Every now and again a book or movie includes a chess game. Generally, it’s in a story where death is on the line. It’s a literary device used to indicate high mental acumen of the people involved, particularly the one who wins. As an example, in “Sherlock Holmes, A Game of Shadows”, 2011, Holmes plays Moriarty, each calling out moves far advanced for the 1800s. It emphasizes these individuals’ super-smarts. Holmes wins at the end, of course. The Ingrid Berman film, “The Seventh Seal” is similar, with the chess game played against death himself. The knight shows himself a more-than-worth opponent. And that brings us to Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, book 1 of the series, and movie, Ron Weasley is presented as a sort-of fool throughout the series. He’s mostly as source of background information about wizarding, but in one episode standout, he plays brilliantly with giant-size chess men against a magical intelligence, and wins. After the game, one that is described as one of the best ever, Ron goes back to being the goof-ball he was throughout. His chess skills don’t come up again, or do they. It’s a well written series, so what’s the point of including the game?
Position of pieces in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s stone (movie).
To see how brilliant Ron’s play is, recall that Ron is eleven years old in book 1. He, Harry, and Hermione enter a mysterious room filled with menacing statues. Ron immediately realizes it’s a chess board, and infers that they must win as black to pass through. He further infers that the piece representing Harry must make the checkmate. Two or three pieces are missing, and Ron infers that Harry’s character must replace one of these and become the mating piece. If you’ve ever played a decent computer, you know it’s very hard to win as white (in the 90s you could still win). This ghost intelligence plays quite well, and it’s almost impossible to win if you need to have a particular minor piece make the mate. In the movie, Ron plays as black and reaches the position shown with Harry as the king’s bishop and Hermione as a rook. He is down in material, but has laid a very good trap. The white queen captures the “free pawn” on d3, violently threatening the Harry-bishop. Ron interposes the rook to c3 forcing the white queen to take the rook. At this point, Ron could win by B-c5+, QxB, N-h3 mate, but that would sacrifice Harry and leave Ron as the winning piece. Both Ron and Hermione realize this, and Ron causes Harry to make the checkmate by N-h3+, QxN, B-c5+, Q-f3, BxQ mate. Ron is injured when QxN — a sacrifice in both senses of the word.
Death plays chess, painting by Albertus Pictor, 1480
It’s an impressive display of chess skill, and Dumbledore is right in saying it’s one of the best games. No normal player could manage a game like that, certainly no eleven year old. Normally such a display would be used to present Ron as the group brain, or at least as a very deep thinker. If so, why does the author have Ron revert to his care-free, stupid persona with chess never showing up.
We see that Voldemort, the arch villain, won his game too, and only lost a few pieces doing it. That Voldemort is good at chess is no surprise; it goes with his deep-thinking persona. We don’t see Voldemort’s game, but I can infer that he won via the Trailer gambit. It’s a fairly tricky win, but the only way that I know where you win as black losing only a kings bishop, a rook, and a knight, the pieces that Ron and his friends replaced. The Queen is the winning piece, though, and that’s a lot simpler than winning with a bishop. Ron’s win is far more sophisticated, a surprise given Ron’s behavior and how he is treated.
Perhaps it’s just bad writing, or an effort to show Ron is good at something, but I thought to do a quick re-read of Ron’s early appearance in book 2. Here I find that Ron is bright and motivated, but overshadowed. Early in the book, we find 12 year old Ron picking a lock using a hat pin, and driving a flying car reasonably well. We don’t think this is exceptional because his brothers do all this first, but it is exceptional: imagine tryin to drive a regular car with no instruction at 12. Later we find that Ron learns the fine points of Quidditch without native skill or a coach, just using a book, and we find that Dumbledore picks him to prefect, instead of Harry, a job he does well. Finally, we find that Hermione prefers Ron to Harry. It’s a somewhat surprising turn because she’s supposed to be the brains of the trio. How could she stand to be with Ron? Perhaps she is one of the few people who sees that Ron is bright. Dumbledore is too.
Viewed this way, the chess game becomes the first of the examples of Ron’s brainpower, and becomes an important foreshadowing to a surprise at the end of the last book/movie, to the final battle against Voldemort. In that battle, while everyone else is throwing hexes, Ron is the one who realizes that, to win the war, he must go to the basement chamber and collect basilisk teeth. It’s chess thinking: he’s focused on the king, on Voldemort, while everyone else is dealing with side threats. In a sense, it’s Ron who defeats Voldemort. The chess game is a foreshadowing, and fits with Hermione’s choice of Ron over Harry.
Robert Buxbaum, August 26, 2022. If you like chess puzzles, find some here. And in “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey,” 1991, the brilliance idea is sort-of reversed. Bill and Ted play against death in battleship, twister, and clue, and win. It’s used to show that death is sort of random, and sort of stupid.
Inheritability of traits is one of the greatest of insights; it’s so significant and apparent, that one who does not accept it may safely be called a dullard. Personal variation exists, but most everyone accepts that if your parents are tall, you are likely to be tall; If they are dark, you too will likely be dark, etc., but when it comes to intelligence, or proclivities, or psychological leanings, it is more than a little impolite to acknowledge that genetics holds sway. This unwillingness is glaringly apparent in the voice-over narration of a popular movie about three identical triplets who were raised separately without knowing of one another. The movie is “Three identical strangers”, and it recounts their meeting, and their life afterwards.
Triplets, raised separately, came out near identical.
As one might expect, given my introduction, though raised separately, the three showed near identical intelligence, and near identical proclivities: two of them picked the same out-of-the way college. All of them liked the same sort of clothes and had the same taste in women. There were differences as well: one was a more outgoing, one was depressed, but in many ways, they were identical. Meanwhile, the voice-over kept saying things like, “isn’t it a shame that we never saw any results on nature/nurture from this study.” Let me clear this us: genetics applies to psychology too. It’s not all genetics, but it is at least as influential as upbringing/ nurture.
This movie also included pairs of identical twins, raised separately, they also showed strong personality similarities. It’s a finding that is well replicated in broader studies involving siblings raised separately, and unrelated adoptees raised together. Blood, it seems, is stronger than nurture. See for example the research survey paper, “Genetic Influence on Human Psychological Traits” Journal of the American Psychological Society 13-4, pp 148-151 (2004). A table from that paper appears below. Genetics plays a fairly strong role in all personal traits including intelligence, personality, self-control, mental illness, criminality, political views (even mobile phone use). The role is age-dependent, though so that intelligence (test determined) is strongly environment-dependent in 5 year olds, almost entirely genetic in 25-50 year olds. One area that is not strongly genetic, it seems, is religion.
In a sense, the only thing surprising about this result is that anyone is surprised. Genetics is accepted as crucial for all things physical, so why not mental and social. As an example of the genetic influence on sports, consider Jewish chess genius, Lazlo Polgar: he decided to prove that anyone could be great at chess, and decided to train his three daughters: he got two grand masters and an international master. By comparison, there are only 2 chess grand masters in all of Finland. Then consider that there are five all-star, baseball players named Alou, all from the same household, including the three brothers below. The household has seven pro baseball players in all.
Most people are uncomfortable with such evidence of genetic proclivity. The movie has been called “deeply disturbing” as any evidence of proclivity contradicts the promise of education: that all men are equal, blank slates at birth that can be fashioned into whatever you want through education. What we claim we want is leaders — lots of them, and we expect that education will produce equal ratios of woman and men, black and white and Hispanic, etc. and we expect to be able to get there without testing for skills, — especially without blind testing. I notice that the great universities have moved to have testing optional, instead relying on interviews and related measures of leadership. I think this is nonsense, but then I don’t run Harvard. As a professor, I’ve found that some kids have an aptitude and a burning interest, and others do not. You can tell a lot by testing, but the folks who run the universities disagree.
The All star Alou brothers share an outfield.
University heads claim that blind testing is racist. They find that some races score poorly on spacial sense, for example, or vocabulary suggesting that the tests are to blame. There is some truth to these concerns, but I find that the lack of blind testing is more racist. Once the test is eliminated, academia finds a way to elevate their friends, and the progeny of the powerful.
The variety of proclivities plays into an observation that you can be super intelligent in one area, and super stupid in others. That was the humor of some TV shows: “Big Bang Theory” and “Fraser”. That was also the tragedy of Bobby Fischer. He was brilliant in chess (and the child of brilliant parents), but was a blithering idiot in all other areas of life. Finland should not feel bad about their lack of great chess players. The country has produced two phone companies, two strong operating systems, and the all time top sniper.
Recently Putin claimed he was going into Ukraine to fight Nazis. Twitter makes fun of this, but also shows many pictures of these Nazis. Under the hashtag #AzovBattalion, you’ll see many pictures of white boys with swastikas and Ukraine flags (see below). Perhaps these pictures are just Russian propaganda: According to our media there are no Nazis to speak of, and besides, the president of Ukraine is a Jew. Still, the pictures look real, and based on Ukraine history, there is quite a bit reason to think they are not an aberration. Still, to the extent that they represent Ukraine, these individuals are a major basis of Ukraine’s claim for independence. They are also a good reason to leave Ukraine out of NATO, IMHO.
Let’s go back to the late days of the Tartars and the early days of the Cossacks, about 1600. There is a painting, below depicting Cossacks of those days writing a letter to The Sultan (original in the Kharkov museum). They do not seem the most savory of people, but they do seem independent and egalitarian. The letter is not written by a noble, but by a committee of pirates, and not everyone is happy about it.
Zaporozhian Cossacks write a letter to the sultan. These are the people who Putin claims should be loyal to Russia, but they have a long history of behaving otherwise. I like the scribe. A couple of people at left seem unhappy.
From 1250 to the mid 1700s, Southern Ukraine was ruled, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Crimean Tartars, a group of horse-riding Mongols who nominally served the great Khan. Moscow paid dues to them, and in 1571 the Tartar ruler, Devlet I Giray burnt Moscow to collect his dues. The early Cossacks were Black-sea pirates, and enemies of the Tartars. Around 1600, the Cossacks and Tartars realized they had a lot in common (alcoholism, pederasty…) and formed an alliance. Mainly this was against the Poles and Jews. A famous result of this alliance was the Khmelnytsky Uprising (about 1650). Khmelnytsky was the “Hetman” (Head man?), the elected, temporary ruler for the uprising. He has become a symbol of Ukrainian independence, but he was also a brutal murderer of virtually all the Jews and Catholics. Today, he graces Ukraine’s $5 bill, and sits atop a statue in Kyiv’s central square. This elevation of Khmelnytsky is no small insult to Jews, Catholics, and civilization.
Ukrainian Republic passport, 1919.
In 1654, via thePereyaslav Agreement, Khmelnytsky’s Tartar-Cossacks formed an allegiance with the Tsar while retaining autonomy in Ukraine. This autonomy eroded over the years, and ended with Bolshevik rule in the early 20th century. After WWI, Ukrainians briefly tried for independence, forming the Ukraine Peoples Republic and the Ukraine Democratic republic, from 1917 to 1921. The head of the Republic was called hetman, an elected leader but also a throwback to a mass-murderer.
Stalin punished the Cossack remnant before WWIi, and when the Germans invaded in 1939, many of the remaining Ukrainians supported the Nazi invasion, and provided some of the most brutal murders of Jews; the murderers of Baba Year, for example. Putin recalls this collaboration when he calls the Ukrainians Nazis, and I suspect that he’s more right than our press will admit. These #azovbattalion pictures don’t look faked. On the other hand, the autonomy of the Ukrainians and Cossacks, and their attempts at independence provide historical backing for Ukraine’s claim to independence. Putting this another way, the more you accept that Ukraine is full of Nazi sympathizers, the more you should accept them as a distinct society from Russia.
Ukrainians of the Azov Battalion with a statue of Khmelnytsky, or some other murderer.
As an idea of how the war might go, I should mention another group of Tartar-Cossacks. These were Moslems who operated between the Don and Volga Rivers in what is known as Chechnya. Chechnya fought Russia in a long, bloody, unsuccessful struggle, that is only recently ended. Russia may win in Ukraine, but it is not likely to win easily or cheaply if Chechnya is any model.
My last post included a rather gruesome bit of poetry by Rudyard Kipling where he describes the Afghani women coming to kill the wounded British soldiers in the first Afghan war. It’s sexist, or anti-sexist, if you like. Since it reverses a stereotype of the non-violent, female home-body. Then again the Afghanis had wiped out an entire British army, killing virtually everyone including civilians.
What follows is The Betrothed, one of Kipling’s first published poems, appearing in “the civil and military gazette”, Lahor, India (near Afghanistan), November, 1888. Kipling was an assistant editor). It has a more traditional view of women, or of British women who do not go out murdering, but who do wish to control/ stop a British man’s cigar smoking. In a sense, such stoppage is murder. The inspiration was a breach of ‘Promise of Marriage’ case in Glasgow, August 1888, where a young woman, Maggie Watson, sued her fiancee because he continued to smoke cigars after she insisted he stop. Kipling explores the psychology of the choice between smoking and marriage. I think Freud would approve.
The Betrothed.
OPEN the old cigar-box, get me a Cuba stout, For things are running crossways, and Maggie and I are out.
We quarrelled about Havanas—we fought o’er a good cheroot, And I knew she is exacting, and she says I am a brute.
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a space; In the soft blue veil of the vapour musing on Maggie’s face.
Maggie is pretty to look at—Maggie’s a loving lass, But the prettiest cheeks must wrinkle, the truest of loves must pass.
There’s peace in a Larranaga, there’s calm in a Henry Clay; But the best cigar in an hour is finished and thrown away—
Thrown away for another as perfect and ripe and brown— But I could not throw away Maggie for fear o’ the talk o’ the town!
Maggie, my wife at fifty—grey and dour and old— With never another Maggie to purchase for love or gold!
And the light of Days that have Been the dark of the Days that Are, And Love’s torch stinking and stale, like the butt of a dead cigar—
The butt of a dead cigar you are bound to keep in your pocket— With never a new one to light tho’ it’s charred and black to the socket!
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider a while. Here is a mild Manila—there is a wifely smile.
Which is the better portion—bondage bought with a ring, Or a harem of dusky beauties, fifty tied in a string?
Counsellors cunning and silent—comforters true and tried, And never a one of the fifty to sneer at a rival bride?
Thought in the early morning, solace in time of woes, Peace in the hush of the twilight, balm ere my eyelids close,
This will the fifty give me, asking nought in return, With only a Suttee’s passion—to do their duty and burn.
This will the fifty give me. When they are spent and dead, Five times other fifties shall be my servants instead.
The furrows of far-off Java, the isles of the Spanish Main, When they hear my harem is empty will send me my brides again.
I will take no heed to their raiment, nor food for their mouths withal, So long as the gulls are nesting, so long as the showers fall.
I will scent ’em with best vanilla, with tea will I temper their hides, And the Moor and the Mormon shall envy who read of the tale of my brides.
For Maggie has written a letter to give me my choice between. The wee little whimpering Love and the great god Nick o’ Teen.
And I have been servant of Love for barely a twelvemonth clear, But I have been Priest of Cabanas a matter of seven year;
And the gloom of my bachelor days is flecked with the cheery light Of stumps that I burned to Friendship and Pleasure and Work and Fight.
And I turn my eyes to the future that Maggie and I must prove, But the only light on the marshes is the Will-o’-the-Wisp of Love.
Will it see me safe through my journey or leave me bogged in the mire? Since a puff of tobacco can cloud it, shall I follow the fitful fire?
Open the old cigar-box—let me consider anew— Old friends, and who is Maggie that I should abandon you?
A million surplus Maggies are willing to bear the yoke; And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.
Light me another Cuba—I hold to my first-sworn vows. If Maggie will have no rival, I’ll have no Maggie for Spouse!
Sigmund Freud with his cigar. The whole attraction of cigars, is a strange one, as Freud knew better than most. Cigars are deadly, but casual, often with a good flavor, and a sucking comfort. The death-risk of one is small and distant. Cigars thus represent risky fun they are thus life, in a temporary, risky way. Marriage is permanence and safe, and binding. The binding permanence is a sort of death, but children are good, and that’s life. Freud’s choice was to smoke himself to death. Kipling got married and eventually gave up smoking.
Robert E. Buxbaum, September 17, 2021. Kipling has a great sense of words, and an attractive sense of the subjects, great and small. For years he was the voice of his generation in Britain, but by the end of his life, his views were unacceptable. sexist. On the other hand, he remained staunchly anti-Nazi, anti eugenics, and anti Soviet. By comparison, George Bernard Shaw was a vocal fan of Stalin, of Hitler, and of the eugenic removal of Jews and other undesirables. Shaw’s words remain fashionable, while Kipling’s do not. Such is the nature of fame.
It’s not uncommon for scientists to get inspiration from popular music. I’d already written about how the song ‘City of New Orleans’ inspires my view of the economics of trains, I’d now like to talk about dealing with nuclear waste, and how the song Alice’s Restaurant affects my outlook.
The best way to get rid of nuclear waste would be (as I’ve blogged) to use a fast nuclear reactor to turn the worst components into more energy and less-dangerous elements. Unfortunately doing this requires reprocessing, and reprocessing was banned by Jimmy Carter, one of my least favorite presidents. The alternative is to store the nuclear waste indefinitely, waiting for someone to come up with a solution, like allowing it to be buried in Yucca Mountain, the US burial site that was approved, but that Obama decided should not be used. What then? We have nuclear waste scattered around the country, waiting. I was brought in as part of a think-tank, to decide what to do with it, and came to agree with several others, and with Arlo Guthrie, that one big pile [of waste] Is better than two little piles. Even if we can’t bury it, it would be better to put the waste in fewer places (other countries bury their waste, BTW).
That was many years ago, but even the shipping of waste has been held up as being political. Part of the problem is that nuclear waste gives off hydrogen — the radiation knocks hydrogen atoms off of water, paper, etc. and you need to keep the hydrogen levels low to be able to transport the waste safely. As it turns out we are one a few companies that makes hydrogen removal pellets and catalysts. Our products have found customers running tourist submarines (lead batteries also give off hydrogen) and customers making sealed electronics, and we are waiting for the nuclear shipping industry to open up. In recent months, I’ve been working on improving our products so they work better at low temperature. Perhaps I’ll write about that later, but here’s where you’d go to buy our current products.
Robert Buxbaum, July 4, 2021. I’ve done a few hydrogen-related posts in a row now. In part that’s because I’d noticed that I went a year or two talking history and politics, and barely talking about H2. I know a lot about hydrogen — that’s my business– as for history or politics, who knows.
Old libraries and old books play a big part in the aesthetic.
The movie version of academia is typically a leafy campus, with great libraries, bright minds, and deep intellectual discussions. It’s a happy grove where the young and talented go to bloom to superiority, eclipsing their parents and their well-meaning, but fuddy-duddy teachers. It’s also where oppressed middle-agers go to complete a journey of self -discovery. To the extent that professors are there in older movies, it’s to confer degrees and, eventually praise.
But there is a new mood in literature and movies where professors are sinister, and competition is darker and more dangerous place, both for the body and the soul. It’s called “Dark Academia.” Consider the recent hit movie and book, “The Secret History,” by Danna Tartt. It follows a talented person without any particular view or direction. The person arrives, looking to make friends and to become special, and through misguided efforts, students end up damaged or killed. Any friendships that result are sinister, and often exploitive.
An early version was Hitchcock’s “Rope,” where two students get excited by a professor expounding the ideas of Nietzsche. They go on to kill one of their fellows who they come to decide isn’t, quite as enlighten as they. Secret History is similar, except that the professor teaches Greek. Another early version was Frankenstein, whose early chapters are of crazed collegians pushing the limits of science in a dark laboratory and similarly dark library settings. For Dr. Frankenstein, the crushing pressure is from inside the student, and not so much from his professors or classmates. University is still a place of refuge, without the pressure of drugs, sex, or fashion.
Harry Potter and friends in dark academic garb. Casual, clean, active, hip-academic.
The evil professor trope of Dark Academia first appears in Harry Potter, I think. The school is both helpful and hurtful, both refuge and enemy. It’s education in a building that tries to trip you, with sadistic professors, plus slave labor, and some murderers or “death eaters.” There are friends too, with the friendship bound by fire-whiskey, or butter-beer, and an intense desire to excel over each other at ones craft, in this case magic. Fashion becomes important in dark academia. Harry Potter’s round glasses, robes, and school neckties, but the alcohol isn’t excessive in HP and the books are pretty chaste where sex is concerned.
Alcohol abuse, fashion, and sex are more central in “The Secret History”. There is a cultish professor, Morrow, and students fashions are described in detail. Most dress in tweeds, and all of them wear round glasses, like Harry Potter’s– in this case with metal rims. All are rich. And as in Hitchcock’s “Rope,” they conspire to murder the least special of their group in the goal of understanding the ancient Greeks. Unlike in Rope, they get away with it.
A yet more recent example is “Kill your darlings” — the main character is played by Daniel Radclift, the same actor who was Harry in the HP movies. It takes place in Columbia University in 1943-46 and portrays the young Alan Ginsberg. As in “Secret History” there is a cultish leader and a murder. Alan enters school not knowing what sort of poetry he’d like to write, or if he’ll write poetry. In the movie, Jack Kerouac, William Burrows and a few others who introduce him to drugs, including heroin, gay sex, wanton destruction, and benzedrine. As in Secret History, there are no bad effects from the drugs, though he tries suicide and one of his group murders another — the least special one as in other dark academia. He gets away with it, as in Secret History, the cult leader is rejected, and the others become special — a happy ending of sorts. Ginsberg writes a great “absurdist” essay and goes on to become a great poet.
Danna Tartt, author models the Dark Academic look. Notice the cigarette.
The mood of dark academia is a mix of repressed anger and innocence that takes place on a campus, but might as easily taken place in bohemian Paris. The movie architecture includes vast dining halls, gothic bell towers and forbidding libraries. The devoted student searches here for hidden light but finds only darkness. Murder follows. Students stare into space like Oscar Wilde with a heartburn, smoking like well-dressed longshoremen on break. See Danna Tartt at left.
The main contributions of Dark Academia is the fashion: Shades of brown, black and gray mostly, casual and active, but clean. The look says, “I’m both sexually active and criminally active; I do drugs think great thoughts, but don’t do homework. I might do murder too, but it’s OK since I plan to submit a killer final project. Morality is for losers, and “Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.” It’s a line from “The secret History,” appears, slightly altered, in Hitchcock’s “Rope.” The tremendous desire to be pure and special; great in a word, and that involves a destruction of the ordinary: an academic aesthetic where murder is the crowning creative act.
Near the beginning of the movie “The social network”, Zuckerberg asks his Harvard roommate, Saverin, to explain the chess rating system. His friend writes an equation on the window, Zuckerberg looks for a while, nods, and uses it as a basis for Facemash, the predecessor of Facebook. The dating site, Tinder said it used this equation to match dates, but claims to have moved on from there, somewhat. The same is likely true at J-swipe, a jewish coating site, and Christian mingle.
Scene from the social network, Saverin shows Zuckerberg the equations for the expected outcome of a chess match between players of different rankings, Ra and Rb.
I’ll explain how the original chess ranking system worked, and then why it works also for dating. If you’ve used Tinder or J-swipe, you know that they provide fairly decent matches based on a brief questionnaire and your pattern of swiping left or right on pictures of people, but it is not at all clear that your left-right swipes are treated like wins and losses in a chess game: your first pairings are with people of equal rating.
Start with the chess match equations. These were developed by Anand Elo (pronounced like hello without the h) in the 1950s, a physics professor who was the top chess player in Wisconsin at the time. Based on the fact that chess ability changes relatively slowly (usually) he chose to change a persons rating based on a logistic equation, sigmoid model of your chances of winning a given match. He set a limit to the amount your rating could change with a single game, but the equation he chose changed your rating fastest when you someone much better than you or lost to someone much weaker. Based on lots of inaccurate comparisons, the game results, you get a remarkably accurate rating of your chess ability. Also, as it happens, this chess rating also works well to match people for chess games.
The knowledge equation, an S curve that can be assumed to relate to the expected outcome of chess matchups or dating opportunities.
For each player in a chess match, we estimate the likelihood that each player will win, lose or tie based on the difference in their ratings, Ra -Rb and the sigmoid curve at left. We call these expected outcome Ea for player A, and Eb for player B where Ea = Eb = is 50% when Ra = RB. It’s seen that Ea never exceeds 1; you can never more than 100% certain about a victory. The S-graph shows several possible estimates of Ea where x= Ra-Rb, and k is a measure of how strongly we imagine this difference predicts outcome. Elo chose a value of k such that 400 points difference in rating gave the higher ranked player a 91% expectation of winning.
To adjust your rating, the outcomes of a game is given a number between 1 and 0, where 1 represents a win, 0 a loss, and 0.5 a draw. Your rating changes in proportion to the difference between this outcome and your expected chance of winning. If player A wins, his new rating, Ra’, is determined from the old rating, Ra as follows:
Ra’ = Ra + 10 (1 – Ea)
It’s seen that one game can not change your rating by any more than 10, no matter how spectacular the win, nor can your rating drop by any more than 10 if you lose. If you lose, Ra’ = Ra – 10 Ea. New chess players are given a start ranking, and are matched with other new players at first. For new players, the maximum change is increased to 24, so you can be placed in a proper cohort that much quicker. My guess is that something similar is done with new people on dating sites: a basic rating (or several), a basic rating, and a fast rating change at first that slows down later.
As best I can tell, dating apps use one or more ratings to solve a mathematical economics problem called “the stable marriage problem.” Gayle and Shapely won the Nobel prize in economics for work on this problem. The idea of the problem is to pair everyone in such a way that no couple is happier by a swap of partners. It can be shown that there is always a solution that achieves that. If there is a singe, understood ranking, one way of achieving this stable marriage pairing is by pairing best with best, 2nd with second, and thus all the way down. The folks at the bottom may not be happy with their mates, but neither is there a pair that would like to switch mates with them.
Part of this, for better or worse, is physical attractiveness. Even if the low ranked (ugly) people are not happy with the people they are matched with, they may be happy to find that these people are reasonably happy with them. Besides a rating based on attractiveness, there is a rating based on age and location; sexual orientation and religiosity. On J-swipe and Tinder, people are shown others that are similar to them in attractiveness, and similar to the target in other regards. The first people you are shown are people who have already swiped right for you. If you agree too, you agree to a date, at least via a text message. Generally, the matches are not bad, and having immediate successes provides a nice jolt of pleasure at the start.
Religious dating sites, J-swipe and Christian Mingle work to match men with women, and to match people by claimed orthodoxy to their religion. Tinder is a lot less picky: not only will they match “men looking for men” but they also find that “men looking for women” will fairly often decide to date other “men looking for women”. The results of actual, chosen pairings will then affect future proposed pairings so that a man who once dates a man will be shown more men as possible dates. In each of the characteristic rankings, when you swipe right it is taken as a win for the person in the picture, if you swipe left it’s a loss: like a game outcome of 1 or 0. If both of you agree, or don’t it’s like a tie. Your rating on the scale of religion or beauty goes up or down in proportion to the difference between the outcome and the predictions. If you date a person of the same sex, it’s likely that your religion rating drops, but what do I know?
One way or another, this system seems to work at least as well as other matchmaking systems that paired people based on age, height, and claims of interest. If anything, I think there is room for far more applications, like matching doctors to patients in a hospital based on needs, skills, and availability, or matching coaches to players.
Robert Buxbaum, December 31, 2020. In February, at the beginning of the COVID outbreak I claimed that the disease was a lot worse than thought by most, but the it would not kill 10% of the population as thought by the alarmist. The reason: most diseases follow the logistic equation, the same sigmoid.
I’m not crazy about the COVID isolation, but there are up-sides that I’ve come to appreciate. You might too. Out of boredom, I was finally got into meditation. It was better than just sitting around and doing nothing.
It’s best not to look at isolation as a problem, but an opportunity. I’ve developed a serious drinking opportunity.
And it’s an opportunity to talk to myself. I told myself I’ should quit drinking. Then I figured, why should I listen to a drunk who talks to himself.
A friend of mine was on drugs, but then quit. Everyone in his house is happy, except for the lamp. The lamp won’t talk to him anymore.
The movies are closed, and the bars, and the gyms. It gives me another reason not to go to the gym.
Did you know that, before the crowbar was invented, crows used to drink at home.
The real reason dogs aren’t allowed in bars: lots of guys can’t handle their licker.
There’s time to spend with my children. And they look like me.
I like that I don’t commute. Family events are over zoom, funerals (lots of funerals), meetings, lectures. They come in via the computer, and I don’t have to dress or attend. No jacket, no pants… no travel …. no job.
My children are spending more time with us at home. We have virtual meals together. I discovered that I have a son named Tok. He seems to like my dad-jokes.
My wife is finding it particularly tough. Most every day I see her standing by the window, staring, wondering. One of these days, I’ll let her in.
I asked wife why she married me. Was it for my looks, or my income, or my smarts. She smiled and said it was my sense of humor. 🙂
My wife is an elementary school teacher. She teaches these days with a smart board. If the board were any smarter, it would go work for someone else. It’s necessary, I guess. If you can’t beat them, you might as well let the smart board teach. I think the smart board stole the election. It began by auto-correcting my spelling. Then it moved to auto correct my voting. The board is smarter and better than me (Hey, who wrote this?)
I’ve learned to love masks, though some of them are hot.
You’d think they’d reduce the number of administrators in the schools, given that it’s all remote. Or reduce the price of college. It would be nice if they’d up the number of folks who can attend. So far no. Today the Princeton alumni of Michigan is sponsoring video-talk by Princeton alumnus, George Will. I wanted to attend, but found there was limited seating, so I’m on the waiting list (true story). By keeping people out, they show they are exclusive. Tuition is $40,000 / year, and they keep telling us that the college is in service of humanity. If they were in the service of humanity, they’d charge less, and stream the talk to whoever wants to listen in. I have to hope this will change sooner or later.
Shopping for toilet paper was a big issue at the beginning of the pandemic, but I’ve now got a dog to do it for me. He goes to the store, brings it back. Brings back toothpaste too. He’s a lavatory retriever. (I got this joke from Steve Feldman; the crowbar joke too.)
I don’t mind that there are few new movies. There are plenty of old movies that I have not seen, and old TV shows too.
This fellow is the new head of Biden’s COVID-19 task force. He’s got a science-based plan for over-population and the disease.
I like that people are leaving New York and LA. It’s healthy, and saves on rent. Folks still travel there, mostly for the rioting, but lockdowns are nicer in Michigan.
More people are hunting, and hiking, and canoeing. These are active activities that you can do on lockdown. The old activities were passive, or going out to eat. Passive activities are almost a contradiction in terms.
We’re cooking more at home, which is healthier. And squirrel doesn’t taste half bad. If I live through this, I’ll be healthy.
I’m reading more, and have joined goodreads.com. I’ve developed a superpower: I find can melt ice cubes, just by looking at them. It takes a while but they melt.
A lot more folks have dogs. And folks have gotten into religion. Wouldn’t it be great, if after death we fond that dyslexic folks were right. There really is a dog.
Let’s love the virus. If we don’t, the next crisis will be worse.
There was an election last week. My uncles voted for Biden, which really surprised me. They were staunch Republicans when they were alive. My aunt got the ballot and convinced them. She was a Democrat when she was alive.
Before COVID, the other big crisis was global warming. Al Gore and Greta Thunberg claimed we had to shutter production and stop driving to save the planet. COVID-19 has done it. The next crisis is over-population. COVID is already curing that problem — not so much in China, but in the US, Europe, and South America.
Just As a final thought, let’s look at the bright side of the virus. If we don’t, the next crisis will be worse. Take Monty Python’s advice and Always look at the bright side of life.
You may know that engineers recently succeed in decreasing the tilt of the “leaning” tower of Pizza by about 1.5°, changing it from about 5.5° to about to precisely 3.98° today –high precision given that the angle varies with the season. But you may not know how that there were at least eight other engineering attempts, and most of these did nothing or made things worse. Neither is it 100% clear that current solution didn’t make things worse. What follows is my effort to learn from the failures and successes, and to speculate on the future. The original-tilted tower is something of an engineering marvel, a highly tilted, stone on stone building that has outlasted earthquakes and weathering that toppled many younger buildings that were built straight vertical, most recently the 1989 collapse of the tower of Pavia. Part of any analysis, must also speak to why this tower survived so long when others failed.
First some basics. The tower of Pisa is an 8 story bell tower for the cathedral next door. It was likely designed by engineer Bonanno Pisano who started construction in 1173. We think it’s Pisano, because he put his name on an inscription on the base, “I, who without doubt have erected this marvelous work that is above all others, am the citizen of Pisa by the name of Bonanno.” Not so humble then, more humble when the tower started to lean, I suspect. The outer diameter at the base is 15.5 m and the weight of the finished tower is 14.7 million kg, 144 million Nt. The pressure exerted on the soil is 0.76 MPa (110 psi). By basic civil engineering, it should stand straight like the walls of the cathedral.
Bonanno’s marvelous work started to sink into the soil of Pisa almost immediately, though. Then it began to tilt. The name Pisa, in Greek, means swamp, and construction, it seems, was not quite on soil, but mud. When construction began the base was likely some 2.5 m (8 feet) above sea level. While a foundation of clay, sand and sea-shells could likely have withstood the weight of the tower, the mud below could not. Pisano added length to the south columns to keep the floors somewhat level, but after three floors were complete, and the tilt continued, he stopped construction. What to do now? What would you do?
If it were me, I’d consider widening the base to distribute the force better, and perhaps add weight to the north side. Instead, Pisano gave up. He completed the third level and went to do other things. The tower stood this way for 99 years, a three-floor, non-functional stub.
About 1272, another engineer, Giovanni di Simone, was charged with fixing the situation. His was the first fix, and it sort-of worked. He strengthened the stonework of the three original floors, widened the base so it wold distribute pressure better, and buried the base too. He then added three more floors. The tower still leaned, but not as fast. De Simone made the south-side columns slightly taller than the north to hide the tilt and allow the floors to be sort-of level. A final two stories were added about 1372, and then the first of the bells. The tower looked as it does today when Gallileo did his famous experiments, dropping balls of different size from the south of the 7th floor between 1589 and 1592.
Fortunately for the construction, the world was getting colder and the water table was dropping. While dry soil is stronger than wet, wet soil is more plastic. I suspect it was the wet soil that helped the tower survive earthquakes that toppled other, straight towers. It seems that the tilt not only slowed during this period but briefly reversed, perhaps because of the shift in center of mass, or because of changes in the sea level. Shown below is 1800 years of gauge-based sea-level measurements. Other measures give different sea-level histories, but it seems clear that man-made climate change is not the primary cause. Sea levels would continue to fall till about 1750. By 1820 the tilt had resumed and had reached 4.5°.
The 2nd attempt was begun in 1838. Architect, Alessandro Della Gherardesca got permission to dig around the base at the north to show off the carvings and help right the tower. Unfortunately, the tower base had sunk below the water table. Further, it seems the dirt at the base was helping keep the tower from falling. As Della Gherardesca‘s crew dug, water came spurting out of the ground and the tower tilted another few inches south. The dig was stopped and filled in, but he dig uncovered the Pisano inscription, mentioned above. What would you do now? I might go away, and that’s what was done.
The next attempt to fix the tower (fix 3) was by that self-proclaimed engineering genius, Benito Mussolini. In 1934. Mussolini had his engineers pump some 200 tons of concrete into the south of the tower base hoping to push the tower vertical and stabilize it. The result was that the tower lurched another few inches south. The project was stopped. An engineering lesson: liquids don’t make for good foundations, even when it’s liquid concrete. An unfortunate part of the lesson is that years later engineers would try to fix the tower by pumping water beneath the north end. But that’s getting ahead of myself. Perhaps Mussolini should have made tests on a model before working on the historic tower. Ditto for the more recent version.
On March 18, 1989 the Civic Tower of Pavia started shedding bricks for no obvious reason. This was a vertical tower of the same age and approximate height as the Pisa tower. It collapsed killing four people and injuring 15. No official cause has been reported. I’m going to speculate that the cause was mechanical fatigue and crumbling of the sort that I’ve noticed on the chimney of my own house. Small vibrations of the chimney cause bits of brick to be ejected. If I don’t fix it soon, my chimney will collapse. The wet soils of Pisa may have reduced the vibration damage, or perhaps the stones of Pisa were more elastic. I’ve noticed brick and stone flaking on many prominent buildings, particularly at joins in the chimney.
John Burland’s team cam up with many of the fixes here. They are all science-based, but most of the fixes made things worse.
In 1990, a committee of science and engineering experts was formed to decide upon a fix for the tower of Pisa. It was headed by Professor John Burland, CBE, DSc(Eng), FREng, FRS, NAE, FIC, FCGI. He was, at the time, chair of soil mechanics at the Imperial College, London, and had worked with Ove, Arup, and Partners. He had written many, well regarded articles, and had headed the geological aspects of the design of the Queen Elizabeth II conference center. He was, in a word, an expert, but this tower was different, in part because it was an, already standing, stone-on stone tower that the city wished should remain tilted. The tower was closed to visitors along with all businesses to the south. The bells were removed as well. This was a safety measure, and I don’t count it as a fix. It bought time to decide on a solution. This took two years of deliberation and meetings
In 1992, the committee agreed to fix no 4. The tower was braced with plastic-covered, steel cables that were attached around the second and third floors, with the cables running about 5° from the horizontal to anchor points several hundred meters to the north. The fix was horribly ugly, and messed with traffic. Perhaps the tilt was slowed, it was not stopped.
In 1993, fix number 5. This was the most exciting engineering solution to date: 600 tons of lead ingots were stacked around the base, and water was pumped beneath the north side. This was the reverse of the Mussolini’s failed solution, and the hope was that the tower would tilt north into the now-soggy soil. Unfortunately, the tower tilted further south. One of the columns cracked too, and this attempt was stopped. They were science experts, and it’s not clear why the solution didn’t work. My guess is that they pumped in the water too fast. This is likely the solution I would have proposed, though I hope I would have tested it with a scale model and would have pumped slower. Whatever. Another solution was proposed, this one even more exotic than the last.
For fix number 6, 1995, the team of experts, still overseen by Burland, decided to move the cables and add additional tension. The cables would run straight down from anchors in the base of the north side of the tower to ten underground steel anchors that were to be installed 40 meters below ground level. This would have been an invisible solution, but the anchor depth was well into the water table. So, to anchor the ground anchors, Burland’s team had liquid nitrogen injected into the ground beneath the tower, on the north side where the ground anchors were to go. What Burland did not seem to have realized is that water expands when it freezes, and if you freeze 40 meters of water the length change is significant. On the night of September 7, 1995, the tower lurched southwards by more than it had done in the entire previous year. The team was summoned for an emergency meeting and the liquid nitrogen anchor plan was abandoned.
Tower with the two sets of lead ingots, 900 tons total, about the north side of the base. The weight of the tower is 14,700 tons.
Fix number 7: Another 300 tons of lead ingots were added to the north side as a temporary, simple fix. The fix seems to have worked stabilizing things while another approach was developed.
Fix number 8: In order to allow the removal of the ugly lead bricks another set of engineers were brought on, Roberto Cela and Michele Jamiolkowski. Using helical drills, they had holes drilled at an angle beneath the north side of the tower. Using hoses, they removed a gallon or two of dirt per day for eleven years. The effect of the lead and the dirt removal was to reduce the angle of the tower to 4.5°, the angle that had been measured in 1820. At this point the lead could be removed and tourists were allowed to re-enter. Even after the lead was removed, the angle continued to subside north. It’s now claimed to be 3.98°, and stable. This is remarkable precision for a curved tower whose tilt changes with the seasons. (An engineering joke: How may engineers does it take to change a lightbulb? 1.02).
The bells were replaced and all seemed good, but there was still the worry that the tower would start tilting again. Since water was clearly part of the problem, the British soils expert, Burland came up with fix number 9. He had a series of drainage tunnels built to keep the water from coming back. My worry is that this water removal will leave the tower vulnerable to earthquake and shedding damage, like with the Pavia tower and my chimney. We’ll have to wait for the next earthquake or windstorm to tell for sure. So far, this fix has done no harm.
Robert Buxbaum, October 9, 2020. It’s nice to learn from other folks mistakes, and embarrassments, as well as from their successes. It’s also nice to see how science really works, not with great experts providing the brilliant solution, but slowly, like stumbling in the dark. I see this with COVID-19.
Philip Schuyler as a Major General in the Revolution. His statue was removed.
What most folks know about Alexander Hamilton’s father in law, Philip Schuyler, is that he was “loaded”, that he had three daughters, and that he quickly took to young Alexander. But an important fact varnished over is that Schuyler made his money in the slave trade, a trade that Hamilton was likely in when he met the young Schuyler daughters. Schuyler was also a slave owner, owning 13 slaves, by his record, and perhaps another 17 indentured servants working at two mansions. So far, only the Philip Schyler statue has been taken down. It seems possible that many monuments to Hamilton may follow.
Statue of Alexander Hamilton, proudly stands in front of Columbia University. The ten dollar founding father.
The play “Hamilton” proclaims Hamilton’s genius and exceptional work ethic, mentioning that, at the young age of 14 (more likely 16) he was left in charge of a trading company. This was for 5 months in 1771, while the owner was over seas doing business. Hamilton knew the business well; he’d been hired as a clerk at 11 at Beekman and Cruger, a similar import-export trading firm. What items did these firms trade — cotton, sugar, rum, and most profitable slaves. This likely was the business that kept the owner overseas for 5 months while Alexander ran the shop. There are at least two notifications of slave ships entering the harbor with human good for sale. Among Hamilton’s likely jobs would have been fattening and oiling the goods for sale. Hamilton himself seems to have owned a slave-boy named Ajax who he inherited (briefly) from his mother, Rachel. His mother is listed on the tax records as white. She owned five saves at one time, suggesting she was not entirely impoverished. Hamilton’s father, though a failed businessman, was a Scottish Laird (a Lord). As for the court-mandated transfer of Ajax from Alexander, it was to his half-brother James because James was “Legitimate.”
I base Hamilton’s age on the Nevis-St Kitts record of his birth, January 11, 1755.”[1] The play takes as a fact Hamilton’s claim to have been born two years later, January 11, 1757. I trust the written records here, and imagine Hamilton wanted to present himself as a young genius, rather than as a bright, but older fellow. In 1772, at at age 17, Hamilton wrote a “fire and brimstone” description of a deadly hurricane, describing it as “divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity.”[2] Between this, and his skill at trading, the community leaders collected money to send him to New York, but unlike the play’s description, it was not only for further education. The deal was that he continue trading for the firm,[3] and this is likely how he met his future father in law. “[4]
In New York, Hamilton met Schuyler and his daughters. It seems likely that he met the father first, likely as possible customer for the slave trade from the Caribbean, or perhaps as a customer for rum and sugar. A 1772 letter in Hamilton’s handwriting [4] asks for the purchase of “two or three poor boys” for plantation work, “bound in the most reasonable manner you can.” As in the play, Hamilton was friends with John Laurens, an abolitionist, and among his first lodgings was with Hercules Mulligan, a tailor’s apprentice. Hercules is presented as black in the play, but he was quite white (see picture) with a black slave, Cato. Cato ran most of the messages. According to the play, “I’m joining the rebellion cuz I know it’s my chance To socially advance, Instead of sewin’ some pants, I’m taking my shot. No, Hercules was socially advanced ,married into the British Admiralty, even. He was a true believer in freedom and a slave-holder. His older brother, Hugh Mulligan, was one of the traders that Hamilton was supposed to work with.[5] As for Laurens and his anti-slavery organization, most of those in the organization owned slaves, and though they opposed slavery, they could never decide on when or how to end it. There is no evidence that Cato was ever set free.
The appointment to Washingtons staff was not likely a coincidence. The elder Schuyler was one of the four top generals appointed in 1775 to serve directly under Washington. Phillip oversaw, at a distance, the disastrous attack on Quebec and the victory at Saratoga– both, Burr served admirably. Phillip’s main role was as a quartermaster/supplier, and this is not a small role. Phillip Schuyler had been a quarter-master in the French and Indian war. It’s likely that it was Schuyler who got Hamilton his appointment to Washington’s staff.
Once on Washington’s staff, Hamilton served admirably. Originally serving as a secretary, Hamilton wrote many of Washington’s dispatches. Then, according to tradition, as a cannon commander, he took particular pleasure in the attack on Princeton University. He then served well as secretary of the Treasury, and as head of the Bank of The United States, the only major US bank until Burr opened the Bank of the Manhattan company. Despite his aversion to slavery, Hamilton also continued to deal in slaves. A 1796 cash book entry records Hamilton’s payment of $250 to his father-in-law for “2 Negro servants purchased by him for me.” This is only 3 years before 1799, when New York began to end slavery in the state with the Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery. Children of slaves born after July 4, 1799, were to be legally free, but required indentured servitude: to age 28 for males and 25 for females. Those born before July 4, 1799 became free in 1817. There is no evidence that Hamilton was a leader in any of this, but Burr, another slave-owning abolitionist, was a leader in the NY legislature at the time.
I’m with Burr.He was flawed, a slave-owning abolitionist, but vehimently against the Alien and Sedition Acts, a Hamiltonian horror.
It seems that Robert Morris introduced Hamilton to the importance of tariffs, and to the idea of using debt service as a backing to currency. It’s brilliant idea, but Hamilton understood it and took to it. Hamilton also understood the need for a coast guard to enforce the tariffs. As for Hamilton’s character, or Burr’s. Both, in my understanding, were imperfect people who did great deeds. I’ve already written that Hamilton was likely setting up Burr for murder, perhaps because of Burr’s vehement opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts — That’s why Hamilton wore his glasses and fiddled with the gun so much. Burr was also gaining power through his Manhattan corporation and Tammany organization. both of which got his support among the immigrants.
My intent here is not to knock the image of Hamilton, Schuyler, Laurens and Mulligan, nor to raise that of Burr, but to correct some current fictions in the play “Hamilton”, and to fight a disease of our age, the cancel culture. The cancel culture elevates their heroes (Hamilton, Mulligan) to god-status. They will lie to cover the flaws of their heroes, and will lie also to claim a drop of black blood in them; neither Hamilton nor Mulligan were black and both owned slaves, as did Burr. The other side of the cancel culture is to cancel — to eliminate the validity — of the reactionaries, the non-revolutionary. In the play, these include Samuel Seebury and Aaron Burr. Great building is almost always the work of contradictory people. They need some talent, and a willingness to act, and because building requires a group, they have to work in a group, tolerating flaws of the others in the group. It is just these flawed, contradictory builders that are being cancelled, and I don’t think that’s right or healthy.
