Absence/little blogging II: Where have I been?

My last post read:

As the recurring reader may have noticed, I have not spent much time on my blog lately. This is due to a mixture of work and travel, me partially moving to Düsseldorf with my computer still in Cologne, preparations for my main move, etc. Seeing that the Internet provider for my new apartment has so far failed to activate my connection, there may even be a complete break for some weeks after the move.

It has, in fact, been some years… (OK, exaggeration, but the two year mark is not that far away.)

Unfortunately, the ISP never managed to do its job at all—a common problem in Germany, with Deutsche Telekom (German “AT & T” ) being less than cooperative with the competition, to the point that its negligence seems to border on sabotage. (By means of explanation: Deutsche Telekom owns a disproportionate part of the actual, physical wiring from its monopoly days. They are required to give the competition fair access “from the street” to the telephone socket. However, the work that needs to be done to accomplish this is done by technicians in their employ. For some reason, these technicians often do not show up for the appointments, customers of the competition have to wait longer for an appointment than customers of Deutsche Telekom, and so on.)

Seeing that I tend to spend too much time on the Internet, I decided to let the matter rest for some time, removing myself from temptation. The planned several months came and went, and the topic increasingly slipped of my radar.

Late 2012, starting to get a bad conscience about e.g. unread emails on my main private account, I bought a smart-phone, intending to by-pass the problems by using it as a modem. This did not work (although I could do some minor surfing on the phone itself) and yet more time passed. (No, reading emails this way was not an option, seeing that it was infested with bloatware, which I a) did not trust, b) was prevented from de-installing by the idiotic restrictions of Android. For similar reasons, Internet cafes have not been option either. A strong argument could be made, however, that I should have risked an access from a company computer, despite their using various versions of Windows—as I had with some less important accounts. Then again, here the lesser security risk compared to an Internet Cafe collides with the ethical issue of using employer property for non-trivial private purposes.)

About a month ago, I tried yet another road: A web-stick from pre-paid provider Fonic. I easily managed to get it working with a company laptop, and was content with that for a week or two. However, as I then tried to move on to using my actual computer, an entirely unwarranted blocking of my SIM-card put in a delay of yet another week. (Some weird claims about my needing to prove my identity were raised and it took several emails to clear this up. Notably, I received no notification or explanation for the block before I wrote to complain…) About a week later, I decided to try again. I spent some time downloading extra programs on the notebook one day, and transferred and installed them on my (Linux) computer the next. Everything was set to go, I pressed “connect”, a connection took place, and … nothing worked. Moving back to the notebook, a tentative explanation seemed to offer it self: Poor timing had lead to my pre-paid account being emptied the day before. Now, starting to feel cursed, I tried to send the special text messages that would upload another ten Euro from my bank account—and nothing happened.

In particular, the confirmation that was promised to arrive within minutes was replaced by a declination—more than eight hours later. This message claimed that I had to make an additional registration on the website of Fonic in order to use this payment mechanism. Funny: Not only had I already done this shortly after buying the stick, but I had also already used the very same payment mechanism on at least two occasions with Fonic…

Having no intention to remain with such abysmal service, I did some additional research, eventually settling for a second try with provider Aldi (actually a chain of low-price grocery stores, cooperating with E-Plus for its own pre-paid brand). Earlier this week, I bought a corresponding SIM-Card, fortunately compatible with the previous stick, and could go online on the same day. The prep-work already being done, it was more or less plug-and-play even with Linux.

Assuming that there are no further interruptions and disturbances, I plan to slowly get back to being active on the Internet. However, the exact forms and proportions are still unclear. Importantly, I currently have an enormous back-log to deal with, including dozens upon dozens of articles for my website in various stages of work (from ready-to-publish to first-draft-half-done) and some fourteen hundred emails (most of which, admittedly, are just comment notifications from blogs were I have a subscription on some post).

There have been a few comments on this blog in the mean time; however, fortunately, not very many: This has never been a comment-attracting blog and without new posts…

To the authors: I am sorry for the delay in moderating your comments. It is poor style of a blogger to wait for half-an-eternity—and something that has often annoyed me when on the receiving end. I will try to get them all done in the course of the evening.

Absence/little blogging

As the recurring reader may have noticed, I have not spent much time on my blog lately. This is due to a mixture of work and travel, me partially moving to Düsseldorf with my computer still in Cologne, preparations for my main move, etc. Seeing that the Internet provider for my new apartment has so far failed to activate my connection, there may even be a complete break for some weeks after the move.

How an easy task can be harder to do right

Recently, I have seen two old observation brought to my mind again:

1. I often make more errors on an easy task than on a hard task.

2. Doing a task well is far easier when I know the level of difficulty.

Explanations:

Both observations are easy to understand, even though they may seem counter-intuitive at a first glance. A good illustration is Sudoku (the solving of which has kept me entertained on my many recent train rides):

Firstly, with an easy puzzle, the numbers pop-up more or less by themselves and just have to be written down. The actual thinking needed is minor and each individual number is of little value to me. I have no incentives to do extra boring leg-work (notably checking that I put two numbers down in the right order, I am in a “work fast” mode, my brain tends to become inattentive, and I never gain a deeper “understanding” of the puzzle and its connections. With a harder puzzle, in contrast, the leg-work forms a smaller part of the overall work and is easier to justify (in particular, as an unnecessary error would ruin more of the time put in), I am in a “slow and thorough” mode, my brain pays close attention, and I see much more of the connections present (both through having to think on many different aspects to reach a solution and through the longer time spent on the puzzle).

Secondly, problems of different difficulty require different solutions. For instance, with easy puzzles, I find many number very fast by a strategy of looking at which numbers already present block which squares in other nine-blocks. With increasing difficulty, this strategy becomes less and less useful and slower methods, requiring more thinking must be used. For very hard puzzles, it often boils down to individual investigation on an ad hoc basis or “brute force” attacks (basically assuming different combinations of numbers and positions and trying to rule out all but one of these). Using the “advanced” methods on an easy puzzle would work—but it would be significantly slower than with the more basic methods. Conversely, the latter simply would not suffice to solve a harder puzzle at all. Knowing the difficulty of the puzzle is important when deciding on how it should be attacked.

Implications:

If other people are much the same (and in my observations so far, they are), this has interesting implications for e.g. judging competence levels, deciding who should be given what tasks, and how the education system should work. To take a specific example, consider dumbing-down and education: An increasing dumbing-down will lead to more of the bright students facing “too easy” tasks, while more of the dull students are faced with “just right” tasks—under-estimating the former and over-estimating the latter, possibly to the point that some students are ranked in a ridiculously wrong order. (To which must be added, obviously, off-topic issues like increasing boredom.) Similarly, it may seem a good idea to promote the entry-level employee who excels at the entry-level tasks—but on closer inspection the less successful entry-level colleague might be the better choice, because he fairs better with harder tasks post promotion. (Which is not in any way to say that lack of success on easy tasks would be a proof of excellence—incompetence is another common explanation… The point is that the judgement made must factor in that things may be different than they appear to be and that the relative success of two parties may change drastically as the difficulty of the tasks change.)

Absurdities around apartments in Germany

I have recently been looking for a new apartment. Doing so, signing the new lease, and making first preparations for the move, a number of annoyances with apartments in Germany have been brought to my mind again. The likely two worst are discussed below:

Realtors:

These provide a service exclusively to the landlord—but for which the tenant must pay… In effect, the landlord gives a listing to the realtor, the realtor does everything the landlord would otherwise have done himself (e.g. advertisements and showings), provides the prospective tenants with no value added, and then requires a fee equaling two months rent + VAT from … the new tenant.

In fact, from a tenants perspective, the service provided is actually on a “value subtracted” basis: The realtor is usually unable to answer even basic questions (but refers to the landlord), does not know the house or the neighborhood (let alone the neighbors), and generally seems keen on giving the most pleasing answer. Indeed, having found that I was always given positive answers when enquiring about how quiet the house or the neighbours were, I once reversed my questions (something on the lines of having regular parties or playing music late in the evening)—and was once again given a positive answer! The information given by these expensive “value subtracted” providers cannot even be trusted.

Similarly, a landlord (at least a private one) will be available for phone calls and inspections of the apartment outside of normal working hours, while German realtors keep hours that are highly unfriendly to the prospective tenants—with no possibility to call during the weekend and often forcing a call from work during the week.

A particular quirk is that the realtors are only allowed to charge their fees to tenants who were not previously aware of the apartment in question. This has the side-effect that ads by realtors will not contain the street address, but only a general area—which means that it is not possible to e.g. look up the house and the closest surroundings through Google Maps without first contacting the realtor. This, however, is something that a net-savvy user would want to do as a first step before bothering to call. (Of course, this rule is of dubious value, because if a prospective tenant with previous knowledge does show interest, the realtors will discriminate against him.)

And, no, it is apparently not possibly for a prospective tenant to hire a realtor (at least not in the rental market) to actually do some leg-work for the tenant instead of the landlord: I have over the years tried this on two occasions, simultaneously enquiring at several realtors, with the results being either no response at all (!) or a one-time listing of the apartments they at that moment had on offer (which was then the very last I ever heard).

The regulations should by changed so that it is always the party hiring and benefiting from the service (currently only the landlord) who pays any fees involved. This would not only be a fairer system, but would also lead to more customer-oriented realtors where even a tenant has the possibility to receive value-added services from a realtor—including decent telephone hours and the odd realtor who is actually willing to do some amount of work for prospective tenants.

Security deposits:

German apartments usually require a security deposit equivalent of three month’s (!) rent. While the wish for a security deposit is understandable, I cannot consider the size justifiable. Further, the way the system is implemented, the security deposit can very easily be abused by the landlord, e.g. to recompensate himself for rent held back for legitimate reasons or otherwise disputed, without having to take the initiative to go to court. (Something I fear will happen with my old apartment: The 2009 water bill for the 10-apartment house was inexplicably divided with my share amounting to half (!)—and despite this being absolutely preposterous and obviously incorrect, the landlord has refused to correct the bill and insists on payment of more than 800 Euro + an additional 70 Euro per month since. Considering his highly unethical behaviour throughout my years in the old apartment, I strongly suspect that he will simply help himself to the security deposit and force me to go to court over the money.) In contrast, the intended uses for the deposit appear to have become secondary (to cover unrepaired damages caused by the tenant and later differences in utility bills, as well as preventing a dishonest tenant from just skipping the last few months payment).

Other complications around the security deposit include landlords taking unduly long to repay it after the tenant moves out—often more than a year, rarely less than a half. (A time during which the tenant has six months’ (!) rent unavailable between the new and the old security deposits.) A better solution would include a smaller amount, some stringent form of escrow (no party is allowed to access the money without consent of the other or a court order), and a need for prompt re-payment: The landlord has e.g. two weeks to raise any objections and must then re-pay the major part of the sum, keeping at most a fraction to cover any differences in later utility charges.

And, no, this security deposit does not include the first or last months rent—these have to be provided separately at the beginning of the first, respectively last, month of the lease period. As can be noted, the sums involved are quite large: There is potentially a one-time payment of seven months’ rent (first, security deposit, realtor fees, and a last at the old apartment, seeing that an overlap in leases is hard to avoid)—and this not even counting the costs of the actual move and any needed repairs.

Cursive writing—follow-up on reading

Following the comments on [1]^e, I have just encountered the whopper of a weak argument:

If children do not learn how to write cursive, they will not learn how to read cursive, and they will be unable to read important documents of old…

1. Documents worth reading will exist in transcriptions using printed letters. Can there be any doubt that understanding the contents of an important document is more important than being able to read the original version? Indeed, the vast majority of older texts worth reading were originally published in printed letters…

2. It is possible to read a script that one does not know how to write. Indeed, most of the trouble with learning how to write a particular script is mastering the movements—not learning the shapes. If reading is the main benefit, then reading should be taught.

3. Most of the documents of old are not written in a cursive that is particularly close to today’s versions—and over the centuries of modern English there have been too many scripts for this to be a valid argument. Further, the same argument applies even to printed documents.

4. Similarly, language changes through the years make any document sufficient old hard to read, even unreadable, to the untrained. In addition, it should be remembered that there are numerous valuable documents in other languages and that access to these would be blocked anyway.

(See the previous post for context.)

Cursive writing

Recently, I have seen several posts dealing with whether cursive writing and penmanship are important, should be taught in schools, etc. (E.g. [1]^e, [2]^e.) The comment sections, in particular, have contained a lot of unsound reasoning and preconceived opinions. Below I will look into a number of examples. First, for context and some explanations in advance, my own comments:

Well, when I went to school, I was forced to spend endless hours training my penmanship (with little positive effect, I might add). In contrast, we spent possibly two hours getting a rough introduction to touch typing. Since I left school, by necessity, the vast majority of all my writing is done on a keyboard…

What modern students should be taught is strong touch typing and sufficient handwriting skills (not specifically cursive). If they want to take handwriting further, they can do so on their own time: A key truth to schooling is that there are thousands of topics that would be worthy of inclusion or preservation (in the eyes of at least some), but that time and resources are limited. Schools have a duty to give the students value for their efforts and must make compromises.

Incidentally, those who learn block letters will move more or less automatically to cursive if they do spend a lot of time writing by hand. (I would even consider it plausible that a focus on good block letters is more beneficial for those wanting to write well in cursive than specific “cursive exercises”.) Thus, the extensive teaching of cursive is wasteful even among those who will eventually need it…

‘Please, there is that aspect of caring that is found in a written note. It is like the person is saying, “I know it would be easier to send an email, but I want you to know that I care so much, I wanted to write a letter to you.” ‘

I see it the other way around (on those very rare occasions) when I receive hand-written letters: The author put his or her own convenience (seeing that most people are still weak typists) over mine, leaving me to deal with the problem of interpreting the writing. (Between individual variation and the repeated changes to what is considered “standard” cursive over time, this can be an issue even where good penmanship is concerned.) Further, it leaves me with a text that is likely to be less thought-through and edited than a letter written on a computer. When we go a step further and compare emails to hand-written letters, there is the additional complication that my ability to answer, quote, reference, and re-distribute in an efficient manner is restricted for no good reason.

Correspondingly, to me, a hand-written text of a non-trival size is disrespectful, bordering on rude. (Excluding cases with legitimate reasons, say a sender who does not have access to computers at the moment or who is too old for computer skills to be expected.)

———–

In a bigger context, I note that a number of commenters express the opinion that cursive would be a vital skill, an important part of writing, whatnot—without in anyway substantiating that claim. These I ask to beware that there is nothing magical about cursive writing, but that it just happens to be a convention, something we are used to. This reminds me of the complaint that the children of today would only learn how to read a digital clock and not a “real” clock—yet, there is nothing real about an analog clock that is not real about a digital clock. That someone grow up with analog clocks and only encountered digital ones as an adult may explain a personal preference. This preference, however, is personal and subjective—and none of the two types of clocks is any more or less real than the other.

The loss of cursive writing may be negative, but considering the opportunity cost of spending time and money on cursive writing (cf. my earlier comment) there really is no case: There are thousand of topics, skills, whatnot, that are valuable and beneficial. Not all of them can be mastered in a life-time, let alone in school. Further, cursive writing is certainly not the most important of these.

I would keep the two issues of penmanship and good grammar (spelling, style, whatnot) separate:

The latter is a vital skill and its neglect in modern schooling is a problem—likely, a severe problem.

The former is an entirely independent nice-to-have (although I see how texting and twitter can create the opposite impression). The practical benefits and the need of being able to write well (as opposed to “at all”) with a pen are extremely limited in today’s world. Indeed, I write more words on the computer per day than I do on paper per month. (With reservations for periods when I do a lot of cross-words—but here I write in non-cursive and all-caps to begin with.) Further, what I do write on paper is almost always intended only for my own eyes.

Of course, we could lament the loss of penmanship on an “ars gratia artis” basis, but the same would apply to e.g. the move from fountain pens to ball-point pens, the disappearance of cobblery, or the lack of harpsicord players. There are far too many arts for the active preservation of all as a universal skill—instead the individual must choose which he wishes to pursue.

On to the issues:

1. A very common theme is the confusion of cursive writing with hand writing or even writing in general:

   The removal of cursive writing does not imply that students are unable to write notes, even letters, and it does certainly not imply that their skills at writing (in terms of e.g. grammar and style) remain undeveloped. On the contrary, these have far better chances when writing on a computer. Notably, the effort and time needed to write a draft is reduced, the draft can be edited (instead of re-written from scratch), re-organisations are far easier, … With computers more time can be spent on the actual text—not just putting down letters on paper.

   Indeed, when I went to school, we were taught an almost mockingly named “writing process”, which consisted of three basic steps: Write the essay on paper. Read through and re-write the essay on paper, making improvements. Read through and re-write the essay on paper, making minor corrections and with a main emphasis on legibility. Honestly, how should a student learn to write with such idiocy? When the vast majority on the time available for the essay had to be spent on merely writing letters on paper, instead of thinking about the contents and the language?

2. Many commenters simply assert, without giving evidence, that cursive is a vital skill, express their horror at the poor cursive of today’s students, or merely seem to say “I like cursive; ergo, cursive should be taught in schools.”—comments void of convincing power.

3. Cursive has positive effects on cognitive ability:

   There is no indication that this would be true, except in as far as almost any activity has a positive effect. Now, writing can have a positive effect, but this is not in anyway restricted to cursive writing.

4. Cursive is good for creativity:

   There is no particular reason to assume this to be the case (and no proof was ever presented). Hand writing may be beneficial over typing in many circumstances (when it comes to the creative process); however, cursive is just a special case of hand writing and not teaching cursive does not imply not teaching hand writing.

5. Cursive improves fine motor skills:

   This may be, but so do a thousand other things—including normal hand writing. Further, I am not entirely convinced that this argument is valid per se: Coordination develops over time and setting targets for students writing that are too far from their natural level of coordination (as was the case for many students in my own one-size-fits-all schooling) will result in frustration and failure. Certainly, my hand-writing improved as my coordination did—not the other way around. It would then be better to give the students exercises that help them develop their more general motor skills and doing so in a matter that is actually fun—not through the boring and mindless exercises in penmanship.

6. Cursive is faster than block-letter writing:

   Cursive is what automatically happens over time when a block-letter writer spends a lot of time writing and starts to write faster, which makes this statement both tautological and uninteresting.

   Further, even cursive writing is a lot slower than typing (assuming writers of a comparable training level).

7. Cursive is needed so that people can sign documents:

   This does not require learning cursive, but just learning the signature. Further, a signature does not have to be cursive. Further yet, the need for handwritten signatures is mostly a legacy issue that will disappear over time. Certainly, for legal documents, digital signatures with private encoding and public decoding keys are far superior.

8. The issue of a “personal touch” is very common:

   As can be seen from my earlier comments, this is a very one-sided take that ignores that others can see the issue differently: Personal preference is not an indication of an absolute good.

Fauxminism or irrational illwill towards men?

Recently, I encountered a German blog giving an analysis of the arguments^e in an (English) complaint against “fauxminists”^e (men who, in the eyes of the feminist writer, are faux feminists).

(Why would I care whether a useful idiot is considered a feminist or a fauxminist? I do not. In fact, it is better that feminism is divided and internally squabbling than united and fighting the rest of the world. However, the text in question is an excellent example of the incorrect reasoning so often used by feminists and within gender studies. Notably, the author, Meg Milanese, is a “recent graduate” with a “BA in women’s studies”, which, in itself, raises more than one warning flag.)

Below, I will analyze this complaint from my own perspective, specifically the ten defining characteristics:

1. He interrupts women that he speaks with.

   Melanese argues that this is rude, would show communicative incompetence, and that men interrupt women more than they do men.

   Interruptions can be rude, but they need not be. Indeed, they are often necessary and most interruptions that I have observed or been involved in (be it as the interrupter or the interrupted) have been legitimate. Further, the need to interrupt is often based on the communicative incompetence of the … interrupted: There are many people who simply do not observe the cues others send that they too have something to say, who monopolize the discussion, go on long contentless ramblings, spell out over two minutes what the counter-part understood in two seconds, whatnot.

   Indeed, these problematic people are (in my experiences so far) disproportionately common among women. (Which gives us some clues as to why women are interrupted more often…)

2. He expects to be given leadership roles far before he’s ready for them.

   The text gives no real support for this claim, but describes something more akin to men (unsurprisingly) being more likely to take initiative than women. Furthermore, in as far as this claim would be true, there is nothing male about it: I have met plenty of women with exactly this mentality—often among those clearly unsuitable for leadership. Indeed, this type of entitlement-thinking is very common among Swedish women (and, in my second-hand impression, US women).

3. He mansplains.

   The accusation of mansplaining (feminists’ favourite way of discrediting their opponents without actually having to provide any factual arguments) has been dealt with at length.

   The claim “A feminist man should be able to understand the difference between mansplaining and simply explaining something while simultaneously being a man.” is almost comical, seeing that this is a difference that feminist women seem unable to grasp—with far more accusations of mansplaining being raised because the explainer happens to be a (usually dissenting) man and the dissented a woman than for what feminists claim that “mansplaining” would imply.

4. He insists that feminism must make equal time for men and men’s issues.

   I cannot judge this issue, in particular the frequency of the demand being made, within the feminist movement itself. However, many of the statements made by Melanese are detached from reality and demonstrate that her take on men’s issues is a very destructive and prejudiced one. Take “So yes, men have issues. However, in no way, shape, or form are they of the same caliber as the problems and oppression facing women.” (a bullshit statement, cf. e.g. [1], [2]) or the attempt to make men’s main problem to be … masculinity.

   In the end: As long as feminism remains about women’s issues, not equality, feminism will remain a force of evil. (It is refreshing, however, that a feminist admits this onesidedness so clearly.)

5. He continues to partake in media or activities that objectify/degrade women.

   The whole issue of objectification and degradation is cheap rhetoric. Cf. e.g. parts of [3]. That Melanese irrationally finds e.g. porn to be degrading does not imply that men (feminist or otherwise) who use it are doing anything wrong—nor that the many women who also enjoy porn would be.

6. He calls women he doesn’t agree with “bitches”, “whores” or other gender-based slurs.

   This particular item is specifically dealing with how this use by a feminist will affect the cause of feminism (i.e. that it is harmful). That part of the analysis is likely to be true; however, this has nothing to do with whether a man is a feminist or a fauxminist—unless we assume that these words would be anti-woman per se. (They are not: They make a statement about a particular woman—not women in general.)

   Further, I note that personal attacks and insults is very common from feminist women, which makes the item odd: Melanese’s efforts would be better spent attacking the “argumentation” methods of feminists in general.

7. He feels entitled to the trust of the women he works with in feminist activism circles.

   The basic reasoning behind this item would be sound, but for two issues:

   Firstly, the problem of unwarranted and exaggerated distrust is treated to cavalierly.

   Secondly, it is based on a very distorted view of reality. Consider e.g. “[...]the daily normality of cat-calling and slut-shaming that women endure” or “the person who is distrustful is a member of a class that is disproportionately affected by harassment, violence and degradation and the person who is not being trusted is a member of the class that most often perpetrates that degradation”—not only cheap rhetoric, but also sexist, one-sided, and prejudiced bullshit.

   In addition, the claim “It could be rape, it could be domestic violence, it could be emotional abuse.” is likely equally off: Yes, this would be an understandable reason for distrust, even misplaced distrust. At the same time, rape is rare, women commit more domestic violence than men, and emotional abuse (from what I have seen so far) is much more common from women than from men—yet, the way the text reads, it sounds like this would something that women would be regularly exposed to and men not.

8. He will not hold other self-proclaimed male-identified feminists accountable.

   The text does not really deal with the topic of the title; however, the statement “If a man cannot be expected to do this much [risk his social reputation/being called a mangina] while women are enduring sexual assault, violence, and verbal abuse for standing up for their rights, the mantle of feminism has been proven to be too much to bear for him and he is undeserving of the title.” should say enough. How often are women enduring sexual assualt and violence for standing up for their rights? Hardly ever and likely less often than men. Indeed, when I have heard of violence in the context of feminism it has usually been perpetrated by the … feminists. (Cf. e.g. [4]^e.) Certainly, feminists commit far, far more verbal abuse than anti-feminists—indeed, they may possibly be the single greatest source of verbal abuse around.

9. He uses the tone argument on you.

   Frankly, I am not certain that I understand this item. However, it does sound like something women do to men, rather than the other way around.

10. He is pissed off by this article.

    The very predictable conclusion: As usual, the whole thing is setup with an illogical “damned if you do; damned if you don’t”—either you agree with me, or your disagreement proves my point. The same evil trick of pseudo-reasoning is regularly used e.g. with regard to the alleged male privilege (“Not having to admit privilege is a male privilege!”) and mansplaining (“Your criticism of the term ‘mansplaining’ is just mansplaining!”).

Generally, many of the items contain prejudice, belief in the “Patriarchy”, and a world-view (e.g. with regard to men’s and women’s situations) that does not match reality.