December 8, 2022

The Data Wars Are as Serious as the Ones with Guns

In the 1600s, we fought spice wars.  In the 1700s, we fought freedom wars — over-representation, taxation, and piracy.  In the 1800s, we fought slavery wars.  In the 1900s and 2000s, we fought oil wars. Today, w...

November 4, 2022

Banned by eBay

I was banned from eBay this week. Don't ask me why, because I don't know.  And eBay won't tell me. I believe that my account was locked because my daughter bought a Halloween costume they somehow considered suspect. ...

September 28, 2022

LinkedIn makes people thinner...in a bad way

Where did LinkedIn go wrong? The data scientists at LinkedIn wanted to ask a simple question: are you more likely to receive a job offer through a closer or a more distant connection?  The answer turns out to be counterintuitive — ...

July 27, 2022

Science Isn't the Problem

Pew Research recently released a poll showing a significant drop in the public's trust in science -- specifically, medical science. While the "trust trend" towards science has been downward for a while, the COVID-19 pandemic surfaced th...

July 22, 2022

Defining broadband down

Federal Communications Commission chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel wants to study changing the definition of broadband from 25MB/s to 100MB/s for downloads, and from 3MB/s to 20MB/s for uploads. Making this change would significa...