Cogito, Ergo Sumana for 2021 September

# 18 Sep 2021, 01:10AM: It Can Be Hard To Talk About Learning And Teaching: Copied from a comment I made on MetaFilter in a somewhat contentious thread about explicitly learning and teaching tacit knowledge:

Some fundamental assumptions I have about this topic, and about some opportunities and difficulties more generally when talking about learning and teaching:

It can be hard to accurately remember the experience of not having a skill once you have advanced sufficiently in it (this is per the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition) - not just that you once were a novice, but what your mental models were, what perceptual gaps you have since fixed, and other details.

Different people, learning different topics in different environments with different motivations, resources, different configurations of interpersonal support, different levels of time commitment available, at different underlying levels of maturity and self-efficacy/locus of control and and metacognition and skill in related domains and so on, will have different experiences of the process of learning (some will not even notice that we are learning at all!) and different memories/assessments of what worked. In some cases this will reflect genuinely different learning/teaching approaches; in some cases people will use different words to describe the same experience, or will have divergent conscious memories of the same basic experience.

Different people also TEACH in very different contexts; me coaching a friend through how to break down an overwhelming task list via videocall is different from a chess teacher demonstrating things on YouTube, or a Public Service Announcement on the radio about how to notice if someone's having a stroke, or a mentor letting their mentee shadow them at work for a day, or me blogging about how to use a particular PyPI feature, or a volunteer language tutor meeting a 5th grader once a week in a noisy afterschool room. And, again, different teachers will have different memories of what worked, as in the previous point.

Curiosity and the desire for competence and mastery exist in lots of domains - in institutional settings like school and work, but also in hobbies, sex, relationship skills, domestic skills such as cooking and repair, self-improvement, art, etc.

Researchers have learned some things about how learning works, and it is possible to read that research, or practitioner-aimed summaries of it, to learn ideas that can help us learn - and teach each other - better.

Some human cultures valorize learning/practice/study; some cultures (including some of the ones that valorize learning) are scornful of theory and research in pedagogy/androgogy, educational psychology, and related fields.

We have all learned things and we have probably - at least informally - taught other people things, and we can all usefully share experiences as long as we allow for potential confusion along the way.

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# 21 Sep 2021, 11:33AM: Police, The Future, and Biometric Security: I have tremendous respect for Troy Hunt and have learned loads about cybersecurity from him. That's why it surprised me so much to read his recent piece on biometric credentials.

I agree with much of his piece. The password regime has many, many flaws! I agree with Hunt that, right now, for a lot of people, it provides more utility with less downside to use biometric auth to protect their devices than it does to use PINs and passphrases! "And when you do unlock your biometric-enabled device, you can do so in front of people whom you wouldn't want to know your PIN....The risks associated with biometrics can only ever be fairly assessed when viewed alongside the risks of not using biometrics." Agreed.

But it surprised me that Hunt missed two important nuances here since he's usually so sensible; thus this post to add them in.

One has to do with how policing and police-related violence and coercion work, in the United States and elsewhere. "For the vast majority of people, this whole thing about US law enforcement and PIN versus biometrics is a non-event and often ends up with increasingly absurd arguments," Hunt writes. He does say, "if the cops are your threat actor, then don't use biometrics" -- e.g., activists/protesters who are forewarned about a fraught situation -- but he dismisses concerns about police coercion to unlock as more-or-less absurd and unrealistic (and implies that they're US-centric), and ignores or handwaves away those concerns in ways I found unconvincing.

For example, he notes that federal judges have ruled that police are not legally allowed to coerce people into biometrically unlocking a phone. That does not mean that they will not do it! Police routinely do things that they are not legally allowed to do, and -- what with police unions closing ranks against accountability, the qualified immunity doctrine, and so on -- they often get away with it, especially in the US.

He also mentions a scenario in which the user is videorecording a police shooting and "then they demand you hand over your unlocked phone so they can erase the evidence." He calls this scenario unrealistic, and further says that in that case, "They're going to shoot you too and take your phone". This response badly misunderstands the dynamics of police violence in (at least) the United States. Put baldly, cops have an easier time getting away with hurting some people than with hurting others. It is easier for cops in the US to evade responsibility for killing Black, Latino/Latina, and Native American people than to evade responsibility for injuring white people. It is easier for cops to successfully argue in court that they were afraid for their lives, and thus shoot someone 41 times, than to argue that a nearby witness was also a threat to their lives (especially when they're not certain how much surveillance footage will survive and from which angles). Darnella Frazier lived to post her video and Diamond Reynolds lived to post hers.

This is why bystanders, especially those of us whom the cops will hesitate to treat badly, leverage our status and get into the habit of taking a moment to watch and record police interactions when we see them happening nearby.*

Hunt bases his argument on an assumption that a user will rarely be concerned with cops as a threat actor, and that this tiny percentage of people can know ahead of time and configure their phones accordingly. This assumption does not hold.

Second: Even if you completely disagree with me on that point, one other part of Hunt's argument also doesn't make sense to me. Hunt discusses how very difficult it is for nearly any bad actor to obtain and use a fingerprint, and to fool the verifier in biometric authentication. But attacks only get easier. And this is where the "you can't change your fingerprints" problem (which Hunt dismisses early on) gets more dire. Depending on how the manufacturer/platform has configured things, if I sign up for biometric-based auth on a device, I may be irrevocably sharing my fingerprint data into a database that will stick around for long enough for the attacks to get easier -- five or ten or fifteen years from now, when it is easy for neighborhood ne'er-do-wells to reproduce my fingerprint to fool a verifier.

These are two places where the risks of using biometric auth are more complicated than in Hunt's assessment. Knowing the trade-offs helps us make better decisions.

Thanks to Jacob Kaplan-Moss for giving this post a look before I published it.

* Shortcuts make this easier. Also: since, yes, law enforcement might take witnesses' phones away, streaming/backups, crowds of witnesses, and redundancy are also helpful. The Mobile Justice app makes it easier to livestream "to your closest contacts and your local ACLU"; rapid response networks get groups of people to document immigration enforcement actions to monitor for unconstitutional activity.

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# 27 Sep 2021, 11:17AM: NYCH&H COVID testing -- great, so let's increase access:

[Below - slightly edited - is a letter I just wrote my city councilmember.]

I'm a constituent in your district and I'm writing to thank the City for its free COVID-19 testing program, and to ask for some improvements (more hours and more locations, especially for the COVID Express service).

I had a great experience with NYC Health & Hospitals COVID testing recently. Last week, I learned that I'd been exposed to a COVID-positive person at an event I'd recently attended. I needed to get a test to find out whether I'd been infected. As a western Queens resident, I was able to quickly get a same-day appointment at the COVID Express location on Junction Boulevard. I went there, got a PCR test, and was in and out within 5-10 minutes -- and I got a negative result within 3 hours, which was fantastic for my peace of mind. A few days later, at the end of the likely incubation window for this exposure, I went to Elmhurst Hospital's walk-in COVID test clinic, got a PCR test, and was, again, in and out within 10 minutes. I got my negative test within less than a day.

I am deeply grateful for how the city's health systems made it easy for me to deal with this exposure. The fast, free, convenient testing made it easy for me to keep the rest of my community safe, and then -- once I knew I was not infected -- to feel safe eating brunch outdoors with friends and joining an outdoor religious service. This year I've gotten several free COVID tests through New York City Health & Hospitals testing locations, and I've always had good experiences -- short lines, locations walking distance from my home, friendly workers, and fast results via MyChart and prompt email notifications. Kudos!

But my friends in other neighborhoods have a hard time accessing these testing services. COVID Express appointments are scarce and get grabbed quickly. They're only available on weekdays, not weekends, which is hard for working people. And a friend in [Brooklyn neighborhood] is not within walking distance of any NYC Health & Hospitals testing location, regular or express. She had to take transit to go get tested, which risked transmission to the other people in that vehicle.

Why not get tested at a private pharmacy or urgent care instead? Waiting times for private COVID testing can be slow. I've always gotten my NYC H&H results within about 36 hours. But my friend in [Brooklyn neighborhood] told me that the CityMD near her takes 3-5 days to return PCR test results. And the queues at private COVID test sites can be discouraging, too. Another friend of mine in the Upper West Side had to delay getting tested because of lines at his local urgent care center.

A delayed test, or delayed results, can make the difference between being able to attend an event in person or not, which affects revenue for restaurants, tourism, theater, etc. .... and of course just general quality of life for New Yorkers.

So I'm writing to thank the New York City government for the excellent experience I've had getting tested for COVID through New York City Health & Hospitals, and to ask for more of my fellow New Yorkers to be able to access that experience. In particular, more COVID Express appointments (especially on weekends) and more COVID Express locations around the city would make it easier for working people to get PCR tests, get peace of mind, and keep each other safe.

Thanks and best wishes,
Sumana Harihareswara

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# 27 Sep 2021, 01:04PM: Prep For Shortages And Delays -- Meds, ID Cards, Books, Etc.: The global supply chain is dealing with a lot of shortages and delays, and there's no sign it's going to get better anytime soon. (Some explanations: thread, thread, NYT piece.)

People are figuring out how to deal with this, and I'll offer some ideas for making your household more resilient.

Inventory the medicines you take; see whether you can get an extra month's worth of any prescription meds you take, as a buffer in case of disruption. This may cost extra but would give peace of mind.

I wouldn't be surprised if something slows down the manufacture and delivery of fresh identity, credit, insurance, etc. cards. Check the expiration dates on the cards in your wallet and see if anything needs renewing.

Supplies of things you depend on that are made out of paper or wood may be disrupted. This includes books. So now's a good time to figure out how to get comfortable reading ebooks. If you buy ebooks from DRM-free suppliers like Weightless then you can read ebooks on your computer, phone, or tablet with free applications like Calibre. A lot of Kobo ebooks are DRM-free. And check if your local library lends ebooks (New York does).

If there's anything you regularly buy that comes from overseas or has unusual packaging, start looking for substitutes.

Other (non-food) household supplies to consider: batteries (especially unusual batteries for medical devices), light bulbs, soap, matches, dish sponges. These are things you'd use up anyway over time, and where it's really annoying to do without if your area runs out.

And if there is an appliance, machine or piece of furniture in your life that is beginning to fail, now would be a good time to proactively seek out any spare parts you will need to repair it when it does fail. Spare parts to fix cars and other machines are getting harder and harder to find.

You may find siderea's guides on preparing for the pandemic useful, especially the sections on food and household supplies. Much of what she says is freshly applicable.

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