Life's Lesions

Reprimand
During one game of "ball tag" in fourth grade, I threw a 2' diameter rubber ball at my friend Juan. It impacted him square in the chest. He fell 5 feet and landed on his ass. Juan fell from the playground structure that the "not-it" players used for cover. Obviously, the only times we could engage in this game was when the recess-lady wasn't looking. So, when Juan--humiliated and being the sore loser I did not yet know he was--ran up to me and kicked me in the shin, there was no adult around to break up our soon-to-follow altercation. In each other's face and hurling threats back and forth, the bell rang before we could make good on them.

Juan decided to continue the spectacle in class. The substitute that day sent us both to the principal's office where we were both suspended. Last I saw Juan, he had just gotten jumped into his gang, following his expulsion from junior high.


A Close Call
Growing up in a town seething with homophobia, I heard the word "fag" often from any early age onward. Apparently, slurs are not something covered in 7th grade sex ed., because by that time I had only a vague idea of what the term actually meant. Though based on the reactions the term elicited from those called it, I knew it was derogatory.

Waiting in the hall to be let into math class, I decided to experiment with the term myself. David, a classmate of mine who had always been kind to me, had been called "fag" often. I figured: "What was the harm if I did it too?"

So I did.

This angered our mutual friend Ari, who consequently ran up to my desk and tipped it over with me in it. Mr. Moore, without so much as blip in blood pressure, promptly escorted Ari and I to the principal's office. This time I was not suspended. However Mr. McDougal did an excellent job of making me realize what an asshole I had been.



Scott-free
Mr. Hanks was an important man at Woodland Senior High School. He was 6'5" of Nebraska corn-fed muscle that commanded Woodland's varsity football team. When he stood raising his fist at school pep-rallies, he resembled a Mortal Kombat character who just performed his signature Fatality™.

Unfortunately, Mr. Hanks' talent for coaching had not yet bled into his capacity for teaching. My senior year, he was charged the painful task of teaching AP US Government/Economics to us "Gifted and Talented" smart asses--the vast majority of whom did not appreciate football or foster school spirit.

Near the end of the year, Mr. Hanks split the class into halves: buyers and sellers. For a week, students, depending on their randomly-assigned role, would either buy or sell stocks (actually scraps of paper with monetary values written on them). I was a buyer...and I sucked at it. My apathetic ass always trailed the class with the least profits.

Bored, and having just read Germinal and The Grapes of Wrath, I decided to add some reality into Hanks' ivory-tower simulation by doing what all good Americans do: buy more than I could actually afford. Needless to say, for that last open market, I was hugely popular. To get my attention, my classmate Jamie positioned her "nannies" (see: glossary, A Clockwork Orange) right in my face.

It was glorious.

Mr. Hanks was not amused. I had thoroughly fucked his market trend and his entire simulated economy...single-handed. If you're reading Mr. Hanks, thank for not sending me to the principal's office as I deserved, and thank you for exposing my talent for fucking with shit (i.e. scientific investigation).

Familial Lore

Goat Racism

A couple of months ago, my aunt was offered early retirement from her 25+ year tenure as assistant district attorney for Yolo County, CA. She accepted.

Dogs, horses, pigs, steers, turtles, sheep, cats, iguanas comprise the set of pet varieties my aunt has tended in her life. With the sudden abundance of time her retirement affords, not only did she sew five bridesmaid dresses for her daughter's wedding, she also delivered three kids, the product of her latest pet project, goats. She did not expect to do this. She was careful to pen Billies and nannies separately. But as Spielberg-instructed Jeff Goldblum hammily said: "nature always finds a way..."

As best as she can figure, rutting billy-goat of breed A maneuvered into the pen of breed B does, and the pasture shook. Three half-breed offspring were conceived and carried to term.

Sadly, shortly after their birth, mamma-goat, failing to recognize her kids, withheld her milk from them. One baby goat died.

My aunt now spends here mornings and evenings bottle-feeding the two unfortunate beings; victims of racial discrimination.


Seeds of Animosity

My father and my great uncle Pep (see: Epic) never got along. Whenever I asked why, dad only replied with vague, unsubstantiated descriptions of Pep's occasional idiosyncrasies --never any specifics. This past weekend he finally let one slip.

Drilling is the act of driving many tons of steel pipe hundreds of feet into the ground while simultaneously removing the displaced clay, sand and gravel "cuttings". Occasionally, if drilling is hurried, the hole can cave in around the drill pipe. When this happens, the rig cannot generate sufficient upward force to dislodge the stuck pipe (called "tools"). Drillers, reluctantly, must drop explosives down the hole to break free as much of the tens of thousands of dollars worth of tools as they can salvage.

If one is born male in my family, one necessarily spends time in "the Gulag" (i.e. working 12 hour shifts on drilling rigs) at some point in one's life. It's our rite of passage. While some Eaton males, myself included, have managed to escape, my dad, my grandfather and my great uncle Pep were not so fortunate--drilling is/was life for them.

Not only did the Z-boys of Dogtown prosper during the drought of '77, so did the family drilling company. That year, California farmers near and far demanded more water wells than the business could produce. To keep up with demand, drilling was hurried. And during one job, the frenzied pace likely caused a cave in of legendary proportions. Explosives were required.

Because both my grandpa and my dad lacked the guts to even get near nitroglycerin; purchasing and handling of explosive charges laid in the (assumed) capable hands of Pep. Now Pep was a smart man; he usually did things right. In 1977, terrorism must have been as foreign a concept as equal rights for homosexuals because Pep purchased a crate of TNT wholesale with not so much as a driver's license.

Pep dropped charges down the hole and managed to salvage some of the tools.

Fast forward to 1982. One morning, en route to preschool in a beat up pickup truck typical of the company's fleet, dad opened the glove compartment and discovered two, long-forgotten sticks of dynamite laying in wait for a sufficient jolt to awaken them.

When dad furiously relayed his discovery to Pep, Pep replied: "take it easy, they're pretty safe without the blasting caps..."

What a Tangled Conceptual Web My Mind Weaves

Speaking of preschool and goats. Next-door neighbors to my preschool would sacrifice the occasional goat in their backyard. Only a thin wire fence separated our play area from their ritual. According to my mom, after the first bloodletting any hint of goat plus ax would be grounds for immediate indoor story-time.

Wimpy Christians.

Science: A 100% Social Construct?

What follows is a brief except from Explaining Science, Ronald N. Giere, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1988, pg 4.

The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge

Versions of this subheading now appear regularly on the covers of books in the sociology, or the sociological history, of science (Latour and Woolgar 1979; MacKenzie 1981). Science, like the law, is pictured as a thoroughly social construct. Experimental data, in this view, are just one resourse among many used in social negotiations over what the content of acceptable theory will be. So are the traditional scientific virtues like simplicity. In place of the philosopher's principles of rationality one finds only the clash of competing social and profesional interests.

The philosopher's charge that any such view leads to reletivism is welcomed with open arms. Our scientific beliefs about the world are held to be no different in principle from Azande beliefs about witches. There is said to be no basis other than ethnocentric prejudice for our claims that we are right and the Azande are wrong. Indeed, the science of the paranormal could, in different social circumstances, be normal science (Collins and Pinch 1982).

The sociological picture of science at least has the virtue of explaining the almost universal existence of disagreement at the research frontier. Disagreement in science is as natural as disagreement in the halls of Parliament; in this view, the nature of local disagreements, and background agreement, is fundamentally the same in both science and politics.

The section goes on to refute the above claim. The author argues that science is obviously more substantial than a mere social construction simply because it works--modern technology provides overwhelming evidence. He continues "no amount of social organizing...could produce insulin in the laboratory or send instrument-packed rockets to photograph Uranus."

I agree with both the "science is a social construct" claim and the author's refutation. Though, the more I mature as a scientist, the more I realize that success in science depends more on rank, reputation and flash than it does integrity, ingenuity and substance of one's findings as they contribute to new knowledge. It has become clear to me that pursuing a career as a scientific researcher will leave me bitter and unfulfilled.

Sad as I should be about this, I feel, oddly, free.

Epic

My great, great aunt Nell (or maybe it was my great, great aunt Bess) purchased a turquoise 1969 Chevrolet Malibu (4-door) under the dutiful guidance of my grandfather and his brother, "Pep". All accounts paint Nell/Bess as a complete hazard of a driver--no roadside ditch went untreaded when she was behind the wheel. The nephews were more than a bit concerned that over-application of the car's power brakes (a novelty in pre-1970s autos according to my dad), would send Nell/Bess through the windshield as seatbelts were not commonly worn.

Nell/Bess hardly ever drove the car, but in the interest of keeping it nice, she put on aftermarket seat covers. The one for the back seat fit too loosely. To keep it taut, she weighed it down with four twenty-pound cobbles positioned under the rear window, directly behind the heads of backseat passengers. So, in addition to all of the dangers that lay ahead when she would slam the power brakes, riders should have also worried about the skull-crushing projectiles that would come from behind.

Years past and the cobbles were discovered and removed--much to our family's amusement. Pep inherited the '69 Malibu, who then promptly smashed the front of it on a motorcyclist. In accordance with Eaton doctrine, the car was repaired as cheaply and shittily as possible.

More years past, the car resided in an airport hanger in Salinas. Every half decade or so, when it would actually start, it transported drilling crews between job sites and motels. As my sixteenth birthday approached, my dad, tired of transporting my whiny ass around, thought the old Malibu would be a satisfactory first car for me.

On the car’s retrieval, we noticed necrotic weather stripping no longer sealing out the coastal moisture. The interior reeked of mildew, the ceiling interior hung low, and to our surprise, we discovered a cornstalk sprouting out of the backseat foam-rubber.

“Oh, this isn’t all that bad; you’ll just have to fix it up a little.”

One Year of Doom and Gloom

What follows are quotes I've extracted from the March 23, 2008 New York Times article Depression, You Say? Check Those Safety Nets, by Charles Duhigg. These I have categorized under "Then". Quotes concerning the same issues "Now" I have selected from yesterday's New York Times opinion article This Is Not a Test. This Is Not a Test. by op-ed columnist Thomas L. Friedman.

Then:

Well, the economists are here to say that you can dig up the family silver and stop training the kids how to jump onto a moving train. While many who study the nation’s economic health agree that a recession has probably already begun, and that it may be long and severe, they also say the odds of a full-blown depression are almost nonexistent.

...the distinction between a recession (a significant decline in economic activity that lasts more than a few months) and a depression (a decline that is much longer and deeper)...

Now:

But I am deeply worried that our political system doesn’t grasp how much our financial crisis can still undermine everything we want to be as a country. Friends, this is not a test. Economically, this is the big one. This is August 1914. This is the morning after Pearl Harbor. This is 9/12.

Then:

Even if consumer confidence hit rock bottom, that most likely would not be enough, by itself, to cause a depression. For things to become really dire, the nation’s financial institutions would have to fail at the same time that unemployment began significantly rising. Only if banks suddenly closed, or it became impossible for companies to access short-term lines of credit, would things begin spiraling out of control.

Now:

Our country has congestive heart failure. Our heart, our banking system that pumps blood to our industrial muscles, is clogged and functioning far below capacity. Nothing else remotely compares in importance to the urgent need to heal our banks.

Then:

But in the wake of the Great Depression, American policy makers began actively managing the economy with a handful of tools, including adjusting interest rates and using massive government spending to spur growth.

Now:

This crisis is uniquely difficult in four respects:

First, to get out of a crisis like this you need to let markets clear. You need to let failed companies, or homeowners, go bankrupt, unlock their dead capital and reapply it to thriving entities. ...The problem with this crisis is that A.I.G., Citigroup and General Motors — and your neighbor’s subprime mortgage — are not [Dogfood-dot-com]. You let the market clear them away, and we could all be wiped out with them.

Second, we need to get a market going that would bring fair value and clarity to the “toxic mortgages” crippling the balance sheets of our major banks. This will likely require some degree of government subsidy to private equity groups and hedge funds...

Unfortunately, the president may have to look the American people in the eye and explain that “fairness is not on the menu anymore.” All that’s on the menu now is whether or not we avoid a system meltdown — and this will require rewarding some new investors.

Third, the president may have to make some trillion-dollar decisions — like nationalizing major banks or doubling the economic stimulus — with no real precedent and without knowing all the long-term ramifications.

Finally, to do all this, the president has to make us realize how dangerous a moment we’re in, without creating a panic that will prompt Americans to put every dime in their mattresses and undermine the economy even more.

I wish earned my pay and prestige wrongly predicting outcomes of a complicated multi-variate system that nobody fully understands. My windbaggery is on par with these two.

I really need to get out more

Wracking my brain for something semi-interesting to post this week—anything really—I decided to model the baseball metaphor of sexual intimacy using a Markovian random walk algorithm. Since all I do is work these days [whine], work-related subject matter is all I’ve got to write about (Markov models being work-related, not sexual intimacy).

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_metaphors_for_sex) what follows are broadly accepted descriptions of each metaphorical base:

First base:.............................................................mouth-to-mouth kissing
Second base:.........................................................groping underneath shirt
Third base:............................................................mutual masturbation
Home (after rounding the bases):.........................sexual intercourse

The Model. Dude has a 50/50 chance of making it to the next base on any given “play”. If he succeeds, he either continues to next base in the sequence—where he must then make another play—or he “scores” if his successful play is from 3rd. If a play toward any of the bases fails, he’s out, meaning: he must “bat” again with some new chick and attempt to round the bases starting from scratch. The matrix below captures this scenario in its entirety. It operates on dude’s current state-vector (representing the base he “occupies”) to determine his probability of making the next base in the sequence.

Transition probability matrix (“LayMatrix” in routine below):



Results. Based on this model, the half-successful dude should expect to make exactly TWENTY-NINE total plays to score. In the course of these 29 plays, he fails or “outs” with an average of 15 girls on the way to scoring with one.

Discussion. You’re probably saying to yourself: “Thug, was high school prom the last time you “scored”? Chance probability of success for each play is not realistic.” For those of us single in our third-decade-of-life-and-then-some, a more realistic progression matrix might be:



For this model (LayMatrix2), dude need only commit an expected 19-20 plays to attain score-status; though he should expect to fail with a chance-comparable 14 girls in the process. In this scenario, most failures occur trying to reach first base.

Comparing outcomes predicted by the two models, dude should score with fewer plays than chance under the “more realistic” model but will strike out with almost the same number of chicks. These models assume chicks’ acceptances of dudes’ advances obey Markovian point-process statistics (i.e. chick will accept or reject a dude’s play independent of his record of previous plays). My limited experience agrees. How else could so many ass-douches strut around with such fine wool.

Covering my ass. For those in doubt:

z0 = [1, 0, 0, 0, 0]'; % Initial state vector: at bat at home plate

LayMatrix = [0.5, 0.5, 0, 0, 0; 0.5, 0, 0.5, 0, 0; 0.5, 0, 0, 0.5, 0; 0.5, 0, 0, 0, 0.5; 0, 0, 0, 0, 1];
LayMatrix2 = [0.8, 0.2, 0, 0, 0; 0.5, 0, 0.5, 0, 0; 0.3, 0, 0, 0.7, 0; 0.05, 0, 0, 0, 0.95; 0, 0, 0, 0, 1];

ScoreProgressionStructAge18 = CalcExpectedNumTrialsToLay(LayMatrix,z0,500)
ScoreProgressionStructAge31 = CalcExpectedNumTrialsToLay(LayMatrix2,z0,500)

function OutputStruct = CalcExpectedNumTrialsToLay(LayTransProbMatrix,s0,nCeiling)

CumProbVecOfScoring = NaN*ones([1,nCeiling]);
CumProbVecOfFailing = NaN*ones([1,nCeiling]);
nVec = 1:(nCeiling-1);

T = LayTransProbMatrix';


[eigVecs eigVals] = eig(T);

for i = 1:nCeiling

sNext = real(eigVecs*(eigVals.^i)*inv(eigVecs))*s0;
CumProbVecOfScoring(i) = sNext(end);
CumProbVecOfFailing(i) = 1-sNext(1);

end

ExpectedNumTrialsToScore = sum(nVec.*diff(CumProbVecOfScoring));
ExpectedNumTrialsToFail = sum(nVec.*diff(CumProbVecOfFailing));

OutputStruct.CumProbVecOfScoring = CumProbVecOfScoring;
OutputStruct.CumProbVecOfFailing = CumProbVecOfFailing;
OutputStruct.ExpectedNumTrialsToScore = ExpectedNumTrialsToScore;
OutputStruct.ExpectedNumTrialsToFail = ExpectedNumTrialsToFail;

end

ERRATUM: Expected number of girls with whom dude should expect to fail on way to scoring should be reduced by 1 for both models (i.e. from 15 to 14 in the "chance" model and from 14 to 13 in the "realistic"). True to 'tard-dom, yours truly included dude's success-girl in each of the above failure counts.

Saga

Back in Portland, when my friend bought his car, his dealer said "come on man, give us some credit... this isn't 82nd Ave." Not only did I buy my car on 82nd, I took the bus to the prospective car lot and deboarded right in front of the salesmen. Negotiating prowess must skip a generation because my dad's tactical shrewdness I did not inherit.*

The fact that the car I bought was stripped of it's rear speakers, the stereo was inoperable (i.e. "locked out") during the test drive, and the salesman claimed he did not have the code to "unlock" it, would have raised some flags for your average used car buyer. Not for me and my turnip truck-fallin' bumpkin ass. Two weeks and $100 later, a (legitimate) Honda dealership unlocked my stereo and I was eager to finally listen to CDs in my car!

Disappointed was I. The system only generated sound in the band of like 163 to 164 Hz. It would only accept CDs when it damned well felt like it, and would only play them if I tapped "the correct" sequence of taps on the display face. In a spectacular example of 1995 technology, CDs would skip for 5 minutes following each and every road disturbance, no matter how minor. [I embellish here, but not much.]

Fast-forward to 2005. The morning before the first midterm of the first class in the first quarter of my first year, it snowed. I emerged from my domicile to find my driver's side window bashed out and my fantabulous stereo swiped. The driver's seat lay partially covered in a peaceful white blanket adorned with a sprinkling of tiny blue cubes. My first thought: "Of all the respectable car stereos in Wallingford, why'd they go to the trouble of stealing a stock stereo out of a '95 Civic? That's like snagging the one cat turd in a sea of Almond Roca... FUCK!" Rushing inside, I searched for plastic to cover the cavity. Zip-lock sandwich bags and packaging tape were all I could find. Hurriedly, I MacGuyvered up a quilt, covered the hole and high-tailed it to my class.

Two weeks ago. After three years of car-stereolessness, my friend took pity and gifted me a battery powered CD player (and batteries) for Christmas. A very thoughtful gift that I very much appreciated on my drive up from Woodland.

Thank you Carolyn.

*Though I should give myself some credit:
Salesman: "How about this Dodge Neon."
Me: "No thanks, I've heard they have problems."
Salesman: "Oh, you just need to replace the head-gasket at 80,000 miles--they're notorious for that."
Me: "Isn't that synonymous with 'shitty car'? How about that Honda hiding back in the corner over there."