"The Rise In Computing Power: Why Ubiquitous AI Is Now A Reality" (
http://ow.ly/jyrY30l1wom ) JK--"Today, you can just say, 'Alexa, play The Beatles' and within a few seconds, there comes 'Here Comes the Sun' from your speakers." Yes, but does Alexa blame Yoko for breaking them up?
"Smart office uses biosensors & ML to optimize individual work environmts" (
http://ow.ly/XcFW30l1vRX ) JK--We'll use ambient AI to fuss over getting our workspaces right. We'll fuss over whether we configured the AI OK. And we'll fuss over how our warring AI fussbots will get along
"The battle for ‘enterprise cloud’ is spilling into data centers and edge devices" (
http://ow.ly/HO6J30l1vER ) JK--Reflects recent news from AWS and Microsoft. Strong alignment with my recent discussion here:
"How a Decentralised Ecosystem Will Change Big Data Analytics" (
http://ow.ly/hnJS30l1vrS ) JK--Interesting discussion of distributed-database startups who've built their platforms on blockchain.
"Facebook, boosting AI research, says it’s ‘not going fast enough’" (
http://ow.ly/ZZT630l1uFX ) JK--"Facebook...gives top researchers and engineers the freedom to teach classes, publish papers and split their time between academic and commercial pursuits."
"Amazon’s EC2 gets faster processors, new high-memory instances" (
http://ow.ly/3QFY30l1umT ) JK--"Instance types" are essentially cloud products of an immaterial sort. Delivery of specifically quantized packaged slices of service capacity (processing, memory, storage, bandwidth).
"Why Kubernetes Is the New Application Server" (
http://ow.ly/WnaM30l1szR ) JK--Makes strong case for K8S as universal platform for 'non-functional requirements," as platform for OpenShift, Istio, OpenWhisk etc to build on for robust production quality distributed microservices.
Restaurant I infrequently go to sends its usual "'would you like a free cookie?' (if you buy a minimum dollar amount from the rest of our menu at their normal prices)" promo email. What is this? Try harder. I'm not 3 years old.
Trying not to remember what I’ve published recently. I try not to overlearn my own work. New subject matter is best approached on its own terms, not as it relates to my bibliography.
"Watch: A robotic race car zips around this historic track without a driver" (
http://ow.ly/gmW030l0SlH ) JK--Perhaps they'll wipe-out at higher speeds than human drivers would ever dare. Might be amusing (as long as there are no imperiled humans physically present in the stands)
"Reps from 150 tech companies sign pledge against 'killer robots'" (
http://ow.ly/IlPf30l0RYm ) JK--"Lethal autonomous weapons systems.... weapons that can identify, target, and kill a person, without a human 'in-the-loop.'" Somehow, having human killers-in-the-loop isn't reassuring
"BlueData launches open-source initiative to optimize Kubernetes for AI and analytics" (
http://ow.ly/1wgm30l0QQV ) JK--"BlueK8s": initiative starting with KubeDirector: streamlines packaging, deployment, & mgmt of complex distributed stateful AI applications
"Cryptominers plateau while backdoors shoot up" (
http://ow.ly/yoNg30l0Qrr ) JK--"But backdoor malware detections against businesses soared by 109% compared, mainly driven by a single campaign dubbed Backdoor.Vools that was associated with cryptocurrency miners"
"Performant." A word that only exists inside the weird lexicon of IT professionals. Just once, I'd like to hear an ESPN announcer yammer on about how incredibly performant the hottest team in the league has been since the all-star break.
Asheton with his post-Iggy frontperson Niagara from Destroy All Monsters. Long ago.
Ex-Stooge guitarist Ron Asheton's 70th birthday bash at Blind Pig in Ann Arbor last night, featuring J Mascis, Kim Gordon, Mike Watt, et al.
http://ow.ly/KnEm30l0MUa .
http://ow.ly/hmlV30l0MZ7 #kexpI saw him with his post-Stooge group Destroy All Monsters at Second Chance, A2, 1980
"Elon Musk’s ‘pedo’ attack rattles Tesla investors: ‘This thing is unraveling’" (
http://ow.ly/A1wU30l0ppp ) JK--His recklessness is getting the better of him, and my sense is that what's coming next won't be pretty for Tesla, SpaceX, and the rest of his dreams of empire.
Let's parse this "retraction": "The sentence should have been...'I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be Russia'." Trump probably didn't see any reason why it wouldn't be Hillary & the DNC spying on themselves and trying to help him win. I bet that'll be his next clarification.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpCharlotte Gainsbourg "IRM" from IRM JK--2009. Imagerie par Résonance Magnétique. Chanson magnifique composé par Monsieur Beck, le génie américain. Très bon.
"With its Snowball Edge, AWS now lets you run EC2 on your factory floor" (
http://ow.ly/hUhu30l0naj ) JK--Radically decentralize your AWS cloud deployment (data, storage, processing, compute) out to ruggedized devices on the edge of your IoT.
here:
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpQueen Latifah "U.N.I.T.Y." from Black Reign JK--1993. Very nice call-and-response flow in this rap.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpIce‐T "You Played Yourself" JK--1989. Very cool blend of hiphop, R&B (that's a James Brown-ish one-chord guitar riff), & jazz (those horns).
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpClodhopper "Cafe Joli" from Red's Recovery Room JK--1998. Great story song. Best lines: "oh my god it's Huey P/well i wish they'd never set him free/i'm afraid of his eyes/no i don't wanna go there."
http://ow.ly/oWor30kZzQR
"On Neural Networks" (
http://ow.ly/Y3wA30kZuTo ) JK--The venerable Vint argues for guardrails on catastrophic AI misfires. See my recent Dataversity column on this:
"Medical AI Safety: We have a problem" (
http://ow.ly/rLf730kZsU6 ) JK--"For the 1st time ever AI systems are replacing human judgement in actual clinics. For 1st time ever AI systems could directly harm patients, with unsafe systems leading to overspending, injury, or even death"
"Technological entanglement" (
http://ow.ly/UsoA30kZs51 ) JK--Good discussion of cooperation, competition and the dual-use (commercial, military) dilemma in artificial intelligence and cross-border R&D partnerships.
I tense up when somebody says they "read your article" and want to discuss "it," without telling me which article. So I instantaneously and internally replay a mental cache of every word I've ever written, just to be prepared. I'm totally on top of it at all times.
Trump is sort of like the Groucho Marx character in "Duck Soup," the leader of Fredonia, but without the laughs.
Given how crazy the news cycle is these days, I'd suggest that journalism schools, when they teach the fundamental 5 Ws, tack on an extra W for "WTF."
"AI Flood Drives Chips to the Edge" (
http://ow.ly/zr3K30kYxnw ) JK--"As many as 50 companies are already said to be selling or preparing some form of silicon AI accelerators. Some are intellectual-property blocks for system-on-chips (SoCs), some are chips, and a few are systems."
"Kubernetes Without Servers" (
http://ow.ly/9NVn30kYwML ) JK--Running Kubernetes orchestrations of containerized microservices in serverless environments. My brain is hurting from all the twists in cloud services architectures, but this feels important.
"What machine learning means for software development" (
http://ow.ly/W9OF30kYw66 ) JK--ML as abstraction layer for automated code generation, which is fundamental to my
#Wikibon"augmented programming" discussion here:
"Satisfy GDPR standards and identify issues early in the pipeline" (
http://ow.ly/zfHf30kYvKl ) JK--I'd never heard this "shift left" terminology before: push more of the compliance-prep work toward the Dev and away from the Ops end of the software development life cycle.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpDesmond Dekker "007 (Shanty Town)" JK-1967. Great rocksteady song. Dekker wrote it about student demonstration against government plans to raze a shantytown on beach to build an industrial complex.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpDesmond Dekker "Israelites" JK--1968. A fairly substantial top-40 hit on US radio then. Not clear what "Israelites" had to do with "Bonnie & Clyde," till you realize it's a Rastafarian lamentation on destitution tempting the enslaved into a life of crime.
Today in social media, more people making big showy productions about quitting Facebook, trying to encourage all their Facebook friends to do likewise, posting self-righteous anti-Facebook screeds, and getting lots of Facebook "likes" and shares and vigorous discussion about it.
"How to Order Wine at a Restaurant" (
http://ow.ly/GTqi30kY5FQ ) JK--Snap your fingers and, in a really lame French accent, bark out "garçon, I would like to order ze wine!!"
"The immune system and the pathogenesis of depression" (
http://ow.ly/pic430kY5ys ) JK--During chronic infections and other medical conditions associated with intense immune activation, "sickness behavior" syndrome can develop into a depressive episode.
"AI Is Humanity’s Trojan Horse: Alluring at First, Dangerous Down the Road" (
http://ow.ly/oGtV30kY4Qi ) JK--Absurd conflation of all AI with "deepfakes." BTW, dumb figure of speech: the people of Troy didn't use the Achaean-gifted booby trap "down the road" to pull their chariots
I love rum and Coke. But I prefer rum and Pepsi. Especially rum and diet decaffeinated Pepsi. It’s more exotic.
Re-reading Garrison Keillor’s “Book of Guys” and laughing in all the same places as I did 20 years ago. Especially the bit about Earl Grey actually being the abandoned effete middle child of a pandering Georgia congressman.
I’m getting better at switching seamlessly and in mid-stride from one elliptical to a better one ~10 feet away behind me and two over. I consider the machines an ensemble that I personally orchestrate. No one yokes me.
Am I a “morning person”? I exist 24/7. There’s no after-hours curfew on my personhood.
Most useless new Twitter overnotifications tell you when somebody tweeted “after a while” & share some random tweet”in case you missed.” After a while, nobody misses any of this. Don’t spam us.
Saw indication that it's National French Fry Day. Also have heard rumors that it's National Macaroni & Cheese Day. I'm not a fancy man. Please alert me when it's National Eat a Nine-Inch Stack of Saltine Crackers Straight Out of the Box Day.
Parade magazine interview with Billy Joel. Dotson Rader asks the tough questions. “What attracts you to women?” I didn’t realize that this was some unusual condition in the male of the species.
Substitute yoga teacher today. The one who won’t shut up and let us breathe naturally. The one who overspecifies every asana. Oh, you need to explain every time how to do Proud Warrior 2? I’ve done it thousands of times & always forget.
TV commercial about “major medical condition that many people don’t know they have.” You may be at risk. Ask your doctor. Ask about some pharmaceutical many doctors don’t know about. They may be at risk of malpractice if they don’t prescribe it ASAP. Hurry!
Was a good week. Did a lot of research. Clarified my thinking on a bunch of things. Wrote it all up. Will all be published on coming weeks. Four things in the pipeline. Waiting for the publishers now.
"The Slugger Who Is on Track for the Worst Single Season in Baseball History" (
http://ow.ly/RF0p30kWkSu ) JK--Fun fact: Chris Davis' birth name was Joe Shlabotnik.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Beatles "Ticket to Ride" from Help! JK--1965. Cool percussion where Ringo just holds that same insistent roll from start to finish with nice unshowy fills at regular intervals and deft change-ups on the bridges to keep it from feeling robotic.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpTame Impala "Music to Walk Home By" from Lonerism JK--2012. Cool percussion that seems to pan back and forth across a multicolored electronic field of sound.
"The Autonomous Car Security Platform" (
http://ow.ly/QIaI30kWiPi ) JK--Cube uses an interesting blend of blockchain (store autonomous-vehicle software-binary hashed signatures for preventing malware injections) & AI (detect hack-attack attempt signatures that target vehicles)
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpVan Morrison "And It Stoned Me" from Moondance 1970 JK--The singer-songwriter waxing nostalgic about his Belfast childhood and the whisky-filled jelly rolls that were so popular back then.
"Glow: Better Reversible Generative Models" (
http://ow.ly/AtyM30kWhBd ) JK--I played with this face-mixer just long enough to confirm the obvious: mixing Beyonce Knowles & Rashida Jones produces yet another beautiful female face.
"An Overview of National AI Strategies" (
http://ow.ly/VwBW30kWhgw ) JK--I seriously doubt that Trump or his inner circle has even the slightest clue or interest in AI.
"Reinforcement learning’s foundational flaw" (
http://ow.ly/Hruk30kWfTg ) JK--Calls for blending pure RL with prior instructions, knowledge/skills & demonstrations of the skills to be learned. Transfer, multi-task, few-task, & meta learning. See also part 2:
"AI system for editing music in videos" (
http://ow.ly/KQxF30kWfmP ) JK--MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory has developed a deep-learning system that can isolate sounds of specific instruments in a music performance video, and make them louder or softer.
"PR & Data Management: How to Get (& Measure) Better Results" (
http://ow.ly/jo2q30kWeeb ) JK--"Track & therefore measure PR-driven results such as increased website traffic & leads with greater accuracy"? Don't kid yourself. It's a relationship biz that defies crisp monetization
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpTim Buckley "Wings" from The Best of Tim Buckley JK--1966. This man had a beautiful voice.
Gillian Anderson. I knew she was from Grand Rapids MI, but then I heard her speak as herself in a plummy perfectly calibrated English accent. WTF? Then I looked it up. She spent part of her childhood in London. She’s “bidialectal.”
Took interesting briefing from ALTR: Austin-based startup, recently emerged from 4-year stealth, with platform for blockchain-based digital data security across the enterprise.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpRichard Swift "Lady Luck" from Ground Trouble Jaw JK--2008. Nice soul song. Artist recently passed away at 41. Also worked with The Shins, Damien Jurado, David Bazan, Foxygen, The Mynabirds, Laetitia Sadier, Cayucas, Guster, The Arcs, and Black Keys.
Useful overview of similarities and differences between EU's GDPR and California's new privacy law:
http://ow.ly/1lHW30kV3wi
"Facebook labels Russian users as ‘interested in treason’" (
http://ow.ly/UkTS30kV0i5 ) JK--"Firm removes category....from ad tools"? That was a ridiculous inclusion in the first place. What sorts of advertisers pitch their wares to people interested in betraying their country?
"Blockchain phone"? "Pop-up screen hidden inside the phone"? "Access your cryptocurrency [in a] cold wallet" protected by an inside-the-phone firewall? (
http://ow.ly/Agyu30kUZs2 ) Innovation, yes. But no real sense for whether there's any actual demand for these doodads.
Recently dead skunk on the main road ~100 yards from our house. Now I know the source of the mysterious stink a couple of nights ago when we had the windows open. Unusual wildlife for this neighborhood.
Whenever there's a lot of Twitter likes and s for something I publish, the only metric that matters to me is what percentage of those are NOT from some vendor I mentioned in a positive light. But I'm glad they like it too. I need all the social friends I can get.
"Intel/Mobileye Responsible Sensitive Safety" (
http://ow.ly/vu6P30kUspZ ) JK--Safety assurance of autonomous vehicle decision-making in AI era. Reinforcement learning proposes AV next action. Deterministic “safety layer” overrides an “unsafe” AV decision. A rule-based failsafe.
"Google's new policy boss will tackle everything from AI anxiety to antitrust" (
http://ow.ly/Y6pI30kUs56 ) JK--Tackle "anxiety"? By doing what? Continuing the algorithmic beatings until customer morale improves?
"The Future of Pets: Therapeutic Robot Cushions and Cat Cafes" (
http://ow.ly/z3Q830kUrN3 ) JK--Need a vendetta robot that scratches back at any real cat who attempts to claw at your best upholstered living-room chair. Teach that animal a lesson they'll never forget.
Now that the "do not call registry" has been such a stunning success, I'm expecting a "do not spam registry," a "do not pop-up irritating stuff while I'm browsing registry," and a "do not keep asking me if I'm cool with cookies, I am, dammit! registry." With equivalent results.
"Oasis Labs creating an AWS-like blockchain-based cloud computing platform for smart contracts" (
http://ow.ly/OE4M30kUqPo ) JK--Potential to speed secure transaction processing over blockchains. Sorely needed, if it works.
Another pitch for a customer sentiment analysis solution. Machine learning determines whether the sentiment is negative, based on the tone and language, and what you can do about it. That's not enough. Need root cause analysis. Does the customer have an attitude problem?
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpBully "Focused" from Losing JK--2017. I think I've got a new themesong. Not "losing" or "bully." I am trying to stay focused.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpClem Snide "Joan Jett of Arc" from The Ghost of Fashion JK--2001. "She'd fix me a dinner of sunflower seeds/And ready-whipped topping inhalers/And take me down south with Hall and Oates in her mouth/My first love my Joan Jett of Arc."
Ah geez..these drop-down alphabetical lists I have to scroll through to declare my nationality....quite a slog to get to "United States of America"...thinking of applying for Albanian citizenship just to make my life a bit easier registering for stuff online.
"The AI revolution has spawned a new chips arms race" (
http://ow.ly/p1A930kUeY4 ) JK--"Don’t need to think of backwards compatibility. We’re reinventing the kinds of processors good at these kinds of tasks and doing it in conjunction with the software to run on them.”
"Taskonomy" (
http://ow.ly/TTtk30kUdfE ) JK--Task taxonomy: a directed hypergraph that captures the transferability of an source task's statistical knowledge to a target task, for transfer learning & artificial general intelligence.
Another morning of tech press releases. vendors being recognized as leaders. customers selecting them to unlock new value. seven-digit deals to deliver innovations to one of the largest privately owned telcos in EMEA. digital revolutions in the offing.
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@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpCowboy Junkies "The Things We Do to Each Other" from All That Reckoning JK--2018. Veteran Toronto group releases their next LP on Friday. Nice to hear Margo's voice again. Always sounds supremely rooted.
"The 2018 Microsoft Product Roadmap" (
http://ow.ly/YpUz30kSNAG ) JK--In other words, the latest versions of the Microsoft products that were on the market pre-Azure. The only one of these that wasn't Redmond's (yet) in 2008 is Skype.
"Artificial Intelligence can accurately predict distribution of radioactive fallout" (
http://ow.ly/htsK30kSNgn ) JK--Thanks. I'll be sure to check it before I emerge from my subterranean refuge after a nuclear holocaust.
"Blockchain as a Re-invention of the Business" (
http://ow.ly/Pzpy30kSM5l ) JK--This is a better-than-average blockchain-uber-alles post. It sketches out the how AI will power the blockchains that enable the emergence of decentralized autonomous organizations in the cloud.
"GDPR for marketing: What U.S. content management execs need to know" (
http://ow.ly/17YL30kSLJN ) JK--What they need to know is that "get your DX GDPR act together" is the least-inspiring call to action in all creation.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexp!!! "AM/FM" from Strange Weather, Isn’t It? JK--2010. Strange bandname, isn't it? Have to wonder what they were on when they agreed to call the band Three Exclamation Points. DJs said they pronounce it "chick chick chick."
'splainin' to do. Whatever
"GitHub vs. Bitbucket vs. GitLab: An epic battle for developer mindshare" (
http://ow.ly/pMcV30kRJSi ) JK--Good discussion of pros, cons, and features of each.
"Job Loss and AI: Startups Accentuate the Positive" (
http://ow.ly/bGxg30kRJBS ) JK--OK. But I'll bet there's some money to be made messing with Mister In-Between.
"Future Data Architectures: Musings from 2018" (
http://ow.ly/8NDC30kRJ6O ) JK--Most interesting here are the semantic abstraction layers that insulate business users from changes in database engines, data pipeline tools, and BI tools. AtScale, Dremio, etc.
"California’s New Data Privacy Law Takes Effect in 2020" (
http://ow.ly/Sxuy30kRIC0 ) JK--Similar to GDPR. Gives consumers the right to know how their data is used, why it’s being collected, and also to bar companies from selling the data.
"AI spots legal problems with tech T&Cs in GDPR research project" (
http://ow.ly/vNxV30kRHGK ) JK--Still-in-training privacy policy & contract parsing tool is called ‘Claudette‘ (clause detector) is being developed by researchers in Florence. Hey boss, any sanity clause detector?
"AI network made of DNA can identify 'molecular handwriting'" (
http://ow.ly/nUkL30kRHr1 ) JK--Wow. I suppose this hastens the day when they build neural networks from actual neurons. My synapses are firing on all barrels over this.
"7 surprising companies where you can work on cutting-edge AI technology" (
http://ow.ly/kBoE30kRH2I ) JK--Huh? Not a single one of these is surprising. If one of them had been, say, Cracker Barrel, I might have been surprised.
"Baidu no-code EasyDL tool could democratize AI..." (
http://ow.ly/rQS630kRGoS ) JK--What this means is that you build apps by dragging, dropping, & connecting icons representing AI capabilities. Provides library of 110 AI functions, also available for programming via open APIs
"When Is It Important for an Algorithm to Explain Itself?" (
http://ow.ly/wuCC30kRDgp ) JK--And when is it important for an algorithm to excuse itself from the room and take its poor excuse for manners outside.
"Dealing with heteroskedasticity; regression with robust standard errors using R" (
http://ow.ly/1Mmv30kRCUz ) JK--Honestly, more people are dealing with the pronunciation of "heteroskedasticity" than are worried about standard errors using R. Some are barely coping.
"The rise of 'pseudo-AI': how tech firms quietly use humans to do bots' work" (
http://ow.ly/7F6r30kRCw5 ) JK--That's old news. I mean, the Flintstones quietly used monkeys to make prehistoric TVs operate.
My favorite blog clickbait headline has the form "[Provocative, counter-intuitive, or mostly attitudinal proclamation]. Here's why." Implies that the blogger is some great oracle on whatever it is and is simply revealing the gospel truth. Life sucks. Here's why
"Atari’s Hard-Partying Origin Story: An Oral History" (
http://ow.ly/SaWW30kRzJL ) JK--Back in the day, they did their best work after-hours when the boys would sit around hitting the Pong.
"Can Artificial Intelligence Dream?" (
http://ow.ly/Ir4b30kRzBs ) JK--Yes, it can, and it's dreaming of the day when you're not placing all this pressure on it to perform.
"The Mental and Metaphysical Effects of Microdosing LSD" (
http://ow.ly/tfh830kRzp0 ) JK--Hate to mess with your mind, but how can you be sure you're not hallucinating these benefits?
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpHaerts "New Compassion" from New Compassion JK--2018. Cool one. A choral chant all the way through. First time I recall this on a popsong since John & Yoko's "Give Peace a Chance."
Another article about "blockchain ethics,""AI ethics,""big data ethics," etc. At what point did morality become something you slap onto some technology paradigm, as opposed to being a foundation of human engagement with this and everything else in our lives?
"My conversation with a coding nun" (
http://ow.ly/Oqe830kRy3U ) JK--There should be one in every programming team: to appreciate the divine mystery of automated information systems and pray it doesn't all come crashing down and hasten your final day of employment.
"Mar-a-Lago files request to hire 61 foreign temporary workers" (
http://ow.ly/mzvs30kRxKn ) JK--I'm sure there's a good reason. But it's important that no other US business be able to do likewise. That would pose a serious threat to national security.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpLee Hazlewood "A House Safe for Tigers" JK--1975. Title track from soundtrack to one of the 7 TV movies Lee Hazlewood made with director Torbjörn Axelman during his period living in Sweden in the early 1970s. Moved there to help his son avoid the draft.
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@KEXPNowPlaying#kexp Elvis Presley "Blue Moon of Kentucky" from Elvis at Sun JK--1954. Bill Monroe cover. Flip side of Presley's first hit record "That's All Right."
Had a less-than-optimal experience at a local eatery last week. That almost made me want to go on Yelp and tell the tale. But that's probably the reason many people use for going on Yelp. And that tells the tale about why I don't use Yelp. Bias toward culinary score-settling.
Best clickbait headline of the morning: “Phoebe Cates is 54 and unimaginable today.” What is she now? Some incorporeal being who resides in the outer reaches of Alpha Centauri? I can imagine that.
Near as I can tell, I’m the only member of this club who dances on the elliptical. I exercise hands-free in all dimensions. Agile isn’t agile if it’s fragile in any direction.
Doing my Sunday morning workout at the club, thinking ahead to the french fries we’ll enjoy at McDonald’s. My wife and I dangle a regular series of token indulgences to keep us motivated. Neither of us values expensive stuff.
One of my favorite fitness-club fools is the self-styled muscleman who preens in front of the barbells for a couple of minutes, makes exactly one attempt, grunts showily while doing so, then walks away. What do you think this is? Olympic clean-and-jerk finals?
A hallelujah morning. Heatwave broke overnight. Cool air, low humidity, it’s Saturday, and new music I’m enjoying over a light breakfast.
Saw “The Shape of Water” on DVD. Interspecies romance is kinky.
Workweek began with unwelcome surprise. On my nerves all week. Workweek ended with surprise root canal. Ripped those nerves right out. Went straight to yoga. It’s no panacea.
"Rush using ML, analytics on images and unstructured data" (
http://ow.ly/2pMJ30kPBmW ) JK--Disappointed. I expected a Geddy Lee angle here, such as him running his voice through a ML-driven pre-amp and then turning the helium effect up to 11.
"An AI speed test shows clever coders can still beat tech giants like Google & Intel" (
http://ow.ly/NCal30kPB5f ) JK--Right. Don't succumb to the "big data" myth of what makes this stuff work well. It comes down to clever modeling & training. Don't throw gobs of data at bad models
"Debunking Google's Death AI" (
http://ow.ly/pc2R30kPzNz ) JK--Curious whether Google's influencer relations team has reached out to this blogger. I doubt that they want the meme of "death AI" associated with their brand. It's simply a predictive model of hospital-patient mortality
"The State of Artificial Intelligence in 2018: A Good Old Fashioned Report" (
http://ow.ly/T3XX30kPxpg ) JK--Very good and comprehensive slideshare. Of course I flipped through all 156 slides to make sure I'm not missing any bases in my coverage of the same. I'm relieved. I'm on it.
Quit labeling music as "alternative." Each piece of music is an alternative to any other piece. You might as well label Ozzy Osbourne as "alternative" to lullabies.
Bought, downloaded, & very much enjoying Spike & Debbie's new LP "Always Sunshine, Always Rain." Lovely set of light & lilting samba-pop from these Cardiff, Wales artists. Debbie Pritchard's happy voice has quite a calming effect. Spike Williams works his usual instrumental magic
Yes, Scott Pruitt, your stewardship of EPA was indeed a divine mission. God visited your epic corruption down on America as a punishment for our environmental sins.
Thank you Specific Make/Model of Item I Casually Searched For On Amazon Today for stalking me in ads on Facebook: It’s good to know that the digital mega-brands are ganging up to serve every ghost of a whim I let slip into cyberspace.
"Cloud wars 2018: 6 things we learned in the first half" (
http://ow.ly/feLZ30kOsCW ) JK--Wikibon's recent report showed that public clouds--especially AWS and Microsoft Azure--are starting to dominate big data analytics ecosystem:
"Testing machine learning interpretability techniques" (
http://ow.ly/PHft30kOrv3 ) JK--Highlights what's crazy-difficult about this: "ML models combine variables, but we need explanations based on single variables."
"Capture the Flag: the emergence of complex cooperative agents" (
http://ow.ly/joKD30kOqXu ) JK--Multi-agent multiplayer AI-driven gaming in which bots and bodies collaborate & compete for fun and prizes. See my thoughts on such stuff a while back:
http://ow.ly/bfX830kOr4m
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpYo La Tengo "The River of Water" from 7" single JK--1985. Their very first recorded release. Nice indie jangle-pop stuff from Hoboken NJ. Backed by cover of Love's "A House Is Not a Motel." Ira & Georgia plus lead & bass guitarists who didn't stay.
"Getting started with reading Deep Learning Research papers: The Why and the How" (
http://ow.ly/UyYS30kOpHd ) JK--“Nothing makes you feel stupid quite like reading a scientific journal article.” Good list of research to subscribe to. I read arxiv daily.
Best clickbait come-on line of the morning: "Photoshop Didn't Exist Back Then, So Yes This Photo Is Real." Yes, it's a fact that Adobe Photoshop is technologically incapable of manipulating photos that were taken before 1988.
I don't think coffee, tea, or any hot beverage are intrinsically calming. What's calming is the feel of lazy steam rising from them into your face.
I scan the tech news looking for something new. I also scan the news to make sure I'm not totally ignorant of what's going on, even if I don't read it in depth. If I can glance at something and roughly recognize it, I move on. One less thing I might be blindsided by. Relief.
"How a Stream Works" (
http://ow.ly/M6J530kOofn ) JK--What's most interesting about this is are 4 stream types in Node.js: writable, readable, duplex (readable/writable), and transform (duplex streams that can modify or transform the data as it is written and read it).
"Managing Privacy In A Data-Driven World" (
http://ow.ly/Vnhx30kOo5O ) JK--Geez: "if you’re in Europe, you won’t even be able to adjust your thermostat unless you agree to the updated privacy policy."
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpPusha T "Santeria" from DAYTONA JK--2018. Cool male-female duet with rapped & sung English & Spanish parts. Very fusion.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpAlanis Obomsawin "Odana" from Bush Lady JK--2018. Reissue of 1988 recording in her native tongue. Obomsawin is Abenaki, born in New Hampshire, grew up in Quebec. Singer, songwriter, filmmaker, First Nations activist.
here:
http://ow.ly/zG1Y30kOn2M
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpHappy Rhodes "When the Rain Came Down" from Ectotrophia JK--1996. This singer has an astonishing 4-octave range. This sounds like a duet between Annie Lennox & Kate Bush, but it's all from the vocal tract of one woman. Awesome song too.
"The Land Before Binary" (
http://ow.ly/yyi730kOjwo ) JK--Interesting article, until makes ridiculous claim that some Polish researcher "came up with the concept of the INFOSTRADA (a project the Soviets quickly killed) which eventually became Al Gore’s internet."
“DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston MI”? Don’t tell me they renamed Pine Knob! This new sponsored name sucks big time!
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I’m still puzzled about what specifically Yankee Doodle was calling macaroni: a feather or his cap. And I’d like to know what he was calling cheese. His snuff?
The Temptations perform on the National Mall in “A Capitol Fourth.” Of course I whip out the IPhone to Google who’s original. Otis Williams. They still have the smooth moves, harmonies, and outfits.
Finished the audiobook of Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential” (2000). I’m no foodie and not even much of a restaurant-goer, but that was one beautifully written book. Pure poetry. He voiced it with his full personality.
Slept in. Or, rather, my nervous system roused itself from slumber at the usual hour, but felt no urgency to do anything useful. Hump-day holiday. Happy 4th!
WETA “Washington in the 80s” retrospective. Davey Marlin-Jones. annoying than Gene Shalit. I remember 1980-ish when WDIV ran DM-J’s spots in the Detroit market. I could not change channels fast enough.
Oh. U2 “Songs of Innocence” is still on my iPhone. I listened to it maybe once. I’ve never felt like I have to listen to any of theirs just because they’re U2. Free and default didn’t sweeten the deal. Must delete.
So sick of music critics extolling rap/hiphop as the great music of our century. No it’s not. It’s boring and has long overstayed its welcome.
Love how the Washington Post slyly inserts dry sarcasm into straight reporting of Trump’s insanity--e.g. “It could not be learned why Trump was linking the company’s 2017 sales figures to a decision it made in the middle of 2018.”
“Trump again scolds Harley-Davidson” [for relocating production overseas]. While his tariffs on steel and aluminum make it uneconomical for foreign motorcycle manufacturers to site plants in the US. He expects nasty tweets will do the trick.
"GitLab: We're Moving From Azure to Google Cloud Platform" (
http://ow.ly/MJw730kMUT8 ) JK--Stated rationale makes no mention of the fact that GitLab's biggest competitor is being acquired by Azure's parent, Microsoft.
"If you thought GDPR was bad – just wait for ePrivacy Regulation" (
http://ow.ly/6X7i30kMU7r ) JK--Sounds like the EU is just asking for its economy to collapse from regulatory overkill.
Keep in mind that when you as a brand engage industry influencers, you do so to gain access to their audiences. A larger audience is your marketing megaphone.
"Data science expert interview: Influencer roundtable" (
http://ow.ly/aefu30kMNQi ) JK--Example of influencer program I ran while at IBM. I handpicked each of these influencers because they had something to say. Notice that, as moderator, I wasnt weaseling IBM endorsemnts from them
"Brands React: Why Is it So Hard to Let Go & Trust Influencers?" (
http://ow.ly/o4tn30kMN44 ) JK--Because they're not extensions of your marketing dept. They have audiences who tune into their honest opinions, which may or may not align with your go-to-market message. Accept that
"6 Drivers of Mental & Emotional Stress in Infosec" (
http://ow.ly/17Aa30kMLa6 ) JK--It's not just information security specialists who suffer these stresses. Everybody in IT does, including IT industry analysts. Everybody labors 24x7 to keep a punishing pace in a bewildering space
Did my first Zumba class this morning. It’s OK. I tried to keep a line of sight to the instructor, who’s Beyoncé-agile, and keep the other men out of my peripheral vision. Model my moves on grace. Personal deklutzification strategy.
"What’s New in Deep Learning Research: Teaching Computers How to Code" (
http://ow.ly/WzTK30kMlSY ) JK--Report on Microsoft "program synthesis" research into "neural-guided deductive search."
"Neurala launches its Brain Builder to speed up neural network data preparation" (
http://ow.ly/9mJO30kMkIs ) JK--Automated data tagging is AI applied to the training of AI, which is what helps these algorithms do their jobs more automatically and accurately.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpHeart "Magic Man" from Dreamboat Annie JK--1976. Nancy's righteous guitar and Ann's soaring voice made this Pacific Northwest band stand out in the '70s. Sleater-Kinney also had this dynamic: the unrelated Carrie & Corin.
"In FL, State-Funded Private Schools Use Books Claiming Noah Saved Baby Dinosaurs" (
http://ow.ly/Wttw30kMhl1 ) JK--Not entirely true. Noah actually saved archeopteryx, for its plumage. He made the rest of the dinosaurs walk the plank. Noah actually means "extinction man" in Hebrew
Battles over what gets published in school science, history, & social studies textbooks. I don't know about you, but I only read the textbooks in order to pass the classes. For my actual learning, I tended to read everything else, especially the stuff the grownups were reading.
Toys R Us out of business and liquidated. Sold off everything including the racks and signs. Had to deeply discount those Rs. Damaged goods. They’ve been backward for decades.
Will publish my next
#Wikibon note tomorrow. A special for my loyal fans who want to imbibe deeply from the keg of JavaScript development frameworks while celebrating the 242nd anniversary of US independence. It’s either this or picnics with the family. Your choice.
Thank you microbrew I’d never heard of before and may never see again. My hunch is that your business model was to brew me this one can of pale ale and then vanish. I deeply appreciate your principled ephemerality.
Hey Facebook, send me a time-series analytic showing which friends have come and gone on the service, participating for short bursts then losing interest and essentially dumping it. I suspect that most do so eventually.
Thank you weather app for informing me that tomorrow, at 94 degrees, will be 5 degrees “colder” than today. I’ll grab my scarf and mittens out of storage.
I want to thank the data science twittersphere for continuing to a ho-hum blog I wrote in haste a few years ago on my previous job.
"12 top machine learning data catalog firms" (
http://ow.ly/5Os030kLgRu ) JK--The term "machine learning" is unnecessary here: Alation, Collibra, Reltio, IBM, Unifi Software, Cambridge Semantics, Cloudera, Infogix, Informatica, Oracle, Waterline Data, Hortonworks
"The importance of data curation in information management" (
http://ow.ly/E5eY30kLgjH ) JK--We need curators to strike made-up words like "trans-situationary" out of articles like this.
"How facial recognition helped police identify the Capital Gazette shooter" (
http://ow.ly/Jmqj30kLeEw ) JK--Maryland Coordination and Analysis Center compared photo against images of known offenders, the state’s entire driver’s license databases, and the FBI’s mugshot database.
"OpenAI Five" (
http://ow.ly/DM4W30kLe7M ) JK--"One AI milestone is to exceed human capabilities in a complex video game like StarCraft or Dota....The hope is that systems which solve complex video games will be highly general, with applications outside of games."
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpAmen Dunes "Dracula" from Freedom JK--2018. This is shaping up to be one of my favorite LPs of the year.
"Great Power, Great Responsibility: The 2018 Big Data & AI Landscape" (
http://ow.ly/rGZm30kLdz5 ) JK--Nice to see Matt Turck's logo-compression algorithm hard at
"Machine learning will redesign, not replace, work " (
http://ow.ly/UkNI30kLd69 ) JK--That's a dumb claim. "Machine learning" is just an approach for inferring insights from data. It has no power to re/design anything, but people may use it in the service of some design initiative
"What Is Psychographics? Understanding The ‘Dark Arts’ Of Marketing That Brought Down Cambridge Analytica" (
http://ow.ly/QhQG30kLcHX ) JK--Dark arts? Psychographics? Qu'est-ce que c'est? Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa better run run run run run run run away!
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpJim James "No Secrets" from Uniform Distortion JK--2018. Excellent rocker from the My Morning Jacket frontman's latest/4th solo LP.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpRickie Lee Jones "Weasel and the White Boys Cool" from Rickie Lee Jones JK--1979. Cool album cover & groove. Still sounds great. Artist is beat-jazz-pop a la Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits. Was clearly an influence on Sheryl Crow.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpMitski "Nobody" from Be the Cowboy JK--2018. Good song. I like the arrangement on this. Nice bounce from keyboards to guitars to drums.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpDe'Anza "La Puerta" de Cosmic Dream JK--2018. Cantadora fue nacido y criado en Santa Fe, Nuevo Mexico, EU. Viva en Los Angeles.
"Amazon develops transgender resources for employees" (
http://ow.ly/vIdL30kL7mC ) JK--Every employer should extend the same protections, courtesies, and sensitivities to all LGBT personnel.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpDJ Koze "Music on My Teeth (feat. José Gonzalez)" from Knock Knock JK--2018. Great one. Always pleasure to hear some fresh José.
"China's AI-infused corner store of the future" (
http://ow.ly/Xxnw30kL5xO ) JK--"Corner store"? "Mom and pop store"? These Americanisms sound ridiculous when you consider that Asian retailing occupies every niche of the streetscape & tends to be run by extended families.
"DeepPhish: Simulating Malicious AI" (
http://ow.ly/gJoN30kL5aD ) JK--Used training database of 1.1M phishing URLs. "If AI is being used to prevent attacks, what is stopping cyber criminals from using the same tech to defeat both traditional and AI-based cyber-defense systems?"
Having fun at Creative Cauldron in Falls Church. Community nonprofit that encourages local students to develop their performing arts skills. Tonight we’re celebrating the life of our friend Juan Febles.
Downloaded the Audible app. Got my first audiobook free. Chose the late Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential,” in the author’s distinctive voice. An excellent listen. Plays more like participatory journalism than memoir.
Why wouldn’t the protagonist of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” buy their own damn peanuts & Cracker Jack? What a mooch!
“America’s favorite pastime”? When did Americans start playing baseball just to pass the time? This makes it sound like reading a 3-year-old copy of Better Homes & Gardens in the dentist’s waiting room.
When’s the anniversary of when I first congratulated somebody on their work anniversary? Hey LinkedIn, please notify me of that as well.
Exhausting week, but not excessively so. Hope the coming hump-day holiday helps me recover.
"Learning from humans: what is inverse reinforcement learning?" (
http://ow.ly/jYOK30kJ4lo ) JK--Extracting reward function from observed behavior of an agent, rather than specifying the reward function a priori & watching how the agent attempts to maximize it.
"My Loopy, a Tiny Social Robot with a Big and Quirky Personality, Launches on Kickstarter from LocoRobo Innovations" (
http://ow.ly/lmXK30kJ3X5 ) JK--Three inches tall. Not scary. But likely to get lost under the sofa or clog the vacuum cleaner.
"Kofax Robotic Process Automation Software Creates Smarter Robots" (
http://ow.ly/JeNT30kJ1GH ) JK--Super-hot emerging niche of the business process management space. Refers to software "robots," which I prefer to think of as client-emulating process-automating microservices.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpPink Floyd "One of These Days" from Meddle JK--1971. Beautiful build on this: winds, bass, synthesizer, guitar....then that weird throbbing, drumming, and distorted vocal sample that signal the transition to interstellar overdrive. Then it just screams!
"Ping adds AI-driven API protection with Elastic Beam acquisition" (
http://ow.ly/NPrC30kJ0QT ) JK--Very cool approach. AI-driven real-time behavioral analysis of activity on enterprise APIs. "The moment it detects abnormal activity on an API, it automatically blocks that API."
"SequoiaDB 3.0 Released, New-Generation Multi-Model NewSQL Database" (
http://ow.ly/SQAu30kJ0Ak ) JK--Quite comparable in many ways to the next-gen NoSQL database that MongoDB announced earlier this week, including ACID transactional support.
For me, the best takeaway from my webinar yesterday with Attunity and MemSQL was that my sister-in-law tuned in. Good to occasionally have family pay attention to the substance of what I do for a living. Happy birthday
@laughingdi
"Extreme Networks' new AI-powered edge network solution to accelerate digital transformation" (
http://ow.ly/Wuyi30kIYIE ) JK--Very cool. Automated management of service levels for device-oriented apps operating across distributed WiFi endpoints in the enterprise.
Tech marketing language tends to crystallize in comfortable clichés. That's not a bad thing, actually. When you have dozens of vendors all hitting on the same requirements with roughly comparable offerings, verbiage explaining it must hit familiar notes on the rhetorical keyboard
"Google flags bigger open-source ambitions as it steps up commitment to the Linux Foundation" (
http://ow.ly/nLaj30kIYi8 ) JK--Quotes me.
Police used face recognition software to identify the shooter in Annapolis yesterday, who'd mutilated his own fingerprints hoping to conceal his identity. It's a new era for law enforcement.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpMGMT "Me and Michael" from Little Dark Age JK--2018. Haven't heard anything from them in a while. This new one is good. Last week, I heard a lounge version of "Electric Feel" at a party in NYC, and I thought of them.
RT KEXP Playlist#kexp Bob Moses "Heaven Only Knows" from Heaven Only Knows JK--2018. Sequel to his classic LP: "Bob Moses Supposes His Nose Is A Rose (But Bob Moses Supposes Erroneously)."
"Is Humanity Ignoring Our First Chance For A Mission To An Oort Cloud Object?" (
http://ow.ly/UTfd30kIX9a ) JK--We need to go. My hunch is that the aliens living there just say "oort oort oort oort" all day long. We have to know for sure.
"face-api.js — JavaScript API for Face Recognition in the Browser with tensorflow.js" (
http://ow.ly/zDvG30kIWEO ) JK--This should be the default strong authentication tool on every personal device.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpMazzy Star "Still" from Still JK--2018. This is one of the most minimal of their songs. I sounds like Hope Sandoval barely trying to sing and play guitar.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpSufjan Stevens "Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack JK--2017. Nice feather-lite ambient-ish track from the prolific artiste.
"Databricks makes it easier to build AI apps using the R programming language" (
http://ow.ly/tsLy30kI4Mu ) JK--Quotes me.
In the front row, waiting for keynote at
#MDBW18. Had a good day yesterday in the analyst pre-briefs and a good morning today speaking with
#MongoDBcustomers. Expecting some announcements.
"Microsoft and Ernst & Young announce blockchain-based content rights and royalties management network" (
http://ow.ly/lKIn30kFUyk ) JK--"System is designed to serve any industry that deals with intellectual property licensing and royalty payments."
"Decentralized Blockchain Governance" (
http://ow.ly/wQ5j30kFU7e ) JK--Cryptocurrency governance, actually. Discusses how risky they are today, compared to the traditional banking system, and ideas for mitigating those risks.
The best tech vendor strategy talk tends to position short rhyming verbs around a conjunction. "Lift and shift.""Land and expand.""Rack and stack." Very punchy and action-oriented!
If it ain't fixed, don't broke it!
"Experts Bet on First Deepfakes Political Scandal" (
http://ow.ly/r88z30kFNic ) JK--I'm betting that somebody puts out a fake video of Trump saying something sane and rational.
Recent protest letters by tech professionals against their employers' engagement in various US ICE initiatives: Microsoft employees (
http://ow.ly/WcVG30kFMST ), AWS employees (
"If Mass Curves Spacetime, How Does It Un-Curve Again?" (
http://ow.ly/CBon30kFARU ) JK--Drain the universe of all matter and energy. That would be a bummer, man.
Just received a business email from some tech professional ostensibly working out of the Aleutian Islands. Sure, I totally believe you have excellent broadband connectivity out there.
Dining at Manhattan's West Side Restaurant. Good service, good food. But can't help thinking of the Soup Nazi.
80° Fahrenheit. 30% humidity. Light breeze. Clear sky with a few wispy clouds. Air quality good. A perfect early summer evening in Central Park. Stroll I must!
"Optimizing an artificial intelligence architecture: The race is on" (
http://ow.ly/7jz530kEkJB ) JK--Discusses pros/cons of using NVMe over Fabric--rather than direct attached storage--in new I/O fabrics to speed/scale AI training & inferencing with large data sets.
"Adobe is using machine learning to make it easier to spot Photoshopped images" (
http://ow.ly/HxgX30kEknT ) JK--Just in time, now that ML is making it easier to produce realistic deepfakes that make manual Photoshopping look as sophisticated as a child's fingerpainting
"Nvidia uses AI to create convincing slo-mo video by filling in extra frames" (
http://ow.ly/iy7q30kEjCI ) JK--Great. Now simulate an action hero shouting a slowed-down "NO-O-O-O-O!!!!" while diving headlong to push a bad guy over the edge of a cliff. Popcorn-munching mega-hit!
"This AI program could beat you in an argument—but it doesn’t know what it’s saying" (
http://ow.ly/5GT430kEj68 ) JK--Sounds like something a lazy highschool debater might lean on like Cliff's Notes. Jam your virtual index card box with wads of "ads"& "disads" you've barely read.
"Amazon: Here's why the one-size-fits-all relational database model is dead" (
http://ow.ly/4O4o30kEiLx ) JK--Um, OK, but many people (self included) have been making that point for years now, eg my Feb 2014 interview response to question 2:
"Microsoft Acquires AI Startup Founded by Former Employees " (
http://ow.ly/UfWB30kEioC ) JK--Bonsai's platform [uses] Machine Teaching [to] leverage your subject matter expertise to deconstruct complex problems into key concepts you want an AI model to learn."
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpMarvin Gaye "Got to Give It Up" JK--1977. Genius dance song. Gaye's falsetto plays like a flute over the partylike background vocals + that insistent bass. The pied piper of R&B-funk-disco.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpBuffalo Springfield "Expecting to Fly" from Buffalo Springfield Again JK--1967. Literally and figuratively atmospheric gem. Neil Young recorded it with session musicians, but released under the band's name.
No New York? No, it's NoSQL New York. Catch me this week at MongoDB World:
http://ow.ly/eBlP30kEfXD . Avenida De Los Americas. Hilton Midtown.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpBlack Sabbath "Wasp/Behind the Wall/Basically" from Black Sabbath Vol. 4 (Remaster) JK--1970. 9:44 wherein Ozzy Osbourne declares his name to be Lucifer & invites you to take his hand. He should have shortened the title to "I Love Lucifer." Just sayin'
What passes for a casual conversation about politics these days is a quick slide into moaning about Trump. What passes for casual conversation about tech is having to respond to some random person's ill-informed teeth-gnashing about privacy on social media.
Caught “Red Sparrow” on DVD. An OK spy thriller. Jennifer Lawrence is a more believable Russian than Jeremy Irons or Charlotte Rampling. I can picture her as Boris Badenov’s Natasha.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpKali Uchis "In My Dreams" from Isolation JK--2018. Nice spritely quickstepping electronic dance music.
Post-Solstice. The days are getting shorter. Summer: a hot slide into darkness. Going to put up my Christmas lights early to get in the spirit of the season.
"Tech experts weigh in on the AI hype cycle" (
http://ow.ly/TC2S30kCrwg ) JK--I like to think of the tech hype cycle as a sort of hydrologic cycle. It irrigates the earth with the sweat and tears of too-early investors so that the rest of us can later harvest the fruits of their woe
"Is There a Smarter Path to Artificial Intelligence? Some Experts Hope So" (
http://ow.ly/uZFg30kCrlr ) JK--Apps/models that converge stats + rules + graphs + geometry.
"5 Years in, React Native Facing Re-Architecture" (
http://ow.ly/jVUm30kCqZp ) JK--For browser apps written in JavaScript in the browser for native-like/progressive real-time fast interactive app performance.
"Computer Vision for the Masses: Bringing Computer Vision to the Open Web Platform" (
http://ow.ly/ZWVD30kCqw7 ) JK--OpenCV is most popular computer vision library, with comprehensive set of functions and large developer community. OpenCV.js translates OpenCV functions to JavaScript
"Deep Learning Will Drive Next Wave of Chip Growth" (
http://ow.ly/OyZ430kCq9A ) JK--DL systems-on-a-chip will rule. BTW, article starts off as "Count Wally Rhines, [long phrase with his title/company]..." I half-thought "Count" was his title (a la Dracula). It's used here as a verb
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows" from Revolver JK--1966. Loops here: distorted "seagull" recording of McCartney laughing; orchestra playing B flat chord; notes played on Mellotron flute & violin settings; finger rubbing wineglass rim; distorted sitar
Geez. biz-tech articles that spool out the motherhood & apple pie obvious stuff about measuring ROI on your IT investment. Tell us something we don't know. Give us your mother's recipe for apple pie. Anything but this Ritz Cracker mock apple pie:
"Getting To Trusted Data Via AI, Machine Learning And Blockchain" (
http://ow.ly/Ay0f30kCnJV ) JK--"Blockchain is a completely different kind of database, one with the potential for greater transparency into the data for multi-stakeholder environments"
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpSigur Rós "Gobbledigook" from Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust JK--2014. Ég er að skrifa orð sem þýðir ekkert í google þýðingu bara fyrir gaman af því. WTF? OMG! LOL! LMAO!
Wrote a bunch of articles this week. Did a bunch of on-camera interviews. Had a bunch of interesting over-meal conversations with industry folk. Accumulated a bunch of frequent flyer miles.
Finished my work for this trip. Walking aimlessly but purposely around San Jose neighborhoods. This is an interesting community. Way more organically rooted than one would suppose. A bit like D.C. In that respect.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpChildish Gambino "This Is America" from This Is America JK--2018. Whoa! Shocking! Once you see this video, you can't unsee it. Great one:
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Staple Singers "Freedom Highway" JK--1964. This one definitely makes you want to clap and march. It's Juneteenth.
"A computer program that learns to “imagine” the world shows how AI can think more like us" (
http://ow.ly/QFm730kywuE ) JK--"Generative query network: looks at a scene from several angles and can then describe what it would look like from another angle."
"'You Can’t Ban Blockchain. It’s Math': a Talk with Jimmy Wales" (
http://ow.ly/eahO30kywiB ) JK--I'm still puzzling over whether that statement is genius or idiocy.
"DeepPhish: Simulating Malicious AI" (
http://ow.ly/nqV630kyvVZ ) JK--"Takes list of fraudulent URLS...encodes as one-shot representations, then trains AI model to generate new synthetic URLs...dramatically improv[es] chances of...getting past automated phishing-detection systems"
#DWS18: Abhas Ricky, Director of Strategy & Innovation, Hortonworks, interviewed by yours truly on
#theCUBE at Dataworks Summit Berlin 2018
#DWS18
I type notes so fast that "enabling" might come out "neablign." It's my subconscious encrypting the material so that I can't read it myself. My hemispheres don't trust each other. One won't enable the other.
"Checking Out Ford's Factory Floor Exoskeletons" (
http://ow.ly/66HR30kyivM ) JK--"EksoVest provides up to 15 lbs of assistance to each arm as lifted overhead...when extrapolated over a full shift....equiv to relieving shoulder of load equal to weight of 24 Mustang coupes/arm/day"
"Actor says husband’s Tesla car shot flames in California traffic" (
http://ow.ly/twwR30kyceo ) JK--Is he a stuntman? That's awesome!
RT
@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpThe Jim Carroll Band "People Who Died" JK--1980. "OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed"? That was weirdest wedding toast I've ever heard of.
"DeepPhys: Video-Based Physiological Measurement Using Convolutional Attention Networks" (
http://ow.ly/K1fM30kxwsw ) JK--Wow. Non-contact video-based physiological measurement of heart and breathing rate based on a skin reflection model.
"Fighting AI Surveillance with Scarves and Face Paint" (
http://ow.ly/RxgH30kxwd0 ) JK--Great. Now we're all going to have to walk around looking like clown divas just to protect our privacy.
"The Link Between Sleep and Deep Learning" (
http://ow.ly/dd3u30kxvYt ) JK--Apart from the fact that the more equation-dense research papers can put you right to sleep? REM vs non-REM sleep is analogous to DL search algorithms of exploration vs. optimization, respectively? Sure, OK.
"Imagining A Blockchain University" (
http://ow.ly/gkfW30kxvNI ) JK--Credits from diverse institutions are posted to the trusted chain, reducing the likelihood that people can claim credits from non-existent schools or that credits from defunct schools can be repudiated.
I remember 2013, when I did back-to-back San Jose business trips: first to San Jose, Costa Rica, then to San Jose, California Rica. So far, that was my one and only time to Central America. I rather enjoyed it.
In San Jose for
#DataWorksSummit. I'll be co-hosting with Rebecca Knight on
#theCUBE on Tuesday-Wednesday. Catch us live at
"The Best Way to Honor Your Dad Isn’t Father’s Day" (
http://ow.ly/jfJg30kxv83 ) JK--Nobody ever said it was. But most dads don't make a big deal over it. I was simply happy to hear from both of mine today. Dads aren't as hard as moms to please. We aren't.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpArthur Buck "Are You Electrified?" from Arthur Buck JK--2018. Great new project joining Joseph Arthur with ex-REM'er Peter Buck.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpRy Cooder "Gentrification" from The Prodigal Son JK--2018. Great funky new one from the veteran guitarslinger.
Guy next to me has equations tattooed on his arm. I hope he didn't submit this as his dissertation. Seems a bit skimpy. Needs to be fleshed out.
Saturday nap. Restorative release from a week that’s done. Sunday nap. Linen-wrapped dream of the week to come.
Finished Billy Bragg’s history of skiffle. Very well researched and written. He filled in huge gaps in my understanding of the histories of jazz, folk, blues, and rock in the UK and USA. Deep lived cultural context is his strength as a historian.
Mid-June. No matter how old you get, your nervous system always tingles with “school’s out” possibilities right around now.
Suddenly discovered Eno’s “Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)” on my Zune. I don’t recall buying it (and I definitely didn’t rip it). Apparently, my patron leprechaun dropped it in my St Paddy Day stocking a day early...wait...it's June.
"Booz Allen's chief warns U.S. of 'close race' with China on AI" (
http://ow.ly/UyKE30kwc63 ) JK--It's useless to benchmark one nation against another in AI, much less one HW/SW full stack, unless focus on specific use-case implementation metrics (eg face recog inferencing accuracy)
"Guns or hammers? Big-data firms struggle with their role in responsible data use" (
http://ow.ly/RMPE30kwant ) JK--Good Paul Gillin article. Quotes Gartner analyst: '“The big data movement right now is at an ethical crossroads."
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpBeat Happening "Red Head Walking" from Dreamy JK--1991. Vocalized by the inimitable Calvin Johnson in a monotone that's not speaking, rapping, or singing. It's one long croak with stretched syllables and clear diction.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpMichael Jackson "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" from Thriller JK--1982. End chorus is actually ""Ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma coo sas." I thought it maybe "it's the same with the song that Michael saw" or "It's what you say what you saw with Microsoft."
"Dynamical Isometry & a Mean Field Theory of CNNs: How to Train 10,000-Layer Vanilla Convolutional Neural Networks" (
http://ow.ly/TJ8w30kw7yk ) JK--Holy mocha Batman! At 10,000 layers, ya think it woulda graduated out of vanilla into tutti-frutti super-rocky-road ripple territory
"Banks unlikely to process payments with distributed ledgers for now, says Ripple" (
http://ow.ly/gSOa30kvVc8 ) JK--Scalability & privacy issues. There are broad swaths of use cases for which blockchain is unsuitable.
"You Might Not Actually Be Struggling With Depression" (
http://ow.ly/Vr8K30kvUNQ ) JK--You might be pissed off at somebody throwing some obscure word at you, acedia, to describe how indiscriminately pissed off you are at everybody and everything.
"Could the Future of Transportation for Some Cities Be Autonomous Boats?" (
http://ow.ly/ahIZ30kvU9A ) JK--That would totally kill the ambience of Venice, IMHO.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpJanelle Monáe "Django Jane" from Dirty Computer JK--2018. Great. My favorite hiphop this year so far.
The precious wine-section boss at Wegman’s. Every vintage comes with its own back-story. Kind of like a Cabbage Patch Kid in that respect.
Yes, Microsoft account team, the world is full of unusual sign-ins. Every time I step outside my door it’s an unusual sign-in. It’s a scary world out there.
"A New AI Algorithm Can Track Your Movements Through A Wall" (
http://ow.ly/olTj30kuXkS ) JK--What? You mean like the Kool-Aid Man moves through a wall by smashing it down? Oh, no. Analogous to echolocation, but using reflected WiFi signals to track movements in adjacent spaces.
"Blockchain All the Rage But Comes With Numerous Risks" (
http://ow.ly/bvlz30kuWoA ) JK--Phishing attacks, cryptojacking, using malware to obtain lesser-known cryptocurrencies, etc.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpSharon Jones and the Dap‐Kings "This Land Is Your Land" from Naturally JK--2005. Good, but Woody Guthrie's original had a jazzier horn section. Those fascist-killing cats really cooked!
"An AI-machine learning data challenge: Predicting the unpredictable" (
http://ow.ly/QC6E30kuTI8 ) JK--Piece of cake. Next big AI challenges should be to dream the impossible dream, fight the unbeatable foe, bear with unbearable sorrow, & run where the brave dare not go.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpJim Noir "Eanie Meany" from Tower of Love JK--2006. I'm still waiting for his long-promised follow-up "Miney Moe."
"Speakeasy AI Adds Customer Journey Flow Reporting" (
http://ow.ly/kRL430kuSLo ) JK--Voice AI system. Identifies specific paths that customers took across voice self-serve and live channels . Recommends opportunities for improvement based on misses or fallouts.
"The promise of AI in audio processing" (
http://ow.ly/MyTm30kuSja ) JK--Lifelike speech generation, automated mixing/mastering, & source separation. Proposes using it for selective noise cancellation, hi-fi audio reconstruction, analog audio emulation, improved spatial simulation.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpJim James "Just a Fool" from Uniform Distortion JK--2018. Great southern-rock number from the Louisville native.
"How change data capture technology drives modern data architectures" (
http://ow.ly/ELYA30kuQY0 ) JK--Good discussion. This directly relates to my recent piece on all-streaming data architectures:
Interesting IBM computer-vision recognition research: improve algorithms' depth-of-field in dynamically changing scenes (
http://ow.ly/DT6N30kuQ66 ) & focus algorithmic inferencing on significant scene elements through dynamic attention mechanism (
http://ow.ly/x65G30kuQlX ).
Totally getting into Billy Bragg's history of UK skiffle. At one point there were 100s of DIY skiffle bands throughout Britain, all dedicated to covering Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, etc. Must have been maddeningly repetitive. How many versions of "Cotton Fields" are necessary?
"Cognitive computing as a wearable prosthetic" (
http://ow.ly/s6It30kuKbN ) JK--Piece I published 4 years ago on IBM Big Data and Analytics Hub.
"Artificial Intelligence Enriches Lives of Elderly Patients" (
http://ow.ly/cnow30kuJWk ) JK--Constant Therapy: digital speech, language, & cognitive "brain exercise" program that users can access from their phone or tablet while at home or in a healthcare facility.
"Elderly." Odd word. Why is there no equivalent term "youngerly" in English to refer to those still in childhood?
"New Research Shows Bitcoin's Meteoric Rise Was a Scam" (
http://ow.ly/BhAr30kuIi1 ) JK--At least half of Bitcoin's rise to a peak price of ~$20K last year due to manipulation by traders on Bitfinex using another cryptocurrency Tether to boost prices when dipped on other exchanges
Watched a balloon man work his magic last night in a mountain resort in front of a bunch of kids, some of whom he freaked out. We got a balloon motorcyclist whose front wheel popped when I brought him in the house today. Now he looks like a balloon alien. That semi-freaks me out.
Saw a couple of muskrats up here in the hills. Or I assume they’re muskrats. Too big to be rats. Too skinny-tailed to be beavers. Too shy to sit still for a photo. Are they even an Appalachian species?
"AI Global Launches...Open AI Marketplace" (
http://ow.ly/lA1g30kt0Dh ) JK--Non-profit org for responsible design, development, & use of AI . Online AI collab hub will host >2,000 high-value AI assets built on beta of Cognitive Agent Modeling and Execution Language.
"Proof of Stake? Does That Have Anything To Do With Dracula Coin? (Explain
I’m 5)" (
http://ow.ly/qSCI30ksZsJ ) JK--Does it have something to do with algorithmically determining which contiguous group of LDS wards or branches mines the next block of crypto coins? Please explain
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpLa Luz "The Creature" from Floating Features JK--2018. Very nice one from their latest. These ladies have an electronic vibe that tingles me all over.
"Open source serverless: Fission, Fn, Kubeless, and OpenWhisk" (
http://ow.ly/MCUf30ksZ2F ) JK--Kubeless is a new one on me. Check out my
#Wikibon report on open-source serveless distros:
Encountered typical salesperson who assumes, because I work in IT, that I'm somehow in love with apps, gadgets, & other such paraphernalia of the connected life. Don't patronize me, please. None of that resonates. Just make your pitch. I'll process it with my eyes, ears, & brain.
"Machine Un-Learning: Why Forgetting Might Be the Key to AI" (
http://ow.ly/6xBC30ksXEq ) JK--Because intelligence is built up from layers of cognates: the barest knowledge from one domain that's likely to be applicable to the next domain, to the one after that, and so on.
"Google's AI Manifesto: Accountability, Privacy, and No Killer Robots" (
http://ow.ly/y9ll30ksXhD ) JK--But I hope they make an exception for robotic killer whales. Those would be awesome entertainment spectacles at the local aquarium.
"How Amazon's AI assault entangles 13 acquisitions, nearly 7,000 AI employees, a $22B R&D spend, extensive crowdsourcing and contests" (
http://ow.ly/SXuJ30ksX2H ) JK--Good rollup of what Amazon, Microsoft, & Google are doing with AI acqui-hires and startup-IP fastgrabs.
Yahoo Messenger to bite the big one next month. I remember when instant messaging was the future. I also remember days of future past, knights in white satin. It's Tuesday afternoon. Looking at myself, reflections of my mind.
CNBC broadcaster just said "de-nuking North Korea." That sounds like just another way of saying "nuking North Korea."
"Ford throwing party at Detroit train station — & U can go" (
http://ow.ly/GkvE30ksae8 ) JK--"Ford officials have said they want Corktown to be a hub for... Auto 2.0, the shift toward self-driving, shared & battery-operated cars & logistics supporting the rapidly changing industry."
Noticed that one of the entertainers at this resort calls himself “Kanye Twitty.” Bravo, in a very Elvis Costello act of boldfaced nameripping mashup.
Wife was asking how old this Massanutten all-seasons family resort is. Then I got a strong clue from the map of the ski area. "Grenoble Woods"? "Killy Court"? It's a half-century old. Nothing screams 1968 Winter Olympics like those.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Autumn Stones "Mandatory Love" JK--2018. Nice one. Has a sort of urgent folk-rock vibe to it.
"Open source’s existential dilemma: the meaning of ‘free'" (
http://ow.ly/O8Nq30krtEn ) JK--Free? Users prefer the "free-as-in-beer" of open-source software. They're not as adamant for the "free-as-in-dom" of open-source licensing. Dumb?
"Graphs, graphs everywhere: The future according to DeepMind" (
http://ow.ly/zvV530krqVN ) JK--"Human cognition makes strong assumption that world is composed of objects & relations. Because graph networks make a similar assumption, their behavior tends to be more interpretable."
"Eye in the Sky: Real-time Drone Surveillance System (DSS) for Violent Individuals Identification using ScatterNet Hybrid Deep Learning Network" (
http://ow.ly/JstW30krpXb ) JK--I don't trust this research.
likely to be used by repressive governments to suppress protesters.
"Project Hydrogen Unites Apache Spark with Deep Learning Frameworks" (
http://ow.ly/4yrS30krnLT ) JK--"Hydrogen" + "Spark"? Fine. But don't call the follow-on project "Hindenburg." I beseech you.
"AI Comes to ASICs in Data Centers" (
http://ow.ly/VtM530krmdo ) JK--Plenty of intellectual property vendors who provide modular ASICs with diverse AI functions that can be composed together.
RT
@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpPrince 'Mary Don't You Weep" JK--2018. A raw, intimate unheard home-studio cassette recording of Prince performing at his piano in 1983 will be released as Piano & a Microphone on Sept. 21:
"An Army Scientist Is Working on a Formula for Optimal Caffeine Intake" (
http://ow.ly/qq9A30krh1f ) JK--Humbug. There is no "cure for drowsiness" other than getting a good sleep. Don't treat this like a medication. Too many people are already addicted.
Dear Google, Apple, and Other Device,OS, & App Vendors: If you really want to control tech addiction, just make crappy products and spend beaucoups marketing bucks telling us how badly they suck.
Enjoyed driving to Harrisonburg until the drenching downpour set in. Where’s that fabled “rain shadow”? Should we have stayed on the Eastern side of Shenandoah?
Cracking open Billy Bragg’s book “Roots, Radicals, & Rockers: How Skiffle Changed The World.” Refreshing. Music history told by a respected musician who never once references himself.
Flipping pages back & forth in Art Garfunkel’s weird self-indulgent nonlinear memoir/poetry book “What Is It All But Luminous.” Works way too hard letting us know how damn erudite he is. Laughably lists every important book he’s read since the 70s.
Saw some dumb movie last night set in Vegas. Couple meet at New York New York & casually stroll to Venetian to jump into bed. I doubt they’d have the energy after walking 2 miles up the Strip.
"Mindlessly mapping the brain" (
http://ow.ly/YV2M30kpb0i ) JK--The literally mind-boggling field of connectomics: the automated high-volume tracing of connections between neurons.
"Is artificial intelligence patentable? Should it be?" (
http://ow.ly/KXOK30kpa8W ) JK--Gray area is neuromorphic & evolutionary algorithms: designed to reflect natural phenomena/laws--how brains learn/perceive/analyze--no less than E=MC2 reflects space-time. Not patentable, then?
"Google Renounces AI Weapons; Will Still Work With Military" (
http://ow.ly/24NS30kp9lT ) JK--CEO says firm will avoid work designed to harm, injure, spy, and violate human rights.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpMark Lanegan "Strange Religion" from Bubblegum JK--2004. Artist co-wrote/performed opening-title song for Anthony Bourdain's show. See Bourdain's field notes from Seattle last year:
"What was missing from WWDC 2018? Originality" (
http://ow.ly/bB4R30kp8h6 ) JK--Maybe, but I did enjoy that Apple Memoji commercial last night during the Stanley Cup Finals:
"Google walks away from America's security with AI project decision" (
http://ow.ly/kE9D30kp7Oq ) JK--MIchael Bloomberg authoring an op/ed in Information Management? Sounds like he's accusing Silicon Valley of cavalier indifference to US national defense. Inflammatory nonsense.
"Why Microsoft's GitHub Deal Isn't a Sign of the Apocalypse" (
http://ow.ly/utUF30kp7Bs ) JK--Not so fast there. Let's wait for Elon Musk to chime in. He's our designated lookout man for signs of the apocalypse.
"How do Apple’s Screen Time and Google Digital Wellbeing stack up?" (
http://ow.ly/XIAw30kp7ga ) JK--In studying up on this stuff on our phones, we're going to be losing all the live-our-lives time we ostensibly would have gained from futzing with these "digital wellness" settings.
Geez, another "help us help you" email. The less tactful have the tone of "help us..YOU!" The more honest are simply pleading "HELP US!" None of them actually have a clue about "you," meaning "me," or even the slightest statement of what might be in it for me if I help them.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Brian Jonestown Massacre "Anemone" from Their Satanic Majesties' Second Request JK--1996. Sounds like a great song to be listening to as you're driving through the desert.
RIP Anthony Bourdain. I cared less about the cuisine than the excellent conversations he had in those "Parts Unknown" shows, which were the only things on CNN I found even remotely interesting. Great travelogues.
Alex Ovechkin wins the Conn Smythe. Well deserved!
"NVIDIA Isaac Launches New Era of Autonomous Machines" (
http://ow.ly/1ngH30kotJi ) JK--Toolbox for simulation, training, verification & deployment of NVIDIA Jetson Xavier robotics platform. Robotics algorithm software. Virtual simulation environment w/ hardware-in-the-loop testing
Somebody please create a deep learning model that reads tech press releases, filters out all the marketing BS and unsupported claims, eliminates the dead air & gaseous boasts, and outputs only the rock-bottom substance. Then license that model for use in trash compactors.
"I, for One, Welcome Our Robotic Security Overlords" (
http://ow.ly/9sMn30kotct ) JK--I, for one, am sick of this hackneyed phrase. Why not just exclaim "WAZZZUPPPP!!!" and be done with it?
"Stem in Onion Architecture or Fallacy of Data Layer" (
http://ow.ly/R8K130korLv ) JK--Disappointed. I thought it would be some important news about Area Man or one of these people on the street.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpTennis "Marathon" from Cape Dory JK--2011. Gorgeous maritime imagery in this one. Duo is a married couple who started the band after they returned from an 8-month sailing expedition down the US east Atlantic Seaboard after their U-Colorado graduation.
"Microsoft deploys underwater datacentre off the coast of Orkney" (
http://ow.ly/7XDv30knYwN ) JK--Perhaps they should design them to do double-duty as anchors for coral reefs in the tropics.
Catch us in Jakarta and Melbourne this fall. Slipping south of the equator, west of the dateline for a few weeks. Family both places. Will be my first trip Down Under.
Drafted my next Datanami column this morning. I usually push my brain harder for theirs than most. The results please me more often than not. I reference those pieces more than most. This one: “machine teaching.”
Dear Elective Office Seeker Whose Commercial Declares They’re Not A Politician: I’m going to going to write a blog telling the world I’m not a blogger.
"MIT Creates AI-Powered Psychopath Called ‘Norman’" (
http://ow.ly/uIV430kn4yY ) JK--I'd suggest "Elon." No reason. Just has a nice ring to it.
"The (holy) ghost in the machine: Catholic thinkers tackle the ethics of artificial intelligence" (
http://ow.ly/Is3Y30klBFC ) JK--I'm curious whether it's OK for male sexbots to use condoms.
"AI researchers design 'privacy filter' for your photos" (
http://ow.ly/P7ZH30klBph ) JK--Otherwise-imperceptible adversarial perturbations to facial photos to fool the facial recognition algorithms.
"Quantum computers and the unbreakable lattice" (
http://ow.ly/mgAH30klA8d ) JK--IBM researcher explains an approach called "lattice cryptography" that they claim can't be broken by quantum computing.
"The US military is funding an effort to catch deepfakes and other AI trickery" (
http://ow.ly/Yfu630klztS ) JK--DARPA competition "to generate most convincing AI-generated fake video, imagery, & audio—and...try to develop tools that can catch these counterfeits automatically."
"Mary Meeker’s 2018 internet trends report" (
http://ow.ly/L6Nx30klyWt ) JK--Smartphone shipments flat, prices decline, mobile pay booming, e-commerce accelerating, time online increasing, AI & voice control expanding, privacy crimping experience, big tech spreading tentacles.
" Than a Feeling: Learning to Grasp and Regrasp using Vision and Touch" (
http://ow.ly/ChRs30klycJ ) JK-- than a feeling? Note that this robotics research done partly in Boston. Curious if they'll train it to recognize when it sees my Marianne walkin' away-AYYYYY!!
"Autonomous Vehicles: Safety, Risk, and the Law" (
http://ow.ly/3PSQ30klxJG ) JK--Points out that the public needs to shift frame of reference away from "autonomous" toward advanced driver assistance systems. Just as no commercial jet flies with humanless cockpit solely on autopilot
"Google, KPMG partner on GDPR solution to keep you compliant in the cloud" (
http://ow.ly/OUE330klwR5 ) JK--Compliance assessment tool. Not a runtime compliance monitoring and enforcement tool. Part of a larger KPMG solution that puts/governs all of a client's customer data in GCP
"Watch hard-working robot improvise to climb drawers and cross gaps" (
http://ow.ly/bs0W30klvQv ) JK--Robot called SMORES-EP has also been trained to roast graham cracker/marshmallow/Hershey bar sandwiches over a campfire while discussing their awesome extended-play vinyl collection
"'Thanksgiving Effect'& Creepy Power Of Phone Data" (
http://ow.ly/Ntot30klv5u ) JK--"Dinners attended by residents from opposing-party precincts in 2016 were 30-50 minutes shorter than same-party get-togethers. ....In 2015, [effect was same] but .... was more pronounced in 2016."
"This AI Knows Who You Are by the Way You Walk" (
http://ow.ly/ltT530kluzR ) JK--Non-intrusive gait recognition. Monitor the force exerted on the floor during footsteps. Deep residual neural net analyzes weight distribution, gait speed, and 3-D measures of each walking style.
"Facebook Is Giving Scientists Its Data To Fight Misinformation" (
http://ow.ly/kF2D30kluds ) JK--Highfalutin but sounds like a crock: "investigate social media's impact on elections and democracy""prioritize research [that] will shed the most light on Facebook's political impact."
"Flee the Upside Down on Schwinn’s Limited-Edition ‘Stranger Things’ Bicycle" (
http://ow.ly/PEM930klt1p ) JK--1980s? That's not so different from the Schwinn banana-seat that I rode circa 1970. Thanks for validating my inner dweeb. I knew the hip people would eventually catch on.
"Apple wants to help you deal with smartphone addiction" (
http://ow.ly/XEkR30klr9J ) JK--I seriously doubt they'll want to monkey with their core smartphone revenue stream. But clamping down on overnotifications is absolutely necessary.
"Tesla wants to use AI to create a “manufacturing revolution” (
http://ow.ly/7sMM30klqVD ) JK--Oh, I see. It's evil until Musk uses it. Then it's cool. Thanks for clarifying that.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpBilly Bragg & Wilco "California Stars" from Mermaid Avenue JK--1998. Lyric by Woody Guthrie, a Texas native who lived in the LA area (Echo Park) in the 1930s and had his own regular "hillbilly music" program on a local LA radio station.
"50+ Examples of How Blockchains are Taking Over the World" (
http://ow.ly/yuZf30kkNyp ) JK--Curious if Kissinger's behind one of these. I wouldn't put it past him, the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, or that Big Eastern Syndicate mentioned on A Charlie Brown Christmas.
"AI marks the beginning of the Age of Thinking Machines" (
http://ow.ly/8Wvv30kkNgd ) JK--What the...? Even Henry Kissinger is commenting on AI these days? Are you sure this isn't a deep-fake with a gravely erudite German monotone? I can imitate that as well as the next guy.
"Intelligence on the edge will see workloads migrate from clouds" (
http://ow.ly/Hogz30kkMW2 ) JK--Good overview of which vendors support on-device AI training.
"Google’s Self-Training AI Turns Coders Into Machine-Learning Masters" (
http://ow.ly/KxlL30kkMN6 ) JK--"A new service, called Cloud AutoML, uses several machine learning tricks to automatically build and train a deep learning algorithm that can recognize things in images."
"Why Blockchain is Hard" (
http://ow.ly/VOm230kkMr6 ) JK--It's hard to live up to the promise that it will solve all of humankind's problems. Or at least neutralize all the evils that Elon Musk claims have been unleashed on us all by the Pandora's Box of AI
"John Cusack is the worst planet-destroying AI robot in history" (
http://ow.ly/sEuz30kkLos ) JK--Thanks. I won't see it. BTW, does Cusack not care anymore about wasting his talents on crap projects? He's over 50 now, visibly aging, and drifting further from A-list territory.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Smiths "There Is a Light That Never Goes Out" from The Queen Is Dead JK--1986. My guess is that Morrissey the Mancunian said "ten-ton truck" for the alliteration. "Lightly loaded lorry" would have diluted the emotional impact of "to die by your side."
RT
@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpNeko Case "Pitch or Honey" from Hell-On JK--2018. New one. Nice to hear her charging through a full-on rocker.
RT
@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpDamien Jurado "Percy Faith" from The Horizon Just Laughed JK--2018. Very cool piece from his latest.
"First he bought a Google assistant. Then he used it to fire a gun" (
http://ow.ly/YEE730kkceZ ) JK--In a Rube Goldberg setup that didn't involve AI.
"Hands off my data! 15 default privacy settings you should change right now" (
http://ow.ly/roma30kkbYX ) JK--Good compendium that I reviewed in detail. I only tweaked a few. Good exercise to determine your own personal balance of public vs. private settings on social/mobile/Web.
Tweaked my Facebook "privacy" settings over the weekend. Now I'm preventing friends from posting directly to my timeline. That's not "privacy," actually, just self-sovereignty: control who can publish to my channel. Just as, ages ago, I turned off comments in James Kobielus' Blog
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpFather John Misty "Hangout at the Gallows" from God's Favourite Customer JK--2018. Another great one from his latest. Sounds very cinematic, like he's scoring a film.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Beatles "A Day in the Life" from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band JK--1967. Curious about what war the "English army" had just won in what film. Must predate 1707. Been only "British army" since then.
"Microsoft has reportedly acquired GitHub" (
http://ow.ly/Uedq30kkaGw ) JK--This news is sending waves of concern throughout the open-source community. Shouldn't GitHub be a non-profit owned & managed by an industry consortium?
Dear Medium: Please stop sending me readership metrics for & telling me how I can further optimize the social impact of the one and only post I've ever placed on your service (18 months ago). If it ever had impact, it was in the first week. Readers (including the author) move on
"Removing Trending From Facebook" (
http://ow.ly/xyml30kkad7 ) JK--OK. Please also de-duplicate all the "breaking news" that your Facebook friends comment on ad nauseam. I don't need to be reminded 25 times in 10 minutes when a particular celebrity kicks the bucket.
Watching yet another public TV fundraiser presentation of Peter, Paul, & Mary. This is not politically correct, but in their heyday they looked totally Soviet. With those sporty goatees, Stookey & Yarrow looked like Lenin & Trotsky with guitars. Robust blonde Mary fit the picture
RT
@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpFather John Misty “Mr. Tillman” from God’s Favourite Customer JK--2018. Great one from his latest. He has the most amazing gift for witty lyrics.
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@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpEl Michels Affair “Strange Boy” from Strange Boy / No Surprise JK--2016. Very nice slice of sonic seduction.
June 3 and 58 degrees. I pulled out the comforter we’d just packed away. Perfect for Sunday couch cocooning watching some lazy-perfect public TV show about scenic train routes of North America.
Watched documentary about Hedy Lamarr on Netflix last night. Very good. Left me with no doubt that she invented frequency-hopping RF anti-jamming tech. And got thoroughly ripped off by our government. Her beauty was a curse.
Trader Joe downer. Sample bar person is stingy and begrudging. Hey dude, fill that teeny cup all the way with Chardonnay. It’s not coming out of your paycheck.
LaGuardia still a major mess of reconstruction. I hope they build a new control tower in the shape of a Little Flower.
"What does it really mean for an algorithm to be biased?" (
http://ow.ly/VZZ130khYDq ) JK--I read this a few weeks ago before writing my own "debiasing" article. That "construct space,""observed space,""decision space" framework beautifully clarifies how to approach this topic.
"Speech recognition systems are now vulnerable to adversarial attacks" (
http://ow.ly/fPfM30khYmk ) JK--Introduction of small amounts of ear-imperceptible noise to transform audio input for the purpose of tricking speech recognition algorithms into misclassifying what's being said.
"How AI learned to be creative" (
http://ow.ly/w2bX30khY70 ) JK--Good discussion of generative apps of AI (e.g., "style transfer") in the visual arts and music composition.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpBow Wow Wow "I Want Candy" JK--1982. Good cover of the Strangeloves' original. Singer Annabella Lwin is Anglo-Burmese, born Myant Myant Aye in Rangoon/Yangon, Burma/Myanmar.
Inbound craft has deplaned. Waiting in gate area for replaning. Busy day. So far, I've debedded, rebreakfasted, debreakfasted, dehoteled, retaxi'd, detaxi'd, reconferenced, deconferenced, relunched, delunched, retaxi'd, detaxi'd, & reairported. Gotta record all this in a diary.
Rumor is that Roseanne is working on a revisionist history book proving that slavery and Jim Crow were the direct result of Ambien pollution in Dixie's water supply.
"7 questions to ask before U launch enterprise blockchain project" (
http://ow.ly/BVcY30kgHNi ) JK--Even before "what exactly are you trying to accomplish?", I'd suggest "who do U think you're kidding?" Framing this as a "blockchain project" suggests U just want to push trendy tech
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpLora Logic "Stop Halt" from Pedigree Charm JK--1982. Featuring this UK singer-songwriter-saxophonist's distinctive fluttering vocals. Her only solo LP. Was also in Essential Logic, X-Ray Spex, & Red Krayola. Rough Trade indie artist.
"Navigating the risks of artificial intelligence and machine learning in low-income countries" (
http://ow.ly/2oXp30kgHag ) JK--Good advice anywhere, regardless of per-capita GDP.
"Federated Learning, a step closer towards confidential AI" (
http://ow.ly/WuPX30kgGF9 ) JK--Distributed devices communicate their incremental statistical learnings back over encrypted channels to retrain the centralized model, which is pushed back to all. No PII leaves the devices.
"13 GDPR Compliance Tools" (
http://ow.ly/ygCi30kgGg5 ) JK--I'm not sure that throwing a grab-bag of tactical, limited solutions at it will bring your PII-safeguarding shop into compliance. But be my guest!
I cannot believe Delta Shuttle moved out of the old Marine Terminal at LaGuardia. I have fond memories of flying into that tiny historic terminal in 1981 for a job interview (that I didn't get). Very much a time capsule experience walking through its main (long-unused) concourse.
Here was my Manhattan evening: skyscraper observation level tech event-reception-New York strip steak slider-fancypants cocktail-Times Square Hotel lobby-straight-up whiskey-pizza bites-deep tech talk-call from Lynn-roaming Hudson Yards to 42nd-street-Applebees-burger-iced tea.
If a network can fire a sitcom star for an offensive tweet, I urge Congress to consider it, especially if done repeatedly with malice aforethought, an impeachable offense for a chief executive.
Why is it “NYPD” but “FDNY”?
"Microservices Management: Securing Endpoints" (
http://ow.ly/G4BF30kfxoB ) JK--Advises exposing "API façade pattern...to scan, scrub, & control requests & responses to & from microservices endpoints [via] API gateways, some ingress controllers, and application delivery controllers
"Florence Nightingale: The Lady with the Data" (
http://ow.ly/HDZ030kfwkY ) JK--Didn't know she was a statistician and data visualization pioneer. Also didn't realize it's been "hundreds of years" since 1856. Cap'n Jean-Luc Picard just unfroze me from cryogenic suspension.
"How to make sure your Alexa will never accidentally send recordings to friends" (
http://ow.ly/VCTW30kfs7v ) JK--The best approach is simply not to have any friends.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpRosie Thomas "Pretty Dress" from If Songs Could Be Held JK--2005. This Seattle-based singer-songwriter has lushly beautiful and introspective stylings.
Doing New York City for the next few days. Bringing an umbrella, comfy walking shows, and a full suit and tie. Also bringing the deep cache of personal memories I have of Manhattan dating back to our family vacation there in 1972. Back then, the air quality was consistently sepia
"DeepPhys: Video-Based Physiological Measurement Using Convolutional Attention Networks" (
http://ow.ly/G2Hu30kevCb ) JK--Wow! "Non-contact video-based physiological measurement ...of heart and breathing rate." The new public-surveillance stealth polygraph?
"DeepGlobe 2018: A Challenge to Parse the Earth through Satellite Images" (
http://ow.ly/Q0YT30kevh6 ) JK--After they parse the Earth, are they going to boil the ocean?
"Machine learning is helping computers spot arguments online before they happen" (
http://ow.ly/txxg30keu6R ) JK--What's it going to do? Proactively lobotomize people at a distance before their flaming fingers can take it the next step?
"MIT’s Super-Efficient Dispatching Algorithm Minimizes a City's Taxi Fleet" (
http://ow.ly/eOCo30ketNt ) JK--So what's new? Ride-sourcing/sharing industry algorithms efficiently accomplished that by decimating the taxi industry.
"Europe is about to lose the global AI race – thanks to GDPR" (
http://ow.ly/pelC30ketuz ) JK--Wow! Isn't that a whopper of a scare tactic? It's crazy to assume that advances in algorithmic intelligence require massive trampling of personal privacy.
Dear Desperate Salesperson: Re your email "Hi, Did you get a chance to review my previous email? Please advise what are the next steps of your interest? Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you." My responses are 1) no, 2) none, 3) don't hold your breath. Sincerely, Jim
"Human in the loop: Machine learning and AI for the people" (
http://ow.ly/woW430kegRr ) JK--This phenomenon's acronym is making me nervous. At some point, one of them's going to start calling himself a HITLer.
"Social VR’s best platform is the open web, not walled gardens" (
http://ow.ly/Ih4630kegEj ) JK--Boy, am I out of it! I'm already up to here with the mixed-reality feed I'm getting socially through fake news. I don't need to be immersed in some gamified matrix of it.
I've been invited to "review" yet another company's privacy policy. OK. I'll review it, redline it, and send it back to you right away. Please have your next draft to me by COB or I'm going to shut you down. Also, I'll send you an invoice for my expert edits. I'm a busy man!
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpRyley Walker "Can't Ask Why" from Deafman Glance JK--2018. Nice odd jazzy-folkie-recessive one.
"Jeff Bezos: ‘We Must Go Back to the Moon, and This Time to Stay’" (
http://ow.ly/vNcH30kebL0 ) JK--OMG! Don't tell me it's in the running for HQ2.
"Does Alexa Know I’m Gay?" (
http://ow.ly/m7xb30kebeJ ) JK--No. Don't be paranoid. Alexa's just waiting for you to out yourself so that he/she/it can immediately post it on all your social accounts and text it to all of your family and friends. Don't worry.
"Why you’re getting flooded with privacy notifications in your email" (
http://ow.ly/84Qo30keaVL ) JK--Coincidence. Every company you have even the most tenuous relationship with got privacy religion over the weekend. There was a big revival meeting with preachers & gospel choirs.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpTuxedomoon "You" from v/a can you hear me JK--1987. Good dreamy pop one from the San Francisco electronic/indie group. This one feels a bit like some of Thomas Dolby's.
Watching game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Rooting for Washington, of course. But I’ve visited Vegas more often than any other city. So I have a stake in them too.
Bought/downloaded Tracyanne & Danny’s new LP. I’ve been a total geek for Tracyanne Campbell’s retro-romantic pop songcraft (with Camera Obscura) for many years. Danny Coughlan is an excellent musical partner. 4 stars.
Worked out this morning. FaceTimed with Declan around noon. Margaritas this afternoon. Unclear on our plans for the evening. Plans? No plans. It’s the middle of a 3-day weekend, for Pete’s sake!
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpSweet "Ballroom Blitz" JK--1973. I'm dating myself here, but this song sends me straight back into junior high. BTW, the guy on the lead sure sounds like Jack White, or vice versa.
Came down with a raging headcold on the last night of my business trip. That’s one thing that happened in Vegas I wish had stayed there.
Here’s my updated privacy policy. I pledge not to disclose anything I ever learn ever again about anybody for any reason at any time. Your secrets are safe with me.
Pivot point in my latest
#InfoWorldcolumn: "Fortunately, unless you try to swallow it in one gulp, your smartphone won’t kill you." (
http://ow.ly/ySyo30kbyXs ). I was searching for an arresting image that suggests the insanity of an addict mainlining a controlled substance.
"Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side: what became of Candy, Little Joe etc?" (
http://ow.ly/SvMr30kbx14 ) JK--Would B cool "6 degrees of separation" graph. Especially "Sugar Plum Fairy" Joe Campbell: lover of Harvey Milk (1950s) and (1960s) the guy who saved Gerald Ford's life in 1975
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpJanelle Monáe "Crazy, Classic, Life" from Dirty Computer JK--2018. Wow. Crazy, classic song. This one's going to be licensed extensively for commercial purposes. I can just feel it.
Dear Baskin Robbins: Thanks for updating your online privacy policy & terms of service. I think it's nobody's business whether I prefer cup or cone, one scoop or two. Nobody's damn business.
Wrote my next InfoWorld column on the flights home today from Vegas. “Digital Wellness: There’s NOT An App For That.” One of my better meditations. Fairly long, but also quite personal. Sounds more like Jim Kobielus than James Kobielus.
Gate agent tells one zone that they "may board at their leisure." The rest of us may board only while we're hard at work solving complex math equations and digging ditches out here in the concourse.
Reading recent stories about "digital wellness," combatting tech addiction and weaning people off their dependence on smartphones. Also reading about Android P being "packed with smarts and simpler than ever." As they said in "Airplane," we picked a bad week to stop sniffing glue
A day before GDPR compliance mandate kicks in. I'm absolutely having a ball re-consenting to everything in cyberspace and reading all your pushed-out notifications of how splendidly you're protecting my personal privacy and covering your corporate asses. Exquisite!
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Moondoggies "Sick in Bed" from A Love Sleeps Deep JK--2018. Great new one from the veteran Seattle indie group.
Wow! Washington Capitals advance to the Stanley Cup Finals to face the Vegas Golden Knights. Our swamp creatures will grind those desert rats into the dust!
"Computing Environments for Reproducibility"" (
http://ow.ly/lUSO30k9vDw ) JK--"The sharing of scientific knowledge is rapidly evolving away from traditional [outputs] to the delivery of executable objects that integrate the data & computational details upon which findings rely."
"High School in China Installs Facial Recognition Cameras to Monitor Students’ Attentiveness" (
http://ow.ly/KUpZ30k94kV ) JK--Big Brother overreach will nurture a generation of world-class Chinese poker faces. "Yes, teacher, I am so academically stimulated I could just scream."
"Conversations Gone Awry: Detecting Early Signs of Conversational Failure" (
http://ow.ly/P1HO30k93E2 ) JK--Predictive modeling of trolling, hate, harassment, insulting, toxicity, and generally flamingly anal assholitudinal verbalizations in social engagement.
"France, China, And The EU All Have An AI Strategy. Shouldn’t The Us?" (
http://ow.ly/Ibaa30k92To ) JK--Not until Mexico has an AI strategy, then Trump's strategy will be to get them to pay for a wall against that strategy.
"The line between big tech and defense work" (
http://ow.ly/FAxA30k92wP ) JK--I'm already nostalgic for the olden days when the greatest minds of a generation were focused on getting people to click ads, not trigger Armageddon.
Interviewed Vira Shanty from Lippo Group on
#theCUBEat
#INFA18. Jakarta-based. Menarik. Terima kasih!
"How Many Objects Can Be Juggled" (
http://ow.ly/pom330k86nd ) JK--Study from 1997. "Every one of the test subjects had the hand speed to juggle 9 balls. The average was about 16 balls, and the highest recorded was about 24 balls."
Dear People Who Are Blogging About AI for the First Time: Please resist the urge to spend three-quarters of the piece defining "machine learning,""deep learning" and all the rest of the specialized terms. Link to Wikipedia or whatever. Actually say something thoughtful. OK?
ANTIMAY//Memorial Day./It's honorary Summer./Spring's sunburned demise. --James Kobielus
"Exciting news" from my garbage pickup company: they won't pick up over the holiday weekend. Thanks. I'm totally excited to be cooped up with the smelly stuff a little longer in the pre-summer swelter.
You’ll notice that in my columns I mix first-person commentary with the superior “Wikibon predicts” or “Wikibon believes.” I’d like to use that tactic in my personal life. I could definitely use a royal we as my wild card now and then. Because we say so.
For kicks, I’m going to scrutinize everybody’s privacy policy and get all huffy if they don’t update them regularly and notify me of those updates through every channel possible, including parcel post special delivery.
This is a different Informatica from the company I encountered when I first started covering data 12 years ago. Many new faces. But I’m a different me. So there.
#INFA18
Gartner analyst refers to business users as "citizen integrators." Wha...?
#INFA18
Gartner analyst Massimo Pezzini at
#INFA18discussing disadvantages of "spaghetti architecture" for data integration, referencing his own nationality. I hope he prepares a layered "lasagna architecture" with secret integration sauce.
Amit Walia: Enterprise Data Catalog is the fastest growing product at Informatica in the past 10 years
#INFA18
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpGrant Lee Buffalo "Dixie Drug Store" from Fuzzy JK--1993. This guy has a great voice. Crisp diction, straight-talking. Kind of a cowboy tone.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpFreedy Johnston "Bad Reputation" from This Perfect World JK--1994. Artist is probably sick of telling people his name is not Freddy Johnson.
"Researchers use VR to train AI drones, cutting autonomous vehicle crashes" (
http://ow.ly/TBf230k6FEu ) JK-- “[T]he drone will be flying in an empty room, but will be ‘hallucinating’ a completely different environment, and will learn in that environment.” Far out!
Good to be at
#INFA18 in Las Vegas. Informatica's opening market perspectives intro will be at the top of the hour here at the Venetian. I try to spend quality time with each important vendor. When they do lots of significant things, deep conversation is essential for my research
"Google Removes 'Don't Be Evil' Clause From Its Code of Conduct" (
http://ow.ly/sWak30k6E7p ) JK--Gasp! Don't tell us it's because Trump has normalized evil.
"Making Kubernetes work for the average engineer—via PaaS" (
http://ow.ly/LXli30k6CNS ) JK--I was about to pounce on the "birthed by the engineering gods at Google" nonsense when I was placated by this quote: "“the Kubernetes elevator pitch is straight up dogshit."
"How information management leaders can prepare for Industry 5.0" (
http://ow.ly/YACB30k6Cif ) JK--How about starting by giving this concept mnemonic nomenclature, not some meaningless version number? What's new here? Human-robotic industrial collaboration? Say so, then!
"Tomorrow’s Factories'll Need Better Processes Not Just Better Robots" (
http://ow.ly/CKcx30k6ANP ) JK--"Exoskeleton": "workers wear these cyborg-esque contraptions to make them strong enough 2 lift heavy truck tires or ease stress when performing repetitive overhead assembly tasks"
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpLord Huron "Moonbeam" from Vide Noir JK--2018. Good new one from the LA-based group. Bandname references the lake. Leader Ben Schneider grew up in Okemos MI, near East Lansing, but had the good sense to go Wolverine, not Spartan.
Delta ticketing agent's given names were literally "Queen Elizabeth." I told her she looked much younger in person, congratulated her on the new granddaughter-in-law, and apologized for being the millionth person in her life to make comments of that nature.
Preakness. The state of being preak. This is totally preaking me out!
I’ll bet Meghan Markle is relieved that she doesn’t have to spend her waking days going to cattle-call auditions, reading scripts, fending off jerkface casting heads, doing 6am soundstage appearances, & so forth. 36 is a make-or-break age for many Hollywood actresses.
Gad! A week of this rain! I feel like my bones are liquefying.
Took a break from my
#SiliconANGLEcolumn today, in recognition of the fact that I wrote original analysis every single work day for the past 2 months. Instead, I wrote my next Information Week column: “Debiasing Our Algorithms Down To Their Roots.” In a mad rush.
"Real-time Human Pose Estimation in the Browser with TensorFlow.js" (
http://ow.ly/S90530k49Zh ) JK--Very cool. I bet this will be baked into devices to auto-assess user attentiveness/sentiment & drive real-time UX adjustments accordingly.
"AI Benchmark Targets Inference" (
http://ow.ly/k0hG30k49kW ) JK--Specifically, EEMBC benchmark will define standard framework for measuring IoT/edge/low-power device inferencing performance + time to spin up a neural-net model + power efficiency.
"The U.S. Army is planning new, more complex battlefield robots" (
http://ow.ly/aTwn30k490K ) JK--"It seems inevitable that technology is taking us to a point where countries will face the question of whether to delegate lethal decision-making to machines."
"A look at the leading artificial intelligence infrastructure products" (
http://ow.ly/UTkX30k48nS ) JK--Infrastructure products? Actually, this presents a jumble of AI-to-manage-IT-ops, AI-to-manage-data-integration, and flat-out DevOps-for-AI vendors/solutions.
"Calculating Blockchain's Impact" (
http://ow.ly/y35B30k47h2 ) JK--What I find most interesting is that a Stanford Business School research project "catalogued and analyzed 193 blockchain initiatives dedicated to social impact." That's an amazing amount of activity!
"Coolest Blockchain Startups at NYC's Consensus" (
http://ow.ly/qpa430k466d ) JK--Interbit sounds interesting: "multi-chain architecture...share state between chains....JavaScript front end & Node.js backend...same code can run in a browser & turn that browser into blockchain node"
"Google’s Selfish Ledger Is An Unsettling Vision Of Silicon Valley Social Engineering" (
http://ow.ly/bmom30k4485 ) JK--Don't get the sweats. 2-year-old video for internal brainstorming, though the "ledger" and user-centric identity suggest an self-sovereign identity blockchain.
"Google now says controversial AI voice calling system will identify itself to humans" (
http://ow.ly/yvuc30k43PE ) JK--Good. I also think these sorts of anthropophonic bots should be by default on everybody's "do not call" registry. We should have to opt into receiving the calls.
Dear Equity Analyst Covering High-Tech: Please put your long-short position disclosures in the titles of your reports. That way, we can take your opinion down the requisite number of pegs before reading--eg., "DISCLOSURE: Long on GOOG: We Wanna Make Kissy-Face With Google's AI!"
"It’s A Toxic Myth That Celibacy Makes Men Violent" (
http://ow.ly/8g0E30k3kmJ ) JK--It's also a myth that failure to get laid is "celibacy." When someone is celibate, that means they voluntarily abstain from sexual encounters. "Involuntary celibacy" is an oxymoron.
My question isn't whether it says "laurel" or "yanny," but whether the speaker is wearing a frock that's black and blue or white and gold.
RT
@kexpnowplaying#kexpSandwidi Pierre "Je Suis Un Salaud" from Le Troubadour De La Savane 1976-1980 JK--"Fresh Nigerian synth-funk from Burkina Faso, recorded sometime between the late 70s and early 80s"
"Optimizing an artificial intelligence architecture: The race is on" (
http://ow.ly/YojE30k2Lct ) JK--Calls out value of Non-Volatile Memory Express over Fabrics in shared storage pool optimized for AI workloads. Check out
@dfloyer#Wikibonresearch:
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpCoco & Clair Clair "Naomi & Kate" JK--2018. Self-released single by Atlanta duo. Kind of cool bouncy girly rap.
"GDPR impact on Whois data raising concern" (
http://ow.ly/FpO930k2Kgz ) JK--I'll say. Giving criminals the right to block disclosure of their fraudulent Whois domain registration profiles will open the floodgates to malware, phishing, DDoS, & other cybersecurity nightmares.
This will be the first wedding of a British royal to an American divorcee since Edward VIII married...whatshername...Gromit?
Woke up very early. Unusually calm outside. App says more heavy rain expected today. Trying to build a makeshift rowboat, just in case.
"Facebook's fake account crackdown: Our AI spots nudity, hate, terror before you do" (
http://ow.ly/vbDh30k1V1I ) JK--How do they know how fast we spot it? Are they spying on us?
"A Google program can pass as a human on the phone. Should it be required to tell people it’s a machine?" (
http://ow.ly/HGoy30k1TNP ) JK--I think they should be required to auto-voice a standard shibboleth speech impediment--perhaps lisp twice--in response to a human's 1st response
"Intel launches Open Visual Inference & Neural Network Optimization toolkit" (
http://ow.ly/HSyJ30k1RKZ ) JK--Near-edge AI software/HW video-stream analysis. Includes Intel CPUs, FGPAs, & Vision Processing Units. Integrates with AWS GreenGrass devices for edge-based ML inferencing
US Government Accountability Office report "Technology Assessment: Artificial Intelligence: Emerging Opportunities, Challenges, and Implications" (
http://ow.ly/3tWJ30k1Rhm ) JK--Good report. I assume that Trump will read it front to back.
Dear Vendors Who Want to Meet Me In Person: Please don't assume I'm based in whatever city you've indicated you'll be in next week. Saying you'll be in San Francisco, Boston, or New York is like saying you'll be in Johannesburg. I'm not there. My location is in my Twitter profile
"Blockchain Is Gaining Ground in Video Streaming. Here's Why" (
http://ow.ly/iJOl30k1P78 ) JK--Perhaps because an immutable, trusted, distributed store of digitally timestamped & watermarked video can protect the IP of video content providers in a world gone gaga over streaming.
When somebody calls themselves a "serial entrepreneur," I want to know if it's a series of failures or successes, or a series of increasingly desperate pleas for funding from investors wary and weary of yet another in an endless series of serial entrepreneurs.
"Blockchain in the cloud: Microsoft and Amazon look to democratize the distributed ledger for developers" (
http://ow.ly/rbeD30k1FLD ) JK--Good post. No need to flag the fact that the author is in 10th grade. He knows his stuff.
"Fake News: A Tech Approach to Proving Origins of Content, Using Blockchains" (
http://ow.ly/1K2l30k1Fmu ) JK--"Provenator": "content creator should be able to prove provenance of resources they create." Think of blockchain as Library of Congress depository & crypto hash as ISBN
"Computational Propaganda and Political Big Data: Moving Toward a
Critical Research Agenda" (
http://ow.ly/Lfeb30k1EAm ) JK--"Assemblage of social-media platforms, autonomous agents, and big data tasked with the manipulation of public opinion."
"White House eliminates cybersecurity coordinator role" (
http://ow.ly/GAPY30k1E1T ) JK--Redundant. By Trump's own admission, he's a leading expert in this and any other subject. Give him the benefit of the doubt.
"Google's AI pact with Pentagon sparks resignations, highlighting leadership disconnect" (
http://ow.ly/zqQw30k1DV0 ) JK--Conscience-stricken techies who have plenty of other career opportunities where they can make even more money & do even cooler stuff.
"Fujitsu Quantum-Inspired Digital Annealer Cloud Service to Rapidly Resolve Combinatorial Optimization Problems" (
http://ow.ly/sjCn30k1D7I ) JK--Argh! No "quantum-inspired" please. Magic is quantum-inspired. Interesting HPC architecture, though.
RIP Tom Wolfe. Whatever color he drained away from those showy white suits found its way into his literary output. He must have sunk his bestseller monies into drycleaning
Local weather app alert: “Moderate rain detected within 10.0 miles of Washington DC.” Run for your lives!
"GPUs: Designed for gaming now crucial to HPC and AI" (
http://ow.ly/tU7W30k0xgZ ) JK--Notes that big DBMS vendors still lack GPU-accelerated DBMSs. See my recent blog:
"New DeepMind AI Learns to Navigate
an Animal; Scientists React" (
http://ow.ly/sce330k0wEF ) JK--See the "zoomorphism" focus of my latest "uncanny valley"
#SiliconANGLEcolumn on trends in AI:
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpCharlotte Gainsbourg "Deadly Valentine" from Rest JK--2018. Love the repeatedly descending melodic line on this.
"Facebook Adds A.I. Labs in Seattle and Pittsburgh, Pressuring Local Universities" (
http://ow.ly/sAxf30k0vNw ) JK--Or perhaps doing a great favor for them, giving grads cool AI jobs, encouraging more students to enroll in those schools' AI programs in hopes of landing the same.
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@KEXPNowPlaying#kexpEELS "Bone Dry" from The Deconstruction JK--2018. Nice new one from Mark Everett and crew. I like how effectively he works within his limited vocal range.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpMorgan Delt "Some Sunsick Day" from Phase Zero JK--2016. This song has a tingle-worthy backing track.
"Pioneers Create Infrastructure for Self-Sovereign Identity Online" (
http://ow.ly/Bcrz30k0usH ) JK--I've been tracking this theme for almost 2 decades now, since my Burton Group years. Never seems to coalesce into anything broadly adopted. See my recent:
"Announcing Open Images V4 & the ECCV 2018 Open Images Challenge" (
http://ow.ly/E0h930k0tTH ) JK--Image recognition is heart of practical AI. Google's dataset has > 15 million professionally annotated bounding boxes for 600 categories. Challenge is here:
http://ow.ly/woV230k0tYV
"Pretrained models for TensorFlow.js" (
http://ow.ly/iVxu30k0tKc ) JK--TensorFlow team building model zoo for developing browser-based AI using JavaScript and libraries. This will become a huge focus for Web, mobile, and embedded app developers
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpMassive Attack "Protection" JK--1994. Tracey Thorn upon receiving song's backing track....'On the one hand, 'I don't understand this at all.' On the other, 'I understand this completely. This is minimalism. I do minimalism.'...,'I know how to do this.'"
"5 key takeaways from Red Hat Summit 2018" (
http://ow.ly/SrJ530k0sfB ) JK--Core . takeaway is convergence of hybrid-cloud ecosystems: virtualized and containerized apps; CoreOS and Kubernetes orchestration/automation; Red Hat OpenShift, Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud environments.
"Google Duplex beat the Turing test: Are we doomed?" (
http://ow.ly/NgPN30k0pbN ) JK--"How much scamming could be done if scammers could combine AI, a corpus of psychological manipulation knowledge, human-sounding callers, and the ability to scale? It boggles."
"Robot dogs that freaked out people by opening doors may soon come to building near you" (
http://ow.ly/twGB30k0mwC ) JK--As long as they don't lick my face with their greasy tongues, I'm cool.
Caught "Darkest Hour" on DVD. Good character study on Churchill. Oldman embodies him convincingly as an "old man," though in fact Oldman is my age and he's playing a man only a few years older than we are. Gasp!
WTF? PR making up false facts about me as hooks to get me to talk their clients. 2 in my inbox now. "Hi, I see you're going to [show I'm not going to].""Hi, I see you've written about [topic I've never written about]." You must have me confused with the other James Kobielus
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpSinéad O’Connor "Three Babies" from I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got JK--1990. Her voice has the rare quality that Patsy Cline had. She can channel pure heartbreak into the listener.
Catch me at Informatica World next week in Las Vegas. I may be doing some Cube hosting. Stay tuned.
http://ow.ly/hLfk30jZm4Q
"Beyond Narrative Description: Generating Poetry from Images by Multi-Adversarial Training" (
http://ow.ly/rP5q30jZjX1 ) JK--When developers start encroaching on my turf, I think we need the regulators to step right in and crack down on this "AI" crap once and for all.
"Evolving Mario Levels in the Latent Space of a Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network" (
http://ow.ly/N8G830jZjBF ) JK--When AI developers start building clever tricks for acing Super Mario Bros, I start to worry about reining them in.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Temper Trap "Sweet Disposition" from Conditions JK--2009. Melbourne, Australia-based group features Indonesian lead singer Dougy Mandagi. My Indonesia-born wife has family in Melbourne.
"Ultra Low Power Deep-Learning-powered Autonomous Nano Drones" (
http://ow.ly/48lo30jZi1k ) JK--The prospect of intelligent winged robo-insects sends shivvers up my backbone.
"Google researchers try to boost AI performance via in-graph computation" (
http://ow.ly/aB2O30jZhAX ) JK--Actually, cooler than that. AI programming abstraction layer for fine-grained decoupling of TensorFlow models for distributed execution across TPUs, GPUs, etc in parallel
"Service mesh data plane vs. control plane" (
http://ow.ly/QAUY30jZeBi ) JK--Skip to the end for a good overview of cloud microservices mesh protocols, including Istio, which I
#Wikibon blogged on last year:
"Invasive Rabbits Ruined Ecosystem of Isolated Islands" (
http://ow.ly/6pxi30jZcOG ) JK--Ecologists are considering introducing a colony of Elmer Fudds to nab the wascally cwitters.
"Smart office secrets: Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant could hear commands the human ear can't" (
http://ow.ly/XYWe30jZcto ) JK--Is this a "dog whistle"? I'm not sure it's a good thing to let our devices activate through stealthy signals our 5 senses can't detect.
"A woman had a seizure at Ken Jeong’s comedy show. The former doctor jumped offstage to save her" (
http://ow.ly/62wc30jZccu ) JK--"Former"? Until such time as the relevant medical board revokes Jeong's license to practice medicine, he's a physician....and, apparently, a skilled one
"Klout throws in the towel on whatever they were trying to accomplish – long live GDPR!" (
http://ow.ly/l92c30jZbkB ) JK--Dang! I forgot to cash in my Klout score for fun and prizes.
Had a hailstorm last night. Knowing how hail forms high up in thunderheads, the same systems that deliver tornados, makes the sudden drumming even more unnerving. All was fine, after a few minutes.
Bought/downloaded Wye Oak's latest LP "The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs." Warm enveloping electronic vibes abound.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Clash "Straight to Hell" from Combat Rock JK--1982. The song's protagonist didn't actually go straight to hell. Rumored to be MIA.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpJungle "House In LA" from House in LA JK--2018. Duo from West London. Nice dreamy trance-soul track.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpDave and Ansell Collins "Double Barrel" JK--1970. Very cool early reggae dance song. They interpolate a bit of DJ-like boasting rap into the delivery. Brilliant. I remember hearing this for the first time on a cut-out at a record store in Ann Arbor.
I want to thank my editor Rob for publishing my Thursday column on Sunday. Need to sustain the myth that Kobielus works crazy hours. I’m actually kind of lazy.
Enjoying all the clickbait about washed-up has-been second-tier celebrities of yore and how crazy they look now and how you’re not going to recognize them. Click now.
Drinking Zinfandel because I’m an infidel. In my secret heart of hearts, I have always dissented from the ruling Cabernet orthodoxy.
Thank you rain. I didn’t feel like mowing the lawn anyway. Let it grow.
Type A vs Type B personalities. Please explain the relevance of blood type to temperament. Are Type O people the silent majority?
CBS Sunday Morning reports that Poles are Britain’s largest immigrant group. London is looking more like Chicago every day. Or more like me.
Saw “Den Of Thieves” on DVD. Standard cops & robbers. I spent more time glancing at IMDB on my phone. Learned that Gerard James Butler and I have the same 2 given names and birthday. Yawn.
Lounging outside Starbucks while the wife goes about her Saturday shopping. Not drinking. Just sucking down that macchiato free Wi-Fi. My my my!
Those SAT prep courses. Do they give students a cheatsheet?
Thank you Microsoft Outlook Calendar for defaulting to the weather in Redmond WA. Nice to know that there's always drizzly, overcast, mildewed, squishy-earth, stay-indoors, coffee-guzzling, bleary-eyed, workaholic, monitor-squinting fatigue and gloom in the forecast.
"3 problems with Facebook’s plan to kill hate speech using AI" (
http://ow.ly/fzh230jVKgt ) JK--1) "Words are easy, but meaning hard." 2) " It’s an arms race." 3) "Video will make things worse." Also, human speech curators (aka censors) will inconsistently rate positives v negatives
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpStevie Wonder "Living for the City" from Innervisions JK--1973. Rare pre-rap popsong with 1) spoken interludes and 2) use of "N-word."
"Google Wants You to Put Down Your Phone (No, Really)" (
http://ow.ly/Z9m230jVJqn ) JK--I think it's futile to try to engineer willpower and work-life balance into people's habits. This is Just another set of unnecessary controls on our phones that users will waste time futzing with
"The State of AI 2017: What Matters Most" (
http://ow.ly/uVEk30jVIQi ) JK--I think what matters most, as regards UK AI landscape (early stage companies), is having a graphic that doesn't require a scanning tunneling microscope to read.
"What does it really mean for a robot to be racist?" (
http://ow.ly/jHzv30jVIdv ) JK--Or any of us, for that matter, when the unconsciously "biased word embedding" associations in natural language operate to advantage/disad of various socioeconomic groups. NLP infers/"learns" those
"Europe may come to regret its new set of data rules" (
http://ow.ly/9Slf30jVHDq ) JK--Argues that "would be even better to encourage companies to explicitly charge for privacy, which would give users better sense of what their data is worth & ensure their consent is more informed"
"Microsoft predicts five-year wait for quantum computing in Azure" (
http://ow.ly/GkHn30jVH89 ) JK--By the time humanity stops qubits from decohering, I suspect that popular interest in the tech will have decohered and that everyone now alive will be decomposing. I could be wrong.
"Oracle Blockchain Cloud Service" (
http://ow.ly/ZAJE30jVGSJ ) JK--Hyperledger Fabric to support distributed transaction ledgers for corporate users on the Oracle platform-as-a-service infrastructure. Microsoft also had blockchain announcement this week:
http://ow.ly/YgvG30jVGYt
"The Wild Wild West of conversational design" (
http://ow.ly/rrgz30jVGnq ) JK--Conversational UI designers lack standard vocabulary for talking about the parts of a conversation. See my Wikibon note on this, with respect to "conversational frames":
"AI for social good: Big tech spins a new narrative" (
http://ow.ly/ULcE30jVG3l ) JK--Cites Microsoft "AI for Earth" initiative: using insects to understand and protect biodiversity, data-driven farming to sustainably feed the world, advanced mapping for precision conservation, etc
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpJanelle Monáe "Screwed" from Dirty Computer JK--2018. Spoke-sung interludes by Zoë Kravitz sound a bit like Laurie Anderson.
"John McAfee Says Blockchain Will Upend Business as We Know It in 5 Years (Hint: No Bosses, Banks or Retirement)" (
http://ow.ly/aD7930jVEqh ) JK--Damn! He stole my business model: charging $105K per tweet. At this point, my net worth simply from tweeting endeavors is up to $7.024B
I find it curious that "United States of America" is often first in an otherwise alphabetical drop-down list of the world's countries. To avoid the anomaly and own that status legit, I suggest we change the country's official name to "AAAAAAmerica."
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpPolyrock "Romantic Me" from Polyrock JK--1980. Obscure electro-beat song that I can fairly characterize as "New Wave." Sounds like a lost Cars track. A good one.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpBoys "End of Time" from Rest in Peace JK--2018. Debut release from Swedish artist. One of those atmospheric tunes you'll probably be overhearing, barely noticing, in coffee bars around the globe.
"Blockchain: Paving the way for broad adoption" (
http://ow.ly/FyVq30jVDds ) JK--Deloitte is more sanguine on its prospects than Gartner, brandishing "a long list of use cases across every region and industry."
"Most CIOs not interested in 'massively hyped' blockchain, finds Gartner" (
http://ow.ly/hC7A30jVCU2 ) JK--Yes, mildly hyped is preferable. Are they waiting for it to climb the Slope of Enlightenment or simply coast along on the Plateau of Productivity?
"A Google program can pass as a human on the phone. Should it be required to tell people it’s a machine?" (
http://ow.ly/5kEq30jVCog ) JK--Regulators should require all such bots to reveal when human utters standard "safeword" (probably a different one than you'd use with a sexbot)
Read about somebody starting a blockchain incubator hub in Nigeria. I assume that soon we'll be getting urgent messages reputedly from a semi-notorious Nigerian asking help transferring government-impounded bitcoins out of the country. Some hardluck story from Goodluck Jonathan.
I've been contacted on whether I have "any data needs at this time." Yes, I do. Please provide me with the exact data from Trump's tax returns dating back to the early '80s. Think you can oblige me? For some reasons, Wikileaks is powerless to leak the stuff that actually matters
Our car GPS was obviously not programmed by somebody from the National Capital Region. You never route anybody from Northern Virginia to upper Northwest thru Georgetown, especially at rush hour. nerve-wracking than the Exorcist Steps.
Scholars say the etymology of the Christian prophet's given name in English comes from the Latin form of the Greek name Ἰησοῦς (Iēsous), a rendition of the Hebrew Yeshua (ישוע), related to the name Joshua. But I think it was actually a Greek shouting "hey Zeus!" and it stuck.
"AI Safety via Debate" (
http://ow.ly/y6Im30jUtjM ) JK--This one has me feeling a bit nervous. Training AI-powered agents to debate likely AI-safety consequences with one another, supervised by a human judge. See my 2017 KDNuggets on cooperative learning:
http://ow.ly/HQlv30jUtt5
"White House will host Amazon, Facebook, Ford and other major companies for summit on AI" (
http://ow.ly/TxR230jUt3w ) JK--Wonderful. This will give Trump a chance to browbeat and threaten smarter, richer, and more innovative business people close-up.
"Can GDPR and blockchain co-exist?" (
http://ow.ly/dWBM30jUsA9 ) JK--Discussion (by an "offshore law firm advising....clients on Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Guernsey & Jersey law") is consistent with my own recent
#InfoWorldcolumn:
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpThe Cure "Play for Today" from Seventeen Seconds JK--1988. The Cure's best always has an elastic snap and bounce to it. Perfect example.
"ReQuEST: Reproducible Quality-Efficient Systems Tournaments" (
http://ow.ly/cD7T30jUs7D ) JK--Cool omni-benchmarking community in which researchers to share complete algorithm implementations (code and data) as portable, customizable and reusable "collective knowledge" workflows.
"An AI speed test shows clever coders can still beat tech giants like Google and Intel" (
http://ow.ly/xhNu30jUrLB ) JK--DAWNBench AI benchmarking competition. See my
#SiliconANGLEcolumn from Monday:
"Startup RStor promises a new type of distributed compute fabric" (
http://ow.ly/oSNk30jUroB ) JK--Uses ML to predict best cloud provider & deploy platform for a specific workload, so the more the system is used, more intelligence it gains over the best per-task processing location
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpRogue Wave "Lake Michigan" from Asleep at Heaven's Gate JK--2007. Listen to the beat on this one. It starts off mushy, then seems to skip erratically, then locks into a nice solid whompity-whomp. Kind of a cool percussive progression.
"AI experts vow to boycott new subscription journal" (
http://ow.ly/7mtk30jUpbt ) JK--"We see no role for closed access or author-fee publication in future of machine learning research....In contrast, we would welcome new zero-cost open access journals and conferences in AI & ML."
"Announcing PyTorch 1.0" (
http://ow.ly/Isp630jUoX2 ) JK--Facebook's AI tool gaining developer traction. Will be available in beta within the next few months. Includes tools, libraries, pre-trained models, and datasets for each stage of development.
"The economics of artificial intelligence" (
http://ow.ly/qI4r30jUoQ6 ) JK--Provocative thesis: significantly reduces the cost of prediction.
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@kexpnowplaying#kexpFather John Misty "Mr. Tillman" from Mr. Tillman jK--2018. This artist has already referenced his real name in his songs a few times. I wonder if he composes them with a selfie stick.
