The House(s) of Fran_mart

This post is intended to simply show some information from the 2016 Census Table Builder product.  A more detailed and much longer coverage of this topic, which includes justification for my conclusions is at this post .  But only go there if you really like detail about statistics. The release of Table Builder includes some Imputation Flags which are set for the core demographic variables (Age, Sex, Marital Status) when the Collector identifies an occupied dwelling for which no form is received.  Thus it is effectively an indicator of one part of non-response.   The importance of imputation is made explicit in the report   of the  Census Independent Assurance Panel  (CIAP) where it is shown (Table 3.2.2) that the final under-enumeration rate for the Census is 1.0% being a balance between a 4.3% gross  under count of people on Census forms, a 1.3% gross  over count  of people on Census forms and a  net over count of 2.1% of pers...

Reader advisory!   This post is mainly about pretty technical aspects of the Census.  I think it is however interesting background to the more overtly interesting stuff about the nature of folk in the area. Summary This post is mainly about the quality of the data in the 2016 Census.  Some issues are raised suggesting that there are a few problems with the data in our small area, particularly for number of dwellings and detailed characteristics of the population, but they are probably not such that the results are unusable.  It would however be useful to consider the impact of these findings on more detailed analysis and particularly any comparison with 2011 Census results. Background A couple of weeks ago the ABS released the first batch of  'real' data from the 2016 Census.  (I am very cynical about the stuff they released earlier in the form of some strange averages.  That was for public relations purposes and not that useful for any a...

So I am now back home and offer a little about the last day at Topi and the drive back. We decided on a quiet last day with no outings planned, other than a longish dog-walk in the morning.  This was to go down Barbie Rd, travelling a bit further than we had on Monday.  The walk tothe start of Topi Rd was uneventful as was the stretch on Wattlely Hill Rd, although spotting a flowering Glycine clandestina suggested that Spring was well within view here. That has led me to compare the weather at Forster with Carwoola.  (I have used Forster as that is where I can get temperature data from the BoM.)  Here is a chart of temperature extremes by month. For both maximums and minimums Forster is less variable than Carwoola, although the difference is far more marked for maxima.  I suspect that Topi, although only 12km inland and 22m higher, was about halfway between these values - based largely on the amount of frost we found on the morning dog walks.  So w...

Or, as will appear more appropriate from what follows, here they blow! Today was catch up for missing on the whale watching yesterday.  Quick dog walk and off back to Forster.  We counted the changes of speed limit as we went  and totalled 13 over 40km - quite a bit of the time it wasn't at all obvious why the limit changed. The boat left on time (full again, about 100 punters) and rumbled around the Lake dodging sandbars and oyster leases.  Under the bridge and, wearing life jackets as per the rules out to sea.  A few Inshore Bottle-nosed dolphins were seen as we went. Getting a bit out to sea we came across a massive pod of Common Dolphins.  Possibly 100 of them and very active. This was the view South as we went further out looking for a Motherand Calf Humpback seen by their spotter.  Looking North the sunshine on the water was a good reference point.  We soon caught up with the two target whales. The rules define how close...

Possibly stupidity is not an uncommon visitor to this blog, but this afternoon's sample was a doozy.  But that was then, and after looking at a still and cold dam ... ... the day started with an early and short dog walk before heading off to Forster for a morning getting closer to some cetaceans. So we got there well before sailing time only to find the ship is booked out,  Whale oil beef hooked!  So we booked for tomorrow's expedition and headed back to Pacific Palms for a walk we had done on a previous visit.  En route we were pleased to see the Osprey sunning itself on a power pole close. We then swung into Elizabeth Bay and the start of the Booti Booti Hill track within the Booti Booti National Park. It was pretty uphill with a fair few steps and a lot of palms.  After about 500m we found these large sacks of gravel beside the track.  This caused a brief pause - not that we were puffed or anything and needed a pause - to contemplate why th...