Brief visit

As said before, this post does not imply being back to this theme. That is, we're still not back (as we weren't after the battery incidents). There are too many others things of interest.

But, we reserve the right to stop, now and then, and make comment. Why? The Heathrow incident of late last week. What happened? We all want to know and will know soon enough (unless, it's another those unknowns that can't be explained -- where is Carson when you need him (unknown unknowns)?).

I just ran across an article in the Seattle Times that speaks to things alluded to here and in truth engineering. For instance, one cannot expect someone to do what one cannot do, when one is the expert (wizardry and magic, aside) -- we'll explain, if necessary. Now, in finance, one can see seeking a "perpetual motion" event (they can be forgiven since the class includes idiocy as a property); however, engineers do not follow such dreams (unless pushed to do so by managers).  

Aside: There are many things that are beyond our grasp, despite the fact that we get enough control to fuel hubris (I'm talking our relationship with nature, not those of the super-set (supposed) class who think that they have control over being). Engineering would be smart to incorporate this into their discipline (again, not talking chaos, etc.; rather, consider the ilk of truth engineering, please).

So, this will be an interesting problem to follow. We'll make comment now and then. But, the whole idea here is to have a progressive movement toward something that is understandable and of use. Consider the entrapments that we have to manage, for starters. My focus is the world of money, finance, and related. But, engineers are as enmeshed as are the silly folk (CAE would be a good place to begin discussion). The problem is pervasive and of imperative concern (ought to be?).

Remarks:

07/15/2013 -- The event will present the world with the "largest composite repair" project that has been seen so far in aerospace, according to a blog post at Composites World. Here is an interesting look at composite repair from the same site; this report dates from 2008 when the 787 was still getting configured to allow a first flight (Dec 2009). It'll take long practice to get to a data-based basis for making the necessary decisions. Too, is this damage in a heavily structural area that will require special attention?

Modified: 07/15/2013

Borrowing addiction

We have to get back to finance (the times). Our first post on that was in 2007. The topic was tranching. A recent post had the same topic. To me, the whole notion seems to be like wanting perpetual motion. But, then, finance does not have any real grounding, nowadays, due to many things, such as fiat money.

Of late, another bit of errant thought has come to fore. People are leveraging to increase their equity stake. Again, leveraging (think of uses) is not bad. Improper focus? Yes, problematic.

---

So, this week we had a downturn. Those who bought with borrowed money would suffer more after a loss, due to the pain of debt. So, that's the oops. To take this type of stance when it is obviously not wise.

---

Yet, the central banks have fed the situation. Some use addiction as the analogue. Too, the whole emphasis seemed to have been to push people toward the more risky. And, there wasn't much jawboning about boneheads increasing their risk with debt.

Debt is a way to mortgage the future, pure and simple. We have been using debt far beyond what might be reasonable as the downstream pain is too remote for most to consider. Even those with progeny don't seem to get the drift of the issue.

---

Hence, oops abound, as was said before.

Remarks:

08/01/2013 -- Ben cannot unwind or taper down; he has too many Doves. We'll have to get back to the king thing (yes, the divine rights of the CEO, new royalty, in other words) and dampening of these types by a new outlook (Magna-Carta'ísh).

Modified: 08/01/2013

Closer to Truth

In our last post, we mentioned that we would be pursuing quasi-empirical arguments, again. Wikipedia has a nice write up on the subject, for starters.

The topic is open to discussion; the main theme is why has mathematics been so effective? In fact, it is so effective that people are using it zombie-like (where is this not true today?); and, science and engineering have rested their case strongly on the little thing (see below).

Getting back to quasi-empirical notions deals with reclaiming earlier views (to wit, this category with the label of Effectiveness; we had a similar category in the related blog).

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Truth,
even big T' aspects

I just ran across "Closer to truth" today and wanted to get it brought to the fore. The series deals with leading thinkers talking on a point moderated by Robert Lawrence Kuhn (he does a great job, staying in the background yet keeping the flow going). From the videos that I've watched so far, these are well done, albeit the talkers' biases, and faults, hang out (well, isn't that what video is all about? ever wonder why the talking heads spend so much time before a mirror - modern day manifestations of Narcissus' self-infuation?). Not being critical, but in the case of one well-known, and quoted, intellectual, his verbiage contained words that were self-contradictory. But, extemporaneous speech leads to that (we, that is, those who want to listen, gloss over those little errors in the spirit trying to understand what is being said -- after all, the whole notion of being error-free (as in, ..., infallible?) ought not come into any type of scientific query).

The below link is to a youtube video, but the show has its own site and cache. I noticed that those at the official site have extra frames (youtube is minimally presented) devoted to noise (opinion).

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Now, to the crux of the matter. After seeing a lot of interesting videos, one motivated me to post. I'll use this topic in the truth engineering blog, to boot (and FEDaerated - financial mathematics as a sub-type which is more problematic, than not).

What topic? Mathematics as invention or discovery. This is an old question. In one talk, a historian said that when talking to most mathematicians privately, things seemed to go to the latter (ah, the mystery of it all). At the same time, when pushed in a public context, about all of the practitioners with whom he had talked would revert back to the former. This is meant to be cursory, as the topic will come up again.

The talker? Wolfram of Mathematica (the video, skip out to 7:45 for the quasi-empirical portion - or listen to that point to hear the preparatory matters). So, thank you, Stephen (not that I'm backing off of my semi-Platonist leanings; or, I'll just assume that he was talking small "m" mathematics - large "M" Mathematics, as of yet, has not received the proper attention, as discussions thereof border on areas filled with holes). Notice, if you would, his use of circularity (it's obvious to those who look - we'll consider this matter in terms of operational means).

I'll be getting back to this topic, in the the context of computability in the world, and more.

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Aside:  The blogs had specific purposes at the outset. But, the crazy world (and idiocy, like finance) got my attention. It was a nice run, the past few years, to look at the mess. But, let's now get back to the real essence; being technically oriented will be one change (albeit quasi - no worry, as the issues at hand are amenable to the understanding of any reasonable adult - or smart non-adult).

Remarks:

05/20/2013 --

Modified: 05/20/2013

Kudos to Engineering

... and to all who know their stuff.

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We looked at two banes, earlier, and will have to get back to a long issue list related to computation (which is behind social media and much more, if you need to ask) and its inherent problems which seem to be ignored in the breakneck rush to profits (say, the social media'd types).

Before that review, let's pat the back of the engineers who got the 787 back into the air. Their concerted effort demonstrates what we have said earlier (needs to be updated) and leads to discussion of differences between engineering and business (silliness, many times).

In short, it's this:

• Engineers can do (engineering does). But, since they work with real things, they bump up against nature (who is the ultimate rule). Of course, this is a gross generalization, yet needs to be understood. As, many computer engineers (say, software) deal with things that are harder to grasp and to measure (whence comes the problems). But, we'll account for that. The 787 battery problems dealt with material, systems, and more. That the root cause for the fires (see this blog) was not determined is a telling factor (..., as, in, we all know, except for *CEO*s and stupid investors  and children that we do not have 20-20 foresight; guess what? we do not have 20-20 hindsight, either). 



Comic take on the relationship

• Business (especially finance) brags. And then, cooks (has to cook) the books in order to make its numbers (and to look good, a daily bit of activity covered widely by TV and other media). Tongues wag, in other words (that loud nuisance of the talking heads). Of course, again, a gross generalization. As, good business has to master matter and more. And, systems are essential, even if the *CEO*s (the modern counterpart of the feudal Lord) think that it all begins and ends with their little egos. Too, there are those who see how sustainable approaches need to be socially fluent (metaphors beyond the jungle). And, business ought to work with engineering to promote sustainable ways and means. 

As an aside, there are a couple of categories of a major sort to keep in mind: human and artificial. In both cases, we have entities (objects and properties, say) and milieus. Then, we have system-level things to look at. That is, we have human-based things, and the more modern things of system origin. Our real focus needs to be the overlap. We know (or think that we know) a lot more about people, having evolved jointly with the bunch (haven't found out how to live peacefully, though). Yet, there is a whole lot about humans that is unknown (for various reasons).

Do we know systems, especially those based upon computational prowess? Ah. 'Tis a whole new world which was understood more prior to the explosion of silly applications (yes, we'll have to go back to the 1930s and so) than it is now. Yes, we'll step back a time or two to think of people like Alan whose 100th was last year.

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Note: *CEO*? Why, of course, the "star" CEO (MVP, anyone?) who, in many cases, is another of the many banes.

Remarks:

07/15/2013 -- A fire late last week bring an opportunity to see what goes into determining whether to do composite repair or to undergo a section replacement.

05/20/2013 -- As promised, motivated by Wolfram's comments.

04/27/2013 -- We will be using quasi-empiricism, once again.

Modified: 07/15/2013

Kudos to engineers and to others who know

...

Remarks:

04/27/2013 -- Moved: http://7-oops-7.blogspot.com/2013/04/kudos-to-engineering.html

Modified: 04/27/2013

Two modern banes

A controversy that is boiling with a company of which I have some knowledge (as an outsider) made me think about the modern ways that lead to oops (getting back to the theme of this blog). One can pinpoint exercises related to WWII (or a little later) as the chief starting point for some of these things. There are two in particular with which we can being, namely optimization and lazy evaluation.

• optimization - Being lazy (next bullet), let me say that it's part of applied mathematics, okay? There is much to discuss here, but let's talk Operations Research, as a field (note 9/18/2013 - incidentally, OR is being used to represent a whole class of disciplines and techniques - must I enumerate the whole mix?). All sorts of system (generic sense, not computational, though there is overlap) problems arose in WWII. Techniques to handle these evolved into the discipline of ORA (an analyst position in the field). What is the bane? As with anything, how well a model (being used lazily to handle a lot, again, okay?) can really fit the world (or predict accurately) depends upon many things. The crux here, though, is that the techniques are taught in school, now. And, that leads to misuse (a major failing about which we ought to care deeply). One really stinking method nowadays is computational modeling overlaid on human activity driving humans as if they were automaton. If you must, recall Steve Jobs' company little thing of suicides by workers who figured out that they had entered hell (albeit, why would a westerner care, it's in the orient?). Also, if you must, let me take you around to show you the same thing in good old America. Methinks (err, knows), some flavor of this reeks from the above-mentioned controversy. You see, many times there was an optimization scheme behind a decision process using incomplete data; the many times can be observed in noting mismatches between what was declared doable and actual accomplishment. It's one thing for you to brag from an armchair (nod to the Madness) about what you can do; it's another to have someone tell you that you ought to be able to do something (without them demonstrating such). "As if by magic" is how some techies have laughed off expectations that were way beyond realizable.  
• lazy evaluation - Look. Watson (the guy, not the system of late) of IBM, and others, have touted laziness as being the parent of invention, if you would. Figure out an easier way to do something is the usual way to look at it. In computation, AI (as in borgs, et al) made use of this technique. Heck, the web is full of it. Ever notice an iterative push down of data off the web. That is, get back quickly with a little stuff and fill in as things progress. Too, large amounts of data can be partitioned out so as to not be too burdensome. In terms of the above bullet, one can overcome states that are insolvable (computationally beyond any scope that exists now) by using lazy techniques. You, the reader, do it all the time when you rely on other than your own knowledge (look, this applies to the issues of scientism, where everyone has their favorite expert to quote (err, misquote) or makes claims way beyond the bounds of their knowledge). In problem resolution, the lazy approach can help resolve issues, yet it can bring some other issues to the fore. Again, the bane? We have to be lazy (one way to avoid/break analysis paralysis). Yet, we ought to be smart about it. So, let's talk looking forward. It's more rational to talk about re-doing something that has already been done than it is to make prognostications prior to really knowing. Now wait! That applies to data-driven processes, to boot. Why? Extrapolation and false notions of equivalence are a couple of things to discuss here.  

This post is brief, intentionally lazy. But, the theme will continue (actually, we saw it before, quite a bit, as there are many aspects to it, such as out-housing). There are many such banes as these two. Yet, are we teaching the next generation? Oh, like Zuck, and Sandberg, they may not need to know. The problem? As we go along with greater technological prowess, the ties that bind are becoming more problematic.

Remarks:

09/19/2013 -- To some, evidently, grabbing oodles of money, without due consideration of ramifications to others or to the common weal, is the smartest thing; but, we do know that virtue is smart, to boot. Even the secularists are trying hard to show how their worldview can lead to right living (as in, they do not need God to have a conscience). And, what virtue might be prime important to this discussion? Prudence (see Remarks, this day).

09/18/2013 -- About the second bane, engineering cannot cut corners without facing problems. Either there will be recognition of a fault early or there will be a larger failure later. Finance doesn't have this discipline, even in those areas where they claim "engineering" to be a fact for them. See the "misuse" link in the next Remarks which goes back to a Bloomberg Businessweek article about Masters. From the outside, this looks to be classic "laziness" in operation. You see, some types talk as if they work. What they do is work at maximizing their stake while ignoring the issues of Near Zero (I'll admit that I've not described this better - but, intuitively, it's obvious). When finance (and other computation) pays the proper price to do it right (yeah, Zuck, you could learn a thing or two), then we'll have fewer of the stupidity-originated problems.

09/18/2013 --  Pop, fizz, ... Ben had to show largess because of idiots who ran the economy to the ground (rogues all around). Ben is going. What do we have to look forward to? Businessweek has a review issue (of the past five years). Several articles are especially interesting. Too, phrasing shines: spin dross into gold (in relation to mortgage bonds). Perhaps, we'll get back to some of the more pertinent ones, at some point. If we do, it would be to bring forward what has been said here, from the beginning. To wit? Tranche and trash (WSJ has a good take on that). Securitization? This article brings on weeping (one example of the misuse of mathematics and computing that has been harped about).

04/21/2013 -- The view from Saturday.

Modified: 09/19/2013

Zeno, in the modern context

It's common knowledge that the modern world knows things through computers. This is true from the most recent phenomena, of noses to smart phones parading as intelligent behavior, to the wide expanses of cosmology's modeling of the heavens and exploration of multi-universes as an explanation, of sorts. In between, we have IRS's use plus business computing, such as design, planning, and a number of other things.

So, where does one go to look at issues related to such knowledge? The ACM is a good start. Say, their Communications of the ACM. Then, we have a whole lot of other folks, such as IEEE, IJCAI, and such.

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The following is motivated by a viewpoint, expressed by Phillip G. Armour, in the ACM. His article is titled: The Business of Software: How We build Things (in paper, slightly different on-line). There are two things to mention here, though the article ought to be read.

He uses Zeno in talking about what I had called Earned Value. I only used Zeno once (Fedaerated) in several posts on three blogs. Why? I had talked about this with my colleagues on many occasions. It seemed that referencing the guy was more useful in person as then one could get off on the peripatetic issues.

Zeno, Veritas et Falsitas

Why Zeno? He's the guy of the arrow. Or, as the joke goes, the mathematician who doesn't get the girl. So, Phillip asks: why do people guess that they're 95% (or some such number) complete on a task as if they're monotonically approaching, with no end in sight?

Phillip laughs it off. I don't as it was a regular occurrence as we tried to assess completion of a project with lots of people and oodles of modules. Nowadays, it's not an issue (say, with Zuck's stuff) as they can just push out system changes (with a recovery method, hopefully, to use if things go bad) without regard to testing status. This is not true for other parts of the business world, say like the 787 (even a most-specified test plan will still leave room for judgment calls -- we'll get to that).

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Phillip's use gets me thinking, that I need to bring the topic forward, again.

First, though, a useful exercise would be to gather all of the posts, for each of the blogs, that dealt with the subject of earned value. For each of the blogs, I have a list of posts that include the term. Then, I provide a list of a few of the important posts and the count of posts with the term.

 Fedaerated (18)     7'oops7 (41)     Truth Engineering (20)

Now, for this blog, all but a couple of the posts were in 2009 and before. That sort of indicates the shift to looking at finance. Engineering worries about things like this. Finance seems to have this short-term view of the content of the current day's pocket. That is idiotic, pure and simple.

So, we'll bring this subject up to date and relate it, as it ought to be, to fair value.

A sampling of posts follows:

• Earned value II (Jan 26, 2009) -- Looked at some of the factors that relate to the hardness of the problem. 
• Earned value (Jan 23, 2009) -- Two years in, decided to tackle the definition'l issue that had been ignored from the start in 2007.  
• Here we go again (Jun 24, 2009) -- Tied earned value with its compatriots in the context of planning and managing a project. 
• Middle and out (Jan 29, 2008) -- Management, like Jamie, like top-down in their illusion of being in control (Hey, can they even control themselves? That's more of an open issue than you might believe (or want to accept).) 
• Carts need horses (Nov 2, 2007) -- It looked for a long time as if the tail was wagging the dog. We'll not go into details, at this time, but the whole thing relates to the above bullets (know where you're going, how far you are, etc.), especially the middle out. 

There are a lot more posts to look. We'll get back to that.

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Phillip used some mathematics to show the problems related to knowing where you were with a project (the managers, like kids, say: are we there, yet?). Nice article.

Remarks:

01/24/2013 -- Article from New York -- The Digital Skeptic: Dreamliner Brings iPhone 'Reliability' to the Skies. With something as complex as the 787, how many operational issues can be expected to crop up (at 35K feet -- rhetorical answer? A bunch.)? A student paper at Uniz of Az looks at 787 outsourcing (see Mahmoodi). Boeing Tech Fellow's cautionary note, on outsourcing (2001 - there was quite a bit of discussion at the 2004 conference in LA, to boot, about matters of technical design -- also, whistle blower?). Related, 787 blog.

01/21/2013 -- WSJ has a nice recap from the beginning. Look at how management kept promising that they would hit a milestone when most figured that they would not. Then, the guy would switch gears. In July 2007, most knew that the shell was empty, yet the claim was for delivery in May 2008 (a mere 11 months later). Then, in October 2007, the message was that they would fly in March 2008. It didn't fly until December 2009. Finally, things quieted. It was obvious that engineers were taking the lead. 

Modified: 01/24/2013

Groundings

Airlines need to protect their customers and their crew, thereby their reputations. Engineers need to be able to work things, as necessary. Marketing? Management? Other players? Such as?

The arm-chair critic, for one. Well, amuse yourself with this blog.

    http://engineermemes.blogspot.ca/

------- later in the day -------

CNN report. Earlier, a Japanese airline, or two, had decided to ground its aircraft. Now, FAA has made a similar decision. We will watch this closely. The hope is to be flying soon.

from CNN report

Aside: We got started here in 2007 because there was an announcement that a major section was ready to ship from a supplier. And, I knew that it could not be true from what I seen two years before. Well, the piece did ship. Boeing put pieces together. Then, it had the audacity (ah, engineers, don't you love those marketeers) to roll out an empty shell under great fanfare (some termed this a potemkin affair). You know, everyone had the expectation that the thing could fly soon. You know how long it took to get to the flying state? Several parts of a year. Now, of course, as problems surfaced, engineering found ways to get things to work. Eventually, the marketing view was told to let engineering take the lead. That thing of idiots driving the world is one big problem with the world, but everyone knows that do we not. We'll visit the issue, again, as we're getting to where complicated states will require, continually, our collective intelligence, with minimal gaming. It was about that time that the financial idiocy was coming out. You see, the engineers finally got the 787 out, albeit there may be still things that need to be worked out. Finance? Ben has done his best to float the idiots. It was just a little while ago that Jamie was arguing that they knew what they were doing and ought to self-regulate. Then, the whale plopped in his lap, poor guy. Fortunately, there are people looking into these matters, such as Rick Bookstaber (his post points to related research).

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Now, we all ought to consider that complexity is something that ought to keep us from hubris (see Business, as stupid - written before I knew about Rick's post). We have two factors that are at large here. Mathematics and its descent into common use is a prime one. That applies in this case (we noted that earlier) and in business. It's really the same failing for both engineering and business (where these two do not overlap, okay?). In case of business program management, we have ideas that "risk" has been conquered; just think back to idiotic claims in the 2007/2008 time frame. I know, Ben with his largess has open a spigot to imaginary bucks that has aerated the gaming (so what that the DOW is up? tell me, please, in detail, what is behind that? now, please, follow it up with something of value that is real? can you find some balance in your analysis? oh, you're considering that we've hocked the future for our progeny?). Now, engineering has similar problems. Their success with modeling, especially dynamic systems, has caused many to run off as if a model equals reality (again, we can go into depth here and intend to).

What is the second factor? Human nature. In the case of business, it's all of the greed and other positions that push toward things like dark pools and other idiocies. Too, you get people, like the ad-men, using analysis to look for soft parts of yourself (as in, trying to determine how to lure your little arse into a compromising position, essentially). In engineering? It's the complexity, and a bunch of guys, usually, pushing mathematics, perhaps, way beyond its limits. My mathematician friend/mentor always complained that engineers just read the book. They don't prove theorems or work derivations (as in, guys, from a foundation'l sense, tell me why your methods work and what might be their limits). Oh, it computes (acknowledging, of course, that all of these issues go back to that artificial creation of ours) is sufficient? From whence do you make that to be your verification? Oh, because the computer model agrees with what you see in the real world?

Now, as said before, with engineering, you can test in reality (finance cannot do this the same way). With a plane, you can fly the thing, put it through some paces that are significant, and measure performance in the testing situation. Earlier, I left the engineering side alone since the financial idiots were still running amok. Will this latest event push me back to some balanced view? After all, we do have engineering failures. Many times, though, they seem to point back to human failure. I'm not so sure that such is always the case, albeit it is nice when we can do that (to be human is to err - nice little excuse, too many times). 

Remarks:

07/15/2013 -- A fire late last week bring an opportunity to see what goes into determining whether to do composite repair or to undergo a section replacement.

03/12/2013 -- Boeing has fixes that it wants to test.

02/28/2013 -- Boeing has proposed a solution; FAA is reviewing.

01/24/2013 -- Article from New York -- The Digital Skeptic: Dreamliner Brings iPhone 'Reliability' to the Skies. With something as complex as the 787, how many operational issues can be expected to crop up (at 35K feet -- rhetorical answer? A bunch.)? A student paper at Uniz of Az looks at 787 outsourcing (see Mahmoodi). Boeing Tech Fellow's cautionary note, on outsourcing (2001 - there was quite a bit of discussion at the 2004 conference in LA, to boot, about matters of technical design -- also, whistle blower?). Related, 787 blog.

01/23/2013 -- A look at the battery and related comments. Worth a read.

01/21/2013 -- WSJ has a nice recap from the beginning.

01/20/2013 -- WSJ story from the flightblogger.

01/18/2013 -- Problems, such as those alluded to in this blog, wouldn't have happened under Mullaly? Alan was an engineer; so, he knew his stuff and airplanes. Too bad that we can't go back and see how he would have handled all of those issues over the past few years. I would suggest this: no potemkin event.

01/17/2013 -- One criticism, that might stand up (we'll see), is that engineering took the back seat many (perhaps, too many) times.

Modified: 07/15/2013

Summary, 2012

The blog got its start in August of 2007. As of today, there have been 234 posts with 18 categories. The most read of the Categories is Minsky's model.

Past 30 days                              All time

The image shows the most-read posts for the Past 30 days and for All time.

• Of late (Past 30 days) - Confoundedness (Poll 7) comes from the summer of 2009 when expectations  concerned the planned start of the flight testing. There was an associated poll. At the time, the blog had switched to looking at the economic downturn and its causes. The program seemed to be on its way with a new schedule, however wrinkle came to fore. However, testing continued with first delivery occurring on September 26, 2011.  
• Since the beginning (All time) - Wing and body talks about a design issue that may have been related to the problem reported in summer of 2009. A continuing discussion from that occurrence would consider the need to keep ties between systems, their states, and the reality that they model. The issue really revolves around equivalences twixt computational model and nature. 

The number of posts show that there was more activity in 2008 (82) and 2009 (60). Of late, the post activity has wound down, to wit 2010 (21), 2011 (26), and 2012 (13). 

Remarks:

12/23/2012 --  This blog followed Truth Engineering by about a month. Motivation arose after a supplier for the 787 program said that they were rolling out something that would snap into place with other pieces. And, after the Company said that they could snap pieces together in a matter of days and that they were ready to put pieces together and to roll out a plane that would be ready to go into testing, more or less. Of course, it was after the 7/8/7 roll out, with tremendous fanfare, that the blog started.. People were scrutinizing photos taken at the roll out to see what was in the plane. Flightblogger was raising a clamor about seeing empty space. Then, the truth came out about the thing (mostly empty shell) that was rolled out not being ready. Luckily for some, the finance idiocy fell apart, big time, which took interest away. And, the Company eventually got the engineering focus the priority that it needed, and the engineers accomplished what needed to be done. 

Modified: 12/23/2012