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A fascinating animated, infographic that details the story of how Stitch Fix is using data science to revolutionize the fashion industry.
#datascience #machinelearning
#datascience #machinelearning
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Dance cognition research
For us dance nerds, here are some excerpts from Hanna Poikonen describing her work on dance cognition research:
"...In my study, the dancers’ brains reacted more quickly to changes in the music than those of musicians or members of the control group.
I also found that dancers displayed stronger synchronisation at the low theta frequency. Theta synchronisation is linked to emotion and memory processes which are central to all interpersonal interaction and self-understanding.
In dance ... touch and cooperation are integral elements of dance – without them, there can be no dance. They are as important to dance as movement and music.
Dancing is also associated with “flow”, a well-researched phenomenon in which the person becomes fully immersed in an activity. Flow experiences have been found to increase the general contentment and productivity of the person as well as the quality of the activity. It reduces the activation of the neural network which is responsible for logical deduction and detailed observation.
Certain areas of dancers’ brains have specialised precisely to observe dance movements. The brain structures of musicians and dancers have also been found to differ from the general population in the areas responsible for processing movement and sound.
Brain synchronisation enables seamless cooperation.
Studies on producing music and movement show how during cooperation, the brains of two people become attuned to the same frequency. This is apparent in how the low-frequency brain waves of the participants become synchronised.
Brain synchronisation enables seamless cooperation, and is necessary for creating both harmonic music and movement. The ability to become attuned to another person’s brain frequency is essential for the function of any empathetic community.
Lately, researchers have gained fantastic results regarding the role of exercise as a mood enhancer. In addition to drug treatment and psychotherapy, exercise is currently even being recommended as a form of treatment for depression. Exercise releases hormones that create a sense of wellbeing, which in turn boosts positive emotional processes in the brain. It also lowers the activation of the amygdala, the brain’s fear and stress centre.
Finding the right dance style can make dancers euphoric, and make them forget the drudgery of official exercise recommendations and step counters.
Dancers who pursue graceful movement must practice being aware of their bodies and (being aware) of wordless communication. These skills are particularly important today, when we spend so much time sitting and in virtual realities. Our way of life has taken us further from our own physical experiences and the understanding of the wordless emotional messages of others.
For example, contact improvisation makes the dancers to listen attentively to the body of their partner. Touch is known to reduce pain, fear and anxiety.
Functional brain imaging has shown that these effects of touch are also apparent in the brain. In one study, a touch from a significant other reduced the intensity of the pain activation in the brain during an electric stimulus when compared with pain experienced alone.
Pain, stress and anxiety often go hand in hand with depression. Dance, music and related expressive forms of therapy could help lessen mental fluctuations even before the onset of full depression. Promising results have been gained from treating depression through music therapy."
===== Research paper source ========
Dancers as experts of body consciousness – in search of optimal methodologies - Niia Netta Natalia Virtanen
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/160898/gradu_niia_virtanen.pdf
====== Research news writeup ======
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/health/a-dancers-brain-develops-in-a-unique-way
For us dance nerds, here are some excerpts from Hanna Poikonen describing her work on dance cognition research:
"...In my study, the dancers’ brains reacted more quickly to changes in the music than those of musicians or members of the control group.
I also found that dancers displayed stronger synchronisation at the low theta frequency. Theta synchronisation is linked to emotion and memory processes which are central to all interpersonal interaction and self-understanding.
In dance ... touch and cooperation are integral elements of dance – without them, there can be no dance. They are as important to dance as movement and music.
Dancing is also associated with “flow”, a well-researched phenomenon in which the person becomes fully immersed in an activity. Flow experiences have been found to increase the general contentment and productivity of the person as well as the quality of the activity. It reduces the activation of the neural network which is responsible for logical deduction and detailed observation.
Certain areas of dancers’ brains have specialised precisely to observe dance movements. The brain structures of musicians and dancers have also been found to differ from the general population in the areas responsible for processing movement and sound.
Brain synchronisation enables seamless cooperation.
Studies on producing music and movement show how during cooperation, the brains of two people become attuned to the same frequency. This is apparent in how the low-frequency brain waves of the participants become synchronised.
Brain synchronisation enables seamless cooperation, and is necessary for creating both harmonic music and movement. The ability to become attuned to another person’s brain frequency is essential for the function of any empathetic community.
Lately, researchers have gained fantastic results regarding the role of exercise as a mood enhancer. In addition to drug treatment and psychotherapy, exercise is currently even being recommended as a form of treatment for depression. Exercise releases hormones that create a sense of wellbeing, which in turn boosts positive emotional processes in the brain. It also lowers the activation of the amygdala, the brain’s fear and stress centre.
Finding the right dance style can make dancers euphoric, and make them forget the drudgery of official exercise recommendations and step counters.
Dancers who pursue graceful movement must practice being aware of their bodies and (being aware) of wordless communication. These skills are particularly important today, when we spend so much time sitting and in virtual realities. Our way of life has taken us further from our own physical experiences and the understanding of the wordless emotional messages of others.
For example, contact improvisation makes the dancers to listen attentively to the body of their partner. Touch is known to reduce pain, fear and anxiety.
Functional brain imaging has shown that these effects of touch are also apparent in the brain. In one study, a touch from a significant other reduced the intensity of the pain activation in the brain during an electric stimulus when compared with pain experienced alone.
Pain, stress and anxiety often go hand in hand with depression. Dance, music and related expressive forms of therapy could help lessen mental fluctuations even before the onset of full depression. Promising results have been gained from treating depression through music therapy."
===== Research paper source ========
Dancers as experts of body consciousness – in search of optimal methodologies - Niia Netta Natalia Virtanen
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/160898/gradu_niia_virtanen.pdf
====== Research news writeup ======
https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/health/a-dancers-brain-develops-in-a-unique-way
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21C, episode 79: Your Move
“In transition, your move towards a disposition for possibility.”
@johnkellden
This post is all about a 21C Methodology — building blocks of participatory inquiry, co-evolving with contextual intelligence.
What
- practical wisdom, local craft and a passion for possibility
- cards, context, living systems, learning
- conversations that mind and matter, flow, finite and infinite play
- networks of participation co-evolving with locally owned means of collective action
How
- eight step approach
- social, connected learning
- participatory inquiry methods
- zen of small (ecosystemic, economical & eudaimonic) tasks
Whereto
Valuewebs catalyzing thriving communities and coordinating resilient regions.
Why
8 bn individual human reasons why, some of which remain to be born and given love and shelter.
There’s around 170k possible cards, building blocks of contextual intelligence, a framework and modular methodology.
Although this can sound daunting, it is still a finite set. It can be designed so as to facilitate a good use of networks, including both human heuristics and digital algorithms. A slightly more convivial scaling.
Prototyping & Fieldtesting
In the Conversation Community, core parts of the methodology, including the cards, have been field-tested through digital conversation and discourse, since Nov 2012.
Subsets of the whole deck of 170k cards, suitable for bespoke particular focus areas, can be made available on request.
Story
- metaphor: set table
- metonymy: your move
- sense impression: experiencing a slightly more win³ play
- proposition: contextual intelligence
Participatory Inquiry, episode 3: Your Move
“In transition, your move towards a disposition for possibility.”
@johnkellden
This post is all about a 21C Methodology — building blocks of participatory inquiry, co-evolving with contextual intelligence.
What
- practical wisdom, local craft and a passion for possibility
- cards, context, living systems, learning
- conversations that mind and matter, flow, finite and infinite play
- networks of participation co-evolving with locally owned means of collective action
How
- eight step approach
- social, connected learning
- participatory inquiry methods
- zen of small (ecosystemic, economical & eudaimonic) tasks
Whereto
Valuewebs catalyzing thriving communities and coordinating resilient regions.
Why
8 bn individual human reasons why, some of which remain to be born and given love and shelter.
There’s around 170k possible cards, building blocks of contextual intelligence, a framework and modular methodology.
Although this can sound daunting, it is still a finite set. It can be designed so as to facilitate a good use of networks, including both human heuristics and digital algorithms. A slightly more convivial scaling.
Prototyping & Fieldtesting
In the Conversation Community, core parts of the methodology, including the cards, have been field-tested through digital conversation and discourse, since Nov 2012.
Subsets of the whole deck of 170k cards, suitable for bespoke particular focus areas, can be made available on request.
Story
- metaphor: set table
- metonymy: your move
- sense impression: experiencing a slightly more win³ play
- proposition: contextual intelligence
Participatory Inquiry, episode 3: Your Move
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If you live in the pacific northwest US you may enjoy this great geology talk, especially if you like rock hounding.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhjkemEyUo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQhjkemEyUo
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Originally shared by t3n Magazin
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Google just announced some big breakthroughs in the application of chatbot technology with its recent Duplex demo showing Google Assistant scheduling a hair appointment with a real human over the phone.
These technologies will utterly change the way we relate to organizations. As companies automate communications with us and we with them, we will increasingly be communicating through what I call a "bot sandwich."
These technologies will utterly change the way we relate to organizations. As companies automate communications with us and we with them, we will increasingly be communicating through what I call a "bot sandwich."
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21C, episode 83: Chaos, Trust & Flow
“In a network, your intuition is a dynamic, mostly self-organising handshake protocol between conscious and subconscious.”
@johnkellden
Me
Our conscious minds can process ten bits per second. Our whole mind can process ten million bits per second. Our handshake protocol is hard at work translating back and forth every moment. Or, when not hard at work, constellated, configured differently, enacting a different place — playing, flowing…
We
“In a network, chaos, trust and flow.”
@johnkellden
Intuition
Our minds performing pattern matching, combining future worries, present mindfulness and past experiences.
Feedback Loops: Conversation Theory
enact, perceive, observe, orient, decide, act, re-enact
Enact and Perceive
“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”
— Daniel Kahneman
Perceive and Observe
“This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution."
— Daniel Kahneman
Observe and Orient
“The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.”
— Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Orient and Decide
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
― Daniel Kahneman
Forces & Building Blocks
Data
“We build and maintain an open repository of web crawl data that can be accessed and analyzed by anyone.”
http://commoncrawl.org/
Information
“A difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them.”
— Gregory Bateson
The Shortcut, The 21C Challenge: Power
“But the myth of power is, of course, a very powerful myth, and probably most people in this world more or less believe in it. It is a myth, which, if everybody believes in it, becomes to that extent self-validating. But it is still epistemological lunacy and leads inevitably to various sorts of disaster.
What is true is that the idea of power corrupts. Power corrupts most rapidly those who believe in it, and it is they who will want it most. Obviously, our democratic system tends to give power to those who hunger for it and gives every opportunity to those who don’t want power to avoid getting it. Not a very satisfactory arrangement if power corrupts those who believe in it and want it.
Perhaps there is no such thing as unilateral power. After all, the man “in power” depends on receiving information all the time from outside. He responds to that information just as much as he “causes” things to happen…it is an interaction, and not a lineal situation.”
— Gregory Bateson
Knowledge
“We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong.”
— Gregory Bateson
Dynamic Story/Narrative Re-alignment
How network dynamics co-evolve with platform (knowledge) flows and design synthesis, are three literacies still in their infancy.
1. Review
2. Story, the select parts of your authentic self that can grow legs
3. Tasks, the nature of reality is transactional
4. Generative Review (an ever so slightly evolved way of reviewing)
Cramming living things into boxes
- An overemphasis on design synthesis risks doing away with depth.
- An overemphasis on network dynamics risks amplifying competitive strategies and red queen scenarios.
- An overemphasis on platform flows risks getting too dependent on (too) big data. (Warm Data to the rescue?)
On Patterns, Patterning & Evolutionary Fitness
Paths I’m exploring: semiosphere slingshots, navigating our Scylla, Charybdis & Caliban of networks, platforms and design through select, choice use of abductive sensemaking, participatory inquiry, generativity, and story/narrative (re)alignment.
Knowledge
“Information that changes something or somebody — either by becoming grounds for action, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different or more effective action.”
— Peter Drucker
Social Learning
“In a network, we scale to thriving community by putting knowledge to convivial use, at the right time, in the right place.”
@johnkellden
Applied Social Learning
“In a network, the best place to store knowledge is in other people.”
@johnkellden
How to enact applied social learning
Situations: Ichigo Ichie
One meeting, one opportunity. Don’t just meet people, be there.
Structure
TIMN: Tribe, Institution, Market, Network
Process
Conversations: complex responsive processes
Generative Review
Flow
Roadmapping
Chaos, Trust & Flow
Strategic Outcome
Ideas co-evolving with Networks, Platforms & Connected Intelligence.
All Together Now: Applying the Above to Governance
In a network, in transition, we need protocols on at least three different meta-levels. One of the meta-levels would be between ritual and the flow of presence. Another protocol would be between metalogue and media. Having those two would make a difference, although there’s many more we could design and use.
Protocols Are For Our Sins
A third one which is probably pivotal, simple enough to posit, but hell to design and even worse to implement: a realignment protocol between institutions, markets and commons. All three protocols operate and flow differently through time.
We made it? What happened? We happened
Given our collective task is to hand over thriving, convivial, sustainable societies and communities to our children, seven generations to come, what learning do we need to embrace, in order to entrust a context that will ensure a necessary and sufficient mutuality and learning, informing our protocols, guiding our thinking, whether fast or slow?
Participatory Inquiry, episode 7: Chaos, Structure & Flow
“In a network, your intuition is a dynamic, mostly self-organising handshake protocol between conscious and subconscious.”
@johnkellden
Me
Our conscious minds can process ten bits per second. Our whole mind can process ten million bits per second. Our handshake protocol is hard at work translating back and forth every moment. Or, when not hard at work, constellated, configured differently, enacting a different place — playing, flowing…
We
“In a network, chaos, trust and flow.”
@johnkellden
Intuition
Our minds performing pattern matching, combining future worries, present mindfulness and past experiences.
Feedback Loops: Conversation Theory
enact, perceive, observe, orient, decide, act, re-enact
Enact and Perceive
“We are prone to overestimate how much we understand about the world and to underestimate the role of chance in events.”
— Daniel Kahneman
Perceive and Observe
“This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution."
— Daniel Kahneman
Observe and Orient
“The confidence that individuals have in their beliefs depends mostly on the quality of the story they can tell about what they see, even if they see little.”
— Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow
Orient and Decide
“Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”
― Daniel Kahneman
Forces & Building Blocks
Data
“We build and maintain an open repository of web crawl data that can be accessed and analyzed by anyone.”
http://commoncrawl.org/
Information
“A difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. The pathways are ready to be triggered. We may even say that the question is already implicit in them.”
— Gregory Bateson
The Shortcut, The 21C Challenge: Power
“But the myth of power is, of course, a very powerful myth, and probably most people in this world more or less believe in it. It is a myth, which, if everybody believes in it, becomes to that extent self-validating. But it is still epistemological lunacy and leads inevitably to various sorts of disaster.
What is true is that the idea of power corrupts. Power corrupts most rapidly those who believe in it, and it is they who will want it most. Obviously, our democratic system tends to give power to those who hunger for it and gives every opportunity to those who don’t want power to avoid getting it. Not a very satisfactory arrangement if power corrupts those who believe in it and want it.
Perhaps there is no such thing as unilateral power. After all, the man “in power” depends on receiving information all the time from outside. He responds to that information just as much as he “causes” things to happen…it is an interaction, and not a lineal situation.”
— Gregory Bateson
Knowledge
“We are most of us governed by epistemologies that we know to be wrong.”
— Gregory Bateson
Dynamic Story/Narrative Re-alignment
How network dynamics co-evolve with platform (knowledge) flows and design synthesis, are three literacies still in their infancy.
1. Review
2. Story, the select parts of your authentic self that can grow legs
3. Tasks, the nature of reality is transactional
4. Generative Review (an ever so slightly evolved way of reviewing)
Cramming living things into boxes
- An overemphasis on design synthesis risks doing away with depth.
- An overemphasis on network dynamics risks amplifying competitive strategies and red queen scenarios.
- An overemphasis on platform flows risks getting too dependent on (too) big data. (Warm Data to the rescue?)
On Patterns, Patterning & Evolutionary Fitness
Paths I’m exploring: semiosphere slingshots, navigating our Scylla, Charybdis & Caliban of networks, platforms and design through select, choice use of abductive sensemaking, participatory inquiry, generativity, and story/narrative (re)alignment.
Knowledge
“Information that changes something or somebody — either by becoming grounds for action, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different or more effective action.”
— Peter Drucker
Social Learning
“In a network, we scale to thriving community by putting knowledge to convivial use, at the right time, in the right place.”
@johnkellden
Applied Social Learning
“In a network, the best place to store knowledge is in other people.”
@johnkellden
How to enact applied social learning
Situations: Ichigo Ichie
One meeting, one opportunity. Don’t just meet people, be there.
Structure
TIMN: Tribe, Institution, Market, Network
Process
Conversations: complex responsive processes
Generative Review
Flow
Roadmapping
Chaos, Trust & Flow
Strategic Outcome
Ideas co-evolving with Networks, Platforms & Connected Intelligence.
All Together Now: Applying the Above to Governance
In a network, in transition, we need protocols on at least three different meta-levels. One of the meta-levels would be between ritual and the flow of presence. Another protocol would be between metalogue and media. Having those two would make a difference, although there’s many more we could design and use.
Protocols Are For Our Sins
A third one which is probably pivotal, simple enough to posit, but hell to design and even worse to implement: a realignment protocol between institutions, markets and commons. All three protocols operate and flow differently through time.
We made it? What happened? We happened
Given our collective task is to hand over thriving, convivial, sustainable societies and communities to our children, seven generations to come, what learning do we need to embrace, in order to entrust a context that will ensure a necessary and sufficient mutuality and learning, informing our protocols, guiding our thinking, whether fast or slow?
Participatory Inquiry, episode 7: Chaos, Structure & Flow
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Google business practice rants by ex employee Steve Yegge. I noticed there is nothing in my G+ feed about this latest essay by an ex-google employee. Here's a bunch of links you can chase down if you care to.
As reported in the Slashdot article today: Steve Yegge, a longtime Google engineer who gained popularity after his rant on Google+ went viral, wrote another rant on Wednesday, in which he announced he has left Google. [Then the next day he adds a brief comment to reply to reporters questions.
Jan 23 2018 Why I left Google to join Grab
https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/why-i-left-google-to-join-grab-86dfffc0be84
Jan 24 2018 Google doesn’t necessarily need innovation
https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/google-doesnt-necessarily-need-innovation-95cea96d0eeb
Oct 2011 https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX*
*2011 Rant by Yegge reported by business insider: GOOGLE ENGINEER: Here's Why Google+ Is Failing, And How We Can Start 'Doing This Right'
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-yegge-google-platform-rant-2011-10
Slashdot article
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/24/1729241/longtime-google-engineer-quits-says-company-can-no-longer-innovate-is-mired-in-politics-and-has-become-absolutely-competitor-focused
As reported in the Slashdot article today: Steve Yegge, a longtime Google engineer who gained popularity after his rant on Google+ went viral, wrote another rant on Wednesday, in which he announced he has left Google. [Then the next day he adds a brief comment to reply to reporters questions.
Jan 23 2018 Why I left Google to join Grab
https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/why-i-left-google-to-join-grab-86dfffc0be84
Jan 24 2018 Google doesn’t necessarily need innovation
https://medium.com/@steve.yegge/google-doesnt-necessarily-need-innovation-95cea96d0eeb
Oct 2011 https://plus.google.com/+RipRowan/posts/eVeouesvaVX*
*2011 Rant by Yegge reported by business insider: GOOGLE ENGINEER: Here's Why Google+ Is Failing, And How We Can Start 'Doing This Right'
http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-yegge-google-platform-rant-2011-10
Slashdot article
https://tech.slashdot.org/story/18/01/24/1729241/longtime-google-engineer-quits-says-company-can-no-longer-innovate-is-mired-in-politics-and-has-become-absolutely-competitor-focused
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“Ultimately, the goal is not to build a machine that can beat us at an argument. Much more exciting is the potential to have A.I. software contribute to human discussion — recognizing types of arguments, critiquing them, offering alternative views and probing reasons are all things that are now within the reach of A.I.,” Reed said.
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