Rebane's Ruminations

Frequentists vs Bayesians

George Rebane

One would think that the excellent summary of the decades old debate between the two schools of probabilists would be settled by the following cartoon, but I won't hold my breath - old 'science' dies hard.  (H/T to correspondent)  For more on Bayesian analysis and decision making, search RR with 'Bayes'.

Footnote: This is hilarious for the techie reader, but I will addend an explanation if any one else is  interested.

 

On inanities after the Boston bombings

George Rebane

The tragic terrorist bomb blasts at the Boston Marathon have been more than adequately acknowledged; I can add little of substance to the reports and sentiments.

However, I do want to express some considerable irritation at how the entire affair was covered by the media, especially Fox News, in the immediate aftermath of the incident.  For two hours following, the coverage was one of repetition, tedium, paternalizing, and generally pabulum for an audience considered to be a notch above the kiddies who used to watch Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood.

And this type of coverage has become the de rigueur of such ‘real time’ broadcast reportage over the years.  Everyone available who could be hauled in front of a mike was given more than adequate time to repeat the same banalities and tautologies – hailing the first responders as “heroes”, opining how ‘terrible’, ‘cowardly’ and ‘senseless’ the act was, that the investigators will leave no rock unturned, assuring everyone that the perps will be brought to justice under the full extent of the law, …, and last but definitely the very least, not wanting to speculate on what happened “until we know all the facts”.  Bullshit.

Even the President, three hours after the concurrent explosions that dispersed ball bearings and other sharp metal objects through their victims, was not willing to step out there and conclude that this was an act of terror on the American homeland perpetrated by one or more sophisticated terrorists.  What the hell did he think happened?  that someone’s lunch blew up?  Then after high school sophomores in Des Moines knew it was an act of terror and not wanting a repeat of their Benghazi response, it became so embarrassing for the White House that they stepped out and called it an act of terror.

So, instead of wasting viewers’ time with inanities after such an event, here’s what the media outlets should do.  When they talk to one of their VIP guests or on-the-scene witnesses, ask them to speculate, to conjure up what they think might have happened, or who did it, or what caused it, or whatever.  Establish a ‘Speculation Segment’ for this kind of expression, put up a frame around the video that identifies it as such and tells everyone that this person is just responding to the media’s request to speculate.  Part of the ground rules of responding during such a ‘Speculation Segment’ is that whatever you say there, it will not be held against you as subsequent evidence becomes available.

Hell, the rest of us in the country are speculating our fannies off as we watch the same video segments played over and over again, and guest after guest blabbers the same inconsequentials.  We’re speculating, so let them also speculate while new facts develop, and make the program interesting as a senator, or former mayor, or DHS official, or the neighborhood mail carrier gives their take on what they know to that moment in time.  We in the audience are smart enough to know that they’re doing nothing more than what we are doing, but it would be interesting to hear someone else put together what appears to be a plausible explanation for what may have happened.  Tell us your hunches, please!  And you'll get a ‘King’s X’ because you did it during the ‘Speculation Segment’.

(BTW, the bombings were definitely not ‘cowardly’ or ‘senseless’.  They were purposeful, carefully thought out, and took considerable courage to successfully penetrate the nationwide security system against terror that we have had in place since 9/11.  If you think otherwise then, inspired by your deeply held credo, go try to pull off the same thing at a public event in Teheran or Pyongyang.)

Gold plummets, but then why … ?

George Rebane

Has everyone been watching the goings on in gold and other precious metals lately?  Today the price of one ounce plummeted another 9.4%, making the price drop of that barbaric relic in the last few trading days to be the biggest in thirty years.  Astute observers tell us that Big Money (central banks, institutions, ...) even margined retail investors have been selling to deleverage and clear their books.  Cyprus is held up as a sovereign nation poster child in this mad rush to divest.

So you’d think that with everyone acting like the gold rush is over and economic normalcy is returning in the world, that you could waltz into your local gold dealer (hereabouts JH Mint) and walk out with a bag full of the yellow stuff on the cheap.  Not a chance, the shelves are bare and the prices quoted for uncertain future delivery are marked up by 14% or more.  In other words, the retail dealers have effectively not lowered their prices at all, just increased their margins.  JH Mint, along with other dealers across the land, were literally cleaned out last Friday when their establishements looked like the land office in 1893 Oklahoma.

Then why can’t I buy gold on the cheap today?  The simple reason is that Big Money is manipulating the price drop.  Ben and his ilk need to depress prices so that after a little time has passed (days, weeks?), all the big players can buy back in on the cheap.  In the meantime, none of the big guys want to let the physical stuff get into the retail buyers’ hands and boost the price prematurely.  Retail buyers are the people who look at the world and where they live, and ask (as 321gold.com reports) –

“Did gold fall off the cliff because the dollar index ripped higher? NO! Did Uncle Ben Bernanke say they were stopping the $85 billion + QE immediately? NO! Has physical gold become more abundant than any time in the recent past? NO! Are the world's central banks stopping their counterfeiting operations by devaluing their currency by stopping the printing presses? NO! It's quite the opposite,  Japan, U.S., and the EU are increasing the money supply.”

The big secret is that no one can allow interest rates to increase on sovereign debts across the globe.  That interest rates will have to increase in any case at some future time makes no nevermind to today’s big players, they already have their portfolios appropriately stuffed with what the little guy cannot buy on the cheap today.  And all of them are betting that they individually will be out of the public eye and ire before the crapola hits the fan when interest rates skyrocket after no one believes in the brand new funny money being used today to buy sovereign treasuries in the industrialized world.  And when interest rates do rise, then the dominoes will start crashing as every country’s debt service to GDP ratio sky rockets.  And gold will again be in short supply as its price goes to the moon.

In the interval, please fasten your seatbelts.

Ruminations – 13apr13

George Rebane

A socialist believes that human nature can be legislated.

IEEE reports that ‘Robots are not killing jobs’ in an interview with Dr Henrik Christensen, Director of the Center for Robotics and Intelligent Machines at Georgia Tech.  His argument to support the proposition is to invoke the same ol’ same ol’ – technology, including robotics, is just going through the classic creative destruction, destroying some jobs while making new ones.  To bring along the recently arrived on the planet, he cites the example of the displaced typing pool employees who had the opportunity to become administrative assistants for executives.  What the good professor, and the many who have not thought much about the problem, fall prey to is the fact that the new jobs, if any, always require a bit more between the ears than the bygone jobs did.  And that makes a good fraction of any new jobs inaccessible to the laid off workers.  I illustrated this problem fully in ‘edX meets the workforce’.  From reading the interview you can tell that even Dr Christensen is not completely comfortable with his thesis.

Obama’s $100M BRAIN initiative is poorly conceived and will wind up pissing away the tax dollars poured into it.  This is the (my rephrased) position taken by Dr Don Stein, a Distinguished Professor In the Department of Emergency Medicine and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Emory University.  His argument is clear and persuasive; Obama’s BRAIN program seeks to follow in the footsteps of the Apollo Moon Landing and the Human Genome Programs, both of which had clear objectives and means of measuring progress along the way.  BRAIN (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies) has none of these, and is typical of the way this administration has cobbled together policy, legislation, and national initiatives.  Please read ‘The BRAIN Map Initiative Needs Rethinking’ (also picked up by Kurzweil).

Finally, we have another excellent dissertation on my favorite communist website, truthout.com (consider all hot buttons pushed).  Dr Gar Alperovitz, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland who knows not the definitions of system and systemic, writes the extensive, easy to read, and passionate (and scary) ‘The Question of Socialism (and Beyond!) Is About to Open Up in These United States’.  Among the sobering tidbits (H-bombs?) that decorate and bolster his case are –

Leading polling organizations have found converging results among younger Americans. Two recent Rasmussen surveys, for instance, discovered that Americans younger than 30 are almost equally divided as to whether capitalism or socialism is preferable. Another Pew survey found those aged 18 to 29 have a more favorable reaction to the term "socialism" by a margin of 49 to 43 percent.

Who says teachers’ unions and progressive profs have not been doing their job?  Our young have been carefully taught, and I’m afraid we have seen nothing yet.  Republicans, call your office.

Windows 8 and PC Sales

George Rebane

Years ago when graphic displays were first coming into shipboard combat systems, as a developer of such systems we had to ask ‘what’s the best way to work with on-screen information – nominating and manipulating display elements?’  The main contending graphic input device alternatives were wired pens and trackballs, the touch screen was still in the future.  Long story short – a lot of human factors studies and experiments were done, and the trackball came out to be the best performer.  It wasn’t the cheapest solution, but just the best performer in a command and control environment during minutes tense and demanding, and during hours long and boring.

The reason was simple, the fingers are the most dexterous parts of what is called the set of human manipulanda.  And fingers at the end of a stationary and supported hand/arm can do wonders in accurately flitting the cursor around a large screen for hours on end.  Trackballs were rapidly incorporated into combat and sensor systems from the early 1970s onward.

But for commercial apps cost was a major factor, and when the cheaper mouse came along (in the mid-70s) , and PC apps finally started requiring a graphic input device for moving a cursor around on a screen, the mouse was the natural solution.  Touchscreens were expensive in the early 80s, and we used them on the new videodisc-based public information kiosks which we introduced through Disney’s EPCOT Center in 1983.  (I even designed and built a ‘peck screen’ for a pigeon-based security system in the late 70s, but that’s another story.)

So over the years the mouse has been standard equipment on PCs and other computers requiring graphic input from humans.  Touch screens got cheaper and were introduced into ‘personal digital assistants’ in the late 90s.  And now they are ubiquitous in all smart phones and handheld pad computers.  Somewhere along the way Microsoft decided to gain the march on Apple and developed touch screen functionality into the new version of their PC operating system called Windows 8, which was finally available in 2012 after many many delays.

Well, it appears that the market has said that they shouldn’t have bothered.  W8 was supposed to the cavalry coming to save the PC sales wagon train, and, instead, last quarter’s PC sales have dropped 14% as the surging iPad replaces the desktop (and even laptop) versions of the PC (more here and here).  And it looks like this trend is going to be pretty well baked in as new UI (user interface) devices like speech understanding and Google glasses (retinal projection) gain traction.  Of course, the whole UI technology is heading toward implants with direct neural connections, but that’s still a few years away.

Ruminations - 9apr13 (updated 10apr13)

George Rebane

California 2013 Job Killer Legislation.  The state’s chamber of commerce released a list of bills that would continue California’s economic misery as the Democrats pander to the dimwit cohort of their constituency.  All of these pile on to the mother of idiotic job killer laws already on the books and wreaking havoc –  the perniciously named the California Global Warming Solutions Act aka AB32.  H/T to reader for the heads up.

Detroit neighborhoods are hiring their own gunslingers for protection that the city can no longer provide.  The good news is that so far these extra-curricular security people are off-duty policemen, the bad news is that the precedence has been set and the word is out – if you want safe neighborhoods, provide for it out of your own pockets.  I wonder if residents will be able to deduct a commensurate amount from their local taxes that went for police services.  Signs of a new future upon us.

Scumbag litigation has arrived.  The 8apr13 WSJ reports that “A new generation of investors is plunging into "litigation finance," putting up millions of dollars to fund lawsuits in hopes of collecting when verdicts come down. Established financiers are expanding into new areas, including loans to law firms, and finding clients among the biggest American companies.”  Now there’s a way to redistribute wealth for those crafty capitalists who can think of no way to create new wealth – ‘if you can’t make it, take it’.  The Left ought to have a field day with this until their first union pension fund gets in on the take.

The Navy is installing ray guns on combat vessels.  The first ship with such a ‘directed energy’ weapon (aka steel cutting laser) will be deployed to mid-east waters next year.  It is reported (here) that their initial use may be against Iranian drones and fast boats that harass our naval vessels in the Persian Gulf.  More powerful stuff that can take down fast-flying combat aircraft and cut through inches of steel are on their way.  For carrier task groups worrying about incoming missiles, the Son of Star Wars will be a welcome upgrade for own ship defense systems.

[10apr13 update]  Bill Whittle of PJ Media give a memorable staged speech to Congress on the Constitution and gun control (see video).  One can only wish a real President would say these words to Congress.

The Iron Lady 87, RIP (addended)

George Rebane

Lady Margaret Thatcher was a world leader who warmed the cockles of my own and many a heart.  With Ronald Reagan she was instrumental in bringing the USSR down to a soft landing.  She also created enormous and beneficial change for Great Britain that had been on a dreadful socialist slide to oblivion since the end of WW2.  But to accomplish all that she had to literally start at her country’s nadir.  A tribute to her in the 8apr13 WSJ starts with –

In that dreary winter of 1979, the piles of uncollected trash in London's Finsbury Park seemed to stretch for miles. The garbagemen were on strike. So too, at one time or another, were hospital workers, ambulance drivers, truck drivers, railwaymen. Also gravediggers: In Liverpool, corpses had to be warehoused as they awaited burial—yet another long queue that socialist Britain had arranged for its patient masses.

This was the "Winter of Discontent," when Great Britain came about as close to economic collapse as at nearly any point in its peacetime history, and it was the country Margaret Thatcher inherited when, on May 3, she defeated the Labour government of James Callaghan to become Prime Minister—the first woman in the office and 49th in a line that includes some of the greatest figures of Western civilization: Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, the Duke of Wellington, William Pitt the Younger.

Thank you Lady Margaret and may you rest in peace.

[Addendum]  One of the greatest living historians, Paul Johnson, notes that 'Not since Catherine the Great has there been a woman of such consequence."  His essay on Lady Margaret includes a more comprehensive perspective on her accomplishment, especially how she managed to push through policies that cured her country of what was then known as the 'English disease' - rampant socialism and "over-weening trade-union power" - and its impact on a once great country.

More complex than ‘Illegal Immigrants’

George Rebane

An illegal alien by any other name ...

For years I have advised against labeling all illegal inhabitants in America as ‘illegal immigrants’.  In any reasonable discussion of the illegal alien and illegal entrant problems, this catch-all label will cause confusion.  Now this is coming to pass as we attempt to get real about passing what is (again erroneously) called immigration reform.  To clarify the issue, years ago I outlined a more accurate picture (here) of the various flavors and derivations of US inhabitants, both legal and illegal.

Today, as Congress tries to get to the nitty gritty of actually writing something into law, people are running into problems along the road that the simple tag ‘illegal immigrants’ enticed them to travel.  It looks like 40% of the current 11M US illegals entered the country legally, and only 60% crawled over/under a border fence.  My graphic of the situation allows clear delineation of this discovery that you can read more about in the 6apr13 WSJ’s ‘Many Here Illegally Overstayed Their Visas’.  The article outlines the problem of attempting to legislate when you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about – a craft, nevertheless, that Congress perfected many moons ago.

In the above figure of US inhabitants, the reported percentages are circled.  Note that the actual ‘illegal immigrants’ are circled in green, and no one yet knows how many of those there are in the country.  So it appears that we will now have to slice and dice the illegals much more carefully, and give each cohort an informative name if anyone is to make sense of the next sausage that will be stuffed in Washington.  Political correctness comes with many costs.

‘Breaking Bread’ on NCTV (updated)

George Rebane

Late yesterday afternoon we finished ‘taping’ the first installment of ‘Breaking Bread’ (BB), a new series that is to air over the coming months on NCTV Channel 11.  BB is a roundtable discussion of ideas, happenings, and current issues of broad national interest.  It is based loosely on the historical French salons which were hosted by ladies of high social rank and means during the so-called Enlightenment period that lasted from around 1740 to the start of the French Revolution in 1789.

These salons were stimulating affairs where the latest ideas in the sciences, politics, arts, religion, philosophy, and literature were presented and discussed.  The invitees were the great thinkers, artists, writers – new and established – of the age, many of whom looked forward to these sessions as much for the nourishment of their bodies as of their minds.  A salon always offered some of the finest foods and spirits with which the hostess could afford to ingratiate herself in the eyes of society.  To be invited to attend a salon was a great honor, and you can imagine the competition of who was attending which salon(s) when and with whom.

(Versions of these classic salons were continued and expanded throughout Europe and America during the 19th century.  In the late 1970s Jo Ann and I joined with a number of other couples to establish a 20th century dinner version of the salon that featured a prepared presentation of a thesis, sometimes rebutted by ‘the loyal opposition’, and then dissected by everyone until the early hours.  These dinner salons went on for years and included some very interesting people and topics.)

The most recent inspiration for BB came from our own Reinette Senum and Patricia Smith, local activists and community leaders of known repute.  After some preliminary plenary sessions under the able leadership of NCTV’s Access Coordinator Teri Hicklin, who will also direct the tapings, the program’s format was adopted and the first installments selected.  BB will be a monthly one-hour offering, (co)hosted by one or two regular hosts, and featuring two or three invited guests.  The program will consist of a civil discussion – not a debate – of the subject du jour between the host(s) and the guests.

The inaugural tranche of BB hosts are Patricia Smith (medicinal marijuana activist), Paul Emery (KVMR News Director already known to RR readers), Reinette Senum, Eric Tomb, and yours truly.   As determined by a program’s host(s), one of the other hosts may also fill a guest role on a future program.

BB’s charter is to present definitive ideological viewpoints (ranging from crisp to outrageous?) on the selected issues – equivocation will be eschewed, i.e. no daisy talk – in such a manner that a landscape can emerge from which common ground may be identified, or an understanding of what notions, ideas, values, etc still stand in the way of our coming together.  Of course, there will always be an effort to reach and identify some areas of consensus, no matter how minimal.

Yesterday’s launch was titled ‘Language and Labels’, and was moderated by Eric Tomb, a well-known bookseller, intellectual, and man about town in Nevada County.  The program’s objective was to introduce the BB hosts, outline the show’s format and future, and give a sampling of it through a discussion of how language and labels guide and constrain our perspectives and perceptions.  The airing times of this installment will be announced by NCTV.

The first Breaking Bread with guests will be ‘taped live’ on 1 May next.  The subject will be the Second Amendment, and it will be co-hosted by Paul Emery and me.

[update]  The first episode 'Language and Labels' was broadcast on 7 April 2013, and may be streamed from the NCTV archives from this page under Breaking Bread. 

Ruminations – 4apr13 (updated 5apr13)

Have just a touch of the commercial in you.  Do not merely shop, but trade a little.  Gracian #232

George Rebane

Been on travel with some friends for the last couple of weeks.  We attended the Mercatus Institute’s annual retreat in Scottsdale.  The big issue discussed was socialism’s onslaught on capitalism – ‘Can American Capitalism be Saved?’ – and who is doing what to bring it down.  I’ll cover more of that in a future post.  But here I just want to include an observation gleaned on our way to Scottsdale.

We stopped overnight in a Needles, CA RV park, and were pretty much shocked at the state of that once prosperous gateway town to California that lies on I-40.  The town is an economic disaster area, a relic of former times, and a step away from being a derelict or even a ghost town.  What made the sight of Needles so stark was its comparison with Arizona that lies a stone’s throw across the Colorado River.  We wanted to eat out and also buy some RV items.  Nothing available in Needles.  But a drive across a little bridge brought us into a dynamic and bustling commercial area that was an extension of Bullhead City, AZ which lay twenty miles to the north.  It was like driving back to West Berlin through the Wall at Checkpoint Charlie in the days when communism ruled East Germany.

The most telling part was instantly apparent from the bridge looking northward.  The Arizona side was filled with well-kept and landscaped riverside houses, each with their own boat dock; the California riverside was weeds as far as the eye could see that continued a good piece inland.  Huell Howser, RIP, could have done one hell of program on Needles and what happened to ‘California’s Gold’.

Governor Moonbeam and entourage are heading to China.  Their purpose is to talk the Chinese into making investments in California that people more knowledgeable about the state won’t.  They also want Chinese to buy more stuff made in California that we can’t sell elsewhere at prices that bring a profit.  I can’t imagine China buying anything that we are selling save some technology that they still don’t have and want to copy.  The same goes for making investments.  They would like to take major positions in high-tech companies dealing in IT and genomics.  One thing is for sure, they will not be buying any ‘green technology’ from us.  There they have us beat on both price and performance, and will continue selling the stuff to us.

But come to think of it, they may talk Team Moonbeam into mandating and/or subsidizing the purchase of Chinese green stuff.  Nothing like getting a twofer from being America’s creditor.

Connecticut has now taken the lead in nutty gun control laws, while again demonstrating that all states were not created equal in their ability to sensibly legislate.  Today their Governor Malloy signed the “most sweeping” gun control bill in the nation that is supposed achieve new levels of “gun safety”.  It will, of course, do none of that.  (more here)

Meanwhile, despite President Obama’s national campaign to disarm America, more states are easing gun regulations than are bolstering them (more here).  The message there is clear – don’t disarm sane, stable, law-abiding citizens, but do more to identify and intercede with people who are clearly not qualified to possess firearms, and maybe not even to walk on the sidewalk.  To be fair, Connecticut’s new law also attempts to address that part which was the only germane factor in their Newtown massacre.

[5apr13 update]  Here's a Quote of the Day from the Los Angeles Times about something I strongly believe and wish I would have said.

"Frankly, I don't know what it is about California, but we seem to have a strange urge to elect really obnoxious women to high office. I'm not bragging, you understand, but no other state, including Maine, even comes close. When it comes to sending left-wing dingbats to Washington, we're Number One. There's no getting around the fact that the last time anyone saw the likes of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Maxine Waters, and Nancy Pelosi, they were stirring a cauldron when the curtain went up on 'Macbeth'. The four of them are like jackasses who happen to possess the gift of blab. You don't know if you should condemn them for their stupidity or simply marvel at their ability to form words."

-- Columnist Burt Prelutsky, Los Angeles Times