Clustering

My Word of the Week is ... clustering. This came up in an article I read, actually from a year ago, about the economic benefits of clustering as an argument for encouraging office workers to return to the office rather than continuing to work from home. Ed Glaeser is the chairman of the Harvard economics department and he has written extensively about clustering, mostly to do with technological development and entrepreneurship of organisations, for instance in Silicon Valley.There is a lot of research on clustering in this context but I'd say the application of the theory to the benefits of interactive working, brainstorming and mutual motivation in offices are unproven, although in some situations seemingly obvious. And perhaps need to be measured against any benefits of working from home.

I read a definition of clustering:

The task of dividing the population or data points into a number of groups such that data points in the same groups are more similar to other data points in the same group than those in other groups.

OK. Mm. [thinking about that]

When I entered the last few of my teenage years, I wanted to be a mathematician. Looking back, I can surmise that I thought working with abstract concepts and numbers was more my thing than working with people. At the time, I believed that the cleverest people in the world were mathematicians - Pythagoras, Newton, Einstein, Turing - and I wanted to be one of them. Turned out I either wasn't clever enough or I came to think that data points were not as cool as I thought. It didn't stop me, by serendipitous opportunity, becoming a computer programmer.

Much has been written on the supposed connections between mathematics and music, so I suppose it was natural that I should gravitate to the latter, and more so that I would come to appreciate and admire the music of Schönberg and Webern and their development of dodecaphonic music, based on the twelve-tone technique, in the early twentieth century. Serialism takes the twelve notes of the chromatic scale in an order particular to the composition and makes versions of this sequence - inverted, reversed, transposed, etc. - the basis of the piece. The fact that the twelve notes are theoretically equal makes the harmonic outcome of the work different from earlier music, where notes such as the first, fourth and fifth of the major or minor scale are predominant.

If you are a fan of Mozart, Abba or Miles Davis, you may not enjoy listening to serialist music.

One of the most significant books I read about congruence between maths and music is Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game. It's a futuristic book which suggests that education prioritising the two subjects, studying them alongside each other, provides a perfect synthesis of arts and science. Check it out!

Anyway, I'm not going back to the office cluster anytime soon. Let's check out some Webern:

It's actually rather soothing.

Masks and Biomes

14 months ago, when wearing a mask became compulsory on public transport in England, enforceable under law, I was dead against such legal compulsion on a libertarian basis: "let people make their own judgements on their own safety". I was wrong. I imagined that the primary purpose of wearing a mask was to protect the wearer; it swiftly became clear to me that it was for the protection of others and I changed my view.

So how do we calibrate the current situation where mask wearing is recommended indoors and on public transport but no longer mandatory? I imagine that it might be legally possible for a supermarket to only allow entrance to those with face masks but that's obviously not going to happen. I couldn't find any stats from supermarkets to tell me what percentage of customers are still wearing masks but my own observation is that something like 80% of adults (including me, and the staff) are wearing masks in my local Asda. Cornwall has an older population than some places but this includes summer visitors.

It makes sense to me that crowded indoor venues with minimal ventilation and low ceilings are likely to be places where the still ubiquitous coronavirus can spread quickly. So Mask=On.

Two days ago my friend Tony and I made our first visit to the Eden Project for three to four years. A joyous move towards a new normality? Maybe. Much of the eating, drinking and walking is outdoors, but should I wear a face mask in Eden's iconic Domes? Are they "indoors"? The Mediterranean Biome is 35 metres high with ventilation "used to control heat, airflow and humidity". The Rainforest Biome is 55 metres high, with that same ventilation. In terms of potential for virus spreading, how does that compare with an outdoor venue or, on the other hand, a supermarket or cinema (homex.com tells me "retail ceiling heights start at twelve feet and up")? We are not given this presumably quite significant information. Tony and I estimated somewhere between 15% and 25% of adults were wearing masks in the domes, which means that if I were to wear a mask it would be to protect the remainder, which seems public spirited, even though they are not protecting me, which doesn't.

The UK Government's recently-updated Ventilation of indoor spaces to stop the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance is of no use whatsoever, giving generalisations such as "Avoid spending time with people you do not live with in spaces with a limited flow of fresh air, such as rooms without ventilation or windows that are never opened." Do the domes have an acceptable flow of fresh air? I don't know.

The  Eden Project FAQs say "We strongly recommend that you continue to wear a face covering in appropriate areas, as indicated by signage on site." The signs around the site have basically the same "we advise you to wear masks indoors" warning as do supermarkets. The same FAQ page is headed by an image showing a family apparently leaving the biomes with no masks.

I spent my time in the biomes dithering between =On and =Off. Mask=On where it got crowded, =Off particularly in the Rainforest Biome where it was hot and muggy. I really don't know where I am on this. I just know that I'm sufficiently uncertain about this venue that I won't be going there again any time soon.

Bring back compulsion! 😒

News in Brief

It's a crazy world. We know that. Maybe even crazier for an old guy like me who finds some aspects of modern life baffling. I spotted a few weird/mildly interesting things in today's news. Some of them barely need a comment from me but comments from readers are always welcome, occasionally amusing and generally stimulating and thoughtful.

The owner of an American bulldog (that's a breed, not a nationality) accused the government of "dog racism" after Lola, her dog, was seized by police because she "looked like a dangerous dog".

A professor from Yale University claims that construction of Machu Picchu started in 1420 rather than in 1440 as the Spanish had claimed. A spokesperson for the Spanish Government suggested that maybe Professor Burger might have better spent the last 20 years of his life sailing the world and looking for the Loch Ness Monster and the lost continent of Atlantis.

[Comments in italics are editorial]

Dr Zoe Muller of the University of Bristol studied the herd behaviour of giraffes and concluded that their social groups include older animals acting as "grandmothers", helping to bring up the young. Presumably as the parents go out to work. Dr Muller found that female giraffes live for about 10 years after they are no longer capable of giving birth, leading her to suggest "there must be some evolutionary advantage". Otherwise they'd die straight after their last child, Zoe? An old, female giraffe at Bristol Zoo claimed compensation on the basis that it had been "a dig at my age".

A 12 year old Japanese girl won a silver medal for the women's park skateboarding event. Mr Wiki tells us (I'm still giving him my £5 a month) "park skateboarding encompasses a variety of sub-styles adopted by those who ride skateboards in purpose-built skate parks. Most skate parks combine halfpipes and quarterpipes with various other "vert" skateboarding features as well as "street" obstacles such as stairs, ledges, and rails." Whatever all those words mean. Plans for a Junior Olympics have now been put in the same place as for a Senior Olympics: in the bin. Quite right, don't want any ageism.

I, Grandfather

A woman recently sued her employer for age discrimination. One of her colleagues at the publishing company, road testing a car, commented in the review that the car had "comfy wheels for a grandmother".

She is 62 and ... a grandmother.

She complained to a tribunal that it had been "a dig at my age".

The tribunal threw the case out, So far so good.

The Tribunal Judge, however, ruled that the words in the review amounted to "detrimental treatment" and was therefore "direct discrimination" under the law. Idiot.

I have instructed lawyers to write to my sons regarding their frequent use of the phrase "old man". Boys, please desist. Further, in emails to my grandsons my lawyers say that the use of "grandad" and "grandpa" is no longer appropriate and that I must henceforth be referred to as "bro" or "dude".

What a strange world we live in.

Self-identifying

According to the Office of National Statistics in a report published on Monday, white people born in the UK in the period covered: 2011-2014 had a lower life expectancy than all other ethnic groups. Black African women, for instance, had a life expectancy of 88.9 years; for Asian (other: excluding Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi) men the figure was 84.5 years. For white women life expectancy was 83.1 years, for men 79.7 years. You can download the data here.

Which leads me to wonder whether, in this post-binary world, I could identify as a black African woman and live for an extra nine years. And what would I do with those years?

Three questions:

1. Are there cultural reasons which I have ignored? Probably.

2. Am I trivialising a number of issues in an offensive way? I hope not, but maybe.

3. Why am I blogging only 164 words when there is so much else to write about? You're right, I could just have tweeted.

Spotto

When I was last in Australia visiting Son #1 and his family (an almost extinct activity which many of you will remember in the olden days), his children introduced me to the game of Spotto. It's customarily played on a car journey and involves the participants saying (it's usually yelling, actually) saying "Spotto" when they see a yellow car. The first to say it for a particular car gets a point and the player with the most points at the end of the journey wins.

You have to say the word in an Aussie accent, with the "tt" very soft and the final "o" more like "ao".

A simple game, you might think. But, as you can imagine, it leads to much controversy. Most obviously there are questions about the "shade" of yellow. "No, that's gold!" is a frequent cry. Marginal calls can be made on cars that have some yellow in their livery and adjudication is then called for. Did I mention that you lose a point if your claim is disallowed? Then there is the question whether buses count or does it have to be a car? Experienced players will sneak in the odd yellow road sign when attention is elsewhere, and caravans definitely engender debate. Ties (half a point each, which is awkward for three way ties) can be allowed, although loud shouts often win over equally well-timed but timid ones, unless you have a strong and well-respected adjudicator - normally the driver to make sure (s)he concentrates on all other road users not just yellow ones.. Familial respect can go out of the window.

When I returned to the UK I introduced Spotto to Son #2 and his family. So the game is no longer unique to the Aussies. As with the latter, daughters-in-law prove particularly pugnacious in playing the game. We have explored alternative versions such as Grotto for grey cars and Blotto for blue ones, and also (since they live close to the sea) inclusions of boats and garbage trucks. It whiles away the time on long trips.

If/when I buy a new car, I am considering getting a yellow one. I'd climb in it every morning and claim my Spotto point, almost always winning the day's competition. But would that be cheating? It's a moral dilemma that I may need help with. Let me know.