down selecting brexit voting options and simulating the outcome

I feel a bit sorry for the renegade masters trying to work out the down-selection to be used in the next round of Brexit vote.

Just for fun I set up a simple model of the 16 options and then added some voting columns so that I could simulate possible outcomes.

Instead of Conservative and Labour, I used reduced numbers based upon removing the ERG and TIG and creating them as separate entities. I then used a lossy version of the votes from the remaining two main parties (for example 249 Conservatives *0.7 as a voting bloc for one of the outcomes). This is weird voting because it is effectively unconstrained except where whips are used.

After sorting the results, which are purely based upon my own shaky modelling, I get:

1. A deal with a Customs Union (81%), or and EEA/EFTA without customs union (75%) or Common Market 2.0 (61%). These three results were akin to the Labour Plan, although the actual votes for Labour Plan in my model were only around 47%. It's all a bit late now though, isn't it - although I suppose it will be quoted as an example of something for the Political Declaration. That's the next stage, and one that Guy Verhofstadt is already suggesting could be ratcheted into something more binding.
2. To respect the referendum result (69%), even at the expense of a No Deal (64%). To keep Theresa May's bluff to prevent Brexit from sliding off the table. I personally don't agree with this outcome.
3. A unilateral right of exit from the backstop (47%). Not sure how this could really work? Wishful thinking?
4. Revocation instead of No Deal would be stopped by Labour whip (31%). Otherwise it would be around 57%. Same problem withe the entirety of Revoke, which could be stopped by a Labour whip, purely to add to chaos. Revoke is the position being requested by those who have petitioned (5.8 million) and/or marched (1 million last Saturday), but it isn't being given much headspace with the hardcore parties - who ignore the 2 year delta since the lied-to will of the people decision.
5. Second Referendum gets a low score(24%)

Now my quickly created POV model isn't much, compared to the pre-vote modelling by the strategists in the various camps. But they also want to get ahead of the outcomes, to plan the next moves.

D4 damager, with the ill behaviour, as some might say.

who owns the board?

This 'Parliament takes control' twist is most likely to revert to gaming the outcome again.

If some strategising is applied then the moves become more obvious, particularly when some of the sixteen vote options really apply to the Political Declaration, rather than the Withdrawal Agreement.

Keeping No Deal (crash out) as the default option (even after it was voted down) means that the non-binding multi-vote outcomes by Parliament can be overruled. Most of the options amount to a grey rainbow.

Listen now for the phrases like 'It's a bad deal but I will reluctantly support it,' and 'The law of the land' linked with 'The will of the people'.

It's a simple move by the power seekers to reposition 'The one thing I will demand' to something less significant, as a way to go from 'have cake and eat it' to 'half a loaf better than no bread at all.'

Labour may decide to impose a whip on the supposedly free-votes, which can keep the full greyness in play, creating an ongoing unresolved chaos. That's more about their leadership's stress-behaviour driven cavalier desire not to solve Brexit but to force a resource-squandering General Election.

The seven or so votes to be selected from 16 are additionally a mix of cardinal and ordinal preferences, (i.e. utility choices creating value mixed with time sequencing options) so there can still be much confusion even as the votes take place.

It's because the planned vote choices create dynamic inconsistency. That's the situation where a voter's/MP's best plan for some future period will not be optimal when that future period arrives.

It creates a conundrum for those trying to vote with the agreed choices, because they are interrelated, include implicit hooks, and some have knock-on effects, all which influence the downstream outcomes.

Such a dynamically inconsistent game/vote is 'subgame imperfect'.

It presents a most likely scenario that by chicanery, the 'MV3 WA May deal vs Crash Out' will persist. It could be levelled up by changing the default from 'Crash Out' to 'Revoke', although Department for Exiting the EU said tonight : 'It remains the Government’s firm policy not to revoke Article 50.'

Instead, through brinkmanship it becomes increasingly likely that the Withdrawal Agreement gets accepted and we get have another minimum five years of Political Declaration negotiations.

Let's call the whole thing off

We seem to be entering the tap-dancing-on-roller-skates phase now.

Only very few can do it successfully.

The rest (such as the flagrant time squanderers) may get an eventual comeuppance, via a Public inquiry, which will probably conclude in about 2027.

In the meantime, here's a some skilful song and dance featuring potatoes and tomatoes and almost no edits.

and with a single bound

Ignoring any brazen, pathological mendacity from the so-called US President, I see he tweeted that he was (in capitals) exonerated from the Mueller findings. Interesting choice of word, actually.

Mueller's 22 month investigation included 19 lawyers and a team of 40 FBI agents, intelligence analysts, forensic accountants and professional staff. The team interviewed 500 witnesses, executed more than 500 search warrants, 13 requests to foreign governments, issued 2,800 subpoenas and 50 wiretaps.

Mueller brought charges against 34 people, including Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

Trump has always referred to the whole thing as a witch hunt. Recently he appointed a new friendly Attorney General, Bill Barr, ahead of Mueller completing the report.

Mueller was required to pass the report and summary to Barr, before any of it could go public.

Barr summarises it all into about three paragraphs: Yes, the Russians interfered with the elections. Yes, they hacked the Democrats. No, Mr Trump and anyone associated with him was not involved.

Barr's summary letter unilaterally reached a finding that the legal threshold for obstruction of justice would not be met even despite Mueller deciding after two years, not to do that.

Then there's a bit in the letter quoting some chapter and verse. "The relevant regulations contemplate that the Special Counsel's report will be a confidential report to the Attorney General. See Office of Special Counsel, 64 Fed. Reg. 37,038,"

I 'contemplated' the relevant section and those immediately around it. Despite the House voting 420-0 on March 14 that the report should be made public, the Attorney General could shutter the main report and close down all aspects of Mueller's investigations (64 Fed. Reg. 37,041).

a blog march for #revoke

I decided to hold a blog march using some of the placards from yesterday.

Of course there'd be a pie chart.

And some British rage.

Something from Devon and Cornwall (obvs.)

And that rage wouldn't Spark Joy, now would it?

No, we are skewered on a politician's arrogant view of what they think we want.

And, come to think of it, they didn't always tell us the truth, so it's not surprising we are in the current mess.

So let's try again, with a few more facts, even if that means some of the current politicians from all sides will need to step aside.

Then a reset. #revoke

After which we can go back to our Germany +++ model (Germany without the Euro etc) and never talk of it again.

I was going to include a song from the Sex Pistols, but I decided Skeeter Davis might be better at the moment.

voting models explained (without the B word)

Multiple attempts at moving target.

No option but to obey.

Shouty chaotic diffusion.

Populist cat (but notice the hidden wolf).

Hollywood Tower of Terror

Since you asked.

we are all just prisoners here, of our own device

People keep saying "To be clear, though" when talking about current affairs. I can't say that I'm always following their line(s) of thinking.

There's an element of grasping at straws as some of these last minute ideas are tabled. Mrs May has locked down everything so that adjustments to the Withdrawal Agreement inspire fantasy. Here's a clutch of the latest...

It's all dependent upon how such a series of votes would be stage-managed and whether there would be transferrable voting as options are eliminated.

Kind of evolutionary game theory without any hyper-rational agents. In the prisoners' dilemma, at least there's a set of predictable behaviours.

For us, the Eagle's Hotel California is almost the safe option. Right now it's more like the Hollywood Tower of Terror, with the floor about to unpredictably send us off into some kind of Twilight Zone.

Eagle eyed can spot me in the orange tee-shirt.

small fact check

I noticed some of the sensationalist journalists looking at the petition database and making comments about the degree of hacking occurring.

Some lazy reporters have see a screen print of the .json file which lists the countries before the UK constituencies and drawn a scurrilous conclusion that most of the voting is overseas and faked by bots.

I decided to have a look for myself.

Download the latest .json of the results.
Grep it into a CSV suitable format to drop it into Excel
Run a couple of quick sorts.

Most noticeably, the non-UK portion is under 4%. That includes other nationalities from where you'd expect to see votes. France, Spain and USA are the top 3. 227 countries in total, but after the top 10 or so no-where more than about 1000, and a rapid drop into double digit numbers.

Here's the sorted data:

And yes, I know my total is lower than the current petition, but it was the most current .json when I downloaded it.

Just 3,295,009 votes, with 124,082 (3.78%) from non-UK nationals.

In my opinion, after some fact checking.

panic at the puppet show

With both the main party leaders out of the country today, it was interesting to watch two UK events. The squabbling of disenchanted MPs has intensified with the Bercow Blocker and Mrs May's slight from yesterday receiving attention.

Additionally, the populous is revolting. Admittedly on a small scale at the moment. The petition to #revoke Article 50 has gone up on the government petitions website. It would need 100,000 signatures to get a Parliamentary debate.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/241584

By lunchtime it's already around 850,000 and still climbing at around 1000 per minute. Maybe if media picks it up there will be a spike, although the government's petition site keeps crashing anyway.

Panic at the saloon/disco/palace/petition/puppet-show?

yikes. big trouble.

Donald Tusk has said any extension to Brexit will depend on the UK approving its draft withdrawal deal. We can see that castigating blame games are being introduced. Phrases like 'The House', as if 'The House' has created the current situation. Craven.

It wasn't the House. It's a group of people scrapping for power and placing power and party over country and people. They are self righteously citing 'will of the people' as a blunt instrument to drive their own tawdry agendas.

Even today the letter sent to the EU was a tactician's grab. Box everyone into a corner, where it becomes about 'my way or the highway'.

This particular highway is a pretty low road, but the 3 Bs of bludgeoning, blackmailing and bribing Parliament to 'meaningfully' vote for the unchanged Withdrawal Agreement is still the plan. Meaningful Vote 3 just about exemplifies the doublespeak.

Tusk has played a decent hand, saying it's too late to discuss Brexit at this week's EU27 summit (of course they will), and that any extension is contingent upon an agreed Withdrawal Agreement from UK Parliament.

It could force the Parliament vote to revert to May's deal or crash out. Disaster or Catastrophe? I'll still say #revoke Article 50 is a better option although apparently that's not the will of the badly lied to people. Lets see what the Prime Minister does at 20:15.

My take is that revoking Article 50 would unplug the ticking clock from a failed project - then brace to elect some new MEPs and decide whet the UK really needs to do. Not least is the need to fix itself.

For example, how about a Plan? a review of the lessons learned? the possibility of proactive representation in Europe instead of saboteur led heckling? a recheck of the will of the people now that it is clearer what Brexit implies. Where have all the statesmen and stateswomen gone?

It won't happen whilst May or the shady Right still have a fingerhold. They see too much candy in the trough.

quick iPhone photography assessment

About a couple of months ago I started my experiment to use the iPhone for taking my snapshots, instead of a DSLR. I haven't completely followed the process, but I'd guess that 95% of my pictures over the last two months were from the phone.

I should position it that I've used the iPhone more or less when I'd use a non-zoomed compact camera in the past. My mental model is a 35mm Olympus Trip, although that's probably too ancient for many people to recognise.

Something more recent would be a Fuji X100 or similar fixed lens camera. The iPhone does have a zoom range of around 10x, but it is purely electronic so all I'm really doing if I use it is enlarging the middle of the resolution and spreading it over more pixels.

What do I think?

GENERAL
• The iPhone works very well for medium to well-lit pictures. As jpegs they are well-defined, crisp and detailed.
• I know about many short cuts to fire up the camera quickly, but am still ill-disciplined to use them so occasionally have missed pictures when fiddling around with the start-up screens.
• Apple has published a pretty good set of hints and tips videos in their own website. Many can apply to a wide range of cameras
• I have several different camera apps, but have ended up using the Apple one the most. I will experiment further with others but don't think I'm going to find much advantage.
EXPOSURE
• In low light it can work well for fireworks and produce surprisingly reliable pictures.

• Low lit people can also look good, but require some practice to get the picture steady enough. This is where the small camera starts to drift away from what is possible with a DSLR.

• Slight tilting of the camera can change the exposure quite significantly.

• The automatic smart HDR is quite helpful on some pictures.
ACTION
• Music band and theatre pictures don't come out so good, unless they are posed or almost static. I couldn't use the iPhone for any real theatre pictures and certainly not if I needed a reliable set for (say) publicity.

• The burst mode is good for outdoor action and can capture water droplets and fast motion. I have about a dozen similar to the one below.
PEOPLE
• The portrait mode works well and gives that ability to re-blend the background bokeh, which is something I'd seen a few years ago on a specialised camera, but is now becoming mainstream. It works on objects too, but sometimes with strange results.
USABILITY
• There are dozens of casual pictures which I've taken with the iPhone where I might not have seized the same moment with a compact alternative. Here's some sashimi, and no, I don't usually take foodie pictures.

• Holding the camera level gives pretty good verticals across the frame.
EDITING
• Cropping works fine for the edges of the picture. Less usable for a zoom into a particular part of the frame. The resolution shows its limits when zooming at probably around 3x.

• Compared with using a RAW from a DSLR, the JPG files run out of data quite a lot sooner. There's less latitude to rescue a picture.
• Some editing (eg of Portrait depth) is only available in the iPhone App. I still prefer to get the pictures into my standard catalog and editor (Lightroom), where I can use Adobe-style editing in a single workflow.
• The synchronisation with Lightroom CC Classic works fine. Pictures can be moved to other catalogues and collections once synchronised inside Lightroom

The pictures in this post are a casual selection from my last few weeks of snapshots. My main test is whether they look as if they could have been taken with something more than a phone.

It increases my confidence to walk out with just the phone on considerably more occasions.