mathbabe

Aunt Pythia is well-slept and excited to be here to answer your wonderful and thoughtful ethical conundrums. Please do comment on my answers, if you disagree but especially if you agree wholeheartedly and want me to keep up the good work. Love that kind of encouraging comment.

And please, don’t forget to ask me a question at the bottom of the page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

What is your text editor of choice? The most popular ones, the ones in which I know die-hard fans, are for Emacs, Vi/Vim, and Sublime. I am personally an Emacs user, but I haven’t given any other editors a chance, to be honest. Which do you prefer to use, and why?

Text Editor

Dear TE,

I use emacs mostly, and xemacs when it’s available. It’s easy, it “knows” about python and other languages, and the drop-down menu is easier than remembering keystroke commands. I’ve been known to use an IDE or two depending on codebase context. For me it’s all about ease of use and, since I’ve never been a professional engineer and so I’ve never spent a large majority of my time with source code, vim doesn’t attract me, even though everything is keystroke and you never need to use your mouse.

As an aside, I’d like to argue this point, because it’s often shrouded in weird macho crap: why not use your mouse? Does it really waste that much time? I honestly have never been prevented from coding efficiently because my arm is too tired from moving from the keyboard to the mouse and back. Is the goal really to be able to stay in the exact same position for as long as possible? I’m the kind of person that is too fidgety for such ideas. I take the “stand up and walk around every 20 minutes” rule seriously, at least before 4pm, when I become a zombie.

Good luck, young padawan!

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

What are your thoughts on the famous (infamous?) two-daughter problem? I have three PhDs who give different answers all of which appear to be statistically correct. Modinow says the answer is 1/2. The chair of the stats department at local university says the answer is 3/7, and a chap at Fl Coastal College has yet a 3rd answer which I have lost.

How can this be? 

Tombs

Dear Tombs,

OK I’m pretty sure there’s only one answer to this if it’s stated precisely. So let’s try to do that. Here’s the question:

Suppose I have two children. One of them is a girl who was born on a Friday. What are the chances of both children being girls?

Now I’m a big fan of making things incredibly easy and visual. So what I’m going to do here is identify the fact that, as far as children go, there are two attributes of interest in this question, namely gender and day of birth. I will assume that all options are equally likely and that they are independent from each other as well as between kids, and in my first iteration I’ll draw up a list of equally likely bins for a given child, namely of either gender and of any day born. That’s 14 equally likely bins for a given single child, and that means they happen with probability 1/14.

Now, for the second iteration, let’s talk about having two kids. You have a 2-dimensional array of bins, which you arrange to be 14-by-14, and you assume that any of those 14*14 = 196 bins is a priori equally likely.

Label the bins with ordered pairs (gender, day). The x-axis is first kid, y-axis is 2nd kid. Each bin equally likely.

If you label the first bin as “(Female, Friday)” and the second bin as “(Female, Saturday)” and so on, you realize that the condition that “one of the two kids is a girl who was born on Friday” means that we already know we are working in the context where we are either in the left-most column or the bottom row. Here’s my awesome rendition of this area:

The pink parts show where there’s a girl born on a Friday among the two children.

Specifically, the left bottom corner is the case where there are two girls, both born on Friday. The one to the right and above that corner refers to the case where there are two girls, one born on Friday and one born on Saturday. The stuff on the right and in the upper part of the column refers to the case where there’s a Friday girl and a boy.

Altogether we have 13 pink bins with two girls and 14 pink bins of a boy and a girl. So the overall chances of two girls, given one Friday girl, is 13/27.

I hope that’s convincing!

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Auntie P,

What do you think about topological data analysis (some info here). Should we trust people who can’t tell the difference between their rear end and a coffee cup because the two are topologically equivalent?

Topological Fear

Dear TF,

Geez I don’t know about you but my rear end is not topologically equivalent to my coffee cups. You either need to go to a doctor or buy some coffee cups that don’t leak.

So, I don’t know very much about this stuff, but I do think it’s potentially interesting, and it’s maybe close to an idea I’ve had for a while now but for which I haven’t found a practical use. Yet.

The idea I have had, if it’s close to this idea, and I think from short conversations with people that it is, is that if you draw a bunch of scatter plots of, say, two attributes x1 and x2 and an outcome y (so you need numerical data for this), then you’ll notice in the resulting 3-dimensional blob of points some interesting topological properties. Namely, there seem to be pretty well-defined boundaries, and those boundaries might have certain kinds of curves, and there may possibly even be well-defined holes in the blob, at least if you “fatten up” the points (sufficiently but not more than necessary) and then take the union of all of the resulting spheres to be some kind of 3-d manifold. You can then play with the relationship between, say, the radius of these fattened points and the topological properties of the resulting blob.

Anyhoo, the idea could be that, if you see x1 and x2 then you can exclude a y that lives in a hole, or rather where point (x1, x2, y) would live in a hole. This is more than most kinds of modern models can do for you, but even so I’ve never seen this actually come in handy.

I hope that helps, and please do see a doctor!

Auntie P

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

This is a reaction to a previous post (maybe Oct 12?) where you said the following: 

My kids, to be clear, hate team sports and suck at them, like good nerds.

Now, as a nerd whose parents never let play team sports growing up and now plays one in college (a “nerd” sport, but still…), I have a question for you: Why do “good nerds” have to hate sports and/or suck at them? What classifies a “good nerd”? Does this generalize to other things that nerds are stereotypically bad at, like sex lives? Is there another category that should be created for nerdy type people that are also jocky-er, like a nerock or a jord?

With Love,
A “Bad Nerd”

Dear Bad Nerd,

Great question, and you’re not the only nerd that called me out on my outrageous discrimination. I wasn’t being fair to my nerock and jord friends, and that ‘aint cool. Although, statistically I believe I still have a point, there’s no reason to limit people in arbitrary ways like that, and it’s fundamentally un-nerdy of me to do so.

For all you nerocks and jords out there: you go, girls! and boys!

But just for the record, nerds are categorically excellent at sex. We all know that. Say yes.

Love,

Aunt Pythia

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Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Aunt Pythia lovers! Please rest assured that Aunt Pythia took a much-needed one week rest but is now back and is bigger and better than before!

What?!           YES!!!

And please, don’t forget to ask me a question at the bottom of the page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

I have been dating a guy for 6 months, and realized that I have been suffering due to his “too direct” way of communicating, a.k.a. criticizing me too much.

Everything is bad, he said my skin will look better if I exfoliate more, he said the shoes I wear looked too cheap on me, or that I should use different deodorant because the one I am using right now is “failing”, and the worse, he said I have bad breath.

I understand that I should not take criticism too personal, and it reminds me that I have many things to improve, but he made me feel horrible and I’m losing confidence.

I really want to break up with him because I don’t think he loves me, but he keeps on saying that he does, and despite all those critics, he stays in this relationship with me. What should I do?

I Am Sad

Dear Sad,

A few things.

First, what you’ve described is a classic case of someone (namely, a jerk) projecting their insecurities onto someone else (namely, you). He does it through accusations, and as a good friend explained to me, people accuse you of the thing they are guilty of. So next time he accuses you of having bad breath, realize it is he who is sensitive to his breath. So your first task is to flip those statements around every time they come out of his mouth.

Next, I know it’s easier said than done, but I want you to work on flipping more than just his words. I want you to start realizing that when you say “he stays in this relationship with me” it means that it’s up to him, whereas it’s really just as much up to you. In other words, you’ve given him all the power to decide whether this relationship is going to continue. You didn’t even tell me if you love him, only that he loves you (or at least claims to), which is another indication that you feel powerless and your emotions are irrelevant. So they second task I’d like you to try is to flip that mindset around and realize that, given how insecure and mean he is, he’s lucky you haven’t broken up with him. You have the power to end this, even if you haven’t exerted it yet.

Finally, I want you to address this stuff with him (if you do indeed love him – otherwise skip to last four words of this paragraph). Once you’ve learned to recognize his projections for insecure and mean barbs, and once you realize the power you have in that relationship, I’d like you to tell him that you have standards for a high quality of life, and this treatment is not meeting those standards, so he needs to stop. And if he can’t, then break up with him.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

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Aunt Pythia,

If I drink quickly enough and pee slowly enough simultaneously, do you think I could pee forever?

Aspiring Guinness

Dear AG,

Dunno but please do document your efforts.

AP

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

How do you find the time to work as a data scientist, be a mom, write daily blog posts, organize Occupy/hacker events and still maintain a sense of humor? I’ve got one job, one hobby, no kids and can do little more than collapse on my day off. I don’t even have a TV.

What’s your secret? Are you one of those amazing people who only needs four hours of sleep per night?

More energy hopeful

Dear More,

I’ve been asked this question before and, although I will tell you my “secrets”, I’m guessing you are underplaying all the stuff you actually do. To convince yourself of that, think about how your best friend would describe you, not how you did above. Just sayin’. OK here goes.

First of all, I’m a huge sleep hog. I think that’s one of my secrets, which is that I don’t deny myself sleep. I often fall asleep before my kids, who are themselves sleep hogs and go to bed at 9:30 [Update: after reading this my oldest son insists that he is not a sleep hog and that the 9:30 bedtime is mandated by the dictator who is his mother]. I also take naps whenever I can. Love naps.

I generally think people shortchange their own sleep thinking it will make them more efficient, when in fact it does the opposite. A great night’s sleep sees me jumping out of bed at 6am to blog some point that got me all in a huff the day before. I can’t wait! I’m excited to do it!

The second thing I want to mention is that I’m a scrupulous planner, and I have enormously high (extremely personal) standards for my activities. I say “no” almost all the time to almost everything, so I can spend more time doing stuff I love like watching Star Trek: Deep Space 9 with my kids and taking naps. That means I’m a persona non grata when it comes to, say, the PTA, where my policy is that if my husband won’t do it, neither will I (and he basically won’t do anything).

Third, what with all the reinventing I’ve done over the years, I don’t hover needlessly over my own decisions. I write a blog post, then publish it. I give myself 1.5 times as long to prepare a talk as the talk will last, a trick I learned from my teaching experience. If things suck, I take it in stride, make a mental note to myself, and move on. In other words, I’m ruthlessly efficient and my skin is thick. It means I’m not a stickler for details but I get through more stuff than otherwise.

Finally, I really like and trust the people I meet and work with. It sometimes burns me but then again almost always works out, and I’d recommend it overall, especially if paired with a natural or learned resilience to disappointments, which gets easier when you have a fantastic support system. That means I’m always psyched to work on the next project with other people and that energy feeds me and gets me going.

I hope that helps!

Aunt Pythia

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Dearest Aunt Pythia,

I’m a young math professor, and, as you know is typical, this career entails for me a certain level of travel to conferences. Lately, I’ve realized that the colleagues that I meet regularly at conferences are a sad bunch of life cripples. Totally lacking in beneficial social graces and unable to hold even just a slightly decent conversation of non-trivial length (especially one not involving mathematics), I feel continually shocked when around them, particularly by the unsubtle, autistic fashion in which they interrogate me about my personal life, professional activities, collaborations, etc.

Could you suggest any techniques for coping with interactions with them? How can I survive, or even have a little fun in this bad party I’m stuck in? Also, does Aunt Pythia have any ideas for minimizing the anxiety that I’m struck with prior to attending a conference?

Keep up the frank work,
Pitiable In The Suburbs

Dear Pitiable,

I’m afraid I’m going to have to use my previous advice against you. You are accusing these guys of all sorts of things that you yourself are guilty of. In particular, you don’t sound like someone overbrimming with social graces when you call people “cripples”.

And when I pair your nasty and dismissive tone with the acknowledged anxiety you experience before going to a conference, I am forced to conclude that you are projecting anxiety and insecurity onto these nerds.

Look, I’ve been to a LOT of conferences, and I agree that there are lots of awkward moments. And yes, there are lots of people that are on the autism spectrum in mathematics. But those people are still really wonderful in general and I have always found a way to enjoy myself with great company. In fact I cannot remember a conference I went to that I didn’t end up enjoying once I sought out the people with whom I click. Even at Oberwolfach, the most macho of all places, I managed to find some bridge partners and beer.

My advice to you: spend a lot of time willfully separating your anxiety from other people’s flaws, and set yourself the task to find something beautiful, or at least amusing, in every person you meet at your next conference. And take it from me, there are assholes in math, but they are typically pretty minor league compared to, say, the finance assholes or the Silicon Valley assholes.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

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Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Aunt Pythia has a 5-year-old’s birthday party to manage this morning, so she’s going to be more to the point, less philosophical, and overall slightly less fun and sexy than usual, for which she apologizes.

On second thought, they say less is more, so let’s assume it’s just as sexy if not more sexy.

Apology rescinded.

And, please, Aunt Pythia readers: I’ve been plowing through questions faster than I’ve been receiving them, so please

ask me a question at the bottom of the page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

Seeing as Halloween is coming up soon, I was just thinking about what to dress up as (well, looking online at pictures of other people’s ridonculous costumes). In the middle of my search, my brother walked into the room. Thinking that he may be of some help, I asked him what I should dress up as. He answered that I should just go as myself; it’ll be the scariest costume guaranteed.

How should I respond?

Sad Face Pumpkin

Dear SFP,

I think your brother is right, and you should acknowledge that.

Let’s face it, our society is filled with phonies getting up every morning and putting on costumes for work to hide their true inner selves. Being an authentic human being is incredibly intimidating to such people, and they might be terrified when they see you.

Partly this is because it’s just so incredibly rare to see someone be an unqualified human being that the “unknown” aspect is scary, and partly because they’re worried that, if you’re doing it, then they might be expected to do it too. Persevere though, and be brave. It’s worthwhile in spite of such reactions.

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

Since I had my first baby (a four month old little boy), my mother has starting buying him gifts frequently. Most of these are completely unnecessary, or superfluous, or more expensive than what we need or I would consider affordable.

I don’t want them and it stresses me out because I don’t think my mother can afford them either. She is completely innumerate. In fact, she doesn’t even seem to comprehend large numbers at all. 100 and 1000 and 10000 all mean the same thing to her.

Instead of budgeting with numbers, she tries to balance out a sense of deprivation (so she’ll try to balance out spending $100 on luxuries by buying cheap bread that tastes bad for a month, even though that doesn’t work at all).

Even though she is in her sixties, she constantly has a credit card debt, has kept the same mortgage for the last twenty years, and has minimal retirement savings. I wish she would stop buying us baby clothes from expensive department stores and save it instead. I’ve tried returning them and giving her the money back, and asking her not to buy any more, but often I can only get store credit. In any case she won’t take the money back, and then a few weeks later she’ll come over with a new set of clothes that are already almost too small for him.

Sometimes I lie awake at night stressing about it. I feel powerless to stop her but when she gets too old to work I think it will become my problem as well and I unfortunately don’t earn very much money. What should I do?

Anxious

Dear Anxious,

It’s a huge problem, and your mom is obviously not the only person in that situation. In fact I expect to hear more and more about retirees in huge debt problems in the next few years. Of course some retirees have saved a bunch of money, but not all of them to be sure.

My advice, and this is just on first reflection and I’d invite other readers to give their input, is to stay far away from your mom’s money, legally speaking. She is likely not going to accept your advice, and although it’s probably worth suggesting she go to talk to a non-profit community finance class on budgeting like at a local credit union, I don’t expect this will actually make her instantaneously frugal.

Here’s what I wouldn’t do if I were you: pay off her debts. There would just be more where those came from. When she is unable to pay her debts, by all means help her connect with a lawyer to declare bankruptcy, and help her cope with debt collectors (read the Debt Resistors Operations Manual to learn more about her rights and theirs).

Here’s another thing I wouldn’t do: in any way shape or form become a co-signatory on anything with her. Then you will be liable for her debts.

In the best of worlds, your mom will run up pretty big debts, the credit card companies will figure out she’s never going to pay back those debts, she will declare bankruptcy, and then nobody will give her any more credit. To be sure you will want to make sure she always has food and a place to live and medicine, but think of that as a separate issue from her piling-up debts, which is in the end the problem of the banks that gave her credit cards she couldn’t be trusted with.

Good luck, and enjoy motherhood!

Aunt Pythia

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Hi Auntie P,

Thank you for answering my “sock” question, but my apologies for not phrasing it properly, and so misleading you as to my intention. Perhaps you will permit me to resubmit it, and – having seen your “not enough sex” comment on 21st – I will try to put some of that into it, instead of boring old socks. 

Let’s imagine that 44 men and 116 women sign up for a dating evening. Each is given a number, and they are drawn at random – the organizer forgetting to ask any basic questions like “sexual orientation?” or to put the men’s numbers in one pot and the women’s in another. As the numbers are drawn out, the first person is paired with the second, the third with the fourth, etc.

So my question is this: how many M/M pairings will there be? Alternatively, what are the chances of getting exactly n such couples?

Socks Maniac

Dear Socks Maniac,

I don’t usually do this, but I’m gonna steal a commenter’s answer whole hog from that post, which I guess you didn’t see. This is from Michael Kleber, whom I’ve know approximately 20 years, and I’ve adjusted it to be sexy like I know we want it:

I think Socks Maniac’s drawer contains lots of individual socks people which get paired up blindfolded. That gives you X all-black male pairs, Y all-white female pairs, and Z mixed black-white male-female ones, and the question is the probability that X is exactly 10.

This can also be answered by counting, but it’s a little uglier. There are 160-choose-44 orders in which you can pull the socks out of the drawer blindfolded people out of the dungeon, of course. To count the number of ways to get exactly X/Y/Z black/white/male/female/mixed pairs, you can think of lining up 80 slots dungeon lairs and picking X of them to get two black socks blindfolded men, Y of the remaining 80-X to get two white ones blindfolded women — and then for the remaining Z slots dungeon lairs you need to pick whether a black or a white sock man or woman was pulled out first, so that’s another 2^Z choices to worry about. So 80-choose-X * (80-X)-choose-Y * 2^Z.

Since Socks Maniac told us X=10, that accounts for 20 of the 44 black socks blindfolded men, leaving 24 black socks blindfolded men paired with 24 white ones blindfolded women (so Z=24), and the other 92 white socks blindfolded women paired up into Y=46 all-white women-on-women pairs. So the number of ways to get exactly 10 all-black male pairs is (80 choose 10) * (70 choose 46) * 2^24. Dividing by the 160-choose-44 to pull socks out of the drawer in the first place, and Wolfram Alpha says you get around 0.01854, or a little under a 2% chance.

Hmm, I see I can’t post links, or even mention the Wolfram Alpha web site by name, without sounding like spam. But anyway, it will happily evaluate

((80 choose 10) * (70 choose 46) * 2^24) / (160 choose 44).

Thanks, Michael!

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

From reading your blog/column, you sound like an outgoing, extroverted type. So maybe you can give a few pointers to we introverts: what are some good ways to start conversations with strangers? I tend to do OK once I’m actually talking to somebody, but I always feel awkward when trying to initiate contact with other people.

I’m single and I don’t have a ton of friends, so this seems like a useful skill to develop.

I’m Nervous To Join

Dear INTJ,

I think the key is to project a friendliness and openness to the stranger you are talking to, and if it turns out you’re wrong and the person is unfriendly or closed off, then not taking it personally.

So for example, when I see people knitting awesome stuff on the subway, I am pretty much always going to pipe up and tell them how beautiful that piece is. About 65% of the time this leads to an excited conversation about how awesome and useless knitting skills are, and sometimes even leads to the discovery of a new yarn shop or sale or website for one of us. But the rest of the time the person has no interest in talking, and I just walk away. I don’t feel bad for being friendly and wanting to connect with someone, because that is frankly what humans do and it’s not something to be ashamed of.

Note one thing: there was a “reason” for me to talk in the above scenario, and that’s key. It doesn’t make sense to walk up to someone with absolutely no cause and strike up a conversation. Having said that, the reason doesn’t have to be all that good, especially if there’s alcohol involved. It could be as simple as, “I love your shirt!!”, although that’s an opener for truly extroverted people.

One last thing. The more confident you are that most people are friendly and open, the higher your chances are of making a connection, so that leaves you with a bit of a tough feedback loop to get into. I suggest having an extroverted wingwoman or wingman the first few times to show you some ropes and to demonstrate how fun it is to be friendly. And good luck!

Aunt Pythia

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Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Hello and good morning, dear Aunt Pythia readers. Aunt Pythia is feeling bright-eyed and bushy tailed this morning and can’t wait to dig into the juicy questions and ethical dilemmas she is sure are awaiting her in her beloved and glamorous google spreadsheet.

Aunt Pythia has taken a few minutes today already to count her blessings, and high among them are the chance to interact with you kind people through this blog and particularly this Saturday morning column. Thank you all! Please feel generous for being here, you are appreciated!

And as always please:

ask a question at the bottom of the page!!

By the way, if you want more, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

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Dear Auntie,

1. Do body parts that are not for public purview (read “genitals”) show greater physical diversity because they have not been acted upon by marketing and evolution?

2. Does the use of wigs by Orthodox Jewish women lead to baldness, as they don’t have to demonstrate good hair and so theirs is kind of …meh? I have two data points; albeit from the same family.

No disrespect to genitals or Orthodox Jews intended.

Sexual Evolution Xpounded

Dear SEX,

First of all, I’m in a new phase where I am really into using the phrase “particulars”. So I’m really glad you asked this question, since it gives me tremendous opportunity in that regard. I’m no expert in particulars, of course, but I’ll talk about particulars anyway, since you asked.

First, let’s think about whether particulars have escaped evolution untouched: for sure not, but it has presumably been more about procreation probabilities and not dying in childbirth than about beauty per se.

Here’s my argument along those lines, specifically when it comes to women’s particulars and the issue of marketing standardization: my impression is that no man has ever gotten that close to sex and then said, “whoa, your vagina has a slightly peculiar shape and/or positioning relative to your clitoris. Maybe we should not procreate after all!!”

I mean, it may have happened but I haven’t heard about it. Tell me if you have evidence to the contrary.

That’s not to say there’s no beauty there in something that is varied and idiosyncratic, to be sure. And things might be slightly different for men in this regard, since let’s face it, men’s particular particulars are more obvious pieces of apparatus and therefore more easily scrutinized.

As for baldness and wigs: no freaking clue, but I do have something to say about wigs in general, which is that there are a TON of wigs out there if you know how to spot them. In fact if you go onto the NY subway and take a look around, you’ll see that a good portion of rush hour commuting women are wearing wigs, and I don’t think it’s because New Yorkers are more likely to be bald. It’s just a big thing, particularly for Jewish and for African-American women. Bigger than you might think, and essentially never discussed, which always piques my interest.

Hope that helps,

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

Here is my Career dilemma. I am what you would consider an “Engineer” in the Analytics industry. I have had a good career in building Analytics Products aimed at analyzing data and finally implementing some ‘algorithms’ after enough study to take the human out of the process (one example is a routing algorithm that considers 10-15 price, quality and other factors).

Lately, I feel less excited about ‘normal’ analytics projects (because initial study is smaller and rest is all about creating pipelines to setup algorithms to work autonomously). Instead the new ‘Data Science’ field seems more interesting, fun and challenging. I had a good math background, but that was a decade ago…ideally, I would be part of a Data Science team and learn in the process, but as soon as I say I am not a math major, nobody takes me seriously.

I am relearning some of my math skills but I can hardly refresh years of algebra, calculus and operations research skills that easily.

I am NOT dreaming of being the math nerd in a Data Science team but I cannot figure out if Data Science teams need people like me, who have years of Decision Science + Data Processing background. Yes building 1 model does not make someone a Data Scientist, on the other hand writing a couple of python mapreduce jobs or a few SQL queries does not make someone a Data Architect either.

I apply for jobs, get no response and get frustrated and stop looking…and then repeat that after few weeks. I am almost at the point of giving up and going back to Analytics + Data Architecture field. Do you think Data Science teams would welcome people who have more traditional Data background?

Confused about Career Options

Dear Confused,

A couple of things. First, my new book with Rachel Schutt is coming out in a week and a half and is ideal for someone like you. Get it, read it, and build a few of the things discussed in it with publicly available data so you have a portfolio of projects.

Next, it’s hard to get hired as a data science person with your background, even with projects under your belt. So try to get a job as an engineer in a data-driven business, and worm your way into the data group. Tell them that is your intention, and that you are willing to prove your mad data skillz. I’d be surprised if someone didn’t pick you up under such conditions.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

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Aunt Pythia,

I have, belatedly, come in contact with the “Youth Sports Industrial Complex” and the insane, existential battle parents wage for their children’s future through travel soccer and the like.

Literally, people seem to think that their kid will get into Harvard on the strength of their parents’ SERIOUS COMMITMENT to youth sports. Winning at all costs seems to be the one and only goal.

The thing is, my kid could be very competitive at this particular sport – if we were to join one of the competitive clubs and hand our souls over to the dark side. I don’t expect to get a scholarship or something, frankly that’s nuts.

Am I a looney for suggesting to my kids that playing well and having fun – and exhibiting excellent sportsmanship – are the goal if they never seem to beat the hyper-aggressive kids? Am I setting them up for a life as outcasts if we reject this ethos? As a mom, what do you think?

Maximize, Or Maintain?

Dear MOM,

What a fucking great question, thank you for asking it.

As a mom, I am definitely on the radical fringe when it comes to this. Specifically, I have taken my kids out of all grown-up organized activities, mostly at their request (but secretly because I think that shit is nuts). That means no sports, no nothing (they do student-organized stuff sometimes). They are expected to exercise but they get to choose how, and they are expected to do interesting stuff – so not play video games after school – but it’s up to them what to do.

Because for my family, it’s not just offensive to think that “winning is the goal” at all times. It’s even offensive to think that adults should define the goal for growing children in their free time.

[Rant to those people: What’s wrong with you people, isn’t it enough that these kids will probably have to live by other people’s rules when they’re working in jobs later? Why do we have to start that crap so soon?]

This stance makes it easy for me to never have to deal with the question you’re currently dealing with, namely having a kid who likes a team sport and is good at it, and how to think about the rest of the lunatics. My kids, to be clear, hate team sports and suck at them, like good nerds.

My advice is to be consistently sane and give them absolute agency on these decisions. Be utterly honest about what you think of the attitude displayed by the other kids, and ask your kid what they want considering the dire conditions. They might want to do it anyway, and they will definitely benefit from having a sane person to look to when emotions and goals get distorted and out of hand. Most importantly, if they decide to quit the team, let them.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

With an electrical engineering background but no research experience, I want to study mathematics. I am quite certain that I want to be in research. Without an undergraduate background in mathematics (though I’ve take few applied mathematics courses), what’s the best way to move forward? I don’t know what exactly would end up being the outcome – I would like it to be either in cognitive sciences or mathematical physics/geology. It’s rather broad, because I can’t tell unless I know more. Should I take a year out and preparing for something, get another bachelors (which I dread, I don’t want to do the 4 year university) or …?

Slowkill

Dear Slowkill,

Pardon me for saying it, but WTF?? How would you know you want to do math research if you don’t have experience in math? That makes no sense, because it means you want to devote yourself to something you don’t understand at all and have no experience in. It really has nothing to do with math at all, unless you are assuming that stories you heard about living the math life are true. An I’m here to tell you, they’re not. If Good Will Hunting were to be believed, all math professors have personal secretaries scurrying around getting them coffee – NOT!!

My advice is to think about what it is you really want to do – or to escape. I’m sensing more escapism than desire in your words. Go see Gravity, it’s supposed to be awesome and totally escapist.

Good luck,

Auntie P

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Sorry for the lateness of this column. Aunt Pythia slept in this morning and then went for a beautiful bike ride in Central Park. It’s perfect biking weather: somewhat chilly and cloudy, so the sun doesn’t get in your eyes and you don’t get overheated. You guys gotta try it!

However, Aunt Pythia didn’t forget you guys and she wants you to enjoy today’s column and of course she urges you as always to:

ask a question at the bottom of the page!!

By the way, if you want more, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

Why is it that in this country we can accept that a lobbyist is a valid job description and a valid job but we can’t accept a sex worker?

The profession is legal in Europe, why not the US?

Short and Sweet

Deat S&S,

I wasn’t sure whether, after that first sentence, you wanted lobbyists banned or sex workers made legal. To tell you the truth I coulda gone either way.

So yes, I agree, it’s interesting to think about A) what the hold-up is on legalizing sex work and B) what the pros and cons are of sex-work being legal.

As for the politics, after writing this post about the GOP mindset I’m really not surprised that we haven’t gotten consensus.

As for the pros and cons, I’ve thought about this before, and since I don’t have the actual data I am going on these assumptions I’ve gathered from various reading on the topic, which would all have to be verified:

• Protecting sex workers makes the profession safer for the workers. It means, for example, that they can call the cops if the clients misbehave, not to mention demand things like health insurance and regular HIV tests like porn industry actors.
• It also has economic effects. For example, legalized sex workers probably makes buying sex cheaper (and safer), as well as not-quite-sex stuff like topless bars and lap dances.
• So, in particular, there are plenty of current U.S. establishments that would lose money if sex-working became legalized, specifically places that have super expensive legal almost-sex things and possibly even more expensive illegal sex things for sale. Of course if they moved quickly they could capture the new market.
• Also, keep in mind that, although safer when legal, sex-work is still dangerous. And if it were more widespread it would affect more people, meaning it might be a net negative thing to do. Kind of like how alcohol is more harmful than heroin because it’s so widely used.

Going back to the original question, how about we just outlaw lobbyists?

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

We know you live in New York. But what are your favorite cities or places that you’ve visited?

Curious

Dear Curious,

There are two kinds of traveling for me: with my kids and alone or with other grownups. When I travel with my kids, I basically just spend time with them. But when I travel alone or with other grown-ups, I do it to meet the people living in that place. I am not visiting to see historical things or to view what that culture’s elite considers its finest works.

I don’t like museums or monuments or historical sites, I never have. I like talking to the people currently living somewhere, and I like exploring how they actually live day to day. I’d rather see their markets than their art. Partly this is because I don’t get art but mostly it’s because I think it’s fascinating to see the differences in average people’s lives and how that informs their mindset. I walk around for hours in their cities and intentionally fall into random conversations at the shop or at lunch or at coffee or at a live music performance. That’s a perfect day for me.

Since everyone shops, and everyone eats, and most everyone talks to people when they do this, I’m pretty neutral to exactly where I go. I always find something fascinating about any place I visit, be it Vermont or Prague.

The only place I’ve ever gone where I found the surroundings more interesting than the people is on my honeymoon, when we went to Alaska, and I got really into geology. And the most fascinating and engaging people I ever met were in Accra, Ghana.

One last thing: I love traveling and I would do way more of it if I didn’t have 3 kids. In fact that’s one thing I am truly jealous of for people with no kids, that they get to travel so much. Enjoy that!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m from Europe. There are some fairly strong cultural differences between countries, but also some common trends. One is anti-US bashing (e.g. NSA stuff, Iraq fiasco, guns and abortion laws…). To the point that I know some academics who actually refuse to travel to the US.

And yet, I’ve been there a couple times and am well aware that there’s a sizable liberal community, especially on the coasts, and some places like the Boston area or the Silicon Valley seem quite attractive to me. 

So to my question: what advice would you give to a hesitant European (who has no family issues yet, but not a large wallet either)? Land an IT job, and then fly there and just give it a try? Or maybe you have observed many Europeans going back after a couple years?

Patriotism Is Dangerous

Dear PID,

Important question: are people objecting to living in a country with those kinds of policies? Or are they objecting to living in a country where everyone wants to personally own a loaded pistol so they can kill anyone trying to have an abortion?

Here’s the thing. There’s the policies, and then there are the people. While it’s reasonable to avoid living in the U.S. because of it’s insane policies, especially as a non-citizen, it’s of course not reasonable to assume that every city is filled with people who are insane.

For that matter a friend of mine, who is not a descendant of Europeans, tells me that Europeans are hugely racist – not everyone, and not everywhere, but it makes him not want to travel to Europe. So we see the flip side of the coin, namely you can also have reason avoid a country that has reasonable policies but unappealing people.

I’m not really answering your question, but I do want to challenge you (and your European academic brethren) to think about it more carefully. In New York or San Francisco you won’t find a lot of people supporting the policies you despise, but then again you will be in some sense a part of that system even so.

As for what you should do: I know LOTS of Europeans who come here and love it, and still hate lots of the policy. My husband, for example. Of course I am less likely to meet people who leave. So do with that what you will.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I have a problem with this guy I was platonically interested in, because he seemed interesting conversation. Unfortunately, he turned out to be quite a self-centered person, so while having intelligent thoughts, his overflowing self confidence makes it less fun to be around.

Worse, he is sexually interested in me, despite my very clear messages that this is never going to happen. He claims freedom of speech of some sort and openness between friends. For a while he used opportunities when we meet at various social circles to kiss me and try to touch me, and once even made some loud embarrassing comments in the presence of a crowd.

I thought I had this under control, as we are both in stable, long term relationships, and I could handle this shit. Indeed he stopped for a while, but recently started texting me again. I don’t want to make a big scene, because innocent people may get hurt, so I try to be civil when we chance to meet, but I do wonder whether there is a particular angle at which I can kick him in the balls to get the message across.

Half Of The Time Intolerably Embarrassed

Dear HOTTIE,

Ooooh I like your sign-off.

OK so just to be SUPER CLEAR about this: have you told him in no uncertain terms to stop? Have you said “I want you to stop trying to be sexual with me, right now”? Have you texted him back with the words “please do not text me”? I will assume you have since it is CLEARLY not enough to think he will get the hint just because you guys are both in stable long-term relationships.

In other words, when you say you’ve given him “very clear messages” I need to believe that you mean “I said no”. Many many men do not hear “no” until you actually say that word, so please promise me you haven’t expected him to pick it up through certain looks or the way you don’t respond to a stolen kiss.

Okay, now that that is out of the way, I am surprised you are willing to talk to him at all. Are you still friends with him? Do you want to be? It sounds like you are somewhat ambivalent, which I think may be the problem here. He might be reading your continued interest in being his friend as sexual interest, or at least as a lack of sexual rejection.

My advice: next time he texts, ignore him altogether, and go ahead and block him now if that is hard to do. Next time you see him in person, if he tries something, take away his hand and say you’re not interested, and that you’re planning to talk to his long-term partner about how he can’t seem to stop trying something even though you’ve rejected him multiple times, and you’re going to ask his partner for advice on how to get him to stop. If he laughs or otherwise ignores you tell him you’re serious and might follow it up with a restraining order.

In other words, make it clear to him that it’s really not OK, the way he’s been acting, and that you are willing to risk real discomfort in relationships (especially his) to get this resolved. It has nothing to do with your relationship, so don’t feel threatened if he says he’ll talk to your long-term partner.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Thanks guys, Aunt Pythia has been feeling some love this week, ever since I threatened to murder her. Nothing like a damsel in distress to get the ethical-dilemma juices flowing. Please keep the questions coming though, we don’t want her continually scared and exhausted, that’s no way to live.

In other words, enjoy today’s advice, but please: 

Don’t forget to ask a question at the bottom!!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

My partner needs to find a new job. I believe she needs to (at least partially) reinvent herself, although she’s not very adventurous.

You’ve reinvented yourself a few times, you probably know a great deal about what works in this process. I remember you once posted about creating a spreadsheet and recording what you like, what you don’t etc until you found your dream job.

I’m looking for this type of exercises that would challenge her to find a job she loves as opposed to the job she can easily land. Any other insights from your remodeling thought process? Any other resources/reference you would recommend?

Abelian Grape

Dear Abelian,

I don’t believe much in astrology, but I can dig the next closest thing, which is personality tests. I recently looked in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and discovered that I’m a so-called “ENTP”, which is to say extroverted (duh), intuitive, thinking, and perceptive. Who knows why, a test told me[1]. That means I’m:

Quick, ingenious, stimulating, alert, and outspoken. Resourceful in solving new and challenging problems. Adept at generating conceptual possibilities and then analyzing them strategically. Good at reading other people. Bored by routine, will seldom do the same thing the same way, apt to turn to one new interest after another.

Why do I mention this? First of all because everyone loves talking about personality tests – trust me – and second of all because it’s in my nature to reinvent myself. I don’t do it because I’m theoretically excited by reinvention, but because I’m bored and compelled to start something new.

So, two conclusions. First, your partner might just not be like that. Second, she might be like that in special circumstances, but in that case she’d need to get to the point of frustration and boredom that she’s the one writing to Aunt Pythia for advice on self-reinvention rather than you. Once that happens I will indeed point her to my tools of reinvention.

My advice is to be supportive of her but not to push her into “reinvention” if that’s not how she rolls. It just won’t work and it will feel to her like another thing she’s failing at. Wait for her, and if you’re not the kind of person that is patient, then that’s a problem in itself and I’ll expect to hear back from you, although given how impatient I am, the advice won’t be hopeful.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

1. Actually, one test told me that, then another one said “ENFJ”, but “ENTP” helps me make my point better.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I hope you’re feeling better. 

This is, I admit, a rather lame question, as I am sure I could’ve answered it myself when I was a student. But now I’m old and hence stupid.

I’ll phrase it as a “sock drawer” question. Suppose my drawer contained 44 black socks and 116 white ones, and I draw them out blindly in pairs. What are the chances of getting exactly 10 black pairs?

More generally, if I have b black and w white socks, what is the probability of getting exactly p pairs of black ones?

Thanks Pythia-babe!

Socks Maniac

Dear Socks,

Are the socks already rolled into pairs? Not clear from your question, but I’ll assume so. Otherwise the question is harder, so please do re-submit if I got it wrong. Also, are you blindly taking out exactly 10 pairs and looking to see if they’re all black? I’ll assume that too since you didn’t specify.

Assuming the above, we’re starting with 22 black pairs and 58 white pairs in a drawer, and we take out 10 pairs, and we’re wondering what the chances are that they’re all black. We just need to count the total ways they could be all black and then divide by the total ways we could have done the extraction.

Start with the “all black” count: there are 22 ways we could choose the first black pair, then 21 ways to choose the second black pair, etc., so we get 22*21* … *13 ways altogether to get 10 black pairs.

Next, count the “anything goes” possibilities: we have 22+58=80 pairs of socks altogether, which means we have 80 ways to choose the first pair, then 79 ways to choose the second pair, etc., giving us 80*79*78*…*71 ways to get all ten pairs. Some of them will be all black, but not many.

In fact if you take that ratio – google “22*21*20*19*18*17*16*15*14*13/(80*79*78*77*76*75*74*73*72*71)” – you will see that the answer is very small indeed: 4e-7. You know it’s small if you need scientific notation.

Auntie P

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’ve spent the last year and a half working as, effectively, project manager to get a fairly cool academic mobile app out the door. We’ve applied for a grant to renew the project, but if the grant fails, I’ll be asked to leave $reallyNiceCountry again. 

How do I manage the sense of powerlessness that stems from being a 30-year-old freshly minted Ph.D. either about to be deported again or offered a job that allows me a sufficient contract window to become a permanent resident?

A sense of loyalty (and major deadlines) mean that I don’t feel right trying to apply for other jobs in case the grant is passed.

Exhausted Academic

Dear Exhausted,

I’m glad you wrote. I really object to your sense of loyalty, and I see this all too often among freshly minted foreign-born Ph.D.’s.

Face it, you are a specialist in a bizarre system (the intersection of the academic system and the U.S. visa system) with ridiculously arbitrary and last-minute changes of plan. There is absolutely no reason for you not to develop other plans while you are waiting around for the grant to come through or not. In fact you’re a fool for not applying for other jobs, straight up. Deadlines are a short-term distraction from making your life in a country where you want to live. Your life plan is your priority, not someone else’s app deadline.

Here’s my advice, to you and to anyone else in a related situation. No wonder you’re feeling helpless, it’s because you’re acting passively and helplessly. Nobody is going to think strategically about your future except you. Never let this happen again, and get thee on the job market immediately. People with your education level and mad skillz will get great jobs if they go and look. But you gotta go and look. And if you need to learn other stuff to get a good job, then go learn that stuff. But don’t act like the stupid NSF is the voice of God.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

Why is it that the students for whom you’ve made the most opportunity, and invested the most in, are the ones that ultimately screw you?

Pissed Off Professor

Dear POP,

Without more details, I’m going to have to use my imagination here.

I can understand what you might mean by making opportunities for your students – you help them with their work, you write them letters, you make calls and introductions on their behalf to help them land jobs. Granted, it can be a lot of work and you are staking your reputation on their work ethic and smarts. On the other hand, it is your job, and you get paid for it, and your reputation also grows with theirs.

But I’m getting a bit lost with the them-screwing-you part. If they simply aren’t very good at the jobs you help them get, then I don’t think that can be considered screwing you. It’s hard for me to imagine exactly what that could mean beyond that. Is the student spreading nasty rumors about your work? Are there internal politics in your field and your student isn’t in your camp? Has the student stolen your ideas?

Or is it something totally normal, like the student doesn’t express sufficient gratitude for your help? In this case I’d say, welcome to young people. Being an advisor is a lot like being a parent, and in this society we don’t get lots of gratitude as parents. Move to China if you want that stuff.

Or maybe I missed it altogether, which is why you’d need to say more when you write back.

Aunt Pytha

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Peoples! Peoples!

I counted the new Aunt Pythia questions for this week and guess what number I got to?

ZERO! I have ZERO new questions this week!

Now luckily I had a few extra questions stored away so we’re good today, but you know just as well as I that this cannot go on.

Let me say it like this. Either you guys cough up some juicy sex dilemmas or Aunt Pythia goes back to the hospital. I don’t like to make threats, especially to nice little old ladies like Aunt Pythia (actually she’s not that small), but I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m ruthless.

In other words, enjoy today’s advice, but please: 

don’t forget to ask a question at the bottom!!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

My family friends are always asking me suggestions for books/resources to help nurture theirs kids’ interest in mathematics/sciences/engineering. The thing is the only books I could recommend are aimed at the high school level, while usually their kids are still in elementary. Do you have any recommendations?

Thanks,

Perennial educational advice giver in family

Dear Peagif,

My parents did a good job of not turning me off of math by not forcing it down my throat. I’m on that same page, and I never send my kids to math circle or have them read math books or science stuff. But I am always available for a conversation about science or math, and I have a ridiculous number of puzzles lying around the house, at all times.

We also keep well stocked in construction toys like Zome Tools. We also use Zome Tools to make bubbles and we have glow-in-the-dark versions too.

So that’s my advice: nerd toys rock, and they don’t feel pressured.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I am a postdoc in math and considering making a change to the private sector. I am still very active in research and teaching (in fact I quite like it, but I feel a change is necessary since academia requires too many compromises), and I am learning python on the side. I am not programming anything too hard-core yet; just little projects from free courses I can find online. I have two questions: right now my CV is very academia-oriented. How should I try to augment it to seem desirable in the wider world? Also, will my age become a serious liability the longer I wait (I am in my early thirties)?

Eagerly awaiting your response,
Liking Academia But Really Ambivalent There

Dear LABRAT,

Ooooooh, nice name. I got a good feeling about your future just from that alone.

So, two things. First, you’re doing it right, and I don’t think your age is a problem. You will want to supplement your math career and python learning with some actual data problems. Take a look around for a nice data set and try to ask a question that you don’t think anyone’s asked but people might care about. Team up with some other nerds trying to learn data stuff so it’s more fun.

Second, I’d like to hear more about your current “compromises”. As I might have mentioned before, my motto is, “you never get rid of your problems, you just get a new set of problems”.

So if you’re sick of the problems you have as an academic, then fine, leave and become a data scientist. But if you think there are no compromises in data science, then think again. They’re different but they exist.

So here’s an offer: you show me your compromises, and I’ll show you mine.

Love,

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

My tenure-track position is at a university with non-selective admissions, and it is my first experience of such a college or university (from any viewpoint). A few of my students are quite good, and many are reasonably smart and or reasonably hard-working, but overall, my feeling is that, if these people are our future, then we are doomed. And the statistics tell us that students here are still above average among 18-year-olds. I don’t think most of them could ever learn to code, unless you count copying someone else’s code and modifying a line or two to fix the spelling errors in the output as coding.

Am I going to start believing that we have to all go Amish and stop using technology in order to avoid some apocalypse and or dictatorial dystopia? Worse yet, in twenty years, will I be living in a shack in the woods and mailing bombs everywhere in a futile attempt to reverse the advance of technology?

I could try to get a job at a school with more academically capable students, but the job market is tough, and going to a college or university that would just reject less capable students seems to be just burying my head in the sand. Industry and most government jobs are out, not only because it’s also burying my head in the sand, but also because my previous stint in the computer industry sensitized me to the evil that every for profit organization has to do or be involved it just to stay in business.

Depressed by near universal stupidity

Dear Depressed,

It seems to me that you’re conflating two interesting but different issues. First, whether you should get another job, and where might you do that, and second, what it means that the majority of the citizens don’t understand, and perhaps can’t understand, their ambient environment at a technical level.

Let’s start with the second issue, since it’s honestly more interesting.

The real question is, what do you need to understand to make a living nowadays? Let’s face it, nobody feels compelled to really understand how a microwave works except microwave manufacturers and possibly cancer researchers (apologies to anyone who knows how a microwave works who I’ve left out).

It’s not fair, in other words, to expect everyone to understand everything about a society’s technology. For that matter technology has been around a long time, and the hallmark of a really good technology is that most people don’t have to think about it at all. For a non-microwave example, consider the idea that government itself can be seen as a technology – some big black box where money goes in and reasonable laws and order come out. Note I’m simplifying here.

If you buy that reasoning, then the next question is, why would we even want the majority of people to know how to code? Why don’t we leave that to the subpopulation of people working on stuff that needs coding? Coders are the equivalent of microwave manufacturers, albeit much better paid. It would be a huge waste for the entire population to learn that skill, even if they were interested and capable of doing so (although Miss Disruption would not agree).

So, to come back to you, you’re teaching at a school where most of the people who go to your school are not going to be technical. But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to do interesting things, of course, even if you don’t know what those interesting things are. And no, I don’t think living like the Amish would be a better option for them. They probably don’t think that what they do is so meaningless that they should replace it with manual labor in the fields.

But you could go ahead and do that yourself, it would solve your job problem, and it would also take you away from many of the people you consider so depressingly stupid.

If you want to get over your concerns, here’s something you could try. First, fully enjoy those students who are interested and good at the things you teach, and second, realize that people can lead super fulfilling and good lives doing nothing whatsoever technical. Indeed Amish people do it all the time, I’m sure, and get pleasure in being good members of the community or whatever floats their Amish boats. Give these young people some credit beyond the narrow question of whether they have this kind of talent and desire, and my guess is you’ll be less depressed.

Good luck,

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

A couple of weeks ago, Aunt Pythia first posted a response to a question about a single person who masturbates to satisfy sexual urges, and if porn would help blah blah, and secondly, she responded to some nerds about fornicating in puzzle shops in hopes it might supply kinky role models to nerds everywhere, and in particular, possibly the ‘guy’ who asked the first question.

So, my question has to do with Aunt Pythia determining the sex of a particular poster, as the first thing I thought after reading that post was, “That poor woman needs to get laid!”

Does Aunt Pythia assume that all people who are single and masturbate without porn are guys, or should we be worried that she employs some Acxiom-style data warehousing techniques on her questions submission form?

Future Endeavors Are Remorseless

Dear FEAR,

Aunt Pythia fears (harhar) you have caught her in a lazy assumption, and she thank you for pointing it out. It is true that she assumed that the masturbator was male, and even though her original response to the masturbator was gender-neutral, her later reference to the masturbator was not. Apologies.

In Aunt Pythia’s defense, if it is allowed (and since this is her column, it is): if she had been going strictly by stereotypes, she might have assumed that the masturbator was female, since the masturbator had evidently never tried porn before. Just sayin’.

Love,

Aunt Pythia

——

Quick question, oh Aunt Pythia lovers: should Auntie P establish a twitter account and answer 140-character questions with 140-character words of advice? This was an idea from a twitter follower. I’m considering it but I need feedback. Maybe people asking for advice don’t want to use their twitter account to do it? Or maybe the idea would be Auntie P could first ask and then answer? Ideas welcome.

In the meantime, please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

You know what’s awesome? I’ll tell you what’s awesome.

What’s awesome is waking up on Saturday and knowing it’s time to crack open the Aunt Pythia Google Doc and see what juicy ethical dilemmas there are to ponder. I live for this stuff, peoples! Thank you for offering your most intimate conundrums for me to rip open and expose to the world! I do appreciate it.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

But most importantly, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——
Dear Auntie Py,

I keep thinking of starting my own blog about my favorite ten things: data, small tricks, visualization, things that fly, you know … But I am so immersed in the 10+ great blogs out there (mathbabe to mention one), that I keep consuming and enjoying, and never get around to sitting down and producing.

What do you think is a healthy balance of reading what awesome people have to say and trying to add one’s own two cents out there? Is it ever possible to do both seriously and thoroughly?

It would be most helpful, if you could also extend your wisdom to academic publications.

May your readers grow exponentially.

Be Your Own True CHaracter

Dear BYOTCH,

Confession: I don’t regularly read anyone else’s blog. I spend quite a bit of time on Naked Capitalism, and I have historically spent quite a bit of time on Dealbreaker, although now that Matt Levine has moved to Bloomberg I am enjoying him there.

I also regularly check out a bunch of blogs, including my friend Jordan’s blog Quomodocumque, even though it’s impossible to spell. But let’s put it this way: I wasn’t aware of the moment that Google Reader disappeared, because I don’t need a reader for the kind of reading I do.

Not that I don’t read. I do read, a lot, and one way I do is I follow people on Twitter who use it like I do, mainly to post interesting links. That way I get to read all sorts of things from all sorts of sources. Also, I enjoy getting links from my readers and friends through email or chat.

So I guess my answer is, it’s just as important to diversify your reading than it is to balance reading and writing. As for writing, go here for more advice.

As for the seriously/ thoughtfully thing: don’t try too hard. In fact, the key is to have exactly one idea and write about it. If you try to have more than one idea it will be too long, too complicated, or both.

Finally, as for the academic writing: same answer. I think I wrote as many papers as I read, which is to say I didn’t read all that many papers. I mostly learned math through talking to people directly about their work and through going to talks, and early on through classes and homework. But that’s a personality thing, everyone’s different.

Good luck!

Aunt Py

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

Somewhere along the line I thankfully transitioned away from seeking advice. I no longer feel any need whatsoever to seek advice on anything major, ever, as the data is now in: nobody is better at advising me than myself.

In fact I would take this a level further by declaring that any compulsion to seek advice itself represents a bigger problem than whatever one might feel the need to be asking for advice about!

My fence position on giving advice is commensurate with the above, but hey, if it makes for juicy reading, why not! 🙂

Loopy Not

Dear Loopy,

Putting aside the fact that you filled out an advice form to object to the concept of advice giving, I totally agree with you. I’d put it another way though. Often, when people think they have a question about topic A, in asking it they expose that they have a much greater need to be advised on topic B, and topic B is usually something like “how do I make important life decisions?”.

Put it another way. Religious readers of Aunt Pythia may have noticed that she consistently offers advice akin to “think for yourself!” at the rate of every second week or so. You might imagine that this means Aunt Pythia wishes her job weren’t giving advice at all, but that is false. In fact, Aunt Pythia loves her job, and wants to help people, but she often considers the best way to help is to answer the question that nobody thought to ask.

So if someone’s asking a question that they should answer themselves (“should I marry this woman that I love dearly even though so-and-so doesn’t think it will work out?”) the answer isn’t directed at the question, the answer is directed at the question of what it means to have free will.

That’s a more important and universal question anyway, and moreover talking it over in a nurturing and thoughtful environment is not a useless exercise: people have been known to emerge courageous and determined from such conversations, and they go forth boldly and make the decisions they already should have been making.

Finally, to address your defiant position on advice-giving. Putting aside the fact that you’ve given me advice on never giving advice, I will defend my occupation thus: some people get something from advice, other people ignore it. Feel free to ignore it.

Yours,

Aunt Pythia

——

Hi Babe,

I am a junior faculty in a university you know. Last semester I had an undergrad in my class who had (and still has) a crush on me. The feeling is mutual, but she chose to take another course with me, so our flirtation has gone nowhere. I am afraid that she will ask to supervise her senior thesis, which I could but don’t want to do. Instead, I want to pursue a relationship with her. Should I take her to coffee and explain my predicament?

Sad in Downtown

Dear Sad,

Hands off, buddy. You don’t know what kind of crush she has one you – it could very well be an intellectual crush, and she could be taking another course with the reasonable expectation of writing a senior thesis with you. In other words, she’s investing her time and scholarly energy into this relationship, and it’s simply not fair to her academic career for you to throw that all away because you want to get into her pants.

Think about it this way. Let’s say some man took two classes from you, and say you went out to coffee with that man to tell him you can’t do a senior thesis with him but you’d love to be his basketball buddy.

Would that be reasonable? No, it wouldn’t. And that’s the smell test here. You can’t derail her intellectual investment just because she happens to be attractive.

As for the flirting, it’s possible she does have a crush on you, but it’s also possible that she’s just psyched to get attention from a professor, and the power differential makes her willing to take that attention in any form she can. So don’t get too high on it, it’s called power.

My advice: don’t make a move on her, be her advisor, and be her advocate. If it’s meant to be then she’ll come to your office someday after she graduates, when she’s no longer at your mercy, and she’ll tell you she’s interested as one adult talks to another. But even then it’s gotta come from her.

Finally, you might want to reread the papers you signed when you took this job. They’re not window dressing.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

Today, I had a substitute teacher in my linear algebra class. As he walked in, it was as if Gandalf had appeared to lead his hobbits to their destinies. Grey bearded, tall, hunched, and with an almost accusing nose as he peered out expectantly, he wielded those matrices with the ease of someone who had defeated vectors from as far away as Eigen to the East and series from Fourier to the South. As much as he was intimidating he was also reassuring in his insistence that not only could we understand the material, but that our quest was a righteous one. My question is, as a math major soon to graduate (hopefully) without any specific plans, where is my ring to toss in Mount Doom?

Love your posts!

Looking for Mount Doom

Dear Looking for Mount Doom,

You know how, when you’re an uber nerd from an uber nerd family, all those nerdy books and movies kind of make no sense to you because you’ve seen them since you were 4 and you just weren’t capable of deconstructing stuff and interpreting stuff when you were 4?

Well, your question has forced me to think about the meaning of the ring, and of Mount Doom, and who Gandalf was, and who Frodo was, and try to understand the extent to which we are all Frodos, and we each have our own ring to throw into our personal Mount Dooms, and I gotta tell you, I got nothing.

However, if I might shift the frame just a wee bit, and suggest that your linear algebra sub was probably actually Obi Wan Kenobi, not Gandalf, then this one’s easy: go find yourself a Yoda (thesis advisor) and learn how to use the force (of mathematics). And remember: there is no try, only do.

Good luck,

Auntie P

——

Before I end today’s column, I’ve got something to share with you, but only if you’re ready for it.

If you’re in a spicy mood on this Saturday morning, please check out a new advice blog my anonymous friend sent me. It’s called Never Sleep Alone, and it contains lots of wisdom about sex and dating, albeit couched in a ridiculously macho, possibly satirical (but possibly not) framework, especially in this post entitled Why You Suck And What To Do About It.

In other words, the advice is good, not all the assumptions are.

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Aunt Pythia’s mailbox has been satisfyingly full this week, and she thanks you all for your questions. Please keep them coming, she looks forward to Saturdays ever so much.

Go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

And please, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I want to pursue a career as a data scientist. I am very comfortable with maths and statistics and love spending time with large data sets. However, I don’t have any background in programming. I am wondering what all I can do in the next 12-18 months to be a pro in this field and whether a degree is data science the way to go about it.

Future Data Scientist

Dear FDS,

First of all, I feel like I’m being set up by Miss Disruption on this question, whose answer is always “learn to code” and who came out with another hilarious advice column this past week (best line: “Instead of putting your trust in what you think looks like Mark Zuckerberg, put your trust in numbers. Numbers that will tell you how much someone looks like Mark Zuckerberg.”).

Second of all, I think you need to learn to code. It’s fun, and the number of resources available nowadays is outrageous. Plus you don’t have to be a really good coder to be a data scientist (I know, I’ve just offended a bunch of people). You just need to be able to get the data into usable format, which is tricky, and then you need to know what to do with it – it’s much more about questions of what to do than it is about questions of whether your code looks great, at least when you’re working on your own projects.

Depending on your preferred learning style, I’d say get a classic CS text and read it, or take some free courses online, or just start on a project and refer to examples to learn how to do specific tasks.

Oh, and first install Anaconda.

Good luck!

Cathy

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

A decade ago I had a bad breakup with my first girlfriend (in which I felt I was largely at fault). After a while, she wanted to continue being friends, but I found this too difficult and told her never to contact me again. Over the years, I made peace with myself, and periodically thought of contacting her to apologize, but always held back (note: I never once had any intention of getting back with her romantically).

Now, I’ve been married for years, and it’s also been years since she’s been married with a kid (I know only because of a mutual friend), and for some reason she sent me a friend request on Facebook.

1. Because of our mutual friends on Facebook, both our existences on Facebook are clear; I have never sent her a friend request, however.
2. This a violation of my old request not to be contacted.
3. I’m over that old request and don’t have a problem with resuming some minimal contact in the form of “Facebook friend”.
4. I asked my wife if it’s OK, and she got weird about it, and we concluded that therefore it’s not OK.
5. I was considering sending her a message that my wife said it’s not OK.
6. My wife thinks that would be weird and I should ignore her.
7. I don’t want to just ignore her but want to at least finally say I’m sorry for the things I said in the last communication we had a decade ago.

What is Facebook Etiquette?

Dear What,

This has nothing to do with Facebook, except in that it happens to be the medium for your potential exchange with your ex. It’s really about your regrets about your past behavior to this woman.

I’m going to respond to your points in turn.

1. If I’m her, I think it’s super safe to ask to be your friend since we’re both married now.
2. Who the hell thinks a decade-old request like that still holds? That’s just plain weird.
3. How kind and generous of you! Not really.
4. Sounds to me like you’re trying to make your wife take responsibility here for your stuff.
5. That’s super ridiculous. Either man up and be her friend or leave her alone.
6. Again with what the wife thinks. Think for yourself!
7. If you really want to apologize, just do it.

This is something you either need to own, and do it right, either on Facebook or by email, since you presumably could get her email via a common friend, or you need to put to bed and forget about. I’m sure she’d prefer the former (and I’m guessing that you would too, at least once you got yourself to do it) but is already making do with the latter. What you don’t do is send her some crapola about how you “can’t be Facebook friends with her” because of your wife. That’s nuts.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Auntie P,

I think sex is awesome. How do I have more of it?

I am in a very stable, loving relationship for over a decade, with all the kids and stuff that happens when you spend so long with someone (and I love all it). We have good sex, sometimes great sex, but we only rarely have amazing sex. Here are some specific questions for you:

1. I want sex a lot more often than my partner. That’s a bit frustrating, what should I do?

2. I’d love to try something different. Not too crazy, but different. We know each other too well and are more often than not following into the routine of “efficient sex”, going for the kill. What do I do?

3. With kids, a busy job, lots of hobbies and other stuff, and not enough sleep, how do you make time for long sex sessions? I’ve never tried cocaine, should I begin?

Thanks for the tips,

Perverse Bundle

——

Dear PB,

First of all, you are not alone. This is about the most common complaint I hear from my friends in happy marriages. First, be proud that it’s as good as it is!

Next, the truth is, no two people have exactly the same sex drive, and over time the mismatch of desire gets worse due to the natural form of complementary schismogenesis which exists in practically every sexual relationship.

That is to say, the man or woman who wants more sex, even if it’s just a little bit more, starts to feel rejected, and has moments of aggressiveness and hostility surrounding their unmet desire, which makes the man or woman who wants less sex feel even less like it, and the ante gets upped, and the cycle continues. It’s a feedback loop that often spirals out of control.

It doesn’t even sound like that’s where you are, but it’s a danger because it’s always a danger.

How does one build a dampening effect to counteract this schismogenesis? Maybe it would be possible to explicitly funnel your unmet desires into some other activity where you get attention, though possibly not sexual attention.

So, you could have friends over regularly for parties with your partner, or you could go out with your friends regularly, or you could get ambitious and start playing the guitar and go out to do open mics, or you could even join a band. The point is that you get fun stuff to do and not enough time to dwell on being rejected, and moreover your partner will find you irresistibly cute and brave and sexy once you’re up on stage.

Next, when you’re super busy with kids and national tours from your new music career, long sex sessions don’t happen by themselves. You need to make time for them, in the form of date nights. And dates can happen inside bedrooms, but even so, call them “date nights” since that sounds better than “scheduled sex”.

Finally: say no to cocaine, but do buy sex toys.

Good luck!

Auntie P

——

Dear Auntie,

I’m not always as good a parent as I’d like myself to be. I’m trying to reason with my 3 kids who are all younger than 4, but they always go too far and I end up yelling too often. I NEVER yell at anyone else, though. I know exactly the kind of situations that trigger the yelling, but they’re unavoidable. What should I do?

Uncle Stach

Dear Uncle Stach,

First, I have an enormous amount of sympathy for anyone dealing with even one kid, never mind three. So give yourself a break, and try try again, every morning. It’s a life-long job and it’s totally possible to slowly improve your techniques over time.

Second, I think I know what your problem is: namely, there’s no reasoning with kids under 4 years old. There’s ritual and rules, and depending on how old they are and how consistently you proceed with those rituals and rules, they might or might not be familiar with how things are going to work out. My advice is to choose a ritual (going to bed seems to be a good one) and make sure it is incredibly consistent and early (say 6:30 or 7:00 pm, no kidding) and do the exact same thing every day for two weeks with all your kids. Getting a good night’s sleep is absolutely vital for being able to handle the next day. Once you’ve got that ritual down, introduce other rituals and slowly create a world for them which is embedded with rituals, which kids totally adore.

As for reasoning: you can start reasoning with kids once they’re in school. Before that, just give them the choice of two options: drawing or jigsaw puzzle, playground or sprinklers, do what I want or do what I really want.

Third, there’s yelling and then there’s yelling. What you absolutely cannot do is get abusive when you yell. Stuff like “you’re stupid” or “you’re lazy” has been shown to be as damaging for teenagers as physical abuse, so don’t do it. Don’t shame kids or insult them, ever. If you find yourself tempted to make blanket negative statements, take five and go to the bathroom. When they do nasty things, by all means make them apologize for those actions, but never let those actions define them.

On the other hand, a stern tone of voice when you tell your 3-year-old to sit in her chair until dinner is over it totally appropriate, as long as it doesn’t turn into a screaming match. As for screaming: my advice is to ignore screams, and if they don’t dissipate, put kids in their rooms so at least it’s not as loud. Never give in to a screaming kid, that’s like asking them to scream.

Finally, here’s a book I really got a lot out of: Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. Explained to me how to get my babies to sleep 12 hours a night, which they pretty much still do.

Good luck! And enjoy them!!

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Every week, I look into Aunt Pythia’s official Google spreadsheet (it’s true she lives a super glamorous life) and every week I expect it to be my last, since at the end of the day I have fewer leftover questions than will last a week.

And yet… and yet. Somehow questions wander in, over the week, one on Tuesday, one on Friday, and when I open it up again, voila! I have a columns-worth of bad advice to spew forth once again. It’s like a tiny, possibly negative miracle.

That is not to say, dear readers, that you shouldn’t be worried about the rate of question asking!! Please do take it upon yourself to be involved!

And just in case it wasn’t clear, anything’s fair game. From “How do I get my kids to eat broccoli?” to “How do I stop fantasizing about living forever and focus on enjoying my life now?” I’m prepared to give step-by-step, humorous and mostly irrelevant suggestions.

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

And please, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I am single and I rely on masturbating to satisfy my sexual urges, but it feels kind of heartless and empty. Could porn help? Or, do I actually need to go out and find a partner?

Really Sad

Dear Really Sad,

It depends on what you mean by “help”. If you mean, “can porn make my solo masturbation sessions more efficient?”, I’d have to say “yes, for sure.” I’d also say that if you managed to figure out how to ask Aunt Pythia a question but haven’t figured out how to experiment with porn, then I can understand why you’re sad.

In terms of avoiding heartless emptiness, meeting a real life person is probably key. Plus they might like watching porn with you.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dearest Auntie P,

I just started having great sex with one of my best friends, and although we both have other sexual partners, we’re both digging this new fling. Do you have any suggestions for sex positions or other things we can throw in to make our sexual relations even more exciting? (We’re both math nerds, so we already have the nerd pillow talk thing going on, but suggestions there would also be awesome.)

Nerdelicious

Dear Nerdilicious,

Oooh oooh!! I got something!

Go on a date at the Museum of Math. I went there the other week over my lunch break, since I work about 2 blocks away, and I was like, what is this museum good for except maybe school field trips and nerd dates?

I couldn’t come up with anything, and since I saw lots of field trips I think it’s high time we cue you cuties. Momath.org, check it out. Please take pics of yourselves making out in every single exhibit, that place could use some sexing up. The gift shop’s great, though, lots of puzzles.

Wait, what if you don’t live in New York? Turns out there are plenty of people with that attribute, especially people who live in Guangzhou China, which as I’ve recently learned is absolutely massive.

In that case, I’d say that, to stay with the theme of sexing it up in public, I’d encourage you to look around for a straight-up puzzle store, some place that sells D&D starter kits with lots of different colored dice possibilities. Look, we need to give young nerds hope that someday they’ll get laid, and you guys are now their role models, including perhaps the guy above who asked the first question.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

A question from a person who is realizing a bit too late that academia is not gonna do it for him:

What kind of non-academic jobs are there for mathematicians (beyond PhD, even postdoc) that do not involve a lot of coding/programming, but otherwise do involve their problem solving abilities?

If you have discussed this question at length in your blog already, I am sorry for not reading regularly, and I’d appreciate a link to the relevant posts.

Thanks a lot!

Lost Academic

Dear Lost,

I’d say, learn to code! After all, coding is just a specific way of formally solving problems in a language that computers can understand. I’d say if you’re really a mathematician with a Ph.D. then learning to code should be pretty easy. Don’t be afraid of it, and for sure don’t be thinking you’re above it.

As far as how to learn to code, pick up a book or take an online class or just pick a project and a language (python) and a start puzzling it out. There are so many resources nowadays, you get to decide what works for you. What doesn’t work for you or your job prospects, though, is refusing to learn to code.

Good luck,

Auntie P

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

This isn’t a question, rather an experience.

I had the most fulfilling dream last night: I bought a pair of pants from a thrift shop that once belonged to you, Aunt Pythia, and discovered after purchasing them that you left some rather important mail in the pockets (there was also an old package in there too… I don’t remember the precise geometry of these pants).

So anyway, I had to get in touch with you and you agreed to meet me in person. So I could return to you the mail. That you left in your old pants. That you gave away to a thrift store. The point being that I got to ask you all my nerdy Aunt Pythia questions over a beer while giving it back. The end.

Love,

Dreamer

Dear Dreamer,

Holy shit, I had that same dream!

No, just kidding, I didn’t. But if that was a bizarre way of asking me to have a beer with you, then I think I’ll have to say yes. But I fully expect you to return my mail as well as my package, thanks.

Lovey dovey,

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Peoples!! Peoples!!

I know you came for Aunt Pythia (thank you very much!) but today I must insist that, first, you go read my new hero’s advice column, Dear Miss Disruption, who has been quite the twitter celebrity this week.

Written by a law student named Sarah Jeong from Oakland, Miss Disruption has super awesome advice for the budding entrepreneur – or, in fact, anyone at all. She even took on my favorite topic, namely how people lie when counting their previous lovers! Here’s a tasty excerpt:

I sympathize. You and I both know, learning to code is the best way to pull oneself up by one’s bootstraps. Hell, look at me. Other than my affluent Orange County family, my Stanford bachelor’s degree, and the $10 million that my uncle invested as seed capital for my innovative advice column start-up, I have nothing but my ability to code.

I’ll admit that Miss Disruption is a tad more sarcastic than Aunt Pythia, but she’s super funny and smart just like Aunt Pythia, so I know you guys will love her.

After you go read her stuff, please come back here, read my stuff, and, by all means,

Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I am 26, and I presently work in education. I studied history as an undergrad, but I would like to pursue a master’s degree in statistics. I need to learn some lower division math and programming. There are online courses and resources out there. Would it be better to pursue the courses with instructors and peers to the extent possible, or do you think it makes little difference?

Depressed in the Burbs

Dear Depressed,

It depends. In terms of what you might learn, I could see it making very little difference. But you have another goal too, namely getting into a masters program in statistics. It might be more convincing to the admissions people to see an official set of courses in math and programming with official grades than for you to tell them you learned it on your own, although perhaps online courses do offer quasi-official grades, and also it might depend on the masters program – some of them are just cash cows.

But then there’s also the issue of sticking it out and being invested. Have you considered taking these courses at some kind of extension school or community college? The community part of it might end up helping a lot.

Good luck,

Aunt Pythia

——

Dearest Aunt Pythia,

A beloved friend of mine recently came to visit and spent two sweet days singing with me, laughing at nothing/everything, gorging ourselves on waffles, and otherwise squandering time in shared luxurious idleness. In sum, fun was had.

The day after she left, I discovered a fat wad of cash underneath my pillow, which she hid there for me to find in a characteristic act of willful generosity. The thing is, I did nothing to earn this money and in fact feel quite indebted to her for her lifelong friendship and general camaraderie. My dilemma is: should I keep the money or send it back? If the former, how can I possibly thank her for her disproportionate magnanimity? I’m verklempt over here.

Grateful Gal Pal

Dear GGP,

Money is a funny thing, especially between friends. But sometimes it actually isn’t. Here’s my wild guess as to the circumstances.

Your good friend was incredibly grateful for your sanctuary and your luxurious idleness, which is exactly what she needed at that moment and perhaps even saved her sanity and her life, and was in particular an almost offhand bounty naturally stemming from your lifestyle. She wanted to give you something in return that was her kind of offhand bounty that she thought might help you with your life – at the very least to sustain you for some time in the heaven in which you currently reside.

So ask yourself this: is this an amount of money she can afford? Can it give you pleasure in some small way? If so, then please accept it as it was meant, namely as a thank you and a gift, and go buy ingredients for some more waffles.

Love always,

AP

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I had a very weird dream today. I dreamed that, to support Snowden, all couples in the world made a porn video and uploaded it in the Internet. Did I already surpass the limits of madness?

Crazy Lazy

Dear CL,

I for one think Chelsea Manning is hot. That’s what I got for this question.

AP

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I have recently discovered my partner of 2 years had sexual relations with his aunt not long before we began our relationship. He claimed to be a virgin when I started seeing him and now I know he lied. I love him and we have children together, I would like some advice and opinions thank you.

A

Dear A,

First of all I’m getting a bit confused thinking about how you can have multiple children together given that you have only been together 2 years. I’m guessing you got started quick and you had twins, or you got started immediately, squeezed out a pup, and then immediately got pregnant again, which is super unlikely.

Or you made up this whole thing, which is always a possibility that advice columnists need to consider. It’s probably even more likely given the incest theme. But whatever, I’m almost out of questions.

Second, I think it really depends on the circumstances. Was he a kid? Was it sexual abuse perpetrated on him by a trusted loved one? If so, by all means forgive him immediately, but also have him seek counseling if he’s willing.

The tough one is if he was an adult when he got involved with the Aunt. I’m no expert on human sexuality but I’d guess that someone who doesn’t have taboos about incest with Aunts might not have taboos with other kinds of things either. That would creep me out as the mother of this guy’s kids.

In any case, my advice to you is to go seek counseling yourself with an expert on sexual abuse.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

You know how you sometimes wake up and just feel like the luckiest person in the world? With the awesomest friends and family? And you just wanna go hug everything and everyone?

That is where Aunt Pythia is today, psychically speaking. Aunt Pythia is feeling so good that her usual quarrelsome self is in hiding, and every single piece of her advice is therefore probably useless, but so be it, it feels damn good.

Oh, and one more thing before the worthless drivel revs up: Aunt Pythia has noticed that people close to her don’t enjoy her columns very much at all, possibly because “they get to hear Aunt Pythia’s advice all the time and are frankly sick of it.”

So if you’re someone who does like Aunt Pythia’s advice column, please sing it loud and clear! The best way to express your AP love, of course, is by posing your very own ethical dilemma at the bottom of this column, so Auntie P has something to do next Saturday (she’s running low).

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

And please, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m 20 years old, very much a virgin, dating my boy for 2 and a half years and when it comes to the question of having sex, we have had oral sex but not intercourse as we decided it would be best to wait since no one knows about the future. Am i missing out on too much if i wait till i get married in seven years from now (which is a long time of course)?

Strong Headed

Dear Strong,

A few things. First of all, it disturbs me that you are planning so far ahead that you’ve already chosen 7 years as the amount of time before getting married. Where did that come from? That’s a lifetime of adulthood from the point of view of a 20-year-old. Who knows what country you’ll live in in 7 years, or what kind of job you’ll have.

Next, if you pair that with your alleged reason for not getting laid which is “since no one knows about the future”, it makes even less sense that you’re willing to wait for some arbitrary and enormous amount of time before getting down to the business of doing what you supposedly want with your life.

About that – do you actually want to get married? Well I’m not saying you should or shouldn’t, but I am saying you should figure out what you want and do it, and don’t ask other people, and don’t make plans based on random external rules.

Finally, the sex thing. I’m never going to understand why people come to me for sex advice since the one and only thing I ever ever say is “go for it!”.

Unless… unless they are somehow using me as a way of making an excuse to themselves for doing something they actually want to do already – I’m a proxy moral authority, perhaps? It’s happened.

So, if I’m playing that role, then by all means go do what you already want to do, but my real advice is to be your own moral authority next time. Your life, go live it.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

When will we see the space elevator in operation?

Carbon diox

Dear Carbon,

Seriously! I am super impatient for that myself. And I appreciate how your question somehow implies that it’s all set to go but nobody’s turned it on yet.

AP

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

This isn’t a question for AP, but instead a suggestion for a MB post: what are your thoughts on the Colin McGinn case?

Academic Philosophy

Dear Academic,

Tough shit, it came through Aunt Pythia’s feed so that’s what you get.

So actually I had to google Colin McGinn, since I hadn’t heard about it, and I supplied the link I reached above, so if that’s not representative then I apologize.

In any case I’ll comment based on that article.

First, it’s not a huge surprise to me, to hear of an academic discipline and culture filled with bullies, which sometime extends to sexual predation, and that women are excluded from that field for both the bullying reason and the sexual predation reason. This is super consistent with having a crappy and overly aggressive culture.

I’ve never entered the academic discipline of philosophy myself, but something that scares me about the field is the idea that you rely on your intelligence to make your point, rather than any outside evidence, like you might in science, or outside logical fact, like you might in mathematics.

In other words, I like math because it’s filled with people who know how to admit they’re wrong (some subfields of math are better than others at this). I like experimental science because, when they claim something will happen and it doesn’t happen, they have to revise their theory. I don’t like philosophy because arguments are slippery, like this one that Colin McGinn gave as an explanation for sending aggressive sexual requests to his first year graduate student:

Mr. McGinn said that “the ‘3 times’ e-mail,” as he referred to it, was not an actual proposal. “There was no propositioning,” he said in the interview. Properly understanding another e-mail to the student that included the crude term for masturbation, he added later via e-mail, depended on a distinction between “logical implication and conversational implicature.”

“Remember that I am a philosopher trying to teach a budding philosopher important logical distinctions,” he said.

Yuck!

I’m not saying the field can’t recover, but until they work on it, I won’t feel sorry for the fact that women are under-represented.

Auntie P

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

This question stems from your response from one of last week’s questions (the last one):

“The truth is, once you’ve been politicized and sensitized to the evil that organizations do or are involved in, you start to see it everywhere. Or if not everywhere, at least most places where you get paid.”

I have certainly found this to be true, as a physics student with a long career in retail to help support the student-ing.

Does it get better? Or easier to accept and harder to maintain some abstract idealism? Must this perspective in some way be balanced? I have dreams of grad school and research, but I wonder if even then it will be true that organizations are weird things that involve people behaving in unfortunate ways.

Reading Chomsky doesn’t seem to help.

-rage against the machine

Dear rage,

Great question! I think it does get better, and although it’s hard to maintain a long list of personal heroes when you keep looking behind the curtain and learning too much, I’ve found it’s not impossible to maintain idealism itself. It’s something you need to nurture, though, for sure, and it takes patience – you have to play the long game.

In other words, some people are aware of the hypocrisies and evils of the world and decide it’s too big to deal with so they figure they’ll just ignore it. Other people see that stuff and try to do everything, and they burn out. Other people just don’t see it at all.

I think a middle ground is good: try to do what you can, and make that a long term goal, and have standards you actually live by that help you make decisions. If, for example, you feel complicit in something you consider evil, then get the fuck out, even if it means quitting your job. You’ll get another job, I’m guessing, especially with a physics background and the ability to read Chomsky.

One thing I want to stress: don’t depend on a single person or a couple of persons to embody the ideals that you care about, because they’ll probably end up disappointing you at some point, and that’s not a great reason to throw in the towel. Instead, write up an internal list of your ideals, they’ll never let you down.

Good luck!

Love,

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Hey it’s Saturday and unlike last week, I know it! That means it’s time for Aunt Pythia to spew forth her ill-considered advice to thoroughly nice people such as yourself.

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

And please, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I am a 48-year-old newly single mother of teenagers. I finally have time to date and am seeking the statistically most successful way to meet single, available men. I do not like to hang out in bars and my “sports” interests are ballet and yoga–not anywhere any heterosexual men usually hang out. I do love wine but joining a wine “club” would be prohibitively expensive, and a book club is also not where available men can be found. Do you suggest I take up new activities in my life to meet men? And if so, which ones would maximize my chances in my age group and my proclivity to be introverted? Please do not suggest match.com–it was a disaster.

Thanks,
Statistically Seeking Mr. Right

Dear SSMR,

I suggest you take up a nerd sport, like learning a programming language – python?. Join a python meetup group in your area and go to some meetings and wait for a super nice nerd to show up. Note: super nice nerds might not talk a lot, so you might need to be patient and/or draw them out.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m an incoming senior undergrad CS student at Columbia.

This summer, I’m very fortunate to be working on some very interesting problems in data science, learning a ton, and implementing and testing a lot of models of my own. It’s more research/science type stuff, rather than software engineering, and I really want to continue to do this (while being compensated) after graduation next year.

The problem is, I’ve never once considered grad school (I’m really not an academic type and I love working with real data in real companies). Is it possible for a new graduate to get a research-type data science job, or at least mostly research-type, without a further degree? More importantly, I’d like to work on interesting problems, that hopefully will benefit the greater good, at least in some way.

If so, where do these jobs lie, and how can I get there?

Fledgling Scientist

Dear Fledgling Scientist,

It’s interesting how, at least for you, there’s a disconnect between the desire to be doing abstract research and the desire to be at grad school. What does that say about the reputation of grad school? What does it symbolize to you if not doing abstract research? Would you reconsider that?

Here’s the thing. I’ma be honest with you, most research doesn’t pay for itself. Indeed it’s pretty rare for research to pay off. So companies, especially start-ups that don’t have extra money floating around, will not pay for people to be abstract researchers, even if they’re proven professionals (i.e. they have Ph.D.’s and lots of papers).

Even in my job, where I’m an experienced researcher in math, and to some extent it’s my job to be a researcher in data science, it’s not abstract at all – I’m trying to figure out how to start a business in data science that will create a revenue stream of real cash money.

I don’t want to be completely negative, so here’s an idea for you that doesn’t require grad school. Get a job that pays pretty well but isn’t full time and do research in your spare time. It might not pay off cash-wise but it could very well make you money. And after a while you might decide that getting a Ph.D. would suit you.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

First of all: happy belated birthday!

In a couple of weeks I’m going to be taking part in a really awesome program at my university that brings low-income/first-generation college students to campus for a week to work on a research project with a lab of their choice before starting here in the fall. I get to be their Resident Assistant during this time and help them out with their lab projects/presentations. I’m feeling incredibly excited but also incredibly nervous about staring this! For example, I keep having imaginary conversations with hypothetical students in one or another life-situation with the aim of trying to figure out what’s the best possible advice/consolation I could offer them in that theoretical moment (this is just symptomatic of how math has drilled my brain to think about everything. I’m not actually crazy).

But whenever I overanalyze something to this extent I tend to become aloof and disconnected from the reality of it when it actually happens. It’s really important to me that I DO NOT DO THIS because I would love to be able to keep interacting regularly with these kids once the program finishes and I don’t want them to think of me as that weird guy who shakes his gravelly hands and mumbles whenever they bring up an academic/personal problem that I might *actually* be able to help them with (given on my own crazy and nonlinear experience). So how can I avoid doing this? How can I keep it real? Any other nuggets of wisdom you’d like to offer me going into this would also be greatly appreciated!

Derp dErp deRp derP

Dear Dddd,

Thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a great one.

Let’s see. Your job is to help kids with research projects, and you want to do a good job and keep it real, and you want to keep in touch with them. They’re also low-income/ first-generation college students.

My first piece of advice is to be nice and to articulate very loudly that you’re here to help and you want to make yourself available to them. That is always appreciated by people who don’t know what they’re doing. My next suggestion is to assume they are nerds, here to learn, and want to be challenged as well as to impress. So get ready to be impressed, and be sure to give positive feedback when it’s appropriate. People really love that stuff.

Third, you mention you have had a crazy and non-linear experience yourself. It might help them to know that, to relate to you, because chances are they might have moments of feeling out of place. But I’d wait on telling them until it’s one-on-one and you’ve already established a friendship and mutual respect. For example, it’d be a good time to mention this if they’ve come to you in a panic because they’ve been feeling over their head but know they can rely on you for advice. And also for example, it’d be a bad time to mention this on the first day when they’re all just meeting you, because it’d come across as you not expecting much from them.

Finally, it’s always fun to work with young people, so have a great time! Feed off their energy and they’ll feed off of your wisdom.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I recently finished up a masters in applied mathematics. I also recently left the Air Force to stop being a part of an organization that does awful awful things. I am now trying to find a job that hopefully uses my recent degree and avoids working for an organization that does awful things. Currently this means I am teaching small children to ice skate and play hockey which is great but doesn’t quite fill up the day or have much of any direct connection to math.

I am wondering what I could do and where I could look to avoid being chewed up by the military-industrial complex or other such entity? (see: financial sector) I’ve been looking at teaching jobs and been avoiding the thought of going for a PhD (so far, that bug will bite soon I’m sure), but I wondered if there might be other options I haven’t thought of. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Will Math to Feed Book Habit

Dear Will,

Yikes.

The truth is, once you’ve been politicized and sensitized to the evil that organizations do or are involved it, you start to see it everywhere. Or if not everywhere, at least most places where you get paid.

So if you’re dead-set on not being part of that stuff at all, your options are limited. For example, working at Google might not be a good idea for you since we don’t really know what they do. Facebook is pretty much a no fly zone, depending on what it is you have objections to. Start-ups often participate in weird shit in ways they don’t want to acknowledge (and sometimes don’t – you should be on the look-out for a good job at a small start-up in any case).

Here’s my suggestion: do math tutoring. I know people who get paid pretty darn well for math tutoring, especially for wealthy kids. And yes, there are issues around that too, of course, but on the other hand you know exactly what you’re getting yourself into, and you’re pretty much independent. Plus you’ve already shown you can work with kids, so it might be an easy transition. Over time you can start a math tutoring company and run it with no ties to anyone you don’t like.

Auntie P

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I was in Penn Station today around 6pm and a guy came up to me and asked me if he could ask me a question. I said okay, and well he first asked me if I spoke English, and then he said he needed money to take the train to Patchogue (which I later looked up costs $12.75). I wasn’t sure what to do, and I just reflexively I guess asked him how much it the fare was and he said 11.75 and well, then I took out my wallet and had 12 bucks so I gave it to him and he thanked me and walked away (I had to catch my own train elsewhere and so I don’t know whether he bought a ticket to patchogue or not).

After he walked away, I felt a bit silly for giving him so much – I could have just said no, but I often have a hard time saying no – and felt like I hadn’t stood up for myself, and had given him the money so that he would go away (I felt threatened/intimated by him because of reasons that aren’t PC to mention; but there were plenty of people around so I didn’t consider myself to be in imminent danger).

At the same time, I tried to make myself feel better by reminding myself that I can’t take any money with me when I die, and that I expect to die with more than 12 bucks in my name, so in the end it doesn’t matter, and maybe he was having a rough time so I perhaps I did my good deed for the day.

On the other hand, giving money away like that just encourages people/panhandlers to ask, maybe it is a scam (btw this would be the second time within the last year I was asked in Penn Station such a question (I said no the previous time but it was a lady that was asking so I didn’t feel threatened), and I’m only in there about once a week) and so sometimes I say no to such requests.

So my question is, what would AP do? (Oh, if it matters, I make $70,000 a year, and have no dependents). And what does MB do when asked by panhandlers for spare change?

Penn $tation

Dear Penn,

First of all, I like that you gave the dude $12 – I’ve been scammed before – plus, I like your “death bed” reasoning as well, it makes sense to me. I don’t think you need to feel weird or ashamed of what you’ve done.

On the other hand, it’s not what I do. I never give scary men money because they’re threatening me, whether they’re black or white, on principle, and I’ve never had a problem with saying no. In fact I almost never give money to strangers at all, except when they’re older women who seem like they’ve been thrown out of mental institutions. Then I often give them $20 bills, and they’re often not even asking for them because they’re so confused.

Since I live and work in New York and commute to work via subway most days, giving money to everyone who asks me for it could actually be bad for my family over time. But that’s not why I don’t do it. Mostly I don’t do it because, having worked in soup kitchens and having read enough about childhood poverty and hunger, I know that the people who need petty cash the most aren’t the ones asking for it in Penn Station. It’s way bigger than that, unfortunately.

I do buy my broke friends stuff, mostly food, and I give money to causes like Fair Foods in Boston that I have a personal connection to and which I think address the immediate needs of poor immigrants and children.

Yours,

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Guys, I messed up. I have been traveling two weeks in a row and I plumb forgot what day it was yesterday and thus, sadly, ignored my inner Aunt Pythia and her advice. I’m making up for it now, and I’m sending out major league apologies to people who were disappointed by the bullshit complaint about Indiana school politics yesterday instead of the sass you’ve grown to love from Auntie P.

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

And please, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I completed a BA in economics a number of years ago (well before the economy went to heck-in-a-handbasket), but didn’t immediately pursue a graduate degree. Instead of focusing on my career, I dedicated myself to a charity project–building a community school in a very poor country–which took a lot of my time and financial resources. Now, the project is up and running on its own and I’m thinking again about career paths (in order to be able to fund bigger and better philanthropic works, if nothing else).

I’ve had the obvious thought of continuing my education with a MA or PhD program, but I’m not entirely convinced that doing so will actually improve my prospects for landing a plumb job. It will, on the other hand, be sure to cost me plenty of moola. What do you think: is going into debt in order to obtain an advanced degree a wise financial decision in this economic climate? If not, what other steps do you think would be helpful for an underemployed intellectual looking to move out of manual labor and into something more “white collar,” ideally without having to sell his/her soul?

Or maybe it’s just that are some of us just stuck down here on the lower rungs of the income distribution and had better just get used to it. That is what I tend to think, but I’ve been accused of pessimism before and thought maybe you might have something less depressing to suggest.

Feeling Out Obvious Limits

Dear FOOL,

I gotta say, I’m not sure. I’m not an expert on jobs in Econ. But I’ll tell you what, if it’s like math, it’s not kind to people who take time off. I think this is a huge mistake, and obviously one that affects women more than men. If math, as a community, were serious about attracting good women, they’d change this bias. But I don’t see that happening soon. Ditto with probability 90% for Econ.

Having said that, it sounds like what you’ve accomplished is real, and although it’s possibly invisible to certain academic communities, I’d bet it isn’t to others, like the business community. If you’re a quantitative person who’s build a working charity (amazing!), then you could probably convince someone to give you a good job.

How about you look into getting a masters degree in something you’re interested in that’s also quantitative, and then rebuild yourself as an experienced team-builder?

Good luck!

Aunt P

——

Dear Pythia,

A Platonic friend from undergrad analysis class and I were walking on the beach together one sunny day, several years ago. She suggested we take our shoes and socks off and wade in the water, which we did. When it came time to put our shoes back on, while deftly balancing on one foot like a flamingo, I dried off my free foot with a sock, put the sock on, then the shoe, then repeated the process for the other foot, all without a hitch. Whether real, or possibly feigned premeditatedly, my companion was exhibiting quite the struggle a few feet away. Perhaps because I am more attracted to skill and independence than incompetence and dependence, I just stood by and watched. Would you agree that this was the right thing to do, or am I in for a scolding instead?

Free Bird

Dear Free,

This is a great example of a question that says more about the questioner than anything about the question.

Putting that aside, and to answer your putative question: you have no obligation to help a grownup put on their socks. But you do have an obligation to forget about how a friend puts on their socks within at most 2 days, and you have a definite obligation to not judge them for their sock-putting-on-technique on a sandy beach. Plus, it wasn’t a way to get into your pants, if that’s what you mean.

Good luck,

Auntie P

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I have a question about a question you actually answered (see last question answered here) for your revival.

If ‘D’ stands for ‘Dry’ and ‘G’ stands for ‘Got laid’, don’t you actually think that there would be some sort of stickiness (or state-dependence) coming in? I mean, I have the impression – maybe fallacious – that there is some sort of cold feet effect with getting laid: once you’ve entered the ‘dry’ state, your probability to remain in that state is actually increasing.

In other words, don’t you think that is actually increasing with ? How would you test for that?

There are several mechanisms behind that I think (and I will speak for myself here): it’s becoming more and more obvious that you’re sex-starved, and this is a big put-off, because that may be interpreted as being a lousy lover. You may also have less and less patience for the required chitchat before the physical fun etc.

The above may hold for males but not for females.

I’m not so sure about the other conditional probability mainly because I’ve little experience in staying very long in the ‘G’ state; but would be curious to know more about it.

Cheers,

Canada Dry

Dear Canada,

Great points! And eminently modelable, which I appreciate, although the data collection would be a bitch, especially considering how much people lie about getting laid (see first answer here).

I don’t agree that the underlying effect doesn’t effect women though. The concept that “if I haven’t gotten laid in a long time my chances are actively going down” definitely seems true for many of my friends, male and female, and I don’t think it’s because they are perceived as lousy lovers.

After all, it’s not like there’s a ticker tape on their foreheads counting up the second since their last sexual encounter. Instead, I think it’s part pheromones and part self-regard. If you feel unattractive, you don’t act like a sexy thang and people are less likely to approach you.

Similarly, if you’ve gotten laid recently, you feel sexy, which makes you act like a sexy person, which is hot in itself, and also you have sex pheromones dripping off of you, which attracts the opposite sex like flies to a lightbulb.

By the way, if you’re a woman and you want a leg up on the process, may I suggest you buy synthetic female pheromones from the Athena Institute. Some of my friends swear by this, and claim it makes men desire them and/or be nice to them. Let’s say it this way: it either works or it works as a placebo.

One last thing: I think the community you live in makes a big difference for these dependent probabilities. If you have been dry for a long time but you have a good set of wingwomen or wingmen, then you’re way better off than if you’re isolated socially.

Good luck, Canada Dry! Go hang with your buddies and get them on board for your worthy cause!

Auntie P

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I spent my childhood as a lonely nerd with no friends. Over college and beyond I made friends and learned to have deep, meaningful relationships with people. Then I spent a few years working at a nonprofit, making the world a better place. I made a lot of money while helping to ease the pain associated with a number of types of cancer. And now I’m in my late 30s and rich.

I want to experience the shallow life that I see so many people around me enjoying but I have no idea how to do it. I’d try to buy my way in, but I don’t know where to begin. I’ve heard that girls go for guys with money, but don’t know where to find these girls.

Seriously, I need help being superficial for a while.

Want to be shallow

Dear WtbS,

Please let me be the first person to tell you that you’re already quite superficial. Congratulations!

Just the way you’re talking about “girls” makes me kind of gag, as if they’re lego parts that can be bought, traded, and sold. Plus you also sound crazy smug about your accomplishments, another strong signal for superficiality. So I honestly don’t think I need to give you any more advice on that front.

What I think you actually are wondering is how to be happy, or possibly happy in a hedonistic way. But the sneaky little thing about really enjoying a hedonistic lifestyle is, in my opinion, that you have real connections with the other people in your company. Otherwise you might just wake up feeling empty and crappy. It’s fun to do stupid sexy things with your friends if everyone’s into it, it’s not fun to do stupid sexy things with strangers whose motivations you don’t know, especially if you’re young and rich, because even if you don’t know, I will.

So my advice: go back to your college-aged talents and make deep connections with people who are also fun-loving and slightly crazy. It will take a few months but you might just be able to live like a fucking rock star.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

It’s a speed advice column today, folks, because I’m blogging whilst sitting at the PyData 2013 conference [Aside: I believe in Travis Oliphant, the nerd Santa Claus, do you?]. I’ll try to keep it to the point yet amusing slash provocative.

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

And please, Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m having a baby soon, and I’m planning to be the primary caregiver for a few months (from 3 months onward). I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get some research done at the same time, but I’m not sure how practical that is. What should I expect? Do you have any tips for juggling baby care and math research? (assuming no teaching and minimal responsibilities around the department.)

Baffled About Birth Year

Dear BABY,

Other people are gonna tell you encouraging things like, “oh you can do it!” or “If anybody can do it, it’s you!” but not me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling you you can’t do it, but by acting like it’s just a matter of proper planning, I’d be underselling how much work you’re signing up for, and how fucking hard it really is going to be.

So here’s the real deal: it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do (hopefully). You know how grad school was hard? This is like having to write a thesis once a year while living 24/7 with someone who’s only goal is for you to not get that done.

Which is to say: be incredibly proud of yourself every day you survive this period, and don’t add an ounce of guilt to yourself that you can avoid. Guilt doesn’t help. And also, the system is set up badly for you, to be sure, but don’t dwell on it too much, that also doesn’t help while you’re in it.

In terms of very practical advice: pay through the nose for good babysitting and daycare, it’s worth the investment so that you don’t have to worry your kid is getting love and attention. Go into debt, borrow money, or whatever, but get it set up so that you actually feel jealous of your kid, and specifically so you know your kid is better off with that situation for the next few hours than being with you.

Finally, when you feel crazy and insane and underproductive, know that it’ll get better, for sure, by the time the kids can wipe their own asses, and that you won’t regret having those beautiful children nor trying to get something else done too. Never apologize for needing to cry and vent about how hard this period is, and if you’re around people who don’t get it, find new people.

Good luck!

Cathy

——

Aunt Pythia,

How do I dress to make people think I am an adult? I’m a 25-year-old woman, and I’m getting a bit tired of people asking me if I’m a student.

I think they ask me this because I only wear jeans and nerdy t-shirts. I basically only own jeans and nerdy t-shirts, plus some cardigans. I am not at all interested in skirts or girly things, but I’m open to wearing slightly nicer clothes. Like more cardigans? Messenger bags that aren’t falling apart? Urk.

People on the internet claim that I need to pluck my eyebrows to be taken seriously, but fuck that shit.

Shopping Is Hard! Let’s Do Math

Dear Sihldm,

First, I gotta say I was expecting a bit more from that sign-off. I really don’t see what “Sihldm” is supposed to mean, but maybe I’m just out of the loop.

Second, I’m gonna say something kind of controversial. Namely, I think the single attribute that makes people take me seriously is the fact that I’m overweight (and that, nowadays, I have grey hair, which also helps).

I think people just stop thinking “girl” and start thinking “woman” when confronted with me, and that totally works to my advantage. Controversial because, according to the social contract, I’m supposed to feel consistently bad about my weight, but here’s an example where I’m like, wow I’ve never been underestimated as a “girl”.

So, my advice to you is: pack on like 100 pounds.

Just kidding, probably not a great plan, nor possible.

Here’s another try: whenever you’re giving a talk or starting a class, wear wool slacks and a sweater. For whatever reason people take you super seriously when you do, even if you’re not fat, and even if you’re short. If it’s summer, go for summer slacks and silk shirts, although not the kind of silk that shows sweat stains easily, those are embarrassing.

And if it’s not a special event like a talk or the first day of class, then fuck it, be yourself.

Good luck!

Cathy

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

My husband stays home with the children, but in spite of a graduate degree in engineering and graduate work in mathematics, seems incapable of maintaining a clean house.

My question is, if 95% of the time he doesn’t sort the mail, 75% of the time he doesn’t vacuum, 50% of the time he doesn’t wash the dishes, and 80% of the time he doesn’t wipe the kitchen counters, what is the probability that he doesn’t actually see dirt? (He is color blind.)

Buried in junk mail

Dear Bijm,

Bijm? Really?

Are the kids healthy? Happy? Do they get fed non-dorito-like food? I’d say be grateful. If and when you can afford it get housekeeping, but don’t make the mistake I see so much of allowing resentment to build up over chores.

Also, keep in mind that the kids will be able to help with the chores soon. And by “soon” I mean “probably already”. Buy cute toy-like vacuum cleaners and make up a game about getting all the dirt. Make it part of the dessert ritual that the counters need to be clean first. Move your bills to online payments.

And enjoy your sexy househusband!! [Important aside: is he willing to wear an apron and nothing else when he cooks? Please answer privately, preferably with jpeg-formatted evidence.]

Aunt Pythia

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated ethical quandary to Aunt Pythia!

Aunt Pythia is back and, since her family has finally been reunited, sleeping well. Thank goodness! Hallelujah!

I’m psyched to be getting some great questions from the math community. If you’re a math nerd, and even if you’re not, please:

Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’ve been thinking a lot about your remark from this previous post:

Like a lot of academics, he understands ambition in one narrow field, and doesn’t even relate to not wanting to be successful in this realm

That has really resonated with me. I am trying to make it as an academic, and I admit I am super boring because all I really care about is math and exercise, and I’m not really smart enough or care enough to have an informed opinion of much else.

Unfortunately this makes it hard to attract women, and the ones I have gone out on dates with said that I am not very engaging. On top of that most women want children, and I have read (and agree with) your post on why wanting children is ridiculous. I am also not located in a region where I have any colleagues or even graduate students working in my area of math to talk math with and so I feel pretty isolated in so many levels.

What does it take to become a math professor at an ivy league caliber institution (e.g. Harvard, MIT Columbia, Princeton)? Does one have to be working/thinking about math for much of one’s day? I presume you have an inside view.

Math is Titillating

Dear MiT,

First of all thanks for bringing up that previous answer. I have gotten a lot of people writing in saying I misinterpreted his description of taking extra time to finish his Ph.D.; most people generally think he only took one extra year whereas I read it as two extra years, which makes a big difference. Given this, I was probably too harsh on the guy, although I still think grad students should go to seminars.

As an aside, when did we start using “last year” to mean “this year” and “next year” to mean “next year” but stopped using “this year” to mean anything?

Now on to your question. Do you have to be thinking about math all the time to get a great job? Probably. There are exceptions but they’re rare, as you know.

Let’s face it, this wasn’t really a question for Aunt Pythia. I think you just identified with the description of being boring and only caring about getting a fancy math job, since that’s all you actually care about, as evidenced by your question.

But hey, I’m Aunt Pythia, so I’ve got advice for you anyway.

Don’t feel bad about it! It’s just how you’re programmed, it’s fine. You love math and not much else! Shout it loud from the rooftops and you might just find a girl nerd who’s psyched with your boring self. Just please don’t expect everyone else to be like you, especially your graduate students.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m a math professor in a bit of an ethical quandary.

There is a researcher in my field who is widely known (by those in the field) to be a Certified Asshole (CA). He cuts down other people and their work, often in underhanded and awful ways. The people in question are often women (but not always) and often young (grad students or postdocs). He is a tenured full prof at a Very Good School, though, so those who don’t know him respect the position and his publication record. They consider him to be a Serious Person instead of the CA that he is.

In our recent round of hiring, I read the packet of a very talented graduating student who is applying for postdocs. This student has a few publications already including one very, very nice result. He is also a current collaborator of mine, and I know him a bit personally.

The letter in the student’s application from CA (another collaborator of the student) is underhanded and sabotaging. It says nothing outright negative, of course, but has key phrases like “promising teaching career at a liberal arts school” or somesuch. It also manages to be self-aggrandizing about CA himself rather than praising the grad student and his work.

This student did not get any offers this year, and I know he will be on the market again this year. I can’t help thinking that this letter is hurting his chances for a research postdoc. CA is not his advisor. While it would help to have a good letter from a person in a position such as CA’s, I don’t think this particular letter is helping him.

I can’t figure out an ethical way to help the student. I can’t come out and tell him what’s in the letter. I can’t really say anything even alluding to that. Is there anything I can do to help him?

Better yet, is there anything I can do to hurt CA even though I am in a more junior position at a less well-respected school?

Math is Awesome, People Suck

Dear MAPS,

What a rich question! There are so many issues here, I do believe we could start an entire blog addressing just this ethical quandary, worked out in its entirety.

First of all, I agree that there is an ethical quandary, mostly because you read the CA letter.

If you’d told your friend not to get a letter from the CA beforehand, because he’s a known shitty letter writer, I think that would have been fine and not unethical. But given that you didn’t, and that your friend got that letter, and that you read the letter, it would now seem like spying to go back and tell your friend to get a new letter in the next round. After all, if you’d read the letter and it was great, then you wouldn’t be telling your friend to go get a new letter writer.

As an aside, it doesn’t make sense to me that, during the hiring process, people read the folders of their current collaborators – doesn’t that seem ripe for this kind of conflict of interest?

Now just a few words on “shitty letter writers” before we go on to actual advice. There are different kinds of shitty letter writers, which I’ll split into two broad categories: the tough letter writer, who has consistently high standards and doesn’t wax poetic about anyone ever, and the narcissistic letter writer, who is inconsistent with their praise, sometimes cold sometimes hot, depending on idiosyncratic things like whether they like the young person’s personality and whether they’ve seen enough citations to the narcissist’s own work.

In the large and relatively functional system that is recommendation letters for math jobs, the tough letter writer is a pretty familiar concept, and the system has adapted more or less to its existence. In other words, people who read a lot of letters in a lot of folders get to know the letter writers and they say stuff to themselves along the lines of, oh this guy never writes good letters, so given that, this letter is actually pretty good!

Of course that’s not to say that it’s a perfect system of adaptation to such tough letter writing biases: for sure there are hiring committees unfamiliar with those letter writers, and for those students who have those tough letters, they inevitably suffer in such situations.

On the other hand, if you tried to explicitly adjust this problem, you could be inviting other, even bigger problems. For example, if you had a public yet anonymous webpage which scored every letter writer on a scale of toughness, then the young people looking for jobs might feel like to compete, they’d need to only get letters from people who always write good letters (they exist), and then the entire system would fail because the letters would contain less and less information. That would be a problem.

OK, what about the narcissist letter writer? That’s harder, since they’re not consistently tough, but rather they’re tough on people they just don’t like for whatever reason. It’s much much harder for people on hiring committees to spot the narcissists, and thus those narcissists probably do lots of damage. Luckily they’re also less common then the tough letter writers, but of course they exist.

I’d like to respond to your last question, about wanting to hurt CA, who I’m guessing is a narcissist letter writer, and even though the question is posed strangely.

I don’t think it’s unethical, when you’re counseling any person in your field from now on, to explicitly suggest not using that guy, or for that matter any narcissist letter writer. Of course, this is before you’ve read the putative letter, and of course the person might think you’re wrong and might ignore your advice (and of course, you might be wrong).

My advice to you about the person who didn’t get a job this year (note usage of “this year”): make sure they’re aware of how much letters count, and how different writers are known for different styles, and tell them to consider getting new letters. Ask them to explicitly ask their letter writers whether their letters are good, and define “good”, something I always counsel people to do when they ask for letters.  I don’t think you can do much more than this.

But I’m eager to hear what Jason Starr thinks, he’s always very thoughtful!

Best,

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

You write an amazing blog that

• lets your readership get to know you as a person and
• showcases your interests and expertise without
• too much compartmentalizing.

Help a sister out with some advice for how to achieve similar results?

Bridging Lives Online Gets Gnarly Yo

Dear BLOGGY,

My advice is to

• Set aside time every day to write. Consistency is your friend.
• Choose a (possibly imaginary) friend of yours each day to write to – your audience – that is on your side but will also ask clarifying questions, and explain something to them that you find interesting. That’s a blog post!
• Also, explain one idea well, then stop. People can barely stand one idea before losing interest.

Good luck, I know you’re gonna rock it!!!

Love,

Auntie P

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated ethical quandary to Aunt Pythia!

Aunt Pythia is ever so pleased to be here today, on her 41st birthday no less, spewing forth questionable advice that nobody will be willing to go on the record as having read, but which she knows in her heart each reader secretly treasures.

Now, when Aunt Pythia was on her death bed two weeks ago, the call was raised for more questions, and quickly. And readers, you responded, which brings tears to Aunt Pythia’s eyes, it really does. It brought her back from the brink and she’s eternally grateful.

The problem is, though, this: some of these questions are of dubious substance. To be honest, they’re very short, not extremely well-thought out or juicy, and don’t pose an existential conundrum.

Of course, one doesn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I’ve arranged to answer these questions in speed-round fashion today. I hope you enjoy it, and please don’t forget:

Submit your existential conundrums to Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

What should I do when, after posting a video from Vi Hart, a reader responds “I’ve got to marry that girl.”?

Math Guy

Dear Math Guy,

Offer to administer the wedding! Turns out you can get certified as a minister with an app called “OrdainThyself”.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

If you were a flavor of ice cream, what flavor of ice cream would you be?

Sleepless in Seattle

Dear SiS,

Not sure about me, but my kids would all be Ben & Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, which I ate pretty much continuously and exclusively during my three pregnancies.

Not me, but I had that same stoned expression.

I hope that helps!

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I am a 24 year-old grad student, and I’ve noticed the following trend in my life: When I was younger (read, 14 and older), I always was attracted to people around 19 years of age which was too old for me. But now, I’m still attracted to people around 19 years of age, which is quickly getting too young for me. What should I do???

Feeling a little bit like a Cougar…

Dear Wanna-be Cougar,

Just as I can’t claim to be part of the generation of 20-somethings that refuse to make appointments more than 17 minutes in advance, and then only by text, you cannot claim to be a cougar, sorry. That’s reserved for women who are at least 40, possibly 41, and there’s no extra room at this table.

Not me, but I do share the sentiment

In terms of your “problem,” it’s one of those things you can’t control, as far as I know, so just take the posture of bewildered amusement at your own desires, and make sure you don’t do anything illegal or weird.

Smooches,

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

Since I know how fond you are of bridge, I have a question about slam bidding: Given the fact that you and your partner have a guaranteed slam, what is the probability that you will bid into that slam? What are the ways to maximize that probability, in terms of convention? What are the easiest ways to invite slam to your partner? What is your opinion of cue bidding, and what are the least confusing ways to cue bid?

Seeker Abling Young Cardsharks

Dear SAYC,

I appreciate how your sign-off is code for how I should answer this question.

But even so, I’m going to go with my gut here: when I’m in a perceived slam with my partner, I always make sure to stare knowingly into his or her eyes, with raised eyebrows, and mouth the word “slam”, Colbert-style.

Me.

If that isn’t getting through I squeeze his or her knee under the table. Works every time. For me, bridge is all about being fun and ridiculous, and I never follow the rules unless it’s more fun to do so.

I hope that helps!

Auntie P

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Aunt Pythia is just bursting with love and admiration for the courageous and articulate readers that sent in their thought-provoking and/or heart-rending questions in the last week which got her off life support and back into fighting shape.

On the one hand, Aunt Pythia did’t want to be a histrionic burden to you all, but on the other hand clearly histrionics work, so there it is. Thank you thank you thank you for allowing histrionics to work.

That’s not to say you should rest on your laurels, readers! First of all, Aunt Pythia always needs new questions (you don’t want her to get sick again, right?), and secondly, I’ve heard laurels can be quite prickly.

In other words,

Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

By the way, if you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia.

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

Isn’t the distribution thing kind of REALLY IMPORTANT for how we think of the sexual partner thing? If fifty women are getting it on with one man, while the other 49 men are, uh, monks, or vice versa, depending on the universe you live in, that certainly influences how you think about stereotypes.

Ms. Hold On A Second

Dear HOAS,

Yes it is, but the average should take care of that as long as the sample size is large enough to have that one lucky man represented, as well as the 49 unlucky men, in the correct proportions.

Let’s go with this a bit. How fat-tailed would sexual practice have to be to make this a problem? After all, there are distributions that defy basic intuition around this – look at the Cauchy Distribution, which has no defined mean or variance, for example. Maybe that’s what’s going on?

Hold on one cotton-picking second! We have a finite number of people in the world, so obviously this is not what’s going on – the average number of sexual partners exists, even if it’s a pain in the ass to compute!

But I’m willing to believe that there’s a sampling bias at work here. Maybe female prostitutes are excluded from surveys, for example. And if men always included their visits to prostitutes, that would introduce a bias.

I’ll go on record saying I doubt that explains the discrepancy, although to be mathematical about it I’d need to have an estimate of how much prostitute sex happens and with how many men. I don’t have that data but maybe someone does.

And of course it’s probably not just one thing. Some combination of the surveys being for college students, and fewer prostitutes being at college, and some actual lying. But my money’s on the lying every time.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m not sure this is the correct forum for this question, but here it goes: I come from an economics/econometrics background, where the statistical modeling tool of choice is Stata. I now work at an organization in a capacity that is heavy on statistical modeling, in some cases (but not always) working with “Big Data”.

There is some freedom in terms of the tools we can use, but nobody uses Stata, to my knowledge. As somebody who is just starting out in this industry, I’m trying to get a pulse on which tool I should invest the time into learning, SAS or R. Do you have an opinion either way?

Lonely in Missouri

Dear Lonely,

Always go with the open source option. R, or even better, python. What with pandas and other recent packages, python is just fabulous.

Aunt Pythia

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’m a graduate student in math at a large state research school in the midwest, finishing in 2014. My question is about my advisor and my job plans.

First, here’s what I’m planning to do next year. My wife is a student in the same department as I am, and she’s also finishing next year. We both want to move to a big city. We’d settle for a Philadelphia or Seattle or really anywhere we can live without a car, but by “big city” I really mean New York. We’ve both lived there before and we like it better than anywhere else.

My wife wants a non-academic job. I’m going to apply for research postdocs. I should be a fairly strong candidate, but I’m no superstar and I definitely don’t think it’s assured that I’ll get one, especially with the limited set of places we’re willing to live. And that’s fine! I like the idea of being a professor, but there’s lots of other jobs that I think I’d like too. I know that I wouldn’t like living apart from my wife, or living somewhere that we hate.

My advisor has done a good job of making me into a researcher. The problem is that he’s just a difficult person. Less charitably, he’s an asshole (at least to me). He’s arrogant, rude, and demanding. The one time I ever told him he wasn’t treating me fairly (which I did politely, but in an email), he completely flipped out (in a series of emails) and told me that as his student, I had no right to talk to him that way.

I don’t want to make him sound like a complete monster: he’s from a culture that puts a lot of weight on respect and hierarchy, and I’ve seen him be empathetic and kind. But he absolutely cannot handle it if I disagree with him or don’t do what he says.

In all conversations we’ve had about my future, he seems to have no interest in what I actually want to do. I could have graduated last year, but my department had no problem letting me stay on so that I could finish at the same time as my wife. My advisor was really unhappy about this. His attitude was that a year wasn’t much time to spend away from a spouse (after all, he spent three!), and I should have at least applied for a few prestigious postdocs to maximize my chances of getting one.

Recently, my advisor emailed me just to tell me how disappointed he is in me: I have a bad attitude, I don’t always go to seminars even when he tells me I should, and that I make decisions about my future on my own, instead of in consultation with him. I responded politely (and distantly) to this.

So, here’s the question: should I do anything about all of this? I don’t work with my advisor mathematically anymore, and I’ve been much happier since we stopped. I have other projects to work on and other collaborators to work with, and I think other people in the department would be happy to give me problems or work with me on them. I don’t think my advisor is going to change in any way, and I’m the kind of person who can’t stand to be treated like an underling or told what to do. My advisor has said that he’s still happy to write me a recommendation. What things should I do? I’m hoping your answer is nothing, so that I can continue having as little contact as possible with my advisor.

Feeling Refreshed at the End of an Era

Dear FREE,

Here’s the thing. I have sympathy with some of your story but not with all of it. First I’ll tackle the negative stuff, then I’ll get to the sympathy.

If I understand correctly, you could have graduated last year but instead you’re graduating next year. So you’re staying an extra two years on the department’s dime. Doesn’t that seem a bit strange? How about if you finish and get a job in town as an actuary or something to see if non-academic work suits you? Are you preventing someone from entering the department by being there so long?

Also, you mention that you don’t go to seminars. I don’t think I always went to seminars as a young graduate student, but as I got more senior I appreciated how much language development there is in seminars – even when I didn’t understand the results I learned about how people think and talk about their work by going to seminars. I don’t think it was a waste of my time even though I ultimately left academics. I don’t think it would waste your time to go to seminars.

In other words, you sound like an entitled lazy graduate student, and I’m not so surprised your advisor is fed up with you. And I’m pretty sure your non-academic boss would be even less sympathetic to someone spending an extra two years doing not much.

Now here’s where I do my best to sound nice.

Sounds like your advisor doesn’t get you, possibly because he’s fed up with the above-mentioned issues. Like a lot of academics, he understands ambition in one narrow field, and doesn’t even relate to not wanting to be successful in this realm. That’s probably not going to change, and there’s no reason to take advice from him about how you want to live your life and the decisions you’re making for your family.

So yes, ignore him. But don’t ignore me, and I’m here to say: stop being an entitled lazy-ass.

Aunt Pythia

——

Ok I’ve never heard of Aunt Pythia, and I know this is too easy for her, but I can’t let her die.

Aunt Pythia,

If each woman I date is an independent trial, and the probability of marrying a woman I date is 0.1, how many women do I have to date before I can be at least 90% sure of getting married? (You can substitute “having sex” for “getting married” if you like.)

Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Aunt Pythia appreciates the sentiment, and the question.

Let’s sex up the question just a wee bit and change it from “getting married” to “having sex” as you suggested, and also raise your chances a bit to 17%, out of pure human compassion.

Let’s establish some notation: each time you date some woman we will record it either as a “G” for “got laid” or as a “D” for “dry.” So for example, after 4 women you might have a record like:

DDDGD,

which would mean you got laid with the fourth woman but with no other women.

Are we good on notation?

OK now let’s answer the question. How long do we wait for a G?

The trick is to turn it around and ask it another way: how likely is a reeeeeeally long string of D’s?

Chances of one D are good: (100-17)% = 83%.

Chances of two D’s in a row are less good: 0.83*0.83 = 0.67 = 67%.

Chances of three D’s in a row are even less good:

If you keep going you’ll notice that chances of 11 D’s in a row is 11% but chances of 12 D’s in a row are only 9%. that means that, by dating 12 women or more, your chances of getting laid are better than 90%. If you think it’s really a 10% chance every time, you’ll have to date 22 women for such odds. I’d suggest you invest in a membership on OK Cupid or some such.

Good luck!

Auntie P

——

Please submit your well-specified, fun-loving, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!

Dear Aunt Pythia Readers,

I’m afraid I have some bad news. Aunt Pythia has been suffering from a lack of (good) questions recently, and is running out of steam. She might well be dead within the week.

Although she’s been supplied with one new good question, as well as a few older questions she’s deemed somewhat lame (and quite a few that are downright obscene), it just doesn’t make sense for her to keep going without a week’s rest, and hopefully some shoring up of her “good questions” list.

Was it the fact that last week’s column was on Sunday? Was it because the questions have become less nerdy and more sex-related? Hard to say, but the truth is Aunt Pythia has been scraping by week to week since the get-go, and this was bound to happen at some point. She’s never yet made up a question, by the way, and considers it below her high-ish standards to do so (although she’s convinced she could make up some doozies if she tried).

Do you want her to die? Maybe you do. In that case: do nothing.

If you are, however, fond of Auntie P, then please take it upon yourself to ask a question below. Hopefully, with some TLC, she will be back on her feet next week. Otherwise, she will be permanently removed as a feature from mathbabe, which would be sad indeed.

Love,

Cathy

——

Here’s your chance to save Aunt Pythia!!

Readers, Aunt Pythia’s confusion from traveling got her all mixed up and she forgot to distribute her pearls of wisdom yesterday on account of: she thought it was Friday. She is sincerely sorry, it won’t happen again.

Aunt Pythia is extremely grateful and pleased to announce that today she has help from a guest advice-giver, namely Cousin Lily, who specializes in sage advice for kinky people, or wanna-be kinky people.

We’ll start out with Cousin Lily’s advice, running the risk that nobody will bother to read anything else, since it’s much more interesting than anything Aunt Pythia knows about.

By the way, if you don’t know what you’re in for, go here for past advice columns and here for an explanation of the name Pythia. Most importantly,

Submit your question for Aunt Pythia at the bottom of this page!

——

Dear Aunt Pythia/ Cousin Lily,

Since I promised: here’s the follow-up question(s). My partner and I have a great sex life, but perhaps you have some advice on how to make it better. Her kink is that she’s submissive. I’m pretty vanilla in this area- it’s mostly obliviousness on my part. It had never occurred to me that sex and power were anything but orthogonal, to be nerdy about it.

I have two things I’m puzzling over. First, I’m used to asking someone what they like in bed – nobody’s a mind reader, after all. However, if I ask, then I’m not really being dominant. Any way around this?

Second, I know the bedroom isn’t real life, but I have a real problem with anything that even has undertones of treating her badly (no play humiliation etc). I’ve figured out some activities that we both enjoy (e.g. telling her to make me a cake while naked, wrestling). I think she would like it if I pushed the boundaries a bit more. Any ideas on how to disassociate slightly more the bedroom from real life in my mind?

OK I’ll Bite

——

Dear OK,

Please read “The Bottoming Book” by Hardy and Easton, stat. I highly recommend reading it together and letting it start some conversations between you. This book will help you understand the things that might be motivating your submissive partner, ways to explore Dominant/submissive (D/s) play safely (both physically and emotionally), and techniques for handling the times that things don’t go perfectly.

It is really common for “vanilla” partners to feel uncomfortable about their submissive partner’s desires regarding power and potentially things like pain and/or humiliation. But once you understand what motivates your submissive’s kink and what she is hoping to get from the experience, you will feel much more at ease about providing that. Not every sub is submissive in the same way or for the same reasons — understanding your sub’s kink (and finding out whether she understands it herself) will make the whole experience much more accessible. This better understanding will also allow you to view the exchange as your providing pleasure of a specific kind, rather than pain/abuse/etc.

NO MIND READING should be expected by either party. That is a recipe for disaster on both sides. Talk through in detail what each of you expects and wants, and do it long before you get into bed (although this discussion doesn’t have to be clinical — it can totally be sexy, just do it at the bar and not in the bedroom so that each person has time to reflect and react). This can be a tool to ease anxiety, but it can also be a tool to build anticipation: in other words, a total turn-on. Asking for input doesn’t mean you’re not being dominant; ask your sub to tell you the range of things that she would find sexy, and then YOU CHOOSE which of those things happen, or in what order, or when (depending on what you negotiate together). That is totally dom.

Take baby steps. It doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, or any time. Don’t go farther than you’re comfortable with, and trade feedback after each encounter. You should also develop techniques for getting feedback during your encounters. You can do this while remaining dominant: “How does that feel?” “I don’t like it, Sir.” “I didn’t ask if you liked it.” [but then you back off anyway, maybe after just one more prolonged second]. Just communicate, communicate, communicate. And read the book.

Finally, try to stop thinking about this as “[disassociating] the bedroom from real life”. We humans are complex creatures with multiple moods and identities. You don’t share the same side of yourself with your college friends that you do with your grandparents (hopefully), but that doesn’t make one experience more a part of “real life” than the other. Similarly, power dynamics in the bedroom are simply a way of exploring different parts of ourselves, and to fully explore your partner and all the levels of complexity she has to offer as a full human being is the most intimate, wonderful thing you could do — why would you ever want to disassociate that from the rest of your lives together? Embrace that part of her, and embrace whatever part of yourself engages with her inner submissive. I promise, it will add a new and rich dimension to your “real life” relationship if you let it.

For further reading and more specific guidance about exploring dominance, check out “The Topping Book” (also by Hardy and Easton) or “The Loving Dominant” (specific to male, heterosexual doms). Have fun!

Cousin Lily

——

Dear Aunt Pythia,

I want to preface my question by saying that I’ve read your posts about Big Data as Big Brother and NSA Mathematicians and I definitely appreciate that there are a lot of very serious, very heavy issues involved in your discussions.

However, reading them has also made me worried about a potentially more nontrivial issue: should I be concerned that the porn I watch shows up in my browser history? The stuff I watch is all firmly mainstream, but you’ve said before that a person’s google search histories (given that they’re logged into gmail) are basically stored forever and could potentially be bought by agencies/companies looking to vet prospective employees.

And given that I’m a grad student who’s in a long distance relationship, my internet history would read to others like: math, math, math, porn, porn, math… Which is clearly not an impression I want to give of myself. Am I being needlessly paranoid?

Paranoia Generally Leads (2, Craziness)

Dear PGL(2,C),

That might be the nerdiest abbreviation I’ve ever seen. Hear hear! I would have answered your question simply based on that alone, but I actually want to address your very good question as well.

Here’s the thing: you have to understand that everyone watches porn. Or, if not everyone, than almost everyone. So yes, although your electronic footprint is going to have an enormous amount of smut attached to it, you’d only need to worry if your smut level is somehow much larger than the average guy’s smut level. And honestly, it doesn’t sound that way at all, given that 4 out of 6 example clicks above were mathy.

In other words, be nerdy with me for a moment and look at an extreme edge case where your browser history is absolutely transparent to anyone, including future employers, but so is everyone else’s. Then it’s a game of relativity: are you going to stand out as a huge perv? Not a chance. If, over time, people more and more start getting smart about hiding their smut, say by using a separate browser or going into incognito windows on Chrome, and it becomes the norm not to have a bunch of porn in your history, then not doing so will make you stand out. But honestly we’re not there yet.

And also, we’re not there yet for that edge case where your history is completely known. The truth is most employers that you’d work for as a mathematician don’t even pry into this kind of thing – it’s mostly a problem for shitty jobs at Walmart, where they’re trying to decide if you’re going to be a good robot or if you’re going to cause trouble, or if you work for the NSA or something.

So don’t fret! And good luck. What with a long distance relationship during grad school, you’re going to need it.

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

I’d be a bit of a wet blanket to state Lybridos is ineffective, plus there’s a lot of money at stake. So I’m skeptical about the supporting research (e.g. a woman’s sex drive in a relationship plummets in a relationship, except maybe if they’re with a whaler). What are the warning signa as to whether such research is dodgy?

More Sex Research Please

Dear MSRP,

First of all, “MSRP” stands for “manufacturer’s suggested retail price” and it doesn’t do much for me. Please take copious notes from PGL(2, C) above.

Second, when I first read your question, I honestly wondered if it was written in English. I mean, there are references to all sorts of things I’ve never heard about – Lybridos? Great sex with whalers? – and then the actual question asks me to comment on research that’s unnamed. I’m sure you can do better! Just throw in a few url’s and we’d be good!

I managed to figure out what Lybridos is, since googling that isn’t so hard, but for the whaling comment I got nothing, and in the end I can’t figure out which research is or is not dodgy. So please do write back with references, especially for the sex-with-whalers comment, which especially intrigues me, thanks.

I did want to address the inherent topic here, though, namely of women’s sex drive and getting pills for it. Namely, I’m all for it. In fact I’d like to read profiles in the New York Times about a gaggle of 50-year-old women, preferably in the same knitting circle, who started taking pills to get their sex life kick-started, and it worked, and now their husbands are too exhausted to keep up so they (the husbands) hired extra men to come in and assist.

Why? Because the narrative on men and women’s sexuality is totally distorted and always paints the picture of women avoiding sex and men wanting and needing it. I honestly think this myth is perpetuated for the sake of men’s egos. Or, to be generous, it’s a survivorship bias problem, since married couples go to the doctor and complain when women lose interest but they don’t do the same thing when men do. Judging from my girlfriends, though, there’s no national crisis of women not being interested in sex. Of course there’s also a bias in the sample of women who are my girlfriends, but I must expect the truth to be somewhere in the middle.

I look forward to your more precise question next time!

Aunt Pythia

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Please submit your well-specified, cleverly-abbreviated question to Aunt Pythia!