blokes, to people of green persuasion or to others, or even to some journos, he’s saying, ‘Mate, what we say now and what we do then could be two different things.’ Now you know he’s been putting that out.

Peter Garrett says he was joking and that his comment to Price was “jocular”, but Price denies it was a joke, so the poll question for this week is:

I personally have no doubt that Peter Garrett was serious, and I have no doubts that Labor don’t believe a number of their policy positions, and fully intend to do something quite different once elected. I suppose the other possibility is that, if Mr. Garrett was joking, then he was incredibly foolish, as that would be one of the stupidest jokes imaginable in an election campaign…and to be quite honest, I don’t know which is worse, a party which intends to dishonour its word, or a party that continues to support a fool.

Anyway, the results from last week’s poll:

7 comments November 5th, 2007 at 12:50am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Climate Agreements

The weekly poll returns:

2 comments October 29th, 2007 at 10:51am

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll Results

I’m ending the poll a bit earlier than usual this week as I intend on making my announcement this afternoon and there is no point in running the poll after the fact.

This is the highest number of people to ever respond to a poll on this website, nearly doubling the previous record. I would like to thank everyone who took part, and also the Canberra media (especially 2CC) who promoted it throughout the week.

I will be making my announcement on the issue shortly. I would suggest that those of you in Canberra who want to hear it should tune in to 2CC around 4:10pm.

Samuel

September 21st, 2007 at 03:47pm

Samuel’s Blog Weekly Poll: Vote 1 Samuel?

Originally posted Monday, September 17, 2007
Update: This poll has received a fair bit of attention from regular readers of this blog, the Canberra media (2CC in particular), and the people of Canberra, and as such I have decided to bump this back up to the top of the page. I will do so again on Friday. End Update

I thought I might have a bit of fun with the poll this week. Last night I was reading various documents on the Australian Electoral Commision’s website, and discovered something which surprised me…candidates for elections can only be nominated after the writs have been issued. It’s logical when I think about it, as the nominees can only be confirmed as eligible to vote after the rolls have closed (which occurs at 8pm on the day the writs are issued), however it did correct my belief that candidates had to nominate prior to the writs being issued.

This got me thinking about whether or not I would have something to offer the electorate of Fraser as an independent candidate at the upcoming federal election. Admittedly, the chances of me actually unseating the current Labor member for Fraser aren’t great, but it is fairly obvious that I have a lot of views on a lot of subjects, and I think I could make a useful and interesting contribution to parliament.

So, the question this week is:

At this stage it is purely speculative. I’m not asking if you would vote for me, and I haven’t even decided if I want to stand for election. That being said, I think I could make a useful contribution, so I would like to know whether or not you would like to see me stand for election.

Now, last week’s poll:

No surprises there!

For a list of all previous results, see the Weekly Poll Results page.

Samuel

11 comments September 19th, 2007 at 06:43pm