🎞 Trolls (2016)

Watched Trolls (2016) from DreamWorks
Directed by Mike Mitchell, Walt Dohrn. With Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake, Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse. After the Bergens invade Troll Village, Poppy, the happiest Troll ever born, and the curmudgeonly Branch set off on a journey to rescue her friends.
A cute enough little film with a catchy soundtrack. Entertaining, but a bit too treacly for my taste.

Watched on Netflix streamed to TV via Chromecast

📺 Proving Brouwer’s Fixed Point Theorem | PBS Infinite Series on YouTube

Watched Proving Brouwer's Fixed Point Theorem by Tai-Danae Bradley from PBS Infinite Series | YouTube
There is a proof for Brouwer's Fixed Point Theorem that uses a bridge - or portal - between geometry and algebra. Analogous to the relationship between geometry and algebra, there is a mathematical “portal” from a looser version of geometry -- topology -- to a more “sophisticated” version of algebra. This portal can take problems that are very difficult to solve topologically, and recast them in an algebraic light, where the answers may become easier. Written and Hosted by Tai-Danae Bradley; Produced by Rusty Ward; Graphics by Ray Lux; Assistant Editing and Sound Design by Mike Petrow and Meah Denee Barrington; Made by Kornhaber Brown (www.kornhaberbrown.com)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djaSbHKK5yc

I had originally started following Tai-Danae Bradley on Instagram having found her account via the #math tag. Turns out she’s burning up the world explaining some incredibly deep and complex mathematics in relatively simple terms. If you’re into math and not following her work already, get with the program. She’s awesome!

Personal Website: http://www.math3ma.com/
Twitter: @math3ma
Instagram: @math3ma
YouTube series: PBS Infinite Series

While this particular video leaves out a masters degree’s worth of detail, it does show some incredibly powerful mathematics by analogy. The overall presentation and descriptions are quite solid for leaving out as much as they do. This may be some of the best math-based science communication I’ve seen in quite a while.

I must say that I have to love and laugh at the depth and breadth of the comments on the video too. At best, this particular video, which seems to me to be geared toward high school or early college viewers and math generalists, aims to introduce come general topics and outline an incredibly complex proof in under 9 minutes. People are taking it to task for omitting “too much”! To completely understand and encapsulate the entirety of the topics at hand one would need coursework including a year’s worth of algebra, a year’s worth of topology including some algebraic topology, and a minimum of a few months worth of category theory. Even with all of these, to fill in all the particular details, I could easily see a professor spending an hour at the chalkboard filling in the remainder without any significant handwaving. The beauty of what she’s done is to give a very motivating high level perspective on the topic to get people more interested in these areas and what can be done with them. For the spirit of the piece, one might take her to task a bit for not giving more credit to the role Category Theory is playing in the picture, but then anyone interested is going to spend some time on her blog to fill in a lot of those holes. I’d challenge any of the comments out there to attempt to do what she’s done in under 9 minutes and do it better.

🎧 This Week in Tech #649: Aging in Place

Listened to This Week in Tech #649: Aging in Place by Leo Laporte with Florence Ion, Jason Hiner, Larry Magid from TWIT.TV
CES and much more. Voice assistants are everywhere and IoT devices are getting smarter. Innovations in Sleep Tech that will improve your health. Elon Musk's Hyperloop is moving forward. Facebook is changing the Newsfeed feature and you might be shocked how. Some new brands might be popping up on Instagram feed and Stephen Colbert's app, Scripto, is being used by nearly everyone in late night new comedy.
https://youtu.be/jjS7eMmP_t4

My favorite part was the broad overview of CES shows over the past several decades and what they’ve generally focused on. It makes an interesting perspective on the state of technology for the past 40 or so years.

👓 Tavis Smiley Announces Multiple Deals on Multiple Platforms Including New Online/TV Series

Read Tavis Smiley Announces Multiple Deals on Multiple Platforms Including New Online/TV Series by Tavis Smiley (Facebook)
The Smiley Group, Inc., holding company for award-winning talk show host Tavis Smiley, has announced multiple new deals across an assortment of platforms aimed at reaching a broader, younger and more international audience. “Every crisis presents us an opportunity,” explained Smiley. “I look forward to speaking with a louder, clearer voice to even more people. There is just too much going on that demands our immediate attention.” Following a decision by PBS to end distribution of his long-running nightly talk show, Tavis Smiley, the broadcaster has signed on to host a new online series called “The Upside with Tavis Smiley.” The weekly interview series to commence second quarter 2018, will celebrate the spirit of resilience, the power to overcome that resides in each of us.

👓 PBS Chief Talks Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, #MeToo | Variety

Read PBS Chief Talks Charlie Rose, Tavis Smiley, #MeToo by Daniel Holloway (Variety)
PBS in recent months parted ways with two of its highest-profile on-air personalities, Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley, amid sexual-misconduct allegations. Speaking Tuesday at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour, PBS chief executive Paula Kerger addressed both departures as well as the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault. “When we are aware of issues, we’ll move quickly, as we did with Charlie Rose, as we did [with] Tavis Smiley,” Kerger said.
Oddly, I hadn’t heard much about the Tavis Smiley allegations. Most of the news was just that he was out, but without any direct story. Perhaps I missed it during the holidays??

👓 Learn Archives – Pods Framework | Pods.io

Read Learn Archives - Pods Framework (pods.io)
WordPress Content Types and Fields WordPress is all about creating content. It comes bundled with Posts and Pages, which you can organise using the Categories and Tags taxonomies. It’s also got post meta fields which you can use to append data to your content – author, date, and custom fields, for example.

👓 After review, closure of Johns Hopkins Humanities Center ‘will not be considered’ | Hub

Read After review, closure of Johns Hopkins Humanities Center 'will not be considered' (The Hub)
Committee recommends three possible paths forward for 50-year-old academic center
Glad to hear this may have a happier ending that I had suspected. I remember a conversation several years ago in which Dick Macksey was reticent to retire because it might have adverse effects on the department. I hope to see his legacy and that of the humanities at Hopkins continue unabated.

👓 Here’s to What’s Next | Jonathan LaCour

Read Here's to what's next by Jonathan LaCour (cleverdevil)
Last week, I shared that I have decided to move on from DreamHost, and its been a crazy week tying up loose ends, meeting with colleagues to remember our time together, and reflecting on the past. Now, its time to focus on what's next. On January 16th, I start as Chief Technology Officer at Reliam, a managed cloud service provider based out of Los Angeles, CA. Reliam has just secured up to $75 Million of investment from Great Hill Partners to drive growth. Simon Anderson, former CEO of DreamHost, and my ex-boss, has joined Reliam as CEO. I am thrilled by the possibilities that are ahead of us!
 

📺 Introduction to Category Theory 1 by Steven Roman | YouTube

Watched Introduction to Category Theory 1 by Steven Roman from YouTube
Lecture one of six in an introductory set of lectures on category theory.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If6VUXZIB-4&list=PLiyVurqwtq0Y40IZhB6T1wM2fMduEVe56&index=1

Take Away from the lecture: Morphisms are just as important as the objects that they morph. Many different types of mathematical constructions are best described using morphisms instead of elements. (This isn’t how things are typically taught however.)

Would have been nice to have some more discussion of the required background for those new to the broader concept. There were a tremendous number of examples from many areas of higher math that many viewers wouldn’t have previously had. I think it’s important for them to know that if they don’t understand a particular example, they can move on without much loss as long as they can attempt to apply the ideas to an area of math they are familiar with. Having at least a background in linear algebra and/or group theory are a reasonable start here.

In some of the intro examples it would have been nice to have seen at least one more fully fleshed out to better demonstrate the point before heading on to the multiple others which encourage the viewer to prove some of the others on their own.

Thanks for these Steven, I hope you keep making more! There’s such a dearth of good advanced math lectures on the web, I hope these encourage others to make some of their own as well.

👓 Introduce a new way to retain knowledge from Kindle books | Diigo

Read Introduce a new way to retain knowledge from Kindle books by Joel Liu (Diigo)
Diigo provides a 2 step method to help you make the best use of your kindle highlights. Step 1: Import your kindle highlights to your Diigo library. Step 2: Organize highlights from a book in your own knowledge structure.
Another interesting way to potentially cut out data from Amazon Kindle e-books in terms of annotations, marginalia, and notes.

👓 Investor Bill Miller commits $75 million to Johns Hopkins Philosophy Department | JHU Hub

Read Investor Bill Miller commits $75 million to Johns Hopkins Philosophy Department by Dennis O'Shea (The Hub (Johns Hopkins))
Legendary investor William H. "Bill" Miller III has committed a record $75 million to the Johns Hopkins University Department of Philosophy to broaden and intensify faculty research, graduate student support, and undergraduate study of philosophical thought.
Support for the humanities like this is definitely a worthy cause!

🎧 This Week in Google 439 Stick It in Your Underwear | TWiT.TV

Listened to This Week in Google 439 Stick It in Your Underwear by Leo Laporte, Jeff Jarvis, Stacey Higginbotham, Mathew Ingram from TWiT.tv
Google's 1st CES: Assistant is everywhere, but so is rain. People keep stealing Google bikes. AT&T pulls out of a Huawei deal - Huawei CEO is not pleased. Mark Zuckerberg's ""personal challenge"" for 2018 is to do his job. Facebook kills M. Meltdown mitigation hurts. Record number of US border gadget searches. Senate will vote to fix Net Neutrality. IoT at CES. Jeff's Pick: my_aussie_gal on Instagram Mathew's Pick: Sarah Silverman and the Twitter Troll

https://youtu.be/i1otqlx95mU

🎧 Gillmor Gang: Blank Check | TechCrunch

Listened to Gillmor Gang: Blank Check by Doc Searls, Keith Teare, Frank Radice, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor from TechCrunch
Doc checks AdTech’s pulse, Google poisons search with Fake News, and Social stews over trust.

🎧 Gillmor Gang: Loose Change | TechCrunch

Listened to Gillmor Gang: Loose Change by Michael Arrington, Keith Teare, Doc Searls, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor from TechCrunch
Twitter ponders subscription services, Medium gets $5 from Steve and maybe Doc, Keith and Kevin offer their 2 cents from across the pond, and Mike holds down the fort from Crunchfund HQ.

📺 The West Wing (NBC, 1999) Season 1, Episodes 1-4

Watched The West Wing (S1, E1-4) from NBC
Created by Aaron Sorkin. With Martin Sheen, Rob Lowe, Allison Janney, John Spencer. Inside the lives of staffers in the West Wing of the White House.
It’s amazing how much has changed in politics and how much hasn’t changed…

“Five Votes Down”
“A Proportional Response”
“Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc”
“Pilot”

Watched on Netflix via Chromecast to Television