Totally honest?
The Somali pirate problem is a rate problem complicated by an unwillingness or lack of ability for ships to prevent their being taken. One factor is the unwillingness for many international ports to tolerate the carriage of firearms aboard ships docked there. Another is the skill and equipment requirements to successfully fight off attacks. A third is the cost of committing a company's resources to such an effort when it's unnecessary in other locations. If someone had the resources, they could probably solve the problem in a relatively simple way.
Basically, take 3 or 4 mother ships (and a spare) and station them in the shipping lanes outside the pirates' area of control. The mother ships would essentially provide basic amenities and staging locations for a number of professional defense teams. Ships transiting the pirate's area rendezvous with a mother ship, take aboard a defense team and gear, then transit the pirate zone. On the other end, they simply rendezvous with another mother ship and deboard the team.
Within the piracy zone, the defense teams do a number of things. They utilize high quality observational equipment and communication gear to track, identify, and report other traffic. If another craft appears to be a threat, they report it to their mother ship and local naval assets in the area. This way, if it's possible, the naval assets perform the primary defense. Only if a boarding is imminent do the defense teams engage the pirates with small arms or other means while providing recorded, secure transmissions of what occurs for use later in courts.
In this way, ships can use the service on a contractual basis, minimizing the company resources required for security in the area, as well as remain able to dock in any port. Additionally, as long as the mother ships can be replenished and maintained in international waters, they can continue to provide long-term support. Depending on the type of ship and the resources available, the mother ships could also act as floating support bases for aviation assets.
The combination would probably be cost effective if there was a significant reduction in captures (and ransoms) and the costs of the service was lower than the costs of capture.
For smaller, perhaps non-commercial shipping, perhaps a weapon or transmitter leasing service might also be worthwhile.
Just an idea...
Friday, February 18, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Have been busy...
...with job search and taking (free) online classes on epidemiology.
For the most part, they are "continuing education" courses for public health professionals, but since I keep throwing apps at epidemiology jobs, I should probably know more.
Some of it is a bit dry, but there's a lot more to public health that's really interesting to me. Part of it really plays with the way I think of myself. In spite of getting a bachelor's degree in psychology, I really find myself leaning toward the biological end of the spectrum when I think about human behavior. Add in a healthy interest in the systemic social relationships in humans as well as an interest in health and disease, you've got much of the non-technical end of epidemiology.
For the most part, they are "continuing education" courses for public health professionals, but since I keep throwing apps at epidemiology jobs, I should probably know more.
Some of it is a bit dry, but there's a lot more to public health that's really interesting to me. Part of it really plays with the way I think of myself. In spite of getting a bachelor's degree in psychology, I really find myself leaning toward the biological end of the spectrum when I think about human behavior. Add in a healthy interest in the systemic social relationships in humans as well as an interest in health and disease, you've got much of the non-technical end of epidemiology.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Sidebar into politics... A general and highly idealized way I look at political ideologies...
(Note: This was originally a FaceBook comment to a Libertarian friend's post about registering as a Republican and his friends' criticism of it as well as references to "the wrong party".)
It really depends on 1) How you much you value finances and 2) How far away they are making decisions.
Republicans/Conservatives spend money on defense and on policy that distinctly separates "us" and "them". This doesn't mean that they try to hurt "them", but--when there's a preference, there's a difference. A simpler way to think about it is that Republicans try break connections between the people they identify with and others with a high risk or a high cost to be associated with.
This means--if there actually is a meaningful distinction--like at the international level--it's a useful way of thinking. Their fiscal policies are along the same lines except they tend to think of "us" as being the more contributing people and "them" as being the less-contributing people.
Democrats/Liberals, on the other hand, want to see everyone as equals. Though idealistically noble, this is also their primary problem because this altruism makes them easy to take advantage of. By distributing effort and resources across borders and without much reference to personal differences, they often develop policies that are expensive because people--who are often selfish--are abusing the system.
At home, in small, relatively homogeneous populations, this can be very helpful and encourage success by supporting the people who are key to our society. At higher levels, unless the person has a definite attachment to a distinct group, you create problems. ("Blue Dog Democrats" probably fall into the attached-category.)
Libertarians are sort of a different breed all together. Their dividing line between "us" vs "them" becomes "me" vs. "you" vs. "them". Where Democrats only see one set of ideal living situations and Republicans make a distinction between the in-group and the out-group, for Libertarians, there is an out-group writ large and it's okay for their to be differences between people inside the "in-group".
This is why the Libertarians have a lot of their political problems with numbers. It's like herding cats. Cats are--when they are mature--social creatures that create a hierarchy. However, for the first half of their lives, they only associate with who they want to when they have to and only for as long as the other doesn't create some reason for conflict.
This tendency does not lend itself to stand-alone success in a political system that is based on numbers and cohesiveness. And--while it comes up with equitable--at least as far as effort invested--solutions to problems, selling them to others except where the borders of their political philosophy act, is often difficult. In other words, guns and the Republicans, universal individual liberties and the Democrats, etc.
So, yeah, that's my take. Pick your poison...
It really depends on 1) How you much you value finances and 2) How far away they are making decisions.
Republicans/Conservatives spend money on defense and on policy that distinctly separates "us" and "them". This doesn't mean that they try to hurt "them", but--when there's a preference, there's a difference. A simpler way to think about it is that Republicans try break connections between the people they identify with and others with a high risk or a high cost to be associated with.
This means--if there actually is a meaningful distinction--like at the international level--it's a useful way of thinking. Their fiscal policies are along the same lines except they tend to think of "us" as being the more contributing people and "them" as being the less-contributing people.
Democrats/Liberals, on the other hand, want to see everyone as equals. Though idealistically noble, this is also their primary problem because this altruism makes them easy to take advantage of. By distributing effort and resources across borders and without much reference to personal differences, they often develop policies that are expensive because people--who are often selfish--are abusing the system.
At home, in small, relatively homogeneous populations, this can be very helpful and encourage success by supporting the people who are key to our society. At higher levels, unless the person has a definite attachment to a distinct group, you create problems. ("Blue Dog Democrats" probably fall into the attached-category.)
Libertarians are sort of a different breed all together. Their dividing line between "us" vs "them" becomes "me" vs. "you" vs. "them". Where Democrats only see one set of ideal living situations and Republicans make a distinction between the in-group and the out-group, for Libertarians, there is an out-group writ large and it's okay for their to be differences between people inside the "in-group".
This is why the Libertarians have a lot of their political problems with numbers. It's like herding cats. Cats are--when they are mature--social creatures that create a hierarchy. However, for the first half of their lives, they only associate with who they want to when they have to and only for as long as the other doesn't create some reason for conflict.
This tendency does not lend itself to stand-alone success in a political system that is based on numbers and cohesiveness. And--while it comes up with equitable--at least as far as effort invested--solutions to problems, selling them to others except where the borders of their political philosophy act, is often difficult. In other words, guns and the Republicans, universal individual liberties and the Democrats, etc.
So, yeah, that's my take. Pick your poison...
Monday, December 27, 2010
Odd dream...
Got a lot of money and a car in my dream--something I'm anticipating for some reason--and was downtown looking for a decent restaurant. Only, it wasn't exactly Phoenix, Arizona. It was a desert city on a grid and the area I was in had a lot of empty lots. Anyway, I helped out someone that may have been homeless by giving them my pre-packed lunch.
I had stopped at a convenience store for something. The convenience store was in an older, commercial area and was directly in front of an out-of-use commercial building, beside another which was still in use, and a large yard containing CONEX's, short sections of concrete traffic barriers, crates of this-that-and-the-other-thing, and a large number of pallets.
One thing led to another, and I found out there was a small group of them including a (putative) couple where the woman was pregnant, a guy that looked like a young Buddy Hackett, and some others. In the process of being friendly, they raided my backpack and acquired some small bags of chips I had in there and one or two other things.
I noticed a large, padded piece of cardboard that might be useful to them and pointed it out. It was for packing and was probably about the area of a full-sized bed but only a few inches thick. They pointed out it would be hard to carry around. For some reason, I got the idea of wrapping it in plastic, tying a cord to one end, and storing it in a narrow vertical space, like between two buildings. My thoughts were, it might be useful for a week or two. They turned the idea down without thinking about it too much.
I was about to go when the manager of the business beside the store offered some of them some shelter in exchange for moving some of the short sections of traffic barrier inside. I think he was primarily looking at the pregnant girl.
The whole group sprang into action, manually manhandling the big concrete sections across the ground to the entrance of the working warehouse. I don't know why, but I wanted to help. I looked around for a lever and some form of skid or wheeled anything. I found a low-slung wheeled trolley that would work, but I couldn't convince them to try and use it. (Primarily, it was the guy that looked like Buddy Hackett.)
By this time, however, they had moved enough of them and the manager was happy. He let in the pregnant women, another young woman, and the putative father. Then, he closed the door and left the others outside.
Anyway, what it really got me thinking about were four things:
First, the lack of a durable social group among the homeless. Personally, I saw them as a group when I walked up. I expected them to function as a group. The emotional read I got was that they were socially connected, but the end result was a complete focus on themselves and that was accepted by others.
Second, I really noticed the willingness to violate some of my expected personal boundaries and social norms. This isn't any surprise for anyone who's had a lot of interaction with at least subsets of homeless people, but, hey! It was my dream and my homeless people.
Third, I recognized that--at least as far as I've had real-life interactions with homeless people--and from conversations with others that have or have been homeless, they have an ongoing problem accumulating the "stuff" they need to survive and maintaining control over it.
Fourth, I contrasted them with what I learned this last semester about hunter-gatherer groups. Both share a similar "problem"--lack of a static living situation, a very finite limit on what they can carry, and less control temporally on what resources they have available.
Then, I woke up.
My question is--and I would need to do a literature review to approach this--is how much of the homeless problem is simply the inability to form durable, interdependent social groups?
I mean, if social bonds (and social norms) are strongest between people who are the most familiar, have the ability to build reputations and reciprocal altruistic interactions, and have shared investment in mutual endeavors, could part of the homeless problem simply be a structural problem?
Obviously, the reasons behind the breakdown of group building (or durability) could and probably are psychological--the effects of drug use on decision-making, for example, or simple mental illness--and I would need to identify or at least discriminate which group(s)/demographic(s) have this issue and why, but it's an interesting thesis.
Something to do while I wait for job offers...
I had stopped at a convenience store for something. The convenience store was in an older, commercial area and was directly in front of an out-of-use commercial building, beside another which was still in use, and a large yard containing CONEX's, short sections of concrete traffic barriers, crates of this-that-and-the-other-thing, and a large number of pallets.
One thing led to another, and I found out there was a small group of them including a (putative) couple where the woman was pregnant, a guy that looked like a young Buddy Hackett, and some others. In the process of being friendly, they raided my backpack and acquired some small bags of chips I had in there and one or two other things.
I noticed a large, padded piece of cardboard that might be useful to them and pointed it out. It was for packing and was probably about the area of a full-sized bed but only a few inches thick. They pointed out it would be hard to carry around. For some reason, I got the idea of wrapping it in plastic, tying a cord to one end, and storing it in a narrow vertical space, like between two buildings. My thoughts were, it might be useful for a week or two. They turned the idea down without thinking about it too much.
I was about to go when the manager of the business beside the store offered some of them some shelter in exchange for moving some of the short sections of traffic barrier inside. I think he was primarily looking at the pregnant girl.
The whole group sprang into action, manually manhandling the big concrete sections across the ground to the entrance of the working warehouse. I don't know why, but I wanted to help. I looked around for a lever and some form of skid or wheeled anything. I found a low-slung wheeled trolley that would work, but I couldn't convince them to try and use it. (Primarily, it was the guy that looked like Buddy Hackett.)
By this time, however, they had moved enough of them and the manager was happy. He let in the pregnant women, another young woman, and the putative father. Then, he closed the door and left the others outside.
Anyway, what it really got me thinking about were four things:
First, the lack of a durable social group among the homeless. Personally, I saw them as a group when I walked up. I expected them to function as a group. The emotional read I got was that they were socially connected, but the end result was a complete focus on themselves and that was accepted by others.
Second, I really noticed the willingness to violate some of my expected personal boundaries and social norms. This isn't any surprise for anyone who's had a lot of interaction with at least subsets of homeless people, but, hey! It was my dream and my homeless people.
Third, I recognized that--at least as far as I've had real-life interactions with homeless people--and from conversations with others that have or have been homeless, they have an ongoing problem accumulating the "stuff" they need to survive and maintaining control over it.
Fourth, I contrasted them with what I learned this last semester about hunter-gatherer groups. Both share a similar "problem"--lack of a static living situation, a very finite limit on what they can carry, and less control temporally on what resources they have available.
Then, I woke up.
My question is--and I would need to do a literature review to approach this--is how much of the homeless problem is simply the inability to form durable, interdependent social groups?
I mean, if social bonds (and social norms) are strongest between people who are the most familiar, have the ability to build reputations and reciprocal altruistic interactions, and have shared investment in mutual endeavors, could part of the homeless problem simply be a structural problem?
Obviously, the reasons behind the breakdown of group building (or durability) could and probably are psychological--the effects of drug use on decision-making, for example, or simple mental illness--and I would need to identify or at least discriminate which group(s)/demographic(s) have this issue and why, but it's an interesting thesis.
Something to do while I wait for job offers...
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Governmentally mandated paternity testing... (Part IV)
Analyses
Given the payoff matrices constructed last time, I constructed decision matrices for several sets of parameters. I constructed tables for each type of payoff--prosocial, fiscal, and offspring quality--and reverse ranked each outcome within the table. For example, the offspring with the highest quality had the highest numeric rank in the offspring quality chart. I created a summary chart where the ranks for each payoff were added after being multiplied by a weighting parameter to allow for analysis of the priorities for each player.
The "basic" table looks like this:
Given the payoff matrices constructed last time, I constructed decision matrices for several sets of parameters. I constructed tables for each type of payoff--prosocial, fiscal, and offspring quality--and reverse ranked each outcome within the table. For example, the offspring with the highest quality had the highest numeric rank in the offspring quality chart. I created a summary chart where the ranks for each payoff were added after being multiplied by a weighting parameter to allow for analysis of the priorities for each player.
The "basic" table looks like this:
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Governmentally mandated paternity testing... (Part III)
Starting with:
| Payoff matrix with formulas. | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Female payoffs | Male payoffs | Offspring payoffs | ||||
| Prosocial | Financial | Prosocial | Financial | Offspring | Financial | |
| Marriage (2) | P1 + P2 + bP1P2 | ($1+$2)/2 | P1 + P2 + bP1P2 | ($1+$2)/2 | ||
| Separate (1+1) | P1 | $1 | P2 | $2 | ||
| Marriage (3) | P1 + P2 + bP1P2 | pCON{[($1+$2)/3]} + (1 - pCON){[($1+$2)/2]} | P1 + P2 + bP1P2 | pCON{[($1+$2)/3]} + (1 - pCON){[($1+$2)/2]} | pCON{[(P1+P2)/2] + [(G1+G2)/2] + bP1P2G1G2} | pCON[($1+$2)/3] |
| Alone/Abandoned | P1 | pCON($1/2) + (1 - pCON)($1) | P2 | $2 | pCON{[(P1/2) + [(G1+G2)/2]} | pCON[($1)/2] |
| Alone/Paying | P1 | pCON[$1/(2 - c)] + (1 - pCON)($1) | P2 | pCON[$2/(1 + c)] + (1 - pCON)($2) | pCON{[(P1/2) + [(G1+G2)/2]} | pCON{{$1-[$1/(2 - c)]} + {$2-[$2/(1 + c)]}} |
| Alone/Adopted | P1 | $1 | P2 | $2 | pCON{ 0.75 + [(G1+G2)/2] + 0.56b(G1G2)} | Max: $1 or $2 |
| Grayed cells represent non-reproductive outcomes. | ||||||
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Governmentally mandated paternity testing... (Part II)
Deriving a payoff matrix
Before we can derive a payoff matrix, we can consider the fact not all combinations of choices are compatible. For example, all results from a non-reproductive partner cannot produce a baby and therefore rule out all but two of the parental responsibility options. If we go through the current process model and identify those sets of choices resulting in no baby (as seen marked in gray lines in the diagram below), a pattern can be discerned where non-reproductive relationships can only produce one of two basic outcomes: marriage [MRY] or abandonment in combination with alone [ABA x ALO] as the other outcomes require a baby.
Before we can derive a payoff matrix, we can consider the fact not all combinations of choices are compatible. For example, all results from a non-reproductive partner cannot produce a baby and therefore rule out all but two of the parental responsibility options. If we go through the current process model and identify those sets of choices resulting in no baby (as seen marked in gray lines in the diagram below), a pattern can be discerned where non-reproductive relationships can only produce one of two basic outcomes: marriage [MRY] or abandonment in combination with alone [ABA x ALO] as the other outcomes require a baby.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)