Statistics Saturday: Reuters’ Science Headlines All Jumbled Up

• Kepler telescope finds tiny Utah human origins
• Moroccan fossils provides new technique to size up skin, hair in pigs
• Einstein’s theory making ‘preliminary’ preparations for NASA astronaut corps
• In major breakthrough, firm for manned lunar mission makes breakthrough
• China’s quantum satellite regenerates Mars rover scientist, SpaceX engineer
• China shake up understanding of life-friendly planets
• 10 more possible stars in secure communications
• Join

OK, that last one doesn’t make sense but I had the word left over and it seemed like cheating not to use it.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped twelve points which was so much of a relief that it jumped back up another six points again, and then slacked off two points since it was so close to the end of the day.

266

Statistics Saturday: Devo’s “Are We Not Men” By Content

This. This is the sort of thing that happens when you let me put on the crazy grab bag of stuff that I call music. I get to listening to the Devo album I bought because I figured I liked that one song so why not? Also, you know, stringing out words into alphabetical order like this produces a bunch of interesting other word blocks. Yes, I am thinking particularly of the one that starts “do evolving from glue go God”. But really isn’t the most startling thing about this the discovery that “Are We Not Men?” is not in fact more than fifty percent of the song? No, it is not. Next week: They Might Be Giants’ “Particle Man” unless I get a better offer or maybe consider Sparks’s “Let The Monkey Drive”. also I know what you’re thinking and that strand is ‘now okay pool our pinheads’. Not ‘poot’.

The most starting thing about this? Learning that the song is not technically called “Are We Not Men” but rather is a pair of words in the middle of the song where nobody even heard them.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose two points today after investors noticed on reuters.com a commodities listing for some kind of sale of Palladium, which is the sort of thing that it seems like they should be tracking, even though if they’re reading the listing right it didn’t rise or fall or anything and just kind of filled up space.

216

Statistics Saturday: E.T. Fitted Into The Titles Of The Air Bud Cinematic Universe

• E.T. The Extraterrestrial
• E.T. Golden Receiver
• E.T. World Pup
• E.T. Seventh Inning Fetch
• E.T. Spikes Back
• Air E.T.s
• Snow E.T.s
• Space E.T.s
• Santa E.T.s
• Spooky E.T.s
• Treasure E.T.s
• Super E.T.s
• The Search For Santa E.T.
• Santa E.T. 2: The E.T. Pups

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose four points today as traders got caught up on watching Conan O’Brien on the DVR.

198

Statistics Saturday: Milestones In This Current Cough

Day	Event
Sunday	Little nagging sensation that I’m coughing a bit more than normal and feel all achy and hot.
Monday	I hear nothing after 11:18 am because of my uninterrupted coughing fit
Tuesday	Temporary suspension of the tooth-brushing routine because the sudden spasms from my lungs and the toothpaste foam and the irritation in my throat lining create such a bad situation, such a bad situation.
Wednesday	Boss excuses me from the planned two-hour conference call with a promise that he’d call back and catch me up and wrap up some loose ends, which he has yet to do.
Thursday	Broke the key by trying to wind up the clock and I coughed at the wrong moment and do you know how many different size keys there are for mantle clocks? There’s easily more than six.
Friday	Sleep is a lie, a distant faded memory never to be attained again in my life.
Saturday	Oh, that’s a good bit better actually.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped eight points as investors’ attention was captured by rumors the bagel place had the tomato tortellini soup today and what implications this might have for the flavored cream cheese they’re offering for bagels.

200

Statistics Saturday: Toto’s ‘Africa’ By Parts

Because sometimes you just run up to deadline and you have to go with what you have and those are always the bits people like best anyway and sometimes I wonder why I go into writing a second hundred words anyway and I just want a hug thank you.

Meanwhile: if you need to score a movie or TV scene and want to evoke mid-80s nostalgia without digging deep you’re going to pick “Out Of Africa”, sure. But what’s the equivalent for other decades? If you just want a wash of mid-90s nostalgia without digging deep then, sure, Alanis Morissette’s “Ironic”, or maybe Nirvana’s “Oh Whatever You Have On Hand”. But what about the 70s? The 60s? For the 50s I’d say “Mister Sandman” but that might just be Back To The Future talking. For the 40s there’s Glenn Miller’s “American Patrol”. How about the rest? Yes, start from the 1750s.

Not pictured: looking at the official music video for the first time in like three decades and feeling all the time like, oh this is uncomfortable and waiting for it to get really bad any moment now and boy but the whole thing stays pretty white-male-gazey. But boy those instrumentals.

Also not depicted: realizing like thirty years after that of course the song isn’t called “Out Of Africa” and you’ve been naming it wrong all this time.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped two points as traders got around to watching Wednesday’s The Price Is Right and it was another double overbid in the Showcase and it sure seems like there’ve been a lot of them this season. There was even one on, like, the Mother’s Day show. Everyone’s all cranky about this now and trying to undrestand how this keeps going wrong.

199

Statistics Saturday: 22 Kinds Of Mongoose Or Rabbit Ordered By Center Of Mass

1. Arctic Hare
2. Common Mongoose
3. Volcano Rabbit
4. Banded Doomed-Madagascaran-Marshlands Mongoose
5. Invisibunny
6. Meerkat
7. Silver Marten Rabbit (which sounds like somebody being ironic or something)
8. False Dwarf Rabbit
9. Anglican Slender Mongoose (Reformed)
10. Flat-headed kusimanse
11. Mongoose Civique
12. Bluffing Giant Hare
13. Furtive Upper-Tailed Cape Gray Mongoose
14. Belgian Hare IPA
15. Mer-goose (properly, a fish which takes on the appearance of a mongoose in order to punch snakes)
16. Morekat
17. San Jose Brush Rabbit
18. Trans-Canada Pika
19. Robertson square-headed kusimanse
20. Antelope Jackrabbit (which is not a jackalope we swear)
21. Thumper
22. Yellow Mongoose

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose twelve points as investors’ moods were buoyed by surveys asking what they would do if they had a robot donkey friend, with factions split between whether this would be a regular four-hoofed robot donkey or if it would be a humanoid robot donkey with two hooves but able to, like, shake hands and stuff like people swear they remember from that 80s cartoon about robot cowboys in Space Texas and that wasn’t just a crazy dream. Anyway, everybody’s enthusiastic after all this robot donkey friend talk.

165

Statistics Saturday: My Music Library (Not By Volume)

The real news, by the way, is that I’ve learned how to make the captions appear outside the wedges with little arrows pointing to them, instead of having to make the text kind of appear more or less on top of a wedge and maybe spill over onto the next wedge and I can’t figure a way to set all the text to be uniformly any color except by fiddling with edge wedge separately, which is stupid. This is a lot nicer to produce even though it’s probably unreadable at the available sizes. Sorry. It did leave me wondering if there’s pie charts then why aren’t there, like, cake charts where you just have easy-to-arrange rectangles of sizes representing portions of stuff and labels that fit on top of those? Except that’s probably how infographics get made, and I don’t know how to do those, because for all that I try to keep intellectually and emotionally youthful what that really means is I play pinball and listen to more New Wave music of the 80s than I ever did in the 80s. Anyway, while I’d like something like that, what’s important is, I found a way to make my computer thing do a thing in a slightly less annoying way than it used to. Ice cream for everyone!

Not listed: the works of They Might Be Giants even though their albums are clearly large amounts of high-quality music since all their songs have a lot of words in them. And notes for nearly every word or syllable, too.

For those wondering: I’m not saying the Nilsson album wasn’t, just saying what the expectations were.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

After what sure looked like a big mass of busy-work traders looked up from their desks to find the Another Blog, Meanwhile index was at an all-time high. Oh, the cheering, oh, the hand-slapping, oh, the mutual congratulations about how they must be involved in a real and important bit of work that brings real value to the lives of millions. Millions, they tell each other, millions!

158

Statistics Saturday: The United States In Descending Order Of Thickness

Also including the District of Columbia because, heck, what does that cost me?

State Or District Of Columbia	Thickness
Alaska	20,310 ft / 6191 m
California	14,783 ft / 4506 m
Washington	14,417 ft / 4394 m
Hawaii	13,803 ft / 4207 m
Nevada	12,665 ft / 3860 m
Arizona	12,565 ft / 3830 m
Idaho	11,954 ft / 3644 m
Utah	11,354 ft / 3461 m
Oregon	11,249 ft / 3429 m
Colorado	11,123 ft / 3390 m
Montana	11,003 ft / 3354 m
Wyoming	10,709 ft / 3264 m
New Mexico	10,323 ft / 3147 m
Texas	8,751 ft / 2667 m
North Carolina	6,684 ft / 2037 m
Tennessee	6,466 ft / 1971 m
New Hampshire	6,288 ft / 1917 m
South Dakota	6,276 ft / 1913 m
Virginia	5,729 ft / 1746 m
New York	5,343 ft / 1629 m
Maine	5,270 ft / 1606 m
Georgia	4,784 ft / 1458 m
Oklahoma	4,686 ft / 1428 m
West Virginia	4,623 ft / 1409 m
Nebraska	4,587 ft / 1398 m
Vermont	4,300 ft / 1311 m
Kentucky	3,887 ft / 1185 m
South Carolina	3,560 ft / 1085 m
Massachusetts	3,489 ft / 1063 m
Kansas	3,361 ft / 1025 m
Maryland	3,360 ft / 1024 m
Pennsylvania	3,213 ft / 979 m
North Dakota	2,757 ft / 840 m
Arkansas	2,698 ft / 822 m
Alabama	2,413 ft / 736 m
Connecticut	2,379 ft / 725 m
New Jersey	1,803 ft / 550 m
Minnesota	1,700 ft / 518 m
Missouri	1,542 ft / 470 m
Michigan	1,408 ft / 429 m
Wisconsin	1,372 ft / 418 m
Iowa	1,191 ft / 363 m
Ohio	1,094 ft / 333 m
Illinois	955 ft / 291 m
Indiana	937 ft / 286 m
Rhode Island	811 ft / 247 m
Mississippi	807 ft / 246 m
Louisiana	543 ft / 165 m
Delaware	447 ft / 136 m
District of Columbia	408 ft / 124 m
Florida	345 ft / 105 m

Source: Wikipedia from which I learn there’s only two states that have spots below sea level? That’s weird. Like, I understand Colorado not having any spots below sea level, but there isn’t one rocky crag somewhere in, like, North Carolina that runs below the ocean level? And like how has someone not dug a big cement-lined pit somewhere on Long Island to set it underneath the sea level just to show they can do something pointless like that? You know? Also, I guess mines and stuff don’t count for lowest elevations, which is fair enough, but wouldn’t they start counting if the mine’s ceiling collapsed? It seems like states could totally rig their thickness rankings if they wanted. Plus, like, I know for a fact that New York State claims sovereignty over the seabed of the entire Hudson River; doesn’t that count as the lowest elevation in the state? I’m saying while I give you this list I think there’s a lot of pointless argument to have about what the lowest points of elevation in states such as New York and Delaware are and yes that is because I’m from New Jersey and angry about the implications of colonial-era borders.

You know, you never really think of Kansas as having more of an elevation change than Pennsylvania does. I feel a bit weirdly defensive about it myself.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index fell five points today when no one brought an umbrella and it got all drizzly out.

116

Statistics Saturday: My Acts Of Passive Aggression

Not that any of you demanded it, or showed any particular interest, but that I like anyway.

Um. Sorry.

Omitted for clarity: smiling with just my mouth and not at all my eyes; time spent glaring at the satellite dish for not somehow being more satisfying a means of receiving transmitted bit that would, if decoded properly, be an episode of Paw Patrol; tossing in false results for the fun of it; reorganizing the books on the shelf behind my chair so the first letters on each spine spell out snark.

If you are careful enough in how you say something you can drive people crazy in ways they can’t protest without looking like they’re the ones being passive-aggressive. Also, is that [sic] one the most academia thing you’ve ever heard or what?

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index fell on rumors the ice cream place was all out of turtles and the discovery that M— didn’t even know what ice cream turtles were, prompting a long voyage of discovery of ways to pile ice cream ingredients together, plus an argument about whether there’s something that drizzles hot peanut butter on the ice cream? Is that a thing? Please report.

121

Statistics Saturday: The State Of Apologies

Admittedly the results are thrown a little off by going down to the farmers market on a Thursday afternoon and leaving my cart off to the side by the health-food clones of normal breakfast cereals and then having people apologize for being in my way when I backed it up from them. Also from people apologizing for getting bags of coffee beans while I was looking over flavors of coffee beans. Also for being in the same aisle while I was looking for one particular brand of barbecue sauce that wasn’t there.

Also they do amazing things with “Golden Grahams, only kind of healthy” these days, but it’s going to be hard to win me over from Grape-Nuts brand cereals where if you mix exactly the right amount of milk in it’s like you’re chewing down on concrete. There’s nothing better. I’m not being snarky here. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t eat cereal like that if you could.

I’m not bitter. Why are you saying I’m bitter? I better hear some apologies for calling me bitter, but I know I won’t, because of next week’s statistics piece, My Acts Of Passive Aggression.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index skidded down nine points as traders discovered it had rained overnight and there were all these wet leaves on the sidewalk, and where are they even from? All the leaves left over from autumn were blown away in the windstorm last month, we thought. That’s suspicious.

123

Statistics Saturday: The Ides Of April, This Century

Times I Have Been Ready To Inform Someone In Casual Conversation That The 15th Is Not The Ides Of April, The 13th Is	17
Times The Conversation Has Ever Come Remotely Near This Topic	0
Times A Comic Strip I Read Has Used This As The Base For A Joke	2
Times I Noticed In Time To Comment On This In A Timely Fashion	0

Plus is the 15th even the Income Tax Filing Deadline in the United States anymore? It seems like it’s always bumped to like the 18th of April or the 44th of May or the 216th of Freaking October anymore. I don’t know. And yeah, the ides are the 13th day of a 30-day month, plus February, and anyway the Romans listed days as counting down to the next big calendar event day, so that the 15th of April would be “17 Kalend May”, which everyone understood to be part of April, not May, and also they sometimes slipped an extra month in between the 24th and the 25th of February. This is why the Emperor Vespasian was never able to get his programmers’ database software to handle dates correctly. Neither can we.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose another point while wait, that thing in the Chocolate Swamp is named Gloppy? Also there’s a Chocolate Swamp in Candy-Land? We thought it was the Molasses Swamp? Or are there multiple swamps? Did it change? What is this? What are things? What is changing? Why?

135

Statistics Saturday: Some Now-Obscure Professional Baseball Players Given Nicknames Anachronistically

Drawing inspiration from Bob “Death To Flying Things” Ferguson, whose nickname is wholly unattested by any contemporary accounts. Team affiliations are not unique but represent my best guess about who they were with most of the time, and not all these careers were uninterrupted, which is important so that you know my little joke here is as intellectually honest as possible somehow.

• Candy “A-Go-Go” Cummings, Hartford, 1872-1877.
• Roger “10-4” Connor, New York, 1880-1897.
• John “Technopop” Clarkson, Boston, 1882-1894.
• Bid “Rocket Man” McPhee, Cincinnati, 1882-1899.
• Ed “Googie” Delahanty, Philadelphia, 1888-1903.
• George “Knuckles the Echidna” Uhle, Cleveland, 1919-1934.
• Kid “On Fleek” Nichols, Boston, 1890-1906.
• John “Brenke Fish ladder” Ward, New York, 1878-1892.
• Mickey “Laser Knees” Welch, New York, 1880-1892.
• Sam “Robo-Sam Crawford” Crawford, Detroit 1899-1917.
• Togie “Theremin” Pittinger, Boston, 1900-1907.
• Eppa “George `Knuckles the Echidna’ Uhle” Rixley, Cincinnati, 1912-1933.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped three points today on renewed rumors that Lisa was somehow related to legendary 19th Century baseball player Tim Keefe, which she could answer only by saying, “I dunno, I guess?” Indeed, who can truly know?

121

Statistics Saturday: Some Unsatisfying Crosswords

ACROSS: 1. Welcome or door. 4. Article. 5. David Gerrold short-story collection “With A Finger In My _”. 6. Cute eating on the Internet. DOWN: 1. Taker of lone small steps. 2. Superb paper! 3. Enchanter of Caerbannog.

This is also Atari 2600’s Pong multiplayer mode.

This one makes me realize I need a new comb. Or any comb at all. My hair is not in a satisfactory condition. Sorry.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index fell two points in response to news that Boeing had completed the first successful flight of its new 787-10 Dreamliner passenger airplane because it sure seems like we’ve been reading about the Dreamliner for ever and how is it only now having its first flight? We don’t follow aerospace news closely but jeez, they’ve been working on the Dreamliner since like the Ford administration. The heck, guys?

114

Statistics Saturday: Vice-Presidents of the United States Serving Two Full Terms, By Century

A note about methodology: Thomas Jefferson is counted as an 18th-century Vice-President and wouldn’t affect the count either way. Garret Hobart is counted as a 19th-century Vice-President but that hardly matters since he was dead at the time of the 20th century. Al Gore is counted as a 20th-century Vice-President and he would’ve affected the count one way or the other. Future Disgraced Former Vice-President Mike Pence is not counted as it’s too soon to tell when he’ll leave office. David Rice Atchison is not counted as Vice-President for good reason. John Adams is counted as having a full term despite the 1789-1793 Presidential administration being that far short of four full years. Ditto John Nance Garner although for the 1933-1937 term. Also hey, Daniel D Tompkins, good job pulling that off. I completely forgot about you so I’m glad I looked it up. Shut up, you’re the person who knows an unsettling amount about 19th-century United States Vice-Presidents for someone who isn’t a 19th-century United States Vice-Presidential historian.

Further note on methodology: While presented as a spot of whimsy the whole of it is factual and the only apparent comic value is in staring hard at Vice-Presidents of the United States. While there is some whimsy involved in that, it all amounts to things like Henry (1873-1875) Wilson’s servant not knowing he was Vice-President, or Thomas (1913-1921) Marshall’s working a side job roasting the uselessness of his office. None of this is on display here. Although it’s a little freaky the 19th century had such a lousy time keeping a Vice-President around, isn’t it? They had 23 of them, compared to 21 for the 20th century and hey, you know, if he were still alive Gerald Ford would be 103 years old. That’s something to make you go “huh”, isn’t it? Well, maybe it should be. Wait, so everyone agrees Dallas County, Texas, was named for George (1845-1849) Dallas, but there’s dispute about whether the city of Dallas, Texas, was? The heck, even for Texas?

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose by nine points today after a good look at the weather forecase and how nice it was looking and we really need it after the week we just had, don’t you all agree?

127

Statistics Saturday: A Guide To Putting “City” At The End Of A City’s Name

Sounds Weird With “City”

• London
• Philadelphia
• Cincinnati
• Phoenix, Arizona
• Northwest Stanwood, Washington
• Paris
• Warren, Michigan

Is OK Either Way

• New York City
• Bristol, Connecticut
• Winslow, Arizona
• Gloucester City, New Jersey
• Boulder, Colorado
• Paradise
• Dodd City, Texas
• Arkadelphia, Arkansas
• Boulder City, Nevada

Sounds Weird Without “City”

• Atlantic City
• Mexico City
• Tell City, Indiana
• Kansas City, Missouri
• Oklahoma City
• Oil City, Pennsylvania
• Kansas City, Kansas

Sounds Like You Made It Up Either Way

• Belchertown, Massachusetts
• Southington, Connecticut
• Central Pacolet, South Carolina

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index rose four points, disappointing analysts who had figured on the index rising four points, but four different points from what they actually got. Some people are never satisfied and somehow they’re the ones we have to try satisfying for some reason.

132

Statistics Saturday: Some Shapes Which You Ought Not Use As Dinner Plates For Your Trendy Restaurant

• Triangle-base pyramids
• Whole spheres
• Saddle curves
• Vertical walls
• Great Stellated Dodecahedrons (unless you are serving a food that can be usefully jabbed on spikes, such as pancakes or lumps of cheese ripped out of a whole)
• Square-base pyramids
• Sierpiński sieves (that triangle-with-interior-triangles cut out thing, as while it’s a great shape it actually has no surface area, so it can only hold food by way of surface tension)
• Bipyramids
• Doughnut-shaped toruses (unless it is an edible container, like those soup-in-a-loaf meals, itself containing many small doughnuts within, in which case I would like to invest in your restaurant)
• The Great Rhombicosidodecahedron not because no food could be placed atop it but because when word gets out you have Great Rhombicosidodecahedrons in your restaurant the health department will begin an inquiry which will ultimately clear you but which will generate needless amounts of bad press in the meanwhile.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The Another Blog, Meanwhile index rose two points on reports that someone saw a pair of mice snuggled up against each other sleeping and one opened its eye just enough to yawn and doesn’t that sound adorable? We thought it was adorable.

124

Statistics Sunday: February 2017 In Review

OK, and now I should stop wasting time and look over what my readership was for February.

Oh, maybe I don’t want to look at that quite so much. Well, no, it’s all basically fine. Readership was down in February compared to January. But readership was still really high. WordPress tells me there were 1,837 page views from 1,098 distinct visitors in February. In January were there 2,340 page views from 1,361 distinct visitors. And back in December 2016 — remember 2016? — there were a mere 1,396 page views from 818 distinct visitors. In any way you mean to count that, that’s a popular month around here.

And there were 169 likes given around here in February, up from January’s 163 and December’s 137. The number of comments plummeted again, to only 15 from January’s 39, but that was a chatty month. December had 20 comments which is still .. really quite a lot more than February’s, on a percentage basis. I need to get better at writing stuff that invites comments. Or arguments, whatever.

I can come up with excuses for February’s drop. The big one is that February’s a short month. With only 28/31th as many days to get readers, even if I stay as popular, I’ll have fewer readers. But also I suspect that the story strips I reviewed the past month are at fault. Definitely the story strip recaps are the things drawing people in. Of the ten most popular posts in February six were “What’s Going On In” pieces and one of the others was about why Mary Worth looks different. Not part of the series, but kin to it. But the point is that the February strips included things like The Phantom, which is pretty clear about its narrative, or Gasoline Alley, which doesn’t capture people’s ironic and snarky imaginations the way Mary Worth does. Or which hasn’t gotten wildly crazy like Judge Parker or Rex Morgan. Also, these are comic strips that haven’t recently undergone major changes in writing or art or tone or general level of craziness.

This does imply dire things for my readership now that I’ve gone through all the major story strips, but perhaps I’ll just keep it going by going around the circle of story comics again.

For the record the five most popular pieces for February were:

• Mark Twain: Awful, Terrible Medieval Romance
• Why Does Mary Worth Look Different?
• What’s Going On With Rex Morgan, M.D.?
• What’s Going On In Prince Valiant?
• What’s Going On With Judge Parker?

Yes, it drives me crazy that I wasn’t consistent about “What’s Going On In” versus “What’s Going On With” versus, in some essays, “What Is Going On”. Also how is Mark Twain my top author for another month? I don’t know.

It seems likely that this month I’ll record my 50,000th page view around here. That’s neat as this coming week, if I keep to my post-a-day schedule, I’ll record my 1,500th consecutive daily post. WordPress says the most popular day for reading here is Tuesday, with 19 percent of page views. Last month it was also Tuesday but at only 18 percent. It’s always Tuesday for some reason. Midnight’s the most popular hour, but for February it saw 12 percent of page views, rather than the mere eight percent of previous months.

Now the roster of countries and page views, that’s likeable for the reasons:

Country	Views
United States	1386
Canada	64
United Kingdom	62
Germany	61
India	55
Australia	32
Philippines	21
France	11
Hong Kong SAR China	9
Italy	8
Norway	8
Singapore	7
Japan	6
Romania	6
Sweden	6
Netherlands	5
South Africa	5
Portugal	4
Spain	4
Brazil	3
Finland	3
Greece	3
Ireland	3
Mexico	3
New Zealand	3
Poland	3
Argentina	2
Bangladesh	2
Belgium	2
Denmark	2
Indonesia	2
Jamaica	2
Kenya	2
Malaysia	2
Moldova	2
Panama	2
Serbia	2
Trinidad & Tobago	2
Ukraine	2
Algeria	1
Barbados	1
Chile	1
Colombia	1
Croatia	1
El Salvador	1
European Union	1(*)
Fiji	1
Hungary	1
Israel	1
Kazakhstan	1
Luxembourg	1
Madagascar	1(*)
Northern Mariana Islands	1
Peru	1
Russia	1(*)
Slovenia	1
South Korea	1
Switzerland	1
Thailand	1
United Arab Emirates	1(**)
Uruguay	1

The European Union, Madagascar, and Russia were single-reader countries last month too. The United Arab Emirates are on a three-month streak. I make out that there were 22 single-reader countries, up from January’s 14 and December’s 18. I also make out that there were 61 countries altogether, so I’m spread out over more of the world than in January (48 countries) and December (42).

There were, it appears, 716 followers by WordPress. Six by e-mail. I’m sure they’re all sending me to the spam bin. It still counts. Interested in being any of them? Go for it: there should be a button to follow the blog on your WordPress device in the upper-right cornere here. There should be one to follow by e-mail just below that, although given that following by e-mail really isn’t a thing maybe I’ll go move that to somewhere less obvious. You can follow on an RSS reader too, if you have one of those, and why don’t we have more of them? RSS is so good at stuff.

So what do you think? Should I go back around to reviewing the story comics and how they’ve updated since I got to them a couple months ago? That might be doable.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped two points as Matthew got a rental car that has one of those key fobs where there’s nothing to put in anywhere to get the car working and he had to spend twenty minutes in the parking lot of the rental place trying to figure out how to get the engine started, and he’s got some harsh words to say to whoever wrote the index to the car’s owner’s manual.

105

Statistics Saturday: February 2017 In Review

You don’t want to know how many times I counted this over in my head while working this out in the shower. OK, it’s a number starting with ‘3’.

Source: Time’s Pendulum: The Quest to Capture Time — From Sundials to Atomic Clocks, Jo Ellen Barnett.

You don’t want to know how many times I counted this over in my head while working this out in the shower. OK, it’s a number ending with ‘3’. Don’t think I didn’t keep going back and forth about whether to put ‘0’ at the start or the end.

Source: Advertising and the Transformation of American Society, 1865 – 1920, James D Norris.

You don’t want to know how many times I counted this over in my head while working this out in the shower. OK, it was ‘1’. But I’m still thinking whether I should have redone this to put a border around the plot like I did above and don’t think that isn’t going to bother you from here on in.

Source: Labor and Capital In 19th Century Baseball, Robert P Gelzheiser.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

Two more points up and we’re still attributing this to the new pens even though we lost one somehow between setting it down on the table and then getting out a pad of paper and sitting at the table and how does that even make sense? Well, still. New pens. And we have them.

107

Statistics Saturday: Your Local TV News Bloopers

Not pictured: There’s some kind of buzzer that nobody can make stop, because there’s no making a picture of a sound.

Source: Drawing the Head and Figure, Jack Hamm.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

That’s right, the index did not change one tiny bit! It’s just one of those weird coincidences! Nothing suspicious happened and we certainly did not knock the index over and hastily glue it back together before anyone could come in and check! Ha ha!

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Statistics Saturday: Friday the 13ths, 2017

Also you have no idea how compelling I found it as a kid that January and October started the same day of the week, as did February and November, unless it was a Leap Year in which case January started the same day as July and February the same day as August. Once more, in retrospect, I understand why everyone in middle school treated me that way.

Source: The Bill James Baseball Abstract, 1986 Edition.

Based on current projections.

Not valid on the Julian calendar.

Does not account for “Mercedonius”, the occasional 22-day month the Romans would sometime stick in the middle of February because they really did not have a clear handle on how to design a good calendar. I mean, they managed to screw up the rule of “leap year every four years” and it took more than a decade before anyone realized, and that isn’t even my joke.

Not counted: all appearances of King Friday The 13th during the Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood marathon as I could not find when that’s scheduled.

You suppose we’ll ever get a month that’s nothing but Fridays the 13th? It seems like there’s a lot of room for expansion there. I mean other than November 2016.

Another Blog, Meanwhile Index

The index dropped a point today and everyone is hailing it as proof that a sensible diet and regular exercise work.

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