Amazonia for April 16, 2020
April 16, 2020
A brief edition of our Amazonia today. (Amazonia was our test of a run down of Amazon-related news.) The feature has returned in an abbreviated format today.
First, “Amazon Fires at Least 3 Employees Who Criticized Workplace Conditions” makes it clear that one should not criticize the Bezos bulldozer. DarkCyber noted this statement in the source article:
An Amazon representative told the Post the employees were fired for “repeatedly violating internal policies,” saying, “We support every employee’s right to criticize their employer’s working conditions, but that does not come with blanket immunity against any and all internal policies.”
Sounds ideal.
Second, “An Amazon Warehouse Worker Has Died of Coronavirus.” The story notes:
The company alleges the employee contracted the disease while on vacation and had not been in contact with other DLA8 workers since March 6. Amazon told Gizmodo in an email that the company notified all DLA8 employees on March 31.
It is trivial for Amazon to know where an employee was exposed to a virus. Amazing ability has Amazon.
Finally “Amazon Is Slashing Commission Rates for Its Affiliate Program” makes clear that the online bookstore is rejiggling its payout deals. The article asserts:
The changes are quite significant in some cases: The furniture and home improvement category’s affiliate cut fell from 8 percent to 3 percent, for instance, while grocery items’ commission rate is now down to 1 percent from 5 percent. As you can tell, it could have a huge impact on websites, including media outlets, that rely heavily on Amazon’s affiliate program to make money.
Sure, DarkCyber can tell.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2020
Pricing Exposed: Delightful and Dark Tactics
April 16, 2020
Pricing has been a core competency of blue chip consulting firms. The methods were passed from old timer to young sprout once the senior consulting believed the jejune MBA would not be forced out of the firm for failing to hit a sales quota.
Now some of these pricing secrets have been revealed in “The Definitive Guide to Pricing Plans.” If you have to figure out what to charge, you may want to download this story and tuck it into your “Useful Research” folder.
Here are two of the methods. The remainder appear in the source document.
- The decoy effect. Two options, and the customer is induced automatically to choose one.
- Fewer choices. Put the cattle in the kill lane.
Do these make sense to you? If so, you could apply for a job at McKinsey or implement one of these methods.
Remember: The objective is money no matter what the Economist says as it criticizes capitalists. Delightful.
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2020
Small and Possibly Irrelevant Factoid: Chinese Patents
April 16, 2020
The truth and trust outfit Thomson Reuters published “In a First, China Knocks US from Top Spot in Global Patent Race.” The write up reports:
The World Intellectual Property Organization, which oversees a system for countries to share recognition of patents, said 58,990 applications were filed from China last year, beating out the United States which filed 57,840.
So what? This is allegedly a 200 X increase. Also interesting is the assertion that more than half of the patents in the sample originated in Asia.
Important? Probably not. Patents are not “real” innovation. Patents are words and weird diagrams.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2020
MBA Think Reveals a Stunningly Obvious Insight
April 16, 2020
I am not sure when I began to feel uncomfortable with MBA speak. Perhaps it was after I developed an aversion to lawyer speak? On the other hand, my reaction could have been triggered by the rash I developed when I was exposed to accountant speak. Each “specialty” has its own lingo. But MBA speak is usually fascinating.
I read “Coronavirus Clarity.” The write up explains that the present medical challenge makes it clear that large technology companies have “power.” There is the patois of the MBA; for example:
- Conversation
- Differentiation
- Scale
- Zero margins
There are examples: Apple, Facebook, et al.
What’s the main idea?
The big technology companies like Apple, Facebook, et al are powerful.
Amazing. Who knew these monopolies were capable of collusion and operating as nation states. I feel in a way similar to Jonathan Edwards’ reaction to his revelatory moment in the woods.
Who knew? Plus, those not associated with Apple, Facebook et al should be grateful these firms are just doing so much for everyone. Proof? Check out “Google’s Former CEO Hopes the Coronavirus Makes People More Grateful for Big Tech.” Absolutely.
Stephen E Arnold, April 16, 2020
The Online Cohorts: A Potential Blind Sport
April 15, 2020
In a conversation last week, a teacher told me, “We are not prepared to teach classes online.” I sympathized. What appears trivial to a person who routinely uses a range of technology, a person accustomed to automatic teller machines, a mobile phone, and an Alexa device may be befuddled. Add to the sense of having to learn about procedures, there is the challenge of adopting in person skills to instructing students via a different method; for example, Google Hangouts, Zoom, and other video conferencing services. How is that shift going? There are anecdotal reports that the shift is not going smoothly.
That’s understandable. More data will become available as researchers and hopefully some teachers report the efficacy of the great shift from a high touch classroom to a no touch digital setting.
I noted “Students Often Do Not Question Online Information.” The article provides a summary of research that suggests:
students struggle to critically assess information from the Internet and are often influenced by unreliable sources.
Again, understandable.
The article points out a related issue:
“Having a critical attitude alone is not enough. Instead, Internet users need skills that enable them to distinguish reliable from incorrect and manipulative information. It is therefore particularly important for students to question and critically examine online information so they can build their own knowledge and expertise on reliable information,” stated Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia. [Professor Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia from JGU. The study was carried out as part of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance.]
Online is a catalyst. The original compound is traditional classroom teaching methodologies. The new element is online. The result appears to raise the possibility of a loss of certain thinking skills.
Net net: A long period of adaptation may be ahead. The problem of humans who cannot do math or think in a manner that allows certain statements to be classified as bunk and others as not bunk is likely to have a number of downstream consequences.
In short, certain types of thinking and critical analysis may become quite rare. Informed decisions may not be helpful if the information upon which a choice is based operates from a different type of fact base.
Maybe not so good?
Stephen E Arnold, April 15, 2020
Cookies and Fingerprints: You Will Be Monitored by Mom
April 15, 2020
Everywhere you go on the Internet, cookies are tracking your movements (even with a VPN). The technology is over a decade old and they range from tracking pixels, content tracker, cross-site tracking cookies, social trackers and browser finger-printing. The Next Web explains that browser fingerprinting is becoming more popular with advertisers in the article, “Digital Fingerprints Are The New Cookies-And Advertisers Want Yours.”
Digital Fingerprinting refers to a company generating a profile about your device’s characteristics. These can include everything from operating system down to browser settings. In other words, it is more like an anonymous barcode. Your identity is not attached to the digital fingerprint, but your data is for advertisers to send targeted ads.
Banks use digital fingerprinting as a security measure. Banking Web sites can identify the device you are on, but if they do not they ask security questions. Advertisers now want the technology to make more money. For users, it is more along the lines of capitalist Big Brother.
There are ways to turn off digital fingerprinting. Most of the tracking happens when you are on the Internet, so look through your browser settings and see if it has tracking protection. Even if you turn on tracking protection it does not entirely hide you:
“While “incognito mode” prevents your browser history from being recorded on your computer and prevents your spouse to spy on you, it does not prevent websites that you visit from collecting data about you and it does nothing to block fingerprinting. Similarly, clearing your browsing history on a regular basis, while a healthy thing to do, does not address fingerprinting either.
While ad blockers block ads from loading, not all ad blockers also block trackers, even less fingerprinters. Trackers can come attached to ads, but quite often they are not part of the ad delivery process itself. Social trackers, tracking pixels and fingerprinters for instance don’t need to piggyback on an ad to track your data.”
To avoid cookies, use a private connection, a good decent VPN, and browse in incognito mode. It does not work 100%, but it is better than capitalist Big Brother.
Whitney Grace, April 15, 2020
Petrucci Music Library: Refreshing and Mostly Free
April 15, 2020
One of the most important things video content creators need is music. Music licensing fees are expensive and creators on a budget usually cannot afford them. The solution is public domain music, but that is more difficult to find than you think. The solution is the Wikipedia equivalent of public domain music: IMSLP. This is an organization:
“IMSLP, also known as the International Music Score Library Project or Petrucci Music Library, was started in 2006. The logo on the main page is a capital letter A. It was taken from the beginning of the very first printed book of music, the Harmonice Musices Odhecaton. It was published in Venice in 1501 by Ottaviano Petrucci, the library’s namesake. The IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library is currently owned and run by Project Petrucci LLC, a company created with the sole purpose of managing this site.”
Using the IMSLP requires a small subscription fee of $3/month or $28.00/year. Despite the fee, the library offers a catered content free of audio files, scores, no download waits, nor ads.
Users can also upload their music to IMSLP under a creative commons license and have their work heard all over the world.
Searching for public domain music is risky for anything newer than the 1920s. Music can easily be labeled as “public domain,” but it is the Internet and you cannot trust anything unless you do your research. If you pay the subscription fee, IMSLP’s content is all public domain and you do not need to worry about copyright infringements.
Whitney Grace, April 13, 2020
Dark Web Ethicists? Maybe One or Two?
April 15, 2020
Believe it or not, ethical criminals do exist. At least to a point. The Independent describes the line Monopoly Market will not cross in it’s article, “Coronavirus: Dark Web Market Bans Drug Dealers Selling Fake Covid-19 Vaccines.” (The experts estimate we are at least 18 months away from developing a real vaccine.) The market also blocked sales of purported cures and related scarce supplies. Reporter Anthony Cuthbertson writes:
“The site is a relatively new market on the dark web, counting just over 100 active vendors who sell and ship illegal drugs to buyers in exchange for cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and monero. The warning to sellers comes amid a recent influx of coronavirus-related drugs and treatments advertised by scammers and criminals across dark web marketplaces. ‘Any vendor caught flogging goods as a “cure” to coronavirus will not only be permanently removed from this market but should be avoided like the Spanish flu,’ a Monopoly Market administrator wrote in a forum post. The site also forbids users from selling items that have been impacted by shortages, such as protective face masks and toilet roll. ‘You do not, under any circumstances use Covid-19 as a marketing tool,’ the post stated. ‘No magical cures, no silly f***ing mask selling, toilet paper selling. None of that b*******. We have class here.’”
Other dark web vendors are still peddling fake and vaccines and cures, to be sure. However, dark web forum discussions show even career cyber criminals feel that the gravity of this pandemic warrants restraint. Furthermore, sites that market illegal drugs are urging their vendors to use glasses, masks, and gloves while preparing their wares. Coming from a crowd that usually does not balk at stoking fears to make a profit, this attitude illustrates how severe the current situation is.
Cynthia Murrell, April 15, 2020
Mr. Bayes and Mr. Occam, Still Popular after All These Years
April 14, 2020
In the early 2000s, I met a self appointed expert who turned red when he talked about the good Reverend Bayes. The spark for his crimson outrage was the idea that one would make assumptions about the future and plug those assumptions into the good Reverend centuries old formula. If you have forgotten it, here it is:
Why the ire? I think the person was annoyed with Autonomy’s use of the theorem in its enterprise search system and neuro-linguistic marketing. On top of that, if not trained in an appropriate manner and then retrained, Autonomy’s integrated data operating layer would drift; that is, return results less precise than before. Most licensees were not able to get their manicured nails into this concept of retraining. As a result, the benighted would rail at the flaws of the UK’s first big software company that seemed to make money.
And Occam? Well, this self appointed expert (akin to a person who gets a PhD online and then wants everyone to call him/her “doctor”) did not know about William and his novacula Occami. This church person lived several centuries before the good Reverend Bayes. William’s big idea was KISS or keep it simple stupid. One of my now deceased instructors loved to call this lex parimoniae, but in this blog KISS is close enough for horse shoes. (A variant of this game may have been played a century before Willie was born in the 1280s.)
So what?
I read “How Should We Model Complex Systems?” The write up in my opinion makes the case for the good Reverend’s method with a dash of Willie’s as guiding principles. No doubt the self-appointed expert will be apoplectic if he reads this blog post. But the highlight of the write up is a comment by Yandon Zhang. The failings of modeling reality can be addressed in part by adding more data.
That is a triple play: Bayes’, Willie, and more data.
The result? Models are good enough despite the fancy math that many firms layer on these three legs of the predicting footstool.
What’s that mean in reality? Something is better than nothing. What is often overlooked is that guessing or operating in the manner of Monte Carlo might generate results closer to reality. Want an example? Maybe Covid models?
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2020
IBM: Free Cobol, Commission Payment Allegations, and Trust
April 14, 2020
I noticed that the IBM Web site providing information about the virus contains the word “trust”. Here’s the screen snap of the assertion:
I found this interesting. IBM is offering “free” Cobol training. The idea is to get the struggling mainframe systems used for state unemployment calculations up to snuff. (Why are these stalwarts not up to snuff?) Doesn’t one “trust” mainframes to just chug away as the machines have often for decades. Obviously Ruby and python coders are not much help. I can imagine this statement, “Why does this IBM keyboard have so many weird keys.” Ah, youth.
The more interesting story is “Guess What’s Heading to trial? IBM and Its Tactic of Yoinking Promised Commissions after Sales Reps Seal the Deal.” I learned:
IBM appears to be able to adjust awards to salespeople at its discretion because it doesn’t have a solid contract with them. Its Incentive Plan Letter, used for such contracts, contain a disclaimer stating that the letters are not commission contracts in a very real and legally binding sense.
What makes this interesting is that:
The IT giant does not always revise commission payments, it is claimed. Two of Beard’s colleagues who worked on similar deals got paid in full. Both were white; Beard is African American. That said, Beard’s complaint contends the practice is common enough that IBM has saved itself a substantial amount of money by capping sales commissions. The lawsuit claims that from 2013 to 2015, IBM secretly underpaid its sales representatives more than $40,000,000 nationwide.
Now about that word “trust”: Mainframe support, sales commissions, and IBM Watson addressing the virus problem. How’s that going, Watson?
Stephen E Arnold, April 13, 2020
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