I loathe the way that police officials and journalists will use the word suspect as if it means perpetrator, as in

When the register was opened, the suspect partially jumped over the counter and thrust both hands into the cash drawer, police spokesman Joel DeSpain said.

A suspect is one suspected — that is to say surmised — to have done something. To baldly declare that a person did something is to speak with far more than suspicion.

One can have multiple suspects even knowing that an act was committed by just one perpetrator. And one can have no suspects despite knowing that some person or persons must have acted; the use of suspect for perpetrator becomes utterly absurd when virtually nothing is known about the perpetrator. Here

An unknown suspect (or suspects) allegedly entered the garage during the previous night and removed a Cannondale bicycle valued at $500.

the police don't even know how many perpetrators there were. On whom does suspicion fall? Here

officers have no description of the suspect, except that he was wearing a black, red and white bunnyhug

they have a gender and a hooded, tri-color sweatshirt. On whom does suspicion fall?

During the years when I was wrestling with my paper on indecision, there was at least one paper published that attempts to operationalize incomplete preferences, Indifference or indecisiveness? Choice-theoretic foundations of incomplete preferences by Kfir Eliaz and Efe A. Ok in Games and Economic Behavior vol 56 (2006) 61–86. I didn't come across this paper until mine was essentially ready for submission, but I dropped-in a note distinguishing how they sought to operationalize indecision from how I did. What they did was interesting, but I'm distinctly uncomfortable with it.

They propose a scenario in which a Mrs. Watson is selecting one item to be shared by her two children. The children's preferences are thus:

which is to say that A prefers y to z and z to x, while T prefers x to y and y to z. The authors tell us that if y is available then the parent will not select z, as y is preferred to it by both children. Thus, if the choice were only between y and z, then y would be selected. However, should y not be available, and the parent forced to choose between x and z, then there is no clear choice between x and z. Yet if z is not available, there is also no clear choice between x and y. Thus, we have the oddness that y is preferred to z, neither x nor z is preferred to the other, and neither x nor y is preferred to the other. The authors associate this odd confluence with indecision amongst some of the choices. The parent resolves the choice over x and y or over x and z by flipping a coin. (The authors do not recognize coin-flipping as a third option, and what they say elsewhere implies that indifference would also be resolved thus.)

The authors write

It seems quite difficult to argue that there is something clearly wrong in the way Mrs. Watson deals with her two choice problems here.

What the parent has done here is implicitly embraced a sort of democratic process; she knows how the children would vote (if not voting strategically), and casts those votes on the behalf of each, settling ties with the flip of a coin. Well, it's well established that, in the absence of everyone having the same preferences, even if each participant is him- or herself rational, democratic processes don't produce rational choice structures. (For example, if some votes are decided before others, then the order in which things are decided determines the ultimate outcome.) In fact, it was famously shown (with Kenneth Arrow's Impossibility Theorem) that this isn't just a problem for ordinary democracy, but for any collective decision-making process. (I'm not here counting dictatorship as a collective decision-making process.)

So the parent's attempting to meet the desires of her two children is, in this case, formally equivalent to her attempting to meet the desires of one child who is just crazy. (Parents of multiple children will likely have little difficulty in grasping that point intuïtively.)

I'll make more plain the insanity specifically here. Under a decision-making process in which one would simply trade each unit of every x_n for a unit of x_n+1, by m-stage trades, one can be got to trade all of one's x₀ for x_m, even if one prefers x₀ to x_m. If whether each trade is effected depends upon the flip of a coin, then it might take more offers to get one to trade-away all of one's x₀ for x_m, but that's still where one can be led. (A patient exploiter could get one to surrender all of one's x₀ for x_m, and then monetize that by selling the x₀, with credit for trade-in of the x_m.)

The authors acknowledge that their scenario involves social choice theory, but assert that the problem can be generalized to other problems of choice with multiple criteria. However, the example that they give is one of an agent attempting to follow given rules (for awarding a fellowship); what we should see is that whatever rules might produce the same sort of structure are, again, loopy (in at least two senses of that word).

Now, in some case, perhaps in a great many cases, the sane chose to humor the insane; they even bend to the will of the lunatic; but the choice made in yielding to regulation by another is not, properly, the same choice as that of the regulator. Nor would I otherwise be comfortable with a model that could not find indecision except where one can find this sort of irrationality lurking in the background if not in the foreground.

It used to be claimed that the reason that so many Japanese lived to great age was distinctive diet and filial respect.

I'm not sure of the extent to which what the Japanese eat can account for the fact that, now, over 230,000 Japanese reported to be a hundred or more years old have gone missing, but filial attitudes seem to have played a rôle of some sort.

There is no real agreement on how many muscles it takes to frown, nor on how many it takes to smile. But it takes none to be stupidly slack-jawed.

A confluence of recent events provoked me to acquire and watch a copy of the Fox Film Noir DVD of Laura (1944). Included on the disc are some commentary from David Raksin (who scored the film), from film professor Jeanine Basinger, and from historian Rudy Behlmer. Some of these comments add real value, but I was unhappy about things that the commentaries missed, and am thus provoked to write this entry.

Most useful discussion of this film entails some spoilers, and will further presume familiarity with the film. Behlmer strongly urges his listeners to have watched the film with its ordinary soundtrack before listening to his comments. Similarly, I suggest that, if you haven't watched Laura, you stop reading this entry right after I give you just one piece of advice.

That advice is that, while you watch Laura, you dismiss if you can the lyrics that Johnny Mercer later wrote for the theme melody, which impose a new significance to the melody that it wouldn't have had when the film was first made and shown. The melody actually figures within the story (at least in a minor way), and within the story is not about Laura. (By all means, recall and enjoy the Mercer lyrics after watching.)

---

(Here Be Spoilers!)

I want to discourage my readers from doing business through AbeBooks.com, which operates as a listing service of books for sale from a multitude of merchants.

A friend recently ordered a book from one of these merchants through Abe. The merchant responded by declaring that the book had been sold to another buyer, but then relisting the copy with other services, at a higher price. In other words, he or she, upon receiving an order, decided not only not to honor the advertised price, but to lie about the situation.

My friend then contacted AbeBooks.com to complain, explaining exactly what the seller had done. Abe responded with irrelevant boiler-plate about items that were no longer available. (The seller, for his or her part, responded with the irrelevant claim that he or she did not make money by hoarding books.)

When my friend again contacted Abe, the response was to deny that the book had been relisted. They repeated this denial to me. As my friend had made it explicit that the relisting had been with an alternate service, and had offered evidence, Abe's response was at best with reckless disregard for the truth, if not simply a lie. In the wake of having it reïterated that the listing was with other service and that evidence can be provided, AbeBooks.com has retreated into silence.

As I told AbeBooks.com

If you do not ensure honorable practice, then you are at best redundant amongst listing services.

So far, for example, my experiences with Alibris have been fine, and there are other services as well. If one finds a book listed with AbeBooks.com, there's a good chance that the very same seller lists the very same item through some other service as well. (I recommend using AddAll at the outset of a book search.)

Up-Date (2010:07/29): Yester-day, Abe broke their silence to declare that there was nothing that they could do about such a relisting. In fact, what they could have done is to de·list the seller. Evidently AbeBooks is amongst those very many firms who treat it as an acceptable form of lying to misrepresent a choice as a necessity.

Abe did offer my friend a coupon for a 10% discount on a future order. My friend couldn't, with this coupon, secure a copy of the same book at the same net price as it had been listed — it's perhaps worth noting that the seller's price increase had been more than 99%. And Abe was simply tossing to my friend the same sort of promotional coupon that other buyers are given anyway.

I'm rather a fan of the Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), and the reasons are largely to be found within about 8 ½ of its 97 minutes. I offer those 8 ½ minutes here in a clip. The excerpt can be understood without being set-up; all the essentials can be inferred as one watches. So you may want to skip ahead to watch the video. But, for those of you more comfortable with more context, I'll provide some:

La Révolution française is cutting-off heads by scores daily. (There is some confusion in the movie over the year in which la Terreur began.)

Percy Blakeney had married Marguerite St. Just about a year earlier. Some time after the marriage, he learned that Marguerite had been instrumental in bringing-about the execution of a French aristocrat and his family. Not knowing that she had been tricked into providing the information that had led to that execution, Percy asked her about it. Marguerite, given to impetuosity, did not explain, but angrily admitted that she had. Percy began paying for the fact that he loved — that he still loved — Marguerite, by adopting the identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel (the red pimpernel being a wildflower) and forming a team, the League of the Scarlet Pimpernel, who enter France in disguise, to steal political prisoners from la guillotine. The identity of the Scarlet Pimpernel is unknown to all but members of the League. Blakeney further secures his secret — and pushes away his wife — by adopting the persona of a fop.

Marguerite's brother, Armand, part of the League, has been taken prisoner in France. Chauvelin, an agent of the French, has offered to surrender a key piece of evidence against Armand if she will reveal to Chauvelin the true identity of the Pimpernel. Unaware that the Scarlet Pimpernel is Percy, she has done what she could. Last night, she learned and reported to Chauvelin that the Scarlet Pimpernel would at mid-night be in the library of an estate where a party was being held.

When Chauvelin went to the library, Percy was there, pretending to sleep on a love-seat. Chauvelin eyed him suspiciously, but then adopted a derisive expression. Shortly after mid-night, Chauvelin himself briefly fell asleep, then awoke to find a mocking note from the Pimpernel, with Percy still apparently asleep. Chauvelin glanced at Percy as if dismissively, and then left. Percy arose, and wondered how Chauvelin had come to be there and whether his dismissal were sincere.

As the clip begins, Lord and Lady Blakeney are returning home.

There's all kinds of things right with the scenes in this clip.

When Marguerite comes to speak with Percy, we see that his affectation of effeminacy is, as much as anything, a very bitter way of rejecting her. Harry Stack Sullivan once wrote Hate is love turned angry, and when Marguerite says You … hate me. she's not far from the truth. However, Percy's question in reply isn't merely rhetorical; he truly wants to know why she denounced the Marquis de St. Cyr. At the least Percy wants to see what sort of person she really is, but what he really wants is some vindication for her actions, so that his love for her will not have been — will not be — wrong.

After he hears her explanation of what really happened with respect to the Marquis and his family, there remains the issue of Marguerite's trade with Chauvelin. Note the desperation in Percy's voice. He doesn't just need the information qua Scarlet Pimpernel; he wants to know whether, after all, she's still done something dreadful. He want to feel free to love her. When he learns what she gave to Chauvelin (a report that the Pimpernel would be in the library at mid-night), Percy is almost ready to laugh aloud from relief. And watch Leslie Howard's left hand, as he raises it up, partly into frame, almost to his heart, his fingers flexing; his character wants to reach out and take hold of Marguerite.

When Marguerite says that the Pimpernel might be going to his death, and Percy says Well, that's all the fellow lives for, he's really now talking of how he has been living. That demmed, elusive Pimpernel has not been in Heaven. But now he's climbing out of Hell.

The subsequent meaning of Percy's body language is obvious to the audience. The rest of their interaction is, of course, two people speaking of their love one for another, with one of them almost oblivious to what is being said, as she doesn't recognize the relationship amongst referents. Almost oblivious, but as Percy leaves the room, Marguerite knows that there's something that she isn't seeing clearly.

The principal reason that the story-telling in this clip stays with me is because it has a moment where pieces all click together in the mind of one of the characters, revealing something important.

For a moment of this sort to work, it's important that the character not have been positioned for the reälization before hand. Rather than having some twit finally see something that he or she should have seen all along, the story needs to put that character in possession of a new datum (preferably no more than one) and then have the character's mind move with fair intelligence towards the reälization.

I love the way that Merle Oberon presents Marguerite's reäctions, all within a matter of seconds. She questions her reasoning. As she looks again at the painting, her mouth is asymmetrical as she moves towards laughter at the deception Percy has effected. But the joke is displaced in her mind and her expression moves towards a smile of a different, symmetric sort as she starts to think that her Percy is a better man than she had come to think him, and indeed a better man than she had thought him when they married. She doesn't get very far with that thought, as it hits her that Percy has sailed off not only into danger but into danger that she has caused to be greatly increased.

Really, it's a shame that Starman never made an appearance on The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure, on Aquaman, on The Batman/Superman Hour, or on Super Friends.

Catching shill-bidders on eBay used to be one of my hobbies. I would regularly stumble-upon suspicious confluences, start examining auction and bidder histories, and from them often assemble proof that there had been shill-bidding, which proof I would then send to eBay and to the victims. I'm sure that I wasn't the only person engaging in this sort of detection.

But eBay began choking-off the data available to us. With decreasing information, it became ever harder to make the case. It became impossible even to see some of the confluences that would have triggered suspicion in the first place.

For an honest auction firm, there may be an optimal amount of shill-bidding to allow, simply because of enforcement costs. (A perfectly secure trading environment would be prohibitively expensive.) But for a dishonest firm the question is of balancing the gain that otherwise comes from allowing ending prices (and hence fees) to be thus increased, against the alienation of users who consequently reduce their spending. Access to information which both empowers volunteers to catch shill-bidders and alerts users more generally to the occurrence of shill-bidding is, as such, not in the perceived interest of a dishonest firm.

BTW, the changes that reduced our abilities to spot shill-bidders, and which made it more typically impossible for us to prove a case of shill-bidding (as well as other changes that enabled eBay to be more easily used by thieves) were primarily effected while Margaret Cushing (Meg) Whitman, now the Republican Party nominee for governor of California, was eBay's President and CEO.

At Kingdom Kane (a 'blog focussed upon the art of Gil Kane), Mykal Banta has reproduced The Birth of the Atom. a story which contains what I have long regarded as an epitomal sequence of what I call comic-book science:

As I noted to Mykal, a white dwarf star has a density of about 1 million grams per cc, and the meteor appears to be about 1000 cc, so the whole thing should mass at about 1 million kilograms.

It's not apparent why 1 million kilograms should stay compressed into such a small volume. In the case of a dwarf star itself, the gravitational mass of the star as a whole creätes sufficient force, but this is just a fractional piece of such a star. It ought to fly apart as a terrible burst of radiation. But let's assume that this somehow doesn't happen, that the meteor just stays together in a nifty one-liter piece.

The meteor that creäted Meteor Crater in Arizona was under 30,000 kilograms. Ray wouldn't be excavating the meteor at all; he would have been killed by the shock waves from the impact. Those who later did excavate the meteor wouldn't find it buried just a couple of feet deep.

At the surface of the Earth (which itself masses about 5.97 × 10²⁴ kilograms), this meteor would weigh about 11 hundred tons, but Ray picks it up! He subvocalizes a few puffs, but he manages to carry the thing back to his car! Now-a-days, they don't make cars that can carry 11 hundred tons. I don't think that any grad students can lift 11 hundred tons. And, really, Ray ought to be sinking into the ground, as even if he has big feet and has both feet on the ground he is applying over 7000 kPa of pressure to the soil.

It might be suggested that the meteor, while perhaps of material that were once compressed to a density of about 1 million grams per cc, were subsequently uncompressed, and that what Palmer recovered were only, say, 100 kilograms of material. But I don't know how, then, it would be recognizable as originating from a white dwarf star. For example, the core of the sun compresses matter to a greater density than 100 grams per cc.