Super Spatial Sensers - fcrimins/fcrimins.github.io GitHub Wiki

Email: "google car improvement"

• People signal their intentions when they drive. E.g. it's usually not that hard to tell if someone is considering changing lanes. Use machine learning to look at scenarios when cars cut in front of you and anticipate those in advance. This could be useful in non-self-driving cars also.
• Generally, anticipating where cars are going to be before they're there would be useful. Doing so based on behavior, rather than mere velocity for example, would be really cool.

Email: "form of autism often marked by exceptional intelligence but extreme sensitivity to motions"

• "The report mentioned a possible diagnosis of Asperger’s disorder, a form of autism often marked by exceptional intelligence but extreme sensitivity to motions, sounds, and light." http://www.gq.com/story/the-last-true-hermit
• "I’m not sorry about being rude if it gets to the point quicker,"
• "Culturally my family is old Yankee," Chris said. "We’re not emotionally bleeding all over each other. We’re not touchy-feely. Stoicism is expected."
• I often describe myself as being particularly geographically aware--aware of my surroundings, aware of my direction. I've often thought that I have particularly good peripheral vision, but I don't think that's exactly right. I feel weird when I don't know what direction the building I'm in is facing. I seem to sense cars that want to change lanes long before they actually do (see my other previous notes on that).
• So maybe we should study Asperger's people and what they understand that the rest of us don't. Study them with neural nets. Build models of their brains to understand how those brains are different from normal people's brains.
• It might be easier to study differences in brains than brains themselves. Fewer variables to model perhaps. E.g. if differences only account for 1% then they should be easier to analyze. Of course the problem is how to measure that 1%--even from an output-only perspective as would be required to use NNs.

Email: "Super recognizers, drivers, diagnosers?"

• Do You Have a Face-Finding Superpower for Fighting Crime? http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/01/do-you-have-a-face-finding-superpower-for-fighting-crime/
• "differential brain activity" like differential gene expression?
• I scored 12 out of 14--got the last 2 wrong which are presumably the hardest. They say that anything above 10/14 could make you a super-recognizer.
• It's odd that these sorts of things aren't ever tested for in interviews. E.g. test peoples perception abilities.

Email: Top scientists are more artistic

• http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/09/top-scientists-are-more-artistic.html

Email: Watch this ted talk

• A community for those who like to be alone, grown out of a blockbuster TED Talk http://blog.ted.com/a-community-for-those-who-like-to-be-alone/
• The Power of Introverts - http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts
• "made self negating choices so reflexively that i wasn't even aware that i was making them" - e.g. going to bars rather than quiet dinners w/ friends
• went to become a wall st lawyer rather than the reader she'd always wanted to be
• western society has always "favored the man of action over the man of contemplation"
• this wiki is my "suitcase," my "courage to speak softly"

Email: "NYTimes: Learning to See Data"

• http://nyti.ms/1IDHfaN
• "perceptual learning"
• "The beauty of such learning is that it is automatic; there’s no thinking involved. 'We don’t just see, we look; we don’t just hear, we listen,' wrote the field’s founder, Eleanor J. Gibson, in 1969. 'Perceptual learning is self-regulated, in the sense that modification occurs without the necessity of external reinforcement. It is stimulus-oriented, with the goal of extracting and reducing' the information needed."