The New York Times technology section follows the path blazed by its style section: three incidents constitutes a trend, particularly if the people involved are professionals.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Can someone sit down and explain statistics to the NY Times staff writers? Using small words and lots of pretty pictures? Perhaps Alex Massie might be available on a contract basis.
Update Ye Gods, the "story" has legs. CNN just ran a teaser for their coverage.
Update II Quote from CNN coverage: "Although bloggers who agreed with this story were hard to come by . . . " No suggestion that perhaps we should pay attention to people who, like, actually know what they're talking about.
this: "Can someone sit down and explain statistics to the NY Times staff writers? Using small words and lots of pretty pictures?"
like much else, in dealing with the purveyors of "All the News that's Fit to Print", would be an unconscionable waste of Time & Treasure.
un·con·scion·a·ble (n-knsh-n-bl)
adj.
1. Not restrained by conscience; unscrupulous: unconscionable behavior.
2. Beyond prudence or reason; excessive: unconscionable spending.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
un·conscion·a·ble·ness n.
un·conscion·a·bly adv.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
ThesaurusLegend: Synonyms Related Words AntonymsAdj. 1. unconscionable - lacking a conscience; "a conscienceless villain"; "brash, unprincipled, and conscienceless"; "an unconscionable liar"
conscienceless
unconscientious - not conscientious;
2. unconscionable - greatly exceeding bounds of reason or moderation; "exorbitant rent"; "extortionate prices"; "spends an outrageous amount on entertainment"; "usurious interest rate"; "unconscionable spending"
exorbitant, extortionate, usurious, outrageous, steep
immoderate - beyond reasonable limits; "immoderate laughter"; "immoderate spending"
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/unconscionable
Settle down and take your Plavix. It's not good for people in your line of work to get overly excited.
You know I've read a couple other posts making the same point. Must be a trend.
From the same NYT article:
Megan seems to be conflating an obvious rhetorical device with something intended to be understood literally.
You only now realize the NY Times is good only for bird cage lining?
I thought the stress:heart disease link is very weak or nonexistent.
You went to U of C, so maybe just maybe if I say "Medill" it rings a bell, different school notwithstanding? (I went to U. of Mo., so of course when I hear that word my nose rings with a contemptuous snort.) These people have a lot of pride in what they do, ya know?
Many journalists have spent the best years of their lives paying dues. And then some snotnosed new medium comes along and starts eating their lunch. Now anybody with talent who can cite straight is in a position to share their reportage with as many people care to read it. Meanwhile, Google and Craigslist are busy dividing between them the revenue sources that formerly paid for that reportage.
I dropped all hope of a print journalism career early in, staring out of focus at the current issue of Newsweek and realizing, "if Dad did it for twenty years and HATED it, what makes me think I'll like it any more than he did?" A year later, I was the mystified owner of my first e-mail account.
As for the ones who stuck it out, I don't think they'll go down without a fight.
Every day I feel gratitude for the serendipity of a changed mind... if I'd stuck it out, I'd think of myself as being up a creek, too.
I think it's much more likely to be a "List of Adrian Messenger" type thing. I wonder who else is on the list?
Using their methodology, and the fact that there are anywhere from 100-200 million blogs in the world, we can conclude that bloggers are almost immune to heart attacks. So three heart attacks means that bloggers have a .000003% chance of dying of a heart attack. I'll take those odds!
For comparison, there were 450,000 heart attack deaths in the US in 2004. Out of about 300 million people, that's a rate of .15%.
Bloggers are 500 times less likely to die of a heart attack!
These statistical results brought to you by the NYT School of Statistical Analysis.