tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6554490985539682532024-02-07T20:58:45.123-08:00A Stunning Non Sequiturprzemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.comBlogger448125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-88572202998721723222016-02-09T15:49:00.002-08:002016-02-09T16:12:58.409-08:00Ignorance as abuse<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ignorance can be a form of abuse; specifically, certain type of it very aptly called "belligerent ignorance." Let me explain with an example.<br />
<br />
I was explaining the "Birthday Paradox" to a family member who's never heard of it. As is often done, I started with an assertion that, assuming 366 possible birthdays, if we randomly draw 367 people then the probability of there being at least one pair with the same birthday is exactly 1.<br />
<br />
He said "No, that's wrong," and started angrily arguing against it. The reaction rendered me completely speechless.<br />
<br />
Here's the kicker: he has a PhD in physics. Obviously it's not like he couldn't see the truth of that which he was so vehemently disputing. No, the problem wasn't that he couldn't see it, but that he didn't want to. The reason being that, as evidenced by so many other similar interactions, he'd rather die than admit I'm right about anything. In fact, I think that part of why he disputed it was because he knew that a flat out, brazen denial of reality tends to make people very upset.<br />
<br />
Beware of belligerent ignorance. When you see it, don't try to argue. Run.</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-20655313193993821252015-09-29T10:49:00.003-07:002015-09-29T10:50:47.581-07:00Which way the contempt flows<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
From <a href="http://sociological-eye.blogspot.com/2012/09/clues-to-mass-rampage-killers-deep.html" target="_blank">Randall Collins</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
US surveys indicate the favorite TV shows of liberal Democrats are comedians satirizing conservatives; conservatives' favorites are college football.</blockquote>
Smug and disdainful: How liberals think conservatives are. How liberals actually are.<br />
<br />
(HT: <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/12/17/there-s-little-we-can-do-to-prevent-another-massacre.html" target="_blank">Megan McArdle</a>.)</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-29400423960119362372015-09-17T19:28:00.002-07:002015-09-17T19:48:50.768-07:00Propaganda of entropy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I mean <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/world/europe/eastern-europe-migrant-refugee-crisis.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region&region=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well&_r=0" target="_blank">this</a> article.<br />
<br />
What happened in the media is that one side has completely hijacked the debate and is trying to morally shame the other into submission. And now everyone thinks the problem is that there is a flood of refugees trying to find shelter in the safety of Europe, and the virtuous, tolerant and diverse Austria, Germany and Sweden are welcoming them with open arms whereas backwards Eastern European countries are sicking blood hounds on drowning children. So now the virtuous Europe has no choice but to try and force the backwards Europe to do their fair share.<br />
<br />
This picture is a complete lie. Among all those hundreds of thousands of refugees and/or migrants there are maybe three or four people who want to settle in Poland or Hungary. They all want to go to Germany. (Okay, for some of them, Austria or Sweden may do.) But Germans know they can't handle all of them, so they are trying to bully other countries into taking some. This is what "refugee quotas" are really all about. The quota proposals are essentially asking that Poland and Hungary somehow round up some of the migrants trying to get to Germany, and force them to settle in Poland or Hungary instead. You'd have to be crazy to comply with that, so I really can't see how you can blame Poles and Hungarians for not wanting to.<br />
<br />
As a side note, here's a (clearly condescending, even though passive-aggressively so) quote from the NYT article:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Unlike countries in Western Europe, which have long histories of accepting immigrants from diverse cultures, the former Communist states tend to be highly homogeneous. Poland, for instance, is 98 percent white and 94 percent Catholic.</blockquote>
We can't have that, now can we, because diversity. Except if you keep mixing things so that they are in the same proportions everywhere, how is that diversity? Looks more like entropy to me.<br />
<br />
A concept too subtle for most proponents of diversity to grasp is that there are at least two dimensions to it. There's within-country diversity, and there's between-country diversity. They're functionally connected. If you increase within-, you decrease between-. England today is more diverse than England in 1369. But today, England is much less different from China than was the case in 1369. For the sake of diversity, then, can't the Western world have one or two all-white, all-Catholic countries, if only so that non-white non-Catholics can visit them and observe white Catholics in their natural habitat? </div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-60125068116601643022015-06-26T17:54:00.002-07:002015-06-26T17:59:16.170-07:00Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, summarized in six seconds<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-z0Pm7tccvc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-39673648085143734482015-05-29T22:00:00.002-07:002015-05-29T22:00:58.148-07:00Two Poles in goal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Note: If you don't follow Arsenal FC, this post may not make much sense to you.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojciech_Szcz%C4%99sny" target="_blank">Wojciech Sczesny</a>'s father Maciej used to be a pretty successful goalkeeper himself back in the day. This means that whenever he feels like talking about his son's current situation at Arsenal, some Polish sports media outlet will print whatever he has to say, which means that soon enough it will be all over British sports tabloids. Here's what Wojciech had to say <a href="https://www.facebook.com/wojciechszczesny1.official?fref=nf" target="_blank">on his Facebook account</a> about dad's latest outburst:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Really shouldn't be dealing with this one day before the cup final but my father leaves me no choice.<br />I have not spoken to him in more than 2 years and just like everybody else I have had enough of his idiotic comments about The Football Club and The Manager I owe so much to! Therefore please do not consider his comments as my shared view. Thank You for your understanding!</blockquote>
When I saw this I immediately thought, how incredibly Polish. How familiar. We're basically a nation of people who all have extremely dysfunctional relationships with their fathers. That's why we're all borderline. Borderline Personality Disorder was practically invented in Poland.</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-28204176188497474932015-05-29T16:37:00.001-07:002015-05-29T16:39:45.854-07:00Thou shalt not let live<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/heads-lgbt-win-tails-christians-lose/" target="_blank">Heads LGBTs win, tails Christians lose</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let’s understand what happened here. This Christian jeweler agreed to custom-make engagement rings for a lesbian couple, knowing that they were a couple, and treated them politely. But when they found out what he really believed about same-sex marriage, <i>even though the man gave them polite service, and agreed to sell them what they asked for</i>, the lesbian couple balked, and demanded their money back — and the mob threatened the business if they didn’t yield. Which, of course, he did.</blockquote>
Now I am not going to say that we are witnessing the final days of the classic liberal social contract, because I've always believed that "live and let live" is an unworkable illusion. It's simply impossible to have a working social contract that does not exclude anyone. But it is certainly the case that, until now, "live and let live" has been the first and most important article of the unofficial creed of the Western society, a Utopian idea that everyone had to if not believe, then at least pay lip service to.<br />
<br />
We're now in the process of stripping this idea of its divine status. Our friends the lesbian couple are so clearly uninterested in the whole "let live" part that they are basically <i>flaunting</i> their contempt for this notion, and the flaunting is met with nothing but cheers of approval. (Sure, there were some boos, but those were few and far between, and issued mostly by social outcasts with not much to lose.) This contempt also comes through loud and clear in oft-heard slogans like "I can tolerate anything but intolerance" or "There's no freedom of speech for hate speech".<br />
<br />
Given that, I wonder what's coming next. What will the next first commandment be?<br />
<br />
(HT: <a href="http://lamentablysane.blogspot.com/2015/05/never-ever-ever-back-down.html" target="_blank">Lamentably Sane</a>.)</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-73142494070681347892015-05-27T16:31:00.004-07:002015-05-27T16:48:42.374-07:00Fiat pax in virtute tua<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I had no idea that a natural language could have an actual <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assignment_(computer_science)" target="_blank">assignment</a> operator (that is, something like e.g. "LET x = 10" or "x <- 10" in programming languages), until I've discovered than Latin does. It's done through the word <i>fiat</i>. So, for example, "Thy will be done" is <i>fiat voluntas tua</i>, and "let there be light" is <i>fiat lux</i>. I like that a lot.<br />
<br />
(You might object that this isn't really assignment since it seems to be just saying "LET x" as opposed to "LET x = y". But it is; it's just that, as is usually the case with natural languages, a lot is left implicit. For example, what <i>fiat lux</i> is <i>really</i> saying is something like "LET new state of the world = old state of the world + light".)</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-40969284597390483832015-04-03T21:28:00.003-07:002015-04-03T21:41:39.028-07:00You can't ever defend yourself with rhetoric or logic. Which means sometimes you just can't really defend yourself at all. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Edward Feser <a href="http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-two-faces-of-tolerance.html#more" target="_blank">writes</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Prominent conservative politicians and churchmen have all essentially caved in on the substance of the dispute over "same-sex marriage." None of them will publicly express the slightest moral disapproval of homosexual behavior, and few even bother anymore with social scientific arguments supporting the benefits of children being raised by both a mother and a father. (...) All they ask is that religious believers who on moral grounds disapprove of "same-sex marriage" not be forced to cooperate formally or materially with it. The circumstances where this might occur are, of course, very rare. No one is proposing that business owners might refuse to serve a customer simply because he or she happens to be homosexual. What is in view are merely cases where a business owner who objects to "same-sex marriage" would be forced to <i>participate </i>in it, say by providing a wedding cake or wedding invitations. Nor would his refusal to participate inconvenience anyone, since there are plenty of business owners who have no qualms about "same-sex marriage." </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In short, what conservatives are proposing is not only extremely modest, but <i>is being defended in the name of their opponents’ own principles</i>, the most liberal of principles, viz. the Jeffersonian principle that it is tyrannical to force someone to act against his conscience.</blockquote>
This is a hard lesson to learn: Sometimes appealing to your opponent's good faith will not only not work but actually bring about more abuse. The reason is simple. By showing someone that in their treatment of you they are violating their own stated principles, you basically prove to them that they are a hypocrite. No one likes to think that about themselves, and everyone is going to get angry when confronted with an argument to that effect. And the degree of anger is going to be directly proportional to how hard the argument is to refute.<br />
<br />
Everyone is a hypocrite, however, and everyone is prone to get pissed when presented with evidence thereof; so why even write about something so generally true as to be completely boring?<br />
<br />
Because some people have power and others don't. That's why the cultural left's reaction to the Indiana religious freedom law is so utterly, irredeemably, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2015/04/02/salon-pizzeria-closed-after-death-threats-getting-exactly-what-it-deserved/" target="_blank">insanely unhinged</a>. You see, if you prove to someone that they're a hypocrite, they'll get angry with you; but if they also happen to think they are more powerful than you are, they'll do everything they can to make you pay. This is what the current spectacle is really about. The left has enjoyed cultural power for quite some time now, which is why they feel that at this point they can fight not just those they disagree with, but also those who happen to correctly call them out on their bullshit, regardless of how well meaning and non-threatening they may be.</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-66922670255004758622015-04-03T20:51:00.002-07:002015-04-03T21:00:32.337-07:00Link to a great post: Report to Emperor Tiberius, First Draft<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://the-american-catholic.com/2015/04/03/report-to-the-emperor-first-draft-3/" target="_blank">Report to Emperor Tiberius...</a></div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-66316312836564213772015-04-01T20:28:00.000-07:002015-04-01T20:34:23.298-07:00The only hope when all hope is lost<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Even if you are on the brink of damnation, even if you have one foot in hell, even if you have sold your soul to the devil as sorcerers do who practice black magic, and even if you are a heretic as obstinate as a devil, sooner or later you will be converted and will amend your life and save your soul, if - and mark well what I say - if you say the Rosary devoutly every day until death for the purpose of knowing the truth and obtaining contrition and pardon for your sins.</blockquote>
--St. Louis Marie de Montfort </div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-49719228231628426212015-04-01T20:23:00.003-07:002015-04-01T20:33:46.042-07:00Frege's notation is great<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It gets a bad rep, and I have no idea why. Propositions are really trees, that's their essence, muddled by the fact that, due to accidents of history we never see the essence, just the suppressed form of a line. Or perhaps, in everyday speech, we are too used to compound propositions being just long sequences of conjunctions, where the potential tree-ness isn't actualized. But statements are trees, and they will resists any attempts to force them to mimic something which they are not, i.e. linear sequences, by becoming obstinately hard to understand. If you don't believe me, try using nothing but the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Polish_notation" target="_blank">Reverse Polish Notation</a> for any amount of time, and let me know how long it takes for it to drive you bonkers. </div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-53519719172961911572013-07-12T09:37:00.001-07:002013-07-12T09:43:48.655-07:00Freedom of speech<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Is a collective illusion shared by people who never said anything <a href="http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=8555" target="_blank">unpopular</a>.</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-19555218646378877992013-04-08T12:41:00.003-07:002015-04-01T20:31:13.783-07:00Charts that end in tears<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Felix Salmon has a great <a href="https://medium.com/money-banking/2b5ef79482cb" target="_blank">piece about bitcoins</a>. In it, he presents the following chart:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWgWjhO29hGcs3_CgjxEWykIRIQ2I9o493ugHeJAEuDZI28TpluYoSQhoAMtdOSBhLbtGVjJRS-xHheoPvrpYtLiQX59S8KQMdnpK-xH0WFJrdUbIsRRK-5g4cZyod4hC31JZezaelPcU/s1600/0_AjcF5FBjhYAVskj8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWgWjhO29hGcs3_CgjxEWykIRIQ2I9o493ugHeJAEuDZI28TpluYoSQhoAMtdOSBhLbtGVjJRS-xHheoPvrpYtLiQX59S8KQMdnpK-xH0WFJrdUbIsRRK-5g4cZyod4hC31JZezaelPcU/s1600/0_AjcF5FBjhYAVskj8.jpg" height="190" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
It inspires him to write,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There are a couple of reasons why the [bitcoin] bubble is sure to burst. The first is just that it’s a bubble, and any chart which looks like the one at the top of this post is bound to end in tears at some point.
</blockquote>
Now where was it that I last saw a chart which looked similar to the one Salmon thinks is the sign of the Apocalypse? <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?s[1][id]=AMBNS" target="_blank">Oh wait</a>...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVwKAOVX8W12jO3A2RhWDr2Gg2VQv08Vx2j_7SNeLjaLkC4NRtx8ehkzwjL_5v_vZuKUoeSXnBjMec4IiXv7ReGBUaCCsQjnAvRt8Z1d1-b97SLT9V0Tvsxo9PgUVyu8mALWy3yS_thk/s1600/fredgraph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVwKAOVX8W12jO3A2RhWDr2Gg2VQv08Vx2j_7SNeLjaLkC4NRtx8ehkzwjL_5v_vZuKUoeSXnBjMec4IiXv7ReGBUaCCsQjnAvRt8Z1d1-b97SLT9V0Tvsxo9PgUVyu8mALWy3yS_thk/s1600/fredgraph.png" height="192" width="320" /></a></div>
</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-25007780469869279912013-04-06T01:00:00.004-07:002013-04-06T01:08:54.076-07:00What coding teaches you about lifeAnyone who's ever been writing computer programs, no matter whether professionally or as a hobby, has surely had the following experience numerous times. You just wrote a script. It's not trivially simple but not very complicated either. While the task it's supposed to do or a problem it's supposed to solve is in a literal sense new, you actually have dealt with somewhat similar problems many times before so the task feels quite routine. You have a clear idea what you need to do. You write your code, careful not to make any stupid mistakes, and when it's obvious to you that it will do what it's supposed to do, you run it.<br />
<br />
And it doesn't work.<br />
<br />
Of course, since the task is conceptually straightforward to you, this must mean there's a very trivial error somewhere, an unmatched bracket or whatever. So you check the thing very carefully, line by line, for any sign of any stupid mistakes. And you find that there aren't any. Frustrated, you run it again. Of course this time, it doesn't work either.<br />
<br />
You concede there must be a conceptual error somewhere, so you look up all the scripts you wrote in the past that dealt with similar things, to see where you've gone wrong this time around. And you just can't see it. It looks to you like this time you've done everything just the way you have all those times in the past; the only difference seems to be that in the past it was working and now it's not.<br />
<br />
In situations like this, every programmer works from the assumption that the reason the code doesn't work is because they did something wrong, even though they have no idea exactly what they'd screwed up. They realize that you can be wrong even though you cannot possibly think of a reason why you'd be wrong. That the fact you have no specific idea about where you could be making a mistake isn't evidence that you aren't making one.<br />
<br />
In short, this kind of experience teaches you that you don't know what you don't know.<br />
<br />
This may all seem trivial, but I don't think it is. In life, real life, I see people who are unaware of this, all the time. People who think something to the effect of "I can't see any plausible way in which I could be wrong about this; therefore, I must be right". You can't do that when you code though. You can't just will your code to work because you see no reason why it shouldn't.przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-76120494469082026492013-04-04T19:25:00.004-07:002013-04-04T19:26:28.876-07:00From the 'I wish I wrote that' fileRobert P. Murphy <a href="http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/03/thoughts-on-lukes-resurrection-account.html" target="_blank">writes</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There’s nothing in the gospel accounts that literally violates the laws of physics as we currently understand them. (...) Mark never writes, “And behold, the Lord violated the conservation of energy.” John never claims, “Then He taught them, saying, ‘The kingdom of God is like a man who measured the position and momentum of an electron perfectly.’”</blockquote>
I'm not talking about substance, though I happen to agree with it, just about form. Funniest thing I've read in a while.przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-45139238781780201722013-03-27T14:43:00.003-07:002013-03-27T14:44:22.685-07:00Facts shmactsThis is just one small example of a pretty staggering trend in Polish journalism: a healthy dose of contempt for facts. <a href="http://wpolityce.pl/artykuly/49991-janecki-o-cyprze-po-oswiadczeniu-miedwiediewa-doszedlem-do-wniosku-ze-te-lewe-konta-ma-tam-rzad-rosyjski-relacja-blogpressu" target="_blank">Here</a>'s a link to an online account of a public meeting that three Polish journalists had recently had, in which they talked about all matters EU and Cyprus. One of those journalists, some guy named Marek Magierowski, had apparently talked about how the whole Cyprus commotion is good for Germany because it exerts downwards pressure on the Euro, and is also quoted as having said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There was a moment during which the yield on German 10-year bonds fell below zero. German government is able to essentially borrow money at no cost.</blockquote>
OK, now go and google "germany 10-year bond yield". Your first hit will be <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/GDBR10:IND" target="_blank">this chart</a>. Now what does it tell you about Mr. Magierowski or those who listen to him and the likes of him without investing two seconds on Google?przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-54239023413350715232012-09-02T10:29:00.000-07:002012-09-02T10:32:23.696-07:00A nice way to start off a Sunday<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-0 away from home. Also, Arsenal's new striker, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukas_Podolski" target="_blank">Lukas Podolski</a>, scored his first goal.<br />
<br />
Being both Polish and a fanatic soccer fan, I can't believe I never wrote anything about Podolski all this time. For those unfamiliar with this player, here's some background: he was born in Poland, both his parents are Polish, but they left Poland and settled in Germany when he was two years old. He holds a double citizenship. According to FIFA rules, if a player with a double citizenship is wanted by two national soccer teams, he can choose which one he wants to play for; however, he only gets to make that choice once and cannot change his mind later. Podolski chose to represent Germany and not Poland, mainly because the Polish federation was very late to the party and did not call him for the Polish national squad until he was 21. Some Polish soccer fans are very angry because of this, either at Podolski himself (for being a "traitor") or at the German soccer federation (for "stealing" a Polish player).<br />
<br />
What's interesting in all this is that Podolski plays for Germany even though he feels more Polish than German. He always speaks Polish to the Polish media. Whenever Germany plays Poland, he makes a point of singing both national anthems before the game; also, when he scored two goals against Poland in the opening game of Euro 2008, he chose not to celebrate as a show of respect for Polish fans. He is married to a Polish woman and says that he will move to Poland once his professional soccer career is over.<br />
<br />
All in all though, one has to remember that even though he is Polish, he is <i>not</i> a Polish soccer player. He started playing soccer in Germany, was picked out by German scouts, developed by German youth coaches, gained his experience in German soccer league. Polish fans who think he's been stolen need to realize that had his parents never moved to Germany, he'd most likely not become a player of the quality that he now has.</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-67088557241105069562012-08-17T09:17:00.000-07:002012-08-17T09:17:03.909-07:00Worshipping numbers<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Some people worship numbers. Paradoxically, number-worshippers are bad with numbers. Because they are so bad with them, they’re unable to critically evaluate claims that involve numbers. You can make them believe almost any idiocy, as long as you use lots of made-up or otherwise incorrect numbers in the course of selling it to them.<br />
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Some time ago in the UK there was a criminal trial in which the defendant was a mother accused of killing her two babies. Her defense was that both her babies died of the sudden infant death syndrome. Prosecution called an expert witness, a pediatrician, who testified that, since studies show that the risk of a sudden infant death syndrome occurring in a family similar to the defendant’s is 1 in 8,500, the likelihood of two such deaths occurring in one family is 1 in 73 million. Because the prosecution, the jury, the judge, and the defense were all number-worshippers, this idiotic claim went completely unchallenged. He’s talking numbers. He must be right.<br />
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The defendant’s conviction was later overturned on appeal in which it was shown that the expert’s probability claim was completely bogus. Statisticians and health researchers have shown that, first, the assumption of independence is totally unwarranted, and second, that the original calculation involved unconditional probabilities where conditional probabilities should have been used instead. But there is a far simpler reason why this calculation is ridiculous. In order to see this reason, you don’t even have to be good with numbers or know much about probabilities. All you need is a mind that thinks and does not worship numbers. One of the journalists reporting the initial trial saw it right away. Wait a minute, he said, are you telling me that the probability that this woman is innocent is 1 in 73 million? Surely this can’t be right. A great majority of mothers whose babies die did not murder them. But when, instead of thinking, you worship numbers, such simple truths are inaccessible to you. So you can wield your sanctimonious judgment on innocent people with a clear conscience.<br /><br />
(In <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/peter_donnelly_shows_how_stats_fool_juries.html" target="_blank">this video</a> you can learn about the details of the trial.)</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-42598380089936074682012-08-12T20:48:00.001-07:002012-08-12T20:48:48.950-07:00Soft drinks and GDP<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I just read that Coca Cola in Poland employs about 2,700 people and produces 0.002 of Poland's GDP. If this is true, then assuming every worker had productivity on that level, Poland's GDP could be produced by a labor force of about 1.4 million people. (In reality it is almost 18 million people.) Or, equivalently, keeping size of labor force at current level but increasing everyone's productivity to Coke level, Poland's GDP per capita would be well over $100,000.</div>
przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-63698214742842795152012-08-11T00:02:00.003-07:002012-08-11T00:02:28.330-07:00My dear Mr. Babbage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I am very much obliged to you for sending me cards for your parties, but I am afraid of accepting them, for I should meet some people there, to whom I have sworn by all the saints in Heaven, I never go out.</blockquote>
(Charles Darwin to <a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Babbage.html" target="_blank">Charles Babbage</a>.)</div>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-50356510291317098262012-08-10T15:11:00.000-07:002012-08-10T15:11:09.353-07:00The customer is always right. But which customer?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How many times have you heard statements to the effect that bond credit ratings must be biased since institutions that issue bonds pay for these ratings? A lot, probably. These statements are shallow, and wrong. The fact that someone pays to be evaluated does not mean that the evaluation must be biased. If you decide to go to grad school, you'll probably have to take the GRE or some other standardized test. For that test, you'll have to pay the testing company. Does this mean your score will be biased in your favor? Definitely not. Why not? Because test scores, as long as they're not biased, provide schools with valuable information about prospective students, so they want those prospective students to be screened that way. If test scores were biased, schools would no longer require them, which means prospective students would not be willing to pay for them anymore. Even though test-takers pay to be tested, testing companies have strong financial incentives to keep test scores as honest as possible.</div>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-24493172472323645502012-08-08T16:22:00.002-07:002012-08-08T16:22:48.223-07:00If correlation implied causation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdD50tQdeoJ9ls6Hb_l-5Trd6TCpqc8wOKvWMvIg87VlK6pqL9vRWxwKnFDsJv2PTrcmwbYERk3g5eujjEWIRLsGJ-aOMBR1O5t5Oc0MF-YfpI4iTcx3VEjPCUlrjvPwMCxX6u2WVDd2Q/s1600/divorces.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdD50tQdeoJ9ls6Hb_l-5Trd6TCpqc8wOKvWMvIg87VlK6pqL9vRWxwKnFDsJv2PTrcmwbYERk3g5eujjEWIRLsGJ-aOMBR1O5t5Oc0MF-YfpI4iTcx3VEjPCUlrjvPwMCxX6u2WVDd2Q/s320/divorces.png" width="320" /></a></div>
(Source of data is <a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/index.php" target="_blank">NationMaster</a>.)</div>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-41448960398661735592012-08-07T16:36:00.002-07:002012-08-07T16:36:57.909-07:00The most important Master's thesis of all time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Has been defended in 1936 by <a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Shannon.html" target="_blank">Claude Shannon</a>, and is titled <a href="http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/11173/34541425.pdf?sequence=1" target="_blank">A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits</a>. In it, Shannon shows that certain electric circuits are isomorphic to Boolean algebra.</div>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-18290980153772920902012-07-29T15:36:00.001-07:002012-07-30T19:29:23.874-07:00Algebra-shmalgebra<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra-necessary.html?_r=3&ref=opinion&pagewanted=all" target="_blank">If you have a fever, throw away the thermometer</a>. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea.<br />
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<b>Edit:</b> <a href="http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/2012/07/30/mathematical-illiteracy-in-the-nyt/" target="_blank">Here</a> is the best rebuke of this ridiculous op-ed that I've found.</div>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-655449098553968253.post-59572608729107784012012-07-28T14:49:00.000-07:002012-07-28T14:54:31.546-07:00You didn't earn that<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
There are a lot of Nobel Prize winning Americans who agree with me -- because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t -- look, if you’ve won the Nobel Prize, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there. (Applause.)<br />
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If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American education system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in high schools and universities. <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/jul/15/picketvideo-obama-if-youve-got-business-you-didnt-/" target="_blank">If you’ve got the Nobel Prize-- you didn’t earn that</a>. Somebody else made that happen. All these physics labs didn’t build themselves. Government research created those labs so that all the scientists could use them to do their research.</div>przemekhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13712667301753483580noreply@blogger.com2