Spammers Fish For Idiots

Posted on by David Wright

In Slate via MR:

Most of us know the signs: stilted English, “Dear Sir/Madam,” a particular fondness for exclamation points. The occasional spam email that does make it past inbox filters seems transparently fake. And new findings by a Microsoft researcher suggest that’s exactly the point.

The researcher, Cormac Herley, looked into so-called “Nigerian scams,” named for the African nation where the scammers often claim to reside. The emails typically seek a cash investment and promise a lofty payoff, often linking themselves to off-shore corporations or royalty. Herley’s math-rich analysis found that the obvious spam clichés are a deliberate attempt to weed out potential victims who are too savvy to fall for the scheme—and in turn make the most of the human capital required to secure funds from the people who are duped.

“Since gullibility is unobservable, the best strategy is to get those who possess this quality to self-identify,” Herley writes, and the scheme ingeniously lines up the most gullible recipients in one swoop. Those who are left “represent a tiny subset of the overall population” but nevertheless a lucrative one for the spammers.

This also explains the apparent overabundance of the emails from Nigeria, since the country is so widely associated with Web scams. Though some of the first such schemes originated there in the 1980s during a period of high unemployment for well-educated young professionals, most launch elsewhere today, including the United States.

Far from the usual spam indictment, Herley’s study suggests applying the spammers’ logic in a larger context. Read it in full here.

Kids These Days (?)

Posted on by David Wright

Tyler Cowen sends us to this very interesting post by Steve Postrel on higher education:

My hypothesis is that it is precisely the dumbing down of U.S. education over the last decades that explains the increase in willingness to pay for education. The mechanism is diminishing marginal returns to education.

Typical graduate business school education has indeed become less rigorous over time, as has typical college education. But typical high school education has declined in quality just as much.

Postrel offers up four links to support the decline in rigor at all levels of education. Given that the entire argument rests on this point, we should follow those links:

1. Dumbing Down High School English. Opens up with this quote:

A recent ALSCW ( Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers) study finds that

a fragmented English curriculum and a neglect of close reading may explain why the reading skills of American high school students have shown little or no improvement in several decades despite substantial increases in funds for elementary and secondary education by federal and state governments.

After that it’s all hand waving. Disappointing because Postrel is worried about the LEVEL of education and this link despairs over the rate of positive change. Not relevant.

2. Link to this book. I haven’t read it. In this review, they say the book refers to one study in particular (pdf here) with this abstract:

Using multiple datasets from four different time periods, we document declines in academic time investment by full-time college students in the United States between 1961 and 2004. Full-time students allocated 40 hours per week toward class and studying in 1961, whereas by 2004 they were investing about 26 to 28 hours per week.

Students spend less time studying. I believe that.

But one thing the study does not control for is major type. Are engineers less well educated than in the past? I sincerely doubt that. Cowen may not find answers to declines in productivity improvements in this line of inquiry.

3. The Math Wars. Short version: the quality of math instruction in high schools has declined. I suppose I buy that. But I don’t envy my grandparents’ math instruction. I am sympathetic to reformers here.

4. On MBAs. Here’s a relevant quote on the author’s memory of his MBA student days and what he thinks has happened:

So, we read 30-40 academic journal articles per class. We became capable of digesting their content and, thereby, able to access new ideas 10-20 years ahead of widespread practice. We traced the trajectories of core research streams and, thus, came to recognize that subtle thinking is required of complex issues. We jammed into Merton Miller’s class, not because he was entertaining or capable of summarizing complex ideas into exquisite 10-bullet lists, but because everyone knew he was a genius and felt damn lucky to sit in his presence and glimpse into his thinking about finance. Excerpts from books by Tom Peters and other management “gurus” were not viewed as examples of special wisdom but, more accurately, of sloppy, shallow, unsubstantiated pap. That was a bad-ass education — one that served us well throughout our careers, not just in our next jobs.

What happened? Well, Business Week rankings coupled with the “Northwestern Innovation.” BW rated schools on: (1) student satisfaction, (2) recruiter assessment, and (3) research ranking. Northwestern, which was not a contender back then, realized that moving (2) or (3) could only happen veeery slooowly. Item (1), on the other hand, well, that could be manipulated almost instantaneously. And thus began the race to the bottom of the toilet. As far as I can tell, anything approaching the education I got has long since been abandoned.

More hand-waving, mostly, but I accept his premise. I’d point out a few things:

  • Chicago is a special place. Not every school has super-duper-star instructors and highly motivated students.
  • MBA programs are a ridiculously easy target for this kind of argument. I happen to think quite a lot of management ‘theory’ is complete garbage. Economics can be nearly as bad. Rigor in these subjects can often obscure learning outcomes. Let stories be told where stories must be told.

I find the idea that bad high school quality drives the increase in the college premium persuasive. I’m more sympathetic in respect of math than other subjects, though we must remain ever vigilant against cognitive bias. Complaining about the “kids these days” is usually total crap.

Quotes of The Day

Posted on by David Wright

“Spain is not Greece.” Elena Salgado, Spanish Finance minister, February, 2010.

“Portugal is not Greece.” The Economist, April 2010.

“Greece is not Ireland.” George Papaconstantinou, Greek Finance minister, November, 2010.

“Spain is neither Ireland nor Portugal.” Elena Salgado, Spanish Finance minister, November 2010.

“Ireland is not in ‘Greek Territory.’”Irish Finance Minister Brian Lenihan. November 2010.

“Neither Spain nor Portugal is Ireland.” Angel Gurria, Secretary-general OECD, November, 2010.

“Italy is not Spain” – Ed Parker, Fitch MD, 12 June 2012

“Spain is not Uganda” Spanish PM Rajoy. June, 2012

“Uganda does not want to be Spain” (Ugandan foreign minister) June 13th 2012

source here. hat tip @justinwolfers

Got Crap To Do?

Posted on by David Wright

Another common hack I use is to hire people on oDesk and other freelancing sites for various tasks. There is no programatic way to shift my Amazon Wishlist to my local library. I could spend hours figuring it out, do it manually or just pay someone $1 in the Philippines to do it for me.

That’s from Steve Coast’s setup. The Setup is one of my favorite blogs.

Helluva interesting idea. Never occurred to me to get cheapo programmers to automate personal gruntwork (here’s his story about it). I have a fairly large backlog of ideas here. I shall investigate.

What You Wish For

Posted on by David Wright

My study reveals that, in one way or another, each of the creators became embedded in some kind of a bargain, deal, or Faustian arrangement, executed as a means of ensuring the preservation of his or her unusual gifts. In general, the creators were so caught up in the pursuit of their work mission that they sacrificed all, especially the possibility of a rounded personal existence. The nature of this arrangement differs: In some cases (Freud, Eliot, Gandhi), it involves the decision to undertake an ascetic existence; in some cases, it involves a self-imposed isolation from other individuals (Einstein, Graham); in Picasso’s case, as a consequence of a bargain that was rejected, it involves an outrageous exploitation of other individuals; and in the case of Stravinsky, it involves a constant combative relationship with others, even at the cost of fairness. What pervades these unusual arrangements is the conviction that unless this bargain has been compulsively adhered to, the talent may be compromised or even irretrievably lost. And, indeed, at times when the bargain is relaxed, there may well be negative consequences for the individual’s creative output.

that’s from Barker.

Covered In Glory

Posted on by David Wright

About 45 minutes into the discussion, he shared something with me:

“This is my 5th start-up. I hope it works but…. My wife says, “this is it.” We’re done after this one. I’ll have to go work for some big tech company if this doesn’t work out. We’ve chased this dream for a long time. It’s been real tough to be so close.”

They didn’t make it. The company’s gone. I haven’t kept up with him but I assume his wife ensured he followed her advice.

More here with a bit of a ‘the best are mostly lucky and the smart ones know it’ slant.

If Only You Could Bottle a Placebo

Posted on by David Wright

But now we are learning that while the placebo itself is inert, the act of giving a placebo is not: it can produce actual physiological effects through suggestion and expectation.

That’s from SBM. It’s easy for scientifically-minded people to scoff at placebos, which are pure evil to any card-carrying physics-evnying PhD. How do you control and test the effect of the communication/empathy skills of a practitioner? How about status or charisma? Can’t, so no point in talking about it.

That needlessly cedes ground to charlatans and worse, though. The human body is a pretty awesome drugstore. It’s one where the shelves are shrouded and nobody knows how to pay, but we should pay attention to it:

the take-home message for clinicians, for physicians, for all health professionals is that their words, behaviors, attitudes are very important, and move a lot of molecules in the patient’s brain. So, what they say, what they do in routine clinical practice is very, very important, because the brain of the patient changes sometimes… there is a reduction in anxiety; but we know that there is a real change…in the patient’s brain which is due to… the ‘ritual of the therapeutic act.’

Why not train doctors to be better at delivery? The SBM post frames this as a conversation about ethics, but I don’t think you need to go there. As pointed out in this post, there are a lot of different kinds of placebo effects and not all of them require lying to patients.

SBM agrees on that point, at least:

I think attempts to elicit a placebo effect should be only used in conjunction with an effective treatment. Words should be used carefully, and the focus should be on general measures that bolster the doctor/patient relationship and enhance the patient’s trust, like spending more time with the patient and showing a greater interest and sympathy.

Anyway, let’s talk about the liars.

Is it ok to lie to someone if it’s genuinely in their interest? Amazing as it is to say, this is an ethical problem that needs to be resolved to advance science (here is another one!).

I’d argue that it is a good idea, but proving that it’s in their interest is a really messy empirical question.

Here is what a placebo balanced trial looks like:

Dr. Benedetti is using “placebo balanced design” to tease out the influence of verbal suggestions — expectations — on the action of drugs. Subjects are divided into four groups. The first group of subjects receives the active treatment and is told it is the active treatment (the truth).  The second group receives the active treatment and is told it is placebo (a lie). The third group receives placebo and is told it is the active treatment (a lie). The fourth group receives placebo and is told it is placebo (the truth).

Not good enough, in my mind. You’ll need ANOTHER level of testing where you tell one group that you’ll be lying to some people. In the real world, patients would know placebos are fair game and so controlling that feedback loop is important, too.

And even then, some doctors will be better faith healers than others and so just get better outcomes. Bottle that!

Picasso On Conversations

Posted on by David Wright

“When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.” – Picasso

That outstanding quote is via Chris Dixon.

I talk a lot of silliness on this blog but that’s because in the world of execution there are only a small few themes that matter:

  • work hard
  • associate with hard workers
  • work hard
  • don’t get discouraged
  • work hard

A business blog devoted to the equivalent of tips on cheap turpentine would simply repeat those themes in post after post. A lot of founder/bloggers more or less do this and I really enjoy being battered by those messages. I feel like it helps me improve at what I am most proud of: executing in business.

But it would be boring to write. People have an appetite for talking meta nonsense and imagining narrative where there may be none. I indulge it shamelessly.

Haters Will Hate. Good.

Posted on by David Wright

You care deeply about your work. And adversity strikes hard. Imagine the emotions: shame, embarrassment, loneliness.

What do you do?

Remember the most important motivational trick of professional athletes:

1. Everyone thinks you don’t have a chance.
2. Yet you are capable of beating the best.

To overcome insurmountable paper disadvantages requires psychological rocket fuel.

Remember the space race? The Soviets were smarter, better organized; they racked up all of the previous ‘firsts’ in spaceflight. Yet only one flag stands on the moon.

And take the fact that visits have stopped not as a lesson in the silliness of the pursuit. Take it instead as an homage to the essential characteristic of human progress: the everlasting desire to (figuratively, these days) annihilate the opposition.

Take adversity as an opportunity to focus your mind on a critical weakness and eliminate it. Press hard on the nerves of identity politics: it’s ‘us versus them’ and even though they all doubt us we know we’re the best.

Ten Exers

Posted on by David Wright

In respect of programmers:

But what exactly do ten-xers do to be so productive? It is not as though they write more lines of software per day. What little evidence there is suggests that, over any given period, all experienced programmers—good, bad or indifferent—tend to produce much the same amount of code.

The big difference is that the best coders keep more of what they have produced, while the worst constantly have to rework whole sections. The high-achievers also make each line of code achieve more. And they know how to avoid writing unnecessary code—by editing routines they have written in the past to accomplish similar things.

More here. Another way of putting this is something a cousin of mine once said: “I don’t really care about working hard. I want to work smart.”

Work” in this case has very little to do with programming and very much to do with intangible related skills: prioritization, communication, adapting work already done. Universally useful skills, too.