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The "YES" Session
April 1, 2008
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Adult or child, who isn't aware of these classic cartoons?
Watch many great cartoons and you may notice a common characteristic: "Directed by Charles M. Jones" is proudly displayed among each. Chuck Jones.
It's easy to watch cartoons like this and take for granted the question, "What makes a good cartoon? How does the person come up with such ideas?" Indeed, is creativity like this innate, or accessible to all of us?
At Warner Brothers, after agreeing on a basic story line, Chuck Jones said a meeting - a story session - would be called, attended by three directors, three writers, the production chief, and the producer. This was "The Jam Session".
The "Yes" Session The "Jam" session was, I believe, an event unique to Warner Bros. Unique at that time, perhaps anytime. Because this was not a brainstorming session in the usual sense, it was a "yes" session, not an "anything goes" session. Anything went, but only if it was positive, supportive, and affirmative to the premise. No negatives were allowed. If you could not contribute, you kept quiet. For want of a better term, I have always called it ... THE "YES" SESSION. Again, the "yes" session is not a brainstorming session; repeat, it is not a session in which anything goes. The purpose is to advance an idea or ideas, not an emotional outburst for the emotional benefit of the participants or as a story man's confession of a buried affair with a girl's track shoe. The "yes" session only has one objective: to write a story. The "yes" session imposes only one discipline: the abolition of the word "no." Anyone can say "no." It is the first word a child learns and often the first word he speaks. It is a cheap word because it requires no explanation, and many men and women have acquired a reputation for intelligence who know only this word and have used it in place of thought on every person who can only say "no" finds it an eternity. Negative-minded people have been known to finally inflate and burst with accumulated negatives and say something positive, because it is also true that a person who heretofore can only say "no" is also a person who must say something. A "no" is defined as any negative: "I don't like it." "There must be a better way." "I don't like to criticize, but ..." "I've heard that one before." "I don't know." Or: ""Oh, for Christ's sake, Chuck." All are roadblocks impeding the advancement and exploration of the value of an idea and are forbidden. Of course, all story ideas are not good or useful, and if you find you cannot contribute, then silence is proper, but it is surprising how meaty and muscular a little old stringy "yes" (which is another name for a premise) can become in as little as fifteen or twenty minutes, when everyone present unreservedly commits his immediate impulsive and positive response to it. And, of course, the enlightened self-interest of pouring your contributions unreservedly out in another director's story session is sufficient motivation; your turn will inevitably come to present an idea to the group in another session, and at such a time you, too, will want, need, and expect full cooperation. A good premise always generates the most astonishing results.
Chuck Amuck by Chuck Jones
HELLO MY BABY
Hello, my baby, Hello, my honey, Hello, my ragtime gal! Send me a kiss by wire; Baby my heart's on fire!
If you refuse me, Honey, you'll lose me, Then you'll be left alone; Oh, baby, telephone, And tell me I'm your own.
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The Interests of the One - The Interests of the Many
The Wonder of the Electoral College
April 2, 2008
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A New Nation - the United States of America But what's "United" about them? Sure, independence from England had been declared, and victory over England had been achieved. But what now? There are many individual states, differing in size, population, and culture.
If there's to be a "united" government, argue the people of Virginia, surely we should have more 'say' than Delaware. On the other hand, why would Delaware agree to be part of the union where there was not 'equal' say in how things are run? That doesn't seem "fair". They might as well remain a colony under British rule. Why should Pennsylvania agree to be part of the union when a small state like Georgia has as much say as them, despite being a fraction of the size? That doesn't seem "fair".
An interesting dilemma - what should the drafters of the Constitution do? If the government is to be one "of the people", "the people" should be represented where the people are - proportionately. Is that fair, however, to a state with a smaller population? Not to them, of course! What to do?
What is "fair"? How does one reconcile the interests of the majority and the interests of the minority?
Having Our Cake and Eating It Too! Where once a dilemma existed, a solution emerged, achieving both the need to protect "the will of the people", while simultaneously protecting "the minority". Of course, the real protection affording the littlest guy - the individual - was the recognition of individual rights - the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, with the proper acknowledgement government is not established to create these rights, but to secure them.
A Timeless Conflict Of course, this same dilemma plays itself out even today. There are fights over the issue of state versus federal control, local versus state control, and even between the levels of the judicial system.
In all of these conflicts, it's easy to lose sight of what was the crowning achievement in the founding of this country: a government established to secure the rights of the individual.
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The ACT: A Conversation with Myself
April 3, 2008
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Another chance at the ACT … I took this at the end of my junior year and did horribly. Here I was a B student, carrying a 3.2 GPA, and did reasonably well in math. Some say they have test anxiety and that’s the reason for their poor showing. Me? I don’t recall feeling any more anxious than the next person. In two weeks, it’s time for that same test. I’ve purchased all the same study materials I used last time. The massive “The Real ACT Prep Guide” is 621 pages long now! Who can read such a thing? And why does it take 621 pages for the people who created the test to tell me how to study for the test? And the sample tests? They never seem to resemble the actual tests! What good are these things? Well, I’ve done some research and it’s very interesting. Scores are pretty constant over the years, yet at the same time schools promote their study programs as being so successful they raise scores 3-5 points. Imagine that! If scores have remained constant, and if study programs have raised scores 3-5 points, does that mean actual learning has gone DOWN 3-5 points? Who can make sense of all of this? My concern now has to do with this test; here it comes again, and I’m not sure I’m any more ready for it now than I was then. I’ve just finished another study session, answered some questions correctly, cheated myself a bit by looking at the answer key (artificially inflating my score and my ego), and in reality I am worried. Last year was simply a “trial run”; this year is the real thing, and my scholarship and choice of college are riding on me doing well. Well, time to open my big book and “cram”, whatever that means. Opening the book with scorn, I look at the first reading section and their recommendations: here I’m told to read thoroughly … here skim … here highlight key words, blah, blah, blah. What kind of recommendations are these? They themselves are all over the board! And what good has it done me? I still end up guessing at these random reading topics. I consider myself a pretty good reader, yet with some of these topics I really have no clue what the story is about. It’s no wonder I jump to the answers quickly in cases like that … what choice do I have? Continue reading? Towards what end? This does seem odd, the more I think about it. Where do these “reading strategies” come from? Why do I need a strategy when there is only one page of material – and it’s right in front of me? It seems self-evident no such strategy is necessary, given what I’ve just said, until I remind myself I’m only getting a bit more than half correct, about the same as everyone else. Isn’t that odd … a single page of reading, with all the material right in front of us, and the majority of students score as poorly as me. I go for a walk, clutching my study manual, more than ever believing it’s to blame for my lack of success, rather than a crutch helping me along. Why is this? I stop at the subway shop and order a large BLT. “Look at this material!”, I yell to myself silently: “I start to read and immediately have no idea what the passage is talking about. Why should I continue to read in such a case? And the strategies … ‘Read thoroughly’ versus ‘skim and get to the questions’ … They’re all over the board!”. Why should I read thoroughly? Isn’t it obvious? How can you learn something unless you “read thoroughly”? On the other hand, why should I skim? That answer, too, is obvious: I’ve got 40 minutes to work through 4 sections of reading and 35 questions. In order to perform well on the reading section, I must be aware of the time problem. Obviously. In order to recognize the time problem, I immediately jump to the questions. On the other hand… In order to perform well on the reading section, I must have full awareness of the content of the reading passage. In order to have full awareness of the content, I must read the passage through entirely. What a dilemma! And what do I do – in fact? Do I stick with a specific strategy? Of course not. I, and probably everybody, panic, and immediately switch back-and-forth from “strategy” to “strategy”. The more I think about this, the more troubling something else becomes: is this dilemma or conflict new? Of course not. Every student who has ever taken this test has faced this dilemma. Why do I think I will do any better than they? That’s a troubling thought! Is there no hope? Let’s look at the passages for a clue to the score-stagnation problem. Why can’t I and other college-bound students read a simple passage and answer a few questions? One clue may lie in the nature of the passages. I am thrust into an extract from the middle of a larger passage, and expected, with time pressures, to do well. I don’t know a thing about the story, with the exception of a brief statement about the nature of the passage. Is it any wonder, paraphrasing one Florida high-school student, I end up “reading the words but not remembering anything about the passage?” But surely “test-taking” strategies account for this problem, right? Or do they? The story lacks meaning to the reader, and what do the strategies afford us? Methods of REMEMBERING the story. Is there a difference between REMEMBERING the story and UNDERSTANDING the story? Is there an inherent conflict, or is this the compromise “test-taking” strategies have arrived at? Is there any way I can “have my cake and eat it to? That is, have full awareness of the content WITHOUT reading the passage through entirely?” Wait a second … that’s not even necessary. I don’t need “full awareness”! When I read these passages, they are immediately just words to me. What I need is “any awareness” … a “foothold” if you will! Something that allows me to have a good picture of what the story is about. But wait a minute: “form a mental picture” is one of the strategies I’ve read about. I’ve not invented anything new here – or have I? “Form a mental picture”? HOW? They do not tell me! If I had a process to create the mental picture, then I’d really be in business! How would I do this? Can I do this? Well, I’ve taken the test, and the results are indeed in! In practice exams, I averaged 20 out of 40 right answers on the reading test. When I applied diligently my simple algorithm, my score jumped to 38! Of course, these were practice exams. But if I could score similarly on the actual exam, my ACT score would jump by nearly 4 points – by simply doing this! Imagine what that ACT score will do when I apply this to the science, grammar, math, and writing sections of the ACT! But I should close with a restatement of what this simple process actually was … If you've read this and are curious, write ...
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April 4, 2008
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Swimming in the Algebraic Stream of Numbers
The Question The current of a river is 3 miles per hour. It takes a boat a total of 3 hours to travel 12 miles upstream and return 12 miles downstream. What is the speed of the boat in still water?
In Search of an Answer What do I know about rate, time, and distance? Rate = distance / time. I’ll start with that, and see where it leads me. OK … now I’ve got to translate the information I was given into this equation. How fast is my actual speed going upstream? The current provides resistance, so I’m going slower than I will be swimming downstream, where the current instead provides assistance. Ah – the dreaded quadratic formula. I know the general solution for this formula, so simply applying this general formula to my specific problem should lead to the solution.
Is this right? Let’s check with an example where the answer is obvious – that is, let’s suppose the stream is not flowing at all. Therefore, I’m just swimming back and forth (a total of 24 miles) in 3 hours in still water, an average speed of 8 mph. Let’s see if this formula confirms this.
My General Solution:
This leads to a pretty simple solution, but is it good to always simplify? To bring “common terms” out of the radical, for example? What happens if I leave these terms together? Let’s go back and see: I wonder what the geometric meaning of this is – what the intuitive understanding of this is – because its elegance suggests some simple explanation. Of course, we still need to understand the “+ or -” in the solution – how is that relevant? Why do we exclude situations after the fact? Why do we say the quadratic formula yields solutions, and then we reject one of them? Is it really true if I swim at 9 mph against a 3 mph current, my effective rate is only 6 mph?
The Question and Answer The current of a river is 3 miles per hour. It takes a boat a total of 3 hours to travel 12 miles upstream and return 12 miles downstream. What is the speed of the boat in still water?
Logical Haiku This last thought gives rise to this week's logical haiku. Going through an entire mathematical process led me to two possible solutions, and one was thrown out as irrelevant. Why? Does one ever know before the analysis the number of "viable" solutions?
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More from the Law of Unintended Consequences
April 5, 2008
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The great Bill James, in his "Historical Baseball
Abstract" manifesto, discusses the hitting conditions giving rise to
the boom in hitting in the 1990s.
I want to focus on two: aluminum bats and fighting. What have either to do with great hitting, particularly when the former is not relevant in professional baseball, the latter nothing to do with hitting? Let's see. The use of aluminum bats in amateur baseball, it was thought, is not only dangerous (to the pitcher), but may lead to bad habits by hitters. Hitters swinging late or hitting an outside pitch, for example, were told if they attempted to drive the ball to the opposite field, they would instead find themselves grounding out to that side of the infield. The wooden bat validates this theory; the aluminum bat encourages the behavior, because it allows the ball to be driven to the opposite field.
Why allow a player to develop a skill at one level, only to be hamstrung at the next level when the circumstances change? Such was the thinking. What was found, however, was much different. What the use of aluminum bats showed regarding driving the ball to the opposite field was not that it could not be done, but that it could! And in showing it could be done with aluminum, it encouraged batters to try it with wood bats. And what did they find? It was possible! But the aluminum bat did more than this: it allowed batters to fight off inside pitches. With wood bats, an inside pitch yields a meager ground ball or pop-up. With an aluminum bat, on the other hand, those same hits have the chance to become singles. Therefore, these bats afforded the hitter the ability to crowd the plate to reach the outside corner with immunity, because an inside pitch could be fought off. But what of pitcher controlling the plate with "brush-back" pitches to batters who do crowd the plate? Tired of players rushing the mound, the major leagues made both charging the mound - and the intentional throwing at players - offenses warranting suspensions. The aluminum bat, coupled with a change in enforcement, led to the following dilemma for the pitcher facing a batter crowding the plate: if I brush him back, I risk suspension for intentionally throwing at a batter; if I try to throw to the outside of the plate, he (crowding the plate) has both a good swing at the ball with the knowledge he can drive it to the opposite field! It required a new way to pitch - a new mindset.
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Some Thoughts on Randomness
April 6, 2008
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A recent edition of "Deal or No Deal" ended with a
contestant facing an odd choice: the two remaining dollar amounts
were $1,000 and $1,000,000, and the banker's offer was $400,000 (I forget
the exact amounts here, but I'm fairly close). If the Banker was using simple averages, the offer would have been $500,500. The offer was clearly less than the average, but how much? Is it this amount all the time - and for each round?
Modeling the Game The game consists of 26 suitcases containing the following amounts of money:
The contestant selects a number of cases, and after each selection is offered a dollar amount from the banker to leave - or continue. The choice of the contestant: Deal or No Deal? To start, the contestant selects six cases at random. The best case scenario has all six cases being the lowest six amounts, as this leaves all the high-dollar cases in play. Consequently, the banker must offer you more money to make your choice "reasonable". The worst case scenario has you selecting $1,000,000 in the first round, as this amount pulls the average way up. The rounds continue, selecting 6 cases, then 5, 4, 3, 2, and finally proceeding one case at a time. Let's play a couple of games, and see how things work? A sample game is as follows: To start, the total amount in all the cases is $3,418,416. With 26 cases, this gives an average per case of $131, 478.
A Modeled Game 1 Game 1 provided me a lucky first round - I selected six low cases! My average went up! Unfortunately, my luck was short-lived, because, as you can see, in Round 2, I picked cases containing the two highest amounts! My average plummeted!
The game continues ...
A Modeled Game 2
A Modeled Game 3
Numerous Models As you can see, the average-offer jumps all over the place, and there are two types of fluctuations:
1. from game-to-game, the offer amount for the respective rounds varies radically. In the three games above, for example, Round 1 provided averages of $169,063, $57,168, and $132,856;
2. within each game, the average from round-to-round jumps all over the place, depending on the amount of money left in the remaining cases.
Now that we've got the gist of the game with a couple of examples under our belts, let's capture only the relevant data (offer after each round), and model lots of games. Here's the results of 50 such games:
The results are in, but what do they tell us? One person went all the way, winning $1,000,000, but several others left with little money. "How many others?" Is there a better way to display the data?
Let's start by merely ordering the data so, for each round for our games, we have a better idea of the "low-to-high" ranges.
A Visual Feel to the Game Rather than either the actual results or the ranked results - in tabular form - what does the data look like visually?
With so many lines (10) in my line graph, it's hard to tell what is going on. Let's break the graph into individual rounds to see more closely what's going on:
As expected! Round 1, graphed from low-to-high, returned a relatively stable graph. What does this mean? There are 26 cases to choose from, and the average after choosing six is relatively stable. In other words, the banker's offer after Round 1 should not vary much from player to player. However, as the rounds progress, this changes. Why? Many cases have already been opened, and the fluctuation increases accordingly, until we reach Round 10, the other end of the spectrum. This is the offer when all cases are exhausted; therefore, it's not even an offer - it's what the player will leave with. Few people leave with $1,000,000, while many people leave with little or nothing.
A Final Thought (for now) The graph above, combining all 10 rounds, had many of the lines converging at one point - about $130,000, and this number is pretty close to the average amount in the original 26 cases ($131,478). This can't be a coincidence, can it? Let's smooth out all the rough spots by, instead of having the above 50 simulated games, we have 30,000:
Fortunately, in this day and age, this type of question is easily addressed by writing a simple program. Such computing power was not available to the average person even 20 years ago. Now, the power of the desktop computer allows anyone to do most anything - if they try!
What were the results of our experiment? Above, 30,000 simulations were run with the belief the expected value for each round was equal to the average dollar amount in the cases to start with. What have our experiments shown?
Not only were Rounds 1-8 equal to the average amount per case - ALL ROUNDS ARE EQUAL!
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A Submission to the Upcoming AI / Wikipedia Conference in Chicago
April 7, 2008
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LOGICIONARY-1 Wikipedia and Artificial Intelligence: An Evolving Synergy WikiAI08
Michael Round The Center for autoSocratic Excellence (913) 515-3911
The growth of Wikipedia as an online repository of structured knowledge gives rise to a broad range of educational and research opportunities. The issue of “legitimacy” has been a frequent criticism of Wikipedia, opponents claiming inaccuracies and biases in the creation of articles. The taxonomic structure of a Wikipedia-article provides an exciting opportunity to gauge the validity of the description of a concept in a number of ways. One exciting method of validation is the game LOGICIONARY-1, which I would like to provide either a short-paper on, or alternatively demo the game.
THE GAME LOGICIONARY-1 is a combination of ESP (the Google-Image Labeling Program), Password, and “The $20k Pyramid”, in that a description is given by one player, with the hopes the other player will guess that being described. For example, suppose Player 1 is describing “Topeka”. The first clue likely would be “Kansas”. Many answers come to mind: wheat, Dorothy, Jayhawks. All wrong (in the context of this round), but relevant in the data-capturing aspect of the game. Player 1 has the option to “direct” Player 2, with a “hot or cold” response. Clue 2 might be “capital”, to which Player 2 would most likely respond “Topeka”. This hardly revealing entry can be confirmed with the Topeka, Kansas Wikipedia entry: Topeka is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the county seat and most populous city of Shawnee County.
Completed in two steps affords both players more points than had the back-and-forth taken more steps. Observe what happens, however, if instead of “Topeka”, the object to be guessed is “capital”. In this instance, the majority of the work is being done by the “clue-giver”, because it’s hard to capture and convey the essential meaning of this concept!
How does our generated definition (the place in the state with a governor) compare with the Wikipedia lead entry? A capital is the area of a country regarded as enjoying primary status; it is almost always the city which physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of the seat of government and fixed by law, but there are a number of exceptions. Alternate terms include capital city and political capital; the latter phrase has a second meaning based on an alternative sense of "capital". The word capital is derived from the Latin caput meaning "head," and the related term Capitol refers to the building where government business is chiefly conducted.
The back-and-forth between the two players becomes an education tour de force, one working hard to communicate the meaning of the concept, the other trying to focus in on that being communicated. A last example deals not with a concept but a concrete – how might the communication work with something like “Fort Sumter”?
How does our definition (The Battle marking the start of the Civil War) compare with the Wikipedia entry? Fort Sumter, a Third System masonry coastal fortification located in Charleston harbor, South Carolina, was named after General Thomas Sumter. The fort is best known as the site where the shots initiating the American Civil War were fired, at the Battle of Fort Sumter.
THE INTEGRATION OF WIKIPEDIA Where do the ideas originate from above? They are randomly chosen from Wikipedia, according to a point-system based on difficulty. A new player may want to start with easy concepts to get the hang of the game, and will be presented with items like “chair, United States, flag, coin”. More difficult ideas generate more points, but also take more time and one runs the risk of not getting the word correctly. The “clue-giver”, additionally, not only has the word but the Wikipedia description in front of them, so if they have little idea what to say, the Wikipedia description is in front of them for assistance. This leads to another step in the validation process of the opening description of the Wikipedia entry: not only is it right, but is it useful? The epistemological goal of the game is the communication of the essential characteristics of either a concept or definition into its constituent genus and differentia components, using interchangeably the processes of integration and differentiation.
LEARNING STYLES Clearly, there are many ways people understand a subject. Many people operate by way of the genus/differentia structure noted above: general class differentiated by a unique characteristic leads to the concept under consideration. There are other ways, of course. Many examples lead to a general thought. A characteristic not “technically” the taxonomic-defining thought may be the one most known to people proves effective. Successive clues as “animal” and “ruffff” leads one to automatically say “dog”, for example, though one would be hard-pressed to find such a description in a dictionary! A secondary goal of LOGICIONARY-1 is the creation of a database of learning styles with examples.
FURTHER THOUGHTS Logicionary-1 is only “part 1” of an online system of learning, integrating the traditional Greek Trivium of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric into a game-like structure, using description, logic, metaphor, and haiku!
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Architects of Their Own Future
Chapter 14
April 8, 2008
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Chapter 14 AN INTERESTING DILEMMA The Third Chautauqua Principal Ragnar walked the halls. Classes were long over, but extra-curricular activities were going on, and the ambient sound of activity was evident. He poked his head in the gym to watch a bit of practice. He smiled. Coach Thompson had the team working on some type of drill with books stacked on a chair. He'd need to ask the coach about that one! It had been several days since the men from the ACT had taken "The Challenge". Principal Ragnar wondered what they were doing now. Had they gone back to the ACT and told of the remarkable things going on? Unlikely. One's bound to lose their job, rocking the boat like that! He walked to his office, sat at his desk, and opened his mailbox. "42 unread messages", it read. Despite diligent attempts to rid himself of unwanted e-mails, they nonetheless somehow found their way to his computer. He looked in his "in-basket" of regular-mail. It too was over-flowing. While the e-mail messages were being received, he picked up the mail and flipped through it casually. Item after item announced some new finding, some new product, some new innovative device for improving educational performance. He frowned. He knew most of this was nonsense, though sprinkled in the stack was likely a golden nugget. The e-mails retrieved, he glanced at the subject headings and noted the remarkable similarity of these headings with what he was looking at. He frowned again. Reclining, he looked to the wall containing the large school calendar. He noted the field trip to the museum in a couple of weeks. A special exhibit of French Impressionism was to be displayed, and the school had scheduled a trip to the museum. He thought of the works of these painters - of Degas, Monet, Van Gogh. Impressionism - a different way to look at the world. A revolution in painting! His smile disappeared when he thought about this. He, of course, had truly gained a deep respect and understanding of these paintings and era in his 30s. He vaguely remembered a trip to the museum when he was in school, but nothing stood out. Would anything stand out for his students? He imagined the response from parents in canceling the trip. "A once in a lifetime chance - gone!" He imagined his e-mail basket and voice-mail, both over-flowing. He also knew he was right. "It's just a half-day," he thought, knowing a half day was still a half-day. He also knew there could be a great deal of good coming from such a trip, but under different circumstances. He continued to flip through his regular mail, and came upon a demo DVD for foreign language instruction. He again frowned. This was a hot topic in education, and it was the one topic he heard more about from parents than any other. Of course, with no foreign language teacher nor an adult speaking a foreign language, and without money to buy anything, it was hard to justify starting such a program. But it was not just that: they were working hard to improve scores to merely exist in the coming years! Science, reading, math ... isn't that where the focus had to be? Why can't these people understand the spot I'm in? What spot am I in? Let's not stop at foreign languages, however. There are similar issues: computers and the internet. New and relevant math. Probably a dozen more. The Junior Great Books program and the Socratic Method. A ton of great stuff out there! This is the clarion call from the community - there's a ton of great stuff out there! Do something! Do it all! What would it take to "do it all"? At a minimum, we'd have to modify and expand the curriculum. We'd have to train teachers. We'd have to hire teachers! Infrastructures changed! A lot of things. Does the "community" ever verbalize such things? Of course not. We just pay the bills - we're the customer, and "we're always right", right? We - the educational community - on the other hand, is receptive to such things. We're not ignorant. We know all about "all this good stuff". We, however, live "in the real world", where NCLB and AYP are breathing down our necks. We're fighting for survival and you want more stuff? You must be kidding! What to do? What do we typically do in any such conflict? Compromise? Pacification of one group with a some action - any action - to be seen as "doing something"? Pilot programs? Special courses for "gifted" kids, pulling them from classes to show the community "we teach to the needs of all"? What about foreign language programs? One popular method is to implement a foreign language via DVD. Does this help? Maybe. OK - let's be honest. No. Then why do we do it? Is the alternative to listen to the public about these issues, and ignore them? Whether that's right or not, it's most of the time what's done. But our intentions are good - we're just dealing with reality. He thought back to his earlier question to himself: "Why can't these people understand the spot I'm in?" Has the school ever shown the public "the spot we're in"? He paced the office: rather than fight a battle that cannot be won, why not explain to the public the nature of the battle - the conflict - they're facing! Rather than the doomed attempts at compromising solutions that please no one, instead show the situation as it really is! He looked at the books on his bookshelf, and came upon Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People". Paging through the well-read book, he came upon a habit resonating with his current train of thought: Seek first to understand - then be understood. Is this what was going on here? Maybe - but something was missing. He did understand - it was others that did not! However arrogant that sounded, it knew it to be true. How does one communicate to others their need to understand his position? Is it his position needing communicating - or the dilemma that's the issue? He made a note to his secretary to dictate a letter to parents the following day to talk about education in general. He scratched that - too general - too misleading. He didn't want to talk about education in general - he wanted to talk about the goal: good schools, now and in the future. How to title this? "You're Invited"? "Come to a Meeting"? "Learn about Education"? "A Discussion on our School"? None conveyed the enthusiasm he felt earlier, nor the sentiment he was feeling. Sure, he wanted this to be a discussion, but he wanted the discussion to focus on the dilemma - the conflict - above. He wanted people understand the situation the school was in - the conflict all educators face! "Have a Seat!" he penned at the top of the paper. Rather than crude compromises leading to wasted effort with little educational gain, or simply ignoring the requests of the tax-paying public, let's invite the public to "have a seat" and show them the dilemma we face. Don't attempt to solve the problem - let's get them to understand the problem!
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April 9, 2008
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Rather than start up a new thread today, I'd like to address several of the questions I've received regarding various posts.
Question 1: George Sisler One careful reader noted my change to the added axis in the George Sisler article "No Season Better", and wondered the reason for the change. My goal was to establish the best possible season (combining at-bats and batting average), and determining who fell first within an expanding circle centered at the intersection of these two axis. Initially, my axis represented a 425 batting average and 700 at-bats. One player had exceeded the former, and only a couple the latter, so I thought having these points outside the control range would be OK. But then I thought about my distance algorithm, graphically considered as a simple square, and realized I would rate two players, each with 600 at-bats, but one hitting 420 and the other 430, as having equally good years. Why? As you can see below, the distance for these points, symmetric about the vertical axis, are the same!
Hence, my new control limits / axis lie just outside all relevant data points, thus ensuring no such error repeats itself.
Question 2: George Sisler A second question from the same article suggests we are a baseball loving country! The reader wanted to know why the years 1892 and 1894 produced such different results.
A bit of research reveals the special cause: we're accustomed to the pitching mound being where it's always been. That's because it's been there for a long time: 60'6". It wasn't always so. You can infer when the change took place, and whether the previous distance was closer or more distant to the plate. The 1893 change moved the pitching mound from 50' to the modern distance of 60'6".
Question 3: The Electoral College The recent discussion on the establishment of the electoral college as a means of representative government brought forth the following question: is this the best form of governing?
My claim above was, given the dilemma faced by the new nation, their solution of a House and Senate was a good solution - but not necessarily the good solution. Likely, there are other means of establishing representation.
There is an important point here to be considered: the context of the solution. Consider, for example, the governing of a business. The business-CEO runs the company, and reports to the Board of Directors. Other decisions are voted on by share-holders.
If I have no share in the company, I have no vote. Moreover, the more shares I have, the greater my vote counts.
This suggests our representative governing system above is a good solution in a particular context; in other contexts, the solution fails.
Question 4: Deal or No Deal I was asked by a curious reader about the close of the article on Deal or No Deal. Specifically, I started the article by noting the odd nature of the banker's method of providing a "deal" to the contestant - offering $400,000 when the "right" answer seemed to be $500,500.
Yes, there is an issue here. A fun part of an issue like this is having all the numbers and then playing around with the numbers, seeing what the system is saying - and is not saying. Who would have thought - certainly not I - the expected value of all rounds, regardless of what suitcases are picked previously, is - in the long run - the same as the average amount in each case to start the game?
I guess there seems some intuitiveness to that statement, but to do the calculations, to see the calculations visually - why not make this part of the analysis?
My guess as to what the banker is doing relies on what I've seen watching the game. I rarely see an offer above $40,000 in the first game, despite the expected average being about $131,000. What's he doing? Apparently offering about 30% of the expected value of the amount left in the case.
What about as the game progresses? In the one example where I've seen the game go to the end (above), the offer was 40% of the expected value. Let's assume these start-and-end points are reasonable. Possibly, for rounds 2-9, there is simply an increasing proportion to move from 30% to 40%, as:
Question 5: Logical Haiku My article on "The Origins of Logical Haiku" generated, as expected, discussion to the effect this process "spoils the intent of the haiku", and this style of writing is not for everybody.
Indeed!
It was for ME - and like-minded people who have trouble "getting started" in the creation of poetry like this!
A funny - and related - story comes to mind. Regard the Scripps Spelling Contest discussion, I asked Scripps why a contestant couldn't write down their word, and then spell it out loud. I'm a horrible speller - long or short words - unless I can sound out the word, and while doing this, write it down so I can "keep track" of where I'm at.
Nothing doing, they replied.
Fine, I thought. An alternative, though not as good, is to write the word down on my hand. This helps immensely.
When I told others of this obvious but helpful idea, the idea was criticized because not every student learns this way.
Indeed!
BUT THEY DISREGARD THE OBVIOUS FACT THEY'RE ASKING ME AND EVERY STUDENT TO LEARN THEIR WAY!
So too is the lesson valid regarding haiku. No, logical haiku is not for everybody - AND NEITHER IS THE TRADITIONAL WAY OF LEARNING HAIKU!
In Closing ... Thanks for all the questions - this feature will become a weekly entry, and I hope to get to between 5 and 10 questions each article.
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Turkey Dinners and Steering Wheels
From One Context to Another
April 10, 2008
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Last Thanksgiving, Martha was preparing the turkey for
Thanksgiving dinner when her daughter, Margaret, asked if she could watch. "That'd be fine," said Martha, "Just make sure you're careful of the big knives around the kitchen." Martha put the large turkey on the cutting board, and with concentrated effort, lopped off both ends of the turkey. Placing the turkey in the massive pan, she asked Margaret to open the oven door. Margaret pranced to the oven, grateful to help in the preparation of dinner. As Martha moved to dispose of the unwanted turkey sections, Margaret innocently asked, "Why'd you cut all that off before putting the turkey in the oven, Mom?" "That's the way my mom showed me." Being a Thanksgiving reunion, Margaret's Grandma was in the next room. Margaret darted across the kitchen floor into the family room, where Grandma was reading the paper. "Grandma? Mom said you use to cut off both ends of the turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. How come?" "Our oven was so small, child, that's the only way I could get the turkey in our small pan." This didn't make sense to Margaret, slowly marching back to the kitchen. Our pan was huge! She peered through the small oven window at the massive pan dominating the shortened turkey, confirming what she already knew. "Mom ...?" She was cut off. "Stay away from that oven, child - you don't know what you're doing!" Margaret, pouting, walked into the family room to talk with Grandma when Martha yelled into the room: "Dad - can you run to the store to get some dinner rolls?" "Sure thing, honey." Patting his granddaughter on the head, he said, "Come-on, squirt. Let's go for a ride." They got in the car, backed from the driveway, and headed down the street. Margaret, now 12, was watching Grandma steer with interest. It did not go unnoticed by him. "In no time at all, you'll be driving your own car!" "But it looks hard, Grandpa", watching him make a right turn and head towards the grocery store down the street. His hands moved in a rapid motion, one over the other. "There's nothing to it. Just think of a clock, and keep your hands at the 10:00 and 2:00 positions, and the rest is easy."
Poor Margaret We chuckle at the turkey story. We even use it as a metaphor for blindly sticking to traditions despite changing circumstances.
We chuckle because we know we would never be so guilty of this crime of ignorance.
Really?
Do you remember what it once was like to steer a car? It was not an easy task to make a turn - it took effort. It was virtually impossible to move the wheels while the car was at rest or moving slowly. To best navigate the steering wheel, we were taught to do what was natural - pull with one hand, and, as it's pulling, reach over, get good leverage, and pull with the other, repeating the process until the turn was completed. "Hand over hand."
Similarly, driving down the street, it was best to put one's hands in the best position to control the car. That was the only way! If one needed to move these massive beasts, best to let gravity help you, which means hands at the top of the steering wheel.
"10 and 2" and "hand over hand". The tried and true. The best way to drive a car.
Really?
If I drive a car today, there is no sense it's "hard to steer". Change lanes. Make turns. I can do it with one finger. Why? Power steering and lighter cars.
But what happens if we apply an old strategy to new circumstances? If you hold your hands at the "10 and 2" position on the steering wheel of a car with power steering, you likely will over-correct if you veer to one side or the other. Gravity suddenly is not your friend, but your enemy!
For best control in a car with power steering, your hands should be at the bottom of the wheel, or, heaven-forbid, one hand at 9:00, gripping the wheel between the thumb and forefinger, with the arm resting on one's leg. Why? It's nearly impossible to over-compensate for an error, while simultaneously allowing yourself the ability to easily steer with comfort.
For similar reasons, the "hand-over-hand" turning philosophy no longer applies. The wheel turns easily. Shuffling hands - without crossing over - makes most sense.
In Search of an Appropriate Metaphor What should we call a person who laughs at the turkey story, yet commits the same error in another context?
Catching a Baseball? From turkeys to driving to catching a baseball? How did this latter item get in there? We teach kids to catch a high ball by putting their glove - where? Above their head? Why do we do that? Talk about something unnatural! The ball is coming at your head and you're suppose to put your glove between the ball and your face?
This is all wrong! I smell ----- TURKEY DINNER!
The basket catch!
But if the "over-the-head-catch" was once appropriate, what circumstances existed giving rise to it? Why would one put their glove slightly in front of their face to catch the ball? My guess is it was to shield one's eyes from the sun. Of course, the sun is still here, but my guess is when the catch became part of the game, likely the sun was bright and high in the sky, and the method of catching the ball was taught right there - and the rule has stuck ever since. Forget clouds, sunglasses, and eye black - all which negate the effect of the sun. Put your glove in front of your face to catch the ball coming at your face! TURKEY DINNER!
The basket catch! It's natural and it's safe!
And it's more effective. What happens when the ball pops from your glove with the glove facing out, as it does when it's stretched above your head? The ball bounces to the ground. How about the basket catch? If the ball pops out, it pops up! Likely against your body, mostly around your body, but almost always up - giving you an opportunity to "second-catch" it!
But what about the outfielder catching a ball and having to throw to a base to catch an advancing runner? Go through the motions yourself when you doubt what I'm about to say: the basket catch puts you in a better position to throw! When you catch the ball over your head, the first thing you do when you prepare to throw is ----- try it yourself before reading on below ...
you bring the ball to your waist. What wasted motion when juxtaposed with the basket catch, where the ball is already at your waste!
Of course, this is nothing new .. the great Willie Mays knew this 1/2 a century ago! .
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April 11, 2008
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In our question-and-answer session earlier this week, the issue of statistical change (1892 to 1894) in baseball was brought up. The causal explanation was the moving of the pitcher's mound back to 60'6".
What we didn't ask - or answer - was why the distance became 60'6"? That's an odd number, particularly in light of the otherwise normal distances of 90' between bases. What's going on here? Baseball historians tell us the agreed-to distance was 60'0", but the hand-writing or the work-order containing this distance was sloppy, consequently misread, and the mound placed at 60'6". Likely they're right. Of course, it doesn't answer the question of where 60' came from.
Another Proposition Let's be reckless and romantic, and see if we could come up with an alternative hypothesis - just for fun.
One thing I've always wondered but never answered until now, for example, is where the pitcher's mound lies in relation to the imaginary line between first and third. Is it directly in the line of sight between the two bases?
Let's see:
It's tough to tell from this diamond, so let's ourselves draw a diamond, and determine the distance from home plate to the mound , and see if it is directly half-way between first and third. Here's our field:
Fine. What now? I need to find x. Fortunately x lies in the middle of a square, so the distance from home to the mound is equal to the distance from 1st to the mound. I also know a bit about geometry and the Pythagorean Theorem. Putting this all together, I get:
A Coincidence - or a Logical Explanation? Looks like my explanation and calculations were for naught. I hoped to see 60'6" come from all this work.
But let's play out the scenario. In 1893, let's suspect they did initially build the pitcher's mound at the intersection of the two interior lines above - at 63'6". All you really need is two long pieces of rope, outstretch them, and mark the intersection.
Fine.
Let's further imagine the first time this is tried, a ball is hit down the third base line. Tinkers, playing third, effortlessly scoops up the ball, starts to throw to Chance, and ...the pitcher is right in the way!
Therefore, placing the pitcher's mound in this place leads to the undesirable effect of the pitcher being in the way of the action.
But what should he do? "Take a big step forward" is the call, one such step approximately one yard, or three feet! But if the derived distance was 63'6", and we close the distance by three feet to get the pitcher out of harm's way, we're left with .... drum roll ... 60'6"!
Of course, the likely explanation is a guy misread 60'0". It's fun to imagine, however! . |
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The Real Lever to Move the World
April 12, 2008
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Archimedes Reconsidered In the next installment regarding Archimedes, we'll consider a specific example to refute the claim above. The "Eureka" moment was indeed valuable in the development of science, and it may have been a necessary condition in the analysis of the crown, but it was it sufficient?
We'll see!
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To Have a Neighbor, You've Got to be a Neighbor
April 13, 2008
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Is there life elsewhere in the universe? A great line from Contact puts the question in context: "If there's not, it'd be an awful waste of space!"
We send probes to Mars in search of traces of ancient water, as if this is an indicator of life. It's OUR definition of life, which gives rise to the biased nature of definitions. Who says, in other parts of the universe devoid of water, life didn't find a different way to evolve?
In this regard, I'm reminded of this excerpt from Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain": It was a long-standing problem. Early in planning Wildfire, the question had been posed. How do you study a form of life totally unlike any you know? How would you even know it was alive? This was not an academic matter. Biology, as George Wald had said, was a unique science because it could not define its subject matter. Nobody had a definition for life. Nobody knew what it was, really. The old definitions--an organism that showed ingestion, excretion, metabolism, reproduction, and so on--were worthless. One could always find exceptions. The group had finally concluded that energy conversion was the hallmark of life. All living organisms in some way took in energy--as food, or sunlight--and converted it to another form of energy, and put it to use. (Viruses were the exception to this rule, but the group was prepared to define viruses as nonliving.) For the next meeting, Leavitt was asked to prepare a rebuttal to the definition. He pondered it for a week, and returned with three objects: a swatch of black cloth, a watch, and a piece of granite. He set them down before the group and said, “Gentlemen, I give you three living things.” He then challenged the team to prove that they were not living. He placed the black cloth in the sunlight; it became warm. This, he announced was an example of energy conversion--radiant energy to heat. It was objected that this was merely passive energy absorption, not conversion. It was also objected that the conversion, if it could be called that, was not purposeful. It served no function. “How do you know it is not purposeful?” Leavitt had demanded. They then turned to the watch. Leavitt pointed to the radium dial, which glowed in the dark. Decay was taking place, and light was being produced. The men argued that this was merely release of potential energy held in unstable electron levels. But there was growing confusion: Leavitt was making his point. Finally, they came to the granite. “This is alive,” Leavitt said. “It is living, breathing, walking, and talking. Only we cannot see it, because it is happening too slowly. Rock has a lifespan of three billion years. We have a life span of sixty or seventy years. We cannot make out the tune on a record being played at the rate of one revolution every century. And the rock, for its part, is not even aware of our existence because we are alive for only a brief instant of its lifespan. To it, we are like flashes in the dark.” He held up his watch. His point was clear enough, and they revised their thinking in one important respect. They conceded that it was possible that they might not be able to analyze certain life forms. It was possible that they might not be able to make the slightest headway, the least beginning, in such an analysis. Michael Crichton The Andromeda Strain
Let's suppose, then, rather than looking for life out there by going out there, we instead search "out there" while staying here? Massive telescope arrays do this, searching the universe for signals indicating "something".
Isn't this the same (analogically) as searching for "water" as a sign of life? Our search for signals we detect is another tremendous introduction of our bias into the system.
For example, earth-based communications, once solely analog, and now mostly digital. Two means of communication, related, but at the same time not. If you're operating in a digital world, the analog means nothing. It's like working in a spreadsheet and attempting to open a Word document. Nonsense.
Of course, that metaphor fails in this respect: you're clicking on the Word document, and therefore have evidence "something" is out there.
Perhaps there's value to that.
But let's suppose we're searching not just for evidence something is out there, but also to communicate with that "something".
How would we do this?
A first requirement, noting the problems above, is the "something" needs to be able to communicate with us. That means they need to be able to understand us. We'd consider it folly to try to talk with a duck - or, vice versa, for the duck to try to communicate with us.
Is that it?
Not quite.
Where do we send our message? Here, it seems we have lots of choices, and a good decision might be to send it lots of places - the bigger variety the better.
But this is not a new idea - the first person to do the following might have had the right idea!
The Message Revised You've got the general idea, which is, "If you can understand this message, do the following ..." That's my understanding of "intelligence". And it works both ways - if a duck picks |
