groupthink

Scattershooting while wondering where defense went in OU football…

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HAZARDOUS-WEATHER FORECASTING and COMMUNICATION: “IDSS” — a bureaucratic acronym standing for “Integrated Decision Support System” — is the pop-fad buzzword in today’s public weather services. Behind all the frivolous sloganeering (“Weather Ready Nation”) and even more needless managerial lingo bingo, is a nugget of extreme truth: the science of operational forecasting must improve its messaging and communications capabilities. But it is possible to swing the pendulum too far, to turn professional forecasters into mere weather briefers (full-time IDSS) and let “forecasts” be straight model output. That would be a degradation of service, because models still cannot forecast multivariate, greatest-hazard events in the short term (tornado risks, winter weather, hurricane behavior, etc.) as well as human forecasters who are diligently analyzing and understanding the atmosphere. Today’s tornado and hail threat is not the same animal as single-variable temperature grids, and is far, far, far, far, far more important and impactful.

There is still a huge role in the forecast process for human understanding. Understanding has both physical and empirical bases — the science and art of forecasting. Models of course are great tools — when understood and used well. However, models themselves do not possess understanding. Moreover, models do not issue forecasts; people do. A truly excellent forecast is much more than regurgitation of numerical output in a tidy package. It is an assembly of prognostic and diagnostic understanding into a form that is communicated well to customers. A forecast poorly understood cannot be communicated well. And a bad forecast that is masterfully conveyed and understood is a disservice regardless. Eloquent communication of a crappy forecast is akin to spray-painting a turd gold. It is still a smelly turd.

Solution? Get the forecast right. All else will fall into place. Credibility is top priority! As for automation, it will proceed at the pace forecasters permit their own skills to atrophy, both individually and collectively. For those unfamiliar as to how, look up the prescient meteorological prophet Len Snellman and his term, “meteorological cancer”.

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DOSE of TOUGH LOVE for the “CHRISTIAN LEFT”: Browsing Facebook, I was disappointed to see a fellow Christian, who preaches tolerance and inclusiveness, lambaste other Christians who refuse to engage in Halloween (or let their kids do so) due to its association with the occult. Apparently this mockery of non-Halloween-observers is an annual occurrence for him. Personally, I do not go as far as those non-Halloween Christians, do not happen to agree with them, and have no problem with Halloween the way we do it here as a candy and neighborliness holiday. I am not going to mock them for it, though, because I at least see where they are coming from on that associative spectrum. In some quarters, Halloween is a cult event — just not my quarters. But here is the real problem: my fellow Christian, who leans sharply left sociopolitically, is failing to practice the “tolerance and inclusiveness of other beliefs” preached by the so-called Christian Left. It is exactly that sort of two-faced behavior which undermines the faith’s credibility to outside observers. If you’re going to preach “tolerance and inclusiveness”, then tolerate and include the Christians who abstain from Halloween.

As for me, when it comes to Biblical constructs on behavior, I don’t preach “tolerance and inclusiveness” in the first place, and don’t pretend to be tolerant and inclusive of a lot of actions. [Notice I am talking about “behavior” and not “people”. A person is not the same as his behavior.] Therefore, when I make these criticisms, I am not being hypocritical — just brutally honest. Again, I am not tolerant of some actions and do not pretend to be. And since we are called to love our neighbor, consider this tough love. Those who make idols of “tolerance and inclusiveness” are not only committing idolatry, but missing the point of Jesus, who stated quite clearly that there is only one God before us, and only one way (Jesus himself) to the Father. That is highly exclusive, and not “tolerant” of any other avenue but one, and rightfully so! In this and other ways (e.g., rampaging into the Temple to drive out the money changers), Jesus himself was not “tolerant and inclusive” of bad behavior. Neither am I.

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THE ANTI-FREEDOM LEFT WING and JOB SECURITY: A substantial contingent of Silicon Valley wants Peter Thiel fired because he is a Trump supporter. How intolerant of the”tolerance and inclusiveness” left wing! Firing, bullying, ostracizing, or otherwise retaliating against someone in the workplace for their political views is completely anti-freedom, anti-American, and closed-minded, and only promotes fear, poor morale, and groupthink. From his boss Sam Altman: “Diversity of opinion is painful but critical to the health of a democratic society. We can’t start purging people for political support.” Precisely. Kudos to Thiel and Altman for not kowtowing to mob-mentality persecution demands.

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DEFENSIVE DEBACLE in LUBBOCK: A day later, I just finished watching the OU/Texas Tech game on a tape-delayed basis (thanks to having to work during live action). As impressive as the firepower that was provided by Mayfield, Mixon and Westbrook, and the maturation of the offensive line to allow such protection to the quarterback, the defensive performance was incomprehensibly pathetic. I can understand giving up some spectacular plays where the quarterback and receivers execute perfectly and little can be done; Tech had a few of those. Mahomes is an impressive passer and field general likely with an NFL future. Yet I lost count of the missed tackles (including several missed sacks) that kept drives alive and allowed long third-down completions for Tech. I also realize that the defense has been riddled with injuries.

I don’t care if the guy is Tom Brady in disguise—letting Mahomes throw for over 700 yards and convert all seven (7!) third-and-longs, is absolutely disgraceful. What will it take to fix this? Any defensive coordinator who wasn’t the chief’s brother would be gone, especially combined with some other awful performances in recent years. This simply isn’t getting fixed in 2016 and maybe not 2017 either, until this highly touted recruiting class has a chance to start playing full-time. In the meantime, we had better hope Mayfield, Mixon and Westbrook stay healthy!

I recently woke up to find that my PC, on which I had kept open some folders and projects mid-work, was rebooted yet again because of automatic “security” updates. Of course, formerly open windows never came back, and I had to go through the effort to reopen and re-order the array of software and “My Computer” type windows needed for the project. Fortunately, I have the foresight to save work often, in contingency of either this or sudden power outages, so that lost hours of productivity isn’t a problem when such things happen. Instead it becomes merely lost minutes. Still, that is wasteful and inefficient in principle; and even the relatively small act of having to manually save work shouldn’t be necessary. In other words…

Such things need not happen.

Why?

First of all, this is 2011, not 1986. Some programs do auto-save work or open displays at regular intervals, sometimes (what a concept!) as often as specified by the user. All should. [The software I use for this BLOG does!] Those that don’t (attention, Photoshop): learn from those that do, and make it happen. That would be an “upgrade” I would support.

Second of all, this is 2011, not 1986. How about building an OS smart enough to recognize and synergistically communicate with open programs, such that they “know” a planned system shutdown is coming and save open documents on their own, and also, to recognize and save to the profile any open windows, then re-open them all right back up to where they were, upon reboot? Duh…it makes too much sense. That would be an “upgrade” I would support.

Third of all, this is 2011, not 1986. Why the need to reboot at all? By now, I would have imagined that OS developers and hardware makers together would have figured out a way to install improvements without having to reboot. After all, PCs have existed for over three decades; surely that fundamental early flaw in the model can be improved upon sometime in that interval! That would be an “upgrade” I would support.

Finally, this principle is timeless: How about getting it right to begin with so that updates aren’t necessary? Whether the whole OS or any given program, or tangible flaws such as the upper driveway and walkway at the National Weather Center (a stretch of pavement that has undergone at least four reconstructions of various sorts since 2006), the ideal is the same. Think ahead. Do it right the first time. If the upgrade or reconstruction is that important, how about making it part of version 1?

Indeed it is a matter of principle. My TV and cable box need not download constant “updates” to keep them from being taken over by bad guys. I don’t have to call my furniture store to “upgrade” my mattress and bed frame, lest they collapse to the floor. I have a high-resolution slide and photo scanner from 2004 that hasn’t needed a single “upgrade” to do its thing with excellence; it still performs more and better (especially with film scanning) than newer models, based on online ratings.

I don’t have to bring in my vehicle (itself a complex machine) to the dealership every few weeks to get its software or hardware “patched”, lest the rotors break, the head gasket dissolves, or the intake manifold otherwise springs a leak. Do you like it when recalls happen and you have to take your car in for repairs because of faulty design? No. It’s the same principle.

Sure, occasional operator-driven maintenance is appropriate and responsible. The regular change of oil and other fluids is a good thing to remove built-up contaminants, if that’s the parallel; but it isn’t a valid analog in any way, shape or form. Software doesn’t accumulate grime. It’s either grimy and deficient to begin with, or not. The only two reasons it needs updating are if some new functions are added (a good thing, but why not have the foresight to put most of them in at the start?), or it weren’t coded robustly and securely from the very beginning.

Foresight, foresight, foresight…apparently it’s too much to ask developers to plan. Prevention, by definition, would prevent a lot of problems, from relatively small, nuisance-grade troubles such as these, to local road rebuilding, to severe weather killing people at festivals and stadiums, to gang violence in a community, to the national debt, to terrorist attacks and most wars; but alas, too many people in positions of influence at all levels seem utterly bereft of the concept of the benefits of thinking ahead.

Here’s another little example of many (just a convenient example, not picking specifically on Adobe)…

I appreciate that the developers and maintainers are willing to supply such updates for free, instead of charging for them. But such things strike me as reactive, not proactive.

Build it right the first time, and this wouldn’t be necessary, especially so stinking often:

God gave us the cognitive ability to plan and prevent; and while we’re not omniscient, the capability of foresight should be magnified and reinforced when multiplied by the number of members of a development team or group of any sort. Two heads are better than one, or at least, should be as long as laziness, passivity, fear of conflict, and mindless groupthink don’t take root. Clearly we’re not using our think-ahead capability to its fullest.

How about being proactive and not reactive? Wow, what a concept! Again, too many in government and the private sector don’t seem to understand this, regarding a gigantic variety of issues. The continual “need” for software upgrades is but one small symptom of a broader, more pervasive, indeed systematic deficiency of preventative thought in all realms.

Scattershooting 161023

Prevention and Foresight: Rare Ideals