It is hard to estimate how our daily activities contribute to contracting COVID-19. How risky is a 60-minute trip to the supermarket? How about a presidential debate with a known infected individual? The Microcovid Calculator is a simple tool to calculate risk based on published scientific literature on transmission. It outputs risk in the formContinue reading “Calculating risk with MicroCOVIDs”
Author Archives: Cameron Marlow
Is this thing on?
The path dependence of life leads to some pretty suboptimal outcomes sometimes. I used to have a practice of writing every day. It was rewarding! I met some cool people and learned a few things along the way. Then along came social media. What a great idea! All of my friends were in one place,Continue reading “Is this thing on?”
How voters turned out on Facebook
We just posted this on the Data Team Page, and I thought I would post it here as well. When Facebook users in the United States logged into Facebook on Election Day this year, they were greeted by a message alerting them of voting activity on Facebook. Users could click a button to announce toContinue reading “How voters turned out on Facebook”
Introducing Facebook Fellowships
Today I’m happy to announce that Facebook will be offering fellowships to support graduate students in the 2010-2011 school year. The program will provide tuition, stipend and other perks to lucky students whose applications are chosen. Lots more details can be found on the Facebook Fellowship page. The areas are quite broad, and reflect theContinue reading “Introducing Facebook Fellowships”
How Diverse is Facebook?
In order to make Facebook as open and connected as possible for everyone, one of our goals is to understand how different populations of users join and use the service. With that objective in mind, the Facebook Data team recently sought to answer the question, “How diverse are the ethnic backgrounds of the people usingContinue reading “How Diverse is Facebook?”
Androgenization of Cameron
The baby name blog has a great post about how some names seem to become more female over time. It would appear from recent years that many names are becoming increasingly androgynous, and parents are afraid: what if my boy’s name becomes girlish? The author posits that one could surmise, this is it, the boypocalypse:Continue reading “Androgenization of Cameron”
Youtube Epidemiology Interface
Youtube launched the most amazing statistics recently, hidden under their collapsed “Statistics & Data” header. Instead of a random list of awards, it now shows a timeline of the growth of the video’s popularity along with references to each source. Take for instance the video “Chap-hop History” by Mr. B the Gentleman Player: In additionContinue reading “Youtube Epidemiology Interface”
Teaching data science
The New York Times had a piece over the weekend discussing the how computer science curricula are limited in their capacity to teach distributed computation and data mining: For the most part, university students have used rather modest computing systems to support their studies. They are learning to collect and manipulate information on personal computersContinue reading “Teaching data science”
Venturing to the tail
It’s now second nature to think that the top 1% of media account for an overwhelming percentage of overall sales. But how many people actually consume content from the more obscure parts of Netflix’s catalog? Sharad and Co. at Yahoo! Research just released the results of some research looking at how users fit into long-tailContinue reading “Venturing to the tail”
Bay Bridge Logistics
Fortunately I’m not affected at all by the added day of Bay Bridge Closure, but this quote about the repair amazes me: The parts needed to make the fix were manufactured overnight by Stinger Welding Inc. in Coolidge, Ariz. Weighing about 18,000 pounds, they landed at Oakland International Airport aboard a chartered plane Sunday afternoon.Continue reading “Bay Bridge Logistics”
overstated 