I just finished listening to +TWiT from this weekend with +Leo Laporte, +Natali Morris, +Tim Stevens, and Denise Howell.  I don't find myself saying this about TWiT that often, but I disagree with the panel's thoughts on the recent revelations about Facebook's experimentation on their users news feeds.  (http://www.contriving.net/link/fr)

So many people seem to be in such a tizzy over this, but I just don't get it.

The very nature of human interaction is to influence others.  In today's world, we influence other people's emotions via advertisements.  We influence other people's emotions via "addictive" video games like Farmville or Simpson's Tapped Out.  We influence other people's emotions via how we choose to dress.  We influence other people's emotions via the type of car we drive.  All of this is intentional.

The more organized examples of influencing other people's emotions is done for a profit!  Heck, Zynga employs researchers whose sole purpose is to game your emotions and get you to spend more money.  The same holds true for advertising agencies, corporations, and political campaigns.

On the show +Tim Stevens brings up the point that websites do A/B testing all of the time to see what kind of content or presentation causes more user engagement.  That is exactly the same sort of thing.  Emotions drive user engagement.  *Websites manipulate your emotions to make more money.*  This is normal.  This is part of being human.

When you talk to the lady at the DMV you slap a smile on your face so you can manipulate her emotions in your favor so she'll hurry you through the process.  When you take your date to a fancy restaurant, you're manipulating their emotions for  some desired outcome.  

The majority of the time you're consciously or unconsciously partaking in a behavior to manipulate the emotions of those around you in your favor.

Facebook's experiment isn't any worse than any of these.  In fact, if you want to make a value judgement, it's probably the least "bad" out of them all, as the results of their experiment were published.

Finally, Leo brings up the point that the study was stupid because the results were obvious.  I have several things to say about that.  

First of all, I don't think the results are completely obvious.  Yes, I would have predicted the results they got with a fair amount of confidence. However, it's not out of the realm of possibility that people just don't care about their news feeds enough to let it affect them, or to see the opposite happen…namely for people to post more positive stories in "retaliation" against negative news feeds.

Secondly, you could extract a lot of nuance out of such a study.  Maybe, for each of the types of responses I detail in the last paragraph, there are groups of people who consistently respond in each manner.  That would be an interesting and useful result.

Lastly, just because you think the results of an experiment are obvious, doesn't mean the experiment is not worth doing.  You don't know for sure the results until you do them, and how wonderful is it when an experiment dis-confirms your beliefs?  Basically, using "obvious result" as the determining factor in choosing whether to do an experiment is a bad idea.

I'm no fan of Facebook.  I think it's a time wasting cesspool out of which most can extract very minimal amounts of value, and I only visit it a few times a year.  I just can't get excited about this relatively (if not absolutely) small experiment they did amidst the vast and turbulent sea of emotional manipulation we live in…particularly when the most pernicious examples are for profit and we accept those with barely a peep.

A lot of people have some sort of intuitive, it-just-feels-wrong, response to this story and I just don't get it.

Google+: View post on Google+

Google+: Reshared 7 times
Google+: View post on Google+

An animation demonstrating the movements of stars at the center of the Milky Way.

The best evidence of a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.

(source: http://www.contriving.net/link/fq)

Google+: Reshared 12 times
Google+: View post on Google+

 Additionally, when asked to ascertain by looking, people choose the men with wider faces as being better fighters.

Previous research also shows that men with wider faces are more aggressive.  Whether aggression makes the better fighter, or being a better fighter makes you more aggressive isn't addressed…

_Men with faces that are wide relative to their length are more formidable fighters, on average. That's according to a new paper that also finds that observers use the width of a man's face to ascertain with accuracy his likely fighting ability. _

Embedded Link

A man’s fighting ability is written in his face

Google+: Reshared 2 times
Google+: View post on Google+

The upshot of this new study:  _possible_ improvements in immunotherapy for pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most lethal cancers, with the survival period after diagnosis being only four to six months. The main reason for the poor prognosis is that chemotherapy, which has had some success in extending lives for patients with other cancers, doesn’t seem to slow down pancreatic cancer.

Embedded Link

Figuring out why drugs don’t work on pancreatic cancer
A mix of cancerous and normal cells alters interactions with the immune system.

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Having a better survival rate for cancer doesn't necessarily mean you're treating cancer better.

The problem here is simple: survival rates don't necessarily measure when people die. They also measure when they're diagnosed — and sometimes, that's all they measure.

Embedded Link

Is America better at treating cancer than Europe?
America spends much more on medical care than any other country. But are we getting anything for it?

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+

We hear a lot about how we're on track for solar power reaching cost-parity with conventional power sources.

One of the hurdles for grid-provided solar power is it's intermittent nature:  when the sun isn't shining solar doesn't power.

Some new research looks at concentrated solar power as a method of alleviating this issue.

CSP involves the use of mirrors to focus sunlight onto a liquid, rapidly bringing it up to extremely high temperatures. The resulting heat can be used immediately to generate electricity, or some fraction of it can be stored and used to drive generators later. Depending on the details of the storage, CSP can typically generate electricity for at least eight hours after the Sun sets, and some plants have managed to produce power around the clock during the summer.

Embedded Link

Analysis suggests that solar thermal can provide baseline power
But it requires careful coordination across multiple plants.

Google+: View post on Google+

Google+: Reshared 10 times
Google+: View post on Google+

Children of the 1980's (like the younger of these two co-authors) may fondly remember a TV cartoon called G. I. Joe, whose closing conceit—a cheesy public service announcement—remains a much-parodied YouTube sensation almost thirty years later. Following each of these moralizing pronouncements came the show's famous epithet: "Now you know. And knowing is half the battle."

While there may be some domains where knowing is half the battle, there are many more where it is not. Recent work in cognitive science has demonstrated that knowing is a shockingly tiny portion of the battle for most real world decisions. You may know that $19.99 is pretty much the same price as $20.00, but the first still feels like a significantly better deal. You may know a prisoner's guilt is independent of whether you are hungry or not, but she'll still seem like a better candidate for parole when you've recently had a snack.

Embedded Link

Edge.org
Children of the 1980’s (like the younger of these two co-authors) may fondly remember a TV cartoon called G. I. Joe, whose closing conceit—a cheesy public service announcement—remains a much-parodied YouTube sensation almost thirty years later. Following each of these moralizing pronouncements …

Google+: Reshared 1 times
Google+: View post on Google+