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Cthulhu and other crazies » Blog Archive » Google stoops to their level, fights freedom

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 11:12:43 -0500

Cthulhu and other crazies » Blog Archive » Google stoops to their level, fights freedom:

… The argument goes something like this. Racism is a system in which one group of people exercises unjust power to the disadvantage of another group of people. Part of the way such a system survives is by reinforcement, by enough people continually affirming that the system is the way things should be.

Now, the fact is that, all things being equal, you’re better off in your country and mine if you’re born white. There is a (gradually diminishing) system in place that works to the continual disadvantage of black people. Now consider Howard Cosell (I believe it was) talking about how blacks are better athletes because slavery weeded out all but the strong. That reinforces the dominant system of power because of the implicit “… and also weeded out the independent, the ambitious, the smart.”

Now consider the slogan “white men can’t jump”. That’s almost the reverse: saying that whites’ genetic heritage just makes them inherently bad basketball players. Suppose everyone believed that - would that materially change the distribution of advantage and power? (Would it make you decide that it would be better to be born black?)

If you are concerned with a more equitable society, you might see it important to distinguish between prejudices that maintain inequality-based-on-race and prejudices that are irrelevant to that.

That’s not to say that a white individual couldn’t be harmed by the prejudice of a black (or asian or whatever) individual. It’s just to say that, while individual prejudices (white against black, black against white) may look the same, they have different effects when all summed together.

That, as I understand it, is what is meant by the unfortunate sound-bite “blacks can’t be racist”. It sounds - and is - silly if you think “racist” is a synonym for “prejudiced”. But the sound-bite-utterers don’t think it is (at least, some non-silly ones don’t).

It’s certainly arguable that using the charged word “racist” in a subtle way is a bad idea, but what’s done is done.

Consciousness Explained - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:16:00 -0500

Consciousness Explained - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

“The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn’t need its brain anymore, so it eats it.

“It’s rather like getting tenure.”

– Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained, 1991

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Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:16:00 -0500

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In the following, notice that r.time= works for heroku-staging, but not from heroku.

I did a 'git push' for both of them, so they have identical code.

I did a db:pull and db:push from critter4us to critter4us-staging, so the data should be identical.

Note that the 'time' column was recently added. (That was part of the newest feature.)

576 $ heroku console --app critter4us
Ruby console for critter4us.heroku.com
>> r = Reservation[:course => 'Lab']
=> #true, :time=>"morning", :instructor=>"cpruitt", :date=>#, :course=>"Lab", :id=>5}>
>> r.time = "morning"
NoMethodError: undefined method `time=' for #
>> exit
577 $ heroku console --app critter4us-staging
Ruby console for critter4us-staging.heroku.com
>> r = Reservation[:course => 'Lab']
=> #true, :time=>"morning", :instructor=>"cpruitt", :date=>#, :course=>"Lab", :id=>5}>
>> r.time = "morning"
=> "morning"
>>

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Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:46:31 -0500

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Until evolutionary psychology became trendy, workers in that field struggled with the legacy of the sociobiology of the 20’s and 30’s, when claims about the way evolution worked were turned into claims that the existing structure of society was Right. The people dominating society justifiably dominated society because they were the most fit.

After Naziism, that kind of thinking was drastically out of favor, so the (early) evolutionary psychologists were mostly scrupulous about distinguishing “is” from “ought”.

My favorite person along those lines went a step further. It was George Miller (?), an evolutionary biologist who described results of evolution like unbridled status competition as evil. (“Mother Nature is a wicked old witch.”)

Levi-Strauss examined in great detail how humans reason in terms of binary oppositions. What he didn’t do is take the next step: saying that such reasoning is *bad*, *wrong*, and even *evil*. For example, political rhetoric in the USA contrasts the small-town to the big-city, the “heartland” to the coasts. That’s stupid. I come from a medium-sized city that’s centered around a university. We mix-and-match both stereotypes. But there are no lessons drawn from how we live, because the only relevant examples are hedonistic New York / San Francisco vs. pure small farming towns. It’s not just that the stereotypes are exaggerations (the poverty, divorce, unwed motherhood, and drug use statistics for small town America are shocking); it’s that those two stereotypes fill all our attention.

That’s unfair to M. Levi-Strauss. Why should it be his job to fix humanity? But I wish someone with some credentials would tell us - repeatedly - that we reason stupidly.

Twitter / Brian Marick: Decided to follow @geepawh ...

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:19:13 -0500

Twitter / Brian Marick: Decided to follow @geepawh ...:

“Microtest with emotional baggage” is supposed to remind you of working with people who have emotional baggage. You’re trying to talk about some simple thing, and suddenly they fly off the handle because of some connection to some bad experience once. That’s like a microtest that can’t be run unless you instantiate 8000 classes that have nothing to do with the point of the test.

Or: the difficulty of working with people who need constant stroking and validation and support. That’s like a microtest that can’t function without selenium or watir running it against a full browser - even though the only thing the test is about is whether a particular button is hooked into the app correctly.

A Picture of 3 objects

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:11:00 -0400

A Picture of 3 objects:

See the linked picture.

I had tests that:

- in response to a, C sends ca and cb to mock versions of A and B.

- in response to cb, B sends ba to a mocked version of A and deals with the (faked) results appropriately.

The bug was that C sent cb before it sent ca. However, ca causes a change in A that affects the results given by ba.

There were a couple of things that contributed to the bug:

1. The real name of what I’m here calling “cb” was not very intention-revealing. It didn’t even hint that cb’s purpose was related to the purpose of “ca”, so it didn’t seem like order mattered. I’ve changed the names to make the relationship clearer.

2. It probably doesn’t make sense for B to be coupled to A. (I think the coupling once did make more sense, but changes over time left only one vestige of their original relationship.) I’ve changed the graph so that C explicitly tells B what it needs to know about A.

So, were I a better programmer, the bug wouldn’t have happened. But: if I’d used real A’s and B’s instead of mock ones, I *might* be more likely to have a test of message “a” that noticed the inconsistency between A and B.

http://exampler.com/tmp/critter.mov

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:02:00 -0400

http://exampler.com/tmp/critter.mov:

I’m building an app for my wife’s secretaries, and will be for the foreseeable future. It’s used to schedule animals for student practice or professor demonstrations.

I’m doing this mainly to practice on something of respectable scope, but we might as well get as much out of it as we can. So if people want to teach testing courses from it, teach TDD by adding onto it, or whatever, that would be great.

The movie linked above shows that the app is more than a toy. At the moment, most of the code is in the javascript (objective-J variant) front end. The backend (Sinatra/Sequel/Postgres) is simple now, but there will be (as usual) an unlimited amount of business logic coming up.

marick@exampler.com

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Sun, 27 Sep 2009 19:06:32 -0400

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What happened at Munich? The leader of a weaker power (Britain) was faced with a stronger, more technologically advanced power that had shown it was not shy about using force. That leader (Chamberlain) attempted to appease the stronger power by giving it what it wanted.

What those who talk about appeasement act like they don’t believe is that *we* (the US) are the stronger, more technologically advanced power that has shown it is not shy about using force. States like Iran are in the position of Great Britain of ‘38. When US commentators talk about the folly of appeasement, leaders of Iran should hear that *they* would be foolish to attempt to appease the US, that no amount of giving in will have an effect, that their only option is to develop a credible deterrent (which, given the relative sizes of the countries and economies, really means: nukes).

Appeasement is about the relationship of the weaker to the stronger. Good guys vs. bad guys is irrelevant unless you actually believe that leaders of Iran *view themselves* as cartoon villains.

I’m not saying I have any great ideas what to do about what seem to me very likely to be Iranian nuclear ambitions. What I’m saying is that up-is-down-ism isn’t likely to generate any.

Grr.

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Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:37:19 -0400

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"For instance there’s a fire house near the conference hotel and I spent some time there asking..."

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 11:17:37 -0400

“For instance there’s a fire house near the conference hotel and I spent some time there asking them how they spread knowledge about new techniques given that the stakes are so high. It turns out that after every engagement they hold a retrospective; they question everything; they constantly devise and evaluate new techniques; they train each other in new techniques as well as seek out opportunities to anticipate new situations such as new architectural fashions; new techniques are proven at a local level before being slowly disseminated and verified by other houses and finally everybody is expected to be able to use every tool but they accept that some people will always be better with certain tools.”

- SCNA 2009: Impressions and (actionable) feedback - software_craftsmanship | Google Groups

"Honda was trying to develop the CVCC engine, which had lower emission and higher fuel efficiency...."

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:19:59 -0400

“Honda was trying to develop the CVCC engine, which had lower emission and higher fuel efficiency. Souichiro Honda, the founder and then CEO of Honda one day told his engineers that the engine would finally give Honda the opportunity to beat Big 3. The engineers looked at Mr. Honda, and said, “Please, don’t say such a thing. We are not doing this to beat other guys. We are doing this for our children.” Mr. Honda was ashamed of himself, and said that he realized that he had become too old, and decided to retire.”

- JUDE Community Site - JUDE Developers Blog

Uncle Bob on Life, the Universe, and Everything :: An Answer to Brian Marick :: June :: 2009

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:55:00 -0400

Uncle Bob on Life, the Universe, and Everything :: An Answer to Brian Marick :: June :: 2009:

* Abortion

I’m not happy with abortion. My bias, though, is to defer to actual humans rather than to abstractions or to potential humans. So I want to let the woman decide.

(I don’t believe, by the way, that your way of thinking works. (1) We don’t generally get to define contractual agreements for other people. “What you *really* meant by offering me a ride was a contractual agreement to get me where I was going. Therefore, you should compensate me for that flat tire.” (2) The results of applying “you really meant” contracts to other areas would be absurd. For example, since you believe the justification for legal involvement in marriage is that it produces children, you should be prepared to bill my mother in law and the man she married after my wife’s dad died for their failure to produce children in return for marital benefits. (3) Penalties for contract violations should be proportional, not just clever. You do not argue that “significant and irreversible changes” are an appropriate penalty. Why not add a fine to the cost of a desired abortion? Or 40 days of community service teaching proper use of condoms in an opt-in course for teenagers?)

* Gay marriage

Again, there are actual human beings who suffer by not being able to marry. Making other people suffer shouldn’t be done lightly. The increase in taxes gay marriage might cause strikes me as the epitome of “lightly”.

I’m also a big fan of marriage. I strongly suspect that it’s good for society, at least for our society, so the more the (heh) merrier.

* Drug legalization

The War on Drugs has been a complete failure on its own terms. It has also increased corruption, promoted the militarization of the police and associated loss of civil rights and traditions, costs us a ton of money, and is doing its patriotic part to lose us a war in Afghanistan. Even if I thought drug use (including alcohol and nicotine) was inherently wrong, I’d have to say that the cost is greater than the benefit. Since I don’t particularly care if other people drink or get high, I see no reason not to legalize drugs. Based on effect and addictivity, marijuana and nitrous oxide (say) should be less regulated than alcohol. Heroin (the only drug the most enthusiastic drug user I’ve ever known would not touch) should be much more strictly regulated.

If we’re going to ban drugs, by the way, we should also ban small children spinning around until they get dizzy and fall down, which always seemed to me to spring from the same desire-to-mess-with-your-head as drug use does.

* Prayer in schools

No purpose is served by embarrassing little Christians when their teacher leads the whole class in an Islamic prayer. Or vice versa. Or little agnostics in a “non-demoninational” prayer.

When it comes to prayer clubs in the school, I’m torn. On the one hand, everybody knows that those often become an excuse for the majority (Christian, in this country) to bully or embarrass the minority. On the other hand, the minority might as well get used to it. I’ve finally settled on a semi-strict constitutional interpretation that goes like this:

I happen to think that the 2nd amendment is clear enough. We’re a country where “happiness is a warm gun” is constitutionally sanctioned. Deal with it. Similarly, we’re a country where government has been instructed not to favor religion, even though we’re an atypically religious nation. Deal with it.

* Sex out of wedlock

I encourage it. Once bound to a partner, I bet you’re asking for trouble if you stray, but I guess it’s your business.

ScrumMaster of Last Resort

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:10:00 -0400

That’s something I think the Agile Alliance should do.

Too often these days, the ScrumMaster is thought of as the boss of the team, when in fact the roles were originally reversed: the team was the boss of the ScrumMaster. The team would say, “Behold, there is an obstacle in our path. Pray remove it, Good ScrumMaster.” And the ScrumMaster would do so.

I care about joyful teams. It seems I often visit teams that could both do better work and be happier doing it, except that the corporate structure around them won’t let them. The company thinks it’s doing Agile, but it’s not. As a result, there’s a perverse uneconomic trade: the company gets less value for its money, and in return the team gets less satisfaction from its work.

So I’d propose that the Agile Alliance be available to fly in qualified people to evaluate a situation and (if justified) wield the authority of expertise and outsidership to both give a shove in the right direction and also stiffen the resolve of the team.

Teams would request that service. They would have to pay for it by providing service in return to the larger community (negotiated in advance, part payable in advance).

The service would be provided by people like me in exchange for payment of expenses and perhaps gifts in kind (I’m thinking of free membership in conferences).

This would be in keeping with the Agile Alliance’s purpose: “… SUPPORT those who explore & apply Agile principles & practices to make the software industry productive, HUMANE, and sustainable.”

Where my process wouldn't work

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:09:51 -0400

About a decade ago, I wanted to arrange a panel session of process methodologists who would describe situations in which they would NOT recommend the process they were known for.

“When the people are not properly trained” and “when there isn’t enough management support” were banned as answers. They were to describe situations in which, even with willing, well-trained, well-supported people, their process would be a bad idea.

Only one person agreed to be on the panel.

Boy, Was That Guy Naive!

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:04:34 -0400

From time to time, I tell people that whenever I look back at myself five years ago, I think “Boy, was that guy naive!” — and that, if I ever stop being able to do that, it’s time for me to shuffle off and never be seen again.

For example, five years ago, I was totally naive about the difficulty of implementing business-facing TDD. I was naive about how easy it would be to add exploratory testing to Agile projects. I thought that finally it would be easy to convince people of the benefits of test automation below the GUI because it fit so naturally into other Agile practices. I think my opinions about specialization were confused (and still are). Etc., etc., blah, blah, blah.

It would be good to ritualize such self-examination. A conference? Panel discussions?

Pay me until you're done

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 09:32:28 -0400

I always tell people that an ideal Agile project works like this: each iteration, the business picks things to get done. Those should be the most valuable things remaining to be done. Therefore, the ROI of the team decreases each iteration. Eventually, anything left to add to the product is worth less than the cost to add it. That’s the point at which the business should find something else for the team to do.

(Yeah, I know the business should be considering alternative uses for the money rather than just ROI>0. This way of describing it is punchier.)

It’s always seemed obvious the same thinking applies to consulting. My usual gig has me visiting a team one week per month. Each time, I pretty much sniff around, look for the most pressing problems, and apply myself to them. Assuming I help, each month the most pressing problems will be less pressing, so my value will decrease each month. At some point, I’m charging more than I’m worth. So that’s the moment the client should tell me not to come back.

Is this an odd model?

Exploration Through Example

Thu, 28 May 2009 17:10:23 -0400

Exploration Through Example:

….

There’s something of a difference between claims about facts or techniques and claims about fundamentals - about what Lakatos (in the link) calls the “hard core” of a research programme. The difference is that a research programme (like, in my case, the idea that Agile is context-driving software development rather than context-driven) is considered to be true/verifiable/discussable/refutable in the limit. That is, you only come to understand those issues by working through the programme, not by discussing it in isolation. So the pragmatic response is, as Rorty described his approach to philosophical discussions of “what is Truth” or “what is the Good”, to want to change the subject.

That may make me appear schizophrenic, inconsistent, or evasive. Oh well.

By "prickly", I mean...

Tue, 19 May 2009 15:45:31 -0400

If a “back to roots” movement is needed, it must be because people have abandoned at least some part of the original foundation. They did that for reasons: perhaps abandonment was easy, profitable, what the cool kids were doing, etc.

For a “back to roots” movement to succeed, it has to counter or repel the forces that caused that first abandonment. Something needs more protection than it had in the past, in the way that a cactus’s prickles protect it by repelling animals that would otherwise suck it dry.

Suppose management is messing things up. Chances are good they’re deluding themselves about...

Mon, 18 May 2009 15:11:00 -0400

Suppose management is messing things up. Chances are good they’re deluding themselves about the consequences of their actions.

If team members trickle away one by one, each departure is easy to rationalize, and the deluded behavior can continue.

A spinoff can be harder to cope with, because more people leave at once, but it probably won’t take the entire team. There will still be the more timid, those less good, those whose skills don’t match the startup. That allows management’s deluded behavior to continue, and rationalization is even easier — “they saw an opportunity and took it. It has nothing to do with *us*”.

In both of these cases, those left behind continue to suffer, probably even more.

But if an entire team walks, that’s much more like an addict’s “hitting bottom”. The consequences are going to be huge because any new team would have to learn the system from scratch. (Though I suppose management could delude themselves into thinking they have the project documentation to make that tractable.) And the departure of any series of employees [or, in the case of an addict, friends] is easy to rationalize: “he’s just a malcontent [no fun any more since he got married]”. But when *everyone* rejects you at once…

In the normal case, there’s a power imbalance. To a reasonable approximation, management and the employee start by making what each considers a fair trade. (The employer gives up money; the employee, time and other opportunities.) But each employee [usually] needs her job more than management needs each employee because all of her revenue comes from one source, but each employee provides only a fraction of the company’s revenue. That means that what was originally a fair trade can most easily become unbalanced in management’s favor.

If an entire team can reasonably threaten to quit, that helps restore the power balance.

Note: I’m not claiming that only employers get dysfunctional. And I’m leaving aside ways in which employees have more power. For example, each employee [usually] has more information about how well she’s working than management does, so she can do less work than the deal called for without getting caught. (Think of Wally in “Dilbert”.)

"People have, oddly enough, found something interesting to say about the essence of Force and the..."

Mon, 11 May 2009 18:09:10 -0400

““People have, oddly enough, found something interesting to say about the essence of Force and the definition of “number.” They might have found something interesting to say about the essence of Truth. But in fact they haven’t.” - Rorty”

- Exploration Through Example » Blog Archive » Stepping in the same river many times