Weekly Edition
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Quotes of the week
Ok, guys. Cage fight!
— Linus Torvalds's new decision-making process
The rules are simple: two men enter, one man leaves. And the one who comes out gets to explain to me which patch(es) I should apply, and which I should revert, if any.
And yes, that is the thing about "fairness" -- there are a great
many definitions, many of the most useful of which appear to many
to be patently unfair.
— Paul McKenney
This isn't the message that's gone over, and even for device
drivers everyone seems to be taking the whole device tree thing as
a move to pull all data out of the kernel. In some cases there are
some real practical advantages to doing this but a lot of the
people making these changes seem to view having things in DT as a
goal in itself.
— Mark Brown
My spinning head fell on the floor and is now drilling its way to
China.
— Andrew Morton(Log in to post comments)
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 9:03 UTC (Thu) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]
"You know the thing about chaos? It's fair." - the Joker
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 11:02 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] For a certain value of "fair". You will have trouble convincing a regular person that a meteorite falling from the sky and killing someone (as a result of the chaotic nature of our solar system) is "fair". Or that tornadoes and other atmospheric phenomena (big chaotic messes) are fair.It is a good example of an unfair definition of "fairness".
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 11:20 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
That "certain value" being the most strict meaning of the term: they are unbiased.
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 11:37 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Then that definition is wrong. While chaotic systems are "random" (i.e. impossible to predict), they are most certainly biased. Tornadoes are more likely to strike in America than in Europe, and in spring than in winter. Meteorites are more likely to strike during the Perseids than at any other time. It is not strange: after all a biased coin is still random, only that the probability of heads and tails is not 50/50.The relationship between randomness, fairness and bias is interesting. You can use a different definition for "fair" which equates to "random", but I don't think it is going to be very useful. There is always bias and fairness only protects you so much against it. Another example (since the horse is still in a comma and needs a few extra blows): a tax inspector chooses her victims at random. Is it fair? No, because poor people don't have so many money. Another one chooses his victims weighted by income; is it fair? No, because rich people will complain. Another one maximizes her expectancy for catching extra taxes; is it fair? And so on.
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 14:24 UTC (Thu) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Bias, according to Oxford Dictionary at least, is relative to people:
"inclination or prejudice for or against one person or group, especially in a way considered to be unfair."
Certainly, chaotic systems do not prefer any particular person or group.
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 18:31 UTC (Thu) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Interesting. To pull it off you had to take the technical meaning of "fair" as "unbiased", and then take the common meaning of "bias" that you quote. Unfortunately this second meaning clearly refers to "unfair", so we have a circular definition.In the wikipedia there are many other definitions of "bias", even in statistics. The sense of "a biased coin" is not obvious from any of them by the way. I am starting to see what Paul McKenney meant by his phrase, it's brilliant!
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 29, 2012 19:05 UTC (Thu) by nevets (subscriber, #11875) [Link]
My Japanese karate master told me: "The only way to treat everyone fairly, is to treat everyone differently."
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 30, 2012 9:57 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
I would go even further: treat everyone randomly. That would be absolutely fair (it won't make you very popular, though).
(Note to mingo: this is NOT a suggestion to change CFS.)
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 30, 2012 12:39 UTC (Fri) by micka (subscriber, #38720) [Link]
> (Note to mingo: this is NOT a suggestion to change CFS.)
That would sure be interesting to see though (except for the volumne of random numbers needed).
Quotes of the week Posted Nov 30, 2012 23:49 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]
Well, you can always ask Kolivas. I'm sure he's crazy enough to try something like this (and actually make it run).
Quotes of the week Posted Dec 6, 2012 9:27 UTC (Thu) by dakas (guest, #88146) [Link]
I suggest that you check the respective breast cancer rates for females and males.
Quotes of the week Posted Dec 6, 2012 15:16 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
Even there, you're almost certainly using a "wrong" definition of bias and/or random.
Breast cancer picks on people with big breasts. Ever heard of "moobs"?
Cheers,
Fairness Posted Dec 3, 2012 3:30 UTC (Mon) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] I think there actually are plenty of people who would call tornado damage fair, simply because everyone had an equal prior chance to be hit. For the damage to be unfair, for these people, the tornado would have to have been manipulated by someone (or maybe someone tricked or forced the person to live in a tornado-prone area). I once asked a libertarian friend of mine, after he had been disabled by a freak accident, if he thought fairness demanded that society compensate him with things like free bus rides and good parking spaces. He said no, because, basically, the accident happened to him fair and square. So yes, there are all kinds of fair.
Fairness Posted Dec 3, 2012 9:49 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Nihilists would be happy with that definition (as is the Joker). Luckily we can have our own human concept of fairness and live with it, unless (or until) the mechanistic view of nature wins again this round.
Fairness Posted Dec 3, 2012 10:33 UTC (Mon) by neilbrown (subscriber, #359) [Link]
I believe that the "human concept of fairness" you are thinking of is at best a misuse of the word and at worst a self-deception.
"It's not fair" is what children cry when they want their own way and "I'm just being fair" is what those in power use to justify their mistreatment of others. "fair" is a very lame concept. If the best we can aim for is to be "fair" then we are little better than the Joker. A much more wholesome goal is to be generous. Aim to give people more than they deserve. Don't be fair - be gracious. People will still complain, because they will think you are being more generous to someone else - but then you will never stop some people from complaining.
Fairness might not demand free bus rides, but generosity would certainly suggest them.
Fairness Posted Dec 3, 2012 16:07 UTC (Mon) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
>>> I once asked a libertarian friend of mine, after he had been disabled by a freak accident, if he thought fairness demanded that society compensate him with things like free bus rides and good parking spaces.
> Fairness might not demand free bus rides, but generosity would certainly suggest them.
Agreed, so long as they are provided voluntarily, and not by coercion. There is a world of difference between freely offering what generosity suggests, without obligation, and giving in to a demand for compensation from "society", meaning in fact coercion against those who did one no harm, but were simply more fortunate than oneself.
Fairness Posted Dec 6, 2012 15:19 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
This then falls foul of the fact that coerced "generosity" actually results in the majority being better off ...
Take whooping cough, for example. We've just had a nasty outbreak. Providing free vaccinations means we don't have many victims and the average person benefits far more than the cost.
Cheers,
Fairness Posted Dec 6, 2012 17:02 UTC (Thu) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] Providing free vaccinations means we don't have many victims and the average person benefits far more than the cost. That's an example of an entirely different thing. There is no generosity or fairness involved. People who volunteer to pay to vaccinate other people are doing so out of selfishness. The person being vaccinated may benefit from a positive externality (a by-product of the payer protecting himself from the disease), but is not the recipient of a gift or an evening out of wealth. It's also an example of increased efficiency (ergo increased overall societal wealth, but not necessarily fairly distributed) that can sometimes be had by central management of a society (as opposed to a system of individual choices).
Fairness Posted Dec 3, 2012 16:17 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] I believe that the "human concept of fairness" you are thinking of is at best a misuse of the word and at worst a self-deception.I prefer the self-deception. In your message you are saying more about yourself than about fairness, as it happens. Generosity is as much a playground concept as fairness: children shout "you have to share!" when they want the other child's toy, and politicians say "Generosity will save you" when they want to cut social aids. Human concepts come out of our hearts and have nothing to do with cruel mother Nature, who just wants to bounce Its particles around. Finally, they can be twisted by evil people, and unless you believe with Socrates that your inner daemon will prevent you from doing evil, there is nothing you can do. But enough of this OT thread, for me at least.
Fairness Posted Dec 6, 2012 9:22 UTC (Thu) by yeti-dn (guest, #46560) [Link]
Surely it is self-deception if your idea of generosity includes that it can be enforced on you.
Fairness Posted Dec 6, 2012 15:50 UTC (Thu) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
Not at all, certainly it's still generous if we, as a group, decide to be generous, even if some individual part of the group does not agree with the consensus opinion.
Fairness Posted Dec 6, 2012 18:56 UTC (Thu) by nybble41 (subscriber, #55106) [Link]
Generosity and theft are mutually exclusive.
Moreover, so long as there is dissent within the group you do not have a "consensus opinion". To achieve consensus, you can either persuade the rest of the group to voluntarily endorse your view, or exclude the dissenters from the group. If your aim is to be "generous", those excluded must not be harmed by the actions of the consensus group (see above).
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