Henrietta

April 5, 2012 9:32 am

This is Henrietta, Heather’s pink hippo sleepytime buddy:

henrietta
You may be thinking, “Wait a minute. That’s not a hippo. That’s a giraffe!”, in which case you’d be right. I thought it was a hippo. We’ve called her a hippo. Only just now, when I was trying to find a picture online because I’m too lazy to take one myself, did I discover that she’s a giraffe. My world is topsy turvy, and I can only imagine what this is going to do to Heather. I hope we make it through.
We started giving Henrietta to Heather at bedtimes when we stopped swaddling her, and it’s been really helpful. It gives her something to do with her arms. And, apparently, it’s way easier to sleep when you have a hippo (argh! giraffe!) on your face than otherwise. Also, seeing her snuggled up with her is just adorable. (I need to get a picture of it, but I can’t do it when she’s sleeping, and I’m not sure she’ll do it at another time.)
Anyway, we love Henrietta, and we’ll just have to accept her, no matter what she is.

You have _got_ to be kidding me

April 2, 2012 10:00 am

I am enraged right now.

I just got our AT&T phone bill for this month.  Once again showing their complete disregard for their customers, they’ve taken it upon themselves to increase my bill by 32% with no explanation or prior warning.

I hate AT&T with the fiery passion of one thousand suns.

And still my only recourse would be to switch to Comcast which is easily as abusive as AT&T, but charges more for the same privilege.

I’ve sent an email begging Sonic.net to bring their Fusion DSL service to Livermore which offers 20 Mbps service plus phone for $39.95 a month.  After an introductory offer expires we’ll be paying $69 a month for 6 Mbps service plus phone.

It is insane.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

March 31, 2012 3:24 pm

 

The Economist hosted a debate between security expert Bruce Schneier and former TSA-administrator Kip Hawley on the topic of whether the changes to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good.

It was well done and consisted of opening statements, rebuttals, and closing statements from each participant.

Hawley’s opening statement begins with:

More than 6 billion consecutive safe arrivals of airline passengers since the attacks on America on September 11th 2001 mean that whatever the annoying and seemingly obtuse airport-security measures may have been, they have been ultimately successful.

He continues on and on using the reasoning that because no airplanes have been successfully attacked it means the TSA has been effective and therefore worth its inconvenience, cost, and violation of civil rights.

This is a clear-cut case of post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning.  He presents no further evidence other than first the TSA was created and second no successful attacks have occurred as proof that the TSA is successful.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc can be phrased as follows: First A occurred, then B occurred, therefore A caused B.  This, however, is frequently not true and is not valid reasoning without further evidence better tying together the events of A and B.

Using post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning as the sole basis of maintaining the current absurdity of the TSA is unacceptable.

But let’s rephrase the relationship and re-examine the reasoning.  Let’s phrase the relationship like this:

If the TSA is effective then there will be no successful attacks on U.S. airplanes

Now let’s include the knowledge that no successful attacks have occurred.  What can we say about the TSA’s efficacy?

Interestingly enough, nothing.  If the if-then relationship is true, knowing the “then” clause is true tells us nothing about the “if” clause.

Logically, if-then statements can be rewritten.  “If A then B” is equivalent to “B or not A.”  Using an example:  “If it is raining then the ground is wet” is equivalent to “The ground is wet or it is not raining.”

The re-writing makes it easy to see that when we know the ground is wet we don’t actually learn anything about whether it is raining or not.  It might be raining, and the wet ground provides evidence for that hypothesis, but the ground may be wet because a lawn sprinkler is running, or someone spilled a cup of water.  We don’t know why the ground is wet, only that it is.

So let’s rewrite our proposed relationship between the TSA and airplane safety:

There will be no successful attacks on U.S. airplanes or the TSA is not effective.

Knowing that there have been no successful attacks tells us nothing about whether the TSA is effective or not.

This is an incredibly important piece of formal logic to understand because it is almost always misused in common practice.

So the real relationship that Hawley is providing evidence to argue is this:

If there are no successful attacks on U.S. airplanes then the TSA is effective.

But this statement doesn’t mean what Hawley wants it to mean.  Given that there are no successful attacks on U.S. airplanes does mean that the TSA achieved its operational goal, but it does not tell us anything about whether the TSA’s actions contributed to that result or not because the causation is backwards.

It is equivalent to saying: “If I got an A on the test then I learned the material.”  Which is not necessarily true (you may have cheated or made lucky guesses).  The correct causation should be, “If I learned the material then I will have gotten an A on the test.”

In order for the test->learned form to tell us something meaningful about the consequent (the “then” part) we need additional criteria: “If I got an A on the test, and I did not cheat, and I did not make lucky guesses then I learned the material.”

[Updated 4/14 with more obvious example]
Another example would be to say I have a magic wand that causes things to fall to the ground when you let go of them.  I’m holding the wand, you let go of something, it falls to the ground.  So I posit, “If the object falls to the ground, then my wand works.”  Knowing that the object falls to the ground doesn’t really tell you anything about whether my magic wand had anything to do with it.  The stated purpose of the wand was achieved, but it had nothing to do with the wand.

The point being that in this reverse-causation form we have to account for all possible causes in the antecedent (the “if” part) in order to arrive at the consequent–an impossible task given the number of things that are unknowable regarding airplane security.

There may be no successful attacks on U.S. airplanes for many reasons and we would need to account for all of them before declaring the TSA effective.  A silly one is simply that there might be no U.S. airplanes (in which case there could be no attacks against them, successful or otherwise, regardless of the TSA’s efficacy).

A serious reason could be that there is not anyone trying to attack.  And if we count the number of terrorists that the TSA has actually caught (zero), this is true.  If your argument is then that those who would attack were deterred from even trying, then the burden is on you to provide evidence that this has occurred.

My position remains that if terrorists were intent on blowing something up and decided that an airplane was too difficult they would not just give up and go home.  If the TSA is deterring terrorists from attacking airplanes then those same terrorists would be blowing up grocery stores, malls, schools, dams, airport security lines (like the terrorist attack in Russia in 2011), or any of thousands of other completely unprotected targets.

Bruce Schneier argued for the responsible action: Disassemble the TSA, return airport security to pre-9/11 levels, and divert the TSA’s budget to intelligence gathering, law enforcement, and emergency response.

Following this plan would provide greater protection for all targets with no meaningful reduction to the security of airplanes.  And, as a bonus, you would waste less time in airport security lines, have fewer Constitutional rights violated when traveling, and your ticket would cost less.

Congressional Herp Derp

March 27, 2012 7:56 am

On March 26, 2012, the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform held a hearing titled “TSA Oversight Part III: Effective Security or Security Theater?

Leading security expert, TSA critic, and coiner of the phrase “security theater,” Bruce Schneier had been formally invited by the committee to provide testimony.  On Friday, Schneier was informed that his invitation had been revoked by request of the TSA.  Supposedly the TSA objected to his testimony on grounds that he is currently involved in a legal suit against the TSA and this somehow disqualifies his testimony.

Well, surely wanting a fair and reasoned hearing the committee found some other security expert to provide testimony, right?

Wrong.

Here is the entire witness list of the day’s hearing:

Assistant Administrator for Security Operations
Transportation Security Administration
Assistant Administrator for Intelligence and Analysis
Transportation Security Administration
Director, Homeland Security Program
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Assistant Commandant for Marine Safety, Security & Stewardship, U.S. Coast Guard
The fist three witnesses having direct interest in not only maintaining the status quo but expanding the program.  And the fourth not having any obvious reason to be involved in a hearing on airline security.
Not one witness allowed to testify in a manner that might expose the ineptness of the program or support the protection of civil rights over theater.

Good Business

March 26, 2012 4:56 pm

I recently started reading a series published by BenBella. I discovered that the third book in the series (Lady of Mercy by Michelle Sagara West) was missing thirty pages! I was confused by the jump in narrative until I noticed the page numbers. So, that was pretty weird. I emailed the publisher, though, explaining the situation and got an email back the next business day apologizing and asking where a new copy could be sent. I got my new book in the mail today, so I’m pretty pleased with how this turned out. I wasn’t sure I would actually get a response at all from them, but I got a very prompt one and a replacement. Very nice.