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vongleichent 04/06/2013 07:27 AM Report
No wonder that he made Harvard School.
gorongo 04/04/2013 03:14 PM Report
In our parents age too much trust was placed on the doctors and their diagnoses. That has changed. We must all take responsibility for our mental and physical health and compel medical practitioners to pay attention as much as we atttend to ourselves.
Tools to anticipate and address health issues are big goals for big data and analytics wonks. People like Jeff, Larry Smarr and a whole cadre at UCSD and other institutions are pushing the benefits of sensors and quantifying our selves. The advances that they and others with altruistic goals accomplish will save lives, reduce mental illness and put the power of computing to good use. It is a noble goal to use your gift to improve the human condition. I hope Jeff and his people bring about all they intend to do.
Vegas05 03/27/2013 05:32 PM Report
did anyone check on Mr. Hammerbacher's veracity re: Harvard baseball????????
MrVjillarston 03/26/2013 02:56 AM Report
Big-data obviously works in baseball. Managers play percentages. Players get batting averages. And to measure training effectiveness, a player can watch their personal stats. If the basics of self-quantification works in baseball, why not try it in Medicine?
The 1976 concern that the noted John Hopkins MD, Edmond A Murphy, wrote [tLoM] about concerning the avoidance of mathematics in Medicine was due to [1] it was not done by doctors and [2] this kind of abstraction can be used as an easy evasion for commitment and responsibility. But in 1997, his 2nd edition progressed to stress "Identity by Measurement", a chapter that surveyed clustering statistical work from Pearse's cloud distribution chart to accepting pioneering ideas like, "..a new form of modeling, like fuzzy sets, or chaos, or fractals."
Although Hammerbacher noted that doctors have not been the driving force in big-data application, the idea of a doctor utilizing nano-technological [semiconductor] tools during "a physical" is necessary; we are in the 21st century and the current tools are from the 19th century. Nano-technological [semiconductor] tools will improve according to Moore's law. This will advance the diagnostic information exponentially. Evolving big-data medical software will be a necessary component in the gathering of this information.
The philosophical logic question still remains though, and here is Dr. Murphy on that: "It is one thing to argue mechanisms to expected outcomes; it is very much more difficult and hazardous to argue from data back to mechanisms." This is not quite the same as Taleb's warning about garbage in. Its about the logic out. However, a physical system, unlike an emotional black-box, has better predictable logic out, due to the physics at the root of biological breakdowns. I think Hammerbacher's generation of meta-mathematical scientists will get the advantage of nano-technical engineers and this is a game changer for the 21st century. Hammerbacher made no logical errors in his presentation. He hit his pitch out of the park.
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/25/2013 07:41 PM Report
The Framingham Heart study was/is big data!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framingham_Heart_Study
Frances Collins says we have had a 60% drop in deaths from heart attacks.
This is the kind of stuff we need Jeffrey.
"Over 1000 medical papers have been published related to the Framingham Heart Study. It is generally accepted that the work is outstanding in its scope and duration, and overall is considered very useful. The initial population was 5,209 healthy men and women aged 30 to 62, not the whole of the town population, as is sometimes assumed."
Dasein 03/25/2013 03:17 PM Report
Ah! The illusions, confusions and delusions of youth.
REMant 03/25/2013 11:19 AM Report
Facebook is not just about social networking. It could actually replace the Internet. While the Internet gave everyone access, it didn't give them the means to connect with every other part.
Until that happens Facebook's database seems so completely skewed that it will never be useful to anyone, beyond "screwgoogling" them, I suspect, and I expect they are going to get sued over it as well.
Google was not the first in the crawling, indexing and searching business, and I'm not sure the hands on approach of Yahoo, About, Wikipedia, etc will not win out in the end. Search engines piggy-back on webpage creators in any case and without them would be useless for anything beyond communication.
There's nothing new either, I'm afraid, in the use of statistics, or the mathematics itself. Been going on at least since the 18th c. (See for instance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetelet) But statistics really are only of value with very large, uniform populations or datasets and quickly become problematic when used otherwise. They assume the universe they set out to establish, which is a scientific no-no unless used either to disprove things, or sort them, which is rarely in the social sciences how they are used.
And intuition is not "intuitive;" it's merely subliminal. People are generally wrong to overrule it. And look how much effort it took to program that machine to beat experienced chess players. I'm sure it's the same thing with doctors.
It's not as if NO knowledge has ever been accumulated and passed on without the creation of vast collections of data so that each individual can to it in his lifetime. The data was collected and compared, etc, in the same way, but through a process involving a lot of ppl over a long time, and the conclusion reduced to language which can be taught through the use of conceptual analogies. As far as I can see these attempts to aggregate diagnoses just result in long laundry lists of symptoms. Just take a look at some of the websites doing this. You put in a symptom, and you could be suffering from anything.
This business is all too reminiscent of the pre 20th c attempt to do science through taxonomy.
It helps, of course, if databases can be constructed in a simple, universally understood language, as in chemistry, which was one of the first fields to make extensive use of indexes. Even Google's idea was used before them by indexes of footnote citations, and given the mess they've made of so many things, I'm beginning to think they were in fact unaware of it.
Too, the use of machinery to do all this began with keypunched cards and sorting machines, well before the invention of computers. And someone still has to program computers, which means they have to know what they're looking for, and like the search engines, garbage in, garbage out, as we used to say before he was born. Again, better communication is probably the best that can be hoped for.
I'm sure he wants to do wonderful things, but I think what he really needs to do is to teach himself to sit down and read books. I think he'll find he can if he puts his mind to it. and sticks with it for a few decades. Consider the library a database.
tabs 03/24/2013 11:53 PM Report
Mr Hammerbacher was flat lining emotionally, his was a steady stream of intellectualism, as modified probably by a double hit of anti-anxiety meds taken for the Charlie Rose show. Mr H's propensity for Mathematics is what gives him a constant unvariable grounding in reality, without which he would most likely be all over the place. The problem for Mr H is that he is trying to quantify though math his qualitative self, and that ain't never gona happen. It as a matter of fact is a symptom of his underlying problems. Mr H should start to think in terms of Neuro Plasticity and changing brain configuration one synapse at a time and thus brain chemistry would change over time as well. The downside fo Mr H is in the meantime that by taking Psychotropics his brain is changing configuraition to adapt to the meds and that is dependency rather than transcendent change. One wishes Mr H well.
Gelles 03/24/2013 07:24 PM Report
"Backat" thinks:
This guy needs to slow down, breathe deeply, work on his diction, comb his hair, shave, and put on a tie before sitting at this table!
Sugar knows:
... May at least one of his lifetime goals be fulfilled! [We all will benefit from that. His rapid thought and speech were exciting to hear and comprehend to the best of our ability. The digital revolution and cloud computing promise much and threaten little (IMO). I'm not in his league but am fooling with an idea related to his goals. I call it free and freedom.
amazon.com/forum/free
sugar 03/24/2013 04:52 PM Report
Totally disagree with backatthistable (below). Jeffrey's fine just as he is.
Actually, what this world needs is more Jeffrey Hammerbachers.
If Jeffrey wants a proxy-grandmother, I'm available.
This young man has a fascinating variety of characteristics that could well be the cause of a bi-polar/anxiety diagnosis as they clash among themselves.
Best wishes to him and his family as they face the challenges of the future, and may at least one of his lifetime goals be fulfilled!
Gelles 03/23/2013 11:43 PM Report
Let us admit that a universe with life below the intellectual level of the people on planet Earth would an amazing and exciting place without all that civilization has added to nature's astronomical gifts of even the human brain, if we pretend that brain was never activated--for this particular thought experiment.
We would therefore, to carry on with the pretending, have no WORDS to suggest quality, pattern, causality or similar description of past, present or future; no NUMBERS to suggest quantity; no LOGIC of certainty, uncertainty, probability or coincidence; no LAW beyond the purely natural law; and no discernible PURPOSE or notion of good and evil.
So everything that really matters is what we've done with nature's gifts -- more than a profound understanding of WHAT are those gifts and WHAT has been and will be our enhancements to them. We have obviously learned how to improve the breed of useful dumb animals. Will we expand that skill to improve the breed for our own species? Edward Bellamy in "Looking Backward", if memory serves, was unafraid to answer yes.
Many of us shun that answer. We want robot servants to do all tasks we can give give them, to increase our own time for the pursuit of unalloyed pleasure. But we are not anxious to experiment human life itself, to advance such pleasure ahead of a morality we invent in place of the one that does not exist--if appearances do not deceive.
The stored program computer reduced in size to near invisibility promises to change everything we take for granted and everything we don't even know a thing about at present. Is BIG DATA the enabler of this threat? Or was it Boole and Babbage and their intellectual kin and heirs who poked the hole in the dike a relatively short time ago that set in motion all the change so rapidly closing in on us that to be unafraid is a sign of ultimate stupidity.
I'm sure I'm repeating myself on this theme and getting worse instead of getting better. Yet I cannot but compare the power of money to connect everything to every other thing with the power of thinking machines to do the same with or without money -- or maybe money and information are so alike as to lead back and forth to each other.
Quit now or fall further behind than when I started.
backatthistable 03/23/2013 01:25 PM Report
This guy needs to slow down, breathe deeply, work on his diction, comb his hair, shave, and put on a tie before sitting at this table!
Gelles 03/23/2013 06:39 AM Report
"He saved GM which was good. He should also be creating real alliances ..." [to correct line 4 below]
Gelles 03/23/2013 06:34 AM Report
Michael Saylor and Micro-Strategy compete with Cloudera and Apache and all the stuff around Jeff Hammerbacher. I have always admired Saylor. I even made big bucks (for me) when I bought Micro-Strategy at the bottom. Our present President is fixated on taxation that means nothing and retreat that is his holy grail. He save General Motors when he should be creating a real alliance with Russia, China, NATO, India and Brazil. We are lost in the dysfunction of our own government and the evil nature planted in the inheritance of all life's forms. Charlie Rose has offered to recruit the wisdom of the crowd of his very special American audience--but he has failed to make it more than one more Tower of Babel. If he were serious about more than his stupid TABLE (where he shows off his ambition to become one more David Frost), he would partner with Amazon and bring some order and discipline to the interactive potential of the digital age to influence politics where voting has some purpose.
Between BIG DATA and FRUITFUL HISTORY OF END GAME PLANNING, FIGHTING AND FAILING, he bites off a lot to chew. But, by essentially aiming to be a high brow Johnny Carson who never heard of Benjamin Franklin's mind, beyond the stove and the kite, Rose fails to connect TV to a role that more than SUCKS. Why should he aim higher? Why should he aim for BETTER when all the rest seek MORE? To be specific: post-send edit; bring back transcripts; speed up the archive to be on time; moderate; irrigate the political process; and collect revenue from the archive based on a second look at products perfected on purpose.
Gelles 03/23/2013 05:36 AM Report
I appreciated SharkswithfrikingLazers multiple comments. He avoids crashes that wipe out good points because the Charlie Rose system is not robust.
In fact the CR system asks us to analyze the past and predict the future in a more interesting format than any other interactive effort of which I know. Yet its failure to allow post-send edit SUCKS. The whole show SUCKS because, like Rumsfeld in Iraq, its does its thing for audience comment ON THE CHEAP. Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are monumental tragedies. But at least they KILLED SADAM! And as cheap and stingy Obama is in the face of the planning and execution efforts he fails to undertake, at least HE KILLED OSAMA!
These killings were never accomplished when the crying need was to KILL ADOLPH HITLER. Analysis of history is a good thing. Big Data planning for a Utopian future is a good thing. But doing what we must ON THE CHEAP is a bad thing. Thank God in this Century we seem to be KILLING CERTAIN PEOPLE that may make all the difference!
Gelles 03/23/2013 05:25 AM Report
I just watched the program following this one. It is about the meaning of the Iraq, Afghanistan and Syrian wars. It is an exercise in memory, analysis, history and politics. It is not about eyeballs sold for profit or viewed for discovering the soul or sanity of an individual.
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/23/2013 03:11 AM Report
"The project uses Medicare data to provide information and analysis about national, regional, and local markets, as well as hospitals and their affiliated physicians.
This research has helped policymakers, the media, health care analysts and others improve their understanding of our health care system and forms the foundation for many of the ongoing efforts to improve health and health systems across America."
THE DARTMOUTH ATLAS OF HEALTH CARE:
http://www.dartmouthatlas.org/
(Jeffrey--this is the Bat Signal calling you!! 17% of our GDP buddy. Economic life and death and you can help by taking a piece of the pie.)
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/23/2013 03:04 AM Report
YES, "More ubiquitous low cost measurement".
Let's find out everything about that lump in his chest as quickly and cheaply as he can find out what is wrong with a server.
(Do NOT tell Jeffrey Immelt about this--see interview.)
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/23/2013 02:58 AM Report
9 Most Promising Former Facebook Employees:
http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/editors-pick/articles/10-Most-Promising-Former-Facebook-Empl oyees/10/8/2012/id/44657?refresh=1
Look who is listed second.
Charlie, that GoodRx looks interesting.
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/23/2013 02:51 AM Report
Charlie, remember that Michael Saylor told you about Wisdom?
Wisdom is a free analytic tool on Facebook, as well as on the iPhone and iPad. It is a product that collects data and links brands with people such as college-educated females who like Mitt Romney also turn out to have the Bible as their favorite book, have Target as their favorite store and whose favorite place to eat is Subway.
MicroStrategy has become part of FaceBook’s infrastructure -- an out-of-sight but essential plumber that keeps information flowing internally.
MicroStrategy software helps Facebook employees share useful information, letting salespeople know how much revenue each has produced, for instance. The idea is to help companies better understand their own fans (how many people like Coca-Cola on FaceBook?).
When companies can integrate their own customer data with Facebook's social graph, MicroStrategy can pitch companies that it can develop sophisticated marketing, sales, and loyalty applications.
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/23/2013 02:48 AM Report
Charlie, remember what Larry Page told you . . . FaceBook pretty closed. Won’t let data out. No reciprocity from FaceBook. Probably be forced to do it some day.
(Yes, Google salivates at the thought of FaceBook data.)
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/23/2013 02:44 AM Report
Before he told us about his bi-polar and general anxiety disorders his eyes told us the story.
Charlie, there is something about eyes and mental issues.
Eye exams may reveal the presence of non-eye diseases such as high blood pressure or diabetes but it is too bad that they can't tell us about mental issues--YET.
The eyes sure tell us when someone is stoned and that is a unique mental state.
Perhaps someone is working on the eyes as a diagnostic tool for The Brain Series.
SharkswithfrikingLazers 03/22/2013 11:54 PM Report
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads. That sucks."
"If instead of pointing their incredible infrastructure at making people click on ads,” he likes to ask, “they pointed it at great unsolved problems in science, how would the world be different today?”
Charlie, you should have asked him if he had to get drunk and code as an audition to work at FaceBook like we see in “The Social Network”.
If he did get drunk before he got the job then this probably shouldn’t be on his tombstone as he mentions in the interview--he just finally sobered up.
finalfantasytown 03/22/2013 08:54 PM Report
my understanding about the mainland of chinese and its border is correct when I am in southwest and think about northeast. To be minority and live in minority culture is fortunate and difficult challenge. The knowledge is internalized in their life. For han people, I don't think there is going to be a surprise.
Gelles 03/22/2013 08:12 PM Report
It is natural for me to say, "Charlie's best attempt to bring a lay audience close to tomorrow's intelligence systems".
Jeff Hammerbacher speaks like the genius he may be, fast and furiously, of scalable Big Data base business and government intelligence systems that may be key to successfully managing research and development projects to solve specific intractable problems by finding hidden mechanisms that we need but are not sure they are inventable.
Charlie Rose, in particular, brings to his lay audience the problems inherent in democratic governance of minimizing corruption and egomania and maximizing the efforts to end poverty, pollution, ignorance and hate, before they destroy civilization now in sight of immense wealth occasioned by automation.
Since the modern scientific era, when invention was followed by scientific method, we have seen steady progress in production and regress in respect for the golden rule. The 20th Century introduced Mutually Assured Destruction ahead of mutually attractive shared prosperity.
Among other things, Charlie shares the news and thoughts about the next new thing with ordinarily people who mean no harm yet do no good because they are connected only as consumers to be tricked and voters to be lied to.
Except--that such a negative view is no more correct than its opposite.
We do want the best for everyone we really know. It is only the imagined "THEY" whom we think of as the Devil.
The original computer watchword was GIGO: garbage in -- garbage out. But BIG DATA sees "when in doubt don't count it out; save it, find hidden patterns -- even mechanisms - and turn garbage into clues and clues into solutions."
The evidence we have is that genius finds answers with exhaustive testing of all that does not work. And so it is too, we fear, with law and economics.
We are by now supposed to have replaced a necessary army of unemployed humans with fully employed friends and family who do not need to be afraid of poverty to enjoy exercising their human imaginations to do what the human mind has done so well: adapt to change if given the chance and something we call fairness if possible.
Let us say, fairness is not possible, then we have found incorrigible people must not be given license to destroy all that is good but they can't tolerate. Will Big Data solve this problem -- not easily. But it must be given a chance while we rely on wisdom and kindness to enforce human rights as best we can.
I have been saying lately we need to reform language, logic (and/or number--depending how you view counting), law and money. These inventions must support measurable purpose not its absence). We have, instead, faith in rules that have no predicted purpose and no reliable measure for their effect.
Big Data in the service of such faith may lead from bad to worse. I would pin down the golden rule and second bill of rights (economic rights made possible by automation) as a starting point -- with no modification to them except by agreement to better basic initial rules.
Big Data pressed into service to satisfy ancient error in matters of debt, money, fairness, and the purpose of the good life, cannot succeed. But osmething in the opposite direction may also be true: the best intentions cannot succeed without BIG Data based intelligence to smooth the supply chains we must have to support our material wants and moral inclinations.
YNHow 03/22/2013 08:11 PM Report
Numerical / narrative imagination.
Wich one did Einstein, Newton, Locke, Jobs, Vinci, or others had.
So next is to quantity everything...Mathematics is nothing but quantity. Am I wrong ? So is money.
GarryGolden 03/22/2013 07:15 PM Report
Kudos Charlie for hosting a conversation w/ one of the most solid minds of the Millennial generation. The ability to generate insights is part of our mission in this next decade-- data driven enablers will go a long way. Jeff and Cloudera are doing great work-- appreciate you bringing them to the to table. Wonderful to hear his life story as well.. Maybe you could host a show w/ a leader from the Machine-Learning community?
BENEZRAA 03/22/2013 06:40 PM Report
BRILLIANT
Best of success going forward.
Thank you for your inspired work and ethic.