Leave your response as a comment on this post by the beginning of class on October 9. Remember, it only needs to be three or four sentences. For these weekly questions, I’m mainly interested in your opinions, not so much particular “facts” from the class!
Here is the question:
Just like you did about a month ago, find another online article dated within last two weeks from a credible source that has something to do with data and is interesting and relevant to you. Copy and paste the URL directly into your response followed by a few sentences that explain what is interesting about it.
https://www.kcra.com/article/stockton-basic-universal-recipients-data/29354243
Again, as a journalism major, any news coverage that uses data to uncover stories, inform stories, and report stories is of interest to me. I think this story is interesting because research is a commonly covered type of story, but the data reported in this story is the main aspect of the story, and acts as its own sort of reporting for journalists. I feel like news articles like this, focused on reporting and explaining results of data, is kinda like metadata?
https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-2018-crime-statistics
I am preparing a research proposal for a panel data class for my master’s curriculum related to decarceration outcomes. This article from the FBI notes highlights from its recently published 2018 crime statistics, including the decrease in both violent and property crimes, estimates of losses and property damages, and arrest records. Something I found particularly interesting is that the article cautions the reader in interpreting crime rankings for cities and states created by entities that use these FBI data, as “rough rankings provide no insight into the numerous variables that mold crime in a particular town, city, county, state, tribal area, or region”. In other words, many organizations that conduct their own analyses of these crime data fail to account for the nuances of crime and why it happens, and come out with reports and rankings that are too simplistic. Given that highly specific crime data are classified and tend to be unavailable to the general public, this article was useful in helping me understand what kind of data are available to me for my project.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/01/us/politics/democratic-fundraising.html
This article looks at the summer fundraising efforts by the Democrats who are in the 2020 presidential race. I have always been interested in politics and am trying to keep up with the election as much as possible. I like this data visualization primarily because it is simple and clear. Often, information about campaign finance and presidential races in general are bogged down in jargon. I like that this infographic conveys individual contributions from the FEC and campaign announcement sources through the use of color.
http://www.startribune.com/insiders-drive-most-cyber-security-breaches-according-to-study-for-minnesota-s-code42/562174112/
This article talks about employees taking data with them when they switch jobs and how this is the biggest threat to an organization’s cybersecurity and data integrity. I found this interesting since I am taking a cybersecurity class and learning how difficult it actually is to keep data secure. I also had to do a lot of trainings during my summer internship about confidentiality that I always thought were dramatic or unnecessary, but reading articles like this and taking the MIS security class has shown me how important employee practice is in maintaining confidentiality and what could go wrong if even one employee in a gigantic company doesn’t follow protocol.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-nfl-got-weird-all-of-a-sudden/
As a statistics major, it interests me to read about different metrics and how they relate to sports. This article goes into how the NFL saw a lot of unpredictable outcomes in week 4. Based on the data that 538 has collected, their elo rating system picked over half the games wrong. This is interesting to me as I am a fan of football as well as applications of data driven models to real life scenarios. Looking forward, 538 expects the unpredictable trend to continue as they went back and used their model on past data and found some inconsistencies over time.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/fear-overtakes-greed-in-ipo-market-after-wework-debacle-11570354200?mod=hp_lead_pos4
The article outlines how IPOs, which in the beginning of the year returned astronomical performances (looking at you Beyond Meat), have considerably cooled off due to late cycle economic fears and an underwhelming result from recent IPOs including Lyft, Uber, and Slack. According to Goldman Sachs, IPO stock performance for the year is at its worst levels since at least 1995. I find this particularly interesting because some of the hottest/most glamorous technology startups have already IPO’d or plan to do so in the near future, so it will be interesting to see how these companies shift their exit strategies in the wake of the current macroeconomic landscape.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-unveils-pension-plan-changes-aimed-at-paring-deficit-debt-load-11570447318?mod=hp_lead_pos3
This article displays the true issues that GE is facing in 2019 with its debt obligations. I particularly chose this article because I am an avid investor and find it interesting how General Electric is trying to restructure and become successful again. General Electric just put a new CEO in place and I think he is doing a great job trying to reduce debt. By freezing 20,000 pensions, the debt that GE has to pay out will rapidly decline. I think this is an appropriate step for General Electric’s future.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-mlbs-postseason-teams-were-mostly-obvious-from-the-start/
I found this article interesting as a sports fan. Everyone loves to hear the story of the underdog coming out of nowhere and winning everything. This MLB season seems to ruin that story. The data all season long pointed towards the same teams making the postseason. This almost never happens in sports with almost all teams expected of making the postseason doing so. This MLB season is an outlier in the normally unpredictable world of sports.
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3030862/police-battle-protesters-they-set-streets-ablaze-central
I have been paying attention to news from China and Hong Kong recently, and I saw this article a few days ago. Some of the data in this article shocked me. I did not expect that this is the 17th consecutive weekend of anti-government protests in Hong Kong. The number of injuries and arrests mentioned in this article is a heartbreaking data. Also, there are more than 200 shops and public utilities have been damaged in the unrest. However, I think violence cannot solve the problems, I hope that the problem can be solved soon.
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/telehealth/12-hospitals-health-systems-launching-telehealth-services-3.html
This article contains data about 12 hospital systems that are implementing telehealth. As an actuarial science major hoping to go into the healthcare industry, telehealth is a booming topic. Telehealth can increase hospital efficiency and increase medical and healthcare accessibility. Most importantly, it can reduce medical and healthcare costs. This a major part of my future as an actuary.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-americans-support-impeaching-president-trump/
This article contains data regarding how Americans feel about impeaching Trump, broken down by day and by party. The way the data is broken down by day is very interesting, because you can see how certain events changed opinions. This is interesting, and very pertinent due to the political climate and upcoming elections.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/340297
This article explores how data science is transforming the insurance industry. The application of big data and machine learning has helped customers find quotes, buy coverage and file claims much quicker. Unstructured data, such as driving behavior, can also be collected and analyzed for more customized pricing and coverage. It also helps prevent and detect insurance fraud, which can bring overall premiums price down. It looks like data science can benefit both sides of the insurance market.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/sep/18/vaping-e-cigarettes-high-school-students-total
With the recent news of teenagers being hospitalized due to vaping, this article breaks down the data involving smoking/vaping and the teenage population. I think that the topic is something discussed often and the author did a great job portraying the data. I found it interesting because the data was broken into ages, races, and different nicotine products. It showed that the percentage of high school students vaping has jumped from 12% to 21% in the last year and that white students are the most common e-cigarette users. The growing usage of nicotine among the youth combined with the vaping-related illnesses in the news, the government is considering some form of ban.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/do-americans-support-impeaching-president-trump/
This is an article about data surrounding Trump’s possible impeachment. I think that it’s very interesting to see the data reports of how many Americans support and don’t support this, especially along a timeline of events regarding the case. I think that this article is relevant to all of us because it has to do with the future of our president. It is also relevant to our class at the moment because it includes an example of data visualization.
https://flowingdata.com/2019/09/30/pixelation-to-represent-endangered-species-counts/#more-57346
This article displays a creative data visualization representing the endangerment of 22 different animal species. Images of the respective animals are pixelated, with the number of pixels representing the estimated number of animals left globally (in addition to the total # labeled). By virtue of this design, it is more difficult for readers to perceive the forms of more endangered species, and easier for less endangered species. Not only does this visualization provides simple values for the animal populations, but emotionally resonates with viewers by symbolically effacing the images of animal species at risk of disappearing.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-the-supreme-court-heading-for-a-conservative-revolution/
This article illustrates the number of precedents that were overturned either “unanimous[ly], narrowly decided by one vote, or in between” by different chief justices of the supreme court. I have a curiosity for law, so it’s interesting to see how the court may overrule prior precedents under Chief Justice John Roberts. From the graph, we can see that several of the precedents that were overturned under his court were narrowly decided by just one vote, a significant change from past chief justices, whose precedent-altering cases were often decided by a large consensus. This indicates the possibility that several precedents in the future could be controversial and undermine the supreme court’s image as a “neutral arbiter.”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/aaron-rodgers-has-been-magic-in-the-first-quarter-and-a-pumpkin-in-the-fourth/
This article piqued my interest because of its headline; it calls Aaron Rodgers a “pumpkin”. While used to describe his poor fourth quarter performance this season, it is both hilarious and seasonally appropriate. I knew Aaron Rodgers was struggling this year, but now I have a little more insight into why. Aaron Rodgers used to be considered clutch. What happened?
https://www.invespcro.com/blog/effectiveness-online-advertising/
As an advertising major, sometimes I wonder how the effectiveness of advertising can be measured and this article shows how different types of ads can be more efficient than others. It had great infographics and data visualizations like we studied in class.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-democratic-presidential-candidate-was-mentioned-most-in-the-news-last-week-10/
This article looks at how often each Democratic presidential candidate has been mentioned or discussed on a few of the main news networks (CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.). Joe Biden has been mentioned the most often, which is not surprising as he is the frontrunner for the nomination. Bernie has also been mentioned 8% more recently. This is relevant to me as a political science major, as I have been following the race fairly closely.
https://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/2019/10/07/cherry-hill-schools-computer-problems-ransomware-suspected/3899331002/
This article was particularly interesting to me because I am from Cherry Hill school districts so it added the perspective that I could have been a part of this. This article explains that Cherry Hill’s school district data has been hacked and they have lost access to teacher and administrator emails. Some files that were hacked now show hte word “Ryuk” which is a criminal group that expects money in return for access back to a stolen system. I think it is interesting because hacking seems as if it could be a growing threat. One may not have initially thought that a school district would be the target of hacking (Not as big as FBI, or CIA etc.) but it raises the concern that even people who aren’t a part of large organizations may have to be weary of cyberattacks.