#paeon just roll with it

[scarlet-the-dragon]

Bunch of Paeon doodles I made beFORE the official art dropped- I’ll have to update my design. But for now witness her!

[nautls11]

ive only had paeon for a couple of days but if anything happens to them i will kill everyone in this room and then myself

they have been rattling around in my mind nonstop so i had to draw them

[honkceasar]

Forgot to put my favorite freakazoid here

[ariconditioner]

jaguar joe being a guy who says “milady” unironically and also a guy who asks everyone for a “casual pronoun check” is the same energy as your conservative grandpa saying he kissed a guy in the eighties

[shady-ratt]

I FUCKING LOVE PAEON SO MUCH I LOVE THEM

[wri0thesley]

How are you and Lisa planning on celebrating her birthday? 👀

On the face of things, Lisa's birthday is not so different from any other day. After all; you are always eager to please the beautiful mage and librarian, always willing to get on your knees after a luxurious afternoon tea and get to know her thighs and what else lies between them with the shape of your tongue.

But . . .

Lisa may have a reputation for being rather lazy; of leaving things to other people when she can. But those people who whisper of her desire to lounge about and bask do not see the things she does behind closed doors, her beautiful violet eyes narrowed and her pretty mouth set in a hard line. They may see how easily she plucks potion ingredients from shelves, but they do not hear the feverish way she whispers to herself as she brews them - they do not see the sheen of sweat on her brow, as she works tirelessly for other people.

They may not see these things - but you certainly do.

And so, the morning of her birthday, you let the sunlight filter into her chambers through carefully held back floaty curtains; let the breeze play across her sleeping face, as you slip slowly into the crisp sheets that the two of you are entangled in.

She sighs prettily as you settle yourself between her thighs; as your fingers find the hem of the silken purple nightgown she sleeps in, trimmed at the hem with lace the colour of her eyes. The soft fabric clings to the curve of her hips and the fullness of her thighs, the slight roundness of her stomach, and you take a moment just to look at her.

If you could, you would worship her; you would gladly forsake any Archon for Lisa's touch instead. You would never leave her side, a faithful puppy to the last. You would carve statues of her and paint portraits and write paeons to her beauty, as she deserves.

Your hands carefully, slowly, slide the fabric up to her waist. Your mouth feels dry at the sight of her, as she sighs again and stretches - as she parts her thighs for you. She does not wear anything other than the little nightgown, and you are glad of it as you lean down, as you breathe in the scent of her, familiar and honey-sweet and tempting enough that you feel an answering thrill between your own thighs.

"Darling?" Her voice comes out slow and sleep-laced, but you can sense the undercurrent of amusement that winds lazily through every word. Caught, you look guiltily up to see Lisa peering at you from her mound of pillows, her full mouth curved at the edges, her eyes still soft with the remnants of her dreams. "Not that I'm complaining, but don't we have things to do today?"

"Not today," you tell her, with a sigh, letting your fingers skate over the curve of her hips. You're pleased to see she reacts with a shiver, that her nipples pebble beneath the silken nightgown. "Do you know what day it is?"

She lets out a low laugh that feels like a finger, slowly tracing its way down your spine.

"Mm . . ." She says, but she settles into the sheets even so, and spreads her thighs further for you. "Monday?"

"Close," you tell her - you push her nightgown over her breasts, far too distracted by the tempting shape of them and how lovely you know them to be to not let yourself see them. You lower your mouth to one, and let your tongue flicker across her nipple - and for the movement, you win a pleased purr of pleasure. "It's your birthday."

"My, cutie," she says. "It's not polite to ask a lady too much of her age."

You suck the nipple into your mouth, letting your tongue encircle it, suckling on it until you feel it begin to tighten and harden beneath your ministrations. Lisa sighs, raising one hand to touch your cheek, her palms warm without her trademark gloves.

"It's a good job, then," you say to her, as you shift your attention to the other nipple, "that I have no intention of asking you anything other than 'does that feel good?'."

You win a laugh out of her, low and rolling like a meadow in spring.

"I suppose I can't convince you to let me out of bed so I may return the favour?" She asks, but the look on her face suggests that she is perfectly content with the way things are going. You let a finger trail up the softness of her inner thigh - brush against the folds of her sex, slick and hot and ready. You smile as sweetly at her as you can.

"No," you tell her. "I think the only thing I want you to do is lay back and enjoy it."

Another one of those laughs, and Lisa is beautiful and relaxed, her hair spread out all about her on the pillows, her nipples glistening with the wetness of your mouth, the nakedness of her body something she is utterly unashamed of and utterly resplendent in.

"Well," she says. "Far be it for me to deny a birthday present, darling." She reclines, shifting, and she lets her thighs fall open entirely so you can see the delicate folds of her, a beautiful blooming rose.

You smile at her - a wicked smile, a smile that promises all sorts of things, a smile you learnt from watching her - and you lower your mouth to between her thighs.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Jesse Duquette, The Daily Don   ::  [Scott Horton]

* * * *

How Murdoch steamrolled Tucker

LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV ::  APR 25, 2023

Rupert Murdoch is 92 years old, and everyone just finished making fun of his brief engagement to conservative radio host Lesley Ann Smith, the ex-wife of California railroad heir John B. Huntington.  The engagement lasted just two weeks.  Murdoch has been married four times, the last time to Jerry Hall, model and ex-wife of Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger.  That marriage lasted six years.  Murdoch reportedly told Hall he was divorcing her in an email.

Murdoch’s marital history is particularly interesting when you consider his recent divorce from Fox host Tucker Carlson.  That’s the way I think of Carlson’s departure from his seven-year career at Fox.  When Rupert decides it’s over, it’s over.  Here’s an excerpt from his email to his former wife: “Jerry, sadly I’ve decided to call an end to our marriage,” The Guardian reported. “We have certainly had some good times, but I have much to do.”

You get that?  It was good while it lasted, six years with those cameras flashing at the world’s wealthiest media-mogul with his supermodel on his arm, but now he was finished.  Moving on.  Busy man.

You don’t want to get on the bad side of Rupert Murdoch.  You don’t even want to be on his good side, because as his marriages and latest engagement prove, once he decides it’s time to pull the ripcord, you’re in the wind.

It’s been the same with his business empire.  It’s easy to forget that Murdoch was once just an Australian newspaper owner with big eyes to get off that gigantic island-continent and make his way in the wider world.  His first big move, way back in the 60’s, was to expand into Great Britain, buying the News of the World and the Sun.  Next was New York City, where he established a beachhead in 1976 by buying New York Magazine and the Village Voice in a hostile takeover.  I wrote about that battle for the late-lamented New Times magazine, and I have to say that I watched slack jawed as Murdoch steamrolled Clay Felker, the magazine genius who had created New York Magazine and then combined it with the downtown alternative paper I had worked for, the Voice.  Murdoch charmed, threatened, and walked over or past the board of New York Magazine, getting one after another of them on his side until he was able to, in a single sweep of paperwork and investment banking magic, make Felker’s mini-empire his.  The New York Post was next, followed by his purchase of the prestigious London broadsheet, The Times.

He became an American citizen in 1985 and set out on another buying spree, this time buying Twentieth Century Fox.  He used the Fox brand to buy up a small television network, Metromedia, which he transformed into the Fox channel.  In the early 90’s, the Fox channel began carrying original programing.  Then he formed the British broadcasting company, BSkyB.  In 1996, Murdoch started Fox News on cable, and in 2007, his holding company, News Corporation, bought the Wall Street Journal, which he had coveted since the days when he took over New York Magazine.

If you owned anything that published in print, made movies for the big screen, or broadcast shows on network or cable television, you were a target.  Murdoch hit more than he missed.  By last year, he was worth $21.7 billion and was the world’s 31st wealthiest man.  

Fox News became a cash cow for the Murdoch empire, taking in about $12 billion a year in recent years.  It’s money Murdoch earned by feeding a ravenous horde of conservative viewers a steady diet of right-wing red meat around the clock.  Fox News long ago ceased being a real news network and simply went into the business of raw propaganda with its wink-and-a-nod motto, “Fair and Balanced.”

Tucker Carlson became one of the channel’s biggest revenue generators with his nightly spew of conspiracy theories, racist garbage like ���the great replacement theory,” paeons to authoritarianism with his worship of Hungary’s Victor Orban – Carlson even took his show there for an entire week in 2021, and produced a rabidly antisemitic documentary on the country last year called “Hungary vs. Soros: Fight for Civilization.”

All of this was fine and dandy for Rupert Murdoch as long as Tucker kept the bucks coming.  Carlson warmly embraced Trump’s Big Lie, beginning when Trump lost the election in 2020.  The Big Lie was a feature of his show almost nightly for the next two-plus years.  Carlson’s show featured many of the right-wing loons who made the allegations against Dominion Voting Systems that were defamatory – Rudolph Giuliani, Sidney Powell and many others.  Tucker sat there and listened to them spew their lies night after night, nodding and giving his patented look of puzzled curiosity.  But asking questions and looking puzzled wasn’t a defense when Dominion sued for defamation.  That lawsuit ended up costing Murdoch a whole lot of money, $787.5 million to be exact, when Fox News settled the suit without a court fight last week.

There has been a ton of speculation about why Carlson was fired yesterday morning, much of it settling on emails written by Carlson that were revealed by the Dominion suit.  Many of his emails were embarrassing to the network, and thus to Murdoch, as Carlson wrote repeatedly that he didn’t believe a word of the garbage he was putting out on his show about the Big Lie that Trump won the election.

The L.A. Times reported yesterday that sources inside Fox say that Murdoch himself was upset by some of Carlson’s emails that were not released by the Dominion lawsuit because they didn’t bear on its defamation claim.  These emails instead gave an insight into what Carlson thought about Fox management, according to the L.A. Times.

“Fox management” is one man:  Rupert Murdoch.  Carlson is said to have written some nasty stuff about lesser Fox figures such as CEO Suzanne Scott.  Murdoch doesn’t care about Suzanne Scott.  He doesn’t care if Tucker Carlson thinks Scott is incompetent or unlikable.  What Rupert Murdoch cares about is being considered a Big Man Media Mogul and making money.

The Dominion lawsuit, much of it caused by the statements made on Carlson’s nightly show, brought Murdoch low in the eyes of his Big Man Media Mogul contemporaries, the guys – and they’re almost all guys – who show up every year at Herbert Allen’s Sun Valley Conference of media Big Men.  It’s a kind of summer camp in the mountains of Idaho for media moguls, among whom Murdoch was arguably the biggest.  Herbert Allen is the CEO of the investment bank, Allen & Company.  Murdoch goes way back with Herbert Allen and his investment bank.  He and his company handled Murdoch’s takeover of New York Magazine way back in 1976.  Murdoch doesn’t like it when you do something that lowers him in the eyes of “Herbie” Allen, as he is called, or any of the other media Big Men.

And he especially doesn’t like it when he can put a name on a loss of $787.5 million.  That name is Tucker Carlson, who thought that he was a Big Man because of the adoring hordes who watched his show every night and the millions he was paid for attracting them.  But he wasn’t a Big Man.  He was a worker bee in the sprawling Murdoch media empire, and now he’s a worker bee who got squashed by the Murdoch steamroller, as so many have been squashed before him.

Murdoch still owns the Fox empire.  Tucker Carlson owns his trust fund check as an heir to Swanson Frozen Foods, however much he managed to put away when he was riding high in the 8 o’clock slot on Fox News, and whatever he can squeeze out of Fox in his so-called exit package.  And he owns the stack of bills that are piling up from lawyers representing him in the sexual harassment lawsuit filed by former Fox producer Abby Grossman, because there is no doubt that in firing him, Rupert Murdoch severed Fox from Carlson in the Grossman lawsuit and is no longer paying his legal bills.

I often see businessmen like Murdoch referred to in the press as killers.  But Murdoch isn’t a killer.  He’s a taker.  He sees something he thinks he wants, like a magazine or a newspaper or a studio or a network, and he takes it and then he takes all the money it brings in.

Murdoch paid the legal fees for his four ex-wives, but he wasn’t married to Tucker Carlson.  Murdoch was once his employer, and he was happy to take the money Tucker earned for him, but he’s a busy man, and he moved on.

[Lucian Truscott Newsletter]

[aphrodite-would-be-proud]

Anon said: tried to read through all your request rules, but I didnt specifically see which Characters you write for. If you do, could you write for Porco helping his S/o sleep? I have super bad insomnia most days, and I just really want something fluffy with Porco...just cuddles or stories or something. If you dont write for Porco though could you switch it with a AoT character you do write for, I'm not really picky. Thank you so much in advance! 🥺💗

Porco helping you sleep

{Porco x reader | tw:none | sleep help, fluff | canon }

{ "The Night School" C.1660-C.1665 By Gerrit Dou 1613-1675 }

Unmoving shadows cast into the empty white walls, slightly flickering with the flame on the white candle sitting on the nightstand. Half lidded eyes observe their small movements for they're the only interesting thing in this empty hotel room you've been assigned. 

Your beige uniform tucked into the small closest with a single hanger inside, the armband hanging on the closest door for easy reach. The squeak of the spring mattress chirping up whenever you moved to flip your too stiff pillow. 

Judging by the amount of melted wax collecting on the bottom of the candle, you've been awake for far too long. 

This isn't the first time this has happened, you're used to getting acquainted with the room's walls and shadowy furniture.

Sleep has abandoned you long ago, its friend insomnia visiting you daily instead. Only leaving every week or so to remind you of what you could never have, taunting almost.

You've tried to force yourself to sleep really, did every known trick in the book, you even tried mediation like Zeke has been preaching to you about, but to no avail. so you've started making peace with the thing, you know at least using the night time to get things done since you're not getting rest either way.

Books were your first friend, for staring at the walls could only be entertaining for so long, but now with your stash of books miles away back home, you're left with nothing else to do.

The nightstand drawer only contained an emergency gun with several bullets inside, and the pocket knife under your pillow wasn't interesting enough.

Getting up from the bed, you picked up the candle before slowly inching the creaky door open. Maybe a glass of water could help, who cares that this is your third time going for water in the last hour? Well hydration is important after all, or so you tried to bargain for an excuse to stretch your legs.

Attempting your best to glide through the old wooden boards without as much as a squeak, you headed towards the kitchen, passing through several other bedrooms in the process, probably all deep in dream land already.

Everything was too quiet, the sound of water filling the glass was the only thing interrupting the silence, its cool feeling going down your dry throat helped you a bit.

Drinking down what you can, you decided to take the rest with you back, a good excuse for a trip to the bathroom later. Although as you turned, a figure was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed and staring at you.

"Isn't it too early for breakfast?" Porco said, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned, "you should get some rest while you can, we're getting thrown in the front trenches tomorrow." 

Just the mention of it made your stomach roll at the thought of staying in a muddy hole for days, the smell of gunpowder and yelling of soldiers, not to mention the crowded train rides back home.

"I know, it's just…" you stared at the water moving inside your glass while tilting it, "one of those days, you know?" 

eyes narrowing with his eyebrows pulling down in concentration, even Porco's sleep clouded mind could recognise the heavy bags under your eyes. The ride here used all of your energy and now you're too tired to even sleep.

Feeling an unpleasant weight on his chest, he wasn't sure what to say as he approached you, awkwardly leaning against the sink, a heavy sigh left him.

"You know, you should bother me more often, I don't mind it." His gentle tone was followed by a melancholic smile, "let's just...go to bed."

With that his hand wrapped around your wrist, loosely at first like he was reluctant about it, before it got more secure once you didn't pull away.

…

The old door gave out a creek as it closed behind you, the room dimmer than you left it with the candle you're carrying almost burning out. 

Looking at the small bed with a single pillow, you wondered how the two grown people would fit in it and judging by the frustrated look Porco was eyeing it with, he must be thinking the same.

Looking at him, your mind wondered back to all the battles you've fought together. For some reason the superiors always seemed more strick and harsh with him, especially after the paradise mission was launched.

Belitting and nagging, carelessly throwing him in risky situations.

Your grip tightened around the water glass, feeling growing thickness in your throat. "Hey...it's okay you can go to your room, you need sleep." You said moving past him to sit on the bed, "I'll be fine."

"Should've thought of that before waking me up, now scoot over." He said, rising an eyebrow and stepping closer.

"I didn't wake you up, you're just a light sleeper." Laying down, you stretched your limbs filling the bed, "there's no room, it won't fit."

Silence filled the room for a while, you could feel his eyes roaming over you, "Oh really? Well…"

One second, you were laying on the mattress while staring at his stubborn expression in confusion, the next a pair of arms was lifting you up as he stole your place before dropping you on him. His arm circled your waist not trusting that you won't pull away

"I made it fit." he looked at you with smugness in his eyes

His warm skin felt comforting against yours, contrasting with the cold room air, you could hear his slowing heartbeat with being so close to his chest, your legs slowly tangling to fit under the blanket covering you.

Apparently that's as far as his genius plan went, because after that an awkward silence filled the room.

"So...you made it fit huh?" You couldn't help but say, a grin slowly spreading on your face. 

Porco blinked in response, tilting his head, before his eyes stilled as his ears flushed. "Fucking god, you're such a-" his attempt to scold you was interrupted by a chuckle escaping mid-sentence.

Having a contagious laugh, soon enough you too joined him.

After it died down, the atmosphere was replaced by a much more relaxed one as his hold on you softened, more intimate than the previous one. 

"When I was a kid, i used to have trouble sleeping- well more like i was too stubborn to fall asleep." Porco said, trailing his finger up your back soothingly, "and since Marcel was stuck sharing a room with me, he'd tell me stories to get me to fall asleep."

"What kind of stories?" 

"...if you tell this to anyone I'm reporting you to the higher ups you for treason, they were flower stories." Clearing his throat, you could feel his heartbeat rising under you, 

Closely watching your reaction, Porco continued after some seconds. "now I'm not calling you a kid nor do i think it's as simple, i just think...we should give it a chance." 

With the heaviness of the blanket above you and warmth of his body underneath you, it was hard to refuse his request, especially with the way he looked at you so earnestly. 

You agreed, and felt his other hand reach to pull up the blanket more, tucking you protectively between his body and the soft fabric. 

"This first one is called...well i don't remember what names Marcel gave them, but it's about poppies."

Crimson red bringers of eternal sleep, their crumbled petals and dark centers often found in the ancient tombs of soldiers.

As the mother of nature, Demeter, mourned and grieved from the betrayal of Zeus, it wasn't only the mortal realm in which death loomed at every corner, for her own mind was a tormenting prison of never ending suffering.

And so a droplet of her blood sprang and flourished to create a six petaled flower, easing her heartache if only for a moment as the poppy put her to sleep, numbing the pain.

Following in her trail was a red carpet of poppies, soon enough death and sleep themselves wore the flower, red crowns resting on top of Thanatos's held up head and one almost slipping from Hypnosi's leaning one as he dozed off. for eternal sleep was only another name for visiting the underworld. 

A symbol of peace in resting and condolence for the loss of a loved one, became the poppy's role. 

"This is why you'd often see them in people's front pockets whenever we return home." Porco said, the light slowly vanishing from the room as the candle burned itself out, the flame snuffed.

You've never questioned why a delivery of poppies would always be on the requirements in each returning celebration, it's just always been there. 

Slow and easy breathes flew through you, lazily stretching your arms up till it met something soft. Porco seemed to tense as your fingers loosely combed through his hair, leaning into the touch after a while.

"Don't stop." He murmured, sleep clear in his voice as another yawn left him.

"Do you have any other stories?" Drowsiness sweeping through your mind, you buried your hed deeper against his neck, eyelids fluttering shut.

"Yeah just…" his hand stilled from behind you as he looked into space attempting to recall a memory, soon enough the soft stroking returned. "This one is about peony."

Named after none other than Paeon himself, these flowers lived up to their reputation of healing and honour, for they have their own story to tell.

How the peony came to be declared king of flowers.

During the Tang dynasty, empress Wu Zetian strolled through her garden. Frowning at the empty field of green covered in thick white blankets of snow, the harsh season not showing mercy for the plants.

With a new goal in mind to flip this dreadful looking graveyard of a garden, she set to defy nature for she is the ruler of the land and her word is law.

Per her majesty's order, all flowers shall bloom in the midst of winter's visit.

As the word travelled far, all the fairies in the land couldn't believe their ears, how could such delicate fragile petals grow amidst the storm and snow. For flowers only bloom in spring, how could we go against mother nature?

While merciless mother nature was cruel, she couldn't compare for the empress's strong rule. For the fairies feared for their wings as their knees shook in her presence.

When the sun shined again, it welcomed colourful fields of different flowers in full bloom. The empress was pleased with their sweet smell and proud colours, each one rivaling the other.

And yet, she stood still near one flower bed, eyes wide. The peony deified her words and stubbornly refused to open, only sticks and brittle leaves left in their place.

In a fit of rage, the empress banished the flower to a far away city, striping away their status.

Living up to their stubborn nature, the peony bloomed that spring the most beautiful flowers humans have ever seen, turning the city of Luoyang into a heavenly soft land as their petals danced through the wind.

But their beauty couldn't last long, for a hungry fire swallowed them all, under the order of the empress who turned their green to coal.

And yet to everyone's surprise, when the earth circled the sun again, the peonies were back in bloom. Springing from the ashes were their mesmerising big petals and soft colours. 

In their respect, the fairies crowned them for their bravery as the ruler of the flowers, for wasn't it for their sacrifice the flowers wouldn't have been freed.

"They stayed on the right way, even if it meant going against the world." Porco's slurred words were half muffled against the pillow, head buried in it, his eyelids seemed to get too heavy for him to force them open again.

Turning his head to the side, you felt his lips press a light kiss against your forehead before whispering a goodnight, his hold still comfortably secure around you as if you might slip away. 

Soon enough, you too drifted into sleep as only his soft snoring filled the room. The moon watching over both of you through the windows as her light barely reached inside. 

And at this instant, you didn't think there was anywhere else in the world you'd rather be. Thoughts of what the future holds were pushed to the back of your mind next to the past, for the present is now and what a waste it would be not to bask in these rare moments of peace in this horrible world

[doorrepcal33169]

Different continents, different data science

Regardless of country or culture, any solid data science plan needs to address veracity, storage, analysis, and use.

Over the last four years, I’ve had conversations about data science, machine learning, ethics, and the law on several continents. This has included startups, big companies, governments, academics, and nonprofits. And over that time, some patterns are starting to emerge.

Figure 1. This was last year, and I didn’t have location services turned on all the time. Screenshot by Alistair Croll.

I’m going to be making some sweeping generalizations in this post. Everyone is different; every circumstance is somehow unique. But in digging into these patterns with colleagues, friends, and audiences both at home and abroad, they reflect many of the concerns of those cultures.

Briefly: in China, they worry about the veracity of the data. In Europe, they worry about the storage and analysis. And in North America, they worry about unintended consequences of acting on it.

Let me dig into those a bit more, and explain how I think external factors influence each.

Data veracity

If you don’t trust your data, everything you build atop it is a house of cards. When I’ve spoken about Lean Analytics or data science and critical thinking in China, many of the questions are about knowing whether the data is real or genuine.

China is a country in transition. A recent talk by Xi Jinping outlined a plan in which the country creates things first, rather than copying. They want to produce the best students, rather than send them abroad. They’re transitioning from a culture of mimicry and cheap copies to one of leadership and innovation. Just look at their policies on electric cars, or their planned cities, or the dominance of Wechat as a ubiquitous payment system.

When I was in Paris a few years ago, I visited Les Galleries Lafayette, an over-the-top mall whose gold decor and outlandish ornamentation is a paeon to all things commercial. Outside one of the high-end retail outlets was a long queue of Chinese tourists, being let in to buy a purse a few at a time.

As each person completed their purchase, they’d pause at the exit and take a picture of themselves with their new-found luxury item, in front of the store logo. I asked the busdriver what was going on. “They want proof it’s the real,” he replied.

Proof it’s the real.

In a country with a history of copying, where data is conflated with propaganda and competition is relatively unregulated, it’s no wonder veracity is in question.

There are many things a data analyst can do to test whether data is real. One of the most interesting is Benford’s Law, which states that natural data of many kinds follows a power curve. In a random sample of that data, there will be more numbers beginning with a one than a two, more with a two than a three, and so on. It seems like a magic trick, but it’s been used to expose fraud in many fascinating cases.

There are also promising technologies that distribute trust, tamper-evident sensors, and so on.

But in an era of fake news and truthiness—which is only going to get worse as we start to create fiction indistinguishable from the truth—knowing you’re starting with what’s real is the first step in modern critical thinking.

Storage and Analysis

At a cloud computing event in D.C. several years ago, I sat at dinner with a French diplomat. Part of the EU parliament, he was in charge of data privacy. “Do you know why the French hate traffic cameras?” he asked me. “Because we can overlook a smudge of lipstick or a whiff of cologne on our partners’ shirts. But we can’t ignore a photograph of them in a car with a lover.”

Indeed, the French amended the laws regarding traffic camera evidence, only sending a photo when a dispute occurs. As he pointed out, “French society functions in the gray areas of legality. Data is too black and white.”

Another European speaker at a separate event talked about data privacy laws, and how information must be protected from the government itself, even when the government stores it. A member of the audience challenged him on this, to which he replied, “you’re from America. You haven’t had tanks roll in, take all the records on citizens, find the Jews, and round them up.” Close borders and the echoes of war inform data storage policy in Europe.

The arrival of GDPR in Europe—with wide-ranging effects beyond, given the global nature of most large companies—is in part an attempt by Europe to exert some control over the technical nation-states. GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft) are all U.S. companies; the only close competitors are Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—all Chinese. If populations made nations, these would be some of the biggest countries on earth, and Europe doesn’t even have an embassy. GDPR forces these firms to answer the door when Europe comes knocking.

But at the same time, GDPR is a reflection of European concerns, informed by history and culture, of how data should be used, and the fact that we should be its stewards, not the other way around. Nobody should know more about us than we do.

Unintended consequences

The Sloan Foundation’s Daniel Goroff worked on energy nudge policy for the federal government, trying to convince people to consume less electricity, particularly during the warmer months when air conditioning use skyrockets.

Social scientists know that you can use peer pressure to encourage behaviours. For example, if you ask someone to re-use the towel in their hotel room, there’s a certain likelihood they will. But if you tell them that other guests re-use their towels, they’re about 25% more likely to do so.

Applying this kind of policy to energy conservation makes sense, so utilities send letters to their customers showing them how they’re doing on energy conservation compared to their neighbours, congratulating the frugal and showing the wasteful they can do better.

The problem is, this doesn’t always work. It turns out that if you tell a democrat/liberal they’re consuming more than others, they’ll reduce their consumption as you’d hoped. But if you tell a republican/conservative they’re consuming less, they will increase their consumption so they get their fair share.

Political insight aside, this is a critical lesson: knowing what the data tells you isn’t the same as using it to produce the intended outcome. Markets and humans are dynamic, responding to change. When Orbitz tasked an algorithm with maximizing revenues, it offered more expensive hotel rooms to Macbook users. When Amazon rolled out Prime in Boston based on purchase history, its data model excluded areas where minorities lived.

Unintended consequences are hard to predict. The U.S. is a litigious society, where many laws are created on precedent and shaped by cases that make their way through the courts. This leads to seemingly ridiculous warnings on packaging (so people don’t eat laundry pods, for example.)

Figure 2. Easy to misinterpret. Photo by Alistair Croll.

Liability matters. Companies I’ve spoken to in North America trust their data—perhaps too much. They worry less about using clouds to process private data, or about whether a particular merge is ethical.

But they worry a lot about the consequences of acting on it.

Three parts, one whole

As I said in the outset, this is a very subjective view of the patterns I’ve seen across countries. The plural of anecdote is not data; caveat emptor. But I’ve fielded literally hundreds of questions from audiences both overseas and online; this led me to ask people in each country whether my feelings could be explained by cultural, technical, political, or economic factors.

The reality is, any solid data science plan needs to worry about veracity, storage, analysis, and use. There are plenty of ways cognitive bias, technical error, or the wrong model can undermine the way data is put to use. Critical thinking at every stage of the process is the best answer, regardless of country or culture.

Continue reading Different continents, different data science.

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Different continents, different data science

Different continents, different data science

Regardless of country or culture, any solid data science plan needs to address veracity, storage, analysis, and use.

Over the last four years, I’ve had conversations about data science, machine learning, ethics, and the law on several continents. This has included startups, big companies, governments, academics, and nonprofits. And over that time, some patterns are starting to emerge.

Figure 1. This was last year, and I didn’t have location services turned on all the time. Screenshot by Alistair Croll.

I’m going to be making some sweeping generalizations in this post. Everyone is different; every circumstance is somehow unique. But in digging into these patterns with colleagues, friends, and audiences both at home and abroad, they reflect many of the concerns of those cultures.

Briefly: in China, they worry about the veracity of the data. In Europe, they worry about the storage and analysis. And in North America, they worry about unintended consequences of acting on it.

Let me dig into those a bit more, and explain how I think external factors influence each.

Data veracity

If you don’t trust your data, everything you build atop it is a house of cards. When I’ve spoken about Lean Analytics or data science and critical thinking in China, many of the questions are about knowing whether the data is real or genuine.

China is a country in transition. A recent talk by Xi Jinping outlined a plan in which the country creates things first, rather than copying. They want to produce the best students, rather than send them abroad. They’re transitioning from a culture of mimicry and cheap copies to one of leadership and innovation. Just look at their policies on electric cars, or their planned cities, or the dominance of Wechat as a ubiquitous payment system.

When I was in Paris a few years ago, I visited Les Galleries Lafayette, an over-the-top mall whose gold decor and outlandish ornamentation is a paeon to all things commercial. Outside one of the high-end retail outlets was a long queue of Chinese tourists, being let in to buy a purse a few at a time.

As each person completed their purchase, they’d pause at the exit and take a picture of themselves with their new-found luxury item, in front of the store logo. I asked the busdriver what was going on. “They want proof it’s the real,” he replied.

Proof it’s the real.

In a country with a history of copying, where data is conflated with propaganda and competition is relatively unregulated, it’s no wonder veracity is in question.

There are many things a data analyst can do to test whether data is real. One of the most interesting is Benford’s Law, which states that natural data of many kinds follows a power curve. In a random sample of that data, there will be more numbers beginning with a one than a two, more with a two than a three, and so on. It seems like a magic trick, but it’s been used to expose fraud in many fascinating cases.

There are also promising technologies that distribute trust, tamper-evident sensors, and so on.

But in an era of fake news and truthiness—which is only going to get worse as we start to create fiction indistinguishable from the truth—knowing you’re starting with what’s real is the first step in modern critical thinking.

Storage and Analysis

At a cloud computing event in D.C. several years ago, I sat at dinner with a French diplomat. Part of the EU parliament, he was in charge of data privacy. “Do you know why the French hate traffic cameras?” he asked me. “Because we can overlook a smudge of lipstick or a whiff of cologne on our partners’ shirts. But we can’t ignore a photograph of them in a car with a lover.”

Indeed, the French amended the laws regarding traffic camera evidence, only sending a photo when a dispute occurs. As he pointed out, “French society functions in the gray areas of legality. Data is too black and white.”

Another European speaker at a separate event talked about data privacy laws, and how information must be protected from the government itself, even when the government stores it. A member of the audience challenged him on this, to which he replied, “you’re from America. You haven’t had tanks roll in, take all the records on citizens, find the Jews, and round them up.” Close borders and the echoes of war inform data storage policy in Europe.

The arrival of GDPR in Europe—with wide-ranging effects beyond, given the global nature of most large companies—is in part an attempt by Europe to exert some control over the technical nation-states. GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft) are all U.S. companies; the only close competitors are Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent—all Chinese. If populations made nations, these would be some of the biggest countries on earth, and Europe doesn’t even have an embassy. GDPR forces these firms to answer the door when Europe comes knocking.

But at the same time, GDPR is a reflection of European concerns, informed by history and culture, of how data should be used, and the fact that we should be its stewards, not the other way around. Nobody should know more about us than we do.

Unintended consequences

The Sloan Foundation’s Daniel Goroff worked on energy nudge policy for the federal government, trying to convince people to consume less electricity, particularly during the warmer months when air conditioning use skyrockets.

Social scientists know that you can use peer pressure to encourage behaviours. For example, if you ask someone to re-use the towel in their hotel room, there’s a certain likelihood they will. But if you tell them that other guests re-use their towels, they’re about 25% more likely to do so.

Applying this kind of policy to energy conservation makes sense, so utilities send letters to their customers showing them how they’re doing on energy conservation compared to their neighbours, congratulating the frugal and showing the wasteful they can do better.

The problem is, this doesn’t always work. It turns out that if you tell a democrat/liberal they’re consuming more than others, they’ll reduce their consumption as you’d hoped. But if you tell a republican/conservative they’re consuming less, they will increase their consumption so they get their fair share.

Political insight aside, this is a critical lesson: knowing what the data tells you isn’t the same as using it to produce the intended outcome. Markets and humans are dynamic, responding to change. When Orbitz tasked an algorithm with maximizing revenues, it offered more expensive hotel rooms to Macbook users. When Amazon rolled out Prime in Boston based on purchase history, its data model excluded areas where minorities lived.

Unintended consequences are hard to predict. The U.S. is a litigious society, where many laws are created on precedent and shaped by cases that make their way through the courts. This leads to seemingly ridiculous warnings on packaging (so people don’t eat laundry pods, for example.)

Figure 2. Easy to misinterpret. Photo by Alistair Croll.

Liability matters. Companies I’ve spoken to in North America trust their data—perhaps too much. They worry less about using clouds to process private data, or about whether a particular merge is ethical.

But they worry a lot about the consequences of acting on it.

Three parts, one whole

As I said in the outset, this is a very subjective view of the patterns I’ve seen across countries. The plural of anecdote is not data; caveat emptor. But I’ve fielded literally hundreds of questions from audiences both overseas and online; this led me to ask people in each country whether my feelings could be explained by cultural, technical, political, or economic factors.

The reality is, any solid data science plan needs to worry about veracity, storage, analysis, and use. There are plenty of ways cognitive bias, technical error, or the wrong model can undermine the way data is put to use. Critical thinking at every stage of the process is the best answer, regardless of country or culture.

Continue reading Different continents, different data science.

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[scarlet-the-dragon]

My personal Paeon Pestifus design!!!! I’m not normal about him!!!

[scarlet-the-dragon]

🐦‍⬛🧪 The Doctor of Judgement 🧪🐦‍⬛

I created a design for the CREATURE. The absolute THING ever. I love he sm. Enjoy the tags I’m gonna make up a bunch of spellings of the name