Social Media and Compiling Data

We all know that social media has changed the way much of the world interacts with each other and, as we saw a couple of years ago with the protests in Iran, it can put a human face on countries and events all over the world. It has also changed the way that human behavior can be looked at. While this article from CNN focuses on the when I want to take a quick look at the how.

Worried about when you might get dumped? Facebook knows.

That's according to a graphic making the rounds online that uses Facebook status updates to chart what time of year people are splitting up.

British journalist and graphic designer David McCandless, who specializes in showcasing data in visual ways, compiled the chart. He showed off the graphic at a TED conference last July in Oxford, England.

In the talk, McCandless said he and a colleague scraped 10,000 Facebook status updates for the phrases "breakup" and "broken up."

Facebook provides the ability to keep track of all of this data and to be able to see trends through times. So not only can we compile data from those who we can physically contact, which will typically lead to one country and possibly just one region of that country but from around the world. Now of course you run into the problem of people lying online or just not posting data but these are difficulties that you have in a typical study anyway and those outliers will tend to be more hidden when you have more data. This is interesting and if people continue to use this idea and developing studies who knows what future trends we might be able to see in the long run.

One last thing, don't be that asshole who breaks up with your significant other on Christmas come on people.

What happened to the Science?

I have always been a fan of CNN.com it is a good quick place to get your news. They also are a more neutral site than most other news sites. Now as you may have guessed by reading this blog I tend to read a lot of science articles to keep up to date on science outside of my specific field. This is actually part of why I started reading CNN.com.

Way back in 2004/2005 when I first started my undergraduate education cnn.com had a section of their website that was all about science and technology. A few years ago they changed the tab to just say Tech but when you clicked there you could still typically find science articles under their own heading within that tab. This was fine with me while I like science to get its recognition this at least allowed the science articles to be found and navigated through.

Well within the last few weeks something happened again. The Tech tab now just navigates to articles about technology with science artiles no longer getting billing. Don't believe me take a look at these screen shots from yesterday (click on the images to better see them):

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I understand that technology sells and that maybe what draws most people to that section but they should still include the science articles at least under some listing on that page. The only science article on that page at all was this video of Bill Nye talking about the oil spill clean-up.

There is always the possiblity that I am missing something but I did spend a good bit of time looking over the website to see if I could find a science section but with no luck. Do I think CNN will stop covering science related news? No, but I think it will get harder to find the older articles than it used to be. Will I stop going to CNN.com? No, as I have shown before a lot of the other news websites are not much better when it comes to science. All that I want is for CNN.com to make finding their science related articles a little bit easier and not burying them somewhere deep within their website, especially right now.

Gender roles effect Valentine's Day

So I came across this article today and was confused. The article itself is a mix of feminism while at the same time claiming that feminism is wrong. Don't believe me read this:

But for good or for bad, it presents a new challenge to the enduring American way of romance -- the one that no matter how evolved we think we've become, keeps turning up in song and story.

(Really, can it get any harder for those breadwinning women -- working long hours to help support their stay-at-home or less-moneymaking men -- to find the energy for a candlelit dinner, a quick change to a lacy negligee and an evening of unbridled romance?)

Yes that's right she claims in two paragraphs that the feminist movement has done great things for women while insisting that women must retain the classic role in relationships. She continues on later saying this:

If you caught any of this year's Super Bowl commercials, you saw a surprising representation of how conflicted men are (at least TV-commercial men) between feeling like traditional car-loving, pants-wearing tough guys and emasculated, moisturizing purse holders for their ladies.

Um, I don't know where she has been but for as long as I can remember Super Bowl commercials, and men all over the US, have been making similar jokes. When I first started dating my now fiance my friends gave me crap for not spending as much time with them as I used to. Would they do the same thing if they were in my position, sure, but that isn't going to keep them from giving me a hard time about it.

I love my fiance but she is very much her own woman and I would have no problem with her being the money maker in the family. I think that Miss Spencer is trying to force us into gender roles that are no longer a necessity. What is wrong with a woman treating her man to a fancy dinner? How about while the woman is at work all day the man is at home preparing dinner for the family so it is on the table when she gets home. Romance goes both ways and most of today's relationships were built on the idea that both parties are equal and bring different things to the table in the relationship.

No Miss Spencer romance is not dead or dying, as you seem to be implying, in fact it is still going strong. All that has happened is that the roles in the relationship are not the same that they were in the '60s and '70s and may in fact be stronger!

Alumna sues college

So I know everything has been very Virginia Tech centered recently so here is something different!

Wow is this really what we have come to?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/03/new.york.jobless.graduate/index.html

1) A 2.7 is not stellar
2) People with experience are having trouble finding jobs what makes you think you are so special
3) There are jobs out there you might just have to leave the city you are in
4) They might not help out the 4.0s more it is just easier for them to find a job

I hope to be able to keep up with this story and will let you know how it ends. Also the next 2 weeks I will be running around the Eastern and Central US like a chicken with its head cut off so don't expect too many posts.