flowerdew

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  • #175152
    flowerdew
    Participant

    Confirmed false.

    http://jensonbutton.com/#/News/Latest/

    The post was taken down and the website now says:

    Earlier on today some of you may have seen a news article here on JensonButton.com regarding a car accident. This article was completely false and we are currently investigating how an unauthorised person was able to post to the site.

    Suffice to say Jenson is safe, well and tucked up in bed looking forward to tomorrow’s race, starting from 3rd on the grid.

    We can only apologise for any alarm this may have caused.

    YAY.

    #175151
    flowerdew
    Participant

    I thought it was questionable that they would have a picture of his car when there was no news of his status! I hope it’s not my wishful thinking saying that it’s more believable that this is the work of hackers with a rotten sense of humor than it is that his own website would use a picture of an unrelated crash.

    #175268
    flowerdew
    Participant

    I like the Senna quote, in a “lol Senna” sort of way – not exactly the same as Polonius’s “Brevity is the soul of wit” or Iago’s “Who steals my purse steals trash, etc” but a branch off the same tree. It’s a lovely (if disingenuous) statement. The way I see it trotted out recently, though, grates – it seems like the people who use it either are ignoring history or have an underdeveloped (or maybe insanely overdeveloped?) sense of irony. In any case, it doesn’t do Lewis any favors.

    There’s every chance I’ll feel the same way about “Maintain the gap, [person]” by the end of the year as I do about “[something] is faster than you” now.

    #174126
    flowerdew
    Participant

    @hairs: no, i am using the word in the way it is accepted by academics, scientists and journalists, while you are hearing it in the sense it is used by disgruntled messageboard members who dislike what’s been said about their favorite driver or pop idol. i can understand how you’re conditioned to hear it that way, given where we are, but i only wanted to point out that the usage we’re debating is the more formal, less ethically loaded one: you felt you had been unfairly accused of something anyone who had taken a moment to read your comment could see you had not done.

    i don’t mean it in the sense of like or dislike, though i admit to oversimplifying my case in a failed attempt to lessen tension, and i apologize for that. i mean it in the sense of how your like or dislike causes you to process information or make decisions about something in an ongoing manner: why your past experience might lead you to remember clearly an instance where ferrari gained an unfair advantage, but perhaps be fuzzier on one where williams did, or be more sympathetic to mclaren using team orders than you would to ferrari. there is nothing intentionally deceitful about that; it’s just the way humans operate.

    #174123
    flowerdew
    Participant

    hairs: bias isn’t some intrinsically bad thing. to have a bias only means to lean one way or the other. i’m certainly not trying to say that the only reason you feel the way you do about ferrari is that you’re biased. if i were going to say something like that, i think it would be more accurate to flip it the other way around and summarize what you said as, “i am biased against ferrari, and here is why: i think they have done these many crummy things throughout their history that have diminished my enjoyment of the sport.”

    i am biased for them, personally – it makes me particularly happy to see them do well, and i am willing to forgive them for things for which i might be harder on, say, red bull. and i like red bull pretty well, too – just not as much as ferrari.

    so if we were going to a race together, you and i, and all drivers behaved equally well throughout the race and drove with equal skill, and all teams did nothing to provoke our particular comment, i am willing to bet that i’d be cheering, “go red car!” while you would be cheering, “go car that is some color other than red!” or possibly even, “go most any car other than the red ones!” based on our past experiences, we’ve brought our biases with us to the race, and that isn’t a bad thing.

    hidden bias is a whole ‘nother, definitely skeezier ball of wax, all about trying to advance skewed arguments under the facade of being impartial. i think you’d be right to be offended if someone were to accuse you of it. like i said above, the word ‘bias’ is often used to imply ‘hidden bias’, but that’s not an entirely correct usage – at best it’s incomplete – and i don’t believe it was the usage intended earlier in the thread.

    (complete aside: i’d love to read FictionalKeith’s ode to HRT in Canada, biased as it might be. the jenson button story was good, too, but there were a lot of people telling it.)

    #174113
    flowerdew
    Participant

    side note: hairs, “bias” is just to selectively favor one side over another. my OED – once you get past the first two definitions, dealing with geometry and bowls/cricket – defines it as “an inclination, leaning, tendency, bent; a preponderating disposition or propensity; predisposition towards; predilection; prejudice.” you seem to be thinking of “hidden bias”, putting forth the perception that one has no bias, with the intent to deceive. when people complain about bias, usually the “hidden” part is implied. an example we’ll all be too familiar with: “you’re biased toward mclaren because you’re british (even though you claim to be an impartial journalist.)”

    pretty much everyone and every post in this thread is biased in one way or another, and your arguments are biased against ferrari. but you are correct that your argument has no hidden bias, as you are quite upfront about your feelings.

    #159767
    flowerdew
    Participant

    Sharing this mostly for perspective’s sake; I don’t imagine the details will be awfully interesting to anyone here. No family history or memories of Senna or anything like that!

    I got into F1 on the Tuesday before Sepang this year. I know a person who sometimes seems incapable of talking about anything but F1, while I have always had a somewhat instinctive aversion to the sport. I’m from the United States, so I never had a reason nor much of an opportunity to examine my aversion, and so I never had. But it got to the point with this guy where I had to check it out to either establish that my feelings were well-grounded or admit that I was wrong. I was wrong! First race I watched was Shanghai a week ago – I have the impression that if I expect them all to be like that, I’ll be disappointed, but I have to say that *that was really awesome*.

    Memories are pretty thin on the ground: I knew it was happening and all, but the biggest impression that the sport had made on me was Michael Schumacher’s 2004 tsunami relief donation. Besides that, it’s all Mario Andretti and Talledega Nights.

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