Disqus - Latest Comments for ColoradoMatt

Re: Intelligence and Cognition: I Do Not Think They Mean What You Think They Mean

ColoradoMatt — Sun, 23 Jul 2017 16:03:40 -0000

I think you raise a valid point and one that practitioners should at least be aware of if not be actively addressing. After starting my career in software engineering I returned to graduate school to study the link between humans and computers through the lens of cognitive psychology. I can tell you that cognitive scientists don't all agree on the definition of intelligence (is it how much knowledge you have stored or is it how you process knowledge?) or of cognition (does it encompass pure logical functions of inputs and outputs or does emotion play a role?). So trying to find a single definition of these terms is difficult, even for cognitive scientists.

In any case, the ways in which these terms are used in the field of data science to describe what computers do is so radically different from what we use them to describe what humans do that the terms themselves become nothing more than marketing speak. I'm not sure they provide much value to our discussions in data science except as a "wow factor" to selling solutions to non-tech folks.

Re: Six Books for Your Summer Reading List

ColoradoMatt — Wed, 05 Jul 2017 13:26:11 -0000

I just finished "The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds" by Michael Lewis.

After Michael Lewis wrote "Moneyball", one of the critiques he received was essentially, "your book is interesting, but errors in human judgment have been studied for 30 years by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman and you never mentioned them once in your book." He decided to study their work and ended up writing a rather compelling biography of their collaboration and a fairly good overview of their work together.

Also, if you haven't yet read "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman and you are interested in understanding human decision making (who isnt'?), I strongly recommend it as an accessible yet thorough review of the field of judgment and decision making.

Re: Enterprise Drives: Fact or Fiction?

ColoradoMatt — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 13:52:06 -0000

A few thoughts on your experimental methods here.

Your concept of drive-year is flawed in an experimental sense. For example, if I were to buy 50 Chevy's and drive them for 1 year and then buy 1 Ford and drive it for 50 years, are those equivalent machine reliability tests? The obvious answer is "no". No one expects a vehicle to continuously drive for 50 years but it is a reasonable expectation for 50 brand new cars to still be driving one year from today. In fact, if one of the 50 Chevy's were to die, we would consider that just as much of a fluke as if the Ford were still driving 50 years from now (regardless of your auto loyalties!)

In your experiment here, your have a maturation threat because your subjects will change over time. In fact, that's the very thing you are trying to measure: since most hard drive failures are physical failures, you are looking for physical changes over time. If you collapse twelve, 30 days periods into the same unit as one, 365 day period, you are comparing apples with Fords... different brand AND a different unit of measure.

A better design would be to track individual drives and hours of operation. Since you have serial numbers for each you should easily be able to track how long each has been in service. I would have to think this through a bit more but it seems like you could do a logistic regression using time of service as the independent variable and live / die as the dependent variable. Seems like you would need to use group as an interaction variable to compare them... like I said, would have to give that some thought. In any case though, that would give you a statistically valid measure of the impact of hours of service on failure rates, which your current number does not. At any given time, regardless of when you started using each drive, you could run the numbers and do a comparison.

In addition, it appears you include replaced drives in your "drive-year" calculations which further pollutes your numbers by introducing a history threat. This is because not all of your drives experience the same events (i.e. temperature fluctuations etc.). In the above proposed analysis, not including replaced drives would introduce a mortality threat (i.e. a bad batch of drives might seriously skew your numbers over time) so I would stick with the history threat since you have controlled environments. If you use the proposed analysis, you could potentially uncover experience changes... whereas your "drive-year" calculation simply masks them.

As with any experimental design, you can't remove all threats to validity, that's fine, but you have to choose a method and identify the threats and explain why you are OK with them. You do that above when you point out that your drives are used differently (this is selection threat... group membership matters.) Nothing you can do about that one.

I understand that from a business perspective, you are just crunching numbers and hey... it looks like these cheap drives last longer. But understand that you don't know whether that 4.6% is statistically significantly different than that 4.2% in the first place... and if it is, you don't know why. It may well be that a significant portion of your consumer drives are still in their infancy while most of your enterprise drives are chugging away on "year 39 of driving"... but your methodology has lost all of that information by inappropriately collapsing it into a single metric.

Just some thoughts that are hopefully helpful.

Re: Meghan McCain to host TV show that will require her to talk

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 22:15:57 -0000

Jim (Sean?)... before today I had never heard of you... after today I don't care about you.

One and done.. good job.

Re: http://medriscoll.com/post/9117396231

ColoradoMatt — Fri, 04 May 2012 13:14:27 -0000

The addendum might have been unnecessary were there not so many "me too! I am in the guild!" comments. This was a great metaphor... but not so great if taken literally.

Know how I know you guys play WoW more than you read history books? Hint: guilds are historically considered by most (not all) economists to have a negative effect on innovation and quality.

Re: http://medriscoll.com/post/9117396231

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:38:46 -0000

Given that my preference is VS... these guys usually stay a long ways away from me. :)

Re: http://medriscoll.com/post/9117396231

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:36:02 -0000

I don't use C++ (too boring) and I laughed out loud when you mentioned Java alongside C and C++... but I agree with the basic premise. Except of course for that fact that you didn't mention Redmond. Or eastern europe where a ton of software is getting written these days. Ah... life in Valley.

Of course... some of those hipsters work for Apple and :gulp: increasingly MS as designers. I want the guy who disdains the GUI in favor of the command line right up until I have to write something that a human needs to interact with... then it's nice to have a technologist on board who can speak to regular folks without scoffing at their choice of emacs over vi.

Re: A View on Tribes

ColoradoMatt — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 12:59:52 -0000

This is a phenomenal post. Thanks for sharing the personal experience and advocating for the use of the word "like".

Re: Users Are Not Always Right

ColoradoMatt — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:24:01 -0000

"...user’s just do not have the capability or insight to provide developers with quality feedback to help build a better product."

To me this smacks of a bit of hubris. Communication has two sides so I don't think it's fair to say that users don't have the ability to communicate. Perhaps it is we (the designers and developers) that need to work on our communication abilities with regard to understanding the signal.

I think Paul makes this point well with his radio signal metaphor... it's our dial that needs adjustment, not the signal itself.

Re: I Really Think I Could Grow to Like Alan Grayson

ColoradoMatt — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:01:48 -0000

Congressman Grayson isn't standing up for what he believes, he is grandstanding for political gain.

I am not sure why Progressives are so vitriolic in their hatred for former Vice President Cheney but it speaks volumes of the anger that drives the Left.

Joe Wilson should have had more respect for the President and Alan Grayson needs to learn more respect for people in general and the Left needs to learn that your hatred is clouding your judgment.

Re: Obama goes Nobel

ColoradoMatt — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:43:47 -0000

I don't believe you are a retarded 3rd grader... I dont' recall even insinuating that... sorry if you thought I was talking about you but I wasn't.

You did seem to insinuate that "Capitalist" was a bad thing ("...that is the Capitalist's burden.")... but I forgive you. :) For what it's worth, I *am* older, possibly more educated but probably not smarter and definitely not superior to you.

I would say the percentage of Convervatives that think President Obama is a Socialist is about the same as the percentage of Progressives who hate Capitalism. Moot point then.

The Right's Offensive against Obamacare is reminiscent of the Left's Offensive on Privatizing Social Security. Was the Left bringing back McCarthyism a few years ago? I don't think so... nor do I think the Right is now.

(Actually, the White House's actions this past week are FAR more McCarthyian than anything I have seen but that's another story for another day!)

I would ask Steele to change his rhetoric but alas, unless I start sending them money I don't think the RNC will care about my opinion. Although from what I hear he isn't very popular even with his own Party these days. It is funny though that Democrats who oppose Steele aren't ever branded racist but Republicans who oppose President Obama are. Points to ponder I suppose.

Re: 30 Republicans Side with Halliburton Over Rape Victim

ColoradoMatt — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:19:06 -0000

OK first, rape and kidnapping are criminal actions and KBR is not the one perpetrating these actions. I don't believe there is anything that says that Ms. Jones can't pursue legal action against the individuals that committed these atrocities. I am not sure why you guys think that the men who did these things can just "get away with it." Keep in mind.. it was employees of KBR that committed the crimes, not KBR itself.

Next, the contract simply says that you can't sue KBR if bad things happen to you... it doesn't say that they are faultless. So no one is actually "getting away" with anything here. I am not a lawyer but you don't have to be one to know the difference between arbitration and a law suit and to know that neither of them lets you "get away" with anything.

My guess is that even if she could sue it would be difficult to find KBR culpable because you would have to prove negligence (probably willful?) that led directly to the crimes. That's a pretty high standard.

Flenser.. I get that you are a far Left guy who hates KBR and Halliburton and that's fine. Keep in mind that this clouds your judgment. These companies perform vital services around the world and they probably aren't evil entities like you think they are. If they were, President Clinton wouldn't have hired them to clean up after Bosnia! :)

Re: THIS should be unconstitutional

ColoradoMatt — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:44:56 -0000

I am a self-described conservative but I don't watch Glenn or listen to Limbaugh. I think the only people taking these guys seriously right now are right-wingers with no belief system but their borrowed one.... and oddly enough progressives.

I know that no one on the right takes the Air America people seriously... but I really hope that there are some folks on the left with the good sense to realize that the talking heads on Air America type stations are no more interested in thoughtful debate than Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh and company.

Please tell me you see through Thom Hartman, Ed Schultz and Rachel Maddow... you do right? It's called entertainment for a reason.

You didn't borrow your belief system from Randi Rhodes I hope. :)

Re: 30 Republicans Side with Halliburton Over Rape Victim

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 17:25:56 -0000

Jon Stewart was a lot more funny before he got so bitter.

As usual his analysis is a little bit weak and one-sided. Comparing ACORN to the work KBR does is like comparing regulations on Boy Scouts to regulations on the U.S. Army. "Since troop leaders aren't allowed to conduct forced marches to earn badges, we should eliminate them from the U.S. Army training." Wait what? Hm...

(Disclaimer: my brother spent two years in Iraq working for one of these contractors so I have a little experience with the conditions they work under)

Also, the amendment that Senator Franken proposed included this language: "..any tort related to or arising out of...negligent hiring, supervision, or retention." which opens up a WHOLE can of worms for these guys. It wasn't just "rape" that was singled out... it was a pretty broad net he cast.

That said, it was still ridiculous for them to vote against the bill on the grounds they did. Until we start granting corporate citizenship, let's stop pretending that a business has all these rights.

At the same time... if you don't want to work under a contract... don't sign the dang thing.

Re: Obama goes Nobel

ColoradoMatt — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 13:56:00 -0000

Or c) the Nobel committee is desperately trying to remain relevant and they have glommed onto the world's sycophantic obsession with President Obama. (and I say this only half-joking!)

Why the obsession with the minority of neo-cons that call the President a Socialist? I know that they don't understand what the term means but I am beginning to wonder if you understand what socialist means.

In the world of Y=LK you either favor K (Capitalist) or L(Socialist) or a combination of both. As much as Progressives have been bashing capitalism lately, I am not sure why they aren't embracing the socialist label.

I know this is very simplistic but I am genuinely curious why the Left is so eager to bash Capitalism and yet unwilling to embrace its antithesis. Neither Socialism nor Capitalism are inherently evil so perhaps it is time for America to have a conversation about these ideas at something other than a grade-school name-calling level.

Re: Post-Grad Premium Problems

ColoradoMatt — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:06:39 -0000

Ryan, I liked your article but let me play devil's advocate and ask you a question. Do you think it is an inherant right in America that you be able to play basketball and lift weights worry free? The tone of your argument sounds as though you are complaining about how tough life is when you are young. You seem to be arguing that the town hall hooligans and Blue Dog's owe you a better life. (No offense, but they don't!)

Now contrast that with this argument. In a country as prosperous and relatively affluent as ours, why do our young adults have to think twice about heading to the gym? We live in an amazing country that is perfectly capable of providing a high level of health and financial security for people of all ages. If we could do this for our young people, think of the opportunities that it would open up for our long term future. What amazing things could happen in our future if our college grads could focus their youthful energy on their life's work rather than scrambling in the rat race trying to secure health insurance for themselves and their young families?

I could give you a conservative response to this argument but my point is that Progressive's need to start focusing on the positive nature of their argument rather than complaining about how mean everyone is that won't let them have their health insurance.

The book that most influenced my thinking to be sympathetic to Progressive thinking is Galbraith's "The Affluent Society" in which he makes the argument I outlined here. In all my hours of listening to the bleeding heart liberals on Air America, not one has gained even an iota of my support with their complaining and whining. Galbraith on the other hand (ironically not an American by birth) heavily influenced my thinking with his positive view of this great country's affluence.

Re: Howard Dean: Public Option is Essential

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:51:38 -0000

"I (and a lot of Americans) have been waiting" This is pretty accurate given that "a lot of Americans" could mean anywhere from 100 to 1 million.

You have to go through some mental gymnastics to think that my bully pulpit comment meant that I alone speak for the majority. I think the majority is capable of speaking for itself quite frankly. That's what our system is designed to do.

I speak for myself, not for the majority, not for the minority, not for any group of people. I said "a lot of Americans" because I have personally observed "a lot of Americans" supporting the Baucus bill... not because a pollster told me they do. Even so, I am not speaking for them, simply relaying an observation.

Sorry you think my comments are snide. I try to keep the civility at a decent level and I apologize if you find my manner offensive.. but I think my mental processes are just fine! :) (Would it be snide to point out the snideness of that comment of yours?)

Re: Howard Dean: Public Option is Essential

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:03:00 -0000

You really don't get it do you? It's not that I trust these polls any more than I trust CNN polling. If you simply throw numbers around to prove your point you are doing yourself a great disservice.

My entire point here has been that unless you look at the way the questions are worded, you don't know what the numbers mean. Of course Rasmussen words their questions to favor Republicans. Just like commentsfromleftfield is not going to like it. (Seriously? You linked to them in this context? That actually made me laugh out loud! :)

I am simply tired of people on both sides pointing to polls as the be-all end-all indicator of public opinion. Wake up and do some critical thinking... it really doesn't hurt and might actually feel good.

Re: Howard Dean: Public Option is Essential

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:05:16 -0000

OK. Rasmussen August 7-8th 2009.

"Do you favor or oppose a single payer health care system where the federal government provides coverage for everyone?"

32% Favor
57% Oppose
11% Not sure

A few weeks before that on 7/27/09 Zogby ran this:

"Do you agree or disagree with a universal healthcare plan where the government would provide health insurance for everyone in the U.S. under a single-payer plan, similar to everyone having Medicare?"

44% agree
52% disagree
4% not sure

Now, I am sure you have lots of polls where people favor single payer but you asked for examples.

Incidentally, you might not respect Rasmussen and Zogby but they are respected by most people.

If you look closely at the questions that are asked in these polls, you will find that what people object to is the government being in control of health care. When you couch the question in terms of "should everyone have insurance" people are in favor of it. If you ask "should the government control your insurance" they are against it.

Don't just read the numbers or the articles that some pundit writes about the poll. Read the poll questions yourself and learn a little bit about what people are thinking.

Re: The News Generation

ColoradoMatt — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 11:40:20 -0000

Alexander, I love the informality and passion of Scoop44 but I would caution you about trying to package this as true journalism.

I understand that the idealistic purity of unbiased news reporting is a myth. At the same time, the majority of the writers on Scoop44 are so biased as to only present one side of their story. I can't imagine a human journalist being able to present both sides of an argument with absolute objectivity, however any good journalist should at least present both sides.

With few exceptions here on Scoop44, the reader only gets one perspective. You are right that the new journalism requires thoughtful interaction after the initial story-telling. However, good journalism isn't about hiding the other side's point of view, but rather presenting your side in such a compelling manner as to incite thoughtful curiosity about your position. What better way to invite critical thinking than to compare and contrast two points of view?

Good luck on the relaunch, I look forward to continued good things from Scoop44!

Re: Howard Dean: Public Option is Essential

ColoradoMatt — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:52:18 -0000

As with all polls, the numbers depend on how the question is asked. I won't argue that there is not strong support for reform but I disagree that there is strong support for single-payer. I have read the polls and the poll questions and the support varies widely depending on the wording.

Also, I most certainly do not speak for the majority, particularly on this site. I speak for myself, hopefully from an informed position. I am always open for being more informed. That is precisely why I read the articles on this site. I don't agree with the position of most of the authors which means reading these article adds more information than I would get from reading some other more conservative site.

Adding more information doesn't always change my opinion however. :)

Re: Watchdog Wonders “Who Stole Our Audience?”

ColoradoMatt — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:15:53 -0000

Clay, very interesting analysis. Your professor reminding the class that you can't trust everything on the internet seems pointless to you and I... except we probably both know people who believe everything they read on [insert name of their favorite blog].

I can barely stand to watch the news on TV any more because the local news covers fires and bad weather and the national news covers all the things that showed up on my desktop news ticker at 9 that morning. The "news shows" are full of self-important Glen Beck's and Keith Olbermann's engaging in motivated reasoning to make their points.

Now more than ever, critical thinking skills are necessary for people to sort through the mud and muck that passes for journalism. If Journalism wants to save itself, it needs to become a repository of rock-solid information that is separate from biased analysis. That is not to say there isn't a place for editorial commentary... but it's time to put the editorials back on the editorial page.

Give the people a source of crystal clear information and true news and I predict they will drink deeply from that well... and even pay for the privilege.

Re: The Founding Fathers said what?

ColoradoMatt — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:31:46 -0000

Sonia you make an excellent case for our representative form of government. The sad thing is that so many conservatives were making this same case just a handful of years ago when all the crazies were out protesting the war in Iraq. A number of my conservative friends said "Congress needs to back the President no matter what the people say." Now of course they are singing a different tune.

This is indicative of the lack of principled and critical thinking that Americans are exhibiting. This is a systemic problem in our nation that is not confined to a particular party or ideology.

Re: You liar! Nah, I’m Just Messing With You.

ColoradoMatt — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:06:14 -0000

"Outbursts in a nationally televised address to Congress are bad form given presidential protocol, but they might not even be a new low considering the things said in “the mainstream media” on a daily basis."

They aren't new. They were just as bad when the Democrats did it to President Bush a few years ago.

Also the conservative pundits have no corner on trash-talking... MSNBC has a few who do it daily as well as anyone on Fox.

Tom if you are going to call out people for poor taste, at least pretend to be bipartisan about it... otherwise your bias is blatant.

Re: Howard Dean: Public Option is Essential

ColoradoMatt — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 11:29:34 -0000

What's with the "if you don't agree with the President you must be racist" thing? All of the sudden it seems as though the Democrats can't win the day in the arena of ideas so they have to resort to playing the race card.

It's bad enough that Progressive's habitually look down on anyone who doesn't agree with them as "stupid" but now they are turning to "racist" to denegrate those who oppose them?

I (and a lot of Americans) have been waiting for something like Senator Baucus' bill to come out. Looks as though its going to get shot down by both the left and the right which is a shame. At some point people on the vocal extremes of both sides need to realize that just because you speak the loudest or have the tallest bully pulpit, doesn't mean that you speak for the majority.