Download or read book Dataclysm written by Christian Rudder and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-09-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Bestseller An audacious, irreverent investigation of human behavior—and a first look at a revolution in the making Our personal data has been used to spy on us, hire and fire us, and sell us stuff we don’t need. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder uses it to show us who we truly are. For centuries, we’ve relied on polling or small-scale lab experiments to study human behavior. Today, a new approach is possible. As we live more of our lives online, researchers can finally observe us directly, in vast numbers, and without filters. Data scientists have become the new demographers. In this daring and original book, Rudder explains how Facebook "likes" can predict, with surprising accuracy, a person’s sexual orientation and even intelligence; how attractive women receive exponentially more interview requests; and why you must have haters to be hot. He charts the rise and fall of America’s most reviled word through Google Search and examines the new dynamics of collaborative rage on Twitter. He shows how people express themselves, both privately and publicly. What is the least Asian thing you can say? Do people bathe more in Vermont or New Jersey? What do black women think about Simon & Garfunkel? (Hint: they don’t think about Simon & Garfunkel.) Rudder also traces human migration over time, showing how groups of people move from certain small towns to the same big cities across the globe. And he grapples with the challenge of maintaining privacy in a world where these explorations are possible. Visually arresting and full of wit and insight, Dataclysm is a new way of seeing ourselves—a brilliant alchemy, in which math is made human and numbers become the narrative of our time.
Download or read book The Narcissist Next Door written by Jeffrey Kluger and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely and provocative exploration of narcissism, from Donald Trump to Kanye West to Lance Armstrong, that shows us how to recognize and handle the narcissists we encounter every day. Narcissists are everywhere. There are millions of them in the United States alone: politicians, entertainers, businesspeople, your neighbors. Recognizing and understanding them is crucial to your not being overtaken by them, says Jeffrey Kluger in his provocative book about this insidious disorder. The odds are good that you know a narcissist—probably a lot of them. You see them in your office, on TV, maybe even in the mirror. The odds are also good that they are intelligent, confident, and articulate—the center of attention. With intelligence, sight and wit, Kluger explains the startling new research into narcissism and the insights that research is yielding. He explains how narcissism and narcissists affect our lives at work and at home, on the road, and in the halls of government; what to do when we encounter narcissists; and how to neutralize narcissism’s effects before it’s too late. As a writer and editor at Time, Kluger knows how to take science’s cutting-edge research and transform it into perceptive, accessible writing—which he does brilliantly in The Narcissist Next Door. Highly readable and deeply engaging, this book helps us understand narcissism and narcissists more fully.
Download or read book Data A Love Story written by Amy Webb and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Amy Webb found her true love after a search that's both charmingly romantic and relentlessly data-driven. Anyone who uses online dating sites must read her funny, fascinating book.”—Gretchen Rubin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project After yet another disastrous date, Amy Webb was preparing to cancel her JDate membership when epiphany struck: her standards weren’t too high, she just wasn’t approaching the process the right way. Using her gift for data strategy, she found which keywords were digital-man magnets, analyzed photos, and then adjusted her (female) profile to make the most of that intel. Then began the deluge—dozens of men who actually met her own stringent requirements wanted to meet her. Among them: her future husband, now the father of her child.
Download or read book Modern Romance written by Aziz Ansari and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-06-14 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The #1 New York Times Bestseller “An engaging look at the often head-scratching, frequently infuriating mating behaviors that shape our love lives.” —Refinery 29 A hilarious, thoughtful, and in-depth exploration of the pleasures and perils of modern romance from Aziz Ansari, the star of Master of None and one of this generation’s sharpest comedic voices At some point, every one of us embarks on a journey to find love. We meet people, date, get into and out of relationships, all with the hope of finding someone with whom we share a deep connection. This seems standard now, but it’s wildly different from what people did even just decades ago. Single people today have more romantic options than at any point in human history. With technology, our abilities to connect with and sort through these options are staggering. So why are so many people frustrated? Some of our problems are unique to our time. “Why did this guy just text me an emoji of a pizza?” “Should I go out with this girl even though she listed Combos as one of her favorite snack foods? Combos?!” “My girlfriend just got a message from some dude named Nathan. Who’s Nathan? Did he just send her a photo of his penis? Should I check just to be sure?” But the transformation of our romantic lives can’t be explained by technology alone. In a short period of time, the whole culture of finding love has changed dramatically. A few decades ago, people would find a decent person who lived in their neighborhood. Their families would meet and, after deciding neither party seemed like a murderer, they would get married and soon have a kid, all by the time they were twenty-four. Today, people marry later than ever and spend years of their lives on a quest to find the perfect person, a soul mate. For years, Aziz Ansari has been aiming his comic insight at modern romance, but for Modern Romance, the book, he decided he needed to take things to another level. He teamed up with NYU sociologist Eric Klinenberg and designed a massive research project, including hundreds of interviews and focus groups conducted everywhere from Tokyo to Buenos Aires to Wichita. They analyzed behavioral data and surveys and created their own online research forum on Reddit, which drew thousands of messages. They enlisted the world’s leading social scientists, including Andrew Cherlin, Eli Finkel, Helen Fisher, Sheena Iyengar, Barry Schwartz, Sherry Turkle, and Robb Willer. The result is unlike any social science or humor book we’ve seen before. In Modern Romance, Ansari combines his irreverent humor with cutting-edge social science to give us an unforgettable tour of our new romantic world.
Download or read book Gamelife written by Michael W. Clune and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In telling the story of his youth through seven computer games, critically acclaimed author Michael W. Clune (White Out) captures the part of childhood we live alone. You have been awakened. Floppy disk inserted, computer turned on, a whirring, and then this sentence, followed by a blinking cursor. So begins Suspended, the first computer game to obsess seven-year-old Michael, to worm into his head and change his sense of reality. Thirty years later he will write: "Computer games have taught me the things you can't learn from people." Gamelife is the memoir of a childhood transformed by technology. Afternoons spent gazing at pixelated maps and mazes train Michael's eyes for the uncanny side of 1980s suburban Illinois. A game about pirates yields clues to the drama of cafeteria politics and locker-room hazing. And in the year of his parents' divorce, a spaceflight simulator opens a hole in reality.
Download or read book The Glass Closet written by John Browne and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-06-17 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part memoir and part social criticism, The Glass Closet addresses the issue of homophobia that still pervades corporations around the world and underscores the immense challenges faced by LGBT employees. In The Glass Closet, Lord John Browne, former CEO of BP, seeks to unsettle business leaders by exposing the culture of homophobia that remains rampant in corporations around the world, and which prevents employees from showing their authentic selves. Drawing on his own experiences, and those of prominent members of the LGBT community around the world, as well as insights from well-known business leaders and celebrities, Lord Browne illustrates why, despite the risks involved, self-disclosure is best for employees—and for the businesses that support them. Above all, The Glass Closet offers inspiration and support for those who too often worry that coming out will hinder their chances of professional success.
Download or read book The Grapes of Math written by Alex Bellos and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From triangles, rotations and power laws, to cones, curves and the dreaded calculus, Alex takes you on a journey of mathematical discovery with his signature wit and limitless enthusiasm. He sifts through over 30,000 survey submissions to uncover the world’s favourite number, and meets a mathematician who looks for universes in his garage. He attends the World Mathematical Congress in India, and visits the engineer who designed the first roller-coaster loop. Get hooked on math as Alex delves deep into humankind’s turbulent relationship with numbers, and reveals how they have shaped the world we live in.
Download or read book Date onomics written by Jon Birger and published by Workman Publishing. This book was released on 2015-08-25 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s not that he’s just not that into you—it’s that there aren’t enough of him. And the numbers prove it. Using a combination of demographics, statistics, game theory, and number-crunching, Date-onomics tells what every single, college-educated, heterosexual, looking-for-a-partner woman needs to know: The “man deficit” is real. It’s a fascinating, if sobering read, with two critical takeaways: One, it’s not you. Two, knowledge is power, so here’s what to do about it. The shortage of college-educated men is not just a big-city phenomenon frustrating women in New York and L.A. Among young college grads, there are four eligible women for every three men nationwide. This unequal ratio explains not only why it’s so hard to find a date, but a host of social issues, from the college hookup culture to the reason Salt Lake City is becoming the breast implant capital of America. Then there’s the math that says that a woman’s good looks can keep men from approaching her—particularly if they feel the odds aren’t in their favor. Fortunately, there are also solutions: what college to attend (any with strong sciences or math), where to hang out (in New York, try a fireman’s bar), where to live (Colorado, Seattle, “Man” Jose), and why never to shy away from giving an ultimatum.
Download or read book The Dating Divide written by Celeste Vaughan Curington and published by University of California Press. This book was released on 2021-02-09 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The data behind a distinct form of racism in online dating The Dating Divide is the first comprehensive look at "digital-sexual racism," a distinct form of racism that is mediated and amplified through the impersonal and anonymous context of online dating. Drawing on large-scale behavioral data from a mainstream dating website, extensive archival research, and more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with daters of diverse racial backgrounds and sexual identities, Curington, Lundquist, and Lin illustrate how the seemingly open space of the internet interacts with the loss of social inhibition in cyberspace contexts, fostering openly expressed forms of sexual racism that are rarely exposed in face-to-face encounters. The Dating Divide is a fascinating look at how a contemporary conflux of individualization, consumerism, and the proliferation of digital technologies has given rise to a unique form of gendered racism in the era of swiping right—or left. The internet is often heralded as an equalizer, a seemingly level playing field, but the digital world also acts as an extension of and platform for the insidious prejudices and divisive impulses that affect social politics in the "real" world. Shedding light on how every click, swipe, or message can be linked to the history of racism and courtship in the United States, this compelling study uses data to show the racial biases at play in digital dating spaces.
Download or read book Love in the Time of Algorithms written by Dan Slater and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-01-24 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “If online dating can blunt the emotional pain of separation, if adults can afford to be increasingly demanding about what they want from a relationship, the effect of online dating seems positive. But what if it’s also the case that the prospect of finding an ever more compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, a paradox of choice that keeps us chasing the illusive bunny around the dating track?” It’s the mother of all search problems: how to find a spouse, a mate, a date. The escalating marriage age and declining marriage rate mean we’re spending a greater portion of our lives unattached, searching for love well into our thirties and forties. It’s no wonder that a third of America’s 90 million singles are turning to dating Web sites. Once considered the realm of the lonely and desperate, sites like eHarmony, Match, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish have been embraced by pretty much every demographic. Thanks to the increasingly efficient algorithms that power these sites, dating has been transformed from a daunting transaction based on scarcity to one in which the possibilities are almost endless. Now anyone—young, old, straight, gay, and even married—can search for exactly what they want, connect with more people, and get more information about those people than ever before. As journalist Dan Slater shows, online dating is changing society in more profound ways than we imagine. He explores how these new technologies, by altering our perception of what’s possible, are reconditioning our feelings about commitment and challenging the traditional paradigm of adult life. Like the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, the digital revolution is forcing us to ask new questions about what constitutes “normal”: Why should we settle for someone who falls short of our expectations if there are thousands of other options just a click away? Can commitment thrive in a world of unlimited choice? Can chemistry really be quantified by math geeks? As one of Slater’s subjects wonders, “What’s the etiquette here?” Blending history, psychology, and interviews with site creators and users, Slater takes readers behind the scenes of a fascinating business. Dating sites capitalize on our quest for love, but how do their creators’ ideas about profits, morality, and the nature of desire shape the virtual worlds they’ve created for us? Should we trust an industry whose revenue model benefits from our avoiding monogamy? Documenting the untold story of the online-dating industry’s rise from ignominy to ubiquity—beginning with its early days as “computer dating” at Harvard in 1965—Slater offers a lively, entertaining, and thought provoking account of how we have, for better and worse, embraced technology in the most intimate aspect of our lives.
Download or read book Small Data written by Martin Lindstrom and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2016-02-23 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Martin Lindstrom, a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, harnesses the power of “small data” in his quest to discover the next big thing Hired by the world's leading brands to find out what makes their customers tick, Martin Lindstrom spends 300 nights a year in strangers’ homes, carefully observing every detail in order to uncover their hidden desires, and, ultimately, the clues to a multi-million dollar product. Lindstrom connects the dots in this globetrotting narrative that will enthrall enterprising marketers, as well as anyone with a curiosity about the endless variations of human behavior. You’ll learn... • How a noise reduction headset at 35,000 feet led to the creation of Pepsi’s new trademarked signature sound. • How a worn down sneaker discovered in the home of an 11-year-old German boy led to LEGO’s incredible turnaround. • How a magnet found on a fridge in Siberia resulted in a U.S. supermarket revolution. • How a toy stuffed bear in a girl’s bedroom helped revolutionize a fashion retailer’s 1,000 stores in 20 different countries. • How an ordinary bracelet helped Jenny Craig increase customer loyalty by 159% in less than a year. • How the ergonomic layout of a car dashboard led to the redesign of the Roomba vacuum.
Download or read book The Unplugged Alpha 2nd Edition written by Richard Cooper and published by . This book was released on 2023-10-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most men today are sent off into society with a broken belief system, which they use to make choices that get them terrible results with life and women. Men have been conditioned to be the quintessential "nice guy." They're trained to be overly humble, kind to a fault, and that just "being themselves" is enough to attract the women of their dreams. Men are told to believe that conventional masculinity is toxic, and to put women ahead of their own interests, passions, and purpose. This has led to an entire generation of men forming very unhealthy attachments to women that they, unfortunately, often make the sole focus of their lives. The No.1 best-selling self improvement book to levelling-up in life and with women has been updated. Do you really want to succeed in every area of your life? If so, then this book explains: What the seven spokes of a high-value man are (and the importance of maximizing each of them). How to become one of the 20% of men women swipe right for in online dating. Why it's absolutely essential to get genuine burning desire from a woman who wants to date you (and willingly remain inside your frame). The top 21 red flags you need to spot in women for a long-term relationship. Answers 'why is dating hard for men these days.' Why smart men avoid marriage. And so much more. The 2nd Edition of The Unplugged Alpha expands upon the concepts and experiences delivered in the original release, which has gone on to help over 200,000+ readers to focus on chasing excellence in their lives. In turn, giving them not only the cold, hard truth, but also the skills needed for choosing women that truly compliment them and their life vision.
Download or read book The Reducetarian Solution written by Brian Kateman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brian Kateman coined the term "Reducetarian"—a person who is deliberately reducing his or her consumption of meat—and a global movement was born. In this book, Kateman, the founder of the Reducetarian Foundation, presents more than 70 original essays from influential thinkers on how the simple act of cutting 10% or more of the meat from one's diet can transform the life of the reader, animals, and the planet. This book features contributions from such luminaries as Seth Godin, Joel Fuhrman, Victoria Moran, Jeffrey Sachs, Bill McKibben, Naomi Oreskes, Peter Singer, and others. With over 40 vegan, vegetarian, and "less meat" recipes from bestselling cookbook author Pat Crocker, as well as tons of practical tips for reducing the meat in your diet (for example, skip eating meat with dinner if you ate it with lunch; replace your favorite egg omelet with a tofu scramble; choose a veggie burrito instead of a beef burrito; declare a meatless day of the week), The Reducetarian Solution is a life—not to mention planet!—saving book.
Download or read book Data and Goliath The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World written by Bruce Schneier and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-03-02 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Bruce Schneier’s amazing book is the best overview of privacy and security ever written.”—Clay Shirky Your cell phone provider tracks your location and knows who’s with you. Your online and in-store purchasing patterns are recorded, and reveal if you're unemployed, sick, or pregnant. Your e-mails and texts expose your intimate and casual friends. Google knows what you’re thinking because it saves your private searches. Facebook can determine your sexual orientation without you ever mentioning it. The powers that surveil us do more than simply store this information. Corporations use surveillance to manipulate not only the news articles and advertisements we each see, but also the prices we’re offered. Governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. And both sides share this information with each other or, even worse, lose it to cybercriminals in huge data breaches. Much of this is voluntary: we cooperate with corporate surveillance because it promises us convenience, and we submit to government surveillance because it promises us protection. The result is a mass surveillance society of our own making. But have we given up more than we’ve gained? In Data and Goliath, security expert Bruce Schneier offers another path, one that values both security and privacy. He brings his bestseller up-to-date with a new preface covering the latest developments, and then shows us exactly what we can do to reform government surveillance programs, shake up surveillance-based business models, and protect our individual privacy. You'll never look at your phone, your computer, your credit cards, or even your car in the same way again.
Download or read book The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace written by Jeff Hobbs and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-09-23 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of a young African-American man who escaped the slums of Newark for Yale University only to succumb to the dangers of the streets when he returned home.
Download or read book Optimal Cupid written by Christopher McKinlay and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2014-01-25 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An easy-to-implement blueprint from the mathematician who reverse-engineered OkCupid and met the woman of his dreams in 90 days. Christopher McKinlay has been featured in Wired Magazine and Good Morning America for his groundbreaking analysis of OkCupid. For the first time he's showing non-experts how to turn Internet dating on its head. This concise guide will show anyone (straight, gay, male or female) the procedure McKinlay used to meet his fiancee and how the same ideas can transform their lives and bring them from browsing to contact. One summer evening while logged into a supercomputer in Colorado waiting for a large computation, McKinlay was killing time on OkC when he was troubled by a problem: what if large groups of people responded to OkCupid's personality questionnaire in statistically similar ways? He created custom software to scrape data from the site, collecting over 6,000,000 answers to OkC's “match questions” from more than 20,000 real users. This data made clear he'd been using the site the wrong way. Based on his findings, McKinlay (a mathematics PhD), optimized his own profile. The transformation was profound. He went from showing a “match percentage” of 90% with a few hundred women in the L.A. area to showing 90% or higher with over 30,000 local women. Unsolicited messages from attractive strangers began flooding his inbox. With a foreword by Jon Finkel, McKinlay's insightful how-to will teach you how to benefit from the buried statistical patterns of online romance.
Download or read book Envisioning Information written by Edward R. Tufte and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escaping flatland -- Micro/macro readings -- Layering and separation -- Small multiples -- Color and information -- Narratives and space and time -- Epilogue.
