Ruminations, Haunts, and Errors

A House committee today inserted language into an energy bill to extend daylight savings time by two months in a questionable attempt to enable energy conservation. Never mind proposing legislation to fund alternative-energy research or establish incentives and penalties to encourage consumption, let’s tinker with the clocks! Couldn’t they at least pay a modicum of attention to the seasonal cycle and make the start and end times at least symmetric about the shortest days of the year (i.e. have DST run from mid-February to mid-November)?

What really caught my attention was this quote from Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA):

The more daylight we have, the less electricity we use.

Wow! After 19 years of skygazing and 5 years of college- and graduate-level astronomy courses, I was pretty certain that the length of each day was a function of our orbital position and planetary inclination, and further that significant changes in either would require massive amounts of energy and engineering. Silly me, I never considered that such laws in effect for billions of years were no match for the power of the United States Congress.

With that kind of authority, why don’t they just create new energy sources, fuel efficiencies, and technologies via legislation, those would be much more effective than changing time zones…

Various outlets today posted stories–some straight up, others with a more appropriate edginess–about a recent trend to ban red pens from American schoolteachers’ grading arsenals. Too jarring they say, makes kids feel bad. Simply astounding! Funny, I always thought the mission of our schools should be to educate children, but apparently many parents believe that maintainting a 70s-style I’m-OK-you’re-OK feel-good sensibility in our youngsters is paramount. If the objection to grading methods was that the commentary was too negative and prescriptive, I’d be fine with it: criticism works best when it is constructive whenever possible. But sometimes the best way for a point to be driven home is simply to be confronted with the bare, ugly fact that one messed up or didn’t try hard enough–people usually learn more quickly and effectively from mistakes than from successes.

Besides, this is a case of parents fixating on a cosmetic issue (never mind the content, how will this look to the Joneses?) and overworked, underpaid educators simply caving in. What kind of lesson is this for the kiddies?

Ah, theorists, they are an entertaining lot–especially the particle-physics types who have morphed into astronomers. Now, there’s no doubt that their approach has yielded important advances (especially when combined with actual observed data), but the veracity of their pronouncements based on hunches and gaps sometimes vies with that of politicians and religious zealots for its pure huh? factor. Quoth George Chapline of LLLNL recently
in Nature:

It’s a near certainty that black holes don’t exist.

Okay, black holes as currently conceived are certainly problematic: general relativity predicts a runaway collapse that results in an entity–a spacetime singularity–that GR is completely unable to describe, while out at its encloaking event horizon quantum mechanics predicts an entirely different and incompatible set of circumstances. Chapline’s answer to all this? Neither, it must be ‘dark energy’! Hmm…never mind that dark energy is itself an intellectual black hole, er, black-box placeholder that has only existed since about 1998 to explain the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe. (Okay, maybe you can trace its origins to Einstein’s cosmological constant, but the connection is tenuous and only gives it a little more historic rigor yet no further observational heft.) Could this dark energy be a factor in inflation, accelerating expansion, dark matter, and large-structure formation? Absolutely. But six years of study hardly allows for anything approaching certainty.

Besides, lurking in numerous double-star systems and at the hearts of galaxies lie enormous mass concentrations in very small volumes that cause very severe spacetime (or quantum-field) distorsions. Such nasty places would seem to fit the moniker of ‘black hole’ regardless of whether they are generated by singularities, or dark-energy concentrations, or whatnot. To suggest that they do not exist is ludicrous.

‘Twas no surprise that a presidential commission today reported that the administration was ‘dead wrong’ about WMDs in Iraq–after all, plenty of us could see in 2002-03 that the evidence as given was much too flimsy to justify war–but it was a bit disturbing how forcefully the report made the point that our current intelligence capabilities are so messed up that we know ‘disturbingly little’ detail about even our known enemies. (Intelligence problems? Dubya? Urge to make joke…must..resist…) Well, I suppose the first step towards solving a problem is admitting it exists. I especially like the commission’s recommendation to encourage questioning and dissent within the various agencies: as anyone with scientific training knows, knowing the alternate hypothesis and margins of error is as important–often more so!–than knowing what the current ‘best fit’ (or ‘most desirable’) answer is.

Another recommendation I found interesting was to have the new director of intelligence not provide the daily briefings to the President, to have said director focus not on the details of current knowledge but instead on the more general aspect of how the agencies collect and analyze data. Bush is unlikely to go with this, and I think that indicates a flaw in his leadership style. In his MBA-warped mind he believes that much should be delegated to others, who should whittle info down to small chunks that require quick, high-level decisions from among a few clear options. Unfortunately, this mentality is exactly what led to the ‘group-think’ that encouraged analysts to pass along what the neocons wanted to hear. The intelligence director should ensure that the best possible information and analysis is provided, but it should not be his responsibility to assess, edit, and act upon that info–that accountability should lie squarely with the President.

Conservative pundits (such as Charles Krauthammer as quoted here) appear to be advocating for the ability to easily abrogate living wills if someone (almost anyone) doesn’t like the choice made. After the appeals court in Atlanta scathingly rejected the attempt by Congress to push the law in just that direction, Tom Delay was quoted this evening as promising that Congress ‘will look at an arrogant, out-of-control judiciary that thumbs its nose at Congress and the President’. (I guess he believes that Separation of Powers is such an antiquated concept.)

Apparently life and choice really are mutually exclusive, or soon will be if some have their way. So much for the government staying out of our lives. Oh, I guess they’ll leave anyone alone who makes the proper choices…

Awoke this morning to the sound of lawn equipment. Ah, well, at least that indicates that things are growing again. I just wish the landscapers worked during the week.

This weekend’s developments in the sad saga of Terry Schiavo continue to amaze. I’ll admit to a slight bias towards the right-to-die side of the debate–methinks that an inviolable human life requiring maintenance at all costs requires more than simple existence of some biological functions. Maybe that Michael Shaivo didn’t raise the idea of his wife’s wishes to not be kept alive until a long time had passed indicate that his decision was motivated by other (economic?) factors. (What person’s motives are truly ever completely pure, though, really?) However, he has consistently maintained simply that well-established law and precedent granted him, as the surviving spouse, the final call regarding what her wishes were. No one will ever completely know what her thoughts were, but he was in as good a position as anybody, and it seems presumptive for anyone else (especially the state) to intercede simply because they don’t agree with what she did (or did not) think.

The most exasperating aspect, in my view, has been that every time in the last few years that the parents’ side has ‘lost’, in the sense that a court has reconfirmed Michael Schiavo’s rights in the matter, the opposing political side has followed with reworked laws to overturn the ruling. These continued efforts to change the rules every time they fail to ‘win’ may not be unprecedented in American politics, but such incalcitrance–especially when apparently aimed at a single person–seems to violate the spirit of our jurisprudence. I can appreciate the sincerity and tenacity of the parents and many of their supporters, but at what point does it become a simple, stubborn refusal to accept that someone else’s views might have merit too?

And now, with the full theatrics of a late Sunday session of Congress and Dubya being awakened in the middle of the night to sign a bill in a White House corridor, conservative power brokers in Washington have seen fit yet again to try for a rules change. However, a post on Angry Bear shows that not only were the self-righteous proponents of this rushed law very selective in which right-to-life case they saw fit to champion, but they did so in large measure to bolster Republican efforts to unseat Florida (Democratic) Senator Bill Nelson in 2006. Galling. Just disgusting.

Usually I’m fine with George Will (he’s a native Illinoisan and likes the Cubs, after all), for while I don’t share his views he typically presents them with calm, thoughtful arguments. However, this week’s column got under my skin for some reason. Suprisingly, it wasn’t primarily due to his characterization of the Count Every Vote Act as a cynical ploy by certain Democrats to give votes (presumably in their favor) to felons and other undeserving members of society. To pen such a screed on draft legislation whose ink is barely dry is uncharacteristic but merits just a roll of the eyes. No, what attracted my attention were the subtler undercurrents neatly summarized in this statement:

The act would further erode federalism by stripping states of their traditional rights to regulate elections

First off, will conservatives stop claiming that federalism equals subservience to state prerogatives? The attendees at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 knew better. True, the feds don’t always know best, but that doesn’t imply that the states (or localities) do either. The elections of 2000 and 2004 showed just how much effect one state can have on the nation. How the good citizens of Ohio or Florida or any other non-Illinois state choose to distribute the franchise for their state and local officials doesn’t concern me because I’m generally unaffected by the decisions they make; in contrast, the actions and decisions of Congress and the President do affect me, so I have a very legitimate stake in how the other states choose their Representatives, Senators, and Electoral Votes. As a result, the federal government has every right to mandate a certain uniformity of standards for federal elections.

Second, what does ‘tradition’ have to do with anything? This mantra that the old and current is necessarily good and deserving of protection is what continually drives me batty about conservatives. Their presumption is that whatver has ’stood the test of time’ must be sensible or strong or valid or whatever. Counterexamples are easy to find: the flat earth and human slavery come to mind. Anyone who has dealt with any large organization (e.g. big company, university, government office) knows that often things are the way they are because either 1) no one wants to suggest changes that might upset those who benefit from the current state, or 2) no one even considered doing it another way. Moreover, anything having to do with the government (well, at least the American one) was put in place by choice, and we should not feel compelled to maintain that choice in the face of new conditions or other options (so long as they achive comparable sociopoltical ends that are still considered desirable). New ideas need to be compared with the existing ones on their merits of logic (efficiency, fairness, etc.) alone; simple familiarity or comfort is an insufficient reason to resist change. If tradition has a role to play, it is in guiding the cost-benefit analysis of, or transition schedule for, the move from old to new (a concept the Left, to its detriment, often fails to comprehend).

As happened last year, we were foiled in our attempts to obtain single-game tickets for the 2005 season. Of coure the biggies (Red Sox, White Sox, a few Cardinals games, Ryno’s number-retirement ceremony) sold out by lunchtime on Monday…but even more frustrating were some of the issues in attempting to get tix against lower-profile teams. Methinks many could be addressed with some simple, easily-implemented fixes:

• The ticketing system needs to indicate, on the front page, not just that tickets are available in a seating section but also the biggest block of tickets available.
• While randomly choosing persons from the virtual waiting room, rather than just a first-come-first-serve method, does provide some degree of fairness to those who simply can’t afford to keep open a browser session all day, it would also be fair to incrementally increase the probability of a person’s being selected the longer he/she goes without getting in.
• Wrigleyville residents should get a chance a little early (a week? three days?) to buy tickets for one or two games before the rest of Cubdom; to ensure fairness, perhaps they must show up in person and show a photo id.

Just weeks after projecting yet another record federal budget deficit, the Administration yesterday requested yet another $82B in spending (mostly) related to military activities. It’s For The Troops, so it must be okay, right? What’s sad is that several members of Congress (from both parties) recognize that the Administration has gotten addicted to the idea of getting many things its wants by requesting funds outside of the normal budgeting process–with its associated scrutiny–but concede that little chance exists that Congress will put a stop to it.

Remember when Republicans were the champions of fiscal discipline, railing against tax-and-spend Democrats? At least the latter recognized that if one wants something paying for it now is far better than paying for it over time, and were honest enough to make a reasonable attempt at laying out something approaching the actual costs of some program or other.

Given their track record from the past four years of not bothering too hard to align what they think and say and do with actual fact and consequence, perhaps it’s not surprising that Dubya and his minions are so cavalier about the near- and long-term effects of all this extra spending on the economy (and future taxpayers). Perhaps they don’t realize that debt racked up in off-budget requests requires the same servicing as does debt officially marked as ‘deficit spending’ even if it’s earmarked for some project they say everyone wants. Well, Bush didn’t have a record of stellar successes in his businessman days, and Halliburton certainly never worried too much about truth and honesty in their financials, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by all this…

Today I set out to do an initial prep of our 2004 tax returns. Things started well, as I was ready to give the IRS kudos for their subtle good work in adjusting the contents of our forms-and-instructions packets based on last year’s returns…but my goodwill evaporated after actually going over our numbers for 2004. The instructions really need a couple pages that contain a flowchart, for while most forms and worksheets aren’t by themselves particularly difficult (it’s mostly simple arithmetic, after all) it is extremely frustrating when getting to a line only to discover the need to go fill out another form–which might itself have lines requiring yet another; forms other than the 1040 itself are usually better places to start, but unless I’ve got some really exotic financial arrangements I don’t think I should need to be a tax accountant to know where to start. Along with those flow charts, each major publication should also list a table that summarizes the scenarios that most taxpayers find themselves in; why must I wade through a 100-page document (Publication 590) just to determine whether we can take the full amount of an IRA deduction?

Seeing a big payment looming at the end of the process certainly didn’t help my mood, but I’ll at least admit that it was partially my fault–I could have easily made some better projections last fall–and I’ll thank the tax-code writers for creating a nice exception for what is probably a not-unusual situation when people get married. The IRS could possibly reduce this issue were they to update the W-4 to allow employees to select a tax bracket as well as a filing status; a little extra withholding from each paycheck would have mostly resolved the issue. At least we know now to account for it during our quarterly estimated payments.

It’s getting to the point where the tax advantages alone will justify buying a house…

Database mining, focus groups, product placement…American marketroids sureknow how to figure out what makes every consumer tick, how to personalize those campaigns to zero in on each individual’s wants and needs when it comes to spending money we’re all just dying to spend. As a shining example, check out the amazing slip of paper in my mailbox today addressed to

Head of Household
Pre-Selected Residence
Major US Market Area

Wow!! With such amazing personalization, how could I possibly refuse the offer inside? Clearly they know me very well and have tailored this offer just for my needs!

A national cultural crisis erupted recently as Jim Dobson’s Focus on the Family warned that SpongeBob Squarepants is gay and thus could lead to terrible consequences for our nation’s youth. A lot of this resulted from various misunderstandings on the part of FoF’s crack investigators, but it really boiled down to their view that tolerance, acceptance, and a realistic view of the types of people that exist in the world are simply not the sorts of things we should teach our children.

Okay, rant mode off.

Anyway, as a result of this hullabaloo, in my musings I have cobbled together a set of guidelines that I’d like to see people use when determining how to deal with things they don’t like, i.e. when it might be appropriate to request changes. To wit, is it okay for an individual or group to demand or enforce a change based on…

• What a person is?. Nope, off limits. White, brown, or yellow? Gay or straight? Smart or stupid? If you don’t like it, tough, just deal.
• What a person thinks?. Still off limits, at least to the extent that it stays within his/her mind. Even vile, evil thoughts are only destructive when turned into action, and there’s no way to stamp out ‘bad thinking’ without tramping on unusual-or-scary-but-evenutally-good thoughts.
• What a person says?. Still generally off-limits, but with some limitations. Speech that’s just an expression of opinion (see above) isn’t a problem as long as those who disagree can (1) avoid seeing/hearing the speaker and/or (2) similarly express their opposing views. When/where restrictions carefully designed to ensure the ability of an individual to avoid unwanted concepts are acceptable, as are those narrowly intended to prevent personal harassment or fire-in-a-crowded-theater incidents.
• What a person does with consenting persons?. Generally off-limits. Since the right or ability to do something does not convey the right to make others aware of it, some ‘where’ restrictions are acceptable as long as they are not onerous (i.e. the privacy of one’s home should be respected). Also acceptable are rules and regulations regarding what constitutes true consent and who is able to give it.
• What a person does with/to random people?. This is the only area where society trumps the individual. An orderly society requires ‘rules of engagement’–that’s what defines orderly in the first place–and these can be as permissive or restrictive as desired so long as they respect theconcepts above and allow malcontents to leave.

Would attempting to ensure everybody follows these rules of interaction itself violate them? Hmm…

In the last couple of weeks I’ve been suffering through (too) many meetings about the Scope and Plan of the project on which I’m working, and its resurrected some thoughts I had back during my ITIL certification course in December and the various project-management courses I’ve taken. To some degree my irritation is simply due to the mentality that many scientists/engineers/programmers have–tell me what you want, let me do it, then accept and implement my findings–but I think there’s a little more to it than that. It appears to me that the outlook of business-side types on technical projects often has serious flaws which actually cause some of the difficulties encountered in managing said projects.

Despite the rigorous trappings that often surround them, scientific investigations, programming, and the like are at essence creative activities–they often rely on intuition and serendipity for the major breakthroughs. This aspect makes them inherently unpredictable in terms of effort and duration. Unfortunately business types crave predicatbility and certainty and thus seem to abhor vague (but correct) answers like ‘I don’t know’ or ‘It will be done when it’s finished’. The business person wants to believe that anything is possible given proper effort and resources, but this can come in conflict when the techical side isn’t convinced that some task is doable at all (let alone within stated time or budget constraints). To fall short of a desired goal, or to get there after more time or effort than originally planned, is a failure from the business perspective but simply a learning experience for the scientist or programmer.

Now, since real-world resources are of course limited, some sort of planning and budgeting is certainly reasonable. However, when dealing with a cutting-edge technical project the typical response to the fear of failure (in the business sense)–demand to know how much time and resources are necessary–plants the very seeds of failure: to pretend that the estimates for tasks whose true lifecycles are inherently volatile are known simply because they’re committed to a Microsoft Project file isn’t mitigation of risk, it’s merely gambling. No wonder that something on the order of 50% of techincal projects ‘fail’!

Wouldn’t a more open-ended approach (a la that nominally used in academia) be more appropriate for technical projects? Plan out the ‘true knowns’ in as much detail as possible, then set one or more review points at which progress will be assessed and then a decision made to continue–planning out the next phase based on the new set of ‘true knowns’ gleaned from the work done in the previous phase(s)–or to stop and devote resources to something different. How many organizations (e.g. Stanford University) would be better off today had they simply stopped throwing good money after bad to rescue disastrous ERP or CRM projects, written off their losses, analyzed their mistakes, and used the experiences to embark on better uses for their resources? Beyond the semantic issues, the redefinition of both ‘project’ and ’success’ could make the lives of both business and technical people much easier in many cases.

Earlier this week the Supreme Court returned its opinion on Illinois v. Caballes, much to the consternation of the more strident civil libertarians. I’m a bit ambivalent about the result: I’m certainly not in favor of turning our public ways and spaces into unadulterated surveillance zones, but I can also see merit in the nuanced view that nothing in the Constitution, statutory codes, or social contract provides an absolute right of privacy in shared public spaces such as highways.

(As an aside, the absence from the case of two aspects really puzzle me. First, Caballes was pulled over for doing 71 (!) on rural I-80 so Driving While Brown was an element of probable cause. Second, the arresting officer just so happened to have a drug-sniffing dog with him. Either one individually, and certainly both together, seem somewhat random and perhaps capricious. Why didn’t they argue uneven enforcement of laws?)

However, some of the dissenting arguments left me astonished at their panicky absurdity. The most strident I’ve seen was from Orin Kerr, who feels the opinion might allow the police to release computer viruses to sniff out crimes and have the resulting data stand up in court. Oh, puh-leeze…computer viruses are illegal, and wiretap laws have already been applied to internet communications, so unless the U.S. court system decides to suddenly abandon well-established jurisprudence, I think we’re safe in that regard. Eric Zorn and Ruth Bader Ginsberg (!) were slightly more restrained but still opined that the ruling might lead to pervasive police (and canine) surveillance at routine traffic stops, stoplights, and public events. Again, c’mon…that would be so hugely expensive to enact, and so burdensome for the public (i.e. voters) to cope with, that no (American) government could keep it up for long. The problem with these types of slippery-slope arguments is that they make the unreasonable assumption that something is inevitable simply because it is technically permissable.

Yet, this case also brings to light a facet of American jurisprudence that has always bothered me, namely the fruit-of-a-poisoned-tree principle of evidence. Most of the discussions about the case seem to ignore the undisputed fact that Carballes had 282 frickin’ pounds of marijuana in his trunk! He, many others, and I may think that current pot laws are stupid but his action was (and is) in violation of current law regardless. That the truth of evidence is rarely considered in such cases bothers me. I understand–and generally sympathize with–the general premise that has led to this situation: the courts (and public) want to prevent capricious actions against citizens by the government/police, and have decided that draconian penalties for even minor, inadvertent deviations from police procedure are an effective deterrent. But is this really justice? I don’t think so, for it holds one abstract body (the government) accountable for the actions of an individual (the police officer) while absolving another (the defendant) of any responsiblity–and does so without regard to truth. (And what about the rights/responsibilities of the public in general?)

I think that a vast difference lies between a cop who plays a hunch and one who plants evidence. Certainly the latter should be thrown in prison, but perhaps administrative penalties–ranging from reprimand to termination of employment/pensions–might prove quite effective in keeping the former in check; the self-interest of a cop who has to weigh the possibility of a direct punishment (perhaps to his immediate supervisors as well?) will be a much greater inducement to do the Right Thing than will the possibility of some lawyer being reversed on appeal months or years down the road. In my view, physical evidence should stand on its own merits and only be excluded when its connection to truth is tenuous; if we put true offenders away (perhaps with slightly reduced sentences?), I don’t think our republic will fall into tyranny as long as we also hold government officers accountable for violations of the rules in pursuit of said offenders.