En prévision de dimanche à 20h

Depuis quelques jours, c'est l'affolement général : les premières estimations des résultats du premier tour de l'élection présidentielle seront disponibles en ligne vers 18h30 (puisqu'il n'y aura apparemment pas de sondages sortie des urnes, qui aurait été disponibles encore plus tôt), c'est-à-dire avant la fermeture des derniers bureaux (à 20h).

On peut s'étonner que la situation ne soit abordée que maintenant, car elle n'a rien de surprenant. L'émission "Des cliques et des claques", sur Europe1, s'était par exemple penchée sur la question il y a plusieurs mois. L'un des membres de l'équipe de l'émission, Guy Birenbaum, avait même abordé le sujet encore plus tôt, il y a un an.

Il sera forcément difficile d'évaluer l'impact de la diffusion prématurée des résultats. Pour l'instant, on peut déjà regarder l'écart habituel entre estimations et résultats finaux lors des précédents scrutins. Une différence inhabituelle en 2012 pourrait être le signe d'un fort impact.

En 2002, France2 nous annonce 28.5% d'abstention, puis donne, à 20h, J. Chirac à 20%, J.M. Le Pen à 17%, L. Jospin à 16% et F. Bayrou à 6.6%. On peut par exemple revoir cette soirée électorale sur le site de l'INA, et des extraits sur YouTube. Les résultats officiels, tels que validés par le Conseil Constitutionnel, sont les suivants : 28.4% d'abstention, 19.9% des suffrages exprimés pour J. Chirac, 16.9% pour J.M. Le Pen, 16.2% pour L. Jopsin, et 6.8% pour F. Bayrou. La participation est donc donnée à 40,000 voix près, et les estimations de score varient de moins de 55,000 voix des résultats finaux.

Cela laisse penser que l'impact des fuites serait facile à détecter, mais les élections suivantes, cinq ans plus tard, vont dans le sens contraire.

En 2007, France2 donne 29.6% pour N. Sarkozy, 25.1% pour S. Royal, 18.7% pour F. Bayrou, et 11.5% pour J.M. Le Pen. Là encore, l'annonce est disponibles en ligne. Je ne retrouve pas de vidéo de l'annonce de l'abstention mais, selon le site d'IPSOS, ils l'avaient estimée à 15.5%. Les résultats officiels donnent 31.2% à N. Sarkozy, 25.9% à S. Royal, 18.6% à F. Bayrou, et 10.4% à J.M. Le Pen. L'abstention était quant à elle de 16.2% (une erreur de 325,000 voix). Pour trois de ces candidats, l'écart est supérieur à 0.6 point de pourcentage, ce qui représente environ 220,000 voix compte tenu de la participation. Pour J.M. Le Pen, l'écart monte même à 400,000 voix.

Si on remonte jusqu'en 1995, France 2 annonce l'abstention à 19.6%. J'ai quelques problèmes pour lire la vidéo, mais vers 35 minutes, ces résultats sont disponibles : 23.4% pour L. Jospin, 20% pour J. Chirac, 18.5% pour E. Balladur et 15.7% J.M. Le Pen. Les résultats officiels placent l'abstention à 21.6%, et donnent 23.3% à L. Jospin, 20.8% à J. Chirac, 18.6% à E. Balladur et 15% à J.M. Le Pen. Pour deux des candidats, l'écart est supérieur à 0.7 point de pourcentage (soit environ 210,000 voix vus les suffrages exprimés à l'époque).

On pourrait aller plus loin, et par exemple regarder combien de personnes ont voté entre 18h et 20h aux précédentes élections aux précédentes élections, et regarder si cette proportion augmente cette année. Je n'ai pas les chiffres, mais si quelqu'un veut se pencher là-dessus, l'information sera la bienvenue dans les commentaires.

Il est évident que les estimations vont largement circuler, notamment sur Twitter, et il est raisonnable de penser qu'elles puissent avoir un impact. Par contre, à moins que les variations entre ces estimations et les résultats finaux soient supérieures à un point de pourcentage pour plusieurs candidats, il sera très difficile d'être certain du rôle qu'elles auront joué.

Teaching in Asia: the book!

If you are a regular reader of this blog, or if you pay any attention to Japan-based online communities (be it on Twitter, YouTube, etc.), you probably know who Kevin is.

Kevin is a blogger, a vlogger (with several YouTube channels, e.g. jlandkev, busankevin, runcauseitsfun), and is quite active on Twitter. Kevin is also a long-distance runner. You may remember his recent marathons (in Osaka and Kobe), or his homemade ultramarathon last year to raise funds for Save the Children Japan following the earthquake and tsunami. Kevin is also a teacher.

If you put together his experience (having taught in Korea and Japan as well as in Canada) and his strong online presence, it is no surprise that he is the go-to person for many people considering teaching in Asia, and Kevin decided to put all the information and advice he has to offer in a book, "Teaching in Asia: Tales and the Real Deal".

I have only met Kevin twice (at YouTube and content creator events, one of which he was organising), but he is a person I appreciate interacting with online, so I decided to buy a copy of his book.

Part of my work involves teaching to undergraduate and postgraduate university students. Even though the subjects and students we deal with are quite different, I was still curious to read about his perspectives on teaching. There is always something to be learnt from someone with such a vast experience.

In one chapter, he discusses the idea of over-preparing a class, and I could not agree more on the virtues of over-preparation when you are starting up, whether it is a new subject, a new age group, or your first class altogether. You can never know what type of class you will have in front of you, how reactive (or passive) they will be, how fast they will grasp new concepts, and so on. The more experience you get, the easier it is to quickly gauge a class and adapt to it, but having extra content never hurts, especially when you begin.

There are many other chapters I found useful, such as his experience dealing with gifted students.

Imagine you arrive in a new environment, and invite a more experience individual to fill you in on the details over a few drinks. This book feels exactly like that: it is a relaxed and friendly, yet well thought-off, account from someone who knows what he is talking about.

In one chapter, Kevin talks about Master Lee, a Tae Kwon Do instructor who despite being in his early thirties seemed far wiser. After reading this book, I have no doubt that Kevin is a black belt at teaching, and if you have any interesting in this art, I highly recommend his book.

I think the book will also be of interest to more experienced teachers. After all, there is always room for improvement. I would even go as far as saying that as soon as you stop trying to improve, you are actually moving backwards.

There is no reason not to buy this book, especially given the bargain price... You will find all the details on the blog Kevin has prepared to accompany the book.

Happy reading!

Running resolutions

I have not had time to post since mid-November, so let me first wish you a very happy new year before it is too late. I hope 2012 will be a great one for you and your loved ones.

With the new year comes the time to reflect on the past 52 weeks and make resolutions for the months ahead. In this post, I will focus on the fitness side of things.

Back in January last year, my objective was to cycle at least 400 kilometres, and to run about 130. Of course, I had no idea about what was going to happen on March 11th and the initiation of Project Biwa as a response to these events. The charity ride changed everything, as I had to change focus and train to cycle long distances on a single-speed 20kg bicycle.

It was already late October when I finally managed to find time to run again, and this was very short-lived as December was spent moving from Japan and settling back in Ireland. In the end, 2011 saw me cycle 1800 kilometres, and run only 46.

This year will be very different. For one thing, I do not have a bike here. We are moving back to Japan near the end of the year so there was no point sending my bike, and it is waiting for me in Osaka. 2012 will be all about running.

I do not want to get too carried away with high goals in terms of total distance, but approximately 500 kilometres seems fair. I am recovering from a nasty cold but should be able to resume running this week. If I remove four weeks after mid-November for the move back to Japan, this leaves 47 weeks. I will have to travel for work as well (a couple of weeks in Japan, maybe a week in Canada and a few trips within Europe) so I am removing another five weeks, which leaves me 42 weeks worth of running. I only need to manage an average of 12 km/week to top 500 kilometres. This seems fairly straight-forward, but this year has taught me to be careful with my objectives, so it is fair enough.

The next step is to decide on milestones to motivate me. In an ideal world, I would love to run the Dublin Marathon this autumn (October 29th). The registration deadline is on October 1st (or July 31st for the reduced fee) so I still have plenty of time to see how my running goes, but it really is an objective for this year. In 2011, the organisers had a very nice idea, in that they planned a race series to help those training for the marathon. There was a 5-mile race in mid-July, a 10-mile race in mid-August and finally a half-marathon in mid-September, about six weeks before the full marathon. If a similar series is organised this year, I would almost certainly take part. It would be a great way to assess my progress, and also a very useful experience before possibly running a marathon (it would be quite stressful if my first race was a marathon!).

As all these races are in the second half of the year, I have plenty of time to get ready. If you have any idea as to how I should organise my training, please feel free to share your thoughts. So far I was thinking of focusing the first three months of building up my stamina and gradually increasing distances until reaching maybe 20-25 km runs, and then spending the next three months improving my speed so as to finish the July 5-miler in a decent time. Does this sounds sensible, or should I do the opposite? Or maybe do both in parallel over the entire six months? Feedback and ideas are welcome! After that, the idea is to increase distances again to be ready for the marathon at the end of October.

Writing all this is slightly scary, as I never thought I would ever plan something like that, but there is someone out there who is planning something truly amazing. Do you remember Kevin and his 60km "Running to help Japan" ultra-marathon last year? This year, he is considering running eight(!) marathons in eight(!!) weeks to raise even more funds for Save the Children. How amazing is that? He has already posted his initial ideas, so make sure to check out his blog.

On gender roles

(This post was inspired by a video Jenn recently posted on YouTube. You may want to watch it before reading it.)

There are moments in life when a big change occurs, and it takes time to adjust to it. Imagine getting a promotion, and accepting new responsibilities. It would be quite convenient to be fully efficient from the moment you assume this new position, but we all know it is not so easy to adapt. The same applies to human groups of all sizes, from families adapting to a new child, to societies evolving in response to philosophical or technological advances.

One of the most significant changes of the last couple of centuries is that the need for brute strength has slowly disappeared. Look around you, and try to count how many items required intense physical work in their making.
Manual labour still exists, of course, and often puts a strain on the workers (either physically or in terms of health issues), but rarely requires pure strength.
Few of us are still hunting or growing our food, and those who do can also rely on mechanical assistance.

In that context, our greatest attributes no longer are strength or stamina, but rather problem solving skills, creativity and learning abilities.
These are clearly not attributes specific to a given sex, so there is no reason for gender roles to still play such an important role. (Even though there are differences between males and females, even at the neurological level, these are no justification for gender roles traditionally attached to men and women. It is worth noting that some non-Western societies have more than two genders.)

If anyone had any doubt, women showed during WW2 that they can handle any tasks men were traditionally undertaking, at a time when factory work was still common as well as more physical. How can anyone really think there is any position in today's job market for which a woman would be irreversibly less suited?

It does not make any sense to consider half the human population is genetically meant to stay at home to clean and cook. By the way, if women were meant to be cooks, how would you explain the sex ratio in 3-star chefs in Michelin guides? Anne-Sophie Pic, for instance, is the first female 3-star chef in France since 1951. The other 48 chefs awarded that elusive third star between 1951 and 2010 are all male. It seems men can cook after all.

In some sense, first-world societies are still adjusting to technical changes that should have freed us from gender roles, but they are quite slow in doing so.

Slow progress is not surprising in itself. It is quite understandable that societies would be robust systems that are largely immune to sudden changes. They are meant to be stable. What is more surprising, however, is how everyone seems to be satisfied with the speed of evolution on this particular issue.

Women's suffrage was gradually achieved in most Western countries between 1869 and the 1960s, in line with technological advances allowing evolution away from traditional gender roles, but their representation in governments and elected parliaments is still far from parity. Furthermore, several topics such as birth control (and abortion in particular) remain very controversial in a number of first-world countries.

What is even more striking is the lack of evolution in the way women are perceived and portrayed. It is disappointing to see some people assume that someone could succeed only because she is a woman, that she "had it easy". In many situations, given the way societies still operate and create obstacles, one might say she would have succeeded *despite* being a woman.

I have mixed feelings about affirmative action, as it leads some people to disregard any success only as a direct consequence of this action (and such an attitude is precisely the situation we are trying to move away from). I believe in "bottom-up" approaches and think everybody needs to work on the issue.
It would be foolish to think that one individual can change an entire society, but it would be equally unwise for anyone to expect change and not work towards it.

I suppose the best option is to be supportive of the people around you, male or female, and try to help them accomplish great things. The best way for people to stop considering that others (female or otherwise) are usurping their success, is to help them get over their own frustration.
(One could argue that this is also a result of first-world societies promoting a narrow-minded vision of success, but this will have to wait for another post.)

And if anyone reading this is in any way involved in robotics, please stop making "female" robots that are built solely to move suggestively and do nothing else. This is complete non-sense. It is hard enough dealing with gender prejudices in humans without transferring them onto robots as well!