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Posted

Thought this article from Wired was pretty interesting.  It's essentially about how astrophysicists are being employed by consumer-oriented tech companies because their expertise in Big Data and machine learning can be used to predict customer preferences.  “We were already in Big Data before Big Data became a thing,” says Sudeep Das, an astrophysicist who now works at Netflix.

 

Here's an introductory excerpt from. https://www.wired.com/story/the-style-maven-astrophysicists-of-silicon-valley/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

"Chris Moody knows a thing or two about the universe. As an astrophysicist, he built galaxy simulations, using supercomputers to model the way the universe expands and how galaxies crash into one another. One night, not long after he’d finished his PhD at UC Santa Cruz, he met up with a few other astrophysicists for beers. But that night, no one was talking about galaxies. Instead, they were talking about fashion.

 

A couple of Moody’s astrophysicist pals had recently left academia to work for Stitch Fix, the online personal styling company now valued at $2 billion. Moody gawked at them. “They were like, ‘You don’t think this is an interesting problem?’” he says. Indeed, he did not. But when his friends described the work they were doing—sprinkling in phrases like “Bayesian models” and “Poincaré space”—predicting what clothes someone might like started to sound eerily like the work he’d done during his PhD. Quantifying style, he discovered, “turns out to have really close analogues to how general relativity works.”

 

 

Posted
29 minutes ago, ICanSleepWhenI'mDead said:

Thought this article from Wired was pretty interesting.  It's essentially about how astrophysicists are being employed by consumer-oriented tech companies because their expertise in Big Data and machine learning can be used to predict customer preferences.  “We were already in Big Data before Big Data became a thing,” says Sudeep Das, an astrophysicist who now works at Netflix.

 

Here's an introductory excerpt from. https://www.wired.com/story/the-style-maven-astrophysicists-of-silicon-valley/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

 

"Chris Moody knows a thing or two about the universe. As an astrophysicist, he built galaxy simulations, using supercomputers to model the way the universe expands and how galaxies crash into one another. One night, not long after he’d finished his PhD at UC Santa Cruz, he met up with a few other astrophysicists for beers. But that night, no one was talking about galaxies. Instead, they were talking about fashion.

 

A couple of Moody’s astrophysicist pals had recently left academia to work for Stitch Fix, the online personal styling company now valued at $2 billion. Moody gawked at them. “They were like, ‘You don’t think this is an interesting problem?’” he says. Indeed, he did not. But when his friends described the work they were doing—sprinkling in phrases like “Bayesian models” and “Poincaré space”—predicting what clothes someone might like started to sound eerily like the work he’d done during his PhD. Quantifying style, he discovered, “turns out to have really close analogues to how general relativity works.”

 

 

 

Yep, nothing new.  Wall Street was the biggest single employer of physicists for a long time, because physicists are trained to describe and quantify complex systems.  

 

If these guys are only working in fashion, they're probably second-tier.  

Posted

I saw the movie The Devil Wears Prada with my wife and daughter a few years ago. They explained how a small group of people behind the scenes would predict/dictate the fashion trends for the upcoming year. In the movie, it was middle age people (Meryl Streep) with years of experience who would decide what would be popular. I think it’s interesting to think that someone could develop algorithms to make those decisions.

Posted
41 minutes ago, Gray Beard said:

I saw the movie The Devil Wears Prada with my wife and daughter a few years ago. They explained how a small group of people behind the scenes would predict/dictate the fashion trends for the upcoming year. In the movie, it was middle age people (Meryl Streep) with years of experience who would decide what would be popular. I think it’s interesting to think that someone could develop algorithms to make those decisions.

 

I think, when it comes down to analyzing behavior of complex systems in the bulk limit, I'm going to go with the astrophysicists over an Anne Hathaway vehicle.

  • Haha (+1) 1
Posted
55 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

I think, when it comes down to analyzing behavior of complex systems in the bulk limit, I'm going to go with the astrophysicists over an Anne Hathaway vehicle.

 

I have not been following along here, but I’m going for Anne Hathaway. Call me crazy, but I’m not trying to solve all the world’s problems. Now, if you are talking about Anne Hathaway’s SUV or mini-van, that’s different......

 

Convertible? I’m probably back in! 

Posted
1 hour ago, Augie said:

 

I have not been following along here, but I’m going for Anne Hathaway. Call me crazy, but I’m not trying to solve all the world’s problems. Now, if you are talking about Anne Hathaway’s SUV or mini-van, that’s different......

 

Convertible? I’m probably back in! 

 

You're an idiot.

Posted
1 minute ago, DC Tom said:

 

You're an idiot.

 

Gracias.

 

I am volunteering to be Anne Hathaway’s idiot, maybe for a long weekend. I should maybe clear this with my wife. She might not care.....as long as I leave her alone. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Augie said:

 

Gracias.

 

I am volunteering to be Anne Hathaway’s idiot, maybe for a long weekend. I should maybe clear this with my wife. She might not care.....as long as I leave her alone. 

 

***** off.  She's mine.  You can't have her.

Posted
2 minutes ago, DC Tom said:

 

***** off.  She's mine.  You can't have her.

 

I’m pretty sure she is a real person....you know....in person. You’ll want none of THAT!  She’s mine, all MINE! (Pending approval of my wife, and of course, the FAR higher hurdle, the object of our affection.)

Posted

Physicists were brought to Wall Street to use Brownian Motion to predict stock prices, or something silly enough that you have to be that brilliant to believe in it

 

works great when the market keeps rising, not so great when it craters and margin calls arise

 

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