Today let's talk about wind. My Tempest weather station gathers three wind data points every minute: lull, average, and gust. That is: the lowest speed, the average speed, and the highest. From these we can get a picture of how the wind changes over the course of a day. Here's one way to visualize it. … Continue reading …To Know Which Way the Wind Blows

Last March, I purchased a personal weather station. This device sits in my backyard and captures all sorts of weather data - temperature, wind, rain, etc. - and reports it once a minute. Now that I've got 6 million points of data, what am I waiting for? I'll start with temperature. Santa Cruz has a … Continue reading A Year of Weather

After interacting with a business, I often get an online customer satisfaction survey. Sometimes I do them, sometimes I don't. Often, I'll be told ahead of time by the person providing the service to expect the survey. And sometimes this person will suggest that, if I liked the service, I should give the highest rating … Continue reading Survey says…

Welcome to Daylight Savings time. In the old days, you had to manually adjust all time-keeping devices to the new time. As clocks became more ubiquitous (in new devices like VCRs and microwave ovens, and added to existing items like stoves and cars), this became more of a chore. Then, the devices started getting smarter, … Continue reading Time to Make a Change

Today I'll cover the final three racial categories, starting with American Indian and Alaska Native. This category is different than the others: the other heritages represent people who immigrated to the US from other countries, whereas American Indians were already here when the other immigrants arrived. It's also different because of the system of tribal … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 5

This time I'll look at census respondents who specified Black when asked about their race and origin. There are two categories of responses here: those who listed "African American" as their origin, and those who indicated something more specific (a country, typically sub-Saharan Africa or the Caribbean). The former group makes up about 90% of … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 4

Let's jump right into Asian heritage neighborhoods. As before, I’ll list the census tract that had the highest concentration of each heritage; the list is sorted by this concentration. HeritageTractCountyStatePctNationalChinese except Taiwanese611.02San FranciscoCalifornia88.8%1.57% The highest density Chinese neighborhood is Chinatown in San Francisco. Close behind are the three Chinatowns in New York: at the tip … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 3

In my last post I started investigating heritage enclaves; that is, the census tracts with the highest percentage of each heritage (or 'origin', as the census defines it). Last time it was for White heritages; today let's look at the Hispanic side of things. The top of the list: HeritageTractCountyStatePctNationalMexican114.05YumaArizona96.9%10.82%Cuban6.1Miami-DadeFlorida84.4%0.68%Puerto Rican8115HampdenMassachusetts80.6%1.69%Dominican2509EssexMassachusetts65.8%0.66% The first two are … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves, Part 2

Last post we looked at the heritage (i.e., race/ethnicity/origin) of US Census respondents, at the state and county level. This time we'll look at things at a much more granular level: Census Tracts. A tract is a small, relatively permanent subdivision of a city or county, averaging around 4,000 people. Sort of an extended neighborhood. … Continue reading Heritage Enclaves

The 2020 US Census asked questions about the race and ethnic composition of every American. Based on current guidelines, each person was asked which race they identify as. In a separate question, they were asked if they were of Hispanic or Latino origin. Both of those questions had a write-in field for "origin", enabling respondents … Continue reading Our Heritages