

PayPal founder's new app aims to help couples conceive - inselkampf
http://qz.com/111398/the-founder-of-paypal-wants-to-put-a-baby-in-you/

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pallandt
I really dislike it how 'big data' is increasingly mentioned left and right
these days, even when the application context doesn't call for it. Perhaphs
the reporter should've sticked with the safe option of what the app creator(s)
used instead, 'data science' or data analysis.

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scott_karana
Interesting how thorough the app is. I suppose that'll set it apart from the
simpler ovulation trackers.

What a _huge_ mine of private data, however! Can you imagine how it would feel
to have someone else find a record of your sexual activity, including
positions and count of female orgasms?

~~~
return0
honestly, who cares about that data?

~~~
usea
My ex-girlfriend was kicked out of her church and disowned by her parents
because she admitted to being sexually active. She was a senior in high
school. She had to finish the school year living out of her car and relying on
friends' charity.

Privacy is a protection against (often irrational) people who are out to hurt
you.

~~~
derefr
There might be reason for people to care about the general fact of "did they
have sex?"\--but this can be inferred/derived from other sources, e.g.
purchasing habits.

 _How_ people are having sex, on the other hand, is pretty irrelevant to
everyone except those people, isn't it?

~~~
anigbrowl
The attorney-general of Virginia is seeking to preserve a law that would ban
sodomy, which in Virginia includes oral sex. Yes, there are some people who
think that how you have sex is very much their business, notwithstanding the
fact that they talk out the other side of their mouth about their disdain for
big government (I refer here to his arguments against Obamacare).

[http://theweek.com/article/index/247156/ken-cuccinellis-
crus...](http://theweek.com/article/index/247156/ken-cuccinellis-crusade-
against-sodomy)

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inselkampf
I think they are on to something - this part for me stood out (quote from Max
Levchin)

    
    
      "Anything that can be measured, you record—and
      it’s applied to things like managing your weight,
      or deciding how likely you are to dope in the Tour
      de France. But with infertility? You get a Xerox
      from the 1960s.”

~~~
mikenuman
Most up-to-date fertility clinics use ultrasound and hormonal tracking to
check the cycle; temperature & mucus are unreliable.

And, even if someone's ovulating or not-ovulating... it's often moot when it
comes to whether to opt for fertility treatment. It's much more about time
spent trying already, and finances.

This app is a "me-too" app

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aa0
"Both men are cyclists in their spare time"

Anyone read this and then think of this study?

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/10/us-sperm-
exercise-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/12/10/us-sperm-exercise-
idUSTRE6B90CY20101210)

~~~
greghinch
I lived until recently in a very active community of both cyclists and family-
aged couples (Marin, CA, Fairfax to be specific), and heard numerous stories
at the local pub about many cyclist men having this very issue. Anecdotal
evidence to be sure, but enough to make me find an alternate form of exercise
if/when I am trying to have a child.

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josephpmay
It's interesting how many commenters thought (from the headline) this was Elon
Musk, despite the fact that Paypal had 5 founders and Musk has his hands
pretty busy right now.

On a related note, has there ever been anything unsuccessful from the Paypal
Mafia?

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powera
How is a phone supposed to passively collect information about sexual
positions?

"By asking about sexual positions and female orgasms, for example, the app is
collecting data on oft-cited but little-researched possible factors in
successful conception. The founders say that physicians have already signed on
to use this data in studies. And eventually, Levchin said, they hope to make
the data collection totally passive (by using a combination of phone sensors
and specialized hardware) so that you don’t even have to take the trouble of
entering any numbers yourself."

~~~
wizzard
Simple, just prop up your phone and video yourselves having sex. Like a
Kinect, it can detect the position of your bodies. And it can analyze the
audio to determine if the female orgasmed.

And then the video will be automatically uploaded to the NSA.

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speedracr
It doesn't bring the $1m kick-off grant for the fertility fund, but another
new app in that space is
[http://www.helloclue.com/](http://www.helloclue.com/) It focuses more on
tracking the monthly cycle and how it affects you personally, instead of
pregnancy/ fertility and crowdsourced data on conception. Clue was actually
started by a female founder - seems that could be helpful in this instance.

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moocowduckquack
I half expected this to be an article about Elon trying to work out best
practice for populating Mars.

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monkeypizza
an idea about Elon Musk announcing a plan to fund 100 women/year to have his
children through sperm banks, in 10 generations (1 generation/year), with
fully paid support and tutoring for life for the kids, and regularly schedule
reunions of generations / the whole group.

It was at attempt to re-introduce cloning style massively parallel
reproduction to the human species.

That was what I thought this story would be about.

Seriously though, don't you think Snowden could get a few hundred extremely
smart, civil libertarian women to agree to bear his children?

~~~
mscarborough
Huh?

Before we start indulging in fantasies of tech folks begatting like in the
Bible and creating a master IT race, could we care about the kids that people
already created first?

The kids on the planet already have plenty of potential, we really don't need
to keep pumping them out.

