Jeta Gjana

http://fortune.com/2017/09/07/barnes-noble-books/
This article deals with Barnes and Noble book store, and how it is falling behind its competitor, Amazon, in sales. The article includes a graph which shows that sales compared to last year have gone down -6.30%. I find this extremely interesting because Barnes and Noble is my favorite store. In order to combat their decline, many have suggested changing their platform. Additionally, they have been adding cafes and eating areas in several locations to attract business. Hopefully, the store will be able to solve their problems and eventually match their rival.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertberger/2017/09/10/equifax-hack-how-to-protect-your-credit-and-identity-if-your-data-was-compromised/#6a7e491327ea
I find this interesting because it is a huge wake up call that encourages me to be more conscious about which companies I choose to do business with because if they can’t protect my data, that is a big problem. Furthermore, I wonder what the consequences of all this alleged stolen data will entail not just for the consumers but for the company that got breached. It goes to show that data should not fall into the wrong hands because lives can be ruined forever.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/08/equifax-hack-credit-social-security-helpline-response-criticism
I found this article interesting because it reminded me of the Ashley Madison hack that we talked about in class. Equifax has personal information that can lead to identity theft and potentially destroy people’s life as the Ashley Madison hack did. Equifax did not handle the breech correctly either. They waited to notified customers when the hacks happen on July 29. We give sensitive data to companies hoping that it will not fall in the wrong hands of people but we cannot trust the sites we give our data to because they do not protect the data well enough.

Because of the recent hurricane and weather disasters I have recognized the major increases in gas prices nationwide. I wanted to see the underlying factors that actually cause these usually steady prices to become so volatile so quickly. What I learned is that, in this case, it was more about the location of the hurricane. Texas is one of the biggest oil producers in the country, and several of their manufacturers were hindered by the storm. Therefore, if the storm took place somewhere else, the gas prices clearly would not have been effected to such a large extent. Ultimately, the effects of this storm will be felt nationwide for weeks to come.

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/call-6-investigators/call-6-accounting-firm-data-breach-latest-in-growing-problem

This article goes into depth about a recent breach which saw hackers access customers data through an accounting firm. Since I am an accounting major I found it very interesting how the data I will be working with in the near future can be so important. I also found it very interesting that with only one hack many clients are now susceptible to damages involving their credit and their accounts. Hacking is a dangerous thing and can be harmful to many people.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/31/tough-on-crime-prisons-crisis-prisoner-numbers

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/31/tough-on-crime-prisons-crisis-prisoner-numbers
This article focuses on the need for change of prisons. Over the past few years, prisons have become extremely overcrowded, understaffed, and underfunded and it has to do a lot with offenders being sent to jail for more years than what their punishment for the crime should be. Since I am a Criminal Justice major, I found the article to be very interesting since it goes into details and gives data about all the information that goes with why and when there has been an increase in the number of prisoners in prisons over the years.

https://www.wired.com/story/apples-ios-11-will-make-it-even-harder-for-cops-to-extract-your-data/ This article by WIred.com tells of Apple’s reinforcements to its new iOS software that will make it even more difficult for police to seize data. Recalling the “FBI standoff” Apple faced over the seizure of the San Bernadino shooter 2015, the article mentions even more displeasure from the law enforcement community about how this software update will make investigations even more difficult. I found this article interesting because data privacy has been an increasingly important topic over the past few years.; the debate of privacy vs. protection is always very intense and very circumstantial.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/media-agencies-lower-global-ad-spending-forecasts-1505156732
(Wall Street Journal, “Media Agencies Lower Global Ad Spending Forecasts”)

Major media buying agencies expected that the spending for global ad will decrease in 2017 and 2018. GroupM lowered its growth expectation from 4.4% to 3% and Zenith lowered its expectation from 4.2% to 4%.

This data was interesting to me because the cause of this data is related to political and economic issues of leading countries of global society. China was the best contributor of ad industry but the economic growth of China has declined a lot comparted to the past. I thought the growth rate of Chinese economy might be over 7% even for the next 5-7 years but it has slowed down. It was so amazing that just one country can impact certain part of global economy.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/sep/10/robert-muellers-donald-trump-investigation-hints-a/
What is interesting to me about this article is the actual work being done to investigate the supposed financial crimes. I’m currently hoping to use my accounting and legal studies majors to specialize in forensic accounting or detecting financial crimes. This is the kind of work I hope to be one day doing working for the government. The way this ties in with data is that every financial statement or record of the Trump family’s financial history contains data. All of the balance sheets contain the amounts of certain assets his company’s hold, each statement of cash flows shows what he has been investing in, what expenses he’s had, and HOW he has financed his operations (has he accepted money from Russians to fund his businesses or campaign).

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/datablog/2017/jul/02/us-healthcare-broken-system-one-chart

The article I found focuses on the cost of healthcare in the U.S. compared to other nations, as well as relative life expectancy. Our healthcare is among the most expensive in the world, both to the government and the individual. To most, this may not be surprising due to the focus on healthcare in the recent election cycle. However, the data provided in this article also shows that average life expectancy in the U.S. is low, especially compared to other highly developed nations similar to our own. This trend has been present since the year 2000. This is likely a result of a malfunctioning system, as we have access to most, if not all cutting edge tech in the medical field.

http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/apple/apple-q3-2017-financial-results-iphone-ipad-mac-sales-all-up-3581769/

This article goes in depth and discusses how Apple’s sales for almost all their products have finally gone up in Quater 3 in 2017. It also discussed the quantity of how many products they sold compared to previous years and quarters and how they have gone up and the growth of their average selling price of each product. An example is Apple sold 41.026 million iPhones in Q3, which is up 2 percent compared to Q3 in 2016 and the average selling price of an iPhone is now $605.62, compared to last years ASP which was $595.26. I am currently an International Business student, so looking at how big companies such as Apple that have been dominating the tech industry for almost a decade and their constant changing sales interest me, and how they may go down for a year or two but eventually do go back up

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/amazingly-the-indians-are-even-better-than-they-seem/
As an avid baseball fan this article is something that I would enjoy reading for pleasure, even outside of this assignment. It discusses the Cleveland Indians and their historic 21 game win streak, tying the all time MLB record. This article, however, discusses how the Indians are even better than that win streak leads one to believe. It takes data and statistics, such as predicted run differential predicted vs actual records, to show that despite their record, they have actually been quite unlucky, as far as data is concerned, losing six more games this season than predicted by those statistics. It also compares the team to the 2001 Oakland Athletics, the team with the second longest win streak of all time. The article uses data from both team’s seasons to discuss who truly is the better team. I find this extremely fascinating, as baseball is becoming a more data based game by the day.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-100-year-old-hurricanes-could-teach-us-about-irma/

With all of the recent devastating hurricanes happening in our country, its interesting to see just how they compare to past hurricanes that have been just as catastrophic. Scientists are using data collected from previous hurricanes in past years to compare them to the likes of Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. Data is so essential in predicting how large of an impact some of these upcoming hurricanes will have on our country. With data that had been collected in the past, we may be able to predict patterns in the storms, longevity, and also expected damage. This article also dives into how we may be able to connect these recent hurricanes to climate change, and how there may be data to back up this claim. Its certainly an interesting topic that many people are going to want to keep an eye on.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleges-dont-pick-useless-majors/
The reason why I chose this article is because with rising costs of higher education, there is a huge discussion on why students chose the major they do in college and if that major can translate into a job once out. Most people will say, “Choose a degree that is worth something like business, engineering, law, etc.” I think it was interesting to learn that in both the less selective colleges and the more selective college’s degrees relating to business, management, and marketing were ranked 19.3% for less selective and 9.8% for more selective colleges.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-13/facebook-and-google-show-us-your-ad-data
For this weeks article, I chose to read on titled “Facebook and Google, Show Us Your Data”. The purpose of the article was to express to the world how companies such as google, amazon, and facebook, use the data that the collect for advertising efforts towards other things. For example, the data information is often used in political ways. To me, that is very interesting because I never thought of such companies as being a political powerhouse, but it makes sense. As an ad major, data collection is very important for decision making targeting, however, there are many instances where it can be misused for unintended influence.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/14/flying-us-iphone-x-cheaper-than-buying-europe-illegal-hmrc-vat

For this week’s articles, I choose “Flying to US to get an iPhone X is cheaper than buying in Europe. It’s also illegal” It is similar to how my friends and family who live in Indonesia would go shopping for electronics in Singapore. It is because products would be cheaper to buy overseas. Rather than spending double the amount of taxes, part of that money would be useful for the plane ticket and the hotel stay charges. I have several European friends who told me that, “Tourists receive discount at almost every store in the small and when they exit US, they have the ability to do an “exit tax” which means that they will be refunded for all the taxes they have paid for everything purchased while in America.” This article shows the budget break down of traveling to US and buying an Iphone. One person is likely to buy more than 1 Iphone during their visit to America and sells it back in the UK, due to this price gap.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/13/technology/iphone-x-face-id-security/index.html

Apple releasing their new iPhone X has a lot of people talking. It is simply amazing how in November people will be able to unlock their phone through facial recognition. Biometric recognition is data itself. Being able to use your phone with FaceID and fingerprint sensors enables one device to have the capability of carrying a plethora of data. Apple definitely stepped up their game amongst their Android competitors. I came across this article simply because I wanted to understand if FaceID is secure, then realizing all the data the iPhone stores through facial recognition alone opened my eyes to the topic of this question.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/has-nfl-play-gotten-worse-or-is-it-just-you/

We learned in the first day of class, that data is everywhere. That is exactly what I liked about this article – it was about the most random thing but it was actually relevant to my life. Unfortunately, I am a Giants fan. If you click the first link, it shows data from the quarterback Eli Manning being really reliable to mediocre from being one of out only ten quarterbacks in NFL history to start 200 games to having 27 interceptions in the 2013 season.In the article, it compared Manning to other quarterbacks (retired and active) including to his brother, Peyton Manning. This part gave me somewhat hope for Eli and the Giants because we all know that Eli’s time in the NFL is coming to an end sooner than we think, because it stated “… all played some of their most efficient football very near the end of their starting career”.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article184726473.html
This article describes a study that was done by uses smart phone data to see if the election and politics were ruining Thanksgiving. They wanted to know how long Thanksgiving was for people of mixed political parties. They used a software called Safegraph that is a location tracker and they watched where people were between certain hours. Their results showed that Thanksgiving was cut much shorter than it has been the past couple of years. It is relevant to now because the time may be even shorter this year.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crown-resorts-lawsuit/shareholders-sue-australias-crown-resorts-over-china-marketing-idUSKBN1DY028
This was cool to read about what kinda things are going on in the world of business, especially in regards to stocks. Here, Crown Resorts gets sued for not informing shareholders of a marketing campaign. They use data all the time, driven by the stock market they analyze price differentials in order to maximize profits.

Business Intelligence and Analytics Trends in 2018

This article discusses the Business Intelligence and Analytic Trends for 2018. Obviously, we are still in 2017, however, in this article it discusses what the projected trends in analytics and business intelligence are. One of the main points are the rise and growth of data analytics, as it is becoming more ingrained in our society and wold every day. Another point is that market size is rapidly changing and how we react to it is key over the next year or so.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hurricane-harveys-impact-and-how-it-compares-to-other-storms/

This article discusses Hurricane Harvey’s impact compared to other storms. I found it to be interesting because seeing visual representations of how each storm compares with others really puts into perspective how bad these storms are. For instance, Hurricane Katrina was the biggest and most destructive hurricane, whereas Hurricane Harvey luckily wasn’t as large and didn’t cause as many deaths, yet, they were the two highest costing storms of all. I feel like we think of the destruction caused by these storms but never how much was actually destroyed and how much it is going to cost to replenish what was lost. As an accounting major, I found that this article was relevant to me because of the comparison of financial aspects.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/all-living-former-presidents-team-up-for-ad-on-harvey-relief/
This article speaks on the latest ad launched by the former presidents of the U.S, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W Bush and Jimmy Carter in an attempt to reach out to Americans to donate to relief efforts for Hurricane Harvey. I found this article interesting because it provides amounts of money presidents have contributed in order to help, the ad that was launched, as well as all the information needed to donate to the One America Appeal. As an Advertising major, I found this article to be relevant to me especially, because of the ad itself and the impact of having not just 1 former president but all five. By doing this they reach all audiences across America, with the hopes that when someone sees 1 president they really liked over the other four it may sway them to donate.

http://time.com/4930134/donald-trump-hurricane-harvey-donations/

The data in this article shows how much money President Trump is donating to Hurricane Harvey relief, and where he is donating to. I found this interesting because as a Political Science major,I know that natural disasters can often be the black eye of a presidency. A president cannot control hurricanes or earthquakes, although he or she can fund climate change research to find out what is causing them, but they can donate to help. Donating, acknowledging the victims, and being supportive to the areas affected can really improve a president’s approval ratings. During Hurricane Katrina, former President George W. Bush failed to do these things, and was subsequently criticized by his constituents.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/datablog/2017/jan/06/tracking-the-cost-uk-and-european-commuter-rail-fares-compared-in-data
This article describes the tracking costs workers spend on rail passes in the UK and Europe. The data in this article shows that traveling costs can cost as much as 14% of their wages for monthly rail passes. Data shows that the UK spends 10%-14% of their average monthly wages while other countries in Europe spend as little as 2% up to 7%. I found this article interesting as an accounting major because it deals with budgeting and tracking employees expenses on traveling to their sources of income. Although the percentages are high for traveling, it is better to spend only 14% of pay on transportation in order to get to your job. The workers can now allocate these percentages to their monthly income which will ultimately help them with their budget so they have enough money left for other expenses.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/07/technology/business/equifax-data-breach/index.html

Over the past week a huge data breach occurred within the company Equifax. Equifax is a credit reporting agency in the USA. When the breach occurred, cyber criminals were able to access financial information such as credit card and social security numbers from over 140 million customers. In the article, security experts urge customers to continuously check their bank statements and credit card records. As an accounting major and a mis minor this article is particularly interesting to me because I plan on one day working within both the financial and cybersecurity field. This type of breach is a monumental data breach that will affect many people’s financial situation for years to come.

The url :https://www.informationweek.com/big-data/big-data-analytics/hurricanes-risk-analytics-in-a-world-of-uncertainty/d/d-id/1329816
This article discusses about how all the data available regarding hurricane disasters were used to estimates the loss from the upcoming devastating Hurricane Irma. My major in Actuarial Science involved in creating models that can predict and estimates any scenario that can incur loss. Related to the article, actuaries used the data to estimates the potential loss from the Hurricane Irma. It is also interesting that even with the latest software, the article said that their estimates might not still that accurate as there are still outliers needed to be considered based on their past experience. All in all, data from past catastrophic event is still not enough to predict what might happen in the future.

Occupation Matchmaker

This article is very interesting. It’s an analysis of who people tend/are more likely to marry based on their specific occupation. The article makes an interesting point that you’re more likely to marry people in your specific profession because those are the people you are exposed to most often. The article derives information from a survey given to married and unmarried couples. There’s a really cool and interactive graphic in the article too!

The article I found about data is from the New York Times regarding the recent Equifax data breach. This data breach is significant as financial information of as many as 143 million Americans has been leaked, including Social Security Numbers, names, birth dates, and more. As Equifax’s main function is to store the financial data of its’ customers, this hack is quite ironic; they failed at their one main job. This relates to my major, Information Science and Technology, as one of the large divisions of IST jobs is network and data security. Overall, this hack is quite troubling for a company whose main job is to protect their customers’ information.

Pizza Place Geography

This top of this article displays a map of the United States, and a key of the nine most dominant pizza chains in America. The point of the map is to show the nearest pizza place within a 10-mile radius across the United States. From a national perspective, Pizza Hut is the most dominant. Domino’s trails right behind it but lacks locations in the Midwest. Godfather’s is the most popular in the Midwest, while Papa John’s dominates the east central area, Papa Murphy’s dominates the northwest, and Little Caesar’s shows strength in Michigan and California. Although Chuck E Cheese’s has 557 locations across the united states, it does not compete with the other chains. I found this information relevant because it allows me to have a good understanding of which pizza place is closest to me, regardless of where I am in the United States.

Working on Tips, by State

This article highlights the ratio between wages and tips and showcases the disparity of tips across the US. As an Accounting major, I found this article particularly interesting for its economic aspects. It is common knowledge waiters and waitresses rely heavily on tips to sustain a living. It’s interesting to dive deep into the data and see just how much of an impact tips really make. Also from a tax standpoint, I’ve been curious as to how the IRS regulates this. One can be certain that not all tips are reported, and if they are, it is never the exact amount.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-100-year-old-hurricanes-could-teach-us-about-irma/

This articles discusses the impacts of hurricanes of the past. It talks about how scientists don’t know much about the causes of the hurricanes of today precisely because of the LACK of data about hurricanes in the past. Often times, hurricane databases would collect and tally hurricanes, but the form of collection would be flawed because it would not include every hurricane that hit the shore. Hurricane databases of the past would only record hurricanes that people have seen at sea, or ones that hit weather stations. It is hard to fill gaps in other aspects of environmental data, such as temperature or the impact of greenhouse gases in climate change,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-11/amazon-s-whole-foods-price-cuts-brought-25-jump-in-customers
This article discusses the impact Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods has had on the price of their groceries, as well as on other grocery chains. Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.7 billion and immediately began cutting prices “by as much as 43% on a range of items”. The article explains the buzz Amazon has brought to Whole Foods by comparing the chain to another popular supermarket, Kroger. One of the statistics the article highlights is the 35% increase in shoppers in Chicago locations. Whole Foods is making drastic changes and its influence is being felt by local and already existing supermarkets across the country.

https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/datablog/2017/jul/17/which-countries-most-and-least-committed-to-reducing-inequality-oxfam-dfi

The article I found tittled, “Which countries are the most (and least) committed to reducing inequality?” focused on providing data that shows countries that are either the most or the least committed to reducing inequality. The article talks about how measuring this information can be complex, so in order to do it accurately they needed to look at three key factors relating to to inequality such as spending on health, education and social protection, progressive structure and incidence of tax and labour market policies
to address inequality. Within the article, it lists the top 5 for most and least of each key factor and provides a visual representation as well which makes it more helpful to understand what countries are involved and where they are located as well.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory/lawsuits-gestures-customers-equifax-data-breach-49805055
This article is about the recent data breach from Equifax (a collection agency). This article is interesting because we talked about other data breaches in class and this one is very recent. Equifax is receiving new lawsuits after releasing social security numbers of over 143 million Americans. State and Federal authorities are investigating.The breach makes me question if there really is privacy. As an actuarial science major, I will also be working with people’s private information in order to create insurance rates. I hope the data I will be using will stay private for everyone’s sake.

http://www.football-data.co.uk/englandm.php

This article has everything you need to know about every English soccer game from 1993-2017. The data sets are broken down between seasons as well as between the different leagues each game is played in. There is a free downloadable link that you can click on for each individual year’s league which will take you into an Excel spreadsheet with so much information regarding each game played, including the two teams names, the date the games were played, the referee’s name, and so much more. I chose this article because I really love playing soccer and have played most of my life, including playing for the women’s club team here at Temple.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/irma-is-bearing-down-on-some-of-floridas-most-vulnerable-residents/
This article is about how Hurricane Irma affected some of the most vulnerable people in Florida. The article describes three populations that were greatly affected by the superstorm: migrant workers, those living in mobile homes, and those 65 and older. The article is interesting because it uses data to analyze which parts of Florida are most heavily populated with people falling under these categories. In some areas more than 40% of the population lives in mobile homes that are weak and could be heavily impacted by the storm. Similarly, the article talks about how the population of 65 and older in Florida is higher than in any other state (almost 20%). Using this data, the state government of Florida and first responders can pinpoint what areas they should most heavily advocate for mandatory evacuation in the future and which areas they should go to first to help those in need.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/ct-hurricane-irma-nfl-tv-ratings-20170911-column.html
The article I found builds on the dropping NFL ratings and how hurricane Irma may have affected that. Last year the NFL suffered from a huge drop in ratings and they hope to recover but after the inaugural game of the season, they are still trending down. This may have been because of hurricane Irma because over two million people were watching coverage of the hurricane during the Chiefs and Patriots game Thursday night. It will be interesting to see how the ratings pan out over this season, the sport Goliath known as the NFL may be declining.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americas-shifting-religious-makeup-could-spell-trouble-for-both-parties/

This article is about how America’s shifting religious makeup could affect both the Republican and Democratic party. The first reason i found this interesting is because i am a Political Science major and this could have monumental effects on political campaigning within the coming years. I also found this interesting as a Catholic, because even during Church i noticed there were frequently less “younger” people attending. But i did not realize, or even think, about how it could affect political gain for each party. I also found it interesting, when the article pointed out that the Democrats will have so many people to please that it is inherently challenging, With such a change in the political expectations within this past election, the role of religion seems to be the next major change to come.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-100-year-old-hurricanes-could-teach-us-about-irma/

This article above explains how the hurricanes form. It also tells us what we know about the article and how history could, in fact, be repeating its self. This article caught my attention because by knowing the statistics of the previous hurricanes it can tell us what to expect. The result of all this data makes it easier for scientists to spot climate change related patterns in the temperature. With this, it helps us know the information we need about hurricanes in the future.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-100-year-old-hurricanes-could-teach-us-about-irma/
This article explains how looking at historical data of hurricanes. Most people think that the rise in climate and heat leads to stronger, more frequent hurricanes. However, looking at the last 100 years of hurricanes, there is actually no correlation between the two. In fact, the rise in water level makes hurricanes more likely to happen.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/equifax-data-breach-how-to-protect-your-credit-rating/

This article was about the recent Equifax data breach, which resulted in leaked personal information such as, name, social security numbers, credit card numbers, and even license card numbers. The article gives helpful advice about how to go about using Equifax in the future and ways of protection against this happening again. They even have a section of what to never do, such as, use email as login and to also never log into account while being on a wireless hotspot. While this does not appear to my current major of philosophy, I do find this quite interesting being that I use to be a computer science major back at Moravian before I transferred, and it also is interesting being that I want to do corporate law and emphasizes how a hack can result in loss of personal information, resulting in lawsuits of the people towards the company.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/09/apple-iphone-8-one-trillion-dollar-question
This article has to do with Apple and a big week they have coming up. The iPhone 8 is scheduled to be released on September 12th, which could help Apple become the first trillion dollar company. A share price graph in the article shows how much Apple has progressed since January 2007 and how close they are from becoming the first trillion dollar company. As a supply chain management major, supply is always a concern when a new product is released but the company doesn’t seem worried.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/students-at-most-colleges-dont-pick-useless-majors/
This article takes a look at a common criticism thrown at many millennials in higher education, that they are wasting their money on “useless” degrees. “Useless” could be easily defined as less practical majors that provide students with careers that pay less than it cost them to get the degree in the long run. However, after analysis it seems that students overwhelmingly are enrolled in practical and “useful” majors, and that it is often how selective the school is that determines ones success within paying off their degree. This seems logical as most people desire to get into more selective schools and supports what I have anecdotally seen in my time here at temple, most people are highly interested in getting a good paying job when it’s all over and aren’t here to waste money.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2017/aug/22/how-much-do-abortions-cost-across-australia-explainer

This article is talking about the dilemma of legal abortion in Australia. Campaigns for easier access to abortion in Australis can make the law have changed, but abortion still too hard to help those women who are homeless or low income. the point is the high price for the abortion. The cost of an abortion varies according to state, location, the method of termination and gestation. In Australis, the price range is 500-800 Australi dollars. After the first trimester, costs increase significantly.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/01/upshot/cost-of-hurricane-harvey-only-one-storm-comes-close.html
This article shows the cost of Hurricane Harvey. While it is too early to know the exact number, experts predict it will cost somewhere between $72-$108 billion. This is interesting because there is also another graph in the article that shows the amount of billion dollar disasters since 1980. As the years have passed, the amount of billion dollar disasters has drastically increased. Some are saying that this graph speaks on the fact that climate change is real and that the number of these billion dollar disasters is only going to keep increasing.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/sep/12/america-income-high-census-2016-obama-recession
This article shows growth in the American Economy. The data shows that households are making more money every year. Also shows that poverty is on a decline. It’s interesting because we have reached record peaks with a president a lot of people dislike and say had little impact. He has data behind him to show he is a big part of the climb out of the previous recession we experienced even although he was years after it. Another thing is that more and more Americans have health insurance and that also has data behind it. Im in between a major in finance or economics so the article headline drew me right to it.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/irma-is-bearing-down-on-some-of-floridas-most-vulnerable-residents/

So I am a Marketing major with a MIS minor so anything with data will be in my field. I read this really interesting article at fivethirtyeight about how Hurricane Irma will affect some of the most vulnerable residents in Florida. Those vulnerable residents are referred to as elder and poor people. It was just very interesting that they analyzed where these types of residents lived.

News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017

I am a Media Studies and Production major so I chose an article on news use across social media platforms in 2017. I found this article interesting because it shows how many adults in the United States use social media to get their news as opposed to reading a newspaper or watching the news on TV. It also shows that over half of Americans over the age of 50 get their news from social media sites as well. This is somewhat surprising because this age group did not grow up using Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites but they are clearly making the switch of how they get their news.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/09/data-protection-measure-removed-california-values-act
Here is an interesting article about data protection that has been revoked in the state of California. After the recent election, a rights group helped construct a bill that protects data collected by the government in regards to immigrants and does not allow this data to be used for deportations and religious registries. This bill was to stop federal immigration authorities from using data collected by California law enforcement. This however was cut from the final bill due to negotiations between the California state senate. The bill still protects immigrants in other ways however their data rights are up in the air

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/07/equifax-credit-breach-hack-social-security

I found an interesting article about the Equifax credit hack that happened last week. The hack exposed the SSN of 143 million Americans and the personal information like birthdates, addresses, and credit card numbers. This is very sensitive information because they can destroy peoples’ identities with this kind of data they possess. This information was stolen from about 60% of adults in America, I found it interesting because who knows if anyone in our class was part of that data breach. This makes it scary that literally nothing is safe out there. Hackers can get to anything.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/08/why-do-big-hacks-happen-blame-big-data
This article talks about Big Data and how detrimental it can be when the wrong people get their hands on it. I am an MIS major, so this has very much to do with my major and I am fascinated with Big Data because it is the future of business. What was interesting about this article is that it states the idea that the amount of data that companies can collect should be limited because they keep getting hacked, and all this information keeps getting into the wrong hands. It then goes on to list some examples of big hacks over that past few years. One of the last interesting things I read in the article was that the more we allow these companies to collect data, the worse the hacks are gonna become. Advanced cybersecurity is not enough anymore.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/surviving-a-big-storm-doesnt-mean-the-trauma-is-over/

This article discusses the unpredictable effects that disasters such as hurricanes can have on the mental health of survivors. A study after Hurricane Katrina showed that reports of headaches and migraines among the population affected increased from 19% to 56% within 19 months after the storm. Chernobyl is also used as an example; stating that while it was estimated that only approximately 4000 people’s lives would be affected by exposure to high levels of radiation, nearly all of the 350,000 who were displaced believed that their lives would be shortened because of the public stigma around the accident. This stigma resulted in much higher rates of depression, alcoholism, and other mental health issues among survivors of Chernobyl than the general population.

URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170905145548.htm
This article settles the debate between cell phone use and neurological problems in children. As we learn more about the technology around us, many people create ideas that this technology, radioactive waves in particular, are harmful to our mind and bodies. This research shows no support of the hypothesis that the effects on child’s language, communication and motor skills is due to the use of mobile phones during pregnancy. This article is relevant to my major because as communication studies major, technology is a huge part about how we communicate with each other and mobile devices are where we see most of our advertisements for businesses throughout the day. When people start fearing that their cell phones will create neurological problems in their children, they will be hesitant to continue using their phones and advertisers will lose viewers of their ads and therefore have less people buying their products or services.

https://theasc.com/blog/the-film-book/monumental-intimacy-the-experience-of-amp-lt-i-amp-gt-dunkirk-amp-lt-i-amp-gt

This article is about one of the biggest films in this year. It is about the film Dunkrick, by Benjamin B. I’m a film major student, so these article are really interested to me. The writer talked about the experience of the film. He also mentions how the film had been shot and which different cameras did the director used to shoot it. Benjamin also evaluated the film in terms of visual storytelling and how the director makes the image speaks other than using dialogue to deliver his missage.

http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/college/T012-S001-best-college-majors-for-your-career-2017-2018/index.html

Korea’s Coinone Launches Physical Cryptocurrency Exchange

This article addresses how South Korea has opened a physical cryptocurrency exchange that supports 6 cryptocurrencies including, BTC, BCH, ETH, ETC, XRP, and QTUM. The exchange not only allows people to purchase cryptocurrencies, but it also has consultation services. As an international business major, this article was interesting because it shows how another country is adapting quicker than America in regards to recognizing the potential of cryptocurrencies. If you had invested $100 when bitcoin was priced at .003 cents 7 years ago, then you would have about $130 million dollars today. As of now, 1 bitcoin is worth $3912.

Considering my major is undecided, I thought the smartest thing to research was information on college majors. I found a listing of the “10 Best College Majors for a Lucrative Career” and some of the data was quite interesting and surprising to me. The first thing they tell you, which was added motivation not to drop out, is that a worker with a bachelor’s degree typically earns two-thirds more than someone with just a high school diploma. The top ten from ten to one are as follows: finance, actuarial mathematics, physics, business administration, management information systems, computer science, mechanical engineering, civil engineering, biomedical engineering, and nursing. Almost every major is either business or engineering of some sort. Each major also has an average starting salary of more than 50,000 dollars. The site includes data about annual online job postings, related jobs, and projected 10-year job growth, for each major. I thought that data was important when deciding on a major. However, the only thing that was a let down based on this information was that I do not have a specific interest in any of the majors listed.

This article is about the pricing of Apple’s new smartphone, the Iphone X. For the first time, since the release of smartphones, this phone will cost over $1000. There’s a chart in the article that compares smartphone sales in different countries and it shows that android is leading in sales in all of the countries. So with a $1000 phone being release now, i wonder if sales for iPhone will be lower even more especially in developing countries.

Every NFL Football Now Has a Data Tracking Chip for Improved Game Statistics

The NFL has partnered up with Zebra Technologies and Wilson Sporting Goods to insert microchips into footballs used during games to collect data. Some of the data that will be collected will include the location, ball rotation metrics, and speed. In the past, the NFL has used microchips inserted into players’ shoulder pads, but decided to add it to footballs to collect more data on what happens during a game. NFL coaches will also have access to this data to make a plan on how he or she will train the players based on their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, in the past when kickers kicked field goals, referees had a difficult time using the human eye when the ball went through the crossbars to decide if a kick was good or not. So, with the microchips inserted into the footballs, the referees can now use the previous location data collected from the football kicked to decide if the kick was good or not.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-cities-share-the-most-crime-data/

This article analyzes which major cities in America share the most crime statistics with its inhabitants, and which do not. The author goes over different kinds of data that each city might make public, such as 911 calls, victim injuries, gang involvement and everything in between. The conclusion reached by the author is that those cities who release the most crime statistics to the public are the smartest, as releasing this information to the public allows the inhabitants of any particular city to better know the areas that could potentially be dangerous, and what they can do to be safer citizens.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/forecasts-have-done-a-good-job-predicting-irmas-shifting-path/

This article shows a 5 day forecasted path of Hurricane Irma and how it’s path changed. The data shows that Hurricane Irma’s path shifted, messing up previous predictions of it’s location, time, and wind speed. I found this article to be very interesting because it gave the reader the exact numbers of how off the predictions were. Thought it was neat how they can track the path of a hurricane and give an estimate of the wind speed. Being able to track storms 5 days in advance is very helpful and gives the people being affected by it time to prepare/evacuate.

Blockchain promises it can protect everyone from DDoS attacks and data tempering, prevent voter fraud, speed up transactions, reduce costs, and enforce transparency and auditability. Many cases of huge data breaches such as this week with Equifax show the the risk and exposure people today face. This article really fascinates me because a lot of purchases can now be processed through blockchain currency and many of the top big companies including google and facebook have already invested millions and billions into blockchain and tech start ups. Technology is evolving quicker than ever and this is just an example of it.

How blockchain will finally convert you: Control over your own data

http://www.govtech.com/data/The-Case-for-Cross-Silo-Data-Defending-Children.html

This article is interesting to me because it discusses how it would be a good idea to share data between different agencies like the Police Department and hospitals and Human Services, to protect vulnerable children from abuse and neglect. It relates to me because I am a Social Work major and although I plan to work with older children, I am also interested in maybe working as a hospital social worker at first.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/france-tells-whatsapp-to-stop-sending-user-data-to-facebook/

France has ordered WhatsApp to stop sending data to Facebook so they can tailor ads towards their users. France’s privacy firm, CNIL, says that WhatsApp has violated France’s nationwide Data Protection Act. WhatsApp has 30 days to comply to the demands. Other European agencies have also ordered the same thing as France. Germany has also ordered them to stop and is currently in the process of suing them.

One of the most common pieces of conventional wisdom I hear during the winter is that common colds are caused by being chilled, or having wet hair and going outside. I have never known this speculation to be true, so in order to test it, I would need to have a group of people as test subjects. The types of data I would have to collect are: the test subject’s temperature before the experiment, the temperature outside, and the subject’s temperature after walking outside for a set a mount of time. Half of the group would walk around with wet hair and the other half would walk without. Soon after the experiment, I would follow up to find out which of the subject’s had contracted an illness, and figure out what group they were in.

I have often heard people say that exposing kids to violent games, shows, or movies leads to bad or violent behavior from those children later on in life. In order to test this, I would choose two sets of children and have half of them watch violent tv shows and the other half not see them at all. I would then have to monitor their actions as they age. This would be an extensive experiment and hard to truly test because of the amount of time it would take, but if there are enough kids to test it might actually be accurate and I could possibly see if these shows do in fact affect their behavior.

As a frequent ice chewer, I have been told that “chewing ice ruins/breaks your teeth”. Although I have been doing this for years and my teeth are perfectly normal, it could be proven accurate. In order to disprove or prove this “conventional wisdom”, I could have a dentists examine the teeth of “ice chewers” throughout a duration of time to see if chewing ice actually ruins or breaks teeth.

One piece of conventional wisdom I’ve heard is “money can’t buy you happiness.” As some people may believe this is true, I would test it by developing a list of 150 people (3 from each state, and 1 person from each economic class) and sending them a survey to be filled out. Questions will be constructed to figure out: 1. if they believe in this saying, 2. if they made the transformation from depression to happiness by accumulating more wealth and 3. if they ever went from low class to upper class and if they became happier 4. if they ever had a transition in their life my making more money one year and how that year was for them 5. and the lower and middle class can be given the opportunity to make the transition and if they are happier at the end of the experience, while the upper class will be treated vice versa.

One example of conventional wisdom that I found interesting is “you got what you paid for” which simply means the price of an item represents the quality of the item. The cheaper the item, the lower the quality. This quote can be supported or disapproved by collecting data of the reviews made on online store website. For example, a rice cooker. Collect the customers’ review on different rice cookers in terms of the prices which is the cheap one, the moderate and the expensive one. Then see whether all of the rice cookers have the same positive/negative feedback by the customer or the comments were mixed.

People often believe that by doing tons of cardio you will lose weight faster. However, every body type is different and reacts differently to certain forms of exercise. While some people do lose weight due to cardio, others have gained weight. This can be proven through data saying high intensity intervals work better and that lifting heavy has a more stimulative effect on your metabolism and central nervous system than a long run or spin class ever could.

One piece of conventional wisdom is that processed foods are bad for you. To prove or negate this statement, we could take a large sample of men with the same BMI, and take blood samples to test their blood sugar, cholesterol, and other health levels. Then we would have half of the group eat 2000 calories daily of only whole foods for 3 months, and have the other half eat 2000 calories daily of only processed foods for 3 months. After the three months, we would test their blood again to see if their levels improved, got worse, or stayed the same, and make a conclusion about processed foods and your health.

I always hear “You get what you payed for” whether it is buying something expensive or inexpensive. For example, when I was in search for a computer for college, everyone recommended an Apple laptop. Apple sells their laptops for over $1000, with a high price it is almost always assumed to be better and receive more. But is that always true? The data I could collect to support or disprove this statement is to gather information on storage, analytical skills, size, versatility, speed and many more characteristics of quality computers. I can collect this data from different computers ranging in different prices and then compare.

One common example of conventional wisdom is that “Fat people are just lazy and have no self-discipline.” It doesn’t matter how much you weigh because there is no correlation between how much a person weighs and how productive he/she is. The definition of the word “fat” is also different from person to person. In order to test this, I would have people of all different sizes be given an optional task to complete by the end of the day. At the end of the day, I would see who finished the task and who didn’t, and see if there is a correlation between weight and productivity.

As a female, something that has always been looming throughout my teenage years is the saying “beauty is pain.” I’ve always found this statement to be quite dramatic because I don’t believe that “with pain comes beauty.” In order to disprove this type of conventional wisdom, I would collect data based on a specific beauty regime that often causes others pain or one of which is known to be painful. In this instance, I’d test the sentiments of women who wax their legs. Seeing as smooth, shaven legs is considered “beautiful,” I would send out a survey asking women 1.) do you wax your legs and 2.) does waxing your legs hurt? Obviously, this would also have a lot to do with the woman’s pain tolerance but it can make the argument that beauty does not (always) cause pain nor is it the same entity.

One example of conventional wisdom is that the more teachers with a much easier class environment will lead to students getting higher grades. This is often not the case. If teachers offer a class with very little work or stress, it often leads to students slacking and getting grades that are much worse than that of a teacher who pushed his or her students much more. This can be proven using data that shows which teachers offer the least amount of work, and the grades of the students in those classes.

A piece of conventional wisdom that I am familiar with is the concept of “If you don’t use it you lose it” in regards to skills both academically and physically. I believe that the data would support this, however it would be interesting to see if it applies to both physical and mental abilities. Of course without any activity an athlete would lose their skill, however certain professional athletes seem to get away with practicing less than their peers. It can also seem that while some students must practice often, others find material comes very easy to them consistently once they understand it initially. We could let athletes practice at a normal rate for a season as something to test against and then have them play a season where they practice half as much to determine an association. A similar test could be applied to ones mental abilities in the form of a timed aptitude test comparing a period of time where they study often to one where they study half as often. After the experiments it could be seen if there is evidence to support the conventional piece of wisdom “If you don’t use it, you lose it”.

I often hear people say that drinking coffee every day is bad for your health. I drink coffee on a daily basis and have yet to notice a difference in my health. Although it would depend on each person’s lifestyle and coffee order, you could collect data to compare the health of people who drink coffee every day versus people who don’t drink coffee to see if coffee can actually have a negative effect on people’s health.

The ideal path for students to take is usually said to be immediately after high school they should go off to a four year university. However this may not be the best option for them, maybe taking a year or two to attend a community college and get acclimated to a college class work load could do wonders for students. Saying this as a transfer student from a community college, my one year there has helped me not be overwhelmed by the amount college classes want from their students, not to mention it saves money. The potential data to test this could involve observing four year university students’ GPA versus that of a transfer from a community college. Another data that would either prove or disprove this hypothesis would be to test stress level among students from both groups, with my hypothesis saying that transfer students would have less stress. Based on the test results, it could change the outlook on how students view post high school plans.

I have often heard, you must have a good business plan to be successful in the business world. To disprove this claim, I would survey CEOs of long standing businesses. I would use the data to determine whether these CEOs started off with a good business plan or if they didn’t have a business plan in mind at all and how this contributed to their success.

One piece of conventional wisdom that I definitely hear in college, is that beer makes you fat, as oppose to drinking liquor. Hence the creation of the word “beer gut” As a bartender, I never thought this was true. If you drink 10 beers vs. 10 jack and cokes, I am sure the jack and cokes contain much more calories and sugar than the beer, however this needs to be proven. What I would do to test this is to get a group of skinny, ready-to-party freshmen, where one group is only allowed to drink liquor, and the other group is only allowed to drink beer. I would test how much % of their weight increased over their first year at school. There will be many variables, such as how much do they actually drink, however on average each group should drink around the same amount of alcohol.

Many people say that an apple away keeps the doctor away. But we don’t really know if this is true. In order to figure out if this is true, I would conduct an experiment. In this experiment, I will find people of the same age, weight, BMI, etc. and split them up into 2 groups, one of which will be the control group and the other group, who will eat 1 apple a day. Over a period of 6 months, I would assess how many times both groups have doctor’s visits during this period. I will take out doctor’s visits that would be considered outliers, such as emergency accidents, etc. And then, I would see if the non-control group really has had less doctor’s visits in a 6 month period just because they are an apple a day.

One common example of conventional wisdom is that cracking your joints causes arthritis. This can be proved by going to people that have had a habit of cracking their fingers for a long time and see record the long term results. If you put all the results together you can see the trends and the possibility of arthritis being caused by cracking joints.

A piece of conventional wisdom that I’ve heard is the statement is “past performance is a good predictor of future performance”. This statement has been widely accepted to be true by the people in business, school, and sports. But that isn’t always the case and there are a ton of examples to use to disapprove this statement. The data that I would use to collect to test this is in sports especially since so many athletes are paid because of past performance and many flame out in the future. Collecting data of athletes that performed exceptional in the past, got a huge contract, and were busts in their future performance could be data used to disapprove that statement.

An example on conventional wisdom is “You have to earn more money.” This is completely subjective and depends on the type of person you are. Some people are completely content with the amount of money making and see no reason to need to get a better job to make more money. People that say this are saying this only to get a better lifestyle to buy nicer things, but that is not what everyone values. You could test this by taking a poll on people and ask them if they think they need to earn more money.

An example of “conventional wisdom” is people think they shopping on the Black Friday will save their money. in this case, they forget when people see the sale item, they may buy more products even they don’t need it at all. for the test, I will compare the family expense on black Friday to rest of days. also, I want to check the discount rate of the stores. as we know, there also have some good discount in other holidays.

I remember from when I was in high school people would always say that you have to have extremely high grades to get into specific colleges. This I believe is a prime example on conventional wisdom because although intelligence is a major deciding factor in the admissions process, nowadays it seems that many elite colleges are accepting students based on who they are as a whole and not what their transcripts define them as. I would disprove this claim by collecting data on an incoming class based on grades, background, extracurricular activities, etc. I would then use the data to compare what percentages of students were accepted with lower grades but stood out in other areas with the percentage of students who alone had exceptional grades.

Growing up I often heard that you can’t have a good, successful career without a college degree. However, I’ve heard of many CEOs of successful businesses that don’t have college degrees. One of the ways I would disprove this would be to do a survey of current CEOs or top executives of over 100 businesses and see how many of them do and don’t have college degrees. This data would show what percentage of the sample surveyed doesn’t have a college degree, showing just how many people managed to have a very successful career without a formal education.

A common example of conventional wisdom that I have often hear, is that you should get a college degree if you want to be successful in your life. I believe that this can be disproven because some people just might not be cut out for college or sometimes people just do not think it is necessary. Often times society looks down upon others who do not decide to get a degree because they think they are not smart. However, that is not always the case as many successful CEO’s are people who decided not to go to college. One way you can collect data on this topic is by looking at the top CEO’s and seeing who got a degree and who did not. Another way is to research the average income between people who only graduated high school or people who graduated high school and college to see which ones are the most successful.

The conventional wisdom statement I first thought of is that practice makes perfect, or those who practice something more will be more skilled than those who do not. I believe this is generally true, however some people are born to be experts in certain areas. The way to test this statement is to have to groups of people who have never practiced a certain activity, and have one group practice for a specified time while the other group does not. One example could be shooting free throws in basketball, the two groups of people must have no basketball skills prior to the experiment. One group would practice taking free throws for a specified time period while the other does not. After the time period is over, each person would take a few free throws, and the percentage of free throws made could be calculated. From the calculations you could derive knowledge of how practice impacts performance.

Some conventional wisdom I have heard over the years is the idea that being successful in the business world is all about the connections you make with other people and colleagues. Basically, the more people you build relationships with in the business world, the more likely it is that opportunities will come available to you. While I believe this holds true to some extent, I would still test my hypothesis by asking wealthy business owners/ partners how they got started.
Grace Stuart

One piece of conventional wisdom a lot of younger people hear is that if you don’t go to college or get good grades that you won’t end up with a good job. While that may be true for some people there are plenty of other people who have started their own businesses and never went to college. To collect information on this I would survey different CEOs or founders of companies to see if they went to college and if they did what their GPA was when they graduated. Through this data I would determine if there was a relationship between their success in the professional world and their education.

An example of a Conventional wisdom is that “Money can buy happiness” or “Money can’t buy happiness” is that true? these two quotes are wrong and we can disprove them by claiming that rich and poor people are humans and they’re alike. And there are many rich people that they are not happy because of a health issue or for what ever reason. Either statement can be disprove and can’t be a fact.

Often in life people tell us that if your plan in life isn’t working, you should change directions and try something else instead. Although many people follow this rule of life, I am a big believer in following your goals and dreams until you reach them. I believe that even if you don’t hit your intended end goal, you can still learn a lot about yourself and about life itself by aiming for your biggest dreams and trying to achieve them. To test out this piece of conventional wisdom, you could find a group of people with a set of goals and periodically check on those that decide to give up and those that have stuck to their goal. I would check the progress up to 3-5 years to see what the people that stuck to their goal have learned and if they feel it was the correct choice to stick with it. I would also check to see if those that gave up have regrets about giving up.

I have always heard that students who attend class get better grades. To test this, I would record all the student’s attendance in a certain class and compare their attendance with their grade. This would allow me to identify any correlation between the two. I would do this for several classes to get a more accurate result.

One piece of conventional wisdom I would hear a lot is “violent video games lead to poorly behaved kids/violent adults,” which I never really believed, but most of the adults in my family did. To test this statement, I could collect data from an experiment studying children who do and do not play violent video games, and monitor their behavior for a long period of time. I could also study violent offenders and interview whether or not they played video games growing up, and what kind of video games they played.

An example of conventional wisdom that I hear often is that having the AC on in a car uses much more gas than rolling the windows down. To determine whether or not this is true I would compare the amount of gas used in a car with the air conditioning on to the amount of gas used in the same car on the same route with the windows down.

One piece of conventional wisdom that I’ve heard is that you shouldn’t go outside when it is cold because you will get the common cold. One piece of data you can use to disprove or prove this statement is looking up data showing a link between common colds and cold weather. Another piece of data you could use is the data on the common cold posted by the CDC and see the ways to attract a cold. This will either prove or disprove this piece of conventional wisdom

Conventional wisdom would say that getting a job with good job security and adequate compensation is much more likely when having a college degree. To measure the truth of this wisdom, I would first identify specific occupations and group them by their likelihood of requiring a college degree. Then, consulting sources such as the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, I would collect occupation-specific data such as figures on compensation and amount of jobs in the market. This data could then be summarized and evaluated across the previously made groups. Perhaps this method would find that most of the better paying jobs available to the workforce are trade-based or in fields of manual labor.