Tag: knowledge

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Education Google Innovation Network Reading Technology

Latest read: The Signal and the Noise

The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t by Nate Silver is another great book that completely absorbed my attention. This book offers in sights to many audiences. From weather forecasts, the Wall Street financial crisis in 2007, playing poker to even understanding and identifying signal relationships regarding the attacks on Pearl Harbor and New York on 9/11.
The Signal and the NoiseThe Signal and the Noise offers readers Silver’s insights on Bayesian thinking. Actually the book applies Bayesian in all the books lessons.

He nudges us to remember this when applying predictions in our own professions. Actually Nate’s study of predictions affects just about everything we do in life.

The strongest lesson for me is about understanding data-driven models can lead to tragic outcomes. He warns us about noisy data and Big Data that can set off false readings with horrific consequences. This alone makes this book a pretty important read.

Silver’s chapter on baseball and references to Michael Lewis‘s bestseller

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Education Innovation Reading Technology

Reading Nate Silver’s The Signal and the Noise

Wow just started reading The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail – But Some Don’t and see it carries the strong reputation as a though provoking book about prediction.
The Signal and the NoiseHe continues to look at data including out of sample data to provide greater context to long held assumptions to credit default swaps that strangled Wall Street and the housing bubble.

Even in defining why the US depression following the wall street collapse was worse than projected, his appeal of Too Big To Fail proves he has a good foundation from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s great book.

The second chapter of The Signal and the Noise focuses on pro baseball. Its another look at America’s game from a geek’s perspective. He acknowledges the impact of Moneyball by Michael Lewis. Lewis is a respected writer for all things wall street and metrics.

Now lets see how risk takers in Higher Education can improve a campus by understanding and absorbing these lessons….just pushing into chapter three.

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Design Education Innovation Network Reading Technology

Latest read: The Data Science Handbook

The recent pre-release of The Data Science Handbook is a fast, easy read. There is nothing better in business today than the still exploding market of data science. While some marketing statements indicate many are trying data science, here are the voices of recognized data science leaders. I have read my share of data science and big data books as well but like the direction of this pre-release.

The Data Science Handbook Pre-ReleaseMaturing technologies like Hadoop and even MapReduce prove yesterday was the time for every organization, business unit and non-profit to understand how data science is fundamentally changing the game.

Data Science hits your data sweet spot due to the ability of large systems to process your data in real-time. Notice how Microsoft is acquiring data science companies?

Data Science was just in its early stages not more than 10 years ago. Yahoo and Google helped move this forward. Even “legacy” companies like Sears Holdings understands the impact of MapReduce and Hadoop, they are well outside Silicon Valley. Just wait until some great advancements for public health are established by non-profits as a result of implement data science to forecast their business.

There is a great deal of excitement as the full release publication date inches closer. Cannot wait to see this book ship.

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Education Innovation Reading Technology

Latest read: Rework

Rework is a welcomed aggressive view of business today. Last year 37signals reorganized. Today the company is simply known as BaseCamp, their top selling product management cloud service. Rework is proven look at business in the Age of Attention.
ReworkThe best line in Rework that made me laugh out loud was Jason describing how you can get by with small things…he described how inmates carve shivs in prison. Perfect example but his follow up statement “I’m not telling you to carve a shiv” Hilarious.

Goodreads maintains a quote page for Rework. If your considering the book take a look for the little nudge to get you over the edge.And yes Jason nails it: Meetings are toxic, He suggests a few proven solutions.

This is an energizing read for millennials who need to understand that mature business models and the people who drive them come from a different time, have invested in ‘the system’ and are now using it to their advantage regardless of how the world works today. While the book is also clearly aimed at entrepreneurs, Jason addresses them as Starters instead.  He has a good idea about that term. This book is a quick read packed with lots of common sense that we forget in our busy lives.  Jason helps refocus your efforts.  Its worth the read.

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Education Reading Vietnam War

CIA torture modeled from The Vietnam War

The CIA’s Torture report has quickly left the nightly news and Sunday talk shows.

tortureContinuing my read of the full report I was somewhat intrigued the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques were sourced from the North Vietnamese in a war fought over 40 years ago.

Have our intelligence teams not evaluated more recent torture programs from the former Soviet Union, East Germany or Chile?

With the revelations of the NSA high tech spying from Edward Snowden its somewhat surprising that more efficient forms of intelligence gathering were not deployed against Al Qaeda in order to capture high level leaders.

Abu Zubaydah’s capture and subsequent torture by the CIA is a key focus on the early CIA Torture report. It appears that most of the intelligence gained from Abu Zubaydah was a result of standard interrogation techniques, not the enhanced torture that serves has a source for the Senate’s report:

In May 2003, a senior CIA interrogator would tell personnel from the CIA’s Office of Inspector General that SWIGERT and DUNBAR’s SERE school model was based on resisting North Vietnamese “physical torture” and was designed to extract “confessions for propaganda purposes” from U.S. airmen “who possessed little actionable intelligence.” The CIA, he believed “need[ed] a different working model for interrogating terrorists where confessions are not the ultimate goal” 139

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Committee Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program
Exec Summary Background and History Part I and II – Page 33

While this page serves as merely a sidenote to history, seemingly forever linking our military actions to Vietnam, there are more concerns regarding the actions taken by the CIA, The White House and the FBI in regards to withholding informaiton on the torture program from our elected leaders.