Hasta La Gadget!

A late swing toward “remain” in the Brexit polls helped make the “leave” win seem unexpected. Older voters favored “leave” much more heavily than their younger counterparts. And back in the U.S., voters see their own parties as divided. This is HuffPollster for Friday, June 24, 2016.

MIXED PERFORMANCE FOR BREXIT POLLS – HuffPollster: “British news networks have called the United Kingdom referendum on membership in the European Union for ‘leave’ in a narrow victory that took most of the night to shake out….Polls had indicated the vote would be very close, but most last-minute surveys showed ‘remain’ leading….The average of all surveys conducted prior to the polls opening on Thursday showed that ‘remain’ was up by 0.5 percentage point over ‘leave.’…Throughout the campaign, the polls diverged, based on whether they were conducted online or by telephone. The internet poll average estimated a 1.2-point lead for ‘leave,’ while live phone polls had ‘remain’ up by 2.6 percentage points….That doesn’t mean all internet polls were reliable predictors and all telephone polls were unreliable. A couple of internet polls showed ‘remain’ with a substantial lead in their final surveys….There were warnings that the polls could have it wrong. There are considerable challenges in polling referendum votes, chiefly that there isn’t any recent history to help determine what voter turnout would look like….[I]t’s clear yet again that there isn’t a reliable ‘gold standard’ for conducting pre-election polls.” [HuffPost]

Polls always showed a close race; “leave” vote shouldn’t be surprising – Nate Cohn: The polls consistently indicated that there was a very real chance that Britain would vote to leave. Polling averages even showed ‘Leave’ with a lead for most of the last month; over all, 17 of the 35 surveys conducted in June showed the Leave side with the edge, while just 15 showed Remain ahead. Yet at the same time, betting markets indicated that Remain was a clear favorite. The arguments for making Remain a favorite were understandable, but in retrospect, some look more like wishful thinking than a fair-minded assessment of the data…  Betting markets showed that Remain was favored, and again, there’s plenty of evidence that betting markets are a fairly reliable predictor of election results…. Finally, the late polls really did break toward Remain, especially after the British Labour Party member Jo Cox was killed on June 16. Over all, Brexit led in just four of the final 11 pre-election surveys — enough to give Remain a 0.5-point lead in the Huffpost Pollster average…. One could certainly argue that the polls were “wrong” in the sense that they tended to show a slight Remain advantage heading into the vote count. But it was clearly a distinct possibility that Brexit would win, based on the available survey data…. If there’s a lesson here, it’s a fairly straightforward one: Don’t get too confident in contests when the polls show a very tight race.” [NYT]

Last poll conducted showed voters were divided by age – Louise Ridley: “An age breakdown of EU Referendum polling shows young voters overwhelmingly supported Remain while older people backed Brexit, leading to claims that baby boomers were ‘screwing the younger generations over yet again’. 75% of people aged 18-24 claimed they voted for Remain in the YouGov survey after voting closed, a figure that falls as age increases. In comparison, just 39% of those aged 65 and over backed a vote to stay, causing commenters to say it was ‘infuriating’ that ‘young people.. have a future without the EU and it’s one they don’t want.’” [HuffPost]

Why there weren’t any exit polls on the referendum – Jenny Anderson: “There [were] no official exit poll results…because this referendum is such an anomaly that there is no way to design a reliable exit poll. Regular exit polls are run by asking people at a sample of voting booths across the country how they voted, and then comparing the results with surveys from the same locations in previous elections. ‘The changes can be projected to build up a national picture,’ the Independent explains. But since Britain is voting on whether or not it will stay in the EU, a topic that has not been part of a general election, there is no baseline….Patterns of voting in the referendum will in no way reflect general election preferences: Both of the country’s traditional parties are split on whether to stay in, or leave the EU, with all sorts of strange iterations. ‘This is a unique vote, which will be reported by local authorities that do not tally geographically—or demographically—with general election voting wards,’ explained the Week.” [Quartz]

–The Guardian provides a breakdown of the votes cast in each region and the corresponding demographics. [Guardian]

DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS SEE THEIR PARTY AS DIVIDED – Mark Blumenthal: “At this point in the campaign, perceptions of the degree to which the two parties are divided or unified are something of a paradox. Partisans on both sides are mostly unified around the two likely nominees, yet they perceive their respective parties as still divided (though they see the divisions as greater for the Republicans, and growing). More specifically, Clinton’s lead in the matchup against Trump results partly from her winning slightly more support from Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (90%) than Trump wins from Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (86%). Despite this consolidation, 88% of all voters (and almost as many Republicans) see the GOP as divided, while 73% of voters see division among the Democrats.” [SurveyMonkey]

FEW PRIMARY VOTERS ARE LIKELY TO SWITCH PARTIES IN NOVEMBER – Nicholas Davis and Matthew Hitt: “Most of those who turn out for the primary are dedicated party voters. And those ‘fans’ are under extreme pressure — both internal and social — to stick with their teams….Defecting would bring pretty severe consequences for anyone who cares about their team — yet popular commentary often alleges that these divisive primaries hurt parties’ nominees during the November general election….In fact, fewer voters will probably switch to the ‘other’ party’s nominee in 2016 than did so in 2008. Political scientists find that citizens aren’t likely to vote on political attitudes; rather, they vote based on tribal attachments….Although it is too early to predict November’s election, prospective voters usually realize that their party’s nominee fits their identity better, even if they don’t love the result the way that the backers of winners do.” [WashPost]

HUFFPOLLSTER VIA EMAIL! – You can receive this daily update every weekday morning via email! Just click here, enter your email address, and click “sign up.” That’s all there is to it (and you can unsubscribe anytime).

FRIDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ – Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:

-Curtis Bell thinks that a Hillary Clinton win could increase the number of women in political office. [WashPost]

-Matthew Yglesias explains why Donald Trump is a fascinating case study for the political science field. [Vox]

-John Sides and Kalev Leetaru analyze the media’s role in covering Trump. [WashPost]

-Peter Henne and Katayoun Kishi find that religious-related terrorism increased globally in 2013 and 2014. [Pew]

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Yamaha has unveiled a pair of new concept vehicles called the 05GEN and 06GEN concepts. Neither of these are concepts for vehicles meant to take you to the next city over, rather both are intended to be mobility concepts that take you over short distances. Think from your home to the grocery store a few miles down the road. Yamaha … Continue reading

Music streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify allow users to save music for offline listening. They understand that sometimes users don’t always have an internet connection, or that for their favorite songs, they’d rather not have to keep streaming it and waste data in the process. Unfortunately that model doesn’t always apply to video streaming services like Netflix.

The good news is that could soon change. According to a report from Light Reading, it seems that they have been informed by industry insider and Penthera COO Dan Taitz that offline viewing for Netflix could be coming soon. “We know from our sources within the industry that Netflix is going to launch this product. My expectation is that by the end of the year Netflix will be launching download-to-go as an option for their customers.”

Netflix has over the years been increasing its subscription fees, much to the dismay of many of its customers. However we reckon if offline viewing was an offered feature, there would be many users who wouldn’t mind paying those fees if they could save their favorite movies and TV shows to watch offline.

Frost & Sullivan Principal Analyst Dan Rayburn also seems to think that this is likely and called it a natural progression for the company. “It’s a natural progression for Netflix to want to have some of their content available for consumers to watch offline, and we’ve been hearing for months now that they are in fact going to roll something out soon.” Just a couple of months ago, Netflix hinted that they were open to the idea, so we guess it was only a matter of time.

Offline Viewing For Netflix Could Be Coming Soon , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

As you might have heard, the Steam Summer Sale of 2016 is currently underway. Users will be able to buy all sorts of games and even gift games to their friends if they want, except for one game: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. For some reason it seems that the game is not giftable and Valve has explained why.

According to Valve’s Idol Magal who responded to the question on Reddit, he claims that, “CS:GO will not be giftable during the sale. Our goal with sales is to grow the community and historically, during sales, the new users that stick around are mainly the ones that purchase copies for themselves.”

Basically he’s saying that if you gift someone a copy of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, there’s a lower chance of them sticking around compared to if you were to buy it for yourself. We’re not sure if this is a valid explanation but it’s the official one that we’ve got for now. Other users have speculated that maybe this is the case to prevent third-party resellers from hoarding copies of the game only to resell them at a profit later.

There are several websites that do sell games at a lower price than what Steam sells, and in the past we’ve seen gamers run into trouble as their keys were later revoked, so maybe this is a situation Valve is trying to avoid for now.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Is Not Giftable During The Summer Sale , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

London– It’s been four years since the skeleton discovered in a Leicester parking lot was confirmed to be what’s left of Richard III. That would be in addition to accounts of him and William Shakespeare’s treatment of the briefly ruling monarch (1483-85) and how he murdered his way to the throne.

So give Almeida artistic director Rupert Goold a hand for working the event into his revival as prologue and epilogue. Workers exhume the bones and, after removing various bones, hold up a severely curved spine. Only then arrives Richard, Duke of Gloucester, played by Ralph Fiennes in black modern dress concealing a back disfigured in accordance with the Leicester finding.

This Richard III is a stunning production with a simple Hildegard Bechtler set design featuring a large bowl-shaped object hung above the players–Vanessa Redgrave, prominent among them, as an unusually understanding Margaret–that looks like, and could be, metal. But somehow Goold’s treatment impresses as being done by the numbers, the high numbers, to be sure, but by the numbers, nevertheless. (The production will be screened worldwide on July 21 and subsequent dates. Check local listings.)

There is, of course, the small problem of making the handsome Fiennes convincing as physically ugly from stem to stern, but he’s an endlessly resourceful actor and has no trouble illustrating how ugly the relentless Richard is at his core. Fiennes does have difficulty expressing the errant king’s eventual attacks of guilt, but that’s not his problem. It’s Shakespeare’s.

That this is a modern-dress take isn’t disturbing, although watching the Bard’s well-played characters manipulate iPhones, which they do here, is no longer amusing. The conceit has now descended to cliché levels. It seems particularly silly when Fiennes and other cast members suit up in armor for the Bosworth battle. Do they communicate by electronic devices then? No, they don’t.
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At first you might think that in Wild, at the Hampstead, Mike (Charles III, Cock, Bull) Bartlett has something very specific to say about Edward Snowden’s heroic (traitorous?) whistle-blowing action. You might think as much because Snowden-like Andrew (Jack Farthing) is holed up in a Moscow hotel while being quizzed about a recent international episode. The interrogator is a Woman (Caoilfhionn Dunne) in black, who’s introduced herself as Miss Prism but later confides that her name is George.

After bidding for Andrew’s agreement to speak publicly on behalf of the Russian government but not succeeding, she leaves and is quickly replaced by a tall, slim Man (John Mackay), who also calls himself George. He claims to know nothing about the previous George and goes about pressing Andrew to represent the Russians. When he fails, the first George returns, claiming she has no knowledge of the other George. She eventually receives Andrew’s acquiescence.

So far there’s nothing in Wild along the lines of insight into the real Edward Snowden, which isn’t, of course what playwright Bartlett is after. Commissioned by artistic director Edward Hall for a piece, Bartlett has taken advantage of the Hampstead’s multi-faceted technical abilities for a play making a broader statement about someone who’s abandoned a recognized life for an unknown existence.

This means that the abundant glib George talk is really in preparation for a coup de theatre that’ll illustrate how Andrew has chosen to turn his world upside down–or at least sideways. It’s something to see, when it suddenly occurs under James MacDonald’s direction, Miriam Buether’s ingenious set design, Peter Mumford’s lighting design and Christopher Shutt’s sound design. Whether the profusely slick banter that precedes it is equally worth the intermissionless 90-minute time is in more doubt.
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When Michael (Phantom of the Opera) Crawford in the dark enters Michael Pavelka’s gaudily somber set for The Go-Between, he pulls a string to turn on a single light bulb. When he does, the stage becomes only slightly less dark for a good reason.

The beloved 1953 L. P. Hartley novel–that famously begins “The past in a foreign country; they do things differently there”–is a seriously dark piece, and the creators want to keep it that way. As a result, composer-lyricist Richard Taylor and bookwriter-lyricist David Wood have produced an elegant chamber musical, directed with enormous style by Roger Haines.

Crawford plays disillusioned 63-year-old Colston, who opens a trunk and removes a diary that begins to shed more than sufficient light on the past. It illuminates the foreign country where Leo (Luka Green), Colston’s 13-year-old self, visits privileged friend Marcus (Samuel Menhinick, at the performance I saw) at Brandham Hall.

There and before understanding what he’s agreed to do, Leo becomes an eager “postman” delivering letters between upper-class Marian (Gemma Sutton) and rugged lower-class farmer Ted Burgess (Stuart Ward)–theirs developing into as doomed a romance as the class difference destines it to be.

The Go-Between, often described as concerning the loss of innocence, is more accurately described as innocence not lost but carelessly stolen by adults who should have known better. Moreover, Hartley wants to show the life-long devastation the theft sets in motion.

Taylor and Wood have woven their music and lyrics more as nearly sung-through underscoring rather than a collection of discrete songs. The only instrument is an on-stage piano played by Nigel Lilley. The result is enthralling. Crawford, in an effective return to musicals, does most of the singing and through it draws the touching portrait of a defeated man. The small cast surrounding him lends great support.

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