Pi Day and An Adventure in Ideas #a3r
Music and mathematics are simply the architecture of patterns.
In this big data era where every object has the potential to be a Trojan horse and every person is a sensor I think it is important to pause and celebrate innovation and our restless seeking to frame, organize and understand patterns.
A very special friend and talented musician Philip Sheppard says:
If architecture is frozen music, then music is liquid architecture.
♫ Philip Sheppard ~ Soundcloud ♫
So this #PiDay — let us continue to remember the context is not about numbers — it is about expression and our human need for connection:
- You are not a node, you are a frequency . . .
- The map is not the territory . . . deep bow to Alfred Korzybski
- Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted . . . deep bow to Albert Einstein
The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. ~Eric Hoffer
1) A Brief History of π #a3r π
2) Numbers, patterns and equations are at the core of this curated list of TEDTalks which will teach you how to fold better origami and how to quantify history. π #a3r π
3) The Relavance of Algorithms and Algorithms Are Biased But No one Seems to Care! We do care and we are getting more sophisticated in how we care about the danger of bias:
- Yes, algorithms can be biased
- Eliminating bias in our algorithms
- A radical approach to creating fairness in algorithms
4) We are in an era where software engineers have Archimedes fulcrum and the need for informed moral debate is crucial. Here is a sliver of a sliver of some of the moral dilemmaswe now face. I highly recommend Information Cultures in A Digital Age being woven into every business ethics syllabus. The International Center for Information Ethics is a global wide academic community formed around teaching and research in the field of information ethics.
5) I am even more concerned about data ethics as the world is now embracing AI at rapid speed. I am now reading Possible Minds 15 Ways of Looking at AI. I have curated the authors of this book into this list so that I can have synchronous access to the conversationand you can subscribe to my newsletter Unintended Consequences to join me in tracking.
6) Many are working on a post cash economy and new currencies are gaining traction. Here is a pdf from David Bollier: Re-imaging Value: Insights from the Care Economy, Commons, Cyberspace & Nature.
7) Our beloved Stephen Hawking is now a constellation and we will never be the same.
8) I still want to celebrate Hans Rosling who did so much to eradicate poverty and gain momentum for positive, informed global engagement. We should all help spread the knowledge Gapminder mines. The mission of Gapminder Foundation is to fight devastating ignorance with a fact-based worldview that everyone can understand.
9) I would be remiss to not include our Tim Berners-Lee in this #PiDay curation as we are communicating as a result of his contribution to World Wide Web: this is for everyone. Recently he identified three core problems hampering the premise of accessibility. Tim is fierce about weaponized data and here is his plea to “stop web’s downward plunge to dysfunctional future.” I am wanting to leave an empowering message but I cannot shake the Steve Cutts #poignant short film Happiness.
10) Many of the links shared have been about technology. I want to leave you with something deeper. We are part of these patterns. We have the ablity to consider ourselves and make choices as a result of our awareness in these patterns. Discernment, critical thinking, and cognition are what make humans machine’s most valuable app.
“Cognition is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living networks. In other words, cognition is the very process of life. The self-organising activity of living systems, at all levels of life, is mental activity. The interactions of a living organism — plant, animal or human — with its environment are cognitive interactions. Thus life and cognition are inseparably connected.”
♫ Peter Schilling ~ Major Tom ♫
Let us continue our quest to understand patterns and our belonging in living systems,
Jennifer #a3r
