iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

"You rotate your head a little bit and you actually kind of see a tree with like different colors of roots. [laughs]" Vincent D Warmerdam interviewing Leland McInnes about EVoC, a new multiscale clustering algorithm that remixes UMAP, HDBSCAN and PLSCAN. www.youtube.com/live/ES4PPjK...

030 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Thx to @hypha.coop members for joining in a spontaneous guerrilla pilot of my #polislike "reaction canvas" app, from the audience of @jakehirschallen.bsky.social's @dxcsummit.bsky.social panel this past weekend :) cc @anaserrano.bsky.social polislike-partykit-reaction-canvas.patcon.partykit.dev

050 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 28/03/2026

Current status: thinking about beehives & culture. Bees forage for sugar, storing it in static structural wax comb of the hive, to power future work. Humans forage for information & store it where? What is our hive? Our wax? Our honey? What's culture? Books? Language itself?

110 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Thanks to @hexafield.bsky.social and @michaelgarfield.bsky.social's mapmakers discord for giving this thought a chance to be articulated aloud :) The homology of linear narrative and linear peptides is a deep interest for me...! bsky.app/profile/patc...

110 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Yay Climate Fast's environmental voting record scores, presenting their work at @civictechto.bsky.social civic hacknight 🎉🎉 votingrecords.climatefast.ca guild.host/events/civic... #civictech

000 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 01/03/2026

www.linkedin.com/posts/patcon... (SORRY FOR LINKEDINNNNN)

010 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

I've been floating the idea that these perspective maps are potentially REALLY good fodder for satire, because they're grounded in self-assessed views of individual belief. A perspective map of humans where you can label areas and take the piss out of people, like: hoodmaps.com/new-york-cit...

110 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 05/12/2025

There comes time when everyone should ask: IS FALCONRY RIGHT FOR ME?

010 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

When #complexity or #plurality live within individual bodies, singular experiences... that's usually something I want to trust and walk toward, and to put my attention more closely on. That's where the toughest labour is happening <3 forward.com/opinion/7826... h/t Libby Lenkinski

030 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 09/11/2025

Current status: visualising "water level cuts" of HDBSCAN clustering on pol.is data from protest, thinking on filter bubble propagation, #queer / outsider identities & hierarchical navigable small world networks.. #complexity #democracy main--68c53b7909ee2fb48f1979dd.chromatic.com?path=/story/...

051 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Inspired by @ventrella.bsky.social's Clusters demo, I'm exploring how to add an arbitrary number of dimensions to #particlelife and/or #particlelenia simulators... patcon.github.io/Clusters-n-d...

142 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 26/09/2025

yaaay to more DR literacy. Speaking of which, just got this working today, and there's a janky experimental interface for cycling between different projections while painting: main--68c53b7909ee2fb48f1979dd.chromatic.com/iframe.html?... (projections get generated fr: github.com/patcon/kedro... )

000 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 17/09/2025

Yay new prototypes! patcon.github.io/polislike-hu...

000 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

hey @rude1.blacksky.team, been rooting for y'all from afar, re: the Polis experiment. I don't suppose thingys like these prototypes would support the community to make sense of itself? ugly v1: patcon.github.io/polislike-op... wip v2: main--68c53b7909ee2fb48f1979dd.chromatic.com/iframe.html?...

140 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

Current status: prototyping Google Maps for human perspective landscapes built from simple agree/disagree data: (some features still stuck in my earlier prototype) main--68c53b7909ee2fb48f1979dd.chromatic.com?path=/story/... #democracy #collectiveintelligence #deliberation #delibwave #complexity

010 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

Had a thought about storytelling and ant pheromones while listening to @MelanieEMoses's episode on @profschrepel.bsky.social's Scaling Theory podcast: open.spotify.com/episode/0te7... #complexsystems #complexity

> with ^^ant colonies^^, we were studying: how do these systems ^^search^^. there's no central controller, the queen isn't directing. there are thousands of ^^agents spreading out over space looking for something^^. This could be food. There are some lessons in how we might build more decentralized systems. ^^Ants lay pheromone trails.^^ so when on individual is successful it might lay a chemical trail from a location of food back to the nest, and that trail can be reinforced, ^^making other ants follow it to this location^^. and they leverage the ^^natural evaporation^^ of chemicals on the landscape. so that if the food disappears, the ^^reinforcement stops and the trail disappear^^. this is an ^^amazing way to make a map of the landscape and where food has been found, and direct other ants. no centralized control needed.^^ just decentralized system, and a bit of a centralized location where any ant coming out of the nest will see the signals going in different directions and be able to make a choice. so there is some interplay of centralization and decentralization.

120 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 09/05/2025

Making progress on this tool for exploring opinion landscapes revealed by new algorithms being put to work on pol.is data! Added group comparisons for comments! Works for small to large convos, 25 to 30,000 partcpnts :) t.co/yW50JGVyfl #democracy #delibwave

020 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 05/05/2025

Thank you for watching over us, great skylon

010 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

Quickly making progress on this tool for Polis-like "opinion map painting"! It's like hoodmaps.com for community-scale dialogue. patcon.github.io/polislike-op... #democracy #delibwave #citizenassembly #plurality

121 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Took the time to do the analysis of what the structure seems to say about who the groups are :)

000 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

New experiments with improving insight from Polis-like consultations, this time using data from a 7000-person consultation done by some rad folks in #BowlingGreen, in partnership w Google Jigsaw: report.whatcouldbgbe.com gist.github.com/patcon/0a56a... #democracy #collectiveintelligence #delibwave

Clusters based on projections of data using LocalMAP dimensional reduction algo.

Map of generative AI islands that look like LocalMAP clusters.

Coloring based on projections of data using LocalMAP dimensional reduction algo, but painted onto PCA projections.

261 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Or here's a less blobby, but still challenging to interpret conversation run by DemDis out of Slovakia www.demdis.sk/v-europe_cud... code notebook: gist.github.com/patcon/9ce28... Algos used: PCA, PaCMAP, LocalMAP, PCA Cluster colors from: LocalMAP, LocalMAP, LocalMAP, PCA

Original Polis PCA projections, but colored with clusters found in LocalMAP projections.

New (2022) PaCMAP projections, but colored with groups found through clustering LocalMAP projections.

New (2024) LocalMAP algorithm and associated clustering

Original Polis PCA projections and clustering

100 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

Interested in extending the ideas behind #democracy -supporting algos like in pol.is? here's a first-pass showing the deeper structure that might be possible to find in large conversations, with new dimensional reduction algorithms beyond PCA, like PaCMAP & LocalMAP: gist.github.com/patcon/8b079...

Many clusters of data from LocalMAP algorithm.

260 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Strong agree. From my own notes: "Being a bit divisive early is actually helpful here, because the divisions are what most people are drawn into, and it’s the surface over which exploration happens."

000 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

I've got more thoughts, but I agree that "consensus" is maybe not the best word, & maybe a bad one in some circles. I've got this rad sticker from @decidim.org Fest a few years ago ("Fight consensus not consent") that i adore rocking on my laptop to confuse ppl who might otherwise assume it good :)

110 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Any take on this? Some folks are in #rfp-public-engagement-platform in the @civictechto.bsky.social slack, trying to scheme how to support the most righteous EU bidders :)

110 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 18/03/2025

At the @civictechto.bsky.social hacknight at @mozilla.org HQ, listening to @thegreenlineto.bsky.social share about their work to help news lead to action and supporting #MutualAid. #civictech 🧵 [1/n]

021 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

Guilty pleasure #16: eating uncooked frozen trader joe's chocolate croissants

010 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Preserves both local & global structure, & VERY simple loss func :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD-u... There are some updates in the past few months that improve it as LocalMAP (non-parameterized) and ParamRepulsor (parameterized, so better for neural net training), which makes me even more excited!

100 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

baaaa badda baaaaa [trumpets blaring from behind easily-distractable man] h/t remove.bg

020 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Uh oh. This way of trolling pol.is had not occurred to me until now 🙃 * ponders statistical analysis that might prove legitimacy of such shapes *

170 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

"The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from skill the ability to access wealth." -- Joseph Browning, via @jeffowsky g0v.social/@jeffowski@m...

162 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

@instantiator.bsky.social Loving the premise behind your instantiator.dev/listsky/ project, and feeling lots of alignment with something I was working on with: github.com/polis-commun... and github.com/jaseemabid/b... data source: docs.google.com/spreadsheets... (private for now, but req welcome)

220 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Thanks! And heh... to clarify but also unclarify: I was @walkah.social's basement troll for a time. I think I maybe taught his family the meaning of Christmas. Or I may have just been a lovable cigar-smoking layabout. It is unclear

120 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

Though I know we had rocky communication over our diff visions in the past, I am uncertain the specifics of his grievance, because he has never responded to any comms/email from me, incl last month where I asked to patch things up, so I could include him in this starter pack 🤷🏻

100 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

Hey @jabid.in, can you help me understand what's wrong with my URI's here? It works fine for the list, but I've tried a bunch of options for starter packs, and it won't sync. Thanks! re: github.com/jaseemabid/b... cc @atproto.com @support.bsky.team

210 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Current status: debating between ordering this custom tshirt or continuing to be in a loving relationship.

A photo of a custom tshirt creation wizard, showcasing a stock-photo man, leaning against a wooden stool, wearing a gray shirt saying "my girlfriend doesn't poop."

010 0

⿻ patcon (is in Toronto) @patcon.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Speak of the devil @mmasnick.bsky.social, someone just dropped a code spike in discord earlier today about the time I was messaging you <3

121 0