mathbabe

I’m excited as always to see my buddy Jordan Ellenberg, who’s in town accepting a Guggenheim Fellowship.

You might have thought that Guggenheims were awarded to starving artists, and you would be mostly right, but they also give them out to a couple of math people each year as well.

Since Jordan has kids and I have kids, we got to talking about how fantastic our kids are, which led Jordan to show me this adorable video involving him and his son C.J.:

It’s in reference to the National Math Festival, which was held in April in D.C.. Jordan spoke there about his book How Not To Be Wrong, which I reviewed a while ago. A couple of comments:

• If you look carefully, you will also see my buddy Rebecca Goldin with one of her (many) adorable kids in the video,
• My favorite part (and Jordan’s) is where he puts his head inside a Fibonacci sequence, even though that makes no sense,
• My sons would never be this math positive. They enjoy talking about how much they hate school in general and math in particular.
• I’m kind of proud of how I’m raising them to be “independent thinkers,” though, which is what I call that.

Sometimes your conspiracy theory turns out to be absolutely true.

Over the past few years, primarily due to conversations I’ve had at my weekly Alt Banking meetings, I’ve become increasingly concerned about the crazy real estate industry in New York City and New York State. A few pertinent facts:

• There’s been a crazy luxury housing boom. Specifically, more luxury housing is being built than there are people who could reasonably afford them.
• Except perhaps the way to look at such apartments is that they are not apartments at all but financial instruments for rich people.
• Specifically, rich people who want to hide or launder their money. The disclosure laws are suspiciously lax.
• On the side of “affordable housing,” which the Alt Banking group wrote about here in our Huffington Post blog, there are ridiculous tax abatement laws that benefit builders. Specifically, the “421a” law, which Dean Skelos, Republican majority leader in the State Senate, is somehow involved with.
• Specifically, it seems that Skelos demanded money for his son in return for playing nice with developers.
• The ironic thing is how small the pay-offs are: on the level of $200K. Compare that to the $1.2 billion of taxes that have gone uncollected by the 421a law.
• In the meantime, the construction unions are being decimated by the real estate industry, even in this outrageously flush time. They are trying to organize around repealing the 421a law.

I am really hoping we can clear up this mess and end the corruption in the New York real estate market soon. Housing is a big deal.

People! PEOPLE! Aunt Pythia needs your help!!

Here’s the thing, dear readers. Aunt Pythia screwed up royally. She told you a couple of weeks back that she had plenty of questions, and in a sense she did, but that was misleading, and moreover it has backfired tremendously.

You see, Aunt Pythia finally read all those questions, and for some reason they were almost entirely spammy, nonsense questions, and moreover none of them were at all about sex, so that’s also a terrible fact. Don’t do this to me, it’s uncalled for.

But the worst part is that, since Aunt Pythia (wrongly) declared her mailbox full, she’s not receiving new letters! In fact, it’s a dire situation, and Aunt Pythia might be shutting down the advice bus and selling it off for spare parts before the week’s end unless something is done.

Is this not the saddest sight in the whole wide world? And it’s made even sadder because it’s in black and white.

We’re talking urgent sex questions, down below, stick ’em in, and pronto. Aunt Pythia desperately loves her job and doesn’t want to stop. Her standards are low but please make it coherent and sex-related.

That request once again:

ask Aunt Pythia a made-up sex question at the bottom of the page!

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

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

Super Pi day = “Once in a century”?
Really?

What about in Europe where dates are written:
dd/mm/yy??

So April 31, 2015 is:
31/4/15

Dated in Europe

Dear DiE,

First, condolences for your unfortunate sign-off.

Second: hey, I was thinking the same thing – what if you write it in some other base? Like, using this online calculator, you can convert any base 10 number into whatever (integral) base you’d like. They even have the option to use “pi” or “e” or “sqrt,” because they are good nerds! That gives you a ton more “Super Pi Days,” if you’re creative enough.

And if you do it more generally, you could even choose a non-integral base! Hey, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that, allowing the base to be arbitrary, and allowing dates to be written European or American style would mean that most dates qualify as “Super Pi Days.”

To be clear, it doesn’t mean those days becomes less super, just that almost every day is super. Or maybe pi is always super. In any case, it would be an awesome excuse to party every day whilst feasting on pie.

Love,

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

When I grade, I spend about 10 minutes grading. Then I spend 5 minutes thinking the world is doomed. Then I calm down a bit, and spend 5 more minutes thinking that just my students are doomed. Then I spend 5 minutes thinking about how it’s all my fault because I’m an incompetent teacher. Then I spend 5 minutes thinking about how little anything I could have done differently would have made a difference. Then I spend 5 minutes thinking about how I’m wasting my time with these idle thoughts, and 5 more minutes considering that not having these idle thoughts would be intellectually dishonest. Around this time, I’m ready to go back to grading, at which point the cycle repeats itself.

Obviously, I can’t really afford to always spend 4 hours doing grading that should really take 1 hour.

Any advice for dealing with this?

Feeling Absolutely Incompetent Looking Upon Results on Exams

Dear FAILURE,

Here’s the thing. Your expectations are all wrong. Instead of being disappointed when not everyone understands everything, you have to be overjoyed when someone understands something. Also, you need to learn how to trick yourself into a success story. Let me tell you how it’s done.

What I do when I grade is create an internal environment inside my head, kind of a suspension of disbelief zone, where I lower my expectations to to the point where I’m like, man I hope someone passed this test.

Then I charge ahead with grading like a steamroller, practically holding my breath the entire time, and I don’t let myself breath until all the grades are added up and plotted in a histogram. At that point I’m like, ok here’s the distribution of scores, I will define the grades so that, by construction, a good portion of people have passed. That way my fantasies always come true, even if the scores are crowded down around 17.

Good luck!

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

What is your take on what is happening in Seattle with restaurants? To me, it was predictable that restaurants would not be financially viable with $15 an hour wait staff. We apparently assumed that it would work and so forced the issue on that basis. Was this another case where our left-wing activist buddies ignored science and economics, or am I just too much in the hip pocket of rapacious big business?

Between Planets

Dear Between,

Wait are you talking about recent closures of Seattle restaurants blamed on the minimum wage hike? Well, I google “Seattle restaurants minimum wage” and immediately came upon this article arguing that it is a bogus claim.

In any case restaurants go out of business all the time, it’s a crazy industry. Anybody looking for evidence that they are going out of business for a given reason would have plenty of statistical noise ready and willing to distract them. I’d have to look at many years of data to be convinced.

Aunt Pythia

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

I try not to pay attention to politics, but I have become increasingly worried as I can’t help but hear about things that seem threatening. I want to live in the same country that I grew up in, where we were free to think what we wanted, and if we dared, to speak about it. I also liked the fact that we voted for representatives who served in Washington, making votes for us. I don’t want to live in a new Venezuela with a new supreme leader. I hope that I am panicking needlessly. Sorry for a political topic. I am generally an insurgent, in that my first vote for president was for Eldridge Cleaver. In 1980, I voted for John Anderson. I am sorry that I voted for Ron Paul in 1988, but that is water over the dam. I would like to vote for Elizabeth Warren, if she would dare to run. What can we do?

Sonoma Soul

Sonoma,

Good news, Bernie Sanders is running. Bad news, money in politics paired with the new micro-targeting strategies probably mean that no insurgent will ever win again. This is ironic considering that Obama was an insurgent and won but also built the modern micro-targeting machine. He closed the door behind him.

Aunt Pythia

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Congratulations, you’ve wasted yet another Saturday morning with Aunt Pythia! I hope you’re satisfied, you could have lazed about in your pajamas for longer. Oh wait, you’re still in your pajamas, I take it all back. Well done.

But as long as you’re already here, please ask me a question. And don’t forget to make an amazing sign-off, they make me very very happy.

Click here for a form or just do it now:

I’ve been thinking recently about the definition of “civilization.” What makes a society civilized? I have some guesses, here are a few guesses, kind of in order of obviousness:

• A place where grown men don’t get harassed when they walk around minding their own business. I’m looking at you, broken windows policies.
• A place where young girls don’t get sexually harassed when they walk around minding their own business. I’m looking at you, India rape culture.
• A place where young girls and grown women aren’t constantly bombarded by messages that they are expected to conform to a male fantasy definition of beauty. I’m looking at you, almost everywhere. But specifically Brazil.

Here’s what I’d like to see: a series of articles in places like NY Magazine, that directly contrast to articles about how French women use makeup – but spend only 15 minutes on it per day – and still look amazingly sexy, or don’t diet and still look amazingly sexy, and so on.

I’d like instead an article specifically written for the woman who wants to know where they can walk around minding their own business and being utterly indifferent to their appearance, and they won’t be bothered. Let’s defend our right to be dowdy as shit.

Special kudos to places where young women can walk around dressed in anything they want and still be left alone.

So tell me, do you know of any places like that?

I’ve been skeptical of Uber and other so-called “sharing economy” companies for a while. It seems like they are making money by skirting regulation and pretending not to have employees; they are a “platform” for matching people who want services with people willing to provide them, and as such they don’t have the legal responsibility of a traditional company. Or at least that’s the idea. Plus it is offensive to think of the word “share” in this context.

But my complaints have remained relatively vague, until this morning, when I read two articles about the issue.

First, Sharing and Caring by Tom Slee, published by Jacobin. He nailed it:

Meanwhile delivery giant DHL has launched its MyWays delivery service, powered by “people who want to deliver parcels and earn some extra money.” TaskRabbit and others call their workers “micro-entrepreneurs,” but that is a poor description of precarious piecework. The preferred phrasing of “extra money” harks back to women’s jobs of forty years ago. And like those jobs, they don’t come with things like insurance protection, job security, benefits — none of that old economy stuff.

Next, The Class-Action Lawyer Shaking Up the Share Economy, published in The Recorder (hat tip Nathalie Molina). It profiles a lawyer named Shannon Liss-Riordan who is going after the sharing economy companies to first acknowledge, then pay their employees better wages and benefits. From the article:

“Uber is what, the most highly valued startup in the world right now?” she asked. “Valued at over $40 billion? I think they can afford to pay for workers’ comp and unemployment.”

Last Friday I was honored to be part of a super interesting and provocative conference at UC Berkeley’s Law School called Open Data: Addressing Privacy, Security, and Civil Rights Challenges.

What I loved about this conference is that it explicitly set out to talk across boundaries of the data world. That’s unusual.

Broadly speaking, there are four camps in the “big data” world:

1. The corporate big data camp. This involves the perspective that we use data to know our customers, make our products tailored to their wants and needs, generally speaking keep our data secret so as to maximize profits. The other side of this camp is the public, seen as consumers.
2. The security crowd. These are people like Bruce Schneier, whose book I recently read. They worry about individual freedom and liberty, and how mass surveillance and dragnets are degrading our existence. I have a lot of sympathy for their view, although their focus is not mine. The other side of this camp is the NSA, on the one hand, and hackers, on the other, who exploit weak data and privacy protections.
3. The open data crowd. The people involved with this movement are split into two groups. The first consists of activists like Aaron Swartz and Carl Malamud, whose basic goal is to make publicly available things that theoretically, and often by law, should be publicly available, like court proceedings and scientific research, and the Sunlight Foundation, which focuses on data about politics. The second group of “open data” folks come from government itself, and are constantly espousing the win-win-win aspects of opening up data: win for companies, who make more profit, win for citizens, who have access to more and better information, and win for government, which benefits from more informed citizenry and civic apps. The other side of this camp is often security folks, who point out how much personal information often leaks through the cracks of open data.
4. Finally, the camp I’m in, which is either the “big data and civil rights” crowd, or more broadly the people who worry about how this avalanche of big data is affecting the daily lives of citizens, not only when we are targeted by the NSA or by someone stealing our credit cards, but when we are born poor versus rich, and so on. The other side of this camp is represented by the big data brokers who sell information and profiles about everyone in the country, and sometimes the open data folks who give out data about citizens that can be used against them.

The thing is, all of these camps have their various interests, and can make good arguments for them. Even more importantly, they each have their own definition of the risks, as well as the probability of those risks.

For example, I care about hackers and people unreasonably tracked and targeted by the NSA, but I don’t think about that nearly as much as I think about how easy it is for poor people to be targeted by scam operations when they google for “how do I get food stamps”. As another example, when I saw Carl Malamud talk the other day, he obviously puts some attention into having social security numbers of individuals protected when he opens up court records, but it’s not obvious that he cares as much about that issue as someone who is a real privacy advocate would.

Anyway, we didn’t come to many conclusions in one day, but it was great for us all to be in one room and start the difficult conversation. To be fair, the “corporate big data camp” was not represented in that room as far as I know, but that’s because they’re too busy lobbying for a continuation of little to no regulation in Washington.

And given that we all have different worries, we also have different suggestions for how to address those worries; there is no one ideal regulation that will fix everything, and for that matter some people involved don’t believe that government regulations can ever work, and that we need citizen involvement above all, especially when it comes to big data in politics. A mishmash, in other words, but still an important conversation to begin.

I’d like it to continue! I’d like to see some public debates between different representatives of these groups.

I just got back from Berkeley, California, which was amazing.

Listening to the radio out there, I was pleased to hear all about the growing standardized testing protest movement going on here in New York City. And although I see lots of reasons to discuss Common Core issues separately from the over-reliance on testing, I can understand why parents are wrapping all of that stuff up together.

There’s just too much time spent in our schools on testing, so pulling our kids out of that complete waste is an obvious step in the right direction. And New York parents are not the only ones complaining. In Florida, of all places, they recently limited the number of hours kids can be made to take standardized tests.

There will be a rally today at 4pm at the Prospect Park bandshell in Brooklyn for parents who are joining the New York state opt-out movement. I wish I could go.

Another huge story out there in the Bay Area, which I’ll come back to on some other day, is the racist texting and email scandal among the San Francisco police.

Readers, Aunt Pythia has an amazing guest philosopher here with her today in sunny Berkeley, a paradise on earth and home to the Kouign Amann:

The Bay Area’s answer to the cronut. Plus they’re sexy if you look at them right.

His name is Aristippus, and he claims to be the inventor of hedonism. We’ll be the judges of that, though, shall we? His philosophy dictates a lifestyle in which he consumes delicious pastries and quality coffee on a daily basis, takes long walks by the Bay, and meets new and interesting people while basking in hot tubs. He loves you all, assuming you do not give him reason to stop.

I hope you enjoy Uncle Aristippus, and afterwards don’t forget to:

    ask Aunt Pythia a question at the bottom of the page!

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

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Hi Aunt Pythia,

I have recently started to masturbate in front of my partner of 10 years. It’s something I have done before with other partners but not a lot.

On Saturday night we went out and got drunk we came home and ended up in bed, I went down on her as usual and she came a couple of times then I wanted to wank in front of her. We kissed and she touched me as I masturbated, I love it and find it so erotic. I pushed her hand between her legs and she started to masturbate in front of me, something she has never done before. I watched and finished myself off, with her watching me it was so good.

I now feel a little awkward in front of her, like this was a place we should never have gone, like it’s dirty or she may feel it’s dirty but just does it for me? I know I should ask her about it but I am too shy.

Your advice and advice from other would be welcome.

Thanks,
Horny UK

Dear Horny,

I’m really beginning to wonder if Aunt Pythia has just become a place where people test out their erotic writing chops. I mean, here you are, with an awesome girlfriend who is game for your deepest, dirtiest desire – not so deep, and not so dirty, I might add – and there’s really nothing wrong, and no question in sight, so you made one up. My only real advice is: “it was so good” might need some elaboration.

Aunt Pythia

Friend Horny,

I’m somewhat at a loss for words. Taking your question completely at face value, I can only suggest that you do the obvious: talk to your mate. You’ve been together ten years, you say? It’s wonderful you two are still having regular, mutually satisfying sex, even if you think sharing masturbation is dirty or kinky. Many people do that long before they have sex (my initial reaction to your letter was, “Wait, it took you ten years?”).

If this is an activity you enjoy, but that makes you uncomfortable, you have three choices. First, become desensitized and unlearn the discomfort, so you guys can just enjoy each other’s bodies without feeling that shame. Second, learn to actually enjoy the discomfort – there are definitely people who get off on doing things that feel transgressive or shameful, and if that’s you, there’s nothing wrong with that. Your kink is not my kink, but your kink is OK too! Third, well, give up masturbating in front of each other and find some other kink to enjoy. There are plenty to choose from!

Love,
Aristippus

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

Perhaps you would indulge a break from the “Page Six” titillations to direct your prophetic vision to a math study question. Kind of like a word from our sponsor, MathBabe.

In reading this outstanding post which primarily deals with the eventual delights of not knowing, mention was also made of “Silverman and Tate,” and how it extricated you from the slough of despond. I too had tumbled into that dreaded mire (although I had substantially less to fall).

I immediately took the advice and was similarly uplifted.

So here is my question. Any mention of “Silverman and Tate” is quick to point out, pejoratively, that it is but an easy, undergraduate text. I did find it quite accessible. Now I would like to go further in studying elliptic curves. In that pursuit, I got a copy of Cassels “Lectures on EC.” I thought this would be a well-conceived next step, as one comment I saw characterized it as a “high-brow Silverman and Tate.”

But I find it difficult. Perhaps because it is quite pithy – forgive the eponymous remark. Actually my difficulties with it go far beyond that. This is one of many similar experiences I have had where standard undergrad texts (e.g., Dummit & Foote, Axler “Linear Algebra Done Right” -yuck, even the early parts of “Ireland & Rosen”) go quite well, yet Lang, “Atayah & Macdonald”, etc. are impenetrable. Plus I find it much more enjoyable to study math in action as in “S&T” rather than a catalog of definitions, theorems, and proofs. (Although some proofs are quite symphonic.)

I am a self-studier with no real math education. And I am willing to put in the work. I am in need of advice as to how to progress.

Pilgrim’s (Lack Of) Progress
PLOP

Dear PLOP,

It’s a language! You can’t just read it, you need to learn how to speak it. Seriously, very few people can just pick up a graduate text in math and understand it. It’s not a bad sign, nor is it a failure.

I’d recommend meeting up with others who are also trying to learn this stuff, and finding online resources where you can see people using this stuff. Math Overflow is also a great resource. A quick YouTube search exposes hundreds of relevant lectures. I’m sure there are also podcasts you might consider (look at this list of math podcasts for example).

Keep at it, that stuff is gorgeous!

Love,

Auntie P

Wise PLOP,

Aristippus is afraid he cannot help you with this problem, as he failed at being a real mathematician, and went off to do applied statistics instead.

Love and apologies,
A.

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

You are all-knowing and all-seeing.

What should I think about Amazon Sales Rank figures for my Kindle books? I have only known about them since Thursday. I read a Kindle book by Steve Scott about Kindle books and so I created an Author Page in Amazon. From there, I saw the Sales Rank figures (obviously, a Big Data product). From the Amazon Author Page, I saw the link to Nielson BookScan and saw the sales figures for my hardback book (someone I know from Weight Watchers said “Oh, a coffee table book”).

Lost in Space

Dear Lost,

I have no idea. I have never looked at my Amazon sales rank. Wait, I just did. 12,215. I have no idea what that means.

If I had to guess what that means, I’d say they take a time window – maybe 48 hours – and count how many copies of books have been sold, and simply rank them in order. If they made it too much longer than 48 hours, it would not be sensitive to new hits, and if they made it too much shorter, it would be too volatile. Twitter has a kind of metric like this to define “what’s trending,” and it’s a wee bit more complicated but that’s the gist.

Aunt Pythia

Comrade LIS,

I have known and loved a few authors. Although Aunt Pythia seems to be immune to the fever, all of other writers I’ve known well fell victim, at one time or another, to a mania for checking their sales rank, feeling delighted if it improved, and despondent if it declined. But ultimately they got perspective, and realized it was more important to them to get back to writing their next book, and cash any royalty checks that came in from volumes that had earned out their advance.

So, to be frank, my advice would be to emulate Pythia’s example: don’t think about it at all.

Love,
Aristippus

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Dear Aunt Pythia,

What is your opinion of the pickup artist community? A few of my friends (with severe social anxiety) are obsessed with pickup, crediting it for their newfound confidence and ability to talk to women. They see it as a tool for self-improvement and their dedication is almost stoic, but I see it as misogynistic and myopic.

I am happy to see my friends overcoming their fears, but am torn about the method. What are your thoughts?

Sincerely,
Silently Torn

Silently,

I have some opinions! You may not be surprised to hear this! In fact I already wrote them down more than two years ago, here. And if I do say so myself, that’s some sound advice I gave back then.

As for your friends, I’m not sure if the “you’ve overfit” argument will hold water for them. They are just so excited to finally feel in control and to get laid that nothing will penetrate (har har) their consciousness except if it stops working. I’d suggest laying off hanging out with them until they become humans.

Loverdover,

Auntie P

Quiet Thomas,

My own advice parallels Pythia’s fairly closely. Having once been a nerdy, introverted young man who had difficulty talking to the objects of my desire, I understand the appeal of the PUA community. But I think its casting of dating and mating as adversarial, and its embrace of concepts like “friendzoning,” are counter-productive, at least if your goal is a long-term, collaborative, companionate relationship.

And while PUA tactics may serve the goal of getting laid on a regular basis, there are better ways – you can get laid on a regular basis while retaining your dignity and self-respect. As to how, making yourself as intellectually and physically attractive as you reasonably can is certainly important step. Finding and contributing to a community that emphasizes sexual freedom helps a lot. In particular, if you’re a straight man, you should aim to build a culture that neither shames women for their desires nor pressures them to serve anyone else’s. Straight women’s sexual liberation is greatly to your benefit. I also have thoughts on where you can find this type of community, but that’s perhaps beyond the scope of this letter.

One point I might add to Aunt Pythia’s thoughts above: If your friends do still seem to have issues with social anxiety in situations outside of pickup bars, and you’re close enough friends that it would not be intrusive, you might suggest that talking with an actual licensed therapist about that. Social anxiety can interfere with their friendships and careers, not just their efforts to get their wicks dipped. It’s worth addressing this problem at the root, rather than trying to band-aid it with fancy hats and rote conversational routines.

Love,
Aristippus

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Congratulations, you’ve wasted yet another Saturday morning with Aunt Pythia and Uncle Aristippus! I hope you’re satisfied, you could have made progress on that project instead.

But as long as you’re already here, please ask me a question. And don’t forget to make an amazing sign-off, they make us very very happy.

Click here for a form or just do it now: