Beware The Sponsored Charticle

global_orgasm_gap

Last month, Jacob Harris raged against the rise of  “data journalism” created by companies looking for viral media coverage, such as the Durex effort Voxified above:

PR-driven data stories [come] from an opposite direction to traditional data journalism. This is not data that is collected and analyzed in response to specific questions and whose quality is checked before publication, but prebuilt charts pushed to news organizations like press releases and targeted against specific topics like sex, anxiety, and shame that are more likely to elicit clicks. If you’re a company looking for press, why not use those fancy data scientists you hired to also generate some free publicity outside the company? And if you’re a reporter at a news startup who needs to constantly fill the news hole with new material, why wouldn’t you run one of these? Everybody’s happy, even if the data isn’t right.

Today he revisited the topic, wondering why more people aren’t creeped out by companies harvesting and publishing data about them like this:

Remember [that article] about Target figuring out which customers are pregnant [by analyzing what seemingly unrelated products they bought]; it’s hard not to see it as an invasion of privacy even if it’s perfectly legal. Contrast that with this analysis by Jawbone showing how the Napa earthquake affected its users’ sleep. Despite being built on deeply personal information, it doesn’t seem to have raised any ire from readers online. Why?

It’s possible that the difference is wearing a Jawbone is voluntary — but so is shopping at Target. Indeed, I think it’s clear that both companies analyzed personal data that users generally assume is private. It looks like Jawbone managed to sidestep squeamishness by releasing a cool chart instead of boasting about their ability to target individual user’s sleep pattern, although that’s likely something their servers are doing. All of which suggests a golden opportunity for big retailers who didn’t know how to talk about their use of big data without sounding totally creepy. Now they can — with maps!

What Does The SAT Test?

Jeffrey Aaron Snyder gives a mixed review to Lani Guinier’s The Tyranny of Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America. In particular, Snyder finds wanting the book’s criticisms of the SAT:

Guinier, like many critics of the SAT, is dismissive of the test’s predictive power, claiming that the correlation between SAT scores and first-year college grade-point-average is “very, very slight.” In fact, most studies put the figure in the neighborhood of .45, which is a shade higher than the correlation between rates of smoking and incidences of lung cancer. It is also only a tad lower than the correlation between cumulative high school GPA and first-year college GPA. …

Guinier has been arguing for years that the SAT is a “wealth test.” Is she right? Money indisputably matters. The correlation between socioeconomic status and SAT scores is around .40. (If the SAT were nothing but a wealth test, as Guinier maintains, this figure would be 1.00.) For high school graduates from the class of 2013, students from families earning more than $200,000 a year had an average combined SAT score of 1,714 (out of 2400) compared to an average combined score of 1,326 for students from families earning less than $20,000 a year. These averages, of course, obscure the enormous variation within different income brackets—many poor students ace the test while many rich ones bomb it.

Standardized testing aside, Snyder is open to Guinier’s suggestion that “our educational system should re-orient itself around collaboration and peer learning”:

The message that we send to students through standardized testing is often perverse: we are going to assess your abilities in a vacuum, without access to the books, Internet, or peers that you will almost always have access to in the working world. In this respect, standardized testing promotes an antiquated model of teaching, learning, and knowledge. While collaboration in the workplace is rewarded, collaboration on a test is penalized as cheating. It is not just testing, however, that prizes individual achievement. The conventional classroom is organized around individual performance, with students laboring away at solitary desks. The push for more open, collaborative classrooms has always faced stiff resistance from “traditional” teachers and school administrators. If you agree with Guinier that education should be a more cooperative enterprise, then the crucial question is how to incentivize schools to embrace this cultural shift.

The Wealthy Don’t Smoke Anymore, Ctd

A reader calls the following quote from Keith Humphreys “excuse making for low-income smokers”:

“Although lower income people’s access to health care is being improved by the Affordable Care Act, they are still likely to lag middle class people in their access to effective smoking cessation treatments.” Access to “effective smoking cessation treatments”, like access to birth control, is ubiquitous – any drug store sells Nicorette and the patch over the counter.  A patch costs $5 a day.  A pack of cigarettes costs $7 and up, depending on where you live [upwards of $15 in New York].  The patch is very effective.  There may be structural issues specific to lower income people that make starting smoking easier and stopping more difficult, e.g. education, lower intelligence and lack of personal responsibility if one is willing to skip the PC BS, but “access” is leftish code for more unmet needs requiring government intervention.

As far as the reader’s “very effective” claim, the nicotine patch stops people from smoking only about 19% of the time, at least according to this study. What’s been found to be a more effective?

E-cigarettes are more effective than nicotine patches and gum in helping people to quit smoking, according to a study that challenges the negative views of some public health experts.

The issue of e-cigarettes has become a public health battleground, alarming those who think that their marketing and use in public places where smoking is banned risks re-normalising tobacco. Supporters say the vast majority of smokers are using e-cigarettes to kick their tobacco habit and that the health consequences of nicotine use without the tar from cigarettes appear, as yet, to be far less of a problem. The study, by a team from University College London, looked at attempts of nearly 6,000 people to stop smoking and found that, while engaging with the NHS smoking cessation services was the most effective way to quit, using e-cigarettes beat nicotine replacement therapy, as well as the efforts of people to stop with no help at all. … When the results were adjusted to account for the differences between the smokers in terms of background, age and other variables, those using e-cigarettes were around 60% more likely to quit than those using nicotine replacement therapy or just willpower.

Hathos Alert

The headline says it all:

“I have not seen ‘American Sniper’,” writes New Republic’s reviewer of ‘American Sniper’

Well, almost all:

Update from a reader:

The headline most assuredly does NOT say it all. It is an opinion piece about the characterization of American Sniper put forward by the marketing of the movie.  The author disagrees with this characterization.  It is not in any way, shape or form a “movie review,” but if you just lie and say it is, then you can create another phony right-wing Gotcha! moment to chew up the next news cycle.

By the way, thank you for not having a comments section.

Another reader retorts:

Unfortunately, the headline does say quite a bit. Look at what the article actually says.

In the fourth paragraph, the author states that he’s reminded of Zero Dark Thirty, and that in that movie the use of torture is given such a nuanced portrayal, that people who supported and defended the practice left “believing their views were validated.” Next, “I have not seen American Sniper. But if the trailer is any indication, Eastwood’s film, like Zero Dark Thirty, tries to make a straightforward situation more complex than it is.”

So I guess he’s saying … Zero Dark Thirty takes a nuanced view of something that, perhaps, one doesn’t need to take a nuanced view. Based solely on the trailer, American Sniper sure looks like it might do the same thing. He doesn’t actually know, because he hasn’t actually watched it.

Fair enough: this isn’t a movie review. It’s poseur clickbait that doesn’t stand on solid ground, but wants you to think that it does. I had higher expectations of my students when I taught a first-year undergraduate course on written communications at the University of Illinois. 

Finally, I do not know if the commenter’s other point was meant to be sarcastic, but I applaud your the lack of a comment field, for reasons all too eloquently put by The Oatmeal here.

A Product By Any Other Name

Neal Gabler introduces us to the folks who name “everything from companies to products to websites to ingredients to colors”:

Today roughly 500,000 businesses open each month in the United States, and every one needs a name. From Dickens with his bitter Gradgrind to J. K. Rowling with her sour Voldemort, authors have long understood that names help establish character. Politicians know that calling a bill the USA Patriot Act makes it a little harder to vote against.

The effects of strategic naming are all around us, once we begin to look for them.

“You go to a restaurant, and you don’t order ‘dolphin fish,’ ” [namer Anthony] Shore points out. “You order ‘mahi-mahi.’ You don’t order ‘Patagonian toothfish.’ You order ‘Chilean sea bass.’ You don’t buy ‘prunes’ anymore; they’re now called ‘dried plums.’ ” Maria Cypher, the founder and director of the naming agency Catchword, which named the McDonald’s McBistro sandwich line, will tell you that names “give us a shared understanding of what something is.” Paola Norambuena, the executive director of verbal identity at Interbrand, says they give us a “shortcut to a good decision.”

Naming is more art than science:

The oddity is that for all the weight a company places on choosing names, the decisions arise from a process that couldn’t be less corporate. There are no naming metrics, no real way to know if a new name helps or hinders. The field attracts people who are comfortable with such ambiguity. Jay Jurisich, the founder of Zinzin, is a painter with an M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles. Jim Singer, who founded Namebase, was a jingle writer, and Margaret Wolfson, who now runs naming at Namebase, still splits her time between naming and performing one-woman shows around the world in which she recites classical myths. The renowned pharma namer Arlene Teck (coiner of Viagra, from “vigorous” and “Niagara”) writes haiku. Maria Cypher of Catchword fronts a rock band. Other namers are stand-up comics, photographers, rappers, linguists and poets. “A good name has the potency of any piece of art,” says Martin McMurray, a partner at Zinzin. Wolfson’s friend Jonathan Galassi, the president and publisher of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, has told her that she is engaged in creating “practical poetry,” an assessment that Wolfson embraces, though she says she doesn’t use the term with all her clients.

Headline Of The Day

All-women’s college cancels ‘Vagina Monologues’ because it’s not feminist enough

Update from a reader:

I am not particularly liberal, but a deeper dive into the reasons that Mt Holyoke had decided to not do their annual performance of Vagina Monologues is not really about how feminist the play is.  It is about how the licensing of the play forbids any modification to (or criticisms of) the script within the performance [namely to include those who identify as women but don’t have vaginas]. Rather than put on the VM production again (for something like the 10th time), they are developing their own script and production. I don’t see much to mock about this. I don’t see any educational value for having college students put on a play that explicitly forbids them from modifying or interpreting it – particularly when they have performed the play several times before.

Mental Health Break

What you’re seeing:

This series of 3D printed sculptures was designed such that the appendages match Fibonacci’s Sequence, a mathematical sequence that manifest naturally in objects like sunflowers and pinecones. When the sculptures are spun at just the right frequency under a strobe light, a rather magical effect occurs: the sculptures seem to be animated or alive! The rotation speed is set to match with the strobe flashes such that every time the sculpture rotates 137.5º, there is one corresponding flash from the strobe light.

The Politics Of “Fertility Fog” Ctd

A reader from the other side of the reproductive struggle broadens the discussion:

I’m not sure if you’ve received many responses from male readers on this issue, but I’d like to add a male’s perspective. Oftentimes the discussion about having a child and fertility usually revolve around the woman’s reproductive health, and more often than not the male partners either don’t think about their own health, get tested to see if they’re producing healthy sperm, or consider their own health as an essential part of the equation.

I’m 42 years old, my wife is 31. We’re in the process of trying to start a family. She got off birth control over a year ago because her sister, who’s an obstetrician, recommended at least six months to a year of being off birth control before really trying to get pregnant. Of course none of our family knows about these things and yet I’ll share my perspective here anonymously to further the discussion.

I scheduled a check up with my urologist and reproductive specialist last September, which meant a full checkup and measurement of my testicles, a full history of my sex life, prior conceptions (there was with my first wife that ended in a miscarriage) and then providing the requisite sperm sample there in the office. There is nothing more romantic than locking yourself in an exam room with clinic-provided skin-mags from the early ’90s and trying to provide a sample while clinicians wander the hall outside. Thank God for smartphones, an unlimited data plan and online porn to ease my situation.

I subsequently found out that I had a low sperm count that was impacted by a high white blood cell count that resulted from trying to heal from a massive leg contusion. My initial response was despair at being nearly infertile.

But my doctor encouraged me that they would try a few things before making any decisions. A heavy round of antibiotics, 60-day supply of motility vitamins, and more frequency between ejaculations. At the follow-up exam and sample in hand, I was on the road to healthier motility and sperm count but still a cause of mild concern for my doctor. He said to keep trying and come back in 8 months. If we weren’t pregnant, he’d give me a shot of testosterone to boost my system as another step in fixing my sperm count issues.

What most doctors don’t tell you is that there are many aspects that affect a man’s reproductive health even on a day-to-day basis. My wife and I are both architects and have stressful project loads. Couple that with running our lighting business, everyday life and the stress factor can wear on you. Most doctors recommend 6 months of really trying before seeking out fertility help.

Tracking that narrow window of opportunity when your wife’s ovulation cycle is at its peak and hoping that your both feeling “in the mood”, the very act of trying to conceive becomes yet another layer of stress in trying to do everything correct. Hoping the stars align, you’ve had a healthy few days prior to the main event, you haven’t waited too long between efforts to maximize motility, factoring in the natural chances of getting pregnant on any one try, adding in that conception is very difficult to begin with all adds to the stress of trying to conceive. And while most couples we know have tried for longer than a year or two, we’re seeing many younger couples with fertility issues leap in with IVF or other treatments and getting pregnant quickly.

And while my wife and I continue to make the effort to chart her temperatures, map the moon cycles, keeping my junk primed but not backed-up, getting each other in the mood, generating the energy to do it when we don’t feel in the mood, and then her getting depressed, then my getting depressed at each month we miss an opportunity, and these all feed back into a temporary loop of despair about thinking that we will never get pregnant. We have to gently remind ourselves that it will take time and effort every month and we’ve barely just begun trying.

We get questions from friends and family about when we’re having kids or if we’re having kids. We euphemistically say we’re “working on it” and tell ourselves that it will happen when it happens.
For most men the pressure of having children is less of a burden than it is for women. Of course we’re told that men can keep reproducing into their 70s ala Charlie Chaplin. But I know this is unrealistic and unfair to burden my future children with a geriatric father. As a guy fast approaching 43, my own urge to have children increases and my desire to not be in a wheelchair and being mistaken for my kids’ grandparent at their college graduation adds a level of urgency to the equation too.

As a guy, wandering in the “fertility fog” now, I’d just like to say it’s not just a woman’s issue and it shouldn’t be a burden that just women should have to carry. I hope more men are open and honest about their own reproductive health with their doctor, spouse and especially themselves. For many men who want to start a family, the mere thought of being infertile or having low sperm count, the initial response to hearing that news can be depressing and create the idea of being “less of a man” because you might be incapable or have difficulties conceiving. I know I did when I first found out my predicament. But I also found out that it’s easier to fix my issues first. Fertility is complicated for both sexes and having that frank discussion is relevant to women and men.

Another man:

I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, seminoma, when I was 36 (quite old for seminoma), when my wife and I married less than one year.  It’s really a great cancer, from one point of view – very high cure rates of approximately 99+% from either radiation or chemo, so presumably >99.9% from either one followed by the other if necessary.  Given this choice, and despite being an expert in the chemo treatment (which he had devised; this was a world-renowned expert in the field), my urologist urged radiation because “the side effects of nausea and vomiting were fewer and milder”.

But as my wife and I were talking to the radiation oncologist prior to my first treatment, we mentioned to her that we planned to start a family one day, asking her advice on how long to wait after the radiation.  She got a horrified look on her face, and said: “Oh, no.  After the treatments you’ll certainly be sterile.”

The urologist also knew that we planned to start a family; upon further discussion I came to the conclusion (possibly incorrect and unfair) that to him sterility wasn’t a side effect worth mentioning or even considering. So it’s not just women who miss physician education on fertility.

Well, I had the chemotherapy, the cancer was cured, we later had two GREAT kids before getting a vasectomy. My wife and I are approaching our 29th anniversary.  Sounds like a happy ending.  However, I also got “chemo-brain” which is yet ANOTHER side effect that wasn’t mentioned – a permanent diminution of intelligence, concentration, etc, that has profoundly affected my entire life from that day forward (I’m a scientist).  I love my children beyond measure, but if I had known about chemo-brain in advance, and not knowing in advance the great kids I would later have, I would have chosen sterility and we would have adopted.