While discussing art with my mom and Ben today, she asked about the notion that a picture is worth a thousand words. However, she argued, there were words that could not be well expressed in pictures, or would certainly take a detailed picture.
After an initial reaction that this is right, I came upon the example of "addition". How do you draw addition? You kinda can't. You can draw a specific case of addition (ex: 2 + 3 = 5), but can you really express this concept with only images? You may be smarter than me and come up with something, but I suspect it'll at least meet the requirement that it's more complex than explaining the concept of addition using words. So what's the deal here?
Addition is an abstraction. I posit that abstractions are hard to draw. Why? Because drawings are concrete. They, by their nature, have details: a particular color, or arc, or shading, or specific item(s), etc. Instantly, there are many attributes to describe if we want to convey the picture accurately. Hence, a thousand words (you know, plus or minus) are needed. But, their concreteness also means they express only an instance of an abstraction, thereby reducing the generalization of the abstraction. Thus, an abstraction is worth a thousand pictures (you know, plus or minus, to give people a pattern from which to construct the abstraction, perhaps).
So a picture is worth a thousand concrete words.
And non-concrete words are worth a thousand pictures.
Since it's a disjoint set of words in the two statements, the pair of equations doesn't explode or spiral into some black hole.
Saturday, November 29, 2014
No break for the socialist
What does it really mean to be a socialist country, and are we plummeting face-first into that state as some might claim? We've certainly made the beginnings of universal-ish health care (though in a markedly different way than other countries do it), we have some social security (which may or may not be adequate), but we're a long ways from providing universally copay-free health services, an adequate federal pension for workers, etc. We can argue back and forth about the weights of these, but I mostly want to focus on one slice of the socialist pie: vacation time.
Is vacation time really a "social benefit"? I think so, though employers foot the bill rather than it being paid from a federal tax. However, it's still lost productivity that is mandated. If employers have to foot the bill, they have to raise prices and therefore the consumer, in the aggregate, pays for my vacation time. This is not too much unlike taxes, or a benefit derived from taxes. In a totally different sense, it's a federal stance that the population needs time off to function effectively.
Lucky for us, Wikipedia has this handy chart of minimum leave by country. Scanning through it yields a single point that is not like the other ones**: the USA is the only country with no federally mandated vacation time for workers. Even our voluntarily given average 1st year vacation grant (about 10 days) is less than just about every country.
Even Colombia gives its drug mules more time off.
Even ordinary Russians can escape the iron fist of Putin for more days a year.
Even super-productive Germany can get by fine with its citizens doubling that time off.
** - a handful of countries are left blank, and probably some countries are in so much turmoil that these laws are moot or unenforced. However, none of those are countries we should cherish comparisons with.
If socialism is a measure of the baseline care a country takes of every one of its citizens, time off work is one of those. And we fail at it.
Is vacation time really a "social benefit"? I think so, though employers foot the bill rather than it being paid from a federal tax. However, it's still lost productivity that is mandated. If employers have to foot the bill, they have to raise prices and therefore the consumer, in the aggregate, pays for my vacation time. This is not too much unlike taxes, or a benefit derived from taxes. In a totally different sense, it's a federal stance that the population needs time off to function effectively.
Lucky for us, Wikipedia has this handy chart of minimum leave by country. Scanning through it yields a single point that is not like the other ones**: the USA is the only country with no federally mandated vacation time for workers. Even our voluntarily given average 1st year vacation grant (about 10 days) is less than just about every country.
Even Colombia gives its drug mules more time off.
Even ordinary Russians can escape the iron fist of Putin for more days a year.
Even super-productive Germany can get by fine with its citizens doubling that time off.
** - a handful of countries are left blank, and probably some countries are in so much turmoil that these laws are moot or unenforced. However, none of those are countries we should cherish comparisons with.
If socialism is a measure of the baseline care a country takes of every one of its citizens, time off work is one of those. And we fail at it.
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
What tech worker shortage? This one!
This article is circulating, suggesting that the tech industry's claims of a worker shortage are really just complaints that it "can't hire them as cheaply as they would like", instead bringing in cheaper foreign labor on work visas. In general it's arguing that the software industry is trying to suppress wage growth. While there are cases like the non-poaching agreement between some major companies, overall the industry is thriving and there's more and more money to be made.
I find this a silly argument for a number of reasons.
1. Microsoft (and other large companies) hire lots of foreigners into their full-time staff. These people all make comparable salaries, bonuses, benefits to American full-time employees. Additionally, the company must sponsor their work visa, which requires significant HR, legal and financial resources. Essentially, the company is forced to prove needing this person to do the job because there are insufficient local alternatives. So, Microsoft (and other large companies) are saying they would rather spend more money (extra cost all front-loaded too!) to staff the same job. The only incentive to do this is that Microsoft (and other large companies) are unable to find quality employees from the USA (or it's costs more money to find a few diamonds in all that rough).
2. The argument about real-wage growth being flat since 1999 is cherry-picked. 1999 was the peak of the tech bubble. The industry was nascent and there were very few qualified people for a suddenly exploding area. Companies' stock prices were skyrocketing and they were desperate to grow. I expect significant compensation was given in stock and that stock was doing very well. We should see how real-wage growth did from 1999 to 2002, BusinessWeek/Josh Eidelson. I'm just a single data point, but since starting at Microsoft in 2007, my real-wage growth has been very significant (without being too specific, over 5 percent per year, compounded). While I may (or may not) be promoting faster or performing better than others, I know for a fact that a median performer's comp growth easily outpaces inflation. For other major companies to be competitive and not lose workers, they need to be keeping similar pace as well.
3. Higher initial salaries are unlikely to drive much more interest. Tech already pays very well, especially considering the high-paying jobs are available directly out of college, canonically at age 22. Many of my peers were single-family detached house owners by age 23, and could also comfortably afford a fairly nice car and had money to spend on travel/dining/entertainment. Unless wage suddenly jumped to day trader levels or something, I don't know that the industry's appeal would elevate. A smaller increase may serve to re-route engineering-minded people from other areas (like mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical, ... ), but then we'd have a shortage there. Or, it's all enough money that people will follow their passions (which is better for the industries anyways).
Of course tech companies (like any companies) want to pay their workers the least they possibly can while still getting good results out of them. Their competition with each other has lead us to the state we're in. And the biggest constrained resource in growth is qualified people. The end.
PS: I participate in interviews regularly, and can personally attest to the lack of amazing candidates.
I find this a silly argument for a number of reasons.
1. Microsoft (and other large companies) hire lots of foreigners into their full-time staff. These people all make comparable salaries, bonuses, benefits to American full-time employees. Additionally, the company must sponsor their work visa, which requires significant HR, legal and financial resources. Essentially, the company is forced to prove needing this person to do the job because there are insufficient local alternatives. So, Microsoft (and other large companies) are saying they would rather spend more money (extra cost all front-loaded too!) to staff the same job. The only incentive to do this is that Microsoft (and other large companies) are unable to find quality employees from the USA (or it's costs more money to find a few diamonds in all that rough).
2. The argument about real-wage growth being flat since 1999 is cherry-picked. 1999 was the peak of the tech bubble. The industry was nascent and there were very few qualified people for a suddenly exploding area. Companies' stock prices were skyrocketing and they were desperate to grow. I expect significant compensation was given in stock and that stock was doing very well. We should see how real-wage growth did from 1999 to 2002, BusinessWeek/Josh Eidelson. I'm just a single data point, but since starting at Microsoft in 2007, my real-wage growth has been very significant (without being too specific, over 5 percent per year, compounded). While I may (or may not) be promoting faster or performing better than others, I know for a fact that a median performer's comp growth easily outpaces inflation. For other major companies to be competitive and not lose workers, they need to be keeping similar pace as well.
3. Higher initial salaries are unlikely to drive much more interest. Tech already pays very well, especially considering the high-paying jobs are available directly out of college, canonically at age 22. Many of my peers were single-family detached house owners by age 23, and could also comfortably afford a fairly nice car and had money to spend on travel/dining/entertainment. Unless wage suddenly jumped to day trader levels or something, I don't know that the industry's appeal would elevate. A smaller increase may serve to re-route engineering-minded people from other areas (like mechanical, civil, chemical, electrical, ... ), but then we'd have a shortage there. Or, it's all enough money that people will follow their passions (which is better for the industries anyways).
4. Major employers like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, etc are perpetually looking to hire. In other words, they're chronically unable to fill positions for all the work they'd like to get done. So, it's not like they are just driving some excess of employees to lower-paid/contract jobs.
PS: I participate in interviews regularly, and can personally attest to the lack of amazing candidates.
Sunday, November 23, 2014
Overeager beaver
I'm currently in Houston. As usual, I flew United. This is the norm because Houston is a United hub and there are many direct options a day.
The flight was actually somewhat icky. We took off 20 minutes late, which is minorly annoying. We hit a lot of turbulence along the way, which happens. I'd never actually had the flight staff not come through the cabin for final cleaning before, so that was a little different. So was them over-explaining that they were being asked to sit by the captain. That was also a touch awkward. But whatever, I arrived in one piece, half an hour late, no big deal.
A day later they sent email, asking me to fill out a survey about my experiences. I don't like surveys because people have a hard time being honest when they are put on the spot. They either don't want to say anything too negative, or they go into bitch-rant mode, or they say nothing meaningful.
Here's the survey:
1. On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied were you with your flight.
I dunno? I mean, I got there. I was a bit late. The staff made me slightly unnerved, but through no real fault of their own. I was sitting next to a 4-year old who was wriggling around the whole time and kept kicking me. They only weigh like ... 30 pounds? So whatever, I barely felt it. It's not a big deal. The overhead light wasn't quite lining up with my book, so that was slightly annoying. Putting all that into the Gergely heuristic engine returns, in this case, a 7. Don't ask me to elaborate, cuz fucked if I know why I picked 7.
2. On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend United to others?
... and, carry the 1, multiply by waxing-moon offset and polish: lucky 7 again! Ugh. The indicator bar, which clearly has 10 stages, is currently showing that this is the 2nd. I have to answer 8 more questions??
3. What is the top thing we can do to improve your satisfaction rating?
Hey, that's a solid question. It's actionable. It forces me to prioritize. It doesn't matter if I've given them a 1 or a 10. I said "be on time". I later regretted that and wished I could go back and say "don't gouge me for flying around Thanksgiving".
4. What is the primary reason for your satisfaction rating?
Aww crap, they've asked me to elaborate. And the best honest answer I can give is:
5. Please share with us any other feedback you have.
I decided to just roll with the above and give them a brain-dump, the essence of which is that sending me a survey is just annoying, and how come they can't learn what they need to know from telemetry they already have?
Thankfully the progress indicator was buggy and at this point I was done.
However, I really do wonder how much useful information they get back? or are they just trying to make me feel like I have input? or are they just unable to figure out where/how I fly and then cross-analyze when I use United (to/through Houston) and if I'm opting for other airlines for the same routes at times?
Or does this mean we can't tell if someone is happy unless we ask them? And then we may or may not trust what they tell us?
The flight was actually somewhat icky. We took off 20 minutes late, which is minorly annoying. We hit a lot of turbulence along the way, which happens. I'd never actually had the flight staff not come through the cabin for final cleaning before, so that was a little different. So was them over-explaining that they were being asked to sit by the captain. That was also a touch awkward. But whatever, I arrived in one piece, half an hour late, no big deal.
A day later they sent email, asking me to fill out a survey about my experiences. I don't like surveys because people have a hard time being honest when they are put on the spot. They either don't want to say anything too negative, or they go into bitch-rant mode, or they say nothing meaningful.
Here's the survey:
1. On a scale of 1-10, how satisfied were you with your flight.
I dunno? I mean, I got there. I was a bit late. The staff made me slightly unnerved, but through no real fault of their own. I was sitting next to a 4-year old who was wriggling around the whole time and kept kicking me. They only weigh like ... 30 pounds? So whatever, I barely felt it. It's not a big deal. The overhead light wasn't quite lining up with my book, so that was slightly annoying. Putting all that into the Gergely heuristic engine returns, in this case, a 7. Don't ask me to elaborate, cuz fucked if I know why I picked 7.
2. On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to recommend United to others?
... and, carry the 1, multiply by waxing-moon offset and polish: lucky 7 again! Ugh. The indicator bar, which clearly has 10 stages, is currently showing that this is the 2nd. I have to answer 8 more questions??
3. What is the top thing we can do to improve your satisfaction rating?
Hey, that's a solid question. It's actionable. It forces me to prioritize. It doesn't matter if I've given them a 1 or a 10. I said "be on time". I later regretted that and wished I could go back and say "don't gouge me for flying around Thanksgiving".
4. What is the primary reason for your satisfaction rating?
Aww crap, they've asked me to elaborate. And the best honest answer I can give is:
5. Please share with us any other feedback you have.
I decided to just roll with the above and give them a brain-dump, the essence of which is that sending me a survey is just annoying, and how come they can't learn what they need to know from telemetry they already have?
Thankfully the progress indicator was buggy and at this point I was done.
However, I really do wonder how much useful information they get back? or are they just trying to make me feel like I have input? or are they just unable to figure out where/how I fly and then cross-analyze when I use United (to/through Houston) and if I'm opting for other airlines for the same routes at times?
Or does this mean we can't tell if someone is happy unless we ask them? And then we may or may not trust what they tell us?
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Solar energy almost won
I was watching Cosmos last night. In episode 12 it addresses atmospheric carbon dioxide. Several interesting and daunting facts are presented:
1. There's no question warming is due to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
2. The CO2 levels are unprecedented in all meaningful historical contexts.
3. We produce orders of magnitude more CO2 than all the volcanic eruptions on the Earth, combined.
4. There's an easy-to-describe positive feedback loop contributing to the warming:
a. Higher CO2 leads to higher heat.
b. Higher heat leads to polar ice melt.
c. Less polar ice means less highly reflective surface, leading to more retained solar energy.
d. More retained solar energy leads to even higher heat, resulting in more [b].
5. The arctic tundra/ice has as much frozen organic material locked up as the total carbon currently in the atmosphere. If that starts to melt and the material essentially rots and is released, we get more [4.a]. This scenario is likely "catastrophic and irreversible".
So how did we get here? The culprit is really the invention of the engine. Before the engine, our primary carbon emissions were firewood and cow farts. The engine lead to widespread automation of mechanical tasks. A machine could be built once, then supplied with an energy source to produce way more work than any human is capable of. Humans started doing meta-work: they built the machines, which could then be leveraged to do energy-consuming tasks and to build other machines. In this way, we can essentially scale to arbitrary energy consumption capability. The only limit is how fast we can collect energy sources.
The particulars of the engine design were such that motion is driven by expanding gas. The first design (steam engine) used gas pressure to drive fan blades attached to a wheel. The gas is steam, and is created by heating water. The heat comes from burning coal. The design, in some sense hasn't been updated since. The internal combustion engine is the same concept, just substituting a self-contained piston for the wheel blade, and generating gas pressure through the direct explosion of an air-and-carbon fuel mixture. Even our mighty nuclear power stations use this approach; they just use nuclear reactions instead of burning carbon to produce the heat (hence why they are, in at least this dimension, much cleaner). However, this leads to a natural question: why, if the heat doesn't have to be carbon-powered, did we end up using carbon (and still are using it) as the primary source?
The easiest reason is that carbon is plentiful, distributed around the world, energy-dense, and highly portable. No special engineering is needed to store it or distribute it. Refilling a train with coal or a car with gasoline is a snap. Each can carry enough fuel to cover meaningful distances. We simply didn't have (and still are in the early stages of developing) other energy sources that fit the above criteria. Electric cars, for example, are becoming more common, but they are still limited in their role and convenience. And, if a solution is adequate and incrementally improvable (energy efficiency, mining efficiency, ...) and there seem to be no fundamental concerns, why change?
It turns out, we could and should have seen all this coming.
A 1932 paper by REO Hulbert described the theory of climate change due to atmospheric carbon dioxide change. And a 1938 paper GS Callendar actually called out observed warming (though he actually argued that they were a good thing because crops could grow over a wider range of latitudes). You read a thorough history here. And, we knew as far back as 1896 that doubling our atmospheric carbon dioxide would melt the polar ice.
And think, if not for chance discovery of lots of North African oil, solar power may have taken off a hundred years ago.
1. There's no question warming is due to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
2. The CO2 levels are unprecedented in all meaningful historical contexts.
3. We produce orders of magnitude more CO2 than all the volcanic eruptions on the Earth, combined.
4. There's an easy-to-describe positive feedback loop contributing to the warming:
a. Higher CO2 leads to higher heat.
b. Higher heat leads to polar ice melt.
c. Less polar ice means less highly reflective surface, leading to more retained solar energy.
d. More retained solar energy leads to even higher heat, resulting in more [b].
5. The arctic tundra/ice has as much frozen organic material locked up as the total carbon currently in the atmosphere. If that starts to melt and the material essentially rots and is released, we get more [4.a]. This scenario is likely "catastrophic and irreversible".
So how did we get here? The culprit is really the invention of the engine. Before the engine, our primary carbon emissions were firewood and cow farts. The engine lead to widespread automation of mechanical tasks. A machine could be built once, then supplied with an energy source to produce way more work than any human is capable of. Humans started doing meta-work: they built the machines, which could then be leveraged to do energy-consuming tasks and to build other machines. In this way, we can essentially scale to arbitrary energy consumption capability. The only limit is how fast we can collect energy sources.
The particulars of the engine design were such that motion is driven by expanding gas. The first design (steam engine) used gas pressure to drive fan blades attached to a wheel. The gas is steam, and is created by heating water. The heat comes from burning coal. The design, in some sense hasn't been updated since. The internal combustion engine is the same concept, just substituting a self-contained piston for the wheel blade, and generating gas pressure through the direct explosion of an air-and-carbon fuel mixture. Even our mighty nuclear power stations use this approach; they just use nuclear reactions instead of burning carbon to produce the heat (hence why they are, in at least this dimension, much cleaner). However, this leads to a natural question: why, if the heat doesn't have to be carbon-powered, did we end up using carbon (and still are using it) as the primary source?
The easiest reason is that carbon is plentiful, distributed around the world, energy-dense, and highly portable. No special engineering is needed to store it or distribute it. Refilling a train with coal or a car with gasoline is a snap. Each can carry enough fuel to cover meaningful distances. We simply didn't have (and still are in the early stages of developing) other energy sources that fit the above criteria. Electric cars, for example, are becoming more common, but they are still limited in their role and convenience. And, if a solution is adequate and incrementally improvable (energy efficiency, mining efficiency, ...) and there seem to be no fundamental concerns, why change?
It turns out, we could and should have seen all this coming.
A 1932 paper by REO Hulbert described the theory of climate change due to atmospheric carbon dioxide change. And a 1938 paper GS Callendar actually called out observed warming (though he actually argued that they were a good thing because crops could grow over a wider range of latitudes). You read a thorough history here. And, we knew as far back as 1896 that doubling our atmospheric carbon dioxide would melt the polar ice.
And think, if not for chance discovery of lots of North African oil, solar power may have taken off a hundred years ago.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
When in doubt, make a shitty connection
Oh no, a popular whiskey was recalled in 3 countries due to a toxic antifreeze ingredient!!
Good thing other countries still let people chug Fireball to their liver's content.
The issue at heart here is the attention grab of comparing the Fireball to antifreeze. Why? Because they have an ingredient in common. I suppose I'd better stop eating kale because it shares the ingredient "water" with extra-strength bleach ... and no one without a death wish would ever ever ever drink bleach!
As a smart reader, you already know this is all a logical fallacy. A and B contain X. Given that B is toxic, that does not mean X is the toxic component of B. Furthermore, even if X is toxic, we'd need to know a lot more: how much X does it take over what timeframe to harm a person? How much X is in A? How much A does a person ingest in a canonical and an extreme scenario?
The latter is a staple anti-vax argument about things like thimerosal and formaldehyde. Sure, both these ingredients are acutely harmful in large enough quantities. In both cases, there are key points not included in the argument: thimerosal is a much less absorbable mercury variant and poses far smaller hazards. Also, the amount per injection is well below the safe level limits. Same for formaldehyde. It's used in the production of vaccines (I believe to kill the infectious agents) and the removed. Trace amounts are left behind. So yes, vaccines contain formaldehyde. Turns out the body produces formaldehyde as a metabolic byproduct. And the natural concentration leads to something like 1 million times more formaldehyde quantity in you than what you'd get from a vaccine.
If something is dangerous, point to the exact reason why it's dangerous. I'm not arguing that Fireball should have propylene glycol in it, or that it couldn't maybe do with less or none, but if it's truly bad, let's talk about that. Not antifreeze.
Note: even some news outlets (Huffington Post, Gawker) who have mysteriously risen to non-trivial credibility are pointing out the antifreeze "link".
Good thing other countries still let people chug Fireball to their liver's content.
The issue at heart here is the attention grab of comparing the Fireball to antifreeze. Why? Because they have an ingredient in common. I suppose I'd better stop eating kale because it shares the ingredient "water" with extra-strength bleach ... and no one without a death wish would ever ever ever drink bleach!
As a smart reader, you already know this is all a logical fallacy. A and B contain X. Given that B is toxic, that does not mean X is the toxic component of B. Furthermore, even if X is toxic, we'd need to know a lot more: how much X does it take over what timeframe to harm a person? How much X is in A? How much A does a person ingest in a canonical and an extreme scenario?
The latter is a staple anti-vax argument about things like thimerosal and formaldehyde. Sure, both these ingredients are acutely harmful in large enough quantities. In both cases, there are key points not included in the argument: thimerosal is a much less absorbable mercury variant and poses far smaller hazards. Also, the amount per injection is well below the safe level limits. Same for formaldehyde. It's used in the production of vaccines (I believe to kill the infectious agents) and the removed. Trace amounts are left behind. So yes, vaccines contain formaldehyde. Turns out the body produces formaldehyde as a metabolic byproduct. And the natural concentration leads to something like 1 million times more formaldehyde quantity in you than what you'd get from a vaccine.
If something is dangerous, point to the exact reason why it's dangerous. I'm not arguing that Fireball should have propylene glycol in it, or that it couldn't maybe do with less or none, but if it's truly bad, let's talk about that. Not antifreeze.
Note: even some news outlets (Huffington Post, Gawker) who have mysteriously risen to non-trivial credibility are pointing out the antifreeze "link".
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