I have the bestest timing ever
So I began work today. Work definitely looks like it's going to keep me busy for the near future, and my need to be productive means I'm not likely to be doing extensive blogging from there, either. So I may have to scale back my grand plans. Fortunately, they weren't actually that grand in the first place.
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Forgiveness vs. responsibility for one's own actions
So I was just reading this article, "The Virtue of Hate". It argues that the main difference between Christianity and Judaism (aside from the whole Jesus issue, of course) is that Christianity belives that any sinner, no matter how awful, can ultimately be forgiven and redeemed if they accept Jesus, while Judaism believes that people should and must be punished appropriately for their misdeeds.
The article itself is very interesting, but I also find it fascinating that the Right (which tends to be Christian) tends to espouse the latter view, while the Left (which probably has the majority of Jews, and certainly has the majority of non-religious people) is much more strongly on the "forgiveness" side of the fence.
So I was just reading this article, "The Virtue of Hate". It argues that the main difference between Christianity and Judaism (aside from the whole Jesus issue, of course) is that Christianity belives that any sinner, no matter how awful, can ultimately be forgiven and redeemed if they accept Jesus, while Judaism believes that people should and must be punished appropriately for their misdeeds.
The article itself is very interesting, but I also find it fascinating that the Right (which tends to be Christian) tends to espouse the latter view, while the Left (which probably has the majority of Jews, and certainly has the majority of non-religious people) is much more strongly on the "forgiveness" side of the fence.
I'm not making any promises...
Before, I tried to make a conscious effort not to let my posts be just links to interesting things. There was no real rational reason behind this; it was mostly just a desire to be different for no particular reason (there's that perfectionist impulse kicking in again; if you want a reason why it took me so long to finally punt the offending post and get things started again, you need look no further).
Anyway, I think that it's probably more interesting to have a post which contains only a link to an interesting thing than no post at all (and hopefully you agree; if not, well, feel free to disagree!) So I'll probably be attempting to increase the quantity of content at least somewhat via this method.
Before, I tried to make a conscious effort not to let my posts be just links to interesting things. There was no real rational reason behind this; it was mostly just a desire to be different for no particular reason (there's that perfectionist impulse kicking in again; if you want a reason why it took me so long to finally punt the offending post and get things started again, you need look no further).
Anyway, I think that it's probably more interesting to have a post which contains only a link to an interesting thing than no post at all (and hopefully you agree; if not, well, feel free to disagree!) So I'll probably be attempting to increase the quantity of content at least somewhat via this method.
A completely useless announcement
So this weekend we're hosting BANG 3, a puzzle hunt. BANG is pretty low-key, at least compared to ridiculous extravaganzas like The Game, which probably require months of planning, thousands of dollars of expenditures, and a cast of dozens if not hundreds. Ours is just a little simpler -- and cheaper -- but I'm still quite excited about it. All of this activity and effort I've been putting into it makes me regret the fact that I missed the couple of opportunities to go hunting this last semester -- a combination of too busy, too expensive, and too little interest from teammates -- but on the other hand it looks like there'll still be fun stuff this summer.
So this weekend we're hosting BANG 3, a puzzle hunt. BANG is pretty low-key, at least compared to ridiculous extravaganzas like The Game, which probably require months of planning, thousands of dollars of expenditures, and a cast of dozens if not hundreds. Ours is just a little simpler -- and cheaper -- but I'm still quite excited about it. All of this activity and effort I've been putting into it makes me regret the fact that I missed the couple of opportunities to go hunting this last semester -- a combination of too busy, too expensive, and too little interest from teammates -- but on the other hand it looks like there'll still be fun stuff this summer.
Catching up...the short version
So it's summer already -- my favorite season of the year, as I will generally tell anyone within earshot. Often mid-spring (early April or so, before final stress begins to weigh in) will compete for these honors, but this year the weather was really quite unimpressive up until about the beginning of May, so summer is the clear favorite for this year, barring meteor strike or somesuch.
Anyway, Mike's graduating, I'm moving on to a new research group (and very much looking forward to it), and I'm probably happier than I've been in quite a while. This is a good thing, I suppose, though I do wish I was a little closer to graduation myself.
So it's summer already -- my favorite season of the year, as I will generally tell anyone within earshot. Often mid-spring (early April or so, before final stress begins to weigh in) will compete for these honors, but this year the weather was really quite unimpressive up until about the beginning of May, so summer is the clear favorite for this year, barring meteor strike or somesuch.
Anyway, Mike's graduating, I'm moving on to a new research group (and very much looking forward to it), and I'm probably happier than I've been in quite a while. This is a good thing, I suppose, though I do wish I was a little closer to graduation myself.
Bet you weren't expecting this
All right, I've decided that it's time to brush the dust off of this thing and get to writing again. If you're wondering why the extremely long delay, it's because I got about halfway through the next installment of Sports Philosophy, got bogged down, and then never actually got around to finishing it, and then just kind of let things lapse, as you probably were able to figure out.
Anyway, for obvious reasons, I'm going to not announce a proud resurrection quite yet. If they're not obvious, it's because (a) if this burst of energy turns out to be fleeting, I don't really want to look like an idiot, and (b) it's more fun for me to tell people that this is back once I have 10-15 posts up to read, rather than just this one post telling you that this is back. Or maybe you'll just see this by accident and it'll be a pleasant surprise.
All right, I've decided that it's time to brush the dust off of this thing and get to writing again. If you're wondering why the extremely long delay, it's because I got about halfway through the next installment of Sports Philosophy, got bogged down, and then never actually got around to finishing it, and then just kind of let things lapse, as you probably were able to figure out.
Anyway, for obvious reasons, I'm going to not announce a proud resurrection quite yet. If they're not obvious, it's because (a) if this burst of energy turns out to be fleeting, I don't really want to look like an idiot, and (b) it's more fun for me to tell people that this is back once I have 10-15 posts up to read, rather than just this one post telling you that this is back. Or maybe you'll just see this by accident and it'll be a pleasant surprise.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
On comfort reading
A sure sign that I'm feeling in better-than-normal condition is when I get around to actually reading things. Normally, reading is one of those activities that I keep meaning to get around to but rarely actually do, since I always feel that I have work I should be doing instead of lazing around with a book. So when I can actually get myself to sit down and curl up with a good book, it makes me happy.
Of course, in these times I don't always have new things to read lying around, so often I'll find myself looking on my bookshelf. Peculiarly enough, this more often than not leads me to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. I first was recommended to the series on rasfwr-j (that's rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan for those of you not familiar with the acronym -- yes, I did read Robert Jordan once -- no, I don't see why that's relevant to my past -- can we please stop asking questions about that now?), and darned if I can remember who it was (Kate Nepveu, maybe?) who said that they were good comfort reading. And it's really true -- they're light enough that they're a pleasure to read, Brust has a delightful writing style, and the plot is sufficient to keep me entertained even though I know how it's all going to end. All in all, the perfect combination for something to read when I just want a nice break from the rest of the world.
(Whee, I sound like a back-of-the-book blurb.)
A sure sign that I'm feeling in better-than-normal condition is when I get around to actually reading things. Normally, reading is one of those activities that I keep meaning to get around to but rarely actually do, since I always feel that I have work I should be doing instead of lazing around with a book. So when I can actually get myself to sit down and curl up with a good book, it makes me happy.
Of course, in these times I don't always have new things to read lying around, so often I'll find myself looking on my bookshelf. Peculiarly enough, this more often than not leads me to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. I first was recommended to the series on rasfwr-j (that's rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan for those of you not familiar with the acronym -- yes, I did read Robert Jordan once -- no, I don't see why that's relevant to my past -- can we please stop asking questions about that now?), and darned if I can remember who it was (Kate Nepveu, maybe?) who said that they were good comfort reading. And it's really true -- they're light enough that they're a pleasure to read, Brust has a delightful writing style, and the plot is sufficient to keep me entertained even though I know how it's all going to end. All in all, the perfect combination for something to read when I just want a nice break from the rest of the world.
(Whee, I sound like a back-of-the-book blurb.)
Monday, February 17, 2003
Sports Philosophy II
(Part 1 of a 3-part series, time permitting)
Ultimately, the goal of any sport is to determine who the best team is. Now, of course, the question of what the "best" team is a difficult philosophical nut to crack in the first place, and often you'll see heated arguments on this subject when the participants don't even agree on the fundamental goals they're trying to prove. So I'll try to tackle the question of what makes a better team from several different angles. In the scientist's way, I'll start out with a deliberately simplified model.
Consider three teams (which, for lack of imagination, I'll call A, B, and C). They play a round robin, at the end of which each team is 1-1. This is the classic Circle of Death you'll see in quizbowl tournaments all the time. To make the example a little more fleshed-out, add, say, five more teams which always lose to A, B, and C, so we have a eight-team division with three teams at 6-1 and three teams at 2-5. Now, let's make an assumption that these results fairly reflect the quality of the three teams. This is arguably not a safe assumption, but we're not going to get interesting results without dong something, so we'll make it. And I can certainly think of quizbowl tournaments where this would be an accurate thing to say. Okay, now it's pretty obvious that we can say that A, B, and C are of the same intrinsic quality (assuming that it's meaningful to speak of an "intrinsic quality" in the first place; again, without making this assumption we're not going to get very far, so I'm just going to say it and move on).
Now, let's conduct a little gedanken experiment. Suppose team C's bus gets stuck in snow, or they forfeit all of their games due to their star player accepting throwback jerseys, or something else happens to take them out of the picture. All of a sudden, we have a pretty surprising result: team A is now 6-0 and team B is 5-1, so pretty much anyone sane would say that team A has done better than team B, despite the fact that our assumption that their intrinsic qualities are the same still holds.
All right, this might seem a little excessively contrived, but let's add another little wrench into the gedanken experiment. Let's say team A suffers a loss to team F somewhere along the line, so now team A and B are both 5-1. Now, we've made team A worse than its previous baseline, so if our previous assumption still holds true (and I sure haven't done anything to change it), then team B's intrinsic ability is actually a little better than team A. And yet, based on the fact that team A has beaten team B head-to-head, you'd see most people agree that team A is the better one.
At this point, I suppose you're going to say that this experiment is arguably a little silly. And so it is -- after all, just because our mythical team C exists in this case doesn't mean that we can always add a mythical team C to any given setup like the one above. Nevertheless, I think this serves to illustrate a broader point: many people, given two teams with equal records, will value a "good" win over a "bad" win, especially in the case of a head-to-head tiebreaker. But the team who loses the head-to-head tiebreaker has suffered a "better" loss than the other team, by definition. Why should we believe there's any a priori reason that a "good" win plus a "bad" loss is somehow indicative of a stronger team quality than a "bad" win plus a "good" loss?
This is not to say I oppose looking at indicators like strength of schedule -- in fact, I think it's something all-too-frequently overlooked (I'll talk about this more in the next part). But unfortunately, a lot of the time, strength of schedule is used by boosters of a particular team who will say things like, "Well, our team beat X, Y, and Z, and they're all good teams, so that must mean they're good!" while completely overlooking that the team also lost to J, K, and L, which were pretty bad teams. There are two sides to every coin, and if a good win is accompanied by a bad loss, then there's no basis to judge it better than a good loss and a bad win (in the absence of other information, of course). Trying to get further rankings out of this basis is merely trying to get something from nothing, and is essentially circular reasoning.
In the next part, I'll try to actually accomplish something productive.
(Part 1 of a 3-part series, time permitting)
Ultimately, the goal of any sport is to determine who the best team is. Now, of course, the question of what the "best" team is a difficult philosophical nut to crack in the first place, and often you'll see heated arguments on this subject when the participants don't even agree on the fundamental goals they're trying to prove. So I'll try to tackle the question of what makes a better team from several different angles. In the scientist's way, I'll start out with a deliberately simplified model.
Consider three teams (which, for lack of imagination, I'll call A, B, and C). They play a round robin, at the end of which each team is 1-1. This is the classic Circle of Death you'll see in quizbowl tournaments all the time. To make the example a little more fleshed-out, add, say, five more teams which always lose to A, B, and C, so we have a eight-team division with three teams at 6-1 and three teams at 2-5. Now, let's make an assumption that these results fairly reflect the quality of the three teams. This is arguably not a safe assumption, but we're not going to get interesting results without dong something, so we'll make it. And I can certainly think of quizbowl tournaments where this would be an accurate thing to say. Okay, now it's pretty obvious that we can say that A, B, and C are of the same intrinsic quality (assuming that it's meaningful to speak of an "intrinsic quality" in the first place; again, without making this assumption we're not going to get very far, so I'm just going to say it and move on).
Now, let's conduct a little gedanken experiment. Suppose team C's bus gets stuck in snow, or they forfeit all of their games due to their star player accepting throwback jerseys, or something else happens to take them out of the picture. All of a sudden, we have a pretty surprising result: team A is now 6-0 and team B is 5-1, so pretty much anyone sane would say that team A has done better than team B, despite the fact that our assumption that their intrinsic qualities are the same still holds.
All right, this might seem a little excessively contrived, but let's add another little wrench into the gedanken experiment. Let's say team A suffers a loss to team F somewhere along the line, so now team A and B are both 5-1. Now, we've made team A worse than its previous baseline, so if our previous assumption still holds true (and I sure haven't done anything to change it), then team B's intrinsic ability is actually a little better than team A. And yet, based on the fact that team A has beaten team B head-to-head, you'd see most people agree that team A is the better one.
At this point, I suppose you're going to say that this experiment is arguably a little silly. And so it is -- after all, just because our mythical team C exists in this case doesn't mean that we can always add a mythical team C to any given setup like the one above. Nevertheless, I think this serves to illustrate a broader point: many people, given two teams with equal records, will value a "good" win over a "bad" win, especially in the case of a head-to-head tiebreaker. But the team who loses the head-to-head tiebreaker has suffered a "better" loss than the other team, by definition. Why should we believe there's any a priori reason that a "good" win plus a "bad" loss is somehow indicative of a stronger team quality than a "bad" win plus a "good" loss?
This is not to say I oppose looking at indicators like strength of schedule -- in fact, I think it's something all-too-frequently overlooked (I'll talk about this more in the next part). But unfortunately, a lot of the time, strength of schedule is used by boosters of a particular team who will say things like, "Well, our team beat X, Y, and Z, and they're all good teams, so that must mean they're good!" while completely overlooking that the team also lost to J, K, and L, which were pretty bad teams. There are two sides to every coin, and if a good win is accompanied by a bad loss, then there's no basis to judge it better than a good loss and a bad win (in the absence of other information, of course). Trying to get further rankings out of this basis is merely trying to get something from nothing, and is essentially circular reasoning.
In the next part, I'll try to actually accomplish something productive.
Wednesday, February 12, 2003
A digression on the scientific method
I'm sure you've all seen this in some form, but I like laying it out clearly.
Suppose I have two coins. One of them is a two-headed coin; the other one is a normal coin. I choose one of them at random and flip it; it comes up heads. What is the chance that it is the two-headed coin? Well, this is a pretty simple exercise in using Bayes' Theorem. The total probability of getting heads is 3/4, and the total probability of picking the two-headed coin and getting heads is 1/2 x 1 = 1/2. So, by Bayes' Theorem, the probability of it being the two-headed coin given that it came up heads is P(2-headed given heads) = P(2-headed and heads) / P(heads) = (1/2)/(3/4) = 2/3. No problem.
All right, let's move on. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: that this happened because this is a normal coin." My friend comes into the room and says, "Oh yeah? I have a better theory. Your coin came up heads because it was a two-headed coin. And look! You just proved that my theory has a 2/3 chance of being correct." Well, yes and no. If we assume that, a priori, the coin was equally likely to be a regular coin and a two-headed coin, then yes, it's true that the coin has a 2/3 chance of being two-headed. But we have a better knowledge of the a priori distribution than that -- we know that normal coins are far, far more common than two-headed coins, so the probability of it being a two-headed coin is still very small, even given this one piece of information.
But notice the key feature of this: the experiment (such as it is) can't give us a full picture of which hypothesis is more likely without some a priori assumptions about which hypothesis is more likely in the first place.
So, I'll bet you can see where this is headed. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: this happened because this is a normal coin." My other friend walks in, and says, "Well, I have a theory that this happened because invisible angels manipulated the trajectory of the coin to make it come up heads." The scientific method is completely helpless to resolve this dispute; you have to use your own a priori knowledge to adjudicate it. This is where we like to talk about what makes a theory "scientific", but all that really means is setting out an objective framework for deciding what's likely in the first place and what's not. It's a big mess.
I'm sure you've all seen this in some form, but I like laying it out clearly.
Suppose I have two coins. One of them is a two-headed coin; the other one is a normal coin. I choose one of them at random and flip it; it comes up heads. What is the chance that it is the two-headed coin? Well, this is a pretty simple exercise in using Bayes' Theorem. The total probability of getting heads is 3/4, and the total probability of picking the two-headed coin and getting heads is 1/2 x 1 = 1/2. So, by Bayes' Theorem, the probability of it being the two-headed coin given that it came up heads is P(2-headed given heads) = P(2-headed and heads) / P(heads) = (1/2)/(3/4) = 2/3. No problem.
All right, let's move on. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: that this happened because this is a normal coin." My friend comes into the room and says, "Oh yeah? I have a better theory. Your coin came up heads because it was a two-headed coin. And look! You just proved that my theory has a 2/3 chance of being correct." Well, yes and no. If we assume that, a priori, the coin was equally likely to be a regular coin and a two-headed coin, then yes, it's true that the coin has a 2/3 chance of being two-headed. But we have a better knowledge of the a priori distribution than that -- we know that normal coins are far, far more common than two-headed coins, so the probability of it being a two-headed coin is still very small, even given this one piece of information.
But notice the key feature of this: the experiment (such as it is) can't give us a full picture of which hypothesis is more likely without some a priori assumptions about which hypothesis is more likely in the first place.
So, I'll bet you can see where this is headed. I have a coin, and I flip it. It comes up heads. I say, "I have a theory: this happened because this is a normal coin." My other friend walks in, and says, "Well, I have a theory that this happened because invisible angels manipulated the trajectory of the coin to make it come up heads." The scientific method is completely helpless to resolve this dispute; you have to use your own a priori knowledge to adjudicate it. This is where we like to talk about what makes a theory "scientific", but all that really means is setting out an objective framework for deciding what's likely in the first place and what's not. It's a big mess.
Tuesday, February 11, 2003
On the Commodification of A Priori Egalitarian Systems
(Why yes, I am feeling in an academic mood today. How could you tell?)
So, I'm sure you've read this study of the economy of Norrath. (For those of you who haven't: Norrath is the virtual world in the game EverQuest, and this paper is a fascinating analysis of its economy. Possessions in the virtual world are often bought and sold online for real money; you can even establish an exchange rate given these transactions, in which the Norrathian platinum piece comes out as stronger than the lira or yen. But if you haven't, read the article. It's fascinating stuff, and humorously written.) Now, as you might expect, all characters are created equally; everyone starts out as a Level 1 weakling with nothing to his, her, or its name. In EverQuest's many predecessors (note: I've never played EverQuest itself, but I'm familiar with MUDs, the ancestor of MMORPGs like EverQuest), the only way to build up your character was by expending time in the virtual world -- time spent improving your character's abilities, obtaining equipment and money, and forging friendships and alliances with other characters. But now, with the ability of outside wealth to influence a player's ability, one can substitute cold, hard US cash for expenditure of time in the world of Norrath. As Castronova notes, "Unfortunately the equality of opportunity is beginning to erode...It has become possible to start a new avatar and use US currency to instantly endow it with vast virtual riches and expensive equipment." (p. 15) I've seen enough complaints about rich kids buying their way to success to figure that this is an issue which makes people unhappy, and with good reason. (If you want to get all Marxist, you can insert the appropriate rhetoric: the bourgoisie, with their capital -- capital not even acquired within the world of the game! -- can use this capital to take advantage of the labor of the proletariat. Wasn't that fun?)
Now, Sony has attempted to prevent this kind of trading (not, of course, for any kind of socialist utopia reasons, but because they believe -- arguably correctly -- that the game's property is their intellectual property), but although they've tried to stamp out auctions in eBay and Yahoo, it's awfully hard to prevent the black market. Castronova says, "My impression is that the ban has had little impact on trading. Sony, effectively the government of Norrath, is fighting a war of trade restrictions that no government has ever won." (p. 19) The truth is, as long as these commodities have value to people, they will be bought and sold, regardless of what Sony wants to enforce.
It's hard to feel too worked up about this issue, since it is a game I don't play after all (although I suspect I might be a little annoyed if I actually did play the game). But an issue that hits a little closer to home is the Google vs. SearchKing issue. Now, of course I fully support Google; it's hard not to feel that businesses like SearchKing are a little sleazy. Google has always cast itself as the promoter of egalitarianism; their description of PageRank touts itself as relying "on the uniquely democratic nature of the web" and strongly emphasizes that only a page's merit will determine its PageRank. But reading through this article, and then James Grimmelmann's article in LawMeme (another excellent read), brought me to this open letter from SearchKing CEO Bob Massa. The letter, of course, portrays SearchKing as a company just trying to help those struggling little mom-and-pop web sites; you can make your own decisions about just how truthful it is, but Massa makes a very troubling point in his letter: "People are going to start selling PR [PageRank] regardless of what Google does. If there is value in it, someone is going to sell it."
And the simple truth is, regardless of whatever the truth may be about SearchKing's real mission, Massa is right. In the world of Google, a high PageRank is valuable, and, well, if a less-reputable site wants to offer money to a site with a high PageRank to get them to link to them...Google can try to go after the SearchKings of the world, like Sony can go after the obvious auctions on eBay and Yahoo, but on a practical level, there's no way to stop it. You and I might find it distasteful, and Google almost certainly has an interest in quashing it, since it reduces the value of their rankings without any compensation to Google, but that can't stop it from happening. Does this mean that I think PageRank is ultimately doomed? I have confidence that it's currently too impractical to significantly boost one's ranking this way, especially when the alternative of making a higher-quality site is available, but the fact that SearchKing had succeeded in improving the reputation of itself and its clients does indicate that it can be done. The invisible hand is just too powerful in these situations; a black market will always spring up even if the government tries to prohibit commerce in these goods.
(Why yes, I am feeling in an academic mood today. How could you tell?)
So, I'm sure you've read this study of the economy of Norrath. (For those of you who haven't: Norrath is the virtual world in the game EverQuest, and this paper is a fascinating analysis of its economy. Possessions in the virtual world are often bought and sold online for real money; you can even establish an exchange rate given these transactions, in which the Norrathian platinum piece comes out as stronger than the lira or yen. But if you haven't, read the article. It's fascinating stuff, and humorously written.) Now, as you might expect, all characters are created equally; everyone starts out as a Level 1 weakling with nothing to his, her, or its name. In EverQuest's many predecessors (note: I've never played EverQuest itself, but I'm familiar with MUDs, the ancestor of MMORPGs like EverQuest), the only way to build up your character was by expending time in the virtual world -- time spent improving your character's abilities, obtaining equipment and money, and forging friendships and alliances with other characters. But now, with the ability of outside wealth to influence a player's ability, one can substitute cold, hard US cash for expenditure of time in the world of Norrath. As Castronova notes, "Unfortunately the equality of opportunity is beginning to erode...It has become possible to start a new avatar and use US currency to instantly endow it with vast virtual riches and expensive equipment." (p. 15) I've seen enough complaints about rich kids buying their way to success to figure that this is an issue which makes people unhappy, and with good reason. (If you want to get all Marxist, you can insert the appropriate rhetoric: the bourgoisie, with their capital -- capital not even acquired within the world of the game! -- can use this capital to take advantage of the labor of the proletariat. Wasn't that fun?)
Now, Sony has attempted to prevent this kind of trading (not, of course, for any kind of socialist utopia reasons, but because they believe -- arguably correctly -- that the game's property is their intellectual property), but although they've tried to stamp out auctions in eBay and Yahoo, it's awfully hard to prevent the black market. Castronova says, "My impression is that the ban has had little impact on trading. Sony, effectively the government of Norrath, is fighting a war of trade restrictions that no government has ever won." (p. 19) The truth is, as long as these commodities have value to people, they will be bought and sold, regardless of what Sony wants to enforce.
It's hard to feel too worked up about this issue, since it is a game I don't play after all (although I suspect I might be a little annoyed if I actually did play the game). But an issue that hits a little closer to home is the Google vs. SearchKing issue. Now, of course I fully support Google; it's hard not to feel that businesses like SearchKing are a little sleazy. Google has always cast itself as the promoter of egalitarianism; their description of PageRank touts itself as relying "on the uniquely democratic nature of the web" and strongly emphasizes that only a page's merit will determine its PageRank. But reading through this article, and then James Grimmelmann's article in LawMeme (another excellent read), brought me to this open letter from SearchKing CEO Bob Massa. The letter, of course, portrays SearchKing as a company just trying to help those struggling little mom-and-pop web sites; you can make your own decisions about just how truthful it is, but Massa makes a very troubling point in his letter: "People are going to start selling PR [PageRank] regardless of what Google does. If there is value in it, someone is going to sell it."
And the simple truth is, regardless of whatever the truth may be about SearchKing's real mission, Massa is right. In the world of Google, a high PageRank is valuable, and, well, if a less-reputable site wants to offer money to a site with a high PageRank to get them to link to them...Google can try to go after the SearchKings of the world, like Sony can go after the obvious auctions on eBay and Yahoo, but on a practical level, there's no way to stop it. You and I might find it distasteful, and Google almost certainly has an interest in quashing it, since it reduces the value of their rankings without any compensation to Google, but that can't stop it from happening. Does this mean that I think PageRank is ultimately doomed? I have confidence that it's currently too impractical to significantly boost one's ranking this way, especially when the alternative of making a higher-quality site is available, but the fact that SearchKing had succeeded in improving the reputation of itself and its clients does indicate that it can be done. The invisible hand is just too powerful in these situations; a black market will always spring up even if the government tries to prohibit commerce in these goods.
Monday, February 10, 2003
J-Lo, and how we know what isn't so
(apologies to Thomas Gilovich for stealing his title, and my readers for inflicting this rhyme, but I couldn't resist)
So, it's a well-known fact that Jennifer Lopez has a large butt. It's been the (ahem) butt of a thousand remarks (the majority unflattering; although I can believe that at least some of them are in a positive spirit, there's certainly a fair amount of meanness in a lot of what I see, too), but they say any publicity is good publicity, and it certainly hasn't hurt her. After all, if you were to walk up to a random stranger on the street and ask them to name you someone with a large butt, they'd almost certainly put her near the top of the list. I could go on about how this is some reflection of how America always wants to find fault in its celebrities, but that's not really my point here.
The point is that the emperor has no ass. That is, if you actually ask anyone reasonable, they'll agree that her butt is by no means larger than average. It might be slightly above the average of Hollywood, but it's hardly large, even taking Hollywood as a norm, much less the American populace, where it's still definitely below average (to state the obvious). Why does this happen, then? Well, it got started out somehow, and people liked to talk about it (for whatever reason), and since no one was particularly interested in arguing the other side (what's the point, after all?), it just spread to the point where, if there's anyone in America who hasn't actually seen J-Lo, they're probably convinced she must have a butt the size of Refrigerator Perry.
Now, in J-Lo's case, this is pretty harmless (and, despite the meanspiritedness, probably beneficial, on the whole). But the way with which something with such a tenuous basis in fact can spread to the point where it becomes accepted as common knowledge, simply by virtue of being constantly repeated, is more than a little alarming.
Tom Tomorrow can tell where I'm headed with this.
(apologies to Thomas Gilovich for stealing his title, and my readers for inflicting this rhyme, but I couldn't resist)
So, it's a well-known fact that Jennifer Lopez has a large butt. It's been the (ahem) butt of a thousand remarks (the majority unflattering; although I can believe that at least some of them are in a positive spirit, there's certainly a fair amount of meanness in a lot of what I see, too), but they say any publicity is good publicity, and it certainly hasn't hurt her. After all, if you were to walk up to a random stranger on the street and ask them to name you someone with a large butt, they'd almost certainly put her near the top of the list. I could go on about how this is some reflection of how America always wants to find fault in its celebrities, but that's not really my point here.
The point is that the emperor has no ass. That is, if you actually ask anyone reasonable, they'll agree that her butt is by no means larger than average. It might be slightly above the average of Hollywood, but it's hardly large, even taking Hollywood as a norm, much less the American populace, where it's still definitely below average (to state the obvious). Why does this happen, then? Well, it got started out somehow, and people liked to talk about it (for whatever reason), and since no one was particularly interested in arguing the other side (what's the point, after all?), it just spread to the point where, if there's anyone in America who hasn't actually seen J-Lo, they're probably convinced she must have a butt the size of Refrigerator Perry.
Now, in J-Lo's case, this is pretty harmless (and, despite the meanspiritedness, probably beneficial, on the whole). But the way with which something with such a tenuous basis in fact can spread to the point where it becomes accepted as common knowledge, simply by virtue of being constantly repeated, is more than a little alarming.
Tom Tomorrow can tell where I'm headed with this.
Thoughts from the road
As you probably know if you've ever driven on an interstate, usually whenever there's an exit sign on the right, there's a corresponding sign on the left telling you where the continuing freeway goes. "280 San Jose", or whatever. When I was driving in Southern California this weekend, I was inordinately amused when I found myself on 605, and those signs read "605 THRU TRAFFIC". The freeway wasn't actually notable for going anywhere, it was just there to carry traffic. I think there's some kind of deep social commentary to be gleaned from this.
On another note, my luck finally ran out and I got a speeding ticket. Oddly enough, despite my having pondered this very question often while driving, I still was momentarily stymied when the officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going. Part of it was that I actually didn't, since I didn't have my eye on the speedometer at the moment, and part of it was that I was trying to figure out what the best answer was. Finally, I figured that I probably shouldn't say anything over 90, and I wasn't sure anything under 90 was plausible, so I settled on that and hoped it was actually accurate. He seemed to agree, so I guess I was right.
As you probably know if you've ever driven on an interstate, usually whenever there's an exit sign on the right, there's a corresponding sign on the left telling you where the continuing freeway goes. "280 San Jose", or whatever. When I was driving in Southern California this weekend, I was inordinately amused when I found myself on 605, and those signs read "605 THRU TRAFFIC". The freeway wasn't actually notable for going anywhere, it was just there to carry traffic. I think there's some kind of deep social commentary to be gleaned from this.
On another note, my luck finally ran out and I got a speeding ticket. Oddly enough, despite my having pondered this very question often while driving, I still was momentarily stymied when the officer asked me if I knew how fast I was going. Part of it was that I actually didn't, since I didn't have my eye on the speedometer at the moment, and part of it was that I was trying to figure out what the best answer was. Finally, I figured that I probably shouldn't say anything over 90, and I wasn't sure anything under 90 was plausible, so I settled on that and hoped it was actually accurate. He seemed to agree, so I guess I was right.
Wednesday, February 05, 2003
Sports Philosophy I
The team that you normally root for is in the conference championship (or league championship, or whatever), and loses. When the Big Championship comes around, assuming all other things equal, do you:
(a) root for the team that your team lost to, so you can say that you lost to the best team?
(b) root against the team that your team lost to, out of revenge?
(My own answer, somewhat cowardly: it depends on exactly how they lost, but normally I trend closer to (a) than (b).)
The team that you normally root for is in the conference championship (or league championship, or whatever), and loses. When the Big Championship comes around, assuming all other things equal, do you:
(a) root for the team that your team lost to, so you can say that you lost to the best team?
(b) root against the team that your team lost to, out of revenge?
(My own answer, somewhat cowardly: it depends on exactly how they lost, but normally I trend closer to (a) than (b).)
Obligatory (somewhat belated) Columbia post
First of all, my condolences to the astronauts' families, and really everyone in the space program. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten.
But that's not really what I wanted to talk about, since many people have trod that ground already. My concern is really: where does the space program go from here? The Shuttle is (was?) an incredible feat, reducing the feat of going out into space from inconceivable into something we thought of as nearly routine (with this a rather rude reminder that it wasn't, after all). But I felt that after Challenger, NASA became a little more timid in its approach. Rather than continuing to push the frontier into new and exciting missions, they contented themselves with staying what they already had and were comfortable with. Not to say that there wasn't an awful lot of valuable science done on the Shuttle missions (John Glenn aside) -- but it really represented to me a failure of the will to explore new frontiers, and this disappointment only got more acute as I saw the new and truly innovative programs (X-33, for example) die for lack of political will over the Shuttle. Gregg Easterbrook presents a much more forceful case that the Shuttle should have been scrapped long ago; I can't say I completely agree with it, but the fact that the Shuttle has pretty much precluded NASA from undertaking other large projects is quite unarguable.
My hope is that this will finally kick NASA into expanding into things we should have done years ago. My fear is that NASA will become increasingly timid and we'll become even more reluctant to expand the limits of human knowledge.
First of all, my condolences to the astronauts' families, and really everyone in the space program. Their sacrifice will not be forgotten.
But that's not really what I wanted to talk about, since many people have trod that ground already. My concern is really: where does the space program go from here? The Shuttle is (was?) an incredible feat, reducing the feat of going out into space from inconceivable into something we thought of as nearly routine (with this a rather rude reminder that it wasn't, after all). But I felt that after Challenger, NASA became a little more timid in its approach. Rather than continuing to push the frontier into new and exciting missions, they contented themselves with staying what they already had and were comfortable with. Not to say that there wasn't an awful lot of valuable science done on the Shuttle missions (John Glenn aside) -- but it really represented to me a failure of the will to explore new frontiers, and this disappointment only got more acute as I saw the new and truly innovative programs (X-33, for example) die for lack of political will over the Shuttle. Gregg Easterbrook presents a much more forceful case that the Shuttle should have been scrapped long ago; I can't say I completely agree with it, but the fact that the Shuttle has pretty much precluded NASA from undertaking other large projects is quite unarguable.
My hope is that this will finally kick NASA into expanding into things we should have done years ago. My fear is that NASA will become increasingly timid and we'll become even more reluctant to expand the limits of human knowledge.
I'm baaaack!
Okay, I've designated January (retroactively) as my official Month of Hiatus, and now that that's all done with, I can go back to working through this rather alarmingly large (and, in some cases, unfortunately outdated) backlog of ideas. Enjoy! That is, if you haven't wandered off to greener pastures already.
Okay, I've designated January (retroactively) as my official Month of Hiatus, and now that that's all done with, I can go back to working through this rather alarmingly large (and, in some cases, unfortunately outdated) backlog of ideas. Enjoy! That is, if you haven't wandered off to greener pastures already.
Saturday, December 28, 2002
Friday, December 27, 2002
Thoughts on regime change
One thing that struck me while I was pondering international politics yesterday is that, sometimes, it seems as if we feel that we can achieve democracy in other countries overnight. Fundamentally, I suppose the four-year (or eight-year) lifetime of an American president ensures that people won't consider the effects of a policy longer than 10 or so years down the road. But I think the fact that this misses is that it really does take an extraordinarily long time to achieve stable, productive regimes. Our own country was 150 years in the making, and even after getting our nice Constitution it wasn't like the country lived happily ever after afterwards. Now, it's certainly true that we can hope that maybe with the guidance of those who have already made it through, we can help the Third World countries reach our level more quickly, but I think that it is going to be a much slower process than anyone can hope, and in the middle of that process it's going to be pretty unpleasant.
Of course, while we forget that it took 400 years to bring our nation to the point where it is today, it's equally easy to forget that, just 60 years ago, the whole world was at war. It surprises me, reflecting on it sometimes, just how quickly people's mindsets have shifted from being a world at war to having known essentially nothing but peace. So this does give me hope that, if we can ever bring stable governments to the countries that need them, it will be possible to forget past hatreds and injustices. But maybe that's just the optimist in me speaking.
One thing that struck me while I was pondering international politics yesterday is that, sometimes, it seems as if we feel that we can achieve democracy in other countries overnight. Fundamentally, I suppose the four-year (or eight-year) lifetime of an American president ensures that people won't consider the effects of a policy longer than 10 or so years down the road. But I think the fact that this misses is that it really does take an extraordinarily long time to achieve stable, productive regimes. Our own country was 150 years in the making, and even after getting our nice Constitution it wasn't like the country lived happily ever after afterwards. Now, it's certainly true that we can hope that maybe with the guidance of those who have already made it through, we can help the Third World countries reach our level more quickly, but I think that it is going to be a much slower process than anyone can hope, and in the middle of that process it's going to be pretty unpleasant.
Of course, while we forget that it took 400 years to bring our nation to the point where it is today, it's equally easy to forget that, just 60 years ago, the whole world was at war. It surprises me, reflecting on it sometimes, just how quickly people's mindsets have shifted from being a world at war to having known essentially nothing but peace. So this does give me hope that, if we can ever bring stable governments to the countries that need them, it will be possible to forget past hatreds and injustices. But maybe that's just the optimist in me speaking.
Personal luck: high
Recently, my luck seems to have been better than average. At our pre-Christmas poker gathering, I did much better than I usually do. It wasn't that I was playing fantastically well (though with a few egregious exceptions, I thought I was playing decently); rather, it was that in the hands where it's ultimately pretty much luck that determines the winner (and often, those hands tend to be the biggest pots, for obvious reasons), luck usually came down on my side.
When we were bowling yesterday, I also felt luckier than normal. In fact, my whole score was different than normal: normally I pick up surprisignly few strikes and instead rely on picking up a lot of spares off 8s and 9s. Yesterday, though, I was bowling a ridiculous number of strikes -- some earned, but many which on other days would have earned me nasty splits. But I was opening practically every frame I didn't get a strike on -- when I looked at the end-of-game statistics, I had 12 open frames, 5 spares, and 14 strikes. That's way out of character for me -- normally in 3 games it would be something like 8, 16, and 6, respectively.
Yes, I know there's no such thing as a lucky streak. But I'm going to enjoy this one anyway.
Recently, my luck seems to have been better than average. At our pre-Christmas poker gathering, I did much better than I usually do. It wasn't that I was playing fantastically well (though with a few egregious exceptions, I thought I was playing decently); rather, it was that in the hands where it's ultimately pretty much luck that determines the winner (and often, those hands tend to be the biggest pots, for obvious reasons), luck usually came down on my side.
When we were bowling yesterday, I also felt luckier than normal. In fact, my whole score was different than normal: normally I pick up surprisignly few strikes and instead rely on picking up a lot of spares off 8s and 9s. Yesterday, though, I was bowling a ridiculous number of strikes -- some earned, but many which on other days would have earned me nasty splits. But I was opening practically every frame I didn't get a strike on -- when I looked at the end-of-game statistics, I had 12 open frames, 5 spares, and 14 strikes. That's way out of character for me -- normally in 3 games it would be something like 8, 16, and 6, respectively.
Yes, I know there's no such thing as a lucky streak. But I'm going to enjoy this one anyway.
Thursday, December 26, 2002
And my hubris is punished
Looks like I spoke too soon on Neifi Perez, what with the Giants signing him to a 2-year, $4.25M contract. It's things like this that drive me nuts -- it's one thing to trade away your #1 pitcher because you claim that you don't have the $4.4M he's due in 2003. It's an entirely different thing to take that $4.4M you didn't have and spend it on two of the stiffest stiffs this side of the Tin Woodsman. I just hate, hate moves like these.
Looks like I spoke too soon on Neifi Perez, what with the Giants signing him to a 2-year, $4.25M contract. It's things like this that drive me nuts -- it's one thing to trade away your #1 pitcher because you claim that you don't have the $4.4M he's due in 2003. It's an entirely different thing to take that $4.4M you didn't have and spend it on two of the stiffest stiffs this side of the Tin Woodsman. I just hate, hate moves like these.
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