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I think you should re-read the post. The phrase "on his/her/their computers" is repeated 4 times in the (fairly short) post. I think it's pretty clear that th

I think you should re-read the post. The phrase "on his/her/their computers" is repeated 4 times in the (fairly short) post. I think it's pretty clear that this doesn't apply when comparing a pad/paper CEO and an engineer. And we very purposefully didn't draw any conclusions (though we did admittedly ask leading questions to fuel the conversation!). We say a few times in the comments that this could well be a reflection of the types of jobs that the 4000 women have compared to the 4000 men-- they may have more social jobs or more "afk" jobs. It'd be an interesting followup to grab 1000 female engineers and 1000 man engineers to see if the differences hold up. I don't know if it will, but what if it did? Would it be so horrible if women were less suited for multitasking and knowledge work? Because they sure as heck are better at a lot of other things. They're, on average, smarter than men. They have better reflexes. Check out "Is there anything good about men" - great essay: http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm http://denisdutton.com/baumeister.htm If they WERE less suited for it, it would be interesting to see how much culture and education influenced their suitability. i.e. Does the difference fade away if you correct for educational differences, etc. At the end of the day, it's just an interesting chunk of from a single web service that has a very strong bias towards geeky users.

krschultz 16y ago
At the end of the day, you flung up some crap on your company's offical blog that is both horribly misinformed from a statistical perspective and about the subject you are posting on. Is that professional? Is that good for your company? If I were an investor I'd be PISSED. If I hadn't canned my account to your site about 6 weeks after I made it (cool tool by the way, just missed too much of my work since I don't spend all day on my computer), I'd be canceling it today. And I sure as hell won't ever be trying it again. And I'll specifically be recommending against it. At my startup we had a discussion about using data from our users to draw attention the way you are trying to here (and Mint.com has very successfully done in the past as just one example). The problem is you have to recognize where the mine fields are. Replace every single place you used the word "women" and replace it with "black people" and see if it is offensive to you yet.
- webwright 16y ago
  I'm sorry that you're angry. For what it's worth, we worked pretty hard to make this as statistically solid as we could with the dataset that we had. The subject we're posting on is "How 4,000 men differ from 4,000 women in RescueTime". While the data might lead to some interesting questions, I don't think anyone would assume that this is necessarily a reflection of a broader population (any more than Mint's data was). I think your "black people" example is interesting. If we were comparing designers to developers, would you be so incensed? Yours is literally the first actually angry response all day. Is it possible that you're overreacting? In terms of business effect, signups today have been abnormally high and cancellations have been slightly to the low side. It was meant to be provocative, but so far this hasn't ended up being a mine field. Again, sorry that we've upset you.
  - krschultz 16y ago
    I'm not the only angry response you've gotten today. Ctrl+F this thread for "hackermom", do you think she liked your post? Just one among several. I know YOU don't believe that women are 77% as productive as men and that explains the pay gap, I get your tongue in cheek tone. The problem is that there are lots of people who use these half cocked "pieces of data" as part of larger arguments and it is exacerbated by a statement like "a random sample of 8,000 people" when clearly, this is not a random sample. It should say "this is not a scientific sample", because it isn't. This is how we got birthers, "logical racists", and conspiracy theorists. Perhaps I am more sensitive to it, I took a class on gender studies, I hung out with some feminists, my wife makes a lot of money (more than I for a while, and she wasn't on a computer nearly as much as I). I think I just get mad at misapplied statistics, the lack of distinction between correlation and causation, and people saying ridiculous things to get attention (of which this does all 3). Suffice to say fivethirtyeight.com is one of my "read every day" sites.
    - derefr 16y ago
      Please don't blame me for inventing a gun that someone later uses to shoot you. The problem is with the sophists misapplying others' research, trying to find evidence to support their pre-formed conclusions instead of following the evidence where it may lead; the problem is not with the researchers themselves, or the objective facts they produce.
jquery 16y ago
Lose a customer gain a customer. I applaud your bravery.
krschultz 16y ago
These quotes are the ones you should look at: "4) Women spend fewer hours on their computers Evidently, there’s a reason they are called “man” hours. On average, male information workers spend 14% more time per day working on their computers than women do." Glossing over a lot in that quote Or how about trying to make your data way more scientific than it is (based on your own comments it is clear you don't personally understand this concept) "About the data: RescueTime provides a tool to allow individuals and businesses to track their time and attention to see where their days go (and to help them get more productive!). We have hundreds of millions of man hours of second-by-second attention data from hundreds of thousands of users around the world, tracking both inside and outside the browser. The data for this report was compiled from 8,000 randomly selected men and women."
xiaoma 16y ago
I couldn't agree more. I've seen countless pieces with flimsier statistics than this claiming that women are in some way more intelligent, more rational, or more ethical than men. If a study finds that more parts of a man's brain activate when he does X task, the headline reads that women can process it more efficiently and only need to use a small portion of their brains. If a study finds that more parts of a woman's brain activate when she does X task, the headline reads that women are able to recruit more of their brains and do the task holistically. This piece was a breath of fresh air.

krschultz 16y ago

At the end of the day, you flung up some crap on your company's offical blog that is both horribly misinformed from a statistical perspective and about the subject you are posting on. Is that professional? Is that good for your company? If I were an investor I'd be PISSED. If I hadn't canned my account to your site about 6 weeks after I made it (cool tool by the way, just missed too much of my work since I don't spend all day on my computer), I'd be canceling it today. And I sure as hell won't ever be trying it again. And I'll specifically be recommending against it. At my startup we had a discussion about using data from our users to draw attention the way you are trying to here (and Mint.com has very successfully done in the past as just one example). The problem is you have to recognize where the mine fields are. Replace every single place you used the word "women" and replace it with "black people" and see if it is offensive to you yet.

webwright 16y ago
I'm sorry that you're angry. For what it's worth, we worked pretty hard to make this as statistically solid as we could with the dataset that we had. The subject we're posting on is "How 4,000 men differ from 4,000 women in RescueTime". While the data might lead to some interesting questions, I don't think anyone would assume that this is necessarily a reflection of a broader population (any more than Mint's data was). I think your "black people" example is interesting. If we were comparing designers to developers, would you be so incensed? Yours is literally the first actually angry response all day. Is it possible that you're overreacting? In terms of business effect, signups today have been abnormally high and cancellations have been slightly to the low side. It was meant to be provocative, but so far this hasn't ended up being a mine field. Again, sorry that we've upset you.
- krschultz 16y ago
  I'm not the only angry response you've gotten today. Ctrl+F this thread for "hackermom", do you think she liked your post? Just one among several. I know YOU don't believe that women are 77% as productive as men and that explains the pay gap, I get your tongue in cheek tone. The problem is that there are lots of people who use these half cocked "pieces of data" as part of larger arguments and it is exacerbated by a statement like "a random sample of 8,000 people" when clearly, this is not a random sample. It should say "this is not a scientific sample", because it isn't. This is how we got birthers, "logical racists", and conspiracy theorists. Perhaps I am more sensitive to it, I took a class on gender studies, I hung out with some feminists, my wife makes a lot of money (more than I for a while, and she wasn't on a computer nearly as much as I). I think I just get mad at misapplied statistics, the lack of distinction between correlation and causation, and people saying ridiculous things to get attention (of which this does all 3). Suffice to say fivethirtyeight.com is one of my "read every day" sites.
  - derefr 16y ago
    Please don't blame me for inventing a gun that someone later uses to shoot you. The problem is with the sophists misapplying others' research, trying to find evidence to support their pre-formed conclusions instead of following the evidence where it may lead; the problem is not with the researchers themselves, or the objective facts they produce.

jquery 16y ago

Lose a customer gain a customer. I applaud your bravery.

krschultz 16y ago

These quotes are the ones you should look at: "4) Women spend fewer hours on their computers Evidently, there’s a reason they are called “man” hours. On average, male information workers spend 14% more time per day working on their computers than women do." Glossing over a lot in that quote Or how about trying to make your data way more scientific than it is (based on your own comments it is clear you don't personally understand this concept) "About the data: RescueTime provides a tool to allow individuals and businesses to track their time and attention to see where their days go (and to help them get more productive!). We have hundreds of millions of man hours of second-by-second attention data from hundreds of thousands of users around the world, tracking both inside and outside the browser. The data for this report was compiled from 8,000 randomly selected men and women."

xiaoma 16y ago

I couldn't agree more. I've seen countless pieces with flimsier statistics than this claiming that women are in some way more intelligent, more rational, or more ethical than men. If a study finds that more parts of a man's brain activate when he does X task, the headline reads that women can process it more efficiently and only need to use a small portion of their brains. If a study finds that more parts of a woman's brain activate when she does X task, the headline reads that women are able to recruit more of their brains and do the task holistically. This piece was a breath of fresh air.