Originally designed for rating chess players, ELO is a technique that is now widely used to rate sports teams, board game competitors, and eSports players. A team's ELO rating is a single number that defines its strength relative to other teams. When two teams play, the winner gains ELO points from the loser. But the … Continue reading The Biggest Upsets in NFL History

Here's another post about baby names (I know, I just can't resist). This time I'll look at big year-to-year increases (and decreases) in popularity. The metric I'll use is raw increase in the number of babies with a given name. For example, there were 5615 Sarahs born in 1970, and 5845 the next year, that's … Continue reading The Rise and Fall of Shirley and Linda

Quick, think of a random six-digit number. You know, like the one-time security codes you get on your mobile phone. Write it down, I'll wait... Okay, once you've written the number down, click here to read the rest. Look at the number you just wrote. Are any of the digits repeated? Or is it six … Continue reading Truly Random

I was reading an article in the New York Times about rooftop solar installations in California, when I came across this paragraph (bold mine). Some energy experts say utilities would not be able to produce or buy enough renewable energy to replace what would be lost from the decline in rooftop solar panels — which … Continue reading The Missing Sanity Check

[As usual for these map-based posts, the bigger your screen, the better.] As promised in my previous post, today I'll look at the most typical Single Family Detached Home neighborhoods in the US. First, we have to define 'typical'. As you may recall, there are about 6600 census tracts that met the definition of a … Continue reading A Typical Neighborhood

[As usual for these map-based posts, the bigger your screen, the better.] Today, let us consider the single-family detached home (SFDH). Specifically, neighborhoods that are made up of them. I'm going to use the same two sets of data that I've used in previous posts: the US Census' American Community Survey (ACS), and the Microsoft … Continue reading A Range of Neighborhoods

'Osama' is, or at least was, a perfectly normal Arabic name. It was never particularly popular in the United States; in the decade before the 9/11 attacks (1991-2000) an average of 45 American boys were given that name YearBoys named Osama199143199236199334199436199538199648199744199847199965200054 Needless to say, in the years following the attacks the count dropped precipitously: YearBoys … Continue reading You Named Him WHAT?!

I enjoy watching the Great British Bake Off. There's got to way to take something as kind and enjoyable as that show, and crunch it down to numbers, right? Let's try. For those unfamiliar, the show is a baking competition. Each week, a tentful of bakers make three different creations under time constraints. At the … Continue reading Bake Off, By the Numbers

One of the story lines of the California recall election is the emergence of Larry Elder as a new force for California Republicans. This is enhanced by his large lead in the "replacement" part of the ballot. This is usually reported something like this: CandidatePartyVotesPctLarry A. ElderRep2,402,42047.0%Kevin PaffrathDem502,4319.8%Kevin L. FaulconerRep440,0428.6%Brandon M. RossDem286,9015.6%John CoxRep225,4044.4%Kevin KileyRep162,1133.2%Jacqueline McGowanDem147,4462.9%Joel … Continue reading No, Larry Elder Didn’t “Win”