There’s a good distinction made in Is Your Chart a Detective Story? Or a Police Report? between visualization as explorations of data and communication of insights. Often these two purposes are in conflict with each other.
Thursday, September 10, 2020 →
Evidently I haven’t been in the office for a while! Should take me a full day just to catch up on Dilbert.
In defence of “poisonous" models ☠️🧮
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
Skipping past the unnecessarily dramatic title, The Broken Algorithm That Poisoned American Transportation does make some useful points. As seems typical though these days, the good points are likely not the ones a quick reader would take away. My guess is most people see the headline and think that transportation demand models (TDMs) are inherently broken. Despite my biases, I don’t think this is actually true.
For me, the most important point is about a third of the way through:
nearly everyone agreed the biggest question is not whether the models can yield better results, but why we rely on them so much in the first place. At the heart of the matter is not a debate about TDMs or modeling in general, but the process for how we decide what our cities should look like.
Models are just a tool for helping guide decisions. Ideally we would use them to compare alternatives and pick a favoured “vector” of change (rough direction and magnitude). Then with continuous monitoring and refinements throughout the project’s lifecycle, we can guide decisions towards favoured outcomes. This is why scenario planning, sensitivity tests, and clear presentation of uncertainty are so important. This point is emphasized later in the article:
civil engineers doing the modeling tend to downplay the relevance of the precise numbers and speak more broadly about trends over time. Ideally, they argue, policymakers would run the model with varying population forecasts, land use patterns, and employment scenarios to get a range of expectations. Then, they would consider what range of those expectations the project actually works for.
Although I’m not a civil engineer, this sounds right to me! I get that people want certainty and precise numbers, I just don’t think anyone can provide these things. Major infrastructure projects have inherent risks and uncertainty. We need to acknowledge this and use judgement, along with a willingness to adjust over time. There is no magical crystal ball that can substitute for deliberation. [Me working from home:🧙♂️🔮]
Fortunately for the modellers among us, the article does acknowledge that we’re getting better:
As problematic as they have been, the models have gotten smarter. Especially in the last decade or so, more states are working from dynamic travel models that more closely reflect how humans actually behave. They are better at taking into consideration alternate modes of transportation like biking, walking, and public transportation. And, unlike previous versions, they’re able to model how widening one section of road might create bottlenecks in a different section.
But, wait:
Still, experts warn that unless we change the entire decision-making process behind these projects, a better model won’t accomplish anything. The models are typically not even run—and the results presented to the public—until after a state department of transportation has all but settled on a preferred project.
😔 Maybe it wasn’t the model’s fault after all.
This brings as back to the earlier point: we should be favouring more sophisticated decision-making processes, not just more sophisticated models.
I enjoyed The Shadow of What Was Lost by James Islington. A reasonably complex plot with mystery and adventure, along with some good characters. The word building has lots of potential and the rules for the magic make sense. I was a bit intimidated by the length, given it is part one of a trilogy, but it is nice to get immersed in a good, long book. 📚🧙♂️
Owen is excited to get the Nintendo Switch Ring Adventure. Staying active during COVID-19 has been difficult and this should help 🏃♂️🎮
My favourite part of the run along the Grand river 🏃♂️
Catastrophe drives evolution. But life resides in the pauses | Aeon Essays is a good overview of why the pace of evolution ebbs and flows over time
Fascinating:
They found that for individual cells, this power minimum hovers around a zeptowatt, or 10−21 watts. That is roughly the power required to lift one-thousandth of a grain of salt one nanometer once a day.
I miss this view already
Lower Decks is great fun for this Star Trek fan 🖖
Never did catch those ducks
Still getting along
We’ve tired out the dog
Feels like a vacation
Poured rain all day yesterday. So we’re a day late for the Highland Yard run. We didn’t want to miss supporting this important cause!
In the lake within a few minutes of arriving
I’m ready for my vacation to start!
Even though I knew how it ends, Free Solo is still an intense movie. I appreciated how Sanni (Alex’s girlfriend) and the video crew became important parts of the story
Reading Shortcut for the iPad 👓⚙️
Sunday, July 26, 2020
I haven’t yet adopted the minimalist style of my iPhone for my iPad. Rather, I’ve found that setting up “task oriented” Shortcuts on my home screen is a good alternative to arranging lots of app icons.
The one I use the most is a “Reading” Shortcut, since this is my dominant use of the iPad. Nothing particularly fancy. Just a list of potential reading sources and each one starts up a Timery timer, since I like to track how much time I’m reading.
Here’s a screenshot of the first few actions:
I like the bit of whimsy from using emoticons:
- 📚 for Apple Books
- 💵 for The Economist
- 📰 for NetNewsWire
- 👓 for Safari Reading List
A nice feature of using a Shortcut for this is that I can add other actions, such as turning on Do Not Disturb or starting a specific playlist. I can also add and subtract reading sources over time, depending on my current habits. For example, the first one was Libby for a while, since I was reading lots of library books.
This is another example of how relatively simple Shortcuts can really help optimize how you use your iOS devices.