Category: Geen categorie

By and large, the world is slowing down a bit [sic] already again towards the Summer lull. Which gives us plenty of time to get rid of old habits. And of misconceptions.
The famous pyramids are one (huh) of them, definitely.
Compare the standard picture you’ve all become accustomed to, to ‘For instance, he wrote that a man who struggles to feed himself “may fairly be said to live by bread alone.” Maslow, however, “was quick to point out that such situations are rare,” the authors explain. Instead, he felt that most people “are partially satisfied in all their basic needs and partially unsatisfied in all their basic needs at the same time.”‘ from this.

Yes. I didn’t say that I referenced those predecessors by a handful of centuries of the picture, like, in Egypt, Central America, and elsewhere, as idealised forms in stone of said picture quite a bit avant la lettre; where did you get that idea ..??

Two more then, with the Why I write this all up in the first place:
‘As Bridgman and his fellow researchers note, the hierarchy concept “captured the prevailing [post-war] ideologies of individualism, nationalism and capitalism in America and justified a growing managerialism in bureaucratic (i.e., layered triangular) formats.”‘ and
‘Fowler finds that many executives use the pyramid as “an excuse to not have to deal with people’s psychological issues,” and to set their more complex needs aside. Says Fowler, “It’s kind of like, ‘Well, we can’t afford to give this to everybody at the bottom of the pyramid, so we’ll just assume they’re not going to be motivated by higher-order reasons.’”

Another ill-effect she links to Maslow’s hierarchy is the belief that: “If I made more money, I would be happier. Or, if I had those security needs taking care of, I would be happier, or more motivated to do my job,” says Fowler. “People get trapped in that,” she argues, “and yet if money was the solution, we wouldn’t see any rich people who suffer. They wouldn’t have divorces or become drug addicts or commit crimes.”
Most damning, perhaps, is the pyramid’s insinuation that there is a finite amount of space at “the top,” and we are all competing against each other to get there. “Really,” says Fowler, “people are ‘self-actualizing’ all over the place.”’
Indeed, when you read the whole darn piece it isn’t difficult at all once you gain elementary school proficiency in reading [oh hey may that take some time still? You an executive?], you’ll see that an idea warped to suit consultants’ needs [infinite recursion then, qua satisfaction], will almost invariably lead to enormities qua externalities.

Now there‘s something to fight against…

Oh and:

[Triangles, anyone? Not here! Porto, obviously]

Just a warning, that the same thing that is still going on, and on, and on, and on, … in information-security/infosec/ITsec/Cyberrrr…!, being the exasperating hype-panting over the latest threats and here’s now finally a single (our, the only) tool / method to solve all your troubles; is now flowing over into ethical/transparent/explainable AI auditing.

Not.
Show me evidence, actual source code [even if of the written-out procedures kind] of how one would go about realising such opinion formulation after obtaining reasonable evidence… That stuff just does not happen, doesn’t exist.

It’s only vapourware! Be alert! [If only because the world needs more lerts!] It’s just foot-in-the-door kind of fake-it-til-you-make-it-at-the-clients-much-expense.

For the rest:

[Was: The ethics content of bankers at the Zuid-As Amsterdam; Is: The algo transparency of fat promises]

A rather philosophical one today …
Is the US society crumbling because … not the 1% or 0,1% taking over the country, not [what’s left of] the working class having no opportunity to work hard [and maybe that not being enough at all to socially climb after (sic) money-class climb], but:
The oh so useful forgiveness for past failure [economically and otherwise] having been abolished, so recovery is no longer possible…
Forgiveness like, going broke and starting afresh with a clean slate [have a look at olde Europe and see what stagnation happens if you prevent people from quick rebounds]. E.g., per credit checks, one simply can’t get rid of the red flag behind one’s name, perpetuated by algo-driven systems that reinforce the red flag over and over again by denying credit.
Forgiveness like also, having served your sentence and then going back to normal life. The sentence was the punishment, right, and after that, one is again innocent until proven guilty ..? Or is one still guilty, cannot be trusted for a long, long time to come, etc. ..? In that case, the punishment is harsh, severe, Life for every misdemeanour.

In both flavours, the struggle to get on one’s feet again is debilitating. On a societal level, unthinkable amounts of initiative and energy are lost. And then some. And the fabric of society crumbles.
QED.

Now then:

As this is Friday, remember a. the weekend’s here, b. that’s a reason to consider freshening up your mind not slacking off.
Two routes:
1. This exploration pointer and/or study this.
2. This one: Re-think preconceived notions of how the world will evolve. An example may be this piece on the future of driving. In contrast to this one, though.

Cheers;

[Thta’s cherry, not vitis vinifera, but also for your comtemplative efforts; Amstelveen (!)]

Following up on Tuesday’s post; a piece on how to do AI right.
No, its not technical. It’s more like a Do and Don’t… In this piece, you’ll read a lot of how AI can be deployed – until you realise that some systems mentioned that are intended to steer (nudge) employees towards ethical behaviour, actually are very, very creepy in themselves, and possibly illegal in a number of places / the majority of where you’d want to be if you’re ethically-inclined.

Oh well. The Law of Conservation of Trouble, right? Only good for a Newtonian world view, by the way.

And one can also study this piece; much better… Or this – that apparently was out (not ~ there) since Nov 2017 ..? And please also add this in the mix.
Not this one, terribly vacuous.

Which is a positive note to end with, plus:

[Trippy pic by accident, location no accident these days; side street in Toronto]

Don’t you ‘amuse gueulle/bouche’ me …! Why change a winning team name, right?

Also, Drucker’s thing on strategy isn’t the only thing. There’s other things, e.g., qua regulations and ‘control’ here.
TL;DR incl my elucidation: Controls stifle, lead to stagnation – and

• Are ineffective, as they almost by definition don’t least resistance enable the ‘safest’ procedures to be followed naturally but coax users away from that hence introduce severe friction against which users will put their energy more than against actual downside risks to achieve the upside potentials. So any control that you deem necessary, will be rendered useless as a first priority.
• Were never intended as a management ‘control’ thing! Management control is about steering and giving out orders [with a huge, huge bandwidth for Commander’s Intent …!!] and it definitely has zero to do with micromanagement and enslavement. The latter, not too strong a word…
• Are the exact opposite of what you need to succeed. Having a hierarchical ‘framework’ of controls, preferably without ‘risk’ in every line, might have once suited vast army control. But your organisation isn’t an army, on the contrary qua success it’s an inverted pyramid! And even armies nowadays have to deal with guerrillas and IEDs etc. in every outpost corner of ‘business’; the ‘one step forward across the entire continent-wide front’ no longer applies, does it? Edited to add: I’m not even making this up; If you dislike change, you’re going to dislike irrelevance even more. [Eric Shinseki, Retired US Army General]

Only the most trivial of (e.g., anti-fraud) controls may need to be in place, but if you need those, you’ve already lost since you demonstrably have lost the primary motivation of your employees to work with the company as they now at best don’t care a thing just pay for presence. You need guide rails not train rail tracks. The outside world, and your inside world, will derail you (all) in an instant.

So please stop the fellow travellers of the GRC world. Get to the real work in that. But then, ‘culture’ can’t be controlled per checklist. Oh my.
Plus: This.

And:

[Use one of these; Twente AFB a long time ago when analog picsslides (this one a scan from _ even…) were the B/A or rather only/A]

In line with various posts (like, this one of this morning, and another one somewhere this week – Thursday; of course I know, it had been scheduled two months ago),
an in-between remark of sorts: The biggest bottleneck in AIland nowadays is the translation of some unknown business need into AI/ML sprint objectives.

See? One can have a lot of data, and randomly figure out the patterns (‘correlations’ of various kinds; note the ”) OR go for the outlier detection. Then what? Is there a business purpose to turn the found patterns (and keep on trucking learning – using the same stats [!] engine) into some system module or so? Is the business case sufficient, and do all involved know enough about each other team mates’ territories to get it together? How much work needs to be done to turn the stats engine part into something efficient, compiled and adaptable through continuous learning? This wrangling with the systems logic at a (?) meta-levels may render the system less effective i.e. business case worthwhile; what’s the minimum and can we achieve that?

Or will the point application remain that, and not even be turned into a fully developed little app ..? [Where has the original ‘applet’ gone ..?]

So, what would happen if after a lab pilot, a full business case were developed ..? I could go on and on about how a demand pull should drive development, not a supply shy little push’let by a breaking-voice nerd… [no offense intended]

Oh well, this:

[A design trick looking for an application; Zuid-As Amsterdam]

Very readable it is, and useful for your information, on the general state of affairs. This here report.
Already – ah! – months old, but still very, very good for a Summertime’s read-up. To be a better guru (link ..?), not follow the (dump) hype.

And it may be incomplete, and somewhat outdated. E.g., add this — in itself, also (very) incomplete as it has zero ref to Canada even when it mentions the old hand US in this… Hey when I checked back the site, halfway through April, it had ‘upcoming events’ till January. Wow.

But it’s better than relying on hearsay like case-by-case ‘news’. If you’re interested, ensure to be at the right conferences also, e.g., this one.

Cheers, with:

[Was it Strassbourg or Colmar? Who cares; Alsace it is.
 I care (at least my pic is undoctored…), as here:

In this Tiny Boat in Colmar, France pic.twitter.com/NnGQ3KT7TW

— Archpng (@archpng) June 28, 2018

Tech journalism isn’t really what it used to be – the means for breaking news that’s real. Now, it mostly is down to breaking news that a. isn’t, b. isn’t real.

As over and over again we see ‘solutions’ presented as if they aren’t already either outdated or just outdone on the border of misleading. No claim on which side of the border.
This in particular when songs are sung, mostly badly, about anonymisation of data for e.g., mining purposes. Medical stuff, mostly. There’s even some logic there as medical data a. seems to be the flavour du jour in under-the-radar trading circles [prices are much higher per data point than e.g., verified platinum credit card numbers], b. is indeed useful for mining by e.g., ML-to-automated-flagging.

Yes the addition was necessary; ML is a means to some ends, and without the ends, what and how to learn ..? In particular, when mulling over false positives / negatives.
Yes one does need anonymisation desperately, as the previous a. in societal costs outdoes much of the benefits of the b.
Yes anonymisation by smart encryption is an idea.

But No it doesn’t work as intended; as is shown time and time again. In the mass, and in particular – how many extortion-through-doxing-threats do we not know about ..?
This, as the ‘journalism’ of today [sort-of]. From Wired, no less. Sic transit gloria mundi.
And this, the lowdown on the counterpoint. With this, in addition. Too many scientific articles that demonstrate this works, to link here. Another rebuke…

So, next time: Be sure to go beyond mere de-identification, please. And improve your critical double-check journalism standards.

OK?
Well then:

[Your big gun of one-way hashing or whatever simpleton encryption, doesn’t count for much…; Edinborough]

You may have not heard too much of developments in the crypto arena. Not like, ‘Oh hype! hype! cryptocurrency!’ but like: ‘Elliptic cryptography may beat quantum computing’s power’ or ‘Homomorphic encryption can be cracked into deanonymisaton of personal data’

Anyone who has an overview of how developments stand? And whether the squeamish ossifrage has recoverd?

Now then,

[Just some after shopping-at-5th drinks. Of the right kind, hopefully]

If you missed Friday’s Part VII you are right; it doesn’t exist. I don’t like 100% consistency/perfection, that’s why. It’s just too boring and excludes flexibility, room for renewal/freshening/innovation, you know.