#social emotional etc batteries are real low right now

[anadorablekiwi]

Im so glad i have tomorrow off because ive been depression doomscrolling for over an hour

[cookierunauprompts]

Sun & Star dynamic (Arcane + Golden):

Yay!! Let’s talk about this once tragic yuri, the girlies of all time! We’ve all heard of the sun and moon dynamics in all sorts of mediums, mayhaps even the rare moon and star dynamic as well. But never the sun and stars, never them. So… what would this dynamic be like? To answer that were look at the pair no one expected in our small little community, that of Arcane egg and Golden Butter. Let’s see how they fit into this lovely polycule- let’s go!

Important note: these notes / document sections will mostly be going over the dynamic of the main storyline and after the three get together. There will be brief mentions of before the fall- but unfortunately we don’t have much info on Goldie be for the fall. Besides that before the fall the two had a very close friendship, like very close! 

-first of all, no one saw this coming. So to say the least this is a very low-key dynamic. No one really saw this coming- not even the parties involved.

-but this relationship makes sense. Their very similar to each other so they mesh well, and where they do differ from each other they still mesh.

-their both kind and considerate people, both have very bubbly excitable sides, their crafts are very similar in quite a few aspects! Even if arcane has many, MANY crafts. (She’s very flexible) etc.

-Like the sun and stars their made of the same stuff, there's a warmth to the two of them. A vibrancy!

-they are both introverts! But they’re two different flavors of introverts. Golden is what one might call a more… traditional introvert. quiet, a bit more soft spoken, private about their feelings, social interactions tend to drain her batteries, etc etc. While arcane need’s social interactions a lot more, she tends to be loud, a bit clumsy, she has a long array of friends, etc. but she’s still very much an introvert.

-as a result when they're not recharging by themselves they tend to recharge together. They usually pop in a movie and just chill, they might do something with their hands. Arcane might chatter quietly mindlessly, but she doesn’t expect an answer; she just does that naturally. Otherwise they just bask in each other's presence. It’s soothing really, basking in each others natural light~ (I’m so cheesy :D)

-and even in their differences they compliment each other, arcane is more emotional / feels their emotions very strongly. As a result of this and their strong empathy they pick up the mood shifts in others easily, even if they can’t really identify what’s wrong. So they are able to sense when something is bothering their precious Goldie. Really helps their very emotionally intelligent, even if they don’t word it quite right sometimes.

-Another thing from Arcane is that she's a very silly cookie! Not the obvious type of silly and theater kid that shadow milk is, but she is silly. Example when you hug her she can choose to make squeaky toy noises. It entertains Golden immensely!

-Now, for Golden. She’s a very… peaceful cookie is how I would describe it. Arcane finds peace with her, her buzzing mind quiets around her. If only a little bit. Goldie’s very presence actually helps Arcane sleep, for even when she isn’t haunted by an otherworldly force. She’s a bit of an insomniac.

-Golden is also a fellow creator! They get to share that joy together, go through the process of making and then redrafting over and over- together! Her more….stoic nature helps arcane a lot as well, arcane doesn’t have to be anxious around her. She doesn’t feel shame, it puts Arcanes heart at ease.

-… the two do… envy each other, if only a little bit. Or they used to.

-Golden was envious of Arcanes' vibrancy, her morals, her creations at times even. She was like the sun, warm, enviting, and energetic. Her will though- that was the real kicker. Her defiance, her willingness to dream of a better world. Her fire to make it so… she was everything she never was….right? She was just a star, a small blip in the sky. Arcane was the sun- she was not.

-But Arcane was envious as well, sure she was the sun! But… but everyone loved her, they loved Golden's light. She was like inspiration herself, she inspired creation. They all loved her too! They spoke of her gentleness, her kindness, her grace, her… her everything. But Arcane…? She was TOO much. Her robotics were… unnerving to cookie kind, her dealings with the spirit world? Too weird, too creepy. She was often described as too intense, a little destructive at times with how enthusiastic and clumsy she could get.

-………. Hell….. her precious moon was in the same sky as her- they…. They were perfect together….. they were perfect without her…. maybe the sun was always destined to be apart from the glittering night sky- from her moon. From her star…. How tragic…

-or, maybe not. Maybe… the stars and sun could learn from each other? Share their light? Their warmth? Yeah… they may be able to reconcile yet- they're from the same thread after all. They can get each other in a way most couldn’t, quitely.

——————————————————————————————————

so? Wha chu think? Anything you want to add, I really want to add more but my brain is not cooperating! Anyways I hope you enjoyed! Have a good one!

YURI!!! i love them, i love them so much

tbh they deserve to be happy together. love that for them

also this is the funniest gbc timeline because they both left Shadow Milk in the dust in favor of Yuri and honestly that's a girlboss moment. Shadow Milk dies because of the power of yuri/j

[saeyoungs-sunflower]

Matchup for @nad-zeta! (Milestone Celebration)

Zeta, my sweet sweet Zeta, here’s your matchup! You have been such an angel, both in your patience and your general loveliness.💛 I’m sorry it took a little longer than expected, but I hope it was worth the wait! It’s pretty long (~3000 words lolllll) so it’s all under the cut. Sorry, I got carried away! :’) xx

So, without further ado, based on the information you gave me I matched you with...

Saeyoung!

take care of my bby pls

I feel like I need to say that I kept going back and forth between him and Zen. Zen was a VERY close second, so I kinda half match you up with him too. That being said, there were some things you mentioned that made me lean more towards Saeyoung, which will be explained below :))

~

Reasoning & General Headcanons!

“🥰 i am a aries, infp, ravenclaw female 🦊”

An Aries you say...?

Need I say more? Absolute chaotic duo. The energy is buzzing, and the people you hang out are always amused by your shenanigans.

As an INFP, you are caring, loyal, and sensitive, which are traits that I believe Saeyoung would benefit from in a partner. He also hides his true emotions well, so someone with your personality type would be able to pick up on the signs that he is feeling low, even if he tries to hide it. Your loyalty and devotion also helps him feel secure, which considering everything he’s been through, is something I feel he would struggle with, particularly in the early stages of a relationship.

On the flip side, Saeyoung is also incredibly loyal. And whilst he does joke around and tease, he knows how sensitive topics and comments can affect someone, so he is never careless, especially since (as an INFP) you often take things to heart. As a team, you work well together because you view the world slightly differently. You’re an idealist, whereas he’s a realist; you focus on the big picture, whereas he has an incredible attention to detail. This is really helpful in difficult conversations, big decisions, plans for the future etc, because whilst your opinions may differ, you offer the other a different side of the story. You get the best of both worlds!

I don’t know my Harry Potter houses very well, but from my memory and a quick Google search, Ravenclaws value knowledge and are wise, intelligent and witty. Sounds familiar? ;) i mean wise is debatable lol. Your conversations are sooo interesting and natural, because you’re both very intelligent in many ways.

“i am pretty shy and difficult to get to know (apparently it took me 2 months to start opening up to my friends, ooops), i tend to bottle up my emotions, my friends would likely describe me as incredibly stubborn, gentle, kind, over dramatic, goofy and fun loving. I am pretty aloof and blunt, like i will 9/10 times tell you to your face how if feel about you if you ask 🙈once u are part of my inner circle i am playful, teasing, i am an extremely sarcastic person that makes snarky remarks under my breath and my kind of humor is a bit of dark and self deprecating.”

Okay, this was one of the key things that made me match you with Saeyoung. A huge reason why I love Saeyoung so much is that there is a high level of comfort in a relationship with him. By that I mean that he is so open and fun that there is literally zero judgment. Judgment is such a foreign concept to him in this kind of situation. He makes you so comfortable that it’s so easy to be yourself around him, and it doesn’t take long for him to get to know you.

GIRL HE’S THE SAME. The king of bottling up his emotions. This means that y’all know when something is up, you can see the signs. You are understanding of each other, so discussions happen and actions are put into place before things become too much.

Saeyoung sometimes just needs to be told when he’s being a lil prick. You are kind and gentle when he needs it, but also can be blunt with him when it gets silly. I mean, if MC was like you towards the end of his route, we would have got through the whole “i’M tOo dAnGeRoUs gEt aWaY” thing SO much more quickly.

Once you’re comfy with him, you become an absolutely unstoppable force. When he teases you, you tease him back. When he’s being playful, you’re his partner in crime. Y’all are so goofy. Your life is full of laughs and joy with Saeyoung.

Sarcastic comments, dark humour and self-deprecating jokes? Yep that’s also very Saeyoung. Sometimes you two have to reel it in a bit when you’re hanging out with others because YOU’RE OUT OF CONTROL TOGETHER.

“I love my friends and family and will fight anyone who threatens them, although when it comes to me, you can do or say anything to me and i wont do anything (I honestly can't stand up for myself).”

IT’S LIKE HE’S LOOKING IN A MIRROR. Seriously though, he knows the importance of self worth because he knows, firsthand, the damage that can be done when you don’t value yourself and your wellbeing. He makes it his mission to help you see how worthy you are of respect and give you confidence to stand up for yourself. Even if you won’t do it for yourself, he’ll stand up for you. He cares too much about his loved ones to let them be treated wrongly.

He feels how much you love him and your other friends/family which makes him feel so secure, and he also has a phenomenal amount of love in his heart to give and he ain’t afraid to do so.

“I swear like a sailor although I am trying to get that under control, however the road rage is real.”

Finds your road rage and swearing SO amusing. Constantly teasing you about it and winding you up, but it’s all in good fun.

Absolutely has a swear jar for you. No doubt about it.

“You’ve corrupted my good, Catholic ears.” “Saeyoung shut the fuck up.”

“I love nature and animals (i love my lil bunnies and dogs), i love working out/going to the gym #gym is life”

I mean, we know he adores cats, and I imagine he loves other animals too.

I also imagine he loves camping, and I don’t even know why. He just gives me camping vibes. Weekends away spent in nature, sleeping in a tent and sitting round a fire in the evenings are pretty common for you.

I know this is ~controversial~ topic in the fandom, but I am of the opinion that Saeyoung also works out.

Do I think he’s completely ripped? No, probably not. But he’s strong, lean at the very least. Even Jaehee admits it! He makes working out so much fun and it’s always a bit of a laugh.

“i enjoy cooking (i am now officially a chef), wine tasting (fancy way of saying getting very tipsy of different wines most nights), spending time with friends (especially if there is tea to be spilt) although i do need lots of alone time to recharge my social battery”

The first time he tasted your food, he almost cried. Poor boi lived off eating crisps and soda for God knows how long.

“Wait, you’re not meant to constantly feel like you're gonna throw up? Food is meant to have...flavour???”

Help him

Saeyoung is pretty social, but also needs time to recharge like you, though he can go a bit longer than you and doesn’t easily get drained by social interactions. This may seem like a problem when you spend time with friends, but it’s actually such a blessing. If you’re feeling exhausted when socialising, he knows and will “take the wheel” if you will. There’s nothing worse than trying to keep a conversation going or seeming upbeat when you literally don’t have the energy, so Saeyoung is there to help you out. He’s also super good at politely and subtly taking you out of those situations if you are super drained and need to recharge.

He’s also such a gossip so if you got tea to spill he’s ready to hear it, and you know he ALWAYS has tea to spill. Sneaky man

“i like conspiracies, reading, writing (Fanfics and im busy with my Masters in nutrition >“<), rom coms, and  sleeping. As much as i love spending time outdoor i also enjoy lazing around the house being a lazy potato.”

Discussions about conspiracies over dinner lol. He is in possession of some...top secret information, so those conversations are very interesting and eye opening ;)

He LOVES to read your writing. It literally doesn’t matter what it’s about, he finds it truly fascinating. It’s a little glimpse into who you are, and it’s something you created!!! By yourself!!!! HE LOVES THAT. Always impressed with what you write, every time. He’s so proud.

ROM COMS WHILST CUDDLING ON THE COUCH

He’s a cryer, he loves rom coms.

He works super hard, so he’s always down to have a lazy day with you!!

“I definitely zone out and daydream all the freaken time and tend to blush easily which i hate 🙈 i definitely dont like crowds and loud sounds (ie you will never find me in a club). I am a picky eater despite my degree in cooking (i basically only eat candy, carbs and protein)”

He. loves. Making. You. blush. I’m sorry, but it’s one of his favourite things. He thinks it’s so adorable, so prepare for all the teasing, lewd jokes and general flirtiness that’ll get your cheeks burning ;)

He’s not keen on crowds either, so that’s not a problem!! I imagine he occasionally goes on night’s out with the bois (and by bois I mean usually just Zen and Yoosung LOL) but he’s not often out until super late, and he’s super respectful of you. Would never ask you to do something or go somewhere that makes you uncomfortable.

“i love cuddles although i look like someone that wouldn’t. Ive been told i come across as calm and confident, while in truth on the inside i am really scared and insecure.   I am incredibly awkward when it comes to boys and have been told my sarcastic comments are x100 when i talk to them (oops).”

CUDDLE MONSTER. I actually think he’s the biggest cuddler in the RFA. Controversial I know, but damn Saeyoung loves a cuddle. He’s a spontaneous cuddler. Like it doesn’t matter what the situation is, if you need a cuddle or he just fancies one, he’ll find a way.

He sees right through your calmness and confidence, because he’s exactly the same. This puts him in the perfect position to reassure you and lift you up. He’s a great hype man!

He finds your awkwardness adorable, and your sarcastic comments just make him love you even more! He has a good sense of humour and doesn’t take things too seriously if they don’t need to be, so he’s constantly laughing with you and easing your mind in the very early stages of your relationship.

“I am very go with the flow, and i never burn my bridges 🙈 i am very forgive and forget🦊, like no matter how badly you hurt me.”

Based on what happens on his route, it’s very handy that you are a forgiving person hahah

But again, if Saeyoung thinks you are being treated wrongly and being hurt, he will stand up for you.

His dedication to protecting the ones he loves is STRONG. I mean, look at his relationship with Saeran and the way he is constantly looking out for you in ALL routes.

Of course, he won’t say or do anything to that person if that makes you uncomfortable. Instead, he will constantly reassure you of your self-worth and remind you that you deserve better, but will also support the decisions you make.

If you want to forgive and forget, he will respect that, even if he thinks differently.

“What am i looking for in a potential partner?.... well i definitely think i need someone that could bring me out my shell initially, also someone who isn't too sensitive cause like i said i can be super sarcastic and my jokes kinda match that (like in my family we show out affection for each other via playful insults and savage comments)😂😂”

As I stated above, I think Saeyoung is the best person to help bring you out of your shell. There’s no judgment and no shame with this man.

I find that someone being unapologetically themself is SO contagious, and Saeyoung is exactly that - unapologetically himself.

We’ve all seen his humour, he doesn’t seem to be particularly sensitive either so you’re all good there hahaha. Obviously everyone does have their limits, so whilst their are topics/jokes that would probably make him uncomfortable (e.g. stuff relating to Saeran), overall, he’s chill and ALWAYS ready to joke around with you.

The roast battle is so real with you two LOL

“i kinda want someone stable, hard working, decisive, ambitious and who can push me out of my confort zone and vice versa.🦋”

He goofs around, but there’s no denying that this man works HARD.

Once he leaves the agency and starts his new life with you, I can imagine him being super ambitious and also aiming for stability.

His life before had been so restrictive yet so uncertain. He had to do what he was told, but never knew what was just around the corner.

This makes me think that he would crave the stability and certainty that he never had (a ‘normal’ life, if you will), but also he’d want to try so many things that he hadn’t before. He strikes me as a ‘go big or go home’ kinda guy, so I think it’s safe to say that he would be ambitious in many ways.

The only thing I don’t think he ticks the box on is decisiveness, at least not at the beginning. I think he usually knows what he wants, but rarely acts on that.

“It’s up to you”, “whatever you want” and “I don’t mind” are very common phrases for him lol. I think he would learn to be more decisive once he gets comfortable. I also think he has his moments of assertiveness though, when he’s in the right mood.

“Also someone who is family oriented and loving (someone that can cuddle me when im having a bad day)☺ and someone who can make me laugh, cause i love joking around so i kinda think i need someone who could match that🌻”

SAEYOUNG. IS. SUCH. A. FAMILY. MAN.

Again, look at what he’s done for Saeran and how deeply he cares for and loves him. A ‘normal’ family was something that was absent in his life, so when he has his own family (whether that be a found family or one he made) he would cherish that so strongly, maybe more than most.

SAEYOUNG. IS. A. CUDDLE. MONSTER.

He could be working at his desk and suddenly think “you know what? It’s snuggle time” and then he would search the house for you to give you The Snuggle™

Again, he’s also VERY observant and his attention to detail is impeccable, so he can instantly tell if you’re having a bad day and will act accordingly - aka SNUGGLE TIME

I mean, need I say more? If you want someone who makes you laugh, Saeyoung is the guy. There is never a dull day when he’s around, and the house is always filled with laughter!

So yeah....that’s my reasoning :’)) now onto your very own drabble!! This is all yours, so if there’s anything you’d like me to change or add, PLEASE let me know!! I’m more than happy to edit anything to make it more personalised for you, just shoot me a message and I’ll be on it, same goes for anything I’ve said above!!🥰

~

Drabble!

“Saeyoung! Can you come here a second?”

You called out to him from the kitchen, stirring from a pot whilst its contents quietly bubbled away. You could hear the music blaring from his headphones all the way from the other room, with the occasional hum or drum on his desk. Evidently, he hadn’t heard you.

“SAEYOUNG CHOI GET YOUR FINE ASS IN HERE.”

The music ceased, followed by rapid pattering as he darted into the room, nearly skidding round the doorway. 

“I heard ‘fine ass’ and here I am,” he smirked, sauntering over to you and snaking his strong, secure arms around your middle. He swayed you from side to side, planting a wet kiss on your cheek, much to your dismay. Saeyoung merely chuckled, resting his chin on your shoulder, “What do you need, witch lady?”

“Why ‘witch lady’?”

“Well, whatever you’re cooking is giving me witchy vibes. It looks like a potion in a cauldron. Look at you with your double double toil and trouble-OW! Don’t pinch me!”

“Sorry, it’s a witch thing,” you winked, spinning around in his grip so you were face-to-face. “You sure you’re not the witch? You do have the nose for it.”

“I’ve also got the dress and hat in the attic, shall I go put it on?”

“Try this for me first.” You held the wooden spoon out to him as he took a sip, chuckling at the way his brows furrowed in thought.

He smacked his lips a few times, hummed then finally looked back to you, “It’s good.”

“That’s it? That’s all you got?”

“You do realise that my taste buds have essentially been burned off by chips and soda, right? I have no idea if something’s bad or not.”

“You’re right. I should call Jumin.”

“You can’t,” he informed, his smirk growing ever wider as he moved towards the snack cupboard, “Mr Han has a date tonight.”

The spoon clattered against the counter, your mouth agape, “You’re shitting me.”

“That’s another coin in the swear jar.” Saeyoung chucked a packet of candy in your direction, though it only hit you in the face before falling unceremoniously onto the kitchen floor, “I think we need to get your reflexes checked, babe.”

“Tell me everything.”

He took a seat on a breakfast stool and chortled as you leaned over the counter, eyes showing your eagerness to hear the gossip. And he was more than happy to provide, “He appears to be really into her. Like, really into her. She seems to just get him, you know? I could hear his smile down the phone when he told me about her earlier.”

“Earlier? Why are you only just telling me this now?!”

“Do you wanna hear the rest of it or not?”

Huffing, you perched on the seat next to him, stealing a piece of his candy despite his look of horror, “Okay, well where did he meet such a woman?”

“You’re never gonna believe it.”

“Try me.”

Saeyoung was enjoying himself far too much. He couldn’t wait another moment to witness your reaction, “She’s Zen’s co-star.”

“NO.”

“YES.”

The tea had been spilt, and things were about to get very interesting within the RFA.

Your eyes were glued to his as he continued to disclose the details. At some point you had wrapped your arm around his, his other hand encompassing yours. He abruptly stopped halfway through describing the first encounter, causing you to quirk an eyebrow impatiently, “What?”

“Do you smell burning?”

“...Fuck.”

“And another one for the swear jar.”

~

@nad-zeta​ there we go my love, I hope you enjoyed your matchup!! I am so grateful for your support, it never fails to make me smile when I see you pop up in my notifs. You are beautiful, kind, bright person and you deserve the world. Thank you again for all you’ve done and all you do💛💛 Take care of yourself, my friend! xxx

(Note for other readers: I usually don’t do matchups, this was for a special occasion! I doubt I’ll open up requests for them later on, but never say never!)

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#3yrsago Weapons of Math Destruction: invisible, ubiquitous algorithms are ruining millions of lives

I've been writing about the work of Cathy "Mathbabe" O'Neil for years: she's a radical data-scientist with a Harvard PhD in mathematics, who coined the term "Weapons of Math Destruction" to describe the ways that sloppy statistical modeling is punishing millions of people every day, and in more and more cases, destroying lives. Today, O'Neil brings her argument to print, with a fantastic, plainspoken, call to arms called (what else?)  Weapons of Math Destruction.

Discussions about big data's role in our society tends to focus on algorithms, but the algorithms for handling giant data sets are all well understood and work well. The real issue isn't algorithms, it's models. Models are what you get when you feed data to an algorithm and ask it to make predictions. As O'Neil puts it, "Models are opinions embedded in mathematics."

Other critical data scientists, like Patrick Ball from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group have located their critique in the same place. As Patrick once explained to me, you can train an algorithm to predict someone's height from their weight, but if your whole training set comes from a grade three class, and anyone who's self-conscious about their weight is allowed to skip the exercise, your model will predict that most people are about four feet tall. The problem isn't the algorithm, it's the training data and the lack of correction when the model produces erroneous conclusions.

Like Ball, O'Neil is enthusiastic about the power of data-driven modelling to be a force for good in the world, and like Ball, she despairs at the way that sloppy statistical work can produce gigantic profits for a few companies at the expense of millions of people -- all with the veneer of mathematical objectivity.

O'Neil calls these harmful models "Weapons of Math Destruction," and not all fault models qualify. For a model to be a WMD, it must be opaque to its subjects, harmful to their interests, and grow exponentially to run at huge scale.

These WMDs are now everywhere. The sleazy for-profit educational system has figured out how to use models to identify desperate people and sucker them into signing up for expensive, useless "educations" that are paid for with punitive student loans, backed by the federal government. That's how the University of Phoenix can be so profitable, even after spending upwards of $1B/year on marketing. They've built a WMD that brings students in at a steady clip despite the fact that they spend $2,225/student in marketing and only $892/student on instruction. Meanwhile, the high-efficacy, low-cost community colleges are all but invisible in the glare and roar of the University of Phoenix's marketing blitzkreig.

One highly visible characteristic of WMDs is their lack of feedback and tuning. In sports, teams use detailed statistical models to predict which athletes they should bid on, and to deploy those athletes when squaring off against opposing teams. But after the predicted event has occurred, the teams update their models to account for their failings. If you pass on a basketball player who goes to glory for a rival team, you update your model to help you do better in the next draft.

Compare this with the WMDs used against us in everyday life. The largest employers in America use commercial services to run their incoming resumes against a model of a "successful" worker. These models hold your employment future in their hands. If one rejects you and you go on to do brilliant work somewhere else, that fact is never used to refine the model. Everyone loses: job-seekers are arbitrarily excluded from employment, and employers miss out on great hires. Only the WMD merchants in the middle make out like bandits.

It's worth asking how we got here. Many forms of WMD were deployed as an answer to institutional bias -- in criminal sentencing, in school grading, in university admissions, in hiring and lending. The models are supposed to be race- and gender-blind, blind to privilege and connections.

But all too often, the models are trained with the biased data. The picture of a future successful Ivy League student or loan repayer is painted using data-points from the admittedly biased history of the institutions. All the Harvard grads or dutiful mortgage payers are fed to the algorithm, which dutifully predicts that tomorrow's Harvard alums and prime loan recipients will look just like yesterday's -- but now the bias gets the credibility of seeming objectivity.

This training problem is well known in stats, but largely ignored by WMD dealers. Companies that run their own Big Data initiatives, by contrast, are much more careful about refining their models. Amazon carefully tracks those customers who abandon their shopping carts, or who stop shopping after a couple of purchases. Their interested in knowing everything they can about "recidivism" among shoppers, and they combine statistical modelling with anthropology -- seeking out and talking to their subjects -- to improve their system.

The contrast with automated sentencing software -- now widely used in the US judicial system, and spreading rapidly around the world -- could not be more stark. Like Amazon's data scientists, the companies that sell sentencing apps are trying to predict recidivism, and their predictions can send one person to prison for decades and let another go free.

These brokers are training their model on the corrupted data of the past. They look at the racialized sentencing outcomes of the past -- the outcomes that sent young black men to prison for years for minor crack possession, while letting rich white men walk away from cocaine possession charges -- and conclude that people from poor neighborhoods, whose family members and friends have had run-ins with the law, and "predict" that this person will reoffend, and recommend long sentences to keep them away from society.

Unlike Amazon, these companies aren't looking to see whether longer sentences cause recidivism (by causing emotional damage and social isolation) and how prison beatings, solitary confinement and prison rape are related to the phenomenon. If the prison system was run like Amazon -- that is, with a commitment to reducing reoffending, rather than enriching justice-system contractors and satisfying revenge-hungry bigots in the electorate -- it would probably look like a Nordic prison: humane, sparsely populated, and oriented toward rehabilitation, addiction treatment, job training, and psychological counselling.

WMDs have transformed education for teachers and students. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration seized on a report called A Nation at Risk, which claimed that the US was on the verge of collapse due to its falling SAT scores. This was the starter-pistol for an all-out assault on teachers and public education, which continues to this day.

The most visible expression of this is the "value added" assessment of teachers, which uses a battery of standardized tests to assess teachers' performance from year to year. The statistical basis for these assessments is laughable (statistics work on big numbers, not classes of 25 kids -- assessments can swing 90% from one year to the next, making them no better than random number generators). Teachers -- good teachers, committed teachers -- lose their jobs over these tests.

Students, meanwhile, are taken away from real learning in order to take more and more tests, and those tests -- which are supposed to measure "aptitude" and thus shouldn't be amenable to expensive preparatory services -- determine their whole futures.

The Nation at Risk report that started it all turned out to be bullshit, by the way -- grounded in another laughable statistical error. Sandia Labs later audited the findings from the report and found that the researchers had failed to account for the ballooning number of students who were taking the SATs, bringing down the average score.

In other words: SATs were falling because more American kids were confident enough to try to go to college: the educational system was working so well that young people who would never have taken an SAT were taking it, and the larger pool of test-takers was bringing the average score down.

WMDs turn the whole of human life into a game of Search Engine Optimization. With SEO, merchants hire companies who claim to have reverse-engineered Google's opaque model and whose advice will move your URL further  up in its ranking.

When you pay someone thousands of dollars to prep your kid for the SATs, or to improve your ranking with the "e-score" providers that determine your creditworthiness, jobworthiness, or mortgageworthiness, you're recreating SEO, but for everything. It's a grim picture of the future: WMD makers and SEO experts locked in an endless arms-race to tweak their models to game one another, and all the rest of us being subjected to automated caprice or paying ransom to escape it (for now). In that future, we're all the product, not the customer (much less the citizen).

O'Neil's work is so important because she believes in data science. Algorithms can and will be used to locate people in difficulty: teachers with hard challenges, people in financial distress, people who are struggling in their jobs, students who need educational attention. It's up to us whether we use that information to exclude and further victimize those people, or help them with additional resources

Credit bureaux, e-scorers, and other entities that model us create externalities in the form of false positives -- from no-fly lists to credit-score errors to job score errors that cost us our careers. These errors cost them nothing to make, and something to fix -- and they're incredibly expensive to us. Like all negative externalities, the cost of cleaning them up (rehabilitating your job, finding a new home, serving a longer prison sentence, etc) is much higher than the savings to the firms, but we bear the costs and they reap the savings.

It's E Pluribus Unum reversed: models make many out of one, pigeonholing each of us as members of groups about whom generalizations -- often punitive ones (such as variable pricing) can be made.

Modelling won't go away: as a tool for guiding caring and helpful remedial systems, models are amazing. As a tool for punishing and disenfranchising, they are a nightmare. The choice is ours to make. O'Neil's book is a vital crash-course in the specialized kind of statistical knowledge we all need to interrogate the systems around us and demand better.

 Weapons of Math Destruction [Cathy O'Neil/Crown]

https://boingboing.net/2016/09/06/weapons-of-math-destruction-i.html

[asahi-no-kagayaki]

Rainbow 6 OCs

I!!!!! Finally!!!!!! Finished!!!!! My!!!! Rainbow 6 Siege OCs!!!!!!!!!!! I’m really happy how this kinda turned out jifjfi my new babies i love them. I’m gonna have so much fun implementing them in r6s universe lmao i’m gonna post my first (r6) fic about them soon lol

Also i cant draw shit so i made their (casual-look ofc cuz cant find military-chara sheet thing) character design using Picrew (this website is really great btw) so dont blame me if theyre looking too anime-y jdojofjfo

More info about OCs below!!!!

1. Beruang (’Bear’ in Indonesian) Real Name: Lukman Susilo Sanjaya Age: 37 (As of 2019) Organization: Kopassus Position: Attacker Birthplace: Tegal, Central Java, Indonesia Date of Birth: January 12, 1982 Height: 5'10'' (1.79m) Weight: 177lbs (80kg) Armor: Medium Speed: Medium

Appearance: He wears standard Kopassus uniform but his face is covered by black half-mask and shades. In his free time, he usually wears bland t-shirt and sport pants. He’s kinda hairy, has a little bit of stubble and scar under his right eye. (Casual look:)

Personality: Serious 24/7. Difficult to approach since he only gives necessary/short answers if asked. He never seeks company of other people, and sometimes can be oblivious about things not related to his job. 

Appears stoic, but it’s not because he doesn't have any feelings. He just doesn't know or can't express his emotion to other people except Jasmine. Lowkey insecure about himself, like thinking he's 'not good enough' and people deserves someone better than him.

It's hard for him to have a close relationship with other people other than Kirana because of his insecurity as well his oblivious and stoic personalities. It's not impossible, just hard and take a lot of work before someone could call Lukman their friend or even boyfriend.

Special Gadget: Bear Knuckles - It's basically a pair of gloves shaped like bear paws, used to further increase the power of Lukman's fist (It should be noted that his punch is already strong before he put on the gloves), allowing him to break any surfaces (except steel, for now at least). Yes, it's technically like Sledge's hammer but it's his fist instead lol. Punching a person without holding back with this will likely put them unconscious or heavily injured. 

Unfortunately, it's powered by battery and can only be used a few times before it runs out. It must be charged before he can use it.

Short Biography: As a son of the current Major General of Indonesian's Special Forces Kopassus, Beruang's life was revolved around how to be just like his father. With his incredible strength and agility, coupled with knowledge of various martial arts, a fight without a weapon is what he shines the most. Calm and obedient, Beruang is one of excellent soldier Kopassus had, a War Machine ready to serve under his country.

Psychological Report: Suffers from a condition where he can't express his emotion and low self-esteem where he claimed that he's never good enough. It is believed that harsh training and upbringings from the environment he lived in was the cause of those problems. While he's good at his job, his social skill is very lacking, and he himself appears to be distancing himself with his teammates other than one person.

2. Jasmine Real Name: Kirana Tunggadewi Pitaloka Age: 26 (As of 2019) Organization: Kopassus Position: Defender Birthplace: Malang, East Java, Indonesia Date of Birth: July 18, 1993 Height: 5'5'' (1.65m) Weight: 131 lbs (59kg) Armor: Light Speed: Fast

Appearances: wears standard Kopassus uniform and her face is also covered with black half-mask and shades. In her free time, she usually wears colorful clothes, along with this black-chocker thing she always wear. She has short, neck-length straight short hair.  (Casual look:)

Personality:

She has two personas. A facade she used to manipulates others: Kind, supportive, and positive. And then her real self, which so far only Six and Lukman knows: Lazy, vengeful, manipulative, and cold. She loves gossip, and although usually lazy, she will put a lot of effort into works that beneficial/important to her (such as maintaining her face around other operators or learning 'perfect english' before joining Rainbow). 

But, Kirana is loyal and helpful towards people she thinks as her friends. If they're in trouble, you bet Kirana will try to cheer them up or maybe even hurt those who hurt her friends. She can be easily stressed, which surfaced as paranoia and mild anxiety. She also has abandonment issues, but no one know about this.

Due to her upbringings and her job as a spy, she would do anything to obtain important information she ordered to. Like for example, if someone ask her for intercourse in exchange of information, she would do it as long that information is very important and worth the deal (if not, she wouldn't do it and if they lied about it, she would kill them on site). She doesn't believe in and sometimes even disgusted with people in romantic relationship (like dating/engaged/married/etc), especially those who is in relationship with their workmates, but she's down for one night stand and such.

(It's not impossible for her to be in romantic relationship, but it is very hard to tie her in it)

Special Gadget: White Petals - Five small gadgets shaped together to look like jasmine flower. There's two set of this, one that function like Kapkan's gadget: Putting it on the side of a doors/windows/any openings and watch as everyone that walk through it get electrocuted. It's strong electric surge could even renders someone unconscious. Unfortunately, people could just jumped over/crawled under the gadgets to avoid it when it activates. But the gadget itself is very small, so it can be difficult to spot.

The second set of White Petals is a gadgets that works kinda like smoke grenade, usually used by Jasmine when she have to run. When thrown, it filled the entire room with a special, thick smokes that not even drone could see through. Unfortunately, it last only for a couple of seconds.

Short Biography: Born and raised in a family where her parents worked as spies, naturally Jasmine herself was shaped to be one. Claimed to be one of the best spy her country ever had, she never failed to complete her mission in obtaining and gathering information. While her firearms skill is lacking compared to other operators, her skill of espionage, her cunning thinking, and her good self-defense skill prove herself to be a spy to be reckoned with.

Psychological Report: Her facade personality seems to be a defense mechanism she put up to make herself appears benign and easy to communicate with, which what she needed for her job so she would be least suspicious. On rare cases someone's grow suspicious of her, she would be stressed which resort to anxiety and paranoia. Regardless, she doesn't have any issues in engaging in large group of individuals and offers genuine help and advice to people she care about.

3. Angel Real Name: Florence Marie Walanda Tambayong Age: 31 (As of 2019) Organization: Indonesian National Armed Forces (Land) Position: Defender Birthplace: North Minahasa, North Sulawesi, Indonesia Date of Birth: April 29, 1988 Height: 5'7'' (1.70m) Weight: 143 lbs (65kg) Armor: Light Speed: Fast

Appearance: Wearing standard Indonesian Army uniform, also wears crucifix-necklace. In her free time, she usually wears long-sleeves black/gray/white/pink shirts with silly designs (like some Indonesian words or random bootleg characters) or sweaters and capri pants. If she's on duty treating operators in the medical facility, she wears lab coat, surgical mask, and white gloves. Also her skin is darker compared to the other two ops. (Casual look:)

Personality: Brutally honest but also cheerful and friendly. She likes to socialize/interact with everyone, joining any kind of 'fun' activities, and laugh the loudest at jokes that’s not even funny. She cares a lot about her teammates' condition, so much to the fact that if she ever see any kind of injury or sickness, she will 'fix' them. She doesn't care if they refuse her treatment, she WILL treat them with or without their permission.

She's very dedicated and focus on her works. Even if she lose her limbs, as long she's still has consciousness and able to move, she will try her damnest to treat injuries and sickness.  

Special Gadget: Nightingale - A first aid kit she named after a figure she idolizes. Said kit is filled with numerous vitamins, boosters, bandages, medicines, scissors, needles, etc. It's equipped with every medical stuff you can imagine, people wonders how the hell can all that stuffs are stored in it. The gadget itself isn't very special, but Angel's adrenaline rush make her performs medical operations perfectly whenever she uses this kit on someone, so it's more like a mixture of a very-equipped first aid kit and Angel's excellent determination to save lives, just like Florence Nightingale.

In game, this could heals or revives operators to full-health with additional 30 health points. Unfortunately, it can only be used thrice before it ran out.

Short Biography: Her involvement in medical world began at University of Indonesia where she eventually got her medical degree. After that, she worked as a nurse in a local hospital before she joined Indonesian Red Cross Society and eventually served as medical staff in Indonesian Army. With her excellent comprehension of human anatomy, she vowed to erase sickness and pain from everyone.

Psychological Report: With her optimism and carefree attitude, Angel has no trouble making friends in every place she stay. However, trauma about her failure to nurse injured civilians back to health in 2009 Sumatra Earthquake took a toll in her mental state. This resulted in her strong dedication and commitment in her job, which usually would be a good thing to have but it made her force anyone with injuries or sickness, no matter how small it is, to be nursed by her. She doesn't take no for an answer, in fear of her past experiences. It is best for one to approach her in a healthy condition.

Trivia:

- Jasmine studied in Airlangga University and got bachelor's degree in Psychology, Angel studied in University of Indonesia and got (obviously) medical degree, while Beruang studied in military academy.

- Jasmine speaks Japanese to some extent, like she doesn't know proper grammar for each situation (Japanese has different grammars for any situation, like speaking in workplace or towards elders for example) but she can understand and communicate in it. She studied it all by herself, mostly because she's a weeb.

- As said before, Jasmine is a big weeb. She watches a lot of Japanese dramas or animes, also plays a couple of Japanese's mobile games like Fate/Grand Order and Love Live. This is what she mostly do in her free time.

- All of them like spicy food, although Jasmine likes sweet food a little more. As such, if they're cooking a meal you bet it will be spicy as fuck.

- Beruang loves coffee while Jasmine and Angel loves iced tea. Both Beruang and Jasmine doesn't like alcohol, although Jasmine might drink wine or champagne a little, while Angel is open to trying variety of alcohol drinks.

- Jasmine's hobbies includes cooking and gaming, Beruang's hobbies are reading history or watching documentary films, and Angel's hobbies are treating patients and jogging.

- Regarding their sexuality, Beruang is gay (still in the closet, only Jasmine knows). Jasmine's down to have sex with anyone so she’s more of a pansexual, while Angel is straight but dedicates her life to her work so much she doesn't care about romance or sexual activities.

- As said before in his special gadget entry, Beruang is strong. Literally strong, his fist could destroy wood in a second without him putting his gloves on. Although without his gadget, he can't destroy bricks and such (might leave a dent on it though). If angry (which is thankfully unusual), he can't control his power and might break something he hold at the moment.

- As mentioned in his biography, out of various martial arts' learned, Beruang is great at judo and silat. He would use Judo technique the most in a fight, though.

- Beruang thinks of Jasmine as his little sister, while Jasmine thinks of Beruang as either her best friend or a dad. They have close platonic relationship regardless, although Jasmine had a crush on him a while ago (before she knew he's gay).

- While regarding Angel, Jasmine and her dislike each other. Beruang is neutral with Angel, and Angel regards him as a friend.

- Beruang's favorite animals: German shepherd. Jasmine's favorite animal: any cats. Angel's favorite animals: Parrot.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #201

“one for all, all for one. we are strong, we are one. we are one nemesis.”

Do you feel pressure to keep your life interesting? It's not interesting at all, so. I'd sure as hell like it to be. At what time in your life were you happiest? If it was in the past, would you want to go back and relive it, though still knowing all the things you know now? Like... early-mid-'17, maybe? That's when my recovering really kicked off. I wouldn't go back. Is there anyone who seems to always be under the influence of something when you see them or talk to them? Does it bug you? No. Have you ever found the blog of someone you knew in real life, but not very well? How did it change your opinions on them? No. Then again I've never tried to. What is something you are incredibly behind on? Politics. I'm more importantly (to me, lmao) half a year behind on Good Mythical Morning, believe that or not. I don't watch TV anymore so don't really care, but I'm massive seasons behind on Supernatural. What’s the last allergic reaction you had? Shit, right now with this seasonal business. I've been congested for weeks. What does it mean when you start eating less? What does it mean when you start eating more? If I eat less than usual, it'll always relate to weight loss, I assure you. I've worked to greatly improve on the latter, however; eating more generally means I'm extremely depressed. Or bored, but I've got enough discipline by now to not eat if I'm not hungry. Is there anything you feel the need to organize by chart? No. What’s your opinion on mid-day naps? Go for it, it's good for you anyway. When’s the last time you spontaneously made plans? With who/to do what? Who knows; I don't have people to spontaneously make plans with. What’s the strangest named pet you’ve ever had? Probably Harry Potter the guinea pig. Or the fact I had a Chinese water dragon, green lizards, named Shadow. Okay look he was my second pet and I was little. What are some defense mechanisms you find yourself using when in an argument with someone? It's very likely I'll try to be totally factual and short without true thought as a fear reaction of losing the person, while on the inside I can be in a total panic attack. Do you know if there is anyone who was once important to you that you will never talk to again, even though you could? I absolutely will not speak to my former best friend unless completely necessary for whatever reason. Do you and your boyfriend or girlfriend fight a lot? Not at all. Have your parents ever told you that you couldn’t hang out with a certain someone? No. Have you ever cleaned up someone else’s vomit? I. Absolutely. NEVER will. I will absolutely hurl. Does your boyfriend or girlfriend get mad/jealous when you talk about the opposite sex? Nope. What was the last R-rated movie you watched? Halloween, I believe. Have you ever painted a car? No. Are there any gnomes in your yard? No. I've never understood the appeal of them at all... Do you have a funny last name? Does anyone make fun of it? No. Are the blankets that are on your bed now made by someone you know in life? No. Have you ever been pulled over by the cops for speeding? No. Have you ever met someone in person that you met online? Sara! There're others I hope to one day, too. Have you got any half or step siblings? Four halves, one step. Do you like kids’ movies? Not tiny kids (like, Barney and such type of things), but "kid movies" like Disney and such, hell yeah. Have you ever been kicked out of somewhere? No. If you have younger siblings, how old were you when your siblings were born? I was just over two years old. Do you sometimes use your music player to help you fall asleep? No. I did that in... I think middle school and some of high school, though. I have NO idea how I used to be able to do that. The last time you burned your tongue or mouth, what were you eating? I'm not sure. Are there a lot of trees in your yard? Not in the yard, no. There's a good number just beyond our fence, though. What was the high and low temperature where you live today? Phone says 31*F and 50*F. Have you ever made ice cream out of snow? Snow cream, yeah. That's a common southern treat when it actually snows. What’s the coldest you remember ever walking outside in? Maybe single digits? What’s your least favorite color? Puke green. Or maybe bright yellow (pastel is pretty). …and your favorite? Pink. What’s your second favorite color? Maroon or burgundy. How many pairs of gloves do you wear in the winter? Usually zero. What’s one thing that most people complain about that you love? COLD WEATHER. What do you remember the most about recess at school when you were a kid? Oh boy... when my meerkat obsession began, I unintentionally started a trend of digging "burrows" with others in the sandbox. Our nails by the time we were done, holy shit. I LOVED doing it. What color are your kitchen chairs? A mess of beige hues with floral stuff on it, I think? I just know they're hideous and we all hate them. I don't really pay any attention to what the cushions really look like, though. Have you ever dated anybody online? *points to Sara* Do you listen to instrumental bands such as Hammock, Trentemoller, etc.? Nah. Were you ever a 'secret admirer’ before? No. Ever stalked someone? No. Do you poke a lot of people on Facebook? Is this even a thing still? But I didn't, no. What was even the point. What’s the farthest you’ve ever been from home? Illinois. Have you ever been close to getting kidnapped? Oh um no. Never seen this one on a survey before. Do you have any eating disorders? No, thank god. Do you plan on getting married? I hope so. What is one of the saddest novels you’ve ever read in your lifetime? First thing that came to mind was The Giver. I'm sure there's others on par with or sadder than it, but it's just the first that came to me. Orbit or 5 gum? I think I prefer 5? Ever had a friend online for a long time without seeing a photo of them? Many. The last time you threw up, what caused it? An ex-med I was on that had a strong side-effect of vomiting. Quit that. Did you have any foreign exchange students at your high school? Maybe? Idk. Any foods from other countries you would like to try but haven’t yet? I'm sure there's something somewhere, but nothing that comes to mind. Do you think the world would be more peaceful without any religion? I think that's fact... I'm not saying religion itself is bad, no, but I think everyone can agree there'd be more peace without it. Have you kept the same icon here for a long time? Yeah; I don't take nearly enough pictures to have a new one, though I wanna change it because WOW do I look like a bitch. Why did you choose your icon, anyway? I thought the picture itself was decent, and it let my inner goth pop out a bit. If only I had the wardrobe and dedication. Any fun facts (on any topic) you’d like to share? Well here's your meerkat one: Meerkats are the second-most social animals on Earth, falling just behind naked mole rats. Does it hurt your feelings when people talk shit about things you love? "Hurt my feelings" isn't the right word; I feel embarrassed. Do you like it when people give you nicknames? Yeah, actually. Even just calling me "Britt" makes me feel like we're closer or something. More personal ones though, I really like. When you make friends, are you usually the one to "make the first move"? Definitely not. What fandoms are you in? Like, A LOT, but actively, Markiplier, a few other YouTubers, Silent Hill, Shadow of the Colossus, World of Warcraft, and meerkats. Maybe more, idk. I lose count. I would say Spyro, but I'm totally uninvolved in some areas of it, like Skylanders. Are there any fandoms you used to be in, but left? I wouldn't say left, just lost a considerable amount of interest, like Good Mythical Morning and  PewDiePie. Used to watch every day, and now both are seldom. Do you more often feel superior or inferior to others? Inferior. Do you prefer ruffly or regular potato chips? Ruffled, definitely. Can you do any impressions? Not of a specific person. Do you carry pepper spray? Have you ever had to use it? No. Best thing to do during a power outage? Play a horror game as my laptop's battery dies lmao. At night, anyway. During the day, idk. Has your power ever gone out for more than a day? I don't believe so. When was the last time you had a headache? What about stomachache? Headache, I believe once when Sara was here early this month. Stomachache, not that long ago. Which one of your classes goes by the slowest? N/A The last time you walked somewhere, who were you with? Probably at Sara's down the path. Maybe something later, but idr. Where is your second home? Sara's is the second house I'm most comfortable in besides my own. Or maybe Dad's, idk. What did you last have a conversation with one of your siblings about? Idr. Do you have the person you hate the most on Facebook? No. How many times did you clean out your text inbox today? I don't clean it out. Well, I have once or twice while trying to make space on my phone. What’s something you would do drunk but never do sober? I have a feeling I'd be way more open than I'd like. Have you ever had a night that’s been hands down the best night of your life? If so, describe what happened? I'm not sure. What time do your parents normally get home from work? Dad, idk. I don't live with him. Mom, it varies greatly, but typically 8:30ish. Is family the most important thing in your life? If not, what is? My definition of family (only includes people who I feel are emotionally family), yes. Or my mental health. Is writing something that you enjoy doing? Ha ha obviously. —would you rather read or write? Write. Would you rather draw or take photographs? Take photos. Do you prefer black and white or color photographs? Why? I can't pick a side; changes in color can seriously alter the emotions of the shot, making neither superior to the other imo. Both are beautiful, some moreso than others, depending on the composition. What was the last thoughtless thing you did? I'm not sure. What is one movie you’ve seen, but few others have? A lot of "idk" in this one. Off the top of my head, the kids movie Napoleon wasn't popular in America, I think? —how about a movie you haven’t seen, but many others have? The entire Harry Potter series. What is something you do subconsciously? Play with my lip ring. Who was the last person to toy with your emotions? *shrugs* When was the last time you cheated at something? I have no clue. what’s the most money you’ve received from the ‘tooth fairy’? I think $5? Describe the main problem with your last relationship? I didn't like him in that way. When was the last time you debated with someone? Some time ago with Sara about a political view. And mind you it was a friendly debate, not an argument as apparently all are nowadays. What cartoon/anime character can you most relate to? There's too many characters to think through. Do you have any pictures of celebs saved to your computer? Leave me and my Mark icons-in-the-making alone. Do you have your own personal water jug? If so, where did you buy it? No. How do you get rid of your hiccups? Nothing works for me. When you sneeze, do you sneeze into your hand or the inside of your elbow? Elbow. What actor/actress do you find weird? Lol I'm not to judge there. What’s your ultimate favorite bagel? Just a normal one with a moderate amount of cream cheese. Do you have a blister anywhere on your body? No. Do you get manicures/pedicures regularly? I never do. When was the last time you saw the person you had your first kiss with? February '17. What was the most severe punishment your parents gave you when you were growing up? She'd spank me and/or say I was grounded for a week, which always only lasted like a couple days or so. What’s something you’re really bad at compared to others? Like, any kind of math. Who is the person you are the closest to? (emotionally, not physically) Mom or Sara in different ways. What are some odd habits you have relating to food/eating? I'm picky as fuck with texture. I'm particular with food in general. Last furry thing you touched: My kitty. <3 What do you check out first when you check someone out? I've never really paid attention... I mean, it probably depends on the person, what catches my attention most? Have you ever kissed someone in a band? No. Would you raise your children like your parents raised you? In some ways, in other ways no. Has someone ever made you a Build-A-Bear? No. Are you donating your organs? Yup. Did your mom or dad ever put soap in your mouth? No, but Mom threatened it. Have you ever dated someone with more piercings than you? No. Who was the last person you spent more than 15 minutes on the phone with? My dad. Have you been swimming in the last six months? How long ago was the beach trip... idr. Maybe. What hair color looks best on you and what’s your natural color? From what I've had so far, I love red on me. My natural color is brown. What is your favorite show to watch? That '70s Show is something you can always put on and I'll pay attention. Like, I'm never /not/ in the mood to watch it if I have to watch TV for whatever reason. Do you wear necklaces? Rarely. Do you blush easily? Yup. ;-; Are you an artist/writer? Not professionally, but I do both. Are you in love? If so, does the one you love know? Yes and yes. Are your maternal/parental instincts strong? With kids, not at all. At all. Instead, I have them big time in serious, romantic relationships; I have the biggest "PROTECT PROTECT TAKE CARE FOR THEM AND PROTECT AT ALL COSTS" instinct. ACTUAL mama bear. Is there someone in your life whose career/life choices you find immoral/unethical? Have you ever told that person your views? Do you find it difficult to support them (emotionally or otherwise) because of their choices? Does anyone not have this kind of person in their life? Anyway, I've maybe said so casually and gently where it was relevant, but I'm not positive. Of course it's hard to support them, and sometimes I simply can't, ex. with my former best friend. What trait do you feel you lack that you wish you possessed? INDEPENDENCE. I'm borderline on the diagnoses of dependent personality disorder with how I have a very difficult time making my own choices and doing lots of things on my own; it's a serious problem with my mom, and I worry how I'll be when I no longer live with her, really. Like, she still schedules my appointments, makes some serious phone calls I'm scared doing myself (but sometimes she can't with me being an adult), she handles just... a lot. Have you ever considered writing your memoirs? No. Do you find it difficult to stay invested in online relationships? Not at all, romantic or platonic! My online buds mean just as much, some even more, than my "real life" ones. Are you the type of person who pays close attention to the release dates of movies, music, etc., and will, for example, go see a movie or buy an album on the date it is released? If so, when is the last time you did so? Not on a lot, but for things I'm really hyped for, particularly games and music, yeah. For the second part of the question, yes. I did that for WoW's Warlords of Draenor expansion, and maybe Legion? Idr tho because I was nervous asking my mom. I also think I mighta seen the Warcraft movie the day it came out, but I'm also uncertain. Have you ever been in trouble for illegally downloading something? No. Do you have any stickers on your laptop? No. Would you rather have a job for which you had to go in early in the morning or one you had to stay late into the evening at? Early, defs. Whenever I work, I'm certainly aiming for a morning shift. Get it over with, and plus, I'm in a better mood in the mornings, so it'd be easier to get work done; plus, getting out of the house is a good way for me to come home and actually feel like I got my dose of social interaction for the day, so now I can enjoy the rest of the day. Is there someone who seems to only reach out to you when they want something from you? No; I don't tolerate that shit. Do movies often make you cry? What kind of films/scenes make you tear up most? Yeah. Tragic romantic things get me easily, and seeing someone die and another character lose it over their death kills me. Happy reunions are tear-jerkers, too. I would probably still cry at the end of Homeward Bound. How did your expectations of the last book you read compare to your thoughts after reading it? What about your expectations of the last movie you watched? The original Alice In Wonderland was a book I was surprised to be that short, and it wasn't really as "out there" as I'd expected. I still enjoyed it, though. Last movie... that was Elf. I didn't anticipate it being as damn cute and funny as it was. Do you use any apps to track your health or medications? Just to track my period. Whose opinions/recommendations do you value most? Sara's. If you could’ve been at any historical event, which would you have liked to witness firsthand? Perhaps the first Thanksgiving? OH, but I would without a doubt choose the extinction of the dinosaurs if I was somehow entirely protected. That had to be, sad as it is, visually incredible. Is there something that you really want to do but are afraid of doing? If so, why are you afraid of doing it? Rollercoasters; I'm terrified of vomiting, however, and also fainting with how I handle dizziness. What is something society “expects” you to do that you don’t want to do and/or don’t plan on doing? Don't expect me to dress up all fancy going to an expensive restaurant or something. I'm going to eat, I'm not worried about my damn clothing. But more than anything, I absolutely refuse to let a job hold me back from getting tatted or pierced. I'm perfectly aware that really slims down my options, but I sincerely couldn't care less. I'm not bending to one of the most ludicrous expectations I know of. Are you interested in architecture? Is there any particular style that you’re drawn to? Yeah! I ADORE gothic especially, and Roman, too. What’s the most stalker-like/creepy thing you’ve ever done? If you don’t think you’ve done anything like that, what’s the most stalker-like thing someone’s done to you? Lol I should really have an answer for this, considering the breakup... I don't believe I did anything "stalker-ish," maybe not even creepy, just rude and nosy. Sorry for trying (but thankfully failing) to hack your Facebook to see if you were talking to a girl some time early into the breakup, Jason. ;_; Reeeaaally regret that. What is something you can only understand if you’ve experienced it first hand? Pure heartbreak. It is absolutely, utterly agonizing. Are you more of an open person or a private person when it comes to talking about personal things? (Relationships, your sex life, finances, etc.) It depends on the subject, but usually, I am very private, particularly irl. I'm more open online by a long shot. Do you agree or disagree with the saying “If two former lovers can remain friends, either they were never in love, or still are.”? Why or why not? That's bullshit. People change, and you can lose romantic interest. What’s a part of yourself, physically, that you’re unhappy with? (Hair, face, skin, body part, etc.) Is it something you’re able to change or something you’re stuck with? Uh, pretty much everything because of weight? I can change that and am trying so hard to, but I've been at a stagnant weight for over a damn year, and I can't even begin to wonder how. It dropped like flies in '17. Do you think it’s a double standard that a woman can hit a man and expect to get away with it, but if a man hits a woman it’s assault? DOUBLE. FUCKING. STANDARD. Fight the hell back to protect yourself. In terms of a wedding, put these things in order from what would be MOST important to be perfect, to LEAST important… Engagement ring, dress, hair, venue, ceremony, food, pictures, decorations, honeymoon. Ceremony, pictures, honeymoon, dress, venue, hair, ring or decorations, food. Do you have a go-to small talk conversation topic? Asking how they've been. Does anyone owe you money? Do you owe anyone money? (Besides credit cards) No. Well, I owe my previous college money, anyway. Even though I shouldn't, so Mom's trying to take legal action with that and their shitty communication. If someone was going to buy you any practical gift (anything except a house or car), what would you choose? A sum of money for a big 'ole tattoo, boys. Is there a quote that’s helped you through hard times or really stuck with you? What is it? "You're perfectly flawed" from an Otep song. I have that tattooed for a reason. Then there's countless ones from my partial hospitalization, but "Deal with life, or life deals with you" particularly will stick out to me probably forever. There's loads more. What’s something practical and useful “real world” things that should be taught in high school aside from the basics like English, math, science, etc.? CHRIST, why the FUCK do we not have classes teaching us how to handle the adult life with things like finances. What are some things that a person or couple could do that would show they’re insecure about themselves or their relationship? More than anything probably, go through their phone. ACTUALLY fuck off. Do you have sympathy for people who die as a result of their own actions? (Example: someone doesn’t wear a helmet when they ride their motorcycle and they get in an accident and die.) Well of course; a human being still died, and maybe it's even sadder when it was in their own hands. It's disappointing, but you should of course feel sympathy. What’s your favorite old Disney movie and favorite new Disney movie? Old, The Lion King. New, there's SO many to choose from, so I can't give a certain answer, but possibly Coco. I adored that movie. Name something “trendy” or popular that you dislike. I don't pay attention to what's trendy, really. Idk. Oh wait, is that "Kiki Do You Love Me?" or whatever that trash is called still around? There’s a quote that says “Anyone who gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.” Is there a person who YOU can thank for your confidence? Hm... I'm not sure about this quote. But anyway, I don't even have confidence to begin with. “Dirty talk” in the bedroom…love it, like it, don’t care, dislike it, or hate it? Usually like, particularly if we're being extremely passionate. I'm suuuuper shy delivering it, though. Hell, I get flustered hearing it towards me sometimes, too. What is/are your favorite type(s) of ethnic food, and what’s your favorite food within that type? American. Favorite... I think cheeseburgers. Would you be more hurt by your significant other having a long drawn out emotional affair but never having sex with that person OR a long drawn out physical affair where it was just lots of sex and no (or few) emotions attached? The first, my reasoning being for them to be emotionally invested in another person says more about how much they "love" me versus the latter option. I dunno... the second is awful, too. Tough question to answer. Say one positive thing and one negative thing about your boss (or any other authority figure). I'll pick my mom. Positive: Her support is never-ending. Negative: She's "always right." How would you describe your relationship with your hair over the years? I've grown more and more comfortable with it as I've grown bolder with cutting it. How do you practice truly living in the moment? I'm bad at this... Do you think most abusers know they’re being abusive? Probably, especially if it's physical. How do you feel about your SO daily/regularly checking up on a couple of his exes on social media? That'd be pretty suspicious, but then again, I can't really talk? One of my best friends/my ex is still a very good friend of mine, and we talk every now and again with no romantic interest (at least on my end; idk if he still like-likes me). That being said, I don't know how I'd feel, especially if it was daily. I do know I'd be less anxious if our relationship was strong and steady. What perfume of yours does your SO love on you? She doesn't like perfume, and I almost never wear it anyway. Have you made any (at least semi-) permanent alterations to your appearance? If so, how did you find the experience and do you regret it? Tattoos, there's a visible hole where my first lip ring was, and the holes in my left earlobe have been seriously stretched (it goes to literally the bottom of my lobe) from heavy earrings for a long time. No clue how the right side is totally fine. Anyway, the only tattoo I regret is my "ohana" one, as it doesn't really suit me; I don't give a damn if you're blood, I choose my "real" family, but even then, people change. I know I'll get it covered at some point; right now I'm considering a bat tat on my chest with its wings expanded at some point, and it may conceal it, but it's not high on my to-do list. I love my "how rare and beautiful it is to exist," although I wish I'd made a more unique design of it instead of stealing it from Pinterest... ha ha. I don't want tattoos others have; I want mine to stand out. I also wish I'd chosen an even more professional artist to do my Markiplier piece, but I plan on going to a better parlor when I can afford it to get my vision "right." It's probably the most important tattoo I'll ever have, so I want it perfect in my eyes. My artist didn't do bad, not at all, it just came out with a less convincing-galaxy background. It'll be an easy fix with the right artist. Onto the lip ring, I regret deliberately wanting it slightly to the left and not dead-center through my lip. I have no idea why I wanted it there? You can still see the faint hole when I pull my lips back, which I hate. Lastly, I just HATE the appearance of stretched-out earlobes. I don't even wear earrings anymore with how they look like there's about to just fall off. Women with disabilities/anxiety/depression/other mental health issues/chronic illnesses, how do you get it across to your SO/friends that sometimes you just can’t do something? Why specifically women? But anyway, sometimes it's just impossible. I don't think anyone can really "get it" until you have a breakdown/accident or whatever in front of them. Do you prefer your guy to wear cologne or not? I like the smell of light cologne. Ladies, how important is it to you that your SO wears/would wear a wedding ring? I suppose it'd be concerning if they just didn't want to, but like if it doesn't fit or anything, of course don't try to wear it. What was the turning point that led you to decide for or against having children? First, I took a look at my mental health and capabilities and chose I would NOT be a good, healthy mother able to raise them. Also, aforementioned maternal instinct lacking. As well, I don't want to invest years into a person that might just wind up hating me. And super importantly, my alone time is extremely important, and thaaat's pretty impossible with kids. They're expensive. Peace and quiet, bye. Pressure to ensure they grow up to be a good, independent person. Yeah, there's lots of reasons I can confidently say no, I don't want kids. How do you feel about men who preface statements on non-gendered things with “as a guy”? *shrugs* It depends, I guess. Does anyone else just HAVE to wear pajamas/lounge clothes when you’re at home? I live in my pjs. Is having your “dream” wedding really that important to have? No. What would your reaction be if your SO wanted the opposite type of wedding than you did? Just compromise. Who says things have to match a theme. What kind if body type do you find attractive and unattractive (for your preferred sex)? Let's get this straight first: I don't care about appearances. But of course, that doesn't mean I don't have preferences. For girls, I'm really attracted to curvy women at a healthy weight. Men, I like just a tad bit muscular, but noooot very much. How do you feel about strangers approaching you with compliments? I'm flattered, but I will definitely get anxious, especially if it's a man. I'm more terrified than anxious if they do that. Do you consider it cheating if your SO goes to a strip club and then doesn’t tell you? Hm, not really cheating. I'd be preeeetty unhappy if my s/o did that and kept it a secret, but I'm not quite sure how I'd react to knowing they went to a strip club. I think most likely I'd just feel like I wasn't enough and cry. Maybe I'd be fine with it if they asked me beforehand how I felt and I had their word they wouldn't "do anything." Like it's simple fact that you can be in a relationship and still find others attractive, so I guess if you just wanna go out for once and I feel you're genuine when telling me you'll behave, it's not too big a deal? But I'm still not sure. Would you be more offended if your man cheated on you with a guy or a girl? I'll just pretend you said "your partner." Both would upset the hell out of me, but I think doing it with the opposite gender would most hurt me, especially because you're taking a risk of someone getting pregnant. Is there something you are afraid, embarrassed, or ashamed to tell someone? That I love/play World of Warcraft, lmao. Admitting I'm an RPer would be even worse. DON'T ask what my worst weight was. The Joel thing. There's probably loads more. Are you struggling in any way right now?  Oh, of course. When was the last time you made a REALLY stupid decision? Oh boy. Really bad... HA, actually, probably this one time I drank a milkshake too fast, and my stomach still hasn't forgiven me. Do you put candy canes on your Christmas tree? Sometimes. Have you ever written/drawn/painted random stuff on your bedroom wall? No. What do you currently hear? "Professional Griefers" by deadmau5 ft. Gerard Way. What’s your favorite flavor of Doritos? Cool ranch. Who was the last person to hold your hand? Sara. Do you have any clothing with animal print on it? No. Have you ever seen a hippo in person? I don't believe we have any at our zoo, no. What’s something you do too much? Sit here. In the bed. On my laptop. Fun. How often do you have nightmares? Rarely. What was the last thing you downloaded on your computer? A game on Steam. I can't remember which. Honestly, are you spoiled? I don't think so, at least not much. Is there anyone’s laugh that makes you laugh when you hear it? Mark's. Have you ever parked in a handicapped spot when you weren’t supposed to? I will lose all respect for you if you pull that shit. Do you have a tan yet? It's winter, and I don't tan anyway. Have you ever been told you have a bad attitude? I think my grandmother did once on the same occasion she called me a bitch. Do you make other people laugh often? I don't think so, no. What are some things you want out of life? Satisfaction with all I've done and experienced, more than anything. Do you feel bored with your life? Boy, do I. Who’s someone you miss that you haven’t talked to in years? Megan. Do you miss anyone who was mean to you in the past? No. What’s the most weight you’ve ever gained from a medication? No. No. No. Nope. Not answering. Stay the actual fuck away from Abilify. How do you get through hard times? Talking with/venting to Sara and/or Mom, watch my favorite YouTubers, listen to (usually relatable) music, and just remind myself if I survived '16, I can persist through just about anything. Rarely, I draw some vent art. Have you ever been suicidal? Yes. Do you pray? If yes, to whom? No. I don't believe it has any power, even with me believing in some kind of ultimate creator. What do you miss about high school? Friends. What do you miss the most about college? I was in a very bad mental state through both attempts, so I miss nothing. Did you like high school? I've hated school since I was in pre-k, dude. Have you ever been the victim of a crime? I don't think so? Is your life worse than you could have ever have imagined it to be? or is it better, or just what you expected? Worse. I mean it's not awful, but I expected muuuuch more by this point... What was the last good book you read about? Arthas' rise to the Lich King, and it hurt me okay I still wanna press charges against Christie Golden. What’s the last great song you discovered? "Natural Born Sinner" by In This Moment. Do you feel free to post how you feel on Facebook? Nope. I pretty much never post about myself because I'm too afraid of saying something stupid "in front of" all the people I call friends. AvPD is a blessing. What is the most beautiful landscape you have ever seen? Mountains. Who were your favorite celebrities as a child? Steve Irwin was everything to me. I also loved Jesse McCartney and the Backstreet Boys. Oh, Jeff Corwin, too. What do you miss the most about your past? No mental illnesses. .-. Do you like getting older? At my current age, I don't really care... What hard thing are you going through right now, if applicable? The biggest thing currently is practically being chained to my house. I'm home alone almost everyday and usually all day, so day after day I'm just. Sitting here in this house by myself. Even as an introvert, it's gotten to a serious severity of loneliness and maddening boredom. I'm just gonna stop here before answering this any further ruins my day. Do you prefer slow songs or fast songs? Generally, more towards the fast side. Have you made any progress toward going after your dreams? Yeah, just teeny-tiny baby steps, sadly. What color is your trash can? Like, the big one you put on the side of the road for the dumpster? Dark green. What color is your dresser? Brown. Do you own a computer? If yes, is it a desktop or laptop? Yeah; laptop. How old were you when you first got a cell phone? I dunno, maybe the start of middle school? Do you like pineapple on pizza? You are a certified psychopath if you think that tastes good. No. What medication or drug has given you the worst withdrawals? I'm not sure. I've been on waaaaaaay too goddamn many to remember.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#2yrsago Weapons of Math Destruction: invisible, ubiquitous algorithms are ruining millions of lives

I've been writing about the work of Cathy "Mathbabe" O'Neil for years: she's a radical data-scientist with a Harvard PhD in mathematics, who coined the term "Weapons of Math Destruction" to describe the ways that sloppy statistical modeling is punishing millions of people every day, and in more and more cases, destroying lives. Today, O'Neil brings her argument to print, with a fantastic, plainspoken, call to arms called (what else?)  Weapons of Math Destruction.

Discussions about big data's role in our society tends to focus on algorithms, but the algorithms for handling giant data sets are all well understood and work well. The real issue isn't algorithms, it's models. Models are what you get when you feed data to an algorithm and ask it to make predictions. As O'Neil puts it, "Models are opinions embedded in mathematics."

Other critical data scientists, like Patrick Ball from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group have located their critique in the same place. As Patrick once explained to me, you can train an algorithm to predict someone's height from their weight, but if your whole training set comes from a grade three class, and anyone who's self-conscious about their weight is allowed to skip the exercise, your model will predict that most people are about four feet tall. The problem isn't the algorithm, it's the training data and the lack of correction when the model produces erroneous conclusions.

Like Ball, O'Neil is enthusiastic about the power of data-driven modelling to be a force for good in the world, and like Ball, she despairs at the way that sloppy statistical work can produce gigantic profits for a few companies at the expense of millions of people -- all with the veneer of mathematical objectivity.

O'Neil calls these harmful models "Weapons of Math Destruction," and not all fault models qualify. For a model to be a WMD, it must be opaque to its subjects, harmful to their interests, and grow exponentially to run at huge scale.

These WMDs are now everywhere. The sleazy for-profit educational system has figured out how to use models to identify desperate people and sucker them into signing up for expensive, useless "educations" that are paid for with punitive student loans, backed by the federal government. That's how the University of Phoenix can be so profitable, even after spending upwards of $1B/year on marketing. They've built a WMD that brings students in at a steady clip despite the fact that they spend $2,225/student in marketing and only $892/student on instruction. Meanwhile, the high-efficacy, low-cost community colleges are all but invisible in the glare and roar of the University of Phoenix's marketing blitzkreig.

One highly visible characteristic of WMDs is their lack of feedback and tuning. In sports, teams use detailed statistical models to predict which athletes they should bid on, and to deploy those athletes when squaring off against opposing teams. But after the predicted event has occurred, the teams update their models to account for their failings. If you pass on a basketball player who goes to glory for a rival team, you update your model to help you do better in the next draft.

Compare this with the WMDs used against us in everyday life. The largest employers in America use commercial services to run their incoming resumes against a model of a "successful" worker. These models hold your employment future in their hands. If one rejects you and you go on to do brilliant work somewhere else, that fact is never used to refine the model. Everyone loses: job-seekers are arbitrarily excluded from employment, and employers miss out on great hires. Only the WMD merchants in the middle make out like bandits.

It's worth asking how we got here. Many forms of WMD were deployed as an answer to institutional bias -- in criminal sentencing, in school grading, in university admissions, in hiring and lending. The models are supposed to be race- and gender-blind, blind to privilege and connections.

But all too often, the models are trained with the biased data. The picture of a future successful Ivy League student or loan repayer is painted using data-points from the admittedly biased history of the institutions. All the Harvard grads or dutiful mortgage payers are fed to the algorithm, which dutifully predicts that tomorrow's Harvard alums and prime loan recipients will look just like yesterday's -- but now the bias gets the credibility of seeming objectivity.

This training problem is well known in stats, but largely ignored by WMD dealers. Companies that run their own Big Data initiatives, by contrast, are much more careful about refining their models. Amazon carefully tracks those customers who abandon their shopping carts, or who stop shopping after a couple of purchases. Their interested in knowing everything they can about "recidivism" among shoppers, and they combine statistical modelling with anthropology -- seeking out and talking to their subjects -- to improve their system.

The contrast with automated sentencing software -- now widely used in the US judicial system, and spreading rapidly around the world -- could not be more stark. Like Amazon's data scientists, the companies that sell sentencing apps are trying to predict recidivism, and their predictions can send one person to prison for decades and let another go free.

These brokers are training their model on the corrupted data of the past. They look at the racialized sentencing outcomes of the past -- the outcomes that sent young black men to prison for years for minor crack possession, while letting rich white men walk away from cocaine possession charges -- and conclude that people from poor neighborhoods, whose family members and friends have had run-ins with the law, and "predict" that this person will reoffend, and recommend long sentences to keep them away from society.

Unlike Amazon, these companies aren't looking to see whether longer sentences cause recidivism (by causing emotional damage and social isolation) and how prison beatings, solitary confinement and prison rape are related to the phenomenon. If the prison system was run like Amazon -- that is, with a commitment to reducing reoffending, rather than enriching justice-system contractors and satisfying revenge-hungry bigots in the electorate -- it would probably look like a Nordic prison: humane, sparsely populated, and oriented toward rehabilitation, addiction treatment, job training, and psychological counselling.

WMDs have transformed education for teachers and students. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration seized on a report called A Nation at Risk, which claimed that the US was on the verge of collapse due to its falling SAT scores. This was the starter-pistol for an all-out assault on teachers and public education, which continues to this day.

The most visible expression of this is the "value added" assessment of teachers, which uses a battery of standardized tests to assess teachers' performance from year to year. The statistical basis for these assessments is laughable (statistics work on big numbers, not classes of 25 kids -- assessments can swing 90% from one year to the next, making them no better than random number generators). Teachers -- good teachers, committed teachers -- lose their jobs over these tests.

Students, meanwhile, are taken away from real learning in order to take more and more tests, and those tests -- which are supposed to measure "aptitude" and thus shouldn't be amenable to expensive preparatory services -- determine their whole futures.

The Nation at Risk report that started it all turned out to be bullshit, by the way -- grounded in another laughable statistical error. Sandia Labs later audited the findings from the report and found that the researchers had failed to account for the ballooning number of students who were taking the SATs, bringing down the average score.

In other words: SATs were falling because more American kids were confident enough to try to go to college: the educational system was working so well that young people who would never have taken an SAT were taking it, and the larger pool of test-takers was bringing the average score down.

WMDs turn the whole of human life into a game of Search Engine Optimization. With SEO, merchants hire companies who claim to have reverse-engineered Google's opaque model and whose advice will move your URL further  up in its ranking.

When you pay someone thousands of dollars to prep your kid for the SATs, or to improve your ranking with the "e-score" providers that determine your creditworthiness, jobworthiness, or mortgageworthiness, you're recreating SEO, but for everything. It's a grim picture of the future: WMD makers and SEO experts locked in an endless arms-race to tweak their models to game one another, and all the rest of us being subjected to automated caprice or paying ransom to escape it (for now). In that future, we're all the product, not the customer (much less the citizen).

O'Neil's work is so important because she believes in data science. Algorithms can and will be used to locate people in difficulty: teachers with hard challenges, people in financial distress, people who are struggling in their jobs, students who need educational attention. It's up to us whether we use that information to exclude and further victimize those people, or help them with additional resources

Credit bureaux, e-scorers, and other entities that model us create externalities in the form of false positives -- from no-fly lists to credit-score errors to job score errors that cost us our careers. These errors cost them nothing to make, and something to fix -- and they're incredibly expensive to us. Like all negative externalities, the cost of cleaning them up (rehabilitating your job, finding a new home, serving a longer prison sentence, etc) is much higher than the savings to the firms, but we bear the costs and they reap the savings.

It's E Pluribus Unum reversed: models make many out of one, pigeonholing each of us as members of groups about whom generalizations -- often punitive ones (such as variable pricing) can be made.

Modelling won't go away: as a tool for guiding caring and helpful remedial systems, models are amazing. As a tool for punishing and disenfranchising, they are a nightmare. The choice is ours to make. O'Neil's book is a vital crash-course in the specialized kind of statistical knowledge we all need to interrogate the systems around us and demand better.

 Weapons of Math Destruction [Cathy O'Neil/Crown]

https://boingboing.net/2016/09/06/weapons-of-math-destruction-i.html

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Weapons of Math Destruction: invisible, ubiquitous algorithms are ruining millions of lives #1yrago

I've been writing about the work of Cathy "Mathbabe" O'Neil for years: she's a radical data-scientist with a Harvard PhD in mathematics, who coined the term "Weapons of Math Destruction" to describe the ways that sloppy statistical modeling is punishing millions of people every day, and in more and more cases, destroying lives. Today, O'Neil brings her argument to print, with a fantastic, plainspoken, call to arms called (what else?) Weapons of Math Destruction.

Discussions about big data's role in our society tends to focus on algorithms, but the algorithms for handling giant data sets are all well understood and work well. The real issue isn't algorithms, it's models. Models are what you get when you feed data to an algorithm and ask it to make predictions. As O'Neil puts it, "Models are opinions embedded in mathematics."

Other critical data scientists, like Patrick Ball from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group have located their critique in the same place. As Patrick once explained to me, you can train an algorithm to predict someone's height from their weight, but if your whole training set comes from a grade three class, and anyone who's self-conscious about their weight is allowed to skip the exercise, your model will predict that most people are about four feet tall. The problem isn't the algorithm, it's the training data and the lack of correction when the model produces erroneous conclusions.

Like Ball, O'Neil is enthusiastic about the power of data-driven modelling to be a force for good in the world, and like Ball, she despairs at the way that sloppy statistical work can produce gigantic profits for a few companies at the expense of millions of people -- all with the veneer of mathematical objectivity.

O'Neil calls these harmful models "Weapons of Math Destruction," and not all fault models qualify. For a model to be a WMD, it must be opaque to its subjects, harmful to their interests, and grow exponentially to run at huge scale.

These WMDs are now everywhere. The sleazy for-profit educational system has figured out how to use models to identify desperate people and sucker them into signing up for expensive, useless "educations" that are paid for with punitive student loans, backed by the federal government. That's how the University of Phoenix can be so profitable, even after spending upwards of $1B/year on marketing. They've built a WMD that brings students in at a steady clip despite the fact that they spend $2,225/student in marketing and only $892/student on instruction. Meanwhile, the high-efficacy, low-cost community colleges are all but invisible in the glare and roar of the University of Phoenix's marketing blitzkreig.

One highly visible characteristic of WMDs is their lack of feedback and tuning. In sports, teams use detailed statistical models to predict which athletes they should bid on, and to deploy those athletes when squaring off against opposing teams. But after the predicted event has occurred, the teams update their models to account for their failings. If you pass on a basketball player who goes to glory for a rival team, you update your model to help you do better in the next draft.

Compare this with the WMDs used against us in everyday life. The largest employers in America use commercial services to run their incoming resumes against a model of a "successful" worker. These models hold your employment future in their hands. If one rejects you and you go on to do brilliant work somewhere else, that fact is never used to refine the model. Everyone loses: job-seekers are arbitrarily excluded from employment, and employers miss out on great hires. Only the WMD merchants in the middle make out like bandits.

It's worth asking how we got here. Many forms of WMD were deployed as an answer to institutional bias -- in criminal sentencing, in school grading, in university admissions, in hiring and lending. The models are supposed to be race- and gender-blind, blind to privilege and connections.

But all too often, the models are trained with the biased data. The picture of a future successful Ivy League student or loan repayer is painted using data-points from the admittedly biased history of the institutions. All the Harvard grads or dutiful mortgage payers are fed to the algorithm, which dutifully predicts that tomorrow's Harvard alums and prime loan recipients will look just like yesterday's -- but now the bias gets the credibility of seeming objectivity.

This training problem is well known in stats, but largely ignored by WMD dealers. Companies that run their own Big Data initiatives, by contrast, are much more careful about refining their models. Amazon carefully tracks those customers who abandon their shopping carts, or who stop shopping after a couple of purchases. Their interested in knowing everything they can about "recidivism" among shoppers, and they combine statistical modelling with anthropology -- seeking out and talking to their subjects -- to improve their system.

The contrast with automated sentencing software -- now widely used in the US judicial system, and spreading rapidly around the world -- could not be more stark. Like Amazon's data scientists, the companies that sell sentencing apps are trying to predict recidivism, and their predictions can send one person to prison for decades and let another go free.

These brokers are training their model on the corrupted data of the past. They look at the racialized sentencing outcomes of the past -- the outcomes that sent young black men to prison for years for minor crack possession, while letting rich white men walk away from cocaine possession charges -- and conclude that people from poor neighborhoods, whose family members and friends have had run-ins with the law, and "predict" that this person will reoffend, and recommend long sentences to keep them away from society.

Unlike Amazon, these companies aren't looking to see whether longer sentences cause recidivism (by causing emotional damage and social isolation) and how prison beatings, solitary confinement and prison rape are related to the phenomenon. If the prison system was run like Amazon -- that is, with a commitment to reducing reoffending, rather than enriching justice-system contractors and satisfying revenge-hungry bigots in the electorate -- it would probably look like a Nordic prison: humane, sparsely populated, and oriented toward rehabilitation, addiction treatment, job training, and psychological counselling.

WMDs have transformed education for teachers and students. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration seized on a report called A Nation at Risk, which claimed that the US was on the verge of collapse due to its falling SAT scores. This was the starter-pistol for an all-out assault on teachers and public education, which continues to this day.

The most visible expression of this is the "value added" assessment of teachers, which uses a battery of standardized tests to assess teachers' performance from year to year. The statistical basis for these assessments is laughable (statistics work on big numbers, not classes of 25 kids -- assessments can swing 90% from one year to the next, making them no better than random number generators). Teachers -- good teachers, committed teachers -- lose their jobs over these tests.

Students, meanwhile, are taken away from real learning in order to take more and more tests, and those tests -- which are supposed to measure "aptitude" and thus shouldn't be amenable to expensive preparatory services -- determine their whole futures.

The Nation at Risk report that started it all turned out to be bullshit, by the way -- grounded in another laughable statistical error. Sandia Labs later audited the findings from the report and found that the researchers had failed to account for the ballooning number of students who were taking the SATs, bringing down the average score.

In other words: SATs were falling because more American kids were confident enough to try to go to college: the educational system was working so well that young people who would never have taken an SAT were taking it, and the larger pool of test-takers was bringing the average score down.

WMDs turn the whole of human life into a game of Search Engine Optimization. With SEO, merchants hire companies who claim to have reverse-engineered Google's opaque model and whose advice will move your URL further up in its ranking.

When you pay someone thousands of dollars to prep your kid for the SATs, or to improve your ranking with the "e-score" providers that determine your creditworthiness, jobworthiness, or mortgageworthiness, you're recreating SEO, but for everything. It's a grim picture of the future: WMD makers and SEO experts locked in an endless arms-race to tweak their models to game one another, and all the rest of us being subjected to automated caprice or paying ransom to escape it (for now). In that future, we're all the product, not the customer (much less the citizen).

O'Neil's work is so important because she believes in data science. Algorithms can and will be used to locate people in difficulty: teachers with hard challenges, people in financial distress, people who are struggling in their jobs, students who need educational attention. It's up to us whether we use that information to exclude and further victimize those people, or help them with additional resources

Credit bureaux, e-scorers, and other entities that model us create externalities in the form of false positives -- from no-fly lists to credit-score errors to job score errors that cost us our careers. These errors cost them nothing to make, and something to fix -- and they're incredibly expensive to us. Like all negative externalities, the cost of cleaning them up (rehabilitating your job, finding a new home, serving a longer prison sentence, etc) is much higher than the savings to the firms, but we bear the costs and they reap the savings.

It's E Pluribus Unum reversed: models make many out of one, pigeonholing each of us as members of groups about whom generalizations -- often punitive ones (such as variable pricing) can be made.

Modelling won't go away: as a tool for guiding caring and helpful remedial systems, models are amazing. As a tool for punishing and disenfranchising, they are a nightmare. The choice is ours to make. O'Neil's book is a vital crash-course in the specialized kind of statistical knowledge we all need to interrogate the systems around us and demand better.

Weapons of Math Destruction [Cathy O'Neil/Crown]

https://boingboing.net/2016/09/06/weapons-of-math-destruction-i.html

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Weapons of Math Destruction: invisible, ubiquitous algorithms are ruining millions of lives #1yrago

I've been writing about the work of Cathy "Mathbabe" O'Neil for years: she's a radical data-scientist with a Harvard PhD in mathematics, who coined the term "Weapons of Math Destruction" to describe the ways that sloppy statistical modeling is punishing millions of people every day, and in more and more cases, destroying lives. Today, O'Neil brings her argument to print, with a fantastic, plainspoken, call to arms called (what else?)Weapons of Math Destruction.

Discussions about big data's role in our society tends to focus on algorithms, but the algorithms for handling giant data sets are all well understood and work well. The real issue isn't algorithms, it's models. Models are what you get when you feed data to an algorithm and ask it to make predictions. As O'Neil puts it, "Models are opinions embedded in mathematics."

Other critical data scientists, like Patrick Ball from the Human Rights Data Analysis Group have located their critique in the same place. As Patrick once explained to me, you can train an algorithm to predict someone's height from their weight, but if your whole training set comes from a grade three class, and anyone who's self-conscious about their weight is allowed to skip the exercise, your model will predict that most people are about four feet tall. The problem isn't the algorithm, it's the training data and the lack of correction when the model produces erroneous conclusions.

Like Ball, O'Neil is enthusiastic about the power of data-driven modelling to be a force for good in the world, and like Ball, she despairs at the way that sloppy statistical work can produce gigantic profits for a few companies at the expense of millions of people -- all with the veneer of mathematical objectivity.

O'Neil calls these harmful models "Weapons of Math Destruction," and not all fault models qualify. For a model to be a WMD, it must be opaque to its subjects, harmful to their interests, and grow exponentially to run at huge scale.

These WMDs are now everywhere. The sleazy for-profit educational system has figured out how to use models to identify desperate people and sucker them into signing up for expensive, useless "educations" that are paid for with punitive student loans, backed by the federal government. That's how the University of Phoenix can be so profitable, even after spending upwards of $1B/year on marketing. They've built a WMD that brings students in at a steady clip despite the fact that they spend $2,225/student in marketing and only $892/student on instruction. Meanwhile, the high-efficacy, low-cost community colleges are all but invisible in the glare and roar of the University of Phoenix's marketing blitzkreig.

One highly visible characteristic of WMDs is their lack of feedback and tuning. In sports, teams use detailed statistical models to predict which athletes they should bid on, and to deploy those athletes when squaring off against opposing teams. But after the predicted event has occurred, the teams update their models to account for their failings. If you pass on a basketball player who goes to glory for a rival team, you update your model to help you do better in the next draft.

Compare this with the WMDs used against us in everyday life. The largest employers in America use commercial services to run their incoming resumes against a model of a "successful" worker. These models hold your employment future in their hands. If one rejects you and you go on to do brilliant work somewhere else, that fact is never used to refine the model. Everyone loses: job-seekers are arbitrarily excluded from employment, and employers miss out on great hires. Only the WMD merchants in the middle make out like bandits.

It's worth asking how we got here. Many forms of WMD were deployed as an answer to institutional bias -- in criminal sentencing, in school grading, in university admissions, in hiring and lending. The models are supposed to be race- and gender-blind, blind to privilege and connections.

But all too often, the models are trained with the biased data. The picture of a future successful Ivy League student or loan repayer is painted using data-points from the admittedly biased history of the institutions. All the Harvard grads or dutiful mortgage payers are fed to the algorithm, which dutifully predicts that tomorrow's Harvard alums and prime loan recipients will look just like yesterday's -- but now the bias gets the credibility of seeming objectivity.

This training problem is well known in stats, but largely ignored by WMD dealers. Companies that run their own Big Data initiatives, by contrast, are much more careful about refining their models. Amazon carefully tracks those customers who abandon their shopping carts, or who stop shopping after a couple of purchases. Their interested in knowing everything they can about "recidivism" among shoppers, and they combine statistical modelling with anthropology -- seeking out and talking to their subjects -- to improve their system.

The contrast with automated sentencing software -- now widely used in the US judicial system, and spreading rapidly around the world -- could not be more stark. Like Amazon's data scientists, the companies that sell sentencing apps are trying to predict recidivism, and their predictions can send one person to prison for decades and let another go free.

These brokers are training their model on the corrupted data of the past. They look at the racialized sentencing outcomes of the past -- the outcomes that sent young black men to prison for years for minor crack possession, while letting rich white men walk away from cocaine possession charges -- and conclude that people from poor neighborhoods, whose family members and friends have had run-ins with the law, and "predict" that this person will reoffend, and recommend long sentences to keep them away from society.

Unlike Amazon, these companies aren't looking to see whether longer sentences cause recidivism (by causing emotional damage and social isolation) and how prison beatings, solitary confinement and prison rape are related to the phenomenon. If the prison system was run like Amazon -- that is, with a commitment to reducing reoffending, rather than enriching justice-system contractors and satisfying revenge-hungry bigots in the electorate -- it would probably look like a Nordic prison: humane, sparsely populated, and oriented toward rehabilitation, addiction treatment, job training, and psychological counselling.

WMDs have transformed education for teachers and students. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration seized on a report called A Nation at Risk, which claimed that the US was on the verge of collapse due to its falling SAT scores. This was the starter-pistol for an all-out assault on teachers and public education, which continues to this day.

The most visible expression of this is the "value added" assessment of teachers, which uses a battery of standardized tests to assess teachers' performance from year to year. The statistical basis for these assessments is laughable (statistics work on big numbers, not classes of 25 kids -- assessments can swing 90% from one year to the next, making them no better than random number generators). Teachers -- good teachers, committed teachers -- lose their jobs over these tests.

Students, meanwhile, are taken away from real learning in order to take more and more tests, and those tests -- which are supposed to measure "aptitude" and thus shouldn't be amenable to expensive preparatory services -- determine their whole futures.

The Nation at Risk report that started it all turned out to be bullshit, by the way -- grounded in another laughable statistical error. Sandia Labs later audited the findings from the report and found that the researchers had failed to account for the ballooning number of students who were taking the SATs, bringing down the average score.

In other words: SATs were falling because more American kids were confident enough to try to go to college: the educational system was working so well that young people who would never have taken an SAT were taking it, and the larger pool of test-takers was bringing the average score down.

WMDs turn the whole of human life into a game of Search Engine Optimization. With SEO, merchants hire companies who claim to have reverse-engineered Google's opaque model and whose advice will move your URL further up in its ranking.

When you pay someone thousands of dollars to prep your kid for the SATs, or to improve your ranking with the "e-score" providers that determine your creditworthiness, jobworthiness, or mortgageworthiness, you're recreating SEO, but for everything. It's a grim picture of the future: WMD makers and SEO experts locked in an endless arms-race to tweak their models to game one another, and all the rest of us being subjected to automated caprice or paying ransom to escape it (for now). In that future, we're all the product, not the customer (much less the citizen).

O'Neil's work is so important because she believes in data science. Algorithms can and will be used to locate people in difficulty: teachers with hard challenges, people in financial distress, people who are struggling in their jobs, students who need educational attention. It's up to us whether we use that information to exclude and further victimize those people, or help them with additional resources

Credit bureaux, e-scorers, and other entities that model us create externalities in the form of false positives -- from no-fly lists to credit-score errors to job score errors that cost us our careers. These errors cost them nothing to make, and something to fix -- and they're incredibly expensive to us. Like all negative externalities, the cost of cleaning them up (rehabilitating your job, finding a new home, serving a longer prison sentence, etc) is much higher than the savings to the firms, but we bear the costs and they reap the savings.

It's E Pluribus Unum reversed: models make many out of one, pigeonholing each of us as members of groups about whom generalizations -- often punitive ones (such as variable pricing) can be made.

Modelling won't go away: as a tool for guiding caring and helpful remedial systems, models are amazing. As a tool for punishing and disenfranchising, they are a nightmare. The choice is ours to make. O'Neil's book is a vital crash-course in the specialized kind of statistical knowledge we all need to interrogate the systems around us and demand better.

Weapons of Math Destruction [Cathy O'Neil/Crown]

https://boingboing.net/2016/09/06/weapons-of-math-destruction-i.html