The Fourth Wall
page 3
MEGHAN REILLY
A flu epidemic has swept
the nation, with 41 states re-
porting moderate to severe
outbreaks, the Center for Dis-
ease Control (CDC) has stat-
ed that the 2013 flu may be-
come one of the worst epi-
demics seen in the United
States in the past decade.
There have been 37 reported
pediatric deaths through the
CDC and 23,079 lab positive
patients reported by the Penn-
sylvania Department of
Health since the beginning of
the year. Many hospitals in
hard struck states have resort-
ed to turning away patients
due to the sheer amount of
emergency room visits. One
hospital in LeHigh county in
Pennsylvania set up a pseudo-
emergency room tent outside
the hospital for overflow.
CDC officials have pinpoint-
ed that the H3N2 strain of
influenza is the predominate
strain of the season, although
cases of Influenza A and B
have been reported as well.
Although numbers of report-
ed cases are on the decline,
health officials continue to
urge the public that it is not
too late to get the vaccine,
which is said to be 62% per-
cent effective. Even if it does
not prevent the contraction of
the flu, the vaccine can re-
duce the severity and pre-
vents complications such as
pneumonia or heart failure.
Those among the most at risk
include the elderly, pregnant
women, children under the
age of four and those with
compromised immune sys-
MICHAEL PERSCH-
Social media giant Face-
feature change named ‘Graph
than the current search func-
tion. But before everyone goes
screaming to their computer to
post about how they hate
change, it might be helpful to
figure out how this new search
could be helpful.
The Facebook search is cur-
rently backed by Bing, if you
search for something that Fa-
cebook does not have a page
for then it will default to Bing
results. So, when someone
searches for something like
“Places to eat in Mont Alto”
you will get a link of anything
site that says “Restaurant” and
“Mont Alto”. You are then
faced with nearly countless
different websites that vaguely
summarize what you want.
Anyone who has grown up
using-a search engine expects
this kind of response for a
computer, helpful but not very
direct. If you ask the
same question of
where to eat to a per-
son you would expect
an answer along the
lines of “You have the
Millstream Café, and
Frank’s Pizza, that’s
about it.” Facebook’s
new Graph Search is
aimed at trying to
bring back search re-
sults the way a person
would deliver them.
This feature is only
being tested in a Beta-
English version so far,
but the results seem to
be going well. The
goal is that if a person
searches where to get food in
Mont Alto then Facebook will
return the Facebook pages for
Penn State Housing and Food
Services and Frank’s Pizza and
tems. According to public
health officials there should
be enough dosages of the
vaccine available with 128
million of the 135 million
vaccines having been shipped
out.
It is presumed
that the epidemic
has reached it’s
peak in week
year. Numbers of
reported cases
have dropped
from 5,069 cases
in week 2 to 903
in week 3 for the
Pennsylvania De-
partment of
Health. Only 24
states remain in
the “high activity”
stage of the epi-
demic, whereas the remaining
states have moved to moder-
less, one can be certain that
this flu season is a great one
to take the extra time to get a
flu shot.
any other local business that
might have a profile.
The new search is looking to
be very dynamic is terms of
searching looking for multiple
categories. If someone search-
es “Friends from my college
who enjoy hiking” the results
should be friends of yours who
go the University that you
have listed and who have
‘Hiking’ as an interest. You
could also be specific and
search for “John Smith’s pho-
tos from 2007” and receive a
collection of all
the photos posted
or labeled with
2007.
Many people
who have already
been able to re-
view the feature
seem to be opti-
mistic about the
potential advance-
ments in the ease
of using a search
engine that this is
likely to provide.
However, there is
one drawback
with this planned
release. People
will only be able
to get good information out of
it if the users put good infor-
mation in.
If you have not been on your
settings for a while to update
your favorite = activities and
movies, or maybe you don’t
frequently check in when you
go places, this will exclude
you from any search results
that someone could be looking
for. Some speculations expect
this feature to start being help-
ful with things that make
Linkedin, Yelp, and Four-
square popular. Meaning
someday Facebook might not
only be where employers go
for a background check but
also to search for “Penn State
University graduates in my
town” who could fill a job
opening.