'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?!
Author: Jeff Eby
Bake Off, By the Numbers
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
No, Larry Elder Didn’t “Win”
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”
How You Ask a Question Matters
Looks like Gavin Newsom is going to comfortably avoid being recalled. But for a while there the polls indicated a close race. One poll especially caused panic among the Governor's backers: a SurveyUSA poll released on August 4th that showed the Yes vote leading 51-40%. Some other polls at the time showed a close result, … Continue reading How You Ask a Question Matters
Crowded, or not
[As usual for these map-based posts, the bigger your screen, the better.] I'll continue the analysis of building and census data that I started in my previous post. Today I introduce a new metric, which determines how close together buildings are in a given census tract. For each building in a tract, we measure how … Continue reading Crowded, or not
The Ways We Live
Today I'm going to combine two data sets that I've worked with before. One is the Microsoft building database (yep, I just can't quit it!). The other is the US Census housing data, at the census tract level. Merging these two data sets provides a look at the different ways we've built up this vast … Continue reading The Ways We Live
Voting and Vaccination
Back in April, the New York Times published an article about the correlation between 2020 presidential voting and Covid-19 vaccination rates. They found that the more a state or county voted for Trump, the lower the vaccination rate. Today I'll do an update, using recent data. Not surprisingly, the correlation is still there. The amount … Continue reading Voting and Vaccination
A Slightly Shorter Hike
My previous post determined that there was no way to travel across the US on an west-east parallel without encountering a building (in fact, you'll run into hundreds of them). Today we'll figure out if there's a north-south line of longitude (or, meridian) that avoids man-made structures. At first glance, it seems more likely. There … Continue reading A Slightly Shorter Hike
A Long Hike
[If you're reading this in email, I recommend following the link above to read it in a web browser. Some of the maps below won't display correctly in an email. I also recommend reading this on a PC - a large screen makes viewing the maps easier.] Imagine you're standing somewhere on the west coast … Continue reading A Long Hike
COVID – It Ain’t Over Yet
There are all sorts of graphs showing the progression of COVID. We've all seen graphs that show the number of COVID deaths over time. There's a lot of variation, depending on the state and/or country. This makes sense - different regions were hit in different ways. So, New York, the early epicenter in the US: … Continue reading COVID – It Ain’t Over Yet