Uncertainty

                                             Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?

Then you bet you'd better finally decide
And say yes to one and let the other one ride
There's so many changes and tears you must hide
Did you ever have to finally decide? 

So  Trump changed his mind on tariffs AGAIN?

The one thing that the stock market hates more than anything is uncertainty. The market would prefer that the certainty be positive, but certainty that is negative is still better than UNcertainty. So is it any wonder that the stock market has been tanking since Donald Trump announced tariffs (that beautiful word) would take place on Liberation Day. My personal 401(K) plan took a nose dive of a 10% decline in the last few days. The tariffs themselves were supposed to be reciprocal, but it is unknown what the penguins in the uninhabited Heard and McDonald Islands did for which the US had to reciprocate. Today Trump announced that he was just kidding, the tariffs would be suspended for 90 days.

Trade wars were the comedic subject of Ben Stein’s economic lecture in the movie Ferris Buller’s  Day Off. Trade wars are so stupid that they are supposed to be funny. I am among those who are not laughing at the moment. As bad as trade wars are, uncertainty in trade wars is even worse. Make up you mind. L’etat N’EST-CE PAS Donald Trump. “We the people” are the state.  Can somebody please tell “Don the Con” to make his mind before the stock market goes into free fall and we all lose our mind.

Cycles

 

The Dog Days Are Over

Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father
Run for your children, for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind
You can't carry it with you if you want to survive
The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can you hear the horses?
‘Cause here they come

Will the DOGE days be over also?

The Dogs Days happen every summer. Yes the summer heat is bad, but it does not last forever. It may seem like the Dog Days will last forever when you are in the middle of them, but they will end. They happen because the earth orbits the sun. The longest day (in the Northern Hemisphere ) is June 20^th, but  the Dog Days of summer are from July 3^rd to August 11. This is because it takes a while for the heat of the sun to heat the earth. But there is end to the Dog Days every year. The Dog Days of summer are followed by the glorious crisp days of autumn even though astronomical autumn does not begin until September 22nd.

Remember that when you hear that when you hear  someone say “If this goes on”. Chances are things won’t go on. Things do not work this way. Absolutes may trend straight lines, but you are NOT an absolute. The symbol of the absolute is a typically a circle, not a straight line for a reason. If you are not the absolute, don’t assume that the straight line you perceive will go on forever. That straight line probably won’t go on and don’t believe anyone who tells you it will.  The fact that things were better in the spring does NOT mean that the Dog Days will go on forever. Look forward for the fall. Don’t try to go back to spring, or you may want not get an endless summer, but an eternal winter.

Republic

 

Do Your Job 

These bozos are making one of those death traps

By this time next week, that building's gonna collapse

And the school bus driver hauls a precious load

Hope he's not driving your kids when his heart explodes

As I look around I see everywhere

Americans who just don't care

At the risk of sounding like a Repetitive Joe

Repetitive Joe, Repetitive Joe, Repetitive Joe

I'm the boss, get back to work 

You may be the Boss, but how do you know I’m doing my job? 

Since I am a New Englander, it is no surprise that I am going to use a New England example to make a distinction between a democracy and a republic.  New England Town Meetings are democracy at its purest.  Everyone who is a resident of the town can vote at a Town Meeting.  However the business of the town is mundane, boring, and time consuming.  Even though everyone can go to town meetings not everyone wants to, has the time to, or the interest to, participate in town meetings .  Thus in a town with thousands of eligible voters, only a few hundred might participate in a town meeting, and those that do participate may have a bias for certain actions and are not representative of those who do not attend.  Thus while a Town Meeting is a pure democracy, it requires a commitment of time that may be unrealistic.

A less biased and less time consuming method is to give your proxy to a Town Meeting member who will represent you, i.e. a republic.  Then that person can act in your place and this should reflect your biases, not an unknown bias.  Then you merely have to judge that the person representing you truthfully represents your views. Whether that  representative is for a town meeting, a city council, a state legislature, Congress, etc., those proxies are chosen in an election.  

The problem then becomes choosing someone to represent you as an individual while recognizing that you as an individual still retain sovereignty in a democracy.  This form of government where the sovereign is the group of individuals but those individuals chose representatives to vote/act for them is called a republic.  It is not an accident that the earliest political party of Thomas Jefferson called itself Democrat-Republican and not until later did it drop the Republican part of its name.  Thus when a new political party formed in the 1850s, the name Republican was available and became the name of those who opposed the expansion of slavery and they welcomed in no taxation Whigs who opposed the expansion of slavery into federal territory and anti-immigrant Know Nothings who opposed the same.  While Republicans eventually came to oppose all forms of slavery, not just merely its expansion, that did not occur until after the Civil War, by which time the issue of slavery versus the retention of power became the distinguishing attribute in the Republican Party. 

Fast forward to today, The descendants of no-tax Whigs and anti-immigrant Know-Nothings have taken over the  Republican Party and intimidated, or retaliated against, all those who merely opposed  slavery.  The Freedom Caucus/Tea Party/MAGA calls those who oppose them Republicans in Name Only, RINOs.  In  fact it is they who are rINOs , opposed to a republic. 

Your job involves three things in order of importance: Execution, Foresting and Communication.  The problem is that the ability to do our job is primarily judged by others on how well our can communicate.  But that communication can be used to lie. 

In a republic you desire is to find someone who would act like you, forecast like you, and would communicate like you.  In other words, you want someone to be winning, certain, and true.  But while you can determine whether someone is winning, if someone is less than the absolute you can only be 99.9999..% certain .  Something  can be  100% certainly true or 100% certainly false.  We can view at most 5/6 of the absolute. Humans can only determine 91.28% of the truth under the best of circumstances. 

The issue is NOT voting for someone to represent you unless you are certain that person is telling you the truth.  Picture being faced with two choices: candidate one who has a grade of A in execution, a Grade of B in forecasting and a grade of C in communication, versus another individual who has a grade in  execution of F, a  grade in forecasting of F, but a grade of A in communications.  If you can chose only on the basis of communication then the second choice would win.  If you choose on the composite grade, then you would choose candidate one to represent you.  So in the last election, how did you vote?  For the best communicator? or the best representative?  They are not the same.  The challenge is to judge not only how they have done the job, but also how they will do their job in the future to represent you, but you only have their word and their past performance on which to judge that. In this case the directive becomes not “I'm the boss, get back to work.” but “I’m the boss, do I believe that you can do MY job.”

Winning III

 

Like a Rolling Stone

You used to be so amused
At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used
Go to him he calls you; you can't refuse
When you ain’t not got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you've got no secrets to conceal

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the rest of you oligarchs take heed.

The tax cuts favored by Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their oligarch cronies have to come from taking the government payments to others, especially those below them. They may call it waste, fraud, and abuse, but as they are finding it is really winning, certain, and true. If they take all of the wealth from others, then they hasten their own demise. One on one, they may win every contest. They may do so because of their merit but more likely they win at any cost, by retaliation for past losses and intimidation not only in future contest but in expectation that in the current contest in the expectation that their opponent gives up, bends the knee, before the contest is over. That might work singly, but collectively those same opponents can overwhelm them.  By taking from each opponent they make sure that their opponents have nothing, but then those same opponents also have nothing to lose. If enough of their opponents have nothing to lose, and that prompts those opponents to join forces and act in concert, then that can lead to the demise of the oligarchs. I believe that the technical term for subjects, opponents, acting in concert against the ruler is called a revolution. So oligarchs you can lie, cheat, and steal all that you want. It may only be a Pyrrhic victory. You may win the battle but lose the war. Can you hear the people sing?

Tolerance V

 

It Ain’t The Meat It’s The Motion

It ain't the meat, it's the motion
Makes your daddy wanna rock
It ain't the meat, it's the motion
It's the movement that gives it the sock

It ain’t the average, it’s the tolerance.

Engineers learn that you can’t achieve perfection. You have to accept tolerance around the ideal, what statisticians and other scientists call standard deviation, from perfection. That means that you have to report both the average AND the tolerance to determine if you have an acceptable batch. Reporting only the average is meaningless.

Many statistical agencies report only the average when they should also be reporting the variance, the square of the tolerance. You need both measures to judge a batch.

If the goal is to achieve growth then reporting the average is part, and only part, of the story.

·        If the average is increasing and the observations have a variance that is within acceptable limits then there is growth;

·        If the average is increasing but the observations have a variance that is NOT within acceptable limits then there is no growth;

·        If the average is decreasing but the observed variance is still within acceptable limits, there is growth; and

·        If the average is decreasing and the observed variance  is NOT within acceptable limits there is no growth.

Reporting the average without also reporting the variance does NOT establish whether there is growth. It is easy enough to report the variance in addition to the average. Most statistical packages can report both. Most statistical packages can also plot both, the average and error bars around the average. (the error is the standard deviation divided by the square root of the number of observations.)

Statistical reports should report variances, (aka Standard Deviation, tolerances) in addition to averages. Reporting only averages gives an incomplete and possibly misleading picture. It is reporting the meat without reporting the motion. You are actually reporting the growth which is a vector and matrix math applies. By only reporting the average,  you are reporting the change in position without reporting any change in direction. You want to report both the observed average AND the acceptable tolerances.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

 

The Gambler

You've got to know when to hold 'em,
Know when to fold 'em
Know when to walk away,
Know when to run
You don't ever count your money
While you're sitting at the table
There'll be time enough for counting
When the dealing is done.

Do you know when to hold ‘em?

There is a classic problem in statistics named after a game on Let’s Make a Deal hosted by Monty Hall. The Monty Hall problem involves making one of three choices of doors, only one of which is a winner. The host, in this case Monty, opens one of the unchosen doors. It is inevitably not a winner. The player is then given the chance to remain with their original choice of doors or to change to the remaining door. When the correct answer, that you should always switch, was presented by Marilyn Vos Savant in Parade magazine it created a controversy. PhDs who should know better could not believe that answer. In subsequent studies it was found that 85 to 90 percent of players would choose exactly the wrong strategy.  There is a fancy term for this, equiprobability bias. Humans assume that all outcomes are equally likely. When presented with a choice of two outcomes, one of which is clearly 67% probable, humans insist on acting like the probability of each choice is 50%.

 In Vos Savant words, the  Monty Hall dilemma does not involve competing theories of statistics. It reveals something about humility and human frailty. “ The disbelief that we could be wrong.  The tenacity sometimes aggrieved, which we hold our earlier judgment, especially when we feel certain”. So don’t be aggrieved. Know when to hold ‘em.

Laughing

 

I Love to Laugh

The more you laugh
The more you fill with glee
And the more the glee
The more we're a merrier we

The best laughs?

I am a listener of podcasts as a means to drown out outside noise when I try to sleep. But then listening to podcasts makes me laugh and I can’t get to sleep. Or if I fall asleep I have to rewind and listen to the podcast again. Yes, I am that old.

Not only do many of these podcasts prompt me to think, they also cause me to laugh. The benefit of the audio podcasts are that I only hear the laugh, I am not distracted by the sight of that person laughing. So who has the best laugh?

Number three: Holly Frey- One of the hosts of Stuff You Missed in History Class, and Criminalia podcasts  and on her own the host of the Drawn: The Story Of Animation podcast. On top of this she runs races, sews, and is a Disney adult. On that alone I would follow her to the end of the earth even if she stayed quiet. But oh that laugh. There is such joy in her laugh that it is infectious, and you can’t help but laugh along yourself.

Number two: Stacy Vanek Smith-  It was a sad day for me when Ms. Smith stepped away from hosting duties on the Indicator from Planet Money.  She is knowledgeable,  and she treats her subject seriously. She is brilliant and a great communicator. But she also knows that her subject is fun, and she does not take herself seriously. Fortunately I am only in the year 2021 in my podcast listening and she is still around to me, and I can always hope to hear her laugh again.

Number One: Tom Magliozzi. The late older brother, one of the hosts of NPR's Car Talk, Clack of Click and Clack; one of the Lugnuts; one of the Tappet Brothers.  I am happy to say that I knew someone who patronized their garage in Cambridge, MA and did not know of their radio show. Tom grew up in an Italian neighborhood in Cambridge. Despite trying to sound like he is a crazy person who only knows about cars, he was: a graduate of MIT; a former member of the US Military, “PFC Magliozzi”; a former worker at the Foxboro Company; and a professor of business at Boston University. And he was the voice of one of the sponsors of Lightning McQueen in the Pixar/Disney Cars movies. “As The Wrench Turns” indeed. His rants are legendary. His barbs are phenomenal  His spirit may have  left the earth but may his laugh echo on forever. Raise your next cappuccino in a toast to him.

Listen to these wonderful laughs and I dare you not to smile. You might even laugh yourself.

Growth

 Crown of Creation

Life is change

How it differs from the rocks

I've seen their ways too often for my liking

New worlds to gain

My life is too survive

And be alive for you

Aah

And growth is life!\

The most recent episodes of the podcasts Radio Lab and Planet Money were on grwoth.  I like the name “Malthusian Swerve” that they used but mathematically it already exists as the Cumulative Distribution Function, CDF, of the Exponential Distribution’s PDF, Probability Density Function. On second thought Malthusian Swerve does roll more trippingly off the tongue and is probably better branding. 

There is a way to look at growth as NOT constant and thus uncontrollable ( and after all what is cancer but uncontrolled growth). The phrase “Life is change” might be from the Jefferson Airplane's song Crown of Creation, but the concept goes back to the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. The Malthusian way of looking at constant growth is as a power function, Future  = Present * Growth rate to  the  power  of  Time,                                             

Future =Present * Growth Rate ^Time. 

This is NOT the CDF of an exponential distribution. An exponential distribution would be  Future = Present * exp(time * growth rate)),

  Future= Present * e ^{Growth Rate* Time.}  

The base in this equation is e, Euler’s number. The Natural Logarithm of the exponential of x is  ln(x). 

What was not anticipated is a disruption during the forecast time period. The examples in the podcasts did not include this, but in the 1880s the fear was that New York City would be buried in horse manure by 1930. This was a reasonable trend given the horse power in use at the time. What was not expected is that horse power would be replaced by gasoline engine power. But while history is rife with disruptive and unforeseen examples (what economists would call substitution of products), it would be nice to establish what the growth rate should be absent any unexpected swerves.

The Federal Reserve sets its target for inflation at 2%. This is low enough to almost be unnoticeable. But it is still not ideal. And it is also a Compound (and thus constant) Annual Growth Rate, CAGR. It is said that you can boil a live frog in a pot if you keep the growth in temperature low enough. Two percent is also the rule of thumb rate of growth that I was taught as a young engineer. It is close to 1/ln(2)%, 1.44%, which is the ideal growth rate given the two dimensions, space and time, of reality, using exponential growth. It sounds like exponential growth is even higher growth than compound growth, but words can be deceiving.

Trending, assuming constant growth, is NOT a good idea. Take a young child..  If you trend out his current rate of growth he should be 10 feet tall at the age of 20. But you don’t expect him to be. As Han Solo  said in Star Wars VII, “That is NOT how the Force works". Exponential Distribution’s CDF, a sigmoid curve, for the win!

Patience

I Want It ( And I Want it Now)

I want it and I will not wait......I want it.......Now
I sit at home and when I watch TV gotta have remote control with me
Oh and when I'm watching football
I can go to total recall
I got freeze frame, I got slo – mo

Can’t you grow up and be patient and wait?

A good part of growing up is learning that things do not just happen immediately and magically. Actions have to be planned. This is just how the world works. There are cycles but there are also lagging and leading variables. The seasons happen due to the astronomical cycle, orbits. However the changes in those cycles are NOT the start of the growing or weather seasons associated with these cycles. They happened because of this astronomical cycle but there are lagging and leading variables.

The longest day of summer is June 20^th, the summer solstice. However it is NOT the hottest day of summer. That occurs latter in the “Dog Days” of August. The astronomical equinox is March 20^th. However that is NOT the start of the growing season. That will come later in April or May depending on the climate zone.

The retail store Target is closed on Christmas Day. If you want to buy Christmas presents at Target, then you have to do it before Christmas morning. If Target wants to have Christmas gifts to sell to you, then they will have to order and receive them long before Christmas. If the manufacturers want to sell to Target, they have to begin their process even before that. Manufacturers may begin their processes a year in advance of Christmas for you to have gifts to open on Christmas morning. The observable cycle may only be an approximation, and small errors may accumulate over many cycles. That is why there are leap years, the Julian and Gregorian calendar adjustments, Easter, and Passover are not fixed dates, etc.

Expecting things to magically appear is being childish. Being certain about the future. and not anticipating changes in the leading variable is childish. Not dealing with changes and small errors is childish. It is NOT magic, it is science. .If you want it now, then you have to allow others to act on a cycle other than your now. You have to act certainly, not fickly, so that they can plan for your now. And you have to expect, admit, and deal with small errors, ASAP, before they become big adjustments. That IS how the Force works.

Licenses

 

Look What You Made Me Do

I don't trust nobody and nobody trusts me
I'll be the actress starring in your bad dreams
I'm sorry, the old Taylor can't come to the phone right now
Why? Oh, ‘cause she's dead (oh)

Trust is everything

Humans can NOT see everything in the heart of someone else. At best they can see 5/6^th  of what the absolute perceives.  So when someone else tells you something there is a change in that 1/6^th  that you can’t perceive, they may be lying to you.  That is why ethics exams are so important,  You want to believe that a statement is true. but how can you tell if it is true.  You get someone to vouch for the person making that statement.  You might not have experience with that person, but someone may.  And you may rely on that person to reassure that that some other person can be trusted.

So how do you get that trust?  Trademarks, licenses,  guild masters, etc. There are codes of ethics as part of that process.  But you count on that process being itself ethical.  Sometimes it is not.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2024/06/ethics.html. 

I have a Professional Engineering license and that often comes with a Professional Engineering stamp.  I have worked for an A&E firm where plans had to be stamped, even if they were prepared by non-stamped staff.  The scramble of PEs diving under their desk when the call went out “who can stamp this” was a sight to behold.  Somehow no one brought their stamp into work on that day. 😉

The number of times I have been asked by clients “can’t you just lie” is staggering to me.  ”Doh, no I can’t. I would lose my license.”  And that may resolve the constitutional crisis.  The number of people who lie in court that are creating the constitutional crisis will be faced with the fear of losing their license, and their livelihood.  Ask yourself, “Would I lie for you?  Is it worth it?”

Both

 

Patty Duke Show Theme Song

Where Cathy adores a minuet,
The Ballet Russe, and crepe suzette,
Our Patty loves to rock and roll,
A hot dog makes her lose control
What a wild duet!

Still, they're cousins,
Identical cousins and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike

Because they ARE both!

My college roommate, with whom I reconnected after 50 years is a short, secular, Democrat, Jew, who loves the outdoors.  I am a tall, spiritual, Republican, Catholic, who loves cities.  So we have nothing in common? Must be enemies correct? WRONG!  Not only were we roommates, we backpacked around Europe together.  Like Mutt and Jeff, we are a pair, just like Cathy and Patty on the old Patty Duke TV Show.  Because we are both, not one or the other.  An absolute is both, not one or the other either.  There are three outcomes: win, loss AND, tie.  But if there is only one absolute, being both is the only way that opposite positions can come together.  Concentrating on only one position or the other is wrong. United we stand, divided we fall, and all that jazz.

Ten Commandments

 

If I had A Hammer

If I had a hammer
I'd hammer in the morning
I'd hammer in the evening
All over this land
I'd hammer out danger
I'd hammer out a warning
I'd hammer out love between
My brothers and my sisters
All over this land, uh

What if the Ten Commandments were only warnings?

A toddler hears the warning “Don’t touch the stove” as a commandment, which to some people is only a dare.  Instead it was intended by the toddler’s guardian as a warning of the risks of touching a hot stove.  It was not intended as an arbitrary rule to see if the guardian would be obeyed, but a loving  warning of the risks of touching a stove that may burn you if you are unlucky and it is hot. The warning is that the risk is NOT  worth the reward. 

The Bible was written in Hebrew, not English.  I have blogged previously that because of a mistranslation of dominion for steward, the passage should have really been,  Genesis 1:26: “And God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have stewardship over fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth.” 

Maybe they aren’t the Ten Commandments after all.  Maybe they are the Owner’s Manual about how we are supposed to operate our lives.   Kinda puts a different spin on it, doesn’t it.  The owner’s manual is not an arbitrary set of rules.  It is how to best operate that piece of equipment. Please read them and heed the WARNINGS.

Wealth

 

Too Close for Comfort

Be firm, be fair
Be sure, beware
Behave, be there
Be wise, be smart, behave my heart
Don't upset that cat when she's so close

How fair is the distribution of wealth?

1) Brunei; 2) Bahamas; 3) United States; 4) Bahrain; 5) United Arab Emirates; 6) Brazil; 7) Ukraine; 8) Russia; 9) Philippines; 10) Lesotho   This is the list of the top 10 unweighted wealthiest countries per capita in the world in 2021.  This tells you the company that the United States keeps, but it is not weighted by the wealth of the country. Number 1 with a bullet is the United States, which has a weighted ratio of mean per capita wealth to median wealth, weighted by the share of the world’s wealth, of 2.3 while the closest country is China with 0.75. The third place country is Germany with a weighted value of 0.25.  The median per capita wealth in the world is $60 thousand but the mean wealth per capita is $144.9 trillion.  Should we say inequitable distribution of wealth or, it ain't fair.

Kings?

 

If I Were King of the Forest

For courage is the king of kings
With courage I'd be king of kings
The whole year round
I'd be hailed and crowned by every living thing
If I, if I, if I, were K-
King!

Cowardly Lion, you already ARE King of the Forest!

There is a difference between being the Head of State and the Head of Government. Most European Union  and British Commonwealth countries realize this. E.g. Canada and Australia have the British Monarch as their Head of State, not their Head of Government. That is why national highways, parks and museums in Canada were previously the Queen’s and are currently the King’s.   But the British Monarch is NOT the Head of Government. The death of Queen Elizabeth II was mourned in Canada and Australia, but it did not require a change of government in either of those countries.

In the United States, the de facto Head of State is the President, but the sovereign is The People. The people elect a president but that only makes him head of the executive branch of government, and makes him the representative of the country, but it does not, can not, make him the state.  Unfortunately our current President apparently wanted to be Head of State, but apparently does not want to be Head of Government, a position which he is apparently surrendering to Elon Musk.  It is only custom that the President is the Head of State. Perhaps it is appropriate,  so that the president does NOT get the idea that he is a sovereign,  to explicitly elect or designate a Head of State, which is not the Head of Government.

You can have a good sovereign, e.g. “Good King Wenceslas", or a bad sovereign, e.g. “Ivan the Terrible”, or “Dracula”. The problem is Dracula, Vlad the Impaler, was not viewed as terrible by his own people. Being a sovereign does not make you good. Neither does being the Head of Government make you Head of the State.

The tension between the individual and the group is why there is, and should be, a problem. Being the Head of Government does not mean that you own all of the property of the sovereign. It only means that you are a steward for the sovereign, which according to the US Constitution is The People. Neither does being a member of The People mean that you own all government property.  Being King does not make you a sovereign, any more than Col. Saunders was an army Colonel or Commodore Vanderbilt was a Commodore in the Navy. King is sometimes A sovereign, but in the US is not OUR sovereign. King is merely a name, which is part of your nature.  You can change your name, but that does not change your nature.

Distributions IV

 

Danger Zone

Out along the edges
Always where I burn to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity

Highway to the danger zone
Gonna take it right into the danger zone
Highway to the danger zone
Ride into the danger zone

Is the distribution of wealth in the danger zone?

Wealth is NOT an Absolute zero. It is a Relative zero. As proof take Gershwin’ s I’ve Got Plenty of Nothing from Porgy and Bess. In the song Porgy sings, “ I got my girl, got my song, Got heaven the whole day long, Got my girl, got my love, yes got my song”. If he did not have any of those things, then his nothing would be an Absolute zero. The problem is that in two-dimensional space-time, it is possible to construct an outcome matrix which is absolutely TRUE,  
{2/3, 0, 1/6, 1/6} .  This matrix satisfies the components of {true win, true loss, false win, and false loss} and is 100% certain.  It is also possible to construct another outcome matrix which is absolutely TRUE. {3/3, 0, 0, 0} .  The problem is that an absolute matrix can also be constructed which is {1/3, 0, 1/3, 1/3} which is absolutely FALSE and is 100% certain. ( This also suggests that an absolute has three aspects, is a trinity)

Individuals can form a group to act like an absolute. In two dimensional space-time their outcome can be {66.7%, 0, 16.7%, 16.7%}, which is also absolutely TRUE. That normal distribution of individuals can also be skewed maximally positive to {96%, 0, 2%, 2%} which is close to being absolutely TRUE. But that distribution can also be {46.3%, 0, 26.85%, 26.85%} which is skewed maximally negative, and is absolutely FALSE. The problem is that normal individuals acting as a group can not perceive the absolute. They can only perceive at most 5/6^th of the absolute. The danger zone is any outcome, distribution, between {50%, 0, 25%, 25%] and {65.9%, 0, 17.05% 17.05%}. It might appear to be true, but this may be an illusion because the absolute might be perceived incorrectly. The problem is that these appear to be “winning” distributions in that the sum of True wins and False wins is greater than False losses,  but the distribution of wealth is already in the danger zone and the variance in that distribution of wealth is increasing.

Bullies

 

Do You Want To Know A Secret?

Listen
Do you want to know a secret?
Do you promise not to tell?
Whoa, oh, oh

Your votes should be secret!

Retaliation is the crime of acting against an individual for actions taken in that individual’s own best interests. Intimidation is the crime which involves defettering or coercing an individual to act against their own interests. There is only a difference in time between the acts.   Retaliation is about past acts, intimidation is about future acts. Both are forms of bullying, which includes both of these acts, as well as present acts. All need fear, domination. "Hold tight to  your anger. Don’t give into your fears. Take your best shot let me see what you’ve got. Bring on your wrecking ball."

But that requires the courage to take a bully’s best shot. If those actions are in secret, then there is no need to fear a bully’s wrecking ball. That is if your votes are secret. Then there is nothing to fear except fear itself to coin a phrase. Don’t be bullied. Keep your vote secret.  It is your own interest that should guide you, not the interests of a bully. They can try to persuade you, but that does NOT include forcing you.

Nothing

 

Something Good

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

What kind of nothing?

One of the great errors is assuming that there is only one kind of zero, nothing. There are actually three kinds of zero. 1)Absolute zero 2) Relative zero and 3) Repeating or cyclic zero.

1.      Absolute zero is defined as the value below which there can be no observations; x>0; 

2.      Relative zero is a zero relative to absolute zero that is inserted for the convenience of recording the observations of the value. Thus while it is possible to talk about -4000 degrees Fahrenheit, in fact no temperature is defined, possible, below -459.67º F, which in this case sets a lower limit for the location parameter; μ; x>μ

3.      Repeating or cyclic zero is a recognition that a wave may pass through the x-axis and appear to be zero on a periodic, p,  basis: even when x is infinite and n approaches infinity;  n*p>x>(n-1)*p.

Given that there are four quadrants formed  by two dimensions, (e. g. winning and losing,  true and false, etc.), when one of those quadrants is absolute, then the other three quadrants must be one of the three zeros for the outcome in the total of those quadrants to be absolutely certain, 100%. This means that there are 4 quadrants in which the absolute can be placed as long as there are zeros in the remaining quadrants. Hower imposing the additional criteria that the absolute has to be true AND a winner, means that only one of those four solutions is real. For any number of players greater than 3, an outcome ensuring a certain winner is true is always possible,

When there are only two dimensions, e.g. players, for example space and time, then the surface passing through those two dimensions can be flat, hyperbolic or spherical. If the surface is flat or spherical, then there is only one solution. If the surface is hyperbolic, then  there are two solutions. But there are three outcomes to a contest: win, lose AND Tie. If an additional criteria is imposed, then it is possible to find a solution which is winning and true by also requiring that false wins and false losses be equal, and whose total is a tie. Thus it is possible to accommodate 3 outcomes among the two dimensions AND the surface. A solution matrix, table, which is winning, true AND normal is {2/3, 0, 1/6, 1/6} which satisfies {true win, true loss, false win, and false loss}. This is true for the absolute. However an observer who is not an absolute will only perceive 5/6, or 1/6, of the absolute, depending on which side of the hyperbolic surface that observer is located. In that case the solution can only be at maximum√ (5/6), or 91.3%, certain, not 100% certain. Another solution can be certain, but then that solution also must not be true.

There is an additional proof that the surface connecting the 2 dimensions is hyperbolic, in order to be absolute and true. An absolute has no error and there is nowhere the absolute is not, i.e. 0, and its error is 0,  Since waves on a surface will interfere with each other, the first part of the statement can be satisfied if μ≥0 and the second part of the statement satisfies σ/√∞ which is true if σ=0 OR if σ is any constant greater than 0.  A hyperbolic surface will accommodate 2 solutions. A group of individuals on a hyperbolic surface may perceive the absolute as an infinite series of trigonometric waves. If that is the case the μ=0±σ=0 is true, but is a solution which only applies to the absolute . The solution must always be always applicable, that is any value of μ and a constant value of σ. Since the definition of a wave is that σ²=½A² and that wave  has a period of 2π in the case of most trigonometric waves or 2πi for most hyperbolic trigonometric waves, for a normal solution σ²=s²π²/3, then the solution which results is a constant (e.g., winning or losing,  true or false, etc.) is π/6 .  This satisfies the requirement that there be two solutions on a hyperbolic surface, σ=absolute zero AND σ= π/6.

This also mean that the multiplicative and additive identities for zero only applies to only ONE of the three zeroes, the Absolute Zero.  Those laws do NOT apply to Relative or Repeating zeroes. Choose your zero, nothing, wisely.

Variance II

 

Ain’t We Got Fun

There's nothing surer
The rich get rich and the poor get poorer
In the meantime, in between time
Ain't we got fun?

Do the rich have to get richer, and the poor get poorer?

Given my recent blog post that variance ( e.g. the difference between rich and poor) should be a constant, https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2025/02/variance.html. it is appropriate to review an earlier blog post on the difference in wealth among nations.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2021/11/distribution-of-wealth-iii.html .  As well as a blog  on the consequences of keeping the location parameter constant and allowing the variance to increase to accommodate growth.  https://dbeagan.blogspot.com/2023/09/distribution-of-income-ii.html

The fact that variance is a constant and location is not, can lead to bad policy decisions if it is wrongly assumed that location is constant and variance is not.  It is totally correct that things were better from 1946 to 1964, and that things were much worse from 1996 to 2013, just as it is true that Christmas is better than the Dog Days of Summer.  But making every day Christmas is a stupid and childish response, just as MAGA is.  The grown‑up response is to work hard during the Dog Days of Summer so that the following Christmas can be as good, or even better than, the past Christmases that you do remember.  The fact that humans don’t live through more than portion of two cycles of historical periods of 100 years does not mean that the cycle is not there, just that a single individual can not experience multiple cycles. 

Mark Twain said that “History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”  William Faulkner said that the “The past is never dead. It's not even past”.  Just because you can’t see other cycles, does not mean that other cycles do not exist, only that you can’t personally experience them. Learn from a study of the historical past.  Grow up! It can’t be Christmas every day!  Don’t be a such a child!

Surfaces

 

Blue Horizon

Beyond the blue horizon
Waits a beautiful day
Goodbye to things that bore me
Joy is waiting for me
I see a new horizon
My life has only begun
Beyond the blue horizon lies a rising sun

The horizon is why Pythagoras Theorem applies Locally by not Globally

There are three kinds of surfaces. 1) Spherical, 2) Flat (Euclidean) and 3) Hyperbolic. While it seems like we live on a flat Earth, the existence of the horizon is actually one of the proofs that the surface of the Earth is actually a sphere, not flat. An observer can perceive 50% of any object that is between the observer and the horizon. An observer can not perceive the object at all if it does not extend above the horizon. However the observer can only perceive 50% of the portion of any object that extends above the horizon. That is why the mast of a sailing ship on the horizon is visible before the rest of the ship, because at that point  the mast extends above the horizon, but the rest of the ship does not. The horizon is defined by the radius of the spherical surface. If the sphere is large enough, then most objects which are perceived will be between the observer and the horizon. But that does not mean that the horizon does not exist, just that it is not always perceived. A Flat surface is thus only the limit of the spherical domain, not a domain itself. The surface will have a curvature defined by the major and minor axes, a and b, of the equations describing the eccentricity of the surface. If a and b are both less than infinity, then a spherical surface is described, and the eccentricity is less than 1. If a and b are both infinite, then a hyperbolic surface is described, and the eccentricity is greater than 1. A flat surface is thus only the boundary between these two conditions where the eccentricity is exactly equal to 1.

For any hyperbolic surface, regardless of the curvature, only 5/6 or 1/6 of an object will be perceived, depending on which side of the hyperbolic surface is being perceived by an observer. That is because a hyperbola has two solutions, one which is the opposite sign of the other. But the solutions are similar to the spherical solution until the numbers involved are very large: e.g. 2/3 the size of the universe or 5/6 the speed of light. Thus could it  also be said that the universe is flat locally, but hyperbolic universally.

Variance I

 

Too Much of Nothing

Too much of nothin' can turn a man into a liar
It can cause some man to sleep on nails
Another man to eat fire
Everybody's doin' somethin', I heard it in a dream
But when it's too much of nothin', it just makes a fella mean
Say hello to Valerie, say hello to Marion
Send them all my salary on the waters of oblivion 

Say hello to Variance too! 

A normal random distribution is defined by its location, often called the Mean/Median/Mode, μ,  and its Variance, σ². The mean/median/mode are not equal, except at infinity. The mean, often called the average, is computed from the total of the observations divided by the number of observations. The variance is the range of the observations but is not as easy to compute. An observation consists of where you are observing a thing,  its x value, and what is the attribute of the thing that you are observing, its f(x). Just because the x-axis is infinite it does NOT mean that the function on that x-axis is also infinite. For example, a wave is a repeating function, f(x)= cos(x). In this case x can be any number, e.g., infinity, ∞, but the value of f(x) can only be between -1 and 1. Mathematically this would be stated that the domain is infinite, but the range is finite and between -1 and 1.  The variance, the range, can be finite even if the input variable, the domain. is infinite.

It is fairly easy to compute the mean of a variable. It is the total of all of the observations divided by the number of the observations. It is a little harder to compute the variance of the observations, but not impossible. If an infinite number of variables is computed then the mean by definition is half of infinity. But it is important to differentiate between infinite variables and infinite domains. Just because the domain is infinite that does not imply that the mean/median/mode is infinite or that the variance is infinite. These are characteristics are of the range, not the domain. The range can be finite even if the domain is infinite, for example, the cosine (x). The mean/median/mode of the cos(x) is sine (x). The variance of the cosine, and the variance of the sine for that matter which is also the mean/median/mode of the cosine, is ½.

The variance is thus a constant. The variance of the range is always a constant, even  if the domain is infinite. Thus it is not inconsistent to say that the variance of infinity is a finite number. The mean of cos(x) is sin(x) whose domain is also infinite, but the variance of that cosine function, and its mean the sine, is, ½,  which is finite.

Cycles

 

It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me

Don't waste your money on a new set of speakers
You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers
Next Phase, New Wave, Dance craze, anyways
It's still Rock and Roll to me

And it’s still Mathematics to me!

I believe that there are historical cycles of  approximately 100 years. I say approximately, because the length of the historical cycle is a random phenomena whose average is 90 ±10 years. Half of a full period of a cycle is thus 45±5 years and 1/6 of a half cycle would thus be on average 8 1/3 years long. If the last Turning (end of a cycle) was in October of 1929, then you would expect an upward slope from approximately 1929 to 1979. And  a downward slope from approximately 1979 to 2029. In the first 1/6 of the first half cycle, e.g. ~1929 to 1938,  there would be slow to virtually no growth and that growth may be virtually indistinguishable from the decline at end of the last cycle. To an observer in the midst of a cycle, it may appear as if the cycle ended sometime in the middle of that period, e.g. 1932 ( i.e. it appears like a lag variable). 

There should be moderate growth for the next 1/6 of the half cycle (~1938 to 1947). There would be twice the rate of growth for the next 1/6 of a half cycle ( ~1947 to 1956) and that rate of growth would be accelerating. There would be almost the same rate of growth during the next 1/6 of the half cycle (~1956 to 1964), but that growth would be decelerating. During the first 1/6 of the next half cycle the growth is declining but the change is virtually indistinguishable from the last 1/6 of the previous half cycle. The rate of decline accelerates during the next 1/6 of a cycle, (~ 1979-1986). The rate of decline virtually doubles during the next 1/6 of the cycle, ( ~1986-2004). The highest rate of decline happens during the next 1/3 of a half cycle, (~2004 to 2020). The rate of decline decelerates during the next 1/6 of the half cycle, (~ 2020-2029). The last phase of the cycle has virtually no growth, just like the first 1/6 of the next half cycle where growth returns.

Yes, the length of each phase can vary. Wars, economic downturns, terrorist attacks, extreme weather  and other random events can occur. What about on average is so hard to understand?

There is a danger zone about 80% through a declining half cycle where things may have gotten so inequitable that revolution against the sovereign can happen. That puts the danger zone at somewhere between 2020 and 2029 where there is a strong possibility that the subjects of the sovereign will say off with their heads.

Standard Deviation

 

A.D.H.D.

Fuck that, eight doobies to the face
Fuck that, twelve bottles in the case nigga. Fuck that
Two pills and a half, wait nigga, fuck that.
Got a high tolerance when your age don't exist

And tolerance is where it’s at!

I would be lying if I said I understood anything that Kendrik Lamar said during the Super Bowl LIX halftime show. I don’t speak Rap. But Kendrick’s lyrics as quoted above are wise beyond words, The language is very rough, but….maybe I am merely showing my age. Tolerance is what engineers call Standard Deviation, the square root of variance. A problem is acting like mean and the midpoint of tolerance squared, variance, are the same. They are NOT, except for the absolute. There are three outcomes to any contest: win, lose, and tie. There is an average, mean of that contest. The average plus the tolerance should include the entirety. But because the mean, average, is defined as half of the absolute, it is confused that this requires that mean be constant, when it is NOT or the tolerance to be NOT constant, when it is. One is subject to growth, the average, and one is NOT subject to growth, the tolerance.

According to L’Hôpital’s rule, the limit of the average is the mean AND the median. But for anything less than the absolute, the mean and median can, and will, be different. The mean of an even number is half of that even number. The mean of an odd number is NOT an odd number, it is half of the original number, which makes it an even number. Thus saying the variance is one third of the absolute, while the location, is half of the absolute seems like it is a contradiction but the mean is subject to growth, and the variance is a constant and is NOT subject to growth.

Mathematically x>μ AND σ=μ/3 is true for the absolute but that does not mean that variance increases as the mean, location, increases. The variance is a constant, but the location can change with growth. The problem is that the limit of N/2, the mean, as N approaches the absolute is the absolute , but the limit of the Standard Error, what engineers call tolerance, the square root of the variance is SE=σ/√N, zero. This is true if the absolute is zero, but it is also true if the absolute is NOT zero, x>μ and σ=μ/3 is true not only for N=0, but it also is true for any value of the number N. There is no contradiction,  The mean is a function and changes. The tolerance is a constant and can NOT change. And apparently by not growing up in Compton like Lamar, I missed that.