Comforting headline by New York Times; “Studies show omicron easier on lung”

Consider the things you do not read, the things you do not care about, and the things you skim and let it sit in your brain for 10 seconds. Close your eyes. Meditate on this topic. At the end, will you remember these objectively?

Okay, pause. Allow me to assume incorrectly.

In my opinion, the authors did not have an intention to cause harm, nor did LinkedIn’s news unstructured text, but it did and here I am.

IMO, readership is important, a quick header that could increase a death of someone should be considered as a negative.

This article header got me thinking…

Are we not considering the negative impacts of unstructured text? I’m not here to blame the authors. They are doing their job so they can make money and feed themselves. Rather, I’m suggesting we look at LinkedIn algorithms, teams, and whom ever allows headlines to happen.

The word easier, generated a lot of ‘feelings’ inside of me. You can’t find the word easier in the phd projects, or the NYT article. So, is this what they meant to do?

I will question things from time to time in this article, we all should question unstructured text, or maybe you rather be a sheep.

What is New York Times after?

Money, ad revenue.

But what about the authors?

For me, a tech person, I have to study before I move forward. I always study the generators of educational content before I consider it something that should be relevant to other people too. Just like you should challenge the people who are seeking to teach you new information. The people teaching you new information, who are they? Are they teachers assistances who are good at teaching this lesson, or do they have real life experiences dealing with this realm of technology? The last thing I need is a “low experienced” but “good teacher” teaching me about “real world” technology. Last thing I need is their vocabulary based logic, that is merely based on scholarly debate, and has nothing to do with the real world outside of college.

The author of the NYT article has no database experience, no data science experience, and the entire study is a massive bunch of information that would require a many gurus to decipher and come up with a headline like “easier”…

I’m sure they try to paint this in their research but if you have ever read a research paper before, you know it takes a lot of depth.

Also, based on this article, they only had help with one guru, and not a team of gurus.

This doesn’t mean this guru was unable to ask other gurus. What it means is I found information and it states one resource helped with the article.

Based on my time in government and enterprise organizations one guru and phd or masters is not as good as two gurus with similar studies under their belt.

So why rush? Does this mean the LinkedIn team rushed and wrote this is easier? Was this algorithm based?

After learning from these PHD papers, nothing easy. Especially these studies. However the sentiment I gain is light hearted.

Giving the guru a couple of days to help write the article is a big ask. I know these deadlines are not realistic to generating high quality solutions. I view all articles as a solution to a problem, thus here we are writing the long article with 3099 words.

What was their initial intention? Did LinkedIn unintentionally change their objective?

The authors, based on my research, work towards writing value-add content, especially the guru on the team. However, has their guru ever been asked to consume a study and help the article within one day of being published? This would require a magician level wizard, and based on my research, they found the perfect person to study the documents. However, was this enough time for them to consume the information?

With most authors of content, there should be a focus, a reason, and overall an objective to generate traffic or at least a few thoughtful conversations. So, I ask myself…

1. What is their focus?
2. Is it focused on an increase in traffic?
3. Should we look at it as if it could cause harm?
4. Will this cause harm?
5. Could an authors focus generate harm?

The end users who don’t have the ability to understand the PHD project behind this articles body, or click through to understand more, will be impacted. I’m talking about the casual viewer. The people who don’t have a guru well versed in digging into research documentation. The people who won’t click the article. The top of the pyramid, top of the funnel, and those who have the seed planted that this covid19 stuff is getting better.

What if they take their mask off? Or tell someone who should be wearing a mask, that this is getting easier. They don’t need to click deeper, they got the header.

News headlines are a seed. The seed is planted, right or wrong. Positive, negative, doesn’t matter anymore. The fact that seeds can be planted from a headline edit, can generate emotions, is enough to make my head shake.

Background about me; I personally can not understand the PHD looking projects that are associated to this article, and I tried for many minutes, maybe hours. I have a decade of almost 200 client engagements under my belt, from fortune 2 to fortune whatever. Never pulled up a single PHD paper while working these projects, unless I was researching or implementing machine learning, artificial intelligence, or unstructured text algorithms (which processes text like this….)

Here’s a 14min read about the basics of sentiment analysis I wrote awhile ago, built for a puppy interested in learning about unstructured text analysis from a remedial perspective. I’m not linking so that you read the 14min read, I wouldn’t wish that on any of my tech friends, however I’m not writing to my tech friends/family. I’m writing to everyone else who reads my article.

My goal of explaining about myself, is to encourage “new readers” to continue readership below, not to encourage readers to waste their time learning about sentiment analysis, ugh that could be an incredibly boring 14mins of your life.. However if you want a rabbit hole, or a career, now you understand my writing. Thanks for sticking with it. I study the readers, and often my readers are new users and not returning users. Thanks for baring with my analytical view of my website.

If you’re curious how much time I gave these PHD papers, let me compare myself to the average human.

Technically speaking; I gave myself more time than an average end user who reads a website. I also spent the time to build this content.

Also, after studying 80k users on 1 of my websites, dev3lop.com, I found the average readership is about 1minute exactly. So the fact that I gave this more than 1 minute, makes me a large outlier.

New York Times article may explain this well enough to keep your mask on, however if we consider the pyramid of traffic, the seeds planted at the top level, and the people who can understand the PHD project behind the scenes is likely <.01% of those who are quickly seeing this comforting news headline. I know because I’m looking for a comforting covid19 headline.

To me, there should be enough information above to make you uncomfortable, and if this isn’t uncomfortable logic, I find you to be an interesting human, which is why I blog about content, to help elaborate what I find interesting, uncomfortable, and with hopes that you respond and help me become a better person.

Phd research setting the tone…

This phd project, and many others, are the source of info.

The above phd project link is 6months+ old, yet it’s the first link they share.

What are the chances people only open this link?

Imposter syndrome sets in, and there’s a high chance none of these links will make sense nor will you click on them.

1. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.24.474086v1 “December 26, 2021”
2. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.26.474085v2 “December 30, 2021”
3. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.24.474081v1 “December 26, 2021”

Dec. 31, 2021 NYT released an article…?

The only aspect of the article that helps me feel better and comforted is the fact that someone with a lot of “college education” helped the article move forward. This shows they really care about consuming the content.

She is, Azeen Ghorayshi, an influential writer and scholarly journalist, her name appears on the article. Without her, I believe the entire article would have not have made any logical sense. Thanks to Azeen for making all of this possible and giving me the opportunity to study the puzzle has been very inspiring. I recommend everyone learn about Azeen and her important writings. Nothing is easy about what Azeen can do with this information.

I feel there’s a desire to ‘want comfort’ in covid19, and the way I judge the headline is a negative. This doesn’t mean I view Azeen’s work as a negative, she’s a magician and I’m lucky I didn’t have to pay to learn about her studies. However studying more about Azeen did not make this article more comfortable, and my focus is rather focused on this headline by Linkedin.

With this said, we should not take comfort in covid19, nor should we have articles with headliners that could potentially lead to death. I will dive in below.

If you’re like me, most of the junk you skim past will more than likely be related to “politics and scammy looking bullshit.”

Maybe you’re safe and secure, you click on everything you see, and not dealing with a barrage of content thrown in you information funnels, hats off to you.

Think of a text that says “hello”… What’s the readership of a small message VS a bunch of paragraphs and charts by researchers who are known for researching, not offering understandable data stories to people skimming titles.

Politics and bullshit really get under peoples skin based on my observations, especially me, and often it’s a place I both avoid, and waste a lot of time in the rabbit hole.

The most money I’ve ever lost in a specific time in my life is a time where I was too woke to do anything but try to make a wave online. This eventually taught me about SEO and how little people care about my political views. However, what if it’s a political view, mixed with corporate big tech and unstructured text usage? Okay, that’s right up my alley.

It’s difficult to know if opinions on trends or news are real, given the studies of fake accounts

It’s difficult to know if opinions on trends or news are real, given the studies of fake accounts used to steer online convos, and the obvious BOTNETS being used to build fake accounts, which are boosting online arguments to improve the readership, find & destroy people who disagree with you, and generate a swell of people spending time arguing VS doing something important. I’m not saying arguing is not important, what I’m saying is arguing with a robot is not important.

People arguing are going to focus on this content, they will link to these websites more than people who enjoy the content. People like myself make apps to track “usage” and this is the algorithm trying to find what works best for the users. This trend is for me, and others who care about this strange popular topics.

Microsoft owns Linkedin… What is their incentive to be the Covid19 sentiment news company?

Microsoft is known for advertising and they have found a way to let it happen on a professional network. Thus politics and non work related content is often found here.

Microsoft bought LinkedIn, you may not know that the biggest computer company in the world owns the biggest professional network in the world, however let this be a good reminder of what’s possible if you have the money.;

Now, move your brain to a world of people using Linkedin and really caring about the headlines, Microsoft’s website, do I need to mention this website is heavily utilized? That’s why microsoft owns LinkedIn.

Microsoft, owner of other news media outlets…

You didn’t know? Okay, open that one application you used to download a different browser… That’s right, check out internet explorer and tell me what “value” you can find in their news content? Chances are you won’t be able to find anything of value and it’s a lot of what we just discussed, politics and scammy looking bullshit.

The bullshit I see trending on Linkedin is never ending, and often it’s political. However why is Linked, a professional network, tapping into news? Well, news sells, and news outlets will buy a chance to be promoted on your website, Thus we have a solid stream of content flowing that can be paid for or trend based.

From a data perspective, I hypothesis a linkedin trend like “studies show omicorn easier on lungs” will increase the amount of covid19 cases across all variants.

Calling it ‘easier’ will not make it this easier, maybe easier on your tummy. It’s trends like this where I wonder if the #linkedin team could re-consider the unstructured text they are offering as a solution.

Here’s my thoughts; my tummy hurts when I query the github for covid19 data.

Also, this entire header really got me thinking…. How easy has #covid19 been for you? If you’re not making money off of covid19, chances are it impacted you negatively in some way shape or form. And if you’re reading this you’re not a billionaire, and chances are you’re a lot like me, passionate about something and trying to make a living. Okay, now that we are related…

Maybe you can answer me this, I wonder if linkedin understands promoting this exact text “studies show omicorn easier on lungs” will increase the amount of people who get covid.

Consider those who will not read this information…

Impressions reading this will be much higher than people willing to click through (smaller percent will understand the phd project).

What if this header increases the chances of someone not wearing a mask and getting covid19?

Cases and Deaths are significant in covid19… nothing easy about studying the data.

As we know the correlation between cases and deaths relevant.

I have a feeling most reading this far have studied Covid19 CASE VS DEATHS information, and I’ve even seen people go much deeper than me and dig through hospital data too (beds, ICU occupancy).

The reason Dev3lop.com lasted the past few years is because I one get request for covid19 data from john hopkins university data, I did it because no one at the time was offering the ‘data app’ to pull the data. This “show and tell” covid19 flex was getting under my skin, everyone trying to hide remedial ETL processing because IMHO, required daily manual intervention.

A case, may turn into a death, the logic is clear.

This data is also, so relevant, the data is being calculated per day, across most organizations around the world. Not easy to do.

I’ll leave you with this quote, “If we have data, let’s look at the data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” This is a famous quote by Jim Barksdale, the former CEO of Netscape.

IMO, if we call it a study, and say it’s easier, it could mean we are looking to generate covid19 comfort, I know I’m looking for comfort, however I’m the double vaccinated mask wearing champ too…

So is it possible, our desire for comfort has slowly started inching through headlines.

Covid19 variants, that may not be hard on lungs, continue to ravage families around the world. However, I could be wrong, I haven’t updated my get request for covid19 data. Maybe someone responding to me has updated the data today. I try to avoid weekend updates, those are the most depressing based on my statistical view of the covid19 data…

A study that shows hospitals are more likely to have deaths on weekends than weekdays. Is that because good doctors are playing golf and it’s too overwhelming on weekends? This is a study, and not a comfortable one at that…

My opinion, these phd papers and covid19 are not easy, what is easy is wearing a mask.

Final notes, and my opinion on businesses getting involved in politics.

Allow me to be incorrect…. Right wing or left wing, we both know it’s connected to the same bird, and both parties get paid by businesses to help the businesses generate laws that increase the business revenue today and tomorrow. They use websites to stream their content, they have a budget, and sometimes these websites change the title…

Microsoft/LinkedIn should not be talking about politically fueled sicknesses, it should focus on being a professional network. I understand I said we are here to talk solutions in blogs, and their blog may be a solution, however, LinkedIn’s subtle rename is mistake from my humble perspective…

Both democratic, and republican… Both parties use fear, big stream media, and have generated a system that has each other worried about left wing or right wing, and not thinking about the bird; healthcare, homelessness, climate change, the divide between wealth of the top 2% and the others, or how we will move forward with world peace.

If I’m wrong, comment below, and please tell me more about citizens united. Also, why media companies consolidated to 6 companies who own 90% of media across the globe, then tell me why this illusion of choice is helpful for the 99%. Feel free to tell me I’m coming unglued. I could use the transparency. Covid19 has me all kinds of mentally blocked.

I could be wrong about covid19 and unstructured text, or my analysis of said text, and if I’m wrong, please comment below, and add me on twitter.com/itylergarrett to help me have a better understanding of the things I’m not explaining accurately. I will update my blog or delete my blog one day… So, if you can persuade me with facts and data, it would be much appreciated world.

echo “Good bye.”

Did you notice in the beginning I did not title this correctly, the headline is clickbait, and did you remember what I asked you to do? Maybe there’s a seed planted?

(–resources–, photos via pexels, search virus)