Four short links: 20 January 2015

Govt IoT, Collective Intelligence, Unknown Excellence, and Questioning Scalability

  1. Matt Webb Joining British Govt Data Service — working on IoT for them.
  2. Reading the Mind in the Eyes or Reading between the Lines? Theory of Mind Predicts Collective Intelligence (PLoS) — theory of mind abilities are a significant determinant of group collective intelligence even when, as in many online groups, the group has extremely limited communication channels. Phone/Skype calls, emails, and chats are all intensely mental activities, trying to picture the person behind the signal.
  3. MIT Faculty Search — two open gigs at MIT, one around climate change and one “undefined.” Great job ad.
  4. Scalability at What Cost?evaluation of these systems, especially in the academic context, is lacking. Folks have gotten all wound-up about scalability, despite the fact that scalability is just a means to an end (performance, capacity). When we actually look at performance, the benefits the scalable systems bring start to look much more sketchy. We’d like that to change.
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