Still about the Kobayashi Maru test...

Still about the Kobayashi Maru test, masterfully expored in Star Trek II. It deepens our image of James T. Kirk - he really does not want to lose. However, even though he ultimately did beat the test, before that, he failed it more times than anyone else, ever. He took it multiple times, researching it, attempting different tactics, and finally found a combination of parameters and approaches that solved the problem.

Even though in popular culture Kirk has the reputation of a maverick, risk taker, who uses intuition to beat any challenge, in Trek canon Kirk was an academically accomplished student who studied harder than anyone else, said to be a nerd who lived in the library or similar. His "original" solution to Kobayashi Maru was due to academic rigor, just like his later tactical successes.

When sitting in the captain's chair on the Enterprise, he was sitting on a stack of manuals, textbooks, and biographies of historical commanders. He didn't impose them on others, and didn't remind others of Starfleet regulations, even though he was the one who knew them (and maybe even ultimately wrote them?).

In Star Trek II, Kirk is a faculty member at Starfleet Academy, teaching command-branch specializing cadets like Saavik. The test is only required for command-branch cadets at the end of their studies. But what the audience doesn't know and it is not explained that there was (by canon) a 12-year gap between the events of the first two movies. Kirk had retired from Starfleet, contemplated marriage with Antonia, but just recently returned to a teaching job at the Academy.

Part of the tension of the first movie was that Kirk hadn't even been on a starship since Enterprise returned from its five-year mission two years earlier. But in II, he had already been retired for years. We see him in action, and he feels old. That's natural for someone who just came back from retirement, but this setting is not apparent from the movie.

It also explains the tone of Kirk's birthday party. He is, indeed, back at Starfleet, but disillusioned. Is this why he came back? Should he have stayed away? After all, he was just about to get married (though we only learn about this in Generations) but chose Starfleet instead.

So in the first movie, Kirk is a jerk and he imposes himself over others for selfish reasons. In the second one, he is not sure what he wants or even whether it was the right choice to come back. At 50 years of age, it is also fitting to see his home, like a captain's cabin containing souvenirs from around the world, but him not knowing what they mean to him any more.

Now, of course, Strange New Worlds has reframed TOS. It is no longer about a lone starship, one of many, venturing into the unknown, commanded by a brilliant semi-celebrity captain, but about the most famous ship, not only wihin Starfleet, but within the whole UFP, for no apparent reason. No big deal for Kirk, then. Even if he had failed, there were no stakes, as Enterprise had already established its iconic status before he started.

Information architecture, UX design, and a delicious meal

Designing a good user experience for an information system (or, generally, a technical system with an user interface) isn't trivial. Just like a culinary professional crafting good meals, a UX designer has to know what they are doing. There are schools for these fields, theories, articles, journals. People have tons of expectations for what they receive from them.

For a long time, experts created computer systems for other experts. Now, most of the world's population use the Internet at least occasionally - and it is associated with the expectation that they are able to (or expected to) do certain things online - like banking, government services - in addition to using social networks like Facebook.

Scenario

Imagine you were a chef creating a very nice meal in the kitchen, not knowing who would get to eat it. You have done your schooling, you know the French names for all the ingredients you use, you know all the relevant culinary trends, and generally know how to craft a healthy, good-looking, nutritious meal. You know your friends and colleagues consider you a true professional and would gladly eat anything you cook.

Say you produce such a meal at a restaurant. On a table there's a plate of food, with a glass of red wine. A fork and a knife and a napkin. It looks good.

A person comes via the open door.

They walk to the table. They don't sit, but they look at the plate for a while. Then they pick two potatoes from the plate and eat them immediately. They also drink all the wine. Before leaving without paying, they also steal the fork and the knife. They walk rapidly to the door, but as it is now closed (not locked), they panic, and proceed to break the window to exit the restaurant (hurting themself in the process).

This wasn't the result you expected; everybody knows how to behave at a restaurant and how to eat food, right? 

Unpacking

Let's say you get the chance to talk to the person and find out what happened.

Turns out that they saw the chair. However, it was red, and they had never seen a red chair before, and assumed that it was either not a chair or somehow defective or otherwise "strange" with bad vibes. As they were not experts in furniture - and they emphasized they were not a nerd - they didn't want to try their luck by sitting on it.

They were initially suspicious because the plate was not white, but gray, and they were not sure what it meant - because it must have meant something. But since it still looked like a plate and it contained food, they decided to proceed to eating.

There was a nice steak on the plate, but they were not aware that meat could be edible, so they ignored it. There were also carrots, but they were of the baby variety, so their size did not match the expectations they had for a carrot, so just to be sure they ignored them, too.

The two potatoes (the third was under the steak so they didn't see it) looked exactly like the potatoes they were used to, and they expected food to be available, so they consumed the potatoes immediately. It wasn't much food, but it was free and easy to eat, so they were quite satisfied.

They claim they drank the wine because they thought it was juice. But that's a lie - they knew it contained alcohol and that was the real reason.

However, next to the plate there was a knife. They knew knifes are weapons, so they took the knife for later use. They didn't recognize the fork, but as it was made of the same material as the knife, they assumed it was a weapon, too, and took it as well.

They didn't know they were in a restaurant, so they didn't pay. They just heard there was food available, and while they had heard of restaurants before, they had never been in one.

Because the door was now closed, they assumed they were trapped. They assumed there was a reason the door wasn't open any more and they felt powerless. As a result, they broke the window as a last resort.

The challenge with the average user (who is definitely not a "nerd")*

Facebook, Gmail, and an online bank are examples of complex systems that people use every day with lots of expectations about what they will get and encounter. The systems must ensure that the use happens in a safe and secure manner in addition to the system being easy to use (which is part of the "safe and secure" thing by design).

However, these systems are not built for experts - the expectation is that anyone can use them without specifically studying how to use them. By "anyone", I mean also the average user who we cannot expect to know what a computer is, what an operating system is, what a window is (and how they work in, say, Windows), what an application is, what a web browser is, what Internet is, what Web is, what "secure" means, what a search engine is, what a web page and a web site are. They also don't necessarily even want to know (because they are not "nerds" - they consider it impossible or even undesirable to know these things).

What a challenge. A UX designer has to design a system using different technical concepts but there can be very few expectations for the average user (who doesn't even consider themself to be "using" anything) to have any knowledge of the concepts that were used to create the system. At the same time, the services must be delivered in a certain manner - equally, safely, securely, efficiently - while providing a satisfactory user experience (to satisfy the user's goals). 

The solution is absolutely not only serving potatoes at a restaurant. The solution is also not mandating a culinary course on all customers. 

In some ways, we have already lost the game. In the restaurant example the customer actually did leave satisfied and happy (minus the incident with the broken window), even if you were perplexed and surprised as the chef. They might have enjoyed the steak (if they eat meat in the first place) and the chair was probably pretty comfortable as well, even though it was red. The knife was a familiar object to them, even if in another context. There's a lot to build on! Sometimes the user doesn't know what they want from a system but are willing to try different things. Also, by knowing better what the expectations are, they can be guided to the expected outcome. After all, the average user is not your friend or colleague but someone who doesn't know you and doesn't care much about the beautiful system you designed.

There's also the useful concept of interaction cost - the sum of efforts for a user to reach their goal in a user interface, including physical actions and cognitive load. You probably have an idea of what the expected result is, but the path to it may be too costly compared to other paths that you didn't think of, for a variety of reasons. It's not just about how to place interface elements visually but also about how to display information within the interface!

Final thoughts: In the context of user experience design, I think people (users) are quite selfish with their goals. Also indifferent, disinterested and easily distracted. We expect them to be interested in things they don't care about and also we don't understand their expectations and ultimate motivations. Even the words "user" and "system" can be misleading - they paint a picture of a well-defined technical system that users navigate through, with a huge contrast to how users... I mean interaction participants, see it.

* I have encountered lots of people who specifically and emphathetically say they are not "nerds", therefore they claim they are unable to understand anything related to information technology.

Sabrina Salerno, the feminist

People who lived in the 1980s in Europe probably remember Sabrina Salerno, who was a prominent pop singer with the breakthrough hit 'Boys' in 1987. The music video for that song was allegedly banned on MTV because of the very famous nipple slip in the video clip that was originally made as a segment for an Italian TV show. She was criticized by feminists as being a sex object, using sex and provocative appearances to further her singing career and not offering much else to the world of music. She was compared with other "sexy" female pop singers of the time, including but not limited to Samantha Fox, who, like Sabrina, had been a well-known topless model.

After two successful studio albums of the Italo disco genre, it seemed that Sabrina had disappeared. She did continue her singing and acting career in Italy, though, and frequently gives interviews. She also appeared on the music video for a folk cover of 'Boys' by the Finnish singer Sansa in 2011.

We didn't hear much about feminism in the 1980s. We didn't care much about what Sabrina or any other pop star actually said in interviews. Everybody knew she had breasts and that her style was not especially... modest. Some had even seen her music videos (I hadn't, as we only had two TV channels at the time). She seemed to have gigs in Finland, my home country, every year.

On the surface level, for many, she seemed like the worst example of a sexy pop star chained by her producers and managers to perform suggestive songs about sex. For me, the Italo disco beats in Sabrina's hits such as 'My Chico' convinced me that there is actually some "adult music" (as in not children's music) that is worth listening to and later this evolved fascination about electronic music in general and techno music specifically.

But who was (or is) Sabrina and what did she actually say?

Thanks to the Internet and YouTube, there's a lot of material to work with. Having studied at an international school, she had no trouble giving comments in English or appearing at music and talk shows around the world. It is actually striking to see this 19-year-old woman casually discussing her music and views, exhibiting total self-confidence, challenging the interviewer, questioning the interviewer's questions.

In this 1988 interview with MTV, she says she admires Madonna due to her strong personality and the control she has over her career. She stresses that she does not try to be sexy - she tries to be Sabrina, it is up to others to decide whether they think she's sexy or not.

In another interview with Super Channel, Sabrina says "I'm not an object, I'm a subject". She asks why athletes such as football players are respected and understood but as a pop singer she has to explain why she trains dancing and singing and has to take care of her body.

In 1989 she had an interview with the Swedish show Bullen, in which she says she has never fallen in love and discusses how she cares too much about her career to settle down and start a family. She also says having been abandoned by her parents and living alone since the age of 16, she has grown independent and worked hard to prove herself.

In other interviews she has discussed the conservative Italian family-centered society and its expectations for young women. She says her "sexy" appearance is body positivity - she says she feels she is beautiful and has the right to show it and is perplexed why anybody questions her right to do it.

On her second studio album, 'Super Sabrina', she collaborated with the producer trio Stock-Aitken-Waterman ald also with the disco legend Giorgio Moroder. She co-wrote the hit 'My Chico' and shared that she aimed to perform more music written by herself. She also wanted to evolve and not continue the same disco/pop career as before, which led to conflicts with her producers and mangers.

I understand that the "sexy" image (expectation) of female pop singers can be problematic. However, Madonna, among others, has used the image while building her career, and is nowadays seen as, in many ways, an exemplary strong and independent woman, even as an "almost sacred feminist icon".

While Madonna and Samantha Fox seemed sophisticated and their videos polished, Sabrina seemed more provocative and uninhibited, openly asking why she should hide what she is or thinks.
She asked for respect for her rights and work as a singer and as a woman and as a teenager questioned the subjugated role of women in the society. She said she wanted to do good and change the society by being herself. And she said all this before even turning 21.

Sabrina's feminism (if you want to call it that, and she did not use the word) isn't always what you would expect from something described as feminism. Maybe she doesn't look like a feminist. But arent't the themes what feminism is about, especially as seen through the progressive lense of the 2010s society? Or, at least, shouldn't her career and comments be at least considered as expressions of feminist ideals, to some extent, just like feminists from so many different backgrounds can have completely valid ideas and approaches?

Did you remember what Sabrina said?

What would a Warplanes film be like?

I saw a poster for the film Planes, part of the popular Cars franchise. I noticed that some of the characters are military jets (Super Hornets). I started to wonder what a film called Warplanes (that would happen in the same universe) would be like. Warplanes would follow a miscellaneous cast of American warplanes at a major air force base. There would be the young and fast F-22 planes that everyone admires and the F-35s who are in their teens, trying to prove themselves. Looking upon them are the older F-15s and F-16s, many of them combat veterans. Their "cousins", Ray-Ban-wearing F/A-18s, who sometimes come to visit for joint dissimilar air combat training, have traveled around the world, bombed exotic places, and starred in famous films. (Nobody remembers the F-14s any more.) Overseeing these "kids" are of course older, bigger planes: the clumsy but gentle transport C-5 and the little bit more agile C-17. Their friends include the radar plane E-3 and the best friend forever KC-135 and its bigger brother KC-10. (Obviously all of these would have cute names in the actual film.) Many older planes would actually be sad and bored. Once lauded as technological marvels, carrying expensive and advanced nuclear weapons, are now mostly used for training purposes or sitting in the desert, some having had their wings chopped off due to the START treaty. The B-52 and B-1 especially would still like to see some action, to prove that there still is a reason for them to exist. There's a generational gap between them and the F-22s and F-35s, even though they are supposed to work together. But one day, a plane they have heard of but never seen, the shadowy but respected E-4 Nightwatch, delivers a message from the trusty and wise VC-25 Air Force One which has sadly been shot down: they have a new mission, and they have to work together to complete it! There's no time for anyone to sit in the desert any more! The F-22s are excited to be moved to forward-operating bases assisted by their friends, KC-135s. Striking from multiple directions and with their Super Hornet buddies and allied Eurofighters, they target the bad guys' air defences to pave the way for the nuclear-armed B-52 bombers, escorted by the enthusiastic F-35s and F-16s. The Falcons and Raptors notice the tears in the corners of the old Stratofortresses' cockpit windows - the old guys are really touched by finally getting into action. They still know their tricks! They launch their nuclear-tipped ALCMs toward enemy targets, knowing they have fulfilled their duty, perhaps even fate. Some of them even drop old-fashioned B61 gravity bombs toward Russian cities and other civilian targets. They are heroes! One B-52, just before being shot down, is even informed of having been awarded a medal for outstanding combat service! In the sequel, the surviving Warplanes head back home, after saving the world from the bad guys who wanted to destroy their freedom and independence. Since all KC-135s were destroyed in air or on the ground, not all make it back - some have to ditch in the sea, some even meeting their allied Warships and brand new P-8 maritime reconnaissance planes. But the ones who make it back see that the enemy counterattack has destroyed almost the whole United States, including their own home air force base. Landing at civilian airports and facing innocent humans demanding answers for why they caused the country to turn into apocalyptic wasteland, they face completely new problems. People want to strip them of their radiation-hardened parts to build shelters, repair hospitals and build radios to coordinate rescue operations. Will our friends survive? Is this the end for the friendly machines designed as deliverers of mass destruction? (There are no further sequels.)

Vulcans in Star Trek: Jewish or secretly gay?

It is commonly thought (and partially revealed by scriptwriters) that Vulcans are based on ugly stereotypes of Jewish culture (intelligent, controlling, scheming, with secret bloody rituals). Leonard Nimoy also developed the Vulcan greeting based on a Jewish blessing he witnessed at a synagogue. Likewise, Klingons were modeled after stereotypes about feudal Japan (with Viking influences), Romulans after Ancient Rome etc. But wouldn't it be more or at least substantially allegorical to think of Vulcans as closeted homosexuals?

In TOS, Vulcans are depicted as competent, rational, a bit weird and funny-looking, reserved, and having lots of secrets. Literally. In classic episodes "Balance of Terror" and "Amok Time", it is revealed that the Vulcans actually maintain a careful facade to conceal their true identity. They are actually emotional, fierce, even violent people who hide behind ancient rituals and purity pledges (Kolinahr) to appear relatively normal to others.

In "Amok Time" and TNG's "Sarek", it is revealed that being a member of the Vulcan society imposes a heavy toll: finding a mate is not through love but an arranged child marriage confirmed by a ritual, failure to find a mate results in mental illness and even death, as does continued suppression of emotions without release. In "Sarek", this is made explicit by Sarek's breakdown after decades of harboring forbidden emotions that he forcefully releases to Picard via mind meld. In "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock", Saavik offers herself to Spock as a mate to save his life.

Obviously, in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier", we meet a Vulcan who does not believe in Surak's restricting ideals. He is openly emotional which finally betrays him. Spock keeps his brother's existence secret even to his closest friends due to embarrassment - Sybok is out of the closet, while Spock is confined to it and desperately committed to staying there, as indoctrinated in his childhood by his powerful father.

We also know that Spock is also half Vulcan. This creates an identity crisis that he tries to fix by committing to a reparatory therapy known as Kolinahr ("Star Trek: The Motion Picture"). But as he is to make the final purity pledge, he realizes that this path is not entirely correct - there is something in the universe that calls upon him and wants to be intimate with him (which happens later in the film by mind meld).

I did a bit of Google research and while there are tons of references and allegories to sexuality in Star Trek, I did not actually easily find mentions of Vulcan life as an allegory of closeted lgbti+ people. One of the reasons for Star Trek's success is that the aliens and future concepts we encounter are relatable because they are based on human concepts. Even when not made explicit, the patterns are familiar, therefore I am surprised that I haven't encountered this connection before. Not saying it is any more correct than the Jewish connection that the scriptwriters have acknowledged, but it is also not surprising if these connections seem fitting.

What do you think?

Metamathematics and the associated shame

I was 35 when I found metamathematics. 

It's something I'd been secretly interested in all my life but I didn't have a word for it. After going to bed, in darkness, I would take out my mobile phone, browse Wikipedia or Encyclopedia of Mathematics and read about hyperbolic geometry, minimal universal Turing machines, cellular automata, Entscheidungsproblem and other things. I thought I was the only one. There was no one in my family I could talk to about it. Only later, at a liberal American university, far away from home, I realized that metamathematics is nothing to be ashamed of, and you can do it just for fun, either alone or with somebody you trust. There are even online groups and fun events you can go with others who share the same interest. 

I also believe that metamathematics is only natural in the wider development of mathematics and should be recognized as foundational instead of hushed away as insignificant fringe research area. Also, you don't have to read everything that has been written about it or to know everybody in the scene, you can get intimate with the Busy Beaver game within the confines of your home. 

It's also important and encouraging that while Gauss was hesitant to come out with his blasphemous ideas with hyperbolic geometry, others like Hilbert, Church, and Turing proudly stepped into spotlight. I'm not into hero worship but these pioneers - with sometimes tragic lives - are revered for a reason.

(This is my first new blog post in four years!)

Bigot steps down

I heard that Mozilla's new CEO (Brendan Eich) was a right-wing anti-gay Republican fundamentalist Christian bigot and because he hates equality and human rights, he must be fired. Yesterday, he was.

I read Mozilla Executive Chairwoman (why not 'chairperson'?) Mitchell Baker's announcement about Eich stepping down. I was puzzled and confused - based on this announcement, it sounds like somebody has been revealed as pedophile or something really horrible. The announcement was full of what I perceived as empty rhetoric about core values, understanding the community and so on. What was going on? Why did the CEO resign? What is the anger she talks about? Had they really unearthed something much more sinister than the claimed donation to a campaign?

Turns out, they hadn't.

Netscape Navigator 2.0 - the first browser that contained Eich's JavaScript interpreter

What happened

Two weeks ago, Mozilla Corporation hired their CTO Brendan Eich as their new CEO. Mozilla Corporation is the corporate arm of Mozilla Organization which also operates Mozilla Foundation, so it is not a typical Silicon Valley company. Eich was one of the founders of Mozilla Organization, inventor of JavaScript and was one of 25 people Mozilla vetted for the job.

In 2008, California ballot referendum commonly called Prop 8 was held. seeking to define marriage as an institution of a man and a woman, blocking same-sex unions in the state. Of the over 17 million voters, 52 % were in favor and the proposition was passed, only to be overturned by a federal court soon thereafter. The full list of over 110,000 individual donors to the opponents and proponents of Prop 8 is public information. Of these, 35,000 people donated in favor of Prop 8, and one of them was Brendan Eich.

Even though the referendum was six years ago and Eich's donation was public information, the real storm started only recently, in addition to the usual Twitter storm, OkCupid asked its users to boycott Mozilla Firefox. Apparently that rage - justified or not - was enough for Mozilla and Eich to arrive to certain conclusions.

Context

This happened in United States, where CEO (or anyone else, it seems) can be fired for any reason, any time. Mozilla and Eich certainly thought it is best for Mozilla if he resigns, and that part is very much business as usual in USA. However, there are many details about this storm that are very problematic.

Apparently Eich's conduct was spotless, according to the Mozilla chairwoman. Eich explicitely vowed to uphold Mozilla's values of inclusiveness and not let his personal opinions affect his job. He has not and did not elaborate on his political, religious or other stances. This was specifically for the fact that we know he was for Prop 8.

He donated one thousand dollars to the campaign. Other donors include hundreds of employees from several universities and big technology companies such as Boeing and Microsoft. The proposition was passed, and it was backed by national organizations and top politicians such as John McCain, who was also a presidential candidate that year. In my opinion, his conduct was not very exceptional in United States, though I am very surprised that if he really was in favor of Prop 8, why he didn't donate more, 50,000 dollars for example.

I didn't like Prop 8 and I like the American approach to same-sex marriage: it is a constitutional issue about equality. European countries are taking a much more complicated road, and it also means there are lots of different opinions and changes are opposed for many procedural reasons as well.

Among the millions of voters, we know how these 110,000 people (probably) voted, and we can use this against them, and kick them out of their jobs because they were on the wrong side in this part of political process, right? Or, perhaps, Eich was in such a special position that his political views six years ago were a good enough justification to end his brief CEO tenure, and this is implied but not explicitely said in the announcement.

Failures

Mozilla should have realized that it is risky to to give a promotion from CTO to CEO to a guy who is in a public list of donations to a controversial campaign (even if it was supported by a majority of Californian voters). They also shouldn't (and didn't) hire other people who might have been pereceived as somehow improper or inadequate, even if they were otherwise perfect for the job, because that's how business is in America. I fear this might be why there have been so few female CEOs in tech companies. Or female presidents. A risky choice.

Eich seems to have given categorical responses. He is the CEO and vows to uphold Mozilla's values (he was one of the founders, after all), and his personal opinions are not relevant. I think they shouldn't be, especially as the only thing we know about them is a single donation. However, this need not matter in a storm. For the rest of the world, he's not CEO but the King of Mozilla whose personal (real or assumed) traits represent success and failure in what he represents. LZ Granderson wrote about this for CNN.

However, the biggest failure of all, in my opinion, was the announcement. If this was indeed such a big issue, this public apology whould have been much more explicit. What is she apologizing for? How was Eich's conduct wrong? They also mention freedom of speech. How is that related? Eich didn't even say anything, just wrote one check to a campaign. She repeats how Mozilla respects everybody's religious, political and other views, but they just fired their CEO over one political donation. Why does she not say what is allowed, what should have happened, what went wrong? Why does she call this a freedom of speech issue? She says "you" are angry. Well, not everybody are. The free software community is global and apparently not everyone agreed with the rage. She says she understands it, but I don't, because I don't think she tells us what it is.

She says Eich had to go because Mozilla is committed to the certain values - that Eich vowed to uphold. If he did, as nobody has said he didn't, why did he have to go?

There are probably answers, and Eich was, in the end, probably the wrong choice, and much (but not all) of the rage was unfair and unwarranted. But why are there questions? I care a lot about equality and good conduct of companies, and to defend those, Mozilla should have made a strong and clear statement about the facts. Now they are only catering to similar-minded folks who got what they wanted, perhaps hoping that big corporation PR maneuvers let them evade tough questions.