I'm just staring at the screen on my laptop, waiting for inspiration, for some important topic to pop into my head, so I can write something. I don't feel it today. I have nothing to offer up to the algorithms.
I was talking with some students the other day, nursing students who recently finished a program and either have taken or are soon to take the boards and try to get licensed. The NCLEX, the nursing boards used by most or all states in the U. S., uses an algorithm to choose questions as the students take the exam. I heard comments from students about that. Some, it seems, are randomly chosen to be given the maximum number of questions, while others may finish at the minimum. The workings of the algorithm are dark and mysterious. If a student gets notice of the test being done at 85 questions, is that good or terrible? Usually good, most think. But not with enough confidence to simply accept a passing score will be coming. Every student learns the tricks to get results as fast as possible. They have learned a way to game the system, at least a little, by going into the site to try to register again, to the point of giving a credit card number. If the number is rejected, it means the new test registration is unnecessary because the student already passed. That is what they say. I don't know. I want my students to succeed, but I think they can wait a couple of days to get results.
I saw an update on NetFlix last night. It had an information page I was supposed to read through and click that I had read and agreed with the policies. It had 55 screen pages. I read two. NetFlix recently raised their rates, and I considered cancelling the service, but didn't. Liz didn't mind the rate increase, which isn't all that high still,and we do watch NetFlix shows a lot. We even started a new series last night, though not all that new. Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell. Read the book some years ago. And I like British shows in general.
Now, having watched that, will the suggestions from the service adjust to include that new piece of information? I don't know. I don't know if I would notice. I did note that the service says it tracks how we use it, so the algorithms know which shows we watch, and what time we watch. Nothing surprising in that. Do the algorithms in NetFlix know what other streaming services we use, and what we watch on those? That would be more surprising. Maybe Facebook or Google knows our habits on all sources from the Internet. Much good may it do them.
Sunday, April 28, 2019
Sunday, April 14, 2019
Numbers
I spent a wonderful day in Dayton yesterday. It was warm, and my grandsons were lively and happy, and we spent a good part of the day in the back yard.
My grandsons are into numbers. They read off the temperature from the thermostat, even the two-year-old. I don't know if that is normal for a two-year-old. The older one, who is three, but coming up on a birthday in a couple of months, seems most taken by numbers. He calls the microwave the numbers machine, and will run into the kitchen to see what numbers are showing. He reads books with numbers. He counts up to thirty or so, just on his own. He plays with a measuring take, going over the numbers as high as they go. I don't know if he has got to one hundred yet, but he seems able.
At dinner, he had a pizza. We got one pizza for me and my wife, which was a large veggie pizza, and I'm sad to say we ate the whole thing. My daughter, who doesn't eat dairy, had a cheese-free pizza with olives, mushrooms, and some other veggies. She is a vegetarian, but eats eggs, so not really a vegan. Her husband had a cheese-free pizza with some veggies and sausage, and maybe pepperoni, but I'm not sure about the meat. Each little boy got a personal pizza. One was a cheese pizza, the other with sausage.
The older of my grandsons first counted how many slices there were in his pizza. Then he removed a slice, and counted how many were left. He did that each time he took a slice, proudly reporting that 1 with 1 taken away is zero slices.
The younger, who is a bigger eater, at his whole pizza, too, and also asked for some pieces of olive from his mother's pizza. She shared a few, then got out a bowl of olives, which he also ate. My daughter announce that next time, he will get a pizza with sausage and olives for himself.
Earlier in the day, my wife and I were walking around in the back yard, watching the boys as they moved from the toy car to the playhouse, to the tree in the back, and other places around the yard. No activity held their attention for long, but there was plenty to do. The my wife got an idea. She went inside, and got a piece of chalk. She started writing numbers on the pavers of the patio. There were 22, each with a number, in the first row. The grandsons were fascinated. The older kept walking back and forth, counting up, then counting down. He also counted by twos, with a little help. Then threes. I helped him count by fours. He would jump, with some assistance, and I would make sure he landed on the next number, which he would shout out. I think he spent more than an hour playing on those numbers.
The younger grandson also read off the numbers, though he didn't make any attempt I noticed at counting down. Sometimes, he doesn't seem to be clear on counting in order. He can count to three pretty well, but above that, the numbers seem to lose their order. But he is just two. Still, he can carry on a conversation, better than his older brother ever did at that age. My daughter commented on that at one point in the day.
Yes, I am bragging about my grandsons because they are amazing. And they love numbers, which I also love. My best, most favorite Christmas present ever was a calculator. I used it to calculate my weight on ever planet in our solar system, plus the moon. I used our encyclopedia to look up the mass and diameter of the planet, and used the universal gravitational constant, and my own weight. Of course, I was not three. I think I was twelve. I can hardly wait to tell my grandsons that story, and then we can make up some new numbers games.
My grandsons are into numbers. They read off the temperature from the thermostat, even the two-year-old. I don't know if that is normal for a two-year-old. The older one, who is three, but coming up on a birthday in a couple of months, seems most taken by numbers. He calls the microwave the numbers machine, and will run into the kitchen to see what numbers are showing. He reads books with numbers. He counts up to thirty or so, just on his own. He plays with a measuring take, going over the numbers as high as they go. I don't know if he has got to one hundred yet, but he seems able.
At dinner, he had a pizza. We got one pizza for me and my wife, which was a large veggie pizza, and I'm sad to say we ate the whole thing. My daughter, who doesn't eat dairy, had a cheese-free pizza with olives, mushrooms, and some other veggies. She is a vegetarian, but eats eggs, so not really a vegan. Her husband had a cheese-free pizza with some veggies and sausage, and maybe pepperoni, but I'm not sure about the meat. Each little boy got a personal pizza. One was a cheese pizza, the other with sausage.
The older of my grandsons first counted how many slices there were in his pizza. Then he removed a slice, and counted how many were left. He did that each time he took a slice, proudly reporting that 1 with 1 taken away is zero slices.
The younger, who is a bigger eater, at his whole pizza, too, and also asked for some pieces of olive from his mother's pizza. She shared a few, then got out a bowl of olives, which he also ate. My daughter announce that next time, he will get a pizza with sausage and olives for himself.
Earlier in the day, my wife and I were walking around in the back yard, watching the boys as they moved from the toy car to the playhouse, to the tree in the back, and other places around the yard. No activity held their attention for long, but there was plenty to do. The my wife got an idea. She went inside, and got a piece of chalk. She started writing numbers on the pavers of the patio. There were 22, each with a number, in the first row. The grandsons were fascinated. The older kept walking back and forth, counting up, then counting down. He also counted by twos, with a little help. Then threes. I helped him count by fours. He would jump, with some assistance, and I would make sure he landed on the next number, which he would shout out. I think he spent more than an hour playing on those numbers.
The younger grandson also read off the numbers, though he didn't make any attempt I noticed at counting down. Sometimes, he doesn't seem to be clear on counting in order. He can count to three pretty well, but above that, the numbers seem to lose their order. But he is just two. Still, he can carry on a conversation, better than his older brother ever did at that age. My daughter commented on that at one point in the day.
Yes, I am bragging about my grandsons because they are amazing. And they love numbers, which I also love. My best, most favorite Christmas present ever was a calculator. I used it to calculate my weight on ever planet in our solar system, plus the moon. I used our encyclopedia to look up the mass and diameter of the planet, and used the universal gravitational constant, and my own weight. Of course, I was not three. I think I was twelve. I can hardly wait to tell my grandsons that story, and then we can make up some new numbers games.
Monday, April 8, 2019
Security and the Passage of Time
I have passwords. I have a password I use to login into the computers for work, which I am instructed to change about every three months. I teach on a quarter system, but the passwords don't last a full quarter. I find that annoying. I wanted to come up with a system that would allow me to create a new password I could remember each quarter, but my system and my calendar are out of synch. I feel like St. Gregory or something. Why can't the security protocols at a college follow the same calendar as the classes and everything else?
Maybe that is part of the security scheme. Fool the hackers by tweaking the calendar. As far as I know, my account at work has never been hacked, so I guess the security system works. Or maybe no one has bothered to try to hack my account because there is nothing to gain from it.
I also have a password at work that lets me into the platform the school uses for registration. I keep attendance and grades in that system. I set my password when I was hired. I have not been asked to change my password, and I have never felt the need, so it is the same password I created when I first logged on. As far as I know, my account in that system has never been hacked, either. I can imagine students wishing they could hack into that system so they could tweak a grade, just enough to get by, but it has not happened. If it did, I could prove the grades had been changed, because I keep my grades for each quarter in a spreadsheet that is not stored in the registration platform. If my spreadsheet did not match the registrar's records, I would know someone had changed one, and I could probably figure out which.
Of course, it is possible someone has hacked both systems, and changed grades in both, which would make it rather hard to catch. Of course, there are other records of those grades, including printed copies in a separate archive, so if someone ever had a question about the accuracy of the grade records, those other archives could also be checked. I wonder, though, what might cause me or someone else to make the effort to check those archives.
I have had social media accounts hacked. I had an email account hacked once, too. Someone sent out some emails inconsistent with my normal practices under my account. I still have the account, though I did change my password. I changed that password again, later. I don't often use that email account any more.
I read about data breaches a lot, and I sometimes wonder if my data have been stolen and fed into some dark algorithm. I watch for signs. My mother-in-law recently had purchases made on her credit card. The security system at the bank caught the problem, cancelled the purchases, and informed her rather quickly. She has a new credit card. Her bank is proud of its security system, and seems to have reason. I do not wish my credit card to be hacked.
Perhaps someday someone, or some algorithm, will develop a cyber security system that is impervious to hacking. I read about the theoretical possibility now and then, but I don't know how seriously to take that. It seems that bigger and bigger prime numbers may be involved in greater security. But I don't see why it would not be possible for security to get so strong, I lose control or even access to my own accounts. I don't know what the algorithms would do with my data, or my students' grades, but if I lost access, I could not even ask them. I would simply have to rely on my old-fashioned archives for everything. And my students would have to learn how to write again. Is that a win-win?
Maybe that is part of the security scheme. Fool the hackers by tweaking the calendar. As far as I know, my account at work has never been hacked, so I guess the security system works. Or maybe no one has bothered to try to hack my account because there is nothing to gain from it.
I also have a password at work that lets me into the platform the school uses for registration. I keep attendance and grades in that system. I set my password when I was hired. I have not been asked to change my password, and I have never felt the need, so it is the same password I created when I first logged on. As far as I know, my account in that system has never been hacked, either. I can imagine students wishing they could hack into that system so they could tweak a grade, just enough to get by, but it has not happened. If it did, I could prove the grades had been changed, because I keep my grades for each quarter in a spreadsheet that is not stored in the registration platform. If my spreadsheet did not match the registrar's records, I would know someone had changed one, and I could probably figure out which.
Of course, it is possible someone has hacked both systems, and changed grades in both, which would make it rather hard to catch. Of course, there are other records of those grades, including printed copies in a separate archive, so if someone ever had a question about the accuracy of the grade records, those other archives could also be checked. I wonder, though, what might cause me or someone else to make the effort to check those archives.
I have had social media accounts hacked. I had an email account hacked once, too. Someone sent out some emails inconsistent with my normal practices under my account. I still have the account, though I did change my password. I changed that password again, later. I don't often use that email account any more.
I read about data breaches a lot, and I sometimes wonder if my data have been stolen and fed into some dark algorithm. I watch for signs. My mother-in-law recently had purchases made on her credit card. The security system at the bank caught the problem, cancelled the purchases, and informed her rather quickly. She has a new credit card. Her bank is proud of its security system, and seems to have reason. I do not wish my credit card to be hacked.
Perhaps someday someone, or some algorithm, will develop a cyber security system that is impervious to hacking. I read about the theoretical possibility now and then, but I don't know how seriously to take that. It seems that bigger and bigger prime numbers may be involved in greater security. But I don't see why it would not be possible for security to get so strong, I lose control or even access to my own accounts. I don't know what the algorithms would do with my data, or my students' grades, but if I lost access, I could not even ask them. I would simply have to rely on my old-fashioned archives for everything. And my students would have to learn how to write again. Is that a win-win?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)