Ripples
Water ripples on the surface
Rising and falling in slowly
moving waves.
The surface stills but
Nothing will ever be the same.
Saturday, December 28, 2013
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Some Thoughts on Data, Zeno's Paradox, and Leaps of Faith
Some highly educated people are seekers of statistical truth, approaching their quest as passionately as spiritually-driven people might pursue transcendence in a place of worship, on a yoga mat, or on an Appalachian Trail through-hike. The more data for these people, the more faith (though they would never call it that) they have in the rightness of their scientific or economic conclusions. And yet that certainty is elusive, and it drives them on toward ever more, better, real-time points of data.
A data-driven mind can never bridge that last Zeno-paradoxical gap between the data they have and data they want. The data they want is that which would be possessed by an all-knowing god who understood every variable, every permutation, every possible combination, with absolute certainty. Many, though not all of these people, I suspect generally reject the whole concept of a divine power. Perhaps that is because deep down they think of themselves as having the potential to be all-knowing, if only they had more data, so who needs god?
Of course, some of these data geeks are okay with there being a data gap. They rely on confidence intervals and statistical significance to deem their conclusions valid (not 'true' mind you, but more or less likely to be repeatable given infinite trials). But there always is uncertainty, there is no faith. To statisticians, 99.9999% confidence is a pretty sure bet, but there is still that one in a millionth time in which the thing they don't expect will happen. And let's face it, there are plenty of things that only happen once in a million times.
Adding to their uncertainty, these data driven people remain ever wary of bad data. Bad data can make you erroneously conclude that the chance of something isn't one in a million, it's two in a million, which is twice as bad (or as good, depending...). It's like the devil, that bad data, always lurking in dark places, ready to catch them unawares. And some of these statisticians suspect the providers of data - the respondents, test subjects, recordings, and measurements - are deliberately out to trick them, throw off their conclusions, mess with their tendencies to the center - more devils.
And they're right. The data is undoubtedly flawed, the people who gathered it flawed as well, and the source from which it came - instrumentation, people, animals, financial records - they're flawed, too. They don't behave as they would in a perfect world. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the power of statistics, and have seen that when used appropriately it is far better at predicting the future or explaining the past than any human brain or gut could ever do. It is an extremely useful tool. My point is that people who place all their faith in numbers, little in people, and who pursue ever narrower bands of reliability and significance to the point of costly absurdity, should count themselves among the flawed. Use the data, strive for more, better, faster within reason, but then, take that leap of faith across Zeno's paradoxical gap. The rest of us mortals will be there to grab your hand on the other side.
A data-driven mind can never bridge that last Zeno-paradoxical gap between the data they have and data they want. The data they want is that which would be possessed by an all-knowing god who understood every variable, every permutation, every possible combination, with absolute certainty. Many, though not all of these people, I suspect generally reject the whole concept of a divine power. Perhaps that is because deep down they think of themselves as having the potential to be all-knowing, if only they had more data, so who needs god?
Of course, some of these data geeks are okay with there being a data gap. They rely on confidence intervals and statistical significance to deem their conclusions valid (not 'true' mind you, but more or less likely to be repeatable given infinite trials). But there always is uncertainty, there is no faith. To statisticians, 99.9999% confidence is a pretty sure bet, but there is still that one in a millionth time in which the thing they don't expect will happen. And let's face it, there are plenty of things that only happen once in a million times.
Adding to their uncertainty, these data driven people remain ever wary of bad data. Bad data can make you erroneously conclude that the chance of something isn't one in a million, it's two in a million, which is twice as bad (or as good, depending...). It's like the devil, that bad data, always lurking in dark places, ready to catch them unawares. And some of these statisticians suspect the providers of data - the respondents, test subjects, recordings, and measurements - are deliberately out to trick them, throw off their conclusions, mess with their tendencies to the center - more devils.
And they're right. The data is undoubtedly flawed, the people who gathered it flawed as well, and the source from which it came - instrumentation, people, animals, financial records - they're flawed, too. They don't behave as they would in a perfect world. Don't get me wrong, I believe in the power of statistics, and have seen that when used appropriately it is far better at predicting the future or explaining the past than any human brain or gut could ever do. It is an extremely useful tool. My point is that people who place all their faith in numbers, little in people, and who pursue ever narrower bands of reliability and significance to the point of costly absurdity, should count themselves among the flawed. Use the data, strive for more, better, faster within reason, but then, take that leap of faith across Zeno's paradoxical gap. The rest of us mortals will be there to grab your hand on the other side.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Job Description: Elected Representative of the People
Reports to: The Electorate
Benefits: Excellent; includes generous vacation, complete health and dental coverage (depending on level of government), full travel expenses, special license plates, free parking, many other perks
Description of Duties: The Elected Representative of the People (ERP) will work with a team of other elected officials and experienced staff to craft legislation to improve the functioning of society. Will be assigned to one or more committees which will, among other duties, monitor one or more aspects of executive branch operations. These operations are undertaken by skilled civil servants overseen by an elected Chief Executive. The ERP and the committee(s) on which s/he serves will provide advice and consent as required or requested to the Chief Executive, various boards, committees, and commissions. The ERP must effectively communicate public policy, and progress in solving current societal issues to the general public, as well as to co-workers engaged in other aspects of oversight. In addition, the ERP must effectively seek input and feedback from constituents, many of whom have little interest in or understanding of the complexities of the social problems the ERP and his/her colleagues have been assigned to address. The successful candidate will have experience in effectively identifying and negotiating solutions to a complex range of inter-related societal challenges.
Required Skills and/or Experience:
Communication skills. Must be willing and able to read, understand, and comment on voluminous amounts of written legal material on wide-ranging subject matter, from economic development to education to health care. Other necessary communication skills include extemporaneous oratory, and ability to build trusting relationships with co-workers. Must be able to manage up, or improve the standing and influence of those in senior positions. Good listening skills, politeness, and even-temperedness, as well as ability to negotiate and compromise are essential, as is a healthy sense of humor.
Ability to work effectively as a member of various teams. The ERP will be assigned to one or more committees, but will also be under pressure to meet the more narrow re-election and fundraising goals of the ERP’s sponsor/party. In order to be effective on the job, it is essential that the short-term goals of the sponsor/party be secondary to the longer term societal goals identified collectively. This tension can sometimes become extraordinary, yet performance evaluation will be made on the ERP’s demonstrated commitment to and effectiveness in serving the larger society rather than the more narrow and self-serving goals of the sponsor/party.
Ability to fundraise. Separate from, but related to, to the specific duties of the ERP is the ability to raise funds for re-election campaigns. Dependence on financial sponsors whose demands are often not aligned with the ERP or his/her constituency raise frequent, if not constant, ethical dilemmas, requiring an exceptional degree of honesty and integrity. Fundraising duties are an accepted part of any ERP’s life, but must be undertaken outside the course of normal duties, and strictly on the ERP’s own time. Failure to do so can result in censure, public humiliation, and in extreme cases, legal prosecution.
Other desirable qualities for the successful candidate:
Benefits: Excellent; includes generous vacation, complete health and dental coverage (depending on level of government), full travel expenses, special license plates, free parking, many other perks
Description of Duties: The Elected Representative of the People (ERP) will work with a team of other elected officials and experienced staff to craft legislation to improve the functioning of society. Will be assigned to one or more committees which will, among other duties, monitor one or more aspects of executive branch operations. These operations are undertaken by skilled civil servants overseen by an elected Chief Executive. The ERP and the committee(s) on which s/he serves will provide advice and consent as required or requested to the Chief Executive, various boards, committees, and commissions. The ERP must effectively communicate public policy, and progress in solving current societal issues to the general public, as well as to co-workers engaged in other aspects of oversight. In addition, the ERP must effectively seek input and feedback from constituents, many of whom have little interest in or understanding of the complexities of the social problems the ERP and his/her colleagues have been assigned to address. The successful candidate will have experience in effectively identifying and negotiating solutions to a complex range of inter-related societal challenges.
Required Skills and/or Experience:
Communication skills. Must be willing and able to read, understand, and comment on voluminous amounts of written legal material on wide-ranging subject matter, from economic development to education to health care. Other necessary communication skills include extemporaneous oratory, and ability to build trusting relationships with co-workers. Must be able to manage up, or improve the standing and influence of those in senior positions. Good listening skills, politeness, and even-temperedness, as well as ability to negotiate and compromise are essential, as is a healthy sense of humor.
Ability to work effectively as a member of various teams. The ERP will be assigned to one or more committees, but will also be under pressure to meet the more narrow re-election and fundraising goals of the ERP’s sponsor/party. In order to be effective on the job, it is essential that the short-term goals of the sponsor/party be secondary to the longer term societal goals identified collectively. This tension can sometimes become extraordinary, yet performance evaluation will be made on the ERP’s demonstrated commitment to and effectiveness in serving the larger society rather than the more narrow and self-serving goals of the sponsor/party.
Ability to fundraise. Separate from, but related to, to the specific duties of the ERP is the ability to raise funds for re-election campaigns. Dependence on financial sponsors whose demands are often not aligned with the ERP or his/her constituency raise frequent, if not constant, ethical dilemmas, requiring an exceptional degree of honesty and integrity. Fundraising duties are an accepted part of any ERP’s life, but must be undertaken outside the course of normal duties, and strictly on the ERP’s own time. Failure to do so can result in censure, public humiliation, and in extreme cases, legal prosecution.
Other desirable qualities for the successful candidate:
- Appealing personal history
- Photogenic appearance
- Memorable, unembarrassing name
- Appealing, supportive spouse
- Personal wealth (particularly for candidates not already in office)
- Ease with constituents from all socio-economic classes
- Ability to say the same thing over and over again as if it's the first time you've said it
- Ability to smile, shake hands, and say pleasant inanities for hours a day without cracking
- Ability to pass babies back and forth to parents without dropping them
- Willingness to spend long periods of time away from home
- Respect for the political process
- Ability to build and effectively supervise a team
- Relatively clean criminal background
- Passing knowledge of constitution
Monday, December 9, 2013
Shaping the Site Evaluation Committee, and then some
I took my high school daughter to a public meeting tonight in Newington, NH to talk about the process by which the State's Site Evaluation Committee deliberates on new energy generation or transmission projects. Her presence was celebrated by the facilitators from Raab Associates because it was the first time anyone under 20 had appeared at these public forums. Not only is she under 20, she is under the voting age of 18, but they gave her one of the little submit-your-opinion voting gadgets anyway, and she followed along.
Why did she consent to attend, you might ask? Because she is doing a paper on the Northern Pass project for her high school journalism class, and we thought it might be a good venue for her to find people interested in the project and willing to talk about it. We were right.
I love it that in New Hampshire you can run into the chair of the NH House Energy Committee at a public meeting and greet him by his first name and then get a hug. And that the guy opposed to Northern Pass from the Forest Society, having never met me or my daughter, was more than happy to give her 10 minutes of his time, and then go out of his way to introduce her to the guy from the electrical workers union who is in support of the project to make sure she got both sides of the story. There were plenty of other professionals there as well, including the aforementioned chair of the House Energy Committee, who were generous with their time, and handed out their cards, or provided their private cell phone numbers so that she could follow up with them later, because the meeting was starting and they'd run out of time to talk to her.
That my kid was also a good enough sport to sit through what was, even to an energy geek like me, a pretty dry meeting was also gratifying. Yes, we left at the break at 7:30 and didn't stay until the bitter 9:30 end, and she did admit on the walk to the car in the sleety rain we get around here in the middle of December that her mind had begun to wander onto other things. But she felt good about all the interviews she got, and learned by seeing democracy in action. New Hampshire, for whatever you might say in criticism, is very accepting of citizen participation. Perhaps it's because we hardly spend any money on government so people have to practically and actually volunteer to run the place, or perhaps it's because we haven't lost the sense that our participation actually can and does make a difference. That's the spirit that leads locals to mow the lawn at the highway rest stop when budget cuts keep it from getting done by state workers, and inspires volunteers to supplement the meager staffing at the state owned Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth by cutting and splitting firewood and keeping up the gardens.
So, if you live here, or anywhere for that matter, don't think that you can leave all our problems to people who are paid to take care of them, to paraphrase a Dave Matthews song; get involved. It wouldn't hurt you to go check out what your local town is doing, or your state legislature, or state's Site Evaluation Committee. You are likely to learn something, meet someone, and find you have an opinion you'd like to share. And really, what are you getting out of Facebook these days, anyway?
Why did she consent to attend, you might ask? Because she is doing a paper on the Northern Pass project for her high school journalism class, and we thought it might be a good venue for her to find people interested in the project and willing to talk about it. We were right.
I love it that in New Hampshire you can run into the chair of the NH House Energy Committee at a public meeting and greet him by his first name and then get a hug. And that the guy opposed to Northern Pass from the Forest Society, having never met me or my daughter, was more than happy to give her 10 minutes of his time, and then go out of his way to introduce her to the guy from the electrical workers union who is in support of the project to make sure she got both sides of the story. There were plenty of other professionals there as well, including the aforementioned chair of the House Energy Committee, who were generous with their time, and handed out their cards, or provided their private cell phone numbers so that she could follow up with them later, because the meeting was starting and they'd run out of time to talk to her.
That my kid was also a good enough sport to sit through what was, even to an energy geek like me, a pretty dry meeting was also gratifying. Yes, we left at the break at 7:30 and didn't stay until the bitter 9:30 end, and she did admit on the walk to the car in the sleety rain we get around here in the middle of December that her mind had begun to wander onto other things. But she felt good about all the interviews she got, and learned by seeing democracy in action. New Hampshire, for whatever you might say in criticism, is very accepting of citizen participation. Perhaps it's because we hardly spend any money on government so people have to practically and actually volunteer to run the place, or perhaps it's because we haven't lost the sense that our participation actually can and does make a difference. That's the spirit that leads locals to mow the lawn at the highway rest stop when budget cuts keep it from getting done by state workers, and inspires volunteers to supplement the meager staffing at the state owned Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth by cutting and splitting firewood and keeping up the gardens.
So, if you live here, or anywhere for that matter, don't think that you can leave all our problems to people who are paid to take care of them, to paraphrase a Dave Matthews song; get involved. It wouldn't hurt you to go check out what your local town is doing, or your state legislature, or state's Site Evaluation Committee. You are likely to learn something, meet someone, and find you have an opinion you'd like to share. And really, what are you getting out of Facebook these days, anyway?
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Arghravation
Oh how old and stupid I feel when I try to navigate between Google+ and Blogger. I help my mother sometimes with excel spreadsheets, which seems entirely obvious and intuitive to me but to her are completely mystifying and aggravating. Now I sympathize.
This is mostly a test to see whether or not I can successfully post something that will show up on my google site. Soon, I hope to write something with broader interest.
This is mostly a test to see whether or not I can successfully post something that will show up on my google site. Soon, I hope to write something with broader interest.
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