Financial Crimes

Arianna Huffington. Pigs at the Trough (2003). Here it is 17 years later, and the game continues. Some of the star players have been retired (some via criminal indictment), the rules have been tweaked to benefit the cheats more than ever, and the referees no longer pretend to control the game.
     Huffington’s book is a detailed overview of the financial scandals of the early 2000s, with names like Enron and Andersen showing up in several chapters. Lessons learned? Just keep on buying the most complaisant legislators available. Five years later, we saw the financial meltdown of 2008, in which the rescue money went to the perpetrators instead of their victims. Business as usual. If the bail-out money had been credited directly to the borrowers’ accounts, most of them would have become home-owners pretty quick, and the decade-long limping towards recovery would have lasted maybe three years.
     History doesn’t repeat itself exactly, but humans solve problems in much the way as their ancestors did. These solutions toss up the same problems as before, and the cycles continue. If you find a copy of this book, read it. It will help you recognise the players on the current teams of malefactors. ****

Mathematics and the News

 

 

John Allen Paulos. A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper (1995) I bought this book because I’d read Paulos’s Innumeracy, a seminal book that I think every teacher should read. This book extends one of his themes, that the media are a prime source of innumeracy, and so tend to distort and misinform. Each section corresponds to a section of the paper, News, Sports, the Arts, etc. The misuse or misreporting of statistics features in all sections, but the unwarranted surprise at coincidences, and confidence in economic and sports forecasts, together come a close second.
     Once again, Paulos muses on the vagaries of voting. Every voting system ever attempted has produced results that annoy a large section, sometimes even the majority, of voters. If he were to write today, he would note the vacuousness of political polling, which always produces more or less misleading results.
     But mathematics is about patterns and processes, so even the society section, with its reports about charity balls, the doings of famous people, etc, gives opportunity for mathematical musing about relationship networks, and the interconnectedness of our social circles, which Facebook et al have made more obvious than ever in the 25 years since Paulos wrote the book.
     This was a re-read, I enjoyed the book, but not as much as Innumeracy. ***

     Update 2020 08 13: Percentages are real problem.
     One of the most common errors is to report a percentage change without reporting the base rate. For example, "XYZ increases the cancer of some obscure organ  by 150%". True, it increases the rate from 1 per 100,000 per year to 3 per 100,000 per year.
     Another egregious error is to confuse percentage points with percentages. Thus, "Unemployment rate increases 2 %". Yup, it rose  from 5% to 7%, which is an increase of 2/5, or 40%.

   Update 2020 12 22: Raw numbers vs Rates: How to misreport covid-19

     Every day now we hear the number of new cases and deaths from covid-19. Almost never the rates. For example, Ontario reported some 2100 new cases the other day, while Alberta reported about 1800. But Ontario has roughly three times the population of Alberta, so the rate in Alberta is about three times higher.

     The mistake is to treat every jurisdiction equally, which hardly ever makes sense. The same error shows up when reporting miscellaneous numbers about cities and towns. Such as crime rates. Small towns naturally have fewer crimes, but related to population, the crime rates are usually higher than in the large cities.

     Related to time, the rates are of course lower. Hence the pained astonishment when a neighbour murders his family. This suggests that we pay more attention to events along our individual time-lines, and less to events within the communtiy at large. Our preception biases mislead us.

     Rule of thumb: Do The Arithmetic! Always calculate the rates.

     

Design in the 1960s

Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, Bob Gill. Graphic Design: Visual Comparisons (1963) One of a series published by Reinhold Studio Vista, pleasant to look at, useful for anyone interested in design, and collectively a good documentation of 1960s design theory and practice. The designs have worn well: the 60s have cast a long shadow, perhaps because designers explored the technical boundaries of their craft.
     Here, we see mostly advertising and related messaging in print. Notions of suitability and decorum gave way to the realisation that the design of messages succeeded when it drew attention and conveyed much meaning with the least possible means. The digital revolution has merely made it easier to do what these people did by hand. As with photography, reducing the craft skill for mastering the medium has shifted the focus to content and context. McLuhan claimed that the medium is the message. Contemplating how technology has made messaging easier, I’d say that the medium determines the message.
     I’ve looked through this book several times in the 40-odd years I’ve owned it, and each time I’ve seen things I did not notice before. But mostly, it’s reminded me, once again, that the world we inhabit is designed. The environment shapes us. The designers both make and are made by the environment they design. ***

Nancy Mitford Amuses

 Nancy Mitford Don’t Tell Alfred (1960) Mitford’s last novel, in which she revisits some of the characters of Love in a Cold Climate. Whitehall appoints Fanny Wincham’s husband Alfred Ambassador to France, first making him a Sir. Their children, her niece, assorted other relatives and friends, as well as a handful of French politicians, cause a variety of tangles, which Alfred and fate must unknot. Mostly fate. The result is a nicely done airport book, the kind that amuses and entertains, but requires no close attention to plot.
     The dialogue carries most of the story, which is really a long shaggy dog anecdote.  Mitford slings in some less-than-sly digs at the English and French, modern child-rearing, pop-culture, tabloids and their owners, and gormless idealism. The spice of satire enlivens what would otherwise be a rather bland dish. I enjoyed the book, not a page turner, more of a bowl of noshes to dip into. It did trigger a desire to reread Love in a Cold Climate and Cold Comfort Farm, which I’ve so far been able to resist. **½

Model Railroad Nostalgia: Classic Articles from Model Railroader

[Kalmbach Publishing] Classic Articles from Model Railroader. (1980) Begins with A. C. Kalmbach’s 1936 story about his own layout, and ends with a 1964 review of “OOO scale”, which soon after became N scale. In between we get Frank Ellison’s story about operating on his Delta Lines, John Allen on weathering, Linn Westcott on eliminating derailments, Jack work on building an HOn3 caboose, etc. The selections amount to a history of model railroading, including its increasing contrast with railroad modelling. A salutary reminder of the difficulties of working with paints that might dissolve each other, the lack of detail parts, the need to kluge scenery from plaster, dry colour, weeds, varnish etc. And a nostalgia kick for anyone who was around in those days, for whom Ellison and Armstrong’s emphasis on layouts designed for operation was a revelation. Worth picking up if you find a copy. ****

Mitchell's Layouts: mentored by Ellson and Armstrong

     Don Mitchell. Walkaround Model Railroad Track Plans (1991) Don Mitchell’s track plans showed up not only in Model Railroader but also in the NMRA Bulletin and other magazines. He emulated both John Armstrong and Frank Ellison, and occasionally mentions them as mentors. He begins with ergonomic constraints, such as typical reach, and discusses principles of layout design entailed by giving his clients what they wanted. Thus a few of these layouts are for the train watcher, but most are for operators, or those who just want to watch trains occasionally when operation doesn’t appeal.
     All the layouts were designed for specific spaces, so they also show what can be done when nooks and crannies and stairs and furnaces and other obstacles force compromises. The smallest, the Oakville Central, is 37" x 70", to fit under a bed. It’s an oval with a short runaround track, a small yard, and a bunch of industrial spurs. It does nicely as inspiration for an N scale layout-on-a-door (a once popular style), which would allow a couple of passing sidings, and additional yard track or two, more spurs, and (most desirable) a more expansive scenic effect
     The largest design is for the San Diego Model Railroad Museum. It’s more of a guideline,  

showing a carefully arranged mainline depicting Tehachapi Pass, with both operator and public viewing spaces on three levels. The yards, industrial switching areas, etc, are left up to future development. The design supposes phased construction, so that something worth displaying can be created quickly, and the extensions into the rest of the display space can wait for revived enthusiasm and renewed funding. The Wiki article about the Museum doesn’t mention Mitchell, and the existence of several other layouts suggests that only phase one of his design (the pass itself) was built.
     Most of Mitchell’s designs are for fairly large spaces, half a basement or garage. He prefers lobes accessible from both sides, but accepts the occasional need for pop-up or rear access. He likes eye-level or higher backdrops to help focus attention, and mentions the need for adequate ventilation. In discussing operating scenarios, he had to consider the limitations of DC control systems; many of his designs would be a joy to run with DCC. His style is less personal than Armstrong’s and Ellison’s, but he does allow himself an occasional pun. A book worth studying. ***

A Matter of WHO: hunt for disease carrier (Movie)

A Matter of Who (1961) [D: Don Chaffey. Terry-Thomas, Sonja Ziemann, Alex Nicol] A case of small-pox arriving in London on an international flight triggers an international hunt for the source. Terry-Thomas plays the Health Department investigator working on behalf of the WHO, which makes the title an overly cute pun.

     The hunt forms the spine of the plot. Crooked oil-deal shenanigans, politics, love, etc complicate the story and add the thrills the audience expects. There’s even a helicopter. Fun and games, and a satisfying ending. Terry Thomas for once tones down his mad-cap eccentric character, the rest of the cast play their stereotypes well, the photography and music are unintrusive so we can focus on the story, such as it is.
     Later treatments of the dangerous disease theme focus on the work of containing it, etc. Here, the most interesting bits for me were the ones that showed how the disease-containment work was being done. 1961 was still culturally the 1950s, and the movie-makers of the time didn’t trust the audience to accept a quasi-documentary film, so they added the spice of intrigue and crime. An OK hour and a half of entertainment, with subtexts relevant for our covid-19 times. **