Don't Give Up Mathematics

A long time ago when I was an impressionable young lad doing my first industrial work experience at Pembroke Power Station, I asked one of the engineers there if doing a degree in electrical engineering meant he could understand the huge circuit diagram he was unfolding. He said that it didn't, but it gave him the confidence to believe he could understand it.

That's one reason to do an undergraduate degree: the other is that, as Karl Popper suggested, it should give you the confidence and background knowledge to distinguish a fraud from the real thing.

You need to choose your subject to get either of these benefits. Any of the hard subjects - the ones where there are answers or clear standards of rigorous argument - will do, and outside the law and philosophy, that means it has to have some mathematics in it. (The presence of mathematics is necessary but not sufficient, as witness economics.) Also, philosophers tend to get a dose of formal logic thrown at them, and that's a branch of mathematics.

The real benefit of doing undergraduate mathematics is so you can study some post-graduate maths in your spare time when you enter into what's laughably known as the "real world". Remember the jolt you had moving from GCSE maths to A-level? That's what moving from undergraduate to post-graduate is like. All the abstract subjects you studied - especially topology, group theory and commutative algebra - become taken-as-read background knowledge.

The other casual remark I'll never forget in this regard was from John Bell at the LSE, at the start of his Boolean Algebras / Model Theory course. A light smattering of topology is required to understand the Stone Representation Theorem. If you didn't know any, he suggested, "just read the first three chapters of Kelly for next week". That's a one-term undergraduate course in point-set topology - in a week. Along with the day job.

Come on! Get with the program! Step up your game!

This doesn't work so well with the arts. People read Ulysses for an English Literature degree fer Gawd's Sake. And besides, reading Musil isn't hard because he writes badly, but because you need a lot of experience of the Worldly World before you can really grok it. Same goes for C P Snow's Strangers and Brothers. The more you get about in the world, the easier some of its great literature becomes to read - except Clarissa. 

The other great advantage of keeping up your maths is that lots of subjects are much easier for mathematicians to pick up than regular mortals - because they already have much of the background knowledge anyway. A mathematician reads an exposition of, say, cluster analysis in a very different way than someone who's still struggling with root-mean-square distances. 

The Courtyard Inside Bishopsgate

I pass this view almost every lunchtime on my way to lunch in Hoxton or Shoreditch, since I can't abide the theme-park fakery of Spitalfields. That Friday the light was just darn right, so I finally shot the place. With the iPhone.

That's Liverpool Street station at lunchtime. It's the second-busiest in the UK, but compared to the constant madness that is Waterloo (the busiest by about another 60%), it looks like a midlands terminus. I have left out the awful kitsch sculture of a rounded fat woman lying on her side, though if you click on the bottom photo you may see it in the background.

It's all fake 1980's cookie-cutter imported-from-the-US design. That big building in the bottom photograph has pointless atriums on the outside walls, eight lifts which are always going in the other direction and the worst 3G reception inside any building I've ever not had.

Exercise, Train, Workout

Every January the swimming pools and gyms across the country fill up with people I've never seen before. For six weeks they take up equipment and class slots that the serious trainers need. Then between the middle of February and the first week of March, they vanish, leaving behind available equipment and classes.

Amateurs. Slackers. Pansies. No discipline, no application, no drive, no motivation, incapable of keeping even the simplest promise to themselves. No self-discipline. And it gets worse. How many of them stop because they can't tell their manager they aren't going to work late or over lunch? Or because the partner is complaining that it cuts into their time together (aka makes her feel insecure because he's actually looking better)? Or because they aren't seeing any results and don't want to accept it's because they aren't working hard enough? Or because they prefer "networking" (aka having a drink after work)?

Sheer moral failure. Well, actually, not quite.

What no-one will admit is that keeping up an exercise regime isn't about "remaining motivated": it's about all sorts of darker traits. Like mild OCD, vanity, lack of self-confidence, fear of going back to looking like one of the civilians... The Normals show up and in six weeks pick up on some of these odd negative motivations. It makes them feel uncomfortable, without ever knowing why, and they stop going.

This, however, is not you. You know that dark motives lie behind all human accomplishment. You understand that sacrifices must be made in the name of self-improvement. You understand that you feel better after exercising, your head feels clearer and there's a tautness to your muscles you're starting to like. There's something about submitting yourself to the discipline of a routine that you know is good for the soul. You know that training is not a party trick but part of a life. Maybe your partner is getting a little upset by your improving physique, but you see that as her problem. She can either quit whining, get with the program herself, or move out.

You don't need a gruelling one-hour workout, and you don't need to heft the huge weights those guys on the bench next to you are doing. For one thing, you simply might not have that kind of body. You do need to push yourself just a little more each week until you get to the point where even on a bad day you can do eighty per cent of what you do on a regular day.

Learn To Cook

I'm not talking about chef-cooking. You can do that if you want. I'm talking about the ability to grill fish, fry a steak, cook kidneys, slice vegetables and fruit, and generally put together something that might be simple but tastes good. 

Real cooking is done with gas. And sharp knives. It involves dead animals, hot surfaces, boiling water and neat tricks with heavy implements like throwing somersaults with an omlette in a frying pan. It has a technical vocabulary all its own, and you can't hide when it is done badly, well or just plain ordinarily. That's why cooking attracts Real Men. Real men can cook. Real women can cook as well. Do not even think of having a long-term relationship (or even staying for breakfast) if all she has is a toaster and a microwave. The chances are she won't have good coffee, either.

Most men of my generation were turned on to cooking by the late great Keith Floyd's first series Floyd on Fish. Keith Floyd was a very talented brasserie chef, not so much of a talented businessman, a not-so-closet drinker and an all-round lad. Here was a man who cooked things, and prepped the bits, in real time, while getting thorough a hefty glass of wine. He made it look as though a bloke paying a bit of attention could do it as well, which is why we blokes piled into the kitchen. He made preparing, cooking and presenting food look like something a man could do. Previously, the men had been a little precious, or just plain whipped, like Johnny Craddock. (You'll need to look that up.) Floyd make cooking a Real Man's occupation.

Don't expect to cook like they do on the TV cooking porn shows. Those guys are actual chefs, professionals, and it's what they do, all day. And get paid for. You and I are not going to be able to cook like that because, oh, right, we're not actual chefs. I don't know about you, but I don't have the time to prep and cook like that. I cook plain and simple these days. (I can bake, but I'm not supposed to be eating cakes.)  Also, the food you and I cook will not taste like it does in the better restaurants. Chefs get better ingredients than we can: they know where to buy carrots that taste like carrots and meat that tastes like it might once have been on an live animal. The ingredients most of us can buy are pretty average, and in England, pretty tasteless.

Plus, what no-one tells you is that a lot of the recipes in the books don't actually work. Seriously. It's why people used to worship Delia Smith: her instructions actually work. Nevertheless, you are a Real Man, or a Real Woman, and so you will learn to cook. 

I'll Believe In God If I Don't Have To Go To Your Church

As a good 12-Step Guy, I have a Higher Power. For me, that is the good advice and ideas of other people. Do I believe in God? It's a good question. Say it loudly and firmly and accusingly: "Do you believe in God?" You have to answer Yes or No. If you say NO, the other person can turn away in disgust. If you say YES they can ask you why you don't go to Church. In Eurup where even the Catholics are godless atheists, that's not such a big question. In the USA it's HUGE. 

Not only can they ask you why you don't go to Church (Temple, Mosque, Chapel, Meeting, wherever), they can ask you why you eat pork, are clean-shaven, allow your daughters to walk around bare-headed, are / are not circumcised, eat any kind of meat, wear fancy clothes or tolerate homosexuals. Because God has an opinion on all those things. Apparently.

Do I believe in God? Sure, just not a God who would stone an adulteress, burn a widow, refuse me bacon, keep my women indoors, kill queers and dykes, force us all to get married and have children, or any of that other stuff. So if your God isn't like that, and doesn't have any opinions on fashion, diet, politics, science, family structure, hygiene and the use of mobile phones, we may have something in common. Most Gods have opinions on these things. I'm not sure I believe in a God with opinions about teaching Creationism.

I don't believe in the Archbishop of Canterbury - but then neither do any of the other Archbishops - and I don't believe in the Pope either. Apparently I get a choice of Grand Mullahs and Rabbis, but I'm not so sure I'd believe in any of them. I don't believe in Bill W and Dr Bob, though I appreciate the good work they did and the message they carried.

But then, being British, I'm Church of England by default, and so Northern European Protestant, which means that unlike Catholics, Muslims, and most other religions, my relationship with God is direct, individual and there whether I believe in it or not. In most other religions, you only have a relationship with God if you attend one form of schule or another and know the rules and ceremonies of the community: that's why infidels aren't allowed in mosques and goys aren't allowed in a synagogue. But in an European Christian church anyone, absolutely anyone, from anywhere, brought up anyhow, can stand in line and take Holy Communion, and no-one will stop them. Raise their eyebrows and mutter, sure, but not actually stop them. Because in European Christianity, no-one has any right to get between anyone else and their communion with their God.

Is there a bearded patriarch in the Land Above The Clouds? I don't think so. We die, and we're dead, except in the memories of those who survive us. Is there a universal spirit into which we are re-absorbed? Yes, actually. It's called Nature. Oh, you meant a conscious, moral spirit, kinda like a ghost but even more insubstantial. No. There isn't one of those. There's this existence and this universe and that's it. This existence can be richer and weirder than the Vulgar Atheists (you know who you are) allow, and if you want to feel that in extremis you felt the presence of a Being Greater Than Us, I am not going to spoil the value of your feeling to you. Just so long as you don't claim it has ontological significance. 

I'm a 12-Step Guy. I have a Higher Power. I know that sometimes I can't do all this living shit by myself and I have to trust that someone else can and will help me. When they do, I am grateful and feel fortunate. On the unlikely chance I can be that assistance for someone else, I'm happy to be so. Do I believe in that Higher Power? Yes. Am I going to go to your Church? No freaking way.

WTF Is Wrong With Management These Days?

This is a for-real article on Business Insider (I like the site, but man does it have some clunkers). It lists four signs that employees are losing motivation, two of which are the same, that employees losing motivation: a decrease in productivity, increased rates of absenteeism, and increased turnover throughout the company.

This is what it suggests managers should do:

1. Make a personal connection with your workers.

2. Let them know their skills are needed.

3. Make them feel like they have ownership in the company.

4. Tell them their work contributes to a bigger picture in some way.

5. Treat each one of them differently from one another.

6. Give constructive criticism — begin with their strengths, discuss weaknesses, then close with strengths again.

7. Support their creative endeavors.

8. Make sure they understand their chances in upward mobility.

Okay, so your staff are leaving, goofing off and not working so hard when they do show up. And the insightful suggestion is that you take them aside and give them a pep talk? WTF? 

Point 8. Very few companies can offer "upward mobility", aka "promotions", and everyone knows it. Where I work, the pay rise that goes with an increased grade is five per cent (5%) and there are people, including me, who have said that there is no way they are taking that much extra responsibility and work for 5%. 

Point 7. Oh. This is Google you're talking about? Because at every other company, you're there to work on their stuff, not your stuff.

Point 6. Let's see, you're worried that they might leave or slack off even more, and you're going to take their inventory using the famed "shit sandwich" format that employees hate and hold you in contempt for using? 

Point 5. This is exactly what you're not doing. You're running the same formula past everyone.

Point 4. Uh. They know that already. And they give a shit.

Point 3. "Make them feel"? How about "give them some actual equity they can sell in twelve months"? Oh. Yes. Sorry. That's just for the guys and gals at the top.

Point 2. Oh. So their skills are needed? Needed so much the company might pay some more? No. Thought not.

Point 1. It takes two to make a "personal connection". I'm guessing the manager's staff have pretty much closed the door on that one.

We're all experiencing lack of motivation at work. Here's what our company needs to do:

1) Give us all individual desks with pedestals and let us put photos of our cats and families up

2) Pay us the same in real terms as we were being paid two years ago

3) Next year, don't cut our bonuses because of the sins of some assholes who encouraged large-scale mis-selling. It wasn't us.

4) Fix the toilets and get them cleaned properly

5) Re-paint the work-house sized office. White would do. Lift the fake ceiling by a foot.

6) Let our product people talk to the agencies - get the freaking bureaucrats in Marketing out of the way

7) Provide open-access wi-fi for our phones, since the 3G reception sucks and our internet access is seriously restricted

8) Give me a computer that was made this side of the twenty-first century

9) Did I mention the toilets?

Oh. Well. Okay. I'll settle for a motivational message from the CEO on the Intranet.

What the fuck is wrong with management these days?

27 Platitudes For Mastering Anything - And The Truth About Achieving

I ran across this list of suggestions on Business Insider about how to achieve "mastery" of something or other. Quite apart from the fact that not a few are about how to make money and get famous once you have achieved mastery, most of them are egregious examples of question-begging and playing to your vanity. Plus, there should be a rule that any self-help guide or suggestion illustrated by an episode in the life of a Very Famous Person is either a) a mis-understanding of the episode or b) of no use to us regular mortals at all, and c) isn't to be taken seriously. 

No ordinary person (that would be me and you) can learn a damn thing from the lives and practices of Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Mozart, Martha Graham, Karl Jung, Glenn Gould or John Coltrane, to mention a few of the people he cites. If you need to ask why, you are suffering some severe delusions about your abilities, energy levels and creative ability, just as a mid-level bureaucrat in a giant corporation is severely deluded if they think they can learn how to be a better manager by reading about Steve Jobs. Anyway, here's the new age stuff, then I'll lay the truth on you.

Rather than compete in a crowded field, find a niche where you can dominate.
Rebel against the wrong path, and use that anger as motivation.
Love your subject at a very basic level.
Engage in deep observation, practice incessantly, and experiment.
Value learning over money so you're not a slave to everyone's opinion.
Revert to a feeling of inferiority in order to truly learn.
Engage in intense practice and lean toward resistance and pain.
Rely on trial and error more than anything.
Choose a mentor who will intensely challenge you.
Absorb your master's knowledge completely and then transform it.
Accept criticism and adapt to power structures and society.
Meticulously craft your persona.
Suffer fools, and learn to exploit them.
Absorb everything and then let your brain make connections for you.
Avoid putting things into familiar categories.
Don't let impatience derail your plans.
Value mechanical and abstract intelligence equally.
Avoid 'technical lock,' or getting wrapped up in technical artistry instead of the real problem.
Shape your world around your strengths.
Know that practice is just as important as innate skill.

This is great advice because (irony alert)...

There's a niche just waiting for you to dominate it, and you have the ability to do so

You're lucky enough to care about anything that lets you make money to live on

You're in an environment where there are useful lessons to be learned

You have a private income

You have the self-discipline, time and family support to practice that hard

You have a manager who's prepared to let you try and fail

There's anyone you know who would make a decent mentor

You are smart enough to understand even half what your "master" is telling you

You have enough taste and nous to craft a persona in the first place

You have strengths (I just avoid my weaknesses)

Anyway, here's what no-one says about being good at anything.

It has nothing to do with goals, motivation, commitment or any of that feel-good, positive new-age nonsense. Sure, achievers do have goals, but only in the way that the rest of us have shopping-lists. Achievers can have off-days, and may describe themselves as "un-motivated", but that doesn't mean there is a "motivated" state which makes their training or competing something they want to do. They don't need to feel enthusiastic to train, or to learn, they just do it. What makes them different from us, is that they train whether they want to or not. They are driven.

Driven comes from inside, and it comes from places people don't want to talk about. Ego, pride, neurosis, obsession, fear, vanity, addiction, chasing the high. It comes from genetics, or a dysfunctional family, neighbourhood, school, peer group, and in some places, church. It doesn't really matter where it comes from, or what it is. What matters is what it makes them do.

It makes them self-harmers (Victoria Pendleton to name but one), amphetamine users (Paul Erdos and other mathematicians), steroid abusers (Lance Armstrong, Flo-Jo and hundreds of athletes in the '80's and '90's), depressed, hand-washers and pencil-straighteners, and for all I know it makes some of them promiscuous. It separates them from most of the human race and from each other. It makes them focused on what can seem like an unbelievably narrow, or weirdly off-centre, range of experience. 

The weirdness does not come from the excellence: the excellence and the weirdness comes from an initial seed of driven, and the driven comes from some neurosis, disorder or flaw. It means they don't fit in with the rest of the kids at school, they don't get why people would just hang out, talk about fictitious characters as if they were real, or follow a football team. They don't feel comfortable with the Normals, and when the sports teacher tells them to show up after school for running practice, and at weekends, that's what they do because then they don't have to feel bad about not behaving like a Normal. 

If you're driven, you can't not - once you've discovered it. Athletes retire and stop training, but usually they no more stop exercising than they stop breathing. I have to learn new stuff: it's what I do. You might say that learning is associated with youth, so I am trying to deny my ageing and inevitable death, and that may be true for some people, but if you were inside my soul, you would experience it as a natural urge, like turning your face to the sun on a cool day.

"Driven" is why most people never get beyond the advanced beginner stage, why they never learn to troubleshoot, nor acquire second-order problem solving skills. Why they zig, and never zag (Hegarty); and why the audience for any kind of even remotely challenging art, music, literature, science or mathematics, is so small. To get those things needs work, study, tolerating a certain amount of irritation and puzzlement until one day you just get it. The mass-market demand is for stuff that can be "got" more or less immediately.

Normals look at driven and recoil. Real achievers are coached to talk about themselves in the positive, new-age-y way because that's good PR. They are not going to tell the truth.

This is why the champion or genius who is angry because of everything they "sacrificed" to get where they were is a cliche character of cheap drama. It's nonsense. There was no sacrifice, just an exchange of one misfit agony for another. 

And why self-help gurus can make fortunes from books telling normals that excellence and achievement are about good teachers, hard work and playing along with the system. You too can be Normal and compose a piece of music as timeless as A Love Supreme or win a boxing championship.

Nah.