Random

 

Turn, Turn, Turn

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

Heaven may know the purpose, but on Earth sometimes stuff just happens.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. And the fact that some behavior is cyclical and not random, does not negate the fact that other behavior is random and not cyclical.

Random behavior may look cyclical when viewed at a small scale, but that does not mean that it is cyclical at every scale. Randomly flipping a coin follows a random normal logistic distribution. That distribution has a behavior that can be defined mathematically with a precise mean and variance. I have suggested than the universe is hyperbolic and the variance is due to this effect. The range, s, is such that its Cumulative Distribution Function at the median should be equal to 50%, i.e. 50% heads/50% tails.  This requires that the range of this function, s, be 0.5. The random normal distribution function can thus be defined as  ½ *sech²(x-µ), where μ is the mean. This looks like ½*cos²(x-μ) for one cycle, but the logistic distribution with a hyperbolic secant has a period of 2πi, where i is the imaginary number, which means in the real domain it does not repeat, while the non-hyperbolic Euclidean cosine has a period of 2π which means in the real domain it does repeat.

Both equations above have a mean, µ, of 0.  They appear very similar between -.75 and .75.  However the traditional Euclidean cosine squared function cyclically repeats, while the random, hyperbolic secant squared function does not repeat. 

Things that are cyclical, like the seasons, can follow a deterministic function.  Things that are random, like the weather, do NOT have to follow a deterministic function.  Some things can be solved.  Some things cannot be solved.  Going all Serenity Prayer on this, Wisdom is knowing the difference.

Interest II

 

The Twelve Days of Christmas

On the third day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Three French hens
Two turtle-doves
And a partridge in a pear tree

And Gaul is divided into three parts. And a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

I have previously agreed that Three is a Magic Number, so let’s divide interest into three parts:

1.      The discount rate,

2.      The currency rate, and

3.      The product rate.

The discount rate is how much you value the future. The future should always be less the present, i.e. “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, which means that the discount rate should be greater than 0. For example, if the future is worth 90% of the present, then the discount rate would be 1.0/0.9 or 11.1%.

Inflation is real, such that today’s dollar is not worth yesterday’s dollar. It has two parts, the currency rate, and the product rate. The currency rate is the rate that has to be applied to the medium of exchange. For example, the medium of exchange in most transactions in this county is the US dollar. A dollar in 2023 is not worth as a much as a dollar in 1960. A currency can be commodity-based or fiat‑based. If it is commodity-based, then there is the possibility that economic transitions can not take place because a group has too much of that commodity and does not want to participate in economic transactions. The best currency, medium of exchange, should allow all economic transactions to take place. The US has been not been on the gold standard, a commodity-based currency, since since the 1930s and is a fiat-based currency where the dollar is tied to the US economy. If the economy grows, then more dollars need to be printed.

Neither the discount rate nor the currency rate is random. However, the product rate IS random. Like other random phenomena, such as the weather, we can talk about it but can do very little about it.  The product rate is governed by such things as consumer preference, supply chain disruptions, the weather, and other random events.

The interest rate has to at least cover the discount rate, otherwise there is no sense in investing in the future. The currency rate should be as close to zero as possible. The product rate is a random number. The sum of the currency rate and the product rate should be kept below the discount rate or investment in the future will not make sense. Therefore, there is a reason that we should worry about inflation, but we have to expect that inflation can be greater than zero.

The Federal Reserve Bank is principally charged with maintaining the currency rate, but it is also expected to maintain the total interest rate. This does not mean that it has control over total inflation because it can NOT control random events. But by setting the prime rate, the rate of inter-bank loans, which is in keeping with the Federal Reserve Bank's role as the lender of last resort, it can have an influence on interest, and thus appear to have an impact on inflation. If other lenders set the interest rate as the prime, the Federal Reserve Bank's inter-bank loan rate, plus a rate, and that interest rate should be less than the discount rate minus the product rate, then the illusion is that by setting the prime rate the “Fed” is controlling product inflation when in fact it is only time shifting demand and supply between the present and the future.

The Speaker of the House?

 

Wishin’ and hopin’

'Cause wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin'
Plannin' and dreamin' his kisses will start
That won't get you into his heart.

We should expect more than wishin' and hopin' from the Speaker of the House.

In order to become Speaker, he made a deal with some Republican holdouts that he would roll back defense spending to 2022 levels. The agreement drew the ire of some conservatives, who said any cut to defense spending would be irresponsible.

“You’re gonna tell me inside defense there’s no waste?” McCarthy asked on Sunday. “We shouldn’t just print more money. We should balance our budget.”

https://news.yahoo.com/mccarthy-social-security-medicare-cuts-155850854.html

The ignorance of this amazes me. I wish I could say it surprises me, but so it goes.

Last I looked it was 2023. Cutting defense spending to 2022 levels, if there has been inflation. (News flash! There has been! Didn’t rINOs, republicans In Name Only,  make an issue about that?)  2022 US Dollars, USD, are worth less than 2023 USD. This means that keeping defense spending to 2022 USD levels is effectively a roll back. There might be waste, but any unwasteful spending that was funded in 2022 USD, would still need more funding in 2023 USD.

And the US Dollar is a fiat currency and has been since the 1930s. The US Treasury prints enough money such that all economic transactions can take place, IOW the US money in circulation should be equal to the US economy. If the US economy grows, then somebody better print more money.

You can wish and hope all you want, Kevin, but that doesn’t change things. Inflation is real, and printing money is how the economy works.

Wealth

 

If I Were a Rich Man

The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them like a Solomon the Wise
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong
When you're rich, they think you really know!

As the song says, just because you are rich, does NOT mean you really know.

If wealth followed a normal distribution, the wealthiest people would be about twice as rich as the median wealth. This assumes that the mean, average, is equal to the median, the value where 50^th percent are greater and 50^th percent are less. A distribution can still follow at least one of the rules of a normal distribution if the mean is no more than 150% of the median. If the mean exceeds the median by more than that amount, the distribution can not be considered to be normal. But any distribution of an abnormal group can be approximated by the presence of more than one normal subgroup within the larger abnormal group.

For example, in my field of transportation demand forecasting, a trip is characterized by its purpose, for example the commute between home and work, a Home Based Work trip, HBW. If commute trips to work are grouped with commute trips from work, and this combination is sorted by starting trip times, then the median starting time is different than the mean starting time of those trips. However, if the difference between the commute to Work and the commute from Work is maintained, the mean and the median within each subgroup are almost equal as shown below.

It is visually obvious that there are two separate groups by starting time. I.e. the mode of starting time to work is generally about 7:30 AM. The mode of the starting time from work is generally about 5 PM. (if the commute time is on average is about 30 minutes, this also means that the average person is at work from 8 to 5! I guess Dolly Parton was wrong!)  The fact that there are two groups is not surprising. However this same behavior is apparent even when the separation between the two groups is not as obvious, If this same grouping was done for shopping trips from the home,  the duration of shopping does not result in the same separation. The fact that there are two normal subgroups is obscured by the fact that these subgroups were combined. In fact if the same separation is made, shopping trips, when combined are not normal in that the mean is greater than the median, but when they are seperated into the legs, trips, from the home to shopping and the legs, trips, from shopping to the home the normality is evident. There are two normal groups, as shown in the chart on the right, which is masked as in the chart on the left where the starting times of each leg are combined.

It is suggested that any group which is abnormal actually consists of many subgroups, where any one subgroup, such as the rich, may be normal only within its own subgroup. However you should not expect that its wisdom is normal for the larger group, such as the group that also includes the poor.  That rich subgroup might say silly things like, “let them eat cake” or ”the problem with the poor is that they live off their principal, and not their interest.” The rich really are different. But that only means that they are richer, not that they should speak for all of us.

Interest

 

God Bless The Child

Them that's got shall have
Them that's shall not lose
So the Bible said, and it still is news
Mama may have, Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, that's got his own

If the Bible is news, what does it say about interest?

“You shall not charge interest on loans to your brother, interest on money, interest on food, interest on anything that is lent for interest.” Deuteronomy 23:19

So the Bible says, but this does NOT say that the future is worth the same as the present. It only says that charging in excess of that difference is wrong. Passages like this are often used to justify forbidding the charging of any interest. This includes even the discount rate, which is the difference between the present and the future, also known to economists as the opportunity cost.

 Charging more than the difference between the present and the future, the discount rate, seems also to be forbidden, by the Old Testament of the Bible, to your brothers. Similar language also appears in the Koran. If you then define your brothers as those only in your faith, then those who are not in your faith seem to be able to charge or receive interest.

So what should the discount rate be? If that rate is defined in terms of our life, the interest rate should be higher as we get closer to the end of our life. If we are immortal, then the interest rate should be as close to zero as possible. But this ignores the fact that the future is obviously different than the present, by the discount rate. Let us assume that the discount rate is the related to life expectancy. The period before you can contribute to a group is proposed to be divided by the total period where you could contribute to the group. If your life is 80 years (Psalms 90:10), and the period before you contribute to the group is 13 years (at around 13 years you become a man, are bar mitzvahed), then the Old Testament's discount rate is 13/80, 16.25%. Jesus’s public ministry was 3 years, while His life was 33 years, so His discount rate seems to be 3/33, 9%. If the interest rate is less than the discount rate, then it makes sense to invest in the future. If the interest rate is greater than the discount rate, then it does NOT make sense to invest in the future.

Regulation

 

Math Sucks

If necessity is the mother of invention,
Then I'd like to kill the guy who invented this
The numbers come together in some kind of a third dimension
A regular algebraic bliss.

Math does not suck!!! Economists would benefit by three-dimensional thinking.

Economists classify goods by the two dimensions of rival and exclusive.

Source: https://www.econlib.org/the-correlation-between-excludability-and-rivalry/

By excludable, it is meant that the good has a price or some other means that is used to exclude the good from non-payers. Rival means that if the good is being used then someone else can not use that same good. In this way there are more than just Private Goods (Excludable and Rival) versus Public Goods (Non‑excludable and Non-rival). It also includes Common-Pool Resource Goods (Non-excludable and Rival) and Club Goods (Excludable and Non-rival). Club Goods are also often called Private Monopolies because it also includes Cable TV, electricity, land-line telephones, etc. (i.e. my using Cable TV, or electricity, does not mean that my neighbor cannot also watch the same station on Cable TV, or use electricity.)  Private in this case does NOT mean the government is excluded from the operation. Some private monopolies (e.g. water, sewer) are often operated by public/government agencies).

To these two characteristics, dimensions, I would also like to propose adding a third: Regulation. It may also highlight why there are so many disagreements over Common-Pool Resources and Club Goods/Private Monopolies. In each economic transaction the buyer/consumer may have a different perspective/frame of reference than the seller/producer.

Both buyers and sellers agree that Private Goods should be Regulated. Sellers want to be assured that their goods can not be stolen, and that the medium of exchange used in the transaction can be trusted (e.g. no counterfeiting). Buyers want to be assured that the goods are represented correctly (truth in advertising laws, labeling, FDA, etc.) and are produced in a manner that they find acceptable (labor laws, OSHA, etc.). By contrast, both the buyer and the seller agree that Public Goods are un-Regulated.

The problem is that buyers and sellers do not have the same perspective, frame of reference, for Common-Pool Resources and Club Goods/Private Monopolies.

Sellers should want to be assured that there are sufficient Common Pool Resources for the production of their goods and should want those Common Pool Resources to be regulated. The buyer wants these goods available at the lowest price and may not care that the Common Pool Resources are regulated leading to what economists call the “Tragedy of the Commons.”

The seller wants to be assured that a price can be charged for Club Goods/Private Monopolies which requires regulation, while the buyers may not care that the goods are regulated (e.g. Napster/”free“ music, pirated movies, etc.)

Regulation is not necessary if all of the parties in the transaction can be trusted. By regulating you are saying that at least one of the parties can not be trusted, which is why you are regulating. So in addition to raising the cost by requiring regulation, the very act of regulation may offend some people. But if you trust everyone, but always cut the cards card (trust but verify) then you are regulating. So thus even Ronald Reagan was in favor of regulations, he was just disagreeing about what regulations he wanted.

Holocaust Remembrance

 

I, I Who Have Nothing

I, I who have nothing
I, I who have no one
Adore you and want you so
I'm just a no one with nothing to give you but, oh
I love you

To all of the outcasts, you are NOT no one.

On tomorrow's Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us remember all of the outcasts. The Jews were outcast by Christian and Islamic societies. At some point, the fundamentalists in each faith decided that the collection of interest was forbidden and those who collected it were outcasts. However both societies had to come face the fact that they needed interest. (maybe not as high as the 50% implied by the adage that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”, but still). The Jews did not view interest as wrong. Consequently Jews became the world’s bankers who made loans and charged interest. Why do you think Shylock in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice was a Jew? Why do you think Jews came to be over-represented in the banking industry, most famously by the Rothschilds? Because if you outcast those who collect interest, then why is a surprise that outcasts then dominate the sector that deals with interest. You reap what you sow.

The entertainment industry was once considered to be demeaning, so unsurprisingly many of the earliest pioneers in Hollywood and comic books were Jews. (For example, while they may have anglicized their names, Jack Warner was born Jacob Warner and Stan Lee was born Stanley Liberman.) If you outcast a people and outcast a sector, but you value that sector, then why is it surprising that outcast people come to dominate the sector that you value. No one should ever be an outcast. Love is the most important thing that can be given. I may not be a Jew, but on behalf of all of your fellow outcasts, you are appreciated and remembered.

Society

 

When I was Young

When I was young, it was more important
Pain more painful
Laughter much louder
Yeah, when I was young
When I was young.

But now I am old.

I would propose that there are fours stages of man. The first stage is when we are born, At that time we are an individual and have to be trained to enter the second stage, to be civilized (funny word that. It literally means the process of living in a city, i.e. a group). At that point we have learned how to be part of society. The next stage comes when we see ourselves as an individual again and rebel against that society. Hopefully, we will enter the fourth stage and realize that society is just a collection of individuals like us, and we willingly join that society as an individual. In doing so society also needs to see itself as nothing more than a collection of diverse individuals and to respect those individuals.

When you are young, you rebel against society. But when you are old, you realize that you are a group animal, and that society is the group which you must join. If you get to that fourth stage not only you, but society, will benefit.. You are an individual, probably older, and society is nothing more than a collection of individuals. If people, or society, have arrested development, and are stuck in an earlier stage, they are to be pitied, not scorned.

Electoral College

 

Sophisticated Lady

Educated lady with your college degree
Amazes me why you just can't see
Learned everything from your books on the shelf
But no one ever taught you how to think for yourself

But does that Sophisticated Lady have an Electoral College degree?

The winner of the Electoral College has not been the winner of the popular vote in many recent Presidential elections. This has prompted calls for the elimination of the Electoral College. But before calling for the elimination of the Electoral College, isn’t it worth examining why there is an Electoral College in the first place. The Electoral College was instituted because the President was supposed to have broad representation from the People of ALL of the states, and not merely the popular vote winner. Otherwise the popular vote winner might be decided only by those states with the largest populations. The Electoral College was intended to ensure that the President have broad support across all of the states, large and small.

However the framers did not foresee the formation of Political Parties. It was originally proposed that the leading vote getter in the Electoral College would be President and the second leading vote getter would be Vice President. This resulted in the election of 1796 where the President, John Adams, was from one party while his Vice President, Thomas Jefferson, was from a different political party. It also resulted in the Electoral Crisis of 1800 when Thomas Jefferson (the nominee of the Democratic-Republican Party for President)  and Aaron Burr (his party’s proposed Vice President) got the same number of votes (and if you don’t know who Aaron Burr is then watch Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. He was “the damn fool that shot him” and the man who “stood for nothing”). This led to the 12^th Amendment which required separate Electoral College votes for President and Vice President. The formation of political parties also changed the way that the Electoral College worked. The winner of the popular vote might no longer have desired broad support of the states. Under a two party system, the winner of the popular vote and the electoral vote should still be the person who received more than 50%. However in the event of more than two parties, the Electoral College votes are mostly awarded to the person who received the plurality of the votes in a state, but that person may not have received a majority of the votes in that state.

Of the 59 presidential elections, the winner of a majority of the popular vote also won a majority of the electoral vote in 37 of those elections. A third party participated in 13 of the 29 elections where no candidate won a popular majority.  In two of those third-party elections, (Woodrow Wilson in 1912 and Ronald Reagan in 1980), the difference between the percentage of the Electoral College and popular votes exceeded 40%, falsely giving the impression of a mandate to the winner. In the 9 elections where there was no major third party (i.e. the victor might not receive a majority of the popular vote), that ranges from a low of 46.09% of the popular vote and 56.50% of the Electoral College vote for Donald Trump in 2016 to a high of 49.72% of the popular vote and 56.42% of the Electoral College vote for John F. Kennedy in 1960.

I do not have the state-by-state votes to see how this would impact the elections, but based on these results, I would propose that Electoral College votes NOT be awarded unless a candidate receives a majority (NOT A SIMPLE PLURALITY) of the state votes in a Presidential election. The Electoral College would still meet, but would not consist of a pre-specified number of votes (so Nate Silver’s famous 538 would be no more). It is suggested that this might ensure that the winner of the popular vote more closely tracks with the winner of the Electoral College vote, even in the presence of third‑party candidates. This is intended that a Presidential winner have not only the most votes, but a broad representation of the state's votes.  This might not change the results of the election of 2016, but it would more closely heed the Spirit of the Law.

I realize that some states (i.e. Maine and Nebraska) award Electoral College votes on the basis of the votes in Congressional districts, but awarding Presidential Electoral College votes on the basis of votes for President in Congressional districts makes the fight over the mapping of those Congressional districts even more contentious. The proposed modification to the Electoral College does not deal with the number of Congressional seats or the mapping of districts. (Although I personally prefer the adoption of the Wyoming rule for the number of Congressional seats,
 https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/05/apportionment-ii.html, and I do not think that a political party which has an interest in the mapping of Congressional districts can be unbiased in developing such a mapping, i.e. I am anti-Gerrymandering. But one battle at a time.)

Trinities II

 

Three Is a Magic Number

Three is a magic number
Yes, it is, it's a magic number
Somewhere in that ancient mystic trinity
You get three as a magic number
The past and the present and the future
Faith and hope and charity
The heart and the brain and the body
Give you three as a magic number

Then why do Triumvirates not work very well?

And here I thought I was being really clever with my blog post, https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/09/triads.html  Turns out I was unconsciously ripping off School House Rock. (I would like to claim that I didn’t see that episode of School House Rock, but that isn’t very believable, is it?). But if three is a magic number, then why are triumvirates (three people) such an unstable way of political power sharing? Is mortality the reason?

A triumvirate would seem like the best mechanism for exercising political power. A majority of a triumvirate (2/3) is always also a supermajority and is almost the mean of a standard normal distribution plus one standard deviation (68%). But that assumes that one of the decisions is NOT to destroy the losing third party. In the event of destruction, the triumvirate becomes a two-person group and either of those parties has an incentive for destroying the other party. And the process of destroying the other parties is likely to be very messy for the entire society.

If every party in a triumvirate is immortal, can’t be destroyed, then it is stable. If the individuals can be destroyed, then the triumvirate becomes unstable, and quickly becomes a battle to become the one winning party.

So an amendment if you would, three is a magic number, if, and only if, all of those three are immortal and can’t be destroyed.

Leadership III

 

Climb Every Mountain

Climb every mountain
Ford every stream
Follow every rainbow
'Till you find your dream

I am looking for a leader to help me climb that mountain.

If we are going to climb a mountain, and we can’t climb that mountain in one trip, then we have to establish base camps. Each base camp is not the top of the mountain.  And the first base camp might be the safety of our living room.  But if we are always satisfied with a base camp, and want to retreat to the last base camp rather than climbing, we will never climb the mountain.  MAGA is retreating to the last safe base camp.  I want to follow a leader who is going forward, not backwards. The song does say dreams, not memories.

Probability

 

Born Under a Bad Sign

Born under a bad sign
Been down since I begin to crawl
If it wasn't for bad luck
You know I wouldn't have no luck at all

“You've gotta ask yourself one question: “Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya, punk?”

We live in a random world of probabilities, not certainties. We may expect the world to be deterministic, to always have a single answer, but that does not appear to be how the universe works. The fact that we expect it to be deterministic, does not mean that we should treat it as deterministic. That only will lead to false solutions and misunderstandings. If the universe is random, then not every game will lead to the same outcome, all other things being equal. We can find the most likely outcome, but we can’t find the guaranteed outcome. Not only is TANSTAAFL, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, true, but TANSTAAST, There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Sure Thing, also appears to be true. Trying to find a sure thing is a fool’s errand. You can find the most likely outcome, but you still have to play the game.

Even though it is not the most likely outcome, sometimes the underdog will win. Every once in a while, the Number One seed in the NCAA March Madness Basketball tournament, will lose to a Number Sixteen seed. It may have only happened once. Entering the 2023 tournament, since the tournament expanded in 1986, No. 1 seeds were 147-1 all-time against No. 16 seeds. But we still fill out our brackets and watch the games. And maybe, just like in 2018, there will be an upset like the Number Sixteen seed University of Maryland, Baltimore County beating the Number One seed Virginia in the first round. So fill out those brackets and get lucky. There may be lots of brackets, but there is not a guaranteed bracket.

Board of Directors

 

Hazy Shade of Winter

Time, time, time
See what's become of me
While I looked around for my possibilities
I was so hard to please
Look around
Leaves are brown
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

Time matters!

The average investor holds a share of stock for 5.5 months. The life expectancy in the United States is 77 years. The company however should be expected to last forever. These different time frames may be why there are problems in deciding the best strategy for a company.

A company consists not only of its Investors. It also consists of its Labor and its Intellectual Property. The time frame of the Board of Directors of a company should not be as short as that of the shareholders. It should be longer than the life expectancy, which by definition will be longer than the working years, of any single employee. It should be forever. A Board of Directors which represents only investors, might choose a strategy which is best in the short term, but is not the best strategy.

Having a requirement that the Board of Directors of companies include, not only seats for investors, but seats for employees, and at-large seats that are NOT investors, would seem to be in the government's interest AND in the company’s interest. Compensation for the members of Board of Directors should NEVER be in cash, it should only be in shares of the company which can not be sold until that member leaves the Board.

Temper Tantrums?

 

Growin’ Up

The flag of piracy flew from my mast
My sails were set wing to wing

I had a jukebox graduate for first mate

She couldn't sail but she sure could sing

I pushed the B-52 and bombed em with the blues

With my gear set stubborn on standing

I broke all the rules, strafed my old high school

Never once gave thought to landing, no

I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd

But when they said come down I threw up

Ooh-ooh growin' up

Don’t throw up! Grow up!

In Peter Pan, the Broadway musical at least, growing up doesn’t sound very appealing.  Growing up means going to school, not to learn the wisdom of the group and how to learn to discern truth on your own, but to learn how to be a parrot and recite some silly rules.  Growing up means shouldering burdens with a worried air, instead of being proud to contribute.  Growing up means pinching pennies and not being generous.  Growing up is awfuller than all the awful things that ever were.

If we want people to grow up, since growing up is inevitable, then growing up better not mean that is beneath the dignity of climbing a tree.  Growing up should be the home of joy and liberty.  Then no one has to run away, or be banished.  No on should ever say that say they won’t grow up. Stop acting like a toddler.  So there!

MAGA?

 

She Used to be Mine

She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up and baked in a beautiful pie
She is gone but she used to be mine

What is important is not what used to be, but will be.

Time marches on. Don’t look back, they might be gaining on you. The arrow of time moves forward. Looking back may be pleasant, but we can never revisit the past. Things just don’t work that way. My Wayback machine is on the fritz.  My Tardis is kaput.  1.21 gigawatts! What was I thinking?

The Russian Federation might think that Ukraine was once part of the Russian Empire and should be again.  Russia was an Empire from 1721 to 1917.  Ukraine was independent in 1917, which prompted the Bolsheviks to conquer Ukraine.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian-Soviet_War  . The Soviet Union may have endured for almost 100 years, but that is so yesterday. Get over it Putin.

There is nothing sadder than a former high school athlete who is trying to return to his glory days.  The glory days have passed us by (in the wink of a young girl’s eye?).  We can, and should, apply lessons that we learned in the past, but one of those lessons that we should have learned from the past is that we should not try to make the present, much less the future, look exactly like the past. Don’t Make American Great Again.  Make America Great in the Future.

Primaries and General Elections

 

I Am An Illusion

Wrong step
We got off track
We need someone to help us get back now
Worn thin
Awful state I was in
I believe they were fooling me
Now I'm down
I am down
But I'm not real anymore
I am an illusion 

The problem is that in an election, we need to trust that someone is real, not an illusion 

George Santos won his general election because he won his Republican primary. Donald Trump is the favorite to win the Republican primaries for President in 2024 and did win the Republican primaries in 2016. In 2020, many real Republicans retired rather than facing the challenge of being primaried. Those that did run WERE primaried, but in many cases those that won their Republican primary lost the general election. It sounds like the primary system alone is not working to identify the best candidate for the People. 

The Republican primary seems to automatically confer the Republican endorsement. In fairness, the Democratic primaries seem to mean the same. Under the primary system, endorsement does not mean that the candidate has been vetted and is to be trusted. https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/04/ranked-choice-voting.html 

If there are only two parties, it would be preferable if the general elections had the possibility of four candidates, the winner of each party’s primary and the endorsed candidate of each party. The winner of the primary could be, and hopefully would be, the winner of the primary. But if that winner was NOT the endorsed candidate of the political party (assuming that endorsement meant something), then there is the possibility of more than two candidates from each party. Then ranked choice voting would mean something.

 

Understanding

 

Hotel California

On a dark desert highway
Cool whip in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air

Er…, aren’t the correct lyrics “cool wind in my hair”

As long as there has been language, there is the chance to misunderstand that language.  The late, great Gilda Radner had a recurring sketch on misunderstanding on Saturday Night Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZLeaSWY37I.  and made “Never Mind” a catchphrase.  I was raised in Rhode Island, maybe the capital of misunderstanding, whose very name is due to a misunderstanding.  The full name of the state, which dates back to colonial times, is Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  Rhode Island technically only refers to what the indigenous people called Aquidneck Island, where the city of Newport is located.  A Dutch explorer called it "Roodt Eylandt" because of the red clay lining the shore and the early settlers though he said that  was because it looked like the Greek Island of Rhodes.  Of course those same early settlers though that the Indigenous Tribal village of Montaup was the tribe trying to say “Mount Hope”, which is that region’s name today and may be responsible for the state motto, “Hope”.  We are losing many of these misunderstandings which gave rise to regional slang (the national name for the sub is replacing that of Philadelphia’s “Hoagie”, (the sandwich originally eaten for lunch on Hog Island), or Rhode Island's “Grinders”, (a cold lunch meat sandwich on an Italian Roll, which your teeth needed to grind).  But as long as there is language there will be the opportunity to misunderstand language.  Thus the ancient Romans worshipped Father Jupiter, which the Greeks would call Zeus Pater.  The French claim no credit for French Fries, so the French were only amused, not offended, when Americans started calling them Freedom Fries.

Misheard song lyrics can be a particular source of amusement. In addition to the one misquoted above, I have a particular problem understanding the singing of John Fogarty of Creedence Clearwater Revival.  I remember proudly singing “There’s a Bathroom on the Right” when the correct lyrics were “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise”; or “Cinemascope Perfect” when the correct lyrics were ”Sinister Purpose”.  One of my college roommates was amazed when he learned that when he was saying "It’s a dogie dog world” he was actually saying “It’s a dog eat dog world”.  As long as there is understanding, there will be misunderstanding.  Ask someone “Why A Duck?”

Hourglasses

 

Days of Our Lives

“Like sands through the hourglass,
so are the days of our lives,”
said the voice of Macdonald Carey,
welcoming viewers to the
“Days of Our Lives” soap opera
as a large hourglass appeared on the TV screen.

What if our universe is also an hourglass.

First some digressions. MacDonald Carey was a Hollywood star. His participation in a soap opera legitimized that soap opera to my late mother. Consequently she could approve of, and watch, those “stories.”  She was less than amused when her children started watching another soap opera, Dark Shadows, starring another Hollywood star, Joan Bennett. But it was not until last year when I listened to the Love is a Crime podcast that I understood why she thought there was difference in Hollywood stardom that was not tainted by scandal.

An hourglass has a small point through which the grains of sand pass. The shape of the hourglass is a hyperboloid, with a extremely  narrow passage in the middle. The shape of the hourglass on either side of its mid point is very similar to the early inflation in the universe after the Big Bang.  This is why I am proposing that not only is the shape of the universe hyperbolic, but that the universe in which we exist is only one side of that hourglass and is separated from the other side of the hourglass by the Big Bang. But the Arrow of Time is such that you can’t move from one side of the hourglass to the other without upsetting everything and turning it all over. Thus go the days of our lives.

Free Will

 

Jesus Met the Woman at the Well

She said, "This man, this man, He must be the prophet"
She said, "This man, this man, He must be the prophet"
She said, "This man, this man, He must be the prophet"
"He done told me everything I've ever done."

And that ain’t the half of it.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives.

At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.  When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The Gospel of John, Chapter 8, Verses 1 through 11.

In other words, Jesus will not condemn us for our choices, but does hopes that we make the correct choices.  So I guess that Jesus is Pro-Choice, not only as it is currently used, but also in a larger context?

It is a tradition in my family to watch a Charlie Brown Christmas each year.  To paraphrase Linus in that show, “And that is what Free Will is all about Charlie Brown”.  God does not condemn us. God condemns certain choices.  And we alone make those choices. Thus if there is any condemning, we are condemning ourselves.

Consulting

 

Fugue for Tinhorns

I got the horse right here,
The name is Paul Revere,
And here's a guy that says if the weather's clear,
Can do,
Can do,
This guy says the horse can do

That guy is me.

The lyrics above are from Guys and Dolls and were sung by the racetrack touts, including Nicely-Nicely. For all of my public and private career, I realize that I am no different than a tout. A tout tries to make a prediction about the outcome of a random event. Ethical touts will use whatever information and methods are available to give their customers an edge in knowing the outcome before the event. Unethical touts will tell their customers what they themselves don’t believe and those touts may tell conflicting stories to different customers of the same event, in hopes of one of them being the winning side.

I have been a traffic modeler for most of my life. Like a racetrack tout, I have been trying to beat the odds and make predictions. But I hope that I never lose sight of the fact that they are only predictions. When I forecast a trip table, forecast mode share, or forecast volumes on a link, I am not guaranteeing an outcome. All of the methods in these predictions are based on identifying the most probable outcome among many, not the only outcome that will happen.

There are contests in which there are only a limited number of outcomes, for example Tic‑Tac‑Toe. By analyzing all these outcomes, it is possible to see what future outcomes can result from each current outcome. If you play first in Tic-Tac-Toe, then you may have a winning strategy on each play.  However, the player playing second can always make a play in response that forces a draw. Thus it is possible to develop a book on each play that will lead to at least a draw. Unless the opposing player makes a mistake and does not make their best move, it is impossible to win at Tic Tac Toe.  It is possible to memorize that “book” of best plays. Because the number of plays is limited, it is even possible to train a chicken to play Tic-Tac-Toe. (If a chicken makes a mistake, then it is eaten and won’t play again. Fortunately for them, politicians don’t taste very good).  The book in Checkers is larger but it does exist. The book in Chess is even larger and is incomplete at present. A Rubik’s Cube has 43,003,274,489,856,000 positions, only one of which is the winning position. And yet there are people who have memorized the best way to get from any position to the winning position, such that there are contests of how fast you can ‘solve” a Rubik’s Cube (the current record is 3.47 seconds).

The challenge of traffic modeling is that there is not yet a complete book on how to get to a winning solution. Until then, like Nicely-Nicely, I will keep touting customers on ways to beat the odds.

Spacetime

 

It’s About Time

It's about time,
It's about space,
About strange people in the strangest place.
It's about time,
It's about flight,
Travelin' faster than the speed of light.

It's about Minkowski spacetime!

Minkowski space combines inertial space and time manifolds (x,y) with a non-inertial reference frame of space and time (x',t') into a four-dimensional model relating a position (inertial frame of reference) to the field (physics). A four-vector (x,y,z,t) consisting of coordinate axes such as a Euclidean space plus time may be used with the non-inertial frame to illustrate specifics of motion, but should not be confused with the spacetime model generally.          

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minkowski_space

What this says!!!!  I may not understand this, but Einstein apparently did!

If space time is hyperbolic and not Euclidean how does this change things?

Minkowski space is used to describe the light cone , e.g. world lines of light, moving through space.

This cone looks very much like a one-sheet hyperboloid narrowed to a point at the origin, which is identical to a two-sheet hyperboloid where the separation between the two sheets is zero.

I have previously suggested that the shape of the universe is hyperbolic. (IMHO it appears locally Euclidean but is globally hyperbolic, much like geometry on the surface of the earth appears locally Euclidean but, over very large distances comparable to the radius of the Earth, is non-Euclidean and spherical.  I know that am not the originator of that hypothesis.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2022/07/forever.html

If the shape of the universe is hyperbolic, then mathematics should seek non-Euclidean solutions. This has an implication on the speed-volume curve used in my field of traffic engineering, but also seems to have a bearing on:

·        physics, the Lorentz transform might be γ=1+ln(cosh(v/c)±sinh(v/c)), gravity might be only an apparent force and not one of the three intrinsic forces;

·        statistics, the only valid normal distribution might be the logistics distribution with s=0.5;

·        sociology and political science, tolerance, a SD of 0.6413, may be an intrinsic part of group dynamics, and

·        many other disciplines ( e. g. I suspect that my speed-volume curve findings will have an implication on Fluid Dynamics.)