Category: Geen categorie

This, lamenting the loss of relaxation that once was had.

E.g., after landing; when passengers were calmed after that scary episode of a flight by the “Nothing to worry about [anymore…]” music on a plane. ‘tWas there in the Seventies all right, but when did carriers stop playing such pleasurable-feelings-enhancing music as this or this or this, or even the monumental this or this (version)? (Can’t recall to have heard this on a plane though it would fit the ‘ticket’.) Certainly, it was before there was a phase with a need for anxiety-releasing (sic) applause on cheap charters to/from non-Western cultures (mostly).

The 1^st-linked title pointing towards some categories (hotels, F&B, reception desks) where one wouldn’t want this kind of music loop e-ve-ry hour of the working day, I know. But if not looped but unique (if only by a randomiser), wouldn’t it enhance many workplaces like open office farms (at work-at-home situations it works Great, I can tell ya), when at a suitably soft volume so general colleagues’ noise is drowned out and one can actually concentrate on one’s own work and conversations? We could ditch the music in malls, then. Like, you know, the physical all-you-can-order webshops of yestermillennium (err, not so much; how time flies!)..?

Too bad even in planes, such a thing is no more. Maybe, some party like @KLM (on a forum like this – should add to comments but on a site I’m all but inactive on…) could reconsider. At tiniest cost, it could keep people in their seats until docked and not have today’s bumrush (also in original meaning) in the aisles …

Never mind. I’m Old. And:

[When that was … somewhat as it is today, if you’re ‘free’. Not ‘shopped!]

It’s odd that there hasn’t been much more comparison of the Moral Machine mind games, to Sophie’s Choice (here and here).
As explained earlier, the MM reasoning may be off, for the purposes that it is applied to latter-daily. But also, what have we learned from the novel/movie …?

We might better think about Hobson’s choices for our auto, then. We need answers, not swooning over drama.
[Not meant derogatory to those that have faced real Choices, just denouncing those that think that armchair babble about the trivial analogies to them, is human high grounds!]

Well, onto more pleasant subjects:

[Unreachable the Illuminating Light is; Carnegie library Reims]

Referring of course to … I’ll get to that.

Surprising none that followed app-sci developments in statistics and their practical use after the Black Swan, this came flying by, and this [with a link].
I sincerely hope these aren’t beyond your comprehension, or you’ll have to make-do with third-hand interpretations…?

No, they’re not mere theoretical physics (let alone mundane rocket science), right Sheldon ..? Yes the linked has 253 pages. Maybe not all quotes but still.

But they are relevant. Might they be implicated in biases ..? E.g., whereby the brain does/doesn’t include, surreptitiously, unconsciously, some learned (deviation from, or not) appropriate statistics ..? Is the brain wired [not this] wrongly [linearly], or too simple in the (potential) capabilities of neurons, to cope with maths beyond the trivial?
[At an angle, this tweet to a masterly contribution.]

Oh well, and:

[Also, caught in survival mode; Zuid-As Ams]

Just a short note as I’m delivering three days of lecture to executive MBAs-to-be on, among others, this subject:
Fairness in AI is beyond mere (??) debiasing training data like here.
It’s more about: waddyamean, fairness? for which I happened to have found a very good overview [plus dabbling tool] here. When one cannot per se decide on principle, what happen with development of proper systems …?

I don’t know. Neither do you. And:

[Art, another difficult definition thing; Smithsonian DC]

Note’let: How would the world innovate, if we had paid better attention to what some of the great ones had to prophesize about our past/present ..?

As illustrated by the already onto himself most agreeable futurist Ross Dawson in this piece, on the above and his list in general. When we read now what laid in store for us, wouldn’t we have been better off if we had taken the sources and pointers from those, and tried to implement them, rather than finding out now what we could have known and achieved earlier in time?

Of course we learn from history that we don’t learn from history, mainly because history does repeat but in ways we don’t recognize.
But also because we apparently don’t want to take the wise insights that do get formulated into actual implementations.
We don’t learn the lessons that get spelled out for us. And we all know:
Lessons are repeated until they are learned.

May we learn now, please ..?
And for your learning pleasure:

[Correction of errors; Courts, of Justice, London]

Just a musing, along with some stories relating to the IPOing of ‘unicorns’ quod non that seems to have picked up recently – are the last ones of a generation cashing out, or is it a true longer-term sine wave thing, or what?
The musing being, that many reasons can be given. Like here. But Sinister Me had a hunch there could also be something in play somehow that relates to most tech (and other) giants’ ability to dodge taxes everywhere, and with any new huge-from-the-word-go fund, somehow new tax evasion opportunities open up for wily investors. Like in diversifying the portfolio, similar to holding a diversified portfolio of loss compensation vehicles.
Anyone can shed a light on this ..?

Yours,

[Once were expats working for Big Oil here, now …; Westpuntbaai Curaçao]

Deliberate qua skewspeak.

Was triggered by this article, with the pic of a sub. That is waaay over size, when one would consider not needing the space for hoomans (and no need for much oxygen ..?); redesigning a drone sub from scratch might give quite different results.
Smaller, probably. More flex. Less visibility, in all sound / electromag fields. Possibly, cheaper builds (no need to care for human safety ..?). Have a look at what free design did for aerial, fixed-wing drones à la Raptor.

Surely, the Navy already is experimenting with drones beyond the cable-attached, close-by controlled, kind ..? What about their designs, re-optimised (e.g., using genetic algos as here and here) with a considerably altered set of constraints or what?
Where are the pics ..? [Will sign an NDA…]

Plus:

[Already off-average, even when classically designed… analog pic at Twente AFB, when that still was]

Repairbotwho ..?

I posted about this idea in the recent past [this post written long before-the-latter-hand, to add a dose of confusion as if you needed that even more], and finally got some positive news …. in here.

Finally. Now let’s get this through, singularity-wise; like letting the self-learning improve, and copying it n times with n → ∞ so sloppy coding becomes a thing to aim for (given meticulous inefficiency versus scribbeling∧’auto’correcting efficiently).

Deal?
To sweaten it:

[Unconfusing your design …? Porto]

Awww, anyone with me on loathing the abuse of Language by

• Misstating the ownership of billion-dollar [last time I looked, still had some value; may have dropped any amount since typing this] companies. They’re not yours, they’re theirs. The 0.001%.
• Misstating the ownership of you yourself. Since you are completely p0wned by them.

That’s what you get when you speak/write of ‘my Instagram’ or ‘my facebook’ or even ‘my socials’. Hahaha, you just said the equivalent of ‘I completely destroyed my privacy and have given up all rights to human decency to money-grabbing companies that [literally] couldn’t care less about me or my normal free functioning in society after they sucked the value out of my personal data and then don’t care and throw me away like a discard squeezed lemon.’ If you’re lucky, you’ll end up in the Asphodel of some ML weights but probably nahhh.

Stop it. It being both the tragic language and the sharing.

On that happy note:

[Your privacy ship has sailed once you come to utter such language-mangling; Porto]

Came across a situation where DevOps-style ML (deep-l ..?) was used in flash financial business. Without too much QA; merely empowering the developer/trader-trained staff to do their thing. Asked about architecture, complexity, legacy and (Taleb-style) fragility.

Got no real answer. Seems like a risky thing. Not as in risky == having some Normal distri, but as in risky == bet the business including the well-being of all employees and their extended families for a generation and a half.

As is (over?)summarised in this tweet:

We’ve gotten to the point where many companies are building faster than they can learn. Velocity is *not* the problem.

Kicker is… if you do this long enough eventually the complexity catches up to you. And velocity/ability to “deliver” IS the problem. #prodmgmt #ux #design

— John Cutler (@johncutlefish) April 29, 2019

Anyone out there that has a clue about how to Control these sort of things? I have, I can. Just call.
And:

[’cause I need a refill]