Paul Simon put it for all time, "And I know I'm fakin' it, I'm not really makin' it." One of the themes of this endeavor has been the destruction of physical production in favour of soft/financial "innovation". There have been occasional beeps in the ether that Big Thinkers are beginning to get the problem. Today brings a revelation that some folks on the Other Coast get it.
You really need to read this, if only to make me feel better. The Valley Boys are echoing one of my memes. Victory!
08 July 2012
07 July 2012
From the Mouths of Babes
Some may remember that Groklaw started as a means to track the progress of various SCO litigations. For a few years, if not from the beginning (I forget), there has been a "News Picks" column. The entries are precises or cuts from titled stories. Today's includes the following. To clarify, the first bracketed text is my edit, while the second is in the original.
[Facebook] is tracking the apps that people use through its popular Facebook Connect feature, which lets users log into millions of websites and apps as varied as Amazon.com, LinkedIn and Yelp with their Facebook identity. The company then targets ads based on that data, said people familiar with the company's plans.
Facebook may also track what people do on the apps, though it hasn't made a final decision, said one of the people.
[PJ: This may be a new way to test IQs. If you are on Facebook after all this, how dumb are you?]
[Facebook] is tracking the apps that people use through its popular Facebook Connect feature, which lets users log into millions of websites and apps as varied as Amazon.com, LinkedIn and Yelp with their Facebook identity. The company then targets ads based on that data, said people familiar with the company's plans.
Facebook may also track what people do on the apps, though it hasn't made a final decision, said one of the people.
[PJ: This may be a new way to test IQs. If you are on Facebook after all this, how dumb are you?]
03 July 2012
March of the Penguins
Maindonald's book opens with the following:
It is easy to lie with statistics. It is hard to tell the truth without statistics.
[Andrejs Dunkels]
While I've always been a fan of quant, since it should tie decisions to the real world, too often they're manipulated to conform to an external agenda. The Barclays evil is about as brazen as it gets. But this piece isn't about Barclays (this just in: Diamond fell on his sword a few minutes ago), but credit raters. From today's NY Times comes the story of how it was that the agencies colluded with the banks. Pretty brazen.
The story closes with a couple of meaningful quotes (note to editors: the punch line comes first in newspaper stories, not the tail end).
And, of course, the quant community continues to deny that they were anything but disinterested technicians. Yeah, right. Sometimes, the Emperor is just nude.
It is easy to lie with statistics. It is hard to tell the truth without statistics.
[Andrejs Dunkels]
While I've always been a fan of quant, since it should tie decisions to the real world, too often they're manipulated to conform to an external agenda. The Barclays evil is about as brazen as it gets. But this piece isn't about Barclays (this just in: Diamond fell on his sword a few minutes ago), but credit raters. From today's NY Times comes the story of how it was that the agencies colluded with the banks. Pretty brazen.
The story closes with a couple of meaningful quotes (note to editors: the punch line comes first in newspaper stories, not the tail end).
The court filings also demonstrate a lack of methodology for analyzing the Cheyne debt. For example, in an e-mail before the deal was sold, S.& P.'s lead analyst wrote to a colleague: "I had difficulties explaining 'HOW' we got to those numbers since there is no science behind it. The documents show that the lead analyst at Moody's noted there was "no actual data backing the current model assumptions" for segments of the Cheyne deal.
"I don't want to miss one deal because of our model assumptions either. Is there any possibility of 'tweaking' the default table to get all of this so that we don't have to compromise?"
And, of course, the quant community continues to deny that they were anything but disinterested technicians. Yeah, right. Sometimes, the Emperor is just nude.
18 June 2012
We're All Running Backs Now
It is widely understood that NFL running backs have a very short worklife one source says, 2.57 years. After that, worthless and off to the scrap heap. One part of the Right Wingnuts' meme is that if only folks had appropriate skills (from for-profit "schools", of course!), they'll get rich. Well, sort of. While I can't recall specific cites, there've been studies done since about 1980 debunking the American Dream, upward mobility for all, myth.
Recently, Joseph Stiglitz (smarter than Krugman and with more bite) published this book. Have a look at the Table of Contents, and you'll see that the last 100 pages is notes, including data sources. There have been a host of reviews. Try this one on for size.
What all this has to do with NFL running backs? First, running backs are very well paid, but are a vanishingly small percent of the population; dedicating an education regime to "empower" ghetto kids to be running backs doesn't make much sense; nor for any low count job. Education, which isn't the same as vocational training, is said to be the solution to the mess, but consider that all too many 40-plus professionals have found their careers ended by cheap, young Indians. Why would an 18 year old not see that handwriting on the wall? Society will fracture even further if the army of the unemployed is better educated, and done so on the promise of upper-middle class prosperity. In fact, the number of math and science majors (proportional to population) has declined. Here's a story dealing with part of the issue. And this is a Time magazine piece.
Second, age discrimination is rampant. In the late 19th century, shops had signs, "No Irish Need Apply". Now, it's "No Adults Need Apply". We're all running backs; you have to make a lifetime's worth of income before you're 30. I wish they told me that when I was 20.
Even that Right Wingnut bastion, "The Wall Street Journal" adds some fuel to the fire. "Although the number of college graduates increased about 29% between 2001 and 2009... The number with computer and information-sciences degrees decreased 14%." It shouldn't come as any surprise; IT jobs are among the most off-shored. One Kiddie Koder of my acquaintance noted that his age-mates were bailing from IT, or not entering at all, back in 2005. We worked at a Fortune 100 company that was shedding Americans for Indians at breakneck pace. Kids notice; they aren't quite as stupid as some think. Another quote: "'If you're a high math student in America, from a purely economic point of view, it's crazy to go into STEM,' says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown center."
These articles also touch on something I've noticed, again, in quant texts: rather than take an apprenticeship tack (here's how to do X, then how to do Y, and so on), there is this need to build a "foundation" of disconnected principles, which may or may not be connected (among themselves or even to the vocation being studied) sometime much later. After a couple of classes of this, they bail. If they want to get rich, they become banksters. I've mentioned a few times that my historical profession, economics, was overrun by failed PhD mathsters starting as far back as the 1970's. Not sure that being an associate econ professor is the road to riches, but an unfinished math PhD is worth much less.
So, we get to the nub. I read this article when it came out, but didn't get around to writing about it. In fact, I've been worried about just such attacks for sometime. The "Don't Bother Me with Reality" forces are evil. Now's the time. The Cheney "we don't need no reality" meme will get implemented if Mitt is It. The only way to shut up guys like Stiglitz is to shut off the data. The Right Wingnuts will do it. With no data, the argument devolves to propaganda, and the Wingnuts have shown that they're better at it than Democrats.
Recently, Joseph Stiglitz (smarter than Krugman and with more bite) published this book. Have a look at the Table of Contents, and you'll see that the last 100 pages is notes, including data sources. There have been a host of reviews. Try this one on for size.
What all this has to do with NFL running backs? First, running backs are very well paid, but are a vanishingly small percent of the population; dedicating an education regime to "empower" ghetto kids to be running backs doesn't make much sense; nor for any low count job. Education, which isn't the same as vocational training, is said to be the solution to the mess, but consider that all too many 40-plus professionals have found their careers ended by cheap, young Indians. Why would an 18 year old not see that handwriting on the wall? Society will fracture even further if the army of the unemployed is better educated, and done so on the promise of upper-middle class prosperity. In fact, the number of math and science majors (proportional to population) has declined. Here's a story dealing with part of the issue. And this is a Time magazine piece.
Second, age discrimination is rampant. In the late 19th century, shops had signs, "No Irish Need Apply". Now, it's "No Adults Need Apply". We're all running backs; you have to make a lifetime's worth of income before you're 30. I wish they told me that when I was 20.
Even that Right Wingnut bastion, "The Wall Street Journal" adds some fuel to the fire. "Although the number of college graduates increased about 29% between 2001 and 2009... The number with computer and information-sciences degrees decreased 14%." It shouldn't come as any surprise; IT jobs are among the most off-shored. One Kiddie Koder of my acquaintance noted that his age-mates were bailing from IT, or not entering at all, back in 2005. We worked at a Fortune 100 company that was shedding Americans for Indians at breakneck pace. Kids notice; they aren't quite as stupid as some think. Another quote: "'If you're a high math student in America, from a purely economic point of view, it's crazy to go into STEM,' says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown center."
These articles also touch on something I've noticed, again, in quant texts: rather than take an apprenticeship tack (here's how to do X, then how to do Y, and so on), there is this need to build a "foundation" of disconnected principles, which may or may not be connected (among themselves or even to the vocation being studied) sometime much later. After a couple of classes of this, they bail. If they want to get rich, they become banksters. I've mentioned a few times that my historical profession, economics, was overrun by failed PhD mathsters starting as far back as the 1970's. Not sure that being an associate econ professor is the road to riches, but an unfinished math PhD is worth much less.
So, we get to the nub. I read this article when it came out, but didn't get around to writing about it. In fact, I've been worried about just such attacks for sometime. The "Don't Bother Me with Reality" forces are evil. Now's the time. The Cheney "we don't need no reality" meme will get implemented if Mitt is It. The only way to shut up guys like Stiglitz is to shut off the data. The Right Wingnuts will do it. With no data, the argument devolves to propaganda, and the Wingnuts have shown that they're better at it than Democrats.
15 June 2012
Pretty Beads
Have you been paying attention to the new-ish Apple computers? They've become disposable cell phones; nothing is replaceable or upgradeable. These devices go for nearly $3,000, and can, I gather, only be repaired by Apple. This became clear with the Retina Display Mac Book Pro as can be seen here. All the bits are either Apple only connections/forms or soldered in. For those with long memories, the original Compaq machines would only accept Compaq pieces.
When I was a kid, Vance Packard was already well known and widely published. I knew of his writings from yellowed paperbacks. His most famous is likely "The Hidden Persuaders", but he also dealt with the process of planned obsolescence with "The Waste Makers". In the 1960's, and certainly 1970's, American auto makers were pilloried, and warned, that their obsession with churning their product base was dangerous and market threatening. And so it came to be. If one looks at a current American auto, most of the engineering and design of that car originated in either Europe (where engineers know what they're doing) or Japan (ditto).
Europeans and Japanese understand what engineering means: make the most of the least. Until the 1973 Oil Embargo, American design and engineering was about profligacy; who could implement it most thoroughly. Not so much, now.
Apple is behaving like the Big Three Autos. The difference is that Apple, emboldened by a totally hosed patent system, has been able to constrict competition. Jobs fancied himself a Buddhist. I wonder what his bhikkhu would think?
Sounds a bit like what happened with Manhattan, which was ceded for some pretty beads. Apple wants your soul and freedom for about the same.
When I was a kid, Vance Packard was already well known and widely published. I knew of his writings from yellowed paperbacks. His most famous is likely "The Hidden Persuaders", but he also dealt with the process of planned obsolescence with "The Waste Makers". In the 1960's, and certainly 1970's, American auto makers were pilloried, and warned, that their obsession with churning their product base was dangerous and market threatening. And so it came to be. If one looks at a current American auto, most of the engineering and design of that car originated in either Europe (where engineers know what they're doing) or Japan (ditto).
Europeans and Japanese understand what engineering means: make the most of the least. Until the 1973 Oil Embargo, American design and engineering was about profligacy; who could implement it most thoroughly. Not so much, now.
Apple is behaving like the Big Three Autos. The difference is that Apple, emboldened by a totally hosed patent system, has been able to constrict competition. Jobs fancied himself a Buddhist. I wonder what his bhikkhu would think?
Sounds a bit like what happened with Manhattan, which was ceded for some pretty beads. Apple wants your soul and freedom for about the same.
04 June 2012
Subtraction By Ad-ition
My long time reader might remember that I've been preaching the Gospel of Codd from the beginning, and that multi-stuff/RDBMS/SSD is the saviour of applications. Further, the mobile/tablet space is ripe for a paradigm shift to fully normalized relational datastores, which can thus be easily served up to a pick-able (finger or mouse, doesn't matter) small data interface. This stock promotion page reveals that the other, but related, paradigm shift is finally recognized by Main Stream Pundits. To quote: "... up until now the primary form of Internet advertising has been the display ad, and it's hard to display a static ad on a 3.5 inch screen size without annoying the user."
What the piece misses, of course, is that what did in newspapers (less so, magazines) wasn't Google and such but Craig's List. What CL took was classified adverts, and this was the cash cow of (local) newspapers. While not quite the meme that some would have us believe, it proved the main point: any endeavour which depends on adverts for revenue is ultimately doomed. As my Pappy used to say about women, "They're like buses, there'll be another one along in 10 minutes." The same is true for adverts. Some other way, which is more alluring to ad buyers, will soon enough pop up.
As I've been drum banging for some time: advert business is tough. For those of a certain age, or perhaps certain undergraduate major, "The Hidden Persuaders" is a very early tale of how the advert business works. I haven't re-read it in years, by the way. Whether the notion of "engagement ads" provides any real improvement to ad buyers is up for debate. That won't stop the sites from making them. Just because they can. Kind of like GUI-fied software, distract the user into the trivial, while avoiding the substance. I guess that's the advert business in a nutshell.
What the piece misses, of course, is that what did in newspapers (less so, magazines) wasn't Google and such but Craig's List. What CL took was classified adverts, and this was the cash cow of (local) newspapers. While not quite the meme that some would have us believe, it proved the main point: any endeavour which depends on adverts for revenue is ultimately doomed. As my Pappy used to say about women, "They're like buses, there'll be another one along in 10 minutes." The same is true for adverts. Some other way, which is more alluring to ad buyers, will soon enough pop up.
As I've been drum banging for some time: advert business is tough. For those of a certain age, or perhaps certain undergraduate major, "The Hidden Persuaders" is a very early tale of how the advert business works. I haven't re-read it in years, by the way. Whether the notion of "engagement ads" provides any real improvement to ad buyers is up for debate. That won't stop the sites from making them. Just because they can. Kind of like GUI-fied software, distract the user into the trivial, while avoiding the substance. I guess that's the advert business in a nutshell.
02 June 2012
Ballard Spots SS Disc, Very Deep
News has arrived. Bob Ballard, noted wreck diver, has spotted the SS Disc at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, pulverized to itty bitty bits. Oh! The horror. The humanity. (Mixing metaphors a bit.)
Some weeks ago, I reported the collision of the SS Disc with an iceberg, and the resulting carnage. Little did I know that the damaged hulk would find its way to warmer waters in the very deep Pacific. Well, now we know. In the ensuing time, all four of the prominent public companies doing SSD (STEC, Fusion-io, OCZ, LSI) have suffered the aftereffects, perhaps, of Mr. Market getting a bad case of the grizzlies. One year lows are well within sight. Or, have the four horsemen done something wrong, at least not doing the right thing?
Never one to ignore the siren song of speculation, here's what appears to be going on.
First, EMC has jumped on the flash bandwagon with the purchase of XtremIO; STEC may get a headache since many had predicted that EMC would swallow STEC. From the (now tagged as EMC) XtremIO web site: "XtremIO is the only vendor building an enterprise-grade, scalable all-flash (not flash cache, flash-tiered, or hybrid) storage system." I suspect Texas Memory, among others, might quibble with the "only" bit. They refer to the components as SSD on one page, but also as a "flash array" on another. What's that line from "Chinatown"; "She's my sister AND my daughter!"
Second, none of the vendors makes any public noise about the "killer app" which requires their SSDs. XtremIO, among others, make noise about on-line de-duplication. This is getting closer. But, fact is, flash/SSD as primary store supports high normal form relational databases, where only huge HDD arrays, short stroked up the wazoo, can get close, with little to no price advantage. But this leads to another issue.
Here's a recent language discussion in the context of moving from java to ruby; replacing a codebase that "works" with one which (may) work better. Much the same argument has been made about three tape drive sort-merge sequential operations software that "still works"; "we don't need no stinkin' four table joins!". Which is why so much COBOL code running on IBM big iron ignores the relational strengths of DB2. The SSD vendors are, slowly, through the de-dupe meme moving toward parsimonious data footprints as critical to SSD adoption. Ain't never going to get cheap enough or dense enough to challenge HDD.
Some weeks ago, I reported the collision of the SS Disc with an iceberg, and the resulting carnage. Little did I know that the damaged hulk would find its way to warmer waters in the very deep Pacific. Well, now we know. In the ensuing time, all four of the prominent public companies doing SSD (STEC, Fusion-io, OCZ, LSI) have suffered the aftereffects, perhaps, of Mr. Market getting a bad case of the grizzlies. One year lows are well within sight. Or, have the four horsemen done something wrong, at least not doing the right thing?
Never one to ignore the siren song of speculation, here's what appears to be going on.
First, EMC has jumped on the flash bandwagon with the purchase of XtremIO; STEC may get a headache since many had predicted that EMC would swallow STEC. From the (now tagged as EMC) XtremIO web site: "XtremIO is the only vendor building an enterprise-grade, scalable all-flash (not flash cache, flash-tiered, or hybrid) storage system." I suspect Texas Memory, among others, might quibble with the "only" bit. They refer to the components as SSD on one page, but also as a "flash array" on another. What's that line from "Chinatown"; "She's my sister AND my daughter!"
Second, none of the vendors makes any public noise about the "killer app" which requires their SSDs. XtremIO, among others, make noise about on-line de-duplication. This is getting closer. But, fact is, flash/SSD as primary store supports high normal form relational databases, where only huge HDD arrays, short stroked up the wazoo, can get close, with little to no price advantage. But this leads to another issue.
Here's a recent language discussion in the context of moving from java to ruby; replacing a codebase that "works" with one which (may) work better. Much the same argument has been made about three tape drive sort-merge sequential operations software that "still works"; "we don't need no stinkin' four table joins!". Which is why so much COBOL code running on IBM big iron ignores the relational strengths of DB2. The SSD vendors are, slowly, through the de-dupe meme moving toward parsimonious data footprints as critical to SSD adoption. Ain't never going to get cheap enough or dense enough to challenge HDD.
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