Mathematics, Wokeness, and Root Cause December 7, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture.Tags: California, mathematics, woke
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As near as I can tell, “woke” is an open code word for “social justice.” I taught at a Catholic university for several years in the 1990s, and there was certainly a lot of talk about social justice. I also graduated from what it self-describes as a conservative Christian college, where we had mandatory weekly chapel attendance (the chapel sessions interspersed religious topics with general topics of interest to a wide range of people, so it wasn’t as demanding as it sounds). In my mind, social justice, which I interpret as treating all with dignity and respect, is something you can agree or disagree with, but you don’t have to jump in hook, line, and sinker. You simply move on. I recognize that some embrace it as a life mission, but you don’t have to listen to them if you don’t want to.
The rejiggering of California’s mathematics curriculum to largely eliminate core mathematics topics because too many students fail at mathematics is held up as an example of woke attitudes. Instead, they want to teach “fun” courses in which mathematics plays only an incidental role.
Whether or not it is woke, I have strong feelings on the topic. Mathematics is the foundation of all of our sciences and engineering. To not teach algebra, calculus, and beyond as a prelude to higher education and a future in science and technology is a disservice to the most highly populated state of the union, of the country, and of society in general. Others agree.
I also have strong opinions as to why we have reached this point. Primary and secondary school teaching of mathematics is abysmal. Too many teachers simply don’t have an understanding of what they are trying to teach. The better students muddle through anyway, but the lesser students become scarred by the experience, and live their lives believing they are not “math people.”
That is simply bullshit. Everyone has the capability of doing fundamental math, with the right instruction. The vast majority don’t get the right instruction. And until we can improve that, proposals like this trash are going to become more common.
About My Cat, AI, and Interacting with People December 1, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.Tags: AI, cat
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I have a rescue cat. I call her Monica, after my niece. For those of you who have never had a rescue pet, they can be a challenge. Monica spent her first two weeks at home under a bed. I shoved her food and water under the bed, and occasionally got to pet her, if I could reach under the bed far enough.
It took me over a year to connect with Monica. It took her weeks to venture from the bedroom, and she still wouldn’t let me touch her. Over the course of several months, she established a couple of favorite places, and I spent hours trying to reach for her to pet her. All of that is behind us now.
Today, I think I have a special relationship with Monica. I have not done everything right with her, but I think the outcome is special for both of us. Whenever I am home, she hops up onto my chair and settles down right beside me. She’ll stay there for hours. She (mostly) lets me walk up and pet her. While she won’t consent to being held, she and I have connected on a level that I could not have imagined when she was under the bed.
Now, let’s talk about human relationships. They are about three orders or magnitude more complicated than those with a pet. You don’t know why a pet (especially a cat) does what it does, but you do know that their needs are pretty basic in the grand scheme of things. You can make an intelligent guess as to those needs. And with patience, and caring, you can reach a good place.
People are much more complicated. You have no clue as to what your colleague, your friend, your lover, or your spouse has on their mind at any given moment. An innocent conversation may evolve into a life’s revelation. It’s wonderful when this happens. Or it may devolve into a stinking mess. And if it does, it’s not their fault, or yours. It happens, and it’s incumbent on both of you to find the way out. That way out may not be the desired one, but you simply can’t walk away from it.
Where am I going with this? iPhone users apparently love Siri, to the extent that they are willing to treat it as a best friend, and even as a therapist. You may laugh at this, or you may nod in understanding. But people want to treat Siri as someone to converse with, in a nonthreatening way.
I am sorry. In the grand scheme of things, an artificial phone assistant is just that. There is no judgment of you, there is only, as we used to say in psychology, stimulus-response. The voice from your phone is not your friend, and is certainly not your best friend.
A pet, especially a difficult pet, is kind of the next level up. I have been told by the rescue shelter woman that some people keep cats for two or three days, and if it’s not what they expect in interactions, they return them to the shelter.
That is wrong, in a fundamental sense. You take on a serious responsibility with a pet, and to give up on that responsibility after a few days is simply a copout. No, worse than a copout, a broken promise. You didn’t really want a pet, a companion; you wanted a fluffy toy to hold. You have not accepted the shared obligation, that the pet would attempt to be a part of your life, to the best of its ability, and that you would do the same.
Now let’s move on to people. You can’t return people to the shelter if they don’t interact the way you want them to. But you can turn away from them. In a few rare cases, that may be the right choice.
But there is something that brought you to that person to begin with. It might be work, or leisure, or a shared interest, or affection. But you can’t turn your back on something you have started.
Sure I can, I hear you say. I do it all the time. I meet someone, enjoy talking to them for a time, then move on. I still text them occasionally, but that’s about it. I can’t take them face to face.
But people are more than just numbers in your smartphone. You take on an even more serious responsibility when you interact with another person. Conversation can be threatening. But if nothing else, it is cathartic.
How can I summarize this? Siri is not, and will never be, your friend. If you think of it as that, you need to rethink your whole life.
Here’s What Universities Should be Telling Their Students November 29, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
Apparently we have yet another example of sports spectators behaving badly in cheering against another team, with racist comments designed to, well, I don’t know what they are designed to do except to insult and put down. And yet another.
I don’t get any of this woke, CRT, alternative facts, or any other type of ideology that may or may not be making the rounds in schools today. But there are unequivocal and universal messages that in a world of confrontation, absolutes, and well, still more confrontation that we must respect and abide by.
Today we face increasing denigration of others based on not what or how they think, but on who they are and what you think they represent. You are welcome to disagree with other people. You are even welcome not to like other people, although you may want to talk to them before coming to that conclusion.
But you will respect them, as fellow human beings on a similar life trajectory. Their reality is just as valid as yours. They are trying to make their way through life, just like you.
If you cannot, you are the one that is less than human, because you have put it upon yourself to treat others less than that.
This is not hard, folks. Simply, if we don’t care about others, we don’t care about ourselves. That’s what you are really telling the world.
My Father Kept a Book November 27, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Uncategorized.add a comment
I’m betting (pun intended) that the vast majority of you don’t know what that means. It means he was a bookie. He ran illegal numbers. Every weekday afternoon at 4:30, my mother computed the Number, which was based on some variation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and number of shares traded. This was back when virtually all gambling was illegal.
And he was by no means the only one. Most of the blue collar people I knew growing up were involved in the numbers racket in some way or the other. Because there was money involved, it was occasionally dangerous; yes, there was such a thing as the organized mob (although it wasn’t so organized).
Today, gambling is an integral part of our lives. In 1986, as a result of an agreement between the government and Mashantucket Pequot Tribe in Connecticut resulted in a certain level of legal autonomy and the opening of what became the Foxwoods Casino. Other Native American tribes followed suit, and there are a number of casinos on Native lands that are at least affiliated with tribes (there is one near me, just north of Boston – the Encore).
More generally, legalized gambling started with Powerball (1992) and other state-run lotteries. Legalized betting in general occurred by exception, in Nevada and Atlantic City, oddly. In 2018 the Supreme Court ruled to make sports betting legal, and a number of states have developed regulations to implement the Supreme Court ruling. Today, you can legally bet on just about anything in the United States.
Many decry the seeming loss of morals that legalized gambling seems to portend, as well as the potential to cause economic hardship. I have some sympathy for that argument. However, much gambling has occurred well before it was legal. It’s not clear if any more is occurring today, although it is certainly much more visible.
To be clear, I am by education and inclination an applied mathematician. I don’t gamble, because I know my odds intimately. But I don’t mind legal gambling; I consider it a tax that I don’t have to pay, and I don’t.
But For the Want of An Algorithm November 21, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Algorithms, Machine Learning, Strategy.Tags: algorighms, Zillow
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I’ll bet you never heard that statement before. Algorithms are the basis of machine learning and decision-making today. Recently, for the want of an accurate and representative algorithm, Zillow is laying off a quarter of their staff and exiting its home-buying and selling business.
To be fair, it’s not all about the machine learning algorithm(s) that it used to determine what homes to buy and what to pay for them. The algorithm was the starting point for an in-person inspection and negotiation by actual people. But the algorithm overpriced homes across the country, resulting in Zillow losing millions of dollars and not able to sell many homes at the list price.
But it does illustrate overt dependence on algorithms to represent a particular problem domain. And home prices are particularly susceptible to local conditions. One algorithm does not fit all.
There are a number of ways that algorithms can be biased. They may not fully represent the problem domain, or the domain may have changed since the algorithm was developed. In this case, probably both of these contributed to the problem.
So there are dangers in using algorithms to represent domains and scenarios, dangers that can cost a great deal of money. This illustrates the importance of testing; not just testing, but the testing and evaluation of algorithms. And this seems to be a step that Zillow didn’t take.
How Easy Is It to Disappear? October 20, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Technology and Culture, Uncategorized.Tags: Grid, Reacher
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After weeks of searching for Brian Laundrie, it seems that the authorities may have found his body in a nature reserve in Florida. While I am not following this story, the headline made me ask how easy (difficult) it might be to disappear in the modern world. In one of my novels, the protagonist, Jack Pryor, successfully covers his tracks for almost a week before the bad guys find him. After all, many of us have given idle thoughts to dropping off of the grid, at least for a little while.
So I did some research into this for my story. Jack’s apartment was blown up, and he was intentionally disavowed by the government, and forced to live by his wits. He’s a computer guy, so he needed to track down the bad guys online, which made it more difficult.
He was helped by a healthy paranoia, a lot of smarts, adequate cash, and a friend who provided him with someone else’s passport, driver’s license, and credit card. He got on the Internet by breaking into an absent friend’s house, and by recognizing that while his apartment was destroyed, the wireless router still worked. He could protect his online presence using different access points and VPNs for a while, but a concerted effort would find him within a couple of days.
Without the false ID, it would be impossible to rent a car or travel by commercial airliner today. You can no longer use cash for those sorts of transactions. He rented an AirBNB for a week, and stayed there two nights, until the check cleared the bank. He also used the false passport and credit card to travel to Europe to track down his adversaries, and reserved three hotels in the same city, moving rapidly between them.
So in the modern world, this is pretty much impossible without an alter ego, and the documentation to back it up. Like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, you might find a budget hotel and cut a cash deal with the desk clerk for one night, but that’s about it. Reacher has an ATM card for cash withdrawals; he used to carry an expired passport for ID, but that doesn’t work any more. He stays undiscovered mostly by staying constantly on the move, often hitchhiking, even in this day and age.
If you’re an outdoorsman, you might be able to live off the land, using a tent and paying cash for your food. There are tales of people doing that in the mountains for a year or more. But the minute you use an ATM or credit card, you are found. And don’t even think about a phone, cell or landline.
And because the world seems to want to go to cashless systems, you will be found even more quickly in all likelihood. I personally like to use cash for most transactions, because I am cognizant that my credit card purchase will go into a database, where I will get spammed by various offers. But that only delays the inevitable.
If you want to live your life in civilization, you cannot do so anonymously. Most people don’t care, and are happy to provide far more personal information than they receive in convenience. I try to weigh most decisions, not because I want to step off of the grid, but because I think it’s a daily tradeoff.
Still Evil After All These Years October 6, 2021
Posted by Peter Varhol in Software platforms, Technology and Culture.Tags: Facebook, Zuckerberg
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I’ve been railing against Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg for a long time, to no avail (and no surprise). But I would like to be on the side of right, which Facebook definitely is not. And I’m not a billionaire, which Mark Zuckerberg definitely is, many times over.
But to quote the movie title, something’s gotta give.
Anyone who has read the expose by the Wall Street Journal, and watched the testimony by Frances Haugen, knows that Facebook continues to be evil. Worse, they used to apologize and say they are making improvements. As of two weeks ago, they are not even bothering with that lie. They are trashing Frances Haugen, and saying they are in the right.
I have never been a member of Facebook, and will never be a member of Facebook. I’ve been told that I have to be, for job, or to obtain information that organizations only post on Facebook. I’m sorry. You are the ones that are morally bankrupt, not me. And if you use Facebook, you are also morally bankrupt. You stand for nothing.
Here is Zuckerberg’s real problem. If you were already by far the richest person in the world, in your 30s, what is the rest of your life for? I obviously am not in that position, but I’ve tried to give it some thought.
I would like to think that I would try to be remembered as a kind and equable person who contributes positively to society. Do you really need another billion dollars? Yet it seems that Zuckerberg is not a particularly deep thinker. He has to know that his espousing of connecting people for peaceful purposes is highly flawed, but he does want that extra billion. He is driven by money, and by what money measures. So Zuckerberg doesn’t know what the rest of his life is about, except for acquiring that next billion dollars. To tell you the truth, I’m not sympathetic. He is not mentally well, and because of the power he wields, he needs to get his act together.
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