October 2019 - nexa - server-nexa.polito.it

Software Development and the False Promise of Science

by Giacomo Tesio

Provocatorio, divertente e... molto attinente alla realtà. https://twitchard.github.io/posts/2019-10-13-software-development-and-the-f… # The Limits of Science Why is the project to construct a science-based discipline of software development hopeless? For one, I don’t think researchers are really aiming to do this. They are quite content to continue telling insightful stories about their relatively narrow specialties – bits of our discipline, here and there. There is no grand plan to reform us. But even if there were, it would be bound to fail for methodological reasons. This is worth some discussion, so I’ll describe four of what I mean by “methodological reasons”. [...] 1. Controlled experiments are typically nothing like professional programming environments [...] 2. The unpredictable dynamics of human decision-making obscure the effects of software practices in field data. [...] 3. The outcomes that can be measured aren’t always the outcomes that matter. [...] 4. Software practices and the conditions which modify them are varied, which limits the generality and authority of any tested hypothesis [...] # Science is not the only source of knowledge Is this cause for despair? If science-based software development is off the table, what remains? Is it really true as Hillel suggests, that in the absence of science “we just don’t know” anything, and we are doomed to an era of “charisma-driven development” where the loudest opinion wins, and where superstition, ideology, and dogmatism reign supreme? Of course not. Scientific knowledge is not the only kind of knowledge, and scientific arguments are not the only type of arguments. Disciplines like history and philosophy, for instance, seem to do rather well, despite seldom subjecting their hypotheses to statistical tests. [...] Software development, like history and philosophy, can be understood without measurement. [...] And here is a secret: in the natural sciences themselves, storytelling and bare conjecture are far more important modes of persuasion than data-based empirical argument, anyway. [...] In fact, progress in science can sometimes depend on scientists to proceed “counterinductively”, and, driven by intuition, ideology, insanity, or other sentiments, deliberately accept a theory that is less consistent with the data. [...] # Science gone wrong Science – or at least a mysticized version of it – can be a threat to this sort of inquiry. Lazy thinkers and ideologues don’t use science merely as a tool for critical thinking and reasoned argument, but as a substitute. Science appears to offer easy answers. [...] You can probably get away with just reading the abstracts, even. No need to trouble yourself about the line of argument that led the researchers to their conclusions. Heaven forbid you read the “threats to validity” section – nobody takes that seriously. They’ve got p-values, confidence intervals and such. Those are essentially SLAs on the objective truth. [...] No need to demonstrate the shortcomings and inconsistencies of their ideas. We can simply dismiss them as “anti-science” and compare them to anti-vaxxers. Why appeal to rational sensibilities when you can exploit tribal instincts instead? This sentiment exists. I witnessed it play out among industry leaders in my Twitter feed, the day after I started drafting this post. It’s amplified by the fact that nuanced scientific analysis doesn’t make good clickbait, and by the fact that everything except the abstract of a research paper tends to live behind a paywall. # TL;DR Software developers are domain experts. We know what we’re doing. We have rich internal narratives, and nuanced mental models of what it is we’re about, and we can learn to get better through the simple but difficult act of telling our stories, articulating our ideas and listening to each other, like philosophers or historians do. Empirical researchers have a different perspective and can say interesting things about our field, but it is important to consider these arguments on their (necessarily limited) merits, not idealizing them as an absolute authority. Down that road lies pettiness and lazy thinking.

Oct. 14, 2019

Payment firms back out in painful blow to Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra | Technology | The Guardian

by Alberto Cammozzo

Scherza coi fanti ma lascia stare i santi... <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/11/payment-firms-back-out-i…> Nearly every payment firm that initially agreed to join Facebook’s cryptocurrency Libra has backed out, in a potentially fatal blow to the social network’s plan for a worldwide digital currency. Visa and Mastercard said on Friday they would no longer participate in the Libra Association and Latin American payment system Mercado Pago announced it would back out as well. Several other large companies have announced their departures . The payment processing company Stripe said it was stepping back, as well as the online auction company eBay. PayPal was the first of Libra’s big partners to exit, announcing last week it would no longer be involved. Facebook unveiled its plans for Libra in June 2019, announcing it meant to roll out the international digital currency publicly in 2020. Though it was built by Facebook, the company said the digital asset would be controlled by the Libra Association, a non-profit made up of a collective of international companies. Facebook Libra must meet strict standards, warns Bank of England When Libra was announced, the Libra Association was comprised about 30 founding companies. To be listed as founding members, these companies contributed a minimum of $10m (£8m). The first official meeting of the Libra Council is scheduled for 14 October in Geneva – in just a few days. Executives at Facebook and the Libra Association said the exits will not affect the product’s success. “Although the makeup of the association members may grow and change over time, the design principle of Libra’s governance and technology, along with the open nature of this project ensures the Libra payment network will remain resilient,” said Dante Disparte, head of policy and communications for the Libra Association. David Marcus, a former PayPal executive and co-creator of Libra, thanked Visa and MasterCard on Twitter on Friday, saying their dropping out is “liberating”. “I would caution against reading the fate of Libra into this update,” he said. “Of course, it’s not great news in the short term, but in a way it’s liberating. Stay tuned for more very soon. Change of this magnitude is hard. You know you’re on to something when so much pressure builds up.” The departures come as Facebook faces intensifying international legislative scrutiny over the currency. Politicians on both sides of the spectrum have questioned the privacy issues raised with Facebook controlling a currency, as well as concerns about money laundering. [...]

Oct. 12, 2019

Preventing Digital Feudalism by Mariana Mazzucato - Project Syndicate

by antonio.vetro＠polito.it

By exploiting technologies that were originally developed by the public sector, digital platform companies have acquired a market position that allows them to extract massive rents from consumers and workers alike. Reforming the digital economy so that it serves collective ends is thus the defining economic challenge of our time. Continua su: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/platform-economy-digital-feuda… av == Sent from my wireless device ==

Oct. 11, 2019

Colorado police partner with a popular doorbell camera company

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://www.denverpost.com/2019/09/22/ring-colorado-police-camera-surveilla… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Oct. 11, 2019

Re: [nexa] The end of theory: does the data deluge make the scientific method obsolete? – Learning from Data

by Enrico Nardelli

Grazie Juan Carlos, in questi tempi in cui si ripete (giustamente, del resto) che "i dati sono il nuovo petrolio" è sempre utile puntualizzare qual è la realtà della situazione da un punto di vista più epistemologico. Per quelli interessati al tema ricordo l'articolo secondo me fondamentale in materia C.S. Calude, G. Longo: The Deluge of Spurious Correlations in Big Data, Foundations of Science, pp. 1-18, March, 2016 Per chi non ha tempo di leggerlo tutto, ecco gli elementi fondamentali dell'articolo (che sono matematicamente dimostrati): 1. Given any arbitrary correlation on sets of data, there exists a large enough size such that ANY data set larger than that size realizes that type of correlation. 2. Since this large enough data set is arbitrary, it could have been obtained by a random number generator which, by design, excludes any underlying structure or rule that could justify action through possible future extensions. 3. It is exactly the size of the data that allows the result: the more data, the more arbitrary, meaningless and useless (for future action) correlations will be found in them. La conclusione è che certamente il metodo scientifico può trovar giovamento dalla disponibilità di immense quantità di basi, ma non potrà mai essere sostituito da algoritmi Ciao, Enrico PS matematico Nell'articolo linkato c'è un problema tipografico. Si dice "time — it is proportional to e-D" che sempra la differenza tra "e" e "D" ma in realtà è un esponenziale negativo in D Il 11/10/2019 15:54, J.C. DE MARTIN ha scritto: > > https://statisticallearningtheory.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/the-end-of-theor… > > > (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any)) > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > -- EN ===================================================================== Prof. Enrico Nardelli Dipartimento di Matematica - Universita' di Roma "Tor Vergata" Via della Ricerca Scientifica snc - 00133 Roma tel: +39 06 7259.4204 fax: +39 06 7259.4699 mobile: +39 335 590.2331 e-mail: nardelli(a)mat.uniroma2.it home page: http://www.mat.uniroma2.it/~nardelli blog: http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/blog/enardelli/ http://link-and-think.blogspot.it/ ===================================================================== --

Oct. 11, 2019

How Photos of Your Kids Are Powering Surveillance Technology - The New York Times

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/11/technology/flickr-facial-rec… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Oct. 11, 2019

The end of theory: does the data deluge make the scientific method obsolete? – Learning from Data

by J.C. DE MARTIN

https://statisticallearningtheory.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/the-end-of-theor… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Oct. 11, 2019

Smart TVs are data-collecting machines, new study shows - The Verge

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Smart TVs are data-collecting machines, new study shows Roku and Amazon Fire TVs are tracking you like everything else By Zoe Schiffer on October 11, 2019 9:34 am https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/11/20908128/smart-tv-surveillence-data-col… (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Oct. 11, 2019

Is Amazon Unstoppable? | The New Yorker

by J.C. DE MARTIN

Is Amazon Unstoppable? Politicians want to rein in the retail giant. But Jeff Bezos, the master of cutthroat capitalism, is ready to fight back. By Charles DuhiggOctober 10, 2019 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/21/is-amazon-unstoppable (Sent from my wireless device; please excuse brevity and typos (if any))

Oct. 11, 2019

Re: [nexa] Revealed: Google made large contributions to climate change deniers | Environment | The Guardian

by Stefano Quintarelli

perchè non sono sorpreo ? On 11/10/2019 08:42, Alberto Cammozzo wrote: > <https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/11/google-contributions-cl…> > > > Google has made “substantial” contributions to some of the most > notorious climate deniers in Washington despite its insistence that it > supports political action on the climate crisis. > > Among hundreds of groups the company has listed on its website as > beneficiaries of its political giving are more than a dozen > organisations that have campaigned against climate legislation, > questioned the need for action, or actively sought to roll back > Obama-era environmental protections. > > The list includes the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a > conservative policy group that was instrumental in convincing the Trump > administration to abandon the Paris agreement and has criticised the > White House for not dismantling more environmental rules. > > Google said it was disappointed by the US decision to abandon the global > climate deal, but has continued to support CEI. > > Google is also listed as a sponsor for an upcoming annual meeting of the > State Policy Network (SPN), an umbrella organisation that supports > conservative groups including the Heartland Institute, a radical > anti-science group that has chided the teenage activist Greta Thunberg > for “climate delusion hysterics”. > > SPN members recently created a “climate pledge” website that falsely > states “our natural environment is getting better” and “there is no > climate crisis”. > > Google has defended its contributions, saying that its “collaboration” > with organisations such as CEI “does not mean we endorse the > organisations’ entire agenda”. > [...] > > _______________________________________________ > nexa mailing list > nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa > -- reserve your meeting with me at http://cal.quintarelli.it

Oct. 11, 2019