What Was I Thinking?

 Damned if I know.  As I age, my short term memory is going. It could be upsetting--you have something in your mind, and a couple seconds later it's gone. So far it's not happened often enough to be really upsetting, so I'm using my time-tested super-power of denial to carry on. 

Self-Driving Cars and Ecology, or "Where's the Running Board?"

 NYTimes had an article on Tesla in its Sunday magazine. Its emphasis was on the problems in the self-driving software.  

Tesla claims that based on accidents per miles their cars are much safer than those driven by people.  That may well be true, but I'd love to see a test where the drivers and conditions are randomly assigned.

I think one problem is the lack of sound data--apparently each company which is trying to implement such software maintains its own data, presumably for competitive reasons. But even if the data were public, there doesn't seem to be a basis for comparison.  The testing being done uses drivers who aren't at all reflective of the overall population and is done on roads and in conditions which aren't representative of normal driving. 

As it stands the testing being done is also unfair to Tesla and the others.  What do I mean?  The current ecology of drivers, roads, and conditions has evolved over a long history. An experienced driver has expectations based on her experience, and operates on their basis. I imagine it could be modeled as a circle in a Venn diagram. Imagine 60 years from now when almost all cars are self-driving.  That ecology will have "drivers" with somewhat different expectations, cars different than todays--notably quicker to to react, and roads which will have been modified for better self-driving. In our Venn diagram, the circle for the current ecology and the circle for the self-driving ecology will not be identical; they'll overlap in some areas.

Today when we judge self-driving software we're judging it by the current ecology, not the ecology of 60 years from now.  It's like cow-catchers on locomotives or running boards on cars--both were things needed by the early rail and automotive systems, but not by the current ones (though it turns out our trucks and SUV's still need them).  It will take time for the ecology to evolve; for drivers to gain experience with the cars, for the cars and software to improve, for the roads to be modified, for the insurance industry to adapt and the laws to change. It will be evolutionary.

The Honor System for Records Management

 A recent newspaper article (Times or Post?) noted that enforcement of the Federal Records Act is entrusted to the honor system. What does that mean?

 When I joined ASCS it had a Records Management Branch in its Administrative Services Division. It had been strengthened as a result of Congressional scrutiny of the Billie Sol Estes scandal.  (The investigators found that ASCS didn't have a good system for filing correspondence and policy papers.) 

The focus of the branch's work was establishing and maintaining a system for filing correspondence, and prescribing a filing system for offices originating policy decisions. Once established the routine was almost self-executing.  New secretaries would be shown what to do: original and carbons, yellow is official record, green is addressee folder, etc.  In my view there wasn't any explanation of the rationale for the way it was designed.

The records management people in the agency were effectively outsiders, people who might show up occasionally, but without any day-to-day contact with the workers   If that was true for fellow employees of ASCS, it was doubly true for the people involved with records management at the departmental level, and quadruply true for the employees of the National Archives and Records Adminstration.

How might this translate to the Executive Office of the President? On the one hand there must be a greater consciousness of the importance of records, given the constant scrutiny by journalists and investigators and the looming historians.  On the other hand the office has a lot more going on than any agency.  On the third hand, at the end of an administration I imagine it's like when you decide to retire, you zero in on the future and care much less about the wrapping up. Finally, your boss couldn't care less about records. 

[Update: given the discovery of more documents in Biden's places and today's discovery of documents in Pence's place, I think my "third hand" is well supported. I suspect you'd find a few classified documents in possession of a lot of high, and not so high, officials.]

Silos, Innovation, and the Internet

 I remember the burst of enthusiasm surrounding the discovery that the Internet/WWW could be used for business.  Soon it became mandatory for every business to have its own website. Expertise in doing sites was short, so some found a profitable business in creating websites.  I still hear their advertisements from time to time.

Normally I prefer to do business in writing rather than talking, so that meant I was happy with this innovation.  And more and more I found the businesses with whom I wanted to deal had websites.

In the past few years, though, I've tried to deal with businesses who have websites but who don't respond when I send them an email or fill out the contact form on the site.  Sometimes I've reverted to calling them, but usually they lose my business.

What's going on?  I've no proof, not even any data, but my suspicion is it's part of a general parttern:  when an organization has something new to do they:

• may contract it out, or set up a new group to do it.
• they rarely look at how it could impact or improve their existing operations--it's easier to keep doing what is familiar and comfortably within their knowledge and capabilities.
• once the new function (in this case a website) is set up, the initial enthusiasm which evoked the decision, money, and time needed to creat it tends to ebb, especially if the website doesn't show immediate payoffs.
• the end result is the website becomes a dusty relic of some bigshot's pet project  

You perhaps can guess that I think some of this applies to past initiatives by ASCS/FSA/USDA to change the way they operate. 

Indeed, I think it's part of the way our government works.  Part of the life cycle of government initiatives.

[In summary: often the way organizations innovate is by addition, not substitution, which leads to silos.]

Contrarians--Genetic?

 I've long experience with contrarians--my sister was one.  I lean that way myself.

I wonder whether it's genetic or cultural?  Do "tight" societies , presumably ones less welcoming of contrarians, have fewer, or any at all?  I'd assume there might be an evolutionary basis--seems as if the species could benefit by having a few around, just as it presumably benefits by having a few left handers around.  On the other hand, while I'm a confirmed right handers, I was able to train myself to use the mouse left-handed when I was getting carpal tunnel pains.

Inverted Social Norms

Back the day rural areas were viewed positively, with high morality, great character, all the virtues (at least so my mother thought). Meanwhile urban areas were viewed negatively, with dubious morality, poor character, divorce, gambling, drugs,  many dangers. By the 1970's it was clear where the balance of goodness was.

These days it seems that rural areas are the ones with problems, higher death rates, drugs, broken marriages, etc.   Meanwhile the gentrified urban areas and suburbs are seeing a new social conservatism--less sex outside of partnerships or marriage, indeed less divorce, less smoking, etc. 

Bar/CR Codes for Classified Documents?

 I had very limited exposure to the classification system for government documents during my time in ASCS/FSA.  IIRC ASCS did get some classified documents as part of the distribution system for the agricultural attaches stationed in some embassies.  I'm not sure why some, a few I think, were classified; perhaps the attaches had a report on the status of a nation's crops which were obtained by befriending a statistician--I don't know.  Anyhow, a management analyst in Records Management had a clearance and handled them.  I suspect the whole setup was a carryover from New Deal days, before USDA silos were built up, possibly before Foreign Agricultural Service was formed.

Anyhow, I'm not surprised by problems in handling and tracking classified documents.  You might be able to have secure handling if you used a dedicated database with no ability to copy, download, or print.  That way you could track the user ids anytime a document was read.  But, with the possible exception of the most highly classified, that's not practical.  (It does seem that when documents are viewed in a SCIF that while they could be printed, nothing could be taken out of the facility. 

For the more ordinary classified documents, I wonder if they have a system of bar coding or CR coding for them. The problem of course would still be the copying, printing, downloading--how do you assign a unique identifier to the copy, printout, or downloaded document?  If election officials and USPS can assign a unique code to a ballot so it can be tracked, but they don't deal with  duplication.

Rear Ends and Third Parties

 I've been rear-ended twice in about 3 years, both times in leased vehicles. No major damage or injuries in either.  Both times I'd argue a third party caused it.  Both times on Reston Parkway.  In the first a car very quickly moved from the lane on my rear into my lane and over to the lane on my left. I had to brake sharply, and the man behind me was unable to stop in time.  In the second, I was stopped at a light.  When it changed I anticipated the vehicle ahead moving out, but the driver opened his door and tossed the remains of his coffee out before starting off.  Took a couple seconds, but in the time I took my foot off my brake and then put it back on when he didn't move.  While the driver who rear ended me said she was at fault, looking at a broken fingernail, I think what may have happed is: she looked up, saw my brake light go off, looked down and missed my brake light going back on.  

A Ponzi Scheme? No, a Howe Scheme

 While I'm sure she didn't invent the idea, Sarah Howe did precede Mr. Ponzi in bilking people out of their money by promising unrealistically high returns and paying them off with the deposits from later suckers.  That's from this Jstor piece on women's banking.

(I didn't realize the Homestead Act gave women the right to homestead as well as men.)

Price of Using the Internet Is Eternal Vigilance?

 Someone said "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance". 

Maybe we should update it.  Just got a message supposedly from Paypal asking for money. It's a scam, but one I've not seen before.