Category: Fast1

Banking access maps

 

Map week continues. I stumbled upon paper with a table showing banking sector branch and ATM penetration. It’s called “Reaching out: Access to and use of banking services across countries” and was written by Beck et al from World Bank. Unfortunately It’s behind a paywall.

What the authors have attempted among other things is to assess how easily people can access banking services. I was interested because of two things. First any sort of decent standard of living probably includes easy bank access. it’s difficult to buy anything large, like a home or to save for anything, like old age if you don’t have access to a bank.

The second thing is that from my perspective an ATM is ancient tech and this paper was written in 2006 which is not that long ago. I think this can be explained by two things: technology has advanced rather fast and living in a rich western country makes things easy. I can also add that visiting an actual physical bank feels like a waste of time. This is also why I think that these penetrations don’t really tell what the authors hope they would. I suspected that even during 2006 access to a physical bank had lost value as a proxy to good standard of living. However, Figure 1 shows a fair linear relationship between demographic ATM penetration and GDP per capita.

ATM penetration vs GDPFigure 1. Demographic ATM penetration vs. GDP per capita

 

Geographic branch penetrationMap 1. Geographic branch penetration. Branches per 1000 km2.

 

Demographic branch penetrationMap 2. Demographic branch penetration. Branches per 100k people.

 

Geographic ATM penetrationMap 3. Geographic ATM penetration. ATMs per 1000 km2.

 

Demographic ATM penetrationMap 4. Demographic ATM penetration. ATMs per 100k people.

Number of TV stations

 

countries tv stations_LogMap 1. Number of TV stations per country. Colors are set by calculating log(N+1), so the scale is not linear.

The map is based on Wikipedia’s list of countries by number of television broadcast stations (Feb 2013). I made it using my own Python script and it is based on this map. As the original map is in svg format it is fairly easy to add more text definitions to it in order to change colors and add the color bar.

The Executions map was made using Google’s tools, but I found the experience a bit cramped. I did look around to find a suitable tool set in the web, but there seemed to be something wrong with every one. Since I have wanted to do this for a long time I decided to go for it.

Why TV stations? It was the first list I found in Wikipedia that had many countries in it.

Edit: Map was updated 7 Feb. I found a bug in the code, it may have had an effect on the map.

Executions (per 100 000 people)

I was inspired by a Google+ conversation about this figure. So I took numbers of executions from here and population from here (28 January 2013). Execution numbers are from 2011 and population, I think from 2008 to 2011. Malaysia and Syria were not included as no number was given in the source for the number of executions. For China I rounded the number to 1000 even though the source gives an estimate from about 1000 to 4000. The original spreadsheet can be found here

Executions per 100kFigure 1. Number of executions per 100 000 people in 2011

 

log executions per 100 kFigure 2. Log(number of executions per 100 000 people)*(-1). Same as figure 1 but emphasizes differently.

Executions histogram

Figure 3. Histogram of execution densities.

Table 1. Data the images are based on.

Execution data

Edit: Added Figure 3.

“But it’s freedom of speech”

“Do I really want the racist ogres of this country to learn to spread their (to me repugnant) ideas more glibly and effectively than they are doing now? Well: yes. If their communication continues to be as brutal as it is now, it will not take long before I myself am afraid to use some forbidden words in any context (pedohopilia, Islam, Somalis).”

[See original in Finnish. This is fairly Finland-specific, but there might be general ideas here that irritate my American friends, so I translated it.]

As someone who thinks a lot about freedom of speech, and debates about it with people from all ends of spectrum, I recently read an article that really stuck in my mind (Zeynep Tufekci, Technosociology 14.10.2012). It’s a motherlode of ideas, but I will focus on one only.

Among other things, Tufekci analyzes Reddit. The service is famous in the US but less so outside, so I will summarize. Reddit is a discussion forum with multiple subreddits. A core value of Reddit is absolute freedom of speech (only restricting clearly illegal material). This has led to perfectly legal subreddits like “jailbait” and “creepshot”. Here’s Tufekci’s description:

“Children focused “jailbait” forums typically include photos of minors on a beach in splashing around in bathing suits, a youngster practicing gymnastics, students in school with the picture taken from a low-angle, from-the-behind etc. and are peppered with comments about genitals, looks and rape. The more adult-oriented “creepshot” forum typically include non-consensual “upskirt” photos of women’s crotches, breasts, as well private photographs that were shared with boyfriends, exes, being circulated for commentary and leering.”


On the face of it, Tufekci is using a very primitive debate technique: “Think of the children”. Children are being abused, and the “jailbat” reddit must be closed, and everyone who disagrees is a pedophile, end of question.

Actually, she is being far more subtle. She doesn’t call for “jailbait” to be shut down. She asks instead why Reddit specifically feels it needs to host it. Reddit is a large commercial enterprise, and it does not have to tolerate “jailbait” even though it is legally allowed to do so. It is Reddit itself that has decided to make absolute freedom of speech an issue on which it will stand or fall. Why not just close “jailbait” and be rid of it? “But it’s free speech”. Why give perverts an open playground for imagery that they will use for whatever they use it for? “But it’s free speech.”

Tufkeci strongly supports free speech, but has a pragmatic approach. “But it’s free speech” will turn on itself in the end. Freedom of speech is not a gift from above. It is a right that society has given its members, and as such is a right which society can restrict or remove at will. Freedom of speech has to be constantly defended and fought for. But the fight should be intelligent. If the only strategy, when cornered, is to yell “but it’s free speech”, eventually the community will stop listening and will act.

Here in Finland the community has already acted, against “hate speech”. The best-known example is Jussi Halla-aho, a member of Parliament and former chair of the Parliament’s Administration Committee (which deals with immigration issues). The Supreme Court recently gave him a hefty fine for “hate speech” (against immigrants) and  “defaming religion” (specifically Islam). For information in English, see e.g. Yle 8.6.2012.

Halla-Aho is a controversial figure with controversial anti-immigration opinions, to say the least. In response to how he frames his opinions, the Finnish state, usually soft and mild-mannered, has acted. And acted strongly (though not harshly by any international standards).

Finland consistently scores near the top spot for freedom of speech (see e.g. RSF), but there are de facto limits here. Only one opinion on pedophilia is “allowed”: any and all censorship must be accepted if there is even a theoretical chance that it could limit the spread of child pronography (there is in fact a secret Internet blocking list).

Little by little, immigration and especially Islam is becoming equally off-limits: all critical speech is hate speech. Personally, I believe that if one does not like Somalis or Islam, one must be allowed to say it. I do not agree with the position, but it must be possible for anyone to state it publicly, even a political figure, even a member of parliament, even the chair of the Administration Committee.

However. There is no particular reason why that person should be allowed to say it in the harshest possible way, with maximum intent to hurt and insult people. We now have a Supreme Court decision on this, for the case of Halla-Aho. That is the reality.

Thus I want to clarify to myself what the “freedom of speech” is that I want to hold on to. Is it an absolute and inflexible right to say anything to anyone anywhere at any time, no matter how rude or hurtful? This would be a simple and consistent position. Unfortunately, it is far more complex than that.

Even explosive issues must be open to debate. But one has to know when one is in a minefield, and move accordingly. The more provocatively one wants to speak, the more skillful one must be.

At the national level, Halla-Aho’s next steps will have a huge bearing on freedom of speech and critique of immigration/Islam equally.
1) Will he continue on his blunt and uncompromising line, which may well result in what he himself has feared: any and all criticism (especially coming from him) will be automatically branded as hate speech?
2) Will he consider it more important to actually achieve something with his anti-immigration and anti-Islam views, even if he has to scale down the rhetoric significantly?

The first path would be a disaster for everyone, including people like myself who find Halla-Aho’s opinions for the most part repulsive. If there is no room for debate on immigration or Islam, it will be a disaster.  Everything must be open to (civilized) debate. We must be able to ask whether Internet censorship is the wrong way to eliminate pedophilia; or whether Somali males statistically are more likely to engage in rape than the general population, and if so, what should be done about it; or whether Islam is a threat to democracy. But there is no particular reason why we should be able to ask this in the crudest and most offensive way possible.

The second path is disquieting in a different way. Do I really want the racist ogres of this country to learn to spread their (to me repugnant) ideas more glibly and effectively than they are doing now? Well: yes. If their communication continues to be as brutal as it is now, it will not take long before I myself am afraid to use some forbidden words in any context (pedohopilia, Islam, Somalis).

In fact I already feel afraid, just seeing those three words together. Would I be this afraid if the ogres had not done everything they can to make them offensive? I don’t think so.

I agree with Tufekci on this. Coarse, deliberately offensive speech will cause problems for everyone. In the end, it is society (the state) that decides how much yapping it is willing to tolerate. If enough people deliberately and consistently go over that limit, freedom of speech will be taken away from all of us.

 

The mathematics of old people

“A little thought shows that the old person can equally be modeled as a system of weights and pulleys.”

[Finnish version: click here]

I recently sprained the ligaments in my knee — cosmically insignificant, but led to an interesting vector analysis, and gave insights into how and why old people exist the way they do.

Walking on a steady surface was easy after just a couple of weeks. However, it took me almost two months to be able to freely walk up and down stairs. At the same time, I started to notice that old people have problems with stairs. Why is this?

All that’s required is some high school physics. An old person can be modeled in a variety of ways. I believe the model in Figure 1 is the simplest. Assume that the old person is a lump attached to two fulcrums (left side). Assume the thigh and leg to be equally long (differences don’t materially change the results).

A little thought shows that the old person can equally be modeled as a system of weights and pulleys, as shown on right side of Figure 1. The old person is a lump hanging from a rope that passes over a pulley (the hip). The rope then passes through another pulley (the knee) to a third pulley (the ankle, which is assumed fixed). Another identical lump hangs from this end of the rope. When the system is static, there is a force F on the knee pulley, which needs to be calculated.


Figure 1. Modeling an old person in two different ways

Calculating F requires some vector analysis and trigonometry (Figure 2). The vertical forces are in opposite directions, Fv=mg*(cosa-cosb) The horizontal forces are added, so Fp=mg*(sina+sinb).


Figure 2. Vector analysis

The magnitude of the force vector is F= sqrt(Fp²+Fv²), which after a few steps gives  F=2*m*g*(1- cos(a+b)). The force is smallest (zero) when a+b=0. This happens for example when standing straight or lying flattened. It is largest (4*m*g) when a+b=180 degrees.

The vector sums are easily drawn graphically. Figure 3 shows three examples. (The forces have been normalized to one, so that a vector length of 1 corresponds to a force 2*m*g). If the feet move around by 30 degrees when walking, the maximum force on the knee is about 0.5, or m*g. Thus the knee needs to support the whole weight of the old person while walking.

Figure 3. Vector analysis

When climbing up a stair, the force abruptly rises up to almost 1.5, or 3*m*g. The force is thus larger than the old person’s weight. This seems countrintuitive, until one remembers that the old person is lifting herself up through a fulcrum of her thigh’s length.

Rising from a deep squat can require a force of up the 4*m*g, but at that point the model may be too simplified.

In other words: in rising up a stair, the old person’s knee needs to support a force that is more than three times her own weight. That’s formidable, for anyone.

The next time you see an old person walking up a staircase, remember F=2*m*g*(1- cos(a+b)). And stop to see if she needs help. Please.

 

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