Category Archives: Deep Mind
Researchers apply developmental psychology to AI model that predicts object relationships – VentureBeat
Humans have no trouble recognizing objects and reasoning about their behaviors its at the core of their cognitive development. Even as children, they group segments into objects based on motion and use concepts of object permanence, solidity, and continuity to explain what has happened and imagine what would happen in other scenarios. Inspired by this, a team of researchers hailing from the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab, MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Alphabets DeepMind, and Harvard University sought to simplify the problem of visual recognition by introducing a benchmark CoLlision Events for Video REpresentation and Reasoning (CLEVRER) that draws on inspirations from developmental psychology.
CLEVRER contains over 20,000 5-second videos of colliding objects (three shapes of two materials and eight colors) generated by a physics engine and more than 300,000 questions and answers, all focusing on four elements of logical reasoning: descriptive (e.g., what color), explanatory (whats responsible for), predictive (what will happen next), and counterfactual (what if). It comes with ground-truth motion traces and event histories for each object in the videos, and with functional programs representing underlying logic that pair with each question.
The researchers analyzed CLEVRER to identify the elements necessary to excel not only at the descriptive questions, which state-of-the-art visual reasoning AI models can do, but at the explanatory, predictive, and counterfactual questions as well. They found three elements recognition of the objects and events in the videos, modeling the dynamics and causal relations between the objects and events, and understanding of the symbolic logic behind the questions to be the most important, and they developed a model Neuro-Symbolic Dynamic Reasoning (NS-DR) that explicitly joined them together via a representation.
NS-DR is actually four models in one: a video frame parser, a neural dynamics predictor, a question parser, and a program executor. Given an input video, the video frame parser detects objects in the scene and extracts both their traces and attributes (i.e. position, color, shape, material). These form an abstract representation of the video, which is sent to the neural dynamics predictor to anticipate the motions and collisions of the objects. The question parser receives the input question to obtain a functional program representing its logic. Then the symbolic program executor runs the program on the dynamic scene and outputs an answer.
The team reports that their model achieved 88.1% accuracy when the question parser was trained under 1,000 programs, outperforming other baseline models. On explanatory, predictive, and counterfactual questions, it managed a more significant gain.
NS-DR [incorporates a] dynamics planner into the visual reasoning task, which directly enables predictions of unobserved motion and events, and enables the model for the predictive and counterfactual tasks, noted the researchers. This suggests that dynamics planning has great potential for language-grounded visual reasoning tasks, and NS-DR takes a preliminary step toward this direction. Second, symbolic representation provides a powerful common ground for vision, language, dynamics, and causality. By design, it empowers the model to explicitly capture the compositionality behind the videos causal structure and the question logic.
The researchers concede that even though the amount of data required for training is relatively minimal, its hard to come by in real-world applications. Additionally, NS-DRs performance decreased on tasks that required long-term dynamics prediction, such as the counterfactual questions, which they say suggests the need for a better dynamics model capable of generating more stable and accurate trajectories.
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Researchers apply developmental psychology to AI model that predicts object relationships - VentureBeat
This was meant to be the year the NHS went digital. What happened? – Wired.co.uk
2020 is the year the NHS was supposed to be paper free. In 2013, then health secretary Jeremy Hunt promised a fully digital health service by 2018. In 2016, a report from NHS England the Five Year Forward View moved that back two years, promising 1.8 billion for the shift away from paper.
But the much-vaunted digital transformation hasnt appeared as quickly as its proponents hoped. In October 2018, 94 per cent of NHS trusts were still using handwritten notes for paper records. In January 2019, the paperless NHS was pushed back to the end of the next decade. What went wrong?
NHS deadlines are always stretch targets, says the CIO of one of NHS Englands 16 digital exemplars a group of digitally strong hospital trusts, who asked not to be named. There is a semblance of a plan, although I think everything has been confused by various ministerial announcements that translate into nonsense.
Others are more optimistic citing last Aprils launch of NHSX, created by Matt Hancock, the Secretary of State for Health, to oversee data, digital and tech procurement for the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England. The aim is to match countries such as Sweden where, in 2017, everyone over the age of 16 had a Patient Accessible Electronic Health Record, allowing people and clinicians access to individual health data.
Theres finally real national strategy and co-ordination and thats a very good sign, says Natalie Banner, head of the Understanding Patient Data task force based at the Wellcome Trust. Theres a major shift at the central level but the NHS isnt a single organisation. Its made up of many organisations and theres not nearly enough coherence. Individual trusts even individual departments within trusts are entering deals where theres no consistency in the rules or the value of patient data.
At the heart of NHSX is the NHS Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, launched in August 2019 with a budget of 250 million and headed up by Indra Joshi, a former A&E clinician who headed up digital health and AI for NHS England. Joshis role is to streamline the development and deployment of practical applications of artificial intelligence in the NHS, as well as delivering the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award, she explains.
The award will hand out 140 million over three years in a series of bi-annual funding rounds a March 4 deadline currently looms for the first round. The money is intended to back everything from initial feasibility to evaluation of technologies in use in the NHS. Initially, Joshi explains, she will focus on four key areas: screening, diagnosis, decision support and improving system efficiency. These four areas are what the evidence and data shows is where the majority of AI developments are taking place, she explains. We need to improve the basics first, creating efficiencies in the system such as process automation of repetitive tasks or optimising the care pathway. If we can show that these technologies can be successfully implemented and evaluated to show impact, we are immediately freeing up time for people on the frontline.
The award and Joshis previous clinician experience have been cautiously welcomed by many doctors as well as organisations like health privacy body MedConfidential, the Wellcome Trust and the healthcare improvement charity Health Foundation.
Its positive to see NHSX and the AI Lab focus on the basics and what matters to clinician from simple things like one unified login system across the service to understand the burden on staff, says Sarah Deeny, assistant director of data analytics at Health Foundation. Those efforts are really important, but they are happening in the context of outside pressure on the NHS with an underspend in capital projects, a shortage of staff and huge pressure on the workforce. That also underlines the need for the NHS to get the best value for its data.
Health Foundation figures show that NHS capital spend which includes new buildings, equipment and IT, improvements and maintenance of NHS trusts, as well as research and development is very low compared to other, similar western countries. Austria, for instance, spends more than double the share of GDP on health care capital compared to the UK. Matching this in England would mean more than doubling the current capital budget which currently stands at 7.1bn.
Work in AI is dependent on excellent data in health and social care and among its many strengths is the NHSs ability to bring together a comprehensive, longitudinal dataset for 65 million people in the UK, explains James OShaughnessy, formerly secretary of state at the Department of Health under David Cameron, now professor at Imperial Colleges Institute of Global Health Innovation. Right now it's fragmented, not joined up and that needs investment. The entire health service is founded on the assumption of patient trust which can be lost if misused or used for commercial purposes. Patients need to be actively involved in health data strategy at the moment that is not happening either nationally or at any given trust.
The issue of patient trust in the use of data in AI/NHS projects has recently come under scrutiny, thanks to deals between Moorfields Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital with Googles AI subsidiary DeepMind. The agreement with the Royal Free gave DeepMind access to healthcare data on the 1.6 million patients including identifying people who are HIV-positive and giving details of drug overdoses and abortions over the preceding five years. The problem, many doctors argue, is that the needs of Silicon Valley AI health research to provide monetisable software including apps for personal health arent always compatible with the needs of the NHS.
Theres a drive by the secretary of state to get things done quickly and an excitement about digital and apps, but theres a huge gap between that and the NHS world of large scale data systems that support day-to-day healthcare, says Jem Rashbash, director of disease registration and cancer analysis across both NHS Digital and Public Health England. Many of the problems faced are big, difficult and take a long time to address. So while what were seeing now appears exciting, theyre really only scratching the surface. Only very few groups, such as Mihaela van der Schaars Lab in Cambridge and the Turing Institute, are working on machine learning-driven vision and methodologies that will change the future of healthcare.
Joshi is careful to avoid commenting on recent AI/NHS scandals like Google Deepminds deals with Moorfields and the Royal Free Hospital weve got to be cautious when we generalise about AI and Google because we already have partnerships with a range of providers, she explains. In Salford Royal and Bradford Royal Infirmary, for instance, machine learning helps predict how long patients will stay in in hospital, which helps plan and manage patient flow.
She does see a role for diagnostic AI as a junior A&E doctor in the middle of the night being able to read something and decide quickly if its normal or not normal can make a massive difference, she points out. If someone has a possible spine injury they have to be immobilised and put through a CT scan. Helping doctors be confident the scan shows no fractures can make a huge amount of difference but she also sees AI-supported bed management and appointment booking or cancellations systems as immediately useful to overstretched A&E departments, acute wards and outpatient wards alike.
Her final challenge is health inequality. We have centres of excellence in the UK that are focussed in the south, Banner points out. Theres the risk with systems designed for London populations being rolled out nationally which create biased algorithms and unequal access so people in need in Cornwall or Yorkshire are excluded from essential services. We need regional centres alongside a strict regulation and evaluation process which we just dont have right now.
Joshi accepts this. Were very clear that the award, for instance, needs to support NHS staff and private providers wherever they are across the country, she explains. Were active in telling people we would love for your area to make an application so that the less heard voices are included in all of this.
She is also keen to stress that her role includes ensuring reassuring patients through regulation and transparency. We will help people navigate the rules, be clear on what the standards are, help develop policies and make more robust those that are already in place, she explains. The thing is, everybody gets excited by AI and the Lab and the award but this isnt about throwing money at problem and at no point is this about replacing doctors its about supporting the system so its sustainable while maintaining public and workforce trust. She laughs. And thats hard enough in itself
Indra Joshi will be one of the speakers at WIRED Health in London on March 25, 2020. For more details, and to book your ticket, click here
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This was meant to be the year the NHS went digital. What happened? - Wired.co.uk
Tools to help graduate students discover their own answers to academic and career questions (opinion) – Inside Higher Ed
What should I do with my life?
How can I create meaning and purpose within and from my research?
How can I do research that matters in this chaotic world?
How does my experience in graduate school connect to my values and purpose in life?
In my decade-plus of teaching and advising graduate students, I have seen existential crises, like those demonstrated in the opening questions, arise often. In part, this is because students come into academe believing they must leave their whole selves at the door, so to speak. Academe largely promotes living a divided life, where internally we may know who we are, but we act out a different reality at work, such as when students pick research topics they think they should explore instead of ones that resonate or inspire them.
Everyone, myself included, at times compartmentalizes or separates within work for many reasons, yet it impacts how we show up for ourselves and with each other. In A Hidden Wholeness, Parker Palmer notes, Dividedness is a personal pathology, but it soon becomes a problem for other people. The time came when my own patterns of dividedness became personally dissatisfying and limited the effectiveness of my teaching. I wanted to change myself to promote a greater sense of well-being and also to find new ways of promoting others ability to show up with greater personal and professional integration. Through life coaching, I found holistic tools that could support more of a learning partnership with the broader context of graduate education that had been missing from what and how I learned to advise or was advised.
Coaching promotes a collaborative relationship where I, as faculty adviser, do not purport to know what is right for students but can serve as a guide or facilitator of the system students navigate. It is a shifting of hierarchical differentials from operating within a faculty as sage paradigm to trusting students inner wisdom and knowledge. Through deep conversations, reflection and mindfulness activities, students discover and name their own answers to life, academic and career questions and challenges.
Here are three sample activities I have used in the classroom and in one-on-one sessions to shift my work with students from advising to coaching.
Integrating Scholarly Identities With Personal Ones
Last semester, I taught an introduction to scholarly writing for Ph.D. students. The last time I taught that course was years ago, when I was living a divided life with my professional identity separated from my inner self. This time around, I revamped the course to help all of us integrate personal values and goals into our scholarly work.
In setting up the framework for the seminar, I incorporated learning objectives for self-work as the first step to graduate school socialization in order to establish why students need regular reflection and accountability. It was a way to intentionally incorporate self-awareness into our choices about our research and what it means to us. Each week included reflection, creative or writing prompts, or small group time to process.
The first assignment was for each student to write a scholarly identity paper about their understanding of and assumptions about what it means to be a doctoral student, scholar and practitioner combined with social identities and other roles in their lives. I asked them to discuss personal values and goals and how those integrated with professional ones and their intended research agendas. Then, to foster community, I had them create a presentation for the class and asked them to bring their creativity to it.
Fast-forward to presentation day. Some students brought in personal items and mementos, such as one student who passed around class rings to mark milestones as the first in their family to earn degrees. Another person created new art to represent themselves, while someone else incorporated photographs that shaped their values and research interests. One student wrote a haiku to begin their photo book, which concluded with images of their students and why they want to engage in meaningful research and work around helping students find their path through the community college experience.
It was beautiful to witness. The students shared personal stories of struggle and hard life lessons that brought them to where they are today and fueled their research interests. In that course, we developed a new sense of compassion and deeper understanding for ourselves and each other. And the students walked away with a deep personal understanding of why they are embarking on a Ph.D. journey.
Connecting to Our Bodies
Part of promoting a whole life over a divided one means showing up with a fully integrated body, mind and soul. I used to be so out of tune with my physical sensations, feelings and inner landscape that I spent much of my sabbatical a couple years ago relearning my own self-awareness through guided mindfulness and physical activities. Now I believe in the power of integrating body connection with mental and emotional awareness in the classroom. One activity that I use is an adapted exercise from life coaching and yoga teacher training. The aim is to help students connect back into their bodies and notice their physical experiences. It also serves to quiet the noisy mind from whatever students were doing before arriving at class that day.
The activity goes a little something like this. I lower the lighting a touch. I call attention to our sitting, our room, the space around us. I guide them to notice the in and out of their breathing, without changing or judging it. Then we take a few deep breaths together before I direct them to notice various parts of their body, from toes to head. Some students resist noticing their body, so I may adapt and speak more generally. I speak slowly, with intention. Over all, it can take less than eight minutes.
We process afterward sometimes. Students often notice that this was the first time that day when they intentionally breathed or slowed down. Some notice parts of their body that they never think about. They leave pondering this new awareness, encouraged to avoid judgment and stimulated to do more intentional breathing and body check-ins on their own. Always, it brings us all together for those few minutes, which I sense fosters a feeling of community.
This is such a simple and sweet little exercise that has major payoffs for the rest of class time and down the road, including an increased awareness of their body, a slowing of breath and a recognition of their minds chatter. Adding mindfulness activities in the classroom, guided by a faculty member and discussed openly, serves as role modeling and helps to open conversations among everyone about the importance of integration and awareness. Body awareness can aid students in decision making, based on the belief that we react physically before our minds can register.
Coaching as a Paradigm Shift
In my earlier faculty days, deeper coaching conversations were beyond my typical advising skills. I likely sat there staring at the student, nodding in commiseration and sort of shrugging as if to say, We all felt that, but without resolution or solid direction. Even as a qualitative social science researcher, I thought I knew how to ask good questions and listen to the answers without judgment.
Yet one of the biggest things that life coaching has taught me is how to truly listen deeply and then ask deeper questions. By listening to students present issues and challenges, I watch for underlying patterns and behaviors. We talk directly about what feels most applicable and resonating to them. It is a shift from advice giving to space creating for their own exploration and knowing. We focus on what and how they want to change and do work that feels more integrated between personal and professional. It deepens relationships both between faculty and students and between students themselves.
The other big shift coaching others has taught me is that I have to do some serious, deep self-coaching on myself to recognize and set aside ego in the work with students. In being aware of ego during our interactions or teaching, it makes it more student-centered, since the outcome is not about me or what I want or how their decision reflects on me. The outcome is about how they want to live their life from a place of authenticity and personal integrity. It's about how each person wants to live an undivided life where their actions are in congruence with their true selves.
To me, applying coaching within the walls of higher education means making a series of intentional shifts to help students find the answers within themselves and provide unwavering support for the paths they choose. Coaching offers reflective tools that connect students to their internal purposes and values while benefiting those around them through their work and research. Shifting relationships from superficial to meaningful can promote greater sense of connection -- and hopefully, in the long run, the retention of students who are more satisfied and accountable about their educational, career and life choices.
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Tools to help graduate students discover their own answers to academic and career questions (opinion) - Inside Higher Ed
Unleashing the Power of Three – Thrive Global
Yesterday I was at the grocery store, picking out some yogurt. As I looked at all the rows and dozens of choices, my eyes started to swim.
So many choices!, I thought, shaking my head. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to refocus. Huffing, I grabbed one of the many choices and moved on.
How many times have you said this to yourself when looking for something in a store? Think about the vegetable aisle. There arent 18 different kinds of broccoli to choose from, there are usually no more than 3 (organic, conventional, and crowns are typical). You just pick a bunch that looks fresh, colorful, and nice, and off you go. Easy peasy.
I decided to experiment and started limiting my daily choices. Soon I noticed a decrease in my levels of stress and anxiety. That irritating monkey-mind began to fade a little. The pace of life seemed to ease towards the slow lane. It became clear as humans, we really do thrive on simplicity.
How can you limit the number of choices you have when there are a multitude of choices staring you in the face? There are so many choices, so much to choose from, so many things to consider!
This is where the power of 3 comes into play. Heres how to do it:
It may take a little minute to train your brain around this concept, so be patient with yourself and remember your objective to decrease the clutter in your mind, increase your mental clarity, and allow for more time for the things that really matter to you.
The power of 3 can be applied to many areas of your life:
Its all about conserving your brain power for the things that matter most to you. Relationships. Health. Education. You get the idea!
Want to take it deeper?
Here are some more ways to use the power of 3 in your life:
3s may even start to hop over fences in your dreams!
Youre probably saying it doesnt apply to everything. True enough, it might not. You certainly have more than 3 pairs of shoes, but what if you broke your shoes down into categories? 3 for each season, 3 for each occasion, etc. Look around and see where it DOES apply, and how your capable, clever, and creative mind can apply it. Soon more and more possibilities for simplicity will reveal themselves to your willing, eager mind.
So next time youre at the grocery store, eyes glazing over as you scan for the best product/price/choice, put the rule of 3 to work. There is great power within this method of 3 things see if you can unleash it in your life!
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Unleashing the Power of Three - Thrive Global
Letter to the Editor: Deep state exists only in Trump’s mind – Fairfield Daily Republic
After the Senates impeachment charade, President Donald Trump has been braying like a donkey about how the deep state and its swampy inhabitants tried and failed to take him down, and hes out for revenge.
Trumps self-defined swamp crawls with slithering creatures like James Comey, Robert Mueller, Andrew McCabe, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, John Kelly, Tim Morrison, William Taylor, Gordon Sondland, James Mattis, Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein. Oh, and there are dozens more just like them.
But wait a second; arent all of these swamp creatures Republicans most of whom appointed by The Donald? This cant be. There must be a group of swampy Democrats surreptitiously scheming to take the president down, sloshing around somewhere. Theres always Congress, full of agitated anti-Trump Democrats lurking in the corridors of the Capitol building. But thats a given. No deep state there.
So, what is the deep state? The closest thing we have to a definition was offered by Trumps excommunicated ideological Svengali, Steve Bannon. By Bannons account, the deep state consists of a Tom Clancy-esque cabal of political deviants planted deep within the bowels of government by (most likely) Bill and Hillary Clinton whose primary motivation was to thwart the interests of real Americans (presumably like Bannon).
The problem with the deep state theory is that there are approximately 2 million people who work for the federal government, and all but a handful of presidential appointees have pledged loyalty to the Constitution, not to Donald Trump, and not to a political party. The proposition that somehow a nefarious and well-orchestrated network of deep state operatives is subverting the government is absurd no, insane.
The irony is that Trump, in a cannibalistic rage, has been purging a deep state that consists primarily of his Republican acolytes. Nevertheless, I suppose Trump has had the last laugh. After all, he is not and never has been a true Republican. Whackadoo tin pot dictator is the term that comes to mind.
Stephen Davis
Fairfield
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Letter to the Editor: Deep state exists only in Trump's mind - Fairfield Daily Republic
Camden takes tech crown as it leads UK for new business creation – City A.M.
Camden has topped the UK rankings for new business creations as Londons booming tech scene continues to drive growth in the capital.
A total of 2,110 net new businesses were created in Camden in 2018, according to figures published today by private equity investment firm Growthdeck.
Read more: British tech startups retain crown as European fintech capital
This was closely followed by Westminster with 2,100, while Hackney ranked fourth with 1,410. This is compared to a UK average of just 115 new companies per local authority.
The figures mark the continued success of the capitals tech and fintech sectors, with areas such as Silicon Roundabout and East London Tech City in Hackney now well established as startup incubators.
Tech unicorns Transferwise and Monzo both valued at more than $1bn have recently set up their first offices in the area.
Kings Cross in Camden has also emerged as a thriving tech hub and is now home to fast growing fintech firms such as Monese and Google-owned AI company Deep Mind.
Gaining access to vital investment to fuel growth is a big attraction for tech startups in Camden and Hackney, said Ian Zant-Boer, chief executive of Growthdeck.
The presence of big private equity and venture capital investors in the area means entrepreneurs there are part of a broader network, not just purely a tech cluster.
While the top 10 was dominated by London boroughs, Liverpool came in third place with 1,495 new businesses. Birmingham, Brighton and Manchester also made it onto the leader board.
Read more: Tech jobs advertised in the UK plunged by half in 2019
By contrast, Aberdeen was the worst performing area in the UK, with a net loss of 3,195 businesses in 2018. The North Sea oil industry transformed the citys fortunes, but a gradual decline in oil prices since 2014 has taken its toll on the economy.
Zant-Boer added: The government should also consider following the Silicon Roundabout model to create tech hubs in other areas of the country, to ensure tech business creation is more evenly distributed rather than being concentrated in the south east.
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Camden takes tech crown as it leads UK for new business creation - City A.M.
To Change Voters Sympathies, Its Time to Go Deep – The American Prospect
I spent a recent Sunday in Croydon, Pennsylvania, a working-class town along Neshaminy Creek in the southeastern corner of the state, learning and practicing deep canvassing, a promising method for persuading voters to change their minds about politics.
I was there as a volunteer with Changing the Conversation Together (CTC), an independent group that first experimented with deep canvassing in 2018, training several hundred volunteers who fanned out across Staten Island and helped tip that usually Republican House seat into the hands of Democrat Max Rose.
As several studies have shown, deep canvassing, which involves deliberately developing a nonjudgmental, empathetic connection with a voter through 10 to 15 minutes of authentic conversation, canif done properlylead to persistent changes in peoples attitudes on issues like immigration and transgender rights. A new peer-reviewed study by academics David Broockman and Josh Kalla, soon to be published in American Political Science Review, replicates those findings and suggests that it is precisely by focusing on having a nonjudgmental attitude and working to make a real connection that canvassers can effectively move the people they talk to.
So far, no one has figured out for sure if deep canvassing can change a voters mind about their choice for president, particularly in this polarized age. Thats what I, along with about 80 other volunteers from a couple of Indivisible groups, was there to try.
First, we were asked to talk about love.
In a pre-training before that Sunday led by Adam Barbanel-Fried of CTC and Dave Fleischer of the Leadership Lab, we sat in small circles and went through a series of exercises. First, we spent a minute talking about things I love. Then, another minute on people I love. We were forbidden to use the word like. Then we practiced telling a longer story about one person in our lives whom we love, and why.
Why love? For multiple reasons. First, people respond to stories far more easily than they respond to factual arguments. Studies indicate that if you confront a voter with facts that challenge their views, you will most likely just reinforce their views. No one wants to admit they are wrong; we resist anything that might undermine our self-image.
Second, we told the stories about love because stories are more powerful than facts. And I saw this as I talked to voters whose doors I knocked on that afternoon. I told them about my love for my 30-year-old daughter and how she has always shown a fierce determination to conquer lifes challenges. How at the age of five she first picked up a baseball mitt, and after resisting our entreaties that she put it on her left hand (shes a righty), she rapidly became a star Little Leaguer. How as a fourth-grade pitcher she was sent in to protect a one-run lead with the bases loaded and no one out, and showed no fear as she struck out the side. How, when she told us at the age of 12 that she wanted to play varsity softball in college, and we said it would be a huge commitment to become that competitive, she didnt flinch. And how she ultimately helped lead her Tufts University softball team to the national Division III finals.
What deep canvassing is challenging us to consider is that people are movable if we connect with them emotionally, specifically by talking very concretely about a person in our lives whom we love.
Each time, after I shared a version of that story, bubbling with pride, and asked, How about you? Is there anyone in your life who is special to you, who you think about as you think about the world? I got an amazing story back. A 75-year-old grandfather talked about the five-year-old grandson he was teaching to play chess and the drums, and how he worried about his future. A 62-year-old grandmother who admitted that she had given up on voting told me about how one of her granddaughters, a teenager, was really smart but was getting bullied in school so badly that she had pulled out and was homeschooling herself.
Talking about people you love is irresistible, once you get past the awkwardness. And when you ask people to contrast how they feel when they think about the people they love with how they feel about Donald Trumps cruelty and lack of basic decency, it moves them.
In two hours walking the streets of Croydon, my canvass partner and I knocked on ten doors. Four opened, and each voter happily stood and chatted with us for 10, even 15 minutes. One even thanked us for the lovely conversation and didnt seem to want us to leave! Two of the people I engaged in conversation moved strongly toward voting Democratic. A third, the 62-year-old grandma with the teenage granddaughter, went from telling us that she had given up on voting because none of the underdog candidates she voted for ever won, to saying ruefully that she didnt think she was allowed to vote because she hadnt voted for governor in the previous election, to elation when I looked up her registration and showed her she was still registered. Ill take the fact that she went from saying she had given up on voting, to saying she was in the middle about which candidate she would vote for, as a victory.
The underlying presumption of so much political debate is that people are persuaded by rational argument. A corollary to that presumption is that people are persuaded by policy positions and advertising that reinforces those distinctions.
What deep canvassing is challenging us to consider is the possibility that this is largely wrong, and that people are movable if we connect with them emotionally, specifically by talking very concretely about a person in our lives whom we love.
Its important to note here that lots of field organizers are starting to use the term deep canvassing to mean things slightly different than what we were trained to do. Some canvassers are being trained to use storytelling as they talk to voters (Obama canvassers were asked to tell their story of self at the doors). Others are being taught to listen more. But in most cases, these approaches are being grafted onto the more conventional door-knocking work of engaging voters with an issue in mind and a pitch aimed at convincing people to think about how that issue affects them personally, rather than this more open and empathetic approach.
The research into deep canvassing says the shift in attitudes that we obtained will stick months later. But all of the people being targeted in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where Changing the Conversation Together is focused, are going to be re-canvassed and called. Every voter I talked to willingly gave me their phone number when I asked for it to stay in touch.
Policy is obviously important in governing. But imagine if thousands of well-trained Democratic volunteers were doing lots of this deep-canvassing work, instead of thinking that finely calibrated policy positions and symbolic statements meant to appeal to various demographics was the way to win.
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To Change Voters Sympathies, Its Time to Go Deep - The American Prospect
These Fevered Days a fresh exploration of the wild terrain of Emily Dickinsons mind – The Boston Globe
Encased for decades in Victorian stereotype as a wispy recluse in a white dress, Emily Dickinson was claimed by pop culture last year as a raging rebel against the patriarchy (Dickinson on television) and a liberated lesbian (Wild Nights with Emily on film), portraits in some ways just as reductive. Martha Ackmann, the author of two previous books about women ahead of their time (Curveball and The Mercury 13), takes a more nuanced approach in her fine new work, which reminds us that whats important about Emily Dickinson is that she wrote some of the greatest poetry in the English language.
Ackmann, who has taught a seminar on Dickinson at Mount Holyoke, makes good use of scholarship that has long recognized her as an unconventional, formally inventive artist. The subtitles Ten Pivotal Moments prove a useful organizing principle. Each chapter opens by identifying a particular date, complete with a weather report from a local meteorological journal, a nice way to underscore Dickinsons immersion in the physical world around her hometown of Amherst. Granted, Ackmann often has to provide substantial background before she can elucidate the significance of the letter 14-year-old Emily Dickinson wrote on Aug. 3, 1845, to her friend Abiah Root (in Chapter One), or her fateful meeting with Mount Holyoke principal Mary Lyon on Feb. 6, 1848 (in Chapter Two). But she provides it with panache in a lucid narrative grounded in solid research colored by appreciative warmth.
Drawing on Dickinsons 1845 letter and the history of her friendship with Abiah, Ackmann concludes that Emily was coming to understand how to make ideas visible (italics added). Having nailed a crucial aspect of her poetry in three pithy words, Ackmann closes Chapter One with a lovely passage pointing toward the polite confrontation with Mary Lyons. Dickinsons goal for her writing, she argues, was to understand the particles of moments that others could not see or grasped with a faith she found too easy. Her friend Abiah and principal Lyons were among the many swept up in the evangelical Great Awakening, but Emily refused in 1848 and throughout her life to make a profession of faith she did not feel. Amherst, her family, and the deep mud of March were more sacred to her than any religious doctrine, Ackmann states, It was the here and now she lived for, not the possibility of eternal salvation.
While its unlikely that Dickinson ever uttered such thoughts so explicitly, they are resonant subtexts in her poems and correspondence. Ackmann discerns a joy in domesticity and nature that fed the central drama of Dickinsons life: She wanted her poems to translate all she saw and heard and felt, and not to be any earthly thing. This drama, Ackmann reminds us, was almost entirely internal, a fact that makes Dickinsons increasing withdrawal from society more explicable. Striving to bring her students to God, Mary Lyons sent Dickinson a different message when she warned about interruptions to their thinking and drains on their time, adding, it requires more discipline of mind and more grace to meet a ladys duties than gentlemens. Despite the famous bread-baking and unquestionable devotion to her parents, Dickinsons primary commitment was to her poetry; anything that interfered with it was evaded or ignored.
A particularly good chapter takes the March 1, 1862, publication of a Dickinson poem in the Springfield Republican as a springboard to examine her relationship with her sister-in-law Sue and her uncompromising commitment to poetry so radical even those who felt its power were disconcerted by it. Ackmann doesnt care whether Dickinson and Sue were lovers (a topic of ongoing debate); she stresses Sues role as a trusted reader, recipient of more of Dickinsons poems than anyone else, who nonetheless pressed for more conventional verse than Dickinson wanted to provide. The version of Safe in their alabaster chambers that Sue slipped to editor Samuel Bowles had the more conventional second stanza she preferred. But Ackmann believes that Dickinson, who frequently wrote and kept multiple drafts, favored another:
Grand go the Yearsto the Crescentabove them
Worlds scoop their Arcs
And Firmamentsrow
Diademsdropand Dogessurrender
Soundless as dotson a Disc of snow
The second stanza read as if the poet were standing on the edge of the universe and looking back at Earth, Ackmann writes. The planet was nothing more than a molecule and the dead merely atoms. It was the final image that encompassed everything Dickinson was coming to understand abstract and astonishing and as cold as ice.
Ackmanns insights are unfailingly fresh and vivid, evidence of a profound personal affinity for her subject. Subsequent chapters offer shrewd discussions of Dickinsons interactions with literary lion Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the impact of the Civil War on Dickinsons equivocal attitude toward being published, and many other topics. But Ackmanns focus, always, is on Dickinsons growth as a poet, and her cogent exegesis of the second stanza of Safe in their alabaster chambers foreshadows the books eloquent, elegiac conclusion on May 15, 1886, the day of Dickinsons death.
She died in the family homestead she loved and rarely left, but Ackmann locates her true home elsewhere: the wild terrain of her mind to Emily Dickinson, home was consciousness itself a continent of language where metaphor was her native tongue. These Fevered Days makes Dickinsons exploration of that wild terrain and that continent of language palpable, exciting, and accessible.
THESE FEVERED DAYS: TEN PIVOTAL MOMENTS IN THE MAKING OF EMILY DICKINSON
By Martha Ackmann
Norton, 278 pp., $26.95
Wendy Smith, a contributing editor at The American Scholar and Publishers Weekly, reviews books for The Washington Post and was a finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circles citation for excellence in reviewing.
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These Fevered Days a fresh exploration of the wild terrain of Emily Dickinsons mind - The Boston Globe
Hekate’s Key Journey And The Keys Of Spiritual Journeying | Hekate’s Key – Patheos
The keys for unlocking the deeper world lie within us. They are our power to disconnect from the everyday world through techniques such as meditation and trance. Spiritual journeying refers to entering into the deeper world where Hekate abides with her keys of magick, medicine and mystery.
It is the river under the river that is a road that leads to the crossroads where we come to a gate that only we can open. Cross the threshold through your powerful witches mind, going deep into this river-road that leads to Hekate where she will give you a new key for the next phase of your journey. This is a meditation of connection; a journey of dissolving the illusion that there is separation between us and the sacred.
We open the gate to the unconscious through techniques such as meditation and the use of other trance inducing techniques, like breath work and plant spirit medicine. Journeying is a form of ecstatic witchcraft that has been practiced by Hekates witches throughout the ages. We journey to connect to the sacred within us, through which we return to the Goddess. She awaits.
Being timid of spiritual journeying is the result of years of programming. They taught us that we werent connected or sacred. Perhaps that our natural understanding of the unseen river-road that led to the Witch Mother was crazy. Maybe there were those that told you to fear Hekate. The Witch Mother is intimidating, but never harmful to her kindred. This journey was a gift she bestowed upon me to share with others like me. It is powerful medicine of the Witch Mother through which you will remember what you have always known. That key has been waiting in her hand for when you are ready. Has the time come?
In this journey, previously only shared within the Keeping Her Keys tradition, youll travel to meet Hekate for a new key. This key will be unique to you. How Hekate appears to you will also be highly individual. This is a guided meditative journey where you will be directed through imagery and techniques so that you can enter a state of altered consciousness, through which you can access the deeper world.
This journey was written as a way for Hekates witches to reconnect with our goddess. One of her primary roles is as The Keeper of the Keys of the Universe. This journey will help you do just this as discover your own vision of Hekate and receive a key that will unlock her magick, medicine and mysteries.
This journey is suitable for both newcomers to Hekate and those long familiar with the Witch Mother.
If you are new to Hekate, perhaps read this guide to the Witch Mother before proceeding with the journey.
The audio is available on the Keeping Her Keys podcast thats available on all major platforms, including Spotify.
This journey has been experienced by hundreds of witches, from those doing it in the privacy of their own sacred space with only me to accompany them to me leading hundreds through it in a large group ritual. Individual experiences vary greatly. Ive included a video below explaining spiritual journeying and then offer some guidance for doing deep work while distressed.
Although individual experiences vary greatly, the experience is invariably transformative. Some experience the shift beginning during the meditation, while others begin their transformative in the hours and days afterwards. You may feel very emotional during and after. A spiritual upgrade may ensue.
A small minority have reported falling asleep during the journey. This may be explained as a necessary function of the higher self in order to calm an overly active conscious mind. Think of it as though the mind cant shut up, so the soul calms it through sleep.
Some report feeling nothing during the journey. Sometimes our emotions need to be quiet in order to receive the medicine offered by the journey. On the other hand, if you are significantly distracted during the journey, you may want to try it again.
Watch this class to learn more about spiritual journeying, including the difference between meditation and journeying, what goes into developing a journey and more.
This is a common concern thats important to discuss.If its a mild case of the blues, the spiritual work will help. In particular, the Hekates Key Journey will work wonders for low levels of distress.
Regular practice of the core meditations, such as The Animarum Nyssa (The Unifying The Three Selves Meditation in Keeping Her Keys: An Introduction to Hekates Modern Witchcraft) will correct the low mood through the attunement process. Physiologically, the practice actually increases neurotransmitters associated with positive mood. Psychologically, the practice trains our mind to release harmful thought patterns. Physically, it relaxes us. Spiritually, it deepens our connection to our subconscious through which we can enter the flow of the unseen world.
Note that the Hekates Key Journey (known as Animarum Kleidoukhos in the Keeping Her Keys tradition) is designed to be done by anyone, except those with intense psychological distress, such as those experiencing a psychotic episode. I put a lot of care into the animara(the Keeping Her Keys word for all sacred work) to ensure that they are appropriate for where they are positioned within my work.
1. Low mood is impacting your ability to perform regular tasks like bathing or working.
2. Lack of pleasure from activities that typically bring you enjoyment.
3. Significant adverse life event, such as the ending of a long-term relationship, job loss or death of a loved one. Moving can also be an ALE.
4. Substantial intrusive thoughts that interfere with your ability concentrate on a regular basis.
5. Chronic daily panic attacks brought on by minor stimuli.
If you answer yes to all/most of these questions, then replace intense work with something more appropriate, such as The Hekates Key Journey (Animarum Kleidoukhos) or regular practice of The Unifying the Three Selves Meditation in Keeping Her Keys: An Introduction to Hekates Modern Witchcraft (known as Animarum Nyssa). The Rituals of The Sacred Cave are best left for when we are more stable, or at least after doing the Animarum Nyssa for several days in advance.
Astrological events can influence our experiences for all animara, whether it is meditative journeying or performative rituals. However, they are not determining forces. Think of them as correspondences like any other form of supportive medicine, such as plants or stones. If you are feeling overwhelmed during periods of intense astrological activity, work on your personal shields and your household wards. No force in the universe is greater than the force that is within you. If you cant stop it from entering your space, adapt it for your use.
You may feel overcome with emotion after receiving your key, or you may feel nothing at all. Both are legitimate experiences, as long as you werent distracted during the meditation.
Write or record your experiences soon after you return from your journey.
Pay attention to your dreams and be aware of signs reinforcing the key in the hours and days after the journey.
Spiritual transformation can be challenging, be gentle with yourself.
Connect with Hekates Help Desk at info@keepingherkeys.com to share your experiences and ask questions.
Diving Into The Unseen River: Ways To Deepen Your Connection To Hekate And Strengthen Your Witchcraft
Keeping Her Keys: Seeking Hekate And The Deeper World
After The Ritual: The Messiness of Spiritual Growth
Overcoming Spiritual Programming: The Journey From Fear To Freedom
Managing A Spiritual Upgrade
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Hekate's Key Journey And The Keys Of Spiritual Journeying | Hekate's Key - Patheos
Google parent Alphabet is pruning its ‘other bets’ – Engadget
Take Makani. The team was developing kites with tiny turbines that could be tethered to a stable structure -- a large boat or buoy, for instance -- and leverage the wind to generate energy. Google invested an undisclosed amount in 2007 and then, through its X factory, acquired the company six years later. Makani worked in the secretive laboratory before partnering with Shell and 'graduating' to Alphabet company status in February 2019. Last August, the team completed its first off-shore demonstration in the North Sea, roughly 10 kilometers away from Norway. But that wasn't enough for Alphabet management. Earlier this week, the company admitted that it was no longer confident in Makani's moonshot.
"After considering many factors, I believe that the road to commercial viability is a much longer and riskier road than we'd hoped and that it no longer makes sense for Makani to be an Alphabet company," Astro Teller, the head of X and chairman of Makani's board told TechCrunch. Fort Felker, CEO of Makani, said the company hoped to move forward and was "exploring options" with Shell. "To achieve a clean energy future we need to be open to exploring a diverse array of new renewable energy technologies, and that means pushing bold new ideas as far as possible, sometimes without a clear roadmap," he added.
Seven days prior, Alphabet had moved Jigsaw back under Google management. The technology incubator, which began as a think tank called Google Ideas, is tasked with developing solutions to disinformation, censorship, harassment and other societal issues online. During its four-year run as an Alphabet subsidiary, the team developed a tool called Assembler that can spot deep fakes and manipulated images. It also offered Project Shield, a tool designed to combat distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, to political organizations in Europe ahead of the EU parliamentary elections in May 2019.
Google didn't explain why Jigsaw had lost its 'other bet' status. Last July, however, a report by Vice's Motherboard team described the company as "a toxic mess" that was poorly managed and unable to retain talent. Jared Cohen, the founder and CEO of Jigsaw, told staff in a memo: "I'm deeply disappointed for all of you to see our culture characterized in this way. We haven't always gotten everything right, and as CEO, I take this responsibility seriously and I'm committed to ensuring we continue to improve." According to The Information, Cohen now reports to Kent Walker, Google's SVP of corporate affairs.
Alphabet has shown that it's not afraid to cut or relocate struggling subsidiaries.
Chronicle met a similar fate last year. The organization, which started as a project inside X, wanted to radically rethink cybersecurity. It was created by Mike Wiacek and Shapor Naghibzadeh, two members of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), alongside Stephen Gillet, a former Symantec COO that was helping startups at Google Ventures. The company was announced in January 2018 and immediately spun out as an Alphabet subsidiary. In March 2019, it finally revealed its first product, Backstory, which acted as a giant dashboard, search engine and pattern recognition system for detecting cyber threats.
Everything seemed to be going well. Four months later, however, Google announced that Chronicle would be joining the Google Cloud team. In a blog post, Gillett said the merger would "allow us to take the next step on our journey" and "significantly accelerate our impact globally, together." By November, Wiacek had left Google and, according to Vice's Motherboard team, Gillett had moved into another role inside the company. That same Motherboard report said Chronicle employees felt betrayed and abandoned. "Chronicle is dead," an employee told the site. "Stephen and Google killed it."
Similarly, Nest was rolled under Google's hardware team in February 2018. The move made sense: Google had started making more home-related products, such as Assistant-powered speakers and smart displays, and wanted a consistent brand that stretched to intelligent thermostats and security cameras, too. Nest did, however, have its own corporate struggles while being led by Tony Fadell, a former Apple executive best known as the "father of the iPod." Fadell left Alphabet in June 2016, however, and was succeeded by former Motorola executive Marwan Fawaz.
Google isn't afraid to pinch specific teams from other Alphabet companies, either. Last September, the part of DeepMind focused on healthcare announced that it would be joining Google Health to advance its AI research. That team, to be clear, is separate from both Verily and Calico.
All of these changes suggest that the Alphabet structure isn't working. But for every lost subsidiary, another seems to have sprouted in its place. Waymo, for instance, graduated from X and became an official Alphabet company in December 2016. The team now offers an autonomous ride-hailing service in Phoenix, Arizona, and a factory of sorts formerly owned American Axle & Manufacturing Holdings Inc. in Detroit.Fellow X projects Wing and Loon graduated in July 2018. Wing has pilot programs running in Christiansburg, Virginia, as well as Helsinki, Finland and North Canberra, Australia. Loon, meanwhile, has secured a few different contracts for its internet balloons.
Alphabet now has 12 companies -- two more than when it started in 2015. In its last earnings report, Alphabet said that its 'other bets' created $659 million in revenue, up from $595 million the previous year. For context, though, Alphabet's total revenue reached $161 billion last year, and $15 billion of that was generated by YouTube alone. The question, therefore, is how much patience CEO Sundar Pichai has for Alphabet's other bets, and which ones are most likely to emerge as meaningful businesses. The company has already shown that it's not afraid to cut or relocate struggling subsidiaries, which doesn't bode well for projects like Fiber, which stopped expanding years ago.
The only guarantee? In another five years, Alphabet's composition will have changed once again to reflect its evolving vision of the future and, more importantly, what technology will give staff and investors the greatest return.
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Google parent Alphabet is pruning its 'other bets' - Engadget