Hail Mary and the Homerun Ball

Having mentioned a “small ball” approach in  a recent blog post, I realized afterward that of course, it has an opposite number.

These strategies and their uses are well known. They might as well be called the Loser’s Friend, as they are typically employed either by someone so far ahead that they have nothing better to do but rub it in, or so far behind that the drawbacks of these strategies are no longer meaningful. If you are losing anyway the low percentage of success is suddenly HIGHER than your chances otherwise were. It’s time for a Hail Mary.

So besides understanding the situation, what can you do to increase your (probably terrible) odds in a Hail Mary situation?

Counter-intuitively, practice is usually a requirement, not because people like planning to lose, but because they know these situations come up. It’s called “Plan B” not just “B” for a reason. David didn’t go after Goliath with any untried weapons, he chose tools he was good with (even turning down the king’s own sword) before taking on impossible odds.  These strategies are also known as Asymmetrical Strategies because they are often used when two opponents are wildly unequal in expected strength. “Terrorism” is commonly used to inflate tactics that actually do little damage to one side, but cause very strong feelings and allow the smaller side to continue to wage a conflict that they would lose terribly in open battle.

Heavily mismatched chess players are likely to choose the wildest lines of openings. A weaker player may be trying to “get lucky” with a neat tactic not wanting a close battle that he knows he will lose, whereas the stronger player may simply be trying to save time.

Occasionally, Asymmetrical Strategies actually run the other direction, the high cost of a standard business license in the state of California, or the general need for large amount of capital to compete in business are both strategies that heavily favor the already powerful. This happens to have the unintended consequence that terrorist recruiters can focus on those people disenfranchised by a system that perpetuates such things, but it does keep down the competition from those trying to enter the market.

The trouble with a Hail Mary strategy, is that they are often well known to both sides, and those who have the lead may engage in what American Football fans will know as a “prevent defense”.  It may be a long shot to begin with but there are still counter-strategies for these oft-tried tricks. Sometimes, an opponent may have a real weakness as in the tale of Achilles. If you spot it, you should already know what to do. For example, ISIS lacks funding, and only has a finite number of ways to replenish their coffers, usually kidnappings and wealthy donors (their Hail Mary). Saudi Arabia might be on the right trail with their very large fence separating them from the more extreme elements (the prevent defense). A fence that actually encircled them, and allowed them to be trapped under siege could leave their 8 million inhabitants starving and unable to fight, or replenish their ranks. Alas, a fence on just one border does little to slow down the so-called “caliphate”. It’s imperative that it also cut off their finances, and ability to generate new recruits, or else you’ve merely built a picket fence for their new front yard.

Stack ‘Em Deep, Sell ‘Em Cheap!

Amidst the hoopla of the “Eric Garner Story” it was easy to miss the underlying phenomena fueling the events that lead up to that day.

The cigarette tax in New York City is extremely high. As much as three fifths of the price of a pack is just the tax. This necessarily cuts into the profit margins of sellers, while reducing sales due to increased prices. With tremendous amounts of money on the line, and so many with no viable means of surviving financially it was only a matter of time until someone started increasing the number of untaxed cigarettes sold in the city. By some estimates 60-90% of cigarettes of certain brands are fake, depending on what part of the world you are in. People go quite a distance to pick up just five cartons of cigarettes because selling them as singles is their only income.

All told a single truckload of cigarettes can be as much as $200,000 in revenue for the city, EACH. With thousands of people on the streets selling “loosies”, at up to a dollar each, it’s not far fetched to think that a well positioned operation could go through a truckload at least once a week.

That’s ten million dollars a year in lost revenue, minimum, for the city. Naturally, on realizing this the NYPD took the opportunity to arrest those involved, in the hopes of finding contraband on them to charge them with and generally raise revenue through the courts. In the past jumping turnstiles, graffiti projects, and other issues have become the dragnet the cops used, but from about six months prior to the Eric Garner incident, everyone knew that the jig was up. I really don’t know why he persisted the way he did, he had no legal argument to stand on.

The criminal elements trying to make a buck, however, would have made Sam Walton proud. They paid their “employees” nothing at all, forcing them to live as independent contractors, with no benefits, and no guarantee of pay at all, even having to accept all risks, financial, legal, and otherwise.

The overall generating of massive revenues from tiny increments and sheer force of numbers is a strategy overlooked by many in spite of its tremendous potential. There was a time, when instead of living on the streets  I was the occasional teenager handing some change to someone Since being out here, I’ve run into so many blatant fools who complain about exactly that behavior as a “waste of time”. Admittedly, it would take a large percentage of people, and a large number of them, before it would amount to much, but in busy urban areas, like Times Square where nearly two million people per day pass it would add up far more quickly than hoping for the rare occasion when someone can afford to give much more, especially when times are tough, and not many can afford it.

Just like the panhandler I spoke with was shortsighted in bemoaning people who give small amounts, many business managers lose sight of the piecemeal strategies that have empowered Google, facebook, Wal-Mart, and countless other giants of the small slice space to dominate the business arena. It’s now the reason that every other thing seems geared toward “blowing up” or “going viral”. Generating those big numbers can lead to big profits even one tiny piece at a time.

Planning Your Steps with Algorithms

An algorithm, simply put, is a flowchart of the steps you will take, including the various options you plan to exercise for each contingency you are able to plan for. In computer science practically speaking one must plan for every contingency before coding something up, or the computer will fail in a number of ways, depending on which contingency the programmer failed to plan for.

The logic behind the algorithm also tends to determine the efficiency of the overall program, and is therefore one of the main “sticking points” in computer science instruction. Frequently taught in terms of “search” the ability to sort through a pile of data points to find the one you are looking for is an important function for a computer to fulfill.

An algorithm is also an important way of organizing information, and activities, for example, a family trying to set up an emergency plan for a natural disaster like an earthquake, may set it up in terms of an algorithm (and probably should).

If it happens during the day > Kids follow teachers’ instructions, Mom checks on Kids, Dad checks on Mom. If all is fine Dad stays at work if not checks on Kids, then checks on Mom.

If it happens at night > Rendezvous at mailbox out front, if everyone is fine check on old lady next door, if not find missing party.

Team sports can set plays according to an algorithm, search and rescue parties can use them for more efficient search, nearly any activity that wants to benefit form a prearranged st of instructions to individual members to coordinate their efforts will all benefit from a properly constructed algorithm.  Even an individual wanting to be a step ahead can predetermine large parts of their path by this method, and with practice it only takes a moment to come up with one.

Generally you would build this algorithm around “conditional logic”, as in, IF this event should happen, THEN we will use our emergency algorithm. So the earthquake happens, now what.

If it happened in the day > Kids follow teachers’ instructions, Mom checks on kids at school, Dad contacts Mom, if all is well stays at work, if not checks on kids at school, then looks for Mom.

If it happened in the night >

Cooperation is Key, Dreaming Big with Stag Hunt

in game theory models the Stag Hunt is the visionaries greatest tool. It goes something like this

A group of hunters are walking in the forest. If anyone wants to hunt a hare, he may, and he will get one pound of meat. If anyone wants to hunt a stag he may, but will need the cooperation of the entire group to bring down the stag. A share of the meat from he stag will be ten pounds each. If anyone chooses to hunt the hare, he may not hunt the stag, and anyone hunting the stag will be unable to catch anything, if anyone chooses to hunt hare.

The best payoff for each hunter is for them to cooperate and hunt the stag, but it only takes one shortsighted fool to ruin it for everyone. This model scales really well, and its variations are primary arguments for pursuits of world peace, space travel, and the banning of biological weapons.  A prosperous global peace is greatly beneficial to all, but it only takes a few shortsighted idiots to wreck it by causing near endless global conflicts, usually because they have figured out how to make money from it.

The most exciting application is usually in space travel and colonization, where everyone’s cooperation toward that pursuit could greatly benefit all, but it can be difficult to maintain support of enough people to see such projects through to their ultimate benefits.

Nearly all socialized (I tend to define government activities that maximize economy of scale for the benefit of the general public as “socialist”, so even public roads and the like are socialist programs) programs have the same issues, the difficulty is in keeping shortsighted “anti-government” types from becoming bureaucrats and wrecking the program by simply causing work stoppages and unlawfully denying benefits to those who qualify.

Many group projects fall into this classification in one form or another. The next time you have a big idea, don’t forget to put some effort up front into motivating support and getting enough people on board to keep the “hare hunters” at bay.

Reuse Strategies with Analog Reasoning

A favorite blog posted an article on birds being smart, and of course, I wanted to know why:

http://io9.com/crows-are-even-smarter-than-we-thought-possible-1686074962

The crow family has been known to be incredibly smart for some time. They can communicate about humans, and specifically our faces, better than we can. It’s so startling that researchers have put on clown wigs and harassed crows, and then were recognized even out of the clown wigs. The most enlightening part came the next year when crows not involved int he original study were also aware of the individuals responsible for the harassment. Their “friends” had effectively given them a “heads up” about the dangerous individuals. That’s a lot to communicate.

Of course, their intellect doesn’t end there. I was personally impressed by the Ravens of the Tower of London once upon a time. I’ve never seen more human behavior from an animal. I sat down next to the murder and squawked just to see what the nearest one would do. He went to one of his compatriots and encouraged him to also come look at this bizarre human. There’s not much more human than trying to share a novel thing with others. Every child reaches a stage where they try to show everything to their parents. Social media “sharing” is often full of the new, the novel, or the expression of self through the directing of others’ attention to what one finds important.

Naturally a few animals have shown signs of being able to use analog reasoning. The formula is something like if A = B, and B = C, then A = C. This is a logical leap that most animals can’t make, and is often used as the definition of sentient life. You may have seen something akin to it on a standardized test, the SAT famously uses these kinds of word problems. “Hate is to love as contempt is to ______ .” Is an easy answer if you know the the definition of the words, and possess analog reasoning.

Remapping strategic principles follows a similar, and often misunderstood, chain of reasoning. Factoring out what makes two situations similar, and understanding what makes them different is what will allow you to select and use the best tool from your box of strategies.

In the crows’ example, the center card gave the clue, (as with their previous examples). This is the same, so it gave them a place to start. Looking at the card they could see two matching symbols (we’ll call it AA. Looking at the other two cards, one had two matching symbols (we’ll say BB), and one did not (CD). The (impressive, assuming they couldn’t otherwise sense the food) leap was then connecting BB to AA even though B is no more like A than it is to C or D. It was paired with something like it, which is a separate, and higher concept than just matching two representations.

The Cat, the Spider, and the Fly

Sometimes biology is a better teacher than any lecturer, but it takes a keen eye, an open mind, and a bit of patience.

Let’s consider the curious case of the spider, the fly and the housecat.

“Welcome to my Parlor” is an excellent poem, about a keen invitation to a fly by a spider, the fly finally succumbing to flattery, and being eaten. While I doubt narcissism has aided many arachnids, the weaving of webs certainly has been their trademark hunting strategy for eons now. It’s a great way to get a meal, and if you’ve ever watched Japanese garden spiders weaving away in the early morning sun they are a fantastic sight, often adorned with pink, purple, and yellow on their black and grey bodies they hang motionless awaiting visitors of flies, butterflies, honeybees and the like. Masters of engineering they choose a location out of the way of predators who might destroy their work, but still near enough the flowers their own prey will seek out soon enough. Upon completion they move to the center where they will be best placed to wrangle a meal no matter where in the web it first becomes entangled. When lunch finally arrives they package it up for later, and renew their post.

In contrast, cats are attracted to motion. On seeing a fly buzzing in the kitchen they will often sit directly below it for a quarter of an hour or more, with heads swiveling like little radar towers. Ears perked, eyes bright, they actively gather information about their quarry. As the fly buzzes here and there attracted by foods, or garbage, or the drafty air currents (who really knows what a fly is thinking) the cat sits below trying to discern a pattern, any patten, however fleeting in the motion overhead. It’s nearly impossible to discern predictive information from true chaos, but the cat’s hopes are soon found with merit. Here, it will probably first flinch, feigning the first few strikes that will eventually take it to the heights above, self-testing, gauging distance. Suddenly, the real strike comes, and up the cat goes with wild acrobatics, plucking lunch from thin air and casually strolling away licking his lips.

You may find countless examples in nature of multiple solutions to similar problems. It’s an excellent way to study problem solving in a live context, where millions of years of research and development has already been done for you. The student need only learn the art of remapping solutions onto similar problems to get great value from such efforts.

IN IT TO WIN IT, Game Theory and the Art of War.

If you go to YouTube, Yale makes available their Game Theory classes, and it’s a fantastic way to get to know the subject. There are countless others now. Even Cracked.com has one article on why it makes people assholes.

The version of the Art of War I read when I was young came with an introduction by the translator. It said quite simply, “This is not a morality lesson, this is a book on how to win.”

It’s important to draw that distinction. Game Theory assumes that everyone is always perfectly rational, clearly that’s not true, and usually that everyone has “perfect information”, also a fantasy. It makes no judgements about right or wrong, and requires suspension of such notions. It is a powerful force, but it is not at all balanced between good and evil and frequently advocates “screwing someone over”.

While morality may be its weakness, it has some advantages over other models. Game Theory models tend to be simple, even when they are scaling down massive problems. They tend to help identify the motivations of others, when those motivations might otherwise be obscured, and they encourage ripping a problem apart. “All models are flawed, but some are useful.”

The most famous model in game theory is the Prisoners’ Dilemma. Consider two criminals accused of a crime. The cops put them in separate rooms, and make them each an offer. If they both rat out their friend, they will do five years in jail. If they both hold tight, they will do two years in jail. If one rats and one doesn’t, the east will walk free, the other will do ten years.

This is the essence of using game theory in negotiation. The cops have no incentive to go to trial, but they probably don’t need to, the difficult to see thing is that whether your friend rats or not, you do less jail time if you rat. It’s often presented with slightly different numbers but this isn’t math. It IS important that the numbers are in roughly that proportion. You may see small charts set up to display/track decisions and outcomes for this and most other game theory “games”.

Similar models can be used to predict the distribution of birds feeding in a field, whether nation states will honor environmental treaties, and the likeliest choice of strategies in countless situations. The key is in its ability to shed light on most of the possibilities. A strategy can then be selected based on not only its likely outcome but on what it says about an opponent’s likely plan.

While I don’t think this is the one thought model to end all thought models, familiarity with game theory is a great exercise in foresight, and occasionally is the perfect tool for the job.

Thinking Thoughts

I was recently reading the artofmanliness on OODA loops, and the exploits of John Boyd. Great piece.

7,000 words on improving thought processes naturally leads one to thinking. Reapplying models from one discipline onto a problem from another discipline is one of my favorite ways of finding novel solutions to problems.

I’m not an expert on intentional OODA loops, but I may add that to my mental toy box. As for the strategy of remapping the methods of one discipline onto the problems of another, this is a good topic not for one post but a while blog, so I may start posting on this topic more.

How does it work?

Have you ever seen an artist’s model, made of wood and wire? Are you familiar with using it to draw different people, based on some familiar limb ratios? No? How about CSS in web programming? An excel sheet or word template?

In each of these some likely commonalities are factored out, copied, and only what’s different is added to each iteration. This is an effective meta strategy for solving all kinds of problems, but it really comes into its own when you use it in problem solving itself.

For counter-example I will also point to the now familiar axiom, “If your only tool is a hammer every problem looks like a nail.” This is an ineffective way of dealing with lots of problems. With only one method of problem solving available, trying to map the solution onto other problems doesn’t work at all. A hammer is good only for breaking things, unless they are built to be hit (like a nail).

It’s rarely much use in surgery (or other repair work).

So what do you do? Build out your tool box. Prior proper planning prevents piss poor performance. You can plan to improvise the same way an athlete plans on having speed and strength. Just being fast, or strong wrong win the game with nothing else, but they sure seem to help. So your plans need the innate ability to adapt. Having a whole playbook is a good start.

Biology is my go-to move. A while host of problems under a wide range of life and death circumstance reported by the necessity of survival over eons is a strong start to a full set of tools. The U.S.Navy just built a stealth submariner drone modeled after a map shark. No need to reinvent the wheel. There was plenty of advanced research done in terrorizing lesser swimmers for hundreds of millions of years. “All artists borrow, great artists steal.”

I’m not advocating plagiarism, in fact I’m going to go ahead and plug the article that inspired this post again, because it’s a great primer, and I intend to use it as a framework for this series much like our artist’s mannequin above.

Back to biology. I was a Discovery channel kid. Back when it wasn’t just Mythbusters (great show!) and a sad collection of reality shows (boo!).

If you aren’t familiar with the work of David Attenborough, get acquainted. The behind the scenes problem solving to get the spectacular shots they use is a story into itself. The meat of the show(s), is the animals themselves, interacting with their environment. An ambush predator, vs. a stalker; monogamous breeding strategies or simply releasing as a group (like coral); camouflage vs. armor; and countless other examples of the different ways animals solve similar problems are all great teaching examples. Occasionally, there are even examples of similar strategies for dealing with wildly different problems. Here I would cite winged flight as a way to avoid predation By land (and even sea!) predators. It’s elegant, effective, and consistent.

There are countless variations, all instructive, and much of the material is available on YouTube. Coursera even had a class on animal behavior (based largely on game theory), as well as a Model Thinking course from University of Michigan. Both are fantastic.

(I need to add some links when I find them, but I’m going to pay this as is for now)

Time’s a Wastin’

One thing people do end up with on the streets is an abundance of time just hanging on their hands. It’s a common problem, but one most people will seek to fill with something. It frequently leads them to drug use as a form of escapism, some go to libraries and read to pass the time, many go nuts from what is possibly the strangest from of isolation imaginable. In many cities it’s possible, (at times even desirable, but that’s another article) to be completely alone in a huge crowd.

Nevertheless, for those so inclined there are some ways to pass the time that are better than others, and some of them drastically impact the outcome of the next season of one’s life. Here’s a few:

Get closer to God. There’s plenty of time to read, and the Bible is a great place to start. I highly recommend Dr. Horner’s Bible Reading System. It divides the Bible into ten lists of related texts as follows:

 – The Gospels –  Every day’s reading starts with the main event. Jesus and his teachings set the framework through which the rest of the scripture is interpreted.

 – The Pentateuch – The first five books of the Bible from Adam to Moses, a time before even Judaism with many important lessons. Some may take them literally while others view them as colored by poetic license, but their immense value in instructing the spirit is immeasurable.

 – The Pauline Epistles – Paul’s poetic style has reached the hearts of many, and history’s quirks have made him the author of a significant portion of the New Testament.

 – The New Testament – Not including Acts this list is for the rest of the Apostles’ works. They are sadly few, but what remains of the writing of those who sat at Jesus’ feet teaches enduring lessons.

 – Wisdom – Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.

– Psalms – Whether of Joy or Sadness the psalms give great insight into relationship with God.

 – Proverbs – This book is separated from the other list of Wisdom because that keeps it (and them) being read more often. This system works by rote learning to better absorb the Word.

 – History – A personal favorite. The adventures of David, Solomon, and Elijah are entertaining and instructive. They lead by example even in these times that seem so far removed from their own.

 – The Prophets – Sometimes too mysterious to fully grasp, they still manage to inspire, instruct and warn of dangers, to those willing to put in the time.

-Acts – Many have questioned separating Acts, as in this system that causes it to be emphasized (like Proverbs). When asked about it Dr. Horner’s answer was something like ‘If you don’t know why you should read Acts everyday, you haven’t been reading Acts.’ It’s surprising how many people think Paul was Judas’ replacement among the 12 disciples of Jesus (the answer is in the first chapter).

The idea of the system is to read one chapter from each section each day. If you skip a day, don’t sweat it. If the bookmarks get lout of place, who cares? It constantly challenges one to consider what is being taught by pairing different sections together in each day’s reading. I highly recommend coffee and being fully awake when undertaking this, as even though it’s only ten chapters it’s surprisingly taxing, mentally, to jump around. Don’t get distracted, plow ahead through the material and meditate if needed afterward.

 

Get Smarter. There are lots of free educational tools. Many of them like Khan Academy and Coursera can help one achieve valuable job skills that may come in handy. Some have certified MOOCs that give certifications from some of the best universities in the world. Others just help you get the skills, possibly the best actually help you with a portfolio of work that demonstrates your value to future employers.

The Job Hunt. – I’ve mentioned before that I’m not against working, I just haven’t made  much money at it. One of the advantages however, of already being at the bottom of the barrel is that if you take your time and just put in applications at every job that sounds like something you’d want to do; you may get hired at a high paying, very interesting, or highly rewarding/fulfilling job. I actually got on teaching chess and coaching dodgeball with third graders once by this method. The money wasn’t great, but it was an invaluable look into the educational system (SPOILER: it’s broken), and a rewarding experience to help build up future generations. Not necessarily the kind of thing you have a chance to even look at under other circumstances.

See the World – This is hard to do when you’re “ballin’ on a budget” but seeing the world for what it really is makes for a valuable, if painful form of personal growth. Other sights, like the beach, are often great stress relievers, and things you may not always have time for. Travel options are slimmer when poor, but still better than a sedentary existence. Some people still “ride the rails” but it’s dangerous and highly illegal these days. People still do it. Ditto Hitchhiking.

Learn a skill. – “The only skill is learning.” I don’t know who said it, but it’s true. Learn to juggle, learn an instrument (make money busking!), learn chess, learn a language, learn coding, it doesn’t matter. There is always something new to learn, and it’s one of the best things you can do for your future, even if you don’t use. You can keep that learning muscle sharp

There are occasionally free music festivals, art shows, and street fairs and other events. Any of these can be a good use of time. Being poor doesn’t have to be (though it frequently is) a complete disconnect form being able to enjoy oneself.

 

 

Picture This

Imagine being homeless. Living most days, not really looking your best, because you have more immediate concerns. “Don’t worry about it,” you tell yourself, “it’s temporary.”

Then someone sticks a camera in your face.

I was actually reading an article the other day about chefs banning picture taking in their restaurant. The disturbing of other guests was given as one reason, but another was definitely listed. Proprietors of restaurants want control of their own public image. They don’t want to be forever represented online by a crappy cellphone picture, taken by a rank amateur, in bad light with shoddy equipment. They work too hard to make meals look appetizing to want someone ruining it in one click of a button.

Now imagine you are on your way off the streets. You just got a call for an interview for a decent job. You get all cleaned up, your resume is ready to go. Your sparkling new suit is set for your first day, and you show up and someone is telling you “there was a problem” or some similarly vague (HR departments are notoriously vague about such things) excuse why you suddenly didn’t get the job.

We are fast approaching facial recognition software that will be able to crawl the web for every picture of a person that has ever been taken. Facebook is already capable of automatically tagging people, and notoriously bad at letting people UNDO this action from pictures they don’t want representing them. Bad light, bad hair day, the most difficult parts of your life? Doesn’t matter, it’s all getting splattered in front of potential social contacts, employers, romantic interests, etc. and once it hits the internet it’s a practical impossibility for it to ever disappear.

Creating one more hurdle for people to jump when trying to get off the streets is not helping anyone. I’ve personally had photographers try to get right up in my face without any kind of permission. The most brazen jerkwad actually held his iPhone four inches from my face as I told him I didn’t want to be on his youtube account. Another identified himself as a cop, “Hey buddy get up! Park’s closed.” When I looked up in confusion, trying to figure out what he was talking about he snapped a picture.

There are plenty of things to take a picture of without sticking it in someone’s face. If you really want their picture, ask.

Otherwise