Weekend List for Sep 23, 2018
Bullshit jobs – one of my favorite topics. And a reminder that we all must never find ourselves in a soul destroying job
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/may/25/bullshit-jobs-a-theory-by-david-graeber-review
https://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/
“Getting positive or negative reactions to something you do or say is a greater influence on your thinking than logic and reasoning, the new research suggests – so if you’re in a group of like-minded people, that’s going to reinforce your thinking.” So very true … and underscores the importance of learning (which has feedback as a key part) over knowing
https://www.sciencealert.com/feedback-study-explains-why-false-beliefs-stick
The gap between a Data Scientist and the Software Engineer continues to close. Is ML Engineer the new thing?
https://blog.insightdatascience.com/preparing-for-the-transition-to-applied-ai-d41e48403447
A good example of combining NLP and ML at scale
Useful design concepts for a world of multiple data stores – from transaction systems to analytical environments. Replication, propagation et al. become critical
Weekend List for Sep 9,2018
Machine Learning does need human guidance – from labeling training datasets to the judgment element for Reinforcement Learning systems. There is obvious interest in creating autonomous learning systems. Watch out for more …
The idea of treating data as an asset has finally taken root. The time has to come to relevant data into a ‘first-class’ organization object
https://theodi.org/topic/data-infrastructure/
Scale doesn’t happen overnight – but while you are waiting for scale, what do you do? From the founder of Airbnb
How businesses that scale will succeed
https://hbr.org/2018/09/alibaba-and-the-future-of-business
Interesting article
https://quillette.com/2018/09/07/academic-activists-send-a-published-paper-down-the-memory-hole/
Weekend List for Aug 31, 2018
‘Demo or Die’ – sums it all up
Food for thought – esp. for those of us who are drinking the koolaid in the Valley
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2018/08/30/why-startups-are-leaving-silicon-valley
Black box or not? Relevant debate
https://hbr.org/2018/07/we-need-transparency-in-algorithms-but-too-much-can-backfire
In the world of ‘fake news’ …
Will this help the pesky problem of black swan events in Forecasting …
Weekend List for Aug 25/26, 2018
Nice article on Questions – we always knew that questions are important. Some interesting research to formalize this
https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-surprising-power-of-questions
AI is the new hype – and the odds of delivering successful outcomes are still quite low. Good read on how to think about AI projects
https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-to-make-an-ai-project-more-likely-to-succeed
We live in a culture that disproportionately celebrates heroes. Even more so in domains where individual brilliance and effort creates value – Physics being one. Popular culture has reinforced this stereotype over and over again. This is a good piece on looking beyond the individuals at their mentors – and the attention their contribution deserves.
https://rdcu.be/48rc
Good thought starter on applications of reinforcement learning – outside of the gaming world, this has not found many applications. That should not be so: agent-environment interactions with feedback situations exist aplenty: Customer Care Interactions; Supply Chain Inventory positions; Web personalization are examples
https://towardsdatascience.com/applications-of-reinforcement-learning-in-real-world-1a94955bcd12
Pure, unadulterated fun. However, what is amazing is the rigor with which he breaks a big problem into components, with nothing more than thinking from first principles. Something to learn
https://what-if.xkcd.com/
Celebrating the learning and curious mindset 