The one little problem

Everything goes along happily until git decides you need some help. And so, in a fit of well intentioned verbosity, git coughs up three terminology-packed paragraphs of text that we’ve all seen:

You asked me to pull without telling me which branch you want to merge with, and 'branch.newlayout.merge' in your configuration file does not tell me either. Please specify which branch you want to merge on the command line and try again (e.g. 'git pull <repository> <refspec>'). See git-pull(1) for details.

If you often merge with the same branch, you may want to configure the following variables in your configuration file:

branch.newlayout.remote = <nickname>
branch.newlayout.merge = <remote-ref>
remote.<nickname>.url = <url>
remote.<nickname>.fetch = <refspec>

I collected the following git-specific terms from this one message:

branch, fetch, git-pull, merge, newlayout, nickname, pull, refspec, repository, remote, remote-ref, url

What’s the difference between a <refspec> and a <remote-ref>? Between a <repository> and a <nickname>? Between a pull and a merge? (I asked for a pull, but git’s giving me merge info.)

My guess: several of these terms are used interchangeably, and git’s docs should be made more consistent. Note how the terms in the text paragraphs do not match the terms in the config file template.

Problem #2: The second paragraph says to add the info to the config file. But the info isn’t in config file format; it’s closer to command line git config format.

Background context

Subversion uses a single, central repository which is in a remote place. And in your project, it maintains .svn/ directories in every sub-directory. Git on the other hand, gives each developer their own full-fledged repository. And then, instead of relying on many hidden directories in your project, it creates one that lives only in the top-level directory; in .git/. So again: that’s the only place it stores info; nowhere else in your code.

Interesting, huh?

The advantages I’ve found

So now that I’ve begun to use git, it’s already been a nicer experience than subversion:

Deleting a subdirectory doesn’t screw with the versioning like it does in svn.  (Because no version info is stored there.  In svn, you need to repair things; re-create the empty directory so you can delete it, etc.  I do this to myself periodically.)

It’s totally painless to put existing stuff into git — it stays right where it is. E.g., a website that’s in use. You can initialize the repository and commit the current version of the files while they’re in use. This isn’t possible with svn: you have to check it in, then check it out.

It’s easy to work on a new idea: it’s really easy to create a branch to work on it, and then switch back and forth. In svn, this is enough of a pain that I don’t do it in actual practice.  Git finally makes it easy for me to use revision control like I’ve always wanted: be able to check out our group’s code, test ideas out, and rollback in my own little world without disturbing the others, and finally commit only the changes I want to.

Git assumes you meant to delete that file. That’s been nice and convenient:  I deleted a file without going and telling git first about it.  Git adds a ‘delete’ operation to your list of things to check in.  Awesome.  Svn does it the other way around:  You can’t just do normal file operations; you have to also tell subversion that yes, you did mean to do that.

Git has the GitHub killer app. It’s the Netscape of the WWW.  I haven’t found an equivalent for Subversion — web-based or not.

So that’s what I’ve come up so far; I’ll add more when I see them.

But I recently stumbled onto his blog post, Pit Bulls….  It’s short; just two paragraphs long.  The first is decent; he describes how, even though a pit bull attack caused no serious physical harm,

. . . the attack could have been much more serious. If everyone hadn’t run to the defense of the boy so quickly, and if the boy’s mother hadn’t done exactly the right thing (lying down, with her body covering the boy) the boy could easily have been badly injured. The attack was horrifying, even if no one was seriously hurt . . .

But then the concluding paragraph is wrong on its face:

. . . part of the rhetorical arsenal of those who get hysterical about Pit Bulls is to pretend that every dog bite is a medical catastrophe. . . . [But] more people are admitted every year for non-dog bites than dog-bites—which is to say that when you see a Pit Bull, you should worry as much about being bitten by the person holding the leash than the dog on the other end.

[Emphasis mine]  I mean, really? He really believes (and thinks he’s proved) that people, or at least owners of pit bulls, are more likely to bite you than their dogs are?  My friend Morgan pointed out that this goes against our own experience:  We could each remember numerous times we’ve been bitten by dogs, but we’ve never been bitten by a person.

Where Gladwell goes wrong

His logic violates conditional probability which is based on this central idea:  It can be the case that if A happens, B occurs too.  Yet this does not imply the reverse: That if B happens, then A will occur.

Here, Gladwell’s premise is, when people land in the hospital due to a bite (A), it’s probably due to a non-dog animal (B).  He then draws the erroneous reverse conclusion:  When encountering a human and a dog (A), it’s more probable that the human, rather than the dog, will bite you, sending you to the hospital (B).

And another thing

I have to also say that his “those who get hysterical about Pit Bulls” characterization is B.S.  In my experience, pro-Pit Bull people (they exist) and Anti-BSL advocates often get hysterical.   However, I haven’t seen this in advocates for BSL.

“No, you can’t keep that coyote you saw in Powell Butte.  And if you want a pet, there are plenty of Labs waiting to be adopted at the Humane Society.”

So I conclude that if there are overly dangerous dog breeds, then it’s reasonable to restrict them in the same way.

A cute but questionable “IQ Test”

But there are many people and groups who advocate against BSL — and in favor of their being able to keep and sell these breeds.  Ok, fair enough.  And one of them, “Paul Glassner SF/SPCA”, has written a breed ban IQ test that begins,

1. If you were the sheriff in your town and you learned that Toyotas were disproportionally involved in more auto accidents than any other model, would you:
(a) ban Toyotas and confiscate the Toyota of anyone caught driving one
(b) arrest the drivers responsible for those accidents?

And that’s it — those are the only choices.  The rest of the test builds on this question and makes the points one might guess it would.  And so I found the “test” pretty shoddy—essentially propaganda.  Because what about,

(c) look at car ownership to see if a disproportionate number of people own Toyotas as well.  If not, investigate the Toyotas to see if they’re flawed by design.

…which then leads to,

(d) potentially all of the above.

Because that’s what we do in the real world:  If a car type is too dangerous by design, then we ban it.  If a model’s occupants would die from a single low-speed collision, we ban it.  Ditto if a model’s brakes are fundamentally flawed.

The car metaphor works in favor of BSL

Now that I think about it, this does apply to dangerous dogs:  The overly dangerous dog is one who’s likely to bite more often (a car that causes more accidents), and when it does bite, more often maims or kills its victim (a car that does the same to its occupants).  In other words, the “overly dangerous dog” is one that’d be responsible for higher incidence and mortality rates. If there were a car like this — and there have been — you can bet we’d take action against them.

Terri Gross is chairing a a discussion about health care solutions with two people.  One is Paul Krugman.  I knew the name, but not too much about him, and so here’s what I found:

• Professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton,
• Centenary professor at London School of Economics,
• 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize winner in economics,
• Author of “25 books and 40 scholarly articles” (Wikipedia).

I thought to myself, wow, awesome — I want to hear what he has to say.  And the other person?  “Stuart Butler, [some position at] conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation”.  Ok, so red flags go up for me.  Who is this guy?  Here’s the best I can find:

• Author of a series of “WebMemos” and “Heritage Lectures” on the Heritage Foundation website,
• Adjunct faculty at Georgetown,
• Identified as a very influential person by a D.C.-insider periodical. (per his resume)

For cryin’ out loud — why why why?  How in the world does a discussion between these two people serve listeners?  How is Butler any different from Creationists who write “research” papers that they publish in their own personal “scientific journals”?

Here’s just one of the many problems with this:

As a consumer of news and content, I’m shortchanged.

If there is a well-represented competing current of research and solutions in the field, then I’d like to hear from someone who would disagree with Krugman on some issues.  But please, this person should have similarly solid credentials, and should represent a similarly broad stream of research in the subject area. 

But I come to the opposite conclusions by calmly looking at the facts:

• The Court’s conservative majority reached its decision by creating law in the form of a new standard — a “strong basis in evidence” of the success of a disparate effect lawsuit is now required.Sotomayor shouldn’t have done the same (and didn’t) as an appellate judge, whose role is to interpret, not create law.
  
• The Court’s reasoning was based on a reading of the facts that was different from that of the trial court.  Several long and conflicting recitations of the facts caused the decision to reach ~90 pages.  In other words, the case was reviewed “de novo”. Sotomayor shouldn’t have done the same (and didn’t) as an appellate judge, who is required to give deference to the trial court’s findings of fact.
  
• The Court reached a 5-4 split decision along the supposed political lines: 4 conservatives, 4 liberals, and Justice Kennedy in the middle. Attempting to label Sotomayor’s decision to uphold the district court’s decision as radical or racist is simply disingenuous.

(“DRM-free” has a mushy definition, but it basically refers to digital media files {e.g., mp3s} that don’t have copy-protection or purchase information indelibly encoded into them.  For example, anything that you record yourself, on your own computer, will be DRM-free.  In contrast, most songs purchased in the past from iTunes do have DRM, which ensure that only the purchaser can listen to them.)

But what I can’t figure out is, why do people want DRM-free so badly?

After all, in the case of iTunes’ DRM-encoded files, I find that as an owner, I have more than enough flexibility to excercise the rights that I’ve been licensed; such as viewing files on the various devices and computers I own, and making backups for myself.  Here then, are my best guesses why people want DRM-free:

1. So that they can enjoy their media on Linux.  This is why I’d like DRM-free files, but I can’t imagine this accounts for most others.
2. (In the case of iTunes) So that the media files can be viewed on media players besides iPods.  But this strikes me as unlikely as well; there are other sources of music besides iTunes.
3. (Abstracting #1 and #2 together) To decouple the media from the device required to view it.  That’s a great goal, but is this what’s behind the wave of desire for DRM-free content?
4. Something else that I’ve forgotten.  Whoops!  Waited too long to write this post.

So what is it?  Can somebody drop me a line and let me know why they prefer DRM-free media

Welcome message when logging in to WaMu on 9/26/2008.

I’ve got a checking and a saving account at Washington Mutual, and I haven’t been too freaked out about the whole financial crisis.

Today it occurred to me, “Oh yeah, my bank’s failing,” and so I read an NPR article about it which said,

Trying to keep more people from taking their money out, regulators are saying it will be a seamless transition — and that the bank is reopening Friday as usual, just with new owners.

And so I thought I’d log in to my account and see if that’d be the case.  I was greeted by this message in the screenshot.  I realized that this is pretty much (hopefully!) a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see what it’s like when one’s bank “fails.”

Looks to me like everyone’s done an awesome job, including the IT people at WaMu, who’ve made a great web system.  WaMu’s always been a pretty good bank to be at; you know, as far as banks go.  So I have no complaints.

Here’s a story about a cafe owner going berserk over a customer ordering a “double espresso poured over ice.”  It turns out this is a way for people to save money / rip-off a cafe on the purchase of a latte.  For example, by ordering espresso+ice and then filling up with “free” milk at the condiment bar, one can save a buck or two on the cost of the drink.

I’m so clueless … err, I mean ethical … I had no idea.

There’s a whole slew of interesting ethical questions here.  But then I was shocked to realize that I might be one of them: I like a lot of milk/creamer in my coffee.  Up to and including making it a full-on cafe au lait.  I frequently pour out a half-inch or more of my coffee (even after I ask for “room”) to be able to put more milk in.

I had never thought twice about it.  But sometimes I’d wonder why they never really give me “room” when I ask for “room”!  Hmm.  Am I violating some kind of implicit contract between the establishment and myself? If so, then what should I be ordering?  “Cafe au lait” usually is not what I’m going for.  What’s half-way betwen that and black coffee?  Is a “latte” what I’m describing?

I’ve always intentionally avoided learning all of the froo-froo names of the various coffee drinks.  “A man’s drink has a name which is a list of its ingredients”, you know.  Maybe it’s time I start — for all I know, I’ve been drinking back-alley lattes for years.

The backstory

So here I am in law school, and I’m thinking that my tired-out backpack is not cutting it any more. I’d really like to have something a little more respectable. And so I quickly find myself submerged in the world of super-expensive (to me, at least) briefcases and laptop bags. I.e., $250 and up.

I tried as hard as I could to find one made locally, but could not.  So I check Ebay, and see that a lot of the bags can be had for 30% or so off, via the auctions. But wait! There’s one seller who’s offering a new $300 briefcase for $75 as a “Buy it Now” purchase.

Digging into the facts

How is this possible? Why would she sell a bag for such a low price when she could get much more for it? This seller has a nearly perfect rating, and many sales. I rule out fraud on her part.

I look into her selling history and see that she has posted this particular briefcase repeatedly in the recent past without success. Over the period of a month, she had been re-listing the item and gradually lowering the price down to the $75 at which I found it.

And then I see her problem: She had been listing this Coach briefcase as a Coach’s briefcase. I quickly tested Ebay’s search feature and saw that her ad does not appear if a potential buyer simply searches for Coach. I surmised that by mis-listing the item, she had greatly reduced the number of potential buyers, forcing her to lower the price.

I bought the briefcase.

Wondering about the ethics

I had some concerns even before I bought the item. If this low was price due was due to a mistake on her part—would it be right of me to “take advantage” of that?

And now that I’ve purchased the item; wouldn’t the right thing to do be to let her know about the problem with her listings?

Or, maybe not? This is a “market”, after all. Isn’t it exactly these kinds of inefficiencies and differing skills of participants that, in fact, makes the market function, and is how people make a profit? I’m convinced I could buy these briefcases from from her and simply re-list them on Ebay for twice the price and sell them instantly.

I thought of one thing that mitigates my sense of wrongdoing. This is all theory on my part; I think I know why her prices are low. I think I could re-sell them at twice what I paid. But I could be very wrong.

Today I see that she’s put up another briefcase for sale. Same type as the one I bought, mis-listed in the same way, but this time black instead of brown, and at a very low price. I think to myself, “now that would be nice to have!”