I Platonically Love Science

I don't remember when I was first introduced to Science.  

When I try to think back, it seems as though we've just always been friends.   Throughout high school, I always enjoyed the classes we took together, and after school, we often hung out to do our homework together and watch TV.

During college, too, we ended up taking many of the same classes.   We always sought each other out. She was a great lab partner: so meticulous and careful in her methodology, and I always felt comfortable around her.  We spent many late nights together alone in labs cutting up over sily inside jokes we shared together.

I dated Art for a while, but I think everyone knew we were an odd match.   She was so elusive for me, and I'm not sure that we were ever really compatible.   I always thought she was so beautiful, but I never quite understood her, and I don't think she ever really got me, either.  

I think, in the end, I may have loved the idea of her more than the reality...but I'm still not sure I understand our relationship.    She always had a knack for breaking my heart.

Often, after a break-up with Art, I would call up Science to see what she was up to.   She was always there for me.   I remember many late nights spent sharing pizza and a box of donuts together as we critiqued cheesy movies.

No, I don't think Science is 'cute'.  Why do you ask? 

I guess I've never really thought of her on those terms.  We've always just been a good friends, you know?

You Gotta' Know When To Hold 'Em

Immigration has been a controversial topic here in the States recently, and it's brought out some bad actors from a myriad of dark corners.   A popular refrain that's coming from this is that Trump is so far beyond the pale that he justifies in-civil behavior as a response. 

"I wish you've stop making me punch you" the virtuous bully pleads...

I was thinking about that line of reasoning, though, and I remembered the Hollywood PSA to the Electoral College electors (I'm not sure of the proper title) urging them to refrain from casting their votes for Trump.  Maybe that's fresher in other people's mind, but I had kind of forgotten about it.

I guess it struck me how some very mainstream icons (in terms of visibility, if not necessarily ideology)  had decided from {before} Day One that Trump was so far beyond the pale that extraordinary means were justified and necessary to overcome him.   In some ways, it seems, many folks made the decision to go "all-in" at that point. 

I don't really see how people can gracefully back down from that, and human nature being what it is, I don't expect to see much backing down.

I guess my metaphors are not very good, though, because I would think losing the bet after going all-in would leave one without any chips.   Maybe we're just reaching the point in this scene where the desperate gambler starts throwing his car keys and the deed to his house into the pot. 

All that to say, I don't quite know where we're headed from here.  All I see on the horizon is continued escalation, but due to the nature of hard-ball, high-stakes politics and human nature, neither side can reasonably be expected to fold on their own having reached this point.

And as I try to articulate all this, I think, maybe, I'm starting to understand my visceral appeal to Trump.   I was an (almost)Never-Trumper, until it came down to a choice between him and Hillary.   My Never-Clinton urges won out, and I held my nose and voted for Trump.  As time has worn on, I'm still ambivalent towards the man (of whom I was never a big fan), but I've become more fond of the idea of him as President. 

So I've found myself in a weird place, where I've felt very conflicted and confused.   I think, maybe, what I like about his Presidency (aside from also feeling generally positive towards most of his actual policies and accomplishments, and I see #butGorsuch as a pretty good thing), is that he's willing to call the bluff.   I don't quite know how all this will pan out --  maybe Trump will hurt conservationism in the long-run (though I kind of doubt he'll do much damage to the philosophical appeal; I think he does contribute to the coarsening of culture, which is very unfortunate, but maybe that's a necessary by-product of calling the bluff before us) -- but, for better or worse, I think the rivaling Powers That Be who control the machinations of Government will soon  be forced to lay their cards on the table for the world to see.

Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, I still don't quite know how we, as a Nation, recover gracefully from whatever fallout that may entail.

Special Election Post-Mortem

Alabama had a special senatorial election yesterday.   The underdog Democrat candidate Doug Jones won by approximately 20,000 votes.  Since I’m sure no one else has thought to do this (ha!), I figured I would jot down my thoughts…

Thought 1: I did not vote.   Politically, I’m quite conservative, and Jones seems quite liberal (in spite of his radio ads which did nothing but tout his conservative bona fides), so I’m not thrilled about having him as our Senator for the next 2 years, but the Republican candidate was terrible.

  

Roy Moore has well-earned reputation as a controversial figure, and several allegations arose in the last month or so which cast some dark shadows on his character.  He and his handlers are very clumsy with their statements (if one is feeling charitable), which doesn’t mix well with his predilection for stirring up controversy.  

This may be a bit of sophistry on my part, but I decided not to vote, in spite of hoping that Moore won.

Thought 2: My hopes for a Moore victory were somewhat complicated.   Ideologically, I do think Moore would better represent my interests than Jones would when it comes to legislative deliberation, but that’s not the only reason I was pulling for him.   The recent allegations against him are quite serious but somewhat specious.  I have a feeling that if he had been elected, a thorough investigation would have occurred, and, hopefully, the truth would have outed.   As it stands, I have a feeling these allegations will quickly fade into the background.   If the accusers are, indeed, victims of Moore, then they will have to resign to the fact that a close, and controversial election will be the extent of the justice they receive in this world.   If the accusations were a political hit-job, well, then, they worked swimmingly.

Thought 2a: The people who are convinced the election was stolen by nasty Democrats and their dirty tricks will find sufficient confirmation for their beliefs if the spotlight fades from these unresolved accusations.  Our nation already seems quite divisive, and factions are already paranoid.   Regardless of whether this was a political hack-job or not, if the issue drops from the limelight now, I think it will cause similar damage to perceptions of irreconcilable divides.

Thought 3: People need to be careful and accurate with their language.   It’s rumored that Roy Moore clumsily courted younger women while in his 30’s.    From what I’ve gathered, these rumors seem to be fairly-well substantiated.  They are also rather innocuous.   Some might find it creepy, but from what I’ve heard, they weren’t really outside the pale, either historically or even contemporaneously (See: Jerry Seinfeld, per example).

I may be mistaken (more on that in a bit), but from what I understand Moore has also been accused of two cases of sexual assault.   I believe one of them is against a minor.  These are serious allegations, and I think we should get to the bottom of things.

We don’t do the justice process or rational discourse any favors, though, when we exaggerate crimes.

People are often sloppy with the term “alleged,” but additionally, I’ve seen Moore referred to as “pedophile” (which is not supported by the allegations), a “child predator” (also, not supported by evidence or accusations), and, informally, a “baby raper” by one zealous on-line comment-maker (although, to be fair, several fellow commentators took her to task for that one).

Thought 3a: Part of my suspicions over the accusations is the timing, magnitude, and seemingly-intentional conflation of it all.  Too much unrelated stuff was brought to light in a sudden “October Surprise,” for people to have much time to sort through it all.   Insinuations over the anodyne are poisoning the well along-side the serious accusations, and, if anything, clumsy language, seems to have been deliberately used to further confusion rather than clarity.   I understand that politics is hard-ball, but I’d like to think, people can still be honorable in their pursuits.

This doesn’t seem to have been the case.   If the accusers are victims, then I feel like they’re received a raw deal, because the perception I gathered from the mud-slinging is that people didn’t want justice so much as a scalp to add to their wall.   Now that they have Moore’s scalp, I think the women’s mob of “supporters” are going to go along their merry way.    I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

Thought 4: People of all stripes – and Christians, in particular (and also: of all stripes) -- need to be very careful about turning worldly things (people, institutions, etc.) into idols.   From what I’ve gathered, several pastors across our state co-opted their usual sermon times to host informal Moore rallies from the pulpit.  Others have spoken of the unjust persecution of Moore and drawn lofty comparisons between him and other Christian martyrs.

Thought 4a: As a follow-up to point 3 above, Christians, in particular, need to be careful of poisoning their own well.   There are most definitely some Christians behaving badly in the name of politics, but I think it’s as clumsy to say “Evangelicals have turned the party of Roy Moore into an idol” as it would be to say “Evangelicals are following Joel Osteen’s advice and striving to achieve their best life now.”     A Venn-Diagram would show neither of those statements to be patently false, but those same overlapping circles would show that there’s some unfair generalizations being made as well.  I think most of the Evangelicals I know would bristle at the generalization of the second, but would, nod bemusedly at the first.    Maybe I’m wrong, but I think there’s some unfortunate sanctimony at play in the different reactions.

Thought 5:I didn’t read the article, but several of my friends (Facebook and/or IRL) alluded to a supposedly good one on voting in faith as opposed to fear.    I think that’s a very a good antidote to the thought above

….BUT…

Thought 5a: Some of those same friends then lost sleep over the doomsday tidings a Moore victory would hold for the reputations and political efficacy of various institutions (the state of Alabama, the GOP, evangelical coalitions, Pro-Life groups, etc.).   

Thought 6:Self-awareness and consistency can be difficult, but they are vital to rational and persuasive arguments.    One of my Facebook friends tried to encourage his friends of rivaling political leanings to vote for his guy, in spite of the views that were considered rather extreme, because, the nature of the US government system is such that extreme views of individuals are softened by the aggregated voice of the entire body politic.  In the very next paragraph of the same post, though, he, then discouraged people from voting for the other guy, because his political views are just TOO. DAMN. EXTREME. (!!!1!)

You’re free to adopt either line of reasoning, and a compelling case could probably be crafted from either one; but you can’t really have it both ways.

I’m not trying to single this guy out to pick on him particularly, because I think this is a very common foible.   See above: people using “vote faith, not fear” to persuade people to vote how you would, while appealing to apocalyptic scenarios to dissuade them from voting the other way.

Thought 6a: This is also, likely, a condemnation of me and my ambivalence.  I can talk a good game about how I hoped for a particular outcome, but couldn’t bring myself to actively support a candidate as flawed as Roy Moore.  I can even appeal to the fact that my inaction was a demonstration of faith rather than a vote I might have made out of fearful motivations, but, if I’m honest, I think the crowds and hassle simply appealed to the worser angels of my apathy.

Rose-Tinted Glasses by Any Other Name

I read an interesting blog post the other day.

/https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-death-of-scholarship/

Although I generally agree with his position, I found the author's style a bit off-putting, because he seemed to just assume that there is a clear white and black/ right and wrong nature to "right" and "left" thinking with regard to scholarship. That seemed a little simplistic to me, but, overall, I thought his point was a good one.

I had heard rumors of black-listing against conservative-minded professors in academia, and while the author (somewhat tacitly?) acknowledges that, he goes deeper than that. It's easy to see those sorts of statistics feel frustrated, but I appreciate that Treadgold dug deeper than conspiracies and victimhood, and looked to address root causes.

This statement was a real eye-opener:

The truth is that non-leftists are discriminated against not so much because of their politics (which they can often hide) as because of their failure to do the kind of scholarship that hiring committees want.

As a free-market guy, the statement doesn't bother me so much on the surface, but the implications behind it cause me consternation.

Reading the article and its explanations of the different philosophical approaches to scholarship and historical analysis brought to my mind advertising through contrasts.

Imagine I want to sell something for $3.00, and my friend offers to sell the same thing for $2.00.

Is his price 50% lower or 33% lower?

Well, it could be either. His price is 50% {of his price} lower than mine (as he would do well to emphasize), but it's *only* 33% {of my price} lower (as I might try to point out).

The problem is one of ambiguity, and it's a complication that's baked in to the very nature of the situation. When comparing and (more importantly) contrasting two distinct contexts or frames of reference, then there is no objectively neutral context to serve as the "standard."

In advertising, is your product or the other guy's the standard-bearer for deriving your calculations for quantifying how much better, brighter, cleaner, etc. yours may be? Well, it probably depends on which one makes for a more favorable percentage.

Scholarship should be more intellectually honest than that, though. Maybe I'm biased, but it seems to me that it's more consistent (and charitable) to read history through those actors' contemporary lenses rather than our own.

I can definitely see interest in juxtaposing Shakespeare, et al. against the politics and mores of our present age, but I think we're doing a tremendous disservice to those historical figures as well as ourselves if our academic pursuits stop there and we only analyze things through the lenses we are already comfortable with.

Making a case for NoSQL

Yesterday at work, some colleagues and I had a discussion on databases (riveting, I’m sure, for all the cubicle dwellers around us), and somehow the topic of NoSQL came up.   I tried to explain NoSQL and to make a case for it, but in the heat of the moment, I had some trouble conceptualizing scenarios in which NoSQL made sense.   I’m a tad introspective, so when I left work that afternoon the thoughts of NoSQL continued to bubble and gurgle in my mind the whole drive home.

In an effort to practice writing a bit more, I thought, it would be a good exercise to dump my meanderings   gracefully pour those thoughts out into a refreshing pool of insight.  Here goes…

My database background is primarily relational (Relational Database – RDB).   I’m mostly self-taught when it comes to computer-skills, and I remember disagreeing with my manager early in my career over where or not it would be good to normalize a one-to-many relationship.   I was naïve, and I thought it would be easier to just add 10 or so child fields to our primary Access (!) database table.   It wasn’t immediate, but that discussion was part of the epiphany that opened my eyes to relational design.

There is a certain beauty to relational design: 

• It reduces data footprints (at least if done right) – If we think of a library-type database, it’s a lot more efficient (disk-space-wise) to store an Author ID integer for each of our 3,000,000 books, than it would be to store 3,000,000 separate ‘Author First Name’, “Author Last Name”, etc. string-based fields.
• It improves data integrity – In that same database, it would be much easy to keep up with 1 ‘Charles Dickens’ author, than it would be to pick out all the various iterations of ‘C. Dickens’, “Charle Dickings’, etc, that people might have entered as authors for the various books.

 That doesn’t come without a cost, though:

• De-normalizing data requires work – Well-designed schemas are elegant and efficient, but it does take a little effort (for man and machine) to unravel that.  Database servers are very good at that (it’s almost as though they were designed specifically for the purpose of handing data), but it’s not always a trivial thing even for them….and even trivial things take their toll when you’re being asked to do them in bulk.

So let’s branch out a bit.   Library’s are great and all (unless you ask Ron Swanson), but video games are more my speed, so I’m going to imagine a shooter-game.

There are probably players in the game, so an RDB would likely need a Player table.   There’s also going to be a collection of available weapons, so we probably need a Guns table.

Players will have guns, so we would want a many-to-many relational table for that [PlayerGuns].

Guns also have ammo, but to make things interesting, there may be different types of ammo for each gun (hollow-point, slug vs. pellet shells, etc.), so we also need some tables to handle that ([Ammo], [PlayerGunAmmo]).

Maybe players can also customize their guns, so, maybe, to keep it simple, the [PlayerGuns] table simply has a reference to our [GunSkins] table, but stickers also cool, so maybe each player-gun can have multiple stickers.  So, we also need [Stickers], and [PlayerGunStickers].

Guns are only part of the equation, though, so our players also need some [Gear] (& [PlayerGear]). 

Our database design is starting to get fairly complicated now, but, again, this is what Database Servers are good at…

I’m going to take a little intermission now, and babble wax poetic about websites for a bit

Let’s suppose I design this super-cool, web page that includes a “real-time” animated clock that ticks in time with the actual…well…time.  Pretty awesome, right?  I’m sure no one’s thought to do anything like that before.  Anyway, the way this thing works is that a user types my URL into their browser address bar, DNS servers track down my webserver which then receives the request, and generates a bundle of content in response.  It then ships this content back to the user’s browser which renders the page.

Somehow (magic!), the page requests a reload every second, and so every second, that same process repeats, and voila!, the user has a pretty cool animated clock.  Internet speeds are good, my packet size is small (that's what she said!), and web-servers are good at serving web-content, so it’s a pretty good user experience.

Word gets out, though, and suddenly everyone is logging on to my page, and before you know it, my web server is having to serve up millions of new pages every second.   Before long, my page performance becomes terrible, and my 15 minutes of fame quickly runs out as everyone grumbles about what an idiot I am.

In this scenario, I could have used JavaScript to update the clock client-side instead of server-side.  Instead of having (potentially) millions of users all asking me (well, my web server) to generate content, that work load can be distributed to each person’s computer.

…There was a point to that side bar.   One of the big benefits to NoSQL is that it allows the data workload to be distributed in a similar fashion.   Data can still be complex and sense needs to be made of it, but if we can encapsulate it well, then we can let a million devices do some of that work instead of forcing our database server to do it all.

To wrap things up, a relational design for hypothetical shooter game would be good in keeping the data trim and well-controlled, but hard drive space (cloud or otherwise) is cheap now, and the integrity of gun stickers, and ammo types can (and likely would, at least partially) need to have some application logic involved anyway.

 

In our NoSQL scenario, something like PlayerInfo.json, can keep up with all that data (and more) in a nice, nested structure and the data server doesn’t have to fool with connecting the dots.   It’s always stored as a complete package.   

This particular scenario is also good because there’s not much interaction between the data “packages”.   Maybe my player info tracks my kill-count (but hopefully not my deaths), but even that (which tangentially involves other players) doesn’t have to interact with “their” data.   The application code can increment my kill (or more likely killed) count without having to maintain strict transactional considerations involved outside data.

Another benefit (though it can sometimes feel otherwise) is a lack of strict schema definitions.   In a more rigid database, properties are well-defined, which is nice, because you always know what you’re going to get, but if the application is prone to changes, then maintaining a strict schema can be difficult.   If we decide to add a bonus gun for everyone’s birthday, then we need to add a Birthday field to the Player record in our database, but what do we do with all those existing folks who clearly don’t have the (non-existent until now) Birthday value filled in?  Our application code would have to handle that situation anyway, so it’s not overly cumbersome to make it do so without a strict schema in place.

NoSQL isn't a magic bullet (or  even an incendiary slug shell with camo skin and a smilie face sticker) for every situation, but it does have its place, and it provides a nice paradigm for distributed systems involving fairly well-isolated data.

Keep the Market Free

My views on the free market may be a bit unconventional (I'm not saying that sarcastically or ironically, though I realize it may be read that way), but I think the simplest approach is to consider business transactions, in general, as being bilaterally favorable to both the supplier and consumer.  If either party does not agree to the other's terms (for whatever reason), then the transaction should not occur.  

[As an aside, negotiations can be complex here, and contracts should be fulfilled once agreed upon, and "good faith" considerations are important, etc, but I think all that is sort of separate from the main point.]

By my definitions, if anyone is ever obliged to render his goods or services against his will (including but not limited to a violation of his conscience), then that equates to slavery (or "indenturement", maybe, as a less loaded term).  There may be cases where such indenturement is justified, but the onus is on the party making the case that it is in that particular situation.  We shouldn't just assume that difficult scenarios have done that heavy lifting for us, simply by virtue of them being sucky situations.

In practical terms, there are any number of reasons that consumers may not get what they want: the local day care may be at full capacity; the only gym in town may be Curves (what's a guy like me to do?), when my PC acts up, the local Genius Bar may want nothing to do with me and my Windows 10.

There may be no vacancies at the town's only hotel, maybe it's being renovated, or maybe it's just chic and exclusive, and its rates are cost prohibitive for me and my pocketbook.   (But otherwise, this town is great!)

Or, who knows, maybe I dated the local baker's sister, and after we had a falling out, he no longer wants my business.

Or maybe I support my friends' rights to own AR-15s, so the deli-owner down the street doesn't want me as a patron.

Or maybe a city's amphitheater is too small, or the city supports legislation that a performing artist finds odious, so that artist chooses to take his wares elsewhere.

The rationale behind a service provider's terms may seem arbitrary and silly (and at times, maybe petty or spiteful).   They may even seem rather inconsistent to those on the outside.  But, still, ultimately it is their time and labor (or real estate investment, electricity bill, restroom facilities, or whatever) that is being used in support of said service, so my desire to enjoy their resources (for a price I think is fair, of course) shouldn't grant me a de facto claim on that person's time or possessions.

No matter how much I want it or feel as though I need it, I am not entitled to it.

If the local day care closes shop, or if there is no florist for 50 miles, then the burden is on me to figure out how to meet my needs accordingly.  Maybe I make my own floral arrangements or figure out how to bide my own kids' time, or maybe I move to place which offers these services on more agreeable terms.  Either way, I think it's a difficult case to make that the government should step in and force some talented folks to provide those services for me simply because I happen to want them (perhaps even "quite strongly").  

Similarly, if there is a florist, but they don't want to make me the arrangement I'd like, or they're too swamped to help me according to my timeline, or they charge more money then I'm willing to pay, or they don't like the fact I broke their sister's heart, or whatever, then that's their prerogative.

Or, you know, maybe they just do crappy work, so I'd rather drive 30 miles to have someone else handle the flowers for my special day.  Well, that's MY prerogative.

I'd like to offer this as a bit of a thought experiment:   A man walks into a diner and places his order.  As the cashier is calling the order to the cooks in the back, the patron catches a glimpse of someone at the grill that he doesn't like the looks of -- maybe it's ethnicity, maybe clothing, maybe he just recognizes the guy as the bully who made his life hell throughout high school, who knows -- so before the order is "closed out" (for sake of argument, assume there's no harm/no foul from a technical standpoint in cancelling the transaction) he says: You know what, never mind.  I don't want to do business with someone like that.  

What should happen to that patron?  Should he be allowed to deny his end of business from the other party because of these silly, arbitrary reasons or should the court intervene?

Now, flip the scene.   The cashier (who happens to be the owner to keep matters of business authority simple) doesn't like the look of the the patron (maybe he has a picture of a gun on his shirt), so he declines to provide his service to the patron.

Should he be allowed to deny his end of business from another party for silly, arbitrary reasons or should the court intervene?  

Should the expectations and allowances of these two parties be equitable, or should one be forced to participate in a transaction while the other is not?

I'll add one more scene.  The Fed steps in, and tells the shop owner from the second scene to shape up or ship out...

...Maybe he chooses option 3: He has money to burn (he's a greedy businessman, after all), so he keeps on keeping on and just pays the penalty to the State for his bad business practices.

..Or maybe he (eventually) chooses option 2: He closes shop because his conscience doesn't allow him to provide the service that "those people" want him to (whatever that may happen to mean).     So, now, instead of there being a popular, (although, perhaps arbitrarily exclusive) service provider, there is no provider of said service at this location.

In what way have either of these solutions (fines and penalties; shop closing) solved the ostensible problem?  Are those actual, viable options, or is the only acceptable solution to force compliance (which may also include forced servitude)?

On Questions

Asking questions is a good way to gather information.  By design, questions demand answers in reply.  Information rarely exists in a vacuum, though, so questions are generally contextual and often have some level of assumptions baked into them.

Most of the time, these assumptions are innocuous and lack controversy.  

“Would you prefer cake or pie?”

This questions assumes that you would be interested in at least one of those food groups, and it assumes that you have a stronger desire for one of them than for the other (at least at that present moment).   For most folks, those are reasonably safe assumptions.

When assumptions are controversial, though, then the question becomes a loaded question.   The quintessential loaded question example is “Have you stopped beating your wife?”    

The problem with loaded questions (and this is really indicative of all questions), is that simple answers tacitly confirm the embedded assumptions.  On its surface, that question can be answered “no” by people who never started beating their wives to begin with, but answering “no” tacitly confirms the presumption that beatings have been occurring, so it sets a bit of a trap.

A seemingly loaded question isn’t necessarily an invalid or disqualified question, though, because the assumptions may very well be true.   Asking a known abuser if he’s stopped beating his wife is a perfectly legitimate question (though, it’s probably not a good ice breaker).   In that case, the textbook example Loaded Question isn’t really all that loaded.

In a similar vein, good faith questions are sometime loaded with a more controversial assumption than we may realize.  It may be that a friendly host asks the cake vs. pie question of an orphan who happened to lose one parent to a cake-related incident and the other to a freak pie accident.  Maybe this orphan is also diabetic.  In that case, the host’s question will probably elicit bad memories, and might cause the person to assume a defensive or hostile posture.

Ok, so maybe that’s a stretch.   The point of my rambling thoughts, though, is that we should be mindful of our questions, and mindful of the assumptions baked in.    Asking simple questions and demanding simple answers (making statements like “Just answer the question yes or no”) can indicate that questions are being used as weapons rather than as a means of furthering understanding.