Summary, 2016

Prior years:  2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018.

Remarks: Modified: 12/30/2016

12/30/2016 --

New Day, again

Back in 2009, we wrote a post (A New Day). We mentioned that the new President talked about the need to move away from greed and irresponsibility. Have we seen that?

We have two candidates who were 21 and 20 in that seminal year of 1967 (flower child unfoldment). So, we can say that we are experiencing, finally, the fruits from those times.

Lots to look at.

See sister blog: 7'oops7.

Remarks: Modified: 11/08/2016

11/08/2016 --

Silly Valley

The Atlantic suggests that, at least, one person in Silly Valley has a conscience: The Binge Breaker. Tristan  Harris, actually, discusses people playing humans as if on a line. This makes Zack's little experiments look amateur.

Several places, I have cautioned that Silly Valley is enmeshing us in a very ominous manner. To them, it is just fair game in the unicorn environment. No one of them wants to be (seen as) a loser.

Human dignity? Went out the window, evidently.

Here, I have argued that man-in-the-loop will become (continue to be) of importance in anything dealing with truth and complexity. That approach goes against the grain that has been honed for the past 200 years.

Time for a re-look.

Related themes: Overlay, Entrapment, ...

Remarks: Modified: 10/31/2016

10/31/2016 -- Being on Quora for the past year helped develop the sense of how to address the need for truth engineering. Devices play a major part. Differences in presentation related to devices do so, as well. Lots to look at. ... IEEE weighed in, long ago. This statement is not a conflation, rather we really need to reassess what we think of people and mind.

Truth and nature

In another context, there was discussion about phenomena that is particular to humans. You now, consciousness is one. There are several.

Now, limiting the discussion to a few, we can start to deal with some issues that seem to generate a whole lot of angst. The sides of the arguments split with a wide gap.

Essentially, we are going to argue that nature does not deal with truth. Nature is, just like we are. What has happened is that humans have truth engineered over the eons that we have been around.

And, since the computational progress has accelerated, we find ourselves in a bind (actually, several binds). Computers deal with truth; it's at its core. So, we now have a cloud that is becoming increasingly muddy. Why? No one is really looking at this beyond local views.

But, is there one of greater extent? Ah. Yes. Does that necessitate that we bring in the metaphysical aspects of so much controversy? Well. Not really.

The approach rests upon using psychether as the operational basis. How can this be? That, pray tell, is the main thing to work on and use to advance the importance of truth engineering.

Remarks: Modified: 10/31/2016

10/31/2016 -- Time to weigh in, more deeply. 

Viewpoints

Truth deals with viewpoints. When we need to assess truth in a processing sense, viewpoints would help set control, such as with parameters, filters, and so forth.

Today, I happened upon Beck's book, having to do with "pants on fire." Normally, I would not have paid attention to the book, however there were none other available to me at the time. Besides, I have always randomly chosen books to read. As well, these times are not normal (or so it might seem).

Well, in his book, Glenn was writing about progressives (a Wikipedia page: Progressivism). I took note of some historical references. For instance, he mentioned Phillip Berrigan who was well known, with his brother, as a peace activist, especially during the Vietnam War. Glenn devotes space to Phillip's experiences during the Battle of the Bulge. He touches upon Hegel and others.

The idea of the book is to lay out how the elites are those who reign, not that we don't see the same sort of thing with the other side of the fence. What caught my eye was the quiz. Here it is.

Are you a progressive?

The questions are phrased so as a high score would put you in that group. What ought to interest us is that there are many discussion that could be had with each of these questions. Too, some of that analysis might lead to a middle position. The scoring allows for that with a range from Ron Paul to Bernie Sanders.

Neither of these names need explanation in the U.S., given the times.

What is impressive is Glenn's collection of notes. I'll give him a lot of credit on that.

In this day of technology, I wonder if we might see some supposed smart system rating people with quizzes like this. Then, you would get your badge for the day.

I'll take being accused of getting up on the wrong side of the bed, anytime, to such an quizzical endeavor.

Back to Glenn, though. I don't know if he understands Hegel. At the very least, Glen misconstrues what Hegel was about.

Remarks: Modified: 09/07/2016

09/07/2016 --

Recap, somewhat

Our first post was in 2007. It asked if truth could be engineered. We know what engineering is, for the most part. That is, schools of engineering abound with a curriculum that we can see. Too, though, engineering is large than that, in the sense of being applied science.

Engineers do, solve problems, make things, improve our lives, and an endless number of things. Too, they generate, whether by design or not, lots of experiments, from which we can learn.

Of late, engineering has been applied to finance. How is that, we have to wonder. On what science is such engineering based? Well, if you look closely, the views of this discipline seem to be searching for perpetual motion. The physicists running after money seem to have forgotten their basics.

Then, we have computation being put upon us pervasively. Everywhere. Many times, this is just due to some notion of youngsters who are looking to make money. You see, money has taken some type of prominence in the definition of truth.

Bigger pockets rule. Is that so? Essentially, we are at a crux, but that state of affairs is nothing new. It is that now we are dealing with the grand kids of the boomers, not the boomers themselves. Watch out, world.

There would be a lot more to say to make this a real recap, but being brief does have some appeal.

Remarks: Modified: 08/24/2016

08/24/2016 --

Church of Hilbert Space

This has a nice ring. It is not new, however until now, I found no applicability. The advent of Deep Learning (DL)'s prowess is one motivation for looking again.

The "Church" statement (first attributable to John A. Smolin) deals with quantum information theory. DL is fostering both mania and hysteria related to the unknown, unbounded potential for computing and for us losing control of our artifacts.

One could think of several churches. Wouldn't that be fun?  

Remarks: Modified: 07/03/2016

07/03/2016 --

Deep learning

A latest fad is deep learning which I characterize thus: sophisticated manifestation of fuzzy approaches abetted by numeric modeling and by Monte Carlo walkabouts. It is very expensive.

First some pointers to material:

Wikipedia overview
GaGa look from MIT
Just math (thank you, Wired)

Now, as a way of introduction, this approach supported AlphaGo's success. That is, a game that was supposed to be hard for computers was not. Too, people are lining up for jobs.

You know what? Many of these jobs are to pick people's pockets via the commercialism of the web/cloud.

Some think that they can get into this through a boot camp. But, realize, it takes a PhD level of work in order to know the guts. And, that takes time and effort.

Personally, for me, I am thankful. Finally, I see the world gaga about that which is the core of Truth Engineering's motivation.

Remarks: Modified: 07/03/2016

07/03/2016 -- Answer in Quora: What product breakthroughs will recent advances in deep learning enable?

Content and context

Context: OfficeLive, Content, and all that.

This topic comes up again with my experimenting with an install of Windows 10. After going through the work and wait, I went into my personalization mode. So, then things looked like they did on Windows 7.

That was about a day. Of course, I didn't have to watch. Too, I was in and out, so it was not solid time.

Then, I tried to get to work. But, the thing was running hot. Let's say, enough to get my attention.

On a closer look, memory was about full. The CPU was maxed out. What? Well, the biggest culprit for the heat was was the memory manager that was compressing. After I got rid of some dinosaurs not being used, memory went down to about 50% usage (I have 6G).

But, the processors were at 100% (something chasing its damned tail). And, I have a dual set that was the latest four years ago.

All I was doing was typing a post like now. I multi-task, but I know how to balance things. I do not need the supposed smarts which are not very insightful.

Let this old guy tell how.

Anyway, I went back to Windows 7 until I can work a strategy to get the compression removed. If that is not possible, I'm stuck. Android? Linux?

I have been using this beast for four years now. Publishing. Computing. In my way which is not trivial. I know what the hell that I am doing. BTW, I had a BSOD the other day but now what was going on. Altogether, there have been only a handful over the past four years (as opposed to Vista/XP that seemed to like to barf). Too, Windows 7 has so many updates/installs accumulated that the tangle is a nightmare.

Finally, to the theme. We use computers to manage content within a context. Some of these are very much non-trivial. I'm not gaming. I'm not TV watching. I deal with intellectual items and use the computer as an assistant.

I do not need Cortara (whatever).

Listen up, folks. Of my generation and the leading edge of the boomers, we have people that know computing. They know what they want to do. We need to be able to configure a system that allows this type of work. Keep the flim-flam out.

If I want to do that, I'll get another system just for playing. Four years ago, it was the move from OfficeLive that opened up doors. Now, it's this. Fun times.

Remarks: Modified: 05/31/2016

05/31/2016 --

References and more

As the world moves, so does the universe of knowledge. So, one needs to keep an active eye. One way that we will do this is via collections of sites to watch.

LessWrong - ran across this in a Quora answer. One of the hysterics relates to the singularity. We need to get back to that.

Limits of IQ - again, via Quora.

...

Knowledge, nowadays, involves the cloud which entails the computational which is dependent upon mathematical insights. In short, STEM as the new type of sand (into which heads are thrust - not want to know type of thing).

Remarks: Modified: 05/31/2016

04/19/2016 --

Mania or hysterics

A few days ago, we did a quick summary, related to intelligence which is a poorly understood thing, to say the least. Truth engineering deals directly with this subject.

Some have touted artificial intelligence as a means to understand ourselves. At least, again, some part of ourselves. And, we have no issue with a lot of this. In fact, science needs this thrust.

But, artificial intelligence? Actually, we know "artificial" as it pertains to the mode and means, which is via computing (various ways). And, with regard to that, we have a whole lot to say.

Right now, though, we can see two types of reaction that are getting press. Say, I saw this being discussed on a national TV show (Sunday morning variety) with youngsters weighing in with gravitas. Well, it's nice to hear certitude being expressed. Except, and a big except, science is provisional.

Is that being lost in all of the mania and hysteria? What? The mania deals with strong AI (as in, suggesting that the artificial will trump humankind in significant ways - let's talk limits, there). Hysteria? At the same time, we have those saying things like "summoning the demons" as the reality in this situation.

Now the hysteria can be thought of as a paranoid mania. So, we are talking sides of the same coin.

Per usual, there are those in the middle where the real rational minds venture, in just about anything.

Given our technical focus, we can look at limits on technology and natural constraints on modeling as important items to know more about. Too, there are capabilities that humans can exhibit if given the chance. The main problem is that the quantifiers have had a field day.

In some cases, they have accumulated almost uncountable amount of wealth. Yet, to what end? And, how is it that we need such for determining truth?

Remarks: Modified: 04/17/2016

04/17/2016 --

Boomer lessons

This post continues the look at Beans and such. In short, we are all of a cohort. By collection and analysis, we (the collective) have sufficient data that can be reasonably useful.

So, we can produce a chart like this that shows an expectation for the number of years one might plan for. Of course, we could all plan to live to 150. Would that make sense?

The top chart is for the early boomers. Then, we look at the situation during age 75 to age 85. Taking the top one first, notice that the 30-year view vanishes about the age of 70. Essentially, some will live to 100 and beyond. But, based upon data-to-date,  not many.

5 year look? It is quite rational. In fact, in the below, we would expect that one would plan for five years at a time. Then, the plan would be updated yearly.

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Notice, that the green line runs down quickly. It, basically, says that, after age of 83, one ought not put much thought into planning for 20 years. Now, that does not say take no thought. As the line does not go to zero (see below). The red line is for 10 years. At 93, there is some noticeable chance of going for 10 years. But, at 93, the likelihood of another 5 years is more than one might imagine.

Aside: The IRS gives one a couple of years, each year, as one goes beyond 100. Also, there is this adage: live like there were no tomorrow; plan as if there were to be many.

And so, the issue of outliving your money is not to be taken lightly when planning. For this, we have all sorts of things, like long-term care insurance, etc., to think about. However, note, too, that some of these insurance companies are now telling their customers to not expect the agreed-upon payout and to belly up to the bar with a higher premium payment. That is, many of these contracts (some from years ago) are being re-written.

---

Now, we have some expectation of duration that can quantified. But, what about the flow? Well, first, let's consider that there is income and expenses. For income, many of the advisers like to push people toward the higher risk types of things. Sheesh. Sacrificial lambs is how we ought to see these older victims.

The top chart shows (bars) how a constant return can be used for planning. Now, lots of people are going to try to argue that the higher the return, the more you can spend. True. But, the higher the return, the higher the risk.

Planning ought to be conservative. Then, if there is gravy (home runs), great. However, if done right, this type of planning is an almost perfect hedge. As one also needs to consider the time involved. Of course, with a short time frame (and spending down to the last penny), one can be extravagant. But, we are talking flow over the longer haul.

In and out
65 and 75

Flow? One thing that anyone of normal situations ought to do is have a budget that looks at income and expenses. If not that, at least, have some idea of where the money comes from and goes (and whether one is getting further into debt).

There was a thing called zero-based budgeting that was the rage for awhile. It can work for those who are planning their future, at any age. The nearer one is to retirement, the more one ought to know in this regard.

Aside: I have 15 years of spreadsheet (several sheets per year) details, by category, that started prior to retirement. This is very easy to do and can be enlightening. For those who travel, a few months of daily doing the equivalent of an expense report for a trip ought to be easy. If you are traveling, there are extra expenses; however, some of those at home continue.

In the top chart, we are looking at the inflow and outgo (as a function of number of years expected). "dly" means that the flow was normalized to a day. This type of discretization is not that hard to do. And, it is very useful when you are looking at any type of outflow in relation to income or just in its own right. Sometimes, outflow can get heavier than normal.

Of course, "#yrs" relates to the possible number of years (with probability) that one can expect.

What the bars indicate is that the number of years does influence flow. If you want to spend your money with no control, then, expect it to not last (or look for bailouts).

BTW, there is a scale on the flow here that is immaterial. The notion in this case is comparative looks at the future states. However, does this imply that there would be a residue left for those who may or may not misuse the gift? Sure. That is another subject to address.

And, there is only one rule to success. Spend less than income (over all, the ins ought to outweigh the outs). If one cannot do so now, one ought to try to plan to get to that state of affairs. In this case, the out-flow is actually less than the 30 year figure (net savings situation).

---

So, expenses (and incomea) ought to be reduced to a daily average. With this view, one can relate the outs and ins so as to have some notion of whether one is bleeding or not. That is, when outs are high, they can be normalized to something that is consistently comparable.

For times of heavier outflow, there are considerations of category that come into play. For instance, staying in a super expensive hotel for 10 days averages out to less than the per night charge over a 30-day period. Trick? No, how one trickles out from one's bucket (and income) is a matter of choices. Too, major things (appliances, vehicles, etc.) would be handled in a manner so as to recognize the service life (etc.).

By doing this type of exercise, one can look at flows (out and in) by category. Which, then, gets back to some thoughts on inflow. Of course, one might like (or think that they might want) to hit a home run (no envy of Zuck or the like - see near-zero, below). But, think of the risk. Even the young ought not be too loose with risk, if they are thinking of the future. I know, the horizon can be a long way off depending upon age. We'll get back to that in future posts.

Right now, the older folks ought to think of near-zero. That is how our economy runs. That is, for those who make it big, legions (very many) lose (lose and lose and ...). Thanks to John Nash, et al, we have a very warped view of reality that has crept into acceptance. And, near-zero suggests, strongly, that the older folk be wise and not let old (or young) advisers get them into trouble. Those advisers will not bail the old folk out when things collapse.

Sheesh. Just read today of a mania. ETFs related to leveraging against the Janets of the world. Does the craziness never cease?

Remarks: Modified: 04/13/2016

04/13/2016 -- We also covered beans in the oops sense.

Beans and such

Back in 2009 (we started this in 2007, right before the display of idiocy arose everywhere, densely), we wrote about beans (as in, our  our daily bread). So, let's do this, again, and again.

I am 11 years retired, now. So, I was able to watch all of this silliness, from afar and up close (being slapped silly by bankers who tell me that they do not want, nor do they need, deposits - say what?). Too, my whole life has been analytically oriented, albeit in an unorthodox manner (which is more boon than bane). Too, I know economics and that whole little bit of gaming, more than I like to admit. As, I am more interested in issues related to a sustainable economy than the mess (ca'pital'sino) that we currently have.

How to do the cleanup? Well, it is complicated. Okay? For those who might want to pay attention, though, there are some things that ought to be considered and understood.

And, as for going to an financial adviser, even if the such a person thinks that they are doing their fiduciary duty (what does this mean?), one might be better off thinking for oneself. But, where does one go for information that is not so embedded in the capitalistic chimera as to stink?

And, such information ought to address all ages. For now, let's talk about the later years, say like the boomers are facing now.

---

When I retired 11 years ago, the first thing I did was to look at morbidity and mortality (see below). One motivation was that there had already been deaths in the family. Too, I was on a plane and found a report (MMWR) left by some earlier passenger that I took to be a reminder.

After looking at M&M, I went into a deep dive on finances and then intelligence. After that, there were many more topics covered. This post and the next are looking a the first two.

---

If we are to talk beans, time has to be considered. When we are young, our life has a long horizon, very long for some people. Also, the earlier years are usually spent working. At some point, the later years, and how they will be funded, come up. For the younger set, the earlier that you think of this, the better, as when one does get to a certain age, there is a quicker pace of departures from a cohort.

CDC of HSS 

The table shows expectancy for white males in the U.S. in 10-year increments. The last year added, 2003, is on the bottom. Notice the comparison with earlier years, especially those awhile ago. Life expectancy has been increasing. In fact, many of a cohort will live long past the average which is shown here (next graphic).

As an aside, the financial adviser is mentioned above. Many times those types were more into picking pockets than not, unfortunately. It seems that the whole financial industry is a big game, many times. We have gone into that and will again.

--

This graph shows a typical cohort's timeline in the sense of how many more years they can expect to be alive. Cohort? Think generation, but it is really those who were born the same year. Notice, the bottom axis is "Age." Why does it start at 20? Well, before that all of these lines were too close together to see any one. On the left, the value is the chance of living a certain number of years.

Slippery slopes
2004 data, U.S.

The curves are lookaheads from Age: 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 years. As in, say Age of 55, the green line shows that over 90% of the cohort can expect to live another 5 years. 10, 15, and 20 years are a little less.

But, 25 years has a value of 80%. That is, 20% of those who are 55 years old can expect to be dead by 80. You see, that is higher than the average life expectancy. Also, the green line is still at 40% for a 5 year look-ahead at 90 years of age. What does that mean. At 90, the red and yellow lines are gone. At that point, one has a slight chance of living 15 years and a little more for 10 years.

IRS gives only a couple of years even when one is over 100.

The numbers come from tracking done every year. We know the size and characteristics of a cohort due to records. When people die, we know their cohort. After a number of years, we would know the cohort's remaining size.

This type of thing is part of an on-going statistical effort that relates to planning and management by the U.S. government. Below, we get into M&M, a little. As, one responsibility of the CDC is epidemiology, especially for those things that contribute to bad health and early death.

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2004 data, U.K.

One thing of importance is that the health professionals have been recording deaths and causes, for ages. By now, we have a fairly good collection as each year the cohort database is updated. Of course, all of the time, new causes come about, except the broad categories do cover a wide range.

This chart is from U.K. data and relates two things. On the left, there is a scale of those who are still alive. As you would expect, this curve (pink) goes down. The other curve (blue) rises and does so fairly rapidly.

The range of Age here is from 60 to 85, so we are talking the early part of the boomers. As we mentioned (above), for the youngsters, these lines would be mostly straight. It is in the later times that the choices related to this come more to fore. And, that is the theme of these posts.

---

Finally, the look at M&M would not be complete to look at a typical year. As we have heard and seen, heart problems and cancer are the largest factors in early death. Notice that there is a huge bucket of "Other." As with any data report, we deal with definitions and outliers from that.

Morbidity and mortality report

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Given that a good percentage of a cohort can go way beyond the average life expectancy, the issue of outliving one's assets is not to be taken lightly when planning.

And, planning is a continuous activity. Two main factors would be income and expenses. Next time (Boomer lessons), let's look at a good way to handle this. That is, plan in 5-year increments (updated yearly) with a daily focus for accounting.

Remarks: Modified: 04/13/2016

04/13/2016 -- We also covered beans in the oops sense.

Truth and intelligence

There is a whole lot to say here, but let's just do a list of things to look at further, later.

• I have been looking at Quora. It is more than interesting; as such, what is the appeal?
• One thing that Quora does is allow questions to which people provide answers. There have been several themes that I noticed. One of these deals with IQ. For instance, people would ask whether the main rulers of the earth/world, at some future point, would have an IQ of 1000 or something or other. You see, numerics have warped our selves. 
• In relation to queries like that one, people discuss Gardner's Multiple Intelligence proposal and such. Too, there are discussion about brain versus heart. For instances, one smarty was so because of an abusive environment. Later, the person realized, via a mentor, that such braininess is not properly balanced. BTW, Carl G. Jung is discussed, too. 
• In short, IQ is one type of intelligence (see Gardner) for which there are tests. Some score highly where some means few. Most do not. Yet, a lot of these tests seem to have a common feel. So, one ought to be able to practice and score better, if one is able. But, the best of the tests are not timed. See this Quora answer for links. One test site: Dr. Jason Betts. That is nice, as it removes performance anxiety, silly dancing around, and competitiveness.  
• Now, Jung was mentioned above. His thoughts about phenomenal issues that he addressed via Synchronicity are apropos to this discussion. In fact, Jung's work (or being reminded of such) gives me some hope for our future where the technologists would have run amok with their toys thereby, essentially, entrapping the rest of us (that is, human entanglement). But, much more on this.  
• So, finally, to truth and intelligence. The truth bit, for me, comes down to truth engines and their application as supportive devices. Now, as I mentioned, technology seems to have run to where some brains (like Hawking) are bemoaning the end of the human race. Well, not. Those boys (for the most part, pale in face) will be reined in. Too, we need to have better human and machine cooperation.
• You see, computation has holes in it. Despite the years of effort at error correction and the introduction of stability and a whole lot of other things, these holes are there; undecidability (in several senses) is a key issue. So, that theme will be addressed, time and again. 
• But, intelligence? Yes, Google's system beat a Go player using what they term AI. Nice. Yet, not nice. However, this may very well be an example of technology being used without insight. We'll have to weigh in there. Though, I heard that Google has hired some philosophers in order to get it straight.
• ... 

There will be much more to the topic. That is, though we have been at this for many years, we have just barely scratched the surface, so to speak.

Remarks: Modified: 03/19/2016

03/19/2016 --

False beliefs

One thing that truth engines would deal with would be falsehood. That is, these two, true and false, relate even if we do not descend to the binary situation which we will not.

Why? Undecidability, namely. We will be getting to this.

Recently, someone on Quora asked: Do you believe the Earth is flat or in the shape of a sphere?  This is my answer. First of all, Euclid knew flat and round. So, we don't have to get to modern means to know this. However, we do. It wasn't until the 19th century that progress was made in non-Euclidean means.

In any case, we have to differentiate between the earth and the world. We know that the earth is semi-round. However, the world is flat. In fact, Hilbert's model that is the basis for mathematical physics, in part, is flat.

It's the use of "believe" that is interesting. We all believe. It's a type of closure and is necessary for effectiveness. But, there has been work related to "false beliefs" in studies related to the development of the mind. So, here are some points for later use.

• Two reasons to abondon the false belief task as a test of the theory of mind 
• A new false belief test for 36-month-olds  
• False belief and excuses  
• False-belief understanding in infants  
• Cost of thinking about false beliefs 

Remarks: Modified: 03/06/2016

03/06/2016 --

Undecidability

Or, we might say undecidable-ness. Quora has had some discussion of this topic, from the viewpoint of the Halting Problem as described by Turing. We have mentioned the issue, too. But, our use points to the larger picture (undecidable) related to mindless pursuit of all things computational. What gives here?

We'll be back discussing that, but here are pointers to items that look at technical details.

• Undecidability Tangent - This video is Part 1 of 3. It starts with Euclid's geometry and the issue of parallel lines. Then, it goes into Russell's paradox. Finally, Turing's take. 
• Undecidable Problems: A Sampler - This paper discusses how "undecidable decision problems" arise in mathematics. These are shown to be "at least as hard as the halting problem" which is the focus of computational logic. 
• Undecidability everywhere - Bjorn Poonen's paranoiac view? No. 

Again, the rampant rush after automation seems to be short-sighted from several angles. How do we get this on the table for discussion?

Remarks: Modified: 08/08/2019

08/08/2019 -- Nash equilibria and hardness raises its head. We'll need logic as well as numerics.

Leap Day, 2016

We started this blog in 2007. So, this will be our third Leap Day. It might be interesting to see what was going during each of those earlier times.

2008 By February of 2008, the focus was on finance. One post dealt with whether smart had to be rich. Or, the inverse, are the richer smarter? One major post, in January of that year was this one: Truth, fiction, and finance. It was in 2008 that Made-off's schemes were exposed to the public.

2012 February of 2012 was the month that my older brother died. By June, I had a post about fathers and sons. By August, there was a re-look which still applies. 

Now, having spent eight months on Quora, there is a better understanding of the issues and how to address these both philosophically and technically.

Remarks: Modified: 03/01/2016

02/29/2016 --

Academia

Quora had a question: Why should I study economics? As of now, there are 31 answers. These range over a wide area, as one would expect.

Economics' domain might be dismal, but the discipline is essential. That is, no rational person ought to argue against the study. Now, we all know how vocal the arguments can be with respect to data, meaning, action, etc.

One answer points to a group of students who are trying to change the way that Economics is taught. See: Post-crash Economics Society (a list of their favorite blogs - had to put this as the Committee consisted of younger faces).

The tie-in here? We have mentioned Economics a lot. Of course, Finance was at the center of the crash; and, financial types were the chief culprits.

Remarks: Modified: 02/15/2016

02/15/2016 --

Data science

Earlier, I wrote about "big daddy" data. Up until now, I have not been looking closely, rather my approach has several motivations.

So, before proceeding, I need to catch up on the world, in this sense. It looks like a bubble just like the early days of artificial intelligence. A boot camp of a few days, even weeks, is enough to become what is called a "data scientist?"

Aside: In all of the blogs, you will find reference to entrapping enmesh-ments which seem to be growing daily. But, we'll get back to that.

Some pointers to material:

• https://www.kaggle.com/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaggle 
• https://www.quora.com/What-Kaggle-competitions-should-a-beginner-start-with-1 (about eight months ago)
• http://www.kdnuggets.com/competitions/
• http://blog.talla.com/2016/01/how-we-approached-the-allen-a-i-challenge-on-kaggle/
• ... 

Aside: One of the big splits relates to the computer as the focus. That is, we live in a world where real people touch real things in order for the coddled set to languish about. Yet, it is the computer types who seem to drive things, many times relegating those who touch things to some lower-level class of being. The uppers ride a magic carpet born on the sweat of millions. ... Jumping ahead, so, then, the computer as the basis for a whole lot of mathematical finagling is reality? Much to discuss there. 

Aside: Numerics, and its bridging over trouble waters, does not alleviate the problems that are inherent with the artificial. No one seems to be interested. Why?  

Remarks: Modified: 01/18/2016

01/18/2016 -- Hotten'd the links. Also, will be introducing crass commercialism into the discussion. This ought not be the driver of our internet or of our knowledge repositories.

Operational concerns

This blog will take an operational (many connotations) mode for awhile. I made some system changes the past couple of days. In doing so, one vendor changed my settings which I did not look at the time.

Shame on me. But, shame on these arses, too. Anyway, it got me to thinking about how all of these providers are stepping on our toes as they try to dance their way into our hearts. Look brothers and sisters, such behavior will no get no love from us, the beleaguered users.

Related to this are all of the pitfalls that keep arising. Great job on the internet DOD and all of the follow on developers. Way to go.

And so, truth engineering is crucial to safe computing and other things.

Remarks: Modified: 01/17/2016

01/17/2016 -- The "cloud" not only is muddy, it fosters storms. I noticed someone arguing that companies have their personal "cloud."

Summary, 2015

In 2015, there were 33 posts.

See Summary, 2014. The "All time" reads are the same as last year. Three of the "Last 30 days" reads are of this year's posts.

Top 5 posts 

Prior years:  2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 02015, 2016, 2017 (missing), 2018.

See "4th December" in 2010 and "Last post for 2008" (for 7'oops7, this same post has been popular). 

Remarks: Modified: 12/30/2018

12/30/2018 -- Added Summary for 2016 and 2018.