It is all to do with staircases. Especially spiral ones. Everyone knows that spiral staircases are nifty if you need to protect yourself from invading knights, who typically enter the staircase from below after invading your castle. With most people being right-handed, you obviously build the staircases so that when going up, the staircase forces the left hand of the person to be on the outside. This is convenient as this increases the difficulty of the attacker to hit you with their sword while at the same time making this easier for you to do.
We no longer stab people with swords, because this is considered not nice. However, we still have spiral staircases. General convention is also in all civilized countries to go on the right side of the road. This also fits well, because in spiral staircases which have been built in the proper fashion, by sticking to the right side of the steps you're doing things right. Right? Right. And that's because the probability of taking a misstep is higher when going down and often the outcome of a misstep is also a lot worse on average when going down. To mitigate this bit, it's only logical to allow the people coming down to occupy the wider bit of the step. And by sticking to the right side of the step of a properly built spiral staircase, this happens. It's all very logical and nice, and when people adhere to this emergent rule of how to act properly, everything goes smoothly, people don't get killed by stumbling in the stairs and people don't need to stab each other with swords.
However, this is not often the case, alas, as some people cannot understand the system dynamics and why certain things are better done in one way and not in another. This means that you will have deviants who don't act in the proper way in spiral staircases and this initially causes confusion, annoyance, and ultimately more accidents. And all because they are selfish and cannot optimize the system. It is those people who will ultimately cause fragile but optimal systems to break apart.
Lesson of the story? When you go up a spiral staircase, you step on the narrower bit of the steps. When your going down, you step on the wider bit. If you don't do this, I will stab you with a sword. Capisce?
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The dilemmas of measuring
A recurring theme in many of the jobs I've done over the years is how to measure different things. How to measure the impact of a project, how to measure progress, how to measure this and that. A cynical viewpoint would note that in many cases the measurements are irrelevant. Too often the measurements are merely used to justify one thing or another. To motivate funders to give more money or to ensure that the project doesn't get killed off. The objective has already been devised and then the purpose is to ensure that the measurements support the objective. At best these are naive metrics and at worst it's blatant cherry picking.
One specific problem relates to developing metrics. Often metrics are developed partly or entirely outside of the context, e.g. a project or a program that are ultimately being measured. Some external person devises a plan of how to assess the project and what to measure. Or a person calls up the project manager and tells them that the quality of software needs to be measured. And because developing metrics is fundamentally difficult, compromises are made and software quality is assessed verbally and qualitatively with biases and personal agendas in place. Or then traffic lights are used to indicate status.
Once the metrics have been defined one way or another, things don't get any rosier. There's the problem of changing metrics as the project learns more. Then there's the problem of metrics often not being automated, which causes a relatively large amount of resources being spent on compiling measurements and aggregating them. And because manual labor is involved and biases and agendas persist, each step has a risk of the data being altered either consciously or unconsciously, so that when it ultimately reaches the decision makers there's no guarantee what they are actually seeing and basing their decisions upon.
Then there is the issue of the object of the measurements not necessarily being too interested in measuring things or being measured. This always spawns existential questions; should the project be canned or not, or was tax-payer money wasted or not? This also links to accountability: when the shit hits the fan, who was responsible and who gets axed? So it's not difficult to see why there may be a certain amount of resistance to measuring things and why biases and agendas emerge.
However, ideally measuring progress is a very good thing indeed. But it has to come from within, and the object of measurement should inherently also see the value. As a fairly naive example, I identified a few years back that I'm not in very good shape. This wasn't necessarily a problem per se at the time, but I was afraid that it might have negative impacts down the line. Not being in good shape would possibly negatively affect my performance in work and in life. It might limit my degrees of freedom in performing things or in taking up hobbies. It might also have adverse effects on my physical appearance, and so on. Identifying that something needed to be done, it was obvious that changes needed to be made at the level of routines, and not exercising was one fundamental problem.
One of the easier and still fairly relevant measurements was just keeping a track of the hours spent exercising. The point of this was to reduce the barriers to exercising. Jogging is difficult if you don't know where your shoes are or what good jogging routes are or how much time you're going to spend running a certain route. So obviously static friction is larger than kinetic friction, so ensuring basic movement will help things further down the line.
Once the static friction was beat, the next thing was to ensure that the exercise was heterogenous enough that I don't get trapped into practicing a small subset of exercises and instead strive towards a holistic enough approach. So this was then tracked by reviewing the types of sports I had already done, which I'd been already recording while keeping track of exercise hours. Running and gym (with a certain routine) was relatively ok, but I was for instance neglecting flexibility or crossfit-type exercises. So obviously that needed to be fixed.
Then came the issues of ensuring that I'm eating enough and the right things. And observing correlation between training amounts and types when reflected against injuries and the time spent in being unable to train. The next step is then to start measuring outcomes, i.e. my strength and ability to do a portfolio of different things. I've already been running half marathons on an at least yearly basis, so some data points are available in respect to cardio and endurance, but ensuring a more holistic approach to tracking progress might be good. At least in a toolbox fashion which would allow me to test myself every once in a while. Another thing going parallel to this has been a purely subjective assessment on a scale of 1-5 after each exercise on how good it felt.
The point here is that the metrics and their relevance has evolved over time as progress happens and the environment changes. The will to measure is also intrinsic and the measurements have been very lightweight with the heavier measurements (e.g. diet and calorie amounts) being done every once in a while on a temporary basis. The measurements are also reflected against the overall goals of becoming more fit (across a multitude of dimensions) and so on.
An interesting question, however, would be whether hiring a personal trainer would bring better results or improve the situation.
One specific problem relates to developing metrics. Often metrics are developed partly or entirely outside of the context, e.g. a project or a program that are ultimately being measured. Some external person devises a plan of how to assess the project and what to measure. Or a person calls up the project manager and tells them that the quality of software needs to be measured. And because developing metrics is fundamentally difficult, compromises are made and software quality is assessed verbally and qualitatively with biases and personal agendas in place. Or then traffic lights are used to indicate status.
Once the metrics have been defined one way or another, things don't get any rosier. There's the problem of changing metrics as the project learns more. Then there's the problem of metrics often not being automated, which causes a relatively large amount of resources being spent on compiling measurements and aggregating them. And because manual labor is involved and biases and agendas persist, each step has a risk of the data being altered either consciously or unconsciously, so that when it ultimately reaches the decision makers there's no guarantee what they are actually seeing and basing their decisions upon.
Then there is the issue of the object of the measurements not necessarily being too interested in measuring things or being measured. This always spawns existential questions; should the project be canned or not, or was tax-payer money wasted or not? This also links to accountability: when the shit hits the fan, who was responsible and who gets axed? So it's not difficult to see why there may be a certain amount of resistance to measuring things and why biases and agendas emerge.
However, ideally measuring progress is a very good thing indeed. But it has to come from within, and the object of measurement should inherently also see the value. As a fairly naive example, I identified a few years back that I'm not in very good shape. This wasn't necessarily a problem per se at the time, but I was afraid that it might have negative impacts down the line. Not being in good shape would possibly negatively affect my performance in work and in life. It might limit my degrees of freedom in performing things or in taking up hobbies. It might also have adverse effects on my physical appearance, and so on. Identifying that something needed to be done, it was obvious that changes needed to be made at the level of routines, and not exercising was one fundamental problem.
One of the easier and still fairly relevant measurements was just keeping a track of the hours spent exercising. The point of this was to reduce the barriers to exercising. Jogging is difficult if you don't know where your shoes are or what good jogging routes are or how much time you're going to spend running a certain route. So obviously static friction is larger than kinetic friction, so ensuring basic movement will help things further down the line.
Once the static friction was beat, the next thing was to ensure that the exercise was heterogenous enough that I don't get trapped into practicing a small subset of exercises and instead strive towards a holistic enough approach. So this was then tracked by reviewing the types of sports I had already done, which I'd been already recording while keeping track of exercise hours. Running and gym (with a certain routine) was relatively ok, but I was for instance neglecting flexibility or crossfit-type exercises. So obviously that needed to be fixed.
Then came the issues of ensuring that I'm eating enough and the right things. And observing correlation between training amounts and types when reflected against injuries and the time spent in being unable to train. The next step is then to start measuring outcomes, i.e. my strength and ability to do a portfolio of different things. I've already been running half marathons on an at least yearly basis, so some data points are available in respect to cardio and endurance, but ensuring a more holistic approach to tracking progress might be good. At least in a toolbox fashion which would allow me to test myself every once in a while. Another thing going parallel to this has been a purely subjective assessment on a scale of 1-5 after each exercise on how good it felt.
The point here is that the metrics and their relevance has evolved over time as progress happens and the environment changes. The will to measure is also intrinsic and the measurements have been very lightweight with the heavier measurements (e.g. diet and calorie amounts) being done every once in a while on a temporary basis. The measurements are also reflected against the overall goals of becoming more fit (across a multitude of dimensions) and so on.
An interesting question, however, would be whether hiring a personal trainer would bring better results or improve the situation.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Cost structures and what you really, really want
I ran across an article this morning where Metallica's guitarist was cited saying that the group is essentially forced to tour ad infinitum without the ability to take, for instance, a few years off. The reason for this is that apparently the good old times of yesteryear when royalties from albums would give you a steady stream of income are gone, and to keep their studio afloat, pay wages, etc., the group must focus on touring at a pace which is increasingly becoming more than what members of the group would enjoy.
From in between the lines one can easily find again the age-old critique about how online music and piracy are eating away at the livelihood of musicians, and fair enough, I guess Metallica must employ a ton of people and hence generate jobs in the society and bring taxes to the state. But I'm still left wondering that if the environment has changed so drastically (and in music business, it indeed has), then why isn't Metallica adapting? I don't really know that much about the music business, but one would easily start questioning the point of running your own studios and keeping a huge amount of people on payroll. Shouldn't you be able to bring your cost structure down and efficiency up by procuring specific services on demand instead of running the entire machinery yourself? I mean, if you're touring all the time, why do you have your own studio? And if you have your own studio, rationally thinking it would be only logical to share it with others. Others who could help finance the running costs, or even make you a bit of profit at best.
Again, I know nothing of music business or how Metallica works, but the symptoms of this situation very closely resemble things that hit closer to home for me: a business which is unable to adapt to the changing environment in which revenues and profits are going down forcing people to be ultimately laid off, but instead of stopping to analyze the core problems and align the organization into a new stance, the culture just drives people to continue on the track that they have been on and merely try to do the same stuff that they did before with less resources. This despite the fact that the stuff that was done before may have become increasingly irrelevant as the environment has changed.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Equal outcomes
One thing that I've started wondering recently is how values scale to different levels. The political left has often been associated with values that promote social welfare and the distribution of wealth across the entire population, where the wealth is often collected via taxes from the wealthier and distributed to the poorer. In Finland this is notable as the minister of finance is from SDP, the local social democrat party. Despite this, she sternly opposes Greek bailouts, eurobonds, and the whole shebang.
If you consider, the situation on the EU-level is structurally similar to that of social welfare on the local level. Our southern friends have due to many different reasons found themselves in a pickle and our now about to fall through the cracks of the EU society. This may or may not have ripple effects to other states also on the slippery slope. And if the shit hits the fan, then it will also trickle down to the individual people. Now, the proposed eurobonds, for instance, are again one mechanism with which wealth can be transferred. In practice they would lower the barriers for struggling states to raise capital from the markets and lower the interest rates. On the other hand interest rates would go up for the norther block. Shouldn't this be entirely acceptable, if we already are doing it on a different level?
(Note: these do not reflect my views. Instead I'm merely trying to tease out what at first glance appears to be an inconsistency in thought...)
If you consider, the situation on the EU-level is structurally similar to that of social welfare on the local level. Our southern friends have due to many different reasons found themselves in a pickle and our now about to fall through the cracks of the EU society. This may or may not have ripple effects to other states also on the slippery slope. And if the shit hits the fan, then it will also trickle down to the individual people. Now, the proposed eurobonds, for instance, are again one mechanism with which wealth can be transferred. In practice they would lower the barriers for struggling states to raise capital from the markets and lower the interest rates. On the other hand interest rates would go up for the norther block. Shouldn't this be entirely acceptable, if we already are doing it on a different level?
(Note: these do not reflect my views. Instead I'm merely trying to tease out what at first glance appears to be an inconsistency in thought...)
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Maneuver vs. attrition and martial arts
Having been doing a fair amount of Boxe Francaise over the past half a year, I got around to thinking about the nature of competitive martial arts across the maneuver vs. attrition warfare dimension. Assaut sparring, which is fairly commonplace in BF, emphasizes light contact and proper technique. This combined with the inhibition from using e.g. knees and shins in kicks and elbows in close combat translates to a situation where artificial barriers force the savateurs to emphasize correct distance control and speed over parking in front of each other and throwing everything they've got at each other. For me as a practitioner this also translates into a nice physical exercise thanks to the emphasis on movement.
Given this situation, it should be fairly easy to see why BF could be classified as closer to the maneuver warfare end rather than attrition warfare. This said, of course maneuver warfare also is linked to the concept of attrition; continuous movement leads easily to situations where stamina of the cardio type may make or break matches. Similar thinking can be relatively easily applied to other martial arts as well. One aspect which may be a driver for this is that in martial arts competitors are often grouped by weight, which often is a good proxy via which significant mismatches in power are avoided. But would competition across weight classes change the point of the sports on the maneuver-attrition dimension?
If weight disparities correlate fairly positively with power disparities between competitors, then it stands to reason that in a competition where rules didn't exist the more powerful competitor could just punch the other guy out. The counterargument would then be that this asymmetry would give a fairly big incentive for the less powerful competitor to increase their technique and focus on avoiding going head-on and instead try to focus on weaker points. Maneuver warfare again.
If rules are implemented and e.g. knock-outs are forbidden and excessive force is banned, as is the situation in assaut (combat and pre-combat don't contain these limitations), this effectively eliminates the risk of being punched out of the competition. This should then translate into lower barriers for competitors to engage in what would otherwise be riskier moves as the potential downside has been capped and the upside is larger (e.g. obtain four points by executing a kick to the head, which otherwise would be risky as it would expose you a fair bit to the opponent). But again the attrition bit seems to be mitigated to the background.
However, if you happen to be the underdog in respect to technique, then an attrition strategy might be the way to go, assuming that you can get the other guy to gas out. This would significantly reduce their capabilities to wage credible warfare against you while relatively speaking your capability has significantly improved. This might be one case where attrition could be a very relevant approach.
Ultimately, however, I don't know whether there is any greater value in applying this approach to martial arts. The objectives of competitors are fairly homogenous, as are often the tools at their disposal and the ability to use them, so in this respect the results might again be fairly boring. I will have to google around a bit, though, as I'm sure that there must be a fair bit of thinking done by others on this subject.
Given this situation, it should be fairly easy to see why BF could be classified as closer to the maneuver warfare end rather than attrition warfare. This said, of course maneuver warfare also is linked to the concept of attrition; continuous movement leads easily to situations where stamina of the cardio type may make or break matches. Similar thinking can be relatively easily applied to other martial arts as well. One aspect which may be a driver for this is that in martial arts competitors are often grouped by weight, which often is a good proxy via which significant mismatches in power are avoided. But would competition across weight classes change the point of the sports on the maneuver-attrition dimension?
If weight disparities correlate fairly positively with power disparities between competitors, then it stands to reason that in a competition where rules didn't exist the more powerful competitor could just punch the other guy out. The counterargument would then be that this asymmetry would give a fairly big incentive for the less powerful competitor to increase their technique and focus on avoiding going head-on and instead try to focus on weaker points. Maneuver warfare again.
If rules are implemented and e.g. knock-outs are forbidden and excessive force is banned, as is the situation in assaut (combat and pre-combat don't contain these limitations), this effectively eliminates the risk of being punched out of the competition. This should then translate into lower barriers for competitors to engage in what would otherwise be riskier moves as the potential downside has been capped and the upside is larger (e.g. obtain four points by executing a kick to the head, which otherwise would be risky as it would expose you a fair bit to the opponent). But again the attrition bit seems to be mitigated to the background.
However, if you happen to be the underdog in respect to technique, then an attrition strategy might be the way to go, assuming that you can get the other guy to gas out. This would significantly reduce their capabilities to wage credible warfare against you while relatively speaking your capability has significantly improved. This might be one case where attrition could be a very relevant approach.
Ultimately, however, I don't know whether there is any greater value in applying this approach to martial arts. The objectives of competitors are fairly homogenous, as are often the tools at their disposal and the ability to use them, so in this respect the results might again be fairly boring. I will have to google around a bit, though, as I'm sure that there must be a fair bit of thinking done by others on this subject.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Exercise
That's the exercise so far this year in hours. The green pluses are "sick days". Is there a pattern or trend emerging? Correlation? Causality? Let's get some more data...
Monday, May 14, 2012
Indecisiveness and strategy
When you're trying to revive a company, the worst thing you can possibly do is be unclear on the strategy. Employees can't commit, priorities can't be set, everything freezes while the staff waits to hear what they'll be asked to do. Every time there's s shift like this, another round of experienced employees put their resumes on the street.The above from an analysis on Yahoo written by Michael Mace recently. I can't agree more with this.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Tech evolution and the rise of meritocracy
Coupled with my reading on technological evolution and the whole shebang in relation to my thesis, I've been also thinking a bit about what all of this means for society at large. The current discourse seems to roughly go along the lines of blaming a failing and fragile economic system which has been pushed over the edge by reckless behavior. This is causing ripple effects in employment and causing a lot of people, especially youngsters who have shed a fair bit of money for the degrees, to become a bit grumpy. The two presented solutions for solving the economic problems in Europe revolve around either implementing austerity measures or alternatively shelling out even more money to stimulate growth and employment. And so on.
But all the while I have this nagging feeling that people are overlooking the fact that one of the more important drivers behind unemployment is that recent rapid changes in technology are causing the landscape to also change at a very quick pace, making a lot of old positions disappear as, well, people are often inherently very inefficient. In practice, for instance, a lot of the tedious white collar work done in offices can relatively easily be automated, if this was wanted. Another example is how governments are often blaming outsourcing for jobs being lost to lower cost Asian countries, but in the longer run changes in e.g. manufacturing technologies will ultimately kill even those jobs. I, for instance, was able to design and start printing stainless steel buttons for my blazer in less than a few hours. And the prices for these types of technologies will just be going down, making it even more attractive.
So ultimately this leads to a situation where many of the jobs which existed due to inefficiencies will now become increasingly rare and make the world much more meritocratic. Amusingly enough many people say that they want a world which is fair, but with the world becoming very fair very fast, I'm not entirely certain that this is really what people will want.
The logical next question is what to do when the dust settles, or how to start countering this trend already now. Personally I've been spending a fair bit of time just doing things; writing code, reading, playing with all types of things. Ultimately trying to regain enough competence that when the meritocracy hits into gear, I'll hopefully be competent enough to stay afloat. As another interesting note, I have a hunch that fancy degrees will not stand closer scrutiny in a meritocratic world and as such, relying on success because you have an MSc in your pocket will also fail. But we'll see.
Sunday, May 06, 2012
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