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patcon.bsky.social
⿻ patcon (is in London)
@patcon.bsky.social
550 followers 950 following 500 posts
& this is the wonder that keeps the stars apart. #complexity #plurality #democracy #civictech @CivicTechTO cfndr. @g0vtw fan. early pol.is cntrbtr. ex: biochemst @enviroDGI @HyphaCoop @nwspk @gc_talent

🏡 SF/Tkaronto/NOLA/London
🔗 nodescription.net/notes
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patcon.bsky.social
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
November 11, 2025 at 3:59 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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

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November 9, 2025 at 2:22 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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...
September 29, 2025 at 6:15 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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... )
September 26, 2025 at 10:21 PM
patcon.bsky.social
Yay new prototypes! patcon.github.io/polislike-hu...
September 17, 2025 at 8:25 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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?...
September 16, 2025 at 2:10 AM
patcon.bsky.social
Current status: prototyping Google Maps for human perspective landscapes built from simple agree/disagree data: (some features still stuck in my earlier prototype)

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#democracy #collectiveintelligence #deliberation #delibwave #complexity
September 14, 2025 at 12:40 AM
patcon.bsky.social
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.
August 13, 2025 at 4:01 AM
patcon.bsky.social
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
May 9, 2025 at 9:53 PM
patcon.bsky.social
Thank you for watching over us, great skylon
May 5, 2025 at 9:56 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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
May 3, 2025 at 11:04 AM
patcon.bsky.social
Took the time to do the analysis of what the structure seems to say about who the groups are :)
May 1, 2025 at 11:30 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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.
May 1, 2025 at 7:12 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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
April 28, 2025 at 7:54 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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...
Image of big blog from PCA algorithm. Many clusters of data from LocalMAP algorithm.
April 28, 2025 at 7:54 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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."
March 24, 2025 at 3:34 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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 :)
March 24, 2025 at 3:17 PM
patcon.bsky.social
omg i love this
#TeslaTakedown
March 22, 2025 at 6:44 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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 :)
March 22, 2025 at 6:23 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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]
March 18, 2025 at 11:45 PM
patcon.bsky.social
Guilty pleasure #16: eating uncooked frozen trader joe's chocolate croissants
March 1, 2025 at 9:16 PM
patcon.bsky.social
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!
February 3, 2025 at 9:34 PM
patcon.bsky.social
baaaa badda baaaaa [trumpets blaring from behind easily-distractable man] h/t remove.bg
January 14, 2025 at 3:22 AM
patcon.bsky.social
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 *
December 29, 2024 at 8:07 PM
patcon.bsky.social
"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...
Quote in post
December 21, 2024 at 11:59 PM