I am sore. My shoulders are feeling the jolt from yesterday’s little bike accident. My neck is starting to feel it as well. Otherwise, I am just fine. I’ve been re-bandaged, and my road rash looks nice and healthy and clean. Still icky, though. I’ll be more sore tomorrow.
I’ll be back riding Saturday, probably.
Class today was one of those ideas that came to me out of the blue and worked pretty well, only because the students were willing to play along. First, I told them about my bike accident. They’re either interested in road stories or they’re playing me to avoid our class topic. Anyway, we talked through it for a minute. Someone apologized to me like he’d down something, which was kind. Then I said, “But no one here has asked the most important question: How is your bike?”
I think it’s fine, we’ll find out this weekend.
Anyway, I had a few questions for them about the different kinds of data.
Explicit data — data you know and realize you are creating
Implicit data — data you don’t often realize you are creating
Inferred data — guesses about you made by powerful algorithmic processes
Aggregated data — “anonymized” data that are grouped together to analyze or train
They were most interested in answering which of those is most harmful to users. This great thing happened, where someone said one thing and another said another and finally a fifth person said all of them. During one of those answers I playfully stood up, buttoned my coat, and said “My work here is done,” and stepped over to the door.
I’d asked them to look at some social media platforms and then compare notes. I had asked them to think about a series of particular questions. All of this, I said, will be useful for some of our later work. This is the part that was a recent inspiration for the day. Happily, they went along with it, and gave it some careful thought, which was lovely.
Then we watched a bit of Monday night’s Daily Show episode. This group of students is very much interested in a variety of artificial intelligence implications. When we watched this the other night I asked my lvoely bride if I should show this in class. Absolutely, she said.
The interview segment was awkward, clearly uncomfortable for everyone, and also, sobering. It is certainly worth watching.
In class, we’ll watch some other things next week.
We went over the river this evening to have dinner with friends.
City Hall and the famous William Penn statue by Alexander Milne Calder. It is 37 feet tall, ways 25-plus tons, and has been up there for 132 years. One day I’ll get up close to it.
We parked and walked to the place where we were meeting everyone. Along the way we ran across this random light fixture. Given the time of day we passed by it looked better in person than in photo or video form. But someone looks great in any form …
I saw this sign. I’m going to have to share that with friends.
We went to an amazing little Italian restaurant. Met the guy who’s name is on the sign. He’s an older gentleman, soft-spoken, happy to see and greet people at every table in his cramped little space. He told us about his favorite meals on the menu. I was listening carefully because we’ll definitely be back.
The dinner party was people from our university, but some folks from other places, too. There’s a conference of some sort in town bringing everyone together. A few folks wanted to chew the fat after they chewed their food, so we found a place to place some video games and throw some darts.
I threw these, but I did not win the little tournament.
I did win some pinball, though. Pinball is an art of angles, trajectory, timing, and the unknown. You have to appreciate it at that level to be as good as me. If you appreciate it at other levels you’ll be better than me. That will not be difficult.
Dodged two deer on the way home, but we’ve made it home safe, of course. Us and our Italian leftovers. I wonder if I can talk my way into eating both of them …
