Wow, Nate from fivethirtyeight.com...... take a nap dude....

[RollWithIt]

He looks ready to fall asleep on TV with makeup... hehe

[Kahuna]

1. LOL! He looks like that everytime I see him. nt

[FVZA_Colonel]

4. I'm guessing that, with as much number crunching he's been doing of late, he gets like 4 hours of

sleep a night. But don't worry, he'll be able to take a long deserved vacation on November 5th.

[msongs]

2. he needs to hold his head up just a bit nt

[malik flavors]

3. what show is he on?

[Pirate Smile]

14. MSNBC has live election news tonight. Shocking, I know.

[ThatsMyBarack]

5. OOPS!

Wrong thread...

[Shakespeare]

6. He always looks like that. Painfully nerdy, but I really like him.

:rofl:

[Phx_Dem]

19. He makes being smart sexy.

[The Shadow]

7. Might Be The Weed! Just Kidding

nm

[zulchzulu]

8. He looks like he's staring at a web site on his laptop

A little media training, Nate. Look at the camera like it's a person and perhaps have a smile every now and then..

[FrenchieCat]

9. He's a pure wonkish number cruncher.......

and I kind of like that!

[BlooInBloo]

15. Up with pure wonkish number crunchers! We're SEXY too!

:rofl:

[jefferson_dem]

10. Get out.

I love "The Natester" ... including the way he presents on teevee. Nerds Rule!

[Pirate Smile]

11. He isn't exactly trained for TV. He is just Poblano from Daily Kos who hit it big because his

projections were better then the professionals.

His story is one of the great ones in the blogosphere.

[BlooInBloo]

13. He is a pro.

[Pirate Smile]

16. Wasn't his area sports stats?

He's great. He's got the formula down and tweaks it when necessary.

[BlooInBloo]

18. Yah. But the good thing about math is that it doesn't change when the data do.

[Pirate Smile]

24. I know.

[Occam Bandage]

26. Yes, and he was hardly a "blogger" in that regard.

He was first a high-end analyst for the Swiss financial auditing firm KPMG, then, after developing the PECOTA baseball projection system, he sold that to Baseball Prospectus and became one of their chief analysts, as well as the co-author of their annual forecast book. He has written three bestselling books on baseball analysis: Mind Game, Baseball Between the Numbers, and It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over. (By the way, if you have any interest in baseball, all three are fantastic). He publishes a weekly column, and consults for ESPN, SI, and the NYT.

Then he branched into politics. This is not so much "blogger beats out professionals, makes it big" as it is "professional media-savvy statistician branches into new field, expands success."

[BlooInBloo]

27. So much for him being "just Poblano from Daily Kos" - LOLOLOL!

[Pirate Smile]

28. You guys are missing my point. His results were what gave him credibility back when no one

knew who he was or what he did. He obviously knows exactly what he is doing. His credibility is based on merit, not working for Gallup or NYT/CBS, etc. and his blog is now read and cited as the best source by many of those organizations - Time Magazine, MSNBC, etc.

Nevermind.

He is on again live with Shuster.

[BlooInBloo]

30. My apologies for missing your point when you said "He is just Poblano from Daily Kos".

:rofl:

[Occam Bandage]

31. That's a fair statement.

I still think that post was silly (and not just with regard to that one statement), but I can fully accept the argument that his credibility is based on merit and not on name. I think he took the name "Poblano" entirely to assure that his considerable cred in the world of applied statistics didn't give his projections any undue notice; he only revealed himself once it was clear that 538 was an institution of its own merit.

[rufus dog]

12. Other than Obama

Nate has the most to gain from this. The dude saw an opening, a vacuum, and filled it. He is working his ass off and will be set for his life. He will be fine and make a lot of money on the back end.

[dbmk]

20. Probably just as much the other way around

He loves to do this stuff and there happened to be a vacuum. Of course that must have annoyed a guy like him. But regardless of the need he would have done it anyway I think.

It is truly brilliant work. And amazing that the networks does not have that kind of quality working on it. But I guess it leaves little room for spin...

[BlooInBloo]

22. Mathematicians have all sorts of opportunities to apply their art. He chose well.

[NotThisTime]

25. I agree, my son is young, but already a great sports stastician,I wonder what life will have for him

Who knows, Nate may be his role model!

[Tatiana]

17. I like his attitude. He's not pretentious and he really could care less what the bigwigs think. n/t

[Awsi Dooger]

29. Actually I've seen him be quite pretentious

On Olbermann a couple of months ago he claimed his site was driving the political gamblers. I don't think I ever laughed so hard in my life. I've been in a 16-man betting pool since '96. No one relies on outside opinion. I asked several guys in the pool and they've never heard of him or his site.

I love how someone shows up and thinks they invented something. Gambling is about anticipation, identifying variables that impact the odds. Nate's site doesn't anticipate anything. He plugs in the numbers that are courtesy of other firms. All he does is absorb. Meanwhile, at least a half dozen friends of mine and I were hanging on the Ted Stevens verdict the other day for betting purposes. We knew it would fling the odds 20 points in either direction, creating huge opportunity. Did Nate Silver predict any of that? Hell no. He waits for something to be presented to him, then inputs it. Political speculators would be paralyzed in inactivity if they waited for 538 to direct them.

Nate does a good job within that framework. But he flopped when his model tried to pretend McCain was the favorite in September. McCain was never legitimately the favorite, not in this pro-Democratic climate. I loved it when he got wonderfully chagrined that Intrade wasn't mirroring his high percentage on Obama favoritism. Somehow, Nate preferred to ignore that many fixed odds sites never went to McCain as the favorite, even when 538 was briefly allowing McCain almost a 60% chance.

He's very good at most aspects but I've seen plenty of mistakes. Nate has tried to pretend registration figures are the same as Party ID, which is hardly the case in many states with high percentage of DINOs. Mostly, the guy needs to understand he doesn't need to tackle every question. This is his first cycle in the spotlight and he hasn't learned to ignore areas where he doesn't have full expertise. Mark Blumenthal chastised one area where Nate claimed polling methods were "bad science," when it was merely different theory on registered voter and likely voter screens.

[arewenotdemo]

33. interesting analysis

I like him but he is somewhat a prima donna.

[malik flavors]

21. If he nails it on election night, he'll be legendary.

[Occam Bandage]

23. He'll always been Nate from Baseball Prospectus to me.

[MANative]

32. He's so smart - and makes stats understandable - love him

to pieces, even if he is a little media challenged. A friend of mine is an anchor at our local NBC affiliate, and I told him about Nate. He did a piece on Nate and his fivethirtyeight.com for their station's website. :)

[Jennicut]

34. Nate=sexy nerd

[my3boyz]

35. I did not like it when he said PA was tightening though. :( nt

[DearAbby]

36. I WANNA BARE HIS CHILDREN!!!

Haaa - HAHAHAHAHAHA ::in my SCTV Lola Heatherton voice:::

[Jed Dilligan]

37. Um, I assume you don't mean what you wrote...

[DearAbby]

38. Guess you're not a SCTV Fan....showing my age here

Their spoof on veriety shows...The Sammy Maudlin Show. Lola Heatherton.

[Jed Dilligan]

39. No, I got the reference,

but what you wrote is you want to "bare," not "bear" his children.

[DearAbby]

40. ahhhhhhhhhh Oppppppps...

:::smacks forehead::: Sorry for my misspelling.