Telling us what we already know

Via Thursday Bram, communications agency Universal McCann recently conducted the third wave of their global study on social media usage. The results indicated, of course, a growing usage of all kinds of social media worldwide. Also, it notes that "blogs are a mainstream media worldwide and as a collective rival any traditional media" (emphasis mine). Sooner or later, it seems we'll have to be more specific when we say "mainstream media". :-)

You can see a complete slide show of results here. (Warning: It's very colorful, and people with a sensitivity to circles should not consume.) It should be useful for citing whenever a convincing intro to a SM research paper is needed.

Scandal sells

Since starting at Live Labs I've gotten to play with a lot of data, including the political Usenet and crawled memeorandum hourly data (since mid-September 2005, following Katrina). Today I came across something less-than-surprising.

Top 10 links on memeorandum according to most number of 'discussion' links-- that is, number of discussions (usually blogged) that are related to a parent story (usually news).

"For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses its Own Risk" [McCain and scandals] 219

"Spitzer is Linked to Prostitution Ring" 178

"Embattled Attorney General Resigns" [Gonzales and scandals] 170

[Text of Obama's race speech] 158

"NSA has massive database of Americans' phone calls" 129

"The Long Run-Up" [McCain and scandal] 119

"Craig Arrested, Pleads Guilty Following Incident in Airport Restroom" 116

"US Web Primer Is Said to Reveal a Nuclear Primer" [Iraq and Nukes] 115

"Digging Out More CNN/Youtube Plants" [Youtube politics and staged debates] 115

"Dark Suspicions About the NIE" [Iran and Nukes] 107

So, for the most part, what sells is sex and violence.

Open problems in movie stunt coordination

Via Fark, stuntman is attempting a 24-mile skydive.

But Steve, of East London, said: “It’s the last great challenge left on Earth. Obviously it will be dangerous. We’re playing with a lot of unknowns. But it’s my job to assess risk and I don’t believe the problems are insurmountable.”

Last great challenge on Earth? Looks like all of us scientists can quit our jobs soon! :-)

Fiction as an exaggeration of inner fiction

An interesting post in Overcoming Bias. It suggests that our bias toward reality tends toward the direction of fiction. That is, (successful) fiction is simply a further exaggeration of things we already tend to overestimate. I think it's suggested that biases cause such fiction to be well-written and well-received, not that exposure to fiction causes this. Hanson then suggests to "Find ways in which fiction tends to deviate from reality, and then move your estimates of reality in the other direction."

A few possible human biases that this "fix" would identify.
-Your boss at the office probably isn't as socially inept and ignorant as you think.
-Your adversaries or competitors are not as evil and immoral as you think.
-Solutions cannot be wrapped up as quickly as you think.
-Serial killers are not as interesting as you think.
-People don't have nearly as much sex as you think.

This is related to the idea that everybody is their own protagonist.