Turning off Comments for this Blog Going Forward

This is a quick post to say that I have unfortunately had to turn off comments for this blog. Recently, I had trouble using the comment feature on various posts in this blog (despite being its sole author & maintainer). Furthermore, for the last few years, the vast majority of comments have been unwanted commercial solicitations, while I haven't really gotten much useful feedback about posts themselves. I recognize that there are very few humans who regularly read this blog and that most, if not all, of those readers probably know me personally, so I trust that they can reach out to me if they want to share their thoughts about posts. In any case, going forward, comments will no longer be available on this blog. This also necessarily means that the "Featured Comments" blog post series cannot continue.

Book Review: "Weapons of Math Destruction" by Cathy O'Neil

I've recently read Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil. It is a short but dense exposition into the various ways that computer algorithms can determine the courses of people's lives and exacerbate existing societal inequities and biases/prejudices, in areas like education, civic engagement, education, health at the workplace, and many others. It argues that while many algorithms used in big data can be used for good, many instead widen inequalities and reinforce various cycles of poverty because of their opacity, lack of accountability, poor use of statistics, and lack of critical examination by those in charge (who instead use results and predictions generated by such algorithms to fire workers, deny opportunities to potential employees, financially prey on poor people, and so on, making such predictions self-fulfilling prophecies as only confirmatory data is fed back in); in particular, many of these algorithms and models use questionable proxies to predict certain attributes or behaviors (especially when the desired attributes are hard to quantify but the proxies are easy), these models are rarely transparent in what inputs are collected and how they are manipulated to produce outputs, and further research and fine-tuning are rarely performed to correct models that most humans would recognize produce incorrect results (but which computers would miss). It concludes that extensions of existing regulations on use of health and financial data are needed to curtail the misuse of such algorithms, and that simultaneously data scientists need to be scrupulous about the ways that their work is used and developed.

I rather enjoyed reading this book: it's pretty fast-paced, yet gives many detailed examples of the abuse of these algorithms to form a compelling narrative. Additionally, it in many ways follows the book The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu (which I have previously reviewed), because as that book shows the various ways that companies collect and sell customer data, this book shows the various ways that data can be used for the benefit of those companies (even if that works against some of those customers). There are only two issues that I have with this book. One is that the few times that politics comes up, the author's political bias (in favor of liberals in the US) is obvious; perhaps this is just due to the nature of the author's passionate crusade against abuse of algorithms and for institutional action uplifting poor and marginalized people, as that would necessitate regulation of such mathematical instruments, which would be (and has been) loudly opposed by large corporations maintaining their short-term profits and long-term status quo through these algorithms as well as the conservative politicians that they support. The other is that there aren't too many examples of big data and related algorithms truly working toward greater socioeconomic equity, especially when such algorithms are finding patterns that wouldn't be found by humans; while I get that the author is trying to build a brief but dense narrative warning against the excesses and abuses of such algorithms (as she professes herself to not be a big data evangelist), I would have liked to see more nuanced examples of proper uses of big data, because as this book stands, it seems just as one-sided/polemical as uncritical big data evangelism. Overall, I certainly feel like I got a better sense of the potential dangers of unchecked and uncritical use of algorithms to shape the economy and society. Plus, now that I'm about halfway through my PhD, I've started to think more about the sorts of jobs that I'd like to take after I finish. I've decided that I don't want to go into finance because (as mentioned in this book too) I'm not comfortable with playing with other people's money, as it is too easy to be seduced by mathematical simplicity and elegance into doing questionable things. That said, one thing (among the many) that has caught my fancy has been studies of policy problems (especially as related to STEM fields, but as they affect ordinary people); however, the story in this book about the role of the Mathematica Policy Research company in developing the arbitrary and statistically unsound metrics for evaluating teachers in DC public schools has made me realize that I'll need to make sure if I end up joining a policy research organization/consultancy/think tank that the organization that I join is responsible and transparent about the data that it collects and processes as much as possible.

Book Review: "The Attention Merchants" by Tim Wu

Originally, this post was supposed to come out a week ago, as a Linux comparison test between BunsenLabs Linux and CrunchBang++ ("#!++"), two quasi-official successors to the now-defunct CrunchBang ("#!") Linux distribution. Unfortunately, neither of them booted in a live USB. For that reason, this post is now a book review of The Attention Merchants by Tim Wu. It is a relatively long and detailed book about the history of advertising and other ways that people have tried to get into our heads and sell us on either commercial goods or ideas. It has a fairly extensive discussion of the development of advertising in newspapers, city posters, and radios, as well as further developments through TV and the Internet. Additionally, it goes through the cycles of development and backlash with respect to each medium of communication, noting how the backlashes are fairly similar to one another in many respects throughout history.

The book is quite interesting, and despite its longer length, it generally reads easily enough that this length is less noticeable. There are many examples given through each period of history and with respect to each medium of communication showing how advertising techniques further developed, and each of them is quite compelling on its own. I even learned a few interesting bits of trivia that I take for granted on a daily basis: "propaganda" was originally a straightforward (not derogatory) term for "propagation of [religious] faith", "broadcast" was originally an agricultural term (for spreading seeds through a field) that later got co-opted in advertising, and drive-in movies originated from the British government displaying war propaganda films from vans on large exterior walls in WWI. The only issue that I have is that the latter parts of the book become a little tiresome to read; part of that is because I have read from other places about the issues surrounding Internet tracking and advertising, while part of it is because the author could have better connected developments in Internet advertising to prior developments in newspapers/radio, so the repetition of key points without those deeper connections being made explicit (or only being made partway) felt a bit wearisome. Overall, though, I recommend this book for anyone who'd like to learn more about the history of advertising, how people have tried to fight back, and how the cycle continues. Follow the jump to see more details, as well as further scattered thoughts and questions I have about this book.

Symbicort: Shooting Itself in the Foot (or Lung)

Since I've gotten back home from college, I've been able to watch a good deal more TV, which means I also get to see (and make fun of) the advertisements that I've missed out on for the last few months. One of these ads is for Symbicort, an anti-asthma medication, and it takes my interest both because I suffer from asthma (but it only happens when I get a cold or when my seasonal allergies act up) and because the ad seems to shoot itself in the foot.
Here's what I mean: it's supposed to treat and control asthma in sufferers. Yet, asthmatics whose asthma is reasonably well-controlled by other medications shouldn't take Symbicort, and it may cause asthma-related death in patients.
So who exactly should take it then? It seems like Symbicort is shooting itself in the foot (or lung). Though it is now common to see long and frightening lists of side-effects accompanying ads for medicines, this is one of the few medicines that I've seen that may cause even more issues relating to the problem it is trying to treat. Isn't it weird?

The Destruction of the Parody

For the record, I'm not saying that parodies themselves are declining in quality — far from it. If anything, they've just been getting better and better. No, what I mean is that advertising agencies and record labels are trying to put an end to parodies by claiming that obvious parodies (like the parody of a Lady Gaga song and the parody of a lobbying group's political ad, both covered on TechDirt here and here) don't qualify as parodies because they use the original soundtrack/video footage, meaning that they violate the restrictions on derivative works.
I think it's ridiculous that these companies are claiming that these parodies aren't actually parodies out of a misplaced fear that the original won't get views/sales. I guess that's OK for the ad company, considering that a parody video with the exact opposite message probably won't push people towards seeing the original ad, but in the case of songs, that is exactly what happens. Just look at Weird Al: often, his parody of another somewhat less-well known artist propels that artist to stardom. Plus, artists parodied by Weird Al consider it a badge of honor; for example, rapper Chamillionaire once said that his favorite song (as listed on his MySpace page) above his own song "Ridin'" was Weird Al's parody of it ("White and Nerdy"). I understand how poorly-done parodies can turn some people off from hearing the original version of a song, but as far as I know, the person who did the parody of a Lady Gaga song (among others) did these parodies quite well, so I can only imagine that many viewers who wouldn't have considered purchasing Lady Gaga's music started to do so after watching the parody.
So, media industries, why are you shooting yourselves in the foot by trying to stop parodies? The art of the parody is older than the music industry itself, so it's not even like these industries are resisting some sort of "scary new change".

HP Printers Now Ad Vectors

This comes from an article (Jeremy Kirk, Computer World) about HP's new line of web-connected printers. It describes how HP is collaborating with Yahoo! with regard to its new web-connected printers to also provide targeted advertisements to users. Naturally, I am suspicious. Follow the jump for the rest of my take.

Apple Likes Windows 2000?

There's a new ad from Apple on TV. It's another one in the "Get a Mac"/"I'm a Mac\and I'm a PC" ad series.
This one has PC excitedly telling Mac about the upcoming (then) release of Windows 7, saying it won't have any of the problems of Vista. Mac says he's heard this before, and the ad cycles backwards in time with PC giving the same reassurance for the release of Vista vs. XP, XP vs. Me, Me vs. 98, 98 vs. 95, and 95 vs. 2. Then, the ad finally goes back to the present with PC reassuring Mac that this time he means it.
Yes, they also skipped Windows 3.X, but I'm not so concerned about that.
What does strike me as odd is their omission of Windows 2000.
Most likely the omission was due to time constraints on the ad. However, one could argue that Apple genuinely thought of Windows 2000 as a good OS and not a joke (vs. Mac OS/OS X).
Windows 2000, in my opinion, is one of the most stable, secure, and fast versions of Windows I've ever used. XP pales with respect to stability and security, Vista with respect to security and speed, and 7 with respect to speed.
Despite Windows 2000 not being open-source, I think it is still one of the best OSs Microsoft has ever released, and it is quite good on its own as well. Apple recognizes this, so maybe their omission of this OS in the ad was a conscientious decision with respect to this.

When Contextual Advertising Goes Too Far

I like context advertisements. Yes, it means that the site in question reads what you read or write to provide you the correct ad, but sometimes it can actually be helpful; also, usually, context-aware ads are simple text-based ones that don't really affect the reading or writing of whatever it is anyway.
The place where I see it most is GMail. The thought of Google reading what I read or write in my email makes me queasy, but I can turn it off anyway and sometimes it is actually helpful.
It seems like the eVite website has taken to the same thing. However, this time they have gone too far.
Many friends I know of are going to a girl's sweet 16 party tonight; this girl shall be referred to as 'A'.
My parents' friend, whom we shall call 'Ms. R', was in charge of collecting all the gifts from all of the family friends to give to 'A'.
As it seems, in all of the eVites, a message was embedded inside that led to a site accepting donations to the American Cancer Society (ACS) as a gift. This was initially thought to be at the request of 'A' and her parents, as many teenagers are extremely magnanimous and/or touched in some way by causes like funding cancer, so they do request gifts like donations to a favorite charity or something similar instead of traditional physical or monetary gifts to themselves.
'Ms. R' then requested that, rather than people giving online directly, these guests give a particular amount to her to be enclosed in a big check directed to the ACS. This was a very wise move and full of foresight, though 'Ms. R' did not know it. She also then decided to ask those who were giving gifts to split the money to be given half for 'A' and half for the ACS; each total sum would be written as a separate total check (respectively, for 'A' and for the ACS).
This went on for a few days/weeks before the event (which is today (as of this writing)).
A few days ago (again, as of this writing), another family friend ('Ms. K') had the inkling that maybe the ACS donation link was an embedded ad rather than an actual request. A few phone calls to the parents of 'A' confirmed this. This is not meant to diminish the magnanimity of 'A'; rather, that was simply not her original intention.
Thankfully, with people giving towards the check rather than donating online, the check just had to be written towards 'A' rather than to the ACS, so now all of the money is going to 'A' as was originally intended.
Please do not take this to mean that I am against the good work of the ACS. Rather, I think the party at fault here is the eVite website; given that some people put in the invitation that the person in question would like all donations to go to the charity but also that the website hosts ads from the charity, the website should take a bit more care in differentiating the ads from the actual requests. There was no box around the link with the caption "ADVERTISEMENT", and it was smack-dab in the middle of the invitation.
Please, eVite website, don't confuse us like that next time.
For those readers who do know who 'A', 'Ms. R', and 'Ms. K' are, I know you know who they are as well, so if you wish to comment, please don't reveal their identities.

Windows 7 Was NOT My Idea

That said, Windows 7 is a vast improvement over Vista, though that's practically damning it with faint praise.
Recently, Microsoft has been broadcasting a series of advertisements for Windows 7 which have made me cringe. These ads continue the portrayal of Windows as ordinary users (as opposed to the "snooty/elitist" Mac users) (which I'm fine with), but then the closing line is, "...and Windows 7 was my idea."
What?
Really?
How could Microsoft be saying this with a straight face?
Windows 7, like all previous versions of Windows and like almost all other Microsoft software, is closed-source (proprietary). This means that a bunch of developers create the software basically behind closed doors; even after releasing the software to the public, users cannot get access to the underlying code.
One can't even properly customize their Windows 7 system; one deals with what one gets.
I guess one could say Windows 7 was "their" idea if that means that Microsoft actually listened to customers about what was wrong with Vista in order to make 7 better, which is true and good.
By contrast, *nix's its derivatives, BSD and GNU/Linux, are free and open-source pieces of software. This means that anyone can view, modify, or redistribute the underlying code for the software, and if the user thinks that their change is a major one which can benefit the entire software userbase, they can send the suggestion to the original/current main developers of the project, and this will most likely be incorporated either as a bugfix or as part of a future release. The process is a very collaborative one, and the end result is often of higher quality than those of closed-door operations.
Really, Linux was my idea.