Data centers...................

 

Data centers are electricity hogs, substantial water users, take up very large tracts of land on which they build very large buildings, and they offer very few (non-construction) jobs. They also pay a premium for sites they want, forcing land values up.  Western Licking County is already home to data centers for Facebook, Google, Amazon, and more. Micro Soft just purchased two large tracts of land in central Licking County to build two more of them.  They paid a lot.  A mixed blessing.  As long as AI continues is growth pattern, we will undoubtedly see more in our future.  We don't have to like it, though.

chart from

Lies, damn lies, and statistics...........

 

Data can be biased: There is a widely held belief that data is objective, at least if it takes numerical form. In the hands of analysts who are biased or have agendas, data can be molded to fit pre-conceptions. 

-Aswath Damodaran, as culled from here

data.....................

 

"Are you asking what the point is when it isn't a perfect straight line from goal to achievement?"

I looked at the floor.  Yes.  That was what I was asking. . . .

"This is the process.  The process is what it is even though it doesn't always match our expectations for ourselves or the expectations others put on us.  But being real about the process is the way forward.  Taking one step forward and then two steps backward is not a calamity.  It's the inevitable process."

"So we just expect to fail again and again?"

"Is that so bad?"

"It certainly feels bad." . . .

"Think of it in science terms, not in moral terms.  Each of these attempts at the next step is an experiment.  It doesn't give us victory or defeat.  It gives us data. We need that data.  When we reframe from 'success or failure' to 'experiment and data,' we capture the truer sense of what this is."

-Jarod K. Anderson, Something In The Woods Loves Us

A fact.............................

 

............................................multiplied by a story.

Based on activity....................

 

...............in our county, this boom is very real. Real enough that push back has started.

Facebook's data center in western Licking County

The trouble with facts................

 There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, intelligence with insight. Unobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead. Facts are terrible things if left sprawling and unattended. They are too easily regarded as evaluated certainties rather than as the rawest of raw materials crying to be processed into the texture of logic. It requires a very unusual mind, Whitehead said, to undertake the analysis of a fact. The computer can provide a correct number, but it may be an irrelevant number until judgment is pronounced.

-Norman Cousins

thanks Michael

Perhaps the most

..............................significant outcome of our recent experience with Covid-19, was the ruination of any expectation of competency or integrity from our "elites."  These days it pays to question the "data:"

 We’ve been hearing that the rise in inflation has been defeated and how it’s falling like a rock. Data seems to be heading in a positive direction. But this week some very important early indicators have flipped into the other direction.

-excerpted from this Spilled Coffee post

a never-ending chain............

      If you've relied on data and logic alone to make sense of the economy, you'd have been confused for a hundred years straight.

     Economist Per Bylund once noted: "The concept of economic value is easy: whatever someone wants has value, regardless of the reason (if any)."

     Not utility, not profits—just whether people want it or not, for any reason.  So much of what happens in the economy is rooted in emotions, which can, at times, be nearly impossible to make sense of. . . .

     The danger, one you see often in investing, is when people become too McNamara-like—so obsessed with data and so confident in their models that they leave no room for error or surprise.  No room for things to be crazy, dumb, unexplainable, and to remain that way for a long time.  Always asking, "Why is this happening?" and expecting there to be a rational answer.  Or worse, always mistaking what happened for what you think should have happened.

     The ones who thrive long term are those who understand the real world is a never-ending chain of absurdity, confusion, messy relationships, and imperfect people.

-Morgan Housel, as excerpted from Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

untethered............................

 Our senses often misperceive data.  And our minds don't have the processing power to take in all information surrounding us.  Our senses would be overwhelmed by light, color, sound, and smell.  We would not be able to distinguish one object from another.

     To navigate our way through his immense world of data, we learn early in life to focus on information that appears essential or of particular interest.  And to tune out the rest.

     As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.

-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

No Pollyanna he.......................

  Not only have we never experienced a Fed trying to fight an inflation problem under an abundant reserve regime, we’ve never seen M2 grow so fast for so long, or decline so rapidly, at least since the Great Depression. If the recent data are accurate, the economy is in for a very rough time in 2023-24.  We have already seen some weakness in production reports but are not close to feeling the full brunt of the tighter money that started last year. Investors must be cautious; a storm is headed our way.

-Brian Wesbury, from this post

Confusing times................................

 

Make no mistake: The Fed is having its intended impact -- at least on rental demand and rents. Rental demand started hot in 1st quarter and has been waning since 2nd quarter after the Fed's first rate hike in the second half of March. Month-over-month rent increases have followed suit, coming in far below the record hikes seen in 2021. Anyone suggesting otherwise is looking at lagging data. New lease rents are no longer a major driver of inflation.

Worry has a freezing effect on big decisions -- like signing a new lease. Worry encourages us to stay in place and to wait it out. That impacts demand for all types of housing.

-as culled from here

Moneyball, or, about your data...........................

 In the last decade, as tech companies have expanded their reach into our personal lives, collecting information on choices and decisions that used to private, big data has become not just a buzzword, but also a justification for investing billions in companies/projects that have no discernible pathway to profitability, but offer access to data.

-as culled from this blog post

On data and reasons.......................

On anecdotes and data...............

 "the thing I have noticed is that when the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right.  There's something wrong with the way you're measuring."

-Jeff Bezos, as quoted here

About models.................................

 Paul Krugman, who won the Nobel Prize for economics at least in part due to the beauty of his models, once quipped that he thought the data left out of his models might be more important that the data that went in.  It is an explosive and challenging remark, revealing the intrinsic difficulty of models:  they will always be subjective and incomplete representations of complex reality.

-Margeret Heffernan, Uncharted:  How To Navigate The Future

On measuring.........................

     The dark side of tracking a particular behavior is that we become driven by the number rather than the purpose behind it.  If your success is measured by quarterly earnings, you will optimize sales, revenue, and accounting for quarterly earnings.  If your success is measured by a lower number on the scale, you will optimize for a lower number on the scale, even if that means embracing crash diets, juice cleanses, and fat-loss pills.  The human mind wants to "win" whatever game is being played.
      This pitfall is evident in many areas of life.  We focus on working long hours instead of getting meaningful work done.  We care more about getting ten thousand steps that we do about being healthy.  We teach for standardized tests instead of emphasizing learning, curiosity, and critical thinking.  In short, we optimize for what we measure.  When we choose the wrong measurement, we get the wrong behavior.
      This is sometimes referred to as Goodhart's Law.  Named after the economist Charles Goodhart, the principle states, "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."  Measurement is only useful when it guides you and adds context to a larger picture, not when it consumes you.  Each number is simply one piece of feedback in the overall system.
      In our data-driven world, we tend to overvalue numbers and undervalue anything ephemeral, soft, and difficult to quantify.  We mistakenly think the factors we can measure are the only factors that exist.  But just because you can measure something doesn't mean its the most important thing.  And just because you can't measure something doesn't mean it's not important at all.

-James Clear,  Atomic Habits

A cultural barroom brawl........................

Today we drown in data, yet thirst for meaning.  That world-transforming tidal wave of information has disproportionately worsened the noise-to-signal ratio.  According to Taleb, "The more data you get, the less you know what's going on."  And the more you know, the less you trust, as the gap between reality and the authorities' claims of competence becomes impossible to ignore. . . . the public has lost faith in the people on whom it relied to make  sense of the world—journalists, scientists, experts of every stripe.  By the same process, the elites have lost faith in themselves. . . .

Lack of certainty isn't ignorance:  it's a splinter of doubt festering in all we know, a radical disillusionment with the institutions of settled truth.  Once important effect has been a sort of cultural barroom brawl, as every question of significance becomes an irritant and source of strife between interested parties.

-Martin Gurri,  The Revolt of the Public

Not sure much has been learned..........

Elites today have no idea how to speak to the public, or what to say to it.  They have shown little interest in trying.  The hyper-educated individuals who ran the Clinton campaign were utterly indifferent to public opinion:  they believed in big data.  An algorithm nicknamed "Ada" delivered "simulations" of opinion to the campaign staff.  Ada was the public as elites wish it would be:  safe, clean, and speaking only when spoken to.  The voter in the flesh was clearly perceived by this group as an alien and frightening brute.  His very existence was deplorable.  The shock of election day followed naturally from such distortions of distance.

-Martin Gurri,   The Revolt Of The Public

Unfortunately, scientists and pundits....

.......................also seem to be captured by "communal groupthink"

The world is becoming ever more complex, and people fail to realize just how ignorant they are of what's going on.  Consequently, some people who know next to nothing about meteorology or biology nevertheless propose polices regarding climate change and genetically modified crops, while others hold extremely strong views about what should be done in Iraq or Ukraine without being able to locate these countries on a map.  People rarely appreciate their ignorance, because they lock themselves inside an echo chamber of like-minded friends and self-confirming news feeds, where their beliefs are constantly reinforce and seldom challenged.
     Providing people with more and better information is unlikely to improve matters.  Scientists hope to dispel wrongs view by better science education, and pundits hope to sway public opinion on issues such as Obamacare or global warming by presenting the public with accurate facts and expert reports.   Such hopes are grounded in a misunderstanding of how humans really think.  Most of our views are shaped by communal groupthink rather than individual rationality, and we hold on to these views due to group loyalty.

-Yuval Noah Harari,  21 Lessors for the 21st Century

On point in time data.................

One of the reasons the fire-hose of information can actually make it harder to analyze the state of the world is because many people simply use point in time data instead of taking time to look at the overall trend.

Current data tells you very little unless you’re able to provide context about where it’s been and where it’s potentially going next.

-Ben Carlson, as lifted from here